#you are one of my brain worms telling me to go with this trilogy

[shaynetopps]

idk how you feel about ianthony but… “say don’t go” has me screaminggggg. -agnewbones

okay no joke we must be on the same psychic plane bc i literally sent this message to @lilac-hecox earlier today

like !!! the girls that get the intricacies of ianthony say don’t go get it

[queer-ragnelle]

So, regarding your novels, what made you write backwards? I'm so curious about it.

TL;DR I started writing in Mordred and Galahad perspective. I then became possessed by the "older" characters and went "back" in the timeline to write their origins (starting with parentified Agravaine). I did this several times until I ended up with Ragnelle/Gawain as book 1, "the beginning," of what turned into an Epic many books long.

Let me give you a timeline...

1900s: I am born and develop Arthurian brain worms.

21st century: The worms declare Ragnelle/Gawain are my favorites and I write their Wedding multiple times for fun based off what can be gleaned from Wikipedia and retellings as I have no medieval resources at my disposal.

February 2020: I think Mordred and Galahad would make neat narrative foils and write a short story about them playing chess.

March 2020: The plague. I'm furloughed from my job. Writing becomes my full-time focus. I write 60,000 words in Mordred and Galahad perspective, plotting their story to be a trilogy.

June 2020: I'm back to work but I'm still writing. With money and curiosity at my disposal, I begin hoarding Arthurian books. Local quirky secondhand bookstore owner had an Arthurian fixation in his youth—I clear his shelves. He asks if I'm a medievalist major and I have to break it to him I'm just a High School drop out at the mercy of the Tell-Tale knights chattering in my head. I learn more lore. I splurge to buy the Vulgate cycle. I'm forever changed.

Late 2020: Reading medlit and retellings and watching all the movies super charged the brain worms. The Vulgate especially. I develop an obsession with circumventing the Orkneys/Welshmen blood feud with the power of gay sex. (Joan Wolf did it first in her 1988 book The Road to Avalon with Agravaine/Lamorak.)

January 2021: Historical research shows that Islam didn't exist yet during the 5th/6th century I'd been writing in. I order Zoroastrianism by Mary Boyce to make sure I'm depicting Ragnelle and Gromer's religion properly. But it's nbd their page time is minimal as background characters right? ....right?

2021 continued: The Agravaine/Lamorak brain worms take on a life of their own as I'm hospitalized and bedridden. Chronic pain and isolation become my themes. I write endlessly on my phone from bed. 2/3 novels are completed and readable straight through with a third book in pieces. These are currently at a combined total of nearly 140,000 words. (Plus the notes file with scenes I haven't moved yet...whoa.)

Late 2021: I rediscover old Ragnelle/Gawain stuff and decide to write about their wedding. Again. But this time with legit sources. Except Ragnelle isn't some ambiguous character of color, she's now very specifically Persian [Iranian] Zoroastrian. So the whole thing takes place in Persia and research goes crazy. Someone gives me their college log in so I can download and hoard essays and textbook PDFs. I do beta-read trades with people in facebook groups (bad bad idea) and yet...

End of 2021: I get sample edits from various editors including one guy who insulted my "lack of education" and said emulating J. R. R. Tolkien's old style didn't work anymore and I should take inspiration from The Hunger Games....for my queer romance in Persia. Right. Anyway I pay the $100 for the pages edited so he'll go away and continue searching for my unicorn editor....

2022: Ultimately facebook group scouting finally yields results as I stumble upon a fellow Ragnelle/Gawain enthusiast who would become my editor!! Editor says I have to cut the giant book into thirds, so what is now book 1 ends up chopped.

2023: I'm still revising book 1, now titled The Moonlit Knight, with my editor. All the while I'm drafting book 2, sporadically cheating to write in other books including an Elaine and Perceval book that appeared out of no where, and scouting out beta readers. One beta reader came via a tumblr mutual who connected me through instagram. A second beta reader discovered in a discord server. Another beta reader from a different discord server. So on and so forth.

Early 2024: Beta reading continues, until I have readers for every angle I require; queer people of all flavors, Zoroastrians, Arthurian enthusiasts, Jewish readers, people with DID knowledge etc! Slowly but surely I work through revising the book with all these wonderful people to a final 95,000 words!

Mid 2024: But now...it needed a cover. I commission a tumblr mutual and work for weeks with them on that, still editing/revising and having betas read book 2, Sunshine's Lady, which is currently almost 132,000 words long and half edited/beta read.

September 2024: I still haven't published. lol. But the process takes a long time and has a lot of moving parts!

So why do I actually recommend this method? Well, this has been hugely helpful to write foreshadowing. Forgetting for a second the blueprint drawn from Arthurian Legend itself, I know how my story with my version of the characters is going to go, so I can set all of that up way in advance. It's all well and good to know (spoiler) Arthur dies at the end, but it's never been about the conclusion so much as the journey there and the unique perspective of whichever character the author has chosen to focus on. I mean, Godfrey Turton's The Emperor Arthur is Pelleas point of view. He's instrumental at the battle of Camlann. It's the same with Bernard Cornwell's Warlord Chronicles and our one-handed friend Derfel, the reasoning for which isn't revealed until book 3. The world is your oyster! Fixate on your special character and set that shit up and pay it off!!!

Knowing what you're writing toward is extremely helpful during the drafting process. Even if it's only vaguely shaped it'll develop detail as you revise. Other than Derfel's missing hand, the best example of this I can think of is in Realm of the Elderlings series by Robin Hobb. It has a huge fanbase on tumblr for a reason, it's just an insane amount of set up you're not even aware of until the impact slams into you many books later and you're left going, "Whoa.....it was there the whole time." Mind blowing. I want have half as much narrative resonance as that.

Another thing that came of this is, since I wrote Agravaine/Lamorak first, and I'm obscenely Ragnelle obsessed, she pops up in their pov as a hag, only for them to not realize she's one and the same as Gawain's bombshell wife they "meet" later. I wrote this as the lads first, but it's extra funny now that, actually, the reader will experience Ragnelle's perspective first. Hottie uncursed Ragnelle does know she met them before, but feigns otherwise. So it's very fun to see the same encounters happen a second time a few books later. Agravaine is like, "Okay granny whatever. Bye... :^/" and Lamorak is like, "That granny was weird but I like her! :^)" meanwhile the reader is like, "AHHHHH! I KNOW HER!!! YOU FOOLS DON'T KNOW HOW IMPORTANT SHE'LL BE AHHH!!!" At least, that has been the beta reader reaction, which is gratifying. Even better, the books can be read out of order, so actually if you read Agravaine/Lamorak before Ragnelle/Gawain, it works in reverse, too. So if the reader knows who Agravaine is from reading his perspective, when Ragnelle or Gawain runs into him, the reader will realize who he is before it clicks for the point of view character. I had a lot of fun developing all of this across the series for multiple characters, it certainly happens more than once.

Wow that was long but I hope it makes sense and gives you an idea how it all went down. Thanks for taking an interest and I hope you enjoy my books when they're out. Take care! :^)

[wlwanakin]

The big problem with the Padme trilogy is that, instead of looking for interesting things to mine character wise, the author was more interested in 'fixing' Padme and making her more of a girlboss tm

(I'd also say that the author was much more interested in Sabe as a character - as she could build her basically from scratch)

i honestly don’t know if i’d describe the queen trilogy as really “girlbossifying” padmé but it definitely felt more concerned with making her a Good Female Character than like, a character who feels interesting. and maybe ekj was more interested in sabé but even sabé felt more like the foundations of a good character than an actual good character. in my opinion these books are mostly held back by being aggressively, aggressively young adult and therefore extremely surface-level and juvenile.

it frustrates me because you can tell they’re trying to do padmé justice and trying to expand on a beloved concept and set of characters. people love padmé and naboo and the handmaidens so books in padmé and sabé’s pov centering around their relationship where sabé is actually allowed to be queer should rule immensely. but these books try to sell us the most uncomplicated version possible of it’s presenting: naboo really is as idyllic as it looks, padmé suffers in her role as queen but only in the obvious ways, her handmaidens are all her friends and she gets along super well with all of them like they’re one epic girl gang, even the juicy stuff with sabé feels so muted and despite the tension between them they always end on good terms. and i really do think a level of subconscious gender essentialism is a component to why these books largely about teenage girls are unwilling to make their relationships with power and each other complicated despite being almost entirely about a girl who was crowned queen of a planet at fourteen and her decoys who are subservient to her to the point of death.

and it’s extra frustrating because there’s something there with a lot of what it’s presenting, it’s just not really committed to quite as much as i feel like it should be. and i feel like a lot of that is how they’re written—everyone has a very bland narrative voice including padmé herself and that makes any internal exploration feel shallow. but on top of that it’s just like, these books are so largely about all the roles padmé and her handmaidens play, about the extreme lengths they go to lose themselves and each other in padmé’s personas, and all these complicated themes about power and identity and loss of self are like right there and it feels like in this whole trilogy the surface was barely even scratched. even sabé, who i think is the best written character out of all of them, seems to have far less complicated emotions about padmé than i’d expect from someone who has spent a decade devoted to her at great cost to herself, quite literally loses herself in her, and is on top of that in unrequited love with her. like there’s enough there to intrigue me and worm its way into my brain and make me post shit like this but it’s not very substantive. i don’t feel like i know padmé much better because of them, just her circumstances. and i also think a handful of those circumstances are a bit stupid.

[saltnpepperbunny]

Hi! Can you tell us more about Team Tempest? Is their story one that you've been developing for a while? Any fun facts? I haven't played a PMD game since the original for the GBA- does their story follow the plot of the more recent games? Loving your writing so far!

Hi, thanks so much for asking about em! Team Tempest are the worms that rot my brain. XD More under the cut, since this gets long!

I first conceived Selkie and Shadow as characters in uhhhh early 2018? They came from a nuzlocke run I was doing of Pokemon Ultra Sun that wiped on Akala lol. I originally designed them to be part of a collab PMD comic I was gonna make with a couple of friends, where we each had a team that we would right for. Team Tempest was my gang for the comic, and I essentially designed them to be the story's antagonists. They were basically the Team Skull of the story, the bully team that makes life hard for the good guys. However, the collab never got off the ground, but I fell in love with the characters and kept them around!

My original plan was to tell Selkie and Shadow's story through a PMD comic called Spectrum, that was going to be set in the same universe as Finding Your Roots. The comic was supposed to be part of a trilogy series that was going to include FYR and a Firered nuzlocke comic that I abandoned two updates in, and it was meant to be the ending to an overarching story that would be told with the three comics together. Spectrum included Selkie and Shadow essentially as villain protagonists, and Lyn, Margarine, and Thistletooth were the good guy characters who would save the world Selkie and Shadow were seeking to destroy.

Selkie, in her original conception, was both very similar and very different from her current iteration. She was not mentally ill so much as just a straight-up abusive monster. She was the terror of the guild, constantly bullying and abusing the guild's weakest members, and she would essentially make use of Shadow's illusion magic to psychologically torture other guild members and get them to obey her whims.

Shadow was originally Selkie's biggest victim in this. She was highly abusive of him, but he latched onto her hard for reasons I can't quite elaborate on yet because it's spoilers for Till World's End. Shadow's arc was originally going to heavily involve making new friends with Lyn's team and using these new connections to break out of the abusive relationship. By the end of Spectrum, Shadow was meant to turn against Selkie and help Lyn & co defeat her and save the world. In the end, he was actually supposed to get together with Margarine!

However, Spectrum never got off the ground! It was too large-scale of a project to take on at the time, since I was trying to draw FYR and was really overwhelmed with the scope of that project. Taking on another big comic at the time wouldn't have worked out for me. Eventually I started working on other comic projects aside from FYR, got busy with those, and permanently tabled Spectrum. It wasn't a comic I was interested in bringing to life anymore. My interests had moved on.

I came back to Selkie and Shadow because, a few years after tabling Spectrum, I became interested in writing about a certain brand of mental illness called personality disorders. I wanted to write a love story between two characters with heavy mental illness, and the exact nature of those mental illnesses brought Team Tempest back to mind. I always cherished those characters so dearly and wanted to properly finish their story someday, and I realized it was a perfect opportunity to tell their story through prose! I revamped the characters to make room for the new aspects I wanted to bring into them. Shadow's character was altered somewhat, but Selkie is the one who got the biggest revamp. She's still a pretty bad person and can be abusive, but her nature is significantly different from how it was before. Selkie, in this new iteration, isn't a complete abusive sadist. She's got her flaws, absolutely, but she is not the villain of her own story anymore.

Here is some original concept art of Selkie and Shadow from Spectrum, back from 2018-2019! A lot of the art of them is grayscale because Spectrum was gonna be a grayscale comic.

Anyways, I hope that answers the question! It was fun to talk about them, so thanks for asking. ^^

[gggoldfinch]

talk to me about star wars! tell me all about it!! I know very little about it and am willing like to be educated by a professional such as yourself!!! tell me about anything that's giving you the brain worms! goldfinch rant time go go go

(i'm sat, notebook open and pen ready to take notes ✍️)

SCREAMIFN SHAKING CRYING THROWING UP EXPLODING INTO A CLOUD OF CONFETTI YIPPEEEEE YIPEE YIPPE YIPYIPEEEE I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU

Okay so the basics are that the movies are split into three trilogies and tell the story of a bloodline (aka the Skywalker saga), and each movie is called an Episode (1-9). The first trilogy is caked the Prequels, and follows Anakin (Darth Vader) and Padmé, Luke and Leia’s parents. Second trilogy is called the Original Trilogy (which sequentially came out first and is the one pretty much everyone is at least somewhat familiar with), which follows Luke and Leia. The third trilogy and most divisive is the Sequels, which follows Leia and Han’s son and Palpatine’s granddaughter (yikes…). Then there’s the stand alone movies Solo, which is a prequel to Han Solo’s story in the Original Trilogy, and Rogue One, which is a prequel to the events of the Original Trilogy. I recommend watching them in canon timeline order, even if the film quality differences are jarring 🤣 (I personally prefer the visual dark fantasy effects of the Original Trilogy, but I digress)

MY personal favorites are the Prequel movies, specifically The Phantom Menace (Episode 1) and Attack of the Clones (Episode 2), and the standalone movies Solo, and Rogue One (which I believe is objectively one of, if not THE best Star Wars movie to date); however growing up I only ever saw the Original Trilogy, and not very often. I only really got into Star Wars when I was around 18-19 years old. Once when I was a little kid my local library (which was fancy and had a projection theater in the basement) was showing Return of the Jedi (Episode 6) and invited the kids to dress up; so while everyone was dressed up like little Leias and Anakins, my ass was an Ewok (my costume was spot on btw). I got sick halfway thru with like a 101F fever and had to leave 😭

THEN there’s the TV shows. The animated ones, The Clone Wars, and Rebels, are modern television classics and are beloved in-fandom (and although I have personal beef with Rebels i don’t deny it’s a good show lmao). More recently there’s been a surge of live-action TV shows, like The Mandalorian, beloved by all, and recently Ashoka. So far I’ve only watched The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett (which are both my favorites), and Kenobi, so I can’t necessarily speak to the quality of the others (being Ashoka, and Andor) but I’ve heard they’re great too. There are other animated shows too, like Visions (which I have seen) and Bad Batch (which I’ve partially seen), which are also good.

My favorite character, as is obvious by my shrine blog, is Darth Maul, the first apprentice of Emperor Palpatine introduced in The Phantom Menace. He himself is a menace🫡 After his first appearance he’d then go on to have major plot arcs in The Clone Wars and Rebels (the latter of which I don’t ever want to think about ❤️), and also a very hot cameo in Solo. He’s a very complex, deep, and a deeply troubled character (and is also physical disability rep), and he means so much to me. His story is beautifully fleshed out and I just. AAAAAA he’s in the top 5 bracket of my favorite blorbos of all time tbh 🥰

Other runners up for my favorites are: Din Djarin aka The Mandalorian, Boba Fett, Savage Opress (Maul’s beefstick brother played by the same actor as Mr. Krabs), Asajj Ventress, Kit Fisto, Cad Bane, and other miscellaneous idiots. There are so many amazing alien designs & fully armored people to adore and be horny over…

I’m currently writing a Star Wars fic that has been EATING MY BRAIN since 2022 and I’ve only now gotten my act together to actually write it. The main character oc is very self-inserty, as the all are. I put pieces of myself into all my main “I made this as an adult” ocs, and they help me learn things about myself (in a crazy psychoanalytical way), and cope with trauma, and vent, and feel LOVED! And it’s crazy. This fic is MY EVERYTHING and I’m so excited to be writing and sharing it finally after I thought I never would 🥰 It’s seriously just been like an alternate life I’ve lived inside my brain up until now 🚶🏻‍♀️

It’s late and I can’t think of anything more I can infodump about rn but if you want to ask specific questions or want me to talk about specific things I will! THANK YOU FOR INDULGING ME ❤️❤️😭

[starwalker03]

The Closeness of a Galaxy Far, Far Away

I've found over the years that, with the autism running around in my brain, my interests cycle around the same few fandoms every year. although it's probably too logical to designate it a period of time, but for the most part it seems to occur over the course of a year (which is already an irregular measurement anyway as it changes every four times).

I go through the wide expanse of the DCU, I think of Maggie Stiefvater's Raven Boys, I scroll aimlessly through tumblr's tags related to All For The Game, I rewatch Merlin for the nth time, and perhaps She-ra while I'm at it, and if I feel particularly sentimental Doctor Who revisits. There's always some irregularity with which ones get to be a side show I recall briefly and go to bed thinking of once more (suffering from brain worms) and which ones consume me in reckless abandon like the actual show rides. But without fail, every time, there is always Star Wars.

There is always Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi and a sea of stars and a brilliant John Williams soundtrack and movie after movie and show after show, and no mater how much new content arrives I will always love most Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. There is always A Long Time Ago, In a Galaxy Far, Far Away...

My mother read the title screens to my brother and I as children, with that same voice every time, you know the one, the one that all parents read stories to their kids in (whether they did so for you or you've merely seen it in movies). And every time I waited on baited breath to here the first note of the soundtrack and to see the same movies I'd watched a hundred times before. I assembled LEGO sets and played pretend at being a Jedi and completed every level in LEGO Star Wars with my brother on our Nintendo Wii and had lightsaber fights and dressed up for school discos in a big hooded cloak. I grew up with it every year, I could probably recite almost every line in the original trilogy. I'm not of the generation that watched it start, that was my mother, who went to see it in cinemas with no idea what she'd behold (and leave the theater with a new obsession and a crush on Harrison Ford). I am of the generation that was born with six movies and watched The Clone Wars, born of one throw away line in A New Hope, on TV. Seeing the same episodes over and over in completely the wrong order. I saw the sequel trilogy as it came out in theatres. I did not see this franchise start but have watched it grow with me nevertheless.

This franchise is my home, it has my heart, it has my endless love. This franchise may well be what set me off on my journey of wanting to tell every story possible. The quintessential tale of the hero's journey, but this time IN SPACE. What better creation could there be for a child.

Now I see new shows come out one after the other, and the out pour of words everyone has to say on them hits me before even the first line of dialogue. I have yet to watch Andor, or the Ahsoka series, or finish the latest season of The Mandolorian. these stories, if placed before my childish self, would leave me frothing at the mouth for weeks on end. I would peel my eyelids back and absorb every bit of light from my TV as the stories unfolded, i would learn every line and every character name and every ship name and every droid name and I would run through the soccer field and imagine I was slipping on the floors of an imperial destroyer desperately trying to reach a fight before it ended in blood.

I can't do it now.

There is politics in every stance and hatred in every line of public words on shows from a franchise I love. people question why it must be the way it is before they even see it. news headlines about who will play who and what every plotline will entail and exactly how dark every characters skin tone is and whether they kiss the right people.

I don't care, what happened to the lightsabers? what happened to the thrill of an imagined fight scene of thousands of flying vehicles in space? Where is the adventure? where is the belief in defeating an evil for the good of the galaxy? It was all so simple then, and as someone who tells stories now I know and understand it can't stay that way.

Star Wars was begun in 1977. And now, our world is different and the same. It was post both world wars, in the midst of the cold war, and just two years after the Vietnam war. In this time it was political enough a statement to make a movie with the entire foundation of 'we are good people and we want to be happy, so we will fight a war for it'. The conversation of symbolism and context can be had till the sun goes down because the context is our world, with all its messy complications. Star Wars has grown since then. It was always about fighting fascism, but now it must do more than fire a gun and kill an evil monarch and have a party that represents everything going back to goodness. Now it must show what really happens after, because we are in the after.

Star Wars is now its own world, and yet still a mirror of our own- this is what storytelling does. And yet, every second it persists, changes, evolves, stays the same, someone must make the articles and the call outs.

Why is Star Wars what it is now? Why must it be like us?

because in 1977 a farm boy destroyed a weapon, and six years later he defeated a tyrannical empire, and he did it all in a story that was fundamentally about love, compassion, peace, calm. About talking before you act and finding a way to work with others, about putting your weapon down because you refuse to let yourself use it, even when your anger rises.

Why must Star Wars have our problems? Why must it tell these stories?

because this is what story telling is about. hold my hand, sit with me on the living room floor, crane your head back at a TV screen and read A Long Time Ago, In A Galaxy Far, Far Away, and for just a while, for just a few hours, feel.

It's beautiful isn't it? And that's why it must be like us. To remind you of that fact.

[koco-coko]

oooo this is tough I switch my rankings every week depending on what i need comfort for... here i go anyways

Harvey (Stardew Valley) I love my funny little doctor he's such a guy such a normal dude no trauma or mental illness just a guy trying his best.

Prof/Tia (the Reckoners Trilogy) I read this trilogy in middle and it still consumes my every waking moment. I can't decide who I love more they're just so mmmmdghadjkhj they scramble my brain in ways no mere mortal (neurotypical) will understand. The series needs more love and fans so if you like Worm read this its very fun.

Maru (Stardew Valley) I KNOW Stardew Valley again but Maru and Harvey and my favs I cant help it.

Welt (Honkai Star Rail) mhm yeah I said it I play honkai star rail. I like him he's funny what a traumatized peepaw yk.

Nova Artino (Renegades Trilogy) sighhss yeah she's here too I CANT HELP MY TASTES anyways i want this lady called nova artino to tell me everythings alright and put me into a deep sleep so one day I can wake up feeling rested and comforted and WHAT SORRY I DIDNT SAY A THING HAHAHAHAHA

i have way WAYYYY more comfort characters but these are the major ones to fit into the top five

anyways once again I dont know people here soo...

@captain-is-king hiya

Tag game 🤪

Starting a random tag game bc why not lolll

List your top five comfort characters to see who shares them and the fandoms you’re in!!

Bakugo Katsuki (MHA/BNHA)

Uncle Iroh (ATLA + LoK)

Luna Lovegood (HP)

Reyna Ramírez-Arellano (HoO + ToA)

Tony Stark (MCU, Infinity Saga)

Tagging my mutuals and hopefully this becomes a tag chain bc if not I’m deleting this 😭

@labaguetteisdabest, @iam1withthepeggy, @swans-chirping-in-the-distance, @lizahamilton and @that-multi-fandom-hijabi

[lopithecusfanfiction]

Old Nightmares

Author: Lopithecus Pairing: Kaidan Alenko/Male Shepard Rating: General Audience Word Count: 1294 Alternate: AO3 Summary: Shepard has a nightmare about Akuze and finds comfort in Kaidan Warnings: N/A Author's Note: This is for Day 1 of Mass Effect Trilogy Appreciation Week! Do you think, even with the Reaper Invasion, Shepard would still have nightmares about his past? Please enjoy! Prompt: Day 1 - Nightmare

The wind is blowing, there’s dirt getting into his hair and eyes and all the nooks and crannies his armor has. Blood curdling screams are all around him, loud in his ears, only to be drowned out by the roar of the attacking creature as it drags another crewmember down into the ground.

Shepard squints out from where he is kneeling behind a rock, wishing he had worn his helmet to keep the dirt out of his eyes. It’s not the best of hiding places, the giant worm very easily being able to find him if it so wished. Shepard reaches up, swipes at the sweat gathered on his forehead, and takes a shaky breath. The moon is bright, its light shining down on all the Marines, but it doesn’t make it easier to see the monster that keeps appearing out of nowhere.

Shepard jumps out of his hiding spot, raising his gun, and shooting a couple rounds into the huge creature. “Connolly, move!”

Connolly, one of the younger officers, scrambles up from where he had tripped, the monster turning its attention on to Shepard. It spits acid at him and Shepard rolls out of the way, just barely getting out of the splash zone. The creature roars in anger, quickly burrowing back into the ground.

Connolly halts beside Shepard, breathing heavily. “What is that thing?”

“I don’t know,” Shepard states, gun at the ready. He looks around. Five Marines are left, including him, out of the fifty that were sent to investigate the missing colonists. “Keep sharp.”

The ground rumbles and Connolly loses his balance, grabbing a hold of Shepard’s shoulder to stay upright. Then the ground explodes and dirt goes flying towards them, Forbes screaming in agony. When the dirt settles, Shepard watches as Forbes' body, covered in blood, is dragged beneath the surface, the man clawing at the ground but finding no purchase in the loose material. Shepard hears Forbes scream for help ringing in his ears.

“Everybody move!” he yells and the rest of the terrified team start running, in no particular direction. Shepard turns to Connolly, shoves at his back to get him moving, and yells at him to get going. But the man is frozen in his spot, eyes fixated on where Forbes disappeared. They had been good friends. More than friends. This is why you don’t fraternize.

“Connolly!” Connolly’s eyes dart to Shepard, the ground rumbles again and suddenly Shepard isn’t close to the officer anymore. Instead he’s meters away, the entire crew gone except for the two of them and the giant worm is right there, above Connolly and…

“Shepard,” Connolly’s voice is a whisper in Shepard's ear and it shakes with fear. He’s only nineteen years old, practically a child, and Shepard reaches out, the monster roars, bears down on Connolly and…

“Connolly!”

Shepard wakes suddenly, taking a quick breath in, as if he’s coming up for air. He blinks the fogginess out of his eyes, runs a hand through his damp hair, and tries to calm his rapidly beating heart. His body is covered in a cold sweat, the sheets sticking to his skin uncomfortably. He squeezes his eyes shut, forces himself to breathe calmly once, twice, three times, and then reopens them to stare at the window on the ceiling.

He lies there, watching the stars go by slowly, reminding himself that Joker is flying them to the Citadel for a much needed supply run. They should be a few days out still and Shepard had planned on going around to the crew members to inquire about materials they might need that the Alliance budget could buy them. Tali had mentioned something about needing more dextro cheese a few days ago and Garrus had grunted in agreement which had prompted this little trip to the Citadel in the first place.

Shepard takes a deep breath, licking his lips, and knowing he is safe, he can feel himself calming down now. He turns onto his side, in the direction of his bedmate, and watches as Kaidan sleeps on his stomach, head facing away from Shepard. He’s surprised his nightmare hasn't woken him up. It’s a testament of just how tired Kaidan must be. Shepard doesn’t blame him. After all, they all have their own nightmares that keep them up at night.

Shepard reaches out and places a gentle hand between Kaidan’s shoulder blades. The biotic’s back is bare, the two of them being naked, and the covers have slid down to the small of his back, exposing the skin there. Shepard drags his hand down Kaidan’s spine in one long swipe and Kaidan startles, jumping slightly. Shepard tilts his head, places a soft kiss to Kaidan’s shoulder, and whispers, “Sorry,” before dragging his hand back up his back.

He feels Kaidan relax, enjoying the glide of Shepard’s hand on his skin now that he knows who is doing it. Shepard adds a little pressure, massaging the tight muscles as best he can at this angle. He kisses Kaidan’s shoulder once more, peppering it with light pecks, before reaching up and dragging his index finger over Kaidan’s amp port. Kaidan groans, low in his throat, and Shepard does it again to elicit the same sound from the man. “Does that hurt?”

Kaidan, more awake and alert now, turns his head to look at Shepard. “Sensitive.” He yawns. “What’s wrong?”

Shepard should have known that Kaidan would still realize something was wrong despite Shepard’s efforts in distracting him with his question. “It’s stupid.” He goes back to rubbing Kaidan’s back, abandoning the amp port. He doesn’t want to make Kaidan uncomfortable.

Kaidan takes a deep breath in and he looks tired but he’s obviously too worried to go back to sleep. “Tell me.”

Shepard eyes the biotic before turning back onto his back, removing his hand all together from Kaidan. “I had a nightmare. It was weird though.” Kaidan keeps quiet, giving Shepard the time he needs to talk about the dream. Shepard huffs at remembering what exactly his brain had made him see. “It was about Akuze.” He shakes his head, huffs again, and reaches up to cover his eyes with the crook of his arm. “There’s a Reaper invasion going on and my mind decided to give me a nightmare about Akuze.”

��Well,” Kaidan starts, in that breathy way that he does and Shepard loves. “A Reaper invasion doesn’t just erase the other past traumas.”

Shepard sighs and lowers his arm to look at Kaidan, making eye contact with him. Kaidan’s own eyes are half lidded with exhaustion and black circles underneath them. He could probably stand to get a few more hours of sleep but Shepard knows that if he gets up, Kaidan will too to keep him company. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

He reaches out again and cups Kaidan’s cheek. Kaidan smiles at him and turns on to his side, pulling the covers up to his chin. “Cold?” Shepard questions, scooting closer to Kaidan and wrapping him up in his arms. He doesn’t really want to talk about Reapers or nightmares anymore so he changes tactics, practically rolling on top of Kaidan and attacking his exposed neck with ticklish kisses.

“Shepard,” Kaidan says, voice full of laughter and, well, Shepard is glad that he has someone who can help him through his nightmares, someone to wake up next to, and someone to love and protect and maybe even grow old with if they both make it out of this war in one piece.

And as the nightmare gets pushed to the back of Shepard’s brain, he enjoys Kaidan’s laughter in his ears and his warmth in his arms as they both lie in bed, content to pretend everything will be okay.

—————————————————————————————————

A/N: Thanks for reading!

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

Hell is For Children: Animorphs as Children’s Lit

[Guest post from Cates!]

So a couple of months ago Bug asked me to write a post about why Animorphs is Middle Grade/Children’s Fiction, not Young Adult. Since she asked, I’ve read several wonderful posts from other people questioning or explaining what the difference is between Middle Grade and Young Adult, where Animorphs fits, and why it matters. Here’s my two cents as a children’s literature scholar.

To start, Animorphs’ 20,000-30,000 word count per book is a big hint it’s not YA fiction. Obviously, a book with a low word count is not automatically a children’s book, and a book with a high word count is not automatically a book for adults. But if Animorphs was aimed at teens, Applegate would likely have been expected to make the books longer. While there are a lot of great YA novels that are as short as or shorter than your average Animorphs book (check out BookRiot’s list of 100 YA novels under 250 pages,) most YA series, and especially fantasy or scifi YA series, are expected to top 100,000 words. (The three books in the Diviners series by Libba Bray have a total wordcount of 520,000 words; Laini Taylor’s Daughter of Smoke and Bone trilogy tops 400,000 words, for example.)

Animorphs’ word count isn’t enough on its own to exclude the series from YA classification, but Animorphs’ short word count also fits the trend of children’s—not YA—series fiction in the 1990s. In order to understand this trend, and why it produced books specifically for children, not teens, we need to jump back in time to WWII. Because so many American men were drafted into the military, women took over jobs that had been almost exclusively done by men, like mechanics, sales, electricians, etc. When WWII ended, thousands of men returned home, but women didn’t leave the workforce. Realizing they had an excess of young men and not enough jobs, the US government created the GI Bill, allowing soldiers to attend college for free or at a steeply reduced cost, thus stemming the influx of workers and giving the economy and industry room to grow.

At the same time, families were having children (and those children were surviving) at an unprecedented rate. Thanks to the GI Bill, college was no longer something reserved for wealthy white men, but something available to the middle and even lower class. A college education offered social and economic mobility, and the Baby Boomers, children of the GI Bill recipients, became the first generation to grow up with the idea that college was something that could and should be pursued by all.

Then, the Baby Boomers began having children in the late 1970s through early 1990s, meaning a large chunk of those children (including Bug and I) were in elementary school in mid 1990s to early 2000s. Thanks to their parents, a higher percentage of American adults than ever before had attended college. Thanks to advancements in women’s medicine, psychology, sociology, and education, among other fields, people understood as never before the importance of instilling a love of reading in children at a young age. The huge middle class was willing to invest lots of time and money in their children’s educations, because at this point not having a college education was seen as a barrier to success.

I’m sure you can see where this is going. (Kidding).

Children’s publishing exploded in the 1990s because children—or, more accurately, their parents—were seen as a huge, untapped market. Previously, children’s publishing didn’t receive as much money or attention because, the logic went, children did not have money and therefore couldn’t buy books. But then the publishing industry realized that there were literally millions of parents willing to spend money on their children’s education, and publishers like Scholastic, Dutton, Dial, Penguin, Random House, and others rushed to take advantage of this new customer demographic.

Of the ten books featured on this Scholastic bookfair poster from 2000, seven are series fiction.

Serialized fiction—ie, stories that took place over the course of several books about the same characters and/or in the same setting—was the perfect way for publishing houses to capitalize on this new market. And hoo boy was it successful. From 1993 to 1995, Goosebumps books were being sold at a rate of approximately 4 million books a month. That means roughly 130,000 books were sold every day.

Here’s a few names to bring you back: Bailey School Kids, The Magic Treehouse, Babysitter’s Club, Junie B. Jones, Encyclopedia Brown, Cam Jansen, Horrible Harry, Secrets of Droon, The Magic Attic Club, A Series of Unfortunate Events, Bunnicula, The Boxcar Children, The American Girls, Amelia’s Notebook, Dear America, Wayside School, Choose Your Own Adventure…we could keep going for days. All of those series have two things in common: one, they were either published between 1985 and 2005 and/or experienced a huge resurgence in the 90s, and two, they’re all middle grade novels. Some are aimed at younger children, like Junie B. Jones and The Magic Treehouse, and some are aimed at older children, like the Dear America series and A Series of Unfortunate Events.

The point is, Animorphs is so clearly a product of its time (and not just because of the Hansen Brothers references,) it slots perfectly into the trend of series fiction for children. If you want to claim Animorphs is YA, you also need to claim all of the series I just listed above.

Now, let’s talk about the main argument I see in favor Animorphs being YA: the dark content.

This is my personal wheelhouse. I’m planning on someday doing my PhD dissertation on trauma, violence, war, and trauma recovery in Middle Grade—not YA—fiction. I always find it funny when people use descriptors like cute, sweet, innocent, silly, light, and simple to describe children’s books. While there are certainly plenty of children’s books that are one or more of those things, there are also dozens that are the polar opposite—dark, complex, serious, violent, and deep. I once read a review of The Golden Compass which said “it’s not like other children’s books with a clear cut good guy and bad guy and a simple message.” I don’t know how many children’s books the author of the article had read, but I’m guessing not a lot. Let’s just do a blunt reality check with a few of my favorites—including some picture books which are typically for an even younger audience than Middle Grade. Spoilers for all of the books I’m about to mention.

Baseball Saved Us by Ken Mochizuki This book follows a little boy who is sent to a Japanese interment camp during WWII. He and his family deal with abuse, starvation, and sickness. Suggested reading age*? Kindergarten and up.

*(For this and all subsequent books I used reviews from Kirkus, the Horn Book, and School Library Journal to determine suggested reading age.)

Check out this picture of Shorty playing baseball while an armed soldier watches him from a guard tower. Isn’t it cute, sweet, and innocent?

Pink and Say by Patricia Polacco Pink and Say are 15-year-old boys serving as Union Soldiers during the Civil War. Confederate Soldiers kill Pink’s mother, Pink and Say become POWs, and Pink is hanged because he is African American. Suggested reading age? First grade and up.

Fox by Margaret Wild This book starts grim and just gets grimmer. Dog and Magpie have been burned in a wildfire. Dog loses an eye, Magpie a wing. Magpie rides on Dog’s head—she is his eyes, he is her wings. Fox comes and convinces Magpie to leave Dog and come with him. There are definite sexual undertones. The book ends with the possibility that Dog and Magpie will be reunited, but no certainty. Suggested reading age? Six and up.

[The text says “He stops, scarcely panting./ There is silence between them/ Neither moves, neither speaks./ Then Fox shakes Magpie off his back/ as he would a flea,/ and pads away./ He turns and looks at Magpie, and he says,/ ‘Now you and Dog will know what it is like/ to be truly alone.’/ Then he is gone./ In the stillness, Magpie hears a faraway scream./ She cannot tell if it is a scream of triumph/ or despair.”]

Tell me this isn’t a total punch in the gut.

The Rabbits by Shaun Tan The introduction of rabbits to Australia is used as an allegory for European colonization and the casual destruction of the Aboriginals’ lives and cultures. Suggested reading age? Six and up.

The Scarlet Stockings Spy by Trinka Hakes Noble A girl spies on the British during the Revolutionary War while her brother fights. He’s killed and there’s actually a description of her finding the “bloodstained hole” in his coat where the bullet struck him. How cute and silly! Suggested reading age? Second grade and up.

Meet Addy: An American Girl by Connie Rose Porter I think this works as a nice comparison to Animorphs because it’s another long-running, popular series aimed at kids just starting to read chapter books. Among other incidents, there’s a graphic description of Addy watching her brother get whipped by an overseer and a passage where another overseer forces Addy to eat worms. I actually give American Girls a lot of points for not shying away from the uglier parts of history. They don’t always get it right (*cough* Kaya *cough*) but those books are more complex than I think most people realize. Suggested reading age? Second grade and up.

My Teacher Flunked the Planet by Bruce Coville From the sight of a child starving to death to homeless children freezing in the streets, Coville certainly doesn’t avoid the darker side of human nature. Pretty sure most adults only noticed the funny green alien on the cover. Suggested reading age? Fourth grade and up.

“That was the day we crept, invisible, into a prison where men and women were being tortured for disagreeing with their government. What had already been done to those people was so ugly I cannot bring myself to describe it, even though the memory of it remains like a scar burned into my brain with a hot iron.

“Even worse was the moment when it was about to start again. When I saw what the uniformed man was going to do to the woman strapped to the table, I pressed myself against the wall and closed my eyes. But even with my hands clamped over my ears I couldn’t shut out her scream.”

Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai The Vietnam War, migrants drowning in the ocean, refugee camps, racism…this book is a bit like Animorphs in that it’s got a surprisingly dry sense of humor even as awful events take place. Suggested reading age? Fourth grade and up.

The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Patterson A pretty harsh look at the realities of America’s foster care system as told by a girl who could give Rachel Berenson a run for her money. It’s not afraid to show that parents aren’t automatically good people. Suggested reading age? Third grade and up.

Stepping on the Cracks and Wait Til Helen Comes by Mary Downing Hahn If WWII, bullying, dead siblings, draft dodging, and parental abuse are too light and fluffy for you, you can always read about a child consumed with survivor’s guilt because she started the fire that killed her mother. Suggested reading age? Fifth grade and up.

“‘How do you think Jimmy would feel if he knew his own sister was helping a deserter while he lay dying in Belgium?’

‘It wasn’t like that!’ I said, stung by the unfairness of her question. ‘Stuart was sick, he needed me! I wish Jimmy had been down there in the woods, too! Then he’d be alive, not dead!’

Mother slapped me then, hard as she could, right in the face. ‘Never say anything like that again!’ she cried. ‘Never!’”

I could go on (and on and on and on) about trauma narratives for children, but suffice to say while I think Animorphs is probably the most brilliant one I’ve ever read, it’s far from the only one. Kids’ books can be dark, which is good, because if we only tell stories about white, able-bodied children living in big houses with two loving parents then we’re excluding the majority of real children’s lived experiences from our narratives.

There’s one more point I’d like to address: without sounding overly accusatory, I think a lot of the compulsion to consider Animorphs YA instead of children’s fiction is born of the adult bias against children. I’ve mentioned this before on the podcast, but Children’s Literature scholar Maria Nikolajeva created the term aetonormativity to describe society’s tendency to value the adult over the child. Like I discussed above, we have this idea that children’s books are somehow sweet and innocent, while YA fiction is darker and grittier because it addresses so-called ‘adult’ topics like sex, drugs, suicide, violence, and death.

As I hope I’ve established above, just because a book addresses these topics that doesn’t automatically mean it’s for teens. Books about heavy subjects can, are, and should be written for children. I think most of us are fans of Animorphs because it’s a series that sticks with us long after we close the neon-cloud covers. It’s a series that strongly disputes the notion of a clear right and wrong, and doesn’t shy away from the atrocities of war. And it was written for children. It was sold to children. It was read by children.

Some of us adults are just cool enough to read children’s books that treat child readers with the respect they deserve.

— Cates

[staarshines]

first off OMG YOUR THEME IS SO GOOD and second don't get me started on the new star wars movies?

THANK YOU SO MUCH SAKJLFH

don’t get me started on the new star wars movies. whew, okay. this is going to be confusing.

send me “don’t get me started on...” + any topic for a rant

the sequel trilogy is my favorite trilogy but it’s also the trilogy i hate the most. that probably makes no sense; i love it with all my heart but it is the only trilogy you will find me making fun of and getting angry at. the prequel trilogy? i’ll get mad about anidala and the jedi code, but that had to happen in order for the original trilogy to work out. i love everything else about the prequel trilogy. i don’t think i hate anything about the original trilogy, but there’s nothing that’s close to my heart from it except for scoundress.

now, the sequel trilogy? that’s a while other can of worms.

i love rey, this badass baby. a scavenger, a nobody, dragged into all of this resistance/first order/force drama only to discover that she isn’t a nobody. i hate the decision to make her a palpatine instead of a kenobi, because if she was a kenobi, it would’ve made sense for anakin’s lightsaber to call out to her; anakin and obi-wan were brothers in everything but blood. but then again, the decision to make her a palpatine got us that epic fight on exegol. and then again, that probably could’ve happened even with her being a kenobi.

i love poe (obviously), this chaotic little shit. the son of two retired resistance members who loses his mother at such a young age. he does what he thinks is the right thing (joining the navy) but then realizes he has to be a bit more rebellious to get things done. he goes and joins the resistance, where he basically gains a surrogate mother and advances the resistance’s place in the war so far that leia makes him general. she knows he doesn’t think with his brain all the time—he’s a chaotic flyboy—but knows that if he has a responsibility this big that he’ll make the right choices. he keeps hope until the very last minute, which is practically impossible. he’s selfless to a fault and so, so pure. they fucked it up by giving him a spice runner backstory which... that’s another entire paragraph.

i love finn, that little baby. a stormtrooper whose force sensitivity was downplayed—do not tell me kylo or anyone else didn’t know he was force sensitive—but his f.s. was so strong that it took over and made him do the right thing. he didn’t want to be a part of it for a while, but then he realized that he was one of the people the galaxy was depending on. he picked up that lightsaber knowing he probably wouldn’t be able to beat kylo ren, and still put up one hell of a fight. then they went and completely fucking sidelined him.

i love ben/kylo, that babie who thinks he’s an emo bitch. he turned because he was scared for his life. he made a bad decision, and millions died in the wake of it. he did what he thought was right at the moment, and then refused to believe that he was on the wrong path even though he knew he was. then rey came along. rey came along, and showed him what the light side brings. he killed his father and then felt the guilt of it for the rest of his life. his mother then died reaching out to him, and he knew he’d had enough loss as a result of the dark side. when he saw rey lying down on the ground of exegol, he knew he needed to do one good thing for the people he loved. he knew he couldn’t live without her. he knew he couldn’t handle more loss. ben solo sacrificed his life for rey’s willingly. that probably makes no goddamn sense because this is all raw but i’m way too tired to go and edit it.

rose’s character was not handled well. i’m not saying i hate her, because i know we could’ve gotten so much more but then everyone just decided to fuck it up. i don’t like what they did with her character, but i can’t hate her because she had so much potential.

the force awakens is my second favorite star wars movie. there’s nothing that i hate about it. send tweet.

i hate the last jedi. poe, finn, and rose’s plan to deactivate that hyperspace tracker should’ve worked. but then again, since it didn’t, we got that amazing fight on crait.

the rise of skywalker is an okay movie for me. i love it, yes, it gives me an unbelievable serotonin boost but i wish i had never known about duel of the fates. tros was its own thing, but dotf was so much better.

tl;dr: i fucking love it and i fucking hate it.

[feuillesmortes]

After an incredibly stressful week at work, it’s finished! Here’s your weekly dose of fluff and awkwardness and whatnot from our two favourite historical dorks. Set on the flatmates AU verse, I’m tagging my pals @queenbessofyork and @harritudur. Enjoy! 

Henry woke to the sound of a strange mumble, the weight of something pressing down on his arm. The room was dark, safe from the colours coming from his laptop screen. He blinked, trying to adjust his eyes to the darkness. Something beside him moved and he remembered. He twisted around to find Lizzie sleeping on his arm, one arm circling his waist. God, they had fallen sleep on the sofa, hadn’t they? Henry hadn’t even removed his contacts, he could feel his eyes red. The end credits on the screen reminded him of the film night he had sorted with his former flatmates. It all had started during a typical cheeky Nando’s after uni that he had been dragged into, a charmless event and restaurant Henry usually avoided like the plague. Between a spicy chicken wing or two, Lizzie had uttered the sentence “I have never watched Lord of the Rings” for the absolute shock and disbelief of everyone who heard it. It had been settled there and then: Rodrigo (the self-declared greatest Tolkien fan) and Lizzie were to come over and binge-watch the trilogy at his place.

Of course they couldn’t get to the very end. Rodrigo left during the second film, claiming he had heaps of coursework he had yet to finish. Lizzie had stayed, even though she had pulled an all-nighter just the night before to submit an essay. She wanted to know what happened to Faramir. “He’s going to die, innit? Just like his brother.” Henry had brushed it off without telling her any spoilers. Well, it seemed she didn’t find out what happened to Faramir after all, since they both had fallen asleep in the middle of the third film. Henry was lying on his side and Lizzie was snuggled up against him, legs tucked inside his duvet. The bowl of snacks was half-turned on the coffee table, crisps and popcorn were everywhere. Her trainers were messily slumped on the floor. It was all very particularly Lizzie, just like old times. For a moment he debated with himself whether he should wake her or not; she looked so peaceful sleeping. He brushed a strand of golden hair falling on her face, tucked it behind her ear. There was a tingling sensation at the tip of his fingers, a strange pressure in his chest spreading through his body. He wanted to drag his fingertips across her cheek, feel the softness of her skin. Henry let out a quiet, heavy sigh. It wasn’t the right thing to do.

Henry reached for his phone lying on the coffee table, only so he could have something to occupy his hands with. He unlocked the screen and tapped to read the texts he received the previous night - the lads were sorting tickets for their next gig... his mum was asking about his week... and oh, there it was. An overly enthusiastic text from his boss François. At the beginning of his internship Henry had thought hitting off with the boss right away was a good thing. François was a thoroughly proud Breton, one who had been greatly happy to hear his intern had attended a lycée in France, and more specifically, in Brittany. Only now it meant Henry was bound to receive unwanted texts at all hours of the day and night. Suddenly it became a habit to ask Henry personal favours like fetching his relatives at the airport or buying his wife a gift. On top of all his normal responsibilities it was absurdly annoying, but Henry didn’t have much choice in the matter. He needed an internship if he were ever to graduate at Westminster that year. And Henry suspected that Pierre, François’ assistant, would be only too glad to see him go. No, Henry wasn’t a quitter - above all things, he’d stay at the company if only to spite Pierre Landais.

“HENRY!” He read his name the way François called him: Henri, à la française. “I’m giving you the OutCast’s account! I can’t think of anyone better suited for the task. I'm confident you’ll do a great job! Don’t forget to bring a full report by our next briefing. P.S.: Remind me to talk to Paul on Monday.”

Great, another account. Staring at the text he felt the familiar sting of anxiety worming its way into his brain. God, he felt like he needed a cigarette. He put his mobile aside, yet could not think of anything else other than starting the report right there and then, no matter how late in the night. If maybe he was sufficiently sneaky he might get to his laptop without waking Lizzie. He meant to move when he heard a sound. It was her, talking in her sleep. He kept very still and tuned his ears to listen. Amidst a bunch of incomprehensible words he heard “I’m a princess”. He looked at her, entirely bemused himself, and she was smiling. “I’m a princess”, she kept saying, “A dragon princess”. Henry had to suppress a laughter. She might have watched Lord of the Rings that night, but it seemed she was still thinking about the season finale of Game of Thrones. Lizzie mumbled some other words he couldn’t understand until he heard “That’s my home.” and “Henry”. What? Did he hear that right? Henry watched her face going into a frown. “No, no. Mr Dragon, please. Don’t destroy my home.” Henry gently poked her, trying to wake her. “Mr Dragon, please.” Henry started shaking her lightly. “Hey, Daenerys Targaryen, wake up. Wake up, Lizzie.” “Henry, no.” He gave her a hard shake and Lizzie woke up with a gasp.

“What? What?”

Lizzie pulled herself up into a sitting position, Henry following suit. He touched her arm, trying to direct her gaze to him. “Hey, hey. Lizzie, what happened? Was it a nightmare?” In the semi-darkness of the room, Lizzie was squinting her eyes at him. Her hair disheveled, her brows furred together, she had the look of someone who had just been run over by a car. She blinked hard for a few seconds. “Sorry?”

“You were talking in your sleep. It sounded rather bad, actually.” Lizzie hummed a negative response and averted her gaze. “I don’t know what you’re on about.”

Henry let out a growl. “Lizzie, c’mon! You must remember something. You just woke up!”

“I don’t- No. Absolutely not.” Lizzie shook her head in the clumsiest way. 

“So you’re telling me you don’t remember anything? At all?”

Her tone was final. “No.”

Lizzie had her blank face on, but it was all so positively plain she was lying, Henry decided to tease her a bit. He started by scratching his jaw. “Here’s what’s funny, though. You said you were a princess. Actually, there was a dragon from what I heard. Curiouser and curioser... I wonder if-” She covered her face with her hands. “Oh God! You heard everything, didn’t you?” Henry laughed aloud, a full-blown laughter he hadn’t had in days. He soon remembered it was late, so he stopped himself. “Lizzie, but why was I in your dream?” She started shaking her head again and he tapped her hand lightly. “Allons, allons! Don’t you deny it! I heard you saying my name.” Lizzie looked so distraught in her drowsy state that Henry almost pitied pressing her to talk. “I… Oh, alright, alright! You were there. You were the dragon.” Henry sputtered in laughter again. “I was the dragon!?”

Lizzie rolled her eyes, mocking his laughter. “Yes, you were the dragon. Sometimes you were this monstrous creature with big dragon wings and red scales and sometimes you were just like yourself, with your own face. I don’t know how to explain it, but that’s what happened. Happy?” Henry wiped the small tears leaking from the corners of his eyes. “Quite so.” By now he wanted to stop his chuckling, but her vexed expression was too much for him. He couldn’t resist taking the piss. “I’m sorry, Lizzie. But you should’ve seen your face.” She opened her mouth to offer some sly retort of her own, but instead she stopped mid-sentence and her eyes went wide. “What time is it?” Henry shrugged. “I don’t know. Late. Why?”

“I should- I should get going.”

“You’re sure? You can sleep here. I’ll prepare the bed for you and then I’ll take the sofa.” Lizzie frowned quizzically and started to slowly rub her eyes in circles, as if mulling over his offer. After some seconds though, she protested weakly. “Henry, no... You shouldn’t sleep on the sofa.”

“You’re my guest, Lizzie. Of course you get the most comfortable place to sleep.” And you’re not exactly suggesting we share the bed, are you?

She grunted. “Hmm… I don’t know.” She rubbed her eyes again, then suddenly lifted up her head as if a realisation had just struck her.  “Where’s the loo?” Henry gestured her the way. “Second door on the left.” His was a small flat, with just one bedroom. Lizzie slowly got to her feet and dragged herself across the corridor. She spent a long time in the loo, in fact she spent so much time there Henry was sure she was sleeping on the toilet. Henry had enough time to clean their mess and get to his laptop to start working on the report François had requested. He was beginning to wonder whether he ought to go over and knock on the door when he finally heard it unlocking. He saw Lizzie crossing the corridor and going straight into the kitchen, walking on wonky legs like a zombie. Eh bien! He should go and check on her, he thought, as his agile fingers hit the keyboard word after word.

Before he could move from his place, though, Henry heard a loud crashing noise followed by a cry and an emphatically uttered curse. He hastened to the kitchen only to find a mayhem of pots, pans, a variety of kitchen appliances, all lying on the floor and Lizzie simply standing there, rubbing her forehead. Henry hurried to her side as quickly as he could. “Lizzie! What happened?”

“The fuck is wrong with you?”

Henry blinked once, blinked twice. “Excuse me?”

“Why do you keep your kettle so high up there?” While keeping a hand on her forehead, she angrily pointed to the cabinet shelf she had just knocked over. Is she having a laugh? No, she was looking at him with accusing eyes. “Why don’t you keep your kettle on the counter like everyone else does?”

Henry scoffed. “I’m sorry Lizzie, but you could’ve used a stool or a chair, or better yet, you could’ve just called me to get it. Did you forget I was just in the other room?” He tried to keep his tone neutral, but obviously failed at keeping the sarcasm out of his voice.

“Well, maybe I don’t need you to do everything for me. Has it ever crossed your mind that I can do things by myself?”

Henry rolled his eyes so hard he thought he might see his brain. For fuck’s sake, he couldn’t believe he was arguing with Lizzie in his kitchen at 2 am. But Henry wasn’t so daft as to tell a woman to calm down. “Alright, miss independent. You come to the kitchen, absolutely knackered, and you expect everything to go splendid. Well, good luck with that.” 

For once Lizzie didn’t have a reply, she just kept moody and scowling as she bent down to pick up the things that had fallen from the cabinet. Henry let out a sigh, but crouched down to help her anyways. As he put his things back on the shelf he eyed her from over his shoulder. “Why did you even want the kettle for in the first place?” Lizzie simply shrugged. “I just wanted to make a cuppa. Something to wake me up before I went home.” Her lip pouting, she looked just like a sullen child. Henry couldn't resist smirking. “There’s coffee for that, you know.” He pointed to the italian moka pot conveniently placed atop the stove, a pristine steel appliance that granted his coffee a strong distinctive flavour. She narrowed her eyes at him. “You bloody well know I don’t drink coffee.”

All that conversation and Lizzie still kept the one hand on her forehead, Henry noticed. “Oh, sod it! Come here, let me see it.” He stepped closer and took her head in his hands as she warily removed her own to reveal a red swollen bump. He tried to keep the touch of his fingers light on her hair as his thumbs skimmed over her temples. “What hit you?” Lizzie shook her head slightly. “I’m not sure. It doesn’t matter anyway, it’s nothing.”

“It doesn’t look like nothing. It’ll probably look purple tomorrow.”  

“You think so?” Lizzie looked at him through long golden lashes. She had beautiful and expressive doe-like eyes, the sort that could hide thunderstorms behind the guise of sunlit skies. Her eyelids batted softly, but her gaze held a silent question mark on it. He dragged a thumb across her cheekbone, his voice low. “Are you alright? 

“Yeah.” Her reply came out just above a whisper, her chest rose and fell in cadence. There was something... something different shimmering in her pupils at that moment, he surely couldn’t be wrong about that. She said she’s not with Charles anymore, the thought came to his mind abruptly and unbidden. Henry hesitantly let his left hand fall to cup her cheek, afraid he might scare her. He glanced at her lips, rosy and tempting and inviting. She was just so fucking beautiful all the time, it was maddening. He realised that somewhere deep down his sense of pride was hurt; he had never thought he would ever play the fool in love. Do it, you air-headed, useless git. Just do it.

“Well, this is awkward.”

Henry froze. S h i t e. He looked back up to find Lizzie blinking uncomfortably. He instantly let go of her and straightened up. “It is, isn’t it?” He leaned back against the counter, his hands sagged inside his pockets. Her mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out of it. Henry went to the fridge, if only to do something to fill up the silence stretching between them. “I’ll get you some ice.” He fumbled for words. “You know... For the bump.”

Lizzie lowered herself to a chair and he handed her the ice rolled up in a towel. She thanked him with a half-smile and pressed it to her bump, but kept silent. “Your mother sent me an email a couple of days ago. She told me her hearing is coming up.” Henry said, searching for any topic of conversation whatsoever, but Lizzie didn’t look much pleased by that. “She did?”

Henry nodded. “She’s invited me to the hearing. Do you... Do you want me to go?”

“I- I mean, if you’re up for it. I don’t see why not.” 

An ominous silence fell on them again, so Henry reopened the fridge. “Are you hungry? I’ve got some of those red velvet cupcakes you like.” He had gone out to the nearest co-op the day before just to buy them specifically for Lizzie.

“There’s no need.” Lizzie blurted out, rising up from her seat and placing the towel on the table. “I should- I should just go home now.”

Henry turned back to her, closing the fridge door behind him. “Lizzie, are you fleeing from me?” He crossed his arms over his chest and faced her squarely. He was just so tired of playing games with her. She let out a not-so-genuine laugh as she left the kitchen. “What, me? Don’t be so absurd.” Henry followed her across the room. “Yes, you. I’m not sure why, but you’re fleeing from me.” As Lizzie bent over to grab her things, she let out an agonized puff-like scoff. “I am. Not.”

“Good. Cause if you are, and you forget something in your haste, I’m sorry but I’m not returning anything. You’ll have to come back here and get it yourself.”

Her expression changed, and she gave him a deliciously devilish smile. “I can think of a worse fate than that. Seriously, Henry. You've got to step up your game. You're severely lacking in imagination.” Bemused and half in awe, he couldn’t think of a reply; it seemed it was her turn to leave him speechless. As she got to the door, he hurried after her. “I’m walking you home.” He announced, rather than asking it. His former flat was just a few blocks away from his current place, but he didn’t trust Lizzie to go back there alone, no matter how many times she said London was a safe city. She only lifted an eyebrow at him. “If you insist.”

The way back to his former flat was short, their path punctuated by the myriad of pubs that populated the neighbourhood. The Red Lion, The Horn of Plenty, The Nag’s Head, The White Hart, all of them closed by the lateness of the hour. As they approached her building, Henry called her attention. "Lizzie, before I go I need to tell you something.” She turned to him with an inquisitive eye, her keys in hand, and Henry summoned his most serious voice. "I, the Welsh dragon, vow not to destroy your home. Do not despair." She let out a silvery cascading laughter. "Shut your gob, silly!" She slapped his arm lightly, but straightened his sleeve right after with a smooth motion. “So... If I understood you correctly, I’m invited to visit your place again.”

“Uhm, yes. Yes, absolutely. And Rodrigo as well, of course. We can sort another film night or something.”

“Right.” Her smile slowly died, and the silence that followed turned slightly awkward. “Well, goodnight to you.” As she turned to insert her keys in the door, Henry stepped back to leave. “Goodnight, Lizzie.”

“Henry, wait!” He turned back, only to be surprised by a peck on his cheek. “Thanks for walking me home.” 

He didn’t know how long he simply stood there, staring at her door after she had long vanished inside the building. He was grinning like a blinking idiot, the bloody fool. Down the street, drunk Londoners waddled their way home, brawled and shouted. The sirens of passing ambulances raged loudly off in the distance. Just a typical night in the city. Not for him, though. Not for him. The cold in the air nipped gently at his cheeks like the caress of a lover.

x

[dykedykegooses]

i'm askin u every single even numbered question for the lesbian ask game

at least you didnt bother with the algebra this time, for which i am thankful

Femme or butch?

i’m more femme but i try to act butch sometimes and i just end up failing hopelessly. ‘look mom i know how to put air in a tire!!’ ‘peyton thats like… not even right’ or ‘oh SHIT look at that blitz!! that was cool’ ‘peyton that was a sack’ ‘oh’

Do you have a “type”? If so, describe it

not really, mostly just like… humor. if u funny we click

Plaid button-ups or leather jackets?

why not both?

no but seriously plaid tbh

Describe your style

um yes

converse, (ripped? sometimes) jeans, and whatever top i feel is appropriate for the Big Aesthetic today

Describe your aesthetic

yes

ive tried going more punk but its just kinda , not worked

my physical aesthetic is very adultolescent. i got chub and look like a freshman but ive been told i pass as a college senior so like

my Big Mood aesthetic is yes

Favorite article of clothing?

either my converse or my “”combat boots”” (theyre not and it makes me sound like an edgelord just saying that) (can you tell im gay)

OH WAIT I FORGOT ABOUT MY JEAN JACKET its like baggy and light and ive started sewing patches from my favorite bands on it (super punk right)

Favorite pair of shoes?

^^^

oh my black strappy heels, theyre surprisingly comfortable

Current haircut?

ive got a bleached bob rn

Any haircut goals for the future?

i kinda want a pixie cut bc i cant handle long hair however long hair is so PRETTY and wow

Describe the best date you’ve been on

iiiiiiiiii dont really know. ive been on very few. i have a Perfect Date in mind, and i guess my favorite was my first date with my ex. we had gotten back from a successful science competition (HAVE I MADE IT OBVIOUS IM A NERD YET IM A BIG OL NERD) and it was like midnight by the time we got back and we were both starving so we went to taco bell and just sat there talking and laughing and i know we were pissing off the staff, but we stayed til like two in the morning and we went home and honestly we both considered it a date but we didnt like… tell each other it was a date? if that makes sense? idk honestly im triggered

Describe the worst date you’ve been on

ugh oh god i went on a tinder date and this girl like in the DMs was like ‘hey do u smoke weed’ and im like ‘lol no’ and then like we made plans to meet up at a coffee shop and she asks me AGAIN if i smoke weed and im like……………. no and shes like ‘oh right lol’ well THIS BITCH sleeps through the time we were supposed to meet, completely stands me up, and then texts me back like an hour later and was like ‘omg im sorry i overslept!!!’ and it was like….. noon but ok so we meet up after my class and we just sit there really awkwardly trying to make conversation and she asks me AGAIN if i smoke weed im like ‘honey no i dont’ and we just talked about drugs for a while and when i left because i had to gtfo she like gave me an awkward hug and like i sent a text later that night bc im courteous and im like ‘hey i had a great time today’ (i didnt) ‘lmk if you ever want to meet up again!!’ and she just. ignored me lol.

Single? Taken?

im currently in a polyamorous relationship with myself and my anxiety

If taken, talk about your girlfriend/wife!

:)

If single, what are you looking for in a potential girlfriend/wife?

someone who’s able to make me laugh and deal with my bad ideas and will let me cook for her and wants to travel the world with me

Describe your dream wedding

its small. outside. maybe in a field or in front of a lake. i dont personally want a big ballgown, just a short white dress will do. lavenders everywhere. R A I N B O W  C A K E. reception where we slow dance to all the sappy romance songs. its great.

Do you want kids?

not really, but ive considered being a foster parent. i feel like im here to do good; i don’t want to have my own biological children, and im not sure i want to have the permanent responsibility of adopting a kid, but i feel i could handle fostering once we’re financially stable and have the room to accept children into our home.

If you could live anywhere in the world, where would you live?

spain, definitely. somewhere in the north. i want to have a small farm with goats and chickens and vegetables and i want to be away from this american mess.

Favorite lesbian movie?

well ysee…………. the only two explicitly lesbian movies ive seen have been ‘all about E’ and ‘blue is the warmest color’ and i didnt like either of the lmfaoooo i prefer watching lesbian television shows tbqh (or, most commonly, just rewriting all the female characters in my head to be sapphic sooooooo dont @ me)

Favorite lesbian novel/story?

i mean same as above, i dont read as much as i like to. however, i did read “georgia peaches and other forbidden fruit” and that was Really Good and i did read another that was slightly better, but i forget the name but it was about a pakistani (?) girl who was struggling to come out to her parents bc they were very traditionalist but she joins the theater and her like really elite school and the girl she had a crush on basically outs her and is a bitch about it and GOD i wish i could remember it because it was really good

Favorite lesbian song?

ummmmmmmmmmmm i just recently listened to ‘honey’ by kehlani and that was pretty good and pretty gay, but my personal favorite is ‘girls’ by beatrice eli bc holy shit what a Mood

Favorite lesbian musician?

i love mary lambert and beatrice eli.

What lesbian stereotypes do you fit into, if any?

ummmmm now that im thinking of them i cant think of any. i used to play softball and soccer? i love cats. i immediately start planning out the next five years of our lives together anytime im remotely interested in a girl?

Ever been assumed to be nothing more than a gal pal?

i mean………………. no

If a woman wanted to woo you, what would a surefire way to accomplish that?

well bake cookies w me and lets go for a walk & go out and watch the stars at night in the bed of a truck

Be positive! What do you like most about being a lesbian?

I LOVE LOVING GIRLS!!!!!! I LOVE EVERYTHING ABOUT BEING A LESBIAN!!!!!! GIRLS ARE FANTASTIC!!!!!!!! WHAT THE FUCK!!!!!!!!!

Are you more of a cat person or a dog person?

why not both

idk ive never had a cat but i know i lov them

Turn ons?

i.......... dont know

yes

im gay

Turn offs?

long nails youch theyre pretty to look at but i mean at what price

not having anything to talk about

putting yourself down like a lot (i went on a date w this one girl and that was all she did like the entire date like......... im sorry ? :(???)

Do you usually ask other women out or do you wait for them to ask you?

if im being honest i would love for someone to ask me out but since that is Very Unlikely, i tend to be the one to message first and initiate dates and stuff

What is your dream career?

i want to be a psychological researcher in the field of social comparative psychology how sick is that!!!!! just play with dogs all day and record whether or not they boop their noses on a screen

also i wanna be a farmer and a bookstore owner but thats Farther down the line like , when im 50

Talk about your interests or hobbies!

im honestly such a psych nerd i love psychology what the fuck!! its so interesting like ppl are weird man idk brains are weird

im also having a really big green day phase like billie .. he so smol... and also anyone who wants to bash warning or the trilogy can fight me ok those are like My Favorite Albums

im going to a concert in february to see declan mckenna, a Giant Meme

im getting a tattoo w some lyrics of declan’s actually its gonna be sick

What is the most attractive quality a woman can have?

yes

idk for me its being able to have quick, witty, skillful jokes i just love listening to girls talk and tell stories and jokes like wow im gay

also long curly hair? thats always a Solid Look

Do you love easily or does it take time for you to warm up to someone?

i mean. do we really wanna open this can of worms rn

too late, its open

i get those microcrushes where you like see a girl and youre like ‘WOW IM GAY DATE ME’ however once it comes to actually being in a relationship i throw my full weight behind it and worry that im being too suffocating or that im pushing my boundaries etc and ive been told that makes me come off really cold and uncaring so lol choose ur own adventure, you decide

Ever fallen for your best-friend?

unfortunately

Ever fallen for a straight girl?

can you even call yourself a lesbian if you havent

The L-Word: yes or no? (love it or hate it?)

i havent seen it, im such a fake lesbian

Favorite comfort food?

mac n cheese

or pizza

or cheesy potatos

OR CHEESY TOAST

scientific conclusion: im a fatass

Coffee or tea?

coffer

Vegetarian? Vegan? None of the above?

im vegetarian!! have been on and off for like two years now

Do you have any pets?

i have one pup sittin right next to me and shes the prettiest girl in the world

Early-riser or night-owl?

yes

idk i get up at like 9 which is early for me but not as early as like. 5. so

more like night-owl. thanks teenage hormones!

What is your sign?

pisces

Can you drive?

yes

can i drive well?

no

but i do have a sense of direction so thats cool

Who was your first lesbian crush?

tbh.................... my best friend, but i didnt realize it was a crush at the time

the first Gay Crush i had that i knew was a crush was on my close friend at the time, now my ex girlfriend

At what age did you know you were a lesbian?

uhhhhhhhhhh lesbian specifically, like 15-16. queer, i knew in like fall semester freshman year (so like 13??)

At what age did you come out (if you have)?

i mean, i come out to people all the time. first time i came out explicitly as a lesbian was when i was like 15 or 16 (actually i came out to a close straight friend and my ex and they both said ‘congrats’ like it was weird but very nice) and the first time i came out as queer/questioning was to my then-best friend at like 13 and i came out to my mom (involuntarily) at like 17? ish?

Are you crushing on anyone at the moment (celebrity or otherwise)?

yes im crushing on every girl simultaneously at all times

just kidding

(not really)

i dont really have any explicit crushes that i can think of im just really gay

Talk about how your day went

it was fine. got free froyo so that was cool. found out i made an A on my bio practical, so that was cool too. however, i wore a crop top and it was like 55 degrees out and raining so i looked like a total Idiot but yk follow ur slutty gay dreams amiright ladies

Talk about your dreams/aspirations for the future

most of mine are career-centric, but a few are personal.

i wanna go to costa rica in may, i wanna go to yale over the summer, i wanna go to NYC pride in june, i wanna go to spain after i graduate, i wanna go to grad school, i wanna be a psychological researcher, i wanna move to spain or england or hell even france, i wanna have my own farm with the woman i love, i wanna own an LGBT bookstore/library, i wanna just live a quiet life near the sea and not have to worry so much after a while.

Least favorite gay celebrity?

this is a weird one to end on, but iiiiiiim not sure i have one? i can tell you ellen page is probably my favorite, but i cant think of many i dislike so

[scifrey]

Get To Know The Writer

 Get to Know the Writer Tag

Rules (always post the rules): answer the questions given to you, write ten questions of your own, tag ten people.

@rosecorcoranwritessaid anyone who wants to do it can, and it looked interesting.

1.) Where did the title(s) of your latest project(s) come from?

 The titles for The Accidental Turn Series were sort of decided by a committee of my agent, my editor, my publisher and me. I’m rubbish at naming books, so through a series of emails a list of about a hundred throw-them-out-there titles were whittled down (mostly by Googling them and seeing if any other book had that title already) to a few themes. From there we narrowed down and named the first book (The Untold Tale, where I had been calling it That Feminist Meta Thingy), and then the other two books dominoed into place after that (The Forgotten Tale, and The Silenced Tale.)

These titles are because in book #1, the fantasy is being told from a side character who in fantasy-novel tropes is often overlooked. In book #2, other fantasy stories start vanishing, forgotten by the readers, and in book #3,someone is trying to silence the writer of these fantasy books forever.

 City By Night, one of my novellas, is also being reissued next month. Its original title was The Dark Side f the Glass, which was both an allusion to Alice Through The Looking Glass, as it’s about a woman who falls into a TV instead of through a mirror, and a tip of the head to the song of the same title from the soundtrack of one of the television shows the novella satirizes, Forever Knight. However, my agent thought the reference was too obscure, and after another big round of back-and-forth, it was decided to name the novella after the fake-TV show I made up for the story.

 The titles of the to books in The Skylark’s Saga (#1 The Skylark’s Song, and #2, The Skylark’s Sacrifice) are because I do love alliteration when I can get away with it! These are the only titles of the recent projects that I decided on my own and the rest of my team liked! Score!

2.) Do you have any rhyme or reason behind your character names?

Sometimes yes, sometimes no. For the Accidental Turn Series fantasy books, I stole a lot of street names or snipped letters out of traditionally “European” names, like Kintyre, Forsyth, and Bevel to make them look suitably fantasy-esque on the page. But when the characters come to the “real world” I made a point of surrounding them with characters who had distinctly non-white, no-European names like Ahbni, Ichiro, and Juan just to really emphasize how much more diverse the “real world” is over traditional fantasy. 

In Triptych, every friend who helped me with edits got a character named after them. And in The Skylark’s Saga I got a bit silly - the Sealies all have surnames inspired by pagan gods, the Saskwayins are colors, and the Klonn are plants.

3.) What is your writing routine, if any?

When possible, I like to write at night, in silence, and with only my desk lamp on.  I try to keep my desk area very tidy, too, with only notes about the project I’m immediately working on written on my whiteboard wall. I need the only mess to be what’s in my head.

I’m more of a pantser who has, by virtue of writing series, been forced to learn how to plan. But even then, my planning is pretty rudimentary. I often do this in a notebook on transit (I tend to come up with ideas when I’m in liminal spaces), and run that by my editor. If she approves the vague outline, then I often write whatever scene is foremost in my mind - whichever has really grabbed my imagination, and allows me to figure out who my characters are, what the voice is, who the narrators are.

From there I often write chapter one, and then usually skip straight to the climax of the book and write that. This way I know where I’m aiming before I properly knock the arrow. Even if the target eventually shifts, I still have a sense of its shape and location.

From there I tend to skip all over the narrative and write whatever arrests me or I have in the front of my mind. Once that’s done, I go back to the start and begin the process of filling in the gaps. If I get another idea, I’m always happy to jump ahead and do that.

Using Scrivener has made this process a thousand times easier than when I had to scroll-scroll-scroll through Word.

When I don’t have to go to my dayjob, I try to write about 4000 words per day. When I do, I am for 500-1669, which keeps me limber for NaNoWriMo.

4.) Where is the weirdest place you’ve ever written?

I actually wracked my brains on this one, and I was going t say something like “a 400 year old house on the top of a mountain in Japan” or “in the shadow of the Great Pyramids in Giza”, but honestly, the real answer is on my BlackBerry while high off my face on morphine in the emergency room. Apparently I wrote a GREAT short story, which I emailed to all my friends, and emailed them. Without telling anyone that I was in hospital with Organ Death ™. And without remembering at all that I’d done it.

5.) Do you prefer to write by hand or type?

Typing, hands down. I type way faster than I handwrite, and I get frustrated that my pen can’t keep up with my brain. If I get an idea when I’m away from the computer, I usually only jot down enough to remember the scene/idea/mood/exchange without writing it out. I despise having to do the work twice, and that’s what transcribing from paper to computer feels like.

6.) Ideally, where would you like to see your writing take you in five years?

I’d like to break this barrier there seems between me and the Big 5. My agent and I have been working at it, but there seems to be some strange gap. Lots of editors at the Big 5 like my work, but no one seems to want to sign it. I get compliments on my voice, on my word crafting, but no contracts. It’s so frustrating to be so close to the possibility of working with a team with more resources than I have so far. 

7.) Which character is most fun to write and why?

Now that Triptych is complete and being serialized on Wattpad, any opportunity to revisit Kalp is a delight. I love looking at the world through his eyes. Olly, from The Maddening Science was a lot of fun too, again because of the way I have to shove aside my own assumptions about how and why the world works and see it through the lens of his own intelligence and lived experience. And Bevel will never not be a hoot, because there’s something just so great about getting to be that crass, and to come up with dirty jokes that fit in a fantasy world.

8.) What advice would you give writers just starting out?

Read widely outside of the genre you want to write in. If you want to write fiction, read non-fic, pop sci, and academic papers. Read the news. Read blogs. Read things that are in your wheelhouse, but then randomly grab something from the library that looks cool. You never know where the next idea will come from. Let your imagination wander.

9.) Do you have any “writing heros”? (This could be published writers or non.)

Anyone giving it a go! It’ hard, and it’s disheartening when people don’t love something you’ve put so much work and heart into. It’’s easy to give up on. Don’t.

Otherwise, I love Dianne Wynne Jones’ blatant subversion of stereotypes and tropes, which has really informed my writing, an Jane Austen’s ability to create such diverse, thoughtful, and complex characters.

I also super appreciate fanfic writers, cause they do it out of sheer love, and work for years to hone their craft. Among my faves are @bendingsignpost @sheafrotherdon, and @madlori.

10.) Tell me about your work-in-progress.

 Oh lord, is this a can of worms you really want to open?

 The Silenced Tale & The Accidental Collection  - books #3 and #4 of The Accidental Turn Series  are done. They just need to be line-edited and then the editor can lock the manuscript and it’s out of my hands and into the typesetter/designer’s. (And then of course I need to ramp up to marketing machine.)

 Book #3 is the conclusion of a trilogy of books about a secondary character in  fantasy epic who becomes self-aware and slips the pages of his book.

 The Skylark’s Saga - The two books are written, but one of the relationships is changing dramatically and I need to go in and shift that. I have no idea how much writing/rewriting this is going to entail. However, I do know that I want to get it done by the end of the year. As soon as the manuscript for The Silenced Tale is locked, I’ll be moving onto this.

 This duology is a steampunk-adventure-romance book about a girl vigilante and her ornery rocketpack who gets trapped behind enemy lines after being shot down in a dogfight.

 The Austen Hollywood AU  - I’ve written the first book of the series, and my agent is shopping it now. It’s possible that it may only get signed as a one-book deal, but ideally I’ve developed it as a six-book series (one for each of Austen’s). At some point I’d like to write the first three chapters of the remaining five books, to demonstrate what the voice and tone of each is gong to be like. (Possibly for NaNoWriMo this year??)

 These books are modern adaptations of Austen’s work, but they will all intertwine as characters from different aspects of the entertainment industry cross paths, work together,  and as they do in the originals, find love and contentment.

 The Maddening Science  - at some point I’d like to develop my short story of the same name into a full-length novel, but it would take a lot of research on my part, and a lot of buy-in on a publisher’s. I’m not quite ready to tackle this one yet, though I have pitches and synopsizes and the like written.

Henrietta - This idea is relatively new idea, born from watching a documentary and then reading the non-fic biography that inspired it (see, reading outside your genre helps!), but I think I’d really like to take a swing a writing a historical romance based on the life of a certain historical mistress, something like The Other Boleyn Girl. It would take a massive amount of research as well, but I think would be really interesting and engaging. The woman’s life was fascinating.

The Neridis - I wrote this book about four years ago and it’s been trunked. I’d like to pull it back out and give it a spit-polish and a steam-up, then self publish it sometime next year under my erotica pseudonym. It’s a time-travel lesbian romance story that can easily be punched up into erotica.

And of course, there are three other books that are sort of hovering in the back of my mind, but I’m not ready to write them, or even really a pitch for them yet. The vampire one might be a screenplay instead, I’m not sure.

 Oh, and I am looking to place a script, too - I wrote it under spec for a company that later decided not to shift from distribution into development any more, so I’m not sure what do with 228 pages of cute lesbian comic-book creators falling love over lattes and superheroes. I keep thinking that it would make a great webcomic/graphic novel, but I have no idea how to find an artist willing to commit to like a 500-page graphic novel, and more importantly, find the money to pay them.

I tag whomever wants to jump in. No pressure.

[myhahnestopinion]

The Night SPAGHETTI-SCULPTING, BUG-BIRTHING FEMINISTS Came Home: SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT IV - INITIATION (1990)

We’re approximately halfway through this year’s journey through the weird world of horror, and I’d say that so far it’s going pretty well! I mean, yes, I have been introduced to some truly awful pieces of cinema, including a few that rank among the worst films I have ever seen in my life. I’ve encountered films with nonsensical endings, films with offensive endings, and films that forgot to write their ending altogether. I’ve met incestuous ghosts, comatose killers, and orphans who murder to receive toast from their monkey gods. It’s certainly been a weird journey so far, but, thankfully, unlike last year, I’m still holding on to my sanity! I think I might be able to go this whole month without completely losing my mind! I mean, I made it through the final installment of the Silent Night, Deadly Night trilogy! I can do anything!

…

…Are you kidding me…?

F–k.

That’s right. After the cinematic abomination that was its second entry, Silent Night, Deadly Night not only managed to make a third installment … they managed to make a fourth. Yes, like Santa Claus himself, it appears that this franchise can never die. And, while I thought they were really stretching to keep the series going when they used 40 minutes - FOURTY MINUTES - of clips for the second film, this film might be the worst attempt to capitalize on a brand name that I have ever seen.

Silent Night, Deadly Night IV: Initiation does not continue the tale of Billy and Ricky, Santa-suited slayers. Instead, it tells an original stand-alone tale. This movie clearly had larger ambitions that settling for being the direct-to-DVD fourth installment of an awful series, but ended up having to quickly slap on that jolly Christmas aesthetic in order to get anyone to actually watch this horrible trash. You all know I don’t say this lightly when I say that Initiation just might be the worst Silent Night, Deadly Night film yet.

The film begins harmlessly enough, which is to say that its cold open is merely confusing, and doesn’t make me want to surgically remove my brain so I can throw it against the wall repeatedly, like the rest of the film will. A homeless man digs through the trash, finding a burger. Lifting the bun to inspect it, he mutters, “No f*cking cheese.” I’m not fully convinced this man is a cheese aficionado though, because he does not get down on his hands and knees to see if someone accidentally dropped some cheese in the dirt. Nor does he then wash it off for you, wipe it off for you, clean that dirty cheese off for you, because you are his cheeseburger. No, he just eats it as is. To be fair, he is a bit distracted when he looks up just in time to see a woman’s legs spontaneously combust as she jumps off a nearby roof.

After this, we are introduced to our main characters, Kim Levitt and her boyfriend, Hank, both employees of the L.A. Eye newspaper. Kim is a woman who is prone to eating anything a stranger hands her, and to constantly believing she’s seeing the shapes of random faces in the world around her. Those two items may be related.

Kim and Hank are introduced to us naked, having sex, as a news report on a muted TV in the background covers the spontaneous combustion incident of the open scene. It’s almost as if the film is straight-up telling us that it’s plot is going to be meaningless backdrop for its gratuitous nudity, which is probably the deepest meaning I’ve ever been able to extract from one of these films.

Following their sex, Kim and Hank head to the offices of the L.A. Eye. Kim, editor of the classifieds section, desperately seeks to break through the glass ceiling and become a full-fledged reporter. Her boss Eli, however, denies her request to cover the spontaneous combustion story, solely because she is a woman.

Yes, that’s right. Silent Night, Deadly Night IV is all about feminism. It’s going to go about as well as you would expect.

Kim decides to forge ahead and investigate the story anyway, which takes her to a bookstore in the same building that the woman jumped off from. “This wouldn’t have anything to do with the woman who died?” bookstore owner Fima inquires, when Kim asks for a book on spontaneous combustion. Wow, with insightful questions like that, maybe Fima should be the journalist!  

Fima doesn’t give any information to Kim, but instead invites Kim to a party she is having with her friends. She also hands Kim an additional book entitled “The Spiral: Symbol of Woman’s Power.” Later, at her apartment, Kim discovers that her fresh bowl of spaghetti is sculpted into the shape of a spiral, because spaghetti is also part of Woman’s Power, I guess? Something about bending noodles, maybe?

In this bookstore, we are also introduced to Fima’s assistant, Ricky Caldwell. 

No relation. 

Yes, despite the fact that the film is presented as a completely standalone tale, it still includes a character with the same name as the killer from the past two entries. This decision is seemingly designed specifically to aggravate me. If I were to rank all the Ricky’s this franchise has given me in terms of how threatening they seem though, this balding, overweight Ricky Caldwell would rank 4th, after not just “Garbage Day” Ricky, and 8-year-old Ricky, but even Brain-Dead Ricky as well.

Just in case you were wondering what any of this has to do with Christmas, the film decides to throw in a scene where Kim visits Hank’s family to celebrate Christmas Eve. Tensions erupt though when Hank reveals that Kim is actually Jewish. When Kim tries to explain to Hank’s little brother, Lonnie, that Christmas and Hanukkah are just two equally valid ways people celebrate the year-end season, Hank’s father responds with a firm and appropriate “bullsh*t!”

Yes, do you see, readers?! I bet you thought the War On Christmas wasn’t a real thing, but there’s your proof! First they came for our department store greetings! Now, not even the Silent Night, Deadly Night franchise is free from having to acknowledge that there are other belief systems out there! Where will it end, I ask you? Where will it end?!

After she is haunted by more sculpted spaghetti (this time in the shape of a hand) and swarms of giant insects, Kim begins to get wrapped up in Fima’s group of empowered woman. They tell her all about how she should get equal respect at work, more satisfaction from having sex, and that she should worship the evil insect god Lilith who will destroy the plague of man. So, you know, the three basic tenets of feminism. (DISCLAIMER: Since satire is completely dead, I feel the need to inform you that feminism is not actually about sacrificing people to a demonic insect god. However, it is indeed about sculpting your bowl of spaghetti into odd shapes. That part’s accurate.)

Kim goes to visit Fima at her apartment, and Fima continues to try to seduce her, both into her cult and into her bed. Kim mentions that her boss ended up assigning her to work with Hank on the spontaneous combustion story. “You have to be careful what you want,” Fima responds, “because you might just get it.” Um, okay, well, I WANT to not have to watch the rest of this garbage movie!

Fima drugs Kim’s coffee in plain view of her, and Kim drinks it anyway, because, well, coffee is a drug already. Once drugged, Fima, Ricky, and her friends perform a ritual with Kim, which involves painting a spiral on her stomach, having her give birth to a giant worm creature through her mouth, and then cutting her bug baby open and bathing Kim in its guts. I mean, hey, it’s strange, but don’t we all have our own weird Christmas rituals? Some of us like to go caroling, some of us build people out of snow, and some of us bathe in the guts of our bug children! 

Oh wait! Kim’s Jewish, so that last one might actually be a Hanukkah thing.

After waking up from her drugged state, Kim escapes from Fima and returns to her apartment to find Hank there. She begins to behave erratically, swallowing tons of pills, and clogging her toilets. She then pushes Hank down on the bed, and starts making out with him. “I like to touch you while you’re sleeping,” she whispers to him. ...She likes to touch you while you’re awake? ...She knows if you’ve been bad or good, so be good for goodness’ sake? I guess I learned that song a bit differently from Kim.

While Kim and Hank start having sex, Ricky walks into the room, sits down on the end of the bed, and begins to watch TV. What does he watch? Why, none other than Silent Night, Deadly Night Part III: Better Watch Out!

Yes, within this film, Ricky Caldwell, who may or may not be the same Ricky Caldwell from Parts 1, 2, & 3, watches the prior entry of this franchise, while being within this franchise, which itself was a sequel to a film where Ricky Caldwell, who may or may not be the same Ricky Caldwell from Parts 1, 3, & 4, watches the first film from the franchise, within the sequel to that very movie. I am entirely certain that these movies hate me, and that my own personal hell will be trying to unstring the convoluted canon of this garbage franchise.

Ricky ends up attacking the two in the apartment, chasing them with a knife, and, by the sound of it, tickling Hank to death as he stabs him. Kim calls her co-worker Janice for help, but, when she arrives, Janice is revealed to be in cahoots with Fima and Ricky. Woah, who would have guessed that the underappreciated female receptionist, played by the underappreciated Allyce Beasley from Moonlighting, would be a feminist?

With Kim now in the hands of the Lilith worshippers, this movie starts to get really weird. Like, “suddenly shifting the franchise from a third-rate Halloween rip-off into a fifth-rate combination of Hellraiser, The Fly, and the later Saw films” kind of weird. Kim awakens in a meat locker, with Hank strung up on meat hooks nearby. Fima and the other woman enter, as well as Ricky, who is wearing a mask with a phallic-shaped nose. They cover Kim with more slime, while Ricky rapes her. After they leave, Kim watches her hands start to bend like rubber, and her legs melt together into a fish-like tail.

Hey, remember when this franchise was about orphans in Santa-suits who would kill people in Christmas themed ways?  

Just when I once again began to question how this film became an entry in the Silent Night, Deadly Night series, the film throws me another bone... in that there is a split second scene taking place at a Christmas party. After Kim is released from the meat locker, she finds Janice at the L.A. Eye Christmas party. Janice informs her that she has been “initiated,” and must now kidnap Hank’s younger brother to complete the ritual.

In the end, with her legs set to explode if she does not complete the ritual, Kim kidnaps Hank’s brother, Lonnie, and takes him to the bookstore rooftop, where the women and Ricky are waiting. When Kim hesitates in killing Lonnie, Fima remarks, “You made this decision when you came to me.” Fair warning readers, if you enter a used bookstore, you’re essentially signing a contract to sacrifice your boyfriend’s brother to an insect god. Or maybe it became an obligation because Kim is a woman, in which case Fima is definitely sending some mixed messages about this female empowerment thing.

The film’s finale is made up of the exact kind of bizarre, unexplained, and rushed moments that you would expect. When Kim refuses to go through with the ritual, Ricky suddenly becomes her ally, and is stabbed by Fima and eaten by bugs. Kim’s hands suddenly melt together and burst into flames, but she plunges her hands into Fima’s stomach, causing Fima to spontaneously combust. Kim and Lonnie then walk away free, with the other evil women doing nothing, because as all feminists know, when you kill the head woman, you inherit their role of leader of the gender. I think that’s in Chapter 4 of The Spiral: Symbol of Woman’s Power. As Kim and Lonnie walk away, there are some multi-colored lights in the background, just in case you were still wondering what any of this has to do with Christmas.

Silent Night, Deadly Night IV: Initiation may not be the worst film I have ever seen in my life, but it just may be the weirdest. I can’t think of another film I’ve seen where the end credits had to give a “Pasta by” credit to one of the crew members. Truly that spaghetti-sculpting was a very important element of this film though, as it introduced us to the larger world of feminism, which also includes a lot more spirals, human sacrifice, and baths in the gooey insides of one’s bug children than I was aware of. Beyond painting feminists as devil-worshipers who want to destroy all men, I’m not quite sure what the point of this film was. Obviously part of the point was to capitalize on the brand-name, as poisonous as the Silent Night, Deadly Night brand may be. It seems to me, though, that it would have been a lot simpler to just buy another Santa-suit and some corn-syrup blood, and give us all another helping of horrible Holiday horror. What do I know, though? I’m just a man, incapable of sculpting my spaghetti into even the most basic of shapes.

Silent Night, Deadly Night IV: Initiation is available on DVD.

NEXT: The Night AN OVERCOMPENSATING, KARAOKE ROCK-AND-ROLL STAR Came Home… 

[ablackbirdsinging]

Like Calls to Like: Chapter 3

Nina/Sturmhond, Grisha Trilogy/Six of Crows crossover! Nothing too scandalous here, but it will eventually get pretty mature/explicit.

Summary: Nina finds out more about the secret Sturmhond is keeping.

If you need to catch up: LCtL: Chapter 1 LCtL: Chapter 2

If you’d like read this over on AO3, click here!

@bharatanatyamandballet, @runesandfaes, @rowanismybae, here’s a new chapter for you! 

She looked Niko in the eyes and found the bright green clouded with shadow and shame and hunger and lust and exhaustion.

“What are you?” And under her hand, Niko shuddered

----

“I was attacked by the Darkling near the end of the war.” Nina removed the finger that was tracing his jaw, driving him crazy.

“And you lived?”

“Apparently,” Nikolai said with a dark laugh. “It seems that he left something behind, though.”

Realization crossed Nina’s features.

“His shadows?”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” he shrugged.

“Can I - can I look?” Her eyes darted to his chest. It seemed that she could sense that the darkness concentrated in his shoulders, his chest, his abdomen, down his thighs. His face and neck were clear, although he could sometimes feel the dark shadows like a wiggling worm under his hair or behind an ear.

He nodded his consent and lifted his still-gloved hands to his shirt buttons, but Nina brushed them to the side.

“I want to do it.” With trembling hands, she began to unbutton his shirt. One by one she went lower and lower until she had to pull his shirt out of his trousers to do the last three buttons. Her eyes went lower and lower as arousal curled in Nikolai’s belly.

“Eyes up here, Zenik.” A blush stained her cheeks.

“Sorry. Can I touch you again?” Nikolai knew somewhere in the less-lust-addled sections of his brain that she was looking at him as a science experiment, not someone she wanted to touch intimately, but still, her low, breathy voice had his cock twitching helplessly against his trousers.

She ran a finger down his chest, tracing a thick streak of the shadow writhing under his skin, and furrowed her brow, thinking. Every second of her touch was like fireworks going off in his body.

“Well, Captain Niko Sturmhond Pirate Boy Scourge of the Seas. Today is your lucky day.” He cocked his head, feeling confused. “These strands are death.” He recoiled.

“That doesn't sound very lucky.”

“Well, they aren't going to kill you. Probably. What's lucky for you, though, is that my powers no longer react strongly to living flesh. I can't manipulate the body the way I once could. But the dead,” She looked down and scratched a spot above her nose. “My powers still work for the dead. I think these strands of death under your skin will allow me to clear your mind a little, lower your blood pressure some. I don't know how long the effects will last, but hopefully you'll get enough relief for a couple nights of decent sleep.”

Nikolai loosed a deep breath. Could she tell just by looking at him that he could barely sleep? That when he did drift off he was plagued by nightmares?

“That would,” his voice was thick, “that would be enough.” She nodded.

“Let’s get to work, then.” Nikolai tried to sit as still as possible, but Nina’s hands working on his body tickled at best and felt like some sort of advanced torture device at worst. It didn't hurt, but it did take every ounce of his considerable willpower not to capture her face in his hands and kiss her breathless.

Her hands on either side of his face swept the cobwebs out of his mind. She pulled one flap of his unbuttoned shirt aside to slip a hand over his heart to relieve the tension in his chest and lungs. And then she helped him stretch out on his stomach on the leather couch, so she could rub her hands over his shoulders and work out the knots of shadowy stress there. As she worked, she spoke to him about what she was doing and things she had learned in her studies at the Little Palace. When her hands finally stilled, Nikolai was nearly asleep. His body hadn't felt this light in years.

“Do you need help getting to bed?” In some murky depths of his now-relaxed mind, Nikolai wondered if she was propositioning him, but she was still using her professional Heartrender voice. Whatever bit of flirtation they'd shown toward each other earlier in the night had slipped away. He shook his head groggily and staggered off toward his sleeping quarters.

----

Nina wondered if she should follow to make sure Niko would be ok, but she was just so damn tired from expending so much of her power. She had gone so long without using it at all, that she felt completely worn out. Rather than finding her way back to her room, Nina grabbed one of Niko’s cloaks hung over the desk chair to cover herself and promptly fell asleep on the couch.

----

Light starting filling the room entirely too early through the porthole somewhere beyond the couch where Nina slept. It took her a second to remember where she was and what she had learned about Niko the night before.

A man with death running through his veins. Nina’s whole body shuddered at the thought.

She pushed off the cloak that smelled of Niko and slipped her toes back into her flat leather shoes. She needed copious amounts of tea as quickly as it could be found.

When she threw open the door, though, she came face to face with Tolya standing like a soldier outside Niko’s room.

“Tolya, hi.” He didn't seem surprised to see her.

“Good morning, Nina.”

“Were you...standing here all night?” Tolya nodded.

“It was my turn on watch.”

“Sturmhond is that paranoid about his safety aboard his own ship?”

“Not really his call, from what I understand.” Nina didn't have any idea what Tolya was talking about. He was always so damn cryptic and it was still too early to puzzle out his meaning.

“He seems like a man who could handle his own sword, if it came to it.” Tolya quirked one eyebrow in a comical fashion.

“I think you'd know better than me, miss.” A hot blush lit up Nina’s face.

“Tolya are you making an inappropriate joke?” She exclaimed, looking scandalized. The big man laughed a silent laugh that shook his shoulders.

“You're lucky you caught this one. Tolya only makes an inappropriate joke about once a year,” Niko said dryly as he came into the antechamber. He was in the same unbuttoned shirt from last night, linen sleep pants, and his gloves. His hair was ruffled, his cheeks red, and for the first time since she met him, he looked well rested. And, he was barefoot. The sight of his toes peeking out from under his pajama pants had Nina swallowing hard and she could not stop watching him walk across the room. Her fingers twitched at her side and her blood hummed. Oh, how she wanted to touch him again.

Tolya, who could probably feel the racing cadence of Nina’s heart, looked between the two, muttered something about tea and lumbered off to fetch some.

Nina looked awkwardly around the room.

“Did you sleep well?”

“I can't remember the last time I slept like that.” He rolled his shoulders. “Everything feels lighter. Thank you, Nina. I can't tell you how much I appreciate what you did.”

“I'm really glad I could help. I've been feeling kind of useless with these changed powers and not really being able to pull my weight aboard the ship.” Niko sat at the small table in the corner of the room and gestured for Nina to join him.

“What are you talking about? Your lovely singing from the Crow’s Nest really motivates everyone. I've never seen my sailors scrub down the decks so quickly to hurry back to their chambers. It's a pity about all the blood leaking from their ears, though.” Nina laughed long and loud at that. She was well aware that singing was not her best attribute.  

Tolya gave a tentative knock at the door before pushing it open, hands full of a tray of tea and mugs and some kind of pastry.

“Please tell me Anton made scones?” Tolya nodded and set the tray down on the small table between Nina and Sturmhond, then hesitated. Nina smiled up at him. “You'd better sit down and grab a few before I eat the rest of this tray.”

A moment later, Tamar poked her head into the room.

“Nadia! They're having a party and didn't invite us!” And then Tamar was crossing the room, dragging her girlfriend by the hand. Tamar perched on a trunk beside the table and Nadia perched on Tamar’s knee, nibbling at a scone and looking back and forth between Nina and Sturmhond with an excited expression.

“You two have a nice night together?” Nina and Niko both choked on their tea.

“It wasn't - we weren't together - not like -,” Nina stammered.

“Nina slept on the couch,” Niko said, clarifying.

“Oh, very romantic, Captain. You couldn't even share your giant comfortable bed after?”

Everyone started chattering nervously at once.

“Nadia, you minx!”

“It wasn't like that!”

“Did Zoya and Genya give you lessons in gossiping like this?”

Nadia only laughed.

“If nothing happened, why are you staring at her with that loopy grin?”

Nina raised her eyebrows and shifted her foot under the table ever so slightly.

“Yes, Captain, why are you smiling like that?” She batted her eyelashes at him, baiting him. Niko winked at her one time as if to say he wouldn't back down, and her insides went molten.

“Well, if you must know, Nadia, I'm smiling like this because Zenik’s been rubbing her toes against my ankle for the last five minutes.”

She stomped hard on his toes.

“Is there no such thing as a secret on this damned ship?” She cried and the rest of the table answered with a resounding “no!”

The rest of breakfast was a flurry of innuendo and elbows around the too small table and the scent of tea and the clink of spoons on the side of mugs and the slide of butter over still warm scones and not at all secret loopy grins over everything and laughing. So much laughing. Nina’s heart gave a lurch. It wasn't Inej and Jesper and the Dregs, but it would do. Yes, it would certainly do.

[oselatra]

Barbershops, books and boogers

How an expat Hall High graduate is creating an early literacy movement back home.

Alvin Irby's big idea started with a haircut. As he sat in a barbershop across from P.S. 069 in the Bronx, N.Y., where he taught first grade from 2008 to 2010, one of his students walked in. "He sat down, and he was just sitting there," Irby said. Irby might not have even thought much about it, except that the student in question was his own, and one he knew would have been well served to spend that idle time with his head in a book. He remembers wishing he had a children's book to give him. And then it hit him. What if there was a bookshelf in the barbershop?

That epiphany turned into a plan: Barbershop Books. Using funds and resources from organizations like The Neubauer Family Foundation, Campaign for Black Male Achievement, the Citizens Committee for New York City and The Chasdrew Fund, Irby and his team launched the program at Denny Moe's Superstar Barber Shop in Manhattan, then Big Russ Barber Shop down the street, then Jesse's Barber Shop in the Bronx. Now there are more than a dozen barbershops with books in New York as well as others in Florida, Ohio, Washington, D.C., and Texas. The formula is simple: identify barbershops with the room, inclination and clientele to support a child-friendly reading space, and put in bookshelves. Barbershop Books has garnered praise from the likes of TV series "Reading Rainbow" and actors and rappers Ice Cube and Killer Mike.

Irby, a 2003 graduate of Little Rock Hall High School, began to get attention in local news stories earlier this year, when the National Book Foundation awarded him its Innovations in Reading Prize of $10,000. With help from former Hall and Grinnell College classmate state Rep. Charles Blake (D-Little Rock), Irby plans to direct those funds toward implementing the program in a growing number of locations — including 10 barbershops in Little Rock and North Little Rock.

One of them, Salon 11.13, sits at 3925 John Barrow Road, south of Interstate 630. Parkview Arts & Science Magnet High School and the Sidney S. McMath Library are on that stretch of roadway, but otherwise, it's dotted with a steadily alternating pattern of liquor stores and churches. The sign outside the salon is sleek, embossed with the slogan "Where YOUR hair is OUR business." There's an old-fashioned barbershop pole alongside those words, the kind with the candy cane stripes and the silver top. It's the lone symbol of barbershops past; all else is new and spotless, from the crisp landscaping to the mixed stone and brick exterior of the building. Inside, owner Lawrence Anderson — whose November birthday gives the shop its name — stood with clippers in hand, making his way up the back of client David Mobley's scalp, starting from the neck and working upward.

"I've been cutting Dave's hair about 10, 12 years," Anderson recalled. Somewhere in Anderson's memory bank, there's a list of clients and their tenures. He remembers how long they've been sitting in his chairs, and which ones have followed him from shop to shop. When you find a barber you trust, Mobley said, you stick with the routine.

"I do this every Thursday at 12. I used to do it twice a week —"

"Twice a month," Anderson corrected him.

"Twice a month," Mobley repeated. "And," gesturing to Anderson, "he would be like, 'You can't be going anywhere and not having your hair cut every week.' "

Anderson cuts in. "My motto is: You should never look like you just got a hair cut. You should never look like you need a hair cut. You should just always have a hair cut. If you look like you just had a hair cut, that means you waited too long before you got it."

Anderson, who's lived in Central Arkansas his whole life, spends much of his time outside the barbershop coaching sixth-grade basketball and fifth- and sixth-grade football at Episcopal Collegiate School.

Anderson gestured to a young man in the anteroom. "Just to mess with him, I'm gonna tell you that the kid sitting up there in front is one of the kids I used to try to beat," Anderson said. He described a reconnaissance mission he made to suss out the future opponent's tactics. The "kid" was Donavan Smith, 17. He's a student at Little Rock Christian Academy. He's large and athletic, and he'd been silent until now, affirming Anderson's version of the tale to me at intervals with one soft-spoken "yes, ma'am" after another.

Anderson's spying on Smith in middle school, the story goes, was intercepted by Smith's mother and grandmother who, Anderson said with a laugh, "tried to attack me 'cause I was scoutin' their team. They told me, 'You're not playing, so go ahead and get out.' That's how I got him as a client." Anderson came out unscathed, with another head of hair to trim.

***

Irby's resume boasts two master's degrees and a litany of titles like "Education Director, Boys Club of New York." He's had years of experience teaching in public, private and charter schools. His work encouraging people to read books, though, predates those credentials. When he ran for Student Council president of Hall High in his senior year, his platform was "It Takes 2," a reading program he designed after becoming disillusioned with the curriculum in his 10th-grade English class.

"After a semester," he said, "the only thing I'd learned was that my teacher thought O.J. was innocent." He was coasting, with a near-perfect grade in the class, but he was bored out of his mind. After that semester, Hall allowed him to transfer to a pre-AP class where he got his first taste of racial inequities in the public school system. "I just remember walking into the class," he said, "and the first question that popped into my mind was, 'Where did all these white people come from?' In my regular class, it was all black and Latino students."

He devoured "The Great Gatsby" and "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and, fueled by a growing disenchantment with the disparity in reading level expectations, conducted a survey of 200 of his classmates to gauge reading habits across the school. He met with the community-relations manager for the Little Rock Barnes & Noble, who offered him $810 in the form of in-store gift cards for his peers to use toward extra-curricular reading. One day, he recalled, he was waiting in line to buy candy after school when his principal appeared beside him and said, "You know, Alvin, you're gonna be a better principal than I ever was." He responded with a "Never."

"But you know, I went off to college," Irby said, "and I took one education course and I couldn't sleep at night. My brain wouldn't turn off. I'd think about all the things I would do if I had a classroom. And that's when I decided to stop running from what I think has been my calling all along, which is to help inspire people and children to fall in love with learning."

***

Even before the bookshelves have been installed at Salon 11.13, people in the community have already begun dropping off books of their own choosing; Anderson has short, tidy stacks of titles — among them, Margaret Musgrove's "Ashanti to Zulu: African Traditions" and Anna Kosof's biography of Jesse Jackson. As well intentioned as those donations are, Irby and Blake aren't likely to use those titles in this particular program. In fact, the list of approved titles for Barbershop Books is squarely focused on the program's targeted audience, kids ages 4 to 8: Dav Pilkey's "The Adventures of Captain Underpants," Ezra Jack Keats' "The Snowy Day," Sonia Sanders' "LEGO City: Calling All Cars!"

To better understand why Irby's vision doesn't call for reading spaces brimming with copies of the "March" trilogy or illustrated histories of, say, Frederick Douglass or Shirley Chisholm, it's helpful to note the subject matter of the book Irby authored himself: boogers. His debut, "Gross Greg," is a rhyming picture book about a boy who loves to eat his boogers, published last September with pop-off-the-page illustrations by Kelvin Ntukula. (Would that boogers glittered like green "Ghostbusters" slime in the real world!) On the cover, a boy in sun-and-moon pajamas holds his left index finger up, perfectly poised to transfer the gleaming green blob from his fingertip to his open mouth. Behind him, his sister — also in pajamas — points at him, horrified. The first few lines of "Gross Greg" read like this:

"Bam! Bam! Bam! Greg hears three loud knocks on his bedroom door.

Now Greg knows he can't sleep anymore.

'Out of bed!' says his mom with a shout.

We'll be late for school. There's no time to pout.'

'Ahhhhhhhhh.' With a loud yawn, he's up on his feet.

Greg's eyes are still sleepy, but he wants something to eat."

Reviews posted on Irby's website range from "My son can't put it down, and he's 23" to one from a New York City first-grade student identified as Nathaly, who said, "I enjoyed your story Gross Greg because it was very silly. Can you make more books like Gross Greg eats worms and Gross Greg eats his homework? You are ready to make more books," she declared. And, gratuitously outing her own "Greg," she added, "My brother eats his boogers."

Far too often, Irby said, "the children's books that feature black children often deal with these very serious topics — civil rights, for example. 'Gross Greg' is kind of my effort to combat that kind of oppression narrative that's so often the case when it comes to children's books that have black main characters. ... To me, creating 'Gross Greg' was about creating a character who depicts just being a kid, and this is something that really challenges a lot of adults and educators. ... There are books that will get kids excited about reading, but they may not be the books that you're currently using or that you might even consider using." What he's found from his travels to conferences and symposiums on early literacy around the country, he said, "is that a lot of adults are more concerned about what they like than what will inspire kids to fall in love with reading."

Irby could just as well add science to that, too. "Gross Greg" has a set of online games adjacent to the story, teaching kids how to read graphs ("How many kids think mustard-covered pancakes is the grossest thing?"), how to think about fractions ("Color in 1/4 boogers!") and how to tell time ("Show the time on the clock when Greg ate his boogers!")

It should be said that Irby probably thinks a lot about igniting a spark with audiences, and not just in the context of the classroom. He moonlights as a stand-up comic. On his "other" resume, the title of "comedian" is sandwiched between "educator" and "entrepreneur." Irby was a finalist in the 2015 StandUp NBC Competition, and spent time the following year giving performances at colleges in Pennsylvania and upstate New York. Most recently, he's recruited some of his comedy peers to perform for "Fresh Fade Comedy," a fundraiser for Barbershop Books.

"Gross Greg," for its author, is about giving kids room to be goofy. It's about "affirming the humanity of children," he said. "I know that might sound weird to think of a book about boogers affirming somebody's humanity. When you think about the media, though, and the way black boys are often depicted in public spaces, they often are not allowed to be children. They have the whole world on their shoulders," he said, "because everybody is looking at them expecting them to do this or do that. ... They're being suspended and expelled from preschools at disproportionately higher rates than their white counterparts. They're being shot down in the streets because somebody thinks that a 10-year-old is a 16-year-old, or an 18-year-old."

Over at Salon 11.13, Donavan rested his chin on his chest, allowing Anderson to clip, then brush the nape of his neck. "You remember earlier today when you called me and I wasn't here?" Anderson asked. I nodded. He gestured to Donavan. "I was helping him jump his car off because he didn't know how to do it." I asked Donavan why, faced with a dead battery on a hot day in late June, it was Anderson he called. "I knew he could fix something like that. And I trust him," he said.

***

Like the shop in the Bronx where Irby's Barbershop Books idea was born, New Tyler Barber College in North Little Rock sits across from an elementary school. It's a labyrinth of classrooms and workstations, and the walls are lined with visual aids that span disciplines: anatomy, geometry, health and hygiene, chemistry and conduct. Owner/operator and barber Ricky Bryant runs the place, and has since the '90s, when his father, Daniel, developed colon cancer. Bryant, who was working hair shows as a platform artist for the Andis clipper company in North Carolina, returned to Arkansas and stepped into the family business. He spent his childhood working with his father at Smith Barbershop on Washington Avenue in North Little Rock, "folding towels, linens, whatever needed to be done," he said, and at New Tyler after his father founded the school in 1979.

Bryant practically emanates pragmatism and discipline, so it didn't come as a shock when he said he starts his day at New Tyler at 6:45 a.m. "My dad always told me, 'If you get here early and the water line's busted, you might get it fixed before anyone walks in the door.' "

Like Anderson, Bryant didn't need a lot of convincing after hearing the pitch for Barbershop Books. "I remember the annual Barber Board meeting," he said. "Growing up, and being here since '79, I've had kids come in that know me, whose parents I've never seen. They walk to school, maybe come in here to buy a snack or come get a haircut by themselves." He recounted Irby's moment of inspiration, noting the spot in the school's reception area where the elementary students from across the street tend to sit and wait. "Most of the older kids have a phone," he said, "but the younger kids are just sitting there."

***

The next day at Salon 11.13, Charles Blake's two boys are huddled together in the anteroom. At first, they want the same book about the L.A. Lakers. That subsides. Maybe it was a little premature for them to pick up that particular one; at one point, it was being read upside down. Blake, who was there to get his hair cut, chimed in. "That's how you know it's that fake reading," he said. "When the book is upside down."

In 2010, a D.C.-based public school advocacy group called the Council of the Great City Schools released a report, "A Call For Change," based on 2009 statistics from the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Among other things, the study concluded that only around 12 percent of black fourth-grade boys were proficient in reading. Irby's team rallies behind a close inverse of that statistic, quoted on the Barbershop Books website: "85 percent of America's black male fourth-grade students are not proficient in reading."

When people hear that statistic, Irby said, "a lot of times there's blame on the kid. 'The kid needs to put down this, they need to do this.' What I like to ask people is, 'What cultural factors, what social cues are present in their lives that will lead them to conclude that reading is something they should do?' " Put simply, he said, if you want to get kids to read a book, read a book yourself. "If you don't have any men in your life who are modeling reading for you, if none of your friends are reading, if none of the books you like are being used for instructional purposes at school," he asked, "then why would you conclude that you are a reader?"

Barbershop Books aims, in Irby's words, to "help young black boys and other boys of color identify as readers by connecting books to a male-centered space and by involving men and boys in those early reading experiences."

The word "identity" rolls across Irby's tongue warmly, and often. It's one he sees as the core of this program and, more broadly, at the core of a successful education system. What's more, it's an approach he believes has the potential to bear more fruit than teaching methods that emphasize skills. "I really try to push people to, instead of focusing on skills — and the skills a child doesn't have ... to use an asset-based approach instead of a deficit-based approach," he said. "To ask, 'What are they interested in? What are the things that make them laugh? What are the things that are important to them?' Then, let's see if we can connect reading to those things." For many of the children Irby's taught, he said, "their first and early reading experiences in schools are them doing some sort of assessment where a teacher is telling them all the letters they don't know, all the letter sounds they don't know, all the words they don't know. What kind of effect do you think that will have on their reading identity?" The real mark of progress, Irby observed, is when kids read in situations where reading is not required. "A lot of kids — and I'm sure this is the case in Little Rock — as soon as the school day ends, as soon as the school year ends, they do not touch books," he said. "That has to do with identity, not reading skills. If a kid identifies as a reader, then they're a reader whether school is happening or not."

As of now, there are 59 barbershops listed on the nonprofit's website as part of the program, and that number doesn't include the 10 reading spaces slated for implementation in Central Arkansas, which also include the Goodfellas Barbershops on Asher Avenue, Main Street, Green Mountain Drive and Stagecoach Road; World Champion on Daisy L. Gatson Bates Drive; Skillz Barber Shop on 12th Street, Headz Up Barber Shop on Geyer Springs Road and The Hair Show on Kiehl Avenue in Sherwood. When making choices about additions to the program, Irby considers a few criteria. "We want barbershops who have at least 40 kids a month coming in. We also want to have the space to accommodate the bookshelves, and we want the barbershop owners or managers to support, to be willing to host it. That's pretty much it." Irby and Blake plan to schedule a session in mentorship training, likely at St. Mark Baptist Church, where both Blake and Lawrence attend services. "There are thousands of barbershops in black communities across the country," Irby said, "and there are also a number of barbershops that serve primarily Spanish-speaking clientele, who I think would absolutely benefit from the Barbershop Books program."

To recommend a book, volunteer to sponsor a reading space or find out more about the Barbershop Books program, visit barbershopbooks.org.

Barbershops, books and boogers