#ALSO on top of it I’ve gotten really into linguistics over the course of my undergrad and I know in the US there’s more flexibility to pivot

[akippie]

.

[absynthe--minded]

i’ve seen the headcanon that Valinor is home to dinosaurs and other weird prehistoric beasties (“all living things that are or have been”) - but of course the speaking inhabitants never got Latin, which we use to name our fossils, and they also get the privilege of seeing them alive instead of just reconstructing them - so what would they call these critters?

ooooooh

okay hands down this is the Best ask I’ve ever gotten in my life

so we use Latin to name everything, in the current global biology community, and there are a lot of reasons for that but the tl;dr is that Latin has been associated with scholarship for so long that it made sense + Latin is a language that isn’t exactly being spoken right now by anybody (it’s been a while since I read up on the history of Why Latin but this is like... 80% accurate?)

Latin is currently my nemesis in writing fic because a shitton of Latin-root words are just... common English words? and how do I, the writer of a story where the characters are not speaking a Romance/Romance-adjacent language, deal with that? so you’ve actually touched on something that fucks me up constantly with regard to my own work. HOWEVER. not what you asked about.

fair warning: it’s been forever since I was in bio undergrad so while I’m Scientifically Literate I can’t promise this will be coherent.

(I’m So Sorry Mobile Bloggers)

Naming dinosaurs is probably going to be something that’s done exclusively in Quenya and Telerin, with solely common names. I see no reason to assume that elves in Valinor would develop the detailed taxonomies and cladistics that we currently have - they obviously want to classify and name everything, but there are a couple of advantages that they have that we don’t - first, they don’t have to study evolutionary biology in the way that we do. the world is young and they’ve been there for quite a lot of it, and none of the animals in Arda or in Valinor evolved. they can watch species develop in real time and develop theories of evolution and natural selection based on record keeping over thousands of years. holy fuck. they’d also have accurate pre-mass-extinction records just based on their need to write everything down! damn! also if they have a question about a particular breed of animal, they can either talk to that animal a la Celegorm or go ask Oromë and his Maiar about it and get accurate, up-to-the-minute information. Second off, there’s not necessarily going to be the same pressure to differentiate between common names and scientific names, both because there’s not Latin-based classification to contend with and because elvish linguistic drift doesn’t really happen except in cases of geographic separation. elvish scientists can just learn Quenya. will there eventually be some kind of formal accepted naming system? possibly, but probably not unless someone artificially creates it, and that will only happen if people want it.

the other thing to consider is that dinosaur names now are based not just on who named them etc but on what we thought they were when we first found them (“terrible lizard,” after all) and elves aren’t gonna have that problem. they’ll see feathered theropods, and aquatic Spinosaurus, and sauropods that aren’t slow-moving swamp-dwellers. as a result, they’ll probably name them the same way they’d name any other animal - a description of what it looks like, or what it can do, or a poetic reference, or a comment on its behavior. I think it’s safe to say that the tradition of “you found it you name it” is maintained what with elvish focus on naming and the giving of names, but I think what we’d get at first is a lot of “well shit this sure is a thing, it’s taller than me and my cousin stacked on top of each other and it‘s got a long tail, let’s call it a Whiptail bc that’s what it reminds me of” or “oh neat you’ve got a thumbspike let’s call you Danger Hands”

probably they wouldn’t have a concept of dinosauria as a distinct family, even - without genetic testing, and without observed evolution to say “these species are related“? why wouldn’t you say that theropods and birds are just. the same thing. you’ve got your flying birds and your gliding birds and your friendly birds and your birds the size of bulldozers with teeth like shortswords. it’s covered in feathers and it moves like a bird. it’s a bird. so I don’t even know if they’d describe dinosaurs as a concept distinct from the rest of Animalia - an anklyosaur is really turtle-like, so let’s call it Giant Turtle, and if it’s not actually a turtle, well, the name sticks. you’d have all kinds of weird things like that, as a result of these people developing their science in real time vs us coming into an established discipline.

all this to say that Valinorean dinosaurs are probably given common names first, and that if there is a jargon developed specifically for science it’s almost certainly based around the use of those common names vs giving everything Latin names and common names both. a diplodicus and a sheep get the same treatment, and I think that’s wild.

[chocoholicannanymous]

If the Spit Hits the Fan (Glee) pt VIII

Follows pt I, pt II, pt III, pt IV, pt V, part VI. and pt VII.

Readjusting to life at Dalton is a lot easier than Kurt had feared. It helps that he isn't scared witless this time, of course. It also helps that Blaine isn't there to monopolize his time – which, in hindsight, had been the root of a lot of Kurt's isolation. Now he's got the Warblers for real, and Sebastian. He's also got a much better understanding of what it'll take to keep on top of academics, and how much he can allow himself to relax. He hadn't known that last time.

(There's a nagging thought that Blaine must have known, yet said nothing, that refuses to leave his brain. It's not a pleasant one.)

Another difference is that this time Kurt's not looking to return to McKinley. Last time he'd wasted valuable time and energy trying to come up with a way to return, and daydreaming about being back. This time's different. He chose Dalton this time, and he's staying no matter what.

Also, things being what they are he's not spending large chunks of his time with Mercedes and Rachel. From what Finn reports Rachel is furious – that Kurt's left, that he's not getting punished for the election and that he's left them another person down for Sectionals. Kurt's okay with that, seeing as she hadn't exactly been a great friend before he left. As for her rantings, well. If she spreads the cheating rumors too far Kurt'll deal with it – or his dad will – and the rest is easy to ignore.

He does miss Mercedes, but at the same time he's not willing to bend enough to fix things between them. Not this time.

She didn't believe in him.

It's that simple. He was on the verge of suspension, and Mercedes didn't believe in him. She wasn't even enough of a friend to pretend she did in public. Adding her behavior over Blaine's disappearance and West Side Story.... It's up to her to make the first move, and there's nothing guaranteeing their friendship can be salvaged in the end.

So instead of spending time and energy on the mess that is the New Directions – because even with the split that's who they are – Kurt throws himself into making the most of his time at Dalton.

“I'm sorry we can't give you a solo.”

Kurt stares at Sebastian. A solo? Where did that come from? Because honestly, Kurt hadn't expect one, nor had he entirely decided if he should audition for one or not.

“We talked about it and we all know you could use it, and none of us is applying to performing arts' schools. It's simply too close to Sectionals for us to rework our setlist. Not if we want to go on to Regionals. If we do though, then we've agreed that you get a solo.”

There's a hint of pink on Sebastian's cheeks, but Kurt doesn't have the energy to try and analyze that now. It's probably Sebastian's way of apologizing or something.

“Auditions?”

“Right. I guess that this is when I tell you that the Warblers have changed how things are run. Used to be someone auditioned, and then the council decided. Only everyone knew that auditions pretty much were a sham. David and Thad admitted as much themselves, once the others started pushing. After all, it is kind of hard to pretend auditions matter when the person ending up with all the solos never even participated in the auditions in the first place.”

Which... True. Kurt just never thought the Warblers would become aware enough to see that. Maybe it's a side-effect of Wes being gone. Him and his cursed gavel...

“So now the council is gone, and everyone gets a vote on solos. And this time everyone agreed that if we make it to Regionals it was only fair to offer you a spot.”

And well, that changes things. Hopefully.

“Well, it's much appreciated either way. It's a little too late to add a Regionals solo on my NYADA application but I should be able to add it to some of the others.”

Because he is applying to other schools, regardless of what he and Rachel agreed to. Only applying to one school? Insanity. Especially a school like NYADA, which accept only 60 students per year, and only 20 of them for the concentration Kurt (and Rachel) had applied for. What if they doesn't accept him, then what? Was he supposed to stay in Lima and reapply? Spend a year or several working at the garage or in some store while his meager CV became more and more dust-covered by the minute?

No. He's applying to every school in New York that'll suit him – and a few that won't – plus another couple elsewhere. He's even considering throwing in an application to Ohio State, since the campus in Columbus offers a couple of options when it comes to theater and music. Not that he wants to stay in Ohio, not really, but he'll go just about anywhere as long as it's not Lima.

“Well, dreaming about Regionals is all very nice, but we're not there yet. Also, there are other things to consider as well, like passing all my classes. You wouldn't be willing to lend me your notes for French for a night or two, would you? Oh, and I'm not sure I interpreted the third question for our advanced reading homework correctly, so do you think we could sit down and talk it over?”

It's easier to focus on schoolwork, on grammar and linguistics, than on the strangeness of Sebastian's actions. Much easier.

Sectionals comes and goes – and leaves a trophy behind. The Warblers celebrate, and Kurt with them. If his joy is also about the possibility of a solo... Well. Who can blame him?

That is, of course, if what Sebastian said still goes. There's no reason to think it shouldn't, not really, but Kurt remembers being burnt too well to not be cautious.

Regardless, they won't be competing against the New Directions at Regionals. The Troubletones had wiped the floor with their former teammates, and Kurt can't say he's surprised. Finn isn't either, even if it's obvious that he's unhappy about it. Oh, he tries to hide it, but. He's used to winning, loves it, and was already thinking about how to do better at Nationals than last years.

And now that's not going to happen.

“They deserved it, I don't care what anyone” read Rachel “thinks. I know how much they've been rehearsing.”

And the New Directions, true to form, hadn't. Or so Kurt supposes. After all, they hadn't had a setlist when he left, and Finn hasn't complained about suddenly ending up with a ton of extra rehearsals.

“Finn? I know they are good, but I also know you guys are. And it's okay if you're not happy about losing, even to them. It sucks to lose something you really want and losing to your friends doesn't make it easier. Not at first at least.”

“Experience talking, huh?”

“Mmmmmmm.”

Kurt still remembers how it'd hurt to lose to his friends, and not even going back to them had made it feel better. He'd gone to Nationals feeling that he didn't deserve it, and knowing that Mr Schue thought the same.

“You know what really sucks about all of this? We had a suggestion for a setlist that would have given us the win. Michael Jackson songs, solos for everyone... I think it would have been awesome.”

“Let me guess, Rachel flipped.”

It's not even a question, because obviously she would have. Allowing everyone solos? No matter how small, that would have meant less time in the spotlight for her. Just as it wouldn't have mattered how great the suggested songs were, because Michael Jackson isn't something Rachel would be able to do well.

And of course Mr Schue would have folded faster than wet cardboard once she started complaining, neither of them caring that by catering to Rachel's demands they weakened the group.

“Oh yeah. And now she's on a 'woe is me because NYADA' tear, and it's driving me insane. Well, everyone. I'm pretty sure Tina's on the verge of punching her. Plus, she... Anyway, Glee sucks now.”

“She's blaming me, isn't she? For leaving, and for supposedly making Blaine leave.”

It makes sense, in a totally-not-unless-you're-Rachel-Berry way, and it's nothing less than Kurt's been expecting if he's honest. Because there's no way Rachel would ever lose gracefully, just as there's no way she'd accept the rightful blame for having messed up.

“You guessed that, huh? Yeah, sorry. I don't know what's gotten into her, I swear.”

“She's being the worst version of herself. I knew I made myself a target by leaving, I just didn't care. Then again I already was one, so I guess that's 'bigger' target. And I can't imagine she took it any better knowing that the Warblers won our Sectionals.”

Kurt can practically hear Finn wince over the phone, which is never an encouraging thing – and yet, much too frequent with Rachel Berry in the picture.

“I...might have told her that I wouldn't talk to her about it, and walked out the door when she did it anyway?”

Kurt removes the phone from his ear, stares at it, shakes it to see if anything is broken inside, stares at it again and then replaces it.

“I'm sorry, you what? Are you telling me you finally located your balls when it comes to a girl?”

And then it's Kurt's time to audibly wince, because while true that's also extremely rude – and crude – and Finn doesn't deserve it. Not even though it's true.

“I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that.”

“Nah, it's nothing I don't deserve. I just, I've had it okay? I love Rachel, I do, but sometimes I'm not so sure I like her. And the past few weeks have been worse than usual. When we got back together it was supposed to be for this year, since she's going to New York after graduation. Which I figured I could get around, you know? Part of me wants to ask her to marry me and commit to going to New York with her. Another part figured it'll never work since she can't respect anything or anyone outside of herself and her dreams.

“She only changed her mind about sex because Artie told her she wasn't credible onstage otherwise, and she didn't even tell me at first. Then she's been an absolute bitch about everything with you. So let's say I change her mind and we get married. What else will she do?

“I'm not sure about being with her at all anymore, and it's not breaking my heart like it should.”

Hearing that? Kind of breaks Kurt's heart though. Once upon a time he'd have been ecstatic to hear something like this from Finn. Now he's grown beyond that, and all he wants for Finn is happiness. (That he's not sure Rachel can provide that isn't really the point. Up until now Finn has believed it, and that's the only thing that matters.)

“I'm sorry. Do you... I'll be home Friday evening. Want me to bring some cookies and watch a movie, or do you have plans?”

“Peanut butter chocolate chips? Plus, Captain America comes out on DVD this week, and I know you like Chris Evans.”

“I really really do.”

They both laugh, and if Finn's is a bit strained neither of them are going to admit it. What's important here is that regardless of everything they've got each other.

[keepcalmandstudy]

My Oxford Finals Papers

Hello! Here’s a much requested run-down of the papers I took for my finals! There are 2 streams you can choose between after your first year of Oxford English - Course 1 and Course 2. I went for Course 2 - chosen far less than Course 1 but I found it to be incredibly rewarding! 

Paper 1 - Literature in English, 650-1100 (Old English)

- Exam in Trinity Term (3rd and final term), 3rd year, 3 essays in 3 hours

- College taught in Michaelmas Term (1st term) of 2nd year and then revisited for revision 

- Focus: Cynewulf's runic signatures concluding his female saints' lives (Juliana and Elene), Ælfric's Catholic Homilies (particular focus on his life of Cuthbert), Old English metrical charms (particularly those found in the margins of MS CCCC 41)

- I LOVE OLD ENGLISH!!!! That is all I have to say about this one, I looooove it

Paper 2 - Medieval English and Related Literatures, 1066-1550 (Romance)

- Exam in Trinity Term, 3rd year, 2 essays in 3 hours

- Faculty taught in Hilary term (2nd term), 2nd year, and then revisited for revision 

- Focus: Magic and the supernatural in the First Branch of the Mabinogi (medieval welsh), Marie de France's Lais (particularly Lanval and Milun; medieval French) and Walter Map's King Herla (Latin); The flexibility of the Middle English Sir Gowther in its varying manuscript contexts

- This paper was a challenge because it’s completely unlike anything I’ve done before. Because it was 2 essays in 3 hours (rather than the usual 3), topics had to be much broader and explored in greater depth. You’re also handling different languages too (although you can work with them in translation, but that does make the way you approach analysis different to the way it would be approached if you’re working with the original) and it’s a genre (rather than time period) paper. This is one of the reasons that I really liked Course 2 - while with Course 1 all the papers are time period ones, Course 2 spices things up a bit and I think that enables you to develop a broader skillset.

Paper 3 - Literature in English, 1350-1550 (Middle English)

- Exam in Trinity Term, 3rd year, 2 essays and 1 commentary in 3 hours

- College taught in Michaelmas and Hilary Term, 2nd year and then revisited for revision

- Focus: Authority and translation in Robert Henryson's Morall Fabillis, Gavin Douglas' Eneados and David Lindsay's 'The Testament and Complaynt of Our Soverane Lordis Papyngo'; Affective piety in Middle English Marian lyrics and related material culture; Set commentary passage from Chaucer's ‘Troilus and Criseyde’

- The topics I explored for this paper were really interesting - I thoroughly enjoyed it. I messed up my timing in the exam but hey ho, these things happen! 

Paper 4 - The History of the English Language to c1800

- Coursework, submitted Trinity Term, 2nd year

- An essay and a commentary, both 2000-2500

- Formatted like a 'take-home exam' - questions are released and you choose 2 and have about 2.5 weeks to write and submit

- Faculty taught in Hilary and Trinity Term, 2nd year

- Chosen Questions:

Essay - In historical research, there are no 'bad documents' (HIPPOLYTE TAINE). Discuss.

Commentary - 'Nothing reveals the deficiencies of a language more surely than translating into it' (CHRISTIAN KAY). Provide a close analysis of the language of TWO texts which seem to you to reveal or contest that claim.

- Similar to the Romance paper, this one was unlike anything I’ve done before! It was a bloody challenge at first because of it being such an enormous leap up, especially having never done any linguistics before. In the end though, I loved it and I explored some really interesting topics!

Paper 5 - The Material Text

- Coursework, submitted Hilary Term, 3rd year

- A commentary and an essay, both 2000-2500 words

- Formatted in the same way as the English Language paper, but they're considering changing this to be more like your standard coursework

- Faculty taught in Trinity Term, 2nd year, and Michaelmas Term, 3rd year

- Chosen commentary folio:

- Chosen essay question: 'The introduction of error into the transmitted text is often regarded as a random and unpredictable phenomenon related to human frailty' (L. NEIDORF). What other alternatives are there? Give specific examples.

- I loved this paper (are you spotting a pattern here? haha) - getting to see so many real manuscripts up close was fascinating and I feel so lucky to have gotten to see some of the collection in Oxford! Perhaps controversially I chose this option over Shakespeare (!) but I’m so glad I did. I figured I could go back to Shakespeare at any time during my life, but seeing these manuscripts was a one-time opportunity.

Paper 6 - Special Options: Writing Lives

- Coursework, submitted Michaelmas Term, 3rd year

- A 6000 word essay

- Taught by 2 tutors running this specific option (there were a bunch of options released and you had to submit your top 5 - you’d then hopefully be given your 1st choice)

- Focus: The extent to which a writer's temporal moment affects the way they approach writing about mental health. Helen Macdonald's H is for Hawk; Thomas Hoccleve's Complaint and Dialogue

- Ironically, my own mental health went a bit haywire during the term in which I took this paper which was a shame, but hey ho, ya win some ya lose some, and I really enjoyed the texts we got to read for it. I kind of wish I’d chosen a more medieval option but I did manage to incorporate some medieval stuff in there with Hoccleve. The teaching and submission all being in 1 term is a bit ridiculous in my opinion too.

Paper 7 - Dissertation

- Coursework, submitted Hilary Term, 3rd year

- An 8000 word essay

- Undertaken from the end of 2nd year

- Abstract: 'For my dissertation, I will be examining twelfth-century texts (such as Instructions for Christians and the First Worcester Fragment) that speak back to those from the Anglo-Saxon past, considering inheritance from the poetic and homiletic traditions. Building on and developing from the work of Hugh Magennis, I will look at the way light imagery in such late Old English and Post-Conquest texts functions both literally and metaphorically, and how these two functions intersect. I will also consider how such texts engage in dialogue with material culture, examining artefacts such as The Gloucester Candlestick.'

- It was cool being able to research my own topic and produce something from that research. My supervisor was amazing too!

Overall, I really enjoyed the course. My tutoring, especially from my Balliol tutor, was outstanding - she really did go above and beyond for me. I didn't enjoy the writing of the longer pieces so much but I did enjoy the texts I looked at and it's definitely worthwhile to develop the skill of writing longer pieces I think. I loved the rest of my papers, especially Old English! On the whole it was a great course!

If you have any questions about any of this, feel free to ask!

[aviewfromthepanopticon]

The Sleeping Blood

Big Finish’s summary: When the Doctor falls ill, Susan is forced to leave the safety of the TARDIS behind. Exploring a disused research centre in search of medical supplies, she becomes embroiled in the deadly plans of a terrorist holding an entire world to ransom – and the soldier sent to stop him. Written by: Martin Day Directed by: Lisa Bowerman Release Date: June 3rd, 2015 Series: The Companion Chronicles: The First Doctor Volume 1, Story 1 Cast: Carole Ann Ford (Susan), Darren Strange (Gomery/Kendrick)

I really enjoyed this story, and felt it was a wonderful tale about pretty early on in the Doctor and Susan’s travels, where the evolution of both the Doctor and Susan’s views on what it means to interact with other cultures is explored beautifully. I also adore that the end Susan decides that the rich keeping medical care for only rich people is an evil that is deserving of response.

There is also a lot of interesting commentary in this story about how technology Susan has mastered and thinks of as nothing more than a simple concept she was playing with as an infant, is in fact regarded as super extra advanced tech to the rest of the universe. In this case, the tech Susan dismisses as a baby toy are medical nanomachines.

I am generally interested in any story that grapples with what it means that Susan is a Gallifrayen. Plus Companion Chronicle style stories, which are told from a the first person perspective and only feature the narrator and one other speaking voice, are a great medium to tell stories that explore Susan’s experience as a young Gallifreyan who ran away from home before she became a Time Lord.

I also felt it was so very on brand that it wasn’t until one of them got sick that either Susan or the Doctor thought to check the TARDIS’ sick bay for medical supplies. When they did check, they found that the TARDIS they stole didn’t have anything in stock since it was, you know, going to be decommissioned.

Simply the plot of this story is that the Doctor got a nasty cut on a planet he and Susan were exploring together. About a week later they discover the wound had gotten infected and the TARDIS didn’t have any medical supplies in stock. Susan decides to search the next place the TARDIS lands for medical supplies, and then steal them. Complications arise, Susan witnesses a political conflict on the planet, and she comes away questioning if perhaps she and her grandfather should start getting involved with the affairs of the planets they are visiting.

This story very much gave me the sense that the TARDIS was already, at such an early stage, helpfully taking the Doctor where he needed to go. After all, their first landing place after Susan resolves to steal medical supplies is an abandoned medical research facility that was built by people advanced enough to use nanomachines for medical purposes (The TARDIS, with her still fully functioning Chameleon Circuit, disguised herself as a metal medical cabinet upon landing there)!

As for getting involved, well... Susan learns from the planet’s records that the bacteria has all evolved into super bacteria, and there are no longer any antibiotics that have even the slightest effect on any sort of bacterial infection on the planet. As she searches for supplies to help her grandfather, Susan discovers she is not alone. There is a unit of soldiers in the medical facility with her. The soldiers explain that a terrorist - the Butcher - is hiding in the research center. This terrorist is a hacker who has discovered a way to control the medical nanomachines, and he is threatening to turn them against the people who have had them injected.

Susan really wants to get back to her grandfather with the medical supplies she collected, but the soldiers will not let her leave, and they make her go with them - at gunpoint - as they hunt ever closer to the hacker. One of the soldiers dies as their group makes their way through the medical facility, murdered by the Butcher’s manipulation of the technology they depend on.

When they encounter the hacker, he shuts down all the electronics the soldiers have. As most of them are inside metal skeleton suits, they are unable to move.

The hacker starts trying to explain himself, and says he is about to broadcast a video to all the media networks and they should see it too. He also insists that Susan should call him by his name - Gomery - rather than call him the Butcher

Before he can transmit the video, one of the soldiers - Kendrick - gets free of his skeleton suit, and shoots Gomery in the head with an old fashioned gun.

Susan is really really really REALLY not ok with watching a man be shot like that in front of her, while he was talking to her at that, and even as the soldiers keep their promise and return her to the TARDIS, all she can think about is the trauma of watching Kendrick kill Gomery. In addition to the trauma of seeing someone die like that, Susan is worried she got too involved in an other planet’s affairs, and that thought terrifies her, because she knows getting involved in any way is very much against all of Gallifrey’s laws.

This story’s many strengths all are most evident in its end, the final few moments are truly exceptional Doctor Who writing, and paint an incredible portrait of the Doctor and Susan in their awkward in between stage, before Shoreditch, before Ian and Barbara, before that first trip to Skaro, before all of it.

I’ve transcribed it below, because I just really and deeply love the end of this story:

SUSAN: I began using the equipment and drugs I had taken from the research center to start Grandfather’s treatment. Over the course of just a few hours, I saw him begin to recover. He began to talk more coherently and his coughing eased. Color returned to his cheeks. Though he did little but sleep, waking occasionally to cast a proprietorial eye over the TARDIS controls and issue a few clipped instructions. Finally he allowed me to change the dressing on his hand, and I saw that the wound was much improved. As I pulled a blanket up under Grandfather’s chin, I felt something nudge against my foot. It was one of the security robots! Somehow it had followed me onto the ship! I reached down, tentatively, not sure if I should try to pick it up or if I should bat it away with my foot. “Now, you’re not going to hurt me again, are you?” Much to my surprise, it started to play a message! I wondered if this was some of what Gomery, the Butcher, had prepared for the people of Roah! I wondered if perhaps I was the only person ever to hear it. GOMERY: I am truly sorry for each and every death I have caused. It gives me little satisfaction, but I am sure each one was a necessary evil. Who am I to decide who lives and dies? The point is, I’m doing all this precisely because other people are playing god. The truth that has been hidden in plain sight is that our medical advances aren’t for everyone. Our research programs, the drugs we are developing that would have been unimaginable only a generation ago, these only exist to benefit the rich and influential. The top strata of society. Who’s at the top? You may ask. If you’re rich enough to hear my message, you’ve probably answered your own question. We tell ourselves the medicine benefits everyone. Assume every citizen has access to these treatments, but there are millions who cannot afford our nanomachinery.  Millions who have never seen a doctor, not because they don’t need to, but because they can’t pay. They’re in our shantytowns and our slums, but they also serve us in our restaurants and maintain our vehicles. They may even be our neighbors. You see, medical nanomachinery is expensive. Governments and charities can barely afford to invest in it. The major backers are pharmaceutical companies, and they’re only interest is profit. But it is my firm belief, a belief I am prepared to die for or to kill for, that these advances should be for the good of all on Roah. Not the few who can afford it! Though my name is Gomery, you’ve heard me called “Butcher,” a silly nickname I’ve adopted to express my disgust at the way things are, now turned against me. But I didn’t always see the world this way. You won’t have been told, but for many years I worked as a government research scientist. I was in charge of a project that would have allowed the authorities to remotely control the world’s biological technology. Though intended for use only in emergencies, such as civil unrest. It should be obvious to all that this is just another means of control. And so I resigned, sabotaging my research so it would appear the scheme could never work. To my delight, the research center was closed. And then, over the next few years, I began to wonder if I could use my old research to make our world’s leaders listen! To force them to share the benefits of official medical technology rather than keep it for themselves. SUSAN: I found myself replaying the message, again and again. I couldn’t forget the look on the woman’s face, when Gomery had, what was the phrase he’d used? “Switched her off,” to make a point. A terrible end to a life. But neither could I forget Kendrick’s cold blooded execution. Which man most deserved to be called butcher? I wondered if there was a version of Ling embedded within the tiny polyhedral robot, and to my delight… LING: Hello, unknown user! I am Linguistic Interface II! You may call me Ling! How may I be of assistance today? SUSAN: While grandfather slept, I asked Ling about the man called “Gomery” and the planet Roah. I’m not sure why I did. Perhaps it stopped me thinking about grandfather’s illness and how close we’d come to disaster. Perhaps I just had too many questions in my head. And not nearly enough answers. I discovered an excerpt from an even longer recording! It was hard to tell if it had been kept by Gomery himself, or if it had been acquired by the internal security services. It was labeled as a conversation between Gomery and his grandmother, and looking at the chronology it seemed to be this encounter that had changed Gomery. That had forced him to reexamine his life and to start again. To begin on the path, if Kendrick was to be believed, that led inexorably to the killing of many innocent people. That led to an unremarkable man becoming the Butcher.   GOMERY: I can steal some tech from work! I can find a way! GRANDMOTHER: And what if you’re found out? No. I won’t have that on my conscious. GOMERY: Then let me pay for treatment. GRANDMOTHER: I’m not like this because I’m poor! I’m like this because it’s time to go! GOMERY: But there must be something else we can try! GRANDMOTHER: All things that have a beginning have an end. That’s what my mother used to say. Perhaps one day, you’ll understand. SUSAN: Suddenly there was another voice in the TARDIS. “What’s the matter my child?” Grandfather, though still slightly feverish, was awake again and regarding me with some concern. I realized that I was crying, and turned my face away from him. I tried to hide the truth from him, but he could tell that something was troubling me. So I told him everything that had happened. And of course Grandfather, being Grandfather, didn’t quite see the problem. “As far as I can tell, you used your intelligence to find the drugs I needed. You have saved my life. What’s so wrong with that? Hmmmm? Hmm?” But I knew that I had intervened quite decisively in the affairs of others. Perhaps, if Gomery’s plan had succeeded, millions of people on the colony world of Roah would now have access to life saving medicines. Grandfather was keen to remind me that I had been forced to help Kendrick at gunpoint, and that Gomery was a terrorist. That the ends so rarely justify the means. But I was still troubled.   “You have to make a stand! That’s what you always used to say at home! What’s changed?” Grandfather tried to explain that it was really very simple. What had changed was that we had started to see other worlds. Other cultures at first hand. And that he had come to understand that we must not interfere. That to interfere would make us little better than this terrorist trying to manipulate events with no real knowledge of how things might turn out. And then Grandfather sighed. “Of course, if we are forced to act...” his words trailed away. “There are never any black and white answers.” I pondered Grandfather’s words for a few moments. “But that doesn’t mean we stop asking the questions, surely!” But Grandfather then claimed he was tired, and that he didn’t really understand what I was driving at, and anyway, it was time he was back in charge of his ship. New worlds, new times, new adventures. All this awaited us. But, I couldn’t help but notice, Grandfather looking increasingly thoughtful as he watched the rise and fall of the rotar, as we continued our journey through space and time.

[consilium-games]

A Rambling and Brain-Fried Post on Hermeneutics

It's a godless and blighted hour (11AM) as I write this, and scheduling heartache has left me swirly-eyed and sleep-deprived. Lately I've absorbed a pretty specific combination of media that's led me to think dazedly about hermeneutics, basically "systems of interpretation of a work of media" such as stories. And in light of my past couple games, and a game whose premise I haven't finished chewing on, I think getting some thoughts down (and maybe even some discussion?!) might help someone. I don't know, maybe me?

Inciting Events

By now anyone reading this has heard of Undertale. Spoilers happen here. The creator of Undertale recently released a . . . possibly-related videogame called Deltarune. I say possibly related with good reason, and I don't intend to directly spoil the game as it just came out, but it gave me interesting questions about narrative interpretation--hermeneutics--more generally. I also will probably talk a bit about Doki Doki Literature Club! which you might not have encountered or played. Some high-level spoilers will occur. This post will contain zero 'fan theories', as that has nothing to do with my game-design beat--rather, academic theories on "how do people approach interpreting stories" has a lot to do with my pretentious narrativist game-design ethos!

Also of note, I've watched a playthrough of a videogame called Witch's House, and without spoiling that, it struck me that one of the puzzles will behave drastically differently, depending on whether the player reads one of the ubiquitous hints. Meaning, not only do the hints constitute a mechanic, but discerning how to trust hints becomes a game objective. And further, since "reading a hint" is an in-game action, but recalling a hint is not, the game may behave unpredictably to the player who reads a hint, doesn't save, dies, and reloads--and doesn't read the hint again.

Lastly, I've revisited some analyses of Don't Hug Me I'm Scared, and it put me in mind of discussions about This House Has People In It and The Cry of Mann, and in particular: discussions about those discussions, arguments about how presenting interpretations can color people's formed interpretations. And last warning, I'm still pretty brain-fried, I'll blame that if I end up rambling incoherently.

Setting Out

There's a lot of literature about literature, and literature about literature about literature. Perhaps some day people will spill ink about ink than anything else. Fortunately, we haven't yet entered a boundless singularity of self-referentiality. So I can afford to stake out a couple terms I expect I'll mutter:

hermeneutic: a specific approach, strategy, or philosophy to understanding a work. This can be totally informal ("Christian songs are easy to write, just take a pop song and replace 'baby' with 'Jesus'") or very rigorous ("Derrida's analysis of identity puts it to blame for religious and nationalist fanaticism"), but just treat it as technical shorthand for "approach to understanding a thing".

auteur theory: mostly used in film analysis, in our backyard it means "the author of a work arbitrates its meaning". So, eg Stephen King can definitively and canonically say "Leland Gaunt is an extradimensional alien, not Satan, the Adversary and the Prince of Darkness, from orthodox Christianity". And if King says this, that makes it true and the audience should understand Needful Things in light of this fact King told us with his mouth but not with his story.

Death of the Author: by contrast, 'Death of the Author' means that once a work has an audience (the creator published it, or put it on Steam, or hit Send on Twitter, or just played a song on their porch), the audience has liberty to interpret it however they please, and the creator's word about What It Means has no more weight than the audience. Which would mean that if King tells us Leland Gaunt is an alien, and Needful Things is closer to Lovecraft than King James, that's cool--it's a neat theory, Steve, but I think it's about . . . (Note: I don't know if King has made this claim, but Needful Things does have a few weird neat textual indications that Gaunt is some kind of Cthulhu and not the Lightbringer.)

code-switching: technically from linguistics, borrowed into social sciences, in this post it means a creator of a work putting something into the work that implicitly or explicitly prompts the audience to consciously alter or monitor their interpretation. As a very simple example, suppose someone says with a straight face and deadpan delivery, "I'm a law-abiding citizen who supports truth, justice, and The American Way." Now, suppose they make air-quotes around 'law-abiding'--it rather changes the meaning, by prompting the audience to reinterpret the literal wording.

Okay, I . . . think that'll do. So hi, I'm consilium, and as a goth game designer it should come as no surprise that I like my authors with some degree of living-impairment. Interpreting a text has an element of creativity to it that the creator simply can't contribute on the audience's behalf. More than that though, there just seems something off about the idea that, say, a reader of Needful Things might read about Sheriff Alan Pangborn, and interpret the specific way he defeats Leland Gaunt as allegorical of how cultivating creativity, community, and empathy can help prevent the dehumanization of consumerism and capitalism--only for King to say "no, Alan was just a parallel-universe avatar of the Gunslinger and thus could defeat Gaunt, who was just an extradimensional eldritch predator". If King were to say such a thing after audiences have gotten to know and love Alan on the terms presented in the text, and King were to come back with "maybe that's what I said but that's not what I meant"--my response would have to be a cordial "interesting theory, but it doesn't seem supported by the text".

So, I generally like Death of the Author! But . . . but. I've taken to gnawing on this idea in this game-design blog because--of course--It's More Complicated Than That. Roleplaying games as a medium work about as differently from other media as, say, sculpture and songwriting. And despite essentially just putting bells and whistles and protocol on top of possibly the oldest human artistic medium--storytelling--RPGs have a lot of weirdness they introduce for analysis and critique.

For example, my reservations on Death of the Author! Specifically: taking "in-character, in-game events and narration" as the work of interest, and "the other players at the table" as the audience, what happens when you describe your character Doing Something Cool--based on a mistake? We need a teeny bit of "creator as arbitrator of meaning", so we can at least say, literally, "oh, no, that's not what I meant"! Otherwise, the other players' "freedom of interpretation" leads to your character doing something nonsensical and now they have to have their characters respond--they have a worse work to create within.

This gets at something pretty foundational in treating RPG stories as art: almost any other medium has a creator create a work as a finished thing, and only then does an audience ever interpret it. Whether plural creators collaborate or not, whether the work exists as apocryphal oral tradition and mutates through telling, whether some audience members take it up as their own with flourishes (such as with a joke), there still exists this two-stage process of "author creates" and then "audience interprets". Except in stories within roleplaying games as generally practiced.

In RPGs, the creators almost always constitute the entire audience (I'll ignore things like "RPG podcasts" and novelizations of someone's DnD campaign here, as they make up a vanishingly tiny minority). The audience of the work not only creates it though--they experience the work almost entirely before you could ever call the work 'completed'. Even if we falsely grant that every game concludes on purpose rather than just kinda petering out because people get bored, leave college, have other things to do, or whatever else killed your last game, players experience the story in installments that don't exist until the end of the session. So "interpretation" gets . . . weird.

Basic Hermeneutics

On a surface level, the story of an RPG usually doesn't demand a lot of depth and analysis: some protagonists, inciting incident, various conflicts, faffing about as the PCs fail to get the hint, some amusing or tense or infuriating whiffs and failures along the way, and charitably, some kind of resolution to the main conflict and dramatic and character arcs. Usually metaphors tend to be explained straight up ("my character's ability to 'blur' things reflects her own weak personal boundaries and over-empathization"), and motifs often even moreso ("guys, seriously, what happens every single time your characters see spiders?"). A lot of this comes from necessity of that very immediate, improvised, as-we-go nature of the medium! You have to make sure your audience gets what you intend them to get--because in mere seconds they'll create some more story that depends on the bit of story you just created. And back and forth.

But, quite without realizing it or meaning to, we can't really help but inject other chunks of meaning into stories we help create. Maybe even chunks of meaning that contradict others' contributions at the table. Spoiler alert: I do not have a theory or framework to address this. The Queen Smiles kind of digs into this, but this goes beyond my current depth. So, what can we conjecture or say, what scaffolding could we build, to build a more robust "literary theory of game stories"? I have some basics as I see them:

Auteur theory (creator arbitrates meaning)

This can only apply to one player's contributions, not across plural players.

Necessary, for both basic clarification and because perfectly conveying the ~*~intended meaning~*~ frankly just doesn't work as a thing you can do off the top of your head when your turn comes to say what your character does.

GMs (where applicable) shouldn't use this to defend poor description or ill-considered presentation of "cool things for PCs to care about and cool things to do about it"--just because the GM intended the cop to be sympathetic doesn't make him so, and if he's not sympathetic . . . the protagonists will not treat him so.

Dead authors (freedom of interpretation)

Players can try this out on their own characters, and should, but should ask other players about their characters if something seems odd, confusing, intriguing, or otherwise. "You keep making a point of meticulously describing your character's weird nervous tic. The exact same way every time. How come? What's it mean?"

Players of course can answer engagement like this any way they please, including stabbing themselves with the quill: "you figure it out, if your character were to ask mine, mine would supply her answer which I may or may not know".

GMs (where applicable) should really lean on this: improvise, throw ideas and themes at the wall, and frantically build on top of the audience's ideas, since those ideas clearly resonate with the audience.

Code-switching (deliberately modifying interpretation)

We all do this all the time: the dragon is not telling you to roll for your attack, after all. The GM is, by switching between narrating the world, and communicating with a player.

More subtly we do this when switching between "what our character believes" and "what we players reasonably expect". Your costumed superhero might think of herself as righteous vengeance incarnate, but you hope everyone at the table knows you think she's conceited and delusional at best, and a full-bore psychopath at worst. This hopefully doesn't mean you play your psychopath superhero any less sincerely, but it does require a bit of ironic detachment, you know something about her that she can't know about herself (beyond that she's a fictional character, of course).

Even more subtly, sometimes weird game interactions (of the rules, other PCs, other players) imply things we wish they wouldn't, but can't quite control, and often everyone knows this. "Why can't you muster up your courage one more time?!" "Because I ran out of Fate points," your character doesn't say. Instead, your fellow authors share a look over the table, and gingerly tiptoe around an obvious, character-appropriate thing, and seize on some other thing to say or do, hopefully just as obvious and character-appropriate. But, everyone switched codes, from "characters doing things for reasons" to "the rules inform our story, and we follow them because they help".

Prepaid analysis (game-specific themes or arcs)

A lot of games have some baked-in themes right off the shelf, and provide good starting points and directions of inqury for interpreting a story born out of playing them. Monsterhearts deals with teenage cruelty and queer sexuality. Succession deals with faith, one's place in the world, and how these relate to morality. Bliss Stage tumultuous coming-of-age and taking care of one another, or failing to. If you use eg Lovesick to tell a story that you can't approach or interpret in light of "dangerous, unstable, desperate romantics"--you probably picked the wrong game. You should pick a better game.

Besides these themes, many games also have more abstract ideas--arcs or processes--that they really enshrine. Exalted gives Solars (mythical heroes patterned after ancient folklore) a mechanic called "Limit Break" which mechanically funnels a Solar toward destroying themselves with their own virtue. Likewise, even if you somehow excise Monsterhearts' focus on teenage cruelty and sexuality, you really shouldn't play if you want to avoid social stigma as a theme, because most of the mechanics hinge on it.

We players often deliberately bring in some themes and ideas we'd like to play with, too. "I want to play a character whose determination will be her own undoing--and probably everyone else's." Or even just "I really like themes where physical strength is tragically and stupefyingly unhelpful". Those make for great starting points and prompt good questions to interpret stories!

I know someone with more literary theory and less sleep deprivation could add a few basic givens, but I think this at least goes to show we have ground to stand on and territory to explore. And probably more importantly, it points out some useful kinds of questions we can ask about the story of a game and how to interpret it. So, why did I ever bring up Undertale back there?

Audience Awareness

The following works have something in common: House of Leaves, Funny Games, This House Has People In It, The Cry of Mann, The Shape on the Ground, Undertale, and Deltarune. Besides "being very good", they all explicitly pose the audience as an entity within the story--but, they do it in a very unusual way.

See, the story of a Mario game is about Mario even if the player controls Mario--and though it's a subtle distinction, this also applies to eg Doom, where you play as an explicitly nameless faceless protagonist, intended to be your avatar. Even in the most plot-free abstract game, if we can salvage out a story (if perhaps an extremely degenerate and rudimentary one like 'how this game of chess played out'), the 'story' happily accommodates the audience within it.

That's not how the list I gave does things. Not at all.

Instead, the works I listed single out the audience as something else: in House of Leaves, unreliable narrators call out the unreliable interpreter reading the narrative. In Funny Games, the audience doesn't participate--but the audience watches, and the film knows this, and singles the audience out as complicit in the horrible events that unfold. This House Has People In It casts us as the prying NSA subcontractor watching hours of security footage and reading dozens of e-mails, and makes it clear that even our Panopticon of surveillance doesn't give us a complete account of reality. The Cry of Mann casts us as gibbering voices from an eldritch plane of cosmic horror. The Shape on the Ground poses as a disinterested and clinical psychological test, but it clearly has some ideas about what would lead us to take such a 'test'.

And then there's Undertale and Deltarune. Last warning, I'll say whatever I find convenient about Undertale and probably '''spoil''' something about Deltarune in the process. I do not care.

Hostility to the Audience

If Undertale itself had a personality, one could fairly describe it as "wary of the player": it plays jokes and tricks, but it knows the player is a player, of Undertale, which Undertale also knows is a videogame. It gives you ample chance to have a fun, funny, and sometimes disturbing game, with a lot of tempting and tantalizing unspoken-s hiding juuuust offscreen. But Undertale's point as a work involves giving you the chance to not do that while still, technically, engaging with the game.

Namely, the Genocide Run. By killing literally absolutely every single thing in the game that the game can possibly let you kill, the game very purposely unfolds entirely differently--and on multiple playthroughs, the game will outright take notice of multiple playthroughs, and challenge you for--in effect--torturing the narrative it can deliver by forcing it to deliver every narrative. Let's think about that for a moment:

Most videogames have some kind of excuse of a narrative, and lately, many have really good, nuanced stories to tell--and many of those even go to the (mindbendingly grueling) effort of delivering a plurality of good narratives that honor your agency as a player--maybe even a creator, as best a videogame can with its limitations.

But, what can you say about a story that has multiple endings? Or multiple routes to them? And what can you say about a story that, in some of its branches, simply goes to entirely different places as narratives? It strains the usual literary critical toolkit, to say the least.

Now, a game like Doki Doki Literature Club! approaches this exact same idea of addressing its story as manipulable by the player, of the player as an agent in the story, but in a pretty straightforward way as far as "a narrative that works this way": the narrative already describes "and then the player came along and messed everything up". All of the player's different routes serve this one overarching narrative: the game has an obsessive fixation on you and wants you to play it forever (which, given its nature as (roughly) a visual novel . . . perhaps asks quite a lot).

Undertale takes a step back from even this level of abstraction, though: the implicit and often hidden events of its world and narrative unfold / have unfolded / will unfold, and a given player's "story" consists of "what the player does to this multi-branched narrative-object". The game judges you to your face for contorting its weird timeline-multiple-universe meta-story . . . but lets you do it, to prove the point it wants to prove.

And without much controversy, we can conclude that point roughly summarizes to "playing games just for accomplishment and mastery doesn't give as rewarding an experience as immersing in the story and characters". The subtler point under that, though, comes out through multiple playthroughs: "immersing yourself in a story and cast of characters too much will harm your life and your enjoyment of other things". Undertale, were it a person, would probably look nervously at you after several 'completionist' playthroughs to "see all the content", and it explicitly describes this exact behavior to the player's face as something objectionable--even calling out people who watch someone else play on streams and video hosts.

"Just let it be a story"

Which brings us to Deltarune. I've no doubt dozens of cross-indexed internet-vetted analyses and fan-theories will arise in the next few months (and I look forward to them), but on a once-over the game seems to have one specific thing to say to the player's face: "you are intruding on a story that isn't about you". The game opens with an elaborate character-creator (well, for a retroclone computer RPG), then tells you "discarded, you can't choose who you are, and you can't choose who the character is either". It has fun with giving the player dialog options--then timing out and ignoring the input. It even tells the player in in-game narration that "your choices don't matter". The story itself doesn't even care very much about the player's character, instead hinging on the development and growth of an NPC, following her arc, without much concern for the player's thoughts on the matter. And at the very end, after playing mind-games with the player's familiarity and recognition of Undertale characters--the close does something both inexplicable and disturbing. This is not your story: it's not about you, your choices don't affect it, and it doesn't care what you think.

As an aside, it seems like quite a good game--but I think that comes in part because of this very drastic intent and the skill with which it executes that intent (ie, bluntly at first, subtly enough to almost forget, and then slapping hard enough to prompt a flashback).

And holding this alongside Undertale's stark (even literal) judgment of the player for 'forcing' the narrative to contort to accommodate the player's interaction with that narrative, it seems clear to me that where Doki Doki Literature Club! has fun with the idea of "player as complicit in something gross, and as motivating something cool", Undertale and Deltarune seem much more interested in making the player take an uncomfortable look at how they engage with narratives.

Defensive Hermeneutics

On one hand, Funny Games, The Cry of Mann, and Undertale and Deltarune stare back at the audience, judge them, treat them as an intruding, invading, even corrupting force from outside the work, criticize the audience for enjoying the work, and even call the audience out for engaging in detailed critique, like some kind of cognitive logic-bomb, or a cake laced with just enough ipecac to punish you for eating more than a slice.

But on the other, House of Leaves, This House Has People In It, The Shape on the Ground, and Doki Doki Literature Club all want the audience to participate, to scrutinize, to interact with the narrative and question it, as well as themselves. What does that first camp have in common besides wariness and hostility to the audience, and what does this second camp have in common besides treating the audience as creative of the work's meaning? I'll call it "a defensive hermeneutic".

Notionally, the audience has hermeneutics: ways of understanding a work. But, a creator can't help but have some understanding of the likely mental state and view of a(n imagined) audience, approaching the text in some way. A creator can thus bake in or favorably treat some approaches over others, and can even use this to guide criticism about their work.

That first group, which I'll call "defensive", has one striking common feature: the 'surface level' plots either don't matter, or have very simple outlines. Funny Games' plot is exactly as follows: two psychopaths terrorize, torture, and eventually murder an innocent family. The Cry of Mann shows us what looks a lot like a small child trying to mimic a melodramatic soap-opera, before Things Get Weird (and any extant 'surface level' plot goes under the waves). And Undertale and Deltarune give us the stock "hero appears in strange land, arbitrary puzzle-quests ensue, climactic final confrontation restores peace to the land". This serves as the set-dressing and vehicle for the actual plots--or sometimes simply cognitive messages--to get into the audience's minds:

"What, exactly, do you get out of slasher torture-porn movies? Why do you create the market for things like this?" "Are you sure about where your sense of empathy and identification points you? What makes you think you have a grip on reality enough to judge who's right and relatable, and who isn't?" "Don't just passively consume games like they were kernels of popcorn. But don't gorge yourself on the same dish, either--there's more out there, but you have to look for it."

In short: these works don't want you to nitpick the works themselves. Their entire message consists of second-or-higher-order interpretation. To put it another way, they want to make sure you don't pay attention to the handwriting, because the gaps between the words spell out a poem and the words themselves only create those gaps.

Participatory Hermeneutics

By this same token, I'll call the second camp "participatory": they treat the audience as a kind of creator in their own right--Borges did this a lot and with relish in his later years, and Doki Doki Literature Club! makes it a game mechanic. A creator using this "participatory" hermeneutic essentially doesn't consider their work 'finished' until the audience interprets it. This should sound familiar. The audience contributes meaning to the work, by interpreting it, and a "participatory" work counts on it. And, to contrast with the "defensive" camp: they use complex (sometimes even overcomplicated) plots, which matter and inform interpretation, and tie into the second-order meaning that the work attempts to convey. The "surface level" plots don't solely carry a tangled "interpret this" into the audience's brain. Instead, the surface plot has enough complexity to have a plot-hole, enough character depth to have problematic characters, and enough weight on its own merit to have unappealing implications. In other words: even without convoluted postmodern hoity-toity highfalutin' hermeneutic jibberjabber, a member the audience can find a story they can just enjoy on its merits.

Before anyone angrily starts defending the characters in Undertale or complaining about the directionlessness of This House Has People In It, I hope I've made it really clear, I lumped these works into these two categories based on an overall tendency and commonality, in approaching this one really abstract concept, and as with any work, any binary you can think of will have gradations if you look among "all works, ever". And, even more importantly:

I really love all these works, and I love what they do and how they do it. They all also have flaws, because flawed humans made them, and flawed humans enjoy them. That all said: the "participatory hermeneutic" has everything to offer for my purposes, while the "defensive hermeneutic" . . . might get a post of its own someday.

So What Now?

In aeons past, I wrote about feedback and criticism, and this seems like a good time to dust off that idea with a new application. In particular, that old post talks simply about players (and GMs where applicable) helping each other to contribute their best, and get the most enjoyment out of a game. Here, we'll look at some basic questions players can pose each other as creators of a work, rather than participants of a game or members of an audience.

So let's take that 'player survey' and repurpose it for Dark Humanities and getting a toehold on literary criticism:

Can you describe your approach to your character?

What do you want to convey about your character?

What was one thing you want to make sure we all understand?

How do you interpret my character so far?

What theme or motif do you think our characters express together?

What misconception or misunderstanding would you like to clear up or prevent?

What themes do you want to explore?

And just like the 'player character questionnaire', everyone should update and refine their survey every few sessions. As a given game goes on, for example, you might get to know one of the PCs so well that you never need to worry about "misconceptions or misunderstandings", regarding that character's motivations and personality and thematic implication. But, that character's connection with eg themes of parental abandonment might change, and when that topic comes up, you can devote a question or three just to asking things like "might your character be treating this person as a surrogate mother-figure?" Maybe the player never thought of it that way! Maybe the player thinks that would be a great idea! But neither of you will think about it without pausing a moment to consider things like this.

And once everyone has shared a bit about their characters' themes and clarified everyone else's, you can discuss deliberately pursuing an idea, through your characters. Obviously your characters have no motivation for this, but your characters don't even exist, so they don't have any say in the matter.

For example, cyberpunk naturally deals with corporate oppression, alienation, dehumanization, and technological obsolescence. But, when one PC regularly takes recreational drugs, and baits another into joining them, a third concocts elaborate revenge fantasies, and a fourth picks up broken people like stray cats and tries to parent them into being functional . . .

Maybe they all share a more specific theme of "dysfunctional coping mechanisms". The drug-user is nice and obvious--and their partner joining them in partaking perhaps has a need to belong. The vengeful obsessive might be compensating for feelings of powerlessness and vulnerability by hurting or preparing to hurt others. And the self-styled Good Samaritan and would-be Guardian Angel might be doing the opposite--just as unhealthily.

Importantly, everyone keeps playing their character, the character they made, the character they want to play. But, with some good chewy discussion about story, everyone can also look for spots where, indeed, their character might just so happen to--do something to further this sub-theme of "dysfunctional coping mechanisms", on top of the background of alienation, obsolescence, and dehumanization.

Academic, critical, literary discussion of roleplaying games as games seems like a sadly underexplored subject. But critical discussion of the stories themselves, the ones happening at each table, might as well be completely unknown--so here's hoping someone can build on this!

[lsgingasblog]

Of Transfer Student and Fierce Rivalry

This work I ended up combining 3 days. So spoiling Diana, Anniversary and Free day, of which I went unoriginal with Harry Potter AU.

Again sorry for the length on this one and being so late.

To read in AO3:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/15380559/chapters/35694663

Atsuko Kagari, muggle born witch. Gryffindor seeker. Infamous troublemaker. Unconventional duelist. Entertainer extraordinaire. Loyal Friend. Infectious smile and energy. Girlfriend to part veela Ravenclaw seeker Diana Cavendish.

And this particular Ravenclaw seeker felt pretty bad right now to call herself girlfriend to such an amazing individual as Akko.

Both Frank and I were fulfilling an errand for school, promotion for the tri-wizard tournament that was going on.

It would’ve made more sense if Miss O’Neil, one of the competitors where present, but I suppose the headmistress was aware how unruly she could be.  Also O’Neil did crudely blurt out ‘Miss me with the politics, I just wanna beat the other schools’. Miss O’neil once again callously misses the main intent of the tri-wizard tournament, but she’s not the main troublemaker I care to often keep in line if things go too out of control.

I stare at the slumbering brunette in my immediate view and I feel the corners of my lips tugging upwards. Despite my sheer exhaustion, I crouch down to akko, passed out on the biggest couch in the head common room.

She is the epitome of calm and pleasant when like this, although I don’t particularly mind her various facets including her more rambunctious side.

It would seem I really did muck something up here. Glancing around I see streamers, balloons, plastic cups and cake. Lotte, Sucy, Amanda, constanze, jasminke, barbs and Hannah seem to be spread about on head common room floor. Akko wanted to throw me a surprise party no doubt.

I take a gander at Frank for his reaction of our messy shared common room but he seemed to only chuckle and shake his head while heading to his room.

He sends a wave my way mumbled a ‘night’, which I returned and he closed the door behind him. Leaving me with sounds of snoring, breathing and turning around of the various guests.

I can’t blame him. I’m exhausted as well, it’s nearly 4 am after all.

I’m touched by Akko’s efforts though, not only in instances like this but also for the little things she does.

For example how she knows I hate it when it hails, because it reminds me of the weather the day my mom passed away and she always does something silly or brings my favorite dessert to cheer me up. Or even that I only ever drink up to half of the butter beer and she usually ends up being the one to drink the rest. Or even how I always have a hair tie that I play with after something snide or callous gets directed towards me about my part veela heritage or past and she promptly intervenes by either cutting the person off or changing the course of the conversation.

I feel so utterly pampered by this lovely individual, yet she also brings a sort of fire out of me and not just the kind of sexual attraction, no, the kind that keeps me on my toes, makes me feel conflicted because I want to outrival her yet also support her.

A competitive energy not only present in Quidditch or defense against the dark arts or even dueling.

No, we even make each other better in areas we aren’t too confident and we dare to explore various facets of our self because our lives have been so involved with one another the last few years.

I crawl next to Akko on the couch and she instinctively moves over and hugs me while mumbling some incoherent words.  I could go to my room, but there’s no place I’d rather be right now to be honest.

I will properly thank all of them later today, but now I just want to drift back to sleep and thank the lucky stars the day this girl barreled into my life.

Actually it’s been exactly 4 years from today, that Akko and I became friends.

Our initial relationship was definitely more civility than friendliness and more an intense competitive nature above all else, but looking back I don’t think I would change it for the world, after all it’s the initial skepticism of each other that makes the eventual transition to a more friendly rivalry and irreplaceable friend/ individual in each other’s life that much more poignant.

I had transferred in the middle of my 3rd year at Hogwarts.

I was originally at bauxbottons. Due to various circumstances I found myself at Hogwarts instead.

I got sorted into Ravenclaw. The transition period of starting in the middle of the year wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be.

Strangely enough I felt more at home at Hogwarts the first week even, despite all the conflicting emotions, more so than Baux ever gave me in the years I went there.

The many surprises were the likes of Andrew, Hannah and Barbara being at Hogwarts.

Andrew’s mother and my mother were close and therefore we used to be close friends too in our early childhood, but due to being shipped to boarding schools abroad shortly after our mothers died and just trying to cope with everything around us, we drifted apart and there was a lot of bad air that needed to be cleared up. Besides, last I heard Andrew was attending Durmstung.

Even Hannah and Barbara that went to preparatory baux with me I didn’t seek to contact them after we separated because I assumed the same loss of contact with Andrew would occur again with them and seeing as they didn’t sent any letter my way, I figured I was right.

Making lasting friends or friends in general was never my forte and due to being ¼ veela I’m also weary of people approaching me because they genuinely like me or for my looks or accuse my supposed veela powe to having manipulated them, or worse even because of being connected to Cavendish Medic Association.

Although fat lot of good that will do them, if the association continues the way it is going Cavendish MA will go bankrupt thanks to my aunt’s insistence on lavish living and cutting corners in all the wrong areas.

These past months was busy getting the handle on the school grounds, where the classes were, the library, and the various nook and crannies of the place and I have to admit, Hogwarts is utterly enchanting, not only because of all the incantations done on it, but just everything about it.

I can see why my mother fell in love with it, the year she stayed here for the tri-wizard tournament as a Buax student in her last year.

Coincidentally this is where she met my dad, but I have yet to stumble on any school pictures of my dad. I remember being told he was Gryffindor Quidditch captain, so it’s unusual I have yet to see it.

Perhaps Gryffindor common room? But who can I possibly….? Ooh….of course. I feel a headache come on as soon as those amber eyes and mischievous smile pop up.

Atsuko Kagari. The hyper-active, brazen, incomprehensible muggle born witch.

My complex feelings regarding Kagari were frustrating to say the least.

My first impression of her was that she was juvenile and reckless. Sending paper birds around class and disrupting it. My second impression of her is that she is too fidgety for her own good and lastly she always mettles in places and people that do not directly concern her and its downright infuriating.

Don’t believe me?

Exhibit A.

I knew I had to eventually try to make peace with Andrew, but it’s been over 2 month since that first awkward exchange andrew initiated my first day here with a simple ‘It’s nice to see you again’ passed through means of a note.

I was thoroughly confused because just over 2 years ago at a Christmas function Andrew purposely shut down any conversation I attempted to start with him, worst of all we were sitting at the same table due to my aunt wanting to suck up to Andrew’s dad, possible for more investment capital in Cavendish MA, but with the results of most investment in the last few years not being visible, this whole attempt is rather in vain.

That Christmas dinner solidified my views on the impossibility of anything amicable being had between Andrew and me.

‘It’s nice to see you again’ is definitely not what I was expecting.

However I would quickly find out Atsuko Kagari was the center of this transformation, as she is for most of the eventful occurrences in my life ever since I came to Hogwarts.

Before this I had already gotten declarations from Akko calling me her rival.

This all started in a particular Defense against the dark arts class where it was the monthly dueling class.

Atsuko Kagari is not the most studious alumni, but she’s exceptional in 2 academic disciplines in particular defense against the dark arts and linguistics. Of which despite her more dismal or passable grades for some of the other courses she is top of the class in both of those.

Being used to topping pretty much all classes for as long as I’ve been in school, it was surprising to not be at the top. At first I was annoyed, not because of some arrogance or anything thinking I was owed the spot, because mother told me to never believe the world owes you anything, but rather to work for what you want, no it came from a chilling realization that all I’ve truly had ever since my mother passed away are my academics.

With a family that treats me either like a stranger or a nuisance and my less than stellar track record with making lasting friends I have buried myself in knowledge, because that is something no one can take away from me.

Unlike that dark hailing day my mother was taken from me or the hailing morning 1 week after my Aunt told me ‘Beauxbottons is the alma matar of Cavendish so pack up’. I had to leave the one place I call home in less than 24 hours to boarding school in France. Or even my disappointment when andrew didn’t respond to any of the letter I sent him up to 2 months after he left for Bulgaria.

After the 3rd week at Hogwarts I starting tying for first spot in DADA class alongside Akko and this did not sit well with her. DADA, linguistics and Quiddtich are after all things she feels quite strongly for by how much she talks about each of those topics, mind you this is only from stray conversation from where I sit at the Raven claw table.

Of which she sometimes sits at next to Andrew, but that girl cares little for house separation seeing her group of friends.

This mousy girl Lotte Yanson from Hufflepuff, the robust and kind Jasminka Antonellie and Andrew’s best friend Frank also in Hufflepuf. Then we have her rowdy best friend and fellow Gryffindor Amanda O’Neil that is exasperatingly more of a handful than Kagari. She has Slytherin friend in Sucy Manbavaran as well, at least I think they are. And Ravenclaw with Andrew and this one tiny girl that has a habit of writing what she wants said or having a tiny robot of sorts say it for her, Constanze I believe her name was. For the life of me I can’t seem to remember the rest of her names.

Coincidentally Constanze noticed my sightline one morning while we were both eating breakfast on the Ravenclaw table.

Kagari was surrounded by that big group of friends, she and O’Neil were the loudest of the group and so early in the morning too….

I turn to regard Constanze, this was not my first encounter with her, as I have sat next to her in some classes in the few weeks I’ve been here.

That said she never registered more than fleeting acknowledgment or a nod at best.

She starts writing on the portable board she carries around at times. ‘Akko is special’.

Well yes I was beginning to understand that as well. It’s even more amazing because she only knew of the world famous magician Shiny Chariot, but none of the tradition, basics or anything natural to magic born community and yet she’s so free and doing so well.

I imagine her adaption period must have been stressful, but I admire and respect how utterly her home she has made Hogwarts and building up her unusual, diverse yet sizable group of friends.

Just then Kagari approaches the table and ask Constanze if she wants to join them she merely responds with a nod and walks over to the Gryffindor table where the whole group was bunched up.

Akko walks along but not before shooting me a frown and particular hostile look my way.

And it just makes me annoyed. I did nothing to provoke her and yet she’s behaving like this.

The only words I addressed to her were particular outstanding moments she was disrupting the class for too long and she always sent a glare my way, but I haven’t done so in close to 2 weeks so I fail to understand what warranted that reaction.

Fast-forward to a week later and we have the monthly duel class for DADA.

Kagari challenged me to a duel and in all honesty the less than amicable looks my way were not appreciated, especially since I have no idea what set them off. I admit it was extra irksome because Akko never shows prolonged annoyance to anyone, partly due to her attention span not allowing that, but also she’s been known to get along with everyone, so not only was I miffed but a bit hurt and confused as well why this particular negative attention was directed at me.

I ended up beating her best 2 out of 3, but the various things she throws at you from flying squirrels to jack and marbles was frustrating, especially since I did fall during the marbles one which is why she soundly won one of the rounds, despite my embarrassment I have to admit her reflex and quick-thinking is admirable although she gets too full of herself easy which ended up being her downfall.

I tried commenting this for a point of improvement and she gets angrier and declares she doesn’t want pity from her rival and she will beat me next time. I was left perplexed and annoyed. This girl is incomprehensible.

However this was not all.

Shortly after this, Andrew and I were bizarrely put in situations where we were stuck in various places together for a prolonged amount of time.

I was furious because I know it was her doing after the first two.

However as much as I disliked being misled one of those sessions did end up with Andrew and I both apologizing and starting bit by bit to rebuild a friendship.

The issue with Hannah and Barbara got resolved with almost the same methods, although the relationship with those two is still a bit sore, but it’s making baby steps progress, so that’s the best I can hope for.

Also Barbara seems to have made fast friends with Lotte. I don’t think a Slytherin and Hufflepuf such fast and close friends is something that is seen often. Although I suppose that vapid book series is partially to thank for that. Leave it to akko, even if it was an indirect effect.

Andrew told me to hang out with them, but despite Akko’s many help she still glares or frowns at me, and I do quite understand where I stand with her and part of me feels annoyed to be so indebted to the girl.

She makes tons of messes that I sometimes get asked to clean up due the teacher’s knowing my role as a prefect of sorts in beaux, since they start at an earlier year than Hogwarts.

And yet she cleans up the messes I’ve made that I was either to afraid or incapable of doing so, until she forced me to face them.

Actually another thing that probably made me hesitant to join Andrew and the others was Exhibit B, Quidditch.

While the ravenclaw seeker was already chosen since I came in the middle of the 3rd year, sometime in March the seeker stepped down because of wanting to focus on his NEWTS, since it was his last year.

The backup Ravenclaw seeker had dragon pox and since professor nelson has seen me in a baux quidditch match last year when she came to visit a friend, she knows I play.

And so I got roped in to play my first game as a Ravenclaw seeker against Gryffindor.

At this point I was half tempted to let Akko win, a part of me wanted to join that colorful group of friends without having to feel bad about it, because the one they all appreciate, Akko, isn’t too keen on me.

However Akko got angrier when she called me out on not trying hard enough. I realize after her outburst that I wanted to fight her earnestly as well.

We were neck and neck but at the very last moment I won out and ravenclaw beat Gryffindor that match.

I was half expecting Akko to be angrier but she burst out laughing and then become serious.

“As your rival I swear I’ll beat you next time Diana!” all the while pointing her finger at me and proceeded to storm off.

Well actually I suppose that one wasn’t too bad in hindsight.

Actually I’m just searching for excuses to not get sucked into Akko’s pacing, but everything she does is both heartfelt at times and/or utterly nerve-wrecking and she thrives on a chaos that I am wholly unfamiliar with.

My last point of this, exhibit C if you will, although at this point I’m unsure what I’m even trying to convince myself off any more….

A few days before today Slytherin and Ravenclaw Quidditch teams were getting ready for the match today.

Some slytherins though weren’t happy with me playing, saying my veela powers would be used to distract them and therefore I wasn’t allowed to play, which was absurd, although this is sadly not the first time I heard such asinine excuses or snide remarks being made in regards to my progeny.

The Slytherin that were angry tried ambushing me and I was managing fine on my own but they became 5 against one. Just when I was being pushed to a corner then Andrew and Akko showed up too and fended them off alongside me. They heard wind of this from talks at the common room area. So they decided to come find me.

Akko mentions jokingly she does get the whole “Cavendish is distracting part”. I get annoyed and flustered. I start playing with my hair tie around my hand and decide to dismiss myself after thanking them.

Akko is an enigma. She claims to be my rival and while I enjoy the thrill and excitement of our duels and fighting on the pitch, more than anything I wanted to get closer to her. To be part of her inner circle. That very desire though scares more than anything else.

I came to Hogwarts partially hoping for a transformative change for me, and Akko is about as literal as a personification of one if I ever saw it. And yet part of me was resisting this. Telling myself it’s fleeting or it’s all happening so fast. I was scared what a Diana that actually lets go of parts of herself she has clung on to would even look like.

However right now where I’m at, with a bruised ankle, possibly sprained hiding behind a big tree while having an invisibility and magic cloaking spell in effect. All of my earlier notions of fear of change seems rather silly.

How exactly did I end up here?

Short story some Slytherins weren’t happy I didn’t get replaced or taken out of the game, so they came up with a plan to teach me a lesson.

The morning of the game I looked outside and it was dark and hailing. The one weather I absolutely loathe because of how all my most misfortunate moments happened in that weather.

Akko came to do her usual rival declaration and saying don’t let anyone else but her beat me, I unreasonably snapped at her and for probably the first time I didn’t get an indignant response back but she looked hurt said ‘fine’ and just walked off.

I was starting this game in the worst frame of mind already. It is for that reason that after repeatedly having to dodge the bludgers sent my way by the beaters when someone from the crowd threw something at me when I was nearby when I just swerved to miss the bludger, I caught it.

I noticed too late one of the boys yesterday I was fending off threw me the item. I feel the tug of teleportation and as I crash on the foreign ground I notice the sky even more impossibly dark, even more hail and in the darkness of the sky moving figures. Dementors. It was a portkey.

I’ve been running and fending them off but patronus charm is something I’m no good at, can’t seem to make a strong enough one to create a corporal animal.

Maybe that’s why I’m here right now thinking back to scattered moments in my short 4 months in Hogwarts.

I heard getting your soul sucked out by dementors is immensely painful.

I already feel weak because by pure luck I managed to escape when 5 ambushed me.

I think back to my mom and I can’t imagine she would ever wanted to be reunited with me quite so soon.

Or how I failed to verify the legend of the 7 words of Arcturus she confessed to me a few months before passing is a key to something greater and might not only help Cavendish MA, but both the muggle and magical world.

And yet despite all of this my thoughts come back to Atsuko Kagari.

She, who has managed to change to indifferent Andrew. She, who has managed to make the mean spirited and at times haughty Hannah and Barbs friends or at very least civil towards people in different houses.

They who were stuck with class segregation, sure they are still a bit snooty, but the progress they have made is noticeable.

Akko is utterly vibrant and I can’t deny she has begun to change me too and despite being constantly out of my comfort zone around her I’m not upset, rather she excites me and makes me feel lighter.

Actually, earlier I said pure luck that I escaped the dementors earlier but that isn’t true, it was brief but the moment her face and wide teasing infuriating smile popped into my head I made a corporal patronus. It seemed like a horse, but I didn’t stick around to watch and took the opportunity to make a mad dash to possible safety.

I’m not sure if I can do the same though, because my one regret is that we never stated we were friends.

Sure we were rivals, but I would never admit that to Akko’s face. More than anything I want to be considered among the people she treasures the most, it’s silly given how I tended to react around her, especially at the start.

Additionally I had shot her down before the match today when she just wanted to give the usual rival speech of only her being able to beat me, But given the weather and where my thoughts were going back to I snapped at her and I didn’t apologize because the match was starting.

My power is waning, the invisibility and suppression spells are gone. I close my eyes. I couldn’t ever imagine this would be my end. I don’t want this to be it for me, but I hear something approaching. I decide to fight one last time, at least I will go out having tried my hardest. I open my eyes.

“Diana!” I am onslaught by an exuberant embrace. It’s Akko. She seems to be crying and holds me even tighter.

I am unable to form words. Akko pulls me away to inspect and I already miss the warmth she provided after all the dark clouds and hail provide little as means to keep warm.

“Diana….listen I went ahead but professor Ursula and headmistress Holbrooke should be heading here, we’re going to get out here, promise” Akko gave me a worried look while she was holding both my shoulders.

“I’m sorry I snapped at you akko” my exhaustion is starting to catch up with me.

“What? Ooh don’t worry about that. Come on Diana I’ll help you up and lean on me, one of you ankles seems pretty bruised, I’ll help you walk.”

I accept her help but I’m confused “Why did you come here?”

She sighs and looks at me from our position of having my arm draped over her shoulder.

“What kind of question is that even Diana, you’re my friend so of course I would come for you.”

My throat feels like it has something stuck in it, because I’m overcome with a feeling of relief and gratitude right then. I don’t trust my usual tone, but I respond anyway.

“I thought we were rivals” I croaked out, barely holding back being a crying mess.

Akko sends a beaming smile my way. “So you do admit we’re rivals!”

“No, I’m merely using the words you frequently and enthusiastically direct towards me” I look away from her gaze. I’m unsure why exactly I’m getting flustered at this.

“We can be both!” I glance back at her and she gives me a soft smile.

I chuckle wholeheartedly.

We continue walking a bit more, it’s going slower than I would like, because of my ankle.

We hear rustling again it’s a hoard of dementors, 10 maybe, not at least 20 or 30 even approaching from a distance.

Akko pulls me close by the waist as a response for having held on tighter to her shoulders. We both have our wands at hand.

I’m beyond exhausted, but I refuse to die here. Not after the elation I felt when finding out I’m one of Akko’s treasure people or finally warming up to the idea of accepting change in my life.  

I think I have a moment that might finally be strong enough for a patronus charm.

So I close my eyes and we both yelled out at the same time. “Expecto patronum!”

A majestic bird came out of the tip of akko’s wand and I notice mine wasn’t a horse, but rather a unicorn.

We keep at it for a while and driving away some, but more keep heading towards us.

We keep at this for quite a bit and I have sadly reached my limit. My knees buckle next to akko and I see her crouch down next to me while still holding out her wand hand with the activated patronus charm. My eye lids are growing heavy and the last thing I see are the beads of sweat on her face and the tired look as she finally stops the patronus charm, with a hoard of dementors still storming towards us.

I wake up and I’m staring at a white ceiling. It smells of antiseptic and fresh linen.

I turn around to see akko with her head resting on the side of my bed in a chair.

“Her neck is going to wake up stiff”

I’m startled by the voice that just came from the opposite side of me.

“Andrew” I announce hoarsely. I shift myself to a more upright position and notice how sore I am.

“I’m glad you are awake and looking better Diana” Andrew regarded me with a smile. I return the gesture.

“Miss Kagari is truly an indomitable force, wouldn’t you agree Diana?” as I was about to respond we both turn our attention to stirring.

Akko rubs her eyes and sports a wide smile once she notices I’m awake. “Diana!” and she proceeds to enthusiastically hug me. I inwardly groan from the soreness, but a hug from Akko is totally worth it, even if I’m not used to such affectionate and frequent displays of appreciation and care.

Andrew sends a knowing smile my way almost as if to say ‘See, did we ever stand a chance against her?’

I’m inclined to agree, with such an indomitable force as Akko Kagari it’s near impossible to remain completely unaffected by her mere presence and I can’t say I mind it too much.

I wake up in a wonderful mood. Akko has drooled on my neck again and her leg is completely draped over my legs, with her one hand pressing me lightly against her and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I decide to get up however, because unfortunately Holbrooke asked me to report to her how the tri-wizard event went.

I try to slip away but Akko merely holds on tighter. “Don’t go”

I could remind her of how headmistress is expecting me, but seeing as Frank’s door is still closed, I relented and decide to relax again in the hug.

Akko opens her eyes and lifts her face from my neck to look at me “I missed you”

“I missed you too, sorry about not making it back in time” I respond softly and apologetically back. Akko smiles and shakes her head.

“Don’t worry I had a back-up plan all along. You’ve had the crown for throwing the most extravagant and thoughtful parties for you girlfriend for too long. I will usurp you today!”

I chuckle. It’s ridiculous how we still compete with each other.  Stronger even instead of being less, like one would expect we found new silly, creative, exciting and adventurous ways to find something to challenge each other with. It’s never a dull moment with my lovely girlfriend.

To be fair she already did an amazing job. While I was away on the tri-wizard trip to 2 different place, of which Akko knew some people there and asked for their help.

She managed to do an elaborate scavenger hunt of which she knows I’m weak for and if that wasn’t enough on the trip back home I had people, some I knew some I didn’t hand me various kind of flowers with a lovely note written on each one.

Who knew Akko would be such a romantic, then again we’re both fairly hopeless for each other in all honesty.

“I think you already won love, with the scavenger hunt and the flowers you outdid yourself. Shall I hand the crown now? Or would a later time be preferable?”

Akko grins and buries he head back on the crook of my neck.  Her muffled reply sounds out “Not until after later today”

I’m left curious what else she has in mind, but before I could ask I notice her breathing has changed.

Ooh well. I will give her the win this time she’s more than earned it, but I already started planning her upcoming birthday since last year, so I will get the crown back soon enough.

Its Sunday luckily enough so no classes. On top of that we already had a testing period just now. So nothing urgent at hand.

For now though I let out one more content sigh as I drift into a blissful slumber once again.

[fanficwriter013]

A Supernaturally Stucky Halloween - Part 1

Pairing: Stucky X Reader (Eventual)

Summary: Hunters, their lives are never easy. What happens when you literally stumblre into the world of the supernatural?

Word Count: 1607

Warnings: It’s a Supernatural!AU, you don’t exactly need to watch the show to read. Minor violence, background character deaths (if you know Supernatural it’s for the backstory). This is pretty much an intro, some snark but nothing too insane.

Parts: One / two / three / four / five /

Author’s Note: Written for my boo’s Halloween challenge, Kumi @rotisserierogers . Love you, hoe. Because I’m a wordy bitch, this has been broken into bite-sized miniparts, y’all. (Currently, 4 parts, but it’ll probably be 5 by the time I finish.)

Your life as a hunter had begun with heartbreak. But don't all hunter stories start the same? Well, your story is a little different. Your mom was a junkie, your dad had been raising you on his own after she had vanished out of the fifth go at rehab. She came back, and she came back different.

You'd seen just enough, having come out of your room to get a drink. (You were really just procrastinating that homework). And caught your mother with her teeth in your father's neck. She must have left a wake of bloody bodies on her path back here because you then saw a man cut her head off. That man had been Nick Fury, who had tried to head off your inevitability of becoming a hunter by talking his neighbor, and the local sheriff Phillip Coulson into raising you for the rest of your high school career.

Of course, whenever you possibly could you were over pestering Nick about the world of the supernatural, that you had literally fallen into. He tried to shut you down, but it had been unsuccessful. Especially after you'd met Steve Rogers, a little dork who had been more than happy to share his knowledge and correct you on the misconceptions you'd found trying to research the lore on your own. Which had become your solace as you'd dealt with the loss of both of your parents at once.

Steve visited Nick with another young hunter, he'd referred to him as Bucky. To say that Bucky thought he was cool, was an understatement. He picked on Steve just about any time you saw him. Which you were sure was a sign of aggression, trying to establish his male dominance or whatever. Even if Steve assured you that that wasn't the case.

Every once in a while, Steve and Bucky's deadbeat guardian, Alexander Pierce would show up and the boys would disappear for months at a time. They refused to tell you what he did, but you could observe the changes when they came back to Nick’s. Bucky would be throwing himself hard into the charming side of his bravado, and Steve would be quieter than usual. You had to wonder why Nick would let Pierce screw up the boys like that. But it wasn't your place.

You'd lost touch with the boys around Steve's senior year of high school. The last that you had heard from them, Steve had gotten into a prestigious art school and Bucky was going into the hunting business with Pierce. You'd opted for college as well, at Nick and Phil's insistence. You had double majored in occult history, and linguistics. All useful skills for when you would finally become a hunter.

You'd graduated from college in three years with your double major. It'd be simultaneously the funniest thing you'd ever done and also the hardest. Phil had been really supportive and you think that was partly the secret behind your success. But once you'd gotten out, gotten a real day job. You were finally able to go on hunts.

They started small, nearby. Your job had been flexible, but you still needed to get the work done. Then after a year, you got a new job that allowed you to work remotely. And you could finally travel outside of the five local counties.

Of course, now that you'd really joined the hunting world you started to meet other hunters. They all seemed to have stories of a group of hunters that called themselves the Avengers. There was an immense amount of chatter about one hunter that went by Captain America, and another that went by the Winter Soldier.

The hunters that you meet all had stories to tell of the boys’ latest conquest. Which if you were perfectly honest, which you weren't with these hunters. All sounded extremely far fetched. The two boys taking down an entire nest of vampires, killing an ancient God, taking down one of the Princes of Hell. And from the way these hunters would talk about them, you were able to infer their character and you hoped you never crossed paths with them.

Of course, you didn't get what you wanted. You were on a big solo hunt, there were two vampires terrorizing a small town just a few hours away from the place you had been staying for the month. You tracked them to an abandoned farm just outside the city limits. Unfortunately, when you'd got there it was holding only the drained victims from their latest feast.

You had scanned the perimeter when you felt a presence. You tensed, preparing yourself to cut some heads off when you heard him.

“Nothing here, Buck.” It sounded like Steve, but a couple of octaves deeper than you remembered. And the only Buck that you knew had been Bucky. You peeked around the corner, eyes falling on Bucky first.

“Well, well, well. Look what the vamps dragged in.” You teased, as you stepped out from the hall you'd been hidden in. The boys had tensed before they realized it was you.

“When did you get taller?” You asked, looking up at Steve, who now towered over you. “Last I saw you, you were just a scrawny little dork.” You teased, as Steve pulled you in for a hug.

“Still a dork.” Bucky jokes as Steve releases you and Bucky spins you into him for a hug.

“And you're still over the top, I see.” You tease him. He flashes you a brilliant smile, and you can feel his rumbling laughter.

Of course, you wound up at a bar to catch up with the boys. Bucky seemed to be on the top of his game, having gotten both the waitresses and bartenders number. In less than ten minutes too.

“Don't punch me, but I'm going to ask that question now. What happened? You'd gotten into a good art school, please tell me you at least finished it.” You ask, looking at Steve. He gave you an out of character noncommittal shrug, trying to avoid the question. You stared him down, refusing to drop it until you knew.

“Alright fine, turn off the death glare.” Steve resigns. “Yes, I did finish school. Got an amazing internship too. But that one shows up, and all ‘Pierce went on a hunt and didn't come back.’ And that's why I'm back in this.” He explains to you, and you quirk an eyebrow at him.

“Did the asshole finally meet the monster that he couldn't take down?” You practically growled, and you could see the small spark of shock in Steve's eyes.

“Don't look at me like that. Just because you never told me verbally that he was abusing you, doesn't mean that you didn't through body language. I knew.” You tell the boys, grabbing Steve's hand. You knew that Steve was more openly tactile than Bucky had been.

“You know how horrible it felt to watch you guys get happy and healthy with Nick. And then have the asshole show up, whisk you away, fuck you up, and then drop you back off? I think I threatened to kill him forty-six times. And the one time Coulson literally had to hold me back so I didn't Molotov his car as he drove off. Which that's your baby now, so I guess it was a good thing.” You ramble, stroking your thumb against the back of Steve's hand.

“Knew there was a reason I liked you,” Bucky says, giving you a soft smile. “Yeah, he's gone. We're getting better. Actually, our group helps a lot with that. All have our issues, all have our strengths and fortes.” Bucky tells you, and you give him a crooked smile.

“When you'd turn into this big softie, Barnes?” You tease, and he gives you a chuckle before taking your other hand.

“There were some circumstances that lead me to realize that we're not exactly immortal. Point being, we've both faced Death. And somehow seem to keep coming up on top. Would like to keep it that way. But in case we've worn down our luck. Teaches you to live more in the moment.” Bucky says, with a smile that suggests he's up to something.

“What he’s trying to say is that things have changed. And we’d been talking about finding you recently.” Steve tells you, his cheeks dusted with a soft flush.

“We want you to join the Avengers. You've been making some buzz in the hunter world. Think your skills could help us out.” Bucky says and were it not for the explanation you would have asked why. As it stood now, your jaw had dropped.

“I've been making a buzz, literally all I hear about are you guys. How could I possibly make any sort of noise going up against that?” The words were out of your mouth before you could stop yourself. Both boys gave you a funny look.

“There's this hunter goes in, speaks fourteen different languages, knows all the occult stuff from memory. Even the more obscure beings.” Steve says, and Bucky tilts his head at you.

“How could you not generate a buzz?” He asks, stroking the back of your hand. “So, what do you say? Become an Avenger with us.” It sounds so casual just rolling off the tip of his tongue like that.

“Don't the others. Shouldn't. Shouldn't I meet them? Don't they get a say?” You finally spit out, and Bucky laughs.

“Believe me, when I say you've been making a buzz. You've crossed their radars. They had a say in this.” Bucky tells you, and you nod.

Part 2

[westendin]

10 GREAT REASONS TO TAKE AN ACTING CLASS

Maybe you've always dreamed of being an actor, but never yet had the chance to try it, and don't want to put it off any more? You might have done a few plays at school, or a beginner's course once upon a time, and would love to get back into it. You might work in another aspect of theatre, or teach drama, and would love to communicate better with actors or students. All of these are great reasons to sign up for an acting course this Spring.

However, having taught and directed adults from all walks of life for nearly twenty years, I’ve seen acting offer benefits that go far deeper than "mere" professional training. Here are ten ways in which taking an acting class can enhance your day-to-day existence.

1. IT'S A GREAT WAY TO MEET PEOPLE

Perhaps the new term has brought you to a new town to study or work? Or your life circumstances have changed in some way? Maybe all your friends are married with babies, or you're sick of the pub, perhaps you've recently retired or gotten divorced, or you feel stuck in your social circle and would like to make new friends? By its very nature, a drama class breaks down barriers between people through group and partner work, building trust and, most importantly, shared laughter. As students focus on creating work together, interaction happens without thinking about it too much, friendships spark, post-class social occasions start to spring up, and you suddenly find yourself with a whole new social circle which has the added zing of creative collaboration.

2. IT'LL BOOST YOUR CHARISMA

One of the silliest myths around acting is the idea that "Presence" is some magical thing that "special" people like Cillian Murphy or Saoirse Ronan have, while the rest of us are unremarkable mortals. Of course, some people may have cultivated their presence to a greater degree, but it's accessible to everyone with a body and breath. Stage Presence is simply the ability to be fully present in your body and in the moment, so that you can access the power needed to radiate your being out into the audience and respond truthfully to your fellow players. Nearly every style of acting training seeks, through different techniques, to bring students into this experience, which makes it easier and easier to be present in our outer lives as well as on stage. You'll notice over time how much more grounded and magnetic you feel!

3. IT'LL SPARK YOUR IMAGINATION

And one of the most ridiculous myths about becoming an adult is that you lose your imagination. Or you might have always felt that some people are just born more imaginative. That's not necessarily true, it just looks like that because, for any number of reasons, some people just find imagination easier to access - a little like presence. You just have to trust that it's there. Indeed, imagination begins with presence, being still and observing, and then taking what you observe and asking questions about it and that way transforming it. A good drama class will allow the space for people to try out ideas in their raw form, and then learn how to shape them. A good facilitator will keep an eye out to make sure that everyone in the group has space to explore and that people listen to one another. It can often take time to trust yourself to follow your creative impulses, but over six to twelve weeks, if you go with what comes up, you will definitely surprise yourself.

4. YOU WILL LEARN TO EXPRESS YOURSELF MORE CLEARLY

For students whose first language is not English, an acting class is an ideal place to utilise their existing linguistic knowledge in all kinds of dramatic situations, to learn new words and phrases as they are encountered in scripts and improvisations, and master the subtleties of how words and syllables are stressed. Clearer expression is also a by-product for native speakers, as we explore breath support, resonance and diction for the voice. As we commit to our characters, we learn how to commit to the words we speak and what we are trying to achieve with our words. We become aware of how we use our body to express ourselves, and notice the things we might be doing which unconsciously counteract the message we want to get across. We learn how to ground ourselves and connect with the space and audience before speaking, which is invaluable for those with a horror of public speaking, but whose work demands it of them from time to time

5. YOUR CONCENTRATION AND MEMORY WILL IMPROVE

The best acting exercises will have multiple benefits. For instance, many exercises around developing physical presence have a knock-on effect on your concentration with their demands upon you to be ready and responsive in the moment. Getting on top of your cues in performance trains your mind not to drift, while learning lines and memorising (and most importantly, making sense of) of the actions that have to happen do wonders for your sense of recall, which can help stave off memory loss later in life.

6. YOUR INNER CHILD WILL THANK YOU

My absolute favourite thing as a teacher of adult drama is registering the difference at the end of class between the shy, guarded individuals who come in after a long day of conforming to the demands of work and/or home life - of responsibility and productivity, of fitting in to the space they have carved in the world - and their sparkly-eyed dopplegangers who bounce out of the room full of energy, mischief and a kind of breathless incredulity because they have just played for two or three hours, with nothing too serious at stake, and nothing too heavy to take home with them. This is because drama at its heart is gorgeously ephemeral, and yet powerfully transformative.

7. IT'S A SAFE SPACE TO MAKE FRIENDS WITH YOUR SHADOW

And my absolute favourite thing about being an actor is playing a villain, because, let's face it, behaving badly is ridiculously fun sometimes. You get to do and say things that you'd never be allowed to (and probably wouldn't really want to) in the outside world. This is me, for instance, playing an evil nun called Lucifer - and having a ball! Everyone needs that safety valve where they can own and release the darker aspects of their nature, take them out into the light in such a way that they are not acted out on anyone in reality, but also to find the power in parts of themselves they might have repressed. Shadow selves are not always bad - in fact it has been said they contain the real gold in your personality - they might just be modes of being you might have been afraid of, or might not have permitted yourself to explore. An experienced facilitator will create a safe space for all of this to happen by keeping a strong boundary between acting and reality, and, especially for beginners, always keeping it at the level where it is fun. An acting class should never be therapy, but at the same time, you never know the gold you might find!

8. IT WILL BUILD YOUR CONFIDENCE

One of the most common questions I get asked when people phone me up to enquire about courses is “I’m really shy, can I still do the course?” and my answer is always “If you are shy, and want to get out of yourself, this course is the best thing you can do!” The first thing I ask them to do is to be aware of what their personal line is in terms of what they are comfortable doing - it varies from person to person and situation to situation - and then go the equivalent of one or two steps over that line week by week, thereby incrementally pushing that line forward. Most traumatic memories around performing in public from childhood come from where the personal boundaries of a child are not respected and they are pushed too far into the deep end of a situation before they are ready. Confidence begins with minding your own boundaries and learning how to challenge them in a safe way. A good teacher should be able to sense those boundaries and know how to respect them, but also how to safely coax you that one or two steps over the line. However, the best teacher will make sure you are having so much fun, that you won’t even notice that this has happened!

9. YOU'LL ENJOY WATCHING MOVIES, TV PROGRAMMES AND THEATRE SHOWS MORE

As you learn different filters through which to observe the world in order to interpret and create characters and the relationships between them, you will gain a deeper appreciation for how the media you watch are put together. You’ll see differences in approach, for instance, actors who work from outside-in as opposed to inside-out. (I will write a more detailed blog post on this in future, but if you’re curious now, come along to a class!) Having worked hard at mastering a particular technique in class, you cannot fail to be wowed when more experienced artists make it look effortless. The experience of mere entertainment gives way to the more satisfactory experience of craft and you’ll probably start enjoying long spirited discussions after evenings at the cinema or theatre!

10. YOU CAN'T BEAT FUN, FREE, LIVE ENTERTAINMENT FROM YOUR PEERS ON A WEEKLY BASIS!

It’s great being entertained by professional actors, whether live or on the golden or silver screens, but I have to say nothing entertains or satisfies me quite as much as being in a room with my peers, creating work from our own experiences and for our own enjoyment. And nothing makes me laugh quite so much either. When you think about it, this is the way people used to entertain themselves - telling stories to one another, enacting them with whatever was to hand, singing songs, doing our party-pieces. This is how society used to come together and it sometimes makes me sad that this, along with so much else, is outsourced to people who have been airbrushed beyond all recognisable resemblance.

For more information, visit our website, or call 0330 088 4194 in order to enquire or book.

[bubblegum-switch]

Kitziwch – Human Things

Anonymous asked: i've got a request! I honestly just want something with lance getting reCt tbh, so uh. They're in the castle and so, allura and coran are like "lmao whats ticklign" and they want someone to demonstrate it, so they chose keith and lance to do it, first lance is all like scared n, stuff but then keef breaks the awkwardness and just pouncess on lance and coran is there just taking notes with allura And when they're done pidge says something like lmao good blackmail material and they're both SHOOK

Ask and you shall receive, friend :) I hope I did it justice

Title: Kitziwch – Human Things (b/c I can’t title for shit)

Word count: app. 3.6k (Side note: holy shit that’s longer than I anticipated)

Rating: it gets a b i t suggestive at one point but nothing more than like PG-13

Time: Before the end of season 2 I guess maybe, Shiro doesn’t have his Bayard so…

Characters: The main 7 (Keith, Hunk, Lance, Pidge, Shiro, Allura, Coran)

Pairing: pre-Klance

Genre: so fluffy it gave me cavities

Themes: Ticklish!Lance, Pining!Keith, ticklish!Keith, brief ticklish!Shiro to kick off the plot, this scenario is such an oldie but a goodie and I feel honored to write it, f u c k I’m so weak for Lance getting reKt you have no idea, I don’t know what “““correct form””” is but I needed a good opportunity so I could be very wrong but fuck that I don’t really care, it takes like over 1k words to get to the meat of the story I’m so sorry but I needed enough exposition for this prompt, I love using personal experience for help with writing haha…, am I minorly projecting my synesthesia onto fictional characters now is that what is happening, I’m writing this whole thing while over-tired over the course of several late-nights at like 11pm-4am and I think it shows, Ernest Hemingway Mr. Write-Drunk-Edit-Sober would be proud but then again what is editing, my tired ass decided to just fuckin give Lance a special kind of love for it which is why it gets suggestive *winks with both eyes*, fuck I need sleep, I did a surprising amount of research for the title, don’t ask me why Keith is so skilled he just is, Lance is literally a ball of ticklishness help him it’s adorable, I had so many options for endings  I hope I did this one right, there will likely be a part 2 b/c of another prompt I got that this can lead into so…

A/N: Ok so “Kitziwch” [kind of pronounced kitzee-ucx I think] is a word I created to be the Altean word for “tickle” out of the German word “kitzeln” and the Welsh word “Ticiwch” because of reasons you’ll find out at the end of this

---

At the training deck, Allura was trying to get a better feel for each of the paladin’s combat strengths and weaknesses. She was going to have each one go up and complete a relay of sorts – which was made of an opaque maze (unlike the electrified invisible one), fighting several types of drone-bots, and testing the accuracy of their Bayard. Coran was watching as well, taking notes on each round.

Pidge was up first, and she made it through the maze quickly, but lost time at the flying drones and accuracy due to the short range of her Bayard.

Then it was Lance’s turn. He didn’t get through the maze as fast as Pidge, but more than made up for it with accuracy.

Hunk was about in the middle so far for the maze time-wise, but was able to quickly obliterate the drones. However, his Bayard was not as precise as Pidge’s or Lance’s due to its comparably wide damage-field.

Keith practically danced through the maze, even though he got hung up a few times. He slashed through the drones and had a near-perfect score on accuracy.

Shiro was last to go, and after getting through the maze and the drones he was getting ready for testing the accuracy of his arm.

“Hold it!” Allura rushed to him. “I can’t ignore you Earthlings’ improper form any longer. I have held my tongue but I’ve had enough.”

“Aw, why didn’t you tell us? I would’ve fixed it,” Lance said from the sidelines.

Allura smiled apologetically. “You were all on a roll. I didn’t want to interrupt you, but I just can’t let this finish uncorrected.”

Shiro relaxed his stance. “Sure, Princess how do I stand?”

“Alright Shiro, hold your back in a straight line – don’t hunch over,” she said casually, circling him as he followed her directions. “Hm, good. Now, keep some bounce in your knees – you look too stiff, and if you can’t move freely you can’t evade.”

“Okay,” he replied, trying his best to follow suit. “Am I doing it right?”

She paused behind him. “Here, let me help you angle yourself a bit better.”

She reached forward and put her hands on his sides to adjust him. He jumped a little, but Allura credited it as surprise and shrugged it off. She tilted him to the left a little bit to balance himself, pressing her fingers into his ribs accidentally, and he involuntarily snorted out a surprised laugh.

This time, she quickly retracted her hands. “Everything alright, Shiro? Are you hurt?”

He rolled his eyes good-naturedly and smiled at her. “I’m fine, don’t worry, it didn’t hurt.”

She looked at him quizzically and tilted her head. “Then why did you make that noise? That was a laugh, right?”

“I guess I’m a little ticklish, that’s all,” he chuckled, shaking his head. “That shouldn’t get in your way again, I just didn’t expect it… Allura?”

She looked like she was deep in thought, trying to remember something that was forgotten a while ago. She looked to Coran, who looked back at her, just as confused. “Do you know what he’s talking about, Coran?”

“No, I’ve never heard of that before either. I don’t know what he means.” He turned to the other four paladins. “Can any of you translate? Altean often overlaps with your language, but there’s no word for that.”

“I can try to explain,” Pidge volunteered. “Basically, someone is ticklish, you can tickle someone, and that someone gets tickled. Linguistics aside,” she adjusted her glasses, “basically it’s when someone is touched in a way that makes them laugh. Some people like being tickled, some people hate it, and there are people that are more ticklish than others.” Pidge smirked, “for example, I’m not that ticklish. Shiro, on the other hand… well you’ve seen that he is.”

“Thank you, Pidge,” Allura said, still confused. “I think that helped, but I still don’t really understand it. How can touching someone make them laugh? And can everyone do this?”

“I agree, I’m still confused as well,” Coran piped up. “Can we have a demonstration? I think that might clear it up.”

“Oh yes, I think that would be great, Coran!” Allura agreed. “But how do we get someone to demonstrate it?”

“Well, if you want two people to show you what it is, I recommend some people who you want to see laughing, or to get revenge on. Tickling can be a great form of revenge, sometimes. It can also be a good bonding experience.”

“Alright, Pidge, then I think it should be…” she thought for a moment.

Lance’s eyes were wide, and he was trying to act like he wasn’t affected by this when every iteration of the word made him want to crawl out of his skin. He noticed Keith hiding his face behind his hair a little more than normal. Hunk, however, was completely fine through the whole conversation so far – not even blushing (like Shiro was, oh boy his face was pink).

“Lance and Keith.”

“What?” Lance shrieked, and then cringed at how terrified he sounded. Keith turned his head away so no one could see the grin that was beginning to invade his face, as well as the blush that sat upon his skin.

“Well, I think you two have some differences you need to work out, and Pidge said that tickling can be used as a bonding experience. Plus, Keith never laughs, and maybe I’m considering this revenge for you constantly flirting with me, Lance,” she said brightly, laughing at the end and showing she wasn’t actually upset.

“Yes, I think they would make a good match-up for this ‘tickling’ thing,” Coran agreed. “I can take notes on this to better understand it.”

Allura walked over to where the red and blue paladins were inching away towards the door. “Come on you two,” she chirped, grabbing their wrists and pulling them into the center of the room. She stood them face to face – or as good as she could get them since neither one would meet the other’s eyes – and she retreated back to where she previously stood next to Coran. “Alright… now start… tickling each other?” She glanced at Pidge to see if she had used the word correctly, and was given a thumbs-up in return. She smiled satisfactorily, and waited.

Lance shifted uncomfortably where he stood. Neither paladin moved or looked at the others.

“Why aren’t they doing anything, Number Five?” Coran whispered to Pidge, pen poised above his notepad.

“They must be shy about this, but don’t worry. Maybe they need incentive to get started.” She smirked, before shouting “if neither one of you starts tickling then someone else will tickle both of you!”

She grinned broader when she saw their faces turn redder and Lance nearly squeaked at the threat as Keith huffed through his nose.

Allura whispered to Pidge that she had an idea. “Keith, Lance was complaining about your mullet again yesterday!” she yelled to them in a sing-song.

Keith’s eyes snapped to Lance’s in an instant, biting back a grin. Thank you, Allura, for giving me an opening. “Again with the mullet?” He started inching towards the blue paladin. “When are you gonna let it go?”

Lance began protesting as he inched backwards, hands raised in defense. “No no no she’s lying Keith, I didn’t insult your mullet yesterday… to her anyway!”

“Oh, so you did?” he cracked his knuckles, and Lance squeaked.

“W-well,” Lance’s voice was unnaturally high. He gulped and steeled himself, stopping in place. “It is pretty terrible…”

That was the final straw. Keith yelled “enough with my hair!” and pounced onto Lance, knocking him to the ground.

Keith lay on top of Lance for a moment, blinking down at him and realizing Lance could’ve gotten hurt from that.

“Did that hurt you?” he asked quietly.

Lance fought back a smile, “no.”

Keith’s face finally split into that large grin – one of the first Lance had ever seen on him. “Good, because then this definitely won’t.”

The blue paladin’s eyes grew wide and his face grew pinker as Keith’s words fell from his lips. He didn’t have time to dwell on it much, however, as soon all thoughts were abandoned as he felt hands on his hips and two thumbs brushing over the skin. His breath hitched in his throat as he bit his lip and began to smile.

The pressure from the two digits increased, and he began squirming and laughing in little breathy huffs. “K-Keith come hahahon buhuddy…”

“So you remember me being your ‘buddy’ but not our bonding moment?” he teased, changing to squeezing Lance’s hips causing sharp, shrill laughs and him to buck up and down.

Lance felt what seemed like electricity shoot through his body, and his mind went blank. “NOHOHO KEIHEEHEETH,” he pleaded through laughter.

“If you say so, I’ll stop with your hips…” the red paladin near-growled (which made the boy underneath him blush even harder), and, in keeping with his word, shot his hands to Lance’s stomach. In desperation as his laughter reached a fever pitch, he reached to grab Keith’s hands. Keith was having none of it, grabbed them, and pinned them above his head. Keith held them with just one of his own hands, putting enough weight on them both to not hurt them but keep them in place. He tsked down at Lance before returning one hand to his stomach and scrabbling his fingers wildly, causing the blue paladin to dissolve into hysterics.

Lance couldn’t even protest anymore, for a few reasons (one of which he’d explain to Keith later, much to both of their delights), but mostly because he couldn’t physically form words with Keith’s hands there. However, it became even worse(?) for Lance when the red paladin decided to take it up a notch and stick his hand underneath his shirt to tickle Lance’s bare skin.

Lance’s vision erupted into brightness as his laughter turned silent from the fast, firm fingers digging gently into his stomach.

Keith’s face dusted pinker as he marveled at how soft Lance’s skin was, before realizing that Lance probably needed more air than he was currently getting. He let him laugh silently for a few more moments before letting up.

Lance panted, catching his breath and smiling largely. His relief was short-lived, however, as Keith’s hand crawled up his side, on top of his shirt once again. Lance was back to squirming as he felt his fingers walk slowly up his waist, and ribs, and then finding their target in his left underarm. Lance shrieked as Keith’s fingers danced in the hollow, and skated around the edge.

“KEIHIHTH COHOHOME OHOHON YOU’RE MEHEHEAN”

The red paladin laughed. “You think that’s mean, I’ll show you mean.” Keith let go of Lance’s hands, which instantly shot to grab him again. Keith stopped tickling for a moment to take one wrist in each hand. He maneuvered them under Lance’s back so his own weight was holding them down, allowing Keith to use both hands. He pressed his knees on either side of the blue paladin to keep him in place, and sat on his hips. Keith reached behind him and squeezed Lance’s knees, extracting deep belly laughter and causing his legs to flail around to their maximum allowance.

Keith inched his hands up to Lance’s thighs, and alternated randomly between squeezing and fully tickling and lightly tracing them. Lance dissolved into uncontrollable giggles at the latter two techniques, and let out yelps interspersed with short, barking laughs when he dug his fingers in. The layer of denim was no match for Keith’s teasing touches.

Keith’s fingers drifted from the top of Lance’s thighs to his inner thighs, but due to the quick change in his laughter Keith moved back to save him any embarrassment. Well, any more embarrassment. Keith didn’t fail to notice the… *ahem* lengthening of the individual laughs and how they seemed to become more throaty and less… less like laughs and more like something that under other circumstances he would be thrilled to hear.

Lance didn’t notice.

Keith hoped none of the others did, and he filed it away in his mind for later. He figured it was probably best to move his hands somewhere else.

He brought his hands to Lance’s sides, spidering from his waist to the middle of his ribs as best he could. Lance’s belly laughter returned, but he wouldn’t look at Keith – he kept turning his face away to try to hide – which the red paladin thought was adorable.

“MEHEHEAN”

Keith laughed along with him. “Alright, I think I can live with that,” he smiled down at him. He wanted to kiss Lance’s blushing cheeks, and he almost did before remembering the other 5 in the room.

He felt Lance’s ribs under his fingertips, and he dug into them a little more, making sure to press in-between the bones. He used both hands to play Lance like a twin piano with keys to the left and right. The blue paladin’s laughter became shrill at his upper ribs, and Keith was a little resentful that he couldn’t really get at Lance’s underarms while he was in this position.

Although, there was a place Keith wanted to try. He moved his hands slowly to Lance’s neck, dragging his fingertips gently the whole way. He began wiggling his digits against the soft skin there, causing Lance to scrunch up and start giggling. He tickled the right side of his neck, and watched Lance try to trap his hand between his head and shoulder. He tickled the left, and Lance did the same. When he tickled both sides of his neck, however, Lance tried to pull his head into his body like a turtle and wrenched his eyes shut.

Keith laughed again. He didn’t think Lance would’ve been able to be taken down by a few light touches on his neck (or his thighs, but that was another matter).

He didn’t want to keep at his neck too long, since that was a dangerous place to linger for a few reasons, but he didn’t want to be done quite yet. He decided to give his neck a break, and figured that it was a gamble for the next spot. Either it wouldn’t be ticklish and he’d have to move fast, or Lance would be even more adorable just by default.

Keith brought his hands to Lance’s ears and lightly brushed his fingers on their undersides on the thin skin and around the outside ridge of each one.

He played his cards right.

Lance’s giggles became effervescent as he scrunched up his face and turned his head from side to side as Keith’s heart melted.

“Nope, you can’t escape it now,” Keith teased quietly.

“Kehehehihith cohohome ohohohon…” Lance whined, but not for him to stop. He just… he couldn’t handle being teased.

Keith stayed tickling his ears for a few moments, before deciding that there wasn’t enough of a canvas to work with. He withdrew his hands, trying to figure out where to strike next. Hm.

“Do you think he’s done?” Keith heard Coran whisper to Hunk.

“He shouldn’t be, he’s forgetting a couple key spots,” he said back.

Keith grinned. Right. He slid off of Lance, who didn’t move right away.

All he did was ask, “are you done?” But not even in a tone conveying annoyance, just simply a question posed as if asking the time.

“Not yet, turn over,” Keith told him, and Lance froze, blush returning to his face.

“Come on, Lance!” Hunk encouraged.

“Yeah, it’s for science!” Pidge supported.

“And inter-cultural studies!” Allura chimed in.

“I’m writing as fast as I can!” Coran yelled in a hurry, apparently marking down everything that occurred.

“Come on, Lance, do it!” even Shiro was getting in on it.

Keith smiled down at him. “Come on, either you turn over or I go back to your stomach…” he raised a claw-shaped hand over him.

Lance groaned and flipped himself over, but Keith caught the smile on his face too. Lance was even biting his lip to keep from grinning more.

Keith sat on Lance’s thighs, facing his feet. He grabbed one of Lance’s legs and pulled his foot back towards him, eventually grabbing onto his left ankle. He pulled off Lance’s sneaker, and held it tighter before descending five wiggling fingers onto his upturned sole.

Lance erupted into laughter the instant Keith made contact.

“AHAHAHA KEHEHEHIHIHITH WHAHAHA—COHOHOME OHOHON”

The red paladin shook his head, chuckling and smiling fondly. He spidered his fingers along Lance’s arch, sliding farther down his legs so he could put more weight on Lance’s calves so he wouldn’t need to hold onto his ankle.

Lance felt fingers dancing as close to the base of his toes as they could get with how tightly they were curled. He shrieked with laughter as he tried to kick his foot out of Keith’s grasp, but it was held tight.

Keith smiled, and laid his leg over Lance’s spare one, holding it down with his weight. He leaned forward, and with the hand that was tickling his foot Keith pulled his toes back and held it in place. He was practically sitting on the back of his knees as he took his now free hand and tickled his stretched-out sole.

Lance continued his high-pitched laughter as he began clawing at the cool tile of the floor. Keith scratched along his cotton-covered arches, and Lance went limp with loud giggles bubbling out of his mouth as if he was a popped bottle of champagne.

Keith could’ve tickled him there forever, if only just to hear him laugh like that until the end of time.

He moved his nimble fingers to his heels and brushed around the edge, and Lance’s laughter became fuller again as he shot up, propped up on his elbows, eyes wrenched shut and face flushed.

Keith snickered at the instant reaction, and he was amazed that Lance hadn’t even said the word “stop” at any point. Keith knew that they were about equal in strength, but Lance never made a move to push him off…

Keith’s thoughts were interrupted as he felt clumsy fingers at his sides. He fought back his own laughter as Lance tried to retaliate. He had managed to bring himself up far enough so he could reach Keith, but he could barely do so.

However, it was enough for Keith’s incredibly sensitive sides. He started losing focus from the light touches, and as he arched his back and removed his hands from Lance’s feet, beginning to laugh himself, the tables were turned. Lance was able to roll out from under him and tackled him, situating himself on top this time.

“Write that down, write that down!” Allura was lightly smacking Coran’s arm out of excitement.

“Is that legal?” Coran asked Pidge and Hunk.

Pidge smiled, “all is fair in love and tickling.”

Coran nodded seriously, and continued jotting it down in his notepad.

Lance smirked down at Keith, who was sprawled out on his back with Lance pinning down his legs with his own. He was panting heavily and his face was deeply colored red, but his eyes were bright and happy.

“You know…” the blue paladin began quietly, and Keith had the impression that the words were not meant for the others to hear. “I could get my revenge right here, right now.”

Keith would’ve been worried, if not for the fact that everything other than Lance’s voice was conveying pure joy.

“Or… we could run back to my room and I could tell you things that would probably be good for both of us.”

Keith nodded quickly. “Yes. Let’s go do that.”

The two jumped up and began running out of the room before they heard—

“Think that’s good blackmail Shiro?”

Lance and Keith froze, and looked back at Pidge with wide eyes.

“I wonder what I can use this for…” she pondered aloud with mock-innocence.

“You were recording that?” both paladins asked simultaneously in embarrassment.

She smirked. “Remember that the next time I ask for the cookie jar,” she laughed. “Because who knows… it might just get broadcast to an entire planet, then they’ll know that the great Blue Paladin of Voltron is incredibly ticklish.”

Lance began walking towards her. “You wouldn’t…”

“Oh, I think we both know I would, and that I’ve had enough of your discrimination against people under 66 inches tall,” she teased in a sing-song voice.

Lance cracked his knuckles, walking closer to her, who didn’t back down. “Keith? Wanna help me here?”

Keith grinned evilly, “it would be my pleasure.”

“Oh my gosh!” Allura cried out, smiling largely and stopping the two in their tracks. “I just remembered something, Coran!”

Her advisor looked at her as well. “Kitziwch, right?”

“Yes!” she smiled, and the paladins could see right through her act. “We do have a word in Altean for that, it’s ‘Kitziwch’.”

Lance and Keith blinked at each other.

“You know, Keith, I think she knew all along. I think she tricked us into this!” The blue paladin said with mock-surprise.

Keith fake-gasped in return. “I think you’re right! But what do we do about Pidge and her blackmail, and Allura?”

“I do not know, there’s only two of us…”

“But there’s also two of them…”

“Fair point, buddy, so what ever shall we do?”

Keith grinned. “I think we have one clear option.”

“Shall we attack to defend our honor?” Lance readied his stance.

Keith followed suit, “absolutely.”

[aquarianlights]

OKAY FINALLY....HERE IS WHAT HAS BEEN GOING ON. I’M SORRY THIS IS SO LONG AND SO LATE. FUCK.

((C/Ped this from a FB post, so there may be a few...not understandable things here, but for the most part, you'll get what I'm saying. Tried to edit it to fit a generalized linguistic standard, so to speak. Idk. I tried. Here you go.))

OKAY Now that I'm finally not entirely exhausted and am not ready to jump off a bridge (yet), I am gonna fucking type this up coz everyone is asking me what's going on and I can't keep up with y'all. Damn. Okay, so. . .

The past two weeks have been fucking...awful. Literally the worst two weeks of my life I had ever had. It began with me doing something VERY illegal and my mom figuring it out when I didn't think it would happen the way it did. In fact, for someone who has a catastrophic thinking problem, I'm surprised this scenario did not enter my mind at any moment.

It was the moment I said "Wow. I really am a drug addict." I mean, I've known I was an addict for literally years but after what I did, I just couldn't even...I mean, this is something I could have gone to prison for life or double life for. So it kinda just...woke me up and I was like "fuck" but I kept going anyways and then I ran out of pills and everything else and didn't know what to do. . . which is precisely the moment my mom had found out what I had done.

Bad timing.

So she blocks me in the basement with her car so that I can't use my car. And it's been YEARS of me saying to my father "Can I PLEASE buy my car from you so I have legal ownership?" Every day. . .same response. . . "Yeah, of course! Just let me get around to it." Like...this goes on for like...since maybe 2013? 4ish years later...my mom starts holding it over my head. "The car isn't even legally yours so if you take it anywhere, I will just call the police and tell them you stole it." Well I couldn't anyways because she blocked me in with her car. The only way I could have driven it was directly off the mountain cliff and over the edge, which I was considering, but felt too scared that I might hurt an animal in the process since it's all forest and trees and such where I am and our neighbours down the road have free-roam dogs. So despite the fact I would have LOVED to have just gunned the accelerator off the edge of that cliff, I didn't.

Then they barricade me in my room and won't let me out. This isn't unusual. Normally they turn off the power to the basement and leave me down there. But this time they actually barricaded me in the ROOM and not just the basement. I had no water and no access to water. Or anything else. And then my mom would come pounding on my door and screaming and at one point she had my dad hold me down while she took every single one of my medications, including the most important one, my mood stabilizer, and ripped them out of my hands. So after that, I was just screaming at the top of my lungs and pulling my hair out and banging my head against the wall remembering "Only the head has pain receptors. The brain doesn't." Thinking maybe if I could just bash my skull in to the point of brains, then I wouldn't feel anything and could physically rip my brain out by pieces since I wouldn't be able to feel anything. But then my parents came downstairs obviously coz of the noise of me banging my head against the wall as hard as I could and I ran and pushed the couch in my room against the door and pushed the table against that and pushed the bed against that. Which ...minus a small triangular bureau thing by my bed, that's all the furniture in my room.

So...I couldn't get out or in for days. This was during a period of which my dad had just gotten out of the geriatric ward and my mom was dealing with his new weird habits and medication reactions. So obvs, I mean, I'M the one who barricaded myself in. Why should they deal with me? I get that.

I just...pulled the barricade out from my side and pushed on the other side for what felt like hours until it gave out. I grabbed my bag, put my laptop and notepad for school in it, chargers, phone, and left.

Now. . .if you've ever been up my mountain, you'll know it's a 10 minute DRIVE up there. Nah, fam, I walked all that. And then walked more...and more...and more...and there was no signal...anywhere...Idk how long I walked. But I was wearing odd clothing because nothing was clean obviously. I was wearing a sweater with nothing underneath and shorts and plaid shoes and I had lost my glasses so I didn't even have those. And I ended up somewhere on this road...Idk how far I went but I kept checking for service to text any friend to see if they would let me couch hop for one or two nights. But no. No signal. So I started walking back.

It was too hot. I laid down on the very edge of the pavement of this tiny, windy, backroad and I remember looking up at the trees and seeing the sun shine through the leaves and just...being in awe of the beauty. I went to take a picture of it with my phone but then I blacked out.

Somewhere during this time, a car almost hit me and left skid marks on the road which the police pointed out later. Idk if I was awake for that or not. But then I woke up to this really sweet mom and she had her van stopped beside me and she was holding me and shaking me and her little ...gradeschooler(??) age kid was like screaming at her like "IS HE ALIVE!?" or something. I'm not entirely sure what. Somewhere during that time, local 911 dispatch was called from my phone. Maybe I did it. Maybe she did. Idk. But local 911 dispatch works even when you don't have service, so. . .thank god for that? I guess. Maybe not. It probably would have been better if I had just been hit by a car and died, honestly.

Legit 3 ambulances and 1 cop car showed up. I was withdrawing really, really badly and I hadn't had any water in literal days and I obviously hadn't eaten in even longer than that. I was super dehydrated and malnourished and overexhausted, yet my stats were okay. Like, everything like my BP and temp and pulse checked out. My BP is chronically low and lowered even more by the BP med I take for migraines so it's obvious that it was a "little high, but normal". And my temp was not too high. And my pulse wasn't thready, which I had already checked myself to make sure I could just go to sleep on the road and wake up later after resting. The EMT's said I could go with them or not. And the cop said "You're 25. If you wanna walk away from me right now and keep walking down that road and go to sleep on the side of the road, I can't stop you. But by the skid marks on the road here (like I mentioned), I'm pretty sure you're going to get hit by a car. So..." I mean, well, if that's not my damn white privilege at its finest... But, anyways, I said "Yeah, y'know what, I'm just gonna keep walking." Then the cop pulls me aside and is like "No. I really don't think you should." And one of the EMTs knew my mom from when she worked at the same hospital he worked at and had been up to our house plenty of times. So he drove up to her house and brought her back because, yknow...no service. And I told the police and EMTs to just...lemme go from there. I didn't want police involved. Coz, as the officer said, "You're 25. You make your own decisions at this point in life." So I did.

I adamantly told my mother I wasn't going back with her and she was about to scream at me but then I threw up blood. Just...pure blood. And idk how I got to Asheville Memorial Trauma Center, but I did. They had a helipad. It was like being in a Grey's Anatomy episode coz they're a level 1 trauma center. Omg. So cool. They had all this fancy equipment like that green vein scan thingy where you run it over the AC or the hand and it just shows you where the veins are so you don't have to feel for them. It was fascinating.

I got stuck maybe 8 times, though. For blood draws and such. Coz my veins are small and they roll and I'm a very hard stick.

I don't remember much from the time I was there but we didn't leave until like...idk, idr, maybe 4am? We got home around 6am. Dad had locked us out of the house. The key was in view on the inside from the window and I was delirious and laughing while my mom was fuming angry and screaming for my dad to wake up and pounding on the door.

Something happened between this that I don't remember. Lots of black-out periods, obvs.

I slept. I withdrew. Hard. Lots of pain. This is day 5 of totally nothing and there's STILL lots of pain. Then the same thing happened. My mom barricaded my car in and took my meds from me and locked me in the basement. So I said...fuck it....and lied and said I had friends to stay with, even though I hadn't even contacted anyone at this point yet. Coz I figured that would make her let me leave if she knew a friend was involved. And she still wouldn't let me out unless I gave a full name, address, and telephone number. She kept saying this was all for "my safety". I couldn't handle it. I can't handle being in that house anyways. Anyone with depression will know that environment affects your moods VERY highly. So I was not only withdrawing from opiates, benzos, ambien, a BP med for migraines, but also cold turkey from my mood stabilizer. Like, I'm surprised I didn't die. I wish I would have. I have never been in so much pure physical and mental agony in my life.

I don't remember much of the next few days. And I don't remember how we came to an agreement, but my mom gave me my meds back and let me out and let me take my car. I was crying and screaming so hard because she told me if I didn't come home and stay home, she was going to take my dog to a kill shelter. And there was nothing I could do.

I went down somewhere in town on a backroad where no one would find me in the pure dark and called my old therapist. He recommended several good 7-day detox programs for me that also handle psych issues. Because rehabs won't take me due to my psych issues because they don't have the capability to handle psych medications.

I had somehow convinced my mom to let me sleep in my car that night. She had been screaming about how "Human beings DO NOT live in cars, Killian!" And such nonsense that typical cis white baby boomers babble about. I don't remember much of that night. But I ended up in a hotel somehow. Where I have been for the past few days. I went to volunteer, got that job, was about to go scrub shopping with my mom when the withdrawals just got too intense and I thought "My doctor is a former addict. Like. Everyone knows this. He SHOULD help me. Right?" Wrong.

We went to my doctor and he was literally screaming at me and pointing his pen in my face saying he wasn't going to be manipulated by a bipolar drug addict anymore. And I have NEVER been diagnosed bipolar. Ever. That has never come up even once except with him. I am most definitely NOT bipolar. And when I said that, he's like screaming at me that I'm definitely bipolar and that he's cutting me off of everything except my mood stabilizer and that I need to get in with a psychiatrist if I want my benzos back, which are what I need, and a neurologist if I want my BP meds back, and where the hell I'm going to find Ambien to sleep? Fuck.

AND THEN He starts yelling about how he's never had a case of costochondritis in his 30-something years of being a doctor and that I am lying about it. But my mom was in the room and she's like quietly shaking her head. Because I have been diagnosed three times now with costo. It's supposed to be short term. But mine is long term and that's where it gets confusing because costo has never really lasted this long in many people in the entire world so far. And he just screams at me that it's all psychological and that I have too many problems and that I'm never going to make it through school, so why am I even trying, and then says that I am probably going to be living in a state mental institution by the age of 30 or less.

I just walked out at this point. Thank god I had my car. I drove off. Drove. For a while. Got lost. Stopped at a rest stop and texted my platonic soul mate. I was ready to drive to New Orleans right then without anything at all. But I calmed down a bit after popping one of the few ativan or valium (Idr) I have left and came up with a better plan because even my therapist said "You're being dismissive of my help. I don't think you want my help. This is not going to end well." But no. I don't even care anymore. I'm going to get through this.

Got set up in a very cheap hotel near my volunteer shelter for 3 days to sort things out and come up with a plan. So I have been wracking my brain and doing SO much research and talking to so many friends about potential living arrangements. But nothing came up. I need to be in a city or heavily populated suburb because I cannot HANDLE being isolated and I cannot handle living by myself either.

So best friend and I eventually came up with a plan. Thank god her roommates are such wonderful people. I love them both so much.

The Tech school I can AFFORD to get into is in Asheville. And I want more hands on experience than the online world is giving me. I want to be able to dissect things and do actual venipuncture restraint positions on dogs bigger than me and I want to do all these things PHYSICALLY. I want HANDS-ON experience and I just...can't get a shadowing position in such a small town.

Problem being, if I leave NC for over a month, I lose my disability, SSI, EBT, and Medicaid. I could do without disability, SSI, and EBT...but I cannot afford my medications without Medicaid. So I'm not sure what I'm going to do while going to school because I only get about 650ish a month from my disability and about 50 from my SSI and 74 on my EBT which my parents use because I really don't eat coz of my anorexia and depression and anxiety combo. But my Medicaid pushes meds that are normally around 200-300 dollars out of pocket, even with discounts like GoodRx, pushes them all the way down to 3 dollars a piece. And my mood stabilizer is especially pricey. So Idk what I'm gonna do when I move in with someone in Asheville coz I will want to be focusing on school and shadowing/interning and volunteering and not have to worry about working, but then. . .I want to work, too. But only at a vet's office or somewhere that deals with medical things. I'm literally 1 class away from getting my vet transfer degree. But do you know why I started over from scratch? Because I can't handle the speech class which is the last and only class I need AND because this degree, albeit a fully accredited AA, is nothing more than a "Here. You have taken all the gen ed classes and a million extracurriculars and now you can use this degree to get into a vet tech school!" Which, I mean, is great, because I REALLY want to get into North Carolina Univeristy in Raleigh. . .that would be my ideal school for vet tech training in this state (not my ideal state, obvs...I hate the south and I want to live in Massachusetts, but it's too expensive). But. . .the in-state tuition is above 10k. I highly doubt any sort of financial aid would cover all of that, even with Pell Grants.

Yes, I realize that becoming a tech and then going for the full vet surgeon licensing is gonna put me in debt until long after I die and that I'm going to be paying back literal millions of dollars worth of loans for the rest of my life and beyond. But why go to a school like that for 10k when they have the same hands-on program at a fully accredited community college? I never even realized how much of a difference the community college price versus university price was. . .because I've had Florida Pre-Paid this whole time and haven't had to pay anything big yet and right now my loan paybacks are at about 1k-2k at the most. I just...would uh...to add a 10k on top of that... (for one semester)...and then another 10k (for one more semester)...then two more 10k's for the last two semesters....I don't know if I could do all that. And then I have to PAY to take three different tests and if I fail even one, all that training was for nothing. And of course, applications and records and SAT score retrieval all cost money, too. AND THIS IS JUST FOR TECH SCHOOL. NOT EVEN FULL VET LICENSING AND SURGICAL LICENSING. So despite NC State and Raleigh being my dream in this state. . .it's just not. . .I don't think it's a wise decision. So I'm aiming for Asheville.

Now. . .all my disability money and SSI will be going to rent and utilities and I'm totally willing to share my EBT with whatever roommate I end up with, but I will lose ALL of that if I start any kind of job. Even a min wage retail job. And I'm fine with that. I will work till it kills me to make rent and utilities and such. But it's the FUCKING MEDICAID. If I start working, I lose my Medicaid, too. ...and I can't afford my meds without it. So...I'm not sure what to do here. I don't have credit yet but if I were to GET a credit card and gain credit, it would immediately be awful because of all my medical debt and there's no coming back from that coz I just can't do it in this economy. Which is exactly why I have put off getting any sort of credit. For...my entire adult life.

But right now...my plan is...go to New Orleans with my three good friends. Stay there for 2 weeks-month tops, which they said is totally fine and I'm completely welcome. Not like we haven't done this before in opposite situations anyways. Lmao. We help each other as much as we can. Next step? Gain roommate in Asheville through several roommate matching sites I found. Move there. THEN work on getting into the college I want and transferring my online credits and all the credits from the two other colleges I'm in and transferring my SAT scores whilst attempting to find an internship or shadowing position. And after that? I'm really not sure. I don't have a plan from there. But my mom agreed to keep my double coat dog brushed, cleaned, updated on his shots, fed properly like I feed him (NO HUMAN FOOD DAMNIT), bathed, nails clipped, butt shaved, and get the anesthesia dentistry done he needs for the next 2 years while I get my life in order. It's going to literally kill me to be away from him like that. But she said if I am not "stable to her liking" in 2 years, she will put him in a kill shelter. So not only do I WANT to do this, I HAVE to do this. Because if that happened. . .that would be the absolute last straw at any chance I would have of recovery. That dog is my life. Hell, I have his name tattooed on my wrist. I spend every waking second with him and even these couple weeks of in and out of consciousness was hell without him. I was worried about him every goddamn second and I could hear him borking and howling upstairs while I was barricaded downstairs and it would just kill me. It was like I could physically feel my heart being stabbed.

Annnd....Idk how I'm going to find a roommate that will take in an asexual, polyamorous, panromantic, nerdy recluse like me with questionable future financial stability and no credit. But even if I have to live in my car to get through school, find a place, and get my dog with me, I'll do it. I'm HOPING I will find a roommate that likes me AND a vicious little (read: very large) neurotic pomeranian in tech school. Someone who ALSO has a dog or AT LEAST a cat so that my dog will not be lonely while I am gone all day. I don't want to have to take him in with me alone and then be gone literally all day and only see him for 2 seconds before falling asleep and getting the only interaction with him possible at feeding time and to briefly take him out to go potty. I don't want that for him. He needs more. He deserves more. At least, leaving him with my mom and dad, he will be safe and taken care of and will have his "sister" and the cats to play with and he can bork to his hearts content. And my dad is retired and my mom only works 4 days a week, so he will be walked every day and taken out appropriately and I made them sign a document stating they would do this for 2 years.

So...tomorrow...I am scouring Asheville, every surrounding town within a 15 mile radius, and one within a 20 mile radius, to see what everything looks like in person and make sure the areas are diversified and active and are NOT a small town or even close to a regular sized town, but much bigger and much more diversified than a goddamn southern town with a bunch of white deer hunting orange overlord voters and then I'm gonna make it back in time for the Discovery premiere (Trekkie thing) coz it will be legendary. Like...Kirk's premiere, kinda legendary. And then I'm gonna pack after that, cuddle with my dog all night, and...leave for New Orleans whenever I wake up if I manage to sleep. Or leave when I finally decide "Fuck it, I can't stay in bed any longer." And I'll say goodbye to my dog.....and...cry..a lot...and hug him and kiss him and take tons of pictures and oh god now I'm crying.

That's all just the basics, though. There has been a lot of other less major stuff going on that's getting to me but. . .I will be so goddamn happy to see my three friends that are taking me in that I think I'm gonna cry good tears when I get there.

It’s really hard to think straight when you’re withdrawing AND the most impulsive person in the world.

Just gotta say...I thought dealing with generalized anxiety without meds was hard. Nah...dealing with panic disorder without meds is impossible. I can't fucking do anything without having a mostly physical style panic attack every 2 goddamn seconds. Feels worse than withdrawals, honestly. I have a couple benzos left...but literally only like 2 ativan and maybe 5 valium? So...trying to save those for like...really hard moments like the first day of an internship or something. So I have a plan about that, too, and Idk if it’s going to work, but I am DONE writing right now.

THANK YOU GOODNIGHT.

[carey-pricemas]

Appendicitis- Sidney Crosby (by Anon)

Ok guys so this is another story I had submitted to me! Its super cute and coming out on a Pens game day for my Pens fans! (I’m trying not to be bitter I promise!) Also it’s here to break up the smuts! Anyway! Enjoy guys!

Warning: none

~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~/

As an athletic trainer for an NHL team, you took your job seriously.

As the first female athletic trainer in the NHL, you tended to put your job above everything else. It’s a man’s world after all, and if you were going to succeed in it, you had to work twice as hard as everyone else (such is the way in today’s society).

You had been working as the Pittsburgh Penguins’ assistant athletic trainer for two seasons now. You had gotten a job after graduate school with the Wilkes-Barre Scranton team when you were called up midseason to the Pens when one of the trainers had quit.

It was only supposed to be a temporary thing, but the team had grown to like you so much, that you now had a permanent position.

You were also teased that Sid demanded you stayed because you brought ‘puck luck’ with you since they won the Stanley Cup.

You were there not only to support them through injury, but you provided comfort after losses as your office door was always open to talk. You would even bake them treats after big wins.

And things were good; it was like having a team of protective brothers.

Well, almost.

You, of course, had to get a major crush on Captain Sidney Crosby, wonder boy (man really) of the NHL. After a late night talk after a particularly rough game this season, the two of you had become particularly close and your feelings decided to screw with you and make you like him, oh god no, maybe even love him.

You did your best to ignore it, and it worked for the most part, but you couldn’t seem to shake your affections for the sweet, brown-eyed, brunette Captain.

Okay, okay, focus! Back to the present.

You were in pain. Lots of it.

You had awoken that morning with a stabbing pain in your right side and out of control nausea, but it wasn’t anything you hadn’t felt before. You had figured it was part of that time of the month because it was, well, that time of the month. Once again, you weren’t gonna let being a woman slow you down, so you sucked it up and went to work.

Luckily, today was only a practice and not a game, so you only had to be at the training facility a few hours before you could return home to your bed where you could freely curl up in pain.

However, as soon as you got to work, things got worse.

As soon as you got inside the training facility a wave of nausea hit you, and you were running to the nearest trashcan.

“Woah, you no feel good, Y/N?” you heard the deep Russian voice say as you felt a warm hand on your back. 

“I’m fine, Geno. Nothing I can’t handle” you responded. The Russian was giving you a worried look on his otherwise tough demeanor.

“If you no feel good, you shouldn’t be here. Get rest of us sick if not worry about yourself.”

You knew what Geno was doing. He was trying to guilt you into taking care of yourself– something you should be doing anyway. However, as the stubborn girl you were you weren’t not gonna fight back when you knew you could probably make it through a day of work.

 “Trust me. There’s no way any of you boys could get sick from what I have. It’s a girl thing.” you teased, hoping that he got the gist of what was going on.

 Based off his confused facial expression, he didn’t.

 You put a reassuring hand on his shoulder and said, “don’t worry, G, I’m not gonna die."

 Even though right now you damn well felt like it.

As you slowly walked away, you heard Geno muttering under his breath in Russian, only understanding words like "unhappy” and “pain” which you had picked up after helping a hurt 71 off the ice.

You almost could’ve sworn you heard him say “tell Sid”, but then again, you were no linguist.

You made the excruciatingly slow walk to the athletic training room, giving people you passed by tight-lipped smiles. You grabbed your equipment and went to the bench, trying to ignore the growing pain and dizziness.

Okay, you were starting to think something was seriously wrong with you that wasn’t just Aunt Flo.

Your name being called snapped you out of your thoughts.

“Y/N?” You looked up at Sid, the only other person in the rink, which caused your head to rush (more than normal).

You smiled, cheeks warm, “Hey Sid.”

“Hey. G said you were getting sick earlier, is everything okay?” the concerned captain asked. Your smile fell.

“Yes."

No.

You could tell he saw straight through your BS. His calculating brown eyes were trying to figure out what to do in this situation, as if he was calculating a play during a hockey game.

You were momentarily distracted by another burst of pain that made you cringe so hard your eyes watered. As you returned your attention to the built brunette, his eyes had softened and he put his hand on your arm as if to stabilize you.

"Y/N, you look like you’re in a lot of pain right now. I’m asking you what you normally ask me. Don’t play the hero and act like nothing’s wrong. The rest of the athletic training team is here and so is the team doctor. If you keep pushing through the pain, things will only turn out worse, and I care too much about you to see that happen. Come on, please tell me what’s wrong?” Sidney practically begged you, concern lacing his every word.

At that moment, you almost cried, not just because of his beautiful speech, but because you finally accepted how bad the pain was.

You were taken away from that string of emotions as the world around you went black. 

~

When you had awoken, you were in a room with bright lights and soft beeps. While one hand seemed to be restrained by a line, the other was engulfed in a soft warmth that felt like Egyptian cotton sheets compared to the scratchy hospital ones.

When you realized what that other hand was attached to, the meaning soft hands on a hockey player became a double entendre.

A tired Sidney Crosby was holding your hand while looking down at you. 

“Hey” you said in a gravelly voice.

Sid’s eyes snap to yours and an almost relieved look settled over his face. 

“What happened?” you ask timidly, not remembering much.

“Well, after you passed out" Oh god, did I seriously faint? Better not have been into his arms! "I caught you" Damnit! "And had Sully call an ambulance. Y/N, you needed surgery to have your appendix removed.”

“Huh” was your only comment.

“Huh, indeed. I know how important this job is to you, but Y/N… you had me really worried there… I was afraid I was gonna lose you.” His words made you bite at the inside of your lips.

You knew he was right, but sometimes your pride and stubbornness got the better of you. You felt him squeeze at your hand and the tears well up as your walls fall down. You mutter a quick “I’m sorry” your voice slightly breaking. Sid takes notice and immediately brings you into his arms, providing you comfort in which you now let the tears fall down your cheeks.

You feel him pepper light kisses on the top of your head and whisper how it was going to be okay. Then, you hear him say something that shocks you out of your crying stupor. "I love you.“

Both your eyes are big as he slowly pulls away and looks into yours.

"Listen, I know I’m probably on a lot of hospital drugs right now but did you just say what I thought you did?” you ask quietly, as if you’re both scared to hear the answer.

Oh wait, you are.  

“I, yes, I love you, Y/N. I realized as soon as you blacked out that I’ve been in love with you for a while, and I needed to tell you just in case I ever had that chance of losing you again.” Sidney immediately looks down after he said it; his arms still around you, perfectly placed so they don’t touch any incision marks and risk hurting you.

You raise the hand not attached to an IV under his chin so that he makes eye contact with you.

“I love you too, Sidney. I have for a while, and I guess we were both too wimpy to admit it.”

You both chuckle which gets a little “Ow!” out of you to which Sid immediately makes sure you’re okay.

After regaining both of your composures, his eyes meet yours and then look at your lips as if asking for permission to which you respond by slowly pressing your lips to his. He immediately returns your actions.

The loud boom of “About time!” from the large Russian entering the room interrupt the two of you.

You laughed at Geno’s impatient huff as you respond, “Yeah, it only took losing a non-vital organ for us to figure it out." 

Yes, things were good, and they were going to get better. 

~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~/

Alright there we go ladies and gents! Let anon know what you thought! Up next: Leon Draisaitl!

[thebibliophagist]

Happy Top Ten Tuesday!  For all of the books that I willingly read (good and bad), I have to say that I hate being forced to read something.  Generally, being required to pick up a book, analyze it, and formulate academic opinions with sourced cited is enough to make me despise a book, no matter how good it may be.  Today, I’m going back in time to a previous topic and discussing

// I had to read the Handbook of the International Phonetic Association in my sophomore year of college when I took an introductory phonetics course.  This is one of the first classes that you take as a linguistics major, and it sets you up for understanding the rest of the major. It’s also really useful for when you don’t know how to pronounce a word because now you know what all of those symbols in the dictionary or on the Wikipedia page mean!  This book also helped me get a relatively well-paying job correcting text-to-speech errors during my senior year of college.

// Invitation to a Beheading was required reading in a Russian lit course I took during my last year of college.  I actually hated this course because it was so boring.  There were no tests, no quizzes, no papers, and no required discussion.  I honestly do not even remember how we were graded.  We just sat in a lecture hall as the professor droned on and on and on about these dusty old Russian novels.  He didn’t even try to make it interesting.  The one bright spot was this book, which is also the only book by Nabokov that I’ve ever enjoyed.

// Can I talk for a second about my love of morphology?  It’s the area of linguistics that studies how we put pieces together to make words, and it absolutely fascinates me.  I took a grad-level seminar on morphology during my last semester of college and wrote my thesis on English word formation.  This book was the foundation of that paper and it explains why we make words like “hocus pocus” instead of “pocus hocus” or “wibbly wobbly timey wimey” instead of “wobbly wibbly wimey timey.”

// I’ve talked about Kallocain before, and it’s the first of four books on this list that came from a Scandinavian lit class during my junior year of college. In Kallocain, Leo Kall creates a truth serum with the potential to alleviate some of the strain on the legal system.  Accused criminals can just be injected with the serum, and if they’re guilty, they’ll just confess. As in any good dystopian novel, it’s not long before things get out of hand and the serum is abused by the government.

// If I’m honest, I don’t really remember a lot of what happens in A Tale of Two Cities.  If I remember correctly, it’s been about eleven years since I read it, and I’ve probably read a good five or six hundred books in that time.  What I do remember, though, is discussing it at lunch with my friends.  Talking about the shocking revelations.  I remember how it made me feel, and I remember liking it. 

// As I recall, Great Expectations was required reading during freshman English in high school.  It was my first experience with probably the best English teacher I ever had -- a woman who made required reading fun.  Much like with A Tale of Two Cities (coincidentally assigned by the same teacher), I don’t remember much of what happens in Great Expectations. I do remember Pip, though, and discussing him and Miss Havisham in depth over many school lunches.

// The second of four books assigned in that delightful Scandinavian lit class, We rocked my world.  It’s so interesting to go back to the beginning of dystopian novels to see where it all began.  We is written in a very detached, almost clinical manner. Our narrator doesn’t even have a name -- he’s just D-503.  He doesn’t have words for what he’s experiencing, and it’s just. so. good. 1984 didn’t do it for me, but I thought We was great.

// Had it not been assigned in that Scandinavian lit class, I doubt that I would have ever gotten around to The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. I’ve talked before about how I slacked off in that class, but I had to give a ninety-minute presentation on this book so you can bet that I read it more carefully than I’ve ever read anything in my life.  I went on to really enjoy The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest.  Somewhere in my garage is The Girl in the Spider’s Web, which I will someday get around to.

// I often forget about Of Mice and Men.  Not necessarily the book, but the title escapes me.  Just the other day, I found myself Googling “that book about Lennie and George and the bunnies.” This is another book I read during high school, and aside from Lennie, George, and the bunnies, I don’t remember much.  I do remember liking it, though.

// Finally, we have Sidetracked. This is the fourth and final book from this list that was assigned in my Scandinavian lit class, and I loved it.  I recently found out that there’s a BBC miniseries about Det. Wallander that I might have to watch. The mystery in this one is just so good -- I was on the edge of my seat for the majority of the book.

Have you really loved any books that you were forced to read?

[shockcity]

Bagginshield #6 - wearing each other’s clothes

Rating: M Summary: for the 30 Day OTP Challenge. A mix up with the hotel dry cleaning service leaves Bilbo and Thorin in love ill-fitted suits. AU - Modern Setting 

What happens is this:

1. O'Hare to LAX on a red-eye 2. a chicken salad sandwich 3. Dwalin's advice

Alternatively: he is exhausted, covered in food stains, and who the hell wears a suit on a plane? You just have to break it in, Dwalin had said, as if he had any idea how to fashion (Dwalin had worn a suit a total of zero times, and hadn't even dressed up for his own wedding). Breaking in said suit (and his only suit, mind) had resulted in a sandwich oozing down his front and a minor panic over what the hell Thorin was supposed to do now.

The conference was at noon and it was just past 10, and the only change of clothes he'd brought was a pair of old jeans, an AC/DC shirt, and some severely out-of-style walking shoes. He couldn't go in street clothes, and there wasn't enough time to find and buy a suit before he was supposed to be at the convention center for the presentation. He was so screwed.

He texted Dwalin.

"Does this hotel have dry cleaning?" he obediently asked the concierge.

She was tall, tan, and beautiful, and maybe a clone, since he was pretty sure a girl that looked just like her had been his flight attendant, had worked at a Starbucks around the block, and had bumped into him in the lobby while she was distracted with her phone. Thorin squinted at her suspiciously. Clones.

A large, fake smile stretched across her face. "Of course, sir," she said, her teeth very straight and very white. "This is the Omni."

Thorin wasn't sure if she was being condescending or not, since the smile was really throwing him off. Thorin was from Chicago. Los Angeles made no sense. They did indeed have dry cleaning. Awesome.

"Can you rush this?" he said, holding up his suit. "I have to be at the convention center in an hour."

He expected her to say, "of course, sir, this is the Omni," again, but instead she kindly told him that it was no problem and took his suit away. He breathed a sigh of relief.  

--------

What happens is this:

1. Everything that could have possibly gone wrong 2. went wrong 3. with feeling

Heathrow to LAX, sleepless layover at JFK, luggage lost from London to New York to Los Angeles, apparently nonexistent hotel reservations, and one skinny soy vanilla latte topped with whipped cream spilled all down his front. Why the soy? No one knows.

Bilbo was admittedly a dramatic little shit, but he was pretty sure that his current crisis would test even the patience of a saint. In a panic, he'd practically shoved his suit into the concierge's arms the moment he had arrived at the Omni. This was before he realized that his reservations had apparently been cancelled, of course.

After a good few minutes of hemming and hawing on the concierge's end, and some seriously explosive sighing on his, Bilbo was finally checked in and guaranteed that his suit would be cleaned by noon. Yeah, right.

In a terrible temper, Bilbo slammed into his hotel room and threw his carry-on bag onto the bed. He landed on his back next to it, hands pressed against his eyes.

He was frustrated, and tired, and nervous about his being the stupid keynote speaker when everyone knew he had terrible stage fright. All he wanted was to get this over with and go home. Or at least sleep a little, even if just for an hour.

But he needed a goddamn suit, so he sighed and texted Prim.

He took his cousin's advice and called the front desk, Yelping each recommendation they gave him. Bilbo had just found a four and a half star tailor on Pico when a new text from Ori came in.

He...wow.

This day.

He buried his head into his pillow and had a good long scream.

His phone continued to buzz as Ori lost whatever chill he had once had, which was none, so he was in the negatives and Bilbo could not keep ignoring him. Resignedly, he picked his phone up and engaged in a long and drawn out text conversation that consisted of two electronically illiterate historians troubleshooting everything and turning things on and off while holding down random control keys. Nothing happened. Go figure.

Finally, just as Bilbo, too, had realized the inevitable, Ori decided enough was enough.

This fucking day.

-----

"Listen, I'm sorry," Thorin said, checking his watch again. "I really need my suit."

"Of course, sir, we're bringing it out now."

He was late and would have to change in the bathroom at the convention center and it was almost noon and they'd said it would be done already and they were getting such a bad review on Yelp, he swore to god...

Finally, they handed him a dress bag and he yelled a quick thank you and sprinted out of the hotel.

Of course it wasn't his suit in the bag. That would be silly.

-----

"Thank you so much," said Bilbo, practically snatching the dress bag from the hotel worker. It was ten till and he was on in twenty, and he was cutting it way too close. Despite his snappishness with the poor bellboy, he did tip well, considering they'd done as requested and had gone out of their way to deliver his suit to the conference. They were maybe even worth four stars on Yelp. Maybe.

Across the convention center, Thorin was gazing at his entirely too tight suit in shock and confusion. The pants were too short and his socks were showing. This...was a nightmare.

-----

Unintelligible screaming suddenly erupted from the men's room. Worried, Ori shuffled over and tapped on the door.

"Bilbo?"

"GOD BUGGERING SHIT."

"Ok."

-----

Bilbo had no choice but to deliver his speech in a suit that belonged to someone far bulkier and taller than him. He was positively swimming in it and he felt like an absolute fool.

Thorin sat down and ripped his pants.

-----

Afterward, there was socializing to be done and alcoholic drinks to be had, but Bilbo had no desire to join in, nor could he abide remaining in this awful suit for a second longer.

"I'm going back to the hotel," he sighed at Ori. "Then I'm going to sleep for twelve hours. And cry a little. Okay, a lot."

"You did great, Bilbo, really!" said Ori, his eyes big and honest.

"Sure." He waved a hand. "I'll text you when I've gotten my dignity back. Say hello to Dwalin for me."

"Will do!" Ori wiggled his fingers goodbye. "Good luck!"

He headed for the exit, following the crowd of people that were also cutting out early. Thank god for antisocial history geeks, Bilbo thought, distracted. That's how he bumped into someone practically running for the door.

The man had his hands over his arse, believe it or not, and he was sweating nervously as he sprinted past. Bilbo had looked up, ready to eviscerate this violator of his personal space verbally, but then stopped.

"You."

"You!"

He took a moment to look at Thorin Oakenshield properly, and then gaped at him – scandalized.

"That's my suit!”

----

What happened was this:

7 months earlier

1. "Hi. I'm Bilbo Baggins." 2. "Thorin Oakenshield." 3. "You're a linguist aren't you? Yes, I've heard about you. You specialize in Khuzdul. You know, I wrote a paper on the similarities between Quenya and Khuzdul and it turns out they're a lot alike. Ereborians, for example, took elements of Woodland phrasing and passed them off as their own, and according to–" 4. "...oh, is he leaving? Did I say something wrong?"

5 months earlier

1. A job offer 2. A formal meeting 3. "Mr. Baggins. Yes, I remember you. At least you don't look like a grocer today." 4. target acquired.

2 months earlier

1. "Chicago isn't much different from any other city, and Prim is there, and Ori...so I'll think about it, yeah." 2. Another formal meeting 3. UST 4. "That Baggins is a menace." 5. "Oakenshield can kiss my ass." 6. Let simmer.

Now

"You."

"You!"

"That's my suit!"

"And that's mine," said Thorin, peering at him confusedly. "There...was... a mix up."

"Obviously," Bilbo seethed. "Unless you just go around stealing people's clothes."

Thorin, thankfully, did not engage.

"SorryBagginsIhavetogo," he squeaked, and tried to edge away with his hands still firmly placed on his posterior.

"Hold on, what have you done?!"

There was no use trying to stop Bilbo from tearing his hands away and seeing the damage. Bilbo was truly an unstoppable force, and Thorin, from the very beginning of their rocky acquaintance, had been left utterly speechless in Bilbo's presence (either because Bilbo was aggravating him into silence or because he couldn't quite believe just how much noise was coming out of this little angry cinnamon roll person). And now Bilbo was pushing him toward the door and making demands. As was his wont.

"And I want my suit back! What's left of it! And take your hands off your butt."

Thorin groaned. "Let me at least have some dignity."

"No."

They took a cab back to the Omni and argued the entire way there, annoying the cab driver enough that at one point he laid on the horn to shut them up. Once they arrived, Thorin immediately set off for his rooms with Bilbo following closely behind. He didn't trust that Thorin would give him his suit back. Whatever.

In the hotel room, Bilbo was inspecting the state of his ripped pants sadly. Thorin stood there in his boxers, feeling a little guilty despite himself.

"I didn't think this day could get any worse," Bilbo sighed. "That was my favorite suit."

Thorin shifted from foot to foot. "Ah. Sorry."

For a second, it looked as though Bilbo was going to forgive him. For a second, his face was open and soft and friendly. And then the diva came rushing right back and they were squabbling heatedly again.

Neither of them knew who kissed who first and later they'd argue about that too.

----

It was cold out on the balcony, but the room was non-smoking and Bilbo was sorry, but the post-coital cigarette was not overrated, and Thorin (who he could see was peering at him from the bed) seemed rather pleased with how Bilbo looked out here; freezing bollocks and all. So pleased, in fact, that Thorin came out to join him.

Bilbo turned to gaze at the flat, sparkling city, as arms wrapped around him from behind.

"Are you wearing my shirt?" Thorin whispered into his ear, his hands running up and down Bilbo's stomach.

"And nothing else," Bilbo teased. "I wanted to feel like I was in a movie."

Thorin kissed his neck, and that was very nice indeed. "Well, you're in the right place."

"Hmm."

Bilbo finished his cigarette and crushed it on the edge of the balcony. He closed his eyes, swaying a little as Thorin teased his neck, strong hips moving against him. "Mmm, you want to have another go?” said Bilbo. “My flight's not until tomorrow night."

Thorin abruptly drew away, and Bilbo felt a rush of confusion and panic. He turned around in Thorin's arms and stared up at him, scowling.

"Why've you suddenly gone cold?" he asked suspiciously.

"I'm not," Thorin lied, trying to keep his face expressionless.

"You have," Bilbo insisted, planting his hands on his hips. "What's the problem? Are you regretting this now?"

He looked taken aback. "No! No, not...." He cleared his throat. "Not at all."

Bilbo glared at him. "Then what, Thorin?"

"The, uh, long distance relationships...thing. I'm not...I've never...."

Relieved, but still a bit frustrated, Bilbo huffed and shook his head. "Honestly? That's your problem? Lord."

Thorin opened his mouth to protest, his expression angry now, but Bilbo held up his hand.

"Now, I'm not saying that it has anything to do with you," Bilbo told him sternly. "But I've decided to take the job."

Thorin gaped for a moment.

"In Chicago?"

Bilbo rolled his eyes. "Yes, in Chicago. So...we wouldn't be long distance. Conveniently enough. I mean since I'd already decided to move before we had sex. So don't get cocky. Oi! Get that look off your face...."

Thorin was smirking. "Uh huh," he said. "Nothing to do with me. Right."

Bilbo only shook his head, and reached out and pulled Thorin close again. They kissed, hot and wet and new, and Bilbo couldn't help but arch toward that strong, wide chest. "Mmmm," he murmured, pulling away. "Just FYI, I'm keeping this shirt."

Thorin grinned against his mouth. "How about now?" he said, and then ripped the dress shirt open. Buttons pinged on the railing and a couple flew off into the night.

"GAH! Thorin!!”

BONUS

[livelikeliz]

Language Tag!!

Thank you @watashiwahaksaeng for tagging me!!!

1. What languages are you/have you studied?

Right now I’m studying Japanese and Korean at university. I’ve had Italian in school and self-studied Spanish a little bit, and now over the summer I’m slowly getting back into that as well. Oh yeah, and I had English in school too since my native language is German.

2. How long have you been studying?

English started in elementary school, so I’ve been kinda learning that since I was five or six years old. I had Italian for four years in high school and I did a little bit of Spanish on the side during these four years and then very sporadically afterwards as well. I started Japanese by doing a little bit of self-studying and then decided to get into Japanology and saw that the university had Korean studies as well, and so I’ve been in university for Japanese and Korean for two years now.

3. Did you learn through class or self study?

Mostly classes actually, but I did do self-study with different resources for pretty much every language I have ever learned. Except for Italian.

4. Why did you decide to learn this language?

Italian: because the other option would have been Latin, and I didn’t want that.

Spanish: because I actually wanted to learn Spanish instead of Italian. (funny story, if I randomly hear Spanish or Italian I usually cannot distinguish the two and always think it’s Spanish)

Japanese and Korean: I studied musicology in university and got really into ethnomusicology, and my main interests somehow shifted towards east asia, especially Japan and Korea. So I thought why not try getting into the languages and see what I can do with that, and then I found out that you can do the actual studies for it and I kinda want to combine the music stuff with it somehow so here I am (getting more interested in linguistics and the languages themselves because there is literally no music stuff offered at the department).

5. What was a major milestone/highlight in practising this language?

Italian: not failing classes I guess 

Spanish: my goal was (is) to be able to watch Spanish movies with Spanish subtitles, haven’t gotten there yet

Japanese: the most recent one was to have a full everyday conversation with my Japanese friend (I suck at actually talking in Japanese and Korean. I need to practice that a whole lot more)

Korean: watching and understanding a show with just Korean subtitles (could have been better tbh, but I was already pretty proud of myself for understanding this much)

6. What was the hardest thing about studying this language?

For me speaking and actually properly applying all of the grammar that I’m studying for uni is what I’m struggling with right now. I feel like my head is stuffed with theory but I just can’t really seem to translate that into practical use yet.

7. Which resources did you find useful in studying this language?

Currently I’m just doing the duolingo course for Spanish. For Japanese I’m using a few websites in addition to our textbook, the majority of them our teacher in uni recommended to us, my recent favorite is for onomatope and some additional exercises to get used to using the lnaguage more. And for Korean I really enjoy talk to me in Korean (I also watch a lot more shows in Korean than in Japanese). I also listen to quite a bit of music with lyrics in Spanish, Korean and Japanese and sometimes I practice by translating lyrics. And I try to read something like newspaper articles online in Japanese and Korean.

8. Any top tips for studying this language?

I guess this goes for any language, but actually use them on a regular basis. Find someone who you can talk to in that language. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes. And I know that my brain learns a lot by listening, so try to find shows, podcasts, music or whatever you want to listen to in that language.

9. What’s your next major language goal?

Well, it’s quite vague, but I want to get better at listening and speaking in both Japanese and Korean and just kinda prepare and get ready for the next semester to start (so it hopefully won’t completely overwhelm me right at the start). 

10. Anything we can do in the tumblr community to get you there?

I am so in awe of all the huge lists of resources and the people who make comprehensive grammar guides and stuff, it’s absolutely amazing! I’ve found a few webistes and reading and listening exercises through tumblr so I think I’m settled with this. 

If you want to do this tag, feel free to feel tagged by me! (like maybe @wakaranaikotoba? I’d be curious)

[baltics4engbergs]

Two days of London activity!

Well, I do have a lot to catch up on -- and amazingly, we head back to the U.S. tomorrow!  So, I am going to post a few entries over the next 24 hours, just to catch up on everything and then hopefully offer some concluding thoughts -- because I really do think I have had some impactful, really lasting experiences these last three weeks, and that we have had many strong memories created as a family, and I want to get those all recorded.  But, for now, let’s begin with D. H. Lawrence ;)

So, yesterday morning I gave my paper at 9 a.m.  I was in a room called “the conservatory” in the New College of the Humanities, which was kind of a sunroom, and given that there were two consecutive panels, and one was in the big, really prettier room upstairs, and had a colleague of mine in the study of the “American Lawrence,” whose name is Lee Jenkins (from Cork), on that panel, and she’s great, it sort of came as no surprise that my colleague Nancy and I that we didn’t have the hugest audience.  But, so many “big” names were in the room, and that was really great -- and our chair, Paul Eggert, is a big deal in Lawrence studies, and everyone is so generous and supportive with their insights, that whether the audience was large or small, we still got a ton out of the experience.  I can say I did, at least.  I spoke on Lawrence’s few weeks in London between December 1923 and January 1924, before his two stints in New Mexico, as importantly transformative to his outlook regarding national identity and what he calls “a non-human race of men,” which he desires the emergence of, somewhere outside of western Europe. Paul Eggert is the editor of the Cambridge edition of The Boy in the Bush and Twilight in Italy and so his feedback was particularly rich and spot-on and if I ever have the time to turn this paper into an article, what he offered me in his comments will enrich that essay for sure. 

After my panel, I walked a bit -- after chatting with Lee Jenkins outside for a sec in the really surprisingly warm London sun (did I mention how hot is has gotten these last few days -- and humid with no rain?)-- and I went around Russell Square, just beyond the British Museum.  I was heading to a Caffe Nero (like a Starbucks) because I needed a coffee and some catch-up time on my computer because I am so, so, so behind on email and have just been going nonstop and really needed to send off a few important messages.  On my way to the coffee shop, though, I saw a small library called the Weiner Library for the Study of the Holocaust and Genocide and it had like a sandwich board outside advertising an exhibition they had on right now, and I was like, well, I am curious, and it’s free, I think I’ll go in.  I never take impulsive turns like that, but I did, because I had a little “spare” time.  It was incredibly interesting.  I wish I knew more about the library itself, but I overheard that it was founded by a man who had been a refugee to Britain in WWII and that they have collected many histories (not sure if oral histories too?) of other Jewish (and presumably non-Jewish but also persecuted) refugees from that period. Anyway, the small exhibition on now is about the Nazis’ human experimentation. I of course knew this had happened, but I didn’t know many details, and I learned a lot just spending thirty minutes reading and looking in that library yesterday.  A very heavy but edifying drop-in that was.  I could offer more details about the experimentation, but it is all just pretty unfathomable, but horrifyingly true, and if you wanted, you could peruse their online formation about the exhibition, and learn a lot about about it, if you were compelled to learn more. 

So, I did get to Caffe Nero before too long and spent an hour catching up on email.  From there, I went back to the apartment to check in on kid-duty and the group of Eric, Alia, Rowan, and Cece were just coming back from the Regent’s Park zoo.  It was a hot day, as I mentioned, and they walked the 1.2 miles each way, and had played at a playground before, and then paid through the nose to go to the zoo, by which point the kids were already tuckered out, though they had fun at the zoo, so afterward they were at ragged edges, just being goofy and loco. I wish I’d been able to go to the zoo too!  From the pictures I saw, it looks like the zebras, giraffe, and penguins were all pretty cool -- but Eric did say it seemed like an “old” zoo.  And Alia, being spoiled by having the Detroit Zoo nearby with which few zoos compete (I think this and she does too), it wasn’t quite of that caliber, so to speak. But, they had some animals that were new to everyone, namely the Okapi.  I think this is what they were describing.  I’ve heard of this because Cece has an African Animals A-Z book and “O” is for Okapi in that book. They also had lemurs, which other zoos have for sure, but I don’t think the Albuquerque Zoo does, though maybe they do.  But Rowan loves the old(er) kids’ show Zabomafoo (I did too, but when I was in my 20s, haha!) and that show features a lemur. 

The kids had dinner and once they were ready for bed and were purportedly winding down, Alia took the reins because Eric and I had to go to the “wine evening” at the conference director’s house.  It was in a part of London I’d never been to, though it was just a little ways north of where I used to live in Marylebone.  

Ooops, I realized I forgot to mention one other adventure of yesterday-- the Engberg Family Adventure on the Double-Decker Bus.  I should call this also a Very Hot and Sweaty adventure.  Man, I had kind of forgotten how hot the top of a double-decker bus is on a really steamy London day.  Ugh.  But I wanted to ensure that Rowan had the double-decker bus experience he’d been wishing for -- and since days were few still remaining, we needed to do it.  We took the bus down Euston Road towards my old neighborhood and then we got off at Marylebone Station and walked over to Balcombe Street.  We saw the flat that my friend Lauren and I used to live in, for one great year, in 1994-1995!  Like everywhere in London, as I’ve noted, that area was incredibly busy, and somewhat spruced up.  It was always a nice area, but there were some renovated bigger buildings and they’d updated some of the row-houses on the street.  It was really nice to see and was kind of forceful for me, like having memories from twenty years come raining down on my head and heart, just standing there. 

Anyway, back to the wine reception: getting there was interesting! Eric and I used an Uber Pool to get there, and the guy who comprised our “pool” was a man who works for the Wellcome Collection and lives actually in Brighton, a two-hour train ride away, but during the week he stays with a friend in London.  He and his wife and kids used to all live in London, but it got too expensive for them to find a house with room and a garden that they were searching father and farther out and ended up just thinking, well, if we’re looking this far out, we might as well move to Brighton!  Anyway, he was super interesting.  He found out I was an English professor and he asked me a question which he framed in linguistics terms, about the capacity for words to contain basically ineffable concepts.  I connected to this through existential philosophy, and he then started employing ideas from Wittgenstein and asking me about Samuel Beckett.  It was like the most intellectually intense fifteen-minute ride-share I bet I’ll ever have ;)  And I joked about that, and then he reminded me that he’s just a Cockney from London, which made me laugh, because as he stressed and as I knew, Cockneys have attracted the most fame from their propensity for swearing and their use of a special “rhyming slang.”

Because Eric and I needed to get the kids to bed first, we ended up getting to the conference “wine evening” a bit late, but there was still plenty to drink, eat, and conversation to be had.  We ultimately found ourselves on blankets in the back garden with some of the graduate fellows, the conference director, the administrative assistant for the conference who’d made the food, a professor from Estonia, and a few others.  The most memorable moment was when one of their golden retrievers literally ate my hors d’oeuvre right out of my mouth.  Like, actually.  We stayed until about 9:30 and then went back to where we’re staying and went to the grocery store to get a bit of milk for our final day (with our kiddos, that is a necessity). 

Now, it is very late and we’ve leaving at 10 a.m. tomorrow, so I’d better sign off.  We’re staying overnight in New York tomorrow, so I will post a bit more about our final day, and I will post an entry I’ve already started that is an interview with Rowan about this vacation! I am sure you’ll want to tune in for that.