#also for the record all the politics come from pre-plot stuff

[astrowarr]

(slaps the roof of my roomies zombie apocalypse au) there are so many political nuances in this bad boy

[aflyingcontradiction]

The Magnus Archives Relisten: Episode 59 - Recluse

First of all: The title, oh my! I hadn't even spotted the spider-y pun before! That's great!

It’s like it never existed. I mean, this was a long way pre-digital, and files got lost plenty, but it still bothers me. The most traumatic thing that ever happened to me, and as far as any official record is concerned, I couldn’t have even been there. - Statement of Ronald Sinclair

Yeah, I can see why that would be awful. If something bad happens to you, at least you'd want people to acknowledge your truth, believe that you're not making it all up, have something black-on-white that'll let YOU believe that you're not making it all up. And obviously Ronald Sinclair can't have that for the supernatural part of his trauma, but he doesn't even have the paperwork to prove that ANY of it ever happened or look for other survivors, maybe. Yeah, that would do more than just "bother" me, for sure.

A lot of ex-military types who would lecture for hours on how their wasted life had been saved by the discipline of the army, and did their best to impose it on us. Ray, as he insisted we call him, was different.

It's kind of ironic that you've got all these military types trying to instill unquestioning obedience in children and then you have Ray, who is different, AND ACTUALLY INSTILLS UNQUESTIONING OBEDIENCE IN CHILDREN. It's a little funny in all its awfulness. (Also, having an ex-military stepdad who, while fortunately never much of a disciplinarian, also had a tendency to give lectures about the healing power of military discipline, I can't hear "military discipline" anymore without wanting to make retching noises behind the back of whoever is talking.)

The one thing that surprised me was how rare it was to see anyone come back.

... how many of them ended up in that basement full of spider eggs, exactly? All of them? Were there others who got away?

It was never bad or dangerous stuff, just… things I wouldn’t normally have done, like brushing my teeth.

You've got mind control powers and a steady supply of helpless teenagers nobody will miss. What do you do with them? YOU MAKE THEM BRUSH THEIR TEETH! If we didn't know that most of them end up as spider food, this would be oddly wholesome (you know, as mind control goes, so still a horrifying violation of personal autonomy, but - well - the bar is low.)

A suited man would come around – though, rarely the same one twice – Ray would sign some papers, and my former house sibling would head out the door and into the wide world.

Are the suited men being controlled by the Web in the same way Ray is controlling the kids or are they maybe former halfway house kids, now filled with spiders? Or are they actually government officials in full control of their own actions, who just don't give enough of a shit to even stay around for long enough to check that the child in question makes it safely off Hilltop Road? Because that last one would somehow be the most horrifying option.

Agnes came to the house two months before my birthday, in the middle of winter.

Okay, so I wasn't misremembering the timeline. I was wondering about that in my relisten post for Burned Out because part of that episode claimed the kids stopped causing trouble on Hilltop Road AFTER Agnes came (which made me think "Huh, did Raymond not become a Web Avatar with mind control powers until after Agnes had arrived?). But no, he was, as I had remembered, already thoroughly webbed, so I've got no explanation for why the kids would gradually cause less trouble after Agnes's arrival. It kind of clashes with what Ronald is describing, too. I'll just blame Hilltop Road time-wibble!

And once, I could have sworn that he looked at her with something in his eyes that, even in my dull state, I recognized as fear.

Agnes must have been INSANELY powerful, if even another Avatar looks at her Yes-Avatar-but-still-a-child self with terror.

It was all a bit surreal, watching pens sign my life into its different stages without holding any of them myself.

Damn. "A bit surreal" is putting it lightly!

Something in the back of my mind, a frantic, scuttling terror.

A very fitting description in context!

His brown leather coat seemed to shift around his body. The texture in the dim light seemed more like coarse fur.

Erm. NO, THANK YOU!

All at once, my cheek erupted in pain. It was like someone had pressed a hot branding iron into my face, and I could swear that I heard the flesh sizzle as I let out a scream and fell to my knees.

Agnes helps Ronald, specifically. None of the other kids. Why is this? They don't have a relationship before her kiss. Did she just happen to decide this was the moment? Was Ronald actually the first kid doomed to become a human egg-sac after she arrived? ... You know, he might well have been, actually.

I didn’t look back, and to this day, I pray every night that the others down in the basement were already dead.

GRAH! YEAH, YEAH YOU WOULD!

I have done my best to prevent Martin reading this statement in too much detail. I have no interest in having another argument about spiders. In fact, after reading this statement, I have no interest in thinking about spiders any more than is professionally required. - Jon

You know, that is ENTIRELY FAIR! (Also Web!Martin would've been a fun development at some point in the show, given how his affinity for spiders keeps being hinted at and how he does develop a very clear manipulative streak later on. Just saying.)

Between Ronald Sinclair, Ivo Lensik, and Father Burroughs, it appears there’s still much to learn about Hill Top Road.

OH YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW!

Everyone’s avoiding me. They’ve taken to working farther away from me than normal, and when I call them for any reason, they’re always keen to leave as soon as possible. They share furtive glances when they think I’m not looking. I don’t like it. I feel like they’re planning something.

YEAH, PROBABLY A FUCKING INTERVENTION CAUSE YOU REALLY NEED ONE! JEEZ, JON, LISTEN TO YOURSELF!

My impression of this episode

A lot of the Hilltop Road episodes are primarily interesting because "Oooh, ongoing plot!" and this one has plenty of that, but it's also a terrifying stand-alone episode. This is the first episode that the Web really gets to shine in - previous episodes that featured the Web were either mostly about spiders (which, meh, I mean, they scare me too, but they're just a bit too concrete and physical to work as a TMA fear, imho) or the mind control powers were being viewed from an outsider's perspective. But here you get the full blast of what it would feel like to have your personal autonomy completely wiped out. And the fact that it's being done to a kid in the foster system is just ... yeah, TMA was definitely plenty political before the obvious allegories of season 5.

[unnamed-atlas]

Pspspsp info dump 👀

Ok so in season 1 of Mianite there's this place called Ianarea which is basically a kingdom dedicated to the goddess Ianite. There's a part of the kingdom that's in the end and seems to be actually ruled by Ianite and then there's a small area in the overworld and the lore for all of it is really vague from what I remember so I decided to rework all of it. So in the AU there's still the part in the end ruled by ianite, but then there’s an overworld kingdom by the same name that is not ruled by Ianite but in dedication to her, so most of the people living there are followers of Ianite. She spends a lot of her time in the overworld in this kingdom.

Phil, Tubbo, Tommy, Wilbur, Techno, Niki, and Eret all live in this kingdom. Phil, Tubbo, Tommy, Wil, and Techno all live together, Phil being the head of the household having taken the other four under his care at varying ages.

Phil is an inventor who’s most well known for his invention of the elytra, makeshift wings that can be used by humans for limited flight. He owns a shop where he sells his inventions and he’s well regarded in the community as the type of person you can come to for help with any problem. When he’s not working in the shop he’s either hanging out at the library with Tubbo to do research for his new inventions or bailing Wilbur, Techno, and Tommy out of trouble. 

Tubbo works as an archivist at the kingdom’s library. He works closely with Ianite and the royal family to record and preserve the history of the kingdom and of the gods, as well as to take care of the library and its other contents. 

Techno is a young anarchist who used to travel the world by himself before being forcibly adopted as Wilbur’s friend when he was passing through Ianarea. He’s well known around the kingdom for his habit of sneaking both himself and occasionally Tommy and/or Wilbur into the kingdom’s political meetings to cause problems on purpose. He also has a tendency to screw around with the royal guard members who patrol the streets of the kingdom during the day, often distracting them by departing them about political philosophy while Wilbur and Tommy cause problems on purpose. After traveling for so long he’s gotten really good at fighting and teaches Tommy and occasionally Tubbo combat and self defense. When he’s not causing problems on purpose he’s usually helping Phil around the shop.

Wilbur has a similar rebellious streak to Techno, though he does it more for the aesthetic and fun of it than for any actual political philosophy. He has a habit of stealing things just to see what he can get away with and he’s become a fairly good pickpocket, though Phil’s been trying to get him to stop. He has a love for the ocean, having grown up in the area of the kingdom near the harbor, and had even wanted to be a pirate when he was younger, much to Phils chagrin, but he never learned to swim and so became put off by the idea. He instead works as a musician now, playing at local taverns and restaurants. 

Tommy picked up Techno and Wilbur’s want for rebellion, but Tubbo’s strong moral compass has also rubbed off on him over the years, so after learning how to steal stuff from Wilbur he became a bit of a robinhood type figure around the kingdom, stealing for the good of the people. Of course he does also tend to participate in Wilbur and Techno’s mischief just for the fun of it as well. He’s gotten into countless fights with business owners and the royal guard and more often than not ends up having to be bailed out by Techno and Wilbur. When he’s not causing problems on purpose he’s known to spend his time keeping Tubbo company at the library.

Niki is one of Wil's childhood friends. She owns a bakery and volunteers at the library alongside Tubbo in her free time. She’s honestly most of Wilbur’s impulse control besides Phil. The boys all spend a lot of time hanging out in her bakery, and more than a few times she’s had to hide them from the royal guard.

Eret is another one of Wil and Niki's childhood friends who grew up to join the royal guards. Wilbur and Tommy aren't exactly thrilled at this development and tend to avoid him after he joins. Techno still thinks he's chill though and always makes a point when he's messing with the guards to stop by and visit with Eret at his post. He sometimes gets posted at the library and so he and Tubbo chat pretty often and are on friendly terms. He and Niki are close so he visits her in the bakery fairly often, and he tends to go to Phil for advice when he needs it since he grew up around Phil being Wilbur's friend. Honestly him vouching for Techno, Wilbur, and Tommy is probably most of the reason the three of them have gotten away with as much as they have.

One of the big inciting incidents of Mianite s1 is that Ianite is captured by her brother Dianite. The actual timing of it all is really vague in the series itself but I generally assume that this took place before the beginning of the series. So. AU plot pre Mianite s1: Ianite invites Tubbo to travel with her to Mianite where she’s meant to meet with Mianite to discuss some things regarding recent events and changes they’re thinking of making to their realms and such so that Tubbo can record the events of the meeting to be filed in the library of Ianarea. They shouldn’t be gone for a month or two since Mianite isn’t too far away, so Phil allows Tubbo to go on the trip. He travels with Ianite to Mianite, meets Mianite, Declan and Champwan, and the Wizards, and records the events of the trip and of the two gods meeting, and it’s going great. Then the whole thing with Ianite being captured by Dianite happens and basically Tubbo ends up captured alongside her.

And so the plot of Mianite s1 starts. Everyone starts arriving in Mianite. Tom, Tucker, Sonja, Jordan, The Modesteps, Nadeshot, the gangs all here! And they start picking their sides as followers of Dianite or Mianite, and Jordan does his whole “haha i’m on my own team i’m team Ianite” without realizing Ianite is actually a real goddess, and the next morning he wakes up and there’s this fucking ghost in his house. Except it’s not actually a ghost, it’s Tubbo! Because they're still aware of what’s happening in Mianite while having been captured by Dianite, Ianite basically saw Jordan declare himself her champion and went, “well, okay, he’s our best bet here.” and used what powers she could still access to tether Tubbo’s soul to Jordan and sends him to go look after Jordan and do his best to keep him safe and kind of lead him in the right direction towards saving the two of them.

So Tubbo and Jordan are stuck together. Tubbo doesn’t really tell Jordan much at first, he does even give him his name, just kinda hangs out, gives him advice, leads him towards the right decisions and such. And it goes on like this for a while, because no one else can see Tubbo, except, it turns out, Mianite and Dianite. Mianite basically just doesn’t acknowledge it. But Dianite’s definitely a bit pissed off when he sees Tubbo with Jordan for the first time. 

Eventually though, Techno, Wilbur, Phil, and Tommy show up on the shores of Mianite! They came all this way looking for Tubbo since he had never come back home like he was supposed to. They meet up with Jordan, Sonja, and Tucker, who are fairly weary of the travels considering the last unexpected visitors to arrive in Mianite unexpectedly had been the pirates. So the boys explain why they’re there, tell them about Tubbo, and Jordan hears these guy’s description of their friend, looks to Tubbo beside him, who had seemed uncomfortable since Phil, Tommy, Techno and Wil had arrived, and has this whole moment of just “oh shit” as he realizes the kid they're looking for is the specter that’s been following him around for months.

Tubbo all but demands that Jordan does not tell them about him. And this is the point in the story, when Jordan returns to his base after talking to SBI, the Tubbo and Jordan finally have a heart to heart and they actually start being productive.

    This is most of what I have figured out for the AU, at this point, but I do have a few one-off ideas for later on in the story. At one point in Mianite Ianarea is destroyed by Dianite and the Mianite gang discovers this upon traveling there. At this point Eret and Niki will end up going back to Mianite with the Mianite gang + SBI. I know, at one point, that I want to have the wizards do something that makes it so that everyone can see Tubbo again, maybe for a limited period of time, maybe for the rest of the story, but yeah, sappy reunion time there. I’m thinking about maybe adding a few other people to the Ianarea gang, like Fundy, Quackity, maybe Scott, but we’ll have to see about that cause I won’t do that if I can’t do it in a way that works naturally for the AU.

What I do know for sure is that there will be a happy ending, Tubbo will be saved alongside Ianite and be reunited with his friends and no I will not tolerate any alternatives.

Anyways yeah this is literally three pages long. Anon you asked for an info dump and you got one :) I’d love to hear what y’all think or any ideas you might have since this au is definitely a big wip

[bladekindeyewear]

HS^2 bloggin’ mainline 2020-09-29

More Homestuck time!  Continuing on the outside-canon plot.  Livebloggin’ starts now...

> CHAPTER 14. The Best Laid Plans

Wait, who’s house is this?  Was this Roxy’s?  (When I saw a glimpse browsing my twitter feed during the debate, I saw Yiffy on the ground accosted.)

> (==>)

THEY’RE JUST HOME?!?!?????

HOW???  HOW could the heat be off so badly?

Jane’s arrogant, but one of the CHARACTERISTICS of her arrogance is that she underestimates the character and capability of her political opponents.  How would she NOT consider the possibility that these kids would return home again even while the heat was on??  How would she assume that JOHN would be too smart to come back to--

...oh right, she may not know John is involved or willing to do anything.  That’s fair.  But the kids??

I’m sure there’s going to be SOME sort of explanation of why the heat is off.  Also, I wonder who made that anti-Jane battle plan chart?  John himself, or Karkat or something?  Karkat’s usually the chart-er.

JOHN: wow, i feel like i'm barely keeping myself sitting. JOHN: if it weren't for keeping you kids safe i'd be out there right now!

Hm.  Are they counting on the fact that Crockercorp would KNOW that John and Vriska are both there to intimidate them from moving in against them?  From a sheer difference-in-firepower standpoint after Vriska’s big display?

HARRY: and some of us aren't gods and shit. JOHN: i'm detecting a hint of judgement in your voice, there, harry anderson JOHN: don't you enjoy being a part of all this? finally getting to be in the thick of it all? HARRY: i mean i was having a fine time at school, if i'm being honest. HARRY: all this tear-assing back and forth between my home and various points of interest over the past few days has me pretty beat.

Yeah, most kids don’t appreciate being involved in war.  Even Vrissy immediately showed some regrets no matter how much she liked to think of herself as wanting to get out there.

HARRY: also i wouldn't call this "the thick of it all" JOHN: oof, getting air quotes'd by my own son. JOHN: we had to hide in a forsythia bush on the way back here when that drone flew by! JOHN: that's the thick of father-son hijinks if i ever saw it! JOHN: well, modern day war hijinks, but i'll take what i can get, you know??

(Be more considerate, John!!)  Hm, so they DID sneak their way back in here?  I mean, John’s powers may have helped them get through unnoticed, but this is still a big stretch.

HARRY: i'm not knocking the old adrenaline thrill, or helping out Vrissy's moms or anything. HARRY: i'm just saying i was literally just here and you told me to leave, so i hope this is where we're gonna park it for a minute. HARRY: a boy's gotta breathe. JOHN: yeah, well, this wasn't my plan, either. JOHN: but rose sent out some false intel about us heading toward my house, so technically this is the safest place we can be right now, since they cleared the area and everything. JOHN: i guess.

Ahhhh.  Okay.  Yeah, a Seer of Light can float an attention lure and know it’ll be an effective enough distraction.

HARRY: hmm. JOHN: what? HARRY: now YOU look like you're hiding some extra commentary. JOHN: oh, i don't need to burden you with all the bureaucratic stuff, it's boring. HARRY: well now hold up, dad. HARRY: a minute ago you were all "we're in the fight together," and now you're backing out of sharing the details? JOHN: it's not really- HARRY: am i a part of this or not? JOHN: well i'd sure say you were! JOHN: but i guess maybe my thoughts on what is or isn't right for the operation aren't up to snuff. JOHN: because here i am, sitting in the dugout, same as you. HARRY: in the dugout?

Mhmm, John’s sore about Rose not counting on John as a heavy hitter.  He got back INTO this in part because he missed all the action and relevance, and now they’re telling him to stop and stand still?  That’s never been a command John’s easily agreed with.  For now, protecting the kids (Blood!) is enough to keep him sitting, but if they (and Vriska) start encouraging him...

HARRY: plus i wouldn’t have been able to get your measurements for some clothes that actually fit you if we hadn’t come back here where all my sewing stuff is.

Thank god, we might get a non-embarrassing god-pajamas John back

HARRY: you were getting pretty into everything back there with rose and them? getting to be with the old crew and everything, like the stories you told me about the game? JOHN: yeah. HARRY: that sucks. JOHN: i had a good plan, too! JOHN: it just wasn't good enough for karkat, i guess. JOHN: i'm just not "experienced enough in combat strategy"

Oh huh, so that’s John’s discarded plan he’s holding.  Karkat's faction hasn’t quite succeeded the bloody (heh) way so far, perhaps he needs John’s Breath to add some inspiration to it for the most success but they’re not giving him enough credit?  It’s hard to blame them for doubting him, though.

JOHN: that is a plus of being here, at least. JOHN: it's been really nice to get to spend so much time with you. HARRY: um. yeah, it's not so bad. HARRY: anyway, before you ruffle my hair or anything, it looks like things are getting a bit heated between the vriskas over there. HARRY: maybe we should offer them a snack to bring the mood back down? JOHN: me, mess up your hair when you’ve worked so hard on that look? i do know you at least that well, harry anderson HARRY: thank god.

Cute!

VRISKA: So you actually want to know what I’m thinking now? You want my opinion? VRISSY: Um...Yes? VRISSY: I'm not Really Sure what’s going on right Now. VRISKA: What? VRISSY: I just was wondering why you’re so pissed off at me. VRISKA: What the fuck are you talking about? VRISKA: I’m not pissed at you, you haven’t done shit 8asically at all since i’ve been here. VRISKA: I just can’t 8elieve I’m 8ack stuck in this tacky rumpusblock after all of that!

Both Vriskas are constantly assuming the other Vriska is thinking about them because they’re both Vriska, when they’re really both self-cente-- no, that’s not quite true.  Vrissy constantly assumes Vriska is thinking about her when she isn’t, and Vriska is somewhat grated because Vrissy belongs in this universe and she isn’t? Or--

Gosh they both have so many issues going on and firewalls up that I can’t actually make heads or tails of it.  Usually what’s on Vriska’s mind is painfully obvious from her dodges, but Vrissy is so oblique with her OWN weird thought processes that-- god I dunno

VRISSY: We could do Something if You Wanted. VRISKA: Huh? VRISSY: If you’re 8ored. VRISSY: This isn’t my House, but Harry has video games and Movies and shit. VRISSY: Actually, we’re pro8a8ly 8etter off not watching his movies. VRISSY: His taste is Worse than His Dad’s. VRISKA: AGGGHHH!!!!!!!!

They’re from two different worlds, yeah.

VRISKA: No, I don’t want to watch a fucking movie! How the fuck can you think a8out movies????????? VRISKA: How are you okay with any of this? VRISSY: Any of What? VRISKA: 8eing left at home like a couple of dri88ling of wigglers!

Vriska invests all of her self-worth in what she can bring to the table relevance-ways.  Her self-esteem couldn’t survive the sidelines.

VRISKA: How are you so calm right now? Your lusii were training you, right? And you’re a troll, you’re definitely five times stronger than a human! And if you’re my clone, you are way more 8adass than little miss Fussy Fangs. VRISKA: I can’t 8elieve you just stayed 8ehind?!?? VRISSY: Well...they told me to. And they’re my Moms.

COMPLETELY different lives.  Vriska has never really accepted, never really KNEW what “peaceful life” is actually supposed to be, nor how alluring and satisfying it is.

VRISKA: Clearly not a good plan, 8ecause then I would 8e part of it! VRISKA: What’s the point of me even coming to this shitty fake reality if I’m not supposed to fix it?

hahahahahahahaha

VRISSY: Yeah, they told me about That stuff, but a Lot of the Shit that Happened in the Session if just not in the History Books. VRISSY: You weren’t Really mentioned that Much. VRISKA: Excuse me? VRISSY: People know who you Are, 'cause we had to Memorize the names of Every one of the Players, Even the ones who didn’t last very Long. VRISKA: You’re trying to tell me that there’s a whole recorded history of SGRUB, and I’m not in it?  VRISSY: You’re not not in it.  VRISSY: I guess they Mostly Focused on the Creators who Ascended, you know?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

--hm, what if some of the pre-retcon timeline where Vriska WASN’T as involved DID fold its way into this one?  Explaining Jane remembering Gamzee showing up early in her session to sell her troll blood when that was (if we’re remembering right, correct me if I’m wrong) erased by the retcon in favor of Vriska time-traveling in in his place?

VRISKA: Whoever was schoolfeeding you was a complete 8ulgesucker, because I “ascended” 8efore any of the humans did!! VRISKA: Literally 8illions of years 8efore, since our session was the one that created theirs!!!!!!!! VRISKA: I was the 8ne who 8uided John’s 8uffoonish 8lue ass all the way through his first 8ew days in the Medium! VRISKA: I m8de all the plans to take down the J8cks! VRISKA: I SINGLE H8ND8DLY! VRISKA: CURED YOUR MOTHER’S FUCKING ALCH8LISM!!!!!!!! JOHN: uh, vriska, everything okay over there? VRISKA: EVERYTHING’S FINE, J8HN! JOHN: okay. JOHN: do you girls want a snack? VRISKA: AAAAGGH!

HA!

HARRY: vriska, eat whatever. HARRY: just not the zebra cakes, those are mine.

(Zebra cakes are kinda Barbasol-bomb-like, right? Doom thing, because black-and-white stripes like most of the black-and-white-striped explosives in Homestuck? --Nah that’s a stretch.)

> (==>)

--That’s not Jane’s head, that’s JOHN’S head giving a thumbs up.  Wow.

...Your plan prominently features Yiffy even though you didn’t know she existed until a couple hours ago?

JOHN: so anyway, as you can see, this would have worked just fine! HARRY: no i think karkat’s right. this looks like shit, dad. JOHN: you know, me letting your earlier use of the word "fuck" slide wasn't a blanket approval for all cursing in front of me. HARRY: sorry. HARRY: try not to make such a shit plan, and i won't call it that. JOHN: haha wow.

Harry really is his son, wow

HARRY: i mean, i still can't believe i told vrissy and them to bring a dead celebrity to school. HARRY: what was i THINKING. JOHN: you were thinking it sounded hilarious! JOHN: but yeah, in hindsight, maybe not the best call. JOHN: maybe it’s genetic? HARRY: yeah.

Harry really is his son, wow

HARRY: i kinda can’t believe we’re all still alive, actually. HARRY: and how did YOU make it this far, being so bad at this? JOHN: i had my friends with me, i guess.

Pretty much!

Plus, they haven’t really had time to talk about what happened with Dave, yet, and he doesn’t want to tank the mood by bringing him up.

Glad John’s taken some time to deal with that offscreen, so he can keep being cheery here.

He’d spent so long seeing mostly the best parts of Roxy in Harry Anderson. He forgot, he guesses, to look for himself in there, too. And if what they have in common right now is a lack of strategic foresight, hey, he’ll take it.

Hah, fair enough!

JOHN: speaking of friends, i will say the snacks were a good call, at least! JOHN: i don’t hear any more screaming, anyway. JOHN: see, that's one good plan between the two of us!

--they left, didn’t they.

> (==>)

HARRY: oh, that was definitely them leaving, wasn’t it. JOHN: ah.

--So was Vrissy peer-pressured along, or practically abducted?

> (==>)

--Oh, this was the picture I glimpsed and scrolled past on Twitter!  She’s not on the ground, she’s running-- good.

> (==>)

--ALREADY!  Fuck yes!  :D

(and those cute paws on jade’s gloves wow)

> (==>)

--Oh I thought that was an air-lift! No, they were just diving to the ground with her.

Man, the pacing of this panel-to-panel composition throws me SO much.  Stuff happens without being properly established, and we’re shown the wrong keyframes to internalize it easily.  (I hope I don’t have to keep mentioning how much I miss Andrew’s talent at it, even though the art WITHIN panels is better here.)

So Jane is confronting them with soldiers.

ROSE: Oh, is this one of those rare and marvelous beasts, the "villain speech"? ROSE: I've written one or two in my time. ROSE: I'm on the edge of my seat. I hope it's better than your political material; I've always found that rather trite. JANE: I haven't given a political speech in years, Ms. Lalonde. I don't know what you're referring to. I'm just a simple business woman. JADE: right with her own talk show JADE: and multi billion dollar merchant company and lobbying groups! JANE: That's what a business woman is, Jade, dear.

--ah, in this perspective maybe Jane DOESN’T have the resources to be “everywhere” yet.  Makes more sense that they could’ve left the home unguarded.

JANE: But enough of that. I'll skip straight to the point. JANE: You are on my territory, in the presence of my secret police, laying your hand on my investment.

QUIT DEHUMANIZING THE GIRL

JANE: You think I come anywhere unprepared? I haven't left the house without an armed guard in years. ROSE: Is it the libidinous power rush that comes from snapping your fingers at men with guns, or are you worried that you might accidentally do something heroic?

Rose usually has decent snapbacks I guess

I don’t think Rose’s plan was to admit themselves into custody like Jane is asking, but I’m not ruling it out.

> (==>)

(this image is so cute)

JADE: wow could you be any more full of yourself?? JADE: shut the fuck up for a minute and look up!

> (==>)

Ahwhoops.  Jane misunderstood who’s in control of the situation.

> (==>)

Ooh!  That’s threatening.  :)

(Tavros is playing along, but he doesn’t HAVE to fake that sweat.)

KANAYA: If You Make One Single Move I Will Bite Him Directly On The Exterior Shout Tunnel KANAYA:  I Will Turn Your Son Into A Rainbow Drinker KANAYA: Then You Will Have A Rainbow Drinker Son JANE: That's not how troll vampirism works, don't treat me like an imbecile! JANE: You think I don't know everything there is to know about your disgusting biology? KANAYA: KANAYA: Okay Then I Will Just Break His Fucking Neck

HAH

Yeah, mutual child-threat standoff.  Jane isn’t going to make that sacrifice, AND can’t be SEEN making that sacrifice.

> (==>)

Jane Crocker hesitates.

This is something that she used to do regularly. Hesitate. Stop and think and weigh her options. Talk out every possible scenario and the impact they might have, morally and optically and socially. What would the political apparatus think? What would her social media followers think, her friends? As the years went by and she honed her instincts, she found herself doing this less and less.

Yeah, the difference between deserving a Just death or not is whether you’re willing to check yourself and allow another’s will to override your own.  To allow someone who ISN’T you to have a say in how reality unfolds, to consider that what you want may not be right.

The impact that her words made became lessened when spread out across such a wide and thirsty audience, as public sentiment began to swing her way. She stopped thinking about how she would be received, and more about how she could play to the people she knew would receive her favorably. 

Yeesh.  Topical.

Looking up she sees Tavvy with tears in his eyes. Rage and guilt surge inside her. This situation is not her fault.

Anger is based in fear.  Jane is not just afraid for Tavros, but afraid that she’s at fault.  And the more she fears and has to deny that, the angrier she’ll get.

Is it angry enough to make a rash decision here?

> (==>)

JANE: This situation is not my fault! 

Jesus, she even said it out loud?

JANE: I'm the only one who has taken any interest in her upbringing or education! JANE: Or have you forgotten who has been paying for her schooling and taking charge of her introduction into society? JADE: i never asked you to do that! JADE: you offered! JADE: so stop calling me ungrateful for not sucking your dick over things i never asked for!

Taking something that was a clear, ostensibly-selfless gift and using it as a transactional club.  I hate that.  Nothing shows how transparently little you actually believed in the “selfless thing to do” than that.

> (==>)

She can't just stand here and let herself be humiliated, allowing two architects of the insurgency mess her around like this.

If they were to kill Tavros, the entire world would see them commit this war crime. And weighed in the balance, Lalonde and Harley would be off the playing board. Saving your daughter certainly counted as a heroic death, and with the damage they'd done to humanity, it would also probably be just.

Tavros has not called out for her once. Perhaps he knows what her choice was always going to be.

Whoa you made that choice pretty easily, psycho-Jane.  Are you actually gonna try it???

> (==>)

JAKE: Tavvy! 

Oh shit, the plan!  :D

--if Jake isn’t just.  Um.  Taking the threat to Tavvy seriously, not having realized this was a bluff.  Um.  Jake?

> (==>)

That looks like he’s taking it seriously.  Shit.

At least Jane will look like even MORE of a monster if she gives the order this way.

> (==>)

JANE: Stand down!

I don’t think Jake’s gonna listen to you when it comes to Tav’s safety anymore.

> (==>)

JANE: Get out of my sight.

Oh.

Is she letting Jade, Rose and Yiffy go?  --probably, but it’s unclear.

Damn this panel-to-panel framing not conveying what’s going on properly.

Guess that’s it for now!  Patreon Commentary....... I’ve been putting off the commentary backlog for a long time, but I think the Homestuck Commentary coverage deficit still has to wait a while longer because the World Is A Fuck and I have to devote more time to stress relief than usual.  Take care y’all

EDIT: extra bit on gamzee corpse here

[gothic-safari-clown]

The Mind’s Power Over the Body

PART FIVE: LIBERATION

Story Summary:  They only ever had each other. It had been that way since high school, ever since Elianna transferred to dreary Arlen and took Jonathan under her wing. They go separate ways for college, and when they’re reunited at Arkham Asylum professionally, Elianna comes to find that they’ve both changed during their time separated. Can she look past the promise of danger and stay by Jonathan’s side as they slide further and further into the darkness while she grapples to come to terms with the truth about herself? Can she accept what needs to be done in order to hold onto the only person who holds any meaning in her life? This is a very self-indulgent AU that draws from several different canons of the DCU and ignoring others, starting in the Batman Begins Nolanverse. This will follow the plot of the movie, although the timeline has been very slightly tweaked.

Trigger Warning: Mention of suicidal thoughts, blood, stalking, assault, and explicit language

Part One / Part Two / Part Three / Part Four

Word count: 5414

When her alarm sounded on the morning after her weekend, Elianna was under no circumstances ready to wake up. Vaguely ominous dreams had plagued her for the third night in a row, and although she couldn’t recall a single detail, they had left a looming sense of foreboding hanging over her head.

Unhungry, she decided to skip breakfast and took advantage of the extra time that the decision bought her after getting ready to pick up a coffee from the shop down the street from her apartment on her way to work.

The uneasy feeling redoubled as she parked in her spot and shut off the car. “Something bad is going to happen today,” she said aloud to herself. “But at least I can be ready for it.”

She picked up her week’s schedule from the front desk, and one glance over it told her exactly where the trouble would come from. Her first session of the day was with Zsasz, right in the morning. She sighed when she saw it and shook her head, thanking the receptionist begrudgingly, and made her way up to her office.

Upon arriving, El retrieved her notes from the other day to look over them and compare them to the pre-existing information in Zsasz’s file. A knock on the door caught her attention, and she looked up at it, lifting herself out of her seat with a sigh. Opening the door, she found Jonathan on the other side and let herself relax.

“Good morning, love, come on in,” she welcomed distractedly and stepped aside to let him in. Looking at his face, he seemed as tired as she felt. “You look terrible, Jonathan, did you sleep at all last night?”

“Not much,” he admitted as she returned to her seat, and he settled into the guest seat opposite her. He cast a weary look around her still bare office. “Knowing you, I thought you would have decorated a little more already.”

“Hm?” El asked distractedly, looking back up from her notes. “Oh, yeah, I just haven’t thought about it much, I guess.” She looked around at the naked walls for herself. “Although now that I am, I suppose I’ll bring some stuff tomorrow. Care to help me?” She leaned her weight upon her elbows on the desk and rested her chin on the lattice of her fingers.

“Do I have a choice?” He cocked an eyebrow, to which El smiled in response, absentmindedly noticing once again the way the light would catch in his eyes with the slightest shift of his head.

“Of course you do, but if you loved me, you would anyway.” She gave a wide, innocent smile and blinked sweetly at him, earning an eye roll and a tiny smile in response.

“Oh, and who says that I do?” he challenged.

“Well, there’s me, of course,” El began, counting off on her fingers, “and the fact that you made extra sure that the warden would read my application so that I would have to come here and work with you. So there you have two pretty solid sources, but I’m sure that I could think of more if that isn’t enough.”

“Alright, alright, you’ve got me, you win,” he replied tiredly, raising his hand for her to stop, to which Elianna chuckled softly, before finding her attention back on Zsasz’s file. “What are you so distracted by?”

“Ugh, just my first session this morning.” She sighed, shaking her head and beginning to gather everything she would need into her briefcase; she had fifteen minutes, and she liked to be early to things. “Have you ever worked with Victor Zsasz?” El asked her friend as she stood, to which he shook his head and stood with her. “Well, wish me luck and hope that I don’t get killed next time he decides to escape.” She opened the door for Jonathan to leave first and followed him into the hallway.

“Well, I don’t have any appointments scheduled until this afternoon. Want some company?”

“Please.” The pair started down the hallway to the stairs. “So how’s…our mutual friend? Is he the reason you didn’t sleep well?” El inquired, looking to change the subject.

“Mostly. I also had some paperwork to finish before the weekend was over, and that took a while.” They chatted about Jonathan’s disorganized work habits as they followed the stairwell to the third floor.

Waiting for them were the same three guards from the day before. Once again, one posted himself at the glass—now joined by Jonathan—and the original two accompanied Elianna inside.

“Good morning, Victor. Sleep well?” She asked politely as she took her seat and once again removed her notepad and pen from her briefcase along with her trusty voice recorder.

“Like a rock, doctor. That’s the upside of a padded room; you can get comfortable anywhere.” Oh, that voice. Once again, El found herself fighting off a shiver.

“Why don’t we pick up where we left off a few days ago?” El suggested amicably and made a small note when she didn’t receive an answer. “How about you tell me what made you begin liberating people?” Immediately, Zsasz’s mood shifted; he clearly loved to talk about himself. Narcissistic??? El scribbled in her notes as he began to speak.

“One might say that I had it all,” he mused. Oh, dear, thought Elianna, he’s rehearsed this too. “Wealth. Family.” The word fell to the table and dripped with sarcasm. “Until one fateful day, my dear, sainted parents died in a boating accident. Consumed with grief, I soon gambled all that wealth away, and made my solemn way to Gotham Bridge.” The lilting of his voice reminded El of a dramatic narration over a soap opera. “As I prepared for the plunge, I was confronted by a homeless gentleman with a knife, who demanded I give him all of my money. Of course, I had none left, but he simply wouldn’t believe me. A struggle ensued, and I ended up with the knife.” The memory makes Zsasz smile dreamily. “I stared that man in the eyes and saw the meaninglessness of life. The desperation, the hatred, and the hardship that I felt in myself, and I realized something…significant: it’s all for nothing. You could say, in a way, I owe my existence to that man. With that first kill, I became what I am today.”

“I see. May I ask you a question, Victor?” El looked up from the diligent notes she had been taking during his story.

“Isn’t that what you’re here for, doctor?”

“Well, your work liberating people gives you a purpose of sorts, doesn’t it?” Zsasz remained silent, but his eyes narrowed, and his smile faltered slightly. “To your mind, it gives your life meaning. In which case, life can’t be meaningless. In fact, I could argue that my purpose is to tell you this now, couldn’t I?” She hadn’t meant to get philosophical, yet there she was anyway.

“Very well spoken, Doctor Montgomery,” the criminal’s wide grin picked back up, and something in his voice had changed. Once again, the feeling of impending danger spiked, and El rose to her feet slowly in preparation to make for the door. “However, if that’s the case, then that would mean that your purpose has been served, wouldn’t it?” Suddenly, Zsasz lunged over the table, cuffs flung to the floor, and El heard one of the guards shout ‘he’s got a knife!’ and on instinct, her arm flew up to cover her face as she stumbled backward. A slicing pain rippled through her forearm near her elbow before the guards had a chance to catch him, and at the moment, she found herself stupidly upset about her now ruined yellow shirt before kicking herself mentally. That isn’t even close to important right now!

Forcing herself back to the situation at hand, Elianna fumbled to open the door behind her as her escorts surged forward to subdue the enraged Victor Zsasz. An alarm suddenly blared through the asylum when the outside guard pressed the emergency button beside the door, the sudden noise making Elianna flinch hard.

When she finally managed to wrench the door into swinging open towards her, El practically fell through it, and Jonathan was already there half supporting and half dragging her into the hallway as the third guard rushed past them into the room to help his peers. “What the hell happened?” She demanded, defensively angry. “Why weren’t his damn cuffs secured?” El felt herself trembling as her mind raced, gradually realizing that she had been in danger from the second she entered the room. Was it his sadistic enjoyment of suspense, or his desire to talk about himself that had kept her safe for that long?

“I don’t know, whoever brought him in must be helping him,” Jonathan explained breathlessly, raising the redhead’s arm to look at the gash. “This looks bad, come with me,” he did a good job of hiding the distress in his voice for his friend’s sake but kept a firm grip around her shoulders as he escorted her to the infirmary.

As soon as they walked in, a nurse was there to greet them, having been informed of the situation.

“Is it bad?” El asked the nurse, who shook her head.

“It’s a shallow cut, nothing to worry over. I’m going to clean and bandage it, and you should be good to go.”

“He went straight for your throat.” Jonathan recounted. “If you hadn’t thrown your arm up so quickly-” he shook his head, arms crossed over his chest.

“I don’t want to think about it,” El closed her eyes, swallowing hard. “At least we know I have good reflexes,” she added quietly in an attempt to lighten the mood and earned a smile from the nurse as she began wrapping a bandage around the wound. When she finished, she handed El a spare roll.

“You’ll want to take this one off before you shower and rewrap it afterward to be safe, but it should be alright in a few days.”

“He’ll be assigned a different doctor by tomorrow,” Jonathan commented as El stood, and she looked at him sharply.

“What? No!” she exclaimed, her adrenaline still pumping, and Jonathan looked at her as though she should be admitted. “I want to keep working with him; I can’t just let my first major case go like that!”

“Absolutely not,” he argued firmly, keeping his voice steady.

“We can have extra security next time, and have them double-check the-”

“No!” El stopped in surprise. He had never snapped at her like that before. He sighed exasperatedly. “Look, it isn’t up to me, the administration won’t reassign you to his case, but even if it were, there’s not a chance that I’d let you back into a room with him.” El stared him down defiantly, but upon seeing his resolve, she gave in.

“Fine.” She conceded begrudgingly. “I’ll just find another way to prove myself.” Jonathan nodded in response.

“That’s much better, and you will. Now come on, you’ll have to make a statement and fill out a report.” El nodded, and they made for the warden’s office together. Unfortunately, the pair needed to pass through the corridor in which the session had been held. It seemed that Zsasz had put up quite a fight; he had only then been successfully subdued and was being escorted back to his cell surrounded by guards (several of whom looked worse for wear) with three pairs of cuffs securing his wrists. A small crowd had gathered in the hall of people curious about the disturbance, forcing Elianna and Jonathan to stop as the twisted parade passed.

Zsasz caught sight of Elianna as he was marched through and grinned at her, forever unblinking. “Leave your door unlocked for me.” He taunted, earning a hard shove from the guard nearest to him. Jonathan stared the criminal down and put his arm around El’s shoulders protectively, pushing through the crowd and pulling her back into motion.

“You’re not going home.” His tone of voice left no room for protest.

“Fine, but I need to get some things first.”

“Then we’ll take tomorrow off and buy you whatever you need, but you can’t go back to your apartment for a while.”

“Jesus, fine,” El said exasperatedly. “When did you get so protective anyway? You’ve never been like this before.”

“When the only person I give a damn about was almost killed in front of me for the second time, now stop arguing and just keep walking.” Despite her displeasure of being chastised, El smiled to herself. She had gotten him to admit it openly when she wasn’t even trying. That in itself registered as a small victory in her mind.

Without another word, she did her best to match her pace to his much longer legs, clinging to his forearm in an attempt not to fall behind.

“Welcome to Gotham,” she muttered to herself and shook her head at the ridiculousness of it all. Gotham badly needed saving from itself; that much was clear to her. Only one question remained: who was going to do it?

.xXx.

Despite Jonathan’s insistence that she was to drive straight to his apartment when they left work, Elianna made an executive decision to go and get what she needed from her place first; she couldn’t let Jonathan buy her all new things when she could just get what she needed in ten minutes. She was sure that Zsasz would be heavily guarded that night, and she would call Jonathan while she packed to justify her actions.

“Jonathan? Don’t be angry; I’m just packing a few things, I promise I’ll be in and out.” There was an angry sigh in her receiver as she unlocked the door.

“Check every room first.” He instructed, knowing that he couldn’t convince his friend to get right back in her car.

“Yes, boss,” she replied sarcastically but did so anyway, thoroughly checking every nook and cranny. “All clear, everything is fine.”

“Stay on the phone while you pack, put me on speaker.”

They stayed on the phone, and in just a few minutes, she had everything she needed to stay with Jonathan for a week and was locking her front door as she left. See, love? Everything is fine.

“I’m on my way to the car now. I’ll be there soon.” She assured Jonathan. Satisfied that everything had gone smoothly with no further need of his supervision, he wished her a safe drive there before they hung up.

Once outside, she held her pepper spray firmly in one hand and her car keys in the other. It was dark out now, and even in the chaos of Gotham, the darkness drew out more crazies than the daytime. Once her keys were securely in her right hand, she returned her attention forward, and what she saw made her blood run cold.

“Oh, you’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” she breathed to herself and ducked behind a car. What she had seen was the distinct and unmistakable figure of Victor Zsasz turning from the sidewalk and into the parking lot, moving directly toward her building. A hundred questions hurtled through her brain: How had he escaped so quickly? Was his escape route in his cell somehow? How could he have gotten away from Arkham without being spotted? How had he learned where she lived? How many people were helping him on the inside, and who were they?

It was too late for her to do anything about it now, but God help her, she would track down whoever was responsible for this monumental screw up first thing in the morning, and she would make them sorry. But first, she needed to focus on avoiding the unthinkable.

Swallowing hard, she did her best to shove down her terror and quiet her breathing as she peeked up through the windows of the car she had hidden behind to track Zsasz’s progress. Her heart was beating so loudly in her ears, and for some reason, all she could think of was that goddamned Poe story. At that moment, she abandoned her atheism and begged desperately to God or anyone listening that he couldn’t hear the wet thumping of her heart over the echoing sound of his careless footsteps.

Was it possible they heard not? Almighty God! —no, no! They heard!—They suspected!—They knew! Again! Hark! Louder!

Louder!

Louder!

Louder!

As the solitary figure steadily approached the alligator green sedan that Elianna had found herself crouched behind, she slowly crept around toward the front of the car opposite him so as not to be seen. He passed the rear bumper close enough that she could hear him humming contentedly and breathing in the “fresh” Gotham air as though he were on a simple, pleasant stroll, and not on his way to construct his most recent gruesome crime scene.

I should have listened to Jonathan.

When El finally made it to the opposite side of the car, and Zsasz seemed a safe enough distance away, her heart leaped at the thought that she was in the clear—freedom! Safety!—and she was just standing up to break for her car, only a little further down the row, when her bag—my fucking duffle bag!—swung off of her shoulder and down her arm, swinging hard into that ghastly green car.

In slow motion, she watched the contact, unable to move to stop it, and jumped as the car alarm went off. Her head snapped back up just in time to see Zsasz spin around to observe the sudden disturbance. The fear rolling off of El was palpable as she watched in real-time Victor’s recognition of her face, his target, his victim, his newest zombie. His bald head turned almost skeletal as his grin built slowly, steadily transforming into the most horrifying thing that Elianna had ever seen.

“Doctor Montgomery! Is this a bad time?” He had already begun strolling toward her, to which El began walking backward shakily. “I’d like very much to discuss my philosophy with you.” The gash on her arm was throbbing, a reminder that she hadn’t escaped her last encounter with Zsasz unscathed. And here she had no guards.

“You see, since you obviously didn’t meet your death in that dismal room,” here he paused to laugh, “the universe is off balance!” He declared grandiosely, spreading his arms wide and tipping his head back as he continued. “How can things function properly if I allow a zombie to escape her fate?” His words filled El with heavy dread, rendering her muscles useless as he came closer and closer despite the screaming need to move, to do something!

She couldn’t help taking a mental picture of the moment as he continued steadily toward her. The tableau was almost cinematic: the dingy, yellow street lamp between them hummed loudly as it strained to stay on, and the resulting shadows were starkly black against the pavement, so sharp it was as though they had been stenciled on the ground; to say nothing of the man—the beast—that came toward her, almost Lovecraftian.

Thin, and stretched up tall compared to her small frame, the skin stretched tight against the sharp bones of the face beneath it, the bald head and teeth prominently displayed in a deranged grin reflecting the sickly yellow light, reminding El of how horribly insane the creature approaching her really was. Not to mention the scars—oh God, the scars!

The slim, raised tallies that marred his skin seemed ironically countless, and they almost glowed in the light of the bright moon and the stale light from the street lamp, and those eyes just continued to stare, as unblinking as ever.

Elianna processed all of this at once and was suddenly struck with the realization that if she didn’t act right then, she would be reduced to nothing but another of those haunting, alien marks; a trophy.

The thought hit her hard enough to release her from her stupor—just in time!—and raise her arm, releasing a stream of pepper spray into what was hopefully the direction of those too-big eyes as she turned on her heel and sprinted as fast as she could toward her car.

The wild laughter from behind her told her instantly that she had fully missed her target, and she pushed herself faster. Something struck her in the back of the knee, and she didn’t have time to wonder what it was as her head hit the ground hard, her hands scraping against the asphalt when she was sent sprawling. She groaned at the burning in her forehead, and something warm dripped down her face. If I can just get to my car, was her only thought as the pumping adrenaline took over, compelling her to start to her feet.

A cold hand wrapped around her ankle, and without thinking, she kicked out hard with her other foot. Something that felt like a nose cracked under her heel, accompanied by a sharp grunt of pain and the hand loosened, so she struck again, earning her a cry of agony and a free leg. Elianna scrambled to her feet as quickly as she could, not bothering to look behind at the damage she had dealt, focusing all of her energy on stumbling to her car. Get to Jonathan’s now.

Suddenly, a large, black mass swooped over her head, followed by the sound of a body hitting the ground hard and another cry of pain from Zsasz. El risked a glance behind to see a figure shrouded in black yanking Zsasz to his feet, and that was good enough for her. She finally fumbled her way into her car. She didn’t know who the hell that was, and she didn’t care to know. She peeled out of the parking lot, wiping at the blood dripping into her eye.

She checked her reflection in the visor mirror at a stoplight to assess the damage. As was to be expected, she was bleeding profusely where her head had connected with the asphalt. She tried not to worry too much; head wounds always bleed more than seems necessary. Even so, looking at her reflection made her lightheaded, the sight of asphalt sticking in her skin, and her hair matted with blood. She slammed the visor shut, and when the light turned green, she drove as quickly as she could to Jonathan’s apartment.

I almost died twice today.

As soon as she parked, Elianna snatched up her bag from the passenger seat, and for reasons that she didn’t quite understand, locked the car eight times before running into the building and then the elevator as fast as she could. Once inside, she pressed the button for her desired floor and then jammed the 'close door’ button frantically, bouncing anxiously as it made its slow ascent—can’t they make these things any faster?

As soon as the doors opened enough for her to slip through, she sprinted down the hallway, miraculously keeping from tumbling over on the way. She needed to get to Jonathan’s door now, every second that passed inciting more paranoia of some fresh horror presenting itself.

By the time she made it to the right door (a ten second run from the elevator), there were tears in her eyes, and she knocked frantically, needing for him to open the door right this damn second, Jonathan Crane!

Luckily, he seems to respond to the urgent knocking and flings open the door in seconds, the confusion written on his face quickly replaced by shock as he ushered her inside.

“Elianna, what the hell happened?”

“You were right,” she breathed, shutting the door quickly behind her and locking it. “You were right. I-if I hadn’t been on the way t-to the car already….” A tear slipped out of her eye and down her cheek as she finally began to process that had happened.

“Okay, okay, come on,” Jonathan took her bag and her purse from her and set them on the floor. “Bathroom, come with me.” He led his still trembling friend into the bathroom and helped her onto the countertop to get a better look at her head, his brow furrowing in concern.

“Just don’t let me die, okay?” Elianna hadn’t even meant to speak, and nearly didn’t recognize the meek voice as her own.

“Not a chance, just hold still,” he replied as gently as he could, using a sterilized wipe from the first aid kit beneath his sink to carefully brush out the bits of asphalt from her bloodied flesh. Her eyes closed in pain when he moved on to cleaning off the mostly dried blood. “Okay, it isn’t as big as it looks,” he reassured her when he could finally see clearly; he was able to cover the source of the bleeding with a large bandaid. “There, you’re okay.” He concluded the treatment by gently dabbing antibacterial goop onto the divots left by the asphalt down her cheek.

She dropped her freshly clean forehead onto his shoulder when he finished. The light was so bright, and unsurprisingly, her head was killing her. Oh my god, if I had hit much harder, it might have.

“El?” He asked, resting his hand on the back of her head, worried that she had fallen unconscious.

“Lights.” Quickly catching on, he helped her off the counter and guided her back into the living room. She laid on the couch with her eyes shut tight as he went back into the bathroom and proceeded to make far more noise rattling about in the medicine cabinet than seemed necessary.

“You can have Tylenol.” She opened her eyes and sat up to look at the two little pills offered to her in his palm.

“Tylenol? Are you f-” El cut her off and forced a deep breath, taking the medicine from him. “It’s better than nothing. Thank you.” She didn’t even wait for water before she took them.

Jonathan sat on the couch by her head and guided her back into a horizontal position, guiding her head gently onto his lap, knowing that she found the intimacy comforting (regardless of his lack of understanding for it), while she closed her eyes again.

“Don’t fall asleep.”

“I know.”

After a minute, he turned on the television with the volume low and began to run his fingers through her hair absentmindedly. Eventually, her curiosity got the better of her, and El risked a look at the screen just in time to see Zsasz’s mugshot on the news.  The sight made her nauseous, and she squeezed her eyes shut again.

Almost immediately, she began to sweat. Her anxiety quickly rocketed almost out of control, and she felt as though she couldn’t breathe as her chest tightened painfully. “C-can you feel yourself going into shock?” She asked meekly. She had meant it to come off as a joke, but unable to achieve that goal, she realized that it was a genuine concern.

“Deep breaths,” Jonathan replied calmly. “Put your feet on the armrest; you need to elevate your legs.” She did so without arguing, doing her best to keep her breathing deep and steady. “You know, you should consider yourself lucky, El.”

The statement hit her hard enough to make her forget her anxiety immediately, and she took a long, shaky breath before sitting up, swinging her feet to the floor so that she was sitting next to him properly.

“How. Could this possibly. Be lucky?” She asked slowly, doing her best to remain calm. “I have been attacked, threatened, slashed, bandaged, stalked, and practically bled out all today.” She had started slowly but found herself steadily speaking faster and louder. “I think most people-no actually, everyone on Earth would not consider that lucky, except for you. So why the hell are you smiling right now, Jonathan Crane? Do you think this is funny? I could have died tonight!”

“Of course, I don’t think it’s funny that you were attacked again. I just forgot how entertaining it is when you get angry.” For a moment, El stared at Jonathan, baffled by what he was saying, before hitting him with a throw pillow, to which he looked almost offended.

“It’s not entertaining, you bastard. Not now, in this circumstance!” She swung the pillow at him again, and he jumped up, ducking out of the way when she threw it at him instead.

“No, El, look,” he raised his hands in surrender, doing his best to backtrack and catching the next pillow that was flung at him. “You managed to escape Zsasz twice. Both times, on sheer dumb luck. Before today his mortality rate was 100%, so yes, that’s what I call lucky-don’t you dare throw that at me.”

El froze her with her arm up, ready to hurl another pillow at his face. As much as she hated to admit it, he had a point. She reluctantly dropped the pillow back onto the couch, and he relaxed.

“Fine. But you’re making dinner all week, and tomorrow you’re going to find out who let him escape so that I can shatter their kneecaps. What?” She asked in response to the puzzled look on his face.

“Weren’t you going into shock a minute ago? How are you fine right now?” He put the back of his hand on her forehead as though to check her temperature, to which she rolled her eyes and swatted his hand away.

“Through denial, all things are possible, love.” She paused for a beat before adding, “if I say that out loud, do I stop being in denial?” More to herself than to him. Another pause and then, “can we have pancakes for dinner?”

Jonathan stared down at his friend, a little impressed by her sudden resolve, before conceding and walking toward the kitchen.

“As long as you make that hot chocolate that I like.”

[jane-penvellyn-of-blackmoor]

Nancy Drew #33 Midnight in Salem Game Review

So I gave in and paid the damn $30 to play the dribble that HER's pawning off as their latest game. While there has been major controversy within the fandom over the latest Nancy Drew Game and HerInteractive in general, I'm going to stick to just the game here. My thoughts and opinions on how HER managed the fandom after Penny Miliken came onto the scene have been made clear on my sh!tposts on my blog lol. So we're talking just the game here, nothing pre-start menu - that includes real world HerInteractive drama, none of that. So let's begin...

The Start Menu - Tbh I hated the start menu. It was like a FNAF game's opening menu, clearly made in Unity and the grass textures were nightmarish. If this were my first Nancy Drew game and this was the first sight I saw upon booting the game up, I would never buy another one again.

Voice Acting - Now before ya'll go off on "That's just your nostalgia talking, give it a chance" I will have you know that I tried, I really really tried to like the new voice actress for Nancy but ugh I can't stand it. She sounds like someone pretending to be Olivia Benson off Law & Order: SVU. Like I get they wanted Nancy to sound more like a modern teenager and less "Barbie voice" like Lani's voice would stray towards but letting go of Lani was their biggest mistake. If they had kept Lani as Nancy's voice - especially for such a drastically different game setup - would have helped keep fans fixed within the Nancy Drew world that we've been following for years. Everyone else was great, I especially liked Mei and Lauren's voices and the emotions expressed within them. Also Tourist Girl outside of the Town Hall needs to be brought back in the next game and have her lines recorded on actual recording equipment because what you did HerInteractive was hysterically pathetic and unfair. I don't know if that was a place holder that got overlooked or what but for a $30 game released by a company with so many quality games under it's belt - I expect better.

Storyline - Was pretty good. Fire, robberies, political unrest, sabotage, fraud, hidden wills, all things we've seen before a dozen times but they never get old. I think it's safe to say that the storyline itself is actually what kept me playing, however about half way through I did know it was one of two suspects who was the villian and the very next reveal ensured me which one it was. Still though good story.

Script - Whoever was in charge of the character conversations, for the love of all that is holy please water the interactions down! I felt like 99% of the game was never ending conversations about crap that wasn't useful to the plot. Like filler and fluff is great but conversations that drag on and on and on aren't fun. Have a character say a line or two, then it's Nancy's turn - all this monologuing has me flying through conversations just so I can move onto the next thing. Also some of the way the lines are written make it hard for the actors to read and sound authentic. Like "I can not." (versus "I can't.") levels of unauthentic lines.

Characters - Loved the different characters, would have appreciated more that had models you could interact with.

Puzzles - Needed way more puzzles. Like WAY more. It felt like there was less than 10 puzzles in the game and the majority were stupid easy, the only 'difficult' ones were easy once you understood what they wanted you to do which for some reason wasn't made clear at the start of the puzzle.

Mini Games - Loved making Johnny Cakes and mixing herbs.

Graphics - Horrific. I played on the highest settings of graphics on my HD computer, I had zero issues with it rendering or playing through as intended and smoothly - the graphics were still shit. I've seen better graphics in Barbie's Horse Adventures or The Sims 3. If you're entire argument of shifting onto Unity was for better graphics, HerInteractive, then you need to deliver and you failed miserably at that.

Navigation - I actually had zero issue with the 'swoosh' way we moved around. At times it felt a little restrictive (like in Town Square getting around the stage) but it was fine. I just actually didn't care for the camera tilt feature, it made things ten times more complicated trying to figure out what nooks and crannies they wanted you to notice and which they didn't. I'd happily go back to the old navigation and old engines but I'm fine with the new one so long as they work on making it better.

Cursor - Hated the new cursor, bring back the magnifying glass plz.

Location - I felt that the location of Salem, MA. wasn't utilized to it's fullest potential and that the layout of the town square and the maps of the city were surprisingly unsimilar to IRL Salem. I liked the aesthetic of Lauren's Shop, The Cemetary, The Hathorne House, and Olivia's Store but all of those locations fell victim to the game's graphics, still though props to the designer of those locations in the game.

Austrian Castle - This was jarring. To have a game so drenched in it's location of Salem then it starts off in Austria, it was weird. I get it that they were like "It's connected to the Salem Witch Trials cuz of da Judge dude" but it was super unnecessary and felt like a strange sub-plot location to a game set in Salem, MA. 

Music - I liked the music, felt a little Harry Potter-ish at times and the 'indie rock' music they had that had zero lyrics was annoying but overall it was fine.

Witchy Stuff - I myself am a real practitioning witch, I am an ecclectic pagan wiccan and I know I am in the minority here but some of the puzzles were obnoxiously easy if you know anything about witchcraft. Like even the most basic level of witchcraft. If you ever skimmed through a wicca book in highschool with your edgy friends than you already know more than this game expects you to know. What pissed me off is that it's never actually explained to you. Like they bring up Samhain and fling the word around so it's all spooky and mystifying but they never once have a book or person discuss real Witchcraft with you. Like yeah Olivia is a 'real witch' or whatever and Lauren teaches you about mixing some herbs but it's still not like "Here is The Wheel of the Year, These are Sabbats and Esbats, This is an Athame, This is what we use brooms for we call them Besoms, etc" like the fact that we didn't get a wise old lady who was a clear rip off of Laurie Cabot teaching us about real Witchcraft in a very censor friendly and warm way pisses me off to no end. MISSED OPPORTUNITY HER!!!

Nancy's Behavior - So many times in this game Nancy behaved out of character to me. Like I get it, ya wanted to be all like "let's challenge her belief in ghooooosts!!" but it wasn't done correctly. Nancy wouldn't react to seeing ghosts like Scooby Doo and Shaggy.

Call Backs/Easter Egg - I appreciated the Easter Egg in this game being a literal colorful egg but it was a lame spot to hide it considering it was in plain view. However I appreciated the call backs to previous games with KoKo Kringles, Robotic Cats, and the Dear Sweet Charlotte jack-o-lantern.

Ghosts and Jumpscares - 10/10 best aspect of the game by far. The witch ghost over the bed actually got me really good and the ghosts in the underground tunnels were the best graphics of the game.

Pumpkins - Another charming part of the game that I actually enjoyed more than I anticipated. It was really cute and a fun stupid little thing to work on through out the game to find all the candles and put a pumpkin on each one.

Hardy Boys - PLEASE BRING THEM BACK FOR MORE GAMES AND NEVER STOP THE FRANCY SHIPPING. Also I could be tempted for Joe/Deirdre shipping js.

Overall - I'd rate the game a 4/10 and that's being nice. I liked it more than RAN but that’s really not saying much. It doesn’t come close to classic Nancy Drew Games.

Final Thoughts - I can't see any person who isn't a die hard Nancy Drew fan playing this and being like "Yeah I'll buy more of HerInteractive's future games!" like no. But I do see potential. I can see this as a beautiful beginning on a new platform making more immersive games. Or you know this could be the last game we get from HER and they close and go bankrupt and get flushed away and then the Miss Clue crew buys the rights for Nancy Drew and they make new Nancy Drew Games on the old platform with the old team....whichever works just fine for me :)

[tanadrin]

(forgive me for answering these as a post again, but again I don’t think I can do them justice in the chat box)

I plan on reading the nibelungenlied because a plot description sounds good, but I thought medieval people had a black and white view of everything *because* I read Beowulf (and a couple of the things Cynewulf wrote). It's literally the same plot and main character as A Trekkie's Tale. Seeing Tolkein's constant praise for Beowulf on my dash is one of the reasons I am so reluctant to read LOTR -- what if it sucks as much as Beowulf?

until I recently heard about the Nibelungenlied, I thought Europe just forgot how to write good stories some time after the cool ancient greek stuff

(not done with your post yet)

I read the rest and I am still hung up on you liking Beowulf

Again, it's the same exact story as A Trekkie's Tale

FWIW, I didn’t say I liked Beowulf. I like it fine, for the record--but it’s not the best in Anglo-Saxon poetry. It certainly wouldn’t make my top three.

I do not think the Anglo-Saxons had an unambivalent attitude toward the hero of Beowulf (or the other characters therein). Beowulf is a complicated, complicated topic, one I probably cannot do justice to, but suffice it to say it was written during the Christian era about the pre-Christian mythic past, and like all such works in the Anglo-Saxon corpus is exploring the interplay between two very different worldviews. One point of comparison might be The Wanderer, a poem that takes the form of a poetic monologue by a possibly-pagan figure of the old poetic, heroic tradition that’s bracketed by two sections that reveal the Christian sensibilities of the poet themselves, and which attempt to, if not resolve exactly, at least explore the tension between these two worldviews.

(And I say “Christian,” but don’t mistake me: the worldview of post-Christianization Anglo-Saxon England was very different from the worldview of, say, the religious right in the modern US, which is one connotation that might be evoked by that word; so if you prefer, think of them just as Late Migration Age and Early Medieval cultural differences, because these were changes in culture conditioned as much I think by changes in material and political and social circumstances as by religious ones.)

Beowulf isn’t to everyone’s tastes (though it’s often badly served by some deeply mediocre translations, Heaney’s much-vaunted one included), and part of this may be that it is epic: epic generally deals with flatter characters and more formulaic situations than other kinds of narrative, and a lot of the things that took getting used to on a first reading of Beowulf are like the things that took getting used to on a first reading of Tain Bo Cuailinge or the Epic of Gilgamesh: it’s an affected setting, emotionally and plot-wise, and while the “realist” narratives that make up the overwhelming majority of our cultural output these days (and “realist” as a style subsumes even fantasy and SF; it’s a term here for a set of stylistic conventions, not a judgement on plausibility) is no less affected, it’s affected in different ways, and we’re much more used to it.

I will say this also, though: Beowulf is not written as an Anglo-Saxon Mary Sue. He’s not unambiguously right or good; the Anglo-Saxons didn’t endorse burying your king with all your tribe’s treasure and then disbanding your tribe, and while the model of Germanic heroic literature was still influential in their poetry centuries later, it was not something they thought you should *emulate*: it was very much an element of (to them) their pagan past, something about which they had, I think it’s fair to say, conflicted feelings. Beowulf as a poem is descended from tales created in that past, but is 100% an artifact of the later, Christian era, a work of historical fiction in a mythic tone.

On Beowulf, I will add only this: 1) an Anglo-Saxon audience (as I do) would appreciate how a story like Beowulf is told as much as if not more than the actual content of the narrative; if the narrative seems insufficient, I can only plead the case of the poetry, which, again, suffers under the hand of mediocre translators. Alas, for Beowulf, your options seem to be translations by those who don’t know much about Beowulf or Anglo-Saxon poetry, like Heaney, or translations which are very literal and aimed at helping students trying to read it in the original. 2) As with narrative structure, our tastes in characterization are shaped by culture; if you want your heroes to appear to be the underdog at first and only pull off a triumph against overwhelming odds, a lot of ancient epic is going to come off as a series of Mary Sues, I think. Tastes change! There’s a reason that there’s a big cultural divide between popular literature and old literature, and there’s nothing wrong with finding old literature not to one’s taste. But I also don’t think you’re being fair to Beowulf with the comparison: there’s... a lot going on in that poem, both culturally and narratively. But I didn’t read Beowulf until I’d already been studying Anglo-Saxon literature for three years, and it was in the context of a year-long course taught by a terrifyingly knowledgeable woman who knows more about the subject than I could ever hope to, so idk, maybe none of that comes through in any of the modern translations.

I think a lot of what makes people go “old literature sucks” is really a case of wildly different aesthetic sensibilities--if what you’re looking to get out of a story is very different, yeah, you’re not gonna appreciate Piers Ploughman or Pilgrim’s Progress or w/e. But, I issue the following challenge: I think that even for highly specific modern tastes there is some great medieval literature. If you want something in a vivid narrative style very like modern novels, I recommend specifically the Old Norse sagas: Egil’s Saga is great; Njal’s Saga is even better. The more mythic sagas, like the Saga of Hervor and Heidrek, are still a lot of fun, even if the settings is a little less relatable.

[starsailorstories]

Historical Overview of the Seven Suns systems

Ok I’m still planning to do a more fun illustrated/narrative version of this and plot-essential stuff is in the exposition of the books BUT if you’re a nerd (and I know I am!) here is Everything that led up to the Hyperian dynasty, directly or indirectly, starting from the first astraeas to live in this area

First Permanent Migrations

Cosmonist legend holds that the first astraeas to leave the vacuum and settle on the surfaces of planets did so on the six Holy Worlds that have been populated the longest: Tarega, Sitheria, Thass, Vesta A (the Basilean name for the world of Ami Ge), Esmrrrder and Hirimar. This is arguably true, although making a distinction that doesn’t really matter--worlds in the antedome and the Elorica quadrant were being settled around the same time. There’s more archaeological evidence to support another legend--that a flotilla of debris rafts that had drifted with gravity for generations, carrying the ancient proto-astraeas who had lived on them for generations, counselled in the outer orbits of the Basilean binary. Some continued on to the Sol Minerva system and settled on the Sitherian surface almost immediately upon their arrival. Another group set their course for the inner Sol Atya system, and would live on their rafts in the upper atmosphere of Tarega, gradually evolving as the chemistry of their lights changed from generation to generation in response to its composition, for another several million years. Because astraea genetics are as much a result of environment as they are of heritage, it’s difficult to tell where these proto-Sitherians and Basillans came from originally. What matters is that they came together and were in heavy communication even prior to written history.

The Miragari of the Sol Vesta system have likely lived on their own world even longer than the Sitherians have lived on theirs, but they seem to have migrated from the opposite side of the dome, reaching Basilea’s second-closest unincorporated star via the Carina Alta arm. Like the Basillans, ancient debris in the orbit of their world suggests that they lived in the upper atmosphere for anywhere from thirty to fifty thousand of their planet’s years before beginning to build their civilization on solid ground.

Other species seem to have arrived later in other mass migrations, having already developed inheritable biological features in other atmosphere environments (the fact that the Esmrrrderians and Hirimarians are more physically similar to each other, for example, than they are to the Basillans, Sitherians, Thassians or Miragari would suggest that they were once members of the same clan or group of clans). There is some theorizing that the Thassians may have originally come from Sol Vesta, but if so, their traits diverged from those of the Miragari long ago. They lack the archaeological evidence a “lander culture” that is common to other established species in the area, so their origins remain mysterious.

Development of Planetary Civilizations & First Atya System Explorers

Pre-contact Miragari cultures were sophisticated but tenuous, with populations in some parts of the planet dwindling after rapid agricultural development brought about significant changes to the local atmosphere. Although they developed their own forms of powered spaceflight and traveled widely, organized exploration was sparse--their system’s dense asteroid belt made exit in a large ship of the period difficult, and most of their resources were focused towards on-planet innovation. In this they advanced far beyond their counterparts in other systems, building massive and efficient cities with elaborate codes of law and traversing their abundant seas in ultra-fast and luxurious submarines.

The Basillan colonies that had landed on the surface of Tarega spent some generations growing apart from their Sitherian cohorts, but eventually began communicating, trading, and cooperating. The centralization of the Sitherian settlement in the megametropolis of Ovaiakon, which had by this point grown to cover 20% of the planet’s largest landmass, made travel and trade convenient for Basillan sailors. This partnership gave rise to mergers of cultural institutions all over both worlds--the most significant of which were the adoption of the Sitherian Syfrae logography/syllabography across the Sol Atya system and the compilation of the Writings of the Holy Poets, the document that solidified and spread the Cosmonist religion. With these uniting cultural threads, leaders on Tarega were able to ally with one another and pool resources to begin formal, recorded exploration missions to other planets--leading to the first settlements on Glasmiri, who appointed the first of the area’s planetary High Queen in order to unite politically and win a war of independence against their mother tribe--and to other systems.

Soon after the Glasmirian push for sovereignty, the Sitherian archpraeceptorate was established, and immediately developed a relationship with the planetary royal court, urging the High Queen and her scionettes to enter into honor-bound contract with the goddesses. This began to set the precedent of the perceived relationship between the Basillan planetary nations and the pantheon their people believed in.

Invasion of Sol Vesta System & Planetary Conflicts

Among these was one to Ami Ge (Vesta A), which in the next few centuries the Ixavol clan of Tarega and their wide-reaching allies, seeking conquest of the system of the nearest Holy Sun outside the immediate binary, would invade at multiple surface points--leading to a long and treacherous war, known widely as the Sol Vesta War, which would last for over twenty cycles and whose repercussions are still felt. After a complex series of concessions were negotiated on the planet’s surface, Basillan outposts remained in her orbit, basically maintaining a presence to keep the territory in their sights.

Over the effectively generational time passage that occurred during the war, the political motivations for fighting it shifted. While the original invasion had political and religious impetus, by the time of the final withdrawals the Taregan climate was changing, and holding land in the Sol Vesta system (including the uninhabited Kori Ge) became vital to the importation of particularly water and building materials. For a period of about 6,000 years following the concession talks scarcity on both Ami Ge and Tarega led to infighting among the regional populations of both worlds. Populations were significantly affected, but eventually technological advancement began to resolve things: Sitherian engineers--most notably the priestess and researcher Eiona Vang, who took eldership over the project--were brought to the royal courts of Saivega and Solreg to design large-scale atmosphere regulation systems that allowed for the creation of settlements above the clouds of Altamai, where the Taregan aristocracy fled practically in full in a span of just decades (with a few notable exceptions). Soon after, there was a mass migration of common colonies, who converted industrial spacecraft, hitched rides, or built their own ships in the desert and flew out by night without the behest of any authority.

Settlement of Altamai & Shali

Once on Altamai, Basillan culture changed and flourished. The international council of leadership that had existed on Tarega, after some centuries of trying, finally managed to appoint a high queen, Athaema Seflioma of Avès, who oversaw the building of ten experimental cities. In order to survive above the cloudline, the citizens of the new cities needed a steady supply of artificial atmosphere. With the same technology that allowed their mountaintop superatmospheric buildings, ships were constructed that could sustain a large crew for a long period of time. After several exploration missions, a fleet of ships were sent to the orbit of Shali, where, expanding upon the models for orbiting settlements that had been used to blockade the Sol Vesta system, they were gradually developed into a permanent orbiting settlement--effectively a company town for the atmosphere harvesters. This building model would later be used in the Fila Fenaeta and Fuscus swarms and, most grandly, in the Rings of Basilea.

In this period the planetary royal court developed rapidly, ennobling hundreds of notable residents from the settlements and making them both distributors of the wealth and enforcers of the royal will. Meanwhile tensions grew between post-war enclaves established on Ami Ge, specifically those that still maintained a relationship with the Taregan-Altamaian aristocracy and those that did not. Although extremely primitive by the standards of the system at the time of the story, this was the first conflict in which the Basillan ruling classes provided arms to their allies, making the conflict much more uneven than it would have been and placing the unallied Maeg people, whose ancestral mountains bisected the zone of the turf war, at an economic and political disadvantage that would take centuries of struggle to overcome.

Trade between the Jenya, Atya and Minerva systems, meanwhile, was busier than ever, with thousands of solar-powered ships passing between the populated worlds every few planetary centuries (most voyages at that time took 4-5 of those, which in the context of an astraea lifespan is sort of like 1-2 years). It’s in this era that the spacefaring subculture--its specific routines, songs, legends, superstitions, and roles which still hold at the time of the story--really began to take root. Basillan, Sitherian, and Miragari voyages to the Ante-dome and the disk also took place in this period, laying the groundwork for sociopolitical situations in the centuries to come.

As the difficult construction of the permanent settlements on Shali was finally completed, the current ruler of the Seflioma dynasty died suddenly on the brink of producing an heir. Astraea Mothers experience a period of basically hibernation before childbirth and health complications are relatively common, but given their honored role in society preventative care is also generally excellent, and a childbearing-related death, particularly of a noble or royal, is almost unheard of, so this was a cause of much anger and suspicion--even at the time of the story, it’s still widely believed that she was poisoned. Her “consort colony”--that of her wife--had recently had a new Mother born, and the court agreed to allow her coronation when she came of age. For the next several hundred cycles, the planet was effectively in the hands of her aunt, a Faellran dowager submaxima who worked tirelessly to set up global interests for her ward. When the Olaean dynasty finally dawned, it was into unprecedented power, and within the first few years of her reign Queen Daemarima commissioned the research and creation of a global language based on the planet’s three most common tongues. The teaching and speaking of Standard Altamaian was theoretically enforced by law all over the planet, although this proved logistically difficult, and all three of the local languages it was meant to replace survive to this day. The Standard, however, did grow in popularity, and became the lingua franca of court life and politics, as well as developing as the common language between new workers on Shali.

The Turn of the Intergalactic Age

On the less permanently-settled worlds of the Sol Garna and Sol Amphira systems, isolated cultures were beginning to make contact with the rest of their own planets as their populations grew. The Esmrrrderians in particular began to connect the peoples of their world through vast networks of trade and communication, which brought about an unprecedented era of global exchange and peace. At several points in the past, Esmrrrderians had intercepted Basillan and Miragari ships attempting to avoid the Sol Vesta blockades, or rescued the survivors of wrecks, and these aliens integrated into their colonies fairly seamlessly. But at this point, they still had no official contact with the Jenya-Atya system or with any other.

On Altamai, Daemarima’s great-great-granddaughter said fuck everything, married her lady-in-waiting, and abdicated to her younger sister, who married acceptably but then promptly died in a duel defending her older sister’s choices. Possibly because everyone was fed up with their nonsense, the throne passed peacefully from the Olaeans to the Fortefemens.

Meanwhile in the orbit of Sol Minerva, Ovaiakon was rocked by a series of earthquakes over a period of about three centuries, their intensity increasing over time. Finally--just days before the all-important Avi-fora (festival of the end of the liturgical calendar)--the great city cracked down the middle.

In the coming years residents of this intellectual and religious capital of the binary watched as the two sides of their city rapidly drifted apart and the sea rushed into the fault. The geological schism fueled several political and religious ones, with various sects interpreting the catastrophe as divine retribution for some act they disagreed with. For a few solar years there was absolute chaos. Priestesses and literators were executed by their own followers; still others fled to the wildernesses of the Glasmirian equator or the uncharted solitude of the Sol Amphira system (whose watery worlds and moons are largely absent from this history because their island-dwelling natives are so far-flung they don’t interact much with the outside world or each other). Order returned slowly, but Ovaiakon would now become two cities on two continents under one name, gradually drifting apart; and for many whose religious fervor outweighed their political loyalty, faith in its authority was forever shaken.

Several centuries after, another galaxy-changing event befell the system: a joint coalition involving scholars and politicians from multiple Basillan worlds sent a series of exploration missions to the neighboring Maculata galaxy, which we know as the Milky Way. After several landings on uninhabited worlds (they were looking first for planets that could support their own type of life, not the type they actually found) they finally ran across a Cadrian outpost on a moon of their homeworld.

Initially, the landing party were mistaken for invaders from one of the planets of Alpha Centauri, and might have unintentionally reignited an interstellar war (millennia before they INTENTIONALLY reignited it) if they hadn’t immediately engaged, giving the Cadrians a good look at them to confirm they weren’t Centaurian as well as earning their respect in battle (not every [sub]culture on the Cadrian homeworld would’ve reacted like that, but for better or for worse these did). After spending years as honored, if slightly uncomfortable, diplomatic guests, they returned, introducing Cadrian delegates--and the business interests they represented--to their respective leaders.

The aristocrats, noting the similar life spans and political structures but slightly appalled by what they perceived as a lack of reciprocity in Cadrian culture, jumped to form military alliances and yet weren’t at all interested in doing business. The delegates, however, wanted to get their hands on some of those super-fast, intergalactically-durable spaceships, and they weren’t going to wait around to earn the trust of nobles. The commoners who had gone on the mission had had time to understand the bizarre system of investments and currencies, and fidelity in the most Andromedan sense was all it took to get them building away--they felt they owed the Cadrians for their hospitality, and their colonies and professional networks provided labor out of simple loyalty. When simple loyalty in the labor force wavered, the new common shipyard moguls appealed to their Cadrian backers for resources and began to provide an “arrangement” for their workers--land off the local noble’s estate--that still allowed them a high profit margin. This was the beginning of the astraea-specific version of industrial capitalism, and notably also kicked off the massive Elorica quadrant asteroid-mining industry as foundries struggled to produce enough vitruvol to meet the demand. The descendants of these original shipyard owners remain the wealthiest and most powerful commoners in the Seven Suns at the time of the story.

Eventually, Andromedan spaceships began to be exported to the Maculata in such numbers that some inevitably fell into the wrong hands, and Maculatan pirates--as well as Andromedan pirates, but the nobles didn’t talk about those as much for ~some reason--got pretty bold with it, attacking planetary estates without warning. Between this and the (fallacious, but spoken about) idea that working for one of the common shipyard moguls provided Options, the popularity and clout of nobles began to be much more dependent on their ability to protect their resources and provide for their peasants. In response--and without explicit royal permission--they formed a legislative body which was to become the High Parliament and which actually streamlined (for better AND for worse) the process of enacting international law considerably. In retaliation, the Queen ordered them to hear official delegation from the Union of Commons, a political party of wealthy and powerful non-nobles who effectively bought their way into court (this still exists and has a reputation for being socially liberal and advocating legal reform, though it’s a joke on all surrounding sides of their political spectrum that this has to do with the fact that the Basillan nouvelle riche are so very very commonly in legal trouble).

Around the same time, international councils on Esmrrrder and Hiramar made a joint decision to open their system to trade with the rest of the galaxy. The two worlds had industrialized and begun to advance technologically practically overnight (especially by astraea standards) and with industrialization had come economic disparity between urban and rural communities. The leadership claimed--and perhaps some of them really did intend--that the economic boost would allow local governments to provide necessities like water and medicine for small villages affected by environmental destruction and other modern problems. But the new Basillan and Cadrian capitalists poured their resources into wringing productivity from the cities, worsening conditions for workers there and for the rural villagers alike.

The people of the Sol Garna system were not about to take that shit lying down.

While they couldn’t fight the exoplanetary power completely, labor unions and parties rose to prominence after centuries of a bloody power struggle that made their system infamous among the elite of the Seven Suns for the tenacity of its populace. Traditional Basillan morality taught loyalty to the beneficience of authority, but traditional morality as taught by the Garnaxe lawspeakers taught loyalty to the planet, the self, and the community, and the people returned to it in force. Although not without flaws--the same principles had been used to justify isolationism, and many of the labor activists harbored prejudices understandably towards the Basillans and Cadrians but less rationally towards all outsiders--the movement led to a system of defenses against economic exploitation that served as a model for other worlds taking up their own causes against the Basillan worlds, and later the aula.

Tensions on the Basillan Motherworlds

As trade--and conflict--with the Cadrians and manufacturing in the Sol Garna system settled into steady rhythms of give and take, the ancient aristocracies of Altamai and Glasmiri were restless. One step beneath them, moneyed commoners threatened to lure away the peasantry that had historically supported their lifestyle (many of them sorted this out by marrying daughters into new-money families or going into business themselves). One step above them, the planetary High Queens--legitimized by the praeceptorate and venerated by the people--could still limit the power they held in the courts and the legislature almost with impunity. Noble houses favored by the Queens defended them almost fanatically--most had formal and legal Fidelities and honor bindings to uphold, and some Particular Favorites had even more personal stakes. At the height of the divisions in high society on both worlds, the High Queens of Glasmiri and Altamai announced, together, that their eldest daughters were betrothed. The loyal subjects celebrated; the courtiers drew swords on each other in their castle gardens.

The alliance sealed, the next few heirs to the throne continued to operate over the loud aristocratic paranoia that they would become unassailable tyrants. The mutual economy boomed, with Altamaian interests establishing the free-drifting macroengineered Fila Fenaeta settlement in a resource-rich nebula in the Naulia quadrant and Glasmirian ones building the similar Fuscus Swarm structure in an enclave of the Milky Way sold to them by the government of one of the Cadrian national superpowers. With these outposts driving down the cost of chemical resources for space travel, the age of exploration and imperialism that had begun with the first voyages to the Maculata kicked into a higher gear, laying ground for the occupations later undertaken by the Hyperians in the Ante-dome and in the outer-disk Djickhasa and Sokhash systems.

It also sparked the dream of the Rings--the largest building project Basillan civilization had ever undertaken. It would ease strain on the overcrowded Altamaian cities and fragile Glasmirian wetlands. It would create farmland to grow the raw materials for textiles, which had become a main export to the Cadrian home system. And it would all be directed by one trusted royal advisor: maximata Siderina Hyperia.

Siderina was a leading figure in the aristocracy’s political corner. Coming from a high-ranking family, she styled herself as a Defender of the Old Ways and gained mass support from her peers and from the bootlickers segment of the traditional peasantry who believed that increased autonomy for their Sworn Ladies would lead to prosperity for their own families. As I detailed in this post, she betrayed the Queen and established her building project as the capital of a new empire. Attempts to hold her legally accountable for her breach of a royal Fidelity--normally a capital crime--fell through on the favors of nobles and politicians who owed her for something or other and felt compelled to stay silent. Siderina treated betrayals among her own ranks with infamous volatility, and nobody wanted to be on her bad side, at least not until they knew how this was going to play out.

Siderina’s daughter became the first Empress. A new calendar, based on the rotation of the rings, was begun. Within its first three generations of monarchs, the new government--which subsumed the still-existing High Queendoms by virtue of legally binding vows of familial loyalty--invaded dozens of unaffiliated worlds, including Caesura, Aeverell, and Ashtiva; spearheaded the modern LGA with the help of the Cadrians and started recruiting people to fight all kinds of random wars for them; and developed the cloning technology that would create the labor force for their runaway expansion. 

[staircasttext]

Ep 14 Transcript: Brokenstar's Polycule

Episode 14

[intro music]

PAZ: Hi, everybody, welcome back to Stairway to StarClan, a Warriors cat reread pawdcast. I'm Paz.

JULIAN: I'm Julian.

LIZ: And I'm Craig.

PAZ: No, you're not.

LIZ: I'm Liz. Just a little joke, a little humor, you know, from me to the listener.

PAZ: Well, I'll probably put-- that'll probably be at the end, the context. Well, look forward to that, I guess.

JULIAN: The end of the episode where we explain the joke at the beginning.

PAZ: Well, no, just where I put the beginning pre-intro. Sorry. This is gonna be another late episode. I have been having computer issues. But hopefully nothing will happen to this recording. And if not, we have Craig. That's why Craig is here. Thank you, Craig.

JULIAN: Thank you Craig.

LIZ: Thank you Craig, but with a caveat.

PAZ: O-oh.

LIZ: Craig, if you-- look at me, Craig. If you fuck up, I'm gonna kick you. We'll ban you from this exclusive podcast server.

PAZ: I didn't realize Craig was like on a probationary period.

LIZ: Listen, podcasting is cutthroat, man.

PAZ: Yeah, that's true.

JULIAN: Craig's on thin fucking ice. Just like the cats of ThunderClan.

PAZ: Yeah.

LIZ: Eyy.

PAZ: Yeah. Uh huh. Wow, look at that segue. That's some professional podcasting.

LIZ: Seamless.

JULIAN: Thank you. Thank you.

LIZ: Craig, that's what you have to live up to.

PAZ: Yeah, so we're continuing Fire and Ice. Shit's getting real. We read chapters...

JULIAN: 22 through 25?

PAZ: Yeah.

JULIAN: They were a doozy. A lot happened.

PAZ: They sure were. All right. Let's hop into these summaries. So chapter 22, patrols keep reporting that RiverClan and ShadowClan have been scented in ThunderClan territory. Meanwhile, Fireheart is busy hunting, trying to look after Cloudkit, Cinderpaw, and Brackenpaw. Graystripe is Brackenpaw's mentor again but is still slipping way to see Silverstream often. The camp no longer has greencough.

Fireheart goes to visit Cinderpaw who is staying with Yellowfang. She tells him the exercises for her injured leg hurt a lot, though she is still cheerful. Fireheart says he likes spending time with her and he misses their training sessions, which makes Cinderpaw sad. She says she probably can't be a warrior anymore. And Fireheart says no instead of anything supportive or even offering any alternatives. No editorializing here.

Then Fireheart asks about what happened when the monster hit her, fearing that Tigerclaw had something to do with it, but Cinderpaw can't remember. They talk about Cloudkit instead, and Fireheart expresses how worried he is about Cloudkit being bullied in the future for being born a kittypet. Cinderpaw reassures Fireheart, even though he hasn't done much of the same for her.

Fireheart asks Bluestar if he can go to the next gathering, and she agrees. He then goes to see Cloudkit, and Brindleface tells him he might have a fever, which worries Fireheart. He overhears the other apprentices mocking Cloudkit for this. Then he meets Sandpaw, who is also going to the gathering. They talk about how it's odd she hasn't been made a warrior yet. And she reassures them about Cloudkit's future. Later they all leave for the gathering.

At the gathering, Fireheart greets some cats from WindClan as they wait for RiverClan and ShadowClan to arrive. Bluestar doesn't wait for the normal introductions and announces immediately that RiverClan has been hunting in ThunderClan territory. There is more arguing, and Crookedstar, the RiverClan leader, says an unknown ThunderClan warrior has been scented in RiverClan. Both Fireheart and Graystripe realize he must mean Graystripe. Whoopsie.

Tigerclaw accuses RiverClan and ShadowClan of joining together against them and Crookedstar accuses ThunderClan of doing the same with WindClan. The leaders keep arguing until a cloud passes over the moon. Runningnose, the ShadowClan medicine cat, and Yellowfang say the StarClan is angry they fought at the gathering and that the darkness is a sign to stop.

Chapter 24, Tallstar ends the gathering because of the sign from StarClan, and all the clans leave. Fireheart hopes Graystripe will be willing to talk, but he only agrees to meet Silverstream at Fourtrees instead of in RiverClan territory. Graystripe is still upset with him. They return from the gathering, and Fireheart checks on Cloudkit. Bluestar tells everyone that RiverClan and ShadowClan have joined together and are now a threat. Fireheart is uneasy, thinking of RiverClan's difficulty and ShadowClan's reduced numbers.

The next day, Cloudkit is recovered from his fever. Fireheart watches Cloudkit happily as he play-hunts a ball of moss. Then he sees a scary leg.

Unknown Speaker

[laughter]

PAZ: Liz wrote these summaries. I'm reading them for the first time.

LIZ: Well, he does.

JULIAN: No, that's exactly what happens.

PAZ: Yeah, I really can't argue with that. Woo. Then he sees a scary leg and tells Cloudkit to stop. It's actually Tigerclaw, who gives the moss ball back and says to Fireheart that he should be careful with his quote unquote "playthings."

Chapter 25, Brindleface calls Cloudkit away and Tigerclaw leaves ominously. Then Whitestorm, Mousefur, Sandpaw, and Fireheart go patrol the ShadowClan border, but smell the other clan before reaching it. Fireheart recognizes the scent but can't remember which ShadowClan warrior it's from. The patrol also finds rabbit bones, which were apparently left by the ShadowClan as a sign of disrespect. Whitestorm is angry and says they have to tell Bluestar and punish ShadowClan.

When the patrol returns, Bluestar has already left for her own patrol. Whitestorm tells Tigerclaw about the rabbit bones, and they quickly decide to retaliate against ShadowClan. Sandpaw isn't allowed to go, and Tigerclaw tells Fireheart to stay behind, leaving him as the only warrior in the entire camp.

Yellowfang recognizes the scent on Fireheart as Brokenstar's, and he realizes that was who he was smelling earlier. She says Brokenstar and his friends must be the ones trespassing on the territory, and not ShadowClan, and that Fireheart has to stop Tigerclaw before he attacks ShadowClan. Fireheart can't leave the camp undefended in case Brokenstar attacks. So he sends Brackenpaw instead. He manages to tell the rest of clan all of this right before Brokenstar shows up. And that's the end of our reading.

JULIAN: It's a very dramatic place to leave off.

PAZ: Yeah, this was a very dramatic set of chapters.

JULIAN: Especially like the first-- like chapter 22 is just beat after beat. The stuff starts coming and it don't stop coming.

PAZ: Yeah, I mean, it sure is a set of chapters in terms of poorly thought out writing decisions, but also then good writing. You get both.

JULIAN: Yeah, you really do. It's a little of, uh... you get a little ableism, you get a little cat racism, you get a little excellent plot beats.

PAZ: This is what Warrior Cats is about, baby.

LIZ: A tasting platter.

PAZ: Um, let's take... where should we start?

JULIAN: Let's just start from the beginning. Um, Graystripe continues to not be shit.

PAZ: Oh my god.

LIZ: Makes me so mad.

JULIAN: I don't know what 10 year old me was thinking when I was like, Yeah, Graystripe is cool.

PAZ: Okay, I also feel like I remember Graystripe being cool, but I only knew him from like A New Prophecy onwards.

JULIAN: Yeah, I think he does some cool stuff maybe in later books, but uh....he's struggling.

LIZ: He's a shitty teen now.

PAZ: This is really clouding my perception of him.

JULIAN: Like Brackenpaw's sad little oh, I guess he just doesn't have time for me or whatever.

PAZ: I know.

JULIAN: It's just awful.

LIZ: It's so sad.

PAZ: Sort of to set up what we're talking about, it starts off with Graystripe's missing again, and Fireheart's basically asking Brackenpaw like, oh, where'd he go. And Brackenpaw's like, he went hunting without me. So sad.

JULIAN: Brackenpaw's like, he said I could go tomorrow and like, of course--

LIZ: God.

JULIAN: We all know that tomorrow's never going to come.

LIZ: It has such the tone of like, tiny child says, oh, my dad just went out to get milk.

PAZ: No.

JULIAN: Like, kid waiting for their parents to come pick them up, like, oh, I'm sure they'll be here soon.

PAZ: I don't know why. Why is Graystripe not being like reprimanded more? It's pretty obviously he's not trading his apprentice.

JULIAN: Right? Well, Fireheart has this moment where he's like, Oh, "Fireheart knew that Tigerclaw wouldn't accept Brackenpaw's answer so easily." It's like well, Tigerclaw, do your job. Be menacing. Graystripe should be menaced a bit.

PAZ: He should have been menaced like two weeks ago.

LIZ: He needs to have I guess like a disciplinary meeting with the manager that is Tigerclaw.

PAZ: Yeah, there was also like a apparently like a vague timeskip or something, because it mentioned like the last gathering didn't happen because it was cloudy, which was very funny. A very funny note. So that means like at least one moon cycle has passed by or something.

JULIAN: I'm like a little-- this makes a lot of sense actually for why the clans are in such like political disarray, if they can only meet once a month if it's not cloudy, and they live in England.

PAZ: Oh god.

LIZ: Oh my god.

JULIAN: Really setting themselves up for failure.

LIZ: It's that seasonal whatever thing, right?

PAZ: I was gonna say like, like oh, what happens if there's a gathering and there's like an eclipse, but I'm fairly certain that's a plot point that happens later. So, you know.

LIZ: They're cats. They like it to be sunny when they go. They wanna, you know, soak in the vitamin D.

PAZ: It's not even the sun. It's the moon.

JULIAN: It happens at night.

LIZ: Oh, um, well, fuck if I know.

JULIAN: It's also like... not to criticize the world building here but like when there's a full moon out, it's much harder to see the stars.

PAZ: Yeah. It's not fucking MoonClan.

JULIAN: Like I get the whole cyclical nature or whatever.

PAZ: Do it on the new moon.

JULIAN: And if it's the new moon, you probably won't even notice if there's clouds.

PAZ: Yeah. I don't know who came up with that rule, but I think they planted the seeds for a lot of political problems.

LIZ: Imagine if they were just like, yeah, let's meet every two weeks.

PAZ: Cats don't have calendars.

LIZ: Let's meet every eight days, which is how many paws we have on two front legs, I think.

PAZ: What? What?

LIZ: Wait.

PAZ: How many paws? Hold on.

JULIAN: Liz, what kind of cats you been looking at?

LIZ: Paws? How many beans? How many toes? I didn't want to say toes.

PAZ: Oh my god.

JULIAN: I was imagining like a fucking Sleipnir.

PAZ: Yeah, like fucking catbus from My Neighbor Totoro. Oh god. That's actually how all the cats look. It's just not mentioned.

JULIAN: That's where they keep all their magic. In their eight legs. Maybe it's just the leaders who have eight legs where they keep their lives.

PAZ: Wow.

LIZ: You become president, you just pop out four extra legs.

PAZ: Oh god.

JULIAN: I hate this actually.

PAZ: Yeah.

JULIAN: I know I suggested it, but it's very bad.

LIZ: I know the sound it makes. It's like [pops lips]

JULIAN: Ahh!

PAZ: Stop. Okay, we're gonna move on from that. I mean, speaking of legs, the next part in this chapter is Cinderpaw makes her speaking debut again.

JULIAN: Ugh.

LIZ: Ugh.

PAZ: Um, yeah, and there-- I-- this is time to really talk about like, the problems that come up with her character and honestly continue to be a theme throughout Warriors to this day, apparently, based on what I've seen on like Twitter and forums and stuff.

JULIAN: Yeah, it's--

LIZ: Like-- no, go ahead.

JULIAN: It's really great to like, see her as a speaking character again, and it really sucks that like, they have apparently have cat physical therapy. But it's like, well, nothing can be done.

PAZ: Yeah. I mean, like, it's nice that she's like, not like, deeply depressed and like, she's... like, it hasn't like, destroyed her character. Not destroyed her character, but like, I don't know how to word it.

JULIAN: She still has the same personality.

PAZ: Yeah, like, it hasn't like completely changed the personality and purpose of like her as a character in the book. Um, I mean that's really about all I can say for it.

JULIAN: Yeah, it's, uh... it sucks. I mean, I guess like, kind of brief spoilers, but she ends up becoming a medicine cat, which is sort of the thing that happens to any disabled cat is like, well, you're a medicine cat now. Which is just like, cool. Like, that's all you can do.

PAZ: Yeah. And them getting that position is like 95% of the time, like, against their choice in some way or form, because it's just like, no, you cannot be a warrior at all.

JULIAN: Yeah, and it's especially like... in literally the next chapter we meet Deadfoot.

PAZ: Yeah, that was a really egregious, like... the scene kind of like right after this is is Deadfoot showing up. And his physical disability is even pointed out because it says like, oh, he's limping. And there he is being a deputy. And it's like, it literally doesn't make sense, doing that to Cinderpaw's character.

LIZ: It's not even like, I don't know. What you said before about how so many, like, of the disabled characters are forced to become medicine cat. That's not even a case of like, oh, this one became a medicine cat and now like, can give perspective on you know, better care for other disabled characters. It's not like that. It's just like, you cannot have the job you want anymore. Ugh.

PAZ: Yeah. I mean, like, cat physical therapy exists, which is nice to see. But like, that really doesn't get utilized in any good way going forward or in this scene really.

JULIAN: Yeah, and there's no like, oh, you should like, you know, do your exercises so that like, you can regain some motion and like, you know, it'll be easier for you to be a w-- you know, that's not even like presented as an option.

LIZ: No.

PAZ: Yeah, um, I was reading around a bit and watched some videos on this topic that I figured I would shout out and like, quote from. So there's a really good video on YouTube by transredtail. Great name. Just called "Disability in Warrior Cats" if you want to check it out.

JULIAN: Yeah, it's really good.

PAZ: But yeah, it's a good video, and he's disabled himself. So he was speaking from that perspective about disability in the video. And kind of like the three main points in the video, were like, one, any disabled cat cannot become a warrior is like a running theme. And two, when writing a disabled character, the Erins frequently choose to have the surrounding characters make decisions for them, often unwanted decisions. And then three was like indications that life as a disabled person is less than life as an abled person is kind of like the reoccurring themes when it comes to how disabled characters are written in Warriors. And then also points out that like, disabled characters exist as plot points or as a way to create pity or guilt in the surrounding cast of characters, which is also definitely true.

JULIAN: Yeah, that's definitely happening here with like, Cinderpaw as sort of fuel for Fireheart's manpain.

LIZ: God. The scene where he goes to see her is like so... so frustrating because here's his, like, young apprentice who had like... who's really cheerful and enthusiastic and so clearly happy to see him cause she's bored out of her mind. And the scene just becomes about like, how sad he is that she doesn't have a future, and how it's his fault, and how suddenly he's worried that the same thing will happen to his nephew. And she-- this kid is the one who ends up comforting him about his nephew and all of his worries about Cloudkit that he doesn't really have for her anymore.

JULIAN: Yeah, it sucks that like he has immediately jumped from being worried about her to like, being worried about Cloudkit, as though he's just completely given up on her as like a person that he needs to care about her future.

PAZ: Yeah, it's so weird that he doesn't like, fight for her at all, or, like, encourage her at all. Like, it's just like, her fate is sealed without really any discussion.

LIZ: The thing he says about like, oh, well, maybe we can go hunting again and we'll find you the slowest prey possible. And she just like laughs, instead of like, being sad because that's, it's so patronizing. And it makes all these assumptions about-- it's not like being accommodating towards her because she didn't ask for any of that.

JULIAN: Yeah, like she wants to be a warrior. And like, I just, I can see a way that it could have been... like, transredtail talks about this and has like a lot of really good videos of like, how disabled kits actually move, that's really like, helpful for the well, what about the realism? crowd. Because like, spoiler alert, it turns out that cats that like lose the use of their back legs can actually scamper around pretty well.

PAZ: Yeah, like, even cats are like completely paralyzed in their back legs still move around pretty good.

JULIAN: But like, I can see, like an alternative where like, Fireheart is like, yeah, I'm going to help you with your physical therapy. And we're going to, like, figure out ways for you to hunt that are different. And maybe you'll have a slightly different role as a warrior, but you'll still be able to, like, hunt and do patrols. And it's just-- it sucks to see him completely give up on her. And it also, I wish-- I know that this would require like an acknowledgment of the fact that Fireheart is being ableist, but I wish she got to be angry about it.

PAZ: Yeah, it's like, the book doesn't.... the framing of this is just like nonexistent in the book. Like it doesn't-- there is no like self awareness of what it's doing. And like, it's kind of just presented as-is, like, yep, this is what's happening now. And Fireheart's reaction to it is not portrayed as bad or anything. It's just...

LIZ: Yeah, it's so like, thoughtless and lazy, I don't know. Someone mentioned before how in the next chapter, we see Deadfoot again. And also like, just to note, still the worst name possible to give to your--

PAZ: Absolutely.

JULIAN: Yeah. Oh, God, it sucks.

LIZ: God.

PAZ: That's, um, that is another thing in Warriors is like once cats get like injured or physically disabled in a way, they get renamed. It's very weird.

LIZ: I think they should be able to choose better ones for themselves. God. Um, but yeah. It's such a missed opportunity, too, because one, there's like the precedent of mentors taking their apprentices to gatherings. Why not just have Fireheart take Cinderpaw there and meet this extremely, like, respected, perfectly happy other warrior, who is very much in the-- who has like a very similar experience to her?

JULIAN: Yeah. Like they're on good terms with WindClan.

PAZ: Yeah, I just-- I don't know, like, it was just like non-thinking on the part of the authors, I think. But like the juxtaposition, cause Deadfoot being like, mentioned again in the story come so soon after that Cinderpaw stuff. And it's like you're not even like making sense within your own narrative.

LIZ: It's like wow, that's just-- it's extremely... it's bad. On the subject of disability, it's bad, and also on the subject of like, just plotting, it's real bad.

JULIAN: Yeah, yeah. And like, I don't know. I like, I think the name thing is awful. I don't think it's like... I don't hate the idea of like taking a new name when something like as life-changing as like a major disability happens to you, because that does like... like disability does change the way you identify for a lot of people. But like the fact that it's not anyone's choice is... that it's like the leader giving you this like... Oh, well, your foot is dead now. And that's who you are, like euaaaagh. Bad.

Yeah, I don't know. I also like, obviously, I have thought a lot about disability recently, because like, I just got out of-- the reason we didn't record for like, a month and change was because I had surgery on my arm that I couldn't use for six months. And like, that's definitely not the same as like a permanent disability. But like, I thought a lot about what it means to like, lose the use of one of your limbs. And I wish they had handled this differently.

PAZ: Yeah, um, another good point that came up on a thread I was looking on the same forum as last time. What was it again? WCRPforums.com, which is like the most active big Warriors forum right now, there was a thread about Warriors Cat ableism, and this was a post made by a deleted member, but they made a really good point. I'll just read part of it.

"I think this is the thing that's forgotten a lot when adults argue about this stuff. These are books for kids. The cats already have superpowers. There's already magic out the ass with StarClan sending mystical prophecies that foretell the future and manipulating the weather. And saying that there wouldn't be physically disabled characters with positive life as a warrior because it's an unrealistic is just oof.

I think people forget just how much positivity good rep brings into the life of kids, and good physical disabled rep in popular kids media isn't common enough for my liking. A three-legged warrior will not break my immersion. A warrior without a tail shouldn't break my immersion. Blind and Deaf warriors are not immersion breaking for me. If kittens talk fairly well when they're a month old, I can easily buy lip reading.

With all the series has thrown at us--" here's a great list. "With all the series has thrown at us-- ghost badgers, super powers, future telling prophecies, cat Heaven and Hell invading the real world, being able to kill ghosts, magic spirit weather, miracle plant medicine, cat farming, cats amputating with rocks, magic water that lets you visit the afterlife and talk to ghosts, cats literally dying and coming back from the dead and more-- I can live with disabled characters. And I'm not sure why it's such a big deal that would absolutely destroy the immersion for other people."

But yeah, the main point in this that like, this is a kid series and like kids are reading this and seeing this stuff, and how like that could like negatively impact a disabled kid reading this is like, really important to think about.

LIZ: I don't know. I like--

JULIAN: And--

LIZ: Oh, no, go ahead.

JULIAN: Oh no, it's OK. I think like, there was-- a lot of the Twitter threads that we're talking about have come out of a hashtag. I think it's #warriorcatsableism?

LIZ: Mm-hmm.

JULIAN: And there was a recent discussion of something that happened in like one of the most recent books, and it does sound like someone wrote a letter, and Harper Collins said that they would like work on doing better in future books.

PAZ: I think they actually like, edited a line out in like future like, releases, whatever book editions you said. Gosh, I wish I could find that again.

JULIAN: I think it was, like... yeah.

PAZ: I don't know where the fuck I saw it when I was reading all this stuff. So, I mean, the hashtag is great. And I think it has brought some awareness of the issue hopefully. So I'm hoping the series like improves on that front going forward.

LIZ: Yeah, it's, it's so much a thing that's like... it's been going on for so long. It's still so popular. And it's still a pretty recent, like, fumble or just thoughtlessness that's happened, and that it's even recently corrected. They must have the budget now for like, a sensitivity reader. I don't know.

PAZ: Yeah. Yes. I sincerely hope they--

LIZ: Better to catch that early.

PAZ: --they find one.

LIZ: Find several, please.

JULIAN: You know, it's already like... it's a team book already.

LIZ: Yeah, exactly.

PAZ: Another point transredtail made in his video was that like, just like have more disabled characters so that representing like, a plethora of experiences means like, if a disabled character dies or something, if there's a lot of other disabled characters, it's less egregious. But the fact that like, there's so few disabled characters, and they frequently go through like the same sorts of plot points, yeah, it's like not... it's bad. It's not good representation. And it needs to be fixed.

JULIAN: Like, if you have multiple disabled characters, you can show characters having conflicting ideas about their own disability and like, you know, you have-- because there is a diversity of like, how people feel about their own disabilities, like within the disabled community. And if you have a lot of cats, then like, if one of them dies, it's not, well, that was the only disabled character who had any agency and now they're dead.

PAZ: I mean, it's a similar principle as like writing the queer characters. It's like, if you have, if you have more than like, one or two of like, the minority group you're representing then like, you can just represent more experiences that way. And they don't have to carry the whole group on their shoulders. And it's just realistic to have a variety of characters.

LIZ: It would also be good to have like, disabled characters talk to each other instead of just having them only talk to abled characters and be their comforting, like soothing whatever.

PAZ: I feel like that might happen in A Power of Three, but it is not necessarily done well.

JULIAN: Oh.

LIZ: Okay...

PAZ: We'll see when we get there.

LIZ: Rough times ahead. Oh god, there's an airplane flying.

PAZ: Oh no.

LIZ: Do you hear it?

PAZ: Yes.

JULIAN: Yeah, I do.

LIZ: This is where I live. I am sorry. Oh, my God, my Audacity waves. Go away.

PAZ: I'll silence them with a stroke of my mouse.

LIZ: I'll mute. This is terrible.

PAZ: Okay, and another point transredtail brought up was the fact that like, a lot of disabled characters are forced into the medicine cat position, and then like, that's a position where you aren't allowed to have children.

LIZ: Yeah.

JULIAN: [gasps] Aw geez.

LIZ: I forgot about that.

PAZ: Which is a very-- like, it's definitely unintentional, but like, the parallels to real world eugenics and like, how like real world disabled people like, often have trouble starting a family because the way the government like, doesn't provide good like support or money. And like you kind of can't marry--

JULIAN: You can't get married. You'll lose your benefits.

PAZ: So... yeah, the fact that like, no children kind of happens to a lot of disabled characters through this medicine cat position is... yikes.

JULIAN: It also-- like you were talking about where it's like the disabled character takes on this role of like, comforting the abled character about their own disability is like... the medicine cat role is in some ways kind of an extension of that where it's like, okay, well, you have to be the caretaker now for everyone. That's your job. Like, oooh.

LIZ: It's so patronizing and also just bitter, because we won't provide you the care that you need. But please give it to me.

PAZ: And this is in later books, but Jayfeather, like being a blind protagonist, lots of people have also raised the point of like, you also get the weird disabilities as like superpowers or like the trope of disabled character whose like disabilities, quote, unquote, like... God, what is the phrase I'm looking for? My brain is empty. It's like counteracted. Counteracted by their supernatural abilities.

JULIAN: It's like, oh, he's blind. But oh, don't worry, he's not really blind. He can still see via the magic of StarClan. And it's like, well, cowards.

PAZ: Yeah. There's also-- I can't remember if it was just in Twitter threads or in the YouTube video of like, blind cats hunting flies, which was very cute. So like, screw realism, because these books don't have realism. But once again, like, cats with disabilities are very capable.

JULIAN: Yeah, I mean, the realism argument feels a lot like the same kind of discussions that come up any time that like, there's characters of color in like fantasy, or like, medieval novels, where it's like, oh, it's not realistic. And it's like, God, there's dragons.

PAZ: And also, like, it is realistic.

JULIAN: And also Black people existed in medieval Europe. But like.

PAZ: Yeah, it's literally the same exact same sort of...

JULIAN: Yeah, it's the same thing where it's like, A, it is realistic. And B, it shouldn't matter if it's realistic or not, because magic.

PAZ: Were you gonna say something else, Liz?

LIZ: Um, yeah, just on the subject of realism, like, it does matter a lot that there are, like Julian said, people of color in medieval settings already existing and people in so and so places already existing, like, in actuality. And, like, it sounds silly to talk about cats, but like, yes, disabled cats are like real. And they're doing fine. Whether it's like, even stray cats versus like, you know, domestic cats. And if you're gonna take the metaphor of the cats in the books being people, then of course, disabled people are just out there living their lives. And I don't know, it's also patronizing the way that the books have done it so far.

PAZ: Yeah. But, yeah, unfortunately this will probably be discussion that keeps coming up because it is an issue that keeps coming up in the books to this day, so.

JULIAN: God, there's one, like-- I know we're moving on. There's one like throwaway line where Cinderpaw says something about like... or like, I think Fireheart mentions that-- oh, he's like, when did you get so smart? Because she is like, angry at the other apprentices' cat racism. And she goes, "suffering can do that to a cat."

LIZ: Ugh.

JULIAN: And it's kind of a joke, but it's also like, the whole trope of like, oh, she's stronger because of what she's gone through. And it's like, awwwww.

LIZ: It's also interesting, because suddenly she has the emotional intelligence of an adult. And she has to comfort another adult because she has suffered, and that means the adult doesn't have to do anything for her?

JULIAN: Yeah, it's like her disability erased the fact that she's still a child. And she's suddenly like a little, little wise adult.

LIZ: A little wise adult who also doesn't get the privileges of being an adult, which is, you know, choosing what you want to do with your life, or having like bodily autonomy.

PAZ: Yeah, I wish she was like, allowed to be like angry, like, at the people around her for treating her so poorly. But.

JULIAN: I wouldn't even like-- you know, I'm glad that she's like still... she's always been like a very like kind of spunky, like, I'm going to do it no matter what kind of character. And so it kind of sucks to see her completely give up on being a warrior so quickly. But also, like, I wish that we did get to see her be upset, or more upset about like, her life path completely being cut off by the people around her.

PAZ: I mean, the really weird thing is like, that didn't happen on screen, like that conversation.

LIZ: Yeah, exactly.

PAZ: She was just like recovering and like, not awake. And then we skipped to her like, being awake. And it seems that conversation, to her, has happened somewhere offscreen, which is really weird.

LIZ: I think what it says about I guess the writing is that we didn't see it, because the authors didn't think it was important to see it, which is [heavy sigh].

JULIAN: I mean, it kind of feels like we do see it though, because she's like, oh, when am I going to go back to training? And Fireheart's like, uhhhhhhh. And then she goes, Oh, I'm never gonna be a warrior. And that's like, the sum total of the conversation.

PAZ: Yeah. I kind of read it as like the final conversation on that topic.

JULIAN: That makes more sense.

PAZ: Um, it's still weird. And there's no real, like-- Fireheart doesn't have much like internal thought going on in that moment, so he doesn't really offer much perspective on that choice.

JULIAN: Yeah, and like I get, you know, it's Fireheart's POV or whatever. But a lot of the other characters clearly have so much going on internally that like, we do kind of see through Fireheart's eyes that it's... I don't know, it's weird that we don't know what--

PAZ: If you want to your POV character to be in the scene, you just do it. You make up any excuse.

LIZ: We saw, um, Sandpaw for like, a much shorter amount of time. And like, it was easy to get a sense like, oh, she's really unsatisfied with what's happening to her. And why hasn't she been cat promoted yet? And she's really frustrated. And that didn't take very long at all. And you get-- there is a sense of sympathy there. And he sympathizes with her. And he doesn't really do that for his own apprentice who he's just-- he's known for much longer, or I mean, known more, I guess, like closely.

JULIAN: Yeah, like, he's very sad, but it's all like guilt. It's all about him.

LIZ: Yeah. It's not frustration for her. It's like, oh, I fucked up.

PAZ: Yeah. I really think it just comes down to like, the writing was thoughtless. And it was like, not a proper way to handle a disabled character and leads to this kind of, like lack of care given to her arc.

JULIAN: And then we get the cat racism.

LIZ: Double whammy.

PAZ: Yeah. I guess we will be moving on from that topic for now. Because yeah, then it goes right into the cat racism.

LIZ: God.

PAZ: Which I-- it's handled a bit better, because it's actually intentional is what I will say.

JULIAN: Like, it's intentional and it's framed as bad, even if it's like a little, you know, it's cat racism in a kid's book.

LIZ: It is the metaphor that the kids will understand.

JULIAN: Um, I wrote like three different times, "Cloudkit is a child." In all caps.

PAZ: Yeah, they're being like, really cat racist, like worse than we saw with like, Fireheart, honestly.

LIZ: He's just a baby.

PAZ: I'm like, this is a two week old baby.

LIZ: Listen, since it is-- I know it's cat racism. But I do think it's very funny that these British ladies wrote about-- made a metaphor about racism, and had it be like racism against the white cat.

PAZ: Oh god.

LIZ: Just a fun little note.

PAZ: That's extremely funny. I guess they were trying to be like what coat colors would a house cat have. Oh my god.

LIZ: It could have been like a fancy one instead of... like white stray cats are pretty common too.

PAZ: You know what I was thinking that whole time? I'm like, Yellowfang's a Persian cat.

LIZ: Yeah, what the fuck?

PAZ: I'm like, why? I don't think--

LIZ: Yellowfang's a purebred cat.

PAZ: I know. Oh my god.

LIZ: She's an escaped show cat. That's the secret.

PAZ: It's so funny.

LIZ: Yellowfang's living like the Anastasia movie or whatever.

JULIAN: Oh my god.

PAZ: Oh, my God. I was just picturing my cat Kip though.

LIZ: Mm.

JULIAN: Just a little guy.

LIZ: Just a little guy.

PAZ: Just a little fluffy guy, but everyone is like, I want this child to die.

JULIAN: I am glad that we do get to see-- I mean, obviously it's not great. But I'm glad that we get to see Tigerclaw back at it again with the kit murder, the threatening to kit murder.

PAZ: Yeah, that's like a couple chapters away but--

JULIAN: It is.

PAZ: Damn.

LIZ: I love the scene where he shows up cause it's so like just over the top, and it's the fucking funniest thing I've ever seen.

PAZ: I was like, this rules. Wait, I should go find it.

JULIAN: He's like twirling his metaphorical mustache.

LIZ: Oh, you didn't know? Tigerclaw has been a mustache cat this whole time.

PAZ: I'm still trying to find it.

JULIAN: It's in chapter 24 at the very end. You're right. It is an evil leg.

LIZ: The way he shows up is you just picture, like, stage lighting, and the spotlight shows up, and like a leg just sticks out from behind the curtain.

[ominous music]

PAZ: Okay, I found it. The scene is Cloudkit playing with a little moss ball, which is very cute.

LIZ: Adorable.

PAZ: "He rolled onto his back, threw the ball up with his four paws, and kicked it away with his hind legs. It landed next to the nursery. Cloudkit scrambled up and scooted after it. He crouched a rabbit leap away, his hind quarters bunched in the air. Fireheart watched as the kit prepared to pounce. Suddenly his fur prickled. A long dark foreleg was reaching towards the moss ball from behind the nursery. 'Cloudkit,' Fireheart called. 'Wait!' Shadowy images of rogue cats were still fresh in his mind. Cloudkit sat up and looked around at him, puzzled."

[drum roll, dramatic organ music]

"Tigerclaw emerged from behind the kit, holding the moss ball between the teeth. He carried the ball over to the kit and dropped it by Cloudkit's fluffy white paws. 'Be careful,' he growled. 'You wouldn't want to lose such a precious plaything.' As he spoke, the dark warrior stared at Fireheart over Cloudkit's head."

JULIAN: Literal like children's cartoon villain out here like, oooh.

PAZ: It's so funny.

LIZ: You'd better not lose your moss ball. [evil laugh]

JULIAN: Like literally the mafioso like, [deep voice] nice kit you got here. Shame if anything were to happen to it.

PAZ: This is the next little part. "Fireheart shivered. What did Tigerclaw mean by that? He seemed to be talking about the moss ball. But did he really mean that Cloudkit was a plaything?"

LIZ: Yes.

PAZ: Yeah, he's threatening your two days old nephew.

LIZ: You know he loves baby murder. He's trying so hard.

JULIAN: He loooves baby murder.

LIZ: He's gonna send your nephew to snake hell.

JULIAN: Well, and then there is the whole plotline of like Fireheart suspects that Tigerclaw was responsible for like Cinderpaw's accident. So he's really up on the the child murder or attempted murder.

LIZ: His rate of success is so-so, but boy is he determined. Yeah, it's not for lack of trying. Do you think like Tigerclaw goes back to his den every time he fails? It's like [clicks teeth] if it weren't for those darn kids. Next time I'll surely succeed.

JULIAN: That meddling kittypet.

LIZ: All I need is a big cliff and a long trail of Temptations treats. And when Cloudkit has the final treat, then I'll appear. Okay, I think of all the cats that I could see standing twolegged, Tigerclaw could be one, because that seems like the most evil. He's walking like a man towards--

PAZ: I think he should be one of his cats whose like, fur patterns make it look like he has a little mustache.

LIZ: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

JULIAN: Yeah.

PAZ: Um--

JULIAN: God. Sorry, go ahead.

PAZ: I was just gonna say, but like, yeah, like other cats in the clan are also just being like, I want this child to die. Because like Longtail says at one point like, when Cloudkit gets a fever like, he won't last through Leafbare, like, happily.

JULIAN: They're like, joking about how long this child is gonna survive.

LIZ: Hey, y'all have a low birth rate, low infant survival rate. Shut up. Jesus.

JULIAN: It's like, are they so numb to child death? Like does it happen so often that they're just like, whatever?

LIZ: This is like the cat xenophobia.

JULIAN: God. Speaking of-- this is a terrible segue, but speaking of bad leadership decisions, what's up with Bluestar?

LIZ: She's so--

PAZ: Yeah, the scene with Sandpaw.

LIZ: What happened to her?

JULIAN: The scene even right before Sandpaw, where Fireheart is like, oh, I want to go to the gathering, cause I want to like see how WindClan is doing. And she's like, I don't need reminding of what you did for WindClan. It's like, what? She sounds like she's like, she thinks he's trying to like curry favor with her or something. And it's like, no, he's like, being normal. What's your damage?

LIZ: I guess like, is this gonna be a plot point?

PAZ: Is she that upset about him bringing a kitten when she's been saying over and over again, we don't have enough warriors?

LIZ: She's the one who brought him in for that express purpose.

PAZ: Right? He was just going by example.

JULIAN: And like, do I think it was a good idea? No. Do I think he should have checked? Yes. But also like, you deal with what you're given.

LIZ: There's been many worse decisions made in this clan recently, too. This isn't the worst one. It's just, well, it's a baby. We did need one.

JULIAN: ThunderClan is a smorgasbord of bad decisions.

LIZ: I wouldn't want to be there.

JULIAN: No, if I had to choose a clan...

PAZ: WindClan.

JULIAN: I would choose WindClan. They seem normal.

LIZ: They seem fine.

PAZ: This is jumping ahead again. But at the gathering like, Tallstar is like, we've been minding our fucking business. Like I don't know what all the rest of you are doing, but. We're just chilling. Leave us out of this.

LIZ: Tallstar is just like, he gets there late with like Starbucks or whatever. Sorry. That's an old meme, but he's like, hey, what's happening?

PAZ: The room's on fire.

JULIAN: Tallstar like, we're really busy hunting rabbits. Y'all figure this out yourselves.

LIZ: Like, I have to go now. My mom's calling me. Bye.

PAZ: But, um, yeah, there's a scene with Sandpaw at the end of chapter 22 that was nice. I like them building up the relationship between Fireheart and Sandpaw, since he like, saved her life. I like that it's like playing out over the long term. It's also cute that Fireheart keys to being like surprised, like why is she being so nice to me?

JULIAN: It's very fun.

LIZ: I think it's also good that he's like--

JULIAN: I also--

LIZ: Oh, no, go ahead.

JULIAN: No, no, no, go ahead.

LIZ: No, he's like, why haven't you been a warrior yet? You're like, so competent.

JULIAN: Yeah, Graystripe is a warrior. Mr. Chucklefuck himself.

PAZ: Yeah, can he be demoted and like, give it to Sandpaw?

LIZ: Yeah, can they switch?

JULIAN: I also do like that Sandpaw like, criticizes Bluestar's decisions.

PAZ: Yeah. She is right, too.

JULIAN: Also, she's nice about Cloudkit, which gains her points.

LIZ: It is.

JULIAN: She's like, oh, he's gonna be fine and his fur is really thick, so it's really helpful in the winter.

PAZ: Yeah, she's like, oh, he'll blend in.

LIZ: He's so fluffy, he'll be-- he'll never be cold.

JULIAN: Ugh, the gathering is just a mess.

PAZ: Yeah, so then the next chapter is the gathering. It is indeed a mess.

JULIAN: I have written on three lines in a row, "Graystripe, oh my god. Graystripe please."

PAZ: Graystripe is gonna cause like an international incident. He's caused like two indirect manslaughters, and now he's going to cause a war. He is, this one cat.

LIZ: He's not doing anything to hide it either.

PAZ: No.

LIZ: Cause he has no plans to stop. He's not even like, oh, I'm gonna roll in some garlic so they don't know it's me or something.

JULIAN: Right? He's not even trying to disguise his smell.

PAZ: I cannot believe that.

LIZ: That's the only thing you guys got. You're cats. Do something. Oh god, there's another airplane.

JULIAN: It's like he's trying to sneak into a building, but he's using his employee ID badge to do it.

LIZ: They'll never know it's me. How? It could be another Graystripe.

PAZ: Yeah, all that anyone has to do is come up and like sniff him a bit.

JULIAN: Like, why did he come to the gathering? They're gonna smell him.

PAZ: Oh my god.

LIZ: Why did he come? He's clearly not interested. He's like so checked out. He's just... he's wifeguy (derogatory.)

JULIAN: We also-- and I know this is partly like Fireheart POV. But like, because we don't see anything of like the relationship between Graystripe and Silverstream, we don't see them interact ever, it really is just like, why is he doing this?

PAZ: Yeah, it's like I don't... why are you so like, adamant about this, bro?

LIZ: We have seen a lot of Graystripe, though. And if I was Silverstream, I wouldn't be risking it all for this guy. I don't know.

PAZ: Yeah, Silverstream also sucks in this instance, frankly.

JULIAN: No, that's true. We see Graystripe sucking directly, but she is also like putting her clan at risk, and...

PAZ: It takes two.

LIZ: At least they are with each other so they don't have to be with anyone else?

PAZ: Thank God, they're out of the dating pool.

JULIAN: I know this would cause more problems. But how come she never comes and visits Graystripe?

LIZ: Yeah.

PAZ: There's already RiverClan cats on ThunderClan territory, apparently.

JULIAN: It wouldn't even cause an incident.

PAZ: Oh my god.

LIZ: Why are they meeting each other in like one territory instead of like starting to meet like somewhere neutral? It seems really short sighted.

JULIAN: Why don't they go meet in kittypet territory? No one will care.

PAZ: God, right?

LIZ: Yeah. You just go back home, and Bluestar is like why do you smell so much like catnip?

JULIAN: Like, oh, Yellowfang told me to go get some. Boom. We're so much smarter than Graystripe.

LIZ: Graystripe, why do you smell like garlic? Oh, just love the taste.

PAZ: Aside from Graystripe, I have to put an alert on our Fireheart/Onewhisker watch.

JULIAN: Oh, I forgot about that.

PAZ: Yeah, we're on Fireheart/Onewhisker watch.

LIZ: Oh, it's real.

PAZ: It's going, it's happening. It's out there. It's real.

JULIAN: Onewhisker does glance at Fireheart with an amused gleam in his eyes.

PAZ: You wanna talk about cross-clan romance blooming.

LIZ: Where's the Fireheart/Onewhisker marriage of convenience--

PAZ: Oh my god.

LIZ: --to cement the allegiance between their two clans?

PAZ: Liz, you're so smart.

JULIAN: [typing] Archiveofourown.org.

PAZ: Yeah, I think Onewhisker like comes up to Fireheart during the gathering, and they're just like excited to see each other again. It's a cute scene.

LIZ: Isn't he also like oh, wow, Deadfoot said hi to you. What an honor. So like clan dad approval or whatever. You've met my family.

PAZ: Deadfoot's the dad who wears the shirt like, you can't date my daughter.

JULIAN: Great news.

PAZ: Oh yes?

LIZ: Oh?

JULIAN: There's 25 works.

PAZ: Oh fuck yes.

JULIAN: In the tag, which is kind of a lot. There's not like that that many Warrior Cats fics.

PAZ: Damn.

JULIAN: There's 3000 of them. So 25 for like a pretty obscure rarepair is not bad. Um, the first fic, or the most recent fic in the tag is a Peter Pan crossover.

LIZ: Huh.

PAZ: [snorts]

JULIAN: In which Fireheart is Peter Pan.

PAZ: Okay.

JULIAN: I don't know which character Onewhisker is. This is orphaned.

LIZ: Is it because he has red hair?

JULIAN: Maybe? Um, oh boy. Warrior Cats lemons. Discontinued until further notice.

PAZ: No...

LIZ: My god. No!

PAZ: No, you can't do that.

LIZ: No.

JULIAN: Oh my god, I think um, whoever wrote the Peter Pan-- who orphaned their Peter Pan account, I think they probably wrote this other one too.

PAZ: Oh no.

JULIAN: Because this seems... no, no, no, not the lemon. It's not the lemon This one that I'm about to describe, which is a Warriors/Cyrano de Bergerac crossover.

PAZ: A what crossover?

LIZ: Oh my god.

JULIAN: Cyrano de Bergerac, which is the... it's like She's the Man type of like, uh, story where it's like, oh, this person has a crush on the other guy-- or on a girl and I'm going to like write letters.

LIZ: Oh, it's a Half of It situation, Paz.

PAZ: Yes, okay, I see.

JULIAN: Yes, not She's the Man. That's a different...

PAZ: Maybe this person has a big brain, I think.

JULIAN: I think this person has a gigantic brain.

LIZ: I'm so happy for them. What a great, completely unexpected AU.

PAZ: Yeah, I don't know what else happened in the gathering besides Graystripe being the source of all conflict.

JULIAN: Tigerclaw was being pretty aggressive and like, making things worse than they needed to be. And I wish Bluestar would tell him to shut up.

PAZ: Yeah, was he about to like fucking attack clan leaders or something?

JULIAN: He like... I don't know if he like got close to attacking, but he got close. Like he's definitely doing a lot of yelling. I'm glad that StarClan sent a cloud to defuse the situation.

PAZ: Thanks, StarClan, I guess.

LIZ: You know cats hate clouds.

JULIAN: I mean, listen, my cat Chickpea has spent the last two days like hiding under various objects because she hates rain so much.

LIZ: Aw, Chickpea.

JULIAN: Aw, her traumas.

LIZ: StarClan sends one cloud to pass over the moon. All of the cats, all of them, they just like fluff up. They're like, ah fuck, we gotta go home.

PAZ: Cute.

JULIAN: Yellowfang is right. They shouldn't be fighting among themselves, especially during Leafbare. They should be worrying about keeping their clans safe.

PAZ: Yeah, she's right. Yellowfang has like the one brain in this whole book, maybe.

LIZ: Yellowfang should leave and join a better clan. It's real fucked up here.

PAZ: Yeah, just go make your own clan, Yellowfang.

LIZ: Maybe she should make like-- okay, here's a clan where you can have more than one doctor so I can like sleep once in a while.

OLIVER: [yowl]

LIZ: I'm so old. I'm a cat. I'm so old.

PAZ: Oh hold on, Oliver wants to go out. Be right back.

JULIAN: I think it's really good when our podcast is interrupted by our actual cats.

LIZ: Yeah, it's a little bit of flavor, I think. Makes you think like, hey, who's the real kittypet? Oliver, Chickpea, or us?

PAZ: Okay, I'm back.

LIZ: Hi.

JULIAN: Hello.

PAZ: Hello. Um, I don't know. I guess the next like, stuff that-- we've already talked about the evil leg scene. So the next stuff is like the ShadowClan stuff. I think that was all chapter 25. It was a really fun chapter to read.

JULIAN: Yeah, it's like very fast-paced. Oh, I thought there was a nice little detail. When they find the rabbit bones that they're like, oh, this is ShadowClan, there's a bit about like "Clan cats normally buried the bones of their prey as a sign of respect for the life they had taken." Which is you know, that's a nice little world building detail. I'm sure it will never come up again.

PAZ: Yeah, I'm like, wow, this showed up out of nowhere and just for this one plot beat, but okay.

LIZ: You know, there's like 100 more books. Might show up again.

PAZ: Maybe.

LIZ: Would be nice. Would love to know about, you know, burials and... what is the relation between like, animals that aren't cats and aren't other carnivores?

PAZ: I don't know.

LIZ: And what's the spectrum of like sentience and respect there? I don't know.

JULIAN: Like I knew we talked a little bit way back when about how dogs are maybe semi-sentient in this universe, but this is not a Redwall situation.

PAZ: I think badgers are also sentient? I don't 100% remember.

LIZ: Badgers are always sentient in any animal thing.

PAZ: So true.

LIZ: They're just like fun guys.

PAZ: Yeah, cause I'm pretty--

JULIAN: They really do have like an outsized impact in children's literature for how many badgers actually exist.

PAZ: Yeah, I don't think I've ever seen--

LIZ: I've never seen one.

PAZ: Yeah, not even like in a zoo, I don't think.

LIZ: Mm-mm.

JULIAN: When I click on the Wikipedia page for badgers, which we've done before on the podcast, one of the suggestions is List of fictional badgers.

LIZ: It's very big.

PAZ: Yeah, so the ShadowClan stuff is like Tigerclaw gets all gung ho about rushing off to deal with ShadowClan, leaves the camp completely undefended. And it turns out it's not ShadowClan. It's like Brokenstar and his posse, who basically just set up like a ambush.

LIZ: They're his friends. Please, the text calls them his friends.

PAZ: Sorry. Brokenstar's polycule.

LIZ: [laughing] No!

PAZ: Sorry, sorry. Okay, I just had to get that out.

JULIAN: No, you're... listen, who's to say? Who's to say it couldn't be?

LIZ: You're right. Just completely got me-- just threw me off. Not just the track, but just like the region. I'm in another area code.

JULIAN: Hard left.

LIZ: There's a part where it's pointed out that no one is telling Bluestar before they go attack. And then Tigerclaw's like, well, you go tell her, to Fireheart. And I don't know. I think it brings up an interesting like question like, how much of this is Tigerclaw just acting the way he wants because he thinks that's like the right thing? And how much of it is like pre planned or part of his like, grand evil, usurping murder scheme?

JULIAN: Yeah, it is-- because like, it is very clear that like he thinks he's acting in the best interest of the clan. But also it happens to be that he thinks that the best interest of the clan is for him to be in power absolutely. And like, I think that's a good point. Like, how much of this is him scheming and how much of this is him being like, well, I know what's right, and I'm not gonna listen to anyone else?

PAZ: Yeah, I mean, that's something we will presumably find out.

LIZ: I am kind of surprised like, at almost the end of the book, how much he's been like an enjoyable antagonist because he does like seesaw between like, I'm your mean teacher. I'm your comically evil teacher. And then I'm your comically evil king killer.

PAZ: He's so fun.

JULIAN: Tigerclaw really is like, he's a great character. Like, he does some wild shit later. Uh, but he's one of like, you know, I didn't read a lot of the later books, but he's one of my favorite characters in the series.

PAZ: Yeah, I'm excited to be reading and like actually seeing him on screen because I mean, he's mentioned a lot in later books. But here he is doing his thing.

LIZ: Doing his evil leg reaching out to take your basketball.

JULIAN: You know, I guess the Brokenstar like reveal is... cause we were talking in the first book that we were like, yeah, the Brokenstar stuff seemed to get resolved like way too quickly.

PAZ: It wasn't resolved.

JULIAN: And I guess this is why.

LIZ: Makes sense.

PAZ: Which makes sense. Yeah, cause he wasn't killed or anything.

LIZ: No, he just got Team Rocket blasted off. He's back now. He's here to steal your Pikachu.

PAZ: Yeah, I mean this chapter is just like good, like, rising tensions and then also like Fireheart like making like decisions on the fly. And there's like a scene where he like gets on top of Highrock, which was fun. Kind of had to take like de facto leadership in like this situation where literally everyone else left.

JULIAN: Yeah, One-eye, great name, the oldest ThunderClan cat--

PAZ: Okay, One-eye's name is like One, and then there's like a little dash, eye. Why is he allowed to...

JULIAN: I guess he has a hyphen because otherwise it would be two E's in a row, which is awkward to read.

PAZ: Maybe. Maybe.

LIZ: Or maybe it's his surname, and he double barreled with...

PAZ: Why does he get a special name?

LIZ: He's the oldest one.

PAZ: Okay, true.

JULIAN: When you get old enough, you get bestowed a hyphen.

LIZ: Yeah. You have to-- with every decade, you get access to one more piece of punctuation.

PAZ: Oh shit.

JULIAN: But he goes like, oh, what do you think you're doing up there?

LIZ: Well, he is very old, so it would sound like [creaky voice] What do you think you're doing up there, young man?

JULIAN: You're right. I'm sorry. I didn't do a good voice. [creaky voice] Warriors these days.

PAZ: Could be a little bit of foreshadowing, you could say.

LIZ: You could say.

PAZ: You could say. Well, you know, at least Sandpaw-- okay, I said everyone was gone. But Sandpaw is still there.

JULIAN: That's true.

PAZ: Even though Bluestar refuses to make her a warrior for some reason, she's very competent, so.

JULIAN: When one girlboss falls, another must rise to take her place.

LIZ: It's like, oh, god, that's the episode title.

PAZ: It's very long.

JULIAN: The law of conservation of girlbosses? Is that shorter?

PAZ: Yes, thank you.

LIZ: Is there cat sexism?

PAZ: I don't think so. I don't really remember that.

JULIAN: I don't think so.

LIZ: Maybe not. Maybe there's like--

JULIAN: There's not really in-world sexism aside-- like there's not sexism. There is like un... the role of queens is...

LIZ: The biological essentialism.

PAZ: But yeah, there's not like, like, like, sexism really. I feel like--

JULIAN: No one's like, oh, Bluestar's a girl.

LIZ: No.

PAZ: I feel like there's a lot of male leaders but I think-- I don't know, that's just like, what happened, I guess.

JULIAN: I think that's the bias of the authors and like not any intentional in-world...

LIZ: That's an author.

JULIAN: And like, you know, the authors are all women. But, you know, we live in a society.

LIZ: Yeah. It is very funny that like, girl character, plucky girl student character does not get promoted, just as a consequence.

PAZ: I need to know if there's an explanation for why this is happening, because it's so funny.

LIZ: There has to be because it keeps getting pointed out.

JULIAN: I think we're gonna get to it. There's certainly an explanation for like, why Bluestar is, um...

PAZ: Yeah, I sort of know about that.

LIZ: Well, I don't cause I haven't read this yet. But okay.

JULIAN: Sorry to be like heh heh heh.

PAZ: That's the basis of our podcast though.

LIZ: It is.

JULIAN: Girlboss starts to behave weirdly. You'll never guess what happens next.

LIZ: Can I give you some theories?

PAZ: Oh, sure.

JULIAN: Yes, please.

LIZ: Um, so have you ever seen Men in Black?

PAZ: Yes.

JULIAN: Yes.

LIZ: So you know the alien that's like a guy, but it's actually a very little guy in a human guy suit.

PAZ: Yes.

LIZ: I think Bluestar, in the middle, was abducted for political reasons, and they replaced her with a little Bluestar replicant.

PAZ: Damn.

LIZ: Another reason may be that she's being mind... well, actually that's the same thing. I was gonna say like by a weird cat parasite, but that's kind of the same premise. Evil twin?

JULIAN: I was gonna say Bluestar's toxoplasmosis. But um.

PAZ: Yeah, they do that to us, not.

JULIAN: Yeah, I don't think it goes the other way around.

LIZ: Yes, that's it. I think that's it.

PAZ: Great, thank you.

LIZ: Evil twin or teeny alien.

PAZ: That's the only explanations. I don't know. I don't know if I have much else to add.

JULIAN: Yeah, I think we really kind of, we covered it.

LIZ: Join us next week to see Fireheart flush out the alien controlling Bluestar's politics.

PAZ: I'm trying to decide if we'll just finish out the book next time or what.

LIZ: I think it's five chapters, right? We could just finish it.

JULIAN: Yeah, I mean, if it ends up like... it's five chapters. If we go through it chronologically and it ends up being like a super long episode, we can...

PAZ: Roll with it or do something. I don't know.

JULIAN: Yeah it seems like we've hit the--

PAZ: Climax, kind of.

JULIAN: Yeah.

PAZ: Okay. Well, yeah.

LIZ: Just be special extra long for a finale.

JULIAN: Yeah, there you go. Big finale episode.

PAZ: That's what we planned.

LIZ: FATT-style, join us for a four-hour long finale.

PAZ: No. Yeah, I don't have a segment planned because I knew we were gonna have a long discussion this week.

JULIAN: Yeah. I think we kind of talked about a lot this week.

PAZ: Did you-- did you have something?

LIZ: [emphatically] No.

PAZ: Okay. Well then.

LIZ: We could plan out some more of my Onewhisker/Fireheart political marriage of convenience AU.

PAZ: Yeah, you wanna end on that? You wanna give us some thoughts?

LIZ: I mean, just going from canon characterization, I think Fireheart's going to spend a lot of time being like wow, Onewhisker's really friendly and competent. What a good acquaintance.

PAZ: Oh no. Fireheart oblivious in this case.

LIZ: I also think he'll have some sort of major political social faux pas in the middle.

PAZ: Of course.

LIZ: Which is the crux of the conflict. But he's so darn personable because he's got that protagonist personality.

JULIAN: Onewhisker and his charming himbo spouse.

PAZ: Tallstar orchestrates this, of course.

JULIAN: Yes, of course.

LIZ: Tallstar's like okay, you guys need to have a conference about fish trade right now. The two of you only, in the idyllic meadow. Here's a picnic basket.

PAZ: Oh my god, there was only one cat bed.

LIZ: There was only one pile of leaves.

JULIAN: Oh, I love it.

LIZ: There was only one emergency rat sewer.

JULIAN: Oh. Fireheart trying to prove that he's gonna be a good member of his new clan and just hunting a lot. Bringing back a lot of rabbits.

LIZ: Onewhisker finds just like, oh my god, what's something comically large? Like a deer at the foot of his door or whatever. What do you do with this?

PAZ: Okay, is there cat royalty in this au? Or what's the political situation?

LIZ: We could go--

JULIAN: Onewhisker is the deputy, so he's like the heir. Not really, but you know.

LIZ: Maybe they're just like high ranking diplomats.

PAZ: I see.

JULIAN: Yeah, it's like Tallstar can't marry a cat from another clan because that would be too, like, too much.

PAZ: Also Tallstar still pining after his star-crossed romance with Jake, of course.

JULIAN: Of course.

PAZ: He sees--

JULIAN: So two reasons.

PAZ: He sees himself in Fireheart and Onewhisker's relationship.

LIZ: Oh, I see. Also, Bluestar is a lesbian, despite her girlbossification.

JULIAN: Yeah. Lesbians can be girlbosses.

LIZ: You're right, you're right.

PAZ: That's so true.

LIZ: It's equality.

JULIAN: We can be just as bad as straight people.

PAZ: Heard it here first, folks. Proud of it. Maybe Bluestar's parents were killed by dalmations. That explains--

[laughter]

That explains her situation.

LIZ: God.

JULIAN: I think Tallstar should get to have a good heart to heart in which he explains to Fireheart that Onewhisker is in love with him.

PAZ: So true.

JULIAN: Cause Fireheart is too dumb to see it himself. And Tallstar is like this can't happen again. We can't have another Jake.

PAZ: Fireheart's like, surely there's no feelings here because of our arranged marriage. Oh, I'm so sad.

LIZ: How can Onewhisker possibly fall for me, a protagonist cat with anime hero hair that everyone admires, and who's extremely accomplished, and apparently friends with everyone unless they super hate me?

PAZ: No, but he's a kittypet, Liz.

LIZ: You're right. He's like, but I'm just a kittypet.

JULIAN: Does Onewhisker also have anime bangs?

PAZ: Of course.

JULIAN: Okay, good.

LIZ: Oh, they're in the other direction. So it's like parallels.

JULIAN: Oh, so they match.

PAZ: I see.

JULIAN: [laughing] So when they kiss it forms a perfect bowlcut.

PAZ: Wow. Love is real.

LIZ: You complete my stylish fringe.

JULIAN: I'm imagining like, I don't know if y'all have seen Taemin's like perfect circle bowl cut from like, early Shinee era.

PAZ: I feel like I remember seeing it.

JULIAN: You may have seen-- I think one of our friends has posted pictures of it. It's just a real circle.

LIZ: Oh my god. I see it.

JULIAN: Yeah, if you just search Taemin bowlcut, it'll come up.

LIZ: Oh my god, it's seamless.

JULIAN: Yeah, just a perfect orb.

LIZ: I'm just gonna paste it in chat.

JULIAN: That's what I'm imagining when they come together.

LIZ: This is a child. It's a young lad.

PAZ: Oh my god. It looks fake. It looks fake. That cannot be his real hair.

LIZ: It's a mushroom.

JULIAN: Sorry, for people who are not in our Discord server, Liz has just posted this in our critiques-to-read channel.

PAZ: Makes you think.

JULIAN: It really does make you think. Also I'm sorry if I'm blowing out the audio by laughing too hard.

PAZ: Yeah, same. Ooh, boy. Maybe we should call it there.

JULIAN: What a note to end on.

PAZ: Thanks for joining us this week, everyone. As always, you can listen-- wait, you're listening to the show right now. You don't need to know how to do that. You can find the show @staircast on Twitter.

LIZ: Well, what if they want to switch apps?

PAZ: Yeah, we're on other apps. If you want to switch it up, go ahead. You can find the show @staircast on Twitter. You can send questions and stuff to stairwaytostarclan@gmail.com. Join us next week. We'll be finishing out Fire and Ice. Who knows what will happen? But until next time, may StarClan light your path. Bye.

LIZ: Bye.

JULIAN: Bye.

PAZ: [outro music]

LIZ: Need to Photoshop this onto Fireheart.

JULIAN: Please do so that we can tweet it.

LIZ: It'll be really easy. It's just one shape.

PAZ: Let's clap.

LIZ: No gaps.

JULIAN: Should I have Craig join?

PAZ: Oh yeah, maybe.

JULIAN: Just in case.

PAZ: Yeah, we can see how it works, too.

JULIAN: Yeah.

PAZ: [startled] Ah!

JULIAN: Oh, geez, hi Craig.

LIZ: Oh my God.

PAZ: Craig, that is scary.

LIZ: I think Craig's gonna betray us because he's an evil AI.

PAZ: Yeah we're about to be in 2000: A Space Odyssey.

JULIAN: Craig was Tigerclaw this whole time.

PAZ: Oh shit.

LIZ: Oh god.

PAZ: What if Tigerclaw's name was just Craig?

LIZ: That has like evil manager energy.

PAZ: That's basically what he is in this book. That is his vibes in Fire and Ice.

JULIAN: Craig-- or Tigerclaw, loudly: if you have time to lean, you have time to clean!

PAZ: God.

JULIAN: Enemy of the people, Craig.

LIZ: Craigslist, but it's his list of murder victims.

PAZ: Well, his list of attempted murder victims would be pretty high, pretty long.

LIZ: God.

PAZ: Okay, but I will do the intro.

JULIAN: Oh, should we do time.is?

PAZ: Oh fuck.

[artificialqueens]

Just the Game We're In- Chapter 6 (Ortega)

A/N: Hello lovely people! It’s been a bit of a long time, but here we finally have chapter 6! In this chapter, Willam starts back at Dosac after the Christmas holidays and, as Sharon makes her trip to Brussels, has to deal with an immediately hectic day as well as the consequences of Alyssa’s charity ball. As always: sorry for how long you have had to wait for this, rip in peace to mobile users who have to scroll past this, and a big thanks to the angels who cheered me on writing this chapter.

((Oh also!! I think this is the first time I’ve submitted since the fic awards , and even though they were fucking ages ago, I just wanted to say thank you to anyone that voted for me to win something or nominated me for a category. It felt really special and really made my day!))

Plot Summary: Willam is a senior political advisor to the government’s minister for social affairs and citizenship, Sharon Needles. Throw in a crush on co-worker Courtney, Sharon acting weird around Willam’s colleague Alaska, an incompetent press department headed by Actual Living Zombie Jinkx Monsoon, and Willam’s job couldn’t get much more stressful. No wonder spin doctor Bianca Del Rio is permanently at the end of her tether…

Willam sat on the edge of her bed fully dressed in her work clothes, watching the rain batter down against the outside of her window. She was almost there. All she had to do was leave her flat and get the 2 tubes that would take her to DoSAC. But something was stopping her, something that had completely sapped her motivation beyond anything she’d experienced before. For once, she didn’t know what she’d do when she arrived at work. She didn’t have the energy to speak to anyone, let alone carry out basic tasks. She had fallen into a routine of lying in her bed, the sheets having long been needing changed, and endlessly refreshing the BBC News app just to make sure the country wasn’t crumbling without her.

Blinking at the TV in front of her Willam saw the smiling face of Chi Chi DeVayne, obnoxiously cheerful for 7.45am.

“And we’ll be reporting throughout the next few days on Sharon Needles’ trip to Brussels, where she will present her policy pitch in an attempt to encourage Britain and indeed Europe to take an increased amount of refugees. It’s been causing quite a stir in parliament, but will it receive the seal of approval from Europe? Raja Gemini will have more on that at 1.”

Willam watched as a pre-recorded segment played of Sharon walking confidently through Heathrow airport, Violet and Alaska only two steps behind her. Willam felt an involuntary burn at her heart as she watched Sharon look over her shoulder and give Alaska a little smile, jealous of how happy they were together. Trying to be happy for them, Willam simply shook her head and sighed. The three of them would probably be sitting in the departures lounge by now, their flight not leaving til just after 8. Swiping up on the phone that was already in her hand, Willam shot a quick text to Alaska.

W: safe flight.

The two words were all she could manage.

Wanting nothing more than to fall back onto the mattress, Willam closed her eyes, allowing the same shitty memory to play in her head for the millionth time since she arrived home from Courtney’s flat that awful day.

Light was the first thing that Willam was aware of that morning.

The second thing was a dull thud of her head and a tense, knotted pain in her neck.

The third, fourth, fifth and so on came flooding into Willam’s mind like a tsunami, the events of the previous evening hitting her all at once like a car crash. Her heart began to rattle in her chest at the memories of Courtney’s lips on hers, Courtney pleading with her to stay, the warmth of Courtney’s body against her own as they fell asleep watching the snow fall.

Except Courtney wasn’t in the bed with her any more, the sheets and duvet seeming chilly as a result and in turn managing to churn Willam’s stomach a little as she thought of facing the events of last night. She couldn’t help her heart flutter with hope, though. Courtney had said there would be a next time, and had suggested that that next time would even be this morning. Surely Willam’s feelings were actually returned after all? Trying to supress a smile, Willam stood up and peered out of the window. The snow that had fallen before they had both drifted off to sleep had been vandalised by the current drizzle of rainfall, turning it to sludge that became more and more grey under the feet of the people that hurried up and down the busy street outside. Feeling a sense of childlike disappointment, Willam decided to make her way through to the kitchen, where she could hear the clatter of various cutlery and crockery indicating someone’s presence.

Padding through the carpeted corridor and onto the freezing black tiles, she tried to ignore the way the cold stung at her feet as she took in the sight of Courtney Act loading the dishwasher, hair piled up on top of her head in the messiest bun imaginable, last night’s smoky makeup smeared across her face like a Picasso painting of a panda, and still probably the most beautiful person Willam had ever seen. Sensing the arrival of someone else in the room, Courtney looked up and gave a bright smile.

“Morning, sunshine,” she beamed, laughing a little as Willam groaned and rubbed her neck in response. “Gosh, you’re a vision this morning. Do you want some coffee? There’s some brewing just now.”

Not yet trusting herself to speak, Willam simply nodded and took a seat at the breakfast bar that Courtney was currently hurrying around. Grabbing a huge cafetiere that held a considerable amount of inky black liquid, Courtney carried it from one kitchen counter and placed it in front of Willam, magicking two cups from a cupboard underneath the breakfast bar. As Courtney poured, Willam just sat and regarded the scene in front of her, part of her feeling like she was in a dream. She tried to think of something to say that would mean she wasn’t the one bringing up the events of last night first. As Courtney passed her a full cup, Willam decided to forego the milk and took a sip.

“So how are you feeling this morning?” she asked her, a little hesitantly. Courtney simply raised her eyebrows and exhaled.

“Like a can of shit,” she replied, taking a sip of her own drink. As if something had occurred to her, she smiled gratefully at Willam. “Thanks for looking after me last night.”

Willam wasn’t really sure if that was supposed to hold a certain undertone. Settling on a tone that was just a shade away from flirting, she shrugged and gave a smirk. “Oh, I mean, anytime. It was no problem at all.”

Courtney replied with a little laugh, her fingers curling round the handle of her cup. “I texted some of the comms girls to see if they wanted a Spoons. I feel like it’s the only thing that’ll save me right now. You down?”

Willam blinked a little. So clearly nothing was on the cards this morning. “Um, sure, yeah.”

A small chill went up her spine. Did Courtney even remember?

“I can lend you clothes and stuff and you can just give them back to me at work.”

Giving a lazy smile, Willam allowed herself to poke a little fun. “Oh, I don’t know, Court. Your size 10s would be hanging off me.”

Snorting a laugh, Courtney thumped Willam on the arm. “You’re the literal worst. I’m going to go get changed. Do you want to shower or do you want to just marinade in your own hungover sweat and fear from last night like I’m doing?”

Willam gave an anaemic laugh. “I’ll take the latter.”

Willam’s memory starts to filter out the events it seems to deign as unimportant from then on, and pictures blur in her head; Courtney shoving a simple jeans-and-top combo into Willam’s arms, Courtney lending her some pine-scented men’s aerosol deodorant (“It’s deodorant for Christ’s sake, it doesn’t have a gender”), Willam sitting on the bed for a few moments as Courtney left her alone to get changed and wondering what was going on inside Courtney’s head. Maybe she was just nervous like Willam was, tiptoeing around the subject of last night in complete parallel to Willam’s own thinking.

Satisfied with her reasoning, Willam got changed quickly. Her brain blurs out the details of what she did with her ball dress from the night before, but a Tesco bag stuffed with diamantes that sits in one corner of her studio flat solves that particular mystery. She met Courtney in the corridor and they left the flat together, braving the two- tube journey to Camden as it was home to the nearest Wetherspoons to Adore, who was apparently claiming that her head would fall off if she had to venture more than 10 metres from her flat.

It was when they were on the escalator that carried them out of the tube station and into the light of the rainy December day that it happened.

“I would commit a brutal murder for a Fanta right now,” Courtney whined, leaning against the rubbery handrail of the escalator. Willam smirked.

“You sound like Bianca,” she remarked, remembering the spin doctor’s bizarre love of the fizzy orange drink. “She actually looked half decent last night. I was quite surprised. Bitch has taste.”

Courtney tilted her head to the side and scrunched up her face. “Really? I mean, I wouldn’t know.”

Willam looked at her a little funny. “Oh, come on, Court. You must remember that blue gown, it was iconic. I don’t think the Daily Mail will ever stop talking about it.”

Courtney laughed and shook her head somewhat self-disparagingly. “Girl, I don’t remember anything from last night!”

And then Willam’s world had stopped completely dead. Nothing seemed to move, least of all her pulse which felt as if it was completely ice. She gave a sort of choked laugh, conscious of the knowledge she had to move the conversation along and act normal, but she could already feel her heart sinking very slowly into the pit of her stomach, lowered along with the hopes she had raised so high. “Wait, nothing at all?”

Courtney just shrugged. “Nothing past when we were chatting to Bianca and that ITV intern, and even that is just basically mush. Like I have no idea what I said or did,” Courtney shrugged, suddenly laughing and touching Willam’s arm. “I woke up and I was like…why the fuck is Willam in my bed?! I had to text Alaska. She told me you’d got me home safe, so you’ve got fifty good friend points from me. She gets none. Apparently she stayed with Sharon and…”

Willam began to tune out, her brain completely freezing over. She felt a sort of sick feeling rise in her throat. Vomit? No. Panic, embarrassment? She couldn’t distinguish her emotions any more. Everything was happening so quickly and yet in some form of horrific slow-motion. A scene from a horror movie playing out in front of her that she couldn’t look away from. All at once, Willam experienced what she would later describe as a fight or flight impulse. Looking down to the bottom of the escalator, her instincts grabbed at the latter.

Cutting Courtney off mid-sentence, Willam made her excuses. “I’ve just realised I’m, erm…left something…on the train. I need to go back and get it…I need to go….”

As the escalator reached its peak, Willam found herself rushing down the adjacent stairs, almost tripping down them in her haste to get away from the situation. Courtney was left bemused at the top of the staircase, bathed in daylight as Willam ran further into the underground.

She trudged back to her flat when the tube reached Clapham, the snow becoming ever more muddied underneath her feet and turning to dark sludge. As she got to her front door and climbed the two flights of stairs to her studio apartment, Willam felt it seemed overwhelmingly more depressing than usual.

The last thing she remembers from that day is lying back on her bed, hugging her arms tightly around herself, breathing in the scent of Courtney’s fabric conditioner against her skin and feeling as if her heart was rotting.  

Her heart hadn’t really returned to normal, she supposed, finally making to stand up from where she had been perched at the end of her bed and turning her TV off. Grabbing her coat off the back of her front door, she made to wrap herself up before a buzz from her phone stopped her in her tracks.

A: about to take off!! will keep you and Court updated. love you loads!!

Willam gave a half-smile of affection, before her heart turned gradually cold as she couldn’t help but hit the contact that appeared a couple of messages down.

C: Hope you found whatever it was you’d left! We all missed you so much at Spoons! Still so hungover lol x

C: Merry Christmas!! Don’t know anyone who deserves a holiday more than you! Hope you have the best day ever x

C: HAPPT NEW YEAR!!!!!! hope ths year is the BEDT EVEF you arw the best gal ib fbd worldxx

C: Trannnika and pealr mad e tsi punch and its like 99% teauila lololo wish yoh sere here wifb us I miss youuu xxxxxxxx

Willam’s heart felt heavy as she read each message that Courtney had sent since that day, the wall of cold grey from each individual text seeming somehow apt. She hadn’t once been able to bring herself to reply to any of them. How could she? She’d been an idiot, a total idiot caught up in some weird childish dream of a relationship that obviously was never going to happen. How could she have thought that anything good would come of a drunk evening together? It was the thinking process of an immature little girl; “a drunken mind speaks sober thoughts”, or sometimes a drunken mind just makes really poor, ill-judged decisions that would form into memories which would rapidly fade along with intoxication overnight, just like the snow that had turned to dirty, scummy water underneath Willam’s feet. Tucking her phone into her coat pocket, Willam wondered what she’d say to Courtney when she saw her at work. The very thought made her ribcage feel as if it was about an inch wide, constricting her lungs and her heart. Willam had spent the holiday period cursing herself for letting someone else in so far that they couldn’t leave her head, and now that she was less than an hour away from seeing Courtney for the first time since that evening she hated herself more than ever. Willam thought bitterly back to the days when her crush on Courtney had been easy to ignore, something that didn’t totally consume her.

Christ, she was so overwhelmingly stupid.

Heaving a sigh and turning the handle on her front door, Willam stepped out of her flat completely unprepared to face Courtney, never mind face the day.

Half an hour later, the dread that Willam had felt when she’d left the flat had only multiplied as she went from one tube station, then to another, and finally completed her rainy walk to Dosac. Her pulse was hammering underneath her wrists as she crossed from the entrance to the lifts, and the subsequent rise of the elevator only served to counter the sinking of her heart as the offices loomed ever closer. As Willam got out of the lift and began to make her way to the department, she began to wonder if this was what a heart attack felt like.

She was so wrapped up in her own anxiety that she almost jumped out of her skin when she turned the corner and sort of collided with Katya.

“Willam! Hey! Happy New Year! Bet you’re glad to be back in this glass-fronted hell hole,” the blonde had begun cheerfully, stopping when she saw what must have been visible panic on Willam’s face despite her best efforts to internalise everything. “Shit, is it really that bad?”

Willam only looked to the floor. She wished she could muster up something to say, but her nerves had an iron grip on her tongue. Katya narrowed her eyes.

“Hey girl, what’s the matter? You’re sort of scaring me. Well, even more than usual.”

She wanted to tell Katya. She wanted to tell her everything. Willam had never been closer to opening up to someone again in her life. Remembering how well that particular endeavour had gone in the past, however, she shook her damp, frizzy waves of hair out of her face and took a deep breath, putting on the front she was so well acquainted with.

“Sorry, Katya. I’m fine, honestly. I’m just…” Willam sighed. Her mouth had worked faster than her brain could catch up with and now she was reaching for an excuse. “…all this shit with the PM’s legacy is still ongoing, and I feel like this department is on tenterhooks until we find out who leaked to the opposition.”

Katya seemed to accept the excuse. “Well, it’s a shitty time, but we still don’t know if it came from within this department. We could be in the clear within the next couple of days. Isn’t Bianca on it?”

Willam exhaled sharply. “Bianca’s got the PM breathing down her neck about 101 different things at the moment. I doubt she’ll have room to breathe never mind do what she does best.”

“Yeah, I feel like her diet might be a little deficient in cabinet ministers for the foreseeable,” Katya laughed, hitting Willam on the back with the sleeve of her baggy cable-knit jumper. “Anyway, I was about to make some coffee for me and Trixie. I managed to avoid becoming the department barista, but I could make a special exception for a glum chum?”

Willam couldn’t help but muster a weak laugh at Katya’s turn of phrase. “I’ll have a tea with lacto free. Please don’t give me the shits. That would be how this day begins.”

Katya burst out laughing. “Give me some credit! I remember shit. I’m not Adore. I’m actually competent.”

Shaking her head, Willam continued down the corridor. Her conversation with Katya had served to lift her spirits, but replaying the conversation in her head only brought them back down. She hadn’t really been lying; politically, Dosac’s situation was dire too. The PM’s legacy had been spoilt; if the opposition had become privy to it before its release, it was basically unusable, and so it had been dropped by the party. Sharon had been called in front of Bianca after the leak of the PM’s legacy, interrogated to within an inch of her life. However, sure enough there was no proof that the leak to the opposition had come from Sharon’s department. Bianca had briefed so many cabinet ministers in a bid to prepare them to suck up to the policy. But Sharon was particularly in the frame because of her fierce opposition to it. There had been some rumblings of other newer ministers disliking it, but none had been foolish enough to speak out as loudly as Sharon had. Currently in Sharon’s case, she was guilty until proven innocent. Rumour had it that she had almost been forbidden to go to Brussels, however that had clearly either been untrue since its conception, or Bianca had changed her mind somehow. Willam was a little shocked that Sharon had still been allowed to go. It was clear that her outlook on the refugee crisis was jarringly different to the majority of the party’s, and it was only a matter of time before the media picked up on the cracks threatening to divide the party. However, as long as absolutely nothing about the PM’s legacy appeared in the papers, Willam would consider that a win. True to their word, Roxxxy and Detox had delivered, and Phi Phi’s press conference had been cancelled last-minute. Willam would have owed them one, if it wasn’t for the fact they were reprehensible human beings.

So the main atmosphere in the Dosac offices wasn’t going to be a particularly happy one until their department’s name was cleared. Almost wanting to laugh at how absolutely shit a situation both her personal and working lives were in, Willam swallowed her fear and turned a corner into the offices. The previously quiet working environment was disrupted by a cry of joy from the comms team, Trixie, Adore and even Jinkx all eager to welcome Willam back after the holidays.

“Happy New Year, bitch!” Trixie cried, her voice soaring over the other girls’. “God, we missed you on New Year’s eve. We almost crashed Jools Holland because Pearl said she knew this guy that worked on security for BBC that could’ve let us in, but Courtney passed out in a pool of her own sick so that idea got fucked to one side very quickly.”

“Jesus, Trixie, can you stop telling that story?” came a quiet Australian lilt from behind Willam. Turning quickly, she was struck by how embarrassed Courtney looked. Normally everyone’s drunk shenanigans got spread around the office like it was fair game, but Courtney seemed to take issue with it today. There was something else off about her too; something a little subdued and muted which contrasted her usually bubbly and lively self. All of this was an afterthought, however, to Willam’s heartbeat which was currently rocketing through her body at what was surely an unhealthy speed.

“Hey,” Willam found herself sort of blurting out, the nerves and pressure commanding her to say something. “Happy New Year.”

“Happy New Year to you too,” Courtney gave a small smile, clearly making an effort to appear as if she felt totally normal. “Did you have a good holiday?”

Willam felt the memories of Christmas and New Year at her family home flash quickly through her mind all at once, the pain of just remembering them akin to that of a searing migraine. “Um. Well, you know, always good to get back into the swing of things, right?”

Courtney nodded understandingly as Willam retrospectively became aware of not having answered her question. Suddenly, she realised she hadn’t asked about Courtney’s own Christmas.

“How was yours?”

Courtney shrugged, a small smile playing on her lips. “Oh, it was a classic Australian migrant Christmas. A grainy Skype connection of my family watching me open my presents and then ITV2’s finest selection of Christmas films in front of the sofa. I think the festivity of veggie chow mein for a Christmas dinner is highly underrated, don’t you?”

Willam watched as Courtney gave a small laugh. She couldn’t help her heart hurting. Courtney had spent Christmas alone?    

“Anyway, I’m looking forward to getting stuck right into budget refinement today. Truly why I entered the political sphere,” she shrugged, seemingly eager to move the conversation along. Willam could cope with that. The less time spent talking about the holidays, the better.

As Katya rounded the corner and shoved a pale cup of tea into Willam’s hands, Jinkx piped up from behind her monitor.

“So as all of us are now here, are we able to be briefed on the current situation with Sharon?”

Willam looked to Courtney, who was already looking to her. The department already seemed so lifeless without Sharon, Alaska, or even Violet, and Willam felt weird having only her and Courtney in charge of these four civil servants. Luckily Courtney opened her mouth, as Willam still didn’t really trust herself to speak. Katya, Trixie and Adore listened with intrigue, the three of them completely oblivious as to what was going on.

“Okay, so to those of you who may not know,” Courtney began, disregarding the fact that all but one of the comms team fell into that category. “The Prime Minister was meant to announce a policy which was to serve as his legacy in the New Year. Bianca briefed all the ministers on it. Sharon was very vocal about the fact she didn’t like the policy, and told Bianca she’d challenge it in parliament. Anyway, basically somehow the policy got leaked to the opposition. They were going to announce it before Christmas as one of theirs, but somehow they didn’t. It’s now no longer a party policy, for obvious reasons, but essentially Sharon is in the frame for leaking it.”

“Shit. Did she do it?” Adore gasped, seemingly in awe. Courtney pulled a face.

“She’s saying she didn’t, and we’re all hoping to God she’s telling the truth, but you know how politics works,” Willam spoke up, feeling unable to stay silent for much longer than she had been. “So the reason why we’re telling you guys is this- this hasn’t been caught by the media yet. The opposition haven’t leaked it because there’ll be too many questions as to why it wasn’t announced, and we haven’t leaked it because none of us have a fucking death wish. So if you start getting any calls about this, even a whiff, you need to tell us so we can sit on it.”

Katya giggled behind her hand. “Times like these I wish Darienne was still here. If she sat on something-”

“Katya, don’t make a shitty fat joke. This is serious shit,” Courtney snapped, shocking everyone save Jinkx who was still not quite fully awake. Katya blinked a little at Willam, who was too taken aback to even react. “If you get any calls about anything, no comment the shit out of it.”

Willam frowned a little. “Is that the best idea? Then the papers will know they’re onto something because we’re not denying it.”

“Well what else do we say, Willam?” Courtney asked, her tone not quite free of its bite from before.

Her brain hurt too much to come up with an alternative, so Willam simply shrugged.

“No comment. And tell us. That’s all we’re asking from you guys,” Courtney said firmly, making to return to her seat. Willam was still hovering by Trixie’s desk, and the other girl looked up at her from her place by the phone.

“Um…is Courtney okay?” Willam murmured, unable to ignore the fact that something was clearly up with her.

Trixie looked momentarily like she wanted to get something off her chest. Instead, she simply exhaled loudly. “…yeah. Yeah, no, she’s fine.”

Willam raised one eyebrow at Trixie, whose shoulders slumped forward in a sigh. “Look, just go talk to her. I think she’s embarrassed about the general events of New Years’.”

Adore took a break from typing away at her phone to interject. “She mentioned you a lot, Willam. Said you should’ve been there and that she missed you and all that-”

“I mean it was just classic drunk girl talk really,” Trixie interrupted, shooting Adore a look that Willam couldn’t quite decipher. “But she’s being a bit down on herself. You always seem to cheer her up, though. I think she’d be grateful for you.”

Willam hovered at the desk for a second before swallowing her nerves and crossing the office to go stand by another desk- Courtney’s this time. She was deep in concentration, a calculator in one hand and her mouse in the other, trying to shave a few more pounds off the budget Sharon had already planned out. She jumped a little as she registered Willam was at her side.

“Sorry,” Willam apologised, her voice quiet. “I just wanted to check up on you. You don’t seem yourself today.”

Courtney gave a small smile, appearing to appreciate the concern. “Oh, I’m honestly fine. Just wish Trixie would stop bringing up what happened at New Years’ to everyone.”

Willam wanted to point out that she’d only mentioned it once, but stopped herself. “Don’t be embarrassed, girl, it’s a Pearl Liaison party. People probably did far worse.”

Courtney laughed at a sudden memory. “Adore did start eating dog food at one point.”

Willam gagged. “That’s so, so much worse.”

Snorting a little, Courtney smiled up at Willam. “You’re a good friend. Thanks for making me feel less shitty about my life choices.”

She knew it was meant to be a genuine thank you, but every word felt like a knife in Willam’s stomach. Feeling a little sick, Willam just shot back a smile she hoped didn’t appear as fake as it felt.

“I’ll, um. Just get on with this budget then?” Courtney said quietly, something about her now appearing a little nervous. Silently, Willam nodded, hesitating a little before returning to her own seat and finally beginning her work, unsure if she felt worse or better than she had when she’d first arrived at work.

***

So far, the day had been manageable. They had made it to lunchtime unscathed, and Willam had been able to shave about 50p off the budget, which in budget-shaving terms was not the most horrific saving ever made. As a sort of celebration of making it to lunchtime of their first day back in the office, Trixie had bought them all cakes from Greggs as a treat, and the comms team and advisors were sitting together on their lunch break eating them. Willam couldn’t quite manage hers, still feeling as if she was walking on eggshells around Courtney, but the gesture was appreciated all the same.

“Do you guys not think it’s weird we’ve not had a visit from Bianca yet today? I would have thought this would have been her first port of call,” Courtney mused, nibbling a jam doughnut.

Willam exhaled noisily. “I doubt she’s out the PM’s office yet, to be honest.”

There was a pause as everyone munched. Jinkx broke the silence. “Can someone stick the telly on?”

“Oh, God no,” Willam groaned. “I don’t want to have to listen to fucking Raja Gemini tearing Sharon’s Brussels visit apart. She’s probably only been in one meeting but according to the BBC in that short time she’ll have anally fucked the country with a rubber fist.”

A roar of laughter came from the table, the truth of Willam’s statement hanging heavy in the air as it died down. The media hadn’t really warmed back to Sharon since her Five Live interview and they all knew a good summit in Brussels was what she needed. Adore spoke up without taking her eyes, or indeed fingers, off her phone.

“Violet texted me earlier. Apparently the hotel they’re staying in is amazing, I’m so jealous. The booking got completely fucked up though, so Vi’s in a room on her own and Sharon and Alaska have to share a double. How shit is that?”

Willam felt as if she’d been shocked with a tazer as the table all nodded and told their own shitty hotel experience stories. Taking her phone out of her pocket, she shot a text across to Alaska.

W: “Hi, my name’s Alaska-the-hotel-messed-up-our-booking-and-oh-no-me-and-Sharon-have-to-share-a-bed. Could I be any more cliché???”

Her phone buzzed almost instantly with a reply of three moon emojis from Alaska.

Just as Jinkx was launching into a story about a hotel room so mouldy it had allegedly given her husband asthma, a single phone began to ring from the comms desks. Willam looked at Courtney, her heart beginning to slowly sink into her chest and intuitively knowing that somehow, something was about to go down.

“Can someone get that?” Adore asked lazily, continuing to type into her phone. Jinkx narrowed her eyes at her.

“Why don’t you get it? It’s your job just as much as it is mine.”

“I’m on my lunch break.”

Trixie exploded a laugh. “We’re all on our lunch break.”

With an exaggerated sigh Katya slid off her chair in resignation, walking over to the phone and lifting it off the receiver. With a long-suffering smile, she answered it.

“Hello, Dosac, comms?” she sing-songed down the phone. Suddenly, her cheerful pink face became very ashen and grave. “…no, we are not prepared to comment on that at this particular moment in time. Thank you.”

Jumping a little, Katya sort of dropped the phone back in the receiver and looked back to the others, who were all still and silent.

“It probably won’t come to anything…” she began. With what bordered on comedic timing, two other phones began to ring. As more and more phones started ringing across the office, Willam swore and rushed over to her own desk, briefly meeting Courtney’s eyes and sharing a look of sheer panic. Lifting her own phone from the receiver, she was met with the voice of Ginger from The Mirror.

“Hi Ginger…no, no we’re not commenting on that at the moment. No, I can’t speak off the record. Is that all? Thank you. Bye.”

No sooner than Willam had put the phone down than it began to ring again. Stepping back, Willam only blinked at it in detachment. How had this happened? How had this got out?

Looking around the office, her eyes shot to Courtney, who had given an incredulous cry down the phone.

“What?!…No, I can categorically state that Sharon Needles will not be resigning over this! Goodbye!” she cried, slamming the phone down and looking across to comms. “We’re now getting calls about resigning? What the fuck is going on?!”

“Um, guys…” Adore said, her voice wavering a little. “Anyone checked the ITV website recently?”

After a beat of silence, the ringing phones were ignored as everyone flew to their computers, typing frantically. The biggest, boldest headline on the homepage of the ITV News website was,

“ITV EXCLUSIVE: SHARON NEEDLES LEAKS PRIME MINISTER’S “LEGACY” TO OPPOSITION, RAISES CALLS FOR RESIGNATION”

As Willam read, every line of the article contained every single detail; what the legacy had been, why Sharon had allegedly leaked it, what could or should happen now- and a quote from Phi Phi leading the charge for a resignation. Reading and re-reading as if she was in some horrific nightmare, Willam noticed a particular line that caught her attention.

“A source at Dosac said that Ms Needles was in the frame for the leak, stating that she had been opposed to the policy and had been willing to take any measures to stop it from going ahead,” Willam muttered under her breath, her brain feeling more scrambled than ever. As the comms team talked amongst themselves quietly, Willam caught Courtney’s eye and beckoned her over. Still as nervous as she was to be around her, there was something really weird going on, and with Sharon away and Bianca not around it was their job to solve it. Courtney click-clacked softly across the carpeted floor.

“Are you seeing the same thing I’m seeing here?” Willam asked her quietly, pointing to the line in question on the screen with a talon of a fake nail. Courtney pulled a face.

“I mean, I did wonder, but you know what the media are like, Will. They could’ve found someone who breathed outside the department once and they’d label it as ‘a source at Dosac’.”

Scrunching up her face, Willam tapped her foot on the floor, something about it still not sitting right. “I don’t know, Court. This is worrying me.”

“These girls are our friends. We know them. They wouldn’t go to the press about this kind of thing,” Courtney pleaded, her tone seeming to convey that something inside her agreed with what Willam was saying. Willam’s face softened. She knew that the last thing Courtney wanted to do was to accuse her friends of anything. Hell, it wasn’t on the top list of things Willam wanted to do either. But it was hard not to think anything else in the situation.

“Girl, this managed to stay silent from Alyssa’s ball to this morning. The moment we told those girls about what had happened, it was out by lunchtime. Is that a coincidence?”

Courtney’s face fell as she seemed to finally accept what Willam was saying. “So what do we do?”

Sighing and scrunching one side of her hair up with her hand, Willam thought about it. “They’re still our friends. I think we have to just be honest with them. I’m sure they’ll understand, they know how shit works in politics. Take them off the phones, email, maybe their own phones. It’s shit, but I don’t see anything else we can do.”

Heaving a sigh and rubbing the back of her neck, Courtney looked at Willam in despair. “Okay. Let’s tell them.”

Willam’s heart felt heavy as she walked over to the comms team. Today was already completely shit, and now she was about to accuse some of the nicest girls she’d worked with of being traitors. Thinking about it, she just couldn’t envisage any of them working in secret with the opposition or the media. Katya and Trixie had always worked for the civil service- they were always pretty nonplussed about what was happening in the department and weren’t really bothered about anything as long as they got to spend their working day together. Adore was Adore- just here for the fact that it was a steady job, hardly did any work anyway and spent most of the day on Facebook. If she barely had any energy to clear a paper jam, she certainly wouldn’t have the energy to orchestrate an elaborate plan to take down the government. Then there was Jinkx. With her domestic family life, husband and daughter, she couldn’t really see Jinkx caring enough about anything work-related to attempt to sabotage Sharon. It was a weird situation.

“So, you’ve all read the article,” Willam started, deciding to be the one to talk. “I’m sure you all know the bit that we’re going to refer to when we say that it’s put us in a kind of awkward position.”

The girls from comms looked at her in silence, recognition in their eyes. Willam took that as a cue to carry on.

“It sucks, because neither me or Court think you guys are involved in anything. But just as a precautionary measure, we need to take you guys off the phones. That means all phones, so no mobiles until we figure out what’s happening. And stay off the computers too.”

Jinkx’s face became screwed up and her stance instantly became defensive. “I’m sorry, Willam, but that’s ridiculous. Our job is communications, for Christ’s sake, we need to be able to communicate!”

“Well someone’s clearly been communicating to the wrong people,” Willam snapped, earning a glare from Trixie.

“What’s that supposed to mean? I thought you didn’t think any of us were involved, but that sounds like you’re accusing us of something?”

“Trix…” Katya soothed, resting a hand on her girlfriend’s arm. Still bristling with anger, Trixie sat at her desk with a thud.

“Willam didn’t mean that. You’re all our friends, we don’t mean to be accusatory at all. But we don’t know what else to do,” Courtney sighed, visibly upset with having to put her friends in this position.

Willam caught a glance of Adore typing rapidly into her phone. “Adore, come on. This is serious.”

Adore jumped a little, putting her phone face down on the desk. “Sorry! Look, not touching it now.”

Rolling her eyes, Willam scuffed her foot along the floor. “I’m sorry, guys. We don’t mean to make you out to be double agents. But that article’s got us really rattled. Look, just chill for now and me and Court will try to get a hold of Bianca to come help us out of this mess. Until then, please just bear with us?”

Shaking her head, Jinkx sat down at her desk and crossed her arms. “This is an absolute joke.”

Willam looked at Courtney and gave a loud exhale. She felt awful. Nothing about the situation made sense and yet they were having to work from nothing. It was all just a huge mess which managed to consist of nothing tangible, which was the most frustrating part.

“Right, you turn off the phones then phone Bianca and see if she can come by and help get us out of this mess,” Willam instructed Courtney, as an idea occurred to her. “I’m going to check out that article again.”

As Courtney searched for Bianca’s name in the contacts of her phone, Willam scrolled up to the top of the article to see who the author was. The name had some amount of recognition, but Willam couldn’t place how she knew it from. Walking back over to the comms girls, she was met with a frosty reception.

“Do any of you guys know a Valentina Leyva?” Willam asked, ignoring the atmosphere. All but Jinkx shook their heads.

“If it’s the girl that was an intern at ITV then yes. Bianca introduced us at Alyssa’s ball, remember?”

Willam blinked a little, trying to put a face to a name. Then suddenly, it clicked- the shy, seemingly sweet and harmless girl that had conversed politely with them didn’t seem to match the article that she had supposedly written. Trying to make sense of things, Willam ran a hand through her hair, turning away from the comms desks and loudly exhaling. Before she could piece anything together, her phone began to buzz in her hand. It was Sharon.

Dreading the voice on the other end of the line, Willam swiped across the screen to answer the call. “Hi, Sharon.”

“I want to know how in the space of one two hour long meeting I could come out with my phone absolutely red hot with calls, notifications and texts, all of which are calling me a party traitor and telling me to resign,” Sharon’s voice shook a little, betraying the cold, measured tone she was using.

“Yeah, um…it got out. Courtney’s phoning Bianca, she’s going to come round and we’re firefighting the whole thing. We’re on it, you’re not going to look like the bad guy for long,” Willam insisted, her stomach in knots. Trying her best to reassure Sharon was difficult when Willam didn’t even know if she could believe what she herself was saying. A huge sigh came down the line.

“The media fucking hate me already without me having this to contend with.”

“At least Buzzfeed loves you?” Willam tried to console her, remembering  Kimora Blac’s article that had appeared a few days after Alyssa’s ball; I met the Minister for Dosac Sharon Needles and yes, she really is as awesome as everyone on Twitter is saying.

“Fucking Buzzfeed! They’re a pack of gibbering lunatics!”

“Oh, come on, you weren’t saying that at Alyssa’s ball,” Willam couldn’t help but deadpan.

“Shut up, Willam,” Sharon snapped down the line, Willam instantly knowing that perhaps any kind of joke right now wouldn’t be ideal. “Jesus, is this how bad it is? I’m supposed to be fucking elated that I’ve got Buzzfeed on my side? God, this trip was supposed to be my comeback, some fucking redemption. Now I’m stuck in Brussels as my political credibility crumbles to death from afar?”

“Stop being melodramatic,” Willam rolled her eyes, eager to get back to solving the problem and hoping she could palm Sharon’s whining onto Alaska. “Politicians encounter shit like this all the time, the party’s just looking for someone to blame and you happen to be that person. It’ll all turn out fine, it always does! Just…keep slaying Brussels like I know you will be. They’ll love you.”

Sharon smirked quietly on the other end of the line. “As always, you’re amazing. Keep me updated, okay?”

As Sharon said goodbye and hung up, Willam was stuck with the feeling that the conversation had had a weird ending. She couldn’t think about it for too long, however, as Courtney was walking quickly over to her, phone in her hand.

“Bianca’s on her way,” she said, biting her lip and holding it between her teeth nervously. “She should be here soon.”

As Willam cast a glance at the annoyed comms team and back at the article sitting on the monitor’s screen, she could only hope that Courtney was right.

***

Bianca arrived into Dosac fifteen minutes later with a face like a hurricane and body language to match.

“I swear to Christ if this department is the cause of any more drama in this fucking government I’ll shove you all into a cannon and blow your bodies to bits,” she seethed by way of a greeting as she stormed towards Courtney’s desk. “I have had an incredibly stressful morning so I’d like to know, in as few words as possible, what in fuck is going on.”

Seemingly less scared and more comforted by Bianca’s presence, Courtney began talking. “So ITV’s source apparently came from within this department. Of course we don’t want to accuse anyone, but since it’s only us working at the moment, we’ve taken all comms off phones and email access.”

Bianca’s face twitched into a grimace. “So they’ve been standing about doing fuck all for half an hour but at least they haven’t been leaking like a new mother without a Tena Lady. Anything else I should know?”

“We’re trying to find intel on the girl that wrote the article. Valentina, you introduced us to her at Alyssa’s,” Willam cut in. In the time before Bianca’s arrival, Willam had managed to find her twitter account, but it seemed to be the generic tweets of a fresh new journalist- retweeting articles, offering her two cents every so often, and so on. There was nothing that Willam could really find to link her to anyone in the department.

“Right,” Bianca nodded, her eyes wide as she processed the information. Swiftly, she turned and bored her gaze into the comms team. “So which one of you fuckers was it then?”

Jinkx kicked her feet up onto her desk in a defiant manner. “I don’t know, Bianca, and I don’t bloody care. All I want is to get back to doing my fucking job, instead of pissing my life away doing absolutely bugger all when I could be in bed watching Loose Women. So please, hurry up and get solving this arseing mystery, before I pass out from cunting boredom.”

Willam blinked in shock at Jinkx. It was the most she’d ever head her swear and it would’ve been funny, were Bianca not looking at Jinkx as if she wanted to incinerate her. Opening her mouth, she looked as if she was about to scream at Jinkx so loudly that her face would drop off. She was stopped with a sort of pained gasp from Courtney.

“Right…” she began, looking at her monitor with a foreboding expression. “…the Guardian now have a timeline on their website…”

“A timeline? What the fuck?” Willam exclaimed, shock coursing through her whole body as if she’d been shocked by a defibrillator.

“…stating that Dosac’s press team have been taken off communications, and that Bianca has been seen coming into the building but not leaving.”

“Who the fuck is doing this?!” Willam cried, fighting the urge to push everything off her desk in a fit of rage and panic. She was completely unable to think, and everything seemed to be spiralling out of her control. Nothing about the situation made sense and the leaks only seemed to be getting bigger and bigger.

Bianca had stood frozen amidst the new information, her brain working overtime. After a pause, she spoke. “Okay, I am going to phone ITV and attempt to extract some information about this source out of them. Courtney, if you could phone the Guardian and do the same. Willam, if you keep digging about this Valentina girl and the connections she has to this department. And we might as well put comms back on the phones; one of them’s leaking despite preventative measures so we might as well have them do something other than completely fuck all.”

Nodding, Courtney walked briskly over to the switch for the phones and flicked it on. Immediately, every single one of them sprang to life, prompting the comms girls’ hands to fly to them and to immediately start talking. All except Adore, Willam realised, whose seat was empty. Narrowing her eyes in suspicion, Willam made her way towards Katya.

“Where did Adore go?” she asked her, trying to mask the urgency in her voice. Katya looked up at her, nonplussed.

“She didn’t say. Check the toilets?” she suggested, quickly taking whoever she had been talking to before off hold. Willam rushed out of the department, turned left down the corridor and walked quickly towards the toilets, when all of a sudden something made her stop- a flash of black material swept by the wind behind the glass-fronted fire escape door at the end of the hall. Slowly, Willam made her way towards the door, pushing down on the long handle and flinging it open. Adore stood on the platform that hung high in the air above the city below, leaning on the metal railing. She didn’t flinch. Her face was ghostly pale and she was dragging on a cigarette as she looked down at her phone, completely motionless. Willam took two steps towards her and leant against the railing, mirroring her body language.

“Do you want a cigarette?” Adore asked, her gaze not leaving her phone and her voice robotic. Willam shook her head, then realised Adore wouldn’t be able to see it.

There was a moment of silence as the wind whirled around them, the rain having been swept away from the city.

“Adore,” Willam said firmly, her voice betraying nothing. “Talk to me.”

Adore heaved a huge sigh, finally looking from her phone and tipping her head towards the sky. Squeezing her eyes shut, she squeaked out a single name in a voice that was thick with tears.

“Laila.”

The information hit Willam like a ton of bricks. It was so obvious, the journalist with a direct tie to the department in the form of an unsuspecting Adore. Wiping underneath her eyes with one finger, Adore carried on.

“I would just tell her about my day…keep her updated like girlfriends do…I thought she cared about me, but…”

The small fragments of feelings spilling from Adore’s mouth made Willam’s heart want to break. Gently, she prised Adore’s phone out of her hand and looked at the conversation on the screen.

L: Packed lunch in the fridge for u! xo

A: You’re the actual bomb dot com. Hope work’s going well xxx

L: Same old shit really. They’re trying to get me to write some article about beauty pageants for 6 year olds and I’d rather kill myself. You at work yet? Anything cool happening? Xo

A: Arrived a little while ago. Sharon’s apparently done something vaguely bad, idk I never pay attention to this stuff xxx

L: Shit will she get in trouble? Xo

A: It sounds pretty serious, apparently she leaked that policy that was meant to be the PM’s legacy?

L: !!!!!!

A: Oh wait

A: Apparently she didn’t actually do it but just being scapegoated

L: Aw alright, well she should be fine then!! Hope it doesn’t cause too much of a ballache for you babes xo

A: tysm angel xxx speak to you later xxx

A: also won’t be able to text until I’m out of work. They’ve taken us all off the phones bc of this leak thing. Have a good day xxx

As Willam read the conversation from the day, she felt her heart hurt for the younger girl. Clearly, Adore had fallen for Laila a lot harder than anyone had realised, and what they had was something verging on the domestic side of life. But it was apparent that Laila had sussed out the value of Adore as someone she could gain media intel from, a puppet she could play about with to get the information she wanted. In Laila, Adore had initially seen a newspaper journalist she could fuck to get onside, but it had obviously become so much more than that to her. Laila clearly knew the right things to say and do in order to make Adore believe that they had something special.

Willam glanced up from Adore’s screen as the civil servant let out a choked sob. “I was the one that told her about the fucking legacy. I overheard that day, when I came into the meeting room. I thought it was something exciting, I just wanted to share what was going on at work with her…I was the leak. I should be the one everyone’s yelling at, not Sharon.”

Sighing, Willam pulled Adore into a hug. Having one person walk around the department with their heart broken was bad enough, never mind two. Willam had so far been too wrapped up in her work to think in any depth about her feelings, but all of a sudden she was being so harshly exposed to this upset and hurt that it was hard not to let her own feelings back in to gnaw at her heart. Feeling Adore’s chest rise and fall rapidly as she cried, Willam couldn’t help but feel a little panicked. If she herself was hurting this much when Courtney hadn’t even expressed an interest in her, what could it be like in a relationship?

Had she dodged a massive bullet?

Shaking her head, Willam pulled out of the hug. “Hey. You don’t deserve to be shouted at, girl, okay? The only mistake you’ve made is getting involved with an asshole journalist. None of this is on you.”

Snuffling and, in the absence of a tissue, wiping her nose on the back of her hand, Adore looked to the metal grating of the fire escape floor sheepishly. “I was falling for her. I was going to tell her I loved her on our next date night.”

Willam felt like shit on Adore’s behalf. “I’m sorry, chick. You didn’t deserve her.”

They stood for a moment in the cool January air, Willam’s head now absent of thoughts. Instead, she didn’t know what to think. Here in front of her was the stark reality of love- pain and crying and upset and absolutely no control over any emotions. It was simultaneously too familiar and too foreign for Willam to comprehend. Shaking her head to chase away the memories that were threatening to flood her mind, Willam only clung tighter to the railing, how high up they both were hitting her with a stark clarity.

“Love sucks,” Adore said bluntly, stubbing out her cigarette and throwing it down into the city below. Willam thought about giving a snarky or sarcastic answer about how she wouldn’t know, but something moved her mouth for her.

“I know.”

Adore snapped her head around, giving her an inquisitive look. It seemed as if she was about to follow Willam’s comment up, so Willam decided to speak first.

“We need to go back in there.”

Adore sniffed, looking at the fire escape door as if it was the gates to hell. “Bianca’s going to fire me, isn’t she.”

Willam considered this for a second. “She won’t. You’re one of the few people I think she actually likes.”

“She doesn’t even know my name,” Adore snorted a laugh, once again wiping her nose on her hand. Willam cocked a smile at her.

“Course she does. She’s asked you to get her a Fanta millions of times.”

Willam smiled as she earned a small but genuine laugh from Adore. “I’m going to get yelled at though. Let’s be real.”

“Well, at least it won’t come as a surprise,” Willam pulled a face and shrugged. “Shall we go back in?”

“One second. I need to do something first,” Adore sighed, opening up the messages to Laila again and typing something Willam could faintly make out as,

A: We’re finished. Write a headline on that.

Smiling at her with reassurance, Willam laced her hand in Adore’s as they walked back into the warmth of the department together. As they rounded the corner into the offices, Willam felt Adore tense up beside her as Bianca whipped around to look at the both of them.

“Where did you two disappear off to? Don’t tell me you were fucking, I’d rather you didn’t do that shit at work.”

“Too late for some of us,” Trixie muttered under her breath to Katya, who had to visibly stifle her giggles. Focussing on Bianca, Willam attempted to come up with a way to explain the situation, but Adore spoke before she could even muster up her own voice.

“We found the leak,” she said bravely, standing up straight beside Willam. “It was me.”

Bianca blinked very slowly at Adore, as if she was processing what she’d said. “Pardon?”

Willam cut in before Adore could say any more. “What Adore means is…she’s not the leak. Well, not directly. She’s been seeing Laila McQueen from The Independent.”

She could see Bianca’s breathing becoming more and more laboured, as if she was trying to avoid going into cardiac arrest. Not being able to know if she’d explained herself properly, Willam continued talking.

“Seeing as in, in a relationship with her, not seeing as in leaking to her intentionally. She’d tell Laila stories from her work, from the department- just in the way that a girlfriend would do, not intending to spread anything. But of course Laila was just keen to get information, so Adore- without knowing it- leaked information to her. Like the comms team being taken off the phones, and Sharon being accused of the leak…and…” Willam attempted to bring herself to say it.

“The PM’s legacy,” Adore interrupted, her voice breaking very slightly at the end of her sentence. Courtney let out an audible gasp. Bianca ran her tongue slowly and deliberately over her teeth.

“Oh, well, that’s absolutely fine then. In fact why didn’t you just invite her into the department to spend the day with us? Give her a chip to install in the base of Sharon’s skull? Attach a massive novelty size satellite dish the size of the fucking international space station to the side of the building? You might as fucking well have!!” Bianca yelled, her voice rising to a terrifying crescendo as she laid into Adore, the girl just standing stoically and taking Bianca’s wrath. “Jesus fucking Christ, are you absolutely out of your tiny fucking mind?! Telling everything that goes on in a governmental department to a journalist?! I cannot fathom the levels of fucking unbounded ignorance that must take place for someone to do that!”

The department was silent as Adore stood and stared straight ahead, showing a remarkable amount of dignity for someone who Willam knew was crumbling inside. Taking a deep breath, Bianca appeared to try to regain composure.

“What do you know about her. We need to know everything. Because she must have a network, this- this can’t just be her work, it’d be all over her own website otherwise. There’s something more to this. Who does she know from ITV?” Bianca rounded on Adore, incessantly questioning. Adore shook her head.

“She never mentioned any names. She worked with a woman called Trinity, but that’s all I know in terms of workmates. She-” Adore winced as she appeared to realise something. “She hid her phone from me quite a lot, come to think of it.”

“Spare me the fucking sob story,” Bianca snapped, turning and facing the rest of the department. “I want every single fucking thing you can find about this Laila hack bitch immediately. I want her full fucking autobiography presented to me within the next ten minutes. Come on, get on it!”

Willam watched as Adore stood hesitantly, looking at Bianca for a second before deciding to dash to her desk. Willam’s heart went out to the girl. She knew how hurt she was and yet she was having to push through and get on with her work. Adore wasn’t the same kind of person that Willam was; she couldn’t throw herself into her job like she could, wasn’t able to use it as a complete distraction from everything that was going on in her life. She supposed that was something vaguely comforting about work, the fact that it could always serve to remove herself from her personal life. She’d been so distracted with her constant pining for Courtney that she had forgotten how much she genuinely did enjoy her job.

She’d zoned out so much that she’d missed Bianca talking to her.

“Hello? Is anyone in there? Anyone inside that abandoned building site of a brain of yours?” Bianca clicked her fingers in front of Willam’s unsuspecting gaze, causing her to blink.

“Sorry, Bianca. It’s all just…a lot.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean,” Bianca raised her eyebrows, briefly showing a slightly vulnerable side which completely took Willam aback. “This has to be some sort of complex web. I mean, who’s going to listen to a 24 year old journalist who’s only been in the job for a matter of months? I don’t get it. There’s something that doesn’t sit quite right.”

Willam stood for a moment with the spin doctor as they both remained deep in thought. Something suddenly struck her, one that was so completely obvious but had perhaps been lost in the chaos and confusion of the past five minutes.

“Laila leaked that policy to the opposition,” Willam said blankly, Bianca suddenly jerking her head to look Willam in the eyes.

“You’re absolutely right,” Bianca said, her voice completely grave. Willam expected a surge of activity, energy, anything to indicate that Bianca had had a Sherlock moment where all the puzzle pieces just clicked and everything fell into place. Instead, she didn’t move. “But why? Why did she do that? There’s got to be a reason.”

“Money? Blackmail?”

“I can’t think of anything else,” Bianca said sagely, bringing one hand up and rubbing it against her cheek.

“Ladies,” Courtney called from her monitor. “Am I going totally insane, or could this mean something?”

Intrigued, Bianca and Willam shared a glance, then made their way to Courtney’s monitor. On the screen sat two pictures which made up part of a Daily Mail online article, which seemed to be about Alyssa’s charity ball. The first was of Sharon and Alaska, Sharon triumphantly holding a china monstrosity over her head as if it was the world cup. ‘Onto a winner- Minister Sharon Needles, pictured with one of her advisors, spends £2000 on a vase despite advocating for lower MP’s salary.’ was the caption.

“Fuck, they really will find anything to complain about,” Willam muttered disparagingly, before looking at the second picture. Straight away, she saw what Courtney had been talking about.

In the centre of the picture stood Phi Phi O’Hara, in the horrifically bridal-esque cream dress she’d been wearing that night and holding a glass of champagne. She was laughing as she chatted to a young girl on her right, with dark skin and a long, straight mane of flowing brown hair, who looked slightly smug. The girl from ITV, Valentina, stood on Phi Phi’s left side and was smiling in a sort of scheming way, as if she knew she had the upper hand over somebody. And there to Valentina’s left was Laila McQueen. She was the only one staring straight at the camera, and seemed to be the only one who knew the photo was being taken. As a result she looked a little taken aback, as if she had been caught doing something she wasn’t meant to be doing, or somewhere she wasn’t supposed to be. The caption read, “The new generation- Shadow Minister Phi Phi O’Hara talks politics with media newcomers Laila McQueen (The Independent), Valentina Leyva (ITV), and Naomi Smalls (The Telegraph) (l-r)”

Willam shared an intrigued glance with Courtney, as the Australian said exactly what she was thinking.

“Is it just me or does Laila look…suspicious?” she questioned, looking up at Bianca and meeting her glare. Courtney looked a little intimidated. “I mean, I could be reading too much into it-”

“No. You’re not. You don’t spend as many years in this line of work without getting to know the face of someone who’s been caught in the act, and that expression is written all over Laila McQueen’s face. She’s afraid in that picture. She knows she shouldn’t have been seen with Phi Phi,” Bianca cut Courtney off, her face deep in concentration. Willam was slightly afraid to even breathe in case she disturbed her train of thought. Bianca suddenly frowned, pointing at the screen. “Bring up this Naomi Smalls’ twitter account. I’ve got the most fucking bizzare idea ever, but it might work.”

Without missing a beat, Courtney brought up the profile of the young journalist. Bianca pointed a commanding finger next to the “Following” button, which Courtney dutifully clicked. Naomi’s recent follows read:

Valentina Leyva @allaboutvalentina

Laila McQueen @IndependentLaila

Thorgy Thor @thorgy_thor

Elizabeth Ruhren @BettyRuhren

Roberta Queen @bob.queen

Rt Hon Phi Phi O’Hara MP @PhiPhiOHaraMP

As Willam read the names and tried to connect the dots, it seemed as if Bianca got there before her.

“Fucking knew it! Rookie mistake, but an obvious one from a 23 year old,” she exclaimed, looking first at Willam and then to Courtney. Courtney seemed to understand too.

“The head of the opposition, their senior press officer, and their spin doctor…” Courtney began, her eyes wide as if trying to comprehend something. “And the other journalists she was speaking to that night…”

Willam could scarcely handle the situation any more. The web had become too tangled and twisted and weird, and if anything things were now more odd than before. She couldn’t think straight, and she struggled to work out why or how all these names were connected. Bianca seemed to hold the same mindset.

“Look, ladies,” she sighed, for once appearing totally at her wits’ end. “This is out of your domain. Fuck, it’s almost out of my domain. There’s nothing more I can ask you to do here, I need to go back to number ten and do some serious digging. These people are all connected in some sort of corrupt way, maybe Phi Phi’s got a hold on them somehow, I don’t know. What I do know is, for the next couple of hours before it reaches 5pm, you’re all better just trying to get on with whatever tasks Sharon left for you to do.”

Willam nodded, slightly in awe of the fact that for once, Bianca didn’t seem to have a concrete plan. “If you need us to do anything else, just phone me or Court.”

Bianca gave Willam a quick scan up and down. “Appreciated. You did well today, Willam. And you too, Courtney. You’re both assets to the department.”

With that, Bianca was on her way back down and around the corner that led her out of the department. Willam felt her heart swell up at the praise Bianca had given her, going some way to heal the hurt she was still carrying around from this morning. Being left alone with Courtney again didn’t seem to sting as much as it had all those hours ago.

“How does she expect us to just get on with fucking budgeting after all this?!” Courtney gasped, peering once again at who Naomi Smalls followed. “This is like the Agatha Christie of governmental drama. I can’t concentrate on anything else!”

Willam felt sort of detached. “Yeah, same. But, you know. Got to keep working on those figures.”

With the feeling that she wasn’t really part of the planet, Willam walked back to her own desk and sat down, aware that Courtney was looking at her curiously.

It seemed to have been the longest day of Willam’s life, and she couldn’t wait for it to end.

***

Willam tapped her heeled foot impatiently against the floor as the laptop screen held the promise of a Skype connection. These things could never really be deemed reliable, though, and so with every passing second Willam grew more irritated. It had been a rollercoaster 24 hours, and she was eager to give Sharon and Alaska a full update. Obviously noticing Willam’s body language, Courtney rested a gentle hand on her leg, which made Willam feel almost more jittery than before.

“Be patient. It’s just taking its time,” she urged her, lifting her hand from Willam’s thigh.

How did Willam feel about everything between her and Courtney since yesterday? The truth was, she wasn’t sure. Of course she still wasn’t completely over how humiliated she’d felt, and how much her heart still hurt when she was around her. Would that ever go away? Maybe. Maybe not. But what Willam did know was that work, even in the past 24 hours, had been an absolute blessing of a distraction. She wasn’t good at love but she was damn good at politics, and the first day back in the department had been so exciting despite the stress. She had forgotten how much she loved her job when she’d been too wrapped up in her feelings for Courtney, and her performance hadn’t been good. She’d tortured herself wondering about it all overnight when she should have been sleeping, and sitting in the meeting room today she still couldn’t come to a conclusion.

She did know that her heart still beat just that little bit faster as she sat so close beside Courtney, Jinkx on her right side frowning at the monitor.

“Maybe we need to sign in,” Jinkx offered, swiping her finger across the track pad with impatience.

“We’re already signed in,” Willam rolled her eyes, just as Sharon and Alaska popped up on the screen.

“Yay!” Courtney cried, throwing her hands up in happiness. “Hi guys! How is everything?”

“Fucking screeds better than yesterday, I’ll tell you that for nothing,” Sharon smiled ruefully, running a hand through her icy blonde hair. Her left hand sat at her side out of view in parallel to Alaska’s right, and Willam suspected they were holding hands. “Tell me everything! I want to know every detail.”

Willam scrunched her face up. “Well, we don’t really know that much. Bianca left the department on a mission at, like, three yesterday. We only woke up to all the headlines. She’s not even been in yet today, and it’s almost five so I don’t even know if we’ll see her.”

In true Bianca style, she had managed to uncover everything. In the morning after her fitful sleep Willam had awoken to various notifications from the BBC News app, and the headlines were damning. It had turned out that Phi Phi, Betty and Bob had created a “graduate journalist funding scheme” for young faces in the media, which was a thinly-veiled disguise for “we give you money, you acquire information/write favourable headlines for us”. Naomi, Valentina, and indeed Laila were all involved, and it appeared that the arrangements didn’t just end with young new journalists- Thorgy Thor, a print journalist for The Guardian, was also highly implicated, as was Alexis Michelle from The Times who had reportedly been seen at dinner with Bob at a ridiculously expensive Mayfair restaurant. Basically, the newspapers were in chaos; nobody knew whose side who was on, or what allegiances existed, or which paper leaned which way anymore. What had been made clear was that none of the “funded” journalists were in work anymore, and that the opposition was under major scrutiny. Sharon smiled as she heard the news, leaning back a little on the hotel double bed both she and Alaska were sitting on.

“God, I doubt I’ll ever say this again but I could kiss Bianca Del Rio very emphatically on the mouth.”

Willam seemed to be the only one that noticed the fake warning look that Alaska shot Sharon’s way.

“Well, we certainly owe her a lot of thanks. I suspect you’ll be given a hero’s welcome when you get back then?” Jinkx smiled, clearly happy that Sharon’s name had been cleared. Sharon gave a loud exhale and rolled her eyes.

“Is that a joke? It’ll be business as usual. I doubt anyone that works in Westminster even knows the meaning of the word ‘sorry’. Still, I’ve got a skype interview with my BFF Chad Michaels at 10 and I can’t wait to drag Phi Phi’s name through the mud.”

Willam snorted a laugh at Sharon’s vindictiveness. “What about Brussels, then? I hear the debate went well yesterday.”

Alaska instantly jumped in, obviously bursting with pride. “I don’t think she’ll be welcome in Spain anytime soon. She absolutely wiped the floor with Alexis Mateo. Dettol Wipes ain’t got shit on her.”

The two girls both laughed, Sharon pushing Alaska playfully on the shoulder.

“Well, it’s good practice for the party conference whatever the result,” Courtney smiled encouragingly. Willam gave her a sideways glance and laughed a little.

“Court, that’s not til March.”

“Early March!” Courtney insisted, her eyes wide. Turning back to the screen, she continued. “Anyway, I’m not worried about your performance. Policy presentation tomorrow then?”

Sharon gave a nervous sigh as she nodded her head, her entire aura changing into one of anxiety. Alaska gave her a comforting smile. “She’s going to be fine. She’s practiced it so much I’m sick of hearing about the damn thing.”

Sharon smirked at her girlfriend, clearly attempting to be annoyed at her and failing. Willam smiled involuntarily at their display of affection, little as it was. She didn’t feel as jealous of them both as she had yesterday. “You’ll be alright. We’ll keep bigging you up to everyone tomorrow and the media should love you by the time you’re back.”

“Thanks, guys. You’re doing great,” Sharon smiled at the three of them through the tiny webcam.

“So do you have anything nice planned for this evening?” Jinkx asked, clearly eager to divert the conversation from anything work-related at any possible opportunity.

“We’re both going to this really nice restaurant that the French Prime Minister recommended,” Alaska smiled, batting her eyelashes and making fun of her own immodesty.

“Alright for some,” Courtney raised her eyebrows, impressed. “Violet not going with you?”

Both Sharon and Alaska seemed to freeze, as if they’d both forgotten poor Violet existed. Sharon turned out her best excuse. “Oh, she’s been a bit headachey today, so I think she’s just staying in the hotel.”

“Well, give her our best. And good luck for tomorrow!” Jinkx said.

“They don’t need luck. You guys’ll be fine. Speak to you both tomorrow,” Willam said by way of a goodbye, allowing Courtney and Jinkx to wave at the two girls on the other end of the line before closing the laptop shut. Heaving a sigh of relief, Courtney lay back in her chair.

“Well, I still maintain that those two are fucking,” she shrugged, before rising from her chair and lifting the laptop from the table.

“For Christ’s sake Court, don’t be ridiculous,” Willam bit back a little too quickly in her haste to protect Alaska, causing Courtney to sort of stop and blink at her a little. The atmosphere grew frosty, and was only interrupted by a knock on the glass door of the meeting room. Turning around Willam saw that it was Bianca, looking a lot less stressed than she had been yesterday.

“There’s the department’s saviour!” Jinkx cried, seemingly happy for the icebreaker. Bianca gave her a rare smile.

“Did you see Phi Phi on the lunchtime news with Raja? I’ve seen maggots that squirmed less. Talking about how ‘the person responsible is being dealt with’, but we all know it’ll be a fucking intern that’s been there for the space of five days that’ll be let go to make up the numbers,” Bianca laughed derisively, earning a snort from Willam herself.

“Did you come here to celebrate with us, or was there something you wanted to talk to us about?” she asked, part of her dreading what the answer would be.

Bianca turned to face Willam directly. “Yeah, actually. I came to speak to you.”

Willam shared a glance with both Jinkx and then Courtney. “Um…okay. Just me?”

“Yes,” Bianca nodded firmly, looking then at Courtney and Jinkx. “So if you two could please make like a tree and fuck off.”

With a muttered “charming” from Jinkx the two others left the meeting room, leaving Bianca and Willam alone. Willam couldn’t help but feel apprehensive, getting the feeling that somehow she was in trouble despite not having done anything.

“I’ve always found you to be one of the best advisors in the department, Willam. Well in fact, the party,” Bianca started off, folding her arms across her chest. Willam was slightly shocked, but mostly her heart was full of something she hadn’t really felt properly in a while. Pride. She knew she was good at her job, but she’d had no idea she was that good. Bianca continued on, seeing Willam’s slightly shocked expression. “Your performance yesterday was excellent, what I know you’re capable of. You’ve had a weird couple of months work-wise, but yesterday you showed real promise.”

“Well, erm,” Willam began, struggling to bullshit an excuse. “Maybe I just needed some time away from work.”

Instantly cursing herself for a lie of such incredible proportions, she watched as Bianca uncrossed her arms and raised her eyebrows.

“Well, whatever you did on holiday that made you bring your a-game back to work, keep doing it,” she said, pausing for a moment before getting to what seemed to be her main point. “You know in a couple of months, there’s going to be a few open positions at number 10. Advisory stuff, things like that. The PM’s looking to get some new blood in. Keep doing what you’re doing and maybe we could see about getting you in there. If that’s something you’re interested in, of course.”

Willam’s heart almost stopped. She opened her mouth to try and speak, but nothing seemed to want to come out. Instead she just nodded, barely trusting herself to let any words out.

“Great. Well, stay at that high level you’re at now. I’ll see you tomorrow, I’ve got to go and speak to Adore,” Bianca said, opening the door back into the department and leaving Willam completely on her own.

Immediately, Willam couldn’t feel anything else other than an all-encompassing feeling of euphoria. She’d been noticed, and had received affirmation that she was actually good at her job, fuck, amazing at her job. She was finally getting an indication that things might be looking up for her and that she might be moving on to bigger and better things, moving up the ladder like she’d always wanted. It was the best news she could’ve hoped for, and just the motivation she needed.

She stumbled out of the office slightly in a daze, barely noticing Courtney come up to her at her side. Trying to conceal how happy she was, Willam turned to her friend. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Courtney started, her voice seeming nervous. She clasped her hands together and took a deep breath before speaking again. “Um…are we okay?”

Willam was a little taken aback. She thought that Courtney’s question had come out of the blue, but looking back on the past few days she had been a little offhand with her, a bit blunt and abrupt and bordering on rude. Feeling a little guilty, Willam finally concluded that it wasn’t Courtney’s fault that she didn’t remember a stupid drunk kiss. She couldn’t take her own feelings of rejection out on Courtney forever.

“Yeah. Yeah, course we’re okay. Sorry I’ve been kinda shit the past couple of days. Just…glad to be back at work,” Willam sighed, smiling at Courtney who gave a relieved smile back.

“Good. I’m glad you’re alright,” she beamed, Willam being annoyed at the warmth that Courtney’s smile still gave her heart. “What did Bianca want?”

“Oh, nothing really. She was just speaking to me about policy stuff. She’s with Adore now though. No idea why.”

The two girls looked down the corridor where Bianca and Adore stood together, Adore giving a little smile up at the spin doctor. Neither of them could consider it for long though, as a gasp that was sort of mixed with a cry came from Trixie’s desk.

“Oh my God,” she said breathlessly, looking down at her phone. Katya was craning her neck trying to read the message on it, and Jinkx was standing up at her desk as if she would glean more information. Trixie looked up and glanced at everyone in the department, her face completely crestfallen. “Trannika’s been fired.”

***

Shivering in the cold night’s air, Willam pulled her coat closer around her and leant over to Katya, the cigarette gripped between her top and bottom lip as the other girl held her lighter underneath it. She never usually smoked, but she’d make an exception for this evening. She somehow felt as if she needed it, and she wasn’t exactly short of people she could bum a cigarette from. Currently it was her, Katya, Adore and Trannika outside their usual pub, huddled together like penguins around the huge silver beer keg that served as both a table and an ashtray. It had been the only logical place to go after work given Trannika’s news, and although Willam still didn’t consider herself close with the girl in any way, the promise of a glass of red had been incredibly enticing. Courtney, Trixie and even Jinkx were back inside gathered in the corner on their usual sofas, and Pearl had joined them too as soon as she’d come out of work. They had all been drinking for a good couple of hours now, Pearl being the biggest enabler, and Willam would undoubtedly regret it all tomorrow. Still, she supposed the amount of alcohol in her bloodstream would help her get a good night’s sleep if nothing else.

“You should go on This Morning. Tell the world your harrowing story,” Katya was telling Trannika, the three girls having spent the past ten minutes outside insisting the opposition comms member had a claim for unfair dismissal. Trannika laughed and shook her head, flicking some ash from the end of her own cigarette.

“It’s Jeremy fuckin’ Kyle I’m needing. Although he would shout at me for being on the dole.”

“You’re not on the bloody dole,” Katya rolled her eyes, shoving the brunette’s shoulder with an unexpected amount of force. Trannika’s eyes grew suddenly wide.

“Well I’m unemployed, aren’t I? Sounds like a great life though. Spend all day pissing my life away on the sofa eating crisps and watching Bargain Hunt sounds a lot better than pissing my life away working for Phi Phi.”

Adore frowned deeply, stubbing her own cigarette out on the beer keg. “I still think you have grounds for a court case.”

“Adore, I am not taking a fucking millionare’s daughter to court,” Trannika gave her a pointed look. “Besides, it’s a blessing in disguise. I fucking hated that job with every fibre of my being. Literally the only pleasure I got from it was leaking to you guys. They needed someone to make it look like they were dealing with the problem, and that person just happened to be me. I get it. It’s the way it goes.”

“I’d love to see Phi Phi in court, though. She’d go up in flames as soon as she put her hand on the bible,” Willam snorted.

“Bianca would appear to welcome her to hell,” Katya joined in as the others laughed. That made Willam think of something.

“Hey, what did Bianca want to speak to you about earlier, anyway?” she asked, turning to Adore. The younger girl pulled a face and shrugged.

“Oh, that. Um, it was kinda weird. She apologised to me for yelling at me yesterday.”

Willam’s mouth dropped open in surprise. “Bianca…apologised?!”

“Yeah, I said it was weird. Anyway she said she hoped I was alright and that she was always there if I needed to talk about anything,” Adore shrugged, mumbling a little and looking to the ground. Katya and Willam shared an awed glance.

“We’re talking about Bianca Del Rio? The woman that once told me that if I didn’t produce a coffee for her within the space of five minutes she’d saw off my hands?” Katya blinked in disbelief.

“Yes! Who else would I be talking about? Bianca Gascoyne? Bianca from fucking Animal Crossing?” Adore said, a little irritated. Willam gave a laugh.

“So that’s your rebound sorted then? Our favourite member of the governmental sphere?”

Adore gave Willam a look that communicated she was done with her shit.

“No. I told you guys, that was ages ago. I don’t like Bianca like that anymore,” Adore insisted, the softness of her voice threatening to betray her. Willam decided not to push her for any more. She’d had a tough couple of days.

“Good idea. I’ve always thought workplace relationships were highly unprofessional,” Katya deadpanned, eager to lighten the mood a little.

“How are you coping, though, girl?” Trannika asked her, obviously thinking the same as Willam. Adore gave a bitter laugh.

“Well I went home and cried for a solid two hours last night. Cried in the bathroom today at work. Haven’t eaten since lunchtime yesterday. Overall I’d say I’m doing well,” she smirked self-depreciatingly. Willam gave her a sympathetic smile. In true Trannika fashion, she stubbed her cigarette out decisively and looped her arm through Adore’s.

“You know what the solution to a broken heart is?” she said, pausing for effect. “Alcohol. Let’s go get shots.”

With that, Trannika and Adore were gone, leaving the two blondes alone outside.

“So, um…how’s your own love life going?” Katya asked Willam with a coy smile. Tipping her head to the sky, Willam rolled her eyes at just how predictable her friend was.

“I fucking knew you were going to ask me that,” she shook her head, taking another drag. Looking at Katya’s expectant face, Willam gave a sort of laugh of disbelief and shook her head. “There’s been no progress, okay? There you are. There’s your answer. You have nothing to work with.”

Katya looked to the floor, muttering something under her breath. “That’s not what I heard.”

Willam’s heart felt a little like it was going into cardiac arrest. “What do you mean? Are people talking about us?”

Katya waved her hands in front of her, presumably in an attempt to calm Willam down. “No, no, no, nobody’s talking about it. You’re fine. All it was was…”

Katya stopped and bit her lip, appearing not to want to say what she had planned. Willam wanted to seem as if she couldn’t care less about what Katya was going to tell her, but her face completely betrayed her- her were wide with suspense, mouth hanging open just a little as she waited for Katya to continue. Letting out a held breath, Katya carried on.

“God she’ll kill me if she knew I was telling you this…at New Year, Court literally wouldn’t shut up about you.”

Willam’s heart was going at roughly the speed of a runaway train. She was quiet for a few seconds, trying to process the information, but her mind was working too fast for her to be able to do so.

“What was she saying?”

“She’d bring you up at every opportunity. ‘Oh, Willam loves this song!’ ‘Oh, Willam once told me about a cocktail you can make with whisky, vodka and tomato juice!’ ‘I wish Willam was here!’ ‘Willam would’ve loved this!’. Like…you were like 70% of all she talked about that night.”

Willam was confused. Scrunching her eyes shut and shaking her head, she tried to correlate that Courtney to the Courtney who had woken up with no memory of Alyssa’s ball. It didn’t seem to make sense, and if what Katya was saying was true, then Court’s behaviour didn’t add up.

“Well, she hasn’t said anything to me,” Willam finally said, not allowing her face to betray any of her feelings.

“Give it time.”

Looking up to the stars that were beginning to emerge in the sky, Willam thought about Trannika and Adore. A casualty of work and a casualty of love, respectively. Trannika would be fine; she could always go and get another job somewhere else, and her experience working for the opposition was valuable on any CV. She seemed to be taking it in her stride, all things considered. Adore was different. She hadn’t healed yet, and it would certainly be a while until she recovered from her breakup. She wasn’t in control of her feelings in any way. Trannika could just go and find another job, but Adore couldn’t immediately move on to someone new without healing first.  

Willam couldn’t help but think about her own situation.

Stubbing her cigarette out on the beer keg, Katya turned to Willam, having allowed her some time to think in silence. “Should we head back inside? I’m freezing my not inconsiderable tits off out here.”

Without speaking, Willam simply nodded and crushed her own dead cigarette under her foot. Following behind Katya she walked back inside the pub, her head full of questions she didn’t have the answers to yet.

[dccomicsnews]

In the world of comics, Viktor Bogdanovic is a relative youngster. Recently on his Twitter (@VikBogdanovic) he announced that he would be working on Action Comics! This is a huge honor to any artist, to work on the original comic character on the original comic! He wasn’t just lucky though, he worked extremely hard to get to where he is today and it shows!

He started his career at image comics in 2013 working on Reality Check. The book focusing on a writer who creates a love-sick comic hero who suddenly becomes real and forces the protagonist to help him find true love, while the villain enters reality and goes on a murderous rampage. Two years later, in 2015 Viktor was brought on to DC where he worked on the comic for Batman: Arkham Knight which furthered his skills in the medium before being able to create New Super-Man!

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I reached out to Viktor on twitter after finishing a review of New Super-Man to see if he would like to interview with us. I was fortunate enough the he had the time and was able to do so. Being a fan of his work myself since New Super-Man #1, I was extremely excited to see what he would tell us! There are so many intricate and small parts to New Super-Man that can be over looked because it reaches deep into the history of the comics. But don’t take my word for it, see what he has to say!

  Q: What originally inspired you to get into comics and illustration? What inspires you today?

I watched a ton of Cartoons as a kid and then soon discovered comics and that was it. I was hooked. I started drawing my own Superman and Spider-Man stories at the age of 12 or so. I have never been more productive than I was at that time. I remember filling a bunch of large sized notebooks with sequential art in record time that my dad didn’t wanna buy.

Q: How did you originally get into the comics industry?

I did a few indie books and soon got the chance to work on my first mini series for Image Comics which was called Reality Check. I kept working on my drawing skills like a mad man and eventually brought up the courage to send a few sample pages to DC. It seemed unlikely that I’d ever hear back from them but two editors responded almost immediately. They gave me a test script to draw and about a week later I was working as the main penciller on Batman: Arkham Knight. It all went so fast, I didn’t even have time to process it all. So BAK went on for almost a year. Then came the next project with Deadshot and after that New Super-Man. I’ve been working pretty much non-stop for DC since the end of 2014 producing nearly 500 pages of sequential art which seems like a really crazy number to me when I see it written down like that, haha. Like I should go to a shrink or something to take care of my OCD (obsessive comic disorder).

  Q: How did your opportunity to work on Superman come about?

My editor just called me up one evening and told me that they’d like me to draw Action Comics. I was really psyched about it and also a little bummed out because I really loved working on New Super-Man. But there are just a few books in comics you can’t turn down as an artist and Action Comics is one of them so I said yes.

Q: What persona and story are you trying to tell through your work?

It all depends on the script. First, I try to figure out the right tone, rhythm and atmosphere. Then give the characters some dimension and personality through facial expressions and body language. I mostly follow a gut feeling. It’s all very intuitive. No pre-concept.

Q: What inspired the looks of each of the three Justice League of China members?

As for the costumes: they’re all derived from Kenan’s outfit. That’s the first one I designed and the other ones had to be similar because they all work for the same secret government agency. Chinese Wonder Woman is probably a mix of Sailor Moon and that Street Fighter chick. Chinese Batman looks like a young chubby Mr. Spock when his mask is off. I thought that’d fit his personality.

Q: What were the most important things you wanted to show in New Super-Man?

When we announced this we got a lot of comments on the fact that the New Super-Man is Chinese, that it all takes place in China, etc. The whole discussion about diversity in comics and all that stuff. It immediately started a political debate. Some people were very skeptical and I don’t blame them. We’ve seen enough bad examples of diversity for diversity’s sake. But I’ve read some of Gene Yang’s previous work so I knew that it’d be a good story that I could work with. And in the end that’s all that matters. A fun story is a fun story, no matter who’s in it or where it takes place. And when the political discussion ends and people start talking about plot twists and they start talking about a character, not because he’s of this or that ethnicity but because he’s cool and fun – that’s when you know you’re on to something.

Q: What led to the decision to recreate the cover of Action Comics #1 in issue 5 and why did you decide to do that?

That’s all Gene. The script said something like “Kenan is holding up a police car… etc… similar to the scene on the cover of Action Comics #1” so I drew it. Fun stuff

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Q: The “S” on Kenan’s chest is very unique from the Man of Steel’s in that it is connected to Chinese philosophy, was it originally conceived with that meaning behind it or did that come after?

No, Gene had the octagon shape and all that stuff worked out pretty early on. It’s a popular Chinese symbol with a lot of meaning so that’s why he used it.

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  Q: All of the heroes and villains in New Super-Man, such as the Freedom Fighters of China, are very flamboyant and interesting, what informed the choices of how to draw and color them?

They were all created on the fly, really (except the older characters from previous comics) so I’m glad people like them. I wish I would’ve had more time to design them. Not sure they’d look better tough, heh.

Q: What advice would you give to the artist who will next draw New Super-Man? And who would be your choice to take over if you could hand pick a team?

Easy. Just give Kenan puffy cheeks and make him likeable (actually that’s not easy at all, haha) and if I could handpick a team: I think Billy than did a great job with issues 7 & 8 and I hear he’s on the next issues as well so I’m really looking forward to that. + If we could clone Erik Larsen to do an issue or two that’d be cool to (because the real Erik Larsen sure as hell ain’t leaving Savage Dragon for some Chinese Superman – or any other book for that matter). Gene Yang is a given. Nobody can write New Super-Man like he does.

Q: When it comes to the details you show in the environment, fashion and the characters, you have done an amazing job at recreating China and how it feels. What research did you do in-order to include those details?

We had a few real locations from Shanghai, etc. But the rest is just me trying to remember all the Jackie Chan movies I watched as a kid.

Q: As one of the creators of this whole world and the characters that inhabit it, what were the most important ideas that you wanted to convey to your audience?

The idea of growing up, finding yourself and your place in this world and having some fun while doing it.

Q: What can we expect to be unique about your take on Superman?

Wow, that’s tough. I don’t know. So many artists have drawn this iconic character and you’d think we’ve seen it all. He looks easy to draw on a first glance but he’s actually not. He has to look both cool and a little bit old fashioned at the same time. He’s also a brute as well as elegant. So, a lot of contradictions there but I’ll try to bring them all together as good as I can.

Q: On Twitter you’ve recently posted a picture with Zod, can we expect to see him in your first arc drawing the Man of Steel?

Most definitely! We’ll all kneel before Zod.

Q: Is there anything you’d like to tell your fans?

Yes! You should all love each other! And then go buy New Super-Man and Action Comics before somebody else does! Cheers!!

  Viktor, like Kong Kenan, is such a bright person, unlike Kenan, his is also humble. He has done, and continues to do, great work. He creates eye catching and memorable characters and brings them to life on the page. I have thoroughly enjoyed the work he has done on New Super-Man, I will miss his style in the adventures of Kenan Kong but look forward to seeing what he does with Clark Kent!

Interview: Viktor Bogdanovic Artist of New Super-Man & Action Comics! In the world of comics, Viktor Bogdanovic is a relative youngster. Recently on his Twitter (@VikBogdanovic) he announced that he would be working on Action Comics!

[canaryatlaw]

Ugh, I don't know what's gotten into me this week, but I've officially lost all my ambition to like, get out of bed in the morning, because I woke up today and was like lol nope and went back to bed and like that's BAD but I was also pretty productive and got a lot of shit done so I don't feel that bad about it?? Lol. Anyway. I woke up again around noon and had some breakfast, then got to work putting the final touches on my LARC assignment, which was gonna be what I did when I got home today. While I was doing so I made some of the vanilla bean rice pudding I like a lot because I'd bought a whole gallon of milk (instead of my usual half gallon) with the intention of making it so I figured I should do that, and it came out quite nicely. LARC was mostly putting in citations, which is unfortunately trickier than one might hope. The word limit was 1750, and I had it down to 1710 before I added citations, but it quickly got up to like 1763 or something so I had to go back and cut words to finish it up, but ultimately I was pretty satisfied with it. Like I said yesterday, I'd probably be more nervous about it if it was actually getting graded, but since it's just a hand in it's not that big of a deal, and I don't really have to worry about my prof thinking I'm a slacker or anything since grading is anonymous, so that's helpful. After I finished the actual document I had to do a couple accompanying things that didn't take too long. After that I mostly just did a bunch of little things to take care of that needed to get done, like updating the company tumblr since it was about 5 days past its weekly update deadline, which means I had to decide if I wanted to put the posts I've reblogged about punching nazis on there, and it was a hard call, but I figured as much as I tend to get social justice-y (and probably way too political, even when I'm trying to be good) and this probably falls well outside the area of our actual subject matter, so I let that one go (but of course there will still be plenty of those on here). After a while I decided to watch some tv while still doing stuff, so I put on this week's flash episode being that I haven't gotten a chance to watch it yet, and I was pretty satisfied with it, definitely better than this week's arrow (though that's not really saying much). All the Iris and Barry stuff had me like AHHHHHHHHH SO MANY FEELINGSSSSS but I love their journey as a couple and how they're dealing with things, and as much as I understand why they wouldn't want to tell Joe about the Savitar thing, I feel like that's gonna come back to bite them in the end (because these things normally do, though if they kill him off I still s2g I will injure all of them). I loved the Caitlin/Julian stuff, and CAITLINNNNNN my poor baby you deserve so much happiness and I don't want you to ever be hurting because it's so sad!!!!! I like the Julian being on the team thing a lot though, and I think their friendship (??) could be very good for them. The villain I didn't really find all that interesting, he wasn't really the main focus of the episode anyway so it didn't matter all that much. Seeing Barry's somewhat futile attempted to change the future was kind of sad, cuz like I get that he's hoping it'll have a ripple effect or whatever but changing who captures this bad guy may change one word of the news broadcast but it probably won't change the circumstances he found himself in?? Idk, I hope he doesn't get too caught up in the little stuff on that, though I'm sure he's gonna be going nuts to try and change the future from now on. Lastly there was the Cisco/HR thing which was kind of meh because while I love Cisco I don't find HR particularly interesting, nor did I find his whole reopen star labs thing to be an interesting plot, so I hope they're able to work that into something actually interesting by the end of the season, because there's definitely a lot of potential at least. And yeah, good episode. After that I watched Suits which my dvr didn't record for some strange reason (I think frequency might've been on at the same time, but that won't be an issue anymore) and was decisively underwhelmed by the episode. I mean, the show's been going downhill for a while, and the stuff about Mike's trial was interesting, but his prison arc was pretty dry and now that he's out it's all back to "the firm!! Ahh!! What's gonna bring it down this time???" like that seems to be the problem with watching shows about private lawyers instead of government employed ones, their conflict is always gonna be like "the firm is collapsing!" and after a while it gets BORING (just ask the good wife, and all the times they split firms and reunited them and crushed them). So basically everyone was just yelling at each other for a whole episode and I wasn't very amused. I have to say though, Harvey having the idea that Mike would even ever get in front of the character and fitness board is a joke, because he wouldn't even get into law school, much less actually pass character and fitness?? Like are you shitting me??? Nor would he ever be able to get any job remotely related to law, so he needs to drop that shit now. I do feel bad for Rachel though, she's in a tough spot when it comes to that stuff. But yeah, wasn't very impressed there. After that I was out of things to watch again, so I decided I would start the minority report tv series, I think I mentioned last week that we had been talking about it in crim pro and I saw that Nick Zano was in it so of course that made me want to watch it, and it's only 10 episodes so it won't take long, I ended up watching 4 tonight. It's pretty good! I've never actually seen the movie, lol, but I know the concept and since it's set like 10 years after the movie you don't really need to know all the details of the movie to understand what's going on. I have to say though, omg, the legal implications of all of this is OFF THE WALL. Like I could probably rant for a solid hour about all of the reasons this is all incredibly unconstitutional and illegal and couldn't never happen, and they were like "oh yeah the pre-crime program before the Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional" and I like snorted because the idea of them still having a Supreme Court and it taking them SIX YEARS to overrule that is suchhhhhh a joke lol. And don't even get me started on the whole "well it wasn't set in stone" concept because that would just completely implode and legal legitimacy it had, at all. But, now that I got that out, it's a pretty cool concept. Nick Zano's character is the twin brother of the main character, who is working with a detective to try and stop the murders he still sees flashes of but without the whole pre-crime program and all its unconstitutionality, and it works pretty well I'd say, it's interesting. Nick Zano's character is kind of an asshole, but he's funny and him and their sister are very distrusting of the whole thing but he still ends up helping his brother, though their sister is like having flashes of the government taking them again and shit so that could go wrong soon. We'll see what the rest of the season brings, there's only 10 episodes so they can't really get into anything too elaborate (hopefully, anyway, because an unfinished story sucks). While watching that I did take a break to watch the premiere of Riverdale, because why the fuck not, I've been seeing promos of it for weeks now and it was on so I might as well watch it. I like know the comic strip exists but like, it's not something I've ever really read or been familiar with, so I was pretty much going in blind here. Interesting first episode. They're definitely playing on the whole oh this town is in the middle of nowhere so even though we're technically setting this in the present day we're gonna act like it's actually the 50's with some stuff. I like Veronica, she's amusing, and I like that she seems to be looking out for Betty just because it's the right thing to do. Betty is fine, seems pretty stereotypical female lead who's in love with her male best friend at this point, but that could develop more. Archie is interesting, how whole having an affair with his music teacher and them witnessing part of a murder they can't tell anyone about or they'd get caught is certainly interesting, so we'll see where that plot goes. But yeah, not bad, and that pretty much wraps up my night. It's like 1:20 am right now, so without further to do I'm going to head to bed. Goodnight peeps. Happy Friday.

[find-your-rp-partner]

Pokemon Roleplay

hey all, i’m wren and i'm forever looking for some pokemon rps!

about me i’m 23 and in EST, and i’ve been rping for twelve years or so i think! i write in third person past tense and i gravitate towards novella-style rping, with about 4-5 paragraphs at minimum for a reply. i like playing multiple characters and have no issue juggling side characters that come in and out of the rp. generally i reply at least once a day, but i’m a graduate student and sometimes things come up. i love tossing around headcanons or plot ideas or playlists or aus, and would love a partner who likes chatting about our characters too!

i would like to rp with someone 20 or older (or at least 18 or older) who has no problem writing 3+ paragraph replies. content is more important to me than length, so don’t ever feel the need to plump up your replies! i just want to have something to reply to. (:

characters and plot so like i said in the title, i’m only looking for pokemon rps right now! i would like to play OCs only, unless a canon character is essential to the plot. i play both male and female characters and would prefer someone who doesn’t just play one gender. i love playing a variety of characters, though i really like individuals who grow and change over the course of the plot! if you have a certain personality you’ve been wanting to play your OC against, just let me know. on the subject of, i’m a big fan of shipping, romance, etc. as long as it isn’t immediate and isn’t the sole focus on the rp! i have a preference for m// and f//, but m/f is fine. smut is great as well, though i have no problem fading to black or avoiding smut if that’s your preference. i don’t have any limits when it comes to violence, gore, and language, though just let me know if you have any!

i’m looking for a rp with the game’s vibe: pokemon not being able to talk, not everyone has super powerful pokemon, wild pokemon can be dangerous, and pokemon are used in areas outside of battling, such as in therapy and medicine. i have a wad of plot ideas written up if you’d be interested in building off of that, though i would also love to hear any ideas of yours! i love world building and plotting so i’m sure we’ll be able to work something out. some general ideas include:

pokemon go i’m hooked and i think it’s a cool premise. i’m totally open to playing team members, playing OCs of the team leaders, introducing villains, making a plot about the three birds, or playing willow and instinct/mystic/valor as a new villainous team.

the bad guy wins alternate universe in which some villainous team or another has accomplished their goal in changing the world forever. team magma has converted most of the planet to land. team aqua has forced the population to live underwater. team plasma has seized control of the region and made it illegal to own pokemon. team flare has eradicated most life and erected a dys/utopia. team cipher has made pure pokemon a rarity and taken political control of orre. i’d be up for trying team galactic making their new universe but that might get pretty trippy.

historical/medieval i love all of the stuff in kalos about kings and castles, and a rp taking place in the past would be rad. exploring how people tame and train pokemon without pokeballs, the role of battling in society, raising and breeding pokemon, fighting battles atop rapidashes and rhyhorns. i gravitate towards a more generic medieval setting, but i’m really up for exploring any era.

tournament i love tournaments so long as they don’t get bogged down by people getting too into making sure their character wins — which i’m hoping wouldn’t happen in a 1x1 haha. no real specific ideas here, but maybe there’s some sort of twist, like the tournament is rigged or is otherwise being held by corrupt individuals, and the victor doesn’t have a happy reward awaiting them. or something dark, like being forced to compete a la the hunger games or that short story “the lottery.” or maybe the tournament is a cover, like the victors are going to be send on an important errand.

new region/villainous team starting from scratch is always fun! playing as elite four members or gym leaders would be great, either in a new region or set in the future of a current region so things have been swapped. there could be a new threat from a team, perhaps with a classic crime-related goal, something genetic with crossbreeds, a cult bumping heads with cities, fanatics who think they’re in the right. plz give me the “professor is the team leader” twist i’ve always wanted.

mystery dungeon with people i don’t really enjoy playing just pokemon, but i’d love to do a mystery dungeon-style rp where it’s trainers and their partner pokemon forming a team and rescuing people. i’ve never played pokemon ranger so i’m not sure if that’s what that is haha. i’d be up to giving it a witcher sort of vibe of traveling between cities doing odd jobs, or a static team located at a base and is contacted when people need help.

fairytales and daemons this is probably gonna be weird but i love the random fairytale references in the games, like the one in lumiose city about beauty and the beast, except the prince was turned into a pokemon. i think i’d be cute to take popular fairytales and rework them within the pokemon universe. i also like the idea of animal companions you’re born with, and i’d be into reworking that with pokemon as well.

i also have some three-person rp ideas if you'd be up for doing a small group rp! i have a friend (kit) interested in rping these ideas with us, so if you're interested we can all meet and talk!

three person alola rp our characters would basically be three youngsters around eighteen, all coming in to work for professor kukui at the same time and traveling together, doing island trials and recording pokedex entries on commission. this would take place during the games, so they’d be catching pokemon and growing, and would all get involved in the team skull and whatever else debacle. after that’s all sorted away, our characters end up taking different paths in life and grow apart (kit’s gets involved with contests, mine stays with professor kukui to do research, and yours would be doing something else!). however after four or five years of separation, things once again come to a head. alola is hosting a large contest and festival (each region takes a turn hosting, and it’s alola’s year), and either team skull or some other villainous team strikes then. our characters end up having to come back together after years apart, bonding again, and defeating this evil together. we were hoping is that this would be a polyamorous plot. our characters are both male and you’re free to play whoever you want — male, female, nb, whatever! — but we’d love it if you were interested in all of our characters ending up together.

three person revolution-based this one leans on the his dark materials series in that all people are born with a partner pokemon called a guardian — it begins as a ditto than can shift into any pokemon, and then as the person matures it takes the form of a pokemon that matches that person's personality, and the guardian evolves as the person grows emotionally. an empire known as the vinzenz have been conquering territories in the land and subjecting the people to stripping — killing their guardian pokemon, and killing the guardian pokemon of all children born. our characters are people who are somehow thrown into this turmoil. maybe they're getting involved in a revolutionary movement, or forced to flee together, or otherwise experience some kind of call to action.

three person medieval johto the rp takes place in historical johto during medieval times, and the region is divided up into three theocracies, each one following the guidance of a different legendary dog. the rulers of these kingdoms believe themselves to be chosen by their legendary, and speak as a mouthpiece for what that legendary desires. relations between the three nations has been tumultuous and their wars have affected humans and pokemon both. the three dogs have decided to intervene and remedy this by selecting three actual chosen ones: one individual from each nation, to help set things right. these chosen ones find themselves together alone with their pokemon, their memories wiped, experiencing dreams about their legendary, and will slowly develop abilities connected to their legendary. my character has been chosen by entei, and kit's has been chosen by raikou, so you’d be playing the character chosen by suicune! your character can be any sort of individual, preferably in their 20s, from suicune’s nation. you’d be part of the plotting and world building, so no worries about trying to force yourself into a pre-created world.

other a lot of these ideas are only loosely based on pokemon, so if you'd want to do any of them with animal companions or mythical creatures or some kind of vaguely fantasy spin on it instead, just let me know! otherwise i think that’s pretty much it! i’d prefer to rp over email or google docs, and talk on hangouts for ooc stuff and general chatting! however i’m up to getting other messengers if that’s your preference.

if any of this interests you, drop me a line at wingsofaren@gmail.com! looking forward to hearing from you! (:

[elainescookingforthesoul]

TRANSCRIPT for Episode 1.09 “Aaron Aaronson's Mashed Potatoes" (PART 1/2)

ACT I

[INTRO MUSIC]

ELAINE: Hello and welcome to Elaine's Cooking Podcast for the Soul! I'm your host, Elaine Martínez. Now, normally I take this time to shepherd folks through a relaxing and warm intro segment and into a show designed as a practical respite from the fresh hellscape that surrounds us. I know so many of born and raised in the once-balmy climate of LA are still navigating the brisk temperatures and thinner oxygen content of the air and I think we all deserve a few moments to remember a pre-nuclear-event world of cooking for reasons other than sheer survival. But I'll be honest, I was too excited about our guest to prepare much in the way of a proper intro monologue! Today I would like to jump right to the good stuff, folks. We have a really exciting recipe from a really exciting person! He is the first guest I've had on that considers himself a huge fan of the show, so please welcome Aaron! 

AARON: Hello, I'm Aaron, and I'm a huge fan of the show. 

ELAINE: I am so thrilled to have you here, Aaron! You are the first true stranger that has reached out to me in regards to this cooking podcast. Asking all sorts of questions about our guests, and what the exact nature and purpose of this podcast is, about my personal alliances and political posturing...very flattering stuff. A true fan!

AARON: Yes. I am observing that you forgo the use of overhead lights, and instead utilize the lamps above the dental chairs.

ELAINE: Well, I'd be lying if I said it was all to escape detection by officers of The State. I do rather enjoy the tone it sets as we record these episodes here at the LA Dental Clinic. Intimate, don't you think?

AARON: It is quite discreet.

ELAINE: Thank you for saying that. But let's talk about you. Now Aaron, we've rustled up some considerable hype leading up to this episode. I've been getting several requests for the USBs I throw these episodes onto, and nearly a dozen notes passed onto me about their support for the show. I hate to be crass, what with the, ahem, tragic incident that occurred at Ted's Bread Store, but...it has been a fantastic week! Why don't you tell us what recipe you'll be sharing with us today?

AARON: It is a mashed potato recipe.

ELAINE: Oh my. 

AARON: Yes, I am looking forward to cooking this dish with you here in this abandoned dental practice you once worked at.

ELAINE: Do work at! Just because our rations no longer include toothpaste doesn't mean I've stopped poking around in people's mouths, digging out packed down Sour Punch Straws and filling up the cavities underneath. You know what they say, once a dentist--

AARON: But before that, an activist.

ELAINE: I was going to say 'always a dentist.' I mean, yes, I was politically active previously, but I...how did you know about that?

AARON: I...uh. I just thought that was a phrase. Once a dentist, before that an activist. It rhymes, so that's probably why I thought that...Potatoes! 

[PACKET FLOPPING]

ELAINE: Oh. Okay, so you've brought us a pack of instant mashed potatoes, of the brand Idahoan, TM. 

AARON: Buttery Homestyle.

ELAINE: Well...great! Why don't you tell us your plan? I just know you've got a way to dress this up, or subvert our expectations with this pack of powdered potatoes. 

AARON: Certainly. May I view your notorious cooking cart?

ELAINE: Of course, superfan!

 

[SQUEAKY CART, ROLLING]

AARON: Ah. Just as reported. I mean...just as I imagined.

ELAINE: Yep, here we have a little station with some cooking utensils, and a few items that were recently put on the contraband list. 

AARON: The toaster oven. 

ELAINE: Right. Not quite sure if it's legal, but I think the the officials over at Ted's Bread Store have other fires to put out, so to speak. 

AARON: Hilarious phrasing, Elaine. Ha. Ha...I bet it was quite the spectacle, watching them flee the burning building.

ELAINE: I wasn't there...and now that we're getting into the grim details of it, I suppose it's rather cold of me to revel in any harm that may have come to the officers or their advertising cyborg counterparts.

AARON: A cyborg is comprised of organic and synthetic materials. The Ad Ministers are exclusively synthetic beings and therefore suffered no damage that a quick reboot and a spit shine couldn't fix...at least, that's what I heard. From one of my many close friends... Who are also fans of this show.

ELAINE: Awww. That's good to hear.

AARON: Still, your plot to cast out superiors went off without a hitch. I bet that felt good.

ELAINE: My plot to what? I don't follow.

AARON:...I said your...uh...podcast is superior! And has gone off without a hitch?

ELAINE: Right...Aaron, can I ask you what your last name is?

AARON: It's...Aaron...son. Aaronson.

ELAINE: Aaron Aaronson. Nice. And quick follow up: Are you a spy?

AARON: Do I aspire to what?

ELAINE: Come on.

AARON: Oh, a spider. I misheard the first time. Definitely not a spider. One hundred percent human, as it turns out. 

ELAINE: Listen, I am the last person to reduce herself to minimal colloquialisms, but...dude.

AARON: Fine! But don't set me on fire, I just want to talk to you!

ELAINE: I don't set people on fire! 

AARON: Don't have anyone else do it either! I swear I'm harmless!

ELAINE: I see that. Aaron...though I doubt that's your real name.

AARON: It is not.

ELAINE: Or your real mustache.

AARON: Nope...Stupid cheap glue...

ELAINE: Aaron, do you know what the Hippocratic Oath is?

AARON: Of course, I've watched every season of House before all of this.

ELAINE: Great. Then you know that as a dentist, I would never harm anyone. I am sworn to protect the vulnerable, which you clearly are.

AARON: I am? 

ELAINE: The State probably paid you in food or something in exchange for information on me and my growing network of unaligned and strictly peaceful citizens. Am I close?

AARON: Actually, they guaranteed me access to...their DVD collection. 

ELAINE: Really? That's it? You were bought for the price of a few movies?

AARON: Hey, I'm not perfect! I am terrible at keeping deals! When I want something, I have to go for it. I just thought I could maybe see if they had the complete series of Northern Exposure on DVD, binge the hell out of that, and then face the consequences of death or whatever. I wasn't gonna give them anything that would really hurt you, probably.

ELAINE: It seems like you don't really think too far in the future, or consider how your actions truly impact others.

AARON: Wow, you're good! That is just what my partner, marriage counselor, divorce lawyer, and current fiancee said! Are you psychic? You have to tell me if you are!

ELAINE: That's a cop.

AARON: Shit, where?

ELAINE: Nevermind. I'm not concerned with my podcast reaching the ears of The State. The truth is, although it's technically banned, I am confident that I am not doing any real harm. It's just a cooking podcast! Nothing subversive. I definitely didn't have anything to do with the fire at Ted's Bread Store. If telling the officers of The State that information means you get to watch a few hours of Northern Exposure, please pass it along with my blessings.

AARON: Wow. You are amazing. Thank you so much for that. 

ELAINE: My real question is this: are you even interested in cooking these potatoes?

AARON: Um, I guess not really--

ELAINE: Great, I'm so glad you're willing to stick around and walk us through a recipe for these Buttery Homestyle Instant Mashed Potatoes by Idahoan, TM. Stick around through the advertisement, I try very hard to make them not annoying.

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END OF ACT I

INTERLUDE/AD BREAK

ELAINE: This week's episode is brought to you by the LA Dental Clinic, the home of Elaine's Cooking Podcast for the Soul! If you're still here after the two and a half devastating nuclear events that have washed over the West Coast, then we wanna see what's left of your teeth! Chances are, you've noticed that your teeth just ain't what they used to be in regards to both quantity and quality. Rapid tooth loss in the aftermath of nuclear events is inevitable, but the ones that remain deserve only the best. Swing on by the LA Dental Clinic from 10am to 11am Monday through Friday, or 6:15pm to 7pm on Saturdays for a cleaning. We accept canned foods as payment, and will consider other bartering items, such as water, soap, propane, and and green apple Sour Punch Straws. If you come in and tell me you heard this episode, I'll extract one rotting tooth from your skull on the house. LA Dental Clinic: where we swear to care about the tooth, the whole tooth, and nothing but the tooth.

[MUSICAL TRILL]

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Hey - Pat from StarterStory.com here with another interview.Today's interview is with James Rosone of Front Line Publishing Inc, a brand that makes military and espionage thrillersSome stats:Product: Military And Espionage ThrillersRevenue/mo: $19,000Started: December 2015Location: TampaFounders: 2Employees: 2Hello! Who are you and what business did you start?Hello. It’s great to virtually meet you all. My name is James Rosone and I are a thriller author and co-owner of Front Line Publishing Inc. I write military, political, and espionage thrillers, though I’m currently working on a military sci-fi series. My wife and I have published sixteen books, with another four more somewhere in the editing process, getting ready to be released over the next eight months.imageWhen I released my first book in December 2015, I was writing as a form of PTSD therapy. That month I earned $78 dollars. However, my most successful month as an author, December 2018, I earned $47,365 in a single month. Right now, if we include audibles, I believe we’re averaging somewhere around $19,000 a month, so we’ve done pretty well in the self-publishing space considering how long we’ve been writing.What's your backstory and how did you come up with the idea?Before I was a writer, I served ten years in the Army and Air Force, and then followed that up with another eight years as a contractor for the Department of Defense and the State Department. During that time, I lived for 3.5 years in Iraq and 3.5 years in Germany, and spent most of that time involved in hunting and capturing terrorists across the globe. Although the reality was quite different from Jack Bauer in 24, I held a unique job in the military as an interrogator. I’d spend twelve to sixteen hours a day interrogating Al Qaeda prisoners, and we’d use the information to capture or kill the rest of their terrorist cells throughout the country.It was an incredibly intense job. I’d go from huge emotional highs when we’d capture a top 10 high-value individual to immense lows when members of our capture teams would get injured or killed. It was a pure adrenaline junky job, right at the tip of the spear. I’ve interrogated a Saddam Hussein body double that I swore was really him. Other detainees I interviewed ranged from the top five members of the Al Qaeda organization in Iraq all the way down to a fourteen-year-old kid placing an improvised explosive device on the side of a road.Looking back on my time in Iraq, I have mixed emotions about it. I was honored to have served my country and I would do it again in a heartbeat. I’m also torn up at times with the guilt that I could have or should have done more. We lost twenty-six service members on missions derived from my interrogations, and more than a hundred were injured. I kept asking myself if I could have done something different, maybe asked another question or pushed a prisoner a little harder. Would it have changed the outcome? I struggled with that really hard when I left Iraq.imageWhen I stopped working for the government, I fell into a deep depression and my PTSD symptoms became so overwhelming it was hard for me to deal with them in a constructive way. I lost interest in the things that I once loved. However, one hobby I still enjoyed was reading. I became a prolific reader, often devouring one or two books a week. I enjoyed military thrillers, spy thrillers, and sci-fi the most. However, I found myself annoyed with some of the writing. To me, it lacked realism and authenticity. It’s not that the authors didn’t try—many of them did a decent job—but it seemed like they were just writing about stuff they’d never personally experienced. At best, they’d probably read about these topics.One day when I was talking with my VA counselor, he asked me a question: “Why don’t you try writing therapy?” It had never occurred to me that writing might help with my own PTSD symptoms. I kicked the idea around for a couple of years and wrote some things but never published them. Then, in February of 2015, I hit an emotional dead end. I suddenly found myself laid off just as my security clearance was in the process of being renewed.When my security clearance inevitably expired, all my chances of continuing to work in a classified environment also faded into the wind. For me, that had been my life, my purpose, my mission—and it was all suddenly taken from me. I fell into an even deeper depression and really struggled with thoughts of suicide at that point. I had a wife and two kids now, but I had no immediate means to support them. I sat there for one night in the dark thinking to myself, “Wow, I’m honestly worth more dead than alive.” Then I remembered what the counselor said to me a few years before, and the next day, I set off on a course to write the type of books that I liked to read.Take us through the process of designing, prototyping, and manufacturing your first product.Every author has their own style. Some people spend days or weeks prewriting a story. I would describe myself as more of a “Pantser,” meaning I tend to write by the seat of my pants. I’ll craft up an idea for a series with a start point and an endpoint. Now, how can I get from a to z is a constantly evolving process. When I outline a chapter, it’s usually only two or three bullet points.Once that basic outline is written, and it’s not much, I start to fill it in with the story. When I write my books, I tend to write to them with three perspectives in mind:1) The decision maker-level (all wars or operations are typically dictated by the policymakers so I show that part).2) The strategic level of how the military plans to implement the policy decision that’s been made.3) The operational level or the “grunt” that has to execute the decisions.My wife and I are a co-authoring team. We write and produce all of our books together, and at this point, we’ve become a pretty good team. I personally love it. We get to collaborate, and we work from home. We get to spend a lot of time with our kids, go to their school events, spend extra time with them or handle other appointments as needed all while working around our writing.Here’s how the process works for us. When I finish writing the book, I handed it off to my wife. She then goes in and adds some extra flair to the characters, makes sure the pacing of the books is good, completes a first-round edit and then coordinates and handles all of the editing changes from our professional editor and our beta reader team. While she’s working on book one, I’m already burning through book two, when I finish book two, I hand it off to my wife and then I start book three. At this point, book one is nearing completion with the editing process, which is when we put book one up for a 90-day pre-order.imageWe have essentially created a writing assembly line, with a book coming out every 90-days once we start the cycle. Then it’s just a matter of us keeping up with the pace we’ve set and working to ensure we maintain the quality of what we’re producing. We’d rather delay the launch of a pre-order than have to sacrifice on quality. We view writing as a business, and as such, we want to make sure the brand we’re building is known for producing good quality books, not rapidly published books riddled with errors and story plot holes because we didn’t take the time to do a couple of layers of quality proofs.Describe the process of launching the business.When I first started self-publishing, our start-up costs were relatively low. I found a book cover artist on Fiverr to produce a cover for under $100, and we were off to the races. As we’ve become more successful, our costs have grown. We now spend $300-$500 on the cover art. Initially, we spent very little on marketing, but now our average budget is between $2,000-$3,000 monthly. Once we could afford to move beyond our beta team for editing, we also started working with a professional editor, and each pass of a manuscript runs roughly $1,800. There are networking conferences that we now attend; for example, last year we went to Politicon for research. However, each of these expenses was added as we had the capital to do so.When I first started releasing books, I began to network with our readers on Facebook by creating a World War III series page. As I continued to post articles of interest about the military and emerging technologies, the followership grew, and I was eventually able to create ads using a lookalike audience for that group. I did make an error in naming the page after the series; had I known that Facebook does not allow renaming of pages, I would have originally created an author page. As it is, we are still trying to build our author page to the same level of followers as our series page.Back in 2016, Facebook ads were much more effective, but now, I do a lot more of my advertising on the Amazon Marketing Services platform. Then, this year, something changed on the algorithm with AMS, and many authors I’ve connected with say that this year’s costs on marketing have increased dramatically while sales have also decreased. We ended up financing the recording of some of our audibles with credit cards due to the declining sales, which is something I wish we could do-over. Each audible recording is around $4,000 for us unless it is worked out with a royalty sharing agreement, so a few of those can really eat away at our profits. On the other hand, the audible market is growing tremendously, and we didn’t want to lose out on that potential income.About a year ago, we discovered that although our works are copyrighted, there are a large number of websites on the dark web that attempt to sell our works illegally. There aren’t enough hours in the day to track down all of the piracy that happens out there, so I would highly recommend using a site like Blasty.com, which sends cease and desist letters to all of these scamming sites and works with search optimization algorithms to make sure that these results do not readily populate when someone searches for your book.Since launch, what has worked to attract and retain customers?The biggest strategy that we have used to capitalize on reader buy-through of our books is our 90-day rapid release strategy. Each time we release a book, we have the link for the pre-order of the next book in the back matter, ready to go. Now, this does require us to crank out books at a rapid clip, but we’ve managed to grow our followership substantially without investing as much in growing an email distribution list.imageAnother strategy we’ve implemented is asking readers for feedback. When we receive messages from readers who are critical or receive one-star reviews (these are inevitable), we have contacted that person and politely asked them how we could improve our work for the future. By not taking it personally and being willing to listen, we’ve even managed to turn some of our more critical readers into some very helpful beta readers.Finally, we’ve been very active in engaging our fans on social media. We’ve offered to allow fans to name characters and have at times, even asked for input in crafting our stories. This is vital in taking a group that might be casual observers into a collection of superfans.imageHow are you doing today and what does the future look like?Our business is still profitable and allows us to pay our bills without taking on a standard 9 to 5 job. As I mentioned above, there have been some challenges. Recent algorithm shifts for Facebook and AMS have made marketing less cost-effective. A popular advertising site, BookBub, which used to promote a wide range of books, now has shifted away from self-published authors and toward traditionally published authors as well. So we need to constantly change and adapt.We have spreadsheets for entering our books into contests, we’ve been looking into how to get our books into the library system, and we are trying to see if we can get our books into Army surplus stores. We will be trying something completely new and set up a table at one of the local gun shows as well. We are having to get creative and utilize a little guerilla marketing, but we are ready to meet this challenge head-on.In addition to these new avenues of marketing, we are trying to leverage our connections with other authors to cross-promote our books. Because there are so many readers out there who consume books so rapidly, we are not really in direct competition. None of us can produce stories of high quality fast enough to keep up with the readers, so it makes sense to partner together.We’ve put a significant amount of hours and financial investment into having our books turned into audibles this year. We are looking into different ways to promote audiobooks since listeners find their next books in different ways than readers do. This is a rapidly growing market, but the advertising industry hasn’t quite caught up with the demand in this field, so more work remains to be done on our end to capitalize on the expanding need for new audio content.Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?When I first started writing, I honestly didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t understand marketing, I didn’t understand the need for even a basic author website or the need to create an author mailing list. I didn’t actually start creating an author mailing list until I was two years into this business.When I began creating my mailing list, I used the conventional wisdom at the time and tried to give away snippets of my books for free. Many authors do this, and will even give away entire novels just to get people to sign up. However, I quickly learned that those who are seeking free items will usually unsubscribe once they receive their freebie, or will seldom open future emails.I was rather discouraged when I saw this happening, so I changed my strategy. I now grow my mailing list exclusively through the links in the backmatter of my books. I don’t list build like many other authors do. My current list is somewhat small, right around 2,500, but it’s highly active, with an open rate of 70% or higher. Each time I send an email out, which is usually around once a month, I can generate between $500 and $2,500 per email. So while my list is small, it generates me money. It does grow, just much slower than what some of my author friends’ lists do.One thing I’d like to stress to people is that although I’m being transparent and open with how well our sales have gone, you have to understand this didn’t happen overnight. This is the result of a lot of incredibly hard work and sacrifice. I write every day and every week like I’m going to be homeless at the end of every month if I don’t reach certain writing goals. I don’t watch TV, I seldom go to the movies, and aside from playing with my three kids who are all under the age of six, I have no personal life. I work like a beast. I write seven days a week with maybe two or three days off a month. I write on average five to twelve hours a day. When I’m not writing, I’m reading other books in my genre to learn from them, I’m watching MasterClass.com learn from other successful authors, or I’m listening to marketing and business podcasts or YouTube videos.I’m constantly learning or working. I’m not going to maintain this schedule forever, but I am going to maintain it until I’ve hit a certain level of financial freedom. I think a lot of authors would look at my numbers and think they could easily replicate it, but I want to be clear—I often put in eighty to one hundred hour work weeks to make it happen. I research my subjects, interview, and talk with people, and really study up on what I’m writing about. That requires a lot of effort and time. I do believe a lot of people could reproduce these results, but most aren’t willing to put this level of dedication into it.What platform/tools do you use for your business?I use a couple of platforms to market our books. I initially started out using Facebook. That has worked in the past but frankly, they’ve made so many changes to the platform that I’ve found it hard to really keep pace with it and make it profitable.At this point, 90% of my ad spend is done on Amazon’s AMS platform. I typically spend around $3,000 a month on marketing with the bulk of it on AMS. I do, however, use Facebook when I launch a book which is around every 90-days. Most of my Facebook campaigns will usually last around two weeks before I flip back to using Amazon exclusively again.What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?From the beginning, I began networking with fellow authors. I’ve heard mentors say that “fortune favors the bold,” so I constantly approach people on social media and try to pick their brains about how they’ve become as successful as they have.Surprisingly, many authors have not only responded, but have been very helpful. This has led to some very good leads on book cover artists, editors, and other services, and introduced me to Mark Dawson’s Self-Publishing Formula group. Joining the SPF community has by far created the biggest impact in our publishing business and its profitability.imageIn addition to joining the SPF group, there are several books I’ve read that have been very influential. One to mention is Brian Meeks’ book on Amazon Marketing Services advertising. As you can see in the chart above, each of these events led to marked changes in profits.Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?If you want to get into writing, then you need to sit down and ask yourself a couple of questions:Why do you want to get into writing?What do you hope to accomplish?How do you plan on making this happen?What are you willing to cut out of your life to reach your goals?There are two types of authors: hobbyists who write for fun and entertainment, and authors who view this as a business. There is no right or wrong author to be. It’s a personal decision you have to make. If your goal is to publish books for fun and making money isn’t the priority, then that is great. If, however, you want this to be your main source of income to support your family, then you have to take this very seriously. You have to develop a game plan and then execute it.I made a LOT of mistakes when I first started out. I didn’t know the first thing about building an email list, I didn’t have an author page and I had no clue how to write book descriptions, what made a good book cover or how to market my books. I spent hours and hours on YouTube trying to self-teaching myself these skills, but it wasn’t until I learned about Mark Dawson’s SPF program and then read Brian Meeks book on understanding Amazon Marketing Service or AMS ads that things really took off.The best advice I could give to any new author or someone wanting to become an author is to find a mentor. Find an author who produces good quality works and has a track record of success and then see if they will help you in your journey. I’ve done this with several new authors who wanted to get into the game. I share openly my failures, my successes, and what I wish someone would have told me when I first started getting into this business myself. You need to have someone else walk alongside you.Are you looking to hire for certain positions right now?This is a tough question. While we aren’t looking to hire a full-time employee currently, I certainly have areas I need business help in. A couple of areas I’m always looking for help in are beta readers. Our books tend to have a lot of technical details in them, so we have a large team that reads our books before they are released and helps us make sure we get those details right.Another job I desperately need help in is marketing and research. When I hire someone for a job, I tend to pay by the project. My last big project was creating 5,000 keywords for our AMS marketing plan. It wasn’t hard work, but it was tedious and time-consuming. Right now, I am certainly in need of someone who can help me with ways to increase our audiobook marketing or who is knowledgeable on getting books into the library system. It’s all telework, so if you have the internet, a laptop, and a cell phone, you would be able to accomplish the task. If you’re interested in a part-time job or a job that pays by project, make sure to look me up.Where can we go to learn more?WebsiteFacebookIf you have any questions or comments, drop a comment below!Liked this text interview? Check out the full interview with photos, tools, books, and other data.For more interviews, check out r/starter_story - I post new stories there daily.Interested in sharing your own story? Send me a PM

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Pokemon Rps

hey all, i’m wren and i’m forever looking for some pokemon rps!

about me i’m 23 and in EST, and i’ve been rping for twelve years or so i think! i write in third person past tense and i gravitate towards novella-style rping, with about 4-5 paragraphs at minimum for a reply. i like playing multiple characters and have no issue juggling side characters that come in and out of the rp. generally i reply at least once a day, but i’m a graduate student and sometimes things come up. i love tossing around headcanons or plot ideas or playlists or aus, and would love a partner who likes chatting about our characters too!

i would like to rp with someone 20 or older (or at least 18 or older) who has no problem writing 3+ paragraph replies. content is more important to me than length, so don’t ever feel the need to plump up your replies! i just want to have something to reply to. (:

characters and plot so like i said in the title, i’m only looking for pokemon rps right now! i would like to play OCs only, unless a canon character is essential to the plot. i play both male and female characters and would prefer someone who doesn’t just play one gender. i love playing a variety of characters, though i really like individuals who grow and change over the course of the plot! if you have a certain personality you’ve been wanting to play your OC against, just let me know. on the subject of, i’m a big fan of shipping, romance, etc. as long as it isn’t immediate and isn’t the sole focus on the rp! i have a preference for m// and f//, but m/f is fine. smut is great as well, though i have no problem fading to black or avoiding smut if that’s your preference. i don’t have any limits when it comes to violence, gore, and language, though just let me know if you have any!

i’m looking for a rp with the game’s vibe: pokemon not being able to talk, not everyone has super powerful pokemon, wild pokemon can be dangerous, and pokemon are used in areas outside of battling, such as in therapy and medicine. i have a wad of plot ideas written up if you’d be interested in building off of that, though i would also love to hear any ideas of yours! i love world building and plotting so i’m sure we’ll be able to work something out. some general ideas include:

pokemon go i’m hooked and i think it’s a cool premise. i’m totally open to playing team members, playing OCs of the team leaders, introducing villains, making a plot about the three birds, or playing willow and instinct/mystic/valor as a new villainous team.

the bad guy wins alternate universe in which some villainous team or another has accomplished their goal in changing the world forever. team magma has converted most of the planet to land. team aqua has forced the population to live underwater. team plasma has seized control of the region and made it illegal to own pokemon. team flare has eradicated most life and erected a dys/utopia. team cipher has made pure pokemon a rarity and taken political control of orre. i’d be up for trying team galactic making their new universe but that might get pretty trippy.

historical/medieval i love all of the stuff in kalos about kings and castles, and a rp taking place in the past would be rad. exploring how people tame and train pokemon without pokeballs, the role of battling in society, raising and breeding pokemon, fighting battles atop rapidashes and rhyhorns. i gravitate towards a more generic medieval setting, but i’m really up for exploring any era.

tournament i love tournaments so long as they don’t get bogged down by people getting too into making sure their character wins — which i’m hoping wouldn’t happen in a 1x1 haha. no real specific ideas here, but maybe there’s some sort of twist, like the tournament is rigged or is otherwise being held by corrupt individuals, and the victor doesn’t have a happy reward awaiting them. or something dark, like being forced to compete a la the hunger games or that short story “the lottery.” or maybe the tournament is a cover, like the victors are going to be send on an important errand.

new region/villainous team starting from scratch is always fun! playing as elite four members or gym leaders would be great, either in a new region or set in the future of a current region so things have been swapped. there could be a new threat from a team, perhaps with a classic crime-related goal, something genetic with crossbreeds, a cult bumping heads with cities, fanatics who think they’re in the right. plz give me the “professor is the team leader” twist i’ve always wanted.

mystery dungeon with people i don’t really enjoy playing just pokemon, but i’d love to do a mystery dungeon-style rp where it’s trainers and their partner pokemon forming a team and rescuing people. i’ve never played pokemon ranger so i’m not sure if that’s what that is haha. i’d be up to giving it a witcher sort of vibe of traveling between cities doing odd jobs, or a static team located at a base and is contacted when people need help.

fairytales and daemons this is probably gonna be weird but i love the random fairytale references in the games, like the one in lumiose city about beauty and the beast, except the prince was turned into a pokemon. i think i’d be cute to take popular fairytales and rework them within the pokemon universe. i also like the idea of animal companions you’re born with, and i’d be into reworking that with pokemon as well.

i also have some three-person rp ideas if you’d be up for doing a small group rp! i have a friend (kit) interested in rping these ideas with us, so if you’re interested we can all meet and talk!

three person alola rp our characters would basically be three youngsters around eighteen, all coming in to work for professor kukui at the same time and traveling together, doing island trials and recording pokedex entries on commission. this would take place during the games, so they’d be catching pokemon and growing, and would all get involved in the team skull and whatever else debacle. after that’s all sorted away, our characters end up taking different paths in life and grow apart (kit’s gets involved with contests, mine stays with professor kukui to do research, and yours would be doing something else!). however after four or five years of separation, things once again come to a head. alola is hosting a large contest and festival (each region takes a turn hosting, and it’s alola’s year), and either team skull or some other villainous team strikes then. our characters end up having to come back together after years apart, bonding again, and defeating this evil together. we were hoping is that this would be a polyamorous plot. our characters are both male and you’re free to play whoever you want — male, female, nb, whatever! — but we’d love it if you were interested in all of our characters ending up together.

three person revolution-based this one leans on the his dark materials series in that all people are born with a partner pokemon called a guardian — it begins as a ditto than can shift into any pokemon, and then as the person matures it takes the form of a pokemon that matches that person’s personality, and the guardian evolves as the person grows emotionally. an empire known as the vinzenz have been conquering territories in the land and subjecting the people to stripping — killing their guardian pokemon, and killing the guardian pokemon of all children born. our characters are people who are somehow thrown into this turmoil. maybe they’re getting involved in a revolutionary movement, or forced to flee together, or otherwise experience some kind of call to action.

three person medieval johto the rp takes place in historical johto during medieval times, and the region is divided up into three theocracies, each one following the guidance of a different legendary dog. the rulers of these kingdoms believe themselves to be chosen by their legendary, and speak as a mouthpiece for what that legendary desires. relations between the three nations has been tumultuous and their wars have affected humans and pokemon both. the three dogs have decided to intervene and remedy this by selecting three actual chosen ones: one individual from each nation, to help set things right. these chosen ones find themselves together alone with their pokemon, their memories wiped, experiencing dreams about their legendary, and will slowly develop abilities connected to their legendary. my character has been chosen by entei, and kit’s has been chosen by raikou, so you’d be playing the character chosen by suicune! your character can be any sort of individual, preferably in their 20s, from suicune’s nation. you’d be part of the plotting and world building, so no worries about trying to force yourself into a pre-created world.

other a lot of these ideas are only loosely based on pokemon, so if you’d want to do any of them with animal companions or mythical creatures or some kind of vaguely fantasy spin on it instead, just let me know! otherwise i think that’s pretty much it! i’d prefer to rp over email or google docs, and talk on hangouts for ooc stuff and general chatting! however i’m up to getting other messengers if that’s your preference.

if any of this interests you, drop me a line at wingsofaren@gmail.com! looking forward to hearing from you! (: