#and there is the fact that he spent so much time expounding on her failures but completely skipped her ascent to devil hunter celebrity???

[restenergy]

people still liking my post about how i theorized asa would save the day against the falling devil even though i was totally wrong and she got reduced to a damsel in distress lol

[alittlewhump]

Unbidden - Act 2, chapter 1

Masterlist | Previous | Next

Content warnings: sex work mention, one noncon kiss, minor noncon touch (suggestive but not sexual)

Morgan was deeply uncomfortable. The caravan ride had been entertaining, at least for him. Cain was delighted to have an attentive audience, and after divulging all he knew about the events currently unfolding - Diablo's corruption and influence spreading, the dark wanderer last seen heading east and his possible motives - he had expounded at length on his theories about the forces of Heaven and Hell and what moves they might make next. He also shared tales of the time he'd spent in the desert cities in his younger days, and anything else that happened across his mind. It seemed he had an unlimited capacity for storytelling. Morgan liked it, content to absorb as much knowledge as he could.

However, once they'd reached their destination, they had been almost immediately ushered to the palace by a taciturn guard armed with a very sturdy-looking spear. Cain had already slipped away, ostensibly in pursuit of an old acquaintance, but both Blaise and Morgan found themselves visiting the sultan unexpectedly.

Upon their arrival, the man, who introduced himself as Jerhyn, had actually been quite friendly. He had somehow heard about their defeat of Andariel and was eager to pay for their assistance with problems that had arisen in his city. The mercenary guild was struggling to maintain their ranks in the face of increasing demonic activity. Blaise had agreed to join them readily; working together with a group to combat monsters and demons was well within her comfort zone. Morgan was trying to delicately express his preference to work alone, but the sultan was being insistent and it was proving difficult to argue.

The problem he was experiencing was rooted in the attack the harem guild had sustained weeks earlier, prompting Jerhyn to offer the members shelter within his spacious palace. Priests of Rathma had no particular rules with regards to celibacy, but surrounded as he was now by women and men in various states of undress, Morgan found himself wishing they did. He'd never managed to grasp the allure of intimate relations. He was aware of it as a possible motivation for the actions of others - there was a long list of those - but he'd resigned himself to simply not understanding it. The guild members flocked around Jerhyn, all flashing jewels and rustling silks. It was impossible to look at the man without seeing an astonishing amount of bare flesh. Of course Morgan was familiar with the human body, had helped with preparations for some of the more involved burial rites, but this was different. It felt like an invasion of privacy, despite the fact that the display was clearly intentional. His discomfort was making it difficult to negotiate.

Blaise, on the other hand, seemed to be enjoying herself, gazing around with frank admiration. When Jerhyn finally relented, allowing them until the morning to come to a final decision, she grinned wolfishly.

"Does that mean we get to spend the night here?"

Jerhyn smiled indulgently. "Of course, if you wish it. You may stay as long as you like. Any of the companions here can show you to the guest chambers. Please, enjoy yourselves."

Morgan stood and bowed politely before turning to leave. A heavy hand came down on his shoulder.

"Where do you think you're going?" Blaise hissed next to his ear.

"To find an inn," he whispered back. Her grip tightened and he fought the urge to pry her fingers off of him. It would not be wise to make a scene so soon after their introduction, he reminded himself. No matter that he was already uncomfortable to start with, and it was only getting worse.

"You know it's incredibly rude to turn down an invitation like this, right," she pointed out. He... yes, he did know that, now that he thought about it. The overwhelming desire to be anywhere else was impeding his ability to remember all the rules of social interaction. He did not outwardly protest as Blaise steered him back toward the crowd of concubines. "Have a little fun for once," she said at a more normal volume, pushing him into the waiting embrace of a pale, slender young woman before turning away to mingle.

"Nice to meet you, sweetheart," the woman purred, running her hand down his chest. He tried not to shrink away from the contact. "Let me show you to your room. Don't worry, you don't have to be shy with me." She flashed him a dazzling smile.

"Thank you," he managed. She took him by the hand and led him down a staircase and up a corridor while he alternated between looking at his feet and looking at the ceilings. They appeared to be intricately painted tiles, but the details were lost on him.

Morgan heaved a small sigh of relief when she stepped into a room, beckoning him to follow with a wink. Finally, a respite. He opened his mouth to thank her for her guidance, but she muffled him with a kiss, pressing him into the doorway. He froze for a long, panicked second, torn between the desire to push her away and the lack of any adequately clothed spot on her body to push against. As she raised her arms to embrace him, that did it. He reached up to shove against her shoulder, leaning away.

"What are you doing?" he gasped.

"Showing you a good time, sweetie." He was not having a good time. She went to lean in again and he wriggled free, ducking under her arm and backing away into the room.

"Please, don't." He kept his hand raised to ward her off. She pouted.

"What, you don't like me?"

Not especially. The invasion into his personal space had been unexpected and unwelcome. "I'm sure you're... quite lovely," he said haltingly - it was more of a guess than a lie - "but I'm not... interested in... that." He gestured vaguely, hoping to somehow encapsulate the concept of physical intimacy.

A look of understanding dawned on her face, to Morgan's relief. "Oh. Oh! Sorry about that. I can usually guess. Your friend seemed pretty sure down there, doesn't she know...? Oh well, just sit tight, I'll get out of your hair." She flashed him that bright smile again as she left.

Morgan sat wearily on the edge of the bed. New places were exhausting, and he still had to figure out how to convince the sultan that he would gladly help the mercenaries as long as he was permitted to engage with them as little as possible. How best to frame it? He tested a few different scenarios in his head, starting to build a script from the pieces that seemed most compelling. It was laborious enough that he didn't notice the figure at the entrance to the room until it spoke.

"Not a lot of people turn down Meera's company. Perhaps I'll be a little more to your liking."

"Please, I just - um." He'd started to answer before looking up, and found himself wholly unprepared for the vision that greeted him. The most breathtakingly beautiful person he'd ever seen was leaning casually against the doorway. He smiled at Morgan, a flash of pearly teeth bright against the deep umber of his skin, and moved in to perch on the edge of the bed beside him.

"My name is Jemali. What should I call you?" He laid a delicate hand on Morgan's thigh. That broke the spell. Why did these people insist on so much physical contact?

"Morgan," he said, sliding away from the other man. "I don't like being touched," he added.

"You say that," Jemali smiled, edging closer, "but you've never been touched by me. I'd remember a face as handsome as yours." He reached out to caress Morgan's cheek, but he ducked away from the contact, standing and backing away.

"I don't like being lied to, either." The flattery was over the top. A particularly kind and tactful person might go so far as to describe him as distinctive, but that was just a polite way to skirt around the issue. He was ugly. That was an objective fact. There was no point in trying to disguise or deny it.

"Morgan, honey, I'm not - look, I think we got off on the wrong foot here. Let's start over." He patted the bed next to him. Morgan did not move. Jemali sighed. "At least meet me halfway here. I'm trying to please you. If you don't want Meera and you don't want me, what do you want?"

"To rest after a long journey." His patience was wearing thin and he didn't want any sort of company, no matter how lovely they might be to look at. "I just want to be alone."

Jemali arched an eyebrow. "You have a free shot with the finest concubines money can buy, and you don't want to take it?"

"I do not."

"You a eunuch or something?' He cast an appraising glance at Morgan's trousers.

"No."

"Well, now you have me curious." He sprawled across the bed, stretching long limbs to claim the space. "What possible reason could you have to turn both of us down like this? We aren't used to the sting of rejection, you know." He pouted.

"Is it not enough-" he closed his eyes briefly. Irritation was a loss of control, a failure to adhere to the principles that guided him. Plus, raising his voice was starting to hurt his throat. He took a calming breath and tried again. "I don't desire anyone's company. Please just accept that."

"Fine. You don't have to tell me." Jemali rolled over onto his stomach, propping his face up on his hands. "Akarat knows I could use a break anyway. So tell me about yourself, Morgan. Or don't you like talking, either?"

"Not really."

Jemali rolled his eyes. "Of course not. Just my luck, too. Stoic adventurer types are usually right up my alley, but you're going to be a tough nut to crack. I can tell. Don't-" he held up one finger to cut off Morgan's next words before they'd left his mouth, "- don't ask me to leave, because I will, but nobody's going to believe we've finished so quickly. And we're on orders from the sultan to see to you and your friend, so that means I'll have to send in someone else and you'll have to go through this all over again. So just let me sit here for... oh, an hour or so, and then we can both be on our merry ways."

"Fine."

Morgan seated himself in a plush chair opposite the bed, since the other man seemed to be making himself comfortable and he wanted to stay out of his reach. The following silence lasted for nearly a minute before Jemali's voice jolted Morgan out of his thoughts.

"So you must be some sort of wizard." Jemali was studying him, head tilted in what must have been a practiced pose. It was impossible for a person to look so thoroughly statuesque by chance. "You don't have the build to be a fighter. Are you any good? I mean, you must be, or else you wouldn't be here enjoying my company." He stretched languorously. Was he even capable of being still? "Oh, what a story! A strong, silent sorcerer, come to protect us from the clutches of foul demons! This could have been almost romantic, you know. What a waste." He splayed long fingers dramatically across his bare chest, casting his eyes up toward the ceiling.

Ah, yes, the demons. Perhaps he could get some useful information out of this encounter. "Were you there?"

"Was I there when - oh, you want to talk about that." Jemali hugged one knee to his chest, running the edge of a painted fingernail along his bottom lip. "No. No, I was lucky enough to be on a house call. Lost some friends, though." So he could be still after all. Morgan winced. Of course this lively individual had been friends with the victims. Of course the memories would be painful. He hadn't meant to distress him, even though he'd just been hoping for some peace and quiet.

"I'm sorry for your loss," he offered. The other man's lips quirked upward.

"Thanks, honey. That's nice of you to say." He gave a small sigh. "You want to know what you're up against, huh?"

"If I can."

"Smart. Now, we don't make a habit of judging our clientele, but everyone agrees there was a suspicious character who came through just beforehand. Refused to take off his cloak or even pull down his hood. Didn't want anything, just asked a lot of questions and left. Really strange. The demons showed up a few hours later."

Morgan leaned forward. That sounded like it could have been the dark wanderer Cain had described. "Do you know what he asked?"

Jemali shrugged. "Something about old myths, some sort of tomb or something. I don't know."

That would be enough to start with. He could question the sultan in the morning and go from there. Hunting for information was easy enough to justify as an individual task. If the wanderer was looking for something old, that might give him occasion to scour the city archives for information, a pleasantly solitary task. It could also be a justification for working with Deckard Cain, who clearly had some familiarity with the area. The scholar was a useful resource, he reminded himself. It was just a bonus that he liked the old man's company. Things were starting to come together.

Morgan leaned back, satisfied. The action made the collection of small pouches on his belt dig uncomfortably into his side, pushed out of place by the plush stuffing of the chair. He stood to remove them, but of course nothing could go without comment.

"What's all that?"

He considered his options. Ignoring the question seemed unlikely to work, given Jemali's persistence. A vague answer would just lead to more questions, and he didn't particularly want to get into the details of his profession. It might solve the pressing issue of privacy for the moment, but word would inevitably spread, and that could hinder his effectiveness with the sultan. Or get him expelled from the city, depending on the citizens' mood. It wouldn't be the first time. Might as well give a brief explanation.

"Potions. Ingredients for potions. Dried foods. Trinkets." He pointed at each pouch as he named its contents.

Jemali's face lit up. "What kind of trinkets? Like jewels? Oh, can I look at them?"

They were mainly jewellery. Sometimes a skeleton rose with some trappings of its former life still intact - clothes, weapons, baubles. At some point Morgan had started collecting the ones that were particularly appealing to him. The dead generally had no use for possessions. Sometimes he bartered them for supplies, which was useful enough to justify the collection. Sometimes he traded them for other, prettier baubles. To further aid him in his travels, he told himself. Nicer trinkets fetched him more supplies. But he also liked to just look at them sometimes, to appreciate their shapes and the way light played off their surfaces.

He passed the small bag to the courtesan at arm's length. Jemali upended it over the bed in front of him, spreading out the contents to admire them. Morgan, in turn, settled back in his chair and admired Jemali now that his attention was elsewhere. People didn't generally appreciate being stared at, he knew, but everything about the man was arresting. The shape and warm colour of his eyes, the smooth slopes of his skin, the slick, uniform coils of his hair. Even his movements were effortlessly graceful. His voice was easy to listen to, soft and lilting.

"Lost in contemplation of my beauty, hmm?"

Mortifyingly, he was right. "I - I'm sorry. For staring." Morgan averted his eyes. Stupid to have let himself get so distracted. He really did need to rest.

"You don't have to apologize, darling. Clearly you have excellent taste in pretty things," Jemali purred, playing his fingers first over the array of baubles in front of him and then drawing them up to frame his face. He batted his eyelashes. "You sure you don't want a little taste of this?"

"Quite sure." The threat of physical contact was enough to put Morgan back on the defensive. He shifted uncomfortably.

Jemali tilted his head. "You're a funny little puzzle, Morgan. Tell you what, let's make a deal."

"What kind of deal?"

"I'll tell the others that you've requested to be my exclusive client. They won't bother you if they know you're mine," he grinned.

It would have been preferable for the guild to ignore him entirely, but he supposed dealing with a single courtesan would be much easier than trying to explain himself over and over. At least this one seemed to understand his request not to be touched.

"And in exchange?"

Jemali reclined fully, wriggling his shoulders into the sheets. "You let me come and go as I please. I don't have a good place here to take a break when I need some alone time. I'll be as quiet as a little mouse, you'll hardly know I'm here."

He considered. It seemed favourable, provided he could count on Jemali to actually be quiet when he needed to concentrate. But would the guild really keep bothering him as long as he stayed here? Or was Jemali overstating the issue to get what he wanted? He eyed the other man warily.

"And I promise I won't lay a finger on you without your permission," he added. That was enough to tip the scales.

"We have a deal."

"Wonderful!" Jemali clapped his hands together and sat up. "Now let's seal it with a kiss, as a matter of tradition... oh, honey, it's all right, I'm just teasing. I said I'll respect your personal space, and honestly I meant it. I'm sorry, Morgan, you don't have to look so scared."

He clenched his jaw. He wasn't scared of being touched, he just didn't want it. Especially not from someone teasing him. Of course, he should have been expecting it. Tiredness and discomfort had interfered with his usual defenses. And if he was honest with himself, so had the peaceful journey, and so had the man's unexpected beauty. He had to remember that he'd earned a measure of respect from his traveling companions, that he couldn't expect the same sort of treatment from a stranger. Especially not such a pretty one, when he was just the opposite. That was just the way the world worked.

"I am going to rest here," he said, closing his eyes and hoping he could take Jemali at his word to leave him be. That ought to end the conversation.

"You can use the bed, you know."

"This is fine."

"All right, suit yourself." True to his word, Jemali was quiet. Morgan could hear the sheets rustle as he made himself comfortable, and shortly afterward his breathing grew slow and deep. Once he was sure the other man was asleep, he finally felt comfortable enough to slip into a light meditation.

It was nearly two hours later by Morgan's count when Jemali gave a soft, almost musical sigh as he awoke and stretched. There were some quiet sounds of fabric and jewellery shifting as he arranged himself, then the soft pat of his feet hitting the floor. "Until next time, darling," he said in a low whisper, and then he let himself out.

Morgan waited a few minutes before relaxing back into a deeper meditation. The chair was actually quite comfortable, much better than the back of the caravan. There was no need to move to the bed. Tomorrow he would meet with the sultan, well rested and hopefully on his own terms. He was cautiously looking forward to it.

[sepiadice]

DiceJar Campaign 0.3: Holes, Doors, and Blood (2020/03/13)

Finally killed my first PC as a GM!

Yup… Wasn’t intentional but… well, dice made things interesting, so I have to work with it.

We also didn’t have our rogue, which is unfortunate as she’s an enjoyable member, and also there were a lot of traps and locks this time.

The content went through almost the remainder of what was prepared for the previous session. I’d like to get through the content a little faster so the group can move on to actual role-play opportunities, instead of dungeon crawling. It’s an unfortunate result of my experimental Game Mastering a Module, and I’ll likely try and stick to homebrew in the future.

Or, at least, look for modules with more emphasis on socializing.

I did a medium job preparing this session. I got complacent and let the session slip far to the back of my mind leading up. I found my sweet spot session 2, so I need to keep that standard.

Cast

Mogui (IndigoDie): Druid. Does what he’s told by his employer. Indigo has played this module before. Yot (LimeDie): Cleric. Looking to redeem himself for past failures. Lime will commit to bits. Bernard 'Bean' Dipp (NavyDie): Ranger. Trying his best despite being so young. Navy doodles when he’s bored. Delilah Dunford (VermilionDie): Rogue. Searching for an identity beyond her family. Vermilion could not make this session. Game Master (SepiaDie/me): The world (a dusty, dusty world). The walls probably have stories to tell. I’m desperately trying to keep ahead with drawing the map.

Session Three

We reopen in the loot room we ended in the last session. Navy is given his rewards and I expound on the uses of the various items they received.

Now given the opportunity to read his letter, Navy delays long enough to wonder if he’s chosen to make Bean illiterate, but eventually he takes to giving the description: his mother wrote it, opening with a joke, and giving random updates about life in town despite the letter needing to have been placed before the arrival of the party, but it’s an opportunity for the players to expound on their families, so maybe his mother is a little airheaded?

The letter canonizes a High School which has a football team and a glee club. Will anything come of it? Probably not. Did I say with a sigh ‘Guess that’s canon now…’? You bet I did! Always say yes! Improv!

The party headed back into the room with the pool, tested the other door to find it locked, and moved towards the wailing.

The chamber to the East of the entrance contained several walls crisscrossing. A door stood locked to the south. The puzzle of this room is walking around various hidden pit traps while finding three switches that must be held down at the same time to unlock the exit. I originally ruled the switches take a few minutes to reset so the party can run to get to the door, but then I remembered Delilah is technically still there, so I reverted it to operate as written.

Bean and Yot both took turns falling in holes as Mogui moved around cautiously and managed to jump clear of the one pit he did accidentally trigger.

The three maneuvered around the chamber until they found the necessary switches, activated them, and Delilah held open the door so they could get through.

Walking through the next hallway, they finally reached the door for the room from whence the wailing was emitting.

They all decide to ignore it.

Which means they’ve skipped some plot exposition. Oh well, keep rolling and adapt.

Instead, they go down a fork and into an empty room, which formerly held a giant beetle, but I cut that combat as being wholly unnecessary. Instead, our party continues through into the next chamber, which has a fight I did not cut, as I thought it would have narrative value.

A fire pit smolders in the center of the room, a charred corpse within. Upon the arrival of our party, a dark apparition arises and squares up to fight our heroes.

Bean had acquired an Oil of Magic Weapon, granting his bow Plus-One Status, and rendering it a magic attack, so he’s able to harm the shadow.

Yot, meanwhile, uses Holy Flame. Fun fact about our apparition: it was born because a pyrophobic man burned alive in a structure already pretty rife with necromantic energies. That terror and agony was all it took to create the shadow.

So the enemy is real mad at being set on fire, sending out psionic screams for flavor.

Mogui just watches the fight.

After a few rounds of Magic Bow and holy flames, the Shadow perishes. Victory music for everybody!

The party leaves the room, continues to ignore the terrified wails, and enters the last available door.

Within is a round, domed room, with a wooden pillar, standing on an outcrop over a pit at the center of the room, that fires blunted arrows. This is felt to be rather unpleasant, and the party discusses how to deal with it.

Eventually, they check out the door, and find a mechanism built into it.[1] The party attempts to break the mechanism.

Bean then enters, and is pelted by blunt arrows. He walks around and tries to open a southern exit, finding it to be locked, so Bean attempts to approach the trap. Unfortunately, he takes enough nonlethal damage to get knocked out. Whoops.

After waiting for the mechanical whirring to stop, the other two call after Bean, receiving no response. So they cautiously enter.

The trap is now docile. And the southern door is unlocked.

So, what happened here, by the text of the module, is that the trap keeps running for ten rounds, at which time it’ll be exhausted of arrows, and the south exit will automatically unlock. The hope was the party would take the tower shields from the wood golem of last session to block the arrows.

Because of how they broke the activating mechanism (as they snapped off the metal arm in the door hinge that turned the machine off and on), I decided that now once it turned on, it couldn’t turn off. So after Bean was knocked out, the trap kept running until it ran out of rounds.

Don’t ask how the trap’s supposed to keep pelting adventurers inside the chamber after the door closes. Magic I guess.

Stop asking how traps work.

Mogui investigated the south exit while Yot checked on Bean. The door was, of course, unlocked, to the annoyance of Navy, and Yot was taking his sweet time healing Bean, but soon the party was on their feet again and ready for whatever came next.

The final room of the floor widened as it went, the ceiling supported by four columns. Stairs to the south lead to the… basement? Second basement? The crypt’s already underground, so what terminology applies here, I’m not…

Also, there’s two statues in recesses of the south wall. The Module text doesn’t call any attention to them, but they’re probably Kassen.

Our heroes enter this room, get to approximately the middle of the room, and four skeletons, with talon-like clawed fingers and blood dripping from their bones, step out from behind the columns, and menace the heroes.

Combat begins.

As does a series of horrible rolls from both parties. Just a lot of do-nothing turns. Yot tries to bash the skeletons and misses, Bean fires arrows and the closest he got sent the arrow through the ribcage of one skeleton. The skeletons weren’t faring much better, three of them crit fumbling at some point, which I interpreted them as falling prone for a turn.

The rolls were so bad I gently reminded my party that I set up a dice-roll bot in the Discord channel, if they wanted to put Roll20’s die-roller into dice prison. They didn’t go for it.

Back and forth the combat went, the skeletons getting a couple lucky hits on Bean. Eventually, and tragically, those lucky hits added up and Bean hit zero. Navy started making Death Saves, a realm where the exhaustingly low rolls followed and brought him to his death.

NavyDie then spent the rest of the combat doodling an increasingly elaborate death scene, with grave stone, candles, what was either a pentagram or an alchemy circle,[2] and death himself. Whatever self-amusement was needed.

As a narrative-first GM, Player Characters dying in combat is not something I enjoy. I am now in an awkward position of needing to figure out how to proceed and keep Navy involved. If he still wishes to play, of course. A couple options immediately spring to mind: bringing in a new character will be narratively awkward at this point, as we need to justify why the ignorant town would send back up, or why a kid is running so late; there’s an available NPC I could give Navy, but he’d be an odd (but doable) add; or, and this is an idea I like most, I can bring Bean back for a price…[3]

But I need to talk it through with NavyDie first.

Back to those still alive.

Mogui maneuvers to keep a safe distance, eventually coaxing one of the four skeletons back to the previous room, running a circle and returning to the main combat room, closing the door behind him. I rolled a die to determine the nature of the skeletons, and concluded they’re running on animalistic instinct, and thus can’t operate a door.

Also, this cuts down on enemies to delay the fight and rewards IndigoDie for clever problem solving.

Yot, growing tired of not hitting with his Mace, starts using Holy Flame again, forcing the Skeletons to use the horrible dice rolls to avoid damage instead of Yot using the same rolls to cause damage. Progress starts to get made.

Mogui turns into a tiger and starts running about and attempting to hit the skeletons, but still no luck.

There’s also some talk about how the skeletons aren’t taking attacks of opportunity, which had a very elegant explanation: I totally forgot about that mechanic, and I also just plain hate attacks of opportunity. They feel cheap and punish players for not carefully considering every minutiae of their actions.[4]

Eventually, the skeletons are finally either redead, or trapped in another room.

With one dead, the remaining three party members stare towards the stairs to the next floor. As the only escape is to fight the skeleton in the previous room, they mostly consider what difficulty they’re prepared to face.

Of the three sessions played thus far, this one felt of middle quality. I forgot to read my opening crawl text, and I waited until the last minute to write notes for the remainder of the floor (after copying over the leftovers from session two). Neither the combat with the Shadow (where I forgot to implement the smoke in the eyes mechanic the module wanted me to) or the Bloody Skeletons (with horrible dice rolls)[5] felt particularly fun or worthwhile. I’ll probably look to cut more superfluous fights going forward.

I’m also looking forward to moving out of the dungeon. I am learning a lot, as was my goal with running this module, but I’m missing being able to Role-Play as GM.[6] I’m certainly learning to answer questions the text didn’t bother to address, and also how annoying module formatting can be with where it explains things.

When I find time, I should sit down and design a dungeon of my own. That would also be a good learning experience, and also let me feel more at ease with making world-based rulings on the fly and implement elements I like and minimize those I don’t.

There’s just so much combat and map-based traps written in this thing. Makes it too difficult to abstract out the traps and rely on theater of the mind.

Most important take away: Attacks of Opportunity are dumb, and I hereby houserule them away.

I’ve already set things in motion for fun plot developments after this session’s events and feedback received, and hopefully the next write-up will come in about two weeks.

Until next time, may your dice make things interesting.[8]

-

[1] The party is really interested in the actual mechanics of these traps, which the module doesn’t explain, forcing their poor GM to try and reverse engineer it, and maybe I need to start shrugging and saying ‘I dunno, magic I guess.’ [2] Which is a good way to lose a sibling. [3] Just sent Navy a text asking if he’d like a level of Warlock. This could be fun. [4] Also, my experience with another player exploiting the mechanic to attempt to kill me. [5] Though based on his recap, IndigoDie enjoyed the combat for the bad rolls? Interesting guy. It felt like a bad joke that kept repeating to me, and I failed to improvise an Out for those involved. [6] Especially since Indigo sidestepped the opportunity I did have![7] [7] Whatever. Gives me time to give the man a less stupid name. [8] Despite working it into the opening, this sign off still doesn’t sit right. Feels too long… Magazines have little icons to mark the end. Maybe I should do the same?

[rejectedembers]

Firebrant: Shades of Magic

So, here I go again, being a hypercritical bitch about a beloved book, or, rather, series. I want to make it clear right off the bat that I LOVE this series; I love the characters, I love the setting, I love the writing. I’d read this series again in a heartbeat, and no doubt eventually will. That doesn’t mean that I don’t see its flaws and weaknesses, or at least see what it could have been.

Spoilers inbound.

Without a doubt, this series’s biggest strength is its characters. I would even venture out in saying that Schwab doesn’t write characters, but rather people for how real they feel. A big part of this stems from her enchanting, but not overly flowery style of writing; descriptions never overstay their welcome. But these are all things you discover the more you read. The series’s major draw, however, is its setting, or at least that’s what the premise would have you believe.

The blurb on A Darker Shade of Magic immediately informs you of the parallel Londons (Red, Grey, White, and Black), and how only Antari can travel between the worlds. My assumption upon picking up this novel was that the inter-dimensional travel was going to play a significant part in the upcoming tale, and it does...for the first book. But once you get into book 2, characters seem to barely ever travel between the worlds. 

This is especially noticeable in the third book where I don’t think they traveled outside of the Red world at all to resolve the main conflict within the plot. Traveling could have easily been facilitated without even changing much of the plot: the MacGuffin the protags are after could totally have wound up in one of the other worlds at some point in time (I’ll elaborate more on this later). It’s especially annoying since we get constant reminders via Ned’s chapters of how Osaron’s magic seems to be seeping into the other worlds. It’s like Schwab is dangling the possibility of going there in our faces only to never deliver on this promise.

Honestly, the big problem here is simply a lack of world-building. When Schwab does spend time describing even the small, insignificant parts of everyday life, the setting really comes to life. I had very little difficulty imagining all of the Londons despite the fact that I’ve never even been to a single London in my own reality. But after establishing these settings in the first book, Schwab rarely returns to world-building from the perspective of the past. Events and characters become very grounded in the present, and even in flashbacks the focus is generally on the characters and what they were experiencing internally. The Red, White, and even Black worlds start to feel like there just isn’t much history to them, when that can’t possibly be true. And while I agree that it would have been rather tedious to sit through pages and pages of a character expounding on the “grand history of Arnes” or something of the like, there is something in particular that irks me when it comes to the lack of history.

The Antari play such a large role in the series, and yet after everything is said and done, you don’t actually get to know all that much about them. You get to know tonnes about the Antari characters, but almost nothing of the Antari themselves, their culture, their historical roles. Granted, part of the appeal of the Antari is that even they can’t answer what they really are, where their powers came from, why they were chosen, but how Antari come to be and what they decide to do with themselves afterwards are two entirely different groups of questions. It’s mentioned that there were once dozens if not hundreds of Antari prior to the catastrophe that happened in Black London. I find it hard to believe that, even if they each had their own loyalties, some of them wouldn’t have come together to create a unique culture. Even, at least, something more or less academic, trying to find answers to the question of how Antari come to be. 

I was really disappointed to find that the lore of the Antari was never expanded upon. More information on the Antari could have provided a lot of substance to many different areas of the story. The Antari characters could have learnt something about themselves while delving deeper into the mysteries of their predecessors, the concept of a culture of inter-dimensional travelers opens up more opportunities to include traveling in the story, and the plot could have received some much needed resolution for several key questions (I’ll expand on this later, too). 

This leads us to the overarching plot of books 2 and 3, easily the weakest part of the series. I love a good “save the world” plot as much as the next fantasy junkie, but I feel like it was just tackled lazily here: some evil force shows up, threatening to destroy all that the characters love, and they are the only ones who can defeat it. Other than that, there’s not much else to say about the main conflict, no twists or turns in the structure that keep you on your toes. A large chunk of the time was just waiting for the characters to find a solution they can start working on so they can finally have something to do. 

It doesn’t help that Osaron is one of the least compelling villains I’ve read about recently. I feel that Schwab was aiming to make him both a threatening, alien force unable to be reasoned with or properly comprehended by mortals, and a relatable human-ish being with desires and personality. I find him to be a failure on both ends, since the addition of some aspect of humanity completely destroys the image of him as an imposing, unbeatable entity, and he never reaches a level of depth and complexity that the human characters do, making him seem more like a caricature of a villainous person than anything. And this comes in stark contrast to Athos and Astrid, the villains from the first book, although you don’t even know they are the true villains until at least halfway into the novel. They were quite compelling for how they were very human and yet very, very twisted, and I really wished there had been more with them, especially for how they could have contrasted with Holland, showing us what White London is versus what it could be. Obviously, Athos still would have had to die, but it would have been interesting to see Astrid try for revenge or something of the like.

All in all, I don’t think the structure of the series helped. The first book very much feels like a standalone; one or two elements don’t get completely solved, but I also don’t think it was necessary to have seen them get resolved to have still had a full story experience. And while the first book provides set up, the plot of A Darker Shade of Magic feels entirely separate from the plot of A Gathering of Shadows and A Conjuring of Light, and because of this, the entire series feels stilted. Books 2 and 3 are so intertwined they might as well be one book, but the jump from book 1 to 2 is downright jarring in comparison. To be honest, I prefer the jump from 1 to 2 over 2 to 3, but considered as a whole, the lack of a continuous plot through all three books (or the lack of dedication to a series of single book adventures) definitely makes it seem like Schwab only intended to write one book but somehow came out with three.

In general, I would have liked to see a story that had an overarching plot, but included smaller moments of drama and adventure within. The characters are what really make this series stand out, and they shine the brightest when they interact with each other. They needed more time together, conversing and taking part in some action, solving problems together. Setting up almost episodic mini-arcs would have provided a good platform for this.

When it comes to leaving the main plot (mostly) intact, the ending could have been a bit more like this. Lenos could have known of an Inheritor due to his Antari grandmother, and, through tracing its path, they discover that she smuggled it to one of the other worlds (providing a little validation for Kell). Thus, our three Antari travel to either White or Grey London (perhaps Lenos’s grandmother sent it somewhere it could do no harm), and take part in their own little adventure to retrieve it. This would also provide an ideal chance to have them discover and learn from each other and/or their surroundings something about Antari history and culture. Meanwhile, Alucard stays behind with Rhy, and the two discuss what happened in the past (I’m not sure it’s ever explained why Alucard can’t just tell Rhy the truth. Is there a reason why Rhy may not believe him without proof? Seriously, it bugged me how they just never talked it out.). Rhy forgives him either then or later, and Alucard should have a moment where we see him protecting Rhy, making Rhy’s choice later on to have Alucard be an official protector make more sense, especially politically since there would have been witnesses. The three Antari eventually return, and execute their attack (or still have to travel to the ship market since maybe the Inheritor got smuggled around again). The point is the majority of the time spent mostly just sitting around the palace struggling to find a solution would be cut out, or relegated to some much more concise Rhy/Alucard chapters.

There are a few other disappointments I had with the series. Ojka, while an interesting character, is never really given much to do, a moment to shine. Most of the chapters involving her feature her internal thoughts about Holland and what he’s done, but not what she’s done. It feels like she was built up to be and do more, and so is far too quickly killed off. 

I’m also disappointed that there wasn’t some deeper connection revealed between Osaron and the Antari. I really got the sense after A Darker Shade of Magic that there was something about the Antari specifically that resulted in Vitari not being able to immediately take over their minds and bodies, something more than just “they are extra magical and thus extra magically resistant”. Once I got a bit into A Gathering of Shadows, I theorized that everything from Black London, including stones, was a piece of Osaron via his magic, and that Vitari was just a branch of Osaron’s consciousness. Thus, whatever special connection Vitari had to the Antari also applied to Osaron. 

After more solid evidence was given to suggest Delilah was Antari, I came up with a more fully-fledged theory: Osaron was to be the Black London Antari, or at least used to be one prior to absorbing all of the Black world’s magic. This would check out with the general pattern that was emerging: one Antari from each of the worlds. It also made sense logically as only an Antari should have been capable of whatever magic resulted in Osaron claiming it all in his own world. Not to mention this would explain the relative lack of/access to knowledge on the Antari; one of their own practically destroyed an entire reality, and they would not want that happening again. The magic, thus, that connected Osaron/Vitari to the Antari was more than just power, but some mystical tie that exists between Antari. Obviously, this is not what happened at all.

I have a few other, smaller nitpicks. I really wanted to see Kell and Alucard face off in the tournament just to experience the absolute bitterness that would be Kell after being forced to throw the match or else be caught. This would have contrasted well in a later scene of Kell and Alucard fighting side-by-side and discovering that they work well together. I also wanted to see more adventures aboard the Night Spire. It could have been more removed from London, or at least on the outskirts and so available to the group. In any case, the ship got a lot of play early on and build up in general for something much bigger, and for it to pretty much never come back in the main plot was disappointing. Pretty much everything with Ned and King George the IV was a waste of time. I was really hoping that that subplot would go somewhere if only to allow for some inter-dimensional traveling, but unfortunately not. I’m not a fan, either, of the decision to make the series rather dark and depressing by the third book. I understand that the situation was meant to be dire and “real” and adult, but it started to feel cheap once characters just started getting killed off left and right. 

Also, while I feel that the characters were very well-written, there is one thing concerning Kell that has bugged me since the end of the first book: he never seems to feel any real guilt over sending Holland to Black London. Admittedly, Holland was the aggressor, and so I can see Kell not feeling overly guilty about besting him and pretty much killing him in their last duel, but Kell is an Antari and he knows that they heal faster than most and can recover from some otherwise pretty nasty injuries. So, it kind of baffles me that his excuse for why it’s alright that he sends Holland to Black London is because Kell’s sure the other Antari is going to die anyways. Holland did end up recovering, so I just feel that maybe Kell should have known better than to assume. 

In any case, Kell’s never really forced to confront any guilt over the fact that the whole situation is entirely his fault even if it was simply a chain of consequences from one unfortunate choice. The closest we get is that he, eventually, sympathizes with Holland and the poor treatment he’s getting from everyone, because, had he given in at the end of book 2, Osaron would have used his body to get to Red London. If anything, though, this consequence didn’t feel like a result of a decision Kell made, but rather one that Holland made when he first found Osaron in Black London. The reason for Kell’s guilt or regret should come from the decision he made back in book 1 to send Holland to Black London, but there’s never get a good scene of him mulling over this fact, or even approaching Holland about it in a meaningful way. There’s also, that I can remember, no mention of Kell ever feeling that he should be completely responsible for finding a solution to the situation he inadvertently caused. Even if he never vocalizes it, or tries to go out on his own, he just never even thinks about it, and I just find it so incredibly odd that a character like Kell never feels the depth of that guilt either towards Holland or the entirety of Red London.

So, that’s all I have to say on this series, I hope. I do really love this series. It captured me from the onset, and even as I sat there with a critique starting to form in my brain, I couldn’t help but want to read more, for it to go on forever. My complaints are largely things I’ve noticed in retrospect, and aren’t about to deter me from picking up these books again. The Shades of Magic series deserves all the praise it gets, and I hope this rant doesn’t deter anyone from loving it any less.

[mollymauk-teafleak]

My Heart: Chapter 3

Next chapter! This one is pretty damn romantic with surprise elopements, a lot of kissing and a lot of fancy dresses and some kind of ill thought out sex. And buckle up, petals, cos after this comes @childofdustandashes‘ chapters and they’re going to be ten times better than anything.

Enjoy! Please reblog and let us know what you liked about it!

Sometimes the most important things in your life happened without any fanfare at all, just out of the blue, no warning, no time to prepare. Sometimes you had time to gather yourself, to prepare but other times, it just hit while your back was turned.

From the better vantage point of the future, when events became memory and were suddenly laid out like a map with the consequences clear and the choices already made, everything surrounding the impact was suddenly imbibed with significance. It was all just footsteps towards the main event, the moment everything changed bleeding into the mundane activities around it until they were lost. Of course, when you looked back, you saw it coming because it was right there, the next inevitable piece of the puzzle.

But when you were actually living it, Adrienne would reflect for the first time but certainly not the last, everything just felt like components of any normal day. You were as blind as anyone else, putting off the alarm for another five minutes, brushing your teeth listlessly, dismissing small stains on shirts that no one was really going to notice. You never prepared for your life to change.

And yet, sometimes it just did.

***

They were lying on the grass, seconds away from impact, enjoying the sudden and unexpected warmth of the spring day. Adri had her head in Gil’s lap as he teased her braids around his long, delicate fingers, lost in perfect contentment like Ahab when he found a sunny patch fallen perfectly on his favourite cushion in the whole library. He’d long ago stopped listening to the play script she was reading aloud to him, his relentlessly busy mind wandering off to join the bees currently distractedly hopping from petal to petal just off to their left, as his brain went from thought to thought. Adri didn’t mind, that was just her Gil, and she needed to practise reading aloud anyway. After much gentle persuading and prodding and wheedling from her boyfriend, as well as a sex strike until she at least considered it (which ended up lasting a grand total of half a day on both of their parts), she’d auditioned for the school’s spring play. Despite being sick with nerves for the entire week, she’d somehow found herself playing Gwendolyn in The Importance of Being Earnest, with pages upon pages of dialogue to learn, a British accent to perfect and a joy and hunger in her heart she’d never felt before. Gil had been patiently running lines with her ever since she’d flown into his arms, surprising herself by crying with happiness, after he’d waited outside the drama room for forty five minutes while she had her callback that ended so well. So Adri could forgive his attentions wandering away from what must be the fiftieth rendition of her monologue he’d listened to. Besides, his posh British accent was hideous and she didn’t quite have the heart to tell him. He made a terrible Jack.

The hours didn’t seem to be all that concerned with moving past at their usual pace. The day seemed almost honeyed, in its brightness and sweetness and in the way it seemed to be oozing past with a more lazy pull of gravity than normal. Adri was adoring it; at home everything was always so rushed and harried, words came so fast they all felt like criticisms and every task seemed to come with a time limit, a countdown and a threat of failure along with anything as simple as choosing what to wear in the morning. But with Gil, there was never any pressure, there was never any stress. And, most important, there was no judgement. As long as Adri was smiling, Gil was smiling, supporting her through everything. If she’d told her mother that she wanted to audition for a play, she’d have gotten a narrowing of the eyes sharp enough to cut glass and a curt comment about how that would cut into her study time and wondering why she wanted to make such a spectacle of herself.

Well, maybe Adri wanted to make a spectacle. Maybe she thought it would be better than staying meek and quiet and feeling good for nothing more than attracting a young man. The fact that she was brave enough to even consider something like that, to give life to the thoughts that had always paced and fidgeted uncomfortably at the back of her skull, was dizzying but that was just one of the many gifts Gil had given her.

Another one of the gifts was this peace. Adri felt the sun warm her right through to her bones, the shadows of the little grove of trees they’d settled beside meandering from where they’d begun this morning at her crossed ankles and bare feet, up to where her wrap around skirt grazed her shin, right up to her bare midriff, having decided to tie her shirt off under her breasts when it was clear how warm this morning was going to be. The only sound was her own voice, ringing clear and accented, full of the sincere joys of slipping into the shoes of someone fictional, someone with a much simpler and comprehensible life and motivations, a path that could be so easily walked and understood because it had been written that way. There was a real feeling of community to it, like she was aware of everyone else who’d ever worn this character’s name and face and life, of the brief escapism they’d sought just like her.

She was already thinking to herself that maybe she’d audition for next semester’s play too. And the next. And the next. And that maybe she’d look into the admissions requirements for some drama schools in the city…

The air was swinging low and heavy with the scent of lavender and the sweet grass underneath them, the taste of the blueberries they’d eaten for breakfast was still on her tongue, the feeling of Gil’s fingers playing with her hair was so soothing she felt like she could fall asleep right here with her head in his lap. They hadn’t moved in hours, since he’d suggested they have breakfast in the sun, and she saw no reason to change tactics.

Adri and Gil never saw it coming.

Adri pictured the blocking in her head as she read aloud until her brain absorbed the words eagerly.

“I pity any woman who is married to a man called John. She would probably never be allowed to know the entrancing pleasure of a single moment’s solitude…” she expounded with a careless, girlish air before dissolving into bright, lower giggles that were entirely her own and drew Gil’s attention back to him and made his heart beat a little faster, “Ah, I love that line.”

“Do you really?” he smiled, hand drifting down to run along her jaw lightly, “And what does Oscar Wilde have to say about marrying guys named Gilbert?”

Adri hummed thoughtfully, miming flipping through the pages in search of an answer, “How about that, nothing in here. Strange.”

Gil snorted, “Probably because he didn’t expect anyone to actually consider marrying a guy with a name like Gilbert.”

“Hey now,” Adri frowned at him upside down, the slim book resting on her chest, “No bashing your name. I love it.”

His cheeks turned a little red, he always blushed so adorably, “Okay, point taken.”

Adri nodded in satisfaction, always ready to swat away the symptoms of her beloved’s inexplicably low self esteem, reminding him how she loved every facet of him, only finding more and more little oddities to smile about the more time she spent with him.

“I’ll make my own mind up about marrying men named Gilbert, thanks very much,” she grinned, “I’m very much into the idea, as it happens.”

Gil blushed harder, answering her grin with one of his own, “Careful what you say. I could marry you right now with minimum encouragement.”

Adri giggled brightly, the sun winking in the brown depths of her eyes, “Dude, we’re eighteen! You don’t mean that...do you?”

“I actually do,” Gil chuckled, looking a little embarrassed, “Is that weird? Honestly, I’d gladly just jump in the car, go into the city and just...do it? Y’know?”

A small shiver ran up Adri’s spine, as if the sun had gone behind a cloud but it was still warming her as companionably as ever. It was something closer to anticipation, to tripping over something she hadn’t even realised she’d been looking for, a sudden glint of sunlight bouncing of the surface of what, something, and catching her eye.

“Why don’t we?” she murmured, sitting up and turning to look at him with her face open and honest with no trace of mocking.

Their eyes met for a long moment, their minds unknowingly going through the exact same list of thoughts at the same pace. They were adults. They had Adri’s car. They had money. They had time.

“We actually could, couldn’t we?” Gil whispered in awe, so many emotions in his eyes, suddenly looking so young, “We could do it right now.”

“It would be completely and totally insane,” Adri nodded, of course it would, neither of them were denying that.

“It is kind of on the extreme end of impulsiveness, yeah,” he murmured.

“My mother would kill us. Hell, she’d kill you twice.”

“Our parents aren’t going to understand.”

“It might...it might not work out.”

“People are gonna think I knocked you up or worse…”

“It’s as far from traditional as you can get…”

They were still gazing at each other, holding each other’s eyes, searching for the right path in each other’s face. Neither of them expected to actually find it, they were just groping for a handhold to end this freefall they’d tipped themselves into. But, to both of their utter surprise, there it was.

“That’s...the con list is looking pretty long,” Gil swallowed, his throat suddenly felt dry, his fingertips itched.

“So what’s on the pro side?” Adri wondered, sensing the restlessness in his hands, covering them with her own in a comforting, tender gesture.

“That I love you,” Gil murmured, weaving his fingers through her’s, “And I want to do this.”

The smile she gave him as those words sunk in for both of them was warmer than any sunlight he’d ever felt on his skin, sweeter than any honey he’d ever tasted, more of a sure and certain and reassuring answer than anything he’d ever found in his own heart.

“I love you too,” she admitted, in a voice as shy and delicate as the way the breeze around them made the grass whisper, “And I want to marry you. Today. Right now.”

He smiled back in answer, “Then I’m all yours.”

And that was all it took.

The morning so far, as wonderful as it had been, Adrienne would barely remember any of it. It just couldn’t stand up to the wild, halcyon explosion that followed, that soaked everything else up in it’s brilliance; it was like what had lead to it had just been the falling asleep whereas their impromptu wedding, their elopement was the dream.

But those words of the man who would be her fiance for less than four hours and her husband for much, much longer, I’m all yours, Adrienne would remember them until the day she died.

***

The important thing about being the finest and well respected jewellery store in the entire city of love, the one frequented by the lords and the titles and the gentry and the celebrity, the one with the real artistry, was that it wasn’t obvious. The whole point was for the elegance and status to be effortless. That way, they didn’t have just anyone coming through the doors; it was all about the reputation which, in turn, was all about the clientele. That was the Parisian way.

Hence why the man behind the counter, with more knowledge behind his thick glasses on the subject of diamonds and rubies and emeralds and sapphires than most people would even suspect existed, was more than a little surprised when the two teenagers came through the front door of his tiny shop tucked away down one of the many winding side streets of the city. He found himself taking a step backwards as their laughter echoed through the small store of mostly sleek dark wood and endless rows of glittering gemstones, like an apothecary for beings made purely of gemstone. He wondered if they were drunk for a moment, with the way they seemed to be hanging off of each other but it became clear they were just unwilling to drift away even a little, like they were their own little solar system consisting of two planets dancing around each other within the confines of the shop but always returning to each other’s sides. There was something in their smiles, in the way the young man, tall enough that the shop owner was confused for a moment but the youth in his expression was obvious, kept pressing kisses to the side of the young lady’s head, in the way she kept kissing the back of his hand as it was clasped in her own. Something that kept him from asking them to leave, that made him settle back on his stool behind the counter and go back to weighing the pearls in his long, deliberate hands. Just some teenagers having fun after maybe just a little too much wine on a warm day...even he’d been young once...

Gil knew next to nothing about jewellery, the only piece he wore was the bracelet of simple yellow and green string he’d made for himself that had sat on his sharply angled wrist since he was fourteen. Everything Adri wore, what she chose to wear at least rather than what she was firmly told to wear, it was all simple and understated, picked because of its sentimental value rather than anything else. The bronze brooch in the shape of a bee she wore on her hat band that had been her grandpa’s, the simple silver ring that had been a present from her father. They both felt a little overwhelmed in the face of all of this gold, silver, platinum. The formality of it all was something of an uncomfortable reminder of how fast and loose they were playing this, making them feel like children playing at a game in the school yard.

But that was when Gil caught sight of it, lying there in amongst a display of burnished gold. As soon as he saw it, his jaw dropped a little and he gripped Adri’s hand, pointing frantically in that way he did when he was just too excited to form words. It usually only happened when he saw a cute dog in the street. But as soon as she saw what it was that had snagged his attention, the smile that blossomed on her face was somehow even bigger than the one she saved for the chatty border terrier that lived in their favourite bookshop.

If ever they needed a sign that this wasn’t the most insane thing anyone had ever attempted in the history of forever, there it was, in the form of a simple ring of several thin gold strands wound together like the thin branches of some tree adapting and shifting to the pull of the sun while bathed in it’s glow. And flowering from its delicate circlet, several pearl lily heads.

“Not quite as beautiful as the one’s in the garden,” Adri murmured, resting her head on Gil’s shoulder, “But they’ll do, right?”

“In a pinch?” he chuckled, kissing the top of her head, “I think so.”

Even a gold wedding ring from the finest jewellery store in Paris put barely a dent in the Marquis’ son’s bank account. He waved away Adri’s protests that this was unnecessary, she’d marry him either way, insisting that he’d spent a lot more on stuff that was way more idiotic. As soon as it was bought and signed for and they found themselves back outside in the slowly maturing sunlight, Gil smiled widely and sank down on one knee right there on the cobbled street, holding it out to her in it’s sleek velvet box.

“Baby, we’ve already done this bit,” Adri giggled, blushing as pink as the roses growing in the store’s hanging baskets. They gave the air such a fresh, delicate scent; flowers were really starting to be a thing for them.

“Yeah, but now I’m doing it properly,” Gil laughed, he loved it when he could make her blush rather than the other way around, “Now come on, will you, Adrienne de Noailles, marry me? Sometime in the next few hours before city hall closes?”

“You already know the answer is yes!” Adri tried to feign exasperation but he was far too cute to do anything but sink down on her knees too and press a kiss against that smug, playful smile of his, caring nothing for the eyes watching and brows raising.

“I know that, I just wanted to hear you say it again,” Gil beamed, sliding the ring onto her finger. It fit perfectly.

One job down.

***

Unsurprisingly for two in the afternoon on a Tuesday in March, there weren’t many people frequenting the high end wedding finery shops of Paris. In a fit of romanticism, one of many he’d had so far that day, Gil remembered which store his Maman had bought her wedding dress from, the one he knew Adri had admired one day when she’d pulled an old photo album down from the shelves of his library, much to his chagrin (there were some pretty embarrassing baby pictures in there, back when he’d sported an afro that was bigger than the rest of his body). The young lady behind the counter was as startled as the jewellery store owner had been, a little more willing to turf the giggly, bright eyed pair of teenagers right back out the frosted glass doors until Gil slid his credit card along the marble counter and that took care of any problems that might have arisen.

And now he got to flop lazily across gilded antique chairs, loosely holding a flute of champagne that tasted a little like dust to him but Adri thought it was phenomenal, watching as she tried on dresses. He was supposed to be helping her critique them and choose which suited her best but all he could ever find it in him to do was applaud and nod enthusiastically and say she looked like an angel in every single one, all while his fiancee rolled her eyes and pulled the next one off the rail.

Seeing as the whole concept of a dress had been on his own insistence, Adri had been perfectly content to get married in what she’d spent the morning wearing, he felt like he should be more helpful. Not that he didn’t find her wrap around skirt, baseball shirt and sneakers beautiful, he was just very aware of how pretty much every gown and dress she owned had been chosen by her mother rather than her, how every single one was just another piece of her life she didn’t have any control over. He’d seen that look in her eyes as they’d dressed for galas and balls together, when she tried to smooth down ruffles and tug high necks as far down as they’d go and hitch belts a little higher, the look of resignation and tucking feelings away somewhere she wouldn’t have to think about them.

Gil just wanted her to get married in something she felt beautiful in. Something to start to take that look in her eyes away.

Which is why his face split into a grin as bright and as sudden as daylight through stormclouds when Adri caught sight of herself in the eighth dress selection of the afternoon. In an instant, Gil knew this was the one she had to have; her eyes turned to wide droplets of the night sky, dark and alive with shining stars, when she saw herself in the ornate full length mirror in the corner.

They’d tried on over the top dresses of sea foam and cloud to amuse themselves, they’d tried on sleek, silky dresses with trains as long as Gil himself, he even lied down on the floor to check, they’d tried on lace and floral and modest and short. This one had been a bit of a wildcard, it had been slid in behind many others, almost like it was an afterthought. But Adri had always had a thing for afterthoughts, Gil had always rationalised that it was why she’d chosen him.

Sure enough, it looked a little sad and understated when it was on the hanger but the moment Adri slid it over her head and Gil deftly took care of the zip for her, it became something wonderful. It was a simple shape, gathered at her waist and running in a waterfall of ivory down her legs with tiny silvered detailing that looked a little like breaking waves, a little like flowering vines, a little like ripples, a little like sunbeams. It just seemed like it had been specifically made for Adrienne, hugging her in the right places, hanging down off her shoulders with a perfectly casual air. It emphasised her youth, it highlighted the delicate arch of her collarbone, the playful smile that was the default setting of her face. Even with her sneakers concealed under the skirts (Adri hated high heels and absolutely would not wear them on her wedding day), she looked as gorgeous as any bride. There were tears running down Gil’s face before he was even aware of it.

“Oh no, don’t!” Adri begged through her smile when she saw, throwing her arms around him. She could never bear to see him cry.

Gil hugged her back, “They’re good tears, I promise. Only because you look so beautiful.”

Adri turned so she could look at herself again, now held safe in Gil’s arms, her head resting back on his chest, their smiles matching each other for brightness, for width, for perfect innocence.

“I actually am,” she murmured softly, beaming proudly at herself, “I’m pretty damn beautiful.”

Those words alone were the best gift Adri could possibly have given her new husband.

***

Evidently, they weren’t the first teenagers to come bursting through the revolving doors of the office of records, in hastily acquired wedding regalia, drunk on each other and asking for a marriage license. It was the city of love after all, elopements were probably common. No questions were asked.

All it took were two signatures, carefully inked on a piece of paper, and that was it. It felt like such a simple gesture, such an arbitrary action, just words on a dotted line but both of them felt a little dizzy after it was done. It was only when they were halfway down the courthouse steps that they realised they’d forgotten to even kiss. Gil swept her into his arms, dipping her right down like they were in some old fashioned romance in black and white with a swooping, kind of tinny soundtrack behind them. But in his kiss, Adri could taste how real this was, how this was just her and him and what they’d just willed into existence together. It was terrifying, it was momentous, it was so, so beautiful.

They both knew there were serious consequences lurking outside of the rose coloured bubble around them, on the outskirts of the dreamlike world held within the confines of this city that could forgive so much, that could allow things possible nowhere else to exist. They’d face them when they were ready, when this fragile thing wobbling on its baby deer legs had grown strong and proud and firm enough to face it all. That time was coming but for now this was their wedding night and they were going to have fun.

There were many fancy hotels in the city of Paris, finding one with an available honeymoon suite was surprisingly easy. Not that Gil or Adri gave the room more than a cursory glance at first, not when they were so busy falling back onto the bed, so tangled in each other it was hard to tell what belonged to who, whether that was Gil’s hand sinking down and disappearing under the skirts of Adri’s wedding dress, whether those were Adri’s legs wrapped tight around his hips, pressing them down instantly, who was making those soft, desperate, hungry moans, who was grunting longingly, whose teeth were sinking into whose earlobe. None of it mattered, not until twenty minutes in and they both came so hard there were tears in their eyes.

Adri gave Gil another kiss against his cheek before gently disentangling herself, pulling her dress back up over her shoulder where it had fallen down, padding over to the window. Only now she realised how high up they were, the entirety of Paris in all its sprawling, messy beauty laid out in front of her. Like so many people who’d been granted a view like this, Adri could taste possibilities welling in the pit of her stomach, different possible futures stretching out in front of her as winding and tangled as the city streets. Perhaps she and her new husband (it felt a little odd to think that, a surprised little bubbling of pleasure) could get jobs at that bookstore they’d been to so many times, live in a tiny apartment on each other’s love. Maybe they could go to the grand, vast university, collect degrees like trinkets, learn every fact that had ever been committed to paper. Maybe they could open their own bakery, spend the rest of their lives smelling of warm sugar. Or perhaps they could just get on a train and never get off again, move from platform to platform and see where they ended up, stay moving until her wedding dress fell to tatters.

Each one was tempting in it’s own way. Honestly, as long as she had her Gil, her husband, she’d take anything. Adri rested her forehead against the cool glass and smiled dreamily. For the first time in a long time, she was excited about her future.

She went back to bed glady when Gil sleepily rose out of the tangled mass of plush, silky duvet, his curls somehow even voluminous than usual, his grin sweet and crooked and inviting, wanting round two. Those potential lives were abandoned as she tumbled back into his arms, forgotten as nothing more than daydreams she could return to another time, well read and loved novels she could drift back to when she was nostalgic for their stories. Making any concrete decisions about what steps they would take together, hand in hand, after this could wait. One life altering decision was enough for one day, surely?

Neither of them knew it as they went again and again, until they were both exhausted and satisfied right down to their bones, that a decision had already been made, one maybe even a little more significant than their marriage, taking shape somewhere deep inside Adrienne as the sun rose over Paris.  

[condensed-theorem-shop]

Here, let me take a break from ranting about cults to talk about something nice and uncontroversial (ha): homeschooling.

And by “talk about homeschooling,” I mean “copy/paste a comment from Ozy’s blog, because it got sufficiently long to be maybe worth sharing on my own.”

I was homeschooled much like this! And so have Many Thoughts. Apologies for the absurdly long comment.

(Well, my parents would never describe themselves as “unschoolers” in a million years — they’d say “classical/eclectic” if asked — but “classic homeschoolers who pay serious attention to the child’s interests” and “unschoolers who pay serious attention to the three R’s” probably converge at some point.)

I had a very very positive experience with homeschooling overall (and am happy to expound on it at length; my parents are very Into educational theory, and included me in the discussions as I got older).

(Braggy data on success thereof, which I blush to include, but: I ended up graduating at 16, attending a college in the top 20 in my field, and recently getting accepted to a good grad school with tuition waiver, TA position, and fellowship. On the non-math side, I double-majored in honors liberal arts, and was nationally competitive in fencing in high school. My 13-year-old sister is auditing her first college class (discrete math), regularly runs local 5- and 10Ks and places top in her age group, and wants to be a surgeon. The 10-year-old is on Suzuki book 3 for cello, and one of the top students in the local string project. All of us were reading at two, reading chapter books at three, and won various impressive things in lots of math competitions as well as the private-school-equivalent-of-UIL.)

So from that experience, some thoughts:

(1) The sleep thing is so so so true. Easily the #1 thing my non-homeschooled friends were jealous of. (#2 was not having to take the state’s standardized tests.) Possibly this is outdated science, but my understanding is that teenagers are actually just biologically wired to go to bed later and sleep in later than adults.

(2) Exercise, yes! Homeschooling and exercise and free-range kids all fit very nicely together. I did lots of biking and swimming and hiking and roller-blading and just running about wildly; it definitely contributed that by the time I was in double digits I was allowed to ride my bike anywhere within about a ten-block radius (the boundaries were defined by the nearest streets busy enough to be dangerous), so I got lots of exercise just getting around.

(3) Something of a follow-up on that last: if your kids are going to be running around unsupervised outdoors during school hours, you should probably make sure you’re clear on the local homeschooling laws, and then coach them on how to talk to a policeman. My parents did that for me, which was good, because it did in fact happen a few times that a policeman stopped me and asked some very pointed questions about whether I was playing hooky.

My instructions were: be polite; say “yes, officer, no, officer”; explain that I was homeschooled, and it was my recess [we didn’t have anything that formal, but easier to say that than explain your entire homeschooling philosophy]; if they insisted on taking me to the station, comply and then ask for my parents until they were provided.

The last stage of that never in fact came into play; the policemen always went “oh, okay. My sister homeschools! Do you like it?” and let me go (once with instructions to go get a better lock for my bike).

(4) I absolutely approve of homeschooling as “hey, let’s test out our kooky educational theories!” That’s exactly what my parents did. (My dad’s pet theory is that algebra should be introduced alongside arithmetic, and slopes alongside fractions. All three of us turned out super-math-y. Just saying…)

(5) One of the best things about homeschooling is a 1:1 (or close to it, if you have multiple kids) student:teacher ratio. Take full advantage of this.

(6) Yes, the math thing! A depressing number of homeschooled kids end up with poor math skills. It doesn’t help that it’s usually the mom homeschooling, and women seem to have even more of a tendency to go “oh, I can’t do math, it’s scary” than men. (Not claiming that women are inherently worse at math or anything; this seems to be pretty clearly a response to cultural pressure.)

Hiring grad students is a good idea; they’re interested in the subject, have some teaching experience, are usually lonely for their own families/younger siblings, and will work for dirt cheap. My family did a lot of that for me.

Beware of Khan Academy and various other “teach your kid math for you” services; these tend to prey on this phenomenon. Parents will pay ridiculous amounts of money for canned math curricula, because they’re so nervous about their own abilities; and while I know a lot of public-schooled people who used Khan Academy on their own after school and liked it, it really doesn’t substitute for an actual math teacher, especially for kids who aren’t inherently super-math-gifted. If you want a math curriculum, consider looking into Art of Problem Solving.

(7) A common unschooling failure method is: the kid spends twelve hours a day playing minecraft, the parent decides this is Probably Educational He’s Learning About Architecture Or Something, at eighteen he still can’t read or multiply. (My parents tend to refer to this as “nonschooling.”)

Making the three R’s less optional will probably help with that. Also, it seems like there’s something to be said for helping kids do things that they first-level don’t want to do but second-level do want to do. Plenty of adults use things like leechblock, or accountability to a friend, to serve the same function; a kid can’t reasonably be expected to have mastered using those tools, so a parent reminding them to turn off the computer and go work on their exhaustively detailed pyramid replica they love seems like a good thing.

C. S. Lewis actually brings something like this up in the Screwtape Letters (as part of an analogy for spiritual growth, but whatever). He points out that reading children’s versions of Greek myths is fun, and learning the first handful of Greek words is fun; and that being able to read Hesiod in the original is also fun; but in between, there’s a lot of drudgery with memorizing paradigms and struggling through translations. Even a kid who’s really passionate about Greek may need to be nagged a bit on a day-to-day basis to go review their verb tenses; it seems hard on a twelve-year-old to require them to have the intrinsic motivation to do that without any authority figure nudging them.

In my family, what this looked like on the day-to-day level was: my parents would tell me things like “no, go do your translations before you play” or “don’t forget you need to spend 30 minutes working on chemistry at some point this evening.” (Not very unschool-y, I admit.) But they’d be flexible about it, if I’d gotten really into researching the mathematics of swarming behavior or something.

And if some subject was consistently a cause of misery for me — not just “ugh, organic compounds, whyyy” but genuine “I hate this, it’s boring, I don’t want to do it,” every time over a period of days or weeks — they’d discuss with me whether I genuinely wanted to quit the subject. (It was really really clear that this was actually an option, and I wouldn’t be in trouble for choosing it or anything, which was crucial.)

I nearly always, given some space to think about it, decided that I wanted to keep working on the subject. Sometimes we’d decide to put it on the back burner for a while and come back to it next semester, or to skip to a different part of the subject and come back to that one another time, or try a different textbook, or find a tutor. Occasionally I did decide I was done with the subject, and they respected that.

I think this worked out really well. The only two subjects I can think of that I decided to totally quit were piano and Latin, and in retrospect both were absolutely the right call. Piano I quit after a year, and I recall absolutely none of it; I’m profoundly unmusical and was a disaster at it and hated it, and don’t wish in the least that I’d kept trying. Latin I quit after eight years and an audited university class; my parents and I had a serious discussion, and agreed that while I was glad to have studied Latin I wasn’t interested in pursuing it at a higher level, and that “took a class on the Aeneid in Latin” would be a good milestone for having mastered it to a casual-reading-of-Latin-texts level, and so I did that and then quit. I’m a little rusty, now, but given a dictionary and grammar can still read Latin texts fairly comfortably.

(8) I think you’re overestimating the difficulty of learning a foreign language. I had a friend growing up who was German/English bilingual, as was his mother; my mom tutored him in literature in exchange for his mother spending an hour or so a week talking with me in German. Afterwards my friend and I would hang out, and were encouraged to talk in German.

In addition, I did Rosetta Stone (pricey but effective, immersion-based) and later the Foreign Service Insitute’s course (free online if you can find it, or cheap to buy; immersion-based; meant for diplomats who are told ‘okay, you’re going to Germany in a month, be ready.’) (I also did another online course at one point, but it wasn’t very good.)

By the time I graduated high school, I was able to (with reference to a dictionary) read genuine literature in German; Goethe and Rilke were my favorites. My accent was apparently very good; I was asked more than once if my parents were native speakers (e.g. by the instructor in the not-so-good online course). I got a 4 on the German language AP test, which exempted me from all foreign language requirements in college (which I’m very grateful for; college language classes are super-intensive).

And — in some sense, the most important — when I spent a semester abroad, I was comfortably able to get around Vienna for a week or so speaking to people in German. (It helped in Hungary, too; Hungarian is hard and I learned very little, but nearly everyone spoke either English or German.)

I think key elements in that were: I started early (I was seven when I met my friend); I spent a good amount of time with a native speaker; and everything I did was immersion-based. The not-so-good course I took wasn’t mostly immersion-based, and I actually found that very frustrating, because I had to keep switching languages in my head; eventually I convinced the teacher to just talk to me in German all the time, which everyone else found very impressive but made it much easier for me.

(9) What you’ve said about the social issues all sounds right. I think the value of just escaping the social pressures of middle school isn’t to be underestimated; I know a surprising number of people whose parents homeschooled them /just for middle school/.

I got to spend my early teens dressing however I felt like (frequently ridiculously), wearing no makeup, hanging out with boys as friends, and not being at all self-conscious about any of it. My friends in public school were constantly worried about their appearance and their weight — and I don’t mean this as “I was a better person than them” or anything like that, I mean that other girls made nasty remarks to them constantly, and I escaped that. I’m very glad to see my sisters getting the same benefit.

(10) Also: bullying. Or, rather, not. The vast majority of my friends who were in public school were bullied, at least at some point; many of them still deal with ongoing trauma from that.

I encountered bullies — twice, total. The first time was in elementary school, in a homeschool group, and my mom promptly picked up on it and got the bully kicked out — she was able to both notice and do something about it, neither of which parents of kids in school can usually do. The second time was in middle school, in my fencing club; I took it to the instructor promptly, because I had spent my whole life with authority figures who listened to me and trusted me and acted productively on that. She had a very stern talk with the much older teenager in question, and he left me alone from then on.

Honestly, I’m pretty sure the bullying issue alone justifies homeschooling.

[shsl-shipper-gamer-fangirl]

For @skiretehfox's Maximus AU which is one of my favorite iterations of Max (and it's how I found your blog!) I fell in love with her at first sight and this is me singing praise and thanks for creating her and the whole AU. I hope I didn't write her ooc and if I did, please correct me. Anyways, here's the fic, enjoy!

Maximus Victory

Maximus was never one to be bothered to make an effort. In fact, she's given up trying altogether. She's learned at an early age that effort is futile but it's not because of the ratio of attempts to failures, rather the opposite. Everything was just so easy to achieve and so predictable. The world was dictated by patterns and to accomplish a goal was to simply follow the set path with predetermined rules. Perhaps that's why the only semblance to excitement there was in life for her was when she's bending the said rules or when there were hardly any restrictions in the first place. Either works and since she gets bored easily, she doubles in both.

She majors both in Law and in the Arts, Photography in particular, at the same time. There's a reason why she specializes in both of these areas. Manipulating the laws of legality was interesting enough to work as a brain-teaser for her on good days. Manipulating the laws of photography to get that perfect shot can be entertaining and fulfilling at times. And then there's the hidden third Major in Time, manipulating the laws of space and time just because she can.

No, she didn't fucking stutter. She has time powers, deal with it.

It's a rather dull story if you asked Maximus and although it was surprising at the time, that excitement obviously didn't last for the rest of her life. Actually, that got her the time powers in the first place: the end of her life, or at least it was supposed to be. Coming from a prestigious family has its own downsides aside from the boring parties filled with pretentious adults pretending to give a shit. For Maximus, she got kidnapped at the age of ten. The criminals weren't even professionals and ended up accidentally shooting her. She would have died too or maybe she did die but her rewind just overwrote that history. Needless to say, someone other than her ended up with a bullet on that day.

Rewinding time? What-the-fuck-ever. She doesn't give a shit.

Having time powers got old real fast. It was nothing that extraordinary for her as mastering any other skill. Within weeks she learned how to prevent the nosebleeds and within months, she could rewind for more minutes than she'll ever need to. She's confident that she knows how it works and mastered all of its tricks so much in fact that whatever thrill she felt on the first time had long since died along with the timeline where she's supposed to be dead. The supernatural aspect of it has been normalized and has now become routine. In short, she got bored. She started to think that whatever this was just might be the most exciting experience she'll ever get.

Her boring days carried on until she turned eleven and she attended a charity event in Seattle with her parents. She absolutely loathed these social gathering of hypocrites and if she had a choice, she wouldn't be here at all. Unfortunately being a kid meant less free will on her part but at the very least she was allowed freedom to separate and roam on her own. The exhibit wasn't even that interesting but it will have to do rather than the annoying adults that filled it. As she easily weaved through the groups of people she would have nothing to do with, she eavesdropped on voices that only spoke of bullshit.

Until she heard a voice that seemed to carry an IQ that was higher than the room's average.

"What an insult." The voice belonged to a girl with long blond hair and a scowl that matched her disgust. She's standing by one of the art booths and muttering to herself far too loudly and condescending. "No one's actually here to donate for the arts. Everyone's too busy kissing ass with people instead of actually admiring the displayed masterpieces." She glared at the room in general with great disapproval that Maximus couldn't help but approve.

"Masterpieces?" She smoothly took a spot beside her with an amused smirk. "Point me at one when you see them."

The girl turned to her, most likely surprised that someone would comment on her not so inner monologue. Her cheeks were tinged red with embarrassment but she quickly masked it under the guise of anger. She's certainly a proud one. "Well of course I didn't mean all of these!" She gestured to the entirety of the room and then crossed her arms. "There's no such thing as a gallery filled with only the best works. More than half are usually dull stud shots just trying to catch a ride on the greatness of the actual good ones."

Well she's not wrong although Maximus wouldn't want to inflate her ego by admitting that. At least this girl knew what she was talking about and she had the backbone to speak them out. Her eyes shone with the slightest of interests. "Huh, is that what you think so?" She tested her, intimidating.

"That's what I know so." The girl confidently replied and with a raised chin, she beckoned her, "And? What do you think?"

Maximus blinked. That's new. So there truly existed a person who wouldn't shrink from her. This girl could hold her own ground and who was Maximus to deny her conversation? "Hmm..." She hummed shortly and then pointed to one photo in particular. "Well this guy's trying too hard to go for Avedon-esque."

It was unexpected but the girl's face lit up at the mention of the photographer. It was so bright and instantaneous that Maximus could have sworn that a flash literally went off. "You know Richard Avedon? He's my hero!" She started excitedly and even jumped a bit when she fully turned towards her. When she realized that she had forgotten the proper but also boring TPO, she quickly composed herself. She held herself back but the embers in her eyes continued to glow warmly. "I mean... ahem, yes it is rather distasteful at how poor his attempt is. It's an absolute disgrace. I can't believe this crap is even here."

So this girl apparently also knew how photography worked and Maximus is impressed because that's already more than most of the guests' actual knowledge of the art. "And how would your attempt be?"

"Obviously better than this amateur." She scoffed and there was something with the way she said it, the power in her voice, that told her that she wasn't just all talk. "See, the technique is just..." And then she proceeded to expound on how to pull off an Avedon photoshoot.

And although Maximus was not one to socialize, she thought that she didn't mind spending time with this girl.

"Maximus Caulfield." She finally said after their fourth conversation. There was a small but noticeable proud grin on her face. This girl had earned the right to her name and frankly, she enjoyed her company. "It's a fucking relief to know that there's someone here who isn't a retard."

The girl just nodded in agreement. "Likewise. You aren't just air yourself." Despite her proud attitude, there was a clear underlying tone of approval in her voice. "If you don't already know, I'm Maribeth Chase. I suppose you can call me Mary for short."

"Mary, huh?" She rolled the name across her tongue experimentally. Something about the name just didn't sit right with her and she wracked her brain as to why. In the end, she couldn't figure out the reason but she did figure out a new nickname. "Nah, I think I'll just call you Vic."

"Vic?" She repeated and with obvious confusion written on her face. "Why Vic?"

She shrugged. "Dunno. It just feels right."

"Well I'm not the only one going home with a stupid nickname, Maxine." She eyed her levelly.

"It's Max, never Maxine." Maximus shot back and then smirked. "I think we're going to get along just fine, Vic."

They got along more than just fine, so much in fact that their parents already arranged for them to get married in the future.

Not like that made any difference since Maximus wasn't planning on spending the rest of her life with anyone else. She already spent her first eleven years with boring complacency and she'd be damned if that lasted any longer. So they meet again at another gala the next month and then after, they scheduled a meeting without the crowd of overaged morons. Maximus found Vic interesting enough that she dropped from her current school and transferred to hers. Vic couldn't believe what she did at first but she may have half screamed half squealed when her parents confirmed the fact. Maximus later found out about it and teased the hell out of her cute blushing face.

By the time that Vic got her pixie cut, they were already dating. The confession wasn't as much romantic as it was spontaneous.

"Date me." Maximus just suddenly dropped out of nowhere during an ordinary drive to the coffee shop.

The confession was just so unexpected that it almost passed by Vic's head. Almost. In a few seconds, her brain stopped and so did the car as her foot slammed on the brakes. Her head turned and faced her, gaping. "What did you just say?"

"Eyes on the road, partner." Maximus teased. "Did you know that most car accidents happen because the driver is looking elsewhere?"

"Oh, don't you pull that shit on me." Vic snarled and Maximus smiled wider because even Vic's angry face was cute. She didn't share her same amusement though. She glared harder. "Did you just say what I think you said?"

"Sorry, did I stutter?" Maximus leaned in close, so close that their noses were almost touching and their breaths were warm and mixing, and oh god it was intoxicating for Vic. In a seductively low voice, Maximus whispered, "I said fuck me."

A delectable shiver ran through Vic's spine and Maximus' teeth showed. There's also the obvious coloring of her cheeks but Vic was adamant on powering through this. "Maybe I'll think about it when you say what you actually first said."

"So that's a yes on fuck?" Maximus grinned devilishly.

Vic's blush burned to a darker shade as she stammered, "F-Fuck, Max! Just say those goddamned words already!" And in a softer, more shy voice she whispered, "I just... I just want to hear them and know this is real." And that's Maximus's signal to quit messing around.

She schooled her face into one of seriousness as she gazed deeply. No more fucking around. "Date me, Vic." Before Vic could answer, Maximus' lips were already on hers. And when she pulled back, she faintly heard the reverent whisper of a "yes" that she pulled from Vic's lips. Maximus licked her lips with pride. "We're gonna fucking rule the world together."

As much as Maximus would have loved to skip to the part where they rule the world, Vic thought it was imperative for them to continue their education and this was non-negotiable. So fast forward to now where they're in college. At least they share an apartment so she thinks it's not all that boring. Maximus still doesn't give a shit about things but Vic does and she makes it a point that Max knows.

"Max, get your lazy ass up already or you'll miss your defense." Vic scolded her for the nth time this past ten minutes. "Don't make me throw water at you because you know I will if you don't get up in the next thirty seconds."

"And ruin the bed? Where ever will we sleep then?" Maximus gasped playfully.

"Obviously I'll be taking the sofa and you'll be sleeping on the cold hard ground. Twenty seconds." Vic tapped her foot irritably by the bedside.

"Hey, don't talk about our floor like that." Maximus pouted. "Besides, it's more comfortable than you think. The coolness is perfect for the summer weather."

"It's officially winter in two weeks. And no, you're not getting any extra blankets to touch our impeccable floor." Vic pushed. "Ten seconds."

"Vic, it's eight in the morning. My defense is at nine. There's no need to rush. Besides, the prof is just as tardy as I am anyways." Maximus reasoned but Vic was having none of that.

"Five seconds, Max." She announced tersely and raised a glass of water threateningly.

Maximus immediately shot up at the last second, reached for the glass and downed the whole drink. "There. Now where's my morning kiss?" She smiled lopsidedly.

"That hardly bears merit for a reward." Vic scoffed as she took the glass and set it aside on the bedside drawer.

Without warning, Maximus leaned forward and pecked her on the lips. "I'm taking it anyways." She grinned toothily.

Vic's already used to Maximus' impulsive displays of affection but she never did learn how to tame her blushes. "You're insufferable." She muttered but not with a small smile.

"That's so sweet of you to say, thank you." Maximus replied with a chuckle that ended shortly when she growled lowly, "So where's my morning makeout session?"

Vic blinked. Her eyes quickly flitted to the clock and then back to her girlfriend, debating. She bit her lower lip in thought as Maximus licked hers in anticipation. Until finally, Vic let out a sigh and leaned forward. "Fuck it. Ten minutes tops."

Maximus just grinned in victory. "Negotiable, right?"

And sure, life was still boring as hell most of the time and Maximus could still never be bothered to make an effort. But it's moments like these that make her consider otherwise. Maximus couldn't care less about anything but Vic worries about everything. Life has been less boring with Vic around and Maximus will do everything within her power to keep this life. Whenever she thinks of Vic, she thinks that maybe she'd like to at least try. Effort has never been her thing but maybe that's just because she didn't have a reason worth it before— before Vic. It's different now and maybe she's changed as well even if only just by a bit.

Maximus puts in a little more effort nowadays and even more so when Vic rewards her.

[peterpanquotes1]

The Review of Reviews: First Impressions of the Theater, 1905

Page 245: Last month I had my first experience of the musical comedy, which I have hitherto avoided. I went to see, or hear, “Veronique” at the Apollo Theatre. I should not break my heart if my first musical comedy should prove my last. But I also had another experience of a much pleasanter kind. I went to see “Peter Pan.” And I heartily wish that every child and every grown-up who has still preserved the heart of a child, or any part thereof, could have an opportunity of seeing that charming spectacle.

Before describing my impressions of cither, I must make a passing note of the reviving popularity of Shakespeare—and of Shaw. "John Bull's Other Island" has been so popular at the Court Theatre last month in the afternoons, that an Irish peer told me he had in vain attempted to book a scat. "House full " in the afternoon has encouraged the experiment of a series of evening performances. In time we may see this delightful play making the tour of the provinces. It is not the only play of Mr. Shaw's that has been performed last month. We have had the sequel to "Candida" at the Court, and "The Philanderer" in the City. Shaw stock is looking up.

But this is as nothing to the run on Shakespeare. Last month three of Shakespeare's plays were performed every night at three of the most popular theatres. "Much Ado About Nothing" has succeeded "The Tempest" at His Majesty's Theatre. "The Taming of the Shrew " still attracts crowds to the Adelphi; and Mr. Lewis Waller has revived "Henry V." at the Imperial. Besides these runs, the heroic and indefatigable Benson has played Shakespeare twice a day at the Coronet Theatre, Notting Hill, where the London public have had an opportunity of seeing "Macbeth," "King Lear," " Richard II.," and "The Comedy of Errors." It is a long time since the sovereignty supreme of the King by right divine of the drama was simultaneously acclaimed on so many London stages. May this be an augury of better things to come!

Peter Pan, the boy who wouldn’t grow up, is a dainty, delightful little magician, who makes old boys grow young again at the Duke of York’s Theater, twice a day, six days a week. I saw it on its 98th performance. I hope to see it again on its 998th, for there is no reason why it should ever grow stale. It ought to share the eternal youth of its charming hero. Mr. .J.M. Barrie deserves the thanks and the congratulations of all who love children and of all who possess the faculty of being as little children. To become as a little child is the secret of entering other kingdoms besides the kingdom of heaven. I frankly own I was prejudiced against “Peter Pan,” because of the legend put about that it was a dramatized version of the “Little White Bird.” That legend is a libel upon “Peter Pan.” The story is not by any means exceptionally attractive: it is tantalizing, irritating, unsatisfactory. But “Peter Pan” is simply delightful, unique, and almost entirely satisfactory.

Imagine one of Hans Christian Andersen’s charming Christmas stories, one of Captain Mayne Reid’s hair-raising romances of scalp-raising Red Indians, and R.L. Stevenson’s tales of bold buccaneers, all mixed up together, and the resulting amalgam served up in humorous burlesque fashion for the delight of the young folks, and you have “Peter Pan.” Grey-bearded grandfather though I am, I felt as I looked at “Peter Pan” that I renewed my youth. It seems as if I had never grown up. I was in the magic realm of the scalp-hunters, the enchanted wood of the gnomes, revealing in the daring devilry of the pirates, and clapping my hands with delight over the exploits of the darling, delightful, invincible Peter Pan. And I wondered as I left the theater whether Mr. Barrie and Mr. Frohman had enough love for little children in their hearts to give some free performances of “Peter Pan” to the poor children of London town, to whom seats in the Duke of York’s Theater are as unattainable as a dukedom. The good old principle of tithes might be invoked to justify such occasional free performances as a thank offering for a great, a continuous and an increasing success. Instead of the ancient hebrew offering of the sheaf of the first-fruits, which was brought to the Temple in thanksgiving for the harvest, it surely ought not to be an impossible thing to get the principle accepted by all theatrical managers and authors that whenever a piece has made its century one free performance should be given as a thank offering — a sheaf of first-fruits offer in thanksgiving to the poor of our people. And what play so admirably suited to initiate this law of thank offering as “Peter Pan”?

“Peter Pan” opens with an immediate initial success — a success achieved by an actor whose human identity is so completely merged in the dog (fem.) Nana, that it is a moot point with many youngsters whether Nana is not really a well-trained animal. Nana, a black-and-white Newfoundland, is the nurse of the three children of Mr. and Mrs. Darling. She puts them to bed, tucks them in, and hangs out their clothes to air by the fire.

Page 246: After an amusing scene with some medicine, the three children — the girl, little Wendy, and her two brothers — in their nighties and pajamas, are sung to sleep by their mother, who is not only a darling in name but in nature. When the mother has gone and the night-lights are out, the window opens, and Peter Pan climbs into the room. Peter is a superb figure of a Cupid without his wings, who, nevertheless, and perhaps because he has no wings, flies much better than Ariel, as seen at His Majesty's “Tempest.” A ruddy-faced, lithe-limbed, beautiful Cupid, not the chubby little Cupid of Thorwaldsen, but the divine boy of Grecian sculpture, a Cupid crossed with Apollo, a magical, mystical lad, with whom it is not surprising that everyone fell in love, from the fairy Tink-a-Tink to Tiger Lily, the Indian Queen. He wakes the little girl, and tells her he is the boy who did not want to grow up, and who, for that good reason, ran away from home, as soon as he was born, to the Never Never Never Land, where he has charge of all the boy babies who fall out of their perambulators. He never had a mother, does not know what a mother is. When the little maid proposes to give him a kiss her heart fails her, and she gives him a thimble as her kiss. Not to be outdone in generosity, he gives her a button as his kiss. Waxing bolder, Wendy kisses him, and explains that that is a thimble; and Peter Pan only knows of kissing as an exchange of thimbles. Peter astonishes Wendy by flying about the room, and she hears the bell of Tink-a-Tink, the fairy, whom Peter has inadvertently shut up in the drawer. Being liberated, Tink-a-Tink, a swift quivering white light, flies about the room. When the bell rings she talks, and Peter interprets her words to the wondering Wendy. At last she perches above the clock, and appears like a little Tanagra figure of light. And here I may make my only criticism. If Mr. Barrie were to go to any of Mr. Husk's seances l>e would hear fairy bells much better worthy the name than the muffin bell of Tink-a-Tink. And if he would consult any of the classics of the nursery he would discover that his white little statuette that perches above the clock may be anything in the world, but it is not a fairy. Tink-a-Tink could so easily be made so fascinating and so real an entity that I was surprised at such a failure in a play that is otherwise so admirably staged. Peter Pan, expounding the truth about fairies, explains that a fairy is born with every baby, but that, as a fairy dies whenever any boy or girl says " I don't believe in fairies," the mortality in fairyland is high. But unless something is done to make Tink-a-Tink a little more life-like than this darting light and white illuminated little statuette, I am afraid “Peter Pan” will raise rather than reduce the death-rate among the little people.

When Peter Pan tells Wendy that it is quite easy to fly she wakes her brothers, and the three kiddies make desperate and at first unsuccessful efforts to imitate Peter's flight backwards and forwards across the room. At last they master the secret, and one after another, the children fly out of the window and disappear. They are off to the Never Never Never Land, where little Wendy becomes the mother of the forlorn “mitherless bairns" who live in the care of Peter Pan, clad in furs, in a region haunted by fierce wolves with red eyes, by prowling Redskins and savage pirates. The interest of the play never stops. The wolves are banished by the simple and approved method of looking at them through your legs. Wendy Moira Angela Darling, to quote her full name, comes flying overhead and is mistaken for a strange white bird. The children shoot at it, and Wendy falls apparently dead with an arrow in her heart. Peter Pan arrives, and, in fierce wrath, is about to execute judgment upon the murderer, when Wendy revives; the arrow has been turned aside by the button which Peter Pan had given her as a kiss. Grief being changed to rejoicing, Wendy is adopted as the mother of the brood, they build her a house, improvising its chimney pot by the summary process of knocking the crown out of a hat of that description. The scene shifts, and we are introduced to noble Redskins and ferocious pirates, in fierce feud with each other—a feud terminating unfortunately in the discomfiture of the Redskins after a desperate battle. Then we make the acquaintance of James Hook, the terrible pirate, whose right hand has been eaten off by a monstrous crocodile, which relished it so much it has spent all its time ever since tracking down the owner of the rest of the body. The pirate, who has replaced the missing hand by a double hook," is a holy terror to all his men. He fears neither God nor man, but he is in mortal dread of the gigantic saurian, which would have eaten him long ago but for the fact that it had swallowed a clock, the ticking of which in its inside always gives the pirate warning of its approach. At last, however, Peter Pan extricates the clock and the pirate meets his doom.

This, however, is anticipating. Peter Pan, who does not understand what love is, inspires Wendy, Tink-a-Tink and Tiger Lily, the Indian Queen, with a hopeless passion. He can only interpret it by saying that they all want to be his mothers. Poor Tiger Lily courts him with unreserve, but he is faithful to Wendy. The pirates capture all the children, and the pirate chief pours poison into Peter Pan's medicine glass. Tink-a-Tink, the faithful fairy, drinks up the fatal draught to save Peter. As she is dying, Peter Pan rushes to the front, and with a genuine fervour of entreaty that brought tears to some eyes, declared that if every child in the audience would clap its hands as a sign that it really did believe in fairies, Tink-a-Tink would recover. Of course there is an 'immediate response. This profession of faith in the reality of fairies revives the dying Tink-a-Tink, and the clanging muffin bell testifies to her complete restoration to health.

Page 247: Before the children are captured by the pirates there is a delectable scene, charmingly true to life, where Wendy, the child-mother, tells stories to the children after they have gone to bed. It is simplyexquisite; the interruptions of the youngster insatiable for white rats, the exclamations of interest and approval, the naivete and earnest make-believe of the little story-teller, are absolutely true to life. The story-telling was better than the pillow fight, which might have been much more realistic, and the dancing of the boy with the pillows on his legs was hardly in keeping with the realism of the rest of the scene.

The last act brings us to the pirate ship, where the children are captive. They are about to be made to walk the plank when the cockcrow call of the adorable Peter Pan is heard within. He slays two pirates who are sent to investigate the strange noise, blows out the captain's lantern, and finally engages the pirate captain in broadsword combat. The fight becomes general. The pirates, discomfited, leap overboard, and the children crowd round the victorious Peter Pan, whom we recognise as the latest lineal descendant of Jack the Giant Killer, and who, although no braggart, is calmly complacent as he reflects upon his prowess. "Yes," he says, as he seats himself after the battle, "I am a wonder." And a wonder he is, a wonder-child of the most approved pattern.

After the restitution of the lost children to their beautiful mothers—where, by-the-bye, in harping on the mystery of twins Mr. Barry ventures perilously near forbidden ground, Peter Pan returns to his house on the tree-tops, when the curtain falls upon him and his beloved Wendy standing, like jocund day, tiptoe on the misty forest tops.

I ought not to omit to mention that the crocodile gets the pirate after all; that the dear, delightful nurse-dog reappears, and is restored to his kennel, in which Mr. Darling has been living ever since the loss of the children; and that everything is wound up satisfactorily. Only we feel sad for Tiger Lily and the heroic fairy Tink-a-Tink; but then, when three people love one boy, it is beyond the power even of a Peter Pan to make them all happy. That reflection is probably foreign to the mind of the younger spectator. Old and young enjoyed " Peter Pan," are enjoying " Peter Pan," and will, I hope, go on enjoying "Peter Pan." For as yet not decimal one per cent, of the children of the land have seen " Peter Pan," and I wish they could all see it—every one.

[lifeonashelf]

CHIODOS

It’s nearly impossible to expound on the “process” of writing without coming across like a self-important shithead. I only mention this because I’m about to attempt to do the former without doing the latter. Though I’ve maybe already hamstrung myself by referring to the act of pressing buttons on a laptop as a “process”—and I certainly haven’t helped my case by putting quotation marks around “process,” nor by using the word “expound.” Come to think of it, that “nor” is also ringing awfully pompous to me, even if in a technical sense “nor” was the grammatically correct word to use there... And there I go informing you what’s “grammatically correct,” which makes me sound like a total asshole.

Nevertheless, making this text be a thing is indeed contingent on a sequence of mental formulation and ritualistic preparation and elementary discipline, and when you put all of those things together, the noun which most accurately describes the result is indeed “process” (I consulted my thesaurus for a less ostentatious term, but only an officious wanker would describe writing as a “procedure”).

The first aspect is probably self-explanatory—“mental formulation” is basically just a douche-y way of saying “thinking about stuff.” Naturally, I have to develop an idea in my mind that I think is worth putting into words before I, you know, put it into words. Despite the schizophrenic tangents these pieces often swerve into, I assure you a significant amount of forethought goes into what they should ostensibly be about before a single letter is typed. So no matter how insensible the missives in Life on a Shelf may seem at times, I assure you that all of them are hatched from an embryonic guiding vision which was subjected to vigorous cerebral computation before I expelled it onto the page. Or something.

My “ritualistic preparation” these days involves brewing a pot of coffee while my laptop boots up, then stepping out onto my balcony to smoke a cigarette. I assume other writers have their own routines (although I can’t fathom how anybody gets anything done without coffee and cigarettes). As for me, a Camel Blue and five minutes of pensive silence are the ideal trappings to activate the creative headspace I need to be in to get down to business, and a glug of Pacific Northwest Blend with plenty of creamer supplies a constructive intermission whenever I need to gather my thoughts before finishing a sentence… like I just did after I typed those ellipses.

These elements are easily managed—I think about stuff all the time, and I’ve been known to smoke cigarettes and drink coffee even when I’m not writing. In fact, “elementary discipline” is the sole truly daunting component of the “process” (“pretentious fucking quotation marks again”). Though you might imagine the most challenging aspect of being a writer is generating quality material, this is absolutely not the case. Have you ever browsed the Romance section at a bookstore? Next time you do, select any novel with a bare-chested cowboy or highlander on the cover and read the synopsis on the back; you will promptly ascertain that something as otiose as quality never factored into that author’s process. Admittedly, I’ve never written a Romance novel, but I’ve read enough of them to deduce their methodology: devise a serviceable plot which strikes the delicate balance of sappy and rapey that is essential to the genre, concoct a couple names like Liam O’Shaughnessey and Analisa Winthrope, then start cranking out pages. Whether or not the finished product turns out any good is basically irrelevant; it got written. And ultimately, that’s all that matters.

Which brings us to the crux of the issue, my friends: the only difficult thing about writing… is actually writing. As in, sitting down and fucking doing it. Whether you have ideas or not. Whether you have time or not. Whether you even want to or not.

I am battling against all of those things at present. I don’t have any concrete concept of where this piece should go, despite having already listened to the trio of Chiodos discs I own two times each. I suppose I do technically have time because I’m not at work and I’m not asleep—however, it is currently 2:49 a.m., so I’m only a couple hours away from officially being up Stupidly Late. And if I’m being totally honest, I don’t particularly feel like writing this right now. Actually, I haven’t much felt like writing anything lately.

Popular legend asserts that Jack Kerouac authored On the Road in a single marathon, chemical-fueled session. That particular work has of course accumulated a mythic significance, and the integral way its unorthodox genesis factors into the iconography of The Beat Generation’s magnum opus cannot be overstated—there’s just something irresistibly romantic about the notion of a writer so driven to immortalize his masterpiece that he hammered away at it non-stop until he purged the whole thing out of his head and onto the page. On the Road’s putative origin story is such a renowned facet of its existence, it hardly matters anymore that the accepted account of Kerouac composing the novel in one fever-dream sitting is pure hyperbole. It actually took him three full weeks to type the thing, and he was only able to do it that quickly because he had been sketching out the manuscript in his journals for several months beforehand. I’m not pointing this out to belittle the impact of Kerouac’s most revered literary contribution—although I personally found On the Road prodigiously underwhelming when I finally read it, I still concede that crafting an entire novel in three weeks is a duly impressive feat. Even so, for our purposes here, I would like it known that the quixotic notion of writers routinely hunkering down and hammering out text in a frenetic slit-jugular gush is absolute bullshit.

The truth is this: writing is almost never borne from lightning-in-a-bottle surges of inspiration. The vast majority of prose is instead borne from endless, maddening hours spent agonizing over a single word. An entire afternoon spent obsessing over one sentence that will inevitably undergo further alteration when you re-read it the next afternoon and realize it’s still not sitting quite right. Days and nights and months and years whose elapses become measured in pages—days and nights and months and years spent toiling in seclusion. Writing is lonely, punishing work that yields limitless frustration and only sporadic satisfaction. It is the most bi-polar of artistic expressions, a drug that poisons as often as it cures, and you never know which trip you’re in store for from one fix to the next. To be a writer is to give your heart to a mistress who demands steadfast devotion while she repeatedly punches you in the face, yet you keep coming back for more because every now and then she gives you a really awesome kiss instead. Asked what advice they would give to aspiring wordsmiths who wanted to know the secret to living a happy life as a writer, one prominent author is said to have remarked: “Don’t be a writer.” This quote is possibly apocryphal, but when I heard it, I believe it was attributed to Sylvia Plath—or maybe I just assume Sylvia Plath said it because she ended her life by sticking her head into her fucking oven. And, frankly, I don’t think she chose an entirely unreasonable course of action. Because, goddamn, this shit really hurts sometimes.

I am not Jack Kerouac. I did not shape my debut novel in one sitting, or even in three weeks. It took me five grueling years. Once I garnered the interest of an agent, I spent another several months editing my tome to the more marketable length she advised me to trim it to, then spent an additional several months patiently waiting while she shopped it. It was a protracted and sometimes excruciating interval. But one of the things that kept me afloat while I was laboring on this intensive undertaking was my presumption that its consummation was bound to feel like the afterglow of an epic make-out session.

Regrettably, it has not.

Since I finished the book, I have instead found myself in the grip of an acute postpartum depression. I do not feel triumphant, I feel lethargic and uninspired. This is a turn of events I did not foresee—throughout the half-decade I spent striving to complete that project, in the back of my mind I was simultaneously making grand plans to commence a new endeavor, and to subsequently start churning out huge chunks of pages on this one (or at least finish the goddamn letter “C”). And now, at last, for the past few months I have had several hours a day to fill with whatever artistic activities I choose… but I haven’t particularly desired to spend any of those hours doing anything artistic (the most significant feat I’ve been able to muster thus far is re-watching the first three seasons of Miami Vice).

I think I know what has instigated this listlessness. While I was working on the novel, my exclusive goal was its completion; the success or failure of that mission rested solely in my hands. However, my present goal is considerably loftier: I want the thing to get released so I can begin the career I’ve been chasing for two decades… and this is something I have absolutely no jurisdiction over. The outcome of that mission will be decreed by the prospective publishers who will determine the course of the rest of my life, faceless strangers who have the capacity to shatter all of my dreams simply by emailing the word “pass” to my agent.

Which many, many, many have already done.

I am incredibly grateful to be as far along on the course as I am. I am incredibly grateful that a representative at the most prestigious literary agency in the world read something I wrote and found enough merit in it to decide, “this guy doesn’t suck.” I am prouder of the novel I produced than I have been of anything I’ve ever created, and there are passages in it that are so good I can hardly believe I’m the one who wrote them. The manuscript represents an impeccable embodiment of the vision I had when I first sat down and started plucking away at it all those years ago, blissfully unaware of the weight and scope of the expedition I was about to embark on because it was a journey I had never taken before. I bumbled my way through the early chapters as I struggled to gain purchase on the story I wanted to tell, I gradually got to know my characters, and along the way I fell in love with some and grew to despise others, just as I hoped my eventual readers would. Writing the book was a revelatory experience—I became intimately acquainted not only with my craft, but also with the vastness of my passion for it. I drew upon reserves of endurance I did not even know I possessed, consuming innumerable days grinding on the text for six hours straight, breaking away only to go work an eight-hour restaurant shift, then coming home and writing some more until the sun came up before finally collapsing into my bed to sleep for five hours so I could wake up and do the exact same thing again the next day. It took literal and figurative years off my life, but I wrote a novel. And even better, when it was finished, I realized I had somehow written one that I think is pretty goddamn fantastic.

But I’m not basking in victory at the moment—I’m fucking terrified. Because now, after dozens of rejections, there is an increasingly strong chance that no one will ever read my pretty goddamn fantastic novel and this aspiration I have been working toward my entire life will culminate in failure.

I understand that every successful writer surely weathered numerous rebuffs before someone believed in their work enough to green-light their publishing career. My cognizance of this should probably provide me some measure of solace, perhaps assure me that I am in good company and merely going through another step of the “process.”

Except that’s not how I feel right now at all. Right now, I feel like I did the best I could, but the best I can do simply isn’t good enough.

And since we’re putting it all on the table here, I can freely admit that some of my melancholy stems from all of this happening while I’m counting down the final weeks of my thirties. I’ve never placed much significance on age-related milestones—sure, I was depressed when I turned 30, but that was mostly because I was still recovering from a recent break-up; I was also depressed when I turned 35, but that was mostly because I started that birthday eating alone at a Denny’s at two in the morning, which is an inherently depressing way to kick off your birthday irrespective of the year. I realize that being 40 is roughly as inconsequential as being 39 in the scheme of things. Only, it’s kind of fucking not.

It’s not so much the age itself that unsettles me—most of the time, I still conduct myself like an 18 year-old with an advanced record collection and an excessive proportion of grey in his beard; I’ve even grown out my belly and my hair again, so whenever I put on a Slayer shirt I don’t look a whole lot different than I did when I was actually 18. No, the aspect of turning 40 that I find discomfiting is purely internal: I can’t help myself from holding the general assumption that someone who has been on this planet for 40 years should probably have their shit together. And I know I do not. In almost every conceivable realm of my existence, I am behind the curve of innate anthropological evolution: I have not married or procreated, my current vocation is in an industry where even my superiors are at least a decade younger than me, and I still regularly stay up until 5 a.m. eating Doritos while I binge-view Friday The 13th films (in case you’re thinking of investing some time in the franchise, be cautioned that Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan is not merely the worst entry in the series by a massive margin, it is an absolutely unredeemable piece of shit; I’ve only watched that one like 20 times).

When you’re young, 40 seems inconceivably ancient. And no matter how intimately you stay in touch with the edition of yourself who thought that way, sometimes 40 seems inconceivably ancient when you’re 39, too. That clichéd adage “you’re only as old as you feel” delivers no comfort whatsoever on the nights you come home at three in the morning after trudging through nine hours of the food-service work you’ve been slogging in the trenches of for ten years, when you’re depleted and sore and desperately wishing you had some other skillset to realistically earn a decent living, and you evaluate your throbbing feet and your aching back and your weary brain and conclude that if you truly are as old as you feel, then you might have accidentally blinked and turned 65 during your shift. I’m uncertain if I’m old enough to accurately classify myself as old, but I am certainly too old to accurately classify myself as young, and I am old enough to be painfully aware of this.

Consequently, I’m probably also too old to be listening to Chiodos, an archetypal emo ensemble whose musical ethos predominantly evokes a more symphonic incarnation of My Chemical Romance, with intermittent screamy-growly vocals and plenty of requisitely-unwieldy song titles like “I Didn’t Say I Was Powerful, I Said I Was A Wizard”. It’s unlikely I will ever see Chiodos live since they split up in 2016, though I can presume with minimal imprecision that if I did go to one of their shows I would be older than every other person there. Tellingly, the group’s eldest member was only 30 when they disbanded, which suggests that even the dudes who actually played in Chiodos deemed their music unsuitable for people my age.

Despite my cultural incompatibility, I do like Chiodos, and I think a few of their tunes may even merit the designation of awesome. I don’t know if this justifies owning three of their records—the only one I spin with any regularity is 2014’s Devil, mostly for the scorching cut “Ole Fishlips Is Dead Now”, a balls-out metal opus whose bridge section is as thrillingly brutal as its title is silly. Come to think of it, there are a lot of things about the band’s sonic and imagistic aesthetic that strike me as silly, so I’m not sure I entirely understand why I like them. Further, I’m not sure I’m even supposed to like them. In a very real sense, Chiodos embodies the epoch when I officially stopped being part of the demographic that music for young people is aimed at: their debut record—2005’s All’s Well That Ends Well—was released the summer after I graduated from college to presumably take my first steps into proper adulthood (although, I spent most of that summer smoking pot and playing Tekken with my then-girlfriend from two in the afternoon until sunrise, which may not have necessarily qualified as “adulting”).

As such, my initial awareness of Chiodos was primarily defined by my not being aware of them at all. They were exactly the sort of outfit that headlined the Vans Warped Tour the very first year a line-up for that festival was announced which forced me to concede I hadn’t heard of any of the bands performing at an event I had once attended religiously. I don’t think I even registered this sea-change at the time (I think I mostly just grumbled, “dude, the Warped Tour line-up sucks this year”). Yet as Chiodos and I continued advancing on our separate paths, I gradually became conscious that my alt-rock era had officially come to an unceremonious end and a legion of skinny-jean-and-eye-liner-wearing dudes with injudicious haircuts and a multiplicity of neck tattoos had seized the mantle. Since this new crop of youth-medium-t-shirt bands—Falling In Reverse, Sleeping With Sirens, Pierce The Veil, et al—looked so ridiculous to me, I naturally assumed they also sounded ridiculous; upon further inspection, many of these bands do, indubitably, sound ridiculous. However, somewhere along the way, I began to accept an uncomfortable truth: my inability to wholeheartedly appreciate the music of the alt-young is more my fault than the bands’.

It would be extremely narrow-minded of me to sum up what we’ll call the emo scene—for lack of a better term—as “loud songs about girls” (especially since the inclusion of pretty songs about girls between the loud songs about girls is precisely the reason so many girls like the bands in this genus). Nonetheless, on a fundamental level, the vast majority of the music in that canon is indeed characterized by myopic lyrical musings about assorted stages of the boy-meets-girl-boy-loses-girl paradigm. Even the heaviest track in the Chiodos catalog (the afore-mentioned “Ole Fishlips”) features a chorus that begins with the lines: “I want to forget you / You’ve broken everything I love, took all my light and turned it into dusk.” Granted, that’s a damn solid stanza, but it’s not one I can presently relate to. Those words don’t evoke anything in my current existence—the last time someone took all my light and turned it into dusk was a full five years ago; I can barely remember what that felt like now, let alone what being in love to begin with felt like. As much as I appreciate some of the music crafted by acts of Chiodos’ ilk on a purely “that rocks” level, it simply doesn’t resonate with me on an emotional level. The most pressing concerns in my world aren’t centered around whether any of my foxy co-workers like-me-like-me or not; I’m a lot more worried about how I’m going to pay my rent in a few years when my body is too broken down for me to be their co-worker anymore.

Which brings about a more imperative revelation that is just now dawning on me: there isn’t a whole lot of modern rock I can relate to. People of my advanced age are ostensibly supposed to listen to bands like Coldplay, whose music has never spoken to me at all—near as I can tell, most of their songs are either about how exhilarating it feels to discover a great new organic juice bistro or the simple pleasure of trying on an Abercrombie & Fitch v-neck that fits you just right. There aren’t too many rock frontmen writing tunes about wrestling with an uncertain future while the mounting impediments of middle age conspire to diminish their tenacity. Maybe that’s why most of the new records I get excited about are still by death metal bands, whose tunes eschew any musings on situational angst or starry-eyed ardor in favor of graphic elucidations of the various phases of the deceasing process (being violently killed, decomposition, the ensuing sexual defilement of one’s corpse, etc.). Perhaps it’s depressing that I think about dying a lot more frequently than I think about girls these days, yet the fact remains that my particular juncture of the mortal cycle is sorely underrepresented in the contemporary rock register. Aerosmith’s “Dream On” was written way back in 1973; what the fuck have you done for me lately?

When I hear a twenty-something vocalist plaintively bemoaning insecurity about his place in the world, it doesn’t elicit a poignant response from me anymore—now I just sort of meh-shrug because I know he has plenty of time to figure his shit out (and, besides, I find it difficult to sympathize with the amorous woes of any dude with flawless cheekbones who belts out those songs every night to a sea of female fans so devoted to him that they’d willingly gouge out the eyes of the person standing next to them if he told them they could touch his penis afterwards). An audience of that singer’s peers is wholly in synch with that species of nebulous life anxieties, so they are undoubtedly buoyed to ascertain that a musician they esteem is going through the same trials as them. But I am no longer in that audience, no longer a peer. I can hardly blame any of those bands or their fans for my being a man staring down his 40’s; they didn’t do that to me, time did. Regardless, I have become increasingly incapable of forging a sincere connection with them, which makes it tough for me to take them seriously since they ply their trade via an art-form that is the most singular connective tissue of my being.  

I’m of course minimizing for humorous and dramatic effect. There are plenty of more recent outfits whose work has invigorated me over these last few years (if you want me to name names, I’ll happily toss out Modern Baseball, White Lung, Pity Sex, TV Ghost, Moon King, Thee Oh Sees, and Warpaint, among others). Still, I am perpetually reminded that as I segue into my future, most of the truly significant musical figures in my life are destined to remain those who came into my life in my past—especially when I consider that out of the six upcoming concerts I currently have tickets for, not one of the bands I’m going to see was formed in this century.

Chiodos was a very good band. Perhaps even a great one. They authored some creative, impressively-technical music that was executed by a cast of clearly skilled players. Devil is a consistently killer record from start to finish. Judging by how many of their stylistic flourishes I’ve noted in the work of several similar outfits that arrived in their wake, Chiodos is probably terribly important to a large number of people a generation removed from me. Nonetheless, as much as I enjoy a lot of their tunes, Chiodos is just not terribly important to me—I am writing about them here simply because they are the next band in my library.

What is important to me, however, is overcoming this dismal miasma that has settled over me. I have no desire to spend my 40’s the same way I spent most of my 30’s: ever-crawling dejectedly onward, all the while recognizing my destiny like a beacon on the distant horizon and wondering when I will reach it, inexorably waiting for the life I want to live to finally begin. After facing numerous setbacks—the worst being a deal that was actually on paper awaiting signatures, one that my agent was forced to pass on to protect me because of an untenable small-print proviso which ceded absolute ownership of my work to the publisher—the status of my authorial career is thus: my best option now is to craft another novel and restart the process from scratch. The challenge this poses is fresh and staggering: now I know precisely how difficult it is to write a novel, how long it takes, how much of myself will be devoured along the way. And I will have to plunge into this undertaking without any assurance that eventual success will ensue, since it did not the first time.

Yet if I have any prayer of meeting that challenge, first I have to dissipate this fog that has enveloped me. I cannot complete the task until I begin it in earnest. So maybe, just maybe, if I can coax myself to finish an essay about a band that doesn’t mean anything to me, I’ll be able to coax myself back to pursuing the desire that means everything to me.

It’s time for me to sit down again. And fucking do it. Whether I have ideas or not. Whether I have time or not. Whether I even want to or not. Like chaste Analisa Winthrope—who initially resists the brutish advances of that notorious rogue Liam O’Shaughnessey, until she beholds the throbbing nucleus of manhood beneath his kilt and finally yields to the humid yearning in her loins—I must succumb to my passion.

Because writing isn’t something I do. It’s what I am. Sure, those punches in the face are never pleasant. But, man, when I get those kisses instead…

This probably isn’t the best installment of Life on a Shelf I’ve ever composed. It might not even be a particularly strong one.

But that’s basically irrelevant. It got written.

And right now, ultimately, that’s all that matters.

 April 5, 2018

[peterpanquotes1]

The Review of Reviews: First Impressions of the Theater, 1905

Page 245: Last month I had my first experience of the musical comedy, which I have hitherto avoided. I went to see, or hear, “Veronique” at the Apollo Theatre. I should not break my heart if my first musical comedy should prove my last. But I also had another experience of a much pleasanter kind. I went to see “Peter Pan.” And I heartily wish that every child and every grown-up who has still preserved the heart of a child, or any part thereof, could have an opportunity of seeing that charming spectacle.

Before describing my impressions of either, I must make a passing note of the reviving popularity of Shakespeare — and of Shaw. “John Bull's Other Island” has been so popular at the Court Theatre last month in the afternoons, that an Irish peer told me he had in vain attempted to book a scat. “House full” in the afternoon has encouraged the experiment of a series of evening performances. In time we may see this delightful play making the tour of the provinces. It is not the only play of Mr. Shaw's that has been performed last month. We have had the sequel to “Candida” at the Court, and “The Philanderer” in the City. Shaw stock is looking up.

But this is as nothing to the run on Shakespeare. Last month three of Shakespeare's plays were performed every night at three of the most popular theatres. "Much Ado About Nothing" has succeeded "The Tempest" at His Majesty's Theatre. "The Taming of the Shrew " still attracts crowds to the Adelphi; and Mr. Lewis Waller has revived "Henry V." at the Imperial. Besides these runs, the heroic and indefatigable Benson has played Shakespeare twice a day at the Coronet Theatre, Notting Hill, where the London public have had an opportunity of seeing "Macbeth," "King Lear," " Richard II," and "The Comedy of Errors." It is a long time since the sovereignty supreme of the King by right divine of the drama was simultaneously acclaimed on so many London stages. May this be an augury of better things to come!

Peter Pan, the boy who wouldn’t grow up, is a dainty, delightful little magician, who makes old boys grow young again at the Duke of York’s Theater, twice a day, six days a week. I saw it on its 98th performance. I hope to see it again on its 998th, for there is no reason why it should ever grow stale. It ought to share the eternal youth of its charming hero. Mr. .J.M. Barrie deserves the thanks and the congratulations of all who love children and of all who possess the faculty of being as little children. To become as a little child is the secret of entering other kingdoms besides the kingdom of heaven. I frankly own I was prejudiced against “Peter Pan,” because of the legend put about that it was a dramatized version of the “Little White Bird.” That legend is a libel upon “Peter Pan.” The story is not by any means exceptionally attractive: it is tantalizing, irritating, unsatisfactory. But “Peter Pan” is simply delightful, unique, and almost entirely satisfactory.

Imagine one of Hans Christian Andersen’s charming Christmas stories, one of Captain Mayne Reid’s hair-raising romances of scalp-raising Red Indians, and R.L. Stevenson’s tales of bold buccaneers, all mixed up together, and the resulting amalgam served up in humorous burlesque fashion for the delight of the young folks, and you have “Peter Pan.” Grey-bearded grandfather though I am, I felt as I looked at “Peter Pan” that I renewed my youth. It seems as if I had never grown up. I was in the magic realm of the scalp-hunters, the enchanted wood of the gnomes, revealing in the daring devilry of the pirates, and clapping my hands with delight over the exploits of the darling, delightful, invincible Peter Pan. And I wondered as I left the theater whether Mr. Barrie and Mr. Frohman had enough love for little children in their hearts to give some free performances of “Peter Pan” to the poor children of London town, to whom seats in the Duke of York’s Theater are as unattainable as a dukedom. The good old principle of tithes might be invoked to justify such occasional free performances as a thank offering for a great, a continuous and an increasing success. Instead of the ancient hebrew offering of the sheaf of the first-fruits, which was brought to the Temple in thanksgiving for the harvest, it surely ought not to be an impossible thing to get the principle accepted by all theatrical managers and authors that whenever a piece has made its century one free performance should be given as a thank offering — a sheaf of first-fruits offer in thanksgiving to the poor of our people. And what play so admirably suited to initiate this law of thank offering as “Peter Pan”?

“Peter Pan” opens with an immediate initial success — a success achieved by an actor whose human identity is so completely merged in the dog (fem.) Nana, that it is a moot point with many youngsters whether Nana is not really a well-trained animal. Nana, a black-and-white Newfoundland, is the nurse of the three children of Mr. and Mrs. Darling. She puts them to bed, tucks them in, and hangs out their clothes to air by the fire.

Page 246: After an amusing scene with some medicine, the three children — the girl, little Wendy, and her two brothers — in their nighties and pajamas, are sung to sleep by their mother, who is not only a darling in name but in nature. When the mother has gone and the night-lights are out, the window opens, and Peter Pan climbs into the room. Peter is a superb figure of a Cupid without his wings, who, nevertheless, and perhaps because he has no wings, flies much better than Ariel, as seen at His Majesty's “Tempest.” A ruddy-faced, lithe-limbed, beautiful Cupid, not the chubby little Cupid of Thorwaldsen, but the divine boy of Grecian sculpture, a Cupid crossed with Apollo, a magical, mystical lad, with whom it is not surprising that everyone fell in love, from the fairy Tink-a-Tink to Tiger Lily, the Indian Queen. He wakes the little girl, and tells her he is the boy who did not want to grow up, and who, for that good reason, ran away from home, as soon as he was born, to the Never Never Never Land, where he has charge of all the boy babies who fall out of their perambulators. He never had a mother, does not know what a mother is. When the little maid proposes to give him a kiss her heart fails her, and she gives him a thimble as her kiss. Not to be outdone in generosity, he gives her a button as his kiss. Waxing bolder, Wendy kisses him, and explains that that is a thimble; and Peter Pan only knows of kissing as an exchange of thimbles. Peter astonishes Wendy by flying about the room, and she hears the bell of Tink-a-Tink, the fairy, whom Peter has inadvertently shut up in the drawer. Being liberated, Tink-a-Tink, a swift quivering white light, flies about the room. When the bell rings she talks, and Peter interprets her words to the wondering Wendy. At last she perches above the clock, and appears like a little Tanagra figure of light. And here I may make my only criticism. If Mr. Barrie were to go to any of Mr. Husk's seances l>e would hear fairy bells much better worthy the name than the muffin bell of Tink-a-Tink. And if he would consult any of the classics of the nursery he would discover that his white little statuette that perches above the clock may be anything in the world, but it is not a fairy. Tink-a-Tink could so easily be made so fascinating and so real an entity that I was surprised at such a failure in a play that is otherwise so admirably staged. Peter Pan, expounding the truth about fairies, explains that a fairy is born with every baby, but that, as a fairy dies whenever any boy or girl says " I don't believe in fairies," the mortality in fairyland is high. But unless something is done to make Tink-a-Tink a little more life-like than this darting light and white illuminated little statuette, I am afraid “Peter Pan” will raise rather than reduce the death-rate among the little people.

When Peter Pan tells Wendy that it is quite easy to fly she wakes her brothers, and the three kiddies make desperate and at first unsuccessful efforts to imitate Peter's flight backwards and forwards across the room. At last they master the secret, and one after another, the children fly out of the window and disappear. They are off to the Never Never Never Land, where little Wendy becomes the mother of the forlorn “mitherless bairns" who live in the care of Peter Pan, clad in furs, in a region haunted by fierce wolves with red eyes, by prowling Redskins and savage pirates. The interest of the play never stops. The wolves are banished by the simple and approved method of looking at them through your legs. Wendy Moira Angela Darling, to quote her full name, comes flying overhead and is mistaken for a strange white bird. The children shoot at it, and Wendy falls apparently dead with an arrow in her heart. Peter Pan arrives, and, in fierce wrath, is about to execute judgment upon the murderer, when Wendy revives; the arrow has been turned aside by the button which Peter Pan had given her as a kiss. Grief being changed to rejoicing, Wendy is adopted as the mother of the brood, they build her a house, improvising its chimney pot by the summary process of knocking the crown out of a hat of that description. The scene shifts, and we are introduced to noble Redskins and ferocious pirates, in fierce feud with each other — a feud terminating unfortunately in the discomfiture of the Redskins after a desperate battle. Then we make the acquaintance of James Hook, the terrible pirate, whose right hand has been eaten off by a monstrous crocodile, which relished it so much it has spent all its time ever since tracking down the owner of the rest of the body. The pirate, who has replaced the missing hand by a double hook," is a holy terror to all his men. He fears neither God nor man, but he is in mortal dread of the gigantic saurian, which would have eaten him long ago but for the fact that it had swallowed a clock, the ticking of which in its inside always gives the pirate warning of its approach. At last, however, Peter Pan extricates the clock and the pirate meets his doom.

This, however, is anticipating. Peter Pan, who does not understand what love is, inspires Wendy, Tink-a-Tink and Tiger Lily, the Indian Queen, with a hopeless passion. He can only interpret it by saying that they all want to be his mothers. Poor Tiger Lily courts him with unreserve, but he is faithful to Wendy. The pirates capture all the children, and the pirate chief pours poison into Peter Pan's medicine glass. Tink-a-Tink, the faithful fairy, drinks up the fatal draught to save Peter. As she is dying, Peter Pan rushes to the front, and with a genuine fervour of entreaty that brought tears to some eyes, declared that if every child in the audience would clap its hands as a sign that it really did believe in fairies, Tink-a-Tink would recover. Of course there is an 'immediate response. This profession of faith in the reality of fairies revives the dying Tink-a-Tink, and the clanging muffin bell testifies to her complete restoration to health.

Before the children are captured by the pirates there is a delectable scene, charmingly true to life, where Wendy, the child-mother, tells stories to the children after they have gone to bed. It is simplyexquisite; the interruptions of the youngster insatiable for white rats, the exclamations of interest and approval, the naivete and earnest make-believe of the little story-teller, are absolutely true to life. The story-telling was better than the pillow fight, which might have been much more realistic, and the dancing of the boy with the pillows on his legs was hardly in keeping with the realism of the rest of the scene.

The last act brings us to the pirate ship, where the children are captive. They are about to be made to walk the plank when the cockcrow call of the adorable Peter Pan is heard within. He slays two pirates who are sent to investigate the strange noise, blows out the captain's lantern, and finally engages the pirate captain in broadsword combat. The fight becomes general. The pirates, discomfited, leap overboard, and the children crowd round the victorious Peter Pan, whom we recognise as the latest lineal descendant of Jack the Giant Killer, and who, although no braggart, is calmly complacent as he reflects upon his prowess. "Yes," he says, as he seats himself after the battle, "I am a wonder." And a wonder he is, a wonder-child of the most approved pattern.

After the restitution of the lost children to their beautiful mothers—where, by-the-bye, in harping on the mystery of twins Mr. Barry ventures perilously near forbidden ground, Peter Pan returns to his house on the tree-tops, when the curtain falls upon him and his beloved Wendy standing, like jocund day, tiptoe on the misty forest tops.

I ought not to omit to mention that the crocodile gets the pirate after all; that the dear, delightful nurse-dog reappears, and is restored to his kennel, in which Mr. Darling has been living ever since the loss of the children; and that everything is wound up satisfactorily. Only we feel sad for Tiger Lily and the heroic fairy Tink-a-Tink; but then, when three people love one boy, it is beyond the power even of a Peter Pan to make them all happy. That reflection is probably foreign to the mind of the younger spectator. Old and young enjoyed " Peter Pan," are enjoying " Peter Pan," and will, I hope, go on enjoying "Peter Pan." For as yet not decimal one per cent, of the children of the land have seen " Peter Pan," and I wish they could all see it—every one.