#because they said we had to read a certain number of books and REALLY put the pressure on us if we didn’t

[theres-whump-in-that-nebula]

I just realized that I hate being directly talked to (in most situations); but if someone is talking to their friend at the same table as I am, and we’re all working on separate projects, I love listening to their conversation? Like, in art class these two gamer kids would go on and on about Sonic and Overwatch to each other and it was amazing; because I like reading Wikipedia articles on things I have no personal interest in just to know what it is enough to talk about it if someone brings it up in conversation.

Call that benign eavesdropping.

[writingwithfolklore]

5 Things about working in a (small) publishing house that surprised me

My experiences definitely aren’t true of the entire industry. I work in a very small, very local publishing house as a marketing assistant, and I’m certain that you’d have a much different experience at Penguin Random House, or even another small house on the other side of the country. That being said, here’s five things that really surprised me about what I’ve seen from the industry so far…

1. Very few of the people who work in publishing are writers

Okay this was one of the biggest surprises but also kind of makes sense? Publishing is a lot about the business side of things—numbers and marketing strategies and event planning, etc. People who are talented in design and accounting and other essential pieces to book publishing aren’t necessarily good at or practiced writers, and not all people who love reading also love writing!

I guess this surprised me so much because I’ve never been a reader without being a writer, but we often actually rely on the author’s writing on their own works (summaries, bios, etc.) to populate the backs of books and other marketing. Including me, there are three writers in my entire office.

2. Big booksellers (think Indigo) release yearly cover palettes for book covers

When we’re deciding the colours for a book cover, one thing that goes into that consideration is actually the different palettes Indigo releases! They have different palettes for different sections they update every year. I imagine it’s to fit a certain look for their shelves for new releases, but it’s not something I had ever really thought about, or thought that they would care about!

3. On that topic—publishing houses don’t sell to readers

My first day in marketing, my manager told me, “you’d think we’re selling to readers” I did think that. She said, “we’re actually selling to bookstores and libraries, they sell to readers.” How the money works is booksellers buy our books to put on their shelf. Everything they don’t sell, they’re allowed to trade back for credit, so we want them to buy big upfront, and then sell big to readers. Every book they send back is inventory we can’t get rid of and a “free” book for them down the line, so we don’t want books to come back!

If you want to support authors and your favourite publishing houses, buy from local bookstores who can’t afford to keep underselling books on their shelves for as long as say Indigo. If you really want to support authors, check out their books from libraries (yes really). Libraries are great because they buy books from publishing houses and can use the same one book to get into the hands of several readers, (in Canada) authors get a small amount every time a book is checked out (up to a certain amount so that the library’s entire budget doesn’t go to one book/author). Often, an author’s largest cheque is from libraries.

Unfortunately in the States authors don’t get the same boon, but still supporting your local libraries is just as good as supporting your local indie bookstores!

4. Soo many people look at covers, and soo much goes into creating them

I’m not really a designer, so I’m certain this wouldn’t surprise those of you who actually do graphic design, but they seriously look at every single detail and how it will benefit or hurt the sales. The placement of blurbs, choice of fonts, colours, subtitles, even the placement of raindrops for a rainy background, everything is discussed and tested and tried several different ways. So yes, DO judge a book by its cover, we work so hard on making covers perfect for the audience we’re trying to reach.

5. Publishing houses don’t necessarily have in-house editors, publicity, or other roles

I had always assumed that every publishing house had its own editors and publicists and what not. That’s probably true for the bigger ones, but if you’re being published by a smaller one (which you may be for your debut) you may be working with freelance editors and publicists who work somewhat with your publishing house and also with others as well. We have one in-house publicist, and no editors!

I wouldn’t turn down a publishing house just because they use freelancers (our freelancers are amazing!) but it’s important that they’re upfront about it. Huge red flag if they say they have in-house editors and they don’t actually—I would pass on a publishing house that lies to you.

Any other questions you have about the industry I’ll try to answer!

[winstonsns]

hi! can you do the gang with reader who has Avoidant attachment style?

the gang with avoidant attachment!reader (request)

authors note: i researched about avoidant attachment, and it’s basically someone who is independent, uncomfortable with intimacy, struggles with voicing emotions, emotionally distant or unavailable, and somewhat detached from relationships. i get out of school on the 14th, so ill try to work on all the requests over the summer! as i am working on this, i have 8 requests in my inbox. sorry i technically didn’t post yesterday!! this post is really short, but i hope you enjoy 💗

includes ponyboy, johnny, soda, darry, dally, two-bit and steve

word count: 1.8k

warnings: cussing, avoiding, being uncomfortable with physical touch and emotional talk, struggles in relationships

PONYBOY CURTIS

you and ponyboy were in your history class, working on notes, studying for your upcoming test

the teacher had given the class the questions beforehand, so you wrote down the odds and your boyfriend wrote down the evens

you later wrote down the even number questions and answered them, along with answering all your odd questions besides one

you stared at your paper with confusion, not wanting your boyfriend to notice that you were struggling with a specific question

you frantically looked through the textbook, trying to find the answer to no avail

ponyboy glanced over to you, seeing your worried face, asking quietly, “you want some help, y/n?” not wanting you to be embarrassed

you shook your head, not looking back at him, still flipping through the pages of the history textbook

he wanted you to get the question without telling you or asking once again if you needed help, so he flipped to the page where he found the answer in his textbook, and put it into your view

ponyboy stayed quiet, you glanced at his desk to see the textbook on his desk, flipped to a certain page, the topic of your question in big red text

you flipped to the page in your book, writing down the answer in your notes page

your boyfriend smiled at you, asking if you’d like to go over your notes to see if you got the same answers

you nodded and read over your notes, all of your answers matching

ponyboy would help you in discreet ways, ways that you would hardly think about as helping

but he was fine that you didn’t consider his actions as helping, he didn’t want you to think he was helping, because then you would become distant

he would try to be on his own sometimes, to be independent, but would get used to asking help from people even though he was fine with doing things on his own

he would try to get you into the habit of asking for help, failing profusely, but you knew he cared

JOHNNY CADE

you and your boyfriend were at the drive in, watching an elvis movie together

but before the movie started, you asked johnny if he wanted to get some food and drinks from the concessions stand, so the two of you walked over to where the food was

“you want anything, johnny? i can pay.” you asked

he said, “oh, maybe we can share popcorn? um, i can pay, actually..” not wanting to be rude

you replied with a yes to sharing the popcorn, but refusing to let him pay for the food

he nodded, knowing you wouldn’t let him pay, but he wanted you to know that he would pay if you let him

johnny is someone who didn’t really get a lot of affection, so he kind of craves it

but the two of you make your relationship work, and he respects your boundaries, knowing how difficult it was when rules and boundaries were crossed

so he showed his love for you with affectionate words, even if you wouldn’t say it back

you would help him with things, along with his emotions but never opening up yourself

he knew you cared for him and loved him, but you had a very difficult time expressing it

SODAPOP CURTIS

you and soda were walking down the street after getting two milkshakes from a diner

the two of you were walking back to your house and he was talking about a weird person who walked into the DX

“so, there was this guy, right. and he walked into the shop, hardly fitting through the doors. and as a reminder, we have double doors, you know? anyway, he ordered a soda and a burger, then when he walked away, me and steve saw his asscrack!!! then guess what steve said! he yelled after the guy, ‘pull up your pants, man!!’” while giggling constantly

you laughed and he lightly hit your shoulder, but you moved away quickly, slouching and looking around the road nervously

he apologized, continuing to talk about other things that happened at the shop, knowing you’d want the conversation to keep going, distracting you

he’s naturally a very touchy person but tries hard not to be physical with you since he knew you would get uncomfortable

DARRY CURTIS

you and darry were at his house, planning to make chocolate cake together, trying to work on collaborating with each other

the two of you were talking while measuring ingredients, putting them into the bowl

“is pony still doing good in school?” you asked, being genuinely curious, looking at your boyfriend for a split second

he nodded, explaining that he was the top of his class and got number one in long jump for his track meet the other day

the two of you continued your conversation, darry passing by you, not before putting a hand on your hip

you cowered and moved away slightly, his hand coming off your hip, apologies coming out of his mouth

“oh, um, it’s ok dare…” you muttered, your boyfriend replying with, “if you don’t want me to do anything, i’ll respect it. just gotta tell me, okay?” and looked at you with worry in his eyes

you smiled at him and continued talking about ponyboy and the gang

he also had a difficult time asking for help, people often expecting a lot for him, more than he could give

so he naturally became independent, just like you

the two of you would try to practice relying on each other, just to get used to being a bit dependent on each other

the two of you knew you didn’t have to be dependent on each other in order to love each other, and you knew that

he would give you little kisses and affectionate actions, but if you pushed him away then he word respect your boundaries

DALLAS WINSTON

the two of you were sitting next to each other in the police station, your boyfriends knee touching yours

the two of you were quiet, but you moved your leg away, not comfortable with the touch

a man with big muscles, wearing a black shirt and jeans came into the station, asking for a y/n l/n and a dallas winston

you recognized him as darry, whispering to your boyfriend that darry was there to pick the two of you up

the officer talked to the both of you, telling you it’s wrong to steal, and recommending that you break up with him, that dally would only get you into more trouble

the two of you previously got arrested for stealing money from someone

you and dally were very alike, both of you hardly asked for help or showed affection in public besides laughing and talking with each other

so you and dally were a good couple and had the same boundaries and expectations

TWO-BIT MATTHEWS

you and your boyfriend, keith, were at his house hanging out after school

both of you were in his room and you were helping him out with homework, even though you were younger than him but in a higher grade, him being held back many times

after your boyfriend was done struggling and you were done explaining the questions, you brought out your science homework and stared at it for a couple seconds

two-bit noticed and asked you, “need help, babe?” and you politely shook your head, muttering, “no thank you..”

he watched you struggle and knew you wouldn’t ask for help, he knew you picked up habits from your childhood that caused you to be highly independent

but he understood you more than anyone else did, more than you even understood yourself

keith would try to help you in little ways, things you hardly noticed, like giving you your pencil if you couldn’t find it, or scooping up a cup of flour for your cake

he would, however, often need help himself because he was lazy and didn’t always have a drive for things

STEVE RANDLE

you walked to the DX to see steve, wanting to be with him after a difficult day at school

when you walked into the shop, seeing your boyfriend at the register, you smiled

“hey y/n, didn’t expect to see you here. how’d that test go? i knew you were talking about it for the past few days..” he said

as you walked up to steve, you hesitantly said, “oh, um… i didn’t get that good of a score. eighty-four percent, i’m gonna retake it.” looking away, feeling shameful

steve looked at you, telling you that he could help you study if you wanted it

you turned down his offer, wanting to do everything on your own, he knew you were independent but thought you needed help sometimes, however you wouldn’t let him help you

“you sure? don’t want you to be stressed, no shame in asking for help.” he told you, and you stared at him for a few seconds, saying “thank you, but i’m fine. really. i’ll study for a few days, the retake isn’t until thursday.”

he nodded and looked down, mumbling an “alright” then asked “you wanna go out to eat if you get a good score?” looking at you then smiling

you smiled widely at him and blushed, nodding at his question

he’s a little more stubborn than the rest of the group, so you can get a bit frustrated if he keeps persisting to help you with something

but he just wants to show you that he cares about you, and with the small chance that you’d want help, he would help you

authors note: sorry i didn’t post yesterday! i have a little bit of homework but only have a few more days left of school. i’ll try to get some more requests done this weekend 💗

[anim-ttrpgs]

Hey just wanted to say that the work you do is really inspiring. I think the TTRPG community has needed an urban fantasy noir sort of thing for a little while and I really like the direction you're taking it in. Looking forward to stuff in the future!!

Thank you! Basically all our projects come from a place of need, each one being something that we wanted to play ourselves, but either it just didn’t exist, or the people who did do it didn’t do it to our satisfaction.

Since it’s our blog we can toot our own horn a bit, and yeah, the TTRPG community did need Eureka. The whole idea originally came out of our dissatisfaction with investigation and mystery-solving gameplay in most of the other more well-known TTRPGs that attempt to tackle this genre, such as Call of Cthulhu, Delta Green, and Gumshoe. They either make it too easy for bad dice rolls to get the party hopelessly stuck by relying too heavily of the PC’s skills, or make things difficult on the player by not giving the PC’s skills quite enough input, which can make efficient mystery solving very difficult across sessions with a whole week or more of real time in between them. (And it’s barely even worth mentioning that the most popular TTRPGs such as D&D5e and Pathfinder just plain cannot do investigative gameplay to any respectable degree at all.)

Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy’s Investigation Point and Eureka! Point system, whereby each skill check to investigate something fills a bar on the character sheet until the investigator gets a “Eureka!”, which can be spent to retroactively gain information from an investigation skill check that they previously failed, as well as many other specific rules that are too nuanced to go into here but that you can read about in the free version of the rulebook, are part of our answer to that. As you are putting the pieces together in your own mind, so is your character, and this system acts as a failsafe, but not a crutch, to prevent a single bad dice roll from leaving the party totally twisting in the wind.

And I personally have always been really autistic about folklore, which is where Eureka’s unique approach to playable monsters comes in. No RPG had ever really done certain monsters to my satisfaction, particularly vampires. Folkloric vampires have a great deal of quirks and weaknesses that usually get cut from any sort of vampire media because they’re too “silly,” but I disagree. I want them all, and so when a monster is playable in Eureka, it’s its own unique experience, unlike playing anything else in any other game or even within Eureka. (I am very, very proud to say that a number of V:TM veterans have said that Eureka does vampires much better than V:TM itself.)

Not every playable monster in Eureka is 100% strictly folkloric, which was a bit of a struggle for me, but ultimately the small exceptions that were made make the RPG better, so I can’t complain, especially because we managed to weave some pretty cool themes into all of them, which I will touch on more when I finally get finished writing that big huge post about, well, Eureka’s themes.

Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy is kickstarting from right now until May 10th! Back it while you still can!

If you want to try before you buy, you can download a free demo of the prerelease version from our website or our itch.io page!

If you’re interested in a more updated and improved version of Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy than the free demo you got from our website, subscribe to our Patreon where we frequently roll our new updates for the prerelease version!

You can also support us on Ko-fi, or by checking out our merchandise!

Join our TTRPG Book Club At the time of writng this, Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy is the current game being played in the book club, and anyone who wants to participate in discussion, but can’t afford to make a contribution, will be given the most updated prerelease version for free! Plus it’s just a great place to discuss and play new TTRPGs you might not be able to otherwise!

We hope to see you there, and that you will help our dreams come true and launch our careers as indie TTRPG developers with a bang by getting us to our base goal and blowing those stretch goals out of the water, and fight back against WotC's monopoly on the entire hobby. Wish us luck.

[bella-rose29]

The Greatest Thing - Lockwood x fem!reader

requested by anon: Hi, I love the way you write! I was wondering (if requests are still open) if you could write a Lockwood x reader where reader's mother died when she was little for some reason, and by taking on a case reader and Lockwood find themselves having to fight the ghost of reader's mother ? And maybe even Lockwood calming Reader down after the mission? Feel free to change parts. (btw: sorry if English is terrible, I'm Italian, English is not my native language)

my lovely you don't need to apologise for your English, it's better than a lot of actual English people I know (myself included) <333

sorry this took me so long, but hopefully you enjoy!!

for reference, the song that's mentioned is specifically Nat King Cole's version of Nature Boy from 1948 <3

Word count: 4.2k

Warnings: swearing (only a lil), brief mentions of cancer (not explicit though), idk if there's anything else

I did just copy and paste the tag list from DTH part 9 so feel free to not read this if you don't want to! <3

It was nearly one in the morning when the telephone rang. 

This was odd, because the phone had been broken for a little over twenty years. 

It was more sentimental than anything else, and it was kept as a reminder of someone long gone, as was the typewriter that sat on the shelves next to the telephone, on top of the case it came in so that it could be admired. There was a record player too, although that was in perfect working condition, unlike the other two objects. 

The ringing of the telephone woke up the inhabitant of the bedroom, and he groggily rubbed at his eyes as he sat up and turned the light on. The glare made him wince, but when he realised the broken telephone on his shelf was ringing, his eyes shot wide open. He scrambled for the working phone on his bedside table, trying not to panic too much and failing as he punched in the numbers. The line rang three times before someone picked up, and his breathing was shaky. 

“Hello? I think there’s a ghost in my bedroom.”

~~~

“Lockwood? You awake?” Y/n pushed open the door to the library, making note of the dim light that shone under the door. Her voice was quiet, just in case he’d actually managed to fall asleep, but as soon as she stepped inside she saw him sat in his usual armchair with a book.

“Everything alright?” he asked. 

“Not really. Dad’s just phoned me.” She took the chair next to him, watching as he put a bookmark in place and held the book closed on his lap. 

“Ah, that’s who was calling.” He frowned. “You don’t sound too happy about it.”

“He thinks there’s a ghost in his room. Said the old telephone that Mum bought ages ago started ringing just now. He wants us to come and check it out as soon as we can.”

“How do we know it’s not just… someone calling?”

“It’s broken, Lockwood. Has been for ages. Pretty sure it was broken when Mum got it, but she thought it looked nice.”

“Right. Well… you know the house layout, and where things are. And if you’re not too tired… I suppose we could head over now? Only if you wanted. Your father is welcome to stay here if he wants, too.”

“Thank you, Lockwood. I don’t know that I’ll be able to sleep, not knowing Dad’s in danger. And he won’t want to go outside at this time of night anyway, not without a safe route to somewhere else. You sure you’re alright with going on a case now?”

“Of course I am, Y/n. Especially for you.” She tried not to flush too much at how sincerely he had said it and pushed out of the chair. 

“Okay then. I’ll just… go and get changed.” She was still in her pyjamas from earlier. Lockwood was, predictably, in a suit, just without the jacket and tie. She was certain they were a second skin on him now. 

“Meet me by the front door in ten? I’ll get the kit ready.”

“Sure. Don’t forget the biscuits like you did last time.”

~~~

It took five minutes of quietly moving around the attic so as not to wake Lucy for Y/n to get changed. She wasn’t entirely successful in being silent, since the floorboards creaked every two seconds and she fell over trying to get her jumper on because she got stuck inside it and didn’t see the corner of her bed, but somehow Lucy slept through it all. Y/n headed downstairs, wincing when the steps groaned under her weight, and went to find Lockwood in the basement. He was nearly done packing up the bags, and when he caught sight of her his smile was blinding. 

“You all ready to go?”

“Yeah, think so. I’ve been thinking, about what the Source could be?” she said, although her voice lifted at the end to make it sound more like she was asking him a question. Lockwood nodded, zipping up the second kit bag and handing it to her when she reached for it. “I feel like the phone is too obvious, but if it’s some sort of Poltergeist it might be a good idea to check anyway. There’s quite a lot of things that could be a Source, actually. Mum loved collecting old stuff, said it reminded her of her childhood.”

“She wasn’t an agent, was she?”

“No. No Talent. Not with a capital ‘t’ anyway. She was amazing at loads of other things though.” They were in the hallway now, grabbing their rapiers out of the stand. Lockwood shrugged on his coat. 

“What do you know about the history of the house? Any murders or deaths that could result in a Visitor?”

“No. There was Mum’s, but Dad got the place sorted out as soon as he could. DEPRAC came in and cleared the room.”

“Well, we’ll see what we can find, yeah?”

“Yeah. Thanks,” she said when he opened the front door and gestured for her to go first. Lockwood must have called a cab, because now there sat one just in front of the gate. “I told Dad to get into the kitchen and turn the table lamp on, ‘cause a couple years ago he got iron strips put in the floor, so he should be alright in there. We can get this taxi to wait for him and bring him here, right?”

“Of course. That was a smart move, both the iron strips and your suggestion. We’ll make the kitchen our main retreat, then.”

Ten minutes later they were pulling up outside her childhood home, and as soon as the taxi stopped Y/n was opening the door and rushing to greet her dad. Lockwood was talking to the driver, paying him for the journey they’d just taken and asking if he might stay a little longer to take a passenger back to 35 Portland Row. 

“Hi, Dad, you alright?” Y/n breathed, wrapping her arms around her father. 

“Been better, love. I’m glad you and your boyfriend are here though.”

“He’s not my boyfriend, Dad,” she said, feeling heat creep up her neck. “Lockwood’s my boss.”

“I just thought that since you talk about him all the time, y’know? Lockwood this and Lockwood that.”

“I’m gonna walk away now, I think. Have fun with the ghost!” she joked, knowing that she would never leave her father in a house where there was a possible haunting. “We, uh… we thought it might be best if you went to Portland Row for tonight while we work here. It’s a standard procedure to not have the clients in the house, but normally they’ve got somewhere to go and a bit more notice, and Lockwood said you can take his bed if you wanted. We have also got a sofa, but it’s not nearly as comfortable as a bed.”

“Alright, love. You’ll be alright, just the two of you?”

“Yeah.”

“I take it he’s keeping that cab for me?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay then. I’ll see you in the morning, love.” He must have known that she would ask him to leave the house because he reached behind him and picked up a bag, hoisting it over his shoulder and planting a quick kiss on her cheek. 

“Bye, Dad!”

She watched as he sent a small wave over his shoulder, shaking Lockwood by the hand and thanking him for the offer of a place to stay, and then he was getting in the taxi and going back the way that she and Lockwood had come from. 

Lockwood had the keys to the house in his hand, and before he unlocked the front door (her father had locked it when he’d seen the taxi approach) he turned back. “Are you sure you’ll be alright?”

“I can do this, Lockwood. For my Dad. Besides, if something’s only just surfacing now from one of the antiques, it can’t be too bad can it? I mean, it didn’t hurt my dad.”

~~~

As it turned out, it was quite bad. 

Not in a holy-shit-this-ghost-will-kill-us way, but more in a holy-shit-why-does-this-house-feel-worse-than-a-graveyard-at-night? way. 

Y/n had grown up in this house, had only really moved out two years ago, and she had never once felt unsafe or uneasy. Walking around it now, though, doing initial readings of sensations and temperature, she wondered how her father had managed to stay positive. Most things she just got echoes of her own childhood, her laughter as she ran through the halls while her parents chased her when she was three, baking in the kitchen and licking the bowl when she was five, crying when she tripped and slid down the last couple of steps on the stairs and grazed her knee at the bottom, and her mother pressing kisses to her hair and a plaster to her tiny injury when she was six. But underneath it all there was a malaise, something unsettling that seeped into Y/n and Lockwood’s bones and made them cautious. 

“Does it normally feel like this?” he asked when they made it to the top of the stairs and around most of the rooms, one hand on his rapier hilt. They hadn’t drawn their weapons yet, but they knew it was only a matter of time. 

“No. Dad would have said something.” The thermometer beeped, alerting them of a drop in temperature. Lockwood checked it where it sat attached to his belt. 

“Minus two. It was three degrees just now.” They stood in silence on the landing, both looking at the thermometer. “Well, only one door left, I suppose. Do you want to do it or should I?”

“I’ll do it.” She made her way to the door of her parents’ bedroom and took a shaky breath before placing her hand on the doorknob. Immediately a rush of memories hit her, from when her parents first moved in after their marriage, to the day she was born in that room, to the countless times Y/n had crept in in the night because she’d had a bad dream, up to the point when her mother had last touched the handle. It went further, but the force of the memory of her mother made her push the door open and step over the threshold. 

Lockwood was right behind her, and she heard him draw in a breath and reach into his coat for his sunglasses. Y/n whipped around to look at him just as he pushed them over his eyes, catching the last of his squint while he warily studied the bed. “Why are you putting those on?”  she asked, not liking the wobble that accompanied it. 

“Death glow on the bed. Are…” he hesitated for a moment, and she imagined his eyes darting between her and the bed behind her. “Are you absolutely sure that your father got the house cleaned out?” His voice was soft, like he was trying to not agitate her too much, but she got defensive anyway. 

“Yes. He wouldn’t lie about something like that, not when he had a six year old living in a possibly haunted house!”

“But… and I’m not doubting you, or your father, I just need to know, were you here when the house got cleaned out after your mother passed?”

“No, Dad sent me to my friend’s house. He said it wouldn’t be good for us to be in the house while they were working.”

“So you never actually saw people cleaning out this place?” She froze, catching on to what Lockwood was getting at. 

“No,” she whispered, turning to look back at the bed. Her mother had died in it over ten years ago from untreated cancer, completely unexpectedly. She’d gone peacefully at least, in her sleep, but it had broken the two members of the family that had been left behind. Her father had told her that he’d call DEPRAC and get the house cleaned out, to keep the two of them safe, but now as she grabbed a hold of the doorknob again she realised there was no memory of people coming in to do that job. “Shit. Shit shit shit shit.”

“Hey,” Lockwood said, sunglasses still perched on his nose. “It’s alright. We’re agents, and we’re Lockwood and Co. I know… I know this won’t be easy, Y/n/n, but we can do this. You can do this. Just breathe in, and back out. Good. Right. Have a think: what in here could be the Source? Hey, focus, Y/n.” His tone grew a little harsher as he grabbed her shoulders, pulling her away from the door. 

“Why wouldn’t he clean the house?” Her breath was coming too quickly now, and her eyes couldn’t settle on any one thing. “Why, Lockwood? Why wouldn’t he do it?”

“Because sometimes we love someone too much to have them gone forever.” Her eyes finally stopped moving around, instead meeting his and making her draw in a breath at the vulnerability in his eyes. His voice had been rough with emotion, and immediately she thought of the door on the landing back at 35 Portland Row. As quickly as he had opened up, his walls had snapped back into place, and he was leaning back and smiling softly at her. “Let’s try not to focus on that too much, yeah? Maybe the phone?” As though he had summoned it, the old telephone on the shelf started ringing as soon as he finished talking. “Okay… that was weird.”

“It’s not even got wires attached to it,” Y/n breathed. 

“Visitor is definitely a Poltergeist then. There’s no apparition which is good, because no ghost-touch. That’s also bad though. No way of really knowing what the Source could be.” She tuned Lockwood out, knowing that he would just be talking himself through the situation they were in, and kept on staring at the telephone. It hadn’t stopped ringing. 

Music suddenly started blaring out of the record player, despite there not being any record to play. It was a song that Y/n recognised, although she couldn’t remember where from. 

“Is that… is that ‘Nature Boy’?” Lockwood asked, glancing incredulously at the record player. 

“Oh my god. Yeah. It was Mum’s favourite song, specifically this version.” Her mother would often be found with it playing on the record player in the study downstairs, and she’d told Y/n the story behind it a million times. She’d been adamant that Y/n never forget the words, and now as it played she knew it was her mother haunting this room. 

“I think it’s broken,” Lockwood said when the song skipped back to repeat the last section of the song. 

“The greatest thing…”

“No, it’s not. Maybe it’s the record player? Maybe that’s the Source?” The music stopped, and she knew she was wrong. “Okay… so the telephone is the Source?” At once the music started again, but from a different point. 

“But very wise…”

“Is… is your mother helping us?” 

“I think so.” 

“… Why?”

“Maybe she just wants to move on?”

“But very wise…”

“Okay this is freaking me out a little bit now,” she said, moving over to the telephone. It stopped ringing when she got close enough to reach out and touch it, and she glanced at Lockwood. “Silver net?” He wordlessly passed her one, his sunglasses still obscuring his eyes. His face was impassive and she couldn’t figure out what he was thinking, but he was focused on the record player. It had continued playing from where her mother’s ghost had skipped back to help them, and was finishing up the last lines of the song. 

“The greatest thing… you’ll ever learn… is just to love… and be loved… in return…”

The room became silent after that, and both Lockwood and Y/n stood staring at the record player. Nothing moved until Y/n finally broke out of whatever world she had disappeared into, slowly placing the silver net over the telephone and wrapping it carefully. At once the temperature lifted, and just before she had finished containing the Source of her mother’s ghost she heard a sigh in the air, as though someone was finally being allowed some peace. 

“We should head over to the furnaces,” Lockwood finally said. “Unless you wanted to put it in a silver glass case?”

“I’ll talk to Dad about it in the morning.”

“Alright. Here, let me…” he stepped over and gently removed the telephone from her hands. “Why don’t you go and sort out the kitchen, get all our things together? I’ll get a taxi for us.” Y/n nodded, not taking her eyes off of the bundle in his arms. “Y/n?”

“Hmm?” She was unfocused, untethered to this world, and his voice was muffled. She vaguely noted Lockwood putting the Source down and coming closer to her, and then he was hugging her tightly, pressing her into his chest and his lips to her head when she drew in a shaky breath and sobbed. 

“It’s alright. It’s alright.”

She wasn’t sure how long they were there for, her crying into his dress shirt and him rubbing her back and whispering softly to her, but by the time she pulled back, her sobs reduced to slight hitches in her breath, her throat was sore and her eyes puffy. “Thank you.”

“Anytime, Y/n.”

~~~

It was nearly three in the morning when the telephone rang. 

This wasn’t odd, because this time it was Lockwood phoning Portland Row to let them know that the ghost had been dealt with, and he and Y/n were coming back. 

Y/n had remained silent for the duration of the taxi ride back to 35 Portland Row, staring out the window with her eyes looking at something that Lockwood couldn’t see. He knew what it was like, to be in her position, but he had no idea how to comfort her other than just being here. She’d gripped him earlier, when they were hugging, like she thought he might be the next one to leave. It had broken his heart and made it swell at the same time that she had held him so tightly, but now he was left to wonder how else he might help. 

She was still silent when they walked through the front door. 

Her father came out of the living room to greet them, and Y/n had frozen, rapier mid-air while she went to put it away in the umbrella stand. Lockwood had put his own rapier away, and the sound made her snap out of whatever trance she had been in and finish her previous action before taking one last look at her father and running upstairs. Lockwood shrugged off his long coat, hanging it on the stand. 

“It was her mother,” he said, looking at the stairs instead of at the man he was talking to. “I think she’s upset that you lied to her, about clearing out the house.”

“I couldn’t-” he broke off, coughing slightly to clear his throat when emotion clogged it up. “I couldn’t bring myself to do it.”

“I know.” He could barely look at that door on the landing most of the time. He turned to face Y/n’s father. “But you made that house unsafe. You got lucky. She was a Poltergeist, but completely unaggressive like they normally are. Very lucky, in fact, because there was no chance of you being ghost-touched. But still, you should have told her.” The man nodded, tears starting to fall on his cheeks. 

“I suppose you put the Source in the furnaces then?”

“No, actually. I asked Y/n what she wanted to do, and she said she’d talk to you. You could keep it, so long as it was in a sealed silver glass box. You wouldn’t have to lose her again.”

“That would be great, thank you. Is it safe here overnight?”

“I’ll put it in the storeroom downstairs,” Lockwood smiled, one of his classic customer service smiles, and moved towards the kitchen. “Whereabouts did you decide to sleep in the end? The living room?”

“Yeah.”

“Alright. Well, goodnight, sir.”

“You’re a good lad, Mr. Lockwood. I can see why my Y/n likes you so much. Goodnight,” he waved, disappearing into the living room and closing the door behind him. Lockwood stood in the hallway, Source still wrapped in the silver net, and tried not to blush too much at the way those words had been said. 

~~~

“What are you doing in here?”

Y/n jumped at the sound of Lockwood’s voice, and immediately felt a little guilty for intruding on his personal space. “Sorry,” she muttered. “I didn’t want to wake Lucy up, ‘cause she hasn’t been sleeping well recently, so I came in here. Sorry.”

“That’s alright.” He went to grab his pyjamas, then did a double-take. “Is that my shirt?”

“Oh.” She looked down and flushed. “I didn’t… I forgot that by not going up to the attic I wouldn’t have anything to sleep in, so… yeah.”

“Oh.” 

She wished he would say more, because his gaze was as heavy as the silence that settled over them after that single syllable. 

“Lockwood?”

A pause. “Yeah?”

“I can leave-”

“No!” He swallowed thickly, then repeated himself. “No. I mean, no point waking Lucy up, is there? I’ll be back in a bit, just… going to go get changed.” She watched him leave, and then five minutes later she watched him come back. 

“You alright?”

“Yeah,” he answered, sounding anything but. He looked… nervous? Why the hell was he nervous? “You?”

“I’m alright.” She tried not to laugh, settling for an amused smile instead, and waited for him to get into bed next to her and turn off the light. Once it was dark (or as dark as it could be with the ghost lamp outside the window), she heard him shuffle around in his bed so that he was facing her. The outline of his face was barely visible, but it was enough that she could make out where his eyes were, and where his faint smile was. “Lockwood?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you. For earlier.”

“I already told you, anytime.” They went quiet, just enjoying the comfort of Lockwood’s bedroom. “I talked to your dad, by the way. He said he didn’t want to lose her again, so I’ve offered to sort out a case for the phone in the morning. I also told him off for lying to you, which terrified me, because your dad is not a small man.” Y/n let out a snort at the last part, and she saw the faint light from outside light up Lockwood’s teeth as he grinned. 

“You didn’t have to do that.”

“I did. Back at the house, you were… well, I’m not really sure what you were. But you weren’t you, and it scared me. It’s like you went somewhere else, Y/n. I just can’t lose you, is all.”

“Oh.” Now it was her turn to not say much, and she could feel him fidgeting. 

“Your dad said something. About you.”

“What? What did he say?” Her heart was beating faster, not knowing if he’d said something good or bad. 

“He said that you like me a lot.” Now her heart was thumping for a different reason. 

“Well, yeah. It’s difficult not to like you, Lockwood, you’re a very likeable person, you know? Very-”

“Why are you nervous?”

“What?”

“You’re talking really fast. You do that when you’re nervous. Why are you nervous?” Damn him for knowing her so well. 

“Uh… I just… I don’t know.” She did know, but how could she admit to her boss that she had the biggest crush on him while they were lying in his bed together?

“Sorry. I shouldn’t have- it just sounded like he meant it in a… in a like like way.” She took a deep breath, and decided to bite the bullet. At least if it was dark she couldn’t see his face when he rejected her. 

“He did. I… I’ve liked you for a while, actually.” There was no response, and suddenly it all seemed like a terrible idea. “Lockwood?”

“How long?” There was no discernible emotion in his voice. 

“About two years?”

“So… since you got here?”

“Yeah, basically.”

“You’re telling me,” he started, frustration seeping through, and she shrunk in on herself a little. “You’re telling me that we could have been together this entire time?!”

“Yeah, I guess so. Wait,” she frowned, “wait what did you just say?”

“It took us removing your mother’s Source from your childhood home and your father telling me that you really like me for this to happen?!”

“… Yeah?” She heard him bring his hands up to his face and groan, and then heard him shuffle around again. A moment later his hand was touching hers, tentatively at first, then lacing his fingers through hers and tugging her closer to him when he realised he’d found her. She ended up curled into his side, her head in the crook of his neck, and his arms wrapped around her torso under the duvet. 

“Well I know you’re free after we wake up, so right after we get the glass case sorted out I’m taking you out for food.”

“Like a date?”

“Exactly like that.”

It wasn’t long after that that the pair of them fell asleep, and before she drifted off in Lockwood’s arms, she couldn’t help but think how her mother had been right about loving and being loved, and how it was the greatest thing in the world. 

tag list: @ahead-fullofdreams, @aislinrayne, @anathemaloren, @anthgoldenhrry, @augustisintheair, @avdiobliss, @aysha4life, @bobbys-not-that-small, @briar-rose23, @curseofhecate, @dangelnleif, @edible-rat-vomit, @el-de-phi, @ell0ra-br3kk3r, @ettadear, @fearlessmoony, @fudosl, @idkbubs, @imaginebeingmentallystable, @informedimagining, @karensirkobabes, @lady-ashfade, @light-23, @locklyebrainrot, @locklyle1kanij, @locknco, @magicandrosewaters, @mentallyillsodapop, @mischivana, @mitskiswift99, @mrsklockwood, @mrsyixingunicorn10, @newbooksmell777, @no-morning-glories, @novelizt, @phlooper, @ran23sblog, @reggiepeterss, @simrah1012, @somethingrandomwatzit, @star-of-velaris, @superpositvecloudshipper, @t2sh0, @taygrls, @tournesol77, @whistle1whistle, @whenselenefallsinlove, @wordsarelife, @y0urm0m12, @zoom1374, @asyouwish-fromcabin3, @magicandrosewaters

[imraespace]

LIFE'S HARD WHEN YOU'RE INLOVE ─

─ WITH RIN ITOSHI !!

IMRAESNOTE: I meant to make reo say "sei" not himself LMAO

Rubbing your eyes to adjust it to your phone screen, you squint a bit to make out what you're viewing on your insta feed.

"Football.. Late.." You mumbled. You should really put on your glasses..

Rising up from your bed, trying to shake off the feelings of sleepiness that rest on your body. Yet, with all those efforts, your body just plops back on the bed. On the bright side, you stretched far enough to grab your glasses.

Then a thought came in your mind. "Reo and Sei are out right now.." You mumbled.

The feeling of hunger started to take over the previous one. Sleepiness long forgotten and now the number one thing in mind you want right now is food.

Maybe texting your roommates to bless you with the necessity that is needed, probably will help you right now.

Reo Mikage, will always be your top enemy. Joking! Of course.

Nagi Seishiro on the other hand, will always be your number 1 best friend more like a sibling duo, your older brother. One common fact when you're in school is that others may mistake you both as couples. It sickens you to your core.

Reo is more like your mother than anything. He takes care of you like how a family would AND threatens to kick you out if you don't do anything. He always apologizes after you do something in the apartment.. like clean up after dinner? It's nothing too big to be honestly.. but you know he just really wants you to get up and do something for a living, but..

.

.

Ehh,, thoughts ended. You fell asleep.

REO sighed at the sight of his phone. Seishiro, who's right beside the boy switched the messaging app to whatever game he was playing previously.

The duo were both sitting on the field as the other players were practicing. Reo was about to spark up a conversation with his friend when his eye made out a certain boy running up towards them.

"Chigiri?" Reo asked himself. The confusion is because Hyoma, himself, had told the team that he wouldn't be present at practice for today.. Yet here he is.

The said male was now in front of the friends with something in his hand.

"Can you give this to Y/N? It's extra dinner and the field is closer so.." He asked your roommates. Both Reo and Seishiro shared a glance as they looked back at the boy.

"Okay.. You better escape right now though, Rin is on the field." Reo slightly joked, standing up to take the food as his eyes shifted towards the field for a bit, then back at the pink-haired male.

He just smiled as he made his escape, leaving the boys alone and now, with food.

"Bold of him to appear out of the blue." Seishiro started. Reo just shrugged his shoulders.

"It's not the first time he brought her gifts but I would've never thought he would go out his way like this." Reo thought out loud.

"Who went out they're way?" A voice asked.

Reo turned around and was greeted by Meguru!

"Nevermind that, it's our turn on the field Sei!" Reo stated, dragging the boy from his game and onto the field.

"Hey there's food." Meguru mumbled. He was about to grab onto it until a hand pulled him back.

"Don't eat their food.." Yoichi stopped his friend.

Your (second) mini nap was short but sweet. You woke up after a few minutes and decided to scroll a bit on social media, the "reading" you planned to do was now long forgotten.

You then began to wonder..

"How long will the food take.." You mumbled as a small grumble was heard from your tummy. You sighed, your phone long forgotten and your ceiling was in view..

"What can I do?" You asked yourself, the need to entertain yourself washed over you but thinking too hard wasn't your favorite activity.

Maybe you should read after all..

You left your phone on your bed as you began to search for that one book you read.

Maybe we should see what's on your screen..?

FOOD!! Too bad you're too busy reading to notice the message..

What ARE you reading anyways? It's a romance book gifted to you from the one and only Hyoma Chigiri!! The romance wasn't something you would normally read but Hyoma begged for you to read it and after that, you oddly got hooked on the book.

Romance is too much of a hassle anyways, "Too much work" is what you will say.

HYOMA CHIGIRI (16) :

He's your first childhood friend from your original hometown and sadly had to part ways. Rekindled the relationship in late middle school when he was the "new transfer student". Ever since you both have been VERY close. Close enough to be questioned as a couple but it doesn't really the both of you, unless someone personally ask you, then you will reply with a negative response.

2 the first few chapters are a bit boring n short but it gets better soon heheherh

TAGLIST!!: @deezy12299 @kuroronana (OPEN)

-`♥︎´- for this story, i'm trying a something new, which includes words/phrases, foods and hometowns from japan and germany. if there's any errors please point it out !

-`♥︎´- word count : 763

[gatoraid]

Shelley Parker-Chan for Locus Magazine

Locus Magazine's March 2024 issue had a long interview with Shelley Parker-Chan! They talk about their inspirations, the writing process of The Radiant Emperor duology, exploring gender in their books and how writing fanfic has shaped their writing (among a lot of other things). I was finally able to get my hands on the magazine and wanted to share some favorite quotes.

Check out more quotes and how to buy the magazine to read the full interview: Shelley Parker-Chan: All the Others

On their origins with scifi/fantasy

My mother was such a stereotypical Chinese tiger parent: 'You have to study really hard, get great grades. But then she also loved Star Trek. So we’d spend a lot of time watching that together at home. That was a formative part of my childhood, to the point where I wanted to be an astrophysicist when I grew up. I was obsessed with the stars.

A lot of the themes in science fiction/fantasy really spoke to me. Robots! I love an awkward robot - Murderbot by Martha Wells is one of my favorites. As a slightly awkward, possibly on-the-spectrum child, I really identified with robots, and the Spocks of the world.

On writing and fanfiction

Action/adventure plus relationships has always really interested me. Obviously, back in the day, nothing was really queer, so in my teens I gravitated towards Japanese manga and anime, which had more queer themes. Especially in the online spaces, people were writing fanfic, so I started writing it, too.

I never did any formal writing classes outside of fandom and fanfic - that was where I learned to write. I think the number one Most Important Thing was that fanfic was a place where you could write and find acceptance and enthusiasm. […] You could express very upsetting desires, and really explore aspects of sexuality, personality, and problematic relationships in a way that other people would read with an open mind and greet very enthusiastically without judging. No one said, 'Well, this is not the correct moral lesson that we want in fiction!’ Which is a response that has increasingly popped up in traditional publishing.

On exploring themes of gender in The Radiant Emperor Duology

There’s a lot of trans issues and gender exploration in the books, but I didn't want to make it too close to contemporary life because then it’s not fun for me. I like exploring those issues from a step removed, allowing for people with many different identities, for instance, to project themselves onto a certain character. Like, a eunuch - no one has a eunuch identity these days. But any kind of gender nonconforming, nonbinary, trans person - I've had many trans women write to me and say they enjoyed reading a character like that. If I had written an actual trans man character in the book, that would have narrowed it down a bit.

I always think that my main goal as a writer is to explore characters. But I don't start with the characters. I start with a theme, and the theme was gender and being oneself in a system where a rigid gender binary is enforced. It’s about the performance of femininity and masculinity. Not that I put it in so many words- ‘I want to write a book about gender!’ Its about people exploring, expanding that, confronting that, battling the binary in their own ways. What does it mean to be yourself when that self is in opposition to what people say you should be?

About the characters of TRE

All of the characters are either queer or they are really engaged with the concept of how to be themselves when the world is pressing afainst that. I do have a straight female character, Madam Zhang, based on a famous nineteenth-century female pirate in Southern China, who ran rhis mercantile empire. […] It was said that her background was a courtesan. So I was like, ‘Oh, I’ll take that character – a woman in a very male world who uses femininity as a weapon. But, knowing she can never rule herself, she has to work through men.’ That’s one character who bounces off of gender in an interesting way, and then I could have her in dialogue with other characters.

There’s a genderfluid character, my main protagonist Zhu, who used the performance of gender kind of like a superpower. She can move in and out of identities and doesn’t feel particularly wedded to any of them.

Then we have a nongender-conforming – but straight, I guess – man, Wang Baoxiang, who does not conform to society’s standards of what it is to be a man, and that impacts his identity in a certain way. His self-esteem is very damaged, and he often feels like, ‘I was born in the wrong time. If I had been born in a different time, my version of masculinity would be recognized.’ Through that character, I was thinking fo the way in which Chinese traditional performance of masculinity, for instance, is not recognized here in Australia as masculine - it's seen as feminine. In Australia. we have a certain white, sports-playing, particular idea of masculinity - It looks like Chris Hemsworth. If you do not look like Hemsworth, it you're a little Asian guy, your’e inherently seen as feminine, no matter now masculine you feel.

I have a eunuch character, someone whose gender has literally been ripped away from them, and that kind of reflects a trans experience – someone who feels they are intensely masculine on the inside, but the entire world sees them in a different way. Then you feel the need to perform, in order to seen to be the way that you feel you are. But this character, in trying to be the most manly he can possibly be , starts to adopt all these toxic masculine traits, and, in a sense, kills a lot of his own honest desires in pursuit of performing this ideal of masculinity.

About their next book and future aspirations as an author

I'm going to write a secondary-world fantasy. I've never built a world from scratch before […] It will feel pre-industrial, historical. It will be very kinky and - what are the comps? So far l've been saying, 'It's Foucault's Discipline and Punish meets Simone Weil's Gravity & Grace with a side of of Kushiel’s Dart. There's a lot of kinky BDSM in a world like that. One of the joys of fan fiction was people were not afraid to create these worlds where society is completely based around kink concepts, so I'm building a world around kink concepts here, and that’ll be fun.

I'm a frustrated romance author, so I really want to write some romances in the future - straight up. None of that politics stuff. none of the adventure, only the relationships! I'm not fast enough to write category romance, though, that's for sure. I'll have to stick with fantasy romance so I can do one every two years.

[thefluffyrailway-official]

𝐌𝐨𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐦𝐞𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬

During the year 1915. One night, in the city of Norwich (East Anglia/England), Lawrence Billinton, an elderly man, dark complexion, graying hair and olive green eyes, was reading a novel (Around the World in 80 Days) to a tiny baby animal similar to a steam engine.

The little one listened attentively as his adoptive father read each paragraph of the book. He was leaning on the living room carpet with his 6 small fuchsia wheels, motionless, staring at the older boy with a certain sparkle in his big blue eyes.

-An hour after leaving Bombay, the train, avoiding the viaducts, had crossed Salcette Island and was running on the mainland, - recited Lawrence with a theatrical air.

-Have you ever been there, dad? - the little train asked curiously as he slowly moved towards the older boy.

Lawrence stopped reading for a moment and smiled.

-I'm afraid not, son.- he said, shaking his head. To which the blue-eyed man responded by lowering his gaze, disappointed.

-Although, when I worked on the railway with my old tram engine, Ram, we were sometimes sent to work temporarily in Germany, France and even Uruguay, - the older was quick to say.

-Really?? Ram never told me about that!-

Lawrence put the book on the table next to the chair and placed the little engine-like pup on his lap.

-Yes, it's true. And maybe when you grow up and work on a real railway, you will travel and see other countries too- He laughed.

The pup's eyes lit up.

-Yes! YES!! I will! I will travel the world!! And I will make new friends! And I will take you and Nico with me!!- The little blue-eyed steam engine squeaked while shaking in excitement.

-Hehe. I'm sure it will be.- The man got up from his chair, with his son in his arms, and walked to the living room window. A window that looked out onto the beautiful port of Norwich.

The pup leaned on his father's chest as he looked out at the crystal-clear waters of the port in the distance, which seemed endless the further he looked.

-Someday, we'll get on one of those boats, Dad. And we'll travel around the world.- He smiled.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now, a century later, that little train had grown and matured. His fur was now a shiny sky blue with red stripes and the number 1 on the sides.

Just as his father told him, he now worked on a railway on the island of Sodor; a small island south of the Isle of Man.

Thomas was glancing out the small window of his shed door in the town of Tidmouth. He'd woken up just before everyone else. And because of that memory with his foster father, he'd become quite emotional looking at the row of photos of him and his father in the door in front of him.

-You were right, dad. I managed to travel the world and meet new people. But without you and Nico accompanying me on the trip, it's not the same...- He whispered in a sigh.

Suddenly, his thoughts were interrupted by a deep cough two places to his right.

-Do you mind? Some engines need to rest. If you knew what it was like to get up early, you wouldn't chatter that much. - Protested a very prideful big blue engine.

-I'm sorry Gordon. I was just thinking... - Thomas apologized.

-Well, it seems that now we all read minds because you can be heared even in Vicarstown!- Gordon growled, causing the others to wake up as well.

-Huh? What's going on?- Nia yawned, still sleepy.

-Come on guys. It's still early to start fighting.- Emily complained from a corner.

-Emily is right. You are ruining my beauty dream!- added James, who unfortunately found himself between the two.

-Which isn't work so well i can see...- Percy chuckled in answer.

-In that case Thomas should shut his mouth a bit so we can all go back to sleep!- Gordon snorted.

Suddenly, the sound of keys opening the door of one of the sheds made everyone pretend to be asleep.

-Good morning, sleepyhead- a tall, dark-skinned man with light eyes greeted as he opened the door for Gordon.

-No good morning or anything! We heard you arguing. Come on! get moving Gordon! Someone here fell asleep and we're already late for the express! - Liam, another man with amber eyes, dark hair, a bit of grey and a prominent beard, growled, while pointing angrily at his colleague.

-Thanks for ruining my last 5 minutes of sleep!- the big blue-eyed engine claimed.

-Now, come on and bring me my coaches, so that "waking up early" game of yours will be useful for something...- He ordered.

-Fiiiine... - Thomas huffed as he walked out of his shed.

And so, another tiring morning of work began on the bustling island of Sodor.

---------------------------------------

(𝐀𝐔 𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐩𝐨 𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐝𝐬: @steam-beasts <𝟑)

[jackoshadows]

Game of Thrones did remind me a lot of British culture and history in terms of Sansa’s xenophobic rants against the Dothraki and Unsullied - who came to help the North from an existential apocalyptic threat and ended up dying in large numbers - being very similar to Brexit Britain.

The othering language used by the Starks - ‘She’s not one of us’. The backstabbing and betrayal of an ally come to help. Brexit was and is as nonsensical as Sansa’s entire ‘Northern independence’ shtick. The way Sansa had no issues feeding the Vale army but complained about feeding the Dothraki and the Unsullied reminds me of the likes of Rees Mogg, Nigel Farage and the UKIP party talking about immigrants and refugees.

And it really is discomforting to realize that a lot of people are fictionally for a UKIP party’s xenophobic hated of others given their rhetoric and support for show Sansa’s actions in GOT. It’s fascinating just in general how easily people fall in anglo-centric/imperialistic/colonial/racist/po-monarchial mindsets when you put a pretty face on the brochure!

ASoIaF on the other hand is fundamentally different to GOT in it’s narrative themes and the story it’s telling with the fight against the allegory for climate change - the Others - being more important than which noble family gets to rule over the Smallfolk. That has consistently been the message of the books.

I’m not an “American First” (and maybe because I read science fiction) I’m a “Terran First”. I’m a human being first. And I have this sympathy for other human beings no matter what side of the giant ice wall they happen to be born on. - GRRM

When dead men come hunting in the night, do you think it matters who sits the Iron Throne?” - Jeor Mormont

Why can't it be both?" Meera reached up to pinch his nose.

"Because they're different," he insisted. "Like night and day, or ice and fire."

"If ice can burn," said Jojen in his solemn voice, "then love and hate can mate. Mountain or marsh, it makes no matter. The land is one." - Jojen Reed

“Are you certain that I have not forgotten some? The ones about the king and his laws, and how we must defend every foot of his land and cling to each ruined castle? How does that part go?” Jon waited for an answer. None came. “I am the shield that guards the realms of men. Those are the words. So tell me, my lord— what are these wildlings, if not men?” - Jon Snow

The shield that guards the realms of men. Ghost nuzzled up against his shoulder, and Jon draped an arm around him. He could smell Horse’s unwashed breeches, the sweet scent Satin combed into his beard, the rank sharp smell of fear, the giant’s overpowering musk. He could hear the beating of his own heart. When he looked across the grove at the woman with her child, the two greybeards, the Hornfoot man with his maimed feet, all he saw was men. - Jon Snow

I also think we need to be consistent and if we are talking about Northern independence or Dornish independence or just the dissolution of the 7 kingdoms from the Iron Throne etc, then these discussions should also include the Iron Islands and Ned Stark/Stannis Baratheon crushing the Greyjoy rebellion and taking Theon Stark as a child hostage so that they would not fight back again. There is no one family or one house in the morally right here. They are ALL feudal lords fighting for power and for their house.

[spnexploration]

Collared part 27

Pairing: Dean x Reader eventually

Series summary: Sam and Dean save a woman from where she has been held as a slave by a witch. But things turn dark whenever they try to take her magic collar off, leaving them with a slave to look after and a curse to break.

Episode summary: The boys keep an eye on you.

Warnings: drug use, concerns about potential suicidal thoughts

Word count: 1.2k

Series masterlist | Supernatural writing masterlist

Part 26 <- -> Part 28

“Ok, fine, if it’ll get you two off my back I’ll call 998.”

“It’s 988,” Sam said kindly.

“Whatever,” you sassed at him. “I’m not suidical, I don’t need some telephone shrink to tell me I am.”

“I am reasonably certain that that is not what they’re going to do. Just, tell them about the pills and what you were feeling at the time, and see what they say. See if they have ideas for next time you’re feeling that way.” You looked up into his big, puppy dog eyes, pleading with you.

“Fiiiiine. But I’m doing it alone!”

Sam and Dean exchanged a look. “Oh, for the love of God, you two and your looks! Ok, you can watch me dial, you can see them pick up, and then you are OUT!”

“Agreed,” Dean said, entering the conversation. He often seemed to make decisions for the two of them, you wondered if he knew that.

Sam handed you an old-looking phone. “It’s a burner, they can’t trace it here, and it’s not tied to any of our names. So if you do let anything slip that you didn’t want to, don’t worry about it. They won’t be knocking on the door.”

You keyed in the numbers. 9. 8. 8. You took a deep breath.

Here goes nothing.

---

The brothers finally let you out of their sight after that, but you noticed that one of them would come check on you hourly. “Did you guys set up a schedule or something? Is there some kind of fucking sticker chart for who goes to visit the crazy chick the most?!” you yelled at Dean. He always did make you angriest.

“You know what, I would like a sticker chart, thanks for the idea,” he said sarcastically. “Here I was slumming it just doing things out of the goodness of my own heart when I could have had stickers!”

You glared at him. He glared back.

“Well, you’re clearly fine, screaming at me is your favourite fucking hobby,” he grumped, then stormed off down the corridor.

---

5 minutes before the next hour, you crept to the library. The brothers were in their usual spots, reading old books and searching the web. Your cushion was against the wall, now.

“I, um, I thought I’d save you the trip,” you said nervously as you entered. “And, um, I’m sorry I yelled at you, Dean. I do appreciate you two looking out for me.”

Dean smiled at you, a genuine, warm smile. “Apology accepted, swee- uh, Y/N.”

“What, um, what are you guys doing?”

Dean pursed his lips before answering. He said in a gentle voice, “Are you sure you want to know?”

“I appreciate the concern, Dean, but I’m not made of glass.”

“We’re trying to research about Azaneth.”

“Oh. I probably should’ve guessed that. Does that mean you’re going after him?”

“If you want us to, we will.”

You shivered. Could they really kill him? What if he got them first? “What- um- what if, he, umm- what if he- whatifhe-”

Dean glanced at Sam, who stood up and approached you. He walked towards you slowly with his hands open and non-threatening. He put his hands gently on your shoulders.

“You don’t have to talk about him if you don’t want to, Y/N,” Sam said.

“It’s ok, I just- I just can’t-”

Sam rubbed his hands up and down your upper arms. “Are you worried about him getting you again?”

You bit your lip. “No… I mean, yes, of course, but umm,” you paused, and then said in a rush, “Imworriedabouthimgettingyoutwo.”

“I didn’t quite understand that, I’m sorry, Y/N,” Sam said earnestly.

“I’m worried that he’ll kill you two, and you shouldn’t risk your lives just because of me,” you mumbled, a little slower this time.

“Y/N, we care about you. We care about the other people that Azaneth is probably hurting, and even if it’s not like what he did to you, he’s a pretty big dickhead of a demon. We’re also not stupid, we don’t go into fights we don’t think we can get out of.”

“I guess…”

Dean stood up and came into your field of view again, no longer blocked by his brother, but he didn’t come too close. “Why shouldn’t we risk our lives for you?” he said quietly. “Why should we risk them for everyone else and not you?”

“I’m not worth it,” you muttered.

“The person who convinced you of that did you and everyone a massive disservice,” Dean replied, piercingly quiet. Like a teacher who could control a room with a whisper rather than a shout. It struck to your core, bringing up many, bewildering and painful emotions.

You fled to your room.

---

The brothers still took turns checking on you, but no one brought up Azaneth again. You all ate dinner on the cushions in the kitchen again, with the brothers carrying on a conversation and you not contributing. Still, it was nice to be included.

---

The next morning, Sam was putting away the clean dishes when you came into the kitchen.

“Guess I should learn where these go,” you joked weakly.

Sam chuckled, offering you a plate. “Goes in the bottom cupboard over there. Try not to drop it,” he teased.

“I didn’t actually think I’d drop them,” you said a little awkwardly. “But it was a possibility, so it wasn’t a lie. I just didn’t really want to do it that day.”

“It may surprise you to know this, but I was far more excited that you challenged me than if you’d helped me put away some dishes,” he said sincerely.

You nodded, then focused on the plate in your hand.

“Had you felt like there were things you didn’t want to do on other days?” he asked, then hastily added, “Sorry to pry, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

You tipped your head slightly to the side as you thought. “In some ways, no. Not wanting to do something, and therefore not doing it, was a fairly foreign concept to me. There were things I was afraid of and dreaded, but I knew they’d happen anyway. Having something that I just didn’t want to do was... different.”

He nodded, having been focused on your face the whole time you were speaking.

“I- I don’t even quite know why I didn’t want to put the dishes away. I just suddenly realised in that moment that you asked me that I just, didn’t really feel like it. I didn’t feel like much that day.”

Sam looked like he wanted to say something, but stopped himself. Apparently, the boys were doing a lot of that around you recently.

“Whatever it is you’re thinking, you may as well say it,” you said to him.

“It’s just, I had a theory about what was going on for you that day. It took me a while to work it out but when I saw you in the evening it clicked. But I don’t want to mansplain you to you; I might be wrong.”

“Go ahead, I don’t know what I’m thinking half the time anyway.”

“You missed Dean,” he said quietly.

Oh.

Somehow, you hadn’t thought of that.

Was it true?

It felt a little bit true.

But that was ridiculous! If you missed him it was only because you missed the certainty of knowing what your master wanted, of the collar telling you what you had to do.

...Or was it?

.

.

.

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[mobiusstripper]

So I just finally finished Leviathan Falls a few days ago, and I've already mentioned that I was really pleasantly surprised by the way Tanaka was written. Now part of that is just that I'm a big sucker - as both a reader and a writer - for taking apart characters who are irredeemable bastards and seeing what makes them tick. I was really curious to see other fans' takes on her, and it looks like she was pretty polarizing as a POV characters - some of you guys, like me, really loved to hate her (and maybe even dip a tentative toe into feeling sorry for her), and some of you just plain hated her (and that's fine - some people prefer being able to like their POV characters. I'm not one of those people) or thought her chapters were boring (what book were you reading?). However, I haven't seen anyone really say much about the significance of her interest in (love of, really) art and art history. So I wanna talk a little about that.

The takes I've seen have largely come down to either, "It didn't fit with her character and felt really random," which I'm about to disagree with HARD, or "It served as a device to show that there was more to her that meets the eye, and that she could have gone down a completely different path." This one, I agree with, but I also think there's a lot more to it.

(1) So let's talk about why art history specifically. Why not something else seemingly 180 degrees away from being a Marine, like gardening or culinary science? As an artist who takes myself unapologetically seriously, I have had a lot of conversations with an artist friend of mine lately about the intimacy of art. Art is both an expression of individuality and a vehicle of profound, often terrifying, connection. The former is what Tanaka regards as the core of her being, while the latter is anathema to her. She is drawn to art precisely because it exists in a space of tension between her comfort zone and her deepest fears. It is the razor edge that she loves to walk.

I've said before that I think of art as a form of telepathy - you are trying to capture something inside your own mind and externalize it in a way that it is transmitted into the mind of another person. When Tanaka begins experiencing this very literally in a manner she can't control, it's her worst nightmare. But she loves art because it is a version of this that she can control. It's an outlet for her to fulfill the fundamentally human need for connection when it's never been safe (both literally and psychologically) for her to do so through any other means. She learned that as a child when she sought a hug and got a slap in the face instead.

A number of the art pieces she contemplates are emotionally intense. The Third Miko in particularly is memorable because it is a heavy piece, full of vulnerability and grief and dread. These are the kinds of pieces that not only did the artist have to rip themselves open and pour their soul into in order to produce, but the audience is required to do the same to some extent in order to fully experience them. Turning soul-crushing sadness into usable rage isn't alchemy - it's more like a refinement process; it takes a lot of energy, and there is a lot of waste runoff that still has to go somewhere. For Tanaka, that's where it goes. That's the safe place to put it. Inside of someone else's pain, where no one will ever know it's yours.

(2) The other thing I wanted to talk about hinges on a "blink and you miss it" detail that, for me at least, completely reframed the whole picture regarding the "two roads diverged" aspect of Tanaka's life, and that's the casually dropped revelation that she never actually had a choice in the first place. The way this was written, I'm absolutely certain it was a very deliberate choice by JSAC to undermine the assumptions we as readers had been previously led to make.

The "two roads" framing comes up explicitly three times in the book. The first time is in Chapter 24: "Tanaka hadn’t thought about that painting in decades, or about what a very different life she would have lived if she’d made a few different decisions at the start." The next mention is in Chapter 31, when Dr. Ahmadi is reviewing Tanaka's file. She says, "You refused an advanced scholarship in order to enlist." Both of these references frame it very explicitly as a choice. But then, a few pages later, it's revealed that it actually wasn't: "If Aunt Akari had let her study art history instead of enlisting in active service, where would she be right now? And who would be tracking down the high consul? What else—how many thousands of other things—would be different?" (emphasis mine).

This detail and the way it was just slipped in there actually made me feel terribly sad for her because it reveals that this was, in fact, never where she wanted to be at all. This is more a matter of interpretation, but my takeaway was that the whole thing about her preferring a repressive society might be less the truth and more of a narrative she tells herself because she has spent her entire life deprived of any kind of real agency. It's true that someone who has never experienced life outside a pressure cooker environment might rapidly decompress like a blobfish upon being removed from it (I'm reminded of the memoir The Girl With Seven Names, where the author's mother and brother can't adapt to life outside of North Korea and want to go back), but that's less about being naturally well-suited to it and more about being deeply and maybe irreversibly maladapted.

When Tanaka tells herself she loves life under the boot because it gives her something to push back against, she's making the best of a bad situation by pretending her lack of agency is actually just a really sophisticated form of agency. It's because the only love she has ever known is the threat of consequences, with the only realistic alternative being complete apathy. It's the same mentality that makes abuse victims blame themselves - because, in some ways, the version of events where you were totally helpless and at the mercy of a cold, uncaring universe and the passing whims of other people is more distressing than the version where you brought it upon yourself through your own choices and actions. Wanting (and presumably asking her aunt's permission) to study art history, only to be forced to enlist in the marines instead is just another variation of her reaching for a hug and getting a slap. But if someone cares enough to slap you in the face, at least that means they care, right? "Laconia would put two in the back of my head because they care about what I think and do" is still a nicer story than "Laconia would put two in the back of my head because I'm nobody and nothing and completely disposable to them." It also made me wonder what was meant earlier by "if she’d made a few different decisions at the start." What does she tell herself she could have done differently to change a fate that was never in her hands to begin with?

TL;DR Tanaka loves art because it's the only way she can safely experience human connection and emotions besides anger, and it's implied she would have chosen to study art history if her aunt hadn't forced her to enlist.

[oatmealcrisp-freak]

So I did the thing.

Deleted scene under the read more!

They drop off the groceries and get straight into the car. It still feels weird driving a Kia Soul. 

Lucky for them, a minutes worth of Googling and a phone call had confirmed that a nearby vet took emergency appointments, and would be able to fit them in in about a half hour.

So off they went.

Rei didn’t say a word the entire time. Kazuki could understand why. The guy was utterly enchanted with the little kitten, holding it to his chest with his hand, his eyes absolutely fixated on the little thing. It was meowing up a racket now, apparently determined to be louder than the engine of the car.

‘Probably crying for its mother,’ Kazuki thought, and pressed back his anger behind a smile. 

The kitten was surely too young to be without their mother. Had unfortunate circumstances separated them, or had it been intent? Impossible to say, but the temptation to call up Kyu’s information network was itching at him.

‘That’s one way to get sucked back into a life we don’t need, though.’ Kazuki thought.

Rei’s sacrifice meant too much to him to do that. No. Kyu was their friend only, no longer their informant.

Besides. 

He could do some scouting just fine himself.

The vet’s office was busy, and had a sign on the door declaring that all animals must either be in a carrier or on a leash.

Unfortunately for them, they had neither of those things.

“Sorry that we, uh, didn’t have a carrier for it,” Kazuki laughed off his nerves to the receptionist. “We couldn’t find any boxes and the one we found in it was all soggy.”

“It’s fine, but just this once, alright?” The receptionist said with a smile. “Alright, your name?”

“Kazuki Kurusu,” Kazuki said, and debated batting his eyelashes because the receptionist was cute. “And yours?”

The receptionist giggled a touch. “You’re going to ask me that with your boyfriend right there?”

“Ah!” Kazuki snapped his fingers with a put out expression. “Dang, you caught me.”

Was it really so unusual for two grown men to go to a vet’s office together? Well. 

Rei was his partner. It wasn’t like she was wrong. 

Monogamous life, though. Kazuki hesitated to say it didn’t suit him, but at the same time, that was the truth. It plainly didn’t.

Yuzuko’s death had changed him.

It might be simpler than getting accused of cheating on his ‘husband’ every so often, but it was just the case that Kazuki couldn’t. He’d rather sleep with other people than put pressure on Rei, too. Seriously, though, people’s preconceptions and biases could be such a pain.

“He doesn’t mind, though.” Kazuki grinned, and waggled his eyebrows. “I’ll give you my phone number too?”

“Hey.” Rei said.

The receptionist just grinned back at him. “Please do, I need that anyway for your registration form.”

“Not your little black book?” Kazuki pouted.

The receptionist shook her head. “I’m flattered, but no.”

“Stop flirting with her, she’s at work where she has to be nice to you. It’s rude.” Rei said.

“Ah,” Kazuki sighed. “You’re right. Hey.”

He looked back at Rei and hitched an eyebrow. “Where’d you pick that up from? Your cartoons?”

Rei simply blinked sedately back at him, not insulted in the least by Kazuki’s prodding at his still somewhat lacking social skills. 

“Miri.” He said.

“Aaahh, that makes sense.” He turned back to the receptionist. “Sorry about that. Anyways, our phone number is-”

Next was their home address, and then the kitten’s details, which mostly had to be skipped over in thanks to the fact they simply didn’t know the kitten’s details. If they named the little tyke without Miri’s consideration, too, she’d most certainly flip. 

Plus. Nothing was for certain yet.

‘So why am I thinking like it is?’ Kazuki thought to himself as he studied the examination room’s ceiling. He’d just caught himself trying to make room in their budget for things like cat food and litter. Geeze. 

He was getting soft in his old age.

“Kazuki.”

Kazuki blinked over at Rei. “Hm?”

“Don’t worry about the budget so much.” 

“Eh?” Kazuki laughed. “What, did you get psychic powers just now? How could you tell?”

“From the way you look.” Rei said, and reached up to poke Kazuki in the forehead. "Right here."

[miscelunaaa]

em's favorite reads for 2022

Hello and welcome to the list I said I’d make like two weeks ago and used to procrastinate doing both edits to sacrificial and messaging a client back about plot stuff!! Because I have a job now and I’m still adjusting to the fact that I’m an adult even now after all these years!! 

It’s been a fucking YEAR. Even like for myself personally, like this year’s just been fucking nuts. And yet somehow I found the time to do an immense amount of reading. I keep track of books I read, and well, to make myself feel better about how few books I read this year (and last), I started keeping track of fics I read that were longer than 50k. After all, 50k is what NaNoWriMo calls a novel, so why can’t I? With that in mind, it looks like I read some 60 books this year, most of them booklength fics. Of course, the list I keep is not exhaustive, thought I like to think it’s still pretty thorough. This year saw me starting to peak into other fandoms and read within them on ao3, and it also saw me return to commercial romance in the form of the Bridgerton Novels. There were things that I started and took to long to decide I didn’t like, there were things that I started a few times and finally decided I loved, and then there were things that I finished and allowed to haunt me for days after, when I couldn’t find anything that could compare. 

The list below is a selection of my favorites. All of them are works that qualified for a spot my personal “completed reads” list, so that means that, whether they’re finished or not, they hit roughly 50k (or were close enough for me to say it counted).  There are only ten because I had to arbitrarily pick a number to limit myself to, otherwise I would be here just listing things for the rest of eternity. Also note that there’s a lot of mxm on the list! On this blog, we are friendly to member x member fics, and if you have a problem with that, you can see yourself out. There’s so little I won’t read that after a certain point, it seemed silly to rule out some tremendous and beautiful stories just because I was worried about people being earnest Twitter shippers. The same accusations of delusional thinking can be easily leveled at those who read and write member x reader fics. In the end, the intent with which something was rendered matters more.

Anyway, that is all to sat that when I love something, I really deeply love it, and I will attempt to scream at anyone who’ll listen to me to read it. Consider this me, screaming at you with love. Happy reading <3

Before we begin, it should go without saying that all of the fics on this list are mature in nature and that you should not interact with them if you are a minor. Which like also, if you're a minor, you should not be on my blog, period. Read more disclaimers here.

∞ Stars Lost in the Sea (ao3) by smiles | this might have been recommended to my by @vyduan?? I don’t recall but either way THANK YOU. 

yoongi x seokjin, 75k, complete. Read for kind-of period romance, time travel, so so much pining, being where you need to be at precisely the right time, the unexplainable weightiness of love lost and regained, characters that deserve each other in ways I can’t hardly fathom. 

∞ Restitution (ao3) by @cloudteawrites | recommended to me by @minttangerines!!

ot7 x reader, 48k, incomplete/in progress. Read for deliciously tense hybrid dynamics, unconventional takes on species assignments for characters, phenomenal and thoughtful world building, a fic worth reading even if it were to remain incomplete for the rest of time. 

∞ tell me about the seagulls sam (ao3) by ebenroot | recommended to my by my irl army friend kitkat!!

seokjin x jimin AND namjoon x jungkook, 149k, in progress. Read for wonderful depictions of mental health issues, riotously funny character interactions, platonic soulmates vmin, deliciously one-sided-ish enemies to lovers, characters you are guaranteed to want to put in your pockets. 

∞ A Breach of Protocol (ao3) by Anna (pineconepickers) and tragicamente

namjoon x seokjin, 81k, complete. Read for unrepentant beefcake joon content, earnest and wonderful portrayals of adults trying to figure shit out while still being in the public eye, THE BODYGUARD AU TO END ALL BODYGUARD AUS, flawless and authentic characterizations.

∞ trust in the weather (ao3) by melodiousb

namjoon x yoongi x jimin, 70k, complete. Read for the magic au that will haunt me for the rest of my miserable life, the historical au that will similarly haunt me for the rest of my life, a magic system that felt natural and not once overwrought, romantic tension brought on by being the third in an established relationship, learning to love because you want to and not because you must, finding one’s place in a new home. 

∞ Teardrop (tumblr) by @hesperantha | I had the immense pleasure of beta-reading most of this!!

yoongi x reader, 70k, complete. Read for a story that feels deeply of our time, unflinching and joyful queerness, roadtrips with people who feel like people, the feeling of being unable to describe what a person means to someone while knowing the feeling is both vast and simple all at once. 

∞ What the Stars Look Like Under You (ao3) by nicedress

namjoon x yoongi, 100k, in progress. Read for the only pornstar au I have ever read that doesn’t fetishize sex work, depiction of recovery from deep seated trauma, being deeply understood in ways one would never expect, returning to loves once lost, a flawless depiction of an unreliable narrator. This is the fic that has seen my tears for every single fucking chapter. I can’t make this shit up. I have actually cried for each chapter of this fic.

∞ Honey when you need it (ao3) by GraphiteFox

yoongi x reader, 82k, in progress. Read for a reader-insert filled with tremendous depth, a playboy Yoongi that feels authentic, side characters that enrich and delight, depiction of mental health issues that feels real and done with care, an author taking care of their characters in a way that feels palpable while also being refreshing. Like that’s hard to describe and talk about but when you know, you know. 

∞ Up We Go (ao3) by Oh_Hey_Tae | recommended to me by @wwilloww!!

yoongi x jimin x taehyung, 100k, complete. Read for magical throuples, stunning depictions of depression, a modern magic au that I will never stop thinking about, a fic that will feel for you when you yourself are so tired of feeling, stories about love that taught me more than I could have ever expected.

∞ but i want it anyway (ao3) by ameliabedelias

namjoon x jimin, 55k, complete. Read for a truly perfect Jimin depiction, awkward and lovable Namjoon, metaphors threaded throughout that truly add to the story while being built upon in all the right ways, moments between two people falling for each other that I just think about all the fucking time. 

Have something wonderful you read? Want to share what you loved throughout the year? Tag me! I want to know what you read this year and loved!!

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©miscelunaaa 2022. My work is only found on this blog and under my ao3 pseud. Do not, under any circumstances, copy or repost my work. Thank you.

posted: 12.14.2022

[elwynten]

Sword Oritoria Chapter 8

Orario sewers in search of a way into the Dungeon

Iris, Kimmy, Cindy and I were in the sewers of Orario. I had 'heard' that Loki and some of her Familia were headed down into the sewers looking for a certain person named Barca although they don't know his name. Although they thought they had found an entrance to the Dungeon although it is really an entrance to Knossos. We are positioned a short ways from the entrance to Knossos waiting for Loki and company to arrive.

Our Companions were back at Hearthstone Manor. They didn't want to venture into the sewers with us and I didn't blame them. We wouldn't be down here if it wasn't for the Loki Familia searching the sewers in the first place.

We didn't have to wait very long before Loki, Riveria, Gareth, Finn and the others showed up.

"Who are you!" Gareth demanded when he was us.

I turned to look at Gareth. "You forgot about us so soon?" I asked grinning at him.

"You!" Finn said. "Why are you here?" He almost demanded.

"Is that how you treat people that saved your butts on the 50th floor and the 59th floor?" I replied to Finn.

"As for why we are here. We are here to give you a warning. Knossos, the area you are headed to, is a trap. The Ikalos Familia as well as Thanatos and his Familia are down there with Barca, a descendent of Daedalus. As well as Valletta and Levis and they have a large number of cursed weapons at their disposal." I informed them. "I have my own plans to deal with several members of the Ikalos Familia, so in a month or so over half of the Ikalos Familia will no longer be a problem. When I've done my part, I'll let you know so you can deal with Ikalos and the rest of his Familia. You should also know; they have a pedestal they can use to see everywhere in the Knossos labyrinth. Because of that they can open and close doors to trap you and to release monsters so they can attack you." I informed them.

Loki looked at me thoughtfully "You know an offal lot about what's goin' on in there." She stated suspiciously.

"If you're implying, I'm involved with Ikalos, Thanatos and Enyo. You would be one hundred and eighty degrees off. I'm just here to warn you that you're headed into a trap and if you go ahead and head on into it, you could lose several of your followers." I told Loki. "And you should also know, they have demi-spirits in there. Several of them infact." I added.

I created three Daedalus orbs and handed them to Loki. "These will help you out. They are Called Daedalus Orbs. They are keys that open and close the orichalcum doors. There are even a few of the doors set into the floor, they use as pit traps." I told Loki. "And for your information. If a 'god' dies in Knossos it will trigger an alter to release or create plant flesh to a degree it will fill all of Knossos in a matter of minutes, devouring everything organic in its way."

"How do you know all of this?" Finn asked me.

I grinned. Since I'm dealing with Loki the trickster… "I read it in a book." I replied.

I turned and looked towards the entrance of Knossos. "Isolation!" I said, putting Thanatos, Barca, Dax and Levis in isolation, which locks them in their own heads with no input of any kind. They do not hear, see, feel or taste anything and they cannot communicate in any way. "I just made it a little easier for you. I just put Thanatos, Barca, the creature Levis and Valletta out of commission for a few hours. Although I allowed them to hear what was going on, so they won't go insane." I told Loki as I motioned for my Team to follow me out of the sewers.

"W-what do you mean you made is easier for us? What are you talking about?" Loki called to my back as we walked away.

After walking a few feet, I stopped and turned around. "If any of your Familia happen to die in Knossos, which I hope does not happen, but if it does. They are mine." I told Loki, then I turned to the Loki party. "If you happen to find yourselves in a graveyard. Say hello to the caretaker for me. Her name is Dawn. And let her know I'll be seeing to her shortly." I said loud enough for everyone there to hear me. I turned back around and headed out of the sewers as I heard murmuring from those in the Loki battle party.

"What is that supposed to mean?" Loki called out from behind me.

I didn't reply, I just walked away.

==========

While we were in the sewers with the Loki Familia. I did a little searching of their minds. I wanted to find out all of the names of the people that would be going in with Leene. Once I had all the names in their party I went to Pern and gave the list to Dawn, the Spirit Grave tender so she could put their names on some of the tomb stones. That way if they are killed while in Knossos or anywhere else for that matter, they would find themselves healthy and whole in the graveyard in the front yard of my house on Pern. They will probably be confused, but that's better than being dead.

I also instructed Dawn to explain what happened to them if any of them did happen to show up, and where they can go to find any of the girls living in the house.

With what I had done by putting the leaders of the Evilus group in "Isolation". It would change what happens in Knossos, but I wanted to make sure any of the Loki Familia members that died in the Light Novels would be safe even with the changes I had made.

==========

Back on Pern

Things are starting to get interesting. After finding AVAIS everyone was wanting to go south to find out what was really happening at Landing or to help discover and rebuild the past.

My Hold was doing well. We had set up six minor holds for when people were ready to move south. They were all between Tel Aviv Hold and Billings Hold. It gave each Hold plenty of room and they were still fairly close to the main Hold, and within easy walking distance of each other.

Mercedes had finished putting together all the equipment for the radio station. I decided to set it up between Tel Aviv Hold and Billings Hold. That way it would be almost dead center of my holding. The main building for the radio station was set up and the equipment installed. While the radio tower was still waiting to be put up. We had all the parts, we just needed to install it, and it should be put up within the week.

We had finished setting up the shops at Landing in what I have named 'The Market'. The girls working at the restaurant and the shop aren't doing much business yet, although they were getting a few customers. I suggested they give out free samples of the food they're selling, so the people arriving at Landing and living there will know what they are making and selling and what it tastes like.

I've spent several weeks trying to decide who to give Companions to. I already knew I would give most of the Dragonriders Companions, to help them to not get Thread scored and to heal faster if they do happen to get Thread scored or hurt. But I needed to check out each person I wanted to give a Companion to, to make sure they wouldn't take advantage of the Companion's abilities and go rogue. Although I can give people Companions that do not have durability and/or regeneration. Or If I do give them durability and regeneration I can reduce their strength. Meaning the regeneration is 1/4th as fast and do the same for durability. I can also give Companions that don't have a breath weapon or magic and so on.

I want to be fair about who gets a Companion, but I also don't think everyone should get one. Or I could give Companions to people as gifts and for most of the dragonriders and Lord Holders I can give durability, Level 1 regeneration and Sustenance. That way Companions would be rare and only those that I believe deserve them would get one. That sounds like the best idea.

With AIVAS uncovered a lot was starting to happen. More people, as in Lord Holders and Craft Masters were showing up wanting to know what was going on and to hear the story of finding Pern.

It didn't take long before F'lar asked AIVAS how to eradicate Thread permanently. Right after that was when activity at Landing really picked up.

I suggested to Mercedes that she might like to help assemble the computer stations. With Mercedes helping with that project, they would have someone that knows what they are doing, other than AVAIS, that is.

==========

At the end of the week, I opened a portal so Welf, Cindy, Iris, Kimmy and I could go to Pern as usual. There was a difference this time when we arrived, because today there were two people standing in the graveyard talking to Dawn as we walked by.

"Hello Dawn. Who are your friends?" I asked, although I had an idea of who they might be.

The two people turned around to see who was talking. A male cat person glared at me and pointed a finger at me. "You! How did you bring us here. You said we would come here.!" He demanded.

"Hello Leena, Lloyd. How are y'all, and no I didn't say you would come here. I said if any of the Loki Familia going into Knossos that happened to die would come here. That means the two of you died in the Knossos dungeon." I started to explain.

"What do you mean we died!?" Leena demanded.

Welf gave his usual cheeky grin. "You can explain all of this to me later." Welf told me and headed to the front door of the house. My Team followed after Welf into the Hold.

"Ya, see you later." I replied to Welf and chuckled.

I turned back to Lloyd and Leena. "Just that. Y'all went into the Knossos dungeon and for some reason or another you were killed there. Am I correct?" I questioned Leena.

"Some crazy guy wearing goggles! He attacked Lloyd with a black spear. I tried to heal him but none of the cuts would close. Then he came at me…" Leena told me.

"That was Dax of the Ikalos Familia. He was using a cursed blade. Lloyd bled out, I'm guessing, and since you tried to heal him Dax went after you as well." I tried to explain. "I didn't think Dax would get involved. He tends to do his own thing going after intelligent monsters." The last I said more to myself than to Lloyd and Leena.

"Why are we here?" Lloyd asked. "Is this heaven?"

"What do you mean intelligent monsters?" Leena added.

"Well, that's kind of a difficult question to answer. You see, I had Dawn, here, put your names on two of the gravestones." I said and pointed to Dawn then to the gravestones with their names on them. "If your name is on one of these gravestones, when you die, you appear in front of your gravestone whole and healthy. It's not heaven from where you came from, but I think it's pretty close to heaven. It's called Pern and this is my home." I told them pointing to the house.

I turned to Leena. "Yes, intelligent monsters. For some unknown reason even to Ouranos, the Dungeon spawns' intelligent monsters from time to time. Right now, there are only thirty to forty intelligent monsters living in the Dungeon. They don't want to fight humans, but they do defend themselves if they are attacked by humans. Unfortunately for them, other monsters attack them as well. So, they have it twice as hard as normal monsters." I explained.

"That's not possible, there is no way there could be intelligent monsters!" Leena exclaimed.

I shrugged my shoulders. "As far as the two of you are concerned it doesn't matter any more." I told them.

"Speaking of which. I've neglected my duties." I said and turned to Dawn. "I've given everyone else in the Hold a Companion, but I didn't give you one." I apologized, and a small Titanium Dragon flew up to Dawn and landed on her shoulder.

Eabha/F (to live) Mythical - Titanium Dragon, Lizard/Golden Eagle Colors: Pink, light blue, peach, green Regeneration L2 Size L2 Sustenance L2 Intelligence L2 Durability L2 Flight Shapeshifting L1 (Forms: Eagle, Bearded Dragon, Horse, house cat) Agility L1 Magical L2 (Dancing Lights, Mending, Cleaning, servant,) Teleportation L1 Speed L1 Strength L1 Agility L1 Elemental attack L1 (Fire)

At seeing a dragon, Lloyd and Leena went into defensive mode getting ready to attack the dragon.

I stepped in between Lloyd, Leena and Eabha to stop them from attacking Eabha. "Eabha's not a monster to be killed. She's very friendly unless you attack her or Dawn or anyone else that lives here." I started to explain. "And you have to remember, you no longer have Loki's falna so your no stronger than any normal person."

"That's not possible!" Lloyd exclaimed.

"You died in Knossos. Other than not being reborn as a baby and not knowing about your past lives. What is not possible about you being here?" I asked.

Both Lloyd and Leena just stared at me with shocked expressions on their faces.

"How did we get here and what are we supposed to do if what you said is true?" Leena asked.

"Yes, what I have told you is 100% true. As I said, your names were put on the tomb stones so when you died you came here. That is how you got here. About what you're supposed to do. You can do just about anything you want to. I own the land we are on, so you could work for me if you want to. You could apprentice under Verdi and Heather and learn about raising cattle or you could apprentice under Snowdrop and Violet and learn about orchards and gardening. We also have a couple stores at a place called Landing you could work at. You don't have to stay here with me, but I would suggest you stick around for a while until you learn about your new home." I suggested.

"Can we go back to Orario?" Lloyd asked me, hopefully.

"You died there. They buried your bodies in the Adventurer's Cemetary. What do you think would happen if you turned up after your Familia put, you're bodies in the ground?" I countered.

"They burried us already? They think we're dead?" Leena inquired.

"You died in Orario so, yes you are dead there and they buried your bodies." I agreed.

"I don't know what they would think if we showed up, now." Leena said with shock and worry on her face.

"So, we're stuck here?" Lloyd said more then asked.

I chuckled. "I wouldn't put it quite that way, but yes, you are here for the rest of your lives." I informed them. "Just think of it as if you converted to a different Familia and now you are members of my Familia here on Pern." I tried to make it easier for them to adjust to being on Pern.

"That kind of makes since. We're just in a different Familia that's not in Orario." Leena said.

"I think I can go with that. It does kind of make since." Lloyd added.

"Where are we going to live then?" Leena looked at Lloyd and asked.

"I don't know." Lloyd answered her.

"As I said before, you can work for me for now. You'll get a place to stay, food and a little spending money. Although they don't use valis here, they use what they call Marks for money. I'll show you where your rooms are if you want to stick around. But I will warn you there are hazards here that can kill you if you don't know what to look out for." I offered.

Leena and Lloyd looked at each other for a few moments. "What do you think?" Leena asked Lloyd.

Lloyd made a face and shrugged his shoulders. "It's all we have for now." He admitted.

I turned to Dawn. "Before I show these two the house. I know a lot of what Eabha's abilities are you don't need, but they will help her. Plus, she does have some abilities I'm sure you can use. She can go to the theater and watch a show and you can see it through her eyes. And you can have a conversation with anyone through Eabha. It's not perfect, but at least you will get to see some shows and talk to people when they're not here with you."

Dawn gave me a big smile. "Thank you, lord Eilwyn. It was generous of you to give me Eabha. I'll cherish her for as long as I live." Dawn told me.

"You are more than welcome." I replied.

Turning back to Leena and Lloyd, I smiled. "Follow me." I said and gave them the fifty-cent tour of the house. Ending the tour, I showed then the Cafe, the Bakery and the apartment they could use.

I gave Lloyd Normalization. "I will let you know that outside my Hold. A Hold is what they call your house and/or land you own. So, a Hold can be hundreds of square miles. But, as I was saying, outside of my Hold there are no demi-humans. And so you know, this world is a lot different than back in Orario. There is no magic here, no potions for healing or anything else like that. Although with what the two of you did in Orario. I would say you are probably above average in strength, durability and agility. So, you have that going for you." I told them.

I turned to Taima. "Would you go find Kangee and let her know I want to see her, please?" I asked Taima.

Taima smiled. "I'm on it." She said and walked away.

As we waited for Kangee, I took them back to the Cafe. "Have a seat." I motioned with my hand for them to sit down then I took a seat myself. "As I said before, this is 'the Cafe'. You can come here and eat and it doesn't cost you anything. The same goes for 'the Bakery'." I told them as Cammie came out to the table.

"May I take your order?" Cammie asked us.

"Hello Cammie, how are you doing today?" I greeted Cammie.

"I'm good. How are you, lord Eilwyn?" She replied.

"I'm doing better now seeing your pretty face." I told Cammie.

Cammie blushed and smiled. "Thank you." She said as she looked at the table.

"I'll take a sweet tea." I told Cammie then looked at Lloyd and Leena. "Do you want anything?" I asked them.

Lloyd and Leena told Cammie what they wanted, and Cammie left to fill our orders.

Kangee walked into the Cafe. "Taima said you wanted me." She said as she walked over to me and gave me a hug.

I returned the hug. "Have a seat." I offered.

Kangee sat down beside me, and I told her what was happening with Lloyd and Leena. "I would appreciate it if you would help them out. You know, guide them in what they need to know about thread, the dragons and dangers. They can take, say, five days to get used to being here. After that they can decide what they want to do." I told Kangee.

Cammie brought our drinks out and put them on the table. Cammie looked at Kangee. "Can I get you anything, Kangee?" Cammie asked.

"No think you. I'm good for now." Kangee replied.

Cammie walked back to the kitchen.

I turned to Leena and Lloyd. "Kangee is in charge of security at my Hold. But, for now there's not much need for security. So, I'm putting you in her capable hands." I told them and made introductions all around. "Get them each a set of shifting clothes if you would. I'll take them to Landing tomorrow so they can see the stores and what's going on there. They can take the rest of today to get settled in." I told Kangee.

I looked at Lloyd and Leena. "Kangee will be your guide. She will let you know just about anything you need to know about Pern. You might ask her about the beach. It's out the back door. I didn't show you that." I suggested.

I turned to Kangee before she could lead the two off. "They can use The Apartment for now. You might want to take them there first so they know where they can sleep." I suggested.

Kangee nodded her head in understanding. "I'll do that." She said then Kangee gave me a hug and a kiss.

I returned the hug and kiss, then I released Kangee so she could do what I had asked her to do.

==========

The Next morning, I showed Lloyd and Leena how to use the port points and took them to Landing.

I told them a little of the history of Landing and about Landing being found after a very long time.

We stopped by The Market and my stores. "They don't make magic swords here but most everyone carries a knife for protection and/or for eating with. Sucki is our Hold's local black smith. She makes knives and other items to sell in one of our stores. And Willow makes jewelry to sell as well." I told Lloyd and Leena as we walked though the store.

"Hello Eilwyn." Willow said.

"Hi Willow." I said and walked over and kissed Willow on the cheek.

"Where's mine?" Yuki asked giving me a fake pout.

I chuckled and walked over to Yuki. I gave her a hug and a kiss of the cheek. "That better?" I asked.

"Much." Yuki replied with a smile on her face.

"Who are your friends?" Willow Asked.

"I'm sure you've seen them around the Hold. This is Leena and he's Lloyd." I introduced them.

"What Hold did you move from? Yuki asked them.

"We're not from a Hold. We're from Orario." Leena replied.

I looked around to make sure no one was close other than one of my girls. No one was in the store other then us at the moment. "I should let you know. It's not really a good thing to talk about where you came from. The people here other than those in my Hold, don't know about Orario. So you shouldn't go around talking about Loki, the Dungeon, monsters and Orario when your out and about, unless you make sure no one is around. You can talk about any of that when your back at the Hold." I suggested.

"Ok." "Gotcha." They replied.

I'm going to show them the restaurant, next." I told Willow and Yuki.

"See you back home then." Willow said as she walked over to me and gave me a hug.

After leaving 'The Forge', what we named the store where we sell the knives and jewelry, I took them to our restaurant at The Market. We are still working on what to name it. But then, on Pern they don't really give names to any of the shops, so we are starting a new trend with giving our stores names.

"We sell what the locals consider new foods here. Crystal and Robbie are working here today." I told them, then introduced Lloyd and Leena to Crystal and Robbie.

"How is business" I asked Crystal.

Crystal came over and gave me a hug. "We're doing pretty good. It hasn't been too busy but we have been getting several customers." Yuki told me.

I returned Crystal's hug, and I gave her a kiss. "That's good. We haven't' been open for very long and we are competing against the food tent where the workers can get free food. Once most of Landing has been excavated and more people come to take classes, we should start getting more customers." I assured Crystal and Robbie.

"I hope so. I want this place to make good money." Robbie said as she walked over to us.

Again, I made introduction.

"Why is it everyone you know are women?" Leena asked.

I chuckled. "That is kind of a long and complicated story. It wasn't planned but all the people that live at my Hold, other than myself, are girls. That's not counting Lloyd, here. He's the second male living at my Hold now." I replied. "I do know several men. Masterharper Robinton, Lord Holder Jaxom, Masterharper Sebil, Harper Journeyman Piemur and a few others." I added.

"Masterharper? Harper journeyman? What are they?" Lloyd asked.

"Pern works on craft halls and apprenticeships. The Harper Hall is a group that teaches by using songs. They also entertain and spread news. There is also the Smith Craft Hall, they make tools and about anything else a black smith would make. And the Healer Hall which of course works on healing people the natural way. As I told you before they don't have potions or spells to heal anybody here. Sucki is a Journeyman or Journeywoman in the Smith Craft Hall. So technically she is Journeywoman Sucki, but I'm sure she wouldn't mind if you just call her Sucki." I explained.

"As I said Kangee will fill you in on all of that, or she can get you a book or two about the terms they use here and how the planet is run and organized." I offered.

"Do you have a Tital?" Leena asked me.

"Since I own a very large Hold. My Tital is lord Eilwyn or lord Holder Eilwyn. I'm not big on people calling me by my Tital but there are some lord Holders that insist you use their totals. I told Leena. "I'll leave you in Kangee's capable hands and I'll see you back at Tel Aviv Hold. Tel Aviv is the name of my Hold. The smaller Holds on my land also have names, but you'll learn them with time." I finished and sent them on their way with Kangee.

==========

I ported back to Tel Aviv Hold and went to the Lab.

Welf and Mercedes where there are usual. "Hi Mercedes." I said as I walked into the Lab.

"Hello Eilwyn." Mercedes replied without even looking up.

I chuckled to myself. 'That's Mercedes.' I thought to myself and walked over to Welf.

"Hello Welf." I said to let Welf know I was there.

Welf looked up from the sword he was working on. "Hello Eilwyn. You here to explain why those two are here?" He asked.

I chuckled at Welf's bluntness. "If you can take a break, yes." I told Welf.

"Ya, I guess I could take a break." Welf said and put the sword he was working on by the forge and laid his hammer down and looked at me. "How'd they get here?" Welf asked.

I leaned back against a table and crossed my arms over my chest. "Before the Loki Familia went into the man-made Dungeon Knossos. I had Dawn put several of their member's names on the tomb stones, just in case." I started.

"Just in case of what?"

"Just in case any of them were to be killed while in Knossos. I had helped them out some in an attempt to prevent any deaths, but there was no telling what would happen, so I had Dawn put the names on the tomb stones so if any of them were to die, they would show up here in front of the tomb stone with their name on it whole and healthy." I explained.

"Why would you allow members of the Loki Familia to come here?" Welf asked confused.

I shrugged my shoulders. "Why not? They're not bad people in general. They were killed by a member of Evilus as they tried to check out Knossos. And because they were killed, they showed up here. Besides, they are no longer members of the Loki Familia. Their falna vanished when they died. I explained that to them and that they can't go back to Orario." I told Welf. I cocked my head to the side. "Weeelll, technically I could take them back, but I don't think that would be such a good idea. If word got around that People didn't really have to die, they would be clamoring all over me trying to get me to have their names put on the tomb stones here. And I definitely don't want that." I added.

Welf nodded his head in understanding. "Oh, ya, I can see how that would be a big problem. So, they are here permanently, and they are free of Loki's blessing?" Welf stated more then asked.

I nodded my head in agreement. "Yes, they have no falna and they are here for the rest of their lives." I admitted.

"If they're going to be living here, who are they? I might as well know who they are."

"The male cat person is Lloyd, and the human girl is Leena. I'm not sure if they're going to stay here yet. I told them, they could take a few days to get adjusted to being here. After that, they could work for me or go to Landing and work there. We'll just have to see if they stay or not. Although, since they know me some or at least they've seen me and my Team around Orario, they'll probably stay here for a while. I told them they could apprentice under Verdi and Heather and learn about raising cattle or they could apprentice under Snowdrop and Violet and learn how to work the orchards and gardens. I also suggested they could work in our stores at Landing." I informed Welf.

Welf shrugged his shoulders. "It's not my place to tell you what to do here and I don't really see anything wrong with your thinking. But what do I know is I'm just a smith." Welf said with a chuckle.

"I'm glad it meets your approval." I replied with a grin. "I'll let you get back to your work." I said and turned to leave the Lab.

"Ya, get out of here. I have several orders to work on. I don't need you slowing me down." Welf said with his usual cheeky grin on his face.

==========

I left Leena and Lloyd to settle in and I went about the usual business of running my hold.

This week we would be putting up the tower for the radio station. Most of the equipment for the station was already set up inside the building at Midway Hold. Now we have to put up the tower and connect everything together to see if we can send the radio signal.

It was named Midway Hold because it is midway between Billings Hold and Tel Aviv Hold as well as midway from the east border and west border of my Hold. So, Midway Hold. Yes, I know, not very creative, but it works.

Crystal, Gina and Robbie volunteered to help me put up the tower.

Mercedes constructed a three-sided tower in twenty-foot sections, with the base being ten feet from pole to pole. Each section has a flat plate on each pole, The plates line up with the bottom plates of the next section and the two sections are bolted together. Even though there are not planes on Pern there is still a flashing light on the top of the tower so dragons and their riders can see where the tower is at night.

Crystal, Gina and Robbie were equipped with pouches to hold the nuts and bolts and two wrenches to tighten the nuts and bolts with. As well and safety harnesses for safety. Although if they did happen to fall they could just shapeshift into their dragon or bird forms and fly back up to the top of the tower. And each girl took a different pole on the tower to work on. While I will use my telekinesis to lift each section of the tower up and set and hold it in place so the girls can bolt the two sections together. I can also fly up as I lift each tower section up, so it will be easier to set the upper section to the lower section.

Putting all the sections of the tower together took six hours. It probably would have gone faster, but the girls were having too much fun bossing me around in what direction the upper section of tower needed to go to match up with the lower section.

The next two days Mercedes and I connected all the wiring so we could broadcast up to the spaceship the Yokohama above Landing, using the Yokohama as a satellite, and to also broadcast horizontally for local receivers. Although most people will receive the radio signals from our radio station via the Yokohama.

We will probably have to make a few satellites to bounce the radio signal off of to reach all of the Holds in the north. But that can wait for now.

==========

I met up with Leena and Lloyd in the Cafe after they had been at the Hold for four days. I wanted to see how they were settling in.

I walked into the Cafe and upon seeing Leena and Lloyd siting at one of the tables I walked over to them. "May I sit with you?" I asked.

"Sure." Lloyd said and motioned to an empty seat.

I sat down and smiled. "What do you think of the place so far?" I asked looking at both of them.

"It is a lot to get used to. I've lived so long in Orario, I'm not used to not having so many people and shops around all the time." Leena answered.

Lloyd nodded his head in agreement. "Yes, it's so strange to go out and not see anyone. It's kind of spooky. But it's also kind of nice to go out and actually see trees, bushes and animals instead of roads and buildings everywhere." He replied.

"Although there isn't any place to buy anything." Leena added.

I chuckled. "Yes, it's a lot different here, but it's nice here as well. As for shopping. There is the shop in the hall. The sign is over the door. They have just about anything you would want and then some. But if you're looking for local merchandise. I'll have to take you to one of the next Gathers they have here." I told them.

"Gathers? What's that?" Leena asked.

"They don't really have regular stores here other than at 'The Market' at Landing, and I came up with that idea and set it in motion. But, normally at a Hold they don't really have normal stores so when there is a rest day that no Thread is going to fall, they have a Gather. The local craft halls, bakeries, brewers and such gather at the local Hold square and set up booths so they can sell their merchandise. It's usually an all-day thing because small holders come in and might sell or buy animals. They'll also can buy other things they need. The local Harpers will usually play and sing to entertain the people and if there are enough Harpers they'll set up a dance square for dancing." I informed Leena and Lloyd. "The Gathers are somewhat different in each Hold. At Ruatha Hold lord Jaxom will usually have horse races. Although here on Pern they call horses runner beasts and cows are called heard beasts. At Benden Hold there is always a lot of music, singing and dancing because the Harper Hall is at Bendon Hold. So, they always have more than enough Harpers to entertain the people during a Gather." I added.

"That sounds nice. When is the next Gather?" Leena asked.

I'm not sure. Right now, almost everyone lives on the northern continent. So, I'd have to check thread fall for each major Hold to see when and where the next Gather will be. I'm sure several of the girls here would like to go to a gather as well." I replied.

"Have either of you figured out what you want to do here?" I asked, changing the subject.

Lloyd shrugged his shoulders. "I'm so used to killing monsters in the Dungeon. I'm not sure what I want to do sense I can't do that, here." He admitted.

"That makes since. You might try doing different things for a couple weeks. That is, try working with the cattle for a couple weeks then working with the orchards for a couple weeks. Then work one of the stores for a couple weeks. That would give you an idea of what it would be like to do those jobs. If you still want to 'fight' I'm sure Kange and Kimmy would let you try out being a Hold guard. Although right now there's not much for them to do, since we don't have any real neighbors there's not really much of a need for protection right now, other than killing some of the big cats and wild wherries to keep them under control." I suggested.

Lloyd nodded his head. "That might work. What do those jobs pay?" He asked.

"Lloyd!" Leena exclaimed.

I chuckled. "That's all-right Leena. It's an honest question." I told Leena then I turned to answer Lloyd's question. "We're still working on what people earn here. But you're getting free room and board right now and I'll make sure you get a few marks for spending money. And for reference, an apprentice that has one or two marks is considered well off. Oh, and when you buy things here, be prepared to haggle over the price. The prices they put on products here are not firm, you have to haggle to try to get a better price. If you haven't haggled before, it can take a little time and practice to get good at haggling. Some of the girls here can teach you how to haggle if you want. They are quite good at it." I offered.

Lloyd frowned. "That doesn't sound like much money." He told me.

"I understand, but you're not in Orario so the money is different here. It's a rough conversion but add three zeros to the value on the mark and you have close to what the valis value is. So, one mark is worth little over 1,000 valis, probably closer to 1,500 valis, and a two-mark piece would be somewhere around 2,500 valis." I told them. "Plus, the value of things different between Pern and Orario. So, that makes a difference in the prices or value as well. For smaller denominations they have half marks, quarter marks and an eighth marks."

"It's going to be hard to figure all that out." Lloyd said.

I chuckled. "I'm still working on figuring it out, myself." I told Lloyd.

I turned to Leena. "Do you have any ideas of what you want to do here?" I asked her.

"I was a healer and mage. That's all I know what to do." Leena stated.

"As I told Lloyd, you could work at different jobs for a couple weeks each to see what you might like to do." I reiterated.

Leena looked thoughtful and brought her hand up and rubbed her chin for a few moments. "Could I see about working at one of the stores at The Market?" She asked.

I nodded my head in agreement. "That's not a problem. I'm sure Willow would love to show you how to make jewelry when there are no customers around." I replied. "How about starting tomorrow morning? That way Willow can take you with her to Landing and show you what to do." I offered.

Leena gave a quick nod of her head. "That sounds good. What time in the morning?" She replied.

"Be ready to leave here at eight in the morning. I'll let Willow know you'll be joining her." I told Leena.

Leena looked thoughtful for a moment. "I remember Willow. We met her at the store at Landing, right?" She asked.

"Yes, she was working at, The Forge. She has fairly long black hair. Can I tell her? Is she here at the, um, Hold?" Leena said.

I took a moment to do a mental search for Willow. I smiled when I found her. "I don't see why not. Willows in the Theater. It's the room with all the big conferrable chairs in it." I told her.

"I remember that room. I'll go talk to her now." Leena said and stood up to leave.

I turned to Lloyd. "If you haven't figured out what you want to do yet, I have an idea." I started.

Lloyd looked at me. "What would that be?" He asked.

"We just finished setting up the radio station. There are only a couple people that want to be DJ's so we could use more. You could try your hand at working at the radio station." I offered.

"Radio station? DJ's? what is all of that?" Lloyd asked.

"I was getting to that. DJ is short for Disc Jocky. Music and stories were recorded on special discs so they could be played any time you wanted to hear them. So, the people working the radio station were known as Dick Jocky's or DJs for short." I started to explain.

Lloyd had a slightly confused look on his face. "I think I understand that." He said.

"I can show you one of the discs later. The radio station is kind of like when Orario had the war game. If you remember the 'gods' put up magic mirrors so everyone could see what was happening during the war game." I said.

Lloyd nodded his head in understanding. "I remember that. I was rooting for your Familia." He put in.

"Thank you. We appreciate the support. But, the radio station is kind of like the magic mirrors, except it only sends out audio or sound no pictures. The DJ talks at the radio station into a microphone, the sound goes out to radios people can buy that pick up the sound and allows people to hear what the DJ says. And if the DJ plays a disc that does the same thing. That way people can hear the music, stories, news and weather wherever they are as long as they have a radio to listen to." I told Lloyd.

The confused look disappeared from Lloyd's face. "I think I understand. So, when do you use the radio station?"

"Since we just set it up, we haven't used it yet. I need to give it a trial run. But as for when we use the station. We are hoping to get enough DJ's to be able to run the radio station twenty-four hours a day seven days a week. Although right now we only have Gina and Amber that want to be Dj's. So, we'll only broadcast. That is what it is called when you are sending out the audio from the station to the individual radios, broadcast. We will only be able to broadcast the radio shows for eight to ten hours each day. That means Amber and Gina will work four to five hours on Air every day they work. So, the more Dj's we can get the longer we can broadcast each day. That means if you wanted to be a DJ, we could broadcast for twelve to fifteen hours per day." I explained.

Lloyd looked thoughtful but didn't say anything.

"How about we go to the radio station. That way you can have a look around and I can give the station a trial run." I suggested.

Lloyd shrugged his shoulders. "I guess I could take a look. I'm not doing anything else right now." He replied with a light chuckle.

"Taima, would you go tell Mercedes we need her at Midway Hold to give the radio station a test run." I asked.

"I'll let her know." Taima replied and headed off to do as I had asked.

As I stood up. "Let's go. We can have a look around before Mercedes shows up." I suggested.

"Ok." Lloyd replied and stood up as well.

I led the way to the port point to Midway Hold. Once at Midway Hold, I gave Lloyd a tour of the radio station. Mercedes walked into the control room as I was showing Lloyd around.

"I was in the middle of a project when Taima interrupted me about testing the radio station." Mercedes said in a huff.

"You're always in the middle of a project, Dear heart." I told Mercedes as I put my arms around her and gave her a hug and a kiss.

Mercedes put her arms around me and returned the hug. "I'll let it go this time." She teased.

I released Mercedes and took a step back. "Well, we need to see if everything is in working order." I stated.

Mercedes looked over at Lloyd. "Who's he?" She asked me.

"Mercedes, this is Lloyd. He is from Orario. Lloyd, this is Mercedes. She's our local tinkerer. She can build or repair almost anything she can think of." I made introductions.

"Nice to meet you." Lloyd said and gave Mercedes a bow.

"Yes, nice to meet you." Mercedes replied. "Shall we get to work." She continued as she headed towards the control room.

I looked at Lloyd with a grin. "That's just how Mercedes is. She prefers tinkering or building things than talking to people." I told Lloyd.

Lloyd nodded his head in understanding. "I see."

Mercedes took a seat at the radio station's control panel. She flipped a couple switches and moved some of the sliders. Then she put a disc into the player. Once everything was to her satisfaction, she turned in the chair.

"Get one of the radios and set it to our frequency, 100 on the dial. Take it to Tel Aviv Hold and see if you can hear anything." Mercedes told me.

I gave Mercedes a salute. "Yes, ma'am!" I replied somewhat formally.

Mercedes blushed and looked at the floor. "I'm sorry." She said just above a whisper.

"I'm teasing you, Mercedes. You're the boss over setting up the radio station and getting it running, so you should be giving orders and telling others what to do." I told Mercedes and put an arm around her shoulder and hugged her to me, and I kissed her on the top of her head.

"Then get busy then." Mercedes told me with a smile on her face.

"Yes, Ma'am!" I said again with another salute. But this time Mercedes grinned and turned back to the control panel.

I turned to Lloyd. "Let's go. I'll get a radio from storage, and we can go back to Tel Aviv Hold and see if we can get a signal." I told him.

Lloyd looked around for a moment, then he looked at me. "Ya, sure." He replied.

I lead Lloyd out of the room and down the hall to a storage room. There were many radios the girls had built lining shelves along the wall. I walked over and picked one up then I turned to Lloyd.

"Back to Tel Aviv Hold." I said and headed out to the port point that would take us back home.

"It's a lot of walking back and forth." Lloyd stated.

I chuckled. "It can be, but at least we have the port points to make it easier. At least it's not Daedalus Street. And I'll tell you that only my Hold has port points. The rest of Pern doesn't know about port points, yet." I explained.

"Oh, ya, Daedalus Street. Don't bring that place up. It gives me nightmares just thinking of having to go there." Lloyd told me and shivered.

Once we were back at Tel Aviv Hold. I lead Lloyd through the house and to the gazebo out by the beach. I sat down and offered Lloyd a seat as well. Lloyd sat down across from me at one of the tables. I set the radio on the table between us and turned the dial to channel or frequency 100 and waited to see what would happen.

If this works, Mercedes will have to set up a relay on the Yokohama so we can broadcast up to the Yokohama and it can relay the signal back to the planet.

[We are ready, when you are.] I sent to Mercedes.

[What do you want to hear?] Mercedes asked me.

I shrugged my shoulders. Ya, I know she can't see me. [The Sound of Silence, Believe it or Not, some American Indian flute music or some Celtic hammered dulcimer music. Which every you have handy.] I replied.

[Let me see what I can find.] Mercedes told me.

After a minute or so. [Okay, I've got it. You should be hearing it any time now.] Mercedes announced.

As soon as Mercedes told me, I could hear it. The song "Sound of Silence" started playing.

Hello darkness, my old friend I've come to talk with you again Because a vision softly creeping Left its seeds while I was sleeping And the vision that was planted in my brain Still remains Within the sound of silence

In restless dreams, I walked alone Narrow streets of cobblestone 'Neath the halo of a streetlamp I turned my collar to the cold and damp When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light That split the night And touched the sound of silence

And in the naked light, I saw Ten thousand people, maybe more People talking without speaking People hearing without listening People writing songs that voices never shared No one dared Disturb the sound of silence

"Fools", said I, "You do not know Silence like a cancer grows Hear my words that I might teach you Take my arms that I might reach you" But my words like silent raindrops fell And echoed in the wells of silence

And the people bowed and prayed To the neon god they made And the sign flashed out its warning In the words that it was forming And the sign said, "The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls In tenement halls" And whispered in the sounds of silence

[We can hear it. It's coming in loud and clear. Good work Mercedes.] I sent to Mercedes congratulating her on a job well done.

Lloyd sat listening to the song with wide eye and an open mouth. "Th-that's coming from where Mercedes is?" He asked shocked and surprised.

I nodded my head in agreement. "Ya, that's coming from the radio station where Mercedes is. Now that it is up and running, we can start broadcasting songs, weather, news and whatever else we want to broadcast. Let's go back to Midway Hold and let Mercedes know it's working and the signal is loud and clear." I told Lloyd.

I left the radio on the table while Lloyd and I took the port point back to Midway Hold.

We walked into the control room of the Radio station. Or is that, the broadcast booth? I guess it really doesn't matter what we call it.

"It was loud and clear." I told Mercedes as we walked into the room.

"Ya, you told me. Now all we have to do is see if we can relay the signal off of the Yokohama and back to the planet. But until then we can broadcast to the Hold." Mercedes told me.

[ascendancy-echoes]

Interlude: Modus Operandi

Zarya knew she was special. Her mom and dad said so. Dad called her his little star and he was always smiling at her, even when his head hurt or he felt sick and was too tired to play. Sometimes he and her mom got frustrated but they always said sorry and tried to explain things to her.

As far as Zarya could remember, certain people in her life were very different from most. Mom always had a warm glow around her, like a fire in their hearth. Dad always had rainbow sparkles and shadows around him the way trees made spotty shadows on a sunny day.

Her uncle and aunt also shimmered and sparkled. The flickers of sparks around Uncle Crono reminded her of a distant thunderstorm while Aunt Marle and cousin Liz reminded her of a snowy field on a sunny day, sparkling and foggy. Zarya liked cousin Oren’s sparkles. It was like a misty rain all around him. She thought it was funny how he never got wet from the rain only she could see.

Of course, she had sparkles too. It was fun to flap her hands and watch the swirls of iridescent sparkles flow around her.

Everyone else didn’t sparkle and Zarya always wondered why. She just couldn’t find the words to ask.

One day, she saw someone glance into the library and they had black air, like dark smoke and black downy feathers around them. Zarya remembered she wanted to follow them, curious who this new person was. She would have followed if her mom and dad hadn’t stopped her. Then Dad got sick and they had to go home.

For some reason, Dad got sick a lot after that day.  Zarya grew bored and frustrated that she didn’t get to visit the castle as much as she wanted.

“Go to the castle?” was constantly met with “We’ll see.”

Zarya knew that “We’ll see” was really “Not today and we won’t tell you when we’re going because we don’t know yet.”

Zarya preferred routine. It was safe and made sense. Routine wasn’t as routine these days. It was worrisome. So she made her own routine.

First, wake up nice and early so the day could start. Next, put on her favorite green dress (with pockets) and comfy boots. Then, read all the books in the living room. Once mom and dad were awake it was time for breakfast. Then, if dad wasn’t sick, he went to work at the castle.

After that, the day pretty much consisted of Mom teaching her things like “math” and “writing”. Zarya liked writing but not always what or when Mom wanted. Math was also fun sometimes. There were patterns to numbers. Something routine.

Lunch usually meant a sandwich because Mom wasn’t that good at cooking. She got distracted easily. Dinner was sometimes fun because if Dad wasn’t sick, Zarya could help out and Dad was the best cook. He taught her songs and they would sing together while they cooked. Otherwise it was sandwiches again and no singing (Mom couldn't sing very well). Zarya didn’t mind sandwiches and quiet.

The afternoons in between lunch and dinner were the most un-routine times for Zarya. Maybe Mom would take her to the castle to see Dad and her cousins. Sometimes Mom would be busy in the workshop on their property and kinda forget the world around her unless Zarya reminded her. Zarya didn’t mind much because she liked reading or drawing quietly and just enjoying being with her mom on those days.

One day, Zarya followed her kitten Maia into her parents’ bedroom. She usually wasn’t allowed in there alone but there was nothing unsafe about the room, so Zarya figured it was okay once in a while. Maia somehow got on top of her parents’ bookshelf and Zarya wanted her to come down and cuddle in her lap.

“Maia come cuddle?”

Zarya moved a stool over to the bookshelf and climbed up to coax her cat down. Maia meowed at her from the top shelf. As Zarya reached for Maia, the cat leapt down. That’s when Zarya spied the book that Maia had been sitting on. Carefully, she pulled it off the shelf and looked at the cover. There was no writing on the outside but a quick peek inside showed it was some sort of picture book.

“Zarya? It’s time to go to the castle,” her mom called from downstairs.

Zarya slipped the book into her messenger bag and ran down the hall and stairs to her mom. Maybe she could ask her cousin Oren to read the book to her. He was a really good reader and the smartest person she knew besides her parents.

[bookaddict24-7]

REVIEWS OF THE WEEK!

Books I've Read So Far in 2023!

Friend me on Goodreads here to follow my more up to date reading journey for the year!

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82. Lost in Time by A.G. Riddle--⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I remember randomly coming across this book while at work and I'll admit, it was the cover that pulled me in, the synopsis was just a great bonus.

One of the things I loved about this book, other than the speculative edge, was the amount of twists this had. I always thought I knew where it was heading, but there was always a twist to counter any theories I had. There was so much potential in this world where time travel existed and I'll be honest, it felt like the author took that to its full potential. This was fun, adventurous, sometimes a little terrifying, and a whole lot of addicting. It's such a clever novel and I really want to read Riddle's other books to see if he uses this same level of intrigue in his other works.

LOST IN TIME also made me think of some of my favourites, and I think that definitely added to my enjoyment of this novel. On one hand, it gave me similar vibes as DARK MATTER by Blake Crouch, and on the other, it made me think a bit of Stephen King's 11/22/63. It's one of those books that you encounter only a few times and end up trying to re-experience for the first time whenever you pick up new sci-fi speculative fiction novels.

The main reason why I'm not giving this full stars is because while beneficial to the story, the back and forth kind of interrupted certain aspects and moods of the novel. I would be really into a scene and then boom, new chapter set in a different place and time. I wanted more of one place than the other and feel like the story would have benefitted from further exploration of the place one of the MCs goes to during the first half of the novel.

All of that being said, however, I really and truly enjoyed this book. I want to read more from this author!

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83. Vampire Breath by R.L. Stine--⭐️⭐️

I wasn't the biggest fan of this one. It was probably one of my least favourite GOOSEBUMPS books, but that ending was very on brand, so as cheesy as it was, I enjoyed it!

I can see why this would be a fun one, though, if I was younger. I know I'm not the audience for this and usually I'm able to separate my age from these stories, but this one was not...an enjoyable one for me. It was kind of forgettable, to be honest.

Anyway, onto the next GOOSEBUMPS!

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84. I Am Number 4 by Pittacus Lore--⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Re-Read May 2023:

I don't know why, but I was wanting to re-read this book and maybe read the rest of the series. I remember really enjoying this and I won't lie, I totally still enjoyed this. There were a lot of things I forgot about, but I especially enjoyed (read: eye twitched through) the scenes where the mc was like "I'm an adult!" while being a 16 year old putting himself and his pseudo-father in danger.

This may not be a perfect book, but this is a great example of how much teenagers want to be grown. I remember being that age and thinking I knew everything. That invincibility complex hit hard here and being able to see it from this perspective nearly ten years later is very eye opening.

I'm excited to read the rest of this series to see how he grows!

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85. The Melancholy of Summer by Louisa Onomé--⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I received a copy via the publisher because I was the panel host for an event with the author. This did not affect my review at all.

THE MELANCHOLY OF SUMMER was such an emotionally explosive read that it took me a couple of tries to finally allow myself to fall fully into the Onomé's writing.

Set in the beautifully described City of Toronto, we follow Summer, the MC, as she tries to survive and find the freedom she is so desperately seeking in a city that is actively hunting for her criminal parents.

The author did a fantastic job of showcasing how difficult it is to both acknowledge and deal with emotions at such a young age, especially as a young woman of colour. I think how the author treats this topic may resonate with readers because we're taught to control our emotions, or to "be strong" in the face of adversity, but as Summer grows and finally starts to process her trauma, we see that feeling those emotions can also be incredibly therapeutic.

Summer's relationship with her cousin, Olu, could also be seen as an incredibly healing one because they both have trauma to work through. I loved that Olu was this incredible support system that Summer didn't know she had. Watching Summer thaw towards her cousin was such a beautiful moment, especially after the heartbreaking climax of the story.

I highly recommend this book for those who want characters who have to deal with complex emotions, depictions of travel through Toronto, and Japanese Pop Stars.

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86. Sigh, Gone by Phuc Tran--⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

One of the great disservices I did to myself was starting the audiobook for this amazing memoir when I was on the cusp of a reading slump. I read about 40% of this book and then kept putting it off, until I told myself it was time to either DNF it or keep going.

I'm so glad I kept going!

And that is where the star is lost (if I had been in a better head space to read this, maybe it would have been a five star read, but alas.) But even though this doesn't get a perfect rating from me, I really and truly enjoyed this memoir.

I enjoyed reading about Tran's experiences in high school as he came into his own and eventually found his footing in his life. His writing pulled me in and I could see him experiencing so many things that made his life all that more fascinating, if not a incredibly heartbreaking thanks to his complicated and abusive relationship with his father and the racist and discriminatory relationship he had with the people and society around him while growing up.

Tran did a great job of not only sharing how music formed who he is today, but also how his understanding of the space he inhabits in this world is one that will always challenge the people around him who want him to stay "where he belongs". There was a particular scene where he is riding high on his successes, but a racist punches him down. It's a sad situation that can be seen even in today's society, especially social media.

One of the reasons why I also really enjoy memoirs like this is because of the immigrant experience, and the tokenism of living as a person who physically looks different and comes from a different place than the people around you. In these recollections, I can see the younger me trying to survive the halls of schools full of people who don't look like me, speaking two languages when everyone else normalizes using one. And speaking of languages: what happens to Tran in this with his first language was one of the great fears of my parents--but it is also a literal representation of how some immigrant families want their children to be a part of their new and "better" society so much, that something like a language is an okay sacrifice.

I've been lucky that most of the immigrant memoirs and autobiographies I've read have been so poignant and incredible. I'm very happy to add SIGH, GONE to that list of memoirs that I will happily recommend to my customers!

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87. The Lie Maker by Linwood Barclay--⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

While this isn't my first Linwood Barclay book, it's the first one I've read in a long time. I had forgotten how twisty and complex his mysteries and thrillers could get. I won't lie, reading this made me want to read more of his backlist titles.

THE LIE MAKER was a fun and interesting read that followed a handful of characters as their lives intertwined in the most dangerous of ways. At the heart of it all was a father who made some pretty horrible choices, and a son who just wanted his father back again. While the dangers and deaths happen around them, you can't help but root for these two characters to find some sort of peace together again. It's most likely because of that heart wrenching prologue, or because the MC never gave up on his father throughout the whole book.

I did like seeing the chapters were Evil™️ was taking place because you knew something was going to happen, but you didn't know HOW it was going to happen. The twists the filled the book and the big reveal were slowly shown to us until we had an aha! moment.

I enjoyed this book for what it was. Was it a work of art, or an especially memorable read? No, but it was entertaining af and I think it'll be a great read for those wanting a thriller for their summer reading list!

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Have you read any of these books? Let me know!

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Happy reading!