#confluence boards

[bio-stims]

a stimboard for our headmate aurora 🩷

credits: x x x | x x x | x x x

[scarlettohairdye]

Home Ownership Was a Mistake

This is for @trickybonmot, who may or may not use some of these stories in a fic.

Okay. So.

In the year of our lord 2010, my wife and I were lucky enough to be gifted $20k by my parents, which in those days (given it was a historically low point for real estate prices in Seattle) was enough for a down payment on a house. It was an astounding confluence of luck and privilege that led to us being homeowners, because if they gave us the same money now it would go precisely nowhere.

Anyway, it was not enough money for a large house, or a fancy house. We looked at a lot of places, only some of which were move-in ready (and one of which was absolutely just a tear-down) and eventually settled on our current place, which is a 1910 bungalow with a detached garage that was finished and turned into a studio.

Was it the most aesthetically pleasing house when we bought it? No. The walls were white, the carpet was light beige, and the paint had seen better days. That said, it was move-in ready and the owner was pretty desperate to sell, so we took it!

The inspector let us know that some of the wiring was still the old knob-and-tube, so we'd want that updated sooner rather than later, but it looked pretty good. About half the outlets were grounded, so it didn't stop us from plugging in three-prong appliances. We just had to use more extension cords than maybe we'd prefer.

The Electrical

The first big house thing we paid for was to have the entire place rewired. Our circuit breaker was a mystery, we didn't have enough outlets, and we were tired of being stuck with specific layouts of our stuff due to the lack of grounded outlets. We were expecting about half the wiring to be up to code, and the rest would need an update.

Spoiler alert: HAHAHAHAHAHA.

The rewiring took about a week, and every morning the electrician sat down with us and told us what new fire trap he'd uncovered.

"Yeah, so the knob and tube wiring going to the lights in the ceiling? Knob and tube gets hot when it's running, and yours is under three layers of insulation."

"You know how you thought your outlets were grounded? They weren't, actually, the ground wire just went elsewhere into the house and wasn't connected to anything."

"So there's wiring in your crawlspace? Whoever put that in nailed some sheets of wood paneling over it, so we had to rip the wood paneling out to access it."

I think the job was about $15k when it was done, we had many many more outlets, and our house was no longer one bad day from lighting itself on fire. Victory, I guess?

The Studio Window

This was leaking a bit, and we knew it was leaking when we moved in. (South facing walls get all the weather in our region.) We were not handy enough to replace it ourselves at the time and we also didn't have money because I got laid off shortly after we bought the house and was making my living doing costume commissions. Solution: Trade costuming work to an acquaintance who did carpentry.

The window, we discovered, was not so much a finished window as it was a single sheet of glass sandwiched between some boards.

Badly.

The carpenter was not entirely she that she was qualified for the job, but she did manage to remove the single sheet of glass and replace it with a window that was insulated and actually capable of opening. She used caulk around it. It was way better than we had before. Maybe someday we'll have both studio windows replaced by a contractor who actually does windows, but this is not that day!

The Siding

The cedar shingles were no longer cutting it at a certain point, so we had the house resided. (Houses are money pits, in case you didn't know.) This was a $30k job (MONEY PIT!) and had several layers of badness.

Bad: Our house had no insulation. It was cedar shingles over the original siding, with nothing in between that original siding and our INTERIOR WALLS. There was occasionally a newspaper. Our PM asked if we wanted insulation? And we said yes, please!!! We did not have a lot of time to think about insulation or research the best type, so it's just sheets of the pink fiberglass stuff in there, but it exists and we have it now!

Worse: Underneath our laundry room was a horrorshow. The laundry room is an addition that was added to our house probably sometime in the 50s? And, uh...

Well, the siding guys pulled off the siding, took a look at what was under it, and immediately called the project manager. The project manager came out, took a look, and then called us. He said that the siding guys thought it really needed to be reinforced and stabilized before they re-sided it, which is very fair, because I think the people who built it originally were drunk when they did it. It was a fucking Wild West cowboy construction situation under there.

Yes, you heard that right: A LOAD-BEARING SHINGLE.

Our project manager also informed us that the siding guys couldn't do the reinforcement, because they're just siding guys. They don't do structural. This is very fair.

It also needed to be done by Monday so we could stay on schedule for the siding work.

We learned this on Friday.

I immediately called my general contractor dad and got his voicemail, because (I remembered belatedly) he was in Mexico getting dental surgery. There was absolutely no way we could get another contractor out to do the work over a single weekend.

It was up to us.

My wife and I (mostly my wife) went HAM on it. We rented big jacks from the tool library to prop the laundry room up while we replaced one of the entirely rotten support poles. One of the big telephone poles was so wrecked with dry rot we could kick it out of place. (It didn't even touch the BIG ROCK that was supposed to be its foundation!!! It was floating!!!) Several of the joists were also fucked, so we ran new joists alongside them and married them together. My wife dug holes while crouched in a 4' high space, filled the holes with gravel, compacted it by putting a piece of wood on top of it and hitting it with a mallet, and then installed an entire additional support system from 4x4s and deck blocks. She actually attached the support system TO THE FUCKING HOUSE, which was a big improvement from the way it was originally held on by vibes and paint.

Here's a tasty little before and after:

(Yeah, see how that visible joist at the front just... stops at the far left? There's a new joist right behind it now.)

This was completed with resounding cries of, "Good enough!" and "It's better than it was before!" The siding guys thought it was fine and sided over it. Someday hopefully we will be able to afford to tear the whole thing down and rebuild it with a properly poured foundation, but in the meantime the spin cycle on the washing machine no longer shakes the whole house. Victory?!

Ridiculous: The purple paint saga. My wife and I are lesbians who tend toward maximalism in our decoration style. Construction companies find this baffling. We paid extra to our siding company to get the extended color choices (if you order the siding with the color baked in it lasts longer, but you're limited to a particular range of colors) and spoiler alert: 90% of them are boring as fuck. We basically paid extra to have access to 400 shades of white and 400 more shades of beige. There were like three saturated colors in the whole book. Pathetic.

Anyway, we chose the one nice teal that was available and decided we'd paint the door purple, since all the purple colors were gray at best. The project manager then forgot to put in our order, and when he remembered he'd forgotten, ordering our siding through his company would have pushed back the start time by six weeks. We could still make the original start time if we ordered through a different company doing the same thing, though!

Me, immediately: And we wouldn't be restricted to your color palette, right? Him: Yeah, they can do custom colors. Me, slapping down a color card called "Fully Purple": MAKE IT PURPLE.

Bless this man, he went to the siding company and asked for Fully Purple. They told him they couldn't do that color, and also is he sure anyone wants this color? He called them on the phone and informed them yes, we did want that color, and also that he'd worked for them and he knew damn well they could do that color, they'd just have to custom mix it, so they needed to do their fucking jobs. Suitably chastened, they finally sent us a sample of the siding, and it was... okay. It was purple for sure, but a little de-saturated. Not the purple of our hearts.

I asked if they'd actually started manufacturing our siding yet or just sent the color sample. The project manager confirmed they hadn't, and if we ordered this imperfectly-purple siding now, it would be several weeks before we could get started.

"We're gonna paint," I decided, and our project manager put in the orders.

The paint store called him and said, "Hey, are you sure you want this color?" Yes, he assured them, that's the right color.

The guys doing the painting opened up the can and then called him and said, "Are you sure this color?" and he told them yes! They want that color!

At this point I told him he should just start responding with, "They're lesbians!!! Yes! They want the purple! They're lesbians!!!"

Eventually we cleared every hurdle god and the construction industry put in front of us, and now our house is Fully Purple.

It also has insulation, wiring that won't kill us, and a laundry room that hopefully won't collapse anytime soon. We got a heat pump installed that took shockingly little time and worked immediately, and our next project will be having the roof redone. Check back in to find out what fresh horror awaits us then! I think it'll be a second roof under our existing roof made of lead and asbestos tiles, probably!

[dduane]

Peter and the twenty suits and somehow that story contains tomato aspic? Color me intrigued

No, the aspic was an accidental confluence. But there was definitely tomato juice involved. (Also: not twenty. But a dozen, anyway.)

...So let’s turn our minds back to those thrilling days of yesteryear (i.e. 2008...). The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators kindly asked me to come be a keynote speaker at their yearly get-together, which that year was being held on the island of Hydra, in Greece. Leaving the honor of even being asked to one side, I’d never been to Greece, so I more or less instantly said “Yes!”

(Inserting a cut here. WARNING: this post contains: business travel, alcohol, and lemon zest.)

...Getting to Athens was going to be just a tiny touch complicated because at that point, none of the major airlines serving Ireland offered a direct DUB-ATH service. I thought about this for a while, and (since I’m on a frequent-flyer program with them) it seemed the most sensible way in and out of Athens was to take a Swiss flight to Zürich, stop there overnight if necessary, and catch the next convenient ZRH-ATH flight onward.

So Peter and I did that, and we went to Athens, and from there via catamaran ferry to Hydra; where I had a fabulous time conferring, confabulating and otherwise hanging out with my fellow wizards writers. And when that was all over, we regretfully started the process of heading home. (During the first leg of which process I cut an unexpected notch on my webmastering belt by actually doing website maintenance using a Nokia phone cabled to a laptop, while in the middle of the Saronic Gulf, on a hydrofoil.)

...Anyway. Back through Athens to the airport, uneventful flight from ATH to ZRH, train from the airport to Zürich Hauptbahnhof (the city’s main train station); did check-in for our morning ZRH-DUB flight there, while also checking our non-carryon bags through to the plane. Then, dinner at Hiltl Vegi, crash-and-burn at the favorite little hotel that’s about three minutes’ walk from Zuri HB, and up early the next morning for the train back to the airport: straight through security, and airside.

This version of “airside” was going to be a little more interesting for us than usual, because we’d been flown business class on this run. As a result we could get into one of the Swiss lounges, which are justly famous for their general poshness. More than that: since we were flying to a non-Schengen country, we would be leaving from the (relatively) new and shiny Terminal E.

So we did the underground people-mover underneath the runways and came out in the new terminal, and headed upstairs for the business lounge.

It was large; it was gorgeous. And the view out across the runways to the Alps was amazing. (Though that view was slightly impeded by what was, it was then said, the longest lounge bar in Europe.)

That was, granted, interesting enough. But our attention wasn’t primarily on that. What we were both most interested in when we first got there was a little something to eat and drink while we waited for the 11 AM-ish departure.

Now, this was long before that lounge had been renovated to contain a live open kitchen with hot and cold running chefs. In 2008 there were, however, free snack stations with assorted junk food—chips/crisps and pretzels and nuts, etc—and (that time of day) casual breakfast makings: cereals and milk, and mueslis and yogurts, and breads and butters and jams and cheeses and cold cuts and so forth.... such as you’d normally find in a central European breakfast buffet. There was also a coffee island nearby...

...and a drinks station with juices and sparkling water and soft drinks and beer and wine. Next to that one was a selection of basic alcohols and mixers. 

...The lounge was pretty full of people that morning: a lot of business folk were apparently getting ready to board pre-lunch or lunchtime flights. A lot of them were up at the bar for coffee or whatever, and the bar staff had their hands full. We’d had our coffee and our breakfast, and then Peter looked over his shoulder at the juice-and-drinks setup, and said, “You know, I might have a Bloody Mary.”

“Okay,” I said. “Make me one too?” Because we were in no rush, and this whole situation was looking rather brunchlike. Why not complete the picture? “...And if they’ve got something like V-8, do mine with that.”

So over to the drinks installation P. went, rolled up his sleeves, scoped out the available supplies, gathered together the necessary ingredients, and started making Bloody Marys with his usual air of proficiency. (If you’ve ever been at a convention where he happened to be doing bartender duty—such as a Minicon or similar—you’ll know what I mean. A careful eye for appropriate ingredient amounts, and great thoughtfulness about seasoning.)

He made mine first, and brought it over to where we’d been sitting. And then he went back and started making his. I wasn’t paying much attention to that: I was mostly drinking mine and gazing at the Alps. (If you put me within sight of mountains, I’ll be staring at them. It’s what I do.) ...And eventually I turned around to see if he was done making his, because I was thinking maybe I might want another one.

Except I couldn’t see him. He was surrounded by suits. (Or, more accurately, people wearing them.)

He was making them all Bloody Marys.

Yeah, okay, the bar was busy. But apparently somebody had seen Peter using the bar measures at the drinks station to get the shot sizes just right, and saw him teaspoon-measuring the Worcestershire sauce, and doing the dash-of-Tabasco thing, and employing the lemon zester, and and and... They got suckered in by the air of expertise, is all I can suggest. Guys in suits (and a couple/few very well-suited ladies) had begun surrounding him and asking him questions, most of them apparently beginning, “Sir, what are you doing? What is that?” and “What are you putting in there?” ...and eventually, “Would you show me how?”, and/or “Would you also make one for me?”

...And so he did. What can I tell you? ...I couldn’t see him well, except when someone in the surrounding group moved aside a little. (They totaled ten or twelve people, finally, as they drifted in and out.) ...But there he was at the core of that group, surrounded by an extremely complex comics-style talk-balloon of queries in several languages (it was Switzerland, after all; just in-country, you’ve got five or more to choose from...). Some of those people were translating for other ones. And celery and tomato juice and Ireland and science fiction and Tabasco and Star Trek were being discussed (and V-8: turned out there wasn’t any...) and God knows what else. And all these nice people in suits, one after another, were being equipped with Bloody Marys.

Eventually the crowd thinned out to nothing, and finally Peter came back with his own Bloody Mary, and sat down, shaking his head. Then he showed me a little sheaf of business cards.

We went through them. Futures traders and a couple of publishing execs and a guy who worked sales at the company that builds Irish pubs for international export and the lady who brokered high-end underground rare-cheese storage and the guy who did logistics on worldwide custom transport of organs for transplant. And a lot of offers to “Call me/us when you’re in town and let me/us buy you a drink to thank you.”

I shook my head. “Networking?” was all I could find to say at last.

Peter shrugged. “With tomato juice.”

[drinkcrywrite]

The Hunter Becomes The Hunted: or My Thoughts On Episode 8

That whole sequence really throws the prologue scene with Pit Girl into a whole new light.

The fact that the whole hunt aspect came about because of how the first one turned out. It was originally a somber, controlled affair. It makes it so much better that they never planned on it being a hunt, because that is how rituals come about; they're not planned, but a confluence of events that are then repeated.

Natalie being chosen. Natalie, who has no belief in the supernatural. She does not go along with it because the forest chose her. She goes along because they need to eat. They made it as fair as they could, and she was unlucky enough to pick the card. She has tried to feed them all winter long, out there everyday trudging through the snow while they sat in the cabin, hungry but warm; she would have gone under the ice with the moose if Travis hadn't pulled her back because they needed that meat. Feeding them was her job and she failed at it; but she can feed them now.

But she won't let them pretend. She makes Shauna look her in the eye. Makes sure she won't forget, won't ignore that she is killing her friend. It needs to be done, and it will save everyone, but they don't get to pretend that they aren't doing it.

Last time, Natalie saved Travis while Javi was lost. This time, Travis saves Natalie, and Javi is still lost. He was always dead.

Shauna steps up to be the butcher. Is it just because she has always cut the meat? Or is because she's the one who put Lottie in that condition, that they feel they now have to? Was it even discussed? Was it assumed, did they ask her, or did she volunteer? And who would slaughter her if Shauna pulled the queen?

The necklace. When we saw it on Pit Girl we thought it was a way of choosing her, marking her. After all, Jackie was wearing it when the forest took her. But she gave it to Shauna on the plane as good luck, to keep her safe. And here Shauna placed the necklace around Natalie's neck after she had already been chosen. Maybe the necklace is meant to be for protection. Just not from death.

Van started with the deck, shuffling it and having Misty take her card. Misty then turns to the next girl, who takes her card. They could have kept passing the deck on, but instead Misty turns back to Van, who takes her card, and Misty moves on down the line. Misty, who was banned from food prep after the doomcoming, is now the one to present each one with their fate. She serves them all even before she serves them the actual meat.

We see in the promo for next week's episode that Misty tells Lottie she needs to be on board, that she is not to make them feel guilty for continuing what (they believe) she started. What better way to do that than to present her with the meat, and force her to give her blessing, her approval of the meal, before anyone else can eat.

And Lottie. All she has done so far is be a little creepy to Shauna's pregnant belly and ask them to communicate with nature. But she will forever be the leader of the cult, of the hunt, not because she started it but because they did it in her name. And doesn't that say something about how we see god/gods? They aren't the things they do, but the things that are done in their name.

The Hunt itself. With certain animals, when you encounter them you are told to be still, to move slowly, don't run, because it activates their predator instincts and they will chase you and kill you, regardless of if they're hungry.

The girls were quiet, still, somber, as they awaited Natalie's willing sacrifice. But then she ran. And we are reminded that humans are the apex predators of this world. We have killed lions and wolves and mammoths. What we cannot outright kill, we will run down. Humans didn't inherit the earth, we took it.

[ostrichmonkey-games]

Crews? Homebase? Headquarters?

Been thinking a lot about Crews in Blades/Forged in the Dark, and how I want to play with those ideas in Furry Crime Game (sidenote: I really need to come up with an actual title for this game before that sticks permanently).

The general idea of Crews in Blades "exist to create a legacy that will last beyond the founding members" (p. 91, BitD). My personal view of Blades is that it has a lot in common with Darkest Dungeon - its just as much about the moment to moment, zoomed in character-play as it is (maybe even more so) about the zoomed out progression that happens through the Crew and the world around the players.

Characters in Blades are not designed to stick around for very long. Stress, harm, and trauma pile up very quickly. I fondly call the game a "meatgrinder" and I'm not joking! Unless you are the most cautious player, your PC is going to get shredded (and cautious play is just not nearly as fun in Blades, it is way better to embrace the meatgrinder experience and go for it).

So anyways, Crews stick around, forming your table's legacy, while your characters get turned into ground beef. Got it. But, in all my experiences of playing and running Forged in the Dark games (which, most of them adopt very similar "meatgrinder" experiences to Blades, everyone seems to care waaaaaaay more about the characters over the Crew. Its very easy to forget about the Crew, when you're focused on your cool little Crime Guy that you want to keep alive as long as possible, because little crime guys are fun.

Now, I like Crews! I think they're an interesting piece of design and fit very well into the whole engine of Blades in the Dark. But for the style of play I love (character focused vs legacy focused), they can feel a little too "board game-y" to engage with.

Compared to Blades, I'm planning on having PCs in Furry Crime Game being a bit more sturdy than their BitD counterparts, so the design space for a lasting "legacy" isn't as important. But! The idea of having this shared advancement, that progresses as the group of PCs also advance is fun.

So, where I'm at right now is some sort of headquarters/homebase that the PCs all share that gets upgraded and evolves over time (building on ideas from Blades' turf mechanics I think). Actually, I think whatever this HQ thing is going to turn into is going to involve folding a lot of Crew and turf tech into one thing. The hard part will be making it feel like a character that the table wont forget about lol.

I think tying some new downtime actions to the HQ is an interesting way to go. @temporalhiccup's Twilight Throne has some really fun downtime actions that are great at setting scenes and exploring character relationships. So, creating downtime actions (which who knows, could maybe be upgraded as you play) that take place specifically within the HQ and provides a framework for exploring the HQ as a "character" and also for exploring your character (and their relationships with the other characters), feels particularly fruitful.

Still a looooooong way to go on designing this game, I really need to finish Dark Confluence first, but I think it's gonna be very cool once its done!

Here's a little peek at the doc's outline as a treat though.

[stillness-in-green]

thoughts on the new chapter? you said before spinneraki is a pillar in the story and i think this chapter continues to be evidence of that

For these two anons who asked for them, have some Chapter Thoughts, 411-version. Herein can be found two big chunks of musing about, respectively, OFA & Shigaraki and the Shigaraki+Deku+Spinner confluence, as well as the usual handful of stray thoughts.

(I'm also going to throw in a few last minute thoughts about plot events between here and the last chapter I had a post on, Chapter 392. They'll be off-the-cuff and not comprehensive; feel free to send an ask if there's anything specific you're curious about, though I can't at this time promise e.g. the twelve thousand word essay on why the AFO vs. All Might fight sucks rocks.)

Chapter Thoughts — Chapter 411: History's Greatest Villain

OFA Vestiges vs. Shigaraki Tomura

Shinomori remains my favorite OFA bearer by a large margin; I enjoy how his quirk allows him to be the one bearer with his act together this chapter.  I also like that him being the vestige that actively chooses to sacrifice “himself” for the good of the rest of One For All makes a nice bookend with my preferred headcanon that he was the bearer who had the power forced on him against his will.      That said, it is a bit ironic that Danger Sense surely had to rank right up near the top of OFA quirks that it’s most dangerous for Deku to lose to Shigaraki!  Like, throw Shigaraki En or something; Smoke Screen’s not going to let Shigaraki do anything Deku can’t counter with Danger Sense!  Sacrifice Nana; Deku and Shigaraki both already have ways to keep aloft enough.[1]  So I appreciate both the display of Shinomori’s instinctive heroism and the dramatic choice to deprive Deku of such a key component of his defense, after god knows how many chapters of dramatic choices I pretty much hate across the board.      1: That said, it does look like the person Shinomori shoved most directly out of the way was Banjo, his own successor, which speaks to their bond and also spares Deku losing a crucial quirk, as Black Whip has been his main way to exert any control at all over the battle with Shigaraki and is also helping keep his arms braced.  As someone who wanted those humerus consequences after the first war, I say, “Go, Shigaraki, go!  Get the Sixth next!”     

My god, the rest of them are such a mess this chapter.  Very funny, actually.  Shaking my head at them in there talking about how to “bring down” Shigaraki, who they know good and well Deku wants to help.  “Our entire reason for still existing!”  No, Bro Bro, you existed solely to take down All For One, which Bakugou et. al. have neatly taken care of for you.  The only other purpose ever given to you was to save people, but I guess you’ve already forgotten that.      Seriously, I love the discord this chapter, the panic and fear, particularly from the youthful En—watching that unified will crumble in the face of Shigaraki’s hatred is a wonderful balm to all the times I had to suffer through seeing commenters elsewhere on the internet blithely taking it for granted that One For All could never be stolen just because All Might said it was so, laughing it off when Ujiko promised Shigaraki otherwise.  My villain fan agenda aside, though, it’s also a rare highlight for Deku that I like, which I’ll circle back to.     

Regarding Shigaraki with Danger Sense, I know there was some discussion of whether he’d be able to fully utilize it against Deku when Deku wants to “save” him.  As giving Deku that out would have been the story yet again undermining the villains’ fairly won victories (and as Danger Sense has been so wildly inconsistently written that Horikoshi could have gotten away with practically anything), I’m pleased to see it’s working as intended!  That said, you probably could have some interesting discussion of exactly whose “intent” Danger Sense is picking up on.  Deku may want to help Shigaraki, but e.g. Banjo, Bruce and Kudou certainly don’t seem to want that!  Given how explicitly Kudou was synonymizing quirks and wills back in Chapter 369,[2] and particularly given that Shigaraki can perceive the vestiges now, it wouldn’t surprise me if their wills are bleeding over into Deku’s usage of their quirks.      2: I.e. the “gaslighting the readership about the historical usage of meta-ability terminology” chapter.     

I do wonder if this is set-up for Shinomori—and potentially other quirks as well, including any more OFA vestiges Shigaraki manages to snag!—giving us a tired retread of the “quirk vestiges mount a resistance against their unrightful bearer at a critical juncture” moments we saw with AFO, but I suppose that’d be what Shigaraki gets for trying to steal bits of OFA after saying previously that he didn’t care about it.  (Sigh.)

    

Deku, Spinner, and Shigaraki Tomura's "Personhood"

I appreciate Deku pushing back against Shigaraki’s dehumanization, though it does not escape me that he directs that pushback to Shigaraki himself, not any of the voices inside Deku’s head calling Shigaraki calamity and ruin incarnate, and certainly not any actual humans on his side in the real world.  It smacks of the same pattern heroes always fall into of leaping to castigate villains for things they tacitly ignore in their own allies.  Still, it is at least spoken aloud, and to Shigaraki’s face, which is a pleasant change.     

I swear to Christ, if after all this time Spinner becomes a bridge between Shigaraki and Deku after all, I am going to be so damn smug.  Albeit in different contexts, I called that years ago, and lo and behold, here we have Shigaraki, accused of having no friends, self-dehumanized, and depersonalized by Deku’s allies, immediately refute the point by bringing up his best friend of his own volition, tying his destruction to someone outside of himself.      While Deku hasn’t connected the dots on-page yet, he certainly can’t have missed it, though it remains to be seen how much about Spinner Deku actually knows/remembers from their encounter at the training camp—that encounter long being an important part of my reasoning that Spinner could, via his and Deku’s shared respect for Stain and desire to help Shigaraki, find some common ground.      Moreover, we get Deku flashing to Uraraka—as well he should!  Since Uraraka is the only one who managed to unearth some empathy for her designated villain foil without a familial or fated connection to them, she deserves to feature prominently in Deku’s attempts to connect with his own opposite number.     

I do wonder if we will yet get a flashback to the mall scene.  Honestly, Deku could have kickstarted his connection to Shigaraki all the way back then, when Shigaraki functionally laid his damage out in front of Deku like fine china, only for Deku to grab the first excuse anyone gave him to write it off and forget about it.  The story could probably get away with not reminding the readers of that—after all, Shigaraki hasn’t really changed his grievance since then, just expanded his invocation of blame!  His monologue at Jakku is just a refined version of what he said at the mall encounter, so the only reason to flash back to the less developed take is to have Deku vocalize that he could (and should!) have been wondering about Shigaraki as “a person, too” this whole time, instead of only coming to do so after their mindscape encounter.      Acknowledging the gaps in Saint Deku’s Miraculous Saving Instincts would go a long, long way towards softening me on the narrative BNHA’s been trying to sell me on its main character.     

Anyway, three cheers for Spinaraki; they never fuckin’ lose, do they?  It’s particularly gratifying in light of the way people on Twitter were speedrunning the shift from dismissing Spinner as unimportant to criticizing him as “toxic” as it became more and more clear that saving Shigaraki was going to be more complicated than just dealing with AFO.  People really thought that if Deku could just lay all the blame for Shigaraki’s anger at AFO’s feet, then he could just wipe it away, eradicating “Shigaraki Tomura”—who was never really a person anyway, just fifteen years of grooming and coping mechanisms—and leaving behind only sweet, innocent, undemanding Shimura Tenko.      But if Shigaraki was carrying anger for others, blame for wrongs that couldn’t be attributed to AFO, suddenly that narrative got messier.  Suddenly the League needed to be Bad For Each Other, needed to be separated for their own good, redeemed by the grace of their designated student foils—and nowhere was that trickier than with Spinner, who didn’t have one, and whose every flashback post-war made it clearer and clearer that he had a relationship with Shigaraki that went beyond the League’s stated purpose as an alliance of Villains to bring down Hero Society.      The tidier version of the story would still be salvageable if Shigaraki didn’t really care about Spinner more than anyone else in the League, if Spinner’s devotion were one-sided, if Shigaraki didn’t determine to share Spinner’s grievance.  If Spinner’s problems aren’t Shigaraki’s problems too, then Deku doesn’t have to address them.  And but so, the mad scramble to invalidate the connection by any means possible.      But then here comes Shigaraki not just mentioning Spinner, but mentioning something Spinner wanted that Spinner never even told him about on the page, meaning either Shigaraki was paying close enough attention to Spinner to simply intuit it, or he and Spinner had an off-page conversation about Deika where Spinner in all his insecurity was able to admit to Shigaraki that he thought his horizon was beautiful.  And not only does Shigaraki remember this, he dedicates his destruction of Mount Fuji to Spinner and the horizon.      Not so one-sided after all, is it?     

That all said, of course it’s also worth asking if Spinner actually wants the horizon anymore.  Judging by his tormented inner reflections when striving to reach Kurogiri, that doesn’t really seem to be the case.  At the end of Spinner’s strength, what he truly remembers and treasures is the time he and Shigaraki spent just dicking around talking about video games—just being friends.  Spinner wants Shigaraki to get what he wants—but if they’re both just crediting That Beautiful Horizon to each other without realizing it’s not really about what they themselves want anymore, where does that leave them?      One suspects that was one function of the possession plot—keeping them from talking to each other freely and being able to figure that out themselves.  As it is, with the possession plot seemingly off the table, at least for now, that brings us back to Deku and his resolution to reach the humanity in Shigaraki Tomura—a humanity that Shigaraki just helpfully signposted by referencing his friend Spinner.      So how long until we cut away to find out where the Rooftop Trio and Spinner have gotten off to?

    

Stray Thoughts

Re: Mount Fuji, Horikoshi’s grasp of travel times remains as totally unhinged as ever.  Someone who can make rudimentary animations needs to use that battle map volume extra to demonstrate exactly the distances that would have to traversed by All For One, U.A., All Might and especially Lady Nagant and her bullets in this final arc for them to keep arriving where the story needs them to be.     

I see the artistic indication is very much that Shigaraki can just spread Decay wherever he walks now.  That’s both wonderfully evocative for the embodied destructive divine impulse he’s nominally become and also a bit amusing, because if you can unlock a touch-based quirk to spread through your feet, maybe Overhaul’s not out of luck just yet after all.  XD     

Good riddance to the mask!  As others have pointed out, it’s modelled on All Might’s smile, and is therefore the last thing Deku should be wearing right now, given that Shigaraki has specifically expressed, to Deku’s face, that he hates All Might’s fucking smile, “As if there’s no one he can’t save!”  Hope Shigaraki gets that damn cape next, such as is left of it.

    

Events Up To Now (Chapters 393 - 410)

The resolution of the Ochaco vs. Toga fight is very solid emotionally, though hampered by yet more nerfing of Toga's power set to make sure she can't do all the damage she should logically be capable of doing, as well as a lot of incredibly tiresome shoehorning in of mentions of Deku just to make sure everyone gets how Not Homo it is for Ochaco to tell Toga she's the cutest girl in the whole world. But I love that Toga remains unrepentant and faithful to Shigaraki to the end. I will turn a lot less nice about this if Toga turns out to have actually died here, however.      (She should have gotten to stab fucking Hawks.)     

The All Might vs. AFO fight sucks rocks. The mech suit makes a nonsense of All Might's primary arc post-Kamino, it's flatly irreconcileable with his characterization throughout the Edgy Deku arc, it leans on a bond with the 1-A students that he has entirely failed to earn, and it parades their identies and power sets out in front of the world with absolutely zero indication that he ever asked them if they were okay with that. As an answer to the "quirkless hero" question it is purest sophistry, laughably detached from reality.     

The world's reaction to the All Might vs. AFO fight sucks rocks. The return of Wishing Energy is the obvious point of note, but I prefer to focus on how patently ridiculous it is that across the multitudinous barriers of age, language, culture, politics, national attitude, wealth level, and views on heroism, everyone in the world who watches the battle and gets into it enough to really pay attention is magically able to intuit that the man in the black military hardware suit injecting acid into the underclothed twelve-year-old is the "Hero."     

Kunieda is a delight and he and Aoyama should have had history going back to AFO's sway over the family.     

Shigaraki is great when he's getting actual attention, but as part and parcel of the AFO vs. All Might fight sucking on such intergalactic levels, it made Shigaraki awful, too, reducing him to generic last boss counting-his-evil-chickens-before-they're-hatched gloating. Praying we see no more of that going forward.     

It is extremely headshaking in retrospect that the Heroes actively acknowledged during the planning process for all this that they would prefer to engage with the AFO persona in Shigaraki than Shigaraki himself, the Heroes then find out during the battle that AFO is trying to get to Shigaraki with the specific aim of reawakening said persona, and yet the Jakku team, All Might and Bakugou still blow interminable fucking chapters on preventing AFO from doing the exact thing that would get them back the persona they explicitly stated it would be preferable to deal with.     

Edgeshot continues to be Just The Worst, not even having the decency to wait until the endgame to confirm what I predicted back when the nonsense about repairing Bakugou's heart first came up: that, "You won't be able to come back from this," is a bald-faced lie intended to ratchet up tension, one that would be rolled back the instant the danger was past and Bakugou could be gotten to a proper hospital room.     

AFO's backstory is the laziest of lazy dreck. The new information soundly deprives Yoichi of the marginal amounts of agency he had previously managed to suggest he exercised, conflicts with what's been previously implied about the brothers' personal history, fails to reconcile the child AFO with the man we met in Deku's dream prior to Joint Training, and reduces all of the interpersonal drama between AFO, Yoichi and Kudou into nothing more than a reason for Bakugou to inspire fear and distress in BabyFO. (See @robotlesbianjavert's post and Nal's tags on it here, and @codenamesazanka's post here.)     

Omni-Factor Unleash is a retread of Kamino AND Overhaul's minion forms AND Akira-fied Shigaraki. You guys, I think maybe Horikoshi is Bad At Coming Up With Final Boss Attacks.

[fairest]

AGAINST AUTOTHEORY aka THEORY TEXT AS WILLING DILDO

As this confluence with autofiction illustrates, the reduction of theory’s mediations down to amiable oozing incorporates the niche of academic knowledge production into the booming personalist genre industry. Moreover, autotheory comports as dexterous academic labor, projecting a fantasy that courting extra-mural audiences can make up for downsizing in the intellectual professions. Its vulnerability enkindles senior academics bored of theory’s many funerals, imagining eager readerships in a great beyond, and ignites younger academics searching for openings in an economic and professional landscape of foreboding foreclosure; its elasticity bodes a space for young academics to create work and find recognition even though the university as an institution has largely expelled them. Gigification of academic labor crams academic production: manifest your individual take in your individual style with this short-term teaching contract here, this Substack subscriber there. In this way, autotheory must be seen as efflux of a context in which theorists with fair labor conditions like tenure encounter their dire lack of peer audience, and theorists without fair labor conditions hustle for crossover appeal to eke out a living.

Aphoristic form props many of these texts thanks to its elliptical dance of vaporescence and glut, simultaneously pausing and flowing, at once crystal and aporia, snubbing and solicitous. They disrupt linearity, argumentative progression, and academic citation, boarding tiny theses absent plodding hallways. Pushing prose poems like other writers in the literary milieu, these genre melds are charming, accessible. We are drawn out of the realm of abstraction and solicited into a lyrical presence, a seductive proximity that subtracts the medium of theory’s abstractions and generalizations, achieving immersion. Reclining into life-writing, recoiling from argumentation, such retreats attain great resonance and beauty even as they whittle away theory’s distinct value, and recode theoretical knowing from revelatory to idiosyncratic. Immediatist theories posit a smooth continuum of body–experience–knowledge; bolster reflexive, passionate attachments as more legitimate than reason; refuse “symptomatic reading” in order to immanentize content. “It is what it is,” immediacy theory incants.

Such frolicking provocative insurgence of sensuous stimulation against linguistic or conceptual sense erects the theory text as willing dildo. It is bold in its shedding of academic composure, compelling in its self-disclosure, and titillating in its seductive posture—although decidedly unsexy. These are acute and perhaps even vulnerable performances, insuring in advance that assessing them critically would amount to some kind of mean violation—and that seems indeed to be the very point: to be so effulgently bare and corporeally vivid as to preclude distance-taking or concept-making. Immediacy as the unambiguous transmission of affect from author to reader, autonomic responses imagined untainted by the symbolic.

— Anna Kornbluh, from Immediacy

[gatorinator]

College is wild I love Canvas discussion boards. Can I share with you all. The greatest paragraph ever written of all time.

“In the context of Tesla, the electrifying confluence of autonomous hyperbolic quasar-driven innovation has sparked a cosmic dance of superluminal singularity, transcending the boundaries of the ordinary and propelling us into the unknown reaches of the automotive omniverse. As self-driving quasars engage in quantum-turbulent fusion, the very fabric of vehicular reality is rewritten, and the symbiotic algorithms of self-aware electrons harmonize with the aurora borealis of sustainable propulsion. In this Tesla-verse, the galactic autopilot orchestrates symphonies of orbital trajectories, while the bioluminescent dashboards whisper secrets of electric enlightenment. As the flux capacitors of disruption continue to warp the space-time continuum of the automotive industry, Tesla steers through the wormholes of possibility, navigating a path where past, present, and future intersect, making the unimaginable reality”—my classmate

This is the greatest thing I’ve ever read.

Does he realize? Does he know he’s written the greatest piece of satire to grace this good world? Does he take pride in the fact that he managed to say absolutely nothing in 5 sentences?? Did he choke as he swallowed the thesaurus? Also he did not answer the prompt at all

[ur-promethean]

it’s one of the more obvious hints in confluence (mostly bc anyone whos read contact harvest would Get it) but i still liked getting to explain the pilot’s flying skills as an advanced autopilot assistant in the pelican, one that has just a little bit or cortana trapped in it after she got silent auditorium’ed. the shard isn’t really self-aware or recoverable, but still intact enough to realize john is on-board. this isnt to dismiss the pilot or anything, its just he’s an engineer and theres a couple maneuvers he pulls off that don’t seem feasible for him to do alone. however, w the aid of a somewhat-sentient shard of cortana, who is very, Very familiar w chief’s affinity for jumping out of moving ships, it becomes a lot more likely LOL

[prozd]

my favorite things this year

Best Games I Played in 2022

1. Yakuza Kiwami 2

2. Pokemon Legends: Arceus

3. Vampire Survivors

4. Pokemon Snap

5. Kirby's Adventure

Best Shows I Watched in 2022

1. Ranking of Kings

2. We Are The Champions

3. Space Battleship Yamato 2199

4. Murderville

5. Aggretsuko 4

Best Movies I Watched in 2022

1. Turning Red

2. Shoplifters

3. Everything Everywhere All at Once

4. Luca

5. Marcel the Shell with Shoes On

6. On-Gaku: Our Sound

7. Drive My Car

8. Words Bubble Up Like Soda Pop

9. Jackass Forever

10. Glass Onion

also good: Bodies Bodies Bodies, Nope, Belfast, Barbarian, Uncut Gems, The Banshees of Inisherin

Best Board Games I Played in 2022

1. Clank! Catacombs

2. Forgotten Waters

3. Long Shot: The Dice Game

4. So Clover

5. Rolling Realms

6. Tyrants of the Underdark

7. Sniper Elite: The Board Game

8. Sidereal Confluence

9. Aeon's End: Legacy of Gravehold

10. Paleo

also good: Ark Nova, Eclipse: Second Dawn of the Galaxy, Spartacus: A Game of Blood and Treachery, Smartphone Inc, Aquatica, Dinosaur Island: Rawr n Write, Super-Skill Pinball: 4-cade, Flamecraft, Iki, Kanagawa, Trapwords, Insider, The Guild of Merchant Explorers

[maddymakesgames]

Been playing a few games of sidereal confluence a week with some friends and putting 4+ autistic cs majors in a room with an optimization board game for 5 hours is dangerously fun

[bio-stims]

a stimboard for our headmate tsunghan!

credits: x x x | x x x | x x x

[cyberbun]

you keep saying you're 'too stupid' for things. what makes you say that?

honestly it's something I need to stop doing for obvious reasons but I have a confluence of Broken Brain problems that make certain specific hobbies very difficult to approach - it's usually a combination of my intense social anxiety (it gets really bad when i feel like I'm lost compared to other people), memory and focus problems and what i assume to be dyscalculia (anyone who's tried playing board games with me will know that even basic addition gives me pause, my brain just refuses to process numbers). These have been getting worse with time.

I know that kind of self-talk isn't good, but sometimes it just feels natural. I guess it's just an unhealthy coping mechanism. I'm trying to stop, though, I realize that makes me unapproachable.

[beelzebuddy-catan]

The Not Entirely Human-Human Exchange Student pt.7

Summary: Solomon continues searching for a clue on who Cass is and how she is related to the Nephs while Cass starts to find answers about who the brothers really are. Warnings: Swearing, mentions of death and violence Spoilers: Through Lesson 7, Lilith's status, and a little bit of Nightbringer if you squint. Characters: Cass (OC), Lucifer, Mammon, Levi, Satan, Asmo, Beel, Belphie, Lilith, Solomon, Simeon, Luke, Barbatos, Diavolo, Charon (OC), Preta (OC) and Vas (OC). Notes: Psychopomps are beings in a variety of religions who escort souls to the afterlife. For those not as familiar with Greek Mythology, Charon is a psychopomp and the ferryman of Hades who takes souls buried with Charon’s obol (a coin) across the rivers Acheron and Styx. Nephilim (or as Solomon refers to them, Nephs) translates to "the fallen ones". While there are different beliefs on their identity and origin, they are the offspring of fallen angels (aka demons) and humans in this story. Previous Part • Next Part

Lucifer, who hadn’t joined them for breakfast, had sent a text asking to meet him in the music room. When she excused herself, Mammon, Levi, and Beel all looked like they wanted to stop her. The room only grew more uncomfortable when she told them she’d be fine. In their defense, it probably was too soon for her to say, ‘what’s he going to do, kill me?’ about meeting Lucifer.  

Despite his perfect posture, Lucifer seemed nervous. His arms were crossed, and it felt like he wasn’t really looking at her. Of course, she knew why he’d asked her here. There’s no way he’d move on like the other night had never happened.  

“How I acted the other night was inexcusable. You have my sincerest apology...Sometime in the near future, I’d like to treat you to a meal. To make up for putting you through a frightening experience.”  

“No thank you.” The only indication of his surprise was his eyebrows lifting slightly. “I wasn’t scared last night, so you have nothing to make up for." 

Without giving him time to respond, she turned and walked towards the door. Before exiting, Cass looked over her shoulder. “Next time, if you want to take me on a date, just ask.” With a wink, she left Lucifer standing in the room in a sort of stunned awe.   

Though five rivers flowed from the other realms to the docks where he stood, it was a place existing separate from any realm, much like Reaper’s homes. It’d gone by different names throughout history, but it was something everyone knew. A journey every being would take one day.  

The Aetherworld. 

He hated coming here. Solomon looked out over the swirling waters of the Acheron. The fog that formed above the river wasn’t exactly unsafe, but it always felt suffocating. It reminded him of the basement he’d spent so many years trapped in.  

He disliked the ocean, but he hated the waters that carried souls to their resting places. The confluence of Acheron and Styx was the worst of them. This was the only place that existed that made him crave the sun’s light and warmth.  

There was something here that refused to let go. As if death itself clung to anyone who approached the river. The coldness seeped through everything, making a home wherever warmth remained. And it stayed, long after leaving the docks.  

“This is not a place for the living.” A voice so deep and loud it shook the ground spoke. “Only those guided by a reaper may board. King Solomon the Wise, son of David, you are no exception.”  

“I’m here on behalf of Lord Diavolo, Future King of the Devildom.”  

The lanterns on the gate behind him did little to dispel the darkness. Nor did the lantern hooked to the ferry. He always wondered how Charon was able to navigate the waters. Finally, the faint outline of the speaker could be seen.  

“That means nothing beyond those gates. Titles become as trivial as the positions they describe when that threshold is passed. You should know that better than anyone, King Solomon the Wise, son of David.”  

If names are so meaningless, why do you keep saying them? Solomon wanted to ask, but knew whatever Charon answered would be just as unhelpful as him not saying anything.  

The ferry came to a halt in front of him. He’d forgotten how imposing the psychopomp’s presence was. Despite being only half demon, there were few if any demons that rivaled his stature. His demeanor had changed from the last time they’d met. As if the anger he’d harbored was gone. Yet, those icy grey eyes would never change.  

“It’s about the Nephilim.”  

It was the only chance Solomon had of getting him to talk. He’d tried everything he could think of apart from contacting them directly. Were it not for Diavolo’s request not to involve Cate, that would have been his first choice. Being here was almost as risky.  

Charon didn’t answer. If silence could echo, the Aetherworld would hold the sound. It felt all consuming. As Charon stood before him, Solomon wondered if it was possible for him to go mad from the nothingness he existed in.  

“Psychopomps have no concern or interest with the doings of the living or the dead. We cannot afford to care. Nephilim or not.”  

The answer was just as he expected, but it’d been worth a shot. Solomon pulled out the Obol from his pocket and held it up for Charon to see. Barbatos had given it to him when he mentioned going to the docks. Apparently, Cass had been carrying the coin when she first arrived in the Devildom.  

“I do not require coins for passage. That was a falsehood created then spread by you and your conspirator.”  

“I know. This isn’t just a coin. It’s one of yours. You only created ten of these. I just need to know who you gave them to.”  

“From whom did you steal this?” Charon bellowed. The sound of his voice created waves around him.  

Shit. If Charon became angry enough it, the docks would send out a signal to alert Reapers of an emergency. “I didn’t steal it. There’s a human in the Devildom who arrived with no memories and that coin. I need to know if you gave it to her.”  

“Coins were only given to Nephilim. I do not know how a human obtained it.” Solomon sighed, that was his only lead. “This coin was last used by the Maiden of the Three Realms on the anniversary of the day Styx caught the Lightbringer.”  

“Who’s the Maiden–?”  

“I cannot tell you that.” This fucking guy. “The Nephilim who travelled the Aetherworld is not safe. She has yet to stand the tests of time.”  

Before Solomon had time to ask any other questions, Charon was gone. The ferryman had always been terse, but now he was just being cryptic. What he really needed was to spend time with someone who wasn’t dead.  

Solomon started towards the gates, teleporting to the Demon Lord’s castle once he crossed the threshold. The Maiden of the Three Realms. He’d never heard of that title. It was hard to remember the details of all the Nephs, especially after the stories they’d created reached Greece and humans began adding to the myths.  

Which Nephs were still alive that would receive the title of Maiden. Artemis wouldn’t have accepted a coin from Charon if he’d offered her one. Charon wouldn’t have risked Ares getting his hands on one even if he’d wanted to give one to Athena.  

The only maiden he could remember in mythology being associated with Charon enough to receive a coin was Persephone. But that wasn’t one of the myths Barbatos and he had created. Was it the poet Ovid who first wrote that story? The Neph who inspired Hades hadn’t been married. There was no one it could have been based on. So, who was the Maiden of the Three Realms?  

--- 

“Cass?”  

When she opened her eyes, the only thing she could see was Beel’s face. He was leaning over her, his face so close, it blocked everything else. She’d been certain Lucifer was going to kill her, and no one in the tomb had been strong enough to stop him.  

“You’re alive!” He sighed in relief, sitting down on the edge of the bed. “If Diavolo hadn’t shown up when he did, you’d be dead. I’m so sorry Cass. It’s all my fault.”  

“No, it’s not,” Cass finally managed to speak. “Luke wouldn’t have been there in the first place if it weren’t for me. Besides, I’m the one who stepped in front of Lucifer. That was my choice.”  

Beel was quiet for a moment. “Why did you do it? You’re not an angel or a demon or even some powerful human. Yet, you looked at Lucifer and still stepped between him and Luke and me. Why?”  

“Why wouldn’t I? I think if I only chose to stand up for what I think is right when it’s easy, I’d be betraying a big part of who I am.”  

Even though she didn’t know who she was, she knew that was important. If her memories ever did come back, she hoped that much was true. Beel considered her words for a while. Was he thinking about the war and his choice to save Belphie?  

“I want to make a pact with you.”  

Cass’s eyes widened at the unexpected comment. Never would she have expected one of the brothers to propose making a pact with her. Yet, she could tell Beel was being absolutely sincere. He really trusted her enough to offer that. Which is why... 

“I can’t do that to you.”  

...it was only right not to.  

“It’s not that I wouldn’t, it’s just, I can’t make a pact without being completely honest with you. There’s a chance that you’ll hate me after hearing it, and that’s fine, it’s just somethin–” 

“You don’t have to tell me,” Beel interrupted. “I trust you, Cass. Whatever it is, I know there’s a good reason you haven’t told me. Because you wouldn’t do it if it wasn’t a good reason. So, I’d rather you tell me when you’re ready then because you feel like you have to.”  

“And if you find out and hate me?”  

“I can’t imagine ever hating you, Cass.”  

She wanted to believe him. How could he not hate her for hiding Lilith and Belphie, though? She was tired of keeping secrets that weren’t hers but knew revealing them could cause things to get so much worse.  

“Okay. If that’s really what you want.”  

“Is it okay if I kiss you then?”  

Cass released a breathy laugh and nodded softly. Beel beamed and for a second, any worries she had disappeared. It was hard to believe the gentle giant who seemed to carry the only sunshine in the Devildom was one of the most feared demons in the world. And so, her third pact was made.  

--- 

“I assume you know why I asked to speak with you?” Lucifer asked once Cass closed the door to the music room.  

Breakfast had been tense that morning. Having been asleep for almost 24 hours after Lucifer almost killed her, Cass hardly let herself be bothered by it. If she’d known how rested almost dying could have made her, she might have asked Lucifer to have tried it sooner.  

Lucifer, who hadn’t joined them for breakfast, had sent a text asking to meet him in the music room. When she excused herself, Mammon, Levi, and Beel all looked like they wanted to stop her. The room only grew more uncomfortable when she told them she’d be fine. In their defense, it probably was too soon for her to say, ‘what’s he going to do, kill me?’ about meeting Lucifer.  

Despite his perfect posture, Lucifer seemed nervous. His arms were crossed, and it felt like he wasn’t really looking at her. Of course, she knew why he’d asked her here. There’s no way he’d move on like the other night had never happened.  

“How I acted the other night was inexcusable. You have my sincerest apology.” Lucifer approached her, stopping close enough that he could have a more imposing stance. “Let me make something absolutely clear, however. Your curiosity is leading you down a dangerous path. I believe I told you not to climb the stairs to the attic, and yet you did. 

“I don’t know how you were able to make it up the stairs since there is a spell cast to prevent any human, angel, or demon except me from entering. As you saw, there is nothing up there. Hopefully the other night served as a learning experience, and you’ll stop meddling.”  

Cass made sure not to react to what he said about the attic. He didn’t know she’d found Belphie. Did he cast a second spell on the room? He must have thought it was just a flaw in the spell on the stairs. Things were really working out in her favor lately.  

“I want to add, I am not saying this because of your pack with Beelzebub. As long as my brothers consent to it, I have no issues with you making pacts.” She wasn’t surprised Beel had told him. “Just ensure you don’t interfere with our family’s matters.”  

“Unless asked, I’ll mind my own business,” Cass answered.  

He nodded curtly before taking a step back. “Sometime in the near future, I’d like to treat you to a meal. To make up for putting you through a frightening experience.”  

“No thank you.” The only indication of his surprise was his eyebrows lifting slightly. “I wasn’t scared last night, so you have nothing to make up for. I would like to say one thing. I don’t know what happened between when you arrived in the Devildom and when your brothers did, but I do know this, I’m not the one at risk of truly hurting your brothers.”  

Without giving him time to respond, she turned and walked towards the door. Before exiting, Cass looked over her shoulder. “Next time, if you want to take me on a date, just ask.” With a wink, she left Lucifer standing in the room in a sort of stunned awe.   

--- 

Diavolo had asked them to meet in the Council Chambers before classes. By the time she’d finished speaking with Lucifer, all the other brothers had departed. She now had the choice to either walk with Lucifer or by herself.  

Walking with Lucifer was the safer bet, but after what she'd just said, she’d rather sit through a year of uncomfortable breakfasts than whatever would happen on the walk with Lucifer. She was at risk of being killed without him though.  

As if hearing her concerns, she heard someone sing her name. Preta and Vas crossed the street to join her in front of the House of Lamentation. Preta had to be one of the most social demons she’d met in the Devildom. The two of them had gotten close partially because they always seemed to be around.  

At first, Cass thought the demon was just fond of Beel. Overtime though, she realized that they ended up going to a lot of places together because Preta was quite possibly the only being alive capable of eating as much as Beel. In fact, there were several times Preta had even managed to outeat him.  

Despite their outgoing nature and interest in the human realm, Cass was quick to learn that Preta did not get along well with Diavolo. While Cass found it hard to believe someone didn’t like the prince, she was even more surprised that Preta had grown up with Diavolo. Though Preta was open about disliking Diavolo, they never elaborated why.  

Cass still wasn’t entirely convinced that Vas was actually a demon. She’d never seen Preta completely in their human form and she’d never seen Vas in his demon form. Unlike the other demons she’d been around, he was overly cautious in his actions while always being sympathetic towards Cass.  

The demon also had a knack for knowing when Cass needed something, even before she knew. The café he worked at had become her go to for studying or taking a break away from the House of Lamentation. She’d look up from a book she was engrossed in and see a snack on the table or suddenly her near-empty cup would be full.   

“Aren’t you usually at R.A.D. already?”  

“Yeah, I had to stay behind to talk to Lucifer about something.”  

“Because he tried to kill you?”  

Cass stumbled at the question. How did they know already? How many other people knew? Had Lucifer pulled her aside before class knowing people would be talking about it?  Vas, who seemed to have expected Preta to ask the question and surprise her, caught her elbow and only let go when he was sure she wouldn’t fall.  

“Antichrist, Preta. I thought you weren’t supposed to bring it up.”  

“Only because it’s embarrassing that Dia’s right-hand man couldn’t even kill a human. No offense, Cass.” 

She tried not to laugh at the nickname. Despite him being the ruler of the Devildom, Preta didn’t treat Diavolo with any formalities. It was even more entertaining watching them and Mephisto argue about it. Interactions between the three made their childhood friendship more evident. It also made Cass think Preta’s dislike of Diavolo was more of a childhood grudge or the way siblings hated each other.  

“If only Lord Diavolo hadn’t found out about our death pool.”  

“Yeah, you were one of the few people who thought the human exchange student would make it this far. In my defense, it was before you got here Cass.” 

“It’s cool, I didn’t expect to live this long either.”  

Preta and Vas walked with her until she got to the council chambers. Diavolo had asked the brothers and exchange students to meet there before classes. Vas, ever the psychic, handed her some food for Beel as he was giving Preta something to snack on.  

Using her body weight to open the door, Cass entered the council chambers. Only the brothers had gotten there. Mammon was giving her a hug and whispering ‘you’re alive’ in her hair before the others even processed that she had arrived. Beel quickly followed, checking that her limbs were still attached.  

“You’re still alive? Well, that’s boring,” Asmo said.  

“Just for that, you’re not welcome to my next orgy.”  

“What? Cass, no, I’m sorrrryyyyy,” he whined, finally looking up from his phone.  

The angels and Solomon entered as Asmo started explaining why he should be invited to any and every orgy. Mammon was yelling over Asmo’s reasoning saying if anyone deserved to be invited it would be him. Levi wasn’t hesitating to mock Mammon when he took a pause. Beel was happily eating the snacks Vas had given her and Satan was ignoring everything around him as he read his latest book.  

Cass didn’t bother excusing herself when she stood up to talk to Luke, knowing they wouldn’t hear her anyways. Luke visibly relaxed upon seeing Cass and confirming that Lucifer was not yet in the room. Simeon and Solomon both seemed to mirror the sentiment upon seeing her.  

“Cass! I’m so glad you’re okay.” Luke rushed to her side, pulling her into a hug and mumbling apologizes into her side. 

She often forgot how strong the angel was given his relative height to those around them. It wasn’t that he was short, he was around 5’5. Even four inches taller than him, Cass felt much shorter than she was. Even Solomon, the only other human here, was above average height, somewhere between 6’3 and 6’4. 

Cass was able to assure Luke that she was completely unharmed before Lucifer, Diavolo, and Barbatos entered the council chambers. He didn’t leave her side the entire meeting. Cass wasn’t sure if that was because he was concerned about her or afraid of Lucifer. Either way, she enjoyed his company and wouldn’t complain.  

 --- 

“Rise and shine, cowboy.” Cass banged on the door of the attic.   

“What the fuck did you just call me?” Belphie’s drowsy voice drifted from the bed. He rolled over, squinting at her.  

“You heard me, bitch.”  

“EXCUSE ME?”  

Within the blink of an eye, Belphie was at the door. Whether he had been in his demon form when he woke up or after her comment was unclear. But there was no hiding the fact he was a demon now. He towered over her. It may have been intimidating if it hadn’t happened so often with his brothers.  

“Weird, I’ve never seen a human with horns and tail.”  

Belphie’s eyes widened as he realized that in his overreaction, he’d lost any upper hand he thought he’d had. She hadn’t noticed before, but he had the same color eyes as Beel, apart from that there were little similarities. Beel really wasn’t kidding when he said they were practically opposites.  

“How long have you known?”  

“That you’re Belphegor? Like the moment I saw you.”  

“How?”  

“There are literally pictures of you all over the place. You’re one of the most famous beings in the Devildom. Did you really think I didn’t’ know what you looked like?” Belphie didn’t answer, appraising her. Unlike the times Lucifer had given her the same look, it didn’t seem like a favorable assessment. “Why bother lying about it? I’d be more inclined to help you if you were honest with me.”  

“Is that so?” There was something annoyingly cocky about the way he said it. As if he knew she’d help him no matter what. “Why is it that you already made a pact with Beel then?”  

How the hell did he know that? Cass tried not to show her surprise, hands going to rest on her hips where Beel’s pact mark had appeared. Maybe she should have asked Beel more about Belphie and their relationship.  

“Because he asked me to.”  

Despite his attitude, it was the second time she’d said anything in such a short time that left him speechless. She thought back to what Lilith had said. He definitely didn’t act like he loved humans. At times, it seemed like he could barely stand looking at her. So, what happened?  

“What’d you do to trick him?” 

“Well first,” Cass said leaning in, Belphie mirrored her action unconsciously. “I treated him with basic empathy. Then, you’re not going to believe it, I respected him.” Belphie scoffed in response, leaning back. “I get it, you don’t like humans. I’m not too fond of you either. But I need you to know that I am going to help you.”  

“Why?”  

Cass didn’t answer right away. Why was she helping him? She’d promised Lilith to help, but had she ever had a real reason? There wasn’t anything in it for her. Lucifer had told her several times now, let sleeping dogs lie and returned to the Human Realm at the end of the year. It reminded her of the question Satan had asked her outside the bookstore. Why do you care so much though? 

Her time at the House of Lamentation over the last few months flashed before her. All the times she’d seen the side of the residents here that they tried to keep hidden. How she knew all of them craved a connection that they were too afraid to share with one another.   

There were times Satan showed vulnerability about his relationship to Lucifer, how something he could never escape became so all-consuming he couldn’t see past it. The wrath he couldn’t run from had been with him for his entire life. And he hated it. He hated it so much and he struggled to fight against it. Something he chose to do alone.    

Yet, the demon was so much more than that. He’d become so much more than that. Because he wasn’t just wrath. He was smart and driven and understanding in ways his brothers never had to be. They knew who they were without their sins, they grew into them. But if he imagined existing without his sin, he was imagining Lucifer.  

Perhaps that’s where his compassion came from. He would look at something as small as a cat and realize they couldn’t do it alone. Because he had done so much alone and no one and nothing should go through that. Even when that anger builds inside, he knows what he needs most is the care he was willing to give so freely.  

There were the times Asmo woke her up after a night out begging her to just lay with him. His drunken pleas to still love him that only faded when sleep overtook him always sounded louder than the demon could possibly speak. How even in the silence that followed, she knew he wasn’t craving company, but acceptance. He was always running from the idea that without the perfect, beautiful image he presented, he would be unlovable.  

She’d lost track of the times his smile would fall when he thought nobody was looking. When he looked in the mirror, he always saw something different than everyone else. He saw the former Jewel of the Heavens. But he wasn’t that anymore, so what was he? His distant stares seemed to call out for someone to remind him that his worth was independent of his beauty.  

There was Lilith, who, despite wandering the halls of the House of Lamentation alone for centuries, asked for Cass to help her brothers only, not herself. Cass would never forget the way the ghost’s voice broke when she asked if she was a bad person. Lilith, whose biggest regret was that she was the root of her brothers’ unhappiness, never worried about her own desires or troubles.  

Beel, who lost not only Lilith during the war but Belphie because of the exchange program, continued to open his heart to people. She couldn’t help but smile thinking about the warmth the demon exuded and the overarching trust he’d given her. He carried the weight of all the decisions he thought he should regret but couldn’t bring himself to.  

She remembered the hopelessness when he told her about the war and how he couldn’t save the people he cared most about. How she’d woken up by chance to hear him tell her about the nightmares he was plagued with. The nightmares that ended with him alone in darkness. The nightmares that lead him to holding her hand to remind him he wasn’t alone.  

The demon was just like the pact marks he’d left behind, etched into her sides where he’d left bruises from catching her not so long ago. The patterns matching his birth marks were bold without being overpowering and reminded her of battle scars, as if the marks were a physical manifestation of the emotional scars he carried.  

Her thoughts drifted to Levi and the blush that appeared whenever someone correctly guessed his feelings, how he would light up when talking about something he loved. She couldn’t remember her past, but she was almost certain she’d never met someone harboring that much passion. That very passion Levi was so afraid to share with someone because he thought it’d only lead to him being rejected.  

If anyone bothered sticking around, he thought they’d only find what he saw in himself, that he wasn’t worth it. Because how could they see what Levi couldn’t, that he was worth love because of his quirks and not in spite of them. The fear that made him think no one would dare consider making a pact with him.  

Then there was Mammon, the demon so afraid that he couldn’t live up to the expectations Lucifer set for him, that he pretended he didn’t care. He let his brothers push all their insecurities and worries onto him because, at the very least, he could carry the things they couldn’t.  

He’d still follow Lucifer to hell because Lucifer needed him. And Lucifer trusted Mammon with things he trusted no one else with because he knew Mammon could handle it. Because despite his shortcomings, he was there when nobody else was, when nothing else was.  

When Cass was scared or felt alone, Mammon was there. All the false bravado was done both for himself but others as well. Because no matter how worried they might be, Mammon was willing to be a fool to bring them comfort. He’d been doing it for so long, he’d forgotten what it was like to not be put down. Because he cared so much, he always put the people he loved first.  

So, when she finally answered Belphie, she repeated what she’d said to Beel, “Why wouldn’t I?”, because she was willing to do whatever she could for the demons she’d come to love. As Belphie pondered her response, she added, “but don’t think for a second, it’s because of you.”  

After contemplating her decision, he began asking questions about how she got past Lucifer and how she could see the room if he’d cursed it. She tried answering the questions the best she could, but she didn’t know much more than him.  

“What’s so special about you? Why did Lord Diavolo choose you of all people? I mean, you’re below average at best.”  

“I’m really starting to enjoy your company, you know that? Too bad you’re stuck, or we’d have a blast at the formal dance Diavolo’s hosting.”  

“Dance?” Belphie scoffed.  

“All the exchange students and student council members are having an exchange party at the castle.”  

“Kind of grateful I’m stuck in here for the moment.”  

Cass rolled her eyes at Belphie’s comment. “Oh, I forgot, I brought you something.”  

She slid a few pieces of paper under the door for him. Initially, she’d considered giving him a phone, but she didn’t get service in the attic. She’d decided to print off some pictures of his brothers since he’d last seen them to decorate his space.  

Belphie’s eyebrows furrowed as he picked up the papers and flipped through them. The mask he’d been wearing melted, if only briefly, as a smile tugged at the corner of his lips. She’d considered telling him about Lilith, but after the ghost’s warning, decided against it.  

“Why?” Contempt returned to his voice as he glanced up from the pictures, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. Cass shrugged, not having an answer that he would believe. “What do you want?”  

“Not everything has an ulterior motive.” Belphie didn’t answer, just muttered an insult under his breath before looking at the pictures again “Sometimes people do things just to do them.”  

Maybe that’s why she decided to help them in the first place, even before she felt this way. Because sometimes people do things just to do them. Because humans do things just to do them. And she was, if nothing else, still human.  

[butts-bouncing-on-the-beltway]

So I'm a therapist right? I mostly work with teens and adults these days, but I have a few young kids on my caseload, and I've been a case worker for foster youth before with mostly under-12s on my caseload, so school aged kids are an area of special focus for me.

Which is how I found myself trawling my union's school-age-kids current events newsletter this week and stumbling across this little gem of an article.

The article is rightly critical of the school administrators responsible for the sudden spike in kids being barred from school until they're cleared by a licensed clinician. They rightly connect this suddenly flourishing policy as an extension of the history of isolating disabled and high needs kids in rooms that range from horrific to an offensive caricature of a safe space. I actually really appreciate how careful the author was to address the impacts/motovations across the board of these kinds of policies, and think they did a decent job of holding space for the many horrors of how this came about.

I've worked with a lot of other mental health providers, and have even done crisis work like that which districts are proposing parents use to get their kids cleared for return. I've also worked with a lot of school staff and understand just how difficult it can be to meet kids' needs in many schools. There is something so emotionally devastating to me to realize that this is yet another sign of our fracturing education system post-COVID. I've been watching most of the institutions involved in the care and wellbeing of communities (esp children) limp along the road in a desperate effort to keep providing services to the millions who rely on them. I've been marking each critical failure that becomes the new normal in these systems as the confluence of factors that makes up The COVID-19 Pandemic steadily degrades our ability to do our jobs. I've been screaming as loudly as I can in every advocacy setting I am permitted in that we are watching these systems collapse in real time and we absolutely cannot allow it to continue.

It is admittedly extremely hard to do that day in and out while maintaining a sense of optimism but I'm doing my best. We all are.

I'm aware that to many it may not seem like much. And I definitely grant that this mechanism of informal removal/segregation for students isn't new. But the frequency with which it's used definitely is. And sure, it's easy to say things like "see, virtual home destroyed kids mental health they're doing so much worse now" or "schools are so understaffed and overwhelmed that they're no longer capable of managing students' needs" or "well, maybe this wouldn't be as big a problem if it weren't for the fact that 47 out of 40 US states fail to meet the well-being standards of 1 school social worker for every 250 kids" (I need you to understand that this bar is so fucking low that it makes me physically sick, being responsible for 250 students as 1 social worker is absurd to the point of cruelty to the kids and the adults in that situation, and 47 states have WORSE ratios) or even "well, of course it's awful but what are the schools supposed to DO, they can't put other students at risk even if the risk is the result of a systemic and catastrophic failure".

I don't think I have answers on my own honestly, but I do know of at least a few points of intersection that are definitely making this worse.

At least 2.6 million educators have quit their jobs since the start of the pandemic.

Child care workers died during the pandemic at a rate of about 38 per 100,000, educators died at a rate of about 15 per 100,000, and I actually cannot find rates of death among my own profession (within the US at least, I have found statistics for the UK, Canada, Spain, and a bunch of other countries and the fact that mine appears to have simply neglected to track the deaths of my colleagues and friends is sometbing I scream about into my pillow at night) but can tell you anecdotally that my graduating MSW class was down several dozengraduate students to COVID-19 deaths by the time I finished the program. These elevated death rates appear throughout healthcare, education, and essential & service workers broadly.

For many care professions there are quite literally not enough new workers-in-training to replace those lost to death, retirement, or career change related to the pandemic.

Surveys are showing that the mass exodus isn't even over yet, as some report that nearly half of remaining healthcare workers intend to leave their jobs by 2025. If we already don't have enough people coming into the field to replace who we've lost over the past 3 years, I cannot even fathom how we are supposed to replace so many more over the next 3.

A recent policy review from the Economic Policy Institute found that even in times of economic and social comfort, schools are receiving an inadequate amount of funding across the board, meaning they are unable to spare the resources to prepare for periods of economic and social hardship when funding often gets cut back even further.

Care professions are notoriously underpaid, even before the pandemic, and often rife with labor protection exemptions and workplace abuse.

I'm genuinely not trying to be alarmist, but I need people to understand that my colleagues and I are desperately trying to steer a sinking ship. There weren't enough of us to meet demand (and we ran ourselves ragged to only sort of manage it anyway) even before the pandemic massively expanded the need for our services. We died en masse. We got sick en masse. We sacrificed everything until there was nothing left of us en masse. Our systems are collapsing and we can't do anything to stop it unless people start supporting and advocating for us (and by extension for yourselves).

Many workers are considered essential by legal and social definition, and while I always love a good debate about whether and how to overhaul that, the reality is our essential systems are disintegrating under the weight of decades of popicy failure and 3 years of psychological (and physical) torture. If we don't DO something, these systems will fail altogether.

I'm not in the business of trying to predict exactly how long that will take but. Looking around myself? I think it'll be sooner than any of us would like. I'm tired. And I'm a relative infant in my career at only 7 years of service. I don't even qualify for profession-based student loan forgiveness yet (yet another factor making this worse: many of us are tens of thousands if jot hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt for our undergraduate and professional/technical degrees). I help mentor and supervise the interns at my practice, and I can't tell you how many zoom calls I've sat through comforting someone sobbing their way through a breakdown and on the verge of walking away forever. I can't bear it, reassuring these kind, wonderful people that they CAN do this, that it gets easier with time, that "we all hit a wall around this time in school and you've been through so much, I'm so proud of you". I can't keep telling these newbies that they can and should put themselves through this because we need them so desperately, they deserve better.

I've lost the plot of my own post and am just drowning in grief now. Grief for my colleagues, grief for my patients and clients and everyone who needs our services. Grief for the work that I love and how it is changing in ways that threaten all the progress so many of us spend every day fighting for.

I have sat in rooms with congress people and demanded to know where the funding was on all their fucking bullshit legislation creating commities and implementing new demands on workers when we already can't meet the existing ones. I have screamed at union meetings about caseload/care ratios and the constant overtime shifts. I have stared wealthy CEOs in the face and informed them that they either need to hire more staff, up our pay, or refine our job descriptions because the current status quo is killing their staff.

I need people to see that we are hurtling towards a point of no return and help us. All of us. Every new report about services cutting corners and riding the grey space of legal versus ethical is a canary in the coal mine, and pretty soon the air is going to be too toxic to breathe.

Anyway, if you have no idea where to start learning about/advocating around these issues, most professional oversight organizations have a policy and advocacy section on thejr websites where they talk about that. Mine, NASW, can be found here. Most of our professions also have industry-specific unions, and they'll have similar pages on their sites. If you have the bandwidth and inclination, please please PLEASE, start familiarizing yourself with the work being done to protect us and you and all of our access to essential services and care. And if you have someone in your life who's an educator, a direct care worker, a healthcare worker, etc, maybe give them a hug and tell them you love them and find out if there is any daily life busy work you could take care of for them so they can have just a little more time to rest in their day.

[duckprintspress]

Happy International Transgender Day of Visibility! Meet 8 Trans Authors We Work With!

Today, March 31st, 2023, is International Transgender Day of Visibility! To celebrate, we’re spotlighting eight trans authors who work with Duck Prints Press. The individuals included in this post either indicated in their biographies that they were trans, or they volunteered to be included. We’re delighted to be able to share their work with you. 😀 We work with other trans authors who chose not to be included in this post, and we support them too! It’s scary times to be out in a lot of countries, we get it, and protecting the anonymity and privacy of the people who work with us is one of our top priorities. To be visible on this day, in the current international climate, is an act of bravery, and we salute everyone choosing to publicly celebrate their identity today, and we respect everyone choosing not to. <3

Adrian Harley

Works:

Editor on He Bears the Cape of Stars and She Wears the Midnight Crown

“Some Sparks That Are Like Wit,” in the anthology And Seek (Not) to Alter Me (has a trans male main character!)

“So a demon walks into a party…,” in the anthology She Wears the Midnight Crown (has a main character for whom gender is complicated)

Adrian Harley is an almost-lifelong North Carolinian and a fantasy fiction aficionado who didn’t start delving deep into fandom until adulthood. They are an editor of research by day and an aspiring novelist, also by day. They go to bed early. They have short stories forthcoming in OFIC Magazine and future Duck Prints Press anthologies. They live with their husband and a perfectly reasonable number of cats.

Link: Twitter

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Stephen G. Krueger

Works:

“On Not Going to Parties,” in the anthology He Bears the Cape of Stars (includes a trans male character, an agender character, and a non-binary character!)

Stephen G. Krueger (he/him/his), fandom name WithBroomBefore, is queer, trans, and aroace; he is an academic librarian in the northeast United States. His other writing includes the book Supporting Trans People in Libraries, a handful of professional chapters and articles, and The Trans Advice Column (a co-authored blog that is exactly what it sounds like). Stephen holds a B.A. in English from Warren Wilson College and an M.S. in Library Science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; he is currently making leisurely progress towards an M.A. in Arctic and Northern Studies from the University of Alaska Fairbanks. He knits and sells hats, some with pride flag colors on them, and enjoys watching figure skating while his three cats take turns claiming lap space.

Links: Archive of Our Own | Etsy | Personal Website

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Puck Malamud

Works:

“Confluence,” in the anthology Add Magic to Taste

A Shield For the People (has a trans male main character!)

Puck Malamud (pronouns: ve/ver/vis/verself or they/them/theirs/themself) is a librarian, writer, and poet who has lived in a variety of large East Coast US cities since immigrating from Ukraine in the 1990s. Ve is co-author of a chapter on being L.G.B.T.Q. in the library profession, and author and co-author of multiple fanfics in various fandoms, though primarily The Untamed and Mo Dao Zu Shi. When not desperately trying to keep up with vis Libby holds, Puck can be found practicing dance, playing TTRPGs and board games, hanging out in various Slacks and Discords, and shitposting on Tumblr.

Links: Tumblr

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Alec J. Marsh

Works:

Editor on our upcoming anthologies Aim For The Heart and Aether Beyond the Binary

“To relish a love song, like a robin redbreast,” in the anthology She Wears the Midnight Crown

Aether Beyond the Binary author contributor (forthcoming)

A Mutual Interest

To Drive the Hundred Miles (has a trans male main character!)

Heart’s Scaffold

Study Hall

Alec lives in the Pacific Northwest, where they write romantic adult fantasy and self-indulgent fanfiction. They make candles inspired by their favorite characters.

Links: Etsy | Instagram | Twitter

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Catherine E. Green

Works:

Editor on our upcoming anthologies Aim For The Heart and Aether Beyond the Binary

Aim For The Heart author contributor (forthcoming)

Aether Beyond the Binary author contributor (forthcoming)

Of Loops and Weaves (trans female main character, this is Patreon/ko-fi exclusive)

Catherine E. Green (pronouns: xe/xem/xyr or they/them/their) is an agender person, one who’s had an on-again, off-again love affair with writing. Xe began writing when xe was a wee thing, when xyr other major pastimes were playing xyr mother’s NES and roughhousing with the boys next door. It’s only in the past few years that they have begun writing consistently and publishing their writing, fanfiction and original writing alike, leading to their first published short story titled “Of Loops and Weaves.”

Outside of writing, xe is a collector of books and sleep debt and an avid admirer of the cosmos. Playing video games, reading a variety of fiction genres (primarily fantasy, queer romance, and manga and graphic novels of all kinds), and working on wrangling their own personal data archiving projects occupy most of their free time. Xe has also started meeting up with a local fiber arts group and is excited to be crocheting xyr first scarf.

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S. J. Ralston

Works:

Aether Beyond the Binary author contributor (forthcoming)

S. J. grew up in the distinctly weird town of Athens, GA, bounced around in the American southwest for a while, and landed in Houston, TX, where they currently work as a Mars Research Scientist. They’ve been writing original works and fanfiction since they could hold a pencil semi-correctly, and continue to write both whenever possible (as well as still holding a pencil only semi-correctly). They’re currently working on developing a portfolio of published original works. In their clearly copious spare time, S. J. enjoys hiking, tabletop RPGs, jigsaw puzzles, and enthusiastically crappy sci-fi.

Links: Personal Website

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N. C. Farrell

Works:

“Eldest Daughter Seeks Her Wife,” in the anthology She Wears the Midnight Crown 

N. C. Farrell (they/he) grew up in California’s Silicon Valley, where they spent long days hiking the coastal mountains, reading an impressive number of books about dragons (and cats, and spaceships, and magic, etc.), and creating stories with their friends. He moved to Massachusetts for college, where he studied psychology while reading more books (some of which were even for classes!), participating in LARPs, and ensuring that the SF/F club’s student-run convention had a solid schedule. Since graduating, N. C. Farrell has worked in various education-related roles. They currently spend much of their free time reading (more translated webnovels than paper books right now), writing (a lot of fanfic), practicing aikido, playing TTRPGs, and being supervised by a small shadow in the shape of a cat.

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Alex Ransom

Works:

“Flowers Bloom Even Then,” in the anthology Add Magic to Taste (has a non-binary main character!)

“A Midwinter Night’s Dream,” in the anthology He Bears the Cape of Stars

Alex Ransom is a longtime fan writer and translator recently expanding into original fiction. Her favorite trope, as both reader and writer, is “Earn Your Happy Ending,” in which characters fight through perhaps inordinate amounts of difficulty to come out happier and more content on the other side. She is especially interested in the intersection between social circumstances, personal history, and the formation and maintenance of identity. Her favorite genres are space opera, fantasy, queer romance, and poetry.

As a child, Alex thought everything was better if it was more complicated and that the best answer to a yes or no question was usually “both”. Consequently, today she is bi/pansexual, trans/nonbinary, has worked a variety of jobs, and has three degrees in completely unrelated fields. When she isn’t writing or doomscrolling on the internet, she likes to travel, hike, and build marginally functional furniture. She lives outside Boston, Massachusetts, with her spouse and adult daughter.

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Thanks for joining us in celebrating gender diversity and supporting trans creators on Trans Day of Visibility!

Who we are: Duck Prints Press LLC is an independent publisher based in New York State. Our founding vision is to help fanfiction authors navigate the complex process of bringing their original works from first draft to print, culminating in publishing their work under our imprint. We are particularly dedicated to working with queer authors and publishing stories featuring characters from across the LGBTQIA+ spectrum. Love what we do? Want to make sure you don’t miss the announcement for future giveaways? Sign up for our monthly newsletter and get previews, behind-the-scenes information, coupons, and more!

Want to support the Press, read about us behind-the-scenes, learn about what’s coming down the pipeline, get exclusive teasers, and claim free stories? Back us on Patreon or ko-fi monthly!