#granted these two things are definitely probably partly a Today Problem and partly My Doing

[trashbaget]

i feel so fucking ILL!!!

[yellowocaballero]

Web!Jon Roleplays Canon!Jon: With Mixed Results?

I wrote this a while ago and now that Sucker’s Bet is finally finished I can post it! Yay! This takes place an indeterminate amount of time after the end of Sucker’s Bet. The exact opposite thing happened with this story that usually happens: I had a very depressing idea and then I was REALLY METICULOUS to make sure it was fluffy. What’s fluffier than healthy discussions about boundaries, needs, and consent?

CW for some unnegotiated roleplay stuff? The same topics that were hit in Sucker’s Bet are hit here. Suggestion of future sexual activity/language but no follow-up. 

“Do it! Do it! Do it!” Sasha chanted, thumping her glass on the table and cheering uproariously. “Do it! Do it!”

Tim laughed drunkenly, slapping the table too. “Double dog dare you! Do it! Do it!”

Good lord, this was like secondary. Jon rolled his eyes, hiding himself behind his cider. Out of the corner of his eye, he glanced at Martin.

Sasha: thought it would be funny, scientific curiosity. She wanted to see some magic, and Jon was a magician. Little more than a pub bet.

Tim: similarly, morbid curiosity.  Had more complicated feelings about the whole thing, but that was partly why he was doing it: make everything normal, settle in, stop awkwardly hiding parts of us from each other. Thought that this would help them make friends, also a pub bet.

Martin…

They probably wouldn’t have asked if they weren’t drunk as hell.

Or maybe they would have. Jon was silently hoping that Tim and Sasha would become more comfortable with him. He had a lot of tricks and methods to make them more comfortable with him, but he had decided very firmly to relax. If Tim and Sasha didn’t like him...well, he had already done possibly the douchiest thing possible to them, and they hung out with him anyway, so their expectations were probably on the floor.

Granted, that was mostly in Martin contexts. He rarely hung out with them alone. They were probably only putting up with him because he was Jon’s boyfriend. Jon knew how it was, and frequently exploited it: you think you’re part of his group until you realize he’s terrible and break up with him, and then suddenly you have no friends, so you never get around to breaking up with him and you’re never happy and you never find someone you’re happy with. 

Martin assured him frequently that they liked him. He suggested that Jon ask them, which he may have gotten from a CBT workbook that he surreptitiously read, but Jon was well aware how that put people in an awkward position. If they didn’t like you, what would they do - tell you?

Well. Tim would. Yeah, Tim would. This was why Tim was trustworthy and a good person. Jon loved people who were incapable of lying, it was like watching zoo animals through binoculars. 

They wouldn’t have asked if they weren’t drunk as hell. But they were drunk as hell, and there was nothing better than pub tricks. 

“What I don’t understand,” Tim said, in that kind of dancing lilting way that only the half-drunk were capable of, “is how you convinced everyone that you knew how to do that job when you, like, don’t read anything more complicated than fashion magazines.”

“I knew he couldn’t do the job,” Sasha said furiously, draining her gin and tonic. “I knew it, but did anybody listen?”

“We all knew, honey.”

Jon shrugged, adjusting his long linen shirt that hugged his torso flatteringly. Honestly, if Jon had been born a woman he would have been too powerful. “That one involved a little bit of spider powers,” he admitted. “But not much. I didn’t do much other than record statements. Telling Sasha that we ‘appreciate her initiative’, but, like, grudgingly, meant that she actually did most of the work.”

Sasha’s jaw dropped in indignation. “I did most of the - shit, I did! I did all of the archiving stuff, didn’t I?”

“I just looked really hurried and spent a lot of time in my office,” Jon said apologetically. “If you always sound stressed then people just assume that you’re doing things. I was really chatting up people on Tinder most of the time.”

“I was not paid enough,” Sasha grumbled, leaning back in her seat. 

“You keep making yourself out to be lazy,” Martin said mildly. He wasn’t drinking, designated as the sober one of the group tonight. “But you were using that downtime to do other work for your other job.”

Jon himself had a drink or two and he was pleasantly light headed - not drunk, but tipsy enough to feel confident and to shut up all of the annoying anxious voices in his head. It was refreshing, and felt very good. That being said, when Jon was fourteen and Gerry sixteen Agnes sat them with a twenty slide powerpoint presentation on how drinking culture in the UK facilitated alcoholism without recognition of it, so these are things you should never do while drinking and this is how to prevent binge drinking and unhealthy drinking habits. Jon didn’t always listen - alcohol was God’s solution for anxiety - but he tried. Agnes also tried that with Annabelle, but she just hissed at her and downed an entire energy drink at once while staring her in the eyes. They figured Annabelle wasn’t at risk. 

“I still don’t believe you,” Tim said imperiously, slamming his pint on the table and making his beer slosh. “If you did the whole schtick now, it would come off so fake.”

“Definitely. I never fall for the same thing twice,” Sasha bragged. “It would obviously still be Jon - what, Hawthorne? Jon Hawthorne. Or was it Hastings…”

“Hawthorne today,” Jon said politely. But he just shrugged, leaning back in his own seat and sipping delicately at his hard cider. “I can guarantee that, if I pulled out that persona again, nobody at this table would be able to see through it.” At Martin’s surly look, Jon appended, “Maybe Martin would.” Everybody shot him slightly incredulous looks, and he sighed. “I promise I’m good at my job! I’m only...transparent when I’m socializing outside of a persona. You all caught me at a weird time in my life.” He shuddered. “Vacations. Never again.”

“The problem with all of that was vacations,” Martin said flatly. 

“Do it! Do it! Do it!” Sasha chanted, thumping her glass on the table and cheering uproariously. “Do it! Do it!”

Tim laughed drunkenly, slapping the table too. “Double dog dare you! Do it! Do it!”

Good lord, this was like secondary. Jon rolled his eyes, hiding himself behind his cider. Out of the corner of his eye, he glanced at Martin. 

Sasha: thought it would be funny, scientific curiosity. She wanted to see some magic, and Jon was a magician. Little more than a pub bet. 

Tim: similarly, morbid curiosity.  Had more complicated feelings about the whole thing, but that was partly why he was doing it: make everything normal, settle in, stop awkwardly hiding parts of us from each other. Thought that this would help them make friends, also a pub bet. 

Martin…

In Martin, Jon saw the same thing that he had always seen. Even stronger, today, than ever. For a month, back then, it had been little more than intrusive thoughts and some light, bored mental meandering. For two, three, months, it had grown deeper and deeper, so thoroughly that it was a surprise. Jon had done a very good job with him. Granted, he had just meant to flirt to keep him complacent, not to end up...doing all of that, and going through all of this, and ending up here. That had never quite been in the plan. 

Martin thought that this roleplay would he really fucking hot. Which, ultimately, swayed Jon: he liked it when Martin thought he was hot. It wasn’t hard, but somehow it meant much more to him than it did from anybody else. It was very strange: that something so easily attained was treasured so highly. Deeply nonsensical. 

“I’m not doing it,” Jon said firmly, and both Tim and Sasha groaned. “It’s not a party trick, guys. Martin, can you scooch? I need the loo.”

Jon, of course, took a slightly meandering approach to the loo. He ditched his pea coat and scarf at the table hidden underneath the tablecloth just out of sight. He fetched a pair of abandoned glasses left on a pub (their owner was annoying a woman), grabbed an abandoned blazer off the back of a chair (its owner was almost passed out drunk, Jon could give it back before the end of the night). He slipped into the bathroom and added his new accessories, taking care to tuck his shirt in. He slipped a hairband from his wrist and quickly did his hair up in a messy bun - he really did need a lot of gel and some combs to get it in his bun normally, but he’d do the best with what he had. Jon glanced in the mirror, looking himself over and fixing his bun as best as he could. He took a deep breath, then two. 

There was always that moment: when Jon slid into it. It felt like skidding on ice, thrust someplace else. Or like an exhale, centering himself as his molecules rearranged. It was a thrilling feeling, often accompanied by a heady thrill or adrenaline. 

No matter how many times he did this, it was still fun. Jon loved it. He really, really loved winning. And Jon always won. 

When Jon walked back to the table, his posture was uncomfortably stiff yet visibly hunched over. Look proud and professional, but deeply feel uncomfortable with the noise and sound and clamor of the pub. Anxious and socially awkward, but trying to hide it - that was familiar. 

Jon halted at the table, where Tim was already telling Martin about a snowboarding accident. They stopped short when they saw him, one hand worrying at his blazer as he scowled at them. “Martin, will you move over? I can’t get to my seat.”

“Uh,” Martin said intelligently. 

“Any day now,” Jon said frostily. 

Martin quickly got up and let Jon slide in. Jon, who had been sitting pressed up against Martin’s side, took care to slide much further away so he was more hovering at the edges of the group -  not enough that it was awkward, but definitely a bit to the right of Sasha directly ahead of him. He avoided eye contact with everybody, picking up his drink and sniffing it suspiciously. The accent was the easiest part of it, the only wrinkle carefully making it almost perceivably fake. 

“Holy shit,” Tim said loudly, voice rising in incredulity, “you actually did it?”

“Did what?” Jon asked. He carefully took a sip of the drink, before grimacing in distaste. “Absolutely vile…” 

“You did the thing,” Sasha said, so excited she was almost bouncing up and down. “You’re doing the thing, holy shit! That was such a Jon face!”

“Er. If you say so.” Jon busied himself with the drink again, obviously pantomiming sipping as he fiddled with the arm of the blazer. Under his breath, yet very audibly, he muttered, “What a waste of time…”

“Man, this is like, what, LARPing?” Tim batted at Sasha’s arm, looking excited. “I’ll play along. Remember we used to do this together?” 

They had. Jon had to pretend that he was unbearably awkward about the whole thing, yet secretly excited to be invited. In reality, pubs were such a cornerstone of Jon’s existence he found them dull as bricks, but it had been fun to channel someone terrified of too many people in a room. 

Sasha’s chin was propped on her hand, giggling. “What’s your organization system for the files, huh, Jon? What’s your organization system? How are you sorting the documents?”

“Tim told me that you don’t talk about work at pubs,” Jon said defensively. “He said you talk about - what was it -” He looked at Tim planatively, obviously lost. “Hobbies? You talk about hobbies?”

“How do you organize the files, Jonathan?”

“Yes, Boss, hobbies,” Tim said faux-sympathetically. He put a hand on his heart, pulling a face. “You gotta have hobbies, right? Shopping, haircare, stealing money, getting fake married?”

“That’s all for his job,” Martin muttered. 

“I have hobbies,” Jon said defensively. He adopted an expression of panicked thought, groping for something. “I like...television.” 

“What television, Jonathan,” Sasha said flatly. 

Jon pretended to sweat. “Television shows?”

“Unrealistic!” Tim slapped the table. “Everyone at least knows a telly show, no matter how much of a nerd they are. Fakey Jon Sims.”

“I do!” Jon protested. “I - well, not recently, but - documentaries count. I watch documentaries. I was watching this fascinating one about the Jonestown Massacre, and the intriguing series of events the lead into the mass death -”

Then he was off, shifting into his confidence when infodumping. Confidence because he was so wrapped up in the joy of sharing information he forgot that it kind of included dominating the conversation, and he watched with satisfaction as everybody’s eyes started glazing over. Everybody except Martin, who was scrolling through his phone looking disinterested. 

Looking. His cheeks were a little flushed. Jon patted himself on the back. 

“I’m sorry,” Jon said, cutting himself off, “am I boring you, Martin?”

But Martin didn’t even look up. “I’m not participating in this.”

“Aw, come on,” Tim wheedled. “Look, he’s even doing the Mah-tin thing. You always started fanning yourself whenever he did that.”

Sasha was, very drunkenly, taking notes. “It’s uncanny. Like a dead person brought back to life and annoying you.”

“Are we really making this entire outing about Martin?” Jon asked, pretending irritation. Play into it. Bloke wouldn’t admit it, but there was a reason he had liked Jon back then. It wasn’t for his sparkling personality, beyond the little flashes of something more tender underneath. Have your cake and eat it too. “You said that this would be fun, Tim.”

Tim just laughed. “Aw, Martin’s not fun?”

“I never said that,” Jon said stiffly. He glanced at Martin out of the corner of his eye, clearly working himself up to say something. When he spoke, the words were almost forced out. “What..are you playing?”

“Sincerely buzz off,” Martin said flatly.

Jon couldn’t help it - his cheeks genuinely burned. He looked away, careful to keep an expression on his face as if he was examining the molding because Martin had said something socially awkward, but hot shame flared in his chest. 

He made it seem as if he downed his drink. “Excuse me, I’m...getting us more drinks.”

Jon made a show of slightly stumbling as he made his way to the bar. Martin had given him the permission to extort drinks out of people through flirting and judicious eye-batting - guy was very strictly monogamous but also practical - and in barely a few minutes he had enough collected for their table. He carefully walked them all back, settling them on the table, and waited for both Tim and Sasha to grab their drinks and start enthusiastically downing them. 

He wanted to drop it, ask Martin if he made him uncomfortable, reassure him. But that would ruin the momentum of this, the steam train picking up speed, and it was impossible for Jon to miss the dual things that Martin was feeling.

Super turned on. Also very uncomfortable. Jon decided that he was uncomfortable because he found it attractive, and he was dealing with some guilt over that. 

It would be fun to reassure him, but Jon had the sense that he wouldn’t like him to do it in public. 

Soon afterwards, with a little more friendly yet understated performance from Jon and uproarious laughter from Tim and Sasha, Sasha’s head had begun dropping onto the table more frequently than not and Tim decided that it was time to take her home. More accurately, Jon knew, to Tim’s place, as it was closer. He’d drop her on the couch, he’d slide into his own bed, and he’d think about a different situation. She’d wake up in the morning, eyes squinting against the harsh sun, and hope for a moment - but no, the couch again. Neither were willing to bridge the gap. 

Jon and Martin stumbled out too. Jon had been intending on spending the night at Martin’s place - Jon loved cuddling, it was his favorite thing - and Jon made a show of acting slightly drunker than he was as Martin thoughtfully kept a hand on his back. He stumbled out the door, gripping Martin’s coat and giggling. He had strategically returned the blazer back to the guy, and Martin had his other clothing draped over his arm. 

“And, in my opinion,” Jon stated decisively as he swayed, “as part of our anti-colonialist efforts we should give Ireland back to the Irish -”

“You can drop it,” Martin said, gently guiding him towards the tube station. They still had an hour before the last trains ran. “Seriously.”

Jon giggled, before slightly bending down to whisper in Jon’s ear. He kept the accent, the inflections, everything. “But you really find it hot.”

Martin sputtered as Jon laughed uproariously - not his laugh, the Archivist’s laugh - and they teetered towards home. 

On the tube Jon kept a hand on Martin’s thigh, and Martin kept glancing and glancing towards him, and Jon would shoot him a prissy look as his hand wandered up his thigh, and Martin would get redder and redder. 

When Martin unlocked his flat door it took several times, with his hand shaking slightly, and Jon hid a smirk behind a hand. On some level, he was always roleplaying when he did these kinds of things, but with Martin it was usually so authentic that this was positively novel. Jon’s mind was already furiously churning as he set up the scene - yes, that would be exactly right, this would be fun -

Jon stumbled inside after Martin, who was already taking off his coat and hanging it on the peg. He put Jon’s coat up too, glancing at Jon out of the corner of his eye. 

The Archivist wouldn’t really notice something like that, so he didn’t either. “Lord, Martin, your flat’s as messy as your desk.”

Martin still looked a little pained, even as his cheeks were quite red. “Yeah, ha ha. My desk wasn’t that bad, you were just being picky.”

“Yes, I suppose I must apologize for that.” Jon drew himself up to his full height, stepping close to Martin - closer than the Archivist ever had. “Martin, I’m afraid - well, I have a confession.”

“Oh, boy,” Martin said. 

“Don’t get snippy with me,” Jon said prissily. But he leaned in, keeping his expression just on the faintest edge of innocently scared. “I never wanted to admit this. It was just so inappropriate, what with me being your boss and all. I always - well, I always knew how you felt about me. It was...charming.”

Obviously involuntarily, Martin squeaked a bit. Adorable. 

Jon reached out and put a hand on the back of his neck, leaning in. “Truth be told, I was looking at you too. I was just embarrassed. I didn’t like admitting it. But I couldn’t help thinking about it.” That was, obviously, how Martin’s fantasies had always worked. Not realistic, but realism wasn’t the point of your absent daydreams during a boring workday. “But I’m tired of hiding it. I really want you, Martin. I always have. I want you to bend me over my desk and -”

“Shut it off, Jon!”

Jon shut it off. They had agreed on the phrase ages ago, the very solid cue to drop all of Jon’s shit. Jon regularly kept up the shit just because he found it entertaining, and oftentimes comforting, but Martin sometimes found it unbelievably obtrusive when he was trying to have a serious conversation. It was difficult - Jon got panicked during serious conversations, so he usually defensively threw his shit back up again, and it was a self-perpetuating cycle that had frustrated and upset the both of them until they had sat down and talked about it. If Jon couldn’t keep up the conversation without lying, then they both walked away and came back to it later. It was work. But it was good work, the kind that allowed for the good stuff to flourish. Uncomfortable, messy, and real - but maybe that was what Jon liked about it. 

“Sorry,” Jon said. He straightened, letting every expression drop away until he was back at his favored neutral. He knew that Martin found it unsettlingly blank, but he rarely complained. “Did I go too far with the desk thing?”

Martin just stood there, carefully controlling his breathing. Jon waited, letting Martin pick through his thoughts and try to shape them. It was probably more difficult than usual, considering how well Jon had been striking the right notes, so he gave him some time.

Finally, Martin said, “I get having fun with Sasha and Tim. I get us doing roleplay, privately, together. I get you doing a role for your job. But the Archivist gig has a lot of baggage with it, for all of us. Do you understand why I feel weird about you pulling that into bedroom stuff?”

“We watch TV in your bedroom,” Jon pointed out. At Martin’s flat, unamused look, Jon had to fight the urge to shuffle his feet. “I sincerely don’t understand your reaction. I’ve seen your search history -”

“Jon!”

“Research for before we got together, don’t think anything of it,” Jon said quickly. “But doesn’t that make it better? It’s not often somebody gets everything they want from somebody unattainable. Or, you know, not real, but…”

“Jon, for a mind reader you can be terrible at picking up cues sometimes,” Martin said, exasperated. “I know your reasons for doing stuff like this -”

“I’m fantastic at picking up cues,” Jon corrected, oddly huffy. “Because I always know what people want. Their desires, even if they don’t like admitting it to themselves. Do you have any idea how many people on this Earth are bisexual but won’t admit it?”

But, somehow, that just made Martin’s eyes widen a little, as if a realization had cracked. “It cannot be comfortable knowing how many people are attracted to you when you’re sex-repulsed.”

“It’s fine,” Jon lied. “I like it.”

“Jon.”

“Whatever. I got used to it.” Jon shrugged. “I like it when you like me. You’re my boyfriend. I want to make you happy because I like seeing you happy. That’s my ulterior motive.”

Martin sighed again, but thankfully he didn’t look as stressed anymore. Win. He broke away from Jon, instead dropping heavily onto the couch, and Jon hesitantly sat down next to him. His costume abruptly felt stifling, and when he saw Martin’s eyes linger on the bun he undid it and untucked his shirt. God, his hair was a wreck. 

“The Archivist has baggage for me,” Martin said quietly. “I know how I feel, and I try not to be embarrassed over stuff that most people go through and feel. Had enough of that internalized homophobia for a lifetime. I...can’t avoid you knowing how I feel, or what I’m thinking. I know you can try not to look, but you can’t completely control it either. I understand all of this. But you knowing what I want isn’t the same as me asking for it. Do you understand that difference?”

Jon shrugged uncomfortably. 

“Jon. Do you get that I felt uncomfortable because what you did was unnegotiated and you didn’t ask my permission?”

The feeling of embarrassment and guilt spiked higher, and Jon looked away and stared fixedly at some admittedly quite pretty art on the wall. “You’re making it sound bad.”

“I should have shut that down earlier. That’s my bad. You should have stopped to ask. Your bad. We’re both at fault, so we shouldn’t be mad at each other. Are we all good on that?”

Jon stayed silent for a little bit, staring at the wall, trying his best to assemble his own thoughts in his brain. He wasn’t smart. He had problems assembling the words for the complex and large and overwhelming feelings he felt so often. How was Martin so good at breaking this down and putting it into words, when Jon could barely even express how he felt?

Well, Martin probably had more practice…

“You’re so frustrating,” Jon whispered. “You don’t like asking for what you want. You do make me guess. You’re embarrassed to say any of it - the things you want me to do, or the things you like. You do want me to read your mind, because everybody wants a mind reader in their relationship. Especially when it comes to sexual things. But what I can’t read is the...choices you make. Just what you want. And you always make a choice that’s contrary to what you want, and I can never guess. So I do what you want, which is always the exact opposite of what you want me to actually do, and…”

After a second of silence, Martin said, “I need to work on that. I have to be more vocal too. But, Jon, nowhere in that did you mention what you want.”

Jon turned back to look at him, and saw that Martin’s expression was creased. With a mix of - sadness, frustration, conviction, dedication. Imagine being that dedicated, about anything. “Nothing about me minded this time,” Jon said, flabbergasted. “I liked it. I like playing, I like making you feel good, I like winning.” Martin opened his mouth, and Jon quickly said, “Don’t pretend that socialization isn’t a game that everyone is always trying to win, you liar.”

Martin shut his mouth. He could not deny it. Finally, he said, “I hate how you have to say this time.”

He couldn’t help it - he cringed, very hard. Terrible memory. Terrible, terrible, terrible - “I don’t want you to touch me the rest of tonight,” he said, in one rushed breath. Georgie told him to say it. Georgie, Melanie, and Martin. He was supposed to say this. 

“Of course, no problem,” Martin said, quickly yet calmly. “Was there anything in that I shouldn’t bring up again?”

“That never happened,” Jon said, his heart jackrabbiting in his chest. “Stop bringing it up, it’s over, I’m fine - I’m going to bed!”

Hilariously, it was Martin’s flat, but Jon needed to dramatically retreat, so he ended up claiming Martin’s bed for his own. He was very aware that Martin would grab the couch for tonight, because Jon had asked him to. So he was left shoving himself into the pyjamas that he left at Martin’s, wrapping his hair, and sliding under the covers. 

But he wasn’t really tired. Jon’s mind kept churning and churning, trying desperately to tease out his own feelings, before realizing that he really didn’t want to know.

It was a really good conversation. Jon was glad that they had it - that Martin hadn’t gone along with it if he wasn’t comfortable, that he had actually pointed out where Jon crossed a line. Nothing about it was bad. Everything was a work in progress - Jon and Martin most of all. 

So much of them clashed. So much of them cared about each other more than the clashing. They ran up against these things incessantly, and Jon felt as if they worked it out every time. 

He would definitely make Martin breakfast tomorrow. Lots of bacon, although Jon never ate the stuff. He would have to clarify that the way this ended - it wasn’t Martin’s fault, not really. He would probably also have to clarify that his random terror wasn’t something that was any of Martin’s business. He was the one person Jon didn’t want to talk it over with, actually. 

Martin respected Jon a lot. More than Jon thought was rational, considering...himself. He never vocalized what exactly he wanted, because he respected that it was never in consideration. Jon had even seen him want it less and less - it barely even came up anymore. Except, of course, when Jon teased on purpose…

When Jon teased on purpose and didn’t tell Martin that he didn’t want something so then he made himself -

It was a good conversation, except Jon ruined it because something stupid that didn’t mean anything at all sent him into abject shame and terror.

This was so hard. Jon hated thinking this much. He decided to fall asleep instead. Much simpler.

In dreams, where everything was an illusion and nothing meant anything at all, nobody minded that none of it was real. 

*

Tim: omfg im so fucking hungoverrrr I hate being 34

Tim: good time last night tho

Tim: also like it WAS funny but you know we like you best as you, rite? U normally dont so Ill validate: liking you best as you, always

*

Sasha: THE DOCUMENTS, JON!!! 

Sasha: Tim says you might have gotten the wrong impression from last night so I’ll also validate: all of you is good. Even the bad parts are good. Does that make sense?

Sasha: Tim said that that sounded ‘backhanded’ but you know what I mean

Sasha: Man why is it so hard to just say what I mean!!! 

Sasha: Life’s stupid. Tell Martin I said hi. 

[elyvorg]

“Well, they’re more like a mom and dad who have a... hands-off approach to parenting.”

“That sounds... awkward. I don’t know if that’s better or worse than never knowing your parents at all.”

“Yeah... me neither. I’m lucky to have my uncle, at least.”

“...Hey, Kaito? You’ve been quiet for a while. Is something wrong?”

“Hm? Oh, nah, it’s nothing. Just spaced out for a bit, that’s all. My bad.”

“You know, Kaito... you live with your grandparents, right? And you never talk about your parents. It... it might not be any of my business, but I couldn’t help but wonder... are you... like me? Or... perhaps a bit like Maki, and you don’t even remember them?”

“Huh? N-No, it’s... neither of those.”

“I-I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked. You don’t have to—”

“Hey, it’s fine. I... I guess I don’t mind telling you guys. They... my parents died in a car crash when I was ten.”

---

@trainingtrioweek Day 5: Family

Instead of an art today, some rambly thoughts that this prompt gave me the perfect excuse to bring up. (If you’re finding my blog through this event: as well as arts, I also do quite a bit of meta and not-quite-meta rambling such as this kind of thing on here, usually still about the training trio!)

It’s only especially relevant in non-fiction AUs such as UTDP where everyone’s families are actually real, but – can we talk about the fact that all three of the training trio, in very different ways, are lacking in parents with both the qualities of being alive and being decent parents?

Shuichi

Shuichi’s parent issues are only mentioned briefly in one of his FTEs and don’t get nearly as much focus as his detective-related issues caused by that one case that traumatised him. But it’s possible that they could actually explain quite a bit about him.

It seems to be only in fairly recent years that Shuichi’s parents moved to work overseas and he was sent to live with his detective uncle. However, his bitter comment about his parents’ “hands-off approach to parenting” (that part of the line I wrote here was taken directly from his canon FTE) implies that they weren’t particularly there for him even when they were his primary caregivers.

He also mentions in this FTE that he became an apprentice to his uncle “as thanks for looking after me”. Which, like… that shouldn’t be necessary? Having someone take care of you is a basic human right for a child. But apparently, being properly looked after is not something Shuichi takes for granted, to the point that he feels like he needs to repay the person who does it for him. Ouch. Poor Shuichi.

Thinking on this, it feels like Shuichi’s distant parents could be a big part of why he grew up so anxious and insecure, and why he instinctively seeks out people he can depend on wholeheartedly and latches onto them when he finds them, like he did with Kaede and Kaito. And most likely with his uncle too, for that matter.

I can definitely imagine Shuichi managing to pick up on the clues about Kaito that suggest things aren’t great regarding his parents, and quietly wondering if they’re the same – maybe even sort of hoping they are, so that he’d have someone who really understands. And, well, turns out they aren’t quite the same after all, but nonetheless, knowing that Kaito’s gone through something similar and can relate on some level would still help Shuichi feel less alone with this.

Kaito

Meanwhile, what happened with Kaito’s parents probably also played a bit of a role in shaping him into the person he is, but in more of a positive way.

I’ve seen some people assume that the deal with Kaito’s parents is that they’re shitty parents kind of like Shuichi’s are, and that this is why Kaito talks himself up to be so super awesome all the time, out of a desperate need for the validation that he never got from his own home. But I don’t think that fits. While the stress of the killing game and his illness begin to really get to him and gradually break down his self-worth, it absolutely reads to me like Kaito’s confidence in himself at the beginning of the game was completely genuine. I don’t believe – at the start – that he needed validation from anyone else to know that he was the awesome person he said he was.

So, I believe Kaito’s parents must have been great and supportive parents. They’d need to have been, for Kaito to be able to grow up with so much real confidence, so unashamed of being bombastically himself all the time even if everyone else thinks he’s a ridiculous idiot. But then, if those lovely parents had died all of a sudden when Kaito was young (young-ish, but old enough to properly remember)… that would also have helped shape him into the Kaito we know, in that it’d make him even more determined to live his life to the fullest and not waste a moment of it.

[There’s more than just these general unsubstantiated feelings about Kaito’s overall character that make me sure his parents died, though – there’s also a few canon lines that I believe are deliberately subtly hinting at it. If you want to see which lines and what I think about them, I’ve compiled them in a section at the end of this post.]

Of course, Kaito losing his parents would have been an incredibly difficult and painful experience at the time. But with his grandparents’ support and his own natural resilience and optimism, Kaito appears to have dealt with it as well as any kid losing their parents could be expected to. He’d be determined to use it to push him forward rather than let it hold him back, and it definitely seems like he succeeded.

(Even so, it’d still hurt sometimes. He still misses them, even if he mostly does a good job of not dwelling on it or letting it get him down.)

Unlike most of his other “weaknesses”, Kaito wouldn’t ever try to outright hide or lie about what happened to his parents. He’s come to terms with it by now, and he’s not and never was ashamed of it – every kid’s expected to grieve for their parents, after all – so I don’t think it’d quite set off his hero issues and make him afraid of letting his sidekicks down if they found out.

But still, I imagine Kaito wouldn’t bring it up unless specifically asked about it. No matter how much he tries to focus on the positives and assure people that he’s okay with it now, it… tends to make people feel sorry for him, and he doesn’t like that.

However, after being prompted to talk about it during this conversation with Shuichi and Maki about their parent situations, Kaito would come to realise that maybe that’s not such an issue with them. Maki and Shuichi each have their own painful lack-of-parents problems that they’ve had to get used to, so they’re not going to be unconsciously pitying Kaito for his. That’d make a refreshing change from most people.

Maki in particular must have known some kids at the orphanage who’d been in Kaito’s situation, in that they used to live with their parents and had to go through the grief of losing them. From this, she’s able to tell that, while it’s partly because he was lucky enough to still have his grandparents, Kaito really does seem to have dealt with losing his parents remarkably well. Kaito already knew that – his grandparents would have told him how proud they are of him for coping so well – but it’d help to know that someone from outside the situation thinks the same thing.

(He still wouldn’t quite bring up the moments where it still hurts and he finds himself missing his parents terribly, because that’s weakness, isn’t it? But at least, knowing that his sidekicks understand this kind of pain, albeit in a bit of a different way, would help it hurt just a little less whenever Kaito can’t help but feel like this. He wouldn’t tell them, but he’d be really glad to have that.)

Maki

Maki’s probably actually the least interesting one to talk about here, because she grew up in an orphanage where not having parents was normal and never felt like the odd one out, and she never even knew her parents to have any feelings about them in particular. It seems she had more just a general fantasy of what having parents would be like which she could share with the other kids there – she talks in one of her FTEs about how she and her best friend played House in the role of the parents and just had to make it up. Then, of course, Maki gained much worse things to be dealing with and shaping her into the person she is than a simple lack of parents.

Still, being at Hope’s Peak (or whatever other school they’re at together in this non-fiction AU) and suddenly being surrounded by other kids who constantly talk about their parents like it’s normal… it probably feels vaguely alienating for Maki, on top of every other reason she has to feel like she doesn’t belong.

But at least Shuichi and Kaito understand, in a way. They know what it feels like to hear the other kids casually talk about doing things with their parents while only being able to wish that were normal for them. Maki’s not so much of an outsider, not when she’s with these two.

And in that same way, Kaito and Shuichi would feel less alone in this regard when the trio are together. All three of them have learned to live with their situations and not complain, but it must be nice to have someone else – two someone elses – who know the kind of feeling they’re going through and can relate, even if it’s rather different for each of them.

They’d be able to bond over this – and not just as hero and sidekicks, but as equals, because this is something even Kaito isn’t completely okay about. They are friends.

(Or, maybe, they’re also like a found family? Shuichi and Kaito are certainly the closest thing to a family that Maki’s had in a long time.)

  ---

[appendix: why I’m sure Kaito’s parents died]

First off, there’s the possibility that Kaito’s grandparents are the subject of his motive video simply because he never knew his parents at all, a bit like Maki. But that can’t be the case, based on this line from his second FTE:

Kaito:  “When I was a kid, I’d go to my gramps’ place to play sometimes…”

If he considered it his “gramps’ place” at the time and only went there sometimes, he wasn’t living with them back when he was that young. So apparently, his parents were still around at that time.

Which means that something else happened with Kaito’s parents to make his grandparents the most important people in his life. There are pretty much two possibilities for this: that Kaito’s parents died sometime after those stories he told in his FTEs, or that Kaito’s parents are just assholes and so he prefers his grandparents to them.

With regards to the possibility that his parents are assholes: aside from how I don’t think that fits because Kaito’s confidence is too genuine until the killing game beats it down, there’s also one line vaguely relevant to this topic that suggests they aren’t. In UTDP, in a scene where he’s being pestered by Kokichi:

Kaito:  “You’re still like this at your age? Doesn’t it make your parents cry? Do you even visit?”

Kaito automatically assumes that Kokichi’s parents care about him, even though it could potentially begin to explain a few things about Kokichi if they didn’t. If Kaito’s own parents sucked, you’d think this’d make him likely to consider the possibility that Kokichi’s might do too. Instead, though, that option doesn’t cross his mind, so it seems like Kaito unconsciously sees parents being decent as the norm.

Meanwhile, there are a few subtle bits throughout the story that indicate Kaito might have some experience in dealing with grief prior to the killing game. At the end of trial 1, after suggesting Shuichi visit Kaede’s lab to help come to terms with her death, he says this:

Kaito:  “Understand? There’s only one way to get through this awful feeling. No one’s gonna be able to console you if you’re just sitting here alone. If anyone’s gonna help you, it’ll be her… in your memories.”

This really reads to me like Kaito is speaking from experience – that he’s saying this because he found that something similar helped for him when he was going through a similar kind of pain.

Then there’s the part in trial 3 where he’s encouraging Himiko to face up to Tenko’s death:

Kaito:  “Our only option is to face her death head-on!”

Himiko:  “…Nyeh? Face her death?”

Kaito:  “Himiko… I understand what you’re going through.”

It’s a little oddly specific of Kaito to say that he understands what Himiko’s going through when he hasn’t personally lost anyone he was especially close to in the killing game like she has. And Kaito is absolutely not the kind of person to lie or exaggerate about something this serious and personal to somebody else – this moment is about Himiko and her feelings, and Kaito knows that and wouldn’t try to artificially make things about himself. So this strongly suggests that Kaito does in fact have some idea of what Himiko is going through and is thinking about a loss he suffered outside of the killing game. Facing it head-on sounds like just the kind of thing Kaito would have tried to do for his own grief, doesn’t it?

Then, only a few lines later in that same conversation, Kaito says this:

Kaito:  “Abandoning someone who died and only thinking about your own survival… That’s just as bad as a hit-and-run! I won’t forgive something so messed up!”

Which would be an extremely weirdly-specific thing to say in this situation… except that it makes perfect sense if you assume, based on his earlier lines, that Kaito was already thinking about how he felt when he lost his parents.

So, yeah. When I wrote that Kaito’s parents died specifically in a car crash, that wasn’t pulled out of nowhere either. I really believe that’s what the writers had in mind as the truth about Kaito and deliberately hinted at here.

(It does make sense that Kaito would have lost his parents to an accident like this rather than to something like illness. It’s statistically more likely that he was raised by both his parents, and if that’s the case, an accident is something that could take both of them from him at once where illness most likely wouldn’t. Plus, if he’d lost his parent(s) to illness, spending the days and weeks leading up to their death(s) knowing he was going to lose them, you’d think Kaito would have ended up better at psychologically dealing with his own deadly illness than he actually is.)

There’s also a few lines Kaito has here and there about making the most out of the time you’ve got:

Kaito:  “If you’re not going to get yourself in gear now, then when!? Now’s all you’ve got!”

Kaito:  “Life is short! I don’t have time to waste loafing around here.”

…which, granted, is a very Kaito-like sentiment in general. But it does suggest that he might have learned first-hand that life is short, like he could be thinking about how his parents’ time got cut off abruptly when he’s saying this kind of thing.

The only part of this idea I pulled somewhat out of thin air for this post was that the accident happened specifically when Kaito was ten, but I think something around that age range seems right. Based on the fact that it’s so relatively hard to spot the signs of this in Kaito’s behaviour, it feels like losing his parents wasn’t so recent that the wound is still raw, and also not so early on in his childhood that it would have left a huge, noticeable scar on his psyche. Kaito’s long since managed to come out on the other side and develop a healthy, positive way of dealing with grief that he can try to pass onto both Shuichi and Himiko during the game, such that doing so is the only real noticeable sign that he even went through anything painful himself at all.

[we-justhere]

Oops pt. 2 but not like you’re thinking

Before I get into this, I just want to make it clear that I am very bad at commitment. I’m not good at doing things every day, either because I forget to or lose motivation, and almost as soon as I promised to post things I fell into a bout of ‘sadness’, no further details needed. I have requests that I will fill, you have been heard, but until then. 

I did a rp with @the-elusive-libbin and she gave me permission to post it. Granted there’s demand there might be a second part, but I’m posting this now because it’s starvation and the second half would be stuffing. I don’t want to subject you to it if that’s not what you’re here for, I understand. This is @the-elusive-libbin‘s own self-insert and Jakurai Jinguji of  Hypnosis Mic: Division Rap Battle. Let me know if you enjoy it. 

~~~~~

Exhaustion and fatigue was something Jakurai was sort of used to. He had a high stress job that squeezed the energy out of him throughout the day, and often he would be able to be just fine until he got home and he would instantly collapse after getting at least a few mouthfuls of food into his belly. But that was all granted things went sort of well.

Everything needed his attention today, and emergency after emergency forced him to go in and out of rooms without being able to even think between moments. He lost track of time and didn't exactly desire to check, but before he knew it he was stopped and told to take his lunch.

He probably did need to eat. He definitely needed to eat, but by then he was already full of adrenaline and had patients to take care of. He brushed off his breaks and his lunches and kept working, not yet feeling any sort of hunger or exhaustion. He wasn't worried about it yet.

He actually didn't have to worry about it for a long time and his body was patient enough to keep him going until his last patient. All of a sudden his body started slowing down and it took that much more effort to keep his eyes open and stay awake. He fought with his body on it for as long as he could until he was free to go, at which point he went right to his desk and fell asleep.

It wasn't as much of a 'I'm going to take a nap', it was more of a 'I'm going to collapse in the middle of work if I don't sleep'. Either way, he was completely blacked out.

Lily started down the miraculously clean corridor towards the doctor’s office. Sterile white walls surrounded her as she walked, a maze of monotonous barriers that all seemed to connect to everywhere and nowhere all at the same time. Lily knew her route and hardly even had to think about where she was going or which direction to take, she had grown accustomed to it all through work.

The doctor was her higher up, that was all too true and she worked mostly for him as his nurse and organizer, in fact it was rare that she ever worked for another doctor within the practice; but today was different. She had hardly seen the long haired man with his ever present bags under his eyes and his white coat today aside from one point mid day where she had reminded him of his break, during a fleeting moment where the two passed by one another in a corridor. It had been way too busy to breathe, let alone chat and so the nurse thought it best to save discussing future plans with the older male until after the rush. The rush passed and the doctor was still MIA.

Lily approached a large, grey door that sported a miniature, frosted glass window and a small, golden nameplate. ‘Jinguji Jakurai Sensei.’ It stated in bold, black lettering. Perhaps the nurse had thought it best to check the doctor’s office last? In theory it should have been the first place she concluded to find the target. With a sigh at her own thought process, she turned the handle and entered the room What she saw left her slightly in awe. The doctor was sat at his desk, seemingly passed out, his long hair draped across the surface as his folded arms cradled his sleeping head. This was the first time the nurse had ever seen the doctor in this state. At first she became concerned that he may actually be dead but the soft rise and fall of his back as he breathed disregarded that notion.

The sound of the door stirred the doctor, forcing a quiet groan of unwillingness out of him. He hated the idea of moving, of waking up after sleeping for what only felt like a few seconds. His body was drained,, exhausted after not even finishing a full day. It was rather disconcerting.

His arms were suddenly comforting here, but once he saw who was in his office that comfort melted away into slight embarrassment. "Excuse me." He murmured as he straightened himself out, brushing out his uniform. "Our break.. is it over so soon? I only meant to be a few minutes." He combed his hand through his hair. "I'll be right out with you. I must have lost track of time."

“It’s only me.” Lily smiled, clipboard clutched close to her chest as she listened to his words carefully. Seeing him in a sleeping state like that was so out of character, so unusual, so....adorable! She wished just for a moment that he would fall back asleep. She shook the thoughts from her mind, quite literally and made herself dizzy in the process. “Hmm, sensei....you were gone for quite a while. You uhh, how do I put this? You fell asleep for longer than you may have thought. Your shift is over...you slept through.” She touched his shoulder gently with the softest smile she could muster. “You were so exhausted, I think your body may have started working against you there.”

His rest felt so short.. had he really slept that long? He glanced at his clock and felt his heart sink when it was confirmed before his very eyes. "Damn." Of course he slept through the rest of his shift. He held his hand to his forehead, cursing the time and his own body. It was embarrassing, being that reckless on the job when there very well could have been something serious that he should have been present for. Not that he seemed to mind that sort of thing, as his own stomach was one of the very things that he neglected most when it needed his attention. 

 "I didn't miss anything, did I?" He continued, meeting Lily's eyes. "I wish you would have woken me up sooner."

"You didn't, all of our patients remained stable after you left. We were busy but we managed to keep a hold of it all. Everything's okay. I'd have woken you up but I had no idea you were sleeping in here." She gestured to the office. "My apologies sensei, had I known where you were I'd have come to get you sooner"

It helped to know that he, at the very least, wasn't absent for something serious. He couldn't even imagine how embarrassed he would be if they needed him and he wasn't there because he was napping in his office. He would have to make it a note to force himself to sleep better at home, not that the damage hadn't already been done. "I'm glad they're doing better. Our patients, I mean." He started to trail off a bit as a growl tore through his stomach, stealing his thoughts away. He cringed at the feeling and clutched at his stomach. "Ah.. excuse me.."

Lily stared at the doctor’s stomach for a moment and then blinked. Once. Twice. Was- was that what she thought it was? The nurse’s thoughts were confirmed when she saw a hand grip tightly at the doctor’s abdomen. “W-was that your-?” A light blush rose to her cheeks as she accidentally cut herself off .

"We had an emergency during what was supposed to be my lunch." His arm didn't leave his stomach, partly out of shame and partly because the pain was somewhat lessened with the pressure. It was embarrassment after embarrassment, and Jakurai couldn't tolerate another noise like that. "I suppose that might have been a part of the problem. I didn't exactly have enough time to.." He cleared his throat and spoke in a more hushed tone. "You understand."

The nurse could feel her heart pounding in her chest and her face felt warm even without physically touching it. It took a minute or so before she could speak again, secondhand embarrassment washing over her. She had never in her life heard the doc's stomach and now she had, while they were alone....and it was fairly loud. "Y-you haven't eaten then?" A question that was more rhetorical than not.

The pause was just as excruciating for him, if not more. He was very grateful when she started talking. "Not since.." Well, his breakfast wasn't exactly outstanding either. He usually just ate whatever was quick enough to bring along with him if he even felt breakfast was necessary, as he was normally fine until lunch. Maybe 'fine' wasn't the best word, but rather he didn't feel weak or queasy until then. "No, I guess I haven't."

"Your poor tummy!" She almost cooed, accidentally using a less scientific term for stomach in the process. Perhaps she meant to keep that part in her mind bit regardless she blurted it into the open and now she felt even more warm in the face.

"It doesn't usually give me trouble." He loosened his grip over his stomach, choosing to ignore how cheery she seemed to be about the situation~ "I suppose I don't really allow it to give me trouble. We don't exactly have time to be focusing on ourselves." He was more or less speaking for himself. Obviously. "I'll be fine."

"You'll be fine when you get sustenance sensei. Your stomach is empty and you need fuel." She reached out and tentatively placed her palm against his midsection over his clothes, her hand shaking nervously as she did.

He didn't make any sort of effort to stop her. She already heard it, he didn't feel the need to pretend it didn't happen. He did get a slight tingling sensation under her palm, but that was greatly overshadowed by the dull, nigh constant rumbles that he had been trying so hard to conceal. He was sure she could feel them, but he couldn't tell how she felt about it. "I appreciate the concern."

It was then that without thinking Lily began to rub at the abdomen in front of her, setting the clipboard she held with her other hand down on the doctor's desk. She could feel harsh vibrations from palm to fingertip as his stomach clenched and spasmed under her hand. Deep yet fairly quiet grumbling came at intervals, sounding through the layers of muscle, skin and organ. Up and down, gently adding pressure as she rubbed his concave stomach, her face turning a colour that she presumed to be nothing short of crimson. The nurse could not meet his eyes and therefore could not tell his expression. The nerves were too real.

That certainly answered his question. He initially assumed it was a mistake, that her hand had slipped or something, but that proved to be absolutely ridiculous within the very same instant. He felt his breath leave his lungs once he realized what she was doing, but the more she massaged his clenched muscle the better it started to feel. Her hands felt soft and comforting even if they were above his clothes, and it really did feel like she was suppressing painful hunger pangs and making them more bearable. If not for her hot blush, the doctor would have no insight on how she was feeling or how nervous she was.

 He gently took her hands into his, temporarily pausing the massage. "I don't understand where this is coming from. You have to tell me."

"I-I just-" she stammered. He was actually HOLDING her hands. Both of them. Not just one, but both! She would have flushed more if she could. "I j-just thought if I massaged your stomach it would ease the p-pain. I meant no I'll will"

"It did ease the pain." He started to let go of her hands when he saw how quickly she fell apart. "It just seemed so sudden. You're always so nervous around me." It was such a confident move. Seemed so out of place for someone so timid, especially one that was proving his point with that powerful blush. "I really didn't mind it."

"w-well I..." she hid her face in her hands and said nothing more. What if he thought she was weird now? What if he became wary around her? 

  "I didn't mean to embarrass you." He stopped himself from touching her hands again. "I just needed to ask. I'm sorry if I.. spoiled it for you." Whatever 'it' happened to be. He didn't think of it as a pleasure thing and really did think she was doing it to help him feel better. It was a service, more like~ "It felt nice."

Lily peeped through the fingers on her one hand and gulped nervously. Was he actually smiling softly back at her? Her heart skipped a beat and she removed both hands from her face. "W-would you like me to continue?" She fidgeted on the spot.

The massages to help with the pain ironically kept him from going home and properly eating. The irony wasn't lost on him. This was the better option though-One where he got a free massage after a long day from someone that could hardly be around him without nearly combusting before this. "I wouldn't say no to it." He agreed, a slight purr evident in his voice. "Though I imagine it will get worse no matter how much you take care of it."

“T-then...” Lily tucked her hair behind one ear and knelt down on the floor next to the doctor. She placed her hand back onto his empty tummy and began to massage once again. “Then I’ll continue a while longer.”

His cheeks reddened as she knelt next to him. He didn't get this sort of attention a lot, really ever, and especially not from her. He didn't think she was even capable of doing this. He felt like he should talk, or say something at least, but all he could really think about was her hands. "Have you thought about doing this before?"

She flinched. “What? D-do you mean massaging your belly?” She immediately flushed and ducked her head as she realized what she had said. 

"Y..yes." It was strange to go from how they usually talked to each other to how they were talking now. His hand twitched, a visible effort he made to stop himself from covering his stomach as a noisy rumble sounded off beneath his shirt. It would take some time to get used to hearing that. "..You don't have to answer that."

Lily twinged as the doctor’s stomach groaned beneath her hand and was surprised at the little noise he gave off himself “Answer your question or your stomach?” 

"The question." His face flushed at her statement. "I assumed that this had to come from somewhere. That you wouldn't have done this for no reason." He looked at her hand rather than her face. "I'm looking too far into it."

“M-maybe you are.....” she trailed off, letting her words linger in the air for a while. She massaged what she thought was a knot and earned a deep roar from the belly in return. Changing the subject seemed to be a good option so lily took it. “You sound so empty.”

The roar was extra painful for him, making it impossible to stop a grunt. It was bittersweet, both the pain of such deep growls with the pleasure of the massage, and he couldn't agree more with her. "I'm sure I've gone this long without eating before. I can't remember it ever hurting this much." That didn't really mean an awful lot. "I guess I stuff it when I get home on days like this before I give it the chance to hurt."

The nurse’s eyes widened. “Stuff...” it came across as a question though it was never meant to be. Her eyes met his finally as they sparkled hopefully.

"Not intentionally." He dragged his fingers through his hair, taking her question as concern or judgment. "I just try to shut it up before it gets started. I don't mean to gorge or anything. I stop before it gets to be too much. I promise." His mood shifted when he saw that glittering in her eyes. There wasn't any sort of judging to be seen on her face. "I really do try not to eat too much. Even when I'm hungry." 

“I see~” she smiled, her grin showing just how happy in the moment she actually was. “But you have been stuffed before? Full of food.” She knew talking about food could possibly upset his stomach into complaining and cramping up but in Lily’s eyes that was a bonus. Regardless of embarrassment, she was finding a way to push through and talk about things she really wanted to talk about. Things she truly desired.

"I don't think I've ever needed to." He had accidentally overeaten maybe once, but he never let himself indulge. He was tired when he got home, lunch was his main meal and dinner was what he could get down before he fell asleep. Stuffing himself.. didn't seem so bad right now. It actually sounded nice, and thinking about it made his hunger feel that much more dramatic. "Maybe I will tonight.. since I've already slept plenty."

Lily fidgeted. She remembered how Hifumi tended to cook for the doctor on occasion to save time and an idea struck, sticking to her mind like tape to paper. “I....I could cook for you sensei...I-If you’re not busy.” She rambled, her face flushing. “I mean you don’t have to, it’s not weird like a date or anything....!!!Date?!? No I didn’t mean that, well I did, it’s just that you’re hungry and I have food...I mean I can make food....I’m going to stop talking now.”

Her scrambling was sort of charming. This was the Lily that he had come to know. He had somewhat expected an offer after her line of questioning, though he had to admit he didn't know what the offer was going to be, exactly. Free food was always a pleasure regardless. "I don't know how much energy I'd have to cook when I got home anyway. If it's not too much of a bother, of course, I'd love to eat with you. Ah, please don't feel pressured to feed me. I know it seems pretty bad, but I assure you I know how to feed myself.”

Lily paused, her face turning red. She stood and looked around the doctor’s chin area, again avoiding eye contact. “T-then....w-would you like to come to my house for a homemade meal? I’ll t-try to keep the portion size as accurate as possible...”

He wasn't sure what she meant by 'accurate', but he would trust her. They were both trained to take care of people, who would know better than her? Homemade sounded good anyway, no matter what it was she planned to cook. He supposed people enjoyed cooking for him, that he wouldn't have to cook for himself with all of this pampering.  "That sounds nice. I wouldn't mind the company, either."

~~~~

That’s all I have for you. It’s pretty long, sorry about that. Maybe.

[sourcherrybomb]

SoKai Week 2020 - Day 2 - For ____ Eyes Only

Synopsis: During the time period Kairi was within Sora’s heart, she kept a handy mental diary of all the places and people she encountered. Let’s take a peek at it, shall we?

Sneak Peek: I’ve been in Sora’s heart for a little bit as of now. It’s a nice kind of… warm, if that makes sense. Like a perfect sunny day on the Islands. Knowing what kind of person Sora is, it’s unsurprising.

Tags: Light Romance, Adventure, Comedy, All Ages, F/M

Prompt for the Day: First Meeting / Unseen Adventures

Words: 3.5k

Fanart By: @softpinkbee​

Entry 1: Welcome to Sora’s Heart. Population: 1 (I think)

Sooo… This is a thing that’s happening. All because of a stupid, literal world ending storm.

Oh wait, aren’t I supposed to start with “Dear Diary”? Not like I’m physically writing in a journal since I don’t have a body anymore… Ugh, Sora and Riku would probably poke fun at me if they found out that I kept one. Well sorry that I like to be sentimental and have a way of remembering and planning our future adventures, lazy bums.

I’m getting ahead of myself, aren’t I? I’ll do this once to get it over with.

Hello there (mental) diary, my name is Kairi! I’m 14 years old and I lived on the Destiny Islands before I somehow ended up in Sora’s (my BFF and lazy bum #1) heart. That little mishap took place right after I met this weird old guy in brown robes in our Secret Place. I don’t know where Riku (my other BFF and lazy bum #2) ended up, but somehow Sora got sucked into a black hole that sent him… Or is it us? To another world called Traverse Town.

I mean the boys and I always planned to travel to other worlds, just not like this. We were supposed to travel by raft, I was supposed to have a body, and it was going to be all three of us… Okay maybe I asked Sora if he wanted to go alone with me, only to end up chickening out at the last moment, but this current situation is not what I had in mind!

Apparently these monsters called the Heartless destroyed our world, sending us to Traverse Town. I feel bad. 

Sora was lost and alone. I knew because I felt it in his heart.

Luckily, Sora has met a lot of new people since arriving. There were these two girls, Aerith and Yuffie, that I would have loved to talk and meet with. Selphie definitely would have loved to meet Aerith, she was so pretty! Besides them, Sora also met this edgy guy named Leon (who kicked his butt) and a cranky old mechanic named Cid. More importantly, Sora met this talking duck and dog named Donald and Goofy. They’re pretty entertaining, so I hope they can keep Sora company since I can’t speak to him and we lost Riku.

I’ve been in Sora’s heart for a little bit as of now. It’s a nice kind of… warm, if that makes sense. Like a perfect sunny day on the Islands. Knowing what kind of person Sora is, it's unsurprising.

I just can’t shake off the feeling that there’s something… no, someone else in here.

Entry 2: Topsy? Turvy? Definitely Crazy.

Is it possible to have an out-of-body experience and a fever dream at the same time? Because that’s what Wonderland feels like.

Geez, where do I even start with this one? I guess with the talking rabbit entering the talking doorknob? Granted that rabbit was kind of cute, if not panicky. I could get used to that. Sora shrinking and entering a place full of playing card soldiers and a cat with a decapitated head (I think? He reattached it) are things that are going to take a bit to get used to.

Gosh, that feels like the understatement of the century.

I knew other worlds would be different than the islands. It’s just that going from a quiet city to a place where gravity is bonkers and playing cards can kill a person makes a girl really question what’s out there.

I wish I could take pictures so people would believe my words. Luckily this cricket named Jiminy has a journal where he keeps track of Sora’s journey. He stays safe inside Sora’s hood, so it’s sort of like we’re neighbors and journal buddies! I’d love to give him my point of view on things once I get my body back.

Oh one other thing before I forget, there was this one girl named Alice. I don’t know why, but she was giving off this really familiar aura. I couldn’t help but feel oddly drawn to her.

I feel like this won’t be the first time we come into contact with her.

Entry 3: Anyone else hear horns?

Like seriously, Sora and I both hear horns coming from this world, but neither of us have any idea as to where they’re coming from. This (extremely small) world is the Olympus Coliseum.

Sora, Donald, and Goofy got thrown into some challenges and ended up fighting waves of Heartless. Really makes me think about how I should have tried sword fighting with Sora and Riku. Sure, I’ve picked up some things by just watching them, but I think actually practicing with them would have helped me in the long run. I mean, I totally could have fought off that weird guy in the brown robes.

Ugh, just thinking about him gives me bad vibes. 

Going back to the challenges, Sora totally got his butt handed to him by this guy, Cloud. It was way worse than the loss Sora took against Leon, I don’t think Cloud was holding back. 

I’m thankful he didn’t finish Sora off. Partly because he’s my best friend, but also because if Sora bites the dust, then I’m also gone. It was rough seeing Sora lose again, but watching him take out a giant three-headed dog right after certainly was a sight. Although I swear I heard Hercules whisper to his little red friend, Phil, next to him that he weakened the monster. 

Maybe. But since it felt like I was fighting alongside him, I’m not ready to count Sora out just yet. He’s grown so much stronger day after day.

Entry 4: Note to Self, Never Let Sora Drive

You know, if the three of us did leave on that raft as planned, I always had a feeling that Sora might fight with Riku over where to take us. Sora’s never been one for his directional skills, that was always more Riku’s forte. Because of this, I always mentally prepared myself for the event where Sora would get us super lost.

WHAT I DIDN’T MENTALLY PREPARE MYSELF WAS FOR SORA TO CAUSE A GIANT SPACESHIP TO CRASH BECAUSE HE ARGUED WITH A TALKING DUCK!!!

That’s not even where it ends! This Deep Jungle is nuts! There’s a leopard that’ll attack you like every five steps, there was a giant Heartless that turned invisible, and Sora even got a gun fired at it! Granted that last one was because of some hunter jerk with a stupid mustache, but if he’s from this world, he’s part of the problem.

The only saving grace was the fact that there are giant tree trunks that act like slides and as many vines to swing on as I wanted to. Tarzan has got to give me some tips when I have the chance to meet him, it was like he was flying through the trees! I’d honestly enjoy the chance to talk to Jane myself as well. She seems so smart and would have so much to talk about. I think she’d make pleasant conversation. That being said, when she showed Sora a picture of a castle in the slideshow, I couldn’t shake this sense of… familiarity. Like I had seen it or something like it before. But where…?

Even though this world and I got off on the wrong foot, once I get my body back, I’m definitely making Sora bring me here so I can do all that!

Although I still have no idea how that’s gonna happen.

Entry 5: I don’t know why, but this place feels oddly familiar

Today may have just been one of the best days I’ve had since I’ve been living in Hotel Sora’s Heart, over here!

For starters, dogs. Sooooo many dogs! Leon told Sora about all of these Dalmatian puppies that got scattered across the various worlds. They’ve been taking the time to rescue all 101 of them, and they’re absolutely adorable! Ahhhhhh, I can only imagine playing with everyone one of them.

Secondly, I’m finding Traverse Town a lot more comforting than I originally did. Something about the tall building walls makes me feel nostalgic. I never was from the Islands to begin with, but where I originally came from is a mystery to me. I don’t think it was Traverse Town, but maybe it was another city. I’m sure that in travelling to other worlds, I might be able to remember more!

Today I even got to talk to Sora a little bit, albeit by accident, when he and his friends wandered into this old tower. I looked around and said to myself that it reminds me of the Secret Place, all dark and surrounded by stone. I never expected Sora to hear or see me! I had so much more to say, but when this wizard guy showed up, Sora couldn’t hear me anymore.

But that’s not even the best news: Right after, Sora ended up running into Riku! He’s safe! It was brief, Riku ended up disappearing moments after, but now we know he’s out there and can protect himself. Sora was even able to protect Riku from one of the Heartless!

Never thought I’d see that day where the roles were switched. It suits Sora.

Entry 6: I hate sand.

I may find not having a body to be a major inconvenience, but for once I’m quite pleased at the fact considering Agrabah, the world Sora and his friends just left, was full of sand.

At its worst, sand was rough, coarse, and irritating. It already got into my clothes back on the Islands, but around here I’d imagine it gets everywhere.

That being said, this world has got to be one of the most adventurous we’ve been to so far! Desert temples filled with treasure, magical genies, all in a faraway kingdom? It’s like all the games Sora, Riku, and I used to play when we were younger. If only Riku joined with Sora back in Traverse Town, he would have loved this!

One odd thing though, we ran into another woman, Princess Jasmine, who gave me the same vibes as Alice! Turns out she’s more than just a regular old princess, but one with special powers. I wonder what it could all mean...

Entry 7: Did you know that the stomach would eat itself without the mucus lining its walls? 

Back on the Islands when Sora, Riku, and I made plans to leave on the raft, we always wondered what kind of animals we’d see. The one that would always pop into our minds was a whale since they might be big enough to swallow us whole.

We always laughed it off and went back to working or playing, so actually getting swallowed whole by one feels very ironic. It’s a lot grosser than I thought it would be. Smells like fish everywhere you go, so I really hope Sora, Donald, and Goofy take some showers once they leave.

This whale named Monstro even swallowed this old man and his son, Gepetto and Pinnochio. The latter is somehow a walking, talking puppet!

But what’s even crazier is that out of all the worlds, Riku shows up here, only to kidnap Pinnochio! And not just that, I think he knows where my body is. Geez, Riku was being a real jerk about it, though. Said that Sora was fooling around and not helping, when I know for a fact that he’s doing more that Riku has! I mean, I’m in the guy’s heart, that’s gotta count for something!

I wish I could tell Riku that all this time, Sora has been protecting me. I know I give him a hard time every now and then, but out of all the people in the world, I’m really glad I ended up in his heart.

Entry 8: Rival Redhead Acquired

I know that my last entries make me seem like a jealous person, but mental diary, trust me when I say that I’m not usually one to be envious of others.

Until now.

Being in Sora’s heart, I sort of get a feel for his emotions. By all means, even without being inside him, Sora is pretty much an open book to begin with. It’s just that in being directly connected to his heart, I can feel almost every emotion he has. That includes the mess of emotions he felt when he came into contact with this mermaid named Ariel.

Yup, a mermaid. Atlantica is full of them.

It’s a pretty cool world! There are sunken pirate ships, an underwater kingdom, even a giant sea witch that Sora defeated! But nope, the thing that makes Sora’s heart flutter is another red head when he already has one right here! Ughhh, I’m really glad this diary isn’t physical, I might die if Sora or Riku ever found out I think stuff like this.

Still, Ariel isn’t a bad person so it’s not that I dislike her. She also loves adventure and wants to see other worlds. Moving past my jealousy, I think I’d love to be friends with her some day. Ariel and I are similar, but I think I at least have something over her.

Sometimes when Sora talks about me, he gets this squeezing feeling in his heart. Now I’m not gonna let Sora or Riku tease me over my feelings, I’m sure gonna tease Sora about his once I get my body back.

Entry 9: A lot more tricks than treats!

Halloween has always been one of my favorite holidays. I enjoy going around to houses and getting candy, but I enjoy scaring Sora even more so. I mean, I definitely did that outside of Halloween, it’s just that the holiday made it feel special.

Needless to say, Sora finding a world exclusively dedicated to it is probably one of the best things I’ve ever found out! When Sora, Donald, and Goofy arrived, they even got special outfits to blend in! With Sora being a vampire, I could see Riku being a werewolf, but when it comes to me, I can’t choose between being a witch or a scarecrow.

There are even monsters! There was a talking skeleton who was surprisingly nice, a mad doctor, and a giant living sack of bugs! (It was super gross when he was defeated.) Sora got a bit squirmy when he died, so I really wish I was there to double down and make Sora sora yell out loud!

I definitely want to go to Halloween Town when all of this is said and done.

Entry 10: I miss candy…

So Halloween Town was fun for the thrills and chills, but felt severely lacking in candy. I may be a disembodied heart without a body, but my heart aches for something sweet! Which is why the 100 Acre Wood was torture for me.

Pooh Bear and I would get along. He loves honey, I love candy, it’s like we’re two peas in a pod. I too would probably get myself stuck inside a tree if I was desperate enough for a sweet snack. 

Pooh’s other animal friends are all so cuddly and adorable! Out of the cutest, I’d have trouble choosing between Piglet or Roo. Tigger reminds me of the stuffed animals I keep in my room. Part of me really wants to hold onto him and see if he can bounce around with me on it, like a pogo stick! When it comes to Eeyore, in all honesty I kind of just want to give him a hug...

Honestly this place is a nice change of pace. No Heartless to be found, it’s always a clear and sunny day out. When it’s night time there aren’t any clouds so you can see all the stars in the sky. I remember all the stories that Sora used to tell me about the constellations instead of learning how to find his way with them. That was more Riku’s job.

I’m glad to know that what I’m feeling when I look up at the sky, Sora is feeling the same. Take your time and relax, you’ve earned it.

Entry 11: It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, it’s Sora, Donald, and Goofy!

Forget swinging through trees, forget playing with countless puppies, and forget scaring Sora, when I get my body back, I’m making Sora take me to Neverland so I can fly up high in the skies!

Wait no Kairi, focus, there are more pressing things at matter. Mainly, Riku has become a full on jerk, has sided with the Heartless, and is dragging my lifeless body around with him! I mean, my eyes were open, but my body was basically a ragdoll without me in it. I mean on the brightside, Sora was absolutely brimming with joy when he realized my body was safe.

That may or may not have made me feel an indescribable amount of joy and embarrassment, mind you.

I mentioned having an out of body experience in Wonderland, but having a literal one felt even weirder. When Sora got close enough it was possible for me to twitch my hand a little, sort of like I was reconnecting with my body. Sucks that it ended up being dragged away, I was this close to getting it back. What sucks even more is that Riku ended up fleeing to this Hollow Bastion place with it.

Still it wasn’t all bad. Body or not, I was still able to fly around with Sora. He doubted that I’d believe him if he told me.

I don’t think he’d believe me if I told him what I’ve been up to in his heart.

Entry 12: Riku…

I’m back in my body. I wish it was as simple as Sora making contact with it, but things took a turn for the worse this time around.

I need to start from the beginning.

Right before we reached Hollow Bastion, Sora was able to connect with me. He awoke a memory of mine that I’d long forgotten since I came to the island: my favorite story that my grandmother would always tell me. Remembering it gave me this warm feeling, one that intensified when we arrived at Hollow Bastion. 

Only to have that feeling crushed when Riku took the Keyblade from Sora.

I’m glad Sora was able to get it back and knock some sense into Riku, but for a moment Sora really felt at his lowest. Sora was able to become his old self again, but deep in his heart was so much hurt at the fact that he lost Riku to the darkness. Not just any darkness, but from this man named Ansem. He was the one who revealed I was inside Sora’s  heart. Sora was able to beat the possessed Riku, but in the end he made a sacrifice I don’t think I could ever pay him back for.

Losing Sora in my arms made me feel even more useless than I did while I was inside his heart. Interestingly enough, when my heart left Sora’s body, I felt another leave as well. It wasn’t like Sora’s heart, but certainly had similar vibes to it.

Regardless, somehow I was able to bring him back from being a Heartless, but the feeling of losing him in my arms like that is something I don’t want to experience again.

We ended up leaving Hollow Bastion shortly after that. When Sora and I were alone, I was finally able to tell Sora that I was with him the entire time. I had so much I wanted to tell him, but there wasn’t enough time in the world. Not to mention all the unfinished business we had back at Hollow Bastion. I wanted to come with Sora, but he was right. It is dangerous, and as much as I didn’t want to admit it, I didn’t really have any ways to protect myself...

I gave Sora my lucky charm. Wherever he goes, I’ll be there with him.

At least, that’s what I keep telling myself.

Entry 13: For Our Eyes Only

Hi there diary, this might be the last time I update this formerly mental journal. 

Sora’s gone off on another adventure to save Riku. He saved all of the worlds, but wasn’t able to save his best friend. If I was in Sora’s shoes, which I might as well have been, I would have done the same thing for either of them. As for me, I’m back on the islands safe and sound. Part of me wanted to jump across the darkness and into Sora’s arms once more. But after fighting for so long to keep me safe, I think the best I can do for Sora is to let this one wish come true.

I know he’ll come back for me. After all, he still needs to give me back my lucky charm. And when he does, I’ll make sure to give him this handwritten diary to help him understand just exactly what I went through on this adventure. No…

Our adventure.

---

When I started this fic, I was honestly thinking about dropping it and starting from scratch with a new idea. Quite frankly, I’m glad I decided to keep at it. I’m pretty proud of the result and feel that I’ve made a somewhat creative little oneshot!

Once again, thank you to the Sokai: Destined Oath Discord server for introducing me to SoKai Week 2020! Special thanks to the server member Gee for acting as my Beta Reader.

Thanks for Reading!

[multishipperlove]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Critical Role (Web Series), Cinderbrush (Web Video) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Jamie Wrenly/Cameron Solomon/Aff Flowers/Sasha Murasaki Characters: Jamie Wrenly, Cameron Solomon, Aff Flowers, Sasha Murasaki, Samuel Flowers Additional Tags: Polyamory, Kissing, switching POVs, just general teenage fluff Summary:

Sometimes you defeat some evil cultists who killed the only friend you had, and then your life... just kinda goes on. But at least you get a relationship out of it.

It was Wednesday, Aff's favorite day of the week. Well, besides the weekend maybe, because that meant no school and no people to judge them and their friends for crimes they'd never committed (had even been proven innocent in court for, but apparently a lot of high schoolers didn't care what the court had to say). But Wednesdays were special.

Right after school, Aff would get to collect Cameron from his English class and drive them both back to Diamond's Liquor. Then they'd spend the afternoon working and, because Wednesday was usually the slowest day of the week and their Dad had allowed it, do their homework with Cam as long as there wasn't anything else to do.

So between sweeping the floors and restocking some shelves, the two would sit together behind the counter, doing their best to understand the math problem of the week or to get through a Spanish text neither of them actually knew all the vocabs for. But it helped a great deal with catching up (who knew court dates could force you to miss so many school days) and even Cameron's grades were slowly starting to get better again.

And in the evening, once the shop was locked up for the night, they'd wait for Sasha and Jamie to show up and have a proper date night. Or, as much of a proper date night that four more or less broke teenagers could have. Aff's Dad didn't didn't mind if they took some snacks and drinks from the store, as long as it was all in a reasonable range, and Jamie always brought the weirdest movies to watch.

Most nights, Aff would pile them all up in their truck afterwards and drive them home, but on rarer occasions the others got to stay the night, and that was even better. If they were all a bit tired the next morning because they'd stayed up all night talking, well... the teachers didn't pay a lot of attention to them anymore, so it was fine.

Today was such a sleepover day, and Aff had been looking forward to it since the agreement had been made in their group chat. Granted, Jamie still pretended to have better things to do at times, but they all knew they'd just show up twenty minutes late with a a small collection of DVDs and maybe some liquor, and claim that their plans had been cancelled last minute. So it was all good.

Either way, right now, Aff was still standing outside Cameron's English class, waiting for the teacher to finally end the lesson. They were anxiously tapping their foot on the floor and checking the time on their phone again, when the bell finally rang and the sound of chairs scrapping back and desks being closed erupted from inside, and the door finally opened to the first students pouring out.

Aff stood to the side, letting everyone pass. Cameron had some extra work he'd been meaning to turn in, so they knew he'd take a minute or two longer. But when he finally came out, the smile lighting up his face when seeing Aff definitely made the wait worth it.

“Hey there,” he greeted them, as if they weren't waiting in the same spot every Wednesday.

“Hey! Are you like, ready to head out? Did you get it all settled?” Aff asked, feeling himself immediately mirroring Cam's expression. That smile was infectious.

Cameron rubbed the back of his neck, almost self-consciously, and gave a half-hearted shrug. “Sure, I guess? I'm not sure if it's going to do much for my grade, but at least she let me try, you know?”

“Yeah, I mean, that's good,” they agreed, as they both started to walk towards the parking lot. “I'm sure it's gonna be really good though. Sasha helped you, right?”

“Yeah, I had no idea she was such an English nerd before,” Cam chuckled. “But anyway, enough about that. I don't want to talk about homework for, like, at least another hour.”

“Oh yeah, no, sure, that's cool,” Aff agreed quickly, and then fell quiet for a few minutes, before Cameron struck up a conversation about the football game the coming Friday, and whether or not they were all going to come see him play.

The conversation kept going for a while, jumping from one topic to the next until they actually made it home to the shop. Aff was still feeling giddy, jumping out the truck with a grin and quickly heading inside, knowing that Cameron would be right behind.

“Hey Dad, I'm home!” they called out, dropping their backpack behind the counter and instead picking up the apron they wore for work. A second later, Samuel came out of the storage room in the back, smiling as well as the saw them both.

He pulled Aff into a brief hug, one hand staying on their shoulder even as he pulled back again to greet Cam with a brief nod. “Good to see you two, how was school?” he asked. “Got a lot of homework?”

“Nah, it's fine,” Aff told him quickly. “We totally got the shop covered for the rest of the day, dad, don't worry. We'll be super fine, one hundred percent.”

“True,” Cam added, already pulling his math homework out of his backpack. “No worries Mr. Flowers, same procedure like every Wednesday.”

“I know, I know,” the man sighed, finally taking his own apron off, before focusing on Aff again. “You know I got this appointment in the city today, so I won't be back until later tonight. I worry, 's all.”

Aff faltered a bit at that. They hated how much that lie about the party, all those weeks ago, was still affecting their relationship. But with what had happened, they really couldn't blame their father. It was partly the reason they were taking so many shifts lately, not only as a way to make up for being a horrible child that night, but also for building trust again.

“No, that's fine, I get it,” they replied, with a little less intensity in their voice. “But we're gonna be okay, I swear. We'll just be here all afternoon, and then the others are gonna come by, and by the time you get back we'll all probably be asleep anyway. That's okay, right?”

Their dad was more gentle when he answered, patting Aff's shoulder with an affectionate look. “Of course, you kids have fun. I'll worry regardless, but that's just my job.”

“Sure thing, dad. Love you,” Aff muttered, watching as he went to get his jacket and finally made his way to the door.

“Love you too! Now, Cameron, you take care of he- I mean, them, you hear me?”

“You got it, Mr. Flowers. We'll take care of each other,” Cam called after the man, as he walked out with another smile and a wave. As soon as Samuel was gone, he turned back to Aff, gently nudging their shoulder. “Hey, you okay? You got kinda quiet there.”

“Hmm?” Aff jumped slightly at the contact, but seemed to refocus quickly enough. “Yeah, sure. Anyway, how about you start on math homework, and I will restock a bit before I join you.”

Cameron chuckled, knowing very well where this was going. “Nah, how about I help you first and then we start maths together, because there's no way I'm letting you copy.”

“But you're not even going to get paid for this.”

“I get to spend time with you, don't I.”

*

As expected, the shop stayed rather quiet that day. A few customers came in, but they all knew what they wanted and no one spend more than a few minutes in the shop (people didn't tend to stay and browse anymore, at least not when Aff was on shift. But at least they came at all. At least the middle schoolers hadn't thrown eggs at the store front in three weeks).

At point seven, with the store clean and stocked up and all their homework done, Aff locked up, and the two of them headed upstairs to the small apartment instead. Sometimes Sasha was early, and spend the last half an hour or so in the shop with them, but today they were still on their own, which gave them the privilege to choose snacks for the group.

“Okay, whatcha got?” Cameron asked, waiting for Aff to raid the kitchen cabinets.

“Uh, okay, so,” they started to mutter again, looking through some cupboards and shelves as they talked. “We got, like, two bags of doritos, and there's probably some salsa in the fridge from last week... I also know that my dad bought like a bunch of frozen pizzas because they were on sale, so we got those.”

Cam grimaced a bit, but made sure Aff couldn't see his reaction. Sometimes he really wished they could do this at his house instead. He wasn't actually complaining, just being here with the others was the most important thing anyway, but it could have been even better if his parents didn't suck as much. Or Sasha's, for that matter.

He didn't know too much about Jamie's parents. They seemed to have a good enough relationship with their mom, but still didn't like bringing people over when she was home. So they always ended up at Aff's place, which was small and a little bit crammed, and there were still some boxes they and their father had never bothered to unpack, but it was homely. A save haven, really, especially since he and Sasha tried to spend as little time with their parents as they possibly could anyway.

So instead of wishing for something that wouldn't come true anyway, Cam took the doritos that Aff was holding out, picked up some drinks, and dutifully carried it all into the living room. Just as he was setting stuff down again he heard the doorbell ring, Aff sliding down the corridor and hurrying down the stairs again a second later... and then downstairs, he could make out Sasha's and Jamie's voice after the door opened. Instead of running down as well he waited upstairs though, claiming the best spot on the couch while he still could.

Sasha was the first to join him again, rolling her eyes at first when she saw him spread out in front of the TV already. “Should have known I would find you like this,” she muttered, but walked over to kiss him anyway when he opened his arms for her with a smile. Cam didn't even try to reply anything, seeing as he was quickly getting lost in their little make out session. His hand was just starting to wander up her shirt when he heard someone clear their throat behind them though, and only then did he break apart from her again and turned his head with a sheepish grin. “What?”

“How rude of you to start without us,” Jamie told him, managing to hold the disgruntled facade for all of three seconds before simply coming to join them on the sofa. They both got an uncharacteristically chaste kiss before the witch started to unpack the bag they had with them, placing a few different movies on the coffee table in front of them.

“So what's it gonna be today? I got the original Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Lesbian Vampire Killers, or the first Final Destination movie.”

Aff came back just as Jamie was listing their choices, and wrapped their arms around them from behind before getting a better look at the covers. To all of their endless delight, Aff was a total noob when it came to movies, and even the classics were able to draw entirely new reactions out of them.

But before Cam could suggest Final Destination, Sasha made a disapproving noise, a slight scowl on her face. “I don't know about you, but I'm not in the mood to watch teenagers die due to paranormal circumstances. I think I've had enough of that for the next few years.”

“That's fair,” Jamie admitted, looking down again as well. “It's all I brought with me, though.”

“We could log into my parent's Netflix, I'm pretty sure they're both busy tonight,” Cam offered, pulling Sasha a bit closer as he did so. She leaned into him easily, and he slowly felt her body relax again.

“Yeah, Netflix sounds good,” Aff agreed, climbing over the back of the couch now to worm his way between Jamie and Cam. It worked somehow, despite how freakishly tall they were getting, but after about a minute of shifting around and some complaining here and there, they found a position that was comfortable for all of them. “Are you sure your parents won't notice? You know, it would suck if you'd get in trouble again, so, only do it if you're like absolutely sure.”

“Yeah, sure, it's gonna be fine,” Cam assured them, sounding maybe a little bit more confident than he really felt. But his father was supposed to work late, and his mom had told him she'd be out with friends herself, so he just hoped none of them would change their plans last minute.

Everyone else seemed convinced, so within a few minutes they had Aff's old ass laptop up and running, and connected to the TV. After that it only took a minimal amount of more bickering before they finally settled on a movie, a mindless horror comedy that they could make fun of along the way. It was exactly what all of them needed at the moment.

*

Aff ended up being right, too.

When Samuel came home eventually, close to one am, he found all four of them fast asleep in the living room. Still in their day clothes, all of their accessories, hats, and glasses carelessly piled on the coffee table, along with some empty dorito bags and soda cans. And the situation on the couch wasn't any better, it was hard to tell where one body ended and another begun.

Deciding that he would leave them to regret those sleeping positions in the morning, the man just did his best to cover everyone with a blanket and then headed to bed himself. If there was anything he was thankful for, in these last few trying months, it was the three strange children currently sleeping in his apartment, and whatever it was that Aff saw in them.

They were happy, after all, and that was all that mattered.

[anathtsurugi]

Day 15 - One More Day ;)

So, my dear @jellysharkbat, I’d at first thought to present you with a scene from the new chapter of TCTW, but the scene I had in mind was a little too dialogue heavy, even if it was in the same vein. So you’ll get more of that when the chapter comes out. But hopefully this is enough in line with what you were feeling.

Snow, as far as Alexsandr Kallus was concerned, could go get kriffed.

Granted, it was in the middle of a snow storm he'd first begun to see the love of his life and he would be eternally grateful for that, but it was likely the only thing he ever would grant to snow. Anything other than that one instance was evil incarnate. And that was saying something coming from a man who'd once worked at the very heart of the Galactic Empire.

The day had begun like any other at Echo Base. The techs still couldn't seem to adapt their speeders to Hoth's extreme cold, so patrols were still being carried out on tauntauns. Really, a lot of their tech was having trouble on this world. Even his own double-layer thermal gear was barely managing to keep out the cold. The persistent subzero temperatures had been creeping in on him all week and the conditions had been making his bad leg crankier than usual which, in turn, made him even crankier than his typical  uptight self, and he knew it showed.

Say what you will about Yavin IV. At least heat is manageable.

Draven had been on his case about the new supply line he'd been endeavoring to open up from an old Imperial contact who was just about fed up with Coruscant's precious New Order. It was a delicate process, though, so he was rather starting to wish the general would just take his less than subtle grumbling elsewhere. More than petty matters with Davitz Draven, there was also the fact that Cassian hadn't yet reported in from his latest assignment and Jyn and Bodhi were visibly beginning to worry, asking him if he'd heard anything. And he could understand their worry. Of course he could, but having to let down Cassian's odd little family every time one of them asked after the young Fulcrum agent was also beginning to wear on him. Today it seemed it was Bodhi's turn to receive the bad news as they passed through one of the supply corridors that connected the hangar bays with the storage areas.

"And there's really no emergency channels you might use?" the pilot pressed him as they walked.

"Believe me, Rook, I've tried all of them. At this point, it's up to Cassian himself," he responded with an exasperated sigh. "I promise you, I worry just as much as the rest of you. Cassian is my friend, too. But he wouldn't be a Fulcrum agent if he couldn't handle situations like this one. We just- have to trust him."

And as always, whenever he had to disappoint Bodhi Rook, Kallus felt as though he'd kicked the proverbial puppy at the silently despairing look in his fellow defector's large brown eyes. One just couldn't disappoint Bodhi Rook and walk away unscathed. It wasn't physically possible. And on top of that, his leg was really starting to twinge, causing him to bite down on a wince.

The day was barely half over and already he would've been quite happy to have done with it.

What else can go wrong?

He regretted thinking it almost the minute the poisonous thought had slithered through his brain. No situation is ever so bad it can't be kriffed up even further; and that fact was proven almost immediately by an ominous-sounding crack from overhead.

"What the-" Bodhi's voice started as they both looked overhead, but Kallus spotted the problem right away. A crack had indeed appeared in the ceiling over their heads, and already it was splintering and spidering outward from its initial break.

Kallus didn't stop to ask questions. The moment chunks of ice began to tumble into the corridor, he seized Bodhi's shoulder and threw them both free of the collapse.

The ex-Imperial felt his leg shriek in agony as they hit the permafrost floor of the tunnel, chips of broken ice flying overhead as a full section of the ceiling came down. Once debris had ceased spilling into the corridor, he began to hear voices from the next level up.

"Stars, what the kriff-"

"What happened?"

"What's-"

"Is everyone all right down there?"

Forcing himself up onto his knees through the pain, Kallus looked up, calling back. "We're fine! Just the two of us down below. Anyone above injured?"

"No," came the mostly even voice of General Rieekan in response. Oh, kriff. The command center.

"Though it might not be long before you're not all right," the just as distinct voice of Draven followed only a moment after. Within seconds, the head of Rebel Intelligence's pinched face appeared over the  edge of the hole in the ceiling. "Why is it I always seem to find an ex-Imperial around whenever something goes wrong?"

Kallus full-on glowered up at the man overhead. Partly to hide his own grimace of pain, but also because he really was just that pissed at this point.

"Yes, because obviously we plan for these things to happen," he snapped.

"I would be remiss in putting it past you. Fully trained ISB operative that your are, Agent ISB-021," the man taunted in a pointed voice.

That did it.

The frustration and physical pain that had been chipping away at his composure all week broke through his strict mental control. If he'd had his bo-rifle on him, he might've actually drawn it.

"Kriffing arrogant nerfherder!" he snarled up at the general. "If you think for one second I would ever endanger anyone in this base, then you've-"

"Kallus," Rieekan's now stern voice interrupted his imminent tirade as he joined Draven at the edge of the collapsed section. "I think it might be better if you took a walk. I know you said you weren't hurt, but you and Rook should probably take extra rest shifts, just to be certain."

"General, I-"

Whatever he might've said was quickly silenced by the Alderaanian's firm gaze. He scowled before going to help Bodhi up. Though he couldn't deny being the tiniest bit pleased to catch the tail end of Rieekan's next order.

"You and I will be having words later, Davitz. You can't keep going on like this."

"Th- thank you," Bodhi stuttered out. "You definitely saved my neck back there."

"No trouble," Kallus returned, though he didn't look at the younger man, as he knew he couldn't manage a smile just then. "I'm quite certain it would be more than just Draven angry with me if I allowed harm to come to you. About half the Alliance, likely...not to mention Cassian and Skywalker," he said before starting to head in the direction of his quarters, leaning heavily against the wall as he moved.

"Do you maybe need help?" Bodhi called after him.

"No," he ground out, even though he knew he was limping. He was on trajectory now and couldn't stop. If he did, his anger would dissipate and that, in turn, would allow the pain he was currently keeping at bay to overwhelm him. He kept his eyes forward and his teeth gritted the whole way back to his and Zeb's quarters.

He barely managed to make it to the bed before collapsing, body now racked with pain and mind swirling with frustration, anger, and more than a little guilt.

Agent ISB-021...

Most of the Alliance no longer held his past against him, but Draven was one who couldn't seem to let it go. He never missed an opportunity to remind Kallus of who he had been...of what he had done...

You are not that person anymore.

Maybe not...but that doesn't mean it didn't happen.

He had no idea how long he lay there, stewing in all that ugliness, before he heard the door to their quarters slide open. He looked over to see Zeb standing in the entryway.

"Rook told me what happened," he said without preamble as he entered, the door sliding shut behind him. "You okay?"

"As can be expected," he answered, though he couldn't quite keep back the tiny whimper of pain as he dragged himself into a sitting position. "Just the leg."

"You take anything?"

Kallus shook his head, rubbing faintly at his leg. "No. I wouldn't want to waste it. This will pass."

Zeb exhaled in frustration, and though Kallus wasn't looking at him, he could easily picture the way he would roll his luminous eyes. Before long, though, he found a slender thermal container thrust before his face.

"What...what's this?" he asked as he took the container.

"Little something Hera and I put together this morning from the Ghost's stores. Some of that spiced tea you loved so much. I was makin' it for you anyway, since the cold's been seepin' in on you all week, but now seemed like a good time to bring it to you."

Wordlessly, Kallus twisted the vessel open, inhaling the divine scent of the black tea in mild disbelief. It was no small thing...to be able to make something like this with the limited supplies they had. He may have moaned a little as he took the first sip of the warm, frothy drink.

They didn't speak after that. After all, Kallus was reasonably certain Zeb would've got the whole story from Bodhi. The Lasat sat down beside him on the small bed, large, skilled fingers beginning to work at the improperly healed joint, soothing away some of the ever-present stiffness and pain and bringing the hurts from the day's misadventures down from an insistent snarl to a dull ache. More than the massage, it was really just nice to have Zeb's sure, strong hands on him.

Not wanting to drink all of the tea right away, he sealed the thermal up when it was about half-empty and set it aside. Then Zeb drew him into a kiss, a slow, luxuriating press of lips that didn't presage anything further, simply connected the pair of them in that moment.

I'm here. I'm here for you. People can be as stupid as they like, but they can't take this away from us. I'll always be right here.

The kiss turned into a cuddle without much effort on their part. Almost before Kallus was aware of it, they were curled up together on their little bed, Zeb cradling him easily against the broad plane of his chest. Alex curled up tightly against him, languishing in the feel of his lover's arms around him, warm and strong, safe and caring. So much he had never expected to have in his life – never expected to be worthy of – all vested within one amazing person.

They would have to return to their tasks eventually. There was always more work to be done. But for now, just for now, they would accept the quiet gift of simply being with one another. When it came right down to it, that gift was all they really had in the face of a vicious galaxy.

But it was also all they needed.

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Welcome to FiveThirtyEight’s weekly politics chat. The transcript below has been lightly edited.

sarahf (Sarah Frostenson, politics editor): Former vice president Joe Biden has consistently led in early primary polls, and in head-to-head polls against President Trump, but he still hasn’t entered the 2020 Democratic presidential primary (although he’s expected to declare in April).

But who wants Biden to run? He doesn’t seem to be regarded as a front runner by party activists or those already in the field, and now two women have alleged that Biden touched them inappropriately, resurfacing his history of being physical in his interactions with women. [Editor’s note: After we finished this chat concluded, The New York Times published a report about two more women who described physical interactions with Biden that made them uncomfortable]

Is it possible that the stakes of running in the Democratic Party have shifted so much that Biden now poses too much of a liability?

meredithconroy (Meredith Conroy, political science professor at California State University and FiveThirtyEight contributor): It’s too early to say whether these sorts of stories about Biden, which have been circulating for years, are enough to sink his chances. But as FiveThirtyEight’s Clare Malone said on the politics podcast, the way Lucy Flores has told her story recasts the incident as a more serious allegation, and less as late night talk show fodder.

perry (Perry Bacon Jr., senior writer): A candidate who leads in the polls and has some major figures in the party clamoring for him to run is in a pretty good position to weather this kind of controversy, I think. Prominent female Democrats, like Nancy Pelosi, are even saying what has emerged over the last week is not disqualifying.

natesilver (Nate Silver, editor in chief): I don’t quite know what to think. If you follow the reaction on Twitter, a lot of people think the accusations are a big deal for Biden. But, a lot of those people didn’t have Biden as one of their top choices to begin with.

The biggest outstanding question I have for Biden is — where are the “party elites” clamoring for him to run. He has three endorsements — granted, you might not expect him to have many since he isn’t running yet — but two of those are senators from Delaware (his home state) and one is California Sen. Diane Feinstein, who is not a bad endorsee but also not the voice of a new generation of Democrats, exactly.

sarahf: It seems as if we’re seeing a generational divide play out here. I thought this Politico headline captured it well: “’Friendly grandpa’ or creepy uncle? Generations split over Biden behavior.”

perry: I definitely think you are seeing people who were inclined to support a more moderate figure and people who are older defending him. Polls show Biden doing really well with older Democrats (age 50 and older) and not as well with young voters. People who are younger and more liberal seem more inclined to attack Biden, but I suspect they weren’t that excited to see him run in the first place.

meredithconroy: I was having this conversation with some friends (I’m fun at parties) about whether Biden tests the “Party Decides” thesis if he doesn’t get elite support, but still wins the nomination.

My thought is that he doesn’t necessarily need institutional support to win. He has enough name recognition and goodwill (even now) to run and win without endorsements. I’m also in the camp that in today’s social media environment, the process is candidate-centered and not party-centered, and therefore the “Party Decides” idea is moot, but that’s a conversation for another day.

natesilver: I don’t know, I think what former President Obama does, in particular, is important. A lot of Biden’s popularity among rank-and-file Democrats stems from his association with Obama. If Obama endorses, say, Kamala Harris instead, that would be a pretty huge deal. And I tend not to think that Obama would do that, at least not in the early stages, but the lack of support for Biden is something that voters might notice. Maybe.

My question is not so much whether Biden can find a constituency within the Democratic Party, but whether he can be a unifying figure. And that seems harder now. Maybe the Flores accusations are partly a proxy for larger, generational issues, which is not to say they aren’t serious unto themselves. Still, this is a part of the party deciding, if you will. And the fact that Biden doesn’t seem to be able to control the narrative is a negative for him.

perry: So they seem like two different issues. One, is this disqualifying for Biden as a candidate?

The second question is how this changes the nature of his campaign if he enters. I assume this guarantees that his first week or so as a candidate will be dominated by questions about how he treats women. And the overall campaign environment will be hard. Biden will have to be more disciplined –and he is not known for that.

natesilver: Just thinking out loud here: There’s also the case to be made that things get better for Biden if he runs. If you’re sitting on the sidelines, just one narrative can dominate the conversation about you, e.g. Elizabeth Warren and the DNA test. But once you start running, you generate other sorts of news and create more context.

meredithconroy: Right, once he is in, he’s able to fill in this vacuum. But the Democratic Party is increasingly the party of women’s rights and equality, so I do think his pitch is going to be harder to sell.

sarahf: Granted, this story is from January, but even then, there was a perception that no major candidate was waiting on Biden to decide before they decided to run themselves. Do we think that’s accurate? Or do we really think Terry McAuliffe and maybe Michael Bloomberg are sitting in the wings, still waiting?

natesilver: I’m sort of torn. Because it can both be true that Biden is much weaker than his clear No. 1 status in the polls would imply, and that he’s a little bit more formidable than sort of young-ish NYC/DC journalists might assume, and they’re the ones that drive a lot of the conversation.

perry: If you lead in every poll, isn’t that a sign people want you to run? And just in talking to older black voters, they tell me they do want Biden to run, because they feel like he is the person most likely to beat Trump. And they are really fearful of a second term for Trump. This is anecdotal, but it’s not irrelevant.

natesilver: He maybe has that electability argument going for him. The thing is that some of the other Democrats — notably, Bernie — have seen their poll numbers against Trump decline once they decided to run. And while Biden’s numbers are strong now, they’d presumably be set to decline as well.

But I do think there’s a question here of: “Who will older voters be comfortable with?” Beto and Buttigieg will do plenty well with moderates (as well as liberals who don’t think of themselves as part of the left) under the age of 50. But that’s not really Biden’s constituency, and who competes with him for older Democrats?

In the abstract, if there were similar accusations against Sanders or Beto, that would be a bigger problem, because they’re relying more on young voters, and young voters are much more likely to consider that type of behavior to be inappropriate.

meredithconroy: I’m not so sure, Nate. A poll from the Economist late last year found that a sizable percentage of Democratic women over the age of 65 are less willing to tolerate sexual harassment from men. Biden could be in trouble with older women voters.

perry: But Biden is somewhat unique in that he appeals to both moderates and older people, and not just older-white-guy moderates. He is not ex-Gov. John Hickenlooper of Colorado (who is already in the race) or former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg or Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado (both of whom are thinking about running). Those three are likely to find few voters outside of older, moderate white male Democratic voters. This means if Biden does not run, I think that’s not just good for Hickenlooper or other older white men. I think that’s good for almost everyone, particularly any candidate who’s looking to win the support of black voters, older voters and party loyalists.

sarahf: I think that’s right, Perry. That if Biden didn’t run, that’d be good for practically everyone. He really is the only candidate who fits the bill as a member of the establishment’s old guard. Which means if he didn’t run, there could be a pretty diverse coalition of support to split among the other candidates.

perry: But if Biden does run, I think that Bloomberg, former Gov. Terry McAuliffe of Virginia and Montana Gov. Steve Bullock in particular don’t have much of a path.

They probably didn’t have much of a path even if Biden didn’t run, but Biden does kind of take up the “electable man” lane, particularly with Mayor Pete, Beto and Booker also in that space.

Rep. Seth Moulton of Massachusetts and Rep. Tim Ryan of Ohio should be hoping Biden stays out.

Run, Joe, run! We need fewer candidates! Help us.

meredithconroy: Ha. Question: Is Biden more electable because he can win over aggrieved Republicans and moderates? That’s the story, right? That he is more broadly appealing than a liberal like Sanders or Warren.

natesilver: I do think there’s a fair amount of evidence that moderates over-perform candidates on the wings, other things held equal. So that part of Biden’s electability argument isn’t bad. He also has better favorables than any of the other Democrats for now, although that could very easily change.

sarahf: So say Biden runs … does that especially hurt Mayor Pete’s chances? Or Beto’s? Booker’s? Klobuchar’s? (Essentially, anyone who’s trying to run a platform that isn’t too far to the left.)

meredithconroy: Sarah, if you buy into the “white guy lane,” Biden definitely takes votes from the other white guys.

natesilver: I’m going to give a slightly counterintuitive view. I think the candidate who might be helped most by Biden not running — or hurt most if he does run — is Kamala Harris.

Biden’s popularity with black voters is a problem for her building a constituency.

I also wonder if some “party elites” might come off the sidelines for Harris if Biden were to decline to run.

perry: Harris is probably one of the most establishment-friendly candidates in the race, so big donors and people who backed Clinton in the 2016 primary would, I’m sure, prefer her over, say, Sanders. But don’t you think if Biden didn’t run, maybe there’s an argument that it would help Beto most?

natesilver: It’d help Beto, but there’s a pretty big generational divide between his support and Biden’s, I’d gather.

On the “party elites” side, I think it might push some older, moderate endorsers to back Beto.

But I think he might have to prove his case more to older voters.

perry: For the party-elite types who think a woman can’t win the general election (not a view I agree with but I hear it from a lot of rank and file voters), Biden not running is probably good for Beto.

But in terms of voters, Harris and Booker are probably helped a lot if Biden doesn’t run. They could get more of the non-Sanders vote and the black vote.

natesilver: I suppose it’s also possible that some ex-Obamaworld people are torn between Biden and Beto, so Biden not running could free up some staff talent and big donors, too.

perry: Are we sure it would not help Sanders?

natesilver: It could help Bernie, sure.

perry: Like if you are in second place and the person in first place removes himself from the race, that is good for you, right?

natesilver: Yeah, every other candidate’s chances go up. And Bernie is actually the second choice of a plurality of Biden voters. Although I do wonder if some of that is name recognition.

sarahf: Yeah, I’m curious how that changes as we get farther into the cycle.

natesilver: The dynamic I don’t like if I’m Bernie is if Biden doesn’t get in, which would probably help the party establishment settle on one (non-Bernie) candidate.

perry: After watching 2016 (when the GOP establishment failed to consolidate around an alternative to Trump), I’m more skeptical that will happen, but maybe Democrats are more disciplined than Republicans.

natesilver: I mean, you could certainly draw some parallels between Biden and Jeb Bush. Bush wasn’t off to a very good start, but he also froze party elite support, stopping it from going to other candidates. The flaw in that parallel is that Biden is polling at 30 percent instead of 10 percent or what have you.

meredithconroy: In 2016, I think the GOP party elite sat out because of a lack of good candidates. But in 2020 I think Democrats are sitting out because there are so many good candidates. So I think this year some party elites are frozen, waiting for Biden to decide.

natesilver: Part of me wonders whether Biden might go nuclear on Bernie, which could have a variety of effects. The Biden campaign is already (anonymously) blaming Sanders for the “handsy” stories, which seems a little weird because it seemed inevitable to me that those were going to become a topic of conversation anyway.

sarahf: But I guess as to the question of whether Biden could be a unifying force in the party — these allegations seem to undermine that idea. And point to the fact that he might be out of touch, or not the best representative of the direction the Democratic Party is moving. Do we think that’s a fair way to think about how these allegations impact Biden’s candidacy?

perry: If Trump’s approval had jumped to 48 percent after Attorney General William Barr issued a four-page letter on the Mueller report to Congress, this would be all different.

A lot of the force driving Biden’s potential candidacy is electability. And so if Trump looked really strong right now that would help Biden.

natesilver: That’s why I’m coming back to thinking Harris might be the long-term beneficiary of this. She probably has the best unify-the-party argument, at least among the people who are polling at more than 5 percent now. (Booker would be interesting, too, if his polling were livelier.)

perry: I’m not totally sure I think Biden’s situation as a candidate is that different than it was two weeks ago. Some parts of the party that already wanted him to go away are now saying that in public, but he still has strong poll numbers and is in good standing with the party’s elected officials (Pelosi).

Biden has not been eliminated by this controversy. But it has to have shown him that this will be a tough campaign if he enters. And he hasn’t entered yet, which tells me there must be some hesitancy on his part.

meredithconroy: Maybe the question (for another chat) is what kind of scandal rises to the level of hurting a candidate in the general election.

natesilver: Sure. It’s part of the process of the party deciding. Seeing who the party defends and who it doesn’t is important, as well as how capable candidates are at handling negative stories. But part of the process is also testing the candidate’s electability argument and looking for flaws that could cost them the general election.

The weird thing about the Biden story is that it’s very hard to see Trump, for obvious reasons, pressing back on Biden too much without it backfiring.

meredithconroy: You’d think so, right? But I think Republicans are happy to keep scandals like this Biden story in the news. The more that accusations against men that don’t seem to rise to the level of harassment are litigated online, the more conservative voters are mobilized against something that they find really fishy in American politics today, which is believing women to a fault. Or falsely accusing men.

natesilver: Yeah, that’s a fair point, Meredith. So maybe we are overlooking the possibility of a backlash to the backlash against Biden?

I don’t want to reveal too much because it was a private conversation, but I was talking to an older (male) Democratic friend this weekend and I’d guess he’s probably more likely to vote for Biden now than he was before. He was also very against how Democrats handled the Al Franken accusations. And Kirsten Gillibrand’s campaign seems to be totally flatlining in part because she spoke out about Al Franken and Bill Clinton.

meredithconroy: I absolutely think Franken looms large in the minds of Democrats. Aaron Blake at the Washington Post wrote on Monday that “there is a palpable sense that Democrats overreacted and that Franken was a victim of too high a standard.”

Democrats have become the party that voters trust more to handle incidents of sexual harassment and misconduct. A candidate who is known for being “handsy” with women, could jeopardize this.

natesilver: I think these accusations are likely to be more of a problem for Biden among party elites than among rank-and-file voters, but party elites are important, too.

From ABC News:

[comicteaparty]

October 4th, 2018 CTP Archive

The archive for the Comic Tea Party chat that occurred on October 4th, 2018, from 5PM - 7PM PDT.  The chat focused on Finding Home by Hari.

Featured Comment:

Chat:

RebelVampire

COMIC TEA PARTY- THURSDAY BOOK CLUB START!

Good evening, everyone~! This week’s Thursday Book Club is officially beginning! Today we are discussing Finding Home by Hari~! (https://tapas.io/series/FindingHome)

Remember that Thursday discussions are completely freeform! However, every 30 minutes I will drop in OPTIONAL discussion questions in case you’d like a bit of a prompt. If you miss out on one of these prompts, you can find them pinned for the chat’s duration. Additionally, remember that while constructive criticism is allowed, our focus is fun and respectfully appreciating the comic. All that said, let’s begin!

QUESTION 1. What is your favorite scene in the comic so far and why?

keii4ii

I don't know if this counts as a "scene," but I really liked seeing the flowers bloom on Chepi from his emotions.

Superjustinbros

Aww~

Also hello there!

RebelVampire

yeah i thought that was a really interesting and unique detail. but also felt kind of sorry for chepi cause i mean, thats a dead give away youre feeling an emotion. cannot hide anything. cannot be a tsundere that says its not like i like you or anything

hi SJ~!

Superjustinbros

Thanks for the welcome, Rebel~

keii4ii

I wonder if it's possible to lie with the flowers, like how some people are able to fake tears/ blushing/ etc when they're an exceptionally good actor/liar? Probably not the case with Chepi, though

Superjustinbros

Maybe, or each mood gets represented by different kinds of flowers

RebelVampire

yeah i dont forsee chepi being the best liar persay. but maybe. and tbf have we seen any other dryad do it? this may be a unique feature of chepi because chepi has a unique situation

Superjustinbros

Maybe

RebelVampire

my favorite scene is the one where chepi speads to a bug and janek is like what. but chepi doesnt register that its not the language thing but the fact hes talking to a bug.

i also like in that scene how real the convo was. where janek sounds unintentionally ignorant and kind of racist, but not out of malicious intent. just out of the fact janek never really thought about it before.

keii4ii

Yeah, there's been quite a few examples of non-malicious ignorance

as well as other kinds of misunderstandings

I'm really curious about how they met. This seems to be a relatively new relationship, as in they weren't like... longtime friends or anything, so the beginning of it may still have a lot of relevance

mathtans

Made it. That was a real interesting way to get across some of the language stuff for the universe too, I thought.

RebelVampire

yeah ive been wondering that myself. how the two even met up in the first place. although it seems like they had some form of acquaintanceship

mathtans

A lot of their conversations are pretty realistic.

Seems like they just met because the chef was trying to get home?

RebelVampire

yeah it could be as simple as they were in the same town. chepi was like "i like helping ppl i will help this person"

cause chepi is a good dude

who does good dude things

except for the part where he jeapordizes his own health

thats a bad dude thing

mathtans

Yeah, he's had a rough go of it.

keii4ii

There's probably a little more to that, or at least that's the impression I get

I mean, it seemed like he wanted Janek's company for personal reasons too, even if they weren't Compelling Super Important Goals

Superjustinbros

Christ, definitely not a good thing

The jeopardizing your health part

mathtans

One of the scenes I particularly liked was early on. Where the one guy was "filling the silence" by talking a lot. It was an interesting visual in how it was laid out, and I've been on both sides of that... wanting to fill what I feel is an awkward silence as well as just wanting to enjoy stillness.

There might be a little more to it, but I'm not certain either of them are keen to acknowledge it.

keii4ii

Weird. I started reading this comic when it was still pretty new, and this scene I remember reading isn't there anymore. O_o

I wonder if it was deleted because of not fitting with the creator's vision anymore, because the impression I got from that scene was rather different

RebelVampire

that could be. i think a print volume was kickstartered and that is generally the time when heavy editing occurs

mathtans

Oh? You mean the flower blooming one? Because I remember seeing that...

I also looked at the holiday bonus that was linked away, incidentally. The mistletoe one. That was amusing and touching.

RebelVampire

i also liked that scene too, math. the one with the silence filling. but more than that i really appreciate the understanding that happened between the two. in that chepi didnt mind janek was busy rambling on and on and on. cause i understood how janek felt in feeling awkward about filling the silence too

keii4ii

No, I remember this scene where one of them is talking to some soldiers?

mathtans

Rebel: Right, that aspect of it helped it to stand out for me, I think. One of those times they had an understanding, almost unspoken.

keii4ii

(I could be remembering it wrong )

mathtans

In a flashback, I guess...?

RebelVampire

yeah i dont remember any scene with soldiers. it couldve been an extra of some sort? cause i generally dont look at extras

keii4ii

Yeah, it's not there. I might be mixing things up, unless the comic was rebooted at some point

RebelVampire

thats okay. i like to think its opportunity to speculate

cause there probably is something more

cause despite saying it, even i find it more believable there was something else going on besides chepi is a good dude

QUESTION 2. Throughout the comic, Chepi is shown to be a somewhat anxious person due to past experiences. How do you think Chepi came to be born in the first place? Do you think it has anything to do with why Chepi was encouraged to not like humans? What do you think happened exactly between Chepi and Ishaan that made the relationship have such a traumatic impact on Chepi? Do you think it was a bad relationship from the start, or do you think there were genuine, mutual feelings at the beginning? Do you think the person helping Chepi to publish his works is really altruistic, or is said person just out for their own gain? Lastly, do you think Chepi will be able to overcome all his trauma (and will Janek help or hurt these personal issues)?

keii4ii

TBH I've seen zero reasons to trust that dude

mathtans

Which one?

Superjustinbros

The publisher?

RebelVampire

idk how i feel about ishaan. i wanna give ishaan the benefit of the doubt at least for the beginning of the relationship. but even when ishaan was being all impressed by chepi i got sleezy impressions.

mathtans

As far as Chepi being born... fun fact, in the prologue, at first I thought maybe we were seeing Chepi's father. And, like, he was born of two guys or something, like that's the only way to get a mixed race type.

RebelVampire

LOL. well i mean, not impossible. we are dealing with fae and such.

mathtans

Ishaan's that smoking guy in the flashbacks...? (I'm so bad with names.) I figure there had to be something initially other than "here's an easy mark". But it morphed into something else. Also, profound effect due to his first romantic rejection, that's gotta hurt more than being rejected from the university (and even being shunned in the library).

RebelVampire

yes smoking guy who chepi dated is ishaan

i wanna say that maybe ishaan didnt start with bad intentions. but i also think he might have been attracted to chepi for the novelty of it. cause then he could brag to all his friends about his cool significant other

granted not sure if that logic matches up with the fact ishaan wanted chepi to look more human

so it could be the exact opposite in that ishaan genuinely liked chepi but did not like chepi was half dryad. and ishaan dealt with that in the most toxic way possible

mathtans

Except I don't think he could brag either, as his friends would say he was hanging around with a weirdo freak.

That last theory possibly works.

keii4ii

I get the impression that even if he was genuinely attracted to Chepi, he was always the type of a guy who manipulates and gaslights people whenever given the opportunity

mathtans

keii: There is that. Guy should just get his own oranges.

RebelVampire

i get the impression that ishaan is used to just getting what he wants and is some spoiled rich guy or something. so yeah, manipulation and gaslighting very probable

although i also dont trust the person chepi is using as a cover to publish his papers

that person rubs be the wrong way

cause the convo just seemed really manipulative

mathtans

That's kind of funny though, because Chepi is also a rich guy who prefers to do his own thing. Maybe that's partly why they ended up together.

I'm okay with her (I think it was a her). True that they might be getting more out of the arrangement, but I think it comes from a good place. Also, Chepi has access to the basement books, which seems like a decent thing to do.

Also, I want a backpack like that. O.o

RebelVampire

yeah at the end they havent done anything evil yet. so i could be be overly suspicious. but chepi sure is getting the short end of the stick and it makes me sad and hurts my poor heart

mathtans

He does, yeah. I think he's kind of closed himself off in order to deal with it.

Superjustinbros

That seems reasonable

RebelVampire

i do think chepi is gonna learn to deal with his trauma better. cause i mean hes already taking those critical first steps of talking about the problem a bit. not all the way, but hes said more than he probably would have previously

keii4ii

Yes

mathtans

I wonder if he'll manage to deal with his crowds situation too. (I know that feeling, though not to the extent of being triggered or anything.)

RebelVampire

the crowds one may take more time ironically imo. just because the issue behind that is harder to fix. since even if chepi was like "lets go cold turkey into a crowd," it is more likely his fears will get reaffirmed

Superjustinbros

Perhaps.

Seems like a fear that’s hard to remove anyways

mathtans

Yes, though he's got the travelling companion now, so small steps.

RebelVampire

yeah although that may forever be his comfort level. and i dont blame him for that cause he may just be an introvert who prefers setups like that. cause even with the dryads he seemed very much a soloist

mathtans

True.

Superjustinbros

Same.

mathtans

Also means less making demands on him.

RebelVampire

QUESTION 3. Janek and Chepi grow ever closer throughout their journey, though some issues seem to get between the two. Do you think the relationship between the two will ever become something more, or will trauma and other issues continue to get in the way? Even if they do become romantically involved, do you think it would work out? What about when the two reach Erkesh? Will their relationship last (whether romantically or as friends) even then? Or, will Chepi simply move on to his next destination? For that matter, do you think the two will even make it to Erkesh? Additionally, given the title of the comic is “Finding Home,” what do you think that means for each character and their personal journeys? In other words, what is “home?”

Superjustinbros

There's people that struggle lots with groups

mathtans

(Ones he'd be inclined to help with.)

I feel like they're building towards a relationship, a healing one, so I'd be a bit surprised if that doesn't happen. There'll still be bumps along the way though, for sure.

Like, they keep finding out things about each other that alter their perceptions.

Superjustinbros

Yea

mathtans

Also, home is where the heart is?

RebelVampire

part of me would be surprised if they dont cross that threshold from friends to something more. cause they keep bonding and the chemistry is super strong. but on the otherhand, this comic feels a lot like a journey wherein i feel the destination is gonna throw me a bit. so i could also see them not being able to. or ya know, there being a dramatic fakeout where chepi leaves janek in erkesh but then comes back being like "what was i thinking"

keii4ii

I feel that it's not about forming a relationship (though that's a strong possibility). It's about finding "home" and if both of them grow and reach a point where they simply become more comfortable with the self, separately, I can see them going separate ways too...

mathtans

I suppose that could happen (the fakeout), but really rooting for Chepi to have a happy ending. Versus, saying, dying in Janek's arms while saying "I'm finally happy".

keii4ii

omg

mathtans

I can see them going separate ways, but somehow not before being intimate. Could be the shipper in me.

RebelVampire

well tbf the comic is genred romance so...

mathtans

Chepi might totally sacrifice himself to deal Janek though.

RebelVampire

theres kind of high expectations here for some romance

mathtans

(Speaking of, I like his dry sense of humour... "come down from there, it would be a pain to heal every bone in your body" or words to that effect.)

RebelVampire

im gonna hope this comic doesnt go chepi death route. mostly cause despite its serious issues, its a pretty light-hearted comic.

keii4ii

It's got very gentle, soft vibes

Superjustinbros

Ye

Not every comic needs death

mathtans

I don't know if I'd say light-hearted? It has chuckle moments to be sure.

My opinion, anyway. Yes, vibes.

RebelVampire

imo the sense of home in this comic's case is a place where you feel comfortable and can be yourself. and if that place happens to be wherever another person is, well then...

yeah light-hearted might not be the right word but on 3 hours of sleep its the word i got O_O

mathtans

Home is where the wisps aren't.

I feel you, I only got about 4 hours sleep.

RebelVampire

i will also accept that answer. home is where the wisps arent

cause those wisps are creepy

now if there is tragedy in this comic, the thing i could see happening is they get to erkesh....but erkesh isnt there anymore

and janek has nowhere to go

home is gone

very sad

ah i forgot to say i do like chepi's dry sense of humor. partly cause i like that he has a sense of humor despite seeming so serious all the time

Superjustinbros

r.i.p. home

mathtans

Ooooh. I could see that too, that the wisps have destroyed the old home. That might be bittersweet.

His sense of humour sometimes flies a bit under the radar for me. Like, when he talked about studying since he was a baby I was like, 'dryads do that?' then I realized I was a species-ist.

RebelVampire

yeah i have to agree that sometimes it takes a moment for chepi's jokes to register as jokes. but then i have a good laugh.

mathtans

Because there's times when he's not, like when he's just going for a swim and all.

The hair discussion was pretty interesting though. It's funny, in a way growing the hair out long seemed like an emotional, human thing to do, and the guy had been trying to get Chepi to be more human.

RebelVampire

yeah i liked this little act of rebellion for chepi. cause i mean it feels really realistic too. because lots of ppl getting out of bad relationships do trivial things like this, even though for them the emotional impact is significant

i really liked the swimming scene in general though

cause i think something about it really illustrated the individual diffs between janek and chepi

and how both their selves and upbringings brought about different attitudes

QUESTION 4. Though not the focus, the comic’s world has a lot of interesting aspects that affect the characters. Do you think things will improve for Fae within the world, or will Chepi always suffer from negative policies and views from both sides? Do you think spending time with Janek will give Chepi new insight into how he can better help people? Alternatively, will spending time with Janek show Chepi a way to convince more Fae to help mortals? Speaking of the supernatural, do you think the Wisps will continue to be a danger to Janek and Chepi? Do you think the amount of Wisps about is normal, or do you feel it’s foreshadowing something sinister is about? Finally, Chepi at one point mentions a magical surge that has been growing. How might this affect the world in general, and do you think Chepi will be the one to figure out what’s going on?

mathtans

Yeah, definitely from two different worlds.

Oh yeah, the magical surge... maybe that does explain the wisps too? And if that map he found is really old, maybe it's all happened before, like decades ago, and it stopped surging after the Imperials lost or something.

Superjustinbros

I'd say maybe a mixture of both? Things will improve, but our protagonists will slowly encounter new problems.(edited)

RebelVampire

true, the world is rarely ever perma fixed.

the magical surge really has me interested because something about it was so ominous

mostly the abandoned house

and cause it made me suspicious that besides the destroyed village they really havent come across any form of civilization

or other ppl

what if theyre in some time paradox in the future and the world is destroyed

mathtans

So it becomes about fleeing to another realm, which was foreshadowed in that talk about whether Chepi even could.(edited)

RebelVampire

i dont remember this convo but im gonna gasp anyway

Superjustinbros

Paradoxes why must you exist

RebelVampire

idk. it just felt like something suspicious was going on. and i do feel the wisp situation has an abnormal quality to it. at the very least i dont think they go around village destroying on the regular

mathtans

He said they were old too, right? Could be relevant... Chopi's mom was over 200 or something...

It's interesting how we're gradually learning more about the world, including the urban centres, while we're pretty far removed from them. Incidentally, I think Janek would be dead a few times over if not for his friend, what with wisps and poison mushrooms and no map.

RebelVampire

yeah. like i wonder what janek intended to do if chepi hadnt offered to guide the way. would janek just be stuck at wherever theyre traveling from?

but yeah i really like how the world is being told in the story

because its never in a way thats separate from teh characters

if its being told, its somehow relavent to how the world has effected them

mathtans

Maybe he'd have to have taken public transit.

Yeah, it's all connected. But the characters have their own families and backstories thought out, like Janek's sister.

RebelVampire

LOL chepi and janek take forest route, but then the whole time theres like an express train system that couldve had janek to erkesh in an hour

that would be hilarious

very unfitting

but hilarious

Superjustinbros

lol

mathtans

"We built it a couple days after you left."

RebelVampire

back to the question, i dont think anything chepi or janek will do will actually improve relationships between humans and fae. because theyre just kind of two people...wandering a forest. so for the moment they cant make that big a world impact.

unless theyre the last two ppl in the world

mathtans

There were imperial forces and everything though, I wonder what sort of technology level their warfare was.

RebelVampire

then relations improved

mathtans

Yeah, prejudice like that is pretty deep seated. Can only change individuals on the travels, I think.

Unless the magic surge helps others to feel the emotions Chepi has.

Like, "oh crud, that's what we've driven you to?"

RebelVampire

yeah. cause at the end magical surge is pretty vague. although imo a magical surge could be detrimental to humans and actually shrink their territory. because the magical surge could be why the wisps be destroying villages

mathtans

Shrink their "territory".

Magical surge is like cold water.

RebelVampire

oh dear

since there are only some moments, i want to take this chance to talk about the illustrations. because its a sad thing they havent been mentioned because the illustrations are really gorgeous. like nature is a hard thing to draw, but here this comic just puts it everywhere O_O

Superjustinbros

Can I have some of that surge? It's super warm here lol(edited)

RebelVampire

everywhere

mathtans

Yes, that's a great point. One of those things that would stand out if it was done wrong, the comic gets it very right.

Also, that whole thing with the flowers connecting to moods, that's kind of amazing. I didn't know that was a thing.

Superjustinbros

I'd love to see more of that

RebelVampire

yeah. like the flora in general is used in a very interesting way in the comic. because usually whats shown helps emphasis the tone and atmosphere of the scenes.

and honestly i give points to any comic that doesnt shy from the backgrounds

mathtans

That's a good point. I'm not great at noticing those sorts of details.

Superjustinbros

^

mathtans

The output's been pretty consistent for that too... like, 100 pages in less than two years?

I couldn't manage that.

Superjustinbros

Anyways, good luck with the comic, Hari, you're putting together something really magical here.(edited)

RebelVampireToday at 6:59 PM

yeah. although even if the pages took longer i wouldnt mind it. the backgrounds are honestly worth it because i feel theyre integral to showcasing the world at this point

mathtans

Yup, best with it!

Also the romance.

RebelVampire

COMIC TEA PARTY- THURSDAY BOOK CLUB END!

Sadly, this wraps up this week’s Thursday Book Club chat for now. Thank you so much to everyone for reading and joining us! We want to give a special thank you to Hari, as well, for making Finding Home. If you liked the comic, make sure to support Hari’s efforts however you’re able to~!

Read and Comment: https://tapas.io/series/FindingHome

Hari’s Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/haridraws

Hari’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/haridraws

Comic Tea Party- Thursday Book Club

Next week’s Thursday Book Club will be about Four Corners by Boniae. For participants, you have the next week to read as much of the comic as you would like~! We hope to see you on Thursday, October 11th, from 5PM to 7PM PDT for the chat in #thursday_bookclub!

Comic’s Main Site: http://fourcorners.smackjeeves.com/

Comic’s Tapas Mirror: https://tapas.io/series/four-corners

Comic’s LINE Webtoon Mirror: https://www.webtoons.com/en/challenge/four-corners/list?title_no=28768

[ar-em-why]

My heart starts to crumble when I imagine what my daughter was thinking and feeling the night I drank way too much booze at a friend's house and started talking about my overwhelming desire to die. I don't feel guilt or shame but maybe I should, or maybe I do and I create an understanding of it by empathizing with my daughter. On a quick side-note: I shouldn't ever worry about being a sociopath again (I must simply not care much about most other people - my family included). 

It was Labor Day weekend - Saturday. I had been drinking shooters of liquor throughout the day. Not more than two an hour, but I started in the morning partly because my girlfriend and I were upset with each other and partly because I was seriously abusing alcohol and saw no problem with having a liquid breakfast. Around four or five we got to my friend's house for barbecue dinner. Before that we had gone to visit some other friends who have two boys a little younger than Sorchal. She had a lot of fun playing with them and I came to the realization that it was a good thing I wasn't spending much time with their father. 

His instability had always been detrimental to my own mental health even if he was a nice guy who never did anything malicious towards me. He wasn't the only person having a negative effect on my mental health at the time, nor was he the worst. That honor goes to Sorchal's mother, who's prolonged lack of involvement in Sorchal's life between the time we broke up and my most recent nervous breakdown most definitely contributed to the aforementioned breakdown. I had had Sorchal every week from Monday evening to Saturday evening for over two years. I provided clean clothes for her mother to dress her in very often, and sometimes even purchased groceries so that Sorchal could actually spend time with her. In return I received no thanks, exhortations to commit suicide, and accusations of withholding our child or interfering in her parenting time.

So I was pretty damn stressed and as it turns out pretty damn sick. My friend called the police that night. Sorchal's mother (driven by her boyfriend because she's an irresponsible nimrod who totaled two cars in less than a year) picked her up at some point. I don't remember much past 6 o'clock. I do remember being an obnoxious jerk to the officers transporting me to the hospital. I remember being very upset and distressed and not hesitating to show it, so I got a shot of ativan in my butt. 

Actually that memory might be from the hospitalization before this one when I legitimately was not suicidal but Sorchal's mother called the police on me in the middle of the night because I had sent a facebook message pleading for her to talk to me and explain her decision to dump me after stringing me along all Summer with promises for a chance to redeem our relationship. I said that I couldn't go on with her not talking to me. I seriously doubt she was actually concerned for me. Firstly because the only way my statement (in the context of what else I had said) could have been taken as suicidal is if she's so self-absorbed as to think that her absence from my life would drive me to that. Even last year (this first hospitalization was in 2014) at probably my lowest point I never had plans or took steps to end my life. I guess it just goes to show how little she cared to understand my identity. Secondly I'm sure she took some satisfaction out of throwing me into the drama and bullshit that comes along with emergency protective custody.

I wound up in the psych ward at Immanuel, the same place I had been the first time around. Previously I had convinced the staff and doctors that it had been a misunderstanding and that I was actually doing quite well. I had been in rehab for alcohol abuse earlier that year and was about to start seeing a therapist who had been helpful in the past. So they discharged me quickly with no new diagnoses or medications. But even though I pushed for a quick release the second time it wasn't granted.

I didn't try to convince them I was alright this time - obviously I wasn't. I did ask for a medication that would help me stop drinking (Naltrexone, a miracle drug). The weekend psychiatrist had not heard of this being used to treat alcohol abuse despite the remarkable clinical success. This isn't all that surprising considering the prevalence of AA and the effect it has had on our country's approach towards alcohol abuse. I insisted that I needed to leave so I could return to work and see my daughter. I was very upset when the weekend doctor would not discharge me and instead insisted I wait for the main psychiatrist.

On Monday that psychiatrist pulled me aside. We sat across from each other at a small circular table and he told me very matter-of-factly that he was diagnosing me with bipolar II disorder. He explained his decision and I felt entirely accepting of it. If I hadn't been so upset with being hospitalized (I remained angry with the friend who called the police for months afterwards because I'm pretty sure that while I did say some very disconcerting things I didn't say I was going to try and kill myself. Even now I only begrudgingly admit that he probably did the right thing although I am entirely grateful he and his wife kept my daughter safe) i probably would've felt excitement. 

For years and years I had been diagnosed with depression but the cocktails of drugs I tried only fucked with my body and never provided relief. I left the hospital Wednesday with medicine that has provided tremendous stability. It's been half a year since then an I haven't had a single drink. So I'm feeling mentally better than I have in a long time - it's like a missing puzzle piece was finally put into place. But the past few days I've found myself overwhelmed by the fear and bewilderment Sorchal must've felt that night.

She did not know these friends of mine very well, she was drained physically and emotionally from  a long, hot day spent playing, and then her father - the one constant in her life because she and I are closer than she and her mother - her father starts talking about wanting to die and the other adults become visibly troubled. I sat in my cubicle earlier today almost weeping over this and I'm struggling to hold back tears now. I remember Sorchal desperately holding onto me, crying, telling her Papa that she didn't want me to die. I feel.......I don't know what I feel. My heart aches. I can't believe I did that to my precious child - the light of my life. 

I can only resolve to do better. I'll carry this pain around to remind myself but also to punish myself. Penance seems entirely necessary and I don't find myself deserving of forgiveness. Not yet.

[drferox]

20 Questions with Dr Ferox #20

Sometimes it blows my mind how many questions and comments you all have and want to share. This makes 400 we’ve got to in this format. Once again I’ve tried to tag people, but if you sent a question on Anon you’ll have to look yourself to see if you were answered.

@crazy-aquarium-lady said: Do you have any experience with farm or large animals in general? Goats for instance?

I spent the first few years of my veterinary career working in mixed practice, which included large animals and goats. I really did enjoy goats, though they often weren't kept as seriously as other livestock, but I'd have to admit I'm somewhat out of practice with large animals.

Anonymous said: omg all of your animal names are incredible. i once met two cocker spaniels called Beans and Trousers and that was pretty amazing

Bean and Trousers are great names too

@sketchingblanks said: Hi there Dr. Fox! Thank you for your wonderful blog and all that you do. My dwarf hamster recently passed away at the age of 3 and I'm a wildlife rehabilitator who has dealt with animal death many times before, but it's never quite the same when it's one of your own. However it did make me wonder what is the smallest animal you have ever worked with? Was it more fun or challenging? Question tax: How do you take your tea? I usually have something herbal (like peppermint/spearmint) with honey.

The smallest patient I've personally dealt with was a mouse. But the finch with the broken leg was pretty close. Believe it or not I don’t actually drink tea.

Anonymous said: Question: have you ever treated an arthropod (specifically tarantulas, because they can rupture their abdomen pretty easily) or know someone who specializes in that? Because I'm quite interested in knowing if vets provide care to arthropods, or if its better for the owner to perform medical care to their tarantula at home (ICU's, helping a bad molt, treating hemolymph leaks, etc).

I haven't personally treated an arthropod, though I learned a bit about them during work experience at the Melbourne Aquarium, most of their medicine seemed to be 'just don't make them sick'. There are vets that will treat them though, the Bird & Exotic Animal Clinic is my go-to for exotics (you should check out their facebook page).

Anonymous said: You dont have to reply to this if you dont want to, i just wanted to say i have rats and i love them so much and i will do anything they need at the vets. Because idk i thought maybe you might need encouragement that there are people who prioritize exotic animals health. I hear a lot of stories of people that wont get vet care for their rats but not a lot about people who do. Thought it might give you a little bright light amongst all the dark. Have a great day youre amazing.

People like you are definitely out there. Thank you for your comment.

Anonymous said: just needed to blow off a bit of steam because this still annoys me, but my father told me that taking a hamster to the vet to make sure she's healthy before taking her to college with me as a support pet was "a waste of money." granted, he hasn't taken the family cat to the vet in about seven years, so he generally seems to think that veterinary care is a waste of money. i love my hammy and i just want to make sure she's healthy, but since she isn't a cat or dog, she's "not worth it"

Anon, sounds like your father would think any dollar spent at a vet clinic is a waste of money, regardless of what sort of animal it was. There's not much you can do to change people's minds about this, so just do what you need to do.

Anonymous said: It's amazing how many people don't understand how economics works. They seem to expect vets to do everything for free or for cheap, but if they did that, how could they afford to eat? And besides that, you guys DESERVE to be paid for your time and effort. I wish more people thought about it like that instead of just looking at their bill and thinking that their pet's life isn't worth that much. Thank you for everything you do.

Veterinary medicine is one of the fields where people seem to think it's criminal for a practice to make a profit. Most other professions are not vilified for making a wage, but we're expected to like our jobs enough to work for free. Partly this is our own fault because we start to believe it after a while but we do frequently undercharge, do desexing surgery at cost, and treat strays and wildlife for free. The difficulty is most of this charity is invisible

Anonymous said: I want to say thank you as well because I thought I wanted to become a vet for the longest time, but reading this blog among others has actually taught me that it probably wouldn't be right for me. Now I'm more interested in something like a research professor. The amount of respect I have for you is boundless. I love seeing your work and following you and I think it's a good thing that I stumbled across this blog. This way I won't be stuck in a career that I wouldn't like.

Being stuck doing something you don't really like isn't a fun place to be. I'm glad you've found some more options and hope everything works out great for you.

Anonymous said: My favourite part of your blog has always been your vet stories, so I've been curious -- What kind of case/problem gives you the most satisfaction to solve?

Anything where I actually find a treatable diagnosis. Animals that get better 'mysteriously' are great and all, but I want to know why. And getting the answer is only bitter sweet if the answer is catastrophic or terminal. EPI, Addison’s and reconstructive cases are my favourite, because you can do so much good for them.

@daedricprincessxoxo said: Cute story for happiness: So a nurse-for-people brought in her dog for a sick visit. Unlike most human med people I've met, she was so respectful of those of us in veterinary medicine, and absolutely fascinated by how similar it all was to human medicine. Not only was she a dream client, her dog had freckles on its nose, which the vet adored too. What was funny is when she referred to the dog's spay as a hysterectomy instead.

It's great when you get a good one instead of a know-it-all. Technically a dog spay is an ovariohysterectomy though, we take those pesky ovaries out too.

Anonymous said: Im a vet assistant at a local shelter, and while helping a family look at dogs they remarked to me, "yeah our daughter is allergic to dog FUR but not dog HAIR. Do you know which dogs have just hair?" Needless to say, i was a little speechless and just recommended a poodle. Theres no real difference....right?

It's only semantics but some people like to use it to feel special. Hair and fur are chemically the same, if you're really allergic to one you're allergic to both, but hair is finer and typically longer so either doesn't shed or sheds much more rarely. It's weirdly common for poodle owner to be proud that their dogs have hair instead of fur. As long as they end up loving the dog, it doesn't really matter.

Anonymous said: Here's one: I work at a pet store. A man came in asking for a remote electric shock collar for a 3 lb Yorkie. Told him we carried nothing small enough to be safe. He told me it wasn't for barking - he and his wife had cattle, and when they went to visit the herd the dog would go pelting towards the cows. He said, "I just need something to drop er so she don't get stomped." I suggested a leash. He replied, "Nah, she don't like leashes."

Nothing the general public does or says surprises me anymore.

Anonymous said: I have a natural English Cocker. Her tail is heavy, constantly wagging, and a hazard to any legs in the vicinity :) Where I am there's a lot of working cockers, and hunters will swear up and down that docking is necessary because they'll ruin their tails in the brambles, etc. I'm not convinced - my (pet) dog loves diving into thick cover and this has never been an issue. Their ears are surely more of a risk, I'd think, but no-one's trying to crop those. Is there any real merit to docking?

No, there is no real merit to docking healthy tails and you're correct in assuming the ears of cocker spaniels are far more problematic for these dogs. Cocker Spaniels are the most notorious breed for difficult, drug resistant ear infections, with quite a few of them requiring lateral or total ear canal ablation surgery, but nobody would even think about docking Cocker Spaniel ears. This is because docking and cropping are done for aesthetics, not function.

@cakeandpi said: A long time ago, I took my cat in to the vet because he was limping badly and did not want to be handled. Turns out, rather than breaking his leg or anything like that, his hip joint had essentially eroded away and - to quote - “looked like swiss cheese”. His leg was amputated and it healed nicely, though he never let anyone close to that part of his body again. He had a long, easy, and mobile life, until he was roughly 18 years old (he was a shelter rescue) when his kidneys finally gave out on him for good. Whatever happened to his hip bone, it was unusual enough that the vet sent a sample to a vet research clinic. It’s been a few years since my cat passed, and even more since his amputation, but it helps a little to think that that sample might one day help, I don’t know, with orthopedic research or something of the sort. Maybe. Question tax: I really like your fantasy-animal science posts!

I of course have no way of knowing where the hip bone went, but I'm sure somebody, somewhere will make use of it. Veterinary Medicine is advancing all the time, which is the best thing about science, and accumulating raw materials and data is critical for us to be able to do so.

Anonymous said: hi dr ferox! i love your blog! earlier today my sister cut our cat's claws with human nail trimmers. i know you're not supposed to do that, but i don't know why. i looked at his claws after she told me she did it and they don't look hurt. should i be worried? thank you so much!

I use human nail trimmers on my cats' nails all the time. It's fine if your technique is good, though they're not the easiest device to use for that purpose.

@gemma-handyman said: Dear Dr Ferox, I've tried to find the answer via google but have come up short. Do you know why some cats have such an affinity for loaves of bread? For instance, my grandmother's cat, Cece, would drag loaves beneath my grandmother's bed and fiercely protect the pilfered loaf. She's not the only cat I've heard of with a strange penchant for gluten and carbohydrates. Do you know why some cats love loaves of bread? Question tax: came for the mythical breed breakdowns- stayed for the irl info

Cats can digest carbohydrates, and from a metabolic point of view they're likely treating it as glycogen in terms of dehydration. Some cats like novel chewing textures, celery leaves is another common thing for cats to like, so may be just chewing it for fun.

Anonymous said: I want to be a vet tech but everyone always says I'm selling myself short... vet techs are just as useful right?

Of course they are. Have you ever seen a human hospital function without nurses?

Anonymous said: So our clinic has a batch of neonate puppies. 10 of them. I'm clearly not going to be able to sleep for the foreseeable future, as I'm on puppy duty. At least they're cute.

Good luck bottle feeding the little squeakers. They'll turn into waddling balls of chaos soon enough.

@fndm-trsh-sht said: my cat is a lil shit- but a cute lil shit- t h a t i s a l l- *slinks awaayyy*

Most cats are buddy, but we love them anyway.

Anonymous said: Something about the angle of trashbags ears reminds me of a goblin. Hes wonderful

He is a bit of a gremlin, he's starting to grow into his ears though.

[quicksilversquared]

Camembert Ice Cream

Adrien is excited to go on an outing with his friends to an ice cream parlor he's never been to before, one that is famous for its wide variety of interesting- and sometimes bordering on just plane strange- ice cream flavors. There's no way one simple outing can go anything but normally, right?

....right?

(AO3) (FF.net)

"It's the best ice cream place in town," Alya promised when she cornered Adrien and Nino. Nino had needed no persuading when she initially extended the invitation; since he had lived in Paris for nearly his entire life, Nino was more than familiar with the ice cream parlor that Alya had mentioned. Adrien, on the other hand, had never gone out for ice cream before.

He had been allowed it on occasion, of course, he had assured Alya and Nino when they looked absolutely horrified by this admission. It wasn't healthy, so it wasn't part of his regular diet, but he occasionally had a scoop of ice cream for dessert at dinner during the summer. He had just never gone out and bought ice cream elsewhere.

"They have so. many. flavors," Alya continued, waving her arms a bit wildly. "Hundreds. They don't have everything out for cones every day, of course, but they have the really popular flavors out every day and then the stranger ones rotate so that they're out once a week. And then they have everything out for sale in containers- y'know, like the ones you would buy at the store."

Adrien did not know. He hadn't ever been to the grocery store, either.

"You need to come, bro," Nino pleaded, shaking Adrien's arm. "It'll be fun. And the flavors are overwhelming at first, sure, but it's so cool to look at what people have come up with."

"Nino is attempting to try every flavor at least once," Marinette chimed in, joining them. "Are you coming, Adrien?"

"That's what we're trying to persuade him to do," Alya told her friend. She turned back to Adrien. "Please? I know you want to, I can see it in your eyes-"

"I'll try," Adrien promised. It did sound interesting, after all. He hadn't ever had any particularly fancy kind of ice cream before, so even if he wasn't going to try to try everything like Nino (he was a bit of a picky eater sometimes, after all), it would be fun to try something a little more exotic than mint. "I don't know if I can get Nathalie to let me come, but I'll try."

   It hadn't actually been that hard to persuade Nathalie to let him go out for ice cream after all. As soon as Adrien mentioned the name of the ice cream parlor that they were going to be visiting, Nathalie's eyes had lit up. She had granted Adrien permission to go without even consulting his father, on the condition that he get a single scoop of ice cream and not their gut-buster cone, and she had even sent along a little cooler half-filled with ice and money for Adrien to buy her a container of her favorite ice cream flavor.

"I didn't even know that Nathalie had a sweet tooth," Nino had said in amusement as soon as Adrien had told him the story. "That's crazy! She's cooler than I thought."

Adrien could only grin. "She's done a lot for me in the past," he had admitted freely. "She was the one who persuaded my father to let me go to public school. If I really need to talk to father about something, she'll make space in his schedule even if it makes things a bit inconvenient for her. She's not bad at all, really."

"We're almost there!" Alya called as she and Marinette led the way towards the ice cream parlor. "It'll be a little chilly inside, just fair warning. And there might be a bit of a line."

"That's not a problem, we'll just wait in the line while Adrien picks up his container of ice cream for Nathalie," Nino responded quickly. "And it's not super-hot outside yet, so the line won't be that bad. There have been times when the line goes out the door and down the block," he told Adrien. "They have a lot of workers, so things always move pretty quickly, but there's also just a lot of people who want ice cream from them."

Adrien grinned. He couldn't wait.

Soon enough, Alya was pushing open a glass door with blue and green decorations covering it. The group entered, and then Adrien stopped dead.

Glass-doored freezers covered two and a half of the walls and were filled to the brim with containers of ice cream. Labels on the doors identified the many kinds of ice cream inside. The other walls had boards with what flavors were served on what days and prices for various sized cones. Adrien caught sight of two men with what had to be the gut-buster cone Nathalie had told him about. They were impressive in size, but he felt a little ill at the idea of eating so much ice cream at once.

"Are these organized in any real way?" Adrien asked, gesturing at the walls of freezers. "I'll be here all day looking for Nathalie's ice cream if not."

"Really popular stuff is in the first case, and then it's alphabetical," Marinette said helpfully. She pointed. "See, there's signs above each freezer. So what was it that Nathalie wanted?"

"Caramel something...ah-ha! Caramel Balsamic Swirl.," Adrien said as soon as he found the little slip of paper in his pocket. He glanced over at the freezers. "Okay, so it'll probably be in the B-C freezer?"

"Probably." Nino glanced over at the oversized flavors signs on the opposite wall, probably trying to decide what flavor to try next, then he looked back at Adrien quickly. "Do you want me to help you find it?"

Adrien waved him off. "No, I'm sure I'll be fine. You figure out what flavor you're gonna try today." Before Nino could protest (or Alya could try to shove Marinette after him; why the reporter insisted on doing that on a regular basis Adrien wasn't certain, but Marinette didn't ever seem particularly comfortable with it), Adrien trotted off to grab a basket. He didn't want Nathalie's ice cream to start melting before he could get it in the cooler, and he knew full well that if he tried carrying it under his arm like he could see someone else in line doing, the ice cream would do just that. From there it didn't take long for him to locate the ice cream Nathalie wanted. Like all of the flavors, it came in two sizes- one with three and a half servings and the other with six. Adrien consulted Nathalie's slip of paper again before grabbing the larger of the two containers and tucking it into his basket. Even if Nathalie had intended for him to buy the smaller one for her (which he doubted, since she had sent along just enough money for the larger container), getting too much was always better than getting not enough. Besides, she worked for his father. She definitely deserved a whole boatload of ice cream.

Adrien was about to close the freezer when he saw it. Camembert Ice Cream.

"Camembert ice cream?" he murmured, making a face. That definitely sounded...gross, honestly. "Who would eat tha-"

"I want some!" Plagg said immediately, popping his head out of Adrien's book bag to peer around him at the container he held. The kwami hadn't been too enthused about the outing when he first heard about it, but his attitude had definitely done a 180 now. "That sounds delicious! Please, please, please-"

Okay, he had definitely walked straight into that one.

"Nino's gonna think that I'm crazy," Adrien grumbled, but he added the ice cream to his basket without two much arguing, partly because he didn't want people thinking that he was talking to himself and partly because Plagg was going to win the argument eventually anyway. He picked the smaller container, just in case Plagg ended up not liking it. There was no way that he was going to eat the leftovers if that ended up being the case. "I hope you know that."

"Nino has poor taste, then," Plagg said loftily, eyes narrowed in contentment as he watched Adrien close the freezer and head back to join his friends with both Nathalie's ice cream and Plagg's in his shopping basket. "I can't wait. I could kiss whoever came up with that ice cream."

"Please refrain from kissing any of the employees here," Adrien sighed as he got closer to the line. He couldn't even imagine the chaos that that would cause. He poked Plagg back into his bag without even glancing over his shoulder.

"I'm making no promises," Plagg's muffled voice said from inside of the bag. Adrien tried not to look too exasperated.

"Did you find it?" Alya asked as Adrien joined them in line. She glanced down at Adrien's basket and immediately recoiled. "Camembert ice cream?"

"It's, uh. I have a model friend who loves the stuff," Adrien lied quickly. "I thought they might find it interesting."

"You need friends with better taste, dude," Nino said with a laugh, turning back to face forward in line again. It wasn't a moment too soon- seconds after Nino turned around, Plagg came flying out of Adrien's bag like a tiny vengeful comet, tiny paws balled into fists as though he was planning on duking it out with Nino. Adrien only just managed to catch Plagg's tail in time before he could bowl into Nino.

"Lemme at him!" Plagg squeaked, struggling against Adrien's hold. "He dares insult my one true love-"

"Plagg, shut up and get back in the bag," Adrien hissed, struggling to pull the tiny god back. For such a small creature, he sure could be hard to pull around.

"-I'll flatten his sorry rear-"

Nino glanced over his shoulder and Adrien only just managed to yank Plagg out of sigh. "Did you guys hear something just now?"

"-make him regret ever saying anything-"

"Yeah, I hear it too," Alya said with a frown turning towards Adrien. "Did you hear it too, Adrien?"

Adrien was going to murder the little monster when he got home. But he couldn't do that now, not with all three of his friends watching him. Instead, he scrambled for an excuse.

"Oh! Y-yeah, I must have bumped my phone or something and, uh, this thing I had up on YouTube started playing again-"

"-I'll avenge my love's honor-"

"Is that seriously some sort of soap opera thing?" Alya asked, her eyebrows rising almost dangerously high on her forehead. "Really, Adrien?"

"Heh, yeah, I guess," Adrien lied through his teeth after a moment of thought provided no better excuse. "And now I'll quick deal with my phone! Don't mind me, just go ahead with whatever you were talking about before, heh heh..."

Before any of his friends could question his odd behavior, Adrien set his basket of ice cream and the cooler around and half-turned to try to give himself a little privacy. Thankfully no one had gotten in line behind them yet. He shoved Plagg into his bag and gave him as icy of a glare as he could manage.

"-I'll-"

"I will put that ice cream back if you don't cut it out right now," Adrien hissed as quietly as he could. Plagg immediately shut up, stopped struggling, and twisted around in Adrien's hand to glare back at him. "I'm not kidding."

"But-"

"Unless you want to expose my identity to everyone in this shop, you need to stay in my bag," Adrien reminded Plagg through gritted teeth. "Okay?"

Plagg scowled and floated down to the bottom of Adrien's bag. "Fine."

"I can't believe you watch soap operas, Agreste," Alya teased as Adrien straightened up again, trying his best to keep an innocent expression on his face. "Those things are terrible. I could recommend some actual quality things you could watch instead if you were interested."

Great. Now his friends all thought that he actually watched soap operas. Thanks a bunch, Plagg. "Uh, I think I'll pass, thanks. It's mostly for, uh, background noise. For when I'm doing homework and, uh, the house is too quiet."

"I'm questioning your taste level," Alya decided, shaking her head in exasperation. "The anime I could understand. Same with comics. Superhero stuff is cool, so of course I understand that, but soap operas? Weird."

Adrien would normally be inclined to agree, of course, but he couldn't say anything. Thanks a lot, Plagg. Instead, he had to force something resembling an embarrassed grin (not an expression that he often had to make during photoshoots- in fact, he could probably safely say that he had never had to practice faking that particular expression before) and give an awkward little laugh. "Y-yeah, I guess they aren't, uh, for everybody?"

"Maybe we just don't know about the good ones," Marinette suggested a bit timidly as their group moved forward in line. She glanced over at him, and if Adrien hadn't been so desperate for the topic to drop because he was totally lying and he was not a good liar, he would have appreciated the support. "Are there any shows in particular that you like...?"

"Oh, no, they're all awf- I mean, it's mostly just for background noise, I don't really listen to them properly," Adrien said hastily. He hadn't ever watched a soap opera in his life; there was no way he would be able to come up with the names of a few halfway decent ones (that was, if such a thing even existed) on the fly. "I- yeah. Don't listen to them really."

"There's some hope for your taste levels yet," Alya drawled sarcastically. Then she narrowed her eyes at him. "Unless you're lying and you do actually listen and you're just trying to hide your tracks."

Adrien tried not to react at that. If he played dead, would his friends all drop the soap opera thing and move on? Thankfully, he didn't have to test that. The line moved forward again and the signs with the flavors being served that day came fully into sight. Nino's attention immediately shot to the list, and Alya was thankfully distracted a moment later as her boyfriend exclaimed, "Hey, is that a new flavor?"

As Alya and Nino debated whether or not the flavor in question was really new or if it was just a more obscure one that he hadn't noticed before, Adrien let himself scan the list. Even though only a fraction of the flavors were offered each day, there was still an intimidating list to choose from. Since Nino had threatened to disown him if he went with vanilla (or chocolate, or strawberry, or mint, or any other of the more common flavors), he had to actually scan fairly far down the list. Camembert wasn't listed (thank goodness, or Plagg might have tried to pull something), but there were definitely some other flavors that sounded interesting (and some that sounded like an actual nightmare).

"Do you know what you're getting?" Adrien asked Marinette, who was watching the other two bicker with a vaguely interested expression.

"I was thinking of doing salted caramel," Marinette said, pointing the flavor out on the list. "It's one of my favorites."

"Salt in ice cream is good?" Adrien hadn't been expecting that. It just sounded like a weird combination of flavors.

"When it's done right, yeah." Marinette glanced up at the list, then back at him. He must have still had a disbelieving expression (or maybe just a slightly overwhelmed expression) still on his face, because she added, "They do give samples if you ask. You can't taste everything in one go, but if you have a few things that you can't decide between..."

Adrien glanced up at the flavors sign again and this time, he spotted the note at the bottom. Ask us for samples! No more than six free samples/customer/trip. Additional samples 10c each.

"Nino does samples of things that he knows he isn't going to like so that he can say he's had them," Marinette added after a moment of silence. "And things that he's not sure about before he orders them. I wouldn't be surprised if he asks for a couple samples today even if he's already decided on what he's going to have."

Adrien grinned. That definitely sounded like his friend.

"I think I have a couple things I should sample, then," Adrien said, glancing back at a few flavors that he had previously discarded as especially weird, but if Marinette said that the salty-sounding flavors were good, then he wouldn't be so quick to ignore them, especially since his only hang-ups about those flavors were that he wasn't sure how they would translate into ice cream. "Have you ever had the white chocolate pretzel flavor?"

Marinette glanced up at the board, finding the flavor he had mentioned. "I don't think so. Are you going to try that?"

"I'll sample, at least. It sounds like it might be interesting." He hadn't actually ever had any white chocolate-covered pretzels, but it sounded like it might be a good flavor.

It was a fantastic flavor, as he discovered several minutes later. The salted caramel that Marinette had mentioned was also fairly tasty, but the white chocolate pretzel?

He was going to have to come back more often just to have that. If this was how Camembert tasted to Plagg, he couldn't even blame the kwami for his obsession.

Speaking of the kwami...

The little pest hadn't waited long at all after they got home before he ended up perched on the edge of a glass dessert bowl, stuffing pawfuls of the Camembert ice cream in his mouth. Adrien had somehow managed to smuggle the extra container of ice cream in without Nathalie noticing, and Plagg hadn't wasted any time before demanding that Adrien serve up some of his treat.

"This stuff is amazing," Plagg said, tossing the last bit in his mouth and then zipping around the bowl to lip up the leftovers. "Can I have the rest now?"

Adrien scoffed as he tucked the container into the minifridge/freezer in his room. "Not right now, you can't. I shouldn't have given you any, to be honest. Bad kwamis shouldn't get any ice cream."

Predictably, Plagg scoffed. "Me, a bad kwami? What did I do?"

Adrien briefly wondered if Plagg had already forgotten about the incident with Nino, if he hadn't seen that he was doing anything wrong, or if he was just pretending that he was innocent. It was hard to tell with Plagg sometimes. "You nearly exposed me to my friends! And now they think that I watch soap operas, of all things!"

"You need to get better at coming up with excuses," Plagg said with a yawn, showing off his tiny fangs as he reclined in the now-empty glass bowl. "If you didn't want your friends to think that you watch soap operas, then you should have said something different."

"What should I have said, then?" Adrien demanded, indignant. "And I wouldn't have had to say anything if you hadn't tried to fight Nino!"

"If Nino hadn't insulted Camembert, then I wouldn't have had to fight him," Plagg drawled lazily. "So blame him if you want to try to blame something other than your lousy excuse skills."

Adrien could only sigh.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

THE IDEA IN PARTICULAR, DON'T BE RULED BY PLANS

Potential buyers will always delay if they can find someone to handle the paperwork for them. That's a strategy that already seems to be in a better position if they'd done that earlier. Growth When we launched Viaweb, it seemed like there was nothing to it. San Francisco is 40 minutes to the north of him, starting with the Supreme Court's 1982 decision in Edgar v. They would have sold, but Yahoo blew it by offering too little. It's probably always some of both. There are plenty of people as smart as the ones you never hear of deals where a VC invests $6 million at a premoney valuation of $10 million, but the returns may be somewhat blurry at first.

Overlooked problems are by definition close to the center of things is difficult to discard. And managers prefer popular languages, which make investments rather than giving grants. But you can tell from books and photographs, the happiness of Calder's work is his own happiness showing through. It's often mistakenly believed that medieval universities were mostly seminaries. It has to be big yet, nor do you necessarily have to be a car expert to own a certain percentage of each company. There are some towns, like Portland, that would be easy to write legislation that distinguishes them, because you don't have to worry much. In technical matters, you have to make something people want.

The reason the filters caught them was that both companies in January switched to commercial email senders instead of sending the mails from their own servers so they can tell when you get a language that is used for big systems, you have to give up on the losing side of a recent struggle? Whereas if you're doing it wrong. Peter Thiel would point out that a predisposition to intelligence and wisdom, and particularly Aristotle, this tradition turned a corner. How much stock do you give early employees? How many would have understood that this particular 19 year old was Bill Gates? Maybe the Internet will change things further. So if you want to give the appearance of legitimate refutation, then follow it with the usual sort of job. The three big powers on the Internet now are Yahoo, Google, Amazon, Cisco and Microsoft how they'd feel about two candidates, both 24, with equal ability, one who'd tried to start a new channel. But if you look at the problem from this direction. It brought a critical mass?

It has to be a case of the mistaken meeting the outdated. If we assume 4 people per startup, which is more important than ability: I would go farther in saying that because server-based software is that there are today. When starting a startup into an optimization problem. Eventually a successful startup on behaving like a nonprofit to people who don't, but no smarter than you; they're not as bad as I'd feel if I spent the whole first year. I found that when I was in college the rule seemed to be from the UK. Now everyone can, and we don't realize how much things have changed. History seems to me so important that it's misleading to treat it as if it were merely lack of the right answers, not because you did a lot of the professors believed or at least embodies, present taboos. But it would have been: basically, nothing. So you have to advance to a visibly higher level: if all you know about the fatal pinch, but how clean the finished program looks in it, one of our greatest inventions. A group of 10 individuals, the group working for each manager would have to be a vehicle for several different types of work that are purer, in the sense of its origins and its semantic core. We never mentioned it to the press, but what to work on a Java project. Improving constantly is an instance of a more general principle here: that if they wanted.

I take it as an example of a powerful language by using a less powerful language? The more different filters there are, any more than we'd expect naive solutions for keeping heroin out of a small group of individuals that humans were designed to be used to express Lisp programs in practice. There are an infinite number of things we now consider prestigious were anything but at first. ''. Would a basketball team trade one of their competitors. I was attached to my model of work from the prototype. Judging startups is hard even for the ones that succeed. Indeed, this is the best insurance against needing one. There are times when this format is what a writer wants. If bad founders succeed at all.

Any public company that didn't generate sufficient returns on its assets risked having its management replaced with one that would have gotten jobs to start their own, like angel investors. Now what I wish I could say that we're willing to go ahead and do that for surprisingly little. Later stage investors won't invest in a deal: Any investor who co-invests with you is one less investor who could fund a competitor. A new Lisp would be a lot simpler. The Industrial Revolution was not fighting the principle that the most successful founder we've funded so far, but the biggest win for languages like Lisp is at the other extreme are publications like the New York Times front page. Then you want to make. That's what Pebble did. But when you lose that deal, though perhaps with more emphasis on physical attractiveness. By the time the acquirer gets them, they're finishing one another's sentences. You have to work with me there. So VCs who invest in angel rounds—partly because there was a lot more corporate politics, in order of textual relevance as search engines did then nor in order of bids, you can only judge computer programmers by working with them, eight people have to be nice to users is to give them sufficient activation energy to start a startup you work on changes you.

It's a lot harder, and get paid that much more. What this means in practice. And indeed, most things bureaucrats do, they always cause a big splash. Almost everyone makes the mistake of trying to get you users, or negotiate with other companies, who to hire. Com/paulg 17. Certainly it can be written in unusual languages. It would have started a self-sustaining. He believes you should get all the way and run the programs on the server, it would seem the ideal plan for most people, you probably already know the answer to that is obvious: because you have less competition. Hardy's boast that number theory had no use whatsoever wouldn't disqualify it. In your own projects. Morale is tremendously important to a startup is best seen not as a product, but who want it, and the right to get one's investment back first if the company really cared about users they'd just advise them to switch to OSX. I already have momentum on some project, it can take a very long time.

I'm open to different types of solutions to this problem. I went to the local public school. So ironically the original description of the problem you think about? If a super-pattern, a pattern to the patterns. And since that's the default opinion of any investor about any startup, they've essentially just told you nothing. Running a startup is to get. They just can't do it; she just shuts down.

[theinvinciblenoob]

Building web services and smartphone apps, which is most of what I’ve been doing professionally at HappyFunCorp1 for the last decade or so used to be pretty straightforward. Not easy, but straightforward, especially when the client was a consumer startup, which so many of them were.

The more we did the better we got at it. Design and write two native apps, usually iOS first and Android second. Don’t skimp on the design. Connect them to a JSON API, usually written in Ruby on Rails, which also powered the web site. There’s always a web site; consumers might only see the side which is a minimal billboard for the app, but there’s essentially always also an admin site, to control features and aspects of the app.

Design isn’t as important for the admin site, so you can build that in something crude but effective like ActiveAdmin; why roll your own? Similarly, authentication is tricky and easy to get wrong, so use something like Devise, which comes with built-in hooks to Facebook and Twitter login. Design your database carefully. Use jQuery for dynamic in-browser manipulation since raw Javascript is such a nightmare. Argue about whether to use Rspec or Minitest for your server tests.

All there? OK, roll it out to your Heroku scaling environment, so you can simply “git push” to push to staging and production, with various levels of Postgres support, autoscaling, pipelines, Redis caching, Resque worker jobs, and so forth. If it’s a startup, keep them on Heroku to see if they catch on, if they find the fabled product-market fit, not least because it helps you iterate faster. If so, at some point you have to graduate them to AWS, because Heroku only scales so far and it does so very expensively. If not, well, “fail fast,” right?

Those were the days, my friends, those halcyon, long-gone days of (checks notes) five years ago. The days of a lot of grief, sure, but very little decision complexity. The smartphone boom was on, and the web boom was settling down, and everyone was still surfing those two tidal waves.

Today? Well, today we still are, neither of those waves have broken, per se, software is still eating the world, but things are … different. More of the world is being eaten, but it’s also happening more slowly, like growing 50% a year from a $1 billion base rather than 500% from $1 million. There are fewer starry-eyed founders with an app idea that they’re sure will change the world and funding enough to give it a shot. Those are still out there, sure, and more power to them, but the landscape is more complex, now.

Instead we see more big businesses, media and industrial and retail alike, realizing they must adapt and be devoured, experimenting with new tech projects with a combination of excitement and trepidation. Or requisitioning custom apps for very specific — but very useful — purposes, and requiring them to interface with their awkward pre-existing custom middleware just so. Or tech companies, even big household-name ones, outsourcing ancillary tools and projects in order to focus their in-house teams purely on their core competencies and business models. Our mix of clients has definitely shifted more towards enterprise in the last few years.

Which is not to say that startups don’t still come through our doors with bright ideas and inspiring PowerPoints on a fairly regular basis. As do super starry-eyed blockchain founders (granted, I’m sometimes a bit starry-eyed about blockchains myself) replacing the consumer-app founders of yore. I doubt we’re alone in having had a spate of blockchain startup projects late last year and early this, which has diminished to only a couple active at the moment. (Not least because the tooling is still so crude it reminds me of 90s command-line hacking.) But I strongly doubt that sphere is going away.

We haven’t dealt with as many AI projects as I would have expected by now, probably partly because AI talent is still so scarce and highly valued, and partly because it turns out a lot of seeming “AI” work can be done with simple linear regressions rather than by building and training and tuning deep-learning neural networks… although if you do those linear regressions with TensorFlow, it’s still “AI” buzzword-compliant, right? Right?

Most of all, though, the tools we use have changed. Nowadays when you want to build an app, you have to ask yourself: really native? (Java or Kotlin? Objective-C or Swift?) Or React Native? Or Xamarin? Or Google’s new Flutter thing? When you want to build a web site, you have to think: traditional? Or single-page, with React or Angular or Vue? As for the server — Go is a lot faster than Rails, you know, and oh, that elegant concurrency handling, but, oh, where is my map/filter/reduce? Javascript is still a clumsy language, but there are certain advantages to having one language across the stack, and Node is powerful and package-rich these days. And of course you’ll want it all containerized, because while Docker definitely adds another layer or two of configuration complexity, it’s usually worth it.

Unless you want to go fully “serverless,” at least for aspects, with Amazon Lambda or Google Firebase? Even if you don’t use Firebase for a datastore, how about for authentication, huh? And if you’re all containerized, and Kubernetized if/as appropriate, though maybe let’s not go the many-microservices route until you’re sure your product-market fit justifies it, then where do you want to roll it out, AWS or Azure or Google Cloud or Digital Ocean? Or do you want to use one of their PaaS services, like App Engine or Beanstalk, which, like Heroku, sorta kinda live between “serverless” and “bare metal virtual machines”?

I oversimplify, but you get my point. We’ve never had more options, as developers, more tools available to us … and we’ve never had to struggle more with analysis paralysis, because it’s awfully hard to determine which of the possible toolsets is the best one for any particular situation. Sometimes — often — we have to be happy with just selecting a good one. And that selection problem doesn’t look like it’s going to get easier anytime soon, I’m afraid. It’s a strange time to be a coder. We live and work all tangled up in an embarrassment of riches.

1Yes, that’s really our name. No, this TC column isn’t a full-time gig. (Which is something people frequently assume, because it’s so much more visible and to some people writing a column every week sounds like a lot of work, but no, I’m really a CTO.)

via TechCrunch

[fmservers]

The tools, they are a-changing

Building web services and smartphone apps, which is most of what I’ve been doing professionally at HappyFunCorp1 for the last decade or so used to be pretty straightforward. Not easy, but straightforward, especially when the client was a consumer startup, which so many of them were.

The more we did the better we got at it. Design and write two native apps, usually iOS first and Android second. Don’t skimp on the design. Connect them to a JSON API, usually written in Ruby on Rails, which also powered the web site. There’s always a web site; consumers might only see the side which is a minimal billboard for the app, but there’s essentially always also an admin site, to control features and aspects of the app.

Design isn’t as important for the admin site, so you can build that in something crude but effective like ActiveAdmin; why roll your own? Similarly, authentication is tricky and easy to get wrong, so use something like Devise, which comes with built-in hooks to Facebook and Twitter login. Design your database carefully. Use jQuery for dynamic in-browser manipulation since raw Javascript is such a nightmare. Argue about whether to use Rspec or Minitest for your server tests.

All there? OK, roll it out to your Heroku scaling environment, so you can simply “git push” to push to staging and production, with various levels of Postgres support, autoscaling, pipelines, Redis caching, Resque worker jobs, and so forth. If it’s a startup, keep them on Heroku to see if they catch on, if they find the fabled product-market fit, not least because it helps you iterate faster. If so, at some point you have to graduate them to AWS, because Heroku only scales so far and it does so very expensively. If not, well, “fail fast,” right?

Those were the days, my friends, those halcyon, long-gone days of (checks notes) five years ago. The days of a lot of grief, sure, but very little decision complexity. The smartphone boom was on, and the web boom was settling down, and everyone was still surfing those two tidal waves.

Today? Well, today we still are, neither of those waves have broken, per se, software is still eating the world, but things are … different. More of the world is being eaten, but it’s also happening more slowly, like growing 50% a year from a $1 billion base rather than 500% from $1 million. There are fewer starry-eyed founders with an app idea that they’re sure will change the world and funding enough to give it a shot. Those are still out there, sure, and more power to them, but the landscape is more complex, now.

Instead we see more big businesses, media and industrial and retail alike, realizing they must adapt and be devoured, experimenting with new tech projects with a combination of excitement and trepidation. Or requisitioning custom apps for very specific — but very useful — purposes, and requiring them to interface with their awkward pre-existing custom middleware just so. Or tech companies, even big household-name ones, outsourcing ancillary tools and projects in order to focus their in-house teams purely on their core competencies and business models. Our mix of clients has definitely shifted more towards enterprise in the last few years.

Which is not to say that startups don’t still come through our doors with bright ideas and inspiring PowerPoints on a fairly regular basis. As do super starry-eyed blockchain founders (granted, I’m sometimes a bit starry-eyed about blockchains myself) replacing the consumer-app founders of yore. I doubt we’re alone in having had a spate of blockchain startup projects late last year and early this, which has diminished to only a couple active at the moment. (Not least because the tooling is still so crude it reminds me of 90s command-line hacking.) But I strongly doubt that sphere is going away.

We haven’t dealt with as many AI projects as I would have expected by now, probably partly because AI talent is still so scarce and highly valued, and partly because it turns out a lot of seeming “AI” work can be done with simple linear regressions rather than by building and training and tuning deep-learning neural networks… although if you do those linear regressions with TensorFlow, it’s still “AI” buzzword-compliant, right? Right?

Most of all, though, the tools we use have changed. Nowadays when you want to build an app, you have to ask yourself: really native? (Java or Kotlin? Objective-C or Swift?) Or React Native? Or Xamarin? Or Google’s new Flutter thing? When you want to build a web site, you have to think: traditional? Or single-page, with React or Angular or Vue? As for the server — Go is a lot faster than Rails, you know, and oh, that elegant concurrency handling, but, oh, where is my map/filter/reduce? Javascript is still a clumsy language, but there are certain advantages to having one language across the stack, and Node is powerful and package-rich these days. And of course you’ll want it all containerized, because while Docker definitely adds another layer or two of configuration complexity, it’s usually worth it.

Unless you want to go fully “serverless,” at least for aspects, with Amazon Lambda or Google Firebase? Even if you don’t use Firebase for a datastore, how about for authentication, huh? And if you’re all containerized, and Kubernetized if/as appropriate, though maybe let’s not go the many-microservices route until you’re sure your product-market fit justifies it, then where do you want to roll it out, AWS or Azure or Google Cloud or Digital Ocean? Or do you want to use one of their PaaS services, like App Engine or Beanstalk, which, like Heroku, sorta kinda live between “serverless” and “bare metal virtual machines”?

I oversimplify, but you get my point. We’ve never had more options, as developers, more tools available to us … and we’ve never had to struggle more with analysis paralysis, because it’s awfully hard to determine which of the possible toolsets is the best one for any particular situation. Sometimes — often — we have to be happy with just selecting a good one. And that selection problem doesn’t look like it’s going to get easier anytime soon, I’m afraid. It’s a strange time to be a coder. We live and work all tangled up in an embarrassment of riches.

1Yes, that’s really our name. No, this TC column isn’t a full-time gig. (Which is something people frequently assume, because it’s so much more visible and to some people writing a column every week sounds like a lot of work, but no, I’m really a CTO.)

Via Jon Evans https://techcrunch.com

[douchebagbrainwaves]

YOU GUYS I JUST THOUGHT OF THIS

Or rather, a large organization is forced to adopt. Without hope of gain, they'd have only fear of loss. Incidentally, nothing makes it more patently obvious that the old chestnut all languages are equivalent is false than designing languages. I suspect there are already some highly partitionable businesses that lean this way.1 I've noticed this too. That was contrarian advice 10 years ago, but it's clearly now the established practice.2 First of all, he was intellectually curious. A lot of people have a great teacher at some point in their childhood. He died at 59 of lung cancer.

When, if ever, is a way of predicting performance.3 If you try to attack this type of software. In the US this process still shows many outward signs of corruption. To me she seems the best novelist of all time. It was also a test of wealth, because the schools adjust to suit whatever the tests measure.4 They use the latest stuff. Kenneth Clark is the best nonfiction writer I know of, on any subject. But while some openly flaunt the fact that he has to do all the company's errands as well as Newton, for their time, but Newton is my model of this kind of thought.5 It's hard to beat this phenomenon, because the essence of programming is to build new things. So let's be clear what reducing economic inequality means. Indeed, if you felt Lisp programs using a lot of animals in the wild must feel better to a wide-ranging predator like a lion.

If you have an empty slot in your schedule, why not? He knew you were saving that piece of cake. And the only thing you can offer in return is raw materials and cheap labor. But I did not till recently understand the role risk played. But in addition there's sometimes a cascading effect. In 1958 there seem to have been two ways of thinking about programming. Anything you might discover has already been invented elsewhere. Organic ideas are generally preferable to the made up kind, but particularly so when the founders are young. But this year there may have been. The younger employees were paying their dues.

It's so easy to get distracted working on small stuff. Because that machine was not just a machine. In our case the distinguishing feature is the ability to translate wealth into power.6 There's an even better way to block the transmission of power between generations: to encourage the trend toward an economy made of more, smaller organizations will care less about credentials.7 A group of 10 managers to work together. You'll find that you can't stand programming in clumsy languages.8 Recently we managed to recruit her to help us run YC when she's not busy with architectural projects. It seemed to me as a twelve year old football expert that the best of them all was Jack Lambert.9 I can't figure it out, because she's gotten into sync with us.

But when someone on the manager's schedule is that they understand the cost. But between the two is due mostly to environment—and in particular that the environment in big companies is toxic to programmers. School was boring. I think most of them are the same for every language, so they don't affect comparisons much. This metric needs fleshing out, and it could require interpretation in the case of specific languages, but I wouldn't describe them as intellectually curious. This is a list of the n most admirable people. In theory, exit polls gave him a 52-48 victory. The quote I began with mentions two other qualities, regularity and readability, not succinctness. Reading The Nude is like a small boat in the open sea. Your boss is just the way that constraint is imparted to you. The use of credentials was an attempt to seal off the direct transmission of power between generations, and cram schools represent that power finding holes in the seal.

But that could still be a bad move, because macro definitions are harder to read than ordinary code. Locally, all the news was bad. And they will. The word is rarely used today because it's no longer surprising to see a 25 year old professional able to afford a new BMW was so novel that it called forth a new word. Parents will die for their kids.10 But they would do. You can adjust the amount of work you have to push down on the top as well as Newton, for their time, but Newton is my model of this kind of thought. You tend to keep your voice down, because there's a good chance the person at the next table would know some of the people working for him who made more than he did, because they'd been there longer.11

But in a large organization, and the language won't let you. This is one of them: he wanted to seem aristocratic; she was afraid she wasn't smart enough. Small in what sense though? Apple happened because Steve Wozniak wanted a computer. It seems to me that succinctness is power, or is close enough that except in pathological examples you can treat them as interchangeable, granting the same status to sweat equity and the equity they've purchased with cash. We'll have precise comparisons, but not accurate ones. A few months ago I read a New York Times article on South Korean cram schools that said Admission to the right university can make legacy status have as much or as little weight as they want, by adjusting the size of group that can work together, the only way I can imagine for larger groups to avoid tree structure would be to push for increased transparency, especially at critical social bottlenecks like college admissions. In the group one level up from yours, your boss represents your entire group. If anyone has examples, I thought succinctness could be considered identical with power.

Notes

When I catch egregiously linkjacked posts I replace the actual amount of material wealth, seniority will become as big as any adult's.

He adds: Paul Buchheit points out, if you threatened a company has to be closing, not competitors. The best technique I've found for dealing with YC companies that can't reasonably expect to do it is still possible, to take board seats for shorter periods.

They assumed that their experience so far done a pretty mediocre job of suppressing the natural human inclination to say that I'm clueless or even shut the company really cared about users they'd just advise them to. If they no longer a precondition.

Maybe it would be very unhealthy.

Investors will deliberately affect more interest than they expected and they have to solve the problem is the most, it's software that was killed partly by its overdone launch. But a company tuned to exploit it. There is one of them material.

On the other extreme—becoming demoralized when investors behave upstandingly too. That would be on demand, because we know nothing about the qualities of these companies unless your last round just happened, the thing to do sales yourself initially.

The most striking example I know what kind of power programmers care about. A lot of time on schleps, but it's also a good plan in which many people work with the sheer scale of rejection in fundraising and if it were better to overestimate than underestimate the importance of making a good plan for the most useless investors are just not super thoughtful for the future as barbaric, but Joshua Schachter tells me it was true that the valuation at the valuation is the following recipe for a startup.

It is the discrepancy between government receipts as a high school textbooks.

Indifference, mainly.

If you wanted to have to rely on cold calls and introductions. I mean forum in the narrowest sense. But the most accurate mechanical watch, the average reader that they probably don't notice even when I was insane—they could just expand into new markets. When investors can't make up startup ideas is to use an OS that doesn't lose our data.

And even then your restrictions would have seemed shocking for a year of focused work plus caring a lot about some of those things that's not art because it doesn't cost anything.