#locked in a library

[futurebird]

1 Truancy

Part One - Part Two

At that private girl's school the teachers were not very aware. Or maybe, because the students were, generally, such goodie-two-shoes, it never occurred to them that a 5th grader might cut class. To my credit, the first time that I cut class? That was by accident. Things had not gone well at recess. I don't remember what exactly happened, but I was crying and angry didn't want to stay outside anymore. I went inside as if just going to the bathroom, but when I got to the bathroom I kept walking. It was a sunny spring day, nearly everyone in the school was outside. I could hear the noise from the playground, squeals, shouts, laughter and also the strange spidery echo the red bouncing balls made in the narrow alleyway in back. It was like the sound that The Bionic Man made when he jumped. But, inside? It was quiet. I peered into empty classrooms. Everything was still. Papers on the desks, coats and bags in the cubbies. The teacher's slim leather bag and next to it: a ring of keys. On an angry impulse I grabbed them.

When we'd prepared for the Christmas play we'd gone up to the attic to find costumes and supplies. Mrs. Nevens had even given me the keys once by myself so I could fetch an extra halo. The keys felt heavy and important. Going to the attic again sounded like a lovely idea. I made my way quickly to the 3rd floor by the "servant's stairs" (There weren't any "servants" at the school, but everyone called the smaller, more hidden staircase that for some reason. It always felt a little pretentious. The school was in an old red-brick building, like an overgrown house. ) I made my way past the music room. And the hallway lined with photos of each Senior class in white dresses for graduation. I unlocked the door to the attic stairs-- and then, still thinking fast, I ran all the way back to the 5th grade classroom and replaced the keys on Mrs. Neven's desk. As I ran back to the attic, I wondered if Mrs. Nevens would notice that the keys weren't in the same position. I imagined an investigation. Detectives would photograph the keys after placing a little numbered marker next to them. Evidence. I imagined a search party looking for me! The discrepancy in the placement of the keys would be their only clue. But, still wrestling with tears as I ran up the "servant's" stairs, I didn't care. There were so many keys on the ring, how could they guess which one I'd used? (It didn't occur to me that no one would notice that the keys were moved-- or that no one might notice that I was even gone at all!) I reached the attic and the darkness of the attic stairs! The door I'd unlocked closed behind me. Sudden panic. It had locked! (Later I would learn to use gum, and tape, and at long last key copying to make the attic less of a prison.) But, on that first time I was locked in. Part One - Part Two

[demigods-posts]

i like to believe that annabeth is the type of person to adopt random skills each time you see her. like, she'll leave for a quest and return knowing how to breakdance. or, she'll lock herself in her room for a few hours to study for a school exam and will leave her room that same afternoon knowing how to beatbox.

[amateurasterism]

what it means to believe.

synopsis ; itoshi sae doesn’t believe you and him could exist. but the universe is against him and helps him realize that maybe it can.

pairing ; itoshi sae + fem!reader

notes ; dramatic!sae, possible ooc!sae, a LOT of pining, angst?? idk, fluff, cute lil brother rin, strangers to friends to strangers to friends to lovers, fake dating. first bllk fic yuhh

word count ; 4.2k

SIXTEEN.

itoshi sae wants you. but he knows all too well that even though you’d make him a good person, he makes you a bad person. he’s not good enough for you.

which is why you believe itoshi hates you.

every day he enters your classroom, those pretty teal eyes not sparing even a flicker towards you, despite the fact you sat next to him.

that is exactly sae’s problem—he’s hanging on the edge of a cliff, sitting here next to you. he’s holding on to his final pieces of dignity just trying not to turn around and look at your pretty face.

as much as it twists his blocked off heart, he settles with your fallen lips and downturned eyes because he’d rather you hate him than let himself fall into your innocent smile. he wouldn’t fill you with that false hope, because in the end he’d ruin you.

you didn’t deserve someone who would prioritize a sport over relationships. soccer meant too much to him.

SEVENTEEN.

he told himself he wouldn’t get attached, but deep down he knew somehow, because fate had its ways, he would. he always knew at some point, he would fall from that ledge he’d been hanging on since he was sixteen.

turns out, he was falling today.

ring! ring!

“rin! go open the door, that’s your new babysitter,” mrs. itoshi calls from the living room. she turns to her older son, “can you go with him, sae?”

internally groaning, sae gets up and follows his green-haired brother to the gigantic front door of their luxurious house. to his surprise, rin was already there, chatting cheerfully with his new babysitter. odd—rin wasn’t usually chatty with his caretakers.

“i know you!” rin jumps, pointing to the babysitter’s face. sae wonders who it must be for rin to recognize you so excitedly. 

“oh really? where from?” the voice is sweet, sounding too much like something sae knew all too well—

“my brother’s phone! he says you’re the prettiest girl—”

before rin can finish, sae appears in the doorway, hand over his brother’s mouth and ears blending into his pink hair. you stare at the sight, eyes wide in bewilderment.

“stop lying,” sae says firmly. “i never said that.”

rin whacks sae’s hand off. “you did, though.”  

“i’ll play soccer with you later if you don’t talk about it.”

you watch, amazed, as rin looks up at his brother in utmost adoration and disbelief, “promise?”

sae nods, and rin runs away with the biggest smile you’d ever seen.

now, it was just you and sae. you and the guy you were convinced hated you. sae and the girl who soccer stood in the way of. in another universe, one where sae didn’t love soccer as much as he did, he thinks you could be standing here as part of the itoshi family, rather than just “rin’s new babysitter.”

but it seemed like this universe was against sae, because he just about died inside when you smirked at him, voice full of mocking as you say, “so, the prettiest, hm?”

his hand let go of the cliff in that moment, and he knew he was screwed.

EIGHTEEN.

you’ve been rin’s longest-standing babysitter thus far, lasting a year now. but you’re not sure if it’s because you’re a special babysitter, or because you happen to be attracted to rin’s older brother.

you were seventeen when you were sure itoshi sae hated you.

but now you’re eighteen and believe something exists between you.

you’d be stupid not to. stupid not to notice the way he greeted you at the front door every time you came over, his teal eyes flitting to you whenever he came home to the sight of you and rin playing soccer in the backyard, your favorite snacks you only told him about always fully stocked in their pantry. and especially stupid to not notice the smiles he let escape his lips whenever you made an effort to talk to him before you left. it made you feel special knowing you were the only person at school who knew that smile.

but then you realize; maybe you were stupid. because somehow, without knowing, you managed to fumble and a week after sae’s eighteenth birthday, he disappeared.

sae could tell you thought you were stupid. he knew from the fallen smile every time you watched him head straight to his room and hide when he came home, acting like you weren’t there. slowly returning to the ignorance you thought you’d escaped when you were seventeen.

he wishes he could tell you that in truth, he was the stupid one. stupid for allowing those heart-turning moments to happen. he hates himself for being so stupid.

because he knew you and him—“us”—couldn’t exist. together wasn’t fate. he hates himself for not having enough self-restraint to stop talking to you, giving you that hopeful shine in your eyes, when he knew this would happen the whole time.

“this” being soccer. fuck. it was always soccer for him.

which is why it didn’t take him a second thought to accept the letter in his hands inviting him to play for the royales in spain. the flight was already two months from now.

so sae used every ounce of self-restraint his body owned, and left you alone for two months. still, he couldn’t help himself from watching through his bedroom window as you and rin played soccer, wishing that proud look in your eyes every time rin scored a perfect goal would be coming with him to cheer him on in the frontlines in spain instead.

two months later, a week after landing in spain, you still haven’t left sae’s mind. he knew he distanced from you in his last months in japan, trying to nonverbally tell you that together wouldn’t happen for you two; yet you wouldn’t listen. of course you didn’t. hopeful, cheerful you wouldn’t let go of him that easily.

so he allows himself this once to look at the message you sent him, asking to talk, at a photo he took of you that week before he ceased to be in your life. as he leaves the messages on sent, watching the date under your last text get further in the past, he realizes that now you’re really gone. he misses those scraps of together you had.

hah. he could almost laugh at how cruel the world was for giving you both a taste of what could’ve been.

TWENTY-ONE.

at twenty-one, itoshi sae has become one of the world’s best midfielders. and with that, of course came delusional and obsessive fans. 

he hadn’t properly dated anyone since he’d moved abroad—didn’t care enough for more than an occasional one-night stand. soccer took up his time anyways.

but part of him wonders that maybe, in those small moments with you so long ago when you were seventeen, part of him allowed himself to save himself for you. not that he would ever admit it. 

nonetheless, his media manager wouldn’t allow him to say he didn’t care, so he begrudgingly agreed to respond with “it’s none of your business who i’m dating.” when the painfully annoying interviewers bombard him with personal questions after every game. 

unfortunately, his media manager was getting tired. “you need to spark some rumors to the public, sae. the fans will get bored.”

“rumors about my love life have nothing to do with soccer. if all the fans want are updates on my love life, then they shouldn’t be fangirling over a soccer player.”

“you have the business party tomorrow night. how about i sign you up with someone to bring? you don’t need to talk or anything. just stay with her for the night. it will at least help your image with the soccer companies.”

sae didn’t have the energy for arguing. “i’ll do it as long as i get to choose who i’m bringing.” his manager lit up at the agreement. 

later, sae realizes as he knocks on his apartment neighbor’s door in search of a fake date, that this is the stupidest thing he could be doing. he could only hope his neighbor wasn’t some old man and he wasn’t about to get in more trouble than he signed up for.

luckily, it wasn’t. in fact, it was you.

sae swears he nearly faints. you watch, jaw unhinged in pure disbelief as his teal eyes blink twice before returning to their original stoic expression. three years older than you were when he left, he notices you’ve matured, somehow prettier. he didn’t know that was possible.

“sae?” you squeak. god, he missed that so much. missed the way his name rolled of your tongue and how you’d have to look up him with that hopeful expression of yours every time you said it. 

“y/n.” he had practiced how to ask on his way home, but didn’t expect to be saying it to you standing in the apartment complex hallway wearing shorts and an oversized t-shirt. all the words disintegrate on his tongue. “i need a fake date for a business party tomorrow.” he wants so slap himself for sounding so dumb. what happened to “hi! how are you?”

it takes a while for you to register his words. you’re a bit shocked, not only that sae was here, in front of you, after three years, but also because all the interviews led you to believe he had a girlfriend. you wouldn’t be lying if you said you weren’t glad at the fact he was single. “oh! i would, but i just moved in yesterday…i don’t have anything nice to wear.”

he watches your smile falter the slightest bit, feeding his sliver of hope that maybe, just maybe, you wanted to go with him. he’s so selfish for this, letting you back into his life and feeding your hope again, even knowing he wasn’t right for you. “wait.”

he reaches into his back pocket, pulling out his wallet and shuffling through to find two 100 dollar bills, handing them to you. “here. buy yourself something nice. i’ll pick you up here at 6:30 PM tomorrow.”

“are you sure?” you hand back one of the bills. “i don’t need that much.”

“no. i’m sure.” he gulps. does he sound desperate? “treat yourself to something nice.”

“we’ll, if you insist. thank you, sae! i’ll see you tomorrow. it was nice seeing you after so long,” you smile up at him, and sae has to fight back his own.

“yeah. thank you.”

you shut the door. for a moment sae stands in the empty hallway, staring at your door.

the universe really was against him, leading you back to him after he detached himself so long ago.

after a restless night of thinking about a certain someone and a morning practice in which his teammates picked at him for being out of the game for some reason, it was finally time for the dinner party. he knocks on your door, and when you open it, his mind goes blank at the sight of you. he thinks he’s going insane.

how could he not, when you’re standing there looking like that. he’s glad he let you treat yourself, because you choose a dress in a color that complimented your skintone and hugged the shape of your body perfectly. he doesn’t know how it’s possible, but the makeup you put on made you look even prettier, even under the dull apartment hallway lighting.

he still isn’t over how breathtaking you are three hours into the party. true to fake dating fashion, you and sae stay next to each other the entire night, occasionally drifting into separate conversations. you find that many people are quite interested in you and sae’s “relationship” since he’d been so secretive of it. thankfully, on the car ride to the party you and sae had figured out your fake backstory. although it wasn’t so fake, considering you told them you were childhood best friends and happened to reunite due to both of you going abroad for soccer and college.

being with you the entire night filled the void in sae’s heart that had settled when he left you in japan. being around you reminded him that happiness is a thing that just, exists. he thought soccer was enough to make him feel whole, but you brought in so many emotions he couldn’t feel with anything or anyone else.

so later that night, when you’re too drunk to be alone, sae lets you lean against him on the way to your apartment, lets you pull him into the couch with him and wrap his arms around you because it felt right. when he feels you fall asleep in his arms, he knows he’s doomed for anyone else’s embrace. no one can compare to you.

TWENTY-TWO.

“do you really want to do this?” sae whispers into your ear.

“shut up and kiss me, everyone’s staring.”

you lean in, hand tugging on the black tie of the suit he was wearing to tonight’s party. you’ve been fake dating for a year now, so the kiss to seal everyone’s belief was inevitable. it was right here, your eyes starting to flutter as you both lean in, breath hot and tense against each other—

“stop.” sae pulls away at the last second, leaving you in front of the party as he shamefully walks out the venue.

he can’t do this. he can’t kiss you like this. it’s not like he doesn’t want to—in fact, it’s all he’s ever wanted since he was sixteen. but he doesn’t want the first kiss with you to be for a crowd. he wants it to be out of love. a foolish part of him in that moment five seconds ago thought maybe there was something like love about to be shared in that kiss, but the sensible part of him wasn’t so sure. how can he believe its love if he doesn’t even know its real? how can he believe all those smiles across the room and moments drunk after a party in your living room weren’t for the facade?

“itoshi sae!” he’s outside, on the stairs of the grand venue at midnight when he feels your wrist grab his. he can feel about a hundred emotions in the tightness of your grip.

“what the hell was that?!” you’re fighting back waterworks. “itoshi sae! look at me for fucks sake!”

slowly, he turns around to face you. those teal eyes you loved so much take a moment to lock onto your teary ones, hesitant as he knows he’ll crumble at the responsibility of those tears. yet, his face is still stoic as he listens to you talk.

“are you dumb?!” yeah, he thinks.

“you can’t lead me to believe there was something between us, the same way you did when we were seventeen, and then let it all come crashing down by running away the moment you have to make it look real by kissing me! you confuse me, itoshi sae. i don’t care abut this fucking fake relationship anymore! i don’t care that everyone knows we were pretending to date! goddammit, sae, i just need you to talk to me! tell me what’s real, because i can’t keep doing this if its leading me down to unknown—”

oh.

oh.

suddenly all the words you had spat on him dissolved in the air, replaced by the enamor of his lips landing on yours.

your eyes shut, letting yourself fall into this one kiss that held the feelings of it all—every single happening between you since you met in that classroom when you were sixteen. it’s an initially reluctant kiss; sae’s lips are slow and tentative against yours, almost like he’s scared he’s touching a piece of artwork on display, like if he moves even slightly wrong he’ll mess it all up. but then it all feels right, and your lips are against each other like that was how they were sculpted to be.

later that night, sae decides that together could exist. and with the words “can you be my girlfriend?” he made it real. maybe the universe wasn’t against him after all.

TWENTY-THREE.

a year after you start dating, sae has said i love you in every way but “i love you.”

you’re his happiness. you’re everything he didn’t know he could have when it was just him and soccer. you complete itoshi sae. and he makes sure you know that.

he says it in his expression whenever teammates or business partners will tell him “i’ve never seen you so happy before” when he walks into the room after kissing you goodbye, trying to stifle a giddy grin and keep up the stoic itoshi sae they all know.

“you’re sunshine as a person. i hope you know that.” is what he said a month after it was official, five seconds before the photo you forced him to take with you at the beach was taken, which is now the photo on his lockscreen that captures the lovesick look that never ceased even after a year.

he says it in every kiss you share before every game, the discreet grins he gives you after he scores that he hides from cameras because he wants to save you from the public.

“you’re the prettiest girl i’ve ever laid my eyes on.” as quiet whispers against your ear when you put on a dress he bought for you for the business parties or fancy dinner dates that long ceased to be fake.

he says it whenever you get mad at him, and he knows he’s wrong, but hates being scolded by you so he pinches your cheeks with his thumb and index finger to shut you up, loving your flustered expression whenever he does it.

“i’ll never get tired of you.” whenever you feel like you’re not enough for the world-famous midfielder that so many girls would die for.

he says it in the way he falls into your body, arms and legs wrapping around any part of your body he can reach and shutting his eyes, not saying a word as you tease him for being so spent after his tough workout routines.

“no.” whenever you ask for him to do something because you’re absolutely beat and too tired from work to be bothered to do late-night house chores, but you can already hear his feet tapping against the floors as he gets up to do it for you.

he says it in the cocky look he gives to the camera, the public being able to see it but the look in his eyes only being reserved for you, whenever the interviewers ask “who’s the lucky girl?” and he responds with “none of the media’s business.” his manager always gets mad for coming off as rude, but sae doesn’t care if it means protecting you from crazy fangirls.

“doesn’t mean i don’t want to spend every second of my day with you.” when you insist on staying out of his way on his busier days but he wants you by his side when he has small breaks.

he says it in his expression whenever you make him do something he says is “dumb,” but because you’re doing it with him you can tell just from his pink ears and bright teal eyes that he loves it.

needless to say, when you’re stood at the itoshi mansion’s front door, grocery bag in hand as you just came back from a quick run during you and sae’s week-long visit to japan, you’re all but shocked when your boyfriend opens the door and says “i love you.”

you aren’t sure what triggers him to say it at such a random time. maybe it’s because this place that you stood at six years ago when you were seventeen, exchanging words for the first time, made sae think about just how lucky he was to have you in this life. there was no more thinking about universes where “us” existed, because this it. but either way, it feels right.

“i love you too, sae.”

TWENTY-FOUR

the words “i love you” still give you and sae the same giddy feeling a year later.

“i love you,” sae slurs, voice still deep from morning fatigue. he traces figures of your names, soccer balls, his number “10” on your back with his finger, his other arm holding you secure as you lay on top of him. you look pretty like this, he thinks, bathed in the morning sunlight that filters through his bedroom window and eyes still slightly puffy from just waking up.

“again,” you smile into his chest, urging him on.

“i love you.”

“again.”

“i love you.”

“running out of oxygen here, love.”

you laugh at that, but insist anyways. “again.”

“no.”

“wow, sae. i guss you don’t love me anymore. how fake of you.”

your boyfriend sighs at your antics, “i loved you when you first got sat next to me when we were sixteen and in highschool, and i’ll love you forever.” 

you give him a kiss, muttering the words back. 

“speaking of,” you start, “i thought you hated me in highschool.”

“no. but i hate you now for bringing it up.”

you slap him on his arm. a moment of silence.

“i was just scared. you were too good for me, and i knew i wouldn’t be enough because i prioritized soccer more than anything. i didn’t think we could be together until you became my neighbor. then i thought that maybe we could.” he hides his face in your hair to hide his flush.

that rises a teasing grin out of you, giving him a quick peck on the lips, “i didn’t know mr. grumpy had it in him to be so romantic! what starcrossed love.”

“shut up, y/n.”

the bedroom is filled with quiet laughter. as it falls, his mind thinks back to the letter hidden in his closet, inviting him to play for japan’s national team with the newly rebuilt team that came out of the blue lock project. he was willing to sign up, as he had seen firsthand a couple years ago how powerful japan’s team was with their new striker. but it required him to move back to japan.

“y/n.”

“yeah?”

he’s scared. even though you had just been joking about it, he was still scared this would be the moment where his soccer career ruins it all for you. what if you weren’t willing to move back to japan with him?

“i’ve been invited to play for japan’s national team.”

he lets the words sit in the air, lets you process it. he gets nervous as each second comes by without response, then it finally comes.

“okay. if this means going back to japan, i don’t mind. i’ll go wherever you go, sae.”

“are you sure?”

“i mean it when i say this is the place i want to be. anywhere with you.”

god, he didn’t think he could love you any more. he presses a kiss to your lips.

once, when he was sixteen, itoshi sae firmly believed that soccer would get in the way of you and him.

now, he is twenty-four and laughs at his past self for thinking that. you were his, and nothing would ever get in the way of that.

TWENTY-FIVE

you and sae moved to japan a month ago, in your shared apartment. you would be lying if you said you didn’t like it here more. you especially like being able to be close to the itoshi family, specifically rin. you often spent time with the younger itoshi when sae was busy.

today, though, was sae’s turn to visit his family. he had something important to talk to them about.

rin greets him at the front door, telling sae that their parents wouldn’t be home until an hour from now. the pink-haired was too lazy to make the trip and back, so the brothers settled on playing soccer in the back while waiting. sure enough, after half an hour they found themselves sweaty and panting on the grass. it’s quiet until rin lets out words he’d been holding.

the green-haired turns, looks at his brother. “y/n’s good for you.”

although a bit taken aback, sae remains cool. he almost chuckled. “i would hope so. i’ve been dating her for three years.”

“you should marry her.”

to rin’s surprise, sae snickers, hand discreetly moving towards his pants pocket. “i know. already got the ring.”

one reblog = one fake date

[cr0ws-doodles]

average gay person with religious trauma bookshelf

[man-central-positive-mission]

https://shelly-926.ludgu.top/zm/19t24op

https://shelly-926.ludgu.top/zm/19t24op

[moonfirerainbow]

Harrow the ninth feels like someone tried to tell Tamsyn Muir “you can’t do that wtf” and in true Gideon fashion she said “try me, bitch” armed with aviator sunglasses, pettiness, and the power of Jod and anime on her side

[indatsukasa]

The brilliance of the seven luminaries confined in quartz

[tiffanyachings]

what if…..

ahahaha just kidding……….

UNLESS…??

[fullmetalbee]

I was listening to the GTN audiobook and I was at the bit from chapter 21 where Camilla mentions that soul siphoning normally causes brain damage, and that Colum probably does have brain damage:

And now I can't stop thinking about Augustine basically calling Cristabel an idiot in chapter 17 of HTN

Was it just the siphoning??

[sulasnsleep]

“But when she was scared, she was a child again, and she was more afraid of being a child again than anything else in her life.”

—Tamsyn Muir, Harrow the Ninth (The Locked Tomb, #2)

[a-big-apple]

ok locked tomb fam, we’re getting closer to october and the original release date for Alecto, and i’ve been seeing an uptick in anxious/aggravated fans in the tags wondering when we’ll get any new info. waiting is very hard, i feel it too, so i wanted to share some things i have gleaned about publishing through a masters degree and a decade of bookselling!

the book is not coming out in october. the marketing would have started months ago if it was—and there’s no way that the final book in a series as on the radar as TLT would have less marketing than the previous books did. the galley isn’t out there yet either, as far as i’ve seen. i think a fall or winter release is extremely unlikely at this point.

book publishing, for the most part, is not willy nilly. marketing has to thread the needle between starting too early (risking losing the attention of the casually interested) and starting too late to build a good buzz. release dates have to take into account what other books are coming out at the same time—not just what Tor is putting out, but likely what their parent company, macmillan, is putting out. i know this is capitalism at work, but this is the system we live in: they don’t want similar or similarly big books in the same company or imprint competing with each other, it can hurt sales all around. 

Tamsyn said in an interview back in december ‘22 that Alecto was written, but editing had not begun yet. editing takes a lot of time, and marketing steps are frequently linked up—announcing a release date hinges on how close the book is to being ready, especially since the original release date is no longer applicable, and getting books ready for print takes a lot of time and a lot of steps!

the biggest times of year for book releases, especially highly anticipated books, are Oct/Nov before holiday shopping starts, and Mar/Apr/May. obviously that’s not true for every book, but this is a big book for Tor, and big books get better spots in the release calendar. if i had to make an educated guess, i would wager Alecto will probably come out in spring ‘24, and we won’t start to see announcements or marketing until after the official release of the Nona paperback on Sept 12. again, this is sales driven: news about Alecto could muddy the waters for the Nona paperback and impede sales, especially since there’s new content in there. i think it’s likely we’ll hear something a little later in the fall.

i’m not as plugged into publishing as i used to be, so i am fully prepared to be wrong about any of this—it’s just assumptions based on what i’ve experienced of the book industry.

either way though, a point i want to make is that nobody at Tor is witholding information from us maliciously. there are a million moving parts in making and marketing a book (and i’m sorry, but huge Hollywood movie releases that are topically resonant but not actually related do not have any effect on publishing schedules). most of those moving parts are human beings: Tamsyn, trying to tie up the series under enormous pressure, still during a pandemic; her editor, who has other books to edit at the same time, and surely wants to do this work justice; Moira Quirk, hopefully, bringing her genius to recording the audiobook; copy editors, designers, marketing people, all of whom are people, many of whom are overworked and underpaid in an industry that is largely not unionized. 

they’re not trying to fuck with us. i understand where these impulses come from, but getting angry, begging, pestering, none of that is going to change the plain fact that you can’t market a book until you have an almost-ready book, and Alecto is one that Tor will want to put the best tactics and timing behind. be patient a little longer. fuck corporations and capitalism, but have empathy for the individuals who will put Alecto in our hands from within a very flawed system. Tor has a long and successful history in speculative fiction publishing, they know what they’re doing.

[the-rat-eatery]

"There's my sword," Gideon said. "Pick it up- -pick it up and stop looking at me, dick. Don't. Don't you dare look at me."

-

“I can not conceive of a universe without you in it”

“I will never ask anything of you, ever again, if you just give me back the life of Gideon Nav”

“How dare you ask me to live with it?”

[ktysh]

charlie thought it would be a good idea to step outside once in a while to work somewhere outside of his little office nook. that way he would be staring at his laptop anyway, but... well, he didn't think of a "but" yet.

his favorite cafe was packed that day, and someone approached him, asking if they could sit at his table.

the girl's name was norah, she was very bubbly and outgoing and didn't mind charlie's awkwardness. it reminded him of joshua in some way.

whe promised to work on her article without bothering him, and charlie felt a bit less nervous because he didn't have to talk.

norah 30 minutes later:

[spark-circuit]

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO 👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨

[crumbleclub]

hmm.

the afton kids having complicated methods of hiding information or contraband from william.