#not all of them will. some things will feel like a slog

[mister13eyond]

talking to a friend about getting back into art and i think the #1 most important piece of art advice i could ever get or give is just "figure out what is FUN to you"

like i think there is sooooo much emphasis on how to build SKILL in art but a lot of it really treats art like a job or like video game grinding, like it's this thankless job that you have to work at in order to reach a Threshold and i know it's not EASY to make yourself have fun but like

imo a solid 70% of the reason i create art is because the Act of Drawing is fun to me. it's fun problem-solving and planning and putting down lines and playing with colors and tools. it's fun to depict little scenes in my head or to create outfits or to find ways to fill the canvas. never forget that creating can be fun. sometimes it's hard and sometimes you have to battle through your own blockades to get there but the ultimate goal should always be to ENJOY it, to find what you enjoy doing and then do it forever. improvement will follow enjoyment.

i think especially with all the debate about ML image generation it's more important than ever to embrace FUN. if you're only focused on the end result it's so easy to get in your own head- to think about what doesn't look good or what skills you don't have yet or to compare yourself to other artists. but photography didn't kill the art of drawing and AI won't either because, simply put, there will always be people who want to do the physical act of making art because it's fun to do! using paints and markers, splashing colors around, doing shitty pen doodles, using the symmetry tool in your art program to do abstract mandalas that are just squiggles formed into patterns. do art like you're 5 and you've been handed markers to pass the time. do art like you're bored in class and you're keeping your brain entertained by drawing stick figure comics in the margins. do art like an absent thing, do art because it satisfies your brain. the goal is not to make something beautiful and perfect, the goal is to make something because your hands need to make and your body needs to make.

[13eyond13]

.

[yuridovewing]

Disclaimer: I personally have not finished TBC beyond the first book. I did finish AVOS and its back half is considered poor quality for a reason. If you aren't having fun now I can tell you right now you wouldnt enjoy the rest. At most I think (iirc) the last book is important bc it establishes Juniperclaw attacking SkyClan, and Shadowsight getting a vision to swim in the flooded lake to 'unite' the clans- both of which are relevant to TBC in some way. But even then you could probably skim to the rrlevant parts, IDK.

i'll be real when i made that post last night it was kind of out of sarcasm and pettiness, like i do think im still gonna read those last three books and skim the boring parts at the very least, but that's on me cause now when i look at the post it does come across as very whiny and serious so that's on me lmao. (and i was kinda whiny at the moment cause i always forget about how mean spirited these books are.)

buuuuut hearing what people are saying, it does make me feel a bit better for skimming the back half of avos cause i think thats what i'm gonna have to do for sanity's sake if i want to catch up. i do want to give quotes and takes that are really backed up by the books and not secondhand info so i will try to keep to it but i think if i'm gonna read about thunderclan being shitty to twigpaw then im gonna start skimming cause like, we all know they were shitty to twigpaw now, it was uncomfortable when she was a kid and its uncomfortable still now that she's an adult. you don't need to see that backed up once again.

[perenlop]

Might change when I replay the game since it's been a while since last time, but found this tiermaker and thought it'd be fun ^^

[blacktabbygames]

Slay the Princess Concept Art

We shared a bunch of concept art on Twitter today. Sharing it here, too, where you can find it all in one post. Post contains spoilers, so proceed with caution (or just play the game already if you haven't 😉)

Going to start with the first piece of concept art Abby drew for the game.

In the earliest stages of development, we toyed around with the concept of there being multiple "end game" forms of the Princess.

The initial outline, rather than being tied together by an overarching metanarrative, structured a full playthrough as a 5-6 chapter long, self-contained journey down a single route, determined by your decisions in chapter 1. Here's an alternative late-game form:

The idea of deviating end-game forms didn't lost for very long, though. As we explored the game's themes more deeply, it made the most sense for there to be a singular "true" form.

If your reality is shaped by subjectivity and perception, then the "truth" has to be what's left when that subjectivity is swept away. the Shifting Mound's final design feels like that initial truth for the Princess, though there's also another truth if you push back against her and press on into the final cabin.

We really liked this "void" design, and I played around with the idea of it being an intermediary to the final form. The "void" Princess would be what you saw upon encountering the final Princess without understanding your own truth, but once you had that understanding, you would see her as the Shifting Mound, as depicted in the game.

That gave way to the intermediary design of the SM being a sea of disembodied limbs, and we also took parts of both designs and incorporated them into the protagonist (particularly the wings.) You can see the eyes and feathers for this void form in the ending card of the original trailer below:

You can see extremely early concept art for the spectre (top), nightmare (top-right), stranger (left), beast (bottom) and ??? (right) as well!

The eyes became a motif in the Nightmare route (Paranoid's manifestation of the fear of being watched), but I also like to think of them as a part of The Long Quiet's truth. You are space and emptiness, but you're also that which observes those things, and it's your perceptions that give the Shifting Mound shape.

Anyways, on the note of the original original concepts for the game, the Princess was initially going to remain human for several loops before taking on more monstrous forms. Some concepts of that are below. Had to get Abby to tone down some of the more horrifically cartoonish designs because they creeped me out and I didn't want to romance them in a video game.

We had to hold our cards close to our chest in the non-metanarrative early drafts, which is part of why, even in the first demo, the cabin doesn't really change much in chapter 2. More room to subtly play with the concept of transformation over time.

There were a lot of reasons we moved in a different direction for the full release. The branching was unmanageably large to write, and the game felt like a slog to write.

Using an overarching narrative as a framing mechanism in the final version gave us a lot more freedom to explore wildly divergent ideas within routes while still driving the player towards the originally planned finale.

Anyways, now we've got some concept art for individual princesses. There's a lot more than this lying around somewhere, but it's all in sketchbooks, and we'll probably wait until we make an art book to show it off.

First is the tower, who really didn't change much at all. (She got a little thicker, I guess. All of the Princesses did)

Not a lot to say about her, other than the fact that we knew we wanted a set piece where she gets so big that the trees and cabin orbit around her.

The stranger went through many many redesigns over the course of development. Here, she was a "princess skin" filled with a hive of sentient bugs. The script wasn't working for me, though, so instead she became a peak behind the curtains without the necessary context to know her.

A lot of people ask how these earlier drafts of the Stranger route would have played out, and the answer is I can't tell you, because I couldn't figure out something worth writing.

The writing process for individual routes didn't really start with outlines or plot beats. Rather, the routes started from a theme and a relationship dynamic, and I organically found their outcomes by exploring actions within those themes, and then seeing if those passed Abby's editor brain.

Neither of us found actions we wanted to explore with those versions of the Stranger, at least actions that weren't a beat-by-beat retelling of chapter 1, which contained way too much variation to put on a single chapter 2 route.

If each princess examines a relationship formed by perception and first impressions, the Stranger examines one that's fundamentally unknowable. One where you've seen too much, too quickly.

An insect hive-mind pretending to be a person seemed like a good starting point, but it was too difficult to write any interactions that didn't immediately feel knowable, if still strange. So the final version of the Stranger was designed in such a way where her unknowability makes interacting with her on a human level fundamentally impossible, and you don't get to have a real conversation with her unless you satisfy extremely specific criteria.

Anyways next up is the razor's final form. We decided she needed more swords.

Hearts became an accidental motif very quickly in the development process, too. (The fact that it is only strikes to the heart that fell her in the demo was accidental, but it felt poetic so we extended it to the rest of the game.)

So on top of adding more swords, we made her heart visible. This is something we did with the fury as well, as a way of showing their emotional (and physical) vulnerability.

Here's an early version of the Adversary and what would eventually become the Eye of the Needle, back when she was still called the Fury. Originally her hair was going to be fire (as seen on the right), but it didn't feel right in its execution.

She's hit the gym since this concept art. Good for her :)

And we're going to end with the Beast, who at this point was called the Adversary. I think this was before the Witch was added? The Beast was originally designed to be a Questing Beast who lurked in the shadows, where you'd only see glimpses of her, and where each glimpse would make her appear to be a different animal. This was too difficult to execute, though we gave her a more chimera-like appearance in the final game.

This design was from when we still has the Voice of the Obsessed, and the route was going to be a more feral mirror of what eventually became the Adversary, but it felt too thematically similar while being less interesting, so we moved in the direction of making the Beast about consumption as a form of love.

Anyways, that's all we've got for you right now. Hope this was fun!

[maxwell-grant]

So is Worm good from what you have read

"Yes" doesn't begin to cover it but yes. Worm is a brain-rewiring mobius strip disguised as a bible disguised as a superhero web serial that either cured your cancer or shot your dog or both depending on who you ask, and it has many extremely dedicated, brilliant scholar priest surgeons publicly dissecting it on this platform on the regular to the point I don't think I have much to add to the conversations surrounding it, even if I do have some The Thoughts about it. I had never even really seriously thought about superhero prose before and Worm isn't a thing I go back and reread frequently but it did a complete and total 180 on the way I think about superheroes and even fiction, and I've never stopped thinking about it since I've read it.

It is a monumentally impressive story with completely absolutely incredible characters that I cannot stop thinking about. No matter where it was going, even past stretches that were less interesting or more of a slog to read or worse, I could not put the story of Taylor Hebert down for one minute. Tattletale fascinated me every step of the way, I had to keep up with her. Rachel Lindt was a character I feel like I'd been waiting my whole life for. What was I gonna do, not see them through? I feel like Worm easily loses you if you don't particularly connect with the characters enough to justify to yourself the amount of time you'll spend with them, but man, I could not unglue my eyeballs from these people enough (I love all the core Undersiders, to be clear, I'd say it's Rachel > Taylor > Tattletale > Aisha and Alec and Brian, there are very small gaps between these, I just don't go berserk for the last three like I do for the first three, I'm taking Bitch and Skitter to the grave I'm dead serious)

Worm irreparably destroys your ability to engage with superhero fiction the same way ever again, as evidenced by the fact that it destroyed the author's own ability to engage with his own superhero fiction ever again. And everybody who read it has one or several gripes with it with some major dealbreakers in the mix. Tumblr's kinda the only place online where you can really talk about them at length without the spectre of John Wildbow hanging over the discussion, which enables discussion to the point where yes, maybe it does look like to outsiders that nobody can agree on whether Worm is good or what is it even about or whether it even has worms in it (it has at least one, although it's a very big one).

And it is good, it has the Undersiders in it and the Undersiders are one of the greatest groups of characters ever put together, but everyone has at least one major point of contention with Worm whether it's the timeskip or the length or the racism or the gross fatphobia or aspects surrounding the Dallon-Pelham Torment Nexus and etc. I'd say it has maybe the most racist vision of Latin America I've ever seen in a superhero text a hair short of pro-colonial tracts in Golden Age comics and that is a tall fucking order by any metric (part of why I started WEON4 as a project was motivated by spite, to try and make my own stories about non-American superheroes even if just as practice). It is Complicated, and that winds up making it so fascinating to talk about.

Worm has self-sustaining ecological systems of posts up here, far away from the Spacebattles and Reddit battlegrounds where it has different ones and that's not getting into Weaverdice or the sequel or Wildbow's larger body of work, which I haven't gotten to and probably will not any time soon because Worm was enough of a commitment as is. Do I recommend Worm to everyone? It is certainly not to everyone's tastes and I personally find it difficult to describe it simply enough to make it sound appealing or not like a pyramid scheme. But yes I do think it's good, in fact great, in fact, amazing, except when it isn't, and except it Plainly Sucks, but then something like Taylor vs Mannequin or Kevin Norton's interlude or "You needed worthy opponents" happens and it fucks harder than anything has ever fucked before and you don't walk away from it the same, so yes I guess "good" will have to do now.

It's certainly a lot but I definitely found it worth my time to read and then read the texts written about it here. You'll have to take my endorsement of Worm as proof of it's quality and proof of how deranged it makes it's readerbase, they're not mutually exclusive. If you can make it, Worm and the wormosphere has layers and layers to wade through and talk about and enjoy, despite how we're all so very small in the end *gunshot*.

[starsexplodeatnight]

Ghost x Pre-school teacher!Reader

A request from @maxicorn !!! My first request! And its a good one!!!

It was dark in the back of the plane. But he knew where he was, the fuselage of the plane jerking subtly with their descent.

Simon was home.

Didn't feel like it yet. His mind was still smothered in an oppressive slog of adrenaline that refused to yield and let him relax.

He used to not care. He never had anyone to come home too. Now that he does? He notices. Or really, he cares enough to acknowledge things he's ignored because they worry you.

As much as he hates to worry you, its nice. Nice to have someone who cares.

The door creaks open, blinding them with the light from outside. England was fucking sunny, go figure.

Battered but not bloody, Ghost makes his way down the plane and his feet hit tarmac. It felt good...

The sight that met him was even better.

There you stood, beaming at him. Hair whipping around from the wind kicked up from the plane landing. And all of your students were lined up in front of you.

They all had paper plate masks on their faces, all of them crafted to look like skulls. Mimicking him. Oh god, that fucking hurt his heart.

You had yours propped on top your head so he could see your face.

"Lieutenant!!!" "Ghost!" "Mr Ghost!" All of them cheer, bouncing on place. They all obediently stayed put, they'd promised best behavior if they got to see him land.

How did you manage it? He stood dumbfounded, staring like an idiot.

Laswell, she stood next to you with a miniscule smile... She tips her head towards you and raised her brows minutely. Approval of his choice.

Ghost lumbers over, dropping his duffle and looks down at the tiny humans. They all held out gifts, masks still in place. Macaroni necklaces, pictures of what vaguely resembled him and hand crafted... Stuff... They children all showed their idol.

Simon laughs, a small sound before lurching forward. He snatched your paper plate mask off your head, held it up to sheild your faces as he simultaneously pulls up his mask up. Exposing the lower half of his scruffy face.

The shocked look on your face was worth those 4 fucking rotten months away... So were the disgusted gagging of the little ones.

They crowd him, tugging at his gear, begging for stories as you stare at him star struck. That was the first time he's kissed you in public! Infront of what you believe to be his boss!! You could be wrong but, still!!!

Your face heats up immediately, Ghost chuckles. "Come on." He grunts, grabbing his duffle in one hand and the lead rope for the kids in the other. "Lets get them home."

You try and take the rope from him as the kids all grab on. He let go, only to envelop your hand in his so you both lead the kids off the tarmac...

It was so much fucking better than nice to have someone care...

Years later? Every single one of your students remember you and Simon ... Especially the ones who got to see him come home that day. Some even still have their paper masks, somewhere.

They'll call out to you in the street if they see you. Run up and hug the both of you... The little girls who used to play tea with Simon now tweens, run up and all squeeze him...

(They all have high standards for dating now. If they aren't treated like how Mr.Ghost treated Ms._ then they can beat it!)

They coo over your new baby, all begging to be your babysitter... All begging to be back in your lives again....

So many people care about Simon Riley… he can’t hardly believe it. Even to this day.

Thank you @maxicorn for this!!! It was fun to stew on while I was at work!!!

[from-the-clouds]

moonlight on the river - joel miller x reader

masterlist | song inspo

summary: Joel has been many things to you. A dealer, a mentor, a friend, a lover. Lately, it’s the latter.  Sometimes he’s none of those things, or a handful of them, or all of them at once. And it’s up to the both of you to decide in the moment which things are true. Takes place during episode one of the TV series. pairing: joel miller x f!reader words: 2.4k warnings: angst, fluff, good ol' fashioned hurt/comfort. depressive thoughts, reader sort of has a death wish, references to alcohol/drug abuse, death, loss of family members & loved ones. implied age gap, references to casual sex, heavy petting (no smut). a/n: it's been months since i posted a fic on here! some of my best work comes when it’s 2am, i’m emo and touch-deprived and i have an 8am appointment so i stay up until 5am to write. this was actually supposed to be fully a fluff piece but the angst queen had to strike.

You wish you could drown in the pile of blankets you’ve wrapped yourself in. Wish the couch would swallow you whole, like a whale, then drag you down to the deepest depths of the ocean and leave you there until you can’t hold your breath any longer, until the cold pricks the tips of your fingers and toes, until you succumb completely. 

But in some ways, you’re already existing like that, in the sea-level equivalent of the Marianas Trench. One of those sea creatures that look not of this Earth, features warped – adapting, evolving, surviving, despite your environment’s best efforts to eradicate. Your mother had once shown them to you in her old textbooks and shown you the photos of anglerfish, frilled sharks, phantom jellyfish. The memory of your mother makes you wince, and you try to think of something else.

How anyone else around you managed to put on a brave face and make their way through each day was beyond your comprehension, even though you do it, too. They probably all feel the same way about it as you do, but no one talks about the collective trauma you’re all slogging through. No one has anything new to add, and it’s foolish to believe that anyone’s insight could somehow take the pain away. Even if you have a chance to tell your story, there is always someone who has it worse. 

Get in line. 

Exhausted as you are, you don’t sleep much. Most of your nights are spent at the precipice of unconsciousness, and you can never quite make it over the edge, the helicopters, radios, sporadic gunfire always manages to rouse you first. When you do manage to sleep, you’re plagued with nightmares. You prefer perpetual fatigue. 

A knock at your door comes suddenly, and you start, sitting up quickly – but quietly – to not alert the unexpected guest that someone might be in the tiny studio you call home. It’s well after dark, which makes you doubt that whoever, or whatever is at the door, isn’t there for a friendly drop-in or a cup of tea, not that friendly drop-ins or cups of tea ever happened. 

But before you grow too panicked, your name is muttered, accompanied by another impatient rap of knuckles against the hollow wood. It’s a familiar rasp, even-toned and calm, and your shoulders sag in relief before you abandon your post on the couch. 

“Joel?” you ask softly, squinting in the dim light of the hallway through the crack in the door. He doesn’t look any different, though it’s been about a month since you’d last seen him. You’re not sure what to expect, but he’s the same as always, wearing a worn, tight denim shirt and fraying jeans. He looks tired, but you can’t recall a time when he doesn’t. Everyone looks tired all the time, it just only concerns you because it’s him. 

Not waiting for an invite, he steps through the small opening you allot for him and into your place, wordlessly.

“What the fuck, Joel, it’s past curfew are you trying to get yourself killed?” 

“I’ve done worse,” he says, dismissively, and yanks the door from your hand to close and lock it behind him. 

You don’t argue with him. You rarely do – which you think is partly why he likes you – but especially now, you don’t have the energy. And when you do, he’s too stubborn to listen. 

Joel has been many things to you. A dealer, a mentor, a friend, a lover. Lately, it’s the latter.  Sometimes he’s none of those things, or a handful of them, or all of them at once. And it’s up to the both of you to decide in the moment which things are true.

So when he steps forward, crowding you backwards until your rear hits your kitchen countertop and you have nowhere to go, you don’t ask questions. 

His hand cradles your chin, tilting it back to look into his sad eyes, and he kisses you. For a split second, it’s chaste, and you’re almost confused, until it’s suddenly not, and his grip on your jaw tightens, his lips parting. Joel stakes his claim, his free hand winding into your hair and pulling. You sigh, closing your eyes. 

He moves both his hands to cup your ass through the flimsy athletic shorts you’re wearing, lifting your hips up and against him, making to carry you to the bed, or maybe even take you on the countertop – it could be one of those days. Everything he’s doing would normally light you on fire, and there’s a primal instinct that’s telling you you like it, but for some reason, you hesitate.

Joel senses it right away. You’re not sure how. And you don’t want him to. You’re prepared to submit, even though you feel numb everywhere, because you hope for the chance to feel something, anything other than what you’ve felt the last few days. He pauses, too, pulls back. 

You expect to meet his eyes when you look up at him, but they are fixed on something else. Tugging on the collar of his shirt, you try to kiss him again, but he doesn’t budge, until you follow his eyes. An empty bottle of liquor sits on the bar behind you. Fuck.

“You’re drinking again.” It’s not a question.

“That was actually from yesterday,” you say, like it would make any difference. The remnants of a hangover have been tweaking your temples all day, biting the back of your eyes. It was half empty when I got it. It was just one night. I can have a couple drinks without getting out of control. Your brain cycles through several more excuses before you decide not to waste your breath. 

“What did I tell you about this?” He reached behind you and lifted the bottle, holding it in front of your face like you hadn’t been able to see it clearly enough before. 

“You should talk,” you don’t like being cruel, but you’re already desperate to end the discussion. He’s probably drunk or high right now, but it’s none of your business, and you’d given up trying to save him a long time ago. 

You shift your weight to lower yourself off the counter and move away from him and the once-inviting warmth of his embrace. Joel doesn’t let you make it far, reaching out to grip your upper arm and tugging you back to face him with little-to-no effort on his part. His strength always startled you, even though it shouldn’t, considering his size. It also should’ve scared you, but the manhandling mostly just turned you on. Not enough that you were going to keep letting him lecture you.

“It’s different. You’re still so young.”

“What does that matter?”

He doesn’t have an answer. 

You lift your chin, squaring up to him. “That’s what I thought.”

He puts his hand on hip and studies you carefully. Despite your attitude, you’ve never liked disappointing him. He’s the closest thing you have to a father, which you can recognize is an awfully fucked up way to feel about someone you regularly have sex with, but you lived in an awfully fucked up world.

There’s a wistfulness to Joel’s expression you’ve never seen before. He chooses to change the subject, and you’re thankful until what he says registers. 

“I’m leaving town tomorrow night. You might not see me again.”

It takes a moment to process, but it hits you like a blow to the gut. So hard, you’re surprised you don’t stagger backwards with the force of it. Even when it settles, you know it hasn’t even sunk in all the way.

“Well…” you take a long, thoughtful pause, and offer the only thing that your brain can come up with, “....stay safe out there, then.”

“Yeah,” he runs his tongue over his teeth and squints at you. “You want to tell me what’s going on?” 

Snorting, you know it’s important to remain as blase as possible so you don’t cry. Although, you don’t really cry anymore. Even when you want to, the tears never come. At some point, after watching every person you’ve ever cared for die in uniquely devastating ways, you must’ve reached your lifetime limit. 

“I know you. Something’s up.”

No, you don’t! You want to scream, but that would be a lie. It’s been three years since you met, maybe one since your….arrangement, or whatever you’d call it, had begun. 

How the two of you had become so close was a mystery even to you. It’s not like you were charming or charismatic, or willing to put up the innocent act. You didn’t try to inflate his ego, which most men loved. At first, you didn’t even really like him at all. That changed with time. Somewhere along the way, things just clicked.

“It’s nothing that no one has ever felt before,” you shrug. Joel has his fair….or rather unfair share of demons, and is the last person you want to complain to. Most of the time, he’s unflinchingly guarded, but he’s shared enough – secrets whispered in your ear while tangled in damp sheets, your hand on his chest, feeling the steady thump of his heart – to make you wonder if you have it so bad. Focusing on a fixed point, a crack in the tiled floor, you avoid his eyes.

“Hey,” his voice pulls you back. “Don’t do that.” 

“I’ll be okay,” you say. “I’m just having a d-a week.” A month, a year, a life. Reluctantly, you meet his gaze.

His face softens, his hand reaching to clasp with your own, thumb grazing across your palm. “Come here,” he murmurs. He pulls you against him tightly, tucking your head under his chin, his fingers weaving into your hair. 

“You’re going to be alright. You’re a strong girl.” He’s too smart to believe that, you think. But it doesn’t stop you from pressing your lips against his sternum. His broad chest is sturdy, firm, and you close down your eyes. 

Neither of you speak, and one of his hands begins to stroke your back in soothing circles. You stay wrapped in his arms for a long time. Long enough to think about how you might never get to do this again, and you suddenly want him in all the ways you never had him, and all the ways you had. Just one last time. 

He presses a kiss to your temple. “I can tell you’re exhausted, baby. Let’s get you to bed.”

There’s no reason to protest, he’s right, so you let him lead you to the bed. You’re already in your pajamas, and he draws back the covers and tucks you underneath them carefully. 

“You’re staying,” you say. It’s meant to be a question, but it comes out like command, and although you can’t stand the idea of pleading for it, would if you had to. You’re that desperate. 

You hear the clunk of his boots landing on the floor, feel the dip of his weight on the opposite side of the bed. 

“Of course,” he says softly, voice barely above a whisper as he slides underneath the covers. 

Joel’s arm snakes around your waist, and you’re being pulled back against his chest. You wriggle to be closer, even though it’s not possible, his nose resting on the crown of your head, stroking your hair softly. He’s being so tender, so sweet, it makes you feel sick.

“What if I don’t want you to leave?” you turn your head slightly, so you can see him out of the corner of your eye. You want to be able to remember his face, in case you never see him again. He was handsome, you’d always thought that, even despite the years between you. 

“It’s my brother. I don’t have much of a choice, baby.”

Joel had told you all about Tommy. You wished you could be resentful at his leaving to find his brother, but you knew you’d risk pretty much anything for the chance to see anyone in your family again. 

You shake your head. “This…sucks.” 

He offers a rare chuckle, one that vibrates through his chest and straight to the ache in your stomach that started when he told you he’d be leaving. “It does. I’m sorry.”

Joel sighs, his breath on the nape of your neck, and you shiver. “I’ll miss you.” It’s a simple truth you can hear in his voice without even needing to look in his eyes.

“I’ll miss you.” You reach for his hand. 

You roll over to face him, his head propped on his opposite hand, looking down at you. 

“You remember everything I taught you?” he asks. “Be smart, keep yourself safe.”

Joel had proven to be a pretty valuable resource when it came to survival skills. He’d taught you how to shoot a gun, to load and reload it, how to take it apart, clean it, and put it back together. You recalled the feeling of him leaning over your shoulder, adjusting your grip to shoot at a target. And even if most of his lessons in hand-to-hand combat resulted in him having his way with you on the kitchen floor – you didn’t mind it at all – you knew enough to defend yourself. 

“I do,” you answer. “And I will.”

You think of all the time you’ve spent with him the past few years. How it has made things bearable. It’s likely the last time you’ll ever see him, and you know what you’re supposed to say. But for the life of you, you just can’t say it.

Instead, you lean in to kiss him, lazy and lingering, both your hands on the side of his face, palms pressed against the scruff of his beard. You pull away after awhile.

“Tell me about what it was like. Before all this.” When the outbreak began, you were just a child. It felt like a dream, your memory so fuzzy it was hard to recall anything except the worst parts.

Joel does, and you listen, captivated, though it’s not the first time you’ve heard it. For such a gruff man, he paints a pretty picture.

It’s easy to imagine what your life might be like if none of this had ever happened. It would have been better, infinitely better, for yourself, for Joel, for everyone. It would be better, but if it hadn’t happened, you wouldn’t have met him. For some reason, something about that doesn’t feel right.

[soracities]

To me, reading classics is less about checking off some specific to do list and more just participating in a conversation that's been going on for as long as humans have been telling stories. And I don't necessarily love every classic, but I do love a lot of things that reference them and it's wonderful to be able to follow your favorite author's line of thinking, or understand the allusions in other media (music, film, etc.). Like Paradise Lost is misogynistic slog half the time, but it formed a lot of our modern conceptions of the devil and you can see it running through a lot of Neil Gaiman's work (and many others). Or a happier example I got to enjoy both Sophocles' plays as well as all the references to Oedipus Rex in The Unbearable Lightness of Being, doubling the enjoyment of both. Some people might similarly enjoy starting from their favorite authors and reading the works that influenced them, and following the long threads of conversation back as far as they please, if they're considering reading more classics.

This is exactly how I feel too, anon, you encapsulated it perfectly! I think the less dogmatic we are about the fixed boundaries (or fixed presumptions) of some genres the better and the more open and freeing our reading becomes!

[emersonfreepress]

help i'm alive

So! Long time, no see. 2023 was a whole goddamn lot lol

I don't have a demo update to share yet, but that's because I had to scrap nearly everything I managed to write during a very, very, very bad stint of writer's block last year. I hadn't even realized it had been a block like that until I went over my work so far last month and realized it was bad -- like, trust me; a slog to read that didn't even sound like me. It's been extremely frustrating but I've finally broken free of that and it's been easy and actually fun to write again for the first time in actual years. I just hate giving updates that have no actual news in them. And I really had nothing to share other than: I deleted thousands of words and feel so much better now 😅

Anyway, little about my demo plans have changed: I'm still putting out the Chapter 3 demos in Choicescript/on Dashingdon and then will be going dark to move things over to Twine. Where I am in the process right now is... feeling like 35% done with the overhauled version of this chapter and 50% done for the next demo update.

As far as asks, I'm... not really sure what to do?? I believe I've read them all (I love you guys), but so much time has passed since getting most of them that I'm not sure if it's, like... still pertinent??? To go back and answer them?? I suppose some of them like character asks could be, but all the nice messages of support -- that feels weird since I've practically ghosted this blog since August! Idk. Y'all tell me what to do with 'em and I'll do it. Maybe I should make a poll.

Uh... that's really all there is to say regarding the game! I've added some personal stuff after the cut, but if you're done here: Thanks for reading and sticking around. It means the world, for real.

So what has occupied my time all this time? Doctor, therapy, money, and friends. And improv! But especially the first two. There was a lot of non-writing related stuff fucking up my ability to focus and write, so hopefully with my mind and body both feeling a lot better, I can get back to being present and active with the game. I didn't realize how physically unwell I was until last year and it's been like... life-long issues I've been treating. It turns out it's not normal to feel exhausted enough to sleep at any given time, at all times, for your whole life! wow!!

I also uninstalled Tumblr from my phone back in February, so you could say I'm sort of generally focused on offline life. (And what an interesting coincidence that my writer's block dissipated shortly after that...) I also just moved!! The last two weekends have been so expensive and stressful -_- But I can't even compare the old place to the new. We're basically paying the same price for idek how much more space. The cats are so happy; which means the house humans get to be happy.

My schedule is finally freed up from constant medical shit (there was a 3-month stretch this winter with multiple doctor appointments literally every fucking week 🙃🙃🙃). My mental health is doing a lot better -- literally incomparably better compared to where I was this time last year. There's live comedy now (which I dabble in, to be clear lol), but I've finally found myself able to like... balance it all. The physical and creative energy that goes into it all, anyway. The lovely thing about improv is that you kinda just show up and do your thing -- it doesn't cut into my writing time so much as it costs energy. Unless I end up in this comedy debate show thing next month, which I am very excited to give up writing time for

So like... Life is life-ing and I'm just vibing. Or something? I'll be around.

Thank you all again so much for your interest, support, patience, and readership <3

[its-time-to-write]

Thank you so much for the response to my request <3. the fic was better then I could have hoped!!!!

I have a new request (but feel free to focus on the story themes you were wanting to do!), I have been really wanting to see a Jamie fic where he takes care of sick reader. Could be period or illness (no preference) and Jamie has no idea how to help but tries his best. I think its a cute idea

Can't wait to read more of your fics!

Thank you so much for requesting!! Literally love when people ask me to write things. Also, apparently everyone loves a sickfic because my other one has the most notes of everything I’ve written. Anyway, here’s your fic!

there’s orange juice in the kitchen

You are not sure of much, but you know one thing: you’re in pain. It’s 2am, and you’ve gotten a grand total of two hours of sleep. You’ve given up on laying in your bed and have filled up your bath with hot water, bubbles, and bath salts. Lots of bath salts. Your abdomen feels like it’s shredding itself and you suppose, technically speaking, it is. You’re just relieved that tomorrow is the weekend and you don’t have to slog through a work day, white-knuckling these absolutely ripping period cramps. 

You don’t have regular periods like, ever, and your doctor’s concerned about your fertility. You remember waving it off with the statement, “That’s a problem for another day.” Thing is, that was just a cop-out. You didn’t want to think about it for a single second because then it would become real, and you make it a personal point never to complain about a period no matter how brutal it is because at least it’s something and never mind that your last one was four months ago, you’re ok. You have a good life and good people and you’re fine. 

It’s just the principle, you know? The desire of choice. 

The hormones don’t help either. 

But anyway, you’re in your tiny bath trying to soothe the pain you’re in, trying to make yourself tired enough to fall asleep once you get out. You breathe, in, out. In, out. 

You’re up till 6am when you finally doze off. 

—

You wake up in a sweaty haze. You’re in soft pants and a large t-shirt, on top of your sheets rather than in them. You reach for your phone then pull your legs in with a sharp gasp. You’re still in pain. 

It subsides so you reach again and check the time. 9:01. You groan. Three hours of dubious sleep is not enough. You have a missed text from Sam (remind me which brand of kitchenware you use?) two missed texts from Keeley (look at this absolutely adorable puppy! Attached: 1 Image), and a missed call from Jamie. 

Ah, right. Jamie. 

Your boyfriend. 

Who you were supposed to meet for breakfast exactly sixteen minutes ago. 

Shit. 

You call him back and he answers on the first ring. 

“Hey love!” he says. “You alright? Not like you to miss breakfast.”

You grimace. “I uh, I wasn’t feeling well last night and I haven’t slept very good. I forgot to text you. Didn’t fall asleep until 6.”

“A.M.?” Jamie asks and you reply to the affirmative. He lets out a long “shiiit,” followed by a, “how contagious are you?”

“For you? Not very,” you say. “For another girl, incredibly contagious, although some say that’s an old wive’s tale.”

Jamie is silent in confusion, then- “Ohh, I get it! You’re not sick-sick, you’re on your fucking period.”

You chuckle, despite remaining curled up on your side. 

“Yes,” you reply, “My fucking period. I feel nauseous and tired and I am bleeding so. Much. It’s like my body’s making up for the last four months of nothing.”

Jamie’s silent for a moment and you internally cringe, kicking yourself for over sharing. You haven’t been together that long, about a month and a half, and he doesn’t need to know that about you. He’s a famous footballer, after all, and a guy’s guy. Probably gets grossed out about periods and stuff. 

Then he says, “Can I come over? I’ll bring food,” and your worries almost completely evaporate. 

“As long as you don’t care about how disgusting I am or the fact that I hurt a lot, sure,” you say. “I’ll leave the door unlocked.”

—

Jamie’s at your flat in 40 minutes, which is fast considering how much food he walks in with. He’s brought a bag of Chinese takeout, plus two overflowing grocery bags. 

“This is for now, these are for later,” he explains. He’s in a pink sweatshirt with matching shorts and socks, and maybe it’s the damned hormones again but he looks hot. His hair is pushed back with a headband and you want him to fuck you. You don’t think you can convince him, though, what with the blood. And the fact that he’s Jamie fucking Tartt. And that he probably doesn’t do shit like that because it’s gross. 

Your brain whispers, but he’s here, isn’t he? so you just push that thought down to live with other scary ones like, I will never have kids, or I’m going to live with this pain for the rest of my life.

Jamie is oblivious to this, just pulling everything out of the bags and chattering on. He’s kicked off his trainers near the door, and he hasn’t made any comments about the fact that you’ve wrapped a blanket around your shoulders like a shroud, or that your hair is in the messiest bun in the history of the world. Not the sexy, reader-insert fan fiction type of messy bun, either. Just an I-did-not-get-anywhere-NEAR-enough-sleep-last-night messy bun. 

“-and me mum always drank orange juice, swore it helped with bloating or hydration or somethin’, I don’t really know, but I got some of that too and this tea that’s supposed to help with cramps, and also a shit-ton of chocolate because I didn’t know which kind was your favorite. I was thinking we can sit on the couch and watch a movie or play Animal Crossing or some shit while eating the takeout, then I can cook you a proper fucking meal later. Coach always says it’s important to have a balanced meal when you’re under the weather, and I think it applies to this too.” He stops when he notices you just looking at him. “You alright, babe?”

“Yeah, I just- why did you get all this?” you blurt out. 

For the first time since you’ve known him, Jamie looks unsure of himself. “I dunno. I mean, I do know. You didn’t sound great over the phone, and Keeley’s always telling me to fucking listen to other people, and me mum was always the same on her period so I used to get her the things she wanted all the time. And-” he takes a breath, “and I picked up on what you said. The fuckin’ four-months shit. That ain’t good babe. Even I know that. And, we haven’t been together that long, but I’m pretty fucking sure you know that too, and I wanted to let you know I’m sorry.”

You’re momentarily fixed on the way he says certain words. Keeleh. Sorreh. It’s sweet, for some reason, and it causes a dull ache in your chest. You realize what he’s actually said to you and that ache deepens. You’d kiss him if you weren’t sure your breath was gross. 

So instead, you settle for nodding and staring at your kitchen wall. That’s because option one is kissing and option two is crying. You can’t do either right now.

A traitor tear slips out your eye anyway, and you hope Jamie won’t see it. He does. 

“Hey, hey.” He comes around the counter and pulls you into a hug, blanket shroud, messy bun, and all. “Love. It’s alright. It’s alright. You’re not alone, and we’re going to go sit on the couch and eat as much food as we can and then pass out, alright? We’re not going to think about anything else except what’s right in fuckin’ front of us.”

“That was,” you sniff, “weirdly philosophical. And very sweet. And I’m sorry for being disgusting.”

Jamie pulls away from you, and you think this is the first time he’s realized how gross you are. 

“Don’t say that shit, babe,” he says, and you laugh before you realize he isn’t joking. 

“I’m serious,” he continues. “You might feel disgusting, but you aren’t. You smell like fucking lavender, for Christ’s sake. Your pajamas are clean, and so’s your hair. Might be fuckin’ messy right now, but me mum also taught me to braid, so it’s nothing that can’t be fixed.”

You pull him back against you and let some more tears come out. 

“Why are you being so nice,” you ask, voice muffled through his sweatshirt. 

“Oh, dunno,” he replies, hint of a smile in his voice, “Think you’re fit. I like shower sex. You pick.” He pauses. “Maybe both. Heard that it can help with cramps.”

You laugh wetly into his chest. He’s warm and comforting, and so completely not what you expected him to be. You both stand in the kitchen for another minute, his cheek resting on your head before he says, “Oi, you hungry?”

“God, yes,” you say, “I could eat a fucking horse.”

“Good.” Jamie picks up the bulging bag of takeout and a roll of paper towels. “Lead the way, babe.”

—

It’s not until much later, after you’ve eaten, watched a movie, and showered (and all that implies) that you realize you’re finally tired. Finally calm. You let yourself relax on your bed in Jamie’s arms, breathing in his clean smell. In, out. In, out. By the third breath, you’re asleep. 

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

The Grey Zone 3

Warnings: this fic will include dark content such as noncon, manipulation, age gap, bullying, toxic parental figures, and possible untagged elements. My warnings are not exhaustive, enter at your own risk.

This is a dark!fic and explicit. 18+ only. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.

Summary: Your relationship with your parents has never been good, and that with a family friend takes a strange turn(goth!reader)

Character: Lloyd Hansen

Note: I'm tired of being sick

As per usual, I humbly request your thoughts! Reblogs are always appreciated and welcomed, not only do I see them easier but it lets other people see my work. I will do my best to answer all I can. I’m trying to get better at keeping up so thanks everyone for staying with me <3

Your feedback will help in this and future works (and WiPs, I haven’t forgotten those!)

You prefer the opening shift. Finishing early gives you extra motivation to make use of the rest of the day. Yet that morning is slogging by like wet sand. You still have an hour left before you’re free and even then, you have hours of studying to catch up on.

You enjoy your work, short of the occasional unpleasant customer. The shop is slow despite its location in the mall, but that’s expected with its niche catalogue. The New Age collection often attracts curious eyes but few purchases. The candles and jewelry sell most often, more marketable to those in the market for a gift or ‘just looking’.

You lean on the counter, doodling with a pen on a strip of receipt paper. Little stars and a crescent moon. The mall is starting to get busier as lunchtime approaches. You twirl the pen and look up, only realising then that you have a customer.

You drop the pen and quickly flit around the counter. It’s a good thing the manager is only in on evening shift. You approach the man perusing the bucket of discount crystals and slow as you recognise the back of his slicked hair. Really?

“Mr. Hansen?” You sputter in surprise.

He turns and smiles at you, a stone in his hand, “hey, little lamb,” he greets coolly, “fancy meeting you here.” You squint as he laughs at your cynical stare, “sarcasm,” he scoffs.

“Oh, uh,” you go to cross your arms but resists, instead hooking your thumbs into the chains attached to your black cargo pants, “are you looking for something?”

“Besides you,” he winks as he drops the stone back in the bucket, “they don’t have the hair gel I like at Carmine’s. Apparently they don’t manufacture that scent anymore. So I was wandering around and I just stumbled in.”

You nod and watch him reach into the bucket and pull out a small shard of lapus lazuli, “you got any Carnelian?”

“Carnelian?” You furrow your brow, “uh, I don’t know. Probably not in there…”

You turn and stride over to the shelf of labeled stones; those ones with a better natural shape or cut. You search the tags and find a small canister of orangish red stones, smooth and ovular; some opaque and few with patches of translucence. 

Lloyd stops beside you, close. Too close. He tends to do that. He crowds you in without realising it. You hold out the container.

“You like crystals?” You ask with an edge of doubt; you didn’t expect he would be into that sort of thing.

“Eh, I’m intrigued,” he takes the canister and examines it, “you know, after you showed me your cards, I was reading around. It’s kinda neat, this stuff. You know, I don’t really buy into the mystic shit but it’s fun.”

“Ah,” you nod. Most people have that opinion. It doesn’t bother you. You’re more pragmatic than dreamy. You accept that you have no control over the world, but you don’t believe there’s any force around that does.

“You got cards here?” He shakes the crystals as he lifts his chin.

“Uh, yeah, just over there,” you point to the other wall.

You back away and go back to the counter. You just need some space. In such a small shop, it’s easy to feel suffocated. He goes to the shelf of tarot cards and you languish in the silence of his perusal.

“There a difference between these things?” He asks.

“No, not really. Just the look.”

“Ah,” he accepts and spins on his heel. He approaches the other side of the counter and places down his purchases. The crystals and a deck of cards with a Roman mythology aesthetic. “Just these.”

You ring him through and he plays with the necklaces on the small rack next to the till. He tilts his head as he examines a piece of amethyst attached to black cord. He lets it dangle and reaches into his back pocket. He presents his card and you pass over the machine.

“When are you done?” He asks.

“Um, in an hour,” you answer.

“Hmm,” he nods as the machine accepts the transaction, “got the whole day ahead of you.”

“Kinda,” you wait for the printer, “want a receipt?”

He shakes his head, smiling at you. You take out a small black bag and put his things inside, sliding it over to him. As he takes it, his hands brush yours.

“Don’t work too hard,” he says.

“Er, sure, thanks,” you eke out awkwardly, “have a good day.”

“Going well so far,” he smirks before he turns away and struts to the door. 

He looks back and you raise your brows at him, perturbed. He finally leaves and you let out a breath. You wonder if he knew you worked there or if it’s as deliberate as it seems. 

You take out your phone and lean on the counter as you key in Carnelian. You don’t know much about the stone and you can’t remember anyone ever asking about it. You nearly choke as you read the description; ‘Carnelian is great for increasing sexual energy…’

Is he trying to embarrass you? Your mind lists to a couple nights before when he sat on your bed. It all seems a bit much, a bit too calculated. You just can’t find the punchline to go with the set up. 

🖤

Meghan shows up to take over for the afternoon. You leave her, intent on your mission. You’ll get your matcha to go and head to the library for your study session. Studying at the cafe had proven too distracting last time.

You get in line, flicking through your phone as you shift with the bodies ahead of you. You hear a rabble behind you as a large group enters, clustering at the end of the queue. You tuck your phone away as you recognise a voice and keep your chin down. You shrink down, hoping to go unnoticed in the busy cafe.

“Oh, look who’s back again,” Shania guffaws, “it’s the dead girl.”

You don’t look back. You have as much right to be here as them. You don’t know why she’s so pressed. There are other coffee shops and no reason for her to associate with you. High school is over. This isn’t the cafeteria, there is no cool table.

“Hey, Morticia,” Kaliana comes up on your left-side, “thanks for saving us a spot.”

They try to push in ahead of you but you step up, blocking them. You keep your head straight as Shania jostles you from the other side. At least this time you don't have anything for them to dump on you.

“Don’t be uncool, face paint,” Shania snarls, “know your place.”

“Go away,” you mutter to your boots.

“I can’t hear you over all that metal,” she reaches out and tugs on your nose ring. “Speak up, little girl.”

“I don’t know how you breathe around that snot catcher,” Kaliana chortles.

You shake your head and cross your arms. You step back and wave to the space in front of you, “fine. Go ahead.”

They girls laugh. They sound like hyenas. As they go to step in front of you, Shania cries out and liquid splashes over her shoulders, dripping down the front of her baby pink crop top. She puts her hands up and turns to face the culprit.

“You loser–” She yipes.

“Didn’t see ya,” Mr. Hansen’s voice brings your eyes up, “watch where you’re walking.”

“What? Me? You–”

“Look, I don’t need some knock off barbie shrieking at me so zip it,” he spits.

“Excuse you! You can’t talk to me like that.”

“I can and I am,” he snickers.

“Ew, you creep, get out of here,” Kaliana steps up next to Shania, “No one wants to hear from you or your dirty porn stache–”

“I didn’t ask, pancakes.”

“Pancakes?” She sniffs.

“Flip, flap,” he motions to his chest with a mean smirk, “if you’re gonna go out in a shirt like that, you could at least put a few socks in your bra.”

“Ugh, you perv–”

“Trust me, you’re the last thing that makes my dick hard,” he curls his lip.

“Whatever,” Shania blusters as she pulls the wet fabric away from her chest, “Kal, let’s go.”

The girls stomp off and you stare after them. Hansen puts down the empty cup and chortles. He turns to stand parallel to you, “well, I don’t know who’s drink that was but I hope they don’t mind.”

“What?”

“Oops,” he shrugs, “so what are we drinking, babe? Hmm. You seem like you got a sweet tooth. White mocha? Caramel?”

“Uh, no–”

“Wait, wait, dark chocolate, that seems more your speed.” You shoot him a look and he meets your eyes. He smiles and tilts his head, “kidding.”

“I can get my own drink,” you insist.

“I’m sure you can, but I want to get it for you.”

“Why?”

“Why?” He repeats.

“Why would you want to do that?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“You’re not answering me,” you sigh and move up to the counter.

“I don’t know, you make me wanna do nice things,” he says and faces the barista, “black coffee and whatever she wants.”

You hesitate but take your cue. You order your matcha latte and he taps his card. You clamp your lips together. Does he think you’re pathetic? That you need him to pay for a tea?

You go to wait by the order window and sway impatiently. You grip the strap of your bag and stare out into the mall. Hansen leans into you, brushing his arm against you.

“So, couple of bitches, huh?” He says.

“What?” You whip around to face him.

“Those girls.”

“Oh, uh, yeah. We went to school together…”

“Figured,” he shakes his head, “they’re only jealous. Girls like that, they don’t know how to feel anything else. Always a competition.”

“Hm, I guess.”

“Not like you.”

You glance at him then to the counter. You just want to get your tea and leave. You tap your fingers on the strap of your bag.

“So, the lake house,” he changes the subject, “what do you think?”

“Uh, dunno,” you watch the barista at the steaming espresso machine, “dad didn’t say anything.”

“I’m not asking about dad. You ever been to the lake?”

“Which lake?”

He chuckles, “now who’s not answering who?”

You shrug and cross your arm over your chest, rubbing your shoulder. Your order is up. Before you can move, Hansen puts his hand on your lower back, ushering you with him to grab his cup as you claim your own.

You pull away from him as you leave the shop. He keeps pace with you as you try to figure out a way to nicely get rid of him. You didn’t expect to run into him twice. How reappearance convinces you it’s less than coincidental, but would he really wait around the mall just to bother you?

“I should go study…” you say at last.

“Study. Boring,” he comments.

“Maybe but… I have to.”

“Oh, do you always do the right thing?” He prompts.

You don’t know how to answer. You turn the hot cup in your hand as you walk along the mall corridor. 

“No, I don’t know, I…”

“A good girl like you, always doing what you should but never what you want to do,” he says, “did you ever even ask yourself what you want?”

“I.. I don’t know what you mean.”

“You want to what? Study boring books? Get a boring degree? Get a boring job?” He continues, “all so one day you can live in a boring house with a boring husband? And have boring kids?”

“I– I never… I’m just going to school.”

“Because? Because you never thought of doing anything else. Of anything fun. I’m fun, sweetheart.”

You blow across the lid of your tea and taste it. It’s good but you find it hard to enjoy. Not with him there. Not with your mind racing.

“I like being boring,” you say at last.

He snorts, “sure you do. You're whole look screams boring. Well, let me know when you’re really bored, sweetheart. I’ll give you everything you never knew you wanted.”

You peek over at him. His eyes are on you, his cheek dimples. He raises his cup in a toasting gesture and turns on his heel. 

“I’ll be waiting,” he tosses over his shoulder.

You stop and watch his smooth gait. His confidence is almost intimidating. It’s as if he knows things you don’t. You turn away and continue towards the south entrance. Boring is just fine, boring is safe.

🖤

“Shut your fucking mouth!” Your father’s voice carries through the wall.

“Ah, don’t you get fucking rude with me,” your mother slurs back, “fuck you, Ray. Fuck you!”

It’s not unusual. You’ve heard the same argument over and over. It doesn’t matter what starts it, it’s always the same. They yell until they’re hoarse, they slam doors, and in the morning, they act like nothing happened at all.

You put your earbuds in and turn up your music. You know how to tune them out. If you’re good at anything, it’s at shutting out the world around you.

You lay down and close your eyes, holding your phone against your stomach as you mouth the lyrics. You just want to fall asleep but the anxiety of knowing they’re fighting keeps you awake. You just need to wait it out.

Your phone buzzes but you ignore it. It’s probably just an email or another notification trying to make you spend money. You focus on the layers of the music; the strings, the percussion, the vocals. Your phone goes off again.

You raise it and open your eyes, the screen fuzzy as your eyes adjust to the darkness. You tap the speech bubble that signifies a new message. The number is private.

‘Getting packed?’ The message reads. You have no idea what it means. You send back, ‘wrong number’. Three dots pop up immediately.

‘No it’s not.’ The answer comes swiftly. You return a question mark and nothing else.

‘You’re going to need a good jacket for the lake house.’

You rub your forehead and sit up. You key in, ‘Mr. Hansen?’

‘The one and only.’ He confirms. How did he get your number? ‘If you don’t have one, we can take a shopping trip.’

You don’t get it. What does he want from you? You know the way he is, you’ve heard the way he talks about other people, you hear the stuff he says to your dad. Their friendship at most is acrimonious. Is this a ploy against your father?

‘I have a jacket. I’m sleeping. Good night.’

You lay down and turn onto your side, keeping the ear bud from slipping out as you put your phone beside your pillow. It lights up with a new message. You close your eyes. You lay in the storm of your nerves. You have to check. You reach for your phone and read the screen.

‘No you’re not’.

You don’t understand. How would he know? He’s bluffing. You won’t entertain his little games, he’s just messing with you. Just like everyone else.

[nostalgebraist]

declare

Read Declare by Tim Powers recently.

It had some really good individual bits, and was well-written throughout, but overall I found it kind of a slog.

Partly that was just due to pacing, or me not quite being in the target audience, or other similarly ordinary and boring reasons. But, on reflection, I think a lot of my troubles with the book come down to one big, uncommon flaw it had -- which is my reason for writing this post.

----

Declare is a hybrid fantasy/spy novel.

The spy stuff, which comprises most of the book by mass, is drawn from real history -- in particular, from the life of real Soviet spy Kim Philby -- and strives to be consistent with all particulars of that real history that are publicly known.

The book is a "secret history" as opposed to an "alternate history," intended to produce the impression: "for all we know, this really could have been what happened." It sticks to the historical record about the kind of matters that make it into said record, and only invents things in the blank spaces in between them.

As Powers put it:

I made it an ironclad rule that I could not change or disregard any of the recorded facts, nor rearrange any days of the calendar – and then I tried to figure out what momentous but unrecorded fact could explain them all.

You'll note that I'm being vague about what "the fantasy elements" are.

I'm doing that on purpose. Revealing much about their nature would be the kind of spoiler that actually spoils, because one of Declare's virtues -- and I really did admire this -- is the way it makes its fantastical secrets feel really secret. Like a secret doctrine, a mystery cult, an epistemic Rubicon that one does not cross lightly.

They are talked about elliptically, even among initiates (and Powers makes this feel naturalistic, not like cheap and pointless reader-teasing evasion). Before you know much else about these "fantasy elements," you know that encounters with them have a tendency to leave people scarred, broken, changed -- and disinclined to say much about what they saw.

The early chapters of the book almost feel like the opening of a "mundane" spy novel. Except they are dotted with stray glimpses, from odd angles, of... something else. Something that is clearly one single thing, with a coherent shape, only you cannot make out in full what that shape is. Something that feels, authentically, like it was not meant for your innocent eyes.

It's all very effective. Really great stuff.

But then, at least by the halfway mark if not earlier, the reader catches up with the characters. The shape of the thing comes into focus. You get what the deal is, insofar as anyone does, and insofar as there is a "deal" to get. The nature, if not the logic, of the hidden world is laid bare.

"The nature, if not the logic": this is the book's fundamental flaw. The fantasy elements of Declare eventually land in a worst-of-all-worlds no-man's-land between mystique and mechanism.

They are explained to the reader just enough that they lose their glamour; what initially feels like the mystic doctrine of a lost gospel, or the forbidden fruit of a Lovecraft story, ends up feeling more like a collection of "lore" passages accompanying tables of numbers in an RPG rulebook. Yet they are not explained enough that they make sense, the way a law-bound "magic system" makes sense; despite Powers' ambitions, they never quite become capable of explaining anything else.

To put the point a little differently, and set things up for my next one: Declare mixes together two ingredients which, on their own, are perfectly fine -- indeed, actively good -- but which absolutely cannot go together. Namely:

Mysterious, supernatural forces that feel properly mysterious, numinous, not quite bound by "our" human logic and thus fundamentally beyond our ken.

A secret-history version of bizarre and partially unknown real-world events, which supplies explanations for the weird parts and fills in the tantalizing gaps.

Why do historical mysteries draw our interest? It is not just that there is something we don't know. There are a lot of things we don't know, about history, and mostly they don't trouble us.

But there are some questions for which it does not seem possible to imagine an uninteresting answer.

When a real historical figure behaves in some bizarre manner -- as the real-world Kim Philby frequently did -- we know that, whatever cause moved them to do so, it must be outlandish in a way that matches its effect. When people act strangely, they do so for strange reasons. That is roughly what "acting strangely" means.

But! Once you allow "ineffable, partly unpredictable magic" to be a cause with effects, the link between interesting events and interesting causes is broken. You can now invent explanations which are less interesting than any real-world one could possibly be.

You can survey the historical record, note down all the intriguing gaps, and then sculpt an infinitely pliable magical putty into the precise shape of each gap, so as to fill it. These fillings do not have the shape of real things; they are made retrospectively, and modeled after the patterned obstructions marring our view, rather than the real patterns which are being obstructed. They do not have spiraling implications, as real things do; they plug the gaps they were made for, and do nothing else.

Human behavior has human causes, and human causes are frequently interesting, to us humans.

It is usually a virtue, in fictional depictions of magic, for that magic to feel nonhuman.

But it ceases to be a virtue when that magic goes on to become a substitute for the real human causes of real events. It provides answers to all our questions, at the cost of removing the reason we imagined we might want to possess those answers.

"Why on earth," you ask me, "did this bizarre historical event happen the way it did?"

And I respond: "a wizard did it."

You protest that this is not an explanation at all. You profess to be just as confused as you were at the outset.

You say, in exasperation: "it can't just be that. There has to be something more. Why did the wizard do it? Is it... the sort of thing that wizards do? Is there a 'sort of thing that wizards do'?"

In real life, you'd have a point. In real life, for every X, there is a sort of thing that Xs do.

But not for wizards. Remember #1 above? Wizards are beyond your ken. Perhaps there is "sort of thing they do," but if so, it is too subtle for your dull, unmagical brain.

Which is to say: they can do whatever the author, or the plot -- or the gaps in the historical record -- need them to do on any given occasion. And then they go back into their box again, until they need to be retrieved, in order to do something else entirely.

And worse: although the introduction of the wizard does not leave you any less puzzled, it frees you from caring that you are puzzled.

There is no longer the unscratched itch of an unsolved mystery about human behavior. You are not confused about a person, anymore, but about magic. And it is perfectly clear that you are never, ever going to understand magic. Your confusion is now expected, predictable. Everything is properly in order, as you can now see. You are free to go.

And yet somehow, you find, the book is not over. It will not be over for a while yet. You have other confusions, you see, which have not yet been stripped of their human interest and robbed of their allure.

(Not everything in Declare is like this, to be clear. I may be making too much of a few sore points in the plot, I guess. Still, there's no denying that I found the later parts of the book tedious, and this is at-least-sort-of why.)