#so why do i feel the projects are worthwhile? sometimes. well they also distract me dont make me feel like me but i do forget for a while

[theskyexists]

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[thiswasinevitableid]

PSL (OT4)

Prompt for the 14th was: Pumpkin.  The OT4, for new folks, is Barclay, Stern, Indrid, and Duck (every is dating except Duck and Barclay, who are metamors). This prompt could also be called “the silly things we sometimes do for love”

Stern absentmindedly taps the steering wheel as the last cars trickle from the visitor center parking lot. The last song before he dropped back into the NRQZ was “Bad Moon Rising” and so that’s what he taps in time to. The lights in the building can't go out soon enough. 

He’d only been in D.C  week, had skyped the others every night, but the sensation of missing them was so strong. It’s the trade-off, he supposes, for knowing there were three people waiting for him instead of the none he’d grown accustomed to. 

Even with the LAN, the signal on the Kepler end was too weak to show video most of the time, so he lay on the hotel bed, basking in their voices. Barcaly’s voice makes him feel safe the way a well-built house and a warm drink on a stormy night make him feel safe. Indrid’s is like something from  drem, familiar and alien all at once.

The car door swings open, letting in a burst of fall air. 

“Hey, darlin.” 

Duck’s voice makes him feel sixteen again. He never had a highschool sweetheart, but that drawl feels like it’s coming in through the open window in the summer air, promising something wonderful if he climbs outside.

“Fancy seeing you here.”

And then there’s him, sounding like a dork. But Duck just smiles.

“You have  an okay drive?”

“It’s been worse, and at least this time I drove past the city limit sign knowing where Bigfoot is.”

“In your room pinin after you?”

“I hope not.” Stern lies, blushes a little at the image. 

Duck moves to put his water bottle in the center cupholder, picks up the starbucks cup sitting there, and makes a face when he finds it mostly full.

“You feein okay? Don’t think I ever seen you leave coffee long enough to get cold.” Duck sniffs, nods in understanding, “uhuh, I see, not a fan of the old pumpkin spice?”

“No. I buy one every year, and every year it’s the same thing.”

“So...why keep buyin it?”

“Because it’s so popular and yet I don’t like it. It’s so frustrating, I feel like I’m missing something! And now I basically have this weird ritual where I buy one just to see if this is the year I finally taste what everyone else does.” He tosses a sideways glare at the cup, “I have to be missing something.”

Duck giggles as they turn down the street to his apartment, “Missed you a hell of a lot, city mouse.”

“Do you think Indrid will mind if I don’t come up? I’m ready to collapse, and his sleep schedule is so weird anyway-”

“Think you don’t gotta worry about it.’

Sitting on the foot of the outdoor staircase is tall figured bundled in sweaters. Once they’re parked, Duck leans over and turns Sterns face towards him, kissing him while running his hand along his leg. 

The passenger car door clicks open and Indrid’s hand appears. Duck takes it, winking once before leaving the car. There’s the sound of another kiss, and then Indrid bends down , bracing awkwardly on the seat, purring as he looks at Stern. 

“Hello, pet. I missed you.” 

“I missed you too.” Stern leans in without being told to, Indrid chuckling lightly before kissing him. 

“And yes,” Indrid says as he pulls back, “that surprise you’re thinking of will work nicely.”

With that, he’s out of the car in a rustle of fabric. 

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

His plan to surprise Barclay by waiting in the Sylphs room until he gets off shift does indeed go well. He gets fucked into the bedspread and cums with Barclays head between his legs, and that's not even the best part. 

Barclay is so happy when he sees him, clings to him afterwards, trails after him like a faithful dog as he puts his things away. They started sharing the room after the almost end of the world, partly because it’s further from everyone elses and thus they run less risk of being heard (Sterns love of letting Barclay know how well he’s taking care of him in bed stops just shy of letting everyone else know). It also acted as a sign that Stern meant to stay, somehow reassuring Barclay of that fact more than the agent’s own permanent assignment over the gate did. 

He’s never told Barclay the truth, which is that if it had come down to staying in Kepler or leaving the FBI, he’d have turned in his badge in an instant. Barclay alone is reason enough for that, and when you added Duck and Indrid into the mix, how could he be anywhere else?

Then again, maybe Barclay has guessed as much after Stern willingly dragged his boss into a closet to help them save the world. 

It scares him, knowing he might have put so much of his ambition aside to stay here. But it thrills him too. 

Right now, it seems deeply worthwhile; he’s laying on the couch, legs in Duck's lap, doing a crossword while the other man reads. The Sylphs are on the floor, Indrid using his claws to scratch and groom Barclays fur. They’re talking quietly to each other in what Stern now recognizes as High Sylph, Barclay letting our rumbling purrs as they do. 

Then he opens his eyes, looks at Stern, “No way. Babe, you don’t like pumpkin spice?”

Stern looks at Duck, confused. The ranger shrugs, “I told ‘Drid about it.”

“Just the lattes. I like pumpkin in other things.”

“I am the one who hates pumpkin in all forms.” Indrid says, handing Barclay his bracelet. 

“Hold up, not even pumpkin pie?” Duck sets his book down.

Indrid shakes his head. 

“But it’s a classic!”

“It is a trap. Pie is supposed to be sweet, not vegetal. And do not get me started on the wretched gourds themselves.”

“Do they make you sick?” Stern is already making a mental note to steer the Sylph clear of the bins of them by the Kroger.

“No. They resemble a fruit on Sylvain that is commonly grown near where I grew up. That fruit tastes sweet, like a melon. Not like horrid pulp.”

“Hmm, I wonder if seeds from one got through the gate and created the other.”

“Had to be the pumpkins goin to Sylvain, pumpkins have been growin in the americas for a long time.” Duck adds, then sighs, “can't believe I’m datin a fella who hates pumpkin pie. My mom made the best version in the world. Wonder if I can make it…”

“My sweet, I doubt even you are capable of as impressive a feat as making pumpkin pie not repulsive. But if you want to try, I will not stop you. Just go easy on the ginger, I am not fond of that either.”

“Indrid please, you’re breaking my culinary heart.” Barclay pouts. 

Indrid licks his cheek, “You will survive, sunburst. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go check some futures. Joseph, you have a phone call.”

Stern stands, already moving down the hall  by the time the phone rings. Dating the mothman has some benefits. 

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

Barclay watches them go, rubbing his beard, then looks over at Duck with an unusually mischievous glint in his eye.

“Up for a friendly bet?”

“Let’s hear it.”

“Bet I can make Joseph a Pumpkin Spice Latte he likes before you can make Indrid a pumpkin pie he'll eat.”

“What are we bettin?”

Barclay smirks, “assuming those two are up for it? Winner gets to be on the bed, loser gets tied up and has to watch.”

“You’re on.”

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

Barclay carefully measures spices into simple syrup, Joseph watching him with his usual curiosity from a stool by one of the prep stations. 

“You know you don’t have to go to all this trouble right? I’m happy to keep doing my nonsensical fall ritual.”

“Know you love you patterns babe, but I love a challenge. Once managed to recreate Dani’s favorite dessert from back home out of apples, peanut butter, and marshmallow fluff with a red licorice reduction.”

He glances over his shoulder to see his boyfriend making a horrified face. 

“She still asks for it for her birthday. Or she did, I assume she can get the real deal now,”

Returning to his whisking sends bursts of cardamom and ginger into the ir. He inhales, content, just as the music coming from Sterns phone quiets. 

“You’re also looking for a distraction.”

Damn FBI training. 

“What makes you say that, agent?”

“Your posture, tone, and the fact you keep changing the subject.” There’s a sharp sound of leather soles on tiles as Stern hops of the stool. Then he’s in Barlcay’s periphery, leaning back against the counter, sleeves of his dress shirt rolled up, “It’s alright if you don���t want to talk about it. But if it’s something to do with me, please tell me.”

“No” he turns off the burner, sets the syrup side to cool, “not even  little, babe. I, uh, my first memory of fall on earth was getting exiled.”

“Oh, oh Barclay I had no idea.” Stern pivots, rests a hand on his hip.

“No one but Mama really does. It just means that all the stuff people like about fall; the leaves changing,getting to bundle up, building the first fire of the year, even the food...I still get this miserable feeling. Even though I’ve had lots of good stuff happen in the fall since then I find myself knowing what I was missing all those years. That was one of my favorite times of year on Sylvain that feeling. Having projects makes it easier to ignore.” When he turns his head his gaze is on the ground, “sorry, don’t mean to make things heavy when we’re just doing a goofy bet.”

Stern tugs him away from the stove, rests a hnd on each bearded cheek, “Thank you for telling me, Barclay. I’m sorry, I can't imagine how that felt, and if you ever want to talk about it...well, actually, Indrid might be the better person, but I’ll do my best. And,” he guides Barclay’s face up so he’s looking into brown eyes, stroking his cheek to coax out a smile, “I’m happy to be a distraction whenever you need me to.”

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

“Oh of course, how could I have missed that?” Indrid whacks his head into his notebook as Stern mentions his conversation with Brcly, “He told me once when in the year he was exiled, but I never put together what that corresponded to. I wish there was something I could do.”

“Me too. For now I’m taking him at his word that the bet is enough of a distraction.”

“Wise. Speaking of which; any luck, my love?”

“Nope!” Duck’s voice comes down from Janes attic. His sister is mostly sure their mom’s pumpkin pie recipe is somewhere in the boes up there, so Duck used his spare key to get into the house. 

“How’s the ltte?” Indrid dips his head to indicate the travel mug in Stern’s hnd. 

“I still don’t see what the fuss is. Barclay even used my favorite blend as the base.” 

Indrid looks down t his own mug, “do you want some of my white chocolate- oh dear”

“Ahfuck! Uh, ‘Drid, Joe? Can, uh, can one of you move the ladder back? Because I just kicked it.” Duck’s legs are dangling from the attic door, the stepladder on it’s side on the floor. Before Stern can grab it, two chitinous, slightly velvety arms paper.

“Just let go.”

Duck obeys, dropping into the mothman’s waiting arms. 

“Thanks, sugar.”

“You are welcome. Since you are about to say you did not find it, how bout lunch.”

“Sounds good. You comin, Joe.”

“Of course.”

‘...’Drid, you gonna put me down?’

“.......I haven't decided yet.”

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

“Okay, this one has condensed milk, less ginger, and a hint of caramel.”

“Mmm. Hmmm, no I mean, it’s not bad but it’s still not trendsetting.”

“Dang.”

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

“Jesus, why’d they keep all this stuff? These are report cards from first grade!”

“What is there to grade at that age?”

“Behavior, mostly. Huh, here are some cookbooks, maybe mom put that recipe in here.”

“While you search, I shall amuse myself with this box of photographs--you never told me you played trombone. Or had frosted tips.”

“That was one time in college, and gimme that box, you fuzzy menace.”

“Only if you come and get it, little human.”

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

“This one is salted caramel, pumpkin, spices, and vanilla infused heavy cream.”

“Nope, still not revelatory.”

“Grrrrr.”

“Was that directed at me or the latte?”

“The latte, but if you feel like being a little late for your meeting with agent Steele I can growl over you some right now.”

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

“...Thanks, Aunt Alice. Uhhuh, yep, talk with you soon.”

“No help from the extended family, I take it?”

“Nope. Just questions about when I’m gonna get married.”

“Oh dear.”

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

Stern sips from his Flathead Lake travel mug, the one where a monster becomes visible when warm liquid is poured in. 

“Oh my lord, Barclay, this is incredible! You’ve done it, I want to drink this everyday.” He sips as fast as his tongue will allow as his boyfriend rumbles out a laugh. 

“Well, yes and no. I did make that, but it’s not  pumpkin spice. It’s dirty chai with fall-spiced caramel syrup.”

“It’s amazing. I love you so much.”

Barclay laughs louder, reaches across the center console to squeeze his hand, “Love you too, babe. More I thought about it, more I figured you're a man of very, uh, particular tastes sometimes, and if you don’t like pumpkin lattes, you don’t like them. I’d rather spend my time making something I know you’ll love, rather than trying to make your tastes match everyone else's. I mean, I kinda benefit from your having weird taste. Um, so to speak.” He pulls up to the apartment, and as soon as the car stops Stern pulls him into a kiss. 

“Thank you, Barclay. I, um, no one’s ever gone to all that effort just to try and help me understand why people like something.”

“Any time, agent.”

Stern pulls his phone out, “I have something for you too.” 

Barclay reads the image of an email he saved, “You’re taking time off?”

“Yes. I, um, I was thinking we could go to Sylvain during it. I can't give you back all the things you missed being gone. But I thought maybe I could give you the chance to start making up for lost time. I love fall on earth; I want to learn how to love it on Sylvain too, with you as my guide. I want to do what I can so it isn’t a bittersweet time of year anymore.”

The larger man looks like he might cry, but Stern doesn’t get long to examine it, since he’s crushed in a hug. 

“Thank you, babe, thank you so fucking much. I, I’ve been kinda nervous to try and go back for things but I felt silly for being scared and I didn’t know how to ask and just...thank you.” He sniffles, pulls back with a watery smile, “Now c’mon, let’s go up. From the smell of it, Duck made pie.”

The apartment smells like the platonic ideal of fall, and Duck, streak of flour on his cheek, is putting the finishing whip cream touch on a pumpkin pie.”

“Where did you finally find the recipe?”

“In a book buried at the back of my closet, full of moms advice for when I got my own place. Haven't looked at it in close to two decades, and Winnie shredded the top cover, but the recipe was there alright.”

“Gotta admit, I’m impressed. That looks real fucking professional Duck.”

“Thanks man.” The ranger grins, cuts a slice and places it in front of Indrid (happily bundled in one of Barclay’s orange and grey flannels). The Sylph takes a forkful, scrutinizing it for a moment. Takes a bite, and chirps as he chews.

“Good?”

Wordlessly, Indrid stands, removes his glasses, and picks up the pie dish. 

“If anyone needs me, the pie and I will be in the bedroom.”

“HAH!” Duck whoops triumphantly.

“Hey, hold on, I gotta try this to see what the secret is” Barclay takes off down the hall after him.

“No, mine, AH! Unhand me, I am the court seer.”

Duck flops against Stern as he doubles over, laughing. 

“Fine, I gotta try it sir.” Barclays voice dips lower, and Stern sees him shift into his Sylph form. 

“Don’t try to sweet talk me, this pie is mineOHgoodness, put me down.”

“Wanna know the secret?” The ranger says between giggles. 

“Please.”

“I tripled the amount of sugar it called for.”

“Good thinking, ranger Newton.” Stern kisses him, “care to help me arbitrate a cryptid fight?”

Duck grins at him, love in every line of his face as laughter rings down the hallway, “lead the way, darlin.”

[choisanii]

wait for the enneagram thing, what are the enneagrams of each type of stans (as you've observed) if you know ? im genuinely curious.

ok so a little disclaimer before i start rambling: i’m by no means an expert on enneagrams i just find them absolutely fascinating and i think they’re really helpful overall! like if you know what type you are and what type someone else in your life is, you are evidently able to better understand yourself, them, and therefore better your relationship with them! also considering i have <15 ateez moots, some of which i unfortunately do not know that well, i’m going to try to keep this pretty vague and i’m also going to mostly base it on what i’ve observed in the members themselves (what types i think they may be, but again, i don’t know them personally so take it with a grain of salt!), as I think that one of the reasons our biases are who they are is because we identify with certain aspects of their personality. 

general note about the enneagram system: there are 9 types––one of them is your “basic personality.” this is your “core”, dominating personality, something predetermined partially by genetics and pre-natal factors, but also by your childhood (parental figures, significant events/experiences, etc.). however, since one’s personality is fluid and cannot be confined to just one “box” or “type”, everyone inevitably identifies with other types as well (this is where “wings” come in but that’s too complicated so i’ll stick with the core type). no type is “better” or “worse” than another; it’s literally just an explanation of why you are the way you are and how that contributes to how you see the world and interact with others. 

hongjoong stans: type 1 (the reformer) or type 3 (the achiever) -> in the most basic sense type 1s are perfectionists. conscientious and ethical. they are set apart from the other types due to the existence of a self-critical “internal voice/monologue”. one may even call them workaholics due to the fact that they’ll often suppress their personal needs/self indulgence in favor of productivity. high standards. a very very strong moral compass. incessant desire to be “right”. fears corruption. type 3s are also known to be workaholics and they struggle with competitiveness. they’re extremely driven and ambitious though they are often overly concerned with their self image. gets wrapped up in their problems; tends to neglect their personal needs and the needs of others. strives to gain love and approval through performance. usually regarded as popular and well-liked among others, the “class president” or “homecoming king/queen/monarch” type. aims to be a role model who inspires others. 

seonghwa stans: type 2 (the helper) or type 9 (the peacemaker) -> type 2s at their best are unselfish, altruistic, and maintain an unconditional love for others. extremely warm-hearted and empathetic. great listeners. kind and nurturing. self-sacrificial and people-pleasing. issues with possessiveness and acknowledging their own needs. bases self worth on what they give to others and what they’ll get back in return. may become overly dependent or manipulative. values relationships above all else. embodiment of the “good parent” everyone wishes they had. type 9s avoid anger and conflict at all costs. the mediator. merges with others and makes sacrifices in order to gain a sense of peace, belonging, and harmony, sometimes at the expense of their own feelings. can be very passive-aggressive when upset. trusting and gets along well with others. tendency to be overly complacent. can be very stubborn. maintains a generally optimistic point of view; likes to see the “bright side” of things. 

yunho stans: type 4 (the individualist) or type 7 (the enthusiast) -> type 4s want nothing more than to “find themselves” and create their unique sense of self. inspired and creative, they view themselves as unlike any other human being; not in an arrogant way––in a way that makes them focus on their own personal deficiencies as well as hone in on their personal talents. honest and self-reflective. fears abandonment and loss. struggles with negative self image and low self esteem. type 7s epitomize the motto “don’t worry, be happy.” hate being bored; moves towards excitement, freedom, and a variety of interesting experiences. always willing to try something new. difficulty with commitment. extroverted, optimistic, and playful. struggles with impatience and impulsiveness. aims to maintain their freedom and happiness at all costs, never wanting to miss out on worthwhile experiences. spontaneous, agile, and exceptionally fast learners. book smart and impressive mind-body coordination. 

yeosang stans: type 4 (the individualist) or type 6 (the loyalist) -> like i said with yunho, type 4s uniquely talented and expressive. gift for healing and the creative arts. always looking for more meaning in things. intense emotional highs and lows, difficult to find a happy medium. can be moody and self conscious. wishes to connect with people who understand them and their feelings. honest with themselves; do not attempt to rationalize their states, only accept them, which enables them to endure suffering with a quiet strength. easier for them to process painful experiences that may overwhelm other types. type 6s are reliable, trustworthy, and hardworking. when they are internally stable and self reliant, they become able to champion themselves and others. seek security and support from others in order to fight against anxiety and insecurity. friends for life. beliefs sometimes go against the “status quo” but they will defend and fight for them fiercely, more so than they’d do for themselves. 

san stans: type 2 (the helper) or type 3 (the achiever) -> maybe this is me just projecting since i’m a type 2 wing 3 but these two types really stand out to me in terms of my san biased moots as well as san himself. as i said with hwa, type 2s at their best are unselfish, altruistic, and maintain an unconditional love for others. people person and people-pleaser. extremely empathetic and give good advice. self worth depends on the love and approval of others. considerate, generous, helpful. fears becoming worthless. does not want to be taken for granted. may become overly involved in the lives of others. energetic, romantic, and sensitive to other’s needs and feelings. and like i said with hongjoong, type 3s believe that only through performance, achievement, and success will they gain love and approval. can be very self conscious and self critical; wants to appear their best. motivated and motivating, constantly on a journey of self-improvement. their unwavering belief in themselves and desire for self development inspires others to do the same. a role model. 

mingi stans: type 7 (the enthusiast) or type 9 (the peacemaker) -> like i said with yunho, type 7s are constantly seeking out new experiences. playful, optimistic, versatile, and extroverted. can be “scatter-brained” and end up undisciplined or over-extended. become satisfied when they are able to focus their talents on worthwhile goals. approach to life is not unlike “a kid in a candy store”. able to pick up skills and talents with relative ease, though when confronted with too many, they are unable to choose one to focus on. balance is key. like i said with hwa, type 9s are the mediators, the ones to avoid anger and conflict at all costs. passive aggressive under stress. seeks peace through acquiesce and acceptance. able to bring people together and solve conflicts. very in touch with their inner selves. goal-oriented but not aggressive. do not do well under pressure. struggle with finding a strong sense of identity. “spiritual seekers”, yearns for a connection with the cosmos as well as other people. 

wooyoung stans: type 7 (the enthusiast) or type 8 (the challenger) -> like i said with yunho and mingi, type 7s hate being bored; they are constantly seeking excitement, freedom, and a variety of interesting and new experiences. an avoider; they avoid pain and fear by escaping into fun and pleasure. often have difficulty with commitment and following through. easily distracted and can become exhausted from being constantly on the go. do not attempt to control. brain works at a mile a minute, much faster than anyone else is able to comprehend. aims to stay upbeat and look forward to a bright, positive future. type 8s are proud, confident, powerful, and strong. not afraid of confrontation. extremely self assertive and independent, might be intimidating to others. have difficulty with allowing themselves to be vulnerable. quick to anger but easy to appease. fears being harmed or controlled by others. denies weakness or fear. refuse to “give in” to social convention. 

jongho stans: type 5 (the investigator) or type 8 (the challenger) -> type 5s are visionaries, able to see the world in an entirely new way. focus on complex ideas and skills, sometimes to the point of detachment from the real world. relentless in their pursuit for knowledge. believe that they will eventually figure things out from the safety of their minds. hate feeling useless or incapable. compartmentalize people and situations. minimalist lifestyle; holds back strong feelings and desires/needs. like i said with wooyoung, type 8s are confident, impulsive, and aggressive. not afraid to go after what they want. difficulty being vulnerable. courageous, make good leaders, and protective of the weak. feel the need to control their environment (people as well) which may end up coming off as intimidating and domineering. want to be self reliant by proving their strength and resisting weaknesses. seek total independence and do not like being indebted to anyone. exercise an enormous amount of will, endurance, and persistence in their day-to-day lives. 

[danetobelieve]

It’s Always Mime For Coffee || Miriam and Winston

This happened during the mime POTW.

Winston had agreed to this and honestly they weren’t sure why. They weren’t sure what was going on and they weren’t sure why they found themselves being talked into going out for coffee or was it dinner? Winston wasn’t sure, but it was more the person (did Vampires count as people?) that wanted Winston to go for dinner. Miriam was cool. That was the problem. Not only was she hot (perhaps too hot) but she was also a vampire that could and would absolutely rip their throat out if they gave her the slightest indication that they were a witch. Which was great. Really REALLY great. Winston swallowed as they adjusted their somewhat uncomfortable standing position from left to right. They’d agreed to meet Miriam outside of the university, it was not a long walk to the Downtown bit of White Crest or even Amity Road or the Bend and Winston knew that they had to meet in the dark for obvious reasons, though Miriam had not explained those specifically. Sending a quick text her way, Winston waited. “Got here a little early, ready when u r.” 

Texting was a bit confusing, seeing as how sometimes people neither typed in full words nor full sentences, but Miriam was slowly getting the hang of it. At least, she wasn’t as bad at it as some humans her age, though she felt that was, in part, because she still appeared to be a woman in her late twenties with all of the health benefits that had to offer. She still spent a great deal of time squinting at her phone, though, if only because she didn’t understand it. But she understood Winston’s message well enough, so she parked her car not too far from campus and walked that way, pleased to get to see her young, technologically sophisticated friend. Winston was interesting to talk to, and it was a bit easier to ask them these sorts of tech related questions than it was to ask Elle, who Miriam feared had gotten too close to her and took great pleasure in making fun of her. Winston, however, did no such thing, which pleased Miriam greatly. As she saw them waiting outside the university, Miriam put on her best smile and gave a wave. “So glad you were able to meet tonight,” she said brightly. “I know coffee’s not an evening affair, typically, but I do promise to still provide excellent company.”

They were here and that meant that Winston had no choice but to go through with this now. They weren’t sure how they’d ever found themselves meeting a witch hunter for coffee in the night when they were a witch. Moving towards her, Winston met her half way and nodded gently. “Of course, you were pretty insistent even though these are things that you really can do on your own once you’ve had them explained,” they shrugged and smiled in reply, “but I appreciate everything anyway and it is always nice to see you.” They hoped that their lies weren’t too easy to see through. Not that they were entirely lies. There seemed to be a disconnect in recognising what Miriam was and recognising what they were. It was almost as if they didn’t quite realise how dangerous she was. It was hard to imagine her as the dangerous thing that Morgan and Nell had warned them about. “I’ve got some papers due anyway so I was going to be drinking coffee either way, but it’s nice to share it with someone.” 

“Hard work should always be appreciated,” Miriam said. “I know that you think you weren’t that helpful to me, darling, but, I assure you, having you explain things to me works far better than with anyone else, and I’d like to thank you for that.” Easily slipping her hands into the pockets of her jacket, she gave them a smile. Winston was a sweet child, young but still helpful. And so nervous around her, which made her want to tease them, though she refrained. It would be a bit cruel, and Winston had been too helpful to warrant teasing. Still… “It’s always nice to see you as well, dear. Your company is most enjoyable. I do hope you feel the same.” She continued walking with them towards the coffee shop. “Yes, you’re in college, right? Are finals coming up soon? I’m afraid I haven’t kept up with any of the schools since I graduated myself, which has been just a little bit longer than I’d care to admit.”

Did she have to be that charming? Winston already wasn’t the most gregarious person and this was kind of overkill. Swallowing back an excuse, they nodded and smiled politely. “Well, as I’ve said before if you think of anything else, which I’m sure you will, let me know and I’ll do what I can to help.” They were sure that if Miriam had come into the station they would’ve helped anyway, so it wasn’t really even like they were giving her special treatment. There was just the bit about vampire witch hunter that Winston sometimes had trouble with. “Oh for sure,” Winston hoped that they sounded enthusiastic enough but they always felt slightly guilty for doing this, even though really it was just dangerous for them. “Uh, finals and final deadlines on projects, I won’t bore you with the details but I’ve been busier then I thought and I’m a little behind. But that’s fine. Sometimes you’ve got to pull a long night to make something worthwhile.” 

Smirking just a bit, Miriam said, “I’m quite certain I will.” Glancing over at them, with their nervousness that she could practically feel, she wondered if she was teasing just a bit too much. Winston always seemed so nervous around her, like they were scared or intimidated. Which wasn’t much of a problem, really. Miriam knew she was intimidating, used to revel in it while in business meetings with men that thought they were better than her just because they were men. However, she didn’t want to thoroughly intimidate Winston to the point that they were incapable of quality conversation. Oftentimes, long into the night when everyone was asleep and she wasn’t working, Miriam found herself starved for it. People, conversations, connentions. She was tempted to go and join in with the supernatural nightlife of her kind, but she just… couldn’t. She had nothing against other vampires, but nothing really for them either. She preferred humans or, at the very least, creatures with a pulse and a lacking desire for blood. “I appreciate your desire to help me, Winston, very much so. And I don’t find your college curriculum boring! Though, I might not understand it all that much.” As they approached the coffee shop, she smiled. “I’ve confidence in your abilities. Besides, I’ve always found it easier to get things done in the night, anyway.”

“It really isn’t a big deal,” Winston replied with a gentle shrug, “you’ve managed to avoid getting any malware or viruses or anything like that onto your hardware which would be trickier to deal with and the best way to avoid that sort of thing is to work in preventative measures rather then fix the problem.” They pulled their jacket closer against them in the cool night air. “Well at least that makes one of us, not all of the stuff I have to do is the most fun but it’s really useful in terms of developing skills and working out how to problem solve in the long term…” they shrugged gently, honestly their college work didn’t seem all that important anymore, “I agree, during the day there are too many distractions and I can always sleep once the work is done.” They wondered if vampires slept. That was never something they had thought to investigate before. “Do you do most of your work at night too? I actually, I’m not entirely sure what it is that you do …” awkward.

Even though she’d heard those words before, they meant next to nothing to Miriam. “What, exactly, is all of that? Malware, computer viruses, it’s all a bit lost on me.” She grabbed the door to the coffee shop for them and led the way in. The taste of coffee was a bit dull these days, compared to what she remembered from being alive, but it would be nice to be able to warm her hands a bit. Anything was better than icicle fingers. “See, developing skills, particularly problem solving skills, is always a good thing. Not enough people put focus into that anymore, not like they used to.” Did that make her sound old? That probably made her sound old. Jokingly, she added, “No one solved problems like those Romans.” She looked at the coffee menu, trying to decide if she wanted to go with something tasteless and plain or something tasteless but with a funny name. “I own the leather shop downtown, Flemming’s. Which, the paperwork and the customer service aspect of it is very much a daytime task, and I can’t be in the office some days, but I have a lovely team that helps me out. I do enjoy burning the midnight oil while working on projects, though. It’s a good time to think, when the sun sets. A bit more peaceful.” She gave Winston a smile, a sincere one.

“They’re basically malicious files that do things to your computer that you’d rather they don’t do, so for example you could get something that records all the keys you press and then sends logs of it back to whoever put the files on your computer. You can get them by downloading things usually, but it can be more innocuous then that.” Winston paused in their explanation. “But they’re also able to do other stuff like access your camera for example, they won’t usually do anything really overt because they want them to stay undetected as long as possible.” Coffee was basically Winston’s blood at this point. They consumed it near constantly and they were convinced that they would die of a coffee headache if they ever stopped drinking it, even for one day. Winston quirked an eyebrow and shrugged. “It’s what I need to do to get where I want, Rome wasn’t built in a day after all.” They paused and raised an eyebrow before smiling. “Oh, that’s cool. So you actually do the leatherworking? Is that … I mean obviously it is hard but like I guess why leather work?” 

“Well, that’s actually quite terrifying,” Miriam said, eyebrows raised, only really understanding part of what Winston was saying. Something about something bad breaking your computer from the inside. She didn’t need that at all. Miriam had already broken three computers from the outside. And she didn’t trust computer cameras, although they make excellent mirrors, since mirrors are no longer applicable for her. She stepped up to the counter and placed her order. “An Americano, please, and I’m paying for them as well.” She turned to give Winston a smile before handing the barista her credit card. As she looked over her shoulder, out the shop winder, she thought she saw blonde hair and a familiar leather jacket, which was impossible; after all, she was wearing the only one of its kind. Perhaps it was simply a similar make. “No, Rome certainly wasn’t built in a day. But, yes, I do most of the leatherwork, though two of my employees are also incredibly talented in it as well. I also do a lot of the designing and bookkeeping myself.” It was a pain to do on the computer, but she had all the time in the world to learn. As for why… It’s my legacy, my family business. I grew learning it, and I couldn’t imagine anything different. Besides, I’ve always loved fashion.”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t advise you to go out seeking one, especially because so much financial information is on computers nowadays it can be a real pickle to extricate yourself from if it all goes wrong.” Winston didn’t know how people managed to get themselves into such situations nowadays, with the amount of internet security available it shouldn’t be hard to avoid these things and yet they were still a third of the problems that they were faced with when they worked on the communities tech needs at the station. “Just a latte please,” Winston said with a bright smile, “Black coffee is pretty hardcore.” Winston followed her gaze but saw nothing, before nodding and smiling. “Damn, that’s really interesting. I’ve always wondered how satisfying it must be to do something like that with your hands and actually get to see all of the things that you create and all of the work that you have actually done, you must be really proud of your achievements. It’s very impressive.” Was Winston really complimenting a vampire? It was so hard though, she was just so charismatic. So charming. Not to mention beautiful. 

“Trust me, darling, I’ve no desire to seek one out,” Miriam told them with a smile. If she could, she avoided computer shenanigans as much as possible. That’s what she’d hired Elle for, though it was nice to be able to talk about something with Winston. It was quite adorable when they started spouting off technological jargon to her, even if she didn’t understand a damn word of it. The barista handed her back her card, And Miriam tucked it back into her purse. “I like the strong taste of it,” she told Winston. The only taste, really. The other drinks were fun and interesting, and she liked the smell of them, but they were just bland. At least with the Americano, she could almost imagine it tasted normal. Plus, her father raised her on black coffee. It was something to remember the old man by. As they complimented her, Miriam allowed her grin to widen. “Flattery will get you everywhere, darling,” she practically purred. “But, really, it’s quite satisfying. There’s something incredible about seeing people appreciate your hard work. The time and effort that you put in and see them enjoy. It’s wonderful. I never get tired of it.” Their drinks came out to them, and Miriam wrapped her hands around her cup, enjoying the way the warmth sunk in. “Won’t you take a walk with me, WInston? I know you need to get back to your work, but it’s a nice night, and I so rarely get to enjoy time with other people.” She’d thought Winston might be a werewolf, in the beginning, but they were just so decidedly human. She enjoyed that. There weren’t many humans she spent time with outside of work.

“Cool, less work for me.” Winston had to admit that it was really nice that someone apparently valued their work so much. They kind of wished that she wasn’t undead and completely devoted to killing spellcasters, but they guessed that was something they would hae to work on. The truth was that the more that they got to know Miriam the more difficult it was to consider her as, well, the enemy. She didn’t seem like the energy. “I can’t do the strength of the taste,” Winston replied with a shrug, “I love the caffeine though so I drown the coffee in milk and hope for the best.” Smiling at her comment, Winston shrugged. “I mean, you’re buying me coffee already, I’m not sure how much more I can get out of you.” They were joking of course and for a moment they had to admit that they didn’t expect their reaction to be making a joke. Maybe they were getting a little bit too comfortable here. “You never wanted to do something else? There was never anything outside of leather work that intrigued you enough to pursue it I guess?” They wondered if it was really sensible for them to go walking with Miriam, but honestly they didn’t know what else they were going to be able to do to get out of it and found themselves nodding along. “Sure, I can take a bit more time, you did get me coffee after all so yeah, where are you headed?” 

Miriam brought her coffee to her lips, savoring the aroma of it. She took a sip, enjoying the flavor of it. They brewed it strong here, something that she approved up. Strong coffee was good coffee. “I used to add more things to it, sugar, milk, when I was younger, but these days I simply drink it straight.” She looked at their latte. It smelled nice, but she knew the taste would be underwhelming at best. “Nothing wrong with cutting it with milk, though. Black coffee’s an acquired taste. I just so happen to have acquired it, over the years.”  She couldn’t help teasing them; Winston made it too easy. “Darling, if you think coffee’s the most that you can get out of me, you’re sorely mistaken.” She gave them a wink. Another sip of coffee, her insides feeling warm. She could briefly imagine blood moving through her veins, spreading warmth and life through her body. “You know, I never really thought about anything else. I loved it. I’d go into work with my father and see his employees making beautiful things, and I wanted to do that. I enjoyed all sides of leatherwork. The fashion side, the practical side, even the business side. I don’t have to tell you that I’m terrible with modern computers, but the books, the accounts, business math, I’m good at that, and I enjoy it. Plus, it’s quite relaxing.” When she was thinking leather, Miriam wasn’t thinking witches. She knew there were plenty out there pleased with that. “No specific direction, though we can head towards the college, keep you a bit closer to where I’m sure you’re headed. I simply want to appreciate the night and nice company.

“Did you grow out of it or something?” Winston wasn’t sure why they cared so much about the way that Miriam apparently took her coffee. The truth was that it was easier to act as if something as trivial as how she drank her coffee were important. Swallowing loudly, Winston had to admit that they were glad that it was the evening. They hoped that the darkness and shadows protected them from the obvious blush that they must have experienced at Miriam’s quip. “Really?” Winston swallowed, they hadn’t even considered /that/ not with Miriam, she was super hot though. Winston wasn’t sure if the fact that she would kill them in several seconds flat was a turn off or…. They decided that now was not the time to think about that. They were already flustered enough and they didn’t need to start developing a crush on someone who would very happily kill them once they learned the truth. “I have to admit, I know a lot of people who don’t quite know what they want to do yet… i always feel kind of sorry for them, I’ve always known what I want and where I want to be and how I am going to get there. I can’t imagine what it must be like to lack that purpose.” Winston wasn’t even being extra sympathetic. They’d always known what they wanted to do and what was right for them. “It’s always a pleasure anyway,” Winston wasn’t lying, though they wished that they were because despite themselves Miriam was slowly winning them over. 

“My taste buds changed over the years,” Miriam replied, a bit of a joke. She started taking her coffee black around the time she started craving blood and something else, something one couldn’t really crave. Her eyes caught the slight blush working its way onto Winston’s skin, and she covered a grin with her cup, heading outside into the night air. Flustering Winston was both easy and enjoyable. However, it’d take away the fun if they got too used to it. She decided to hold off a bit, allow the conversation to flow and shift. “I’m not a bit surprised by that. You’re young, you know. Lots of people your age don’t know what they want…” She trailed off, swearing that she’d seen a familiar profile turn around the corner in front of them. She was just a bit off; that had to be it. After all, she hadn’t properly seen that profile since the last time she looked in a mirror, and that had been a long time. “I feel a bit sorry for them as well. Good on you for knowing what you want, though, darling.” She smiled pleasantly. “And it’s always a pleasure to be in your company as well.”

“I mean, technically all your cells replace themselves every seven years or so, so you have a brand new body after seven years. I guess it’s kind of like that analogy about Theseus’ ship.” Winston had heard it talked about with other concepts before, coding for example. If you stripped out enough of the original code and replaced it with something new, was it still the same program even if every part is different then what it was originally? Winston frowned as they spotted a familiar silhouette that would sometimes send panic into their very bones. That was only when they saw Miriam in public and it was unplanned, but they were with Miriam right now and she was stood next to them. “Me too, I think I’m lucky that I worked it out ahead of time, less stress.” Winston frowned gently as they tried to peer around the corner they thought the figure had gone down, but there was nothing there.

“Really?” Miriam asked, intrigued. “Then I suppose they’ll change again in a few years or so.” Though, that was unlikely. She didn’t change anymore. Likely, she still had the same dead, useless cells in her body that she’d had ever since the car wreck. “Yes, I count myself lucky as well. Knowing what you want, going for it, good for--” She was cut off as a blonde figure came from nowhere, trying to tackle Miriam and spilling her coffee. An involuntary snarl worked its way out of her throat. Righting herself. She took in the creature in front of her. “Damn,” she said in disgust. “And here I thought I’d escaped the fucking mimes.” The mime version of Miriam smiled, baring sharp fangs. Greasepaint on her face, black lips, even stripes added to her prized jacket. “You’re so tacky,” Miriam bemoaned. “Couldn’t you have at least spared the jacket?” Mime Miriam snarled and attacked the original. Miriam felt her own fangs drop into place. She hoped Winston had the foresight to stay out of this as she forced her mime down into an alley, both of them pulling at each other’s hair and scratching at each other’s faces.

Winston was just wondering if the same was said for things that were technically ‘undead’ although they were far from convinced that that was a useful way of looking at what was undoubtedly something that could be observed with science. Science could explain the supernatural phenomena that existed in this world, it just needed to be given the time to do so. One moment, Winston was walking alongside Miriam, then there was a blonde blur moving at inhuman speed and knocking coffee from Miriam’s hands. Winston watched as fangs were quite literally drawn, Miriam and mime-iam started to fight and all Winston could say was “What the fuck.” They watched, frozen in place, should they intervene? Should they try and help? Should they just run?

It was like fighting with a mirror. A horribly dressed, unnervingly quiet mirror. Whatever Miriam did, the mime did. A pull of the hair, a slap to the face, a heel to the boot. Miriam was getting just as battered as the mime was, and it pissed her off to absolutely no end. She needed to end this, quickly. She looked to Winston, standing and watching. Well, she thought, there was no use in hiding what she was now. The vampire was well and truly out of the coffin at this point, as she fought with red eyes and sharp fangs. She kept taunting the mime’s sense of fashion. “That lipstick, really? With all that face paint? Darling, we know better.” The mime put a hand over Miriam’s mouth, and Miriam took a chunk out of it, spitting out flesh and gagging as a black, tar-like substance, different even from her own thick blood, leaked out of the creature. It smelled like fresh bread. The mime cried out silently, cradling its hand, and Miriam managed to pin it against the wall. She looked to Winston. “Darling,” she called out, “I do hate to get you involved in this silliness, but if you could find something sharp and wooden, I’d be most grateful.”

A stake. Of course. That would be what you would need to kill a vampire. Winston didn’t know why they hadn’t thought of that but honestly they were kind of hoping that their problem would be taken care of for them. But just watching Miriam get killed by an evil copy of themself wasn’t something that Winston was sure that they could stomach. “A stake, yep, cool, cool cool cool,” Winston sprung forward, suddenly wishing that they could justify using the stake that they had started keeping in their rucksack but that would look a little too convenient. Winston didn’t want to raise suspicion and so they sprinted past the tustling vampires and over to a pallet. “I would offer to, uh…. Stab you, mime you, not you you,” Winston couldn’t help babbling as they kicked the old wood once with a resounding thud but no break, “but I’ve seen these before and you’ve got to do it otherwise it, other- it’ll come back.” Their sneaker crunched through the pallet and the wood split in two. Grabbing the smaller piece they sprinted over to Miriam, trying to hold it out without getting hurt.

“Don’t worry, darling, I’ve got this,” Miriam said, though the mime thrashed against her and snapped its teeth. Miriam shifted herself more firmly to pin the creature. “Stop struggling, you wretched bitch. You’re a crime to fashion, humanity, and everything in between.” She snatched the piece of wood from Winston, grateful for their help and determination. If only all humans were so gallant and brave. Perhaps she wouldn’t be in this situation had Theo had a bit more humanity in him. She stabbed the mime with the pointed end of the makeshift stake. The creature, instead of turning to ash, turned into the same tar-like substance that it bled. Miriam wrinkled up her nose and sighed at the puddle of it. It’d gotten on her shoes. Finally, she turned to Winston, more than just a bit concerned. “I take it you’ve dealt with these things before?” she asked. Her fangs receded and her eyes faded back to blue. “I also… I hope that this doesn’t… doesn’t scare you. Me. I hope I don’t scare you.” She brushed at something on her jacket, not quite meeting Winston’s eyes. 

Winston watched, somewhat impressed and more then a little horrified by the situation that was unfolding in front of them. Miriam could definitely deal with herself. Note to self, don’t give her stakes in the future if you can help it. “Uh, well -” they shrugged, “yeah, my room mates both had one, me too, not … my favourite thing to have to do. But, it’s done now anyway.” Winston slipped their hands into the pocket of their jacket and looked at the gloop that was running all over the floor. “I mean, I was scared, but not because of you, I guess that’s not really … what you meant.” They sighed. “You don’t live in White Crest without starting to realise that sometimes there is more to things then meets the eye, and I don’t hold any animosity to anyone because they’re not exactly like me.” Winston wondered if this was really a situation that they could’ve avoided. Really they should’ve known better but they were starting to think that they were destined to get themselves in more trouble. “It’s about how you live your life, not about what you are.” 

“And you handled it yourself?” Miriam asked, remembering what Winston had said about it had to be done by her. “That’s incredibly impressive, Winston.” It was. Truthfully, she hadn’t thought they had it in them, the strength to handle the supernatural bullshit of this town. She felt a bit silly for that, though. Winston, time and time again, impressed and surprised her. She needed to stop being so shocked. Of course they could handle themselves. And it shouldn’t have surprised her, their words about the supernatural in this town, and yet she couldn’t stop that, either. She was touched by their words, the acceptance that came so readily from this human child. Perhaps they were more than meets the eye. Perhaps they were simply kind. Whatever the case, she appreciated it. “Thank you, Winston. Truly. You are probably one of the kindest people I’ve ever met. I wish that more people could be as accepting as you. Hell, I even wish that I had the capacity to be so.” She gave them a soft smile and brushed off her clothes, clearing her throat. “Well, darling. I’ve lost my coffee and am covered in this strange, bread-smell substance. Care to start heading back to the college? I parked not too far from there.”

“The way that you said that makes it sound a lot more impressive then it actually was…” Winston shrugged. “I’m not sure that impressive is the right word, traumatic maybe,” they laughed somewhat nervously, it wasn’t a funny joke. Their life had changed in ways that they had never expected it to and they weren’t above admitting that they were pretty terrified by what the future might hold. “I guess you’re welcome, honestly I don’t think it’s kindness, it’s just what I would want for me if I were in your situation,” Winston hoped that Miriam would remember that if something were to happen. They really hoped that it wouldn’t. “I hope that more people will be more accepting, it’s a remarkably violent world … I mean from what I hear, I don’t exactly make a habit of fighting mimes.” Nodding, Winston gave her a weak smile “Probably a good plan, the code won’t debug itself.” 

“Traumatic, I’m sure, but it’s you here with me and not some clown that refuses to see itself as a clown,” Miriam told them. “That counts for something.” She felt sympathy for them as they laughed but seemed scared out of their mind. The supernatural was terrifying, Miriam knew this to be true. She had been younger than Winston when she first found out about it; before even Theo, she had known something was amiss in her hometown. She’d lived with it a long time, but she still knew how awful it could all be, especially in the wrong hand. “Well, Winston, kindness or not, it’s certainly appreciated. I hope, one day, more people see things the way you do.” She considered holding out her arm for them before she thought better of it. “We best be heading back, then. Before any other sort of foolishness rains down.”

[aliceslantern]

Retribution, a Kingdom Hearts fanfic, chapter 15

Newly a person again, Ienzo is weighed down by guilt and his humanity. He's prepared to do whatever it takes to atone... only to find unexpected solace in a familiar face. With more insight into the bonds between people than ever before, Ienzo reaches for a dangerous element from the past to help Kairi and Riku in their search for Sora. What is his life if it means saving another, brighter light?

Chapter summary:  Ienzo has to decide how to move forward.

Read it on FF.net/on AO3

---

When Ienzo woke up he could breathe.

The intubation had been removed, but his throat ached. He was in the med bay again. It hurt to move.

He sat up slowly. Demyx was fast asleep in a chair nearby, his body awkwardly folded onto it, a blue blanket spread over him.

“Ienzo?”

He looked over and saw Aerith. She approached him and took his pulse. “I’m sorry about this,” he said hoarsely.

“How do you feel?”

“Alright--I suppose.”

At the noise, Demyx stirred. “Hey, you’re awake.”

Aerith sat at the foot of the bed. “The good news is that I was able to heal the damage to your heart and lungs. But… on the other hand, Ienzo, all of that healing is going to unravel the moment you use that power again. You’ll go back to being unable to breathe without support. And likely other organs of yours will begin to fail.”

“...I see.” He still felt a bit breathless. “Thank you for your help.” He was oddly numb.

“It’s lucky Demyx was with you,” she said. “Otherwise…”

“It would have been fatal,” he said in that numb voice. “Quite.”

Demyx seemed numb too; his face was blank, his eyes haunted.

She smiled sadly. “As long as you don’t use that power, you should begin to bounce back and recover. You’re young, and healthy, otherwise.”

“I see.”

She squeezed both his hands. “I’ll call and check up on you in a few hours,” she said. “Get some rest.”

She left. For a moment it was silent. “How’s your… breathing?” Demyx asked in an odd voice.

“Back to normal, more or less,” Ienzo replied, equally as stunted. “I must apologize for that. Not very flattering.”

“Not very--” Something broke the numbness. “You almost died, Ienzo. You almost suffocated. Do you know what that felt like to see?”

“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “Truly, I am.”

“So much for this not killing you,” he said sourly.

“I’m going to stop,” Ienzo said, more to the blanket tucked around his legs than anything. “I promise. I’m going to stop.”

“I want to believe you,” Demyx said.

Ienzo looked at him. He could feel tears in his eyes. “It is very clear that this is doing nothing other than being dramatic and destructive. I’m not helping anyone. The power’s not strong enough to do any good--it only will kill me. I used to be fine with that. I used to want that. But now…”

Demyx took a few steps towards him and drew Ienzo into his arms. “There are other ways you can help,” Demyx said.

“I certainly hope so.”

The door opened and in came Even. His face was washed out, and his eyes were bloodshot, but his expression was resigned. “Might I have a word with Ienzo? Alone?” he asked Demyx.

“...Sure.” He squeezed Ienzo’s hand one last time and then left. Ienzo looked at his empty hand, wanting nothing more than for him to be back, knowing that Even was very likely about to tell him off.

Even perched on the edge of the bed. He’d shed his lab coat, and the turtleneck underneath was a little shabby. “How are you, child?” he asked in a soft voice, the same that had comforted him as he cried.

“Dazed. Disoriented. Humiliated,” Ienzo said softly. “I…”

“I could not help but overhear your conversation. You truly desired death?”

“You accused me as such.”

“Yet--to hear it aloud is all the more jarring.” He touched his temple. “I’m afraid emotions make me… feel quite stupid.”

Ienzo dropped his eyes. “Every day the guilt was eating me alive. It still is. I felt like a wretch. Like--of all the people to have died, why did I survive? Without the distraction of my work, I, as a person… was not worthy of the life given to me.” He exhaled. “Clearly all I was capable of in the past was mayhem and terror. I figured if I could die doing something worthwhile, then…” He trailed off. “I didn’t even fully know myself that was my goal for a while. But if it’s any consolation--I’m giving up.”

Even’s eyes were glassy. “Are you?”

“Yes. You needn’t manipulate Demyx into coercing me.”

Even winced. “I still don’t understand this match, at all,” he said softly. “But clearly he is giving you something no one else can. Something that you need. I would be a fool to ignore that.”

“He’s changing. He’s growing. I hope I am too.” Ienzo felt his eyes watering, again. The implications of it all were starting to break over him. He’d very nearly died. He knew it was a human response to be shocked and afraid about it; he was hardly going to react to a near-death experience with Zexion’s cold indifference.

“You are,” Even said softly. “I must insist after all this that you take some time to yourself. No work… nothing strenuous. I’m sure you’re feeling quite a lot.”

“You’re not mad?” Ienzo asked.

“Moreso… terrified of losing you. But now I know how you feel. And we can talk about that. You have so much to offer, Ienzo. Just because you cannot do this one thing doesn’t mean you are lacking worth.”

The tears ran over. “What am I to do?”

Even wiped away the tear. “Go back to this new project of humanity,” he said.

“I have to atone somehow.”

“And you will,” Even said firmly. “Of that I have no doubt. But if it helps… Ienzo, you were a victim of all this too. One of the best ways of atoning is healing.”

“What of you?”

“What about me?”

“Are you healing?”

Even looked startled. “A loaded question. I’m afraid… I have quite a lot more sins I’ve committed. But I will do everything in my power not to waste this life. I’ve spent enough time faffing about. Getting rid of Xehanort is one thing… cleaning up the fallout, another. But it is work that must be done. Work that I… want to do.”

“And things with Ansem and the others?”

“Will mend if they are meant to,” he said, wrinkling his nose. “It is difficult.”

Ienzo sighed.

Even patted his hand. “Get some sleep,” he said. “This will all work out for the best. We have to trust in the ways of fate--it’s gotten us here so far.”

“What of the science?”

Even laughed. “Well. We all know what our science has done, yes?”

Ienzo reached forward to embrace him. He couldn’t pretend it didn’t feel awkward to do so, but he was just feeling so exposed, and in an odd way heartbroken. He needed to be soothed.

Even rubbed his back in circles. “We’re going to figure this out.”

---

For several days Ienzo just felt tired. Tired, weak, and sad, too. As he tried to sleep the memories poked him behind the eyes like hot needles--all the things he’d done, all the things that had been done to him. He woke up sobbing more than once and had to be comforted. In a way, he felt like a child, his emotions washing through him thickly without the barrier of his work.

But a child’s heart could grow, and bit by bit, he did.

He spent time with Demyx. Running packages, going out to lunch. Walking. Talking, a lot. Ienzo wasn’t sure if it was the near-death experience, or the difficulty of letting go of his research, or perhaps because of how vulnerable they’d been with one another, but the words were spilling from him without his permission. He found himself telling Demyx about his past, his biological parents, the experimentation. About how it felt to die and then, what seemed a second later, wake in a whole new self. How, on one hand, he had twelve years of Zexion's memories, but on the other he'd essentially gone from eight to twenty in a single breath. In all this, Demyx just listened patiently, holding his hand tightly.

He went to the restoration committee, offering himself for whatever might need to be done. Ienzo found himself looking through engineering plans, doing heavy admin work and helping proof Cid’s codes. The man was, in his own way, also trying to help Sora, building a model of him to function in simulations. Helping in this tertiary capacity soothed Ienzo’s conscience.

Once he was physically stronger, he and Demyx spent a lot of time in bed, getting to know one another’s bodies. In this all, something real seemed to be emerging. They talked about the future; where they might go and how they might get there.

“You’re going to do great things and I’m going to help you get there,” Demyx said. “Relax, Zo. We’ve got time.” Sometimes Ienzo would sit with him as he composed music, his fingers deftly weaving stories from sound.

Ienzo tried to write his own story.

The first few attempts actually just made him rawer and more emotional still. He snapped easily and cried at stupid things. But letting go of these emotions only served to ease the weight of dread in his breast.

Everything was, so slowly, looking up.

He should’ve known it wouldn’t last long.

[veridium]

dragon age day

I know today might be a bit overwhelming for the fandom since it is, of course, the day (the day of all days). When I thought about what I wanted to contribute, if anything, I could only think of saying thanks. As I am in the midst of finals and grading assignments, I don’t have many spoons to spare, except to reiterate what I have said so many times before: dragon age has provided me with so many blessings. 

CW: discussion of toxic relationship, emotional abuse.

Some of you know that around the time I joined the fandom in 2018 (after having only played Inquisition for several months beforehand), I was in the midst of an incredibly toxic, emotionally abusive, and failing relationship. I had just graduated college and was at a crossroads. Because the relationship was the longest and most serious I had ever known I was incredibly attached to it, even as it became detrimental to my happiness. We were planning on getting engaged this past summer. Our entire lives were planned and I was in it for the long haul. 

Earlier that year my ex had gifted me Inquisition after I kept seeing it in GameStop and saying I had always wanted to try it. I played it once, got infuriated by the Hinterlands, and put it down for a long time. Around the time I finished undergrad I decided to give it another try, and quickly became hooked. I would spend hours and hours in front of the TV learning by trial and error how to play. My ex was the more prolific gamer but that quickly started to change. 

That wasn’t the only shift that was happening. 

One of the symptoms of my ex’s and her family’s toxicity and its impact on me was that I had become incredibly detached from art. I have been artistic since I was strong enough to hold a crayon in my hand. My family swore for years I’d be an artist, or an actress. But I have learned that, what all-too-often happens when you choose to love something that doesn’t love you the way you deserve in return, you lose touch with all the things that remind you of why you’re so worthy of a great love. You don’t invest in it, you don’t nourish it, because it becomes all about preserving this person in your life and what you believe they bring to it. When things turn dark the natural inclination is to sacrifice more in order to save it: to prove that you can be as loyal as your promised. 

A year later and I am still unpacking the trauma that was inflicted upon me during that time of my life, trauma I didn’t know by name as it was happening because I had given my all to someone I loved and the future we wanted. But not everything was rosey and blissful, and I am reflecting upon that. I think back to what finally woke me up, and it’s quite literally this: I turned into a huge, enthusiastic, and clumsy nerd. 

Playing a game with such a vivid world took what was perhaps one of the last surviving matchsticks there was, lighting it, and dropping it on me. My imagination consumed Thedas like water after a 40-year drought. I began theorizing characters, researching the prior games, and scrolling through the wiki site hunting for lore. I realized the universe was so much bigger than what Inquisition represented. 

Then, I bought the first sketchbook I had in over a year. 

My characters became my muse, and over time, their portraits grew into stories. I looked up Tumblr and rejoined specifically to engage with the fandom and see what sharing my love with other people could do for my creativity. Even though art and writing were lifelong passions of mine, I had no intention whatsoever of writing fanfiction until I read other people’s work, saw the fun they were having with it and what it was doing for their healing, and I decided to go out on a limb.

The more stories I wrote the more I remembered my marrow: I was so much more than what my relationship, and my partner’s family, warped me into seeing. My original characters started out as projections of the qualities and traits I loved and missed about myself, as well as love letters to the women and queer people in my life. And in the canon characters I grew attached to I saw hope and inspiration for surviving adversities. Tests of faith, conviction, and courage under pressure. In their stories I found refuge and reliability for a terrible era of my life where I felt so completely alone.

As I gave more and more time to my passions, my relationship strained even further than it had. I was no longer hopelessly devoted to its endurance, I had something that was purely mine again, and my partner’s encouragement waned. It turned into jealousy -- for this and many other parts of my life I used as an escape from the sadness -- and rather than bend as I had done before, I pushed back. I protected what was my own and I did not sacrifice it. To be fair it wasn’t always healthy: I would log hours and hours into the game to escape the stress of the relationship, to distract myself from the fact that my mental health was the lowest and frailest it had been in years, and the cold, hard truth: it was over, or else I was going to commit my life to something terrible. 

Months later, I said enough. I ended the relationship once and for all. I was moving my life out of an apartment I had lived in for years, saying goodbye to everything I had fought so hard to build. In your early 20s everything feels like a vast unknown and you have a manual with no writing on its pages. Every serious decision feels like invoking a storm you have to hunker down in. I still deal with that, and am learning from it with every new season. I have also learned that sometimes destruction, and creative recklessness, is about so much more than loss. I had given up security I was paying for with my emotional well-being. 

But I kept me, and my sketchbooks, and my art supplies, and my stories. I had my cat, too, but you know, technicalities (haha).

So, for as imperfect as my fandom experience has been, and for as grumpy as I have become with society’s bullshit (which is quite the high level), I will always be grateful to these games for existing. For giving me something to hold onto when my life was falling apart, a world I could slip away to when I wasn’t ready to face the evils in my own. Because when I was finally ready, and willing to be my own warrior, my imagination was ready to make something out of nothing. These games and this universe helped me save myself.

Thank you to Dragon Age, to the fandom community I have made in its name, and to everyone who makes it worthwhile. But it wouldn’t be me without saying: fuck off to every single bullshit game writer who used its medium to perpetuate harmful tropes and norms, fuck off to fandom racists and racist apologists, to queerphobes who hated my meta on account of it using the word queer even though it was my explicit voice as a queer creative on queer issues (did I forget to say queer? queer!), to Vivienne haters, sexist gamer bros, fetishists; but explicitly to romanticizers of unhealthy power dynamics between couples and friends alike. These horror stories (yes, horror stories) exist enough in real life, take it from me. We don’t need them made into romanticized, co-opted, and misused fictions here. 

The reason why I and so many others write for this universe, and participate creatively, is to combat these influences. With our own blood, sweat, and tears as artists, might I add. I am so, so proud to be included in that community. 

So, happy Dragon Age Day, ya’ll. Let us keep warm on this, our trash can fire. 

[goodnightsweetme]

Some thoughts about The Magicians S4 finale

I want to write a bit (recreational activity for me) and I have thoughts about The Magicians, especially about what went down in S4, so there we go. It will probably turn out long and rambly, so buckle up. But first, a few disclaimers.

X

As I will discuss The Magicians plotlines & the writers' creative choices there will be spoilers. If you haven't seen S1-S4 and you don't want to be spoiled, don't read past this point.

X

I won't be discussing the writers actions after the finale, neither the silence nor the interviews. It's garbage fire and I don't have time for this. (It's rather baffling that in this day and age tv business professionals still handle the communication with the fanbase this badly.)

X

Now, I would not call myself a fan of The Magicians, but I got engaged in the story. I'm a fan of very few shows these days and usually I steer clear from the fandoms' open waters. I don't have the time or the energy, so I stick to the friends I've made back in the day.

As such, I haven't watched The Magicians until after the S4 finale. Recently I've been thinking about the treatment of the queer characters in the ongoing tv shows, so the Q's death controversy was right up my alley. I also had some time for a binge and some personal issues to be distracted from (no worries, I'm dealing with them, I just couldn't allow them to cause me obsessing over them).

X

I've tried to read Grossman's books when they first came out and I decided they weren't for me. I still think that. If you want some quality fantasy recs, hit me up.

When the show first came out I watched first few eps and then noped out of it. I thought it was pretty bad and full of issues and, and upon rewatch, that's still my opinion about the first half of the 1st season.

X

The show does get better. It's ocasionally great (S3 is pretty strong and thoroughly enjoyable – with eps 3.04 & 3.05 being really really good, the first one for its storytelling quality, the second one for its emotional payoff). However it has various issues throughout that would have made me mistrustful of the writers, even if I didn't know what happens to Q.

X

So, you may say I went in prepared and with my reservations. As a consequence I didn't really have the feeling of rage and betrayal that the long time fans did. But I get them and they are so valid. Take care of yourselves, take care of each other, take your time to process the grief in a way that works for you. And stay hydrated.

Now, processing what happened might include some action and engagement. I've seen fanfic writing, article writing, venting on different platforms, sharing the experiences of your lives and loves and mental health, #PeopleLikeMe campaign, Change petition, decisions to stop watching the show and fundrasing for the Trevor Project. Things big and small, heartbreaking and inspriring. The only thing we shouldn't do is harass the writers (and thankfully I've seen very little of that), because harassment is never ok. And we are better than that.

Creators can fuck up (and I will defend their right to fuck up, we're all only human) and we can call them out. Maybe they will learn from their mistakes, maybe not (and if not, well, fans will move on to the greener pastures, where we will get better and kinder stories), but maybe someone else will, someone who is or might become a creator themselves. And maybe there's a little consolation in that.

(And this is why we shouldn't stay silent.)

X

Thinking about it, I see two explanations for killing Q:

the writers did it for shock value, knowing it will get them some buzz (and they miscalculated how much and what kind of buzz)

the writers really don't understand their own show and characters

I believe it may be both.

Even in the first season, when Q introduces us to the world of the show as he himself gets introduced to it, I'd still say The Magicians are an ensemble show. And the show deals with Q being the „white male lead” in the S1 finale when Q gives Alice the knife (and has a speech dealig with that directly, the show does this kind of thing repeteadly, characters monologuing or explaining trope/plot to another character, it's terrible writing, but it's explicit, you can't say the show didn't say something) and uses the fact that the Beast sees him as the „hero” against it, providing distraction for Alice to act. And the show reinforces the notion of Q not being the main hero of the story repeatedly throughout the series and in various ways (Julia being the variable to make loop 40 successful, Eliot becoming High King and so on and so forth).

So when we arrive to S4 Q is:

one of a diverse group of pretty fucked up but still lovable friends (effectively a millenial found family)

average magician

dealing with his mental issues that didn't go away when he discovered magic/Fillory

canon bisexual

caring and loyal and nerdy and awkward

(Gee, how come so many people identified strongly with that.)

(Sorry for the snark.)

No one holds against Q that he isn't some kind of Chosen One, because it was never what his friends expected from him or valued him for. He sometimes/low-key expected it from himself, but the show dealt with that. Repeteadly. And that was fine and that was subverting tropes.

So when the writers first sideline him and then have him killed in S4 finale (in a pretty straightforward Heroic Sacrifice scene), they don't kill a straight white male hero wearing the plot armor, they kill a vulnerable young queer man with mental health issues. And guess how many of them we have on our screens.

What makes the matter even worse:

they handled Q's history of suicidal thoughts/tendencies horribly

it turns out that what looked like a clear setup for future romantic relationship between Q and Eliot was in fact a setup for Eliot's grief story (Right up the Bury Your Gays alley as if that's still the only story a gay man can get on tv. In 2019.)

X

I do belive you still can write a valuable and respectful story of a queer person comitting suicide and their family, friends and community being left to deal with the aftermath, but you'd need to put into it a lot more work, time, thought, talent and sensivity than The Magicians writers did or even are (in my opinion) capable of.

X

For all of the tropes subverting, sometimes very entertaining, The Magicians still were an escapist story at heart. And I really can't think of anything worthwhile the writers archieved by pulling the rug from under its fans.

X

Other issues with S4 finale that I might write about sometime in the future (but now maybe I’ll go and rewatch some Black Sails, Doom Patrol or Killing Eve):

treatment of Julia and Penny 23

treatment of Kady

treatment of the Monster (really)

treatment of Margo and Josh

resolution of the two main storylines (The Library & the Monsters)

[immagettinmyshittogether]

Worthwhile distractions

So I’ve been having a little trouble keeping up with some shit lately. A couple weeks ago I got hit with a MASSIVE cold/flu/something. So my diet went out the window in favor of chicken noodle soup and spicy food to clear my sinuses and whatever the heck comfort food I needed to get through the day. Considering how sick I was, honestly, I suspect that my body was burning more calories than normal anyway just to fight it off. And I don’t seem to have gained or lost much weight in the last few weeks, so I think my hypothesis is probably pretty close to true. But I was so sick that I honestly couldn’t think straight for several days. Of course, the days that I was the most sick were Friday through Sunday. So I didn’t miss any work. I just spend the entire next week sniffling and taking dayquil.

Needless to say, for the second time, I missed a writing deadline. My writing income has dropped considerably (which thanks to the two month delay in Amazon sales, I won’t notice until the end of January). Partly because of missed deadlines, I’m sure, but also partly because I think the series I’ve been working on just doesn’t have as big an audience as I thought it would. I was trying to shift from straight up smut to smutty romantic smut. It appears that for short-term and short story/serial publishing, the lowest common denominator might be a better thing to aim for. My sales have been practically nil, and my Kindle Unlimited reads have been a little below average. I haven’t had the heart to check my book rankings, but I know they’re lower than they were the last few months.

Author’s note/edit after posting - I realized that I hadn’t updated anything about last month’s sales. Last month jumped up to over 150. It was on target to hit 200 until Thanksgiving came around and I missed my first deadline.... then it kind of hit a stasis that week, and I basically didn’t earn hardly anything for the entire last week of the month. Still, I’m afraid to look at my current projected monthly income based on what I’ve made so far this month. It ain’t gonna be pretty.)

Then the shit kind of hit the fan at work. I work on a college campus, so these last few weeks of the semester are just kind of a run-up to the end. Always busier than usual, often with higher stakes in order to make sure shit gets done in time. So the next week after being sick has been one of the busiest and most stressful weeks of the semester. I’ll explain the details under the ‘keep reading’ line if you’re curious.

I did manage to get the story out late. So I still managed to publish once my brain was functioning. Unfortunately, I’m finding that at the moment, my usual after-day-job home environment isn’t really conducive to my current writing. I don’t know if it’s just because I’m writing smut, and I have trouble focusing on that with my spouse in the room. Or, more likely, it’s because my spouse has ADD and needs constant background things going on, like youtube videos or something, in order to concentrate. Whereas I don’t, and those things are distractions for me.

I’m wondering if I should just wrap up the various series that I have going now and call this experiment in writing a minimum of a short a week what is was: an experiment. But with winter vacation coming up for me, I will have the chance to sit at home and write without distraction for a few weeks. So I’ll at least try to catch up on my work then and get a good backlog to keep posting.

The pen name I was using for this smut is not one I ever planning on using to make a living. I was just using it to force myself to write something out of my comfort zone, get some experience writing on a long-term repeated deadline, and get a feel for online publishing.

I have learned a bit about serial publishing. And I’m starting to understand why all the old classic serial publishers tried to make things as salacious as they did. In the fast-paced world of publishing, the most important thing is just to grab people’s attention. After that you can worry about quality.

I also had another pen name that focused more on the romance side of things rather than the smut side of things... but that’s an entirely different market, and it generally requires a longer time investment and longer stories. And when all I can do at the moment while I’ve got my day job is about 5k words per week, the smut seemed to be the better option to focus on.

So this winter break might be a turnaround. A chance to try something else. Or a chance to at least finish up my work on one pen name.

But back to the now. this week, since the series I was working on was doing so badly, I decided to put it on hiatus and go back to one that I’d wrapped up the first arc and put on hiatus. The one that had caused my numbers to kinda explode last month. I had an idea for a nice little intro story that was not only holiday-themed, but would be able to stand alone months from now, and would work as a good introduction to the second arc. So I started churning along. I had a lot of stuff to do around the house to start getting ready for the holidays, but my spouse was going to be out of the house for about five hours on Saturday, so I decided to pace myself. Get half of it written Friday, half Saturday. And I was on track. I was about 3.8k words in on the  ≈5k story. And I’d already found a suitable image to photomanip into a decent cover for publishing. (Something that often takes a while, sorting through image sites, finding something that fits what I need, but doesn’t run afoul of Amazon’s fear of butts on cover art. Just once, I want to find a picture of a sexy model who would look good on a smutty book cover who’s wearing regular underwear, and not a nigh-invisible thong. The problems of a smut writer.)

And then I got a message from a friend in need. I won’t go into too much detail, but it is someone who had just lost their job, suffers from severe anxiety and depression, and even if the big S word that so often goes along with situations like that hadn’t come up, I still would have done the same thing. I had pants on, brushed my teeth, and ran out the door in record time. (Even if said friend could afford a car, the anxiety issues are bad enough to make driving unhealthy and unsafe) And my spouse got home right around the same time we got back to our house. So we spent the night helping a friend in need. Needless to say, I really don’t feel too bad about missing the third deadline. Some shit is more important. My spouse and I may be super introverts who are terrible at most socialization related things... but even if we’re crap at helping a friend in need, we’re still going to try.

Right now, my spouse and I aren’t in the best place financially. I’m not in the best place health-wise. But I’m still working at it. I’m still getting my shit together. And as I was just reminded on Saturday, I’m not the only one. For everybody out there... if you have too much shit to handle, call a friend. Somebody. Anybody. As I mentioned, my spouse and I are NOT great at being sociable and helping people. We’re actually pretty terrible at keeping in touch. We hadn’t talked to this friend in a few months. But even we were able to help, just by being there and hanging out with someone who wasn’t safe to be alone.

Sometimes we can’t keep our shit together. And that’s nothing to be ashamed about. Sometimes all we can do is try to keep afloat and look for something to hold onto. And sometimes, we can be that something to hold onto for someone else.

... I still have a lot of shit to get done this week, though. After two weeks of neglect when I should have been preparing for holiday visitor (I was hoping for visitors plural, but c’est la guerre. Siblings are all on various coasts, and we can’t always find a way to get together. Especially since only two of the five of my generation can really AFFORD to travel), my house is a MESS. And I still have that story to finish.

Day job explanation time. My official job title on campus is ‘proctor’. Basically, it means two things: I administer makeup and online tests in my office/testing lab, and I keep copies of certain paper tests for a few departments on the smaller satellite campus where I work. There are two main departments that I mostly proctor tests for, one uses the computers in my lab, so all I have to do is check students in. But the other uses paper tests, and I proctor makeups for that department as well as provide the paper tests for the teachers to use in their class.

Unfortunately, the copier on my floor is showing signs of wear and tear. Once you get over about 50 pages in one sitting, it starts to overheat and jam. So this year, they decided to limit the number of pages per copy job to 50. And with good reason. Unfortunately for me, I need to copy rather large batches of tests. And I can’t go to the other copier several floors down, because 1) I can’t leave my lab for more than a few minutes at a time, in case a student comes by with a narrow time window before their next class to take a test, and 2) I’m only scheduled/paid/officially on duty during the lab hours, so I can’t stay late or come in early to do copies.

Needless to say, my first thought was to see if I could just send my print jobs off to the print shop on campus and have them do them all and deliver them. Unfortunately, I need a digital copy to send to them for that. And in spite of the fact that I requested this at the beginning of the semester... all I’ve gotten from that department are the practice tests, not the actual tests. And of course, the practice tests are small enough that I can copy those just fine.

So I’ve been breaking the rules and doing batches of 60-75 pages whenever I can. But that’s still only 15 copies at a time, and I need something like 400 copies of each test. And the copier is occasionally down for a day or so when something breaks and they have to wait to get the part to fix it. And Murphy’s law seems to be in full force, because when I need to refill my inventory, it’s always fine on the days that I have a steady stream of students in my lab, and down the days that I have a trickle and therefore plenty of time with no students so I can close up the lab for five minutes.

The finals, of course, are 8-10 pages each, depending on the class. Which means that I can literally only do 5 copies at a time if I follow the rules. And there’s a hard deadline as to when I need to make sure that I have enough for every teacher. That deadline, of course, being after the last few weeks of classes, when students realize that they REALLY need to get in to take that makeup test and raise their grade before it’s too late.

Thankfully, the department actually got around to sending me a digital version of the finals. So I sent those off to the print shop, several weeks ahead of the due date, and I set the deliver due date as last Thursday at the latest, since I don’t work Friday, and I knew some teachers were letting students who couldn’t be there for the final take their test on Thursday or Friday before finals week. I gave them explicit instructions to deliver it to my lab, warned them that the lab is locked for test security reasons while I’m not there, told them where to get the key, and asked them to email me if, for any reason, they couldn’t deliver the tests.

I got to my lab in the morning to find... no delivery. I checked the support ticket. It said that they were finished 9 days ago... but neither one actually had a digital signature of who finished it. That day just so happened to also be the busiest test day of the semester. The department that uses computer tests in my lab had a final due date for the last chapter that day, so every semester that is always my busiest day. So as soon as I was relieved for my fifteen minute break, instead of taking my break, I ran downstairs to see if perhaps they simply didn’t read the delivery instructions and left the tests in the (thankfully locked) employee mailroom. (Which, coincidentally, is where the good copier is. This will be important later.)

So when I got back from break, the first thing I did was look up how to contact the print shop. Other than submitting a print request... there was nothing. I could look up the employees and email them, but there was no formal support ticket. Only a print request ticket. So I emailed the supervisor of the department.

An hour later, I finally had a moment with no students in the room, so I could make a phone call without worrying about disturbing people testing. So I called the print department. It rang four times... and went to voice mail.

I waited a minute, tried again, just to see if I got unlucky and just missed someone. Still voicemail. So, even though I hate using the phone because that means they’ll call me back instead of emailing, and I can’t really talk when there are students testing, I left a message.

By the end of my shift... still nothing. Nothing at all. And I knew that at least one teacher needed a few copies BY THE NEXT MORNING because he had students who couldn’t be there during finals week. And, just to add insult to injury, because of the holiday coming up, we had to submit our time sheet early this week. So I had no way to report extra time spent staying late to deal with this issue. But the teachers all depend on me, so I printed out  a copy of each of the tests, and I was in the middle of composing an email to let the teachers know that I would drop off an unstapled copy and a copy of the answer key in their mailboxes, so that if they desperately needed it, at least they could use the copier right next to their mailbox to make as many as they need for class.

While I was doing that... the phone rang. It was the print shop. Apparently they had finished my print job early, and set it aside and forgotten about it. It was just sitting in a corner of the room, on the main campus several miles away from the satellite campus. She apologized for forgetting about it, said that it was loaded in the delivery vehicle trunk, and as soon as the delivery person got there the next morning he would head over.

Since I didn’t know when he would actually get there, and when teachers would start needing the tests, that still didn’t change much for me. I thanked her for getting back to me, told her that if that should be fine, and just amended the email I was sending out to let them know that the tests SHOULD be there by the morning. But just in case, I was still going to drop off the unstapled copies. (Plus two stapled ones for the teacher who mentioned needing a couple by Friday morning) I’m still not sure how I can report the extra 37 minutes of overtime I had to spend doing that, since the time sheets are already in... and I can’t just add it to next week, because I won’t be working next week.

But I got to work today and... the tests were here. And things have been slow enough that I’ve been able to write this huge freaking post with only a few interruptions here and there. (Okay, now that I’m done helping someone, interruptions here, there, and the one while I was trying to hit post.)

[toxicityrp]

                  NARCISSUS ● THE SOCIALITE ● CLOSED

     ❝ When this little shit came into the group, I had no  idea what was running through Anthrax’s brain. But after  a while, you really see their worth. They’re charming and    get the connections we need. They tell me the gossip,            I dish it out. Perfect duo or what? ❞

THE SINNER. TW: SUBSTANCE & FAMILIAL ABUSE, DEPRESSION, SUICIDAL THOUGHTS

Here’s the thing about growing up in a house built entirely on looks and lies: a kid learns to get very, very good at things like working a room, hiding in plain sight, and flashing a grin so charming anyone could fall for it. Julian picked up everything they know about projecting confidence and style from their wreck of a home. Sure, it looked nice from the outside—both their parents had Wall Street ties, the houses they owned were huge and immaculate, and there was not a reason in the world that anyone could find to dislike them. All that money had to go to something, right? Too bad the smokescreen was only for outsiders. Mrs. Donovan was all smiles for everyone except her child, who could never quite seem to do anything right. Even when their skin was marred with bruises and cuts designed to sting unseen, who would believe their glamorous mother was anything other than perfect? Their father never seemed to care much for them, so no luck there either.

If that was just the way it was, then Julian would adapt. They became the perfect little prize to parade around at parties, dapper in little suits and a little too clever with sly jokes for their own good. They did well in school, they practiced hard at the piano, they did everything right. And it wasn’t enough. Still the criticism, still the accusations and insults and pain. They learned to dress so well because every single thread was nit-picked by their terror of a mother, and then that critical voice started to manifest inside of them, too. That’s too bland, that’s too trampy, you look like a sack, what’s wrong with your skin? Your hair? Your nose and teeth and shoulders and stomach? They tried so hard to keep being perfect anyway. They tried so hard they began to crack from the inside out. At the dinner table fourteen-year-old Julian would stare at their fork and think about all the places they wanted to jam it into their skin just to see what would happen. They never followed through on any of those impulses, not when their mother still followed them into dressing rooms and barged in on them showering to spout her spite. Any mark she could find was just another possible danger. No, the fantasy was less about pain (they already received so much of that) than about ceasing to exist as a physical entity. Being a perfect son, a fine young man, whatever everyone called them—it was all so exhausting. How did anyone do this?

Only two years later, they were clumsily picking the liquor cabinet lock and taking from it little by little. Never enough to get caught, but enough to get drunk. At first. Then they needed more, and more, and more and more, to drown out that horrid little voice in their head telling them everything was wrong. They’d wake up hungover as all hell and get trotted off to some rich man’s garden party, but somehow they always made it through with a smile and a thousand handshakes and no one the wiser. Or maybe, simply, no one cared enough to see.

In college they were supposed to be free, and sometimes they even felt like it. They had the chance to grow into their own identity for once in their life, and it constituted something of a radical shift. They found their pronouns and their people, bedmates and peers, hobbies besides networking and drinking. They still drank, of course, and it was celebrated as a fantastic party trick. Nobody notices the warning signs when they’re all also shitfaced! Julian tried so many drinks and drugs they thought they could rule the whole fucking world.

Then they ended up at home one winter break, locked up in the bathroom for making some unforgivable mistake. They’d been accused of so many over that they couldn’t be bothered to remember the details at this point. It always came back to them being a liar or a whore or something along those lines. If only she knew what a goddamn degenerate I really am, they’d thought, not bothering to wipe away the tears on their face. The eyes that stared back from the mirror looked lifeless. They would never be good enough. Why did they even keep trying? It would be so much easier to pick up that razor under the sink and just-

Oh. Their heart skipped a beat. That had scared them more than their own mother.

The next few years were a drunken, hazy blur, one big attempt to bury that frightening moment so deep in their soul that it never surfaced again. They graduated from college and business school while self-medicating with whatever anyone would sell them and got the hell out of the house as soon as they figured out how to leech from the family assets without being tracked down. All that training in smiling and smooth-talking helped them bounce from place to place without losing too many connections or giving up on their rather lavish lifestyle. Sometimes screwing preppy country club rats even made them feel good about themself, for an hour or so. Then it was right back to the oxy and rum. Did all that pretending to be pretty and charming and harmless do anything to help the spiraling emptiness in the pit of their being? No, but it was an effective enough distraction most of the time, and when even that failed they took up the kinds of hobbies rich people without much to lose could enjoy. They took cooking classes and learned how to screw around under the hoods of cars and found skill after skill to learn as if any of them made them feel alive.

They only went home once after that, when they got word that their father had up and left without a day’s hesitation. Stepping back into that gargantuan house was like walking right into a cage on their own free will, but something they hated inside of them drove them forward anyway. Maybe it was a desire to finally please their mother, just once. They didn’t accomplish it, since she spent the entire visit acting as if she was the victim of the whole universe’s cruelty. So he found out about the affair, she said. So I told him you’re not his. What did I ever do wrong?

That was a new and intriguing consideration. Though it pained them to spend a second more with her, they managed to wrangle out the name they needed to track down their real sire, only to discover a set of siblings to boot. Cruel trick, God, if you’re even there. You know I always wanted someone to play with.Anticipation lodged itself in every bone in their body as they planned out a trip to Dertosa to track down anyone who was willing to test the waters with them. Ben and Cecilia were such a surprise. They couldn’t fathom what they did to piss Nightshade off—usually they had to flirt with a girl before she went all icy on them—but the feeling was mutual, and that was fine. It wasn’t like they didn’t know how to smile oh-so-sweetly at a woman they despised. Ben was a different story. For the first time it was as if someone saw right through all the charm, right down to the weight dragging Julian down all their life. Ben got it. The word family finally felt like something.

After that, finding a fancy loft in Dertosa and joining up with the Poisons was a no-brainer. Julian had never had a clear idea of what to do with themself anyway, and it was like they had been sculpted and groomed just for this job. The job made them better, actually. That and being around Anthrax. Narcissus still binged on anything that sounded good in the moment and flirted their way into and out of every situation imaginable, but that voice in their head grew less powerful. They were good at this. They were doing something worthwhile and doing it well. If only they could rub that in their mother’s face now.

Almost five years strong, and then it all went to hell. Narcissus woke up in a cold sweat, tangled in their bedsheets as chaos raged around them, to the news of Anthrax’s murder. The voice surged back, drowning out everything else with one spiteful, sorrowful cry: it should have been you instead. It should have been me instead.

The past six months have been nothing short of rough. If there’s one thing Narcissus is sure about, though, it’s that Nightshade can and should pick up where their brother left off. They don’t want to lose the first real family they’ve ever had, or the first real sense of growth they’ve felt in pretty much their whole life. Besides, anyone who thinks they can run Toxic City’s resident keepers out of town with a couple petty scare tactics has clearly never met the Poisons before.

THE FACTS.

Narcissus is sticking by their sister and continuing their work as the Poisons’ marketing-and-sales brain. They’ve always got something to prove to someone. Gregarious and incorrigible, they’re good at making connections and digging up gossip, even if they sometimes cause a little gossiping with their behavior. They have a penchant for edible vices and a reputation for a long bedmate waitlist, though the former is a lot more serious than they make it sound and the latter is somewhat overblown by rumors. They’re covering up some serious issues that they should probably talk to someone about, but only Anthrax ever really knew what kind of darkness lurks behind that sly grin. Things were improving before his murder, but now Narcissus can feel themself slipping back into dangerous habits and they’re clawing desperately at any good thing they can hold onto. Maybe that’s the source of the sudden change in their attitude toward their sister—they may not admit it for fear of losing a few teeth, but they know the signs of someone sliding into a bad place. If they can’t help themself, why not help others?

THE MUN.

☾ Divya | PST | She/Her

[duhragonball]

Babbling about Comics

One of my New Year’s resolutions is to get back in gear with my plan to read my entire collection of X-Men comics.   I had this big plan to do it in 2015, but I only made it about halfway, which put me around Uncanny X-Men #280 (September 1991).   That’s about 29 years’ worth of comics, though, so my plan was probably unrealistic.

Ever since I reblogged this, I’ve been thinking about how I used to be big into American comic books, but not so much anymore.  One person in that thread jokes about how complicated it is to start reading X-Men and Wolverine, and the thing is, I actually know how to do that, because I spent maybe a week in 2014 obsessively studying the Marvel Chronology Project website to come up with a good reading order.  Honestly, it’s kind of fun, but only because I’m a maniac.  I can’t see how any normal person would even want to bother untangling that mess.  The system was designed for only two kinds of immersion.

1) You bought the comics when they were published, and read them in more or less their intended reading order, because you had no other choice.

2) You’re a maniac like myself, who accumulated all this stuff after the fact and you’re determined to go back and figure out what happened.

Nowadays, it’s a lot easier for a new fan to dig into the past, because so much of Marvel’s back catalog is available in digital format, but it’s still a pretty big paywall when you think about how many X-Men comics they’ve made.   And even if you download torrents, you still have to read the whole thing, and who has time for that?  Generally, Marvel’s marketing strategy has been to try to make the new stories accessible enough for new readers to follow, while only reprinting the older material that’s important or popular.   As a collector and a completist, this always frustrated me, but I think I’ve finally begun to see the wisdom of that approach.

See, the real gateway to a franchise like this is to stick to the greatest hits.  For me, that’s Uncanny X-Men #94-167, which spans 1975-1983.  Then you jump all the way to Wolverine’s solo book, which started in 1988.  The first thirty issues of that are really, really good.   I like the stuff that Larry Hama did with Wolverine later, but it’s not for everyone.  If you want to read a crossover, I’d recommend “X-Tinction Agenda”, since it provides a decent snapshot of where the X-Books were at in 1990.  Now, I’m skipping over a lot of other material from the period, but a lot of it was pretty awful, and the good issues of X-Factor and New Mutants  were kind of inessential.   The point is that you have to sample the best stuff first, then decide if you care enough about the characters to go dumpster diving through the rest of it.   You’ll find some gems, but you have to be willing to put up with some real crap to get at it. 

For example, right now, I’m in the middle of 1992, which was sort of a defining period for the X-Men franchise.   Chris Claremont had ended a 17-year run as the writer, and they were trying to build everything around superstar penciller Jim Lee.  I don’t know what went wrong exactly, but by the end of the year Lee had left to start his own company, and a lot of the X-Men comics from that year have a long list of co-plotters, co-scripters, and guest artists.  The flagship title, X-Men v.2, held up reasonably well, but it’s sister Uncanny X-Men suffered from neglect.  UXM #281 was supposed to herald this bold new era, but instead it just looks like a tire fire, one that continued to burn until #293 at least.   But, those issues are notable because they introduce Lucas Bishop to the franchise. 

I never cared much about Bishop, except that he looks pretty cool, and he had a cool voice in the X-Men cartoon.  Otherwise, I only knew he was a guy from the future with a gun, just like the dozen other future-guys-with-guns in 90′s comics.    But when Bishop was introduced, he hailed from the year 2062, where he’s part of a Judge Dredd-style security force.  Bishop revered the X-Men as legends, but once he meets the real deal he quickly finds out they’re not what he expected.  Bishop sees himself as a peacekeeper, and he’s honored to join the X-Men, but he keeps finding his violent, hair trigger methods at odds with the X-Men’s rigid protocol. 

The thing is, I identify with the guy.   I used to write him off as a knock off of Cable, or one of the other loose-cannon hardcases the X-Men keep recruiting, but they actually found a way to make Bishop stand out from the crowd.   He loves the X-Men in theory,  but he really doesn’t understand what makes them work.  Which is sort of like me trying to read all these comics I only know by reputation.    A lot of of the things fans praise the X-Men for are vastly overrated or completely misrepresented.  The conventional wisdom I always got from the fans was that the X-Men were only great when Claremont wrote them, and then Scott Lobdell took over and Ruined Everything(tm).    The reality (from my perspective) is that Claremont ran out of mojo around Year Eight of his 17-year run, and he was running on fumes from ‘83 to ‘91.  I’ve seen fans carry a torch over what happened to Madelyne Pryor, but as far as I’m concerned Madelyne Pryor’s introduction was when the Claremont run jumped the shark.  Her whole character arc was a no-win scenario and their biggest mistake was in not ending it sooner.  I used to think the X-Men comics of the early 90′s were a creative train-wreck, but somehow it managed to generate Bishop, and that gives me hope. 

Also, there is something oddly comforting about reading these old comics.   Nothing ever really changes with the X-Men.   If a character gets killed, they just come back a few years later.   If a character quits or turns evil, it’ll get reversed later.  The X-Men never really win or lose any battles.  They just sort of show up and fight, and then something else happens and they get distracted by that for several issues.  Last night I read the issue where Forge gets upset because he’s in love with Storm and he hasn’t even gotten five minutes alone with her to rekindle their feelings from 1988.   He awkwardly proposes to her, and she punts, telling him she’ll think about it.   In the very next scene they have together, he leave the mansion before she can even give her answer.  Forge is convinced that Storm doesn’t really love him, and that she’ll never set aside her X-Men career long enough to make time for a serious relationship.   As he slams the door, she mutters “I would have said... yes.”    That’s classic X-Men for you.   All angst, all turmoil, no resolution.   We don’t know if Storm is sincere or not, and Forge won’t even stick around to find out.   Is he right about her, or is he just too afraid of rejection?   Maybe we’ll see in a later issue, but I bet we don’t.   It’s Schrödinger’s ship.   Everything sort of hangs in midair. 

Now, I might have said that this is why I’ve come to prefer anime lately, because the stories are more decisive.   Goku married Chi-Chi and that’s it.    Done.   There’s no hotshot editor trying to split that up or retcon it to clear the way for a fresh pairing.   The real tragedy of Storm is that she’s trapped in Comic Book Time, so she couldn’t have a long term relationship even if she wanted to.    If she had married Forge in 1992 they would have inevitably been divorced a short time later, because Marvel likes to rotate romantic partners around every few years.   Storm actually married the Black Panther later on, but I’m pretty sure that’s over now.   But Goku’s marriage to Chi-Chi is absolute.   I like certainty.   It helps make the characters feel more genuine, and less like imaginary dolls driven by editorial whims and sales charts.

But, having recently finished Revolutionary Girl Utena, I find the X-Men’s open-endedness kind of soothing.   I didn’t get what I wanted from the ending of the Utena TV series.  I’m not sure what I wanted, exactly, but what I got wasn’t completely satisfying.  I may warm up to it later on, or I’ll watch the movie version and see if that’s more to my liking, but that’s pretty much all I’m going to get.   With the X-Men, I’m not particularly invested in the characters, and I have a general knowledge of what happens to them, and that anything that happens to them is mutable and transient.  It takes a lot of the punch out of Forge walking out on Storm, but it’s still decent theatre, and I’m not in the mood for dramatic punch right now.   Utena was like getting dramatically punched by Star Platinum for five pages.   I’d watch one episode and then I’d have to take a break before moving to the next one.    Not everything needs to be like that.  Sometimes it can be Bishop possibly getting Storm on the rebound, only to discover that she’s not as good in bed as the history books said she was.

Nevertheless, I think this is something the comics industry needs to address.  I got fed up with following comics because the new ones are expensive and inconsistently produced, and nothing worthwhile ever happens in them either.  They keep relaunching series with new #1′s, or renumbering them every time they get close to a Big Round Number, so it’s probably even harder to keep the reading order straight than it was twenty or thirty years ago.   So it’s a lot of the same hassles you get from back issues, except my back issues are already bought and paid for, so I might as well waste my time reading them instead of paying for overpriced new stuff.   Their best bet is to introduce new characters, especially female, POC, and LBGT+ characters that are tough to find in the back issue rack, because that’s something novel they can use to draw modern audiences.   Because Thor’s dealt with Ragnarok about a dozen times already, and the X-Men haven’t accomplished anything tangible in 30 years, so eventually no one’s going to fall for the same corny “Nothing Will Ever Be the Same!” gimmick.

[toppdoggfanfics]

I hope this is okay. So P-goon is your brother and he finds out that you are dating his best friend Hansol for the past 3 months, and it doesn't go well when he finds out.

Hi anon! I hope this turns out the way you wanted it to be~ thank you for requesting!!

-

The first time you saw him was when your brother Sehyuk brought him over to your house a year ago. His name was Hansol, and he was the most beautiful person you’ve ever seen.

He smiled warmly as he introduced himself to your parents and they immediately liked him. Soon enough, he was coming over your house often, to study with your brother during exam week, or play video games over the weekend or to just simply eat dinner whenever your mom invites him.

You haven’t really talked to him and just stole secret glances whenever he wasn’t looking. Until Sehyuk caught a flu and he heard that your parents weren’t home so he came over to help you take care of him.

All your nervousness went away when you started talking to him. You realized that he was a very sweet and caring person, and there’s no wonder why your brother became best friends with him.

You took the opportunity of being alone with him (Sehyuk was too sick to even care) and asked for his number, which he happily gave. You texted him after he left, thanking him for all his help and he replied saying that it was no big deal.

Since that day, you and Hansol texted regularly and he greets you whenever you see each other in the hallways of the school. Sometimes, you both wait for Sehyuk whenever he has basketball practice. He treats you to a drink while waiting and although it was a simple gesture, it still made you fall harder for him.

It was only after a month when he asked you to go out with him, and you were the happiest person alive. You decided to keep it a secret to your brother, and Hansol agreed saying that you should wait for the right time to tell him.

Your first date only happened on your third month of dating. You decided to watch some movies, and you had to lie to your parents and brother saying that you were going to your classmate’s house for a school project. It was a short time, but Hansol made every moment worthwhile.

“Do you think we should tell your parents?” He asked.

“I don’t know, I think they wouldn’t be too happy about it. They told me before that I’m not allowed to have a boyfriend until I finish my studies. They said boyfriends will only be a distraction.” You replied.

“Am I a distraction?” Hansol moved his face closer to yours, so close that you could already feel his breath and just an inch away and your lips would touch. You closed your eyes and waited for it to happen, but it didn’t.

You opened your eyes, an obvious disappointment in your face and Hansol laughed ruffling your hair. “You’re so cute you know that?”

“Hmp,” you pouted pretending you were mad at him for tricking you, but it was useless because you couldn’t resist his cuteness.

He sent you home but only until a few blocks away from your house. You didn’t want to risk getting seen by your parents.

“You’re sure you don’t want me to walk you further?” Hansol asked for the nth time.

“Yup, I’m fine. Thanks again for today.”

“Text me when you get home okay? I wanna make sure you’re safe.” He reminded, and you can’t help but feel lucky that you have such a caring boyfriend. 

“We’re literally like two blocks away from my house!” You teased before finally separating ways. 

When you reached home, your family was already eating dinner. You were still full because you and Hansol ate a lot but you didn’t want them to be suspicious so you forced yourself to eat. 

Your cellphone lit up and a message from Hansol popped on your cellphone screen. You snatched your phone as quickly as possible from the table and opened the text. 

‘I miss you already’ 

You had to bite your lip to prevent yourself from smiling. 

“No cellphones during dinner.” Your father scolded making you mumble a soft apology before shoving your phone on your pocket and making a mental note to reply to Hansol after dinner. 

After washing the dishes, you hurried upstairs to your bedroom. You promised Hansol that you would call him before going to sleep. But before you could even open the door to your room, you heard your brother Sehyuk call out your name. 

The tone of his voice made your heart beat faster. You knew that tone too well, he only uses it whenever he scolds you for doing something you shouldn’t. 

“Let’s talk in my room.” He said without even bothering to look at you. 

You entered his room and closed the door behind you. Whatever he was going to say to you, it needs to stay in the four corners of his room. 

He sat on his bed and usually, you would sit or even lie down beside him but right now you didn’t even want to move a step closer to your brother. 

“What’s your relationship with Hansol?” was his first question. You tried to rack your brains on how is it possible that your brother knew about it when you didn’t tell anyone, including your best friend.

“Don’t even bother to lie. I know you guys are together. I also know that you were with him today.” He spoke again. 

“I didn’t say anything because I knew you would get mad.” You finally said. 

“Break up with him.” You felt like your heart fell on the floor upon hearing his words. 

“But why? He’s your best friend! You know that he’s a good person!” You retorted, tears threatening to fall on your cheeks any moment now. 

“I’m giving you a week. If you’re still together, I would tell mom and dad about it.” He was firm with his words and you know that he’s serious. 

You hurriedly left Sehyuk’s room before he even sees you crying. The moment you entered your room, your tears fell. A part of you understands your brother but another part of you wants to punch him in the face for saying those things. 

You felt your phone vibrate. Hansol was calling. You ignored it and decided that you would deal with him and everything tomorrow. For now, all you wanted to do was sleep. 

[aliceslantern]

Beyond this Existence: New Life, short 24--Unsettled

Recovery is a tedious, nonlinear process. Demyx, Ienzo, and the others living in Radiant Garden's castle have to learn to come to terms with their pasts and their memories, learn to grow, and begin to understand what, exactly, it means to be human. While there is unexpected joy in this, there is also unexpected sorrow. A series of oneshots set after Beyond this Existence.

Current short: “Unsettled.”  Troubled by the lack of purpose, Ienzo attempts to dispose of papers of the past, only to end up caught within it.

Read it on FF.net/ on AO3

---

Ienzo was feeling restless. This was not an unfamiliar feeling, but rather one that had snuck up on him with increasing frequency. He felt as if he were at his wit’s end.

The garden was done, finished, left behind were empty gaps that made him realize that after all this time he still wasn’t sure who he was. It was something like existential agony. He was exhausted, physically and mentally, yet sleep eluded him. So did any notion of rest. He found himself, again, missing the days when thoughts would unravel so cleanly; he felt nothing but tangles, and his feelings resembled even less.

I feel as though I’m back at square one, he wrote early one evening. This sensation stuck with him. What awful, horrifically boring waffling.   It certainly didn’t make him good company. Worse still than was that everyone else seemed to be in good spirits. He found himself dealing with another type of illusion; feigned laughter, a neutral expression, cheer and chatter where there should be none.

Not many seemed to notice this shift, and for this Ienzo was both incensed and grateful. Only Demyx did, but he was far too busy and exhausted from his own work (oh, to have the certainty of a calling); Ienzo just said that he was tired and that was all.

It did not feel good to lie to him.

But truthfully, how did he define this feeling? Was it the weight, the numbness of depression? He wasn’t so sure. Mostly, he felt the slickness of anxiety, like acid along his veins despite medication. He felt trapped within his own heart, within a remorse that was supposed to have eased. Would he carry this his whole life?

Did he want to?

Ienzo wanted to live more than anything. It was a desire that was nearly painful. He needed to get this feeling out of his body somehow.

“I don’t suppose you have anything you seek to get rid of?” he asked Even. “I was purging my papers in an attempt to get organized.”

“What are you disposing of?” He seemed distracted; he had a new project to keep him occupied, studying the long term impacts of darkness on trauma and the body. It was worthwhile work, and seemed to have reconnected Even with the real world.

“Nothing that hasn’t already been digitized and archived.”

Even gestured vaguely to a pile of file folders in a crate by the door. “I suppose you must need something to fill your days now, then.”

Ienzo paused, and just barely turned back. “That,” he said, “is putting it mildly.”

“Why don’t you continue your studies? It’s been a long enough time. They’ve kept you busy with such frippery.”

“...I would not call it that.”

He shrugged. “Most people your age seem to get caught in crises of existence. I should hate to see you become stagnant.”

Ienzo considered the irony of this. “I won’t--no less than you, anyway.”

Even scowled. “Go on then, will you? I need to concentrate.”

“Certainly.”

He took his papers to a courtyard, one shielded from the wind. What was left didn’t seem like much; Ansem had already shredded a majority of it, and the strings of paper sat heavily against the stone. For a moment he ran his thumb along the matchbox in his pocket. What was the point of this? He withdrew his hands and looked at them. It took a little bit of doing--magic was so much harder than it used to be--but before long he held a small flame in his palm. He studied the color of it, the bright red and orange. He picked up one of the pages and held a corner into his hand, watching it disappear into smoke.

It didn’t take long for the mess to burn. Curious, how quickly things could be destroyed. Ienzo watched the flames, perched on the lip of a derelict fountain. It didn’t make him feel much better, but it made him feel no worse. He nursed the brunt of a headache idly.

“...An attempt at catharsis?” He heard over his shoulder. Ienzo turned and saw Dilan facing him, his face alight with bemusement.

“I suppose. I figure there’s no need to keep this all, not when we have it in the computer.”

To his surprise, Dilan sat next to him. “Is it a pleasure to burn?”

Ienzo rolled his eyes at the reference. “Not quite. Good to know that I have some magic left, however small.” His head ached dryly, insistently. There were a few moments of silence; the fire cracked and popped a little, emitting some sparks. “You needn’t worry, I’ll clean up all the ash once it’s over.”

“...Saves me a bit of work. Yes. Our list of tasks seems to grow by the day.”

Ienzo glanced over to him. “...Does it?”

“Someone’s got to make this place habitable. And that committee is scattered enough as it is. I’d hoped Demyx’s membership in it would garner us some resources, but they seem to never have anything to spare.”

“...Well, town is growing. This place isn’t exactly a priority when we're the only ones who live here.”

“It was once beautiful,” Dilan said. “A shame, all of this finery, crumbling.”

Ienzo blinked quickly, feeling a touch dazed. “...Like so many things,” he mumbled.

“Are you alright?”

He forced a smile. “Oh, yes. Magic tires me. That’s all.”

“Are you certain? I know there was some--hesitation, as to whether or not to let you--”

“I am a grown man. Demyx and Even do not make decisions for me.” His tone came out sharp.

Dilan pursed his lips. “Of course you’re right.”

Ienzo shoved his hands back into his pockets, feeling cold now. “I’m sorry. I suppose I’m more tired than I thought.” The pain in his head throbbed in time with his pulse. “This has nearly burnt itself out. I'll get to it in a few hours when it's all cooled.”

“Nothing nearby to burn,” Dilan said. “It feels nice to sit, admittedly. I feel as though I haven’t stopped moving all morning.”

He stood, and had to fight not to stumble at the sudden wave of dizziness. He clutched his head, felt at the space under his nose. No blood. Surely there must be something else wrong with him?

He heard gravel crunch as Dilan stood. “Ienzo?”

“I’m fine,” he said, but it sounded weak. “It’s just a little--”

Abruptly, his knees gave out, his vision darkening for a moment. When he came to, Dilan’s jacket was under his head. “Yes, you’re just fine, aren’t you,” he spat. “Do you always feel this need to lie?”

Ienzo was still reeling. “You didn’t tell him, did you?”

“Someone has got to take a look at you, and he seems to know what he's doing. You’re not well.”

He tried to sit up, only to have Dilan ease him back down. “He’s going to kill me,” Ienzo said dazedly.

Dilan laughed. “Nothing like young love, is there? Ienzo? Ien--”

The smell of something bitter, and a touch of something cool on his cheek. “Oh thank god,” Ienzo heard. His eyelids felt leaden. “Can you hear me?”

“Yes…” He mumbled. He forced his eyes open. Demyx was crouched over him, one hand taking Ienzo’s pulse. He looked flushed; he must have ran here. The pain in his head was so intense as to be almost unnoticeable. “I… I’m sorry.”

“What did you do?” he asked.

“I… I cast one small fire spell… that’s all.”

Demyx rested a hand against his forehead. “You’re stable,” he told Ienzo. “It seems that the magic triggered a migraine--”

“Oh, is that all?” Ienzo muttered.

“When Dilan said you blacked out I--I figured…” He turned redder. “You’re going to be okay. Drink this.” He offered him a canteen. Whatever was inside was sour, and he flinched. “It’s for the pain.”

It did seem to help, but made everything a bit foggy. “Do you need help with him?” Dilan asked.

“No, I got it.”

Humiliation washed over him, and he felt his eyes water. “I can walk.”

Demyx hesitated. “Are you sure?”

“Yes… just let me--” He sat up, the dizziness worsening.

“Oh, no. Let me carry you. I’m sure you can do it, it’ll just suck major ass when you feel like this.”

“No,” he snapped. “No.”

Demyx blinked. “Ienzo--”

Something was unraveling, a hot stab of nausea almost making him double over.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

Ienzo pressed a hand to his face, feeling the tears spill over against his will.

“Baby…” Demyx trailed off. “I knew something was wrong. I knew it.”

“...I shall… leave you some privacy,” Dilan said. “Call if you change your mind.”

Demyx pulled Ienzo close. He felt like he could barely breathe, clinging to him with a pathetic sort of desperation. Demyx stroked his hair. “What’s really going on?” He asked.

“Nothing,” Ienzo insisted. “That’s the issue, there’s nothing wrong and I still feel this way.”

He kissed his cheek and handed him a handkerchief.

“I feel… purposeless,” he said. “I don’t know what to do with myself. I’m lost… I’m so used to… moving forward, to having a goal.”

Demyx wiped a tear from Ienzo’s face. “Do you think this could also be some kind of sadness?”

He sniffled. He was a bit woozy. “How so?”

“It’s… weird,” he said slowly. “Maybe this is how you’re letting go of it.”

“By feeling like garbage?”

“You took on so much pain that wasn't yours. Mine, the Heartless'. It has to come out sometime. Using magic could've triggered it.”

Ienzo touched his chest with a trembling hand. “...You may be right. These emotions… didn’t feel connected to me.” Such strange permutation of power.

“Let it go,” Demyx said gently.

“Cry it out?” he asked bitterly.

“If you have to.” He sat and crossed his legs. “Come here.”

Humiliation broke through the weird cool stillness within him. He let himself be pulled close, breathing in Demyx’s smell and the scent of ash, water oozing down his cheeks. “It’s been months,” he hiccuped. “I haven’t the slightest idea why this is happening now.”

“You’re good at pushing things away.”

“Deluding myself, you mean?” He was trembling.

“Maybe you weren’t ready.”

For a moment anger nearly broke through him, but he deflated. “...Maybe not,” he conceded. “It is so… strange… I feel like I’ve made some leaps and bounds, and yet, my heart is so tender… infantile, if you will.” He hated the way he sounded, thick and poorly. A thin, sharp pain redoubled behind his eyes. “You know I used to feel them, when I was younger.”

“The victims?”

His body was leaden. “Yes. I could hear them, even when I was nowhere near the lab. For whatever reason, I always had an acute sensitivity to darkness. Is it because I was nearly one of them?”

Demyx’s arms around him tensed just the slightest. “...You were?”

“Yes. I never… told that story?” The tears continued to run, cool and distant. “They were… keenly interested in the hearts of children. And I was… there. You have to admit it’s quite utilitarian of them." The ache in his heart was lessening, bleeding out. "I think this connection is fading.”

“Good,” he said woodenly. “But they… they never--”

Ienzo took some of his own weight back. He shook his head. “We became Nobodies first.” He touched his chest, the space above his heart. “I suppose that in and of itself was an experiment.” He could taste salt, when he spoke. “The slightest twitch of power, and it all comes up,” he muttered. “I am so very… tired. Demyx?”

His jaw was clenched tightly. He grit his teeth.

“Don’t hold it against them. We’ve all done bad things in our lives.”

“Why aren’t you mad?”

“...I’ve spent enough time dwelling on it,” he said tiredly. “What good would anger do? They’re in pain as well.”

Demyx took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, he seemed to have composed himself somewhat. “Do you want to go home?”

“There’s nothing I want more.”

---

It took a long while for the tears to stop and the ache to fade, but once it was all over he felt lighter. He figured that settled it. Time to stop feeling sorry for himself and move on. The past was the past; nothing left to be done. He would study, pull the pieces of himself back together one by one. And then whatever happened next. No point fretting about it. Easier said than done, Ienzo knew, but at the same time it was completely necessary. Once he was feeling more himself, he might work with the committee. One day.

But all there was was the present.

[siliconwebx]

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the JavaScript

Around this time last year, I wrote an article about the JavaScript learning landscape. Within that article, you’ll find my grand plans to learn JavaScript — complete with a link to a CodePen Collection I started for tracking my progress, and it even got dozens of comments cheering me on.

Like most people, I was ambitious. It was a new year and I was excited to tackle a long-standing project. It was my development version of losing 30 pounds (which I also need to do). But, if you follow that link to the CodePen Collection, you’ll see that there’s nothing there. If you were to scour my hard drive or cloud storage, you’d see that there aren’t any JavaScript files or projects there, either.

Over the past year, I didn’t make any progress on one of my main goals. So, what the hell happened?

A Story as Old as Time

The internet is littered with similar tweets and blog posts. Inboxes are filled with TinyLetters of resolutions and there's no shortage of YouTubers teaching anyone who will listen how to have their best year ever. But very few people follow through on their goals. This might be even more true in the design and development world, what with the plethora of new technologies, languages, libraries, and tools that hit the scene on a regular basis.

These stories all follow a similar path:

Person determines major goal

Person tells friends (or who knows how many CSS-Tricks visitors)

Person gets distracted, overwhelmed, disinterested, or all three

Goal is completely forgotten about after X amount of time

Person apologizes and makes up excuses for friends (or, again, who know how many CSS-Tricks visitors)

In my experience, it's not the goal-setting or telling everyone about said goal that's the problem. It's step three above. When goals go off the rails, at least for me, it's due to three main issues: distraction, stress, and lack of interest. Barring unforeseen life events, these three issues are responsible for all those unachieved goals that we struggle with.

In thinking about my goals for this year, I decided to start first with deconstructing why I couldn’t reach the one major goal I set for myself last year. So, let’s dig into those three issues and see if there’s a way to prevent any of them happening this time around.

Distraction

Distraction seems to be the big one here. We all have a lot going on. Between job and family responsibilities, other hobbies and hanging out with friends, it’s hard to fit in new projects. As necessary as they are, all those other interests and responsibilities are distractions when it comes to our goals.

The whole point of setting a goal is carving out time to work towards it. It’s about prioritizing the goal over other things. For me, I found myself letting all of those other distractions in life work their way into my day. It was all too easy to work through lunch instead of taking that time to tackle a chapter in a JavaScript book. I would get sucked into the latest Netflix series after the kids went to bed. I didn’t prioritize learning JavaScript and I had nothing to show for it at the end of the year.

Overcoming Distraction

The key here is to block out those distractions, which is easier said than done. We can’t simply ignore the needs of our families and careers, but we need to give ourselves time to focus without distractions. For me, I’m increasingly convinced that the solution is time blocking.

Time blocking is exactly what it sounds like: You block out specific periods of time on your calendar to focus on certain tasks. Time blocking allows you to prioritize what’s important. It doesn’t force you to sit down, crack open a book, or start coding, but it gives you the time to do it. There are a ton of articles online that go into different time blocking methods, a few of which are below:

Schedule it so it happens: The art of time blocking

How to time block (and why it’s the best productivity hack you should use)

The Hyper-Scheduling Experiment

For me, I’m going to block out specific times throughout the week to focus on learning JavaScript in 2019. I’m trying to be realistic about how much time I can invest, weighing it against other obligations. Then I’m putting those time blocks on my shared family calendar to make it clear to everyone what I’m prioritizing. More importantly, I’m making it clear that this time is for focus, and to leave the other distractions at the door.

It can also be helpful to block smaller, but just as impactful, distractions on your phone and computer. Closing out browser tabs not related to your task, silencing notifications, and clearing your desk of otherwise distracting items should be part of the routine when you sit down to start working on your task. It’s easy to scroll through Twitter, Hacker News, or even CSS-Tricks and convince yourself that it’s time well spent (that last one usually is, though) but that time adds up and doesn’t always result in learning or growing your skills like you think it will. Cutting out those distractions and allowing yourself to focus on what you want to accomplish is a great way to, you know, actually accomplish your goals.

Stress

Last year’s post lays out a landscape full of interesting articles, books, podcasts, and courses. There is no lack of things to learn about and enough resources to keep anyone busy for way longer than just a year. And, when it comes to JavaScript, it seems like there’s always some new technique or framework that you need to learn.

Combine that with all of the ancillary topics you need to understand when learning JavaScript and you end up with one of those overwhelming developer roadmaps that Chris collected a while back.

I don’t care how smart you are, that’s intimidating as hell. Feeling overwhelmed on the web is common place. How do you think it feels as someone just starting out? Combined with all the responsibilities and distractions from the last section, and you have a killer recipe for burnout.

I had originally intended to work my way through Marijn Haverbeke’s Eloquent JavaScript as a first step towards learning the language. But I also mentioned all the podcasts, YouTube channels, and newsletters with which I was surrounding myself. The intention was to learn through immersion, but it quickly resulted in feeling stressed and overwhelmed. And when I felt overwhelmed, I quickly allowed all those distractions to pull my attention away from learning JavaScript.

Overcoming Stress

Just like when dealing with distraction, I think the key to dealing with stress is to focus on one or two things and cut out all the rest. Instead of fully immersing myself in the JavaScript world, I’m going to stick to just the book, work my way through that, and then find the next resource later down the road. I’m going to intentionally ignore as much of the JavaScript world as I can in order to get my bearings and only open myself up to the stress of the developer roadmap if, and when, I feel like I want to journey down that path.

Disinterest

Flipping through any programming book (at least for a beginner) causes most people’s eyes to glaze over. The code looks overly complex and it resembles a math textbook. I don’t know about you, but I hated math class and I found it hard to get excited about investing my free time in something that felt a lot like going back to high school.

But I know that learning JavaScript (and programming, in general) is a worthwhile pursuit and will let me tackle projects that I’ve long wanted to complete but haven’t had the chops to do. So, how can I get interested in what, at first glance, looks like such a boring task?

Overcoming Disinterest

I think the key here is to relate what I learn to some subject that I find fascinating.

I’ve been interested in data visualization for a long time. Blogs like Flowing Data are fascinating, and I’ve wanted to be able to create data visualizations of my own for years. And I know that JavaScript is increasingly a viable way to create those graphics. Tools like D3.js and p5.js are first-class frameworks for creating amazing visualizations — so why not learn the underlying language those tools use?

My plan to overcome disinterest is to work my way towards a project that I want to build. Go through all the basics, trudge through the muck, and then use the concepts learned along the way to understand more advanced tools, like D3.js.

Anytime you can align your learning to areas you find interesting, you’re more likely to be successful. I think that’s what was missing the first time around, so I’m setting up targets to aim for when learning JavaScript, things that will keep me interested enough to learn what I need to learn.

It’s a Hard Road

Learning is rarely easy. But, sometimes, it’s when it’s the hardest that it pays off the most.

I’m convinced that the more we can uncover our own mental roadblocks and deconstruct them, the better positioned we are to achieve our goals. For me, my mental roadblocks are distraction, stress, and disinterest. The three work together to keep me from my goals, but I’m putting plans into motion to overcome all three. Your roadblocks may differ, but you probably have ways of dealing with them, too.

I’d love to hear from everyone how they overcame their own challenges when learning a new skill. Leave a comment below telling me your story. Sharing it may help me, and others, finally achieve what we’ve always wanted, whether it’s learning JavaScript, digging into the latest framework, or running that marathon we’ve all been putting off for so long.

The post A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the JavaScript appeared first on CSS-Tricks.

😉SiliconWebX | 🌐CSS-Tricks

[view-from-a-warm-place]

025 // Distractions III: External Random Item Drop Generator

So you may be wondering what happened to last week's post, and the answer is that I never wrote it because I was too busy trying to finish this side project I have been working on. And I finished it!

I think I might have offered to explain it a while ago, so I will do that now, since I have very little new art to offer at the moment (it is probably not why you are here but please bear with me).

This one is a bit long and is all about code..

For the last few weeks, I have been working on an external random item dropper for a couple of friends who want to start their own thing, and doing that required me to either construct an entire user interface arrangement in Pygame (which I have done twice already and have my own modules for but am not really super-de-duper into) or to learn at least enough Tkinter to make something I am not totally ashamed of (which is a lot of learning because I know-- which is to say, knew-- almost exactly nothing about Tkinter, not counting some stuff with Listboxes.

I opted for the latter and, in truth, it was pretty easy to learn. It was a bit frustrating at times because there are problems with Tkinter's 'widgets' (graphic interface objects) that can occur and lock up the software in a way that Tkinter considers normal and not an error and why would it tell you about it? For instance, if you try to use a "grid" arrangement in the same Frame (an object Tkinter uses to create layers of widget organization) as a "pack" arrangement, it will "Tkinter will happily spend the rest of your lifetime trying to negotiate a solution that both managers are happy with," or how replacing Variable objects with new ones that have the same name sometimes causes the whole affair to silently stop working and leave you clicking a button to no effect, wondering what is going on and why.

Problems which I overcame! Quickly and with some difficulty! Most of my time was spent on the interface, actually, since it was the part I knew the least about. The design was pretty easy (or it was easy in the extent that I produced an interface experience that I, personally, found satisfying, and which failed to produce a/any complaint(s) from the people for whom I made it) but the actual construction took a lot of learning when it came to displaying and updating the right variables in the right places and when. There are many values shared between user input boxes (Tk.Entry), where the user enters various bits of data, lists (Tk.Listbox), which have selectable entries and a lot of straight-forward appearance parameters, labels (Tk.Label), which display values either as static text or from various types of Variable, and, of course, the item data sheet that the user provides (read using ConfigParser from an simple external text document I can tell you how to make, and internally, as a chaotic dictionary of lists and Variables and strings and numbers). Incidentally, I ended up extending (adding my own functions and attributes to) a few of Tkinter's basic classes, and this part of the project was actually one of the most interesting. A great many parts of the original module have been deliberately constructed in a way that simplifies that kind of extension, and while I had to go outside of that on an occasion or two, it was absolutely a worthwhile lesson!

The Variables were the most perplexing part, because Tkinter is the least forthright about them and because they are more flexible than they let on. These variables can be equipped with callback functions that allow them to alter their contents, or the contents of other widgets, or do some other crazy third thing, whenever they are altered, or even just whenever something looks at their values. That part was easy and extremely useful once I got the hang of it! They can also be given specific names by which other functions and widgets may identify them, and while I found this quite useful as well, its lack of stability was somewhat less endearing since Tkinter will not tolerate two variables with the same name (a legitimate and preventable issue!) and will not necessarily tell you when this has happened or where (I am less okay with this).

Another interesting thing about Tkinter is that it offers multiple obvious ways of accomplishing the same thing, which is a bit of a problem for "The Zen of Python," a sort of mantra that a lot of people in the community take quite seriously. As an example, you may almost always alter the configuration of a widget in at least two ways: - Use Widget.config(some_attr = value) and change one or several attributes at once using arguments, or - Setting them using attribute names as keys, like so: Widget['some_attr'] = value. - There are other ways too but none spring to mind.

Also, widgets can be stored in attributes, but you can also call them up using their names: a widget created in the line

myObject.my_widj = Label(master=tk_root, text='Yo, babe(l), I am a Label!', name='lbl_annoyinglabel')

..can be accessed directly either by way of some object attribute reference:

myObject.my_widj.config(text = "Hey, id'jit, I'm a widget!")

..which is absolutely normal in Python, or by calling it by name from its master object:

tk_root.nametowidget('lbl_annoyinglabel')['text'] = 'Please stop talking.'.

Naturally, you would probably want to use the first method as often as possible, because it involves fewer operations and would probably be easier to maintain. But the second way, more elaborate though it may be, lets you save on assigning attributes by tracking widgets using Tcl's internal structure. (n.b.: I cannot say I have ever found myself running out of room for attributes in a namespace but I am also a complete amateur as a programmer so please bear with me. <3 )

Interestingly, actual structure of the input sheets was the next-most time-consuming part. Trying to find a data format that would be easily comprehensible by anyone who picked it up (probably only going to be two people, plus myself, if even that many) and which also met with ConfigParser's profoundly elusive approval was a somewhat complex task. It turned out to be exactly as hard as I thought it would be, at least, and there were no surprises here. You can see a blank template of the input sheet here!

The actual drop generator code-- the element which takes the user-supplied data and returns a random selection of items from it, according to their initial and supplemental parameters; the single element that the entire program is built to support-- only took an hour to complete, actually. I did it last and by then, all of the parameters and variables and their names and locations had become obvious, and since it was a pretty plain function to start with, it was done quickly. It was interesting to note how much more effort it was to pack this simple function up into a pretty interface than it took to build the core element itself. I suppose we see this everywhere: a car is just self-propelled chairs; a human is just a gangly, leaky chariot for a suite of genitalia; this software is just 'arbitrary decisions' packed in a pretty box. A very pretty box that I will no doubt look back on in two years and wonder what I was thinking, I hope!~ <3

Anyway I completed it and delivered it and it is my first free-standing piece of software that some other person might actually use for their purposes, and that is a sense of accomplishment I have not felt since the WSDOT departmental library people told me they wanted to include my undergraduate thesis in their stacks.

As an aside, I had considered making a companion tool to go with the drop generator that simplified drop sheet creation. It would not be over-hard to make: all it is liable to be is another Listbox with a text entry field attached, a button or two to add and remove entries, a few other configurables, and a ConfigParser set up to save it all out, but I feel as though the drop sheet format-- sensitive as it is to typographical problems and formatting issues-- is probably easy enough to use. Also there are two people using it and I am in touch with one of them almost every day. Still, food for future thought!

Anyway, back to my game, now! It has been a long time and I am ready to face it again with fresh eyes and fewer .. days.. to live.. I guess! Hm..

See you next time! :y

[bentonpena]

How to Read Long and Difficult Books

How to Read Long and Difficult Books http://bit.ly/2NQBd1W

In the last year, I’ve managed to finish a number of lengthy, sometimes hard-to-read books. Ron Chernow’s 900+ page tome on George Washington. 600+ dense pages on James Madison. Andrew Roberts’ massive biography of Winston Churchill. (Yes, I’m into biographies.) A couple of Dickens’ novels — they’re all big. Melville’s American masterpiece, Moby-Dick. Robert Caro’s legendary, epic series on Lyndon Johnson. And most recently, all 1,400+ pages of Les Miserables. 

Even though these books were enjoyable, and I had a genuine interest in the subject matter, they were often hard to read, if for no other reason than their sheer volume. Large pages, small fonts, tiny margins. Les Mis, because of its actual weight, had to be read sitting up, and often in a chair with an armrest because the thing was so dang heavy and unwieldy. (While I could have read an e-version, as I’ll explain below, I often prefer hardbound copies of classics, even if they’re harder to wrangle.) 

While Hugo and Dickens are a delight to read, the reality is that their language is so different from today that it takes brain power to really digest. And while those biographies I mentioned aren’t necessarily old, they are dense with facts, especially when you’re new to that person/time period. They’re just intimidating for folks who aren’t used to that type of reading which requires sustained focus and a bit of endurance. 

Before the last year or so, I would have probably counted myself in that camp. I had tried to read Washington: A Life and gave up after a few hundred pages. I’d tried Moby-Dick and met a similar fate. The allure of a big, meaty book was great, and yet I couldn’t find the stamina to actually finish many. 

So what was it that finally put me over the top and allowed me to get all the way through these hefty tomes? (And then to keep going too!) At the time, I wasn’t quite sure why. I figured it was some combination of having a plan and finally having the gumption to just keep flipping the pages. But after thinking about it, I realized that there was some innate method to how I was accomplishing it. There’s no need to be intimidated by old books, long books, or just plain hard to read books. It really is a skill to be learned in our Smartphone Age. 

Here’s how I did it (and continue to do it), and how you can too: 

1. Make a plan for yourself. 

Without a doubt, part of my success in reading at least a few of these books was that I had embarked on a couple different reading projects. One was to read a biography of every US president; the other was to read all of Dickens’ novels. (Both were set with indefinite timelines so that I can read other things too.) Having an end goal sure made it easier to get through Chernow’s Washington and Dickens’ sprawling and loosely connected series of vignettes that make up his first novel, The Pickwick Papers. 

Have a particular area of interest you want to explore? Is there a list out there that has really piqued your interest — perhaps AoM’s “100 Books Every Man Should Read”? Do you have a favorite author whose canon you’d like to explore in full? Make yourself a reading plan. 

2. Set a small amount of time or pages per day that you’ll read.

One of the keys in achieving that plan is giving yourself a micro-goal. My plan to read 44+ presidential biographies (some of which are multi-volume) gives me helpful direction, but it’s too distant an end goal to sustain my motivation from day to day. Even focusing on simply finishing the next book in the sequence is tough, when that book is massive — presidents’ lives are often very well explored and documented. 

So I go even smaller and set myself very attainable reading goals. I often flip through the book first to get a sense of how long chapters are; with Washington: A Life I set out to read a single chapter a day. With chapters averaging just 10-20 pages, this was totally doable. For books that have longer chapters (like Caro’s LBJ series), I’ll set a time-based goal, usually 30 minutes a day. 

Working from home, and not having a commute or anyone to disturb my lunch hour, I perhaps have more spare time to read than others. If you’re really cramped, give it just 10-15 minutes per day. You’ll get through those long and hard books far quicker than you’d expect, and when time and energy allow, you’ll often willingly do more than what you’ve allotted. 

3. Engage/interact with the text. 

One of the things that helps keep me engaged, especially when reading a long and/or difficult book, is making myself interact with the text. I almost always read with pencil/notebook at the ready, underlining interesting tidbits and writing one-sentence summaries of each chapter or important section. In James McPherson’s Battle Cry of Freedom — a classic history of the Civil War — I literally drew an illustration in my notebook when he mentioned the concentric circles of anti-slavery beliefs in the North. If you’re reading an e-version, underline and take notes in the same way. It’s a little harder (mainly for the notes part), but still worthwhile. 

4. Get an edition that you like. 

This can make a surprisingly big difference in your reading experience. Reading can be a far more kinetic activity than you’d think. The weight of the book, the styling of the font and the design of the text, even the cover art — if a book is nice to look at and easy to hold, you’re more likely to pick it up. 

Tangible and tactile, and free from the distractions built into my phone, I prefer paper copies for most of my reading, and often hardcovers specifically. Paperbacks are more portable, but the text is often a little harder to read with darker, smaller font size and tighter margins. And while I enjoy used bookstores as much as anyone else, I don’t like reading copies that have any notes or underlining in them already. It’s too distracting. So I always make sure to get a clean copy. 

When it comes to classic literature, you often have a ton of choices. Old versions are sometimes fun to have, but often harder to read, with small margins and overly dark text. I also like explanatory endnotes and lengthy introductions, which older versions almost always lack. Penguin Classics is the gold standard in my opinion. I have a few handfuls of those black paperback covers staring at me from my shelves. If I’m really feeling like I want a hardcover for whatever reason, I also really like the Everyman’s Library editions. 

In spite of the above, I’m also slowly getting back into reading with my Kindle. I tend to go in for an ebook when it’s not a volume I’m collecting, or that I desire taking up shelf space, or there’s simply a Kindle sale going on that’s too good to pass up. Certainly, when it comes to comfort, reading on a couch or in bed with a lightweight Kindle is hard to beat. I can read a weighty biography with a single hand, and even still chase kids around the house if need be. Plus, it doesn’t have the glare or distractions of a smartphone or tablet. And one final benefit of reading on a Kindle: free classic books! Anything published in 1923 and earlier can be had for free and downloaded within seconds. 

Ultimately, find what you like. Whether it’s a cheap used paperback, a new hardcover, or the ease of a Kindle edition, find the book version that you most enjoy reading. 

5. Have a dictionary/encyclopedia handy.

When it comes to long and difficult books, part of the struggle is just that they can make us feel dumb when we don’t know certain words or don’t have the contextual knowledge that would make it easier to understand. When I started to delve into Civil War reading, I got myself an atlas of Civil War battles and movements. When I read Les Mis, I kept my phone nearby to look up French phrases, antiquated and out-of-use words, and facts about the Battle of Waterloo (a section of text which nearly killed me). 

You’ll likely find it helpful to keep your phone at hand too; while you could invest in a hardbound dictionary, you’ll often need to access various resources to investigate various references (historical, cultural, etc.). Looking things up on your phone can invite the temptation to browse other apps, of course, but just fight past the Instagram itch. If that’s too difficult to do, block distracting apps during your reading time (here’s how).

6. Just get through the hard parts. 

With every long and/or difficult book, there’s bound to be a part that disengages you and makes it hard to pick back up. My encouragement to you: just get through it, even if it means skimming or (heaven forbid!) skipping chunks if needed. When reading the aforementioned Churchill biography, I skipped a section on his experience in the Boer War since I had already read Candice Millard’s spellbinding account on that same time period (and listened to her interview with Brett). 

Even if you don’t already know something, don’t worry about missing things. The first time you read a book, especially a long or difficult one, you’re going to inevitably miss things anyway. If it’s a novel, you’ll catch up to the plot quickly enough; if it’s non-fiction, you’ll survive missing a few facts — if they’re important enough, they’ll come back up. Trust me: It’s okay to skim things. 

7. Take advantage of the momentum! 

Part of why I’ve been able to read a lot of long books in the last year, I think, is simply that I finished Chernow’s Washington, which is a book I had previously given up on. Turning the final page and closing the back cover was quite gratifying. I knew that I could read the next hard book, whatever it might be. (It was David McCullough’s John Adams; McCullough is a great storyteller, but even he had a hard time making Adams’ decade in Europe exciting. Nevertheless, I got through it easily.)  

The same was true of Les Mis. After 1,432 pages and two months of reading most days, I was rather proud of what really felt like an achievement (perhaps more than it should have!). Finish one big, hard book and you’ll have momentum on your side. Really all it takes is one “win” to bolster your confidence in your reading capabilities. 

I know now, moving forward, that I can read and finish just about anything you put in front of me. With a little bit of daily diligence, intentional engagement with the text, and some strategic skimming and skipping if necessary, you can do the same. 

You can follow along with what I’m reading — plenty of long books included — by signing up for my weekly newsletter: “What I’m Reading.”

The post How to Read Long and Difficult Books appeared first on The Art of Manliness.

via The Art of Manliness http://bit.ly/2NeG3FZ September 3, 2019 at 01:58PM

[whakatinana-workbook]

EVALUATION

Evaluation:

This year I really tried to play to my strengths. While my skills lack in the practical tasks of a fashion design degree, I make up for it with my dynamic and conceptually sound design ideas. I refuse to apologise for my garment making skills when in reality that’s not a direction I wasn’t to focus on and if NZ had other fashion degree directions such as fashion theory, history or communications, design and making would obviously not be the direction would have gone in. Although the last 4 years have given me the skills and knowledge to understand those important processes, and I have endless amounts of respect for handcraft, sewing and pattern making. This degree has given me a broad understanding of so many aspects of the industry, areas, and skills where those that do the very specific courses probably lack in.

 Instead of working as a fashion designer and maker throughout this project, I embraced and outscored other techniques and skills the industry has to offer, such as curation and collaboration. Almost every aspect of my collection wasn’t just made by my hand, but with multiple different people with their own ideas and backgrounds.  Although it all meets under the umbrella of my research and conceptual elements, I was able to direct and effectively communicate a brief to my designers and they made something that was both suited to their brand but also sit within the confines of my aesthetic and collection.

 I worked with the knitwear technician Gordan at AUT, and a woman named Margaret in Tauranga (linker) to successfully produce my knit vest and shorts.

Jesse bowling, an artist living in Melbourne to render my images and prints. For me to then place onto my exported pattern pieces.

Meghan James Brown, handbag designer and student here at Massey to produce this belted bag.

Brent Paye, Jewellery designer of 27 Molly’s who has stock in good as gold in town to make the accessories.

Luka Lockamer videographer.

Models: Tom Britt, Helen Inanui, Emma Cornall and Sarah Birch.

 To manage a team of people is a reality if you were to start your own brand, label etc. To have had practiced these skills, was worthwhile. And still managed to make garments that might not be perfect but that I am definitely proud of.

The important part of this assignment was the processes for creating the prints.

I kept my patterns reasonable simple and flat because I knew there was going to be an all over print on them and I didn’t want to distract from this, and also so I had more time to digitize all the patterns in and place the imagery to then send it off to get printed (which is a variable I couldn’t control). This was all a really interesting and fun process, and I wish I was able to spend more time doing this, but it’s a technique I want to take into the future.

 Firstly I digitise the patterns I had made by hand into accumark, then exported them to illustrator, and the placed the 3d rendered images on to the pattern pieces, which is pretty much like putting a 3d images onto a flat surface which is difficult but a really interesting process of placement because I had to think about where the images were actually going to be seen on the body when made into a 3d garment again. Exporting all of the information and sending it to the printers was a nightmare, and of course I had missed a few minor pieces or some measurements were off refer to work book* although in hindsight I probably didn’t give myself enough time for this part of the project, overall this process was a success! And I learned so much.

 If I were to do this project again, I would focus more on the processes and spend more time on those, then hire somebody in to sew my finals together. Just because my lack of patience and sewing skills, I feel, sometimes let down my work, which is unfortunate, because I think it has the potential to be very strong. I like sewing and I’m happy to do pattern making, samples and toiles. But just purely for clean execution, I should get somebody to help me in terms of producing my final product. 

I think I have really succeeded in terms of appealing to my target audience, and sitting alongside similar brands. I feel like I’m producing design ideas that are current, and trends that are now starting to circulate. I think if given the opportunity to work for a brand within the industry, or even in trend forecasting, I could be an asset in terms of staying on the pulse of ideas and designs that are circulating now and then predicting what it might mean for the future.

 For example, ALYXstudio, which is a brand I took inspiration from throughout my design development just released their collaborations with vans, featuring different coloured silicone surrounding the shoe. This is something I had been developing since the beginning of the year. I initially wanted to submerge some of my clothing in silicone, but after doing some tests, didn’t work out (would have needed $100s of dollars of silicone and it changed the weight and drape of the cloth.) So instead, I took some shoes for styling and applied the flesh coloured silicone to the shoes.

 Another example is that other university students, worldwide, are coming out and questioning what the role of the designer or author, or original design is. For example:

 Studio kit from RMIT 4th year honors student. What students like us are commenting on is so relevant and one could even suggest it’s the zeitgeist of the moment and to be a part of that is really exciting.

        PROMOTIONAL MATERIAL:

 I chose to produce a series of A5 (postcard like) cards instead of a traditional lookbook. For me lookbooks are outdated forms of showing a collection, although I understand their relevance within a commercial setting and selling to potential buyers etc, I don’t think it’s the best option for showing a collection/or idea in the exposure exhibition.

I wanted to make something visually impacting, that can be taken away, and displayed within someone’s home, say on their bedroom wall of the fridge. A lookbook, on the other hand, isn’t made to be displayed on somebody’s wall (although they could) but in their desk or bookcase, and they won’t be picked up again. 

The QR code on the back takes you to  the you tube clip of my video I had made for social media. 

And I think it succeeds in showing my collection as well as my ideas and concept, which is what you should get from your traditional lookbook. But it has an added element where you can choose your favorite image and take it away with you and display it in your home. And because it’s just one card, it’s cheaper to print different copies and have multiple copies available for the public, more than what you can do with a professionally printed lookbook.

  GOALS:

 My goals progressed and changed throughout this project. Although I might not have identified the following goals early on, I realised that these were what I was really working towards.

 To create a wearable and commercial collection that contextualizes an ideation that manifests through my design process and product.  

I wanted to make a collection that reflected my ideas in a succinct way. I want the work to talk for itself. If I have to explain myself too much, the collection isn’t a success in this way.

AND

To build a foundation of theory and practice to develop further at a masters level.

Since the beginning of my university career, I’ve always wanted to take my education as far as I possibly can and to have a role to play in fashion education.  Fashion education has a massive part to play in terms of pushing the industry in positive directions and analysing and exploring different anthropological ideas that are expressed through dress. The way I understand the world and human phycology is through the way we dress, and I think the fashion industry is a representation of how we display ourselves and interact with the world.  

What can I say, I love the warm embrace of the institution…

Although I think there definitely needs to be more critical engagement within the course, in terms of analysing historical AND contemporary fashion collections, designs, and designers. The number of students coming through the Massey fashion design course that has a very limited understanding of who is out there internationally is frankly appalling. This might not be their area of expertise, but it can be relevant to any sort of garment making. We need to know AND DISCUSS what is trending, who is up and coming and to analyse why.

This course has set me up with the skills I needed to find an area of the industry I am passionate about and where I can be unapologetically critical. I can’t wait to see how far I can push this project both conceptually and visually. In the future I want to build my software skills and learn how to 3d render my own garments (I might look into this for my masters) and code for website development. I want to push how to represent clothing in virtual and real worlds and how to integrate the two.