The speeches were pretty much the same, too.
He tried to tune in anyway. Jacan wasn’t being punished for anything in particular right now, not that he knew of, and sometimes those speeches had some real nugget of information in them here and there.
“You should always strive to be an example of honor and dignity,” his father droned, “but especially to guests at our compound.”
Jacan mentally tried to rewind the conversation, but failed. “Wait, guests?”
“Yes, as I just told you, we’ll be welcoming two new guests to the compound this week.”
“What clan?” Jacan asked.
“Red Glade.”
He blinked, not sure he’d heard right. “Red Glade? As in not Darkhan? As in ex-Movrekt healers and casters?”
There was just a hint of a mocking smile at the corner of Ganit’s mouth. “Yes. That Red Glade.”
“When?”
“Two days. They’re on their way now. We plan on welcoming them in traditional Darkhan style, and I hope you’ll show appropriate dignity for the traditions of our clan.”
The news brought Jacan’s restlessness to the surface, and he spoke too quickly, too loudly. “Didn’t I prove I could do that at my confirmation?” Come on, dad. It won’t kill you to admit I’ve done one thing right.
“Yes,” he said, inclining his head in admission, but then raising his chin to look down on his son. “And if you could continue that trend, I’d be grateful.”
Jacan moved his shoulders like he could throw off an unwelcome grip that wasn’t there. “Don’t you trust me at all? I’m not gonna mess up something this important.”
His father raised his eyebrows in a look that clearly asked Jacan to reassess the likelihood of that.
Jacan shook his head. “Because it’s actually important. You act like everything will be the end of the world if it goes off plan at all, no matter how stupid or meaningless it is. But I get this. I want this to go right, too.”
Ganit’s frown had gone contemplative. “Welcoming the Red Glade healers appropriately is important to you?”
Jacan realized Ganit had started actually listening to him, and that was rare. He made an effort to rein in his temper and get through to the man. “Yes. I’d like it if we could make a good impression. Strengthen ties. I think that could be good for everyone.” He raised his eyebrows. “Maybe they could shake things up a little around here.”
He knew that last was a mistake as soon as he said it.
His father’s suspicious glare reasserted itself. “What do you mean by that?”
To most people, it would have sounded like an ordinary question. Jacan could hear the dangerous undertone. The warning to be careful where he stepped next.
“We’re… there are things that, I think, a lot of us know we need to be doing, but we’re not doing them, we’re not even talking about them, not really. The outside world is different than it was when this compound was built. And if we’re going to survive, we need to change too.” If you’ve been paying attention at all, you know how I feel about this. And it hasn’t changed.
“And you think the Red Glade will… fix that?” Ganit sounded disgusted. “Make us more like the wayward world?”
Jacan pushed down his frustration one more time. “The world might have problems, Dad, but so do we. We’re not above them. You taught me that.”
Ganit’s face went hard. “That’s not the way I meant it,” he said sharply.
Sick of walking on eggshells with his father, Jacan took a more direct tack. “Maybe you should have,” he said. “I think we could finally have someone in the compound who might make some sense.”
“You think so little of your elders and their rulings?” There was still a threat in his tone, but also a sort of thoughtful horror.
“Uh, yeah.” Damn, that felt good to say. With Jacan’s confirmation come and gone, he was still at the mercy of the council, but no longer quite so much at the mercy of his father.
He hoped.
Looking at Ganit’s face changing in reaction to those casually spoken words, Jacan wondered abruptly if he could convince Zev to give him a bunk in the journeymen’s dormitories if things heated up too much at home.
Probably. Zev was cool like that.
The chaos of his father’s shock and outrage resolved itself into the calm of the priest standing by his altar, channeling pure belief, and he spoke.
“The fundamentals of our culture will not be changed,” he said in the steady, persuasive tone he used with the Council. Passionate, but wide and somehow distant. “Not by you, and not by any outsiders. The Council won’t allow it.”
For the first time, it felt to Jacan as if Ganit was responding to him as a fellow Darkhan citizen rather than as a wayward son.
At least it was a change. Jacan wasn’t entirely sure it was a good one. But it opened the door to Jacan speaking back as an equal.
“Then why even welcome them into our compound?” he asked. “Why even pretend to listen to the things they have to say?”
“There are things we may be able to learn from them,” Ganit admitted. “And perhaps we can teach them a few things as well. But we cannot forget that we are two different peoples with two vastly different sets of traditions. The Red Glade have renounced their former human-killing Movrekt ways, and for that, we are grateful, and for that, we encourage them. But they are not Darkhnit. They don’t believe in our ways.” He looked Jacan in the eye. “We’ll respect their traditions as long as they’re here, but our traditions will remain our traditions. Is that clear?”
“Very,” Jacan spat, and turned to leave before he did something he’d regret.
He had a sudden but familiar desire to reach out and knock something over, just to change the layers of caked-together memories of this room, just to make one thing different. Maybe he’d push over the stand where the Chronicle stood. He knew he could make it look like an accident.
He never did, though. He thought that if he ever started in on the room, went about the business of destroying its sameness, he wouldn’t be able to stop.
(x)
I'm glad to have Book Two to put next to Book One now, especially because the novella comes chronologically after both of them. But also because they look so nifty together!
I was gonna do a picture of the back covers, too, but I forgot. I'll get them out again soon.
Looking back, this was probably because I uhhhh... don't like Rincewind very much. I enjoyed the Wizards books, but some of Pratchett's characters - Rincewind and Moist von Lipwig in particular - seem to me to be more of a vehicle for interesting events than actually interesting characters in and of themselves.
However, at the time I was like "Oh. This is what slashfic is. It is gross."
Therefore, my first posted fic ever on this earth was an extremely embarrassing in retrospect, quite pointed meta-ish piece about how Vetinari just needed to meet the right girl.
I mostly read and wrote gen fic for the next few years, and wrote more than I read. Once ideas for my Amazing Maurice fic petered out, I drifted away from Discworld fic and didn't really look back. The only really shippy thing I posted during that time was a firefly fic featuring River Tam/Fess Higgins.
Then, in 2012 I was reading gen Avengers fic and I encountered a pre-slash ficlet for The Right Slash Pairing.
I mean, it probably helped that I had just gotten divorced and was questioning a lot of things I had thought I'd known about how life and romance worked. But also it was just a magical combination of two characters who I looked at and went "Yes. They should kiss."
So frostiron took everything I was questioning and gave it clear answers, like "this feeling, when you look at stony art, that is the notp feeling, not a reaction to the concept of slash itself." and "yes, you really do think same-gender relationships are totally okay."
Downstairs is P, who hosts band practice at odd times. Night before last at ten thirty, for example. It's been later, but not, thank fuck, with that same kind of shakes-the-house combo of drums and reverb. Still, it's not ideal for someone who lives above him and works firs shift in a warehouse.
P also occasionally fails to pay the electric bill, which means the shared dryer in the basement fails to work. That hasn't been a problem lately, though. What has been a problem is that I'm not sure if he has ever once taken his own garbage to the curb.
It just seems to sit in and beside the other trash can by the side of the house, next to our trash can, and get torn into by animals and strewn about. Lately it's been building up on his back porch, as well.
That can't be helping with the mice.
Occasionally I will drag both cans out to the curb, along with whatever relatively intact bags are sitting beside them (and it's not like there isn't room inside the cans, you understand, there is room inside the cans) but like, this is not my job. Even if I consider the upkeep of the upstairs apartment a responsibility of mine, P's trash has no part of that. So I don't feel the need to do any more than that. Certainly no need to drag several torn-open garbage bags off of P's back porch and to the curb.
Now, on the other side of the duplex lives the landlord and his family. They do nothing. This is pretty much the worst thing they could do. Well, they hired someone to clean up the yard, once. They also store shit on our side of the porch. So. They're tolerable, except in that they are far too tolerant. Also going on info from J&B I don't know if they would come and fix stuff that wasn't totally urgent even if I asked, so I usually don't.
Anyway.
I would kind of like to move again soon, now that I actually make enough to potentially afford my own place, but I am enjoying being able to spend my money on all the little things I've kept saying "I'm totally buying that when I have money" about for the last six years. Also I do not have the time. Or energy. To move again right now. But hey, if something comes up, I'm gonna see if I can make it work.
When I don’t, I will bite my tongue and pretend I didn’t hear, because I don’t know yet what would be safe to say if I want to keep my job, if I want to keep their respect.
I will share the load of the workday, share in their complaints and woes, accept their help and their concern, and help and support them in turn, when I can.
Then, some day, months from now, years from now, if the subject comes up in an open and curious way, I will say this:
“Actually, Jim, I’m queer. I don’t experience love/attraction/gender the way people expect me to. I have a different experience.”
If they still consider me a friend, if they still share and support and try to make me laugh, if they still respect me and wish me all the best, then.
Mission accomplished.
TBH I've been narrating my life to my current Discord group instead of on a blog, and the server feels as if it's about to become more of a "check in occasionally and say hey" place? It was good to be involved heavily in Discord when the tumblr shit went down, but in the long run I really do think I'm more of a blog person.
I've still been posting cool things to tumblr when I write them, since I feel like I still have a little bit of an established audience there, although tbh most of the audience engagement comes from my mom and sister, who would totally start reading me here instead if I asked.
I'm feeling a little unmoored in fandom, since the craziness that has been getting into Voltron right before the release of season 6 in the year when seasons 6, 7, and 8 all got released and all caused their particular kinds of drama, and in particular Season 8 giving a serious blow to the emotional state and therefore cohesiveness of the fanbase. I only managed to dodge the emotional hit most of the way by becoming deeply involved in polyshipping four of the minor characters in the meantime. But that is a teeny tiny community, and a lot of them were heavy hit by events in the major ships as well.
Thankfully, I'm also deeply involved in writing one of my novels right now - Chloe Unearthed. Sunflowers Blooming Book 2, the sequel to Tabitha. I'm excited about it, but also I'm even less sure than I was how to attempt to build a following. Tumblr has been my primary community for so long, and now I feel as if I don't want to rely too much on it, especially for my works of romantica, like the Sunflowers Blooming series.
I haven't even really done any promotion for the book I've been putting the finishing touches on, The Movrekt Warmongers, which is Book 2 in the Half-Dragon series. I'm hoping to have it ready for an official release within the first week of February. Mostly I've been too busy, what with the new full-time day job, but it's also a complicated book for me, personally.
Think I'll save describing that mess for another post, though.
I also need to buy myself an actual domain and some hosting and build myself an actual website, now that I have the money and motivation to do something more official than a side tumblr. And I need to finally buy a smart phone, so I can mobile-test my stuff.
Anyway, yeah, I'm being pulled in a lot of different directions and I really need to settle down and build a new mental home base, and I'm feeling like it's gonna be here.
normally if it’s something I just have to see in the first week I try to catch like an early Wednesday matinee where there’s a lot of space in the theater and not too much audience noise
but let me tell you
there was something magical about that crowd
late afternoon on the Sunday of opening weekend for Black Panther
northeast Philly suburbs so the audience is like 80-90% black
we’re packed in like sardines and we’re all super excited
and just the Power of that laughter when anyone on screen makes a White People joke
I could feel how much it all meant to them, the jokes and the serious bits too where everyone was dead silent
it was pretty amazing and I was glad to be there.
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