Well. I think I'll talk about my kidney cysts another day, I'm still really frustrated with my insurance but I'm trying to be patient and not catastrophize about what all could be wrong since it could be just a week or 2 before my doctor/insurance works out a way to get the CT scan authorized

Anyway, I have my labs tomorrow, and I really don't feel well (pain + exhaustion + nausea) but I don't want to reschedule them again, both because I know I'll just also not feel well next week, and because maybe the lab results would help provide more justification for the CT scan to be authorized, but

You know?

Whimsical, chancy, female, lunar: yaoi and yuri in the Aubrey/Maturin series

the inherent yuri of the sea and the inherent yaoi of the sailor is the most ancient queer solidarity

- twitter user caranthirs. I would link to the tweet, but their account appears to be suspended (RIP)

This essay was born from a discussion prompt asking about the relationship between yaoi and reality. In answering I was reminded of the above tweet. Tongue in cheek as it no doubt is, it’s always really resonated with me and my own personal experience with yaoi, yuri, and queerness, such as it is.

First of all, it’s a truth universally acknowledged that there’s something kind of fruity about the ocean. A great deal of boat media, which is a term that I’m using to encompass everything from Moby Dick to One Piece, from Muppet Treasure Island to the Titan submersible implosion incident of 2023, is intimately concerned with this. One thing I’ve always been intrigued by with boat media is the inherent constraint, the inherent loss of control; even in our modern day, the ocean is an unpredictable element, and to this day it has depths that are literally unfathomable to science. There’s a certain powerlessness one has to give oneself over to to board a boat, and of course there’s timeless romance, endless stories and art and music associated with the sea.

I’ve been to the ocean maybe four times in my whole life, and I’ve always lived in an area of the United States that’s about as inland as it’s possible to be on the planet Earth, but I’ve long been fascinated with boat media, though I was not always conscious why I was drawn to it. When I was growing up I had a persistent autoimmune disorder that destroyed the vision in my right eye and from a very young age I was forced to sit still for various eye exams, procedures, surgeries. Because I was so young when all this started, I never exactly rebelled against it; if I was a fish, then this near-constant constraint placed on me was the water that I swam in. I was a kid who lived in my head a lot, and my head was filled with fantasies of escape. I used to make up stories and tell them to myself before bed, a kind of self-soothing ritual that saw me off to sleep. In more difficult times in my life, especially as an adolescent, this quite literally got me through the day; I would look forward to my little bedtime story, and sometimes not.

The stories differ greatly, but the one thing they’ve all had in common is they’re always about at least two characters who are trapped together, undergoing some kind of external trauma or abuse or privation, and together are trying to escape, but they never succeed. The reason for that is that the stories have no ending, by design; the “end” comes when I fall asleep. Sometimes there are self-inserts, but usually they’re about other characters, usually male characters. For a long time I didn’t exactly understand or think much about why I identified so strongly with these stories, which were sometimes original and sometimes elaborate works of fanfiction, sometimes erotic and sometimes not.

I was something of a late in life yaoi adopter; I was immersed in Western media fandom spaces and I viewed a lot of slash fandom initially with contempt, but based on what I’ve described above it’s maybe not greatly surprising that I became a big yaoi fan when I was around 19 or 20. I found it both enticing and alienating at once; I was a cis girl but I felt like I was a failure as a woman, and reading about or trying to identify with women didn’t always do it for me. There was something about viewing male as the default that was attractive; I remember as a kid, pre-internet, I would consciously look for books about male protagonists, though as an avowed feminist I felt obscurely ashamed of this.

Shame was an essential component of all of this, by the way. Both eroticized shame and the more down to earth, un-fun kind. There was always the question in the back of my mind: did I wish I was the man, or did I desire the man? There were similar questions about my attraction to women, which were even more disquieting in what they did or did not say about me: did I desire a beautiful woman, or did I want to be a beautiful woman? Shame was inextricable, and constant; shame about my nascent queerness, shame over how poorly I performed my own gender, and shame about being into all this yaoi shit in the first place. I had internet friends by this time, but I didn’t tell any of my real life friends about my online activities. I had an absolute horror of being seen as the type of straight girl (or bi girl, as I identified at the time) who fetishizes real life queer men.

Currently, I’m in the middle of reading Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey/Maturin series. I fucking love it, and something about it has helped me square some of the circles involved here; discussing these books, with other fans online and with unwilling victims loving friends and family members has led me to reflect on some of the above in ways I never have before. It feels freeing in a way I never even knew I was constrained. To bring it back to the quote from the beginning, and also add a passage from the eighth novel in O’Brian’s series:

“‘With the wind as it lies, I believe we may look for them the day after tomorrow,’ said Jack. ‘But tell me, Professor, is not this a most prodigious wearisome ride you are undertaking?[...]’

'No doubt,’ said Graham, ‘but the sea is an uncertain chancy whimsical female lunar element: you advance one mile upon its surface and at the same time the whole body of water has retired a league. I prefer the honest earth, where my advance is absolute, however arduous…” - The Ionian Mission, ch.11, paragraph 50

This character, a haughty diplomat our protagonists are forced to deal with while battling it out with the French in a Grecian port, is not very important in and of himself. Unlike the two principals of the Aubrey/Maturin series, he is no seaman and has no affinity for shipboard life, and his uneasiness while onboard the ship is tinged with a misogynist mistrust of the Mediterranean itself. I prefer to take a horse, like a man, he seems to say, but you and Maturin, feel free to stay here in your gay little boat. 

(Sidenote/fun fact about Jack Aubrey: he has pretensions of being a horseman whenever he’s on land for any length of time, but he is in fact really bad with them and while riding is frequently unseated nearly but not quite as often as Stephen falls out of the fucking boat.)

That is one and this is another of the many, many ways Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin get kinda fruity with it; our two main characters are differentiated from landsmen (lubbers!) in this way throughout the series. The sea is dangerous, of course; Jack and Stephen, who face naval battles, sickness and disease, shipwrecks, storms, and volcanic eruptions on their voyages throughout the series, know this better than anyone.  As different as Jack and Stephen are, as different as two men can possibly be, what unites them is a niggling, persistent discomfort with life on land and this, coupled with their very great affection for each other, is why they choose to sail with each other over and over again. Though they came to it by different means, each of them finds that their true homes are on the sea, and with each other. 

The essential yaoi of the seaman, the essential chancy, lunar, yuri element of the sea…. There’s something about it that makes me smile. Yeah…the ocean. She’s a little gay with it. Who isn’t?

i’ve found myself getting weirdly internally defensive recently over (atheists i guess?) people making fun of creationists as being these like, stupid crazy people. on the one hand, i get it, it looks and is pretty crazy from the outside and it’s not true so how could they believe this? but on the other hand i lived that and i believed that once. i was that kid that sat through science class internally saying that i would learn this but it’s not true. i understand how this stuff is taught to you as not just a silly little “the earth was created in 7 days and is only 6,000 years old! isn’t that neat?” but in reality is “if you don’t believe in creationism as we teach it, and fully disregard evolution, then you’re going to hell and can never be truly saved because if you don’t believe this god doesn’t claim you as his own.” it’s terrifying. it was terrifying. it feels like now, when i see people making fun of them, especially people who remind me of myself, it feels like they’re attacking me. i don’t believe in it now and i love learning about science and evolution and things like that but it feels like they’re attacking my younger self. they weren’t stupid. they didn’t know any better. they /couldn’t/ know any better. i guess all i’m saying here is i wish people were a little less, antagonistic? maybe? i don’t think that’s the word i’m looking for but i don’t know. it’s just that making fun of the religious kid can usually make it a lot harder to ever leave religion. they teach you that everyone outside your group is mean and scary and evil so when they then laugh and tell you how stupid you are for believing what you “believe”, it just reinforces that worldly view. i get it though. it’s silly

The one with the marathon

Part 7 of The one where Bucky has a cute neigbour series!

Pairing: Bucky Barnes X Reader (f)

Summary | Reader and Bucky become friends after he saves her from  a creep in their apartment building. Each chapter explores a different  point in their friendship - very slow burn!

Warnings | 18+ only, Smut in later chapters (this is a slow burn), swearing, unprotected sex, oral sex, (later chapters)

Mentions of PMS in this chapter! I’ve also given Y/N a couple of interests to add a bit more to the story to help it progress

Will include elements of TFATWS in later chapters

Chapter 7 |Chapter 6 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 1 | Masterlist

You’d been doing your best to dodge Bucky as soon as you felt your body's usual symptoms start to develop. It started as it always did with feeling bloated before the short temperedness set in. Bucky was sweet and kind and he didn’t deserve to be on the receiving end of your temper so you opted out of your usual Friday night pizza with him, giving the excuse of being called into work which he accepted with disappointment. 

Saturday morning came and as usual, painkillers did nothing to soothe the ache in your lower gut. Traipsing into your kitchen, you filled the kettle up with water before putting it on the hob and started to root around for your hot water bottle whilst you waited for the water to boil. 

A knock on your door interrupted your hunt and rather reluctantly, you made your way over to the door, unbothered by your sleepwear attire. 

Swinging the door open, you instantly regretted not ignoring it. 

“Hey doll” 

It was upsetting seeing Bucky look so good on a morning when you felt so rotten. Even worse, you were fully aware of how you currently looked - unbrushed hair, no make up and Bucky’s t-shirt which only just covered the tops of your thighs. Self consciously, you eased the door closed a little bit and shielded your body from view. 

“Hi Bucky, what’s up?” You asked, trying to sound as casual as possible. 

“Can I come in?” He asked, tilting his head to the side as he tried to catch more of a glimpse of you. 

“Now’s not a great time…” You grumbled, feeling guilty as you saw the smile drop from his face. 

“Are you avoiding me?” The words rushed out of his mouth before he had time to stop them. 

Taken aback by his forwardness, you paused for a moment, your jaw opening and closing as you didn’t quite know how to respond. “I’m sorry, you don’t owe me an explanation. It’s just I heard you in your apartment last night crying but you said you were at work and I was worried-” 

He started to ramble as he panicked he’d overstepped the mark so you swiftly cut him off. “Don’t be, you’re right, I have been avoiding you.” 

“....oh” Bucky's eyes shot down to the floor as he nodded his head. Your admission cut deep and every insecurity Bucky felt rushed to the surface as he processed your words. “I thought-” he started but not quite knowing how to finish his sentence.

You cursed your inability to think before speaking as you reached out towards him, no longer caring about your appearance as you took his metal hand in yours. “It’s nothing you did, I’m just not myself at the moment, I’m not exactly great to be around when it's my time” You emphasised the last bit, hoping he’d get the hint without having to spell it out. 

You were wrong. 

Bucky lifted his head and looked back at you, confusion etched across his handsome features. “You’ve lost me” 

“Remember how you got that scar on the back of your head?” 

“Yeah my sister threw a book at me” 

“Uhuh, and do you remember why she did that?” 

“I ate the biscuits she saved for when she- oh!” It suddenly hit Bucky as to what you’d been hinting at and suddenly he felt like the world’s biggest idiot. 

“Safe to say me and your sister have the monthly mood swings in common” You joked, trying to lighten the mood.

“Well...um… if you need me, you know where I am” 

“Thanks Buck” You smiled up at him and tried not to swoon on the spot as he leant towards you, his lips pressing against your forehead, gently kissing you as he cradled the back of your head with his hand. 

His thumb stroked the back of your neck as his lips left your skin, sending shivers down your spine. 

“I’m sorry for avoiding you, I thought I was saving you” 

“Trust me, I’ve survived worse” He joked, tucking one of your many stray hairs behind your ear. It suddenly dawned on you what your current state of attire was and you hastily tried to flatten your hair and pull the t-shirt down to cover more of your bare legs. 

Bucky tried his best to avert his eyes from your state of undress, not having taking note of how you donned his t-shirt beforehand, too focused on your wellbeing but he found himself failing miserably. You were too cute with your bed head hair sticking up in random places and slightly dark eyes where you’d not completely removed yesterday's mascara. And then there was his t-shirt. Fuck - he’d nearly lost it when you’d warn it the night you’d gotten locked out of your apartment but thankfully your legs were covered. But now? It was driving him mad seeing inch upon inch of bare skin, his t-shirt barely covering your underwear. He wanted nothing more than to shove you against the wall and run his hands over your impossibly soft skin. 

The sound of your kettle boiling over snapped him out of it and he watched as you darted over to the kitchen, leaving him standing in the doorway, facing away from you as he was positive he’d be able to see your ass as you walked. 

“I’ll come back doll” 

Before you had a chance to respond, he’d already closed your door behind him. 

Hastily, you made up your hot water bottle and quickly jumped into the shower, unsure as to when he would return. 

Half an hour later, Bucky was back at your door, grocery bag in hand. “I’ve brought you a few things for... y’know.” 

Opening your door wide for him, you chuckled at his awkwardness and gestured for him to come in. “You really didn’t need to-are those Peanut Buttercups?!” Rushing towards him you grabbed the bag out of his hands and began rummaging through his purchases. 

Laughing at your response he left you to it as he hung up his jacket next to yours as he usually did and took up his spot on your couch. 

“I remember what Rebecca was like and figured you might appreciate a bit of sugar.” 

You could only moan in response as you devoured your chocolate treat. Grabbing your hot water bottle from the side table, you made your way over to the couch and sank into the seat next to Bucky, resting your head against his shoulder. 

“Any plans for today?” You asked, holding up the last bite of your candy bar. 

“Nope” Leaning forward, he took the chocolate from you using his teeth as he finished it off.

“Then you’re in for a treat” You sunk deeper into the sofa as he lifted his arm up, resting it along the top of the couch cushion, letting you lean further into him. Bucky also took the opportunity to pull the blanket from the couch down onto you, tucking you into his side. 

To say Bucky was excited when you told him there were sequels to The Hobbit would be an understatement. For him to then find out they were turned into movies was almost too much.

He was in heaven. He was watching Middle Earth come to life, just how he imagined it would be whilst cuddled up against his favourite girl. 

He wished it could be like this all the time, when he was with you the memories of who he was before subsided, along with all the guilt and shame. Even when he was in Wakanda, he hadn’t dared to dream of having any sort of normal life, he’d accepted it just wasn’t on the cards for him. That he’d always be alone. 

When Steve left, that only solidified his belief that he was destined to be alone. Part of him was okay with that, this way he wouldn’t hurt anyone ever again. But the other part of him, the part that even Hydra couldn’t wipe out, longed for a companion, whether it be platonic or romantic.

Finding you was a miracle. You were so carefree, so honest, open and kind. You put up with his old fashioned ways, you didn’t make fun of his odd quirks or question why sometimes he needed to just be on his own. You both also had a lot in common, you both enjoyed modern technology and sciences and often found yourselves watching documentaries and educational pieces on TV together. Bucky was also delighted to learn you were obsessed with motorcycles and was planning a road trip for you both for when you next had some time off work - a surprise he was having a hard time hiding from you. 

Half way through the first film he felt you nodding off, having come down from the sudden sugar intake. Pulling you tighter against him, he kissed your head and lowered the volume on the TV, not wanting to wake you. 

As the second film started, you stirred awake, the cramps returning with a vengeance. As you opened your eyes you realised you’d snuggled into Bucky, nuzzling into his chest, leaving a small amount of drool on his black t-shirt. Jolting backwards, you hastily wiped your mouth and tore yourself from his arms in embarrassment. 

Bucky’s eyes hadn’t strayed from the TV as he remained completely emerged in Middle Earth. 

“Sorry I didn’t realise-”

He quickly shushed you as he continued watching the film. However he did miss your warmth and spread his arms wide, inviting you back into your previous position. “C’mere” 

Trying not to read too much into it, you smiled and sank back into his arms, sighing as they wrapped around you, his right hand resting over your stomach, soothing your cramps. 

It was well into the night when you finished your movie marathon, both of you enjoying every minute. You knew friends didn’t cuddle - not like this. They didn’t make your heart race like Bucky did. They didn’t make butterflies erupt in your stomach every time they so much as looked at you. 

You were in trouble.

Primum Non Nocere ~ Gregory House x Katrina Black

This may or may not be a personal fic I make for myself, that everyone is welcome to read in case they miss House or sth, so yeah, enjoy the clown fiesta.

There are many words that can describe Doctor Gregory House, all of them ranging from “Brilliant Doctor” to “The Biggest Asshole”...However, there is one person who ever called him “Sweet”, and each time, she got called insane.

Even Stacy, who dated him for so long, looked at her as if she suddenly became a chimera or something, which speaks volumes for his character as a whole.

It’s been 15 years since Katrina moved to America, and 15 years since she begged Lisa Cuddy to allow her to practice Medicine and learn directly from the hospital itself, even though she barely finished highschool and was beginning Medicine University.

Lisa had no reason to accept her, but she was much too sweet and convincing, doing everything asked, from cleaning, to nursing, helping her with management stuff, and then, as years passed, she started clinic duty and steadily, but fast-paced, she achieved her dream of becoming a successful cardiologist, going as far as becoming the new head of the department, since the old one retired.

Just as expected, she became friends with Lisa, James and Greg very easily, and each of them treated her in their own way - As her mother, as her confidant...And as her Mentor, of sorts - As Gregory House was the harshest and biggest jerk in the world, but not even the coldest man alive could resist her weirdly innocent charm.

She was the one to remember the gruff man’s every birthday and give him gifts she made herself - Nothing big, but always meaningful, like a winter scarf, or cute little decorations, engraved medical things and so one - And of course, on every Christmas, apart from gifts, she would bring him marshmallow hot chocolate and other festive decorations for his office, so he won’t feel lonely or bad.

Sometimes he didn’t even realise it, but every time he needed a proper diagnostic opinion, or his interns screwed up, he’d page her, not exactly caring if she was busy with clinic work or with an important surgery, and he’d make fun of her for rushing for “No reason”.

Life is definitely difficult for a shy, young foreigner, all alone in the world, but somehow, with the help of this few people, she managed to find something that she lacked her whole childhood - A true “Family” and a place to call “Home”.

But for Gregory House, this woman, Katrina Black, has always been an enigma he couldn’t deduct - The greatest mystery that crossed his path - He wanted to know her, to understand her, to learn about her and her pain and maybe, for once, he won’t feel as miserable.

The past 5 years especially, after Stacy left him and he ultimately had to live in pain, addicted to pain killers, and while he got more and more bitter, he also began to appreciate, at least in his heart, the unconditional kindness and attention he receives from her

And so, here we are, 15 years after the moment that changed everything in their lives...

“It’s not inflammatory process. It’s not a clot, because Chase’s angio says so. And it’s not cancer, because her tush is perfect. Anybody else got an Aunt Elyssa with weird stuff?” House limped into his office, looking at the three subordinates that were sitting around aimlessly. “...Maybe it’s worth looking into-” Cameron began, but was quickly cut off by the elder one, who looked at the angio once again. “I though you said Carly’s angio was clean.” Gregory blinked, putting both angiograms on the board for a better peripheral view. “It WAS clean.” the Aussie insisted again. “You guys see the problem here?” House asked in his usual over the top way. “There’s no indication of any abnormalities, no lesions, no spurs, no mastis-” Foreman got up to get a better look at the pictures better. “Well, if you guys don’t know, how about I call for the help of our lovely foreigner? I bet she’s gonna be angry for getting her out of whatever surgery she has, but...It’s in the name of science, after all!” he gave a mocking smirk at the trio as he hit CodeRed on the pager.

As expected, it didn’t take long for the girl to arrive, despite being in full surgical outfit, blood still on her gloves and her scrub cover, panting from having to run all the way there.

“What happened?! Are you okay?!” she tried to speak, despite barely being able to catch her breath. “Nothing really. Nothing that would result in the immediate death of a patient, clearly, and as you can see, I’m perfectly fine as well. Why ever would you hurry up like that out of a surgery?” Gregory fooled around, watching the crestfallen expression on her face, as she took off her gloves and scrub covers, revealing the cute and childish green scrub that had foxes on the top. It was her signature style, really - Always wearing the cutest, most childish scrubs, with various animals or flowers, and she was the only one who did that, despite her age, and didn’t care about anyone’s opinions. In fact, others kinda found it pretty nice too, almost giving off a more light and hopeful approach to a hospital. “So...Let me get this straight...I was in the middle of an open heart surgery...And you paged me while I was stitching it back together...With a code red, nonetheless...And I put my subordinate to cover for me, thinking that something happened to you or whatever patient you have...And instead, I find you here with no problem, loitering around with the three stoogies - No offense -...Having a party. Woaw, Greg, be careful, you are overshadowing yourself with every passing day.” Katrina groaned, throwing in the bin the discardable surgery objects and  hopped on his desk, crossing her legs together nonchalantly. “Awwww, you love me, don’t you?” he retorted in a fake sweet tone, making the girl shake her head and chuckle. “Yeah, of course, who doesn’t?” she could barely keep herself from grinning at his silly self. “So what’s the real problem? What did they do?” “We are trying to see what’s wrong with Carly’s angiogram, and I figured perhaps the gorgeous eyes of an exotic, successful, intelligent woman, would be able to see the problem of another successful and intelligent woman.” he tried to speak with more honey than he ever did, just for the laughs. “The girl kissed by fire should dye her hair again. Also...It came to my understanding that most people have...A left and a right leg, right? Why does the angio have two left feet?” she asked, taking her hair out of the ponytail and messing it around. “Et voila! Without even knowing the patient’s problems properly, you saw the wrong when these guys didn’t. See, I told you the foreigner would get it faster than you.” House limped back to pat her head, looking at the three with judgement. “So...Who screwed up something so basic? I wouldn’t have expected someone that works under you to do such a stupid mistake -... No, wait, it was Chase, wasn’t it?” Kat smirked, looking at the Aussie with a playful glint in her eyes. “Wh-What?! Why did you think it was me?!” Chase looked at her with revolt. “Are you trying to tell me it WASN’T you?” she pressed on, watching him blink and get back in his chair. “How did you know?” Greg challenged her, only to see her shrug. “He seems like the only one to screw up something like this because he was trying to charm the pants off some nurse.” she spoke as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “You are absolutely correct! Oh, and, stop messing with your hair, you’re leaving strands everywhere.” he grabbed her wrists, and just for a split second, his beautiful icy blue eyes peered into her fawn-like green ones. “Well...Every fire has cinders and ambers, doesn’t it. Now that you basically dragged me out of the surgery room, you have to keep me around for the case. I’m sure you wouldn’t mind me purrrowling around, would you?” she joked around, just as Chase got up, staring at the angios he screwed up in complete disbelief. “Yeah. Sure. You do that. At least I’ll have someone competent around.” he nodded his head, a bit awkwardly. “That’s impossible! It can’t be - “ Chase tried to defend himself, despite having no excuse. “Or maybe it was Jenny. How come some resident signed this radiology report? Were you even in the room?” House reprimanded the blond doctor. “I’ll redo her angio- “ Chase tried to defend himself, but was quickly shut down by his superior. “You’ll do nothing!” an angry House was a scary House, which made the room atmosphere tense as hell. “Eric, go do the angiogram, please.” Kat muttered, simplifying the problem. “...I can’t believe I did that.” Chase turned around to look at his fuck up, making the red haired girl sigh. “That’s what happens when you think with the wrong head at the wrong time.” with that, she flapped her hand to dismiss both of them, dragging House to sit down, worrying about his leg. “I am surrounded by idiots.” he dragged a hand down his face in anger. “Yeah, I know what you mean...But they are not stupid, in the long run. Just...Distracted sometimes...At the wrong times, sure, but...They have redeeming qualities too.” she tried to defend them a bit, while also calm him down, knowing very well that nobody can think straight while angry. “Yeah, I know. But neither you, nor I, have ever been distracted by trivial things like this. Speaks volumes about someone’s priorities.” he retorted just as tauntingly as before. “Well...He’s still young...And he knows he’s attractive for most people...I don’t know. I can’t really defend him for this one.” she looked down, sighing. “Then don’t. It’s not your job to defend everyone or try to make me feel better. Look at you. You’re young, beautiful and smart, but not once did I see you being distracted by some boy. Chase has no excuse.” he cut her off, making her smile in understanding, nodding blankly. “Yeah...But you’re the only one who sees me that way. You...And James and Lisa...You’re the only ones that I trust to tell me the truth and be genuine with me...And you’re the only ones who talk to me or hang around me without wanting something out of me. Sometimes things are more complicated than you see at the surface.” her voice became softer, almost melancholic, something that was completely out of character for her, or at least, that’s what he thought.

House was about to open his mouth and interrogate her, in his own weird way, only for his office room to get opened and have Vogler and Cuddy walk right through. With an ever so quiet curse from the girl, she bit her lip and raised her head, trying not to look worried or intimidated.

“What a pleasant coincidence, finding both of you here. I see neither of you conformed to the rules yet. Are you trying to have an anarchy together? Not wearing proper clothing?” Vogler look down at the two of them, which made House blink in confusion at the girl sitting on his desk. “Well, I know I don’t wear a coat ‘cause it’s itchy and tacky...But as far as I’m aware, if my eyes haven’t gone wild from the LSD, Katrina’s wearing a medical scrub.” the man started playing with his cane, only to see the girl shoot him a warning look, mouthing for him to shut up. “Animal scrubs are unprofessional. Nobody in the hospital wears them, and there is no benefit to them.” the businessman refuted with ease. “The benefit is that I make them myself, they are comfy, and people find them nice to look at. My patients feel calmer and more reassured seeing cute things. It makes them see past their health issues, even by a few seconds. And children and teenagers especially love it.” the girl explained herself calmly, before biting her lip and speaking a bit lower. “I’d recommend you wear a cute scrub too, I’m sure they are more comfy than your business suits. Maybe you’ll lighten up and realise we are in a hospital and we work with people, not with documents and money.”  “Haha, you’re pretty funny. Now I see why the two of you are always together. You have a knack for breaking the rules. Or, better said, you completely disregard the rules as if they don’t exist at all for you.” Vogler’s voice seemed to get darker and more threatening. “It’s just a coat and a scrub. House works from his office, and he wears suits, I don’t see how that’s a problem, the same as my scrubs, there’s no rule anywhere saying I am strictly forbidden from wearing cute tops. Do you really feel your authority so undermined by two people in this huge hospital wearing different things, despite not getting in the way of their pristine perfect work? Or perhaps you feel some kind of weird...Inferiority complex that you must hide and keep in check by walking all over everyone as if we are doormats?” Katrina spoke without even looking at anyone, only staring ahead, coincidently, at the messed up angiograms, and for a few seconds, she could almost feel her own legs getting screwed up from the malicious vibe emanating from the businessman. “Katrina...” Lisa brought her out from her trance, sharing a look of worry together, knowing very well they’re screwed either way. “It’s not about what rules are out there or not. It’s about the rules that I make, and making sure you are team players. If you are not, then...I believe we won’t be able to cooperate for much longer. Especially if Dr. Cuddy isn’t able to keep you in control.” Vogler threatened, before turning away and leaving, while Lisa gave her a pitiful look, following behind him. “...Fantastic day, isn’t it?” Katrina put her hands on her face, sighing in frustration. “Do you really make your own scrubs?” Greg asked, making her turn her head to look at him, before nodding. “Yeah. Want one? I can make you a pink one with lots of flowers and smiley faces.” she joked half-heartedly, which made him realise the annoying businessman was affecting her more than him. “Don’t be ridiculous.” he shook his head, getting up, patting her head. “What else do I have left after what just happened.” she stretched, cracking her fingers and spine, as she hopped off the desk, just as her pager started ringing. “Good luck with your patient, Greg. I have to go. If anything happens, page me...But no code red during surgery this time, please.” she gave him a tender smile, leaving the room, making him look after her.

What was it about her today that made her seem off? It has to be only Vogler, right? What else could it be.  The patient, however, has many many symptoms, and no actual disease yet. Fascinating!

As time passed and he got to treat his patient, and even lied to the transplant committee so Carly would get a new heart, and nobody, except for Wilson and Black, who were there, knew about that felony he committed.

On the other hand, during this time, Katrina has been working day and night with barely any rest, other than the tons of coffee she had to down to keep herself awake. There was something very uplifting about overworking, and no, not only your heart rate.

“Hey, Kat.” Wilson raised his hand up to salute his friend, which made her stop in front of him, albeit a bit spazzic like a meerkat, but nothing too out of the ordinary. “Hey, James, how are you?” she smiled at him, walking slowly together to whatever place he was heading to. “Pretty good. Wanted to grab lunch, how about you?” he asked politely, putting his hands in his coat pockets. “It’s lunch already? How time flies...I forgot to eat again. Too bad.” she chuckled sheepishly, grinning at him. “Anyway, have a great meal, I have a surgery to prep for.”  “You should still eat something, you can’t live on coffee alone.” James muttered with concern. “Thank you for your concern, James, I appreciate it. I have to hurry now, eat for me too.” she chuckled, stopping in her tracks, waving him goodbye. “Wait, hold up, I wanted to ask you something.” he stepped closer to her, bending a bit so he could speak without anyone lese hearing. “Do you know what House lied about? At the committee? I know he lied, but I don’t know what about.” he asked, making the girl sigh and shake her head. “No, sorry, I don’t know. If you want, I can ask him when I’m done with the surgery.” she suggested, seemingly interested herself. “If he tells you, that would be great. He seemed to stop himself from telling me because I am a member of both the board and the transplant committee...Which you are as well. Good luck.” he points out, both curious and frustrated with his friend. “Well that’s interesting...Okay, you’ve got me hooked, I’ll see what I can do and I’ll tell you as soon as I find out. Laters.” Kat winked at him, rushing to do the surgery.

However, she didn’t have to do much work, for when she was almost done with the surgery, House himself made his way into the room, examining her working, before speaking.

“How would you fancy dinner tonight?” he asked, which made her look at him, raising her eyebrow in confusion. “Did you talk to James by chance?” she questioned right back, doing the finishing touches. “Yeah, how’d you know?” he asked jokingly. “Oh, you know...Just the usual thing of me forgetting to take care of myself. So, where do we go?” she asked, finishing the sewing and turning around to exit the room. “My home. We get take out, fall asleep since it’s already past midnight...I came with the motorcycle, I even brought your cat helmet, come on, I’m hungry, don’t question so much.” he put his arm around her shoulder, bringing her to the parking spot. “No room to complain much, is there? Is it really past midnight? I feel like I just talked with James a little ago...” she muttered, taking the helmet and putting it on. “Time flies fast when you’re having fun, they say.” House pointed out, starting the engine.

For the rest of the night - Or early morning rather - They finished eating and were relaxing by the piano, playing “My Way” by Frank Sinatra and other fun, classical, beautiful songs, humming the lyrics and reveling in the fact that there were no cases for a while, and no worries, at least for what Vogler is worth.

“Say, mind if I ask you something?” Kat asked, turning her head to look at him. “Yes, a hooker came by just yesterday, how did you know?” he gasped dramatically, looking right back at her. “Oh, just a lucky guess. However, my question was going to point more towards the patient you just had, who needed a heart transplant. I and James were curious about your little white lie.” she chuckled at his jokes, which made him blink at her and frown. “Sorry, doctor-patient confidentiality makes me unable to say anything. As well as ethics. Those are very important rules that everyone must follow for a better place to live in, don’t you think?” she never really understood why, but those back and forth playful banters always made her laugh. “Oh yes, of course...Ethics...How could I possible forget about Ethics? Perhaps you have a dictionary so I can look it up once in a while. And now, for the real reason...I can assume it was something psychological? Some mental illness that nobody was supposed to know about?” she smirked right back at him, only for him to look at her for a brief few seconds and nod abruptly. “Bulimia and self-harm.” Greg answered, which made the girl smile sadly. “Figured it would be something like this...Many women like her have self-issues and they get desperate and lonely to the point where they find the only relief from stress and self-hatred in overworking and terrible coping mechanisms. Buuuut she proved to you she wanted to live, and you fought for her and saved her. That’s amazing. You...You are amazing, you know that, don’t you?” she praised him, a soft smile on her face of something that may or may not resemble admiration. “Where are you getting at with that? It’s almost like you’re praising her...For something.” his voice lowered a bit, almost as if he was interrogating her. “Praise is a big word...Although she is a great woman, without a doubt. I was actually praising you, above all else...And...I was just wondering...Would you...Would you do the same for me? Should I have been in the same position as she was.” she asked, as a matter of fact, which made the other doctor raise his eyebrow at her. “Why would you be asking something like that?” it was clear that by now, the atmosphere got a little bit tense, until she started randomly playing “Carol of the Bells”, such a beautiful, uplifting Christmas song, yet House could almost smell the nostalgic undertones it had. “You are being very weird, Katrina.” “Oh, come on, lighten up, it was only to satisfy my scientific curiosities. Christmas is coming, I haven’t slept in two days, I’ve been drinking so much coffee that I think I’ve transcended into another universe altogether...And everyone is weird in their own way, you can’t tell me otherwise. Now come on, answer me, don’t be such a killjoy.” she grinned, nudging him playfully with her shoulder as she got closer to him, trying to get him to stop thinking it was some greater problem. “...No.” he answered solemnly, which made the girl blink and tilt her head to the side like a confused puppy. “No...You won’t do the same for me, or No...You won’t answer?” Kat asked softly, hoping to get a straight answer out of him, but that’s never the case with House. “Figure that out when you go to sleep tonight. Good night, Kat.” Greg said, getting up from the piano and making his way to his dormitory, leaving the girl alone.

Sighing, she continued to play “Summertime” from Gershwin to calm herself down, before getting up herself and walking all the way to her home, albeit not a long walk, yet still relaxing thanks to the cold outside that relaxed her.

The next day, Katrina walked in around the clinic with her big Triple Espresso Caramel Latte cup, going around to do her clinic duty, only to get paged by House once again, most likely to help with another diagnostic, or point out some obvious idiocy one of his subordinates has done.

On the way there, she spotted the big bad wolf, so she hid behind numerous people and quickly ran up the emergency stairs to escape her fate, until she got to the diagnostician’s office, catching her breath.

“Why did you run? There was no code red this time.” he asked, wagging his cane around. “Yeah, well, code V from Vendetta spotted me, so I had to pretend I didn’t see him. The emergency stairs are a blessing, sometimes.” she chuckled, leaning, on the glass wall, taking big sips from her coffee. “Have you thought about what I said last night?” he asked, and by then, the eyes of the onlookers seemed to go back and forth between those two. “I would have...But as you can see, I didn’t exactly sleep last night. Again.” she gave him a sarcastic, exaggerated grin. “Yeah, I can see that. You look dreadful. Do you make it your personal mission to go in the Record book for the idiot who refused to sleep the longest?” he limped in front of her, making her sigh and roll her eyes. “It wasn’t for lack of trying, okay? I go to bed, it takes hours to fall asleep, and when I do, I have nightmares and sleep paralysis, I wake up startled and restless, and there is that, I can’t fall asleep back again because of overwhelming anxiety. Are you happy with my answer?” she looked up at him with an almost annoyed look in her exhausted eyes. “...Nope.” House dragged his answer a bit, as if he was thinking over some rationalisation of her behaviour. “Are you taking pills?” he asked again, popping a Vicodin pill. “Uh...Should I?” she muttered, blinking questioningly at him. “Maybe. If you don’t already. I’m not entirely sure if you are or not, unless you tell me.” he pointed out as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Or maybe I need a long vacation in the Maldives. Or to go back home in Europe. Who knows, maybe sleeping in the Sun, on a beach chair, hearing the ocean waves would prove to be a great way to fall asleep and actually...You know...Sleep!” she shrugged and turned around to leave, but he hooked the semi-circle part of his cane around her neck, bringing her back, making her yelp in shock. “Are you sure you’re alright? You’ve been acting off recently.” he limped in front of her, blocking the exit. “Ah, yes, of course. An anomaly in an otherwise boring human who is bound by routines. How could I forget how much you love solving these anomalies? But, you see, I’m not your patient, so I have to ask you to refrain from trying to diagnose me, and return to whatever your guy has.” she tried to push him away, but he wouldn’t budge, which only made her sigh in aggravation. “I think...You are hiding something.” House pushed her with his cane just enough to look at her better.  “Yeah, you’ve got me. Something completely unexpected...Like...Vogler giving me a hard time and threatening to fire me, despite being the head of the Cardiology department...And Christmas is approaching and I’m as lonely as always...Oh, and, how could I forget, my family wants to visit. My family. Who hasn’t contacted me in like 15 years. Suddenly wants to visit me. I’m SURE they want to have a very nice, lovely chat with me. Now that you know how miserable my days have been lately, can I go back to being miserable in my own department, where I can actually do something productive with my time?” it wasn’t often when she got so worked up, but it was clear she was stressed out and needed some way to vent or relax. “Don’t you want to know the answer to your question?” he looked down for a few seconds, before looking in her eyes, noticing how her eyes were puffy and droopy, and her bottom lip was quivering lightly. “...I don’t know.” she muttered, moving past him and going back to the clinic to do her job as she’s supposed to.

Of course, Vogle continued to be a problem for everyone, Christmas passed and she was just as lonely as every other year, so she drunk herself to sleep while listening to old school songs from her native country, because no matter how silly they were, they still made her feel happy and nostalgic.

Things continued to go array for everyone in the hospital, so bad and so hard that the evil businessman called for a board meeting to fire House, which caused a shit ton of problems for everyone, especially Kat, Wilson and Cuddy...But the only ones who refused were the first two, which escalated to another meeting right then to fire them...On her own birthday, barely a week and a half after Christmas.

“Doctor Wilson, Doctor Black. I was hoping you were gonna miss this one.” Vogler said as soon as the two entered the office room and sat on their chairs next to each other. “A man is the sum of his actions. Here are a few of Dr. House’s. He violated a D.N.R. and was charged with assault. He brought a termite into the O.R. and spat on a surgeon. He accepted a Corvette from a patient who was a known member of the New Jersey Mafia.” the businessman began, only to get stopped by one of the surgeons. “Ed, look-” he tried to reason, but was harshly cut off. “Edward.” Vogler looked sharply at him. “Edward. You look at anyone’s career, you can find things that are-” the surgeon began to speak again, only to get quickly shut down. “These are the last 3 months! He’s personally had more complaints filed against him than any department in this hospital.” Vogler continued, and James tried to reason this time. “Okay. He’s screwed-up. He’s miserable. And he should probably re-read the ethics code, but it works for him. He’s saved hundreds of lives.” Wilson explained, but it was clear Vogler was on a war path. “He is a drug addict who flaunts his addiction and refuses to get treatment! He is a disgrace and an embarrassment to this hospital.” this statement made the red haired girl groan in annoyance and let herself fall back on the chair. “No, he’s not a drug addict, that’s what YOU want to see. How would you feel if your leg was in excruciating pain because of a surgery choice you had NO choice over, and yet, you still had to work, save lives, and think properly? House MAY look like he’s some kind of insane jerk, but he is known all over America for being THE best diagnostician and was able to save people that otherwise, in the hand of ordinary doctors, would have died. Oh, and, those complaints have always been revoked or solved once the patient...You know...LIVED! You just want him fired ‘cause he’s not being your obedient lap dog. If you are so brave to speak ill of a person when he’s not around, why don’t you also have the guts to speak the truth?” she leaned forward to glare at her enemy, as Wilson put his hand over hers, trying to calm her down. “Says the one who’s always by his side, helping him indulge in his nefarious medical fantasies. Let’s keep this simple. Either he goes, or I go.” Vogler spoke, making Katrina rest her chin on her hand, watching him closely. “You shouldn’t personalise this.” Lisa tried to reason, but this guy was over the limits. “And by I, I mean my hundred million dollars. How’s that for personalising?” he started at poor Lisa, who was in a huge dilemma. “Who knew adults could be so petty? You give us money for a reason, and then you threaten to take it away because one doctor, the only one who cares about his patients more than anything, does his job as he is supposed to. Very mature.” Kat sneered at him, rolling her eyes at him. “Gregory House is a symbol of everything wrong with the health care industry. Waste. Insubordination. Doctors preening like they’re kind, and the hospital is their own private fiefdom. Health care is a business, I’m gonna run it like one. I hereby move to revoke the tenure of Dr. Gregory House and terminate his employment at this hospital, effective immediately.” Vogler declared, which made the red head jump up from her seat and slam her hand on the desk. “Since when can you decide for everyone? Are you some sort of God or what? You are WRONG Ed. First of all, Gregory House is the ONLY doctor in this hospital who is capable of being perfectly objective and save ALL his patients, even from the weirdest, most unexpected diseases! Secondly, yeah, we ARE Gods, in a way! We actively get ourselves in the line to save hundreds of lives, we...We HOLD their fates in OUR hands! He is not the problem, and Health Care is NOT supposed to be a business! This is not a business corporate, this is a HOSPITAL! A place where we, DOCTORS, save lives! You wouldn’t get it, you’re not a doctor! You didn’t have to see people in agony, begging to be killed, nor did you have people crying in happiness for being saved! You know absolutely NOTHING of medicine! You have NO right to fire Gregory House, just like you have NO right to tell us, who spent over 10 years of our youth studying constantly, and more than 10 years having this healthcare as our everyday life style, that we should do this for money, and not for the people!” the room went silent from the shock of her outburst, since nobody, in 15 years, saw her so agitated, and yet, she was right...Against the wrong man. “Fascinating and touching speech, I must say. Now I know what I have to deal with. Now then, let’s resume to our votes. All in favour of firing Dr. Gregory House?” Vogler asked, cheekily raising his own hand, which was slowly followed by everyone, except for Katrina and James, who looked at each other with worry, letting their arms fall back from the table and holding hands for comfort. “Dr. Wilson? Dr. Black?” Vogler tried to nudge to give in, but it was for naught. “Opposed.” both of them answered in unison, knowing that either way, they’re screwed. “The...Motion is defeated.” the business man sighed, letting silence hang in for a few seconds, before speaking again, in a chirper voice. “Dr. Wilson, Dr. Black, would you mind leaving the room, please?” “Excuse me?” James asked, frowning in confusion at his words. “We’re going to take another vote.” Vogler explained, as if it was nothing. “We are board members. We have to be here when you vote. You can’t void our votes by making us stand in the hallway. And, as far as I’m aware, you need notice and at least one business day before you can reconsider any matter.” James continued, knowing very well that he can’t prolong the agony. “We’re voting on a different matter, which you are conflicted out of.” Vogler stood up, looking solemn over everyone. “How can we be conflicted out of? What is that even supposed to mean?” Katrina asked, looking at Lisa, who seemed to have an apologetic look on her face. “This vote is whether to dismiss Dr. James Wilson and Katrina Black.” everyone looked down hearing that...Katrina and James were a completely different matter, compared to House... “Oh, great, yes, fire everyone who is speaking the truth and doesn’t go by your stupid business idea. Newsflash, not everybody is a greedy fuckass like you are. Some of us are here because that’s why we wasted our life for! Saving! LIVES! If you guys, after so many years of working together, think that I and Wilson should leave, then fine, sure, vote yes. But if you’re doing it because of this guy...Then congratulations, welcome to communism. Trust me, I’d know, I’m Romanian.” looking with disgust at that guy, she grabbed her friend and left the office without another word, and when they got far enough, she slammed her back on a wall, pulling at her hair. “At least I know why House likes you. You were right. You have always been an admirable doctor. I hope one day he will appreciate you as he should. Its not like he has many people who actually tolerate him...” James put his hands on her shoulders, trying to calm her out of having an anxiety attack, until Vogler came by, looking as menacing and narcissistic as usual.

He threatened both of them, saying they have the option of leaving the hospital, otherwise he will destroy them...Which means that there was at least one person who voted to keep them there.

There was no point in trying to comfort each other, so instead, they went to their own offices, packing up everything they owned.  However, instead of packing, Katrina stood criss-crossed on her desk, looking at her prized possessions on the shelves, including her awards, diplomas, random little plants and flowers, cute decorations...And a fox that had a heart in its mouth, that she received as a gift from House, Wilson and Cuddy when she became the head of the Cardiology department.

She didn’t even realise how tears were falling down her face, she almost felt numb to it all, but in reality, her heart hurt like hell and she couldn’t imagine how life would continue to go on from now on.

The sound of the door softly opening was blocked away by her personal phone ringing, and with a lethargic move, she raised her phone, without looking at the caller ID, and answered.

“What do you want?” Kat sighed on the phone, not having the strength to fake cheerfulness as she usually did. “Oh, sweety, hi, how are you?” ...it was her mother...What a coincidence. “Why are you calling? You haven’t contacted me since I left the country. I’m not sure you realised the passing of time, but it’s been over 15 years.” the girl sneered over the phone, clutching her grip on it. “Don’t be like that, darling, I just wanted to see how my eldest daughter is doing! You see, we want to visit you tomorrow, and -” her mother began, but was quickly cut off by her daughter. “You’re in America?! Why in the world are you here?! You NEVER left the country!” her alarmed reaction was rightfully explained, as her mother only laughed fakely. “Well, you see, your sister is very sick and she needs organ transplants and...You are a perfect match! Your sister really, really needs your kidney, liver and heart, and -” of course the only reason she’d call is because she needed her... “You...Called...So that I would kill myself...And give my organs to your precious daughter...Because I don’t deserve to live, but she does...Sorry, you might not have been informed, I’m a stone cold bitch without a heart, and I’ve always been. If you want organs, beg to a transplant committee, otherwise, I’m not giving my life to some stupid bitch who thinks she’s better than me. Oh, and, by the way, in case you’ve forgotten, you already disowned me long ago, so there’s no reason for you to call anymore. And don’t call me to the funeral, I won’t come. Bye.” Kat aggressively slammed the phone lid close, before throwing it on the ground, putting her head on her hands and finally breaking down to cry...

But there were no tears.

There was only exhaustion.

“Hey.” the low voice of Doctor Gregory House echoed through the room which made the girl squeak in surprise and turn back to look at him with wide, frightened eyes. “Don’t you know it’s rude to sneak up on people?!” she accused him, clutching her blouse where her heart is supposed to be. “I knocked. You didn’t answer, I let myself in. I...See you’re not having the best day.” Greg pointed out, which only made the girl roll her eyes and turn back to look at her shelf. “Yeah, no kidding.” she snorted, her hands grasping her ankles as she looked down. “Why did you come here? Did Wilson tell you what happened and you came to throw some pity words and say how you saved the patient? If yes, then go ahead, I’m listening...As always.” she waved her hand around, urging him to talk and stop being so awkward, but the silence seemed to cut them with a laser. “...Thank you.” the words she never heard uttered from his mouth before shocked her so much that she turned around to look at him, holding the eye contact that she was barely able to hold with anyone. “You...You? Gregory House? Are...Thanking...Me? For what? You never thanked me for anything I did to you, so why the change of heart? Did Wilson’s golden tongue melt your heart and mellowed you?” she taunted him to get him talking, but his expression didn’t seem as harsh or condescending as it usually did, instead, he seemed to be...Almost apologetic? As if he realised that his actions of being himself hurt the people he cares about. “Do you hate me?” Greg asked, which made the girl frown and blink in confusion. “You...Think that I gave up the best thing I’ve ever had, which is my job here, because...I hated you? I loved this place because you were here...And James and Lisa...But now that it’s all over...What are the odds of someone hiring all three of us at once, and...Lisa miraculously becoming the head of another hospital and...Yeah, I’ve got nothing, it’s all ruined. Guess I can finally get a vacation. Anything else you want to say before I fuck off completely out of your life, just as you wanted to?” it was clear that she was exhausted and just wanted to go home and be herself with no more veil of lies covering her. “You...You are too good for jerks like me, Katrina. You should hate me. I repeatedly ruined your happiness time and time again.” House muttered, looking down at the floor. “Right...I’m sorry for caring about you, I guess...If that’s what you want me to say. Stupid Katrina, huh? Always caring about others and forget about herself. Always so miserable and helpless, but nobody seems to notice. Stupid, lonely Katrina, who has no friends and no relatives to care for her...Who only want her alive to donate all her organs to her sick sister and she can just die for all anyone cares. Now, thanks for telling me that I should hate the only person I actually gave a damn about and trusted whole-heartedly. You made your point, as usual, you want me out of your life, I will do just that. Have a not-so-miserable life from now on...At least you.” she wiped her face from the tears, waving her hand for him to leave her alone already, as she looked at shelves again and hugged the fox tightly to her chest, burying her face in it. “The answer is yes.” was the only thing House said as he left her office, his head hung, and for the first time in ages, he felt his own heart aching at the sight of the girl crying.

While he did as he usually does, spending all his time saving his patient, she drank herself to sleep, day and night, listening to sad songs, singing them at the top of her lungs, hoping it would be therapeutical, but at some point, she forgot what it meant to be properly rational, and she touched the forbidden stash she was never supposed to use.

And in the end, at whatever god forsaken hour of the early morning, she called someone, and dearly hoped they would answer. She had no idea why she called this person...Maybe because he was the first person in the calling list, or maybe there was some other underlying reason that she didn’t want to accept.

Apparently, being drunk out of your wits out on the terrace of her penthouse, while singing at the top of her lungs some silly or depressing Romanian songs, as outside was freezing cold and snowing heavily...But she didn’t feel the cold, despite how light she was dressed...It wasn’t enough make her feel something again.

“Katrina? Do you know what time it is?” a gruff, sleepy voice asked on the other end of the line. “N-No, not really. I wasn’t even sure who I called. Sorry.”  she sighed, as she started to cry. “Are...You crying?” a rustle from the other side resembled House getting up rapidly from the bed. “I-I think so, y-yeah. I...I didn’t realise I was crying. I-I don’t even know why I called you.” she gasped, taking another shot of vodka mixed with chocolate bailey’s. “Are you drunk?!” House spoke in a higher voice, obviously shocked, putting on his coat. “You don’t even drink!...I’m coming over.” “N-No, y-you can’t! You can’t see me like this! And...And I have to know something very important from you! It’s VERY important! Life or death important!” she raised her voice into the phone, unkown to him, as she was fidgeting back and forth on the couch, which made House stop in his tracks just as he touched the door knob. “What is it?” he asked in a way so she would try to calm down. “D-Do you...Do you hate me?!” the desperation in her voice was something so foreign for him to experience, but something so usual for her. “What?! What’s that question, why in the world would I hate you?! Katrina, what did you do?!” he slammed the door shut, rushing towards his motorbike. “I NEED to know that! Just answer this simple question! Please, Greg, just answer!” her voice became more strained and desperate. “...Of course I don’t hate you. I couldn’t. Not you.” he sighed, getting up on his motorbike. “No matter what I did?” she started sobbing by now, which really worried the man. “Yes, of course, now hang in there, I’m gonna be there in a few minutes.” Greg put his phone on speaker, in his jacket, so he could still talk to her, as thankfully, their homes were pretty close to each other. “Greg...I-I’m...I’m afraid...I...I did something bad...Something very bad...” she turned around on the couch she was lying on, watching the sky as she shivered, snow falling on her, as she took another shot. “Katrina, I’m waiting at the elevator. What did you do?” House kept tapping his foot until that dreadfully slow elevator pinged, showing it got to the bottom floor, then got in, waiting to reach the pent house. “I...Took pills...” she muttered, clutching the box of pills. “How many?” he asked urgently. “I-I don’t know! I’m drunk, I’m hurting, I’m desperate, I’m lonely and I had a bottle of pills...One, two, three, four, five...And then it’s all blurry...But the bottle seems pretty empty...And I’m scared of an OD...” she explained over the phone, and then, she heard the front door slam close, and next thing she saw was a tall figure rushing in front of her, then he crashed on the couch on the terrace, and he pulled her to his chest, putting his jacket around her shoulders, his hands on her face, trying to warm her up. “You...Absolute...Idiot!” Greg scolded her, which only made her chuckle weakly. “I really am, aren’t I?” she said as more tears fell down her face. “You really don’t hate me, do you? Now that you know?” she clutched tightly to his Tshirt, as he could only sigh and hold her tightly. “No. I don’t hate you. I can’t...Now show me the pill bottle.” he told her, and suddenly, he felt her fall limp in his arms, just as she pointed to the empty, knocked down bottle of anti-drepressants. “What did you do...” Greg muttered in horror as he dragged her to the bathroom, getting her in the bathtub, completely dismissing his aching leg, as he used the shower tap to get warm water on her, while he made her vomit all the pills she downed, hoping she wouldn’t need to go to the hospital, and obviously, that nothing would happen to her.

For the whole night and morning, he didn’t move from there, only holding the girl, checking on her at regular intervals of time, making sure her vitals were still normal... Until she heard a string of incoherent mutters, begging him not to leave her alone and that she doesn’t want to to be away from him.

Oh, Kat, if only you knew what kind of effect you had on him...What kind of pain you were making him feel...The grief of being betrayed by Stacy, the one he thought was the love of his life, and then the painful leg...And now you, someone he cares so much for...

She deserves so much more...She is so much better than he is, House thought, and yet, the selfish part of him, the one that was quickly beginning to gain terrain against his sensible one, desperately wanted to cling onto her and have her be his lover together.

Funny how the ones who look to be the healthiest and happiest are in reality the best actors and nobody knows if there’s ever anything wrong with them.   Which only made her kindness and feelings towards him more genuine, he thought. She’s in constant pain, just like him, it was no wonder she could sympathise so well with, unlike everybody else...Or maybe she was just empathetic enough? More like Pathetic, she’d say, no doubt.

Time passed at an irrelevant pace, until she finally began to stir in her unconscious state, and finally, she fluttered her eyes open, making Gregory sigh in relief, and as soon as they made eye contact, her cheeks began to turn a hue pinker.

“Greg...? Why are you...? What happened...?” Kat muttered, clutching her head in pain. “You don’t remember anything from last night?” he asked, frowning in confusion. “...Sorry. I know I was pretty sad...And I was listening to music from my childhood at home...And I started drinking...And I remember the bottle of pills taunting me...And from then on, it’s all blank. Did I...Did I call you...?” she clinged on his shirt to get into a sitting position. “Yeah, something like that. Can you stand? You need to change into dry clothes before you catch the Rhino thing.” he joked, making the girl smile softly. “Oh no, not the Rhino thing!” she chuckled, and with a bit of help, she got up, and was able to change into proper, warm clothes. “I’m starving, wanna go eat something? I have some coupons for the Chinese restaurant just down the street.” she hooked her arm to his, leaning her head on his shoulder. “Sounds like a plan, let’s go. But before that, you must promise me never to do something like that again.” House looked at her with seriousness in his eyes. “Okay. I promise. I...I don’t know why I caved in like that. I always promised myself I’d never go that far...I fucked up once, but in a different way...And...I guess in my drunk state I didn’t realise that no matter how many pills I take, the pain won’t go away...Drunk people are really stupid, aren’t they” she chuckled awkwardly, lowering her head in guilt and shame as she used her chopsticks to get some noodles. “...People in pain do stupid things sometimes.” Greg muttered, letting silence take over them for a few minutes, before speaking again. “Happy late birthday, Katrina.” his words made her look at him with eye, confused eyes, before taking out her phone at looking at the date, realising she spent her whole birthday drinking. “I...Completely forgot...Guess now we’re even, huh?” Kat smirked, pointing her chopsticks at him in amusement.

Not much time later, House called Kat over to his office at evening, and everyone dear to her was there, celebrating that Lisa managed to get rid of Vogler once and for all...Of course, of the 100 million $ too, but that’s besides the point. They were back in business, the shock family, ready to save more lives again!

Everything went back to normal - Or well, the normality that was entrapped in their weirdness - But it was THEIR normality. A chaos of going back and forth, arguing, almost killing patients, and then, saving them miraculously.

However, nobody is safe from illness, and one day, during some diagnosis discussion, Kat was pacing back and forth, thinking and saying her ideas for the others to refute or agree to, only for her to abruptly stop in her tracks, her back facing everyone as she coughed.

“Haemoptysis.” she muttered, only for House to grimace. “Haemo-what now? Last time I checked, our patient didn’t cough nor spit blood.” but instead of answering, she coughed up a bit more, her hands covering her face. “Vertigo...” she spoke again, in a much fainter voice. “What the hell are you babbling about?” he hit his cane on the ground, only to see her taking a few steps forwards, albeit, a little wobbly. “I’m...Gonna...” and just as she uttered those words, her legs gave out, and she fell, the only reason for not hitting the ground being Greg’s Godly reflexes which ensured he caught her. “Damn it, not again...What are you three sitting around for? Get a crash cart and a nurse!” House scolded his interns, who rushed to do just that. “What did you do this time, Kat...” he shook his head in disdain as he brushed her gorgeous crimson hair out of her face.

She looked so peaceful now, unconscious, were it not for the blood on her chin and hands, but now, unlike last time, she didn’t look like some kind of undead who was ready to give up her life at any given moment out of sheer misery and self-hatred.

As soon as she was taken away from his arms, he refused to go look over her...He didn’t want to admit it, but he was afraid that, since he cared so much about her, he would become unreasonably subjective and he may completely screw up her diagnosis. Greg hoped with all his heart that it was nothing life-threatening, but blood in her lungs was no easy, nor simple thing.

Wilson visited her and held her hand, Cuddy visited her and kissed her forehead, even his subordinates went to check up on her because they wanted to...Even her cardiology colleagues went to see how she was doing...

But not him. Never him. Because if he did, he was screwed for life.

No matter how much he wanted to deny himself, however, he couldn’t help but find himself in her room, in the middle of the night, sitting on a chair besides her, holding her hand in both of his, kissing it and thinking of her diagnosis.

That is, until her hand suddenly started to shake, startling the doctor besides her, as she opened her eyes, panting for air.

“Hey, you okay?” House asked, squeezing her hand gingerly. “Urgh, yeah...Just had a nightmare...Followed by sleep paralysis. Again. Nothing new, here. Uhmm...It may sound as a bit of a deja-vu,  but what in the world happened?” she sighed, getting into a sitting position, looking at him. “You tell me. You coughed blood, got dizzy and fainted. Did you take anything? Felt bad or something?” he asked, making the girl scratch the back of her head awkwardly. “Nothing that I haven’t felt before, really. I have anxiety, I frequently experience restlessness, problems with breathing, arrhythmia, sometimes dizziness and stuff. It’s inconvenient, but you get used to it, so I didn’t took any pills, especially not after that scare a few days ago. Do you...Think it’s because of...My fuck up?” she looked worriedly at him, but he only looked down, thinking. “Not so fun being on the other end, huh?” House smirked before shaking his head. “I have no idea. We need to do some tests on you before we can confirm anything. But you’ll be fine, that much I can guarantee.” he promised, which made her smile sadly, leaning back on the pillow, squeezing his hand back. “Can you stay with me a bit longer? I, uhm...You know...Problems sleeping...When I’m with someone...I tend to sleep better...And a close to a full night. I-I don’t know why, but it’s always been like this.” she brought up the hem of the blanket to cover her face. “Then get a boyfriend and sleep with him. You’re young, smart and beautiful, there’s nothing stopping you from that.” Greg muttered in a low voice, almost self-deprecating. “Yeah, that’s easy. If men actually went out of their way to talk to me...And that hasn’t happened in 15 years, so, as you say, Mazel Tov. That, and I’m afraid of people.” she sighed, biting her lip in embarrassment. “Whaaaaaat? No boyfriend in 15 years? No action? I don’t believe you.” he took off the blanket from her face, only to see her blushing face. “You’re the only person that I never lied to. I’m great at lying and deceiving and all that...But yeah, I know, I’m pitiful, don’t have to remind me. Why do you think my life is mostly spent in the hospital. I’m not as lonely as I’d be at home.” she looked away, snatching her blanket back. “You don’t have to stay. It’s much more comfortable sleeping in a bed, especially with that leg of yours.” “Yeah, it would be. Now close your eyes and get some sleep.” and so, he didn’t budge from her side the whole night, and she didn’t wake up from nightmares or restlessness. 

Days went on, and she kept on getting tested, and House was beginning to get more and more angry at the fact that he wasn’t able to properly diagnose her faster, and he was becoming unbearable for everyone around him.

On the other hand, just as Lisa and James were visiting her, trying to keep her company, when the two people she never expected to see again burst into her room with wide grins on their faces...Which in turn, made Kat drop her phone on the ground from the shock.

“What the hell...?” the red haired girl’s bottom lip quivered in anger. “Kitty-Kat, darling, we missed you so much! You haven’t come home in 15 years!” the mum stepped forward, ready to throw her arms around the girl, but she was met with hostility as Kat dragged herself backwards in the bed, away from her, pure disgust glowing on her face. “Don’t you dare touch me! And don’t you even think about calling me that nickname! I don’t care if you’re my parents, you never gave a damn about me, so don’t pretend to do now that THE perfect daughter is terminally sick and needs a quick organ donation that would ultimately KILL the useless, unwanted, worthless daughter!” Kat sneered at them, untangling the respiratory oxygen tubes who got knotted in her sudden gesticulation. “Kat, are you alright...?” James walked next to her bed, trying to calm her down, only to get yelled at. “No, I’m not! Get them out of here before I get a restriction order!” she continued to glare at them. “Come one, Kitten, don’t be like that, we came all the way from Europe to see you, when you didn’t even give us a call! I don’t know why you hate us.” the dad gave an awkward smile, as if he was embarrassed by his problematic child. “You didn’t call once to tell me Happy Christmas, or...Or Happy Birthday...You didn’t congratulate me on finishing University or on...Literally anything. And now, you come to me only to make sure that I actually die so you could take away my organs and make sure your favourite daughter keeps on living...And you’re actually...You really...Have the guts to ask me WHY I hate you? I hate you because you never cared for me, that’s why!” she gripped the hand grasps of the bed, not realising that House also got in the room. “No need to be so selfish, darling, it’s just a few organs that you could live without! We managed to find a heart transplant, we just need a kidney and part of your liver!” the father tried to negotiate, only for her to grit her teeth. “You know what? I hope my sister dies the most painful death there is, and that you go off after her. We may be blood related, but I was never your daughter. And you know what? Just to make sure...You think you can get my organs? Here’s my response to that!” in a fit of rage, she ripped her oxygen tubes, which continued with violent coughing and some blood. “Why the hell do you even want me to treat you when all you do is get yourself in self-harming situations? First, you OD on anti-depressants while drunk, and now you’re cutting off your oxygen supply to prove your point that you have mummy and daddy issues and that you’d rather die than...Die? You’re just a selfish, immature girl with suicidal tendencies whenever things don’t go her way. You think I’m gonna lie to the transplant committee for someone like that? Because the answer is NO!” House limped in front of her, speaking with so much hatred that it made the girl cry and shake, crestfallen at the words she heard. “And you just had to go ahead and tell everyone that I’m fucked in the head. I wonder how much that is gonna up my chances of actually...Making friends and...A boyfriend...Y’know...Literally anyone who’d actually give a fuck about me. So...Yeah, thanks, you’re right, I’d rather die than being humiliated by the only person I ever actually had any genuine feelings for, because I’m sort of a sociopath with relationship traumas. So, if you could do me a favour, before I pass out, pick these two idiots and get yourself out of this place before I call security, okay? Thanks, bye.” and just like that, she started coughing up more blood, and fainted.

Seeing her being a reckless idiot drove House through the roof, and he realised that maybe, his dad wasn’t the only one to need a “Parent Of The Year” award, but even so, the fact that Katrina was so angry that she felt the need to be so overly dramatic to prove a point, and to have Cuddy kick them out of the hospital, sure was meant she was desperate, and for good reason. No wonder she never spoke about her family, or about anything about herself, unless it meant some nostalgic things about her country and other things that could come up as funny when told properly.

But why the hell does she have to make everything so much more complicated to him, especially now that he completely screwed up everything and she hates him.

How the hell did he manage to fuck up like that, just when he finally got ready to tell her how he feels...How he GENUINELY feels, without having to get full-sarcastic-jerk mode, and just telling her that he’s over Stacy completely and he’s ready to commit to her...And he just ends up basically telling her that he hates her, which is a complete lie.

Great job, Gregory House. The only thing you’re capable of doing is diagnosing and saving people, and sometimes, even that fails. Good thing she was okay, and with some anti-coagulant medicine, the clot that was causing her pulmonary embolism completely disappeared, and she was all ready to go.

Ever since that day, House didn’t visit her, her parents completely disappeared, and James and Lisa were completely pitiful, which only made the girl miserable. Thanking whatever deity existent that it was the last night being stuck in the hospital as the unfavoured party, so she went up on the roof, sitting on the little wall edge, looking up at the starts on the sky, putting the saddest song she ever knew to play on her MP3 player, which was “Daca ploaia s-ar opri” from Cargo, and as she softly sang the lyrics, the door opened and the sound of tapping cane was heard, 

“I have no idea what the words are, but he song seems pretty sad. What gives?” House limped towards her, which only made her groan and roll her eyes in annoyance. “Aaaand you had to ruin the most emotional song as well. Great, what is next on your long list of destroying? I have no dignity, no pride anymore...My health you can’t legally screw...And there’s nothing else on the table is there? I have no heart anyway. So why are you here?” she asked, not even bothering to look at him. “Would you believe me if I said I came here to apologise?” House asked, getting closer to her, then turning his head to look up at the stars as well. “After what you pulled in that room...No. I don’t believe you anymore. You’re a jerk. You’ve always been one, but not to me, and not enough to actually hurt me. Now you did. Congratulations. You lost a friend...Not that you’d care, anyway. You’ve proven me that enough. You can go now.” she sighed, hugging her knees to her chest. “Yeah, I know, I fucked up. I got scared when I saw you pull that stunt, I panicked and...That happened. And I’m sorry about that. I admit that much.” he said as he put his coat around her, hoping she wouldn’t die of cold or something. “Fantastic, the asshole knows how to apologise. Congratulations, you are amazing. Now, do you actually expect me to believe you, or what are you trying to accomplish?” Kat asked, giving him a sarcastic smile. “Before you got sick, I was...I was going to ask you out. But then you got sick, and in turn I got worried sick.” Greg began to explain, only to get cut off. “No, you’re lying or pitying me. You don’t like me. I’m not...I’m not Stacy, or...Or Lisa. I don’t challenge you with every turn you take, I’m not a jerk to you, I am...Practically nothing like the women that you have been interested with, so excuse me for not believing a word you say. I was sick, vulnerable and pitiful, you were miserable, you heard that I haven’t dated in 15 years, you thought I was desperate for love, but trust me, after what happened when I was 17...I don’t think I want anything like that again.” she tsked, looking away from him, laying her chin on her knees. “I know I’m a jerk, but does that really sound like something I would do?” his voice sounded almost hurt at the implication. “...No, it doesn’t. But I also don’t believe that you like me and you’re not saying that just because you heard my dying words...Allegedly. You’ve said your speech, now you can go, and we will continue our work as it always was, without having to see each other, so no more paging me when it’s convenient to you either. Goodbye.” she waved her hand to dismiss him, but he didn’t budge. “What will it take for you to believe me? I will give up my parking spot for you. I will play the guitar for you. I...Will convince Wilson to give me his stupid dog so you could visit him more often. I don’t know, you know I’m horrible with these things called emotions. But I want you to know that what I say its genuine...And apart from what I said today, I never lied to you. So, if you ever have it in your heart to believe me and give it a chance...I’ll be waiting. And...I’ll be here to listen to you talk about your pain as well.” he confessed, and as soon as he turned around to leave, she quickly extended her arm to grab his wrist. “You...Really...Mean it?” she muttered, not daring to look at him. “Because if you fuck up, I swear I’m going to do something completely unethical and against the Hippocratic oath. Primum non nocere, they say. First of all, don’t do harm. I’m completely fine with killing you, because, in case you don’t know, I’m a sociopathic, heartless foreigner with no morals or ethics.” she smirked at him in amusement. “There’s nothing wrong with a bit of Nocere, if you have the Vicodin for it. Fire-Kissed girls are said to kiss the best. If we test that theory and it’s true...Then I think we both know we’re gonna work pretty well. If you want to.” he looked at her, putting her hands of her face, looking at her tenderly. “I really hate that I was made broken from the making in factory to be completely unable of hating how big of a jerk you are. Why is it so...Endearing, when it comes from you, but completely repulsive when it comes from anyone else? I can’t tell, and it’s annoying, because I can read people to a T. On the other hand...There is another saying...Vixens always get what they want. Maybe I finally scored the big jackpot.” she chuckled, pulling him down in a soft kiss, the feeling of warmth and love lingering on, intoxicating them even after they parted. “Yeah. I was right. You’re like my own fix of Vicodin or Amphetamines, and I’m completely addicted to you.” he flashed her a charming, playful smile, before kissing her with even more fire and passion than before. “Careful, you don’t want to OD, do you? You’ll need a detox or rehab.” she laughed at him, putting her hands over his, kissing the inside of his wrist. “Oh, please, I’d OD on you ever day, as many times as you want, and I’d have no regrets. You know what they say...Tout le monde necessite La Petite Mort.” he retorted just as cheekily, which in turn, made her laugh merrily. “I can’t believe-! You just...You just said that-...! You’re an incredibly, annoyingly good flirter, especially because I told you those pick up lines before...But don’t forget about me.” she shook with laughter, winking at him mischievously. “Wilson’s ex-wives always praise him for being the best. I’ll prove him I’m better than him at everything. Especially this.” he chuckled, sitting next to her, putting his arm around her shoulder, pulling her into his chest, kissing the top of her head. “You better not talk about...That...To Wilson...Or Lisa...Or anyone, for the matter, or I swear, that little death you’re talking about, will be more literal than metaphorical.” she threatened him, poking his sides. “Oh, no, I’m scared of a little fox biting my nose while I’m asleep. Whatever could I do?” he mockingly called for help, which, as usual, made her laugh. “Jerk.” she grinned, hugging him tightly, cuddling closer to his side. “Yeah. I’ve been called that a lot.”

Hey, d'you have any French book recs? I'm trying to work on my French, and rn I have downloaded one of my favourite book series' French translations, but I figured maybe books already written in French might work better? Also have you read the Ranger's Apprentice series? 1/2

RA's def flawed - the books' narration does like to point bright arrows at the protagonists' intelligence, and the last few books def have the tone of 'old white man trying to write feminism', although at least he's trying? - and it's aimed more to the younger side of YA, but it is still a very fun series, and I can ignore the flaws fairly easily, at least partly due to nostalgia? This rather long lol but I'm wordy.

I'll start with the second question: no, although every time the series is brought up I have to check the French title and go "oh, right, I've seen these books in stores". But I've never purchased or read them. It sounds like something I probably would have enjoyed as a teen but I just missed the mark, and these days I'm trying to drown myself in queer books, so that probably isn't happening.

As for your first question, geez, I haven’t read a French book in years, so this is gonna skew middle grade/YA, though that may not be so bad if the point is to learn the language. I will also say that as a result, these may read a little outdated.

I'll put it under a cut, even if Tumblr has become really bad with correctly displaying read mores. Sorry, mobile crowd.

It's also likely that old readers of the blog will have seen me talk about most of these. I don't feel like going through old posts.

One last thing: while I was curating this list I took the time to make a Goodreads shelf to keep track of those.

The Ewilan books by Pierre Bottero

(It's a testament to how long ago I read these books that these are not the covers of the edition I own, and I can't even find those on Google. I'm settling for a more recent cover anyway since it'll make it easier to find them, presumably)

There are at least three trilogies (that I know of) set in the same world.

The first trilogy is essentially an isekai (so, French girl lands in parallel fantasy world by accident) with elements of chosen one trope, though I find the execution makes it worth the while anyway.

The second trilogy is a direct sequel, so same protagonist but new threat, and the world gets expanded.

The third one is centered around a supporting characters from the previous books, and the first couple of books in it are more her backstory than a continuation, though the third one concludes both that trilogy and advances the story of the other books as well.

Notably these books have a really fun magic system where the characters "draw" things into existence. It's just stuck with me for some reason.

A bunch of stuff by Erik L'Homme

I have read a lot of this man's books, starting with Le Livre des Etoiles.

They also skew towards the young end of YA, arguably middle grade, I never bothered to figure out where to draw the line. They're coincidentally also using the premise of a parallel world to our own (and yes, connected to France again, the French are just as susceptible of writing about their homeland), but interestingly are set from the point of view of characters native to the parallel world.

It also has a very unique magic system, this one based on a mix of a runic alphabet and sort-of poetry. I'll also say specifically for these books that the characters stuck with me way more than others on this list, which is worth mentioning.

This trilogy is my favorite by Erik L'Homme, but I'll also mention Les Maîtres des brisants, which is a fantasy space opera with a pirate steampunk(?) vibe. I think it's steampunk. I could be mistaken. But it's in that vein. It's also middle grade, in my opinion not as good, but it could just be that it came out when I was older.

Another one is Phaenomen, which was a deliberate attempt at skewing older (though still YA). This one is set in our (then-)modern world and centers a group of teens who happen to have supernatural powers. I guess the best way to describe it is a superhero thriller? If you take "superhero" in the sense of "people with individualized powers", since they don't really do a lot of heroing.

...I really need to brush up on genre terminology, don't I.

The Ji series by Pierre Grimbert

This one is actually adult fantasy, though it definitely falls under "probably outdated". It is very straight, for starters, and I'd have to give it another read to give a more critical reading of how it handles race (it attempts to do it, and is well meaning, but I'm not sure it survives the test of time & scrutiny, basically).

If I haven't lost you already, the premise is this: a few generations ago, a weird man named Nol gathered emissaries from each nation of the world and took them to a trip to the titular Ji island. Nobody knows what went down here, but now in the present day, someone is trying to kill off all descendants from those emissaries, who are as a result forced to team up and figure out what's going on.

I'm not going to spoil past that, though I will say it has (surprise) a really unique magic system! I guess you can start to piece together what my younger self was interested in. Which, admittedly, I still am.

Once again, this one also has a strong cast of characters, helped by rich world building and the premise forcing the characters to come from many different cultures (though, again, I can't vouch for the handling of race because it's been too long).

The first series is complete by itself, though it has two sequel series as well, each focusing on the next generation in these families. Because yes, of course they all pair up and have kids. Like I said: very straight.

A whole lot of books by Jean-Louis Fetjaine

OFetjaine is a historian, and I guess he's really interested in Arthurian mythos especially, because he loves it so much he's written two separate high fantasy retellings of them! I'm not criticizing, mind you, we all need a hobby.

The former, the Elves trilogy (pictures above) is very traditional high fantasy. Elves, dwarves, orcs, a world which is definitely fictionalized with a pan-Celtic vibe to it. The holy grail and excalibur are around, but they're relics possessed by the elves and dwarves with very different powers than usual. Et cetera.

Fetjaine also really loves his elves (as the titles might imply), and while they're not exactly Tolkien elves, there's a similar vibe to them. If you like Tolkien and his elf boner, you'll probably like this too. And conversely, if that turns you off, these books probably also won't work for you.

This series also has a prequel trilogy, centered around the backstory of one of the main characters. I...honestly don't remember too much about it, but I liked it, so, there you go, I guess.

I said Fetjaine did it twice. The other series is the Merlin duology, which, as the title implies, is a retelling of Merlin's story. Note that Merlin is also in the other trilogy, but it's a different Merlin; like I said, completely different continuities and stories.

This one is historical fantasy, so it's set in actual Great Britain, and Fetjaine attempts to connect Arthur to a "real" historical figure...but, you know, Merlin is also half-elf and elves totally exist in Brocéliande, so, you know. History.

Okay, that's probably enough fantasy, let me give some classics too.

L'Arbre des possibles et autres histoires - Bernard Werber

Bernard Werber is a pretty seminal author of French sci-fi and I should probably be embarrassed that the only book of his that I read was for school, but, it is a really good one, so I'll include it anyway.

It's a novella collection, and when I say "sci-fi" I want to make it clear that it's very old school science fiction. It's more Frankenstein or Black Mirror than Star Trek, what we in French call the anticipation genre of science fiction: you take one piece of technology or cultural norm and project it into the future.

It has a pretty wide range of topics and tones, so it's bound to have some better than others. My personal faves were Du pain et des jeux, where football (non-American) has evolved into basically a wargame, and Tel maître, tel lion, where any animal is considered acceptable as a pet, no matter how absurd it is to keep as a pet. They're both on a comedic end, but there's more heartfelt stuff too.

L'Ecume des Jours - Boris Vian

(no cover because I can't find the one I have, and the ones I find are ugly)

This book is surrealist. Like, literally a part of the surrealist movement. It features things such as a lilypad growing inside a woman's lungs (and, as you well know, lilypads double in size every day, wink wink), the protagonist's apartment becoming larger and smaller to go with his mood and current financial situation, and more that I can't even recall at the moment because remembering this book is like trying to remember having an aneurysm.

It is also really, really fun and touching. Oh, and it has a pretty solid movie adaptation, starring Audrey Tautou, who I think an international audience would probably recognize from Amelie or the Da Vinci Code movie.

I don't really know what else to say. It's a really cool read!

Le Roi se meurt - Eugène Ionesco

Ionesco is somewhat famous worldwide so I wasn't even sure to include him here. He's a playwright who wrote in the "Theater of the Absurd" movement, and this play is part of that.

The premise of this play is that the King (of an unnamed land) is dying, and the land is dying with him. I don't really know what else to say. It's theater of the absurd. It kind of has to be experienced (the published version works fine, btw, no need to track down an actual performance, in my humble opinion).

The Plague - Albert Camus

You've probably heard of this one, and if you haven't, let me tell you about a guy called Carlos Maza

I'm honestly more including this book out of a sense of duty. The other three are books I genuinely liked and happen to be classics. This book was an awful read. But, um. It's kind of relevant now in a way it wasn't (or didn't feel, anyway) back in 2008 or 2009, when I read it. And I don't just mean because of our own plague, since Camus's plague is pretty famously an allegory for fascism, which my teenage self sneered at, and my adult self really regrets every feeling that way.

Okay, finally, some more lighthearted stuff, we gotta talk about the Belgian and French art of bande dessinée. How is it different from comic books or manga? Functionally, it isn't. It really comes down more to what gets published in the Belgian-French industry compared to the American comics industry, which is dominated by superheroes, or the Japanese manga industry, which, while I'm less familiar with it, I know has some big genre trends as well that are completely separate.

The Lanfeust series - Arleston and Tarquin

This is a YA mega-series, and I can't recommend all of it because I've lost track of the franchise's growth. Also note that I say "YA", but in this case it means something very different from an American understanding of YA. These books are pretty full of sex.

No, when I say YA I mean it has that level of maturity, for better or worse. The original series (Lanfeust de Troy) is high fantasy in a world where everyone has an individual magical ability but two characters find out they're gifted with an absolute power to make anything happen, and while it gets dark at times, it's still very lighthearted throughout, and the humor is...well, I think it's best described as teen boy humor. And it has a tendency to objectify its female characters, as you'll quickly parse out from the one cover I used here or if you browse more covers.

But still, it holds a special place in my heart, I guess. And on my shelves.

The sequel series, Lanfeust des Etoiles, turns it into a space opera, and goes a little overboard with the pop culture reference at times, though overall still maintains that balance of serious/at times dark story and lighthearted comedy.

After that the franchise is utter chaos to me, and I've lost track. I know there was another sequel series, which I dropped partway through, and a spinoff that retold part of the original series from the PoV of the main love interest (in the period of time she spent away from the main group). There was a comedy spin-off about the troll species unique to this world, a prequel series, probably more I don't even know exist.

Les Démons d'Alexia

Something I can probably be a little less ashamed of including here.

Some backstory here. The Editions Dupuis are a giant of the Belgian bande dessinée industry, and for many, many years I was subscribed to their weekly magazine. That magazine was (mostly) made up of excerpts from the various books that the éditions were publishing at the time; those that were made of comic strips would usually get a couple pages of individual scripts, while the ongoing narratives got cut into episodes that were a few pages long (out of a typical 48 page count for a single BD album). Among those were this series.

For the first few volumes, I wasn't super into this series, probably because I was a little too young and smack dab in the middle of my "trying to be one of the boys" phase. But around book 3 I got really invested, to the point where I own the second half of the series because I had canceled by subscription by then but still wanted to know more.

Alexia is an exorcist with unusual talents, but little control, who's introduced to a group that specializes in researching paranormal phenomena, solving cases that involve the paranormal, that kinda stuff.

As a result of the premise, the series has a pretty slow start since it has to build up mystery around the source of Alexia's powers, but once it gets going and we get to what is essentially the series' main conflict, it gets really interesting.

Plus, witches. I'm a simple gay who likes strong protagonists and witches.

Murena

There was a point where my mtyhology nerdery led me to look for more stuff about the historical cultures that created them, and so I'd be super into stuff set in ancient Rome (I'd say "or Greece or Egypt" but let's face it, it was almost always Rome).

Murena is a series set just before the start of Emperor Nero's rule. You know, the one who was emperor when Rome burned, and according to urban legend either caused the fire or played the fiddle while it did (note: "fiddle" is a very English saying, it's usually the lyre in other languages). He probably didn't, it probably was propaganda, but he was a) a Roman Emperor, none of whom were particularly stellar guys and b) mean to Christians, who eventually got to rewrite history. So he's got a bad rep.

The series goes for a very historical take on events, albeit fictionalized (the protagonist and main PoV, the titular Lucius Murena, is himself fictional) and attempts to humanize the people involved in those events. Each book also includes some of the sources used to justify how events and characters are depicted, which is a nice touch.

It's also divided in subseries called "cycles" (books 1-4, 5-8 and the ongoing one starts at 9). I stopped after 9, though I think it's mostly a case of not going to bookstores often anymore. Plus it took four years between 9 and 10, and again between 10 and 11. But the first eight books made for a pretty solid story that honestly felt somewhat concluded as is, so it's a good place to start.

Mental Health and Otherkinity

This is my panel I did today! enjoy! it’s the script

             My name is scar im apart of a system of 4, I am mightyenakin from pokemon. Trans ftm and very queer. We have a lot to go over so lets jump in.

             Today I want to talk about my experience with being psychological kin. Talk about how this has shaped me as a person. How the community handles psychological kin as well as the greater outside world. So lets get into it. Otherkinity has been in my life ever since I can remember. From the age of 3 I can remember feeling non human and having alters that were also non human. I’ve also found for my life and my experience my mental health and my otherkinity are two things that have wound themselves together. I can never look at one without the other are both play a critical role in my identity.

               I can say as psychological otherkin right now I stand at an interesting intersection of my life where I have the most freedom I have ever had and dealing with the worst trauma I’ve had to face. I recently got out of a bad long term relationship of something I had been in for 7 years. I can say the events I’ve lived did and still do directly impact my identity and change how I see myself.

 for me I cannot explore my otherkinity without exploring my trauma and mental health

these two parts of myself are closely woven together. DID is a product of trauma and it’s something that rules over my life daily.

It is something I don’t just accommodate it is a way of life for me.

For the past 3 years I’ve been in intensive therapy going at least once every two weeks. At one point going twice a week, completed an inpatient and outpatient program. Needless to say I have been fortunate enough to not be in a lot of debt. However I would like to think that these things have helped me immensely.  With the background talk out of the way lets get into how these things have shaped my identity.

 A little bit about me. I am diagnosed with DID or dissociative identity disorder. This means my identity is split apart between alters or alternate personalities. If your unfamiliar with plurality I can say with confidence that can be its own talk but heres what you need to know.

•            My alters are distinct each having their own morals, ideals, life perspective, lived experiences and memories separate from my own.

•            We all share one body like roommates share an apartment space

•            My alters are a result of trauma I experienced during my life. Each of us hold our share of trauma so imaging trauma is sandbags instead of 1 person holding 100 pounds of sand we have given 25 pounds of sand to 4 alters. Which is much more manageable.

•            My alters including me were shaped from the environment they came from

·       Alters also share an inner world where they can interact with one another. This also a place where I can easily my identity and how I view myself internally.

 Some others fun things about me is I have some mild psychotic symptoms. Since I’m in my early 20’s they’re pretty manageable at the moment I am always keeping an eye out for them worsening though. These things include hallucinations visual, auditory, touch, smell, taste. I also have a weird mix of beliefs that can mix into delusion territory but aren’t damaging to my life and therefore cant really place a good label on them. So I consider them delusional like but not the same experience as a true delusion I believe I could very much be wrong.

my first identity shift was when I was a child about 3 years old was the first time me as an alter became prominently separate from our host. It was apparently at that time I was non human and a hyena. I looked like a hyena from lion king roughly no character in particular and acted as a companion/ friend.

When I got a bit older at 4-5 my identity shifted once I moved and left behind some family. I changed from a hyena to a pokemon. If I could guess I would say due to a pokemons inherent loyalty. My identity became a mightyena a wolfish hyena basically and the codependency that pokemon carry also carried over.

I was depended on to be support for our host and to take care of them as a friend and caretaker. We experienced neglect at the time and this was reflected with my identity. I was a creature that was supposed to stay with someone forever basically giving a comfort we were missing to our host so they could continue functioning. I would say my identity changes based on my environment and is sensitive to my environment all the time

depending on what I experience I see myself change and adapt because of how sensitive we are as a system trying to adapt in the world around us. I often think if my identity isn’t shifting a little it might be a sign of trouble and us shutting down being unable to adapt and change.

 When I was 5-6 it changed to its own species a threatening wolf. Which it stayed until a few months ago. My identity as a threatening wolf changed a lot I had spikes then got a sword tail then was able to breathe fire, my size would shift and change, my tail length and ability to move it would change. Teeth, eye color,  would all change depending on my environment. For example when I was deep in abuse with my ex I gained the ability to breathe fire suddenly as a needed adaption to scare them away. My eyes turned red to look scarier. I got bigger. This all happened internally as my ex was able to interact within our system in our inner world. Which is a terrible idea by the way don’t be an idiot like me. Which was why I needed to look scarier as a way of protection

 Lately I have been healing from trauma and now that my ex is gone so is a lot of pressure to defend myself so I turned back into a mightyena which is much more defenseless but much truer to how I see myself in a safe space. Im sure if trauma happened again I would shift back to a threatening wolf as a means for protection.  When it comes to plurality labels I fall under protector and host we are pretty integrated though so we have grown out of most typical labels due to how functional each of us are now.

 This concept of a changing identity is taboo in otherkin communities

              usually we are lead to believe when we were kids we have always been one strict animal for our whole lives and just now learning about it. this animal never changes it is static unchanging and we simply learn about it as we grow up. My experience has been wholly different. My animal and my identity changes based on my environment it can be subtle or drastic. I never evoke or ask for the changes they simply happen and I have to adapt to the new way I see myself. Trying to apply my identity to the common otherkin rhetoric gave me a lot of grief as a teenager

when I was about 13 because I would discover something about myself say breathing fire or growing in size and be ashamed because I knew these changes were not “typical”

as an aside I think this notion that my experience is atypical is also false. I think this is fairly common but a lot of otherkin just handle it in a way that flows with the static concept where we learn we have a new kin type but still also have the old one, we learn something about our kin type that totally shifts it but connect it back to our old kin type, we find new features, personality traits or experiences that now define our kintype that were never there before and newly discovered

               Otherkinity is about self discovery and how it’s essentially chasing a dragon. Literally. We will never fully know our internal identity no matter how closely we look into it. there is so much that we learn and how to weave into our identity otherkintiy is as much of an art as it is a science when it comes to self reflection. It’s just like any other aspect of ourselves we can create labels for our sexuality and they work but they don’t capture 100% of what you experience theyre a short hand for others. I find that otherkinity is this concept on steroids. I find my identity to be a much larger part as it impacts everything including my sexuality it is more prominent for me so trying to put it under labels becomes increasingly difficult.

How are we supposed to create a short hand for who we are? All of those moving pieces inside of us that shape our perspective, experiences, how we interact with people, how we love people, how we go through day to day life, and we are supposed to just say something like “bear therian” what if it changes? What if we have quirks that our outside of this label? When I first joined the otherkin community it was pretty frowned upon to change your identity. You had to be a wolf therian, you had to be a dragonkin. Once you picked a label that was it. your locking into your identity if you didn’t you weren’t taken seriously.

Ableism in the otherkin community

I question as well if this correlation between identity stability and maturity/credibility is ableism. Usually I noticed when I first join the therian and otherkin community there was a push for “not looking crazy” so as to not get bullied further for identities. I’m sure anyone in the LGBT community knows trying to please people making fun of you really doesn’t work. There is a prominent fear of seeming to outsiders as if were roleplaying or kinning for fun which seems to be a whole other topic in and of itself. My personal experience has lead me to the conclusion that these people are going to come at you regardless of how often you shift your identity, how seriously or goofy you take it, how analytical you are with your identity whether you write essays or one sentence it does not change the views of outsiders.

Endels, clinical lycanthropes, and other nonhumans who have mental illness-based identities face a similar ableism. It wasn’t until earlier this year, 2021, when the connection between mental illness and nonhumanity was finally accepted by the greater community. But even still, Endelic communities are more often treated as a novelty; not something to be taken seriously as an identity, just something “interesting.” Mental illness, especially psychotic disorders, aren’t pretty or tame, and the greater nonhuman community appears to subtly enforce this stigma. Werewolves are monsters, and the greater community spares no feelings in reminding us of this, with such unwelcome words my friend babydog’s met as and I paraphrase a quote here from my friend baby dog “you’re welcome here, but you should expect people to uncomfortable about your identity as an endel or question your endelity. I dont personally believe people like you should be part of alterhuman communities.” End quote Many of those who are part of the greater alterhuman community are still concerned about respectability politics, how we appear to outsiders, rather than being concerned about how inner-community members are finding their welcome. Arguments like “But, clinical lycanthropy was previously used as ammunition against all Otherkin! We’re playing into anti-kin’s stereotypes!” isn’t an excuse anymore, because throwing your own community under the bus isn’t acceptable anymore. We want a higher standard in this community than being driven by shame that makes us hide members of our own community. It’s much better to stand with them.

               Lets also take a moment to acknowledge these actions stemmed from an act of seeming more credible and not “crazy”. I’d like to say also that the stereotype of crazy doesn’t exist when we think of crazy we think of someone whose mentally Ill and struggling to function.  In reality these people have an untreated mental illness or going through an episode that’s only one aspect of a person. They do other things with their life including myself. I write poems and go out with friends but if someone only judged me at my worst and lowest I would fit into this “crazy” stereotype. Its not fair for us to judge people based on actions they cant control. Based on trauma or brain chemistry people are more than that I think can agree.

we should be understanding with these people treating them as whole people not just one descriptor. crazy is really just a derogatory name for someone with a mental illness. So to avoid being crazy means to avoid any signs of neurodiversity people view as abnormal. Or signs of nonconformity with nuerotypicals

 -endels still face ableism typically in the form of being treated like a novelty and not really being taken seriously. Endels are still getting called interesting a lot) and it makes them feel like a specimen within their own community. I’m sure those who suffer from mental illness understand how degrading it is to be looked at as some sort of test subject or lab rat. I think as a community we can do better and be more accepting and open to all forms of otherkinity. Shutting down this kinda of language would be great for endel otherkin.

-endels are still having to deal with other community members who use psychotic/delusional/etc as insults or jokey words. These words are derogatory and insulting they shouldn’t be said as insults or jokes there are plenty of other words that could be used and it pushes endels and otherkin with psychotic symptoms away from the larger community. Using this language shows an ignorance to the ableism still alive and active towards endels.

-none of this helps internalized ableism!! All the actions described above only reinforce internalized ablism. This creates a combative and toxic environment for endels and otherkin with psychotic symptoms. It would be in our best interest as a community to help bring down ableism and be more aware of what were saying and to who.

Some things to keep in mind

-treating psychotics like they cant make their own choices is not ok/ thinking for them

-insults and jokes using derogatory language is triggering and alienating

-treating psychotics as lab rats or something to gauk at as “interesting” is demoralizing and takes away someones individual power as a person. Its hard to have an identity and a voice if everyone is busy staring at you like a lab rat.

               What about the internal side of the otherkin community? I found when I was apart of the therian community this was a more prominent problem and still is in some corners I wander into. Otherkinity also holds some ableist views but from what I’ve seen not to the same intensity as therian communities. This I would say is a cultural difference from a new age of therians that took over the internet, p-shifting cults, wolf packs, and some forums for therians were intense I know previously therians and otherkin identities didn’t have to much of a difference besides animalistic tendencies or a way to further define an identity.  Once this shift happened it became more so about earthly creatures or animals based on earth. earth mythics, animals that exist present day and extinct, and plants as well. I’m not an expert of the history of otherkin and therians so I would direct you to house of chimeras and who is page for more information over it gladly. If im wrong please correct me. That’s my understanding. This shift to earthly animals also carried a sentiment or notion of being more “real” than otherkin that I often experienced in the wolf packs and forums. Since they’re identities were based on “real” animals it made them more valid otherkin. An easy question I asked often or others would ask was a simple “why?” and the response I experienced a lot was “so were more credible/ don’t seem crazy” this was 8-9 years ago which was at the time the height of otherkin hate. It came across as a borderline phobia to be seen as an antikin steriotypes which were ableist stereotypes to begin with. some of these communities in reaction created ridged and strict cultures of how to be therian. This would leave an imprint on many people including myself.

               so that was 8-9 years ago why do I bring it up? Because I still see this sentiment present just subtle.

              Some things I feel were carried over is: Overly present and specific about kin types, an obsession with details and intricacies to a degree where its no longer beneficial to learn, embarrassed or shamed for certain kin types, a focal point on kin type tendencies and ignoring or pushing aside human experiences to further pronounce a kin type. A fixation on the past and not taking into account of the present, always centering around the past. I would say these behaviors in the community were influenced from the wolf pack cultural shift.

             These are a remanent set of reactions from a more intense time of grilling, questioning and if validity was questioned your title could be easily taken away in close knit communities. I think the otherkin community still has some skeletons in the closet so to speak of a more intense time that a lot of members endured and witnessed. We passed on this culture, myself included as we grew up cause its how we learned to present our otherkinity. We can unlearn though and I think it’s time to push for more freedom and new ways to take on otherkinity.              a larger problem I see is a fixation with the past which once it gets to a certain point I don’t think can be constructive or healthy. Exploring your past is good, gaining context for your actions and your background is good, but living in the past is not healthy. Reshaping how you live in the present by escaping to the past isn’t really healthy. I find it worrying how common it is for otherkin to not tie their humanity and the present to their identity. It hurts to say, it can be uncomfortable but being human is apart of our experience. Now my therapists always say “never damn a coping skill” if looking to the past and living in the past finds you comfort and it keeps you stable that’s ultimately a good thing your staying stable and keeps you functioning. I urge though for people to start to take the time to explore humanity with our otherkin identities and living more in the present. How your identity effects you right now. How people interact with you and what you can do to tie your otherkinity to the physical world to the present. I think it’s a balancing act ultimately trying to find a sweet spot between the past and the present. Not completely ignoring your past and only staying in the present or only living in the past and neglecting the present. Its not easy and something im actively working on myself.

               I want to highlight the present cultural imprint the wolf pack phase in present day otherkin communties and how new otherkin members seeing and reacting to it. we as older members may not realize how impactful our words are and may not notice us carrying an imprint of the past with us. Here some quotes I picked up. I asked a few friends their experiences who had come as otherkin in the past 6 months. I was also able to get 1 anecdote anon from my tumblr after sending out a request earlier today they are also pretty recent. Here what they had to say. These are all anonymous.

“(tumblr)My experience was pretty good! The community is super open and friendly, or at least the side of it I'm on (idk about the fictionkin side of it which might be more controversial/full of discourse).

It was easy to get into which is good because I was super scared about it 😅” “(friend) the whole community is

scary, for me at least, mostly because some of the older grey muzzles seem really intimidating and cliquey

the discord group im in seems like really cool to me, they are all super nice and helpful but the rest of the community is super scary for me”

 “(friend) [when asked about getting into the community] it's weird to me, it really is.

like

I've spent a good chunk of time just like

wondering what it could possibly mean to be "valid" otherkin

like, who's judgement is that? mine?”

 My Take on otherkinity

               Im telling my story because my mental illness causes me to fall into an undesired or taboo identity categories or stereotypes of otherkin often. I find instability, identities that are less material or easily relatable, signs of mental illness with otherkinity. Are swept under the rug. I’d like to change that and show that instability, less relatable, highly specific or vague identities are just as valid. My experiences can be something of an uncomfortable truth for some that otherkin can be cringy or be easier to target from outsiders. I ask to everyone that has some reservations about accepting more diverse identities to consider how beneficial these new perspectives bring to our community. These identities give a perspective and voice we are missing and is needed. It’s beneficial for our community to be heard fully so we can support and help everyone. Endels may have a perspective other therians/otherkin may not have considered before. the wider range of experiences about our community that we share the better. It gives us the tools to make the community even stronger.

               I would say overall psychological kin are extremely diverse and no experience is going to be the same. Its difficult at best to say anything that all psychological kin experience because the definition is so broad. We all have unique and diverse stories and I’d like to encourage everyone to share them even if they show mental illness. Things like Delusions, trauma responses, trauma sourced, episodes and regression. I would love to see more inclusivity for the messier and less understood part of psychological kin.

               So lets get into some of my specific experiences. my identity is messy at the moment as my brain seems to have an interesting understanding of what a mightyena is. It has 2 images instead of one

These two images are houndoom and mightyena. Both of them I see myself as but are the same entity. My brain cant see the difference between the two as an identity at the moment. So theyre both “mightyena” its quirks like this that I think should be seen as more acceptable in the community because its messy at best. It has made me on several occasions go “that makes 0 sense” but from a trauma stand point it doesn’t surprise me

my brain has trouble picking only one. If my 5 year old or 3 year old brain attached itself to both images and called them the same then well that’s it im both of them at once. Brains don’t tend to work very logically and while it sounds confusing I would say it probably feels similar to having 2 kin types active at once. The two identities don’t blend (ie mightyena wolf hyena doesn’t breathe fire while houndoom does. ) I experience a range of both identities at once. They’re both mightyena it just so happens that image that’s associated with houndoom is present when something happens that only that pokemon could do or associated feelings or states. I would say theyre 2 different kin types except if I say I have a houndoom kin type I don’t think of anything and don’t feel anything. When I say I have a mightyena kin type I have images and feelings from both. They also cant seem to be separated both images and associations need the other. Its interesting. Its very funky. The wonderful world of trauma. Could probably make anew label for that but that’s alright im not one for labels.

               I experience something I call m-shifting which is really animal regression. It’s called m shifting because I was previously in an p-shifting cult where it developed it. it’s uncontrollable but I can start it or trigger it if I want to. When I go into an m-shift I cant understand English, read English, walk on two legs well, speak, or know basic things most people would know. My brain goes into instincts and impulses. I don’t think critically or contemplate much. My thoughts are in images and feelings. Its fun. But its difficult to control, I find it’s a way for me to relieve stress in excess when I cant seem to find a good outlet for it.  this is part of my identity is what makes me relate to the werewolf community so much since its involuntary and frowned upon generally to greater society .(aka internalized ableism) One of my biggest fears is shifting in public or with friends. It’s hard on me for sure.

 Another thing that effects me is coping linking as someone who deals with trauma I have found lately I’m starting to create involuntary coping links. I had a brief coping link as a sled dog its purpose was the personality of a sled dog was something I needed to be at the moment to stay functional and coherent once I learned to do that without my coping link it went away. I notice myself having brief coping links on and off each of them usually teach me something or a skill I couldn’t fully understand yet.

 I experience false memories. My memories change depending on my identity. I don’t force or make them change they simply do.

they hold the same narrative throughout all the changes though. The narrative from what I understand seems to be a re telling of my trauma. My false memories don’t seem to be a major part of my identity and I think I may have them simply because of p-shifting cult trauma and the pressure to have a past life or noemata. I think my false memories are a way to retell my trauma in a form that gives me validation as an animal. I do know seeing myself as human in memories is inherently triggering for me as I cant recognize myself so a set of false memories that lets me see myself in those situations as an animal is comforting and validating. It helps me evaluate my trauma better and understand why I feel the way I do about trauma. A dog that looses its molars would be distraught while a human doesn’t really care if they get wisdom teeth removed. Evaluating trauma through an animalstic lens has helped me immensely.  I’ve noticed the more I evaluate and see my trauma through an animal lens the weaker my false memories become and I think that’s neat.

               My perspective of the world also changes as my identity shifts

I see the world differently as a mightyena than I do as a threatening wolf. Objects, people, environments and habitats have different meanings to me and associations according to shifts and how my identity changes. These associations and meanings are ones that either I had when I was a child, or ones I repressed due to being childish or something I didn’t see as acceptable at the time. So my identity now has a wider range of perspective. My threatening wolf perspective toned down a lot and let the repressed associations and meanings take a more dominant role.

               Another thing that effects my otherkinity is when it comes to species dysphoria I would say it’s a large factor in how I experience otherkinity. I would say my otherkintiy is something very based in the present. I don’t think about my kintypes past, I don’t think about its future or let my mind wander off a lot about whats going on with it. I am usually observing it in the present moment. A big part of that is my species dysphoria which tells me a lot about what I am. I’m trans female to male though that’s debatable as im considering a gender to my kintype. Human gender dysphoria is something that bothers me a decent amount. What has sent me to therapy though is species dysphoria. It is unbearable for me. I have fangs, a tail, a collar, wolfsbane pendant for mythology about werewolves, pointed nails, short hair thicker hair to resemble my kin type. I had to learn how to make animal vocalizations like growling, snarling, whimpering because I felt incredibly stressed being unable to emote properly. I learned to walk on all fours and run as well. I learned to play and move like an animal mostly from m shifting but it helps immensely. Getting on T has helped a lot as I got furrier, deeper voice, thicker hair, generally able to gain muscle better. Overall has helped my species dysphoria. Its something I’ve always had that brings me immense discomfort. I’m planning to make a prosthetic muzzle to wear and possibly some ears.

               This dysphoria is apparent when you see me on the street cause im wearing a collar, tail everything I can’t hide my otherkinity because it triggers my species dysphoria to much to hide it so I just have to roll with it. the census? Its really not that bad being out or showing im otherkin. It’s a good conversation starter and most people are friendly about it here which has been nice. I do get asked if im a furry I usually say yes just cause I don’t feel like explaining otherkinity. If someone asks why I usually just say I see myself as an animal. Responses are mixed but people are polite about it. wearing gear makes me feel much more grounded in where I stand with my identity. I noticed a feel much more confident about myself when I am being myself unabashedly. Who knew. Also planning to get some combat boots and add some spikes to them to imitate claws. Should be fun.

 Heading back to my weird quirks and otherkinity experience Phantom shifts are something I experience all the time 24/7. In part due to p-shifting cult and also a way to manage my species dysphoria. It’s pretty intense for me and its something I find comfort in and encourage. It’s a way for me to find the world more relatable. Often these shifts calm me down and make it easier for me to navigate the world. I would say my phantom shifts only effects parts of my body im aware of not my entire body all the time. Rather whatever body parts im using. It also does its best to not have any “clipping” through objects and my shift may phase out if there may be clipping to a body part im aware of.

               Lastly My gender and sexuality I would say tie to my kintype as well. Im attracted to otherkin moreso than humans. I really like animalistic aspects to people and traits I see in my kintype in other people. I find I get along best with canine kintypes. My gender im realizing is more so tied heavily to my kintype I want to be a male mightyena whatever that entails and it plays closely with my species dysphoria. I find when I relieve my species dysphoria I tend to also relieve a bit of my gender dysphoria to. I say im ftm as a short hand because that’s what my kintypes gender seems to line up with the most. Though I think that will be less and less the case as I start wearing things like a prosthetic muzzle which is pretty animal gender to me.

   Therapy and Otherkinity

               On this topic I would like to talk about how therapy and otherkinity interact cause that’s something central to this panel. For me I always noticed that when I am given analogies in therapy they are always about an inner child, how I was as a human kid, how I am as an adult. These things are good but they lack the context of me as a whole. I am not just a human I am an animal in a human body which changes a lot in how I’ve had to take care of myself and apply advice given to me by professionals. For one I always have to tell professionals im otherkin and what that entails. That it isn’t a hobby or one aspect of me but something that impacts my entire perspective. Methods of self soothing just wont work for me if I don’t change some wording around. There is no inner child for me personally theres a puppy and a puppy seeks out an entirely different sets of behaviors, emotions, and emotes/ way of communication than an inner child would. You would be able to talk to an inner child hug them and act as a type of parent to them. With a puppy I tend to act more as an owner or an animal parent depending on whats needed.as an owner i have to bridge the communication gap with things like chew toys, petting, dark cozy places, brushing or grooming, non verbal communication

             which plays a much larger part in my healing process than what I read or what methods im taught. As an owner to myself I have to learn to take care of my inner puppy the way I needed which can be difficult when no one you know has to follow that method. As an animal parent I also have to act as I am, an animal to my inner puppy that’s what we both understand the common language we speak is non human and is critical to my healing. I find protecting my inner puppy as an animal parent gives me a larger sense of catharsis it feels like something I can finally understand however the methods don’t translate well to the real world. I cant just snarl at people I have to talk to them in a disagreement. I cant go hunting I have to go shopping. Which is why having both an owner and an animal parent.

Both are important because both aspects cant be ignored and need to be used in tandem.

               Healing for me when it comes to trauma involves a lot of balancing between my human life and my animalistic needs which is something I have had to do and explain to therapists the difficulties of doing so. I notice most therapists I have met cant seem to grasp this and see otherkinity as more of a metaphor than an identity. I noticed a lot of my therapists would just change metaphors to talk to me instead of reshaping a technique for healing which has caused a lot of problems. An example I can think off the top of my head is instead of “a family sticks together” may be “a wolf pack sticks together” which is helpful sometimes but if it’s the only change it becomes detrimental to me. Often because while not intentional I think a lot of therapies are human-centric. There is an assumption you are human in order to apply the coping techniques or healing strategies. This lead to me unintentionally repressing a larger chunk of my otherkinity just because I was applying these skills without changing anything. Sometimes present day I still fall into this and notice it triggers my species dysphoria to worsen. It can be difficult to spot for me as well because otherkinity is so uncommon no one else is having the same issue in my real life friend groups. So I assume whatever im doing must be ok cause it seems to work ok for everyone else. Which ends up not being the case.

              A solution I’ve found to help with this is for one explaining as I go with a therapist what is and is not working. I have to be an advocate for myself and teach them as well what I like and what works and what doesn’t. I try my best to let them know when something they do is detrimental. I also try to explain what brings me comfort and what doesn’t. a nice talk isn’t going to help my puppy self but a hug would. Things like that. When it comes to internal imagery some therapists use I know stating to them youd like them to consider your kintype as yourself has helped me by them not seeing me as a fully human being or just my irl body.              overall I hope this talk has helped some people. Given some new perspectives. And I am happy or reiterate some topics I went over. Thanks for coming to my ted talk.  

RadioDust is the Healthiest Toxic Ship for Angel so far

@honesthazbinarchives​ Briefly. I’d like to go into this more in the future BUT these are the main points I said I’d do. Heh ‘stay tuned’ for why HuskerDust is toxic [haaaa funny fuckin reference n shit like Viv herself aint overdone it]. Yer dont even wanna know the lack of enthusiasm in tryna do a playful ‘cringetopia’ joke - wasnt as fun as anticipated. Anyfuckinways, the shit. Before we begin, disclaimers n whatnot, no hate intended, dni if you’re a bit of a knobhead [either stan or extreme anti], an all that nonsense. I dont own the characters no shit.  In this I’ll discuss how RadioDust aka SpiDEER (thats right, yer stuck w my shit humour now) is both the healthiest ship for Angel we’ve seen so far but still rather toxic. Idc if you hate me for it but dont fuckin waste yer time telling me. Great. I dont care. Yer fuckin hard n whatnot for harassin strangers online. Big dick energy to you. This will be slightly messy, my apologies, it’s a quick summary of many points.

Alright. Firstly, out of the entire male cast Angel interacts with over all platforms, Al is given a fair bit of mercy in terms of sexual advances. In fact, a swift ‘no’ and Angel doesn’t do it again - unlike most of the other cast [pent’s is covert, husks is overt]. One thing I like is that Angel himself admits to their chemistry (claiming that whilst he thinks Al’s a prick, he thinks Al dislikes him which saddens him as he’d at least like to be friends as he feels they have good chemistry - according to the VA via Hunicast’s 1yr anniversary), there’s no further efforts to jump on his dick but a clear curiosity/interest in what Al can do.  Lets go to the basics, both are of similar age [allegedly in their 30s, though Ive heard Al may be up to mid 40s] as well as created near the same-ISH time (as in, Viv’s oldest characters, at least for HH). Likewise, Viv admitted to knowing fuck all on either of their eras (and to make that public wasn’t really a wise choice BUUUT if you felt the need, it’s better worded with interest “Right now I’m working towards educating myself more on their time periods to improve their portrayals” <-- crucial if yer want that ‘realism’). Because of their real-world ages, Viv confesses they’re her favourites (even if you didnt know, she makes it pretty clear). It could be a nice ‘homage’ to their impact in her life but not too relevant otherwise. It could fulfil the need for self indulgence that she’s unhealthily leaking into the canon - which will ultimately make the series shit. No sugarcoating there.  As for their ages, a relationship can work whether the gap is large or small HOWEVER there are many ethics and conflicts to each. And being an adult into kids is always fucked up. With that being said, studies have shown that closer ages often work better due to the often similarities in mindset, maturity and life goals (older folks are more likely to want to settle, younger often have more ambitions), likewise there tends to be an unbalanced power-dynamic if the ages are too far, which can lead to various types of abuse. Dont get me wrong, being with someone much older (AS LONG AS NONE OF YALL ARE KIDS) very much CAN work - but rarely. There’s much more hardwork needed as well as being in the right mindset for both, otherwise it’s bad. More on that in HD. Long story short, both are closer in age meaning both are more ‘relatable’ to one another. There’s common grounds, even in the eras there’s some higher understanding of one another. Notice how Vaggie and Charlie are similar in age? (Even though Charlie is far older, her appearance and mentality for her race is on par with Vaggie’s, making it far more likely to work out positively) One of the most prominent out of all of this however is their actual interests. So listing; Both like action/chaos/having fun (often at the expense of others), both love cooking and can be food snobs in their own right, both have sadistic AND masochistic tendencies, Al likes performance and theatre whilst Angel loves *to* perform, on that last point Angel was very intrigued and enjoyed Al’s song number/performance naturally, both really enjoy pranks and both enjoy liquor (neither show an actual addiction, but rather an interest in social drinking - no dependencies on it). Again, close eras mean both have a higher probability of understanding the other and their lifestyles better. Both are high on appearance and love themselves, implying self confident mindset (healthy BUT the narcissism isnt) yet enough consideration for how they are viewed. On the parent system, one adores his mama whilst the other hates his pops.  Now Ive gone on about how they’re similar. But similarities ALONE is not enough. If it was, then fandom’s would be a lil more harmonious~ A HEALTHY relationship needs compatibility, POSITIVE conversation flow, common grounds, trust, openness and understanding. Even then, some people click and some just dont. It’s like how you can just hate someone for no reason. It just IS. Common grounds and similarity is scientifically proven to be attractive to someone - be it good or BAD. People are drawn to those like their parents in some way usually, likewise we look for people similar to ourselves (from our interests, to humour, beliefs, goals, etc). Science itself states that ‘opposites attract’ solemnly applies in the real world successfully. Though similiarity plays a large role, there has to be some differences too - that person is STILL an individual separate to yourself. Too similar and it’s boring. Too similar and you’ll do everything together without some ‘you’ time. Both Vaggie and Charlie have similar interests/hobbies in dance and music, yet still have enough differences to be identifiable when together. Vaggie is more grounded than Charlie. Charlie gives some optimism and fun to Vaggie. Remember, a partner does NOT complete you - that’s a toxic mindset when taken too seriously, You complete YOURSELF. Whether you have someone or not, you must feel complete in yourself as to not slip into toxic dependency on a lover - to become them, a shadow of them or feel like you’ve lost your identity without them. Sounds harsh but it’s true. Chaggie compliments each other without a dependency. You stand alone yet uplift one another. You don’t always agree but in the end you always have each other’s backs. Love is often butchered in a toxic light in the media.  So taking that into consideration, how does spideer work? Well, here’s some examples of good, bad and neutral: - Angel loves animals, Al fears/dislikes dogs. Perhaps Angel could assist him in overcoming this? - Al hates being touched, Angel dislikes being squeezed. Maybe this could help them reach an understanding... Or cause a rift? - Angel was the only one to break Al’s composure, either Angel is the *key* to delving further into Al’s more raw self... Or just another obVOXious pest? (yeah, I said it-) - Neither respect other’s boundaries, meaning both may fuel the other to be overly disrespectful in this area. Not good. - Angel is a sarky/sarcastic fuck, Al loves dry humour. Both seek amusement and chaos. In relationships one needs to see how conversation flows and in the hunicasts, both keep up some good as well as toxic banter. Both could roast the fuck out of an opponent however. - Al is acro/ace, Angel is hypersexual (appears like a sex addict - now I say this as his book has a crossed out ‘fun stuff’ with ‘work shit’ written on it. He’s always fixed on sex from his job to his humour), this could either aid Angel ease up on the sex stuff OR make him overly push it onto Al causing major rifts and discomfort (aces can have sex, ref to ace posts that real asexuals put to understand more but no one wants to be forced into sex is the point here). And we’ve already discussed their lack of respect for boundaries. The positive is that maybe this will make Angel understand how Val is rubbing off on his own behaviour towards men [again, more on that in the HD post]. - Both similar yet different in a way that does suit their compatibility chances but that doesnt mean they will click, it just improves the odds. - Both have similar enemies in Val and Vox, they’re on common terms. Likewise, Al is against the ‘sexual deviance’ of hell meaning he may be oddly supportive and protective of Angel in terms of Val. I dont even think his sadism will override this either. - Al dislikes modern tech, Angel seems to use it as his job requires it. A nice little menial difference. - Only ONE is an addict. Take it from an expert, you NEVER put two addicts together. They’re very vulnerable and prone to slipping deeper into their addictions as well as depending on each other too much that they essentially become very clingy, suffocating and toxic to each other. Seen it in action, it’s ugly.  - Both could have a lot of fun and calm moments with each other. - He isn’t immediately smitten with Al but immediately shows a natural interest in Al’s powers and performance, embracing it openly. Leads for a good friendship turned lovers plot. - In Viv’s patreon, she confirmed Angel loves confident guys [sounds exactly like Al] We need to think about where both are mentally. What benefits would a relationship give both? How would they be good and bad for each other? For Al, aside from his outdated views and being a fucking murderer and narcissist, he actually seems in a good mindspace for a relationship IF he opted to be in one. Angel however has a very immature mindset, likewise is in a phase of life where hes bed hopping. IF he were to be in a relationship, I’d say he needs a male equivalent of Cherri - someone with a similar mindset yet some differences, willing to have fun and in touch with their younger side, down to cuddle, open to share and receive love as well as not afraid to publicly be affectionate with him, someone who sees him as more than just for sex, someone fun, someone who’ll let him embrace his cutesy side publicly without shame - Cherri is younger so maybe someone who’s his age or slightly younger perhaps? I think Angel’s not retirement home ready to settle and needs someone on his level that can cuddle and chill as well as feels free and youthful enough to go wild with him. In one sense, he’s got a teen girl sorta mindset (dont put him with a teen though, it’s fuckin weird-). He needs someone positive and raw, someone to let him be himself as well as someone comfortable to be themselves around him. He has a habit of latching onto unobtainable men (in psychology, this is self sabotaging subconsciously): Travis the client, Val a pimp, Husk (emotionally unavailable and needs HEAVY self work - interestingly far more than Angel - plus he’s still onto his last relationship and an addict to gambling and alcohol), Pent who’s the enemy he was currently fighting (inappropriate timing), Alastor who’s not interested in another but his own needs [selfish, VERY bad for a relationship]. Subconsciously he’s self sabotaging on purpose. There’s many psychology books as well as sources online for this, if you’re interested. Either way, Angel is drawn to men either like his father [who dislike him, shun him, or are otherwise cold, abusive or just blatantly dislike or otherwise dont care about him] or anyone with money to fuel his drug addiction/’debt’ to Val. Going with any of these men isn’t a good idea.  Preferably, Angel needs someone who he doesnt immediately crush and obsess over. Someone who he doesnt sexually harass or assault. Someone he can build a connection with quickly that can bud into romance (think how Chaggie started as a friendship which clicked immediately). Maybe even someone he doesn’t expect to fall for but does so anyways. It would be more realistic as Viv wants as well as more healthy. That for once he isnt sex or money craved instantly, thus doesnt sexually harass/assault and is given a proper chance to develop and grow a friendship and love. Someone who isnt an addict.  Someone with an on-par mindset where they click. Someone open to love. For any chance of a good relationship, Angel needs to be with anyone BUT who we’ve already seen. There’s too much toxicity that’ll be swept under the rug and justified otherwise. Too much shit to fuel homophobes in terms of gay stereotypes. Even though Ive focused a fair bit on Angel, it’s NOT just about Angel. That’s something fans forget. Some he depends on or someone who depends on him in the long term wont last and will be very dangerous to both.  Just because you suffer, you dont then deserve to be rewarded with ‘something nice’. You dont get to have everything youve ever wanted. Giving him any of these blokes [minus Val] gives him a pass. Gives him what he wants. I get Viv loves him but life doesnt work that way. True lasting growth comes from learning that. Acceptance and growth. You dont get everything you want and sometimes thats a GOOD thing. He’s not a spoilt kid who gets everything he asks for, he’s YOUR creation. If you really wanted what your creations deserve then you need to research and be realistic with it. Because hes starting to feel like a shitty Gary-Stu at this rate. I live with an ‘Angel Dust’ like person. It used to feel like life gave her everything and most times it did. Everyone loved her and she could get away with murder if she wanted to. But now she’s had to struggle and grow, let go of some ‘wants’ because they werent good for her and she’s becoming better for it. She has a long way but she’s more humble for it now [still got self confidence but it’s less narcissism now, which is more healthy for her]. Also, they make the word anal lol

OH ALSO do you have any tips for creating a religions when you are world-building?

This is such a rabbithole, as ultimately any sufficiently broad world building topic is. The thing is to decide what role religion plays in your story, the societies you're writing about, and in the lives of your characters, and to build your religion or religions around that. I find it most useful to ask myself a series of questions about the religion and then to formulate answers. This will be a theme, because this is a standard world building and general writing technique for me. But anyway, here are some of the questions I use.

Are any of your main characters religious? If so, what is most important to them about their religion? Is it the ritual? The codes of behavior or moral philosophy? A sense of community? A sense of certainty in how the world works? The stories and myths? A personal relationship with an individual diety? Does the religion give them a sense of control or security? Are they a normal practicioner, or do they have an unusual role, such as being a priest or priestess? How do the most important parts of the religions to your main characters compare to the parts important to other people or the most emphasized within the religion itself?

Are there differences in observance and practice across different segments of society? Across class, gender, age, or position? If there are various gods, saints, or cults within a single religion, what would influence someone to choose one or another? Are soldiers drawn to certain ones? Mothers to another? Are they associated with specific places or communities?

What parts of a character's religious practice are taken for granted by the character, and might not be usually thought of as religious, for example diet or clothing? Is there a line between religious and other cultural practice, or is it fuzzy? Are there strong religious taboos that your characters or societies buy into? What happens when those taboos are violated, or when they come into contact with societies that don't share those taboos?

Are there mulitiple religions represented in your society? Are some of the religions considered more or less presigious or powerful? Are any of minority religions associated with minority ethnicities, or with foreign elements?

Where do the different religions come from? Are any originally from the culture your story takes place within, or are they foreign imports? Do any of them have antecedent religions that they evolved out of, and if so, are those antecedent religions still around, ala Judaism and Christianity? Do any of the religions seem as if they have been around since time immemorial? How have any imported religions been modified to suit the local culture? Are there variations within the religion across geography or culture?

Do any of your religions proselytize? Why or why not? What doctrinally within the religion, outside the religion socially, might encourage or discourage proselytizing or conversion? If any of the religions proselytize, does this cause tension with other religions? (It does, the question is what kind of tension). Are all of the religions mutually exclusive, or is it possible to be a devotee of a combination, as for example it is possible to be a Buddhist and Taoist at the same time? Are there syncretic combinations of religions? If so, are there non-syncretic versions of the componant religions around, and how do they feel about the syncretic forms?

That is a lot of questions, I know, and obviously you don't have to focus on all of them. Take from these questions the ones that make you go "hmmmm".

And of course, there are always the pitfalls to avoid. As a reader, the two things that bother me most are authors who project their own disdain for religion into the world, and when the religions of the world in question are re-skins of Christianity. Also that weird tabletop roleplaying inspired thing where there are actual evil gods in a pantheon, and they have evil followers, and everybody technically belongs to the same religion, but these are the bad guys with their bad gods, and this is totally the way it would ever actually work. But I actually suspect that this is a weird little subset of the second problem of way too much Christianity getting into fictional religions that are probably not meant to look that Christian.

The first of these is the easiest to avoid as a writer. If you feel that all religion is ridiculous superstition that was invented to enslave the masses, just don't include it in your world building. That's fine. Plenty of writers don't. It's okay to leave out the things that don't interest you. Just don't be obnoxious and smug about it and talk about how your favorite civilization has moved past such silly primative things. Religion is still an important part of the human experience for many people, and you aren't better or smarter because it isn't part of yours. Be nice. Looking at you science fiction writers.

This holds true for anyone being smug and self righteous about their personal religious beliefs in fact, but the religious version tends to be something I run across less in my fiction reading.

For the second, I want to give an example. The Jedi are so very Christian. Specifically, they are so very midwest American Protestant. They have an outer covering of Buddhism and Taoism (and other "mysterious Eastern traditions") but they take their fundemental moralities and ideas about how the world works from Christianity. Strikingly, the Jedi are really big on negative emotions being a path to the dark side, and Christianity is pretty big on thoughts and pure vs. impure intent being the determinator of sinfulness, much more so than most religions.

This Christianess of the Jedi becomes so much more blatant when you bring in the Sith. The Sith are an example of the "religion of people who believe all the same things we do but side with evil" thing I talked about before. They believe in all of the same cosmological things as the Jedi, and have a code that is heavily based on the Jedi code but flipped. They are evil Jedi. And this makes them the same kind of evil mirror image that Christians have historically imagined their supposed religious enemies to be.

So how do you avoid this level of Christianity seeping in? To be frank, it's impossible to avoid letting your own cultural background into the worlds you create. You are human, and the world you are part of is the foundation for the worlds you create. But you can widen your view of religions by learning about other religions at a philisophical and structural level. And look, I know that I am a huge proponent of having a strong knowledge base as a writer, and I know that this is a hard, time consumjng thing to accumulate. I get that. I got mine over three decades of letting my natural ravenous acquisitiveness toward historical knowledge to run free. It was fun for me and that's why I did it. I get that research is something that can just eat up all your time and never let you get to writing. I do get that. But a broad knowledge base on a subject not only means you know a lot, it means you usually know what you don't know, and can plan your research accordingly.

And unfortunately, the problem of fictional religions overwhelmimgly reflecting Western culturally Christian understandings of what religion looks like, is primarily a problem of people from that cultural background not knowing what they don't know.

And I am definitely not telling you not to take fictional inspiration from Christianity. If that's what you want to do, great! You can do some really interesting and nuanced things with that. I come from a Jewish background, and the religious group the main character of one of my stories is part of, is heavily based on Judaism. That is a deliberate choice that fits into the world I have created. And I have another society in another novel whose religion is heavily based on 14 and 15 hundreds Catholicism. The above advice is about avoiding doing it unintentionally, not to convince you that you should never do it intentionally!

So anyway, I hope this is helpful.

Zootopia Takes: The Power of Really Liking Each Other

Our main event, Beastars Takes, will resume soon, but in the meantime I want to talk about one of my favorite movie relationships:

Has this been talked about to death by other people? Yes. But this is my blog and I write it for free so I can do what I want.

Note: this is not a shipping post--this is just an examination of their canonical relationship in the movie and why it rules.

At first glance, this is your typical enemies-to-friends story. I love those. But while the typical arc tends to involve two characters who can’t stand each other, who eventually develop a grudging respect for one another (often through some kind of shared ordeal) and maybe thaw into actual friendliness at the end. Zootopia packs all of that into the first half--by the midway point they are clearly not just allies, but friends, and by the end of the film they’re inseparable.

It’s important to recognize this isn’t just for the hell of it, or just to be cute--the closeness and trust they build is the linchpin of their success in the final moments of the movie.

All the reasons why, after the jump.

Something I talked about in the previous post was the messaging of Zootopia, and I don’t want to rehash it too much here. It’s a movie about prejudice, and the work it takes to overcome it. A key theme (one that it shares with Beastars, incidentally) is that friendships with those who are different from you are hard--but they are worth it.

Part 1: They Hate Each Other! (Right?)

Now...it goes without saying that when these two first meet, they bounce off each other hard. Each is seeing the other at their absolute worst.

Judy can’t stand Nick because he takes every bit of optimism she has about this world and throws it back in her face. She want to use him as a prop in her vision of an equal society, where “not all foxes” are crooks. He laughs at her. He humiliates her. All he has to do is walk away, but he takes his time. He twists the knife.

For his part, Nick sees a laughably ineffectual bunny who condescends to him and threatens him with jail for the crime of...humiliating her. She may not personally be a threat to him, but she wields the institutional power of the ZPD--a power he has plenty of reason to be afraid of--and she does it irresponsibly.

On first viewing, Nick inarguably wins this exchange. He avoids arrest, reads her to absolute filth and leaves her stuck in cement.

And he makes her really sad. Nice!

But, and I don’t pretend to be the first person to have pointed this out, on second viewing it’s obvious he can guess her story so well because it’s basically his story. The only difference, in his mind, is that he’s accepted the reality that he’ll never be allowed to live the life he wants, while she is still vainly pursuing hers.

I don’t know about you, dear reader, but the people I’ve met who have always most pissed me off are the people who remind me of things I hate about myself. The people who seem to embody the flaws I’ve worked to minimize. Nick’s naive hope is what has brought him the most pain in his life. He sees this bunny full of the same naive hope, surmises that she’s facing the same failures he did and yet stubbornly refusing to learn from them. It’s irritating.

Pictured: irritation.

Maybe I am projecting, but if Nick is anything like me, he probably didn’t walk away entirely happy from this exchange. Yes, he “won,” but he was also reminded of everything about himself that he least wanted to think about.

Part 2: They Are Not Very Good at Hating Each Other

So, the thing about Judy is, she is naive. By default, she assumes people are her friend. But she’s not stupid.

Nick assumes she is stupid, not least because she hasn’t wisely given up on her dreams like he has, and...he learns that she maybe not so fun to pick on after all.

So they wind up doing the first part of this enemies-to-friends routine, allies of necessity.

So, naturally, because he is Him, he makes it his mission to torment her.

In fact, we get two whole scenes where all he does he does is watch her struggle and make this face.

The first read of this behavior is that he’s just enjoying the failures of someone he hates. He says as much later. But I would also argue--from a viewer’s perspective--Judy is ridiculously entertaining and charming throughout these encounters. She wears her heart on her sleeve, and it’s hard not to like people like that.

Is there more happening here than just schadenfreude? I won’t pretend to know for sure. But worth considering.

By the time they’re investigating the limousine, his sabotage has diminished into something more like gentle trolling. And you can’t see this face, in context...

...and tell me she isn’t starting to like him, at least a little bit.

He’s also starting to help! By the time they’re past the minor detour of almost being murdered by a mob boss, he’s entirely cooperative, helping her conduct interviews and look for clues. The movie doesn’t call particular attention to this, but it almost did.

Finally, let’s look at Nick’s behavior when they’re being chased by a rabid jaguar. He could have absolutely booked it, with no regard for the cop who was blackmailing him into helping her.

These moments go by so quickly, but they’re hugely revealing of his true character, even before he defends her in front of Chief Bogo.

He picks her up when she falls.

More importantly, when he gets to the skytram, his first instinct isn’t to jump in--it’s to hold the door for her:

He sees she can’t make it, and she even tells him to leave without her. He doesn’t. He holds the door until he can’t anymore, and as a result he’s nearly killed.

Nick is a good boy.

Part 3: They Are Friends Now

She save his life, so he saves her job. This is a key story beat, and it’s a Disney movie, so there’s not a lot of subtlety (except how the specular highlights in Judy’s eyes fade as Bogo asks for her badge--the light literally goes out of her. Go watch).

But it’s such a sweet moment of teamwork--he was contemptuous toward her from the start because she believed in herself. This is the first time she’s simply given up in the whole movie, and he steps up. Because he believes in her now.

And she believes in him! Or, she wants to.

Judy’s supportiveness here is sweet, but it’s also still a little selfish. It’s not that different from their interaction at the ice cream shop, really: she wants to meet a fox who defies stereotypes, who is easy for her to like. Someone who ticks all the boxes to prove her family wrong.

When he starts being more foxy, later--self-identifying as a predator, showing his claws, challenging her--we learn that her supportiveness is conditional.

Am I being too hard on her? Sure. She’s been in bunny country her whole life. She’s new to this and she’s trying. But that’s where she’s at.

But still! They’re friends now. They’re no longer pretending they don’t like each other. Judy’s openly encouraging, Nick is fully in her corner, and we get a few cute sequences where they keep being more and more impressed with each other.

He’s still not above affectionately messing with her, and she’s getting worse at pretending to dislike it.

And he trusts her enough to let her flush him down a toilet...

Which gives us this heartbreaking shot where he thinks she’s drowned. He cares a whole lot about this bunny.

She likes him too! Enough to want to team up on a more permanent basis. This is pretty standard-fare enemies-to-friends stuff now, but considering where we started, and considering they’ve known each other for all of two days? Not bad!

It’s clear this moment means far more to him than it does to her, too. It’s actually taken very little persuading from Judy to get him to step up and be brave and helpful and trustworthy. The fact that he’s turned around and opened up to her so fast suggests he’s been ready for an opportunity like this for his entire life, and never got it. I mean, look at his face.

The foundational flaw in her worldview is still there, though, and it’s about to do almost-irreparable damage to their whirlwind friendship.

Part 5: Fuck!

So Judy gives her press conference, and gives a great example of why police usually answer every question with “the matter is currently under investigation,” or “we’re not prepared to comment further at this time.” Honestly, though, this is on Bogo--I had coworkers who once did some press interviews, and they spent over a week doing media training. They didn’t even break a major kidnapping case. So, you know.

So she repeats some weird race science stuff she assumes is true because someone in a lab coat said it, which is amusingly similar to how race science (or “race realism”) often propagates--people with low-rent doctorates from crappy universities write a bunch of scientifically shoddy material and people say “well, he has a PhD!”

And then Nick has a PTSD flashback? I don’t want to be irresponsible and make an armchair diagnosis, but also...that is absolutely what is depicted on screen.

You’re not immediately “better” after something like this, which is why I cut Nick a bit of slack when he basically blows up their friendship.

Judy...doesn’t get it. It’s completely heartbreaking, because she likes him, and doesn’t understand why he’s mad, and isn’t self-reflective enough to stop and think maybe he has a point. Not until it’s too late. He tests her, and she fails.

Their friendship has always been a little inequal. He’s trusted her with everything, shown her his deepest vulnerabilities. She’s never trusted him completely.

So he leaves.

I don’t want to impugn her professionalism by suggesting she wouldn’t have quit the force if she hadn’t had that friendship-ending fight, but, you know. Maybe.

This is the second time she gives up, and this time he’s not there to pick her up again.

Judy is intensely goal-oriented, and I don’t think she realized what Nick’s friendship meant to her, as the first person in the city who truly believed in her, until it was too late. Judy is sweet and well-meaning but emotional intelligence is not really her strong suit (which is actually cool to see in a female Disney protagonist, imo).

So, while it would have been nice for her to track Nick down immediately and apologize, I think it makes sense for them to spend time apart. Her own self-perception has been shattered, and she needs time to figure out how she went so wrong.

So when she does come back, she delivers one of the best animated apologies I’ve ever seen. Only AtLA compares, in my mind.

Part 6: They Are Much Better Friends Now

Nick forgives her, because of course he does.

(Sidebar--people talk about how he kept her carrot pen the whole time they were apart. He also kept his handkerchief from Ranger Scouts, AND he only wears shirts that match the wallpaper in his mother’s house. He desperately needs a hug.)

Credit to Nick also, who can’t fight and has no police training whatsoever, who has multiple times been almost killed helping her out, now agreeing to help her out again. She’s not even threatening him with jail this time!

We, the viewers, are then rewarded with this great montage of them being best friends.

She’s finally stopped pretending not to be amused by his shenanigans.

(One other sidebar here--Nick is canonically a really gentle character. For all their adventuring, this is only time in the movie he gets physical with anyone: to protect the bunny. Again, he definitely can’t fight and immediately gets smacked across the room. But it’s the thought that counts, right?)

Per the post title, more visual evidence of them really liking each other.

Judy trips on a dead body, and here we get the second time in the movie that Judy tells Nick to leave without her, and he won’t--this time, he refuses explicitly.

Which then gives us the opportunity for the big moment--the culmination of all this care and intimacy and trust.

In order to con Bellwether, she lets him stalk her, and bite her throat. This has been often pointed out, but it’s important--throughout the movie, Judy’s wriggling rabbit nose has been used as a signifier of fear and suspicion. It wriggles when she’s spying on Nick at the beginning. It wriggles like hell when he confronts her after her press conference.

Not here. Doesn’t move. It’s a great, clearly intentional animation choice that tells a close observer (or more likely, a repeat viewer) that she’s completely unafraid.

She trusts him.

I could write a whole other post about how well-scripted this movie is, how every scene is doing half a dozen different things, but the way the personal and the professional come together here, the way the threads of prejudice and friendship and the police case all tie together in this moment. It’s good shit.

This is basically where things end, in terms of character development, but we get a bunch more shots of them clearly adoring each other:

So there it is.

To sum up, certainly not suggesting this movie invented “characters liking each other,” or anything like that. But it goes above and beyond in portraying a friendship that’s not just one born of circumstance, one that’s authentic and unmistakably loving. Characters who enjoy spending time with each other, regardless of what’s going on around them.

I hope everyone is able to experience friendships like that. I absolutely treasure the few I have.

Appendix: The Shipping Thing

I hope I’ve made all this ship-agnostic, which was my intention. I personally like the ship, and I think the reason it resonates with people is because that love and trust and closeness is clearly there, and a romantic relationship creates a lot more easy opportunities for dialing those things up even higher.

I would also argue, if pressed, that the amount of teasing and physicality that happens reads as pretty flirty. If they were humans I knew in real life, I’d definitely think there was something going on there. But I’m an American, where touching and emotional intimacy tends to be read as romantic. Also, animals are a lot more cuddly than humans. So who knows? I think it’s perfectly reasonable to read them as platonic friends until the end of time.

But, one way or another, they love each other a lot. Shout out to this, one of the most emotionally rewarding relationships I’ve ever seen in a cartoon.

Excuse me if some have been asked before and/or are repetitive and feel free to not answer some but anyhow..

What's your favorite kin memory with your loftwing?

Do you selfship with your kintype, an oc/si or with simply your irl self (like kin separated in that regard)?

In regards to the previous one kinda how do view some relationships with your kintypes like if you feel uncomfortable with one character do you avoid the ship with those and vice-versa?

Do you have memories with delia?

What are some of the memories of your kintypes that are the /most/ different from the show/game?

What are some of the posts/vines/etc that you like to quote the most? Or are the most burned in your mind?

How was the whole wing ceremony? And also how were the classes? How were the other students? What things did you do the most with zelda and/or groose?

How is cheeseburger? He radiates happiness and comfort please give him a head kiss from me if he likes those

thank you!!!

What's your favorite kin memory with your loftwing?

haha i never know how to answer “favourite memory” questions cause i don’t think i can ever pick favourites when it comes to anything i’ve experienced.

mmm... meeting him was definitely up there, but i feel like my fave memories with him are just finding some nowhere island and taking a nap in the sun.

Do you selfship with your kintype, an oc/si or with simply your irl self (like kin separated in that regard)?

i can’t really get into self-shipping longterm or in depth because the kin aspect really does just overtake it for me fghdghf. if i try to picture myself, i always just picture my kintype, usually because my kintype/my f/o is usually my OTP in any given series. i only fall for people i already loved ^^; 

In regards to the previous one kinda how do view some relationships with your kintypes like if you feel uncomfortable with one character do you avoid the ship with those and vice-versa?

not really, unless they’re skeevy ships to begin with. part of being kin for me is believing in the multiverse so i’m just like yeah, a universe exists for me to date everyone xD

Do you have memories with delia?

tons :’3 i lived in her restaurant! she was my super cool boss who i absolutely did not have a crush on. 

i was very much married to james, but there was an understanding that i would be a little in love with delia for the rest of my life. she was one of my best friends.

What are some of the memories of your kintypes that are the /most/ different from the show/game?

i’m always pretty canon compliant ngl fdgfdghfd

What are some of the posts/vines/etc that you like to quote the most? Or are the most burned in your mind?

it changes on any given week but i do have an all time fav tag for shit i cant stop saying dghgdj

How was the whole wing ceremony? And also how were the classes? How were the other students? What things did you do the most with zelda and/or groose?

oh this might be long i love talking about skyloft rip. am saving your first question for last.

how were the classes. well. i was asleep. i don’t remember a lot. they were basic stuff you’d expect, language and math and sciences and all the Typical Shit. but then also flying and swordsmanship, which i was Good At. i took an archery class one year but zelda was always better than me lol. skyloftian sign language was required because it was the best way to communicate on birdback but i was mostly mute so my mom taught me it when i was like, 7 and i showed up there and owlan was like “Link what are you doing here” and i just shrugged and signed “easy a” and fell asleep. i am... a good student. 

my relationship with my classmates was that i was just... kind of there? i was well-liked because i have always had this weird charisma, but it was like this. quiet charisma. i didn’t have a lot of close friends, but everyone definitely would respond to my name with some variation of ‘ohhh, LINK! that guy’s cool haha’ my reputation was mostly being zelda’s arm decoration but not her actual boyfriend. i don’t think anyone could actually tell you anything about me besides that i was link with the red bird, and i was quiet and tired and zelda liked me way too much. 

my junior year is when i really became close with all of them, when zelda and i started doing that thing where we tried dating a bunch of people just to date but it didn’t work out because we were in love with each other lol. her mingling with the others meant i mingled too because i couldn’t spend 5 mins away from her. fledge and pipit and i got pretty close, zelda and karane were basically sisters. the thing i always joke abt is the fact that i dated kina, which is hysterical to me to this day. peatrice was always There but acting like she didn’t want to be there. i need you to picture peatrice while we’re all swimming but she’s just, like, on the shore tanning while the remlits bother her. 

that was this summer of just, like, doing idiot teenage boy stuff. getting way too drunk in our rooms at night over break. sneaking onto the roof of the academy to stargaze. getting caught cause cawlin drunkenly tried to fight a chuchu w his fists. you know. normal kid stuff. i also think the others were maybe trying to include me more cause it was the year i lost my parents but i mean it worked, i was a lot happier with people around even if i didnt mind all those years it was just me and zelda.

most of mine and zelda’s friendship was just doing what we’d do alone but together. when we were younger we would explore the more adventurous areas of skyloft and play pretend, a lot of days we’d stay in and read shoulder-to-shoulder. i didn’t like talking but i loved reading, if that makes any sense. we’d take turns reading to each other. as the years progressed we’d go flying together, we’d study together, we’d fall asleep in each other’s rooms and sneak into them when we were frustrated or lonely or just needed to not be alone. i don’t really know, what DIDN’T we do together?? we shared everything ;_; <3

my earliest memories of groose where i wasn’t like “what is this guys deal. why is he so mad.” were. ok so. groose and i should have been friends sooner because he’s super into woodworking and i whittle stupid little sculptures right. ok. except, we live in the sky, and i don’t know if you noticed this, but trees....... well. there are not a lot in the sky. wood is a very scarce resource, and we need it, for like. houses and things. so jakamar gets all of the wood in skyloft because it’s his birthright or whatever, except groose and i find out about this, and we show up at his house twice a week begging for woodscraps, and he slips us some Illegal Fir(tm) beneath the table and as soon as we leave the premises groose tries to kick my ass and take my share. and this happens forever.

i think groose saw me as like, this sworn enemy of his but i was mostly very confused just kind of sitting there like huh. where am i. wait whats he talking about? and then i’d walk away. when i was a kid he was scarier but once we got older he kinda stopped throwing punches, all bark no bite. 

and then we went to the surface and he moved into my house. not even in a polyam way and like at one point he had a wife and was still living with us. i forgot to mention he built the house also. he built our house and would just like, wake us up every morning with the best fucking eggs i’ve ever eaten in my life. groose was just in mine and zelda’s marriage. everyone was fine with this. 

i dont actually remember a lot of what we did after getting to the surface. just that his cooking was amazing and he gave the best hugs and he could pick zelda and i both up and ferry us around on his arms like we were little songbirds. oh and he was always the one who picked me up and carried me to bed when i’d fall asleep at fi’s dais talking to her. i fell asleep there a lot. 

ok. breathes in. 

my wing ceremony is probably my fondest memory ever? probably. the race itself felt like aepon was literally just DRAGGING me thru the clouds its such a blur. groose kept trying to body me but he’s lowkey scared shitless of my bird it did not work. i just remember being like. no time to think time to go time to go time to go OH i won

the ceremony itself felt... like... dreamy? like something from a fairytale, i don’t know. i don’t know how much of it is coloured by the retrospective of what it called to action and foreshadowed. zelda and i had been growing so much closer in the weeks leading up to it, and i don’t know, like, when i fell for her if it was sometime then or the day i met her when i was 6. but at some point everything just kinda got tilted on its side around her and every second i spent with her made me feel like my head was stuffed full of cotton candy. in a fun way.

on skyloft, wing ceremonies have a pretty romantic connotation. not always, but a lot of the girls dream about performing it with the “strongest” knight in their class, and a lot of the knights feel the same. there’s a lot in the history books about hylia’s feelings for her chosen, a lot of speculation about how she stayed close to humanity because she learned to love from him. so to stand in place of the two of them, to a lot of people, carries the same note as standing in the place of two starcrossed lovers, breaching the gap.

zelda was a hopeless romantic, and she told me later she had this whole plan--to wake me up early, to run drills with me until i was a puddle, to perform the ceremony with me, and to use her 5 minutes alone with me to solidify us as something more than best friends. she had this whole fucking move planned where she was going to drape the sailcloth around my shoulders and pull me in for a kiss, and instead she got wicked nervous and screamed half her sentences and pushed me off the statue. this, predictably, only made me more in love with her. i had exactly 0 plans to ever tell her how i felt, because something something childhood friends to lovers, something something mutual pining, something something what if it ruins a good thing something something, valiant hero of courage who.

when we were flying after it, she said she’d remember that day for the rest of her life, and i remember thinking, yeah, that’s what i’m feeling. i’m living, right now, through a precious memory, something i’ll never forget. and everything that happened after that was, uh, the worst time of my life, but somehow it doesn’t. colour the memory a different shade. i still just think, like, this is this last beautiful moment i am having with this girl i love more than anything in the world before we stop just being kids living our normal lives. she is the goddess reborn and i am her chosen hero who’s heart has defied death itself, but right now we are teenagers who don’t know that and are playing pretend as them, as we always have. the joy of that--of pretending to be who we are, the bliss in that ignorance, our beautiful last hurrah. something about it sticks with me. 

How is cheeseburger? He radiates happiness and comfort please give him a head kiss from me if he likes those

DOESN’T HE??? i will. i came home and he was loafing and i started crying because he looked so sleepy.

I would like to know everything about your ships with Spock, Uhura and Bones please!!! KJFEWHKJFW if there's lore or fic I wanna read it and if there's art I wanna see it those three are VERY GOOD (I have a lot of love for TOS) @goldenworldsabound

@goldenworldsabound

!!!! I! Thank you for this lovely ask!! I also have a lot of love for TOS, it was the first Trek I watched and it's always going to have a special place in my heart!!

If you really want to know everything, we're going to be here for a while, so this is going under a cut for length. I should never have been enabled like this. None of them have any fics yet and I can't really draw all that well, so there's no art either, but I'm always happy to ramble about them and call it lore, so here we go!

Ok, as I'm writing down the lore for my ship with Spock, it's becoming a lot longer than I thought it would be - as in it's over 1000 words and we *just* got to Starfleet Academy. I'm going to trim it down a bit to try and get a shorter version and I'll probably turn the rest into a fic. Even with the cuts, though, this is really long. You've been warned.

Once I finish my WIPs with Nerys, I have some plans for some TOS fics, so hopefully my lovely friends will get their fair share of fics soon! I can tag you in any TOS fics I write if you'd like, but of course there's no pressure!

Bones:

I selfship with Bones in the way I do to cope with some specific issues, so lore-wise it's a bit different than my other ships. I don't really have an s/i, it's just me here in our world. He's off on the Enterprise doing all those fun space things, but I can call him whenever I like and he always tries to get back to me as soon as possible if he misses the call at the time. He doesn't miss them often, though - he and I set up a system so I can mark calls as high, mid, or low priority and he'll interrupt almost anything to take a high priority call. I hardly ever use it, but it's nice to know I can reach him if I really need to. And he's amazing to talk to! He's really supportive and always willing to listen to me, and he gives the best hugs :)

I'm actually really excited because he's due back on Earth soon, and he promised to come visit! He can't visit often so every time he does he goes out of his way to make our time together special. It's one of the little ways he shows he really cares about me.

This is a fairly new ship for me, so I still haven't figured out what I'm going to do about Joanna. I'm unlikely to add her as a familial f/o, but we might end up as friends or I might just ignore her entirely. It's my canon now :)

Uhura:

So! I am a massive language nerd. I've been teaching myself both Vulcan and Klingon in addition to studying Latin, Japanese, and Spanish in school at various points. (Yes, Swahili is next on my list. Yes, this is because of Uhura.)

Nyota and I met at Starfleet Academy (more details on how I got there in Spock's lore as both ships use the same s/i) during one of our xenolingustics classes. She seemed super cool, but she had a friend group already, so I ended up being too scared to approach her. I haven't always been the best student, so I got into the habit of taking any extra credit opportunities that came my way. Our xenolinguistics teacher offered extra credit if we went to a presentation being hosted by the xenolingustics club, and I figured I had nothing to lose, so I showed up. Nyota saw me there, recognized me from class, and encouraged me to join the club. She seemed nice and I was free, so I said I'd try it out. I came to a few meetings and we ended up becoming friends!

I was never close with her friend group (we didn't have a lot in common and i just didn't fit their vibe) but she worked hard to make sure we still had time to hang out, and I never felt like she liked me any more or any less than the rest of her friends. How she balanced it all, I don't know. I still think she might be superhuman.

She was a year ahead of me and we ended up falling out of contact a little bit when she graduated. Between her (and later my) assignments, there was just never enough time, and as some of you may know (Sorry!!) my ability to stay in touch with people online is atrocious. We didn't stop talking entirely or stop being friends, but it wasn't until we were both assigned to the Enterprise that we were able to reconnect, and we're even better friends now than we were back then. I didn't exactly figure out who I was, but I grew more comfortable with the process of growing as a person and not having all the answers, and as a result I ended up way more confident in myself and with a lot less self loathing. Turns out, that makes you a lot more fun to be around! I still have a lot of work to do in that area, but I'm a lot better than I was back at the academy.

She and I hang out a lot on the Enterprise, sometimes with Spock or Nurse Chapel and sometimes just the two of us. We sing together, play games, talk in half a dozen languages (just because I don't know them yet doesn't mean my s/i can't!) and just do all those normal fun friend things. Sometimes we even teach or help each other learn new languages (I'm learning a new dialect of Klingon and she's learning Latin). One thing I've always really appreciated about her is the way she handles spontaneity with me - when she wants to hang out or change plans on short notice, she always gives me a really good sense of what she's suggesting we do and gives me the chance to raise any concerns or questions about it before we have to make a decision.

Interesting quirk of our friendship: I can usually be flexible about what we do but really need to know in advance who is going to be there, and she can usually be flexible about who's going to be there as long as she has a good sense of what we're going to do. It took us a little while to figure that out and start warning each other appropriately, but once we did things got a lot better!

It's really a crime that the writers didn't give us more Uhura-centric episodes because there are just so many things I want to know about her! This is also a new-ish ship for me, so the lore isn't quite as finalized as I'd like. If you see me changing things about our ship later, that's why!

Spock:

Ok, important warnings time. My selfship with Spock fills a very particular emotional role for me that causes me to be unusually protective of him and our relationship. I'm aware that this isn't exactly emotionally healthy, and that's something I'm actively working on. Part of the benefit of my ship with him is that he can fill this role rather than me putting it on a real person, which, yeah, wouldn't be great. A lot of this has to do with him putting me first.

To be clear, I view my ship with him as happening in one of many similar but distinct universes (there's a TNG ep I'm thinking of here) that's separate from both canon and other people's ships with him. That's why I say that our s/is probably can't be friends (unless we have some universe crossover stuff going on). I would never want to get in the way of another person's ship with him! And this is the division of things that makes it easiest for me to wholeheartedly support others' ships with him, which is something I very much want to be able to do. (What I'm trying to communicate, badly, is that I want to be clear that I don't view the way he thinks about me as being true anywhere outside of my ship with him.)

I do refer to him as my best friend, the platonic other half of my soul, and other similarly intense terms, which he reciprocates. We also have a minor telepathic bond (I have Headcanons about Vulcan telepathy and no one can stop me from using them). Our relationship really is strictly platonic, but if that's going to make you uncomfortable, the time to stop reading is now! I'm also always happy to work out more detailed tags if needed.

Now! On to the actual ship stuff. I've changed around the lore a little bit recently to be a little truer to the way I've been shipping with him for the past 6-7 years, so hopefully this is the final(ish) lore. There are several moments where if canon says otherwise I simply do not see it. I am looking away. My canon now :)

It's late, later than I should have been out, but I'm too young to know better and too excited to care. My cousins are playing in the sand out ahead of me, but I've had enough of the noise and the people for right now, so I'm doing what I do best: wandering off when I shouldn't. The beach is busy but the nearby hills are quiet, so I start to climb. Even at that age, I hate sand, and the stone staircase is a welcome relief.

I was so focused on the climb to see him and by the time I reach the top, I'm too exhausted to do anything but flop on the ground. As soon as I do that my eyes turn skyward and then I'm too focused on the stars to do much of anything else. Even with the lights around, it's a dazzling display. Most call it science, but to my untrained eyes there's a much simpler word: magic.

Between the exhaustion and the stars, it takes me several minutes to realize I'm not alone. A Vulcan boy I don't recognize is sitting on a bench a few feet away from me, staring at something in his lap and staying very still. I watch him for a while and when he still hasn't moved, I walk closer. He twitches - clearly, he knows I'm here - but keeps his eyes fixed firmly on his PADD. If I were older, I would have gone down the hill and this would have been the end of it.

But I wasn't older. I was young, and dumb, and perhaps most dangerously of all, I was curious. I didn't go down the hill. Instead, I walked up, pulled myself up to sit on the far end of the bench, and asked the question that would end up shaping the rest of our lives:

"Have you ever looked up?"

And he did.

I rambled about the stars and asked about his logic homework, and he watched the stars and patiently answered my questions. By the time we parted ways, I was smiling with his contact information tucked safely into a pocket and he watched my go with the corners of his lips pulled up into that classic Vulcan not-quite-smile.

My mom recognized his name and description as the son of Amanda Grayson, a friend of a friend, and she let me use her PADD to keep in touch with Spock until I was old enough for my own. He turned out to be a few years older than me and a lot of fun to be around with a subtle sense of humor that never failed to make me laugh. We'd hang out in person whenever I went to Vulcan or he came to Earth and we talked almost every day online when we were apart. He was (and is) my best friend, and we saw each other through the highs and lows of growing up. Even when his bullies got really bad and when my school social life went down the drain, we always had each other, and somehow that was enough.

Because of something something Vulcan brain development, the eligible age to apply to Starfleet is 20 rather than 16. (ooc this is my headcanon and I need it for our backstory to work, so shh.) I was certain he would apply for Starfleet Academy the moment he was eligible, and I think his decision to wait for a year shocked everyone. I asked him about it, wondering if there was something wrong. We'd talked for ages about how much he wanted to escape Vulcan, so why wasn't he now that he finally had the chance?

His response? "Not all humans treat me as you do. The bullying is unlikely to change, only its source. If I am to be bullied no matter my path, I will choose the one in which we are together."

I have never felt more honored in my life.

We applied for Starfleet together the next year. His father was devastated displeased that he did not choose the Vulcan Science Academy, my parents were upset that I was moving out so young, and we rolled up to Starfleet Academy as the resident pair of family disappointments. Good times.

The academy was a blast, though. We got to see each other! In person! Every day! I was there to stand up to the people who teased him, he was there to encourage me to make good choices, and we both were there to remind each other that sleep is a necessary biological function not to be ignored. We were both studying science, but he focused on the astrophysics side and I focused more on the biology side, so we didn't share too many classes, but we'd hang out all the time in between classes and we tried to take the same electives when we could. Having similar interests helped a lot on that front.

I was a weird child that had by now grown into a weird teenager, so I didn't have a ton of friends at first. Even when it started directly affecting his social life, Spock was never embarrassed to be seen with me, and though he claims that he would be treated the same without me... I doubt it. Still, though, it helped a lot to have him there, and he's never held it against me.

I did convince him to do a show with me once. He tries to hold that one against me but he had fun and we both know it. Besides, it's my job to drag him into illogical things sometimes :)

We graduated together but like so many close friends are, we were posted to different ships. It was a weird time for us. I was doing great, honestly. I was medicated for my chronic illness (finally!), in therapy (finally!), and I loved my ship and fellow officers. My job was interesting and engaging and I was having a blast. Spock, on the other hand, started to struggle a little bit. Though he always treated me like an equal, I think there was a part of his mind that always thought he was a little bit better than me, and seeing me succeed seemingly effortlessly where he was struggling was hard for him. We got through it, though, and he got some better accommodations (and later a transfer to a ship that fit him better) which made everything a lot better. I even ended up taking some engineering classes and wound up getting a degree in engineering too, just for fun.

Before we knew it, he was the first and science officer of the Enterprise and I was a lieutenant commander working for him. (I say working for him, but really it's a lot more like working alongside him. Most people in the science department assume that if you tell something to one of us and don't specifically say not to tell the other, we will, so you can basically report things to either of us.) I do some work for Scotty too, and Kirk likes to joke that I'm an honorary member of the bridge crew at this point. It was a funny joke right up until I started getting invited to briefings, but hey, who am I to complain?

Serving together is a lot of fun. I'm one of the only people on board who doesn't constantly pressure him to show his emotions, with the result that he is a lot more emotional with me. He knows that I don't view his moments of emotion as a reflection of how Vulcan he is or isn't, so he has nothing to gain by hiding them. Mostly, I don't comment on them, which is his preference.

While we're both happy to offer each other emotional support when needed, most of the time we end up just sitting with each other and letting them process it on their own. Between my emotional regulation issues and his I Am A Vulcan mentality, it's been a great way for us to show each other the support we crave without worrying about finding the perfect words.

Speaking of words, I'm one of very few people on the ship who speaks Vulcan. I actually learned it years ago because of him so we've been speaking it to each other for a while, and we take the Vulcan tendency to drop words to a truly ridiculous extent. Uhura tends to joke that we created our own language somewhere along the line, but it's a fun way to annoy Bones when he really gets on our nerves. He can't even complain about it because as it turns out having the ability to converse in a way no one else understands is very, very useful when a mission goes south. You can't really complain about something that's saved your life, now can you?

The telepathic bond (again, very minor and strictly platonic) came about when he had to meld with me on one such mission gone wrong. It wasn't planned, though we'd talked about it in the past and neither of us was upset by it. Bones tried to joke that our minds were so compatible that we were probably going to start dating now and immediately found himself on the receiving end of two death glares. Credit to him, he never made that joke again. We view each other like family anyway, so yeah. No.

But I like the bond we have! It's nice to know when he's uncomfortable but not saying anything and it's easier for me to tell when he's protesting for effect and really does want to go along with my bizarre illogical scheme and when he'd rather not. As someone with no real sense of social cues or sarcasm, it's a lifesaver. Besides, he's been a lot more comfortable with causal touch between us since it formed, which is great for me.

We also play a lot of D&D together. It's something I got him into but which he took to like a fish to water, and the lengths we go to to avoid scheduling conflicts for our weekly game night are probably a bit excessive, shall we say, but it helps that all the friends we'd normally have conflicts with end up getting invited too. He very rarely DMs, but when he does, you better hope someone in your party has a decent intelligence stat because his puzzles are amazing. Seriously, I don't think you've really played a puzzle based game of D&D until you've played one of his. Works of art, I tell you.

I could go on about him for hours, but I'll wrap it up here for time and length's sake. If you have any more specific questions, I think I've already effectively demonstrated that I'm incapable of shutting up about him!

Beautiful Day: The Don Hertzfeldt Q&A.

In which the singular creator of It’s Such a Beautiful Day and the World of Tomorrow trilogy answers 57 questions put to him by the Letterboxd community, about death, gills, snacks, back flips, the best time of day to watch a movie, and the sick pleasure of emotionally destroying people.

Since his first animated outings in the 1990s, filmmaker Don Hertzfeldt has had a way of staring deeply into humanity’s soul via a humble stick figure, and his skill at blending existential questions with situational humor breeds intense reactions. To browse Letterboxd reviews of Hertzfeldt’s animated works is to meet film lovers at a rare, collective gathering point: heaping great piles of love for films that do “the exact opposite of helping with depression”.

There’s something optimistically anti-feel-good in Hertzfeldt’s works; a bleak view of the future, and a frank appreciation of death’s inevitability, that makes viewers urgently want to fix the way they’re living right now. “I’ve built a lot of my life philosophy on the messages of this film,” writes Misty, of his acclaimed It’s Such a Beautiful Day. “It has kicked my ass completely,” writes Dirk of the first, Oscar-nominated World of Tomorrow instalment, “making me angry at myself for letting trivial stuff take over things I love and making me happy I have so very, very much in my life to enjoy and be grateful for.”

The filmmaker’s magic lies as much in the process as the content: “Hertzfeldt is able to make every moment count,” writes Artpig, of the second WoT instalment, The Burden of Other People’s Thoughts, “every line of dialogue, every moment of silence, every note of music, every line of animation.” The World of Tomorrow films, says animation expert Toussaint Egan in our Letterboxd Show animation episode, are “some of the best science fiction films, period”.

And his timing. Oh, his timing. Just as the northern hemisphere days were turning cold, and the drawn-out misery of the pandemic was really taking hold all over again, Hertzfeldt tweeted:

WORLD OF TOMORROW EPISODE THREE everywhere october 9 5pm est 🚀

— don hertzfeldt (@donhertzfeldt)

October 8, 2020

And like that, World of Tomorrow Three: The Absent Destinations of David Prime was ours, an overnight gift to the quarantined and bereaved-weary, on Vimeo for all to rent or own. The gifts, they keep coming: a master list of movies that have their fingerprints on the World of Tomorrow universe, and now, in recognition of our community’s love for his films—and in his signature lower-case—the answers to questions asked in an exclusive Letterboxd Q&A.

To make things easier for Don, we grouped similar questions (and have noted which members asked what). Read on for more than you ever thought you might get to know about Hertzfeldt’s process, brain, heart and influences.

Filmmaker Don Hertzfeldt.

From “holograms that yell at you!” to the stunning colors, textures and folds of the blue mountains, to attributes David progressively deletes to make room for memories, would you please give us an insight into World of Tomorrow Three’s world-building process? —Letterboxd in the grand scheme of the series, episodes one and two still felt like baby steps to me. episode three was my first chance to really start blowing things up and exploring this universe. when i’m writing, i don’t want to worry about going over the top or think about structure or meaning or really much of anything yet. writing is playtime, it should be fun and messy. i want to go over the top. there is no top. i don’t want to start thinking too much until i’m rewriting and sorting through it all. thinking too much too soon can get in the way, like being too aware of when you’re trying to fall asleep. when you write a diary entry or a text to a friend, there’s no self-consciousness or creative blocks, you just write. it’s casual and fluid and automatic. but if you’re asked to write a term paper or a screenplay, suddenly all those lights turn off. it can be paralyzing. it’s hard to get to that place of truly not caring what anyone thinks and approach all forms of writing just as freely as writing those immediate thoughts in your diary. but that’s what i try to do.

When you start writing a new piece, do you usually start with a plot idea, a thematic idea, one uniform philosophical notion, or a little bit of each? —Kodiak J. Sanders, Trenz, Mr. Tables i don’t think i ever write in a straight line. i’ll jot down a hundred stray ideas over time, and one day i’ll sit down and see what connections might be made out of them. i really want this scene to be in the movie, so how do i get there? this is a good line, how can i get a character to say it? so the actual story usually only starts to reveal itself when i sit down to logic all these bits and pieces out. hey, in order to connect this strange idea to that strange idea, suddenly there is a very interesting third scene.

I’m astounded by how much the animation and the visuals improve with each instalment of World of Tomorrow. What have you done differently for each one? —Aske Lund, Cringetacular the characters needed to physically perform a lot more in episodes two and three so there were more demands put on the animation. when emily 4 dances or david staggers up a mountain, those sorts of scenes were animated in “ones”, which means doing 24 drawings per second versus my usual twelve. it’s still all 2D hand animation, just more of a classic disney approach that gives the movement a smoother look and a little more room for nuance. and obviously it takes a lot more work. but i hesitate to call such things improvements because i’m not sure i like the idea of different techniques being thought of as good or bad. it’s just another way of doing things. it really depends, sometimes super limited animation can be more effective.

Likewise, Part Three’s sound design is incredible. What conditions did you create it in, and what are all those sounds, and how do you have such an incredible command of the cut-to-silence trick?! —Letterboxd thanks, the sound design is always my favorite thing to do. other than julia’s lines, it’s easy to forget that all the animation starts with dead silence. obviously there’s no sound coming from a live-action set. so adding sound and music to everything, usually pretty late in production, is when all the stuff i’ve been working on suddenly starts to feel like an actual movie. this is not a future that works very well—particularly david’s, which predates everything else we’ve seen so far by a century or two—so you’re hearing a lot of creaky old hard drives booting up, electric distortions, and bent circuits from broken toys.

Emily and Emily Prime in a still from ‘World of Tomorrow’ (2015).

World of Tomorrow used to fill me with existential dread, but now with the current state of the world it’s become more and more comforting in a strange way. Do you feel that at all as you make new episodes? —mariano gg i wish that were possible but when i’m making something i’m usually so close to it i’m unable to see anything but all the things i need to fix.

Can you talk a little bit about sourcing the photo-realistic images for the backgrounds in Part Three? —Jack Moulton most of the environments were 2D images i built in photoshop, usually starting from close-up photos of different textures (like sandstone), all sort of reshaped and puzzle-pieced into something new. an easy to see example was david’s cockpit, which was cobbled together from all sorts of different old aircraft engine and machine parts. the trick in building and lighting these locations was always figuring out where the line was drawn in making these places realistic, but not too realistic for minimal characters to inhabit. i kept landing on a sort of painterly looking middle ground.

If the cloning process in World of Tomorrow existed right now, would you go through that process and create clones of yourself to prolong your life? —tim probably not, that process doesn’t seem to work so well.

If you were put into the world you’ve created, would you buy gills? —Lauren Torres i tend to avoid putting my head under because i almost always get water in my ears so i guess i wouldn’t need them. gills also seem like they’d be a real nuisance to keep clean.

What does love mean, and why do your characters go through so much effort to find it? —Andrew Michalko oh man.

In this year of years, what do you hope people will understand about death and its inevitability (or is it all there on the screen, and if so, that’s okay too)? —Letterboxd understanding death and its inevitability is maybe the most valuable thing a person can do for themselves.

Was the absence of Emily Prime in Part Three a practical decision [Don’s then-four-year-old niece Winona provided Emily’s voice] or an intentional departure from the first two films? —Michael it was both. i couldn’t find a way to fit her in naturally and i also felt like the series needed to start growing in other directions and not rest on the past. episode two had also been really difficult to write, it was so reliant on winona’s recordings, and it felt like the dam was really broken when i was finally able to write without any restrictions this time.

In a series like World of Tomorrow, where you headed in a direction that is a lot more plot-driven than your previous work, how far in advance do you plan? Did you always know this was in David’s past, or are these stories told one at a time? —Ryan Welch, Kodiak J. Sanders, julius, Alex Leon i could tell early on that this wasn’t a story like it’s such a beautiful day with a clear beginning, middle and end, but a much wilder thing that could continue to grow. the openness of it is still what makes it so interesting to me. i have all sorts of notes for the next episodes but if i already knew what would happen in episode nine i think that would take a lot of the air out of the tires and i’d start to feel like i was just connecting the boring dots. while writing, i’ve also had to be aware that there someday might be an episode nine so i can’t go wrecking the timelines before i get there.

What were the rocks and the gas pump that Emily fell in love with meant to represent? —Ekaneff she was learning how to love, and like all of us, in her youth she gravitated to a bunch of individuals that were wrong for her.

Aside from the ability to release more frequently, is there something about the episodic structure that you prefer/appreciate, as opposed to creating one larger feature-length film? —SiddFinch1 there’s just more freedom. the traditional running time of a feature film, 90 to 120 minutes, is a totally arbitrary number.

Have you ever considered writing a World of Tomorrow book or graphic novel? —Jay Smith the earliest ideas for world of tomorrow were sloshing around in a graphic novel called the end of the world that came out in 2013. but i don’t have any talent or much confidence in making another book like that. it’s a different world. when i look at someone like chris ware and then look at something like the end of the world, it’s like, “wow, baby made a mess”.

A page from Don Hertzfeldt’s graphic novel, ‘The End of the World’ (2013).

What attracted you to the unique style [of minimalist stick figures]? Is there a sense of intimacy that you feel you can achieve with this simplicity? —Evan Whitford when i was little, before i wanted to make movies i wanted to be a newspaper cartoonist. i think my drawings today might have more in common with newspaper comics than the sort of characters you usually see in animation. comic-strip panels were always composed in a very reserved way because they were generally intended to be skimmed. you needed to be able to read the strip in five seconds so you could be off to read the sports pages and obituaries. the comics pages were also under constant size and space restrictions. so they were minimal by design and the artists reduced their characters to only their most essential parts. there was no room for fussing. charles schulz said “i only draw what’s necessary”. and that’s actually incredibly hard to do. you’re accomplishing so much more with so much less.

i’ve also found that if there’s a scene that’s not playing right and bothering me, most of the time it’s because my composition was too cluttered. i almost always find myself removing things from the frame and trying to pare it down to only what’s necessary. very rarely do i ever think ‘i need to add more stuff in here’. because this shot is only five seconds long and i want you to be looking over here when this moment happens and this character says something, and if you’re distracted by this other flickering junk i put in the corner it’s going to throw everything off.

Animation-aside, which creative medium do you resonate with the most? —Bronkdan music.

How much did you pull from real-life experiences to make It’s Such A Beautiful Day, if any? What research did you conduct into memory? —Gunnar Sizemore, David Sigura, Micah Smith whenever i got a little stuck writing it’s such a beautiful day, i’d go back and reread my journal and pull more things out of it. dreams, conversations, small scenes. reading the journal now, it seems like i stole something from it every few pages. i also heavily researched neurological problems. it’s never said in the movie what exactly’s going on with bill, but i needed there to be a real diagnosis to base the medical writing on. so all the things he’s going through are real treatments or symptoms based on an actual condition. i didn’t want to ever come out and say, “he’s got terminal brain clouds”, or whatever in the movie, because then it becomes a “brain-cloud movie”, and that’s too easy for the audience to compartmentalize and distance themselves from… “brain clouds are so rare, that will never happen to me”. but not being told exactly what’s wrong with bill might help make the story more relatable and universal.

In what ways have you kept your mind fresh creatively? How do you keep yourself from slipping into complacency? —Watchmoviez, Drew’s reviews most creative blocks or stagnation come from anxiety, second-guessing and doubt. over the years i’ve learned to just sort of calm down and trust myself more. it’s like the old aesop fable: when you stop thrashing around in the water, the water becomes clearer and you can see more. if a scene isn’t working right, i can more easily chill out about it these days and trust that i’ll eventually figure it out—because i’ve figured these sorts of things out a hundred times before and i know by now that i’m not the sort of person who’s just going to allow a scene that isn’t working to remain in the movie. there’s a little more panic about that sort of thing when you’re young: “oh no, the movie sucks right now, will it always suck?!” i’ve reached the point where i know that i will not let it suck. and that sort of thinking allows all the movie gears to turn more easily.

Do you have a specific thematic, emotional or other miscellaneous motive in mind when including classical music pieces? —James Y. Lee when i’m listening to music and suddenly the right piece arrives, it’s usually blindingly obvious to me: there’s just no doubt this needs to be in the movie somehow. it’s like the idea has always existed and i’ve just finally uncovered it. it’s the same with writing. when the right thing floats along, it is striking and obvious and into the pile of notes it goes.

How much of your animation style lends itself to experimentation, such as discovering new tricks and pretty shots, that is then discarded if you learn it doesn’t work as intended? —Adam, Jacob i think i’m always experimenting. i figure if it doesn’t work, at least i’ve learned something.

What is the strangest compliment or critique you’ve gotten personally or of your work? —Elliot Taylor i’ve always remembered this one. i am so proud of you came out a couple years after everything will be ok. it was a continuation of that story, so it was basically the first time i had ever made a sequel. and everything will be ok had done really well when it came out. it won sundance and got all these great reviews. so i am so proud of you comes out and i remember reading this review that says, “everything will be ok was probably my favorite animated short of all time. it honestly changed my life. it was funny, sad, beautiful and just so wonderful. everything will be ok, boy did i love it. incredible. two thumbs up. truly, best thing ever. wow. so, unfortunately, its sequel, i am so proud of you, just feels like more of the same.”

A still image from ‘It’s Such a Beautiful Day’ (2012).

Are there any pieces of fiction that have influenced your work that we probably wouldn’t think of? —Gyani Wasp, Mikolaj Perzyna, Aaron McMillan, Harrison, Axel, Cringetacular, The25centman, Hunter Guidry one thing that pops to mind is the phantom tollbooth. my favorite children’s books were the ones with all the fun metaphors and clever wordplay. when i was plotting out episode two i wanted to lean into that, where visiting different sections of emily’s brain would be like milo visiting the land of math, the land of letters, the land of sound, with different looks and logic to it. so we had the bog of realism, glimmers of hope, broken memories, the logic center, and all the stuff in triangle land and square land. i guess that’s a lot but i wish there had been a bit more.

How did your friends and family respond to the “my anus is bleeding” part of Rejected? —Alex Tatterson they were pretty used to me by then.

Do you know of the work of David Firth, the internet animator? His work is also surreal and has dark humor, but more sinister than whimsical. Would you ever consider making an animation in the realm of horror in future? —KEVIИ HДWKIИS i’m afraid i don’t know him. i’d love to make a horror movie. from a certain point of view though maybe it could be argued that most everything i’ve made is a sort of horror movie?

My first tattoo is of Billy from Billy’s Balloon hanging from his ankle and it was the best decision I’ve ever made. How do you feel about people having your work tattooed and do you have any ink from other creatives that have meant something to you? —Elias it really fucking enrages me when people get my stuff tattooed on them. no just kidding. mostly i feel embarrassed but i’m glad you haven’t changed your mind about it yet. sometimes i wonder how many people have.

Have you ever thought about directing live action? —Abeer, Noah Thompson yes.

Is there an update on your feature film Antarctica? —Rylan California it’s one of many things swirling around.

Will you do a remake of Robocop and why not next year? —Simon no, because robocop is already sort of perfect.

Do you ever see yourself directing a large studio film? Or working with a large team to make something with a higher budget, maybe through a crowd-funded project? Or do you just strongly prefer working on your own? —Vteyshev, Monotone Duck sure. i’ve never preferred working on my own at all. it was usually just the only way to ever get anything made. i haven’t had the funding to pay a big crew, or really much of a crew at all. there’s the old saying: you can make something good, you can make it fast, and you can make it cheap, but you can only pick two. if you make it good and fast it won’t be cheap, if you make it cheap and fast it won’t be good, etc. so my only route in hoping to make something good and cheap has been to totally forget about making it fast.

What did you find digital animation added or took away from your work, and what did those changes do for your storytelling? Will you continue using the digital medium when/if you decide to move on from the World of Tomorrow project? —Alec Lai, Slipkornbizkit, Aldo digital just sped everything up. it’s still one person drawing everything, so we need to remember that speed is relative here, but i felt like i went from riding a bicycle to driving a car. there are many pleasant, wonderful things about riding a bicycle but you’re not going to get anywhere very quickly. and i’m not in my 20s anymore, in fact my 20s and 30s were mostly entirely devoured by making movies in what was maybe the slowest way possible. so these days i am appreciating the speed of digital.

If you could have a conversation with any filmmaker, dead or alive, who would it be and why? —ToBeHonest, Cringetacular if i could resurrect one of my heroes from the dead i think i would feel terrible wasting his time forcing him to have a conversation with me. he might also just sit there, covered with graveyard dirt, screaming in horror.

What is the best time of day to watch a movie? —Sammy night. i always feel a little nuts coming out of a movie and the sun is still up.

What’s your all-time favorite science-fiction film, and why? —Letterboxd 2001. because come on.

What is your favorite of Julia Potts’ films, and why? —Letterboxd i like the one with the severed foot.

Are there any animated films that you felt had a profound impact on you as a child? —Sprizzle probably fantasia. and ray harryhausen stuff. whenever there was a sunday-afternoon movie on TV, my brother and i learned that if in the opening titles there was a credit for “special effects” we should keep watching because we might eventually see something cool.

Which one of your movies is your personal favorite? —Jakob Böwer, RodrigoJerez i don’t know. sometimes it’s the newest one because it’s usually the one with the most experience behind it and therefore feels like it has the fewest mistakes. but then over time i realize they’re all riddled with mistakes. of the it’s such a beautiful day pieces, i think my favorite has always been i am so proud of you. and then i’ll see reviews that say “clearly the second chapter is the weakest one”, and i’ll think, man you guys don’t know what you’re talking about.

One of Don’s layout sketches for ���I Am So Proud of You’ (2008).

What’s your favorite Pixar film? —Jordan inside out.

What film would you want to be the last one you watch before you die? —Gavin honestly if i’m in the process of dying i hope i won’t be watching movies at all.

Do you have faith in humanity? —Connor Kriechbaum not often.

What is something that worries you about where humankind is headed? —Felix_Bouchard social media.

What is the most valuable thing you have ever lost? How often do you think about it? —Siminup well now i’m getting sad.

Can you do a back flip, mister Don? —Doug maybe with the help of a catapult.

What is your take on the after life? What do you think happens to us when we die? —Luisdecoss i guess that it’s probably a lot like our memory of what the year 1823 was like.

Do you want anything from McDonald’s? —Andrew Rhyne only if i’m in an airport and desperate.

What’s your favorite meal or snack? —Pfitzerone, Evan lately in quarantine i’ve been discovering this particular breakfast burrito.

How’s your quarantine life, Don? —Ivan Arcena it’s okay thanks. eating lots of breakfast burritos.

Hi! I can’t believe you’re going to read this. I am currently filled with an unparalleled amount of joy, wow. This is a long shot but here I go. I’m 17 and your (self-proclaimed) biggest fan. I’ve seen It's Such a Beautiful Day eight times now and every single time I pick up on more details. I’ve watched a few of your interviews and in the AFS one about Rejected you said that the louder you play a movie, the funnier it is. On my seventh watch of It’s Such a Beautiful Day I hooked my laptop up to three huge speakers and I must say—you were so, so right. I made a video essay about the movie. Lol, I’m not sure if this will get to you but Michael Jordan once said something about missing shots or not taking shots or maybe about tequila, I am unsure but I know it was important. Thanks MJ. Not you, Mr Jackson. I’m sorry Ms. Jackson…

I actually do have a question, sorry about the rambling. Every single time I watch the guy at the payphone flip his pencil and go “fantastic, fantastic” I cry. And I think what really does it for me is that “we’ll finally have our day”. Earlier in the movie, Bill’s co-worker talks about how all of time is happening at once. So what I constantly ask myself is if the guy at the payphone is simultaneously having his day and waiting for it. And I’m no longer speaking to that one specific example or even to the movie as a whole but I guess I’m wondering if the idea of all events happening at once comforts you?

In Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut writes: “The most important thing I learned on Tralfamadore was that when a person dies he only appears to die. He is still very much alive in the past, so it is very silly for people to cry at his funeral. All moments past, present and future, always have existed, always will exist.” When I read this I immediately thought about your movie. I think the idea of all of time happening at once makes all of life feel less important but more special. You know? Anyway, I suppose I’d just like to know what inspired the lines about time in the office scene. This isn’t much of a question, more an incoherent ramble but thank you so, so much for all you’ve done. I feel so incredibly inspired and so deeply moved by your work and I know that so many people in this comment section and around the world would agree. I can’t believe I’ve been given the opportunity to ask something. It really is such a beautiful day. :) —Eli Osei (co-signed by Vooder) that old guy at the payphone was someone i saw at the laundromat once and he borrowed my pencil and the whole thing just played out like in the movie. i just thought it was such a perfect little scene that i’d just witnessed. anyway, the idea of time being a landscape and everything taking place “at once” just came straight out of a science magazine. i don’t know how, but apparently it’s been more or less proven to be true? we perceive time in one direction, but the past and the future are always all around us. think of it as though we’re driving our car through a landscape. even though the mountains we saw ten minutes ago are behind us now, it doesn’t mean those mountains have ceased to exist. they’ve only ceased to exist from our point of view. we’ve only just driven past them. the mountains, like your childhood, are still going on back there. anyway, i had never heard of that before and thought it needed to be in a movie.

A still from ‘World of Tomorrow Episode Two: The Burden of Other People’s Thoughts’ (2017).

Are you a fan of Kurt Vonnegut by any chance? It may be coincidental, but I love how you both utilize science-fiction settings and concepts like being “unstuck from time/memory” to explore the human condition. I feel his writing and your animation are both capable of making me laugh wholeheartedly one minute and weeping genuine, sorrowful tears the next. —Vooder i’m embarrassed to say i’ve never read him and i’m told on a regular basis that i should. that all started after i am so proud of you came out with those discussions about time being a landscape. but i almost only ever read non-fiction. it’s a long story. but now i’m almost afraid to ever read vonnegut after all these years of build-up.

Hey Don, this is really cool. I don’t have as much of a question, more of a comment. It’s Such A Beautiful Day has gotten me through a lot of hard times, being in middle school sucks, I think everyone knows that: and your movie has made life just a wee bit better for me. It also gave me the inspiration and motivation to finish my first feature! Thanks lots. Love from Indiana —Blood Mountain: Experimental Cinema <3 hey thank you. yeah middle school was pretty much the deepest pit of hell. there’s this old saying, “if you find yourself in hell, keep going”. and i’ve never understood that saying. “keep going”, because, i guess, you can always just go deeper into hell?

Hi! Has the vitreous humour in your eyes started to deteriorate and have you experienced floaters within your eyeballs? If not, that’s okay. Just remember it’s part of life, so don’t get scared when it happens! Just keep moving on! But if you do have them, follow-up question: Do you think it’s funny that the body of vitreous fluid that allows your sight to be clear is called the vitreous humour, and when it detaches it’s anything but humorous? I find that pretty humorous myself, in, like, an ironic way. —Clbert1 i actually blew a blood vessel in my eye a couple weeks ago and the whole thing turned bright blood red. it didn’t hurt or anything, i just walked into the room all disgusting and my girlfriend was like, “what the fuck?!” and then the next day i had further weird eye problems. i just went to the eye doctor yesterday. i think i will be fine but i was thinking, wouldn’t it be like the most heavy metal thing ever for my biography if i just suddenly went BLIND? “and then in 2020, HE WENT BLIND.”

Will Intro ever be released to the general public outside of theater screenings? —Melissa okay yes you’ve talked me into it. on that note, i noticed that the poster of intro used on letterboxd is a weird fake and i’m not sure where it came from. someone just used a picture from rejected. if fake posters are to be made i would prefer it if they used a picture from raiders of the lost ark or something.

Do you have plans to combine the World of Tomorrow shorts into one feature-length film à la It’s Such a Beautiful Day? —David Sigura, Sam Stewart, An_Person no, it’s going to be much longer than a feature-length.

Will we ever get a ‘Hertzfeldt 4K Collection’? Or at least a Blu-ray with It’s Such a Beautiful Day and all episodes of World of Tomorrow? —Teebin, HippityHoppity there is actually already a blu-ray for it’s such a beautiful day. up next we’ll do some sort of world of tomorrow blu-ray of the first three episodes. but 4k is too many k’s. you don’t need that many k’s.

Would you ever consider comprising an OST album of all the songs you used and mixed from your films? —PhiloDemon i don’t think so. i read that for many years cat stevens resisted releasing his original songs from harold and maude on any records because he thought they were more special if you could only ever hear them in the movie. i like that.

Do you get a sick kind of pleasure from emotionally destroying people with your movies? —MaxT26 yep.

What’s been your ongoing experience of the outpouring of joy and love of your work? —Henry gratitude. how sad for me if, after all this work, nobody was watching at all.

Related content

Don’s invaluable Twitter thread about “old-school animation camera stuff”

A Few of the Fingerprints on the World of Tomorrow Universe: a list of influences curated for Letterboxd by Don Hertzfeldt

Modest Heroes: the Letterboxd Showdown for indie animation

The Drawn Cinema: Analena’s list of rough animation, pencil textures, watercolor effects, dynamic brushes and other poetic artistry.

Beloved Indie Animation: a list by Gui

Animated Sci-Fi and Fantasy: an extensive list by Stonefolk

‘World of Tomorrow Three: The Absent Destinations of David Prime’ is available now through Bitter Films on Vimeo.

What have you done before you turned 18 Gone on a date Joined a sport club Dyed your hair Kissed someone Gone on a road trip Gone to prom Accepted yourself Accepted other people Attended a concert Learned self-defense Asked out your crush Learned to drive Learned an instrument Learned a new language Gone on a plane Gotten a job Gone out alone Learned to cook Given a donation Cooked for your friends

About Me What I am currently doing: studying | working | traveling | chilling | nothing yet | retired My relationship status: single | taken | it’s complicated What’s important to me: family | friends | love | money | travel | health | pets | career My personality: funny | loyal | honest | kind | caring | creative | generous | introvert | ambivert | extrovert I am: watching tv | listening to music | eating | drinking | hanging out with friends | hanging out with family | in pajamas | in my bedroom | in my living room | somewhere other than my home

This or That chicken or pork lemon or lime asparagus or eggplant mushrooms or pickles strawberries or blueberries carrot or corn zucchini or broccoli noodles or rice apple or pear avocado or pumpkin notifications on or notifications off procrastinate or do everything in time messy or in order work alone or group work make questions or answer questions extrovert or introvert computer or laptop lose things or find things passenger or driver dine-in or delivery

Fashion formal or casual neutrals or colors denim or leather flats or heels every day or designer polka dots or stripes jeans or overall shorts or skirt boots or sneakers jewelry or accessories purse or bag

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I wash my hair every other day. I have an iPod. Apple juice > orange juice. My grades could probably be better. I can’t drive, but I want to learn. I would love to live in a big city. My shirt is black. I spend a lot of time on Facebook. I am watching TV right now. I share a room with someone. I would consider myself upper class. I keep a journal. I am a slow typer. I have a lot of guilty pleasures. I have had one of my pets since it was a baby. My nails are painted. I am always on time. I’m forgetful. I am the middle child in my family. I play video games. I wish I had more free time. I have too much free time. I am a good artist. I love to talk on the phone. I have a blanket covering me right now. I have brown eyes. I am Asian. My room is painted pink. I know where I want to go to college. I wore jeans today. I love baking. My job is stressful. I do not wear makeup. I play basketball. I am good at origami. Chemistry is my favorite class. English is my favorite class. Gym is my favorite class. I am using a laptop. I smoke weed. I am single. I have a lot of friends. I have no friends. I am very smart. I use Instagram. I have been to New York. I celebrate Christmas. I like Kanye West. I have good spelling and grammar. Dogs are my favorite animal. I drink coffee. I have done modelling. My favorite colour is either red or green. I am Jewish. I am a terrible singer. I am texting someone right now. I was born in the 90s. I know all the words to a Madonna song. I can play drums. I believe in Miracles. I like horror movies more than comedy movies. I rarely cry. I have no allergies. I have had the same phone for over a year. I have a child. My biggest pet peeve is people who don’t use their turn signals. I bite my nails. I have never had a proper job. My room is tidy. Baby Spice was my favorite Spice Girl. I am a picky eater. I smoke. I listen to more old music than new music. I miss Myspace. I still use Myspace. I don’t like it when people I don’t know very well touch me. I have some sort of mental disorder. I have been in a school play. I would rather be hot than cold. I think I am a good friend. I love iced tea. I have an addiction to something. I like little kids. Italian food > Mexican food. If I could go anywhere in the world, it would be somewhere in Asia. I am a morning person. I have been to see a movie in the past month. I am thin. Fried chicken is delicious. I have already planned out my wedding. I am bisexual or gay. I have been in a car accident. It is between 1 and 6pm right now. I can cook. I have plans tomorrow. My boyfriend’s name starts with ‘N’. I am over eighteen. I can rap. Pepsi is my favorite soda. I have Pinterest. My phone needs charging. I don’t like beer. I did not/am not going to my prom. I am a brunette. I have a fear of crowds. I worked out today. My first name has more than five letters. My dream car is a Mercedes. I get more than six hours sleep a night. I like 80s music. I am wearing PJs. I want to go into medicine. Chocolate is the best flavor of ice cream. When I drink, I usually drink vodka. I would hate to live forever. I am going to a party within the next two weeks. I need a hug. Astronomy interests me. I am happy.

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(This is by no means supposed to be used to figure out what your actual MBTI type is! You can find out what is yours through online tests or careful self-analysis. This is but a very simple Tumblr bold survey to kill some time, based mostly on each type’s most common characteristics.) Bold what you identify with: INTJ You think being ambitious is actually a positive trait. You are ambitious yourself. Learning how things work interests you. You consider yourself to be a rational person. You tend to be rather clueless when it comes to flirting. It’s hard to control your perfectionism. People have said you’re too judgmental before. You’re usually pretty self-confident. You’re hardworking and try not to slack off too much. 5/9 INTP You’re very creative. You prefer to be honest and straightforward about things. You tend to be a private person. Being left alone with your thoughts is often refreshing. People have considered you a weirdo before. You have a hard time expressing your feelings. You tend to be the skeptic one. It’s harder for you to believe in something that isn’t a fact. You’re really interested in science. 6/9 ENTJ You have little patience for stupid people. You have little patience for people in general. You come across as arrogant sometimes. You’re usually the leader of the group. Shy is something that you definitely aren’t. People have said you’re inspiring before. You never give up until you’ve tried everything you can. You wouldn’t mind being the boss of a team. You are often stubborn. 5/9 ENTP Debating excites you rather than scare you. You usually seize the opportunity to give your opinion on a topic. You enjoy learning about all sorts of different things for fun. You talk a lot in social situations… …Especially when what is being discussed is something you like. You’re good at brainstorming. You find it hard to focus on one thing at a time. You get bored too easily. You greatly dislike routine.

2/9 INFJ You believe in the paranormal/supernatural. Life would be a lot better if we lived in a world with magic. You’re very passionate about the things you care about. You’re usually altruistic. You’re very sensitive about criticism. You prefer to keep your private life to yourself. You can be too idealistic sometimes. Your perfectionism can be a problem. Fantasy stories are your favorite. 5/9 INFP You’re usually open-minded and flexible. You enjoy writing. You enjoy the arts in general. Working on things that require creativity is fun to you. You’re usually the peacemaker among your friends. Taking things too personally is one of your flaws. You get sensitive easily. People think you’re difficult to get to know. You feel really bad when you can’t help someone. 8/9 ENFJ You’re the friend people come to for advice. You’re very tolerant of different points of view. People say you’re the “natural leader” type. You can keep your cool in a stressful situation. You’ve gotten into fights on the behalf of your friends before. Your self-esteem is either up high or down low. Making decisions is very complicated for you. You’ve been considered naive before.

3/9 ENFP You’re way too curious. You’d be willing to try anything once. You’re always up for an adventure or exploring. You’re very observant of your surroundings. Making friends is easy for you. Your mind tends to hop from one thing to another without focusing. You tend to overthink too much. 2/9 ISTJ Honesty is the best policy to you. You do your best to meet your obligations. People sometimes are amazed by how patient you can be. You’re usually very responsible, or try to be. It’s hard for you to lose your temper. You’re often very hard on yourself, especially when something goes wrong. Once you have your mind set on something, it’s hard to change it. You prefer routine over trying new things.

5/9 ISFJ You’re the “mother” of your group of friends. You’re usually quiet in social situations. Taking care of others is something you genuinely love to do. Your feelings can get hurt way too easily. You often get out of your way to make people happier. You’re quite shy. You repress your feelings way too often. Change is something you prefer to avoid. You’ve gotten in trouble for being too nice for your own good before.

5/9 ESTJ You finish most of the things you start. You get shit done, period. You’re a very organized person. You prefer to stick to what you know works better. People have considered you a traditional person before. You can get aggressive when defending your ideas and principles. It’s hard for you to just relax. You hate to admit that the opinion of others matters a lot to you.

4/9 ESFJ You’re a sensitive and warm person. You’ve done charity before. You feel terrible at the mere possibility that you’ve hurt someone’s feelings. You end up apologizing a lot. People can confide you with their secrets knowing you’ll take them to your grave. Being needy is a problem you have sometimes. You get insecure easily. If a stranger strikes up conversation with you and starts ranting about something bad in their life, you’ll listen with genuine interest and want to cheer them up.

7/9 ISTP You tend to be optimistic about life. You’re actually a very logical person. You aren’t afraid to get your hands dirty when the situation gets tough. You’re usually quite relaxed. Worrying about the future is pointless, so you just live the present. It takes a lot to scare you. Sometimes it’s almost like you have no sense of self-preservation. Commitment is not something you’re very comfortable with.

3/9 ISFP You’re very artistic. It’s very important for you to pursue your passion. You avoid conflict at all costs and try to keep it minimum. Science may interest you, but it’s not something you’re crazy about. You’re the chill one in the group. When things get stressed, your go-to reaction is to shut down emotionally. You’re sensitive and cry pretty easily. Competition thrills you instead of scaring you.

4/9 ESTP Socializing is fun for you. You’re a go-getter for the most part. Mind games are not your thing - you prefer to communicate clearly. You like to stand out and be original in your looks or style. Emotionally charged situations are awkward for you. You’re prone to rebelling and being defiant. “Carpe diem” is a quote you live by. People have said you seem insensitive before.

5/9 ESFP You have very good people skills. You bring your artistic side into your words, actions, clothes, hair etc. You’re talkative, and sometimes talk way too much for your own good. Traditional people are usually boring to you. You love change. You’re really bad at planning long-term. You struggle a lot with things that require you to sit still and quiet. You need things to be exciting in order to get you motivated. 5/9 According to the survey, i’m INFP.

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I really, really, really love books! Sometimes, I can be really dramatic. I miss my sibling. ^They live somewhere else. I wish I had more friends to do things with. I just got a new phone. My cell phone is blue. I have a case for my cell phone. Lately, I haven’t been taking as many surveys as I usually do. I love apple juice. I have Verizon. I have a ton of books. ^My bookshelf can’t hold them all. All the good shows seem to be canceled or are over. I stay home on new years and watch the ball drop on TV. I used to hate Charles Dickens, but now I love him. I currently need a job. ^I’ve applied to many places. I like getting new sneakers. I have really bad back pain. I have scoliosis/know someone who has scoliosis. I have really bad heartburn. I’ve ordered a lot online recently. ^Mostly books. I know how to knit. ^I’m pretty damn crafty. I have a wireless mouse for my laptop. ^I’m not used to it (I keep using the one on my laptop). The Simpsons is better than Family Guy. I recently went shopping with my dad. I miss all of the old 90’s shows!

Epoch Xperience Interviews Nordic Weasel Founder, Ivan Sorensen

Mr. Sorensen needs no real introduction to many miniature wargamers. His company, Nordic Weasel Games, has taken the historical miniatures gaming world by storm, and he’s become the force on Wargames Vault. His formula of “substance over flash” has produced good games for a very reasonable price, and he has taken full advantage of PDF technology to produce a quality product one can buy and have in your (virtual hands) the next day. 

Without further ado, I give you Ivan Sorensen:

Biography

My name is Ivan Sorensen, and I am a game designer and self-publishing writer of miniatures games, as well as the odd role-playing game. Under the moniker of Nordic Weasel Games, I have worked as a game writer for close to 7 years. 

I am an avid player of board games, miniatures games, role-playing games, video games, and anything else I can get my hands on. I have spent half my life on this planet in Denmark, where I was born, and half in the United States, where I currently reside. I am married, have one kid and two cats named Scruffy and Lancelot. 

Unlike a lot of historical games writers, many of my formative miniatures gaming experiences actually came from science fiction games, so I suppose that has given me a little bit of a different perspective.

So, how did you get started in writing rules? Was there an “aha” moment, or did you fall into it?

At the risk of sounding cheesy, I have basically always created little dice and board games for myself, using Lego pieces or other things that we had available, usually based on video games I had read about in magazines or other ideas like that.

When I was 12 or so, I remember getting a copy of White Dwarf magazine from a local gaming club I had joined, and it blew my mind. We had some limited exposure to the idea of space marines and all these things from the Milton Bradley Hero Quest and Space Crusade board games, but the idea of battle games played without a board, using miniatures and dice was too much to resist. I knew I had to get into this, and as I had no money for it, I sat down to write a game I could play with my Space Crusade figures, which would look as much like what I imagined Warhammer 40.000 would be like.

Since then, I had pretty much always been the “rules guy” in the gaming groups I was part of, whether we were playing miniatures games or RPG’s, so it just came naturally over time, I suppose. As I got access to the internet and later got access to ordering things from the UK or US, I devoured every game I could get my hands on and was even remotely interested in. 

The start to writing games that were any good was my own attempt at creating a World War 1 game system (titled Trench Storm). I had shared it online, and to my great surprise, it began catching people’s attention and got a (very) small following, with people even purchasing miniatures to play it. Eventually, I was contacted by the US distributor for IT Miniatures, who offered to print it to promote their 20mm figure range. The rest is, as they say, history. Once in a great while, a copy of that game still pops up on eBay, it seems! 

How did Nordic Weasel Games come to be? 

So that story took place right around the time I moved to the United States. After moving, I had a lengthy period where I did not have my work permit yet, so game writing seemed like an obvious distraction, resulting in Fast and Dirty, a sci-fi rules set that you still see mentioned online here and there.

As the years went on, I kept tinkering and building things but mostly for my own enjoyment. Sometime during the fall of 2013, I started seriously working on a new game system for WW2 skirmish actions that I felt had some real potential to go places. At the time, I worked at a relatively dead-end middle management job at an incredibly toxic information technology company. You know the sort of job, where you have been there for too long, and you hate every minute of it. 

Come the spring, I decided to take a gamble that I could make enough money from game sales to make it worth pursuing and quit. I figured if I could find a way to do it without putting money on the line, then if it all bombed, I could just walk away and find something else to do in life.

Consequently, Five Men in Normandy was released on June 15, 2014, and as of today, we are still here! 

What is in the future for Nordic Weasel?

Hopefully, many big things! The biggest priority for 2021 specifically is to get into print books, though there are a lot of stumbling blocks in terms of layout requirements and so on.

I always keep a list of projects I would like to do, though I try not to talk about them too much in case they fall through. I am the sort of guy who always starts with 20 ideas, so by the time the unworkable ones have been weeded out, there are 2 or 3 left. 

What I can say is that I am actively looking at fantasy miniatures battles, and I would love to do more WW1 and Black Powder era gaming material. 

The real big question is that I am also very much at a point where there are just too many things to do it all alone. I cannot write 4 or 5 new games, support an entire back catalogue, and update old titles all by my lonesome, so I look forward to trying to solve that in the future. I suppose this is a good problem to have, but it is certainly also an intimidating one!

Is there a period of history you want to write rules for but have not?

We have worked extensively with the two world wars and the black powder era in general, as well as 20th century-to-modern era battles, and with Knyghte, Pyke and Sworde we even delved into medieval warfare.

The one that stands out as something that would be fun to do is World War 1 air combat, complete with goggles and scarf flapping in the wind. A little romanticized sure, but great fun, and there is a lot of fantastic models available.

For a historical era I have not touched on at all, I would say that while I have done games that cover it among other 19th century conflicts, a dedicated American Civil War set is something I would be very keen to do.

There are a lot of fantastic rules out there for the period, of course, but I feel like the “Weasel” approach of being solo-friendly and campaign-oriented could carve out a nice space of that market. Plus, I find the era quite fascinating. Growing up in Denmark, I was never really raised with a particular view of the conflict, but having married into a proud Vermont family, it is, of course, unavoidable. 

Can you tell our readers what goes into rules writing?

I think this is something that is intensely personal, and the rationale for writing something can be varied: It may be due to sensing an opening in the hobby space that does not seem to be catered to currently. It may be that I have a personal passion for a given setting or era, or it may simply be that I have a clever game mechanic and want to build a game around it.

The process for me usually starts with sketching out a page or two of keywords, mechanics, and things I’d like to hit on a notepad. Then I work on building it out with simple sketches for the main areas of the mechanics: Activations, movement, shooting, morale, and so forth. Basically, carving out the cornerstones of the game system. At this stage, it is entirely possible it feels like it’s not going anywhere, and it goes in the bin. 

If the core idea seems to have merit in this skeleton form, it’s time to test it out with some generic troops and see if it actually feels fun on the table. From there, you just build out from it: Get other people to read and play it, read it out loud to yourself, etc. Figure out what parts need ironing out and improving and which are good. 

It is really all an iterative process. Once I know the game has legs to stand on, I start writing out the table of contents in advance, so I can “fill in the blanks” as I go. If I know I am going to have a section later for off-map support, I can keep that in mind when I am developing each piece of the mechanics and so forth.

Eventually, any project hits “The Suck (TM).” This is whatever part you hate doing the most, whether it is layout or proofreading or points systems or whatever. For me, it is terrain rules, funny enough. I never read that section of a rulebook, and I never enjoy writing it, but you must. “The Suck” is where your game will probably die because if you let it overcome you, you will put the book down, and every time you click on the word processor, you will immediately be faced with it. The best way to defeat “The Suck” in my experience is caffeine and not letting up: When it starts rearing its ugly head, it is time to keep going and don’t stop until you are through with it. 

Has desktop publishing and PDF only supplements changed the face of the hobby? Has it affected the quality of the product we see today?

Absolutely yeah. It’s not that long ago that a game being available in PDF was a novelty, whereas today, if a game is NOT available in PDF, you are going to lose sales. 

I think the barrier of entry has also dropped dramatically. Even a basic word processing package can churn out a PDF document that you can distribute online or sell. Of course, with proper page layout software, you can achieve much greater results (as some of my friends are rarely missing a chance to tell me), but you need to examine what your skill limit is. Any tool has a skill cap, to borrow a video game term. If you are not currently good enough at what you do to push up against the limitations of your software, burning 200 dollars on new apps will not make your books any better.

It is funny, though, because the wargaming field is so diverse in the type of things we see. You can pick up relatively big-name games that are incredibly plain-looking: Black and white, no art, rudimentary layout. Then right next to it, you see a PDF that is full-color, original artwork, and gorgeous. And the two can be viewed as equal value to the audience. 

Of course, eye candy DOES sell, but I think once you are beyond the Warhammer circles, gamers become a lot more content-focused. 

What are your favorite historical periods and why?

The 19th Century, the two world wars and the Russian Civil War. 

Really, the whole era from circa 1910 to 1925 or so is fascinating to me: It is, of course, the transition of the old, romanticized world to the world of modern warfare, as well as being incredibly diverse in the sort of things you can see. The Russian Civil War sees tanks and armored cars, partisan bands, nationalist militias, Red and White guards, Cossack cavalry armies, Anarchists, and anything else you can shake a stick at. It is really a wargamers heaven for finding odd units to model up on the gaming table.

Honestly, my love of history, in general, comes from one source: “All Quiet on the Western Front.” I think anyone with a passion for history has that moment where they realize that history is not about abstract concepts and kings and dates but is about real people who lived and breathed and had dreams and hopes. “All Quiet” was that for me, and it left a life-long impression on me when I read it as a teenager a few years from the age of the characters in the book.  

What do you see for the future of historical miniature wargaming?

Oof, that is a dangerous question. I think I managed to predict the rise of “Warband” level games (games where you play a small force in skirmish actions and with some level of character progression between games). Right now, that idea has set the fantasy and sci-fi miniatures scenes on fire, with everyone churning out their own version of the concept. 

In historical gaming, there are elements of it, but it has not been embraced to the same extent, possibly due to the grognard bias against skirmish games. I think if I had to put money on something, I would say watch out for historical skirmish games with campaign aspects or character progression in the next year or three.

I also think solo gaming is going to continue to gain in popularity and respectability, with more games developed primarily or even specifically for solo play. I am super excited to see this field because there is a lot of things that can be done here with how enemies arrive on the table, fog of war, and so forth, which is not possible in a conventional opposed game.

Playtesting, how important is it?

Very, but it’s also very misunderstood. I see people post all the time on forums about how they have been testing their game rules for 5 years. That sounds very impressive, but if you are only getting together 3 or 4 times a year in that time frame, you are basically starting over each time. Additionally, just playing the game with your own group is fine to iron out the basic problems of a game, but it will lose its value very quickly. 

To get actual feedback, give the game to people who cannot ask you questions and let them figure it out. Now your text must stand on its own feet and must work without you being there to explain the intentions. That is the real test. I would say three games played by strangers is worth more than ten games with your usual Saturday group. 

Of course, tracking down people who can understand the rules, will play the game, [and] report back to you, AND aren’t crazy is a challenge. If you post online, 50 people will say they would love to, and of those, two will read the book. Once you find reliable people who can give you good feedback, cling to them for dear life. 

 What are the benefits and pitfalls of self-publishing your own wargaming rules?

The biggest advantage is, of course, that you are in charge. What you want in the book goes, if you want a supplement, it will happen, and so forth. Additionally, your game will reflect what you wanted it to be. I think in [self-publishing], you get a lot clearer creative visions and indie gamers tend to gravitate towards that: A game that has something to say on the topic is extremely attractive, even if you disagree with a particular conclusion.

I try to do as much myself as I can, though, of course, I do rely on outside sources for things like artwork, feedback, etc. Part of that is that this way, I know I can support the product down the road: If I want to fix a rule where we came up with a better way of doing it, or I want to add a new section, I can do that. 

The downside, of course, is that you are on your own: Your art is as good as your own wallet can make it, your book looks as good as you can make it (unless you pay for it), and so forth. You also must promote it yourself. If you are writing for something like Osprey, they have marketing power and money to put behind the project. 

Anything else you would like to say to our readers?

Before you write a game, ban yourself from reading any game on the same topic for a few months. If you are writing a WW2 tank game, put all your WW2 games in a box and do not open it. You should be spending that time immersing yourself in the topic in the form of books, music, documentaries, or anything else. Never ever another game.

Also, it cannot hurt to blast some metal albums, at least in my experience. 

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At Epoch Xperience, we specialize in creating compelling narratives and provide research to give your game the kind of details that engage your players and create a resonant world they want to spend time in. If you are interested in learning more about our gaming research services, you can browse Epoch Xperience’s service on our parent site, SJR Research.

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(This article is credited to Jason Weiser. Jason is a long-time wargamer with published works in the Journal of the Society of Twentieth Century Wargamers; Miniature Wargames Magazine; and Wargames, Strategy, and Soldier.)

book blogging #1: Dr. Tatiana’s Sex Advice to All Creation

by Olivia Judson, published 2002

Question: what do you think of when you think of books that are “fun” to read?

For me, a lot of speculative fiction comes to mind. Recent books that I found fun include Space Opera (Catherynne M. Valente), The Beautiful Ones (Silvia Moreno-Garcia), and everything by Sarah Gailey that I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading. Though I haven’t gotten ahold of it yet, I’m pretty sure Gideon the Ninth (Tamsyn Muir) is going to be spectacularly fun as well. 

These are books that aren’t necessarily my favorite stories of all time, but they have been some of my favorites to read. They’re all propelled by zany premises and whirlwind plots, enjoying themselves way too much for anyone to ever stop and worry about the parts that don’t make that much sense. When Sarah Gailey says “I have a crew committing a heist while riding hippopotamuses, do you want in?” I don’t ask questions. I just say yes and go along for the ride.

But there’s one major anomaly that always comes to mind when I think of books that I’ve had fun reading, and that’s David Sax’s The Tastemakers: Why We’re Crazy for Cupcakes but Fed Up with Fondue. It’s a 2014 work of nonfiction, and as the title suggests it’s an analysis of popular food trends and the forces that power them. The Tastemakers isn’t what this blog post is actually supposed to be about, so I won’t go into too many details, but suffice to say that I was engrossed despite the fact that I know pretty much nothing about the world of culinary trends or foodie fads - or cooking in general, if I’m being totally honest. But there’s something really delightful about learning things that are entirely outside your wheelhouse without having to worry about the material showing up on a test later. 

Given that I’m posting this on a blog with relatively few followers and that this is a write-up of a very niche book that was published eighteen years ago and could not be further from trendy, I’m well aware that anyone reading this is probably already at least passing familiar with me and what I do, so you folks might be saying, “Hang on, Makenzie. Are you seriously trying to say that this is outside your wheelhouse? The title on your Tumblr has been “Ask The Sex Witch” since 2015. You’re a whole sex educator, for fuck’s sake!”

Well, yes and no. Judson is a real-deal evolutionary biologist and gets into some pretty serious science in this book, which is pretty wildly different from what I usually do. I talk to people about sorting out their likes and dislikes, their boundaries, their sense of personal sexual autonomy, and so on. Although I definitely advocate for introspection and self-examination, I rarely go looking for answers far beyond the individual level. Judson asks big biological questions to figure out how some truly peculiar-looking behavior evolves: Why is it worthwhile for some animals to fight to the death trying to fuck? What’s up with some species of insects eating their mates? And who, pray tell, is engaging in the noble art of penis-fencing? Clearly, this is a totally different ball game on many levels.

(Speaking of ball games, did you know that the male shiner perch’s testes completely shrivel up over the winter? That’s rough, buddy.)

Offering sex advice to humans is hard enough, but Judson - writing as chipper sex advice columnist Dr. Tatiana - easily offers education to an impressively vast variety of species. The framing device of the book is a charmingly weird one. Each segment opening Dear Prudence-style, with a short letter from an animal badly in need of advice. The first chapter, for instance, begins with a query written by a stick bug called Twiggy (aww) wondering how to get her boyfriend to stop having sex with her after ten continuous weeks of intercourse. (Answer: Girl, he’s not gonna. Apparently that’s how he stops any other stick bugs from getting it in.) For the final chapter Judson mixes it up by formatting a discussion about the pros and cons of asexual reproduction as a hectic daytime talk show, complete with microscopes to view the tiniest guests and seating that offers both saltwater and freshwater tanks for aquatic audience members to sit in, like something out of Zootopia. 

(I haven’t seen Zootopia and the only thing I know about it for sure is that in one scene there’s a DILF-looking tiger, but I’m pretty confident in the assumption I’m making here.) 

Judson does an admirable job of providing pretty comprehensible explanations for a lot of evolutionary science, and while I did have to power skim through a few segments that were really beyond my grasp, it did make a pretty lively read out of the biological pros and cons of producing sperm bigger than your own body. It’s not exactly a book that’s difficult to put down, but I had a perfectly pleasant time reading it in the moments between doing anything else - eating a meal, resting in bed, getting some sun in my backyard - and even learning a little while I did so. I fully intended to use Dr. Tatiana as a break between the two installments of N.K. Jemisin’s Dreamblood duology, and it has served that role magnificently.  

Am I recommending this book to you? Not exactly, unless you’re extremely interested in evolutionary theories that are nearly two decades old or a science fiction writer looking to give your non-human characters some thoroughly non-human sexual habits. I’m not supremely interested in making recommendations with the blog in general, unless someone specifically asks for them; I’m hoping this will be more like writing up my personal thoughts about books and then hurling them into the virtual void like messages in bottles. If they wash up on your shore and you read them and come to the conclusion that this is something you, too, would like to read, that’s pretty rad. I love that for you! But it wasn’t necessarily my intent.

Strictly speaking, I didn’t even recommend this book to myself. In 2019 I tried to stay pretty intentional about my to-read list, really whittling it down to stuff that I actively wanted to engage with rather than anything that sounded vaguely not awful. I was hoping to keep that trend up in 2020, but like many other things that are much more serious, this whole pandemic situation has scuppered those plans a bit. I get most of my books by borrowing them from the public library where I work, and that’s been closed for nearly two months. Unlike many book bloggers I’ve observed I don’t keep a massive stack of unread books around at all times, so I’ve really been relying on the kindness of friends to keep me supplied in these trying times.

My friend Paige slipped me Dr. Tatiana’s (along with the aforementioned Dreamblood books and several volumes of Kurtis J. Weibe’s comic series Rat Queens) in exchange for some books I lent to her, because we all have to look out for each other in These Trying Times. I trusted her good taste, despite having no idea what the book was about and more than a few reservations. 

At other times I think this book might have sailed right over my head - not to sneer at the so-called soft sciences, but there’s a reason I gave up on my childhood dream of marine biology and got a sociology degree instead - but right now, as I’m finally adjusting to the slower pace of life in quarantine and remembering how to focus, I’m finding that it fits my needs. It’s unlikely to live on as an all-time favorite, but it’s something to do and gives me an occasional excuse to gasp and tell my roommate something absolutely wild, like the fact that spiders have two penises and that the dual arachnodicks are located on their faces, on either side of their mouths.

My basic understanding of evolution is that change rarely happens based on logic or reason, but by finding something that works and then sticking to it, no matter how improbable it may seem. When male elephants get horny they apparently develop an insatiable bloodlust and piss so constantly their penises turn green (yikes!), which is definitely not the most practical way to do things, but evidently it’s been getting the job done. Getting through quarantine has been sort of like that, has it not? A lot of behavior that might not be the most intuitive but is somehow enabling ongoing survival, like occupying myself with books that I might not have given a second glance in the halcyon before times.

That’s totally the same thing, right?

Right.

A note about the appearance of this book:

I’ve been talking a fair amount lately about my dislike for what I see as pretty transparently romanticized materialism in a lot of book blogging spaces, with an emphasis placed on acquiring and showing off as many pristine books as possible. I don’t own this book, and it looks like ass. It looks like Paige stole it from a library in North Carolina, which would not be shocking. When I noticed the large brown stain in the corner I jokingly asked if she’d dropped it in coffee, and she unflinchingly confirmed that yes, she had.