Gold Star Book

The Cubi Under The Bed. Five in the morning is about the worst time, especially if you sit up in the dark wondering why it's so hot all of a sudden and why every single thing wrong with your life is parading through your head, blowing little trumpets and throwing confetti. Jenna got to the point where she'd switched the light back on even though she had to be up at seven. She opened the curtain and some sort of grey fluff seeped through the window, enough to turn the light back off. She put the kettle on and brushed her hair to symbolise the way she was officially getting up. She drank her tea, looking round the grey lit room. There was a pale foot under the bed. Either cubi appear under the bed or they have rather unsatisfactory 3month relationships, surely not both. Also, why would they hide? They appear 'as if in dreams' so therefore surely can teleport, Maybe only in short distances, hence the taxis. They are always being picked up by taxis just outside houses at dawn. They don't appear like romantic visions and then reappear some years later like fixations. They never do the same house twice. In fact, the three-month version works better as satire, but is less 'accurate'. Having three-monthers makes them pretty much not cubi at all, unless a clear line can be drawn from their old dream-demon days to their current courtliness. How extensive was the Council of '32? How bad were they before then? And does the fact they 'don't do it any more' alter the way the story seems? Leave all that 'mapping out the socio-economics' stuff. Time for more hand wave hand wave and the genius of Underpant Gnome Plotting. Step One: gather the plot. Step three: Profit! “Good morning! I wonder if I could talk to you about candles. My name is Jenna, and I'm here to fulfil all your candle needs. Dawn, dusk, midsummer and winter, your fresh candles could be delivered early, ready for your altars and stones...” She was almost halfway up the hill, the row of houses that backed onto the railway line. The speech was terrible and she hated getting people out of their houses, but this time they were too keen, almost. The door gap filled with pretty, sharp faces who seemed to sniff at her before opening wide and jointly asking her in. She walked into a large indeterminate room with a hot-tub in one corner and piles of magazines everywhere (mostly fashion and music with a few interior-design epics). There was a fish tank all along the back wall with little pink snails in it. A blond with too many teeth walked in and offered her a cup of Bovril (how she didn't see this as a sign is beyond me). She accepted it and sat

on the edge of a magazine-pile with her candles between her knees. “You see, people always run out of candles and then the shops are shut over the holidays, so how does a home look homey over the winter... (she gestured at the piles) er... without them?” “I'm very interested”, said the blond next to her. He looked a cricketing type, possibly one of those bottom-heavy fast bowlers – only more tanned and sly-looking. “Oh yes”, said the toast-gold glory next to him, “we are very interested in candles.” “Good. Then, here, let me show you a few samples. “ She undid the briefcase onto her knees and displayed some fairly uninteresting candles tied to little pockets inside. “See... these are the summer stock, yellow all through and honeyscented....” Two more boys had come in behind her and were lounging just out of sight in the doorway. “....and here's our card.”, she carried on. “My associate is just outside, and really expects me to take ten minutes over this, so I should really...” The blond noddled lightly, as if he expected as much. He seemed calm but somehow keen for her to stay, just sitting there infusing the room with some sort of herbal vapour. Someone behind her got into the hottub and started humming to herself. She recognised the tune as being from a film she didn't like but couldn't remember why. This was not part of Jenna's schedule, and really needed terminating. Just as things were reaching a peak of awkwardness, a man walked in she thought she'd once imagined or seen in a vision of film. Either way, they'd had a very intense experience and she hadn't seen him for four years. He raised one eyebrow at the ground and continued to not recognise her with hardly a pause. “Are you called Zirin?” she asked baldly. Zirin finished his beer, scowling into the bottle. “Zirin? Who the hell is veer called 'Zirin'?”, he echoed. The blond man sighed and muttered “That's not in the guidelines, Zir, just do level three.” Zirin shot the man a look of 'later' and smiled at Jenna. “Yes, yes, only joking. I may be 'Zirin' but not the Zirin you're looking for shmbl. I'm sure I'd remember you far'l if we ever met.” He sounded more scripted than her speech about candles, but looked

more convincing around the mouth. “You know what – I know I saw.... oh this is hopeless. Here's my card, Mr...” “Pinon”, said the blond, with a dimple. “Pinon. Hmm. Call us for your candle needs, day or night... if you use them. “ The room was suddenly very bare of altars or candle slots or any of the usual elements of a home. The magazines had distracted her when she first walked in, but this place was abnormal. Just then, the door knocked as her back-up came to see if she'd been eaten. “Must go. Call the card if you need any, er... Nice meeting you, Mr Pinon.” “Just Pinon”, said Pinon with a pout. “... and of course Zirin”, she said with another frown at his innocent round eyes. Zirin waved his beer-bottle in her direction and continued to look blank and born-yesterday as hard as if he were inwardly clenching. (but weren't they all wiped out in 1932? No, they went in hiding, like your vampire myths. We may run the under-empire, but we don't commit genocide. Nobody these days is taught to watch out for them and now you walk into a nest unprepared. Tch. Tch tch tch. Look, would you like to be my assistant? Cleaning, typing, a little tutoring? I'll play the going rate and teach you how to avoid cubi while I'm at it) (((())))) Theory: How about that S is not the QAF but J is? S is just as she seems – she's enigmatic and she's been around a lot. The fortune-telling and wish-granting business is down to lots of observation, experience and an understanding with Mr Pelling re: wish-granting. J is changelingised but doesn't know it, hence all the cubi interest. This puts her in an oddly paternal relationship chez Pelling. Maybe Mr P is younger than he looks or looks younger than he is. He could be the QOF himself, which is why he set up the arcade as a diversion. J is supposed to have been trained in these things but wasn't. The recording fairy missed her due to a hair appointment. It's just an idea. Or the QOF could be a third person, or even a democratic committee. She could be slightly less special. S has all sorts going on except her background, and J is incredibly ordinary apart from hers (which isn't HP-grade special just dumped in the wrong species). I don't really like anyone being the Reinette Des Fees, makes for some very tacky self-insertion fics.

Occasionally cubi carry each others' kids as a favour when there's no tank available. She thinks she has delivered the parcel. Her arms are certainly lighter and the air smells of finish. The servants of the white queen have handed her soup and her hand and mouth are engaged in drinking it. There is nothing to see but dense cloud and grey white robes and nothing to hear but murmurs. “So is this it?”, she asks into the shapes. “It will do, it will do. It will do.”. The queen's voice, unseen, comes from behind the pack of servants but is unmistakeable. She sounds amused and bored. “I'll have to go back down, then”, Jenna says into the cloud, and hands her cup to a servant. “Hope this diplomacy's working”. The servants part as she stands up and walks towards the queen, who has a crisp, white paper bag on her head today. Her nails are being painted dark purple by a minion despite being badly chewed. Jenna can't shake hands with her, which seems suddenly to be bad symbolism. She bows before the throne, picks up her bag and sets off down the gravel path, past waves of smirks and cool grey robes. It's always true that the way back is uneventful, and Jenna barely noticed the cold and slipperiness, or the way puffy white clouds filled her head from end to end. Before she could draw a breath she was walking through Pelling with a doughnut in her hands, She arrived in front of her place, glad to see the landlord hadn't put all her things on the lawn in her absence. She opened her door and smelt the hammy smell of under use. A policeman sat on the sofa with a teacup-and-saucer on his lap. She didn't know she even had any teacups. Maybe this was the wrong flat. Two sturdy nurses stood by the door and arranged it for her to be very tired. They said they had to take her to hospital because the white queen had put fluffy clouds in her head. Despite the tiredness, she managed to gather enough sense to visit her bathroom (still so untidy) and write a message in soap on the window just in case there really were fake asylums and there was a chance she could be rescued. Two days later, when the pain in his arm had subsided enough to maintain face, Zirin went to see Sreth. He asked her if she'd heard from Jenna, and if the Mountain Quest had gone well. Sreth let him in and made tea as she talked to him, far away in the kitchen where he couldn't see her face. 'I haven't seen her but I know it worked. All the foxes have left, for a start, and the air doesn't have that tinny taste any more.' 'Hum. But couldn't she be hurt? On the mountain somewhere?' 'The white queen wouldn't do that. There's no way she'd be phy...sically... ' Sreth trailed off, her spoon poised over a teacup (she had plenty). 'We

need to check her flat while I phone some people. Don't go alone, not that there's much to worry about, but don't. Take another cubi, they're quite bouncy.' Zirin shot up from the beanbag and ran out of the room. Sreth finished her cup of herb, drawing odd shapes in the sugar on the kitchen counter and stroking her moustache. Then she made a brief phone call, put the phone down and ran out after him. As the boat went down the river, she could see fireworks in the distance but she didn't think anyone would chase her that day. The sky was clear and black and the boat slipped by cleanly. It was getting cold, so they crept under the rug, which was too stiff to bend round them properly but warmed them eventually. As the river widened, the boat began to pick up speed, slipping past the tended banks until the stars began to blur above them. They discussed who would rest and who would guide the boat with half an oar. She lost and lay on her back, up to her nose in rug, looking up at the black sky. She wondered where she would be welcome. She wondered about her friends in the Lonely City and whether she would ever see them again. She wondered about the festival and the wrong poem and about how she could explain who she really was to this man steering the boat who thought he knew her. She slept under the rug and woke up in another country with the sun burning her eyelids. It was dark enough now. The liminal that nearly wasn't, down alongside two rows of houses, was dark enough to play in. The butterfly bushes and thin yellow-flowered weeds were hidden enough for the gennet to come out. They didn't have kingdoms like the fairies, or large well-endowed comfy houses like cubi, just holes and corners and other people's cellars. They only met in liminals. No-one knew why. They come, when it's truly dark, singly from their holes and gather here, just seven of them, and they sit on fallen logs and gutted televisions and do not look at each other, just at their own feet, half-seen in the grey glow of their bodies. They speak quick and quiet words, sharing tips and spreading information, eating tiny boned winged things roasted on tiny fires. They chew the leaves off fireweed and suck small silver parts from cookers left knee-deep in the grass. They swear their unknown oath and slide off, into the cellars and shadows. Gennet are not yet fully understood, perhaps for good reasons. Jenna realised with a happy/sick lurch in her chest, that she was going to do it. She'd compromised a lot, in case it got better later and because it seemed comfortable to walk around the institute. Just walking. She knew what it made her. Failing to answer Sreth's letters, or answering them wrongly would mean hell for someone else, but she was over her head and the perks were good. With this she had a place. Say nothing about the institute and it'll pay you. Give you a pension. Oh hells, she thought, hells a million hells below.

The grass is very long and straw-like, with little clumps of poppies. Along to the left is a copse of short trees overlooking a stream. The stream is very dark with a waterfall and tiny silver salmon rolling up it. Forward to the distance is a black wooden hut and you walk towards it, past thighhigh grass releasing butterflies and pollen. The sky is rather pale with a slow-building thunderhead arising. In the hut is a mildewy green chair and a short pile of books. Some of the books have stories that make sense but aren't too heavy. A little iron stove burns in the corner, heating a peeping kettle. Outside, the dusk comes quietly with rain and you make a charred muffin and put on the radio. Some time later, about nineish, you go back outside and lie back on the ground with the grass high above your head. The stars talk around you and a faint babble of radio comes from the open shed door, along with a glow of light. So, just the actor then? Still need a darker pen, dark as you can find for a pale boy. Not my type, but obviously is. Large head, he had, heavy and compelling. Straight shoulders, not large enough but very flat, large hands with very precise gestures. Two fingers to summon, two to dismiss. He was generally pale, with a covering faux-ethnic tan and faintly wavy, almost too long boot-black hair. His nose was long, wide and blunt-tipped – also not a technical success. He stood very still and rose very quickly, smoothly, with hands poised. Nice bot to come to say. His demeanour was a little shy and an awful lot fey, fey as the day is long. He had a quiet, slightly dank sweet voice, unless it needed to pull with darkness. Above all, his sweet, vast puzzled leaf-brown eyes and above that his over-protective definite eyebrows. Not a face to forget or ever one to objectify, but something dark or sweet or fluffy or snake-still. Dressed badly so well it sang, arms covered in nests and nests of hairs. Some sort of hyper-cave face pretty monster. <>O~~~O<><>O~~~O<> “Really? Oh, I mean, interesting. Surprising you survived all that. Is it my round?” “It's always your round, Blz. I'll have some crisps. So, Sreth, um, what did you do after that? Spend ages recovering?” “Oh, nothing much. It wasn't the worst thing I've been through at all. That would have been the sky-weight and... well, maybe not. So, how's the job?” “The job is fine. I knock on people's doors and ask them if their dog can call the fire brigade. It's all I ever dreamed of. Do you need any help with the shop?” “Not for now. I've got Shige working in there. She needs to keep her mind on her art.” “That installation she does on Saturdays?” “It doesn't pay very well and it takes up all of her time.” “She needs to restrict her hours more so she can get some rest” “The stuff she does in the shop is already 'compromising her art', and

who am I to say otherwise?” Shige only opened the installation gallery on Saturdays and Wednesday evenings now. It got a bit tiring at other times and she needed a chance to re-dedicate the exhibits. She had been going for six months now, to slightly expanding gates and was planning something festive for midsummer. She had long talks with her artistic tutor about relocating the performance for the night, but decided that would be too theatrical and just laid a plan for all-night viewing. Somewhere in the hills to the right of Coketown, the goblin foxes were massing to unhealthy levels. The time had come to walk among people again and infect them. The night before midsummer, they gathered round the elder tree and spoke rushing words to each other, little blue flames from their mouths. At dawn, they slid silent and grey down to the city and the nearby villages and took up positions in the gardens and rubbish dumps and the stairwells of flats, ready to sneeze on whoever they fancied the look of teasing. "Two boiled eggs and a pinch of salt. You can only eat them by the sea with the wind blowing away the smell" They looked out over their feet to the sea beyond. The tide was far in and the water glopped about stuffily, leaving a little yellow stripe of sand and people pressed almost against the rocks. Despite the inconvenient size, she was glad they had a wind-break. It was almost like being in a tent, protected by the blue-grey smooth rocks on one side and overseen by gulls overhead. He kept his shirt on, from fear of sunburn, and it stuck to him damply all over. George went up to the roof of the Arcade as casually as he could to check his stock. Zirin was in trouble again. He just couldn't go through with it. He preferred talking. Proper talking where he listened. They know what to do with his sort. Pinon walked through the gates and signed the register for the third time that night. Twice he'd in through the windows and once down a chimney like a naughty Yule spirit. None of them had eventually woken. Zirin didn't have luck like that and spent a lot of time perched on the ends of beds gabbling the Soothing Lines and hyptwisting his fingers. It was far less effective. He signed the register so rarely that no-one remembered his handwriting and he hadn't changed his fountain-pen cartridge for months. "So, your fate you would know?" "Yup" "Anything you want to change?" "All of it."

"No, butterflies one thing more than the rest." "My... my job?" "I see... right. I'll just get the, ah, sacred tea and we'll begin. Sugar?" "No thanks. Um, what's the tea made of?" "Flowers and plants. Natural stuff. Healthy. Hm. Job job job... mm... lo... Right! That's done... splash of honey and we're off" "How can you read the bottom?" "Drink it first and we'll have a nice chat, just long enough for you to be suspicious of my methods." "Hah! I was just going to say..." "See? It's working already." Landi threw the worst parties. You were almost guaranteed a huge personal scene in the kitchen that no-one could get past, or a trip to the garage to buy thirty-eight bags of crisps because she'd forgotten the nibbles. "And Mr Pelling sent you there, did he? Funny sense of humour, that man." "They kept looking at me." "Oh well, how about if you work in my art office and I'll tell you how to avoid them." "That'd be great, only I'm supposed to do this for another three weeks and Mr Pelling said I'd get holiday pay." "Did he." "Maybe I'll just... not turn up next week." "I start work at ten. I'll be at the pitch on Monday, doing externals." "The – pitch? Where?" "The Test ground, back of Pelling Junction Road, left at the Junketarium, fiver to get in. We can start with some annotations. Oh. Have you seen Shige lately?" "I saw her in Cushion land and she had an odd face on her, like she was chewing something" "Hm. Hey? Hm. Chewing. Yes, she looked like that when I saw her. Hm. Too busy with her mids festival to work for me at the moment." Zirin, never the professional, has a thing for Jenna but she's not in a position to process that very well at the moment. She thinks she likes Hery, but he doesn't like her. Hery likes Sreth, who's right out for at least two reasons. Sreth likes Jenna's friend Lal but she doesn't bring her round very often and anyway it's not really suitable for one of her species and age. The only successful couples are Shige and Bip (pre-fox) and Shige and Mr P (after). It's one of the things the white queen specifically tries to stop. Although it's not the end of the world – one of the romantic stories ends happily with both parties alone. As Qof, Sreth is supposed to marry who she's told and like it, but she's gay as he's annoying. Cubi, by their nature, should never even want to marry. They

have the roving eyes as a birthright and it's considered quite an illness to settle. They don't age as such, just become rather too polished, both in word and facial structure. They all tend to die bang flat one minute and the little light goes out in the record hall. This often means a salvage operation by two trained cubi in a dark room at night. Salvagers got a lot of respect in the community for their daring and skill, but did tend to milk it too much in the bars and bath-pools. The religion lacks the firmer anti-sex rules of other churches and has a more pragmatic peasant approach. It's based on folk beliefs. They have different services for pre- post- and never-to-have spawn. The second option is considered elegant. Traditionally, the religion tolerated gaiety only after thirty, as there was always a burden to breed. They have a ceremony for that too, but it's a rather shoddy will-this-do affair. Pompous lectures for any who haven't married before and took it up straight from school. They have a special excommunication ceremony for those who commune with cubi. It's a fairly tolerant and easy to accept religion, but alt cults are simply argued out of existence. It's not so much that they're banned, but given no planning permission and teachers will openly point out their illogicality at school. Still, alt cults exist. One offshoot of the religion means that they discovered ceramic receivers before they landed on the moons. There is a terrible down side to ceramic receivers, which will be revealed in a later volume. When in history have kings voluntarily given up kinging? Tarquin Superb and the 'democratic' rule of consuls? The Dutch bicycle situation? Some chatty books on monarchy would be handy, Most British kings had power wrenched from them at the height of their uselessness. Kings, real kings, lead troops into battle. Their return from the wars and from capture is prophesied as a time of joy and flowers. Their true appearance is known to few fellow - soldiers, and the common people are content with a man in a shiny hat. Queens are most of this but different. They must never marry, unless a silent oil-man behind his newspaper. Their chastity and barrenness and 'stomach' are the symbols and property of the nation. They do not lead the troops overseas, but stand on the shore and send them all off with a blessing. They are never seen but all natives believe devoutly in their heart that the Queen is beautiful. They only flirt in private, but pardon lovers with half-thought excuses and dress finely in tailored-cloth armour. " You should see the look on your face when you're in this place... there's a sort of reverence. You even talk softer.'' He just took off walking one day and found himself in a strange grove he hadn't known before. When the others came to explore it, they found him circling and circling the trees, tapping at their trunks as if listening for an echo. The centre was very pale green, more moss than grass, and tiny

black chips of stone lay all over the grass. Some of them had the edges of letters carved on them. The door opened and nobody walked in, carrying a pot of dehydrated water. " You'll need these for the plants ", she said. Sreth turned round on the sofa and nodded. She went back to rolling her aconite fag and watching the music videos. Fey music videos were... good. An absence of 'birds in pants with weak excuses', because the fey didn't do that and had to make do with art and culture. There was an odd gap in fey culture that seemed good at first but came across as dehydrated after a while. So refined, so very non - catty. Jenna stood awkwardly in the doorway clutching her flower-pot. Nobody spoke to her, in a voice she couldn't exactly hear. " Do you want your pet watering too?'' " Mmm, no, it's a gift for Sreth here. She's just figuring out where to put it.'' Sreth waved at the windowsill without looking away from the animated indie leaf mould. Jenna walked up and put the plant on the sill. It looked out over Pelling, all neat below and almost out to the hills on a good day. The flat didn't face towards the hills, though. Sreth needs someone to go to the white queen and asks her to stop all this fox stuff. It's her job as Qof Why does she pick Jenna? We don't know yet, but it suffices for now that S is too fey to do it, but J has shown herself to be a feyhag. It's a sort of punishment for shagging cubi. Why does J agree? She's really impressed, she's a romantic living in a practical age, and that's her problem. Why is it hard? The white queen is v. bad and lives on another dimension. S also picks J because she doesn't actually know many humans. What's Zir's problem? He hates cubiing and he's rubbish at it. Either or both, he's not sure. Mr P's problem is that he's not running things anything more, due to being separated from S. He wants more influence, and so sets up the arcade (quite a while ago in our terms). Pinon's problem is that Zirin is letting down the House figures and it makes him look uncool to the other cubi. He also doesn't like the new ways, and wants to politick his way background to pre- 32. . Randomly through Part One, a tall grey - green girl almost shining in the dusk attacks people on Chorlton bridge. She isn't explained until the asylum. \/\/\/\/@\/\/\/\/ There once was a shop. A very large shop for a very small business, tucked away in the sort of giant city that can afford to specialise. Six generations of unnaturally quiet neat men had worked in the shop and all of these generations had liked the work. This was because they were

unnaturally suited to the job, far more than they could realise, demonstrating to only each other tricks of their trade that only they could actually accomplish. As time wore on (and they made sure it did) they came, person on person on generation on another, they came to realise something was wrong (or right). Since recognising the right - or wrong of an object was part of their particular skills, they hardly noticed the warning tick aimed at their own neat heads. By the third generation, the one called Abe, and not by many, the ticking inside that pointed to his own jarring was pretty loud. It drowned out a lot of common sense, masses of calm and nearly all his friends, all driven away by what he saw in himself and couldn't talk about - not with words. He was almost too unwound to marry, but he unfortunately did. It was a lot easier in those days and many odd-cornered people married who perhaps shouldn't have. He met his wife Abigail in a bookshop, in one of those sweet story coincidences that happen to normal people all the time, but shouldn't by any logic happen to him. He was poking through the metallurgy section, looking for a small amount of brassy alloy for an even smaller cog. He had three tiny books between his wide spread fingers and another under his arm. His spectacles were slipping off his face in uncharacteristic unneatness just as he bumped backwards into Abigail coming the other way with some minor Mind and Spirit works. She spoke charmingly to him of the normality of dropped books and the necessity for apologies and for once he stayed alert enough to listen. He didn't back away or snap at her or mutter something snide from impatience, but listened to her pretty chest talk hopefully of coffee. They went for a coffee like normal people in some sort of sick miracle, and she didn't pray aloud and he didn't disappear inside halfway through a sentence. They were both so impressed by this dank miracle that they barely could part. From fear of losing such an astounding creature, she invited him to her home and from the same impulse he joined her. Having done this much and followed whatever impulses assault all creatures, they both retreated from the world in exhaustion and ran back along their own grooves; only in neighbouring rooms and now with a child, the seventh such generation to overtake the shop. Whether he could read wrongs and wright rights was hard to see so far. He was an unnaturally neat boy and was especially unhappy with the inner workings of... something. Still, he sat on a high stool in the shattered shop and learned all there was about spotting flaws and rearranging the little world to fit a faster course. One day, two strange glossily well-dressed men came into the shops and took away his papa, the sixth generation, before he had time to teach the boy how to stop winding and when to notice that a piece needed no more mending. He waited for a while but they didn't bring him back. His mother chose never to stop waiting and also chose to believe that Abe left by choice. The son carried on with the business, not able to notice that he was considerably better at this odd skill than any of the others before.

There were twelve in the group, but there had always been a few semidetached associates. Abe had been one of them, recruited early and trained with great patience to use his odd little skills in all sorts of ways no-one had previously considered (such as me. Damn). The group had a lot of plans that were all meant for the greater good but looked pretty dire up close. One of their plans was the nurture and development of this seventh boy, despite all the short - term carnage. They had people upstream pop back and tell them how useful he could be, and so they sent people to pop back and make sure he stayed crooked, even to the extent of arranging Abe's death. This had been an elegant and subtle work, although it hadn't entirely gone to plan. For a start, it was quite obvious he hadn't done it, and secondly, it wasn't really messy enough. They weren't gods - although it was often joked around their cocktail lounges that they were aiming for something close. He had also developed entirely the wrong idea about his little talent and how to apply it. If it hadn't been so horrible to watch it would be almost funny. " After the war, I shall devote myself to my thoughts for five to ten years.'' " Right. After seven, we invade the Arcade. " " Yes. Tonight. In case they find us before then. " " Right. " They stared into their cans. The pathspot was quiet, apart from tweeting birds and the faint fizzing of their drinks. " Do we need weapons? " , asked Jenna. " Hope not. Anyway, they always say it's more dangerous to have them if you're not skilled.'' " Your 'they' or just 'they' in general?'' ''Oh, 'they' in general. My people are, you know, not...''. He tapped his ring finger against the can, making it plonk. ''You're lovers, not fighters.'' ''Hm. Mostly. Certainly recently we are. Actually, the '32 Council states that... well, anyway, it's against everything I've done this year, really, so never mind.'' " I wish Sreth wasn't on holiday. I swear she went on purpose.'' " Letting us grow up and be heroes on our own, well, you at any rate.'' " She doesn't hate all cubi, Zir, it's just they're so...'' " Dirty. Dirty, scabby little rat men. Yup.'' ooo===ooo

Time-travel on the radio - dopplered voices, different speakers through different speakers - dopplered doppelgänger. 12 monkeys done as a comedy. Ultra-complicated with chain of pain of people all bitching at each other - some of them are the same people (like a temporal caper movie) Start at 11am, the shops shut at 1pm in time for sunset. Last-minute rush to buy food for vegan aunts and DVDs to please whoever pops by. Whole forests of evergreens being carted about by the desperate. Rows in queues about the last box of white candles. Ends with the awful peace of the sunrise at 8am, after a long and irritating night's wassailing. A few birds and the odd crack of a beer can opening. For some people it's a real trial - they hate the endless socialising and want to be as alone as they are the rest of the year. She bought nuts in a cloth bag and some of those sweets with the wet honey centre, and got her yellow silk scarf caught in the door. Outside, the snow had started to fall, like grey interference dots. The last bus back to the Hall was standing opposite her, by the fountain of Virtue in the town centre. The air smelt of roast honey from the little carts along the street. " Why bother?'', she asked the person next to her. " I'm not even sure you're here'', they muttered, looking nervously at her grey coat and sweaty face. She didn't look like someone worth looking at. " When is the next bus back?'', she asked a man, who kept on walking. " Where do I catch a tram?'' she tried at a passing baby. Who didn't say a word. Just then, the sun parted the sky and all the snowflakes lit up like a million darts. " We can find it for it better ourselves!'' they sang, ''Are you coming? Are you coming? Are you coming?'', they whirled. She walked out to the ornamental gardens and sat down. The bench was shiny, but she wasn't wearing anything interesting. She got out a small paper packet and started to eat flowermix while staring at the shoppers below. It was some time before she finished the bag and felt ready to find the bus station. She put her bag back together and brushed the shine from her boots. A man walked up with a cat on a lead and asked her the time. She felt like a possible murder victim swapping survival tips with the girl next door while grinning politely at her killer and agreeing with him. She felt like that most of the time. He walked off and she acted more normally. It was getting dark now and all the buses would be full. She walked her wet way home with her scarf trailing.

“You can't kill me - I'm already dead'' Sreth needs an enemy, completely overwhelmed, completely hard and solitary, living like a hermit somewhere in the hills, someone who wants her dead because she said she'd give up the queenship and didn't. In earlier times, she'd even pledged to it. It's an elective monarchy from among a small patrician group of feys, but they reign over low-rank sf, gennet, shar-hazbim and cubi, etc. - none of which will ever be crowned at all. Zirin et al have nicknames based on their competencies. Like 'Best of both worlds', who specialises in specific non - specialisation. Unlike other characters, all are given detailed physical and 'demeanour' descriptions as a literary style thing. Since cubi are the most interesting aspect, they need to be nailed firmly to the plot. Either that, or deliberately left as background till part two. As with essays, there's a huge dither point before starting. And how do essays start? With long rambly notes, a numbered list and great fear of a deadline. Very hard to fake a deadline, though. So, Jenna, Sreth etc. are all described fleetingly, but each cubi and each iteration is given two pages of gushing, because we do base it on looks. Looks and a thirty-second dab at 'character'. All the rest is economics. The L character is still woolly. Need to redo or ignore. Jenna's sections get more distracted and shapeless as she goes on, but there's no comment on it, just stranger and stranger blobs of text, ending with the trip up the mountain that descends into gabble. " It looks like an arts centre for the new millennium.'' Sreth's head popped out of one of the blank steel doors and handed them a breadknife. Even in the dark the marble gleamed. The basement should have been full of boxes of... mushroom soil, but there were just neat piles of boxes. One window display had flat bras and tiny tins of scented dusting powder , arranged in an asymmetrical triangle. It is about pretty ephemeral boys like petals and the seduction of gurus. It's also about someone who had numerous three-month rubbish relationships and finds out she's just that type. An older woman offers to show her how to control this, while grooming her for a place in her cabinet. Is she any better? Meanwhile, the problems of her friends pile up, and all she can offer is guruistical help. Also, what is her mission wrt the rest of the world, heroism and suchlike? Something bad has come to the world but luckily she recently found out the cure. The trouble recedes, but she gains friends her guru doesn't approve of. Meanwhile, we hear some startling stories about the guru's path, some depths of art

- making and someone trying to learn how it works from a correspondence course. The world is not safe. Despite all the guru can impart, manipulative and secretive as it is, they are caught and sent for re-education. Read perrault, grimm etc. as uncensored as possible, and aliciologie, wendicine and la thoradéese. Not that I'd ever remake or subvert; it gives me the icks. There need to be new stars in the sky. Also superhero origin stories - what would a typical superhero story be like when written by someone who doesn't know the formula properly, i.e. moi. Thing is, I hate novels, novelists, boook culture and Mark Lawson. Pop music is so very much better. At least sci - fi is a little bit more poppy. Probably comics too. The Sreth story needs to be specifically monarchic, as there are zillions of precedents to choose from, especially the secret will of the people that gets rid of unpopular kings at the right time, and the way kings grasp after heirs. There are a lot of political things to do, but I don't want to pre - plan too much of that. Sreth is either the exiled pretender, hiding during a commonwealth or the recent usurper of an unpopular Qof - " Anyone who puts their hand on me to govern me is a traitor and a usurper. I declare them my enemy. " Start points? Bloody hell, you think one would turn up eventually. Surely there's enough pelling research to last a zillion years, but it never goes anywhere. Definitely needs a lot more dialogue yap yap yap. There's a place here called 'Wem'. I should know that. This is all rather mythical somehow, as if it's all designed to show me something, because it doesn't make any sense otherwise. I was just just going to... no, wait, hang on, I really was just going to... how can it be too late? " I want to sell them because I won't be needing them so much in my new life. " The new life turned out to be far stranger than she could imagine, and required a different sort of dressing altogether. " It's like if you're a dragon slayer and one day there's no more dragons, and you ask who am I and what an I doing here? And I question that all year long except when it's 30ft and I'm out surfing.'' " I have frequent nightmares about lobsters.'' This is how it used to be. Sreth, or her ancestors, would be tied to a stake in the garden by a silver wire coiling up her leg and connected to a ring bolt at her ankle. She would perform favours and prophesy for her owners until the end of the day, where she would be led to her kennel. This was a very dangerous practice, and only used by those who could

afford lifetime counter - spellers. By then, though, most of them could afford it. Pencil coloured ink would be very brilliant. The sun rose as usual and made the park look more innocent. Jenna didn't know what to think, which wasn't a new thought for the night, but the grey twinkles in the leaves made it seem like an idea ought to happen fairly soon. Fingernail catchers were sold quite seriously to prevent witches using them. A lot of small iron balls bought as keyrings, even though fairies have anti – iron on their keyrings. What are your slash kinks? Useful for inserting le joi du slash into profic, as this is supposed to be. Aliens made them do it. Trapped in a cave. Rueful stoic pining, breaking the stoic (secret pining in the belief that there's no way the other party would be interested because he's straight etc., or he's all about the blonde bimbos, or something non-self-loathing any road. And stoically working side by side with him every day. qq z rayne ) " I'll read really bad fic just to see what someone does with that cliché'' – That's the power of a good cliché , really.'' - And marriage of convenience stories. I love stories where people who may or may not like each other very much are forced to live together and slowly fall in love. " My partner's dead – just kidding'' joyful reunion. Tired/long campaign hurt/comfort. Outsider perspective? ( not used in romance much ) A is an agent who is forced to act like an arse for a Plot but is secretly good, and suffers much calumny. Like, if A was madly in love with B, but before A could say owt, she blew up his space ships ( or space shops even, ha ha ) and spent half a year simultaneously trying to live with B's disapproval and earn B's trust back, and B wouldn't forgive and wouldn't forgive and then A died ! And B realised how much he loved A, and then it turned out that A wasn't really dead after all and then they could be together ! ? ( merryish ) Gender buggery, body switches and disguises in general. Beaches. Middle – aged couple who start out annoyed and uncomfortable with one another, slowly develops a friendship, then slide almost effortlessly into couplehood with an infinite comfort level ( tziket ) ... both are wary of making the first move. So buddy that everyone

assumes they're already together ( you can always tell when someone's in love with you, it's like their slip is showing ) Other people setting it up. Two people who are both stoically pining. Fucking before feeling. >>--@--<< Interesting link between Barthes and CBT. In 'death of the author' , B said that each book is written as it is read by the reader, and a text only exists within the context of a specific reading-time, hence millions of 'texts' and millions of 'authors'. This is cutely tied into the notion of observation – affecting – the – observed in quantum mechanics. Also " We were talking with the master about the nature of conceptual reality.'' ''At the very heart of the cbt model is the view that the human mind is not a passive receptacle of environmental and biological influences and sensations, but rather that individuals are actively involved in constructing their reality.'' " It is not my custom to go where I am not wanted'' " ... there weren't a million fings going on, so songs were like films'' ( Amy ) but where do all the calculators go? Ship shiparoo, where's the shipping and with whom? Or should it remain subtext for others to discover and make them feel like secret discoverers of what's to be dug out? For decent shipping, there needs to be choice and the choices need to be conflicted. The list of good fanfic tropes was very useful. Would it be worthwhile to write some fanfic first? For many fandoms? Maybe stepping into a new fandom and impressing people with the angst would be cool, although probably better after catch - up. Does the shipping need to be slashy? Not if you keep the problems are character – based. It doesn't need to be anti – slash, but any two people's internal problems and mistrusts work just as well as the hard hand of Society. What taboos would be operative in a pagan society anyway? Maybe a strong insistence on marriage, but liberal within that ( i.e.: quick marriages, quick divorces, gay ones etc. ) . Perhaps they allow everything before marriage but expect perfect continence within ( and ever after ) , so that after a certain age it becomes somewhat immoral to have casual affairs. Or something parallel.

I'm in a transitional period right now, otherwise I'd have done that. The malleus malificarum. The tyranny of evil men, the tool of the righteous and the mermaid of the future. A player knows his job description at all times. There's a way of doing it that smells like it does inside the head.

Plook ships Out of plook, they can walk about or sit in accel chairs. Nots trying to form civilisations and parleying in notloops. Much panel – beating in underground garages. Online support groups. The trip to Kourou and the shuttle bribes. Bureaucracy and flags of convenience. Four mismatched geeks all made nervous by too much tv ( daleks would rip the ship apart in minutes ) . Set after 'Euronauts'. Early AI computer. But who are they? Who would want to go into very unsafe space? - extreme surfers esp with that spiritual side. - neology dinks like me. - really far – thinking venture capitalists. - recently retired astronauts. - govt spies ( journalist, but this isn't an assignment ) - four screens of salvage. The fact that you're reading this means it's published and I made it through the jump. In fact, I'll be on a chat show talking about this part and I swear to stand up and shout 'Labial Butter ! ' round about here. Start. Tn. The approved lack of sneeze. A faint ringing of bells means it's through How fast can I think? I love sky and I love grass and I love... Everything from here is recorded by this cool gadget. It is often said that space is big. A big empty cold place filled with nothing and the occasional hot sun, dust scatter and flimoe. An easy place to lose the kettle, hand – built and carefully polished by tiny hands and fitted out with cheap webseats and an engine made from downloaded specs and half - trained engineers. The plook didn't bear thinking about ( Plooks reach out under the ship and rearrange physics to make a little 'thin' patch the ship flies through, like a tiny wormhole. It's incredibly dangerous, and any part of someone not strapped and lead – wrapped in their webchairs is likely to go down separately. This means it's a bad idea to make your own webchairs out of online diagrams. ) We were not pirates, adventurers or any sort of ragtag band of anything. We were, as the proclamation went, reclaiming space from the governments, corporations and sane people. Ha ha. The first ship to go up with a plook engine contained six cats and a Burgerland logo. The second went up with six cats in webchairs and complete secrecy. So far, most humans who'd gone up had remained mostly alive. The lead sheeting is really important. At this point I should say what plooks do, in case you're some fancy alien using real wormholes or teleport beams. Something safe and stylish, anyway, that would make your people discard plooks as a stupid idea. Ok, numbers, physics, um,

hypercubes. Thin patches in the shape of the universe and a little probe to stir them up. It's basically a form of buggerment of the laws of physics and you need 4-d vision to even design the engines. It's funny that the 4d mutants and the spaceshippy use for them came about at roughly the same time. The big conspiracy theory is that the 4-d people are aliens, but it's all just waffle. Anyway, even if they were aliens, they're too boring to count. They haven't even invaded properly. I'm saying this because there's nothing else to do. The plooking can take hours as the probe tries to rewrite physics between two atoms and just sits there feeling around under itself for hours. As soon as it makes the hole, it sinks straight through like a penny dropped in the bath. So we have to be webchaired up all that time. It's probably safe to move my eyeballs under the lids but I'm scared to. The bits they scoop up aren't even recognisable, just foot – long strands of rubbery greyish string. Some of them are being tested in labs to see if they're sentient. The last words are probably " My nose itch... " There are four of us in this anti – physics chamber, and I ought to describe the merry bunch of rogues. Only I won't, because they're all cunts. I've heard it can take three days making the hole. We're just following someone else's hole, made by a much more official ship. Just as dangerous, though, despite what they say. If we don't mark the spot, we might not be able to come back, at least not as nearby. She was looking straight up through the skylight at the stars. '' I wonder what it would be like if one of them went out and I was the first to notice?'', she thought. Just then, the star straight in front of her went out, gone completely from the clear sky. Luckily for the other worlds, it was only a planet ( she should have noticed the slightly larger shape – or maybe she did ) . The reason the light went out was because there was a gigantic spaceship parked in front of it. The killer ants had come to colonise disused Saturn for their own overcrowded people. It would be four years before a photography satellite would fly past and notice. Meanwhile, panic reigned in the astronomy hearts of Earth. Had Saturn disappeared, exploded, gone, run away? Or had it just been blocked by a giant meteor – heading for Earth ! Doom ! Horror ! Lock up your dogs and buy our special crash helmets ! Buy one for all the family ! Buy one for the dog ! Protection from meteor not guaranteed. See pack for details. " It's about a genius who can't get anything done because there's a monkey annoying him " " See, you've made a classic mistake there. You've focused on the wrong character. I love the monkey, I want to know more about him, but the writer – I'm getting nothing here.''

She will shrink your soul with a glance. One of the Sides is completely unspeakable. It's the thing that made her pale. The place you don't come back from. The 'there' that can't be got from here. Time and space and dimensions have all been made comfortable in fiction, so anyone accompanying these and travelling there would be used to it, but Inside is where it all wrong goes. Maybe it shouldn't be described. Maybe it's the land of inversions, or the material that makes the insides of stars. The excession lives Inside, not in a dimension. There is a point in the winter solstice sunset, right at the low point of the night when the sky is blackest that the invisible speck of Inside appears. " See Cardiff and Die " End with animated gif of the wwds waving. Most of the action set in a dark castle. Info – screen scrolls past about the castle ( it is fake and made by victorians ) J needs the Loveball to cheer him up. Little peeps made of dough, with paper faces. " We are the dalek supremes ! " " You don't look any different " " We're undercover'' 'Cellgraft affection, my cellgraft affection / I notice your absence / Miss aligning plungers with you. ' Bananas of foam being the pet dogs. Giant fried egg and wire monster. 'Dalek bread?' Hardcore prawn. Plus Lizardtan's revenge ( with flashbacks ) and the master. " It's just brilliant British pop, the way Americans can't do it. The New York thing was just junkies being ironic. " The investigator drew herself up. " But what about the ordinary ones?'' He leant forward in the dock, already knowing that he'd done all he could but there was still this. Bony and blue – eyed he said " No-one is ordinary.'' They painted over the walls, but you could still see the writing afterwards, reflected under the cream paint, done by hundreds of minor members. No-one is ordinary. You can get terrible sores from working with untreated mountain bronze. This isn't a disease. This is just from touching the bronze and having it near me. Another little bubble of skin has opened up on my back? I was saving that one. Still, out here we don't so much work the bronze as tame it. I wrenched a lump this long like a ribbon, out of the ground

round the base of a hill and bent it over my shoulder, just thumped downhill with it. Look at the gloss on that ! [][][][][][][][][][][] It was a few years ago, when I was living in a shared house with some mad techno fans. Everyone was half – insane from lack of sleep because there was a rule that no-one could ever complain about music. I was working at the organic feyfood shop at the time. I think it's closed down now, but you remember, it was on Kap St. I helped start the firm, before they went all corporate, but anyway. They took deliveries of pressflowers on Wednesdays, turning up in the back of a trailer attached to a bicycle. Very organic business, pressflowers. I stood by the doorway at dawn, smoking a fag when the bike and trailer rattled up in a hurry and a tall man got off and asked me to help. He seemed a bit panicked. Turns out there were rival pressflower gangs all over Coketown and he'd not paid his dues to the right people. He didn't say this so much at the time, but over his shoulder as he cycled down the road. I was crouched in the trailer, covered in little foil packets of flowers. " You can't get there from here'' Worse than the a – z – then is the other book, the a – z – wherethehell. There are at least three levels of being, all working alongside each other as coordinates. So you could be in 20384, lat 50, long 3, Planetside, or 20382, lat 32, long 75, Airside. Airside='heaven', Planetside='earth', Dimside='hell', Outside='noplace'. #side='indescribable region', Noside='timeless'. Also the nine stable dimensions of being, the usual past/future and physical location. Fairies are as afeart of 'side' as we are of time – travel. A fairy sf story would concern itself with travels in 'side' and its ramifications, or the aliens that live there. ( An a – z – then – side would require four dimensions just for the map, and there aren't any Euronauts to discover 4d aliens in this universe. This is E4, you'll be looking for E2 in another volume ) . The shopping centre has a door to E2 because, oddly, it's a lot closer than E3. There are people with the same titles, but not repeated people. Sometimes the names are similar. For 'repeated people' you want side. Maybe Sreth wants the 4d aliens, so they can write the a – z – then – side. But she doesn't know where to find 4d people. Also, she can't do it herself, she has a queendom to run ( they are always called queendoms ) . She needs assistants who are bright and not too tied down but who are not Special or Destined, just adventuresses. Maybe people in the largeish category of 'cubi – hexed' would be preferable, but it's no big. The enemy is her equivalent in side, who is going through the exact same procedures in reverse, to stop an a – z – then – side being written ( you don't need an a – z – then – dim, silly, it's only like needing an a – z for different towns ) . Those little hole – pokey 'plook' engines use side for

a picosecond to adjust place in 3d. Every time they plook instantaneously, the ship flies for a billion years across the face of Outside cities. But that is in E2 and surroundings, so not of concern here yet. E4 isn't so much for space, for some terribly clever reason to do with paganism. Of course, this explains why plook – flyers get turned into stringy grey blobs without lead shielding. But ! Building a map is hardly adventurous ( cue research on mad Victorians up mountains ). Wherein lieth the action? The morality? The sex? Well, the siders have agents and agents who fuck with our heroes in horribly unhuman ways. A lot depends on where the cubi fit in ( ahem ) or which side they're on. Sreth has her hands full with the truly mundane experience of trying to stop a cubi 'back to the old school' movement, which is plenty characterful and sexxored. It doesn't have a Wider Significance, but it's still pretty important for the chicks involved. Also, again fairly mundanely, someone has to invent nanoceramics to keep E 4 4 and not 5 or 6. Sreth can visit Upside in visions, and finds this ability rather disturbing. Jenna's seen Dimside, one day, as it lazily opened across the hockey field and then rolled away. Zirin needs a way of getting to E2 so he can avoid his cubical duties. Ellis Smith needs to get to E4 to hide his 4d friends before the government exploits them. E4 is a very Scandinavian – type world and the govts. are all ginormous liberals. ( link between infanticide, esp by mothers as part of self – preservation / clean – up and changeling exchange ) /\/\/\/\/\/\/\ He's not the prodigal son but the weft to their warp, the potatoes to their meat. He is the second son archetype. Not so much in a literal sense – although it's clear that pa liked Zak better and he reminds him of his ex – wife. If this were a completed narrative, as opposed to being cobbled together, I'd say he was the chosen one, under – rated and hiding in plain sight. In reality he could just be uninteresting to the writers ( later on, he seems to be cast as a traitor, first leaving his post and his holy name, then defending a traitor by calling himself the same thing, then possibly joining the wrong sort of government ) . In these stories, the unsung son goes off alone and discovers powers stronger than the favoured hero, in a sort of giant nyah to the universe. Maiden – he is passive, but does he ever need rescuing? He has a streak of Boy Genius. The Marvellous Magical Mangle, that came for me and seemed almost dangerous to use, huge and silver – fat – skinned. But it flattened a tea – towel well enough. Then off to the cake shop and the mangle flew over the guiding bars of the bridge as if in magic realism ( only without the realism ) . There was a sale on at the charity shop of those cakes you only ever see in cake shops. Spent ages picking through genoas and dundees and parkins. Squeed at the unlabelled videos and eight – tracks, but couldn't find anyone willing to take money. Bag of cakes getting stale. Girl behind the counter said was I sure these were his stuff from when he moved out and not hers? Especially the cakes.

Watching some of BG thon through the window as if watching downloads and Kara was a zombie who came onto Lee, proving that it ran both ways. Went off, quite late, to talk about it online and went all down the road to the Outdoor Vol Centre, which was busy and full of cool teens. Went back along the path and saw a man stop for breath from the steep rise. 888777888777888 This wasn't really the best way to do it. They were supposed to have wacky things like Other People around them, not just stand about in their own little clique trying to be hospitable – they were already friends. So there was no need for the open door and matching open – door heating bill ( some tacky people these days brought fake trompe l'oeil 'open door' door covers, with cheesy pictures of wassailing hosts and log fires 'peeking' behind the fake door. It hadn't really caught on – not as much as bin covers in 'autumn leaf' patterns, or two – dimensional steel representations of pixies, or whatever the hell those wee winged folk really were ) . It was no good just having a giant bowl of fruit piled on the tv, there were supposed to be near – strangers around to enjoy it. And as for the piano and all the manifold joys of hospitality that represented – too many of them remembered festive supper recitals with drunk aunts and hideously embarrassing part – singing – at – sunrise, often overseen by the local sacrifactor popping in for his eighth cup of mead in the morning. Halfway up a mountain he lay trapped and wanted to work out a way to rescue himself. He could just lie there and let It happen and use the energy to dig free but he didn't want to do it. He could always just lie there and go out of his mind, but It was like losing your mind anyway – having your brain washed while you were out and all the stuff put back in the wrong place. Last time he'd woken up in a funny mood and barely had time to make toast and open the paper before he was off again. This time he would be definitive. The actual article. No – one there? He would be it all. The people survived through him, so he'd better be as himmish as possible. It was bloody hard work. Sometimes he heard himself blathering on and wondered if it was worth it, or whether he should just roll over and try again, but he didn't have the strength. She did, but then he'd killed her and everyone else he knew and there was no point thinking about that. He'd have to breed – at his age, rather embarrassing but there was no-one around to tell him to save it for adulthood. So why not? May as well while he's being pretty. ( Most of this is a dialogue with Rom3, as she appears from a rock. She looks like a fanfiction heroine and reckons he must have chosen that. On some level, anyway ) . I think she should be shipped with Simm. Sreth didn't go shopping very often, but when she did she made a solid day of it. One Saturday a month, more or less, she would rise early and

phone a sidekick and dress in the best quietclothes and start The Route. This week she needed a summer hat and some books. Jenna needed a whole pile of clothes, some music bits and something for her back wall, above the radiator. She didn't like the mirror that had been there – it kept staring dumbly at her when she wandered in in the morning. ( The record shops mp3ise old albums for you. This trip, Jenna is told what cubi are after meeting one on the third floor of the junk shop. The trip goes down Kettering Road, including the café behind the sofa shop, Scrooge and that pencil – holder shop. After lunch, they head in past Spinadisc to the Arcade on the edge of town ( although doesn't she live there? Maybe Sreth meets J at the arcade after J's shopping. She doesn't need to be so much of an acolyte ) . Is it too inconsequential? No, I can trim much later. Somewhere between parts 2 and 3, the war starts. It has been building a little more all the time, and when it breaks out, they need to change the way they see things, trivial or serious or work and play. The Fairy Book should be written as a scholarly text with footnotes and margin notes. I know it's been done before, but it's justified in this case. ' a branch of historiography concerned with the founding of cities'. Also, if I do the study elsewhere, I won't have access to this uni library, which is a good one. But if I just write these things, there'll be no structure and no bloody chance to learn Greek. But the Ancient History thesis is too common to be of much interest and too much a Fresh Thing. Can I live to work and work to live in a darn office? Either that or a whole herd of do good ladies asking her to more good. =-=-=-=-=" But how can anyone run up £165 million of debt by the age of 20? " The real one, although the representations have been pretty good. Dressing up as a slave to creep round people's houses. Well into his fifties. The stepfather, the military entry at an early age because of all the trouble. His one or two remaining letters, lazy, charming, bitchy and a little threatening. Everyone's wife at sixteen and already a legendary beauty. His poor friend pining away for the sound of feet on the roof, howling away on the couch for his graspy impecunious brat lover. The wife they shared and her strange relations with his brother. The dark, long, handcart trip out to the hills after a row where he became the doe – eyed cause of trauma again. The right – hand man, the revolution, the dodgy compromises and the casual sharing of the men's food, so they'd follow him over a cliff and almost did. The bossy wife preparing him for a bossier one. Kept boy, cults, dressing as girls again and being sent off to go pretend – fishing. The messy dramatic bellowing end to a loud life. 00099900099900 He was spectacularly thin, not underfed or weedy, but one long continuous ribbon of a man, only stopped by the slope of his little

shoulders. His hands had little black hairs growing up to his little finger, which was longer than most people's necks. His nose was long and slightly bent to the left, like a sundial recording 6.35pm. His hair was short – long and plain brown, very messy round the crown, reaching upwards in tufts but thin on the sides with rather flash – dandy sideburns. His mouth was very deep pink and only almost had an upper lip. His smile was quick and slightly glossy and his teeth were too pointed. His neck was too long, but so were his legs. He had a small midway cluster of chest hair between his ribs and his feet seemed almost pointed. His eyes were pits. They were a clear, soft brown, very round and lashed. They stared with outraged innocence or lazy dirt from his face like holes. His eyebrows moved continually, one of them raised like a comment over almost every wicked word he spoke. His voice rose from a light base to an embarrassed squeak, or sometimes walked round in a desperate half – lidded purr. He had a terrible habit of interrupting himself mid – sentence, carrying on with internal arguments out loud and returning some miles from his original point with an eyebrow – flicking surprise. His smile twitched on and off for others but he kept his dreamy lost silence for himself. Sometimes he would work the eyebrow on purpose to underline a mild thread of irony. Sometimes he would talk with seeming sincerity, eyes wide and twisting hair up and wild, and yet his eyebrow would twitch of its own free will as if contradicting the words of his voice. He presented sad, hopeless little ideas with an energetic squeak and a half – grin, fail and mope, staring shadow – eyed at the floor before laughing at his own stupidity and hopping up for another run. He spoke to most people with pencil – underlined frank scepticism, but when he was on the chase he would murmur and wheedle like a timid horse trainer and hush softly. --|--|--|--|--|--|-poor lee, poor sharon. Poor sad Sharon. " I was born on Troy. I'm a person ! " only to find out she's not even all that original. Poor confused Lee and his ideals. I bet Roslin won't even thank him. He sounded so weak and croaky, wavery. He looked tired and sick, nearly as bad as Sharon, poor lamb. He doesn't even have any friends left. Waa. Six is damn scary. I was quite happy for Helo to rescue Kara, but she managed it on her own. Looked painful, though. And then the old bastard leaves him there, chained up for all to see while he praises poor Sharon ( why is his coat off again? Fanservice? ) Poor Sharon's face when she came to. Kara worked out about 'there is no Sharon ' pretty rapid and was grieving and angry all in a second. Lee looked calm, tied up, almost bland. He'd gone off somewhere. Too much Baltar guff. When Lee was over the body, his voice went all squeaky. ~##################### " Ha ha. No, it's not the way you make frogs, but the way you stick the beads on. "

" I had beads once, but the pot fell over.'' " Somewhere in the jungle is a bead tree, where several thousand different beads grow in little silk pods. You can go mad just examining every one.'' " What else is there in the jungle? A needle bush? A griddle worm? " " Sometimes at night, when you're tucked up in the canopy, you can hear the singing of the silver bugs.'' ''Not, I suppose, a sort of high – pitched tweeting.'' " Funny you should say that. Silver bugs make a noise like an orchestra tuning up and then break into a few rounds of 'He's Got My Spoons And I Need Custard'. " " Wow, suddenly I really don't care. I know everything I need about how to bead frogs and all the rest is pointless.'' " Have I told you about the tiny jewelled nuts you can buy? They're a little expensive, but they look so good on the sideboard.'' ''No, and I don't care about those either. Excuse me, I have frogs to sew.'' {}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{} Fetishised objects. McGuffins. The staff of power. The orb of wisdom. Abstracted objects that work in a cinematic metaphorical sense. The sacrificators have long, knarly staffs. Sreth uses a crystal ball of some sort – a black washing up bowl of ink. Very messy if you forget it's there. Jenna has to deliver a letter up the mountain, where the white queen sits on a glass throne heated by the breath of trapped mice under the seat. She had a little tattoo of a famous painting on her throat. It was of a couple standing by a lake, with a small dog at their feet and hazily – etched mountains in the background. The faces were incomplete because the pain had been too much, so she left it trailing. Why don't things explode more? The arcade was trying to have a bonfire on the roof, but the rain was putting it out. Somewhere below, off in Pehai way, a huge barrel of smoke reached the sky. The barn of feyfood had exploded due to a stray spark reaching the vats of spume beetles. Feyfood was rather like that. School disco ( the dancers at the end of the world ) . Radio sf ( three copies of you with different pitch ) the fairy detective ( clearing up cubi one collar at a time ) scan man in moon picture from aa book, also greek myths book. Separate 'alien flatmate' from other bits. Try to find 7 up carnes advert. Finish 'euronauts' and send to '[email protected]' 'Glowing like a sacred biscuit tin'

A stray dog trotted through the liminal on its way to chase cars on the main road. As liminal spaces went, this was pretty crap. The knocked – down house had left a garden of fireweed and a thin patch from the estate to the shops ( well, the rubbishy local ones, anyway ). A few people walking dogs or merely being 'clever' hopped through the fence gap and crossed the space every day. Some of them even hauled their rubbish there. Brats from around would make dens in the corner and drop more rubbish, and the fireweed grew highly. Until the council spoilt all the fun and fenced it in at both ends, just for safety ( the only thing holding up the house next door were small rusty poles ) Olives with insane stuffings such as minced rabbit or grenadine – it offered everything to the discerning resident and shopper including a free lunch. ( Which version of cubiology works best with the premise of the Arcade? Does the nature of the Arcade go best with in – room teleporting cubi or three – monthers? Thing is, whatever happens they did used to behave like that, whether they do now or not. So it's fucked. I don't want the story to remind me of a central point of a story I didn't like. Mind you, these worries always die down after a while. It's not the same, it's not the same. Maybe time to do another list. ''Never seemed to meet anyone, but the people she didn't talk to were friendly enough.'' She smiled to herself as the prelude to another non – reminiscence. Of course, like a Greek prophetess, the fags she smokes have hypnotic inhalant vapours. S put the fag out ( unnecessarily ) and went back to bed. A hand pointing upwards. " Could you get me a cup of coffee?'' Jenna cursed herself and tromped back downstairs. And back up again to ask the sugar/milk thing. " I came to ask about Bill'', she said, " Sometimes you get this feeling he's looking and sometimes it's... " She waved her hands in the gloom. Outside, people were stirring gins in pavement cafes and sniffing mown grass. In here she was asking the local oracle about her love – life. Probably quicker to read tea – leaves but coffee grounds didn't seem to communicate very well. " It's better I don't know too much'', said Sreth. She lit an incense cone and leant over the fumes. It smelt like decomposing frogs, which proved it was serious stuff and not your part – time air freshener rubbish. Jenna's nose burned. Sreth was smiling to herself and nodding. Suddenly she plucked a receipt from the pile and wrote some words on it. She woke up, doused the incense with her fingers ( not well ) and handed Jenna the slip with quiet pride. It said " Of course he does ½ oz Golden Whirl Leaf, pay back later ta " The realistic stuff is much better and less to worry about. As much of that as possible. Maybe ditch all plottish epics altogether. So there's here and now, alt here and 2038? Also Shige, the mountain,

the cricket, ghost fox invasions, cubi, the arcade in full, the Pellings' marriage, the 1978 stuff and the magic stone, the religion at solstice, the picked by cubi, the path spot, the alchemists and the VHC Jenna Zirin triangle. Also suxi, shar-hazbim, cubi life, fairy politics and the white queen, and the institute and the beach. She had to buy fruit more than anything, as it made a nice shape in the bowl. The fruit was all imported at this time of year – come to think of it, wasn't fruit really against the whole 'acceptance of seasons' . But fruit it was, either that or display gleaming piles of carrots in the bowls. The fruitieres was rammed full of people who didn't care about looking seasonal, all trying to buy oranges with the leaves still on. She stood in a queue with bags of plums and grapes and picked up dates, figs, nuts, a glitter – covered fern, toasted pumpkin seeds, an egg – whitener, three types of beetroot and some organic dog biscuits from the shelves as the queue went round the shop. The man weighing the fruit added it up in his head very fast ( and she wasn't sure he'd got it right but wasn't fast enough herself to check ) . The arcade outside, partly covered, was strung with only blue lights that gave off a cold glow. A circle of choristers from the local singschool were singing the complicated rounds of 'The dying of the sun' . It was all terribly festive. She repacked her back to be more comfortable and started on the queue for the honey – cakes. The ecclesiastical supplies shop was underlit and deliberately moody. She was in the queue so long she'd started to forget she was there and failed to pick up any extras this time. Someone in front had bought a very old – fashioned block of incense and it was reeking out the shop, making her eyes water. The knives in the cabinet were glinting straight into her face, and she snapped out of her daze to wonder just how hard honey cakes were to make after all. The fridge she was passing now was set at a too low temperature so all the labelled brown bottles looked too brown and slightly congealed. A fat brown drop lay in the cabinet floor. Did she need ivy? Or would that ivyesque plant she'd got last summer do? She needed a new robe but that would have to wait at these prices. The honey cakes looked good, though, very fresh and sticky and all baked into neat crescents. --a--a--a-and it was like some sort of wedding ( or funeral ) , and the t-shirts were printed up but I had to stop off for some sort of lecture on how not to do things as she made me flip through a cartoon book that she'd made years ago of how to have a more tough and yaysome life. Then we had to demonstrate the dancing and the slightly older bloke chose me, because grandma over there had rather hip-thrusted at him. He demonstrated. I dusted some dark darkest blue eyeshadow on him, amazed he would let it, especially at his age. The t-shirts were being printed garbly because I'd fiddled with the computer checking for messages. No-one really minded though.

She wondered – xenia – what was the least you could get away with? A tiny packet of honey tarts and some cooking sherry? Two quickly 'acquired' compilations and some really dubious holly? Not to mention the 'two people aren't a party' thing. She'd have to provide at least someone, even a friendly bartender for the right atmosphere. Maybe if she lost half the candles she could avoid having to sweep the floor. Plus the silly cow was non-religious and coming on solseve itself, about four hours after sundown, but still. Quite a hike to go down to the clearing, black candles blah sun then back for the hoovering, change clothes blah catch a bus. It was only about five hours before sundown and she had bought exactly 0 honeycakes, 0 glasses of wine and pretty much -1 bunches of candles. And the queues would be massive. Sodding festive season, couldn't the sun go down some other day? Jam nights could be fun, until some berk turned up with a saxophone and it went all jazzy. Jenna wanted to sing, scat about like the girls on the stagelet but didn't. She felt as if people would see her if she did that, and there'd be nowhere to hide. Well, obviously, it was a stage, designed for people who wanted to see themselves being seen. She stood round the edges with a nasty warm beer bottle and sulked, sometimes terribly sulked into a black hole of sulking. She had never sung a single note in public, or even really danced, and now it was getting to be impossible. Would anyone ever press their nose against her bedroom window and invite her out into glamour? Things changed after the invention of dry water. It bubbled out of a pipe, leaving a faint crust on the opposite wall. S had a room in 2038 4 . On a pod base over the frozen Horsmith. She popped in now and then and rented out the flat. Her room was tiny, but she'd left a green pencil there she liked with the right chew markings. She patched a call through to a few people she knew and caught up on her amail, looking out over the frozen frost. ( There were infinite futures, but only six were visitable in a practical sense ) . Sometimes she had to log in and out of worlds quickly when she had forgotten where she'd put something. She liked 2038 4 , where they'd discovered nanotomic energy creation too late to stop the frost but with time enough enough to heat people. It had an edge-of-disaster redeemable air completely different to the perfect world of 20382. In 5 and 6 , the nanotomics were either found too late or not at all and everyone died. Eventually. Anyway, she liked the Queen Under Ground in this world. She was a friend of hers. Sreth slept in her warm white room and went out along the spoke for

breakfast in Pod Nine; the only restaurant that did feyfood in the whole city. This was not the time or the place for fortune-telling and wishgranting. She sat in the window bar, chewing a tulipase and wondering how bad this fox problem was going to get back at her real world. News and share prices glittered on the airscreen in front of her and naclenses took up all her crumbs and botted them off for recycling. It was a very clean place, although it never seemed to smell of anything but snow. " Sorella ! Hi, yes just popping in for a few days " . She spoke to her aircall as she finished the jasminite tea and played with a rogue crumb. ''It's not bad. Bit of a crisis brewing but my trainees can handle it. Of course you could, but it's more fun not to. I'd love that. More than you'd think.'' so she has doors to other places, is on the outs with her people and has sidekicks? Oh dear. We ( well, myself and some chick ) were walking down a clear street, over some sort of motorway bridge when I realised I'd gone back in time, because there ahead of us were the Two Ladies, both very fragile and tall and lit up – even though it was daylight where I stood. I knew it was Just Before, so I booked into a hostel nearby in order to watch things ( ooch ) . I didn't warn anyone, but I did feel a sense of terrible pity. The hostel was fairly loud and quite sociable. One day ( it felt more like afternoon... ) when the sky was crisp, I leant casually out of the window and right there saw the first One happen, loud and unreal and photographic. I turned back into the room almost happily, and said " You have to see what's next!''. We stood around and saw the Second, impossibly large, inhuman and deadly and wonderful to watch, crawling across the sky, filling it and I thought " If I could have seen it like this, I'd be already dead.'', so I knew there was nothing to be done, and probably no need to. Despite everything there and everything that followed, it was right to find myself back there and just watch. History works that way. A very, erm... personal dream ( why say that when others have been more so? I just mean sockish. V. sockish ) , about heh, well, heh. Doesn't matter who, but so very very clear. Amazing the body remembers for so long. So filling. Notabarn. Followed by odd scene of fat gangy businessman saying dead-eyed ''I'm excited by the money'' and actually being just so. 6969696969696969696969 Since I have 'so much sympathy for the faceless', what sort of robots does a fairyland have? What do they use instead? Maybe robot-sympathy better belongs in the plookverse. Nanocollections are fond of each other. Thing is, articulated legs are a pain to build and not much use really. The feyverse starts with everybody knowing everything ( roughly ). This makes it more like 'A long time ago' than 'Strange things area afoot at the Circle K'. but stops all that tedious 'but it can't be true!' nonsense. And there are still things unknown, even now. The feyfolk keep a lot of secrets and somehow, people don't really know what the deal is with cubi. Shar-hazbim even more so. I don't even know what they are...

''If your destiny is to be hanging around at the right time, then I suppose so.'' ''Maybe I was destined not to be busy at this time.'' ''If you like, but really, you were just around on the right day. I nearly asked Zirin.'' ############## There's something out beyond the window, but it can't be quite seen in this light. What could be prowling round the bushes at this time of night? A wolf? A beggar? One of those escaped robots they keep talking about? Several people started to look at it, at the occasional flicker of pearl skin and the faint outline of teeth. The roast goat balls were getting quite spoiled, as they needed to be eaten hot before they got fatty. Terence drifted away from the window, as he knew that the really interesting information would come the next day. He went up to Lyria and started a long speech about the proper preparation of goat balls with a drift into the complete absence of any of those protocols in the current case. Lyria ate a dripping, oily ball with a cocktail fork and nodded at him, her mouth too full to bother disagreeing. The chains of her official robe glinted in the lamplight. Terence felt he was making quite an impression and started on the dire inadequacies of the coffee. This was a much safer subject as no-one could disagree that it tasted like warm mud. 494949494949499449494949 Character is worth a thousand plots, but character is revealed by action. It is possible to love a Cuthbert or an Eloise far more than the authors, even to the J Rabbit defence – 'the character isn't acting badly, he's just written that way'. This explains the ability of well-acted characters like Owen Harper or Lee to transcend the occasional bad episode or frankly wrong bit of business. How are characters built? Where do they come from? How is one character differentiated from another with similar traits? How the hell can Alt Us work, even without names? But do they? How much of an AltU is being built in the reader's mind using shared references? Although Barthesy would say this is true of any story, and it's all being written in the reader's head. The solid visibility of TV and film makes a huge difference, but people have built whole AltUs and Jessica defences of book characters, so much that they can call an actor a Darcy or a Hamlet type without ever seeing them act. James Ellroy said that character is created by dialogues but description seems to help a lot. Snape is no blond. Halfway along the alley was a wall covered in ivy, green and yellow. It hung arched slightly over the back wall of a small brick house, looking like a good place for a den. There was a tiny crack in the wall behind it that opened a wooden door into a disused shed. Three unplaced cubi met here, sitting on rakes and drums of rusty oil and talking about the great

campaigns they'd be able to mount when they got more money. The alley itself, like all liminal spaces, was a good way to surprise yourself. There would often be rubbish in the alley, some of it exciting stuff like bookcases and bicycles, and some of it just puzzling, like half-broken lamps resting on damp boxes of half-built solsbranches. Every now and then, but not often, not often at all, you'd meet someone coming the other way, someone just as keen to cut out the boring parts of the road and take their chances with the cobbles and the dissolving boxes of plaster. You'd look at them and smile secretly and ping hard balls back over the wall at the yappy dog. They tried the old trick of lying back and looking at the sky. " Instead of looking at them, we should let them look at us.'' " Now I can see all the eyes staring. What are their names?'' " They aren't ours to name. They are all called their own things. If I had a dog I'd call it Bark'' They held hands a little more and slid their eyes around to avoid the glare of all those stars looking at them. ''What do you want to eat right now?'' " Pizza would be nice. An ordinary plain pizza with a thin crust.'' " We should be inside now. Somewhere normal.'' " With fake vinegar.'' " Not that normal. What is the point of that stuff anyway?'' " I know ! I mean, how cheap is vinegar? It... s no use. I can still see them looking at me.'' " A million galaxies of people looking at a million more, all called something the others will never know.'' ''Dammit.'' After a long row about food ( Zirin reckoned they should cook on a little gas stove and Jenna told him about the time they went to the festival and ended up eating vegan curry from tents to avoid washing-up the billy can ) they were off up the mountain, singing jolly songs with great cheer and sarcasm. They could see something shining at the base of the actual mountain. Coming closer, they saw two robots sitting on rocks either side of the path. " Why would robots need to sit down?'' " Maybe they're people disguised as robots.'' But robots they were and they barred the way. Only Jenna could get

through, for some daft reason. The dimly-lit rather 70s couchy shagpile, with a small group of friends round, vinyl and no lights on at all, talking about travel to safaris and old records. The air was smooth and clear, and a faint smell of lilac came over the breeze, but Jenna couldn't start the Mission today because it was a nameless day. They popped up during the year on some old lunar-stellar cluster rotation system that only the auspicers could work out. You'd flip your Cheesy Joke of the Day desk calendar over and there it would be – unprinted or painted, bordered in green and hedged about with lucky spells. She could hardly get her hair cut on a no-day, never mind set out on important missions. Still, if she was going to be so bloody superstitious, she may as well get it done properly. She booked an appointment with an auspicer from the local council ( by email because they would hardly pick up the phone on such a day. Come to think of it, almost every day was a no-day for those people ) . Two days later she popped down to the council's Auspicial Advice department with a bag of crisps and a long book. When #99 came up, she put it away. Of course, of course, she was #00. Some sort of list of feelings and the odd strings that go together and barely even make a scene, just a blob of associations. That beer advert for 'Cars' where some couple had a swimming-pool in theirs. Benny Green, two -o -clock on a Sunday, talking of some half-forgotten show singer from 1948 with a famous trumpeter in the background as the roast roasts on and it's been a hard week but now it isn't. Maybe pie later, overbaked in the room. The hills can be seen from a lot of places, but they're always far anyway. No-one else seems to think that's astounding, but they could be anything. Folds her arms as she walks, always wears jeans but seems feminine. Quite tall and solid, sandy straight hair, red elbows. Has a square bag just under the armpit. Prefers dogs to cats. ################# Blue. The aspect of him that remained constant despite the other changes. Either Hollywood-underfed, dark-haired and muscled, or softened blond and island-pale eyelashed, the blue was always there. Clear, narrow, deep, almost fluorescent in its serene innocence, one flash, one honest guarded gaze and the vision was flooded with blue. His nose was maddeningly short and a little upward, too small for his frame, connecting his round-cheeked petal-pink complexion to a sense of button-nosed innocent moppetry, something to pet and tickle. His form was small, neat and well-rounded, but unclothed showed lumps and shiny mountains of secret unfolded muscletry. His arms flowed surprising, like breasts wide and generous under his innocent face. His voice a little cracked, a little earnest, proper and demure, even when screaming or laughing. His mouth a little tight and unforgiving, except for triangular

smiles that ignited the roseleaf cheeks and danced all the way up to the blue, the last true innocence. Even lying, even wrong, the blue was always clear. But is better than butter and ouch is better than utter. The nots are trying to get into her webchair and she can hear them scritching away at the restraining straps. She goes over the safety protocols with little description, but mentions the bit about a ship plooking for a second looks like a thousand years crossing the open skies of a planet on another Side. The nots get into her recording device and start to chat to her inside her head because they're that wee. Then a big plot twist happens. Once a month the synaesthesia group met and described their days with special laser pens. Sometimes it took hours to convey the baked-cake smell of buying a pair of socks. It was pretty expensive to have to drape the group in knotted nylon fishing-nets in order to make them understand Friday. So, the wicket is exposed to rain. Like HP, it's a culture that doesn't pamper. Someone has a vastly broken nose as a result of the uncovered pitches. Maiden, hero, sidekick etc. Who is the Sirius? The Kara? Do you see a hole in the panoply and devise a hero to fit? What are the specifics of the characters that keep them apart and how do you invite so many in? So anyway, the research proposal. I can't be doing with marxist crit. It ain't happening. That CS Lewis piece on criticism, about the way the Many read as opposed to the Few, is a lot less snobbish if the argument is applied to tv. Only a few people see the point of caring, or of rewatching. I wonder if the thesis could woolly itself up to being about tv drama itself? As a worthwhile thing. Not much of an argument though. " There is a kind of story that has a value in itself – a value independent of its embodiment in any literary work, like Orpheus.''' ( or like the time I outlined most of Btvs series two to Gwyn while painting and it still made sense emotionally ) . Miffic stuff without needing the specifics. Will it work if retold by others? " ( He compares Buchan to Haggard – Buchan is the better stylist, but H has something miffic going on ) . Stories told to friends as anecdotes always present as fantastic, even by a tiny amount " The strangest thing happened the other day...'' even when it's 'I found moths in my coat'. When talking about internal-logic plot improbables, the 'fantasy' is of a different order. 'What if a 16th century girl dressed up as a boy and her own lover didn't recognise her? Well, if that bizarre thing did happen, this

is what would come next...' ( it's like asking why trumps should be trumps ) . Children are much more 'deceived' by school-stories than by fairy tales. Interesting metaphor of Wikipedia being inaccurate and collaborative and somehow less likely to be taken as The Sole Truth as a properlyresearched encyclopaedia, with no debate allowed and all prejudices firmly entrenched. Man with fake dead grandmother in car. Much rarer than time travel normally. A sort of dare. Egg – asked to keep hold of egg but it hatched and then much more difficult. " So what sort of keyring have you got?'' " Oh, it's cute ! It has a little rotating ball in the middle and a coated centre... " " Yeah, well not so much with the coated centre.'' " Ohhh... I see what you mean. I should get one of those feywork antiiron ones. Thing is, the people who walk around with them are all the worst goths. They're the sort who sit around going 'Oh well, if only I was normal like you. Oh, the burden...'' " You are one of them now. That's what you don't realise.'' " A go... Oh. Oh. I suppose I am one. How embarrassing. But I never wear green, it looks like I think grep music is a good idea.'' " Now you're on the inside. It's real, and maybe some of the greppers are. " She starts off with the group and its little projects, spodding about. Then the quest comes and it gets taken away bit by bit until she's left with the dregs of the dregs and goes mad. Then the reconstruction comes as rather clunky and deliberate, as she acts as if for a while, putting together fake dregs from the bottom up. She doesn't give up on the quest thing or her principles, but doesn't let Sreth tell her what to do so much. Of course, the big question is why the hell doesn't Sreth do it herself? Grooming is always used, so not too copy-ish, look at Romo grooming Lee, or the dark end of what Giles did. On the other hand, I don't want to get all anti-grooming. ... and a bruise like someone hit me in the night. Perhaps some sly pale creature did, in some dream life argument when I chose not to stay asleep. How bad a thing it is ! How wrong ! Is it possible for such creatures to walk around the day long living as normal? Can they really think they'd ever be normal? Library steeples. You meet more interesting people in train rather than bus stations because they're habitually going further. Barnes has lived as I have lived. I know it. I don't know what it means, but it's true. Something to do with the faint smile of 'nothing is serious'. Butters, oddly, has it too.

####################### He bends his head down and waits for the clippers to tickle his neck. There's a faint touch, a jerk and a sharp sting. " Sorry ! ", she chirps, " They've gone blunt ! " He twitches his cheek in irritation. " Well, that's no good ! " " Nothing lasts forever, A. Better get used to the shabby look'' " No. I can't have this''. He hates it when his hair pushes onto his collar, " I'll find another set.'' She dabs at the cut on his neck, making comic-nervous faces behind his back at the size of the cut. " Here, let me see them. Maybe we can get them re-sharpened.'' She hands the clippers to him after another dab at his neck, and he turns them gently in his hands.'' " Look – there's a little screw here, you can just... Why do you keep dabbing my neck?'' " Nothing ! Just a bit of fluff. It looks great back here.''. She leans forward and blows along his neckline to distract him. " I have to see this'', he says, breaking into a smirk. He angles his head into the path of her breath. She pouts and tilts two hand-mirrors for him. One of them is cracked. 8o8o8o8o8oo8o8o8o8 Swan Lake. Edgar/Edmund. Sy/Peter, the best concept of Clark/Lex; all have the dark half in a formalised sense as The One That Got Away. The single step off the path from one is the hop onto the wrong road for the other. Sir, in his oyster-bar speech showed two hands moving away from each other but parallel. The redemption and the damning in one package – but they're so similar ! They could have done this or that. Best if it's recognisably slashable, sign of a good bond. Although villains can have rescuers ( a different role, ask the girl on the porch or the man with the needle ) and heroes have sticky little voices... actually, goodbods go wrong when they ditch their advisors and go too far alone. Also it is universally acknowledged that evil is more fun. Odile gets the snappy black beads and the 32 fouettes, while Odette gets to mope prettily in her feathers. Syl gets an awesome coat while lil Petey just gets silly haircuts. Dumb people hate the William arc because he became less 'fun'. Shows it's working. But baddened goodbods aren't the fun sort of bad. You never see a deformed goodbod sitting back one day and really luxuriating in his newfound badness. Gaius B betrays nervously and Brutus comes almost apart. Who has ever cast off their conscience with a happy squeak? Whereas the way people slowly put on the metal coats of guilt is almot palpably painful.

So there were two little trani boys who wanted me to join their gang. One of them was my best friend and the other was an exquisite creature that wore pink silk and turbans. He liked to touch la bosom. They had a few friends round and initiated me with the special drink/bath, and said it was safer because I was there and they couldn't be alone. Too many arguments. I was only safe because I'd been there before and wasn't jealous. Shame about the dress sense. I walked past Thorp lake afterwards and decided that fishnets would be my Thing after I got a better bike, all colours of fishnets with those suede boots. ... and round and round we went, with me not being quite cool enough for all the rooms, grimly hanging on to the better people as they trailed through all the upstairs rooms and dance rooms and the secret access granted only room. Later, the interview was pretty grim, with her savaging my lame pretentions of something close to youth and coolness, and I bouncing demented with desperate sarcasm " Was there anything you liked?'' I squeaked. " Well, when are you going to marry New Order?'' I don't wanna be the start above the city every day, not every routine day but at least every week for whole scads of time. What is wrong here? There is another way of doing it, actually Coming off the waves the banned boats sweep. I never said that. The whole night of shrinking. Silver knitwear in the dust on the floor. Go out alone come back alone, run round alone & make snow. Take it or what how would you snort trees. Rich oil roast voice and shiny butterface. Yes. In green, ohdenial walls. Silk knot at the red face, jolly sound of creaking. Summer done, more contraction. Less action. High shoes, lose? Be who? When? Costs a lot. Costs a lot to not. Look a tramp, but feel a story coming on. Boot black buttons winking at the stars. Still warm in October, alive wait the trees Full sap-leaved of poison, the wind breathes Your shoes are too heavy, your socks are too sticky For last time this passage your toes should run free This jacket, no jacket, all jackets just skin Later every hand is hooded, every hair sheathed Every neck passed through wool every daylight Safer, snugger, coddle down in wet wool to sleep Not trip outside without glove-care, are they on? Is one on? Is one lost? Do they match? Where's the hat? How's the scarf? Do they fit?

In this pock it? Away from dread, kinky gloves protect the touching fingers. And the scarf tied throat protecting from colds and fast voices. Will it still be needed in the spring? There is not a secret movement of cubi determined to go back to the Old Ways. They find the new way more convenient, and anyway it's a lot grosser than people realise – even the fey. What do suxi eat? Apart from the obvious. I'd say certainly they eat a lot. Not thin, young and posturing but generally warm and blowzy/blousy/bluesy. They generally pose as casual witches. And the name of the man she left to walk behind the procession was Egdon, same as the star. So I was in the city of the Ladies as a tourist, only in the more suburban londony bits. B was there, slightly, but wasn't very interested. I saw a mosaic-tiled decorated museum on a side street and went in ( after visiting their darn public loos ) . The girl at the ticket booth said I should go to the park to look at the skyline, even though it was raining because it looked odd and fascinating above the very green trees. ...and when she pressed the button by the side of the window, the window misted up in a tiny hebrew pattern. After a while I had the nerve to ask " It's to let the people outside know we can't come out, it's a feast day''. There wasn't much feasting in the room, especially as we had to close the other curtain. I don't know what we were waiting for in that room, maybe the death of the faint flux or the hiding shadows to take everyone, one at a time. When I was left alone there weeks later, I pressed the button to let them know outside it was a special time and not to expect us. The sun set behind the hedges, making them thick black against the landpink stripes. They crouched under the hedge as it got colder and darker and crisper. The only noise left was the hum of cars on the motorway beneath them, down the bank back into the world. She crept so quietly she caught a rabbit round the neck, laughing in her throat and stroking its long dead ears. He lit a tiny fire under the hedge and threw the beast in to roast or burn. She picked it out with a hawthorn branch and they ate the limbs, sweat-salted and a little underdone. Then they drank the last of the water and stomped the fire shut. It would be a good time to sleep, but the day was fairly young and some of the old urban life still ran through them. So they lay close-to under the hedge roots under a grey coat and over a blue one. Pillowed on their arms, they told each other stories to sleep, each cracked and unjoined and each equally

unrecognised. The last tired mutter wandered off towards the road and they slept. Ants walked over the rabbit and they joined hands. The two doors, the fire exit, pointing the hallway to sell it, the meal of fish or chicken and all on a tray on the grill but wrapped in plastic, the parade past the door, doro didn't answer, but a small fish hopping by said something pleasant. Les fleurs de sentis sont dans le jardin. Sharon Valerii, Rusty the shipper dalek, Tony Benn, Clodius Pulcher, Hugh, 'Fool For Love', Edmund P, Draco settled for a halfdemption – all her could do was avoid killing and nod tersely. I wonder if he's worse or better because of fandom intervention? ( Are these the eyes of a rat? Hm? ) Garak and Damar. 'break the programming' – the core of redemptionism. Even Lee to an extent ( bad little soldier ) . Lex/Gollum didn't really succeed, dragged down by what they want. Lex interesting because he tried to do good and got fuzzier and fuzzier. The small fake Dukat goodness, where he fought on the right side, but unlike William didn't get a taste for it. Why? William was unambitious. He wasn't innately good or anything, but his natural inclinations made it easier to stick once it started. Basically, he was too chatty to be a villain, lacked the goth temperament. All he wanted to do was hang out. Plus evil things have plans and he got bored too easily. This was nicely contrasted with his other half, who had to fight mopey tendencies and urges to Run Things even when chock full of tasty goodness. Not the Chosen One, pushed about like a prize cow, but the unnoticed one. That first small step off the path. Like a boat out of the blue. Eight steps in and sees you through. The other side is the moment of realisation. Waking up in disgust. The Matrix. Sharon's moment by her bunk when it was either her or the captain who got it. The pause in btvs 'Crush' before he bites. Ant's tired, over made up face, playing and killing because he knew it killed him and the country he used to have. ################### Time travel on the radio – dopplered voices, different speakers through different speakers – dopplered doppelgänger. Ultra-complicated with chains of pain of people all bitching at each other – some of them are the same person ( like a temporal caper movie ) . next – separate into thematic sections. Then do the plookship thing as a story for sfx.