#fixit fic

“Also, I helped you find the Archive. You’re welcome.”

I--excuse me, I fucking find it difficult to believe that any politician, no matter how real, fictional, out-of-touch, or down-to-earth, would just OUT and tell a couple of teens "I helped you find the archive--🎵You're welcome!!🎵" Like, sure yeah yeah yeah whatever, would anyone really believe a couple of teenagers who just took their vows to be dutiful members of society, over a man who has been reigning from on high for at least a couple decades? But he's a fucking politician. On the one hand, he may very well be out of touch with consensus reality, but he would goddamn well know his constituency, and these teens are a part of that constituency now. He needs them to continue to respect him and do his bidding.

Chase must’ve caught the tiny sway in my body from the lightheadedness taking over. He stood up quickly, moving aside so I could sit down in his spot. I folded my legs close to myself, as if protecting my body, and all I could think about was how badly I wanted to be alone in my room in Conviction Woods. Chase sat down on the ground, his back against the front armrest of the chair to avoid getting too close to my legs. I appreciated how careful he was about my space.

Blah blah blah

“Alright, now that we’re situated—” Atlas began, and Chase opened his mouth to say something. Atlas put his hand up. “Ah—nope, here, let’s get the shock over with. I know she found the arch. I know you’re a Libran Healer.”

"Let's get the shock over with"???? What the fuck even kind of thing is that to say??? I don't understand. Is this the fucking Hunger Games???

Chase and I stared at him in disbelief. There was no way it wasn’t a trap.

I'm only leaving in their annoying reactions for clarity when I come back to read this in fifty years.

“How?” Chase finally forced out. “How did you know that about me? I’ve only ever told my dad.”

Moving on. I'm sure there's no way in the whole entire world that his dad would have told anyone. Two can keep a secret--if one of them is dead.

“I’m an Arctura. I just know these things.” Atlas smiled and crossed his arms, dangerously close to tipping his chair over. “There’s not much you can hide from the Stellarium. You’re damn lucky I’m the part of the Stellarium who knows about your archpower.”

What is with this over-the-top clownish, silly, childish behavior??? Is this supposed to like, be mirroring?? To make them feel like he's one of them?? Because if I was an older teen and suddenly found myself plopped in front of one of the biggest politicians in my government, this would be really off-putting. And on the one hand, a fucking seasoned politician would know this.....so what is he playing at??

“And you led us to the arch?” Chase followed up. “Aren’t you supposed to be working alongside the Scorpio Arctura?”

What the fuck, Chase, you blabbermouth. Shut up.

“’Supposed’ is the key word there.” Atlas sighed heavily. “I’m not fond of Verena’s leadership style.”

So what, is this like, political sabotage? Is this a power grab? I suppose it would make sense to ruin a couple of kids' lives for your own political gain....but you have to do that in a way that convinces the kids that it's not for your gain and won't be to their detriment. A fucking politician.....would. Know. That. WINTER!!!!

Chase nodded slowly. “So you led us right to a scroll that disproves the law she swears by.”

I just hate this conversation. Chase, shut the fuck up.

“Precisely. I despise the Scorpio Code. I have my reasons.” “Why us?”

Winter has no fucking idea how to make a politician behave. I'm not going to pretend I know much better how I would manipulate two teens into bringing down my political enemy that we both hate, but it wouldn't be this. hhhhhhh

“Ready for this?” Atlas rubbed his hands together. “The Aries Stellarium can’t expose the scroll. That’d be pitting Aries against Scorpio, and we don’t want another war on our hands. Ideally, the Scorpio Code gets reversed by Scorpio. Easy answer: a Scorpio historian who hates the Code and a Libran Healer who can read ancient Driksaal.”

"Ready for this" like it's some kind of joke. And then he just lays all his cards right out--they're teens, not children. And clearly, with an uptick in the Scorpio enforcer presence in Hub--gawd, I hope Winter remembers that Chase and RIeka are living in Hub right now--by the way, it would be bad enough for there to be more enforcers acting brutally in Conviction, but wouldn't it cause some kind of political tension in Hub for there to be more Scorpio enforcers? ApPaReNtLyYyYy the Scorpio enforcers can only intervene with Scorpios.... So as a non-Scorpio, which is roughly 92% of the total population in Hub, I'd be feeling pretty nervous. It's like saying that suddenly the police presence has gone from every few blocks to every street corner, with no warning and no obvious reason. Even if the cops only beat black people, and I'm not a black people, I'd probably still be a bit on edge. I don't know about the rest of you, but I feel like even if I hated black people, I probably wouldn't want to watch someone get the shit beat out of them. Like, I can say with confidence, I wouldn't want to watch a certain major political figure get the shit beat out of him, no matter how much I loathe his pseudo-politicality.

Gawwwddd, this was supposed to be a tiny part of why I'm posting chapters so slowly..... Now I feel like I have to go back and entirely retool all this Scorpio enforcers stuff. Like, surely there'd be a noticeable uptick in tension, even from other signs toward Scorpios.

Oh, sorry, I got off on a bit of tangent. So on the one hand, he's got a decent point: Politically speaking, it would be best if Scorpio came down from the inside. But why did it have to be a Scorpio historian? There aren't supposed to be that many of them. And why did it specifically have to be a Scorpio historian who hates the Code? To hear it told, everybody hates the Code, but it sounds like they just can't tell each other that, because of the way they've been politically (yes, and socially) atomized from each other.

The last thing is this, oh so convenient--a rare Libran Healer who can also happen to read an ancient written language. What the actual whole entire fuck??????

The realization visibly hit Chase. “Is that why I can read a language I was never taught?”

The WHAT!?!??! What the fuck, Winter did you even fucking re--oh, right, that's right. You're allergic to re-reading your own writing. If you really want to write stories that other people will enjoy, you're going to have to tackle that phobia. Oh wait, just kidding. She's phobic of feedback that doesn't further gas up her oversized ego. Ugh sorry, that's unfair. We're not trying to be toxic against the writer; we're trying to salvage the narrative using my skills, experience and so forth. I'm a lazy bitch. I don't really want to tear this scene completely down and rebuild it.

“Libran Healers can automatically read Driksaal. I’m quite surprised neither of you knew that.” Atlas yawned. “How long were you out there?”

Wow fucking deus ex machina strikes again. Also, this is fucking bullshit, because Chase fucking SAYS out of his own MOUTH, that he can barely read contemporary driksaal becaaaauuuussseee they didn't have to learn it in school. So NO, Atlas, you clown, no, Libran Healers can fucking NOT automatically read driksaal.

“We had no choice,” Chase defended our choice to leave, ignoring the question to not embarrass the two of us. I made a note to myself to thank him later for carrying the conversation. “The Scorpio Stellarium was on the second floor.”

Total non-answer. It's such a non-answer, it's a non-sequitur. Is the question to this answer in the room with us? Is it anywhere in the building???

“Did you not figure out that someone from the Stellarium helped you find the Scorpio Archive? And, if that person knew where the Archive was, wanted to show you that the Code was false, and knew your names, they probably would’ve kept you safe and hidden from Scorpio?”

WHAT?!?!? That is--like I said in the last-night of this story--a fucking leap-reach. Who in their right mind, who doesn't assume that they're the main character of a novel, would fucking skip to "someone led us here; someone set us up"??? How the fuck does an Aries know where the fucking Scorpio Archive is???? This is so fucking WEAK!! What the fuck am I supposed to do with this??

Chase narrowed his eyes. “In our defense, there’s no way we could’ve predicted that the Aries Arctura was on our side, and to be clear… you’re part of the Stellarium, who is trying to murder us, and we walked into your office.”

You can't be that stupid, Chase. Unless Winter has completely misled the entire audience, the Stellaria are a one-sign-to-themselves thing. Also, you can't fucking call the government that oversees the whole union a Stellarium, it's fucking confusing. The Aries Stellarium (nor the Libra Stellarium) are not trying to fucking kill you, you brick-brain. Perhaps the Scorpio Stellarium is trying to kill you, but I doubt they're trying to kill a Libra. Perhaps the Conviction Union overseeing body is trying to kill you, Chase.

“I want you to trust me. Look, I’m here to protect you.” Atlas continued. “You’re two young folk I rescued in the storm, and most importantly, neither of you are Aries. All I did was save your lives. I don’t have any obligation to say a thing about you.”

A) How did he KNOW to rescue them? B) Why DID he rescue them? C) What the fuck? WIIINNNTTTEEERRRRRRRRRR!!!!

He was either being genuine for reasons we didn’t understand, or manipulatively charismatic. Knowing the Stellarium, it was probably the latter.

So. Whyyyy. The. FUCK. Do you fucking keep letting Chase TALK!?!?!? I feel like even my head-canon that they've got some Asian/Japanese (I don't know how other specific cultures place emphasis on exact age and superiority) age/respect thing going on. Like, how apparently, so the internet has told me, upon meeting, the Japanese will be like "hi, I was born January 21, 1990" "hi, you're my junior, I was born December 16, 1989". But surely even on occasion, a Japanese twenty-three-year-old will be like "gawd this twenty-four-years-and-three-months-old is a fucking idiot and they need to shut the fuck up before they get us in trouble". Surely. Surely, occasionally, it's acceptable to grab your elder by the ear, or stomp on their toe.

“I know things about you and her that I’m not supposed to know,” Atlas said to Chase, “so let’s get on equal ground, Libra, and I’ll tell you something that I’m not typically allowed to share. Fair?”

Yeah, how the fuck is that? How the fuck is this clown so goddamn omnipotent?? On the one hand, I understand that even before the internet, if there was a politician high-up who took whatever interest in a person, they could apparently--so I'm told--eventually get every last scrap of information on me--from my grades, to everywhere I've lived, and possibly every book I've ever read, how inconsistently I take my meds, and every person at whom I've ever flashed a polite smile. I still do not believe that this was actually a real thing before the internet.

“Why should we believe that you’re not just going to turn us in?” Chase asked hesitantly.

“Because I despise Verena and the Scorpio Stellarium just as much as you do. I have my reasons.” Atlas had no intention of disguising the disgust hidden in the tone of his voice when he spat out Verena’s name. He swung his legs down to lean forward, his elbows on his desk, resting his chin on top of his folded hands. “I can’t be responsible for dividing the Stellarium. By letting the two of you wreak chaos, you make my life significantly easier.”

How the fuck would such a massive clown have continued to be a part of such a high office of government???? "Okay, children, now your mission is to wreak chaos and havoc on the government so that I can get more political power" Dafuq. You'd have to be like, low-IQ serial killer dumb to think that you could get away with this. These two don't actually fucking know you. How do you know they aren't, on some level, inherently against you too??

Chase pondered the offer. Atlas held out a hand. Chase looked back to see if I agreed, and with no other option in sight, I gave him a small nod. He reached forward and shook Atlas’s hand.

Chase. You are. So. Fucking. Dumb. You fucking poopoo head.

“Now, Rieka, this involves you, too.” He held a hand out to me. “You don’t tell my secret, and I won’t tell yours. Sound good?”

Okay, look. We all already know Rieka is the mostest speshulest gurl and that she has the mostest speshulest power. So, what, does Atlas fucking already somehow know that Rieka is a fucking Zodiac Turner??? Or is he literally just talking about her Super Duper Top Secret Speshul Unique hatred of the Scorpio Stellarium?? Again, the fucking only thing keeping the Scorpio Stellarium in place is that its constituents are too afraid to speak openly to each other. But apparently they have no fucking problem speaking openly to fucking other signs.

I wasn’t sure what else we had to lose, so I shook his hand.

He smiled. “The history of the Zodiac Turners. The magic was destroyed in the War of the Rebalancing. True or false?”

“True?” Chase answered slowly.

“False,” Atlas corrected him. “It’s still in Gardian. It’s still here, like your healing. There are six known Zodiac Turners in Gardian. At least. We think.”

AARRGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!?!!!!?!?! How the fuck would you fucking know that??? Although they should, they are not made to do all three gestures at the fucking ceremony. Also, have I mentioned that it pisses me off that some fucking how two signs from the same fucking union are apparently allowed to be at the top and the remaining some eighty fucking percent of the population is--what, turning a blind eye??? Okay with being underrepresented??? WIIINNNTTTEEERRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!

“Six?” I echoed. “To my understanding, the only Zodiac Turner is the immortal Blaine, who, as told by Silas Merek, created the Scorpio Code.”

“Knock it off with the formality. I already know you’ve broken it,” Atlas told me. “Also, just because the scroll didn’t list out the names of the Turners doesn’t mean that Blaine’s the only Zodiac Turner.”

What the fuck. First, Rieka is not supposed to be stupid. She's S U P P P O O O O S E E D D to be a fucking historical researcher. Why the fuck would she say such a goddamn fool thing as 'the fucking three hundred-odd year old fucking scroll didn't list by name the zodiac turners who would exist today'.

And then fucking Aries with the 'surrender your life to me and drop your Scorpio facade because we all know that shit is fake'. Yeah, I bet every single last Scorpio on the face of Gardian hates the code /s, and I'm frankly sick of hearing such a presumption. How the entire fuck could he POSSIBLY know that she's already broken the Code???? Like, nobody without electricity is THAT omnipotent. You're seriously fucking telling me, what, there were people like on the East Trail when she was going back to the arch with Chase?? You are full of so much shit. Unless....he's just....trying to... call her....bluff??? That's an extremely aggressive way to be doing that....

“You said at least six, and that you thought,” Chase repeated. “So, there could potentially be more.”

Atlas, holding onto a pencil that he was tapping in his hands, went quiet for a moment to inspect us. “If I were you, I’d focus on the number six.”

Just. wut

I exchanged a glance with Chase again. The Scorpio Stellarium was already after me for breaking the Code. Atlas appeared to be on our side—suspiciously on our side—but more than anything else, I was intrigued.

“What direction should we go from here?” I asked.

Atlas’s eyes lit up at the omittance of Scorpio formality. “You tell me.”

“The arch. You gave us a translation guide to ancient Rurian.”

I. Am. Going. To. Scream. Why the fuck do they need to go back to the goddamn fucking arch??? They already fucking did the rubbings. They HAAAVVVEEE the fucking information that they need. They need to apparently go to this mountain, if it's even a real place. What if it's been re-named, or what if, over time, people have mistaken another mountain for the one that they actually want. Also, has Winter ever fucking been to a mountain?? Maybe I'm just stupid, but I've been back and forth over the Rockies and 'mountains' are rarely as distinct as the stories always make them sound. Like, in my experience, it's almost always easier to name and identify a range of mountains than a single one--especially as you get closer to that mountain range. Only the very peaks of mountains in a range are distinct, and, again, in my relatively limited experience, the peaks are hard as fuck to get to, and not actually that big/significant a part of the mountain. Mountains rarely ever stand independently, and personally, I would not hide something anywhere, inside or outside, on a mountain like that. Those are the kinds of mountains that siren-song people 'climb me! explore me! come! come!' Mountain ranges tend to be where humans live, which would make human-made things less obvious, and more tedious to sort through for something like a holy grail.

“There you go.” Atlas stood up and stretched. “We are right next to the East Trail, by the way. I’ll give you that much with your blizzard navigation skills. I’ve got you for the night. I have a room in the back with a bed, if one of you would like to sleep there and the other on the floor.”

"I've got you" fucking hate that. Like, in this context.

Everything I've heard of it, it sounds really awesome--it just sounds like the author either didn't actually get editors to help; was too precious with her darlings to take the revisions, maybe she hoped nobody would notice. Who the fuck even knows. What little of the writing I've seen has been atrocious.

I started writing creatively, on purpose, with consistency, when I was about ten, a few weeks before my eleventh birthday. I remember I was still on summer vacation and we were getting reeeeaaallllyyyy close to the start of the school year. So I was going into fifth grade, I believe. By the time I was in about seventh grade, I had finished my first manuscript and felt ready to publish. I'm kind of glad I had no fucking idea what I was doing or how to contact a legit agent or anything. I mean, I'm a little wistful that my dad lost every last scrap of writing I did over the course of about eight freaking years, but I'm glad I didn't get a million rejection letters saying, what are you, twelve?? Or worse, get picked up and been way in over my head.

Furthermore, I'm especially glad that print on demand services were not really a thing in my earliest teen years.

However, I don't really think I believed that I was entitled to anything. Just because I started seriously writing at ten, does NOT mean I had the life experience to tell really interesting, original stories in an original way. I think I'm also really glad that all the upheaval in my life between the ages of seventeen and nineteen drove me off my course of what was really hypergraphia--just writing to escape, writing to crawl up into my own imagination and be enveloped like in a womb.

As a fully fledged, if flailing, adult, I've found my way back to writing of late, but with my twenties behind me, I can imagine perspectives I never could have imagined before. I can pull on threads child-me probably never would have imagined seeing. My voice, I think, is stronger than ever, but more than that, I truly believe, even if my stories aren't that compelling, that they are very pleasant to read, even in early drafts.

This project that I'm writing right now, I'm so eager to be done with this first draft, to be able to put it away for a while, while I work on something else. I think even months or years after I'm done with this current/present project, I will still be very happy with the writing. Additionally, I have faith in my story crafting skills. I haven't done a ton of actual reading with my eyeballs these days, but my sculpting and drawing days were an incredible opportunity to absorb skills.

Furthermore, watching some of these YouTube channels that read horrible books to share their critique has been an incredible confidence booster. I feel very confident in my ability to lead a reader by the nose to directly the conclusion I'm attempting to deliver. I don't think I ever could have gotten here without my education and practice in the visual arts. In a piece of art, a picture may be worth a thousand words, but every single individual looking at your piece will come up with a list colored by their culture and upbringing and so much more that you can never factor for. Your work, whether it's poetry, fiction, a graphic novel or oil painting, whatever it is, will never appeal to everyone. Nor should it. As the saying goes, art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable. Your art will eventually find the right people and they will feel the right way.

However, you do want even the comfortable to have a good number of the intended/desired words on their list, in common with the disturbed.

Maybe I have too much faith in my skill at this. But I believe my skills at this are quite strong--I mean, not to punch low-hanging fruit, but especially in the face of some real garbage that I've seen and read and heard about lately. To be totally clear, I'm absolutely no Sen Lin Yu........but I'm certainly no Audra Winter. I'm sorry for absolutely shitting on Audra, but wow. I feel like it takes skill to be that horrible at writing and grammar!! She's twenty-two as of the time of debuting her novel. Apparently she thinks she has her ten thousand hours, but at the same time, I don't think she understands the ten thousand hours to mastery.

First, that theory was written by probably an idiot. Second, there's a difference, as others have said, between practicing one single thing--one cutting style, one recipe, one type of portrait, whatever--over and over; and making your practice as encompassing and educational to yourself as possible. There's a further difference between practicing alone--eating your own cupcakes, enjoying your own photos--and sharing with others, to further stimulate your own growth.

Now, look. Admittedly, I am having a difficult time getting enough people to look at my writing. I haven't had the resources (vehicle and gas money) to get to any kinds of writing/critique circles. But I would absolutely, unquestionably love to. I want my writing to be the best that it can be. I want other people to enjoy reading my stories as much as I enjoyed writing them.

Audra has way too much of her self tied up into her writing. She was way too impacted by people not loving her writing as much as she hyped them up for.

This is another thing that, doesn't necessarily come with age, but seeing as we age through time, and it takes time to write..... It takes time to write shit, and more shit, and even more shit. And you have to have the stomach to be able to read through first drafts. You have to have the fortitude to cringe at yourself first, before anyone else has the chance to. When you've already cringed at something that you made that was horrible, it hurts less when you can go to someone else and say, hey, this makes me cringe, but can you help me make it better? What do you think about it? And that kind of fortitude takes time to build. So it kind of does come with age.

I wrote creatively, to excess let's be real, from the time I was just shy of eleven, until I was about seventeen. I kept journaling and blogging, in college I wrote papers, but I didn't write creatively for about a decade. I don't know how long this writing stage will last. I don't believe it will last the rest of my life--who knows.

I think the big difference between myself and Audra Winter, besides the age gap and possible differences in neuro-divergency, is that I read a ton as a child, and even into my twenties, entering into my thirties, I have never stopped enjoying word-based stories--books, audiobooks, podcasts. I also think the one advantage I have over most humans who use language, is that I fucking love etymology. I'm always wondering, where did that word come from, what other words are like it, where did those words come from. Additionally, not to toot my own horn, but I have a unique affinity for language. Not to get too woo-woo, but in certain mind-states, I can actually understand languages that I've never studied or practiced. I can't do it on purpose, but I think it stems from my obsession with languages and words and etymology. I think another thing that I have that isn't freakish, but it isn't necessarily common in people who want to write and tell stories, I have an obsession with being better and doing better. Every time I absorb a story, I am, on some level, paying great attention to how the storyteller put those words together, the words they put together, the energy that the scene is going for.

I was in the car the other day when my sister started listening to this absolutely fabulous story, Song of Silver, Flame of Night. It's by an author who I assume by the name, is Asian. I actually don't know any more of the story than what we listened to in the car, but the way the author told a story of Asian colonization, I thought the story might have been historical fiction. Anyway. Fantastic. Absolutely recommend if you're looking for some Asian (at least based) fiction. Ugh so good. I must find it for myself. Eventually. It's really hard to write while listening to people talk.

So, to bring this back. I am vaguely plotting a fixit fic for Age of Scorpius. But still, my first and foremost priority is to this present project, my gift to my childhood self. And presently, I'm having way too much fun with it.