Because this came up somewhere on a post on my dash earlier, I thought I'd mention:
I have two AO3 accounts, and imaginarylifetimes isn't the one I'm logged into 99% of the time. Should I have migrated over years ago? Yes! Is it a mental hurdle that I just can't get over because I'd have to deal with bookmarks and subscriptions and then the way that I used to bookmark things before google bookmarks died (that I'm still upset about because they didn't notify people)? Absolutely.
If you see me reblogging a fic and saying that I loved it and then don't see imaginarylifetimes in the comments/kudos, this is why!
just saw a 'comments' tab on someones blog you know where the following and likes tabs would be if enabled and it was just showing all the replies theyve made on peoples posts. this is fascinating when did this feature come out
if you've made replies on posts there is now a tab on your blog showing every post youve replied to and your reply.
if this is not what you want, either go to your blog and click comments and disable it from there or just go to your individual blogs setting pages. just change it from blue to grey if you dont want everyone to see your replies AND the post you're replying to
PLEASE BE ADVISED that it is set to disabled for blogs that have not made any replies but it will turn ON if you reply with that blog in the future.! i just tested it with my main, which was greyed out but it turned on the moment i left a test reply
figured i'd get the word out bc i have not seen a single mention of this and i'm sure there are plenty of people who maybe comment on things they don't want on display for everyone to see on their blog lol. you can still look at your replies with it toggled off just no one else can, like locking the following and likes list
so for some reason this feature was actually announced on the tumblr engineering blog. interesting choice not to reblog it to the staff or tumblr blog, esp considering they asked for user input on how to implement it, but i suppose considering the response to the last update maybe the replies would be too overwhelming...
so couple of clarifications. comments are disabled as default for primary blogs that have their likes disabled. they are seemingly enabled for all other blogs that have replied to posts
posts you comment on may show on your followers 'for you' page if you leave your replies publically available. they may, in the future, show in on your followers dashboard if your follower goes to their dash settings and enables this. apparently, if your likes are enabled, your followers can already see those on the dash if they've gone into preferences and selected to do so, which I was unaware of, and that seems to be disabled at default, but it's possible i disabled it previously and forgot about it ig
This velociraptor piece was winning the majority of the project poll duration, so I worked on it while it was running. But then the salmon won! I was so close to finishing this at that point, so I wrapped it up, but didn't take any pics til now.
NHL(MLH) players are NOT renegotiating their contracts before they expire. and they are especially not renegotiating their contracts in a single season to change cap space to allow a player to join that they as players want on their team. c'mon y'all.
1. what?????? that is a legal nightmare. 2. their contracts (bodies/play) are OWNED by mega-billion dollar companies that have their own priorities that will ALWAYS supercede what players want unless these players have an in with the board of governors, team owners, etc. (highly highly unlikely and would be singular and limited)
3. the 2013 NHLPA CBA (collective bargaining agreement) explicitly states:
11.10 No Renegotiation. In no event shall a Club and a Player negotiate a change in any terms of a Player's SPC for the then-current season or for any remaining season of an SPC (except as provided for in Section 11.8(b)). This provision shall not prohibit a Player and Club from negotiating an extension to an existing SPC in accordance with the terms of Section 50.5(f) hereof, or from negotiating a new or reformed SPC or Offer Sheet in the limited context and time-frame expressly set forth in Section 11.6(a)(vi) above.
11.8 is Individually Negotiated Limitations on Player Movement and deals with SPC no movement clauses/no trade clauses, buyouts, etc. it does Not Say That Players are free to renegotiate their terms for the sake of adding another player to the team.
please, can we be so real and look things up that are very publicly available to look up about hockey. its not about me being a stickler and ruining HR fun. its literally like: let's not make claims that what RR did in racist writing in TLG (she did ! good to talk about and analyze esp. as we approach s2) ought to have been replaced with something that is not possible and doesn't solve anything anyways (pointless, does nothing). bc what it DOES do is add confusion about what's possible and undermines your argument about how shane taking a paycut and playing 2C for a shit team undermines his entire character and that its all dandy to everyone in TLG IS racist and belitting and outrageous. let's talk about that in a way that does not make sweeping wrong statements about NHL player contracts, pls
When my mother forgets a word, she is the queen of coming up with new words. Words that would take a third National Treasure movie to fully decipher. I was talking to her yesterday, and she said this: “You know the time for los jibbities is coming up. You must be so excited!” Oh, is it time for los jibbities already? I must have missed it on my calendar. Are we celebrating something? “Of course! We should all be celebrating, shouldn’t we?” OK, so los jibbities is a happy thing. It’s not like something is giving you the heebie-jeebies, which would have been my one and only guess. “Los heebie-jeebies? Now you’re making things up...and this is my show.” You’re right. The time for los jibbities is coming up. Is this a season? “Yes, the season for love. The season for pride.” OK, los jibbities. “Yeah, sound it out.” Los…jibbities. LGBTs! “Sí, mira cuz you’re gay!” “You couldn’t just say pride season? You couldn’t just… *laughs*
I am retired!!! I retired in October of 2017 and have kept my promise not to exchange my labor for money.
Since 2017, I have only done stuff that I thought was interesting or useful regardless of whether it pays, because we have more than enough money, and despite what billionaires might tell you, there is literally no difference between "more than enough" and "much more than enough."
So I no longer work for money. But in retirement one must keep busy, which is why I have taken on an unpaid gig as the social media intern for a coffee and tea business that donates 100% of its profit to charity.
I also sometimes travel to universities and other places to speak in support of Partners in Health and global access to tuberculosis care, and sometimes I write books because writing makes me happy, and every Tuesday I make a video on vlogbrothers, and I make a podcast about the world cup with my friends from high school, and so on, but none of these things constitutes work. These are just Retirement Projects, which are essential to a happy retirement.
HOLY SHIT GUYS, I WAS INSPIRED BY THIS POST TO TRY MAKE THE SONG AND YOU WOULD NOT BELIEVE THE SCREAM I SCRUMPT WHEN I DRAGGED THE TRAINING AUDIO OVER THE BACKING TRACK AND IT LINED UP PERFECTLY
I think that Xena, for all of its ridiculousness and cheesiness, did a better job of conveying the allure of evil than just about any other series I've ever seen. Like it understands that violence, no matter how justifiably it starts out, is addictive, and that hatred poisons you until you can't feel real joy anymore, and it's strange to me that I've never seen it laid out so simply elsewhere.
...so THAT'S what sleeper cell activation feels like. Because yes, YES, LET'S TALK ABOUT THIS, because Xena is such an interesting lightning-in-a-bottle-case study! While I would never discount the work done by the writers, Xena as a show is almost perfectly positioned both historically and structurally to consistently explore that theme.
The first puzzle piece is that Xena was a syndicated show at the tail end of syndication's total dominance of a distribution model. For those too young to remember a time when ongoing plots and prestige dramas weren't the norm, syndication is big part of why older television shows almost entirely kept plots contained to one or two episodes rather than having them span seasons. See, when a show is syndicated, it is licensed out to individual television stations/affiliates to be aired as reruns. The individual station chooses when to air them and in what order, and whether to just skip episodes they don't like in favor of the ones most likely to draw eyeballs, etc etc. The more a show is licensed, the more money you make on it, so there is an incentive to make each episode standalone to make them appealing to each station by enabling them to toss on whatever episodes they like without it being a problem for the casual viewer. Also, before streaming, easy access to dvds and episode recording, and the like, a show could not assume that even its fans would have necessarily have seen every episode. "Catching up" was not an easy thing, and reserved for the most dedicated, doing shit like physically mailing bootleg tapes! Therefore, shows needed to have a consistent formula that didn't lock out the person who couldn't watch last week for whatever reason. Characters remained within more of a status quo. Xena is a "monster of the week" style show, like X-Files. I mention X-Files intentionally, because it was one of the first to really break that no-ongoing-plots structure, and that shift affected its contemporaries, like Xena, who also started to follow suit.
That alone doesn't account for Xena being so primed to explore those themes, of course. Even staying within the same fictional universe, Hercules (which Xena is a spin-off of) and Young Hercules don't even come close to Xena's complexity on the subject. But that's because Xena's premise is perfectly positioned to interact with those practical constraints for this outcome in a way those shows aren't. The status quo that syndication demands remain mostly in intact is that 1) Xena was evil and really good at it, 2) she is trying to do good in the world now as penance but can never undo what she has done. Every episode is about Xena trying to save people while dealing with the consequences of her actions as a warlord. The fact that she was evil cannot be changed or diluted nor can the fact that she must continue trying to redeem herself, otherwise the show is over or is unrecognizable to the casual viewer. But this is also an action show, sometimes cartoonishly so, so she must also be fighting consistently! The core spectacle is violence and the core story is why violence is often evil. There is an inherent tension there that the writers either needed to interrogate earnestly or ignore, and they chose the honest, interesting route. They gave Xena a costar who is innocent and principled but loves Xena, and had her always asking why and trying to understand how Xena could be that person, while being put under similar pressures herself. They had Xena continue to use the tools she has, including violence, for good ends, and wrestled with the answers as to why that was ok, why the violence she did then and the violence she did now were different—and sometimes decided they weren't. They showed Xena struggling with falling back into those old habits because they are seductive and easy.
If someone asked "are there so many episodes of Xena where you find out someone tried to get her to change her ways many years ago and failed because that is a really great standalone premise, or because violence as a tool and power and vengeance as motivators are corruptive and hard to stop using once you start," the answer is yes. The show is cyclical because violence is. But also because it is syndicated.
After some thought... I teach a quail care class locally, it takes roughly 2ish hours, 3 max. I've been told a few times that people are too far to come to it or they would, or asked if I would do an online one for non-locals.
So, if I were to offer an online class about quail care, would you want to attend? I would probably set it up on zoom unless I find a better group video chat method (maybe a private youtube stream or something?), and it would be free or at least low-cost.
Would you attend an interactive online class about how to care for coturnix quail?
Yes, but only if it was completely free
Yes, but only if it was less than $5
Yes, but I may have other restrictions (tell me in notes)
I went to a library book sale this weekend and I found a very old book called “Electronic Life: How to Think About Computers,” which was published in I think 1975? I’ve been reading it kind of like how I would read a historical document, and it’s lowkey fascinating
There’s a whole paragraph that’s like “okay, find the keyboard. Don’t panic if it has more keys than a typewriter, that’s normal. Really, it’s fine. The extra keys don’t make things harder. It’s FINE”
Thought this section was particularly interesting:
Can the computer create something? At first glance it seems obvious that it can. Animated computer graphics, with their fluid transitions and whiplash perspectives, look strikingly new. And if one watches the machine doing animation work, there seem to be lengthy periods when the computer is acting “on its own.”
But if one observes these processes in more detail, it becomes clear that creation is not occurring within the machine. First of all, computer graphics are not unique. Computers have yet to generate anything that cannot be done by hand—and usually already has been done. Second, the apparent ability of the computer to “act on its own” is the outcome of thousands of hours of patient human effort to refine its instructions. The computer can manipulate a shape for us if we have already informed it what a shape is, what the rules for shape manipulation are, what this specific shape is, and so forth.
You can start an automobile engine and it will run by itself, too, but that doesn’t mean it’s being creative. It’s just running.
Somebody in 1975 had a better understanding of why artificial intelligence is not in any way “intelligence” than the majority of today’s intellectual minds.
What about a S1 AU where Buck doesn't just meet Abby, but also her husband Tommy?
Abby is interested in Buck because something in her marriage is broken, though Tommy insists everything is fine. But Buck and Tommy are also very drawn to each other... Could be very messy or easily resolved if you wish?
I picked - MESS. <3
1. Buck and Abby play out like we expect for the first few episodes. At least from Buck’s side. The scenes at Abby’s apartment now include a man in the background, fuzzy and out of focus. They don’t seem to interact.
2. Buck gets the text about Abby’s mom, and shows up at her apartment. A man answers the door, and Buck immediately notices the ring on his left hand. And then the matching band on Abby’s when she joins him at the door. What. The. Fuck. Buck’s stomach feels squirmy and bad. He’s been uh, definitely forward with Abby, and he thought she’d been feeling the same. He offers to take some flyers and drive around, and Abby jumps at the chance to go with him. Her husband, Tommy, says he’ll stay at the apartment in case Patricia comes back.
Abby and Buck sit in awkward silence in his car as they drive around.
“You didn’t tell me you had a husband,” Buck finally says.
Abby makes a little noise. “I think we’re only together because he doesn’t want to divorce me when my mom’s sick.”
And that. That’s kind of sweet? And also kind of fucked up.
“So, you were flirting with me?” Buck checks.
Abby purses her lips. “Yes.”
“So, what does that mean?”
“What do you want it to mean?”
Oh, this is so much worse than snake lady.
3. They find Patricia, they same way they did in the show. Abby’s husband shows up to drive her home, because she won’t get in a car she doesn’t know. She also keeps calling Buck Tommy.
Tommy looks at Abby and just says to get home safe, he’ll see her later.
Abby’s place is out. Buck’s place is out.
They go to a hotel that is way too fancy for what’s about to happen.
Buck washes her hair in the shower later and wonders how the hell he got here.
He drops her off in front of her apartment building, wondering what Tommy’s going to think about her coming home with wet hair and smelling like hotel shampoo and soap.
4. Abby comes by the firehouse after Chimney’s accident, and brings Tommy. Apparently Tommy used to work there!? And knows all of them!?
The others apologize for not realizing they were talking to her.
Tommy’s arm is wrapped around Abby’s waist the entire time, and Buck can’t stop staring at it, how Tommy’s pinky finger is invisible where it’s tucked into her waist band, how Abby laughs against his shoulder when they start telling stories about the old days, the way Tommy whispers in her ear, her hair hiding his face.
Hen sends him what feels like a million warning looks.
All Buck can think about is how Abby’s hair felt against his skin, the way she’d laughed with him, when her face had been tucked against his shoulder in a very different way.
Abby sends him the address of a different hotel practically before she’s left the firehouse, tells him to stay the night this time.
Buck drops her off the next morning again, and even though Abby’s apartment doesn’t face the road, he feels like he can feel Tommy watching him.
5. Buck realizes, when he’s helping Tommy move the no-longer needed hospital bed out of the apartment, that this is the first time he’s actually been in Abby’s apartment. He’d seen it, briefly, the day Patricia went missing, but he hadn’t been inside.
Tommy’s taking the bed somewhere in his truck.
Abby kisses Buck in her apartment, takes him to bed in the bed she shares with Tommy.
At one point Buck jerks towards the door, convinced he’d heard it open, but no one’s there.
They shower together, Abby jokingly mourning the hotel showers because Buck is almost too big for this one, and tells him that she’s filing for divorce.
Tommy’s walking in as Buck’s leaving. Buck’s ears feel like they’re on fire. He hopes Tommy doesn’t notice nothing had been done while he was gone.
6. Abby and Tommy get divorced. Buck basically moves in. A month later, Abby’s gone.
7. Buck runs into Tommy on a scene. They’re clearing the same floor of an apartment building. It’s empty, thankfully, and they’re half running down the stairs together when Tommy goes “Hear you’re living in my old apartment.” and Buck nearly trips and falls, would have if Tommy’s strong hand hadn’t shot out to catch him and haul him upright.
Buck has a flash of a memory, Tommy’s arm around Abby’s waist, and the next thing he knows he’s outside with no memory of how he got there.
Hen checks them both over, talking quietly to Tommy and shooting daggers at Buck. Things have been… tense… at the 118. Buck’s tired of the disappointed look Bobby keeps giving him, and Chim and Hen have become more insular than usual.
Tommy laughs, an unexpected sound. Buck can’t help leaning closer to hear what he’s saying. He catches “I’m gay, Hen.”
8. Tommy. Is. Always. Around.
Well, not on shift, because he has his own station, but every 118 hangout now includes Tommy.
The bonus is that everyone is treating him normally again. The downside is literally everything else.
Tommy’s also treating him nicely?? What?? The fuck??
Buck drinks a lot at the hangouts.
One night he drinks too much, and he’s practically stumbling over his own feet. Tommy offers to take him home, joking that at least he knows where Buck lives.
Buck’s pressing his forehead against the window of Tommy’s truck, trying not to embarrass himself any more than he already has.
“Why are you nice to me?” he asks. “I slept with your wife.”
“At least one of us did,” Tommy mutters, probably not meaning for Buck to hear him. “Listen, kid. Our marriage was long over, but Patricia got sick and I wasn’t going to leave her on her own for that.”
“It’s not like it was better that you stayed,” Buck says, then drifts off until Tommy stops in front of the apartment building, in one of the guest parking spots.
Buck protests that Tommy doesn’t need to walk him inside, but Tommy does, making sure Buck drinks a glass of water and takes some advil before he leaves.
9. Buck does it again. Because he wants to see what Tommy will do. And Tommy takes him home again. He even tucks him in this time.
It turns into kind of a game. Buck wants to see how far Tommy will go, when he’ll become too much for Tommy.
Tommy’s buying him drinks at the bar, spotting him for tips, sharing his nachos, driving him home.
10. Buck pretends to get drunk. He has one beer that he nurses, then switches to what he says is a mixed drink, but it’s just pop.
Tommy drives him home again, and Buck pouts and asks Tommy to walk him inside.
Tommy does, a little reluctantly. When he closes the door behind them, Buck pushes him up against the door.
“What are you doing?” Tommy looks a little panicked.
Buck looks at him for a minute. “I think you and Abby like me for the same reasons.” And he kisses him.
Tommy tries to push him away, says Buck has been drinking, he doesn’t know what he’s doing.
Buck laughs and tells him he only had one beer. He pushes Tommy towards the bedroom, and Tommy goes easily.
Afterwards, they lie together under Abby’s sheets, skin damp from sweat and come.
“Weird that we both had sex with the same person in this bed,” Buck muses, running his hand through Tommy’s chest hair.
Tommy’s gone when he wakes up.
11. Buck puts in for a transfer and leaves the 118.
For the five facts AU: Bucktommy au where Tommy is a librarian and Buck is the guy that keeps coming in researching some crazy topics and Tommy is always the one having to help him find the right books.
This one is very fun. Also I know nothing about how libraries work; I just use them.
1. The first thing Tommy did when he returned home after his honorable discharge was to move into the small apartment above his grandfather’s house. No, the first thing he did was stand in departures fighting the urge to get right back on the plane and get the hell out of town. The fourth thing he did, after buying a new mattress for the apartment because the old one was too soft after years of sleeping in various barracks and bases, was go to the library.
It hadn’t changed in the years he’d been away: children’s section on the first floor, young adult tucked away in the far corner, fiction on the second level, microfiche and nonfiction in the basement, and Mr. Artie behind the main desk.
“My gracious, is that little Tommy Kinard?” Mr. Artie said, practically sprinting around the desk, arms held out in invitation. Tommy stepped into them. “Oof, not so little anymore. What as the army done to you?”
“Given me PTSD and a new appreciation for good water pressure,” he said.
“Oh, honey,” Mr. Artie said, and rubbed his back in the way Tommy always figured parents who loved the kids did. “I have missed you.”
Mr. Artie hadn’t changed either. He still wore colorful bow ties and listened intently to the small kids who were so excited to use their library cards to check out books and patiently helped older folk use the computer and sign up for email and navigate various government websites. And when he wasn’t doing that, Mr. Artie was handing him books to read like he was still that angry little kid who would have lived in the library full time if it meant he never had to go home again.
Just like then, Tommy hung around so often that Mr. Artie designated him a volunteer and showed him how to check out books for the patrons. He read and he shelved books and he helped a kid find books on dinosaurs and put in a request for the Bunnicula books for another and, once, pulled some queer books for a terrified fourteen year old and reserved them a small study room so they could read in peace and not have the books show up on their account.
“You’re good with them,” Mr. Artie said quietly.
Tommy shrugged and requested a few other books from the library system to be checked out under his account. The kid could read them when they came in. “Being fourteen is hard. No reason to make it harder.”
“Come to dinner tomorrow,” Mr. Artie said. “I know you’re not busy and Steven is grilling.”
2. Tommy forwent buying a bottle of wine because he knew fuckall about wine, but he picked up some flowers and a some pretentious beers from the one pretentious liqour store in town and went to dinner. Everyone knew Mr. Artie was gay, but they were polite enough not call attention to it, probably because the entire population under the age of twenty would riot if they tried to oust him from his position.
Mr. Artie was delighted by the flowers and Tommy nursed a beer and watched as Mr. Artie and Steven moved around each other with the familiarity of long years and pretended that he didn’t ache.
When dinner was eaten and Steven had chased them to the rocking chairs on the back porch so he could clean up, Mr. Artie said, “Have you thought about what you’ll do now that you’re home?”
His grandfather had also been asking that, but it stung less coming from Mr. Artie.
“I have my pilots license,” Tommy said. “There’s some outfits nearby that run tours. I might do that. It’s not bad money.”
“And you like flying,” Mr. Artie said, gently rocking. “You’re good with the kids at the library. You’re even good with the people you don’t like.”
“Now that’s not true,” Tommy said, matching his rocking speed to Mr. Artie’s.
“It is. You’re a kind man, Tommy, and I don’t want you wasting away here.” Mr. Artie reached across the space between them and gently took Tommy’s hand in his. “You more than earned that GI Bill. Consider putting it to use. There’s no rule saying you can’t keep your license and do something else.”
Tommy swallowed around the familiar pain. “Do you think school is for me?”
Mr. Artie squeezed his hand. “It’s for everyone, but I think you would make a wonderful librarian, if that’s where your passion leads you.”
“Okay,” he said quietly, and squeezed back.
3. Tommy took a couple classes at the community college and then took a couple more. His grades were decent and then more than decent when he really buckled down. Mr. Artie helped him apply to school, most of them in Los Angeles, all of them out of town, and wrote a recommendation letter so glowing it felt like it belongs to someone else.
When he received an acceptance letter, Mr. Artie whooped so loudly he disturbed every teenager in the manga section.
“There’s something else,” Tommy said, hands shaking so hard that Mr. Artie took hold to steady him. “I’m gay.” It was the first time he ever admitted it out loud.
“Welcome to the family, honey,” Mr. Artie said, and held him so tightly that Tommy felt it in his ribs.
4. Tommy got his bachelor’s and then his master’s and joined the greater Los Angles Public Library system as a reference librarian who had a reputation for being able to find information on any subject, no matter how obscure or embarrassing. Tommy lost count of how many times he directed a blushing queer kid toward The Joy of Gay Sex and then on to his favorite informative pamphlet on trans sex.
So it didn’t even make his top five strangest requests when a beautiful man with a birthmark stamped above his eye said, “Hey, what are the new frogs?”
“Is this for a school project?” Tommy asked, already pulling up JSTOR.
“Personal research,” the guy said.
A cute kid on crutches, practically hidden by the guy’s, holy shit, long legs, piped up. “My cousin says we discovered all the frogs and there are no new ones, and she’s wrong.”
“But you need citations to support your case,” Tommy said, and the kid nodded vigorously. He refined his search to find something more kid friendly. “Well, it turns out you’re in luck. New species were discovered this year. I’ll get you set up at a computer and you can read some articles. I’ll even show you how to format a bibliography. That should shut up your cousin.”
Tommy led the kid and his dad to a computer and showed him the same search he used and pointed to him where the printers were and ignored how the dad’s gaze kept tracking to him.
“Let me know if you need anything,” Tommy said.
“You’ll be our first call,” the dad said. “I-I mean, if we have more frog questions. Or other questions. Like about, um, space.”
“Space?” the kid said.
“Yeah, like what’s going on up there,” the dad continued with an agonized expression that meant he was actively wishing for death. “Um, thanks for your help.”
“Any time,” Tommy said.
By the time the kid finished with his research, a stack of printed articles stuffed in his backpack, Tommy handed the dad a list of books about the history of space exploration. “Just in case you were curious about what’s going on up there,” he said.
“I know you’re making funny of me,” the dad said, “but joke’s on you. I’m going to read every one of these.”
“That’s why I gave you the list,” Tommy said, and smiled as the kid groaned and dragged his dad to the exit.
5. “Do you got anything on the history of ceiling fans?”
Tommy looked up into the handsome face of the dad from last week.
“Moved on from frogs, huh?” he said, already defining the parameters of the search. “Did your son win the argument?”
The guy blinked. “My—you mean Chris? He’s not my son. He’s the son of my partner. Work partner,” he added quickly. “I’m a firefighter, and so is Eddie. That’s Chris’s dad. I’m Buck. Uh, Evan Buckley. Hi.”
“Hello, Evan Buckley,” Tommy said, and tapped the nameplate on his desk. “That’s me.”
Evan made a show of looking at the plate. “Thanks for the space recs, Tommy. I really liked the one about the cosmonauts.”
“Just don’t go reading that one article about the lost cosmonauts. The scholarship on it is appalling.”
Evan was suspiciously quiet.
“Evan.”
“So are you really not going to ask me why I want to know about the history of ceiling fans?” Evan said.
“That doesn’t even make the list of top twenty weird things I’ve been asked to find references for,” he said. “And I don’t research and tell.”
Evan pouted. “We had a call the other day where a ceiling fan beaned this guy hard on the head, and I got curious about them.”
Of course he did. Tommy printed the list he compiled. “A lot of this is going to be about design, but I think you’ll find some good sources in there.” He tapped the bottom of the list. “I also added some micro histories in case you got bored with the fans. The one on salt is good. So is the butter.”
Evan stared intently at the list. “You didn’t have to do that.”
Tommy leaned in and lowered his voice. “You seem like the type to like fun facts. These are very fun facts.” He leaned back. “Anything else I can help you with?”
Evan jumped and glanced behind him where a sleep deprived student looked to on the verge of tears. “Uh, no, this is great. Thank you.”
“It’s what I do,” Tommy said, and waved the student forward.
6. Evan became a regular after that, stopping at least once a week with a new topic he was interested in: tattoos, African currency swords, clown eggs, a biography on Archduke Ferdinand, bones.
“Bones,” Tommy repeated. “Are you talking about in an anthropological sense? Do you want to read up on hominid fossils? Or are you more interested in it from a medical science angle?”
“Surprise me,” Evan said, and smiled at his sigh. “Hey, what’s your favorite thing someone has asked you to look up?”
Tommy thought about it while he picked out the densest anthropological textbooks to give Evan. “One woman came in asking for more information on sky burials. I never heard of it before, so I liked that I got to learn about it alongside her.”
Evan perked up. “What’s a sky burial?”
“It’s a mainly Tibetan practice. In higher elevations, the ground is too hard to bury the bodies and there isn’t enough wood for cremations. So when a person dies, their bodies are broken down and fed to the vultures.” He chanced a glance at Evan who was listening intently, the same as he did with everything Tommy told him. “I know it sounds macabre, but it’s—”
Tommy turned his attention back to his search. “Yeah, me too.”
When he sent Evan off to find the textbooks and the few resources on sky burials, his coworker June rolled over and said, “It’d be less embarrassing if you just asked to suck his dick.”
“This is why they don’t let you around kids,” Tommy said, and shoved her away.
7. Evan, Tommy learned, liked documentaries and histories and saw maybe two movies a year, and made a noise when Tommy asked if he ever read fiction.
“Sometimes,” Evan said. “I have a hard time finding anything that keeps my attention.”
Tommy started him with some Alexander Dumas (The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Crisco) and then a few old adventure stories (The Scarlet Pimpernel), and then a couple of romances and some fantasy, some of which he liked (Discworld) and some of which he didn’t (Tolkien was a bust), and then some scifi since Evan liked learning about space.
“Try this,” Tommy said handing over a copy of A Matter of Oaths, which he’d set specifically aside. “It’s one of the early queer space operas.”
Evan mentioned some ex-girlfriends and Tommy had carefully let slip that he dated men, and Evan had sweetly proclaimed himself an ally. But this was different. This was the book Mr. Artie had given him one rainy, miserable day that had made little fourteen year old Tommy feel less alone.
Evan smoothed gentle fingers along the spine. “I’m excited to read it.”
6. “While this courtship is very sweet,” Mr. Artie said that evening during their regularly scheduled call, “have you considered asking him out?”
“He’s straight,” Tommy said, pawing through his fridge for something that was edible. “And it would be unprofessional.”
“Honey, you told him about sky burials and had him read A Matter of Oaths. The only thing left at this point is to ask him to dinner.”
“Ask him to marry you!” Steve called out.
“I should have become a grossly overpaid private pilot,” Tommy said.
“You would have been so miserable,” said Mr. Artie, “and you would never have met your Evan.”
Well, Mr. Artie wasn’t wrong.
7. Tommy was late coming back to lunch, which meant he was going to get an earful from June, who hated covering the reference desk. She saw him heading over and, with audible relief, said, “Thank god. Your regular needs some help.”
Evan reluctantly turned around with a small wave. “I thought you were off today.”
“The flu’s been taking everyone out. I’m covering.” He slipped behind the desk. “What are we looking up today? You were on that bee kick last week.”
Evan turned a beseeching look on June, but he would have better luck with some actual bees; she happily abandoned him for her beloved microfiche archive.
“Uh, queer history?” Evan fiddled with the cuffs of his baby pink cardigan. “My coworker, uh, friend Hen, she’s married to a woman and I thought I should look into it more. I mean, I know there’s Stonewall and the AIDs crisis and then gay marriage.”
“Those are the highlights,” he said dryly and instantly regretted it when Evan winced. He made an effort to soften his tone. “There’s a lot more to it than that.”
“There is!” Evan snapped his fingers. “And I figured maybe I should learn more since Pride is coming up.”
“In four months,” he said absently, trying to figure out what to even suggest. Evan liked histories, but did Tommy start him with Stonewall? Did he give Evan a history about queerness during the Harlem Renaissance? There were more contemporary sources, things Evan had been alive for—the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and Obergefell—but that was an US centric approach, and so many countries had their own queer cultures.
“I didn’t think this would stump you,” Evan said with a brave little smile.
“You know I like to make sure I get it right,” Tommy said, and printed out the list. “Start with these photography collections. It’s just queer people living their lives. If you like that, we can move on to specifics.”
“Thank you,” Evan said quietly, and made it two steps before turning back. “Hey, you also have a copy of The Joy of Gay Sex, right? I just want to be thorough.”
Tommy laughed so hard he could barely point Evan in the direction of the stacks.
8. Between his shifts and Evan’s shifts and a baby version of the flu felling him, it was three weeks before he saw Evan again. They’d been short staffed and apparently every high school student in the city waited until the last minute to write their report on Of Mice and Men, and all he wanted was to go home and watch something devoid of any kind of educational value.
Evan, dressed in a nice button up shirt and nervously bouncing on his heels, was waiting outside.
His eyebrows bounced up. “Evan, what are you doing here?”
Evan shoved his hands into his pockets only to immediately take them out again. “I, uh, was wondering if you wanted to go to dinner. With me, if that wasn’t clear.” His hair was so carefully styled. “Also I watched this program on sky burials the other day and that’s genuinely what I want now.”
Tommy cracked up and reached for Evan’s hand. “Tell me about it at dinner.”
Evan laced this fingers together.
9. Tommy brought Evan home for Mr. Artie’s retirement party.
“Oh, honey, you did good,” Mr. Artie said, immediately pulling Evan into a hug. “Be honest with me, did the sky burials work?”
“That and the history of salt,” Evan said, any nervous shyness vanishing. “I’ve really been looking forward to meeting you.”
“You are the first boy Tommy has ever brought home.” And Mr. Artie hugged Evan so hard he must have felt in his ribs. “Welcome to the family, Evan. I’m so glad you’re here.”
“Me too,” Tommy said softly, and Evan smiled bright and joyous and free.
