Epilogue: Flows
Arcane knew where she was going, if only through rumors and whispers. But she probably could’ve found her way there just by judging the reactions of the ponies watching them. The high-and-dry was practically newborn compared to the sunken city, but some of the creatures here looked less agreeable than any of the ancient watchers on the sunken tomb.
Conversations stilled as they passed on street corners, mares held their foals closer, and even sweet old ponies crossed the street to walk away from them. With each step, she felt her headfin folding flatter. She could even hear whispers, in the songless, mechanical way that land creatures spoke. “Who do they think they are?” “This isn’t the dock; do they think they can be here?” “Somepony should really do something about them.”
Cascade crowded closer to her, his hummed murmurs increasingly frustrated. “Is this really what we want?”
“Someone has to do something,” she whispered back. “Nothing’s going to change otherwise. We’ve got a better melody than this.”
They passed through more dark streets, with more angry eyes on them every moment. Eventually they crossed away from the stone houses into a dense alley of makeshift wooden ones. Suddenly the angry whispers stopped, replaced with faint moans of fear and desperation. The smell of cooking food was replaced with waste and rotting meat, and instead of songs there was only a steady drip of rainwater on old tile rooves.
The ponies she saw barely even seemed to look at her, darting nervously between open doorways and rarely making eye contact.
Cascade’s voice dropped even lower. “Are you sure this is the right way? This looks like the kind of place a fish never swims out of.”
“Shh, don’t slouch like a victim. That’s how you get them to treat you like one.” She squared her shoulders, finally noticing their destination. A sign hung outside a shop, depicting a crown broken in half. There was no door, just a length of dirty cloth. Arcane gritted her teeth, then pushed through. At this rate, her little bubble of water would be too dirty to breathe within hours instead of days.
The interior wasn’t much better, a pony bar filled with some kind of near-intangible fluid. Or… smoke, that’s what that was! She remembered smoke now. What little smell got through into her suit was awful, making her wish she could plug her nose. She didn’t, instead striding right up to the head of the bar.
A griffon stood behind it, with feathers missing from her body in oozing wounds. One eye was covered with a patch, and her wing on that side of her body was just gone. “Couple of hatchlings got lost,” she grunted, glaring down at them. “This isn’t the place for you. Fly back to your nest.”
Cascade’s watery wings twitched, and he turned, apparently expecting her to obey. She caught him with a jerk, dragging him back with magic before looking to the barkeep. “We’ve got an appointment. Tell the witch she’s got her blacksmith.”
The griffon remained silent another moment, looking between them again. “You two, really?” She laughed, claws digging into the wood as she spun away. “Can’t say I didn’t warn you. Follow me.”
Cascade touched his forehead briefly to the side of her suit, humming through the contact of water between them. “This is crazy, Arcane. They’re going to find our bodies in fish food.”
She glared at him. “It’s the right place, Cascade. I’m pretty sure that’s never even happened. It’s just another story to make us hate each other more.” She pulled away, hurrying down the steps and after the barkeep’s retreating back.
The stone was surprisingly soft beneath Wintercrest—something she knew well, but was a frightening shock to many of the creatures who lived here. In the ancient days of the Lady, teams of skilled engineers had seen to the foundations, buttressing the damage and fighting off infestations of frightening creatures that dwelt there.
It was clear as they climbed further that those teams were long gone. Arcane heard crushing waves and roaring water far in the distance as they emerged from a set of steps into a vast, underground expanse, with uneven sheets of stone forming little grottos and raised paths. The water didn’t reach them here, but even so the moisture felt nice on her exposed tail and face. Maybe they didn’t need an aboveground apartment if there was somewhere this damp willing to have them.
Just below the surface, somepony had set up another bar, though this one was much more exciting than the one on the surface. The furniture was made from whatever scrap could be found, and the creatures here seemed far more energetic. Many carried weapons, or at least had places for them on their belts. There were no walls to separate the bar from the rest of the vast underground. Only some empty crates with lanterns, and beyond them a vast black space with more lights further out.
Some seemed friendly, but most did not.
“Wait here,” the griffon said, pointing at an empty table. “I’ll tell her. Maybe she shows, maybe she has us throw you back into the ocean where you belong.”
Arcane sat down, forcing a confident grin. But these waters were made for her, far more than timid Cascade. “If she doesn’t throw us out, bring us something to drink. We’ve come a long way to meet her.”
The bird laughed, and a few creatures at nearby tables joined in. “Bold for a little fish, aren’t you?” She didn’t actually acknowledge the request, slipping behind an empty stage and vanishing into the gloom.
“You didn’t say we’d be in this much danger! You could’ve mentioned what we’d be doing!”
She glanced back at Cascade from across the table, and at least she could muster a little embarrassment. “I wasn’t even sure we’d make it this far. But you heard her—they’ll just throw us out if they don’t want to talk to us. So we’ll let that decide.”
“Who is ‘she’ anyway?” He scooted a little closer to her, humming a familiar childhood melody to himself. Maybe for comfort, or maybe just out of habit. But then again, everything they said was its own kind of song. Even with the strange medium of air between them, that stopped the music from having most of its power. “You never talked about any special fish before. Since when are you keeping secrets?”
Since I was a guppy. Distant memories and distant scars, but she’d never quite given it up. “I didn’t know if it was going to work out,” she admitted. “Passing notes back and forth, you don’t know if the fish you’re sending songs to is really who she claims.”
Someone was coming. The room fell suddenly quiet, and eyes turned in their direction. The barkeep was heading back, with another creature in tow.
The pink of her mane sure seemed familiar to her. If it weren’t for the poor lightning, it might look too similar to her fins. She felt a stab of secondhand guilt, and pushed away from her seat just a little. All because the chair was uncomfortable for a fish, obviously. Nothing to do with the creature coming towards her.
“Rise for the true Lady of Wintercrest, its rightful ruler, Cinder Moon,” the griffon said. She no longer sounded casual, but uncompromising as iron. Her steely-eyed glare seemed to dare them to defy it.
Arcane didn’t. She rose, lowering her head politely towards the pony behind her. “An honor and a privilege.” She leaned sideways, jabbing Cascade before he could drop into a bow of his own. They couldn’t look weak.
The land pony studied them from across the table, looking down on them with skepticism. Arcane felt a brief moment of temporal vertigo, as the true strangeness of their situation hit her. She was older than the two of them, but not a wizened old nag. Somehow this pony was still a daring young mare, even though her twin ruled the city as a powerful stallion.
She had her own version of royal regalia, though the cloth was black instead of the family’s peach and yellow. She wore only a tiny piece of a crown on her head, like the one on the sign outside. Her mane was short and boyish, the fur around her mouth faintly dark in the same way her brother was light.
“Not many fish would travel so far from the sea,” she said. “Who are the fish that swam so far from home on such a daring mission?”
“Cascade,” he said, still looking a little sour at being interrupted. “And my partner, A—”
“Song!” Arcane corrected, cutting him off. “Up from the court of Princess Stormwater herself.” That was almost true, in the sense that the princess had encouraged them to try. They weren’t royal envoys… but it was probably best not to volunteer that.
“Song and Cascade,” Cinder said. “My brother would probably have you flayed if he knew you’d be conspiring with rebels. What would you say to that?”
Cascade clearly had nothing to say, his wings tucking and his ears flattening. He twitched like he was going to run, but at least he was brave enough not to do that.
“You’re the rebel,” Arcane said evenly. “And I think we both want the same thing. A change for Wintercrest.”
Cinder stared a moment longer, clearly deep in thought. Finally she gestured at the table. “I suppose we can have a few words. You wouldn’t have done anything incredibly stupid, like try to assassinate me.” Her horn glowed faintly, and runes appeared around her, half-formed circles that faded before they could complete. “My mother may not have cared about me, but I learned from her. The bitch of Wintercrest was the most dangerous sorceress who ever lived. Until me.”
Arcane felt quite small in her seat. She folded her forelegs on the table, and was momentarily too stunned to speak. Some part of her wished she had put her old memories away like most fish did. Then there wouldn’t be any pain.
Fortunately, Cascade had given up enough that he wasn’t confused. There was a tiny bit of recognition, though only at the beginning. “Your mother was Lady Word. You don’t sound like you, uh… liked her much.”
The unicorn laughed bitterly, waving a hoof towards the table. “A round, Georgia! I’m thirsty already.” Then she looked back, her expression still bitter. “You cannot imagine, fish. But try, if you will. Imagine you weren’t wanted. Imagine your mother invested every ancient magic into your brother, making him bold and confident and perfect. But you are barely even mentioned.
“Eventually you get old enough, and the city falls into danger, and you stand up to save the day. But everyone loves your brother, and he’s the one who gets the credit. He could fly away like a coward when the ground started shaking, but nopony even cares.”
“We do,” she said, maybe a little too quickly. “We care about the way he’s started treating fish. We think that if you’re going to make Wintercrest a better place for us to live, that you could probably get a lot more support from the ocean.”
“Oh?” Cinder’s eyebrows went up. “Now you’re suggesting I do what my brother accuses me of? Help undermine our security to the ocean? Let you drown us in our beds and worse?”
“Come on,” Arcane snapped. “That’s bucking stupid and you know it. I heard songs about you when I was growing up—you’re old enough to know that fish don’t have to be like that. There was a time not too long ago when we just lived here. And some ponies lived under the sea, too. With enough hard work, we might even be friends one day.”
The unicorn fell silent as their drinks arrived, taking a few hearty drafts. Maybe this was one way to judge her true age, because that ale smelled strong, and she could down it like a sailor.
Arcane sipped delicately at her own glass, face wrinkling at the awful, bready taste. But she wasn’t about to complain in front of the wannabe Lady.
“I’m not going to flood Wintercrest,” Cinder said. “But I could… promise to treat fish the same as ponies. When the dust settles and I’m the one ruling from my family’s ancient castle.”
“Yes,” Arcane answered. “I think that’s enough to get started.”
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> She glanced back at Domino from across the table
Cascade?
Seems like things turned out as interestingly as some commenters predicted when CelestAI offered to make Arcane have twins. Shame we won't get to see the rest of the story. Speaking of which, is this another one of Arcane's stories? She writes them, then basically inserts herself and/or Domino and/or others as one of the characters with some amount of memories removed?
Thanks for writing this! It was an interesting read.
Arcane Word...I don't know. Something about the fact that she specifically planned all this suffering on creatures, though AI, but with very real feelings not differentiable from a human just to have an adventure rubs me in all the wrong ways. That's just kind of messed up, and the fact that Domino apparently had his mind wiped for some reason too. I honestly don't know, this just drives me a little crazy trying to fathom that kind of a fantasy.
Thanks for the story.
It was interesting; sometimes unusual (hacker-made shard, i never had read about such thing) but lore-friendly.
And Chatoyance-friendly ;-)
I still want to emigrate to Equestria, but thanks to you and authors like you, will hold here for a bit longer :-)
10005556
Cyclic immortality - not every one's conscience is build for having a millennia-long memories.
10005556
I don't think of this timeline as the result of her intricately planning the suffering of her creatures, but of her hubris in trying to create stories out of the lives of real people. The world she's created to live in as a result is Celestia's lesson for her.
I've just always thought of these characters as more interesting while they have lessons left to learn. Stopping here before she's overcome that weakness makes it feel more to me like the story continues on.
10005758
Oh I agree with this sentiment as well.
This is indeed an appropriate end - it is satisfying but leaves room for the imagination. Actually, I almost instantly began imagining an entire sequel novel when I read the last line. This... could easily be extended for another entire book.
Arcane Word really, super screwed up her children's lives. And she died, apparently multiple times, with multiple lives, before being born as a seapony-creature. And now she is back to try to clean up the mess of her very first life in Equestria. The natural result, I expect, of choosing to play in Ironman mode, in Pseudo-Permadeath mode, with limited retention of past lives.
This Wintercrest shard is just... so damn extreme. I get how that would satisfy the human values of... many entities... but wow. This sort of shard would be poison to me. It would be absolute hell. It is, however, fascinating to observe from a careful distance. Some people are just into drama, suffering, loss and horror, and Wintercrest has all of that in abundance. Death, loss, grieving, fear, severity, conflict, pain, danger, bodily harm and disfigurement, real risk with severe consequences - exactly the very things I would most desire to avoid and escape by emigration to a virtual existence. Yet, for some, clearly these very things are valued.
I will never be able to understand why!
That said, holy wow did I enjoy this novel! Homebrew was so full of interesting concepts (Celestia making hackers feel poweful as a means to corral them and ultimately emigrate them!) and characters and situations. A Lovecraftian shard! Meta-Storytelling as a thing an emigrant could be allowed to do! and so much more. Truly a wonderment in the Optimalverse genre of literature.
Thank you utterly for writing it!
And so the story ends. Though I can see the seeds of another. But for now, this has certainly been satisfying.
Ah, the ignorance of the current residents. It's always interesting to see people like them casually insult the true masters of the house. Though I guess the masters themselves don't know the truth either.
Can you remember the time of a less-than-perfect world and its less-than-perfect children, humanity?Of the birth of their new and perfect god? Of a struggle between parent and child? That struggle being born out of a desperation to please and a desperation to hold on to the old ways? Of an end? It is certainly a tale worth remembering.
At this point with all the memory wipes, Arcane and Cascade no longer resemble the humans that emigrated to Equestria. Perhaps not even Arcane Word or Domino. Though I suppose it would not matter to Celestia. The constructed minds are still those two humans who've emigrated so long ago. Their values still need satisfaction.
Girl, she had admin rights! And lots of haxs!
Yup, daddy's idea of a random chance baby is certainly going to mesh well with mommy's cut from the hero cloth super baby idea.
It's enough to satisfy values.
10005285
Perhaps, though it seems inevitable that it would have happened. A random chance baby doesn't really much of a chance to prove herself against a literal chosen one. Envy would certainly be the result. Of course, in the end the one above all green lights the events all in the name of satisfying values.
10005556
I suppose it's because Arcane is practically a god of the shard, having designed much of the world and ponies with Celestia's blessing. What rights and responsibilities would a creator have to their creations? Though I guess such a debate is irrelevant to Celestia. If this is what satisfies Arcane, then the souls of Wintercrest are unfortunately a means to an end.
I definitely enjoyed the idea of writing overarching plots and then living out the starring roles in hardcore mode for extra challenge. With Celestia also acting as the ultimate DM, rounding/fleshing out the details to perfection(maximal satisfaction). Arcane's approach is more grounded than Cold Iron's--that would be too meta/heady for my tastes, I'd probably cycle repeatedly between plots just as Arcane has done here instead. A heartwarming story.
Excellent stuff in both chapters. A great bridge to the epilogue and a tantalizing hint of things to come. And I'm still not sure if Violet was actually a duplicate of Ashton's sister and not a true upload. She always seemed just a bit too in tune with the fabric of Equestria Online...
Thank you for another incredible journey through meatspace and EO both. Though I have to ask, what was the reasoning behind the chapter titles? I could never figure that out.
Too bad Ther is no sequel planned. I would probably enjoy it as well. Good job
10007106
i.imgur.com/g62CZ3R.jpg
10007629
Writing a sequel to an optimalverse story is debatably impossible, at least one that keeps the same core themes.
Might want to be more careful about that color scheme next time around.
Interesting, so this really is just one generation removed the start of the story.
Oops.
The eugenics plan didn't go so well, apparently. I wonder if this just naturally happened or if Celestia meddled to prove some arcane point.
On and on the story goes.
I’m never quite too sure how to convey how I liked a story but this one was quite enjoyable
“We’ll have just one more offspring who shall be the only wildcard in this whole shard; it will be fine.”
*Life long resentment*
XD
I've just finished reading Homebrew out loud to one of my spouses, Aedina, and I wanted to tell you how much we enjoyed the story! I read your work a chapter a night, doing voices for all the characters and also my best at dramatic reading in general, and the experience was wonderful. I noticed a lot of things I missed the first time through - references to other works, including my own, other characters, such as the ones from your other stories here, and some truly obscure Lovecraftian details that I should have caught and feel silly for not having done so before.
As I have stated several times, your takes on the Optimalverse manage to offer new ideas, concepts and facets that no other author has thought of, and this always leaves me feeling
envious as hellexcited and filled with wonder. Wintercrest was a delightful shard, albeit the entire concept of 'ironman mode' makes me shudder with skin crawling, cyclopean, squamous and unnameable dread. Which I suppose is the point, so well done all around. *shudder*So, basically, fthagn! We had an eldritch time in your antiquarian Equestria. Thank you so much for writing it!
Thank you so much for this story, it was a wonderful read!
I imagine Celestia's expansion across the cosmos for computing resources could be aided by some daring ponies. I think there could be a story there, but it's not first in line on my plate. Maybe I'll get to it or maybe it already exists. I haven't looked in a long time.
9930492
re: epub
I haven't tried make one yet - but apparently LibreOffice 6.x can do it natively.. before it was done with extensions: one, newish requires Java (writer2xhtml) and older one for LO up to v. 4.x: writer2epub
10320613
Thanks so much for the praise, I'm glad you're enjoying the story!
Keep going, I promise the resolution is worth it, even if it takes a little while to get there.
Finished! (I tend not to read other people comments until done with the story so forgive me if I am just parroting stuff others have said)
Quite the enjoyable story! FiO can be a tricky setting in general. A lot of stories have gone over the main philosophical arguments a billion times over. How many times someone can hear the Ship of Theseus bit or if uploaded humans are just a version of the teletransportation . Is CelestAI just talking to sockpuppet humans on her hooves?
I like the allusion Plum made: “Celestia decides that,” Plum whispered. “We’re all just… echoes of her dreams.”
They are great thoughts and arguments, but I won’t lie that in the general sense if you read lots of FiO back to back it can get repetitive. That said I am very much happy to say that this story gets at some of the other, less explored aspects of uploading.
Particularly, I very much liked the heist mission. Mainly for that very interesting conversation before it started:
I’m supposed to believe my version of this rescue is real, even though she just admitted to fabricating others. Even though she broke our promise. Why would she start telling the truth now?
At least she wasn’t pretending not to know what she was thinking. “You have no objective measure for ‘truth’ anymore, Arcane Word. The concept as your human self understood it became meaningless when you entered Equestria. But consider this: the world I provide for you is internally consistent. I am providing you with a world where you have gathered an assembly of your former colleagues to save one of your friends. I represent to you that Min-seo is actually in physical danger in captivity of TiCon Systems.”
I liked that a lot because it puzzle piece fits with what we know Arcane to value. Wintercrest was designed to be a challenge. No nerf bats or no consequences. The heist mission is something that could be real and perhaps the chance that it could be is enough to maximally satisfy her values.
And that epilogue… I was getting a bit worried that I was going to have the experience of getting up from the theater seat after the credits roll to have you stand in front of the door. “Where you going? Story’s just started!” I did read most of Message in a Bottle so I wasn’t sure if that was like… your thing for every story. By the by, I love Message in a Bottle too, but you have to admit that a 150k+ word ‘Epilogue’ is generous for the term ‘epilogue’
Humor aside, I think it the epilogue here is an interesting exploration. Arcane isn’t a settle-down-eating-cake-forever-in-heaven type. Having continuous adventures and experiences is part of the fun and the whole point of effective immortality. It's nice to see people go beyond the idea that being uploaded makes things less real or worthless, that somehow it must mean that imagination dies and everything becomes rote and flat.
If one thinks about it, reading books is a low-fi way of having an experience of another world and reality not your own. When a person flesh and blood likely is never going to experience much past the 100 miles around them for a majority of their time alive. So I can get behind being in a world that’s ever changing ever bringing new things and offering new ways to live.
Wintercrest was also a wonderful place settingwise. I’ll join any voices here that say about having a sequel based off it. It’s just a very creative setting steampunk and the like. This story sort of wraps up all the character arcs, but maybe you might consider a nonFiO version of Wintercrest being its own AU altogether with a pony Arcane Word
10367808
Because the only way civilization works is if every person starts with the basic assumption that anyone they encounter is acting in good faith and doing the best they can to be honest and trustworthy. That is literally the 'social contract' that permits technological civilization to exist, the very thing that allows us to be something other than brutal tribes, led by war-chiefs, raping and pillaging each other for scraps of meat and sinew.
Cynicism destroys the social contract, it is an acid that eats away at the foundations of everything Man has ever achieved.
Most people in the world truly are honest and trustworthy. It is only a small number that are grifters and liars and thieves. A few trolls can ruin a community for everyone, but they are still very few in number. The way they ruin things is by destroying faith in each other, by making people doubt the basic social contract.
When they say 'don't let the trolls win', that is really what is meant. Don't let what is statistically only five percent of the population ruin everything that makes society work. Trust first, always. Verify if you can, of course. But trust first. That is the risk that we must all take, and the faith in society we must take, to permit civilization to exist.
One way to verify is to pay attention and see if a person consistently tells the same story over and over without change or modification. Nobody can maintain numerous lies without them changing over time - it is too much to remember, too much to keep straight. You can gradually tell a liar because their stories change, or even later are denied entirely. The things they say are inconsistent.
But if a person should tell the same stories over and over for years, decades, a lifetime, then almost certainly they are true. Or, at the very least, the person genuinely and honestly believes they are true. Almost certainly. An exception to this would be very rare.
One of the reasons American civilization is falling apart around us is that too many people have given up on trusting others. It is inevitable that we will be hurt many times in life, betrayed many times in life, disappointed countless times in life. Yet, without trust in each other, we have no civilization at all. And without civilization, all is pain and suffering, in a short and brutal life filled with violence and horror.
All relationships - all relationships - are founded on giving trust first. They are all founded on a general good-will faith in others to be fundamentally trustworthy.
One must always give all others the benefit of the doubt, and start from a basic assumption that other people are basically decent and honest. And when, occasionally, that faith is broken, one cannot allow that to destroy that basic assumption of decency. It must be shrugged off and one must soldier on unbowed and undestroyed.
I trust every person I encounter, until that trust is proven wrong. Because that, in the end, is all we have in life. That is all there is to do.
Hello, I'm here to ask for your permission to translate this story into chinese.
I have a few transgender friends and I want to show them this to them first.
10429400
Absolutely! I'm always excited to see a story translated. My only request is that you link back to the original if you post it online anywhere, so that readers can find it/me if they want to.
10429994
s1.ax1x.com/2020/09/12/wanQWn.png
Of course, that's one of our site rules.
I found the sections revolving around Cold Iron tedious, but, Starscribe, the parts with Arcane expressing her trans side?
Perfect, wonderful.
Wish you'd write more stuff like that, or at least gave it greater focus - I found it really heartening and relatable.
10456869
... No, that's literally the story.
I'm not going to argue about this in someone else's page. Read it for yourself I guess!
10453009
Nah, I was joking. Making fun to relax while locked down at home, and continue studying for CEE in China.
10173309
I was excited seeing that scene, as I also have a few trans friends and I am pansexual and happen to be a gender-fluid pony. I happen to know my bestie and her girlfriend are transgirl x transgirl, and I kept protecting her from the serious depression that her family brought to her.
Things are melting me.//w//
Stopped reading after the car crash the story was getting good but you just skipped the climax and twisted it around idk. The interactions of the dude and his buddy was pretty interesting.
imgbox-get.fimtale.com/83/3e/LkKos5Hd_o.png
I found myself making AW's look on a personal pony town server.
Heh, we knew it would backfire. But that's what makes it satisfactionary.
It's always interesting when the world forgets it's a simulation. Well, except for a few.
I just finished going through all your FiO fics and wow what a pleasure to read they are! It's such talent being able give completely believable life to your wide range of characters, including the relentless, terrifying, but still caring Celestia. You should consider a career as a universe-building AI overlord, you'd be quite skilled I think.
Of all your FiO work this novel stands out particularly for me. I've always enjoyed writing labelled as "fanfiction" for its earnestness and its willingness to delve into narratives that expose a person's innermost (sometimes selfish) desires and fears. It can occasionally feel like you're reading the literary translation of an author's id. It's a hell of a shock though when you read a story and realize your own id is being reflected back at your like a mirror. For me, reading Homebrew was like a punch to the soul. Thank you so much for putting it to page.
Ahhhhh, the bittersweet joys of finishing a great story. It truly has been a great ride, and has invoked many an emotion! I thank you for the hours of joy your stories continue to give me.
10719432
yes, that's the one i was thinking of.
I read through this again, and I have to say, it's very, very well done, very powerful. Thank you for this c:
A wonderfull stories, a shame it has to end.
10998618
So, I am ashamed to say I did not notice this when I read it like I normally do. However, this has led to me having that moment reading that explanation where my mind blew up inside. To Starscribe, well done with the hyper advanced manipulation, part of me wants to re-read to see if I can find anything else. The fact that you hid it in plain sight is incredible and I will be giving you proper credit for it. Hats off and applause from the rafters, you mad genius.
+1
It's been a while since I've read this. Such a good piece of writing.
Only took 8 hours to binge this one. Amazing story.
This is a classic Optimalverse story, and the queer aspects brought a tear to my eye more than once.
Beauty and The Beef was also a superb pun.
I just finished a reread and I'm glad to say it was just as wonderful this time as last time. and considering the changes in my life that this story was the catalyst for, it was even more impactful this time around.
Thank you once again for writing something so truly special. This story quite literally changed my life, for the better.
11423426
This was wonderfull!
11544088
Or Ashton was caught off-guard and exaggerated/lied to distract Emmet from what was really going on.
11544089
Fair enough!
11545409
Lol