Archetypes (Yes, AGAIN, why?)

So, saw The Avengers- only twice though so I'm sure I've missed something.  Yes-- amazeballs, awesomecrazysauce, fantabulous--you bastardize a superlative, I'll commandeer it as my own and use it to paint Joss Whedon with lavish praise, right?  Also saw Cabin in the Woods... and, again, DUDE!

Joss Whedon.  That man knows a frickin' archetype.

Okay-- it's funny.  I recently saw someone praise a work as having "no archetypes and no stereotypes" and even though the work was mine and the compliment was sincere, I wanted to throw a big ugly teacher's tantrum because didn't anybody teach this person that, without archetypes there is no literature?   I've said it before (oh can we count the ways?  Let's not.  Unless someone can give me a big long list of links to my own blog, in which case, that might come in handy and I'm too lazy to do it myself) but archetypes are the skeletons.  Characterization, dialog, setting, description, (or cinematography, wardrobe, stagecraft) --these things are the flesh, the hair and eye color, the expression, the pleasing (or not so) way the features are assembled to a complete personality.  Whether you're talking character, setting, plot trope, theme or symbol, ALL STORIES HAVE ARCHETYPES.

The brilliant thing about Joss Whedon and The Avengers (and Cabin in the Woods)?  Is how he utilizes these things to say a lot in a a very short amount of time.

Now, one of the most difficult things about pieces like these (and we'll stick with the Avengers because my time is limited and so is yours!) is that there are so many personalities to deal with.  The really brilliant thing that Whedon did, was to show each Avenger interacting--and usually conflicting-- with his opposite in archetype.  What this allowed us to do was see the basic drives and motivations of each Avenger--and hence, who these people are.  Were their personalities archetypal?  You betcha!  Did that make them any less original, fresh, or interesting?  Hell to the noes.  Wanna see?

Black Widow vs. The Hulk=
the spy vs. the muscle
the extreme feminine vs. the extreme masculine
the subtle vs. the big green rage monster
intelligence primary to power vs. power primary to intelligence
the ant vs. the boot
the vixen vs. tragic hero
hidden power vs. hidden power

Two scenes-- that's all they had together, were two scenes, and yet because they were such a thorough perfect blend of archetype and character, we got to see the flex and ripple of each personality off the other like the play of light on water.

Wanna see some more?

Thor vs. Loki

the epic hero vs. the gothic hero
confidence vs. arrogance
Abel vs. Cain
bright vs. dark
sincerity vs. cynicism
long view vs. long view

Thor vs. Captain America

epic hero vs. epic hero (i.e., neither one of them has flaws, so they're both really fucking irritating to each other, plus they're both used to giving orders and being in charge!)
nobility vs. peasantry
entitlement vs. hard work & sacrifice
long view of the war (like, from Asgaard!) vs. short view of the battlefield
universal decisions vs. short range decisions
offense (hammer!) vs. defense (shield)
Alpha vs. Alpha

Thor vs. Tony Stark

epic hero vs. American Romantic hero (yeah, yeah... I've got a hard on for this one, did we not know?)
universal code of honor vs. personal code of honor
moral perfection vs. moral imperfection (smirk)
sincerity vs. cynicism
entitlement vs. entitlement ("Don't touch me!"  "Well don't take my stuff!")
archaic vs. modern ("Doth thou mouther knowest you're wearing her drapes?")
Alpha vs. Omega

Tony Stark vs. Captain America

American Romantic hero vs. epic hero
personal code of honor vs. established code of honor
moral imperfection vs. moral perfection (Without the suit, what are you?  Millionaire, playboy, philanthropist.)
entitlement vs. hard work ("Put on the suit!")
modern vs. archaic
Omega vs. Alpha
self-sacrifice vs. self-sacrifice


Tony Stark vs. the Hulk

American Romantic hero vs. tragic hero
personal code of honor vs. personal code of honor
irreverence vs. anxiety
moral imperfection vs. moral imperfection
entitlement vs. hard work
science vs. science
modern vs. modern
Omega vs. Omega  (Notice how many of these they actually have in common?  It's why they were almost automatic friends.)

And I could go on.  The Black Widow vs. Loki, the Widow vs. Hawkeye, Stark vs. Fury, Thor vs. Fury, Captain vs. Fury, Captain vs. Widow-- lots and lots of potent combinations, and pretty much every one of them can be broken down into a series of dichotomies with one, maybe two, moments of connection.  The point is, that almost (and I'll get to the almost) every two characters on the screen had a variety of archetypal dichotomies that Whedon exploited with dialog to create instant, fully fleshed characters-- it was a genius move, and not only made the movie fucking awesome, it also illustrated that same tired point I've been making from way back.  Archetypes are everything.  You can't write a true, resonant story without them, especially one of importance.  (And, yes, although it was a popcorn movie, The Avengers is an important movie because it showcases the beauty of human flaw.  Jeez, don't get me started on the legitimacy of sci-fi and fantasy again... I'll just make you tired.)

Oh-- and now to the "almost".  There were some characters who were notable in their absence from the dichotomy list--characters who were never put together, and the fact that we don't see them together shows us almost as much about them as an interaction would.

Hawkeye vs. Thor
soldier  vs. leader
battle vs. war
follow orders vs. issue them
American Romantic vs. epic
understated vs. overt

 ...and these two men have nothing in common.  Nothing.  The conflicts illustrated between the other characters are exciting because those characters have at least one dichotomy in common.  When they have more than one, there is in instant connection, but when there is not even one?  Hawkeye and Thor would not encounter each other in their real lives.  These two types of people don't interact.  Perhaps, in a sequel, a common denominator might be found that would showcase both these personalities, but until then, any interaction between them would show very little more than we can see by just watching them in action.  It was probably why we didn't see them talk a lot.  I think Thor swept down and did some back to back fighting--and that was cool, because it was like he came down from heaven to help the foot soldiers in battle, but otherwise?

Yeah.  If those other guys didn't have some moments of mind-meeting, their chemistry would not have been nearly as interesting--or as important to watch.

Notes From The Front

So, Mother's Day.  Yeah.

For a while, this wasn't just any day.  This was MY day.  I was THE MAMA, and I was going to get to sit on my ass and eat bon bons if I damn well wanted to, and I was going to sleep in and choose the restaurant and...

And for some reason, this year, I was completely taken by surprise.  The little kids started whispering about what they'd made in school and I was puzzled to realize that they had made something for me.  Mate asked me what I wanted for Mother's Day, and I said, "I thought I was getting a tattoo."  He said, "I thought I was getting you a vacuum cleaner--but you can get the tattoo if you want."  

Chicken keeps threatening to make me a stuffed animal-- something I always treasure when she makes them, and I feel bad that they end up commandeered by the baby gods every time she makes them for me. And I'm suddenly realizing that yes-- all of this fuss is for me. 

And I'm also figuring out why it's so surprising this year.  

It's not that the job is effortless--I mean, most moms out there will tell you that it NEVER gets effortless-- and it's not like all that time I thought I'd have when I wrote for a living ever really materialized.  It's not like I'm always paying attention 100% of the time like I think I should be, and it's not like the house has gotten much cleaner.  I still don't have as much time to cuddle as I thought I would, and my knitting is STILL taking backseat to a kid (a much bigger kid!) on my lap.  

But still-- that mom thing has gotten a little easier.  

I make lunch, give them a breakfast option and at least know what's coming for dinner.  There is a song and a story EVERY night.  I know my children's teachers, I volunteer in their school, and I know who my daughter's crush is and what my older son is doing in college.  Many of the things I meant to do when I was both teaching and writing, I now actually do, and the times when stress flared my temper like a magnesium road alert are much fewer and farther between.  Whereas before, Mate was the one who got them out the door, now we work as a team, and although I'm busy in the afternoons when they're home, I'm still there.  

And when I realized how surprised I was that Mother's Day was actually still my day, it occurred to me that, just because being a good mom while maintaining a career I loved was now difficult instead of bloody fucking impossible, that didn't mean I still don't get a little bit of credit.  I was sitting in front of the television tonight with first one hefty grade schooler on my lap and then another, and I thought, "Oh... this is where some of my knitting time has gone."  I was sitting in front of my computer, trying to engage in a chat when Big T came to talk to me about his career options, again, and his personality type, again, and it hit me, "This is why working at the computer sometimes feels like a game of Stratego played in a mine field."  Big T left and Chicken started texting me with pictures of her shoes for her prom, and for a minute I was resentful, because hey, wasn't her father there? And then it hit me--

This is what the flowers are for, and the cards, and the gifts.  This is why the whispering and the secrets, and Mate's concern that the vacuum would be as good a gift as a tattoo.  

My life situation has improved a little--it has--and I'm grateful in so many ways.  But I'm still THE MAMA, and it may not be bloody fucking impossible but it's still hard, and I'm still proud that on occasion I get it right.  

Or, at least my kids get it right for me, and I think that counts.

So, small tidbits of motherhood this week that you might treasure with me:

Zoomboy--upon getting a bandaid for an ingrown fingernail that I'd just treated:  "Oh Geez, Mom!  Does it have to be Hello-Kitty?"

Squish;  "Well, you DID squeal like a girl!"

Chicken, proudly: "You are my sister!"

***

Mate--out of nowhere as I was writing and he was watching television:  "So.  Chicken.  Birth control."

Me: 0.o

Mate: "What?"

Me: "Goddess bless all progressive fathers, but, uhm, we've had that conversation already.  She's not ready."

Mate:  "But she'll need some before she goes away to college."

Me:  o.0

Mate:  "What?"

Me:  "Yeah, yeah, I've got it covered."

Mate:  "Okay.  Go back to work now."

Me:  >.<  "Sure.  I'll do that."

***

Chicken, after trying to talk to me when I've been engaged in a Facebook chat for the second hour of a three hour chat: "Okay, okay, I'll leave you alone, I can see you're busy."

Me: "Great.  Thanks.  Do that."

Big T:  "Facebook chat-- what is that?"

Chicken:  "She's talking to like a zillion people.  Look at her.  Her eyes are bugging out."

Big T:  "So, were you doing that when I was trying to talk to you an hour ago?"

Me:  "YES!!!"

Big T:  "I'm sorry!  I'm sorry!  Next time tell me!"

Me:  "Next time, take the words 'I'm on chat, let me work!' to actually mean something!"

Big T:  "Ooohhhh...."

***

So, Mother's Day.  Yeah.  It's never easy.  But I'll tell you what-- I'll take difficult over bloody fucking impossible any day.  I'll take my chocolates tomorrow, and my cards, and my lie-in, and I'll be proud and pleased.  I just might have earned it.

A Thousand Things or More

Okay--I know.  I feel like a full time self-pimping ho-bag these days--and I'm not sure how that happened.  The thing is, everything came out at once.  

First there was Country Mouse on April 23rd, then there was Gambling Men: The Novel on May 7th, and now, there's The Talker Collection in Paperback  and Talker in French.

Mary Calmes and I are going to do a chat to celebrate some of this-- we'll be on Dreamspinner Press's Facebook page on Saturday, May 12th, 1 p.m. pst (4 p.m. est) to chat about our new releases.  Mary's book Acrobat (which just happens to be the title of one of my favorite U2 songs) is doing really well on Amazon.com and she deserves a whole lot of celebrating herself.  I can't wait to chat with people about my guys.  (Oh yeah-- btw?  Mine and Mary's books are going to be part of  DSP's anniversary sale starting Sunday, May 13th... Happy Mother's Day to US!) 

But, uhm, other than that?  I don't know what else to say!

The promo for Country Mouse was sort of intense-- the publisher scheduled a blog tour, and it worked because the title sold, but.. oh geez.  Blargh.  Between that and the trip out of town, I was SO not ready to pimp Gambling Men: The Novel, which is a real shame.  It came out and people thought, "Oh, it's just a retread of the original stories."  Except it wasn't-- it was AN ENTIRE NOVEL--and the thing was, Jace, who was my original alpha male, didn't get the fawning and adulation that he so richly deserved.  (Not that Jace particularly gives a good goddamn, but I sort of wrote that book for the people who loved him in the first place, and I wanted him to get his dues for them, which is sad.)  

And now The Talker Collection is coming out tomorrow (and Talker in French is already out, and it will be out in Italian by the end of the month) and I don't know if I can explain how happy this makes me.  

I wrote these books for all of the broke college kids out there, for all of the couples living in shitty apartments working for a better day, and for all the people who started out with a bad hand and reshaped themselves to a better life.  The last novella in the series was often accused of just being an epilogue--and in a way, the people who said that hit it right on the head.  I wanted my boys to have a hard-earned happy ever after, and as they progress through the three novellas, they do.  To have their story out in paperback makes them more real somehow.  To have their story going out in Spanish, German, French, and Italian makes them universal.  I'm offering a signed copy of this one at Stumbling Over Chaos and I'm really going to celebrate when my copies arrive at my door.  My boys.  My boys.  Talker's Redemption won an award for best young adult m/m book, and if you know my story, you know how proud that makes me.  These guys are all about hope and faith.  They're all about Mate and me (without the scary, painful thing that happens in the first book or the second) and all about not knowing your own worth until you try to make someone else know theirs.  I love my guys.  I love that they have their own complete ISBN and I love that someone in France or Germany may be reading their story and thinking that Americans might have some redeeming qualities after all.  I love that Talker reinvents himself and Brian loves the person he becomes, and I love that Brian is so completely un-self-aware that not only can he not figure out why girls are falling into his bed, but he can't figure out why he's more interested in what his roommate is doing than the girls in his bed!  (It should have been a clue.  It should have.  He's not quick, our Brian, but he makes up for it with soul.)

So, Talker.  It started out as a whim, a brief novella, something I was just going to kick out to exorcise this thing going on in my head, this image which an anonymous student put up on someone's board of a kid who was half normal and average and preppy and half punk rocker.  The fact that the last novella features a climactic piece of art with the same theme seems circular somehow, and perfect, and necessary.  The fact that these guys are speaking to other people in different languages?  God--it almost makes me weepy.  They're all about hope, and doesn't this world need more hope?  They're all about strength and doing the right thing even if it's the hard thing, and all about making your way in the world with what you can earn and not what you've been given.  All the stupid politicians in this world asking for handouts, and they fail to see that guys like Tate and Brian, who don't ask for anything but each other, aren't going to want to give them shit--and they're the guys the politicians should be working for in the first place.

They're tough and vulnerable and surprisingly funny and kind and gentle and strong and flawed--so flawed--and perfect.

And real.  

Well-- there you go.  Seems I figured out what to say after all.  

Like I said, I can't wait to hold this one in my hands.  

Jace and Quent

Jason Spade is around 5'9" tall, with short, brown-blond hair and iced-vodka blue eyes.

Right now?  He's pissed off at me.

"What?" I ask.  I'm sitting at my computer in my completely awful kitchen, and he's glaring at me over my shoulder."

"I'm not entirely convinced," he says, looking at something on his phone.

"What?"  I ask.  "What did I get wrong?"

"I just don't think the guys in the vodka ad are us," he scowls.  He looks at his partner--in business and in life--who smiles and shrugs back.






"She got my goatee right!"  Quent Jackson says, and I grin at him.  He winks.  He's not nearly as scary as Jace.

"And your brown hair and eyes," I say, trying to be conciliatory.  It's not nice to pick a fight with your characters.  Those things usually come back to bite you in the ass in the way of disturbed dreams and unexpected sex scenes.

"That guy's eyes are green," Jace sulks.

I look at the commercial, which is in black and white.  "I, uhm, can't tell," I say, feeling panicked, and Quent does some mojo magic and comes up with a picture of the actor on his phone.

"And I'm not nearly that expansive," Quentin concedes.  "But you're looking good in that one," he says to Jace, and he smiles so sunnily that even Jason Spade thaws.

"I look sheepish," he grumbles, and I think I'm home free.  HA!  I should be so lucky.

"I'm glad you let your hair grow out," Quent says softly, running his hand over Jace's head so intimately, it seems to suck all the air out of the room.

"Me too," Jace says, and the intensity of his gaze into Quentin's eyes changes, and you can see Quent's neck grow blotchy with flush.  I grin at them together, a little gooey eyed, I admit, because they're my first first contemporary m/m match, and now that I've added nearly 60K to their original short story installments, I love them that much deeper, that much more.  Watching them make out in my kitchen is just as hot now as it was when I first hit the link to the video, and they appeared, fully developed, and started frotting in my head immediately.

But Jace catches me mooning at them and goes immediately goes on the offense.

"If you're going to keep watching, you'd better pay us a percentage," he bargains sharply, and I blush.

"You, uhm, don't pay characters for providing your entertainment," I tell him, trying to be gentle.  "You guys, uhm, pretty much just go about your lives and we take it down."

Those vodka blue eyes narrow.  "Bullshit," he says flatly.

I smile winningly, and Quentin gives me an encouraging grin for standing up to Jace.  "Bullshit?"

"Those guys in the ads-- they're not us!  You've already admitted that Quentin doesn't really look like that, and neither do I!"

Oh dear.  How to explain the creative process to two pissed off men who are always a hair's breadth from banging each other over the kitchen table?

"Well, yeah!" I say.  "But that's how you started!  I saw the ad, and then I wrote the short story, and then I wrote the other short stories, and then I went back and added your point of view and made the entire, complete novel--

But that's still not... not us!" he snaps.  "What on earth made you think about us when you saw those ads?"

I thought about it, then looked at the ad again and melted a little inside.



"Well," I said, thinking hard, "I saw that grin on that guy who plays Quentin, and I thought, 'Gee, he looks happy!  What possibly could have made that guy so happy?'  And then I saw the guy who plays you, and I thought 'That guy looks like he could definitely keep the other guy happy!'   But I do admit, as soon as I wrote that first scene in the locker room, you guys definitely became someone else."

"And now?" Jace demanded.

I smile at him-- I just can't stop mooning at him-- he's so decisive, and handsome, and amazing, and hot.  "Now," I say, dreaming a little, "now that I've written more than a short story, or even two?  Now, that you've got an entire novel written about the two of you?"

"Yeah!  What now?"

"Now you're definitely someone else.  But still-- there's that spark, that moment in his smile, that moment when you think, 'Geez, these guys would look really good boning each other stupid.  How would that work?'"

Quentin made a purring sound, and Jace looked at him quickly, before shifting his stance like something was suddenly really uncomfortable.  "What?"  Jason asked, but he knew.

"Jace?"

"Yeah?"

"Guess what I'm thinking about?"

Jace's flush was just as dramatic as Quentin's.  "Food?" he said hopefully.

Quent's grin was wide and expansive, and the kitchen suddenly got much hotter.

"French fries," he said smugly, and Jace made a noise then, a "gununughhhhhhh..."  sort of sound, and now I was sweating.

"Uhm, guys?" I ask, a little desperately, "you, uhm, wouldn't want to go find a private place to eat those fries, would you?"

"Like the back of your brain?" Jace asked smugly, and I bang my head against my keyboard as a "Yes!"

"Good," Jace says, sounding very pleased with himself.  "We'll just go... eat french fries... in your head, and you keep writing.  Really.  You enjoy that.  You write all you want about it.  We'll just be here... on the table... in the bathroom... in the copy closet..."

His voice fades away, and I'm left looking at the two vodka ads that let those particular genies out of the bottle.  I pour myself a shot of Jace and Quent and down it, feeling the burn of excitement travel up from my stomach.  The best thing about having characters this strong, this real, this inspired, is the chance to share.

Oh-- by the way?  Gambling Men is out on amazon.com, ARe,  and Dreamspinner Press--if you're interested in seeing how much more of their story is in the novel (and it's a LOT) and exactly what's so awesome about french fries for lunch?  You can find my guys doing their thing (and doing it well, and a lot!) right there:-)

Mate and the Relay

So, Mate had a relay race this weekend.  A bunch of guys ran different legs of a hundred mile race--Mate ran three legs of around five miles a piece-and generally, they hung out in a van, bonded, and then got out of the van and ran.

Sounds sort of cool.  (It also sounds sort of why I did things like join band and drama and why other kids joined sports in high school, honestly.  Human bonding and some sort of goal.  The cavemen went out on hunts and to gather food to get the same experience--we just shove guys in a van, kick them out on the curb and shout, "Run you bastards, run!" for the equivalent.  Eh, progress.)

So, Mate thought he'd make the most out of having to be out of town, and hauling the rest of us with him. First, he planned (along with all his running-for-charity peeps) to attend a baseball game, and thus we dragged the spawn with us--but there were some hiccups.

The first hiccup was that we didn't leave town in time.  Mate takes sole responsibility for this, and I don't know how right that is, but arriving in San Francisco during rush hour on Friday while trying to attend a game on time was such a debacle that I'm willing to let him take the fall.  Seriously.  We spent AN HOUR about four blocks from our hotel.  Mommy had to do her mommy thing then, and calm Mate down and assure him that getting there in the third inning was still seeing a game, as long as we bought the kids their damned hot dogs and I got my garlic fries, the situation was salvageable.  (Seriously.  The garlic fries at a Giant's game puts paid to a lot of traffic angst, I'm telling ya.)

So, you can see by the pictures that yes--this was true.  The situation was salvaged, and at the end of it all, we had a lovely time.  Mate left early Saturday morning to go running, and I was to bring the kids into Santa Cruz where the race ended, and that brings us to hiccup number two.

The second hiccup was that Chicken had to go home on Saturday.

Yeah-- you heard that right.  Chicken, who had been THE most excited about hanging out in Santa Cruz, had needed to go home--she is rehearsing for her senior dance for recital, the rehearsals are on Sunday, and she COULD NOT POSSIBLY MISS THIS.  Period.  The end.

Anyway, so we put Chicken AND Big T on a train.  You heard that.  I'm such a good mother I abandoned my babies at a train station in the middle of San Jose, that I couldn't find again in traffic if you put a gun to my head.  They texted and assured me that yes, they did eventually make it to Roseville where their auntie Wendy picked them up and then took them to see the Avengers, AGAIN! (They saw it Thursday night with Mate and color me green!) but still.  Was not thrilled to seem them go.

But we DID make it to Santa Cruz, and we DID (remember, I was navigating alone!) make it to the hotel, and we did manage to hook up with Julianne, who gave us directions to a nice place to eat, and took us to the beach. (After demonstrating that yes, I CAN get lost multiple times at the same intersection, even when there's someone waving me down on the side of the road thinking, "I could swear you passed me twice!") But still-- it was awesome fun.  The kids played in the water, played in the sand, and even (and this never happens) pulled out the kites.  (This never happens because I always forget the kites.  They got some for Easter, and this time I remembered.  It was very cool.)

So it was good--even though we got back to the hotel and I had a major mommy meltdown on the little kids for ditching me when I was bringing the last of their stuff to the hotel (including their books and stuffed animals) and playing elevator tag.  Why yes, those WERE my children--why do you ask?  And YES, they DID get a thorough arse-reaming and a tearful timeout when we got to the hotel room.  HONESTLY, I was JUST waiting until there were no witnesses.  Doesn't every mother do that before she becomes completely unglued?

Today, Mate comes in (he's just texted me that the guys are done, and the first van is going to be at the hotel in a couple of hours.  I'm not sure what that does to mine and Julianne's plans to go shopping at the yarn store-- *sigh* -- but I'm glad he's back, and it all went well, and he's only a little stiff and sore and not limping, like the last time he did a run with friends.)  And in the meantime?

I'm glad he's back.  I'm glad we came.  We've had a very good time, and I'm really proud of him.




 Oh-- the crawfish?  The crawfish was sort of a class project for my son's classroom.  I got a picture of this guy, throwing his claws around, being pissed off, and I adored him so much, I just wanted to caption that picture with "Vive la Cranky!" and make the world's first LOL Crawfish.  I love him.  He's the epitome of doomed chutzpah, and he'll be delicious with butter and garlic. (No, they're not going to eat them, alas-- just going to stress them out until they curl up in a ball and start to smell bad.  Poor crawfish.  You can just tell this guy thinks butter and Garlic would be more dignified.)

And also, here's a reminder that in writing news, Gambling Men is out tomorrow!  Yay!  And to celebrate, I'm going to post the first chapter--and it's not the chapter you think it's gonna be.  Yup.  You all thought it was going to start with Quentin--and Quentin's first chapter, the one in the Curious anthology really is next.  But the thing you gotta realize is that it all starts, ALL starts, with Jace:

… How to Deal …

Jace

“MCDONALD’S? Really, Jace?”

Jason Spade looked up at his business partner, old frat buddy, and best friend, trying to keep his face impassive. “I like McDonald’s.” 

Quent Jackson was looking good today—dark hair cut to part on the side, neatly trimmed goatee framing almost ridiculously full lips. Of course, Quent looked good every day. Quent had even looked good when they were both college freshmen, rooming together, before the goatee or the expensively cut hair or the natty suits, and even before the acne had cleared up. Something about Quentin’s brown eyes and open smile had always looked good to Jace. It was why he’d maneuvered their room assignments in college and asked Quent to partner with him in their day trading company. It wasn’t because Quentin was a shark—he was good enough at his job, and he certainly held his own—but because Quentin was a mammal. A warm-blooded, friendly, sweet-tempered fox who could get his own dinner but who knew how to curl up in a nest. 

When they’d roomed together in college, he’d always made their dorm room home. 

“We usually eat sushi,” Quent was saying now with a lift of his naturally skeptical eyebrow. Quent didn’t seem to believe the obvious things—or the things Jace thought should be obvious—and that bothered Jace. 

Right now, it was bothering him a lot.

“Sometimes,” Jace grunted, not wanting to put it into words, “sometimes, french fries are better than sushi.”

“So I got McDonald’s for the french fries?” Again, that skeptical eyebrow. 

“Yes.”

“Yes?”

Jace swallowed. Damn Quentin. Damn him for needing words. 

“French fries are like blow jobs,” he said shortly, and he had to give it to Quent. He didn’t blush or anything. His eyes got big, and he paused with a ketchup-smothered fry on the way to his mouth, but he didn’t blush.

But his swallow was audible. “Elaborate.”

Jace scowled. “Sometimes, the meal is the burger and the french fries are a prelude, right?”

“Gotcha.”

“Sometimes, you eat the fries, and they’re good, but what you really want is the meat, right?”

“Gotcha.”

“But sometimes….” Jace took a deep breath and then brought a crackling, crisp, salty, slick, tangy little stick of heaven to his mouth and chewed, closing his eyes and letting the fry slide down his gullet, almost shuddering in ecstasy. “Sometimes, the fry alone is all you need. It’s the whole meal, first course, last course, beginning to end. Sometimes, the french fry is all you need and all you ever fucking want.”

Quent grinned at him, looking pleased by the analogy. “Well, Jace, I’ll think about that the next time I’m getting a blow job!”

Jace tried not to sigh. 

Quentin grinned. He liked the idea. But he didn’t blush. 

“Well, it’s not going happen tonight,” Jace said, the thought almost consoling him. “Tonight, we’ve got racquetball.” 

Quent rolled his eyes. “Another chance for you to kick my ass in something. Fabulous.”

“I do my best.”

Yup. Jace was going to have to wait for the blush.  

More Dragon Writing!

 Now first off, I have to tell you all that I'm going out of town for a couple of days.  I'll try to post on Sunday, before Gambling Men: The Novel comes out, just to give that some lead in, and I hope to have all sorts of pictures from the Giant's game on Friday night and Santa Cruz on Saturday and Mate's triumphant finish with his relay team on Sunday-- in fact, I hope to totally inundate you guys with pictures, because those are fun!  But in the meantime, my life has been consumed with two things: getting new pairs of glasses (which is a story so long and convoluted as to have bored me shitless even when I was running around town spending fucktons of cash to live it) and finishing Dex in Blue.

Okay-- so I admit it--I've been riding the dragon hard these days!  Dex and Kane are my guys at the moment, and they are... they're... oh God they're fun!

Now I love my guys--I love all of my guys--and I never write a story without trying to put something new into it.  I figure I know and love (or not so much) a lot of people--they can all show up in my brain, right? But Dex and Kane...

They could be my most human, imperfect pair.  Ever.  I mean, I know I write about flawed people, some comically so and some not so much with the comedy, I am aware.  Dex and Kane are both comically and tragically flawed.  They have equal parts great and lowly, and they start off as fuckbuddies and are as surprised as anyone else when that thing turns into something really magnificent, and achingly perfect.  These two guys were side characters in Chase in Shadow and like a lot of my side characters, they had to have their own story.  So, this is Kane's story, before he was Kane (his porn name.)  I warn you, the language is a little raw, but there's no onscreen sex, and hopefully, he'll make you laugh just a little. (The model who inspired Kane is on the left, and Dex is on the right, btw;-)

He knew it hadn’t been forever.  Hell, it was never forever.  But the next day at school, the same girl who’d drooled all over his cock the night before was holding hands with her boyfriend and making limpid eyes, and when Carlos walked by, she turned up her nose. 

Carlos stopped, right where he’d been walking on his way to science, the one class he didn’t fucking hate, and turned around.

“You’re gonna look at me like that?” he asked, and he knew he had a reputation for being a player, but the girls who were begging him to fuck them usually were at least a little grateful, right?

“I’m not lookin’ at you,” she said, her tiny little nose turned up, her plump brown mouth pulled up over her two dainty white teeth.  “I don’t look at trash.”

Carlos pulled up his own sneer, and he knew it wasn’t pretty. 

“That’s not what you said last night when I was cleanin’ your chute,” he said, and he knew he had it coming, but he still didn’t see it coming when her boyfriend, Tomas, who was actually a decent guy and didn’t deserve to be two-timed like that, cold-cocked him from the side.

His science teacher, Ms. Darcy, saw the whole thing, so Tomas got suspended while Carlos got to sit in the nurse’s office with an icepack on his cheek, watching Ms. Darcy look at him skeptically.

“So, I know he’s the one who swung first,” she said dryly, giving him a gimlet eye.  She was in her late fifties, graying and hatchet faced, but she was also hella fuckin’ funny when she was pretty sure nobody like the weasley little vice principal who everybody hated and who curled her hair in her office while she was getting drunk wasn’t listening in.

“Yeah,” Carlos said, his eyes wide.  “He just up and hit me outta nowhere, I swear, Ms. Darcy—“

“Cut the shit, Carlos.  What’d you say to him?”

Carlos kept his eyes (which were normally a little narrow and devilish-looking, if he said so himself) as wide as possible.  “I didn’t say shit to him, Ms. Darcy,” but he must have put too much emphasis on “him” and not enough on “didn’t say shit”, because she raised both eyebrows.

“What’d you say to her?”

Carlos blushed.  He’d actually been raised better than to talk trash to a girl, but she’d made him so mad.  Geez, this girl had chased him.  He’d been checking out the lizards under the F-wing when she’d followed him between the fence and the portable building, and then taken him between the two portables, dropped his pants and sucked his dick.  She hadn’t even said anything.  And hell, it’s not like you just turned down that sort of shit, right?  Carlos had been working out since the seventh grade, and he wasn’t stupid.  He’d been carrying condoms in his pocket since the eighth grade because girls just fuckin’ gave that shit away sometimes, and what kind of fool turned that down?

“I…” Some of his innocence slipped and his halo crashed to his feet.  Ms. Darcy was cool.  He hoped.  “It just made me so mad, you know?  There she was goin’…”  He cut his eyes sideways and pulled up his teacher speak.  “She’s, uhm, goin’ all… personal on me yesterday, right?  And today?  She just turns away like I’m trash, you know?  And I didn’t expect hearts and flowers, but fuck, it would just be nice if she said hello, you feel me?”

Ms. Darcy did that thing with her lips that old people did when they felt sorry for you but knew they couldn’t explain why.  “Well, Carlos,” she said after some consideration.  He noticed he didn’t even make her blush.

“Well what?”

She sighed and took the ice pack off his cheek, checked the bruise forming there and then put the ice pack back.  “You know in the old days, when it used to be the boys chasing the girls, right?”

Carlos grimaced.  “That was like, sixth grade, right?  That wasn’t so long ago.”

She smiled then, and put a hand on his shoulder.  “Yeah, well, they used to tell girls stupid things like ‘Why buy the cow when you can have the milk for free’ and ‘Only trashy girls give it away’—you’ve heard that?”

Carlos nodded glumly.  “Yeah, well, everyone does that, won’t nobody get some.”

Ms. Darcy laughed then and looked around furtively before going to the little cooler that only the nurse was supposed to get into.  She opened a big bottle of Motrin and pulled out two tabs and brought it over to him with a bottle of water that had been in the fridge too.  “Here, Carlos.  Don’t tell anyone I gave them to you, okay?  The nurse is supposed to call your parents and all sorts of bullshit, but she’s at the other high school today, all right?”

Carlos took the medicine glumly, and when he was done swallowing Ms. Darcy started talking again. 

“Look, my dear, all I’m trying to say is that other people won’t value you if you don’t value you.  You’re a good looking kid, and you know it, and you’ve got girls chasing you all over the planet, and that’s fun, right?”

He nodded vigorously, and she laughed. 

“Well, if that’s what you want, that’s what you’re going to get.  But if you want it to mean more, it’s got to be something that doesn’t just happen.  You’ve got to make it important, you understand?  Give it value—just don’t give it away for free.”

Carlos grinned, thinking of something funny.  “Yeah, well it’s not like people are gonna pay me to do that, right?”

Ms. Darcy rolled her eyes.  “That’s not a career we want you to aspire to, no.  What I’m saying is, you don’t have to marry everybody you bang, but they’re going to think you’re trashy if you let them treat you that way.”

Carlos kept the ice on his jaw and shook his head.  “Ms. Darcy, I know you’re trying to tell me something important, but all I can think of is that if I got paid to have sex, I’d be hella rich right now.”

Ms. Darcy covered her eyes with her hands and let out a long sigh, the kind that told Carlos he was being stupid even when he wasn’t trying to be. 

“Or,” she said with another sigh, “you could do that.  Either way, baby, you’d probably better not talk trash to the girls you sleep with, or your pretty face is gonna get way broken, okay?”

Carlos had been born with a cleft palate.  He’d needed operations—several of them—before his palate had been completely closed and his upper lip was repaired with only marginal scarring.  He’d been lucky—all that had happened when his family still lived in Mexico, because some charity doctor had taken care of all of that and his parents hadn’t had to pay a dime.  If he’d been born here in the states, odds were, he probably would have had that big, disfiguring gap all the way up to his nose like he’d had when he’d been three or four, before the operations.  He had pictures. 

So even though he knew his face was pleasing—he had high cheekbones and those almond shaped eyes and Spanish pale skin and a nice square jaw—he didn’t take it for granted that someone thought he was pretty.  Even if it was an old teacher lady, she was cool and he liked her, so he took the compliment seriously.

“I’ll be more careful with my face,” he said, nodding to show he meant it.  “It’s all I got, right?”

Ms. Darcy closed her eyes.  “You got so much more, Carlos.  You know that, right?”

Carlos held the ice pack tight to his cheekbone and risked a look in the mirror.  “Yeah,” he said without irony.  “Like now I know I got a black eye.”  

Well DUH!

Okay, so I'll tell you why the protest felt like something of a failure.  It's because the cause--and it's a huge assed important cause, don't get me wrong-- it just feels so obvious.  I mean, it feels like one of those unspoken societal rules.  If I suddenly started running down the street screaming "For sweechrissakesyafuckin'morons DON'T WIPE YOUR ASS IN PUBLIC!" People would think I was not only overreacting, but being sort of silly.  Who does that?  Who wipes their ass in public?  Why would I even SAY such a thing?  Right?

Seriously--when I was a kid, and my step-mom was telling me about the women's rights movement and ERA, all I could think of was, "Well Duh!  Nothing to get excited about-- of COURSE women should get equal pay!  Of COURSE we should have a say on what goes on with our own body!  Men can buy rubbers in the grocery store-- of COURSE we should have easy access to birth control.  OF COURSE!"

When The Handmaid's Tale came out in college, and all the girls were reading it and FREAKING OUT! because omg, how sick was it that a woman would be subjugated to the role of incubator, I (and remember, I devoured sci-fi and fantasy like it was outlawed.  Ironic, actually...) *I* refused to read it.  I mean, it was just too implausible.  Unicorns shooting rainbows out their asses were literally more believable to me than a world in which a man would stand next to a woman, look at her, and think, "My dog is more valuable AND more intelligent.  I must make decisions for this creature and smack her when she's bad."

And see, you'd think I'd know better.  When I worked at McDonalds in college, I was SHOCKED to learn that my fellow male inmates made more money than I did.  Because they were what?  Penis endowed?  I mean, I was DOING THEIR JOBS, some of them, and they MADE MORE MONEY then I did?  Of course it was unfair!  Well DUH!

When I worked at Friday's, it was the same deal--not only that, but the guys got bigger tips!  (Of course THAT probably had to do with me being a totally shitty waitress.  I'll admit it now.)  But the pretty, competent girls had to knock themselves out--the guys just got bigger tips.  It sucked.  WELL DUH!

My first job out of college?  I lost it--I was incubating when I was hired and they didn't realize it, and I actually HEARD the secretaries talking about how I was first on the chopping block and the district office was pissed.  Was it fair?  No.  Especially because I'd TOLD the woman hiring me that I was pregnant during the interview.  Big T had problems during my second job--I went through childcare like my cat sheds fur.  My vice principal said I was an amazing teacher--but a crappy employee because of my kid.  Was it fair that being a good mom was the thing that made me a crappy employee?  I didn't think so.  WELL DUH!

When working at my last job (oh yes, we remember that last job!) I gave birth twice in the course of my employment, and both times, the principal (two different major prickweenies) fucked with my schedule.  My department heads (the good guys at that time) both went in and fought for me and came back puzzled.  "We don't know why he wouldn't change it--he couldn't give us a real good answer."  Was it because my uterus was trying to dictate their moves that they became major dicks?  WELL DUH!


And let's talk about that last job, shall we?  Should we talk about the staff meetings where a half-an-hour went by and no woman talked, ever, because every time we opened our mouths we got shot down?  Should we talk about how, when I mentioned this on the blog I got slapped on the wrist, but the guys who made the women feel like shit got nothing?  Should we talk about how before my whole bullshit thing went down, if a woman even LASTED in my department, she ran for the other school as quickly as she could?  Let's talk about getting yelled at in the quad for leaving blood on the seat after a male colleague pounded on the door to get me to hurry up in the bathroom or having my department head do an impression of my vibrator, shall we?

Well duh.

But somehow, standing there with my protest sign didn't feel like enough.  It didn't.  I mean, none of that idiotic, socially retarded (and I mean that in the dictionary sense), dumb-as-fucking-tits-on-a-cthulhu legislation has been passed in my state, and I can talk about prevailing political climate and how that translates to the attitude of those of us here on the sidewalks all I want, but it by no means gives voice to the idea that standing on a lawn and waving a sign did not feel productive enough.  Hell--I would have settled for chucking copies of The Handmaid's Tale at the heads of congresspeople, and if anyone ever makes that a carnival event, believe me, I'll be the first in line.

See, the way I see it--have always seen it, I guess--is that the way we perceive ourselves is reflected in the stories we tell.  I try to tell stories of tolerance and acceptance, of growth and equality--yes, even women's equality, because once we can no longer deny that gay men are equal, I figure women have a shot too!  I know that people have written me and told me that the stories I've told have made them realize that homophobia is a bad thing, and that women have the right to be strong.  (Thank you, Lady Cory--you WILL have those babies, I swear!) So I did that.  I told stories that changed people's minds.  I'm going to have to be happy with that--I am.  Because my friend Julianne and I went and stood in the mall at the protest and waved our signs and said, "Uhm, is this all we're doing?"  Then, Julianne laid down an ultimatum.  "All right," she said.  "One more person gets up there with a guitar and I'm bailing."(Apparently years of living in Santa Cruz has given her a low tolerance for folk performances--who knew that was a side-effect?)  And then one more person got up on the steps of the capital mall with a guitar, and we were gone by the first chords.

We went to the yarn store.  Julianne bought something shiny and green that made her want to take it home (and as you can see from the picture?  She was really possessive.  It wasn't going home with anyone but her!)  I bought everything else.  Maybe I'll knit a uterus.  Maybe I'll write another story about people treating people with respect.  Protests probably do their part to raise public awareness, but I think I'm probably the last person to bring to one.  Every time one of the well-meaning and very hard-working people got up at the podium and started stating obvious things that we're STILL fighting for, not just in the country but in the world--things like real domestic abuse laws and the right to breast feed in public and the right to get paid equally and the right to health care and the right not to have politicians shoving hammy fists up our whazoos, I really wanted to lead the rallying cry with, "WELL DUH!!!!!"