Content warnings for this chapter: none that I can think of, not even sure if I should tag the pairing since they're mostly not talking about things

Also the chapter I'm the least sure about at the moment- length of scenes, and whether there should be a Minnesota scene for Lan and Karlie (the other Stanford alums DiJonai would have played alongside and presumably texted earlier).

( the rules are the first to go )

Content warnings for this chapter: coupla f-bombs, a sequence that might have DV overtones that weren't supposed to be there and aren't intended by the characters, but tempers do be flaring, given the situation

( the rules of the game )

Hello, aloha, hola, and welcome to this season's edition of "WTF is wrong with Scribbler's brain?" This is dedicated to every one of the chucklefucks who decided that the only way to support your favorite player is to tear down another one.

This is also dedicated to the enablers who watched me post this in the group chat and said, "Yes, and here's who would be the most ruthless cutthroat bitch on each team."

In a very small way, this is also dedicated to the Indiana jersey reveal in which Teaira McCowan has a sword, because that shit lives rent free in my head, and now it's going to live in yours: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qC9l34e7gjo

Content warnings overall: it's a cross between Highlander, the Hunger Games, and Among Us. Expect violence, psychological manipulation, gaslighting, and an absolute shattering of trust. Also, I swear a lot and this will leak through to the dialogue. Some people's reactions to being out of the game may be interpretable as DSM disorders.

Typos in text message exchanges were not intentional but have been left in place for verisimilitude.

( all those words we wrote )

In sleep I vanished, lost in dreams, Was it mere rest, or distant schemes? I wake to find the world once more, In chaos swirling, as before.

As every age must struggle deep, A final cry, a blade must leap. Yet all shall pass, as all things do, From tangled dark, the light breaks through.

But lo! A web anew is spun, Arachne's hands, her work begun. And Fate—silent still—conceals its thread, No whisper yet of what lies ahead.

~Verdelet, (c) 2025

Haven't written anything in years, years, but yesterday I was inspired. I blame finding a job stress and reading too much nosleep over on reddit. Anyway, it's a nosleep story. If you're not familiar, the concept is that it's all real. The story is actually partially based in reality (I did have a neighbor waking me up every night with knocking).

I needed somewhere to put it while I contemplate putting it up on nosleep and also so I could link from facebook, so here. Enjoy. No warnings or ratings other than creepy and would likely bore small children.

THE KNOCKING
( Read more... )

Things have been Problematic and Upsetting on the real-life employment front, which has sapped my ability to do many things for the past month or so while I've both been very busy and also constantly feeling like I'm not doing the right thing with my time. But I have been reading! Let's just skip over all those books and get back to the current reads, shall we?

Currently Reading: Running Close to the Wind by Alexandra Rowland
This is a bit of an exhausting book, because the main character is very exhausting.  He talks constantly, is just a hyperactive weasel of a person who is both selfish and also incredibly funny.  For me, that takes some doing, as I usually do not find such characters endearing at all.  But this book manages!  Right now, he has managed to steal something and is making that Everyone Else's Problem because his Everyone Else is a bunch of pirate buddies who likewise find him exhausting but weirdly endearing and who desperately want to sell the something he stole.  So there is seafaring and sea serpents and old lovers who'd like to toss him overboard and his own witchy good luck to contend with.  I have to read this in small doses, but am enjoying it.

Just Finished:  A Drop of Corruption by Robert Jackson Bennett
Second in a series about a very interesting world where instead of mechanical technology, the world's leaned hard into engineered organics, mutated plants and animals, and reagents pulled from the massive leviathans that annually crawl out of the sea.  Within this the main characters are investigators sent to figure out a murder of an Imperial officer, and find as they unravel the mystery that it of course reaches much further than one guy in a locked room.  I wouldn't suggest reading this before the first book, but it's a great continuation of the series and gives more worldbuilding and characterization of both the main investigator characters.  Highly recommend!

Up Next:  I think I need to read something self-helpy, just to help my brain stop this worry-train it's on.  I've pulled Living with the Devil: A Meditation on Good and Evil by Stephen Batchelor back off my shelf and think that's up next - IIRC, it was a good book about digging into bad states of mind.  Also, I've become a fan of Kimberly Lemming's light-hearted but well-constructed fantasy romances, and I've got That Time I Got Drunk and Saved a Human on my shelf in Libby.

Inasmuch as I am capable of chaptering things, I would say this is the first scene of the second chapter, which is "the rules are the first to go", following straight on from "just the rules of the game". (And possibly "all those words we wrote" if I decide to set the opening e-mail as a prologue. Still deciding on that.)

Some chapter titles, including this one, are from Josh Ritter's "Girl in the War".

---

DeWanna's phone rings- Alyssa, of course, who else would it be? She makes sure it's voice only and picks up.

"You saw Nai's text?" Alyssa asks, and despite everything, DeWanna can't help but smile at the sound of Alyssa's voice, even if it's only for a moment.

"Yeah. She called me, too. She's... she's going through it. Yeah, it's real."

Alyssa's quiet. She doesn't have to speak. DeWanna knows what she's not saying.

I'll come for you. But not until the end. I'll come for anyone who comes for you.

"Yeah," Alyssa says after a long moment. "You know..."

"I know," DeWanna says, and that's the truth. "Me too," she says, and that's a lie.

They don't need to say anything else, and Alyssa hangs up. DeWanna looks at her phone and thinks about the chat app she didn't install but that now connects her to every other player in the league, constantly scrolling, constantly updating.

She looks at the sword on the table: a weapon, a temptation, a threat, a promise, a choice, a calculation.

She looks at the championship pennant from Phoenix and remembers the heat, the pressure like a hammer to her head and her brain.

She looks at the pictures of Cali and Demi and considers just how insistent the Fever were about providing childcare this year, how willing they are to take care of her children as much as possible even when they're at home.

She looks at her barely-there reflection in the window, filling in the tightness around her eyes, and she thinks about the flatness behind Caitlin's. She sees how much sharper her profile is since she came into the league sixteen years ago, and she thinks about the sharpness behind Aliyah's broad smile. Her gaze flicks to her shoulders, and she thinks about the limits to Alyssa's strength. She looks at her legs stretched out under the table, and she makes herself consciously aware of the dull ache that lives in her joints.

A weapon, a temptation, a threat, a promise, a choice, a calculation.

"Hey. Google," she says, and she has to cough and clear her throat before going on. "Hey. Google. Find sword fighting lessons near me."

The phone begins to speak and search results begin to scroll. And in the glass, reflected and barely there, DeWanna's fingers curl around the hilt of the sword.