Lainnescape?

Characters/Origin: Bel, Annabelle, Olivia (Year Zero/The Alters) | Mic (Dark Skies)

Local Network World: 0333

“So this is the option you decided to go with?” Mic asked. “When are blogs from? Like…when were they last relevant?” She leaned back in her chair, running a hand through her hair - managing to get a couple of fingers snagged in a knotted series of curls - before recovering, reaching into her purse and extracting a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. She slid one between her lips, lighting it up.

“Suave.” Olivia rolled her eyes.

“Fuck off. Author’s pet.” Mic snarked.

“Children. Stop.” Anna sighed. “Bel?”

“Yeah, so…” Bel sighed, looking around at the other three women sat with her at the outdoor Cafe’s undersized table, with their disinterested expressions and near-identical features: shoulder length, curly brown hair, blue eyes, resting bitch faces fully in place. Mic in that over-worn tan trenchcoat and blue-and-white striped button up, contrasting with Olivia’s black jeans and tank top, and Anna’s green-and-black flannel overshirt. They always wore the same shit and, honestly, it irked her. She supposed she could have written them differently, but none of them seemed particularly interested in shaking things up. “It’s a fair critique. But it’s not really a blog blog, y’know? It’s more of a…”

“Dumping ground?” Olivia smirked, still picking at her Caesar salad. Bel stared judgementally down at the mess of shredded lettuce, raising an eyebrow before looking up at Olivia. “What? I’m here for the bacon and the croutons. The rest is basically garnish.”

“That’s…no, I’m not engaging with that, it’s clearly a fucking insane thing to say. It makes you sound like a well-spoken toddler. Like…what the actual fuck, Liv? Anyway…no, not a ‘dumping ground’. More like…” Bel trailed off again.

“C’mon.” Mic encouraged, exhaling a thin cloud of smoke. “Can’t be that hard to think of a pretentious synonym for ‘dumping ground’.”

“First? Fuck you. Second…I don’t know what I want to do with this. I’m sort of just planning to make it up as I go along, I guess? I want a place to put my writing. I want to centralise work-in-progress stuff so I don’t have to send it piecemeal to the people I’d like to read it. I’d like to be able to show people my work as easily as sending them a link. And occasionally I get the urge to say stuff, and I…sort of low key think social media is awful. This is a solution which services those wants.” Bel nodded to herself. “Maybe if I feel like it I’ll put some of the finished stuff on KDP or…I dunno, Substack or something? But this seems fine for now.”

“I think it all makes sense.” Anna shrugged. “If you don’t care about monetising, and you’ve decided against traditional publishing - ”

“ - It’s a racket, is the thing - ” Bel cut in.

“ - We don’t need to re-litigate the reasoning; I know why you don’t like it and I now accept that it has nothing to do with being secretly convinced that your work is too weird and gay to be marketable - ”

“ - Yeah, thanks.” Bel rolled her eyes.

“I’m saying it’s as good an avenue as any. Stop being a brat. It’s your project.”

“I’m gonna get a drink.” Mic decided, motioning for a server. “Gin and Tonic please? Double?”

“Same again?” Olivia concurred with a nod.

“I’ll get a Bloody Mary.” Anna smiled. “Bel?”

“Just a flat white, please? Medium? To go?” The server nodded, stacking up their plates and departing.

“So all of it? The novels, the poetry, the short stories? Some of that stuff is…” Mic grimaced: “Pretty raw.”

“I think what she’s trying to get across is, with some of the older stuff, particularly…as the kids are saying, ‘you couldn’t waterboard that shit out of me’.” Olivia clarified, prodding Mic and holding out her hand. Mic rolled her eyes, reaching back into her purse for a cigarette and a lighter.

“These are pretty expensive - ”

“Yeah, thanks for the commentary Jimmy Shive-Overly; light me up?” Olivia snarked, holding the cigarette between her lips and leaning in. Mic complied.

“You should both do less references. That was niche as fuck, to be honest.” Bel grumbled.

“It wasn’t niche.” Olivia frowned. “You’re the Worst is a great show.”

“ And you’re the one writing our dialog.” Mic exhaled a wave of smoke across the table towards Bel.

“I mean, you all…sort of write yourselves?” Bel shrugged. “Anyway, the older stuff…it’s gonna take awhile before I get to that. Even for ‘work in progress’ throwing-stuff-at-the-wall publishing, I feel like Featherlight and Abyss need, at minimum, a fresh pass. And the poetry? Yeah, unless I get diagnosed with something terminal, ninety-plus-percent of that is probably staying under lock and key.”

“And the rest of the ‘not-blog’? It’s just gonna be…this kind of self-indulgent crap? Perspective characters from your books talking at each other in little…slice-of-life vignettes?” Olivia clarified.

“I mean…yeah, that’s pretty much what I’m thinking.” Bel nodded.

“I think that’s kinda cool.” Anna interjected. “Better than some pretentious wannabe author writing first person about their thoughts and feelings on whatever-the-fuck.”

“No, it’s a pretentious wannabe author writing third person about their characters thoughts and feelings on whatever-the-fuck. Blah-blah-blah with extra steps.” Mic finished her cigarette, butting it out in the ashtray at the centre of the table before going to light another.

“So it’s writing then?” Olivia raised an eyebrow, leaning back, folding a single arm across her chest and exhaling aggressively. “You’ve gotta be kind of fucking pretentious to imagine your specific ouvre of sentence construction is worth reading, so the rest of it is kinda splitting hair, honestly. Who gives a shit? Do it. Have fun. Not like anything fucking matters, anyway. We’re all gonna be dead from billionaire-adjacent, world-ruining catastrophes in the next coupla decades. So fuck it.”

“Yeah, in a nutshell, those're pretty much my thoughts on it.” Bel admitted. “Congratulations, You’re Dying or whatever.”

“Now who’s doing niche references?” Mic chuckled.

“So there’s the book, right?” Anna confirmed.

“Yeah. Year Zero. I mean, it’s the only completely finished thing I’ve bothered to get to publishable quality.”

“And you’re putting it up there…for free?”

“Fuck, why is that so hard to understand? I did a fucking Literature degree. I know what happens to enjoying reading and writing when you make it your job and put weird genre constraints on what you’re engaging with.”

“Just checking!” Anna held up her hands defensively as the server brought her Bloody Mary out. She smiled a thank you, taking a tentative sip. “Oh god, that’s actually perfect. Just what I needed.”

“How the actual fuck does it take less time to bring out a Bloody Mary than a G&T - ” Mic started.

“ - Shut up, Michelle.” Olivia rolled her eyes. “And the work-in-progress stuff? Dark Skies?” Bel nodded. Mic held up a ‘devil horns’ fist with an entirely neutral expression on her face. “Spire and Vanir - the proper sci-fi ones?” Bel nodded again. “And obviously the Year Zero extra stuff, and the short stories?”

“Yeah. And anything else I happen to want to throw together. And maybe I’ll get to taking another pass at the old stuff. And…I dunno…maybe…maybewedosomefanfictionidontknowihaventdecidedyet.” Bel mumbled the last part, pretending to take a fresh look at the drinks menu.

“What was that?” Anna raised an eyebrow.

“She said ‘fanfiction’. I heard fucking ‘fanfiction’.” Mic hissed. “Are you fucking stupid?”

“I mean…kinda?” Bel shrugged.

“Save it for A03,” Mic pleaded. “Please don’t put your shitty little head-canon ‘what-if’ scenarios next to my actual, decent story.”

“I’m fine with it.” Olivia smirked. “Mostly cause she’s not, but…go off, queen.”

“Fuck you, Liv, I’ll - ”

“ - I’m trans and you’re not, Mic: disagree with me and it’s a hate crime - ”

“ - What the fuck, that’s the worst thing I’ve ever fucking heard - ”

“ - Aren’t you meant to be like…a hard-boiled journalist? And that’s that worst you’ve heard - ”

“ - Fuck off back to your stupid little Multiverse - ”

“ - You fuck off back to your lack of one, with your…fucking...contrived sci-fi CPTSD disease bullshit - ”

“ - Stop!” Bel shouted. The sparse cohort of other attendees sitting throughout the outdoor bistro area were looking over. Bel got to her feet, adjusting her scarf under the collar of her leather jacket. The server arrived with her flat white, handing it to her quietly. Bel nodded to him.

“Convenient timing…” Mic rolled her eyes.

“Yeah, almost like she wrote it.” Olivia raised an eyebrow.

“And I’m out.” Bel slid the strap of her purse up her right arm and over her shoulder. “See you when I see you.”