Day One Thousand One Hundred And Eighty-Three

Dear Diary,

I don't often think about it, but there's a lot of weird shit going on her and now when it comes to... I dunno, technology. I'm not sure everything I'm thinking fits into that descriptor. 'Technology'. Because while some of it is definitely weird, like concrete and Crossbows and trebuchets not being real commonplace despite being pretty commonplace back in the day in the world of my birth. Yeah, Trebuchets and Crossbows are both common enough in the Alliance now that I'm pretty sure there are a couple in private hands. Fuck, I'm not even sure that's fuckin' illegal, nor am I fully sure that it ought to be.

Yeah, that was a big discussion back in the day, the whole thing about who should and shouldn't have guns, and what kind of guns they ought to have. I know Crossbows aren't guns, they require a little more knowhow and a little more strength to be lethal, but they're still weapons. So with the thought that some folks, especially Brown ones, wound up catching extra helpings of shit if some cop caught them with a broadsword or katana or shit like that, I'm gonna confidently say that I don't know the answer to that one. Our women wandering the woods near the Homestead, maybe, and some rando women wandering the woods who don't live in the same complex with a half dozen genuine Phileo trained Heroes to escort them in case of Sudden Griffon or shit like that definitely. But I can't think of a good fuckin' reason for anybody living within half a mile of Drivers' would need one.

Seriously, despite being a client state for a long time, it is a fuckin' walled City, and everything inside the walls, whether residential, commercial, or industrial, is fuckin' urbanized as shit. The only way I can think of that something could attack is along the waterfront, which I'm sure has at least a few Camden Yards Heroes patrolling. Especially considering the nature of my arrival. Which reminds me, despite most of our maritime folks knowing about my connection to the Kraken from all the Kaiju fighting, not to mention their activity during the recent Battle of the Channel, I really ought to let Bill and Angel know about the Keeper watching my arrival point.

Honestly, given how often I forget things... Kitten?

Yes, love?

Can you make sure Bill and Angel know about Keeper?

So strange that I can feel her smile like that. Long since done, love.

Thanks, Kitten.

But all that's kind of a divergence from my real point, which is that folks like Marylin Calvert aren't, like, university educated. Shit, as far as I can tell, while schools are a thing, the idea of a 'university', a place where people just gather and get their nerd on with the pure intent of learning more about the world, seems to be a Phileo invention, and possibly one of the reasons the powerful Deities of the Pact hate Phileo. I mean, I've read about history, and you gotta go pretty far back before you hit the point where 'rich person' and 'educated person' weren't almost synonymous. Yeah, it's not real far back before education was maybe iffy, but the connection between rich and informed is pretty longstanding.

But Kitten's got the Alliance pushing forward, educating everybody, making sure nobody starves, making sure nobody's without shelter. Shit, I think we've got something approaching universal healthcare even, with the Temples providing Healing. With the Temple of Love and my other Temples setting the baseline at 'you pay what it costs us to provide, and even there you pay in a way you can afford', that puts a practical maximum on what people can charge for Healing, not to mention a floor to what people can expect.

We're making progress.

Shit! Progress! That's exactly what's so fuckin' jank here and now. Some stuff has progressed, while other stuff hasn't. I mean, it's pretty clear that along with some shit advancing along different lines, what with Mana Shaping making Magic a thing, there's also been Deities, especially those of the Pact, who've been impeding progress in every fuckin' way they can. It's almost like they killed off anybody they expected would cause any kind of Change...

Motherfucker. Motherfucker on toast. Motherfucker on a stick with special white gravy spouting out until it comes out her nose. Which I now suspect may be waiting for me on Ledger Day.

Of course not, love.

That's... Comforting, I guess?

If I'm to get you with child, I can't have it spilling out your nose, can I now?

There we go, terrifying again.

Are you sure you're not following the path of our dear Darling?

I mean, gotta at least try the shit your partners are into, right?

Someday I will learn to keep my fuckin' mouth shut. So lovely of you to anticipate that bit of spice she enjoys.

At any rate, yeah, Change being locked in a box seems very much like a metaphor for why progress on everything is jank in terms of being primitive, despite the existence of actual Magic which ought to replace some of the tech this world doesn't have.

Anyhow, yesterday after getting home from teaching the Head of State of Calverton Variable Equations alongside my more typical junior crowd, I came home to feed the fam before heading to Mom and Dad's for the night and following day. I tagged them with an invite, and they showed up as Mittens and I were bringing out dinner. Waffles, fried chicken tendies, and Marie's savory sweet gravy. She's shown me how she makes it now. It's basically an chicken gravy made with a brown roux, but with a syrup and honey reduction mixed into it. Winds up thinner than what I think of as 'normal' gravy, but it pours real nice on the waffles and tastes awesome with the tendies.

Speaking of the waffles, I discovered that Fae Grain does not, fortunately, act like catnip for my kits. Because of course Aisling, Maze, and Ria shared theirs. Okay, I've always heard 'nip makes cats go nuts, and it didn't do much more to our kits but make them sleepy as fuck, which wasn't outside the normal behavior for our kits, so I wasn't super worried about it. Of course, Lindsey came over when the kits went wonky and tugged at my sleeve.

"What's up, Lindsey?"

"May we?" She nodded toward where a couple of our non-Fae, non-Deity kids sat.

It didn't take me long. But I realized that the whole 'forbidden fruit' thing wasn't gonna help things. "I'm not sure entirely what it would do to you..." I looked over at Siobhan and Saffron, who'd heard the conversation.

Siobhan started, saying, "it's not poisonous. So long as the dosage is low, it's simply a soporific with some possibly disturbing side effects."

"Disturbing how?"

She shrugged. "Now and again I catch a glimpse through your Blend."

"Dafuq? Wait, why are you eating Fae Grain again?"

She smiled. "To properly nurse our daughter?"

I sat there with my mouth hanging open until Saffron chuckled and said, "other than occasionally seeing through illusions, seeing things as they truly are, which as Darling says can be disturbing to glimpse, there shouldn't be any side effects beyond some mild intoxication." Before I could really respond, she muttered, "I've thought now and again of adding Fae Grain to the general supply."

"Dafuq?"

She shook her head. "Our supply of such is in no way sufficient to keep the entire Alliance under its sway."

"Not to mention the whole chemical mind control thing being wrong, right?"

She blinked. "Pardon? There's no mind control involved." Then she paused. "Although I supposed intoxication would make that easier." Before I could respond, she held up a hand. "But now that you've made your position clear, I shan't be doing that or anything like it in the future."

Yeah, now and then I get a reminder that other than the Values and Morals she gets from me, my Kitten is kinda scarily amoral. Still, it's a 'does not have an innate Moral Compass' amoral, not a 'refuses to listen to me' amoral. Which, to be clear, I can work with.

But with everybody trying at least a bite of the Fae Waffles, we all slept well. My ladies drifted lazily around my Maw, the ones who hadn't been at the Homestead for dinner occasionally dunking the ones who had, then sculling away giggling, pretending they hadn't done anything when their victims returned. Wasn't sure what to make of it, but my partners seemed more confused than upset. Also, not long before the end of the night, Tallulah took control of a few tentacles and pulled all my non-Homestead ladies under. Because Fae do not, apparently, get high from Fae Grain.

Today... Today I talked about my loss of control at my Revel. Which, to be clear, wasn't a 'I became a ravening fuckbeast' or 'I hurt people' loss of control, but something I'm now realizing might be closer to some kind of weird executive dysfunction combined with...

Honestly, the best suggestion I had came from Doc Glass. Around noon, when I'd been going in circles for a few hours while Doc Z and a couple of the Mom Collective spoke with the girls, he asked, "is your problem with what you did, who you did it with, where you did it, or something else?"

"Something else. How I wasn't in the mood, then stepped to my Altar and boom, instant ready to party, hesitation forgotten."

He nodded, and did the thing I'd had therapists do, handing me a common sense grenade when he said, "perhaps if you're in that mood in the future, do not personally visit your Altar?"

I frowned. "Are you sayin' that I shouldn't have gone to my Altar if I didn't want to get busy?"

He shook his head. "No. Far from it. More that..." He paused, then said, "are you familiar with addiction?"

I snorted. "Maybe just a little."

"Well then. Some of my patients who struggle with addiction describe similar situations. If they're in the presence of their addiction, any intent to avoid imbibing disappears. Similarly when you're in the presence of your Worshippers, you forget all about anything but them and the Worship they bring you."

"Uh... Are you saying I'm a Worship addict or some shit like that?"

At that point Dad proved that he is, in fact, the best, when he snorted and said, "Daughter, as much as one might joke about it, I don't see how one can be 'addicted' to food."

I frowned. "Binge eaters kinda are. People who overeat over and over even after they're not hungry."

He shook his head. "Well then. Should you ever begin overeating, that might be a problem, but I don't see where it is now. You likely were simply hungrier than you thought. And, as the good Doctor says, if you wish to avoid partaking, simply tell your High Clergy without showing in person."

I sighed, nodded, and said, "I guess."

Wasn't until the end of the day that I thought about the idea of 'overeating' and my enormous M-Space ass.