Craig[B]: i’m not disagreeing. i’m saying we can’t say until the night is over. we can’t make any deals if we don’t know everything
Penny[D]: We really have to don’t we?
Penny[D]: What happens if we wait?
Penny[D]: The fighting between families goes on and everything out there moves faster than anything in here.
Penny[D]: We get swept up in it and then what’s the point of having a junior council at all?
Penny[D]: We’re pawns in our parent’s games.
Penny[D]: We’re pawns against each other, and the council dissolves.
Craig[B]: no offense but thats your battlefield. your all enchantresses and you do this sort of thing well. what if we accept and you turn it around on us?
Lea[D]: Else[B], I PMed you.
Penny[D]: Mags is here to help negotiate deals.
Mags: I’m only here as a mediator. I can’t make the Behaims deal with you and I can’t stop them from dealing with you.
Craig[B]: well i don’t think we should make any deals until alister is back online.
Tandy[B]ear: yea
Lea[D]: *Is* he going to be back on? Emphasis on is. If we’re not sure then we might run out of time.
Mags: One possibility is to sign something provisional. Make it official later. Or don’t.
Penny[D]: The whole point is to have a deal in place before we’re angry or upset or not thinking straight.
Penny[D]: Before things maybe possibly end tonight and the lordship is decided.
Penny[D]: We make things official, before one side knows whether they won or lost.
Penny[D]: Preserve the point.
Mags: Which defeats the point of something provisional, ya.
Mags: Also slow it down a bit. Let others get a word in before you drown them out.
Craig[B]: i don’t know
Craig[B]: ains? elspeth? owen?
Else[B]: Thinking. Ainsley is still out, backing up Alister. We could call but I don’t want to distract.
Owen[B]: I’ll do a quick read and see if it’s okay to call. Brb.
Penny[D] has renamed Ainsley[B] to Ainsley[B]Afk
Penny[D]: I know its late and everyone is tired.
Penny[D]: I know tensions are high and we’re all worried about our families.
Craig[B]: combo break
Penny[D]: …What?
Craig[B]: no threes plz penelope. saying ‘you know’ three times to try to do smthing with rule of 3?
Penny[D]: I’m not sure it works like that.
Craig[B]: tell us you weren’t trying to see
Mags: Don’t taunt. Penny, don’t make threes.
Penny[D]: Whatev.
Penny[D]: As I was saying, I know it’s late and we’re tired and we’re scared.
Penny[D]: Its easy to feel helpless.
Penny[D]: But let’s do what we can to get in contact with people.
Penny[D]: Wake them up, talk to them by phone. There are too many who are idle.
Owen[B]: Ains and ali are busy running. Have to wait to call them.
Owen[B]: Maybe we could wait until we have something to say first before we rally everyone? Like you said, a lot of us are spooked at the idea of what might happen. I’m watching the chat with one eye and looking after protecting my house with the other. I’ve been in fights. Some of us in here don’t have any responsibility or the security of knowing they can protect themselves at all.
Else[B]: the younger ones.
Owen[B]: Yeah
Tandy[B]ear: yea and I know I want to be here but I don’t know what to say
Penny[D]: I’m feeling outnumbered by Behaims right now.
Lea[D]: A lot of our girls are old enough to be out there with their husbands or too young to be in here. Chloe had to leave just a minute ago.
Penny[D]: Sigh
Penny[D] has renamed ChloMo[D] to ChloMo[D]Afk
Penny[D]: We’re running out of time.
Penny[D]: How many hours until the night is over? My aunt told me before that we had a situation.
Craig[B]: two hours and fifty two minutes.
Penny[D] has set chat name to: JBJC [Sunrise at 7:12]
Else[B]: Trust a chronomancer to know the time off the top of his head.
Dolores[D] renamed themselves to ThorburnBogeyman
Craig[B]: …what?
Lea[D]: Oh god.
Penny[D]: No no no. Lola?
Craig[B]: is this a joke
Mags: Blake?
Else[B]: Doing a quick read. Phone in hand, trying to call.
ThorburnBogeyman: No joke. Hi Mags.
Mags: What did you do, Blake?
Lea[D]: busy signal from her phone. did anyone else get ahold of her?
Else[B]: No.
Penny[D]: He got her?
ThorburnBogeyman: I didn’t ‘get’; amyone.
ThorburnBogeyman: Anyone.
Penny[D]: What did you do to Lola?
Penny[D]: How did you get into her house?
Lea[D]: I can’t get her mom or my mom on the phone either.
ThorburnBogeyman: Lola is here. She’s safe and unharmed. I had her implied permission to use her computer.
Penny[D]: Did you torture her for that implicit permission?
ThorburnBogeyman: No. I told her about evemts earlier in the night and she accepted what I was suggesting. Enough to let me on.
Penny[D]: Which doesn’t explain how you’re on her computer right now.
Penny[D]: Her house was protected.
Penny[D]: Did she go outside?
Penny[D]: Mags?
Mags: I’m here. I’m not sure what you want me to do.
Penny[D]: Arbitrate!
Craig[B]: where was lola? where is the thorburn?
ThorburnBogeyman: You can ask questions all night, but I was reading what you were saying before I announced myself. Penelope is right, we don’t have a lot of time.
Penny[D]: What happened to Lola? Jessie was at her house, too, I think.
Owen[B]: I look away for five seconds… Penelope, we have your back. If you need me out there, I can help. PM me.
Tandy[B]ear: I liked Lola.
ChloMo[D]afk: Wait, what happened?
ChloMo[D]afk renamed themselves to ChloMo[D]
Mags: Blake Thorburn, the Thorburn Bogeyman, took over Lolas computer. We’re still confirming Lola is okay.
ThorburnBogeyman: I’m not the fastest typer. Hands are odd, too. I can’t answer questions as fast as you ask them. I’m going to cut to the chase. There is a fire at Hillsglade House. I lkeft there and ran into Duchamps. Joyce Duchamp as well as Gail Duchamp. Gail Duchamp’s husband is now dead.
ThorburnBogeyman: I don’t get the impression it was much of a loss. It seemed almost a relief.
Lea[D]: I don’t know that end of the family that well.
ThorburnBogeyman: I don’t know if I should be touched at Owen’s offer of help despite family lines or offended that he thinks its mneeded. Lola is fine.
Penny[D]: Kin of the Ogre Magi.
ThorburnBogeyman: Yeah, them.
Penny[D]: They weren’t the only ones you killed.
ThorburnBogeyman: A necromancer and a woman named Jan also died.
Owen[B]: Holy shit.
Tandy[B]ear: Why? What did they do to you?
Penny[D]: Maybe we should have put you down.
ThorburnBogeyman: Maybe?
Craig[B]: Just got Ainsley on the phone. Filling her in.
ThorburnBogeyman: Does that ‘maybe’ mean you’re not sure, Penelope? This is important.
Penny[D]: Janet was a relative.
Lea[D]: Which? Who’s Janet?
Penny[D]: Cousin of ours, once removed.
ChloMo[D]: I knew Janet. She made the best fucking cookies, when I first met her. I friended her online, but she started spamming my email with these weekly newsletter things about her and her cats and her kid.
ThorburnBogeyman: Jan wasn’t my call.
Mags: What’s going on, Blake?
ThorburnBogeyman: things are changing. We knew people would get hurt. the duchamp family lost power, and I’m wondering if they would be willing to lose more.
Owen[B]: IMing you, Penny.
ThorburnBogeyman: But this isnm’t my medium. I’m getting l;ost in the jumble of words.
ChloMo[D]: I had to unfriend her. Hated doing it. She seemed lonely. Not her fault her husband was a douchenozzle.
Else[B]: We have to hold onto our family ties.
ThorburnBogeyman: No you don’t. Penelope is exactly right. There’s a time limit if we’re going to change anything. By dawn, something will be decided about the fight for Jacob’s Bell. You have a window of opportunity.
Penny[D]: Don’t put words into my mouth.
Penny[D]: I stand by my family.
Penny[D]: Thick or thin.
ThorburnBogeyman: you stand by the ones who intend to marry you and your cousins off? To necromancers and ogre magi and guys named Spikedick? Or to the girls who may have their lives ruined?
Penny[D]: the deals I was asking for were for truce, to keep this council intact and preserving it.
Penny[D]: Both the older ones and the young ones.
Penny[D]: That’s family. You don’t pick and choose family.
Owen[B]: What do you want, Thorburn?
Penny[D] has renamed ThorburnBogeyman to [Th]Bogeyman
Penny[D] has renamed ThorburnBogeyman to [Th]Blake
Penny[D]: There. Better. Name was stretching my tablet window.
Penny[D]: I second Owen’s question.
[Th]Blake: I want to make a proposal.
Penny[D]: You want to manipulate us, the weakest link, while things are at their most critical.
[Th]Blake: I’m not here to manipulate you or play games. I want things to change, and I don’t think letting this fight for the lordship continue as is is something that will make anything change. I think you’re deluding yourselves in this
Owen[B]: You don’t know anything.
[Th]Blake: I know more than you’d think. The Lord will get picked, and the city will run much as it did. Only bigger. Worse. If I was in your shoes, I would be terrified of the idea of the lordship being decided in your familys favor.
Craig[B]: maybe if i was a duchamp
Owen[B]: Terrified? No. You haven’t been part of this for nearly long enough to know what’s going on.
[Th]Blake: I won’t say I’m objective, but a fresh set of eyes can’t help?
Penny[D]: No. You’re inventing a problem for us to solve.
Penny[D]: We didn’t ask for a fresh set of eyes.
Lea[D]: Or help.
Penny[D]: Or help.
Craig[B]: especially help from someone whose an avowed murderer
Owen[B]: A fresh set of eyes isn’t a share of what we deal with is older than the printing press.
[Th]Blake: Isnm’t that the logic your parents use to justify manipulating you, Owen?
Owen[B]: You’re twisting my words around. I thought you weren’t here to manipulate.
Tandy[B]ear: yea sorta
Tandy[B]ear: the parental logic I mean
Dolores2[D] has joined JBJC [Sunrise at 7:12]
Lea[D]: There we go.
Penny[D]: Lola is on her phone. Situation confirmed, she is safe. Her mother is bound by her own word. Gail is standing by with Jessie safe in bed and unaware.
Dolores2[D]: I’ve been reading over the bogeyman’s shoulder. Thanks for worrying about me. My phone was co-opted
Owen[B]: For?
[Th]Blake: I’ll make my point before things get complicated and others join the chat. Penel;ope told me before that she wouldn’t act against her family, even if they do questionable things
[Th]Blake: I’m wanting to make sure that she isn;t drowning out other voices.
[Th]Blake: In the imterest of being fair and not manipulative, I told the ghost of Molly Walker I would weaken the Duchamp[ famil;y. Rather than kill indiscrimnnatel;y, I decided on this.
Lea[D]: The hell?
Owen[B]: ?
Penny[D]: Why the Duchamps?
Dolores2[D]: first I’m hearing of this
[Th]Blake: ?ns after. complicated. I’mn not making promises. But if any Duchamp in this chat feels the need to speak their voice, like Gail mnight’ve needed someone to speak for her, name husbands or members of family who have crossed lines or needed to die, tell me.
Chat JBJC [Sunrise at 7:12] has been silenced by Penny[D]. Only chat moderators may speak. They thank you for your patience.
Penny[D]: Okay.
Penny[D]: No.
Penny[D]: I’m sorry, but this isn’t okay.
Penny[D]: I can’t let my cousins and sister and everyone else do something at 4am in the morning that they might regret.
Penny[D]: Sandra and everyone are out there fighting for our sakes and our futures.
Penny[D]: If you give him a name, you might as well be pulling the trigger on a gun.
Mags: Is it your place to decide? Like Blake said, aren’t you just doing what your parents did?
Mags: If I don’t get a satisfactory response, I’m unmuting the chat.
Elliepete has joined JBJC [Sunrise at 7:12]
Christoff has joined JBJC [Sunrise at 7:12]
Penny[D]: If you unmute the chat, and anyone is shortsighted enough to give him names, you might as well be killing them.
Penny[D]: who the hell are these guys?
Mags: The only one doing the killing is Blake. I don’t agree with it, and it scares me, a little, but that’s on him. Right from the beginning, when you invited me to this group, you told me you wanted this to be a place where the young practitioners had a voice.
Mags: If you take that voice away, I have to agree with Blake, then you’re not being true to the spirit of things here.
Chat JBJC [Sunrise at 7:12] has been unsilenced by Mags.
Owen[B]: Fuck you, Penelope.
Else[B]: Who are those people who joined? Are they more Others? Did someone guess the chat password?
Elliepete: Nope and nope.
Penny[D]: This is getting too difficult to manage.
Owen[B]: You had no right. No right to cut off all communications.
ChloMo[D]: Manage, Penny, or control?
Lea[D]: I expected better.
Else[B]: Again, strangers in chat. Are they the Faerie?
Elliepete: Wrong again.
Mags: Calm down, please. Only speak if you have something to say.
Chat JBJC [Sunrise at 7:12] has been restricted by Mags. [One] message per person per minute.
Mags: If you’re not contributing, I’ll silence you for two minutes.
ChloMo[D]: Fuck it. I’ve got to go. Something’s been happening at the lakeside.
ChloMo[D] has left JBJC [Sunrise at 7:12]
[Th]Blake: Peter, Ellie and Christoff are Thorburns. Now without a house and maybe without a library. But I know Christoff is interested in being a practitioner.
Elliepete: waded into the middle of a shitstorm? seems to be a theme tonight. I’m doing the typing with my sister beside me.
Lea[D]: I’m going to say it, since I don’t say much. Being a practitioner? You mean being a diabolist.
Christoff: No. Your monsters killed my brother. I’d like to figure out how to bring him back.
Owen: Why invite these people, Blake?
Chat restriction lifted for [Th]Blake
Mags: While you’re answering questions, Blake. No more shenanigans like asking for names for your hitlist.
[Th]Blake: Thank you
Penny[D] has renamed Elliepete to Elliepete[Th]
Penny[D] has renamed Christoff to Chris[Th]
Chris[Th] has renamed Chris[Th] to Christoff[Th]
[Th]Blake: I brought them in because they’re faces.m They’re actual people. Because I wanted to generate some sympathy for them,. and I’m praying they won’t be assholes.
Elliepete[Th]: us? be assholes? Imagine that.
[Th]Blake: I don’t think much of humnanity as a whole but I believe in people. I think the same is true for everyone else. which is why you make us different. you objectify. make us diabolists instead of actual people.
Penny[D]: it wasn’t about that. It’s about the fact that you’re tampering with forces beyond your ken.
[Th]Blake: I walked into this with no intention of even touching diabolism. Not ever. Rose did too. I held onto my convictions, even as I lost m y life, my humanity, my familiar, friends who I loved. My bike, dammnit. Everything I hold dear. I could have spoken some names and summoned things and solved problems but I never did.
[Th]Blake: I was away for a time. Rose has been in the middle of this since the end of December. She got desp[erate. She’s using demons for leverage. I don”t like the slipp[ery sl;ope shes’ on.
[Th]Blake: Damn these wooden hands
Owen[B]: You talk about slippery slopes but you killed people. Tonight, even.
Craig[B]: You killed my father, didn’t you?
[Th]Blake: I did. I killed people and I killed Laird.
Else[B]: I don’t think you have any moral high ground to stand on.
[Th]Blake: I don’t think anyone in Jacob’s Bell does, Elspeth. You’re dealing with monsters you created. You’ve all pushed us harder into diabolism than anything else, and if everything continues along this path, you’ll deal with monsters you paved the way for.
Penny[D]: Including you? Are you a monster we paved the way for?
[Th]Blake: I don’t have a future waiting for me, and I don’t have a past, not quite, not an intact one. The only two individuals who seem to give a damn about me are a bird and a mnermaid. I more or less only exist in the moment. I can’t imagine a reality where things settled down here and I was still around.
Lea[D]: Because you think you’ll be dead, or you can’t settle down?
[Th]Blake: Can it be both?
Mags: There are options, Blake. The seal of Solomon, if you were willing, would mean giving up some control, but it helps others control your impulses.
[Th]Blake: Being destroyed sounds more appealing.
ElliePete[Th]: Mags? Can I talk? Unrestricted? I feel like I have to chime in, but I can’t do it with one line.
Chat restriction lifted for ElliePete[Th]
Owen[B]: Favoring the Thorburns a little, Mags? I know you’re friendly with them.
Mags: I’m trying to be impartial. If you have something new to say, ask, I’ll do the same.
ElliePete[Th]: Fuck you all!
Mags: …
[Th]Blake: I hear you, Mags.
ElliePete[Th]: This is a chatroom filled with teenagers? Children? Fuck you!
Mags: Keep that up and I’ll kick you.
ElliePete[Th]: I’m going somewhere with this.
ElliePete[Th]: I was there when Blake was talking to an other, making a deal with it. Telling it not to go after kids. Nobody under twenty. Being here, reading this chat and putting the pieces together, I’m more convinced than ever that this world is fucked up and upside down. And that includes you, Blake, because you think any of these people are worth a damn.
Else[B]: Thorburns, making friends and influencing people.
Mags: I’m about to revoke your privilege to chat freely, Elliepete.
ElliePete[Th]: Fuck it! Fuck your collective righteousness. You’re worse than your parents. You’re everything that’s wrong with the world, and that’s not counting the monsters and bumpkins and shit! I hope you’re ashamed. If I could make deals with Others, I’d do the opposite of what Blake did. I’d send the monsters after you, not after your parents. Your parents at least mostly admit what they are and what they’re doing. But here you are, sitting here, and you’re convincing yourselves you’re upright. Oh, you’re doing good, you’re speaking up. You’re getting a voice for yourselves. And if there’s something wrong with all this, you’re not to blame at all. It’s your *parents* fault. You’re insulated from it, because your parents are keeping you at arms length.
Mags: Jesus. I thought they were done.
Chat restriction set for ElliePete[Th] [One] message per minute.
[Th]Blake: Believe it or not, I think a lot of Penelope and several of the others here. Even with the brief censorship earlier. I wouldn’t have come here to reach out to them if I didn’t. They’re scared, they’re in a tough position, powerless but still part of the families and the bigger machinations.
Owen[B]: Why does it bother me more that he’s trying to defend us?
Dolores2[D]: It shouldn’t. I think he’s mostly right.
ElliePete[Th]: Fuck you, Blake. Scared, in a tough position? Who here isn’t? You know what I think? They’re all complicit. They know they’re complicit. They know they can change things, half of the people in this chat probably know know they should have said or done something different when people were openly discussing what to do about Molly Walker. Or acted after they heard about it. Or hate their parents because their parents kept them in the dark.
Christoff: My big brother got his throat cut. He went out like a hero, getting eaten alive. I still don’t know how he deserved it.
Penny[D]: It’s more complicated than that.
Mags: I don’t know if it is. I don’t sleep easy anymore. I haven’t since Molly died. I was there. I’m as complicit as anyone except maybe Sandra, Johannes or Laird. Laird, at least, paid for it in a roundabout way.
Owen[B]: What do you want? You want us to feel bad? I feel bad. Congratulations. I had a lot of discussions with my dad about it, and feeling bad doesn’t fix anything. We move on, we do better in the future.
[Th]Blake: I don’t think anyone here feels good about what happened to her. I do think that unless things change, it’s going to happen again. A lot of us, even me, for a time, have ignored what happened. You can’t ignore history, or it repeats itself. I told this to Penelope and a few others here, not long ago, but there’s no reason for things to change.
Penny[D]: And for that to happen, you need a list of people to murder? I can almost respect where you’re coming from. I think you said we cooperated, once? I respect that. But this isn’t a fix. I can’t say how proud I am that nobody spoke up to give you any names, after the chat was unsilenced.
[Th]Blake: I have seven names.. I got private m essages while chat was silenced
Mags: PMs.
[Th]Blake: Yeah. PMs.
Lea[D]: …
Owen[B]: What happens now?
[Th]Blake: I leave. You’re free to continue chatting with the Thorburns. Or don’t. Censor them, kick them out. But consider what that means, if you’re doing to them what you did to Molly and Callan. Keeping them at a distance, avoiding looking them in the metaphorical eye, just so it’s easier to kill them when the time comes.
Christoff[Th]: For crimes we didn’t commit.
[Th]Blake: Yeah.
Penny[D]: This was supposed to be a safe place. A place where we could come without feeling like we were surrounded by giants, always on the bottom rung.
ElliePete[Th]: Or a place where you could work on insulating yourselves, reassuring yourselves you were doing right? Says a lot that you call yourselves the Junior Council. Training to be your moms and dads.
Else[B]: That’s not fair.
[Th]Blake: Maybe not. Bye.
Chat JBJC [Sunrise at 7:12] has been lifted by PennyD.
Penny[D]: I hope you fail.
[Th]Blake: I wouldn’t plan on it. I’m not saying I’ll succeed, or even that it’s likely. But if people start thinking it’s dangerous to be an ally to the Duchamps, you’d better be prepared to adapt fast.
[Th]Blake has left JBJC [Sunrise at 7:12]
Pact 