Introduction to the Otherside

So, the Otherside has been mentioned a few times now, and I think it’s apparent that it’s a major part of the setting and the story. That makes this a good time to talk a little bit about what it is and how it works. I’m going to start with just describing it and listing out some common phrases and ideas that are widely known in-setting, and then discuss some more abstract details about how it works.

One thing to keep in mind, while reading this, is that my usual caveats about incomplete information apply strongly here. The Otherside is a complex topic with a central role in this setting. Even setting aside the complexity, there are a lot of things about it that are closely-kept secrets. I’m going to be discussing the mechanisms and abstraction in more depth here than a lot of people in-setting think about, but it’s still being simplified, and I’m not going to be revealing or highlighting those secretive elements.

Additionally, while I say this is an introduction, it’s still a lengthy discussion. This is a topic that has a great many facets, and even with this, there are still many things I’m not touching on. My writing process for the Otherside has a lot of thought put into things that most people are probably not very interested in, and most of this information isn’t necessary to understand the story.…

Chapter Twenty-Six

To my surprise, it really was painless. Portals apparently sucked so much that even a relatively tame one had left Saori semiconscious at best for several minutes, and while she had said that Ways didn’t have the same effect, I had still on some level been expecting this to be at least a little unpleasant.

It wasn’t. I moved forward into the darkness, and I had the feeling of continuing to move forward, just with “forward” pointing a direction I didn’t usually see. I wasn’t sure I was walking, and I had little awareness of my body; the world was dark and deep. But it wasn’t unpleasant, just foreign, and it only lasted a couple seconds before I was stepping out the far side. I didn’t pass out; I didn’t even lose my balance.…

Chapter Twenty-Five

I froze, literally midstep. “Excuse me,” I said, not turning back towards him. “What did you just say?”

“You heard me.” Caleb still sounded gentle, and he sounded so very tired.

“Yes, but I don’t think what I heard can possibly be what you meant to say.” I sounded, at least to myself, blank in a way that never meant good things with me. “Not unless you’ve read too many novels and picked up a drug habit lately.”

“Kyoko,” he said, sighing. “You are an absolutely terrible liar. We both know it. So can we please just accept that you aren’t going to be able to bluff your way out of this and move on with the conversation?”…

Chapter Twenty-Four

A day and a half was an awkward interval of time. It was brief enough that I wasn’t doing much of substance before the party. While Lily had located the headquarters of the more dangerous threat facing me, she’d also gotten enough other information to make me very nervous about assaulting that headquarters. I knew that there were multiple people involved, and that they had the building fortified, and very little about their actual capabilities.

So, a direct assault was risky at best. And, furthermore, even if I pulled it off, there was a good chance I’d be injured in the process. I was well aware that either going to this party while injured and vulnerable or failing to go at all was risking things much worse than simple death. Even Saori had agreed that attacking now rather than waiting until after the party would be idiotic, and when Saori told you that an idea was reckless to the point of stupidity, you knew you were in the realm of genuine insanity.…

Chapter Twenty-Three

We met up again at a motel, very similar to the one Lily had picked. It was cheap, it was convenient, and perhaps most importantly, it wasn’t something I’d done before. That, I had observed, seemed to be a common factor. I could get away with something once, but this Sidhe assassin learned quickly. I had met with Toby in a public park safely, but when I did the same with Johnny, there was a sniper waiting. The second time I went back to my house, it got burned down. My best bet currently seemed to be to keep moving, keep changing up my patterns.

Strictly speaking, Saori could have just met me at the Blackbird. We would be going back there tonight, anyway. But I didn’t want to sit still for that long. It would be too obvious, too predictable. It would also, I thought, make that sanctuary almost useless. The whole reason I was relatively confident in my safety there was that the attacker would likely wait for me to be more vulnerable. If I didn’t actually make myself a better target sometimes, they would have no reason to wait. This was…tidier.…

Regionalisms and Jargon

The narration in this chapter states that the long jump is grouped with athletics rather than gymnastics. This phrasing is accurate, but there’s some interesting context that makes this more meaningful than it may seem and that I want to unpack a bit. In most parts of Europe, “athletics” (accounting for language variation) is the term for sports which involve running, walking, jumping, or throwing. The running long jump is clearly included.

But this isn’t the case everywhere. In the United States, including Pittsburgh, “athletics” is instead a catchall term. It groups together essentially everything which could be considered a physical sport or training for one. It is also used to allude to physical prowess in general; picking up something very heavy might be called an impressive display of strength, but it might also be called an impressive feat of athletics. That particular group of sports, meanwhile, is called track-and-field.…