February. Terra is in this one p.1

The Five were in the supermarket parking lot, watching Gar run around recording himself on his phone. He'd made them stop after a grocery run because apparently this scene was just right for specific vision he had. Victor and Raven were leaning on the side of Vic's car, watching Gar for lack of something better to do.

"Do you watch his TikToks?" Raven asked Vic.

"…I Like them," Vic said sheepishly.

"Me too," said Raven, but her admission came without a shred of guilt. "So does Dick. Kori does watch them."

"She does?" laughed Vic. "Of course she does, she's an angel."

They watched Gar stop recording, only to get on top of a dumpster and start filming again, apparently for the next scene. He noticed his friends staring and yelled out, "Everyone looks stupid making videos!"

"Whatever you need to tell yourself, man!" Vic shouted back.

Dick rolled down the window, "How long is this detour gonna take?"

"Don't ask me, man, ask your best friend," Vic replied. He had the habit of disowning Gar as his best friend whenever he was acting annoying.

Dick rolled the window back up indignantly.

"I mean," Vic started, "In today's world anyone can go viral. Technically he has a chance."

"Going viral doesn't mean he'll be a famous creator, which is what he wants," posed Raven. "But he'll keep on making trite unfunny videos and ignoring the obvious way to get where he wants."

"Yeah," chuckled Vic. Then he stopped, realizing he didn't know the obvious way. "Uh, meaning?"

She said it matter-of-factly, "He should do songs."

"Songs?"

"Those songs he makes up sometimes. When we're at his house and he pulls out his guitar. Or when we're doing anything and he starts singing about it. You haven't heard them?" Gar had finally gotten his own guitar for his birthday, and he hadn't let anyone forget it ever since.

"…No, not really," said Vic.

Raven looked up at him. "You haven't listened to a single one of your best friend's songs?"

"Not everyone has your patience, Raven," Vic retorted, but blushed out of guilt.

She crossed her arms. "They're weird, un-metered, silly, and always slightly too short. But… they're kind of nice. He would sell that act in a second."

Vic peered at Raven while she spoke, not knowing what to make of her—he couldn't tell whether she was throwing this out as a suggestion this, a critique, or just the neutral assessment of a situation.

(Raven had been particularly unknowable to him lately, or was it just he was too attuned to her every gesture after the showdown with her father a few weeks ago? She just seemed like she was keeping something close to her chest. But then again, when hadn't she been?)

So he just looked back at Gar and went,

"Huh. Then why don't you tell him that?"

She answered with another question. "How many followers does he have right now?"

"Forty three."

"And how do you know that?"

Vic made a face. "Because he's been bragging about it non-stop."

"Imagine what he'd be like if he actually hit it big."

Vic looked back at Gar, pondering the truth –and wisdom- of her words. "Huh," he made. Gar was now putting a traffic cone on top of his head for some reason. "You really think he'd be a hit hit? If he did songs?"

"Oh yeah. I've been reading about this TikTok thing. Apparently people only care for cute inane boys fourteen to twenty-one. He'd blow up overnight."

Gar was finally done then, and they got back in the car. As they ate hot dogs –and tofu dogs- in Kori's house, something nagged Vic in the back of his mind, but he couldn't put his finger on what. It wasn't until much, much later that it hit him. He dropped his friends off, went home, went to bed, slept through the night, got up the next morning, and he was brushing his teeth while glaring at his reflection for being awake before he finally unburied what it was that had alerted him:

Raven had called Garfield cute.


In the silent school hallways, in the dead middle of third period, a firecracker went off inside a locker, blowing the door open, and sending students and faculty pooling out of classrooms shortly after.

Among the forming crowd, space was made for the Secretary, who stood before the guilty locker and called for its owner to come forward.

The student who came forward, a skinny girl with long blonde hair, didn't understand she was being accused of causing it at first. She was going through her smoking belongings trying to salvage something, while the Secretary detailed the punishment for this type of prank. When the girl understood she was made out as the culprit, she protested this wasn't her doing. The Five watched as the Secretary turned on her heel and left back towards the front office, deaf to the girl following after her and making her case, lugging her salvaged books in her arms.

"That is the fourth incident this month," said Kori.

"Four firecrackers in four different kids' lockers," Raven surmised, "and they won't believe someone's setting them up. How stupid are they?"

"Blood's tripping," said Gar. "Why would someone blow up their own locker?"

Vic said, "They don't wanna believe someone's setting them up because they'd have to think someone's stealing the lockers' master key. And they don't wanna have to investigate that."

"Then we will," stated Dick.

In the same breath as he had stated their new mission, Jenny Hex spotted them from across the hallway and yelled out, "Hey! Dick-face! Aren't you and your glorified fan club supposed to be taking care of crap like this?"

"We're on it, Jenny!" Dick shouted back.

The teachers were steering everyone back to their classes. The Five only talked about it again when they met for lunch.

"The first step would be to talk to the victims," said Dick. "Who was the blonde from today? Anyone know her?"

Nobody did.

"I guess she's new," Dick said. "Let's get the ones we know."

Gar talked to the first victim after gym class.

He was a heavily bullied boy who told Gar he sincerely, from the bottom of his heart, didn't care in the slightest about helping them figure out who'd set him up, someone was always hassling him one way or another and this was just normal life to him, and who put his hands over his ears and went "Lalalalala…" when Gar tried to reason with him.

Vic caught with the second victim, who was the daughter of the girls' volleyball coach, and told him before he'd even posed a question that she couldn't afford to appeal her punishment; her mother was hanging onto her job by a thread and wouldn't hear of her going against Blood or making waves in any way.

Raven talked to the latest victim, a known troublemaker who blew her off, telling her he was glad to get the three days' detention, all his best friends were there.

"Well," sighed Gar, "now we know why none of them came to us when their lockers exploded."

Dick had assumed a thinking position. "It almost seems like someone's targeting people who can't or won't fight back."

"So what's our next move?" asked Vic.

"If the victims don't help out, we look directly to the evidence surrounding the crime," Dick said, and because the statement sounded unnecessarily pretentious when he heard himself say it, he followed it up with, "Let's plan over pizza."


The next school day thankfully came and went with no firecracker-related incidents. As the bulk of the student body went home or to their after-school activities, Dick led the group down the hallway rehashing the plan they had come up with the day before, when Gar interrupted with a "Guys, look! There's that girl!" He was pointing at the latest firecracker victim, working on her brand new locker. "We should go talk to her."

Dick was in no mood to waste time. "We've established that the victims aren't being helpful."

"She could be different! looks helpful!" said Gar.

Vic smirked. "I think the word you're looking for is pretty." He'd seen the way Gar's gaze had stopped on the new girl, the day before and right now.

Dick either didn't pick up on it or didn't care. "We already have the plan, let's just do the plan."

The girl was leaving anyhow, closing her locker with a bang and stalking away.

The first step of the plan they had enacted throughout the day: it involved keeping watch of the teachers' lounge, where the lockers' master key was kept. They had determined that key was the only way someone could get access to the lockers, since none of the locks looked busted—they had checked. That meant either a person was stealing the key every day, or they had taken it once and made a copy. If it was the former, they were probably returning the key every day, and, as Dick said, they'd probably choose this time, when the teachers had left and the Secretary was anxious to finish her day, to break in and out.

However, when they got to that hallway, only the blonde girl was there. She was leaning against the lockers, arms crossed, giving the door to the lounge a death stare.

To his credit, Dick took the turn of events in stride when Gar turned to him with an 'I told you so' expression. "Okay, let's go talk to her."

Dick took the lead when they made it to her. "Hey. Mind if we ask you about the firecracker incident?"

The girl turned the same glower she'd been giving the lounge's door on him. The expression made an almost humorous contrast with her baby blue eyes and doll-like features.

"Why? What's there to say?" she retorted. "Someone put a firecracker in my locker and the principal won't even consider I'm telling the truth about it."

"So you're here to talk to him?" Dick asked.

"No," the girl responded. "I'm waiting for a kid to come out of that office."

The Five looked at each other. It had seemed like a stretch that the girl had come to the exact same conclusion as them, but it seemed that was exactly what was happening.

"What makes you think a kid's coming out of that office?" asked Vic, smiling.

"That's where the master key is, right?" the girl posed. "Someone has to be stealing it to get into people's lockers, and whoever's doing it has to be doing it every day, 'cause the janitor still had it earlier when he gave me my new locker."

Dick exchanged an impressed smile with his team. "So what's your plan?" he asked her.

The girl said, "I'm gonna wait out here, and whoever comes out of that office," her eyes flashed, "I'm beating them up."

Dick chuckled. "Okay, or you could let us handle it."

The girl looked defiant. Her hair fell over one of her eyes as she turned on Dick, arms on her hips. "Well what would you do?"

Dick said, "First off? Get out of the open view."

He motioned for her to go around the corner. In the time it took the group to move over there, something seemed to click in the girl's mind.

"Wait," she said, and her face broke into a smile. "Hold on. I know who you guys are!"

She seemed to forget all her troubles as she pointed at them excitedly. Dick held his breath, hoping she wouldn't say the words 'Teen Titans'.

"You're the famous Project Club!" she said. "Right? This is so cool! Are you gonna defend me?"

"We're certainly gonna try," chuckled Dick, gratified. This was the better reaction among what they usually got.

"Please, what is your name?" asked Kori.

"Terra."

Dick turned to her. "Terra, we're thinking whoever's behind this is targeting kids who can't or don't want to fight back. We have one kid who's bullied really badly, a teacher's daughter whose mom won't defend her, and a delinquent who doesn't care about punishment."

"You asking me what's my damage?" Terra asked with a bright smile.

Dick's eyes opened wide. "Uh…" he went.

But she laughed. "Well, it's probably 'cause I'm new, right? This is my…" she rolled her eyes up to the ceiling as if to help her think, "sixth school in two years."

"Whoa," went Gar, and started back when his intervention made the girl's eyes turn on him.

"Why?" posed Vic.

"Dick," warned Raven, and they looked around the corner. From the other end of the hallway, Jenny was walking to the lounge, carrying the attendance book.

The Five plus Terra watched her go inside the lounge.

"It's Jen's group?" asked Vic. "Of course it's Jen's group."

Terra said, "Uh, new kid here? Who was that?"

"Jen and her friends have always given us trouble," supplied Vic.

Kori continued to make the most out of the lull in the stakeout by quizzing Terra. "Terra, if you are not from Jump City, how do you know about us?"

"Yeah, do they talk about us in other schools?" Vic added.

"Some people know about you, mostly through Insta," Terra informed. "And of course then I found your TikTok," she said to Gar.

Gar panicked at being addressed, and made a pause, during which he quickly blushed. "Oh… You watch my videos?" he said eventually, and grinned.

"Yeah!" said Terra. "They're hilarious!"

"What? Really?" Gar reacted.

Gar's four friends could practically feel him falling deeply in love.

"I think she's one of the forty three," Vic whispered to Raven, who simply raised an eyebrow in response.

The door to the teacher's lounge opened, and when Jenny came out, T lost her smile again and made to go out after her. Dick put a hand on her arm to hold her back. "Wait. Trust us."

Jen walked away.

"Why'd you stop me?" Terra demanded.

Vic said, "Because if she really just returned the key, it's no use doing anything now. She has no proof on her."

"And we have a plan," said Dick. "And it's this way, come on."

Terra followed the Five.

"I really just still want to settle this with violence," she said regardless. "I served detention yesterday over that girl. Look, she's not taller than me, and I don't usually even have that going for me in a fight."

Gar looked at her worriedly. "But you're already in trouble over the firecrackers. If you beat someone up you're gonna get suspended, or expelled."

Terra looked like she was parsing over this for a moment, but then shrugged. "I haven't unpacked, I don't care."

"I'm beginning to see why she's been through six schools in two years," Raven said to Kori and Vic at the front of the group.

Dick turned to Terra. "If you do it your way, you'll take revenge on Jenny. But you do nothing for the other kids she screwed over."

He was glad to see it dawning on her face. "Yeah… you're right," she told him.

Two hallways away from the office, Vic kneeled down to work at a vent, using a screwdriver to unscrew it and removing the lid.

"Uh… what is going on?" Terra asked.

"Just watch," grinned Gar.

Dick looked at Gar, recognized he was more mindful of Terra than anything else, and felt the need to remind him of the plan. "You and Raven distract the Secretary."

To his credit, Gar sprang into action immediately. He and Raven moved up to the Secretary's window. When the vent lid was out, Dick went through it. Terra looked at the ceiling, where he presumably was crawling through. She couldn't even hear him.

"It's Babak, with a K at the end," Terra heard Raven telling the Secretary.

"And you're sure Mr. Immotu requires this record?" was her disgruntled reply.

"Yep," said Raven.

"Hey, maybe it's not read like that," said Gar. "You know, with the Greek spelling."

"That's not Greek, you idiot," Raven returned.

"They're actually ad-libbing," Vic made sure to point out to Terra.

As the Secretary massaged her temples, Raven and Gar could both see Dick drop from the ceiling vent silently, and pretended they didn't.

"Well it's supposed to be a green folder," said Gar.

"We don't have green folders," stated the Secretary.

"Huh. Weird." Gar scratched his head. "That's what he said."

Dick snuck to the key pad and replaced the lockers' master key with a dummy.

Back at the hallway vent, which Vic was standing in front of to cover, Terra asked, "Why do you even know how to navigate the vents?"

"We have done the investigating," answered Kori. "There are no maps, so Dick went through all of them and made one."

"Oh," said Terra. "That's… dedicated."

"You can say crazy," said Vic, and Kori's smile turned into a subdued giggle that was mostly pride.

Vic stepped aside for Dick to come back out the vent. He placed the lid for Victor to screw it back to the wall as Gar and Raven returned to the group. Terra nodded approvingly. "Okay, fine. You guys are cool."

Dick stretched his arms behind his head. "We'll, it's Friday. Even if Jen's group isn't behind this, which is unlikely, whoever's been pulling this won't be able to anymore."

"Uh, Dick?" started Gar. "That means we solved the mission, right?"

"We didn't really solve anything yet, Gar. We'll only find out if this worked on Monday."

"But we did all we could for the time being," Gar tried.

Dick smiled as he realized what Gar wanted him to say. "I guess we did. I would say, um… case's closed."

Gar cheered. "Yay! Case's closed! Let's go!"

"Go where?" asked Terra, rooted in place as the group made to leave the school.

"To celebrate!" said Gar.

"We mark the end of every case with a letting off steam," Kori explained. "It is usually at Vic's house, though it is sometimes at Dick's and my house, and more rarely at Gar's or Raven's house."

Terra was very confused by Kori's wording, which made her look at her and Dick alternately. "Wait, you two already live together?"

Kori was in turn very confused as to why Vic burst out laughing.

To dissuade embarrassment, Dick smacked Vic's arm and told him, "Race you." And they shot off into the hallway.

Gar began to run after them, but he noticed Terra was lingering behind. "So? You coming?"

Terra's face brightened and she followed along.

Gar resumed racing after the boys, and Kori hooked her arm with Terra's on the way out. Raven followed after the group silently.


"…so then this guy Kidd Wicket starts school," Gar was relating to Terra, "and he's really quiet and pale and dark, right? So Jen's group take him in, and they had the brilliant idea of pranking people making him think he was really a vampire."

They were lounging at Vic's house because Silas would be gone all day, and they were currently telling Terra what they'd meant when they said Jen's group was trouble.

"That was the first time we got called about them," said Vic. "Also the first time we got called on behalf of the primary school."

"It wreaked havoc among the school children," Kori said, shaking her head.

"There was this thing they did where they turned out the lights and he appeared," Gar went on. "With crappy plastic fangs and a cape and everything."

"You know Jen got that one from when we went to the haunted house," Vic interjected.

"The haunted house?" asked Terra.

So they told her about the haunted house.

As they did, Dick went to the kitchen area for a coke. Raven followed him and sat on the counter next to him. "Are you considering it?" she asked him.

"What?" he replied.

"Adding her to the team."

"Yeah, I am," said Dick, honestly. "Why, what'd you think?"

Raven crossed her arms. "She seems a bit… volatile."

"That'd be a low mark for the mental segment," he said, his way of saying he agreed with her. "But I think her heart's in the right place. We agreed that was the most important thing."

Raven looked towards the merry group in the living room. She couldn't have said why something about Terra rubbed her the wrong way. There was something forced and fake about her, but who was to say she wasn't just nervous about starting a new school, and now trying to assimilate into a new group of friends?

Dick noticed Raven was hesitant. But she didn't press the issue, and so Dick had to conclude she admitted this came from no particular reason other than her natural reticence to new people.

When they came back to the group, Terra was answering questions about her life. "I've just never been someone who likes to stay in the same place," she was saying. "I like a change of scene every once in a while."

She talked like she was her own independent adult who decided where she went in the world, rather than her moving around being a consequence of any outside circumstances. In short, she talked like she didn't have parents—or anyone with a hand or an opinion on her changing towns so much. All five refrained from asking what was up with that.

"I have traveled a lot too," shared Kori. "But I am glad now that I can stay in one place, with the same people."

"Oh, I can't be like that," said Terra. "Sure, leaving people behind is hard… but seeing different schools, different towns, is really fun." She smiled at them. "I wouldn't have it any other way."


Sometime early in the morning, when it was finally clear enough to see, Terra got up from Vic's bed, which she had shared with Kori for the night, stepped over the boys sleeping on the ground around them, and left Vic's bedroom for the living room.

She had barely slept. She never slept well in other people's houses. She was only good at pretending she did.

She looked at the sunrise for a while, as she waited to be fully awake. Then she climbed on the kitchen counters to get to the cabinets –this house was made for tall people-, and fished for something edible.

She didn't hear Raven come out of the bedroom. By the time she took notice, the other girl had walked past her, was at the back door, and then out of the house through it. Terra stayed frozen, not knowing whether Raven was in some rush to leave early or had decided to exit the house when she saw Terra there.

Gar was next to wake up. He brightened when he saw Terra sitting on the counter, eating directly from a bag of cereal. "Hey."

"Hey," she returned, smiling back. "Um, I think Raven left?"

"I don't think she did," he replied offhandedly. "She's probably just taking some air. She does that," He cranked open the tiny window above the sink and shouted out, "Rae! You want pancakes?"

His complete faith that she was there was gratified when a definite "No!" came from the outside.

"Then come help!"

"I said no-!" But by then Gar had already closed the window.

Terra's stomach grumbled at the mention of pancakes. She was bad at cooking –or so she heard; in her mind, she was good enough at feeding herself, but her food had always gotten bad reviews with other people- and she said this Gar as full disclosure, but she was willing assist if he made the executive decisions.

So she was put in charge of mixing what he chose to put into a bowl. As she did so, she spoke. "Hey, quick question. Does Raven, um…?"

"Hate you? No. She's just like that at first," said Gar, not looking up from measuring egg replacement.

Her hand stopped mixing. "Wow, you were just ready for that question, weren't you?"

"Well, it's kinda obvious when you see someone glaring at you like that," he grinned.

Terra laughed. "She is scary."

"She'll get used to you in no time," Gar said. "Promise."


Raven went back to Azarath right after the pancakes.

She'd been returning home with the same frequency as she did back when she had a mom that always wanted her home, and she couldn't have said exactly why. It was probably part leftover respect of her mom's rules, part putting up a screen of normalcy for her friends, and part denial.

It was also always a stupid move on her part, because being home made her so angry she couldn't think. She could barely meditate in what used to be the sanctuary of her apartment. The gardens and common areas of Azarath were not an option either, because she couldn't detach herself form the sense of betrayal she now ascribed to all of it, and any priest and priestess she saw.

Her only contact with them was to make sure she was seen by them, so they knew when she came and went. She guessed the only way her mom could keep track of her now was through Azar, and the priests reported directly to Azar.

When you entered her apartment, you saw all the way down the hall, and to the open door of Arella's empty bedroom. Raven took care to avoid looking that way while she was home. She'd go straight to her bedroom, close the door like she'd used to in order to do homework and be on her phone in privacy. Eventually she'd wander out to her cold kitchen to make herself something for dinner.

She hadn't really been eating meals at home since her mom left, so much as ingredients. Her dinners, when she wasn't with her friends, consisted of any combination of random fruit and raw veggies, yogurt, cans of beans or lentils, and cereal. She was trying to get all the food groups in there. School lunch was now her main meal, and she was eating more for it; Dick, who noticed everything, had happily remarked earlier that week that she had more appetite lately. (She was now paranoid that Dick, who noticed everything, might also notice she wasn't putting on any weight despite that, and he might come to theorize she wasn't eating as much at home; even as a mental note he might not even process, Raven was wary of the danger of his detective mind.)

Early on she'd googled simple recipes, thinking she had to at least know how to make freaking dal. But when she'd tried it, it had come out as the saltiest thing she had ever tasted; there was more salt in there than she conceived ever having put in the pan. Now she was convinced the house was too crowded with her own feelings of betrayal and mourning, and nothing she'd try to make would turn out well.

Arella hadn't learned to cook from her own mother either. She'd learned from books after she ran away from home. Now Raven was in the same situation, probably because Arella had never been taught how to teach someone to cook. Arella had always rebelled from her own mom; from the mists of infancy Raven had perceived her mother had always tried to do things differently from her grandmother—but Raven had always wanted to take after Arella. She would have loved to learn from her, had it occurred to them before this.

Raven also wasn't sleeping much. Not unless she was at a friend's house. The sleepover at Vic's earlier that week had been a godsend—even if it had been mildly spoiled by that strange girl being there.

She had never expected how desolate her life would feel without Arella. Growing up, Azar had been so indispensable, Raven had always thought she'd be lost without her. She'd always seen Arella as kind of a secondary parent, even someone Raven usually took care of. It turned out she'd underestimated how much she needed her mom.

Going through her house now was like hanging out at a graveyard. It was full of old memories that woke up when she walked through the rooms, but now they were dark and ruined and tainted. She was attacked by moments she hadn't thought about for years. Old and tried routines felt threatening, because she was carrying them out alone.

She had fantasized about living alone after high school, before this. She'd thought it would be cool to have her own space. But she didn't want it like this. She wasn't able to feel grownup or free in these circumstances. She just felt abandoned.

That night, Raven took her dinner of two tomatoes, cheese and ham to the window sill, because she'd never done that before, so it wasn't upsetting.

That was how she saw Melvin sitting on the porch of her house, alone again. And Raven hadn't been aware of it until now, but when she saw the little girl there, she realized she'd been keeping an eye on that house all this time, in case Melvin got locked out again.

She threw her dinner plate in the fridge, walked downstairs and out of the house.

Melvin jumped when she saw Raven.

"Again?" Raven asked.

"Right?" the little girl returned indignantly, hands on her hips, but it was coupled with a delighted smile on her face at their shared understanding.

This time, while Raven sat with her, Melvin showed her the art project they were working on at school. The prompt was complementary colors. For red and green, everyone in class had chosen a fruit bowl or a Christmas tree, but she'd gone with autumn leaves in different stages of their life cycle. She seemed very proud about that, and Raven appropriately praised her for it—the picture was very pleasing.

After they'd been talking for a while, Raven asked her, "Hey, do you still not like your babysitter?"

"Well, she hasn't changed, so no," was the thought out reply. She looked at Raven suspiciously. "Why? Do you want to be our babysitter?"

Melvin had sensed it before Raven knew she was implying it. Raven heard herself say, "If you still think I'd do a better job…"

"Yes!" Melvin jumped and hugged Raven. "How soon can you start?"

"But, can you just change babysitters? I mean, will you mom listen if-?"

"Oh, leave that to me." She let Raven go. "I know you don't like hugs," she said as an apology.

Raven didn't remember when Melvin could have picked that up; that first babysitting session had seemed endless. She smiled. "A little one won't hurt," she said, and spread out her arms. "See, I'm fine."

Melvin laughed, and it gave Raven an unexpected burst of joy.

This time it was Mr. Tanner who came walking up the driveway.

"Dad, this is our new babysitter," Melvin told him.

The man took one look at Raven and his auburn eyebrows furrowed, like he was doubting it—but he apparently decided whatever he'd thought about who was their own babysitter was wrong, and simply nodded at Raven as he never slowed down on the way to the door.

Melvin winked at Raven for effect before the door closed.

Raven returned home feeling that, for the first time ever, she understood what people who loved children were on about. She remembered how those three kids had made her chase after them. They had annoyed and vexed her, ruined her evening and kept her from studying… and still she'd be glad to see them again. Still she liked talking to them, just to see Melvin's little face brighten and listen to her thoughts.

Do I… like children? she wondered as she retrieved her dinner. It would be a complete shock if such was the case. She'd always thought people who liked children came from big families, or had mothers who were kindergarten teachers, or otherwise had upbringings where they had growna resistance to the noise and chaos. And stickiness. And exhaustion. But maybe the only qualifier was… wanting to be around children. Raven had barely been around children when she was children.

But it was done, and as she sat to her table now, she felt some of the pervading lowness she now associated with her apartment had somewhat lifted now she was on top of a new project. If nothing else, there was that.


OMG TERRA! Everyone, Terra's here! *ahem*

You know how I spent soooo looooooong writing this four-installment series? Well, in the earlier drafts Gar was doing Vines, then when Vine came down I shortly made him a Youtuber, thinking "Something else is gonna emerge to replace Vine, it's inevitable", and lo and behold: now he does TikToks.

Anyway. I'm so excited for the second half of the story! This is where plot threads I set up are exploited and developed, and the year's main plot starts to gain traction!

About Raven: this is gonna be a time of her life where she's kind of burnt on the outside, raw in the middle, acting before thinking for a change, because her mind's too messy for anything else. Aaaaand it's at this time I decided to throw Terra into the mix! All of these kids are about to have a terrible time and lots of heartache :DDD

And about Terra, the real star of the show for the rest of the year: I love how I managed to write her. I'm satisfied enough that I made justice to her being a nervous ball of unaddressed trauma parading as a happy-go-lucky tomboy, and I hope you enjoy my portrayal of her too!

~The Lighthouse