#ooc

True

18 is a big one

No wonder she's melancholy

end of school, end of childhood, moving away...

Earl is not sure what he can do but wait it out and be there for her. He worries he holds too tight, and after she's been cooped up, he can see why she'd pull away from that.

She does like her space

I think by now, Earl might have talked to Mr. DeVere... aka 'secret dad' and tried to get a definite sluagh perspective.

Oh, I can see that

Zara doesn't seem to understand why earl doesn't want his own room

I think in Earl's case he might grow to appreciate it honestly. It's very easy to say "We're in love, we should be together soooo much"

but there's a reason there are man caves and ladies who stake out a particular room

Every now and then... space.

Exactly!

And she loves him, she wants to keep it that way!

"Earl, mine love... the dreams are coming more frequently now." "The one where you drop me into a pit where I'm impaled by my own sharpened brushes because I won't stop complaining about 'the process' of being an artist?" "Aye, And thee?" "Yeah, last night I dreamed you drowned in your own tea as you went on about the mets... if you'd kept from talking about them you wouldn't have swallowed it, but you couldn't or wouldn't" "Well, nice to know I have conviction in such imaginings" "Oh always that" "Earl" "Yes?" "We need our own rooms from time to time" "Sigh I realize that now"

heh

Pretty sure Mr. DeVere will explain to him about the rooms being a good idea in the long run.

Though he might actually find humor in the beanbag fight. Meanwhile, I have to think on how fast Vashti and Shalimar are moving on. It's possible she'll scare him by picking out drapes

or he'll scare her, by talking about bringing over a spare toothbrush

aw

And yes, I imagine DeVere is amused

(Earl is gonna lose)

(So badly)

I think Mr. DeVere might see it as Earl trying to engage Zara both to show juuust a touch of spine, and also to help draw her out of her funk juuust a bit with some thing small to rile her. Of course, being a sluagh himself, and a man of culture, Mr. DeVere anyone who puts a beanbag in a main room should sit on it one night only to find it filled with maggots that ooze out in protest when sat upon by the tasteless cretin. That should discourage a fondness for that particular piece of 'furniture'

Snooty victorian prisses, Sluagh 😉

heh

And Zara doesn't mind the spine. She LIKES spine.

And it is she who helped him develop one 🙂

awww

I imagine they do have some debates nwo and then on artistic periods and literature.

Surely

Earl IS allowed to like different things

I think she might get salty if he is too agreeable with her tastes

Oh, he likes Poe better than the Bronte sisters 🙂

Which is fair

but Poe has been near and dear to his heart since he was a child so bias

Zara is absolutely a Bronte fan - Poe, surely, ranks... but...

I imagine Earl enjoys Mark Twain's biting wit

That's it, they might get into debates over American versus British Literature

pants hemmed!

ooo

Z is an anglophile, for sure

She likes Twain... but prefers more gothic things

Do NOT tell her anne of green gables is the opposite of goth

I can see that one slipping but I'm not sure when 😉

maybe Clem

she is more ;ikely to have read it

Yeah, and Clem can , bless her, be tactless

yup!