Page 5 of Do You Ship It

‘I’ll get Jake to send you a link,’ he tells me.

‘Sure,’ I say warily, not even sure what Discord is, and not willing to admit that and face yet more judgement. But Max must hear it plain as day in my voice, because he rolls his eyes.

‘It’s a chatroom forum thing. There’s an app. You can be anonymous, if you want, though most of us have shared first names and stuff.’

‘Anonymous?’

Max gives me an odd look. ‘Well, yeah. You just pick a screen name. Most of the ones in this Discord are OWAR-related. Like … puns of character names, or about the Rascals. But since you’re not familiar with it all, you could just throw together a couple of words like magic, mythic, legend … or elves, goblins, witches. Stuff like that. Anyway, this one’s all local people. Lots of Cardiff Uni students, too. They’ve organized meet-ups before, too, but I’ve always missed them.’

‘And they just … talk about OWAR? Online?’

‘Yeah. Fan theories, character analyses, swapping fanfic links, sharing cosplay pics, that kind of thing.’ He shrugs, so nonchalant he can’t even meet my eyes, like this is so basic and my question is so stupid. It sets my hackles up, but I can’t tell if that’s because of theodd dedication that it must require from the chatroom members, or Max’s cold attitude.

But I guess it might help me understand more about this series Jake loves so much, so I say, ‘Cool. Count me in.’

Max grunts, a noise that might be annoyance or might be a bored ‘okay’. Either way, it’s perfectly clearhedoesn’t want to waste any more of his time with a newbie like me, so I turn back around and plunge into gossiping withmybest friend about our mutual friends and some school drama, doing my best to salvage this day out with Jake.

The convention isn’t so bad, I guess. I don’t get most of what the panels are talking about, but sometimes there’s a good joke or something interesting about the creative process that piques my attention. And apart from Max, nobody else seems to be giving me judgey looks anymore. It makes me wonder if they ever really were, or if that was all in my head.

Plus, at the end of the afternoon Jake buys me a Roach T-shirt like the one he’s wearing, and presents it to me proudly. ‘To officially induct you into the cult!’ he jokes, and I put it on immediately.

(I do take it off as soon as I’m on the bus home, but he doesn’t need to know that.)

And then, that evening, amongst a string of textsas the two of us chat utter nonsense about anything and everything and it feels like I’ve got my best friend back, he drops me a link to the Discord channel and says,Maybe see you in the chat sometime!

This isit.

I’m going to be the biggest OWAR fangirl he’s ever seen.

OWAR Discord #324

General

@mythicwitch

Hi everybody! Newbie to the OWAR fandom here! I’m Cerys. Any takes on whether to start with the books or the show?

@wizeguy

sup Cerys! Welcome to Discord! And, books.

@fauningforhim

Don’t listen to him, Mythic. The TV show is best if you’re just starting! Take it from me – I only just got into OWAR last year, now a die-hard fan!

@silversmithhh

Hmm, depends … If you’re a Twilight/Court of Thorns and Roses girlie, definitely start with the show. If you’re a Homer’s Illiad or Les Mis fan, the books are a cinch

@fauningforhim

looooool mood

@silversmithhh

(In case it wasn’t obvious, @mythicwitch, start with the show. Always.)

Private chat with @runicrascal

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