Hiding fandom in the underwear drawer since 1977

I just posted Chapter 12, Ties that Bind from Apostolic Way.

So, lessee. 

We have a further development of the different bonding systems of the animal kingdom.  In addition to the citations from the last entry, here, I offer the following, which explains something of Richard's reluctance and shock upon learning of the behaviors, a discussion that h_dash_h and I continued.  The following article addresses, among other things, just how long it took for the scientific community to even acknowledge what they did not see for decades.

Homosexual sex between ostriches was interpreted by one scientist as “a nuisance” that “goes on and on.” One man, studying Mazarine Blue butterflies in Morocco in 1987, regretted having to report “the lurid details of declining moral standards and of horrific sexual offenses” which are “all too often packed” into national newspapers. And a bighorn-sheep biologist confessed in his memoir, “I still cringe at the memory of seeing old D-ram mount S-ram repeatedly.” To think, he wrote, “of those magnificent beasts as ‘queers’ — Oh, God!”
Can Animals Be Gay, New York Times, March 31, 2010, Jon Mooallem

From Bailey and Zuk,Same-sex sexual behavior and evolution, Trends in Ecology & Evolution, June 16, 2009, I quote the following:
It is crucial that scientific contributions from animal studies shed more light than heat on the topic of same-sex behavior, so it is useful to define promising directions for future work and identify pitfalls to avoid as the field matures.

We get a lot more of Aidan and Lucy and a glimpse of Edmund and Morgan.  Doctor Dolly had asked what bonding Edmund and Lucy did if Susan and Peter had bonded with Narnia.  That answer is here in the chapter, and would be covered, eventually, in Harold and Morgan.  Aidan is quite the Stu character -- but I really cannot imagine Lucy in an angsty or combative relationship.  She's chosen a really good guy. 

And, finally, we have a scene with Mary and Peter alone, which was another one people wanted to see as we'd not seen them in the same space since way back in Part 1.  Which means of course, I simply had to do homage to camels, the Amazon, Scotus, and anastigmatfic.  Thank you!  The devastating reveal teased of in the last chapter is that Peter is irresistible camels.  I don't do OTPs, but if I did, that is THE ONE.

Then we get to the codebreakers.  The descriptions come from a couple of places, including this book by Sir F.H. Hinsley, the BBC site, WW2 The People's War  and a big huge World War 2 book that describes everything in detail, on each day of the war.  Each day. 

So, I hope you like it.  I didn't hear from a whole bunch of the usual people with the last chapter, so I'm a uneasy about posting this.  But it's done and I don't hold things hostage and the next one is well underway.  Those albatrosses and the references to Lysistrata will become more relevant.  Then I turn to the Narnia Big Bang, Rat and Sword Go To War. The deadline is February, so I'm going to be focusing on knocking out a war story in about 2 months.

And do check out the 3 sentence ficathon.  Awesome writers, really creative stuff and it's a terrific time suck (in the best possible way)