ghostynerds

[ghostynerds]

what's this? the bugs have started a band!?

‎ [ THE CRAWLERS ]

‎ 🎶 🎵 🎶 🎶 🎵

‎ 🎹🪱 🎷🐌 🎸🐛

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| 🪲🦗🦋🐞🐝🐜🐌🐜 |

| 🦗🐝🐌🐛🪲🦋🐞🐛 |

| 🐌🦋🐞🦗🐛🐜🐝🪲 |

| 🐝🦗🐜🐞🦋🐌🪲🦋 |

| 🪲 🦗🦋 🐞 🦗 | < it's sold out!

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| | 👕👕👕👕 |

| 🐛 |🦟<(merch here!)

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[ghostynerds]

Girl i am in awe of your tism

[ghostynerds]

[ghostynerds]

comms for yourworstemily on IG of their cats Penny and Saturn!

[ghostynerds]

so sorry to tell you this but we accidentally put your boyfriend in the wash with a pink sweater. he’s ok but he’s pink now. yeah, all of him. and honestly?? it’s kind of a good look!!

[ghostynerds]

[ghostynerds]

spent an hour making these instead of writing

[ghostynerds]

The reason it’s called French Toast is absolutely ridiculous and I’m so mad rn about the story

[ghostynerds]

men love being pinned up against walls by other men it makes them feel masculine it's the same as going fishing

[ghostynerds]

I’ll never understand why anthropomorphic animal cartoons like Robin Hood and Zootopia will go to the trouble of creating character designs that are meant to be understood as “attractive” or even “sexy” to the human audience but explicitly avoid showing interspecies romances between anthropomorphic animals. Why is THAT weird but, like, trying to make rabbits recognizably sexy-coded to humans isn’t?

[ghostynerds]

[ghostynerds]

Took impromptu photoshoot w/ classmate as the fav after they accompanied me to get a rental camera from the college. Might post pics later if they approve…

Fun playing with temperature/mood and pose practice tho! Eventually I will stop the Ice spam but not quite yet

Photographer: exousiai

Cosplay: thelulugang

[ghostynerds]

how i read

a book: oh, only 180 pages left, I'll finish this today

a textbook: another 8 pages left what the fuck this is too much

[ghostynerds]

Bottles of Gatorade Blue Bolt floating in a bath of Powerade Mountain Blast, 2013

[ghostynerds]

Chapter 18 - O Canada!

“Dude,” said Jack.

Irene made a vague noise.

“Do suitcases have fun on the carousel?”

“How about we turn you into a suitcase and find out?” said Beatrice.

Meanwhile, Chekov was on the phone with Monty.

“…yes we’re in Canada- we’re fine, no, nothing happened. Oh. That must have been a freak call. Oh, come on, I’m sure there are more people in the world with names like Eka and Ron- okay, yeah, we had to pick them up from the lost children’s place. Yes, they’re with me. Do you want to talk to them? Yeah, I’ll pass it on to Eka.”

“Monty!” She was too chipper, thought Chekov. “Yeah, we’re in Yukon. It’s a bit cold. No, but the food was nice! We’re gonna get our stuff now. I will! Oh, Ron’s next to me.” She turned to Ronald. “He wants to talk to you!”

“How did I guess?” muttered Ronald. “Hi Monty. No, that doesn’t count. It’s okay, we’re still in one piece. It’s…passable, I guess. I’ll try. I’ll pass, thank you. Okay. See you.” He passed the phone back to Chekov.

The luggage started arriving one by one, and soon, the team was filing out of the area again. Except with suitcases this time. To be honest, they looked like little fuzzy ducklings. Ducklings with suitcases. That’s adorable.

“Monty said Sam Andrews will be waiting here somewhere,” said Chekov, when they got out of the baggage claim area. They looked around awkwardly.

“Excuse me,” said a voice. They turned around. A woman in her mid-twenties was standing in a beige winter coat. She’s made an attempt to tame her frizzy hair by putting it in a pony tail, but locks of hair were falling out – almost reminiscent of a mad scientist. “Are you er, Team Nine by any chance?” They saw that she was wearing a pair of jean overalls underneath the winter coat. Her footsteps were almost uneven as she walked towards them.

“Yeah,” said Chekov. “We are.”

“Nice to meet you,” said Irene, holding out a hand. “Irene Karlsson.”

“Doctor Sam Andrews. Nice to meet you too.”

They all shook hands and introduced themselves in turn. Beatrice hoped that Andrews wasn’t the type to judge people by their first impressions, because the first meeting was embarrassingly awkward. Heck, if she was Andrews, she’d get the whole group tickets back to Switzerland.

“The car’s that way,” said Andrews. Her voice wouldn’t be out of place in a nature documentary. Her socks were red. As she led them outside, Beatrice noticed a slight limp in Andrews’ gait.

---

To say that Andrews drove horrifically would be a massive understatement. After they scrambled into the small, almost cramped car, Beatrice ended up in the back with Irene and Haruka, and Jack somehow ended up next to Eka. As they whizzed through the Canadian highway, Ronald clutched his seatbelt tight, knuckles white. Haruka pushed himself into the car seat. Irene and Jack were dictating their own eulogies to their phones. Beatrice wasn’t even subtle about saying her prayers. Despite their speed, they saw several cars overtaking Andrews’, often with a rude gesture by the drivers. Andrews didn’t even notice them.

Finally, she swerved into a service station. “Does anyone need to go to the toilet?” she asked when they skidded to a violent halt. “No? Okay. I’ll be back in a minute.”

They all let out sighs of temporary relief. Eka groaned. “My glasses slipped off.”

Something crunched under Jack’s feet. “Oops,” he said.

“That’ll be them,” she said in a small voice. “I feel like I’m gonna be walking into lots of poles, guys.”

“More than usual, you mean,” said Beatrice.

She nodded miserably.

“They broke at the bridge,” said Haruka, picking up the pieces. “And the hinges need to be tightened.”

“Sorry,” said Jack, actually sounding sorry for once.

“It’s alright,” said Eka. She looked at her glasses sadly.

Ronald resembled a sad vegetable in his seat – green, limp, slightly sick, and clutching at Chekov. He patted him awkwardly on the head.

“I’m hungry,” said Irene.

Andrews came back from her toilet break. “I brought snacks,” she said. She passed the bag to the back.

“Um, Doctor Andrews?” said Chekov when she started the car. “Do you want me to drive?”

“No thank you.”

“No, because I have my license with me-”

“I’m fine, thank you.”

---

At long last, after passing thirty seven angry drivers (Haruka counted), they screeched to a stop in front of Andrew’s house. It was a square two-storey building with a sloping roof and white windows. There weren’t any flowers. There was a worn mat, starting to pale with age, that said ‘Welcome!’ Somehow, none of them can really imagine Andrews buying the mat and placing it there. She lived a few minutes away from the nearest house. That neighbourhood seemed nice, with small houses surrounding them. Those houses were more colourful with their green lawns and little stone steps or gravel-filled driveways. One of the houses even had a pair of fake bright pink flamingos.

“I’ll show you where you can put your luggage,” said Andrews, killing the engine. She unlocked the boot and they followed Andrews inside, dragging their stuff behind them. They turned left (the living room was on the right), and stopped in front of a wall. Andrews pulled a handle dangling from the ceiling like a useless light bulb, and a set of ladders dropped dramatically. They stared at the ladder in alarm.

“I hope we are not supposed to carry our bags up the ladder,” said Haruka quietly.

They were. After fifty minutes, too many swear words in too many languages than anyone knew what to do with, seven dropped suitcases and about nineteen bruises, the luggage was in the attic and a brawl was about to break out. Andrews either did not notice, or did not care enough to do anything about it.

“I’ll let you settle in,” she said. “I have to feed the dogs.”

“She’s got dogs!” said Eka excitedly.

“How exciting,” said Beatrice. She let Max out of his cage. He turned his nose up at Chekov disdainfully. Chekov made a face at him.

More pettiness was going down in another corner.

“Go away, little boy, and let the grown-ups deal with this!” said Jack in a ridiculous Russian accent.

“Boy?” said Ronald. “Boy? We’re the same age!”

“I’m eighteen, you’re not.”

“I will be in two months!”

“You can’t even buy aerosols in England!”

“I can buy scissors, though.”

“You know a country is bad when you need an ID to buy scissors.”

“You know a country is bad when you don’t need an ID to buy guns!”

“Not in all states!”

“Kinder eggs are illegal!”

“Ladies, ladies, please,” said Chekov with the superiority of a cat who has figured out how to use a can opener. “Calm yourselves.”

Irene turned to him with a glare. “My gender,” she bit out, “is not an insult.”

There was a terrible silence.

“Who likes giraffes here?” Eka squeaked out.

There was another silence. Haruka slowly raised his hand.

“I knew it,” muttered Jack.

“Let’s go downstairs,” said Beatrice. “Maybe I’ll feel less like murdering everyone.”

Getting out was significantly easier than getting in. They turned left into the living room. It was sparsely decorated, and there was a mahogany-coloured sofa in front of the TV. There was also a delicate glass table, and a clock on the wall.

“I didn’t do that,” said Andrews.

“You should have told us that your roommate is a ghost,” said Ronald flatly.

“No, she moved to Toronto,” she replied.

“How long has it been?” Eka asked. “Since she left, I mean.”

“Two months.”

“Do you have dogs?” Eka asked again. “Because you said you have dogs.”

“I have dogs,” said Andrews. She led them to another room. It was bare, or it would be if there weren’t three Siberian huskies in the room. Two were wrestling playfully, and one was in a dog bed. Once they spotted the humans coming in, they paused, ears pointed up, eyes bright, and pink tongues falling out of their mouths.

“Puppies!” said Chekov.

Andrews walked over to the dogs and petted one of them on the head. “This is Thunder,” she said, scratching the dog behind the ears. “This is Buddy,” and Buddy rolled onto his back. Andrews scratched his belly. “This is Lightening,” she said, patting the last dog. “She’s gonna be a mom.”

“Puppies!” said Chekov again.

One of the dogs – Buddy – bounded over to Chekov. He looked at Chekov almost suspiciously, like he was hiding something from him. Chekov kneeled down and outstretched his right hand. Buddy sniffed it, and gave it a suspicious lick. Chekov laughed. “Wanna shake my hand?” he said to the dog. Buddy sat down with a small thump and gave him a paw. Chekov shook the paw and handed it back to the dog. He looked at the rest of the team triumphantly. Eka moved forward to pat Buddy.

“Hairy baby,” she said in a roboty voice. “Hairy baby!”

“Did you train them?” Irene asked Andrews.

“I did.”

“Sled dogs?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t you need four for a team?”

“Yes.”

“What happened to the fourth one?”

“Donnie died. Of old age.”

“Oh.” She was given training on unique things to say to someone who’s lost someone important, but she can’t bring herself to find that information. “Got any food?” she said instead. That was insensitive, but really, she was too hungry to care.

“In the kitchen. I’ll make you breakfast.” She turned to Chekov and Eka. “We’ll be in the kitchen.”

--- 

[ghostynerds]

Chapter 17.5 - DELETED BITS

“Hot dude at 4 o’clock,” said Irene.

“I’d rather have hot pasta,” said Eka. “I’m so hungry!”

“Chips?”

“Yes please.”

More crunching sounds came from her right. She tried to scroll through the list of movies available on board. There were a few that looked interesting.

“Hey, Irene?”

“Hm?”

“D’you know why people say they’ve got butterflies in their stomach?”

“Because it feels like butterfly wings fluttering in the tummy,” said Irene. She looked almost thoughtful. “It happens because there’s an increase in adrenalin and your heart rate increases, and it cuts off some of the blood supply to the stomach.” She munched another chip. “But saying ‘my stomach is gonna die’ is less poetic than saying ‘there’re butterflies in my stomach’.”

“Yeah, but doesn’t ‘my stomach is gonna die’ mean that the person makes you so happy that you’re killing a vital organ just to be with them?”

“Yeah, but you could say it with ‘there’re butterflies in my stomach’.”

“It sounds better,” said Beatrice. “I’d rather think of butterflies than a vital organ dying.”

“Did you know butterflies have taste buds on their feet?” said Eka. “So if there were butterflies, they’d be tasting the insides of your stomach.”

“How about we don’t talk about stomachs at all?” Beatrice thought that her appetite has been washed away.

They fell quiet for a few seconds. Irene broke the silence.

“Why do you ask?”

“Hm?”

“Why did you ask about butterflies?”

“I was curious.”

“Curiosity killed the cat, you know.”

“Yes, but the satisfaction brought it back.”

Beatrice raised an eyebrow. “Now you’re just making up expressions.”

“No I’m not!”

“Yes you ar- ” Beatrice paused mid-sentence and frowned. “I refuse to be as immature as you.”

Eka poked out her tongue.

“Very mature,” said Beatrice. “Really grown-up.”

Irene made a strangled noise. “The hot dude got up.”

“He’s probably going to the toilet or something.”

She whistled. “Lady next to him is even hotter.”

“Pasta,” said Eka.

Beatrice wondered if she would ever have a normal friend.

“Yo Irene.”

“Wazzup, dawg?”

No, she would not. She would never get a normal friend.

“Can I see your passport?”

“Sure,” said Irene. “Which one?”

“Eh?”

“I’ve got three.”

“Why would you have three?” Beatrice looked at Irene almost incredulously.

“Half Finnish, half Swedish, and all American!” Irene winked. “That makes three passports.” She frowned. “Or do you want to see my cover’s passport too?”

“The…American one?”

“Sure.” She got a small blue book out of her bag. “I wanna see yours.”

Eka passed her a green book. She went straight for Irene’s passport data page. Beatrice leaned in sideways. Irene had longer hair in the picture.

“Your middle name is Saara?”

“You have a last name?”

Eka blew out a jet of hot air. “No I don’t. Tirtoputri just means I’m Dad’s daughter.”

“Oh, okay.”

“Anyways, it’s just a name.”

“Yes, but it’s your name,” said Beatrice. “It’s a part of you.”

“They’re sounds used to identify a person.”

“It’s a thing passed on to you by your ancestors.”

“They’re dead!” said Irene, sounding almost gleeful.

“They tell you who you come from.”

“Horrible people, in my case.”

Eka gasped. “It’s dinner time!”

“Food?” said Irene.

“You both have the attention span of a goldfish,” said Beatrice, unfolding her tray table.

“Actually, goldfish have a memory span of three months!” said Eka.

“I said attention span.” She shook her head.

---

“Y’know, this is just like a slumber party.”

Ronald looked at Chekov quizzically. “Why?”

“You know, a bunch of guys, sleeping together…”

Jack sniggered. “I think that’s called an orgy.”

Chekov burst out laughing. Ron’s face became steadily redder. “Get your mind out of the gutter!”

(No one noticed Haruka more or less chocking on his spit in his seat.)

“Alright, fine. Slumber party it is.”

Underneath, France was lit up like a Christmas tree. There was a constant hum in the background like there were bees around them.

“What do girls do in slumber parties?”

“Pillow fights, I think.”

“Talk about hot people.”

“Hot people,” Chekov mused out loud.

“Human candles,” said Haruka suddenly.

Chekov looked at him, slightly alarmed.

“Eh, mate?”

“They are hot people.” Blank looks. “Because they are burning.” He wasn’t sure what reactions he expected.

Suddenly, Jack started laughing, clapping his hands like a seal. A very amused seal, apparently.

“It’s going to be a long night, isn’t it?” said Ronald.

Chekov shrugged.

---