#*Integration is used here as I heard it then (to mean fusion) even though I know that term means something different not

[circulars-reasoning]

If I recall correctly, you said you had created alters, right? If so, I was wondering how it happened and how they're doing right now. I'm trying to do a bit of research on it to help out a specific alter in our system, but to no avail. We're trying to do this as safely as possible.

Right now, they’re doing well, but when they first formed, it was horrific for them and us. Trauma was… not great! I think it might be time to expand on their stories actually. Too many people in syscourse assume they know things about my alters, and the last time I opened up about them, folks came into my inbox to tell me I was wrong about my experiences.

Tw for suicidal ideation, harassment, depression, and alter death.

Debra:

She was our first created alter, and the one we actually consciously purposefully created. In terms of us having a created alter, she’s probably the one who counts — LED’s experience is closer to a regular traumatic split, but I’ll get to him later.

Context for this time of my life: We were in high school. We had never heard of DID, we were being actively abused on two fronts (parental abuse and COCSA), and the only people who we felt understood us were folks much older than me online who I talked to on a daily basis. I thought my alters were just imaginary friends to represent my emotions. The voices I heard were just my emotions and feelings, very loudly, and I was imagining those emotions as people — like Inside Out!! And this was normal, my peer abuser told me. Yay! (Oof.)

Wade was our main fronter at home. He held onto a lot of our depression and dealt with the brunt of the current abuse from our parents. He was also dealing with gender issues and just generally was struggling. We started getting more and more suicidal and depressed, and our systems only way of handling that emotion was repression (via Numb’s emotional blocking or Sierra’s toxic optimism).

Finally, one night, Wade got the closest he ever got to self harm. It was nothing, really - the mark of it was gone within an hour - but it panicked him, and he reached out to our friend at the time.

This friend comforted him and told him that he needed to manage his depression somehow. We knew we couldn’t get therapy, so he suggested something he’d heard of before, about parts therapy. AKA, IFS. “Your depression is a part of you. What you need to do is talk to it. Imagine a person; someone who is all of those depressing thoughts. And talk to that person; why do they treat you that way?”

Those aren’t direct quotes. In all actuality, all of this is so blurry. I was so fucked up and stressed, it’s not hard to know I split. But the thing is, Debra’s split was entirely different than any other split I’ve had. All of my other alters, it was… one second they’re not there, the next they are.

Debra didn’t do that. When Wade imagined someone to talk to, it wasn’t in our innerworld. It was in a different space, where we imagine our thoughts happening. Deb was entirely imaginary, and she seemed to say things as I thought them. Each negative thought I had was suddenly her saying them. (Sometimes, it seemed almost as if she would say the thought before I had it.) For every night for a week, they talked — though, it was more Debra talking and us listening and feeling worse about ourselves.

That first conversation, I remember Wade feeling better — empty, but not suicidal. After imagining Debra for that first time, Wade only felt non-suicidal if she was talking to him. Sometimes that didn’t even help, because really, she was just imagined — we were planning her thoughts. Until, suddenly, we weren’t anymore.

Side note: Deb is the first marked hallucination we have had. We were walking home from the bus stop, which was always inherently dissociative for us, and we looked over at our house. Out of the corner of our eyes, we saw Deb, floating around the cars parked on the road. We panicked at that, but a second later, she was gone. We believed magic was real for a solid day after that, and that our imagination was coming to real life.

After that week, Debra was autonomous. She started to slip out of the void and into our innerworld. She started to harass Wade in a living hell 24/7, instead of from 11pm to whenever Wade finally passed out at night. And she hated a lot of us. She expressed that we should all kill ourselves so she could take over, because she was so much better than the rest of us. It was around this time that Wade made his trauma room in our innerworld and ceased fronting as often.

It only ended when Numb, fed up with her and panicked from even him feeling the suicidal ideation, killed her. Protector killing the persecutor, how classic. He crushed her to death innerworld.

Deb didn’t make a reappearance until college, when she emerged from dormancy. But in the meantime, there are two blank years of my life after we killed Debra. I have so few memories from those years, I could count them on my hands. Clearly, killing her destabilized us, but if we hadn’t, I have no doubt I wouldn’t be alive today. She was succeeding in her goals, and it sounded logical to us at the time. We’ve worked hard to make peace with what happened.

LED:

College. We’re now self dx’d as having DID. We’re no longer around our peer abuser, and in fact had ‘broken up’ with her after she ‘crossed a line’. I was now an hour away from my parents (though I had to call them each night and drive home each weekend). I was living with my then-roommate-now-fiancé and I was best friends with the only person in my life who knew I had DID, who lived in a different dorm. We were convinced Rice was a host by people online, and we were in pro-endo spaces (though had yet to strongly participate in syscoruse spaces).

Deb came back. At the time, I was in a nice Singlet Era Lite(tm) — aka, Rice fronted almost constantly, until she would collapse and meltdown and then we would rapid switch for the next few days, only for Rice to power back to front. It was unstable, unhealthy, and an incredible burden on Rice (one she is still recovering from to this day). Until, one night (at 3am), Rice was on the verge of a mental collapse again. She was down on herself, convinced she was a failure.

And then Deb was there, telling her she was, telling her how worthless she was, and altogether making everything harder.

That summer, Deb would take to harassing Rice, in particular. We had a flawed idea from the systems we spoke to that Rice was the “original core identity” and that the goal of DID healing was to integrate* those identities into one. She wanted Rice to feel out of control, so Deb could take over as host. If she could just become the original identity somehow, then we could fuse and just be perfect like her.

The best way she could think to make Rice no longer be in control? Make Rice split. Force a split, make Rice create someone, just like how we’d made Deb, and make Rice realize she was pathetic.

So, the nightly torture began. No sleep until 3am most nights, passive influence of suicidal ideation, near constant whispering about our mistakes. And, long story short, one night it worked.

Rice finally had enough, and completely went dormant in her room. And, in her place, was LED. Not visualized like Deb had been, but planned by Deb, and made specifically to counteract her. Debra is a being of darkness and shadow; LED’s name is literally Light Emitting Diode. Debra is an ageless demon; LED is a 10 year old ray of sunshine.

Only… Debra came for him, said hello, and. Well. LED took one look at her, screamed so loud I thought it happened in real life, and shattered. Broke apart into a million pieces and went immediately dormant.

This shocked Debra enough to actually break through to her at least. Damage was done, though. A new split and two dormancies in one night. Deb retreated from the front and left everyone else to clean up the mess while she watched. Rice remained dormant for a few months, and would only come back for, at most, a few hours at a time before having a breakdown and leaving for, usually, around a half a year. LED didn’t come back for almost a year after that. Debra had a “come to Jesus” talk with our friend who was in the know, and she started helping out some.

Now:

They get along really well! It’s been years and years since those incidents. Deb feels guilt for what she did back then, but everyone’s forgiven her — LED being one of the first. He actually apologized to her for being scared. Goddamn sweet guy.

Both of them have adapted to the system, but needed time to adjust. LED adjusted in dormancy, whereas Debra had to adjust after she returned from dormancy. It was… incredibly unstable for us after Debra’s creation. Our therapist cites that as part of the risk of IFS with DID systems, and how it can lead to increase dissociative barriers. It did for us.

We call both created, because there was purpose behind their splits. Debra was imagined consciously, purposefully, to hold trauma. LED was purposefully made (even if unplanned, visually and personality wise) to make Rice feel worthless (and instead made her feel stronger… after a year or so). We also distinctly call both of them created traumagenic alters.

Whew. That was a long one. I’m gonna to rest after that…

[starr-fall-knight-rise]

Humans are Space Orcs, “An Omen.”

Alright guys, this is the end of this arc. I hope you all like it. Things might go back to being a bit more episodic for a while, so I need to know.. What kind of situations do you want to see them in? What questions do you want answered? what Characters would you like to see again? I am looking for any sort of suggestions. You guys have been a great audience, so I want to make sure you guys get some of what you are looking for. Backstories? Angst? Fluff? if so what kind? I am down for most anything so, comment or send a message or an ask.

“I, Adam Allen Vir having been appointed as a rear admiral in the United Nations Space Corps do solemnly swear that I will support and defend Earth and her aliens against all enemies foreign and domestic that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same that I take this obligation freely and without mental reservation or purpose of evasion and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office which I am about to enter, so I swear.”

“Ladies and Gentlemen Rear Admiral Adam Vir.”

Clapping from the assembled crowd well over 100 strong for a man who would much have preferred this all to be done in a more private setting, but still he stepped forward,the lone silver star glittering with pristine polished on his shoulder as he stepped up to the lectern to speak.

He awkwardly adjusted the microphone for a second well aware of a thousand eyes on him, and a thousand more back on earth where his promotion was being broadcast.

The crowd of the Europa Station, mostl veterine UNSC members looked on with a mix of admiration and boredom.

He wished his family could be here, but, unfortunately the Europa station, where his new ship would be christened, had no use for civilians. Behind him, the viewing window framed, with great majesty, the slowly rotating surface of jupiter in white, cream, and peach shot through with little veins of blue and green in swirling patterns and shapes. 

Backlit against this majestic sight, and lit by the glowing surface of jupiter and vast eternity behind, he took a deep breath.

“Things are changing in the UNSC…. Things are changing much faster than we, and especially I, had ever anticipated. The universe is expanding rapidly, as we know all too well. Recently, I had an experience that the GA and UNSC are allowing me to declassify for the benefit of maintaining an honest and sincere dialogue between civilian and military entities. Nearly five months ago I was pronounced missing in action after the command deck of my ship was consumed by -- what at the time -- seemed to be a black hole. Today I am here to explain myself, and what I saw.” He looked down at his hands, shuffling his notes.

“The generated field was not, in fact, a blackhole, but a wormhole to an entirely different universe. I cannot say where it was as I do not know, and I cannot say how I made it there, but I can say that we are not the only ones. The GA is not the only alien government entity.”

A muttering in the crowd, “I saw creatures there that I have never seen before, sentient creatures that I cannot fathom explaining. My escape was both lucky and prudent, for at this moment our efforts to outreach into the greater vastness of space is expanding. Men, women, humans, Tesraki, Drev, Celzex and all others are being called on more than ever to come to the aid of our cause. Space is an unknown entity, and has long since been deemed the final frontier. We have no idea what is out there, and military operations are experiencing a change in the type of leadership, and the direction of command than it has in over two thousand years Space travel is unorthodox at times, and, in my experience, so are the men and women who best thrive there.”

He looked up his eye seeing nothing but vague shapes, “It takes something special to do what is being done here, and it will take a little bit more from the crew of my ship, to travel to places untouched by the living. I am asking for strength, fortitude, integrity, honesty, turst, and I hope…. A little bit of good humor. Space will take everything from you if it can, and sometimes that means fighting back in unorthodox ways. Today is the day that we take the next step in the road to space exploration, with our allies in the GA. Leaving behind fifteen Fleet Commanders, my ship and crew will be exclusively tasked with the exploration and contact of unknown alien planets, lieforms, and systems.”

A first lieutenant scurried from the side of the room, bringing with him a glass, which he handed to the Rear Admiral with a quick salute.

Adam raised the glass, “It was once an old Naval tradition to break a bottle of champagne over the bow of the ship as it was named, a tradition that was quickly discarded once we realized we could drink the alcohol, and also that it was pretty irresponsable to get in a space suit just to break a bottle.”

There was a slight chuckle around the room.

“So instead, a toast,” He raised his glass, and the others followed suit, “To the UNSC Omen, may your engines never fail, and may your crew demonstrate good judgement.”

He tilted his head back and took a drink.

The thousands before him did the same with their own drinks. This was anywhere from paper to plastic to glass cups, and with anything from beer, to water, to taquilla or milk in one or two cases.

There was clapping as he stepped down from the lectern.

He grimaced internally to himself.

And may your Captain not be a complete idiot when on the job.

Now it was time to see his new ship.

***

The UNSC Omen was rated as a Heavy Battle Cruiser, but she was equipped with more scientific equipment than the CDC. Technically it had ten decks all together, with the bridge at the top followed by the management deck, crew and recreation, then the science decks five and six as well as engineering, cargo, and hangers which took up the rest of seven eight nine and ten. The back of the ship was generally all comprised of fusion, warp and coolant systems, though they weren’t stupid enough to keep all the engine components in one place.

And that wasn't to mention all of the alien technology that had been added to the ship. This thing had everything.

The engine system was of Rundi make, and that included the warp core and the dampening systems. IT made sense that the oldest race in the galaxy was to provide the most important piece of tech. 

They had Vrul Shields 

Celzex weapons 

Drev Soldiers

And even an entire team of Tesraki Auditors in the accounting department.

That being that they actually had an accounting department now instead of just one guy in a room the size of a closet.

They had received the bulk of their crew increase by way of scientists and marines. Their command structure was relatively the same, with the same officers running their old departments. 

Now that the crew was up to 1000 strong that meant 4 full-time doctors each with a different specialty. Surgical, Emergency, Orthopedic and Bacterial. They had extra nurses and support medical staff. Krill had convinced the GA to give them all the latest and greatest alien medical technology to the small creature’s great delight. The psychological support team had ballooned to four including support staff. 

The marines had swelled to three platoons, and their numbers didn’t include the fifty or so extra military med including shock troopers, pilots and artillery officers.

The science crew had been augmented exponentially. And could have staffed a small ship all by themselves if they had the training. Virology, Biology, Chemistry, Geology, Physics etc.etc and on and on.

Engineering had also doubled and included four head engineers, though they answered mostly to Narobi, who had the most experience. 

As far as the command structure went, things remained rather much the same.

The crew waited in one of the main hangers on deck seven whisperingly slightly to each other as they waited. Many of the new crewmen had never been off planet, before, they were young and full of adventure, or they thought they were.

Many of them had Still been in school when the Drev war began and ended.

Some of them had grown up and finished their training on the tail end of Commander Vir’s rise to fame.

He was a legend.

And though the movie had portrayed him as an excitable fun loving man who mostly just stumbled into success on accident and a little bit of bravery, a lot of them still had trouble imagining him as anything other than a gruff older man scarred and stoic from his experience in space.

So when Admiral Vir stepped onto the ship, they recognized him, but had a hard time believing that the man, with a slight bounce in his step, and a nervous smile on his face was really the man they had heard so much about.

He stopped before them, and they had to crane their necks to see him.

He was about to speak before stopping and, frowning, ordered a Drev over to his side, she was short, for a drev, bright blue in color, and when she came over he leavered himself onto her back before wobbling his way to stand on her shoulders, held there, secured by her hands around his ankles.

And in that way, standing on the shoulders of a Drev, he spoke with the crowd.

“Alright Children, let’s see if the crew can remind you of the first and most important rule on my ship.”

“DON’T CHUCK MARSHMALLOWS AT NEUTRON STARS.”

***

The crew turned to look at their Admiral standing at the head of the bridge, everything in the room was pristine and new, silver and chrome shining on all sides with a new polish that it would likely never see again after this day. He stood with his hands behind his back staring out into the space beyond Jupiter and Europa, an unexplored black vastness.

And with the universe reflected in his eyes, he stepped forward hands on the railings.

“Engage fusion core.”

“Engaging fusion core.”

“Charge shields.” 

“Charging shields.”

His commands continued to issue forth, and off in the distance the fusion core roared to life. He could feel it in his feet, like a sort of thrumming. It was almost rhythmic pulsing up through his feet and into his knees. Where the harbinger had kept a beat too, a sort of concussive racket, the Omen seemed to sing.

And his insides sang with it.

He closed his eyes feeling the vibrations through his feet and hands down into his bones.

It was like he could feel her talking to him.

He stroked a hand across the metal, “Almost girl, almost.”

He turned around and back to where the shiny new command chair sat waiting for him. He walked over, turned around and slid into the seat. 

Awesome, gel cooled.

He sunk down into the chair trying to get the feel for her.

Stroking his thumb down the armrest, he was greeted with the crisp snik of the forward hand controls and the lower pedals pushing into place. He slowly wrapped his hands around them pushing forward and feeling the fusion core thrumm to life. Her soft singing turned into a triumphant roar.

A part of him felt guilty for leaving the harbinger behind, but remember that there were still pieces of her living and breathing with the Omen were enough to calm his guilt.

The thought made him smile. Krill would love to hear about his guilt related to an inanimate object, perhaps he would tell him about it later.

He compressed the controls forward and felt the distant clunk as the ship departed from the docking station. He moved them forward, the ship gliding through space like a creature born to the darkness, but perhaps that was a fitting feeling, as per his request, the white dragon symbol embossed on her side, a reminder of an unlikely friend who had saved his life.

The UNSC Omen sang into the darkness, a single bead of collective endeavour on a string of stars, and once they were far enough away from the Europa station, she left off a single, silent flash of light, and then was gone.

***

Sunny stepped into the Captain’s quarters hands clasped behind her back.

She paused, head tilted at the view from the massive one wall viewing window where Admiral Vir now stood hands resting behind his back. She paused, head tilted, with the way the light filtered in from the window, it was only his silhouette she could see. Tall- broad shouldered and very still. He had the bearing of a warrior without having to say it, back straight head hold high.

She continued to watch for a moment until, sensing her presence like all humans can, he turned to face her.

“Everything settled in?” She asked 

He stepped into the light to face her delicate lines of turquoise running in familiar patterns down his face, where his UV stripes could be seen.

“It seems so. The crew is in place, the ship…. She runs like a dream, and all of our new alien recruits seem to be fitting in nicely.”

“Even the Celex?”

He smiled slightly, “As long as none of the crew try to cuddle them, I think we will be fine.”

‘And how about you? Settling in?”

He turned to look towards the viewing window and finally the room, which, situated just above the administration deck, was the largest crew room on the ship, with a massive bed, viewing window, private bathroom, and office. It was much bigger than his old place and seemed surprisingly sparse in comparison to all the room.

He seemed to be thinking the same thing, “I think I am going to need some more posters, or this place is going to feel like an asylum.” 

Sunny walked over to stand next to him.

“Well, I got you something, that might help take up some space.”

He turned to look at her one eyebrow cocked, “Oh?”

“A bit of a promotion present I guess. Hijan, your mother and I made it, while you were working.”

He lit up a bit a look of excitement crossing his face. For an instant as she looked into his single eye, she thought she saw a spark of light appear, like a flicker or sparkle of life in his excitement.

She pulled her hands from behind her back and offered up the object, “Your mother made the design. I worked on the inner mechanics, and Hijan did the metalwork.” 

“Its…. it’s gorgeous.” The weight lightened from her hands as she deposited the helmet in his. He stared with wide eyes and spun it over in his hands.”How did you make it that color?” he wondered, passing his hands over the blued metal.

“Chemical things help keep back the rust.” She said.

He looked up at her, his single eye shining in the dark. His teeth flashed white, “This is gonna make the gift I was going to give you kind of lame now.”

“You were going to give me something? But I didn’t do anything special.”

He shuffled his feet, “Who said you had to do anything special… besides, this is a…. Sorry that I made you think i was dead sort of present.”

“Oh, she wondered, her head tilted in amusement.”

He shrugged, “Yeah uh. Here.” he reached into his pocket, “Kind of a set really.”

When his hands came back up she saw a very beat up K-bar knife and poorly made, crude stone arrowhead on a thick black cord.

He shuffled his feet, “The knife and the arrowhead saved me while I was out. I don’t need them anymore obviously and they are kind of junk…. I… but.” She hugged him, shutting up his nervous stammering, “It is a perfect gift.” She announced, and meant it.

“Put it on.” She directed, and with his arms still around her neck, he reached up and tied the arrowhead around her neck.

The cord was just big enough to allow the arrowhead to dangle down onto her chest.

She turned her head down to look at it quite pleased.

He slid the knife into one of her hands.

He gave a somewhat lopsided smile, “Compared to you my art projects look like shit.”

She frowned and cuffed him across the arm.

“Ouch hey!”

“Don’t talk about my things like that. Someone very important gave that to me.”

They both laughed somewhat, her feeling the comforting weight of the stone spearhead against her chest, him with the helmet tucked under his arm, and together they stared out at the viewing window.

“This isn’t going to be easy is it?” She said softly staring out at the stars which were surely infinite.”

Adam sighed, “Sure seems like it doesn’t it

They stood alone in the silence for a moment. And then something brushed lightly over her hand.

She didn’t look down, didn’t move for fear of scaring him off.

Another hand gently clasped hers tentative and unsure like a wild animal, curious but wary.

She stood still .

She wasn’t going to be the one to scare him off.

The skin of his palms were warm against her cool one, as, together they prepared for the second phase of their impending journey.

And yes it wouldn’t prove to be easy. 

[andoqin]

Heard it through the Grapevine - A Rewatch Ep 1.

Watching Brahms kinda crash and burn for me, made me crave rewatching a drama that has an OTP who manage to make it work and a drama that was funny to boot. 

This drama is sadly underrated and doesn’t get as much love as it should! Directed by Ahn Pan Seok ( One Spring Night, Something in the Rain, Secret Love Affair, to name just a few) plus written by the same writer of Secret Love Affair, you get a drama about a pair of young students, children still really, who become parents. The boy is raised by a very status obsessed father and mother in a rich ass household and the girl is from working class, with her family barely making ends meet. 

Putting the rest behind a cut, because it gets really image heavy.

But Bom is a smart student, which is why she meets Han In Sang at the same College Camp that In Sang goes to. And the drama is smart in skipping the whole “how they get together” part because that’s not the most interesting bit here anyway, so the first time we see them together is in a flashback to said camp, where they had kinda snuck away from the others.

And in the grand tradition of horny teenagers anywhere In Sang doesn’t want to separate from Bom just yet.

And let’s make it clear, Bom is just as horny, she just has a slightly clearer head, but not for long, because they are almost caught by her roommates and she just manages to pretend to be sleeping before they are caught (after stuffing In Sang into her closet.

And what was bound to happen, happens. But they separate and don’t meet for months, until the school year is over, and In Sang gets some letters Bom sent him throughout the past few months.

And ahahaha how fucking prescient, because that is essentially what happens with the two of them later on. Spoilers, I guess. 

This shot is just lovely btw. 

And this spurs In Sang along to find Bom again, but her family has moved from her old adress and she quit school, so now he has no way of finding her, so he asks his father’s underlings for help.

Bom meanwhile is *heavily* pregnant, but while her nature is quiet and not very outgoing, she is assertive enough and won’t put up with much.

In Sang’s dad meanwhile, who had previously espoused the fact that Bullet Points on a resumee don’t matter, it’s what you “fill them up with” that matters, is wooing a very influential former politician and lawperson for his own lawfirm. 

But In Sang manages to find out Bom’s address thanks to his Dad’s employees (who are slowly getting integrated into the show’s plot themselves) and makes his way over there. 

And well, it goes better than expected? But I gotta say the acting here is exquisite, the slight shift from surprise to realisation and shock on In Sang’s face is just *chefs kiss*

And then completely overwhelmed (and also scared of Bom’s dad who kinda wants to punch him down) he says he’ll take responsibility and marry her. And dad, still angry and kinda snappish says well you better introduce her to your parents then, and so off they go. 

They take a short break on their drive to talk, which I think is such a smart decision, because they do actually need to talk about what’s happened!! I mean damn. Not everyday you meet your pregnant teenage (ex?)girlfriend...

And I like that the drama addresses the fact that they used protection, but it was either faulty or they were not experienced enough to use it right, which is how this happened. (Also once again emphasising that Bom was very much into what happened that night.)

They get some fresh air and Bom uses the bathroom and we cut to the parents who are discussing what kind of wife they should get for In Sang, as if they’re discussing what kind of accessory he should wear.

Like, good lord man, even your wife is like “how are we going to find someone who fits those criteria.” and she was SELECTED by her mother in law. In some ways this definitely has fusion-sageuk-y feels hahaha. 

We got back to Bom and In Sang and he’s nowhere to be found and so she wanders around until she sees him, about to climb into the Han River, because he’s a bit of an idiot and probably scared of his parents. In almost every other drama, this would be a scene with somber music, or maybe a sad ballad, but not here, a spunky jazz tune starts playing at we know we are going to see some wacky hijinks. 

He can’t even do more than dip his toes into it though, because it’s fucking freezing. But Bom sees this, and she is 100% her father’s daughter, because she GOES CHARGING INTO THE FREEZING RIVER. 

In Sang manages to drag her back out and apologises and the taxi driver is way nicer than I would be, bc he lets their probably still dripping wet selves sit all over his nice leather backseats. 

But In Sang takes heart, manages to call his parents and off they go (to their Doom~~). 

And we see a little of Bom praising In Sang and we see how they do work together. Bom definitely is the one wearing pants in this relationship though. 

And that’s a wrap for ep 1. I do love the little humor bits this drama manages to put in. Like, a scene where a character ostensibly is trying to commit suicide shouldn’t be able to make me laugh, but it does and that’s how you know the writing, directing and editing is on point. 

[platinumlaptop]

Best laptops for solidwork

In the world of SolidWorks, with so much going on, you need something that will last. This really is what you need to keep in mind when you search for the best SolidWorks laptops. There's a lot to take into account. The program takes up a lot of storage, and to work well requires large quantities of computing power.

Solidworks, especially in the case that you are going to deal with complex models, is among the toughest applications. Here, we will take a look at Solidworks' best laptops. There is a high likelihood that you will be using (or wish to use) other technology software such as AutoCAD, Revit, as well as Lumion if you are using the programs.

We have compiled a list of some of the best laptops for SolidWorks and other professional-level CAD applications to help you have the right hardware specifications at your disposal. Laptops of various brands, technical requirements, use, and prices can be found in the catalog. Before checking out our impressive laptop range, we suggest going through this minimum hardware requirement specification sheet;

CPU:

Intel's Core i5 quad-core processor is the minimum CPU requirement for SolidWorks. CPUs with a good single core output are the preferred option since SolidWorks is mostly single-threaded.

GPU:

For use in CAD applications, the NVIDIA Quadro, AMD Radeon Pro WX, and AMD FirePro series are authorized. Look out for one of these series to come under a GPU.

Storage: Holding all your models consolidated under one storage unit (both 2D and 3D) lets you keep careful track of them and access them easily. A minimum of 256 GB of SSD storage is a must for that. It comes as an additional advantage to have 1 TB HDD storage.

RAM:

The minimum requirement for doing SolidWorks basic-level tasks is 8GB. For large-scale models and comprehensive simulation studies, 16 GB DDR 4 RAM and above will help you meet the memory requirements required.

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 In the hard work laptop world, Asus' ROG line is a storied name. In the solid work industry, the device family is at the forefront and incorporates many of the newest technologies. With the latest line of Strix and Hero gaming laptops, this is fairly evident. You should buy this Asus due to its good power battery, it will help you to stay your work continue for a long time in a day. Featurs

Having high-resolution 3D modeling, simulation, and rendering in SolidWorks, modern games are CPU and GPU-intensive. What this means to you is that you can use the ASUS ROG Hero III G731GW high-level computing arsenal to smash all of your CAD duties. It's best to let the technical specifications do the talking, considering the thought-out configuration of this laptop.

In a powerful laptop such as the ASUS ROG Hero III G731GW, 1 TB of fast SSD storage is more than what you can ask for. An unmistakable addition is its 1 TB HDD storage. And not to forget its full HD display of 17.3 inches that provides a utilitarian and immersive view. One of the best laptops for solidwork, In the style group as well, this laptop tops.

Prose

Cons

Configuration of uncompromised  hardware

  It's a little heavy with bodyweight

Modern construction of the design

   Dell G7 17- 10th Gen Intel i7-10750H

The Dell G7 17 is easily one of the best options for running 2D and 3D CAD simulation software, such as SolidWorks, Fusion 360, and more, like most of the gaming laptops on our list. This is one of the best laptop from all series of Dell. Dell G7 17 give you the best opportunity to buy and make your solid work easy and quick. The feature sets, while being a gaming laptop, are compatible with different technical specifications.

Features

Particularly when powerful workstations are being addressed, you won't hear the name of Dell that much. However, in terms of quick speed, smooth rendering, and great ergonomics, I consider Dell's G7 17 a complete revolution. Yeah, you've heard that correctly.The first-ever significant aspect that you should know about G7 17 is that it is backed by an ultrafast processor of the Core i7, 9th gen. In addition, for a complete multitasking experience, a 16 GB DDR4 ram is also included.

The integration of the Nvidia GTX 1660Ti, on the other hand, makes it easier for engineers to complete their 3D modeling tasks within a short time. Apart from that, there is also an RGB backlit keyboard to improve the computing machine's aesthetics.

Prose

Cons

The best way to run Solidworks

It is of no benefit to the tech  department.

Wide Display

Dell's client poor service.

Smooth Graphics Rendering.

 It seamlessly runs 3D modeling  applications.

  GIGABYTE AERO 15-X9-RT5P - Intel Core i7-8750H

With its excellent performance optimization that is supported by Microsoft Azure AI, it stands out from the crowd. Although this feature is extremely helpful for gaming, it is also well used when working on SolidWork. Our choice for the best laptop also comes with anti-glare display technology that guarantees that the viewed material is in no way blurred. If you prefer working late at night, this laptop's backlit keyboard will help you brave it out while burning your midnight oil.

Feature

Just like the Razer Blade 15 does, it takes the slim and compact chassis jump. But it is worth noting that the portable design approach is not only based on aesthetics, there has also been a lot of emphasis on CAD-appropriate performance.You can use the 16GB DDR4 laptop's RAM to run SolidWorks efficiently, along with the Intel Core i7. The 16GB RAM of the device is derived from a single channel and the technology of SO-Dim. Dim utilises integrated circuits that, while providing impressive RAM performance, consume little power.

This is particularly true for many SolidWorks activities that take quite a considerable amount of time, such as 3D model processing and reconstruction. The impressive 144 GHz refresh rate of the 15.6 inches full HD monitor of the laptop ensures that graphics for high-resolution model design are not compromised.

Prose

Cons

Functionality at its finest

The Webcam's has bottom Positioning

Capacity for high SSD capacity

 In a sleek footprint, efficient  computing

  Lenovo ThinkPad P50- Intel Core i7-6700HQ

Lenovo ThinkPad p50, designed especially for workers on the go, and Lenovo ThinkPad P50 is ideal for you if you deal with large gatherings and project lengths. This laptop can be described as a "mobile workbench." It is very large, wide, and has a power supply that looks like a brick.

Features

SATA SSD II on M.2. On the storage hand, the slot is mounted, not the fastest, but still, it has amazing features such as opening Sold work at a flashy pace.The GPU card delivers a great laptop, but not the best, but don't judge. 4GB VRAM is the correct size for a workstation when you are dealing with big assemblies. The thing you should take advantage of is its GPU enhanced rendering CUDA cores.

This laptop's processor is a little old, but this doesn't stop considering it because it has about the fastest clock speed that you can find from the choices.You get a higher internal data size (8 MB) with Intel eon than most other common laptops though with the greater data rate, such as Intel Core i7-7700 HQ with 6 MB for Ex. The laptop has a 3.70 GHz Intel Xeon E3-1505M v5 4 core.

Pros

Cons

Absolutely  incredible 4K with colour calibrator monitor.

Contains a pound extra.

Keyboard Descriptor.

The battery life would have been  better.

Output by Swift.

Sodium vapor computer.

 Acer Aspire V15 Nitro- Intel Core i5-6300HQ

Acer Aspire V15 Nitro The laptop has an aesthetic style that draws the eye, and the overall level of craftsmanship does a reasonably decent job. The computer sounds robust. The hinges are soft, sleek and well-designed, allowing users to comfortably raise the panel with only one hand.

Features

TheAcer Aspire V15 Nitro has all the feature which your seeking for your laptop for solid work. A regular 15-inch laptop, your best laptop for solid work might be the Acer Aspire V15 Nitro black model. It is an entertainment system that can manage multimedia content, reliable jobs, and some content for gaming. This laptop was launched in 2014 for the first generation, but its latest model has some significant capabilities.

The computer feels robust. The hinges are soft, smooth, and well-designed, allowing users to easily raise the screen with only one hand. With a native resolution of 1920 x 1080p, the 15-inch screen is full HD, One of the best laptops for solidwork.

The diesel version, together with 8 GB of RAM, NVidia 960M graphics, and dual storage, comes with a 2.6 GHz Intel Core i5-6300HQ processor. You can get 32 GB DDR4 RAM with an Intel Core i7 processor with a higher version or a configured version.

Pros

Cons

Speedy Results.

Tricky to update.

Beautiful in design

The battery life is very small.

Lighter and thinner.

It quickly gets heavy.

 Acer Predator Helios 300- 10th Generation Intel Core i7-10750H 6

You will find the Acer laptop a better option if you just do tiny jobs on SolidWorks. This laptop comes with a hard drive bay and a free SSD (solid state drive) slot for fast storage updates, even though you can feel the storage space is a little small.The controls are a little slick considering the fair travel and the solid foundation. This ensures they're a little spongier than the keyboards on one of SolidWorks' best laptops.

Features

The Acer Predator Helios 300 is a fantastic discount laptop, like the Acer Aspire, and, if you're on a budget, one of SolidWorks' best laptops. This laptop comes with a 9th generation Intel Core i7 9750H Processor, a 256GB SSD, 16GB RAM, 1920 x 1080 pixel display resolution, and Windows 10 as the operating system.

Although the display resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels is high enough to send you crisp images without straining the graphics core, the 15.6-inch screen size is perfect. Its IPS panel has a refresh rate of the 144-hertz display, which will help you enjoy if you intend to play any games after completing your studies or function with the Ram 16GB DDR4 memory.

Pros

Cons

Rational travel and firm foundation

No Thunderbolt 3 or Card Reader

Screen with high-quality

Construction output average

Supportable lifetime of battery

Outside heavy and weak

 HP ZBook 15v G5

The HP Zbook 15V G5 offers a stable mix of features at your disposal, whether you use SolidWorks for technical or school work. For individuals looking for a handheld workstation to tackle data processing, CAD work, video editing, 3D animation, and modeling, this is our best laptop.There is also a dual-storage module on the laptop that ensures that all the tasks are securely stored.

Features

For quick calculations, the HP Zbook 15V G5 comes exceptionally fitted. Thanks to the Core i7-8750H processor from Intel. Although it is not the newest or fastest on the market, at a speed of up to 4.10GHz, this CPU can perform most SolidWorks tasks flawlessly. 9MB of cache memory improves the processor further.

There is also a dual-storage module on the laptop that ensures that all your tasks are securely stored. This involves a 512 GB SSD and a 1 TB HDD for permanent storage for faster, One of the best laptops for solidworkperformance. In exchange, it makes it incredibly easier to load and render massive assemblies.The HP Zbook 15V G5 outputs 1920 x 1080 pixels on a 15.6 inch FHD screen. This makes it possible to deal on complicated tasks when you are able to see plainly what you are focused on.

Pros

Cons

Strong GPU-dedicated workstation

The Ethernet card is a little rigid,

Two usb 3.0 port for fast transfer of  files

Unprotected eyes may be harmed by the  glossy show

RAM Modular

  Microsoft Surface Book 2 – 8th Gen Intel Core i7-8650U

Do yourself a favour and go for Surface Book 2 whether you are a student or a specialist who wants the right laptop for solid jobs. Surface Book 2 can perform solid tasks quickly without any complications and, according to our study. It is the only non-workstation that is accredited for stable work for a laptop.Do yourself a favour and go for Surface Book 2 whether you are a student or a specialist who wants the right laptop for solid jobs..

Features

The Microsoft Surface Book 2 can be your ideal companion if you are someone who works or likes to work from scratch when it comes to CAD-related model design.The most significant one (as you'd already guess) is its 2-in-1 laptop and tablet mode, among many explanations why. With the tablet mode of Surface Book 2, initial model conceptualization by sketching can become much simpler for you.

With its ultra HD pixel-dense resolution, the 15-inch monitor of the Surface Book 2 does not go unnoticed. The 512 GB of fast-access SSD storage adds more value to this 2-in-1 laptop's overall hardware configuration.Surface Book 2 can perform solid tasks quickly without any complications and, according to our study; Surface Book 2 is the only non-workstation that is accredited for stable work for a laptop.

Pros

Cons

Many add-on options

suitable add-ons, Surface Pen and  Surface Dial come

Model 2-in-1

 Performance is Reliable

  Conclusion

Many of the laptops referred to above are all chosen from other brands and models of the best laptops for solidwork. They have different budget-related requirements. The cost range, however, does not affect these laptops' overall performance.

[afterspark-podcast]

G1 Episode 30: Transcript

Episode Show Notes

[This can also be found on AO3!]

[Stinger]

S: Black, like it’s-

O: Yes, it's completely black. Like straight fucking coffee. It is the sludge from hell.

[Intro Music]

O: Hello, welcome to the Afterspark Podcast, an episode by episode recap of the Generation 1 Transformers cartoon.  I'm Owls!

S: And I'm Specs.

O: And today we're gonna be talking about episode number 30: Day of the Machines! Let's talk about giant robots today, shall we?

S: Yeah.

O: [Laughter] We start with, of course: Midnight, Quantum Laboratories, home of America's most  secret  inventions.

S: A security guard finds some um, “misplaced” items- ah, some very familiar misplaced items. [Laughter] Oh-

O: Hi, Soundwave! So the guard picks up- a picks up Soundwave along with a box and a guitar case and takes them to the Lost and Found.

S: It looked like it was in someone's office. Sooooo, why does the security guard uh, take it to Lost and Found? Why does he even do that? I mean, he says something about the absent-minded professor being at it again. Um, does this mean he just does this with anything that's left in people's offices? 

O: He is like the most passive-aggressive security guard ever. [Laughter] (Or whatever he is.) Because, like, oh that would be super annoying every time you come in it's like, where- where's my office plant? I guess, you know, Roger took it back to the lost and found cuz Roger is a jerk.

S: Yeah.

O: [Laughter]

S: Laserbeak and Soundwave transform and uh, Soundwave tosses a key to Laserbeak, telling him to release Megatron.

O: And, oh my god, Megatron’s in the frickin’ guitar case. Why didn't he just transform instead of them unlocking it? Why do they care about the structural integrity of this random guitar case?

S: Maybe it would be uncomfortable to transform and burst out of it? It’s- I don't know. 

O: Okay, so Megatron doesn't like being uncomfortable. Is that why he was in a plush guitar case?

S: Obviously. 

O: [Laughter] He’s gotta ride in comfort!

S: Once Megatron's free Soundwave grabs the box and Megatron blasts the Lost and Found, uh, door?-

O: Gate.

S: Gate-

O: They were like in a kind of gated, like, a clear fence area if that makes sense.

S: Yeah. 

O: Chain-link fence, that’s the word I’m looking for, sorry.

S: Yeah- Megatron blasts the a- chain-link entrance to the Lost and Found with his fusion cannon.

O: And yet the guitar case will survive this! It just gets left behind.

S: That's a lot of attention to detail for something that does not matter at all.

O: [Laughter] Right?! Megatron and Soundwave then subvert some tanks by flying over them undetected.

S: You know, in the gentle glow of the moonlight.

O: I'm sorry, I'm still stuck on the whole “Megatron being somewhat subtle” here thing.

S: It's Megatron, what can you do? 

O: [Snicker] 

S: So Megatron, uh, blasts a hole in the roof of the building that they land on. 

O: Well, okay, subtle for  him. [Laughter] We are then introduced to the most powerful computer on earth, TORQ III.

S: This implies the existence of TORQs I and II, so what happened to them? For that matter, why is it Decepticon-scaled?

O: No one knows, although I do love the image of TORQ I and II being shoved into, like, a broom closet somewhere. Probably rather glad they're in that broom closet, considering what happens to TORQ III after this.

S: Yeah. 

O: So, Megatron then... reprograms TORQ III to serve only  him  by using this really phallic looking thing that comes out of his helm. 

S: It's a literal mind fuck, guys. 

O: Literally! That looks like that is what is happening! 

S: Yes! 

O: Very, very much! [Laughter]

S: Yes, like you weren’t watching that bit when we scripted this and then I threw it out and then when we rewatched it and you were like, “Eeeaaaurgh!” 

O: Yeah, I was like, “Okay sure, mind fuck,” cuz I'm like looking down and typing and then I look up, when I had to rewind for some reason and I was like, “Oh my god!” [Laughter] And she’s like, “Yeah, that’s why I said it!” I’m like, I wasn’t looking. [Laughter] Well, that image will never leave my head. Great! 

S: And now it's in yours! 

O: [Laughter] Or it will be! We have screenshots. Anyway, TORQ begins blaring, “Illegal access! Illegal access!” 

S: Oh, that brings to mind so many bad things.

O: Yeah, it does! Yikes!

S: “It certainly is,” Megatron replies.

O: It's amazing. I love it.  [dissolves into laughter]

S: Oh god, the computers’ screen-face-thing is purple, so what were these people thinking? This is like Decepticon catnip. Did they hear it was purple and decided they needed to have it, in addition to it being the most powerful computer?

O: No,  Megatron  heard it was purple and decided they needed- needed to have it. [Laughter]

S: He would. So, Megatron, being himself, procedes to program it with his personality because what could be better? More of him! 

O: Okay, bu- but why does sticking his head-dick into the computer make it into a copy of him? I have so many questions right now, the first of which is, why would this be a good idea?! Did Megatron just forget he's a complete total bastard who doesn't like authority? 

S: Obviously, there's no one better than him so…

O: That's fine and dandy until the thing tries to rebel against you and, I'm like, it’s you, of course it's going to. 

S: It's a blind spot he has.

O: Obviously. Soundwave and Megatron, then open the box they had brought in with them, and put the microchips inside onto these really strange looking robots around the lab TORQ is in. 

S: Yeah, yeah, I mean what possible applications these robots have? How do they function? One’s got noodly arms that don't even- that they don't nearly seem like they should be able to lift anything. And they're all just sort of scattered around the lab higgledy-piggledy. 

O: Yeah.

S: In a line?  Or something, I don’t know.

O: It's weird. 

S: Once the microchips, apparently called ‘circuit linkers’, touch the other robots TORQ can control them.

O: He then uses Soundwave for target practice. Another lovely character for my shit list, apparently.

S: Owls is developing quite a shit list.

O: I am! I've got my hit list. The funny thing is there will be several that will die. Foreshadowing for the movie.

S: [Laughter]

Unfortunately, characters I actually like will die so I don't really think that gets me, you know, anything, honestly.

S: [Laughter] There's no net gains there.

O: There’s no net gains here.

S: And so, elsewhere, two scientists are working super late, wondering if they made TORQ- TORQ III even though it's not specified here- you know, too smart.

O: And TORQ could control the whole world, uh, whatever would we do if the wrong person got ahold of him, uh, you know, so, you mean, like right now, this very second! 

S: Ah, one of the scientists notices that it's, you know, fucking after midnight and says they should go home and get some sleep.

O: He says “we.” Are the scientists  lovers? 

S: It's possible. Maybe they're married? 

O: It’s getting spicy tonight, baby. Welcome to Dr. Love’s laboratory! And so as he turns to leave- or as one of the scientists turns to leave, the robot controlled door closes and locks them in. When they go to call maintenance, TORQ tells them that maintenance can't help them. 

S: This is why robot doors are bad, guys. 

O: Or, not having a secondary method in which to exit, at least, is very bad.

S: Yeah, the other scientist um, starts for rebuild- rebuilding his, ah, little TV phone into something that can call long distance in order to call for help because, I guess, TORQ does not control the phone lines. 

O: Or won't, if he rebuilds it? 

S: I guess? I don’t know. Elsewhere, by dawn's morning light, Megatron, Rumble, and Frenzy are flying around, putting more of the control chips onto some oil tankers because that's how that works, I guess?

O: Di- did you know oil tankers come in fleets, Specs? 

S: It seems like so much wasted effort went into the shot. They clearly drew all of these ships individually. 

O: Ah, the days before digital animation and coloring, I think.

S: But they could have just Xeroxed one of them and been done-

O: [Laughter] Or even traced! Maybe, I guess.

S: I mean, look at 101 Dalmatians, they did fuckin Xerox-

O: That’s true-

S: So many Xeroxed dalmatians-

O: Shit, that's right, there are a ton of Xeroxed dogs. [Laughter] Elsewhere, at the Ark, Teletraan warns Optimus that there's skullduggery afoot!

S: A bunch of oil tankers are converging near the Decepticon base which- is in the middle of the ocean? 

O: In the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, according to this map. To which I have to ask, how the hell did Carly get in there a few episodes back? 

S: She chartered a plane, a train, and an automobile, and then teeny-weeny little boat.

O: Well, while I do certainly think Carly is capable of that, considering she's badass. I refuse to believe this map is accurate and they have to be in the Pacific Ocean. It just seems too close to the Autobot base in other episodes not to be. If, regardless, if they drove all the way to Washington DC no problem in that one episode. Either that or the platform isn't built on top of their base as the dialogue seems to imply and it's just, you know, one of their bases of the week. 

S: Which they do seem to have so many of those.

O: They do have a lot of those. 

S: Yeah and so, well, Optimus smells a rat named Megatron.

O: I mean, he's not wrong.

S: He really isn't and, uh, so Quantum Labs is finally able to get a hold of Optimus, I think, through Teletraan. I don't remember. 

O: Yeah, I mean, Teletraan 1 basically operates as their phone so-

S: Yeah.

O: -Yes.

S: Yeah. So, the scientists at Quantum Labs warns them about TORQ's sudden case of the evils.

O: And Optimus is ready to head towards the Lab. Hound offers to investigate the oil tankers all converging in the middle of the goddamn Atlantic Ocean.

S: You're not a boat, Hound. You're really not. 

O: It's ok, Skyfire’s gonna come. Skyfire and Spike. [Laughter] You know, the dream team! 

S: Optimus transforms and, um, Wheeljack, Prowl, Sideswipe, and Ironhide are suddenly right there! Right there! Where the hell did those guys come from? 

O: Through the power of camera angles they were there the whole time. 

S: Prime's group arrives at the Labs and Optimus rips the crossing barrier off so they can enter before, you know, being shot at by, you know, the robots. Or tanks?

O: They are attacked by all the tanks from before, that apparently don't have any humans controlling them.

S: Oh, oh so that's why they were so useless earlier.

O: Oh, yeah, probably. 

S: The Autobots are surrounded by this plethora of vehicles as Optimus channels Charlie Brown, “Good grief!”

O: Or Jotaro from JoJo's Strange Adv- Bizarre Adventure.

S: Yeah, Being cars themselves, they got the brilliant idea to, um, shoot out the tires on the attacking vehicles.

O: This only gets them so far, so Optimus Prime speed dials the Dinobots by pressing his abs.

S: Ah, ab cell-phone service. 

O: I mean, it was the 80’s. I mean, why not make the cell phone your entire ab if it's got to be huge? Might as well, right? I mean, at least, you save a little space, but that being said you would think it’s in his helmet considering the little antenna a few episodes back. But continuity? What's that?

S: And I’m just imagining someone going up and knocking on your grill while in truck mode.

O: [Laughter] “Optimus Prime call Dinobots! Dinobots smash gas station!” [Laughter] “Wait, no!”

S: So Peter Cullen talks to himself for a few lines and the Dinobots arrived with Grimlock in the lead.

O: Good thing Peter Cullen only does Prime and Ironhide because if we had to say that- if we said that joke for every time Welker talked to himself it would be absurd.

S: We'd be here all day.

O: We would be here all day! 

S: Optimus orders the Dinobots to smash here-

O: Which, obviously, being Dinobots they comply, there is much mayhem and explosions.

S: Yep. So, apparently, the doors are controlled by a computer but not the windows because the two scientists are able to shout to the Autobots from their open window.

O: I also am laughing because a lot of like ah, multi-story buildings that are, like, work places you can't even open the windows.

S: Especially now. You might have been able to in the ‘80’s.

O: Yeah. 

S: But, uh- but, uh-

O: Definitely be a question because probably not every place had AC either. 

S: Yeah.

O: So I imagine it would have been more common. Sludge gives Optimus a lift to the window and he helps the two scientists escape.

S: Optimus asks a question and then um, answers it himself with, you know, the answer, of course, being Megatron.

O: He's basically, like, a machine rebellion!

S: The scientists are confused as TORQ shouldn't be able to control things that aren't, you know, specifically designed for it. Then Sparkplug shows up to explain about the chips the Decepticons have been using them. Um.

O: Where did he come from? Why are characters poofing into existence so much in this episode? 

S: The power of convenience. 

O: The power of convenience. Optimus then takes the chip from Sparkplug and sticks it into his arm. 

S: Optimus, why would you do that? It's controlled everything else it's touched just by touching it.

O: But not him, apparently. The Autobots are led to TORQ’s hangar but the door is locked.

S: To quote Optimus, “Thankfully, I have a delicate lock-picking technique.”

O: That technique is blasting the door- [Laughter] 

S: And- 

O: Let it never be said that Optimus doesn't have a sense of humor.

S: Oh, oh god, he definitely has a sense of humor. 

O: It's just dad humor. 

S: Yeah, and so the Autobots are attacked by those funky looking machines that we saw earlier before we jet on over to Skyfire and company.

O: Apparently the Decepticons plan is to collect all the oil from the tankers and pump it down to their base but, oh no, the oil platform is protected by an unbreakable shield.

S: We've seen that one before. 

O: How the heck didn’t the Autobots see the Cons building this giant freaking platform in the middle of the fucking ocean!

S: They're just not paying attention to the goddamn oceans, I don't know.

O: The Sky Spy, you have Sky Spies! 

S: Yep, they land on one of the tankers. Hound and Spike exiting from Skyfire’s crotch hatch.

O: Of course.

S: They ask the captain to hide them so they can get, you know, through the shield and surprise the Decepticons. 

O: Hide him how? Skyfire is  huge!  How are they going to hide him? 

S: Mass-shifting? I don't know, somehow it works.

O: And at the boat docks, Megatron's supervising personally, for some reason, along with an incorrectly coloured Hook.

S: As the ship approaches, Hound and Skyfire jump out of a conveniently sized hole that was just on the ship's deck. I guess it's um, a hold or something? I don't know.

O: Yeah, but it was really large. Like, large enough for Skyfire to get into. I have no idea how realistic that is. And then a fight breaks out! Soundwave and some of his cassettes joining the fray as well and our dead-weight- I mean, Spike, is captured by Laserbeak pretty much immediately.

S: Yep. Megatron tells them to surrender or he'll have Laserbeak drop- drop Spike. 

O: [Sarcasm] Oh no.

S: Soundwave is standing off in the background like the strong, independent tape deck he is.

O: And, back at the lab, more of those crazy machines come out of the hole Prime blasted and attack.

S: Again, what were these made for? They seem, um, perfect for hunting Autobots. Optimus, were your friends planning on doing bad things to you?

O: Quite possibly. About those bad things, Optimus is captured by the kink machine- I mean, the bondage machine- oh, I mean, the one with the tentacles. [Laughter]

S: [Laughter] 

O: I’m serious, what else is that thing supposed to be for? Like, maybe that's what they were doing? Were they making a giant bondage machine for the Autobots? [Laughter] 

S: [Silent laughter]

O: I broke Specs, yay! [Laughter] I’m sorry!

S: Prowl can lift as he struggles to hold one of the robot’s mouths open, so it doesn't, like, crush him.

O: But then Ironhide just walks up to his opponent, plugs a hole with his finger and then it explodes. Welcome to the Looney Tunes, starring the Autobots. 

S: [Laughter] Sideswipe just makes his clap and that kills it.

O: [Laughter] Of course. So after, you know, um, all of that, they finally enter the hangar to find a maze.

S: Who designed this place?

O: I think TORQ’s done some redecorating overnight. He has had an army of, like, robo slaves at his disposal.

S: The funky-ass robots.

O: [Laughter] Kinkmatron. 

S: [Laughter] 

O: That’s it’s name now, no one can stop me! Optimus enters alone, uh, before we cut back to Skyfire, Hound, and Spike, who are in the Decepticon brig. 

S: When the Decepticons catch naughty Autobots, they go in the naughty Autobot hole. 

O: Dare I ask what that means for Spike? [Laughter]

S: [Laughter] God, there is a really terrible pun there. 

O: [Laughter] Yeah, there probably is!

S: God, I am not going into that. 

O: [Laughter] Nope, nope, we’ve talked about kink machines multiple times, I don’t want to get into anything else tonight!

S: Spike and his compatriots are trapped and waiting for rescue but, don't worry, Spike has a plan!

O: I feel like it's only fair, they're stuck there because of Spike in the first place. He should have a plan. 

S: Well, considering what his plan is, he was the only damn one who can carry out.

O: True. 

S: TORQ- Well, back with Optimus, TORQ continues to bait Optimus as, you know, our dad-bot makes his way through the maze and evil robots.

O: Optimus gets another circuit breaker- that wasn’t what it was called. 

S: Circuit linker-

O: -Circuit linker put on him and this controls him. [Laughter] You know, “controls him.”

S: I guess we should assume Sparkplug or Wheeljack disabled the other one, um…?

O: That makes sense. Although I- hmmm. So through this entire section, right, I was comparing TORQ’s dialogue to Megatron. You know, since Megs programmed his personality into this computer. You know, everything seems spot-on, I can hear Megatron saying all of this but then when TORQ captures Optimus he says, “Come to me, my pet,” and I have to admit it sounds like what Megatron would say in this situation, and I basically fucking lost it while we were watching it. But to make this even better! He says, “You're mine now,” two seconds later. Apparently, Megatron's thirst for Optimus transferred over, too! 

S: Yeah. Surprise! Optimus has been pretending to be controlled the entire time.

O: Of course! 

S: And that broken- broken circuit linker he had earlier was, in fact, there for a reason. He swapped it with the active one.

O: How he managed to do that without touching the live one is debatable but alright.

S: I don't have the time or energy to debate it so-

O: [Laughter] Fair.

S: Let's not. TORQ orders his robots to destroy Optimus but one well-placed punch by, you know, the Dad-bot makes TORQ explode.

O: Ding-dong, the TORQ is dead. 

S: TORQ I and II are probably very grateful.

O: [Laughter] I mean, TORQ III seems like a bastard. Certainly was a bastard there at the end.  Soundwave warns Megatron that TORQ is no longer in control of the tankers but Megs’ will control them with his radio transmitter he's conveniently holding.

S: Does it come with a funky hat?

O: We could only hope but, sadly, no.

S: Yeah. The scientists send Optimus and company off on, like, a super-fast boat. I think it's a hydrofoil, I don't know, as they head towards the Decepticons location. So, apparently, they were close to the coast.

O: Apparently. With Sparkplug driving, by the way. 

S: Oh, Sparkplug, most interesting man in the world. He knows how to do everything! He's been a ruby miner, an oil driller, a mechanic, boat captain, everything! 

O: Autobot liaison?

S: Yeah.

O: And back into the brig, uh, Spike has conveniently found an electromagnet just lying around.

S: I'm starting to think this isn't so much their brig, as it is their trash-pile room. 

O: Not to mention what the fuck they were using an electromagnet for or how.

S: I don't know. God, ygm Spike uses the electromagnet to magnetize the cassettes standing by the door to the walls- magnetize their guards.

O: Yes, essentially.  With the cassettes incapacitated, Skyfire burst the door down- bust the door down. I know what I'm saying. 

S: And through a five-second interlude we are told the Autobots in the boat are within sight, as Soundwave spots them.

O: But Megatron's not worried, they'll never get that shield, right? 

S: Jetfire, Hound, and Spike find the shield generator uh, so helpfully being guarded by Frenzy. 

O: Skyfire lures Frenzy away as Hound shoots the generator with one of his missiles. 

S: How did Hound get his ammo back? Because I'm pretty sure they were disarmed.

O: Shhh! They don't want you to think about it, they didn't, either. 

S: Well, that's true. The shield goes down just as the other Autobots arrive and, ah, you'll never guess how they do! The boat yeets itself out of the water and onto the platform and it’s horrifyingly entertaining cuz I keep imagining that the boat is gonna break.

O: Right? Another fight breaks out with Starscream, Laserbeak, and Frenzy joining Megatron and Soundwave.

S: And Megatron runs away and Optimus follows to destroy the radio transmitter.

O: Once destroyed, Optimus tells the tankers they're free to go. 

S: Megatron, you know, being a sore loser sets the whole platform to explode. 

O: The other Bots make it back to the boat but Prime runs to go find Skyfire and the others who who they presumably know are on there, for some reason? 

S: I mean, I think-

O: I mean, it's not the worst assumption to make but, I'm like, did they see them? I don't think they did.

S: I mean, they talked to one of the tanker captains? I don't know. 

O: I don’t know if they… They wouldn’t have had time. I- I'm gonna go with maybe they've all got GPS on them or something and roll with that, probably.

S: Yeah. So they all make it out on Skyfire once he's able to get, you know, out of the platform. 

O: And take off.

S: Yeah.

O: One of the scientists thanks the bots for their help and makes a rather unfortunate comment about unreliable machines.

S: [Sigh] 

O: You know, eating that entire foot.

S: Yeah, and he attempts to make a recovery but it's not really successful.

O: It isn’t very good.

S: And that's it! That's the end of the episode. Oh, but they brought the boat back to where it was from originally.

O: I mean, good for them for not exploding the boat, that was helpfully lent into them, I suppose. 

S: Yeah.

O: But join us next time for everyone's favorite holiday: Autobot Day! Wait... wait... no? Do we mean: Decepticon Day?

S: [Sigh] Parades.

O: [Laughter]

S: There are parades. 

O: Parades and I think this is a multi-parter, if I’m remembering properly?

S: Yep.

O: Cause, I think it's like Megatron’s Master Plan?

S: Yeah, I’m pretty sure that's what it is. 

O: It's a multi-parts-

S: It’s two parts, I’m pretty sure. And we have fanfiction recommendations. Due to the fact that I've been swamped, I didn't come up with any so Owls has supplied our fanfiction recommendations for today.

O: Wild-card fics yet again. These had nothing to do with the episode. All right, um, so I have picked two for today. The first one is “Cuck Rung” by… I think this is said, Evedawalrus.

S: Yeah, I think that’s what it is.

O: I think that’s accurate. I can’t remember what her username is on Tumblr but, um, it is IDW continuity, it is rated T. It's technically slash but let me tell you all the slash is relatively background, for the most part, and where it's really not the main focus but it has, um, Minimus Ambus/Megatron and uh, Drift/Ratchet. Our main characters, there are more than this that have popped up since, but our main characters are Rodimus, Ultra Magnus, Drift, Ratchet, Swerve, Megatron, and Ravage. 

O: Our description is: Rodimus creates a shipwide group chat. This proves to be a horrible decision. It is ongoing, it's not complete, it is multi-chapter and, let me tell you, it is hilarious. I laugh my ass off every time I read this. Um, because it is literally just a group chat with all of these characters and think of it very much like a discord where you have certain people who can, like, rename others and all this other shit. It's amazing, I highly recommend it. [Laughter]

And our second one is a “Shimmer of Hope” by NiCad? [Pronounced ny-cad]

S: Ny-cad? Nee-cad?

O: One of those.

S: The pronunciation’s debatable. 

O: Thank you, Internet! It is IDW, it's rated T, it’s Gen, uh, there are no pairings, and our characters are Verity and Springer. The summary is, “What did Verity write in that thank you card to Springer, anyway?” It's a one shot. I believe this is after- it's the last of the Wreckers trilogy from the IDW comics.

S: Requiem for the Wreckers, maybe?

O: I think that one. Uh, this is right after that. It's pretty short but, um, I really like Verity so I'm like Verity needs to be in more things, so those are our recommendations for today.

S:  And that just about wraps it up for us today, remember to check us out on Tumblr or Pillowfort as Afterspark-Podcast for any additional information, show notes, or links, we may have mentioned.  You can also find us on Facebook and Twitter at AftersparkPod (all one word).  And various other locations by searching for Afterspark…. Podcast- [Laughter]

O: [Laughter]

S: You can also find us on Facebook and Twitter at AftersparkPod (all one word).  And various other locations by searching for Afterspark Podcast, such as AO3, iTunes, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, and Youtube, just to name a few.  

O: Ah, feel free to send us questions on Tumblr, too. We actually, you know, have to do a mic check before we do any recording so, ah, it’s helpful for us. I have a list of questions but we're gonna run out eventually and I don't think I should be left to think of questions by myself. If you have a question about Transformers or whatever, feel free to send it to us on Tumblr and we'll probably use it for a warm-up and I'll try to answer it on Tumblr, too. 

S: Yeah or, I guess, in the comments on AO3, Youtube.

O: Yep, that also works comments on AO3, Youtube  Basically anywhere we respond back to which is mostly Youtube and AO3.

S: Yeah, uh, so till next time, guys! I'm Specs!

O: And I’m Owls!

S: Toodles!

 [Outro Music]

[1-1snailxd-art]

Sides of a Hero

Chapter index -------- Chapter 5 

Chapter 6 - Lost nightmare 

Summary: Virgil explores another memory with Depression. Will it end with another storm? Thomas and his sides need to work out what happened, and to do that they need Virgil to talk. Can Virgil find a way to communicate with the others, or will he avoid the topic as per usual? 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Virgil fell asleep. Even though he desperately wanted to avoid sleeping again. One second, he was watching Roman re-enacting how he had saved Estelle from a falling tree branch - a totally believable tale of course - and the next he was watching a younger form of himself sitting by the edge of a pool.

 I didn't expect you to fall asleep so soon, Anxiety. I must say I am surprised.

I surprise even myself some days.

Interesting memory you have chosen. What happens in this nightmare?

What are you talking about? You're the one controlling this stuff.

Depression laughed. Not this time. This is all you.

Suure. I find that hard to believe.

Believe what you will. What were you at this stage? GoAway? Jacket? Annoying?

Well... Judging by the age of Thomas, I think I was....

"Would you get out of here!" Bravery yelled from the other side of the imagined pool.

"We are trying to learn, and that is very hard to do when you are here." Logan stood next to Bravery in a large sun hat.

"Why don't we battle a sea witch and ignore the little nobody," commented a very young Imagination, that swam in the pool around Thomas. Not his most creative name.

"Ooo, I know," Patton floated past Imagination in a blue floating ring. "Lets play tag with Patrick and Christian."

"You can't play tag in a swimming pool, Patton. We can chase a mermaid instead of battling a sea witch if you want."

"No, we need to stay in the shallows and focus on improving out swimming competence." "He'll never learn anything if he doesn't step out of his comfort zone. We should try and swim out deeper."

The sides and impulses continued calling out over each other; each with their own ideas for how Thomas should be spending his time.

And they said that the nobody was spoiling their swim.

Yeah...

 Virgil watched as Imagination crafted a school of golden fish that started swimming around the pool. Patton, Imagination and Thomas chased the fish around while Logan and Bravery continued to argue at the pools edge. Thomas was moving further away from the pools edge, too enthralled in his game to register that he was beginning to tire.

The young Virgil looked around the scene in concern. Christian had just left the pool, Patrick was doing his own thing, and Dad had just turned to respond to one of Mums questions. No one was watching Thomas in that moment, as his head dipped below the water.

 So, you have always just watched people you care about get hurt then?

 Time seemed to slow as Virgil watched the young version of himself vanish and appear in the water next to Thomas. He could remember every millisecond of that moment. Telling Thomas to keep moving; heart pounding as he willed Thomas not to stop.

Thomas flailed and finally resurfaced, gasping for air and reaching for the pool edge that was now a lot closer.

Thomas' family were quick to react and check on Thomas; assuring him he was fine and encouraging him back to the shallow end of the pool.

The surrounding sides and impulses reacted just as quickly, only they came to chastise the nameless impulse.

"What were you doing?"

"Thomas was so scared. Why did you scare him?"

"Now look what you've done."

"Thomas almost drowned because of you."

"What is the point of you if you're not going to help, Thomas."

"Why would you do something like that?"

“Didn't I tell you to leave Thomas alone? Get out of here.”

 There was a flash of blue and Virgil blinked. He was back at the cliff; standing next to his young, wet and shivering self.

A young Depression came out from the shadows of the forest and put an arm around the quivering impulse. "I heard you almost drowned Thomas today. Wanna talk about it?" The other impulse shook his head. "Ok then... Why don't we go to the waterfall in the kingdom? We can hide in the wet caves and pretend it's our own room." With a small nod, the two impulses vanished, and Virgil was left alone on the cliff.

 You're surprisingly quiet, Depression. I thought you were enjoying this memory stuff.

They all blamed you for that incident.

Yeah.

But it was really the main sides fault.

What? No... I..

They blamed and criticised you, and the rest of us negative impulses, when it was really their own fault. If you had spoken up, then maybe they wouldn't have been so hard on us. IT WAS YOUR FAULT THAT WE HAD TO STAY HIDDEN AWAY. IT WAS YOUR FAULT. YOUR FAULT. YOUR FAULT.

 Virgil covered his ears, but he couldn't block out Depression's words.

"Virgil?"

.

.

.

 Virgil blinked and tried to register the time based on the amount of light in the room. The other sides were nowhere in sight and he was leaning on Thomas' shoulder to keep the ice-pack on his head.  

"Virgil?" Thomas' voice. That was what pulled me back. "Are you ok? You looked like you were in pain."

Virgil sat up, letting the ice-pack fall from Thomas' shoulder, and cupped his face in his hands. He groaned, mainly just to test if his voice was back to normal. "Sorry if I worried you."

"No, no. It's fine. But... Are you ok?"

"I'm fine." Thomas didn't look convinced. "Ok... My head is a little bit sore, but it's no big deal or anything... Stop looking at me like that."

Thomas looked away. "I promised to summon the others once you woke up. Are you ok if I call them or do you want me to wait a bit?"

Virgil sighed. Better to get this over and done with now. "Sure. Whatever."

 The three sides were summoned to Thomas' lounge room to find Thomas sitting cross legged on the lounge and Virgil in his favoured corner of the lounge. After two minutes of Patton fussing over Virgil's head; Logan was finally able to direct the group to the focus of the discussion.

 "As you are all aware, the mindscape was attacked by one of Nightmare's storms last night. While this is not an uncommon occurrence, the size and effect of the storm was extremely out of character and something that has not been seen since Thomas' youth." "Does this mean that every time I've had a bad dream, the kingdom was hit by a storm?" Thomas inquired, concern laced his voice at the thought of damaging the kingdom.

"No. There is a difference between a bad dream and a nightmare."

"In the Dream Realm they craft good and bad dreams using a combination of memories and imagination." Roman explained. "You access these when you sleep, though you may not remember all of them. A dream, good or bad, aims to guide you in some way. Encouraging creativity, reminding you of something or even warning you about something. All of us," Roman gestured to the other three sides, "contribute to these dreams to a certain degree. But you know the best dreams come from me."

 Logan ignored Roman’s final comment and continued with his explanation. "In comparison, the 'dreams' caused by Nightmare serve no purpose other than to instil fear. These nightmares also tend to be more emotionally disturbing and intense; generally causing the dreamer to wake suddenly." "But, Thomas didn't wake up last night." Patton looked concerned. "Roman and I couldn't wake him up and you had to wake him, Logan."

"What?" Thomas looked at his sides, worry rising in his chest as Virgil started to comprehend what had happened. "What do you mean Logan had to wake me?"

 Logan let out a long sigh. "I used my 'influence' to make you wake up." Thomas stared at Logan and gave him a small nod, encouraging him to continue. "To put it simply, all aspects of your being have some kind of influence over you. I am a fusion of your rational thinking, curiosity, conformity and general knowledge of the world around you. On our own, we each had a very particular influence over you. These aspects, over time, fused together to form me; your logical side. However, I can 'tap into' specific influences and temporarily enhance their..."

"His eyes flash blue and he uses Conformity to make you do as you are told," Virgil's voice was deep and laced with anger. He had been on the receiving end of Logan's conformity many times before he became a side and it wasn't something he enjoyed.

"Yes... That is a very simplified explanation." Logan chose to ignore Virgil's questionable tone; tabling a few questions that he would ask Virgil later. "We all have these abilities, though I prefer not to use it now. It can be straining, and I prefer not to put myself under any unnecessary strain."

"So, you all have this ability to 'enhance' your influence over me?"

"That is correct."

"We don't usually use this against you though, Thomas," Roman added. "It generally helps us to, um... 'deal with' any impulse that attempts to tip the balance of the mindscape." "Like a protective superpower," Patton added. "Integrity use to help me all the time when Deceit would come into my room. Cheeky thing was always sneaking around when you were younger."

"Wow. I knew you guys were a fusion of different aspects of my personality, but I had no idea that they were each so powerful." Thomas was beaming and felt truly excited to be learning so many new things about himself. "What is your power, Roman?"

"What power you ask? Why, you see it all the time, Thomas." Roman looked shocked that Thomas would even ask such a thing. "I am always conjuring things for you guys. That doesn't come easy you know." "But your eyes don't glow... And I've seen the others conjure things to. Can't you all do that?"

Roman gasped, "How dare you. My eyes are permanently glowing orbs of beauty and the things I conjure are physical works of art, not the faint, half done, monstrosities these guys create. I can't believe you would ever doubt me, Thomas."

"Oh my gosh, I am sorry Roman. I didn't mean any offence..." Thomas really wasn't sure if he had seriously offended the creative side, or if he was using his acting skills against him. Either way, he wanted to keep the conversation moving. "Ah... Um... Virgil. Virgil, what can you do? What impulses do you use?"

Virgil was curled in a tight ball in the corner, hood pulled low to hide his face. "Aren't we meant to be discussing the nightmare?" He was trying hard to not let his discomfort surrounding the topic affect Thomas. His earlier influence was being over shadowed by Thomas' curiosity. Virgil would normally be grateful for that, but not when it encouraged this sort of discussion.  

 "I agree with Virgil. We need to get back to the matter at hand," Logan adjusted his glasses, taking in Virgil's body language and tabling a few more questions for later. "The concern is that Nightmare’s storm did not come from a particular area of the mindscape; instead forming right in the centre of the fantasy realm and growing in size at a very rapid rate." "I could sense it's energy from my room before any of my citizens could come and fetch me." Roman looked at Thomas with worry in his eyes. "It pulled all the happiness out of the memory I was visiting." Patton added sadly.

"Even I was woken from my slumber at the sudden increase of your heart rate. It was quite concerning." Logan looked between Thomas and Virgil. "What do the two of you recall about the nightmare."

Thomas shrugged, "I can't fully remember it. I know how I was feeling, but I can't remember hearing or seeing anything." "What did you feel?"

"Sad. Really sad. Like... Like I just let somebody down." Virgil's whole body went rigid as he processed Thomas' words. He was feeling what I felt! "... And everything hurt. As if a cat with flaming paws just scratched up my whole body."

"What a terrifyingly adorable image." Patton squeaked.

"Interesting," Logan looked over to Virgil. "What happened in your room, Virgil?"

 Virgil's mind raced as he worked to process the information he had just received; while trying to remain in control. Thomas felt all of that. Breath. He was stuck in that memory with me. In for 4. Hold for 7. Depression can bring out Nightmare. Out for 8. How can I stop that from happening again?

"Hey, Storm Cloud." Roman snapped his fingers in Virgil's face, "Are you still with us here?"

"Nothing," mumbled Virgil. "Nothing happened." I need to find out how Depression did this. In for 4. hold for 7.

"Oh, sure." Roman replied sarcastically. "You always show up in the middle of a panic attack." Thomas shot Roman a discouraging look.

Out for 8. "I'm anxiety. It's normal"

"Falsehood. That is not something that has occurred on a regular occasion."

"Maybe I've just been really good at hiding it." I need to get out of here.

"Aww, Virgil!" Patton gasped, "Why didn't you say something? I would have come and helped you if you had asked." You can't help me. "I don't need your help."

"Sure, looked like you didn’t need help yesterday." "Roman!" Thomas snapped, " Not helping. What is going on, Virgil?"

"Nothing." They can't help me. This is my responsibility.

"Research shows that talking to others is beneficial. In this case, talking will help us with the Nightmare issue and support your mental health. You need to tell us what happened."

"I don't have to tell you anything." Stop acting like you control me.

  "Ok. Stop." Thomas put his hands up to silence all of the sides. "We aren't being fair on Virgil. This is a bit of an uncomfortable situation. If I'm feeling this uncomfortable, then I know Virgil is definitely feeling the same; probably worse." Thomas moved to kneel in front of Virgil. "I want to know what happened just as much as the others, but I understand if you don't want to talk about it. You don't have to tell us everything. Gosh, you don't even need to tell all of us if you don't want to. But... " Virgil looked at Thomas through the curtain of hair in front of his eyes. "I want you to talk to someone and let someone listen to you. It is better to talk about our problems, rather than keeping them to ourselves. Trust me. That's how I started accepting you in the first place."

 Virgil sighed and couldn't stop the small smile that crept across his lips. I was so stuck in my own head, I forgot to heed my own advice. Idiot. "Ok. I don't like it, but ok."

"Well ok then... So, how do you want to do this?"

 Virgil felt his throat tighten. He knew Thomas had a point and he did need to talk to at least get them all to back off a bit. Who am I meant to talk to? Patton will start pandering me again if I talk to him. Roman and I will probably just end up insulting each other. I really don't want to freak Thomas out any more than he already has been. Virgil glanced in Logan's direction and swore the sides eyes flashed blue. He felt sick as he recalled the feeling of Logan using his influence against him. What is the lesser of four evils?

 Roman sighed loudly, expressing his impatience to the group.

"Really?" Logan commented. "Could you not have been subtler?"

"Oh, I could have, but I chose not to be."

Thomas was about to chastise Roman for being rude, when he vanished from the living room along with Virgil. "Oh! Well, I guess Virgil made a decision." "What? To finally dispose of Roman?" "Now, Logan. The only thing those two are going to dispose of is their negative feelings." Patton smiled, hopeful that the young sides would work out some of their issues.

 Thomas sat on the lounge and fidgeted with his hands. "I have a bad feeling about this, guys. Are they going to be alright?"

"Virgil picking Roman does seem to defy all... Me. But I don't believe any harm will come to either of them." "Ok. I should really go and actually get ready to do something productive for the day."

"Sounds like an excellent idea. We will be sure to inform you when we have located Nightmare. Best of luck today, Thomas" Logan sunk out.

"I'll catch you later, alligator," giggled Patton as he to sunk out.

Thomas took a deep breath in and slowly blew it out; feeling relief in being in an empty room. Talking to the sides was often just as exhausting as having a group of friends over.

 ******************************************************************************************* 

Roman found himself on the edge of a cliff, overlooking a dark cavern and a beautiful blue sky. He had never been to the edge of the mindscape before and was utterly unprepared for the magnificent sight set out before him.  

Chapter index ----------- Chapter 7 

[e350tb]

Steven Universe: Marooned Together - Chapter Thirty-Two

(with thanks to @real-fakedoors for reading)

Stevonnie and Lapis sat at the doors of the barn, wide open to the elements. A gentle, steady downpour weeping a steady pitter-patter onto the leaf-thatched ceiling, running down the ridges and grooves and soaking the earth down to the foundation. They hadn’t spoken for some time, sharing in the quiet observation of the world beyond.

Stevonnie rubbed their arm, occasionally stealing glances at the blue gem. A few times, it looked as though one of them were about to say something, but then inevitably their mutual silence returned. The high of the kiss had worn off, replaced by a weird sense of… awkwardness. Now that they had crossed the threshold, neither of them seemed quite sure of what to do next.

“So,” Stevonnie said at last, “Are we…”

“I… think so?” replied Lapis, cheeks burning dark navy. “Unless you don’t want to, I mean… I…”

She looked away, biting her lip.

“No,” replied Stevonnie, “I think… I think I do.”

They sat in silence for a while longer.

“So we’re together, then,” said Lapis, “I-I-I mean we’ve been together for twenty years, but now we’re together together, so…”

There was a long silence.

“We need to talk to Garnet, don’t we?” asked Stevonnie.

“Yeah, I think we do.”

There were a lot of things Lapis and Stevonnie might have expected when warping to New Earth. They definitely might have expected a welcoming committee, having both been missing for - was it two weeks? Lapis couldn’t quite remember. They expected having to answer some questions - where did you go, what happened, how did you escape Yellow Diamond?

The last thing they expected was to be staring down the barrel of a gun. Yet that is exactly what they saw as they warped into the back room of the Diamond’s Lament.

“Uh… what?” Stevonnie asked.

The pistol was held by a Human Resistance officer, his face twisted into a dark scowl.

“You’re in violation of the Gem Restriction Act,” he sneered, “And I…”

“The Gem Resistriction what?” demanded Lapis.

“Don’t play dumb with me, rock,” replied the officer, “Now come quietly and I won’t have to shatter you.”

Lapis blinked.

“You… you actually think you can take us,” she said flatly.

“I said,” the officer snarled, “Come quietly. Or else I’ll-”

Anything else he might have said was cut off by a loud crash as someone slammed a large bag of fruit over his head. The officer slumped to the floor, revealing Jenny standing behind him.

“‘Sup, ‘Vonnie,” she said, “Glad to see you’re still with us!”

“I… thanks,” replied Stevonnie, “What the heck was he doing?”

Jenny frowned, turning and walking to the door. She locked it with a metallic ‘clink’ before turning back to the two gems.

“Lewis launched a coup,” she replied.

“She what?!” exclaimed Stevonnie.

Jenny nodded, sitting down on top of some old crates.

“When you didn’t come back, Amethyst was furious,” she explained, “I mean, I’ve never seen her that mad. Dug into Franks at the debrief - I thought she might actually kill him. Humiliated him in front of all of his officers. They didn’t take that well.”

She sighed, running a finger along a dusty shelf surface.

“Anyway, Ames and Peri went off to find you - I think they’re still out,” she continued, “Which left Garnet and the HR to look after New Earth. ‘Cept nobody respected Franks anymore, which meant Lewis could convince them to overthrow the government.”

“Garnet,” asked Stevonnie, “Jeff, Peedee, are they okay?”

“Jeff’s locked up with Franks,” replied Jenny, “Garnet and Peedee are at the Museum of Earth - there’s still people holding out against the Resistance there. I can take you guys there if you want.”

“Of course!” replied Stevonnie, “We can’t just leave our friends, can we?”

“Plus we need to talk to Garnet,” added Lapis, “About… things.”

“Alright, c’mon.”

Jenny unlocked the door again, slipping into the main bar room. She glanced over to Simon, waving her arm in a circular motion - the old bartender nodded, reaching under the counter and throwing her a dirty old key.

“You ever seen the sewers?” asked Jenny.

“...no,” replied Stevonnie.

“Well, you’re about to.”

The sewers were not particularly impressive - they were sewers, so it’s not like they had particularly high expectations. The ceilings were low, forcing Stevonnie to crouch to fit their head in, and the walkway creaked and groaned. The air was putrid and stale, the water a foul brown, and there was precious little light.

The sewer was one of the first parts of New Earth to be built - it was a hygienic necessity, but it was clear it had been built before gem tech began to be integrated in the settlement. It was a jerry-rigged tube of rusted metal, held together by grit, polish and a healthy amount of wishful thinking. It was, evidently, overdue to be upgraded, nearing the limits of its capacity - exactly how Lewis intended to do this without gem help was anyone’s guess.

“Where’s the water coming from?” asked Lapis.

“Used to be we’d have to go out and get it from asteroids or other planets,” replied Jenny, “But we put in a water production plant about… two, three years ago? It’s under the hospital. Saves a heck of a lot of work.”

Stevonnie nodded.

“You’ve really made something here, haven’t you?” they asked,

“Sure have,” replied Jenny, “It’s what we can do when we work together, y’know?”

She grinned.

“There’s always room for two more, y’know.”

“I… we’re happy on the island, I think,” replied Stevonnie.

“It’s home,” Lapis shrugged.

“Well, you two ever change your mind, maybe you can get a little apartment or something,” said Jenny, her tone turning conspiratorial, “You know, just a little one bedroom thing…”

She chuckled as Stevonnie and Lapis both blushed.

“Anyway,” she said, “We’re here.”

They had reached a small ladder and a hatch on the roof. Gently, Jenny tapped on it - once, twice, three times. There was a brief silence and a muffled voice.

“Password?”

“I dunno, you change it every time I come here.”

“Oh, right… um… uh… who won the battle of-”

“Just let me in!”

“...alright.”

The hatch creaked open. The Curator, looking a little haggard but otherwise none the worse for wear, motioned for them to climb up.

The main floor of the Museum of Earth was crowded with gems - pearls, rubies, peridots and all manner of others - and their human allies. The exhibits had mostly been spirited away into the back rooms, allowing as much space as possible for what appeared to be a combined command centre and triage. Not far away, Peedee and Garnet were discussing something - the former looked incredibly tired, and there was a nasty new scar running across his mouth.

“Garnet!”

The two turned as Stevonnie ran over, pulling the fusion into a hug. She grinned, returning the gesture and spinning them around.

“You’re alive?!” exclaimed Peedee.

Garnet pulled out of the hug but kept her hands on Stevonnie’s shoulders.

“I knew you’d make it,” she said.

“Because of your future vision?”

“No.” Garnet glanced over to Lapis. “Because you have someone who would never give up on you.”

Lapis blushed, averting her eyes.

“So what’s going on?” asked Stevonnie, “I heard about Jeff and Franks… I guess… but how’s everyone else?”

Peedee frowned.

“We haven’t been able to get back to the dock and call Amethyst,” he replied, “So we’re on our own. As far as people who can fight, we got me, Garnet, Jenny, Buck, Carl… I think that’s it.”

“I can fight!” the Curator said brightly.

“No you can’t,” replied Peedee.

“No I can’t,” the Curator agreed glumly.

“What about Vidalia?” asked Stevonnie.

Peedee pointed over his shoulder.

Vidalia was laid on a table which apparently doubled as a bed, her stomach being bandaged by Doctor West and a lime-green pearl. She winced as he tightened the bandage, before turning her head to Stevonnie and Lapis.

“Yeah, thought you two would make it,” she said, “I’d come over and say hi, but…”

She winced.

“...they got me right in the gut,” she grunted, “Doc says I’m lucky I’m not dead ‘cause I’m ‘old’ or something.”

“The chances of recovering from a gunshot wound from a person pushing seventy are greatly decreased from…”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” snorted Vidalia, “I’m alive, ain’t I? And I got them as good as they got me.”

She pointed at a shotgun resting against the wall.

“Why’s Lewis getting away with this?” demanded Lapis, crossing her arms, “Why didn’t anybody notice?”

“We did notice,” grumbled Vidalia.

“Jeff brought this up with Franks time and time again,” said Peedee bitterly, “But you know what he did? He went and asked Lewis if she was doing anything wrong. He asked officers if they were stockpiling weapons. He asked if they were disobeying him. And then he took them at their word.”

“After what happened at the space station,” added Jenny, “Jeff was gonna launch an investigation. Lined up a few people to take a proper look - me, Vidalia, Simon, Lenny… but that spooked ‘em. By the time Franks even knew they were planning a coup, it was too late.”

“And now they have Jeff,” spat Peedee.

“And Franks,” added the Curator helpfully.

“Fuck Franks!” Peedee spat, “This is all his fault! If he’d just done his damn job - or better yet, hadn’t decided to play freedom fighter for twenty years - Jeff would be safe and I wouldn’t be panicking about whether he’s alive or not, and… fuck him! Just fuck him!”

He ran his hands through his hair.

“He never meant anything wrong,” reminded Garnet.

“That doesn’t matter,” replied Peedee.

He sighed.

“I’m going in the back to cool off,” he said, “Let me know if anything happens.”

He marched away.

“So,” asked Lapis, “What do we do now?”

“Attention Homeworld sympathisers!”

A voice, amplified by a megaphone, came from outside.

“This is the Provisional Government,” the voice continued, “We offer you one last chance at clemency. All humans inside the building, with the exception of the arch criminals Peedee Fryman and Vidalia… um… Vidalia…”

“Nice to be famous,” muttered Vidalia.

“...may leave the Museum of Earth without punishment if they come out quietly within the next hour. We have only one stipulation.”

“Of course,” muttered Jenny, “What’s the catch?”

“All persons who take this offer must be present at 1700 hours for the public executions of Roger Franks and former Mayor and arch-collaborator Jeff Fryman outside the hospital. You have one hour. Make your choice.”

There was a long, long silence.

“...public executions?” blurted Jenny at last, “What is this, 1755?”

[pottery-for-home]

What is Japandi? the new minimalism looks like this

Did yo heard about his new trend? Japandi is the new minimalism and it seems it's here to stay.

As minimalist myself, I like to stay updated and to keep my living space as much minimalist as possible as keeping it welcoming to my friends and family.

I already added more natural color palette earth tones to create this modern minimalist style. And I did not invest that much, simply adding layers on sofa, some details on furniture and decluttered my wall floating shelves.

Even I extended the feeling from the living area to the kitchen decor. Highlighting terracotta tones to create the earthy texture to get this so called Japandi aesthetic.

So if as me, you feel intrigued about Japandi, let me put together some of the basics here.

  First of all, I want to be clear, I'm not a professional blogger or interior designer, I'm a home and garden decor enthusiast and I practice minimalism in my life and in mu small on-line store. I created Pottery Sol y Tierra to promote the well-being through Feng Shui inspired potteries and decorations.

So you are wondering what Japandi means?

Japandi is a home decoration style.

The Japandi style is a style of furnishing and interior decoration resulting from a mixture between the styles of Scandinavian and Japanese decoration.

If as me you appreciate Scandinavian decor and Japanese eclectic style, you will adopt this Japandi as soon as now.

Every decor lover just swooned. Japanese design meets Scandinavian minimalism in this rising home decor trend. Sleek lines, neutral color schemes and calming setups will be on the radars of pinners everywhere.

Natural color palette earth tones

Modern minimalist kitchen

Minimalist bathroom designs

The result of searching Japandi on Pinterest is so beautiful, just click here to discover the lasts Pïns about it

Pinterest is a great way to stay updated about any trend. It helping home decor enthusiasts create their dream Japandi aesthetic. Home retail brands promote a new bedding or bath collection in neutral shades, but how to integrate pottery to Jacandi ?

Would you like to discover my Pins? Find them here

Japandi is the new minimalism and is inspired by both , Japanese

and Scandinavian interior styles.

  The basics about this new trend, Japandi : between Scandinavian and Japanese style

  Scandinavian style reigns supreme in our interiors. In particular, it makes them more refined by forcing us to abandon the frills and put too flashy colors in the closet. 

At the same time, the Japanese style, more discreet in terms of notoriety, offers us simple interiors that are conducive to contemplation. 

Discover these japanese inspired stoneware dinner sets here

These two movements therefore have one strong point in common: minimalism. And both invite us to refocus on the essential in our decoration, and more broadly in our lives. The japandi trend therefore brings them together in order to get the best out of each one!

Read about how to create Feng Shui style in your garden here

When you look at a Scandinavian bedroom and another japandi trend, you immediately notice the similarities between the two styles. So, as on our plate we appreciate the Asian fusion (especially when the chef Pierre Sang is in charge), we say to ourselves that it is only a matter of time before imagining a style of decoration on the border between these two cultures.

Find nice Japandi clay dinner sets here

But ultimately, the countdown is no longer necessary. Because the japandi is already there, around us. And personally, I will take it again a second time!

The Japandi trend, a delicate blend of Wabi-sabi and Scandi

Do you remember the Wabi-Sabi ? 

The Wabi Sabi indeed offers us to turn to simplicity and appreciate the effects of time on nature and objects.

In interior design all goes fast. We passed from eclectic, to Hygge to Wabi-Sabi.

Do you remember Hygge?

Find my thoughts about it here

And going back to Wabi-Sabi, It is about this style of decoration, or rather this art, which consists in seeing the beauty in the evolution of things as time passes. It is the rust which invites itself on the metal, the parquet which lives and the door which creaks.

Do you feel entering into observation mode when staying in front of a piece of art?

It happens to be even drinking my morning coffee with these beautiful handcrafted coffee mugs

What we see is that this way of appreciating all the small details that contribute to the shaping of the history of an object.

This is basically the essence found in the japandi trend.

But this approach is tempered by the Scandinavian side of this style of decoration. Light wood, white, simple and natural materials reinforce the softness and luminosity of Japandi.

Have you ever been at Ikea? This is so unique, even knowing that they mass produce.

In both cases, one thing is certain: simplicity is the watchword.

 We then limit its consumption to what is strictly necessary. It is therefore sustainable materials that we recommend. Both for their environmentally friendly character. But also, for their aesthetic appearance today which we will also benefit in 20 years.

So how to get the Japandi look in 3 easy steps?

Eliminate the clutter

Let natural light flood the room

Swap the ornaments for a few designer pieces

The goal is to make the decor simple but also functional and aesthetic.

Does this sounds like Feng Shui to you? fair enough

Thus the minimalism of Japanese design and the simplicity of Scandinavian lines have come together to reinvent a clean, timeless style of elegant subtlety. Personally, I have only one desire: to adopt it!

The clean color palette for a home with Scandinavian Japanese decor

A Scandinavian decoration banished black unless it was exclusively accompanied by white. In the japandi home, it's the opposite. It is used a lot and it comes with neutral tones and natural colors.

For classic colors, there are of course white, different shades of cream as well as beige. Everything then turns to more earthy tones such as brown or chestnut. But these hues, instead of turning to warmer tones, tend to join green. Adding new tones was also described on my last blog post, find it on number 10.

Finally, we can clearly see the dominance of natural colors. Indeed, all the colors finally resume those found on the outside.

You can sprinkle blush pink over everything to add some color if the style seems too austere. Also, to bring a little life, it is possible to add green plants in every corner.

Sprinkle blush pink will be great to match it with earthen terra-cotta home essentials. Find some ideas on my Home & Decor Pinterest board here

Japandi at home, what does it give?

Like that, it may seem simple. 

But in reality, adopting the Japandi trend at home is not that simple. This is mainly due to the fact that it is often difficult to get rid of the superfluous. This could be easy if you are minimalist minded, as I am.

And this even though these things are sometimes toxic. By the way, if you have trouble sorting, I strongly advise you to follow the advice given in Marie Kondo's storage method. 

For that, I let you refer to his book The Power of Less.

In the meantime, here is a small shopping list to inspire you and get you on the way to a Japandi decoration at home!

  1 - Washed linen cushion cover, Onéga // 2 - Concrete planter // 3 - Vintage bistro chair // 4 - Minimalist vase // 5 - Woood solid oak dining table // 6 // 7 - Teapot porcelain and bamboo // 8 - crackled coffee cup // 9 - Jenson bench // 10 - Black wooden chair // 11 - La Redoute Intérieurs plate // 12 - deep enamelled stoneware plate AM.PM // 13 - Teak stool solid // 14 - Moroccan style stool

Thanks for reading so far.

Please stay tuned for more blogs to come by visiting my blog

You can also find me on Instagram here 

and on Pinterest here 

[classhattery]

Personal Space - Interstellar Sarcasm (Prologue)

---------------  This is a little something I’ve been cooking up over the past year or so. I would’ve posted this teaser/prologue earlier but I only recently got comfortable enough with the main story arc  to warrant posting it here. I hope you all enjoy, and if anyone wants to follow it, I’ll be posting occasional updates under the #PersonalSpaceStory and #ClasshatCompositions tags. Extra special shout-out to my editor and reviewer, @risualto for helping this pile of words resemble a plot. <3 Happy Reading! --------------- 

Prologue

    “Thrusters?”     “Online.”     “Vectoring ports?”     “Online.”     “Weapons?”     “Secured and stowed.”      …I always enjoyed pre-flight checklists. Even if it involved meticulously re-reviewing the same list of things I had gone over personally the night before, it felt satisfying to know my ship was working well. The list also gave me a second or two of silent repose in an otherwise hectic morning.     “Navigation and guidance?”     “Online.”     “Cortex Reactor?”     “Optimal to within 3 percent.”      I ran my hand along the sleek edges of the leading wing of my ship, feeling the light vibrations that the dual fusion reactor steadily put out. Even in the dim light of the hangar, the Federation Class 5A Interceptor’s jet black polished angles shimmered like the facets of a gem – brilliant, yet exact. Even after a year in the Tactical Fleet, spaceflight was still amazing to me, no matter how commonplace it had become in my life.

    ”Life support?”

    “Functioning.”

    “Databases and communications?”

    “Online.” 

     …Cosmic awe or not, I had today’s agenda in my hand, and daydreaming was better-suited for times where I wasn’t at the controls of a multi-million-dollar spacecraft.     “Launch Clearance Code is 4578-D.”     “Open hatch 1 for boarding and prepare all systems for immediate departure.”     “I’m afraid I can’t do that, Dave,” the ship’s loudspeaker blared.

   When scientists finally perfected computerized artificial intelligence, they realized that each one they created had a unique personality. In the same way that all humans are different, so were all the AI’s that they created. Now, when Cadets graduate from academy, they choose their ship, and along with it, the embedded nav console’s artificial personality. When I chose my ship based off the personality trait “impressionable” listed on the registry for a new 5A, AEPRIS was there, waiting there for me on (in?) deck. AEPRIS’ full textbook name is “Artificial Evolving Personality, Relations, and Intelligence System” however, unlike others, she preferred to go by “PRI”. If she wasn’t integrated into the dashboard of my ship, you wouldn’t be able to tell that she was a computer.    Have you ever watched one of those adventure movies where the protagonist chooses a companion or animal out of many just like it? There’s normally some sappy bonding and cheesy music to accompany it, and it leaves you feeling like your sense of reality was just sugar coated and deep fried by a guy named Roy Disney. That was craft selection day for me, except you replace protagonist with pilot, and companion, bonding, and music with four weeks of teaching a computer how avoid sarcastic retorts in intense situations.    The thing about “impressionable” AI’s, though, is that they learn fast. It took no longer than three days of exposure to…me…before PRI was about as bad as I was when it came to inherent sarcasm. You’d think that two innately sassy individuals with an affinity for space would get along just swimmingly, and you’d be right. Regardless, PRI and I had our moments. -----    While PRI’s reference was a good dose of humor for an otherwise dreary morning, I was on a schedule. “We do have a mission today, you know. You can pretend to kill me later, HAL.” I shouted, rapping loudly on the hatch.

   Over my coms link I came a reply. “What do you mean pretend?” she chuckled. “I���m just looking out for you, for all we know there could be deadly space out there, and you could die from it.”

   “PRI, we’re at war and I still think I’m in greater danger of dying from old age out here if you don’t open the door!” After what sounded like a stifled electronic laugh, the hatch swished downwards, and the interior lights flickered on.

   “Welcome back, Captain Killjoy,” she snickered.

   “Always a pleasure, Lieutenant Lithium.”

   I climbed up and inside. If the outside of my ship looked sleek, the interior made you feel like a true starship captain. Arrays of holographic blue displays and arrays of buttons flickered to life and the HUD on my headset synchronized with the PRI’s onboard computer. The 5A was an Interceptor class Starfighter, meaning it was about the size of a small single-story home, yet weighed over 15,000 tons due to the reinforced hull, shielding, and increased weapon capacity. Regardless (literally) of mass, space didn’t seem to care about weight, so the 5A was still nimble on its feet and absolutely gorgeous throughout. I sank into the command chair and plugged in my data logger.

   “Ready PRI?” I inquired to my co-pilot.

   “As I’ll ever be, Captain.”

   I contacted the orbital platform’s traffic control tower.

   “5A Interceptor NVA-7S, registry M. Davidson, cleared for launch tunnel egress. Fly safe, Captain.”

   As soon as the massive titanium gate started to lumber sideways, the hangar lights cut out and the artificial gravity shut off. As the air escaped the room, all the sounds of the hangar faded. All I heard was myself, my ship, and the silence of space.

   “Vectoring to align with tunnel.”

   The 5A nosed up until the glimmer of the stars in space came into view through the cockpit glass and reflected off the mirrored facets of my ship. I unlocked the throttle and the status lights on the displays surrounding me turned green in reply.  I looked over the familiarity of my hangar one last time and edged the throttle smoothly forward. The warp bubble formed as the 5A slipped quietly into the darkness towards Saturn.

Chapter 1: Ringleader    The flight to Saturn only took about 80 minutes, and that’s going sub-warp at light speed. About 45 minutes into my flight, the radio crackled to life, and I was greeted by today’s impromptu alarm clock.

   “DAVIDSON!” roared a vaguely familiar steel-cut voice.

   “Yes Sir!” I snapped to attention, even though I was millions of kilometers away and half asleep.

   “Glad to see you’re awake, Matt!” the admiral chuckled.

   I recognized the voice as Admiral Baker. He was a close friend of my father back when the Antero-Solaris war began. He was the one who introduced me to the Federation’s Tactical Fleet when I was young, before my father shipped off.

   “It’s been a while, Admiral.”

   “I’ll be dammed, it really has,” he replied, nearly putting emotion into his words. “You finished reading all of your father’s old science journals yet?”

   An image flashed through my mind of the six boxes of Popular Science magazines and NASA Tech Briefs (print materials from the 20th and 21st centuries) that got passed down as an heirloom through my family. “Not even close,” I replied, feigning despondence. “So, what brings you onto my screen today? You don’t normally give assignments to the Tac Fleet.”

“I saw you coming out this way and just had to drop in. I even have a special assignment for you.”

“Special assignment?”

“And a good one at that! I saw you were en-route to Neptune via Saturn, and though I’d spice up your day job for once.” The Admiral then held up a portfolio, which materialized into my hands instantaneously. “Our long-range satellites picked up some anomalies in the rings of Saturn, and we can’t rule out the possibility of ACF activity this close to earth, so we need a scouting party to check it out.”

“ACF? In our solar system?” I suddenly felt less amazed about the folio that had just appeared in my lap.

   The Andromedan Confederation, or ACF, was the first militarized foreign entity that mankind encountered and had long been the bane of our existence. The Antero-Solaris war stemmed from this first encounter, but never really went anywhere, as the Andromedans had technology that rivaled ours. In the decades since then, the conflict devolved into more of a cold war, with neither side really fighting with the other unless somebody got too close for comfort.

   “I know the space commies really aren’t your cup of tea,” he remarked, “but the location takes you through the rings of Saturn, which I know you’ll love. Besides, our analytics team thinks that it’s probably malfunctioning sensor equipment. We just need a physical verification to confirm our guesses.”

   He had me there. With the strict scheduling of my flights I never really got to explore places I wanted to go that often. “Sounds quite fascinating,” I answered, trying to hide my enthusiasm. “I’ll take up your offer.”

   “Good man!” shouted Baker. “Oh, and before I go, how’s PRI?”

   “Oh, the little virus is holding up just fine.”

  “VIRUS?!?” boomed a faux-irritated voice from within the ship. Immediately, I lost control of the stick and the fighter started banking erratically, jarring me in my seat.

   “I-M-M-M    JU-US-US-T    KID-D-D-ING!” I tried to sputter out while being tossed about like a bad salad.

   PRI’s voice returned to normal almost immediately, and with it so did the ship. “I know!” she said gleefully.

   “And what about our dear friend Matt, eh PRI?” Baker inquired.

   "My space prisoner is holding up just fine,” chirped PRI.

   “Glad to see you two are getting along well,” Baker said, stifling a laugh. “Regardless, duty calls. Dismissed, Captain.”

   “That’s Captain Killjoy to you.” PRI interjected, as the comm-link clicked off. -----    Radio silence greeted me for the rest of my flight. Even PRI remained quiet for most of the trip, only speaking up when I asked for status reports.

   “What’re our sensors picking up?”

   “According to sensors, our biggest enemy in the solar system is currently ice and rocks.”

   Ice and rocks. I hoped Saturn was as pretty as it was in the books, because it was still a dreadfully uneventful flight thus far. For the next 10 minutes, I fixated on the pastel orange speck slowly growing bigger in front of me.

   “Approaching Saturn. Dropping out of light factor.”

   As we decelerated, I banked slowly, wrapping around the planet in a wide loop. The scanner worked below 0.15c, so I completed my orbit and drifted to a halt at the extent of one of Saturn’s dust rings.

   “PRI, what do you see?” I asked.

   “Ones and Zeroes, mostly,” she teased.

   “I mean through the sensor array,” I spoke, trying to conceal the fact that I wanted to laugh.

   “The orbital sensor array seems to be working. I’m picking up some dust. Rocks. Moderately bigger rocks. Some ice, maybe? Oh, and there’s also this big planet thing here, if you’re looking for one. Can’t miss it.”

   “PRI…”

   “There are no signs of malfunctioning technology or intelligent life anywhere nearby. On an unrelated note, here’s the ship self-scan you totally asked for.”

   “That scan defines you just as much as it does me, you over-engineered calculator.”

  “And where would you be without your calculator?” she taunted playfully.

   “Probably mauled to death by all the deadly ice and rocks around us,” I laughed.

   PRI’s mic channel opened to respond with a quip, but was suddenly cut short by an incoming emergency hailing frequency request on my screen. I hit accept and a very harried looking Admiral Baker appeared on the console.

   “Admiral! You look terrible, what happened to-”

   “Davidson!” he interrupted, in an abrupt and alarming tone.

   I recognized that tone of voice. In my seven years of training I heard that voice only one other time: When the Andromedans attacked my father’s regiment.

   “Sir, what’s wrong?” I replied nervously.

   “Matthew, you need to get out of there right away,” he warned. His frequency was weak, and barely audible through the static. “You…kzzzt…planet…bzzzz…array…krzsst…ACF…”

   “I’m departing asap, sir. My reactor needs to safely recharge” I replied.

   The static cleared for a moment.

   “Davidson listen to me, drop the protocol and get the fuck out of there now!”

   The admiral opened his mouth to speak again, but the signal was drowned out by an incoming message transmitted across nearly every open frequency. Immediately, alarms rang out from my ship. I clearly recognized the metallic lisp of an ACF translated transmission.

  “UNIDENTIFIED SOLARIS CRAFT” the radio hissed. “YOU ARE TRESSPASSING IN THE LOCAL AIRSPACE OF A CONFEDERATION VESSEL. VACATE THE PREMISIS AT ONCE, WE WILL NOT WARN YOU AGAIN.”

   A distortion appeared in the middle of the dust ring in front of me, rising higher. Slowly, a Confederation Capital ship materialized out hiding beneath the thick dust, blotting out the distant sun.

   “PRI, redirect all power to thrusters and shields, now. Get us out of here.” The Capital ship was over a hundred times my size, and locked on to my Interceptor. I was out of time.

   “IDENTIFY YOURSELF OR BE DESTROYED.” blared my headset.

   “Sir I can’t hail them; the dust cloud is scrambling the message.”

   “Then we’re leaving posthaste. Light Factor, now!”

   “Our vectoring ports are clogged with dust, we cannot aim!” PRI shrieked frantically.

   “TIYE DLRW UA AWLKWS!” seethed the Andromedans in their native tongue.

   I felt the distortion created by their gravity well cannons charging up. I had a matter of seconds before I became a permanent part of history. I was out of options.

   In every cockpit, in every ship, regardless of size, there exists an orange button that no pilot ever hopes he has to press: Manual Warp Override. In a frantic dash I spun around and hit the button. The glowing switch clicked down and locked.

   “OVERRIDE PROTOCOL ACTIVATED” repeated PRI, robotically.

   5A lurched forward as the first gravitational round exploded behind me. As the interceptor accelerated to warp 10 in a fraction of a second, I was stretched between the expanding gravity well behind me and the compression of space-time before me. The sudden change in G forces slammed me into the back of the cabin. As the stars bent backwards around 5A, the warp bubble formed, and I blacked out. The gentle hum of the Cortex Reactor was the last thing I heard as darkness enveloped me.

Chapter 2: A Rude Awakening    I awoke to the sound of nothingness, floating in a black void. My ship, PRI, and all of space was nowhere to be found. “Hello?!” I shouted frantically, but nothing came out. The deafening silence was as black as the void that surrounded me. As I contemplated the meaning of death, a light appeared before me, and grew brighter. As white light blinded my vision I came to my senses, and could hear again.

   “Be safe, dear,” a solemn yet familiar voice cooed.

   As my eyes adjusted, I recognized the blurry outlines my mother and father, standing at the threshold of our front door at the base on Mars. My father was accompanied by two men in uniform, holding papers. It had been ages since I saw my father’s face, and I tried to call out to him.

   “Dad will be back soon, Matthew, don’t worry,” my mother assured me, still choked up.

   I tried to scream, but all I could do was cry. I was not in control here. My actions were on autopilot and I watched onwards like I was living through a replay of the past. Suddenly it hit me. The papers, the teary goodbyes –this was the day he shipped out to fight the ACF, and the last time I saw his face. The cruelty of the situation tore at me and I wanted to break out and run to him. Younger me had feelings to deal with too, and instead ran to the couch, crying and burying us both in it. As I felt the emotional dam crack within me, I felt the reassuring hand of my mother hugging me as the world faded to black again.

-----

   I slowly awoke, and knew this time I was alive, as everything started hurting immediately. As I slowly got up, PRI, who was silent up until now, must’ve noticed my movement and shouted to me.

   “Matt! Oh, thank god you’re alive!” she exclaimed, as if I just rose from the dead.

   Something was oddly comforting about the sincerity coming from my electronic partner, but that warm feeling didn’t last for long.

   “We can share details in a minute, disable the override, we’re still at warp!”

   I immediately looked out the window and realized that my ship was still at warp 10, as space distorted around the cockpit glass. The hum of the reactor was no longer quiet, and was now an alarming roar that shook the back of the cabin. I crawled to the orange button and twisted to unlock it. Instantaneously, the ship slowed to a halt as the stars stretched back into shape. As I caught my breath, PRI spoke again.

   “2 days.”

“…What did you say?”

   “2 days. You were out for two days,” she explained, somberly.

   As the reality of what those two days meant sunk in, my heart dropped. At light speed, I would only be 48 light-hours away from earth. At warp 10, which was about 1.6 billion times that, I could be lightyears away from the edge of our solar system.  I needed more information.

   “What did you do after I blacked out?” I asked, perplexed. I decided against sharing my story from my vision with PRI, she had enough to process without my compromised emotional state messing with things.

   “After you collapsed, I sat and waited. That button is a manual override, meaning I was powerless to do anything to stop it. I just sat there and waited, recording data the whole time.”

   I felt a twinge of guilt, realizing that I left my co-pilot stranded helpless for such a long time.

   “At least I’m alive now, right?” I half-joked, trying to lighten the grim atmosphere.

   “Just don’t die again, okay?” she said, worriedly. “Please, Matt. I don’t want to be stranded out here alone.”

   “I promise I won’t,” I assured her.

   …It took me a second to process the emotions coming from PRI. Engineers really nailed the self-aware aspect of AEPRIS, and it showed. It used to be cliché, for someone to grow attached to a machine, but among pilots it was a real thing. You spent more time with your AI then you did with your own family, so sentiment was something we all dealt with, so the sudden grimness that came over me shook me so.

   “What data were you able to record?” I asked, trying to steer the conversation positively.

  “It took about 8 hours at warp 10 to leave the range of the fleet’s beacons, so I have our exit vector from the local cluster. Past that, I only know the time frame that we were at warp for, which was 53 hours, 27 minutes, and 32 seconds. That’s onboard computer time, not observational time.”

   It took me a minute to do the displacement calculation, but PRI beat me to it.

   “It’s roughly 567 Trillion kilometers from Earth. Or about 5 light years,” she tabulated.

   Normally 5 light years is cosmic pocket change in terms of faster-than-light travel, but I gulped at the thought of what running the core for 48 hours did to the ship. Prolonged usage of the Cortex Reactor can shatter the crystalline structure of the power cores, and two days is way over the operational limit.

   “How does our core look?” I wondered.

   “Output is severely limited. When we pulled out of warp, the immediate cooling stress fractured it. Warp functionality is offline, and we’re limited to impulse and emergency power.”

   “Shit,” I thought. Either we had to find a replacement crystal, or I’d die of starvation long before then.

   “Okay PRI, can we still do a scan of the surrounding area?”

   “Our relay dish is still working, I can try.”

   As PRI ticked away I tried to do an inventory of what we had left in terms of supplies. I had the Federation standard issue survival pack, and water. At least I wouldn’t die thirsty. The cockpit toolbox contained a set of basic implements: a hammer, adjustable wrench, and fusion welder; nothing of special interest.

   As I finished my inventory, a critical alarm lit the ship’s interior.

   “Oxygen Levels Critical,” reported PRI.

   “…Oxygen. I need that,” I bitterly thought. “Where’s the leak, PRI?”

   ”I can’t find it. You’ll be dropping below critical O2 percentage in 30 seconds.”

   Federation code always ensures that there’s an emergency respirator on the bridge of every ship in the fleet. Mine was in an emergency cabinet underneath the console. I reached for it, only to be met with resistance from the door.

   “PRI, the cabinet’s locked.”

   “The manual says to ‘Break Glass to Open’ so I’d do that if I were you.”

   “PRI the door is made of metal.”

   “No, I think you literally have to say ’Break Glass’ to open it.”

   “Wait, what?” I stammered.

   “Just say it before you suffocate!”

   “Break Glass!” I commanded the ship. Instantaneously, the metal cover of the panel disintegrated off the door and fell into a pile of fine dust on the floor. I knew that Command was trying to automate everything, but this was a bit of a stretch, even by my standards. I could picture the Aerospace Engineer who designed the door out there laughing his ass off at his own handiwork. I hastily affixed the respirator to the front of my helmet. Even with that, I had about 30 minutes of emergency oxygen to work with, and that was a generous estimation considering my current heartrate. “What’s our course of action? Did your scan find anything?” I asked.

   PRI struck me with an unusually worried response. “There’s a registered Class M planet with enough oxygen content for your respirator to sort it out. However, it’s about a million kilometers from here.”

   That was good enough for me. However, the distance meant that I had to jump to at least a fraction of light to arrive before I ran out of oxygen. It wasn’t optimal, but I was running out of lucky breaks to use.

   “Set a course for it, speed factor 0.20c.”

   “I hope we hold up, Matt,” PRI wavered as she inched the throttle forward.

   The ship lurched into motion again, and accelerated to speed in an instant.

   Seconds later, I arrived at the outer cusp of the atmosphere.

   “Okay, full stop.”

   Before I had a second to evaluate the situation, a crack appeared and ran across the length of the cockpit glass. My emergency supply of lucky breaks apparently just ran out.

   “Hold on to something, now!” PRI shouted.

   I clamped down on the chair right as the windscreen shattered, sucking shards of glass out of the cockpit – along with all my oxygen. The bag of emergency tools whizzed by me and I caught it by the strap before it was swallowed by the void of space.

   “Impulse engines failing! System reserve power depleted! Core offline!” The ship started to fall, and I felt the “space elevator dropping” feeling in my gut.

   “We’re getting trapped by the planet’s gravity, and we’re falling without impulse,” PRI emphasized.

   The 5A was by no means an atmospheric vehicle. Reentry wasn’t something pilots normally had to do, and I was unsure if the ship would stay together. Without a windshield, I wouldn’t be able to monitor my own progress downward and the cockpit would be exposed to the effects of reentry.

   “Trajectory unstable. We’re entering the upper atmosphere.”

   The tip of the ship began to heat up, and I felt the air begin to push on my suit. I pulled up, aligned the belly of the craft perpendicular to the direction of travel, and dove into the back of the cabin, shutting the door. Hopefully PRI would be able to take us down gently. I could begin to hear sounds of the atmosphere interacting with my ship as we rocketed through the lower layers of the sky.

--------------- Personal Space Copyright 2018 Daniel S. [Classhattery] DBA Commonwealth Technology Solutions ---------------

[ancientbooshartifacts]

In the Band

Author: Accio_arse

Year: 2008

Rating: NC-17

Pairing: Howard/Rudi

Howard was, quite frankly, astounded. Here he was- Howard T.J. Moon, easily the greatest jazz player Yorkshire had ever seen, a legend in his own right- and he was on the verge of getting booted out of his own band. It was pathetic. He, he constantly reminded himself, was the one who'd come up here to play jazz in the first place, he was the one who'd started the bloody band! And it had been fantastic; he and Mrs. Gideon had been the king and queen of the Blue Aubergine. Together they had enraptured crowds, spun many-layered bebop duets- they were the toast of the town. And then had come Rudi. Rudi bloody Van Di-bloody-Sarnio, with his ridiculous Afro and his pompous, pretentious dress, and his door. Who had a door in their head, anyway? Howard had scoffed at Rudi when he had said, in that slow, measured way of his that he had gained the door because he was wise, that it allowed him to see beyond. Humph. And humph a-bloody-gain. Howard was wise! Howard was a guru; people climbed mountains to see Howard and get his advice on life. Or they would have, if Howard had lived on top of a mountain. The point was- Howard didn't need a door to be wise, he didn't need to put on airs and affectations. He was Howard Moon, and there was a simple truth to him that people appreciated. Except, apparently, Mrs. Gideon. For the instant Rudi had come swanning into their lives with his idiotic, affected 'rustic wisdom' and his jazz fusion guitar, she had attached herself to him like a particularly clingy limpet and hadn't looked at Howard since. She couldn't even remember his name anymore. And Howard couldn't lie; his music had suffered. But should it not have? Jazz, after all, was Howard's heart and soul, and between Mrs. Gideon and Rudi, both heart and soul had been fairly thoroughly trampled upon. He sighed, sitting at the empty bar, and ran a hand over the top of his trumpet case. The name label on it was now curling away at the corners, and unless you smoothed it out, it read Howard T.J. Moo. Moo, Howard thought bitterly, That's all I am. A great bloody useless cow He'd tried to plead his case with Mrs. Gideon, had begged her (in a dignified, gentlemanly fashion, of course) to let him stay in the band, to remember all the good times they'd had together, the music they'd made, but to no avail. Granted, he might have chosen a bad time to talk to her, as she had been practising scales at the time, taking calculated swigs of whiskey in between arpeggios to get the right 'cigarettes and booze' quality to her voice, and hadn't even noticed Howard standing there. Once he'd finished his beautifully constructed monologue on why he was an integral part of the group, she'd merely looked up from the piano, blinked at him, and inquired politely 'Excuse me, do I know you?' He groaned at the memory. The only option left then, was Rudi. And Rudi had no particular fondness for Howard. Not that he ever acted spiteful or nasty towards him- he really didn't act like much of anything towards him. Howard, to Rudi, was simply a part of the scenery. But, on reflection, that was worse than outright malice would have been. Howard bristled. How on earth was he supposed to convince him that he was worthy to stay in the band? The situation seemed utterly hopeless, and Howard slumped at the bar, listlessly picking at a sticky spot on the counter with one fingernail.

Howard was not allowed to stew in his tortured self-pity for long though, for the faint sound of cloth rustling against cloth came from the back of the bar, and a voice echoed behind him.

'What is this, Howard Moon? You look like a man sunk deep within the depths of despair. A man, I daresay, in sore need of advice. Perhaps I can be of assistance.'

The voice was deep and mysterious, and it lisped slightly on its s's and t's. Rudi. Speak of the devil. Stiffly, Howard lifted his head up off the bar and gave the other man a quick, obviously feigned smile.

'Despair?' He forced a chuckle. 'No sir, not me! I was simply resting my head. Thinking deep thoughts, you know how it is.'

'Ahh.' Rudi nodded magisterially, and his afro wobbled precariously. He looked up at it in irritation and steadied it with a hand.That taken care of, he turned back to Howard. 'Thought, yes.' He intoned, 'That force which sustains us all, yet which we so often take for granted.'

He stared impressively off into space for a moment, and Howard had to restrain the urge to slap him. Instead, mindful of the fact that he somehow had to ingratiate himself to this infuriating man, he nodded, raising his eyebrows in agreement.

'Very true, sir.' He said. When Rudi added nothing else, Howard cleared his throat and swivelled 'round on his barstool until he could casually prop an elbow up on the counter and face Rudi.

'Say,' he began, ever so casually, 'I actually was looking for you earlier, Rudi. I, ah, had something I wanted to talk to you about.'

'Oh?' The other man looked intrigued, and Howard was about to elaborate when Rudi held up a quelling hand.

'No! Do not tell me. I know all things!'

Howard eyed him dubiously. Know all things, my arse, he thought, but once again, he kept his thoughts to himself. Rudi's face was screwed up in thought, and after a long moment, he snapped his fingers.

'Aha! I know what it is you seek, Howard Moon- you wish to know the secrets of eternal life, for I have seen that as you age, you will only grow more and more hideous-'

'Oi!' Howard interrupted him irritably. 'There's no need for that. And that wasn't what I wanted to know.'

Rudi looked terribly disappointed. 'Oh.'

‘What I wanted to talk about,’ Howard continued, picking up a bit of steam now, ‘was the band. What’s this about you and Mrs. Gideon chucking me, mmm? You’ve got talent, sir, I won’t deny it, but to come up and usurp my place- I, who founded the band in the first place on nothing more than a dream, sir- and a burning passion for jazz- that is bad form. Decidedly bad form.’

He halted and drew a breath, forcing himself to calm down somewhat. He was supposed to be ingratiating himself with Rudi, not picking a fight with the man. Howard cleared his throat and flashed a tiny, apologetic smile. ‘What I mean to say,’ he said, ‘Is that I would very much appreciate it, Rudi, if you and Mrs. Gideon would reconsider. There is no band without Howard Moon, sir, and you will learn that quickly if you get rid of me.’

‘Hmm.’ Rudi stroked his chin pensively, tapping a fingernail against his sizeable front teeth. ‘Perhaps,’ he said eventually, ‘Perhaps I will talk to the lady. And I myself would certainly be willing to listen to any arguments you might have.’

Oh, thank you! Howard was about to say- only in a way which seemed a little less desperate- but one long brown finger snapped up to silence him, and Rudi fixed tiny, intense eyes on him.

‘If,’ he continued simply, ‘you kiss my balls.’

Howard gaped. He knew what this was; this was one of those goddamn bloody tests that Rudi was so fond of- the flute test, or the pancake test, or sellotape test, or the Finnish Language Efficiency Test, or whatever. Howard knew the drill; he knew how these went, and he was just about to give the expected response, to say that there was no way he was going to kiss Rudi Van DiSarnio’s balls, when a novel thought struck him with all the force of a weighted cricket bat.

What would Rudi do if he said yes?   The man would be completely unprepared for the sheer, raw sexual power that was Howard Moon. That in itself might be enough to convince him to keep Howard in the band.   And Howard... well, it was shameful. Yes, it was very shameful, but he would be getting one up on Rudi by doing this!   And it wasn’t as if he was whoring himself out, anyway; it was his own decision. This in mind, he looked Rudi straight in the eyes and said:

‘Very well, sir.’

And just as he’d predicted, Rudi’s eyes went momentarily wide, and he began to stutter wildly.

‘I did not mean- that is- Rudi Van DiSarnio is a man above the pleasures of the flesh! I am of the order of the psychedelic monks, I do not-’

Howard smirked at him, now feeling much more sure of himself- he had never kissed a man’s balls, but it was a decidedly satisfying feeling, having this much power over another person- and slid off his stool to the ground before Rudi. The other man fell suddenly and conspicuously silent, and Howard heard an intake of breath above him. He focussed on the drape of Rudi’s robe before him, and lifted the hem, stroking fingers over the fabric. It was deceptively light, and almost slick against the pads his fingers, like silk. He raised an eyebrow up at Rudi.

‘Nice dress.’

‘It is not a dress!’ Rudi snapped, ‘It is the sacred robe of the psychedelic monks.’ The retort lacked its usual vigour, however.Indeed, it sounded decidedly strained, and looking up, Howard saw that Rudi was biting his lip and the handle on his door was rattling, as though it had been locked, and someone was trying desperately to get out.

And with that, he threw the hem of the robe over his head and ducked underneath. It suddenly felt curiously as though he’d entered another room entirely, centred bizarrely around a pair of dark legs; everything was dim and vaguely purple, and the air smelt of sweat and musk and man. Howard wrinkled his nose. The only problem, though, was that Howard couldn’t really see much, and he didn’t fancy having a go at another bloke’s bits when he couldn’t see them, so he ran a hand up one of Rudi’s legs until he simply ran into what he sought. The thigh muscle gave a great twitch beneath his hand.

And then there- yes indeed, Rudi’s bollocks, and above, the quickly hardening shape of his prick. Hesitantly at first, Howard ran a finger over the shape of them, then stroked with all his fingertips, before cupping the sac, weighing it in his hand. Dark and heavy, fuzzed over with wiry black hair, Howard found that they were not at all unpleasant to the touch; rather, they were warm and soft, and he gave a light squeeze. Above him, he heard Rudi choke out a curse. Trying not to inhale any more of the smell of Rudi’s sweat than he could help, Howard leant up and pressed a soft, close-lipped kiss to the warm, roused skin of them.

There, he thought, I’ve kissed your balls.

But he had the notion that now he’d started the thing, he might as well finish it properly. After all, if Howard Moon was to be a filthy ball-fondler, he was damn well going to be a good one.

He pressed his mouth to Rudi’s bollocks again, but this time he opened his lips and flicked his tongue out, drawing it up and over the heated flesh, drawing a patch of skin between his lips and sucking at it until Rudi was cursing in languages Howard had never even heard of. Again Howard did it, and again, his hands braced on Rudi’s thighs, which shuddered and quaked with the effort of keeping him upright. It was pleasurable in a strangely absorbing way, dragging his tongue over soft skin, sucking and licking everywhere he could reach. Even more enjoyable were the noises Rudi made, the quiver of his body under Howard’s ministrations.

Closer and closer he took him until:

‘Howard!’ Rudi gasped, ‘Remove yourself from under my robe, I’m- fuck- I’m almost-’

And hastily Howard did remove himself, for though he had, not moments before, literally been licking Rudi’s balls, he had no desire to get any of his bodily fluids on him. He straightened awkwardly to see Rudi palming himself desperately through the gorgeous silk of his robe, biting hard at his lip, little grunts escaping from the back of his throat. Howard’s mouth went dry watching him, and a little whimper tripped across his lips.

Suddenly, the door in Rudi’s head flew open and a rapturous cry tore itself from his throat; he surged up onto the balls of his feet and his whole body went rigid for a moment, save for the movement of his hips against his own hand. His face was twisted in ecstasy for one moment, two, three, before he sagged, collapsing against a table, breathing heavily.

‘Howard,’ he murmured, beckoning with a quick curl of two fingers, and Howard- suddenly awkward once again- shuffled over.Rudi let out another grunt, and Howard started when he saw a hand- identical to Rudi’s own- making its way out of the door in his head. It clutched a piece of paper, which Howard took nervously. Rudi smiled a lazy, sated sort of smile at him, and nodded at the paper.

‘Read of the wisdom of the door, Howard Moon.’

The paper crinkled loudly as Howard unfolded it, and once open, large, black-printed words stared back at him: You’re still not in the band. Sorry.

For a moment, Howard didn’t fully process what the paper said, his mind still fogged with what he’d just been doing, what he’d just seen. After that moment passed, however, and the message hit him, he looked at Rudi with renewed loathing.

‘You bastard.’ He said, and punched Rudi full in the face.

All things considered, it’s not really a wonder Howard didn’t play jazz after that.

[anghraine]

“part of the past, but now you’re the future” - fic

AKA the fic I planned to write for Day 2 of Rebelcaptain Appreciation Week (“Comfort”), but lol what are plans. (Also the one I was whining about last night. And last week.)

fandom: Star Wars

verse: the one where the early script idea for Jyn and Cassian to narrowly escape the wreckage TOTALLY HAPPENED*cough* (tagged as #script au because I’m creative like that; follows directly from threshold of a dream, though is probably comprehensible without it)

characters: Cassian Andor, Jyn Erso, K-2SO; Jyn/Cassian

length: 4400

stuff that happens: grief, uncertain love, spinal injuries, involuntary drug use

It all made sense in his head. Yet, for one of the only times in his life, thoughts didn’t translate smoothly into words, the bonds between head and heart and speech worn near to snapping. 

Just his head alone … his mind didn’t work quite right, he could tell. Everything jolted along uneven paths, simple sentences meandering off. Even without the sharp, hot anguish that swallowed up nearly all else, he couldn’t—he kept slipping in and out of the blue glow, exhaustion more threatening than a dozen cracked bones.

Jyn, he reminded himself. She jostled him again, pain slicing through him, but his eyes flew open. Jyn was here, and he had to get her home. He’d promised.

Cassian didn’t know if he would ever go back into the field.

Not because of his very real distaste for it, and not because of self-pity. It was just the doctors and droids, with their anxious-cheerful voices, assuring him that he would very probably walk again.

“Almost certainly,” stressed Dr Tanth.

Cassian was not often at a loss for words.

“Oh,” he said. “Good.”

Tanth kept talking, and the droids, but he tuned them out. For once, it didn’t seem important to catch every detail. He’d walk, or he wouldn’t. The chances appeared to be in his favour, though he couldn’t know more precisely without Kay to—

Without—

He’d never anticipated this. It was foolish, of course; a single droid, however powerful, could always be destroyed. Easily, even. Cassian knew that. But he didn’t think he would live long enough to see it. Anything that could take out Kay would have long since taken out him. Kay himself gloated … used to gloat that he would still be in peak condition after Cassian had gone through five or six iterations.

(Cassian had briefly considered explaining how organic reproduction worked, then decided he would rather do literally anything else.)

It seemed almost obscene that his vulnerable human body had outlasted Kay’s circuits. He’d been shot and smashed his spine and cracked his bones until he could no longer hold himself upright, but with Kay reduced to a smear of metal, somehow Cassian hung on. Through that excruciating climb—and then, there was Jyn. He didn’t know that she hadn’t sustained him through will alone.

“That’s Alderaanian,” she’d said when he swore under his breath. Cassian squinted through his unsteady vision as he swerved their shuttle around laserfire. His records said he was a competent pilot in his own right, but he felt half of one in the instant. “Is that where you’re from?”

“No,” he panted, forcing his attention away from burning pain in his side and back and legs, and onto the warmth and strength of her grip on his shoulder. “Fieste.”

Her hand tightened and his focus narrowed with it, as if her fortitude somehow bled into him, arced along her fingertips. He’d done this before, flying alone and injured, with smaller stakes than Jyn’s life. Dodge, calculate, time the jump.

He knew that they would die if he couldn’t do it this time. Joyless as his life was, Cassian dreaded death; but he dreaded it for Jyn still more. Most of all like this. Dying on Scarif, however horrific, would have made a certain terrible sense. Their lives for the mission. But this? No. Jyn couldn’t get killed by the Empire’s cannon fodder.

She wouldn’t.

Jyn had stayed quiet, as usual, while Cassian plotted the coordinates. But when he counted down under his breath, she unhesitatingly yanked down the hyperdrive clutch, and they slid smoothly into lightspeed.

For a long few seconds, they just watched the whirling lights of hyperspace. But his head spun, and agony splintered through almost every part of his body. Behind the pilot’s seat, Jyn was fumbling with something he couldn’t see.

Even his breath felt thin and difficult, something that might betray him at any moment. He’d only taken this kind of damage a few times, and never without Kay.

She’d said she couldn’t fly. He thought so, anyway. Cassian would collapse soon enough, but it couldn’t be now. He had to land the shuttle on Yavin, had to keep concentrating.

Teeth clenched, he said, “Can … you talk?”

“Of course I can,” replied Jyn, her voice clear and steady even as she wrangled with whatever she’d found. He hadn’t expected so immediate or easy an assent, even now. Sure enough, she stayed silent at first, a heavy pause that stretched on like the starlight around them. Then, voice shriller than he’d ever heard it, she said, “Fieste? I’ve never heard of it.”

“You wouldn’t.” Cassian had to close his eyes; he thought he might throw up, otherwise. “Not important. Outer Rim. And you don’t … Basic. Fest.”

It all made sense in his head. Yet, for one of the only times in his life, thoughts didn’t translate smoothly into words, the bonds between head and heart and speech worn near to snapping. 

Just his head alone … his mind didn’t work quite right, he could tell. Everything jolted along uneven paths, simple sentences meandering off. Even without the sharp, hot anguish that swallowed up nearly all else, he couldn’t—he kept slipping in and out of the blue glow, exhaustion more threatening than a dozen cracked bones.

Jyn, he reminded himself. She jostled him again, pain slicing through him, but his eyes flew open. Jyn was here, and he had to get her home. He’d promised. Talk to me.

And Jyn, always so taciturn and brusque, had talked. She carried on that one-sided conversation until her voice went hoarse, cracked. At that, she dredged up water, gulped it all down, then talked on.

Cassian couldn’t follow most of it, but that didn’t matter. He latched onto her voice, and kept flying.

Now, some unknown number of days later, she was gone.

Not permanently, as far as he knew, and he didn’t anticipate that. He could think of above half a dozen things she might be doing: showering, sleeping, praying, fighting, a wide range of possible meetings. Also, every time before now—and Cassian gathered that he’d been in and out of surgery at least a week—he had woken to Jyn hovering nearby like some bad-tempered falcon, and she wasn’t the sort to run. Others would probably doubt that, but he didn’t really care. Cassian trusted his judgment and he trusted Jyn.

Perhaps unwisely in this case. But Jyn did not turn her back on anyone who had not first turned theirs on her. And it was Cassian’s nature to expect nothing and hope for everything; he had not followed it this far to turn back now.

“—to test the fusion of the implants with nervous tissue,” Tanth was droning on.

Cassian focused on him. “Cybernetic implants?”

Startled, Tanth said, “Yes, of course.”

Before he could reply, they both heard a shrill robotic voice from outside the room.

“You can stay here until Dr Tanth finishes the consultation.”

“I can also tear your circuits out,” said Jyn calmly.

Cassian was repressing a smile before she even walked in. When she did, he noticed two things right away: she looked livid, and she was wearing one of his jackets.

“There you are,” he said without thinking, then almost winced.

“Here I am,” agreed Jyn. Her voice betrayed nothing, but her scowl faded into what seemed very much like self-satisfaction as she strolled over and flung herself into the nearest chair. She studied him, with a clinical air that meant it signified little, but—

“You look better.” She glanced over at Tanth. “He’s had another surgery? How did it go?”

The doctor shifted, pretending to examine his datapad. The light it cast didn’t so much as flicker; there couldn’t actually be anything new. “Ah … I can’t—the patient—”

Cassian, not bothering to wait him out, waved this aside. “You can tell her anything.”

Though Jyn remained withdrawn, she gave one of her slight, ambiguous smiles.

“Well,” said Tanth, “as I was saying, captain, we’ll want to test the integration of the cybernetic implants into the organic material.”

Jyn narrowed her eyes. “The organic material of his spine?”

“Yes,” he said shortly, while Cassian fought off a wave of exhaustion. He felt like he’d slept more in the last … whatever, than in the five years before. It was unnatural, and felt it, his dreams strange, and his mind disoriented when he woke up or went to sleep. They must be drugging him—and if so, they must have a reason, since the Rebellion never wasted resources. In all probability, he couldn’t help it, but he felt like he should be able to power through. Cassian frowned, trying to concentrate on the doctor.

Something, something, antibodies. Tanth’s mouth kept moving, but it didn’t seem quite right. About the edges, he blurred into the background.

Cassian turned his gaze on Jyn, instead. She was nearer, and more real. Not fuzzy at all, just sitting there in his leather jacket, frowning.

“—what do you mean by ‘almost certainly?’” she was saying. Her fingers lay over his wrist, though he wasn’t sure she’d noticed herself placing them there. He hadn’t.

“Exactly what I said, Miss Erso,” replied Tanth. Jyn must have given her name at some point. “It depends on the success of the cybernetics, and the success rate is very high.”

“How high?”

The pause lingered, like so many of the pauses she left behind her.

“Pardon?”

Jyn’s hand curled around his wrist, her grip tight enough to hurt. Cassian said nothing, since he didn’t mind. It couldn’t begin to compare to everything else, and regardless, the brush of her skin more than made up for it.

In short, clipped syllables, she snapped, “Doctor, I want numbers.”

Kay would have them. Kay would already be haranguing Tanth and Jyn alike—and Cassian, too, but with the undertone of devotion he showed no one else.

He hadn’t programmed Kay to love him. You couldn’t, really. Even before the reprogramming, Kay loathed the Imperial captain who owned him. But not Cassian.

“Are you my master now?” he’d said doubtfully. “You do not appear to be a fully advanced version of your subclass.”

“No,” Cassian told him. “I just wanted to help. You’re free.”

“Free,” K-2SO repeated, as if he didn’t quite understand.

Cassian could believe it. In all probability, Imperial droids never had cause to understand freedom. So he said,

“It means you can do and say whatever you want.”

K-2SO peered around, eyes flickering. It took him a good minute.

“I find this room utterly unappealing.”

Cassian burst out laughing. He was still very young, and it didn’t trouble him that he had creatively interpreted his orders. With the bright certainty that always guided him, however opaque his path, he knew it had been the best thing to do. And he’d been less cautious in those days, less constrained.

Back then, only his skill at programming made him useful, since he’d grown too old to play at tragic orphan, too big to slip into tiny spaces, and too youthful for recruitment or combat. Instead, he got assigned to the laborious process of learning, writing, and adapting the codes for assorted devices. In this case, that meant 1) wiping the memory of a potentially valuable security droid, 2) identifying and stripping out the bonds of his Imperial programming, and 3) replacing them with Alliance ones for security. Cassian only managed the second of these things.

One of his rare but recurrent episodes of insubordination, he supposed. But he hadn’t thought of it that way. He only thought it impossible to do otherwise. Cassian had not joined the Rebellion to turn Imperial slaves into Alliance slaves; he was here for liberation.

“Let’s see if you’re working properly,” he said.

K-2SO’s eyes flashed, head tilted in what would be thought, were he human. Running scans? Basically the same thing.

“You have not altered any essential processes.”

“No,” said Cassian, appalled. “You wouldn’t be you.”

Before the droid could try to process that, Major Derlin showed up to check his progress. To Cassian’s alarm, he seemed angry as much as surprised.

“What were you thinking?” he demanded, while K-2SO amused himself with making clinking noises and slouching.

“I didn’t think the Rebellion kept slaves,” Cassian said sharply. “Sir.”

Derlin stared at him. Some part of his outrage seemed to have subsided, though not all. He took a step forward—probably to examine the droid more closely. He wasn’t a violent man.

K-2SO, however, did not know that. Without hesitation, he seized Cassian’s arm and shoved him behind his own towering frame, hard enough that Cassian staggered and fell, gracelessly.

“You are a small and decaying specimen of your kind,” he informed Derlin. “Your odds of overpowering me are less than one percent.” He turned his head to peer down at Cassian. “This one is mine.”

“Uh,” said Cassian. “You can’t own people. That’s the point.”

K-2SO’s eyes flickered. “You misunderstand. I am a security droid. Now, I shall secure you.” He was already glowering at Derlin again. “Forever.”

Cassian, speechless, gawked at the droid’s back. He would be covered with bruises in the morning, but that didn’t seem important. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had sheltered him, or anything like it.

Dimly, he realized: everything had changed.

“Thanks?”

Of course, in the middle of a Rebel base, even a droid of Kay’s stature and strength could be easily overpowered. If they wanted Kay bolted and coded into obedience, it would have happened. Instead, Draven interceded with the bemused Derlin. He kept Cassian on a leash, but a long one. While nobody could say Draven coddled anyone, Cassian later realized that he’d seen potential in him, quick and clever and convincing at fourteen. No point in burning through the ideals of a protégé who would do anything for his convictions, and therefore the Rebellion, as long as he saw them bound together.

And even among droids, Draven valued loyalty above obedience. He always said that free droids were far more effective, when reliable. He might be no Jedi, but no doubt Draven had foreseen—in his way—a time when a loyal, independent droid watching Cassian’s back would be more than worth the loss of a bolted one.

So Kay retained his new programming, and Cassian gained a protector. He was almost giddy; it seemed like the kind of story his sister might have read to him. A boy and his droid.

Not mine. He’s a free droid. Anyway, he didn’t feel like a boy.

A Rebel and his friend, maybe. That was better, better than anything. He hadn’t had anyone to care about for eight years, since his brother and sisters got shot.

But then there was Kay. For twelve years, Kay’s hulking body clumped at Cassian’s side or behind his back; for twelve years, he complained when Cassian replaced some defunct part or upgraded to a new one, though he gloated insufferably after; for twelve years, he delivered odds and mowed through stormtroopers and aggressively slouched around bases and ships alike. Twelve, twelve: it cycled through his head like Chirrut’s mantras. Twice the length of time Cassian had been alive when the clonetroopers came.

In his head, Cassian, nos enti—¡corre, corre! muddled in his head with Goodbye, clonetroopers joining with unseen stormtroopers, memories of peering up through rubble mingled with his horror as he gazed down at Jyn. He’d seen her swallow after he screamed, either in grief of her own or sympathy, and then there’d been … the plans, the Rebellion, they overrode everything. 

Even Kay, for the moment. And Jyn was—he had to find Jyn. That man in white was somewhere up there, and the remaining deathtroopers. Maybe reinforcements. He had to get to her, for the plans and for—just, Jyn. Her name shrieked through his head, as it so often did: Jyn, Jyn, Jyn, Jyn!

Cassian couldn’t do much at that point. But he could climb and he could shoot. And he could block the way to her if needed, take another blaster bolt. Maybe several, like Kay.

“Captain?”

It took a strong exertion of effort to drag himself back into the infirmary. He squinted, trying to get the edges of the room to stop swimming.

“If you’re willing, then I’ll just have you sign here.” Tanth handed him a datapad.

Cassian blinked down at it. He had no idea what the man was talking about.

As he tried to make it out, something dug into his left hand. Jyn’s nails.

“Look at me, Cassian,” she ordered, in a tone that suggested she’d already said it a few times.

He turned to her, not really comprehending, but responding to her tone more than the words, and contented enough with the slide of her hand on his. Or, not contented, but … soothed? Perhaps.

Jyn stared into his eyes. Not like in the elevator, regrettably. She looked more irritated than anything.

“I thought so.” She shifted to look at Tanth, jaw tight and brows furrowed. Not angry, but definitely displeased. “Maybe you could time these conversations for when he’s not high as the stars?”

That seemed … oddly poetic. For Jyn.

“Thanks,” she said dryly. If the doctor replied—though Cassian wasn’t sure why she’d be thanking him—he didn’t catch it. But Jyn went on, “They want to run a test to make sure the surgeries have done what they’re supposed to. Understand that?”

“Yes,” he said. They’d been talking about that for … an hour? Or whatever it was.

Jyn’s mouth twitched for some reason. “And then they’re going to do one more, which should get you functioning without medicine. Are you fine with that?”

“Yes.” Why wouldn’t he be?

Her fingers tapped unconsciously over his palm. He presumed unconsciously. It was nice either way, though he took care not to say so. Even drugged half out of his mind, he knew he had to keep some things to himself.

Jyn cared, to be sure. At this very moment, she jabbed the doctor with as many questions as Kay would have asked, held his hand again. Back in the Citadel, she’d screamed as he fell. When she saw his injuries afterwards, she flashed from triumph to murder almost faster than he could grasp her. 

And, in the elevator—Cassian could still feel her boxing him in, small as she was, her arm slipping around his neck and face lifting up to him. Even so, he had to bend his head down: not that it troubled him, even through the pain piercing every part of his body. Her mouth pressed against his, as soft and tentative as they’d been in the shuttle, and it wasn’t like the others at all—he wanted this—

Yet he didn’t think it was quite the same for her. Cassian had been completely charmed since he saw her trouncing stormtroopers on the streets of Jedha, except when he lost his temper, and mostly he didn’t. But his heart nearly stopped every time he realized her life was in danger, and often it was. Jyn stopped at nothing, suffered not a flicker of weakness in herself; she would be dead near a half-dozen times if he hadn’t been there. If he’d been just that bit slower, or weaker, or less accurate. He could have been. He certainly was now.

In any case, she didn’t panic as he did, or look half out of her mind, as he felt, or any of that. It didn’t bother him. This ... indistinct affection was more than he’d ever anticipated from another living person. She had called him her friend after a week, and felt furiously betrayed after another, and drawn close and smiling in the third. It was something. He just didn’t want her to feel any sort of—expectation.

As ever, he hoped, but did not expect.

“Cassian!” Jyn blew her hair out of her face, or tried. “Are you listening?”

“No,” Cassian said, honesty a rare luxury. He thought about it. “I keep getting lost.”

She studied him, her own eyes wide. They weren’t like jade, or emeralds, or anything like that; from a distance, they looked vaguely grey or even blue. This close, though, he could see the pale green of her irises, the dark grey rings circling the edges, spokes as brown as his own flaring out from the pupil like dark stars. A bright, uninterrupted green would be less interesting. This wasn’t something that could be approximated by a rock.

Thankfully—he thought later—Cassian clung to enough sanity to keep his mouth shut on that, too.

“Give me the datapad,” she said.

“Miss—”

“He can’t consent,” said Jyn. It made sense, though he couldn’t remember anyone ever bothering themselves over the finer details of that. “I’m next of kin, I’ll sign for it. He agreed as far as he could follow, anyway.”

Cassian handed it over, though not without complaining, “I am right here.”

She just pushed her fringe out of her eyes again. He sympathized. In fact, he tried to lift his free hand to his brow, but it felt impossibly heavy, as if it were as much a cybernetic as the implants in his back.

Abruptly, he said, “Am I a cyborg?”

Jyn had been grumbling under her breath, and he thought the doctor, too. Maybe at each other. But both broke off, now. He could tell they were staring at him, even though he couldn’t have sworn the former was human, at this far away.

“Uh,” Tanth said. “We don’t generally apply the term with respect to purely internal cybernetics. You won’t be considered one on your personnel records, certainly.”

That was answer enough. Right, he thought. Okay.

“If that’s all …”

Jyn handed over the datapad with a dismissive gesture, and Dr Tanth receded. Cassian thought he did. At least, the space that he’d occupied looked empty, and a pleasant quietness settled around them. It was one of the many things he liked about Jyn; so many people rushed to make clamour out of peace, like the Empire. Jyn dwelt in silences—sometimes venturing out, but always returning again. She could deliver monologues without a word.

He, not so much. For Cassian, words were less tools of clarification than extensions of himself: sometimes artificial, but always rooted in his own being. He held them close, most often; that did not make them absent.

“There’s no difference,” he announced.

Jyn eyed him. Since he liked her eyes, it didn’t matter.

“No difference between what?”

“The cybernetics,” said Cassian. “Outside or inside—why should that change anything?”

She shrugged. “Aesthetics. It’s not about science.”

The disdain in her voice caught him. Her father’s, perhaps, though it seemed she would have been too young to absorb much before his disappearance. She’d been older than Cassian, though—eight or nine, not six. She would remember more. He thought the mother had been a scientist, too.

“Do you mind it?” Jyn asked, voice awkward and brows knit.

Puzzled, he said, “Science?”

She made a strangled sound that he couldn’t quite identify. “The cyborg thing.”

“Oh.” His thoughts tried to wander again, but for the instant, Cassian held them fast. He shook his head, everything spinning. Even like this, the laugh in his ears sounded strange. “No. I was just thinking that Kay would be delighted.”

Jyn’s mouth curved, the smile tight but real. Like him, she had lines about her eyes, and they deepened now.

“One step closer to droid superiority?”

“Exactly.” He felt surprised that she saw it, and utterly unsurprised, all at once. But they’d understood each other in the end, Kay and Jyn. If he had escaped, they might have made a remarkable pair. The two of them really did have plenty in common, though Cassian valued his skin enough not to say so. “He liked you.”

Jyn snorted.

“Eventually.”

“Like captain, like droid?” She was blurry now, too, so he needed the words to hang onto.

“No,” he said. “I liked you from Jedha. When you clobbered all the stormtroopers.” Cassian almost let himself sink into that memory, so much pleasanter than thinking about Kay. But she was here as much as there, the fingers on his hand curling up in—surprise?—and relaxing again.

“It would be that,” said Jyn, amused. “But I didn’t notice.”

“I know.” He narrowed his eyes enough to make her out through the heaviness in his head, and through his hair. She looked—soft, almost, in a way he’d only seen once or twice. 

In the hangar, he remembered, when she seemed to truly realize he wouldn’t abandon her. She’d drifted forward into their odd sort of binary orbit, tilting her face up and smiling like every burden in her life had just tumbled off her shoulders. Like she had no desire to be anywhere else, with anyone else. It’d been the same here, earlier, when she leaned down and echoed his welcome home.

Now, Jyn snapped her fingers in front of his face. “You need to go to sleep.”

Probably.

“You’re wearing my jacket,” he pointed out.

Colour rose to her cheeks. He didn’t think he’d seen her do that, ever.

“My vest is disgusting,” said Jyn, with an air of casual unconcern that he didn’t even slightly believe. “I had to wear something.”

First he thought of saying that she might have stolen from someone her size, or at least her gender; then he thought of saying that she could have just taken one of his shirts, since the leather jacket was warm for Massassi; and, finally, he thought of asking just how much time she had spent in his quarters.

“Right,” Cassian said.

Her voice quickening, she went on, “The other coats were much too big. I like how I look in this one, though.”

Valiantly, he tried to think of any reply other than so do I.

“Did you steal another blaster?”

“What do you think I am?” Even through his haze, he could see that Jyn looked offended. She lifted the edge of the coat to reveal her hip, where sure enough, one of his older blasters rested. “Of course I did.”

“You’ll get a better model,” Cassian said vaguely. A new alarm struck him. “If you stay with the Alliance.”

Somehow, between that moment and the next, Jyn went from seated at his side to bracing his shoulder with one hand, the other reclining the chair into a bed. Even a half-hearted effort to stay upright on his own lashed fire down his back.

“Lie down,” said Jyn, from wherever she was. Near.

Now he obeyed without hesitation, trying to catch his breath.

“The new surgery should fix that,” she told him. “And the final bacta treatment. That’s this afternoon.”

He barely caught that, mind stuck on his previous thought. Nothing about the ceiling eased it. Nor did the one lock of his fringe that always fell over his eyes. Irritably, he blew at it, as Jyn had her own, but with no more success.

“Where will you be?” Cassian asked, too sleepy and dazed to even speculate at how he sounded. He closed his eyes. “You’re free.”

There was a long pause, and then Jyn’s voice:

“I’m not going anywhere.” Someone touched his brow, so hesitant that he barely felt it. Then, more confidently, they stroked his hair out of his face. “Go to sleep, Cassian.”

[bunny-wan-kenobi]

Bunny’s Beastly Review *SPOILERS*

I’ve seen the movie three times. I started as the skeptic. Then I saw the film. Here are my thoughts...

I’m a Disney lover, and the films from the Disney Renaissance are close to my heart. I think that animation is a medium that is so rich in the way that it can construe meaning and capture emotion in an artistic, entertaining, magical way, and the animated Beauty and the Beast is an exceptional example of this. 

I’ve been skeptical this whole time of Disney’s recent efforts to translate their animated works into live-action. It feels so opportunistic and uncreative to capitalize on what the animated films already did SO WELL instead of creating something new like Moana or Zootopia. When I first heard the news, I planted myself in the belief that these films really don’t need to be made. 

Do I still believe that after seeing Beauty and the Beast? Well yes...and NO. Maybe I was primed to come to this conclusion after enjoying many elements of Cinderella and falling unexpectedly for the live-action Jungle Book, but I can honestly say that Beauty and the Beast surprised me...but not in the ways I was expecting. 

I expected the nostalgia, the covers of classic songs, the pretty visuals, the strong supporting cast. I knew I would get that. But what surprised me was how happy the movie made me feel. It was the same infusion of warmth I felt when I saw Cinderella’s radiant gown twirling on the ballroom floor in the Disney live-action version.

 It was like I was a little girl nestled on the couch, sometimes in awe, sometimes just beaming because the movie evoked some intangible positive regard that wasn’t based on the perfection of it, but on its ability to speak to my heart. The live-action Beauty and the Beast managed to awaken that feeling in me, which means that there is the possibility that it won’t mean the same thing to someone else or ignite the same experience for everybody, but since this is my review...this movie honestly just made me happy. 

The movie’s not perfect--heck there are just some elements where the animated film is simply superior, but I’m glad it was made. Here’s my breakdown:

The Exceptional

- It answers questions I always had from the animated movie and creates a cohesive narrative. We learn why the villagers forgot about a LARGEASS CASTLE AND ROYALTY a few miles of forest away. We learn why Chip doesn’t age (don’t pretend this never bothered you). We learn more about the curse itself. I appreciated these gaps getting filled.

- We got answers to questions we didn’t know we wanted. I LOVE that Belle’s mother features in this movie, that it holds weight and connects her and the Beast’s stories of loss and loneliness together. I liked getting to see Mr. Potts and understanding just how widespread the effects of the curse were. I liked the backstory given to flesh out Gaston, Maurice, and the Beast, leading to...

- The Beast. I LOVED the Beast. I hold Dan Steven’s performance as equal and different from Robby Benson’s, and that is the highest praise I can give it. His Beast is less growly and irascible, more grumpy and self-effacing. I think it was a brilliant idea to re-interpret Beast as a classicist Sun Prince-eqsue figure and position him in juxtaposition to the romantic and intelligent farmgirl Belle. It changes the nature of their love story in that Beast’s flaws include his predilection to look down on others and judge them along with the usual selfishness and temper. Yet this Beast is just as soulful, just as expressive, and just as much of an endearing dork, made evident by Steven’s wonderful face-work beneath the CGI. It’s the little moments: the sharp exhale of shock and grief when Belle leaves, the surprised smile when Belle asks them to “go home,” the befuddled expression when he realizes in the library scene that he actually likes this girl. I felt like I was watching a different Beast, someone familiar yet refreshing, and I fell for the character. And then the song....

- Evermore. Yes, I’m that person. I’m playing it on loop. I have no shame. I wasn’t expecting this song, I wasn’t spoiled beforehand, so I was BLOWN AWAY. I really enjoy “If I Could Love Her,” but I understand Alan Menken’s explanation that it didn’t quite fit into this narrative. Evermore does. It’s a song of mourning yet it’s stalwart in the Beast’s resolution to keep waiting, keep going on even as he believes that Belle is never coming back and that he IS going to waste away for YEARS all alone. It really has some dark implications when you pause to think of it, but this song soars beyond them, carried by the imagery of the Beast rising higher and higher in his tower to see Belle leave and then THAT SHOT pulling out of the tower to Belle...it was EVERYTHING. 

- Maurice. I really appreciate that Kevin Kline brought a dignity and quiet strength to this character that was treated as a caricature before. I really felt for the character in his grief, and I think he had more dimensions within this film and that made his relationship with Belle more compelling. 

- GAS-FREAKIN-STON. Or LUKE EVANS. Luke Evans made this character his own and I think his performance is one element of the movie I like better than the animated film. His Gaston is still egoistic and broad, but there is a kind of cunning and real malice in his actions that heightens both his attraction and his presence as a villain. He’s just so enjoyable to watch as he’s trying to manipulate Maurice’s affections or preening in his chair during “Gaston” or bellowing in the kill the beast sequence. Not only does he have the singing chops, there is so much personality and charm in this performance and it’s simply magnetic. 

- The set. Yes, there is a blend of Jacques Cocteau and other fantasy films, but this set was haunting and magical to me. I liked the sinuous shapes of the outer facade, the crumbling floors, the detail in Belle’s bedroom (the gold on the ceiling ugh). It was a beautiful setting, and a feast for the eyes. 

- The stakes are raised. I cared about the supporting characters before and they were all lovable, but I think this movie conveyed more clearly what the cost of the curse is and how tragic it is for all those caught within it. Mrs. Potts, Lumiere, Cogsworth and the others are desperate for this to work because their humanity is at stake (and for Mrs. Potts, her SON’S) and there is a yearning for that carried in the film that adds even more emotional weight. I don’t know if I’m the only one that actually loves “Days in the Sun,” but this song got to me. They’re wondering whether they will ever be human again, but not in a celebratory, bombastic way like “Human Again,” but in an understated, more poignant way. There’s a beauty of the human spirit that rises in the song, evidenced beautifully by Audra McDonald’s delivery of: “I could sing/Of the pain these dark days bring/Of this spell we’re under/Still it’s the wonder of us I’m singing tonight.” They haven’t given up on hope or of love, and though Belle’s change really isn’t made as clear, this is probably what impacts her decision to stay. So when they become objects at the end, the score cradling that moment, it’s devastating. 

The Good 

- The love story. Both versions are good, but I feel like the way it’s developed in the live-action film is more organic and allows the characters to spend a little bit more time together. It was so sweet to see Beast and Belle bonding over their love of books (say that 3x fast), the quiet understanding that passes between them when they visit Paris, the comfortable dynamic they enjoy as they puzzle over how they are both oddities. And the transformation moment, while somewhat dulled, is undeniably charming because of Belle’s tearful relief when she sees Beast/Adam. This was probably the most important element to get right, and I thought it was solid. Plus it crushes all the Stockholm-syndrome arguments by framing Belle’s decision to stay and help the castle residents and giving attention to her desire for freedom and efforts to escape in the beginning.

- The supporting characters. Like I said, I expected them to be wonderful and they were. I loved every performance, and this set of amazing actors brought new life to the characters. Special shoutout to Ian McKellan’s crusty Cogsworth, who made me like Cogsworth in a way I didn’t before. Also, I LOVE LOVE LOVE that instead of Babette, a feather duster coded as a sexualized French maid, we get a beautiful, elegant Plumette and a tender love story with her and Lumiere. AND SHE’S PLAYED BY GUGU MBATHA-RAW, a gorgeous black woman. And she gets one of the prettiest costume designs in the movie, a woman who should be a princess in her own right (someday...). 

- The rest of the songs still have the vitality and warmth of the original. “Gaston” is a highlight of the film and I really appreciate that they included Howard Ashman’s original lyrics (in other songs too). They made the film feel new to me.

- The fact that I ended up shipping a operatic wardrobe and a toothless harpsichord. Like...they had a dynamic that was unexpectedly moving and I was really rooting for them. 

- Belle’s village is ethnically diverse! Like Brandy-Cinderella levels integrated. That was pretty cool. 

- The French-ification. Okay...it’s still not in French, but I really liked that this film stands apart from the animated version by heightening the French aspects of the original story. The costuming (expect for maybe Belle--more on that later), the sets, the inclusion of “Maman” and Notre Dame, and the overall aesthetic provided a welcome fusion of the original and the animated. 

- BELLE TRIES TO ESCAPE. Like, she really tries to get out but decides to bring the Beast back and stay. She’s curious about the curse and learns more about it, and she remains an assertive character who pushes back when people try to make her comply. 

- Belle’s little “UGH!” during the “Belle” reprise. I can relate. 

- It’s a little thing, but Dan Steven’s disgusted head tilt when rejecting the rose. It cracks me up but points to the pompousness nature of the character. That’s when I knew we were getting a different Beast. 

- The “Beauty and the Beast” scene was really lovely to look at and was somehow more charged (maybe it was the dip?). The revolving shot when Beast lifts Belle up...magic 

- Every time Beast smiles toothily like a weirdo. Just charmed. 

- I actually like the trip to Paris scene because it allows for more of Belle’s development and for her realization that the castle (and Beast) has become home. It was also hella dark (like PLAGUE Disney--REALLY?!)

- That freakin’ snowball. EVERY theater I went to laughed uproariously at that scene, and Beast’s delighted laugh afterwards makes it. 

- LeFou and Gaston’s dynamic. There was a camaraderie and friendship that was fun to watch, and I thought Josh Gad did a great job with the role. 

- That mob song was so gooooood. I wanted to fist pump to it and I liked LeFou’s “But I fear the real monster’s unleashed.”

- The final ballroom scene is really sweet. I loved the sequence with “Winter turns to spring” and what a quiet moment it was. An addition that worked really well. 

- The end credits made my heart swell, and my aesthetic was all the silhouettes of the supporting characters and then the zoom out the stairs with Celine Dion soothing us the whole time with her beautiful voice. Gosh those credits were beautiful...

- Some of Emma’s line deliveries stood out to me, in particular when she declares “And I told you NO,” when she tells her father “Yes. Yes it is” in response to him telling her that returning to the Beast would be dangerous, and the “I love you.” Those were moments where I saw the strength of Belle emerge and Emma disappeared into the role, leading to...

The Meh 

- Emma Watson’s performance was the underwhelming one for me. I wanted so much to like it, but in some scenes it felt flat and just didn’t carry the passion of Paige O’Hara (the “Belle” reprise is a prime example). I still saw Emma as Emma and not necessarily as Belle. Yet even her performance warmed to me over time, and I think I appreciate more of it with each watch. The autotuned singing did take me out of the movie at times, and I really wished that was better because Emma does have a gentle sweetness in her voice and looks beautiful in the film. Was it bad? No. But it wasn’t my favorite Belle performance. In the end, it did sell the love story and I still enjoyed the character, but I think this performance was the weaker note in a solid film. 

- The dress. It was still pretty and floaty, but I wanted more. I wanted Cinderella-level brilliance, something that evoked the iconic dress of the animated version. This was nice, but it could have made so much more of a statement. 

- The inclusion of the Enchantress into the rest of the film. This really felt unnecessary. I get why they did it, but the scenes really didn’t make much sense. Why is Agatha living in the village? Is she monitoring the curse? WHY? Why is she a poor barmaid? Why does she have a Morgana-eque forest hovel? Like maybe they were going for enigmatic, but her scenes just felt like filler and could have been taken out without much impact or just expanded differently. 

- MRS POTTS SHOULD NOT HAVE SAID THAT LINE. She should not have said “It’s because he loves her.” That was the Beast’s moment--his moment to finally acknowledge that he loves Belle because he doesn’t have a moment to really say it in the rest of the film, and it’s supposed to be a weighty moment. That was robbed in the film by giving the line to Mrs. Potts and I will fight you on this. 

-  I get it...but Belle hiking up her dress every other moment and going out IN WINTER without layers annoyed me like AREN’T YOU COLD. I wanted to throw blankets at her. 

- Why give Cogsworth a love interest? That felt gratuitous and unnecessary. That lady had some pipes though...

- Some of the pacing felt rushed because of the editing, and I really wish the film had slowed down to linger in some moments. 

- It really weirded me out that Belle had all these conversations about the curse and the Beast RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE BEAST. Like...he wasn’t sleeping. It just felt kind of...not right? Like, can you talk about him somewhere else? Was I the only one who felt uneasy about that? 

- THE LAST SHOT. If you’ve seen it, you know. You know why the movie shouldn’t end with that. An editor should have been on that and it still jars me. 

I honestly can’t think of anything else right now that I really disliked. Some of the song sequences could have been more powerful (yes I still keep going back to that “Belle” reprise) and Emma’s performance was inconsistent (because there were moments in it that were quite good to be fair), but overall, it comes down to the fact that I enjoyed the film enough to see it three times. I mean...that’s a review in itself, and better than 500+ words on the topic. The movie had enough in it that made me love it, and me and my friend sang through the “Beauty and the Beast” cover at the end, bobbing to the syncopated beats, and we had a great time.

The point of a review isn’t to convince you to like a movie. It’s to point to the way you interacted with it in case someone else can resonate with it, get excited by it, or feel legitimated in the way they feel about it--whether good or bad. I enjoyed the live-action Beauty and the Beast, so now I’m going to stop typing, make some quesadillas, and return to listening to “Evermore” on loop. 

[ganymedesclock]

sorry if this is something you've gone over before, I went through your BD fusion tag but didn't see it - what do you think it "means", for Homeworld, that one of their leaders is a fusion? HW doesn't seem to have a place for heterogeneous fusion, so I'm wondering about the finer details of it. who knows, how the real BD felt, how her stand-stand-in must feel, etc. I'm curious about how this would all work, socially/psychologically/societally, I guess!

Hello! Just for context, I’d like to first link my theory of how the Diamonds got started.

Moving on from there:

I think that a big part of it is that Blue was kind of grandfathered in. It’s a scenario where the Diamonds are in general kind of oddballs- not as uniform and perfect as they’ve come to present themselves. Because my model of the Diamonds puts them very close to where the Crystal Gems were at the beginning of the series.

They weren’t picked, necessarily- they were the survivors. In a context where all they had was each other, they came together and were eventually able to rebuild from what happened. So the only “place” they ever thought to eke out for themselves, even when they created and rigidly defined structure for other Gems, was with each other.

So Blue ends up in a funny place. Much like Garnet, Blue has every intention of living together forever. She doesn’t create a permanent place for her components; maybe places for them to hide, failsafes to protect them, but the only permanent place they need is as Blue. She doesn’t set out initially with the idea that it’s essential to hide her nature, but an element of distance encroaches between her and her subjects.

Part of it is simply Blue’s sensibilities as kind of a private person. Much like Garnet, I think Blue is drawn inwards. Her veiled eyes very much imply the same thing Garnet’s mirrored glasses do- a sense of inscrutability that is something that comes and goes. Sometimes she opens up, and sometimes she closes off.

I think another part of it is, there would likely have been some kind of inciting incident that led her to draw inwards and specifically obfuscate this part of herself. That was the case for Garnet as we see in Three Gems And A Baby. It’s hard to say what exactly Blue’s incident was, since we know very little of pre-war Gem history, but this could well have factored into her rejecting Garnet rather than embracing her for their similarities. A part of Blue, who might not be willing to open up about her own honesty, might be threatened, rather than sympathetic, to another fusion that does things the way she does.

Because I do think Blue was surprised by Garnet, in a different way than her court. Her components would probably consider themselves special- issuing before the caste system, they’re more alike for their age and power than they are different for their gem types. It’s very well that she assumes only Gems that have a deep sense of similarity can combine- and overgeneralizes that to, outside of herself, only homogeneous fusion can occur.

But then Garnet comes in. Garnet- who isn’t Ruby or Sapphire, who has three eyes. And Blue sees an element of herself.

We don’t know all of how Blue reacted. We know initially, anger- and this is something I think is incredibly Lapis-like about how Blue responds. Both of them are entirely too comfortable playing judge, jury, and executioner. They are not bullies who relentlessly hunt for a victim, but, when they feel justified, they respond with the speed and force of a guillotine. Lapis in Alone At Sea comes to realize that entirely outside of what Jasper did to her, that she felt like she could take out everything on Jasper- the mirror, being struck down by Bismuth, her loss of status- things Jasper wasn’t even aware of, much less deliberately the source of.

Blue pins losing the rebels, hurting Sapphire, and Garnet’s formation all on Ruby. It’s very likely she also took out other stresses- the loss of Pink Diamond, the encroaching unrest, the failing of her attempt to draw this all to a single neat resolution, the injured people in her court who now came to harm for what amounted to nothing, feeling guilty for fleeing the scene when her intervention might’ve been more needed than she led to believe- and threw that all at Ruby.

It’s not fair. This isn’t a way you preside over people. And it’s not an inherent flaw of the Diamonds’ leadership as much as the obvious consequence when you take flawed, complex beings, and set them up as Perfect and Never To Be Questioned. 

Other things I think at work here.

If I’m right that things like the Sea Spire that would be occupied by Blue’s court contain a lot of symbolism to her fused nature: Blue was really  not being subtle about it. Basically her refuge is just that nobody thinks it’s possible and that one of her gems is very easily hidden (Lapis’s back gem, with Blue’s hair and cloak; if we’re going off the moon mural, than original Blue had even longer hair than Light Blue)

But heterogeneous fusion at this point in Homeworld’s society has become normalized. The reason why Blue’s still escaped detection is Light Blue is a singular gem and she’s just plain a different person than Blue- she wouldn’t value and maintain the same things that Blue did. Fusion wouldn’t be important to Light Blue in that same way.

And I think this is part of Yellow’s… frustration? With Light Blue. In a way that’s not completely fair, in a way that Yellow knows is not her fault- Yellow is trying to replace someone she lost, but the replacement is not the same person. Doesn’t respond the same way. And Yellow is trying to encourage her in that direction, but on some level, she realizes it doesn’t work. But she doesn’t have any way, as far as she knows, to get Blue back; fighting the sense of futility, she just keeps trying. 

What’s The Use Of Feeling, Blue? rapidly turns from an attempted pep talk to revealing how upset and cut up YD is- but what’s the point? What can she do? She feels helpless in the situation and in that sense of helplessness, she feels guilty for still being torn about things that she can’t change. She wants to only focus on action- on fixing the situation but I think at this point, Yellow is focusing much more on busywork than she is on actually making progress.

This is I think, an interesting context to how exhausted Yellow is. Because she’s trying to run herself like clockwork to escape the “noise” in her own head. But she can never actually stay busy enough to forget about all of her own pain. And it reaches a point where she’s actually creating new problems by overexerting herself to a really unhealthy degree- and refusing to stop and rest because stopping for any amount of time means being alone with all of her thoughts.

People have talked about how YD isn’t acknowledging her own grief, but I haven’t heard people point out that YD is basically advocating “just say no to feeling bad. If you say no loud enough, you will stop feeling bad” while also making it painfully obvious she has zero capacity to actually do that. YD is trying very hard to convince herself and others that she’s got her feelings perfectly under control while her emotions are basically running around her life smashing everything like a rottweiler being chased by bees.

Getting back towards Blue’s side of things, and Light Blue/”fake” Blue- I think that the fact that Blue withheld an integral part of herself from people damaged her relationship with Light Blue.

The expectation of living for someone- literally only living as their double, being there when they need it, to the extreme of not really having your own life outside of being their double- would be stressful. It’d be frustrating. Especially when you don’t even feel like the other person really trusts you and wants to let you in. Hovering more or less just on the edges of this incredibly long-established deeply-entrenched family group of the Diamonds. I think part of her relationship with Pink is- and this is basing on the Rose Diamond theory- that Pink took an interest in her and was charmed by her, so Light Blue had a much stronger relationship with Pink than she did with the “real” Blue Diamond. 

So on the one hand… with Blue gone, it’s technically her city now. She can actually do things how she likes rather than just matching Blue. She has actual authority of her own rather than just power-by-proxy. On the other hand, it’s because Blue is gone and I don’t think she’d be exactly cheerful about that, especially because it comes at a very steep cost. And her newfound freedom is hampered to a degree by… she’s technically a Diamond now and could technically challenge YD but that’s not an appealing idea, and she knows that YD would probably rather she acted more like original Blue, even though YD is in an awkward place to actually come out and say that because YD is trying very hard to pretend nothing has gone wrong and she hasn’t lost anyone- which feeds right back into her issues with Light Blue’s very obvious grief. 

[sethmurfie-blog]

WOW - [May 4, 4:18 p.m.]

MOTHER OF A WRECK. WOW.

AS I'M RUNNING AROUND CAMPUS TRYING FEROCIOUSLY TO FIND THIS MASK-COIN-GLOVE-HUMAN AND AM STARTING TO SWEAT AND PANIC MORE AND MORE, I HEAR A SOUND OF POPS AND CLICKS SOMEWHERE IN THE DISTANCE. I TURN THIS WAY AND THAT AND AS I DO SO, I BUMP UP AGAINST A LAMPPOST. SUDDENLY SOMETHING FALLS OUT OF MY SOMBRERO.

I LOOK DOWN AND SEE SOME PIECES OF SHINY PAPER AND SO I BEND DOWN AND PICK THEM UP, AND IN THE GLEAMING SUNLIGHT I SEE TITLES LIKE ASIAN INTERCULTURALITY AND A GUIDE TO CONVERSATIONAL JAPANESE AND JAPAN FOR DUMMIES. I STAND THERE, PUZZLED, TRYING TO FIGURE OUT HOW THESE BROCHURES ENDED UP IN MY MAGICAL SOMBRERO HAT. THEN A CAR HORN BLEATS SOMEWHERE FAR AWAY AND IT SUDDENLY DAWNS ON ME:

THESE PAMPHLETS HAVE TO BELONG TO YOUKNOWFUCKINGWHO. PORRIDGE. SHE ABSOLUTELY MUST HAVE PUT THEM IN MY SOMBRERO WHEN SHE HAD IT FOR A SHORT TIME AND NOW I HAD A POSSESSION BELONGING TO THE ABOMINABLE WITCH AND I WAS GOING GET THREE TIMES THE CURSE PURSE I'VE ALREADY ENDURED AND HOLY FUCK.

SO I IMMEDIATELY SHRIEK AND START JUST HIGH TAILING IT IN A COMPLETE FRENZY, NOT KNOWING IF I SHOULD THROW THE PAMPHLETS AWAY OR PUT THEM BACK IN THE SOMBRERO AND EVERYTHING'S BREAKING AND FALLING APART THE WORLD IS BASICALLY ENDING WHEN I BUMP INTO SOMETHING AGAIN, AND THIS TIME IT'S A PERSON. I LOOK UP AND SEE IT'S AN AUDIENCE MEMBER WATCHING A SHOW GOING ON ON AN OUTDOOR STAGE THAT'S BEEN SET UP NEAR THE PLANETARIUM. I HEAR THE POPS AND CLICKS AND SEE THAT LO AND BEHOLD IT'S THE MASKED-COIN-GLOVE-HUMAN AND THEY'RE JUST FINISHING UP THEIR SHOW.

SOMEWHERE IN THE CHAOS I’VE LOST BOTH THE SOMBRERO AND THE PAMPHLETS, BUT I JUST RUN RIGHT UP TO THE SIDE OF THE STAGE AND FIND THE MASK-HUMAN, WHO'S JUST ABOUT TO STEP DOWN BECAUSE THEIR SHOW HAS ENDED, BUT I STEP IN THEIR WAY AND IN MY MANIA JUST BLURT OUT "HELLO MY NAME IS SETH MURFIE AND RIGHT NOW I'M HAVING THE SHITTIEST DAY OF MY ENTIRE LIFE AND I'VE GOT MY BROTHER BEING ALL WEIRD AND I'VE GOT A GIRL WHO HAS CURSED ME WITH A BOTTLE FROM BUBBLE TEA ISLAND WHO I KEEP RUNNING INTO AND RECENTLY SHE USED MY SOMBRERO AND BEFORE I COULD UTILIZE MY BROTHER'S DOG TO STEAL IT BACK SHE MANAGED TO ENCHANT THE SOMBRERO AND FILL IT WITH PAMPHELETS ALL TO MAKE THIS CURSE WHERE I THINK ABOUT HER ALL THE TIME EVEN MORE UNBEARABLE AND NOW I'VE GOT THIS ASSIGNMENT THAT I ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO TURN IN TODAY WHERE I NEED TO INTERVIEW SOMEONE SIGNIFICANT TO ME AND I'VE ENJOYED YOUR PERCUSSION DRAMADIES SO MUCH THAT IT HAS TO BE YOU SO CAN I PLEASE INTERVIEW YOU RIGHT NOW BEFORE THE WHOLE PLANET GIVES OUT AND I JUST UP AND BURST?!"

THROUGH THE MASK-HUMAN’S BODY LANGUAGE I CAN SEE THEY LOOK STARTLED AND THEY’RE JUST STANDING THERE HOLDING THEIR BACKPACK AND INSTRUMENT CASE, BUT BEFORE THEY CAN ANSWER I HEAR JUST A FEW FEET AWAY:

"tHe hoLe iN oNe iS—~rAgHh~—oNe iN tHe bUn~"

AND WE BOTH TURN OUR HEADS TO SEE BOWLBOY BARRY, WALKING STRAIGHT AT US.

I LOOK BACK AT THE MASK-HUMAN AND SAY "OH DO YOU KNOW BOWLBOY BARRY?" BUT INSTEAD OF ANSWERING, THE MASK-PERSON JUST FRANTICALLY POINTS TO THE PLANETARIUM AND THEN STARTS TO RUN IN.

I STAND THERE NOT KNOWING WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON AND AS I HEAR BARRY COMING EVEN CLOSER AND SAYING "a biG bOy's tReAt iS—~eRgGgHh~—jUsT as sWeEt~" I SEE THE MASK-HUMAN USE THEIR COIN-TIPPED GLOVES TO FRANTICALLY GESTURE FOR ME TO FOLLOW THEM IN, SO I WIPE THE SWEAT OFF MY BROW AND RUN IN AFTER THEM EVEN THOUGH I WOULD KIND OF LIKE TO CONFRONT BOWLBOY BARRY BUT ULTIMATELY I'M FEELING PRECIPITOUSLY CONFUSED,

AND AS I COME IN AND SEE THE MASK-HUMAN HURRIEDLY HOLDING UP TWO FINGERS TO GET TWO TICKETS TO THE PLANETARIUM SHOW, AND THEN THE HUMAN QUICKLY PAYS THEN TURNS AND HANDS ME A TICKET AND THEN RUNS INSIDE. I FAINTLY HEAR BARRY SAYING

"tHe hOnEy cAn'T LEaVe iF yOu'Ve—~gUhHhHh~—gOt tHe rEpRiEvE—" BUT I NEED THIS INTERVIEW SO I FOLLOW IN AFTER THE MASK-HUMAN.

AS I COME INTO THE DARK ROOM THE SHOW HAS ALREADY BEGUN, AND I HEAR A BIG, BOOMING VOICEOVER SAYING

/ The sun Is the closet star to planet Earth in all the galaxy. A powerhouse of heat and light, it— /

I SUDDENLY FEEL A TAP ON MY SHOULDER AND TURN AROUND TO SEE THE MASK-HUMAN STANDING THERE AND THEN SHOVING SOMETHING INTO MY HAND. I LOOK DOWN AND SEE IT'S THEIR CELL PHONE, AND IN IT THEY'VE WRITTEN A TEXT TO THEMSELF THAT SAYS:

Give me your number and then we can do the interview over text message without disturbing the show.

I STILL FEEL CONFUSED AND DON'T KNOW WHY WE'VE RUN INSIDE THE PLANETARIUM BUT I JUST SHRUG AND PUT MY NUMBER IN THE MASK- HUMAN'S PHONE, THEN I FOLLOW THEM INTO SOME SEATS IN THE MIDDLE ROW AND SIT DOWN TO LEAN BACK AND LOOK UP AT ALL THE FAKE STARS.

/ For centuries, man Has Worshipped and Studied the Sun, and out of ignorance Has Invented stories to Explain its power—sometimes Praising it as a goddess, other times Denouncing it as a demon— /

I FEEL A BUZZ IN MY POCKET, AND GET OUT MY CELL TO SEE A TEXT FROM A NEW NUMBER. IT SAYS:

What would you like to know?

I LOOK TO MY RIGHT AND SEE THAT MASK-HUMAN HAS ACTUALLY REMOVED THEIR GLOVES AND THEIR MASK, BOTH OF WHICH I CAN SEE SITTING IN THEIR LAP NEAR THE GLOW OF THEIR PHONE—HOWEVER IT'S FAR TOO DARK FOR ME TO MAKE OUT THEIR FACE. I LOOK BACK DOWN AT MY PHONE AND THEN JUST GO AHEAD AND TYPE IN THE FIRST QUESTION:

WHAT MOTIVATES YOU TO DO GOOD?

THEN I HIT SEND.

/ To this day the Sun Is an integral part of our way of life. Despite— /

MY PHONE VIBRATES. I READ THE RESPONSE:

If I see people in need or who seem underappreciated, I tend to want to help them. I don't know. I don't always do the right thing, but I usually try. I like to make people feel good if I can.

/ However, this looming and all-encompassing star we Call the Sun Will not Last forever. One day, when the heat and— /

AFTER READING THE MASK-HUMAN'S RESPONSE, I TYPE IN THE NEXT QUESTION, ONE I FORGOT TO ASK ROLAND RIGATONI. IT'S:

ARE YOU PROUD OF YOUR ACCOMPLISHMENTS?

/ The energy Will Begin to Collapse in on itself, Charging and Ricocheting, as the core slowly Begins to Shrink— /

MY PHONE BUZZES:

I am.

/ In a few moments you Will Witness the imploding mayhem of a red giant, as the outer layers of the sun gradually Begin to Expand more and more, Growing hotter and hotter, redder and redder— /

THE LIGHT IN THE ROOM IS STARTING TO INCREASE AS THE SUN ON SCREEN IS INCHES AWAY FROM DESTRUCTION, BUT IN THE FLOW OF THE INTERVIEW I JUST TYPE THE NEXT QUESTION, ANOTHER I FORGOT TO ASK RIGATONI:

WHAT ARE SOME OF YOUR OTHER INTERESTS?

MUSIC IS STARTING TO SWELL AND A BIG EVENT IS APPARENTLY ABOUT TO HAPPEN ON THE DOME ABOVE US,

BUT SUDDENLY I HEAR WHAT SOUNDS LIKE A DOOR OPENING JUST OUTSIDE THE THEATRE. BEFORE I CAN NOTICE IT TOO MUCH MY PHONE BUZZES AGAIN:

I like making people laugh, as well as grunge, anime, and I guess sometimes bowling.

ALL OF SUDDEN I FREEZE. BOWLING? GRUNGE AND ANIME? WHERE HAVE I SEEN THESE INTERESTS BEFORE? I'M TRYING TO FIGURE THAT OUT WHEN I HEAR FOOTSTEPS COMING CLOSE TO THE THEATRE BUT THEN THE SOUND IS CUT OFF BY THE VOICEOVER BOOMING

/ And just like that, on the precipice of a planetary nebula, the Sun, Will Burst. /

SUDDENLY RED LIGHT FILLS THE ROOM AND THE SEATS ARE ALMOST SHAKING FROM THE BELCH OF DRAMATIC MUSIC AND SOUND EFFECTS GOING ALL OVER THE PLACE, AND I SQUINT TO LOOK TO MY RIGHT, WHERE THE LIGHT IS NOW SUFFICIENT ENOUGH FOR ME TO SEE TWO EXTREMELY FAMILIAR EYES GAZING UP IN AWE AT THE SHOW ABOVE US, AND WITH A JERK OF MY HEART I STAND UP AND NEARLY FALL BACK OVER MY SEAT AS I SCREECH AND BLURT OUT

"P-P-PORRIDGE!!"

AND AS SHE LOOKS UP AT ME, I SUDDENLY HEAR IN A NEAR CORNER "tHe giRL iS miNe iF yOu—~uGhN~—tHiNk I cAn rHyMe~"

AND I WHIRL AROUND TO SEE BOWLBOY BARRY, SEARCHING THROUGH THE THEATRE. I FEEL A TUG ON MY SLEEVE AND SEE PORRIDGE, WHO SUDDENLY LOOKS PANICKED, STARING AT ME AND MOUTHING SOMETHING WHICH SORTA LOOKS LIKE:

Please don't let him find me.

/ The heat alone Will Be enough to Eliminate everyone on Earth, Going directly into a— /

"tHe fAiRy'S cRowN iS—~uRp~—oN tHe gOwN~" I HEAR BARRY SAY, AND I SEE HIM START TO WALK TOWARDS US. I GO OUT IN THE ROW AND WAVE MY ARMS AND SAY "BARRY, HERE!" THEN I FEEL A BUZZ IN MY PHONE AND SEE A TEXT SAYING

He follows me. You can keep asking me questions just please don't let him find me.

AND EVEN THOUGH I’M FREAKING THE FUCK OUT AND I OBVIOUSLY DON'T WANT TO INTERVIEW MOTHERFUCKING-SON-OF-A-BITCH-HOLY- SHIT-HOW-COULD-I-HAVE-BEEN-SO-STUPID PORRIDGE, I JUST SORT OF AUTOMATICALLY TYPE IN THE NEXT QUESTION WITHOUT THINKING, AND HIT SEND:

DO YOU MEAN TO AFFECT PEOPLE THE WAY YOU DO?

"dO yOu hAvE tHe dAmE—~yEeGgGgH~—tHaT I cAn cLaiM~?"

I LOOK UP AND SEE BARRY RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME, AND I'M SURE HE CAN SEE THE PANIC AND TERROR IN MY EYES, AND I DECIDE TO TRY TO EXPLAIN TO HIM THAT THE AWFUL WITCH IS RIGHT BEHIND ME, BUT THE DISTRACTING VOICEOVER CONTINUES:

/ This destruction Is just a preamble to the white dwarf, where the Sun Will Be thoroughly Reduced to nothing more than a speck. /

"iS tHe sUppLe giRLy-dOo—~rRrRgHhT~—sOmEwHeRe bEhiNd yOu~?"

I BREATHE IN AND AM ABOUT TO TELL BARRY EVERYTHING, WHEN MY PHONE VIBRATES ONCE AGAIN. I TAKE IT OUT AND SEE THE WITCH'S RESPONSE:

Do I mean to affect people the way I do? Well, no. Really if I have any kind of affect on people, I would imagine it's gotta be kind of an accident.

I STIFFEN. ACCIDENT? WHERE HAVE I HEARD THAT BEFORE?

/ With time, the planetary nebula Will Fade, Leaving nothing but a mass of heated carbon. /

I LOOK AT BARRY. THEN I LOOK BACK BEHIND ME. ACCIDENT. LIKE WHAT SOYLENT GREEN WAS TALKING ABOUT. WAIT. IS IT POSSIBLE THAT PORRIDGE NEVER MEANT TO CURSE ME? AM I—AM I—

"sHoW mE tHe cHiCk oR—~mMf~—fAcE tHe sTiCk~"

I STARE AT BARRY. MY HANDS ARE SHAKING AGAIN, AND I CAN FEEL THE SWEAT RUNNING DOWN MY NECK.

/ Lacking the mass for a supernova, nuclear fusion Will Fail to Occur. /

"BARRY." I SWALLOW. IT ONLY TAKES THREE WORDS. WITCH IS HERE. WITCH IS HERE.

THE ROOM GROWS DIMMER AGAIN AND THE MUSIC STARTS TO FADE. “BARRY.” I FEEL THE PEN IN MY POCKET, AND LOOK RIGHT AT BARRY. THREE WORDS. “BARRY—“AS THE ROOM DARKENS AND THE MUSIC QUIETS, I LEAN FORWARD, TAKING IN A DEEP BREATH—“BARRY”—AND LEAN IN EVEN CLOSER TO OPEN MY MOUTH AND SAY THREE STUPENDOUSLY SIMPLE WORDS:

"SHE'S NOT HERE."

/ The gas-sphere Will eventually Float off, ready to Form the next smattering of stars. /

BARRY LOOKS AT THE GROUND, LOOKS UP AT THE CEILING, THEN HE SHRUGS, TURNS AROUND, AND LEAVES.

/ The Sun Has at last Died, with a simple cloud of carbon Being all that Remains. /

MY PHONE VIBRATES. HAND STILL SHAKING, I TAKE IT OUT AND READ THE TEXT MESSAGE:

Thank you.

I LOOK UP AT THE DOME. MAYBE PORRIDGE ISN'T A BAD PERSON. I KNOW THIS SOUNDS UTTERLY MAD, BUT MAYBE I COULD EVEN—LEARN TO AT LEAST TOLERATE HER IF SHE ISN'T MEANING TO HARM ANYONE.

/ Other stars Will, of course, Go out. /

WITHOUT QUITE KNOWING WHAT TO DO, I SIT BACK DOWN IN MY SEAT AND TEXT THE NEXT QUESTION:

WHO'S YOUR BIGGEST HERO?

MY PHONE VIBRATES AGAIN. I LOOK DOWN:

My grandmother.

THE SHAKE IN MY HAND SLOWS. ONE CORNER OF MY MOUTH GOES UP AND I START TO SMILE. I QUICKLY TYPE THE NEXT QUESTION:

WHAT’S A PART OF THE WORLD YOU WANT TO SEE SOMEDAY?

MY PHONE THEN BUZZES:

Japan.

I REMEMBER THE CLASS I TOOK ON THE HISTORY OF JAPAN AND I SUDDENLY THINK TO MYSELF WELL THIS IS ANOTHER THING WE HAVE IN COMMON, AND JAPAN IS SOMETHING WE COULD EVEN CONVERSE ABOUT, ASSUMING I CONTINUE ON MY COURSE OF TOLERATING HER, AND I START TO GRIN EVEN BIGGER AS I TYPE THE FOLLOW-UP QUESTION:

WHEN DO YOU THINK YOU'LL ACTUALLY GET TO GO THERE?

MY PHONE VIBRATES, AND I LOOK DOWN AGAIN:

Tomorrow.

MY MOUTH DROPS A LITTLE.

/ With most stars, a white dwarf Will inevitably Become a black dwarf. /

MY PHONE BUZZES AGAIN, AND I SEE ANOTHER MESSAGE:

I'm going on study abroad for a year. I leave tomorrow. Actually I should go soon to finish packing, if that's okay.

THE PEN IN MY POCKET PUSHES AGAINST MY THIGH FOR A SECOND, BUT THEN I ADJUST MY LEG AND TRY TO TYPE THE NEXT QUESTION.

BUT I KEEP MAKING MISTAKES AND SCREWING UP AND I'M TRYING TO PUSH THE RIGHT KEYS WHEN I GET A THIRD TEXT:

Are you okay?

I GLANCE TO MY RIGHT AT PORRIDGE WHO'S LOOKING AT ME WITH SOME SORT OF EXPRESSION OF CONCERN, BUT I JUST CLEAR MY THROAT AND FINALLY TYPE OUT THE LAST QUESTION:

DO YOU HAVE ANY OTHER PROJECTS YOU'D LIKE TO EXPLORE IN THE FUTURE?

THE ROOM IS VERY DARK NOW, AND LOOKS THE WAY IT DID AT THE BEGINNING OF THE SHOW.

FOR ANSWERING THIS LAST QUESTION, INSTEAD OF TEXTING BACK, I CAN DIMLY SEE PORRIDGE LEAN DOWN AND PULL SOMETHING OUT OF HER BACKPACK. I HEAR WHAT SOUNDS LIKE THE UNCAPPING OF A MARKER, AND THEN SOME SQUEAKY WRITING SOUNDS BEFORE SHE HANDS ME SOMETHING SLENDER AND GLASSY IN THE DARK. I FROWN AND AM ABOUT TO ASK WHAT IT IS WHEN MY PHONE BUZZES, AND THE MESSAGE SAYS:

I want to do something musical, involving the thing I just handed you.

STARS ARE SWIRLING ALL AROUND THE ROOM AND LIGHTING UP EVERY CORNER, CASTING DIFFERENT COLORS ON THE SEATS BELOW. THE PHONE BUZZES ONCE MORE:

I actually really have to go now. Sorry.

THEN ANOTHER:

You should read what I wrote.

THEN FINALLY:

Bye Seth.

AND I SEE PORRIDGE ZIP UP HER PACK AND THEN GRAB HER CASE AND SLOWLY STAND UP TO WALK OUT OF THE AISLE AND GO THROUGH THE DOOR IN THE EXTREMELY DARK THEATRE. I HEAR THE DOOR OPEN THEN CLOSE, AND THEN IT'S JUST ME AND THE AUDIENCE AND THE SHOW.

SOON, THE SHOW ENDS, AND I WALK OUT WITH THE REST OF THE CROWD, FEELING IN A KIND OF DAZE. SUDDENLY I REMEMBER THE THING IN MY HAND THAT PORRIDGE GAVE ME AND I LOOK TO SEE WHAT IT IS.

SUNLIGHT GLINTS OFF THE OBJECT AND I SORT OF GASP AS I LOOK IT OVER AND THEN SEE THE MESSAGE, FROM HER, TO ME, SCRIBBLED ON IT IN BIG-LETTERED SHARPIE.

"seth?"

I LOOK UP AND SEE CALEB, STANDING THERE WITH HIS DOG ON A LEASH.

"WHA—WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?"

"i was just taking knight on a long walk through campus. what's that bottle in your hand?"

I LOOK DOWN AT IT, THEN LOOK UP AT THE SKY OVERHEAD.

"hey, did you find your person for that interview assignment? they must've been so weirded out having to answer questions from a complete stranger, heh-heh."

I JUST LOOK AT THE SKY FOR A WHILE. THEN, INSTEAD OF RESPONDING, I HAND CALEB THE BOTTLE, AND THEN SLUMP TO LEAN AGAINST THE SIDE OF THE BUILDING, EXPERIENCING A RUSH OF BIZARRE SENSATIONS THAT I CAN'T EVEN REASONABLY DESCRIBE.

I'M DONE WITH THE BLOG. I REALLY MEAN IT THIS TIME. I HOPE YOU ALL HAD A SUCCESSFUL SEMESTER AND HAVE A GREAT SUMMER, BUT SOCIAL MEDIA REALLY ISN'T DOING ANYTHING FOR ME. NEXT POST IS MY LAST.

STILL,

-LOVE SETH MURFIE