#Happy Belated Halloween 2019

[zoocross0vers]

Carcass Bride: Part 2

A/N: Hey everyone, sorry about the delay. I meant to post this up last night, but since it was pretty late already I decided to wait until today. So a bit later than expected, but I hope you enjoy this conclusion nonetheless. :)

...

Part 2: The Carcass Bride and Her Groom

If Judy hadn't been paralyzed with shock, she would've surely been crying with confusion and anger. How did things go south this quickly? She had surprisingly found the perfect mate for her in the male she was originally assigned to marry, but now…

Things had gone according to plan for her parents and family because she had still married someone who would provide her family with the money they needed to survive. In that sense she was happy to help out for their sake, but why did she still feel so broken?

Sure, it wasn’t a guarantee that she’d end up falling in love with her original fiancée, but the fact of the matter was that she did. She fell in love with Nick Wilde. She was willing to go to the farthest ends of the earth to find him after he had ran away embarrassed of his constant fumbling during their wedding rehearsal. What hurt even more was that she was aware that he too loved her. He had told her so when he had come back to her -- out of breath and petrified beyond belief. He looked as if he had seen a ghost just before he regained his color and told her with all sincerity that he wished to be with her always and wanted to marry her more than anything. 

But then...she realized why he had looked so terrified moments before. He had been taken from her. By a vixen... and not just by a vixen, but by a dead one! A literal walking carcass! And she dragged him away from her just as he had confessed his love for her. Her Nick. Her fox. He was in trouble and she couldn’t help him. She tried so hard but failed him. And now...now she had been forced to marry someone new. Someone who showed her no interest or concern. 

Her parents had at the very least thrown her some concerned glances -- noticing her evident sadness. But her husband? This Lord Woundwort. He hadn’t even looked at her, much less had he taken the time to ask her what’s wrong. He just continued on with his speech.

“Elegant, cultured, radiant. Judith has found a husband with all of these qualities and more,”  said the large rabbit, his voice heavy with arrogance, “Serendipity brought us together and no force on earth can tear us apart.”

Just then, as if he had tempted fate itself, a green flame suddenly surged from the fireplace. All of the rabbits in the room gasped in fear, wondering what was happening. It wasn’t long until some bluish looking animals started to slowly appear behind all of Judy’s guests and family. And then there was the sudden plop of an eye in Judy’s father’s soup. “There’s an eye in my soup.”

“Aaah!” screamed one of Judy’s aunts in horror as things quickly turned chaotic in a flash! Everywhere they looked, there was a skeleton or some other decaying blue carcass of an animal causing panic. It was as the town crier simply put it, “THE DEAD WALK THE EARTH!!!”

The dead soon ran out of Judy’s house chasing out her relatives and guests, all except her husband Lord Woundwort, who merely snorted at at any carcass that tried coming near him. Though they were dead, they seemed genuinely terrified of the savage looking rabbit. 

Not long after, everyone was gone, save for Judy and Lord Woundwort. “Right,” he said, practically unfazed by the previous chaos, “We’re going to take whatever money we can and get out of here.”

“Money?” Judy uttered as the word finally took her out of her depressive trance. “What money?” she asked again with a confused brow.

“Your dowry. It’s my right!” barked the hare sized rabbit.

“My parents don’t have any money. It’s my marriage to you that will save them from the poorhouse.”

Though the dead didn’t frighten Lord Woundwort, Judy’s words certainly did. “T-The poorhouse?!” he stammered in anger, “You’re lying! It isn’t true! Tell me that you’re lying!!!” he shouted as he harshly shook her by her arms.

“Did things not go according to your plan Lord Woundwort,” Judy asked, almost mockingly. Though she didn’t know why he had chosen to marry her initially, she had a feeling that it wasn’t for anything good and it seemed that she was absolutely right. She shoved him away from her, forcing him to release her, “Well, perhaps in disappointment, we are perfectly matched.” She marched out of the room in a huff.

The gray bunny made it out the door when she realized that the dead were still everywhere outside. The only difference now was that nobody seemed to be afraid of them anymore. They were all surprisingly walking side by side with them and they all appeared to be heading to the local church nearby with a giant wedding cake in tow. Where are they all going? Judy thought, as she followed behind them.

Pastor Bogo, a hulking cape buffalo and the church’s pastor, stood outside before the church’s entrance in his pajamas. He waved his arms menacingly toward the dead, “Back you demons! You shall not enter! Get back! Back! Back!!!”

The dead mammals merely glanced awkwardly at one another until a dead wolf spoke to the buffalo, “Keep it down, we’re in a church.”

The dead mammals ignored the buffalo and walked in as Pastor Bogo merely stood there, completely stunned over the whole scene.

Not long after, the wedding march began to play all throughout the church. 

At the altar, stood Nick as he turned to greet his marching bride. Skye, the vixen carcass bride, marched down the aisle while two small, skeletal otter pups decorated her path with flower petals. Her blue face was full of bliss as her sapphire colored eyes stared up blissfully at her awaiting groom. Nick watched her with a smile. She was beautiful. Even for a dead vixen with a completely skeletal arm and leg, she was still quite lovely. Though she wasn’t his ideal bride, nor the girl he truly loved, he still liked her. If he had to marry someone else beside his beloved Judy, it would be her. She was mature, kind, caring, and strangely enough, still full of life despite being dead. 

Besides, what did he have to lose at this point? The girl he loved...or at least thought he loved had betrayed him…

She had betrayed him for someone else…

How could she? It was all he could think when one of his family’s servants, a chubby cheetah who had recently been ill named Clawhauser, had suddenly died and informed him of Judy’s new engagement. He had told him that she had married that vicious looking rabbit that suddenly arrived to their wedding rehearsal. Was it that? Did she choose him instead, because he was one of her own kind?

Did that explain why it was he chose Skye too, despite the price being losing his own life in order to make their marriage binding? Did he really prefer a vixen over a doe, just like Judy very likely preferred a buck over him? Did Judy actually choose this buck? Or was she forced to?

It hurt him to think that she did, but he couldn’t say. All he knew was that he didn’t prefer a vixen. He loved Judy despite her being a rabbit. But now that she was snatched away from him, what more was there to lose? Perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad to die, if it meant making his marriage official with a girl who really did love him.

At this point, there was no turning back. He would numb his remaining feelings for Judy and promise to love Skye with all his unbeating heart. 

Skye finally made it to the altar, her smile never faltering. Finally! She would be the bride she was originally meant to be, but this time, it would be with a kind and sweet mammal. Not with the murdering monster that snatched her dreams away from her and killed her on what was to be the happiest day of her life. 

Nick was a handsome, kind, sweet, and loving mammal, and she knew that she would at last find her peace and happiness with him. 

He offered her his paw with a warm smile and she took it, standing beside him at the altar. 

Elder Otterton, a middle aged skeleton who was once an otter, stood before them to officially marry the two in death. He was referred to as ‘Elder Otterton’, due to him having died over three hundred years ago. In that regard, he was one of the oldest and wisest members of the land of the dead. It was he too who had informed the carcass bride Skye, that her marriage to Nick never existed because he was alive and she was dead. Therefore, death had already parted them.

Though now, they would correct that by having Nick drink from the ‘Wine of Ages’, a poison that would forever cease his heart and allow him to join Skye in marriage and in death. 

Once the wedding march ended, Elder Otterton began the ceremony, “Dearly beloved, and departed. We are gathered here today to join this fox and this carcass in marriage.”

Unbeknownst to anyone, another bride had at last made her way toward the church. Judy stood at the church’s entrance when her jaw dropped in shock. “Nick?” she gasped with a breaking heart. A cheetah skeleton that sat in the back shushed her after her surprised remark. 

Another deflating gasp escaped Judy’s mouth. No...this can’t be happening… she thought as she quietly made her way around one side of the row of seats to a pillar that stood to the side of the altar. She watched from behind Nick’s back. She was so paralyzed with sadness, that all she could do was watch as the love of her life was being married to the vixen carcass right in front of her. 

“Living first,” continued the skeletal otter, instructing him to recite his vows.

“With this paw,” Nick began as he raised his right paw, “I will lift your sorrows,” he lifted the cup where the poison he was to consume would go into. “Your cup will never empty, for I will be your wine.” 

“Now you,” instructed elder Otterton to Skye. 

Skye took a moment to stare deeply into Nick’s eyes as he smiled at her. She was so appreciative of the sacrifice he was making for her. “With this paw,” she began, not wanting to waste a second longer. “I will lift your sorrows,” she lifted the red bottle carrying the poison that was to kill her groom, “Your cup will never empty,” she looked to him again as Nick gave her a reassuring smile to let her know that he was ready to meet his fate. Skye gave him a small nod and began pouring the poison into his cup as she continued to recite her vows, “For I will be…”

Her gaze wandered as she caught a glimpse of someone in the background. Skye gasped when she realized that it was Judy -- the 'other’ female -- as Skye had once jealously called her before Nick explained to her that Judy was his actual fiancee. 

Judy gasped quietly as well when she saw that she had been spotted. 

“I will be…” Skye repeated, struggling to keep focused as she glanced back and forth between Nick and the clearly heartbroken Judy. 

“Go on my dear,” encouraged Elder Otterton, completely oblivious to the vixen’s hesitance. 

“Your cup will never empty,” Skye repeated, forcing herself to continue and taking another glance at Judy. “F-For I will be…” 

Seeing that she was unable to continue, Nick finished the line for her, “I will be your wine.” Nick brought the poisoned cup toward his lips until Skye suddenly placed a skeletal paw over the cup, preventing Nick from drinking out of it. Nick turned to her, completely confused as their guests muttered in equal confusion. 

“She’s having second thoughts,” they heard one of their dead guests mutter to his living wife. 

Judy’s jaw gaped in awe, surprised at the dead bride’s sudden hesitance.

“I can’t,” said the vixen with a breaking voice.

“What’s wrong?” asked Nick with concern as he turned to glance back, noticing that something behind him was bothering her. Before he could see however, Skye placed a paw at his cheek, bringing his full attention back to her.

“This is wrong,” said the vixen, her voice heartbroken yet decidedly firm. “I was a bride. My dreams were taken from me. And now...now I’ve stolen them from someone else,” she wept with sincerity, “I love you Nick, but you’re not mine.”

The carcass bride released his cheek and with a humble smile, drew her paw forward, asking the bunny bride to step forth. Nick followed the direction of the vixen’s paw and his jaw dropped when he saw why it was that she was so hesitant to continue. “Judy!” Nick said, his still beating heart skipping a beat at the sight of her.

Judy made her way toward the two foxes, her gaze low at first in a mix between guilt and shame until she reached the vixen’s welcoming paw. Skye took the bunny bride’s paw and then took Nick’s paw, placing it gently over the bunny’s.

Skye smiled happily at them both. It was only at the sight of her reassuring smile, that two original lovers felt that it was okay. They returned the vixen an appreciative smile and then turned to one another with a loving smile towards each other.

“Oh, how touching,” spoke a malevolent voice. Everyone turned to the church’s entrance where Lord Woundwort stood. “I always cry at weddings,” he said with a mocking sniffle.

Judy took a step back from him in disgust. In her joy at being reunited with Nick, she had completely forgotten about her previous wedding to the large vicious rabbit. 

“Our young lovers together at last,” Lord Woundwort said mockingly as he made his way down the aisle, “Surely now they can live happily ever after,” he reached the three mammals at the altar, practically hounding over Judy, “But you forget…” He violently grabbed Judy by an arm and pulled her away from Nick and Skye, “She still my wife!!! And I will not leave here empty pawed!”

Judy struggled in the rabbit’s grasp until Skye spoke, garnering everyone’s attention. “You!” she said, as if suddenly recognizing the vicious brown rabbit. 

The savage-looking rabbit’s own eyes widened as well, suddenly recognizing the vixen too. “Skye?”

That gave the vixen her answer. “YOU!” she hissed furiously. 

“But...I left you,” said the rabbit.

“For dead,” said the vixen, finishing his sentence. The crowd gasped in shock. Skye had just come face to face with her former betrothed and murderer. Their wedding guests began to growl angrily at the large rabbit. 

“Stay back!” hissed the rabbit at the guests as they began surrounding him. The hare sized rabbit took a large sword out of a short skeleton fennec fox’s stomach. He brought it under Judy’s neck and sunk his claws into her arm.

“Aah!” Judy gasped in pain as the rabbit tightened his grip on her to ensure that she wouldn’t struggle. 

“Sorry to cut things short, but we must be on our way,” said the rabbit with a wicked smirk.

“Take your paws off her!” Nick growled at the brown rabbit with bared teeth.

The psychotic rabbit smirked at him and pressed the tip of the sword toward Nick’s stomach, “Do I have to kill you too?”

With Judy now free from harm's way, Finnick, the small skeleton fox, bit Lord Woundwort’s rear, forcing him to release Judy. Judy free herself and ran away from Lord Woundwort, standing beside Skye as she held her arm in pain.

“Nick! Catch!” yelled an old armadillo with glasses as she tossed Nick a weapon to defend himself. Little did she know that she had tossed him a two pronged fork.

“Really?” Nick spat in disbelief when he realized that it was just a fork.

“Sorry,” responded the dead armadillo.

Beggars can't be choosers however as the rabbit charged at Nick with the sword. Though it wasn’t at all an ideal weapon, Nick made due with the fork, blocking Lord Woundwort’s attack. Nick mostly dodged and blocked with his fork, getting in only a couple of pokes at Woundwort. One at his already injured rear and another at his foot when he had forced Nick to take cover beneath one of the church’s pews. 

“Aah!” Lord Woundwort growled in pain as he fell back, knocking down the nearby pews like dominoes. Judy and Skye stepped back as the pews fell in their direction. 

Nick jumped back on his feet when Lord Woundwort did the same, popping out from beneath the pews. With an almost savage-like growl, he slapped the fork away from Nick’s paw with the sword and then he violently slashed at Nick’s stomach with his own claws, forcing the fox down on his tail. 

“Nick!” Judy cried as she tried to run to his side, but Skye held her back.

Nick hissed in pain and clenched at his stomach. Lord Woundwort hounded over him and pointed the blade right at Nick’s face. The hefty rabbit smirked with an evil sneer, “Look at you, pathetic. You call yourself a predator when a prey animal can easily knock you down? You lack the viciousness your kind should have. If I were you, I would’ve put those claws and teeth to good use and tear my enemies limb from limb.”

“Well, lucky me I guess that you’re not a predator,” Nick quipped sarcastically.

“Maybe not, but I can kill just as well. After all,” he turned to Skye with a sadistic grin, “You wouldn’t be the first fox I’ve killed.” Lord Woundwort pulled the blade back, ready to stab Nick right through his skull. He launched his arm forward with a growl.

“No!” Judy ran to him, only for Skye to push her back as the sound of a blade meeting flesh rang in everyone’s ears. Nick, Judy, along with all of the wedding guests gasped, when they all saw that it was Skye who had taken the blade in Nick’s stead. 

Skye removed the blade from her stomach and pointed it at Lord Woundwort. 

Lord Woundwort scoffed, “Touche my dear.”

“Get out,” Skye growled, having had enough of the rabbit.

“Nick,” Judy ran to Nick’s side. 

“Carrots,” he stood and protectively placed an arm in front of her, keeping her safely hidden behind him and away from the psychotic rabbit.

Skye meanwhile kept the sword aimed at Lord Woundwort. The large rabbit laughed mockingly as he circled around her and headed toward the altar. “You’re going to kill me now?” Skye gave him no answer, she merely kept the blade aimed at him with every step he took, “Very well then, I’ll leave,” he stopped at the altar and raised up the wedding cup that Nick had held earlier. “But first, a toast! To Skye! Always the bridesmaid, never the bride.” He mocked as Skye’s ears fell back in sadness and humiliation. 

“Lemme at him! Lemme at him! No! Don’t-Don’t hold me back!” cried a little green maggot named Maggot, who was Skye’s friend and local resident who lived behind one of her eyes. He was so appalled by Lord Woundwort’s words, as were the rest of the dead who desperately wanted to kill the cruel rabbit but were held back by Elder Otterton. “Wait!” he cried, “We must abide by their rules. We are amongst the living.”

Lord Woundwort chuckled and then turned back to Skye, “Tell me my dear, can a heart still break once it’s stopped beating?” He chugged the wine from the cup with one full gulp. He smacked his lips together and tossed the cup to the side. “How about...we find out!” he said as he charged toward Skye with a paw up, ready to strike at Skye’s chest with his sharp claws. Skye blocked with her arms, only for Lord Woundwort to suddenly stop in his tracks a second later. “Agh!” he choked, reaching for his throat and fell to his knees. He began to gasp and gag desperately as he moved his paws down to his chest, clutching at his heart. 

Maggot smirked, thinking back on Elder Otterton’s previous words, “Not anymore,” he said with a sing-songy tone. When Lord Woundwort looked up, his face and fur were all blue now -- he was dead. 

“Yup, you’re right. He’s all yours,” said Elder Otterton, letting the dead drag a now terrified and very dead Lord Woundwort back to the land of the dead with them -- to do whatever wicked thing they wished to do to him. 

The armadillo cook from before, shut the door that led to the land of the dead, but not before eerily stating, “New arrival.” 

Elder Otterton stayed behind for a moment and covered the ‘Wine of Ages’. It would no longer serve its actual use as Skye relented Nick to allow him to return to his true intended, Judy -- who was also now free from her own marriage as Lord Woundwort was now dead. 

Judy rested her head and a paw against Nick’s chest, “Oh Nick, I never thought I would see you again.”

Skye smiled happily at them, but with a sadness still carried in her heart. She headed toward the door where the rest of the dead had left through. 

Nick watched her go, saddened. Though he knew his place was really with Judy, he felt that he still owed her one. “Wait, I made a promise,” he said as he walked toward her. 

Skye smiled and shook her head, “You kept your promise. You set me free,” she removed the wedding ring he had placed on her finger and placed it in his paw. She wrapped his paw around it. “Now I can do the same for you.” The vixen then looked back to Judy, “Take care of him will you? He’s a good guy.”

Judy smiled at her with a nod. Skye continued back toward the door when Judy called to her, “Wait, where will you go?” she asked, concerned for the selfless vixen. 

“I guess, wherever death takes me,” she shrugged, “Congratulations you two. You make a lovely pair.” Nick and Judy held paws and nodded appreciatively at the vixen. Elder Otterton then came by the carcass bride’s side. She took his arm and gave the happy couple one final glance before she crossed the threshold back to the land of the dead. 

Nick sighed as Skye forever disappeared as the door shut behind her and Elder Otterton. Though they weren’t meant for each other, he knew that she would always carry a special place in his heart as a dear friend. 

He looked down toward Judy who looked as if she wanted to cry. “Hey,” he spoke gently to her, “What’s wrong?” 

“Nothing,” she replied wiping at her forming tears, “It’s just...were you happy with her?” she asked meekly.

“What?”

“I mean, did I ruin your wedding? You both seemed happy until...I came along. And...And I just...” Judy’s eyes looked like they wanted to fill with tears again.

“Hey, don’t say that,” Nick cooed gently to her, cupping her cheeks in his paws. 

“But…” she sniffled, “I want you to be happy and I don’t want to be the reason that you’re not.” 

He couldn’t help but smile at her sweet words, “Listen to me Carrots,” he looked her in the eyes and spoke sincerely, “I won’t lie to you and say that I didn’t care for her. I did like her, but...I think that even she knew that you’re the one I truly love Judy.” Judy watched him, reading the sincerity in his eyes. “I felt so broken when I heard that you had gotten married to someone else. More so when I heard that it was a rabbit that you had married. I-I thought that you didn’t want me because I was a fox and…”

Judy gripped his wrists, “How could you think that? I could never willingly replace you with anyone else. I don’t care that you’re a fox.” His eyes shone as she lovingly caressed a paw at his cheek, “I love you Nick.”

He smiled wide, his heart fluttering with joy. He rubbed his thumbs against the fur of her cheeks, “I love you too, Judy.”  Judy moved her face forward, attempting to kiss him, but he put a paw at her lips, “Wait, before we do, there’s something I need to tell you. Something I should have told you properly the first time around.” Judy raised a brow in confusion, until Nick lifted his right paw and confidently began to speak, “With this paw, I will lift your sorrows. Your cup will never empty for I will be your wine.” Judy gave him a giddy smile, “With this candle,” he pointed at his paw, “Just pretend there’s a candle there,” he quipped as Judy giggled, “I will light your way in darkness. With this ring, I ask you, Judith Laverne Hopps,” he gently slipped the ring on Judy’s middle finger and took her paw in both of his, “To be mine. Forever and always.”

Judy couldn’t contain her tears any longer as she jumped up at him, wrapping her arms around his neck. “I do! Forever and always too.” Without another word, they kissed. Two very different mammals who were only meant to marry for financial gain, but instead found love in one another as they were at last reunited once more. 

Though they were happy, there was one question that remained unanswered: What had happened to the carcass bride that had accidentally torn them apart, but then selflessly brought them back together again?

.

Back in the Land of the Dead…

Skye sat on a small set of stairs looking up at the sky. Her friend, Maggot crawled up to her and noticed her just staring up at nothing, “What are you looking at?”

“Back in the world of the living, the moon would be right up there,” she pointed to the sky. 

The little green maggot grimaced sadly at her with a shake of his head. “I don’t know why you gave up that boy to that bunny.” He climbed aboard her arm up to her ear.

“I didn’t give him up,” she replied. “I accidentally stole him from someone else and I just set him free.”

“Call it what you will,” scoffed the maggot, “I still think you’re just making yourself blind to the truth,” he said as he popped out of her eye socket and forced her eyeball out of it.

“Hey!” she barked, “How often are you going to do that, you nasty little worm!” 

“Until you come to your senses,” he replied, “You’re just going to let what that horrible rabbit said about you be true? That you’ll always be a bridesmaid?”

Skye huffed sadly, “That doesn’t matter now Maggot. I’ll always be a carcass bride on the outside, and maybe I’ll never be the bride I was meant to be in any other regard. But I’ve made my peace with that, so quit bugging me with your cynical opinion.” She looked around her, “Great, where’d my eye go?” she walked a little further down the street she was on and spotted an eyeball on the ground. “Oh, there it is.” 

She picked it up and put it back on, though there was something off about it. “What the?” she said as she could swear that she was seeing two different things -- one of which was a profile view of herself. She looked to her side and saw a blue striped hare in a tuxedo looking at her with one pale blue eye and a sapphire one. Skye removed the eye she picked up just as he removed the sapphire eye from his own socket. They blinked with their one remaining eye and looked down at the extra eye in their paws. She held a pale blue one which matched his remaining one, just as he held a sapphire one which matched her remaining eye. 

“Oh, sorry,” they both said simultaneously with an embarrassed chuckle. 

“Here, allow me to,” The hare exhaled on Skye’s eyeball and gently cleaned it against the lapel of his tuxedo. “My apologies. I didn’t mean to take your eye by mistake,” he said politely.

“That’s okay,” she said as she too took a moment to clean his eye with the skirt of her dress. “I’m sorry I took yours. You have a nice eye color,” she said.

“Thank you,” he replied with a smile as he took his eye back and handed her hers. “You have a very lovely eye. Er, eyes. They’re as bright as real sapphires.”

“Thank you,” she said with what may have been a blush at her cheeks had she still been alive. She placed her eye back at her socket. With it back in its rightful place, she was able to see that he was quite handsome. Not to mention, he was also very well dressed. “That’s a very nice suit you’re wearing. I like that flower at your pocket,” she complimented.

He placed his eye back and looked down at his suit, “Oh, thank you. It was my wedding suit.”

“You’re wedding suit?” she asked with a curious brow, “You mean you died on your wedding day?”

“Yes. I’m afraid I did,” he replied with a hint of sadness.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” said the vixen, sympathetically. 

“Don’t be. In certain ways, it may have been for the better.”

“Why’s that?” she asked curiously.

“Well, at least this way I’m no longer married to my now ex wife. She’s the one who murdered me you see.”

“Your wife?” the vixen asked in shock. “That’s awful!”

“Yes,” his tall striped ears fell back, “And what hurt the most was that I actually thought I loved her and...I thought she really loved me as well. She looked so innocent and sweet with those large glasses and her beautiful wool.” He sighed in disappointment, “Not long after our reception however, she asked me where I kept my stocks and bonds and after I answered her, she poisoned my glass of wine.”

“So you became a carcass groom?” she asked the obvious.

“Yes,” he said patting down his tuxedo. He then looked up at her, “And you? I see you’re a carcass bride.”

“Yeah. I guess I picked the wrong mate too and basically went through everything you did.”

“That’s truly horrible to hear. You seem like a sweet girl and you’re very beautiful. I can’t see why anyone would want to harm you,” he said with a polite smile.

Skye giggled shyly, “Well, I guess I could ask you the same thing. Why would someone want to harm such a polite and handsome gentlemammal such as yourself?”

The hare shrugged bashfully, “I suppose we’re two parts of the same romantically deceived coin.”

“I guess we are,” she agreed. “What’s your name by the way? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you around here before.”

“Oh, that’s because I died in a town called Bunnyburrow, just outside of Zootopia. But I couldn’t stand wandering around there any longer, knowing that that sheep was living off my wealth and lying to my family about my death. So I opted to leave instead.”

“That’s terrible,” she sympathized, “But don’t worry, she’ll be caught soon. Life, or I should say death always catches up with scum like the in the worst ways.” She smirked proudly with a cross of her arms, “I should know, the rabbit who murdered me died recently and, let’s just say that even in death he can’t rest in peace.” She winked.

“Really?” he asked amazed, while Skye nodded proudly. “Well then, perhaps justice will eventually find its way in my case. Last I heard, my family was starting to grow suspicious of her, so perhaps there is a chance my death will no longer remain a mystery to them.”

“It won’t,” she gave him a confident smirk.

The hare smiled in turn and offered her his paw in greeting, “Oh! Where are my manners? My name is Jack Savage, and you are...?”

“Skye,” she replied, offering her paw to him. 

“It’s an honor to meet you,” he gently took her paw and placed a soft kiss on it. He then looked up to her eyes with a smile. “I look forward to getting to know you better during my stay here, Miss Skye.”

“Likewise, Jack,” she returned his warm smile.

They continued to hold paws, neither of them ready to let go of the other anytime soon. 

Caught in one another’s gaze, neither noticed their respective maggots pop out of their respective ears. Maggot peeked out from Skye’s ear and locked eyes with a pink female maggot sticking out from Jack’s ear. The two stared at one another for a moment, until the female maggot batted her eyes at Maggot who shook his eyebrows at her with a flirty growl. And she in turn gave him a sultry growl.

As it were, it appeared that both Maggot and Lord Woundwort were wrong about Skye, for she was one carcass bride who had long last found her carcass groom. And this time, it would be a union that not even death would ever be able to part.

                                                         The End

…

A/N: Went with a different ending. She deserved a happy ending too, darn it! Lol! xD

Apologies once again for not having the full thing ready by Halloween, but I hope you enjoyed this abridged fic of Corpse Bride. Maybe for Christmas I’ll have something else done on time. Until then, hope you guys had a great Halloween, Dia de Los Muertos, and just have an overall good day! :D

[the-jackals]

Inktober Day 31: Ripe

I fucking nailed it

[kuglschreiba]

Happy belated Halloween. I redrew a thing I did in 2019

Tik tok of the process

[michan1907]

HAPPY BELATED HALLOWEEN GUS lol v^w^v

This was actually an updated take of this 2019 version xD

[irisbleufic]

Happy 2020! Can I tag you to do that 2019 Fic Year in Review thing?

Happy New Year to you, too!  Sure thing.  I can’t remember the last time I did one of these; since 2019 is the end of a decade, it feels fitting.  Here goes…

14 February 2019: After spending 14 of my 15 years (2020 marks the start of my 16th year) in Good Omens fandom working on it, I finally finished and posted the 75th and final installment of Crown of Thorns [The Walls, the Wainscot, and the Mouse] ’Verse.  LiveJournal was still the fandom’s primary posting hub when I posted the first-ever installment, A Better Place, on 1 October 2005.  The series didn’t get its second installment (The Walls, the Wainscot, and the Mouse) until 2010, but work on the series from that point forward was pretty much constant.  2012 saw a higher number of CoT updates than any year previous; that was also the year I transferred it to AO3.

25 February 2019: I finished and posted the last chapter of my third Good Omens collaborative fic ’verse with @procrastinatingbookworm, Turn In Your Arms.  We couldn’t believe there was no Good Omens fusion with Tam Lin, so we went for it.  Given our first collaboration in 2018 was a Good Omens fusion with Groundhog Day (Game Over, Insert Coin), that wasn’t a stretch.

27 February 2019: @aspiringjedi and I posted the first of our two Good Omens meta-essays, Making An Effort: Queer (Trans) Masculinity in the Ethereal & Occult Beings of Good Omens.  Yes, it’s 1,990 words due to the novel’s publication year.  When you’re just under 2,000 words anyway, why not?

28 February 2019: @procrastinatingbookworm and I followed up Turn In Your Arms with a brief sequel, Burn After Reading.  All of our collaborations to date have ended up as multi-story mini ’verses.

25 March - 20 April 2019: I went about as livid over Gotham’s Season 5 as I did over Season 3 and wrote Darkroom to address how dirty the show did Bruce and Jeremiah.  I had a stand-alone Season 4 fix-it story (focusing on Oswald and Edward, like most of my other Gotham work) called Triage from 2018 that had never quite felt like it was meant to be a stand-alone.  Triage and Darkroom became the first two installments of a series called Playing for Keeps, to which I added another 6 stories by April 20th.  Darkroom somehow got more traffic than any of my other Gotham pieces since When You Find It, Run over in DDO ’Verse (although those two stories are keystone pieces in much larger series, they can both be read as stand-alones).

4 April 2019: In the midst of working on the aforementioned, @aspiringjedi posted our second Good Omens meta-essay, Southern Pansies: Subversive (Trans) Masculinity in the Ethereal & Occult Beings of Good Omens.

8 May 2019: Brief blip back into Pacific Rim fic!  I posted a missing Anthology correspondence/inset ficlet called L’amour, c’est comme la guerre.  For anyone who ever wanted more of the email correspondence in Anthology’s final chapter, this fills in some gaps you didn’t know were there.

16 May 2019: Thanks to some behind-the-scenes persuasion from several really tenacious Gotham readers who didn’t want me to abandon it / shut down DDO ’Verse, I completed The Knights’ Tour after almost a year on hiatus from it.  This turned out to light a fresh fuse on DDO, because TTK didn’t end up being the final story in the series like I had once planned.

18 May 2019: The only His Dark Materials fic I’ve ever written, also a Gotham fusion, got a belated new final chapter.  Gold Dust is sort of an alternate take on DDO ’Verse, one in which Dust and daemons are present.

23 May 2019: I posted what I thought would be a stand-alone Gotham story called The Meaning of This City.  It manages to be a marginally less dark and complicated take on the Bruce-and-Jeremiah situation (than Darkroom over in PfK ’Verse, that is) without sacrificing some of the most difficult features of what they need to overcome.  More on why this didn’t remain a stand-alone in a bit.

6 June 2019: Good Omens requests came around, one of which led me to follow the Imagine Hastur Ficlets (which themselves exist thanks to the accidental prompts at @imaginehastur) interlude in CoT with The Imagine Hastur Epilogue.  This was a sort of neat in-narrative way to deal with having gradually come out about my biological (inter)sex and (nonbinary) gender identity over the 14 years I worked on CoT. 

15 June - 1 July 2019: I posted another Good Omens collaboration-set with @procrastinatingbookworm called Have Faith at the series-title level.  The two stories in it, You Bloody Snake and Enough of a Bastard, focus almost entirely on Hastur and Ligur.  Seeing Aziraphale and Crowley through different (and less favorable) eyes was a weird pleasure; seeing people indignantly realize they were enjoying fic about Hastur and Ligur was even more of one!

15 August 2019: @verumx persuaded me to watch Jamie Marks Is Dead with her and @one-eyed-bossman, and then implored me to fix it.  Using Our Words is the stand-alone that resulted, which is no shock given I can’t resist ghost stories.  It’s unique among this year’s stories in that it may be the only genuine stand-alone aside from the Gotham piece called Gold Dust.

17 August 2019: After an experimental in-character snail mail letter-writing exchange that lasted about 6 weeks, @verumx and I transcribed the letters and framed them in a piece of collaborative Gotham fic, We Were All Forgiven.  Since about late April, I had been getting progressively sicker and sicker (didn’t know yet that I had cancer).  Keeping busy as things got worse helped at least in the psychological sense, but by mid-August my exhaustion and difficulty eating were hitting their peak.  I was hiding it from everyone except my partner.

1 September 2019: Returning to two stories I’d written for Batman: Europa, I created a series umbrella called Once Is Not Enough and explicitly placed London (Letting Go) and Five Love Affairs under it as companion pieces.  Between Thursday Friday of this particular week, I experienced an increasingly more frightening set of symptoms that landed me in the ER and got a sequence of diagnostic tests finally rolling.

22 October 2019: After receiving a diagnosis of colon cancer on 10/1/19 and starting medical leave Monday of Halloween Week, I decided to complete the sequel to The Meaning of This City, which was a Gotham piece I’d left hanging mid-progress for weeks.  The Maze of Your Ingenuity was hard for me to complete due to constant blood tests, CT scans, and outpatient procedures in the lead-up to my Thanksgiving Week major inpatient surgery, but I did it.

23 September - 11 December 2019: My longest Gotham fic ’verse (Delicate, Dangerous, Obsessed, a.k.a. DDO), having refused to die even once The Knights’ Tour was complete, got an entirely new ending stretch of stories focusing on, of all people, Jerome Valeska and Five (514A).  They were the only two characters from canon who I had mentioned and/or shown briefly in passing earlier in DDO, but whose arcs from canon (and onward into my fic) I had done nothing to wrap up.  Challengers, Thicker Than Blood, Take This Waltz (It’s Yours Now), Finally Fair (In Love and War), and What We’re For (And What We Want) may, collectively, be the best writing I did during the entirety of 2019 (unless you count what I wrote in February to finish CoT).  The experience of terrifying, unexplained illness and harrowing treatment was entirely too timely to one of my two protagonists in this set of stories.  They were worth their weight not just in distraction, but also in catharsis.  Five survived, and so did I.

[vanderbander]

The final illustration of Inktober 2019 - Ripe. This guy took several hours, and certainly deserves a post of its own. Happy belated Halloween!!

[gingerpilotevents]

THEMES/SCHEDULE below for GingerPilot Ho(e)liday Event  2019 - 2020

What: Anything Poe/Hux-centric

When: December 25, 2019 - January 5, 2020

Tag #gingerpilotholiday2019 and Mention @gingerpilotevents​ to have your work reblogged! (I will tag #trosspoilers if applicable)

Themes:

Themes are optional and late entries past the designated day for the theme (and past the official time of the event) are allowed. But if you’d like a theme schedule, here it is. There’s some overlap with last year’s event but some new stuff too:

December 25: Holiday Wishlist

December 26: Holiday/Winter Traditions

December 27: Holiday Guests

December 28: “Your tauntaun will free before you reach the first marker!” (AKA Cold Weather)

December 29: Snow and Fluff

December 30: Winter Angst

December 31: 2-Months Belated Halloween - Anything Dark/Spooky/Creepy

January 1: Happy New Year!

January 2: In-Universe AUs

January 3: Out-of-Universe AUs

January 4 - 5: Free Days - Anything GingerPilot

Reblog to spread the word and spread love for GingerPilot!

Overlap with themes/late submissions are fine. Submit as many or as few entries as you’d like. (See the blog guidelines for more info on what will be reblogged to the main blog if you need it.)

Gif Source

[ajw720]

this is funny, C posted a photo of beard, D posted photos with the beard. Almost like they were sitting next to each other and saying “ok ok I will say this”

The only difference, C controls his SM and the bearding, D does not, but they knew the Halloween post was coming when C posted his belated b-day wishes (not that he acknowledged they were late).  

It really is, if you can remove the very human, tragic element, like a script for a really bad D Movie.  C posts “Happy Birthday, Babe!” a day after the man’s actual b-day and “D” praises his fake bride for MAKING TEN costumes.  Sure praise her if she actually designed them and sat with her sewing machine.  No, she went online and ordered things (I doubt she even went to a store).   And 3 couple costumes were cheap frankly.  The only thought was how narcissistic she could be in their execution (as @flowersintheattic254 pointed out even the Mario costume had  a reason, it was a reminder of Japan and the fake encagement by referring to the ad that paid for their trip there).

And seriously how are people not questioning that she spent the entirety of her month picking TEN costumes?  Who has time for this?  I know, i know, a person whose only role in life is to play fake plus one.

I am just so tired by D in particular being utterly dragged down by the useless dead weight by his side and his team’s sole ambition to promote her and make her sound like a decent person.  

If they wanted to praise her, maybe they should have forced her to participate in the zero waste initiative instead of sitting drinking by the pool or have her volunteer to help young girls who have been kicked out of their homes, or have been raped.  Or pick any cause and truly volunteer her time to promote it.  If she is not going to actually get a job and pursue a career, please force her to do something that is actually of value and contribute something good to the world. But to praise her for picking TEN costumes?  

Praise that comes from a man who this year alone won three awards, is starring in a show he created and wrote the music for, has his first big movie premiere this week, is exec producer and star of a huge show on N/etflix, just announced his starring role with 2 A++ lists actors next spring on Broadway, celebrated the 5th anniversary of the festival he created, volunteered his time for the zero waste initiative, performed at several charity events, and was just yesterday name limited series actor of the decade.  Where is the praise for him from his “bride”?  He at least deserves it.

How do they not see how ridiculous it is for someone with D’s accomplishments in 2019 alone praise a person for purchasing TEN costumes for Halloween?  And stans, how do you accept that this is right or normal.  You really know nothing about him and have such little respect for him as a person if you continue to accept the character his idiotic team has created on his behalf.  It is so far from the person he is and that he generally holds himself out to be when given the opportunity.  

This isn’t about being a “gay fetishist” or “hating woman” this is about wanting for D to be fairly and accurately represented and no longer forced to participate in this stupid, life sucking game to promote a person that contributes absolutely nothing to the world.  If you want to have a strong female role model, there are so many, i’ve talked about a few in the past few days (thus far Nancy, Lea, and Phoebe) and will continue to do so, but please stop worshiping a person whose sole reason you are speaking about her is her connection to D, even if you refuse to accept it is fake.  

[locominima]

Happy (belated) Halloween 2019!

[migleefulmoments]

"Hahaha. A friend pointed this out. W online shops too!" What does this even mean?! I don't know anyone in 2020 who doesn't online shop besides my 80 year old grandparents because they refuse to learn how to use a computer 😂 I don't get how Will, a 30 something year old man, online shopping is worthy enough for Abby to comment on it. I'm sure Chris does it too. And Darren.

On Nov 5, Darren wrote this post and the cc fandom lost their shit.    

They decided that organizing 10 costumes for multiple events in two different states for two different people was not worthy of acknowledgment- especially since they wore several purchased costumes. They spent the next 30-ish days mocking her “online shopping skills” like the petty idiots they are and now they bring it up two months later. 

Anonymous asked: this is funny, C posted a photo of beard, D posted photos with the beard. Almost like they were sitting next to each other and saying “ok ok I will say this”

ajw720 answered: The only difference, C controls his SM and the bearding, D does not, but they knew the Halloween post was coming when C posted his belated b-day wishes (not that he acknowledged they were late).  

It really is, if you can remove the very human, tragic element, like a script for a really bad D Movie.  C posts “Happy Birthday, Babe!” a day after the man’s actual b-day and “D” praises his fake bride for MAKING TEN costumes.  Sure praise her if she actually designed them and sat with her sewing machine.  No, she went online and ordered things (I doubt she even went to a store).   And 3 couple costumes were cheap frankly.  The only thought was how narcissistic she could be in their execution (as @flowersintheattic254pointed out even the Mario costume had  a reason, it was a reminder of Japan and the fake encagement by referring to the ad that paid for their trip there).

And seriously how are people not questioning that she spent the entirety of her month picking TEN costumes?  Who has time for this?  I know, i know, a person whose only role in life is to play fake plus one.

I am just so tired by D in particular being utterly dragged down by the useless dead weight by his side and his team’s sole ambition to promote her and make her sound like a decent person.  

If they wanted to praise her, maybe they should have forced her to participate in the zero waste initiative instead of sitting drinking by the pool or have her volunteer to help young girls who have been kicked out of their homes, or have been raped.  Or pick any cause and truly volunteer her time to promote it.  If she is not going to actually get a job and pursue a career, please force her to do something that is actually of value and contribute something good to the world. But to praise her for picking TEN costumes?  

Praise that comes from a man who this year alone won three awards, is starring in a show he created and wrote the music for, has his first big movie premiere this week, is exec producer and star of a huge show on N/etflix, just announced his starring role with 2 A++ lists actors next spring on Broadway, celebrated the 5th anniversary of the festival he created, volunteered his time for the zero waste initiative, performed at several charity events, and was just yesterday name limited series actor of the decade.  Where is the praise for him from his “bride”?  He at least deserves it.

How do they not see how ridiculous it is for someone with D’s accomplishments in 2019 alone praise a person for purchasing TEN costumes for Halloween?  And stans, how do you accept that this is right or normal.  You really know nothing about him and have such little respect for him as a person if you continue to accept the character his idiotic team has created on his behalf.  It is so far from the person he is and that he generally holds himself out to be when given the opportunity.  

This isn’t about being a “gay fetishist” or “hating woman” this is about wanting for D to be fairly and accurately represented and no longer forced to participate in this stupid, life sucking game to promote a person that contributes absolutely nothing to the world.  If you want to have a strong female role model, there are so many, i’ve talked about a few in the past few days (thus far Nancy, Lea, and Phoebe) and will continue to do so, but please stop worshiping a person whose sole reason you are speaking about her is her connection to D, even if you refuse to accept it is fake.  

klainecentric Finished reading the funniest ig story of the day, the qween being praised for sitting in front of either a sewing machine or computer...bravo your majesty qween....your my hero well done.👏👏. And all I can think of is how irrelevant the statement D made about being an emotional horder, being a very private person and finally D saying he's lazy when it comes to social media, I'm internally screaming in frustration because yeah we know D wouldn't have written a post praising that lazy good for nothing waste of space but he's coming across as a lier and it's extremely damaging to his character as a person. I absolutely hate lying and every time another "private" moment is posted to the world is another small piece that's chipped away from what D has originally stated about privacy. PBB, nobody cares about your cheap arse highly flammable costumes you buy online, did you forget about your piano baby adult strip club. I'm sure there are still plenty of people out there you can hire to rub and flaunt their flanges all over the beer taps, why don't you keep busy on that instead. If you want to make costumes, I'm sure you can sew some mighty fine titty tassels together. It'll be cheap nasty, sound familiar.

souly So, let me get this straight. We should all praise a person for going online, looking up different costumes in online stores, putting those in their shopping basket and hitting “buy”? Because I do that at least once a week with other stuff. Do I get praised for that now? Pretty please? I’m doing good work there and buy a lot of stuff, therefore I must be the best person ever!

notes-from-nowhere You’re my Queen. Please, love me.

souly

(I think I got it right. I’m getting the hang of what said person is doing. Wheee! ;))

notes-from-nowhere You nailed it 🤣

ajw720 Yesterday I got a delivery of car food. And instead of his usual seafood mix up greats, I got him shrimp flavor. I’m awesome!!!!!

souly Oh, hey! I think we should all take pictures of whatever we bought online during the week or month and make individual posts on all of our social media accounts about it. Because, you know…

cassie1022 I picked up stuff I ordered online at Target and PetSmart. Does that count? Should I receive accolades because my cat will have fresh litter to do her business on?

souly Only if you post the pictures to prove it! ;)

ajw720 As soon as I get home. Pictures forthcoming. Shrimp cat treats and I also got a burgundy blanket for my new comforter!!! Life goals!!!!!!!!!!!

souly Okay, so, let’s see… What did I buy online during the past month that can be shared as pictures? Some things are gifts, so I obviously can’t post anything about those yet. But I think these here are safe.

Let’s start with one of my fav new shirts. (Excuse the grainy quality. I had to quickly edit it for privacy reasons. :p And yes, that’s a butterfly mirror.)

The rest are behind the cut to save your dash from drowning in too many pictures. ;)

cheekyface72 You’re my queen from now on…

ajw720 I think emmy/sag/gg/CC winner DC should write a post @soulypraising your awesome, amazing, unparalleled online shopping skills!  You earned that praise.  That cat toy is particularly spectacular.

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

Just A Taste of M’s Amazing Online Shopping Skills that are worthy of such Praise

ajw720

Super Mario with inflatable Dragon $54.66 (x)

Princess Peach $78.99 (x)

chrisdarebashfulsmiles. i can’t

flowersintheattic254. When you add the fact that the wedding was sponsored so heavily, and her history of outfits I think it shows Mi@rren is something that’s always been done very much ‘on the cheap’.

From work vacays (honeymoon included), RC ‘glue gun’ looks, thrift shoes and subsidized weddings.

It’s BUDGET BEARDING!!!

leka-1998. It’s not worth more than this, that’s for sure.

notes-from-nowhere  We are so ungrateful. She worked hard to find the gloves.

I bet she had to click on another link to find them. She deserves another accolade.

ajw720 @flowersintheattic254 Budget Bearding!  I LOVE It! (and something tells me D’s SW costume in particular was far cheaper than either of these).

souly That Snow White dress can be found for about $25 in a ton of online shops. I stumbled upon it even before Halloween way too many times. 😂

@notes-from-nowhere The plush question mark block can be found in a couple online stores like this one. She simply glued it onto some gloves - or asked L to do it with that glue gun of hers.

flowersintheattic254 Well funnily enough I think we may have confirmation that 🚽🚽 glued on the puppies so I guess YES to the question mark block too!!!

cassie1022 They can’t even glue things properly. Why am I not surprised?

leka-1998

SW

So, so amazing. Bow to the kween and her not so helpful helper.

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

There are lots more...I figured enough of your brain cells died reading the ones I posted.  On Nov 30 she is STiLL bringing it up”

Anonymous asked:

Whenever I see miarren gifset they always use the same quote underneath (the rolling the windows down quote) and at first I rolled my eyes and thought uh not that quote again, and I can't believe it took me this long to realise it's because there is literally no other quote that can be construed as loving. You can hardly put down "she's a big girl" whenever you make a set of gifs with M beaming and D looking like someone murdered the dog he's allergic to.

ajw720: And I love the Emmy quote as it was an absolute reference to his character who was a psychopath. Pretty telling if you ask me. But that reference is over their heads.

And pretty much the only one. Guess saying he’s a ball and chain kind of guy isn’t romantic. They can’t even take pooping exes as he clearly steered the conversation away from her. Lovely lady of many moons? Nah she sounds like a stranger. Saying nothing changes after marriage? Sounds boring. It’s a struggle. But hey she’s an excellent online shopper that he done got hitched to!!!

[impossible-ancient]

~HAPPY BELATED HALLOWEEN Y’ALL!

It’s 11/5/2019 and I’m still in the Halloween mood.  I really like this Featured Series scary mode.  Just fix a few bugs with the combat, and it would be perfect.  Sadly, it will be gone around the 14th. :-/  

[purplesurveys]

626

HI BELATED HAPPY NEW YEAR

First things first, did you have a good year? I would say most of it was good. I did most of the stuff I said I was going to do so I’m giving myself pats on the back for that. Things just kinda took a turn for the worse by the end of the year what with an ambiguous end to my most recent semester (I don’t have two of my seven final grades yet because my prof likes seeing her students suffer, I guess) and losing Nacho, so it all balances out.

How old did you turn this year? I turned 21. Which means legality in the US, but I’ve been legal in the Philippines for three years now so it doesn’t warrant much of a celebration lol.

Do you feel your age? I guess. There are days where it’s very tempting to feel inadequate because there are many 21-year-olds in my social circle who have their own business, are grabbing opportunities here and there (they’re in a successful band, are junior radio jocks, hired as emcees, serve as UAAP courtside reporters, to name a few), already make their own money, etc., but I just have to remind myself that everybody is moving at their own pace and that in my case, at least I’m not behind and that I’m moving remarkably fairly for my age.

Did your appearance change in anyway? Nah I BARELY did anything to my look this year. I did not go for a haircut at all in 2019 and now my hair is crazy long. I’m keeping it untrimmed until my grad shoot, so the long hair will stay with me for a while.

Post your favorite selfie. I would but Tumblr doesn’t really work the same way as Twitter where I’d feel more free to share photos of myself haha.

If you traveled, where did you go? My family went to Pangasinan, Bicol, Tagaytay, and Cavite this year. I also took my friends on a day trip to Nasugbu shortly before school started in August as sort of a last hurrah for our summer vacation.

Which fashion trends did you love? Which fashion trends did you hate? I initially liked chunky sneakers until everyone bought their own pair solely so that they’d feel like they’re one of the cool kids – it quickly became uncool after that. I was a fan of mom jeans (still am), high-waisted jeans, culottes, and tops in muted colors and had cute little bows in the chest area. I hated bike shorts and scrunchies, and slowly got tired of off-shoulder tops by the end of the year. I never understood tracksuits and never bought one of my own, and was also never a fan of hype fashion like DBTK shirts.

What was your favorite article of clothing this year? Post a pic if possible? I looooooooved the floral romper and the two-piece ensemble I was both able to snag at Feliz.

What song sums up this year for you? Buwan by juan karlos, the two reasons being that the song exploded in 2019 and because it was Nacho’s favorite and he made a million jokes about it.

What album came out and has been on heavy rotation since then? This question is a little vague so I’ll answer it in two ways. In my case, I definitely played Beyonce’s Homecoming album TOO MUCH last year. But radio-wise, it looked like Ariana Grande and Camila Cabello had stellar years.

What was your favorite movie of the year? I had several favorite movies, but here they are put in order: Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Midsommar, and Toy Story 4.

Did an actor/actress catch your attention for the first time this year? Florence fucking Pugh. Also I just realized how attractive Timothee Chalamet is, although I’ve been aware of him way before 2019 and haven’t watched any of his material.

Favorite new TV show? I watched the first few episodes of Stranger Things but I found it too slow-paced so I let it go easily. Other than that I didn’t really get into any 2019 shows because I’m not a big TV person, but I did recently get into Descendants of the Sun so that’s new for me! Queer Eye will also always have a place in my heart.

Which new ship/fandom has taken over a lot of your time, attention, and tears? I’m a little too old for that now but I did heavily get into the Try Guys. I don’t ship any of them together but I just genuinely love each of them, them as a group, and all the content they put out.

What food did you try for the first time? Ooh there’s a lot. Foie gras, aligue (crab fat) ramen, Bloody Mary, pistachios, a vanilla frappe from Starbucks, Tim Hortons food, ji pai (Taiwanese fried chicken) and pad thai, to name a few. I’m so so so pumped to try out even more new food in 2020.

Did you make any big permanent changes this year? I stopped talking to my brother.

What was one nice thing you did for someone else? Being one of the only two people in my org who can drive, I’ve always offered lifts to my friends. I don’t say anything even if where I’m taking them is entirely off my normal route, which frustrates Gabie, but honestly I just like helping my friends and making their commute easier for them. I also checked up on Nacho a day before he passed. I regret being too civil, but at least I checked up on him. Not a lot of people did that in his last few days.

What was one nice thing you did for yourself? Ok so one thing my org does is hold journalism workshops to schools across the country. The org is a bit small and not all the members are reliable, so what usually happens is that the same group of people attend the workshops and teach and facilitate – me being a part of that same group of people. Given that we have class during weekdays and these workshops happen on weekends, the schedule can be very demanding, especially if these schools request a shit-ton of topics for us to teach them. I sort of looked out for myself more this year by declining to go to a couple of the workshops, so that I can experience actually having a full weekend to myself.

Did you develop a new obsession? I discovered a YouTuber who is insanely good at Mario Kart 8 and I watched a ton of his playthroughs in 2019. Oh, and MUKBANG ASMRs. It’s an insanely unpopular opinion but I love chewing noises, dude.

Did you vote? It was the senatorial elections this year and yes, I did vote. None of my votes got in, of course, because unfortunately the rest of the Filipino electorate don’t know any better. I was part of a real-time fact-checking group that day for extra class credit, and I will never forget the collective groan and moan that came out of that room when the first batch of results came out on the news and we saw the same corrupt, power-hungry, money-hungry, anti-poor politicians top the polls.

Did you move? No. I’ve lived in the same house since 2008.

Did you get a job? I did not, BUT I did get an internship which I was pretty stoked about.

Did you get a pet? I did not. I don’t want anyone else but my dog, who I’ve had also since 2008.

Do you regret not doing anything? Sure. I have never taken Gab’s mom out on a girls’ night kind of date, and I always told myself that I was going to finally do that in 2019 – which I didn’t. I’m so going to make sure we do it this year. I’m also sad that I didn’t get to see Angela more times last year. And that I didn’t do more for Nacho, so now I have to live with the loss of him forever.

Do you regret doing something? Nothing is coming to mind so I guess nothing major. <-- Pretty much, thankfully.

Have you done anything that scared you? Tried vaping, did shisha for the first time, walk alone in Katipunan, be stuck at a restaurant table with Gab’s (very stoic) dad while she went to the washroom, to name a few lol. On a deeper note, I was a bad girlfriend several times over 2019 and it rocked the relationship quite a bit.

Did anyone/thing make you so mad it stayed with you for days? Yeah absolutely. I hated the people who went too far when it came to Nach, especially his ‘friends’ who didn’t hesitate to turn his back on him. And when things finally crashed and burned, I was too fucking pissed at everybody to even say something about it.

Did you lose anyone close to you? Yes.

Did you fall in love? For most of 2019 as with 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018, yes.

Did you fall out of love? Nope.

Did you start a new relationship? I did not.

Did you go through a break up? I almost had to, but we sat each other down several times in the year to fix what had to be fixed, and it’s been very smooth sailing since.

Did you have to cut ties to someone? They weren’t people I was close to in any extent, but I’ve blocked several people from a certain elite school because I hate that school.

Who was important to you this year but wasn’t important last year? No one strongly comes to mind since I basically just retained my circle, but I did meet Gab’s closest cousin this year for the first time, and anyone who’s family to her is automatically important to me, so I’d go with him.

Who wasn’t as important to you this year as they were last year? This is going to sound completely awful, but I guess my college blockmates. I was always sort of the ~black sheep in our small batch of 7 while all of them are incredibly close with one another. 2019 was the year that I stopped trying to hang out with them, because I realized that no matter how hard I try, we’re really just on different wavelengths and I can’t keep faking my expressions and mannerisms just so I feel accepted or so that I can survive a day with them.

If you could have a do over on one thing you did, would you take it? Yeah, I definitely wish I cut some of my classes much less.

What was the best moment of the year for you? What was the worst? There were a lot of high moments from 2019 if we’re being honest. I liked taking Gab and her dad out for a ONE Championship pay-per-view back in January, I liked being invited to her dad’s birthday dinner, my road trip to Nasugbu, every day that my dad was here, going to the beach, partying for Halloween with friends, seeing old friends again in our org Christmas party, that one night Gab and I went to BGC just to bar-hop, our fancypants date that was also in BGC, and I’m sure there’s a bunch more that I’ve forgotten to mention. The absolute worst moment came at the very minute I pieced it together and found out *surprise surprise* Nacho was gone forever. I don’t think I was able to speak for two hours. When I did, I ended up crying the rest of the night until I passed out.

Did anything happen that you were sure would change you as a person but it really didn’t? Not-so-serious answer, but I thought I was gonna live my entire life without needing injections to my mouth, but lo and behold I went to the dentist in December and got THREE. I thought I was going to pass out, I thought it was going to hurt, I thought I was going to thrash around my seat in terror... I ended up not even feeling anything. I dunno if it’s because I got a lower dose of whatever, or if my dentist is just better than others, but the whole experience went much better than I expected. This may sound shallow but I have the biggest needle-and-any-sharp-object phobia, so this is a lot coming from me hahaha.

Did anything happen to you that you were sure wouldn’t change you as a person but it did? Watching Portrait of a Lady on Fire. Gab just needed a companion to the cinema that night; I had no idea what the movie was going to be about and even read the entire plot while trailers were showing – in the end, it’s been me who’s been talking about the movie way way more than she.

What are you most proud of accomplishing? Not killing myself. The 2010s was just me internally betting on when I’d finally pull the plug, but I had what it took to get me to 2020, apparently.

What have you learned about yourself this year that you didn’t know in the years prior? That everything you do and say on the internet is permanent, and you’ll forever have to live with the the consequences that come from them.

Did your opinion of anyone change for the better? Andrew. Before 2019, I found him so horrifyingly clingy, so chatty, and he was always trying to be close to everyone (he still does). It drove the introvert side of my ambivert-ness absolutely NUTS. At one point I realized he wasn’t going to change, so I just gave him a chance and turns out, he’s a great friend and an even better co-worker hahaha.

Did your opinion of anyone change for worse? Everybody who claimed to be Nach’s friend but didn’t find it hard to say vile stuff about him.

If you make resolutions, did you complete them this year? I told myself I was going to make a one-photo-a-day private Instagram dump for 2019, but I stopped as early as January 27 LMAOOOOO. I’m doing it again this year and I’m much more determined to keep it going.

If you make resolutions, what will your resolutions be for the coming year? Keep my 2020 Instagram active, be able to travel... and be happier, basically.

If you could go on an adventure during the remaining days of the year, where would you go and what would you do?  Who would you go this? A little too late my dude. I’m typing this out in 2020.

What do you wish for others for the coming year? What do you wish for yourself? I just hope everybody on here feels a little bit more warmth and happiness, dude. We all deserve it.

[scifimagpie]

The Art of Destruction: Distressed Aesthetics

A belated happy new year, my dear followers!

So, I have a neat idea for a new series coming up. But after the holidays (which were pleasantly busy) and some interpersonal scuffling in January (which was not nearly as lovely, but came to an all-right enough resolution), my idea bank was absolutely flat broke.

A nice chat with friends has filled the bowl up, but while I work on those posts, here is something I stashed off to the side after a Facebook conversation last year.

I often reference fashion and clothing to help get in the right mindset for my writing projects. Whilst working on Poe's Outlaws (Book 4 of The Meaning Wars series; book 3, The Meaning Wars, is ready for beta-reading and edits now!) I indulged in my usual technique of sifting through Dolls Kill and Pinterest to look at various bits of outre, fun, futuristic fashion.  Of course, when working on Monsters and Fools and planning for After the Garden's sequels, I also like to look at post-apocalyptic and distressed clothing. I like distressed clothing anyway, but it tends to get a lot of flack. =

On an episode of a podcast called Minion Death Cult, the hosts discussed some common reactions of tradespeople and Boomers to distressed and some faux-muddy jeans. (Not unsurprisingly, there were a lot of tired jokes about just selling people old, worn-out jeans from "real" tradesmen.) But not a lot of people understand how distressed clothing works, or why it's somehow different from their dad's old, grimy jeans and tattered denim jacket, so I'm going to break it down. 

Note: all images in this article came from the Nordstrom website. Most or all are designed by PRPS.

  I'm gonna take the unusual stance here of defending distressed jeans, because I've been studying and making distressed knit clothing and other types of distressed clothing for a bit. Why? Because I like post-apocalyptic fashion, and I think wrecked things are often beautiful. 

You may be familiar with the term "wabi-sabi," which sometimes passes in and out of vogue for decorating trends. The term is comprised of two Japanese words - wabi, in a nutshell, refers to the beauty of simplicity; sabi, to the beauty of age and use. There's a bit more to it, but that's the quick explanation of these beautiful and imperfectly translatable terms. Wabi-sabi is usually used in reference to home decor, but it totally applies to clothing, too. 

Anyway, getting on with the point - the thing about dirty jeans is that they're gonna leave dirt on wherever you sit. Fake dirt still captures the same look, the rather beautiful way the brown stains and fades into the tightly woven blue threads, but it won't leave big ol' scuffmarks on your leather car seats.

As for the distressing, the interesting and beautiful way that denim falls apart tends to happen in less sexy areas - the knees, the thighs, the crotch. Distressing clothes on purpose lets you get the look without impairing the wearability and structural integrity of the clothes. Sometimes that doesn't work at all, like with the cheaper distressed jeans that are all holes and have a high spandex content, but that's still the idea.

As far as how this relates to designing and making clothing, with knitwear (such as the awesome punk sweaters we all may love, or at least have seen before), it's important to know how the particular fibres and yarns work structurally. There's a reason why clothing made to be or look distressed looks so awesome and a lot of actually busted up clothing or "home-made" distressed stuff looks crappy. Knowing where and how to cut fabric in pre-made knits, how to style the runs, or how to make patterns with the runs and holes, is all very calculated. As I've learned myself, if you try to distress a finely-knit sweater, it'll look like crap; distressing needs a chunkier, thicker yarn to be really noticeable. And wet-blocking a ravelled sweater (stretching while wet) is very important - otherwise, the threads maintain their curled appearance, and don't become those straight lines that create contrast with the curving knitted stitches. It's also really important to actually tie off runs in a distressed sweater, or the whole thing will, in fact, unravel. 

The advantage of knitting a sweater with a distressed look is that you can control this process. In effect, dropped stitches and yarn-overs create a sort of freeform lace look, and don't destroy the structural integrity of the sweater (which unravelling a pre-made sweater CAN do). 

So basically there IS a method to the madness in pre-distressed clothing, and knowing how to distress your clothing well and safely - whether it's for a stage production, Halloween, or fashion - takes more than sharp scissors and boredom!

Predictably, clothes like this inspire retorts like, "I could give you my old jeans covered in cow manure and farm dirt and motor oil for that price!" But that's the point - the "fake dirt" that so baffled the Washington Post and CNN, where reporters appeared unfamiliar with the concept of "p a i n t", will not rub off or dirty other surfaces. The pants don't contain the scent and sweat of another person's work, nor are they worn out and about to fall apart, as those pants probably are. (For example, the wear patterns and distressing and whiskering all appear on the thighs and calves of the jeans, rather than in the crotch, around the bottom cuffs, and etcetera.) 

It's not about pretending you work - it's about exploring the beauty of entropy and things that are lived-in. The way fabric dye fades, the soft whiskering of denim fabric, the delicate feathers of raw-edged cotton - all of these have their own beauty. Repairs can create a contrast from the original fabric or material as well, and it needn't be ugly. People familiar with "that weird gold thing," kintsuogi, may also know have seen it in cases where useful objects are repaired and the cracks are patched with gold leaf to highlight their beauty. 

Here's another example of finding beauty in marks and unexpected places. When I saw an advertisement for Canada Post that featured a very intriguing necklace, I tracked down the artist's work and had a look at her site.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BUkgqx4hXdu/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

View this post on Instagram

#fbf to my 30 seconds of fame 😛 I custom made this piece especially for the #canadapost commercial. It took every spare second I had for a month....... and it will be on-screen for a second at a time for three years 😪 💰#lianevazbespoke

A post shared by Toronto Goldsmith (@lianevazdesigns) on May 26, 2017 at 2:22pm PDT

However, to my surprise, most of her jewelry was either minimalist and geometric, or covered in dented and scratched textures, like this!

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bw10Dy7AWYp/

View this post on Instagram

HEX textured pendant in 18k gold on a vintage chain ✨

A post shared by Toronto Goldsmith (@lianevazdesigns) on Apr 29, 2019 at 6:17am PDT

Or, like this! 

There is real value in appreciating things as we wear them out. If we are to shift to a less consumption-driven culture, which is necessary in the fight against climate change, we're gonna have to get used to not having things that look new all the time. Supplies and availability of items may be restricted. Repairing clothing and items instead of just throwing them out has also become pretty popular amongst Generation Z, many of whom are embracing thrifting and minimal-waste lifestyles. 

But in addition to that, there's also a beauty in the broken or fraying, the imperfect, the less-than-new. Most of the time we spend with an item will be active. Jewelry gets scratches. Clothes rip. Colours fade. Paper tears. And all of those things expose new beauties and different aspects of the item, revealing its structure and design and suggesting or reminding us of experiences we've had.

After all, our possessions act as anchors for memories. There's a reason why in pre-industrial times, treasured items were passed down through generations or repaired over and over. Our things aren't just pretty diversions or useful parts of daily life - they're parts of our lives, woven or tangled with our memories.

***

Michelle Browne is a sci fi/fantasy writer and editor. She lives in Lethbridge, AB with her partner-in-crime and Max the cat. Her days revolve around freelance editing, knitting, jewelry, and learning too much. She is currently working on other people’s manuscripts, the next books in her series, and drinking as much tea as humanly possible.

Find her all over the internet: * OG Blog * Mailing list * Magpie Editing * Amazon * Medium * Twitter * Instagram * Facebook * Tumblr * Paypal.me * Ko-fi

[ut-versotale]

Happy (Belated) Halloween! (11/1/2019)

So... Halloween was a thing that happened yesterday, right? I’m not too sure, I’ve been in a coma (Which may or may not have actually just been school) for several months and haven’t been able to catch up on anything else relating to Versotale, and also apparently Halloween.

The point of me writing this out is that I’ve been unable to make Versotale progress recently because of the ever-joyous excuse of schoolwork. Rest assured, I’ve been doing a lot of background work on some areas farther into the comic like Captain Donavan and a certain something relating to him and some other Royal Guard members that I think will be a pleasant and fun surprise for all of you! I’m not talking anything plot-relevant (That’s been planned out for AGES now), it’s just something fun I’ve come up with.

On that same note, I have completed an outline for the True Lab area in VT as well. Let’s just say that the amalgamates may not be what you typically expect from them.

Well, that’s about enough of the teasing! I really really wish I could talk more about what I have planned; I have so many things that I want to do in the future of VT! Unfortunately, that’s all spoilers... big surprise there, huh?

Personal excitement aside, this weekend I plan on properly getting back into comic production so the new Part 3 comic is inching ever closer to completion! I will try to work on that more in my off time as homework is (finally) beginning to wind down for me. I look forward for you all to see the future of this AU! And have a happy (belated) Halloween, I suppose!

[gwydionae]

I am posting this to show 1.) how big of a nerd I am, 2.) what KIND of a nerd I am, and 3.) just how much I went through to end up in complete agony, lol.

I really like facts, concrete evidence that something is true. I also like a good puzzle, being given some information and travelling down the rabbit hole to try and piece said info together. You know what else I like? Fictional universes and their concept of time. The Dice, Camera, Action! fandom might know me as the insane lady who carefully tries to construct a proper timeline for a DnD show with no official timeline whatsoever, going simply off of in-game clues.

You know what show gave me a character’s birthday, another character telling said birthday character “happy birthday” seemingly quite a bit after his birthday, and then proceeded to dump an actual, real calendar on me? Mob Psycho 100, of course! So what did I decide I wanted to figure out? Just how long HAD Mob and Reigen been apart during the “separation arc”?

Now, I actually DO have a pretty good guess! See, based on Reigen’s character profile from the manga, along with the email his mom sent him on his birthday, we know that he turned 28 on October 10, 2012 (if he was born Year of the Rat and is using a cellphone in present day, he had to have been born in 1984, thus it being 2012 on his 28th birthday). According to the above included calendar, this would be a Wednesday. He had already been separated from Mob for a little while previous to that, though. The first day could have been a school day as Ritsu came home in uniform and said that Mob was “home early”, but it couldn’t have been a Monday as the day before that was definitely a school day. So that would likely make it either Tuesday the 9th or Friday the 5th. We then see Mob in class/club, out shopping with Ritsu, and out again in a different outfit (this being Reigen’s birthday). If his birthday is on a Wednesday, their first day apart couldn’t have been Tuesday as there are at least 2 days in between their fight and Wednesday, so likely they fought on Thursday the 4th, meaning that October 5, 2012 would be the first day of their separation.

So! Reigen went 6 days before getting his serious Mob withdrawal symptoms. Ok, how much time passed after that? Well, I figured it couldn’t be TOO much, as while Mob’s belated “happy birthday” is said in the past tense, it’d be weird if it came, like, months later, but there’s only so much actual evidence to go on. We do know that Reigen started going all out with work, and one job in particular - the video game player killer - had him staying up “many nights”. But that one job made him go viral, essentially, and he got interviewed for a magazine. “And a few days after that” he got asked to be on the TV special, which took place “one week” from when he was asked. We then see people reporting on him being a fake the next day, and the day after that Mob is at school and being told about it for the first time. This gave me my first clue, making me think the special must have been on a Saturday night, with Mob finding out on Monday. After this, we get the line “in three days, being the ultimate evil had become Reigen’s public image”, which would put us on a Tuesday as the day he gets cornered into holding a press conference the following day (Wednesday). And, of course, that’s the day he finally sees Mob again.

So for sure we have 4 days since the night of his social collapse, and before that 8 days between which he got asked to be on TV and then he appeared on TV the following week. So we’ve got a confirmed 12 days total so far, but obviously that’s not counting the “many nights” playing the video game plus any work time he put in before or after. The earliest possible date that he could have been contacted for the TV would be Saturday the 20th. This would give him about a week and a half to get big, and it would put the spooky exorcism special the Saturday before Halloween. But that’s not a lot of time to build up his name, and it would put his press conference on Halloween itself which seems a bit odd to me (though maybe Japan isn’t too big on Halloween specials). So I figured the best bet would be to say he got asked to be on TV Saturday the 27th, appeared Nov 3rd, and held his press conference on Wed the 7th, exactly 4 weeks since his birthday, and a total of 34 days since he’d last seen Mob.

BUT WAIT! Why did I say I was in agony over this if I’ve got a pretty decent idea of how much time passed? Oh, Studio Bones. I love you. I love you a lot. I do. I really, really do.

But.

BUT.

*sigh*

You just HAD to put a REAL calendar in the very next episode, didn’t you?

Ok, so admittedly at first I was pretty excited about this! After all, at first glance, it actually seemed to line up pretty well! It looked like it could be a calendar for Oct 2012! But then I noticed that according to that screenshot, the date is supposed to be the 1st. Well, ok, fine, maybe my first guess was correct and Reigen actually DID get popular in a week and a half and held in press conference on the 31st. But... no, that couldn’t be it either because this month has 31 days in it - that doesn’t even work for November at all! Could it possibly be December already? Did that much time actually pass?? In what year did December 1st fall on a Mon- WAIT! NO! THAT’S NOT A MONDAY! THAT’S A TUESDAY!! THIS CALENDAR STARTS WITH MONDAY!!! That means that even my theory of “they had the right calendar for Oct 2012, but just marked the wrong date on it” is debunked, too!! Wait wait wait!! Hold up! Just what month/year IS this supposed to be a calendar of, then??

It’s January 2019.

They just used the dates from January 2019.

......................

How dare you, Bones.

I trusted you. I trusted that you would actually pull through for me, that you had given me concrete evidence to support my hypothesis. That you put so much care into your animation that SURELY putting in the proper dates wouldn’t be hard.

I was a fool to be excited. I will never trust your dates or calendars again. You have lied to me with false facts, and now every time I see that calendar, it makes me upset because it is simply factually wrong, and I don’t like it.

...THIS is what kind of nerd I am. XD

Now if you’ll excuse me, my sister is about to watch the latest episode, and I am going to make myself happy again by enjoying her pain, because she, like me, is an anime only, lol.

[raikonkitsune]

Funds Received + Estimated Release Date +Sneak peek

🎃 🎃 🎃 Happy belated-Halloween everyone! 

Funds Received There was a bit of issue with transferring the funds to our bank account and it took us this last week to solve, but the funds have now finally arrived!

Estimated Release date and Project Timeline

The aim we have set is to release Reimei no Gakuen in Autumn 2019. The early access will be available 1 month earlier than the public.

 And our planned project timeline: 

 2018 Nov - Dec: Story Outlining (Finish Up), Script Writing, Sprite and BG Production

2019 Jan - Feb: Script Writing (Finish Up), Art Assets (Finish Up Sprites), Music tracks production

2019 March - Apr:  Art Assets (Finish Up BG), Music tracks production, Editing and Proofreading

2019 May - June:  Art Assets, Music tracks production, Editing and Proofreading, Programming

2019 July - August:  Art Assets (Final Polish), Programming, Testing

2019 Autumn:  Programming (Final Polish), Testing, Game Release, Rewards Finishing up and shipping

Sneak peek

Game development is now going on at full speed, right now the focus is on the story and art assets. Have a little sneak peek of the backgrounds in progress;