#Have to scroll down so far to find the wiki article now

[cupcakesmoothie]

Sometimes I wanna draw and then I realise I can't draw

Anyway. WIP! I feel like this'll be fun if I keep going but I have a tendency to lose all motivation if I leave it so I usually do things in one shot. However, I need to go to bed.

I feel like this is a lot of research that people will never see unless they themselves are Mexican but one of the reasons I make/draw things like this is so people feel seen. I looked over a couple things for this, quite fun! This is supposed to be a chiapaneca dress, but I am not used to this more "realistic" style so the dress actually needs to spread out more. It's so pretty though! Will either be very fun or very torturous to colour

This is Paloma! I haven't started on her wings and at this point I'm not sure how to add them in. She's Mexican and was a fashion designer. I'm using that as an excuse to continue putting eyeliner on Alexis, who she is friends (?) with. She's older than him.

I have seen somewhere that Spanish Spanish and Mexican Spanish are slightly different, the two should still be able to communicate. I don't know what you call a "big sister/miss" in Spanish, or if that's even something you do. I guess Senorita would be it? I'm trying to convey that Alexis is showing respect to her though, so that feels like it's not it.

I'm debating between wing styles also. I think colourful wings (Like a parrot) would be pretty, and not as common as dove wings (Which are her namesake). Also it was while I was looking those up that I found out the Mexican flag has an eagle on it! The golden eagle wings sound pretty interesting, if a little bit drab, but having her be tied to the national bird would be fun I think. And lastly, wood pigeon wings, which are also her namesake, only in Latin.

[thetoxicgamer]

Starfield proves that side quests reign supreme in Bethesda games

Without a doubt, Starfield is Bethesda's most significant RPG release to date. There is a lot of deep gameplay available thanks to the game's huge galactic environment and diverse array of people. There are several questlines you can choose than the primary one, as we go into more detail in our Starfield review. Great side quests can be found in every Bethesda game, but Skyrim stands out as having some of the best. With all of its objectives, you could easily spend hundreds of hours. It appears that Starfield is not an exception to this rule, as player statistics demonstrate. The Starfield launch has proven incredibly successful, even more so than Bethesda’s former behemoth RPGs like Skyrim. With millions of players invested in the brand-new galactic journey, it comes as no surprise that many of them are old Skyrim fans. What is more surprising, however, is the fact that many players who never fully completed The Elder Scrolls game’s main story are continuing down a similar road now in Starfield. PlayTracker, a service dedicated to showcasing game statistics, posted about its findings, saying that “Skyrim players who never finished the main quest have played Starfield for 14% more time yet earned 4% fewer achievements than the average Starfield player.” Considering just how many of the obtainable achievements are tied to Starfield missions from the game’s main questline, it’s safe to say that a good few Bethesda fans are enjoying the Starfield side quests just as they did in Skyrim. “Keep procrastinating, folks,” the post goes on in response to its findings. After all, the galaxy “ain’t going anywhere.” You can check out the full in-depth stats on PlayTracker yourself if you want to know more about how Starfield compares to past Bethesda games. Personally, I’m likely contributing to such stats as I’ve spent all of my hours thus far doing everything but the main quests. It’s all about those NPC adventures, baby. If you’re enjoying the game yourself, then you should check out our roundup of all the Starfield companions. From Andreja to Sam Coe, you’ll learn more about each of your potential crew members. Alternatively, you can browse through our informative guide on the various Starfield traits to best optimize your character build. After all, space can be a dangerous place. Still looking for more? While a good Starfield wiki can be a handy source of information, our new Starfield Database goes further, offering you daily news, searchable databanks, and even interactive tools. Read the full article

[dearingbooks]

The Difference one Woman can make.

Late Friday night in June, we had stopped for a burger on the way to the cinema, we used to do family movie nights at the cinema when a new film came out that the majority of us wanted to watch, this time I was the one who was reluctant to go, sadly we do this significantly less now.  So, stubborn 2015 me, rolling her eyes and dragging her feet up the cinema steps to find our seats to watch the new Jurassic World movie. Pathetic! I thought, why pay money to watch a movie about a dinosaur theme park! My parents had completely lost it! Huffing and puffing I took my seat on the aisle and sipped my blue raspberry slushie and looked up at the big screen. Ugh! I wanted it to be over, quickly. I sat down and shut my mouth, despite not wanting to watch it, I wasn’t going to spoil it for the others; but I didn’t get why they would want to watch it, I watched the trailer before going, was not impressed, it looked dumb!

However, as much as my pre-Jurassic self would not like, I found who I was during that movie, I discovered a whole new admiration for actors and movies. I found that I related to the main female protagonist, Claire Dearing. She did not need a man, or children, she was so focused on her career and let no one boss her around. She was top dog, and I completely fell for this fictional character. I evolved through that movie with her character, I felt content with being a strong female who put career over family. I wanted to embody this fictional woman; I wanted to be her.

On the journey home I typed ‘Claire Dearing actress’ into google and saw this stunning redhead- Bryce Dallas Howard. I immediately recognised her from movies I had watched prior, and I was completely astounded at her range of characters she can portray and portray them well. After scrolling through her Wiki page and reading news articles about her, I learned that she is the daughter of Ron Howard, one of my parents’ favourite people in film.

“Dad, that woman in the movie is Ron Howard's daughter”, I needed to inform my family that my now favourite woman in film is the daughter of my parents’ favourite people in film. My parents were shocked that I enjoyed the movie despite my loud vocalisation of not wanting to watch it.

Googling ‘Bryce Dallas Howard’ became my new after school routine, learning that she applied to acting school as Bryce Dallas to avoid people knowing she is the daughter of an already famous actor and director, and she had met her true love at nineteen and is still happily married to him. Yet what most stuck out to the self-conscious, body hating 2015 me, was that Bryce wasn’t a skinny twig of a woman that you see in most movies, she had classy curves and promoted body positivity despite some backlash the media gave her. I made a connection with this woman I had never met because I too received negative comments about my figure, yet Bryce took that on the shoulder and learned to love herself. I wanted to feel that self-love about myself that she acquired.

After watching Jurassic World, I explored many more fandoms, and from there I became obsessed with movie franchises and TV shows, actors and directors. I could not give you a full list of all of the fandoms I am in, there are too many to count, and they have all played a role in helping me evolve to who I am today. All because I latched onto one character from one movie I did not even want to watch, one film got me hooked on this life: it’s like a drug. I cannot stop. I also went back and forth with my hairstyle due to this woman; in the movie Bryce has a stunning ginger graduated bob with a fringe, however I never had the guts to go ginger until now; shame the hairdressers are all shut.

Now, almost six years later Bryce Dallas Howard has had great success in directing two episodes of The Mandalorian. Over the Christmas break I watched the show with my dad, sat on the sofa, fire lit, the chocolate Labrador curled up between us, peach vodka and diet lemonade in my hand, hot cup of tea in my dad’s. We binge watched both seasons in a week (it’s amazing) and he was shocked to see ‘Directed by Bryce Dallas Howard’ at the end of one, let alone two episodes. “Shit, she’s come far in the past few years” he said putting another episode on.

Bryce allowed me to find my best friend, Iz, through Instagram; Bryce has brought so many people together it is so surreal. And when I found out that Iz was going to Southampton University in 2019, a 20-minute drive from my house, I was finally able to meet her, because of one woman we both adore. I was friends with Iz for three years before I was able to meet her, I asked my school friend to come along with me so she could film the moment Iz, and I met! We got pancakes and watched the second Maleficent movie at the cinema, it was one of the best days of my life. I was so thankful that I met a truly hilarious and loving girl through this one actress! Because of Bryce Dallas Howard, I have made so many other friends from all over the globe as they too idolise Bryce and together we have created the ‘BDH online family’. A small group of us do regular zoom calls to catch up and chat about the recent photos and updates that Bryce has posted on Instagram, talk about Covid-19 and the types of restrictions and lockdown rules each of our countries has. During one of our calls, we had the craziest idea- Invite Bryce to one of our zoom calls. Bryce said yes! And after a few months of organisation, we had the date. The date was-

My.

Birthday.

The day came around and I was so nervous, it was 11pm exactly. The Wi-Fi had cut out fifteen minutes before the call. I was in tears. Mascara down my face, puffy eyes, I joined the call with a few minutes to spare before Bryce joined it. My mum hung around off camera for the first 5 minutes to double check the Wi-Fi was stable, luckily it stabilised. The other girls had never been so glad to see me, everyone was panicked for me; I could not miss it for the world (despite telling my parents, in floods of tears, that I cannot join and that it’s the end of that).

“Kat! You’re here!” “Happy birthday!” “Are you okay? The Wi-Fi sorted?”

They all chimed, happy to see my little face in the bottom right corner of their computer screens. Luckily Iz was there, otherwise it would have been extremely awkward with only one of us since we are known as a duo in the online family, we have to do everything together, we come in a pair and there can’t just be one of us.

“Shit girls, that was stressful”

I hadn’t realised I was holding my breath until I exhaled the large breath when my    Wi-Fi settled, and I was on the call, I fixed my makeup and was ready to meet Bryce.

The few minutes we had before Bryce joined were intense, two of the girls left to get a drink and we weren’t sure if they would be back in time, luckily they did return.

“No way!” One of them, Anna who was hosting the call, gasped “Bryce is in the waiting room!”

We all freak for no more than 10 seconds, we compose ourselves then our faces are reshuffled, and we see this stunning glowing face that we all admire smiling at us. Omg, it's her.

“Hi girls!”

I have never smiled for so long in my entire life, my cheeks hurt afterwards. Don’t get me wrong, I am not complaining at all, it just hurt as I thought I would only be smiling for half an hour, since that is how long we were told Bryce had. However, we were speaking to Bryce for nearly an hour and a half, she just kept talking and asked us questions! She was so lovely to talk to, so relaxed; it was if I was talking to a friend that I had known for years!

“Before we go I want to all sing Kat a happy birthday!”

My idol wanted to sing me a happy birthday! The other girls were really ecstatic for me, I still can’t believe to this day that The Bryce Dallas Howard wanted to sing to me!

It was both the best and the worst happy birthday song that has be sung to me. It was the best because, well my idol was singing to me! And proposed the singing! It was the worst in terms of the actual song as they were all out of sync and lagging, it was bloody hilarious!

At 10:27pm the next evening, watching a rerun of Game of Thrones on Sky, I got a notification ‘Brycedhoward just posted’, I clicked the notification then see our smiling faces on her page, she posted a screenshot of our call on her social media! The call was supposed to be a secret so other fans weren’t upset. There’s a few snotty comments on the post, but they’re just jealous and to be frank, I don’t care! My smiley face is on her page forever! All ten of us have printed the screenshot of Bryce’s post off and put it in a frame, one day all ten of us hope to congregate somewhere, most likely in America, and sign the backs of all of our photos. I’m still in utter awe and shock-  How many celebrities have you seen that would do a free zoom call with some fans? Not a lot, and that amount is even slimmer when they talk for an extra hour than scheduled. Bryce truly is one of a kind and the best idol anyone could ever hope to have.

Compared to a zoom call with Bryce herself, the few times she has liked my comments on her posts feel like nothing in comparison! I remember being so excited, running downstairs to my parents.

“Mum! Dad! Bryce liked my comment! She knows I exist!”

“Was it actually her? Remember when you got a Facebook request from Robert Downey Jr and it turned out it was a fake account?”

I rolled my eyes at her, it was Bryce, it was her verified account. The comment was a book recommendation I had for her, she posted on her hashtag BDHbookshelf and I thought I’d take a chance and comment a book recommendation I had for her, and the chance paid off.

I cannot wait to see what the future holds with Bryce, she has been such an inspiration to me for the past few years, and she promotes such wonderful causes and body positivity! I hope to one day meet her and thank her in person for changing my life for the better, and I think I’ve come up with the perfect opportunity to meet her- Iz and I have decided to travel up to London for the Jurassic World Dominion premiere in 2022 (if Covid lets us!), we’d get a hotel and actually meet Bryce in person, as well as meeting other members of the online family!

Words cannot fully contain the admiration that I possess for Bryce, her soul is utterly and truly exquisite, she has been such a visionary while I’ve been transitioning from a girl who had no idea who she was with no dreams or aspirations, to a woman who has now found so many new friends and now knows who she wants to be.  

[world-of-puppets]

Puppetry Lost Media

In honour of reaching 50 followers last week (now 55 followers, as of writing this) I decided to cover two subjects of great interest to me: puppetry (of course) and lost media.

Everybody online loves a good old bit of lost media. Whether it be being a part of the many searches for the media in question, or watching documentaries about them on sites like YouTube. I’ve been mildly addicted to the latter kind of content for a while. From what I’ve seen, though, there aren’t many videos or articles out there specifically covering lost puppetry. So, in no particular order, here are a couple of pieces of lost puppetry I found while scrolling through the lost media wiki.

銀河少年隊 - Ginga shounen-tai AKA Galaxy Boy Troop (1963 - 1965)

Osamu Tezuka is one of the most pioneering figures in Japanese art and animation. Starting as a manga artist in the 1940s inspired by the animated works of American studios such as Walt Disney and the Fliecer Brothers, he adapted and simplified many of the stylistic techniques of both artists to create his own signature style of big shiny eyes, physics defying hair and limited animation. A style that would go on to heavily influence the world of anime and manga as a whole.

But animation and graphic art were not the only mediums Tezuka would dabble in. Ginga Shounen-Tai, or Galaxy Boy Troop in english, was a television series that aired on the public broadcast channel NHK from April 7th, 1963 to April 1st, 1965. Running for 2 seasons with a total of 92 episodes.

The series was a mixture of marionette characters that utilised the Supermarionation marionette technique, popularised by Jerry Anderson’s Thunderbirds, and limited traditional animation. The story revolves around a child genius named Roy who leads a rag-tag group of heros around the galaxy in a rocket ship in order to revive the earth’s sun and later protect it from alien invaders.

Out of the 92 episodes that aired, only episode 67 still exists in its entirety with French subtitles, and the full episode can be found on YouTube with English subtitles uploaded by user Rare TezukaVids. According to user F-Man on the Tezuka in English forums, footage of episode 28 exists but with no audio, and episode 87’s animated segments exist without the marionette segments. F-Man also claims the reason for Galaxy Boy Troop’s disappearance is due to Tezuka not being proud of the series and having all episodes of it destroyed.

Personally, I think it’s a shame that pretty much all of this series is gone. From what I’ve seen in episode 67, it looks really charming. Tezuka’s signature character design style was adapted suprisingly well to marionettes, and the puppetry itself isn’t that bad either. I love the little face mechanisms like the blinking eyes, flapping mouths and others. It gives the puppets a lot of personality and charm. Like, just look at this old mans eyebrow mechanism and tell me you wouldn’t want to watch 92 episodes of this show;

Tinseltown (2007)

Tinseltown was a 15 minute sitcom pilot created by the Jim Henson company under thier Henson Alternative banner. The pilot was commissioned by the Logo Network and aired as part of the Alien Boot Camp programming block in 2007.

The pilot (and likely the series, had it been picked up by the logo network) features a cast of both puppets and live actors as characters. The premise revolves around Samson Kight, an anthropomorphic bull preformed by Brian Henson and drew Massey, and his partner Bobby Vegan, an anthropomorphic pig prefomed by Bill Barretta and Michelan Sisti, as they attempt to balance thier lives working in Hollywood with life as parents to thier sullen 12-year-old foster son, Foster, played by Paul Butcher. Other human characters included Mia Sara as Samson’s ex-wife Lena and Francesco Quinn as the family’s manservant Arturo.

The Tinseltown pilot used to be available on the Logo Network’s YouTube channel, but was later removed for unknown reason. Since then, the pilot has not been made available online. However the characters Samson and Bobby have made appearances in other Henson related works, such as the improv stage show Stuffed and Unstrung, where they played the role as the shows producers, and in a 2011 video on the Jim Henson Company YouTube channel celebrating Jim Hensons 75th birthday.

I find Tinseltown pretty interesting as I feel like it should be more noateable or known, considering that this is (as far as my knowledge goes) the first Jim Henson Company project featureing openly lgbtq characters as its leads, and would have been the first Henson show to do so had it been picked up. As someone who’s interested in lgbtq+ representation in creative media such as animation, I realised that there’s not many examples of canon lgbt characters in puppetry. The only ones aside from Samson and Bobby I could think off the top of my head would be Deet’s Dads from The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance and Rod from Avenue Q. Though, obviously, there could be more I’m not currently aware of. I don’t think the Tinseltown pilot was a masterpiece or anything. After all, there’s probably a couple of good reasons Logo didn’t pick it up for a full series. But I think it be cool if either Henson co. or Logo made this available online again, if just so we could appericate it as an interesting little footnote in the history of lgbtq rep in puppetry.

With that said, considering the pilot’s obscurity and the fact that it’s main couple haven’t been used in any Henson Related projects in almost ten years, as well as the possibility that there may be legalities preventing the Henson company from releasing it such as Logo still owning the rights, it’s unlikely we’ll see the Tinseltown pilot anytime soon.

Sonic Live in Sydney (1997 - 2000)

Sonic the Hedgehog is a fictional character no stranger to multiple interpretations of him and his universe across a diverse range of media. From the more light-hearted and comedic stylings of The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog and Cartoon Networks Sonic Boom cartoon series, to more serious faire such as the Sonic SatAM cartoon and the Sonic Adventure videogame duology. One of the more obscure and stranger adaptations of the character came in the form of Sonic Live in Sydney, a one an a half hour live show hosted at the former Sega World Sydney amusement park in Darling Harbor, Sydney, Australia. Originally beginning as a live show with actors in meet-and-greet style costumes, the show eventually was replaced with a puppet show during its last two years.

The shows plot was set in an alternate timeline whos continuity was a mix of the SatAM cartoon and Sonic the Hedgehog 3, where Doctor Robotnik’s Death Egg crash lands in Sydney, Australia instead of Angel Island and attempts to take over before being foiled by sonic and friends. According to Phillip Einfeld of Phillip Einfeld Puppetoons, the company that made the puppets, Sega felt the costumed actor version of the show wasn’t dynamic enough, and wished to replace it with a version featuring live puppets with animatronics. Both versions of the shows plot are identical.

While Sonic Live in Sydney’s soundtrack is available on YouTube, and some photos of the show are available on the Lost Media Wiki, no footage of either the costumed actors version or the puppet show version have resurfaced. The show was closed down in 1999, possibly due to cost, shortly before the Sega World park as a whole in 2000. So unless there is someone out there who viseted the show between 1998 or 1999 who recorded the show via a handheld camera, footage of both incarnations of the show are likely forever lost to time.

On a personal note, I don’t have much to say on this one other than how gloriously peek gaudy 90s Sonic the set/puppet design is. I have no doubt finding footage of these puppets in action would truly be a silly delight to behold...

Legend of Mary (year unknown)

This one is a little different from the other entries on this list as while the film itself in its entiraty is available on YouTube for anyone to view, the information surrounding Legend of Mary, specifically its year of release, remains a mystery as of writing this.

I have mentioned the film before on this blog so I’ll keep it brief here: in summary, Legend of Mary is a short film retelling of the Nativity featuring the Rod puppets of Austrian puppeteer Richard Teschner. the video was uploaded to YouTube by user canada 150 archive. I looked up the people credited in the film and was able to find most of them, but didn’t find Legend of Mary listed in thier credits, and was unable to find the film on sites like IMDB, tMDB or Letterboxd. I reached out to Canada 150 archive asking if they had any info regarding the Legend of Mary’s release date, and after a coupe of months, they replied saying they didn’t know.

And that’s as far as I got on my search for answers, if anyone of you guys has any information regarding Legend of Mary, then it be of huge help in finding the release date.

Sam and friends (1955 - 1961)

Sam and friends was the very first puppetry television series created by Jim Henson alongside his colabarator and future wife Jane Nebel. filmed in Washington, D.C. and airing twice daily on WRC-TV and the NBC affiliate in Washington, D.C. from May 9, 1955, to December 15, Sam and Friends would mark the first apperence of Kermit (though not yet as a frog) and paved the way for Henson’s iconic and revered legacy in the realm of puppetry on film and television.

With the impact this show had in mind, it may come as a shock to some that almost half of Sam and Friends, specifically, 42 of the 86 episodes, are considered lost. With 16 existing, 8 documented, 9 known from memory, plus 8 existing Esskay commercials and 1 memory-known Esskay commercial. Some taped episodes have been shown at venues such as the museum of the moving image while others have been erased. It’s unknown if copies of these erased episodes still exist.

This post would become far to long if I were too list every episode missing from Sam and Freinds, but if your curious, the lost media wiki article has a comprehensive list of all lost episodes.

Annnd that about it for this post. This type of content is pretty different from the stuff I usually post. So I’m egar to see what you guys think about it. If you enjoyed this article, want to see more like it or have ideas for what puppetry-related topics I should cover in the future. And again, thank you all so much for helping me reach 55 followers. Your support really does mean a lot to me, and I hope you enjoyed this as a follower milestone gift.

Anyways, hope you enjoyed this dip into lost puppetry, and have a happy holiday season!

[elladescent449-artspace]

It Started With the Milk: Chapter 7 - Solution and Sacrifice

April tipped the delivery kid and shut the door. After setting the boxes of pizza and garlic knots on the coffee table she flopped down onto the sofa with a breath of relief.

“It was just the delivery kid, Leo,” she shouted.

A clatter from the kitchen rang through the small apartment before Leo re-entered the living room. With a disgruntled huff, Leo took a seat beside her. “Was it really necessary for you to kick me into the broom closet?”

“Uh,” Now that April thought about it, kicking him into the pantry may have not been as necessary as she felt at the time. “I panicked?” She offered with a shrug.

After a pause, he gave a dry chuckle. “Under the circumstances,” Leo sighed as he sank into the sofa, “you’re forgiven.”

April could feel Leo’s exhaustion. His humor was gone and he was practically deflated against the cushions. Straightening herself to close the gap, she said “I know that a lot is going on right now and it's scary… I’m scared too. Even I’m having a hard time understanding it, but don’t worry,” she placed a comforting hand on his arm and gave a light squeeze, “everything is going to turn out okay.”

Leo looked towards April. Mayhem jumped onto Leo’s lap, rubbing against his chest and licking his face to pull a smile from him. Leo hugged Mayhem, a small smile creeping into him as he pulled him close. “You’re right,” he smiled towards April, “thanks.”

“We’re going to figure this out, but for now,” she popped the box open, “let’s get you to eat something, okay?” The smell of warm cheese and spices flooded the room and April pulled out a cheesy piece for herself. She hesitated to pull a piece from the other half - the squirmy, blinking, vibrantly-colored-tentacle-covered half - but she did it anyway and held it out to Leonardo. “I got your favorite!”

The slice was tempting. It was his favorite. He and his brothers would share this pizza all the time, but now? The sight of the wriggling slice made him nauseous.

“Actually,” he reached into the pizza box to grab a slice of the cheese, “I think I'll stick with the classics today.”

April looked surprised by his answer but took a bite without a word. As she began to lower the creepy special back into the box Mayhem jumped over the table and snatched it from her hand.

“Mayhem no!” She jumped from her seat, “you can’t eat that!” Leo swore that he saw Mayhem smirk as he ran into the kitchen with April close on his heels. A crash followed by a bang bounced off the walls of the apartment, chased with April’s voice, “you’re on a delicate tummy diet!”

Leonardo took a bite of his pizza. It was good. Really good. While the crashing (and a few muttered curse words) echoed he began to eat faster than normal, quickly finishing his slice before grabbing another cheesy piece. He finished that too, and after he finished a third of the garlic knots he realized that this was the first time he’d eaten today. Mayhem ran back into the living room and ran across the back of the couch. April slid in before jumping onto the back of the sofa herself in a tackle maneuver and pushing Leo to the side, almost grabbing Mayhem in a hold before he poofed onto the top of the bookshelf, the creepy-special slice still clenched between his fangs.

“Mayhem not the bookshelf.” It was too late, he finished it in three bites, looking smug from his high place as he did so. April came back and plopped down next to Leo. That’s when he noticed a light dust of flour on her clothes.

Leo snorted, covering his mouth to keep the bready appetizer in. April glared a little, but as she looked up to Mayhem and then back to Leo she sighed with a giggle. “It’s not funny, Leo, he’s not supposed to eat anything but bland chicken and rice!”

“The soup?” He grinned.

“No!” A playful punch sent to his arm made him wince but he laughed along with her.

April picked up her soda and slice that had been dropped in the mayhem, leaning back with Leo as they tuned back into the TV. They had forgotten that it was on with the delivery boy scare and Mayhem. At forty minutes into “Jitsu for Justice,” Lou was on his seventh fight. Leo mindlessly bit into the garlic knots. The soda in April’s can sloshed quietly as she took a bite of her pizza. They both knew this movie, they had seen it a million times, seen it enough for it to be a comforting family favorite. Mayhem poofed into Leo’s lap, burping -towards April- before circling in his lap and curling into a loose ball.

‘Hot~,” April mouthed the script along with Lou on the screen, ‘soup!’ She heard a quiet thrumming and looked over towards Leonardo. He was drumming his fingers on the arm of the chair. The usual interest he displayed in the old Lou Jitsu films was gone, replaced with a new, horrific fixation on the bottle on the table. A pang of regret hit April in the chest. She should have moved it before they started eating. How could she forget?

His expression was tight as he stared at the bottle. The bottle wasn’t shaking as much as it had before, but it still shivered every once and a while under their gaze. So that’s what’s in Donnie? It sounded so sci-fi, but April was friends with mutant turtles and Sunita, so it was kind of ludicrous for her to think that this sort of thing was improbable. “Do you know what it wants?”

“No.” The answer came without hesitation. “I don’t have a single clue, as far as I know It’s just… coexisted until today.” April felt Leo tense next to her.

“And it's violent?”

There was a quiet pop in Leo’s fist as his hand tightened. “Oh yeah.”

“And It’s in Donnie?”

Leo leaned forward onto his fist, covering his mouth as he shakily whispered, “yup.”

Donnie was under the control of some freakish worm thing, and now Leo got hurt because of it. April picked up her phone from beneath her, opening the search engine and typing in “parasite”. She paraphrased as she skimmed the wiki article. “A parasite is supposed to- a successful parasite is supposed to maintain a balance with its host. So that it can survive and reproduce.” She read through the passage, ignoring the message notifications that sat at the top of her screen.

Leo scoffed, “Yeah, I figured.” He pet Mayhem gently to hide the shake that had returned to his hands.

“So Donnie has a parasite, not... is the parasite?” She cringed at her own grammar but continued. “So we just need to get it out of him.” She sat up straighter as she clicked on an article.

“Yeah.” Leo straightened as well, looking over her shoulder to look through her phone with her. “But how are we supposed to do that?”

“You said it came out of his mouth?”

Leo swallowed uncomfortably at the memory, “yes.”

“Ok, so it’s probably in his digestive tract,” she scrolled down to skim the article, not finding a lot that she could understand, “like, his stomach.”

He said with a sigh, “I know what the digestive tract is, April.” Leo pushed into April’s shoulder as he read with her, not understanding it very much himself, “if it's in his guts, how is it controlling his body?”

“It's obviously not a normal parasite, maybe it's some mystic parasite?” She offered, running a hand over her scalp. Mayhem’s ears perked.

“So… maybe if Donnie eats something it’ll come out?”

She scrolled down further to see if there was anything in the article about diet. “Has Donnie-” April caught herself, “Has It been eating anything weird, or avoiding anything in particular?”

Leo’s eyes darted as he tried to find anything significant in his memory, “It’s only put milk in his coffee, but I haven’t really watched him eat all that much.” Mayhem huffed in Leo’s lap, his ears twitching as he continued to listen.

“Okay…” what else could they do? It’s not like they could take him to a hospital, maybe a hospital in the Mystic city? But they couldn’t just drag Donatello there. “Nobody else has noticed anything? Not even Raph?”

“I didn’t get a chance.” Leo groaned, “I told Mikey, he was the one that saw Shelldon, but…”

“But what?”

“I just made myself look crazy!” Leo jerked forwards and threw his hands up in frustration, scaring Mayhem into a rigid sitting position. “He didn’t believe me at all, and then “Donnie” came in and swept him off his feet with soft-serve!” Leo made air quotations at Donnie’s name.

“Okay Leo, okay,” April placed a hand on his arm, Leo held Mayhem in a soft hug as he sank back into the couch, his gaze returning to the bottle on the table. “So definitely a no on anybody else noticing.”

A groan escaped him as Leo sank back into the sofa. As much as he'd been grumbling and groaning, he should be buried in the cushions by now. What was he going to do? His brothers and Dad were still at home with that thing, and he needed to figure out how to save his twin, plus it’s not like he could hide out at April’s for the rest of his life.

‘Enough moping, Leo,’ Raphael’s voice was still quiet, but Leo could hear it clearly as it poked into his thoughts. ‘You need to save your brothers.’ The image of his oldest brother was comforting. As Leonardo closed his eyes, he tried imagining him in his mind. With a bit of imaginative work he was able to visualize Raph sitting in their home, lifting weights as he spoke.

‘Really, I had planned to leave them to get eaten alive.’ He scoffed at his own sarcasm. After a moment's pause Leo asked, ‘I don’t know what to do.’

‘C’mon, this isn’t a test. The answer’s easy.’ Leo would’ve rolled his eyes if this conversation wasn’t taking place in his head. Mind Raph noticed it anyway, choosing an irritated tone to continue. ‘What do you do when someones sick?’

Leonardo mused, ‘put them in a giant hamster ball filled with pizza?’

Raphael stopped lifting as the thought struck him. ‘I could actually see that working, but no…’ Raphael let the inner gears of Leo’s head turn as the puzzle pieces fell into place ‘You give them medicine.’

“APRIL!”

“Ah!” The sudden noise caught her off guard enough to pull a yelp from her. Mayhem shot up, jumping to April’s lap. “What?!”

“You said the vet gave you something, right?” Leo turned to face her on the sofa, the sudden urgency causing an actual adrenaline rush inside of him.

“Uh yeah, the-” her eyes widened as it clicked. The snapped her fingers into a finger gun at Leo as the thought struck her. “The pills. The pills!” April repeated as she began to furiously rifle through her pockets. A blister pack fell out her pocket and onto the sofa cushion where she picked it up and flipped it over to reveal neat rows of pentagon shaped, white pills. She flipped it over again, to read the back where a paper note was firmly stapled. When her eyes met Leo she said, “this might work.”

A rush of catharsis flooded Leonardo. Speaking almost prompted tears from his eyes, his breath shaky with something other than the hopelessness he was feeling earlier, “if I can give Donnie this, he might- I might be able to get that thing out of him.”

Mayhem took the pills from April’s hand, reading over the instructions himself before handing them over to Leo.

The whole pack added up to about three thousand and six hundred milligrams of Praziquantel. Leonardo wasn’t a pharmacist but that seemed a bit overkill even with his current situation. He took a deep breath. He just needed to give him the pills, no big deal, maybe he could slip it in ‘Donnie’s’ food or maybe just get him alone and somehow trick him into taking them? It was pretty eager to drink after Leo yesterday, maybe he could dilute a few pills in a water bottle and fool him into drinking that.

“Leo…”

He looked back up to April.

“I’m suddenly hit with the implications of giving Don pills without his knowledge.”

Leonardo opened his mouth to say something but quickly shut it. He took a deep breath before releasing it, forcing himself to relax. “I know, but…” She was right, this was sketchy, and in any other circumstance he’d take a step back and reconsider. Leo took the bottle from the table and held it between them. “This is real.”

Looking at it again made her insides squirm. Donatello was her best friend and if this was real… April tried to remember what the vet had said about the medicine but not much came to mind, what if it was too much, what if it hurt him in a different way. But if this was really happening… With a sigh she took the bottle from his hand, noticing how cold the bottle felt. “I trust you, just-”

A cheery electronic ring interrupted them, prompting April to pull her phone from her pocket. She flipped over her phone to reveal the hippopotamus turtle meme. Raphael.

The ringtone went off once before she slid the green button to activate the call, putting it on speakerphone. “Raph, hey what’s up?”

“April, something happened between Donnie and Leo at the lair.” Leo quietly grimaced. “Leo’s disappeared now and I think he might be hurt because I can’t get a hold of him and I have no idea where he might be.” They could both hear Raphael’s voice crack with that last line. Leo felt a stab to the heart before he was flooded with regret, of course Raphael would be worried. April looked at Leo, who nodded.

“Leo’s at my place, you wanna talk to him?”

“Wh- YES!”

Leo took the phone from April’s hand. “Hello?”

“Leo, where are you? Are you okay?!” The boom of the sudden audio jerked Leo's head away from the device. Raph panicked across the receiver.

“Yeah, Raph I'm fine, I just…” Leo hesitantly looked towards April. “I just got to April’s,” he lied.

“Leo you’ve been gone for hours, no phone call and you expect me to believe that you’re just fine?!” Leo could hear Raph pace from across the phone. “What happened? The lair was a mess when we got back.”

Ah. Right. The skate ramp must be in shambles after Donnie’s Tech bo threw...“Is ‘It’ there?”

“What?”

“Listen, Raph,” Leo stood and walked across the room to face the window, “you need to stay away from Donnie, it’s not Donnie it’s something else. There’s something inside of him controlling him, it attacked me when I figured it out.” The words fell from his mouth in a frantic hysteria the faster he spoke.

“Woah, woah, woah, slow down,” Raph’s tone softened. “I know that you might feel a little frazzled right now but you need to come home.”

Leo scoffed at that. “It’s not Donnie, Raph!” Leo shouted. There was a pause across the line, Leo could practically hear Raphael thinking. A thought struck Leo and his mouth went dry. “Is it… Is it there with you?”

Raph took another moment before he replied, “Donnie is-”

“You guys need to get out of there,” Leo cut him off, “if it’s in the lair you guys need to get out now!”

“No, no... No,” Raph continued to speak gently. His soft tone beginning to calm Leo from over the phone. “Donnie left, okay?” “Are you sure?”

“Yes Leo.” Leo tried listening from across the phone, trying to find any indication that his brother was lying. But he wasn’t. As he always was, Raphael was telling the truth. “You’re at April’s? I can come pick you up,” he offered.

“No, no it’s fine Raph,” he turned towards April, locking eyes with her as he spoke. “I’ll- I’ll come home.” He was doing this. He was really going to do this. Everything suddenly became overwhelming as he tried to think of what exactly he needed to do and say in order to make this work, how it needed to go so that nobody got hurt, including himself and Donatello. Leonardo released a shaky breath, “are you sure that… thing isn’t there?”

“Yeah, Leo, I’m sure.”

“I just-” he laughed as he rubbed a hand over his head. “I know that I sound crazy but…” there was a hesitation, “If I started from the beginning I’d just sound more crazy than I already feel.”

Raphael hummed, “It’s okay Leo, we can talk about it when you get home,” well that was a conversation that Leo was now dreading, “are you sure you don’t want me to pick you up?”

Leo closed his eyes. “Yeah,” he forced himself to tense before relaxing again. “I can- I can make it home just fine.” Before Raphael could say anything else he added, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, I’ll see you soon.” A sigh of relief could be heard from over the phone. “I love you.”

A genuine smile appeared onto Leo’s face, “I love you too.” And then he hung up.

Alright, there’s no time to wait. He went to the bathroom where he reattached his Odachi to his shell, April followed him from behind, abandoning the bottle on the sofa. “Leo, are you sure about this?”

They exited the bathroom to go back to the living room, where Leo retrieved the pills from the couch, “sure about what?”

“How do you know that those will even work?” An irritated bark snaps them both back to Mayhem as he stares them both from the table, his tail tapping the hardened wood in irritation. April ignores Mayhem, looking back to Leo, “how do you know that the pills will work?”

“I-” He tried to find true conviction, “I don’t.” His hand gripped the door handle, hesitating to turn. “But it’s what we’ve got.”

The silence that ensued was almost painful as April tried to offer any other suggestions. She looked to Mayhem, who only looked with sympathy before nodding.

“I just…” she breathed in before releasing with a heavy sigh, “I just want you to be okay-”

The rapid knocks on the door made them both freeze. Leo held a hand out to April in a stopping motion. The rapping came again and he released the door handle, stepping away quietly.

The knocks came again, louder this time. “April.” Oh no. “It’s Donnie.”

April grabbed Leo by the wrist. He stumbled after her as she dragged him away from the door and around the corner. She opened the door to her room. With a loud whisper, “go out the window.”

“What?” He replicated her volume. The pounding came again. “April, I am not leaving you alone with that thing!”

“You need to go home.” She opened the window, poking her head out and scanning the alleyway for anything or anyone. “I can handle this.”

“I can’t leave you.”

“Don’t worry,” she smiled confidently as she gave him a tight hug. “I got this.” And then she shoved him out the window.

-

The door opened before his fist could hit again. Mid-air and ready to knock. Donatello’s hood was off, odd for someone who kept his hood on even during late night basketball. He was startled by the sudden opening of the door, and he stood frozen, a little confused as he stared at her.

April straightened, brushing a loose strand out of her eyes as she smiled, trying to fight the pants of air that was leaking out of her lungs. “Donnie! Hey!”

Donatello stared at her, presenting a look of confusion that April didn’t recognize. Her smile faltered as she waited for him to respond.

In the awkward silence her eyes went up to his fist. There was a bandage around his hand and her eyes narrowed. “What happened there-”

Recognition flashed over his eyes and he smiled. “April,” his curt response didn’t match his expression, “where’s Leo?”

“He, uh” her eyes almost looked over her shoulder but she fought it to keep her eyes on him, “haven’t seen him.”

A knowing smile crept on his face as he looked over her head into the apartment. “Uh huh.” He lowered his fist. Slowly placing it back into his hoodie pocket where his other hand lies.

“Well, I mean I saw him earlier when he came and picked me up, but after that… didn’t really-” a hand firmly pushed her to the side as Donnie entered her apartment. He didn’t look at April as he crossed the threshold, his eyes only flicking from side to side as he scanned the room. She scoffed in disbelief, stumbling back at the unexpected push. “Okay,” she laughed angrily, staring him down as he ignored her. “Why not just come in uninvited.”

Mayhem appeared on the sofa briefly before teleporting away again, taking something with him too fast for Donatello to see. His brows furrowed at the spot where Mayhem had been. “So you’re saying that he’s not here.”

The abrupt nature of his voice caught her off guard. “Yup,” she slammed the door shut before leaning on it and crossing her arms. “Leonardo is not here. Meaning that you can leave.”

“Uh-huh, just want to make sure.” Mayhem appeared back onto the coffee table, a low growl emitting from his chest as he watched the turtle take slow steps further into the apartment. “He hasn’t really been acting like himself lately.” Donnie smiled and approached Mayhem, reaching a gentle hand out as he whispered something that April couldn’t hear.

Mayhem snapped at him, causing Donatello to retract his hand sharply. Mayhem’s hackles raised as he bared his fangs, emitting a harsh growl prompting Donnie to take a step back. Donatello looked to her, sending a cold gaze that quickly died under her piercing stare. She looked from Mayhem to Donnie, “he’s not the only one.

Donatello sighed. “April, it’s very complicated.” He turned towards her, waving his hand dramatically. “It’s mutant stuff, you wouldn’t understand.”

“Excuse me?”

He ignores her as he opens the pizza box on the coffee table. “Creepy special?” She says nothing as she watches him. Mayhem stops growling long enough for him to hop off the sofa and race over to stand by April’s feet.

‘Donnie’ enters the kitchen and she follows. Post and pans cover a majority of the counter and a light layer of flour dusts it all. He considers it for a moment but huffs as he slowly leaves the kitchen.

April kept close behind him. “So what was that other thing?’”

“Pardon?” He doesn’t look at her as he speaks, only gazing around her apartment carefully as he goes down the hallway.

“Y’know, that thing that came up? The thing that kept you from picking me up? Like you promised?” She put an emphasis on the last part.

A quiet chuckle escaped him. “Mikey needed my help with something, y’know how he is.” He shrugs, only glancing into the bathroom as he went farther into her home.

“Oh,” she feigned belief,“and what was that thing?”

Donatello waved a dismissive hand over his shoulder. “I wouldn’t worry about it.”

She spoke a little louder. “Well, the thing was so important that you couldn’t pick me up, so it must have been serious.”

He opened the door to her room, “I said don’t worry about it.”

“Why are you acting like this?” She wanted to yank him back by the ponytail. He wouldn’t look at her and now he was in her space. “I was out in the rain for close to half an hour, you said you were going to pick me up, and you didn’t, I’m going to worry about-”

“April,” he half-chuckled-half-shouted as he got near the open window. “Stop talking.”

She heard Mayhem gasp at her feet. Leo was right. This was not Donnie. Any doubts that April had promptly said their goodbyes and threw themselves out the window along with Leo. This was not Donnie and now April knew it for sure.

“Get out of my apartment.”

A response didn’t come from him as he stood stationary. After a moment he slowly moved his hand to shut the window. It fell closed with a click.

“You’ve got until the count of three to get out of my apartment before I-”

The bones in his neck cracked as his head turned with a jeering smirk. “Before what, Ms. O’neil,” his body turned to face her, his head not moving and his eyes not blinking as he did so, “what will you do if I don’t leave your apartment?” Aprils skin prickled as the hair on her arms raised. She opened her mouth only for ‘It’ to sharply bend forward to come closer to April’s face. “You’re just a human, and humans are easy inside and out.” She took a step back as it took a step forward. Mayhem’s growls raised in volume as he placed himself between them. “Self absorbed. Unreliable. Cowardly. And weak.” Her back touched the wall and it placed a hand above her head. “So what could you, April O’Neil, possibly do.”

April threw the first punch. A half-fist, to be more precise, right into his throat. It reeled back in shock and she followed up with a left hook before grabbing It by the color of it’s hoodie and dragging it’s stomach into her knee. She flipped onto Its back, immediately applying a rear-naked choke. She’d have to thank Splinter again sometime for teaching her this stuff, after the whole “parasite” situation, that is..

“Y’know, when I first saw you, I almost didn’t believe him.” It leaned forward, picking her up off the ground as it tried to shake her. April wrapped her legs around Its waist. “That smile was perfect. The way that you stood, the way that you composed.” She heard it cough as she increased the pressure “And then you opened your mouth.”

Both her arms were gripped as she was slammed into the dresser. She yelped but kept her grip. It repeated it as it stumbled around the room until her head came in contact with the doorframe. Her grip loosened enough for It to pull her over Its shoulder, slamming her into the ground enough to rock her consciousness.

Mayhem screeched as he lunged forward. ‘It’ pulled something out of Its pocket, and a loud pop cut Mayhem’s cry short. April lifted a leg, sending it square into Its jaw. It reeled back again as April rolled over onto her feet near the bed, swiping her bat from under the bed frame.

“Get out of my apartment!” She swung downwards but it stepped to the side as it gripped her shoulder, harshly pushing her back. It raised its arm and a loud pop sounded again. She felt something hit her chest and a web of sick green folded over her vision. She lost her balance and fell backwards onto a rounded surface. She was inside of a transparent ball.

It straightened and spat something black onto the carpet before rubbing a fist over its mouth. A dry chuckle came with a grimace, “well… I did ask what you would do.” She tried to stand only to slip on the slick surface. The ball was a green akin to the color of a swamp, with purple veins gripping the inside and outside of the ball. She looked to her right, where Mayhem was trapped in a similar ball. He vanished in a flurry of blue, only for him to appear inside of it again.

She banged on the transparent wall, “what is this? Let me out!”

“Oh,” it brushed its sleeve and cracked its neck, “you can hear me, but I can’t hear you.” A dark smile, too big for Donatello’s face stretched across ‘It’. It waved a small metal oval, akin to a dog clicker. “Should’ve minded your business O’neil.” It took a step towards her only to step on April’s cellphone, which had fallen in the skirmish. It looked down, then back up to her before smirking and reaching down to pick up the device.

It tapped the screen before It began to pace theatrically, announcing every word it typed. ““Hey… Mom.” It glared at April mockingly, ““just letting you know that I’ll be at Sunita’s tonight.””

“No!” April’s bat was with her. There wasn’t enough room to stand, even if she could, but she got up to her knees, bat in hand, and slammed the pommel into her prison wall.

““Love you, ttyl.”” It threw the phone over its shoulder, leering as it took a step towards April. “You humans say that kind of garbage nowadays, right?”

She hit harder, the shock from the bat starting to crawl into her shoulders with the amount of force she was sending into her prison.

“Y’know, I wanted to do this differently. Take my time, enjoy myself, have a little fun, but no~ The blue one just had to screw it all up!” ‘It’ twisted back before planting a punch to the surface of her cage. The force of his punch sent her prison into the wall, where she lost balance and slammed into the side full force. Her head reeled from the impact and she fell to her stomach before she could brace herself. “And now,” the thing gripped one of the many plant-like veins that clutched the sphere and jerked it down, sending her tumbling onto her side. She heard It laugh viciously. She looked up as the lights were switched off, still reeling from the impact. Grey lighting from the rainfall flooded her room and the monster that wasn’t Donnie was transformed into a dark silhouette. It locked her door from the inside as it walked out. Just as the door shut, it finished: “it seems that I’ll just have to speed things up.”

[novastarlyght]

That Time I Named an Invader Zim Background Character and Everyone Thought it was Canon: The Story of Ixane

Like a lot of others it seems, the premiere of Enter the Florpus has recently made me think back to my first stay in the Invader Zim fandom many years ago. For me it was between 2006 and 2007, and I was 14-15 at the time. IZ was and still is a very special cartoon to me, not only for how it influenced me creatively but also the fact being a part of its fandom was my first really positive experience in a fan community. And I wanna talk about that experience because it... lead to something very interesting. Something that only could’ve happened in the now bygone days of the early internet where reliable sources were harder to find and misinformation was much more common, but somehow, has lasted until today. 

This is how Ixane, a silent extra that appears only in the episode “Backseat Drivers from Beyond the Stars,” got her name.

So first off, you might be wondering “Who the heck is Ixane?” As I mentioned, she only appears as a background character in the 21st episode of the original series, titled “Backseat Drivers from Beyond the Stars” which I’ll abbreviate for the rest of this post as just Backseat Drivers. She’s a member of The Resisty, a resistance group against the Irken Empire who also only appear in that episode, although they were planned to become more significant recurring characters later down the line before the show was cancelled.

In 2006 I LOVED the Resisty. They were my favorite group of characters in the entire show, probably because I was fascinated by all their potential which sadly didn’t get the chance to be explored before IZ was canceled. What planets did each of them come from? What are each of their individual species like? How did they form into a single resistance group? What were their names, their personalities? Their hopes, dreams and fears?! THEIR FAVORITE DRINKS?!?! I attempted to provide my own answers to some of these not-so-burning-to-anyone-but-myself (or so I thought at the time...) questions by writing a fanfic called “Resisting Authority,” which I published on Fanfiction.net and later DeviantArt. It’s since been taken down on FFN while the DA version is currently in private storage on my old account, so here’s a screenshot just to prove it existed:

(click here for larger image)

Despite being more adult in tone than the show it was based on and rather melodramatic (then again, I was 14, and probably so was everyone else reading it), “Resisting Authority” became really, REALLY popular... at least for a fic that didn’t feature any of the show’s main characters, given it was entirely about the Resisty and told mostly from the perspective of its leader, Captain Lard Nar. Regardless it got a large amount of positive feedback and significant fan art on DeviantArt, most of which is no longer online although there’s still a little bit hanging around - mainly featuring Lyn, an Irken OC from the story who chooses to rebel against the empire and falls in love with Lard Nar, leading to a star crossed lovers conflict.

Because the purpose of the fic was to further explore the Resisty along with the idea of “What if an Irken betrayed their own?” several characters that appeared onscreen for only a couple of seconds in Backseat Drivers were fleshed out considerably in “Resisting Authority,” where they were given names, species names, home planet names, backstories, motivations and personalities. And of these the one who received by far the most development was a feminine, blue-eyed alien in a hooded purple cloak who I decided to name “Ixane.”

Ixane would become one of the most important characters in “Resisting Authority” right behind Lard Nar and Lyn. She is a Xanan from the planet Xana, a race of spiritual mystics. She is initially distrustful of Lyn, despite her actions and claims to be as much of a rebel as the rest of them, due to her hatred for the Irken Empire and how they destroyed her home. She believes Irkens are more like machines than living creatures, their bodies merely being empty shells to carry their PAKs around, making them incapable of genuine emotion. When she discovers Lyn and Lard Nar have been in a secret romantic relationship, she becomes even more hateful towards Lyn both due to jealousy, since she’d been harboring feelings for Lard Nar herself, and her genuine belief that Lyn’s feelings aren’t real, something that will only hurt Lard Nar in the end.

However throughout the course of the story her views are challenged and eventually Lyn manages to prove her wrong by displaying what she can’t deny is anything but legitimate love for Lard Nar and compassion for her allies in the Resisty. Unfortunately Lyn is fatally injured during a battle with a number of Irken soldiers sent to hunt down the rebellion. Now wanting nothing more than happiness for the person she loves, Ixane uses her mystical powers to save Lyn’s life while sacrificing her own in the process.

This character development (both in the meta sense and in the context of the fic itself) plus her selfless heroic sacrifice is what I think made Ixane one of the fic’s breakout characters and caused her to stick in the minds of those who read “Resisting Authority.” They were no longer thinking of her as just some extra, but as this fully developed character complete with an arc that I’d made her into - as the character of Ixane. But it didn’t occur to me just how big of an impact this may have truly had until about 9 years later.

In 2015, the official Invader Zim comic series by Oni Press began publication and I found myself extremely hyped about IZ again for the first time in almost a decade. It was during this time I came across a particular IZ wiki article and section of its TV Tropes page...

(Sources are here and here)

And I thought to myself “Wait... I thought I named her Ixane...?”

Because at this point I seriously couldn’t remember. I hadn’t thought about “Resisting Authority” in years, and with TV Tropes in particular noting that Ixane’s name was given “in the [episode] script” I wondered if I didn’t actually come up with the name. Maybe it was in the script for Backseat Drivers after all so I used it in the fic. Being unable to find said script (the original script as made by the episode’s writers, not a transcript) I couldn’t confirm it, so I mainly shrugged it off and thought more than likely I just had a bad memory. It wouldn’t be on a (still regularly maintained) wiki if it didn’t at least have a high possibility of being canon, right?

Cut to last night, August 2019. Me and all my other friends and fellow nerds who also grew up loving IZ are still buzzing over Enter the Florpus and our childhood/teenage fan content comes up in conversation. I dig up “Resisting Authority” from my old DA storage for perhaps a good laugh and a bit of nostalgia when more of when I first wrote it starts to come back to me. “I know the wikis all say her name was in the script, but I swear I came up with the name Ixane myself,” I thought, wondering if there was any way I could prove it.

Turns out I could. All the proof I needed was in a drawing of the character I posted to DA in January of 2007, which like the fic was still in storage:

(click here for larger image)

“Um...I bet a lot of people who read Resisting Authority got the impression she was an OC. She technically isn't. She is a Resisty character we saw VERY BRIEFLY once or twice in Backseat Drivers and I just elaborated on her for the story. The cloaked girl, yasee. Just look here: [link] “

That link no longer works normally, however putting it into Wayback Machine provides a snapshot taken in September of 2006, which would be around the time “Resisting Authority” was first published on FFN. Scrolling down on that page gives us...

(click here for larger image)

Additionally, opening the image itself reveals the filename “resistycloak.jpg” rather than something like “ixane.jpg” or “resistyixane.jpg”

For those who weren’t in the fandom back then, The Scary Monkey Show was a very well known IZ fansite and its Encyclopedias section was basically a resource for the show’s lore, one considered highly reliable, before things like fan wikis became commonplace. I actually used this site as a reference for the different types of Irken ships and other planets in the IZ universe brought up in the fanfic and so did many other fic writers at the time. If any site on the internet would know a minor or even background IZ character’s name, if it really was in the official episode script, it’d be The Scary Monkey Show. Yet her name is listed as unknown.

So why am I telling you this?

Because as wild as this whole situation is, I’m not a person who likes misinformation. I feel like IZ fans, both young and old, should know Ixane is not actually this character’s canon name as given to her by the writers of the show. That being said...

I see no reason to stop calling her Ixane. That’s just her name now.

Heck, it’d probably be difficult to go back to thinking of her as having no name given how long the name has been used on all these wiki pages and whatnot. And I’m completely fine with receiving absolutely zero credit for actually being the one who came up with the name in the first place, because here’s the thing...

I may have made the name, but it was the fandom that spread it. The IZ community, primarily in my absence too, were the ones who codified, legitimized it. Who added it to those wikis and accepted it as canon all these years. Who believed in it enough to assume it came from the official episode script, from the IZ crew themselves!

Ixane isn’t my name for her. It’s our name for her, as the fans who made Invader Zim the cult classic it is today.

And I want that to be something we all can have and be proud of ❤︎

[egdocument]

About the EvaGeeks wiki and why you shouldn't trust it, concerning mainly one user.

On the subject of EvaGeeks: Let’s talk about the manipulation of information on the wiki, and perpetuated “nastiness” on the forums that has persisted for several years now. THIS IS A MIRROR OF THIS GOOGLE DOCS FILE. (My twitter post.) You can share this post or the original document freely, use parts of it, etc. I want this document to simply serve as a warning to new Eva fans and those less familiar with EvaGeeks and their history - as well as an update for people who haven’t seen the current state of it.

NOTE: If you can’t read any of these images, these are Imgur albums containing all of the notable ones: https://imgur.com/a/z2mGvvX https://imgur.com/a/oAgufc3

The intent of this document is not to “take down” the wiki or forum, obviously. The intent is simply to inform people of the dangers of trusting this site with their Eva info. It might be the best we have but that doesn’t mean we can’t improve it. I would actually love to see a more community cultivated version of the site with less biased information, but I fear that will never happen. The anxieties of any one (or many) individual(s), which have prevented consistent change until now are well justified, and it is not within reason to blame the outsiders for never bothering to correct the myriad of issues with the wiki. Please extend kindness to other Eva fans and approach sites like EvaGeeks with the appropriate scrutiny, if you aren’t already. We’re divided enough as it is.

Before I begin, I must state: All of the information presented is publicly available, either through main pages, chat logs or history. And yes, the link to join the Discord server and verify the information given in this is publicly available too. I will not link it myself, as I want to avoid any possible harassment of the users I speak about here. Harassment is NEVER the answer in any kind of conflict. This behaviour I don’t believe can go unchecked, but that doesn’t mean the consequences of it should be any kind of conflict towards any user. I will be naming them here so you are aware, but I really do have to advise you, as a reminder, DO NOT HARASS OR ENGAGE WITH THEM. The rule of thumb is that these issues are more systematic than you might think, and blaming or taking it out on a singular person or even a whole group is never justified. Targeted harassment, even with reason, especially never helps to remedy an issue, because it forces the person to double down on their behaviour and beliefs. Causing unnecessary pain to a person is never okay, and the ‘offences’ committed here aren’t deserving of it in the first place. Please also consider the feelings of the people who use the server and EvaGeeks site; not everyone is your "enemy" or your "target" (and frankly, no-one should be) and despite the feelings echoed in this document, EG is not a monolith of a singular opinion or belief.

The purpose of this document is to inform people of the ways EvaGeeks fails objectivity and has existed to push narratives and exclude outsiders for far too long. With new people coming into the Eva fandom (and there of course being others who have been around for quite a while but just aren't aware) I feel like now is the best time I could write this.

As for what prompted this, an anonymous member of the Discord server contacted me regarding the behaviour of one particular user they were concerned about. Said user had expressed considerable bias in the past and was admitting to making large edits to pages on the wiki very recently, and the person who contacted me felt unequipped to bring the issue to light themselves.

A decent amount of this document will be dedicated to presenting said user's contributions - while I feel someone always had to address the EvaGeeks Problem at large, it doesn't help that this user has essentially incriminated himself here to expose the problem in its entirety. 

There is quite a bit of pretense I must discuss before I get into the subject of the wiki pages themselves. I suggest you read all of it; the start of the wiki section will be in heading text if you’d like to skip to it. I’m sure information on the biased editing of wiki pages is privy to anyone who has used the server or the site itself, but at the server’s current status of 60 entire members, I know not everyone has, or is aware of what the problem actually is. Please note that the person who contacted me has requested anonymity and I will be complying. I will not include screenshots of their conversation with me, and anything I quote from them will be paraphrased so nobody can go full Sherlock and analyse their typing patterns. It sounds silly and it’s probably just paranoia, but they shared my concern here. Any conflict we can prevent is for the best. EvaGeeks, of course, has a culture very much promoting the idea that it’s the “number 1 source for all things Eva”, and for English speaking fans it definitely is - you’d be surprised the amount of people who still, after all these years, think this site is consistently reputable. For the sake of context, I’m going to assume that you are not all that familiar with the site’s history or nature, so I’m going to provide a little bit of information about it for those without any first-hand experience. The forums in particular cultivate a very join-us-or-get-out type community, where those who dare to go against the grain get incentivised to leave the site; they’ll claim this isn’t the case if asked and obviously the site is NOT a hivemind but that doesn’t mean it’s not insular. I can vouch for myself and many others who refuse to go in more than a few threads for fear of discussion turning particularly nasty. Even the server member who came to me about this has stated they feel it “might not be a hivemind but it sure feels that way.” Silencing dissent, even when officially-backed, is part of their culture. You don’t have to personally harass everyone who has an opposing thought to you for it to not feel acceptable, you just need to have a history of mocking those who do. If you want some previous, notable cases of “discussion turning nasty”, here’s some off the top of my head: 1. The AWL Incident - In which ADV VA of Rei and director of EoE dub, Amanda Winn-Lee, joined the forums for discussion and was promptly harassed by a user. Most of these messages have been deleted but you can view what remains of her post history here.  2. Recently brought to my attention: upon beginning translation of the Episode 24 drafts, EG forum user LiLi was subjected to incentive to leave, mostly in the form of homophobic disgust in replies to her thread or others they were mentioned in. Any information that goes against the cultivated narrative, even when it is literally officially licensed content, is only ever considered with a degree of reluctance. The fact these drafts co-exist with other pages concerned with this episode is almost a miracle. You can find plenty of repeat instances of the above if you want to (more to do with homophobia and misogyny than outward hostility, but honestly it’s the same thing.) A look at basically any EvaGeeks thread concerning pairings or the female characters will unearth a variety of awful comments from many other users, not that that would be surprising to anyone who has spent more than two minutes in the fandom. Now, of course, that’s very relevant to the topic at hand even if it doesn’t seem to be. The EG wiki and forum have quite a bit of overlap and circular influence on each other as you’ll see later if you aren’t already aware of it. For a short summary before we jump into things and analyse our subject of the day, this essentially means that anyone with an opinion or information the majority doesn’t like will never get in a position good enough to edit the wiki and keep the edits there. This has resulted in many articles filled with conjecture and fan speculation that serve to shut down other viewpoints, whether it’s intentional or not.

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

ON THE TOPIC OF THE EVAGEEKS WIKI

The issue surrounding homophobia and downplaying of references to LGB content in Eva, through proxy of fan-dictated content control and translation is not a new one by any stretch of the imagination. I'm sure you're all very well aware. It’s far from the only issue present in the fandom but it will be our subject of conversation today. Any ‘one instance’ of this persistent behaviour from Eva fans is never going to be enough to summarise how insurmountable it really is, though, so today I instead draw your attention to one user of the wiki who goes by the name of FelipeFritschF and his recent, frequent updates to pages concerning Nagisa Kaworu.

[TOPIC: FELIPEFRITSCHF]

I must reiterate here: although this document is mostly concerned with this user and will contain a number of receipts from various places, it is NOT supposed to function as a hit piece or inspire any kind of mob. Leave this guy the hell alone, just be aware that he’s the one making most of these changes and isn’t a particularly impartial party, to put things lightly.

Now, before we really get into things, it should be stated that the EvaGeeks wiki requires approval to get your edits there, as stated at the bottom of the homepage, here:

This means that anyone making consistent edits to the wiki has in fact been approved, and this isn’t the result of lack of maintenance.  

What you’ll find is that it is consistently Felipe making edits to the pages in question. Kaworu’s bio page, for example, is almost entirely edited by Felipe, which we can see from the “History” tab of the article.

This is barely half of his edits made in the last few days. Take a scroll through it yourself if you’re so inclined. This hilarious bit of waffle was added by Felipe a few days ago and since revised since by him, as shown here. 

(As an added bit of comedy, the man who decided to add in the Japanese in the first place apparently didn’t know the difference between 好意 (kindness, what Kaworu actually says) and 行為 (action). It’s been fixed since but I still think it’s quite funny.) Now, as anyone with even a rudimentary knowledge of Japanese knows, 好き is not actually a very ambiguous word at all. I think it goes without saying, though, and I’m not here to have an argument about translations with you all (for the record, Kanemitsu’s now scarily infamous translation of this scene is perfectly fine with me in a vacuum, it’s just literally everything else surrounding it that’s the problem. Also, regretfully, I will have to speak about this nonsense later when it becomes relevant.) I’m using this as an example instead, to show how utterly ridiculous this guy’s additions to these pages are. He’s not even making a point here. It keeps going past this excerpt, and I suggest you read the whole thing (Kaworu’s page is linked above.) The point of bringing this up - and when I eventually discuss the Netflix translation when it’s necessary - is not to complain about semantics, although I’d argue that’s what’s happening in these articles, honestly. It’s just helpful when proving the actual point of the editor being incredibly unreliable and biased in how he phrases and omits things.

On the page dedicated solely to Shinji and Kaworu’s relationship (which is basically identical to their section on Kaworu’s page as far as I can tell), we can see that Felipe has also edited this several times, and even credits himself with expanding the version on the Evangelion Fandom Wiki now copy and pasted back to EvaGeeks.

The kind of “discussion” (very much not discussion when added to a wiki page supposedly presented as factual information, is it, frankly?) would be fine if it was happening in the EvaGeeks forum itself (and happen does it ever, but that doesn’t change the inappropriateness of this particular behaviour.) What I find disturbing is that in the past few days, this user has gone out of his way to make some already worrying articles even worse, presumably in an attempt to silence discourse, or add more fuel to the flames, surrounding the new Netflix translation. He has a whole page on that one, too, one which is very up-to-date in some regards and not at all in others, despite only being added a few days before me compiling this information. Frankly, going through this whole page on its own is a huge waste of my time considering how BLATANT it is in its biases, but I’ll do it anyway. It IS only a Theory and Analysis page (which is essentially an EvaGeeks free-for-all), but I think it’s quite bothering that the site even allows Theory and Analysis pages that consider only one viewpoint and are written by one person. The forum, presumably, is connected to the site for a reason. 

I’m just going to link it here, for the sake of brevity. https://wiki.evageeks.org/Theory_and_Analysis:Kaworu%27s_lines_in_Episode_24 I suggest you read this before continuing. For a slight departure, the original theatrical Funimation dub of 3.0 is partially available for viewing online, although the audio is in cam quality so you may want headphones if you have plans to watch what’s there. The home media dub’s major changes are to issues with lore and localisation of jargon. While not directly mentioned in this article, it is implied from the subject that this is what it’s about; it’s been speculated that the very literal translation of Episode 24 in particular has come about due to Khara’s embarrassment with how Funimation’s theatrical dub of 3.0 handled Kaworu and Shinji’s relationship rather loosely. Despite these claims, every instance of the two sharing (honestly pretty awkward and unnecessary) flirtatious back-and-forths are still present in the home media version, barring an instance in the stargazing scene where Kaworu’s dialogue was translated even worse than it is in the final dub. If you don’t believe me, do the comparisons yourself. It may not be conclusive, but I think it puts mostly to death the rumour that “a Khara employee was there and saw how people laughed at the Kaworu and Shinji scenes and demanded it needed to be changed for the final release and now that’s being reflected on the new translation”, which is what it tends to boil down to. 

It also goes without saying that NO ONE PERSON is “the most qualified” (holy shit, is this entry not even bothering to hide how biased it is) to translate an entire TV show, let alone something like Evangelion. Let us not forget that Kanemitsu’s claims that he respects “ambiguity” are not even true to begin with. EvaGeeks itself is a shining example of Eva fans, of which Kanemitsu is one and this is even discussed in the article, not being impartial enough to be tasked with discussing Evangelion! (There is obviously issue with citing the ADV translation as a source of all truth; if you read further into the thread on my tweet [the kitchen scene in EoE], I provide extra context for those interested, which I am aware has been spread around Discord and other places without that context included. Of course, I’m not an unbiased source either as you can probably tell from my tweets nor am I claiming to be, so please feel free to discuss these things in other places if you want. I’ve just got the tweets I have on hand here. Sorry about that.) Next, the repeat claim that this is “Khara’s licensed translation and thus the most accurate version” is pretty obviously nonsense; I’m sure I don’t need to point out to the audience that Japanese companies meddling in localisation has ended poorly in the past, or that Khara uses questionable translations from the dubs of the Rebuild films on licensed merch from time-to-time, or that the translation was fairly obviously not overseen or even QA’d by anyone following Kanemitsu’s translation work judging from the myriad of grammatical errors, missing subtitles and overly literal, poor sounding phrasing present in the final work. (Do I need to source this? Just watch the damn thing.) It’s not even like the ways it was translated have been consistent through different versions on Netflix; some were translated from Kanemitsu’s English to other languages judging from the obvious mistakes being present in multiple tracks, and some were barely even translated at all - the Italian version, the dub of which is mysteriously now missing, was so bad people were commenting that it sounded like Shakespeare or that it was translated word for word from Japanese. I dunno about you, the reader, but something about “Khara only bothered to check very rigorously the English version for their specific requests with the translation” doesn’t sound like what really happened to me. It’s more like they’ve just sent a translator they have worked with before to work on a project of theirs. Apologies for engaging in speculation, but that’s all this whole article is anyway. It’s just something I noticed from skimming through the page, but I find it quite interesting that Felipe makes a blanket statement about the excerpts from Schizo and Prano “being wrongly attributed to Anno” and then the source he provides for that is just someone on the EvaGeeks forums saying the same thing with little proper sourcing, when that was never really the intent of their post anyway. An interview summary exists where Anno has stated he wrote both books himself, and if you haven’t seen it, here it is. It’s obviously flimsy at best, but Tokyo Otaku Mode is an officially licensed Evangelion distributor. If Felipe is going to parade around his love for the Very Official Khara Subtitles Of NGE he can at least extend the same gratitude to other forms of official information; I mean, frankly, this article is about as reputable as anything in the Netflix subtitles are.  Lastly, another thing I found quite interesting is his strange love for the ADV VHS subtitles. I really, really think this is obvious, but subtitles changed in later versions of the ADV release were changed because they were deemed incorrect. I don’t have sources for this so take it with an absolute grain of salt but I believe there’s even a commentary track on the Platinum release where the translator talks in depth about why she translated episode 24 as she did. It’s not exactly a better word than Kanemitsu’s, but if we’re considering translator’s word as law for whatever reason like Felipe is here, we might as well consider hers, too, right? Oh, and actually, have a look at the sources used on that article. Most of the sweeping statements he makes have absolutely no backing beyond what he’s piecing together from old and irrelevant interviews (when discussing the Netflix translation) as well as...linking Kanemitsu’s job history...I mean, sure, the guy is qualified, but do I really need to go over this again?

INTERMISSION: Speaking of sources, you might have noticed from perusing these articles yourself that EvaGeeks has a very low standard for sourcing to begin with, which is likely partially to blame for how things like these articles can even exist in their current forms in the first place. A site that doesn’t have such a lenient policy on sourcing, though, is Wikipedia. Felipe, of course, cannot stay within the confines of the fandom and has decided to have a go at providing some information to Kaworu’s actual Wikipedia page as well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kaworu_Nagisa&action=history Felipe is far less to blame for the state of Kaworu’s Wikipedia article, which is honestly pretty bad to begin with. There have been plenty of other people editing this one and the rather homophobic “Relationship with Shinji” part of the article has been present for a while before he started editing it. (The fact this article literally uses someone being explicitly homophobic as a source is not surprising for Eva fandom, but holy shit, am I disgusted every time I reopen this page. I'm not even going to bother figuring out who added that one.) I do wonder if his reasons for not desecrating this page the same way he has on EvaGeeks is because he knows it wouldn’t stay up for particularly long. Reminder that he is also the main editor of the same pages on the Evangelion Fandom Wiki, which is essentially a copy and paste of EvaGeeks. Of note is this little tidbit I found:

This is what Felipe then deleted, as this is apparently not relevant, despite literally being about Kaworu’s relationship with Shinji. I mean, I’m sure this could have been put in somewhere else and perhaps phrased a bit better, but why the hell would you outright delete that kind of information? It’s supposed to be a wiki, not your own personal opinion chamber. BTW, this is the thread post he links as a rebuttal to that person adding it, and it’s probably for the best it’s presented here with context: https://forum.evageeks.org/post/886380/NGE-Ep24-Script-First-and-Second-Drafts/#886380

He clearly thinks he has a point here, but I’m not sure what exactly he’s going for. Basically everything he’s saying is conjecture, and while I can kinda see where he’s coming from it sure does completely fail to address the intent as explained in this interview. “Read the whole interview” is very dismissive, especially when the interview in full doesn’t exactly contradict the initial point. It does say quite a bit, how he will disregard official information when his wiki articles themselves are full of nothing but rambling.

Here’s another relevant and quite funny Discord screenshot:

Felipe is making a pretty hypocritical statement here. I’m sure he does have a point - there’s probably been quite a bit of vandalism happening to these pages which isn’t exactly surprising (again, Eva fans are not often rational people, please be honest with ourselves). That being said, I think there’s a particular irony to the man who has written many very, very long paragraphs on the wiki pages he has control over trying to stop people from thinking there might be anything but “ambiguity” between a pair he doesn’t like.

In the case anyone reading has forgotten: the purpose of a wiki should be to provide unbiased information on the material it discusses. Obviously the repeating of “innocuous” statements about how “ambiguous” it all is, in the vain of EG’s now made fun of ‘we don’t know what he really meant by that’ and ‘why Kaworu is so intent for Shinji alone to have happiness remains a mystery’  are pretty obviously intended to downplay the very, very obvious “subtext” and leagues of official information provided.

It kinda goes without saying that WE CAN INFER THESE THINGS FROM THE ACTUAL INFORMATION ON THE WIKI, you don’t need to add a disclaimer to everything going “well we just don’t know what it means!” (even in instances when we do know what it means, but that’s almost besides the point). You don’t need to add in these statements, unless you’re trying to sway people into ignoring what's presented by the show. If you want people to draw their own conclusions, you are in fact capable of presenting information without commentary - in fact, that's kind of the whole point of a wiki. Yes, Eva is ambiguous at times, but talking down to people like they need this reminded to them constantly is an absolute waste of time and energy. It’s almost as if the editor has been trying to cultivate a narrative and has been getting away with it because you can’t really prove these statements are biased unless you do the research. (I mean, you can from context, but it certainly hasn’t done much to get them removed, has it?)

You can view the editing history of any given EvaGeeks article on their own pages if you want to see just how many times these things have been added in by Felipe. And obviously, no, it isn’t just his fault - there are other users, several, in fact, credited with the editing of these pages, many of the edits serving the same point as Felipe’s paragraphs on “ambiguity”. He’s just the most concrete example of a biased editor. Also, yes, I do recognise this has all happened within the few days post the release of Eva on Netflix and that it was likely prompted by that. But we know at least one of the mods is aware of it given how Felipe talks about it in the EvaGeeks Discord server. It’s also quite funny I’ve seen people linking these pages like they're some kind of "gotcha" in response to tweets discussing the new translation, as if they haven’t been invented out of thin air in the past few days.

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

Now, frankly I’m sick of staring at EvaGeeks, and if you want any more information on these articles and others with instances of the same thing happening, you can have a look at it yourself.

Originally, this document contained far more screenshots from Felipe. My desire for this to not turn into a hit piece has lead me to remove a great deal of these messages. I do suggest, if you want to, you join the server and make your own conclusions. Even beyond what the member told me about I found myself agreeing with him fairly frequently when he was being reasonable - this doesn't change my concerns regarding the presentation of information on the wiki, though. The anonymous member was mostly concerned about this user having basically all the control over Kaworu's wiki articles, seeing as he has far too high of a stake in everything. Not all of these messages are inflammatory or even necessarily bad or wrong, but I find that to anyone privy to the “revelations” about the EvaGeeks Wiki here, they paint an interesting story, to say the least.

It’s starting to sound like he perhaps has just had some bad experiences. The following few messages are part of the same conversation.

I find it interesting how he flipflops from not understanding anything about the whole Eva Parallelism Theory Thing to suddenly being all for it when it concerns things not about the gay stuff.

Comments on how ‘manipulative’ Kaworu is

Because Kaworu is very pro instrumentality, and this definitely isn’t just a theory, I mean, it’s even talked about on the wiki, guys! (And I’m not even touching on the yes-men in this server.) Oh.

Oh no.

For the record, this page is clearly still under construction, and to point out any one thing about how bad it is would be essentially just poking a stick at a beehive. At least this one is so absolutely poorly phrased it’s doubtful anyone could mistake it for any kind of proper information. I also find it incredibly funny whenever pages on the wiki use the forum as a source. Relevant: Qmisato’s post on his defending of Shinji sexually assaulting Asuka: https://qmisato.tumblr.com/post/183082754484/yesterday-i-was-invited-to-evageeks-official

In response much later. I really can’t see it as being framed as “fun teenage romance”, also why is the word romance suddenly being used to talk about Asuka and Shinji after the whole debacle with Kaworu? He’s said before he doesn’t see Asuka and Shinji’s relationship as romantic, either (and GOOD! It’s not!)

(Also - it’s not sexual assault when Shinji tries to kiss Asuka in her sleep, but it IS when Kaworu does the exact same thing to Shinji? Make up your mind, dude.) Turning this sort of thing into Shipping Discourse is frankly not the right way to go about it, but it is perhaps notable that despite what Felipe says, he is in fact an Asushin shipper. (I don’t feel the need to post all these images in the document as its cluttered enough as it is.) At this point it’s rather adhom and I feel irrelevant but I do think it’s relevant that through all of Eva fandom, those who have the most issue “understanding” (more like accepting, I suppose) LGB subtext, are those who also are really attached to a fairly morally grey het pairing themselves. Again, seriously, there’s nothing inherently wrong with any of this and assuming the worst of someone because of the pairings they like isn’t my intent here, it’s more that I find this pattern has always been prevalent and it’s bothering me I’m seeing it STILL in 2019. ESPECIALLY from a wiki editor who inserts so much of that into his work on the site. 

  You’re probably sick of reading all of this (and I’m getting sick of writing it), so I’ll wrap up the part on Felipe quickly: Yes, I just dedicated several pages to screenshots of mostly innocuous (when considered out of context) stuff one guy had to say. I feel more obsessive than I’d like to admit, and frankly I have no business with this person. We’ve spoken twice on EvaGeeks threads if you can even call it speaking. This task was given to me by a member of the community who was concerned about his behaviour but didn’t want to publicise it themself and I feel a little out of my depth here. I at least hope we can come to the conclusion I wanted to here, that I fear may have been lost in this whole great mess of language - no one person should have THIS much sway over the state of a wiki that’s supposed to be impartial, especially when they have not been quiet with their biases in the first place, and it is the failure of everyone involved in the maintaining of the wiki itself that this sort of behaviour has been allowed in the first place. 

The guy can have whatever opinions and theories he wants, obviously. I don't give a shit; he's not even that bad compared to the grand majority of Eva fans to begin with. Don't think this document exists to "cancel" him or thoughtpolice, I truly, genuinely, do not care what is said inside this server anymore. It doesn't concern me. I mean, it's a fucking cartoon, for god's sake. This only becomes an issue when opinions are expressed on a wiki, for reasons I have reiterated many times now. EvaGeeks lacks the objectivity required to function as a wiki and I'm trying to make that clear. 

[ON THE TOPIC OF THE EVAGEEKS WIKI AND COMMUNITY IN GENERAL] As for who can edit the wiki and what they’re allowed to say: As you can see from the nature of people’s posts in this thread, you’re given access to do very specific things, and although I haven’t bothered going through the process myself (as I find it would be quite redundant, trying to fix such an inherently broken system), I’m guessing it’s very easy to get your edits reversed if you post anything they don’t like. Take that as conjecture of my own.

I have it in decent faith that the approval process involves whoever of the mod team is there at the time coming to an agreement based on people’s applications. Obviously this is a decent idea for a system, and I’m sure there are legitimate reasons as to why EG has to be locked down as much as it is; judging from the state of other fanon wikis I’ve seen there’s likely to be a decent amount of vandalism, especially in a fandom as passionate as Eva’s is. However, I think it’s fair to say that the complete restriction of updating these pages to those approved by a mod team who, while I’m sure are very reasonable people overall, certain individuals of which have displayed concerning behaviour and biases of their own in the server during my brief look around. I won’t be naming anyone in particular from the mod team as I don’t feel like I need to add any more targets of shame to this already horrifically negative document, but I have gotten the general impression (in case it needed confirmation, following the remaining of these specific changes on the wiki) that some mods, not all, aren’t the most nonpartisan individuals themselves. I do happen to be decent acquaintances with at least one of them so, again, please don’t consider this a personal attack.

My concern here plainly is that I don’t think a group of mods who have routinely failed to prevent events like the ones mentioned earlier, nor seem to have much of an issue with the myriad of examples of people being openly homophobic and misogynistic on their own forum are really in the position to be choosing who of the Privelleged Few get to control the Eva meta-narrative here. As I was writing this, I was alerted to the state of the primary Japanese Evangelion wiki as a source of cross referencing for what these things can look like if done right. If you take a moment to browse it, even if you don’t speak any Japanese and have to use an automatic translator it should be very obvious how something like this differs greatly from EvaGeeks. Kaworu’s page, for a relevant example, doesn’t have present any of the nonsense statements about ambiguity or overwritten descriptions of everything. The wiki respects the reader’s intelligence enough to know that it is, in fact, a wiki, and thus tries its best to be factual. His page is fairly decent in size and states things we know are fact rather than theory. There’s no attempt made to influence or confuse.

Oh, and just in case you think the mods aren’t actually active or present enough to know what Felipe is doing, his particularly awful page on Kaworu in episode 24 got a shoutout from the official Twitter account two days ago.  

If you are going to join the Discord server to verify things yourself* or do further digging, again, please be cautious of other users inside and do your best not to start anything. I am an occasional contributor to the forums and I’d prefer not to get my account flagged or to experience harassment myself, if any EvaGeeks members are still reading this document and disagree with my conclusions. I may not have posted much since I joined earlier this year, but despite everything I find the forums to be valuable for connecting with other fans and have enjoyed the positive feedback to my SIRP translation! Those who have spoken to me there have been very kind (including Felipe himself), and I must reiterate that this is not targeted at the whole site, or even at just Felipe. I simply believe there is more than enough evidence to suggest there have been consistent, systematic failures to recognise and correct the utter lack of objectivity present. I seriously don’t have any personal issues or beef with this guy, either. I wouldn’t have done this if it wasn’t someone else who came to me about it.

*It should be noted that the person who spoke to me has pointed out certain members have been concerned about outsiders joining and screenshotting the chat. They may remove the public link to join if this document were to cause a huge issue. I will leave the server following the publication of this document and I have no plans to join again. I can’t speak for those who may join of their own accord but I do hope people have heeded the disclaimer I made initially.

Thankyou to all the people who have extended their own kindness and support during the creation of this document, to the anonymous person who tipped me off and the lovely Eva analysts I know for offering their own experiences with EvaGeeks and further supplementary information. If this whole document reads like the product of a bad mental health day, I guess it is. Also yes I know how hilarious it is that I’ve spent all this time creating what essentially amounts to an EVAGEEKS CALLOUT POST but I mean. Someone had to say it. Why not make an utter buffoon of myself in the process?

[talkingsong]

Wikipedia Pick-A-Card [SERIES ONE]

Life is the basis of our human experience. So... why not learn more about the world while learning about ourselves?

•

Below, I ask for you to pick a group, 1 through 4. Once you select your number, scroll down to your group, and get your regular tarot message. However, a random Wikipedia article and picture will be attached to your reading, so not only will you get a helpful amount of advice for yourself, you will also find yourself learning something new via the internet. Isn’t that cool? I think it’s cool. Get to picking.————————————————————

•Select your number!•

1.)

2.)

3.)

4.)

GROUP 1

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilac-breasted_roller

I feel like your beauty has gone under appreciated by your enviornment. I feel like your hard work is going to take a while to be known. Don’t let that discourage you. You’ve realized that the mundaine life isn’t for you, and I feel like it’s going to be soon time for you to spread your wings and fly. But not right now- try not to feel frustrated by the apperant plainness of the people around you. You’re a very- pardon my language- extra and idealistic person, and that is such a beautiful thing, but sometimes it can be difficult for you to see the purpose or the beauty in routine or the smaller things in life. Your lesson here is to try to use your wings to dive deep- everything around you is far more complex than it seems, and it’s up to you to see that the mundaine feeling has more to do with your desire for granduer than what’s actually happening around you.

GROUP 2

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Allan_Poe

There’s some sort of theme of revenge here, and I feel like it’s time for you to speak the truth. If you don’t, justice really never will get paid back, which’ll probably suck for you, not gonna lie. Just don’t forgive too early or blame too late, is what I’m feeling. The darker- and more morbid- side of life is always appreciated. You have the maturity now to deal with it, so don’t put it away for people who are too scared to address it. Your patience is cold and brutal. Use it to your advantage.

GROUP 3

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_and_memory

Okay, so psychic stuff. You’re either dreaming about things, thinking things, getting messages, whatever, and it’s sort of freaking you out. The card I pulled for this said, “That which you mistake for madness is but an over acuteness of the senses.” Youre becoming more sensitive to the other side. This isn’t something to be afraid of. Whatever you’re scared of finding is exactly what you’re meant to find- whether that be something psychic or something relating to your memory, or past. Something in your mind. Pay attention to it, and take a break whenever you need. You’ll be fine.

GROUP 4

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-tying_shoes

You guys are advanced, and way ahead of your game. I feel like you guys are overachievers in a way, and someone from the other side is very very proud of you. Know that these ideas or these inventions you’re thinking of, this creativity, will lead you towards something good. It’s all good for you. What you’re doing is good. Don’t be condsecending. You’ve been talked down to in the past- don’t repeat the pattern. My motto is, if you think everyone around you’s the asshole? You’re the asshole. This is a lesson in humility. I feel that you get frustrated with people easily because your mouth moves quicker than other people’s minds, which is fine- but don’t let it get you into a superiority complex. Every groundbreaking invention has its flaws. So do you. Improve on them- and create the next model. You 2.0. Be the person you want to talk to. Sometimes it matters what you create in life, and sometimes it matters who you are. Do both. Create a new you.

[][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][]

[foxgraphics325]

Divinity 2 How To Remove Collar

The quest gives you a perk in exchange for -2 con. By far the best perk is the idol of rebirth which revives a character once upon death and can be recharged by a resurrect scroll. What is little known is that you can pickpocket the idol of rebirth before doing the quest. (2017) Divinity Original Sin 2 How to remove Source Collars - FOR DONATIONS: Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/RPGDivision. https://foxgraphics325.tumblr.com/post/654434163888406528/body-model-sketch.

There are 2 ways to remove your source collars in Act l. - 1st way can be done really early but only works for your main character by winning the undergound arena in Fort Joy. The hatch is located in Griff's Kitchen. After winning the battle , you can talk to Nebora , the female merchant sits next to Fort Joy main entrance. She will remove the collar for you. - 2nd way works for everyone in the party but you have to first escape Fort Joy , find the Seeker Hideout then help them looking for thier lost leader , Gareth. Once Gareth is brought back , you can talk to Leya , she sits just next to the statue of goddess Amadia. She'll remove your party source collars.

Divinity 2 How To Remove Collar Light

Divinity Original Sin 2 How To Remove Collar From Party Members

Youtube

Divinity Original Sin 2 Wiki

Note: This is ONLY to be used to report spam, advertising, and problematic (harassment, fighting, or rude) posts. Otherwise, you can remove the collar and get thrown into the prison as a way to escape. Join Our Newsletter and keep up to date on the latest from HyperX. I made two custom characters but only one of them received that tag. There are 2 ways to remove your source collars in Act l. - 1st way can be done really early but only works for your main character by winning the undergound arena in Fort Joy. It lets you equip a neck piece, so if you don't mind magisters attacking on sight it does offer a slight benefit. I got it removed, but then that turned the rest of my island experience into Magister murder time - though I think it would become that anyway once they see you sneaking into the fort. Removing your Source Collar isn’t a twostep process that ends early in the game. Champion tag? I returned his amulet to Leya at the sanctuary to remove the rest of my party´s collars, but now she won´t speak to me .. Help me please remove collars bugged! Once you’ve finished the combat trial, speak with The Thorny One again. Only that person gets the dialogue to remove the collar. All trademarks are property of their respective owners in the US and other countries. If you become the champion of the arena, you can convince her to take your collar off (only the main character). In this playthrough, when I won the area, the NPC said to me 'Wow you keep winning again and again' which was weird as technically this was my first time.? Divinity: Original Sin 2. Once you’ve saved Garteh, return to Leya and speak with her once more at the Sanctuary of Amadia. All trademarks are property of their respective owners in the US and other countries. At this point, head out of the arena and look for Nebora, a woman near several Blacksmith tools in the Fort Joy area. I already have two other ways to get in there. Removing Your Main Source Collar To get Nebora to remove your personal Source Collar, you must first become Arena champion. I suppose it is the one who talked to the arena master starting the fight. Travel with your party to the Ruined Castle in the Hollow Marshes to the north. L. Joined: Oct 2017 Posts: 4: … Starting out on the Super Nintendo with Super Mario World, and ending up in the world of next-generation gaming. I am not ready or have no intention of taking on the entire fort. The quest gives you a perk in exchange for -2 con. In my last playthrough, I won the arena and Nebora removed my collar for me. Instead, go around and climb the vines on the south side to scale the wall and reach the upper level of the castle ruins. This site uses cookies to provide enhanced features and functionality. The first thing you need to do to remove your Source Collar is make your way into the kitchen at Fort Job. To remove your personal character’s Source Collar in Divinity: Original Sin 2, you must complete the quest titled The Collar, which you should have acquired upon starting the game. Starting point The Hold. Head to the Camp Kitchen in Fort Joy and go outside. The hatch is located in Griff's Kitchen. Nebora is offering to after winning in the Arena. Having that happen to that character might turn out to be a good thing, so just roll with it ;), Fixed the issue :D I simply plugged in a second controller, chose to challenge a member of my party (lockpie hoe) and beat my friends to death, now I am pogchamp :D. Note: This is ONLY to be used to report spam, advertising, and problematic (harassment, fighting, or rude) posts. In fact, it’s going to take you a good few hours to reach the point where you can actually remove your Source Collar and start throwing around magic spells. don't be too worried about only your mule getting the collar removed. Why would you want to do that? After winning the arena combat trial, return to The Thorny One. All rights reserved. NOTE: If Lohse's collar is already removed (after the Blacksmith Nebora removes it for Lohse's winning of the Arena match), then you won't be given the option from the dwarf Duggan to persuade Leya to remove your (and your party's) collar even if … Not Four. He holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Creative Writing for Entertainment. In this article we’ll walk you through how to remove your Source Collar in Divinity: Original Sin 2, which will allow you to start casting spells upon your enemies once more. So I have ecided not to take her up on her offer. Source Collars prevent your ability to utilize Source magic, limiting your true potential in combat. Attributes, combat skills, civil skills, talents, tags. During this sequence, Gareth will be in combat with another group, and you’ll need to fight off all of the Magisters and speak to Gareth. Nebora is a NPC in Divinity: Original Sin 2. Nebora information. Español - Latinoamérica (Spanish - Latin America). Español - Latinoamérica (Spanish - Latin America). Josh has been exploring fantastic worlds and getting lost in video games for as long as he can remember. Make sure the character that is talking to Nebora have the Champion of the Arena tag. © Valve Corporation. Once you’re outside again, pass through the Camp Kitchen and locate Nebora’s tent down the steps just beyond the Shrine. For a visual walkthrough on how to remove all Source Collars from your party members in Divinity: Original Sin 2, check out this tutorial video from RPG Division. Depending on your level, and what quest lines you have developed. The hotfix addresses a number of player-reported issues. Help! Note: This is ONLY to be used to report spam, advertising, and problematic (harassment, fighting, or rude) posts. You won't find a source point till after the fort and there isn't much in between the fort and where you can get the collars removed from everyone (and the entire fort aggros you after the fort anyway). Other potential party members will have their own Source Collars as well. All Discussions Screenshots Artwork Broadcasts Videos Workshop News Guides Reviews. Should I remove the collar while still in the Fort. Larryn is a full-time editor who has written guides and editorial features for various gaming websites. To remove your personal character’s Source Collar in Divinity: Original Sin 2, you must complete the quest titled The Collar, which you should have acquired upon starting the game. All rights reserved. 09 Apr 2020 19:28 . Follow these steps to remove the Source Collars from your party in Divinity: Original Sin 2. Removing Collars early (Potential Spoilers). Note: This is ONLY to be used to report spam, advertising, and problematic (harassment, fighting, or rude) posts. In my last playthrough, I won the arena and Nebora removed my collar for me. And all the NPC's spam WHERES YOUR COLLAR? Only if you are ready to be sneaky or fight. Nebora is offering to. Make sure that Gareth is not killed during the fight. The camp is past Fort Joy, which means you've already escaped, possibly have access to source, and all magisters at the prison are hostile. Leya Fort Joy. Divinity: Original Sin 2 > General Discussions > Topic Details. The opportunity to remove the Source Collars off the rest of your party members will come much later in the game, after you have escaped from Fort Joy. In this article we’ll walk you through how to remove your Source Collar in Divinity: Original Sin 2, which will allow you to start casting spells upon your enemies once more. You won't really be rolling in any kind of source points to use your skill until you exit the fort anyway, so no rush to get it off. How to Remove Your Source Collar . There's literally no reason to. unless you make some RP reason to, I suppose. To do this, you’re going to need to be prepared to go a bit further into the game, after you have escaped Fort Joy.

How To Remove Collar In Divinity 2

https://foxgraphics325.tumblr.com/post/653612133610848256/deezer-ariana-grande. Bridal Hair Consultation Questions,Bmw E9 For Sale Uk,Scottish School Holidays 2020 Dumfries Galloway,Guo Cheng Height,Edexcel Economics A Level 2019 Paper 1,Homelink Rear View Mirror,Charlotte Baughman Obama,Tempo Storm Net Worth,Escarabajo De Mar,Homeworld Cataclysm Quotes,Lg Dlex3700v Wifi Setup,Caribbean Hurricane Damaged Homes For Sale,Reflected Ceiling Plan Autocad,James Wright Tiktok Net Worth,Tera Term User Manual,Simply Put,He Lives Hymn Pdf,Is Eagle A Carnivore,Ruth Bader Ginsburg Mbti,Roblox Gui Script,What Nationality Is Karina Carvalho,El Norte (pelicula),Roles And Responsibilities Of A Bookkeeper,Nba2k20 Error Code 7d1cdfe7,How To Thicken A Horses Neck,Sheffield Bands Of The 80s,Nike Missile Sites Pittsburgh,

[the-tendo-blog]

the curious case of cooper Barnes

HD week day 6: appreciating the shit out of the cast

I want to say this is based on a true story but I honestly have no idea

Anyways cooper here is underrated as hell so here’s this shitty and surprisingly raunchy fic about his anime backstory 

"What the fuck, Sean?" Jace asked with confusion.

"No, think about it! Cooper never tells us about his past, so it's totally realistic if he's actually an escaped lab experiment!" Sean replied. "Just look at him!"

Jace looked over at their coworker. We wasn't really doing anything of note, just drinking some soda, and once he finished it he crushed the can with his hand and took a bite out of it, chewing on the metal like gum.

"...okay, I know he's done weird stuff like that, but that doesn't mean he's an escaped lab experiment." The blond said, giving His friend a weird look. Cooper flipped them off and walked away.

"No, listen to me dude, he's done way more than that." Sean said, leaning in close and his voice suddenly a whisper. "Meet me at my house after work. I have something to show you."

Extremely skeptical, jace agreed to do so.

Once he arrived, Sean turned around in his computer room seat like some kind of bad guy in a movie, grinning just like one too.

"Ok, what did you want to show me?" Jace asked, crossing his arms.

Sean tilted his head. "Do you think you're ready?"

"What does that even mean?"

"The things I've found definitely are not for the faint of heart."

"Please, it's cooper barnes. How bad can it be?"

"Worse than you think."

Jace sighed and walked over to the computer. Sean followed him, scooting along on his chair.

the screen had an article titled 'Henry danger: a new nickelodeon gay subtext classic?'

Jace had a confused yet inexplicably surprised look on his face. "Sean, what the hell is this?"

"I know, just look." The young man at the computer said as he scrolled down to a specific line and ran the mouse over it. "Read that."

Jace looked at the small paragraph.

Cooper barnes, shown here, is no stranger to gay things. He starred in a homoerotic film about football players.

"Wait... he starred in WHAT?" Jace shouted in surprise.

"Gay porn, Jace! Cooper did gay porn!" Sean shouted back. Thank god the computer room had thick walls.

"You're joking, right? This article is a joke?"

"Not at all."

"ok, but how do you know that's true? You can't just use one article." Jace replied, clear skepticism in his voice.

"Okay, yeah, but it's not like it's a clickhole article or anything." Sean said, "i do have more evidence, though."

"Oh yeah? What?"

Sean quickly searched up 'cooper barnes gay porn' and got a surprising amount of results, all of them having cooper's name in the title.

"...dude! No way that's real." Jace lied, he believed Sean now, but didn't want to admit it so quickly.

"Do I need to show you pictures, jace?" sean replied, irritated.

"No! No! Absolutely not!" Jace responded. "I don't want to see that shit!"

"Good choice." His friend replied. "I really wish I could unsee that shit."

"Oh god."

"Anyways, cooper also has a lot of other weird suit going on for him." Sean said as he closed the tab and got ready to type something else up.

"And what exactly would that be?"

"When I first found out about the gay porn, I decided to do more research to see if I could find anything else." Sean began. "You'd expect him to have a Wikipedia page like us, right?"

"Yeah..." jace replied, sickened yet curious.

"I looked for it, because surely they'd mention gay porn on his page, right?"

"Yeah..."

"I looked, and he doesn't. Not outside of the Henry danger wiki."

"Bullshit! I know he has one!" Jace suddenly shouted.

"Yeah, in polish!" Sean shouted back.

"Wait, what?"

Sean showed him, And sure enough, there it was.

"This is so weird..."

"And you should go through his IMDB later, it's got a lot of weird shit."

"I believe that."

"Also, i think matthew zhang found out about this first, but cooper also confessed to killing someone in an interview recently." Sean changed the subject a bit.

"Wait, what the hell?" Jace responded, not sure if he should believe him.

"Seriously, let me show you the article he sent me."

Sean pasted a link in the search bar, scrolled for a while, and pointed his mouse at a passage.

"It's the first question of an interview." He replied.

Jace read over the passage which cooper told a suspiciously detailed story of a first date where he took a girl out to make out and do other things in his car before some dude high on meth or something tried to attack them, so cooper tried to fight them and his date ended up killing them, and they dumped the body in a river and left to get food and wash up.

"...oh my god, dude."

"I feel like it actually happened, but he tried to pass it off as a joke." Sean explained. Jace nodded in agreement.

The two boys were about to discuss further, but it was interrupted by Sean's phone ringing.

They looked at the screen. Matthew zhang was calling. Sean picked up the phone and answered, then put it on speaker.

"You're on speaker right now, Matt. Tell us what you found."

"The Pornhub podcast said they're going to have cooper barnes on their show, we need to follow them over and witness him expose himself as an ex-gay porn star." He said through the phone. "I'm headed to your house right now. We're following his car to the place."

Sean hung up and dragged Jace outside, where Matthew pulled up in a surprisingly expensive looking car.

"Hey guys! I had to call an uber!"

"What kind of uber driver has a whip that expensive?" Sean shouted back.

"No time to explain, get in the car both of you!"

Sean and Jace ran in, shut the door and drove off.

"Okay, who's driving us?" Jace responded as they took off.

"Me, asshole." A voice said. Sean looked over at the driver as he followed cooper's car.

Once both hit a red light, the driver turned around to look at them. Jace's jaw dropped.

"POST MALONE?"

"Yeah, stop freaking out. I'm just as invested in this as you are, you know." Post replied, returning to following cooper's car.

"What? Since when do you watch henry danger?"

"I don't. My friend told me about it."

Jace and Sean looked at each other and shrugged.

"By the way, can nobody mention the murder? I don't want whatever KGB shit cooper used to cover his tracks hunting us down because we know too much." Matthew zhang asked them before grabbing the aux cord and turning on some lil toenail music, which resulted in everyone telling him to 'turn that shit off'

After a lot of arguing and conspiracy theories, they finally arrived significantly earlier than cooper did to pornhub studios for the podcast.

"Okay, how do we sneak in? Post is the only one who looks old enough to even be there." Jace asked, still trying to process what was happening.

"I have an idea." Post Malone replied and took two black suits and sunglasses out of the trunk.

"Blond kid and your friend there,"

"Our names are jace and Sean!"

"Jay and sam, get changed in the car, you'll be my secret service agents." Post instructed.

Jace shrugged and crawled back into the car to do so.

"What about me?" Matthew zhang asked.

"You're going to cling to my stomach and we're going to put a shirt over you so I look like some fatass." Post said.

Matt cringed a little, but it was worth the risk to find out the truth about cooper barnes.

Once Jace and Sean were in their disguises, they both climbed out and noticed cooper had arrived.

"Follow that cryptid!" Sean whisper-shouted.

"Dammit, sam." Post Malone replied.

Sean sighed and they followed post inside, a considerable distance behind cooper.

Getting into the building undetected was hard, they had a few close calls as cooper kept looking around warily, in his shitty varsity jacket with the pornhub logo with his last name and the number 69 on the back. None of them could take him seriously wearing that.

But overall, they managed to get in and follow the target undetected.

Once cooper found the podcast room, he entered and shut the door Behind him, allowing the four cryptid hunters to come out from hiding behind the corner.

"You can come out now, matt." Post Malone said, lifting up the second shirt that Matthew zhang fell out of.

"Thank god! It was starting to smell fucking terrible!" Matt cried in relief.

"Hey! It's not my fault they made me use cherry scented lube!" Someone said nearby.

"Nobody was talking to you, asshole." Jace replied.

"Oh..." the person replied and walked off sulking.

After that exchange, everyone put their ear up to the door, trying to hear anything they could, searching for the perfect time to strike.

So far, the podcast was quite strange. Cooper had a lengthy talk about politics with who post Malone insisted was the person running the company's twitter account, and asa Akira, which Jace swore he knew about her only by seeing the pornhub twitter account's shitposts.

Everyone gave him the benefit of the doubt.

"So when do we kick the door down and expose cooper like in a cop movie?" Matt asked everyone.

Jace and Sean simply shrugged. Sean had no idea, and Jace was still not entirely sure if this was happening, if his best friend was actually an ex gay porn star and possible serial killer, or if this was all some weird drug trip or a fever dream.

"Just wait for my countdown." Post replied, listening closer.

"One..." the rapper began. The three child actors got behind him

"Two..."

Jace's heart raced. What if there were bodyguards? What if there were assasins hiding in that room to kill them?

"Three!"

The door was kicked open with a surprising amount of force.

"STOP RIGHT THERE!"

Asa Akira, cooper barnes, and aria, the person behind the pornhub twitter account, all froze and looked at them like deer in headlights.

"you can't hide anymore, cooper! We know everything!" Matt shouted.

"Who are you guys?" Asa Akira said, confused.

"My coworkers... and post Malone...?" Cooper said, tilting his head.

"They look a little young to be in gay porn, did you-"

"Oh, god no! Im not a fucking pedophile, I'm on nickelodeon now!"

"You never said that."

"No seriously! It's called henry danger, I play-"

"We actually don't care, we just wanted to make sure you weren't a child molester or something."

"That's fair."

Cooper turned to look at them, not realizing jace was with the three.

"Okay, first up. Matt, we already knew you were a meme loving fuck so this was probably hilarious to you when you found out about my past." The brunet began.

"Yeah, I'm not going to make fun of you for it though." Matthew zhang replied, awkwardly looking around the room.

"Sean, are you cool with this?" Cooper asked.

Sean nodded. "Yeah, I'm not some asshole who shames people because they did sex work in the past. You do what you have to do, ya know?"

"Thanks bro I almost had to suck dan Schneider's toes for my role as captain man" cooper said once more.

"Wait, what?"

"Nothing."

"Anyways, post Malone, why are you involved with this? Since when did you watch Henry danger?" Cooper asked and tilted his head.

"I don't, Matthew zhang told me and I honestly thought it was hilarious." Post Malone replied. "Also, there's one more person here."

"Whomst?"

"Jace normie."

At least he got my first name right... Jace thought as he ran out to see cooper, feeling extremely mixed emotions.

"Jace! Hi..." cooper started, visibly terrified.

"Cooper seriously, why the fuck didn't you tell me?" Jace suddenly screamed. "I'm having an existential crisis over this!"

"Dude, you were like 14 when I met you, you wouldn't have been able to handle that. I was going to tell you once you turned 18, I'm not tryna fuck tho don't freak out."

"Okay good otherwise I'd be really scared."

The two yelled at each other about morals for a while until jace came to his senses.

"Man fuck this lmao, wanna go get food?"

"Hell Yeah I do"

And so the entire cryptid hunting team, aria, asa akira, And the cryptid himself all went out to get some food, and life was good.

[shameforskam]

exactly a year ago today (oct 30th) was the day i first found skam

im kinda surprised i remember it, i was scrolling through tumblr and saw a gifset with four couples in it all from different shows, all of which i recognized except one, it was a gif from hjernen er alene (of course) and the op had tagged skam so i immediately googled it which at this point in the fandom… didn’t get me very far, i found the skam page and nrk tv which had the shittiest google translate ever and really nothing else, i don’t think the wikipedia article even exist yet (at least on the english wiki), but it gave me the basics: skam was norwegian, in its third season, and it had no official english subtitles yay!

while randomly searching for a translated version of the episodes (i’d found the srt files but i wasn’t sure how to use them yet) i found a youtube channel that was uploading only the isak and even storyline (so also missing a lot from s3) with english subs. i remember avoiding it for a bit because i wanted to start from s1 if i was gonna start at all but upon finding no other translated videos i wound up back there and figured i’d see if it was worth going to the trouble of figuring out how to watch the rest. i watched all the videos in one go and i knew i’d found something i was going to fall in love with, i remember particularly loving bånder and the call your girlfriend scene and not having any idea who the girl with the suitcase was. i needed the backstory on these characters asap. i went back to tumblr and found a post suggesting an extension i could use to overlay the srt files on the episodes, so that's what i did for the next week. that was super fun because anytime i had to pause the show i had to pause both the program playing the subs and the video and keeping them synced up was such a joy lmao. but it was worth it. i loved this strange niche show with such beautiful characters and such rich storylines and dialogue and i felt so excited by what i’d found 

as i was catching up on s1 and s2 i was figuring out how to follow along with s3, the format of skam has always been the thing that intrigued me the most and there’s no way to describe exactly what following the story in real time feels like, but you all know that. i watched the next two clips uploaded on the youtube channel but it got taken down on nov 1st. i consider pause to be the first clip i watched in real time. that was when i’d started getting the translated clips from shametv and getting the texts and everything as well on tumblr. that was the first clip i remember seeing had dropped and known i’d need to wait a few hours for subs. i remember i’d just got settled into how the process was working when the show went on hiatus

i’d been all over the skam tag and stalking the fandom every day, loving everyone talking and all the theories (some just hilariously wrong). i have the first post i ever reblogged about skam [x] (a great one) and the first reaction post i ever made [x] i remember being so sad just trying to process the incredible relationship and show i’d just found out about ending in a heartbreaking moment and then leaving me while trump won the election, it was too much devastation for one week! during all this i was in my first semester of college, living with 3 roommates who are now my best friends. i don’t remember talking about skam to them too much to begin with (they’ll probably say different) but one of my roommates also found out about it on tumblr and i showed her how i watched the first seasons. skam came back and on nov 15th we were all out to eat when ingen lever lykkelig alle sine dager dropped. it was exciting every time a clipped dropped but this one was special because we were at dinner and i told my one roommate there was a new clip and we translated the title word for word on a napkin while our other roommates were like ‘what is happening??’ and the title was sad! and i didn’t want sad! and i spent the next few hours trying to avoid thinking about what it could mean and running around the city with my friends and hoping the translation would be up when i got home 

that was the night i created this blog. it started simply as a place to put all the posts i wanted to save and to write down my thoughts so i wouldn’t talk my roommates’ ears off. that was the night i committed to actually being involved in the fandom, something i hadn’t done in a few years and not close to the same extent. but skam was special, still is special, it’s the reason i’ve talked to so many people from all around the world now. i never thought that this blog would get followers or that i’d make posts that people would find interesting or that i’d learn to make gifs or that i’d have any influence on the fandom at all. it’s the weirdest thing stumbling on my posts linked to on twitter or used in discussions on reddit when i’m looking through the parts of the fandom i don’t regularly interact with. there’s a lot of aspects about being heavily involved in and up to date with a fandom that i’m still grappling with, and there’re the aspects i hope i never get use to, but i’ve found so much more joy in this show and with this fandom that i would always choose to be a part of it. i don’t know how long i’ll stay, i don’t know if i’ll eventually archive this blog but i’ll be here until my interest with skam fades, until there are no remakes to critique, until i lose track of the cast, until there’s no one left translating and nothing to talk about but i don’t see any of that happening soon

i’ve loved this show for the last year. even with it’s flaws at the root of it all i still love it. i love what i’ve learned from the show and from the fans, i love that the show made me believe in where i want to go. i’m in college studying film and watching skam during that first semester made me 100% sure this was what i wanted to be doing with my life, making media people could believe in, something that touched their soul and made them think, something new and inventive, something people could find themselves in and fall in love with, something beautiful, and that’s really why i’ll always be grateful for this little show, i’ll always be grateful for the people that translated it and the people that continue to translate, to everyone that made me realize something i never would have and think about something in a brand new way, to anyone that’s sent me questions and enjoyed hearing my thoughts, to everyone that made me laugh with some ridiculous post, to everyone that sent me comforting words when i asked, and to everyone that created content that made me love skam even more, it’s been a great year 💙💙💙

[rhegar]

Show!Rhaegar: You’re Not Really Meant to Look That Deeply into Him.

Or, How Game of Thrones Bastardized Rhaegar to Unbastardize Jon. 

So, now that I can finally access the internet from my computer for an unlimited amount of time, I wanted to write down what you’re meant to make of show!Rhaegar, why he annulled his marriage to Elia (even though that shouldn’t even be possible) and how close he is to being book!Rhaegar. And while we’re at it, let me tell you all the reasons why book!Rhaegar would never do such a thing (even if he could.)

I have definitely gotten a lot of inspiration and ideas from @lyannas and @oadara especially about annulment and the complications of Jon being and then not being a bastard, and gotten a lot of useful info from A Wiki of Ice and Fire.  So huge thanks <3 The article contains mentions of rape and dubious consent. 

To begin this, we need to take a look back on what the show has made of Rhaegar so far, and the differences between the show and the book depictions. 

1. In season one, Robert mentions Rhaegar’s kidnapping of Lyanna, but not in detail, just that Rhaegar did something bad to Lyanna. At the end of the season, in episode 10, Bran mentions specifically that Rhaegar kidnapped Lyanna and that Robert started a war for that and killed him, but Lyanna died. Somewhere in the middle of the season, Jorah mentions that Rhaegar was the last dragon while “Viserys is less than the shadow of a snake” painting Rhaegar, for the first time on the show, in a positive light. 

Now, one thing in season one that interested me that nobody else ever notices (or if they do notice, they never talk about it) is when Jon was having a talk with Aemon. I always watched this conversation carefully as it is the first time that Jon communicated with a Targaryen and heard him speak of the family. One odd thing that Aemon said that I noticed is, (as well as I can remember) “But when I heard how they murdered my brother’s son, and his poor son, and the children... even the little children,” and then Aemon later clarifies the line of the latest Targaryen kings on the show, saying that his father was Maekar, and then Aemon’s brother Aegon V (Egg) ruled after him, and then came his son Aerys. This is unlike the books where Aerys is actually the son of Jaehaerys II, not Aegon V, so there’s a king in between that the show skipped. 

Back to the first quote now. When Aemon said “They killed my brother’s son,” he was talking about Aerys. “And his poor son,” that’s Rhaegar. Why would Aegon talk about Rhaegar especially that way? Was there some type of connection between them? Why would Aemon sympathize with Rhaegar especially? In the books, we know that Aemon exchanged letters with Rhaegar, but on the show, Aemon is now dead and we never knew (unless there’s going to be a flashback or if someone is going to find Rhaegar’s letters in Aemon’s records at Castle Black, but I don’t personally think the show gives so much regards to continuity or that Castle Black is going to exist for very long at all.)

2. In season 3, Barristan gives Dany a talk about Rhaegar and how he fought at the battle of the trident and how his men died for him because they believed in him and loved him. Again, Rhaegar is painted in a positive light, as a charismatic and well-loved leader who inspired loyalty. 

3. In season 4, the very first episode. Oberyn finally appears to give us the perspective of Elia’s family on Rhaegar’s deeds. Oberyn calls Rhaegar “beautiful and noble” sarcastically and says that he left Elia for another woman after Elia had been nothing but good and kind to him and his children. He also went as far as to say that Elia loved Rhaegar. What kind of love did he mean? Did she truly love Rhaegar or was she “fond” of him? We can’t tell. 

4. In season 5, the writers seemed to be in a hurry to catch up with reminding us who Rhaegar is, by inserting talks about him twice in one episode, for pretty long conversations. That is, of course, episode 4, in which Littlefinger tells Sansa the story of the tourney of Harrenhal as we all know it, quite objectively, and then asks, “How many men had to die because Rhaegar chose your aunt?” and Sansa replies, “Yes, he chose her, and then he kidnapped her and raped her.” The second time he is mentioned in that episode shows how much contrast there is between the two ways people see Rhaegar, when Barristan again paints him in a positive light by telling Dany that he liked to walk among the people, sing to them, give money to orphans and poor singers, and that he never liked killing, but loved singing. 

5. And of course, in season six, came the (bastardized) conversation between Ned and the three (now two) Kingsguard at the ToJ, most importantly Arthur. Ned reminds them of Rhaegar’s defeat and asks them why they weren’t there to protect him, and Arthur replies that Rhaegar wanted them at the ToJ. And at the end of the season, Bran presses play and we resume watching this scene, leading up to the big R+L=J reveal. 

6. In season seven, we are told that he (somehow????) convinced the High Septon at the time to annul his (four-year, consummated) marriage to Elia and married him to Lyanna (or to “someone else” as Gilly puts it, but we all know it’s Lyanna) in a secret ceremony in Dorne. 

So, what has the show missed?

1. In all of this, there isn’t a peep about the prophecy, when in the books we are told three times that Rhaegar cared about it and it motivated his actions a great deal: a. At the House of the Undying b. When we’re told that he found a scroll that changed his life and made him feel that he “must become a warrior” and c. When Maester Aemon discusses his communications with Rhaegar concerning the prophecy with Sam. So, as much as the show is concerned, Rhaegar never even heard the word prophecy, and would think The Prince that Was Promised was the name of a rock band if he heard of him. 

So, the part of Rhaegar’s character that escaped with Lyanna because they must have a child together who is ice + fire (and I plan on exploring why this had to be the case, why Lyanna specifically when he could have had a third child on any milkmaid or handmaiden on Dragonstone with no political consequences) basically doesn’t exist on the show. Show!Rhaegar was NOT motivated by the prophecy (and I know one could argue that he is but we just haven’t heard that yet, but I personally find it weird that we haven’t heard about this whatsoever in seven seasons, when we could have seen the scene at the HotU or at least been told by Aemon or even Barristan).

2. Rhaegar as a melancholic (potentially clinically depressed) person and an intellectual scholar is not mentioned. Again, in the books, those are important aspects of Rhaegar’s personality that also seemed to motivate his actions and affect his way of thinking. 

3. Rhaegar as a politician is not mentioned. We don’t hear anything about the rift between him and his father, his plans to establish a regency/overthrow Aerys, his possible involvement in organizing the tourney of Harrenhal, and the fact that he held his own court at Dragonstone and had his own backing. Show!Rhaegar doesn’t seem to have politics in mind much either.

So, what does the show tell us about Rhaegar?

That Rhaegar never once thought of himself as a prophetic figure/a father to one. That he was a man who liked the smallfolk and mingling with them. That Rhaegar was charismatic, well-loved, the last dragon, and seemed like a sympathetic figure to someone as smart as Maester Aemon. And finally, that he ran away with Lyanna Stark and annulled his marriage for her, and at this point, only one reason for that is left by process of elimination: Love. 

So, basically what the show did, is try to simplify Rhaegar into someone that the viewer doesn’t need to look too deeply into. He was a spirited singer who didn’t care about politics but loved the people (who here wants to bet that show!Rhaegar also called all the nobles fake, made fun of fat noblewomen and made a lot of dick jokes?) and he was married to Elia for political reasons/because he needed to marry someone, but along came Lyanna Stark, he fell in love, and set aside everything (including his own family) to marry her, not even caring about all the political repercussions because, hey, he’s spirited! And all the nobles are fake! Who cares about politics, kids? Of course he later paid with his life and the lives of his entire family, but who cares, still got laid.

It’s basically the same thing that the show did with Jaime. Take a complex character that has a core struggle and a life mission, simplify it into a one-dimensional character that doesn’t really require any effort to understand or depict. The writers of the show know that they don’t have nearly as much talent or IQ as it takes to depict either of them with their full complexity and depth in the books, so they simplified things up for themselves and for the members of the audience that don’t really want to look too deeply into things either. 

Now, if we look completely away from Rhaegar... why would the showmakers do this whole annulment nonsense, you say? Why did they waste screentime on it and energy writing it? Because Jon Snow is their favorite, and bastardy is such a bad thing (not just an invented and bigoted Westerosi social stigma) that, on his nameday, they decided to take it away and give him legal rights to a kingdom that he never wanted, fought for or thought of having. Even though bastardy wouldn’t have affected his ability to be a hero, and even though we already have a legal claimant with an army and three dragons, who’s struggled and fought plenty for that kingdom, there’s a small problem: She’s a woman, and she’s not everyone’s favorite like Jon Snow is. Must keep the ratings up, guys. 

Now, as to all the reasons why book!Rhaegar would never annul his marriage to Elia (even if it were possible, which it isn’t, because their marriage was beyond a shadow of doubt consensual and consummated, and Rhaegar needs to be a king to set her aside and take another wife, which he wasn’t yet. Source) (UPDATE: Linda Antonsson, a writer who has collabed with GRRM on A World of Ice and Fire and is very familiar with ASOIAF content, has said on twitter in criticism for the episode that the idea of an annulment is bizarre and that it would be very difficult for Rhaegar to obtain one and the fact that those “records” exist in the citadel is very odd. I also asked her if she knows for sure that an annulment would make Rhaenys and Aegon bastards, and she said there’s no definite answer but it’s likely that yes. Her twitter)

1. Let’s assume that Rhaegar absolutely held no value for Elia whatsoever and had no problem giving her the ultimate humiliation of annulment. Elia is a princess of Dorne, and Dorne has only ever joined the fold of Westeros by marriage. No Targaryen king was able to defeat Dorne and forcibly make it kneel to him. If Elia is returned to Dorne with such an insult as setting her aside, this threatens that Dorne might disassociate itself from the rest of Westeros again, taking away a huge asset from Rhaegar (the Dornish were his biggest allies against his father.)

2. For reasons mentioned here by Lyannas, it’s most likely that this annulment would result in Rhaenys and Aegon to become bastards. Not only would Rhaegar not do that to his children who are also important prophetic figures to him (two heads of the dragon) but also it threatens civil war in the future. If Dorne decides to not only remove itself from Rhaegar’s backing but also align themselves behind Aegon against Lyanna’s (”legitimate”) children in the case that Rhaegar does become the king and the line of succession continues normally, a civil war similar to the Blackfyre Rebellion could break and the future of House Targaryen will be majorly threatened. Who has time for that when you’re trying to stop a zombie apocalypse? 

Book!Rhaegar may have been a lot of things, but he wasn’t that big an idiot as to jeopardize his future on the throne and the future of his children like this. But of course, show!Rhaegar who was practically an idiot had no problem with all that.

I want to conclude by saying that we have been looking at show!Rhaegar the wrong way. We’ve all had book!Rhaegar in mind while thinking about show!Rhaegar, but the truth is, they’re two completely different people. And while book!Rhaegar is smart and sensible enough to know that he couldn’t and shouldn’t annul his marriage to Elia, show!Rhaegar, who is merely a wasteful bastardization of everything that Rhaegar is, totally would. He’s a miracle man who was able to obtain an annulment from a marriage as steady as rocks because he’s THE Rhaegar Targaryen. And while thousands of metas and rereadings have been done to understand the dilemma of book!Rhaegar, show!Rhaegar only needs you to clear your mind of book!Rhaegar, forget about any depth or intellect or savior complex, watch the show, and enjoy his jackassery. 

Oh, poor George...

[jetbootcollection]

A Hero’s Vacation, Ch.2

Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug

Characters: Marinette/Ladybug, Adrien/Chat Noir, Alya, Nino, OC(s)

Summary: Reuniting with an old friend goes about as wrong as it could.

Tags: Fluff, Self-Indulgent Fluff, Angst, No Romance (for canon characters), Gratuitous use of OCs, Headcanons Abound

Words: 7975

Chapters: 2/?

<<Chapter 1 , Chapter 3>>

Nino liked hearing Alya talk. She had that perfect level of sass in everything she said and could make anything sound interesting. But this was getting ridiculous. Ever since that foreign hero had arrived in Paris, Alya had been scouring the internet for info on more heroes. And boy, did she find it.

By now Nino knew that there were heroes in Tokyo, Cairo, and Seattle, probably more he didn’t care to remember, along with then names of a dozen such heroes. For three solid days, Alya did nothing but info-dump about some new hero she had found. No one was safe from her overflowing knowledge, having even cornered Chloe into listening.

Marinette, usually the one to reign her in when she got going on about Ladybug, had done nothing to stop her. If anything, she had encouraged Alya to research Eagle and his teammates in the beginning stages. But now she was suffering alongside Nino and the rest of the school.

“The school should just hire her to teach a class. At least then we would have an excuse to not care.” Nino said while leaning back boneless in a library chair. The librarian had kicked Alya out enough times that this had become the official safe zone.

“Be careful what you wish for. I saw her carry a portfolio into the headmaster’s office, so she may have already asked.” Adrien said from across the table, trying to at least look busy reading a book to justify taking up a seat in the crowded library. Looking up to make sure his friend was not going to break his headphones in frustration at the news, he sees Amoux coming towards them.

“Sorry to overhear, but I agree. Alya needs to chill out.” His French was getting better and he was starting to pick up phrases. He sat down in the last remaining chair and began taking out his own work to do.

“Bro, I am so sorry for you. She’s been on you all day. How did you get away?” Nino asked, genuinely curious but trying to be subtle. Alya’s international superhero stint had started with Amoux, so of course she wanted to know more from the only person she knew with firsthand experience.

Amoux smirked as he explained his escape.

“It was not hard once I say ‘I do not know the words to describe him.’ I start talking in English and she lost interest. I was like, ‘Oh Alya you must understand, [Eagle is handsome and courageous like you wouldn’t believe. And huggable! Just look at those feathers and tell me you don’t want a piece of that.]’ She didn’t want to waste time translating, so she moved on.”

The boy seemed quite pleased with himself, making his English sound as close to Alya’s ramblings as possible. Adrien and Nino had caught on to his impression of her and found it hilarious. Not enough to laugh, because that would get them kicked out and put them at risk of another Alya lecture.

“Sounds to me like you have quite a lofty opinion of Eagle.” Marinette turned around in her chair behind Amoux. She too was hiding from Alya and, though she would never admit to it, had found a seat as close to Adrien as possible.

Amoux’s checks took on a pinker shade as he realized the girl had understood what he had said. Good thing he hadn’t said anything too revealing, or he wouldn’t be able to play it off so easily.

“W-Well, I do. He was the best Seattle hero.” He said, trying hard to not panic when he turned around to face her. This school’s English class was rudimentary but well balanced, so she would have the basics down if she paid attention. During his visit to her home he had noticed a pair of framed degrees from a baking school in London, so she might get some of it at home. Just how much English did she know?

Marinette read his face to mean something completely different.

“Don’t worry about it, Amoux. Thinking about your favorite hero that way is completely normal. I’m sure half of Paris would jump at the chance to steal a kiss from Ladybug.” Marinette assured him, her own checks darkening a bit. She only had eyes for Adrien, but her fans could be very passionate and she would be lying if she said she didn’t get anything out of the attention.

“Don’t forget Chat Noir. He’s quite the catch too.” Adrien offered. Compared to Labybug, he had fewer fans that were bold enough to make a pass at him. But when they did, they went all out. Too bad he only had eyes for Ladybug or he would be the most eligible bachelor in town.

“I hear you, dude. I wouldn’t mind a date with the Chat.” Nino said without thinking. The surprised looks from his friends made him quickly amend his statement. This was not how he wanted to come out as bi.

“He’s the coolest dude I know. A friendly date with a guy like that would be dope.” Nino tried not to shy away from it but failed. If the nervous look on Adrien’s face was anything to go by, he had weirded him out.

“E-Excuse me a minute.” Adrien said and he pushed out his chair and marched off to the library bathroom. Nino was decimated. He didn’t have feelings for his best friend. He didn’t want to lose him either.

“Oh man. I didn’t think he would be that much of a ‘phobe.” He said as he flopped onto the table, popping his hat off and nearly cracking his glasses. Marinette wanted to comfort him but didn’t know how. Her parents might as well be saints, so she had grown up learning that people who rejected love based solely on gender were toxic and wrong. Adrien deserved the benefit of the doubt, but Nino deserved better than this.

“I do not believe that. Adrien is a very accepting person who respects the feeling of others, no matter what form they take. Him running away was likely because he thought you were expressing interest in him directly. It’s possible he was thinking of the clothing line he modeled recently, called ‘The Chat,’ which was inspired by Chat Noir himself, and made the association. Once he realizes his mistake he will return to apologize, happy that you no longer carry the burden of keeping that side of yourself a secret.” Amoux spoke calmly, almost hypnotically. There had been no pauses of thought. His French was impeccable.

The library was a quiet place by design, but the silence had deepened. Everyone within earshot had been listening in since halfway through the speech. Slowly but surely, they all went back to what they were doing but remained in stunned silence.

Adrien came back from the bathroom not a second later. He raised an eye brow at the sudden silent focus in the room. The librarian must have put her foot down.

“Man, it’s quiet in here.” Adrien whispered as he approached, unaware that he had indirectly caused it.

“Nino, listen. I’m sorry I bailed like that. There was this fashion line I modeled and-“ He didn’t get to finish before Nino got up to give his best friend a bro hug.

“Dude, it’s cool. Amoux explained it.”

“Explained what?” Adrien asked. Amoux had gone back to his book to not pull any more attention to himself. He looked a bit sheepish.

“I do not like doing that in public. But emergency times call for emergency measures.”

Being Eagle for so long meant that some of his powers came through even as a civilian, which meant he saw things that most people could not. It went beyond how people held themselves, eye movements, eating habits, stress responses. With a good memory and long enough observation, he could predict how people would react and know their reasoning.

This time, Amoux could not shake the feeling he had gotten lucky. Something about Adrien just didn’t make sense. There was an invisible wall in his mind pushing him back as he tried to look deeper. Despite his drive to develop his talents and desire to be able to read anyone right down to the core, something, some force, prevented him from wanting to pry into the matter.

Thinking about it, only one other person shared that trait. And she was sitting right behind him.

Sophia sat on a bench in whatever random art gallery Alex had dragged her to. In another life they would both have been artists, but Sophia enjoyed the creation process far more than the presentation. It was an overcast day in Paris with the clouds threatening to rain, so they had planned a day of indoor tourist activities. The two needed to fill time while their kwamis recovered from swimming and sprinting halfway around the world, so here they were.

Alex came back from wherever wing of the gallery she had wandered off to and sat down. She couldn’t help but roll her eyes at the fact that her partner was on her phone in such a beautiful place.

“[Some pretty neat pieces in here. Makes me wish I had brought my sketch pad.]” Alex said wistfully.

“[It would have gotten warped from being in a backpack for so long. But check this out. The local superteam has a really great blog dedicated to them.]” She handed Alex the phone, which had done a decent job of translating the blog into English. Scrolling, she found an article that piqued her interest.

“[‘Heroes of the World’ huh? We might be featured in that.]”

Sophia leaned in to see. The article had a lot of slang that did not translate well, but was surprisingly well put together and researched for a fan-made article. Each hero had an expertly trimmed photo of them in an action pose at the top of a four-paragraph description of their powers and achievements. Finding her own, she liked what she saw.

“[‘Salmon becomes more powerful in water, making her a gift of god to America’s wettest city.’ I wouldn’t mind replacing my wiki page with this. Mine’s so stuffy and rigid compared to yours.]” Alex whined.

“[That’s the point of a wiki page, babe. Straight to the point and dense as hell.]” She did little gestures to emphasize her point, earning a giggle from her partner.

Alex went back to the main page of the blog and finds Eagle in all the thumbnails for the video posts that week. After watching a few, she hands the phone back to Sophia.

“[He’s been in two fights so far. One before we saw him on the news, and one last night.]”

“[Too bad we couldn’t make it to that one. I really want to see those kids fight in person. That Ladybug girl looks like she’s got a lot of spunk.]”

“[We need to find Eagle soon before we run out of money. Too bad we can’t predict when or where their next fight will be…]” Her voice slowed to a trickle as she realized what she was saying. Alex prayed that Sophia had not gotten the same terrible thought she had. Snapping to face her partner confirmed the presence of The Planning Smirk.

“[No. Nope. Nuh-uh. We are NOT going to stage an attack on Paris just to find Eagle.]” But it was too late. Sophia was already looking into her backpack to check up on her kwami. The Planning Smirk had grown to face-splitting proportions as she started giggling menacingly and hurrying to the exit.

“[Don’t you dare! Our visas don’t cover terrorism! Sophia! Stop! Come back here! SOPHIA!]” Alex shouted with growing worry as she chased her partner out of the gallery and onto the street, drawing concerned looks from the tourists they passed.

Sophia knew it was a bad idea. But she was planning to just knock over some small trees, maybe pop a gate off its hinges, make as small a mess as possible as dramatically as possible. She could hear her partner crying hysterics behind her as she ran. As she rounded a corner looking for a rundown park to vandalize, she caught a momentary glimpse of a black butterfly with purple highlights fluttering past.

“[Oncoor! Surf’s up!]” Out of everything her partner had yelled, this is what stopped Sophia in her tracks. She knew Alex was upset with her for charging into her plan without thinking it through, but surely not enough to transform in the middle of the street just to chase her down.

An inhuman roar of rage, followed by panicked screams, was as clear an answer as she had ever received in her live. Her partner was pissed.

Alex stomped around the corner, eyes engulfed in hot blue fire. Her transformation’s usual silver scales were now a vibrant white with orange patches, both tipped with black. Instead of her trident, she carried a pair of oversized fishhooks with some nasty looking barbs.

“[Salmon? Fishy Cakes? Look, I know you’re mad-]” Sophia took a few steps back.

“I’VE HAD IT WITH YOU! ALWAYS RUNNING AHEAD LIKE NOTHING COULD GO WRONG! LET’S SEE YOU RUN ONCE I GET MY HOOKS INTO YOU!”

“[Salmon? What are you saying!?]” She cried, instinctively turning to run.

“I’M KILLER KOI NOW! AND YOU! ARE! FISH FOOD!”

Sophia broke into a full-on sprint, thankful that her many years holding a Miraculous meant that some of her powers had started leaking into her civilian form. While not superhuman, she could out pace and out last Olympians. Her angry partner was no match for her speed normally, but was now keeping pace with some effort.

“[Help!]”

“This Eutectic Point, circled on the graph on page sixty-seven, is the point at which the mixed liquid phase and both the alpha and beta solid phases have the same energy. If we modulate the concentration of the beta phase, we can force all of the alpha phase into liquid form by keeping the temp-“ Ms. Mendeleiev was interrupted by the sound of a crumbling building in the distance and no less than seven phones getting an akuma alert.

Marinette took a deep breath and began her escape.

“Oh my gosh an akuma this close to the school! I gotta hide!” She screamed with a well-rehearsed look of panic plastered on her face. She didn’t care if her classmates thought she was a coward. With as many close calls she had experienced in her civilian form, she felt more than justified given the circumstances and would defend herself as such.

Alya didn’t even bother making an excuse and ran off. Adrien took advantage of her predictable behavior.

“Alya! You can’t just run off like that.” He said just loud enough that she would not hear as he ran after her. Another collapsing building echoed nearby, which got the rest of the class moving.

Some quick transformations later and Chat Noir was running along the rooftops with Ladybug swinging up from the street below. It didn’t take them long to find the akuma and the woman she was chasing.

“Wow, she can run.” Chat said as Ladybug threw her yoyo to swing down to save the woman. Grabbing her, she recognized the woman as one of the tourists they had helped.

“[I need a place to hide!]” She pleaded.

Ladybug could barely understand her through her distressed tone but swung back up to the rooftops.

“Chat!” Ladybug called to her partner while she pointed to a stairwell door, not wanting to verbally give away her plan. They got to the door at the same time and closed in behind them as softly as they could to not draw the attention of the akuma. The tourist put her hands on her knees to catch her breath.

“[Do you know why the…um, monster, attacked you?]” Ladybug asked, searching for a word to use for ‘akuma.’

“[She…was mad…that I left her behind.]” She said between panting. Ladybug quickly translated for Chat.

“That seems like a lame reason to get akumatized.” He said with suspicion. This tourist was recovering surprisingly fast from having just set a land speed record, he noticed. Ladybug elected not to translate it back.

“[Alright, I’m ready. Let me just get my work clothes on.]” She said to a confused Ladybug. Surly she had misheard.

“[Itippa! Full steam!]” A brown streak flew from her backpack to her ear and she erupted into light. A second later, the tourist had been replaced with a masked hero much like themselves. She wore a skin-tight suit made of brown velvet, over which she wore a crop top leather jacket and a wide belt that was buckled with a large brass cog. Old fashioned welding goggles sat on her forehead in front of the stubby beginnings of antlers. Attached to her wrists were a pair of brass hooves that could flip down to cover her hands.

“Much better. We need to be careful with this fight. She’s pissed, but she’s still my partner. I’m Moose, by the way.”

Ladybug and Chat Noir stared in shock at how openly another Miraculous holder had just transformed in front of them and seemed to instantly learn their language.

“You kids alright? All I did was…ooooh. Right. Should probably explain that.” The French heroes nodded, wanting to know more.

“I don’t mind transforming in front of you guys. You don’t know my name and only know I’m from America. Go ahead and try guessing my identity. As for how you can understand me, active Miraculous holders can always understand each other. Learned that one on a trip to Mexico City. I’m actually still speaking English.”

She sure was talkative and it was a lot to take in, but they were used to weird things happening around them. When you fight people that use powers ranging from anti-love to pigeons, strange becomes the new normal.

“So that means Eagle doesn’t actually speak French.” Chat concluded.

“No, Eagle was French to begin with. You would think his suit was meant to be all patriotic, but it’s actually the French flag. How is my little fledgling, anyway? He’s why we came to Paris and…and why Salmon got mad at me…” She deflated a bit.

“I wanted to fake an attack to draw out Eagle. Just big enough to raise the alarm, then put everything back when he arrived. I didn’t think Salmon would get mad enough to corrupt her Miraculous.” Moose apologized. She absently rubbed her hands together, clinking her hoof guards occasionally.  

“It was Hawkmoth that did it. He sends out evil butterflies to make people his minions by amplifying their negative emotions. All we have to do is find what object the akuma is hiding in and break it.” Ladybug explained. It felt weird having to explain it after so much time dealing with akumas. But here she was, explaining for the second time this week.

“Do you know of anything that she was holding that would be important to her?” Chat continued where Ladybug had left off.

“The earring on her left ear is fake. I made to match her Miraculous to even out her look so she wouldn’t have to take it off all the time to not look lopsided. It was an anniversary gift, so I’d say that’s pretty important.” Moose said while stepping back out onto the roof, boots clinking as the brass hoofprint on her heels met the surface. Killer Koi was nowhere in sight, but the angry roar being carried on the wind pointed them in the right direction.

Chat Noir’s ears had perked up, interested in the implied relationship.

“Anniversary? Are you two…“ He could not help but ask as he built up momentum to cross to the next roof.

“We’re married, yes. The superhero program is legally a scholarship for a university that doesn’t exist, so we get more money if we’re married. Might as well elope, right? So we did what any pair of dishonest scholarship elopers would do and played along with the pet names, hugs, backrubs, little kisses, stuff like that. A couple months in we realized it was real and we never looked back.” It was clearly a story she liked to tell.

Ladybug could practically hear the wheels spinning in Chat’s head, even over the sound of her yoyo chord. She knew full well that he was going to redouble his flirting now that he had evidence of partners-in-justice becoming more.

Chat Noir, to his credit, did not immediately launch into a flurry of pickup lines.

Amoux had a hard time finding a place to transform. His classmates had so much more experience finding the nooks and crannies in the school building that he gave up and found an alley way instead. Scanning for any open doors or windows, he opened his bag to poke at a snoring ball of feathers.

“[Avees, wake up.]”

“[Hero time? Bit early. Sun’s still up.]” Avees stretched with a tiny yawn.

“[New city, new hours. Now get it in gear and let’s go.]” With that little pep talk, the tiny eagle lazily floated out of his bag on outstretched wings. One more yawn and Avees nodded that he was ready.

“[Avees! Wings up!]” He whisper-yelled, lifting his arms as if taking his own command. The kwami became a black streak as it shot towards his collar.

Unlike any other hero he had met, Amoux had found his Miraculous at a young age. He and Avees were coming up on their tenth year together. The kwami had explained to him that transformations become more and more complete over time, with total transformation into an eagle taking a lifetime to happen. Changes in form happened in stages, and he was on the third stage. While each stage became more powerful, most Miraculous holders freaked out and/or retired before they got too far. Learning how to shoot his bow using heavily modified feet had been tricky but worth it for the magical accuracy that came with it.

As Amoux became Eagle, his arms melted away to become wings. He flapped to get off the ground before his feet became talons. Not long after, he knees bent backwards. The familiar sensation of feathers growing all over his body was accompanied by the sudden weight of a quiver on his hip. Taking a moment to adjust to his altered anatomy, he hears the telltale sounds of destruction becoming more distant.

Eagle gives an almighty flap of his wings to shoot out of the alley way and into the air. He surveyes the damage done by the latest akuma victim, flying wide circles over the destruction. Following the warpath carved through Paris, he quickly finds a university aged woman wearing a competition swimsuit with white fish scales running a quarter of the length of each limb. The glint off the sharp point of one of her fishhooks nearly blinds his sensitive eyes.

Remembering the unfortunate habit of his old teammate’s trident doing the same thing gave him a rattling thought.

“I guess all super powered fish like to make my eyes sizzle.” He said to himself with closed eyes, dreading the idea of having to fight someone with Salmon’s powers. His quiver vibrated to signify an incoming call, saving him from the terrible thought. But wait, Ladybug and Chat Noir’s Miraculous belonged to a completely different set. How could they be calling him?

Kicking the bottom of the quiver to accept the call, a screen extended on a telescoping rod to give him a better angle on it.

“Hey, Eagle. Long time no see.” Moose said through the phone, the background of the video call a rapidly bobbing horizon. Her voice was bright but her nervousness was palpable. Eagle flinched hard enough to send himself into a tailspin.

“What are you doing here?! Whose covering Seattle?”

“Earthquakes don’t happen every day, you know. We can go on vacation without the city falling into the sea…again.” The gasp behind Moose told him that she at least had Ladybug with her. But there was no ‘the second time wasn’t my fault’ in the background. Salmon took every opportunity to defend her honor whenever the Great Floods came up in conversation.

“…Moose, where’s Salmon?” He squinted at the screen. Not to read her face, but to convey his suspicion.

“About that…You got eyes on the fish monster thing?”

Eagle turned to confirm he had not lost his target. He did not like where this conversation was going.

“That’s Salmon.”

Moose closed the phone built into her hoof guards to the sound of a continues string of colorful curses. She knew that Eagle was going to give her a stern lecture once this all blew over.

“You get the location from him?” Chat asked.

“No, but I can practically hear him splitting quills from here. Hang a right.” She kicked off a chimney to make the turn, knocking off a layer of loose mortar.

“We need to keep her out of the river. Call the police and have them set up a two-block perimeter along the north bank. I’d do it myself, but they would probably prefer a hero they know speaking actual French.”  Moose continued. Ladybug rolls her eyes as she pulls up the one cop on her contacts list she was on a first name basis with. So much for the ground rules.

“Officer Roger, it’s Ladybug. I need a huge favor…” She didn’t seem confident it would happen.

“Local police that bad, huh?” Moose asked Chat.

“It’s more like we don’t have the authority. The police set up barricades how they want, usually to protect landmarks.”

“Europe is weird.” That was all Moose had to say about that.

“I know, right? Ladybug can fix anything once the fight is over, so I don’t see why they bother.”

“I take it back. Europe is awesome!” She had been wondering how Paris repaired things so fast.  

A few rooftops later, Ladybug had finished her call. It was only then she realized how far ahead she was. Moose was dragging behind, with Chat keeping her pace to be a gentleman.

“Something wrong? I get it if you don’t want to fight your wife, but we need to get going.” She could see Eagle circling in the distance. The akuma must have traveled halfway across Paris by now.

“She needs me. You couldn’t keep me out of this fight if you tried. I’m just not used to these super even rooftops. I usually use the kickplates mounted on the sides of skyscrapers to get around. Or run on the street in the bus lane. Whichever’s faster.” Moose hid her jealousy of the tools at the French heroes’ disposal. All she could so was punch, kick, and headbutt things real hard. Great for sending stuff into orbit, not so great for getting around town.

“Well, isn’t this interesting. I’ve never had the pleasure of bringing a Miraculous holder under my wing.” Hawkmoth said to Killer Koi through the pink laser mask that appeared in front of her face. It had taken far too long to establish a link with his newest minion.

“Shut up, old man. I’m not here to go your dirty work for you.”

He pecked through her surface memories, looking for something to use. Alone in his lair, he grimaced when he found that she was gay. Hawkmoth chose his words carefully.

“It seems you’ve had a bit of a lover’s quarrel. She will surely have enlisted Ladybug and Chat Noir to her side by now. You will need to disable them by removing their Miraculous if you want to level the playing field.” He offered as advise, exerting as much of his control through the link as he could without resorting to inflicting pain. Miraculous holders were resistant and strong willed, it seemed, and could not be outright commanded to do his bidding.

“…Now that sounds like a plan I can get behind.” The laser mask faded as she went back to raining havoc upon the city.

She had lost sight of Sophia ages ago. That girl could be anywhere by now with that super speed she liked to brag about so much. Might as well keep destroying stuff to draw her out. She was about to leap up to smash an out of place red windmill when the cavalry arrived.

“If you wanted to see the Moulin Rouge that badly, all you had to do is ask.” Moose flirted as she did a perfect three point landing across the street. Despite the serious atmosphere, Ladybug couldn’t help but groan. Chat was taking mental notes, she just knew it.

“Just you and two shoobies? You really think you can stop me?!” Killer Koi challenged as she threw a fishhook at Moose. Thinking fast, Moose flicked her hoof guards into place and punched the hook. The hook was heavier than she thought it would be, stopping dead with a deafening metallic clang instead of being rebounded. And the force behind it just kept coming.

Maintaining the punch meant she was vulnerable to the leaping overhead smash coming down on her. She would have taken the hit had Chat Noir not extended his staff to knock Killer Koi out of the air.

Furious at the interference, she threw her other hook into a vicious spin along the ground to swipe Chat’s feet. The terrible sound of metal scraping pavement shot through his sensitive ears that were already ringing from the sound of the first hook, paralyzing him. Ladybug tackled him out of the way, landing on top of him in an all too familiar position.

“Oh, My Lady, how the tables have turned.” He said more out of habit than flirting. Seeing the spinning hook boomeranging back at them, he flipped Ladybug over his head to swap their positions to dodge.

“That’s better.” This cat never knew when to stop.

Ladybug heard Moose say something about how smooth he was under her breath as she sidestepped out of fending off the hook, sending it careening into a storefront before returning to its master. Pushing Chat off of her by his chin, Ladybug stood up to assess their strategy. There was no reason to drag out this fight.

Killer Koi wound up another attack but her balance was thrown off by two arrows clinking against her hooks. Up above, Eagle nocked another arrow but was hesitant to fire again.

“It’s unlike you to hold your shots.” Moose called up to him.

“Let’s see you shoot at a friend.” He answered in frustration, making Moose flinch.

Ladybug could tell that the longer the fight went on the more emotional damage would be done. This needed to end now, for the sake of their friendship.

“Lucky Charm!” Throwing her yoyo into the air to summon a helpful tool, she was caught off guard when a simple plank of red and black spotted wood appeared about her. Catching it as it fell into her arms she nearly dropped the cooked fillet of fish on top of it. It smelled heavenly.

Moose recognized the fillet for what it was. Depending on how badly her partner had been corrupted, it would either serve as the perfect bait or enrage her into a blind charge. Either way, it would make for the perfect trap. Stepping over to Ladybug, she took the fillet before the younger girl could find a way to use it.

“I’m gonna lead her into a trap with this. Be ready to hold her.” Before the French heroes could react, she was already down half way down the street. At least this time she had a plan.

“Honey! Look at this delicious grilled salmon I’ve got! I’m gonna eat it. All. By. My. Self.” She held the plank above her head as she taunted Killer Koi with it.

“YOU WOULDN’T DARE!” The flames burning from her eyes went from blue to white, doubling in size. Embedding her hooks in the pavement, she charged.

Moose nodded back to the younger heroes, who had taken up positions to grab the akuma. She ran back to them, fillet held high, in a wide arc to keep Killer Koi from seeing the trap until it was ready to be sprung. Depositing the plank on the ground between Ladybug and Chat Noir, Moose jumped high so she would land behind her partner.

Killer Koi ungracefully dove to grab the fish, clamoring to her knees to begin eating like a starved animal. Chat grabbed an elbow and Ladybug followed suit.

“Hey! I was eating that! It’s mine!” She struggled against them but the held firm. Realizing she had no safe way of breaking the earring without giving her partner a super powered love tap to the side of the head, Moose went with the only alternative she could think of. Grabbing Killer Koi’s head from behind, she twisted to present the left ear to the sky.

“Eagle! The earring!”

“I can’t do that! It’ll take her whole ear off!” His arrows were larger than the target. Collateral damage was inevitable.

“We don’t have much choice, do we?” It was taking all her might to hold her partner still.

Eagle steeled himself for what he had to do.

“Eagle Eye!” Activating his ability, the arrow nocked on his bow glowed as he drew the string.

Chat blinked. Something warm splattered on his gloved hand. An arrow was sunk into the street up to the fletching, a black butterfly fluttering out of the small crater. The woman he was restraining went limp as dark purple smoke rolled over her.

Ladybug made quick work of purifying the akuma.

“Pssh ow ow ow ow ow.” Alex held the icepack to her ear. She had fainted after the fight and was only now waking up after several hours. Her memory of her time as Killer Koi was foggy, but she remembered enough.

“[That’s it, I’m going to a different salon for piercings.]” She joked as she sat up in the bed she had been deposited in. Sophia was napping with her head in her lap, curled up to where her body had been.

Looking around she saw a sizable and well-furnished room, much fancier than the hotel they had been staying at. The seal of the United States Embassy hung on the wall above the dresser opposite the bed. A set of passports and visas sat on the night stand next to nearly empty bowls of almonds and chocolate.

“[Morning, beautiful.]” A sleepy Sophia said from her lap. She would have leaned down to plant a kiss on her forehead if a small gray mermaid had not flown into her face.

“[Girl, don’t scare me like that! You got hurt so bad that I-I…]” Oncoor burst into theatrical tears. Alex pet the mermaid with her free hand.

“[Whole ear’s still here. See? It just stings.]” She pulled away the ice pack momentarily, feeling her cold ear to make sure she wasn’t lying. It was painful, but intact.

“[You can thank Ladybug for that. They should be back to meet us in the lobby soon.]” Sophia said while checking the time.

“[Back from where?]” Alex wasn’t sure what she was expecting, but she thought at least one of the French heroes would have stayed.

“[Turns out all three of them still go to school. I’m starting to wonder how old Eagle is.]”

Sophia stretched and wiggled her way to the edge of the bed to stand up.

“[We need to suit up. Ambassador Zeya wanted to talk to you.]”

Two transformations and an escort to the ambassador’s office later, they were informed that they were not in any legal trouble. Zeya made it clear that Salmon was the victim. Once that was settled, they were taken to the lobby to wait for the other heroes to arrive. No less than four guards joined them.

“[Are the bodyguards necessary? I’m pretty sure we can defend ourselves if need be.” Salmon wondered aloud as she sat down.

“[No offence, Agent Salmon, but you just leveled a quarter of Paris. The citizens of this city are quick to forgive, but they’ll need time to feel safe again. You will be under observation for the time being.]” Said the shorter and burlier guard. Salmon wanted to sink through the floor.

“So this is what you look like.” Chat Noir said as he and Ladybug carried Eagle in through the front door and sat him down in a chair, resting his legs on the table. Eagle was used to such treatment, having attended press conferences at indoor venues. Being carried was more dignified than being pushed around on a cart, at least.

“How’s the ear?” Eagle asked once he was situated.

“Stings real bad, but getting better. From what I remember it was not an easy shot. Good to see that you’re not getting rusty in your retirement.” She readjusted her swim cap to stop it from pressuring her ear.

“And you, Little Miss Polka-Dot, deserve a hug for fixing it.” Salmon lifted a startled Ladybug as she stood, spinning the girl around before losing her footing and tumbling over. Her balance was still recovering.

The heroes talked well into the night, sharing stories of daring-do. After a competitive game of ‘My Supervillain Could Beat Up Your Supervillain’ the guards stepped in to ask them to head home.

“Right. I’ve still got an essay to finish. How long will you be in town?” Ladybug asked, getting ready to carry Eagle outside.

“At least a day or two. Need to do some community service to recover Salmon’s PR.” Moose said. They hadn’t checked the news yet but it would take a major, earthshattering headline to overshadow Salmon’s brief conversion to the dark side.

They said their goodbyes before being escorted back to their room by a very confused looking pair of guards.

Agent Dunn had seen more than his fair share of strange occurrences in his time at the embassy. Paris had become rife with oddities in recent years, not to mention the bizarre customs of foreign dignitaries that he was assigned to protect.

This night had been particularly strange. It was unprofessional to do so, but he needed someone to talk about it with.

Once his shift was over, he pulled one of the other guards that had shared his assignment aside. Agent Duncan seemed to share his desire to discuss the matter. They talked in hushed whispers as they made their way home.

“[I never thought I would see the day when keeping tabs on five teenagers in furry getup would be official business.]”

“[No kidding. And what were they speaking, anyway? Sounded like French but it was all English words.]”

“[It sounded like English with French words to me.]”

“[They must have some techo-magic-whatever doing it. Except for that Eagle guy. He stuck with one language at a time.]”

“[But did you see his knees? I get that bird knees are backwards but that has got to be the weirdest thing I have ever seen.]”

They continued on like that all the way to the Metro station.

Marinette was late to class the next morning. Not by much, but enough to get a sideways glance from Miss Bustier. They had come to an informal agreement to let it slide if the lecture had not started yet, allowing for about forty seconds of grace period once the bell rang. Unlike most students with truancy issues, Marinette actually tried to be on time.

“Alright, now that we’re all here, please pass your Voltaire essays to the front.”

Mainette’s throat went dry. The essay was on her desk at home, forgotten in her scramble to make it on time. Miss Bustier read her like a book and sighed.

“Marinette, we can’t keep doing this. If it’s not on my desk by the end of the lunch break, you will have failed the assignment.”

She felt small, wanting nothing more than for the lesson to begin so her classmates were not focused on her failure to remember things. Chloe had other ideas and pounced.

“You might as well give up now, Marinette. No fashion designer would ever hire someone as flaky and incompetent as you.”

She knew that she shouldn’t let Chloe get to her. But those words hurt. It took everything she had to keep herself from crying. Alya rested a reassuring hand on her shoulder but it didn’t help.

The sound of wood scraping tile behind her startled her from the downward spiral she was feeling.

“Adrien. I need your desk.” Amoux commanded as he stomped down the steps. He had watched these girls for some time now, wanting them to sort it out for themselves. But he’d had enough. Adrien had just managed to pull his note pad to the side before he hopped up to sit on the desk, facing Chloe so he was looking down at her.

Amoux closed his eyes and looked upward as he took a long breath. Snapping down to look Chloe right in the face, he opened his eyes and began to read every aspect to Chloe’s being.

It was the most piercing gaze Miss Bustier had ever seen. She knew she should take control of the situation, but a small part of her wanted to see what was about to happen. Rumors of his skill had reached the teacher’s lounge. He was said to work wonders.

Chloe froze, unable to break away from him once he had locked eye. The anticipating silence in the room had become electric, as if lightning could strike any moment. When Amoux spoke, his voice flowed like warm water, washing over everyone listening.

“Why do you do this? What joy do you derive from the despair of others? Has it truly been so long since you have felt loved that this has become your only source of happiness?” His voice was even, calm, and slow, without a hint of the anger that had initiated this forced therapy session.

“I-I don’t know what you mean. Daddy l-l-loves me.” Chloe stammered. Her face ran through a sea of emotions, betraying her racing thoughts. She could feel his eyes bore through her mind. The more she resisted, the more was brought to bear as she tried not to think of certain memories.

“You used to be such a sweet little girl. You lived with your loving mother in a small apartment away from your father, having been too young to remember the divorce. She was your guiding light. If not for her death, she would have become a shining beacon of hope for all of Paris. You were sent to live with your father, who knew nothing of raising children. He showered you with gifts but could do nothing to ease your pain.”

Marinette could feel her dark emotions flow out of her. It was as if Amoux’s voice had washed a thick layer of mud off her bones and poured it back into Chloe.

“Months passed. You constructed a mask of money to hide the pain you felt, buying your way out of your problems as your father did. Any friendships you had were twisted into relationships of abuse. You watched yourself become a wretched person and could do nothing to stop it. In time, you came to believe the mask was the true Chloe.”

Chloe faltered under the weight of the critique, a single choked sob escaping her throat. Yet she could not look away, as if held in place by an invisible hand.

For a brief moment, Amoux considered stopping there, leaving Chloe to fend for herself in the bottomless pit of emotions he had hurled her into. But he could see the gentle soul within her, buried under a decade of guilt and loneliness.

“You had nearly forgotten what kindness was until a hero appeared. Ladybug reminded you that it was possible, even pleasant, to give yourself freely to others. Memories of your mother came flooding back to you, taking you back to a time before the money had made you cruel. For the first time in years, the mask slipped. You saw what you had become and hated yourself for it. Not knowing what to do, you put the mask back on and tried to forget. But it kept slipping. Just last night, you cried yourself to sleep from the regret of what you had done.”

Chloe did not know when she started crying, but her tears had washed away the makeup that hid the dark circles under her eyes caused by a restless night.

“You want to be a better person, someone you mother could be proud of. That is why you focus so heavily on Marinette, hoping to learn from her example. You see so much of your mother’s kindness in her that it hurts. Nothing would make you happier than to be her friend. But the mask is not easy to remove. On days you manage to show your true face, you can’t bring yourself to even look at her. You remember how you have tormented her and put the mask back on to save yourself from being crushed by the regret.”

Marinette could feel her heart explode with sympathy. She didn’t know how she was going to forgive Chloe for the last four years, but she was willing to try.

Amoux released his gaze and his hold on Chloe, who fell out of her seat into the aisle. By the time she hits the floor she is bawling. After a few seconds of trying, the first thing she did once she got a leg under her was to throw herself up the steps to Marinette’s bench. Chloe looked up at the girl with wet eyes.

“I’m so sorry, Marinette. I just wanted what you had. That selfless kindness…it was too beautiful to watch.” It was the most genuine thing Marinette had ever heard her say. Seeing Chloe humble herself like that made her heart explode a second time. She slid down to the end of the bench and lifted Chloe into a tentative embrace, letting her cry.

“You have a long way to go before you become the person you want to be. Marinette can show you the way, but only you have the power to change yourself for the better.” Amoux concluded as he walked around the girls to return to his desk. Sabrina made her way over to comfort Chloe, hugging her around her midsection.

Miss Bustier could not believe what she had witnessed. In the span of seven minutes, Chloe had gone from a textbook example of a bully to a sobbing apologetic mess. In the years she had taught this class she had been powerless to do anything about the mayor’s daughter in fear of losing her job, or worse, getting the school shut down. But here was this boy, breaking her down and building her back up with a gentle ferocity.

“…Right, the lesson. Um…Never mind. Please read the next chapter for your homework tonight. Class dismissed.” Amoux was a tough act to follow.

It took a moment for the class to realize that they could leave. It took a moment longer for them to decide if they wanted to leave. Miss Bustier had to motion to the door to get them going. Once most of the students had shuffled out, she got to work dealing with the aftermath.

“Amoux, Chloe. You should come with me to the headmaster’s office. You can come if you want, Marinette. And Alya, I would like you to delete the video you just recorded. I don’t even know if you did or not, just delete it.”

Alya gave no protest as she ended the livestream and deleted the recording.

  Author’s notes:

-So, Alex and Sophia are kinda based on my friends whom I ship IRL. (Don’t worry, they were thrilled when I clued them in about being superheroes. Jury’s still out on the shipping)

-I make no claim of understanding for how embassies work. Like a hotel with more security?

-It felt incredibly good to destroy Chloe like that.

-Chapter 3 is a definite MAYBE. posted.

<<Chapter 1 , Chapter 3>>

[alcalavicci]

Robert Dean Stockwell and Art: 1955-1976

So this is part of my hypothetical biography (since Nature Boy didn’t really go into much detail on this part of Dean’s life). This is basically my notes- facts with a bit of extrapolation from said facts.

So. Dean and art. I feel like art is part of Dean’s private sphere, while acting is part of his public sphere. He kept his acting and artistic worlds apart for the most part, but there was a little overlap (see: Dennis Hopper, who was his good friend in both respects, as an actor and photographer). He keeps them so far apart he goes by a different name professionally as an artist in the 2000s- Robert Dean Stockwell. I’ve seen a few pictures of Dean doing crafty/arty things as a kid- knitting with Margaret O’Brien on the set of The Secret Garden, and making something out of clay on another set. He’s also said art’s been part of his life since he was young.[1]

How did Dean get involved with the art/Beat scene in Los Angeles to begin with? Let’s trace where he was, and when he arrived in Hollywood first. Dean said that he was in Northern California the year James Dean died, or 1955.[2] But his first role when he returned aired on March 4, 1956.[3] Semina Culture says Dean met Wallace Berman in 1955,[4] so there’s a wrinkle here to resolve, especially since Berman was in LA until 1957. Let’s say Dean arrived in the Los Angeles area around October or November of 1955- right after James Dean’s death. Somehow, he met Berman, who takes him on in a mentor role. Dean was also going to New York a lot for TV roles around this time.

Sidebar: as a child, Dean said he looked up to a few male actors he’d worked with: Errol Flynn,[5] Joel McCrea[6] and Richard Widmark[7]. His father left their family when he was about six, so Dean was always looking for male role models, and those actors filled that role for him as a child. I think for Dean, Berman also filled that role of “father”/role model.

Berman introduced Dean to the artistic community in LA[4] and got him started with his connections to various artists and creative people, including musicians. Berman also introduced Dean to experimental film and collages. I’ve seen an example of Berman’s collage in Semina Culture, and it’s striking how much it looks like something Dean would have made. Trust me when I say Dean is heavily influenced- artistically- by Berman.

As for other artist friends in the LA/Hollywood area… At some point (not sure if this was in Hollywood or New York since Dean hopped back and forth between those places during the mid-1950s) Dean met Dennis Hopper. There’s a ton of mentions of Dean meeting someone/introducing someone at a poetry reading. For example, Dean introduced Dennis to the bohemian witch of LA, Cameron, in the autumn of 1956 after he was introduced to her at a poetry reading, so he’d met Dennis prior to that.[8] Or if the year for that story is wrong, then Dean met Dennis through Roddy McDowall in 1957 while making Compulsion on Broadway.[15] Dean also met Toni Basil around 1962 or 1963 and she moved in with him in 1963.[9] They dated for a very long time- about ten years.

Back to Berman for a bit. In 1957, the Ferus Gallery opened, with the only public showing of Berman’s work. Then the police received an anonymous call that there was a pornographic image being shown, so they arrived at the gallery. Nobody is sure who called the police - Cameron blames Berman while Berman’s widow blames one of the gallery owners.[10] The squad seized a drawing by Cameron called “Peyote Vision” and arrested Berman for obscenity. Dean paid the $150 fine for him.[11] Eventually, Berman moved to the Bay Area, creating Semina Culture while he was there. Then he moved back to Los Angeles in 1961, then Topanga Canyon in 1965.[12] Dean stayed close with him and bought him a house after Berman’s house was destroyed in a mud slide. Berman, to me, is fascinating because he’s had so many close friends but he was a bit of a mystery. To begin with, he wasn’t really clear about his artistic intentions. Apparently he told Dean that his paintings of pseudo-Dead Sea scrolls had Kabbalistic meanings, but he also told Philip Lamantia, who actually knew something about Kabbalism, that there was no connection there.[13]

In the late 1950s, Dean moved to Topanga Canyon and eventually bought a house there. Throughout the rest of the 1950s and the 1960s, Dean went off and on with working on his artwork, and encouraged by Berman,[1] supported his art friends by buying their artwork. Dean collaborated with George Herms on his film Moonstone in 1963.[9] Dean also made a documentary of Bruce Conner creating Breakaway in 1964.[14] Between 1965 and 1968, Dean dropped out because he wasn’t getting much work, so he moved to San Francisco.[15]

Dean found that Hollywood didn’t really want him anymore when he returned- producers were looking for a Dean Stockwell type, but they didn’t actually want to cast Dean Stockwell in anything.[16] So Dean decided to focus more on his art. As Neil Young recalls, during the late 1960s and 1970s, both Dean and Russ Tamblyn acted long enough to get money for groceries. Otherwise, they focused on their art.[17] I’m not sure if this is Dean going, “Fuck Hollywood! I’m being an artist!” or “Oh shit, being an actor isn’t really working out now. Let’s focus on art.” Either way, between 1968 and 1976, Dean was involved with some very creative people, including a lot of musicians. He introduced his artist friend George Herms to Neil Young and he also introduced Neil Young to Devo.[17] Dean also went with David Bowie to visit Iggy Pop in the hospital.[18]

On February 18, 1976, which was his fiftieth birthday, Wallace Berman died after a drunk driver hit him. Eerily enough, as a child, Berman told his mother that he would die on his fiftieth birthday.[11]  It was at this point that Dean lost motivation to work on collages.[1] He would work with Neil Young on Human Highway, which was released in 1982,[19] but that was his last truly artistic project until the 2000s.

Epilogue: At some point during the mid- or late 1970s, Dean broke up with Toni and moved in with Russ. Acting wasn’t working out for Dean at this point and neither was art. Dean met Joy Marchenko at Cannes and persuaded her to move back to America with him. Around 1980, he got his real estate license and was planning to settle down into a career. Then he met David Lynch, was cast for Dune[20] and the rest is history.

Citations:

1.        http://stockwellsassies.tripod.com/articles/Solar_Buzz.html

2.       Sassies group post- can’t find any decent sources for this one!

3.       Stockwell Sassies – Credits

4.      http://stockwellsassies.tripod.com/articles/Semina_Culture.htm

5.       http://www.sheilaomalley.com/?p=6909

6.      http://stockwellsassies.tripod.com/articles/The_Dean_of_Hollywood.html

7.       http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001777/bio#quotes

8.      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marjorie_Cameron#The_Children.2C_Kenneth_Anger.2C_and_Curtis_Harrington:_1952.E2.80.9368

9.      https://books.google.com/books?id=iN0kDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA120&lpg=PA120&dq=%22dean+stockwell%22+%22george+herms%22&source=bl&ots=hXGpKcAwbP&sig=tygEy_QCDfhyguTS-7TEOv_UMA8&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwje-5LnmsjUAhUK74MKHbWBAVg4ChDoAQgpMAI#v=onepage&q=%22dean%20stockwell%22%20%22george%20herms%22&f=false

10.    http://www.laweekly.com/arts/camerons-connections-to-scientology-and-powerful-men-once-drew-headlines-but-now-her-art-is-getting-its-due-5130928

11.     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallace_Berman

12.    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tom-teicholz/wallace-berman-the-aleph-_b_1099615.html

13.    https://techgnosis.com/the-alchemy-of-trash/

14.    http://www.cinefamily.org/wallace-bermans-underground-toni-basil-tosh-berman-russ-tamblyn-george-herms-in-person-2/

15.    http://stockwellsassies.tripod.com/bio.html & https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/obk0u/i_am_cylon_1_on_bsg_and_al_the_hologram_on/c3g6tj8/?context=3 & http://stockwellsassies.tripod.com/articles/Comeback_Champ.html

16.    http://stockwellsassies.tripod.com/articles/Dean_Stockwell_a.html

17.    http://stockwellsassies.tripod.com/articles/excerpts_from_Shakey.html

18.    https://books.google.com/books?id=51THbRlGpUQC&pg=PT254&lpg=PT254&dq=dean+stockwell+david+bowie&source=bl&ots=cJCryclF0Y&sig=AQr_Blp_tA-GMqlbeSK2Lk5Ebwo&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjsioT-psjUAhWKzIMKHaJHBBsQ6AEITDAK#v=onepage&q=dean%20stockwell%20david%20bowie&f=false

19.    http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084099/?ref_=nv_sr_1

20.   http://stockwellsassies.tripod.com/articles/Great_Leap_Forward.html

[peppermintwrasseler]

my thougths on thelostspecial.com please, feel free to add, correct, etc. to any of my ramblings...

List of relevant pages i’ve found thus far:

1. /solveme -Dancing man cipher (Henry V, act 3 scene 1) -V=5. There are 5 acts in the play. -600 x 136

2. /Murderousmary -5-ton Asian elephant -FIVE ton. FIVE. FIVE YALL. -625 x 420

3./teatime -1200 x 737

4./coffee -WRONG WAY! -1920 x 1080

5./Mary -492 x 318

6./elephant -WHICH ONE? -623 x 358

7. /tljc -404 ERROR -578 x 432

8. /johnlock -404 ERROR -578 x 432

9. /ireneadler -??????? -425 x 321

10. /marymorstan -Mary, 2 thumbs up -that bull skull that's in 221B? The one with the headphones? Mary is standing in front of it...the horns line up with her head...didn't notice that from the episode...great foreshadowing...but why THIS screenshot for THIS puzzle? -i left this and then i came back after writing the end of this ramble...so like...mary and moriarty were workin together...the horns are pretty symbolic here if thats the heckin case. which i would love for it to be. -572 x 379

11. /marymoran -WHO? -who is mary moran? ah, yes...well...who do we know that's named mary, and is a great shot? oh yeah...mary watson aka mary morstan... -1000 x 643

12. /sherlock -hat-man and Robin: the Web detectives newspaper article screenshot -paragraph gives Johns blog: johnwatsonblog.co.uk -1280 x 720

13. /johnwatson -*see /sherlock*

14./sherlockholmes -*see sherlock*

15. /Mycroftholmes -fat mycroft from the abominable bride...which was a special, yes? -838 x 613

16. /mycroft - *see /mycroftholmes*

17./mollyhooper -814 x 476

18./molly -*see /mollyhooper*

19./lestrade -842 x 561

20./greglestrade -*see /lestrade*

21./moriarty -809 x 606

22./thefinalproblem -how many problems were there/are there in total yall? -if it was 3..."people always stop after 3"...so is he comin back orrrrrr?? -*see /moriarty*

23./hislastvow -696 x 582

24./thegreatgame -600 x 300

25. /eurus -902 x 667

26./eurosholmes -*see /euros*

27. /thereichenbachfall -john's on the phone, looking up at sherlock on the ledge... -s2e3 -1280 x 720

28. /tiehell -500 x 278

29. /Januscars -896 x 504

30. /norbury -mrs. norbury killed mary... -792 x 525

31./new -*?*  bath tub? Hotel? Wat? -someone let me know if this is from an episode or nah? i dont remember, and i'm going to post this before rewatching all of the episodes... -589 x 438

32. /old -is this a shot of the mantle from before or after euros's bomb blew up the apartment? .-. does this have something/anything to do with the /new page and the /new page's picture??? -868 x 638

33./dymm -moriarty, pink cab... -i saw the pink cab in the episode, its pretty noticeable, wasn't sure if it was like, foreshadowing or a nod to the first epiosde or what...lemme kno if yall have some theories... -852 x 478

34. /cluedo -CLEVER BUT NO! -1000 x 676

35./ineedaclue -Stumped by 40? Go back to the source. The real source. -852 x 478

36./ineedahint -*see /ineedaclue*

37./ineedhelp -*see /ineedaclue*

38. /XXX -You'll be hearing from me -moriarty pool -700 x 396 -last image...is this a screenshot from one specific episode? i'll be posting this before going back to rewatch all of the episodes, so if yall know, plz let me know? -also, the mary's ring/coloring book thing that's later on this rambling...THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS HOLY WOW YALL. HOLY WOW. -so...moriarty's in the other pool picture...but he's not in this one, why? well...we never found out who the sniper was for that episode...so perhaps this is alluding to finding out who that was? also, the ring thing again y'all...connect them dots...

I'll leave this here a well: I believe this is a masterpost for all of the images/pages...i was lazy, and this post is long AF, so i didn't include pictures...but here's the link for a running post that has them all... http://infinitelyromantic.tumblr.com/post/156831246164/infinitelyromantic-infinitelyromantic?is_related_post=1

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *HERE COMES THE RAMBLING *puts on tinfoil hat**

The dancing men cipher from 1./solveme: According to wikipedia, "This is one of only two Sherlock Holmes short stories where Holmes' client dies after seeking his help. The other is "The Five Orange Pips", part of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. The themes of this story are love, trust and pride." Now, i seriously encourage you to go to this link and read the synopsis... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventure_of_the_Dancing_Men

curious thing: /black is the page that has the comment box...but now when i visit that page, it says the page cannot be found, and instead shows me a search box? i wonder why?

40: i got nothin...haven't delved into it too much tho...i'll let yall know if i find something...

the picture sizes: -the picture sizes are listed, but i am not sure why...this IS a wordpress website, so perhaps its part of the formatting??? maybe it’s another code? maybe its literally nothing? but i'm not sure so...if anyone has anything on this, please let me know???

the view-source pages: -if you right-click and then hit "view-source" on any of the pages from thelostspecial.com then scroll down, you'll see this message: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ You see but you do not observe. 13.9.16 /solveme/ XXX ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

-this is how you’re originally supposed to find the rest of the pages, because if you go to “thelostspecial.com” it’s just the header image that’s on all of the other pages...

-the /solveme/ page is the page with the dancing man cipher...

-the dancing man cipher is also the only page with a different date, as mentioned above...but why is september 13th 2016 meaningful???

the XXX thing: is tripping me up... -in the show, everyone signs their texts with their initials...but maybe i've missed something...again, i'll be rewatchinga all of the episodes. -if y'all know something about "XXX" that i don't...plz let me know <3 -also, why 3 x's? if the signature "xxx" is not significant (idk if its a signature yet), is the number 3 significant? i mean... the message from the cipher IS from the 3rd act tho...perhaps that is significant...

the dates: -all the dates on all the pictures (except one) are 05/02/2017 -the dancing man cipher is 04/02/2017...but it's the start, the beginning...series 4 just ended...maybe they're hinting at series 5 here? Or the lost specials air date??? -also, being in america, we write our dates mm/dd/yyyy but because people in other countries write dates dd/mm/yy and we don’t know if this is fan-made or sherlock-made, we know that 05/02 and 04/02 could mean either feb. 5/feb. 4 OR april 2/may 2... HOWEVER we can *deduce* that these dates are written mm/dd/yyyy because of that date in the view-source message, which is "13.9.16". this date is written dd/mm/yyyy (because we all know there are only 12 months) so the dates 05/02/2017 and 04/02/2017 are for feb. 4th and 5th. which is this weekend?!? -also there's a theory about the scheduling for a new series called Apple Tree Yard (see reddi theoryt: https://www.reddit.com/r/Sherlock/comments/5orufn/clues_about_a_fourth_hidden_sherlock_episode/ ) and the third episode airs on bbc tomorrow (feb. 5) at 9pm supposedly...

13.9.16: -at first i thought that perhaps this date IS significant, but i can’t think of anything off the top of my head, i’ll update if i find something about the air dates of any of the series/episodes or anything pertaining to this dates in the series/episodes later on.. -my second thought was that this website was created on sep 13 2016, and so the creator just used that date since that was the day the website was created, HOWEVER, according to this source: http://whois.domaintools.com/thelostspecial.com the website was created on 1/31/2017...so that theory is a nope, but also, in the episode “the sign of three” this quote:   Mycroft: What do we say about coincidence? Sherlock:The universe is rarely so lazy. sidenote: i just realized that its from the sign of THREE and that episode aired on january FIFTH 2014...it’s also the episode the watsons got married in, and it’s also where we found out there were THREE watsons...also, sherlock found FIVE women in his mindpalace while searching for the mayfly man...just another thought...maybe i’m digging too far into this number stuff??? well...i am wearing my tinfoil hat so...its whatevs i guess lol the website’s title: -the only title we can see on the tab in our web browser for thelostspecial.com is “xxx”...but according to http://whois.domaintools.com/thelostspecial.com the website title is “By the pricking of my thumbs...” -THIS SEEMS EXTRA SIGNIFICANT... -me: *does a google: “by the pricking of my thumbs”* google: *does a reply* “By the pricking of my thumbs,Something wicked this way comes.Open, locks,Whoever knocks.” -Macbeth Act 4, scene 1 -the picture of mary with her thumbs up on the /marymorstan page has the bull skull horns behind her head...and what do we say about coincidences? -also agatha christie has book entited “by the pricking of my thumbs” and if this is the significance rather than the macbeth reference directly (the book’s title is taken from macbeth), then perhaps this whole thing is that s4 was the last series? refering to the wiki page:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/By_the_Pricking_of_My_Thumbs we read that there were FOUR books, and if you read the synopsis of each book on the wiki page (they’re rly short), then there are probably some parallels between that and the sherlock series/episodes. -also this: “the novel is dedicated "to the many readers in this and other countries who write to me asking: 'What has happened to Tommy and Tuppence? What are they doing now?'". in this case, tommy and tuppence perhaps parallel sherlock and john, and seeing as how s4 scene ended in the middle of sherlock and john rushing off and in the middle of the case, it could seem applicable...so perhaps this is hinting that we won’t be getting a s5 since s4 wrapped things up, but that we will probably get to see The Lost Special as an update on john and sherlock (and rosie) and as an encore of sorts... -also there’s this ‘marple’ thing and i’m not entirely sure what it has to do with sherlock? someone explain?

seasons/moriarty train of thought/ramblings: s1e3: moriarty introduced s2e1: more moriarty s2e3: moriarty dead... s4: DID YOU MISS ME? IN THE MAIN PICTURE IT SPELLS OUT RIGHT IN FRONT OF SHERLOCK'S MOUTH IN BLACK TEXT "DID YOU MISS ME?" also, that red smiley on the chair is from the original image (i think?) let me know if that's also added... there's also a page called /dymm...

s5 or the lost special: moriarty back? -they always stop after 3...he was playing with sherlock in 3 episodes...there were only 3 episodes in each season... -perhaps season 5 or the lost special will be about moriarty?? -but what about mrs. norbury and the whole shooting mary thing... -and then there's the murderous mary the elephant (see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_(elephant) ) -then there's /marymoran and /marymorstan and /mary but NOT /marywatson. why is that when there’s a /johnwatson??? -plus, there's the dancing man cipher from the sir arthur conan doyle story... and if y'all read the wiki for the dancing man cipher then there's some parallels to mary watson, who has a husband. But if mary watson = mary morstan = mary moran, then that means ties with moriarty, and moriarty died, then there's a parallel there too?? there's probably more parallels, lemme know what yall find pls...i'd love to hear more theories...

the ring and the coloringbook: -see article here: http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2015-11-06/does-this-clue-from-the-sherlock-colouring-book-reveal-the-true-identity-of-mary-morstan -refer to "/marymorstan" SAME PICTURE AS THE ONE IN THE ARTICLE. WTF. -HI. YES. HELLO. THE WEDDING RING. AND THE LAST PICTURE IS OF THE SWIMMING POOL AND THE EPISODE /[EPISODE TITLE HERE] PAGES (THE GREAT GAME, THE REICHENBACH FALL, HIS LAST VOW, THE FINAL PROBLEM) LIKE THEY HAVE TO DO WITH THE COLORING BOOK AND THE SWIMMING POOL AND THE SWIMMING POOL SCENES AND MORIARTY AND MARY WATSON (AKA MARY MORSTAN AKA MARY MORAN???) AND HOLY SHIT ARE THEY BOTH ALIVE??? I'M SCREAMING. I'M CONFUSED AND ITS 2AM AND IM SCREAMING.

-also "You see but you do not observe." is in the coloring book but also in the view-source page comment: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ You see but you do not observe. 13.9.16 /solveme/ XXX ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -also the main picture on all the pages...is from the reichenbach fall (s2e3)

OH MY GOODNESS WE NEVER SAW WHO THE GUNMAN WAS AT THE POOL. HOLY HELL. AND MARY IS ONE HELL OF A SHOT YALL...

HOLY FUCK HOLY FUCK HOLY FUCK IF MARY WATSON IS NOT MARY MORSTAN IS NOT MARY MORSTAN I WILL DIE. HOLY SHIT. HOLY FUCKING SHIT. THE FUCKING RING. HOLY SHIT.