#This is part of a bigger project (an animation/story that I am entirely writing and animating in my pirated Powerpoint programm)

[art-from-the-pantry]

I am insanely in Love with this drawing. Tumblr likes to botch the resolution tho, so if you want to see it in its full glory please click it (or open it in another tab, that also works)

[brucethewannabebard]

A new approach

So anyone who stumbles across this blog of mine will be quick to notice that during the majority of its active existence I have been, and so far still am, going through a lot emotionally. So I figured I would take this time to make a post talking about the purpose of everything I put here, as well as to outline what is next for me. I don't actually think anyone will find it or care, but I am the type to do things like this for posterity's sake.

So I write what I write here to have an outlet for the emotions I feel. As such everything I have posted has been rough draft, stream of consciousness raw feelings. Any attempt as structure or pattern evolved naturally as I wrote and I have done little to no editing on any of these posts. Certainly I haven't gone so far as to revamp or polish any of them. Mostly cause I didn't have a point too. These post will continue as long as I have feelings and thoughts that cry out for expression and escape. But it is now part of a bigger project.

You see as part of my desperate plan to heal a hurt that very well may never go away I am currently working to do the craziest thing I have ever done. I am planning to build a raft, and thru-boat the Mississippi River. I will start up in Minnesota and float down to New Orleans. This in itself is an experience that other have done and continue to do. To make it a bit more me, I am planning to hunt and fish the whole way down and live off the land for the entire trip. I have done a fair share of these activities in the past, and always do them as humanely and respectfully as possible. I do not hunt for fun, and try to use as much of the animal as possible. This means for approximately 60 days I will be living solely off of my ability to catch or gather food.

I plan fully to keep writing and keep a journal as I do this. It is unclear as of now if I will be doing this trip alone, or if I will have a traveling companion. I got to thinking that the adventure might make a good travel story, maybe for a blog or memoir or something. I now plan to interconnect it with my writings here. I am now writing out the tragic events that led me to where I am now, as well as what motivated me to give this venture a try. Assuming the trip is at least relatively interesting I will then combine it with the tragedy of my life over the last 5 years, and use my semi poetic therapy posts on here to tie together things thematically.

The end result should be what I hope is a moderately interesting and insightful read, but more importantly I am hopeful that by framing everything into a project like this I can gain some kind of closure or clarity on things and maybe find a way to move forward with my life.

I will almost certainly not do anything in regards to publishing said work, as I am generally a private person when it comes to my personal life. Plus while this trip is likely to be interesting, having not done it yet I am going to guess that it will be less eventful than when Huck Finn went down the river. As such, I am sure it would in the end be a boring read. But I do think it is important I take the trip, that I chronicle the journey, and that I write out the story of love and loss that broke me.

So if I have no intention to publish it, and indeed not even the knowledge of what level of interesting the trip is yet, why am I writing this out? Well to put simply, I have a million and one reasons to not bother with this plan. I can just say it is too hard to do, make excuses. The things I have done my whole life. In which case I will continue life in mediocrity always wondering what would have happened if I really took a leap and did something a bit irresponsible. So this post stands as a way of putting out some kind of promise. Like maybe the idea that someone else can see this makes it not just and idea but some kind of mission I must deliver on. So if you took the time to read this, thank you. The knowledge that someone might see this is going to be what gives me the courage to follow this through.

I plan to build the boat at the start of 2024, and complete the trip in the spring. This is my promise to myself, and anyone else who may stumble across this, that I will do something exciting for once. That I will take the time to do something worth doing for once, and hopefully find the pieces of myself that I lost over the last half decade. So if you are seeing this some time later in the year, or after the trip should have been completed, and by some miracle you are curious about how it went or is going, feel free to ask. I have let myself down for so many years, that the thought of failing others might be what I need to keep going, at least for now.

[parallelecho]

Project Masterlist

Because I can’t keep track of anything and it feels like I have a high chance of not completing anything ever, I’m going to list the stuff I’m doing. (Or want to do- this semester and life in general are starting to take a toll on me again.)

These are in no particular order. 

Untitled Video Game (Class Project) - Status: in progress/ officially cancelled as an in-class project 

     -Learning how to use Unreal Engine and make a game do game stuff. Sadly, teacher decided to have us work on something else. I would still love to make this a real thing though. I love the characters with my whole heart. 

     - It was going to be a sci-fi/time travel plot, and you (the player) have amnesia due to something that- well, you can’t quite remember.

     -I made the characters in the Metahuman maker and started building the environments. That's as far as I got.

Parallax Motion AU - Status: on hold/ expect slow updates 

     -This has just become my vessel to pour all my first Pokemon BW comic attempt ideas into. And I uh.. I changed a lot of things...

     -Drawing seems to be difficult for me at the moment. I’m not sure if it’s because I’m having to paint for art class and that's stealing my energy or if its something else going on. 

     -I’ve considered swapping formats for this project. But again, I’m unsure.

Time Forge (Touken Ranbu Fanfic) - Status: Chapter 4 in progress 

     - This thing has been living rent free in my head for two years. Time travel, swords, grief, etc. I finally decided to take a stab at proper fiction writing again after what, five years? 

     -Currently my coping mechanism. I come home from my long Thursdays and all I want to do is cry and work on this until there's not any more room in my brain for thinking about what I’m going to do when I graduate. 

An Unusual Shatter Pattern - Status: brainstorming phase

     -Part of me wants to make this a comic that eventually becomes an anime, but I think that’s probably too high of an expectation right now

    -The story is about three (or four) people who are actually the same person, just different parts. Yet somehow they’re all existing in this made up world within the actual person’s head. That's not even the plot though. The plot is- something else entirely... except when it isn't? See, this is why this is in the brainstorming phase. 

Untitled Arctic Island Story - Status: Scriptwriting phase

     -This is a throwback to my storyboarding class. The prompt was crypids on an arctic island. Somehow mine turned into a Spirited Away-esque human among creatures of folklore on an arctic island that is melting for unknown reasons (not global warming in this case, actually this particular island melts down every several hundred years because that's just what happens when you have two arguing entities that have a knock-down-drag-out fight at that time.)

     -I would love for this to be some sort of cinematic thing but again I am a student and my ideas are bigger than my abilities right now

     -There is a hat and mittens wearing chupacabra-bat in this story, he is sassy and I love him and his adopted golden turtle child. Also a 400 year old giant arctic fox who has adopted the human. They are all a funny little found family group. 

[maverick-werewolf]

Werewolf Worldbuilding Sheet

Instead of a werewolf fact this week, have something I’ve been working on for a little while now. I was sent an ask about a good werewolf worldbuilding sheet. Me being me, willing to settle for no one else’s werewolf things, I thought - hey, why not make my own? I love worldbuilding werewolves and I’ve tried to make sure to think of literally everything to do with mine, so I thought I’d put together a relatively simple werewolf worldbuilding sheet! (and maybe a vampire one in the future!)

I will first extrapolate on each section of the sheet and provide some thoughts/examples (and relevant werewolf facts to turn to for ideas!)...

What is lycanthropy and where did it come from? This is always something to consider. Note, of course, that where it came from may be a mystery, and that’s fine too. You don’t have to always do the “it came from a demon or a witch” thing like literally everyone else in the universe. Folklore provides us with some interesting material to help think on this - here are some helpful werewolf facts: What IS a werewolf? --- Curse, not Disease --- On Werewolf Biology --- When Werewolves Went Feral Part 1 --- and Part 2

How does one become a werewolf? Pretty simple question, but always complicated to answer! Well, potentially. How does someone become a werewolf in your story? Definitely a helpful werewolf fact for ideas - but also refer to several from the first question: Becoming a werewolf

Are there different terms for werewolves? Something else to think about! Are your werewolves even called “werewolves?” They don’t have to be, of course, but you know, it’d be cooler if they were. And most monsters, especially in older times, didn’t have just one name - not to mention other languages in your universe that would have their own terms for a werewolf. Useful werewolf fact: Etymology

Are there different kinds of werewolves or similar shapeshifters? This is kind of a weird one, I know, but hey, it’s something to think about. I for one don’t go into the “werewolves are just one kind of shapeshifter that happen to all be pretty much exactly like werewolves but different animals” (looking at you, D&D and WoD), but lots of people do, so that’s up to you! Helpful/potentially relevant werewolf facts: What is and isn’t a werewolf --- Where were the werewolf hybrids --- On shaping other shapeshifters --- Berserkers --- Vrykolakas --- Loup garous and rougarous --- Magic skins

What do the werewolves look like? A big one to decide! I’ll try not to influence you, but, you know, werewolves are called werewolves, just try to remember that. Useful werewolf facts: Physical Appearance --- Werewolves have tails --- Wolves are big, werewolves are bigger --- Hands and claws --- Fur colors --- Eye colors --- How to identify a werewolf --- Werewolves walking upright

Do werewolves have packs? Werewolf packs saturate our current generation of pop culture, but they are indeed very popular. Consider, however, that werewolves’ characterization is severely degraded if they are basically unable to exist without a pack and/or devote themselves entirely to seeking a pack instead of being a person at all; not that werewolf packs are bad, but something to consider. Useful werewolf facts: Is alpha, beta, omega really a thing? --- Communities and families --- Inheritance/offspring

What are a werewolf's powers and abilities? There might be more than you think! Have fun with it! Just remember, werewolves should totally be OP. Like, way OP. No, I’m not kidding. They’re awesome. We love werewolves on this blog, remember? Useful werewolf facts: Powers and abilities --- Eye/vision powers --- Spirit projection --- Werewolves can outrun you --- Werewolves can swim --- Werewolves can climb trees --- Gluttony/swallowing things whole

Do they have any weaknesses, and why? Another big question! Do your werewolves have weaknesses? Or do they not? If so, of course - what are they? Useful werewolf facts: How to kill a werewolf (weaknesses) --- Silver --- Belladonna and wolfsbane --- Werewolf and monster hunters

What triggers a werewolf transformation? The BIG one! Well, one of the big ones. Super, super important. Is it more than one thing? What are they? Details! Useful werewolf facts: Transformation triggers --- Transformation sequence --- On werewolf biology (again) --- Full moon --- The Arcadians

What triggers a werewolf to return to human form again? What it says on the tin. This can vary a lot! It’ll definitely be influenced by the first question, but it’s something to maybe think about separately.

Can a werewolf be “cured”? This can depend, of course, on what exactly your werewolves are/how they work, but it’s always useful to know the answer as to whether or not there’s any hope of someone being totally human again. Plese see previous questions for other useful facts, like if your lycanthropy is a curse in the first place! Useful werewolf facts: How to cure lycanthropy

Can the werewolves control themselves, or ever learn how to do so? Are your werewolves even uncontrollable in the first place? Is there any hope for a sad werewolf to ever gain control, if so? Useful werewolf facts: When Werewolves Went Feral Part 1 --- and Part 2 --- Personality changes

How do werewolves act in their werewolf form and why? Are your werewolves full of rage? Are the hungry? Do they eat people? Why? Would they hunt specifically people, or what? Useful werewolf facts:  When Werewolves Went Feral Part 1 --- and Part 2 (yes, again) --- Werewolves vs Evil --- Personality changes (again) --- Werewolves don’t bark --- Werewolf diet --- Werewolves vs vampires (my most controversial post lol) --- Werewolves as noble knights --- The trial of Peter Stubbe -- Werewolf Intelligence (and speech)

Are werewolves immortal, or anything approaching it? How about that immortality? Useful werewolf facts: Immortality and aging --- Powers and abilities (again)

How are werewolves treated/seen by others? Are they outcasts? Kill on sight? Hunted from the very moment someone finds out what they are? Do they have to hide the fact that they are a werewolf? How does it work? Useful werewolf facts: Hiding being a werewolf

Do werewolves remember anything about their transformations? What it says on the tin! Do they, or do they not? Is it hazy? Do they have no memory of it at all and might not even realize they are a werewolf? Or do they remember everything? Useful werewolf facts: Memory

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

Please note of course that my werewolf facts are here to give you ideas, not be instructions. Werewolves of your creation are of your creation, and thus you should create them the way you want and like them! I don’t want to dictate to anyone the way werewolves “should” be, although I absolutely have my personal preferences. The werewolf facts are meant to give you ideas and, hopefully, be a good jumping off point.

Folklore isn’t always the coolest portrayal of werewolves - it’s just better, IMO, to use folklore as a basis or at least as an idea basin instead of ignoring it entirely. The folklore for werewolves is awesome, just like all folklore. But pop culture has given us some cool things, too.

And remember, if you have any other questions or want to throw ideas at me or ask me my thoughts on anything, I am more than happy to talk werewolf ideas with you! Please, share your werewolves with me! I promise they don’t have to be ultra-folkloric for me to love them (mine actually aren’t, in many respects), since I’m a big fan of several very Hollywood things as well. I’m also always here to give writing advice.

Enjoy!

Other posts you may find useful:

What to Do and what to Avoid when writing werecreatures

Werewolf tropes I like and dislike (and why)

More on werewolf tropes

Reframing “werewolf angst” into “werewolf anxiety” (very important!)

On pop culture werewolf designs and Underworld’s influence

Werewolves are not British

The Beast of Gevaudan and what isn’t a werewolf legend

Wargs/worgs

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

BLANK VERSION OF THE SHEET:

What is lycanthropy and where did it come from?

How does one become a werewolf?

Are there different terms for werewolves?

Are there different kinds of werewolves or similar shapeshifters?

What do the werewolves look like?

Do werewolves have packs?

What are a werewolf's powers and abilities?

Do they have any weaknesses, and why?

What triggers a werewolf transformation?

What triggers a werewolf to return to human form again?

Can a werewolf be “cured”?

Can the werewolves control themselves, or ever learn how to do so?

How do werewolves act in their werewolf form and why?

Are werewolves immortal, or anything approaching it?

How are werewolves treated/seen by others?

Do werewolves remember anything about their transformations?

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

And of course, don’t forget to check the werewolf fact masterlist for even more info on folkloric werewolves (and my sundry opinions on pop culture werewolves)!

Be sure to give me a follow for lots more werewolf facts, vampire facts, answering all your asks, and a whole lot more folklore and writing, as well as writing advice!

(If you like my werewolf blog, be sure to check out my other stuff! And please consider supporting me on Patreon - every little bit helps keep this blog running!

Patreon --- Wulfgard --- Werewolf Fact Masterlist --- Twitter)

[wcamino-confessions]

Haha, since I'm no longer really active on wa and don't plan to be involved in the clan anymore, I can complain to all hell and back!

AniC monthlies have always been a huge hassle and are exactly why I stand by the ideology that clan leadership teams HAVE to be doing these things alongside their clan memebers. If you PHYSICALLY can't keep up with monthlies along with managing your clan and offline life, that's your sign that your shit's broken.

When I first joined AniC as an apprentice waaaaaay back in 2017, monthlies were still required, but were much less strict. Granted, this was also back when AniC was overloaded with kits and apprentices, and was pretty inactive but still. Monthlies could be sketches with only a few frames just so long as there was clear motion. In fact, you could do bustshots of you wanted, just so long as you got the monthly done. This was GREAT practice and quickly introduced me to animation even before I was was assigned a proper mentor (though that entire story is for another day). It allowed me to get a grasp on how to make things move and pushed me out of my comfort zone without overworking me.

Let me be very clear that I do map parts now. I'm not a great animator or anything, but I am substantially better than I was back then. It's uncommon for me to finish a part in a month, even if it's a relatively easy part without literally shoving shit to the side to make room for it. I might spend hours just working on one part and still barely make a sizable dent in it. But the thing is, these are animations that I've chosen to do. I picked the part, I had an idea and I can choose how much I'm pushing myself. If I wanna do a 4 frame runcycle then I will and no one can stop me. In fact, it's entirely possible to make an animation with multiple scenes in around 10 frames if you ration em right. So the majority of my parts that come out within a month are either pmv, have relatively few frames, or have been in the works for months prior to it coming out. And all these are usually scripted and are for bigger projects that y'know involve working with others; not to mention, I can usually get away with not doing fullbodies.

Animating in of itself is no joke. Drawing isn't easy, writing isn't easy, but animating something frame by frame can be nightmarish, take up a LOT of time. You complain about lineart, now imagine having to do all your cleanup over and over again for fullbodies and then still having to color. At one point, I was just doing one base color and a random cat because it was no joke working on those monthlies. The work I was doing was always rushed as I tried to meet the deadline within whatever freetime I had that month. Even things I worked really hard on just felt... awful. Like, I literally couldn't make anything I was proud of because I didn't have the freedom to do so. I did one big animation in September of Hollypaw seeing Sol and hated almost all of it. I liked the majority of Hollypaw's animation, but by the time I got to Sol, I had a limited amount of time to finish and meet the deadline. The backgrounds sucked, Sol looks awful and I was a bit embarrassed to even put in on my channel. If anything, I felt worse "practicing" in animationclan than I did just vibing in maps. There I have to do cleanup, but at least I can do as many or as few frames as I need, talk to and meet new people who don't dismiss people's concerns and work around their schedules with due dates. Sure some map servers suck, but there are some really cool ones as well. You get to watch entire projects come together and get help when you need it. Hell, the majority of map hosts are right there with you. I DESPERATELY wanted to have that experience in animationclan again, but honestly, those monthlies fuck you up 😂

[matrixaffiliate]

Choreograph

New Story! FFN and AO3

Lily does not dance. She has no desire to be on national television. But when she's surprisingly selected as a contestant for Dancing With the Stars and she finds out how much money there is to fund her research on carbon capture, she becomes a reluctant contestant for the latest season. She just didn't count on being placed with the favorite dancer to win this year, James Potter.

This little story is for the wonderful @constancezin! (And if you go to her Tumblr you can see some amazing Harry Potter artwork!) She brought up the idea of a Dancing With the Stars (American) Jily AU and I volunteered to write a version of it for her. Thank you for sharing your ideas, @constancezin! I hope you love this little story!

Choreograph

"No, Mary," Lily shook her head and made another note in her notebook.

"Lily, you didn't even think about it!" Mary pouted.

"I didn't need to, Mary."

"But Lily," Mary whined.

"No, Mary." Lily closed the window in her computer and stood up. "I've never even been able to sit through an entire episode. I won't do it."

"Lily, think of the kind of publicity this would give you, and the companies that are looking to fund your research, and the public that would hail you!" Mary blocked the way out of her office.

"Mary," Lily sighed. "I don't dance."

"None of the contestants do," Marry shook her head. "That's the whole point! You get partnered with an accomplished ballroom performer, and they teach you how to do each week's dance, you perform it on national television, and the judges give you scores, but the viewing public keep you on the show by voting for you!"

Mary's explanation had grown progressively more and more animated as she went on. But Lily was not having it.

"Mary, no, I don't dance, I certainly don't dance in public, and I'd honestly rather have a go with a giant squid than dance on national television with some man that's more concerned with what his hair looks like than I am about mine."

"Lily, wait!" Mary cried as Lily pushed past her.

Lily turned in a huff. "What?"

"If you sign on and agree to perform for the first two weeks it's 125 thousand dollars."

Lily gawked.

"And," Mary smiled seeing that the money had caught Lily's attention, "you get more money for every week you stay on the show. The winner ends up with like 300 thousand dollars. Lily, just the 125 thousand would pay for the next iteration of the project. Imagine if you made it further? Think of what we could accomplish with the grand prize!"

Lily bit her lip, all of her resolve that she was not going to do this silly television show cracking.

"How did they even get my name, Mary?"

"I don't know but they contacted the company this morning and they want your answer by tomorrow."

Lily sighed and leaned against the wall. "Mary…"

"Lily, come on, the benefits are huge, think of everything we'd be able to do and how it could change our work on carbon capture!"

"You're sure I only need to stay on for the first two weeks to get the 125 thousand?"

"Yes, that's what they said."

"I can't believe I'm doing this," Lily shook her head.

But really, she could. In exchange for two weeks of humiliation, she would get more money to put towards her research than two weeks' worth of grant filing would give her - it even came with equal levels of frustration.

"Oh my gosh! Are you going to do it?"

Lily rolled her eyes but nodded. "Yes, Mary, I'm probably going insane but you're right, the money is too much to walk away from."

Mary screamed and threw her arms around Lily. "This is going to be amazing! Oh, I hope you get James Potter or Sirius Black, they're so good! And really hot too! I wonder if we can put in a request for your first pick. Or at least tell them not to pair you with Albus Dumbledore, he and his partner are always one of the first voted off."

"Then let's hope I end up with him," Lily moved back towards her office. "Do you have the number I'm supposed to call?"

"Right here," Mary texted the number to her and Lily sat down before hitting dial.

Mary had raved about how great it was that she was doing the show, and kept going on about how amazing it would be for Lily to be paired with James Potter, who'd finished top five the last three years he'd been on the show, or Sirius Black, who'd won last season. Lily adamantly refused Mary's plea to spend an evening watching complications of greatest moments of James Potter and Sirius Black on YouTube.

A few days after she called and confirmed, Lily received a time and place to be at for paper signing and the promise of finding out who her partner was. Lily didn't care for the time out of her workday it would require, but she reminded herself this was the same sort of sacrifice of time that she would have to make applying for grants, but this came with a guarantee of funds whereas the grants were always anyone's guess as to whether or not the group would get the money. Besides, this money could be what gave her the breakthrough to a patented, marketable item in order to fund her bigger research ideas.

And the next day, Lily walked in the door of the office. But of course, the receptionist wasn't there to tell her what to do next. She let out an audible groan.

"Everything alright?"

The man addressing her was tall, with dark hair that was messy and stood on end. His square rimmed glasses framed warm hazel eyes that reminded her of her dad's favorite imported maple syrup; her mom always bought it for him for Christmas every year without fail.

James Potter looked good on camera, but he was blinding in person.

"Oh, yes, just, um, I'm not sure what to do next."

"I'm happy to point you where you need to be," he held out his hand, "I'm James by the way."

"It's nice to meet you," Lily took his hand and gave herself a firm mental shake to stop ogling him. "I'm the contestant that's going home the moment I have to rely on votes to stay in."

James laughed. "Is that so?"

"I'm no one special, there's no fan base to keep me on the show." Lily shrugged and tried to push down the part of her that suddenly wanted James Potter to be her assigned dance partner.

"No fan base, huh?"

"Just my best friend, no one else is around to vote for me." Lily looked down at her phone and looked back around for the receptionist.

"I can show you where to go to get your paperwork signed and completed?"

She looked back up at him to see his hand shoved in his hair.

"Oh, yes, thank you," Lily nodded, feeling incredibly awkward at how scattered she must seem.

James grinned and started moving down one of the hallways. "So, what is your claim to have been invited to be a contestant on the show?"

Lily scoffed. "I have no idea. I'm a scientist, and I had a breakthrough on carbon capture last year that managed to make a brief mention on the four o'clock local news broadcast and most of the science journals. I've not done anything the general viewership is going to care about."

"Really? What's your name? If you don't mind my asking."

"Lily Evans," she smirked at him. "See you've never heard of me."

James looked sheepish, "Well, no, I haven't, but I mean the most important people are usually people that have no media presence in my opinion."

Lily laughed, "That's nice of you to say."

"So, you just really wanted to learn how to dance?" He leaned up against an open door jam.

Lily gave a nervous laugh. "Just hope you don't get paired with me. I don't dance, and I'm really only in this because the money from the first two weeks might be able to get me to a point where I can fund the research I want to do."

"A famous innovator like yourself needs the money?" James laughed at her. "You mean the grants aren't just spilling in?"

Lily scoffed, "Yeah I'm rolling in the dough right now. The Bentley out front is mine."

"Which one?"

Lily laughed, "The white '95 Corolla."

"Ah, a great year for Bentley Corollas," James laughed with her. The conversation went silent in an almost awkward way. James took a deep breath and gestured to the room they were standing outside of. "So, um, this is it. I guess I'll see you around then."

"Yeah, thank you, and good luck this season. I'm sure you'll do great."

"You too," his hand jumped back to his hair.

Lily nodded and stood awkwardly at the door a moment before remembering how to human.

"Well, I'll see you around."

"Yeah," James pushed off the wall, "See you."

Lily ducked into the office and was able to get her contract signed and all the particulars determined.

At the end of it all, the man that had been helping her clicked a few things on his computer.

"Alright, I've just sent the email with all your instructions and your partner for the show. You get eight tickets per show-"

"I'll only need one," Lily interrupted him as she opened the email on her phone.

"Boyfriend?" He smiled at her.

Lily's eyes went wide as she looked at the name of her partner.

"Um, no, but this says my partner is James Potter."

"Yep, producers assigned you two together on Monday."

"I, um, is that a good idea. I mean you saw all my paperwork; I'm probably going to be the first one voted off, and James is one of your best."

"I'm sure it will be fine, but if you'd like you can talk to the producers about it." He handed her a business card. "Here's all of Marlene's information, and I'm sure she can help you feel better about it. I wouldn't worry, though. James is good at what he does and that's what will really get you to through the show."

"Thanks," Lily nodded and moved to the door, already dialing Marlene's number.

"This is Marlene," she answered as Lily climbed in her car.

"Hi Marlene, this is Lily Evans, I'm one of your contestants this season."

"Yes, Lily! I just got the scan of all your paperwork. We're excited to have you. What can I do for you?"

"I know this is probably going to sound silly, but I need you to resign me. I know James is one of the favorites to win this year, and I have absolutely no coordination. I don't want to be the reason he doesn't make it to the top five. I'm sure you've got an athlete or something that can switch with me."

Marlene laughed. "Lily, I'm sure James would appreciate the sentiment, but we put a lot of thought into this and tried to make it fair for everyone. Besides, if you know then James just got his email. Don't worry, James is a good teacher and he'll make sure you can do your best out there."

"Marlene, really," Lily gripped her phone a little tighter, "I once had to perform in front of a middle school crowd and completely forgot the words to the song I'd signed on to sing. There's a real possibility that I'll get up there for the first dance and freeze and get sent home the first week."

"That's really sweet of you to be so concerned, Lily, but don't forget that it's the votes that keep you in, not necessarily your skill as a dancer or your points from the judges."

"And I'm a nobody scientist that has a fan base of zero."

Marlene laughed, "Just trust us. We've been doing this for years now. Stranger people than you have advanced to the top five."

Lily huffed, "Well, I guess I'll tell James I tried."

"Don't worry about James," Marlene dismissed. "He'll be just fine."

Lily tried to believe those words on the day she drove to the gym or whatever you'd call a building with rooms for them to practice in. These were the things that made Lily feel like she couldn't do this.

The camera crew was waiting for her and went through a whole bunch of things that Lily fully planned on ignoring before letting her finally go inside to meet James.

She opened the door and tried to smile. Then her eyes landed on James and she felt a little less nervous. The smile he directed her way made her heart stutter.

"No way!" He looked at the camera on him. "This woman's going to save the planet!"

Lily gave a nervous chuckle as she walked up to shake his hand. "I don't know about saving the planet."

James moved her proffered handshake into a dance position, bringing his hand to her back and spinning her around.

"The great Lily Evans is brilliant and humble, ladies and gentlemen."

Lily pulled out of his embrace and fidgeted with her hair.

"Well, I'm sure there will be plenty of time for you to reform that opinion. But I'm looking forward to working with you, James. I hope I can live up to your previous seasons. I'm sorry to say I'm a very inexperienced dancer."

"You never had me for a teacher." James waved off her concerns. "You'll see, we'll have you dancing like you've been doing it all your life in no time."

"Cut!"

Lily jumped. She had forgotten about the crew around them.

"Great work you two, we'll be back to film you again on Friday."

"Sounds good, see you then." James saluted as the crew cleared up and moved out of the dance studio.

"So, are you disappointed to not be assigned to me?" James chuckled once the door had been closed for a moment.

Lily bit her lip, "I would think you would be upset more than me. I even asked one of the producers to switch me to someone else so you could have a chance at winning this season."

"Yeah, Marlene told me about it." James chuckled. "But I'm the dancer, so let me worry about the dancing and you worry about climate science."

"I'm really not going to save the world," Lily sat down on one of the chairs against the wall. "I might ask the producers to cut that out."

"You can ask, but since we only did one take, they would need to have us film that whole first meeting over again. Don't worry about it. All it does is create interest in you which could gain us more votes."

Lily wanted to protest, but James put his hands on her shoulders and pulled back on them.

"What?"

"We have to fix your posture. I need you to be able to stand up straight all the time so we can get you into practice."

Lily frowned at it as she tried to sit up straighter.

"Here," James pulled her to stand up "Like this."

His hands pulled her shoulders back, but then smoothed down her spine, almost caressingly, to her hips where he brought them inline. Lily felt her mouth go dry.

"I bet all your past partners called you an awful taskmaster." She tried for humor to distance herself from the way her heart was pounding in her ears.

"My experience says that by the end of today you're going to call me all sorts of unpleasant names for what we're going to do."

Lily forced a laugh and suggested they get on with it. Their first dance was the foxtrot which seemed like a nice way to ease into this experience. But despite Lily's hopes, by the time seven o'clock rolled around she was sure she'd never make it through the next week of practices.

"You can go ahead and call me whatever you want," James sat down next to her as she collapsed in her chair.

"No," she panted, "I mean, I signed on for this, right? I can only be upset with myself. I'm just sorry I'm so bad at it."

"You're not bad at it," James shook his head and sat down next to her.

"James, there are mirrors on every wall, and I have eyes. I'm not good at this."

"You're too wrapped up in believing you're bad at this. Look, if I told you that there was no hope for climate science to make any real difference so why try, would you bite my head off?"

Lily laughed, "Yes, I probably wouldn't try to eat you, but I'd say you were wrong."

James looked dubious but continued. "Alright, I'm the dance expert in this room, and I say that you're not bad at this. You have a ton of the routine memorized now as far as where we're moving around the room on the floor and that's huge." He bumped her shoulder with his own. "Now say it with me, 'I can dance'."

Lily shook her head but chuckled, "I can dance."

"No one would believe that," James laughed. "Come on, again, like you mean it now."

Lily took a deep breath, "I can dance."

"Is that all you've got, Evans?" James goaded her.

"I CAN DANCE!" She yelled at him and laughed when he jumped up from his seat.

"Then dance, Lily!" He held out his hand to her and Lily pushed up to step into their routine again, James counting the steps as he led her around and around the room, her feet only stepping on his every third step this time, rather than every step they took together.

The days leading up to their first performance seemed to go both in slow motion and warp speed simultaneously. But soon it was Sunday and she and James were running through the routine for the last time before they'd do the dress rehearsal the next day.

"I'm still not getting it, James." Lily sat down on the floor and hung her head as she rested her arms on her legs.

"You're doing just fine," he sat down next to her.

"Don't lie to me."

James was silent for a long moment before he held out his hand to her.

"We're a team, Evans, and I would never lie to a teammate. Come on, let's try it again."

Lily sighed before taking his hand and letting him pull her up from the floor to run through the routine again.

She wished all of these hours she was putting in were paying off, but all it seemed to do was make her exhausted. She was in the office from seven till nearly eleven, then she would eat something while she drove to the dance studio and dance with James until seven or eight, and then drive home, sometimes to remember to eat something, before finally passing out cold until her alarm went off to start it all over again.

Dress rehearsal Monday morning seemed to only cement in her brain how much she didn't belong in this world. All the other contestants were so much more coordinated than her, and they seemed to be more at ease in the environment than she was.

Lily's nerves were overpowering and she botched their first run through. She couldn't manage to keep her dress from getting caught around her legs and her feet kept misstepping and James kept rubbing the part of her back that he used to signal her she was slouching. It was a disaster.

"James," one of the dancers approached them as Lily tried to get through the steps again.

James let her hand drop and stepped away. "Just sec, let me see what Sirius needs."

Lily turned and watched the two men talk quietly. James' hand pushed into his hair as he talked but he didn't look her way. She felt horrible about it all. James wasn't going to make it past the first elimination because he'd ended up with her and she was only doing these two weeks for the money. She had been assuaging her pride with the assurance that she just needed the 125 thousand dollars and then she could go back to her work and not worry about dancing ever again. But seeing how hard James was trying, and how patient and supportive he was with her as she floundered through the steps and routine, she didn't think she could walk away and leave him without a second thought. She cared too much to do that now.

As a friend, of course, she reminded herself.

James gave Sirius an attempt at a smile before moving back to Lily.

"Let's try it again," Lily squared her shoulders and smiled. "I think I can do it."

"Alright," James' smile didn't reach his eyes, but he stepped up to her and pulled her hand into his.

It wasn't perfect by any stretch but Lily could feel it was better, surer maybe. And she could tell that James felt it too as the weariness on his face slowly faded.

"You're getting it!" He laughed as they finished the routine. "See! You can dance!"

Lily grinned as she tried to catch her breath. "I just need to improve ten times more before tonight."

"We'll be fine," he nodded as the stagehand told them their time was up. "Let's see if they can pull up the hem of your dress another two or three inches and take out one of the panels before tonight. I think that will make a huge difference for you." He took her hand and Lily felt her breath catch at the feeling of his hand holding hers. "That was what Sirius pulled me aside for. He saw that the dress was too long and too full."

"That was nice of him," Lily tried to convince herself that the catch in her breath was just her being out of breath from the dance.

"Sirius is a good guy; we've been looking out for each other for a long time now." James grinned over at him as Sirius talked with Marlene.

He let go of her hand then and Lily tried to convince herself that the falling feeling she had when he released her hand was completely due to her exhaustion and had nothing to do with her wanting him to keep holding her hand.

James talked to the costume coordinator and Lily stood still as they went over the skirt of her dress until James felt sure it would be perfect for that evening's opening night, and the costume coordinator sent them to get out of their performance clothes. Then she was whisked away by the television crew to have her hair and makeup done with the other stars and dancers. In a whirlwind, it was suddenly their turn to dance.

Before the music started for their live performance, the stage lights were dim; a ticking sound started to give the countdown to start. Lily thought it sounded a lot like a time bomb.

"We've got this," James whispered.

And then the lights flashed on and the music started and Lily threw herself into the routine she'd been trying desperately to learn. There were a few stumbles, but James caught her through all of them, and in what felt both like an eternity and the blink of an eye, the music ended and people were applauding. Lily turned to the audience and found Mary jumping up and down and screaming through the noise. She waved as James pulled her over to the part of this competition Lily was dreading most of all, the judging.

They had, of course, seen her stumbles, but they were impressed with other things, McGonagall mentioned her excellent posture twice. Flitwick wasn't pleased with how they'd kept more or less to the steps with a couple of spins. But Slughorn kept telling them how wonderful it was that she had managed to learn the steps so well in such a short time.

"You're a natural!" He'd beamed at her.

James kept his arm around her middle as the judges gave their final scores, a five from both McGonagall and Slughorn, and a four from Flitwick.

"You were amazing," James spoke next to her ear as they moved backstage.

"Those scores say differently," Lily swallowed the lump in her throat.

"Hey," James pulled her to a far corner. "Those are good scores for week one. And no one is going home this week. You did an amazing job, believe me."

Lily nodded and tried to swallow again, "Ok."

She didn't particularly believe him, but she wasn't going to argue with him when there were cameras everywhere that could paint it as something awful.

They ended up finishing in the bottom five that night. And while Mary wanted to come over and stay up late talking about everything that had happened, Lily told her it would have to wait. She still needed to be at her desk by six the next morning.

When she managed to make it to the studio the next morning, James was already set to go.

"We've got the cha-cha this week." He motioned for her to come stand next to him. "We'll start just like we did with the foxtrot. I'll show you how to do the steps on your own and then we'll move to doing them together."

His smile was encouraging, and though the morning had already been full of work, Lily wanted to smile back at him. She wanted to be here with him. She didn't want to let James down.

Because they were friends, of course.

"Let's do this."

"Great," James reached into his bag and pulled out a Jenga set. "We start with this."

"With a game?" Lily watched perplexed as James set up the Jenga tower on one of the chairs, gesturing for her to sit opposite him and the game.

"There's a lot to be learned from Jenga."

"About dancing?"

"There's a dancing metaphor in almost anything, Evans. Now," he gestured to the tower, "Ladies first."

Lily pulled an easy block from the tower.

"That's a lame move," James smirked at her before pulling a block out that nearly toppled the tower down.

*I don't like to take enormous risks," Lily stuck her tongue out at him and found another easy block.

"That doesn't sound true at all. If it were, I don't think you would have agreed to this whole stunt."

"I don't want you to take this the wrong way, but I only agreed to it because of the money."

James pulled a difficult block and half-heartedly tossed it at her. "And what is all this money going towards?"

Lily smiled; it was easy to talk about work. "I want to make carbon capture something that can be done in anyone's backyard. Think about it, what if every home in every suburb had a carbon capture system set up, but cheaper and easier than solar. If I can make this work, this could buy us more than just a few years, it could be buying us decades of time to find better ways of creating power than burning coal."

James stared at her silently, his eyes intense and dark as he looked directly into her own eyes.

"Sorry, I guess that was a little much." Lily pulled another easy block from the tower.

"No," James' smirk finally found its way back to his face, but he continued to stare at her. "No, I personally think it was inspiring."

Lily pulled another easy block to avoid his stare and then held her breath as James pulled one that nearly toppled the whole tower over.

"James," Lily kept her gaze on the game as she spoke, "Can you honestly tell me that I'm a good dancer?" She knew it was a silly question to ask, but if she was a good dancer, then why not be dancing right now instead of playing Jenga?

"Yes," he answered immediately, but Lily scoffed.

"Lily, listen, for having never danced in your life, you're doing really well! Don't try to compare yourself to Julianne Hough. We have a real chance here, and I've done this long enough to know."

Lily wanted to believe him, but she didn't, and it must have shown on her face.

"Lily, what if you believed me? What if you were to take the risk?" He pointed to a block in the Jenga tower that was wedged tightly between the surrounding blocks. "Take a risk, pull this block here."

"That could make the whole tower fall," Lily objected.

"But it might not, it might give you the advantage in the game. Just try, and accept that the tower is going to wobble a little bit; if it falls, we'll rebuild it again."

Lily eyed the block before cautiously pulling on it. The tower wobbled dangerously.

"It's going to fall," she pulled her hand back.

"Then let it fall," James shrugged.

"And if it does, I'll lose the game!"

"No," James grinned at her, "We're a team, remember, we win and lose together."

"Fine, then we lose the game if I make the tower fall."

"Not if we build the tower up again." He leaned forward. "Change your perspective, Evans. There's no losing, just new starting points. Now, pull that block out."

Lily looked into his warm hazel eyes and something about how he was looking at her made her feel like she could try.

"Fine, but don't get upset if I make this whole tower come crashing down around us."

James just laughed and nodded her on.

Lily pulled carefully on the block, drawing in a sharp breath when it started to pull the tower with it. But as she turned the block around and moved it small bits at a time, the block slowly pulled free of the tower.

"I did it!" She held the block above her head like a trophy and James' smile was so proud that Lily felt certain that she could look at that smile forever and never tire of it.

"You did it!" He cheered. Then he stood and held out his hand. "Now take a chance, and let's teach you how to cha-cha-cha."

Lily laughed and took his hand. By the end of the day, she felt like she had a better grip on not just the cha-cha, but dancing as well. A week in and her body already was in better shape and she wasn't as exhausted when she finally made it home that evening. The routine ended up much like their foxtrot, with little flair but with Lily's ability to do the steps well being their focus. She was also grateful that no one put her in something that looked more like a swimsuit than a costume for the cha-cha. She already had to pointedly ignore the quiet part of her mind that would react to James holding her as close as he had to for the dance, she didn't need to also be half-naked. Lily needed every barrier between her and James she could procure.

Their scores that week were better, though Flitwick still wanted to see more excitement in their routines. Still, he gave them a five, and McGonagall and Slughorn both gave them a six. Lily was just happy it kept her out of the bottom two. She was certain the moment she ended up there, it would be over, and James wouldn't get any further.

Their third week went well too. They danced the quickstep, which wasn't so different from the foxtrot in that she picked it up quickly, enough so that they were able to work some more complex moves into the dance as well. That was the performance that finally got Flitwick on her side, and they were safe from the bottom two again with three scores of six.

Lily walked into week four feeling like maybe she could do this. She felt fit and she was starting to feel budding confidence that she at least could learn to dance.

But she was back on her guard when she walked into the dance studio and James handed her a blindfold.

"No."

He laughed at her.

"Potter, there can't possibly be a good reason for me to wear a blindfold."

"Actually, Evans, you've pointed out the reason for this blindfold more times than I can count." He smirked at her.

"Oh, really? Explain then, why am I supposed to wear a blindfold?"

"Because, there are mirrors on every wall of this room," he gestured around them. "And I need you to do something before I get started on teaching you our dance this week."

"What dance do we have?" Lily fidgeted with the blindfold he'd pressed into her hands.

"I'll tell you after we do this little exercise."

"James, this better not be anything stupid."

"I promise, it isn't anything stupid. I need you to trust me."

Lily rolled her eyes. "I do trust you."

"No, I need you to fully trust me."

"You promise, this isn't going to be something weird?"

"Dancer's honor," James put his hand over his heart.

Lily examined the blindfold carefully before looking back at James.

"Okay, but remember, you promised."

"I promise." James nodded her on.

Lily took a deep breath and tied the blindfold over her eyes. She let her hands fall to her side and tried to not let the disoriented feeling that hit overcome her.

James' hand took hers, and it was so familiar now that Lily wondered briefly at how when this was over, she'd never feel it again. The thought left a small ache in her chest.

"Walk with me," he spoke quietly.

Lily took cautious steps forward, feeling awkward and anxious that she would trip and fall on her face.

James stopped her and let go of her hand and Lily immediately felt lost.

"Now," James' voice was suddenly behind her, "When I tell you to, I want you to put out your arms, and fall backward, trusting that I will catch you."

"You're kidding!" Lily almost pulled her blindfold off, but James put his hands gently on her shoulders, causing Lily's frantic heartbeat to spike.

"No, I told you, I need you to really trust me. This next dance needs you to trust me completely."

Lily bit her lip and reached back for James. He grabbed her hand.

"Take a risk, Lily." He gave her hand a squeeze before letting go.

"Are you ready?" He sounded like he was on the other side of the room.

"You promise you'll catch me?"

"I promise." He sounded farther away this time.

Lily clenched her fists and held her arms out to the sides.

"Fall," James' voice was calm, in stark contrast to the way Lily's heart was beating so fast she was certain she might faint.

It happened quickly, but a part of Lily felt like it was in slow motion. She locked her legs and shifted her weight backward over her heels, then past them. Her body shifted and she began falling. The fall kept her from breathing, but as James' arms caught her, she gasped in a deep breath.

"Take off your blindfold," James' smile was evident in his voice.

Lily pulled the blindfold off and smiled as she looked up at James.

"Hi."

James chuckled, "Do you trust me?"

Lily nodded.

"Look in the mirror."

She turned her head and watched her smile fall off her face. She was no more than five inches from the ground.

"You let me fall that far?!"

James pushed her back up on her feet. "A little less than that far, notice you didn't hit your head on the floor. But there was a purpose behind it."

Lily glared at him, "Alright, relate this to dancing, oh wise teacher."

"We're dancing the paso doble this week, and that's going to come with me pushing you outside of your comfort zone in a lot of ways this week. I need you to trust me."

Lily pursed her lips. "I do trust you, but let's get all of this out in the open, no more surprises."

James motioned for her to sit with him and they walked to the chairs as he explained.

"The paso doble is going to require you to act. I'm the bullfighter and you're my cape. I need you to cling to me. I need you to let me throw you and flip you and I need you to fall and know that I'm going to catch you. I need you to trust me."

Lily took a deep breath and kept her arms folded across her chest.

"So, we're done with the easy platonic dances?"

James grinned, "Don't worry, those will come back. But this dance is better when we act the part."

Lily tried to keep her emotions in check. She'd seen Mary's favorite paso doble dances from past seasons, and she knew what James was getting at. Lily had put conscious effort into not letting her mind linger on how close she and James had to be in many of these dances. She wouldn't let her thoughts pull up those moments where James would keep his hand on the small of her back. She ignored everything that suggested she might be attracted to James; because she was very attracted to James.

"Ok," Lily nodded slowly. "I think I can act the part."

"We're going to be raising the bar for ourselves with this dance," James rested his arms on his legs and moved closer to her. "Are you game, Evans?"

Lily wasn't sure if she really was game for this. She'd been doing a fine job pretending that she wasn't attracted to him, and it showed in her dancing, she never got too close, never stayed too long in his embrace, never thought about his hands on her, never thought about how his eyes would watch her like she was captivating to him.

"I, yeah, yeah I'm game."

James jumped up and held out his hand. "Then let's dance!"

It was too easy. James commented on how well she was picking up on her part, but really Lily just had to let some slack out on her very tightly controlled emotions. Clinging to James wasn't unnatural, having him throw her into a spin before pulling her back flush against him was an action that felt innate within her, and when James flipped her around his arm, she had no problem moving in sync with his actions. It was all what she naturally wanted to do.

"This is going to be amazing!" James grinned at her. "You've been holding back on me, Evans. We've got a real shot at winning if you keep this up."

Lily forced a chuckle to keep herself from admitting how much she was still holding back. James' magnetic pull was strong, and she'd been building stone around her to keep from falling into it. But she felt like that stone was crumbling under this need to "act the part" as James had put it.

There was very little acting involved for Lily.

And as the week went on, the more she let those stone walls crumble the more James praised her, the happier he looked, and the more excited he was.

When the dress rehearsal came, Lily found that she wasn't nearly as nervous as she had been in the weeks prior. She felt like she could do this, like she could dance, and she tried to ignore the part of herself that realized it was all because she'd let those walls she had built up break and crumble around her heart and give in to the magnetic pull that was James Potter.

Their live performance was stunning. Even Lily could tell when they finished that it was amazing. The judges gave her a standing ovation. Flitwick cheered her for her daring and willingness to push herself. They earned a ten from Slughorn and a nine from McGonagall and Flitwick. They finished first.

It was the start of a new phase for Lily. She went from being certain that she would have no fan base when she ended up in the bottom two to being a minor star. Talk shows wanted to have her and James on with them. Her dormant Twitter account was suddenly awash with followers. But they still needed to keep the momentum up. James pushed them harder and harder every week, and Lily felt like she had to give him everything she could because James deserved to win. They consistently finished in the top three for the next five weeks, even when Lily had to start learning two dances a week.

Everything was moving in fast forward, and Lily tried to keep it that way. Because if she was exhausted, then she would be too tired to dream about having James' hand run up her neck to cup her face, or his forehead pressed against hers as his breath came in heavy gasps, or his arms wrapped around her middle, or the way he watched her like he was holding himself back.

It was all an act, it was all for the dance, but the deepest darkest part of Lily's heart hated that it was an act, and wanted desperately for it all to end so that she could start trying to forget how hard she was falling for one James Potter.

"What's this?" James asked as she walked into the studio and handed him a gift bag.

"A congratulations gift," Lily tried to make it feel nonchalant even as her emotions ran at top speed through her. "I happen to know this is the first time you've made it to the last two weeks."

James' smile made her chest hurt. "That has everything to do with you though."

"You're the teacher," Lily shook her head.

"And you are my best student," James' gaze had shifted to the one he used when they were acting the part and Lily found it hard to breathe. She needed something, anything to get him to stop looking at her like that off the dance floor.

"Lily-"

"James-"

"You first," James gave a chuckle and shoved his hand in his hair.

"Aren't you going to open the present?"

James combed his hand through his hair and reached into the gift bag. He laughed when he pulled out a miniature replica of the show's trophy.

"In case we don't win, you'll have a trophy, and," Lily picked at a hair on her shirt, "And, I wanted you to know that all of this has meant so much to me, and I'm so glad I met you. Even if we don't win, this has been amazing."

James grinned at the little trophy and turned it around his fingers.

"Thanks, Lils, I'm glad we got to be friends."

Lily blocked off the part of her heart that died at James' use of the word friends. That's all they were supposed to be - friends.

"Me too."

They finished second that week. Slughorn said he'd never seen a tango he enjoyed more on the show. McGonagall praised their contemporary dance and everything they managed to work into it. Flitwick told her he couldn't believe how far she'd come.

But what had made the entire night was James holding her flush against him for most of the night. Lily told herself that it didn't mean anything to him, that this was how dancers were. But her heart wanted it to be real, and she indulged in pretending it was real.

"We're in the finals!" James spun her around after the broadcast had finished.

"We're in the finals!" Lily laughed and spun back into him.

James pulled her closer, "Hey, Lily-"

"James!" One of the stagehands came running over. "You left this in the dressing rooms." He handed him the little trophy that Lily had given James.

James thanked him but Lily had taken advantage of the moment to step out of his embrace.

"So, I'll see you tomorrow morning," she slung her bag higher on her shoulder and tried to not let the ache in her chest manifest itself through her face.

James looked momentarily torn. "Yeah, yeah, I'll see you tomorrow morning."

Lily nodded and nearly ran to her car.

The last week of the competition was torture, and Lily was a glutton for punishment. James was constantly touching her, even if they weren't dancing: his arm was around her shoulders or his hand on her back, him smiling with his warm hazel eyes always watching her.

Lily had never been so torn in her entire life.

Finally, the finale came and Lily threw everything she had into the performances. She owed James that much. This was his career and since he'd helped her to get nearly 300 thousand dollars to pour into her research. She wanted to give James the real trophy, she wanted him to be able to say he won, that he was the best, because she honestly believed he was.

Their final dance was the contemporary, and when they finished, Lily was surprised when James pulled her into him, wrapping his arm around her neck and holding head against his own.

"You're perfect," he murmured into her ear, "Absolutely perfect."

"I think you are too," Lily clung to him through the cheers of the crowd.

"Lils-"

"Come on over you two!" The host interrupted him, and James sighed as he pulled back to lead them over to the judging, keeping her flush against him.

They scored first, and while Lily was ecstatic, a part of her wondered what James had meant to say before they had been interrupted. But as the night wore on, she never found out. There wasn't a quiet moment for the rest of the night, and especially not when they won the trophy.

Lily had felt like the air was sucked out of her when they announced she and James had won. And then she thought she might faint when James pulled her into him for how tightly he held her. It seemed like whatever spark she might have felt when they finished their final dance ended with the dance as well. She went home feeling a little empty after it all.

"Where are you going to put it?" Mary was holding the trophy in Lily's office as Lily tried to catch up on some of the things she had missed in the three months she'd spent competing.

"I don't know," Lily laughed at the mammoth thing. She'd spent that morning doing interviews with James and was only now making it into her lab after lunch. The interviews had been weird, not because she and James were the winners, but because James had been almost shy around her. He managed to turn it off for the cameras, but he seemed much less confident and sure of himself when it was just the two of them.

"I wonder where James is going to put his," Mary tried to carefully set Lily's trophy down on her desk. "Why did you bring yours here?"

"I was asked to have it with me for the interview." Lily frowned at one of the emails and flagged it so she could come back to it.

"What if you kept it here?" Mary teased her.

"Very funny," Lily laughed, "don't you have work to do?"

"Actually, now that you've brought in all this research money, I do." Mary blew her a kiss before sliding out the door.

Lily sighed as she looked at the trophy now on her desk. She picked it up and set it in a drawer in her desk and flinched at the clanging noise it made. The interviews had been weird, but it had also been hard. It had been hard to see James and not touch him. It had been hard to see James and not fall into the rhythm that they'd set for themselves during the competition. But it was for the best. She needed to get these feelings out of her system; they may have been why she was able to win the competition with him, but now she had to stop; those feelings were not reciprocated, but they were also wildly inappropriate.

At least she had her research to throw herself into. She could hide in her research until her heart put itself back together.

"So, this is where you save the planet?"

Lily looked up to see James leaning against her door frame.

"Hi!" She jumped up with a smile but then paused, not sure what to do next. "Um, yeah, I, this is my office."

James shoved his hand in his hair. "Hope it's alright I looked you up."

"Of course, I," Lily struggled to think of what to do or what to say. Her office suddenly felt fifty yards across. "What's up?"

James gripped his hair. "I know this could be out of line, and you can totally throw me out, but um, would you want to grab dinner with me sometime?"

Lily could feel her heartbeat in her ears. "Like, like a date?"

James looked at her with that same stare he'd used when they were performing, the one that had made Lily wish he wasn't acting because it looked like he wanted her. "Yeah, a date."

Lily felt her smile break wide across her face. "I'd really like to get dinner with you."

James' whole face lit up like the stage lights when their dances would start, "Tonight? Can I pick you up here at 5?"

"Yeah," Lily laughed, feeling like all the awkwardness from that morning was fading away.

"Great," James pushed off the door frame, "I'll see you in four hours."

Lily watched him walk away and it felt like he pulled the air out of her with it.

That was it? She had been so wrapped up in crossing a line, in doing something wrong, that she had never let herself even consider what life with James might look like. But she knew James, and she knew that he was anything but status quo; he was nothing like the stagnant air that surrounded her. James took risks.

And he once told her she could too.

Lily bolted from her office.

"James!" She watched him turn the corner at the end of the hall and went running after him. "James!"

Lily nearly fell as she rounded the corner, but James jumped for her, his arm keeping her from hitting the floor.

"Alright there, Evans?" James looked down at her with apprehension.

"Yeah, just," Lily swallowed, "um, I." Lily summoned all her courage and stepped up to him, pushing forward to lightly press her lips to his. James stiffened and Lily immediately pulled away. "Ok, I, um, I'll see you in a few hours."

She moved to step back but James grabbed her arm and pulled her back into him, his arms wrapped around her back, his hands pressing against her spine and holding her close to his chest. His lips captured hers and Lily sighed as she fisted her hands in his t-shirt.

"I've wanted to do that for weeks," James rested his forehead against hers and smiled down at her.

"Me too," Lily laughed as she smiled back up at him. "And now I'm not going to get anything done today."

"Want to take off? Start our date early?" James moved closer to speak against her lips.

A part of Lily within her brain immediately responded with no, that she had work to do. But the part that had James' lips ghosting over hers overruled all objections. After all, she could take risks.

"I need to grab my purse," Lily pressed forward to kiss him again.

James moved his hand to take hers and then began dancing them down the hall to her office.

"Let's get out of here."

Lily laughed and once they'd made it to her office, she shut down her computer before grabbing her purse. She took James' proffered hand and leaned over to kiss him.

"Lily, did you get…" Mary trailed off. Her shocked face quickly turned to an excited smile as Lily pulled her lips from James'. "Never mind, never mind, I saw nothing, my lips are sealed, and I want a ticket for next season as my Christmas present this year!" She gave an excited squeal and then retreated out of Lily's office.

"Think you can get her a ticket?" Lily laughed up at James.

"Probably," he shrugged, "but I'll look into that later." He kissed her. "Now, I want to find a place to be with you that doesn't involve anything to do with either of our jobs."

"That's an idea I can get behind." Lily kissed him before letting James lead her out of her office and on to their date.

[agentnico]

Wonder Woman 1984 (2020) Review

Why specifically 1984? Why not 83 or 85? What is so significant about 1984? 83 had Ronald Reagan propose development of tech that would intercept enemy missiles, and the project was called “Star Wars”. In 85 there was an earthquake in Mexico that killed 9,000 and Coca Cola made a new Coke! Impressive stuff! What happened in 1984? *another quick Google check* Aids break out. Oh. Oh no.

Plot: Diana Prince lives quietly among mortals in the vibrant, sleek 1980s - an era of excess driven by the pursuit of having it all. Though she's come into her full powers, she maintains a low profile by curating ancient artefacts, and only performing heroic acts incognito. But soon, Diana will have to muster all of her strength, wisdom and courage as she finds herself squaring off against Maxwell Lord and the Cheetah, a villainess who possesses superhuman strength and agility.

After many delays due to COVID once again doing a COVID and messing things up, Warner Bros. finally released Wonder Woman 1984, due to concerns of audiences losing interest in the project. I remember enjoying the first Wonder Woman years ago, and though it didn’t reinvent the superhero genre, as an origin story is was watchable and there were a couple cool action set pieces, such as the notable trench sequence where Diana fights through No Man’s Land and literally all that’s missing is her screeching “GIRL POWER!” everytime she deflected a gun bullet! Anyway, nothing ground-breaking but a decent piece of entertainment. Now we have sequel set in the 80s that plans to go bigger, bolder, grander.....well, you know, the usual sequel stuff. And they have the Mandalorian himself along for the ride, because even Warner Bros. knows that this is the way.

Having watched the film I must say, it is disappointing. Though in reality is it really disappointing? Personally I had hardly any expectations anyway, so it’s not as if my hopes and dreams have been crunched and shattered and thrown into a pit of despair! Wow, that came off as if I am super in denial, which I am not, I promise, okay?? In all seriousness though, the movie is a mess. With a runtime of two and a half hours, the film is filled with pacing issues so much so that I can say I was bored 50% of the time. A lot of it doesn’t make sense, the editing is atrocious and also this baby is filled to the brim with plot holes! So. Many. Plot Holes. For example, right from the start, one of the opening scenes involves Wonder Woman stopping a robbery at a mall. The robbery in itself is botched up. "I'm not going back!" screams one of the criminals, so hey, I'm going to hold this kid over the railing and almost drop her so that I can go to jail for murder. Genius writing there. Anyway, so Diana swoops in, saves the kid obviously, then proceeds to destroy the cameras in the mall as if that will also magically erase the footage that has already been recorded as well as all the witnesses that have seen her show off her bongo-bongo power mojo. So she’s trying to hide her identity and existence a secret, and apparently has been doing so for years, yet all her heroic moments happen in the middle of the public’s eye, so there is no way that she could have stayed confidential all this time. Then again, Superman can put on a pair of cheap glasses and all of a sudden he’s this random fella named Clark Kent, so what do I know? My guess is that the human population in the DC world are stupid and aren’t capable of adding 2 plus 2! Right, onto the next plot hole. So throughout most of the film, it feels like the movie is set in autumn or something along those lines. One of the characters gives food to a homeless person and tells them to stay warm, and also many people passing by are wearing coats and furs. Suddenly at one point there is a firework display and Diana winks to the camera and says “oh look, it’s the Fourth of July!” I’m sorry, last time I checked that date is set in the summer. Why would I know this? Well maybe cause it happens to also be my birthday! Next! So Diana can fly in this movie. How? Or why? I don’t know! Because “GIRL POWER!” I guess? I don’t know, this new superpower comes out of nowhere, yet its not referred to at all in Justice League, which is set many years later. So yeah, sounds like director Patty Jenkins couldn’t give a single flying dollop of poop about continuity. Speaking of random decisions, Wonder Woman’s new golden armor serves absolutely no purpose at the end of the film. She decides to randomly use it one point for no particular reason, and in fact it slowed her down more than anything, after which it was all forgotten about. Look, I can go on forever, this movie is filled with disorganised and erratic plot decisions and it makes zero to no sense!

Visually this film is disappointing too. Taking into account that this is a big budget film from one of the biggest film studios, the special effects in this film are atrocious. The green screen is so obvious and the CGI sets are clearly fake. Diana spends a lot of the film doing jumps and then floating in a very peculiar way in the sky, and it looks laughably bad. Even the 80′s setting doesn’t feel quite right. Yes, the costumes are somewhat okay, but the atmosphere is off and it seems the director’s opinion of the 80s is that everyone needs to act like a caricature.

Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman is okay. Look, Gadot seems like a very lovely and earnest person in real life, and her face is indeed very likeable, but I still haven’t seen her give a good performance. It’s the typical pretty Hollywood face, and you can tell she’s trying her hardest, but I can never properly buy her as this female superhero pop culture icon. Chris Pine returns even though he died in the first one. Look, the way he’s brought back is a bit strange, however I did actually like seeing Pine in the movie, as he was one of the best parts of the first film, and he brings that same charm and charisma in this one, now with the added factor of being the fish out of water. And to be honest, his presence actually does provide the movie with some needed emotional heft, as it explores the ideas of having to get over someone you’ve lost and learning to accept it and move on. In terms of villains, there are two in this movie. Kristin Wiig as Cheetah feels very shoehorned in and is mainly there to have Diana fight someone at the end of the film. Kristen Wiig does her part, however the character is written really badly, and her development into becoming a villain comes off as rushed and cheap. On the other hand Pedro Pascal as Maxwell Lord is actually not bad. He’s not the typical superpowered baddie, he’s actually a normal human being, and even though, again, there are some inconsistencies with his character, Pascal brings enough swagger and panache to the role. And I’m sure he actually enjoyed playing a role where you can actually see his face.

As a whole, Wonder Woman 1984 is a mess. There are some good moments, but generally this is a very disjointed movie that doesn’t make sense and is extremely chaotic. Also, the entire thing is really boring. I’d say if you want more of an organised and wholesome movie, check out Disney Pixar’s new animation Soul! Or The Mandalorian with Pedro Pascal, as indeed... this is the way.

Overall score: 3/10

[zerochanges]

2020 Favorite Video Games

I don’t know if I am an outlier or if this is the same for everyone else but I really did not play a lot of games this year. 2020 was a very harsh year for all of us, especially for me for some personal reasons. So to get to the chase, I am just gonna say it left me not doing much in what little free time I did have, and I didn’t play much either. Usually I try to keep my lists for ‘favorite of the year’ to only titles released that year but since I played so little this year, screw it. I am gonna include any game I played this year regardless of release date.

Collection of SaGa

By far a flawed rerelease. It’s bare bones: there are no advance features you would usually expect out of these kinds of emulated rereleases like save states, fast forward, or rewind, and there was no real effort made to touch up almost 30 year old localizations that had to meet Nintendo of America’s then harsh standards. This really is just 3 roms slapped into a nice looking interface with an option to increase the game speed (which by the way you better use, the characters walk very slow in these old games). 

I am bit harsh here, but only because I thought the Romancing SaGa remasters and the upcoming SaGa Frontier remaster all looked like they got a great budget and a lot of love while this is just another Collection of Mana situation (moreso specifically talking about Seiken Densetsu 1/Final Fantasy Adventure/Adventures of Mana part of that collection). I would have loved to see Square Enix do a bit more for these older games. Or at least include the remakes. Seiken Densetsu 1 had two great remakes, both unused in Collection of Mana, and all three of these original SaGa titles have remakes that have never seen the light of day outside of Japan. How great would it have been to get the Wonderswan remake of SaGa 1, as well as the Nintendo DS remakes of Saga 2 and SaGa 3? 

But my gripes aside, these games are still fun as they ever were. Replaying SaGa 1 specifically during the holiday season really helped calm me down and made me feel at ease. It’s easy to forget but even in their Gameboy roots there are a lot of funky and weird experimental choices being made in these games. They aren’t your run-of-the-mil dragon quest (or considering the gameboy, maybe pokemon would be more apt) clones. 

Raging Loop

Perhaps my favorite game of the year, Raging Loop is one of the best visual novels I have ever played hands down. The level of creativity and splitting story paths that went into it is simply mind blowing. The basic premise is both a wonderful throwback to the old days of Chunsoft sound novels while still modern and somewhat reminiscent of both Higurashi and Danganronpa. Essentially you play as Haruaki, a poor slub that got lost in the mountains with no clue where to go until you stumble upon an old rural village with a strange history and even stranger superstitions. Before you know it there has been a murder and the Feast is now afoot.

The less said about Raging Loop the better, although I do want to say a lot about it one day if I ever can write a proper review of it. This is a gripping game that will take hold of you once you get into it though and never let go. I actually 100%-ed this and I very rarely do that. I got every ending, every bonus hidden ending, played the entire game twice to hear all the hidden details it purposely hides on your first play through, played all the bonus epilogue chapters, unlocked all the hidden voice actor interviews, collected all the art work, etc, etc. I was just obsessed with this game, it’s that damn good! And the main character is maybe the best troll in all of video games, god bless Haruaki. 

Root Double

From Takumi Nakazawa, long time contributor to Kotaro Uchikoshi’s work comes a game any fan of Zero Escape or Uchikoshi in general will probably enjoy. Root Double, like its name suggests is a visual novel with two different routes, hence Root Double. The first route stars Watase Kasasagi, the leader of an elite rescue team in the midst of their greatest crisis yet that could lead to nuclear devastation as they try to evacuate a nuclear research facility that has gone awry. 

The other route stars Natsuhiko Tenkawa, an everyday high schooler whose peaceful life is thrown into turmoil when he stumbles upon a terrorist plot to destroy the nuclear facility in the city and his attempts to stop them. Together the two separate plots weave into one and creates a really crazy ride. Part Chernobyl, part science fiction, any fan of the genre will easily enjoy it. And hey it’s kind of relevant to include on this list too since it just got a Switch port this year (I played it on steam though).  

Snack World

I was shocked upon starting Snack World as it is instantly incredibly charming, witty, and downright hilarious at times yet I heard almost zero people talk about it. EVER. This game is Dragon Quest levels of quirky though, and the localization is incredible. The game has such an oddball sense of humor that works really well with its presentation right down to the anime opening video that sings about the most bizarre things. Instead of the usual pump up song about the cool adventure ahead we get stuff like wanting to go out to a restaurant and eat pork chops. 

The self aware/fourth wall breaking humor is just enough to be really funny, but doesn't overstay its welcome and always makes it work right in the context of the dialogue. And finally, just everything; with the menus, the name of side quests and missions, and the character dialogue -- are all just so witty and full of quirky humor. This is one hell of a charming and funny game and addictive to boot.

Trials of Mana

Trials of Mana has gone from one of those legendary unlocalized games, to one of the first major breakthroughs in fan translation, to finally getting an official English release complete with a fully 3D remake. In a lot of ways from a western perspective this game has had an incredible journey. As for this remake itself, I really found myself having tons of fun with it. I loved the graphics, and the voice acting while a bit on the cheaper side almost kind of adds to the charm since both the graphics and acting really give it an old PS2 vibe. I know that is probably just more me being weird but yeah, I had to say it. 

I really hope Square Enix sticks to this style of remake more often, instead of just doing Final Fantasy VII Remakes that break the bank and involve extensive tweaking to both plot and game play. I’ll take smaller budget projects that play more like the original game any day personally. I wouldn’t mind if they also deliver a brand new Mana game all together in this engine either. 

Utawarerumono Trilogy

This year saw the release of the first entry in the series, Utawarerumono: Prelude to the Fallen--and thus finally after three years since the sequels Utawarerumono: Mask of Deception and Utawarerumono: Mask of Truth came out in 2017 the trilogy is now complete in English. I ended up binging through Prelude to the Fallen very fast shortly after it came out and immediately jumped on to the sequels. Perhaps the best part of 2020 was that I finally played all three of these fantastic games, and did so back-to-back-to-back. Playing the first Utawarerumono was an experience I will never forget, it was like visiting old friends again that I haven’t seen in ages, by and large thanks to the fact that I saw the anime adaption of the game when I was much younger, nearly a decade ago. Back then I would have never of dreamed that I would get to play the actual game and get the real experience. 

And it only got better from here, as all three games are such wonderful experiences from start to finish. The stories are all so deep, and by the time you get to the third entry, Mask of Truth, it’s crazy to see how they all connected over so many years and weaved together into a plot much bigger than they ever were. What carries it beyond all that though has to be the fun and addicting strategy role playing game aspect, which while a bit on the easy side, is still so much fun and helps make the game feel better paced since you get to play the conquests your characters go on and not just read about all the battles they fight. Beyond that the games are packed full of awesome characters, and I know I’ll never forget the amazing leads in all of them. Hakuowlo, Haku, and Oshtor will all go down as some of the greats to me. 

Ys: Memories of Celceta

Ys: Memories of Celceta is a full 3D remake of Ys IV, a rather infamous game in Falcom’s Ys series. Not to get bogged down too much into the history of Falcom but by this point they were facing a lot of hardship and had to outsource this entry to other developers, and thus passed it on to two particular developers they had a business relationship with, creating two unique versions of Ys IV. Tonkin House who had worked on Super Famicom port of Ys III with Falcom ended up creating their own YS IV entry, Mask of the Sun for the very same system, where Hudson soft who had produced the much beloved Ys Books I & II remakes for the Turbografix (PC Engine) CD add-on created their own Ys IV entry Dawn of Ys for that console. Both games followed guidelines and ideas outlined from Falcom themselves but both radically diverged from each other and turned into completely different games. 

Falcom finally putting an end to this debate on which version of Ys IV you should play have gone and created their own definitive Ys IV in 2012 for the Playstation Vita. I played the 2020 remastered version of this remake on my PS4. I even bought this on the Vita when it first came out but I am horrible and only horde games, never play them. So it was a lot of fun to finally play this. 

Memories of Celceta is probably one of the best starting points for anyone looking to get into Ys, especially if you only want to stay with the 3D titles as out of all the 3D entries this explains the most about the world and series protagonist Adol Christian. Beyond that it’s just another fantastic entry in a wonderful series that has a few good twists hidden behind it, especially for long time fans of the series. 

Random Video Game Console Stuff

Xbox Has Blue Dragon: I actually got an Xbox One this year for free from my brother. Because of that I started to play Blue Dragon again and there’s a lot I would love to say about this game. I don’t know if I am fully committed to replaying it all the way through however but I find myself putting in a couple hours every few days and enjoying myself again. Does anyone else remember Blue Dragon? I feel like it really missed its audience and had it come out nowadays and probably for the Switch it would have really resonated with the Dragon Quest fandom a lot more instead of being thrown out to die on Xbox and constantly compared to Final Fantasy VII and the like which it had nothing at all similar with. 

The Turbografx 16 Mini: This was probably one of the best mini consoles that have come out and I feel like thanks to the whole 2020 pandemic thing it was largely forgotten about. That’s a shame, it has a wonderful variety of great games, especially if you count the Japanese ones (god I wish I could play the Japanese version of Snatcher included), and a wonderful interface with fantastic music. One of these days I would really like to be able to play around with the console more seriously than I have already. 

Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon Never Existed: So Nintendo localized the first ever Fire Emblem game on Nintendo Switch which is awesome to see them touching Famicom games again--I haven’t seen Nintendo of America rerelease old Famicom titles since Mysterious Murasame Castle on the 3DS, but their trailer hilariously made it seem like this is the first time ever they released Fire Emblem when in fact they had already localized the remake Shadow Dragon on the Nintendo DS nearly 10 or 11 years ago. I and many other fans I talked to all found this really hilarious, probably solely because of how much they kept repeating the fact that this is the first time you will ever be able to experience Marth’s story.

All that aside though I have to say the collector edition for this newly localized Famicom game is probably the most gorgeous retro reproduction I have seen in a long time, and I really spent many many hours just staring at the all clear glass mock cartridge. I have found myself really obsessing over retro reproductions during 2020, and obtained quite a few this year. I really hope this trend continues to go on in 2021 as recreating classic console packaging and cartridges is a lot of fun. 

[alarawriting]

52 Project #39: Seista Nikita

Wow, my brain is a sieve lately. I just didn’t notice it was getting to be 5 pm until it was almost 6.

I wrote this story originally in senior year of high school, in a college creative writing course. Even if your political views don’t change over time, the culture around them does. The Culare was a mockery of ridiculous extremes of environmentalism and animal rights, a la PETA and suchlike. I wouldn’t write a story like this nowadays because the pendulum’s gone so far in the other direction, I wouldn’t see that worthy of mockery, even though I still disagree with such extremes as much as I ever did. I am very fond of the trickster heroine, though, so I’m publishing it anyway. It’s kind of a stupid story, but I still think it’s funny. There have been some revisions made, so if you note things that didn’t exist in 1987, that is why.

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

Once upon a time, in a distant province that never appeared on any map, probably because either a. it was too small to bother with or b. someone bribed the mapmaker, or possibly both, an evil beast called the Culare reigned. (It was pronounced like “Cool air”, but if anyone tried to spell it that way, the Culare would eat them.) Some said the Culare was an experimental mutation; others, an ecologist gone mad. The Culare was an intelligent lion-like being with teleportation powers who took the concept of “protecting the environment” to a degree so ludicrous, not even the most extreme environmentalist would support it. He refused to let the human beings in his province harm the native wildlife by picking it or killing it. That would have been reasonable, but he also wouldn’t let people pick anything they planted themselves, even on their own property. If the plant in question was native, he wouldn’t let them harvest it, and if it wasn’t, he wouldn’t even let people plant it, claiming it was an invasive species. And of course he wouldn’t allow anyone to raise animals for food. Not even unfertilized chicken eggs. (He also took a dim view of the cellophane wrapper industry.)

If people wanted to eat meat, they had to find roadkill, or something that had been killed by another predator. The problem was that the Culare thought that “protecting nature” meant preventing predators of any kind from killing other animals… which meant there were very few animals who’d died of anything other than starvation or disease as their populations exploded. If they wanted to eat vegetables or fruits, people had to find things that were lying around on the ground.  In the beginning of the Culare’s reign, there had been shipments from other countries of rice, and bacon, and potatoes, and tomatoes, and whatever else people wanted to eat. But the Culare wouldn’t tolerate ships that consumed fossil fuels coming in to the ports, and the people of the small nation couldn’t pay enough to make it worth sending sailing ships. Also, packaging. If the food came in anything other than packaging made from recycled matter, which would biodegrade, the Culare would eat the people who brought it.

The Culare himself was sustained on sunflower seeds and papaya juice… when he wasn’t consuming errant humans.  

(Some said the whole thing was a scam, giving the Culare an acceptably environmentally correct reason to eat people. None of them said it very loudly, though, or else they never said it more than once.)

One day, an old man who had once worked for a living making cellophane wrappers, and his 20-ish son Harold, were out, searching for rotten apples and fallen nuts to eat. It was hard enough to find such things, when the entire country was desperately trying to find the same things so they wouldn’t starve to death.  It was made even more difficult by the fact that it was springtime. You might think that the reason springtime was an issue was that nothing had had a chance to get ripe enough to fall, and you’d be correct enough.  But the bigger part of the problem was that Harold was in love, with a girl named Seista Nikita, and he seemed to think that he could live entirely off air, sunlight and his love. At least, one would suspect that from how much attention he was not paying to finding food.

The old man finally got ticked off at the way his son was paying next to no attention to the task at hand, and hobbled off.

“At last,” Harold thought. “That old geezer’s gone. Him and his stories about the glorious days of Saran Wrap! I’d much rather sit under a tree and think about Seista.” With that, he sat down under a tree and thought about Seista.

At the height of his romantic musings, he saw a bunch of flowers. “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if I could pick them and give them to Seista,” he thought, ignoring the fact that Seista would probably prefer nearly anything to flowers. Quickly, he looked around. He saw no one. His hand reached out and he plucked the blossoms.

Suddenly there was a burst of acrid smoke, and a huge lion-like beast appeared in front of him, kind of like the Wicked Witch of the West. “The Culare!” Harold babbled, and tried to hide the flowers.

“SLEAZOID,” the Culare rumbled. “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO THOSE FLOWERS?”

“Well, it was – it was an accident, yeah. I – you see, I, I thought they were looking ill, that’s it, and I tried to lift them up to inspect them. Yeah, that’s it. And – and they accidentally came loose, yeah—”

“FOOLISH SLIMEBUCKET, DO YOU REALLY EXPECT ME TO BELIEVE SUCH A RIDICULOUS STORY?”

“Oh, please don’t eat me!” begged Harold. “I’ll never do it again!”

“THAT’S WHAT THEY ALL SAY. BUT IT ISN’T GOOD FOR ME TO EAT A HEAVY MEAL THIS EARLY IN THE MORNING. I’LL COME BACK FOR YOU AT SUNSET.”

With that, the Culare vanished.

Harold ran straight to Seista Nikita’s house and told her the news. “And so we must be forever separated, beloved,” he said, tears in his eyes. “For I am doomed! At sunset tonight, I am destined to lose my life at the hands of the Culare. The paws? The claws? I’m not sure ‘hands’ is the correct thing to say here…”

Seista sighed. “You would go and do something like this, wouldn’t you? Stop moaning like that, you sound like a dead cow. I’ll kill the Culare for you and save your idiot backside. Okay?”

“Okay,” Harold sniffed.

So Seista Nikita put on her very tall platform shoes. These shoes were easily a foot and a half tall. You wouldn’t think anyone would be able to walk in such shoes, unless maybe they went to clown college and learned how to use stilts. Seista was a very acrobatic and skilled young woman, though, so while she wobbled a bit, she managed to stay upright all the way to the nearest meadow, which was badly overgrown with wildflowers, pokeweed, ground cover plants, and about half a billion tiny mimosa seedlings. She began to pick flowers and toss them into the air.

The Culare appeared. “SLEAZOID!” he boomed.

“Come and get me, shag-face!” Seista yelled, which was a reference to his lion-like mane rather than some sort of rude reference to a private activity. She kicked off her shoes, directly in front of the Culare, and ran. The Culare tried to pursue, but he tripped over her shoes and broke a forepaw.

“Damn,” Seista said, after escaping. “Those shoes were big enough that he should have tripped over them and broken his neck.” The thought occurred to her that perhaps she should have factored in the fact that he had four legs, and therefore had better balance than she’d accounted for. “I’ll just have to think of something else!”

An hour later, after getting into sneakers and sensible clothes, she climbed a tall cherry tree, went up as far as she could before the branches could no longer hold her weight, and began to pick cherry blossoms. It wasn’t long before the Culare appeared. “YOU AGAIN?”

“Nah, nah, nah nyah nah!” Seista taunted.  She was tall and strong and very acrobatic and fairly smart, but she was, admittedly, more than a little childish.

The Culare leapt at the tree and began to climb up. Seista waited until it had almost reached her, then dropped, letting go of the branch she was on… having already checked that there was another branch right below her. From there, she clambered down as fast as she could go. She figured that would hold him until he starved to death; the Culare was obviously a type of cat, and cats are terrible at climbing down trees.

So she went home to Harold, who was watching a Tarzan movie. It was an animated Disney reboot in 3D. “Well, I took care of that problem.”

“Really?” Harold turned, his 3D glasses sliding off his face. “O my beloved, my thanks know no bounds—”

“Skip it.”

A bulletin interrupted the Tarzan movie. “We interrupt this movie for an important bulletin.”  This was impressively implausible, since the movie was on a streaming service and you wouldn’t think anything could break into and interrupt one of those.

The Culare’s face appeared on the television. “SEISTA NIKITA, IF YOU’RE OUT THERE, YOU’RE DEAD!”

Seista stared in shock, as the movie resumed. How had he gotten out of that tree? …oh yeah, he could teleport. She probably should have thought of that.

“I thought you said you took care of it!” Harold whined.

“Shut up, I’m trying to think.” Tarzan swung across the jungle floor on a vine. The 3D was powerful enough that he visibly swung toward Seista, despite the fact that she wasn’t wearing 3D glasses. “Oh! That’s it!”

“What’s it?”

“Harold.” She patted his very handsome cheeks. “I love you dearly but you’re too stupid to know what I’m talking about.”

***

Nearby, there was a ravine, where Seista found a tree on one side. With a very long rope, tied to an upper branch of the tree, and a rock tied to one side of it, she flung the rope to the other side, getting it caught on the other side of a bush. There was a bridge a few hundred feet away; she ran down to it, crossed it, and went back to the bush.

With the rope held in one hand, she picked a dandelion.

The Culare appeared. “THAT’S IT! YOU’RE DEAD!”

As he leapt at her, Seista grabbed the rope and swung to the other side.  The Culare roared and leapt at her, apparently unable to see the cliff through the bush.  It turned out he couldn’t teleport if he was in midair; he fell to his death in the ravine below.

She and Harold were married the next week. Three months after that, Seista left Harold to find herself, and ran away to a country where she worked as a stuntwoman in movies. Harold mooned over her for another month before finding his next true love. Seista herself never married again, having decided that being tied down by romance wasn’t for her… particularly since she seemed to be sexually attracted to idiots. She had many fun and satisfying sexual relationships with people whose stupidity didn’t have to impact her life very much.

[zargsnake]

Leyr Burnridge and the Undead Star

Word Count: 3582

This is a story within a story. The framing device involves Star Wars characters, but if you don’t like Star Wars you can skip those parts and just read the main story. The framing device is indented.

   *   *   *

"They were older than our numbers can count, but not older than theirs could. A long time ago, they were just like us: petty, mortal, recycled, thinking from A to B, feeling from B to A, bound to an odd number of senses, and detached from answers to the biggest questions. They had found those answers -- some they figured out themselves, and some they had help from others...others who they had to leave behind. But that was a long time ago. Longer than we could count, but not longer than they could.

They knew everything, saw everything, held everything, controlled everything. They wanted nothing, guessed nothing, believed nothing, tried nothing. They boxed infinity. And for one of them, it was unbearable.”

   *   *   *

Jocasta Nu feels old herself when she looks at the name at the top of the "Year-16 [Adapted] Creative Writing Assignment." Serran's student's student's student, young Skywalker. With his light hair and quiet manner, the young man is a far reach from his great-grandteacher, that outspoken charmer who had bewitched the entire Temple. Back when the Ossus excavation was still well-funded, when the Students for Progress still held meetings with representatives from all levels of the planet, when the Jedi Exploration Corps had a full slate of planned missions -- back when things were good here, really good, because the future seemed so good, because people wanted it to be good -- Serran more than anyone.

She wishes he were still here in the Temple, with that desire and that action, because things are sadder now. The old projects were too ambitious, and people gave up. It turned out the sins of the Outer Rim were worse than anyone had thought. Now even the biggest thinkers assume controlling them is impossible. Determined capitalists can just hold important Mid Rim planets hostage now; people seem to just accept that. And what can you say against the Chancellor? It is seven years into his term, and though people are more miserable than ever, Jocasta thinks his detractors have become just as unreasonable and small-minded as his supporters. And worst of all, of course, the Sith are back. Just when the Mandalorians seemed quelled for good -- the Sith are back, lurking out there in the shadows somewhere. It is all too much. So people just don't care anymore. They just don't believe in anything.

But she knows that even if Serran were here, even if he could keep his legacy intact, so that he was not a stranger to his own direct line -- he wouldn't. Because he doesn't believe in anything anymore either. He told her so, before he left, but she knew before he told her.

   *   *   *

“Leyr Burnridge sat on her windowsill, looking out at the stars, wishing one of them would fall and die. She had an idea that the stars -- for all science says about gases and gravity -- were actually another type of people, a powerful and mysterious alien people -- and if one of them died and you saw it, then they would survive and become your slave forever. She couldn't tell you where she'd gotten this idea -- from a story, maybe, or a dream, or just a wish she'd come up with herself.

If she had an almighty starperson, the first thing she would ask for would be a ship. She did not like to stay in one place. The next thing she would want would be clothes -- she hated to look just one way. She wanted to be anywhere, looking like anything -- fitting in as well or as poorly as she pleased. If she wanted to meet the queen, the snooty courtiers would see her in her finery and let her straight in. If she wanted to plunge into a black hole, she would simply wear a strong enough spacesuit.

Leyr imagined more scenarios like that. She thought it was a very good idea. But she did not break her concentration on the stars. They were as still as her mind was wild, until -- a strike -- a fall. She saw it and smiled.

And then she felt a hand on her shoulder."

   *   *   *

Jocasta remembers the Year-16 CWAs she and Serran wrote. As with all the important or interesting projects of that time, they did them together. The assignment asks Jedi students to reach out through the Force, through all of space and time, and then try to imagine something that is perfectly and utterly impossible. Something that never has happened and never will, not even in the most obscure corners of the galaxy. The very furthest thing from reality -- to imagine that, to the best of their ability.

It is a strange assignment, but a beloved one, and quite traditional. She had asked her master, a shrewd Echani named Menoc Thebe, what the purpose of the assignment was. They told her that the assignment teaches Jedi to separate fact from fiction -- an exercise of surprising importance to their way of life. After all, between prophecies, visions, and universal compassion for every form of life from microscopic organisms to space-faring superbeasts, a Jedi's sense of reality must be bigger and more flexible than that of an ordinary person. Master Menoc had clarified that this heightened awareness has been known, historically, to take a toll on the mental well-being of Jedi knights.

She remembers recounting this exchange to Serran, and his response; he had laughed and said, "The things they do to keep us from going mad."

   *   *   *

"Leyr looked over her shoulder, expecting to see her roommate, but instead she saw a strange man. He was tall, with long silver hair and a young, sad face. His eyes were dark against his shimmering skin, and they seemed more real than the rest of him. Tiny bits and pieces of him disappeared or flickered around, and he faded away altogether half a foot before he reached the floor. Despite all this, he was quite fashionably dressed. Like a prince. Or a devil.

Leyr was not easily scared, and though he must have meant to startle her, she did not let it show. She pushed his hand off her shoulder and shifted her position on the windowsill to face him.

"Who are you?" she asked.

"Your star," he replied, "The one you saw die... You have me now."

His voice was a chorus of sounds -- different winds blowing through different tubes, none of them quite like a throat -- more like flutes and low whistles -- and soft percussion, like rain, or static.

"Do -- do you have a name?"

"... No... I am your undead star."

"Are you telling the truth?"

"Yes," he said, after a pause.

"Prove it."

"Look outside. Look down this time."

Leyr didn't like to take her eyes off the alien, but she could not resist. Outside, on top of her roommate's garden, was a sleek and beautiful spaceship -- almost exactly like the one she had been admiring in last week's catalogue, but with the improvements she had imagined in her head.

"You'll find the walk-in closet full, to your liking," he said.

She looked back at him, unable to hide her awe.

"Infinitely full, in fact."

   *   *   *

Jocasta finds great joy in reading the short stories. Over her many years as leader of the Year-16 CWA Committee, she has read thousands of them. While she does not have as much experience with the creative writing abilities of non-Jedi children, she can't imagine that they could possibly compare. Jedi reach out to the rest of the universe every day; their imaginations are, by necessity, extremely advanced. At the annual ceremony in which Jocasta explains the assignment, she always says, "Reach out into the Force, as far as you can. And then look even further, to the preposterous beyond."

She is still, even now, proud of the story she wrote herself. It was about a book which had no writer nor publisher; it simply appeared one day, on the desk of an unassuming clerk. The clerk, curious, opened it up and saw his own name there. He hesitated but kept going, and read his fictional self gamble on a fathier race and win. He looked up the next race on Canto Bight's channel, and saw every animal's name, just as it was in the book. He gambled and won, just as he was told.

He used the book as a guide to make the perfect life, and it even told him how to win the love of the man of his dreams. When they were married, he finally told his husband his secret. But when his husband read the book himself, his fictional self became sick and died. This fiction came to pass in reality, too: the young man did not last a week.

Jocasta thought it was a rather scary story, and quite clever, because it was about a story. And it was certainly impossible. Books cannot come from nowhere -- neither can fortune, nor harm. In reality, everything has a source. And it is foolish to put too much trust in a source that you do not understand.

   *   *   *

"For Leyr it was a year; for the undead star, it was barely a moment. He remembered every detail, far better than she did. He even felt it all, which he had not expected. He felt the cold of space and the brilliant sparks of her feelings -- anger, joy, drunkenness, sadness, longing. He could smell the filth of her garbage as he vanished it from existence; he could taste her lips when she kissed him. He could even burn his hand on the ship's stove or exhaust port, though it healed instantaneously. He still felt it. He could almost care.

Anything Leyr could imagine came true, even before she could finish thinking it. Her undead star knew her perfectly, better than anyone ever had, even her own family. Her silliest dreams, her darkest thoughts, her solemnest ideas.

She went around and around on accepting his gifts. Of course, it wasn't fair. She was not the worst-off person; she did not need so much help. And she was not the best person, either -- she didn't deserve it. Not like other people did, surely. But he would always say that she was the one who saw him die, and so he belonged to her.

She would ask what he wanted in return, and his answers would change, and she realized that he was only ever saying what she wanted to hear. He would say "nothing;" but when she grew uneasy with that, he would say "your company;" then after she told him she loved him, he would say "your love." Over time, she realized he didn't mean that. That realization hurt worse than anything ever had. And so she stopped asking him, but she did not stop loving him.

He felt like a breathing lightning storm, always flickering, every part of him a different heartbeat. He weighed as much or as little as she remembered he did. He arranged for her any lover she could think of -- even imaginary ones. But after a while, she stopped caring for others. All she wanted was him.

She felt they were like an electrical circuit. He was the current, and she was the ground. She realized, slowly -- slowly for her -- that he was nothing more than voltages. He had no will of his own, no direction. But she would still absorb the shocks -- if no one else was going to!"

   *   *   *

Jocasta remembers Serran's story, too. He wrote about utopia. In his perfect world, there were no rules; people did not need them. People were good all on their own. It was a world of constant change, without any loyalties at all. It was a world of absolute freedom.

The story was flimsy, something about a family escaping tyranny in their rickety ship only to crash land on his perfect world. Most of the text was the family getting shown around the planet in a grand, beautiful tour. It was inspiring. Even thinking of it now brings tears to Jocasta's eyes. The peace and happiness, the tenderness and trust.

But it will always break her heart to think that, when tasked to create something impossible, Serran created something happy.

   *   *   *

"One day she brought it up again -- that he was lying about wanting her love. He said all the right things, but she was beginning to get too smart for that. So he kissed her and held her, and though she knew she should see through that, too -- she didn't, not as well.

They lay in silence in the night, deep into nowhere. She felt alone. He felt alone, too.

"There is something I want," her undead star said, avoiding her gaze.

"Oh, really?" replied Leyr, not believing.

"Sort of," he responded. "The truth is, my people do not want anything. We evolved past that long ago, before your people existed."

"Oh." She thought about that for a while. "Do you remember when that happened?"

"Yes."

"What do you remember?"

He thought for a few minutes -- not about his answer, but how to explain it to her.

"My creator. We used to have beginnings and ends, like you do. I remember the other being, the one who created me."

"So, like your mother."

"Not really."

They were silent again.

"Did she die before you evolved?" Leyr asked.

"No," he replied. "But after we evolved, we were not related to each other like that anymore... We were unrecognizable."

"That's rough," she said. "I'm sorry."

"I appreciate that," he said, and he meant it, though she didn't think he did. He had said too many lies in the past.

"So what do you 'want,' then? As much as you can want anything."

He was silent. She felt him breathing, louder than before. It sounded like distress. It sure seemed real. She held his hand, and the feeling calmed him. She prayed that it was real.

"Do you want to die?" she asked, sadly.

"No," he said. "I don't want to end myself... I want to begin something else."

He turned to look at her.

"I came to you because you, of all people, had so many wishes. I tried to give them to you."

"You have," she said, stroking his hair. "...But they all seem so trivial, now."

"Perhaps."

He held her face and kissed her again.

"Will you have a child with me?" he asked her.

Leyr had dark eyes, too, and the alien gazed into them. He knew every thought and feeling behind those eyes; he saw her secrets plainly, churning around in chaos at his strange, abrupt question.

He thought her eyes were beautiful. He wouldn't have thought that a year ago.

"Is that possible?" was the question she prioritized. A silly question, but necessary for her linear, agitated mind.

"Anything is possible," he answered, smiling. She played the endless game, guessing if his expression was real or not. This smile seemed different than any other -- perhaps a clue to its authenticity. Certainly this conversation was different than any other. He had never asked for anything before.

"What would our child be like? Like me, or like you?"

"Definitely like you…Partially like me."

"What do you mean? How much of a part?"

"I don't know," he said, after a pause.

"What do you mean, you don't know? You know everything."

"Not this. This is the one thing I don't know."

"How?"

"Because none of my people have done it before." He had never held her hand so tightly. "Because we decided to be through with beginnings and ends, risks, love, all of it. It is forbidden. And I'm the only one of us who can't stand it anymore."

"But what if something terrible happens?" She freed her hand from his grip and held him more gently. "What if such a baby can't make it? What if its life is miserable? What if your people find it and take it away, and make it unrecognizable, anyway?"

"Then, perhaps, I would want to die."

She cradled his head.

"...You have to tell me what would happen," he continued. "I do not know. And what I don't know, I don't know. I can't guess. Only you can guess."

She supposed that made sense, though it felt very unusual.

"Was this your plan all along?" she asked.

"Yes," he said, his breath warm on her skin. "Just as you wished for me, I wished for you."

Leyr gazed up at the stars through the spaceship's great window above their bed. What kind of a choice was this? He held every advantage. He could make the whole ship vanish in a blink. But she wasn't afraid of him. She never had been. She trusted him. She loved him. He was asking to move forward in their relationship -- it was the least alien thing he had ever done.

He could not imagine, but she could. She imagined their child, its every wish granted, its every moment perfect -- just as her life had been perfect this past year. Had it only been a year?

And the alternative? To go on like this, knowing what she knows now of his great misery -- though he wouldn't call it that. Now that she finally knows the truth -- she can't just ignore it. She can't just keep wishing and adventuring, chasing whims and fantasies forever. It's one thing to have an unfair advantage over everyone else in the world -- but to have one over the person she loves most?

"Yes, I'll have a child with you," she said, after this short mental exercise. "I love you."

It was the one of the last things she ever said to him. She woke up in a small apartment in a large city. The sparse, clean rooms had no trace of her lover or anyone else. The son she had shortly after did not look alien. He didn't behave especially strangely, either -- at least, not as strangely as his father.

For a creature who knew all the answers, the undead star had left Leyr with only questions. Perhaps these are the sorts of questions we need to ask, in order to evolve beyond mortality ourselves. Perhaps this is their way to guide us along, to bring us closer to themselves. Or perhaps they will only ever leave us behind.

Leyr Burnridge sat on her windowsill and looked at the stars, wishing one of them would fall and die -- though she knew now that that whole scenario was entirely made-up to seduce her. A godlike alien read her mind and took advantage of her silly idea, all for some great, elaborate ploy to burden her with his little parasite.

Why did he bother? She wished that was the question that kept her up at night. But it was not.

The only question she really cared about was this: Did he leave her, or did they take him away?

In her nightmares, they punished him. They demagnetized the fragile bonds holding the gossamer particles of his body together. They washed the clarity out of his eyes, and ground his soul into wires and glue. They killed him, or assimilated him into whatever horrible, unfathomable thing they are.

It would be simpler to say that she was angry, but that's not the kind of person she was. It would be good to say that she was hopeful, that she believed, that she waited -- and that is a little closer to the truth. But I can't say either of those things. She was afraid -- afraid for her lover and afraid for her son, afraid of impossible creatures who she couldn't explain.

That fear sunk deep under her skin. Deeper than they could feel, but not deeper than we can.

The son of Leyr Burnridge and the undead star could fear just as deeply as his mother could...and he could count for as long as his father could.

His father was lost and his mother was forsaken. But he was born to find the answers, and, this time, to leave no one behind."

   *   *   *

Anakin wonders what to do with the second half of the story. He only sent in the first half, of course, ending at the electric circuit metaphor. It is a bit of an abrupt ending, and makes the story rather short, but he knew the old lady wouldn't mark it as incomplete since it was already getting way too inappropriate. That was a trick Aayla taught him to get away with sending in shorter projects: just make them kind of sexy. It works on most of the teachers here, though you have to be careful not to use it too much because they will tell your master.

He hadn't meant to keep writing, really, after that. He'd meant to keep it all in his head. But it just spilled out so easily and now he's got it, right here, on his stupid computer and Obi Wan -- or worse -- could access it anytime, because Padawan security locks are worthless.

Would that be so bad? ... Yeah. It would.

He wants to just delete it. The only problem is he likes it.

He downloads it onto a datarod, deletes the source document, throws the datarod under his bed and forgets about it until he gets knighted years later and has to thoroughly clean his room so he can move to a bigger one. When he rediscovers it then, at twenty, and remembers what it's about, and how it ends, he tells Artoo to blow it up. Artoo happily obeys.

[kemonowarsau]

Since I am not the best at writing fanfiction. I have decided to attempt to write a backstory summary of the world of Kemono Wars. A crossover dedicated to Transformers Beast Wars Cartoon and Kemono Friends.

This series will take prices and elements from both shows and build them in a way where they mirror each other. This will take pieces from the Nexon game and KF 2 as a way to FIX the issues KF 2 has.

Keep in mind that not everything is set in stone. There will be plot holes that might go over my head and need to fill in later.

With that being said, let’s start at the beginning.

The Cybertronian War

(Millions of Years ago, there was a planet. A planet that had been wrapped up in a war that nearly shook the entire universe. Both factions fought endlessly to gain victory over the other. Billions of lives shattered and died in this conflict. For millennia, they feared that the war would never end or it would result in the death of their kind. But as a last effort to end the conflict, an ancient relic with incredible power was used as the ultimate weapon. The Golden Disk. With its ability to give it’s holder unlimited power, the surviving soldiers were able to stand together and ending the war. The other side had no choice but to surrender. Both sides agreeing, and the battles had stopped.

After the war was over, the rulers of the planet feared that if someone was to use the Golden Disk for selfish needs, the universe would be thrown into chaos. So they took a shard of the disk and sent it out far into space. The Golden Disk would never be complete and able to reach its full power ever again.)

That's a fancy way of saying that the Golden Disk has a different function than in canon. This series was used as the Autobot’s final weapon, a tool to combine the souls of all Autobots, allowing them to win the war between the Autobots and Decepticons. To make sure peace remains the high counsel punched out the middle piece of the golden disk, a clear center part with an ancient cybertronian symbol. It was said to have been the main source of the golden disks power. If one of the hostile intentions were to get the disk's power it could start another intergalactic war, one even bigger than before.

If only the high counsel would know that another species would get a hold of said piece.

The Vok

Now in the original series, the Vok aren't as fleshed out as viewers wished them to be. All we know is that they were aliens of ancient earth that filled the planet with energon and created landmarks. But in this AU, their motivation and objective are going to be fleshed out. Not only for Cybertronians but the Friends as well.

After the chaos that was the Cybertronian war, the Vok swore that they would do anything in their mighty power to prevent another universal war. To do that, they sought to create super soldiers that would act as a negotiator to break up any huge conflicts. And if either side refuses to cease the fight, the soldiers would be forced to take out both factions.

With cybertronians being the main inspiration for their soldiers, the Vok decided to experiment on Cybertron's' main power source, energon, and test that if life could be created from its properties. They decided to start a testing ground on a simple organic planet and would use the animals of the said planet as vessels for the project.

The Creation of Friends

So we know that the Vok were using prehistoric earth as an experimental testing ground. In KW however, they were testing to see if they were capable of making organic cybertronians. This eventually leads to the creation of an extremely mutated and experimented form of energon. the experimented energon showed interesting results with it being able to take many different forms, infect the ground yet have no damage to the environment, and most of all, life could be created from it. Somewhat.

Though it was capable of creating life, it wasn't perfect. The animal subjects gained weapons and such, but they all turned out to be female humanoid creatures. They were shown to be stronger and have abilities that their original forms could use, but they were filled with animal mindsets, rather than of the super soldiers that the Vok aimed for.

Ceruleans

To make matters worse, the experiment resulted in the creation of the Ceruleans, who are practically energon given sentience. Everywhere the animal subjects went, ceruleans were sure to follow.

The Golden Disk and the Kemono Amulet

instead of the golden disk talking about the history of mankind. It instead had a big connection with the Kemono Amulet from the Nexon game.

The creation of Japari Park

The Sandstar was first developt in prehistoric earth but eventually was surfaced on a few islands. When mankind found out about this, they made Japari Park. The Vok decided to watch and see if their experiments would respond to humans. Friends were capable of fending off the Ceruleans. Leading to the events of the Nexon game.

Towa and the Cerulean Queen

Okay, so you want me to tell you what KW will be like for the Cerulean queen?

So we know that in Kemono Wars the Vok makes Ceruleans control the Friend population. But the Ceruleans themselves have no real knowledge of the Vok. All except for one, the Queen.

When she was created she was given the most intelligence compared to other Ceruleans, who are usually driven by instinct rather than knowledge.

The Queen was disgusted by the Vok using her kind as disposable income. She wanted to get rid of them. But how...?

Turns out there was a Friend who has the power of Kemo Harmony. A move that can unite all Friends to fight for the same cause. If she were to acquire that, she could not only unite all Ceruleans together but destroy the Vok as well.

So she made a Cerulean to steal the spark of Kemo Harmony and bring it to her. Following the events of the Nexon game.

But unfortunately, that plan failed. Due to Towa and the main heroes from the Nexon game, they defeated the Queen and the power of the spark resulted in the creation of Cerval.

Cerval

I might turn KF2 Serval into Cerval.

The 2nd defeat of the queen

The Queen also knew of the Vok’s desire to create a powerful leader to lead the army in the process. Someone that would make all animals now before them. They referred to it as “the subject “.

When the Queen returned she had the idea to create a Cerulean that would defeat the subject. So she kidnapped a little boy that went by the name Kyururu and proceeded to make a Cerulean clone out of him.

But once again her plan was soiled by Serval, Cerval, Caracal, Mirai, and Towa.

Kyururu was saved but his remains still left enough for a clone to be born at a very slow pace.

The banishment of humans from Japari Park

But eventually, the Ceruleans forced mankind off the island. All that remained was Mirai's hat with a single strand of hair. The Vok collected it and began to think of a brand new experiment. Could a human be created with Sandstar?

The jumpstart option

But that's not the most disturbing part. In the finale of Beast Wars season 1, the Vok decide to wipe out life in the park. primal says that they will kill all the innocent Friends. But the Vok are like, "What does it matter? Countless of them have died over and over and over. And they are not even aware of it. As long as one piece of a Friend remains intact, then we will kill them over and over and over. And they will never know."

So I have one centered around the Vok and Ezo Red Fox. We all know that the Vok has been experimenting on the Friends for years, but how did they manage to make Japari Park forget about Humanity. A procedure I like to call, Jumpstart. The Procedure is that they use the moon to wipe out all Friends in Japari Park and after confirming the remains they cause an eruption that brings all Friends to life but erases the memories.

However some Friends have been able to survive the Jumpstart but are unable to explain their situation to others out of fear that no one will believe them, or whatever wiped out them park before will hunt them down.

In the mobile game, Silver Fox has deep knowledge of the Ceruleans, the amulet, Oinari sama, and more. Due to them being close to one another, Ezo knew a lot of what Silver knew. But Ezo was able to survive the Jumpstart by hiding in a hole with a rock, but the silver fox wasn’t so lucky.

From that day onward she forced herself to keep all the secrets that Silver Fox told her in a quiet place. Even when she met with Silver Fox again, she could never tell her what she used to know. For her Friend protection.

In other words, Ezo Red Fox is aware of humans, the threat of ceruleans, and the danger that looms over Japari Park.

She knows when a Friend is revived and tries to hide her misery with laziness. Not to mention her longing for her friend Nina, who is still someone she remembers.

She could tell the Maximals what she knows, but she would need a hidden location to keep herself from the eye of the Vok.

But I also believe that Tsuchinoko is also a Friend that survived the Jumpstart. Hence the reason why she hides all the time. That and her knowledge of humans. She has been hiding for a while so she didn’t first realize that Kaban was human.

So in reality, Friends are nothing more than test subjects. Not even death can set them free. The Vok finds them, gives them sandstar, and the process repeats over and over.

The main story

So allow me to tell you about Kemono Wars.

Our story starts where many do at the beginning. During the fight between the Maximals and Predacons ships which resulted in both vessels falling down to the planet surface. With the Maximals launching out the protoform stasis pods.

But here is where things go different. Because in actuality, both ships crash in Japari Park. On that night we see Serval playing in the night fields of the Savanna. She lives a simple, calm life in the park. But a part of her wants to do more. Explore more. Discover more. Prove that she was more than a goof. But most of all, she wants a friend. One who will stay by her side through thick in thin. Deal with her mishaps. Laugh at her jokes. And except her for who she is. But then Serval sees two shooting stars (who are actually the Maximals and Predacons ships). Serval remembers hearing this old tradition from Hippo, that if you make a wish on a falling star, it will come true. Serval wishes for a friend and for the chance to explore the park. But then she sees the shooting stars crash land into the park. Their collision is so strong, that it causes an earthquake. And that causes the volcano to erupt and Sandstar falls throughout the entire park. As well as creating a certain Friend that will change the park forever. The next morning, Predacons awake to see that the world has energon, the fuel of the Cybertronians. However there is too much raw energon, meaning if they go out without protection, they risk energon build up and could shut down. Megatron decides that they will create alt modes based on the planets local creatures. The Maximals get the same idea as well, and both factions send out scanners to scan for local creatures. But unknowingly the scanners do pick up on bugs and dinosaur bones. But when a Gorilla Friend is scanned by it, she gets an odd feeling that she passes as hunger. The scanners pick up only animal DNA, not the Friend part. (Basically, if the scanner picked up a dog Friend, the Beast Mode would be a dog.) After getting their Beast modes, the Maximals notice that they are outnumbered by the Predacons due to launching the stasis pods. Back at the Predacons, Dinobot is enraged that Megatron stole the Golden Disk and ending up on the wrong Earth. Dinobot challenges Megatron to lead the Predacons, but he is taken out by Scorpinok. Megatron orders the rest of the Predacons to find the Maximals and destroy them. Meanwhile, Serval is sleeping on a tree branch, due to herself being nocturnal. All is quiet until she hears the sound of footsteps in the tall grass of the Savanna. It was a Friend. Serval chases her in a game of Hunter and prey. The Friend, however, is terrified by being chased and flees. But Serval puns her to the group in a leap. The girl pleads in fear that Serval does not eat her. Serval says she won't. After apologizing, Serval introduces herself to the new visitor of Japari Park. Serval sees that the girl is an unknown Friend, one that she's never seen before. The girl says that she doesn't know who she is or how she got her. All she remembers is waking up in the Savanna fields. Serval says that the girl should go to the Japari library to find out what kind of animal she is. Serval agrees to take the girl part of the way as a guide to the Savanna. Serval gives the girl the name Kaban (bag) due to her backpack.

Back with the Maximals, Rattrap complains about their circumstances while Optimus Primal tries to stay motivated about the situation. Cheetor then sees a blur of yellow and black dashing through the Savanna. The Maximals assumes that the blur was a cheetah and decides to chase after it as a show-off. Optimus tries to get him back but Rhinox says that due to the energon fields, communications are not working.

Cheetor runs towards the Cheetahs and tries to talk with them, but upon closer inspection, they were not what they seemed at first glance. They were girls dressed as cheetahs and they run off in fear from Cheetor. Cheetor chases after.

Meanwhile back with Kaban and Serval, they are walking through the Savanna fields. Everything is going well until they see two Cheetah Friends fleeing from something. But before they can see what it is, Cheetor accidentally leaps on Kaban, pinning the girl to the ground. Kaban pleads that Cheetor does not eat her. Cheetor says that he won't. Cheetor then climbs off Kaban, just as Serval runs to see if Kaban is okay. The Maximal then sees Serval's second pair of ears and her tail, meanwhile, Serval is in awe at seeing a Friend she's never seen before. Cheetor is confused so Serval tells him about being in Japari Park. Cheetor says he's not from here, and wonders why these little girls are all alone in the Savanna and why is Serval dressed like that. Serval explains that she and Kaban we're heading to the Japari Library to find out what kind of Friend Kaban is. Cheetor is even more confused, he can tell that Kaban is a human, like the ones mentioned in the Great War. Serval says that Cheetor can come with them and Cheetor agrees, completely forgetting about the rest of the Maximals.

After walking through the Savanna for awhile, Kaban sees a strange blue creature with one eye. Serval shouts that that thing is a Cerulean and is dangerous. Kaban tries to run away but accidentally trips as the Cerulean is almost upon her. Cheetor is about to Maximize but Serval uses her claw to attack the stone on its back, defeating the Cerulean. Serval says that Ceruleans are dangerous and they are around the park quite often. Cheetor is impressed by Serval's ability to fight. Kaban, however, feels like she's a very useless creature. Both Serval and Cheetor reassure her that she is not useless and weak.

They sit under tree shade to take a short break before heading to a water hole to get a drink. Serval says that both Kaban and Cheetor should be careful around Ceruleans, Serval says that attacking the stone on its back is the best way to get rid of it. Cheetor thinks that he should inform Optimus about the Ceruleans. Suddenly Cheetor realizes that he completely forgot about Optimus and the rest of the Maximals. Serval says that first they should go and get a drink at the water hole first.

After walking around for a little bit more, the trio arrives at the water hole. They get a quick drink and feel refreshed. Serval realizes that there are surprisingly no other Friends here. Suddenly something emerges from under the water and Kaban screams that it doesn't eat her. Cheetor is about to Maximize when it turns out to was another Friend, this one was a hippo. Hippo is introduced to both Kaban and Cheetor, with Serval saying that no one knows what animal Kaban is. Cheetor is tempted to say what Kaban really is, but he wants them to find out on their own. Serval asks why there are no other friends at the water hole today. Hippo says that there were many friends here earlier but then a giant bug arrived and started terrorizing the other Friends. Serval says she never thought Hippo to be the type to be scared of insects. But Hippo reassures her that the big was huge and started firing its stinger towards the following friends. Hippo was able to hide under the water as the giant bug took a drink of the water. She thought at first Kaban was the bug.

But then suddenly they hear a buzzing sound and look up to see a giant wasp hovering over the water hole. Hippo runs out of the water in a panic, while Cheetor says that it's just a giant bug. Hippo says that saying that the wasp before them was the one that attacked her earlier. Kaban begs it not to eat her and Serval is confused. Cheetor realizes that the bug is actually a Predacon. Cheetor finally Maximizes and transforms into his robot mode. He begins to attack the wasp who quickly transforms into the Predacon waspinator. Hippo flees the area while Kaban and Serval are both confused and scared, though, of Serval's end, she's more amazed. Cheetor tries to get the girls to safety and squash Waspinator, but the battle keeps following them.

The Maximals get a transmission of Cheetor's fight and go after him for backup. Eventually, Cheetor, Kaban, and Serval end up in a ditch. Cheeto's weapon is jammed. The rest of the Maximals arrive and Optimus tells Cheetor to get the young ones out of there. Kaban is even more confused at this point. The Maximals are about to take out waspinator when a dark sinister voice catches everyone's attention. It was Megatron, as well as the rest of the Predacons. Megatron locks eyes with Kaban.

Optimus pleads that there is no need for conflict for there has been peace between the Maximals and Predacons for years. Megatron says that this whole time they have never given up on their plans of universal conquest. Serval doesn't like Megatron and thinks he's a bully. Kaban at this point is terrified as she looks at Megatron and can tell he is not a nice person. Megatron says that the Predacons have been waiting for the moment to strike. cheetor gets his weapon unjammed as shoots Megatron. The fire gauntlet has been casted and the war has begun.

All the Maximals and Predacons transform into robot mode. Serval and Kaban feel so small compared to them all. Kaban doesn't even know what's happening, who are these guys, why are they fighting, and what do they want. Megatron orders that the Predacons obliterate the Maximals.

Lasers and missiles are shot from both sides. Kaban and Serval are still trapped in the middle with Cheetor and in danger of getting hurt. Optimus orders rattrap give him cover so he can save Cheetor and the girls. Rattrap stubbornly refuses and Cheetor gets his leg stuck under a rock, trapping him. Optimus has to go and save them. Serval doesn't know what to do and tries to push the rock off of Cheetor's leg, but then Kaban remembers Serval's attack on that Cerulean. Kaban says that if Serval claws at the area just above Cheetor's leg, they may be able to break the stone and set Cheetor free. Serval claws the stone and breaks it, and Cheetor can get back up. Optimus gets down in the ditch and holds his hand out for Kaban and Serval to grab. Kaban secretly whispers that Optimus doesn't eat her. Optimus picks up Kaban and says that he won't. Serval is in Cheetor's arms. It's at this moment Megatron finally locks eyes with Kaban and orders that his Predacons don't let the Maximals escape and get that human child. But as the Maximals flea, the energon starts to build up around them, forcing everyone back into Beast mode. Serval feels a great surge of Sandstar. The Maximals escaped with both Kaban and Serval.

The group is then walking, with Serval and Kaban placed on Cheetor. Optimus scolds rattrap for his lazy behavior and says that he is the Commanding officer that has orders that need to be followed. Rattrap failed in giving cover and almost got the young girls hurt. Rattrap shrugs it off saying that they got out alive. Optimus says they did but they were injured. That it will take time for their internal repairs to be completed.

Optimus turns to Kaban and Serval and apologizes for frightening them. Serval says that it was okay and that if Kaban didn't come up with the idea to free Cheetor's leg, things could've turned much worse. Cheetor thanks Kaban for her help. Kaban blushes.

Rhinox asks what Serval and Kaban are doing out here. Serval says that the Savanna is her territory and she was helping Kaban get to the Japari Library before Cheetor arrived. Rattrap asks why they want to go to a dusty library. Serval says that they want to find out what kind of animal Kaban is. For a second the Maximals are confused. Rhinox says that Kaban is a human. Serval asks what's a Hooman. Rattrap says that she should look in the mirror. Serval says Kaban is not a Serval.

Rattrap says that Serval should take that silly eat headband off. Serval is confused but then Rattrap tugs on Serval's ear to try and take the ears off. But he finds out that they are not coming off. Rhinox says he can look into it when they get back to the Axalon. Which reminds Optimus on where Kaban's home is. Kaban says she doesn't know her territory. That is part of the reason why they want to find out who they are. Optimus decides that if Kaban has nowhere else to stay, they might as well let her stay at the Axalon. Rattrap complains that they are not babysitting.

But then as they are about to cross a bridge to get to the base, there is a velociraptor in the way. It is Dinobot and he orders that Optimus duels him for the leadership of the Maximals. Optimus tries to make peace, but Dinobot says that he will not move unless Optimus accepts his challenge or hand over the girl with the hat. Kaban is terrified, what would Dinobot want with her. Optimus asks the same thing. Dinobot says that an associate of his has asked for the capture of the girl and will take what once belonged to them and- Dinobot is cut off by a female voice shouting that she just wants the hat. Another female voice says that Raccoon shouldn't interrupt Dinobot's honor speeches, as it gets him angry. Rattrap asks who is back there and one of the voice freaks out about being discovered. From behind a rock is Fennec and Raccoon and they are the associates of Dinobot. Raccoon says that Kaban is a thief and a danger to the park.

Optimus looks at Kaban and can see that the scared girl doesn't want to go with Dinobot, so Optimus accepts the challenge. They fight on the bridge with both sides cheering. Raccoon is a cheerleader at this point. But Optimus almost slips but Dinobot saves him, saying that if he won that way, it would be a betrayal of his honor. Fennec comments that Dinobot sure loves his honor. They continue battling.

But unknown to them the Predacons are watching the fight and decide to attack. Serval's ear twitches to see the Predacons are attacking the bridge. Optimus and Dinobot are about to fall off and facing energon build up when Kaban gets an idea while looking at Rattrap's tail. Before Optimus and Dinobot fall, Kaban and Serval grab Rattrap's tail and they quickly grab the duo. Raccoon and Fennec help as well. Before the bridge collapses all Maximals and Friends crossover. But one of the missiles hit a mountain, exposing a lot of Energon. Or by how the Friends called it, Sandstar.

The Predacons go after the energon and the Maximals team up with Dinobot to get there first. Serval is excited to help but Optimus tells the Friends that they need to stay behind and be safe.

But just as the Maximals leave, Raccoon chases after them, saying that she won't let that Megatron jerk take away her home. Kaban, Serval, and Fennec follow after.

Surprisingly the Friends beat them to the top of the mountain but not too long when the Predacons And Maximals fight. The battle is in beast mode since the Energon/Sunstar could shut them down. Suddenly Serval smells something and sees that all this noise and lights might catch someone's attention. And it did as a giant Cerulean shows up and starts to eat the Energon. Megatron tries to stop it but it flicks him away, while everyone else is trying to fight it. Serval, Raccoon, and Fennec run out and try to fight it. Kaban sees the stone on its back, exposing the weak spot, but no one can get it as the Cerulean keeps eating, till Kaban throws a paper airplane to distract it. Serval takes the Cerulean out. But Megatron tries to take out the Maximals with a missile but Dinobot catches it. But it hits the Sandstar/Energon and before it explodes everyone leaves except Megatron. After they are safe, Optimus is disappointed that the Friends went along but thankful that they risk their lives to save them. The Beast Wars have begun.

Notes and ideas

Where I got the idea from

The similarities between both series

Energon equals sandstar

The role of the ceruleans

Importance of humanity

The cutest meeting the toughest

Dinobot Raccoon And Fennec

The Friends are also enemies to the predacons

Instead of going back in time they go a timeline where mankind is wiped out

Kaban ability to think and outsmart her foes

Inferno being terrified of anteater Friends

White rhino having a crush on Rhinox

The Maximals know Kaban is a human

Megatron wants to wipe out Kaban and conquer Japari Park

Lucky beast still only talks to Kaban

Ceruleans can suck the energon from Cybertronians

Dinobot got his Shakespeare from the Japari Library

Quickstrike constantly hitting on snake girls and striking out

Rattrap corrupting the innocent by teaching them about gambling

Friends being less merciful in battle than the maximals

Tarantulus having a large bounty on his head

Money is ppp backstage passes

Both Maximals and Predacons get hurt from Crested ibis singing

Rattrap tricks Crested ibis to sing to Predacons

Kaban befriended waspinator

Kaban tricking Megatron to be unable to grab and bite her due to Megatron big head and tiny arms

Friends don’t have sandstar radiation

Raccoon and Fennec first find Dinobot

Tschinoko and Dinobot

Extinction of mankind

The sandstar can be converted back to normal energon for transformer consuption

Cheetor finding cheetah friends

Cheetor bumping in kaban and serval

Some friends have venom bites

Japari park was a testing ground for vok, but sending mutated energon

If a transformer consumes sandstar, they will be healed, but they will be transformed into a friend.

Optimus comforting kaban after finding out she might be the only human out there

Dinobot interacting with kaban

The maximals watching ppp

Predacons trying to control the ceruleans

Friends don’t have radiation

Optimus noticing the shine in kabans eyes flickering after hearing humans might be extinct.

Rattrap finding out that owls actually eat mice, and the professor and assistant are owls

Building the bus

Friends nominate Kaban to be the next optimus/leader of the maximals

Scanners can detect humans, but none of the friends, when set to the human setting

Dinobot learning that strength comes from within by Kaban

Kaban and Dinobot being separated from the group and have to spend the night in a cave.

Both Maximal and Predacon ships caused the sandstar shower, which caused the birth of Kaban.

Sandstar has no effect on bugs and insects

Kaban tricks Megatron to both he and her to be consumed by the Giant Cerulean

Megatron ends up at the bottom of the sea after the giant cerulean drowns

Rattrap flirts with Beaver,

The awkward situation where Priarre dog gives her traditional greeting

Optimus doesn’t want to cause conflicts with the friends

During the fight for the energon, the battle attracts the blue big cerulean, who attacks both the Predacons and maximals

Dinobot learning from Kaban of how strength comes from within the soul, and doesn’t matter how strong physically someone is, it’s all about how strong they are in bravery.

Kaban seeing Dinobot reading Shakespeare

Maximals and Predacons race to see who can get to the Japari Library, maximals make it first.

Tigertron leaving the beast wars and working for Alphca.

Giraffe thinking Optimus is a monkey, Rhinox a Hippo, Rattrap a squirrel, Dinobot an iguana.

Dinobot trying to teach friends how to fight.

Kaban breaking free for Terrantulus web by using the edge of her hat.

Dinobot curling up with Kaban as they sleep.

Dinobot/Kaban “I have only known Kaban for only a day in a half, but if anything were to happen to her, I’d kill everyone in this room and then myself.”

Waspinator names (Serval-Kitty Bot) (Kaban-Bag bot) (Luckybeast- Blue talk bot) (Raccoon- Stripey bot) (Fennec- Ear bot)

Season 2 introduces Caracal and the other human (Serval is still the same and with Kaban)

Maximals watching PPP

Silverbolt is viewed as a hero by other friends

Everybot wants to protect Kaban

Elephant kicks Rattrap out of fear

Rock version of Japari Park theme

Who I’d be (Dinobot, Kaban, and Raccoon)

Dinobot finally calling Kaban friend

Finding out about the science of Sandstar

Friend Megatron being dressed as a queen by inferno

Waspinator gets a redemption arc

Vok Experimentation on Earth

Could Cybertronians be born from organic matter?

Could energon have a bigger impact on organics

[louisa-magcd]

Reflection

From last week tutorial, I gathered that I was being too scattered and kept on changing directions too many times. This very relevant observation was difficult to realise. I wasn’t happy with the <<progress>> of the work I had made, and lost track of where I was going and what I was doing.

This week I deeply reflected on what truly interested me and what I really wanted.

My work directed towards “form over content” wasn’t made intentionally; I took that direction because of my incapacity to find a “content” that I would feel truly invested or interested in. I felt insecure towards a more personal approach to my work as opposed to something more academic.

“What is the use of creating emotion-based work?”, was a recurrent question that came to my mind.

The constant switch between visual styles was also a struggle of mine as I was paradoxically trying to “please others”, in the sense that I wanted to create something that would be liked by a bigger audience.

I felt confused by the terms “position”, “practice” and “critical position”. Do I really need to define them this soon, is there even a need to define them? Is it wrong to be or feel lost?

Maybe the sense of loss or the loss of self could be a position?

I have always been quite precious with my work and value quality over quantity, and this entire project has been difficult for me so far as the whole point of it is to produce at a high volume (which I haven’t been successful with, at all).

The reason why last tutorial didn’t go well in my opinion (in terms of what I had done), is that I tried to change direction again, out of indecisiveness and my fear of making “meaningless work”. I tried to switch the direction towards something I thought would be more lighthearted but also something that would be more accepted.

I realised this week that I had to find a way to ground myself, and after writing my essay and doing research, I realised that I was clearly more interested in personal and intimate work.

I remember being particularly confused after reading “the death of the author” and it really made me question my own position: am I an author? Is authorship really dead? Is it really impossible to be an author at all?

These questions aside, I was also wondering if it was “wrong” to create around oneself, and if it was really an egotistical and selfish act.

So instead of thinking about how people would perceive me based on the work I produce (something that holds me back a lot), I started thinking about the artists I like and the art they make or made.  

I have also been significantly drawn to my Moroccan and French heritage and how I could potentially implement elements of my heritage into my work in subtle ways, and maybe merge them together.

I have been researching around Moroccan female artists specifically.

One of them is Chaibia Talal, one of the most influential Moroccan artists of the 20th century. Her story is especially extraordinary and touching. She was born in 1929 in a small village and married at age 13; her husband died when she was 15 years old. As a young widow and mother, she had no choice but to work as a cleaner in order to sustain herself and her son. She was illiterate.

She began painting in 1963 after having a “prophetic” dream that encouraged her to start painting. Her son had a painting studio, and that is where the art curator Pierre Gaudibert discovered her art work for the first time.

Chaibia Talal was a self-taught artist and she was exhibited all around the world. Although her work wasn’t well received in her time, she is now considered as a pioneer figure of Modern Moroccan Art.

The reason why it is important for me to talk about this artist comes from a need to discover more other Moroccan female artists that I can look up to.

Her work is extremely colourful; she was influenced by the “COBRA” avant-garde European art movement, but also pulled a lot of her themes from moroccan culture, depicting moroccan women in traditional costumes. There is an evident play with figuration and abstraction, and the very consistent use of patterns is also an echo to moroccan culture and craft.

Pattern making and symbols are an inherent part of Moroccan culture, even before it was a country. The west part of North Africa was actually constituted of nomadic Berbers.

These nomadic group of people would worship different divinities and symbols would be used both as protection, directly on the skin in the form of tattoos, or on the fabric they made and wore. Clothing was especially important as it was an indication not only of social status, class and wealth but also an indication of the nomadic group they belonged to.

Symbols had associated meaning with different purposes.

Pattern making became even richer after Islamic influences arrived in North Africa. Indeed, it is prohibited in the religion to depict God or any divine figure to Man’s image. Subsequently, symbols and patterns were used to palliate to this. Calligraphy was, and still is, a highly valued form of art; Koranic texts would be embellished and treated as images as opposed to just writing.

Geometry and symmetry was seen as a high form of art as well; there is an element of repetition, interlacing shapes, texts, and symbols that is prevalent throughout Moroccan Art, and craft History.

Symbols have always interested me whether it be part of my heritage, or other new found interests, such as the occult. I have always been fascinated by how different meanings and interpretations can be pulled out of one image or symbol. How visuals can be transformed and used as a new form of language.

There is also a very superficial reason to this as well. There is something about looking at an accumulation of symbols on one images that is, to me, pleasing to the eye. Even if I can’t necessarily fully comprehend the artist’s intention behind every details of their work, I naturally associate a meaning to it based on my own experience and subjectivity.

A good example of this would be Hieronymus Bosch’s “The Garden of Earthly Delights”.  

I am aware of its religious ties, and there are extended interpretations made of this triptych oil painting. Yet, I much prefer look at it and create my own narratives out of the images and symbols I can observe from it. I enjoy the fact that there are a multitude of narratives enfolding on one big image.

In tarot as well, each card is illustrated with specific visuals that aid in the interpretation of its messages. The cards, put side by side, form a narrative that is enriched by a diversity of symbols.

Folklore too, have consistently used symbols and metaphorical analogies to express a deeper meaning.

The French fabulist Jean de la Fontaine is well known for using animals, insects and plants to convey more sensitive messages, at a time where criticising the King and his court was a real offence and a punishable crime.

After listing down all of the things that I loved, I realised that they weren’t so impossible to connect. At a first glance, they seemed impossible to link, but they all share a similarity: they all use symbols and images to attach personal meanings to them or convey certain messages or narratives.

In conclusion, I would like to develop my own “Visual Dictionary/Library”, or at least start this process.

Through this project, my aim refocused on its intended purpose, which was the expression of self through a diverse set of symbols and images.

By doing so, I go back to my very early iterations from Elaborate, where my work was more emotion-based; I intend on keeping the idea of self-reflection through making and researching, in order to develop my own visual language.

[moonlightreal]

Winx season 8/17

Now three or four people are reading these, and I am very happy.  =)

In which we root for Stormy.

17 Dress Fit for a Queen

So, a Stella episode.

Alfea!  And we’re returning to the simulation class from season one!  It’s not called the “magical reality chamber” this time around because honestly, that name is a little silly.  But here’s Palladium all dapper in his vest and long hair asking the girls if they’re ready for a “special kind of test.”

Bloom is unsure.

Stella is ready for any kind of test… “as long as it’s about makeup or changing clothes.”

But this test is about visualizing your deepest insecurities, exactly what Stella isn’t an expert at.  The cute minor fairies look worried.

Stella says she has no insecurities, but it’s Musa who hops up to go first.  

So, what are Musa’s insecurities?  Riven.  Her taste in boys.  Her mom obviously. Choosing to do music against her father’s wishes, though now that the girls are successes I assume Ho Boe would’ve calmed down about that.

Good callback, the set is the same—a door, then a bridge into a domed room that projects the simulation.  

While Musa’s insecurities play a Palladium voiceover explains that everyone has insecurities—like, “some are afraid of making mistakes” Virtual rocker Musa flubs a chord.  

“Some are afraid of being unable to help others.”  Virtual Flora can’t revive withered plants.  

Some are afraid of losing control over a situation.”  Virtual Tecna has built a humanoid robot that she’s controlling with her phone, making it do dance moves.  But her phone control stops working and virtual Tec has to flee because it looks like the robot is going to attack her. Also, virtual Tecna is sitting in a lavender diamond shaped hovering chair that you can get in Winx fairy school.  The robot bangs the chair on the ground, it’s funny.

Virtual Aisha is climbing a climbing wall and falls.  “Some are afraid of losing their nerve.”  

Virtual Bloom gets dumped by virtual Sky. “And some are afraid of losing the one they love.”  She runs after virtual Sky, very upset.  When real Bloom walks out she says the simulation feels so real.

What’s this test about anyway?  It seems kinda traumatic!  But Stella has no fear, she thinks she’ll have to ‘come up with a tiny little insecurity I can visualize.”  Stell, I know it was an alternate you, but your Nemesis slapped you around with your insecurities not that long ago! I love Stella, but she has the self-awareness of a turnip.

Virtual Stella is in her pajamas and encounters three dressed-up courtiers.  They titter.  She wonders if she’s under-dressed… nah, they must be overdressed!  She snaps her fingers and poofs them into pajamas too, welcoming them to her sleepover.

Then her parents come out and shame her.  Stella stutters, falling apart a little. Then the simulation ends.  Stella walks out looking mad, and says she could’ve fixed things with her parents if she’d only had more time.  Her voice sounds sad but she looks pissed off; I wonder what tone of voice the Italian voice actress had.

Palladium just says, “Of course you could have, Stella.”  her doesn’t sound sarcastic, or particularly anything.  Then he says they’ll have another class tomorrow morning and leaves.  I expected something more like “this test was to help you understand yourself not fix problems in the simulation, which isn’t real after all.”  but nope.  I kinda wonder if Italian Palladium was sarcastic, maybe I’ll look this episode up on RaiPlay.

Back in the Winx common room the girls talk about how down the test left Stella, and how she never really got over her parents’ separation.  Flora comments that Stella always cheers other people up, but hides her own problems.

So the timeslide has not rewritten Stella’s parents splitting up—though in US law ‘separated’ is different from ‘divorced’ but I’m not sure a kids’ show would care about that.  Probably nothing.  Also Stella’s wish in season 5 seems not to have gotten her folks remarried as was wondered.  We haven’t heard much from Luna and Radius in a while.

Star case appearance!  It speaks!  The next star is on Solaria, conveniently. “It’s easy to be seen but to get it you must be wearing the confidence of a queen.”  Was that an attempt at poetry?

The girls look worried, not thrilled.  But Stella comes in and she is thrilled: that’s her homeworld!  Musa wonders what confidence of a queen means, but Stella knows!  It just means a dress!  And that’s right up her alley!  Bloom is unsure.  But Stella has her plan: make a dress and wear it!  “After all, nobody’s more confidant than I am!”

Valtor is watching. He dispatches the Trix to get the star first.  Stormy says a test of confidence will be child’s play for her, and she’s kinda got a point.  I’d put Icy with her “Defeat the Winx once and for all!” every season like clockwork high on the confidence meter.

I have been watching the Trix very closely.  This season has a prize in the bottom of the box, and I know mostly what it is so I’m looking for any hint of foreshadowing… so far I have seen not a single hint.  I wonder if the prize was added late in the writing of the season like the gang at Rainbow suddenly decided this season needed a little something more, or something.  One thing I wish they did was have foreshadowing in the opening sequence—like in anime ops, there will often be a hint, characters with their faces not visible or only shown as a brief flash so you see just enough to suspect…

(see the Umineko game opening for an example.)  But this season of Winx the entire op is just clips from the show itself so nothing in the op can sort of contain the whole season’s story… if that makes any sense… yeah, I think Winx ops could be better than they are.

Cut to gorgeous Solaria background.  A little bay, the palace, and a… giant building like six times bigger than the palace?  Do Solarians live in arcologies instead of normal cities? (spellcheck does not know the word arcology.)  there are also some viking style boats in the bay and random crystals spiking out of the water.  Very pretty.

The girls on their winxboards fly past the crystals, which are beautifully colored. Stella says her mom can help with dressmaking but her dad can’t even combine colors.  Heh.  But he’ll be happy about the surprise visit!

Throne room!  One throne, two lion statues, the usual drapey above-throne fabrics. Radius sits reading a scroll.  He gets up to hug Stella and calls her “Little Star.”  Aaaaaw.  Then immediately starts a lecture on how busy palace life is and how she should’ve called before visiting.

Stella blows him off, “Fine, fine, we won’t bother you, byeeee!”  and leads the somewhat embarrassed Winx out of the throne room.  Stella has an idea: her dad seems stressed, he needs a party to cheer him up! Aisha reminds her of their mission and Stella says she can do both. If her friends help.  The girls follow, their expressions neutral.  I would be having an expression of ‘concerned’ at this point.

  Outside the palace Stella walks with her mother while the rest of the Winx wait on a bench.  Bloom comments that it’s nice Luna is still living at the royal palace… what IS her status as the king’s ex?  Is she a queen?  She clearly still rates a royal look and that cool moon crown.

Luna suggests they look for supplies at Muppy village.  Whatever that is.  Before we can go find out Stella has another idea: a party for her mom too!  Bloom wants to talk some sense but before she can get one word out Stella conjures her winxboard and hops on, off to see the muppies!

Bloom doesn’t know what muppies are either.

They seem to live in houses made from mushrooms around the bases of trees, but the front door is size that a person can go in, so those must be big trees.  Stella says muppies are great craftsgnomes and they’ll have all the supplies Stella needs for her gown.  Musa sensibly asks why the muppies would part with rare supplies but Stella says all she’ll need to do is make them laugh.  The rest of the girls look more and more unsure about all this.

The Trix are of course watching from above.

Inside we see many bolts of fabric.  Stella sees some bluewhite fabric and decides that’s fit for a queen.  It matches her mother’s dress, a nice touch.  Then some muppies walk in, they’re short and look about like adult male pixies would, I think.  No wings.  And way too small for the scale of their shop.

Stella attempts to pay for the fabric with a joke, but it flops.  She’s so earnest about it, it’s adorable.

Musa summons soundwaves that make the muppies’ hair and beards spike out.  They see each other and burst out laughing.  Score!  Stella gets her bolt of fabric… and immediately dumps it on aisha to carry while she does some more shopping.

In the next shop Stella finds a spool of gold thread.  She starts to tell her joke then rethinks and asks Tecna for help.  Tecna conjures a funny robot that rolls around, juggles, then drops the balls on its head.  The muppy proprietor laughs.  Tecna says , “achievement unlocked” which is becoming slightly annoying as a catchphrase.  Stella gets a box of spools of thread… and immediately gives them to Aisha to carry.  This’ll end well.

In the next shop they’re coming to buy jewels to put on the dress.  This muppy has a big jewel on his hat.  Bloom offers to provide the laughs and does a really cool trick with little streams of fire from her fingers.  But it’s not actually funny, and the muppy seems worried his shop is going to catch on fire.  As Stella tries to reassure him she knocks a bowl of jewels down on her head.  Laugh achieved, she wins a bag of jewels… and immediately dumps it on Aisha to carry.  Aisha says she should’ve brought a shopping cart.

The girls hop on their winxboards (Aisha’s burdens seem to have vanished) and head back to the palace.

The Trix hop down for their turn.

Darcy: “We don’t have to make these things laugh to get what we need do we?”

Icy: “I’d rather make them cry.”

Stormy: “We’ll let the Winx do all the work for us then take the prime star from them when they least expect it.”

Too bad, it would’ve been fun to see what kind of dress they’d have made.

Back at the palace Stella is working on a dress not unlike the folded-chiffon dresses they wore on Andros in the Sirenix episodes.  It’s pale blue/lavender with a skirt that’s short in front and long in back, blue ribbon trim, one shoulder, a wide ribbon choker, and jewels on the bodice.  it’s not at all in Stella’s colors and really looks more her mother’s style.  I wonder if that’s on purpose, a nod to Stella seeing her her as a true queen.

The other girls bring party stuff: flowers and ribbons, chocolate cake and lemon cake.  As you can guess, one parent likes one thing and one parent likes the other.  Stella decides they’ll use both decorations and magics the cakes together into a lemon-chocolate cake which is not a flavor combination I have ever heard of.  Lemon-cinnamon cake, however, is amazing.

Bloom manages to reroute Stella into trying on the dress.

Nighttime, outside, Stella is wearing the dress and her Solarian crown.  The other girls admire her confidence… and a door of light appears!

Cosmix time! Through the door!  The Trix follow, because of course they were hanging around.

The girls appear outside a beautiful pearly sphere with another sphere inside it. Inside is the prime star.

Everybody tries to fly in, but only Stella and Stormy can pass through, maybe because they’re the most confident.  But when they grab for the prime star they get zapped to…

Stella in her dress meeting the same three courtiers from the simulation.  Stella guesses this is a magical test, but at least this time she’s dressed for the setting!  She sees her parents and runs to them, asking if they like the party she set up.

But Radius says they have nothing to celebrate: Luna is leaving.  Stella can choose who to go with.  She looks back and forth between them, unable to choose.

Stormy arrives back at Valtor’s place where he yells at her for being late.  Stormy says she can come and go as she pleases and Valtor blasts all three Trix into the walls.  Icy and Darcy fall down into the chasm on either side of Valtor’s throne, hanging on by their fingers.   Valtor declares he’s powerful enough not to need them anymore.  Icy and Darcy yell for help, saying they can’t fly anymore.  Stormy does an evil grin that kinda makes me root for her.

Back at the palace Stella watches her parents walk away.  She starts crying, saying she doesn’t want to choose.

Stormy gets her badass on!  She can still fly, and still do magic, and she throws some at Valtor.  “You can’t treat me like that!  And you can’t treat my sisters like that!  She rescues both Icy and Darcy and declares, ‘Because I’m the most powerful witch in the magic universe!”

Go Stormy!

Back with the prime star, Stormy wins!  She gets the star!

Stella realizes, “It didn’t mean a dress, it means the confidence a queen uses to fulfill her duty, no matter how difficult.”

But it’s too late, Stormy’s got the prime star and the Trix escape with it. Stormy also said, “Guess I showed you two!” to her sisters, which did not make Icy a happy camper!

Stella stands defeated.

Stormy presents the prime star to Valtor.  

“I knew I could count on you, Stormy.  Keep this up and you’ll earn more than compliments.  I’m talking about your freedom from my magic bond.”

Stormy gloats.  Icy snarls.

Back on Solaria Stella’s wearing her new dress and the other girls are in their dresses from Andros.  Party time!  Stella worries about the preparations but it’s all perfect.

“No it isn’t! I failed the test!  I wasted time on that dress instead of focusing on my confidence!”

Bloom says anyone could’ve made that mistake, and Stella says, ‘Except that I did!”  and now the Trix have the star.

Cute moment of Bloom saying they love everything about Stella, the way she’s there for them, not just her confidence, and the Winx get all teary. Stella says she’s lucky to have friends like them, and Bloom says she’s lucky to have family that love her.

Luna comes in and admires Stella’s dress.  Stella says her mother was her inspiration, so I guessed that right.  Radius loves the chocolate-lemon cake.  They tell Stella that she’s their happiness, and there are hugs.  Aaw.

[karkattmonroe]

About Chris “Kirbopher” Niosi

Okay, so I guess I never fully went into this before because my story seems like so little compared to other people, but I hope that this helps you to understand that his behavior is a pattern, not just individual bad decisions.

So hi! My name is Caelia. My main art blog is @caeliamer  (same as my username everywhere else) but I’m choosing to focus on art on that blog, so I’m writing this here. If you’ve been following Kirb for a long time, you might remember me as “Prismaya”, the name of one of my characters that I used to use as an alias when I met Kirb in 2004. Prismaya appeared in the original TTA (the result of a fan art contest) and even had a cameo in TOME (because I threw money at him for season 2).

Kirb was always the kind of person I wanted to give the benefit of the doubt, in part  because of his age. I practically watched that dude grow up from the age of 15. Much of his bad behavior I just kind of  dismissed for a long time because “lol teenagers”.

And of COURSE Kirb got pulled into what I’ve deemed in my head to be the “Psyguy Cult of Circular Abuse”. Psy had a platform, and Kirb, not unlike Psy, was always trying to rub elbows with people with larger platforms than himself. 

When it came to conflict between anyone in the group, Kirb would pretty much always side with the person with the bigger platform. This resulted in a significant amount of unchecked abuse within this group, much of which involved minors.

When allegations against Psyguy came out in 2014, Kirb was one of the only people in that circle that kept silent, then gave a half-assed testimony (after being dragged into it), then backpedaled to throw Psyguy’s victims under the bus to save his OWN image.

So we already know JUST from the Psyguy debacle that Kirb is more worried about his image than protecting vulnerable people. What else do we have to work with?

I remember firsthand when Kirb was abusive to John M. John was just trying to learn animation and storytelling and took inspiration from Kirb’s work (which was ALREADY derivative of SO MANY THINGS), and Kirb said some horrible nasty things to him and about him because he felt threatened (which was ridiculous). He said once in an AIM chat that he hoped that John would just give up on animating entirely so that Kirb “wouldn’t have to put up with him” anymore. 

Speaking of animations, y’all remember nin10doh? Kirb actually earned money from those animations through Newgrounds. Supposedly he paid the animators (though I’ve heard differently from other sources so that’s up in the air afaik), but you know who didn’t get paid? 

His voice talent!

I was the voice of Peach in the first nin10doh collab, and many people I still keep in touch with were also voice actors for that and other animations Kirb financially profited from. None of them got paid.

And speaking of nin10doh, I recorded lines for its sequel, s00pah nin10doh (god these names are so fucking stupid, even for the time). Several months after I had recorded Peach’s lines, Kirb messaged me and was like “hey uh sorry but I’m going to replace you with [famous voice actor] as Peach’s voice actress. Unlike you, she’s a REAL voice actor. You understand, riiight?”

Like what the heck was I going to say to that. I tried to be understanding and not show hurt feelings, but it really hurt. Not because I felt entitled to the role, but because he kicked me from a role that was supposed to be just for fun so that he could shove a well-known name into his project to give it some form of “legitimacy”, I guess?

This was the start of some bullshit. The more Niosi got to know other people in the VA and animation industry, the more important they became vs his other friends. Around that time (2008-2011), having him in a call was almost unbearable because all he ever wanted to talk about were his voice actor/celebrity friends and brag about all the contacts he was making. It got to a point where, again, people with larger platforms were prioritized over others. This was the case both socially and with his animation projects. When he DID talk to us “little people”, it became obvious that he was more interested in hearing our praise than  being our friend. For example, he would show us stuff that HE was working on or art that HE did, but if we showed our stuff, he didn’t show any interest .

My (already fairly infrequent) interactions with Kirb became rather spotty, until one day in 2011(?), Kirb became very VERY interested in talking with me all of a sudden. He got me and another friend of mine that he rarely talked to in a call. 

I thought at first, “hey, this is nice, kirb’s making time for other friends. Maybe he’s growing.”

Not so! 

See, he contacted us because his usual friends weren’t talking to him. 

Because he was being an angry, whiny, entitled asshole after his ex Audrey broke up with him and everyone was FUCKING TIRED OF HEARING IT. 

So he spent several hours whining about his ex, telling us how terrible she was (which by the way is a classic move for an abuser), and then showed off his animation thesis to us like it was a big freaking deal. Which was ironic because much of the animation for that thesis was done by Audrey, but he neglected to mention that. 

He didn’t show any interest in how we were doing or what we were doing or showed any indication that we were people he gave even the slightest shit about. That call, like so many things, was the Chris Niosi show.

Kirb basically used me and my friend to perform emotional labor for him and provide asspats because he couldn’t handle the fact that he was being a fucking dick. And we went along with it, not really realizing what was happening until it was over.

And THAT was legitimately the last time he ever deigned to speak to me. But it wasn’t because I was unfriendly to him. I tried casual conversation via twitter. I did fan art for TOME. I donated to TOME season 2. I always...ALWAYS gave Kirb the benefit of a doubt until he threw Psyguy’s victims under the bus in 2014, as mentioned above.

He has used MANY people to get where he is. He has financially benefited from the free labor of talented people. He has ridden the coattails of industry professionals. He has crossed picket lines to take jobs from striking voice actors. He takes advantage, he takes credit, he takes money, he takes control. Everything is about him and his image. Yes, even these so-called “apologies” he’s putting out right now. Apologies that completely gloss over the worst things he’s done.

But I’m writing about my experience - my VERY LIMITED EXPERIENCE. People that have lived with him or dated him or simply spoke to him more often have stories that line up with this horrible behavior, and I am begging you to listen to them and take them seriously.

[rajinedgeofdarkness]

About Rajin Edge of Darkness     and a General Progress Report (Last Update~12/14/20)

                                        Official Website

Written July 10, 2020.....updates in italic bold**

What is Rajin Edge of Darkness?

    REOD is an upcoming graphic novel/webcomic series that combines elements of fantasy and science fiction into an eight part story.  It all begins in Medieval England with an orphan girl peculiarly named Skyfyre.  Her entire life shifts around when an object from outer space crashes into Earth landing just outside home; the small, isolated village of Brimebet. 

    The series follows Skyfyre who is forced to discover her new role in a world now plagued by darkness.  Everything becomes a whole lot bigger when she has to do all of this alongside some unusual alien like characters including a Vimerian Sky Pirate and a Cyborg from the Desert Planet of Harana.  

When is the initial release date

     While there is no official release date at the moment, I am hoping to have the first book out to public sometime during the year of 2023-24.  I have been planning this project since 2006 and it is turning out to be quite large and is still very much in it’s early stages.

Progress Report (Updated 11/7/21)

Stage 1: Brainstorming

Stage 2: Rough Story Outline

Stage 3: Detailed Script Writing <- Currently Here

Book 1 --100% (minor edits and last minute look overs needed)

Book 2--80%

Book 3-8 (~20-50%)

Stage 4: Concept Art <-Currently Here

Includes character design, setting art, prop finalization, findiing my art style, general practice, and skill improvement

Character Reference Sheets

Major Character

Minor Characters

Creatures ……DONE

Stage 5: Storyboarding <- Currently Here

Chapter 1 (100% DONE!) Chapter 2 (20%) Chapters 3-5 (5-10%)

Includes rough sketching, panel laying, and creating a foundation for detailed sketching, inking, and coloring

Book 1

Stage 6: Page Illustration

Includes clean line art and rendering of final pages

Stage 7: Webcomic Release

Includes a digital release of said pagws through personal and/or third party hosting sites

Stage 8: Physcial Book Publishing

Includes editing and publication process for physcial books.  This also entails translation into other languages for possible international releases

Extras (Mostly Promotion and Marketing)

Includes settting up an offcial website (in progress now), creating fan made items and merchendise, and creating basic animations/posters for release teasers/trailers

[fisherfurbearer]

It's almost 6 am. I've been awake for HOURS buzzing about apple trees and orchards and animals and genetic conservation and my chest hurts SO BAD from anxiety because my hands won't type fast enough.

I want to write paragraphs and paragraphs for you folks so you can be up to speed with what's happened while I've been Gone, it's been so much, I want to explain my series of Realizations and my plans for the future but I'm so worried I'll be ridiculed or it'll all go wrong and my hands won't type my thoughts fast enough anyway so it'll never be finished.

Bottom line? I realized my biggest passions in the past 7 years (reptiles, inverts, rodents, poultry, conservation, gardening, and art) all have a common theme (animal welfare, environmental welfare, caring for people, Growing and Raising and Making cool stuff that makes people/animals/myself happy) and one thing clicked after another and basically I'm tired and Fuck college it's just not for me, I don't need $35k in loans every year (after $20k in scholarships) to learn illustration and be guaranteed a job in something I don't even see myself doing.

Nah bruh I want to raise little geckos and make vivariums/inverts/reptiles my hobby and make needle felting and sheeps and tree crops my main gig, it all fits together,, I'm so tired and I feel like I'm going to pass out from the anxiety I've been awake for so long and rewrote this so many times,

But basically I was so horrifically depressed and couldn't leave bed or go to work for days, for many reasons but mainly because it hit me that I spent the past 6 years going to school/trying to be in school for Nothing and wasted so much of my life and was Sick of it all and feeling like I had nowhere to go, until it hit me. My life is Fucked and the world is Fucked and everyone is miserable and not ok and I'm not fine and I can't do anything about it.

Or can I?

In college, I had a class called Visual Thinking where I only did needle felting for my projects and told people, I do art because my goal with my work is to make someone else Feel. I want them to Feel how my inspirations and view of things makes me feel. I want them to laugh, smile, cry, feel enraged, invigorated, spark CARING of themselves, one another, and the world, just make people Feel and give a damn about other living things. That's why I care so deeply about animals and the enviroment and domestic/wild animal welfare and the state of everything. Why I dreamt for so many years of raising rare lizards and growing vegetables permaculture-style.

But then it hit me again, I like, no I love my geckos and I love my inverts but let's be honest, it won't pay the bills and I don't think I'd be happy making it my career, either. I still want to raise/breed Eurydactylodes and maybe japanese Goniurosaurus and have a nice amount of reptiles and spiders in the future, but maybe it won't be my Everything. And that's a GOOD THING. I've learned with experience now that it's better for them and myself to keep it compact and a hobby, not a profession. Then I realized. I want to do needle felting, I want to make animals and plants out of wool and make pets and wildlife and talk about welfare and conservation with my art, and both Make Cool Things and Send a Message with what I do. But I thought of sustainability and where my supplies come from and thought wait. I like small livestock too. I just never really wanted a farm 'cause it wasn't my deal, but I literally learned how to work with miniature donkeys as my graduation project in high school, my SO's mom literally owns and breeds them and has a little farmette, I'm not completely out of my league as I already have years of research into gardening and poultry care, dude what if I raised my own sheep for wool and made art with that and oh my god what a journey that thought started.

It would take HOURS AND HOURS to write let alone read the disorganized disaster of a story of how I got to where I am now, with my Goals/Dreams, but basically...yeah I know it's becoming mainstream I guess but I seriously want a farm and we're gonna make it happen, one day. We have a rough plan for building up savings (our tentative goal is to be ready for a property in 2025, which is 5 years after Jessie graduates and gives us time to build up finances and figure out where he's working) and starting small (I already have button quail, so coturnix quail is a great first step for 'livestock' and in the next year or two angora rabbits are looking to be a great option for our first fiber animal...) and I've really refined my "Niche."

It's uhh hard to explain, in the sense of I'm very tired and it's 6:07 am and I'm losing track and my chest hurts and it's a long winding story, but the end result is for Many Reasons is I've fallen in love with heritage/landrace breeds and specifically northern european short-tailed sheep (finnsheep, gotland, icelandic, shetland, soay, etc..) and diversified farming, and especially concepts like agroforestry and using native forages/pastures and rotational grazing, to not just benefit the livestock but also the environment! I have SO MUCH RESEARCH DONE and I've learned SO MUCH and the best part is my past knowledge/notes has already given me a FANTASTIC head start so these concepts aren't hard for me to grasp and I'm just so excited. I want to focus on perennial crops (fruit/nut trees and berries, mostly...heavy inspiration came from our local orchard, which also kickstarted this idea) and grazing livestock in orchards (IT'S ALL CO-DEPENDENT IT'S BEAUTIFUL AND I LOVE IT ALL SO MUCH I COULD CRY,, WHY IS PIG WELFARE SO BAD WHEN THEY COULD BE OUT UNDER THE FRUIT/NUT TREES LIVIN' LIFE,, OTHER COUNTRIES DO IT AND ITS SUCH A GREAT IDEA [p.s. check out 'HogTree' for more awesome ideas on that! Not entirely unique but that lady has some awesome ideas]) and focusing on conserving heritage/landrace/localized livestock and crop varieties....for both conservation and practical reasons! It's...Ihave it all worked out mostly I swear I'm just very tired and anxious right now haha!! Oh jeez!!

But basically it's still in tne works and I have a good 5+ years to iron it out but instead of going to college I'm going to take workshops on orchard and livestock management and take felting/spinning classes (like yarn, I mean, I want to learn more fiber arts) and start small with quail and angora and we'll also go on trips to the local state parks and around campus here and learn more about our native environment and I'll maybe raise bees someday soon and I'll never ever stop loving inverts and reptiles ever but maybe instead of keeping 200+ Ts lots of reptiles one day I'll keep my home guys compact and give them lots of love and care and switch some of my attention to the NATIVE guys too...my biggest goal is for a more sustainable approach to agriculture (I KNOW IT CAN WORK, DAMMIT, OTHER PEOPLE HAVE PROVEN IT AND HOW ELSE DID FOLKS FEED THEMSELVES FOR SO LONG hshdbfjfush but that's an argument for another day) that balances human needs with animal welfare and environmental impact and hopefully turn the same land we use for agriculture (ex. grazing pastures, fruit/nut orchards) into land for native flora as small species as well, like birds and insects and such, and even bigger things if we did managed grazing in woodlands because...AHH THAT'S A WHOLE BIG DISCUSSION AND I'M TO EXCITED ABOUT IT ALL TO EXPLAIN AHH JEEZ

ANYWAY I'M GOING TO MAKE A DANG DIFFERENCE IN MY OWN DING DANG WAY AND I DON'T NEED NO COLLEGE EDUCATION TO DO IT, NOT THIS TIME AROUND

I'm going to combat my inner demons and also the Outside problems with the power of Sustainable Agriculture and Fiber Arts and prove that people and animals (domestic AND wild) and the environment can have a SYMBIOTIC relationship that CAN be profitable AND sustainable for ALL parties involved and it'll take a whole lot of doing but goDDAMMIT I'VE GOT MY SPARK BACK AND I'M GIVING IT MY ALL!!!!!