#and then this comic sprung fully formed into my mind

[knockknockitsnickels]

[beloveddawn-blog]

Muse (the Be Not Afraid remix)

Claude/Aryllin, 1100 words.

For @dennydraws who did the original comic this follows directly on from. I hope you like it!

He couldn’t help chuckling, shaking his head softly. He’d heard it all before, of course. That he was used up, washed out… a fraud. Whatever it was they felt like saying that day. He’d even believed it, at one time. It was why he left Withergate, after all. Driven out by the whips of their scorn.

Sun Haven was different, though. There were still whispers, but they were easily ignorable. The town’s most influential people had stood up for him and made him feel welcomed and allowed him to just… be.

And then She had arrived.

His fingers idly tapped out a curious little tune as he remembered their first meeting. He had been deep in this neverending gloom that often enveloped him, yet even then she seemed to pierce through it like a ray of eternal sunshine, soothing a chill in his soul he hadn’t even noticed.

“I’m Aryllin! Good to meet you!”

And that had been where it began.

He smiled as the tempo increased, memories of Ary flashing through his mind. Her smile, her good cheer, her thoughtfulness. The music swelled around him as he sunk further and further into his memories. His bafflement over her gloves, right up until she kissed him, became a soft moment of hesitant notes that quickly shot to an amazed climax before subsiding into pleased yet bashful beats that lined up with the way his heart pounded around her. The memory of her precious gift of her halo was a rising crescendo of joy that held a single ecstatic note in fermata… before shattering into a gloriously chaotic burst of delighted quarter tones that expressed his own amazement at his boldness when he’d gathered her up into their first transcendent kiss. Even the time he had gone to the beach party was represented in a series of pleased fortepiano notes that buzzed with his laughter at how she had gone so very red and froze up completely. He then reversed it with a complimentary series of sforzando notes to reference how completely he had frozen up when she had so innocently declared that she should, “be on top”. 

It turned softer then, almost contemplative, when he remembered nights of companionable playing with an entranced audience of one. How she so dearly wished to stay awake as long as he was with her, but would always succumb to her dreams when he slowly segued into lullabies. The music hinted at those old, old tunes, but was always underscored by the added harmony of his devotion before trailing off into a soft, sweet homage to the care he took in gathering her up and depositing her in bed. His awed reverence of those nights, where he would gently brush her face while she slept, softened the tune to almost a wistful whisper, the music itself glorying in him finding something he loved even more than music. 

Then it rose again, sharp and harsh as he remembered how she had come to his defense earlier that day. How glorious and otherworldly she had been in the throws of her indignation. How majestic she had looked prepared to smite… But the whole way through there was a thread of his laughter as he cherished her so very dearly. How he had scooped her up and left with her, despite the most adorable pout he had ever seen gracing her lovely face. A couple of silly gossips weren’t worth the trouble it would cause both of them with Lucia and Nathaniel if Ary went after them with her sword, of course. Still… he was more moved than he could put into words that she would try.

Into words… but not into music.

He blinked down at his piano, coming back to himself suddenly. A wide grin broke across his face as he contemplated the piece he had just played, composed entirely on the fly. It was even better than the masterpiece he was best known for, and he eagerly reached for some blank music sheets next to him, patiently waiting for him to regain his creativity. The first few lines were scrawled hurriedly out before a stray thought stopped him in his tracks.

Ary will be so proud of me.

The thing was… the thing was… Ary was already proud of him. She didn’t judge him for his creative block, or think he was only worth the works he could show to others. She didn’t expect him to put his heart and soul out to be a spectacle for the common folk to earn her love, and she didn’t ever want to see him diminished into only a commodity to be paraded around. She saw more than that, believed more than that… And of all the bits of himself he was willing to offer up with his music, his love for her was not one of them. He couldn’t stomach the thought of sharing the delicate intimacy of their feelings with the world. He would rip himself to shreds in search of an outlet, display his innermost self in a way that left him bleeding and raw just to feel as big as he was able to… But not when it came to her.

She had done what no amount of soul-searching or practice had managed and had reignited his emotions, fanning them effortlessly into a blaze as intense as it had been when his music had still only brought him clarity and joy. The proof was in the brilliance of the piece he had just composed. But now he knew it wasn’t a fluke. Now he knew he was capable of more than one masterpiece.

In time he would prove it to the world. There was no way to avoid that now that Ary had drawn the depths of his heart back out into the light, guided by her own effortless radiance. He’d never been able to contain his own intensity before others had taught him how the backlash burned… But Ary was born of heavenly fire, and had given of herself to protect him from it. She would shield his heart from the fickleness of fame as easily then as she had from the harsh words today, but now was not the time for that. For now, he would bask in their idyllic life here in this quiet backwater, honing his skills and savouring the sweetness of her love.  For now his whole world was just the only person that made it all good again, and he would protect her as fiercely as she protected him.

No, this song was not for the unimaginative and tasteless masses. This song was just for him and Ary. The proof of how they felt, the pinnacle of their love.

The twinned tune of their hearts, interwoven and finally, gloriously…

 One.

[eggsnatcheskneecaps]

i have a question ab transformers and im too scared to google it bc of what i think ill find but is there anything in canon that tells you if transformers reproduce??? and like how? do they have some sort of build-a-baby or smth??? sorry i know its late and this is absurd but its been plaguing mind for 4h now and i had to ask

Fjgng you're right to be afraid of what you'll find. There... Is a sea of fics out there.

The fandom has an extremely well curated Wikipedia, so if you're up for something more in depth, read through this article or browse through other ones.

Anyway, this is an excuse to ramble about Transformers >:) but I'll give you info on just the medias I've consumed, or know enough of.

The answer more broadly, there are cannon forms of reproduction, not sexual, per say, but the Transformers writers have a. Well. Long and weird relationship with Cybertronians having sex and especially pregnancies (yeah, you heard me right-)

To start off:

1. In one of the really old TF comics, we have a couple formed of a human woman (Cover Girl) and Brawn. They are married and also, they have a child. ...the child is not adopted. I don't if it's stated how they got there, but y'know.

2. In Beast Wars, we get protoforms.

In multiple continuities, they are basically the first stage in a robot's life. Kind of like infants. All they need is a spark (soul) and alt mode code (what they transform into) in order to develope into a fully grown Cybertronian.

The weird thing with this tho, is that you'll have characters such as Cheetor, who have been here from the start, and they'll be treated like the teenager of the group (although he IS the child appeal character), but then you'll see the ones who come along later, such as Silverbolt, who are immediately treated as an adult with full agency. Sigh.

But that's not all on reproduction in this show.

You have Rattrap at some point talk about... Bars on their home planet where waitresses walk around tits out, basically.

There are also some sex jokes, if I remember correctly. The femme fatale character takes a rod to cut it, her boyfriend cringes, and another one calls her emasculating.

For less cannon stuff that still sprung out of here; the official artists who worked on the show made a 3D render of Dinobot (main character) with... Dinobot Jr. Out on full display.

Also, at some point during the show production, someone decided to play a prank on someone else in the studio by submitting a pornographic parody of the episode script they should have originally given. Why does the fandom know this? It was leaked way back in the day before the episode aired.

Anyway, can you imagine being some poor fool thinking you're getting some exciting leaks to read and instead you get smacked with porn of the character who's literally inspired after Hannibal Lecter- also he transformers into a crab.

3. In Transformers Animated, protoforms make another return.

They basically work about the same way as they do in Beast Wars, except this time, we get Sari.

She's a protoform that somehow landed on earth, and her father, a human, touched it, which caused her to imprint on his DNA and become a hybrid.

In this show we also get several instances of objects being hit by the power of a Cybertronian relic, and making them come to life. Now, I don't know if they count as Cybertronians, since they are random ass earth objects, but they have a consciousness. Also, the same relic has been shown to be able to bring back Transformers from the dead. So.

...........

Ok. So. I received this ask forever ago, I'm so sorry for not getting to it. I've gotten busy and I can unfortunately feel my cognitive dysfunction kicking in, so I'll try to just get this done, but it'll be less detailed from now on and kinda disjointed.

Plus I was a while into writing this part and I lost the progress-

So. IDW1. The comics. They are a mess and weird.

Also, I read these years ago and I don't really remember the details.

You have hot spots on the home planet or moon. That create sparks (from the ground). Sparks can also pop out from Cybertronian relics, such as The Matrix.

Titans (HUUUUUUGE Cybertronians. They turn into cities or battle ships) may also carry hotspots that make robo babies.

Sparks harvested from this sort of thing either become cold constructs or forged. I'm not going to go into technicalities, but basically cold constructs are sparks who were taken and placed in a premade body and forged were allowed to develope naturally. If they are having trouble, a blacksmith may help them along by shaping their body. Or so I recall, at least.

I think I remember a mention in the comics about "A turbofox in heat". Turbofoxes are Transformers animals.

IDW1 also... Sports a lot of allusions to pregnancies. And. Pregnancies in general.

A lot of metaphors for pregnancies. Character is in a coma for 9 months. Another one gets a body upgrade and the entire thing is reminiscent of birth- an actual Cybertronian being mpreg with an organic alien------

^btw there was no narrative significance for this last one to happen

And. One of the main writers had... two? fanfics before he started writing cannon works. Telefunken and Eugenesis. Robots giving birth- to be fair, from their chests, from what I've heard. But the entire thing. It's. It's yeah.

Now!

IDW2.

Kiddies pop out of the ground. They are given one or two mentors. Mentors help them along to find what they want to transform into and their future jobs.

Earthspark, the Nickelodeon show, has come out pretty recently and I haven't watched it, but I think it has 3 robot kids as main characters! From what I know, they also popped out of the ground, except this time on Earth.

^also this one is canonically non binary sob

Transformers: Prime

I thiiiiiink they say Cybertronians pop out of The Well Of All Sparks? Which is a hole in their planet. Don't remember it being explored much. In the movie, a bunch of sparks fly out of it by the end, but I think it was a sort of- everybody gets revived! Yay!

The live action movies. Are also. Trippy

The ones directed by Micheal Bay are shit, but I gotta talk about them. You've got robots being sexual and creepy. But you also have sparklings. They pop out of goo eggs- I don't remember if in these movies energon or other relics posses and bring to life - I think they do tho.

However, that's an occurrence in the Bumblebee movie.

PS: I thought I posted this before I was done and I had a heart attack

[philcoulsonismyhero]

My brain is violently ping-pong-ing between half a dozen different original fiction ideas right now and getting excited about all of them at once, so I guess here's a rundown of the things that are occupying my brain right now:

The Woodsman and the Wolf

The newest idea on the list, this one is going to be a comic/graphic novel. It's a queerplatonic fable-y, fairytale-y short story about a woodsman who lives in a village under the threat of The Wolf (a monstrous creature that's been killing livestock and villagers who stray too far from the village's lights) and the injured traveller that he rescues in the forest one day. Except said traveller is secretly a werewolf and maybe there's also more to The Wolf than first appears... It's a story about who and what we call a monster and the harm that othering can cause, and it kind of sprung fully formed into my head after I watched the Nimona movie after re-reading Witches Abroad and while also thinking about all the things that made me mad about how She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Platformed treated Lupin in the HP books. It's also about anger, and werewolves as a metaphor for the parts of ourselves we're scared to acknowledge, and the healing that comes from choosing to build things rather than destroy. I thought about making it gay, but then I realised that I had an opportunity to have the happy ending be queerplatonic and now I'm really excited about writing these sad broken disasters (because the Woodsman has his own share of baggage) slowly finding understanding and a home together. Do I have any idea how to make a graphic novel? No, but I'm not going to let that stop me because I've become very fond of this story very quickly.

Untitled Science Fantasy Thing

I've been referring to the setting for this one as 'Willa's World' after one of the protagonists, and I think it's a novel? This one came about when I smashed together my two favourite general characters, Ironwood and Armstrong, and ended up with an extremely tired, angry woman who's desperately trying to protect her country from an ever-escalating invasion of monsters from the frozen north while slowly losing what remains of her shit and being pushed out of her own story by The Idealistic Teen Protagonist(TM) who has just crashed into the middle of all this and is equally determined to save the world her own way. The general is Willa Stonehold, the Teen Protagonist is Maisie Kennard, and I love them both, the whole story is built around their clash of narratives and genres and personalities and the fact that neither of them can save the world alone. Willa's side of the story is about being middle-aged and butch and aroace and disabled and angry and lonely and reckoning with the fact that she's been tearing herself apart to protect a world that at best wishes she'd stay quiet and invisible, but fuck them she's going to go down in a blaze of glory and destroy the monsters along with herself and Then They'll All See. And Maisie is also aroace and figuring out where she fits in the world but doing it with a determined bloody-minded hopefulness that, along with her Weird Magic Protagonist Powers, might just warp the story around her enough that she can drag the people she cares about into a happy ending as well. And that's not even the half of it, it's a whole thing, I've only got about 2/3rds of a plot figured out but a whole heck of a lot of Thematic Stuff that I'm rotating violently in my brain and cackling delightedly about.

Brownies and Bogles

This one has been bouncing around my brain for years, and really it's a TV series concept, but realistically I think the right format for it is going to be a series of short comics. It's otherwise known as 'that Scottish urban fantasy thing', and the basic idea is that Our Protagonists work for an organisation that deals with the weird stuff that arises when the human and magical worlds interact. These are the guys that go around the universities and do presentations telling students not to drink any beer if they end up at a fairy party, or settle disputes over beach usage between selkies and tourists, or deal with brownie infestations on the high street. There's a glamour situation at play kind of equivalent to the 'Somebody Else's Problem field' from Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, where regular people mostly don't notice or slowly forget the magical elements of things they see, but the more exposed you are to magic the more of it you start seeing around you. Most of the employees at the organisation are people who got involved in some sort of magic nonsense and suddenly were seeing it everywhere and demanding explanations. The main characters are Kevin, a thoroughly regular bloke who is also aroace and has been platonically married to his best mate Dave ever since that was legal and got them tax benefits, and Jay, who is three hundred years old and laughs at your concepts of gender and is also deeply magically weird thanks to being left on a fairy hill as a child and adopted by the fae, who rubbed off on them. Together, they investigate weird shit and get up to wacky adventures, mostly in places in Scotland that I personally know because why the hell not. (An iconic minor character that my sister and I co-invented years ago is Nippy the Chip Kelpie, a particularly weird kelpie that lives in the River Girvan and likes nothing better than hanging out with the seagulls at the beach and sticking his giant soggy horse head through car windows in order to steal chips from people parked by the promenade to enjoy the view.) The whole 'verse is a bit more on the comedy side of things, it's fun.

Werewolf Detectives Thing

This is another pretty recent idea, because I've had werewolves on the brain. Well, some of it is older, but the current iteration that's in the early stages of development is from the last few months. The basic idea is that it's the late 1820s in Edinburgh, and assorted magical folks are living on the edges of human society, including both werewolves and wulvers. A former trainee soldier who was kicked out of the army after he was bitten by a werewolf (and doesn't have a definite name yet, but I think his surname might be Grey) has been existing in this society as a werewolf for a decade or two when he comes across another man, a teacher, who has only been recently turned. He takes it upon himself to mentor the new werewolf, to help him figure out his new life, but said teacher is a little bit distracted trying to investigate some disappearances and deaths within the magical community. (Even when he was human, he was known to magical folks because because he was one of the few willing to teach magical children to read and write.) Grey gets dragged into investigating along with him, and they eventually end up setting up a detective agency together. (In theory it's a book series and they go on to have continuing adventures, but who the fuck knows if I'll ever get that far.) It's specifically set in the 1820s because that's when Edinburgh was in the middle of a whole thing involving graverobbing to provide corpses for the medical school, which eventually led to the Burke and Hare murders, and that seemed like an interesting time to plonk some magical shenanigans and amateur detective nonsense. Oh, and the teacher? He's trans, and faked his own death before he moved to the big city under his new name. Which I haven't decided on yet, names are hard, but I love him, he's great. In this one, the werewolf stuff is a big old queer metaphor, and I'm going to have some fun with the relationship between werewolves and wulvers on that front, too.

Untitled DnD Nonsense feat. Sam and Arthur

This is what happens when you realise that the backstories of a couple of DnD characters rhyme rather nicely, and I don't know if it's a novel or a comic or really what the main bulk of the plot is, but I am rotating it in my brain. Dr Sam Harnendil is accidentally a cleric, but really he'd rather just be a doctor. He was conscripted as a battlefield surgeon, and he gained his cleric abilities when he yelled at the holy symbol of a dying paladin, telling her god that she ought to Do Her Fucking Job, and said god gave him magic in answer. He struggled to go back to a normal life after the war ended, so in the present he's a travelling doctor, helping where he can and keeping his magic upgrade on the down-low. And then there's Arthur Fenn, a sellsword that he meets on the road, who clearly has a lot of history that he is Not going to talk about. It eventually turns out that Arthur was General Ridill, the general in command of the army that conscripted Sam all those years ago, and he lost everything when his kingdom fell in the final battle of the war. Not just that, but he was mutinied against by his own troops for wanting to unleash a monstrous shadow entity on the enemy as a desperate last resort, and he's now just a little bit possessed by said shadow entity that's been giving him powers and feeding him promises of vengeance. Ideally I'd love to bounce the two of them off of each other in a DnD campaign, but since I can't do that I've been slowly coming up with a story around the two of them that's about a doctor and a general who were fucked up by the same war and the parts they played in it, and how they figure out their own paths in the face of the powerful entities that want to control them. Other potential players in the story are Arthur's ex-something (it's complicated), a man called Cor (aka Cornelius Fenn, and yes, Arthur is using his surname as a alias) who was a spy for the same kingdom, and a teenage wannabe monster slayer called Merewyn who decides she's going to tag along with these losers after they pass through her village and study them for her own entertainment and education.

Untitled (And Slightly Neglected) Sci-Fi Thing

This one is a novel that's been rattling around by brain for about five years now, and is pretty much the first original project I was serious about as an adult, although I've slightly neglected it of late. It's a sci-fi story about first contact, in which an exploration pilot called Alastair Hayashi who lives in the space-future ends up becoming the first human to meet aliens when they capture his ship in the middle of a mysterious uncharted area of Weird Space Nonsense nicknamed the Gnarly Cloud. (After how it was described by the space truckers who got the first good in-person look at it.) Alastair ends up stuck on an alien world surrounded by belligerent, xenophobic bird people, in the role of the alien in Area 51, and having to explain the concept of humans to a race that was just as unaware of their neighbours as we were of them. The fact that their Prototypical Human is a gay, autistic Japanese-Scottish amputee rather than a Straight Cis White Guy(TM) is a source of alternating amusement and exasperation to him, he is having A Time. Meanwhile, back on the space station where he lives on the edge of the Cloud, he's been declared missing-presumed-dead, which his best friend and fellow pilot who saw the abduction is Strenuously objecting to because she wants to go in and rescue him, and his space trucker husband is starting to uncover evidence that maybe the existence of aliens on the other side of the Cloud wasn't as much a surprise to certain people as it ought to have been... Alastair eventually makes it back to the station with the help of one of the alien scientists, and finds himself stuck in the middle of a first contact situation that is rapidly sliding in the direction of a war that he is determined to prevent. I still love this story and the characters, but it's not thematically grabbing me the way it used to so I think I need to play around with it some more. (And maybe rewatch Voltron, because frustrations about Shiro's storyline was what spawned Alastair in the first place.) It's got 2/3rds of a plot but I need to re-find the themes that got me excited about it in the first place, and maybe throw in some more that are more what I'm enjoying in stories now, five-ish years after I came up with this one.

Red Shift Blue Shift

Last but the opposite of least, this one is the webcomic I'm developing with @yourfriendlyneighborhoodenby! It's got a whole blog with character stuff and art over at @redshiftblueshiftcomic, but here's the short-ish version:

Dan Gibson (they/them) is the leader of a team in the space-future that investigates crimes against robots and works to protect robot rights, and they're the sort of exhausted team dad character that inevitably becomes my favourite in any media about a team. They're Hotch from Criminal Minds meets the person Harrison Wells originally seemed to be in s1 of The Flash, meets early volumes Ironwood, and they're transmasc nonbinary and aroace Because Why Not. Also on their team are Georgie (she/her), boisterous gym butch and the team's legal expert, Bob (he/him), an ancient and grumpy military tank bot who renounced his weapons and was part of the first generation of robots to be considered sapient, Peregrine (he/they), Dan's protégé and a bitchy android with custom giant claw feet, Cobi (they/them), an excitable spaceship AI who gets the team where they want to go, and Max (ey/em), an opinionated and principled trainee agent who's a human who was raised by robots. Together, they have a bunch of adventures involving, among other things, an ancient sentient generation ship that they have to rescue from unscrupulous salvagers, bots going missing on a robot retirement moon, a would-be cult leader enslaving robots with mysterious mind-control tech he claims to have brought back from the future, and a mysterious mask-wearing individual that seems to be following the team around and pursuing some sort of unknown agenda of their own.

Other characters include Hector (he/him), a fellow agent in the anti-terrorism branch of the team's organisation who is starting to have doubts about how the organisation is run, Kamari (she/her), an enigmatic and dapper butch android working for persons and causes unknown, and Patch (they/them), a spaceship repair bot who has upgraded their own programming so many times that their list of skills is as long as one of their extendable arms (and even includes brain surgery, which no one has let them try yet, much to their disappointment). And, of course, aforementioned mysterious masked individual, the truth of whose identity drags the team and the rest of the cast into something much bigger and more ominous than they ever suspected could be going on.

It's a story about robots and queer people and queer robots (most of whom are also autistic), and so much of the Big Plot Stuff is a metaphor for the times we live in and the backslide in attitudes towards trans folks in particular, but also it's about having adventures in space and robots and spaceships and the power of solidarity, and we're both so excited about the whole thing. It really is one of those stories where we're putting everything that we love into it, and it's going to be big and epic and it's terribly daunting to thinking about the work that's going to go into a ten chapter webcomic, but we love this story and these characters and it's going to be a thing that we can actually share eventually. You should absolutely check out the blog we're been throwing the character development art onto if any of this sounds like a good time to you too.

(No, this post wasn't originally intended to be a 'check out our webcomic-in-development post, but it sort of is now, I guess.)

So yeah, stories! I have so many, they're all I want to talk about, please talk to me about some of these ideas if any of them have grabbed you, you'll make my week.

[maximustirado]

Convention blog (part 1):

I haven’t been to any convention ever in my life, so I don’t have an experience to write about unfortunately and had to watch the True Otaku documentary. After reading some of the other blog posts and the experiences that some of my classmates had I honestly think it would have been really cool to experience one of these conventions, but I don’t think I will ever attend one honestly, unless my friend forces me to as I am just not that into things like this. The documentary provides an insightful look into the Japanese anime and manga fanbase. Although the term "otaku" is often associated with conflicting ideas, this documentary explores the lives of individuals who belong to this subculture in great detail, offering insight into the ways in which youth culture, fandom, and cultural identity interact and change within this community. Originating in Japan, the term "otaku" refers to those who have an intense passion for manga and anime. By depicting its members as fervent and committed aficionados rather than as socially awkward misfits, "True Otaku" illustrates this subculture. Focusing on the individual experiences of otaku is one of the documentary's most significant features. These stories demonstrate how closely their identities and fandom are entwined. Many people consider anime and manga to be more than just pastimes; they are integral parts of their life that influence their social relationships, worldviews, and even job decisions. The documentary highlights that being an otaku is more about expressing oneself and establishing a feeling of community than it is about running away from reality. Youth culture is a dynamic and ever-evolving phenomena, and in Japan, a large portion of this demographic is the otaku subculture. The documentary illustrates how young people use manga and anime as a coping mechanism for the challenges of puberty throughout their formative years. These stories' characters frequently deal with issues that the audience experiences, making for relevant stories that have a strong emotional impact on younger viewers. "True Otaku" is an example of how fandom provides a forum for identity development and self-examination. The otaku community gives young people a platform to express their uniqueness and make connections with like-minded peers in a world that frequently prizes conformity. In contrast to the loneliness that might come with puberty, this connection promotes a sense of acceptance and camaraderie. The documentary also discusses the artistic side of otaku culture, where followers create their own content in addition to consuming it. Young otaku are encouraged to discover and display their talents through cosplay and doujinshi, or fan-made comics. Through increased engagement with their interests through these creative channels, they further cement their identities within the subculture. As portrayed in "True Otaku," fandom encompasses more than just a love of manga and anime; it's a vital component of cultural identity. The documentary shows how fandom communities establish their own social structures, rules, and values, which then influence the identities of their constituents. These groups provide a haven from the stresses of society at large, enabling people to fully immerse themselves in a setting where their passions are not only acknowledged but also cherished. The documentary also emphasizes how otaku culture is becoming more and more global. Otaku communities have sprung off over the world as a result of the popularity of anime and manga. This cross-cultural interaction strengthens the common identity of being an otaku while also bringing new viewpoints and experiences to the subculture. This phenomena is captured in the documentary, which shows how the otaku identity crosses national lines and promotes a sense of global solidarity. "True Otaku" illuminates the intricacies of youth culture, fandom, and the construction of cultural identities by offering a deep and sympathetic portrait of the otaku subculture.

[russburlingame]

C is for Comics and D is for Dinosaur!

Back again, back again.

Okay, so let me tell you a story about comic books.

No, this isn't another quasi-autobiographical rant, like I had about video stores (although I could do that, too!). This is a mini-rant about how the C week of the Alphabet Superset...well...got away from me.

Kind of.

A while back, while I was mowing the lawn, I had a story come to me fairly fully-formed. That's...amazing...for me. I haven't written fiction in many years, as I noted in the A is for Accident post.

Okay, so...comics. Why is C for comics? And why haven't I shown you any comics yet?

When that story came to me while I was mowing, I didn't seriously think I would do anything with it -- it's based on characters I don't own, and I'm certainly not planning on pitching it to the owners.

Still, I jotted most of the key points down. Far be it from me to completely dismiss an idea, even one that wasn't practical to consider.

In the months since then, new ideas have kept popping into my head with regard to the fiction story, and I quickly realized that it had to be a graphic novel. I have an artist in mind, who agreed to do it for a very modest fee, and while I haven't paid him or talked about the book to my bosses at Paramount yet, I'm not sharing any of my character sketches and wacky comic ideas here because...well...I feel like I'm going to make the comic.

Not with the corporate-owned characters, no. Rather, I'm thinking of using a blend of original characters and public domain superheroes from the Golden Age (since it's THAT kind of story anyway, honestly). Camp, comedy, heroics, heart...that's what I'm going to go for. I can't even kind of start writing it anytime soon, but I'll give you the very bare-bones concept here:

A group of time-travelers find themselves imprisoned. The charges? They've broken time, and nobody is quite sure how, or how to fix it. Before too long, it becomes clear that they have been set up: the head of the organization that's holding them, has a decades-long grudge against an old ally of the team. They have to get a message to that ally in order to get sprung from jail and...hilarity ensues.

They're stuck looking for a historical figure who was kidnapped and disappeared by his own government. with their ability to time-travel significantly limited, if they can't find this mystery man, they may be doomed!

Okay, and now for D is for Dinosaur.

I've put these two things together because neither one is really a stand-alone piece of creative work, but more an icon representing creative work that I've been doing behind the scenes. Also, so that I can share them more easily to the Alphabet Superset Discord server.

So that guy up there is Boone. You may recognize him from The VelociPastor, a 2019 micro-budget movie that became an instant cult classic. Back in September, I visited the set of VelociPastor II, did hours of interviews, and got lots of photo and video with my buddy Zach. And while I'll save the details for when there's an official official announcement, the thing I'm here to share is that I'm writing an official companion book for VelociPastor II. Called The VelociGospel, the book will be an oral history of VP and a companion to VP2, speaking with as many cast and crew as possible. The plan is to release it on the same day VelociPastor II comes out on DVD, Blu-ray, and Digital.

More on this soon, but I just really, really want to let people know it's a thing that's happening so that I can mention it on Bluesky and not immediately feel like I have to chase my own tail or delete the post.

Yes! There's going to be a VelociPastor book! And I already have about 30 pages written!

So...yeah. These are project that I have been working on quietly in the last few weeks. But I can't share stuff just yet. Soon, I promise!

[radramblog]

What happened to Roxy in Post-Canon Homestuck?

Some time ago, I wrote an essay about a connection I had made between the characterisation of Dirk Strider in official post-canon Homestuck media (that is, the Epilogues, Homestuck^2, and Pesterquest) and its potential origin in the relatively popular fanfiction, Detective Pony (It makes sense in context.) In retrospect, I think that post is actually a little rough around the edges, but still at least coherent in what it’s trying to do. I was pretty proud of it at the time, and it sprung to mind an idea for a follow-up post- however, the efforts of laziness, inertia, and the knowledge that it would never be the post I have it as in my head have prevented me from writing it until now.

Because I’d like to talk about Roxy Lalonde, but I really don’t want to fuck it up.

While Dirk was an idea I had basically fully formed from the moment I saw the through line, Roxy and their handling in the Epilogues/Homestuck^2 is something I have wanted to discuss, because I think it’s really interesting, but also something I don’t feel like I’m fully in the right to. The Dirk post was a connection of characterization, writing styles, and fandom through lines, and while some of that is present in Roxy, their issues are much more on the side of trans representation and how stories about trans characters are written, presented, and told. And as I happen to not be trans (last I checked), I figured that if I was going to do this subject justice, I should probably consult with someone who is.

This post, therefore, is going to refer to an interview (I guess? I kinda just sent him some questions and he very helpfully responded) with a friend of mine, Coda, to make sure that this post is not just some cis bloke talking about trans issues without any actual lived experience. I also went back and rewatched a short video essay by Jojo A.K.A. Funk McLovin (link here) delving into the same topic, which helped me with a few points and also gave me confidence that some of the ones I had already were a good idea.

With all that in mind, I ask the question: What happened to Roxy Lalonde in Homestuck Post-Canon?

Unfortunately, I’m not quite done with the preamble yet. This is a complex enough topic that I need to address a couple more things. Mostly, pronouns and timelines. As presented in the Homestuck comic, Roxy is a character who uses she/her pronouns, and in the Candy timeline of the Epilogues/Homestuck^2, she continues to do so, and I will refer to her as such when referencing those events. However, in the Meat timeline, Roxy eventually transitions from using she/her into they/them, and then later ends up using he/him. As such, I will be referring to that timeline’s iteration of the character using he/him pronouns, and furthermore will be referring to the character overall using they- not just because of gender neutrality, but also because it is multiple versions of the character so the plural is accurate.

That clarification kind of introduces the whole topic, but there is one last thing to mention when discussing Roxy’s post-canon self, though I’m not actually sure how much of a big deal it is. See, when I was researching for this, I made the foolish mistake of looking up a tag along the lines of “Roxy Lalonde discourse” (not sure exactly what it was, this was a while ago and I didn’t take notes) and tripped over a second controversy apparently related to how Roxy was drawn and presented in Pesterquest. That topic is not really part of this piece, both because I don’t really know what it’s about, because it would probably be extraneous to the topic, and because from what little I do know it would be even less something I could discuss in an informed manner.

With all that finally out of the way, who the fuck is Roxy Lalonde?

Roxy is a character from the Alpha iteration of Earth within the context of Homestuck, which means the version of reality after the timeline is completely reset through the mechanics of the fully immersive simulator/RPG game Sburb. Her previous timeline’s iteration was Rose Lalonde’s adoptive (kind of) mother, and in the Alpha timeline, those roles are reversed- sort of. Due to the whims of timeline chicanery, she actually grows up in the far-flung future, long after Earth has been ravaged by )(er Imperial Condescension and repopulated by what are effectively chess people and alien monsters.

Roxy takes the role of one of the main characters of Act 6, joining the 4-person (plus one person-based A.I.) band known as the Alpha Kids, who too play Sburb both in an attempt to escape the apocalypse, to rebuild a world that’s a bit less tyrannical and devastated, and to finally get to meet each other IRL instead of just online. As a character, after brief obfuscation via the medium, we find Roxy to be a passionate and compassionate person, with a much more relaxed and flirtier demeanour than most of the other characters we’ve met thus far, implied to be a function of being drunk basically all the time (we later find out that, nah she’s just chill). She’s probably the most level-headed member of her cohort, with most of the #teendrama of Act 6 happening around her (what with Jake and Dirk’s relationship being a mess, Jane and Jake’s non-relationship being a mess, etc.), and apparently (according to Dirk) is basically the emotional centre and leader of the four. She’s deeply caring (stealing pumpkins through time and space to feed her neighbours) but can sometimes be a bit impulsive and take things well too far (exploding Jane’s computer to try to get her not to play Sburb). In a couple of words, Roxy is a good bean.

She also happens to be one of the few Alpha kids to really get development, owing to her extended presence as one of the few survivors of GAME OVER (and being one of the few characters to maintain continuity between those two timelines). At the same time, a lot of her development happens offscreen, such as her quitting drinking in the time skip that is Act 6 Act 4 (somehow not the worst way a character stops binge drinking in this comic) or with basically anything to do with her post-retcon self. This is less an issue of Roxy specifically, and more one with how Act 6 is written overall- but since she is introduced in that act, her entire characterisation (and that of the rest of the Alphas) is made more difficult as a result.

Most relevantly, however, during the almost 5 years that Act 6 took, a growing contingent of fans began thinking about, discussing, and spreading the idea/headcanon that Roxy was a trans character. In fact, this interpretation started pretty much just as the character was revealed- for a while, the last two letters of Roxy’s name were deliberately obscured (with her just being referred to as Lalonde, RoLal, or by her handle of tipsyGnostalgic). The page immediately before her traditional Homestuck welcome, however, revealed said final two letters as XY, and specifically referred to them as chromosomic. While this is very likely just a joke with no further implications intended, it’s pretty easy to read this as a subtle nod to her being a quietly established male-to-female trans character. Other facts, like Roxy’s limited human interaction growing up (having exactly 3 other humans to talk to online, not in person, and also 2ish aliens and the chess people) likely leading to her subscribing to the same social norms as people IRL do, reinforced the idea for some and made it easier to swallow for others.

I am no expert on the fandom of this era, unfortunately. My entry into this comic came about two years later (right before the Megapause, from memory), and I certainly wasn’t around on Tumblr or the like when I was like 12 years old. My understanding, however, is that this idea spread like wildfire throughout certain corners of the fandom- and with a fandom as huge as Homestuck’s was, and with as many headcanons being generally accepted, it’s not hard to imagine this one doing the same. It’s worth noting that Homestuck has always had a relatively LGBTQIA+-leaning community, and the comic does ultimately reflect that in many ways. It is frustrating that Tumblr is such a garbage website that I can’t really figure any way to look at trend or tag analytics (if you do have a way, please let me know!) and that Google’s search analytics apparently don’t have enough data to work with for this, so I do not have much in the way of actual quantifiable evidence to present for this- so you’re just going to have to take my word for it, I guess.

This headcanon was not omnipresent, obviously. As an example, the tag “Trans Roxy Lalonde” appears in about 1.3% of Roxy-inclusive fanfictions on Archive of our Own (compare “Trans Dirk Strider” which appears in 1.6% of his fics, or Trans Jake English, which appears in less than 0.3% of his), though considering how bad people are at tagging things that’s hardly a great metric. One of those fanfictions is a crossover with Harry Potter, though, which is something that I find extremely funny in retrospect. Instead, I’ll quote Coda, who I believe was involved in the fandom prior to myself and would likely have been more involved in general- when I asked about said headcanon, he replied,

“I wasn’t actually! Though I do like that headcanon. I guess the more I think on it it makes sense to me. Having a form of identity that you can reaffirm has already been canon supposedly prior for me is a better form of representation.”

Which is a sentiment I fully agree with. And one that is hard to contextualise without the rest of the context of the question, which itself requires the rest of the context of Roxy to continue.

It is worth noting that as with any fanon, there are arguments for and against its being correct within actual canon. And ultimately, if you put a gun to my head, I think the arguments against Roxy being MtF are a bit more convincing than those for it. However, I have to stress that none of those arguments actually mean anything in the grand scheme of things. Fanon is where feelings matter more than facts because it’s about the interpretations of the work by individuals who are spreading and discussing how they think the characters and worlds of the work exist and function. It basically doesn’t matter whether or not Roxy is canonically trans in the context of Homestuck, because people are going to decide one way or the other on their own.

What does matter, however, is that a lot of people thought that this was the case and were excited to have an actual trans character in a work that while tackling things like bisexuality and even asexuality hadn’t really done much to speak of regarding transgender characters.

Before I delve into the post-canon, I’d like to do more preamble. While I’m calling this an essay, it is ultimately still on my ramble blog, and thus I think I have the right. The post-canon official Homestuck media, that is, the Epilogues, Homestuck^2, and Hiveswap/Hiveswap Friendsim/Pesterquest, are all written largely by people who were part of the fandom before they were officially involved with the comic. It’s not hard to find out who those are and what they did, but because it doesn’t really matter, I’m not going to go into it.

However, this does mean that when those pieces of media were made as part of the official body of work, many aspects of fanon were, whether intentionally or unintentionally, made official. For example, Karkat being particularly photosensitive as a result of his mutation, how Jade was affected by merging with Becquerel (which is its own pile of issues), and as I discussed in my previous essay, details about Dirk’s rewriting of Detective Pony that he made as a gift for Jane. Considering how specific some of the details are, I find it extremely unlikely that those involved weren’t at least aware of the trans Roxy headcanon, and so I wouldn’t be surprised to see it reflected in their continuation of their character.

It is also impossible to know what exactly happened behind the scenes when these were written, and discussing authorial intent is often a path down which only madness lies. However, considering the care and attention paid to a lot of things within the post-canon works, I am willing to give these authors the benefit of the doubt- that is to say, I don’t think anyone involved knew exactly what the implications of what their version of the story, and their versions of Roxy’s character, were as far as representation and fanon go. Basically, at its absolute worst, I think this would be a colossal fuckup, not a colossal fuck you. And I’m not here to attack said authors either…especially since I’m sure they’ve had enough vitriol thrown their way.

But, even though the intent of Homestuck’s post-canon is to be a version of events, not the one, and even though it explores what canonicity even means as part of its overall narrative arc, and even though the epilogues literally present themselves as fanfiction, I think it’s worth noting that like it or not, the Epilogues and Homestuck^2 are the official continuation of Homestuck’s story. So, while they’re listed on the wiki as “dubiously canon”, they’re as good as canon as far as the fandom is concerned.

So, what of Roxy?

…sigh.

The Homestuck Epilogues and Homestuck^2 very quickly split off into two timelines, Meat and Candy, each with their own version of Roxy whose lives and identities take two very different turns. In Candy, she beings dating John, eventually marrying him and having a child (through the traditional method, not via ectobiology) named Harry Anderson. Eventually the two split up, and Roxy is mostly left to raise Harry alone on account of John being a mopey ass for like two decades. While during Homestuck^2, they eventually make peace, the comic’s progression has ended before this could go particularly far, and she is ultimately not a main character in this timeline relative to people like John, Jane, or the four descendant children (Harry, Vrissy, Tavros, and…Yiffy…) of the main characters.

In Meat, Roxy ends up dating Calliope (later Callie), what with John busy on a canon-saving suicide mission. It’s unclear as to exactly how far this goes, since again they’re not really the main character here (sup Dirk), but the two both come out as nonbinary using they/them pronouns- Roxy questioning why their new, custom-built universe even has gender norms, which is a pretty fucking good point- and then later Roxy decides to use he/him. There’s probably a bit more detail there, but I already reread more of Homestuck^2 and the epilogues than I’m really comfortable with to get the points I have (hell of a way to spend Christmas eve), and I’m losing my tolerance for Fanta-coloured text, so we’re going to move on.

In one timeline, Roxy is a woman who marries (and divorces) a man with whom she has a biological son through traditional methods- she is explicitly pregnant and goes into labour as part of the story. In the other, Roxy is an FtM trans dude who’s dating a nonbinary alien and who wears cool shades. Independent of anything else and each other, these are not inherently bad places for a character to go. Together, though, and with the greater fanon context in mind, we start to see a problem.

To be blunt, the effective canonicity of both Meat and Candy Roxy completely scuttles any possibility of the MtF headcanon being true in-universe. Roxy being MtF doesn’t make a lot of sense when he then goes FtM in Meat (I mean, I think it could happen, but you’d think he’d bring it up when talking about it), and it is utterly incompatible with the presentation of Roxy’s biology in Candy (again, it could be possible that it was changed, but you think someone would bring it up if it did). It takes a piece of well-regarded fan theory, quite literally inverts it one way and erases it another, and presents it back, asking “this is what you wanted, right? Trans Roxy?”

Even outside of this fan theory, however, this particular presentation of a trans character has a lot of its own issues, most of which went well and truly over my head because, well, I wasn’t the kind of person to think about them on my first readthrough. As such, this is where I’m going to be quoting Coda much more liberally. Because these are not topics that I am an expert on, but it would not be right not to present them here- because at the end of the day, this story’s handling of its trans characters is capital-P problematic.

The first major issue is that it’s a presentation of a character as trans solely and exclusively within the context of an epilogue. To quote, “I do like the idea of having characters transition but it was cheapened for me by it only first occurring in the Epilogues”. The former is obvious- representation of trans characters is sorely lacking, and it’s only in the last few years that this has started to shift to the better. However, the fact that this aspect of the character was exclusively discussed as part of the epilogues, not part of the main series, and as something that relatively much fewer people actually read is kind of a big issue. In essence, Trans Roxy is not a bad idea, but if they wanted to do it, they should definitely have started earlier.

This could arguably be attributed to the added writing staff being brought on only very late in the game. And I would also argue that if Homestuck^2 had continued, and the Epilogues served their secondary purpose of being its prologue, this issue would be less pronounced. However, in my eyes, having Roxy only transition after the curtain falls feels half-assed and almost tokenistic.

The second and arguably much more important bugbear is the issue of having a character transition exclusively in one timeline, as it has implications about gender as a concept that are simply untrue. Continuing the previous quote, “Additionally the idea that a person would only transition in one timeline feels in poor taste. As yes it’s well established multiple timelines have very varied outcomes, but for one of only two timelines presented have them not transition. It makes it feel like their gender is a subject of their circumstance not their identity.”. In reality, gender is a critical part of basically every person’s identity in some way- whether that be embracing the stereotypes of one’s assigned gender completely, rejecting the notion in its entirety, or anywhere in between or elsewhere, and the idea that the events around Roxy completely reshaped their gender between timelines is utterly laughable.

With that said, it is possible that Candy Roxy is still a trans person who just hasn’t figured it out yet- there are two conversations within that timeline (on pages ten and thirty-eight) that feature Roxy explicitly discussing gender…though the former of those is awkward and interrupted and the latter has some narration surrounding it that reads very uncomfortable considering the context. And the thing is, were Meat its own independent, fleshed-out plotline, it would probably be basically alright as far as representation goes-

“Good representation is a complex subject, but Homestuck did pass the low bar of having them transition openly. There can be no confusion of their identity in that timeline.”

And when you see so many properties deliberately toeing the line when it comes to representation, it’s nice to see at least one thing fully embrace it…but it’s unfortunately a side character in half of a story and he gets very little focus overall. I’d also like to note that in Meat, the two trans characters- Roxy and Callie- basically get paired off, with Callie being completely Roxy’s satellite and having little to nothing to do on their own despite being a very important character in the comic itself.

Come to think of it, and I literally just realised this while writing- this makes Callie a second iteration of a character with the exact same issues as Roxy does in the Epilogues- that is, while they transition in both timelines (though I don’t think it’s explicitly mentioned in Candy), their alternate self is a hugely important character, but continues to use she/her and presenting as female. She does spend a lot of that time possessing a female body (in the ghostly sense), but still, that’s a frustrating point.

Anyway, the last major point I want to hit on as to why Roxy’s handling as a trans character in post-canon is unfortunate actually stems from the relationship the comic itself has had with LGBTQIA+ people, themes, and ideas in general, because it’s a long, complicated history. Homestuck started being written in the very late 00s, where certain slurs and homophobic/transphobic “humour” was considered more socially acceptable than it is today, and so many characters end up having that as part of their dialogue. I would like to have not been the case, but it is, and we can’t change that now. While Homestuck has provided some solid representation in some ways, it has been sorely lacking and arguably hostile to others- but I’d rather not be the sole voice on that. In fact, I might just quote the question I posed in its entirety.

“Do you have any other thoughts about how Homestuck/Epilogues/HS2 handles LGBTQ+ characters (e.g. the trolls, Rose, June Egbert)?”

“There were many things that I didn’t see as a representation of my own identity as a young adult, and instead understood more as just a part of the characters. Like how all the Trolls are essentially pan/bi, or that Rose is in love with Kanaya. I think looking back it’s grating seeing John as a protagonist who has casually homophobic and transphobic rhetoric. There’s a lot of media where it’s difficult because we don’t get to see a lot of younger mlm content. Particularly because they’re not seen as advertiser friendly, which is why online media is an important part of media representation. Homestuck is atrocious at providing positive representation of mlm. Dave sprite and John have a double death offscreen, without at all exploring their relationship. Dave and Karkat begin their relationship with some tense bullying. Jake and Dirk’s whole thing. I could go on. That being said I loved Rose when I was younger and from my perspective is one of the better sources of queer representation in Homestuck. I have some complex feelings on the matter as a whole. I think for a while for it’s time it was progressive but it means the subsequent failure to improve has felt more disappointing.”

I think failure to improve is the key word here, because while you could argue things from 2009 to 2013 were “of its time”, the epilogues show many of the same traits. That aforementioned narration is one thing, but the continued semi-transphobic rhetoric from John can be, and I quote, “grating”- a sentiment I fully agree with.

Also, Coda didn’t bring this up when I asked him, and it’s likely because he forgot about it- because I certainly did but rediscovered in my research- as part of being the narrator during Meat, Dirk repeatedly and deliberately misgenders and demeans Roxy explicitly as a result of his transition (see Meat page thirty-six), and in my eyes, it’s completely uncalled for and unacceptable. Dirk as a character is explicitly setting himself up as a villain here, but he is doing plenty to do that and doesn’t require this petty, needless antagonism that only the reader (and Terezi apparently) can see. It’s just so utterly pointless from a narrative perspective, offensive from a writing perspective, and even makes basically no sense in universe- for Dirk (who is becoming the villain so he can keep his friends safe by continuing the story) to do this to someone who is/was his only friend for a long time, a friend who considers Dirk incredibly important to himself, and after Dirk goes out of his way to narrate his approval when Roxy and Callie’s transition first comes up (Meat nineteen)!

At its baseline, I can see how this thought process occurred. Firstly, they knew the fans wanted trans Roxy, and they knew where the story was going to have to go. I can see this timeline split as the compromise the writers came up with to try and get the story where it needed to be. Like I said earlier- I think this is a fuckup, because doing this intentionally makes no sense in the first place. It’s something that probably came from good intentions, which terrible execution and lack of forethought have turned into a very unfortunate conclusion to a very complicated story.

The broader idea of this kind of story (where we see a character transition in one timeline and not in another) is kind of interesting, though questionable in its own right. To quote Coda one last time-

“It’s not an idea I like overall. I think on a larger scale it could work, a story focussed on how identity is shaped by our experiences and environment is a cool concept. However because it is only over two timelines that it’s explored in any detail, it becomes questionable. If a character is only shown in one timeline to become trans, those who aren’t as familiar with queer identities might assume it’s a decision”

I do partially disagree with this, actually. I think a story like this could work, provided proper care and attention was paid to the details- in particular, if it’s explicitly clear that they are trans in both timelines and just don’t realise it for a while in one of them, or something along that line. But that would be an incredibly delicate kind of subject to handle, and I cannot think of many writers I’d trust to do so.

I also think this story structure was going to show up inevitably. There are enough writers penning stories about trans topics at this point, with the number ever-increasing, that someone, somewhere was going to write this plot. But it’s possible that the Homestuck Epilogues and Homestuck^2 are a display of why they maybe shouldn’t.

As a way of closing, at the end of the day, post-canon Homestuck is still not explicitly canon no matter how much it sort of is. There is, therefore, nothing anyone can do to stop you or anyone else headcanon-ing Roxy or any other character you like as MtF- I mean, since fanon is not bound by canonicity in the first place, this changes nothing, but the point is I fully support any and all of these endeavours.

And like, their handling is hardly the only character done dirty in the epilogues. I mean, look at Jake (who to be fair is just done dirty by the comic in general), Jane (ditto actually), and arguably even its protagonists like John (who gets literally character assassinated) and Dirk (who literally character assassinates himself) don’t escape unscathed. The whole thing is kind of a mess, frankly.

It’s not all bad. Few pieces of media are entirely devoid of something worth appreciating. Even post-canon Roxy- I really like Meat Roxy’s design, cool shades and trans sneakers and all, and his conversations in Homestuck^2 are definitely some of the funnier ones the comic has. But they do not make up for what is ultimately a frustrating and issue-filled presentation of a trans story that doesn’t stand at all on its own and doesn’t satisfy the fan wish it was likely made to fulfill.

-

I’d like to again thank Coda for his help with this post and making sure this wasn’t yet another example of a dumbass cis talking about things he doesn’t really know about. You can find Coda’s art via his Twitter or Instagram, as @caramelcoda. Very cool dude with good art would recommend.

And, for the sake of honesty (and in case anyone’s curious), I’ve uploaded the entirety of my Q/A with Coda on pastebin here.

I’m also going to plug Funk McLovin’s video essay about Roxy again, because it was pretty helpful. You can find her YouTube channel here and his twitter here. From one Jojo (well, Jo Jo) to another, cheers.

This was a lot of work for me, and I spent a while tossing and turning about whether I should actually do it in the first place. I can only hope that it has been informative, helpful, and/or interesting- either way, thank you for reading.

[seasonofthewicth]

A Groovy Kind of Love - Chapter 13

I’m so sorry this update took so long, I have no excuse it just took me a while to make Aelin do what I wanted her to do! As usual I hope you enjoy, things get a bit more exciting from here!

masterlist - ao3

-- 

Her first kiss wasn’t her favourite memory. She was fifteen, and at a bowling alley of all places for Lysandra’s birthday. It had been with a guy called Nox and he had tentatively pressed his chapped lips to hers for a second before pulling away. Their feet had been a solid foot apart and he had all but ran from her as soon as it was done. 

She liked to think her kisses had only improved from then; as much as he was a dick, Arobynn had been a pretty decent kisser when he could be bothered to offer her any kind of affection. 

Rowan’s kiss had been something different though. 

His lips had been gentle but insistent against her own, and she hadn’t been able to help the soft sighs and the gentle moan that had slipped out of her. He knew what he was doing, and she hadn’t doubted him in all the times she had imagined kissing him, but she had still been pleasantly surprised. 

He had kissed her confidently and she had been taken, perfectly content to let him take control and kiss her strongly, to steal her breath and tilt her head. She hadn’t been like that with Arobynn, but she vowed for that to be the last time she would compare the two. 

She had spent the whole night struggling to sleep. Every time she closed her eyes, the phantom touch of Rowan’s lips against her own filled her mind, she swore she could still feel the spike of heat where his fingertips had brushed, ever so gently, against her thigh. 

She was still blushing from the sensation of his fingers lightly tugging her hair and the groan it had elicited from her throat when she woke, barely rested after hours of tossing and turning with her mind unable to fully switch off. 

She wanted to see him, wanted to kiss him again, wanted him to kiss her and take control again. 

But she needed to be careful. As much as she longed to throw caution to the wind, and to cross the hall and plant herself in his bed, to press herself against his side and lay herself bare for him, she needed to make sure she knew exactly what she was going for. 

She felt confident enough to guess that the attraction between them was mutual, he hadn’t shied away from roaming his hands along her skin and it wasn’t like she was blind to the way he watched her. 

But he had been the one to walk away from the kiss. 

In the quiet of the hall last night she likely would have been inclined to follow had he invited her to his bed. But he hadn’t. And as much as Rowan was sometimes reserved, sometimes quiet where she was loud and brash, he wasn’t quite shy. He had a quiet kind of confidence to him that she expected him to have asked her to join him if that was what he wanted. 

That left her with only one choice. 

-- 

She pounded her fist against the door and each sound was blow to her head, a telltale sign she had drunk more than she ought to the night before. She hadn’t realised the sensation in her head was likely due to more than just her lack of sleep, she had drank more last night than she had in a while. Aelin lessened her knocking, and changed tact to call through the door. 

“Can I come in?” She half whispered, not wanting to disturb any of the other occupants of the loft. “It’s important.”

She heard the rustling of bed sheets before the voice of the room’s occupant spoke.

“What, Aelin?” Her cousin sounded only mildly irritated to be woken up relatively early after the state he had been in last night. She bit back a snort at the thought of how hilarious her cousin had been after a few too many drinks. 

He hadn’t been the only one to make her laugh; she had taken more than a liking to Elide. The woman was feisty and sarcastic. Her sense of humour gelled well with Aelin’s and she knew she’d have to get her number from Lorcan. 

“Aedion, I need to speak to Lysandra.”

Immediately her friend’s voice sounded. “Come in Ae.”

She pushed the door open and quickly shut it behind herself. She took in where her cousin and best friend lay, both clearly unclothed beneath the sheets if the way the dark blue sheet was tucked up high was anything to go by, resting just under each of their chins. She deliberately looked only at her best friend. 

“I need to speak to you,” She announced before risking a glance toward Aedion. “Alone.”

He barked out a laugh. “This is my room.”

She shot him an incredulous look; this was important, did he not realise that?

Lysandra only patted her boyfriend on the shoulder and tilted her head towards the door. Aelin grinned as Aedion began to move, but spun around quickly to face the wall, she wasn’t keen to see her cousin naked. 

“Thank you,” She called teasingly and he only grumbled under his breath as he shucked on his clothes and poked her side before heading out of the doorway and into the kitchen. 

She waited until his protests faded, until his reminder that ‘you have your own room you know’ was far enough from them that she didn’t think he would be able to hear her, before turning to Lysandra and placing herself, cross-legged, at the end of Aedion’s bed.

“Someone’s grumpy this morning,” She said, only a hint of mockery coloured her tone. 

Lysandra laughed. “Always. Now not that I’m complaining, you know you’re my favourite Ashryver, but what’s so important you had to kick him out at this time?”

Aelin found herself unable to fully hold back her smile, even though she tried, tugging her bottom lip between her teeth slightly. 

She wanted to smile both at Lysandra’s reassurance of her place as the superior Ashryver, and at the news she had been waiting to drop since she had closed her door last night, but faced with her waiting best friend she became… almost nervous. 

She mostly hoped Lysandra wouldn’t immediately jump to the wrong conclusions. Aelin knew the situation was slightly messy, but she was happy, she had kissed Rowan, and she wanted at least a morning before she had to face the consequences, whatever they might be.

She could feel her face heating as she thought through exactly how to fill Lysandra in on what had gone down since their disastrous game of truth or dare. 

“So,” She looked down to her knees where they crossed beneath her and took a breath. “Rowan kissed me.”

Lysandra’s green eyes widened almost comically as she sprung up in the bed, only half remembering to keep the sheet pressed to her chest. A coil of dark hair managed to hide what the sheet exposed.

“He what?” She shrieked. 

Aelin shushed her quickly. She didn’t want Aedion, or worse, any of her other roommates coming to see what the commotion was.

“He kissed me,” She said, pressing her hands to her cheeks. She still felt slightly giddy when she thought about it and she doubted the feeling would fade soon.

It had been an end to the night that she hadn’t seen coming; she had still been reeling from his rejection when she found herself face to face with him in the hall. He had surprised her. She supposed all she had been expecting when she saw him was a depressing explanation of his reasons for not wanting to kiss her, but what she had received had been so much better. 

“When did this happen?” Lysandra demanded, her mouth opened slightly in an excited smile. 

“Last night,” Aelin said, still trying to reel in her excitement so not to squeal like a high-schooler after their first kiss. “After everyone went to bed.”

Lysandra’s grin took on a dark edge, “And was it just a kiss?”

“Yes,” She tutted. “Just a kiss.”

“Was it a good kiss?”

“Lys,” She said simply, still fighting against her smile. It was all she needed to say for Lysandra to shake her head with a grin. “It was like he was a man and I was a woman and he just took me and kissed me and I was gone.”

“Aelin Galathynius,” Lysandra shook her head, still smiling along with her. “Who could have foreseen this?”

“Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit,” She deadpanned, tugging threateningly on the sheet Lysandra still held against herself. 

“What does this mean then?” Her friend asked, and truthfully? She wasn’t sure. 

Rowan had left her last night, in the hallway, with his killer getaway line. While it had reassured her that he didn’t just not want to kiss her, it hadn’t given her much more to go off. It hadn’t clued her into whether or not he wanted to kiss her again, or whether he wanted to do anything more than kiss her. 

“I’m not sure,” She started but Lysandra spoke again when she sensed Aelin didn’t have anything more concrete.

“Did he say what it meant?”

She breathed out a laugh. “All he said was, and I quote, ‘I didn’t want the first time I kissed you to be for some stupid game’.”

Lysandra nodded before she grinned. “The first time he kissed you? Means he was definitely planning on doing it at some point, with or without the stupid game.”

Aelin smiled again, she had had the same thought, and hearing the confirmation from Lysandra was almost dizzying in its relief. And if she allowed herself to admit; excitement. 

She wondered when he would have kissed her if Elide hadn’t dared him to do so. She knew she and Rowan had been dancing around the edge of something for a while now and she couldn’t stop the desire building within her for something more. Had he not been her roommate, and had there not been such dire consequences if it ended badly, she might have made a move by herself at this point. 

But, she supposed, if she had this hold up he probably did too, and she sighed. There lay their issue. 

They lived together, and she was happy living there. She didn’t want to lose him, or the other guys in the loft, if she went for it and it ended badly. She could accept that if anything happened she would have to be the one to leave the loft, Rowan had lived there first and was far closer to the other guys than her. 

Lysandra, as always, could see right through her. 

“I think you need to talk to him.”

The door swung open behind her and she turned around to berate Aedion for interrupting when Lysandra let out a squeak and threw herself further under the covers. 

“Fenrys, knock!” Her friend yelled. 

The offender only raised a hand to cover his eyes before stepping into the room as well as he could while blind. “I’m not even looking.”

She heard Lysandra’s scoff behind her and raised an eyebrow at her friend, still lingering in the doorway. It only worked in his favour, she reminded herself, when he didn’t respond to her non-verbal prompt. 

“What?” She asked. 

“Can I see yet?” He asked and Aelin rolled her eyes before turning to Lysandra. Her friend snuggled deeper into Aedion’s bed, making sure she was covered, before offering Aelin a thumbs up. 

“Yes, now why are you in here?” She asked, before adding; “Interrupting.”

Fenrys only grinned and dropped his hand from his eyes, undeterred as he stepped forwards. 

“We need toilet paper, and it’s your turn to buy.”

Aelin blinked. She couldn’t believe him. What was it with guys in the loft and not realising this was serious? Just when she and Lysandra had got to the really important part, the part where Lysandra was going to give Aelin the advice she desperately needed. 

“This was why you barged in here? Toilet paper?” Lysandra was equally as incredulous as Aelin.

Fenrys shot her a look that just read duh. 

“You two use the most, and you,” He pointed to Lysandra, “don’t even live here.”

Lysandra shrugged, unbothered. Lysandra was now a fixture of the loft the same as any of the official residents. Her place as Aelin’s best friend and Aedion’s girlfriend gave her unlimited access and Aelin wouldn’t be surprised if she had already had a key cut. 

“Not exactly true,” Aelin said, but smiled at him. “Could you not go, just this once? For me, please?”

She was sure he definitely owed her at least one favour for some reason or another. 

“Aelin, please.” She looked away from where he had attempted to dial the charm all the way up. “I’ll come with you.”

She weighed it up. 

“Is Rowan up?” She asked. 

A splash of confusion crossed Fenrys’ at her abrupt and seemingly out of nowhere question, but he shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

She sighed, it probably wouldn't take long. And Rowan wasn’t working today, so he’d be here for her to talk to when she got back. 

“Fine, but we’ll be quick.” She said, standing up before turning back to Lysandra. “We’ll carry this on later?”

Lysandra saluted her from her position still tucked into Aedion’s pillows.

--

Rowan swung the toy up and across his chest, before sweeping it backwards and over his body to the other side. Hellas pounced on him, diving onto the planes of his chest with his claws outstretched before leaping off and attacking the small snake toy with the ferocity of a lion. 

Rowan scratched the tiny beast on the head, receiving only a mild purr in response as the kitten curled into the space between his side and the arm he had slung across the back of the sofa, clutching the now loose toy in his small claws. He stifled a yawn, not wanting to disturb the kitten who had cemented his position as the prime of the loft in a matter of days. 

He had barely slept last night, hadn’t been able to get his mind to shut up for more than a minute before it was back onto images of Aelin from the night before. The soft pink of her nightgown, only a shade lighter than the blush gracing her skin, the swell of her lips after he had pulled back from the kisses they shared to draw a breath. A tug in his lower stomach noted, with a kind of purely male satisfaction, that he had been the one to make her look like that. Freshly kissed and sexy as hell. 

He hadn’t been able to stop replaying the gentle moan that had slipped through her lips when he had pressed the hard line of his body even tighter against her, and in combination with the memory of the way her fingernails had scraped against his scalp, he had pressed his pillow firmly across his face and hoped that would be good enough. He would no doubt be questioned if he had snuck off for a cold shower at three in the morning. 

Her lips had been gentle against his own, only pausing for a second before kissing him back. 

That, he supposed was the detail his mind kept snagging on. He hadn’t expected her to return the gesture, and had already readied himself for damage control, before her hand had crept up and tangled through the strands of hair at the base of his neck, locking him to her. It had given him the confidence to sweep his tongue into her mouth, and the taste of Aelin on his tongue had sent a pulse of something hot burning through him. 

He had imagined kissing Aelin any number of times, had imagined a soft peck after taking her to dinner, had imagined pressing scorching kisses down from her lips to her neck as he pulled her bra straps down her shoulders. He had even imagined kissing her only to be rejected, had imagined her as stiff as a board while he pressed his lips to her own. 

The reality had surpassed any of the scenarios he had been able to come up with. 

Kissing Aelin had been everything he had expected it to be and more; soft and sweet, hot and intense. He could at least admit to himself that he wanted to do it again. Wanted to do more than kiss her, if she would have him. 

But Aelin deserved more than that. 

She deserved more than a hook-up with her roommate. She deserved flowers, and a knock on the door at eight o’clock sharp. She deserved to be romanced, with petals and love proclamations scrawled across little notes. Aelin deserved to be swept off her feet.

After that piece of shit Arobynn, who Rowan had to constantly remind himself was out of her life now, Aelin deserved everything. 

Fuck. 

He guessed that was why he had panicked, why he had crept back to his room before she had had a chance to speak. It was the cowards approach, but he couldn’t believe he had done it, that he had kissed her, and he had needed a moment to compose himself. 

He sighed, a long and cathartic release of the pressure that had built up inside him since the night before. It had been an eventful night.

“You alright?” Aedion’s question was teasing where it came from behind him. 

Rowan rolled his head back along the cushions of the sofa to shoot his friend a look. Aedion laughed. 

“Yeah, me too,” He said as he gently lowered himself to the seat beside Rowan, dropping a gentle scratch along the spine of the kitten still tucked into his side. Hellas had long since fallen asleep, but Rowan knew Aedion was just as powerless as he was against the kitten. All of them were. “You look how I feel. Never let me drink that much again.”

Rowan snorted. “You were fine when I was serving you, you can blame Fenrys for this.” He waved a hand to where Aedion cringed into his seat, fingertips massaging his temples as his eyes drifted shut. 

“I’ll blame you all,” Aedion said finally, his eyes shut tightly.

A moment of silence passed before Rowan asked, “You the first one up?” 

He hadn’t seen anyone else this morning, well afternoon now, but most importantly he hadn’t had a chance to speak to Aelin. Her bedroom door had been open when he woke, but she wasn’t anywhere to be found and he supposed he would have to play the waiting game. 

“Nah,” Aedion said. “Aelin kicked me out of my own room at gods know what fucking time this morning to speak to Lysandra then left, also hideously early, with Fenrys. And I haven’t seen Lorcan. Not entirely convinced he spent the night here.”

A surprisingly long run down given the state he was in and Rowan caught the twitch of his brow at the effort required to sustain such a long conversation. He would have laughed if he didn’t feel similar. 

He hadn’t drank that much, and it definitely wasn’t enough that he could have blamed his kiss with Aelin on the alcohol if she was unhappy. 

He pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes, trying to wipe his mind clear. 

“You think Lorcan went home with Elide?”

Aedion offered half of a shrug, then winced at the motion. 

“Not sure, it wouldn’t surprise me if he had. But then again, it is Lorcan.” He paused, letting his hands drop from his temples but his eyes stayed closed. “We’re agreed that all the moaning he did, he’s just into her, right?”

“One hundred percent.” Rowan nodded slightly, cursing the sharp spikes the motion sent through his head. He took a pause before saying; “The captain seemed to quite like him too though.”

“Can’t understand why,” Aedion laughed. “She was nice, attractive, and could actually hold a conversation, unlike-” 

“I know what you’re about to say and don’t bother.”

Rowan had missed Lorcan’s entrance before he spoke, but the gravel of his voice cut through Aedion’s words like a knife. He then didn’t miss the heavyweight throwing himself between him and Aedion. His roommate swept the kitten up to plunk Hellas on his own chest as he too collapsed into the cushions. 

“I didn’t sleep with the captain,” Lorcan almost growled. “And her name is Elide.”

“Sorry, boss.” 

Rowan felt the slap Aedion swung at Lorcan’s shoulder and felt his lips tilt up. It had been a while since they had all festered like this after a night of drinking and it sent him back to college. Even though Lorcan hadn’t been to college with the three of them, they had met soon after, and it hadn’t been long before the four of them had moved into a smaller apartment outside of Rifthold. Their college antics had continued for a while after that, drinking to excess and being straight up gross the next day. 

They didn’t do it often anymore. He was desperately avoiding the knowledge that as they neared thirty it was getting harder and harder to recover and, apart from Rowan, they all had proper jobs now that didn’t allow for being out of action for a whole day afterwards. 

He lay back, settling into the amiable silence with his friends, and he closed his eyes. He was content to lie there for however long, but it could only have been seconds before the peace was interrupted by the buzzing of a phone. 

His phone, with Aelin’s contact photo lighting up the screen. 

-- 

There was a beeping coming from somewhere down the hallway. It was kind of getting on her nerves at this point, but she didn’t want to stray from her place at Fenrys’ side to go and complain about it, she could try to tune it out as best as she could. It didn’t matter that he wore an easy grin, exuding an unbothered energy by the turn their day had taken, she wouldn’t leave him. 

Aelin didn’t know how it had happened; one minute they had been traipsing the aisles of the local supermarket searching for the one item they had come for, and the next Fenrys was sprawled on the floor, a steady stream of blood flowing from a gash in the side of his hand. 

She hadn’t seen the spill on the floor in time to warn him, and had only been able to watch in horror as he had slid straight into a display case of bottles of some kind of wine. The glass had shattered across the floor, sending floods of fizzing liquid across the tiles in waves as Fenrys clattered to the ground, arms braced in front of himself to cushion the fall. 

The staff at the supermarket had offered them rolls and rolls of blue tissue paper to stem the bleeding but Aelin had taken one look at the wound and knew, from her very limited medical knowledge mostly gained from television programmes, that it would need stitches. They had taken an Uber to the emergency room and ended up waiting in this room for a doctor to come and stitch up Fenrys’ hand. She wasn’t sure how long they had been there, but it definitely hadn’t been what Aelin had meant when she had emphasised the need for their trip to be quick. 

She sighed as she shifted in the hard plastic seat placed next to the bed Fenrys relaxed into. He caught the expression. 

“I’m sorry,” The quirk of his lips didn’t diminish. “I really was trying to be quick.” Cheeky.

“It’s not your fault,” She dismissed him quickly. “I just wish this doctor would come sooner, I have better things to do today.”

“Like what?” He prompted. “Are you seeing Dorian?”

She narrowed her eyes at the way he always seemed to work Dorian into their conversations. “No. Why?”

“No reason.” He spoke far too quickly for it to be casual, but before she could speak the door behind her swung open and a doctor strode in. 

“Fenrys Moonbeam?” He asked, his voice curling smoothly around the words. “Dr Sam Cortland, now let’s see what we can do about that hand.”

--

tags:

@jesstargaryenqueen​

@maybekindasortaace​

@slytheringalathynius​

@http-itsrebecca​

@morganofthewildfire​

@in-love-with-caramel-macchiato​

@fictional-horan​

@tottenhamboys20

@dressedindustandshadows​

@sleeping-and-books​

@perseusannabeth​

@ireallyshouldsleeprn​

@superspiritfestival​

@aelinfeyreeleven945tbln​

@spyofthenightcourt​

@jlinez​

@queen-of-glass​

@booknerdproblems​

@sjmships​

@elriel4life​

@bamchickawowow​

@woollycat22​

@claralady​

@illyrianwitchling​

@SHINYA-HIIRAGI

@fangirlprincess09​

@darlinminds​​

@bookittothelibrary1​ <- this came up as the url please let me know it its not right

@thenerdandfandoms​​

@danibutterr​

[packsbeforesnacks]

You Wanna Ride It, My Mimercycle || Noah & Winn

TIMING: Monday, May 4th, 2020, Sunset LOCATION: The Veterinary Clinic PARTIES: @noah-kalani & @packsbeforesnacks SUMMARY: Local Wolf Man (and Friend) Caught Murdering Mimes, More at 11 (”Do you need a license to drive a mimercycle? Asking for a friend.”) WARNINGS: None.

Winn had been riding home when he’d heard the howl, stopping off near the turn to his cabin to message Ariana and Miles in a mild panic. And they’d both been fine, and Kaden wasn’t involved, and that should’ve been the end of it. But it wasn’t. Winn was still reeling over Miles having a secret (well, unknown to him) brother, and that brother being in trouble with fucking Hunters. This was why Winn hadn’t wanted to get close to wolves! (‘Course, the voice in the back of his head was quick to remind him, it was nice to have folks worth carin’ about again.) His mind drifted to Noah unbidden, still stuck on the other night — and the mornin’ after. 

But before he could interrogate his feelings on the other man, he felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end, an unfamiliar scent blowing into his face. Or, more accurately, an intimately familiar scent. There was a black-and-white blur ahead of him on the deserted road. Aw, fuck. Not now. Havin’ to think about his stalker was already bad, and now the fuckin’ mime was showin’ up at the worst possible time. He wasn’t anywhere near the station yet, this part of town only vaguely familiar to him. Winn revved his bike, pulling forward. And to his horror, Winn discovered his stalker wasn’t alone. Oh no. That would be too kind of the Universe. Instead, Winn’s mime was, oh God, riding other mimes? The unholy blob beneath Winn’s mime-self was the twisted, mottled form of a bike, the naked hands and feet of two faceless mimes pedaling it along like the worst Flintstones special. The seat and handles were… Oh, for fuck’s sake. Winn would recognize those dimples anywhere. But why was Noah’s mime-self here?

To say it had been a bit of a rough day at the clinic for one Noah Kalani might be a bit of an understatement. From the computer error that mixed up appointment reminders (No Mrs. Seawol, Alfred was not scheduled to get snip sniped today, that text was a mistake) to one very very heartbreaking euthanasia (yes he broke down and cried once the owner left) he had been put through the wringer in more ways that one, so much so that the Dr Choi took one look at him at the reception desk –silently munching on the lunch he almost forgot to eat– and sent him outside to get some air and some sunshine on his face. Sitting there on the bench next to the parking lot though Noah couldn’t help but fidget in his scrubs. It was almost 5pm.  He just had to make it till then and he could go home, take a shower, cuddle with his own pup, and not agonize over the weird Winn situation of the other night.. But of course like always the universe had other plans, and they were unfolding right before his very eyes.

Winn’s brain had scarcely put together a joke about riding Noah when it all went to Hell. Ricky had warned him. “More aggressive,” he’d said. And the, what, demons were exactly that. The mime-motorcycle (mimercycle, ugh) seemed bent on runnin’ him off the road, as silently as possible. It rammed into the side of Winn’s bike, Winn’s tires skidding on the road as he tried to avoid going down in a blaze of gore-y. His phone flew out of his hand where he’d half-composed a text to Ariana and onto the pavement at a crisp sixty miles an hour. (Don’t text and drive, he guessed.) Fuck, why wasn’t there anyone out, it was, like, five! They were headin’ towards a more populated town, he knew. Given the mimes’ dislike of a public stage, that meant that, soon, he’d either be dead or the mimes were about to make the evenin’ news. And Winn still hadn’t figured out why Noah’s mime wa— Aw, goddammit. He knew that scent, mixed with the scent of a dozen or more other animals, but still distinctly Noah. 

Way Winn saw it, he had two options now. Keep drivin’ towards the other man, riskin’ both their lives or… well, actually, he didn’t have much of a choice. The mimercycle caught up to him again, ramming him from the back and almost pitchin’ Winn off his bike. He slammed on the brakes, just enough that he heard the crunch of at least one of the mimes’ bones as it made contact with the metal. He abandoned the bike, running the rest of the way up to the veterinary clinic to greet his friend. “Hey, uh, take this, but do not touch the blade” he said, pullin’ his silver knife out its sheath and pressing it gently into Noah’s hands. “Silent-but-deadly is about to catch up to us. And, like, maybe focus on them instead of me if you don’t want to see my ass again.” Winn kicked off his boots and threw his jacket towards the clinic. This wasn’t how Winn wanted Noah to see the wolf for the first time, but there wasn’t any other choice. He couldn’t — wouldn’t — let Noah get hurt because he was scared. Never again.

Watching as the nightmarish scene played out before his very eyes, Noah couldn’t exactly figure out where to look first. Because in front of him was now a very sweaty looking Winn, his motorcycle, a terrifying mishmash of limbs dressed in black and white stripes, and oh, hey guess what. Looks like those are mimes. Fantastic. Just what he needed. The cherry on top of the perfectly fucked up day. Figuring it was better to roll with the metaphorical punches White Crest was dolling out than even try to question it (because mimes? really?), Noah sprung into action, closing the last few feet between him and Winn (oh hey hello Winn, nice to see you too, next time bring liquor, not not a shitshow of mimes) the wolf inside of him already relishing the possibility of a fight. Taking a split second, however, he looked over Winn, hoping that the other man wasn’t injured or anything, because that would make whatever this was going to turn into just that much harder. But just as soon as Noah finished his visual assessment on the man in front of him, Winn was pressing a blade into his hands, a silver knife to be exact. The thought making Noah’s skin already start to itch. “Wait, Winn, what the hell—” Noah started before Winn simply transformed.

It was near the Moon, a fact that Winn’s wolf was fully and completely aware of. He had time, just barely, to bark out a “Kill your own mime or it’ll come back.” It came out half as a growl, Winn’s teeth and jaw already warping into his lupine form. It was a little painful tonight, Winn noticed. But maybe the wolf was just eager to get its claws into a victim. He flung himself forward, knocking off his own mime, the clusterfuck of the mimercycle speeding along comically and crashing into a trash can sitting outside of the veterinary clinic. Uh-oh. They didn’t look very happy. Fortunately, neither did Noah. The other man was tense — hell, if he were a full wolf, Winn was almost sure he’d have burst into fur already. 

He didn’t have much time to wonder how Noah’s day had been, though, when his own mime slammed back into him, still in human form, just barely knocking the breath out of Winn. Maybe Winn would get lucky. Maybe his mime wasn’t a werewolf-mime, just a really-strong-human-ish-mime. He growled, clawing at the asphalt beneath his paws, rearing up on his leg. Was it too much to ask for his mime to get scared off? Apparently so. The mime grinned, all teeth, but without Winn’s trademark mirth. It was unnerving. And then, it started miming. It was… loading something? Into a… gun? No. Not a gun. A crossbo— Oh, fuck no, not this shit again. Winn’s reaction time, thank fuck, was great as a wolf when he wasn’t drunk as piss, and he rolled out of the way just in time. He heard the “bolt” thunk into something, it slowly fading into corporeality, the contours of the object becoming real. He whined in Noah’s general direction, trying to warn him that these assholes meant business. Why’d his mime get the cool toys?

“Kill your own mime or it’ll come back.” Those were the last words Winn spoke before he turned, body morphing into a full beast. He was hauntingly beautiful like this, Noah would have to give him that. But now was not the time to contemplate just how beautiful your wolf friend was in his other form, or how badly part of your heart ached to join him. Turning toward the mess that was currently trying to excavate itself from behind the dumpster, Noah noticed someone familiar, his trademark dimples somehow menacing on his painted face. Fucking hell, this mime looked like him, this mime looked like HIM. What the actual fuck. But Noah had no time to really contemplate this horrific being in front of him, because as soon as it stood up it was miming something. What, Noah had no clue and no time to find out. Fuckity fuck fuck. Focusing his energy, Noah lunged, trying to put what little knife training he had into practice, but not before the mime swung at him, some sort of invisible weapon tearing at the sleeve of his scrubs and ripping into the flesh of his forearm. Shit. The mime was miming a fucking invisible weapon. Noah’s eyes widened a little bit, fear now clouding his eyes, especially as the other two mimes flailed in the background. Okay, Kalani. Focus. You brought a knife to a mime fight and you are woefully outnumbered. 

Watching as the other two mimes started slowly resembling something more like humanoid beings and less like a collection of limbs, Noah knew what he had to do. And so he did it. He sprinted headfirst towards the obvious danger, throwing the knife as forcefully as he could, body already getting low and bracing for impact. Tackling. He was made for full contact, that much was evident as he rolled through the impact. Luckily the knife had caught in the mime in his shoulder before it had time to swing the invisible weapon at him, knocking it off balance and giving Noah just enough time to tackle. Excellent. Now get out of here and re-group, he urged himself as he scrambled away from, well, himself, hoping he wasn’t about to get jumped by the two other mimes while he was on the ground. 

But luckily, his getaway was smoother than expected, eyes focusing on one thing and one thing only, getting away from the mimes. But not before he saw something manifest next to the pile of mime limbs. It was comical almost how horrifying the manifestation was, jagged nails sticking out of a long bat shaped piece of wood. Yeah, it figured his own mime would conjure up something athletic. Scrambling as fast as he could,Noah grabbed his new weapon, hoping that Winn would forgive him for the change. Because yeah, he wasn’t really good with knives, but he sure as hell could swing a bat. And it was a good thing too, because as he straightened up into a standing position so did the other two mimes.

Winn had about had it with this mime fuckery, and the fight hadn’t even been going on that long. He saw pieces of Noah’s fight, flickering across his eyes as he avoided bolt after bolt, trying to get close to his own mime to get it out of the way. Just for a second, just long enough to help Noah. Three mime demons on one human was not a fair fight, and Winn could get rid of the other two easily enough. He just needed to get there. Winn saw Noah knife the Noah-mime (score one for Kalani), the smell of human blood lighting up his senses as the wind told him of Noah’s injury (ugh, score one for mimes). Damn it. Another bolt thunked into a nearby tree, and Winn decided to focus on his own mime. Noah’s mime was crumpled, momentarily, a few feet away. Winn’s mime had murder in its eyes, the smile gone from its face. Clearly, its memory of the incident with Kaden had left out some key details. Did it really think Winn was an easy target? As if. 

Winn rushed it, snarling and gnashing his teeth. He really hated to do this, but… He dove under one of the bolts as it launched, and latched his teeth into his mime’s leg. There was a flicker of hesitation in his heart, half-sure that biting the mime would hurt him. But fortunately, no such horror happened. He reared up on his hind-legs, spinning in a half circle and launching his mime into Noah’s, both of them rolling in an unholy tangle down the street just enough to (hopefully) give him time. And time he needed. Noah had, somehow, a bat straight off of The Walking Dead, and that motherfucker was currently being swung in the direction of the two minion-mimes. He grunted, landing beside Noah. Time to even the odds. 

Winn feinted at the left mime, the muted fear leading the mime to open its mouth in a silent scream as a hulking wolf-man headed its way, but at the last second he, and his outstretched claws, dove for the mime on the right. It was a close thing, and Winn hoped Noah could deal with the mime-that-who-pissed-itself, but Winn’s claws sank true and deep into the mime’s gut. He stuck his other paw out and into the mime’s stomach, yanking as hard as this form could, and the mime exploded into a puff of black-and-white smoke. One down, three to— Fuck. 

Something slammed into Winn’s side, hard. He rolled, rolled, and stopped, panting. And before him stood himself. Only this time, there was no easy smile, no mimed crossbow. Oh no. The mime had decided to get serious. And that meant Winn staring into his own eyes… as the wolf. A monster, hulking, as warped as Winn was elegant. It was a facsimile, the copy not quite right. Mutilated, likely, by the times it had been thrown around. Its fur was the worst part, striped as all mimes were, lines drawn across its powerful body like a warning. Danger. Where was a Hunter when you needed one?

Finally upright, Noah hardly had any time to take in his surroundings, or address the slippery trickle of blood he could feel slowly sliding down his arm, before a mass of black and white was hurtling toward his menacing imposter, knocking the mime down once again. Winn. He’d forgotten momentarily about the other man — correction, wolf — he was fighting alongside, but he was grateful for the assist nevertheless, especially as the two mime demons started their slow creep towards him, hands already shaping invisible items. Watching Winn out of the corner of his eyes, Noah was determined to bat cleanup (all puns intended) and swung with all his might at the mime Winn had left, resulting in a perfect headshot. And just like that, the demon vanished in a puff of smoke, marking their kill count as two. 

Using this split second of time to catch his breath, Noah looked around, hoping they were somehow winning? That's when he saw it. The grotesque caricature of a werewolf, one might say, striped, lumbering, its back to him, its eyes focused on one thing and one thing only. Winn. It was safe to say Noah didn’t know much about mimes, nor did he know much about werewolves, or the terrifying hybrid of both (yeah, he was going to have nightmares for YEARS). But watching his mime counterpart starting to stand again, hands clawing desperately at his wound, black sludge oozing, no, sizzling slowly out of the edges he knew one thing for sure. He actually did need that knife. Letting go of the bat, Noah dove low towards his own likeness again, bracing for another impact and using his momentum to carry him through. Tackling like this was infinitely harder without pads, but the adrenaline coursing through him refused to let him forget his years of muscle memory as he crashed yet again to the ground on top of 200 pounds of mime. 

Scrambling to get into a sitting position before an all too familiar pair of arms wrapped around him, Noah swung a couple of punches, channeling his own wolfy brute force and aggression to make them count. “Stay DOWN, you fucking MOTHER. FUCKER!” he screamed into his own face, the irony of the moment definitely not lost on him. But, of course, Noah had bigger fish to fry than to think about how much therapy he was going to need after this. Hoping his mime was stunned enough, Noah grabbed the knife and wrenched it out, hands, feet, and legs somehow clambering out of one special hell and into another. But not before he cocked his arm and aimed the already blackened, bloody knife into the meaty striped back of monstrous mime-wolf.

There were things that Winn knew about himself which, considering the crossbow situation, he had to assume that maybe this cursed thing knew too. For example, since the incident with Kaden, he was, ever-so-slightly, weaker on one side. Winn had learned to compensate, and knew that, soon, the Moon would undo the last of the damage the silver had done. The mime, though, wasn’t actually a wolf, and Winn could tell. It was in the way that it moved, the way that it seemed on-edge, even in its pure aggression. Winn, however, was intimately aware of his furrier half. And that was the edge he needed. The wolf inside (outside?) of him was howling, urging him onward to kill, kill, kill. 

Winn clawed once, twice, quickly swiping at the mime. He wasn’t trying to hit it, just throw it off-balance. Wolves were strong, he wouldn’t be able to just tear open its chest. But if he could get it on its back, he could tear out its throat. The soft skin was the weakest point he could think of, and he didn’t have the dagger on him (and he shuddered to think what it might do to him in this form). They went back-and-forth like that, as Winn heard Noah shout at his own double. He couldn’t make it out, too focused, but he could feel the fury from Noah. He wanted to howl in pride. The mime hesitated, hearing the fight behind it (and, oh God, did they care about each other?), and Winn saw his opportunity, sweeping his claws low at the side that Kaden had injured. As he made contact, he felt the mime-wolf tense — not from him, but from a knife to its back. He and Noah had gotten lucky, or maybe they were just in-sync, because the silver dagger sank true. (And Winn shuddered, for just a moment, remembering how the dagger had felt in his own back.) 

But this was his chance. He followed through, tripping the mime up and shoving it hard, on its back. Its mouth opened in a silent scream as the silver jammed deeper into its back, its neck exposed. And Winn went for the kill, snarling as he ripped its throat out, the body fading in striped waves as the mime choked on its own tar. But this wasn’t over, not yet. He needed to help Noah. The dagger laid in front of him, messy and black, and Winn took a chance. Winn made an angry, barking sound, trying to get Noah’s attention, before picking up the knife in his mouth (barely missing the silver of the blade) and flinging it in a high arc through the air. Alright, football boy. Fetch.

Letting the knife quite literally slip out of his hands from all of the mime blood it was drenched in, Noah hoped he had helped in some capacity, the wound in the mime-wolf’s back already bubbling out thick, viscous black sludge. It was almost as if the skin was boiling off, and Noah couldn’t help the shiver that went down his spine. Was this really what happened when real wolves came in contact with silver knives? Because if so, then that was the real scary stuff right there. Bringing his focus back to the task at hand Noah made sure to wipe what he could off his hands on his scrubs, his wolf healing not fast enough to really seal the wound, but just fast enough to keep him from feeling the effects of his blood loss. 

Looking around for the bat from hell, Noah stared in horror as it dawned on him. In his haste to help Winn he’d accidentally thrown the bat towards his mime, not away from him. Fuck his life. Because yeah, he was left weaponless, watching helplessly as his mime-self did not fucking stay down like he had been so kindly asked to do. Hearing the bark from behind him, though, Noah turned just in time to see Winn’s wolf form pitch forward, something silver hurtling in an upward arc towards him. Wait, was that the knife? Oh thank heavens, the flying thing was the knife. Wait… no, no, no, the knife was flying, spinning like an unwieldy bullet, and, oh God, who did Winn think he was? Tom Brady? Because he was most definitely not Tom Brady. No, Noah was trained to go crash crash boom boom, not spinny twirly jumpy catchy. 

But seeing as how the wolf gave him no choice, up Noah went, praying to all that was holy that he could manage to catch the knife on the butt end. It took a second, maybe less before the younger boy completed his jump, hand luckily catching the knife with only minimal damage to the palm of his hand. Readjusting his grip, Noah twisted back toward his own mimesona, its dimples still pulled in that menacing smile. Holding the knife as tightly as he could, Noah sprinted forward, using his own body as a battering ram of sorts before he plunged the knife into the heart of the mime, pitching them backwards and onto the concrete for the third and last time. And just like that, it was over, a pile of oozing black goo where his own grizzly persona had once stood.

Fucking… hell. “I hate mimes,” Winn said — or, well, tried to say. It came out as a whiny, half-growl, the lupine mouth trying to create sounds it was simply incapable of. The wolf was… happy. More or less. Noah wasn’t badly injured, Winn and Noah had defeated their mimes, and Winn’s bike was still in working condition. Winn’s clothes, however, had not survived the experience. And though mime magic (maybe?) had kept the town clear, Winn doubted that his luck would last for much longer. He needed to get inside, and he needed to get inside now. If he were a born wolf, he could transform further, pretend to be… a really big dog? Noah could lie. Hopefully. Maybe. Winn went over to the other man, sniffing at his injury and whining in the back of his throat. It was healing. Not as fast as Winn would heal, in the same situation, but it would be fine. He could tell. Noah was covered in mime goop, though even that was fading into puffs of striped smoke. 

He huffed out a noise, taking Noah into his arms and hugging him as the wolf, careful not to let his claws hurt Noah. He dwarfed the man, in this form, but he could already feel the adrenaline running out of his body. The wolf was tired, and that meant, well, Winn had two options. He could hope that Noah forgave him for yet another incident involving Winn’s dick, or he could run away. Winn knew what he had to do. He picked up Noah quickly, carrying them over to the alleyway beside the clinic, obscured, just barely, by the dumpster that had been shoved in the fight, and turned back, still embracing the other man. He was glad, so glad, that he was okay. He… didn’t know what he would have done if Noah had been hurt. He didn’t know what Noah would have done if Winn hadn’t been there to help fend off the mimes. 

Winn leaned his head into Noah’s shoulder. He smelled, he knew, pretty bad, the mime gunk leaving a stench from the places it had congealed in his fur. If that smell didn’t come out, Winn would have to stand in the rain for the next week. Wet dog was better than dead mime. “So,” he said, after holding Noah for a long moment, “I’m naked, and gross. Do y’all have a shower and, uh, can I borrow your scrubs? Don’t want to ruin a nicer pair of clothes, since those seem not long for this world. I can, uh, I can stay here until it’s all clear. Just bring me, uh, a towel or somethin’?” He was rambling. Winn pulled back from the hug, looking into Noah’s eyes, and feeling that same pull he’d been trying to forget about. Sober, Winn resisted, a half-smile forming on his face. “We kinda kicked ass, huh?”

Even covered in the stupid mime goop, that was already starting to evaporate into oddly striped smoke, Noah couldn’t help but smile. He did it. They did it. How? He didn’t have the slightest clue, but that wasn’t what mattered, in this moment anyway. No what mattered was Winn. As if on cue, Noah felt the wolf’s arms wrap around him, a weird feeling of comfort washing over him. “Hey bud,” he whispered softly, hand reaching up to intertwine into the course fur surrounding Winn’s muzzle. “Really glad you’re okay.” Because he honestly was glad that Winn was okay, relieved even. Because if Winn had… No. He wasn’t going to think about that. He didn’t need to think about that. What he really needed to think about was why in the world he was being lifted into the air?! 

“Holy shit!” Noah exclaimed, clearly not expecting Winn’s wolf to heft him up like a small child, arms and legs flailing (only slightly) out from underneath him. “Winn, what the hell,” he grunted out as he was deposited behind the dirty mime dumpster, somehow now hugging a naked man. Typical Winn Woods. Sighing, the younger man ran a hand though the dirty mop of hair now resting on his shoulder, somehow finding it hard to care too much about the awkward predicament Winn was putting him through right now. It was just nice to be hugged after all, and nice to know they were both not going to be mime dinner. “Yeah, I can find you something to wear, just give me a few seconds to breathe,” he murmured in response to Winn’s plea for clothes, not really wanting this moment to end. But all good moments did have to end sooner or later. 

As Winn pulled away from the hug, another one of Noah’s worst nightmares unfolded before his eyes. “Hello employee, and strange man hugging said employee.” The almost monotone timber and dry cadence rippled through the alleyway, sending chills rippling down Noah’s spine. Dr. Choi. Freezing on the spot, Noah gulped involuntarily, not knowing whether to jump on top of Winn (to cover his nakedness, of course) or to scramble away from him. Shit. “Noah, I’m guessing you’d like a spare pair of scrubs for your guest here, and possibly for yourself?” she continued as she raised a small, thin eyebrow eyebrow in the pair’s direction, apparently unphased by him covered in blood hugging a naked man behind a dumpster. “Uh, yes please.” Looking at Winn and then back to Dr. Choi and then back at Winn again, Noah could feel his brain start to literally malfunction. His mouth was devoid of words, incapable of forming even the smallest sentence so he just nodded instead, hoping that would be enough. “I’ll leave them on the counter next to the dog tub, then,” she replied nonchalantly before turning on her heel and walking back inside the clinic.

“Y’know,” Winn said as Noah led his naked ass into the clinic, “you’re handling my furrier half pretty well.” Hell, Noah had touched him — let Winn touch him — while in that form. Winn felt the warmth from Noah’s hand, still recent on his cheeks, and smiled like a goof. And Noah was havin’ far less of a freakout over Winn’s naked body than the other night. (Though, it likely helped that they’d both just nearly died, that everyone was sober, and that there was no morning wood afterwards this time.) The vet seemed chill in a way that Winn could appreciate… though, almost too chill? He sniffed the air, trying to smell anything odd, but all he could for his trouble was the tarry smell of the mimes. Yuck. 

Winn spotted the dog tub, making a beeline. He’d showered with a hose in the middle of nowhere before, this wasn’t all that different. Out of the corner of his eye, Winn saw Noah about to leave the room, to give him some privacy and whined. Wait, no, human form. Words. “Hey, um… Please don’t leave. I mean, don’t have to scrub my back or nothin’, but, um… Just need to make sure you’re safe. It’s a wolf thing. Kinda. And don’t you want to get a little cleaner, too, bro?” Winn winced, turning on the water and bracing himself against the cold, scrubbing at the occasional scrape that the mimes had torn into his skin, trying to make sure that, at least, the dirt was all out of it before it healed up. He reached over the edge of the tub to swipe some pup shampoo, figuring it was… mostly the same, right? “So, uh, I’m bushed,” Winn said, running his hands through his hair to get whatever remaining muck out. “But I need to borrow your phone for a sec. Mine’s back on the pavement somewhere, and there’s some shit goin’ down, and I need to make sure that everythin’ is alright? I’ll explain, promise.” Clean enough, Winn grabbed the huge towel that the good vet had left for them, knowing that he prolly smelled like a wet dog. Hot. Super great. Good thing Noah was used to the smell. 

He shook his hair out, before drying it off like, y’know, a human, and slipped into the scrubs, back turned to the tub. They were about his size, prolly a spare pair of Noah’s, though the lack of underwear didn’t do any favors for him in the, uh, cling department. Alright, first home, take Noah with him, get them both fed. Provide. Wait, no. He shushed the wolf, even as his stomach growled loudly. Miles, Ariana, and… Ulf, whoever-the-fuck-that-was, were on the case, and Winn knew he’d be next-to-useless now, as beat up as he was. He’d check in with Miles, ASAP, and be there for him and his brother. Like a good packma— Winn paused. Like a good friend. Speaking of friends, though… He turned around. 

Noah’s eyes were closed, and Winn took the opportunity to take in the sight before him for just a moment. The other man was built, he’d known that much, but Winn wasn’t prepared for the curves and edges of the other man’s body. He averted his eyes from Noah’s dangly bits, not wantin’ to be a creep, and his eyes landed on a scar on the Noah’s hip. Old, Winn could tell. From the transplant, then. He felt a flare of anger at Noah’s donor. Saving his life, but dooming him to pain, was irresponsible. Noah should’ve gotten a choice — someone should’ve given him the Bite. Winn needed to bring it up, somehow. But, for now, he threw the towel at the other man. “Dinner time,” he said, a wolfish (ha) grin on his face. “My treat. Make up for all of the, uh, nudity. Unless,” Winn added, before he could stop himself, “ya liked it, that is.” And with a wink, Winn turned around to go find his jacket and boots, and lock up his bike for the night, satisfied by the simple joy of being alive.

“Winn, I just killed a Stephen King-inspired Halloween costume version of myself with my own bare hands,” Noah huffed out, grateful that none of the other techs were poking around to watch him lead a very naked man into the backroom. “Your furry little problem is the least of mine right now.” Because yeah, the grand mindfuckery of a situation that was happening — Winn’s wolf form, as well as his dick being out (again) — was really just turning into a normal day in the life of one Noah Kalani. Well almost. The wolf thing did spark a lot of questions, but one crisis at a time. 

Turning on the faucet in the tub, Noah backed away, despite the small wolfy part of his mind screaming at him not to let his friend out of his sight. But apparently this nice human-focused gesture wasn’t needed. “It's a wolf thing.” Winn explained almost nonchalantly, and Noah hadn't even realized those were the words he had been searching for until they were hanging in the air between them. It's a wolf thing. The idea itself wasn't strange, no. Noah had been using that as an excuse for years, but it was strange to have something that usually only existed inside his own mind uttered back to him, and by someone so casually. 

Glancing over at Winn as he scrubbed himself down, Noah allowed himself a lingering glance, something about this more raw encounter different than all the other times he’d seen Winn. And maybe that was because Noah was finally truly seeing. Seeing the possibilities, as well as vulnerabilities of Winn Woods, the other man’s body in various stages of healing, and an angry bite scar maring the skin of his right hip. A small blush that colored Noah’s cheeks. Winn was actually really beautiful in his human form. But he’d also been beautiful as a wolf, that much was true. 

Pushing this new strange dichotomy out of his mind, Noah gingerly stripped off his scrubs, intent on ridding himself of any and all lingering mime. Handing Winn his phone he’d retrieved from the bench before they’d gone inside, Noah jumped into the tub that Winn had so graciously vacated, trying to make his time in the dog shower as quick as possible. Catching the towel that was thrown at him, Noah dried, giving Winn a playful eye roll as he did. “Your nudity is about as welcome to me as those mimes were,” he lied, jumping into his new pair of scrubs and following the other man out of the door with a grin. It had been a rough day but, somehow, it was starting to look better.

[ngame989]

Post-Canon Project teaser/preview

So I’m still not ready to reveal the full details of the post-canon project, but as I said before it’s a comic/fic hybrid. A little bit more of a tease on this: the fanfic portion of it will be disconnected oneshots, each of which is connected to something in the comic (which itself is gonna be a fairly cut and dry linear story). 

Obviously the nature of a canon-compliant postcanon work requires all of canon to be released to be fully compliant, so a lot of the details can’t be worked out until after the show’s over. But there’s a lot of stories I’ve wanted to tell and ideas I’ve been sitting on for a while that are gonna get worked into this, and given the current state of affairs in the show, I figured a preview would be in order. It’s only one scene of a handful planned for a single oneshot of many, and I don’t have a title yet, but here’s some Starco fluff. (fun fact I wrote at least part of the second paragraph while in the presence of Daron Nefcy herself and wrote the rest at 5 AM while waiting for my morning flight out of LAX)

Star Butterfly was sure of only a few things in life: cake is the best kind of breakfast, wood deserves to be destroyed at every opportunity, she loved Marco, Marco loved her - just some basic truths she could always rely on. Certainty was a lofty bar, but if she died right now and went straight to heaven, she was almost certain she’d Narwhal Blast her way down through the clouds to get back to Earth as quickly as possible. Star wasn’t sure why, really; it was nowhere near her first kiss, still far from her first kiss with Marco, and it wasn’t even their first time getting a bit… heated. Of course she always enjoyed it, but why did everything feel amplified tenfold?

Her train of thought was delightfully derailed when Marco broke their nth kiss of the evening – she’d lost count of how many quite a while ago. She pushed herself back up on her elbows and knees and gazed lovingly at her boyfriend beneath her on the bed, his brown eyes and visibly flushed cheeks standing out against the baby blue of his pajamas and bed sheets. So cute, her mind purred. His hands lingered on her cheeks for a few more seconds before they reached up to try and corral a few stray blonde hairs that draped down near his face. His brow furrowed as he struggled to tame her mane; it could have killed the mood after the first few failed attempts, but tonight Star found herself with a slowly spreading dopey smile on her face watching Marco struggle to neaten her up. “Hi,” she giggled after a long few moments, leaning down to kiss him on the nose.

Another large strand of hair draped onto him; his visage took on a determined look as he puffed some air to move it. “Hi”, he responded, satisfied with his efforts and finally returning her grin. They stayed like this, just basking in their goofy intimacy in the starlight twinkling through the window. Whatever feeling she had earlier was still slowly smoldering inside, but the spreading warmth instantly ignited when Marco wrapped his arms around her and pulled her down on top of him, resuming their kissing with renewed ardency. Her eyes shut as she tried to just tune out the world and experience nothing but Marco, but she could still process the fuzzy hue of her cheekmarks which were now softly aglow. The lingering scent of shampoo or soap, some variant of cinnamon, was something she’d no doubt smelled countless times before, but in the moment it was intoxicating. Instinct took over, and Star’s instincts in this field all tended to lead to one particular place. One hand, then another, slipped their way under his pajama shirt, tracing the area where another dimension’s Marco might have had rock-hard abdominals... not to say current Marco didn’t have his merits, either. A tingling sensation, one that she wasn’t entirely unfamiliar with, pricked her skin all over when one of Marco’s hands moved upward to tangle itself in her hair and bring them ever closer. When that vague tingling began to feel like sharp TV static, it moved into unfamiliar territory, and when it then concentrated on her arms she finally began to worry. She opened her eyes, still maintaining the kiss, and moved a hand up to the back of Marco’s head to inspect the situation while idly twirling a lock of his hair.

Upon seeing a lone golden heart manifest on her wrist, she started suddenly enough that her forehead collided with Marco’s. “Ow, Star, ow, what the-“

“SorryMarcoyou’rewonderfulbutIneedtousethelittlegirlsroom-“ she blurted out, not even making it halfway through her excuse before bouncing off the bed, propelling herself into the bathroom with a magic blast before slamming the door, leaving a dazed Marco breathing heavily on the bed. Star took a moment to calm herself before assessing the situation – only a single golden heart, thankfully. When she peeled it away, a new one formed on the back of her other wrist, and the overall sensation didn’t seem to be subsiding. She kept trying and failing to win this game of whack-a-heart until she could barely manage to contain a frustrated scream. Finally she at least managed to relocate it to the inside of her wrist; she slumped against the counter in relief before her eyes shot back open - she did really have to use the bathroom.

“Is everything OK?” he called out, which she only barely caught over the toilet flushing and faucet running.

Star weighed her options carefully. Should she lie? Marco would probably see right through her. ‘Fess up for real? Yeah, no, awkward conversations about Mewman girl problems were the last thing she wanted to bring up now. What about excuses? She sighed and considered her options… oh no. Not that. Anything but that… but she had to, it was the only way. Alright Star, you can do this. Rip that band-aid off. You were gonna tell him sooner or later, after all, might as well bite the bullet now. She splashed a bit of water into her face, shoving aside visions of Marco leaving her forever, finally giving the mirror a stern look as she did a little dance to hype herself up. With a solemn determination, she exited the bathroom and walked back over to the bed.

“Star?” Marco was sitting up now, fidgeting with a clearly concerned expression on his face.

Star took a deep breath before looking him dead in the eyes. “Well, it miiiiight be because… you see... I drank our whole stash of Mountain Mew earlier.”

Marco’s eyebrow shot up. “...that’s it? Uh, OK, I guess? Explains why you’re so jittery,” he said with a shrug. He was halfway to lying down on the bed before he sprang back up, eyes wide as he pivoted to look directly at Star. “Wait, all of it? Even the limited edition Caja Clash?” She merely responded with a guilty lopsided smile, eyes downcast. “Staaaaaar... It’s so hard to find that since Quest Buy closed…” he groaned and slumped back into the pillows.

“It’s just so delicious, Marco! Ugh, it was dumb, I’m sorry, I always tell myself ‘just one more’ but then-”

“Star,” he said firmly to cut off her imminent rambling. After a long moment, during which Star finally managed to still herself, he warily smiled. “Don’t beat yourself up over it, I’m sure we can find more somewhere. Maybe Tom has connections or something. Besides, I hid some in case something like this happened, so we can just-”

“Well, about that…”

“Decoy backup stash,” Marco stated flatly. “Good thing Janna hates the stuff, though, or else there’s be no hope for any of it.” Star snickered, relieved that she hadn’t screwed everything up. He shuffled under the covers and gave her an expectant look, at which she crawled in beside him. They shared one last quick kiss before she turned around and wiggled herself into his arms for their usual night-time cuddles.

“I know how you can get with sugar and caffeine, so try and actually get some sleep, OK?”

“Yeah, I will.”

“G’night, Star, love you.”

“Love you too,” she sighed out, the unease from earlier slowly being dispelled. It had to be the soda, right? It still nagged at her a little bit, but it was more comfortable believing that things feeling weird tonight was all some dumb delicious soda’s fault. Maybe it wasn’t certain, but it was easy, and giving in to that idea calmed her until sleep finally came.

If she’d been able to stay awake, Star might have noticed the second and third hearts that sprung up when she nestled herself deeper into Marco’s embrace.

[iamnesta]

SUMMER. (pt. 1)

Prompt: “You’re hiding something and I don’t know what it is but I’m sick of the lies.”

Pairing: Sam Wilson x Reader (gender neutral)

Word Count: 2.9k+

Warnings: Mild language. Infinity War spoilers. 

A/N: Sam Wilson deserves more love, so I decided to write about him for @hollandroos‘s 12k Writing Challenge. This piece takes place after Thanos’s snap and describes Sam’s time in the afterlife or whatever parallel universe the soul stone took him to. I may have used Anthony Mackie’s comment about Jamaica from the dreaded ACE Comic Con panel as inspiration. I apologize in advance if this fanfic is boring; it’s more of a character-driven story than a plot-driven story. Anywho, I hope I do Sam’s character justice, as this is my first time writing for him. Enjoy!

Read on Ao3

***

Death was far less painful than Sam Wilson imagined it would be. He had been dragging himself across the forest floor of Wakanda, his fingers clutching at dirt and brush as he desperately tried to haul himself upright, and then — nothing. Darkness enveloped his mind and body, caressing his skin and pressing chilly kisses against his cheeks. He felt weightless, his limbs held aloft by some unknown force, the once-incessant pounding in his skull now gone. If he had known dying would be this pleasant, Sam would never have feared it. He may have even welcomed it.

Thoughts drifted through Sam’s head but floated away before they fully formed. Soon, he had no recollection of who he had once been. His struggles and successes were eaten up by that soft, encompassing darkness until he was nothing but a name. The rage and guilt and sorrow that had plagued Sam when he was alive vanished, and the sensation was so liberating that he did not notice when he could no longer recognize his friends’ laugher or his mother’s face.

All of Sam’s cares and worries had spiraled into nothing like smoke on a summer breeze; he lost any concept of time as seconds or hours or decades passed. Eventually, the comfort of cold shadows slowly melted away and Sam’s body began to regain its normal heaviness, though his soul remained airy and light and empty.

Wooden slats dug into Sam’s bare back as he lay beneath a harsh sun that heated his bones. A salty wind lazily soothed the sweat already beginning to pinprick Sam’s skin, the sound of gulls and gently rolling waves lapping against a sandy shore reawakening his senses. He cracked his eyes open, blinking rapidly and bringing a hand up to protect his gaze from the bright white light that beat down on him.

Sam eased himself into a seated position, observing the reclined chair beneath him and the thin linen shorts he wore. In front of him a calm blue-green ocean burbled happily, and everywhere else there was fine, pale sand that stretched for miles. For as far as Sam could see, the beach was flat and empty, completely devoid of any life other than himself.

Once, Sam might have found the abandoned expanse of land and utter lack of human voices or activity to be eerie. But as he swung his legs over the side of the chair and buried his toes in the scalding sand, all Sam felt was peace within his deceased heart.

With nothing else to do, Sam began to walk along the surf of the sea, savoring every deep inhale of briny air.

He walked until the sun fell and the sky blackened, billions upon billions of stars blinking to life. Sam was not tired, but he lowered himself to the ground nonetheless, curling up in the frothing foam and willing his eyelids to slide shut.

The warm water crept forward, sliding over Sam’s legs and shoulders and neck. Salt clung to his lips, although perhaps the saline was from the tears sliding down the bridge of his nose rather than the ocean waves. Sam did not know why he was crying, as he had no memories, but the sobs wracked his entire body. He wrapped his arms around his knees and hugged himself tight, his breath slowing as sleep claimed him.

***

Sam was sixteen and sitting in the kitchen of his childhood home in Harlem. He was wearing ratty plaid pajama pants and a t-shirt depicting the album art of an old jazz musician as he hurriedly shoveled cereal into his mouth. He was hoping to finish breakfast and slip out the back door before —

“Sam, baby?” His mother poked her head into the cramped kitchen, immediately frowning when she saw him scarfing down cheerios in his sleepwear. “Why aren’t you dressed?”

Glancing guiltily at his mother’s church attire and the decorative blue hat she held in her hands, Sam said, “I’m not going to church today, Mama.”

Mrs. Wilson’s face twisted and her cheeks reddened as if she had just been slapped. Her voice was low and deadly, fury fluttering beneath her words as she uttered, “Excuse me?”

Sam sat up a little straighter. “I said I’m not going to church with you.”

A child’s hands appeared, little fingers grasping at her mother’s skirt as Sarah Wilson peered into the room to stare at her eldest brother. From the hall, Minister Wilson called, “Is everybody ready? If we don’t leave soon, we’re gonna be late.”

Sam’s mother crossed her arms, her eyes narrowing. “Samuel says he ain’t goin’. Thinks he’s above the Lord, now.”

“Mama,” Sam tried to protest, his spoon falling from his hand and hitting the bottom of the bowl noisily.

Another head poked its way into the kitchen doorway, and the middle Wilson child declared, “If Sam’s not goin’ to church, then I’m not either!”

Mrs. Wilson gave Sam a withering glare before turning and saying in a placating voice, “Gideon, baby, if you wanna be a minister like your daddy then you gotta go to church.”

Gideon looked down, kicking at the floor with the toe of one of his scuffed dress shoes. “I don’t wanna be a minister like Daddy,” he said under his breath.

Before Mrs. Wilson could start yelling, Minister Wilson squeezed himself into the doorway. He placed one of his large hands on his wife’s shoulder and ruffled his daughter’s messy curls with the other. “What’s going on?”

“Tell your eldest son to get off his ass and get ready for church,” Mrs. Wilson demanded.

Minister Wilson tilted his head to one side, squinting his eyes and running his tongue along his lower lip like he always did when he was thinking. “What’s wrong, son?”

Sam slouched in his chair, the woven wicker seat groaning beneath him. “I just don’t wanna go,” he muttered.

“What was that, boy?” Mrs. Wilson snapped.

“Hey, now,” Minister Wilson tried to cool his wife’s temper before it could fully explode.

Mrs. Wilson stepped away from her husband’s touch and stalked closer to Sam, her expression stormy. “I just don’t understand why Samuel thinks he’s so high an’ mighty all of a sudden,” she seethed, “What’s wrong with goin’ to church, huh? Got a problem with God?”

Sam’s nostrils flared, his jaw clenching with anger. His gaze darted to his father, who was still contemplating the situation at hand, before returning to his livid mother. “I ain’t got a problem with God, Mama.”

“Then what is it?” She snarled. “I didn’t raise no heathen.”

Uncoiling from the corner of the kitchen that he had shrunken into, Sam sprung to his feet and yelled, “It’s not God, Mama, it’s you! I got a problem with you. You act like there ain’t nothin’ wrong so long as we got food on the table and the Lord up above. You’re blind, Mama! People — our people — are dying out there and you just turn the other way be-because what? You think black men and women would stop being shot at if they started prayin’ like you do? I’m sorry, but that’s bullshit!”

“You watch your mouth, boy,” Mrs. Wilson breathed, fury simmering in her deep brown gaze. Beside her, Gideon’s face was torn between awe and horror at his brother’s recklessness, and Sarah looked like she was about to cry. 

Minister Wilson had been watching the exchange very carefully, his infinite wisdom missing nothing. He cleared his throat. “Darlene,” he said sharply, “Let’s get goin’ now. I got a service to preach in fifteen minutes. Samuel’s old enough to make his own decisions; he can stay home if he wants to.”

Mrs. Wilson gritted her teeth but didn’t argue. “Sarah, Gideon, let’s go,” she ordered, taking each of them by the hand and storming out of the room. Neither child dared to argue as they scrambled to keep up with their mother.

Sam slowly met his father’s gaze, his shoulders tense with fear of what he would say. Minister Wilson, however, simply looked sad. Understanding filled his eyes, and he gestured for his son to come forward. Sam tentatively stepped in front of his father. He froze with surprise as Minister Wilson swept him into a tight embrace. When the shock wore off, Sam wrapped his arms around his father’s shoulders.

“I know it’s not easy, son,” Minister Wilson murmured, his voice thick with emotion, “The world is a fucked up place and your mama…well, she doesn’t always know how to cope with it.” Minister Wilson pulled away so he could examine Sam properly. Tears shone in both of their eyes. “Stay strong for me, Sam-boy, a’ight? We’ll make it through this.”

Sam nodded, not trusting himself to speak without crying. With a final smile, Minister Wilson clapped Sam on the shoulder and left. This would be the last time Sam ever saw his father.

***

A gull shrieked and a violent wave crashed against the sand, startling Sam awake. He gasped, his throat working, his fists opening and closing, all of his muscles tight from a visceral reaction to a dream he could not remember. Squinting up at the sun, his brain wracked itself for some recollection of the images that had played on the backs of his eyelids just moments before. But nothing surfaced, and the hollowness that rested beneath Sam’s ribcage remained.

Beside him, a page crinkled as it turned.

Sam scrambled to sit up and looked over at the source of the noise. You sat atop a wooden chair identical to his, your legs crossed one over the other and a magazine balanced on your knees. Oversized sunglasses perched themselves on the bridge of your nose, but your feet were bare and you wore an outfit made of the same white linen as Sam’s shorts. You licked your slightly chapped lips and turned another page.

“Hello,” Sam said, his voice rough with disuse. You did not reply; you didn’t even glance his way. Frowning, Sam slid his legs off the side of his chair so that he way fully facing you. He cleared his throat and tried again: “Hello.”

A sigh hissed through your teeth. “Hello,” you echoed, your attention never drifting from the magazine.

Many quiet minutes passed. You continued flipping pages and Sam stared at you as if expecting you to start explaining who you were and what this place was. When you didn’t speak up, Sam introduced himself, “My name is Sam. Sam Wilson.”

You chewed the inside of your cheek, contemplating whether or not you should reply. Finally, you said, “I’m (Y/N).”

“Where are we?” Sam asked.

“Paradise.” Your gaze flickered briefly toward him. “Yours, specifically.”

Sam’s forehead creased as his brows drew together in confusion. “I’m sorry?”

It was as if Sam’s mind was short circuiting. He had no idea what events had led to his arrival in this so-called paradise, but when he pressed his fingers to the inside of his wrist, the shadow of a pulse still persisted. If he was not dead, then he must be —

A bitter smile twisted your mouth, your focus never shifting from the magazine in your lap. “You aren’t dreaming.”

Sam’s expression remained baffled. “If this is my paradise,” he said slowly, “Then why are you here?”

You coughed, amusement coloring your words as you replied, “I would imagine it’s difficult to come up with entirely unique utopias for half the universe. But I’ll try not to be too offended that you’d rather spend eternity alone.”

“Eternity?” Sam echoed, that dreadful, lonely word heavy with despair.

There was a pause. Then, rather abruptly, you snapped your magazine shut and stood up. Folding the glossy papers and tucking them beneath your arm, you tilted your head and gestured toward Sam with coaxing fingers. “Follow me.”

Sam obliged, trailing after you as you led him away from the water. The journey proceeded in silence, the only sounds coming from the shifting sand underfoot. After what felt like hours, you stopped atop a particularly large dune, smiling softly as Sam’s feet froze and his jaw dropped. Before him lay a sprawling oasis, towering palm trees casting shade over tiny waterfalls that cascaded into a natural pool of sparkling blue. A quaint, wooden structure with a straw roof and honey-gold fairy lights dotting the porch railing overlooked the slice of perfection.

You spread your arms wide and said proudly, “Welcome to your paradise, Sam Wilson. It takes the form of wherever you feel most at peace.”

A low, impressed whistle slipped from Sam’s lips, and he felt as if he were levitating as he entered the oasis. The beauty of the land surrounding him was more than surreal — it was impossible. But as you pushed past him and marched over to the glittering pool, Sam forgot about impossibility and instead joined you by the rocks bordering the water.

Sitting on a large, flat stone, you dangled your feet in the pool, kicking them absentmindedly and creating ripples along the otherwise tranquil surface. The magazine from earlier was once again open and resting upon your thighs, your rapt gaze fervently scanning its pages.

Sam lowered himself beside you, leaving a comfortable space between your bodies. He stole glances at the paper that had ensnared your attention, but the magazine appeared to be entirely blank; each page that you flipped was completely white. He couldn’t help but wonder aloud, “Why’re you reading a blank magazine?”

You blinked up at him, looking mildly surprised. “Is that what you see?”

Sam frowned, scooting closer to you by a fraction of an inch. “What are you seeing?”

Taking one last peek at the magazine before shutting it and setting it out of reach, you gave Sam a strained smile that didn’t quite meet your eyes. But your voice still sounded cool and unruffled as you replied, “Just a blank magazine. Shall we?” You gestured toward the glinting water.

Something snagged in Sam’s mind, and he couldn’t help the inexplicable apprehension that washed over him. The feeling was heavy, palpable — he could taste the wrongness on his tongue. But the more he tried to place where the foreboding in his gut had come from, the less it seemed to plague him. Eventually the sensation wilted and withered away, the lingering residue of uneasiness gobbled up by the glaring sun.

Shaking himself out of his daze, Sam squinted at you. “Sorry?”

You let out a breathy laugh and pushed yourself off the rock, gracefully slipping into the pool. “Come on,” you urged him, “It’s nice.”

Sam sighed, but followed you nonetheless. The water was not very deep, and only reached the middle of his torso. Small waves lapped at his ribcage, the temperature pleasant and cooling in the dense heat. He peered down at his hands through the translucent, aquamarine water, the corners of his lips tugging upward in a bemused smile at the sight of his fingers appearing to ripple and bend.

When Sam lifted his gaze, he found you already watching him from where you stood a few feet away. You looked pensive, your brows pinched and your mouth pulled into a tiny frown. Sensing his shift in focus, you quickly wiped away your concern. “Eternity here doesn’t seem so bad, right?” You asked, trying to keep your words casual and devoid of the hope that gripped your heart.

Tipping his head back and closing his eyes, Sam breathed deeply. “I guess it could be worse.”

Without even thinking about it, you confessed, “Honestly, this place is everything I needed after what happened.” 

The instant the sentence left your lips you knew it had been a mistake. You swore inwardly, mentally bashing yourself for your stupidity. Sam straightened abruptly, his attention snapping to you. His voice was low as he uttered, “What?”

You shrugged, suddenly finding your nails extremely interesting. Your eyes darted to him before swiftly lowering once more. “Never mind.”

Sam surged toward you, ignoring your alarm as you steadily backed away. He halted when you were pressed against the edge of the spring and he could feel your rapid breathing on his chest. He didn’t say anything for a moment, fighting the startling impulse to glance down at your body, which was now on full display since the water had turned your white clothes transparent. He struggled to keep his voice even and prayed that he wasn’t staring at your lips as he demanded, “What do you mean after what happened?”

You gulped nervously. “I don’t — nothing. I don’t know. Forget it.”

The two of you lapsed into a tense silence, frozen in place and unwilling to back down. Finally, you tore your gaze away from Sam’s and looked toward the sky. Calmly, you remarked, “It’s going to rain tomorrow.”

Sam glanced upward. The sky was an endless swath of cloudless, brilliant blue. “Doesn’t look like it,” he told you.

A taunting smirk quirked your lips. “Wanna bet?”

With an annoyed grunt, Sam turned away. You watched as he heaved himself out of the pool and onto the rocky shore, water sluicing off his body and dripping in his wake as he began to walk away. “I’m gonna go explore,” he said over his shoulder.

Your shoulders slumped with disappointment, although you weren’t entirely sure why you were so crestfallen to see him leave. It wasn’t like you were friends with him; all you knew about Sam was what you remembered from when you were alive, and your memory was hazy at best.

You sighed. “Have fun,” you called dully after Sam.

***

Part Two (coming soon!)

[painfulelegy]

A real fun time with @frostlocke, we had an extensive playtime, wherein I had a wonderful time smushing them into the perfect base for a toyfriend~. I can't wait till they're done at the factory perfecting her toyline, then we can have our fun datey playtime~.

   Frost had finally arrived at the address listed on their phone. They had recently begun trying out for a new jobs search program put out by major multi-industry corporation, ReesCo, and while most of the jobs seemed bland, one of them truly stuck out: "Play Tester". Its font and page layout was much brighter and sillier than the formatting most of the other jobs listed, and best of it, it was excellent 20 dollars an hour at start… just for playing games! If that wasn’t enough to at least peer into, then nothing was. Finally looking at the place in question, it didn't really seem to him like the facade of a game dev studio, especially with a spurious name like ‘Hoffi's Arena’. He raised an eyebrow, being more than a bit wary... but for $20 an hour, he was willing to ignore his concerns long enough to give this place a chance. Maybe it was worth it. He went up to the door and let himself in, assuming the door was unlocked since that's how a normal business would operate.

   Stepping inside gave way to an environment was cool and clear, the small front room modest in style. There were a couple coffee tables littered with light literature, what looked to be comic books and graphic novels; surrounded with plush, yet playful chairs. The rest of the room was fairly neat and tidy, the only real present decoration being the case holding several ostentatiously patterned rubber balls. The desk itself seemed empty, but upon closer inspection, it appeared to be fully automated. Huh, kinda cute, he supposed. Heading up to the desk, he tried to get its attention. "Hello? I'm here for the job listing? It says here you wanted to hire a playtester?"

   The automated system played some light music, before suddenly jarring, the large, double sided door to the side busting open. From it sprung a small, very shiny, tan individual, whose presence radiated a manic feeling. "Did I hear that someone's here for the new playtester position~? :]" They asked, eager to see why the system had rung.

   Frost was... a bit taken back by them. For starters, they were hurting his eyes, and he adjusted his glasses, tint allowing him to see properly. More importantly... "Did you just... speak an emoticon?" They hadn't spelled out the symbols used, Frost just somehow heard them say... ":]". Furrowing his brow, he adjusted his posture. "Though yes, I was interested in doing an interview for the playtester position. My name is Locke, though most people call me Frost." He held out his hand for a handshake.

   Hoffi smiled widely, gripping frost's hand, then yanking them over, using the leverage to flip onto the reception desk. "Yes, I did~. And it's really, really nice to meet you mistah Frost~" Hoffi kicked her legs energetically, hands on the table. "I'm the owner of this place...” she paused for a moment, “well, technically the owner, but close enough~!" She giggled, "You look like a fun person already, and cute too; sooo..." she hung on her words a moment, tapping her finger to her lip, "you're hired!"

   "...uh." Frost suddenly had several questions. You aren't going to run a background check? Why aren't there any other employees? Why are you only "technically" the owner? You aren't going to let me know what the job actually entails? Is this actually a business or a front for some drug cartel? Despite all that... one question seemed more important than any other. "I kinda assumed you'd tell me your name?"

   "Heheheh, silly me!" the little rubbery enbie giggled before bending backwards into a front flip, landing cleanly on the ground right in front of their applicant. "My name's Hoffi, the namesake of this place, of course!" She said, beaming happily, hands on her hips in a seemingly 'commanding' position; or at least a child's interpretation of it.

   "...right. Hoffi, are you the...only person here? There isn't anyone above or below you that I could speak to?" He doubted her title, given her extremely diminutive size, build, and general attitude; but didn't want to call her out directly just in case she actually was the owner.

   "Nope, no one else here right now~ Just you, me and the automated systems~" Hoffi giggled, innocent gleam radiating from her face. "I, like, work my best when I have the space to be freeee~!" She said as she twirled once in place. "And I love encouraging that in new prospects as well~!"

   That was incredibly suspicious. Very suspicious, to the point where the paycheck was feeling a bit non-worth. Still... it's entirely possible she's just wrong. If he could access the database and do some snooping, he could verify what she was saying. Or at the very least confirm they have a functioning bank account. Frost mulled, before addressing the shiny enbie. "Hmm... mind if I try something?" He looked over the counter. "I'd kinda like to try using the computer manually."

   Hoffi looked quizzically at frost before her face adjusted back to an average smile. "Alrighty, but I don't know if you can really do anything with it~." She said teasingly, "It is fully automated, so I don't mess with it~ " She stood aside, letting frost make his way to the computer interface. "Though, why do you want to use it?" she asked inquisitively, having scrambled her way up on the desk again.

   Hmm...excuses, excuses... "I bought taffy and I want to see if it got delivered to my house yet." He responded, slightly nervous that his weak response would be insufficient for her.

   "ooh, taffy! Go right ahead~!" Hoffi glimmered, watching intently as they went to work on the computer. He was hoping she'd be at least ten feet away, but it seemed like she wasn't looking very closely at the screen anyways; even if she was, she probably wouldn't recognize what he was doing. Pulling out a little USB stick from his sleeve, he carefully slotted it in, activating the program of his own design held within it. In a matter of moments, it begun its task, burrowing under as many locks and firewalls as possible, circumventing the security and giving him access to the information contained within. In effect, it was a much more direct and practical search engine, letting him find... basically whatever he wanted to find. Thankfully, his recent efforts into updating it were enough that even if they had an advanced antivirus, it didn't seem to be able to detect his suspicious activity.

   Frost decided to search for the terms "hoffi", "employee", and "profile," seeing if he could pull up Hoffi's employee profile or the profile of any other employees working here. His program’s digging seemed to pull up a good amount of data as it produced a list of employee files were listed for short term contracts, each with a different project under the belt. Something about the names seemed familiar, but not in terms of gaming, however that was no matter for now when they had more important information: facts about hoffi themselves. No major employee profile came up, but rather a list of records noting their permissions and lack of permissions in the facility, and a user denotation of 'Facility Manager' amongst the jargon. Everything else seemed somewhat sparse, as the USB program suddenly seized up, halting as it tried to access external server information, before propping up a notation about the privacy rights of ReesCo industries, LLC on the screen.

   Hoffi watched in awe and amazement as they couldn't tell what Frost was really doing, just that it seemed really cool. "Cool~ Now I really wanna play with you, cause that's awesome!" She said, even her relaxed posture not allowing for a relaxed tone.

   The short search didn’t give Frost much, but it gave him enough. If he had to guess, Hoffi was a surname and this was the owner's...daughter? And she was given a fake title to keep her amused while actual business was handled elsewhere. Or maybe she was in charge of finding employees or something; but whatever. He was content to humor her until an actual employee showed up. "Yeah okay, I think I'm ready to ‘play’ now. Though, don't I need to sign a contract first?"

   Hoffi held for a moment before realizing, and snapping her fingers. "Ah, right! I completely forgot about that. the computer should handle that for you~!" She said, shifting over and pushing frost, before pressing a button, relocking the computer’s interface onto a page that was a form with several fields. "Just put in your application information, and we can get the boring business part over with, and get back to playing~!"

   Frost spent roughly 15-20 minutes filling out his information on the form... Full Name, Address, Resume, Bank Account Information, Owned Game Consoles, Cuteness Of Pets, Total Comic Books Owned... Favorite Food... okay was he signing up for identity theft or what? Ugh, whatever, this seemed just as official as the documents he spied on so it was probably legitimate. Maybe these were more concessions to entertain his daughter. All the while, Hoffi continued to kick her legs back and forth and hum as she waited, eagerly watching for the moment he was done.

   "Hooray, now we can get to the fun stuff!" She said, flipping off the desk, and swinging around Frost's neck and shoulders, her breasts pressing against his back, not as soft and supple as what one would normally expect, along with an oddly smooth feeling as the arms slid around his exposed neck. Releasing, she flipped in front of him, excitedly moving her arm to direct him to the doors she first came through. "This way~!"

   "...you don't really know what personal space is, do ya?" Frost rolled his eyes, following her gesture as he went through the doors with Hoffi clinging much too close to him for his tastes. Hoffi simply stuck out her tongue as she parted slightly from Frost, taking to skipping through the hall. after they were a few feet in, the automated doors shut behind them, leaving the two to move through the oddly spacious corridor, decorated with various pictures of sporting events and equipment, leading to a large pair of doors. the slope of the hall had gotten steeper as they had walked what was clearly much further than the seeming length of the building, hoffi's excited singlemindedness keeping her cheerfully directing him.

   Observing all the sports regalia on the wall, Frost remarked. "so... normally when people want to hire a ‘playtester,’ the idea is that they're going to be doing quality assurance on video games." Frost kept himself steady as they were eventually walking down a ramp. "Can't help but notice that there doesn't seem to be any game development stuff at all. What exactly am I playtesting?"

   Hoffi giggled, "I'll show you," she said excitedly, their presence at the second large door triggering its opening. As the opening widened, the lights inside propped on one by one, revealing a large gymnasium court, seemingly similar to any one you'd find elsewhere, though small glimmers about it seemed different between them.

   Frost looked around, a bit disappointed. "All that hype for a high school gymnasium? Okay, I guess. Not exactly good at any sports though, so..."

   Hoffi cut him off, "That's fine, I'm sure you'll get the hang of it soon enough~! " and gave him a shove, well past the door frame. Following suit, she continued her acrobatic tricks into the room, the doors shutting behind them. Finally inside, the plethora of fancier devices, monitors and speakers were clear. This may have had the aesthetic of a plain old gym, but it was clearly far more than state of the art. "Welcome to the playroom~!" Hoffi giggled, arms held out in the air. "So, what do you think~?"

   "...I feel like you expect me to be a lot more wow'd than I am." Frost casually strode around, trying to get a better look at one of the devices. "Like, it's cool and all, but your constant pauses make it seem like you're expecting me to be picking my jaw up off the floor." Frost was... being a bit of a downer, but he was once again doubting his pay considering athleticism was never brought up before now.

   Hoffi slumped for a moment, disappointed in it, before snapping back to her cheerful self. "Aww, that's a shame, but I guess that means we can go right to playing~!" She took to an excited stance once more. Frost sighed, looking down at his outfit. A hoodie and jeans weren't exactly exercise gear. Then again... asking for gym clothes felt like an obvious trap, so he decided to keep his mouth shut and wait for Hoffi to start a game. Mulling for a moment, Frost lost sight of Hoffi, before suddenly…

   WHAP! a sharp sting suddenly struck him in the back of the head, throwing him off balance. Frost very quickly found himself face-first in the linoleum, knocked so swiftly to the ground his feet had flipped up above him before he flopped down onto the floor. "...OW." Frost struggled, trying to look over his shoulder to see what happened.

   Hoffi stood several feet away, her left hand raising to shoulder level. "You're not very good at this, but that's why we're playtesting~!" She giggled at her own joke, "now then, we start for reals~!" In an instant, she flicked her wrist, a green sphere conjuring within it. With a hard rotation of her arm, the ball soared through the air, flying right at Frost!

   “Woah!” Frost scrambled to his feet, doing his best to leap out of the way. "Wh… don't I need to know the rules to be able to playtest??" Hoffi was winding up her next throw, before stopping stiff. Returning to a standing position, she tapped her finger on her mouth.

   "Oh, right! The rules are simple. I throw these balls, you try to dodge them. The longer you dodge, the better you do. That's how we playtest..." she paused for a moment, before resuming her wild throw, doing a spinning flip. "...YOU!"

   "...WHAT?" Frost leapt out of the way of another throw. "Why am I being tested?! That's not how a job works, and that's not how… okay this isn't even a real fucking company, is it?" Urgh... Frost was too agitated to properly finish his retort, instead reaching up his sleeves to activate some gadgets. Small thrusters to make large precise leaps, stabilizers to be able to change trajectory in midair, and he tweaked his glasses to try and start predicting how Hoffi's balls would arc. Dammit... maybe if he could get to the doors, he could escape?

   "Because, you're the newest toy... and my newest playmate!" Hoffi giggled, deftly jumping backwards, conjuring and tossing more rubber spheres at moderately fast speeds. "It's no good if my fellow toys aren't as fun as I am! Hihihihihhi~ " She continued to beam that innocent feeling even with her suddenly intimidating aura, each shot flying hard. Frost managed to dodge them fairly easily with his attachments, but only because he was keeping his distance. He was no closer to getting past her to the door, so... taking a risk, he tried to leap past her, hugging the right wall as he did so.

   "You're really slippery and speedy aren't you?" Hoffi, conjured an orb as frost sped by, "I like that, it means you'll be extra fun~!" Just as Frost slipped past the rubbery toy, her figure twisted at the torso, the sphere suddenly flying back in the exact opposite direction she was facing, striking him square in the back, setting him off course. The heavy impact stung like crazy, though in its wake, it left an oddly positive sensation and a feeling of cold air touching his back, as if the spot was bare. "YEAH, DIRECT HIT!" Hoffi cheered, her jump letting her form realign properly.

   Frost tumbled along the wall, skidding to a halt as he tried to clutch at his back. "Did you... paint me with something?" Urgh, now he kinda wished he sprung for the rearview mirror. He can't know how to react if he doesn't even know what she's doing. But whatever, he was at least on the same side as the door! Kicking off the wall, he tried to leap towards the door while facing Hoffi, doing his best not to get hit before reaching them.

   "Like I said, you gotta dodge the balls, or else I'll help you dodge them~" Hoffi giggled further, lobbing a couple more shots towards Frost. With Hoffi's rapid fire, Frost once again found himself unable to advance, too busy dodging to move forward. On top of that, he no longer had an angle to advance with since he was effectively cornered. Hrm... she wasn't that smart, so maybe... he decided to leap back the way he came, circling clockwise around her. Hopefully, she would be so focused on chasing him that he could reach the door unopposed… even if this path was excessively long, with plenty of room to slip up.

   "Heheh, I'm gonna getcha~!" She giggled more intensely, seemingly more aggressive than before, beginning to fire her shots in a blind fire. Her slew of shots continued to fire towards him, toughening his trail, until he reached the right side, her shots stopping as she seemed to stand in confusion. "Hey, where did you go? That's great trick~!"

   FrostLock-Yesterday at 6:56 PM

   ...that… was actually significantly more effective than he thought. Wow, she really was dense. Anyway, frost stopped mulling as he looked at the door and found it to be much sturdier than he had supposed before. He could test the lock, but he found himself no longer respecting this place's property value. Pulling out some diamond-shaped devices, he slapped three of them in a pattern on the doors and triggered them, leaping back as they exploded!

   "Oh, there you are!" she said, her head twisting around entirely, to see the explosion "Hey- you're supposed to be playing with me, not the place! :T" She huffed, her springy body slinging back once more, flinging another sphere right into his shoulder. The impact was hard and intense once more, as it spun him around and back, away from his target. The stinging was once again accompanied by that odd sensation... what was it about it that felt so appealing, and why did his shoulder now feel bare like the spot on his back? "You play with me, silly~"

   "Wha...the hell?" Frost rubbed his shoulder, feeling...a bit soothed? What was on his shoulder?? He was a bit too distracted by that to notice how his bomb thing went, or what Hoffi was doing.

   "Come on now, you can't stop already~" Hoffi slowly approached, conjuring another ball. "Unless you want me to speed things up for you~ then that sounds okay to me~!" Hoffi giggled, lobbing yet another sphere at him. Frost was legitimately too distracted by his shoulder to properly react in time, getting beaned square in the head by Hoffi's pitch as he stumbled backwards.

   "hahah, another direct hit, SCORE~!" Hoffi begun to dance happily, seemingly distracted by the nice, clean hit. Frost, on the other end could feel the stinging sensation across his face. An impact that tough would normally lead to swelling, but the shape that was present still seemed apt... though once again that strange feeling was there, strong enough to realize what it was: pleasure. A shudder rand down his spine from the chill of the good feeling, and the strange numbness in his face from the spot, and the others, seemingly wider.

   This was...more than a little weird. Why did this feel good? He was trying to escape, and getting hit with her balls hurt. He didn't... why was his mind suddenly so cluttered? He rubbed the numbness on his face, finding it oddly enjoyable to do so. "Look... you're clearly doing something to me... can you just explain to me what it is?" Frost's question was a lot more exhausted than accusatory, not being able to muster up the strength for another period of shouting quite yet.

   Hoffi giggled, "You're cool, and fun! …a lot more fun than most of the others who have shown up here before, they were easy play." Hoffi continued to approach frost, gesturing. "But you, you'd make a great toy, just like me~" She said pointing to herself proudly. "No one's lasted this long, after all~. But enough talk, it's time to keep on playing!" Hoffi giggled, conjuring her two spheres while close, holding a readied stance.

   "Yeah, I'm kinda not interested in becoming someone's toy." Frost retorted as got ready once more, trying to muster up the energy to get around her… though he was having a bit of trouble remembering where he was getting around too. He was also feeling a bit sluggish, for whatever reason... was she weighing him down? Or was he just fed up? Letting his thrusters do the work, he launched himself high in the air, hoping Hoffi didn't know how to account for arcing shots with her throws.

   "Ahh, there it is~ I like that a lot~!" Hoffi giggled, tossing her spheres into the air. Unfortunately, all of them fell short, hitting the walls just behind him at high speeds. Huh. A lot of Frost's strategizing had a lot of minor backup options and backup-backup options planned out in his head, as he assumed Hoffi would be able to keep up and make it very difficult for him. But... he was actually outsmarting her fairly consistently. It was... getting a bit hard to be enraged at her when it was so easy for him to gain the upper hand, it was almost endearing. Holding onto a light fixture for stability, he just stood in the air as he looked down at her. He… almost felt like taunting her, but if he upset her that might give her the strength to actually hit him.

   Hoffi stood, huffing lightly, looking for their fellow toy to be. "I wonder where you are? She said, looking around, before finally looking up." Ahh, there you are, I got you~!" She said, confusing frost. she had not thrown any spheres, but in an instant, the two she had thrown before bounced and banked, striking him right in the thigh and arm, the intense pain coursing through, leaving him with that intense pleasure once more. It felt so nice, so warm, it even seemed to pull in that heavy stinging into a pleasurable tenor, the cold air feeling crisp on their seemingly tougher thigh and arm, as well as even more of the space on their back, shoulder and face. "Gotcha~! "

   "Mmmrrrghhh!!" Frost trembled, awash with conflicting emotions. He let go of the light fixture, feeling another desire to rub his thigh and arm as he took a good look. Were they different? They definitely felt different, he could say that definitively. He idly drifted through the air as he focused on his sensations, once again ignoring Hoffi.

   "Heheheh, like a nice target dummy~" Hoffi giggled, tossing a pair, one hitting his leg directly, the other banking off the wall to smack him in the back of the head once more. The two continued with the same overtaking coating, the one to the back of the head suddenly kick starting a shift in the face, seemingly pushing it into a wide smile as its default position, while seemingly locking his hair into a stiffer, and more solid, shape. The other, striking the ankle of the other leg, coated and smoothed the whole of the leg in one fell swoop, leaving it with that odd sensation, his booster disappearing into the smoothed void, disrupting his balance amidst the growing feelings of enjoyment.

   "Whu....woah woah woah!!" Frost flailed, smiling for no clear reason as he begun to spin out and fall to earth. This was exhilarating and terrifying and stupid and felt good and… urgh, thinking about this was hard. He was already having trouble remembering what he was doing in the first place, but now he had to put that aside and try not to fall. He was able to swerve and gain height still, but it was more like a kite following the whims of an unknown breeze than actual flight. His movement was sporadic, but not particularly fast and made for a much more interesting target.

   "And now, for the coup de grace~ <3" Hoffi smirked, spawning several arms from her form, each one conjuring its own ball. In a deft display, they shot one by one, each shot beaning its target clean, each shot more intense than the last, until the final one struck the last of the thrusters smoothing the whole of them down, causing the now smooth and rubbery figure to fall to the ground. The hard impact with the ground filled up those intense feelings, as Frost did not splat, but bounce cleanly off the ground.

   Frost found herself bouncing up in a way that caused her to gently land on her feet, suddenly standing at attention. What the...what was going on?? Way too much was swirling around in her head, and she could barely even comprehend the multi-arm technique Hoffi just pulled off because she was still struggling to process that her thrusters were vanishing. Plus her entire body felt good. Why was it like that?? Why was she on the floor and not in the sky?? Why was... UGH! She just stood there, pressing her arms to her sides as she idled and tried to think through her confusion, though with the smile on her face, her emotion was a bit hard to read.

   "Heheh, now you look like an athlete~ " Hoffi giggled, looking over the at attention figure. Their form was smoothed over, once clothing little more than decals now, seemingly shifted to have a much sportier look. Their hair heavily sculpted, though their form was still roughly the same. "Though, clearly you want more play, don't you, hmm~?" Hoffi teased, running her finger up the new recruit's back. Frosts spine chilled lightly, making her feel more aware to her odd, far too masculine, shape for a toy. "We gotta hammer out those kinks, after alll, teeheheheh~"

   "Uh...is that right? I thought I was....trying to... door, and... playtesting, I...flying?" Frost's mind was lagging behind her body, doing her best to try and think critically about this and only managing to construct half a sentence. "This...isn't, uh... its nice, but...should I...uh?" Hrm... despite her happy appearance, she seemed glum.

   "Heheh, you're disoriented, cause this is your first time playing... and that figure isn't helping either," Hoffi smirks, conjuring a sphere in hand. "But now it's time to get back to playing, then you'll feel better~! As for round two, we'll be playing..." With a snap of her fingers, the greenish ball turned a dark black, its shine intense. "Hardball~ "

   "...uh, wait, no, I..." Frost backed off a bit. Despite her massive confusion as her brain tied itself in knots, she was at least able to remember that she didn't want to be hit. Why... she kinda forgot, didn't it feel good? Or did...guuuh, thinking about this was making her head hurt! Okay, she wanted to not get hit, end of discussion. She remembered thinking that a lot so she was gonna keep thinking it so she could focus on thinking about...lamps? Why was she... Hoffi watched as her new toy vaguely stumbled backward, clearly suffering from some sort of dizziness but unable to tell what due to her static face and broken speech. She was completely unfazed by the strange actions of her fellow toy, instead opting to help fix the situation.

   "Heheh, ready or not, here I start~!" Hoffi threw the dark ball, its high-speed flying towards the rubberfrost, far faster than any of the previous shots were. Frost was struck square in the face with enough force to launch her backwards, skidding and bouncing as she tumbled along the ground and eventually hit the wall. Huh, she was supposed to be bouncy, but she retained a surprising amount of momentum. Maybe cuz of her stabilizers or whatever the hell. The impact in the face still stung, but mostly it made her far more giggly happy, such a good feeling~ With it, it seemed to bring an odd deformation of the face, before it popped back out, feeling, rounder, fuller; as if it's structure had been simplified. It was hard to tell, but it seemed to feel right, especially with the feeling of strong lashes and more prominent lips accentuating that wide smile.

   “Heh...hehehe...” why was Frost laughing? Why was she over here now? Why did her face feel nice? Why was Hoffi picking up a ball? Why wasn't she standing? Why... ugh, too many whys. She was starting to hate whys, they felt important but they were making her head hurt. It was a lot easier to just decide, like when she decided she was gonna dodge things. Okay, she was just gonna decide again. She was over here because she... jumped here! Yep, that's it. No other questions, she was just gonna roll with that for now. She hopped up to her feet, giggling a bit absentmindedly. She still had a lot of whys in her head about other things, but she found it easy to focus on two decides: she wanted to dodge, and she could jump!

   "Heheheh~, let's go, Frosty~ That's the spirit!" Hoffi said cheeringly, before conjuring two more orbs, then tossed in sequence flying right towards her vicinity! Uh, woah! Frost leapt out of the way almost on instinct, managing to avoid them well. Woah, she did great! She was kinda too distracted by her performance to realize she was idly bouncing along her trajectory instead of stopping. Man, if this was gonna be that easy, maybe she'd have the time to figure out her whys.

   Hoffi huffed lightly in glee now that her target was being much more competitive, but with that slow bounding arc, it didn't take much to aim for the toy's gut. In a single deft shot, her relatively flat stomach was beaned directly, it reflexively pushing in, the lost mass shifting up and down into her hips and thighs, sliding the figure about. “Hehehe...” Frost collided with the wall, focusing enough on her pleasurable hurty sensations to forget some of her whys. She couldn't remember that she forgot them, as she was too busy remembering the whys she still remembered and trying to understand them. Why was she here? Why did she want profiles? Why did she leave her USB stick upstairs? Why did...oh! She could see Hoffi readying another attack and leapt away before Hoffi even threw it.

   The next couple of shots flew right behind Frist, the toy deftly dodging them super easily. "now you're getting there~ and that means I'm gonna have to ramp it up~!" Hoffi giggled, this time throwing several shots about, none of them aiming for her target at all, while she stood smugly watching, readying her next set of balls. Oooh, she knew this! She could predict where her shots were gonna go and dodge in the opposite direction! Clearly she was gonna throw where she was currently leaping, so she pivoted on her heel and leapt the other direction! However, since Hoffi wasn't actually trying to hit her, Frost dove directly into a hardball as her face collided with it, flipping over as she tumbled past it. Ugh... maybe that wasn't a good think time...

   The pleasurable strike filled her with glee as her rounded face popped back to normal, but not before reflexively volumizing the sculpted piece that was her hair. of course, her skid to the ground did little to prevent her from being smacked by the return bounces of the other two balls. the strikes to the arms pushed them out from under her, as they seemed to lean out and readjust, the seams for gadgets becoming more evident, her chest expanding once more. "Heheheh, each hit's making you look better and better~!" Hoffi shouted, cheering on the toy.

   Frost was engrossed in thought, thinking about why she thought so much. She was doing all this thinky stuff and Hoffi wasn't thinking at all! Sure, she tricked Hoffi a few times, but Hoffi was never really losing. She was just... not winning sometimes. Meanwhile, she was so busy not doing much that she was tumbling about all of the ricocheting hardballs, letting herself be struck with various bursts of pleasure as she giggled mindlessly and let each firm strike knock a few thoughts out of her. This seemed way better than caring about whys! So... she decided not to. Why? Cuz balls. Any time she had a why she'd just let herself be beaned and immediately drop the subject. She let herself get battered around some more as all of her whys were knocked away, getting more into it as she started to strategically bump into the hard balls, adjusting her hip or flailing her arm to keep the momentum of the hardballs going. Hoffi stood back, watching as Frost somehow managed to turn her gym into a weird pop-o-matic chamber.

   Hoffi couldn't help but be stunned in joy as her fellow toy willingly pushed all the balls into herself, each impact hitting a new spot, pushing and reshaping her form; expanding her arms, tapering her feet, widening her hips and breasts slightly, her voluminous, yet sculpted hair quite pretty. She couldn't help but love the look of the excited, airheaded doll, her 6 foot figure wild yet still probable. She only needed one more thing...

   "Ready or not, here I come~!" With a leap, hoffi bounded up into the air, positioning herself just above Frost, before falling straight down, impacting her square on the top of her head. The enbie toy's pliable bottom was still as hard as any of those dodgeballs, feeling the compacting force pushing her straight down, adjusting that vertical mass outwards, improving the expansion of those toyish droney hands and widening her figure further. Hoffi's force ended when she cleared about one foot of distance down, sliding off the dazed doll. "Tadaaa~!"

   Frost stood there for a moment, almost as if she was processing something... before she just fell back, laughing a bit harder than just some giggling. "Hehehehehe! Like... balls are pretty neat!" A pretty...dry observation, but one which was probably intended to be profound. Her boobs wobbled around from the impact, staying in motion for a surprisingly long time as she laughed. "Like... do I get paid now?" ...somehow of all the things from her original identity to retain, money was one of them.

   "Of course you will~ You're gonna get plenty of royalties once they make the toyline for you. And that means you'll get a BUNCH of new accessories, and maybe a cute new outfit~" Hoffi giggled, gripping and hugging the toy girl, a few of the internal gadgets activating, propping out of the seams on her form. "Oooh, and you even have your own tricks, too~ We should totally work with that, too...~" Hoffi giggled trailing off, gripping and pulling you to the back, ready to head off and get dressed up with a new style, ready to have lots of fun with her new toyfriend~.

   The toyfriend giggled to herself, finding that answer surprisingly satisfying as she let Hoffi near-literally drag her around. She was being paid to let someone else do the thinking for her? That seemed like a completely perfect setup! Without a good reason to protest, she was content with whatever ideas Hoffi suggested, such as having her mold reworked further for mass market appeal, rebranding to give her a cuter name, maybe some further personality adjustments just to be safe... well at that point she kinda didn't have enough brain cells to cobble together to think about that herself. She was mostly inert... but whenever Hoffi pulled out a ball, she suddenly fixated it and sprung to life, getting ready to use whatever she could in order to dodge it perfectly, like any Toyfriend would~!

[lemondice]

Evolution of a Game: Mint Condition Comics

My first published game, Mint Condition Comics, is coming to now live on Kickstarter on Monday, November 11th, and I’m super excited about it!  You can back it here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/miguelthedesigner/mint-condition-comics-a-neat-game-about-comic-books

I thought today I would talk about how the game evolved, going through many stages to get to the (in my humble opinion) awesome light but thinky game it is today.

Stage 1: Idea

Some games evolve gradually out of existing concepts or thematic overviews, while others basically have a singular lightbulb moment.  Mint Condition has evolved a lot, but the core idea sprung fully formed from my head while going for a lunchtime walk along the Chicago Riverwalk one sunny day in August 2018.  A lot of games play with drafting as a mechanism, but those games tend to not support 2 player play (7 Wonders), not be good at 2 players (Sushi Go), or be good at 2 players in spite of their drafting rather than because of it (Seasons).  However, the issue of drafting at low player counts has already been thought about at length in the Magic:the Gathering world, and one solution immediately popped to mind - Winston Draft, where there are 3 piles of facedown cards and you iterate through them, looking at each pile and then either taking it as your choice for the turn and replacing it, or moving to the next pile and adding another card to sweeten the pile you passed on.  Winston Draft adapts drafting to a format that can work at 2-3 players and has a nice unknown tension to it.  So the initial germ of an idea was “I’ll try and make a drafting game that works for a smaller player count by making Winston Drafting the primary drafting mechanism.”

Stage 2: Rough Prototype

And when I say rough, I mean rough.  I’m very much a mechanic-first, theme-later designer, so my first prototype that I brought to my design group was a plastic bag full of cardboard scraps with single letters scribbled on them.  At that stage, there were 4 or 5 types of letters - A, B, and C which scored you more the more of them you had (A being the highest scoring but the rarest), D which scored only for the player with the most (like Sushi Go’s Maki), and E which you kept between rounds and which would score a lot if you could collect several of them over the course of the game (the idea being that you could go for a long-term strategy hoarding E’s.)  It wasn’t pretty, but it conveyed the core idea of the game, and generated enough enthusiasm that I continued to iterate on it.  

Stage 2: Slightly-less Rough Prototype

The game next briefly went through a phase where the above letters were converted to ancient history things like gold/silver/bronze, and there was a fire tile that penalized the player with the least fire at the end of each round. There was also temporarily a mechanic where players could keep 1 or 2 cards from each round to the next, to give players more of an ability to focus on a long-term strategy.  I pretty quickly transitioned over to record collecting as a theme, and upgraded my components to blank cards with permanent marker, also adding in a few bonus cards that messed with the draft in minor ways.

Stage 3: Comics!

Throughout this process, Miguel and Aaron from neat games were part of my design test group and were going through the process of publishing their first release as Neat Games, Too Many Poops.  It was a light card-based game, much like my game Record Rampage, and so we discussed them publishing it after Too Many Poops finished.  During this part of the process, based on potential customer feedback, we decided to retheme to comic books to have a more accessible theme, while the mechanics were also undergoing some minor tweaks, the biggest one being the addition of a market where players could trade up a few lower comics for a more valuable one, or trade a more valuable one for a few lower comics, giving more flexibility to players.  Along with the transition to comics, a shift was made where instead of sets all being the same size but rarer sets being more valuable, sets varied in size, with a set with 6 elements being harder to complete than a set with 4 elements but worth more if you could get to 6, and the individual elements were given varying rarities along with a small point bonus simply for having the rarest elements, to add a little more inherent value to some items during the draft (Issue #1s and #2s, thematically enough)

Stage 4: Balance Overhaul

Around January 2019, I was getting some feedback about decisions being not quite interesting enough, and I was also noticing that the correct decision most of the time was to take the biggest pile, because the points from lots of little 1-2 size sets would add up quickly.  Thus, I made the biggest balance change I had made in quite a while since early on in the process, sharply cutting the points for low #s of issues while raising the payoff for complete sets, removing inherent points from Issue #2s, and adding personal missions to complete for bonus points (like “Collect 2 or more sets of Superman” or “Have the fewest comics”) and personal 1-use special powers to add a little more spice.  This temporarily broke the game, but ultimately got it to a much more satisfying place, moving it down the local maximum hill and towards the global maximum mountain.  Starting at this point, art began to be commissioned for the game and all the other spinning wheels of development continued to turn.

Stage 5: Final Tweaks

The last 2 major changes to the game came in late spring/early summer 2019; one of which was converting personal missions to 2 separate sets of global goals - a comic chosen each round to award bonus points to whoever had the most of it, and a separate goal like having the fewest comics overall.  Around this time, we faced a dilemna - many people who played the game wanted a trading mechanic, but we were all in agreement that a trading mechanic would slow down the game significantly and harm the balance (a lot of times in a game like this, a trading mechanic not only puts an enormous amount of focus on social and trading skills over any other skills, but also makes the draft incredibly uninteresting - if you know that someone will trade for any super-rare card, the best move is just to always take the rarest card(s) regardless of what your strategy is)  However, we did want a little more player interaction in the game and a little more player agency over the results.  We tried a ‘trade zone’ (you could put 1 comic in your trade zone on your turn, and any player on their turn could trade at even rarity for your trade zone), which solved the slow down problem but not the other problems, and added significant rules overhead, before stumbling upon a solution that worked out perfectly - allow players to trade directly with other players (whether or not that player agrees) but only for the same rarity and only for comics not part of any set.  This way, there’s no negotiation, but it’s usually not a hostile move, as there’s rarely reason for a player to be attached to a loose comic that’s worth 0 points.  

This final touch added the last little bit of interaction and control that the game needed, and all these changes were really a testament to the quality that our lengthy development process and our strong team of me + Miguel + Aaron added to the game design and balance.  I think Mint Condition Comics started out with a very solid design and core idea but ended as an even better, much more satisfying game, with none of the design vision compromised.

Stage 6: Release

After early summer, there were a few small tweaks, but the remaining development time was largely dedicated to neat games hunting down artists to pull off the remarkable stylistic diversity and artistic quality that they wanted to bring to the illustrations on the different comic series.  And now, here it is, live on a Kickstarter near you!  Again, I’d encourage you to definitely take a look if you like comic books or just light card games that scale well to a wide variety of player counts: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/miguelthedesigner/mint-condition-comics-a-neat-game-about-comic-books

[mittensmorgul]

I think there's a zero % chance of the nephilim being truely good without a catch. Having a superpowered child as a plotline that just a innocent babs is not a storyline. Not to mention it's already enforcing some form of a plan and it's not even born yet; saving Kelly, getting rid of Dagon, getting Cas and Cas to protect him even over Sam and Dean, the fact after the golden eyes Kelly and Cas are both super invested in the nephilim beign born with powers, it wants these powers for a reason

RIGHT?!

Honestly since that creepy shot in the doctor’s office in 12.17 where the baby turned its head like it was looking directly at the doctor on the sonogram I’ve been giving it a lot of credit for being “decidedly not human normal.”

(I mean that whole scene happened because WE NEEDED TO SEE HOW NOT-NORMAL THAT BABY WAS. So not-normal that Dagon IMMEDIATELY reverted to mind-wiping the doctor in order to stop him from saying just how not-normal the baby was out loud to Kelly…)

I will start by reaffirming that the creepybadwrong magically growing baby thing is ubergross to me. I wish they’d written pretty much ANYTHING else this season, because dammit we just HAD Amara doing the creepy baby thing LAST SEASON. Okay, enough damn creepybabby stories. We get it. It’s gross. Pls stop *coughbucklemmingcough*.

But it’s what we have, so…

I’ve got SOME suspicions of what might be going on with the kid, some of which are just wild speculation, but some of which I’m pretty confident about. I’ll be vague and leave you to decide which are which…

The kid is half-human, but also half-angel (which means grace). We know very little about how angels are made, but speculation seems to run high toward “they spring fully formed into existence.” I love comics and fic of the “baby angels” growing up and learning how to be good grown-up angels as much as the next person, but I have no illusions that canon angels were ever “babies.” Or that they were ever anything other than fully-formed celestial wavelengths of intent. They were very literally created by God.

(and great now I can’t stop thinking about Athena springing fully formed from Zeus’ head… but honestly? That’s sort of how I’m imagining the nephilim here. Because Kelly ISN’T an immortal god who can recover from something like that…)

(have I mentioned today JUST HOW MUCH TIME I spend thinking about the nature of angel grace? Okay. I mentioned it now. :D)

So because this child IS “half angel,” or at least “half angel grace,” I firmly believe that even if its “human side” is just a human-ish looking baby, the part of it that is an angel is already fully-developed. The only thing holding it back now is the biologically human bits. And it’s even building THAT at a much faster than normal-human rate.

No wonder it’s sort of “using up” Kelly in the process. At least that’s how I’ve been thinking of this.

It’s not good or evil, it’s selfish. Which I suppose might be considered “evil,” but it’s not making that choice for itself. That’s just what it does. Like, mosquitoes aren’t inherently evil, they’re just trying to live. Heck, even like most of the monsters in SPN. They’re just trying to survive, stay under the radar of the hunters who’d see them dead, and go about their business.

The difference with the nephilim is that combination of human free will (that comes with the kit!) combined with the unwavering nature of angelic certainty (I won’t call it “faith,” because in this case, it’s not).

Think of this particular baby’s parentage, too. Yes, Lucifer is Fallen, but he is still an archangel. He’s inherently a creature of Heaven even if he’s been exiled to Hell. He’s still made of the same grace that all the other angels (or archangels, since they seem infinitely more powerful than run of the mill seraphs) are made of. There’s nothing inherently “evil” in Lucifer’s grace.

Heck, even LUCIFER was set on destroying his own creations, the demons. He has just as much disdain for demons as he does for humanity. So nursemaid Dagon never really stood a chance here.

And now I can’t help think back to Jesse the Antichrist, whose powers came online when the final seal broke. But he’d had what, 9 or 10 years to learn how to Human properly before he had his powers sprung on him? Yeah, this baby doesn’t even have that…

So it senses Dagon’s intentions for it, and has already decided (because it’s half ANGEL remember), that this demonic abomination must die. It must know Kelly cares for it, and I think it’s pretty clear that we’re supposed to assume that she cares for it because IT IS MAKING HER CARE FOR IT, because it needs her the way an angel needs a vessel, and honestly that’s where my brain just wants to start screaming and run away from talking about this entire plot arc, but the show insists on giving it to us so here I am stuck with this squicky horror…

Where was I? Right… 

(nvm I have no idea where I was because I had to take a mental break from typing this. have i mentioned that everything about the nephilim completely squicks me out? okay… deep breaths mittens we can do this)

We’ve seen Lucifer communicating with Dagon in some sort of hybrid angel radio/prayer/demonic blood bowl phone without the bowl of blood telepathic way. I assume that’s because he can’t perform that trick directly with Kelly (or with the baby). So Dagon’s been the go-between out of necessity. But Dagon is still a demon. Not a creature of Heaven, not a creature of Angel Grace (despite having a lot of similar powers to angels). By angel standards, she is an abomination.

I mean, so’s the nephilim, but I don’t think the nephilim would consider itself an abomination, you know? It is what it is. And it wants to be born and to live and continue to do its thing, and has the power to manipulate its environment to suit its needs.

I think it demonstrated that admirably when it healed Kelly from her suicide attempt. It couldn’t allow its current vessel (because I honestly don’t think it considers Kelly anything more than a vessel it needs to grow its human body for it) to “fail.”

But we’ve seen how Dagon was able to “influence” humans, via her mind-wipe of the doctor. I think the “angel side” of the nephilim has been mostly “dormant” up to this point, either because the human side was still developing enough for it to actively engage this way or because Dagon was somehow keeping it under control until it grew powerful enough to thwart that control.

Going back to what we learned about nephilim in 12.10, they apparently “grow into their power.” So that theory isn’t coming entirely out of left field, here.

So this baby is “growing into its power.” It’s less than a month from being born. At the beginning of 12.19 Kelly was so adamant that it NOT be born that she attempted to kill herself. Then she agreed to Joshua’s suicide plan of walking through the Heaven Portal. But the nephilim thwarted THAT as well.

It saw its opportunity in Kelly’s moment of weakness with Cas in that motel room, and I can’t help but believe that when her eyes flashed gold, that was the death of Kelly’s free will. That was the nephilim taking full control over her beliefs and actions. If only they’d showed up with the grace extraction sooner, I think she would’ve agreed to let them try it. But it was already too late, and she refused. Because the NEPHILIM refused for her.

She says she has “faith” that the child being born with its full power will “save the world.” But I think that’s the nephilim talking through her.

She went from actively trying to die and take the baby with her to doing EVERYTHING in her power to see it born, even though she knows it will kill her. And Cas confessed his own weakness, that he wished he had her faith, and that’s where the nephilim granted his wish… Kelly took Cas’s hand at the sandbox and the nephilim gave Cas faith.

Do I believe this is “real faith?” Absolutely, 100% NO.

And here’s where my second anon in my inbox seems relevant to mention here:

What do think will happen to Cas’ narrative and endgame now? I had been predicting (hoping) that his whole arc has been moving closer to a point where he’d choose the Winchesters for good. Now, after 12x19, it seems different. It’s like a bit of season 4 Cas was revived. He’s got this same type of faith he used to have, and maybe he’ll be raising a baby next season. Do you have any predictions? I’m hoping his endgame is still with the Winchesters, but now I’m concerned…

CAS DOES NOT HAVE “THE SAME TYPE OF FAITH HE USED TO HAVE,” and I honestly DO NOT BELIEVE that he will be raising this baby next season.

He’s being CONTROLLED by the nephilim right now.

Remember in 6.06 when Dean asked for truth, and then got SLAMMED with it? Remember in 4.08 when people were making wishes on this ancient cursed Babylonian coin and all the wishes turned very bad? Remember in 12.17 when Mick of the MoL mentioned he was brought into the MoL when he pickpocketed an ancient cursed Babylonian coin?

The wishes go bad. They violate the natural order. They invoke Cosmic Consequences.

Do you see where I’m going with this?

I think the nephilim itself is a sort of embodiment of this concept of Cosmic Consequences. It’s a factor of chaos, a violation of the natural order.

I am so freaking tempted to go off into an expository rant about how Dean Winchester is the embodiment of Balance and Order (despite having “violated the natural order” again and again). But he IS “Humanity.” He is Free Will. He was the one Cas did everything for, and he was the one both God and the Darkness designated as “the firewall between light and darkness.” He’s the one Death taught his lessons to about the natural order, and he’s the one who KILLED Death… Essentially every character on the show has eventually bent to his will. INCLUDING FREAKING GOD HIMSELF.

Dean wanted the universe to be in balance, so it was balanced. Hooray 11.23.

But then Mary came back. Because DEAN needed to discover that balance in himself, and the only way to find balance is to understand the imbalance. She’s been the cosmic consequence unbalancing the natural order since she showed up.

All season I’ve been waiting for the MoL storyline and the Lucifer storyline to intersect… and I think it’s all going to hinge on Mary, and on Dean finally getting “what he needs most” from Mary… i.e. an acknowledgement of the imbalance within himself that’s been built on the pedestal he’s kept Mary on since he was four.

The nephilim, in contrast, seems to be a force of anti-free will. And this goes right back to one of the show’s core principles, that free will and choice are greater than blind faith and destiny. Right now it’s seemingly stripped Cas of all his doubts, all his free will, all his choice. He asked for faith, and he got SLAMMED with it…

But NOTHING about it is CAS. It’s not his choice, not his free will. Because we know he’d rejected Heaven and duty and destiny, and had been doing EVERYTHING FOR THE WINCHESTERS. HIS FAMILY. So this sudden attack of “faith” that came in the form of the same weird glowy-veiny laser-eyes treatment that we last saw him suffer in 7.17 when he took on Sam’s Hell Damage and left him CATATONIC and damaged… well… 

What I’m saying is he needs something to break free from the will of the nephilim, to regain his own free will…

What broke the connection, Cas?

He’s gonna have to plainly answer that question this time.

Okay I think that’s as much brain as I have for this :D

[thisiscomics]

Having read almost all of Eisner’s later work, I think it’s fair to say that I am a little late in getting to volume 1 of The Spirit Archives. Although not his first work, and The Spirit is not unfamiliar to me due to various reprints and re-visitations (The Spirit: The New Adventures from Kitchen Sink Press, for example), these early Spirit stories are an interesting point in Eisner’s development of the comic book as an art form.

I had half-expected the strips to be as innovative in their layout as later works, as though Eisner had sprung forth fully formed into the world of comics, but of course this was not the case. These were still relatively early days, and the potential language of comics was still in development. With the exception of the first page of each strip (the ‘front cover’ of the newspaper comics section. Probably worth remembering that these were newspaper comics and not comic books, although the 3 strip insert sounds like it was not a million miles away from being the sort of anthology that the predecessors of DC were putting out at this time- Detective Comics, Action Comics etc.) these stories appear to stick quite strictly to a three tier page, giving them a uniform appearance at first glance rather than signs of the innovation Eisner is known for.

When you notice the layout of those tiers, however, you start to see signs of him playing with the format to serve the story- the three rows may be fixed (was it a requirement of the format, or had it just not reached a stage where people felt comfortable breaking the lines between those tiers?) but the panels within those tiers are far from rigid. This strip features a circular panel overlapping two locations, allowing an extra narrative moment to fit into the tier and keep up the pace. It almost makes the ‘Meanwhile’ redundant, as the panel position effectively creates a sense of simultaneous action- the Black Queen is clearly speaking as the parachutes have landed and while The Spirit faces off against some of her men.

Rather than excise the caption completely (the visual ‘Meanwhile’ may not have been so obvious to contemporary readers, I suspect), Eisner takes the opportunity to make the final panel a little more playful. The road curves, following the arc of the circular panel as though being sucked in by its gravity, and the road sign/caption is also a victim of the Black Queen’s pull. It’s a very primitive incarnation of the Eisner tool of incorporating text into the panel, almost as though he’s testing the idea out- for the perspective to work as a sign, it would need to be significantly higher than the road, and the shading that passes as the roadside doesn’t really communicate a steep incline to my mind (nor does it make a great deal of sense to have a sign on top of that incline, apparently so far away from the road as to be useless. I suppose there could be a road up there as well...), so it feels like an experiment, an attempt to make the caption a little more interesting and avoid the top of the panel being empty.

It also successfully guides the eye- from reading the Queen’s words, you have to move to the caption as it is so nearby, almost touching her speech bubble. This means that you then move to the car, its speed lines and direction pointing you to the road block and the final speech bubble of the tier. Perhaps this was a deliberate decision to orientate the reader, in case there was any confusion caused by the overlap- I’m not sure how likely this is, but considering that this was being sold to a newspaper (therefore potentially non-comic book reading) audience and a lot of newspaper strips (even now) tend to remain within their one tier/rectangular panels confines, there may have been a perceived need for a bit of guidance here and there whilst trying to develop a new storytelling approach for the medium.

From "The Black Queen's Army" (July 7, 1940), by Will Eisner, reprinted in Will Eisner's The Spirit Archives Volume 1

[woohooligancomics]

Webcomic Whimsy: Parhelion

Welcome to the Woohooligan Weekly Webcomic Whimsy! I've given a couple of interviews in the past, but this is my first experience with reviewing. If you have any suggestions for improvements, feel free to leave a note. If you're a webcomic author and would like a review, you can see my announcement and review rules here.

Title: Parhelion

Author: Riley Smith • Twitter • Tumblr

Site: ParhelionComic.com • Patreon

Genres: Experimental, Dystopian, SciFi, Space Opera, Black Comedy, Experimental, Surreal, Action/Adventure, Gay Space Pirates, A day in the life of a bargain-bin Han Solo

Rating: PG, T for Teen - adult situations, some language

Updates: ??

Synopsis: (from ParhelionComic.com/about) - The World’s Collective, an ambitious plan to unite the galaxy, has just formally collapsed. A despondent interpreter hires a pirate to retrieve some personal files from his office, and they hit it off. Meanwhile, wheels are turning throughout the galaxy, with all kinds of plans at cross-purposes. Warlords lock horns, Boltzmann Brains fight for freedom, and plenty of people just want some peace and quiet.

The first thing anyone is bound to notice about Parhelion is its experimental art style. I suspect this will be a case of "love it or hate it" with very few people in the undecided camp. It certainly has its appeal, with a kind of "baroque simplicity", (which in English means it looks more complicated than it is). Although later chapters get some monochromatic coloring, there's never full color and it might be better that way. Even when a character is human, the lines of the form often don't intersect, leaving a gap at a joint like a waist or elbow, so full color might look out of place. With alien characters, all bets are off, as there's barely a passing nod to notions of anatomy. One drawback to this style is the ambassador from the Planet of the Floor Lamps! (See, it's like Planet of the Apes but...)

A small side-note: so far, Riley is the only author I've reviewed who maintains an annotated synopsis of all his chapters. It's a nice touch if you'd like to see the whole outline of the story in advance.

If you don't mind an occasional character who looks like office furniture, there's a dystopian space opera here that you might enjoy, hot on the heels of a failed galactic government called the Collective. The first page opens with, "like it or not, civilization is built on stimulants, pornography and worse." I'm not sure if the author thinks poorly of porn or if they expect the reader to. I personally think porn is like other industries, there's some bad stuff to be had, but there are also unscrupulous insurance people making money off of the death or misfortune of others. So I won't personally single-out the porn industry as "bad stuff", and stimulants? Meh... coffee is a stimulant. But if you're expecting any porn in this comic, remember that any dick picks will inevitably look like a Tinkertoy with this style of art. (There isn't any porn, it's T for Teen.)

But I digress... that opening line is intended to set the mood of Parhelion's dystopian future. The main character, Peter, is jaded while not being entirely cynical, describing the recently collapsed Collective as "a beacon of hope, smothered at birth by a pack of vultures."

Peter meets his alien, soon-to-be partner, a translator named Cerril, at a bar. In fact, Peter interrupts Cerril's week-long alcoholic bender, mid-gargle-blaster. You see, Cerril's an ivory tower jackoff who used to work for the Collective, before it's untimely collapse just days or weeks before the story started. That's why he needs all the booze. What he didn't know is that Peter needs a translator.

This is also a good time to point out another small problem with the art style, which is, when you use straight, perpendicular lines for your dialog balloons, especially when you're drawing in black and white, the dialog can easily get lost in the illustration, like it does at the bottom of the above page. Or it can create parallel tangents or fake panels like at the top of the previous page.

There's also a fair amount of black comedy or "gallows humor" in Parhelion, like Peter insisting to terms for his own murder, specifically that it be an involved and painful mano-a-mano affair. And Riley occasionally gets technical. Unlike Star Wars in which the function of the protocol droid C-3PO is simply assumed, Riley stops for a couple pages to explain why Cerril's job title is "translator" instead of "office clerk". Oh, but I was wrong about the Tinkertoys...

Several pages are devoted to developing the characters for Peter and Cerril before there's been any real plot. Peter presents himself as a happy-go-lucky space pirate, a kind of bargain-bin Han Solo. And it turns out that the falling-down-drunk Cerril isn't entirely cynical either.

I know I sound like a broken record here, but I see a lot of what I feel is slow pacing in the webcomics I'm reviewing. Maybe it's just me, maybe I'm being a little overly critical on this point. Having said that, I'm seventeen pages in and while I've gotten some good character development for Peter and Cerril, I still haven't seen any plot development beyond "you need to bring me the translator and you can't refuse because I'm your pirate-boss and you're in deep." For reference, a standard issue of a Marvel or DC title is twenty to twenty-four pages, so if this were one of their books, we'd be on the very last couple of pages with only just the basic character development covered.

That's when we see Peter's gnarly missing-eye scar... or is that mechanical? Hard to tell.

But I do think they make a good team... it's basically that bargain bin Han Solo teamed up with a drunken, curmudgeonly C-3PO.

Note that in the bottom half of this page, those are supposed to be fully human, factory-direct hands, with no modifications. It's that sort of thing that makes me say I think this art style will be fairly polarizing: you'll love it or hate it, there won't be a lot of indifference. The hand on the left looks like a bunch of straw sticking out of a sleeve and the one on the right looks like a garden rake. Yeah, he's a bargain bin Han Solo, but this picture makes him look like a badass, one-eyed, space-pirate scarecrow from the land of Oz.

At the beginning of their three-day trip, Cerril asked Peter to steal something for him. By day three, Cerril finally explains that it was just some personal files he wouldn't be able to retrieve from his offices after the Collective collapsed. That's when it's revealed that these particular space pirates are gay, although that reveal is weirdly subtle and kind of sprung on the reader out of the blue like a jump-scare in a horror movie, or maybe a Rickroll. (I'm bringin' back ALL the dated memes, bae!) Pete and Cerril mention "neck marks" without any indication they had been playing tonsil hockey, although that's preceded by some peculiar seating arrangements that weren't foreshadowed in any way. So in a storytelling sense, it feels like we went from teeth-clenched teamwork to the power of love while skipping the middle part where "I'm going to murder you in your sleep, you slaver" gradually becomes "let's slip into something more comfortable".

And then they touch-down on what appears to be literally the land of Oz, right off the yellow-brick road, just outside of the Emerald City. There's even an old-fashioned hand-made crossroads sign.

Just in time to let us know that three days alone in the ship wasn't nearly enough time for sex! Seriously, you need at least a week for a proper blowjob.

But if you thought Peter's missing eye looked painful, it's nothing compared to the hopelessly tangled earbuds that comprise the "face" of the tyrant known as the Basilisk.

Although some of the Baroqueness is rather nice.

We've had a few budget cuts, so the part of Parliament's architectural columns will be played by butt-plugs. (You can't unsee it! You're welcome.)

Starting in the second chapter, Riley starts getting creative with the lettering, occasionally replacing a character or two with an alien symbol. The only pattern I can see is that a particular letter or combination is always given the same symbol, so what would be "th" becomes a single symbol that vaguely resembles a J, making "the" look like "je". It's obviously not used for the purpose of censoring swearing, since the page starts with the phrase "fucking joke" (a priest, a rabbi and a minister walk into an orgy). Given that, I can only imagine that these random substitutions are purely for the purpose of adding an alien flavor to the narration or dialog of certain characters. Personally, I'm not on-board. Riley's already added some similar decoration around the dialog box, and I feel like that's the more appropriate way to create that flavor. These substitutions in the text keep interrupting my reading flow as I have to stop to workout what "video#at" or "fai#ful" mean. It's only a fraction of a second for any individual word, however even that fractional pause is noticeable and mildly irritating as a reader. Like I said, the style of this comic is experimental, and experimentation always comes with some risk and sometimes it pays off. I just don't feel like, as experiments go, this text experiment was a keeper. What do you think?

It isn't until the fourth page of chapter two that Peter and Cerril officially become partners, with a little light comedy that reminds me a little of C-3PO's pitch to uncle Owen in Star Wars IV, except that Cerril is arguing against going with Alison. (That may have a lot to do with my already saying Cerril reminds me of C-3PO.)

While the writing on this page is good and Cerril's body language is well done, the page as a whole has several trouble-spots. There are several ways the first panel could have been composed without letting the dialog cut into the top of Alison's head. While it's not hard to figure out in this particular case, dialog from a character off-camera is frequently shown as it is here in the 2nd and 3rd panel. This is problematic for a couple of reasons, one because there's no visual difference between these dialog boxes and a narration box. That's not confusing on this particular page, but I could easily see it becoming confusing on other pages. Second, and more importantly, I've seen a few more recent pages where this is done in a scene with three or more characters and it's not always apparent who's speaking. Use of colored dialog boxes or a small symbol indicating the character could resolve this issue, although as an artist myself, I would work a little harder to keep the speaking characters on-camera. I might still use the symbol on some infrequent occasions if I were having a really difficult time with the composition of a specific page. I just don't think the off-camera boxes should be a frequent occurrence... reserve them for when Dorothy finally meets the Wizard.

And on page six of the second chapter, we're finally on to our dynamic duo's first suicide mission (of many, natch). I'm pretty sure they have one of those hole-punch coupons, they get a free sandwich after every fifth suicide mission they complete. Loyalty is important, yo!

Don't worry though, the veteran Peter has a plan! Peter's plan is to show up unannounced to a definitely hostile, likely heavily armed facility, and say "Hi! I'm peter! Go fuck yourself!" Which, of course, works every time. No, seriously, nobody even mentions it being weird and they make plans with the manager of the hostile station to go get tacos later.

But Peter wants to to know you don't fuck with a space-pirate's tacos, you spineless corporate cuck!

And since Parhelion is more of a black comedy than an adventure (I'm sure it's in there somewhere), this taco tirade is the big mistake where shit gets real. (Yeah, no, it's totally not lazily waltzing in on a hostile, likely heavily armed base. That part was cake.)

I really like that dramatic last panel on page fifteen of chapter two, so that's where I'm going to end this review.

So there's my pitch. If you enjoy tongue-in-cheek space opera, surreal and experimental illustration, and gay space-pirates, it's worth a look at Parhelion!

If you are a webcomic author and are interested in a review from me, you can check out my announcement and my review rules here.

If you enjoy my reviews and would like to help ensure I'm able to continue publishing them, you can contribute on our Patreon or if you're short on funds you can also help me out by checking out and sharing my own webcomic, Woohooligan!

Thanks! Sam