#i have a 3d printer and this sort of thing is what that's for

[myothertardisisonthemun]

In just under 20 days, I am flying to Western Australia to see a solar eclipse.

Because it's so dangerous to look at the sun directly, I've been trying out sun viewing equipment.

Got to find something that won't give me a headache, or worse, damage my eyes.

I got these specialised eclipse binoculars a while ago. They're celestron, a mostly respected brand, and have all the right certifications. They are second hand though.

I feel fine after using them, if a little dazzled - sunlight gets in around the sides . I plan to 3d print something to go around them to block that, which hopefully will make them fine to use.

I have since found out that they're only supposed to be used when an eclipse is nearly at totality. So if you're using some yourself, please do your own research rathet than going of just this post

Even then, I'd like a second option.

This is an Aliexpress solar filter designed for my telescope. I don't trust it on the telescope.

Even holding it up to the sun while wearing sunglasses - (despite my eyes collecting a thousandish times less light than the telescope) - after a short time I feel like I've been at the beach all day without sunglasses.

I will not be bringing this to Exmouth.

Next up is the cheap, but more legit cardboard solar glasses from the astronomy shop in the city:

These use the same baader film tech as the filter above.

Despite being from a reputable source, these still feel too bright, and make my eyes feel funny. Even when combined with sunnies.

Just today, this arrived:

This is a pair of shade 14 welding glass lenses - nasa recommended, and the darkest ones I could get my hands on.

They're perfect.

They turn the sun into a much fainter greenish yellow ball.

It is soooo much easier on the eyes than any of the tools I tried above.

Now what I need to do is go and make something to use them in

[mysteryshoptls]

SSR Deuce Spade - Rabbit Wear Vignette

"To be perfectly honest"

[Clock Town – Deuce's Home]

Ortho: I can't believe you have a fully equipped workshop next door to your home, Deuce Spade-san!

Ortho: Ehehe, I'm excited to think that I might be able to dress up like a white rabbit like everyone else.

Deuce: I didn't expect you to want to dress up like a white rabbit, Ortho.

Deuce: I really hope they'll let us borrow their 3D printer and materials…

Deuce: …Well, guess there's nothing else to do but ring the bell, then.

[buzzes intercom]

Workshop Owner: Yes, hello, who is it?

Deuce: Uh, it's Spade from next door…

Workshop Owner: Spade…? Wait, you're not… DEUCE!?

Deuce: Yes, sir. …It's been a long time.

Deuce: I apologize for this unexpected visit. I was wondering if perhaps we would be able to use some of the equipment you have in your workshop?

Deuce: Of course, we will fully reimburse you for its usage…

Workshop Owner: What did you say…?

Workshop Owner: YOU HAVE SOME NERVE ASKING THAT!

Ortho: EH!? This guy seems really angry…

Workshop Owner: You'd run around with all those punks, causing ruckuses in the middle of the night and destroying all sorts of things…

Workshop Owner: Do you even understand just how much pain and suffering you caused the people of this town?

Workshop Owner: Deila-san came to apologize for you so many times, but that doesn't mean squat here. Get out of here, already!!!

Deuce: I AM SO SORRY FOR ALL OF THE TROUBLE I CAUSED BACK THEN!!

Deuce: I know that I have no right to make this kind of request. But I really want to help my classmate make a rabbit costume!

Workshop Owner: Your classmate? What does my workshop have to do with their costume, in the first place…?

Ortho: Nice to meet you, I am Ortho Shroud. I'm a humanoid!

Ortho: I'm a classmate of Deuce-san at Night Raven College.

Workshop Owner: A h-humanoid?

Ortho: Yep! I really wanted a white rabbit outfit so that I could take part in the White Rabbit Festival…

Ortho: But I can't wear clothes like a living person can, so I want to make my own special gear to wear.

Workshop Owner: I've seen a few human-like robots in my time, but not one that can as eloquent as you!

Workshop Owner: And on top of that, you want to participate in Clock Town's famed White Rabbit Festival. Hmmm, what should I do…

Workshop Owner: Wait, nope, no way! If I let Deuce use my workshop, he'll totally destroy it!

Ortho: DEUCE SPADE-SAN WOULD NEVER DO ANYTHING LIKE THAT!!!

Deuce: Ortho…

Ortho: Do you truly believe that Deuce-san would actually come face-to-face to talk to you like this, hoping you'd let down your guard?

Ortho: THERE'S NO WAY DEUCE-SAN IS SMART ENOUGH TO COME UP WITH THAT KIND OF CUNNING STRATEGY!

Workshop Owner: …When you put it that way, I guess it's true that he used to just show up out of nowhere and just tear about.

Workshop Owner: Does that mean you guys truly came here to just ask for the favor of using my workshop?

Ortho: That's right! Please, mister! Please let us use your workshop!!

Workshop Owner: Sigh… Fine. Out of respect for the little humanoid boy, I'll let you use my workshop just this once.

Ortho/Deuce: THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!

Workshop Owner: That doesn't mean I trust you, Deuce. Don't get me wrong.

Workshop Owner: If you get even one scratch on any of my machines, I won't let you get off so easy!!!

Deuce: I understand.

Workshop Owner: Tch… If word got out that I was letting someone like you in, that'd be bad for my own reputation.

Workshop Owner: You don't need to pay anything. Instead, just do what you came to do and leave as fast as you can.

Workshop Owner: Go and enter the shop from the rear entrance. You know where that is, right? Be quick about it.

[slams door]

Ortho: …Deuce Spade-san, are you alright? Even I can tell just from looking at you that you seem down.

Deuce: Maybe it's more… self-loathing than just being down.

Deuce: I enrolled in Night Raven College and have been aiming to be a model student, and I've been trying really hard with my club activities…

Deuce: I thought I had changed a ton, but that doesn't change my past, y'know?

Ortho: By the past, do you mean what he said about "running around with all those punks, causing ruckuses in the middle of the night and destroying all sorts of things"?

Deuce: Uhhhh… Please forget you heard about that! Also, I'd really like it if you didn't tell anyone else what happened just now.

Deuce: And my mom, too… I don't want to cause her any extra worry.

Ortho: Uh-huh, so it's that sort of thing. I got it. I can keep this a secret from the others.

Ortho: But in exchange, I'll have you help me with crating my new gear.

Deuce: Yeah, of course I will. Leave it to me.

Deuce: …But man, you're amazing, Ortho. I can't believe you persuaded him.

Deuce: You saw how angry he was, right? I totally thought he wouldn't let us use his workshop at all.

Ortho: I calculated that since he was running a blastcycle parts shop, then he'd probably have an interest in machines or robots.

Ortho: That's why I tried to appeal to him as a humanoid, to pique his curiosity.

Deuce: …Now that you mention it, I feel like his whole attitude changed when you mentioned you were a humanoid.

Deuce: …You calculated that, huh. I'm not really good at thinking and planning ahead.

Deuce: Even everything that happened just now is the result of me causing trouble for those around me without thinking things through back in middle school…

Ortho: Deuce Spade-san…

Ortho: You can do your thinking later! Right now, we need to get my gear done as quick as possible and go join the others!

Deuce: You're right, especially since he said to be quick about it… Let's hurry before he changes his mind!

[Clock Town – Clock Park]

Deuce: I sent [Yuu] a message saying where and when we're meeting up, but… They haven't read it at all.

Ortho: Maybe they haven't had the time to look at their phone, since Grim-san just keeps dragging them everywhichway.

Deuce: Can't be helped, guess we should go look for them. I wouldn't think they'd have gone that far, though...

???: NOM NOM NOM NOM!! Funyaaa～ I can't get enough of that strong flavor.

Ortho: Ah, that's Grim-san's voice. That saves us from having to search the whole park.

Deuce: Yeah, it helps that Grim's really loud.

Deuce: Heeey! [Yuu], Grim!

Grim: Hm? Oh, it's Deuce. Nice of you to come looking for me!

Deuce: Wrong! You're the one who ran off on your own, so we were all doing our own things right now.

Deuce: So, in about an hour, we're all going to meet up at the stall we were at earlier, okay? You better not be late.

1. I want you to show me around.

Deuce: Eh, me? Can I even do that…? But, sure, I guess. We can check out the area together.

2. We should wander around together!

Deuce: With me? …Yeah, okay!

Grim: Whew, that was delish～

Deuce: Looks like Grim just finished eating, too, so let's head off.

Deuce: [Yuu], is there something you want to see or do?

1. I want to look at souvenirs!

Deuce: I think I saw some stalls selling various stuff. Want to go check them out?

2. I want to move around some to help digest my food.

Deuce: I saw a stall a bit ago that had some kind of mini-game set up. Want to try it out?

Ortho: Sounds fun! I want to go with you guys too.

Deuce: Yeah, come along. That'll make it more lively and fun!

Deuce: They've got a ton of shops set up here, so the four of us can see all sorts of stuff!

[cheering on a street performer]

Grim: Nyahaha, that's so cool! That's way more amazing than Ace's magic tricks!

Deuce: You really like those street performances, huh. It looks like it'll go on for a little bit longer, but… Maybe we should move on now?

Grim: Ehhh, I want to keep watching.

Ortho: I haven't seen many street performances, so I think I'll stay and watch some more too.

Deuce: Okay. Then [Yuu] and I'll head off and check some other places out.

Deuce: We can meet up at where we were earlier when the time comes.

Grim/Ortho: Yeah! / Understood!

Deuce: Okay, then lets head over there.

Passerby A: Oh my, what cute outfits. Are you two from around here?

Deuce: Ah, yes, I'm from here.

Deuce: I just came home to visit with my classmates for the White Rabbit Festival…

Passerby A: Oh, so you're a Clock Town local. Then, I guess there's no need to warn you.

Deuce: Warn me? Eh, did something happen?

Passerby A: Well, not necessarily something, but… you know?

Passerby B: If you're from this city, then you should know, right? That there's been some bad characters running around.

Passerby A: It must have been what, 3… maybe 4 years ago? Anyway, a while ago, this terrible hooligan showed up.

Deuce: A terrible hooligan?

Passerby B: You never heard of them? Well, you two look like you were raised properly, so I suppose I'm not surprised you don't know.

Passerby B: There's this ill-tempered hooligan with bleach-blonde hair and a scary glare who'd ride up and down the city on their blastcycle at breakneck speeds.

Passerby A: I heard that whenever they got into a fight, they'd summon a cauldron and squash their opponents flat. Aah, so scary!

Deuce: URK!

Passerby B: I haven't heard anything about them recently, but… I can't imagine such a horrible hoodlum would've been able to fix their behavior.

Passerby A: Same. It was so bad that there even was a police officer who would always go on patrol even when off-duty.

Passerby A: Anyway, they are a troublesome delinquent. You two, take care so you don't get caught in their crosshairs.

Deuce: R-Right… Thank you.

Deuce: Whew, they finally left. Those ladies were really something.

1. That story just now… 2. Was that…

Deuce: Urgh, and I was trying to change the topic…

Deuce: Well, whatever. It's just you here, anyway.

Deuce: I think the person those ladies were talking about earlier was me.

Deuce: It's been a while since I enrolled in Night Raven College, but… I'm still being talked about.

Deuce: "I can't imagine they'd be able to fix their behavior" …Hm.

1. Even though we can see that's not true.

Deuce: Are you trying to cheer me up? Thanks, [Yuu].

2. It's hard to gain people's trust.

Deuce: You're right, it's just as you say.

Deuce: …Actually, I was told the same thing just a bit ago when Ortho and I went to the workshop next door to my house.

Deuce: I guess both the people who have met me before and those who haven't don't think that I could ever have fixed myself up.

Deuce: …But I have people outside of my family that believe in me.

Deuce: Remember what those ladies said? There was a police officer who would go on patrol even when they were off-duty.

Deuce: They worked over there… In the police station across the street from the park. And for some reason, they actually looked out for me.

1. Does that person still work at that police station?

Deuce: Nah, they transferred to a different city some time ago. I hear they've climbed the ranks and is some big wig now.

2. Let's go show them how much you've changed!

Deuce: As much as I'd like to… Deuce: They transferred to a different city some time ago. I hear they've climbed the ranks and is some big wig now.

Deuce: Isn't that awesome, though!? I wish I could have said bye to them back when they transferred, but… Back then I was just too hard-headed.

Deuce: I had decided that if I ever got to meet that person again someday, I would show them just how much I had cleaned myself up…

Deuce: But it hasn't really gone as planned.

Deuce: Even today, I wanted you guys to enjoy yourselves in my hometown…

Deuce: But I don't know anything about my city, and can't even show you around properly.

Deuce: And it wasn't until Epel said that I didn't have enough pride in my hometown, that I thought I should study up on the place…

Deuce: I thought I had changed, but maybe I haven't grown up after all.

1. That's not true… 2. (I don't know what to say...)

Deuce: Sorry! I didn't mean to talk about this sort of thing when we're at a festival.

Deuce: It's almost time to meet up with everyone else. Let's head back there.

[Clock Town – Clock Park]

―After the conflict with the Black Bunnies

Deuce: Okay, then I'll go register us, so everyone wait here.

Ortho/Epel: Got it.

Silver: Right.

Grim: I'll go with you. I worry leaving it to you alone, Deuce.

1. Yeah, I agree. 2. I'll go too.

Deuce: I don't know how I feel about Grim worrying about me, but… Thanks for coming with.

Deila: The registration for the Rabbit Run Race is near the entrance to the park.

Deila: All three of you, take care over there.

Deuce: There's the entrance to the park. Uhh, let's see, where's registration…?

Grim: Isn't that it?

Deuce: You're right… EH!?

Deuce: There's a line. There's a lot more people doing this than I thought there'd be…

Deuce: Well, whatever. Let's just line up at the very back.

???: WHAT SHOULD WE DO? AT THIS RATE, WE CAN'T REGISTER FOR THE RACE!

Grim: What's goin' on?

Workshop Employee: I thought I put it in my bag, but… My rabbit ears, where could I have left them?

Workshop Owner: Rabbit ears? Oh… Do you mean the headband that was left on the 3D printer back at the workshop?

Workshop Owner: Even if we were to run back to the shop now, we won't make it back in time to register...

Workshop Owner: It's a shame, but I guess we have to give up on participating in the race this year.

Deuce: On a 3D printer in the workshop… Ah, maybe it's the one I saw when Ortho and I were working on the printer just a while ago?

Deuce: Maybe… Maybe I can help her out with magic.

Deuce: I never got to thank him for using the workshop, either… I guess I can go talk to them.

Deuce: Ah, excuse me.

Workshop Employee: Yes? …Eek, Deuce-kun!?

Workshop Owner: Now what do you want? What, are you trying to harm my employee or something?

Deuce: No, not at all! I overheard that she left her headband, and…

Deuce: I'll summon it for you with magic! That way, you can register for the race, right?

Workshop Owner: You'll summon it with magic? Can someone like you who only has the brains to cause havoc really do something like that?

Deuce: I'm not that confident, but I think I can at least summon… But I still mess that up sometimes, too… But I'm going to try!

Grim: …I don't know how good this’ll go.

Deuce: Sh-Shut it! I have to focus, so be quiet.

Deuce: [inhale, exhale] …

Deuce: COME FORTH, RABBIT EAR HEADBAND!!

[rabbit ear headband magically appears]

Deuce: It's the same design as the one I saw in the workshop earlier. That means…

1. Congrats! 2. You did it!

Deuce: Yeah! I'm so glad it worked out.

Deuce: This is your headband, right? Please accept it.

Workshop Employee: …

Grim: This lady's completely frozen in her tracks… Maybe she's terrified of you!!

Deuce: Eh!? Oh no, is it because I just suddenly called out to you? Sorry, I shouldn't have done that…

Workshop Owner: I can't believe that that Deuce just successfully summoned something, and even took care to think of my employee's feelings…

[FLASHBACK]

Deila: Hey, listen to this! Deuce has been really motivated ever since enrolling in Night Raven College.

Deila: Just the other day, he sent me a picture of a certificate that he won as an award at a track meet.

Deila: It… does look like he's having a bit of a hard time with his studies and magic, though. But he's doing is best in the only way he knows how.

Deila: And recently, he's been really considerate, saying stuff like, "Aren't you tired?" and "Don't push yourself too hard"…

Deila: Sounds like he's made some good friends, too. I'm truly happy that he's enjoying himself every single day over there.

Workshop Owner: …Looks like Deila-san was telling the truth.

Deuce: Eh? Did my mom say something?

Workshop Owner: Yeah. She said that you had a change of heart and are doing your best now.

Deuce: My mom said that…?

Workshop Owner: Honestly, I couldn't believe that you actually cleaned yourself up, no matter what Deila-san said…

Workshop Owner: You've convinced me, Deuce. Thanks to you, my coworkers and I can enter the race.

Deuce: Since I couldn't thank you earlier for letting us use your workshop… I'm glad that I was able to be of help here.

Workshop Owner: Oh, don't worry, there's still a lot that you need to pay me back for.

Workshop Owner: But for today, you did good. Hey now, you thank him, too!

Workshop Employee: …Thank you for helping me. And, sorry for being scared of you!

Deuce: And I'm sorry for suddenly calling out to you and scaring you, too.

Workshop Owner: You're going to join the race too, right? Let's all do our best!

Deuce: YES, SIR!

Deuce: I "convinced" him… Huh.

1. You did it! 2. That's great.

Deuce: Yeah. I was worried that I hadn't matured at all, but… Thanks to that, I'm feeling a bit better.

Deuce: To be perfectly honest, I planned on just coming back here by myself.

Deuce: After swinging by to see my mom and the festival real quick, I was just going to jump on my blastcycle and go for a ride.

Deuce: If you, Grim or the others hadn't come with, I don't think I would have had a chance to talk with people in town.

Deuce: So… Uh, yeah, thanks for coming here with me!

Grim: Heheh, least I could do.

Deuce: For everyone who came here with me... And also for my mom, there's no way that I can lose this race.

Deuce: We'll definitely win! [Yuu], watch me go!

Requested by Anonymous.

[bigblueoctoling]

Thoughts about Suffer No Fools/Deep Cut in general

I really dislike this whole 'shiver and frye mistreat Big Man' plotline they seem to be making with deep cut. Like, from the start they've set up that Shiver and Frye don't really appreciate Big Man, but outright having their own duo group without him just kind of feels needlessly petty. Like maybe I'm looking into this too hard, but it's also, literally the only thing one is capable of looking into with Deep Cut's canonical information. Like... Big Man is already working at a disadvantage of being a male idol who isn't humanoid, it feels kind of pointlessly cruel to pit him alone against Shiver and Frye. And it's not like Shiver or Frye are any better for it.

They keep focusing on this one trait, the fact that Shiver and Frye are very very hostile to non-splatlandians. I would love to actually enjoy Shiver and Frye being openly aggressive, that's unique for an idol's personality, but rather than feeling tough, they just feel pathetic, trying way way way too hard to look intimidating.

Again, this isn't necessarily the fault of any particular writing of Deep Cut, but rather the complete and utter lack of any meaningful lore about them.

The squid sisters are hard-carried in the personality department; they get the entirety of Splatoon 1, 2, and 3's story mode to show off their personalities.

Off the Hook started out less interesting than the Squid Sisters, since they had to rely on newscasts, but even before Octo Expansion, the fact that Marina was an Octarian was an obvious huge deal from the moment she was revealed, with the splatfests revealing the gravity of Marina's abilities. Of course, then Octo Expansion happened- Octo Expansion feels very directly like it was created for the express purpose of fleshing out Pearl and Marina to make up for them not being in the main story mode. And of course we have Side Order that just doubles down on developing them.

Deep Cut's inclusion in Splatoon 3's story is just like. The most obligatory presence possible. Somehow, despite having direct boss fights, they leave absolutely zero impact whatsoever- it doesn't help that they don't sing their boss music, but they're also just there for no reason to steal "Treasures"- completely nondescript objects of no apparent value whatsoever that have no particular meaning to Deep Cut. No elaboration is given as to why Deep Cut wants this treasure in particular- Alterna is fucking littered with human technology that's infinitely more valuable than a bunch of random metal scraps. There are giant 3D printers just sitting around. And their dialogue is just... complete nothing. As stock as possible, there's nothing to gleam about any of their relationships from anything. Like...

A small aside: The reason why Squid Sisters and Off the Hook are such interesting groups is because of their group dynamic. Callie and Marie have a very deep bond that gets tested and validated after their separation, and Pearl and Marina are just a perfect duo. I'm not even a big shipper type of person but their relationship is so wonderful to see. But what even is Deep Cut's relationship? They're friends? With the way Shiver and Frye treat Big Man it feels like their entire relationship is pure business, and it's honestly more depressing than anything else.

Anyways, getting back to Deep Cut in the story mode, they say one unique piece of information about them- that they do this to help people who are suffering.

This is a fantastic direction to take Deep Cut, and would make their hostility towards inkopolis feel much more cathartic and justified.

They literally never mention it again or elaborate on it any further. Why? What are they even referring to? Poverty? Octarian oppression? General social imbalance?

The lack of elaboration about why Shiver and Frye are so prideful and so hostile, and what sort of suffering they care about, really stands out to me in Suffer No Fools.

Suffer No Fools feels like Shiver and Frye just aimlessly attacking strangers they're completely out of their depth with. The only thing we know Shiver and Frye care about is helping the misfortunate.

With that being the case, Off The Hook are literally the last people on the entire planet you should want to start beef with, even if it's just play-fighting- and in realizing this, I've realized something else about Off The Hook and Deep Cut:

Off The Hook already fills Deep Cut's niche.

Like... Pearl and Marina are the perfect duo in terms of representing social progress. Marina obviously has a very personal reason to care about impoverished octarians- she was one of them, she fought to get to the surface. Pearl, on the other hand, is the perfect emblem of an inkling, extremely privileged due to being born into great generational wealth. However, after meeting Marina, Pearl decided to put her all into using her privilege to elevate Marina's voice as much as possible. And, in doing this, creating Off the Hook, they have had a very real, tangible impact on the acceptance of Octarians on the surface. And this isn't even touching on Octo Expansion- they go out of their way to save Eight, of course, but since then, Marina put her everything into figuring out a way to save the sanitized octarians stranded in Kamabo Co.

Meanwhile, Deep Cut's actual contributions are left entirely unelaborated and unspecified. No known efforts to figure out anything about the Mammalian octarians, literally not a word spared about them.

What the fuck do they have to be proud for? What have they ever done for anyone? All I see are some stuck up egomaniacs who have no respect for anyone who isn't an asset in getting them more money. It honestly feels less like Shiver and Frye are these charitable robin hood figures and more like that was a lie to cover their asses.

...And, of course, I expect this to change in the next Splatoon game. It would be unthinkable for Deep Cut to just have no relevance again after getting nothing in this game. This is a very pessimistic outlook on Deep Cut. But they've given me absolutely nothing to work with, it's difficult to think that characters are good people if you only ever show them being unjustifiably hostile and greedy.

It just sucks. Shiver and Frye are my favorite idol designs, but they're constantly made out to be so fucking lame, and not even in an "underdog group of failures that cares about eachother" sort of way because EVERY DEEP CUT THING HAS TO BE THEMED ABOUT HOW DEEP CUT HATES BIG MAN AND EVERYONE ELSE.

[hackedmotionsensors]

i didn't reblog the post but I do agree that the terminology for zines has gotten completely twisted.

ON THE OTHER HAND I don't think that selling them for say 20$ (which is what i sell my sketchbooks for) is unreasonable or unfair to still call a zine. I need to cover my costs of printing and the time I put into putting them together. yeah I can TECHNICALLY get a printer and print them myself but with the cost of printer ink and the lack of space its easier for me to just pay for someone to do it professionally but I'm also NOT making them at like....the HIGHEST QUALITY, LIBRARY BOUND, HARD COVER, IT COMES WITH A THOUSAND DOO DADS AND GIFTS. its just sketchbooks ofpreviously existing doodles and a few new sketches or sketches that I had before and colored in. Its essentially like selling a full print but in carryable size with some notes from me.

Its a zine but I call it a sketchbook because the idea of zines has changed for a lot of consumers. Thats not their fault bc those zines or anthologies DID start out in the "lets make a big ol book together because we are all horny for Reigen" kind of thing. A lot of times they're projects made from passion. I HAVE noticed that there's been a turn in the whole process of making them that both stresses out artists, requires kickstarters, and all sorts of shit that should be considered Artbooks. ARTBOOKS have always been on the higher end of things. There's nothing wrong with considering an anthology thats proper bound, and for a certain amount on a kickstarter you get extra things like stickers, charms, whatever.

But zines SHOULD go back to being simple little things. The cost to buy them shouldn't be lost UNLESS the artist wants it to be. If you print at home or using a schools printer and just print a bunch of cute little zines yourself then that should also exist and you can set your price point for whatever you want.

Its all semantics and personal preference at the end of the day but I do think that...yknow it wouldn't hurt if we could start calling the big project 50$ range books that often get run into the ground from bad leadership (or fun stuff like the organizer of the thing runs off with the money to play genshin) ...something other than zine. Like Artbook or Anthology. Or even Collection lol

Zine should be a small thing that you collect for fun and doesn't require a committee, a new discord channel, and a contract to make sure your organizer doesn't run off to play gacha (I'm sorry it still makes me laugh)

ALSO another thing about zines is that often times they were originally made to be alternatives to really closed minded book sellers. Like...its where a lot of the OG star trek fanfic/porn came from. Its a place to have your ideas put down. To explore narratives. Essentially Doujinshi can also be considered A TYPE of zine in that it literally means self published (not NECCESSARILY that its...yknow...bl or waifu porn lol Sometimes its just manga that artists put out before they can get published)

But lately there are a lot of zine projects (again...more actually like anthologies or art collections) that are REALLY REALLY closed minded even when the subject is SHIPPING.

So even the nature of CREATING the zines has changed a lot.

So yeah I agree with that post that I forgot to reblog. My only REAL gripe is that it doesn't mean that you should undercharge your work because you didn't print your zine at home or hand craft it like a youtube diy video. I did enough of that at art school I am not gonna bind a book or try to cut pages ever again if i don't have to lmao. CSP even has a zine preview so I can see the pages in 3d as if they were bound before printing lol

[smoqueen]

Hey, congrats on your wins! How does one even get into combat robotics stuff? I know programming but not much electronics. Is it mostly a college team thing, or do I just sort of build a 'bot and show up to a tourney? Good luck in future rounds!

many get started in high school or college, academic clubs - i did not, when i attempted in high school they made it very clear i would never work on the team and that i would be making posters etc.

you just build a bot and show up. i “just showed up” to these tournies because my brother got me into it “seriously” and he has a 3d printer for our TPU bots.

there are kits available to start!! not only are the kits very effective and relatively cheap, but they have dedicated communities who will help you set everything up, and troubleshoot, etc. they are relatively modular -

Mako’s second iteration (brothers bot) was a modified kit. the chassis, motors and batteries all stayed the same - wheels too - and we added our own fork configuration. special new armor, and a movable servo arm with a sawblade spinning on the end. but it was still “born” from a kit.

1lb weight class fights are very accessible too. i don’t know what competitions are near you but they tend to also be very spectator friendly and EVERYONE is very willing to talk, teach and help you get into it

[northwest-cryptid]

I don't collect many things, but of the things I do collect I think the most surreal is physical Mabinogi merch.

To explain Mabinogi is an MMORPG that came out in 2008 and I've been playing it ever since beta. I'd argue it has plenty of charm and enough reason even now in 2023 for anyone with even some slight interest in it to give it a shot however to me (and to my partner) it has a special place. Not only is it how my partner and I met, but it's literally a game I have played for 15 years now; considering I'm 28 that's over half my entire life.

As you might imagine back in middle school and even early high school I didn't really have a lot of money, let alone the understanding of how to order things from overseas. So a very niche MMORPG didn't necessarily have a lot of merch out and about. While most kids at my school had Pokémon backpacks or some kind of Anime plastered on their shirt (normally Naruto or Dragonball) I never had physical merch. So I was always that annoying kid who had to verbally tell you how much I liked my dumb special interest.

To give you an idea of how much this game was a part of my life, my mother once bought me an actual copy of the Mabinogion, like; the book that the game is loosely based on, it's entirely in Welsh and my mom also gave me a dictionary to translate it, I was stoked about this; I was in early high school walking around with a black book with a red symbol on the front speaking in Welsh as you can imagine this did not make me popular and cool.

Now my partner and I collect actual official merch, just last year we acquired a few magazines, guide books, and even manga. It's incredible to behold such a snapshot of time from when this was all still new and popular.

This is a guide book from back when the slogan for the game was still "fantasy life" it would later become "anime life" and a few other things; but this is the one I remember from my childhood:

We were really excited to look through this and translate it, more over we were taken aback by the system requirements listed in the guide book, I mean just check out these specs!

The funniest part is that there was a time at which I was getting a new laptop because I had to travel and I specifically gave the guy at Bestbuy this almost exact rundown for the specs I needed. This was of course because my plan was to install Mabi on it, which I did. However I had a hard time explaining to anyone why I wanted these sort of specs specifically without saying "uh so I can play an extremely niche online game from Korea?"

We also got books that were literally Item and databooks which had full lists of items you could obtain in the game as well as what races and genders could use them:

This was an absolute trip down nostalgia lane for us.

I cannot stress just how cool it was to flip through these pages and go "oh shit I had those, oh I remember that! Remember this? Yea it was from an event, damn that was a long time ago; oh god I'm old."

It's crazy to see just how much detail and effort went into these! I didn't even know they existed, if I was aware of these back in school I'd have gone ballistic over them like, check this out there's entire pages dedicated to Generation 1:

of course the merch pages caught our eye looking over all the stuff we have yet to hunt down for our collection

These books are great and I personally love the manga, illustrations of the world that I've only ever seen as low poly PMGs is such a sight to behold as a long time fan.

However you may notice something, there's not a ton of physical merch. Sure there's books and manga, and it seems like at one point there were standees and a few figures, posters, and mugs; but these days getting your hands on the rarer merch can be difficult and not to mention expensive.

That's sort of why we excitedly took matters into our own hands, slowly and methodically recreating the game's PMG models as OBJs we can actually print from our 3D printer. It's not easy but it's totally worth it.

I know this probably sounds REALLY stupid to you, and I wouldn't blame you for laughing at me for it; but the fact that I have played this game for 15 years; and today I held a 3D printed figure of a Golem in my fucking hands has me feeling a certain kind of way that's hard to explain. Knowing I could print figures of our characters, our favorite NPCs, not to mention entire dungeons and create dioramas of our favorite places from a game that means so much to me is genuinely mind boggling.

I think the part of all this that still has me in disbelief is that if you asked me what I wanted when I was a depressed 16 year old in school who came home and immediately jumped on Mabi; I'd 100% tell you that I just want to live alone with a partner who enjoyed Mabi and maybe a few cats. Now I'm 28 living with a partner who I not only met via this game but who is actually significantly better than me at it lol; we also have 3 cats and our home is slowly but surely being decorated with more and more Mabinogi crafts. I don't mean to sound like my life revolves around this game, though I admit I do laugh when my partner breaks out her signature slogan of "Mabinogi is Real Life" but I guess in a sense it just feels like I've fucking made it you know? I did it, I finally got the life I was longing for and while it may not feel real; every day this sort of thing happens makes it a littler harder to deny that I'm living the dream. I'm far from rich and I'm far from healthy; and I don't exactly have a great career or anything sure, but I think 16 year old me would be happy with the way I turned out.

[lovenpeace-pkmn]

offscreen post

//(note: set a few days ago, shortly before this post. mostly under the cut because this got kinda long)

[Concordia knocks on the door to an apartment in Nimbasa. “Be good, Cartwright," she says softly. The phone in her hand beeps in response.

The door is opened by a man with warm brown skin, blue hair, and a cane. He gives a sunny smile. “Connie! Hello! You brought the Porygon?” She holds up the phone and he says, “Good, good. Come inside!”

Connie follows him into a warmly-lit apartment. A Tynamo and a Bronzor watch her curiously. “Sit down for a moment, okay?” Tam says. “I just need to finish cleaning this up.” He gestures to a table where some kind of mechanical device sits, partially disassembled.

Connie sits on the couch, goes to open her texts, then thinks the better of it and sets her phone down.

“Any luck finding manufacturers?” Tam asks.

“No, I am afraid not. I have been somewhat busy these past few days.”

“Huh. You heard what’s been going on in Castelia?”

Unexpectedly to both of them, Concordia bursts into tears.

“Oh, dear Palkia, are you alright?”

“I’m—sorry, sorry, I should not be crying…”

“No, I…think that’s reasonable to be upset about, actually. Can I…” Connie nods, and Tam sits down on the couch next to her.

“I’m sorry,” Connie says again. “I just…everyone I know is terribly upset about this, I have spent two days answering phone calls and trying to comfort people and talking them down from arson—most of my friends are former Plasma members, we are not exactly known for making rational decisions when it comes to Pokémon welfare—my siblings are furious, and I have to keep reminding them to eat and sleep—” Connie puts her head in her hands. “I am so tired, Tam. Everyone needs me to be strong, but I am so tired. And it seems that every time I look away Minskt escalates things to new heights of corruption, and I have to start all over again…”

“Do you, um…do you need a hug?”

Connie nods miserably and lets him wrap his arms around her.

After a moment they break apart. Connie stands up, face a little red.

“We, um. We should get to work on the Porygon thing…”

“Right…right.” Tam stands up as well, rubbing the back of his head. “The scanner’s right back through here… You said you don’t have her Pokéball, right?”

“Yeah, N couldn’t find it…”

A stream of electric light comes out of Connie’s phone and congeals into the form of Cartwright the Porygon. She chirps curiously as Tam leads them into a room lined with worktables and machinery. A 3d printer hums away in one corner.

Tam goes to one of the machines and starts flipping switches. “Arright. My machine’s not connected to the PC network, so we can check her registration data, but if we alter it, it’ll glitch out next time she links to the network. It’s a whole mess and I spend a lot of time sorting out reg data corruption for clients who thought they could change their traded ‘mon’s nickname at home…”

“You can release her, though, right?”

“Oh, yeah, that’ll be no trouble if that’s what you want. Sort of in a legal gray area, but—her trainer’s dead, yeah? And she doesn’t want to go back to the company he worked for?”

“Yeah.”

“Alright, Porygon, come sit here,” Tam says, pressing some buttons on one of his machines. Cartwright hovers down to sit on the table next to it. Tam presses another button, and a beam of light flashes out to scan her. A few seconds later, the machine’s screen lights up with the scanned information. “…Um.”

Connie leans over curiously to see the screen. “Um what?”

“Connie, this Pokémon is legally owned by the company, not by the trainer. I’m all for Pokémon autonomy, but—”

“We cannot send her back," Connie says quickly. "She says they are going to erase her memory if she goes back.”

“I know, I wasn’t going to say we should—” Tam stops. “Erase her memory? That’s awful!”

“Exactly.”

“I—yeah, okay, this is very justified, I just…you understand this is super illegal, right? Are you sure you want to do this, like, right after Castelia’s law enforcement pulls that?”

“We already have the Porygon,” Connie points out. “Might as well be in for an Ampharos as for a Mareep, no? And they will be distracted. This new change will cause more chaos in their ranks than anything.”

“Okay. Yeah, okay.” Tam takes a deep breath and pushes his glasses up. “Pory, you got anything you want to save from your reg data before we delete it?”

Cartwright shakes her head, then vanishes into the machine for a moment. She types across the screen, “Status: ready rready ready! Begin procedure,” and then rematerializes onto the table.

“Okay. Here goes nothing… Wiping registration data now.”]

[autumnalwalker]

Empty Names - 21 - Old Flame

Author's Note: In which Eris gets a phone call from her ex, hunts down an eldritch horror and gets backstory trauma put on display. And backstory happy stuff too. Lots of Eris backstory this chapter all around. I think this might be one of my favorite chapters I've written so far for this story, even if it did come out more like three chapters in a trenchcoat. Maybe one of these days I'll go back and split this chapter and the other overly long ones into separate parts/posts to be more digestible. More spoiler-y commentary in the tags. Wordcount: 16,606 Content Warnings: Fantasy fight scene violence. Blood. Trauma flashbacks. Loss of sense of self. Suicide mention. Mild body horror. Brief mentions of sex and kink without detail.

<-Previous Chapter Masterpost Next Chapter->

For all the pocket dimensions Eris has passed in and out of, somehow these past few days have been her first time leaving the country while, strictly speaking, remaining on Earth.  Their last mission - somehow the word feels less silly when Road is around - involved helping a young man sort through the collection of cursed and haunted artifacts filling the house he’d just inherited from some mysterious distant uncle.  The unlucky heir had found the experience harrowing enough that he took the amnestic Road offered him afterward, but that still left a couple dozen dangerously enchanted items in need of proper disposal.  Eris had been able to call up Preacher from her monster hunter contacts for a good old fashioned Catholic exorcism on a few, others were handled by Road and Ashan performing some more esoteric rituals, and three were set aside for storage in some basement of the Bridgewood Manor for Sullivan to take care of.  That all left seven objects that Road insisted would be best handled by returning them to their rightful resting places.

Hence the current international road trip with Road while Lacuna and Ashan stayed behind to watch the office.  When Road had said they could just about get anywhere on the planet in three hours or less, Eris had taken it for a boast.  After seventy-two hours of making more jumps through bridges and pocket dimensions than she’d previously made in the seven years since she first found Crossherd, she’s reminded that Road doesn’t make boasts.  France, Peru, Kenya, Romania, India, Korea… and who knows how many other countries they technically passed through for a few minutes between bridges in between those stops.

“So, what’s the fastest way from Seoul to Vancouver?” Eris asks Road as she climbs into the driver’s seat of her van.

The third-to-last artifact on their dropoff list - a spirit of a blacksmith haunting the last sword it ever made - has been picky about who it will allow itself to be passed down to.  It’s been insistent about being in the hands of “a true craftsman of its bloodline,” and so far none of its descendents in its home country that she and Road have talked to have made the cut.  Hopefully a cousin in Canada with a 3D modeling job and a resin printer for making tabletop wargame miniatures will satisfy the spirit more than a restaurant owner who’s long since given up doing his own cooking.

“If we were walking, there’s a noodle place I know a few blocks away that’s in six different cities and once.  Depending on what we order and how fast we eat, we could probably get there in twenty or thirty minutes.  Driving through, probably best we go back through the bridge we came here from, then a series of brief transits from Mumbai, to Dubai, to Cambrai, to Quebec, to Vancouver.  Should be about an hour if traffic is good.”

“Rhyming our way to France, and then making the French connection to Canada?”

“It might be silly, but it works,” Road says with a chuckle.   “Bridges and pocket dimension links have sprouted up from stranger things.”

“Are you sure we’re actually on an achor world?  This has been a whole lot of holes and folds in space we’ve been going through.  It’s all starting to make the firm bedrock of reality that everything’s tied down to feel more like a sponge.”

“Now you know why the powers that be in Crossherd and similar hub dimensions are so insistent on the Masquerade.  Not even most people in the know Backstage have any idea just how… loose… everything really is.”

Eris stays silent for a bit to let that sink in.  And to concentrate on driving in a city with street signs in a language she’s had scant opportunity to practice since her parents kicked her out nearly a decade ago.  She knew better than to expect anything familiar here, in the birthplace of a grandmother she’d never met that looked nothing like how it would have back before that grandmother met her grandfather and moved with him back overseas.  A grandmother she herself probably looks nothing like.  Allegedly her father had taken more after his father and passed that on to her.  Still, both the arrival and the leaving of this city brought an irrational twinge of hope that she might glimpse something of one of the heritages her parents had been so weirdly insistent about cutting out of their lives in favor of a futile attempt to blend in and assimilate.  She’d gotten the same feeling when stopping in India on this trip too, and nothing had come of it there either.  It’d probably be the same if she ever went to Mexico, although that unmet grandparent had supposedly been a second generation immigrant.

But hey, on the bright side she’s driving again, even if it is in city traffic at the moment.  Between Crossherd’s walkability, the trees at the Bridgewood Estate, and the unexpected lack of monster corpses in need of disposal since joining up with Road, she’s barely been behind the wheel in the past two months.  Fortunately, the heavily refurbished van turned out to be just about perfect for transporting a pile of cursed artifacts that were too volatile to shove into bigger-on-the-inside containers.  Maybe one of these days when they all have some downtime she’ll talk the others into a more recreational road trip somewhere.  It’d get Lacuna out of her basement lab and would probably be a brand new experience for Ashan.

“By the way,” Road says at a red light, snapping Eris out of her traffic-induced musings, “I’ve noticed these past couple days that you’ve been changing up how you refer to me mid-conversation.”

“Just going with what felt right.  My bad for not running it by you first though.”

“No, no, I’m just surprised is all…  How could you tell?”

“There’s this thing you do with your voice.  Your body language and posture too, but mostly your voice.  You’ve got three or four different modes of presentation, I guess you could call it, that you’ll settle into as a default for most of the day and shapeshift your jacket to match, but then throughout the day in shorter bursts you’ll shift in and out of those other modes while your appearance stays the same.”  Eris raises an eyebrow at him before turning her gaze back to the traffic that’s begun moving with the greenlight.  “Am I wrong?”

Road lets out a laugh that peters out into a bemused sigh.  “You’re the first person I’ve met other than Sullivan to pick up on that,” she says to Eris.  “It feels nice to be seen like that.  I knew you were the right one to bring along on this trip.”

“I’ve been wondering about that actually.  Why did you pick me for this?  Sure, I’ve got the van, but we’ve got one in the office’s garage that we’ve still never taken out for a spin and I know you know how to drive.”

“Partly I figured you would be the best at resisting any influence our backseat passengers start acting up.”

“I’d think the wizard would be the ideal choice for that.”

“Sure, he has his defenses, the same as any other properly trained mage, but even before putting this team together, I’ve always felt you were strong-willed enough not to need such techniques.”

A rapidly shifting sky seen through bloody water.  A sense of peace and warmth despite the icy depths.  A steady fame from the tip of a white wand.  Active thought flowing out to feed the fire.  Smooth skin where a scar should be.  A flood of lost memories.  A sun held between her -

Eris pushes the memories of helplessness back down.

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” she replies.

“And I wouldn’t be so sure of selling yourself short,” Road says.  “Nevertheless, the bigger reason I asked you to come with me for this is that you know how to talk to people.”

“Eh, my Spanish is fluent and my German is passable, but we just saw that my Korean is rusty as Hell and my Hindi is even worse.  I never did get around to learning French beyond a handful of tourist phrases, and I don’t know a lick of Romanian.  Again, Ashan seems like the better fit with the translation charm.”

“That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”

“You’re right.”

“Then why play dumb?”

The van reaches another intersection just in time for the light to turn red.  

Eris turns answers over in her mind.

Why?

Reflex?  Humility?  Habit?

Why would that be a reflex?  When did that happen?  How did she let it?

It’s been a long time.

Was it when she started hanging out at a bar full of adrenaline junkies with a deathwish?

Was it when she chose the bloody rush of killing monsters with her bare hands over college despite her scholarship qualifications?

Was it when she got accused of secretly being a boy and on drugs for being too good at sports in junior high?

It’s been a long time.

The light turns green.

“I guess I’m not used to anyone wanting me around for much other than to be the big strong one who’s good at hitting and breaking stuff,” Eris answers.

“Again, you’re selling yourself short.  Do you think that’s what Lacuna wants you around for?  Or how Ashan sees you when the two of you linger in the kitchen after the rest of us leave?”

“Those are personal relationships, it’s not the same thing.  Besides, Sully’s made it abundantly clear what he thinks of me and what I got hired to do for you two.”

“He has, hasn’t he?  I’m sorry about that, I really am.  Sullivan, for better or worse, has some consistent blindspots with his biases and isn’t half as good at reading people as he thinks he is.  Especially anyone that’s even remotely similar to him.”

“Okay, now that’s a low blow.  He and I are not alike”

“I mean it as a compliment, really.  I’ve never met anyone so loyal or so fiercely protective of the people he cares about.  I see that in you too, except you still have it in you to have some compassion for anyone outside those close to you.  And, of course, you’re both incredibly skilled at doing violence and enjoy it, even if the reasons are different.  But you’re both more than that too.  Even with this mission he’s the one who’s been doing the genealogical digging and messaging me with suggestions of where to go and who to take these artifacts to, despite that taking time away from his ongoing investigation.”

“Speaking of that,” Eris says, “what have you had Sully working on that’s so secret?  Not that I’m complaining, but I don’t think I’ve seen the guy since the office opened up.”

“You don’t know?”

“Obviously not.  And every other time I’ve asked something’s conveniently come up for you to change the subject.”

“Strange.  I could have sworn I told you.  It must have just slipped… my… mind…  again…”

A handful of times, on particularly bad nights, Eris has sat with Lacuna when she just sort of shut down.  Those instances were always rough, but seeing Road of all people do it out of the blue like this is chilling.  Like the sun going out and revealing that it’s just been a big light bulb hanging from a poorly-painted ceiling this whole time.  

Lacuna never snapped back to normal abruptly enough to make Eris question if she'd just imagined it though.

“Anyway,” Road resumes, “remember our first mission as a team?”

“It’s barely been two months.”

“So it has.  Regardless, he’s been investigating what caused a dragon and a Culescun bone ship not outfitted for inter-world travel to get drawn into a crossover point and try to occupy the same space at the same time.  More specifically, he’s been tracking down whomever it was that blew up the nearby lighthouse shortly after we left and trying to figure out if they’re connected to a different case of an unknown party picking off and stealing the contraband from inter-world smugglers.”

“He’s what now?”  Eris asks, keeping her tone carefully level.  How is this her first time hearing any of this?  “Is that why we’re playing cursed delivery service right now?  So we can be bait?”

“In all honesty, that thought hadn’t occurred to me.  But now that you mention it, there are worse plans.”

Another red light.  The last intersection before the turn into a series of side alleys for the bridge.

“We can come back to that after you explain everything you thought you already told me,” Eris says, “but for now, what was that about the lighthouse bl-”

A custom ringtone that Eris hasn’t heard in years plays over the van’s speakers and cuts off her question.  She doesn’t need to look at the caller ID displayed on the dashboard console to know who it is.  A part of her is surprised the caller still has her number, but then again, Eris still has hers.  And the two of them do still speak from time to time.

She considers letting it go to voicemail.  Or even hitting the button to hang up altogether.  She has more important things to focus on right now than a phone call from an ex who might have been trying to flirt with her a week ago.

An ex who wouldn’t call unless it was an emergency.  An ex who, if she really wanted to get back together, would more likely rope mutual friends into arranging a “chance meeting” where they would “just so happen” to have the opportunity and reason to do something romantic together like walk through a botanical garden, fix an engine together, or fight each other until they can barely stand.  An ex who would drop everything if Eris were the one to call.

Godammit.

“We’ll talk about this later,” Eris says to Road before tapping the green call icon on the dashboard screen.  “Yo, Gretchen, I’m driving right now with Road, so I’ve got you on speakerphone.  What’s up?”

With any luck, knowing Road’s on the line should keep Gretchen from trying to dredge up old relationship history that Eris is even less in the mood to deal with right now than normal.  And if it really is an emergency, it will be good to keep Road in the loop.

“Great,” Gretchen’s voice says through the van’s speakers, “that saves me the trouble of making a second call.  Do either of you know anything about non-euclidean, shifting, tesseract-esque architecture of the sort Lovecraftian horrorterrors like to make nests in?”

“I know that eldritch-warped spaces should never be entered without the proper training and precautions,” Road offers, “and even then they’re incredibly dangerous to go into alone and nigh-impossible to find your way out of without an anchor back to realspace.”

“Right.  Pretty much what I already guessed then.”

“Gretchen,” Eris says in exasperation that hasn’t yet turned into concern, “for the love of God, please tell me that’s not where you’re calling from.”

“Not yet it isn’t, but I am camped out inside the theater department of a Midwest liberal arts college staring at the door to a dressing room that was bigger on the inside when I opened it to chase the tentacle monster I’ve been hunting.”

“In that case,” Road says, “I would strongly advise closing the door, waiting an hour, and then checking to see if it’s gone back to normal by then.  The eldritch aren’t mere beasts to hunt.”

“Not happening.  I’ve already tagged this one so it can’t fully escape the world into voidspace.  It’s my quarry to claim, and while I really would love the assistance if you want to come jump into the proverbial eye of terror with me, I’m going after it either way.  And before you start lecturing me about acceptable targets, I’ve already verified that this one’s not sapient; it’s just a passing scavenger that stopped by to feed on the psychic torment of undergrads going through finals week.”

The traffic light turns green.

“Give us an address and we’ll be there as soon as we can,” Eris says.  “Don’t you dare go in there alone before we arrive.”  She just had to turn this into an ultimatum, didn’t she?

“Thanks E, I’ll text it to you.  Be seeing you.”

The call ends, and the ensuing text message arrives immediately enough that it was almost certainly typed up in advance.  Eris taps to display it on the screen and glances at Road.

“Do I still want to make this turn up ahead?”

“Do you really think she’ll really go in on her own if we take too long?”

“I hate to say it, but yes.  I’d know if she were bluffing and she’s not.  She’s leaving something out, but she’s serious about that.”

“In that case go three more blocks and then take twelve right turns in a row.  There’s a witch I know who owes me a favor.”

“Got it.  And thanks for helping with this.  I know it’s a detour from the current mission cleanup.”

“It’s practically on the way, and besides, there’s not a rush with the deliveries.  It’s not like they’re going anywhere if we leave them unattended for a short time.  Wrong kind of hauntings for that.”

“All the same, I appreciate it.  Things between me and Gretchen are weird, but I’d still rather not see her lose her mind trapped in some impossible labyrinth.”

“I wouldn’t want to see that happen to anyone.  Do you want to loop in Ashan and Lacuna?”

“Nah, someone’s got to watch the office in case something comes up.  Besides, it’s like two a.m. there right now.  Let them sleep.  Between you, me, and Gretchen, we should be fine.”

“Right you are,” Road says with a smile that shows more teeth than his usual.  “It’s been awhile since I’ve dealt with one of the eldritch.  This should be fun.”

Fun…  Yes, Eris supposes it will be once the hunt gets going.  No more effective way to forget her worries for a little while.  But first…

“Now about that exploding lighthouse…” Eris leaves the implied question hanging.

“I can give you and the others the full explanation when we get back.”

“You can give me the abridged version while I drive.”

“Fair enough.”

Eris could almost swear she hears them whisper something under their breath about it being refreshing to be called out.

*******

It has long been observed that artists, writers, performers, and other such creative types tend to have a statistically significant increased rate of contact with the extra-dimensional entities collectively known as “the eldritch.”  While the theory that creatives are somehow possessed of some special spiritual elevation or metaphysical sensitivity has been largely discredited, the actual cause of this phenomenon remains hotly debated.  The most popular theories are variations on the proposition that the act of creating art gives of psychic resonances that the eldritch can sustain themselves on similar to how deiform entities (more commonly known as “gods”) are sustained by - and by some indications potentially created by - sapient faith.  Others propose that the act of creation is a reshaping of our otherwise relatively stable baseline reality that either draws the eldritch in via a sense of familiarity to their own ever-shifting domain of existence or fascinates them with its alienness.

The most radical theories of why the eldritch seem to be drawn to art and artists is that they are not truly so different from us, and just find it neat.

Such is the potentially relevant trivia that runs through Eris’s mind as she picks her way down a dark hallway strewn with a web of tripwires and enchanted chalk drawings, trying not to catch any of the higher-strung wires on the spear strapped to her back.  Less helpful but equally persistent thoughts include stories of victims going mad from merely looking at the eldritch and irritation at Gretchen for setting all this up when she knew Eris and Road were coming to help.  And, Eris will begrudgingly admit, thoughts admiring the skill it takes to turn thirty feet of straight hallway into a virtual labyrinth to navigate.

“Okay, stop,” Gretchen instructs her.  Golden hair and golden eyes catch the glow coming from the one open door in the hallway while black leather and kevlar blend the rest of the monster huntress into the shadows.  Her spear, with its exaggerated bladed crossguard below the main blade, lies resting against the doorframe.  “Take two steps to the left, two steps back, another to the left, four forward, two to the right, and then you should be clear.”

“Was this all really necessary?” Eris asks as she catches up with Road and Gretchen in front of a door to a theater dressing room whose contents keep multiplying and folding in on themselves. 

“Maybe not, but I had the time waiting for you to get here,” Gretchen answers, “so I figured I may as well account for the possibility of this thing fleeing back outside once we find it in there.  These Lovecraftian tentacle monsters are slippery like that, this way we either catch it in there or we chase it back out here where it slithers headlong into a magic net.”  She flashes Eris a wickedly playful grin painted poison apple red.  “Besides, if you were to accidentally set one of these off it’d be fun to see how long it takes you to break out.”

“Lovecraftian is a slur,” Road points out without looking away from the threshold of the warped space, saving Eris from having to reply to that last part.

“Huh?”

“Old Howard Phillips was a racist xenophobe even by the standards of his time who thought air conditioning was unnatural and scary,” Eris clarifies.  “A guy like that was obviously going to interpret any contact with a genuinely alien consciousness in the worst possible faith, and whether it was coincidence or a failed attempt at breaking the Masquerade, he wound up having an outsized influence on the collective consciousness and how the eldritch have even been able to interact with this world over the past century.”

“I never did understand how the other hunters couldn’t see you were a giant nerd at heart,” Gretchen says.

“Not in a flirting mood right now, Gretchen.”

“Spoilsport.”  The word comes out as a joke rather than an accusation.

“Anyway,” Road says as they drop their duffel bag on the floor and begin rifling through it, “I think I’ve seen enough to get a handle on the situation.”  

“Do tell,” Gretchen says.

“At a glance this appears to be a fairly standard eldritch spatial warping, anchored enough to this world to be merely confusing instead of completely incomprehensible.  That said…” he pulls a scrimshaw carving of a deep-sea fish from the duffle bag and sticks his arm through the doorway, holds it there past the threshold for a few seconds until the bone starts glowing, and puts it back in the bag.  “Like I suspected, the space is psychically reactive, so we’ll need to be careful about mental feedback loops in there.  Luckily I have some countermeasures for that.  Just give me a few minutes to stabilize this portal so it doesn’t close behind us and we should be good to go.”

“Cool, while you do that…” Eris says to Road and then turns to Gretchen, “Gretchen, I need a word with you in private.”

“Not a lot of privacy in here, E, unless you want to go walk through the web again.”

Eris stalks over to where the person who coined that nickname for her and all it entails stands lurking just past the edge of the light spilling from the warped space beyond the door.  She comes to a stop close enough that the shorter woman has to crane her neck up to look her in the eye.  When she does, Eris can see that her pupils are dilated beyond even what this darkness should elicit.  Black circles that nearly reach the edge of their sockets with just the faintest rim of yellow iris and hardly any room for the white of sclera.

“We can whisper,” Eris hisses.  “And I am not in the mood for you to make a joke out of that.”

“What’s got you all worked up?” Gretchen whispers.  “A hunt with rare prey and working with Road?  I’d think you’d be enjoying this as much as I am.  Or has working with the celebrity hero gotten boring for you?”

“What are you leaving out?”  Eris prays that she’s wrong about already knowing the answer to her own question.  

“Perceptive as ever.  It always was one of your best qualities.”

“Stop dancing around the answer.”

“Tell me how you figured it out.”

“Do I look like I want to play this game?”  She used to love playing this game.

“You already know the answer.”

“I want to hear you say it.”

“You want to hear me say literally anything else.  I want to hear you say it.”

A request with two meanings if there ever was one.

“Fine,” Eris growls.  “You called me.”

“Just that?”

“That was enough to suspect.”

“But there was more.  What are you leaving out?”  

That same wonderfully wicked smile that always accompanied every inside joke between them.

“If this was just about a hunt gone weird you would have called Road directly.  We all have their number, it’s literally posted on the wall at 121813.  And you certainly wouldn’t have turned it into a threat to go in alone.  You’re smarter than that.  You wanted me here, and Road’s an excuse at best and distraction at worst.”

“Go on.”

“You’ve always been good at setting up snares, but not even you could have rigged all this up in the time between the phone call and now.  You had these traps ready before you ever picked up the phone.  You prepared this for us as much as for your prey, but you made a point of helping us get on this side of them.”

“And why would I ever do a thing like that?”

“We show up and you’re lurking in the shadows like you’re setting up a dramatic reveal.  You love being dramatic, but that’s not your flavor.  You burst into rooms with flashy entrances and get all eyes on you.  You’re two thirds my size and take up twice as much space.  You’ve got a miniature bluetooth speaker hidden in your gear so you can play goddam theme music in a fight.  You don’t lurk for drama.  You only lurk when you’re hunting.  When you’re closing in on prey and waiting for it to get in position.  When you want to build up your own thrill of anticipation before you come down like lightning with all the flash and thunder that goes with it for your perfect moment.”

“But we’re on a hunt, aren’t we?  Why shouldn’t I be lurking outside the hole I’ve run my prey down into?”

“But the eldritch in there isn’t what you really want to catch.”

“My my, my.  E, are you calling yourself my prey?  I know you’re delicious, but -”

Eris reaches out and grips the flashlight clipped to Gretchen’s shoulder, twists it towards Gretchen’s face and turns it on.  There’s an unmistakable flash of eyeshine in the moment before those unnaturally dilated pupils contract into sharp vertical slits, leaving Gretchen more golden-eyed than ever.  A predator’s eyes.  A hunter’s eyes.

“Now who’s the dramatic one?” Gretchen purrs.

“You were practically showing them off when we got here.”

“They’re lovely aren’t they.  It’s amazing what autogenesis can do.  But what does it all mean?”

It’s the reason they broke up.

“I almost hit my tipping point on my last hunt,” Gretchen speaks up when Eris doesn’t.

The fifth fate of hunters.

“I changed, and it felt wonderful.”

To get so lost in the hunt, in the thrill of violence, that one becomes no different from the monsters they hunt.

“But then the rush faded, and it was horrifying.”

A recognition of identity that triggers a self-reinforcing feedback loop of autogenesis.

“That’s why I want you here tonight.”

Those who fight monsters and live are doomed to become monsters themselves.

“So you can help pull me back from the brink when I start to go over again.”

“Bullshit,” Eris says flatly.

“Excuse me?”

“You picked out a difficult and dramatic target for your last hunt that you knew had a reputation for making people lose their minds in the hopes that it would be a sure thing to seal you into the fifth fate, and then you called me up so I could witness you change and then tragically have to put you down the way you always romanticized and fantasized about.  Bonus points if I die too right after from injuries you inflicted.  Your perfect fucked up fairy tale ending.”

“E, that’s not the only way it has to go.”

“Oh, and me turning into a monster too so we can go on a mindless rampage together is so much more -”

“I’m done!” Road calls from the door.

Eris turns around to see them holding an intricately embossed knife in one hand and a smoking censer dangling from a chain in the other.  Behind them the doorframe is now surrounded by geometric sigils drawn in glowing chalk.

“Good.  So are we,” Eris says.

Road nods in misunderstood affirmation.  “Now then, then incense should ward off any eldritch influence to keep our minds stable and bodies intact, so we’ll need to stick together while we’re in there.”

“About that,” Eris says.  “Change of plans.  Gretchen is staying out here.”

“I absolutely am not!  This is my hunt!”  Gretchen shouts.  The sudden change in demeanor would be jarring if Eris hadn’t expected it.

“I’ve read up enough on these things and talked to enough wizards to know that getting out of weird space like that works best if you have someone on the outside as a lifeline or beacon to follow back.  Gretchen’s the one who set up all the traps out here, so best if she takes on that duty so she can manage them if the eldritch comes back out before we do.  Better to drive it back out and into her traps to finish it off here than to kill it in an extradimensional space that might well collapse with its death.”

“Oh, now who’s talking bullshit?”  Gretchen snarls.  Her teeth are sharper than they were three minutes ago.  “If anyone should stay behind it should be Road since they’re the one who knows how to keep the door open.  Just give us the incense to take with us and we’ll be fine.”  She shakes her head.  “But no.  You’re just trying to poach my prey.  Well, I’m the one who found out it was haunting this place!  I’m the one who tracked it down to begin with!  I’m the one who lured it into realspace!  I’m the one who tagged it so it can’t escape!  I’m the one who backed it into a corner!  I’m the one who kills it!  It’s mine!  My prey!  My hunt!  And you can’t take it!”

Eris rounds on her.  “Good God!  Would you listen to yourself right now?  You’re raving.  This isn’t you.  Not the Gretchen I know.  You’re on the brink and that’s the feedback loop talking.”

“And you know me so well, don’t you?  In spite of being too afraid of letting go of yourself to see what I see.”  

“I know that there’s more to you than just joy of the hunt, and if you go in there you’re going to fall over the edge and lose all of that.  And I am not going to help you commit an elaborate ego suicide.”

“It’s not-” Gretchen starts to say before getting interrupted by Road stepping between the two monster hunters.

“Eris, you’ve got a point about someone staying behind as a lifeline beacon,” Road says before taking Eris’s hand in hers to give her a crystal amulet on a silver chain, “but if it’s the hunter’s fifth fate you’re worried about then maybe you should both stay out here while I go in.”

“Me?”  Eris balks.  “I’m fine.”

“Look me in the eye and tell me that you are one hundred percent sure of that.  Tell me that if you go in you won’t wind up being the one falling over the edge when eldritch exposure starts eating away at your capacity for rational thought.”

Heat.  Rage.  Ecstasy.  The smell of smoke and steam.  A cloak of flames.  Hair alight like clouds at sunset.  A heavy, wet, crunching sound repeating over and over.

The contextless memory leaves Eris gasping.  She pushes it back down lest context arrive.

Road nods.  It’s the first time Eris has ever seen them look sad.  It’s unsettling.

“Gretchen’s liable to run in right after us anyway if we leave her out here unsupervised,”  Eris says.

“I would not!”  Gretchen protests.  “Not that you’re going to leave me out here.”

“Gretchen,” Road says, turning to her, “Eris is right.  You’re not well right now.  I’ve seen this sort of thing happen before firsthand, so I would know.”  He raises a hand to forestall another objection.  “I also know that, on some level, you know that too, or else you would have come up with a way to just get Eris here and not me.  You know how the arrangement I have with the 121813 crew goes; if I’m called in it’s not a hunt anymore and it’s out of the hands of whomever it was that made the call.  It’s out of your hands.”  Road steps back and gives one of  those warm, reassuring smiles of theirs.  “And maybe you even meant it earlier about wanting Eris to be here to pull you back from the brink.  Yeah, you two weren’t exactly being quiet by the end there.  But maybe you don’t have to be all the way to the brink for someone you care about to pull you back and help you.”

Maybe it’s the incense bringing her back down to her senses, or maybe it’s just Road being Road, but something in Gretchen relaxes.  Deflates.

“Maybe…” she whispers, eyes downcast.

“Now then!” Road says in a sudden shift from serious to chipper.  “You two obviously have a lot of baggage to unpack, so why don’t you take the opportunity to sort that out while I go sort out getting our squiggly visitor back to its home in the Void?  Alright?  Good.  I’m trusting you, and I’ll see you on the other side.”

And with that, Road turns on their heel and heads toward the door with a jaunty wave.  By the time they cross the threshold their jacket has finished folding and flowing outward to completely cover them in plated purple armor with green trim.  The incense smoke billows around them and trails behind, creating a pocket of stability in the chaotic space that was once a theater dressing room.  And then the bubble gets too far away from the door, the room inverts itself, and Road is gone save for a subtle tugging sensation coming from the amulet they left in Eris’s hand.

“So…” Gretchen grasps at the words to say next.  Her eyes remain downcast.

“So…” Eris prompts.  Her eyes remain trained on Gretchen.

“Is Road always…”

“Like that?  Pretty much.”

“And here I thought they were just doing a bit the couple of times I worked with them.”

“Nah, they’ve got that vibe going pretty much twentyfour-seven.”

“Sounds exhausting.”

“For me or for them?”

“Both.”

“Eh, it’s endearing, and I’m not convinced they actually sleep.”

The silence of thoughts not yet formed into words descends.  Gretchen steps away from Eris to go lean on a section of wall that hasn’t been tripwired or graffitied.  Eris shifts her own position to keep herself between Gretchen and the door and pockets the lifeline amulet.  

Seconds pass.

Minutes.

Gretchen finally looks back up at Eris.

“I’m sorry,” Gretchen says.  “Like you said, I wasn’t really myself when I was going on like that.”

“No, you weren’t.”

“It’s just… You know what it’s like.  The rush, the thrill, the anticipation.  The drumbeat in the back of your head that seems too loud to be simply your own heart.  The electric tingle down your spine that spreads through your whole body.  The way smell and taste start blurring together and your other senses all start feeding each other so that the whole world seems more.  The craving.  The memory of blood’s viscosity and the way a drop’s trail down the back of your hand catches on all the little hairs and gathers in the pores and creases.  The constant knowledge of how good the climax of the hunt feels.  Has felt.  Will feel next time.”

“I do.  All the more reason for you not to go in there.”

“It’s like that all the time now.  Even basking in that moment right after a kill, it only ebbs away to a murmur.  It’s enough to make you think it might not be so bad if you never felt anything else.”

“Only ever feeling one thing?  Sounds like death to me, and I’d rather die as myself.”

Gretchen’s laugh is soft and bitter.  “You always say that.  Have you ever stopped to think that it might be becoming more yourself, not less?”

“I have, but I’ve seen what someone becoming more herself looks like, and this?  What you’re talking about?  This ain’t it.”

“How do you figure?”

“Becoming more yourself is about letting yourself grow, and while you might shed some masks that were never really part of who you were in the first place, everything that makes you you is still there in some form, for better or worse.  What you’re talking about isn’t taking off a mask, it’s hacking off your nose, ripping out your tongue, and mangling your ears.  It’s becoming a caricature of yourself.  Maybe if this was a not wanting to be human anymore thing I could understand, but that’s never been what you wanted.  It was always that single perfect moment stretched out to infinity that you’d always wax poetic about.”

“How do you do it then?”

“Do what?”

“I’ve seen you in action E, I know you love it just as much as I do.  Maybe even more.”

“I’m not the one trying to accelerate losing my mind here.”

“That’s my point!  I’ve seen you covered head to toe in blood with a look on your face I only wish I could have ever gotten you to make in bed, and it’s the hottest thing I’ve ever seen.  That’s not even flirting, it’s objective fact.  So how are you not the one rushing headlong into trying to feel that way all the time?  Where do you find that strength to resist?”

Eris shrugs.  “It’s not that complicated really.  I wouldn’t even call it ‘strength’ per say. I have other things I care about and I know that there’s more to me than being the strong one who rips out hearts and crushes skulls with my bare hands.  I love the hunt - and the kill - sure, but I don’t let my life revolve around it.”

“I could make an argument to the contrary, but…”  Gretchen takes a deep breath, throws back her head, and lets out a long exhale in time with sliding her lean against the wall down into a seated position.  “Maybe you’re right.  Maybe I should try to take a break for a while.  Find myself a new hobby.”

Eris crouches down to get closer to eye level with her and grins.  “I’d suggest gardening, but you and I both know your track record there.”

Gretchen’s laugh is sharp and sweet.  “You’re never going to let me live that down, are you?”

“You almost let a cactus die of dehydration before I stepped in.”

“In my defense, we were living in a humid area at the time.  I figured that would be enough for it.”

“Not in that case.”

The silence of familiarity lost and found changed descends.  Gretchen fiddles with the area on her arm where sleeve meets glove.  Eris cracks her neck.

Seconds pass.

Minutes.

Gretchen’s eyes drink in Eris’s presence, only flickering their focus to the open doorway behind her for a moment.

“So, finally got yourself a new pair of boots,” Gretchen observes.

Eris glances down, catches herself, and snaps back to watching Gretchen.  “You should have seen the rest of the armor they came with.  It was an offworld import, a real sci-fi space marine type look just a step shy of full on power armor.”

“What, did you order it in the wrong size and just keep the boots?”

Eris shakes her head.  “You know the trope of jumping on a grenade to save your teammate?”

“Yeah?”

“Replace the grenade with a miniature exploding sun conjured by a wizard.  It was hovering though, so instead of throwing myself on top of it I just sort of grabbed it with both hands and squeezed.”  Eris mimics the motion.  “The boots were the only part of the armor that were still salvageable after.”

“That’s my E, walking off a supernova to the face.”

Light piercing through skin down to the marrow.  Heat beyond pain’s ability to register.  Flame inseparable from flesh.  A heavy, wet, crunching sound repeating over and over.  A soft bed.  The fog of painkillers.  A request for a mirror denied.

“Eh, that’s overselling it.  Remember the salamander den the Lor twins asked us to help clear out that one time?  Now that was some fire.”

“Yeah, in Yellowstone.  God, I can still smell the sulfur just thinking about it.  Was it you or Lornegna who had the dumbass idea to smash a hole in the wall to flood the cave?”

“That one was on Loreghaste for once, if you can believe it.  Not that they’ll ever admit to it.”

“Oh really?  I always took them for the reasonable twin.”

“You’d think that, but half the wild shit Lornegna pulls is something that Loreghaste said in passing earlier, knowing full well that they’ll take it and run with it.”

“Even plugging a geyser with that oversized hammer of theirs to turn themself into a human cannonball?”

“Okay, that one was one hundred percent Lornegna.”  Eris’s laugh is rough and mellow.  “Regular pair of menaces, those two.”

“Like you’re one to talk.”

Eris gasps in mock indignation.  “Me?  A menace?”

“You got an amusement park shut down.”

“Miraclezone Fun Park had already closed its doors for four whole days by the time we got there, thank you very much.  You know, on account of all the mysterious deaths that got our attention in the first place.”

“Maybe, but derailing a roller coaster so that it crashes into the middle of an amphitheater certainly didn’t help their odds of reopening once the weird ape spider things that were eating the night shift employees were dealt with.”

“Says the woman who decided to draw the beasts out by plugging her phone into the sound system, turning on all the stage lights, and doing a solo dance number without realizing how many there were infesting the park.  You’re lucky my aim was good enough to take out half of them when I landed.”

“More like you’re lucky I was fast enough to dodge that mess.  I’ll hand it to you though, you made one helluva first impression climbing out of the wreckage, ripping off one of the coaster’s safety bars one-handed and using it as a club to lay into the rest of the… what even were those things anyway?”

“Some alchemist’s escaped mad science experiments.  It was in the Crossherd papers a few days later when the guy got bagged for a gross violation of the Masquerade after the cops showed up and found a bunch of dead eight-legged monkeys.”  Eris shakes her head in exasperation.  “I still can’t believe we didn’t get caught for that.”

“Fitzy’s always been good at covering for his bar’s patrons.  It’s half the point of 121813.”  Gretchen pauses, searching her memory.  “That night was your first time there, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah.  You offered to buy me a drink and I was too busy trying to hide the fact that my arm was broken to turn you down.”

“Your arm was broken?”

“And a few ribs.  Did something to my ankle too, but by that point I already had a good grasp on how fast I heal and I was trying to look cool for the chick who was killing rabid chimeras with a spear in time with the bassline on metal music blasting from stadium speakers.”

“Speaking of impressive spearwork…”  Gretchen pauses just long enough for both of them to think of innuendos that are funnier left unspoken.  “Is that the new ice spear you mentioned the last time you were at the bar?”

Eris reaches back and traces two-fingers along the sigil-engraved haft sticking up over her shoulder.  “Sure is.  Intent-activated ice conjuration on contact capable of full encasement without long term damage after thawing out.  It is a bit finicky about which part of the spear causes the freezing, but that’s got its advantages once you get used to it.  Come to think of it, this thing would have been real handy back on the Miami job.”

“You mean the time some rich kid showed up at the bar begging for someone to do a live capture on his lost pet?  Oh yeah, that would have saved us so much time with that slippery little bastard.”

“Oh, be nice, it was adorable.”

“It was a blob of ooze capable of squeezing itself through a showerhead that had us running in circles around that resort all day like a slapstick routine.”

“But it made itself dog-shaped and licked the kid’s face when we got it back.”

“You are such a bleeding heart.”

“I wonder if I still have a video of that.  I bet Lacuna would love it.”

“Right, Lacuna…”  Gretchen trails off.  “How long have you two been together now?”

“We’re not a couple,” Eris says.  The sentence is practically a reflex by now with how often the mistake’s been made.

“Really?  Well crap, I owe Old Vic twenty dollars.”

“You made a bet with Old Vic?  That Lacuna and I were a couple?”

“Me and half the regulars.  Separate pool for how long until you bring her in to show off.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I wish right now.”

“I don’t even bring her up that much.”

“I was going by quality over quantity.  Seriously, have you heard yourself talk about her?  Adorably fragile little mess of a genius hacker witch that you protectively fret over who lets you indulge your inner nerd and play the experienced worldly butch while you teach her how to be a woman.”

“First off, I have never once in my life called Lacuna ‘adorable.’  Second, the witch thing didn’t work out for her and she hates being called a hacker.  And third, that whole description is infantilizing.  She is pretty smart though.”  In certain areas anyway, Eris bites her tongue from adding.  “She’s got a whole server farm set up and programmed to enchant stuff for her.  She’s the one who made the spear.”

Gretchen’s self-satisfied ‘You just proved my point’ look is as insufferably smug as ever.

“Look,” Eris says, “Lacuna’s like a sister to me.  Maybe in another life, if we’d met under different circumstances, then maybe, but I wouldn’t trade what we have, given the choice.”

The silence of sore subjects and inarticulate hope descends.  Gretchen pushes herself off the wall to sit a little closer to Eris and leaves one hand resting in the space between as a clear invitation.  Eris shifts her own position to meet Gretchen’s without touching.

Seconds pass.

Minutes.

“Old Vic says it’ll be behemoth season soon on his homeworld,” Gretchen says without meeting Eris’s gaze.  Looking more past her than at her.  “He invited me and some of the other regulars to come join him there when it does.”

“Sounds like a party,” Eris says, keeping her eyes locked on Gretchen’s hands.

“It really is, to hear him tell it.  A solid week of festivals before and after the culling hunts.  Dancing, feasting, games, rituals, all that good stuff.  Not many offworlders get invited, but we wouldn’t be the only ones, so it’s not like we’d be intruding either.”  

“I hope you get to enjoy it.”

Gretchen raises her hand until her fingers brush Eris’s.  Her fingers curl slightly.  Eris’s curl into them.

“Obviously, you’re invited too, E.  It’ll be the first words out of Old Vic’s mouth the next time you show up.  I know you’re busy these days with your new crew, but you really should think about joining us.  It’s a once in a lifetime hunt for anyone without a triple-digit lifespan.”

“Whatever happened to taking a break from it all?”

The curled fingers become clasped hands.

“That’s the best part.  Imagine, one final hunt grander than anything we’ve seen before or ever will see again where we’ll bring down walking mountains and flying rivers of scales.  One last hurrah to get everything out of our system, and afterwards once everyone else goes home the two of us could stay for a while and take a real vacation for a hard reset.  Spend a month or two in some tranquil hidden elf village, get in touch with nature, calm down from the hunt.”

“Make a fresh start.”

One of them rises to her feet.  The other follows.  It is unclear who does which.

“Reconnect.”  The word is said in unison.

Gretchen places her free hand on Eris’s shoulder and rests her head on Eris’s chest.  Eris places her free hand on Gretchen’s wrist and rests her head on Gretchen’s.  A foot wraps around an ankle.

“If I could give it up,”  Gretchen whispers, “do you think things could work out between us again?”

The silence of past actions considered.

“Think about it, E.  Has anyone else ever been as good with you?  No one else has for me.  And it was just that one thing between us.”

The silence of chance weighed against choice.

“What if, for each other, we really could get out, E?  Have one last hunt and mean it.  And if it does call us back again, then if we’re both trying to avoid letting it consume us and watching out for each other, who knows how long we might last?  Maybe we could even keep each other alive long enough to get tired and settle down.”

The silence of exceptional circumstances accounted for.

“E… What if neither of us had to die young?  What if we got to grow old together?”

The silence of a conclusion reached.

Eris pulls Gretchen further into their embrace.  They both lift their heads, faces nearly touching.  Brown eyes stare into gold.

“Oh Gretchen, you always knew how to say what I needed to hear.”

“E-”

The embrace becomes crushing.  Gretchen’s pained gasp at the vice grip on her hands and wrists is made shallow for want of air.

“Never were good at lying though,” Eris laments.  “You know that stun gun you still keep strapped to the underside of your wrist isn’t enough to take me down, right?  Or was it going to be the retractable blade in the toe of your boot going for my Achilles tendon?  Come to think of it, that lipstick’s the poison apple red I bought for your birthday that one year, isn’t it? ”

Gretchen’s laugh is hard and sour.  “Could’ve been all three at once.”

“Still wouldn’t have worked.”

“Can you blame me for trying?”

“No, and that’s the problem.”

“One more thing to say in my defense?”

“It won’t make a difference.  You’re not getting through that door.”

That same old deliciously wicked grin.  For the first time, Eris gets the feeling she’s not on the inside of the joke.

Gretchen intones a quick chant with no literal translation and looks up.

By reflex, Eris looks up into the uniform shadows of the ceiling.

The sole set of graffitied warding sigils that Gretchen neglected to point out earlier light up the ceiling’s shadows.

By reflex, Eris dodges to the side of the blade of light that comes piercing down.

Gretchen slips her hands free of her gloves and out of Eris’s grip.

By reflex, Eris lunges to grab her again.

Gretchen reaches over Eris’s shoulder and grasps the haft of the enchanted spear with intent.  Ice spreads from the points of contact where the spear is strapped to Eris’s back.  The sudden conjured weight causes Eris to stumble and then - when the ice encases her hips and shoulders - to fall.

It is only one third of a second that Eris is on the ground.  By two thirds of a second Eris has shattered the ice, rolled to her feet, and unslung her spear in a single motion.

It only takes Gretchen one half of a second to reach the open door to the eldritch-warped space and collect her own cross spear that she left leaning next to it.  She wastes a quarter of a second turning around to look back.

“I’m sorry E, but I’m not as strong as you are.”

Having finally turned around to see the door, Eris realizes that sometime while she’d been watching Gretchen the space on the other side had grown more chaotic until it gave up all pretense of resembling a room, now looking like nothing so much as the white noise of television static.  She almost reaches Gretchen in time to stop her from stepping through.  The tip of the spear brushes against the back of Gretchen’s knee mid-stride, freezing it and dropping her to what passes for the ground on the other side.  And then the feet of distance between the monster hunters becomes miles and Gretchen’s receding black and gold form is swallowed by the static.

Eri swears, pulls the lifeline amulet that Road gave her out of her pocket, and drops it on the floor.  She figures that as long as it stays out here in realspace, then Road can always get out and come back with Ashan and Lacuna to pull her and Gretchen out later.

She wastes no further time on hesitation before running into the static after Gretchen.

*******

Eris is hunting.

A chill wind howls across a moonlit prairie.  The rush, the thrill, the anticipation, are almost too much to bear as she chases down a pack of lupine shadows.  One falls to a spear.  Another is caught by its tail and dragged to the ground.  A third turns and raises itself on two legs to face its hunter.  Its claws meet with only open air.  Her claws meet with its heart.

There is a disappointing lack of blood.  They are naught but shadows afterall.

The pack’s lone survivor sprints for the treeline, wild with fear, only to find a chainlink fence between itself and safety.  She is still half human, and her eyes are fully so when she looks back at her hunter.

There’s a name Eris should remember and call out at this part.  She doesn’t, but what does it matter?  It’s just a beast.

What was she hunting again?  It doesn’t matter.  It’s all just prey in the end.

High above, tiny flames swirl and writhe. Its watchful eyes are blinded.

The chainlink fence rattles and shrieks when she tears it down and stalks between the support struts of the rollercoaster.  The drumbeat in the back of her head seems too loud to simply be her own heart.  Perhaps it is the music pounding from that amphitheater over there.  Eight-legged shadows leap from support strut to support strut and skitter along the tracks above.  What an annoyance, that noise is luring her prey away from her.  

A freezing from the spear, a few good kicks, and a mighty heave are all it takes to knock out the nearest pylon and set the entire rollercoaster around her crashing down.  The music of the collapsing metal all around her is enough to drown out the metal of the music from the amphitheater, but the drumbeat in her skull is louder still.

She steps on one of the wretched chimerical shadows trying to free itself from the wreckage as she stalks toward the alleyway behind the amphitheater.

Oh, yes, that’s right.  She’s hunting Gretchen.  The snake, the spider, her lioness.

Amidst the wreckage, tendrils of flame coil around a thorn that will not burn.  Its teeth cannot piece this.

The alleyway is awash with the scent of buzzard meat, skunk perfume, and pine scented car air freshener emanating from the dumpster at the far end.  An electric tingle runs down her spine and spreads through her whole body as she walks past the garbage truck that has taken her to so many trailheads with signs of new quarry within the dream-born city.  The shadow that erupts from the refuse is all horns, claws, spines, and teeth.  It is long enough to wrap itself around her, heavy enough to pull her down to the ground when it does, and vicious enough to keep wrestling with her even after she snaps off its saber fangs.

She recalls a dim memory that this thing once hurt her badly enough that she called for help to return to her home lair afterward.  The one who answered should never have had to see her like that.  She will make this shadow pay for that.

By the time she realizes the shadow is dead and gone, the pavement is shattered, the dumpster is rent in twain, and the engine of the garbage truck she was once responsible for is totalled.  There is no proper satiation to hunting shadows.  All chase and fight, but no release.  She retrieves her spear and vaults over the wall at the end of the alleyway.  Perhaps when she finds her true prey at the end of this she will bring satisfaction.

No, that’s not right, she’s supposed to be searching for Gretchen, not hunting her.

Behind her, the flame lashes out at a person-shaped hole.   Its claws have fought against the other’s for so long now.

Moonlight reflects off the lake and into the whispering of the trees that brushes against her cheek to welcome her home with the scent of blood in her mouth.  Smell and taste blur together as her senses begin feeding into one another until the whole world seems more.  Was she really even alive before this?

Her oldest dance partner rises from the lake to greet her on the shore.  The one who tried to hunt her and in failing to do so taught her the joy of being the predator rather than prey.  Their dance begins again.  As it always has.  As it ever will.  Her dance partner is a gaunt and stretched out figure of tongues and teeth that still resembles a man.  Her dance partner is a beast of scale and shell with jaws that bite and claws that catch.  Her dance partner is a cacophonous evolution of forms between as the two of them drive one another to learn and adapt with each dance.

Her dance partner is a mere shadow, frozen in a block of ice and thrown into the back of her van to be stowed away and forgotten.  She has long since grown beyond it.  She slams the rear doors of the van shut.

And yet still the hunt always cycles anew.  She is always hunting.

Beneath the water, the ancient flame roils against a timeless knight.  Its arms will crush the misbegotten parasite and then the thing beneath.

The air in the candlelit cavern smothers like a damp blanket.  A drop of blood trails down the back of her hand, catches on the tiny hairs, leaves bits of itself gathered in the pores and creases, and falls from her fingertip into the crystal clear pool the same as any other drop from the cavern’s stalactites.  It seems the shadow of her old dance partner left her with a final parting gift.

She approaches the cavern’s shrine and the wounded shadow praying at its moldy offering plate skitters away.  She weighs whether it is worth pursuing but is distracted by a shambling pile of bones.  The bones snap and crunch so pleasingly and the soft shadow beneath rips apart so delightfully.  But when the bones are ground to dust and the shadow they failed to protect are gone she is still hungry.

The wounded shadow taps a pattern on the ground.  Its eight eyes are not human at all but they hold fear all the same.

There’s a kindness Eris should offer at this part.  She doesn’t, but what does it matter?  It’s just a beast.

Still not satisfied, she turns her attention to the shrine and the small, forgotten god it venerates.  

Blood and hearts and bones and stone and ichor and mold.  What would a god taste like?

In the reflection on the surface  the upturned offering dish, a thousand tiny flames flare to a thousand stars.   Its song echoes in triumph over the foolish nothing that thought to hurt it.

The air in the desert tries and fails to sap the moisture from her body.  Neither the heat of day nor the chill of night can touch her through the craving.

Feeling like the only person in the world, she lingers in a space only ever meant to be passed through until she hears the howl of an almost-human voice that almost sounds like a song.  Feeling the weight of her spear fall from her hand, she steps out beyond the edge of the parking lot pavement to the edge of the edge of the furthest lamplight, that twilight border between known and unknown.  Feeling no need to announce her presence, she locks eyes in the dark with a shadow and utters a growl that almost sounds like words as she circles her prey and blurs the line between beast and self.  

There are only claws and teeth for the thing whose face is almost human.  A stinger strikes through the air with a whipcord whistling but is a step too slow.  An inhuman growl from a once-human throat accompanies the tearing sound of a sting ripped free from its tail and plunged into its owner’s neck.  Deed done, she retrieves her spear and walks back to the truck whose cargo has been her excuse to travel the land’s liminal spaces for prey like this.

She opens the door to the sleeper cab and finds herself face to face with a squawking peacock.  

The avian incongruity leaves Eris shocked enough for the bird to shuffle out past her and take to the wing.  She blinks.  Waking up to find a peacock in her cab wasn’t even the same year as hunting the manticore.  That was in Vermont and this was in Arizona.  Why are those two memories mixed together?

Wait.  Memories?

Cautiously, she climbs into the cab.  Something about it feels too small, but otherwise all is as it should be.  Neatly made bed in the back, movie poster from her old bedroom on the ceiling, air plant hanging from the rearview mirror…  The mirror!  Her reflection!  Her eyes!  She turns and flees into the dark tunnel in the back of the cab until she can no longer feel that awful piece of glass staring at her.

No.  This isn’t right.  She’s not…

Somewhere in the long darkness, a core of flame is trapped and pinned.   Its heart withers in fear and thrashes until the instinct to survive leaves nothing but…

Rage.  

There has ever been constant knowledge of how good the climax of the hunt feels.  Has felt.  Will feel next time.  And few things have had are having will have a death so sweet as the pile of garbage before her that calls itself a man.  It is not even fit to be prey, but the righteousness of ending it will more than make up for that.  It has captured, enslaved, and sold the innocent.  It has hurt one of her own.  It has arrogantly tried to summon the sun itself.

She swallows that sun.  Lets it burn away that which is not needed and bring light to what remains.  Its fire erupts from her scalp to become her hair and tumble down past her shoulders.  Its core melts down the flimsy scraps of armor and becomes her carapace.  Its hunger welds with hers and becomes yet more fuel for the hunt.

Her charred lips pull back nearly to her ears in what is both a snarl and a grin and in any case is all teeth.

The flash of her brilliant metamorphosis alone was nearly enough to dispose of the garbage, but not quite.  What is left of it continues to cough and twitch on the steaming ground.  She walks over to it and raises a foot in anticipation of a heavy, wet, crunching sound repeating over and over.

No!

This is not her!

This has never been her!

This can never be her!

Upon her shoulder, a gentle hand removes the thorn.   The flames dwindle to embers and scatter.

Eris is not hunting.

Eris is searching.

Eris is herself.

Ā̸̧̙̔r̷̭̤̤̊̀̽t̶̳͉̓?̵̼͙̻̋̾͜

Out of the corner of her eye, Eris catches sight of a tiny flickering flame amidst the endless static that surrounds her.  It darts out of view and she turns her head to follow it.  Rather than finding the flame in the middle of the white noise once more, she finds herself in the middle of a living room she hasn’t seen in nearly a decade.  It’s been even longer since she last saw the mottled green-brown shag carpet sticking up around her boots.

“But why do I have to only speak English at school?”

Eris turns around to find a family of shadows standing in the soft morning light that shines in through the bay windows.  Outside, a schoolbus waits on the suburban street for other small shadows to join the ones already piled inside and blurred together.  But these shadows in the room with her now are far more interesting.  A mother, a father, and a child with a backpack.  Even just as silhouettes she knows them.

Her mama.

Her papa.

Her.

“Because,” the shadow of her papa answers the shadow of her childhood, “that’s all any of the other kids speak and it’s important for you to fit in.”

“But I already don’t fit in!” Eris’s shadow whines.  A petulant response, but a true one.  She remembers this conversation - or at least the impression of it - from her second week of first grade.  Even by then she was acutely aware that none of her classmates looked like her.

“If you really wanted me to fit in, you would have given me a normal name,” she and her shadow grumble in unison.  Her shadow’s parents don’t seem to hear that part.

“All the more important for you to make an effort,” the shadow of her mama admonishes.  “Just because you’re perfect as you are, that doesn’t mean everyone else is ready for it.  So until that’s different, blending in is safer.  You’ll understand when you’re older.”

“But then why do you make me practice all those other languages that we speak at home?”

“They’ll be useful when you’re an adult and trying to get into college and find a job,” her shadow’s papa hastily answers.  “Now hurry before you miss the bus.”

Eris’s shadow ducks her mama’s kiss on the forehead and turns away from her papa’s hug.  Her shadow only pauses for a moment, just past the door’s threshold when she hears a pair of “I love you’s,” in two different languages.  She smiles for a moment at the tears that don’t quite form and didn’t manage to back then either.

Then she remembers where she is and what Road said about psychically reactive spaces.  Eris has never been good at keeping psychic entities out of her mind, but she’s consistently found herself to be very good at telling and resisting when they’re trying to change or insert anything.  Save for that one time with whatever Lacuna did, but she tells herself that’s because she was intentionally letting her most trusted friend poke around in there for the sake of healing.  As for the looking, she tells herself that she has nothing to hide or that she’s afraid of being thrown in her face and used against her.

She follows her shadow out the door.

Ā̸̧̙̔r̷̭̤̤̊̀̽t̶̳͉̓?̵̼͙̻̋̾͜

Her shadow is taller now, taller even than the shadow of the boy she just knocked down.  She’s in the eighth grade and she’s just gotten in her first fight in the middle of the school cafeteria.  Not that it was much of one.  One punch and the boy was down on the floor rolling and clutching his nose.  

Eris made a point of forgetting the boy’s name a long time ago (it was Justin) but everything else is burned into her memory.  After a year of taking rumors and accusations in silence this last bit of harassment finally hit the tipping point.  And damn, had it felt good to finally let it out.  She can’t see the creeping wild grin on her shadow’s lack of a face, but she can feel the temptation to mirror it.  Now’s the part where her shadow’s nonexistent eyes should be flickering to the fleck of blood on her knuckles.  There’ll be an intrusive thought to lick it, just to see what it tastes like.  Not that she will, but it suddenly occurs to Eris to wonder if what she is now was always in her, even back then.  

Was she always a monster in waiting?  She dismisses that intrusive thought for what it is and turns around and walks for the door as the shocked silence permeating the cafeteria erupts into chaos.  She turns around before she has to see the horrified look on the shadow of her best friend at the time.  Dylan.  

Ā̸̧̙̔r̷̭̤̤̊̀̽t̶̳͉̓?̵̼͙̻̋̾͜

Her shadow’s in third grade and Dylan’s shadow is teaching her how to talk with her hands.  It’s after school and they’re sitting at his parents’ kitchen table, homework already done.  When his family moved in down the street last summer their parents got together and started setting them up with playdates in hopes that the two misfits would at least have one friend apiece going into the new school year.  

Eris smiles and signs the alphabet along with them.  Her shadow mastered it months ago, much to everyone’s surprise, but at this point it’s a game for the two of them to see who can get through forwards and backwards the fastest before they move on to anything else.  Eris is only halfway through the reversal when the shadows finish their game.  She’s gotten rusty these days with only video calling Dylan two or three times a year to catch up and get the latest news on how her folks are doing.

Eris’s breath catches when she notices Dylan’s shadow addressing her - no, her shadow - with a simple thumb over palm with fingertips curled.  He’s got a more specific name sign for her these days and she’d forgotten that it used to just be an initialization.

When the shadow of Dylan’s mom walks in to get the cookies out of the oven, Eris remembers where she is, stands up, and heads for the nearest door.

Ā̸̧̙̔r̷̭̤̤̊̀̽t̶̳͉̓?̵̼͙̻̋̾͜

“Eris.”

“That’s not my… Present.”

Her shadow is in second grade and she has just given up.  If the teacher can’t even pronounce the shortened nickname she came up with correctly, then what’s the point of fighting it anymore?  May as well just go along with whatever people decide to call her than constantly struggle over something that doesn’t really matter.  She knows who she is regardless.

Eris opens the door and leaves the classroom.  She may not have anything to hide, but that doesn’t mean she has to stick around and give whatever’s manifesting all this a guided tour of her childhood either.

Ā̸̧̙̔r̷̭̤̤̊̀̽t̶̳͉̓?̵̼͙̻̋̾͜

“Is she really even a girl?”

Her shadow is in seventh grade and it’s unseasonably hot outside.  She’s sitting on a bleacher bench trying not to cry while the shadow mother of the girl who’s not accepting her apologies has it out with her mama’s shadow.  

It was an accident, really.  A car drove by and the glare got in her eyes, throwing off her aim.

“What girl can even throw a softball hard enough to knock out a tooth?”

It was an accident, so why isn’t saying sorry enough?

“Just look at her!  What girl her age is that tall or has shoulders like that?”

It was an accident, but the shadow is talking too fast for anyone else to get a word in.

“Or maybe she’s on steroids?  You should get your daughter tested!”

Eris tunes out the rest of the conversation while she slips on a pair of fingerless black gloves.  Just because she’s made her peace, that doesn’t mean she has any interest in sitting around watching this trainwreck all over again.  She traces the silver-stitched runes on the gloves with one finger.  Back of the hand then the palm.  Left hand then the right.  There’s no door to exit through on the softball practice field, so she’ll just have to make her own.  

Eris claps her hands together and twin jolts run through her palms and up her arms to meet at the base of her neck.  She throws her head back involuntarily at the shock and bares her teeth in a grimace that lacks any of the usual excited edge from using these.  The initial sensation fades as she crouches down low to the ground but her hands are tingling now and will be until she takes off the gloves.

One punch is all it takes for the ground beneath to crack and shatter into the white noise void for her to fall into.

Å̶̹̱̈́́Ȓ̷̦͚̳̱̗͐̒̍̈͠T̵̛͎͓̲̠͎̭̉̅͒̅͑?̶̜̰̮̺̖̕

Her shadow is in her bedroom with the door locked.  She’s in her sophomore year of high school and staying up far too late on a school night in front of a mirror with a makeup kit she bought at the drugstore.  She meant to do this earlier, but her AP Calc homework took longer than expected.

Eris lands in the room, takes a look at the decorations, and shudders at that phase of her life.  All that work to be someone else for the sake of burying a reputation that never actually went away, just hid in the whispers behind her back.  She can still remember how alien her own body felt, soft from making a point of never exercising anymore after being banned from school sports, yet still too big to be fashionable.  Who was she ever fooling besides herself?

Her shadow hisses in frustration as she tries to figure out how to bridge the gap between how her mama taught her to do makeup and the styles in the magazine one of her friends that weren’t her friends gave her.  None of the models in the magazine look anything like her.

The room has a door, but punching a hole in the wall to step through into the static is more in line with Eris’s mood.

Å̶̹̱̈́́Ȓ̷̦͚̳̱̗͐̒̍̈͠T̵̛͎͓̲̠͎̭̉̅͒̅͑?̶̜̰̮̺̖̕

Her shadow is in sixth grade and her teammates are all hugging her and cheering.  They just won their game.  For once she’s the star instead of the outcast.

Eris punches another hole in the illusion.

Å̶̹̱̈́́Ȓ̷̦͚̳̱̗͐̒̍̈͠T̵̛͎͓̲̠͎̭̉̅͒̅͑?̶̜̰̮̺̖̕

“From whence comes the starlight in the Dark Forest?”

Was that Road’s voice?  This time the static doesn’t resolve into another shadow of a memory.

“Yo, Road!”  Eris shouts into the void.  “Can you hear me?  Gretchen’s lost in here somewhere.  Have you seen her?”

Ā̸̧̙̔r̷̭̤̤̊̀̽t̶̳͉̓?̵̼͙̻̋̾͜

“Not art.  Pigments.  Raw materials.  Kindling for the spark.”

“Road, who are you talking to?  I can hear you, but I can’t see you!”

“I’m glad to see you’ve calmed down now.  You gave me a scare when you ran off like that after I got that tag off of you.”

Ā̸̧̙̔r̷̭̤̤̊̀̽t̶̳͉̓?̵̼͙̻̋̾͜

“I understand you need that, yes, and I’m sorry I had to be rough with you earlier, but you can’t go forcing what you need out of mortals like that.  It’s not good for them.”

Ā̶̜̬̼̄̚̚r̵͉͓͗͒̉͝t̶̖̞́̍̆!̷̲̦̱̩̆̐͌͗

“I’d help you with that myself if I could, but I can’t.”

Ā̶̜̬̼̄̚̚r̵͉͓͗͒̉͝t̶̖̞́̍̆!̷̲̦̱̩̆̐͌͗

“I’ll see if I can get her permission.  These things work a lot better when the mortal agrees to it, you know.  They can even help and cooperate.”

Eris scans the white noise all around her, but still finds nothing, save for a tiny flame that quickly gets lost again.  Or was that just her brain trying to find an image in the noise where there is none?

“Road, what are you getting at here?  What do you need me to do?”

“Hey there Eris, sorry to put you on hold.  I’m with the eldritch right now and I can see you and Gretchen, but I can’t get to you.”

“Is Gretchen alright?”

“Physically, yes, but mentally she’s not handling this place nearly as well as you are.  Nothing irrecoverable yet, but it’s… not good.”

“Where is she?  If you can see us both, maybe you can help me reach her.”

“The concept of ‘where’ is subjective at best right now.  Our best bet is going to be helping the eldritch get what it wants - maybe needs, communication is tricky - in exchange for it leading all of us out of here.”

“And if we don’t cooperate?”

“You and I will probably be fine, but it’s not too happy with Gretchen right now.  There’s a good chance it’ll leave her in here when this space collapses upon its departure.”

“Of course it isn’t happy with her,” Eris mutters under her breath.  “Fine.  So what does it want?  It sounded like you were saying something about art earlier.  Is it going to conjure up a paintbrush and easel for me, or am I about to get sent on another trip down memory lane?”

“More likely the latter, unless you’re a painter or musician on top of everything else.”

 “Nah, I was always more of a STEM girl before I dropped out, I’m afraid.”

“That’s something.  Gardening can be an art.”

Gardening?  Oh, right.  “Not what I meant, but go on, let’s get the brain probing over with.”

Ā̸̧̙̔r̷̭̤̤̊̀̽t̶̳͉̓?̵̼͙̻̋̾͜

“Yes, art.  But she’s going to choose what to show you, and you need to respect that she’s trusting you not to invade her privacy or touch anything.”

T̸̤͛r̶̭̲̥̠̫̼̒̐̌̀͆͂u̷̮̿̋̈́̆̈ś̷̡̬̝̠̮͙͊̿̓͘͘ẗ̷̘̙̲͋.̸̤͕̯̹̫̪̏̑̆͠

“Good.  Now, Eris, just focus on what art is to you.  What is the art in your life?  What have you created?  What have you experienced?  What have you shared?  Everyone has something.  Just let your mind find it and then let it flow.”

Eris nods.  Focus on art.  That shouldn’t be too hard.  She’s no artist, but she’s seen plenty.

She closes her eyes…

She is locked in a dance of death on the lakeshore with the hateful spirit of a thing that won’t stay dead.  She is using a tire iron to spraypaint the lifeblood of a rabid fae crossroads hound into a mural of autumn leaves on the side of a truckstop rest station.  She is standing on top of a moving rollercoaster and doing the on-the-fly math to calculate the optimal location and angle to hurl a broken flagpole in order to launch the ride, herself, and the dozen bloodthirsty ape spiders on the cars behind us into the amphitheater next door.  She is admiring her handiwork in the aftermath of a percussive demon exorcism that looks so very much like a tornado just tore through the gas station.  She is at the bar, arm wrestling two other monster hunters at once and winning.  She is at Doc’s clinic one of the few times she’s ever been hurt badly enough to need it and is thinking about how much the X-rays of her shattered arm look like a river delta.  She is holding the sun between her hands and feeling like God.

Ā̶̜̬̼̄̚̚r̵͉͓͗͒̉͝t̶̖̞́̍̆!̷̲̦̱̩̆̐͌͗

“Yes.  Destruction, too, is an art.”

She is destruction.  She a hunter.  She is a beast.

She is gasping and trying  to open her eyes.  She is finding them already wide and staring.  She is afraid to look down at her hands.

She is something other than that.  She is something more than that.  She is something greater than that.

She is protection.  She is an avenger.  She is a shield.

She is still just violence.  She is a danger.  She is a threat.

She is unwanted.  She is an outsider.  She is a disowned child.

She is scared.  She is hypocritical.  She is…

Ā̸̧̙̔r̷̭̤̤̊̀̽t̶̳͉̓?̵̼͙̻̋̾͜

“E.”

She has never been only one thing.  She is what the world shaped her into.  She is what she chose for herself.

She is walking back home practicing the name sign Dylan came up with for her.  She is in the library reading a book on Greek gods and reclaiming a teacher’s laziness.  She is driving back and forth across the country, trying out a new name with the same initial at every stop.

She is in her parents’ kitchen, loving the rhythm of the name they gave her every time they ask her to pass the dishes or how her day went and the way that rhythm changes when the language shifts.  She is teaching that name to Lacuna.  She is sheepishly asking her best friend not to use that name afterall, but holding back tears over the fact that her friend took the time to master the pronunciation.

Ā̸̧̙̔r̷̭̤̤̊̀̽t̶̳͉̓?̵̼͙̻̋̾͜

She is planting seeds in the huge backyard garden with her papa.  She is hanging a tillandsia air plant in the sleeper cab of her truck.  She is watering the tiny balcony garden of her apartment.

She is working with her mama in her garage to repair the engine on the family car.  She is performing emergency roadside maintenance on her truck near a corn field.  She is renovating a barely-drivable van older than she is into something as new as the stage of life she just entered is.

She is watching a movie in the theater with her parents, eyes wide and hands full of popcorn.  She is crying in a motel a month after leaving home because that movie just came on the television when she was flipping channels.  She is lounging on the couch with Lacuna for movie night, excitedly explaining everything about that movie and the underappreciated nuances of the genre.

Ā̶̜̬̼̄̚̚r̵͉͓͗͒̉͝t̶̖̞́̍̆!̷̲̦̱̩̆̐͌͗

She is listening to her favorite song on the radio while driving down the highway.  She is singing her favorite song on karaoke night at 121813.  She is laughing as Gretchen unpacks a record player and puts on her favorite song for the two of them to unpack boxes to in their new apartment.

She is learning the four different languages her parents learned from their parents, still unaware that they aren’t all one.  She is learning ASL alongside Dylan, growing up together with something that feels all their own.  She is learning German from Gretchen, teaching her a few things in exchange and talking about how they’ll travel the world together someday.

She is learning to tie knots at summer camp and practicing over and over again with her eyes set on a merit badge.  She is tying a makeshift harness onto  a cool statue she found next to a dumpster to the side of her garbage truck so she can take it back home to her apartment.  She is in the bedroom with Gretchen, undressed and discussing the hypothetical logistics of trying to tie knots in industrial steel cable since she keeps accidentally breaking the ropes.

A̴̡͓͙̺͙͛̔ͅR̷̺̠̲̞͌͐̿̎̏͋T̷͇̣̹͖̐͛͘!̸̜͖̲̂͜

Eris is in a dark place that she does not recognize from any memory of her own.  The only light is a faint starshine spearing down through gaps in the canopy to create ghostly counterparts to the surrounding tree trunks.  Just at the edge of her hearing she can catch the sound of something lurking in the shadows.  For half a heartbeat, she spots a flash of gold.

Eris grins and shows what she knows is too many teeth for most people’s comfort.  Looks like that last set of memories got the desired reaction from the eldritch.

“Still hungry for more, huh?!” she shouts.  “Fine.  One last performance for the road!”

The nearest shaft of starlight becomes Eris’s spotlight as she takes the stage and steps into a ready stance with her spear.  She taps her foot in time with a remembered opening bassline from the track Gretchen always kicked off their exercises with.  She gets the rhythm down until she can almost hear it, and then starts the show.

Eris has heard of spears being called the oldest weapon.  She’s always felt it to be a dubious claim at best, when there are plenty of heavy and sharp rocks just lying around, but it’s true enough that the basic concept of “sharp pointy bit on the end of a long stick” is old indeed; old enough that just about everywhere you care to go has some variation on it.  She starts with the forms out of the illustrated Renaissance manuals that got Gretchen into the art to begin with.  She moves through the pike and lance devices, even though her own spear is too short for them.  She shifts to the staff swings, then the halberd techniques, then the peasant stick.  She works her way through the memorized Germanic style manual and moves on to the Italian.

In the dark, between the trees, a lurking presence closes in.  Eris keeps her view straight ahead.  The flashes of gold in her peripherals are enough to confirm she has her audience’s attention.

Eris skips across the globe to Filipino kali.  Stabbing their way around the world, Gretchen always liked to call the workout.  The point was never to master any given style.  Staves, pikes, lances, poleaxes, sibat, halberds, naginata, guandao, bō; it didn’t matter if the device, form, or kata was made with the types of spear the two of them happened to be practicing with in mind.  Martial arts were made for fighting people, and all that technique disappears when you’re fighting beasts.  It was about the novelty of finding new ways to move your body and learning all the ways the weapon can feel in your hands as an extension of yourself.  It was about acknowledging the human universality of finding interesting ways to swing a stick.  It was about compiling a wishlist of places to travel to one day.  

It was about an art the two of them shared.

“I know you recognize this,” Eris whispers. “Come join me.”

Eris traces her performance over Asia.  Through the Indian subcontinent and into Africa.  She crossed the ocean into the Americas.  She ventures into the Pacific, lands in Australia for a single stance, then returns to Europe where she started.  All along the way she feels the buildup of thrill for what comes after this opening act.  For what comes from having kept her eyes locked forward and back unprotected.

In the moment Eris stops moving, Gretchen comes down like lightning with all the flash and thunder that comes with it.  Eris steps forward and turns around, denying the lightning strike its perfect moment, its perfect kill.  

Gretchen is crouched low, modified boar spear impaling the ground instead of Eris.  She rips the weapon from the earth and sparks arc between the spear’s tip and bladed crossguard.  Her shadow cast by starlight and sparks is too large; it coils like a serpent and handles its weapon with too many arms.  Her face is furred, her neck is scaled, and her arms are chitinous.  She hisses and her jaw unhinges to expose her fangs.  She blinks, and she is simply Gretchen.  She blinks, and she is a beast.  She blinks, and she is something caught between.

Eris could swear that the trees and starlight are humming a reprise of the music in her head.

Gretchen lunges forward and Eris sidesteps.  She skitters sideways, as close to being on all fours as she can get while still holding her spear.  She strikes again and Eris parries.

Strike, retreat, skitter, strike, repeat.  Thus go the steps of the dance’s first movement.

A strike is parried.  A hand grabs a neck.  A body is thrown.

“Is this the best a beast can do?”  Eris calls.  “You’ll have to do better than that if you want your kill!”

Gretchen grips her spear with both hands now.  Circles more thoughtfully.  Thrusts with the full length of her weapon to maintain the safety of arm’s reach while she stays outside the light.

Circle, thrust, parry.  The dance’s next movement is a slow one, defined by distance and separation.

A thrust is dodged.  A boot drives a haft to the ground.  An icy speartip peels a scale off a neck.

“I know that’s not all you’ve got!” Eris shouts.  “You taught me better than that!”

Gretchen adjusts her grip closer.  Stands more upright.  Steps inward and swings her spear, catching Eris’s between the cross blades to see her opponent’s muscles twitch and hair stand on end until their weapons freeze together and pull apart in a shatter of ice.

Step, swing, shock, shatter.  This movement’s tempo is lively and its notes are loud as the words unsaid.

A cheek is cut.  A hand is slashed.  A fleshy palm emerges from broken chitin.

“Now that’s more like it,”  Eris growls.  “You made me bleed, now come taste it!”

Gretchen shakes her hands free of the coverings that got between her grip and her spear.  Settles into a stance meant for close-quarters footwork.  Rushes in too close to swing or parry and stabs.

Stab, redirect, cut, grapple.  The dance’s final movement is an intimate one.

Hands grab wrists.  Spearpoints rest at necks.  Eyes lock.

“There you are,” Eris breathes.  “I knew you could do it.”

Ą̸̥̥̘̪͈̗̥̬̒̿͂̐̌́̔Ắ̶̪̼̞̳̼͉̰̘͙̹̍̀͛̈́̿͘͘Ą̵̝̳͚͈̺̟̬̻̗̟̓R̵͈͍̙̘̰̽̀̚Ř̵͉̝͉͉͇̇͊̃̃́͗͝R̷̛̗̫̙̎͌͐̇̅̈̇̚͝͝T̵̜̘̻̓̈̓̋T̵̙̆͂̎́̆Ţ̵̥̗̩̲̂̆̄͊́̍̿̂̄͘͘!̴̤͓͔̫̼͙̰͚͇̀͋̉͌̀̒͝!̵̧̞̟̜̝̳̳͑̇̂̀!̴̡̨̬͍͚͉̮̈́̊͊͊͂̈́͛̈́

The two of them maintain their embrace, breathing heavily.

Gretchen attempts to move in closer still, but is stopped by the blade still at her neck.

For a moment, Eris considers letting the blade shift out of the way.  She was able to bring her back from the brink, so could it work?  Without that one thing between them, could they?  Looking out for one another, could they grow old?

Eris’s grip on her spear loosens.  Gretchen’s does the same.  Blades shift away from necks.  Distance closes.  Smoke fills the air with the smell of incense.

Eris blinks and sees Gretchen’s face anew.

That expression on her one-time partner’s face says all the reasons it could never work.  Pulled back from the brink but not yet fully lucid.  There’s still hunger there, and while it’s less bloody now, it’s still enough to draw her into an intertwined spiral if she were to let it.  She can picture it now: Overconfidence in their ability to pull one another back morphing into enabling one another to ever greater risks until they both fall at once.

Eris takes a deep breath.  Lets it out.  Lets go.  Steps back.

Maybe if they could both give up the hunt, but neither of them are that strong yet.

“Good job,” a familiar voice says from behind her.

Eris turns around and finds herself gazing into a person-shaped hole.  A suggestion of identity without truth or core.  And then it’s just Road, a smoking censer dangling from one hand and the match to the lifeline amulet dangling from the other.  A rock of stability in the middle of the chaos while the rest of the scene dissolves back into the white noise.

“Something wrong?” Road asks.

“No, just taking a minute for the incense to kick in and clear my head.  Thanks for that.”

“Of course, although you were holding up remarkably well without it.  Not many people could.  Speaking of...”

Eris turns back around, following their gaze to where Gretchen has discarded her spear in favor of curling in on herself and shaking with silent sobs.  Her words are barely coherent as Road comforts her, but Eris can make out enough to piece together a picture.  With the incense slowly clearing Eris’s own fog over the memory of what she’s been through since entering this space, not having a similar reaction is a matter of well-practiced effort, and she wasn’t the one who went through a near ego death.

Eris slings her own spear back over her shoulder, picks up Gretchen’s, and then offers her other shoulder to lean on.  The two of them follow Road back to the door to realspace in silence.  On the real side of the threshold, Eris spares one last glance back to see a swirling mass of tentacles, eyes, and tiny ancient flames.

*******

Eris leans on the outside of her van, surrounded by cursed and haunted artifacts and answering a wall of text messages and pile of voice mails through the glare of the late afternoon sun and listening to the hum of the engine.  It turned out they were in the eldritch warped space for the better part of a day and only the grace of the campus having just started its break between summer and fall semesters has saved them from some uncomfortable Masquerade-endangering questions from students and faculty that might otherwise have walked into a booby-trapped hallway and a door to nowhere.

“How’s she doing?”  Road asks.

Eris looks up from her phone.  Has she ever heard them approach?

“She’s sleeping it off,” Eris answers with a thumb cocked over her shoulder towards the back of the van.  “I’ll wake her up and get these loaded back in when we’re ready to head home.  How’s the eldritch?”

“Doing as well as it’s possible to tell with one of them,” he says.  “Communication’s always a bit tricky, but seems like no permanent harm done and no grudges held.  I had a good long talk with it about more responsible feeding habits, consent, safety, and the wide range in mortal tolerances to eldritch contact.  And I was able to talk it into helping with the cleanup in the hallway before it left, so we’re good on that front.”  She gestures toward Eris’s phone.  “News from the office?”

“Yeah.  A client came in this morning, but Ashan and Lacuna handled it.  Sounds like it turned into this whole thing with some fairy lord getting involved, but it all worked out.  They’re on their way back now with a changeling and their human counterpart, so we’ll have some more followup to do there.  I figure I can get the rest of these delivered while you handle that.”

Road smiles warmly and shakes their head.  “You should get some rest too when we get back.  You deserve it after today.”

Eris tries and fails to meet Road’s eyes.  A question burns.  She struggles to voice it.

“What was all that about starlight in a dark forest?”

“Oh, caught that, did you?  I guess you could call it a code phrase of sorts between people that do a lot of travel between worlds.  It’s also a question that should only be asked by those who already know the answer.  But that’s not what you really want to ask about, is it?”

No.  It isn’t.

Eris closes her eyes.  Breathes.  Opens her eyes.  Does her best to meet Road’s eyes.

“How much did you see?”

Road nods in understanding.  “Bits and pieces.  Enough.  I did what I could to keep it from prying too deeply or to shift its focus when it looked like things were getting too private.”

“And before that?”

“I was busy trying to subdue a panicking eldritch within a warped space under its control at the time, so my focus was elsewhere.  But,” they admit, “I did feel some of it.  I felt Gretchen too.”

“Oh.  I see.  Could you… maybe not mention any of that to the others?  Some of the stuff from when I was a kid I haven’t even told Lacuna about.”

“Of course.  I’ll do my best to forget I saw any of it.”

“Thanks.”

“And if it helps, I’ve seen firsthand what it’s like when someone completely unravels and loses themself, and I don’t see that ever happening to you.  Especially not after today.”

“That… does help, actually.  Thank you.”

It helps more than it should.

“You’re welcome.  You want to wake Gretchen while I get these boxes?”

“Sure thing,” Eris says, moving towards the van’s sliding door.  “Oh, but one more thing?”

“Yes.”

“I know you meant well, calling out to me when I was on the edge back there, but E isn’t a name for you to call me.”

*******

Gently as she can, Eris closes the door to Gretchen’s room and heads back downstairs.  She steps lightly over the one board she knows creaks so as not to wake the changeling and their brother sleeping in the other two guest rooms of the bed and breakfast above the office.  The thought crosses her mind that the creaky board might have been a security feature left in on purpose with all of Sullivan’s renovations on the building, but she doesn’t follow it.  She’s too tired and it doesn’t matter.

Lacuna is waiting for her by the reception desk.

“Hey.”

“Yo.”

“So, uh, didn’t get the chance to talk, really.  Since we all got back.  What with the clients and all.”

“I guess not.”

“So…  Are you… Okay?”

Blood between her teeth.  Hunting.  Names forgotten.  Burning.  Hunger.  A heavy, wet, crunching sound repeating over and over.

“Been better.  You?”

“Tired.  But what else is new?”

Eris nods.  What else indeed?  “The others head out already?”

“Yeah.  Bridgewood Manor.  Road mentioned Sullivan might be back soon.”

“I should probably be there for that.”  Eris leans on the reception desk.  She’s so tired.

“I’m sure they’ll fill us in.”

“Probably.”

Lacuna Looks over at the living room.  “We’ve got a couch.”

“Huh?”  So tired.

“If we’ve got guests, we probably shouldn't leave the office unattended.  So reason to stay here.  But all the beds are taken.  So couch.”

Eris pushes off the reception desk, staggers over, and throws her arms around her best friend.  She feels Lacuna stagger under her limp weight.  She feels a shaking hand stroke across her back.  She feels a chin rest in the curve between her shoulder and neck.

“Sis?”

“Yeah, E?”

“Do you think,” Eris’s voice cracks, “we could do movie night early this week?”

*******

“This one?”

“This one.”

“You realize it’s your turn to choose the movie, right?”

“I know.  And.  I chose this one.”

“...”

“...”

“I’m surprised this one was even on the shelf here.”

“I figured it’d be good to get a copy to leave here.  Just in case.”

“...”

“...”

“Sis?”

“Yeah, E?”

“Just this once, do you think you could say my other name?”

<-Previous Chapter Masterpost Next Chapter->

[adventuretolkienlover]

For the TTS Ask Game!

🥳 How do you like celebrating your birthday?

💇 What's the shortest your hair has ever been, and do you regret it?

👑 What's one responsibility that you wish you didn't have?

🐴 How did you meet your best friend?

🦉 What's the dumbest name you ever gave a pet (or non-sentient object if pets weren't your thing?)

🌕 What empowers you?

🌌 What's your dream?

🌨 Who are you trying to make proud of you?

🏕 What's the worst gift you've ever given someone?

🎨 What's your favorite art medium to use?

🎶 Favorite song to sing when you're alone?

🍳 What's one thing you've got to get for yourself?

🍎 What would you give up everything you're doing to get?

🍃 Do you like having the wind in your hair?

Thanks girl! Okay, let's see!

🥳: For my birthday, or any occasion really, I love going to the Natural History Museum! I'm a huge history and science freak. Someday I plan on working in a museum!

💇: The shortest my hair has ever been? That's good question. Because the thing is I never cut my hair. Why? Well, I always treasured having really long untamable hair. I viewed at a symbol of my personal freedom. So my hair has always been pretty long. Although lately, I guess you could say the shortest it's been is a bit past shoulder length. That the length it's seemed to have settled on since I've gotten older. Which is still pretty long actually. But yeah! It actually used to be longer which is crazy! Okay, I'm rambling. Moving on.🤣

👑: This is Also a tough one. Because well, I do struggle with a lot of my responsibilities cus of my ADHD. But I don't know if I'd want to be rid of them either because they're important to myself and to others. So I don't know if I can really answer that.

🐴: Over the Internet! I actually have three. 💕You💕, my friend @cassandrium360, and @disneyfanatic1993! I love you all!

🦉: Dumbest name? Well, I don't know if you could call it dumb, but me and my Mom named my cat Mouth.🤣 Because whenever it's feeding time or he's just talkative, he'll do these very long stretched out meows and opens his mouth real wide. Haha!

🌕: What empowers me? Well, knowing I have the Lord on my side is one thing for sure. I've had several experiences that I can call back on when I feel weak. And that definitely makes me feeling better.

🌌: My dream? Hollywood baby! But I'm not in it for money and fame. I guess that sounds cliche. But I want to help people. I want to write songs that will excite. Weave stories that will bring love and comfort. Creat art and animation that will inspire! I want to bring joy to people! Give them something that will lift the heavy burdens of life and wisk them away to somewhere of fantasy and happiness. And the money I earn? I'll put it to good use! Fix the world's problems! Help everyone can! Use in a way that would make Jesus and God proud. I guess I got a little dramatic. Lol!😅 But it's true! It's something I'm very passionate about. :)

🌨️: I don't know really. Honestly, none of the stuff I do is to earn any sort of praise. I simply want to do it because I feel it's my calling and I want to do good! But I suppose, I would like to make my family proud of me. I never really crossed my mind I guess.

🏕️: I haven't gotten any complaints from the gifts I've given before. Actually, I've been told I do really good when it comes to gifting. So, I'm not sure if I can answer that.

🎨: Favorite medium? And pencil and paper! That's all! And maybe, my Adobe Sketchbook App. But I think the good old pencil and paper rivals that.

🎶: Oh gosh. I don't even sing. Lol! I'm so embarrassed by my voice that I can't even sing to myself without cringing.🤣

🍳: The Full animation class by Aaron Blaise! One of my favorite Disney Animator Veterans! And if not that, a 3D printer. Cus those are awesome!

🍎: Woah. I honestly don't know. I've never felt that strongly interested in something before. Is that bad?😅

🍃: YES. WIND. RAIN. LIGHTNING. THUNDER. LET ME AT IT. WATCH ME PRANCE THROUGH THE CHAOS. MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA - HACK - *intense Coughing* Sorry. Let us continue.🥸🤣

Well, there you go! Thanks for the ask bestie! That was fun!

[detectiveichijouji]

Case 28 - Fântome -Phantom-

[AO3 version]

“Sorry Ken, we found the fake Kaiser and… they escaped!!”

Daisuke phoned Ken late at night, and then they talked for a few hours. If Ken could see Daisuke’s face now he would’ve seen a super duper pout. He was sulking, yeah.

“It’s okay, we managed to get some information in the meantime.”

“Did you!?”

“Miyako-san left so Iori-kun and I kept browsing through the internet and researching Unryuuji Naito. As Hikari-san mentioned, he’s a student from Taichi-san class, and more… His family runs a manufacturing business.”

“Huh… What do they work with? I mean, what do they build?”

“They build softwares and hardwares, in other words, machines and their applications.”

“Wait… So they build computers, and sort of that technology?”

“Yeah, moreso… And this means Unryuuji Naito is probably building the fake shards with a 3D printer.”

“Hehe, we’re on the right lead to catch them, right Sherlock??”

“This is not only my work,” Ken babbled, “Miyako-san and Iori-kun helped too. I’m not… Good with computers. At least not the current ‘me’... The Kaiser… Who I was in the past had a more skill set with computers and programming.”

“No sweat, you got help. Isn't it better to do things in a group than alone?”

“Ah, I agree. Thank you for reminding me of that.”

Days had passed, and they didn’t hear anything about the suspicious faux Kaiser or Unryuuji Naito. At least Ken was thankful Daisuke’s birthday wasn’t ruined by those two (so far) and they all had spent the day doing stuff with the group. Even Noel managed to drag Soleil and Lune into it to at least be courteous and wish Daisuke a happy birthday.

Soleil kept telling himself ‘I WANT TO BE NICE I WANT TO BE NICE I WANT TO BE NICE’ in some murmurs, while Lune was feeling she was walking on eggshells around Hikari. Since this ended up quite awkward, Daisuke took a long breath and then told those two to not force themselves if they’re not comfortable around him and his friends.

Noel wasn’t aware of that and then apologized to both parties for that. He wanted both of his group of friends to get along though…

“You can’t force people to like each other” Takeru said, and despite it sounding cold…

“No, I understand.”

“I’m just telling you, it might sound harsh but it’s true.”

“Well” Noel shrugged, “Soleil-san and Lune-san have to cooperate with you now. At least don’t fight each other.”

“We can make a truce, at least” Ken suggested, “But we might not interfere in each other’s businesses.”

“Hey hey HEY, it’s my birthday!” Daisuke pouted, “Don’t start a whole fight here, at least!”

“Yeah, it’s Daisuke’s birthday!” V-mon also pouted, mimicking Daisuke’s gestures, “If you want to fight,  open a gate and go fight in the Digital World, not here!”

“Besides, why are we at Joypolis?” Patamon asked.

“I uh… I love the arcade so I thought it would’ve been a good idea, haha…” Daisuke chuckled nervously.

“Oh, it’s because of that blue hedgeho--” V-mon was about to say something but Daisuke immediately covered his mouth.

“Togemogumon exists in this world?” Noel asked.

“Togemogumon?” The 02 kids blinked.

“Or is it a blue version of Herissmon?” he wondered.

“Herissmon?” and again they repeated like if those names were unknown to them all.

“Wow, they don’t know what you’re talking about~” Lunamon said, scoffing.

“Well, sorry that we don’t know every digimon in the Digital World!” Tailmon hissed.

“They’re hedgehog-like digimon” Coronamon replied, trying to avoid the imminent fight.

“Wow, hedgehog digimon…” Daisuke said in awe.

“D-DAISUKE, YOU’RE NOT REPLACING ME WITH A HEDGEHOG DIGIMON RIGHT?!” V-mon panicked, and somehow Daisuke’s interest in hedgehogs finally hit him badly.

“No, I’m not… I can’t replace you with some unknown digimon! You’re my bud!!”

“Daisukeeeeeee!!” V-mon was holding back his tears.

“Sigh…”

“Aaah~ I ate like a king!” Daisuke crashed in bed, with V-mon next to him “I think this was a good day. I’m officially 17, yeah!!”

“... But why was that kid trying to cause a new crisis…”

“Huh?” Daisuke looked at V-mon, who was now sitting on the bed, “You mean the fake Kaiser-wannabe?”

“Yeah, I… I don’t understand why a Chosen Child would cause chaos in order to fix it.”

“You mean… Them staging a new menace only to beat it and get all the glory?”

V-mon nodded in silence. Daisuke then sat next to him and started musing, he wanted to understand those people too, or rather, find a peaceful way to stop them before things got bad.

“That’s too troublesome” the boy sighed, “We need to find who that masked kiddo is and make them stop.”

“But… How can he do that?”

“Do what?”

“He really sounded like Ken…!”

“Maybe he was using some equipment to mask his voice, uh… I think I’ve seen those before in a movie. Oh you can do it with a few audio programs on the computer. Miyako definitely knows how.”

“Yeah… I think--”

Something sounding like glass shattering was heard from the balcony. Daisuke and V-mon got up and ran to its entrance and found a strange digimon that was a bullfighter look-like vampire… On the edge of the balcony.

“Who are you!?” V-mon said, with a serious glare.

The digimon didn’t answer, he just raised his claws. He was about to attack when V-mon jumped in midair and evolved into XV-mon. Matadrmon tried to hit Daisuke with his sharp claws, but the boy jumped from the balcony and was caught by XV-mon’s arms, carefully.

“Man, I thought my birthday would be less fired up but I guess not,” Daisuke complained with an annoyed tone of voice, “Who the heckie are you!?”

“...”

“If you’re not goin’ to talk, we will have to send you back to the Digital World!”

The opponent attacked again, this time throwing a ton of rapiers against XV-mon, who managed to dodge most of them, and some he just tried to avoid getting hit on Daisuke. One of them grazed the boy’s left cheek, causing a little cut.

“Daisuke!” XV-mon gasped.

“I’m okay, I’m okay!” he tried to keep XV-mon calm, then he looked at the foe digimon, “Why don’t you talk , you!!”

Matadrmon laughed, and then he snapped his claws, taking the appearance of a human being wearing a mask.

“You again!?”

“You will deliver a message to Ichijouji Ken for me, and if you refuse…”

“If what, you punk??” XV-mon growled.

“I don’t like this…” Daisuke babbled, he was not the kind to be the ‘pessimist’ of his group, but there’s times Daisuke was very able to feel when things wouldn’t end well.

Ken had finished his dinner and was just reading the recent stuff sent by Inspector Fujieda, about an illegal activity past midnight with a few suspects (“He” was one of those suspects alas) when his phone rang.

Wormmon got up from Ken’s lap and let the boy get up to reach his phone. Then, Ken answered the call:

“Hello?”

“Ken. Listen, I have not much time, but you have to go to the Digital World right now.”

“Daisuke?” Ken’s heart skipped a beat, what did he mean by ‘not having much time’???

Ken looked at the computer, and the digivice lying on the desk. He clutched the phone.

“Where are you?”

“That doesn’t matter now!! Please… Do it for me…!!”

“Hold on, why are you wavering? What’s happening??”

The call was abruptly interrupted. Did Daisuke hang up forcibly or someone else was with him?

“What happened, Ken-chan?” Wormmon asked, concerned, “You’re pale…”

“Something happened to Daisuke.”

“As I suspected!”

They heard Arsenemon’s voice, and then the phantom thief appeared in front of their eyes.

“Arsenemon??” Ken and Wormmon said, in unison.

“Sorry, I was eavesdropping on your call with monsieur Motomiya. I do not suggest going alone though.”

“... Do you have a plan, is what you mean?” 

“Oui.”

Ken messaged Miyako, Iori, Takeru and Hikari and told them to meet him at a certain coordinates he received from Daisuke. He feared for the worst, but hoped for the best. A brief explanation as for why he called them at this hour and that Arsenemon had a plan.

They all went there immediately.

“Ok, what now Ken-san?” Hawkmon asked Ken.

“I don’t get it…” Armadimon tilted his head.

“Daisuke said to meet him here, but I don’t see him--”

“Ken! Everyone!”

They heard Daisuke’s voice and followed it… To find V-mon and the hooded human holding him as hostage. The voice came from a… hooded Daisuke!?

“Daisuke!? What are you--” Ken gasped, the others were filled with mixed feelings of worry and anger.

“Don’t care about me!” V-mon shouted, “Stop Gigadramon!!”

“Gigadramon??” Tailmon raised an eyebrow.

They didn’t take time for details, a Gigadramon appeared from the top of the trees. The hooded Daisuke took another fake fragment and when he was about to use it on V-mon…

“Un deux trois!”

V-mon was protected by an Ace of Hearts card, which also worked as some sort of gate and “Ken” took the shard from the enemy Daisuke’s hand.

“ Non non , you won’t use it on mon ami. Now show yourself!!” Ken (?) tried to reveal the hooded Daisuke’s true identity.

“I thought you would come alone.” The hooded Daisuke said, annoyed by those guests, “Where’s the real Ichijouji Ken?”

“Ah, I’m sorry… You were expecting the original to come?” Then Arsenemon revealed his disguise.

“W-wait… Ken is…” V-mon babbled, concerned “Arsenemon, where is…”

“Can’t ruin surprises, they make the spectacle lose its climax~” he winked.

“I don’t know what you mean, but we have 15 shards of those in possession.”

“T-this is NOT the right time to think about surprises!!”

“Everything will be fine, V-mon,” Hikari said with a gentle tone, “Trust us.”

“Trust y’all…”

“Gigadramon, destroy them!”

“Oh you won’t!!” Miyako gritted her teeth, “Hikari-chan!”

“Right!”

From the Jogress light Aquilamon and Tailmon combined into Silphymon and the digimon flew in Gigadramon’s direction. Silphymon gathered energy in the palm of their hand and shot it against the opponent, who forced himself to take the hit. Gigadramon shot his organic missiles at Silphymon, but oddly they hit each other instead.

“Hmph, pathetic.”

“Pathetic it’s you for shamelessly using another person’s face!” Miyako snapped.

“Stop Gigadramon…” Iori mused, “Don’t tell us that…”

The fake Daisuke smirked. Takeru clenched his fist.

“Hold one second” Arsenemon said, and used the card to teleport V-mon to the group. Then he asked something from the communicator he had on his ear, “V-mon’s safe, folks.”

“Um…” V-mon frowned, “Gigadramon is not Daisuke if you’re thinking about it…”

“Huh!?” Patamon blinked, “He’s not??”

“Then… who is Gigadramon, dagya?!” Armadimon babbled.

Silphymon continued fighting whoever this person-or-digimon-turned-into-the-enemy was. Gigadramon also kept having strange reactions and restricting himself from those attacks.

-- Mot Bomb!!

The tiny Espimon-shaped bombs hit Gigadramon’s next organic missiles, exploding before they hit someone else. It was miss Espimon, trying to locate the shard in the digimon’s body.

“There, Silphymon!!” She showed them the left claw of Gigadramon with a flashlight coming from her eyes, “HIT THERE!!”

“Oh you’re smart,” the fake Daisuke said, “Interesting.”

“DUAL SONIC!!” Silphymon glided in the targeted claw’s direction at super-speed and crashed a shock wave into it. The wave hit it, repelling the gem which was then destroyed by another Mot Bomb .

Gigadramon devolved and then a pair of human and digimon -- A boy and a Gigimon -- started to fall, but Silphymon caught the duo with their arms and then gently landed on the floor.

“!!” Hikari gasped, “Matsuno Takato-kun?!”

“Do you know this kid, Hikari-san?” Iori asked.

“He’s a classmate,” Takeru replied, “He’s friends with Daisuke-kun.”

“HEY, WHERE’S DAISUKE YOU FAKER?! Miyako gritted her teeth.

“... Miyako” V-mon frowned, “He is Daisuke.”

“WHAT?!”

“Oh, are you surprised?” the enemy scoffed, “This only makes things funnier for you all right?”

“Daisuke-kun…??” Hikari was kinda pale by the shock.

“No, you’re not him!” Arsenemon narrowed his eyes at that person who was claiming to be Daisuke. Not his friend. His friend wouldn’t NEVER!!

“But I am, Arsenemon” he smirked, “And now-- huh?”

Arsenemon however, smirked.

“Why are you smilin--”

Then suddenly Ken appeared behind the fake Daisuke, and Immobilized him. Not only that, he also was armed with something that looked like one of Stingmon’s spikes.

“Alright ‘Daisuke’,” Ken said, with his old Digimon Kaiser voice tone, “You might be thinking I didn’t see it coming, but you’re not a mile able to outsmart me at least. WHERE’S IS THE REAL DAISUKE YOU INSECT?!”

“Didn’t you hear V-mon, you idiot!? I’m him! I’m--”

“Then, better me put you out of misery like Daisuke would want me to do in case he just had gone insane.”

“Well then go ahead. I dare you to do that, Ichijouji Ken.”

“Ken, please no!” V-mon babbled in panic, then he looked at Takeru, “Please use HolyAngemon on him… N-now!”

“Huh??” Takeru found that odd, but he knew V-mon had a point, “R-right…!”

Patamon warp evolved into HolyAngemon, and then…

“Holy Disinfection!!”

HolyAngemon quickly used his holy powers to exorcize whatever was happening with Daisuke. It was when something strange left Daisuke’s mouth, a black mist which turned into a form of Matadrmon.

“?!?!?!”

“Argh…!! How did you--?!”

Daisuke was freed and coughed, “UGH, DUDE!! WHY WERE YOU?! HUH WHA-- IT’S HIM! THE DIGIMON WHO ATTACKED ME!!”

“So he had possessed Daisuke…” Armadimon commented.

“Are you okay now?” Ken threw the spike away and put his other hand on Daisuke’s shoulder.

“Yeah, I… I knew y’all would save us.”

“Oh this is getting more and more interesting!” Matadrmon felt delighted, “This round has been won by you, Ichijouji Ken. But the next one…”

“WE WON’T LET YOU ESCAPE!!” The Chosen Children, their digimon, Arsenemon and Espimon said in unison and tried immediately to attack Matadrmon.

But Matadrmon was shielded by the eyepatched Devidramon. And then they saw a human with a mask and hoodie on, at the top of a tree.

“Who??”

The mysterious human threw a smoke bomb (and at the same time a card) on the ground and then the human and the two opponent digimon vanished. Once the smoke effect had vanished, Ken noticed the card and took it.

It said…

Congratulations, you won this time, Ichijouji Ken. The next game might be more entertaining. If you manage to find out the other 15 pieces, I will call cease-and-desist and stop the show. Only if you Play the Game, by the way. ----- Yours sincerely, the Digimon Kaiser.

Ken had to show it to the others, but right now he was afraid of Daisuke and the other two victims’ health conditions. So they decided to take them to Joe as soon as possible.

[pandorafallz]

Vampire AU | Learn thy problems (before they bite you in the ass)

“Beautiful.”

“Stunning.”

“A rare sight in Pandora today,” Morgan sighed with deep respect and joy as he leaned against Jake’s bunk. “Such a good day indeed—“

“You guys are weird. It’s just a 3D Printer.” Nadine’s voice was very dry, “It hadn’t even got the filling. It’s been here two days.”

“But it’s plugged in! You underestimate my abilities to create something that’ll work. This printer was designed for Resin and I can make alterations for the differences of resin we can make here. I can write up a few programs for anything we might need, but scans of things are better. Now, Nad, you’re prostheses are a high priority. Can I scan through all your limb components into our system?”

“If you want but it’ll take a while.”

“I’ve got all day since you’ll be here all day. Jake, you’ll get news from the other camps on how they’re settling in with their new homes and you can hand out the radio I modded.” Morgan nodded down to the duffle Jake had by the door.

Yes, the new shacks had been relocated to the new camps since they were in the all-clear. Kung had since relocated a bit closer for a more suitable tree to hide the shack under and Jake had to help in that so he knew how they were settling in. He had forgotten how large some trees could be, which was astonishing when he remembered the Omatikaya lived in a giant fucking tree that he visited every other day.

The tree was large enough to hide the shack and still have plenty of wiggle room which offered some front space that was clear from the elements and thus, they’d be able to expand their camp with little fear of getting caught. Jake had to install the solar panels into the tree so he had done what he had done on his windows and solar panels and boiled and coated the same leaf type to coat their panels and set the panels high into the tree to blend in with the leaves above. With the wire, he used sap and tree bark to blend them in; not that those were too noticeable but paranoia was enough to keep all areas covered.

They already had plans to collect more shacks but Wu was insisting they make a fuel refinery in the second cave first to ensure they had plenty of power to make the trip. He was sure they were going to make it every two weeks to steal shacks once they had a solid fuel income. Wu and Kendra were going to be the ones setting that up.

Since Ruby’s team and Kendra’s team already had radios, they just needed to tap into their frequencies. Still, it’d be nice to actually talk to the other camps as well independently. He was sure Bree was certainly going to be thrilled as well. Organising between the camps on trade and exchange would be better for certain.

“Among other good news, the weed is just about done,” Nadine added, her eyes lighting up in excitement. “Since I won’t be coming to Hometree; I gotta harvest that and sort them out.”

“And smoke some?” Jake added cheekily

“Harvester’s pay.” Nadine challenged with a casual wave of her hand, “Jerome already set some Pandora herbs for me to add to it so it’ll be amazing.”

“Hotbox in the airlock so the shacks clear.” Jake requested, gently turning his chair to wheel away towards the said airlock.

“Sure. But I’ve got plans for something better; a hotbox mask. I wanna have it to the filter box is the hotbox and we breathe in the wonderful goodness through a half-mask.”

Jake let Nadine continue talking to Morgan about her plans, grabbed his duffle of supplies then masked up and wheeled himself down his ramp and out to the openness of the forest with a heavy sigh.

Kim looked also set to go, checking through their storage supplies with her tail waving and humming a soft tune that he vaguely recognised as part of her songcord. Must have been a good night.

“You all good?” Jake asked, “You look like you’re in a good mood.”

Kim spared a glance up then chuckled. “I felt my babies kick!” her hand came to her bump with pride.

Jake lit up happily. “Oh, that’s wonderful! Is it weird?”

“Little, but Jerome’s a little disappointed he can’t feel them just yet.” She patted the side of the bump. “My friends at hometree are going to be so excited; they’re filled with stories of their own pregnancies and how they find ways to encourage more movement, or in later months, how to be comfortable with it. Mo’at said last time she wanted a check-up so… about time, I suppose. Jerome’s still working on the mother loom we have with N’deh today. I guess it’ll be just us two going to Hometree.”

“Yes, but we’ll still have plenty of people to talk to. Ashely’s really picked up the bow very well. Even Tsu’tey’s impressed with her aim. Believe it or not, Jake she may speed run her way to Ikran Makto before you.”

Jake pouted, “Well… that sucks for me. But… well I suppose that makes sense. Ashely’s trained enough in Na’vi culture and knows the langue and… well has warrior training to draw from.” His mood died a little but… he knew it was coming from jealousy. He came here with nothing and his books didn’t give him the real deal. As a Jar head, he was a slower learner. Tommy had been the faster-minded brother. Egghead. Slow learners didn’t come to Pandora without some other influence behind their ass. She had also been here for years anyway; she knew her way around.

“She wants an Ikran but she’s butting heads about it. Tsu’tey’s been a little short about it.”

“Neytiri was telling me the other day. Hopefully, I’ll get something planned for us non-Omatikaya’s in that department soon with Mo’at and Eytukan.” Jake promised, though his head turned up at the sight of the descending Ikran. Kim slung her own carrier around her shoulders, clicking her tongue to draw their stolen Pa’li towards her.

 -

Grace sighed as she stared out of the window, her eyes following the familiar pathway through the mountains, the light bouncing off the water in colourful refractions that were too faint to be seen by human eyes but it allowed her to further appreciate the beauty than concentrate on how unfortunate her future was going to be.

Things were changing; half the Vampires were almost gone or were packing to go to live in the other part of the planet. The west frontier had a large scope of land that the RDA dappled in and at least three clans that were tighter-knit than the Omatikaya and the Tawkami. Well, Aranahe and Zeswa at least. There was apparently a frostiness between those two clans and the Kame’tire so it was less harmonious but… it was still a large area of land and in all her time, separation like this made her anxious.

It pissed her off a little to have separation anxiety over something so stupid but… as a secret community, they had each other’s back better as a group. Cover each other when they had to. Her coming to the mountains was one thing but them, at least four and the most useful ones? Sure, she had her science ones but they were also landed with Shen and Henrick, the loose canon and the trigger-happy moron.

So, she pitied the ones she had to leave behind to keep those two in check. Probably the only silver lining of her leaving was that they weren’t her responsibility. Most likely Hale’s since she was a very good mediator and didn’t tolerate the bullshit the two nut cases liked to create.

Norm stared, amazed by the mountains and his head craning around for a better view of the mountains. Trudy was chuckling softly as well, enjoying his reaction with glee.

“You should see your face.” She nudged the scientist with her elbow though her expression fell as she looked at her. “You good, doc?”

“Yes,” Grace replied, a little curtly. “Just…wanna get there in one piece.”

Norm turned to face her, his face turning into soft concern. “Everything alright?”

Trudy nudged him again. “Let’s not go there.”

Grace didn’t answer but continued to look out rather than at the two as they continued on through the moving mountains and clouds until she recognised the flash of silver ahead. The familiar dual modules were still set as she had left them on the short grassy hillside and a large pile of crates was set up shop beside it.

Must have been the parts for the new avatar lab-shack. She had almost forgotten about that; she knew it had been planned. Hale that day had been helping with site sweeps for it. She hadn’t realised the first team had managed to dump the all parts for it here anyway. Still, since they were here she was sure she could get a few engineers and constructors out to build it at the very least.

Trudy landed smoothly before Grace relaxed a fraction and grabbed her mask, waiting for two to mask up before she broke the airlock and clambered over the feet of her avatar.

“I’m powering on the shack. I’ll link up to help unpack.” She called back.

“Aye, Doc,” Trudy called.

Grace turned the airlock power on outside to access the airlock; allowing it to cycle Pandoran air in for the door to release before she entered. Taking her mask off a little early but she didn’t care too much as the air changed from the strong smell of grass to something…more sterile in the undertone. Inside the shack, it smelt stale but it wasn’t as bad as she expected.

The shack’s refurbishment had done it well, despite being abandoned for over a year. Grace knew Trudy had restocked some of the food in advance given Quaritch had the pilot made sure the route was clear for her (not that she was touching any of the human food).

The link module didn’t need changing but she had the air unit updated for anyone in the link-beds. Norm would have a better time since the air was only filtering out two people’s air than the whole base of people and so, it’d clean more efficiently. Less filter cleaning in total.

The second module was redesigned to allow for their kitchen at the far end and the door to the toilet and showers were a little out of sight but close to what used to be the lab. The middle second was where the two bunk beds were laid out. The former labs' pace was more storage now for their tools with a desk and monitor. Sure, preserved samples still lay in fluid but that looked to be more decoration.

Her team before had hated having the habitual second be half the lab; they had wanted more freedom of space to study than to waddle around each other. It was why Grace had been convinced to get and…convince Selfridge to shell out for a lab space outside. Still, they were here to work and there were fewer people down so it was less cramped. But they’d need the lab to work.

Soon, the shacks buzzed with life as she turned the power on, the bustling echo of the air systems fully into life and seemed to settle into a background hum. The solar panel batteries were fully charged and there was only a small yellow warning in the water system in the toilet. A clog, most likely.

The link beds opened up, one by one. Grace plucked out the thumb drive and opened up the side panel of the monitor reading at the far right bed; distantly hearing the airlock start to cycle. With a soft click, she set the drive into the system, updating the system to display false bio readings whenever she was linked—the same as the ones at Hell’s Gate. She had just shut the panel as Norm came in.

“Want me to link too?” He asked.

“Yes. We have an avatar tent we’ll need to pop up soon anyway. It’ll keep our avatars safe when we’re not using them.”

Norm nodded, eyeing the two beds. “The middle one?”

“Sure.” She usually used that one but she needed the one furthest out of the way. She moved, tapping the screen to get his link bed ready before he hopped in and closed the lid and Grace followed.

It was a small tangle despising having been the one to put her avatar in the seatbelts and slipping her avatar’s hands free to get the rest of her unsecured. Boxes and bags from the storage compartment were far smaller in their hands, putting them into the airlock for Trudy to take inside first. Grace handled her secured supplies of blood and set it in with more caution.

“What’s all this?” Norm asked when they departed to build their tent, nodding to the crates.

“That is our lab.” Grace chuckled a little dryly. “I’ll call for people to come down and build it for us now that we’re here. I didn’t realise they completed the drop-off.”

“Wait a new lab!” Norm’s head tilted, his eyes lighting up. “Cool! Is it avatar-sized? This all looks…big for what it should be?”

“Yes. The Team I had here before almost gnawed each other’s arms off since the lab space inside was so small.” She chucked softly at that. “There’ll be some human-sized things but this will allow us to properly use our avatars and it’ll have an area to store the avatars as well, so the tent we need up is just…temporary once the labs are constructed.”

“That does sound awesome.”

“It’s an old design but practicable. Frontier West has a lot more of these so it was easier to get my hands on one of those than some custom-designed stuff that would have cost a lot more than Selfridge was willing to allow.”

“How long will it take to build?” Norm helped as she found the tent bag, nodding him to take the supports and metal pins.

“Depends. Maybe a week once we have the construction team here?”

“Why didn’t they build it before?”

Grace paused a little but she straightened up to unfold the cabin tent’s protective ground sheet. “About a year or so ago, I was escorting someone to help with the land survey for the best spot on our mountainside for it to be built. A sting bat flew into our engine and we crashed. The construction hit a pause after that.” She didn’t look to see how his expression turned, dumping the ground sheet and began to set it up over the grass.

“I-I’m sorry to hear about that, Grace,” Norm said, holding down the sides as the wind ruffled the sheets. “Did…you all get out alright?”

“Yes, bumps and scrapes mostly.” Aside from the broken bones and one impalement. Thankfully, Kamath had been about when Grace had run back to Hell’s Gate while the two were still in their turning phase, getting her their new change clothes and blood for the duo. “Still. I can’t change what happened. But now that we’re here we’re gonna need the lab. Let’s just get the tent built.”

 -

Jake spent the good portion of the morning with the weavers, letting them show him new ways to spin thread while Bree began to show how to crochet with a bone hook she had crafted at her camp and had been amazing the weavers with this new style of work; Crotchet was not a Na’vi form of weaving, despite them having a variant of knitting; it was more needle based than anything else.

Also, the size difference between the Na’vi work and the human work was the other thing that continued to amuse Jake whenever the weavers made a remark on the small detailing work that the humans could achieve that they’d have to work hard on. It had made him chuckle at the thought of them ever seeing the creation of lace. He was sure one of the women had some lacy underwear to show off; let them see how fine their work could be with as thin thread as possible. Human thread for their clothes was far thinner and finer than what the Na’vi could work with.

Three of the adult weavers had collected tools to draft their own crotchet hooks based on hers but Bree had encouraged them to try different sizes as the hook size is dependent on how detailed, or how fine the yarn or thread they were going to use. A small enough kid was able to borrow a spare and Bree helped the boy with how to hold the yarn and how to navigate the hook into each loop; going for simple ‘granny’ squares as a first introduction.

The child caught on fast, which was interesting to see.

“Is this what you want to do? Become a weaver?” Jake asked curiously. “I’m surprised you know how to do this.”

“Not really. Ma had me learn when I was in med bay recovering. Kept my hands busy and mind occupied with something more than reading.” Bree shrugged, “Eliza gave me a few digital books back then too.”

“What do you want to do?”

“Honestly… I kinda want to make paper.” Bree shrugged, “It’s not a Na’vi thing but it’s a process to make, it’s renewable and recyclable. Na’vi might see the appeal one day but… the way I see it, we humans are gonna want paper. I know how to do that. It’ll take time to make so I need wood shapers to help make the tools and frames for it.”

“You also need to find the right tree for the materials.” Jake pointed out. “I don’t think there’s a lot of Mulberry trees about or…any seeds of it in my supply.”

“I know I can’t recreate Hanji. But I’ll experiment with the waste from the wood shapers and other plant fibres and see what comes out of it. If wood fails, I’ll probably go for plant fibres. That works just as well.” She mused. “Out here I…I worry we’ll lose the need for a writing system since the Na’vi don’t have one. I’d rather carve that opening for our people. Tablets are good but…it’d be nice to share with each other stories and recipes from handwritten books. Meaningful books.”

It was clear to see the girl had a lot of passion in that and it suddenly became clearer; the girl’s interest was in the preservation elements of their culture out here. Languages were one element of that and why she liked to learn. Humans have lost so many dialects and languages. Hawaiian was almost a lost language due to the colonisation of the island groups and racism against the indigenous population.

On Pandora, what use were other alien languages when all the Na’vi speak the same language, barring the few changes of dialects? Spanish, German, Chinese; all would become lost in the following generations with disuse as everyone adapted to learn Na’vi and everyone used English as a default currently given the RDA was mostly American and would tend to employ people who could speak English fluently. Everyone spoke English, but most had other leagues behind their belt, like him.

Maybe there would be a camp that didn’t speak English? Maybe they needed to…do more to preserve their own cultures despite some assimilation to the Na’vi’s way of life. Books…could be the way to go and oral stories as well to pass the languages down. Could they teach the Na’vi other languages as well if they wanted to? Most knew English already.

“The Na’vi could tolerate books better than our tablets.” Jake mused, “Not a bit of metal.”

“Exactly.” Bree nodded. “I bet they could help if they’re interested. I know they don’t use writing but… it could be a hit with the kids; they could draw and be creative and not make such a mess. Designs wouldn’t need to be made on the ground.”

“What about wax tablets?” Zeke made his appearance as he knelt into the gap smelling heavily of dye if the stains on his arms didn’t give it away. “It’s simpler to make. I was watching this film set in ancient Greece the other night on my tablet and I saw it and it suddenly hit me that that could be awesome to have as a temporary note-pad for everyday notes.”

“I suppose, maybe for different areas?” Jake suggested, “Like… it’s still a human tool and it worked for us for centuries. Let’s not lose it through disuse like we have done for the last few centuries. Bring back the old school stuff into our lives.”

“I can get the other into making notes. Ashely’s still healing so she’ll probably go through our collection of period dramas for that sort of shit when she’s not linked up. Or Eliza; she loves ancient documenters. Like Pompeii.”

“Pompeii? That is a curious word.” One of the younger weavers spoke up, Ru’sal. “What does it mean? It sounds… fun.”

Jake winced a little. “It’s…not a good story. It’s an ancient city on earth, one of two cities lost in a region called Italy that was consumed by ash and lava from a…. tepram” he knew they didn’t really know the English word for Volcano but he had learned the Na’vi word for it.

The seventeen-year-old’s eyes widened in alarm. “Consumed? Entirely?”

“Yes. The second city, Herculaneum, suffered but it was quick in comparison to Pompeii” Zeke said, “When a… Tepram blows, they let down these rushes of cindering ash and gas that burns and boils anything that it comes in contact with it. Faster than water down a hill. We call these burning clouds Pyroclastic flows. Herculaneum was hit directly with one and consumed quickly. Pompeii was barely hit by one cloud but its fate was far slower and was buried alive by falling ash and pumice stone. When the cities were buried, time moved on and eventually, they lay almost forgotten.”

Ru’sal looked saddened by this. “How terrible that so much life was lost and… your people forgot.”

“It is, but a few centuries ago the cities were found and sky people began to dig and learn what had occurred. There was a lot from the buried houses and human remains; their stone statues, metal tools and even the decoration on walls were still there under all that ash. It was lost to time but we learned a lot of our history and how our people used to live in such a different age.” Zeke shrugged a little wistfully. “They 3D documented the entire city by 2038 with all the nooks and crannies. I wonder if anyone here had a copy of it?”

“Ask Eliza?” Jake suggested, because if she loved the history there then that was a good starting point.

Zeke let out a curious noise. “Later,” he decided, though he leant back to fall on his ass. “I don’t know how the Na’vi do it, crouching down like that all day. After a few minutes my legs go numb. Ugh.”

“Na’vi’s vein and nervous system are set at a different angle in their legs.” Bree pointed out, “When they crouch, they’re not compressing those systems so they’re able to retain that position for longer and without discomfort.”

“What?! Oh, come on!”

Jake snorted at the outrage in Zeke’s voice.

“Really?” Ru’sal laughed, “Your people cannot retain that position for long? I thought your kind simply preferred sitting like a baby.”

“It’s not fun. Compressing those veins caused numbness in the limbs, sort of like…my situation here but temporary.” Jake tapped his placid legs. “When someone gets up and moves, blood returns fully back, the nerves are overstimulated and start to produce tingly feelings; sometimes painful, sometimes funny feeling.”

“Imagine if you woke up one day to your legs kicking back into life. I bet you’d have the worst case of pins-and-needless ever for sitting on your ass all day, every day.”

“Zeke!” Bree snapped in aghast at the comment.

Jake couldn’t help himself but laugh a little at the mental image the scientist provided. It’d be funny though but he could see it was a logical thought; his nerves would be super confused that they were working all of a sudden. “I might welcome that if it gives me any sense of sensation down there.”

“What if the sensation is always that?”

Jake hesitated a little. “As long as it’s not the painful kind, then yes.”

 -

Eventually, Jake was moved upstairs to aid once again in medical making with Mo’at. Neytiri was also there but the Tsahìk was mostly talking through with Eliza about reproduction and he had joined in a portion of the part where Mo’at had talked through Na’vi reproduction after Eliza wanted to learn how to assist Kim when the birthing process came about.

He learned that the Na’vi was conceived inside the mother and carried but the ‘amniotic sac’ was called a Tsalnu (translated to baby pod) which was like a clear chrysalis was birthed around the child when the baby was 8 months gestation and the mother had to nourish the child through the tswin until the baby was fully developed and the chrysalis was opened and the baby was ‘born’. Often the mothers would stay in the family hammocks or in private areas away from everyone when tending to the Tsalnu.

Jake had reflected back on what Kim had first told him; it was likely she didn’t actually know the process. The RDA probably knew very little of Na’vi pregnancies and they people certainly wouldn’t have allowed a sky person or an avatar around a pregnant woman to study that. It made sense for the woman to assume it was more human-like because of the human traits inside the avatar's body. It explained why, to him why Na’vi don’t have a lot of multiple babies in a single pregnancy. They physically couldn’t do more than two; the father would tend to a second child with his tswin if that was the case. Neither of them could tend to a third infant.

He made a note to ask Kim to check in with Mo’at about the actual pregnancy; to ensure that it was either a human or Na’vi-like birth for her babies. No one wanted to be surprised or under-prepared when the time came.

“… Like with your world. I get it. But on Earth, mating for life for humans is at a…evolutional disadvantage.” Eliza was saying, tuning Jake back in.

“How so?” Mo’at asked curiously, “Mating for life creates a supportive comminute between family members.”

“Not when everything on the planet is trying to kill you.” Eliza shook her head. “On Earth, it’s not kind. Even when humans had no technology and were closer to Na’vi in culture. Environmental issues, weather, tribe wars and sicknesses would wipe us out. If any species of humans mated for life, that restricts our ability to reproduce fast. We had to reproduce faster than we could die out, that’s not achievable through life bonds with a single partner. Our form of ‘mating for life’ is cultural, not biological.”

Mo'at considered this for a moment. “I suppose it explains why humans are far more sexually driven than The People. Your biology craves you to reproduce?”

“More like…the process of it is the enjoyable part that we crave,” Jake answered, knowing damn well why humans fucked around a lot. “Do…Na’vi have the same pleasure response as humans to sex?”

“Yes, but Na’vi have their penises inside until use so they’re also not stimulated every time they walk.” Eliza said, “Surely you noticed, Jake?”

Jake blushed a little. “Yes, I’ve noticed.”

“Sky people have their genitals on the outside? Grace didn’t teach us that detail of the human body.” Neytiri asked this time in surprise, curbing their topic away now with her question. “What happens when the area gets hit?”

“It fucking hurts,” Jake answered, deadpan.

“That can’t be good for your people!”

“Actually, it’s necessary for the testicles—the ball sac as some would say—to be at a lower temperature than the rest of the body to ensure a good stable temperature for sperm to be made and preserved. They’d die off if too hot so…nature made its calls. The whole set dangles loose so…that’s one of the reasons you’ll rarely see a human in a loincloth. Trousers offer far more protection and feel far more secure.”

“Yeah, feeling exposed and flying in the breeze is not a fun feeling.” Jake mused.

“You can’t even feel your dick.”

Jake gave the doctor a look. “I am well aware, Doc.”

Eliza winced scratching the back of her blonde head as she realised what she said, looking sheepish. “Right. I’m sorry.”

Jake just shrugged, “Eh, just because I can’t feel it, doesn’t mean I can’t…work it? I knew a few guys and gals who would still have bio kids despite being paralysed. ”

Eliza hummed thoughtfully. “True. You still have that future.”

Indeed he did. Still, with who had yet to be seen. Adoption was still a valid way of obtaining children. Or being a donor to someone who wanted a kid but not a partner.

“If you wanna see a fully naked human then we can send you some pictures or maybe someone out here is brave enough to strip back to the birthday suit.” Eliza addressed to the two Na’vi. “Except Bree. Do not ask her to strip unless it’s a medical emergency. She’s considered a child under human law until she’s 18.”

“Of course, we shall respect that.” Mo’at agreed.

“Since we’re on that topic, if anyone makes any sexual advances towards her or those sorts of comments, you inform one of the human camp leaders as soon as possible. If she makes advances to someone then also let someone know. Even if she consents, it’s still by our law, not allowed.” Eliza reiterated seriously. “She’s young but she may want to explore her sexuality but she has to wait two more years. For teenagers in most American states, the age of sexual consent can be sixteen but that only applies to teenagers that are close in age. One or two years difference now. The age gap is too big between her and any human else right now.”

Jake had heard about that new law being put in a few years ago in his state. It used to be about four years difference maximum, now it was two to help curb the rise in teenage pregnancies.

“I understand,” Mo’at agreed again, in a far more understanding tone.

Eliza relaxed a little, sparing a look down at her tablet. “So… if you want a tip to down a human quickly, just kick them between the legs. They’ll be out of commission for at least an hour.”

“Rude.” Jake snipped in.

“Oh please, you’re safe, Sully.”

 -

Eventually, after listening to Eliza’s graphic discussion of human births, the doctor finally left to refresh and help out downstairs. Jake though happily sat with Neytiri as she showed him how to store some medication long-term in small (to Na’vi) pods.

“The Great Hunt is coming up next month. We’re preparing these in advance.” Neytiri said, inserting the stopper into the pod’s top.

“Ooh, I hope to be a part of that.” Jake said without much thought, “I mean if I get an Ikran by then.” He added.

“You’re doing well. Your language still isn’t fluid to offer the correct prayer and you have yet to make a clean kill.” Neytiri said calmly but smiled fondly at him.

“If he’s close, then start to teach him how to tame an Ikran,” Mo’at interjected softly. “That is something to be learned. They are not kind. Rare few hunters have died attempting to tame one.”

Jake hummed, perking up a little. “I don’t mind the lessons.”

Neytiri sighed, “Then I will include it when you come to Hometree in your Dreamwalker.”

“Great. But, that does bring up a topic, Neytiri. About what Ashley said?”

Neytiri tisked a little, her tail swishing a little irritant. “I suppose.” Neytiri wiped her hands and turned her attention to her mother. “Ashelysloan earlier this week questioned me on their position and why they should follow our cultural practises when they are outsiders. Specifically, she had an interest in taming an Ikran but wondered why she needed to follow the Omatikaya Iknimaya for it when she is not Omatikaya or Na’vi.”

Mo’at head tilted curiously at the quandary. “You’re worried she will be offended by keeping her to our cultural ways?”

“No, I know she will follow them, as will Jake, but it opens up a lot of… wonders on what else it would mean for us and them. Iknimaya is only one part of our culture. We can teach them our culture but, they will never truly be accepted as one of us. That is where the question is directed.”

Mo’at set her tools down and remained quiet in her contemplation for a few minutes. “That is a good point made. There is much to consider but…as the the matter is since the sky people are on our land, our ways should be respected.”

“But the Ikran rookery is not on Omatikaya territory.” Neytiri pointed out, “They have the freedom to go there as desired. What stops them from going there? Their ignorance of how to handle Ikran’s? With Jake and Ashley learning, they can teach other Dreamwalkers. The whole process of Iknimaya is lost after them as it’s not their way.”

Mo’at frowned more thoughtfully as Neytiri’s words settled on her ears. “Are you worried this will occur?”

“A little, but…” Neytiri paused, glancing at Jake. “We have no good cause to stop them from trying if they leave Omatikaya territory altogether. Also, Dreamwalkers can conceive; what of their children? They will not be part of our people either.”

Mo’at let out a steady breath. “Right now, as they are on Omatikaya territory then I believe it’s best if they respect our culture by following our rites of passage. We’ve accepted their request uturu. I will however think much more on this. It does open a lot to consider.”

“You’re not wrong. I don’t see all humans staying here anyway.” Jake shrugged though blinked at the two sets of eyes looking to him sharply so he decided to elaborate “Right now, your territory is most familiar. We’re learning from you and we’re adapting a more eco-friendly way of life. You have given us shelter and we respect that. We’ve taught you about our kind, our technology and vampires. New concepts and all….but that doesn’t make us part of your clan. We’re not Omatikaya or Na’vi. We’re not confined to your territories unless we’re prisoners or on an exile agreement.” Jake pointed out, “I have no intention or plans to leave. If others had made it further out and found a good place to settle that open for more people to join then why not? As a community, it may be important for us to form a new culture that encompasses all Eywa, Na’vi teachings and human adaptability. Humans will birth as will our Dreamwalkers. Our children cannot have a stable life as an outsider to another clan despite our regular visits. That said….there’s only sixteen of us right now, not enough to even consider such an option.”

“But you have thought hard on this?”

“I like to know my options for my future and for the future of those who leave the RDA. Earth is a planet waiting to die now. If our planet goes, either slow or sudden, our people need to see what lies before them. I’d rather think ahead to avoid ruining this world like our ancestors ruined Earth. My people need stability and a new way of life as we never had a Great Mother to teach us.” Jake shrugged.

“Perhaps this is something that needs more time to think about.” Neytiri decided, “They are still learning from us and most humans so far have only left in small groups.”

“Indeed.” Mo’at sighed deeply, picking up her tools again.

 -

It was perhaps another hour of less thought-fuelling debate and more of the merits of identifying certain leaf shapes that have the same colouring and Mo’at sending Neytiri away with an Ikran salve after a rider had returned with their winged friend injured from a Toruk attack.

Jake’s attention had been very fluid between work and waiting for when he was going to be returned downstairs when Eytukan seemed to enter the den with Tsu’tey on his feels.

“What’s wrong?”

“I have received word from a scout that… Graceaugustine has taken up residence in the mountains at her metal home.”

Jake’s breath paused. So far away from Hell’s Gate. That wasn’t good.

“You are certain of this?” Mo’at asked, her voice careful as he ears pinned back in concern.

“Yes, she is with another Dreamwalker and a sky person, a female.” He said, “I say this to you and I must ask that you keep such knowledge away from your brother. It will be unwise for him to learn such news.”

“N’deh was good friends with Graceaugustine, why would it be…unwise?” Her question slowed, though Jake turned his gaze to watch the discomfort cross over the Chief’s face. “Why can’t he know?”

Eytukan sighed deeply. “He will make every attempt to go to her if he learns she is more…accessible than behind the walls of the sky people place.”

Jake stared at the man in confusion for a long moment before he felt the gasp leave him as the realisation suddenly hit him like a train at full speed down a hill. “Grace Augustine is the Dreamwalker he tried to mate with!”

Oh fuck.

That… fucking well made sense now; why he never told anyone who ‘she’ was because…that was just an opening of trouble if the RDA found out she was trying to court with a Na’vi. It made sense where they met and how they got to know each other. Of course, he would be in trouble in wanting a woman he couldn’t have; a lead scientist of the RDA reflected very badly on the clan with those who hated humans. N’deh couldn’t get to Hell’s gate; that’d risk her. He didn’t want to leave her behind either.

Still, N’deh really should have better taste in women. What he saw in her…Jake couldn’t see it and it wasn’t the vampire part that he felt was off about her. Now, though… that part was its own concerns and problems now.

Which was why Eytukan wasn’t willing to let N’deh find her.

“Is this true?” Mo’at rose to her feet, her eyes narrowing a fraction and her tone very narrow.

Eytukan nodded once. “Yes.”

“We cannot hide her from him, their bond is broken and causes both pain. You know what they have to do to release that pain you brought to them by separating their mating Tsaheylu.”

“She is a Cold one, Mo’at. The risks to our clan…we must consider that.”

“Actually, I think you’re the one in trouble, Eytukan.” Jake knew it wasn’t his place to speak up and the displeased look wasn’t missed so he decided to rip the band-aid off. “Correct me if I’m wrong but she’s a vampire now. You screwed her over by A) ruining her relationship with N’deh, B) personally banished her and C) almost letting her Dreamwalker die back at the school.”

“How do you know that?” Mo’at asked sharply

“Nadine was a pilot of the rescue team and Eliza helped treat the bullet wounds. They had camera footage of your warriors stepping over her Dreamwalker. It was mentioned briefly last week.” Jake answered. A story that had been in passing conversation one dinner time. He hadn’t cared too much but… now it seemed very relevant of possible spite.

Mo’at hissed softly, her tail swishing high as she moved to pace a fraction around the den. “<We do not want the Cold ones as our enemies, husband.>”

Eytukan’s ears perked, “<I don’t either, which is more the reason we cannot allow them to mate.>”

“&lt;We?>” Mo’at echoed shifting a displeased head tilt at him. “<There is no ‘we’ in this discussion. Husband.>”

Jake decided it was probably best to leave the two to it and crawled to his chair to exit. “I’ll pray to Eywa for you, Eytukan. The Grace Augustine I met…well, she holds a grudge.” He said, rolling out of the den. “You sure as hell are gonna need it.” He couldn’t help the sing-songy edge to the last bit; just to drill it home how much Eytukan needed to realise he had fucked up massively.

Masterlist

[torchickentacos]

Ok I need to get back to schoolwork but I'm currently thinking about the dog we had in our Veterinary Science Academy Class in High School.

Her name was usually Ellie. She was some sort of jack russel terrier mix, just vaguely energetic small dog shaped. She was a roaming dog- meaning, since she was our teacher's dog and not a dog someone brought in for us, she was allowed to roam the classroom instead of staying in a kennel.

Ellie was SUPER energetic. She was a jumper, too- she'd jump up on our desks and tables. She even liekd to go from grooming table to grooming table- all under watch, no worries. She was sweet and ADORED attention.

But sometimes she was not Ellie, and turned into Nellie. Nellie is the name we'd use for her when she was anxious. She had various dog mental illness things going on. I've never met a more anxious dog than Nellie. Ellie would go to Nellie at a moment's notice, from sniffing all of our shoes and playing with us to going under the Teacher's desk, her safe spot where she oculd be alone in a dark quiet space.

My point about telling you all about Ellie/Nellie is this: When Ellie was Nellie, we respected that. Everyone knew about ach dog's boundaries. Not just dogs, though. Students learned about every animal. Kiwi the bird only liked a select few female students, so the few of us would usually be the ones to take care of her. Bozzy, the other teacher's dog, had HUGE nail clipper anxiety so we'd always let our teacher do his nails. We learned every animal's triggers and respected them.

If a classroom of 15 teens and a teacher can learn how to take care of and accomodate the differing needs of dogs, snakes, frogs, birds, et cetera, all while also getting work done and learning hematology, then why can't some teachers learn to accomodate LITERAL HUMAN STUDENTS???? The dog with an anxiety disorder was treated with more kindness than most of my friends were by school staff. Our school could fund a 3D printer room in the library but not a place for the gen-ed section of the school to have a cooldown room for stressed or panicking students.

I went to one of the most well-funded schools in the area (note that well-funded in a rich area does NOT mean all the students are rich as well- wealth disparity is HUGE). We had so many ridiculously great things, and I am SO grateful for it. But also... it shows one thing. When schools are given ample funding, it won't always go to the 'right' things. 3D printer room is great, sure. Glad they funded that, but why can't they fund ac or heating in the trailer units, so students with classes there (like me) would be able to maybe... not freeze or overheat? What about the plumbing? Can we pay the teachers more? Can we FOR THE LOVE OF GOD NOT HAVE ONLY ONE ELEVATOR? I have another chorincally ill friend who was a wheelchair user and she and I would ROUTINELY be late for class because I had to drive her to the ONLY elevator in the school, which was insanely out of the way.

My points: accomodate students with anxiety with the same kindness that you'd give a dog, and before you pay for the 3d printer lab maybe fix the accessibility issues. Thank you for coming to my Tay Talk.

[subspaceember]

okay so I was supposed to do my stuff for class. Instead here's what happened:

I am in class -> I drink my matcha -> want to work on cyberdeck -> open project in Illustrator -> realize that my old CAD model was better -> install Fusion 360 again -> realize that model was basically complete -> realize I have nothing to lose by printing it -> I don't have Cura -> I install it, but don't finish the setup -> set up 3D printer -> there's stuff on the table, I clean it up some -> I discover that I can mount my little LED lamp to my printer -> I do that -> It has to be moved and new filament put in -> I do that too -> I get ready to print when I realize I need to make some changed to the model -> I turn off the printer -> discover things would be easier if I had my calipers -> I can't find my calipers -> I think they're in this box of random junk -> I get the box and start pulling things out -> I eventually do find them but at this point the contents of the entire box are all over my floor and I'm sitting in this pile of junk -> I discover all the loose glue sticks that I need to put away in the bottom of the box -> I gather those up and put them away -> I realize that I can just get rid of the box all together, especially because it's falling apart -> I start trying to find a new container for my Game Boy and it's games and manuals, since it was in the box -> I'm unsuccessful -> I think a lot about crocheting a bag for it, then I realize that's silly and instead I now want to make a bag for my switch -> it takes considerable effort to stop myself from doing that -> now I'm sorting everything I got out of the box -> a lot of it goes back into my closet -> the closet is a mess -> I start picking up the closet too -> I manage to get all the stuff I pulled out of my car when I crashed it put away finally -> I find the parking pass I lost -> I find the patches I wanted to put on my bag and lay them out -> It takes a lot of effort to not go ahead and put them on right now -> I realize at this point I wasn't even going to do class stuff and was actually needing to take a shower -> I discover a spare strap I want to use on the cyberdeck -> I find a big microSD card I didn't know I had -> I finally get everything from the box into new homes -> think about how nice it'd be to have shelves -> get sad realizing I have no money for shelves and am forced to move soon anyway -> get distracted by my phone for a bit -> I finally pick up the calipers -> the battery is dead -> I know where the new ones are -> I find them in the a bag -> I discover stuff in the bag that doesn't go in there -> I get all that out -> I replace the battery -> I only vaguely remember why I needed this in the first place now -> I decide I want to do laundry before tomorrow -> remember I was supposed to shower -> remember I was supposed to be doing something for class -> decide to write a tumblr post about my thought process instead of doing either of those things -> here we are!

I uh... don't think "normal" people's brains work this way. Also for reference this entire time there were no bathroom breaks, no water drinking, no going outside, etc. Nothing could break me from the task else I wouldn't do it again for maybe months.

It's amazing just how much ADHD is crammed into my brain and that I somehow manage to actually do anything at all (occasionally).

[being-of-rain]

I’ve listened to 5 of the New Series UNIT box sets now! Tbh a lot of my opinions have been what I assumed they would be, based on reviews I’d read and my opinions of the authors... I don’t know if that means I was too biased, but oh well!

Once again what I intended to be some stray thoughts turned into a lot of rambling, so I’ll put them under a read more. Spoilers for the UNIT stories involved.

Extinction- Fun action romp. The Nestene using 3D printers for an invasion is a pretty obvious one really. The series was mostly interesting for me because I got to know the new team, I love a good team in a monster of the week type series. Honestly I haven’t warmed to Josh a lot; not because he’s particularly unpleasant (though sometimes he can be annoying), but mostly because of the tropes he fills. Quippy action hero white guy (who’s only stopped from being the main character by not being from the TV show proper), and mandatory straight love interest for a character who Really didn’t need it. I don’t think Sam isn’t the sort of character that would usually endear himself to me, but again circumstances shaped my emotions; I sort of followed him over to this range from the very good Ninth Doctor Adventures finale, and he made a nice change to Josh (sorry Josh, he’s really not TOO bad, just not my cup of tea). Plus, UNIT’s international troubleshooter is very cool role. Shindi is an interesting character- again I don’t usually have much interest in extremely militaristic characters, but his flashes of being reasonable, understanding, and even caring made a nice change to the usual military. Jacqui was a great character for a UNIT series- but in this box set and number 3, the writers seem much more interested in the problems she could cause for UNIT rather than the fact that she might actually be right to cause them! She argues with characters a few times that UNIT shouldn’t be working so hard to keep the public in the dark on things, to the point that they drug the country’s water supply. And uh... Yeah, solid point. But no one bothers to give a counter-argument, even Kate barely deems it with a response, it’s just part of her duties. That’s a militaristic organisation for you I guess.

Shutdown- Yikes. I had no idea what they were even going for with the alien species of this one, until I listened to the behind the scenes where they explain that they wanted to do an ‘Ancient Aliens Inspired This Ancient Culture’ trope but with Asian cultures. Firstly, that trope sucks. Secondly, doing that trope but Orientalism-flavoured does not make things better! And they don’t even end up with interesting villains. For the series’ attempt at making an original alien species to base a whole box set around, they’re sooo dull. What, they’re like ninjas so they can be invisible and move fast? Is that it? They do realise that this means nothing on audio. And I didn’t even realise until I read on the Tardis wiki that they were linked with the aliens in The Diary of River Song series 1, something I’ve listened to a few times. Not to dunk on every aspect of this set, but who signs off on the box set titles? Because ‘Extinction’ is generic and doesn’t hold any special meaning in the story, and I don’t even know why this one is called ‘Shutdown’.

Silenced- My favourite of the first 4 sets, inevitably! It’s a really cool sequel to Day of the Moon. I can’t blame it for not trying to tie in the Silents of those episodes to the futuristic church of the Silence, that was never very clear on TV, and you can just assume that even if some Silents could travel off-world with the Tardis-like travel devices, not all of them could escape. It was interesting that at the end of the set, I think some Did escape again? If I remember rightly. Anyway, any 4-hour story where the characters keep forgetting the entire plot could’ve got very dull very quickly, but it was done so well that it was great to listen to the entire time. Like I said, I might be biased, but my favourites were John Dorney’s episodes. He’s such a good writer.

Assembled- I large part of why I love the Silurians is that they’re not generic bad guys. But despite that, I knew going in that they probably would be in this set, so I didn’t let it bother me. Also, I knew beforehand that Jo got a line or two about “political correctness,” so I tried not to let that bother me either (I don’t know if that line is as out of character as I think it is, or if I just immediately get red flags from anyone using it). So considering both of those things, it was a really pleasant surprise when Jo makes such a strong argument for peaceful negotiation with the Sea Devils, and actually succeeds! That was great characterisation for her. ...But despite that, she did come off as a bit daft in the fourth episode when she goes to try and negotiate with the Silurians, and after talking to them announces “you’re radicals!” as if that hadn’t been made extremely clear already. Maybe she was just thinking that they still might make a better government than the current British one. It surprised me that in a set that was advertised so much as ‘the one with the original UNIT characters,’ none of them appeared in episode 3, but in hindsight I guess I should’ve felt lucky that I got 3 other epiosdes with them, considering how often Big Finish hinges all the advertisement of a set on characters or villains that only appear in 1 episode.

Encounters- I really enjoyed this one! Like I said, I love a good monster of the week series with a good team, so having four episodes that featured mostly just Kate, Osgood, Josh, and Shindi was great. The Dalek one was enjoyable, if mostly because seeing those four characters with no other backup made a nice change. I double checked to make sure it came out before the TV episode Resolution, because the Dalek mutant being on a rampage reminded me of that. The spooky halloween one is one of my favourite episodes yet. I just love a well done spooky halloween ep, and with a fun setting and a really cool threat too. Even if I don’t quite understand what happened- was it aliens or demons? Either way, very fun. I enjoyed the Sontaran ep more than I thought I would, I liked how the Sontarans and UNIT worked together for a bit, that was a new take on the Sontarans that fits a UNIT spin-off very well. I kinda wish the UNIT characters treated the Sontarans a bit more officially though, like with official recognition and alliance, because they know that strong adherence to their military protocols is a weakness of the species, and I like it when UNIT are shown to be smart with their knowledge of alien species. The infernoverse (or infernoverse-esque, I guess) ep was tons of fun. I even enjoyed it despite the fact that it was mostly based around a very heterosexual premise, with a distinct lack of classic homosexually-charged mirror universe villains. (sigh) oh well. I guess I’m too much of a sucker for mistaken identity comedies. But someone needs to write a story with another another infernoverse, this time with evil gay Kate and evil gay Osgood.

[abyssalpriest]

Conversations with Leviathan #7, Black Ink 2/7/23

A discussion on the symbol of Black Ink, potentiality.

I was wondering what things I should compare Leviathan to for the 30 day challenge question "Describe your God as something that occurs in nature", hoping I could draw up a list of multiple things and work then from that. He said: Black ink, singularly and definitively. I wasn't expecting it, I associate that with my ex-partner who would even go so far as to use that as a tag for... Something? Actually, isn't that weird. I don't think he ever explained what "Black Ink" was other than saying it was his blood and something huge and encompassing. It was some sort of biological function (or form) or physiological part of his that continued to arise in his symbolism. Largely I knew what I thought it was: Some sort of metaphor for his biology that involved heavy metaphors about reality, something to do with the Void, but that's really it.

Does black ink even occur in nature? No, but arguably that's the point, Leviathan and his brothers always seem to be found in things that are made whether it's electronics, tools, trains and planes, kingship, reading and writing... Nature is nature even when reworked and the idea of them being nature as consciously reworked and harnessed - yet still nature, still wild under the surface - fits very well. 

Black Ink, however, is a symbol that means a lot to me in both the sense of importance and extensive symbolism. It's type of blood, blood itself being a complex metaphor underneath a complex metaphor for the fabric and life of reality, everything in existence in its various forms, black ink being one form; it's the spaces in-between and Polarised dances between paper and writing... I don't know though. There's too much in my head.

---

"Black Ink: Clockwork. Numerical values. Obsidian Mirrors. Ferrofluid.

The beginning of the Universe started with a series of boxes, characters, easily stackable and therefore easy to extrapolate into dimensional stability -"

Lying in bed I can suddenly vividly see him next to me in a non-linear way I've never experienced before - I can both see him when I'm looking and when I'm not looking at him - leaning half-propped-up on his elbow facing me. I can feel the coldness of his energy physically.

"- Repetition of things that can be repeated. More so the ticking of the clock rather than that minute bit in-between."

His energy is physically touching my skin - "Oh, sorry," he says in surprise and it retracts, but it's radiating from him in strange outward spirals of warm and cold. I feel like I'm swirling bathwater coming from hot and cold taps.

Did you want to come in? I barely get to ask before he takes over.

"This is complicated, eons of processing and notes that I could show you except no, I couldn't. This entire universe - your little physical plane - is written by the three of us in a tongue that is always speaking in black ink. Black, an enveloping of every colour, every beam of light condensed, squished, compressed, forced into linearity and logical repetitions between moment to moment. Black is physics, metaphysics, metronome beats in Creation in the way that it is the counting 1 - 2 - 3 - etc notes of a finite recorded song. Finite beats to be counted, compressed.

Your body's numb, oops. Have it back."

Well then. What are you sifting through?

"I couldn't even tell you. It's complete condensations of 3D knowledge into flattened momentary planes."

He shows me one of the flat pieces of paper he's going through mentally, and he's right, I thought it was printer paper but it's densely vibrating cubes flattened as thin as rice noodles, so not too thin. Vibrating like suns....

"Did I tell you about that? How solar bodies intensely vibrate so close to transcending the planes they're on hence that's why they're used as gates - skip this song playing. Thank you. Condense and condense and condense, first you obtain something intensely bright so that it becomes a screen through which your eyes can perceive things it wishes to extract from the light particle-waves. Then... Boom. Collapses. Black. Like how lampblack is made."

I feel like that's not how lampblack is made...

"Then you're not thinking outside or I suppose inside the box, are you. Dumb. That's a joke. Do you see how the Sun is rising?"

A faint light shines through the cracks in my curtains.

"And you could let it in if you wanted to.

Black Ink is a complex theory in and of itself. Metaphorically. Symbolically. It's the dancing letters on the tip of the scientist's tongue at the verge of understanding, it's a substance that plays with the gateway - and is the gateway - to discovery. Externalised thoughts pass through it, the future awakened soul meets its past self through it. It's Shakti and Shiva's dance specifically in the hands of the writer. It's a promise to God. Isn't that fascinating?"

I have to say -

"So say it -"

Oh. You're vivid as hell again. I can see you almost physically in my periphery... Are you wearing those glasses in bed? I'll take that laugh as a yes. Resting head in hand, a sweet smile... I was expecting so much more of a drab topic when you brought this up.

"Well... Multiple sides to everything, right? I told you what this is. It's a gateway to speaking, it's a mechanism of discovery and unity of world and thought. Personal expression. Usually Shiva dances inside Shakti's womb, but when does it come to a point where he actually extends out of it? When does he externalise? When does consciousness birth itself into something visible? We were working on that clay mobile representing me, well, explicitly I was, arts and crafts, I become physical inside your room through it, through Black Ink. It's the potency... The liquid of the womb condensed and condensed and condensed until its colour, its magnetic pull, inverts. Right? You're following?"

I'm following.

"So what is it that you're speaking?"

Well, I feel like I'm speaking my ex's things. He's the one that taught me what this energy is that I associate with the concept of Black Ink. Dark, eldritch, consuming, mirroring - you're nodding as I speak, reassuring - swallowing...

"Nothing you spit from your mouth can be his. Spit being produced by your cells... Even if your mouth swells at the sight and scent of food it is a product of your body. That's Black Ink. Nothing that comes from your body can be his. You're asserting an opinion of what he looked like in your eyes, which is a regurgitation of the endless wish that God has to be so aware of Themselves that they become Themselves... No. Sorry. You and he were separated by a for more vast ocean than you ever wanted to admit. It's a foul thing to talk about someone like (your ex) in regards to the metaphor of pregnancy but I cannot stress enough about how the union that produces results is never of you and another individual. From you, yes. Of you... No. A cell has to be split off from both of you before it can create a new life - emphasis on before. In life you see, you experience, you stitch it into your body, you gestate, you birth. Which is wrong to say by its own rules because... Experience is all that simultaneously so there is no parts to separate into different experiences. You experience a stimulus and you immediately stitch your consciousness through it.

You never took in anything that he did or said, electron repulsion gives the impression of touch as you say, you simply had an experience that was caused by the way his consciousness affected your communal reality. Even if a literal pregnancy had've come from your relationship... The placenta is a direct manifestation of the true physical union: an attempt, nothing more, but an individual is always an individual. External interaction is not internal emergence. Whatever you think of Black Ink is your own mind, your own memories, your own opinions, your own symbolism. It is not his no matter how heavily impacted by his peripheral and orbital existence around your life. 

He's - or I suppose he was - a gravitational centre passing through a field, you never united with his gravity but instead just felt its effects on you. You touched the impulses in the field... Anyway. What do you see Black Ink as?"

I think I'll have to sit on it. Oh, my phone's autosuggest tells me to write 'Call me'. I'll call you

"I think you should sit on it though. Every symbol belongs to every person. Everything that arises as a connection between a conscious perception or choice and an experience lies inside the one who experiences it. The way reality connects with mind is not the way people think, you in your body are a pilot in front of a screen connected to cameras in the eyes of a robot you're piloting around; you may become absorbed in what is in front of you but you have to remember it's not really touching you, it's touching the robot, consciousness personalises everything and simulates a connection. Like how you may feel emotional pain from a film or video game character's actions but it is just lights. Lights... Lights and colours... Condensible. Edible. Consumable. Redirectable..."

-

Leviathan said: Swapped. Excellent. A free vessel. I will continue alone; you are tired and overwhelmed.

The conclusion is simple. Black Ink is the product of your - and everyone's - womb just before birth. It's the black sky through which the Earth is birthed. It's potentiality. That's it. It's used in scrying for a reason, because... It is scrying. It's the potentiality pushed to the point of nearing literalness.

What you associate with Black Ink: the eldritch, the dark, the... Whatever else, because you do need to comb through all this mess and separate your real opinions from those you were influenced to have... You associate them in the way that one associates a baby with a pregnant mother. Two very different things, actually, when you stop to think about it: A pregnancy necessitates no baby but a pre-baby, a baby is an externalised product of post-pregnancy, post-pregnancy meaning pregnancy is no more. Black Ink is nothing but the means through which things are birthed and therefore is separate from them... Yet intimately categorically connected.

Now... Why are these babies, the eldritch and the dark and the abstract, associated with Black Ink in your mind? The answer, as with everything birthed through Black Ink, will be born into both awareness and reality when you allow it to be birthed.

[weaselle]

thoughts on a theme on a scene on a dialogue too fast!

to write it is to halt its flow, sitting here with a blank document open i’m overwhelmed by a three-trilogy, nine book series worth of socio-economic /socio-political explorations set in a sci-fi fantasy crossover universe. Like, i’d have to commit to writing at least two hours a day most days of the week to .. hm, actually.

OH MY GOD I’M ALREADY BORED OF IT

now i want to sculpt the bone creatures my grandmother haunts me about

what i really want is like, the mad-scientist’s-lab version of a creative space

with like paints and clay and 3D printers and tools and musical instruments and recording booths and microphones and cameras and computers and a stage and circus gear and props and costumes and a green-screen room, a big kitchen and a workshop.

Like, a really nice gym but for creativity instead of fitness.

Because if i had access to that (and a budget of some kind) i could jump in and stay in, just do it as i feel it, wake up like:

 “i want... toys, i want to film like dinosaurs and cars in a pre-history to far-future City of Alltimes we make as a setting for some stop-motion shit. Okay we’ve done some of that i want to make a song, hold on, let me write lyrics to a song about that, cool, okay now let’s pick a vibe to build on and get some music going, this is going to become a music video featuring the dinosaur and car stuff we were doing, I think it’s going to be an awesome part of the choose your own adventure video tree i just thought of...”

oh yeah, “we were doing”, because in my fantasies about this it’s always with a group or a team of some kind

The dream is, we all wake up and have a nice breakfast and morning time, some of us eating together, some doing quiet solitary dawn greeting or whatever; anything each person likes (ideally there’s, like, a sauna and hot tub and viewing lounge with a nice view and a coffee station. Hey, if i’m dreaming, might a well dream big)

And then after our morning routines, we congregate in the creation lab

First I ask if there is anything the group wants to do, like if people sort of “song? anybody feel like songs” “how about a cooking video?” “i kind of want to do something in the workshop today” “yeah, let’s build something” “that sounds nice let’s do things with tools” “yeah building stuff” 

okay so it sounds like a lot of us want to build something in the shop, let’s do that, any ideas on what we should build

 Or maybe someone has a specific thing they have an idea for, a mural or something, and everybody else gets hype about it.

But then, for times when people were willing to create but didn’t have a specific idea, i would be there, with my ten latest greatest ideas and we could pick one to sort of let me conduct it like an orchestra meets mad-science experiment.

Anyway, the entire dream is that, but expanding the projects from purely creative to also include things like creating programs to help local homeless people, and looking at school charters and social messaging and local political projects that could help the next generation get the education they will actually need to accomplish what humans need to get done for ourselves sooner rather than later, in terms of turning climate collapse and politico-economic corruption into global peace and world-wide sustainable prosperity.

And maybe running a couple home businesses to fund it all.

So just, a tight crew, facilities, a budget, and getting up every day and making something happen that we want to happen, because no matter what that thing is, it’s going to happen faster and bigger and better with a highly-cooperative group than with individuals. 

and that’s how i want to live.