#same for double asteroid boy

[fractoluminescence]

I just got her so I'll take this opportunity to add the little sand Mayuris to this post :3c

I got bored and started clipping Mayuri faces from stuff, including unused sketches. And then i had two squares left and knew BBS had exactly 2 original mayuri designs, even if the newyears orange was a dumb joke, so threw those in to fill space, even though they're obviously not canon. (also i wasnt sure if those blank ones were meant to be statuesque or if they were just placeholders to experiment with headdresses on, I could honestly see it swinging either way.)

I dunno if this communicates any kind of a standard or average aesthetic for Mayuri's facepaint designs or what, but hopefully it'll be sort of useful to someone out there. For my purposes, I just compulsively move squares around in photoshop. original image for some of the less obvious ones below. (i found a cleaner version of that Jet Black page only well after I'd pasted the tiled image into this draft and im too lazy to go fix it now)

honestly surprising that BBS hasn't used Mayuri for more of their random alt costume stuff considering he;s obviously the most conducive to wild redesigns. Like, no Cacao Society or Spirit Society outfits for him?? Not even just some japanese formalwear like with the parasol sets? Where is swimsuit Mayuri??

[the1975attheirverybest]

Concept idea. The boys, basically everyone that is part of the 1975 family ,goes to the zoo. The reader is friends with them and is dating Matty as well. How do you think this trip would go?

It would ABSOLUTE CHAOS!!! Hann starts out looking after his baby boy but ends up having to supervise Matty. Cuz Matty wants snacks. The bathroom. A slushie. Throws human food to the monkeys. Wants to give the lion some beef jerky. He ends up eventually, picking up Adam’s kid and letting him do all the things that Adam and Carly are too afraid to let him do. Like stick his fingers into the animals cages. Bang on the glass so the sleeping animals would wake up and he can see them properly. Letting him feed the giraffe and scream and giggle when he sees it’s mouth open.

Charli and George are busy being hot and wayyy too into each other. They’re in their own lil bubble talking about ranking the animals from most likely to survive an asteroid or whatever, and occasionally watching Adam’s kid squeal with joy when Matty lets him do something cheeky, snd thinking that they’d like one of their own one day. Ross is somehow the one with the map like “okay the peacock is up next if we go this way. But guys, the lady at the help desk said the panda sleeps early so we should probably move fast if we wanna see it.”

Everyone’s trying to listen to Ross but Matty and Adam’s kid are holding everyone up. Matty’s always looking for his gf like “babe, come see this!” And it’s just a gorilla taking a shit. He does his little boyish giggle at every small thing. Especially when Adam’s kid is laughing. Matty finds the things that amuse kids very amusing. So he’s mostly laughing at the kid’s laughter but it’s the most adorable thing ever and makes her think that if they had kids, he’d be the best dad ever.

Jamie is peak photographer. You know the friend who’s always taking pics “for the memories.” That they’re too busy filming and photographing everything to actually have the experience? And he’s constantly making everyone squeeze together so he can take group pictures.

Carly and Adam keep handing their kid things to eat. Like little zip lock bags of animal crackers or kid’s breakfast bars or cheese puffs. but of course Matty eats half of everything because “well he didn’t want it so he handed it to me.” And it’s like, no Matty with kids, you have to keep encouraging them to eat! Especially in a new and stimulating environment. But he’s just like “okay but what brand are the cheese puffs cuz they’re actually quite good.” When Carly isn’t listening, Adam is like “yeah, I eat them sometimes when I’m looking for a late night snack.” And then start betting on which animals would try them if they threw some into the cage.

Every time they come across a food stand or some merch or whatever, Matty wants to buy his gf something. “Baby, look, you’d look cute in this alligator hat,” or “you wanna get this giraffe mug?” She ends up caving and getting a corny t shirt with a dad-joke or pun about animals on it. She and Matty get the same matching shirt. She also ends up helping Matty get Adam’s kid to sit still and get a butterfly painted on his face. Matty gets one on his hand cuz the kid wanted them to have matching butterflies. Jamie, of course, has filmed the entire painting experience. Adam and Carly and giving their kid the sweetest encouragements and compliments. “You look so beautiful. You wanna see the real butterflies? They might think you’re one of them. Baby hold still let me take a picture. No it’s fine. You can drink water it won’t ruin your butterfly face.”

By the time they get to the other side of the zoo, it’s 45 minutes from closing time and they get burgers and fries and huddle over a teeny tiny table and eat. Everyone has their food in their laps and everything is a mess and they’re all sweaty and exhausted but just happy to all be together and still do stuff as a group even as each of their lives has grown and the group has double in size cuz everyone has their partner or kid or something with them.

[dvlaunchpad-mcquack]

Background Launchpad McQuack is the son of stunt pilots, Ripcord McQuack and Birdie, with a blonde sister named Loopy. All of them wear scarves and pilot caps and goggles, and the four of them used to perform in an airshow with dangerous stunts as “The Flying McQuacks,” as shown in DuckTales episode “Top Duck.” Launchpad told Huey, Dewey, and Louie Duck he left home after embarrassing himself with a crash during the Flying McQuack’s air show. Launchpad mentioned he left home to get a job when he was fifteen, in Ducktales “Launchpad’s First Crash.” Launchpad’s first plane was a small bi wing called the Sun Chaser, which Scrooge McDuck hired him to fly for as cheaply as possible. It is uncertain how they returned home from that pastiche of Jules Verne’s “Journey To The Center of the Earth” but Launchpad’s next plane was a red bi wing he named the Joy Rider. At some point in his history, Launchpad joined the Junior Woodchucks, earning every merit badge except for swimming, as he revealed in “Merit Time Adventure.” He earned enough merit to become a Scout Leader, and he led Huey, Dewey, and Louie Duck and Doofus Drake on a camping trip in “Super Doof”. In “Double O Duck,” Launchpad was mistaken for a spy who looks just like him named Bruno. Launchpad was enlisted by the Duckburg Intelligence Agency to meet with double agent Feathers Galore and intercept enemy agency FOWL’s plan. Feathers attempted to murder Launchpad but Launchpad’s luck and clumsiness (and general awkwardness with unwonted flirtation) spared him from several mishaps until they were both caught by FOWL and thrown into a pit of lions. Launchpad used one of the devices Agent G (Gyro Gearloose) gave him to help him and Feathers escape the lions. In gratitude for him saving her life, Feathers helped Launchpad corner Dr. No Good until the villain ended up falling, presumably to his demise.

“Where No Duck Has Gone Before,” Launchpad was jealous of the attention the triplets were giving to an actor, Major Courage, poignantly saying “real heroes don’t need cameras and makeup. Real heroes just do their job.” Major Courage was the first to call Launchpad “LP”, a nickname Darkwing would use in his show. Launchpad steered the spaceship through an asteroid shower. (He also said there’s no such thing as aliens.)

Launchpad briefly worked for the Beagle Boys in “Hero For Hire”, Flintheart Glomgold in “Robot Robbers”, and the DIA (Duckburg Intelligence Agency) in “Double O’Duck.”

Launchpad has worn the Gizmoduck suit at least twice (in DuckTales “A Case Of Mistaken Identity” and a 1992 DuckTales comic, “A Switch In Time” https://inducks.org/story.php?c=KJZ+025 ). In the episode, he was encouraged to help keep Fenton’s identity a secret by neither denying or acknowledging that he was Gizmoduck. When he was seen disappearing at the same time Gizmoduck removed a box of lit fireworks from a stadium, and reappearing dazed from a stray firework blowing up on him, the whole town took that as evidence that he was the costumed hero. He was mobbed with throngs of fans for days and although he enjoyed the attention of female groupies, he asked Scrooge to help him prove that he was not Gizmoduck. Scrooge arranged a press conference for Launchpad to make his statement, but Launchpad quoted Fenton’s favorite saying on camera during the conference. Since M’Ma Crackshell was watching the conference on tv, the Gizmosuit responded and zoomed to Launchpad, attaching to him on camera. Launchpad tried to remove the suit by pressing random buttons, ending up accidentally flooding the city when one of the suit’s missiles damaged a dam. Trapped in the current and unable to swim in the heavy suit, Launchpad had to be rescued by Fenton via a construction crane. The second time Launchpad wore the Gizmosuit, in the comic “A Switch In Time”, the wheel and leg attachments were missing from the suit and he seemed more in control of the suit’s functions. He and Fenton Crackshell were both tired of their low paying, high risk jobs and they simultaneously told Scrooge they wanted to quit. Scrooge encouraged them to try each others’ job for a day to see if they would change their minds. Unfortunately for Launchpad, some thieves attempted to break into the money bin while he was on patrol and when he attempted to stop them by ejecting a puddle of oil, he slipped and knocked himself out. Fenton again saved him and they both resumed their original jobs. Launchpad was tricked by the Beagle Boys into acting as a live action superhero, the Web-bed Wonder,

“Hero For Hire”, accidentally creating real crimes. Ironically Launchpad said “nobody needs a hero nowadays.”

In Darkwing Duck “Water Way To Go”, Launchpad told Darkwing he wanted to try being the hero for a case, turning some of Darkwing’s words and mannerisms against him, while still being open to following Darkwing’s leadership and evaluations of the case. He helped Darkwing escape a flood by surfing. His hero worship for Darkwing was still present, though, as he was clearly delighted when Darkwing praised him. He did not mind reverting back to doing menial chores after Darkwing called him an equal. In Darkwing Duck, Launchpad posed as Darkwing in “A Duck By Any Other Name” with Tuskernini as the main villain (http://darkwingduck.wikia.com/wiki/A_Duck_by_Any_Other_Name) and “Double Darkwings” (http://darkwingduck.wikia.com/wiki/Double_Darkwings )with Jambalaya Jake as the main antagonist). He also donned a Darkwing suit in one comic, “Hero For A Day,” (http://darkwingduck.wikia.com/wiki/Hero_for_a_Day), where he went up against the one shot villain, the Back Alley Bushwhacker, defeating him by apologizing (making the villain laugh) and pretending he lost a contact lens. In Darkwing Duck “U.F. Foe”, Launchpad revealed that he used to be afraid of heights. His father, Ripcord McQuack (who seems more stern and oblivious to Launchpad’s feelings in Darkwing Duck versus the version we saw in Ducktales “Top Duck”), took Launchpad for a flight in an open air biwing to help him overcome his fear, neglecting to make sure his seatbelt was fastened. Launchpad fell out of the plane during a trick, and was rescued by a visiting young purple alien princess named Tia. Tia flew Launchpad around, a la Peter Pan style, to a fairground. According to Launchpad, he had so much fun, he forgot to be afraid of heights any more. Later, adult Tia had him abducted to ask him to marry her to help her lead her people. After Darkwing and Gosalyn helped expose the evil plan Bleeb had for Launchpad, Launchpad turned Tia down and all three Earthlings had their memories of the adventure erased. In Darkwing Duck “The Quiverwing Quack”, Launchpad said his father kicked him out and told him to get a job. It is also interesting to note that Launchpad was perfectly capable of cooking breakfast for the kids over an open campfire, yet in Darkwing Duck, Darkwing was surprised that Launchpad was able to make a decent looking (and unfortunately for him, spicy) batch of brownies.

In Darkwing Duck “Trading Faces” Launchpad said school was difficult for him, and in the Darkwing Duck read along book, “High Wave Robbery”, Launchpad jokingly said he “played a stringed instrument as a kid. A yoyo!”

[thejediandthemandalorian]

I have a book series rec but also it's just in the form of me reminiscing so like...take that as you will.

Sometimes I just think about 'The Last of the Jedi' series by Jude Watson (connected to her other two series which are pre-cursors 'Jedi Apprentice' and Jedi Quest.) And I just think about Ferus Olin my boy. And I think about how Obi-Wan very briefly left Tatooine to find Ferus and more or less ended up tasking him with finding the remaining Jedi (kinda unspoken but also ya know) and anyways. Ferus, one of the last Jedi survivors who's old and used to train under Master Siri Tachi and went on missions alongside Obi-Wan and Anakin (ya know before he left the order) ends up finding this blue haired kid, Trevor Flume, roaming the streets and basically takes him in and takes care of him (mind you if my memory serves me correctly it was relatively unwilling.) And they stumble upon several people to take on their merry band of misfits (of who I cannot remember rn because it's been like 10+ years since I've read the series so apologies if I'm misremembering.)

But I remember their secret base was this asteroid and Ferus kinda had a run in with crazy evil scientist Jenna Zan Arbor (from back in his day) and also this Grand Sith Inquisitor whose name was Malorum (who died in the same pit Darth Maul fell in on Naboo.) And I remember Ferus was hunting for like...a missing Jedi who they'd heard rumors of still being alive, Fy-Tor-Ana.

And I remember he re-met with Astri Oddo (also from back in the day) and helped her rescue his force sensitive son (because Jenna Xan Arbor was trying to conduct experiments in him for Astri's ex husband Big Divinian) Lune. And I think Astri and Lune started traveling with them I can't remember.

And I also remember him becoming a double agent for the Emperor, temporarily working under Vader because he had no other choice. And also he stumbled across this person 'Flame' who was trying to start a rebellion and worked with Ferus and...

Anyways I'll stop there because spoilers. Though I know this post is one mass spoiler if you've never read the series. But also I recommend it so highly. All of them. And if some of what I said happens to sound a little familiar to you well..

Sometimes I just think about these books and how they shaped my love and adoration for star wars as a kid. And how I own all of them and still need to reread them for nostalgia purposes. But anyways that being said (shade has been thrown if you caught on) read these books because they're so good!

[cloudybarnes]

Dynamic Duo

Pairing: corpse husband x reader

Summary: Being impostor together and killing everyone

Word Count: 820

Warnings: none

Main Masterlist

Corpse Masterlist 

✰  ✰  ✰

When you first met Corpse, you knew he would soon become someone special to you. The first time you played Among Us together, you clicked so well. The banter and laughter between the two of you was unmatched.

When you guys finally started dating, your gaming only got better. The two of you were an unstoppable duo. As crewmates, you guys could always crack the code. You bounce off one other and figure out who did it.

If one of you is crew and the other is impostor, it's easy for you guys to tell when the other is impostor. You guys know each other's tells very well, which ends up the one who is crew being killed early on.

As impostors together, the rest of the lobby is scared. Corpse and you are the best impostor duo. You work so well together; you can practically read each other's minds when it comes to your plays.

When you see the impostor cut on your screen, you smile. That smile only grows bigger when you notice your boyfriend Corpse is the other impostor.

"Oh boy," you grin to chat, "this is gonna be epic."

Polus was by far your favorite map as impostor. You faked keys and followed Corpse around as he faked tasks of his own. This wasn't uncommon for the two of you as you often stayed around one another.

While the two of you were in labs faking tasks, Ludwig walks in to do his.

You sigh, "sorry, Lud." In an instant, you kill Ludwig, and quickly vent to the outside of labs. Corpse follows in suit and you two run together to office to check vitals.

Very shortly after you check, the body is discovered by Rae.

"Body in labs!" She yells, "I need alibis and locations, please."

"Y/n and I are together." Corpse responded easily.

Rae fake gags, "what a surprise, the lovers are stuck to each other. Who else?"

You giggle, finding amusement in Rae's jokes.

Toast claims to have been running around watching people, Sykkuno was no where to be found, Poki was in Specimen so they are sus of her, Jack and Felix were doing asteroids together, and the others were scattered about.

So far, there was no sus on you or Corpse. When the meeting is over, and everyone skipped, you and Corpse fake your card task with everyone else.

You check admin table with Corpse following closely behind you. Two people in admin, two in coms, one in spec, one in labs, one in O2, and one in electrical. Someone else must just be running around. Probably Toast.

This is the perfect opportunity to get a double on the two in Coms since everyone else is scattered around. Corpse seems to have the same ideas he runs out to the left straight into communications.

You follow closely behind and see Jack on download with Leslie watching him. Quickly, you kill Leslie while Jack is preoccupied, and Corpse goes for the kill on Jack.

You laugh, "so smooth, Corpse!"

Corpse shuts the door to coms, and you see the doors to weapons close as well, so you assume he spam shut the doors.

You wait for your kill cool down to reset before you open the door to coms to escape. Right outside the doors, you are met with Toast about to come in. Out of instinct, you kill him with a slight yelp of shock.

You shut the doors on him to hide all three of the bodies. You do a little jiggle next to Corpse so he gets the idea to stay by the body as you run to admin to see where everyone else is. Since you two are now on six, you only need to kill two other people.

On the admin table, you see two in specimen, one in labs, and one in electrical. Perfect.

You grab as you run back to Corpse avatar. You do a wiggle as you run so he gets the memo to follow you. After a few tries, he finally follows you all the way to bottom decontamination. Inside specimen, you see Poki and Sykkuno. Poki is on Simon Says, and Sykkuno is doing download.

"Could this get any more perfect?" You smile to chat.

You run over to the side of Sykkuno as Corpse stands next to Poki. As if you were one in the same, the two of you kill almost simultaneously.

The victory screen pops up, and the discord chat goes crazy.

"How did you two possibly kill that many people without us finding them?" Rae shouted, amazed at how good you did.

You giggle, excited that the two of you did so well.

"Babe," you started, "I'm so happy we're on the same wave length all the time. Those kills were beautiful." You gush.

Corpse chuckles, "yeah, we make a killer team."

"Hell yeah we do."

[billiewena]

for the 100k fic celebration, here a portion of the “what if 10x05 had a sastiel agenda?” AKA lil shit sam/jealous dean destiel fic I first shared a while back! been having a lot of fun basically rewriting and expanding on the entire musical episode with new songs (and lots of cute kristen & siobhan moments because OF COURSE they’re still a couple.) it was really encouraging to see the positive response to it back then and it's been taking forever because of work/other writing but I’m so excited to have this one be the first full-length fics I ever post.

It starts with costumed teenagers locked in a tight embrace with absolutely no room for Jesus.

“What are they doing?”

Marie glances over her shoulder for only a brief second.

“Kids these days call it hugging,” she says slowly. Geez, it would’ve been less insulting for her to just outright say Wow, you’re old.

Except it’s not just any of the show’s stars hugging over there. One of them is the “Dean” who’d been mid-rehearsal when they arrived and looked more like Bieber than him with the blonde wig. And the other? Well, he would recognize that Columbo coat anywhere.

“Is that in the show?” he asks, pointing their way.

Marie quickly shakes her head at the accusation. “Oh, no. Siobhan and Kristen are a couple in a real life.”

He nods and lower his hand. Got it. That’s all it was. Everything’s fine. Nothing to worry about—

“No, my play explores the nature of Sastiel.”

“The — wait, what?” he says, confused at once.

“Sastiel?” Marie pauses, giving him a second to figure it out. He doesn’t. “You know, the relationship between Sam and Castiel?”

Dean blinks.

“Sam and…C-Cas?”

“I know, I know. Edlund’s series never finished. I’m lucky I got these drafts. Ugh, it’s Midnight Sun all over again. But the love story is all in the subtext,” she says with confidence. “Can you believe there are people who still think Destiel is endgame? After everything that happened after the angels fell? After Gadreel? Please.”

He silently sounds out the word. Des-tiel? Wait…

“Ever since Cas came back from the dead and took on Sam’s pain, I knew. I just knew. Every one of their arcs had been parallel to each other’s from their fall from grace to the trials. And now with Dean gone, all they have…is each other.”

Marie sighs. “Besides, you can’t spell subtext without S-E-X.”

He coughs and nearly chokes on an asteroid-sized lump in his throat.

“I…uh. Yeah, th-that’s not…you know, I think I’ve seen enough,” Dean says with a forced smile. “Thank you for your, ah, time. I’ll, uh, we’ll follow up if we have questions about the missing persons case. I—alright.”

And with that he purses his lips, turns on his heel and walks away — nearly tripping over one of the stage chords as he does. Why are there are so many of them anyways? This is just some all-girls school production, not the goddamn West End.

He finds Sam in his natural nerd habitat (the tech booth) sifting through all the bins of A/V supplies.

“Yeah, not to interrupt the blast from the past here but it’s time for us to go,” he says, patting the door.

His brother shoots him an annoyed look but packs up and follows him out all the same. Not that Dean bothers to wait for him; no, he makes a beeline for the car as soon as he leaves the booth.

“Hey, what’s with the rush?” Sam calls after him as he runs to catch up with him at the school entrance.

“No rush,” he says shortly. “Just wanted to see what you found out before you got too lost in the nerd sauce over there.”

He doesn’t need to look back to know he’s on the receiving end of a Classic Sam Bitchface right now and continues to stomp his way through the parking lot.

“Well, no EMF, no hex bags. None of their props are remotely hinky. Talked to Maeve and all those extras in the auditorium.” Sam finally catches up and walks side-by-side with him now. “You have any more luck?”

“Nah. Ms. Chandler's office is just a pile of empty bottles and regret. She's probably just face down in a bar somewhere. Or a ditch. I did get to hear all about the director’s, ah, creative vision though,” Dean says, teeth gritted. “Apparently we go into space, I become a woman, and there’s even ninjas and robots!”

“Robots. Huh. Well, that’d definitely be a new one.”

“There’s no robots in Supernatural—”

“I-I know that,” Sam says in exasperation. “I just mean it’s, y’know, innovative. And Dean we’ve fought weirder. Remember the teddy bear? The fairies? The ballet shoes?”

“Well, you just wait until you hear about what she in store for you, Lover Boy,” he says.

And that makes Sam do an instant double-take.

“Uh, Lover Boy?”

“Yeah, your number one fan back there —” he says, gesturing back towards the school, “— was telling me all about the play’s, uh, love story between you and Cas. You got something you’ve been meaning to tell me or what?”

“The love story? Wait, what do you mean me and Cas?”

Dean scoffs, already in utter disbelief of the words he was about to say. “Like you and Cas, together. Together together? Romance of the ages the way she made it sound. Apparently it’s all in her play!”

To his surprise though, Sam just… laughs. “Well, I mean hey, that’s an improvement from the ones who wrote about me and you.”

“You got that right,” he agrees with a shudder. Meeting one Becky the Stalker was bad enough. Knowing she wasn’t alone and that she had an audience made it even worse. “She even had a portmanteau for you, dude. Like you’re some celebrities in a grocery store tabloid. Sass-tiel.”

“Sass-tiel?” He seems to seriously consider it but shrugs. “I don’t know. What about… Samstiel? CasSam? Cam? Mmm, maybe not that…”

Dean groans. “Really? That’s your issue with this?”

“Of course it’s not my issue,” Sam says. He stays pensive for a few more seconds until chuckling again to himself this time, as if he’s the only one in on a private joke. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, Cas is great but…”

“Not your type?”

“Yeah, sure,” Sam says. No, it’s definitely more than that and he’s doing a piss-poor job of hiding his amused expression.

Dean turns and stares him down. “What?”

“I dunno,” he says, his smirk fully visible now. “I just think it’s funny they’re pairing me up with Cas when the one with the ‘profound bond’ with him is right there.”

“Oh, haha. You’re hilarious,” Dean retorts at once.

“Hey man, I’m not the one who stayed in Purgatory for a year to find him.”

His glare takes on a murderous edge.

“Okay. You know what? You’re going to do that thing where you just shut the hell up! Forever!”

Sam holds up his hands in either what’s either a show of innocence or surrender.

“Alright, alright. Well, other than the Charlie Kaufman of it all I got nothing.”

“So…what?” Dean says. “This-this all... This whole musical thing, everything, it's... it's all a coincidence? There is no case?”

“Unless you're seeing something I'm not, no, Dean. There's no case here,” he says sincerely this time.

“Come on. This has classic Trickster vibes all over it.” He almost wants to turn around and start yelling, Come on out Gabriel you bastard!

“Trickster’s dead, man. And he wasn’t just a trickster, he was an archangel. And they’re all gone too.”

“Could be a lower-rank angel?” Dean tries. “I mean, Zachariah pulled off an entire apocalypse world. And that place where we were both corporate drones. Before you know it, this’ll get all Buffy and it’ll be me and you singin’ and dancin’—“

“Dean…I think it’s just fans. Look, as long as they’re not putting another love spell on one of us I couldn’t really care less what they’re doing,” Sam says with some bitterness, clearly not looking back at that particular memory with any fondness. “Just writing some songs? I mean, it’s innocent enough.”

“Oh yeah, so innocent,” he scoffs. “They’re singing about our dead parents, your demon blood bender, the apocalypse, all of it! This is just…it’s make-believe for them! But it’s our lives!”

Sam runs a tired hand through his hair. “Look, I don’t get it either man. I wasn’t exactly thinking about the books’ entertainment value while Chuck was describing my sex life in vivid detail—“

“Don’t remind me,” he says, holding up a hand in disgust.  

“—but I dunno. There’s obviously something about it they connected to, right? Something they related to, something that moved them, inspired them? And I guess…I mean, what’s wrong with that?”

There is so, so much wrong with that.

“I don’t know what story they’re reading and what Sam and Dean they’re ‘connecting’ to here. But it sure as hell ain’t us. I mean…they even made me blonde, dude.”

“It’s a high school play, what can you expect?” Sam laughs. “It was probably the closest wig they could find at Party City.”

Dean ignores him, muttering aloud as he makes his way to the driver’s seat.

“The hair…the singing…the robots… the love story…”

“You really were bothered by that, weren’t you?” Sam gives his brother a curious look.

“SUPERNATURAL ISN’T A ROMANCE!” Dean snaps. “Look, these girls obviously don’t know what they’re talking about—“

“I dunno, Dean,” Sam said in a clearly taunting voice now. “Maybe you’re just jealous of what me and Cas have.”

He flushes. “W-what? I-I’m not—“

“We could give you two a name too, y’know? So you don’t feel left out? What about…Dee-stiel? CasDean?”

And he refuses to entertain this conversation any longer.

“Shut your face! Get in the car!”

Thankfully Sam notices the shift in tone and obliges at once.

Dean, meanwhile, takes a moment outside the car to glance around — almost as if checking to see if anyone overheard that comment. Not that it mattered. Who could overhear? No one even knew they were THE Sam and THE Dean. Who cared? He certainly didn’t care. He didn’t care at all...

(to be continued)

[turtlethon]

“Poor Little Rich Turtle”

Season 4, Episode 28 First US Airdate: October 27, 1990

The Turtles protect a wealthy teenage girl from abduction by Rocksteady & Bebop.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles season four continues with “Poor Little Rich Turtle”. This is our now-weekly David Wise episode, which initially aired as the first half of a double bill with “What’s Michelangelo Good For?”

April is accompanied by her crew – which includes Irma and a returning Stan the Cameraman – as she interviews Buffy Shellhammer, 15-year-old heiress and CEO of Shellhammer Chemical. The Turtles watch this report from their Lair and Michelangelo is seen swooning over Buffy. Leonardo and Donatello quickly shoot this down, pointing out that as she’s human and he isn’t, it could never work out. Raphael is impressed by her opulent home, but Splinter senses she is “not a happy young woman.”

Back at the Shellhammer mansion, we see the façade drop as Buffy begins tearing into everyone, including April, Irma and even Stan, furious at the crew trampling over her carpet and asking “the most totally bogus questions I ever heard”. Irma is taken aback by this and asks how she can behave this way after going on the record about wanting to make the world a better place. Buffy responds that this was just a line fed to her by her media advisor. The Channel 6 team, seeing that they’re not wanted, make their exit.

In the Technodrome, Krang begins setting up his Scheme of the Day, plotting to obtain rocket fuel in order to turn the entire asteroid they’re stuck in into a mobile warship. His plan involves Bebop and Rocksteady paying a visit to Shellhammer Chemical. Later, Shredder is seen equipping the boys with piles of weapons so they can’t possibly fail, as well as a shrink ray that will aid them in capturing Buffy.

At the Shellhammer estate, Buffy is reminded by her father that she has to attend a company meeting shortly. She puts up a fuss, but is reminded that the company was left to her (why it wasn’t left to him and skipped a generation is never explained). Moments later, Bebop and Rocksteady arrive via a portal and are about to utilise their weapons when the Turtles intervene, having made the decision to scope out the area so Michaelangelo can get a glimpse of Buffy.

A battle unfolds between the Turtles and Shredder’s mutants, including a surprisingly nicely animated sequence where Rocksteady blows up a wall behind our heroes. Buffy attempts to escape but trips and injures her ankle along the way. Bebop fires the shrink ray at her but misses and hits a nearby tree instead; the boys give up on this almost immediately and decide to just kidnap the teenager instead. Michaelangelo swoops in to make the save, carrying Buffy into the sewers alongside the other Turtles.

Buffy gives the Turtles the same treatment she showed the Channel 6 crew earlier, seemingly unaware of who they are (the further we get into the series the more it amazes me that the Turtles have publicly been seen saving the world countless times and people still don’t know them). She demands to be allowed to go home, but Leonardo points out that she’s in no position to go anywhere with her injured ankle.

The team take Buffy to see Splinter, who uses an “ancient Shiatsu technique” to immediately heal her ankle. She’s amazed that this ends up working, but still ends up getting in Splinter’s face, accusing him of using some kind of hypnotic trick. (This must be a first – we've seen people want to fight the Turtles’ sensei before but no-one has ever straight up told him to his face that he was full of shit.) As you might expect, the Turtles are offended, but still show remarkable patience. Buffy makes it clear that she wants nothing to do with our heroes and runs out of the Lair into the winding tunnels of the sewer system. 

Deciding that there must be a reason why Rocksteady and Bebop are after Buffy, the Turtles reluctantly go after her, with even Michaelangelo now conceding that she’s a brat. The team catch up just in time to see her tightrope walk across a pipe that crumbles under her weight, sending her plummeting as the first act ends.

As we return from commercials, the Turtles heroically dive and land on the ground before Buffy, breaking her fall in the process. It feels like this should be the point where she sees that they’re trying to help her, but... no! She turns it back on the team, pointing out that none of this would have happened if they hadn’t dragged her into the sewers in the first place, which is technically true I suppose.

Our heroes decide they need to find a place where Buffy can hide out for as long as The Boys are looking for her, immediately settling on April’s apartment. What could possibly go wrong?

Back in Dimension X, Foot Soldiers are seen on a platform constructing rocket boosters in the side of the asteroid. Krang points out their plan is contingent on capturing Buffy Shellhammer, and Shredder checks in with Rocksteady and Bebop to learn of their progress. He fumes after learning that they were foiled once more by their old enemies (“The Turtles, the Turtles! Always the Turtles!”), pointing out that he provided seventeen different trackers to help them find the heiress.

The Turtles and Buffy surface near a playpark. Having never been given the opportunity to enjoy any of the rides on offer due to her busy schedule, Buffy is keen to let her hair down. She plays on the swings, eats cotton candy and in a surprisingly well-done sequence in terms of animation rides a see-saw with Michaelangelo, who tries in vain to reason with her about the importance of their mission. Mikey ends up being knocked to the ground, and gets an earful from his former crush as she threatens to alert the world to the presence of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles if they don’t continue to play with her.

Later, the team reluctantly ride the merry-go-round with Buffy until Bebop and Rocksteady arrive, opening fire on the horses and destroying them. The Boys capture the heiress once more but she displays resourcefulness as she sprays soda from a nearby fountain in their faces. Things go off the rails – figuratively and almost literally – as the Turtles send the merry-go-round into overdrive, sending it flying into the air before it flattens a hot dog stand that Shredder’s henchmen are using for cover.

After the Turtles and Buffy escape, Shredder calls in once more for a progress report. Rocksteady puts his foot down, demanding Shreds send them something that will aid in getting the job done. Meanwhile Donatello uses a payphone to call April at Channel 6. They ask if it’s okay to put up Buffy Shellhammer in her apartment, and as you can imagine this does not go down well. After it’s explained that Rocksteady and Bebop are pursing the heiress, April finally agrees, and begins investigating why the two mutants would be interested in Shellhammer Chemical.

The Turtles must have a key to April’s place, as they walk right in and begin talking to Buffy some more about why Rocksteady and Bebop would be pursuing her. Buffy’s attitude seems to briefly soften somewhat, as she informs our heroes that she does have a secret, one that her grandfather trusted her to keep. Their conversation is interrupted as Bebop and Rocksteady drive a fucking tank through the side of April’s apartment; when the Turtles question how they got it up to their floor, Rocksteady responds that “we took the stairs”. The second act ends with Shredder’s men successfully capturing Buffy.

Act three begins in the Technodrome, with Buffy being restrained by Rocksteady as she gives Shredder an earful. Meanwhile April returns home to find a giant hole in the wall of her apartment, and a second one in the floor. The Turtles greet her from below, where they’ve been hanging out with the elderly resident of the apartment building beneath April’s, Mrs. Kowalchik. After the team climb back up through the hole in the ground, they give April a fairly weak explanation for the decimation of her home before moving onto the subject of Shellhammer Chemicals. April has learned that prior to his death Buffy’s grandfather was working on top secret operation called “The Z Project”, the most powerful concentrated rocket fuel ever made, but no details of it were left behind. It dawns on the Turtles that Buffy must have been entrusted with this information.

Back in the Technodrome, Shreddder and The Boys prepare “The Brainalyzer”, which by my reckoning is the third different brain-scanning machine they’ve used over the course of the series so far, following on from the mind probe in “The Old Switcheroo” and the Thought Extractor from “The Missing Map”. After learning that the machine is sensitive to both thoughts and emotions, Buffy enters into a breathless tirade about how ugly and stupid Shredder is until it overloads, blowing up the connected computer systems.

Shredder by this point is at his wit’s end, declaring that Buffy is the most obnoxious child he’s ever encountered in his entire life. He finally decides to use the shrink ray on her, placing her in a tiny cage and refusing to undo its effects until he’s given the rocket fuel formula. After being left alone, she determines the cage was actually intended for use on mice, and is easy for a human to escape. Heading back to the portal room, she manages to open a line of communication with the Turtles, who are struggling to get their own dimensional portal up and running again. (If you’re wondering how she could figure all of this out, it’s lampshaded as she points out that she runs “a scientific company”.) Donatello guides her through the steps required to open a portal, and the team head through to the Technodrome.

It’s only after arriving through the portal that the Turtles discover Buffy has been shrunk down in size. They head out to find a way of reversing its effects, but are confronted by waves upon waves of Foot Soldiers. Shredder captures Buffy and reveals he was listening in on them (and her) the entire time, threatening to finish our heroes off if she’s doesn’t give him what he wants. Buffy finally reveals that the formula is “just ordinary liquid hydrogen rocket fuel with two special ingredients – sulphur and charcoal”. 

Shredder throws up his arms in glee, sending Buffy flying across the room. At her size this must be potentially deadly, but she manages to catch on to some cables that cushion the impact. Predictably, Shreds has the Foot Soldiers attack the Turtles anyway, but Buffy is able to use her small size to sneak into a control panel, connecting a cable from a circuit board to the intercom system. The deafening tone throws the Foot Soldiers off-balance, allowing the Turtles to cut a path through them and capture the shrink ray. Donatello uses the device on Buffy, returning her to her normal size, and she goes on to escape through the portal with the Turtles. Shredder is actually relieved, and declares that he never wants to see “that wretched brat” again for as long as he lives.

The Turtles say goodbye to Buffy at the gates of the Shellhammer mansion; having now completed her babyface turn, she’s sad to have to do so. Before she goes, she reveals that the formula she provided Shredder was not “the formula”, but rather the company’s ingredients list for fireworks fuel.

Back in Dimension X, Shredder and Krang go through the launch sequence as they prepare to launch the planetoid. Fireworks are seen shooting out of the thrusters as it tumbles through space, finally winding up upside-down.

In the Lair, Michaelangelo mopes in his bedroom area as he looks at a framed picture of Buffy that she gave to him. He walks off dejectedly as the other Turtles point to him once more that it would never work out, but his mood turns on a dime when he remembers that pizza... exists!

I suspect I’m going to be going against the grain here in saying that I really enjoyed this episode. The character of Buffy Shellhammer is insufferable, but this is very much intentional – you're supposed to dislike her. David Wise knows what he’s doing as he provides multiple possible turning points, and each time Buffy just continues to be awful to everyone. By the time she’s finally captured and begins using her bad attitude against Shredder, we finally get a sense of catharsis – or at least I did, again I expect I’m in the extreme minority here.

Even in the early goings, there’s a kind of mischievous joy in introducing a character to the show who will get in the face of absolutely everyone and tell them how much they suck, real “Hurricane Neddy” stuff. For me, as someone who’s assiduously dissected almost a hundred episodes of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, to have someone show up just once and call the entire cast out for their foibles – real or otherwise - is a breath of fresh air, if only once.

Michaelangelo’s attraction to Buffy is interesting as it seems to provide further confirmation that the Fred Wolf Turtles are supposed to be around her age – fifteen, or thereabouts. Despite this, Buffy is handled as if she’s a child that they have to babysit for much of the episode, someone who’s far less mature than they are. I’m guessing this is at least in part intentional, a choice made to play up the idea that she’s missed out on much of her childhood, and is trying to make up for those lost experiences, but it does play into my sense that the show struggles a bit when it comes to portraying human teenagers.

In the same way that “The Big Zipp Attack” drew heavily from David Wise’s Transformers episode “Kremzeek!”, “Poor Little Rich Turtle” is effectively a redo of Wise’s “The Girl Who Loved Powerglide”. That story saw the Autobot airplane forced to look after young heiress Astoria Carlton-Ritz and protect her from the Decepticons, who want to obtain a secret formula that only she knows. Set pieces from the Turtles version of the story also appear here, with Powerglide and Astoria riding the merry-go-round before battling the Conehead Seekers, and Megatron attempting to use a mind probe device on the young CEO only for it to malfunction. The dynamic between the characters works a little differently here though, as for the most part Astoria isn’t depicted as being truly unpleasant - it’s Powerglide who’s difficult throughout. I had a good time watching both episodes for this retrospective, but the TF version of this story definitely seems to have had the greater legacy, even inspiring elements incorporated into the design of a future Powerglide toy in 2008.

Regular viewers of the show (and readers of Turtlethon) will recall that April and Irma are neighbours who both reside in the same apartment building. Irma’s place was left in ruins by Bebop and Rocksteady in “The Turtle Terminator”, and this episode sees the duo return to do the same to April’s apartment. What’s wild to me is that this all came about because the Turtles were hiding Buffy there, and at no point do they ever really apologise or offer to fix the place up. They can just about operate a portal to another dimension, would it have been too much to end the show with them repairing the damage they caused instead of hanging out in the Lair? It’s even worse if you recall that April’s association with the Turtles and Splinter led to her previous home being invaded by Mousers and collapsing in on itself.

My headcanon is that Buffy paid for the damage to April’s place as a means of making up for her behaviour earlier on, given that it was her refusal to stay in the Lair that pushed the Turtles to rope in April to begin in. It would have been nice to get at least some kind of resolution to this mess within the episode, though.

NEXT TIME: What’s Michelangelo Good For? (That’s the title of the episode, I’m not actually posing the question...)

[phoenix-downer]

See You Soon

~2500 words. Post-Melody of Memory. Contains spoilers. Riku POV, Kairi POV. Introspection and reflection. Implied SoKai. Mostly canon compliant. 

As the wind whistled past Riku’s ears and his Station of Awakening came into view, one thought tumbled over and over through his mind: 

Am I doing the right thing?

He wasn’t sure where that had come from. Saving Sora was the right thing to do, no doubt about it. They’d searched an entire year and finally had a clue. Of course jumping through the portal was the right thing to do. He had to bring Sora back; he owed it to everyone. To Sora himself, of course, but to all their friends as well. Especially Kairi—

Kairi. Try as he might, he couldn’t get her face out of his head. The disappointment in her eyes when he’d told her she should stay behind. 

He touched down on the platform that had his likeness etched in stained glass. Not as he was now, but as he was when he began his journey. The moment his heart awakened to the true nature of reality and of the Keyblade. Purple glass surrounded him, and next to him were the faces of friends and important people he’d met on his journeys. 

Had Kairi gotten to have her awakening yet? Or was she—

“I did the right thing,” he said as he paused to get a feel for his surroundings. “This is what Sora would want. Kairi, safe and sound in the Realm of Light. What would he say if I let anything happen to her, after everything he’s sacrificed for her?” He balled his hand into a fist. “He trusted me to look out for her, after all. And he’d want me to bring him back to her. Right?”

No one answered him; it was dark and silent here in his heart. Not even Ansem Seeker of Darkness lurked around anymore. His image had melted away from the Station after that final battle in the Keyblade Graveyard.

And yet, a small, nagging voice at the back of his mind wouldn’t leave him alone. It pointed out that missing from his reasoning was Kairi herself. What did Kairi want?

“She’s fine with this,” he said as he paced back and forth. “She needs more training, she doesn’t want to be a burden—”

He stopped. His feet were near the image of Mickey’s head, and he sighed deeply.

“I know, I know,” he said, speaking as if his friend was actually here. “It wasn’t my call to make.”

Kairi had quickly masked her true feelings with her usual cheerfulness, but she wasn’t fooling anyone. Being left behind again was hardly what she’d wanted. And yet he’d agreed to leaving her behind because he was in such a rush to save Sora. 

He rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s a little too late to go back now, huh?” 

The Power of Waking was not something he could use lightly. Sora’s disappearance had really driven that lesson home. Doubling back halfway through a dive could be risky. Best to continue on to his destination.

He summoned his Keyblade. It appeared with its usual burst of light, and its steady weight in his grip helped him focus.

“Kairi, I’m sorry for leaving you behind again. I promise it won’t happen next time.” He glanced up at the endless sea of black above him. “Besides, something tells me your heart might be the key. You brought Sora and I back from the Realm of Darkness. Depending on how this goes, we might need another miracle.” 

While Riku hadn’t hesitated to dive in after Sora, he knew there was no guarantee he’d make it back. This portal probably only went one way, knowing his luck. But if anyone could light the way home, it was Kairi. 

He pointed his Keyblade at his Station of Awakening and unlocked it. As his surroundings faded away and a new path appeared before him, he had one last message for Kairi.

“See you soon. And the next time I do, I swear, Sora will be with me.”

Despite all the odds, he wanted to give her this reassurance at least. He wanted to make up for all the tears and pain, the year of her life she spent sleeping away in the hope she might find a clue about Sora. A clue they needed because he’d failed to keep her and Sora safe. This was all his fault. If he’d protected Kairi from Xehanort—if he’d offered to go after her instead of letting Sora go it alone—then maybe, just maybe, Sora would still be here.  

This was his penance; his way of making it up to them both. The debt would only be repaid when the two of them were reunited. And this time, he’d make sure he was there too. No slinking off into the darkness alone. If his journeys had taught him anything, it was that there was nothing more important than being with his friends.

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Kairi rested her chin on her hand and gazed out the window of the Gummi Ship. She’d seen this view several times now, but she still found herself staring at the sea of stars twinkling like diamonds in the sky. Wherever Sora was, could he see these stars? Did unreality have stars the way reality did?

“Kairi? Whatcha thinkin’ about?”

“Mmmm?” She broke out of her reverie and turned to her companion. Goofy was craning his neck to look at her, a concerned expression on his face.

“Do you think there are stars where Sora is?” she asked him.

He scratched his chin. “Gawrsh, that’s a good question. I’d think so, but who knows what that fiction-place is like.” He turned to Donald, who was currently driving their vessel. “Donald? Whaddya think?”

Donald carefully guided them past a lumpy asteroid before responding. “Who knows. Maybe it has stars, maybe it doesn’t. Probably depends on if the unreality has multiple worlds.” 

Kairi fiddled with her necklace. “I suppose it’s a silly question. I just… I wish I knew he was okay. I don’t want him to be somewhere strange and scary that doesn’t even have stars.”

She hadn’t imagined he’d come to her aid in that dream she’d had of Xehanort, right? One moment, she’d been sprawled on the ground, disarmed, as Xehanort prepared to strike her down again, and then the next—Sora’s Keyblade had appeared in her hand, and she’d felt his presence. He’d fought for her, too. But it was just like Xehanort said—he couldn’t speak. Not a single word to her or to anyone.

Why was he without a voice? Who had taken his voice away? And where was his heart? Why would a vanquished Xehanort who had moved on to the afterlife even care about where his heart was? Unless the person she’d met in her dream wasn’t actually Xehanort—

“Kairi?” Goofy said, breaking her out of her thoughts again.

“Sorry, I just… I dreamed about Sora, but he couldn’t speak to me. I wish I knew what he wanted to tell me—if there was anything he wanted to tell me, that is.”

It was a little presumptuous of her to assume so. He’d said what he’d needed to say before he’d disappeared. Wanting anything else—after everything he’d already done—when so many other people missed him and wanted to talk to him too—

Goofy clapped a hand on her shoulder. “Gawrsh, I’m sure he’s got lots he’d like to tell ya.”

“You really think so?” 

Donald cackled as he dodged around a meteor. “Oh, we know so. And boy do we have the stories to back it up.” 

She tilted her head. “Stories?” What did Donald mean? Stories about Sora, or—

“Gawrsh, Donald, maybe we shouldn’t tell Kairi everything, I think Sora would be kinda embarrassed—”

“You shoulda seen his face any time he saw a happy couple! He’d get all blushy and flustered and giggly because he was thinking of a certain special someone.”

Goofy clasped his hands over his mouth and giggled. His eyes were dancing, and Kairi put two and two together.

“Me? He kept thinking of me?”

Donald and Goofy both nodded, like they were two bobbleheads controlled by the same spring.

She leaned against the window and smiled. “If it’s not too much to ask… Could you tell me more? Stories about Sora, I mean. And your journeys as well. I got to talk to him about his journeys before he disappeared, but I’d like to hear your thoughts and experiences, too.”

Ever since Sora and Riku had come home from their first adventure, she’d gathered stories. Losing her memories once was awful, and she never wanted it to happen again. Chronicling her friend’s memories like this reassured her there was some record out there that didn’t rely solely on something as malleable as memory, and she now had pages and pages of notes.

“Sure thing,” Goofy said, so she dug around in her bag for her notebook and favorite gel pen. Once she was settled in, she took notes as Goofy spoke and Donald chimed in. Hearing stories about Sora helped her feel closer to him. Stories of his (mis)adventures and daring deeds, his moments of vulnerability and happiest memories, his corny jokes and hopeless romantic tendencies. And since she couldn’t go after him herself right now, this was the closest she could get to being close to him. 

Later that evening, as she was poring over her notes and reliving Donald and Goofy’s memories in the privacy of her quarters, she chewed on the end of her pen. Was it wrong to be a little upset at Riku? Upset at herself, too, for caving so easily, for not even fighting for the chance to go with him? For giving up so easily on an opportunity to save Sora? Hearing stories about him just made her want to be with him that much more. Waiting wasn’t good enough. Training wasn’t good enough. How could she even stay behind, safe and sound, while Riku was risking his life to save Sora? And after Sora had sacrificed himself for her. It wasn’t fair. None of this was fair. 

Sora, forgive me, she thought sadly. I wanted to go after you, but after facing off against Xehanort in my dream… Not even being able to handle a dream version of him without your help… I’m scared I’d just let you down again. Or worse, get you hurt or killed for real. And I can’t… I can’t bear to lose you again. So for now, I’ll train with Aqua, okay? That… feels like the right thing to do. I think.

She sighed deeply. No matter how much she tried to convince herself, she was still disappointed she wasn’t searching for Sora with Riku right now. She should be with him. Why did she have to train and train and train when Sora and Riku got to learn by experience? It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair, and she was sick of being shunted to the sidelines. 

“It’s because you’re weak,” she said with a frown as she drew an angry face in the margins of her notes. “You hold everyone else back. And Sora had to pay the price for your weakness. It’s your fault he’s gone.” 

No.

She gasped and dropped the pen. Scrawled on the page in purple ink next to her angry face was the message. N-o. Short, simple, to the point. 

The handwriting was not her own. 

“Sora?” she asked, resting a hand over her heart. But she heard nothing; felt nothing. “Oh, right. Xehanort, or whoever that really was, said you’re without a voice. I wonder what he meant by that.” 

She fumbled around for her pen, then put it to the paper. “Sora? I don’t know how this is possible, but if there’s anything you really want to tell me, um, I don’t mind if you… take over for a little while?”

That was what had happened, right? He’d taken control of her body to fight for her, and his heart had manifested. Somehow. Was a part of his heart inside her? Or had the paopu fruit really bound them together like the stories said it would? 

“Any time now, I promise I don’t mind,” she said, feeling a little silly for talking out loud like this. But if Sora really could hear her, maybe it wasn’t so silly after all.  

She waited, and waited, and waited. The little cuckoo clock in the corner went off, the little cuckoo bird popping out to announce it was past her bedtime, past her bedtime, past her bedtime. She sighed and started doodling again. Little drawings of Sora’s smile because she missed seeing the real thing. But nothing else happened; if he really was the one who’d left her that message earlier, he was either gone or unavailable now. Or maybe… maybe the connection wasn’t strong enough right now. Maybe it went in and out like her Gummiphone’s reception did when Donald drove through a particularly thick asteroid field. 

Was there a way to strengthen the connection so Sora could communicate with her more easily? She combed her brain for answers. He’d manifested the first time to protect her because she was in danger. Then that message had shown up on her notes when she’d been down on herself. 

She tapped her pen on the paper. “The common connection… The common connection… The first time, I needed help, and the second time, I was being down on myself. Maybe it’s linked to my feelings somehow? My heart?”

She flipped to a new page and jotted her thoughts down. Maybe Aqua could help her sort all of this out. Sure, a part of her still wanted to search for Sora with Riku right now, but maybe Sora wasn’t as far away as they’d thought. 

Maybe the key to finding him rested in her heart. Or at least one of the keys. That was what she and Riku and the star-girl they’d met in the Final World were, right? The girl’s key led to the unreality, Quadratum. Riku was following that clue because his key had been those dreams about Quadratum. But the other key… 

She rested her hand over her heart and smiled. For the first time since suggesting she train with Aqua, she had a clear sense of what to do next. She would train with Aqua all right, but not just in fighting and wielding a Keyblade. Aqua was a skilled mage, and if anyone could help Kairi figure this all out, she could. 

Closing the notebook, Kairi lay back on the bed and smiled. “Hang in there, Sora. Riku’s coming for you, and I’ll make my connection to you stronger, I swear.” 

The Gummi Ship would be arriving on the Land of Departure tomorrow, and then her training would begin in earnest. Someday soon Sora would come home to them, of that she was certain. Then they could finally be together like they’d promised. 

She rolled over and stared up at the stars. Whether the unreality had stars or not, she knew all worlds, all realities, shared the same sky.

“See you soon.”

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A/N: I finished Melody of Memory yesterday, and the plot bunnies soon took hold 😂I wanted to explore Riku and Kairi’s mental states after the events of the game, plus a few plot speculation/headcanon things that popped into my mind, and this was the result. I have some general thoughts on the game overall that I might put together in a separate post, but for now, this is my initial reaction. Thank you for reading! 

[theonlygamergost]

Mcytubers playing Among us! - 1 / 2

So uhhh… This was supposed to be a random prompt to get over a supposed “writing block” but I ended up taking it seriously. Also, I know this group of people never played all together, but I don’t care UwU

This is an interactive story! At the end there will be a poll for you to vote, what are you voting for? Read the story and find out yourself!

(Cw! Jschlatt) Warning: It’s among us mate, mention of dead bodies and swearing, what do you expect

Walking down to storage the game started, Techno was a crewmate.

Filling up the gas tank was the first task, Jschlatt went into admin with Tommy while Dave opened the wires cabinet. As he made sure not to overflow the gasoline, Shelby and Scott were standing at the trash shoot, as they finished, they walked up to him, “Hey Techno want to come to electrical? I saw Shelby do trash so she’s safe” Techno nodded and followed the two friends, he was more comfortable having four people going, but he did see her do trash, so if he did die, oh well.

He started the electrical download just as the lights went off, great.

“I’ll go get it!” Shelby exclaimed, Scott hummed and let her go ahead while sticking near Techno, his teal suit was barely visible in his field of view as a gory slash and the noise of something dropping could be heard from the other side of the wall.

“SHELBY!!!” Techno finished downloading just as Scott ran towards the light and-

A BODY WAS FOUND!

Techno and Scott got teleported next to each other in the cafeteria, both of them looked around just to be relieved by the sight of the woman they thought was dead, in fact, she was the one who called the body.

“I was in the back of electrical with Techno and Scott, I went to turn on the lights but I couldn’t see where the body was or who walked in” The only one missing was Dave.

Techno spoke up, “Last time I saw Dave was in storage doing wires” Wilbur agreed, “Where was everyone?”

Schlatt and Tommy were walking down to electrical together while Phil and Fundy were between Oxygen and Asteroids. All paired up and far away from the crime scene.

“I was in medbay!” Tubbo exclaimed, “There is a vent in medbay that leads to electrical” Fundy pointed out, “ There is no way they vented, Techno was doing download, and that panel is on the vent, plus how could they pass through Techno me and Shelby and then kill Dave without no one seeing them?” Scott made a point, so they had no suspicions. The time was about to end so they all agreed to skip…  but something wasn’t right, it’s just that Techno couldn’t figure out what.

Scott and Shelby went to the asteroids while Phil went down, Techno knew that the two friends were safe, so going with them was the best option, but he had two tasks in admin and Fundy vouched for Phil, so he went in admin with him.

“Here to do card swipe?” The man in the light green suit smiled behind the transparent visor, “And upload” Techno added as he started it, after two attempts, Phil got the card swipe and walked to the other side of admin table, “Two in navigations, one in reactor, one in cams and two in electrical… one is missing” Techno walked to the card reader and failed a few attempts before succeeding, “I feel like someone died… let’s go check out electrical just in case, you coming mate?” He didn’t have anything there, but he followed him.

They entered electrical to find Tubbo and Will, one doing download and one just standing there, they greeted each other and Phil told them his worry while opening the panel on the far right, an oxygen crisis was called right after.“Oh O2, let’s go Techno” Wilbur gestured at Techno to follow him, he followed.

As they ran to admin, a red suit was concentrated on a task, “Tommy why the fuck are you doing wires? Come do O2!” Tommy shrugged, “Nah, you guys got it” closing the wires panel, he went in the direction they just came by.

“That’s sus…” Wilbur whispered, it was barely audible since the alarm was pretty loud.

They entered admin and Wilbur did O2, as they were leaving to do the second one-

A BODY WAS FOUND!

“WHO DARED KILL PHILZA MINECRAFT?!?!?” Tommy slammed his fist on the meeting table, Tubbo, who was next to him, jumped at the sudden motion.

“You did Tommy” Wilbur was looking straight at him, “Going to electrical while 02 is going off is something only an imposter would do” Techno felt bad for leaving Phil alone with Tubbo in- wait.

“I- I- I didn’t do anything! You know me Big dubs I would never kill Philza Minecraft!!!” As Will was about to talk back, Techno touched his arm, “Tommy did go to electrical but didn’t we leave Tubbo and Phil together in there?” The attention moved on the yellow suit, “Well yes! But I left right after you guys did-” he tried to explain, “Actually, where were you Tubbo? I didn’t see you the whole game” Scott asked, Shelby nodded.

“I- uh… I’m in bottom storage! That’s why you guys didn’t see me!” Tommy got closer to Tubbo, “I would have seen you pass if you said that you left right after Will and Techno! VOTE HIM OUT!!!”

Tommy voted instantly, the rest of the crew hesitated,” That doesn’t clear you Tommy, I’m still not convinced… Wait- Fundy’s dead too!” His spot at the table was empty, Scott made an observation “If we vote on seven and we get it wrong they just need a double kill… “ The had fifteen seconds left, “Ok then, everyone skip, let’s just keep an eye on the children, they might both be impostors” Will skipped vote and so did Shelby and Scott, “Why can't it be you, Wilbur? I last saw Fundy with you on right side… “ Schlatt pointed at Wilbur as the room became dark, the last thing before they went back to their tasks was Wilbur flipping the tables, “ Funny enough Jschlatt, I could say the same thing-”

~~~~~~~~~~~

The round had been going on for too long, Techno had finished all of his tasks on the left side, he missed bottom reactor and medbay scan, but for now, he was filling the reactor. Shelby and Scott have been together the whole round, he walked into them twice, the first time in navigation, the second time a few seconds ago when they were heading to cams. He left the empty gas can next to the machine just as lights went down.

Since he was next to electrical, he took the corridor and entered the worst room of the entire map, flicking the lights on, a metallic squeak came from the back of the room. He walked around the lights panel to find Tubbo’s yellow suit kneeled on the ground, he snapped his head to see the pink suit as-

A BODY WAS FOUND!

“I left Shelby in cams, I did the one-two-three thing, and lights went down as soon as I saw Tubbo coming down from top reactor! He killed her and vented! I heard the sound” Shlatt backed him up, saying that Tubbo went left from cafeteria last time he had seen him, “ I trust Scott’s word, but I don’t believe you Shlatt, an impostor would jump on the blame-train to show themselves innocent” They had a small staredown, it was getting tense so Techno spoke up, “I can confirm that it was Tubbo, I did lights and heard the vent open, Tubbo was standing right on top of it” Tommy cheered as he called himself “innocent” and that voting Tubbo would make justice for Phil, Wilbur looked at him weird while everyone voted.

Everyone apart from Shlatt, “So we know that Tubbo is 100% impostor, so the suspects for second impostors are Tommy and Wilbur right?” Wilbur stuttered, “Wah- what makes you say that Big J? If I’m on the sus list, you are too”

Tubbo was ejected

Techno went straight to medbay, Tommy followed him, “HEY BIG T! You have scan big man?” he nodded, he would have preferred no one watching him scan then Tommy watching him scan, but be had a gut feeling that Tommy wasn’t the impostor, so he stepped on the scanner-

EMERGENCY MEETING!

Wilbur had called a meeting, as soon as they teleported at the table, he pointed a finger at Tommy, “Tommy is the most sus one out of all of us! Let’s vote him out just in case both of them were impostors” Scott hovered over the vote button, thought about it, and voted, Schlatt voted too “I’m ok with that, but I still think that you are an impostor Wilbur Soot” they all voted while Tommy yelled whines and excuses, Techno looked over at the boy in the red suit. he wasn’t sure if voting him was a good idea, but if he didn’t vote him the others would get suspicious, so he went with the flow.

“Let’s all stick together ok! We can win by tasks” Scott proposed, Wilbur and Schlatt had one more task, so did Techno, hopefully the ghosts finished the remaining one quickly.

TommyInnit was ejected

Both Shlatt and Scott looked at Wilbur when they were back at the cafeteria, “Wasn’t it your idea Mister Soot to vote Tommy off in case they were both impostors?” Schlatt walked closer to Wilbur, “You can’t blame me for sussing someone who ran away from a crisis and found a body! If anything I should be asking you why you were alone most of the time!”

“Boys please calm down and let’s go do my task” Scott sighed, “You’re the only one I trust here Techno, what tasks do you have left?” Scott started walking towards storage, “I only have medscan” Wilbur and Schlatt were not looking at each other, the impostor was one of them, so it probably wasn’t nice to know that the traitor was walking peacefully next to you while faking his innocent attitude.

Scott did shields and Wilbur entered admin to swipe his card while the rest waited outside, the green bar went up one last time while they were walking into medbay, it looked like only one task was missing, “You have to believe me guys when I tell you that I have the vials, Wilbur was lucky that a ghost did his task and he got to walk it off! It took him way too much to scan the card” Schlatt walked next to the scan and activated the vials, Wilbur barked back, “Yeah yeah sure, you are just salty we are going to win!” Techo stepped on the scan as the green laser went up and down, the others couldn’t see it since visual tasks were off, but the final decision was between Wilbur and Schlatt.

As the room went quiet he realized what was that feeling he had, he knew what felt wrong in the first round! That meant he had to be the impostor...correct?

The lights started to dim down, “Oh no!” Scott exclaimed as he tried to make a mad dash for the scanner, but as soon as the room went dark-

A BODY WAS FOUND!

Techno didn’t see anything, it was a fifty/fifty, or so it seemed. Techno was leaning towards one player, but he was nervous about making a mistake, he could only hear what they had to say before taking the losing or winning step.

~~~~~~~~~~

Who will Techno vote out? YOU DECIDE!!!

This link will take you to a poll! The winner will get voted out and I’ll reveal who was the impostor!!!

Find out who was the impostor on the second part!!!

[zaprlcorn]

Why is Zayn so attractive? Why does the media/general public thirst after him? | post

Over the years, Zayn has been known for his insane talent but also more notoriously for his good looks. So good in fact, the term “Zaddy Zayn” was coined. In One Direction, fans have always idolized him and never failed to mention his good looks. There was even a time where the phrase “Zayn is vain” went around. Fans made edits of Zayn as Aladdin, Flynn Ryder, and Prince Charming. During one point, he was even described as John Stamos, a heart throb from Full House. So why is Zayn notoriously known for his looks? Why does the media/general public emphasize this so much? Shouldn’t it be more about his talent? What’s the reason behind Zayn’s killer looks? The answers are simple: because he’s attractive and because genetics. But could this be explained in his birth chart? Let’s take a look and see..

Zayn is a Capricorn. Capricorns and Capricorn men are notoriously known for being “sexy”. They age like wine–the older, the finer. Over the years, the media has painted Zayn as the “Bradford Bad boy” who’s sexy, rebellious, and vain. Think of Danny Zuko from Grease. I made a thread on my twitter about this a while ago, but this time I want to expand. Why is he known for his looks? Is there an astrological explanation for why he’s so attractive? Why does the media label him this way? 

The 10th House / Midheaven  & Libra Jupiter in the 8H

The 10th House in a birth chart is responsible for one’s career and the image they maintain in the public eye. So the 10th House is how people see you at work, in meetings etc. In Zayn’s chart, his Midheaven (10th House) is in the sign of Sagittarius, a sign who’s planetary ruler is Jupiter. In astrology, Jupiter is about expansion. Whatever Jupiter touches, it expands.There’s abundance. Especially an abundance of luck.

Having Jupiter on your MC (Midheaven) is good. Because it promotes success. It doesn’t have to be astronomical success like being the CEO of a company, but they will be successful and have luck in their career.

In whole sign houses, Jupiter lies in Zayn’s 8th house. Whole sign houses are a different calculation that is used in astrology to calculate one’s houses. So instead of a house beginning and ending in the same sign, all signs belong to a respective house (and aren’t skipped over) unlike Western/Tropical astrology. The House system used in the astrology you might be most familiar with is called Placidus.

Jupiter lies in his 8th house, and Jupiter rules his 10th house. The 8th house belongs to Scorpio. It belongs to Pluto and Mars (Scorpio’s planetary rulers). The 8th house deals with dark, taboo, and deep themes that aren’t talked about on a day-to-day basis. Themes range from the Occult, death, transformation/rebirth, intimacy and sex. In this case, we’re focusing on the intimacy and sex part. Because Zayn has this connection between his 8th and 10th house, the public views him as someone who’s magnetic. Enchanting. Because Jupiter is here, there’s an abundance of this. The media sees Zayn as a man who oozes sex appeal.

Zayn has Apollo and Eros in his 10th house (whole sign system) conjuncting in his chart. So this explains the whole “Zayn is a Greek god” thing.

Neptune/Jupiter/Pisces influence. Individuals with influences like these are described as “otherwordly” and “unreal”. Think of Diana Ross. 

Zayn’s Jupiter is at the 14th degree of Libra. Libra is a planet ruled by Venus. Who else is ruled by Venus? Taurus. And who does the 14th degree belong to? Taurus & Venus. So there’s a double-venus influence here. That said, Zayn’s got the media and GP with hearts in their eyes, making them gush, and thirst over him. The double-venus influence makes this energy more potent and emphasized. I say thirst because this is the 8H we’re talking about. Think of it this way, because astrology twitter debates this often: Which house is the house of sex? The 5th? Or 8th? Think of it like this: The 5H is a crush, the 8H is love. Two different feelings. A crush is cute, innocent, and light-hearted. Being in love is consuming, and intense. 

Moreover, Zayn’s midheaven degree is important. The MC is the highest point of one’s chart and it’s in the 10H. It is considered to be our life path considering it points upwards, forwards, and is the “highest point” in our chart. Zayn’s midheaven is at the 20th degree of Sagittarius. The 20th degree belongs to Scorpio. And what are Scorpio’s known for? Being sexy and mysterious. (re: Bradford Badboy). 

Venus-Lilith-Rising Conjunction 

Remember what I said about Venus? This is important, because Zayn is a Venus dominant. His first house (ascendant/rising) is in the sign of Pisces, which makes him a Pisces rising. In his first house, he has the planet Venus and the asteroid Lilith there all conjuncting his ascendant/rising. This is a blending of energies. Think of a conjunction as combining two-and-two to get one. Like a cake, you add ingredients together to get an end result which is the cake. In astrology, planets that conjunct all work together to produce an effect. In Zayn’s chart, this Venus-Lilith-Rising conjunction produces one effect: captivating and magnetizing. Many say Zayn is a beautiful man and there’s no denying that. The Romans renamed the Greeks’ Aphrodite as Venus. She is art, she is love, she is beauty. Zayn has Aphrodite conjunct his ascendant within a 1 degree orb, so he’s been blessed by the beauty of Venus. He is a child of Venus.

When someone has Venus in their first house conjunct their ascendant, it automatically makes the person beautiful. Also someone who is very artistic. They have been blessed with Venus’ beauty. So we take this and combine it with Lilith. Usually, Lilith is more important in a woman’s chart, but it’s important in Zayn’s considering it’s on his ascendant. When you have a Venus-Lilith-Ascendant conjunction, this makes someone beautiful and quite literally sexy. People lust after them, they are the object of people’s desires, they are the forbidden fruit that tempts people to take a bite. So this is why Zayn back in the 1D days (and still today) was described as the Dangerous Bad Boy from Bradford Who Will Cause A Ruckus and Have Your Father Mad. 

Note: While the Venus-Lilith-Ascendant conjunction makes someone extremely alluring, there are consequences. If you know Lilith’s story, you know where I’m going. This aspect is also responsible for ostracism, obsession, jealousy, and envy. People always want to see Zayn lose. And it’s those who “can’t understand” him. Additionally, Zayn’s Venus opposes his 7th house moon. The 7th house is the house of relationships and marriage, but also known as our descendant (hidden from the world) and a house of open enemies. So when you have this conjunction opposing a house of enemies, this brings trouble. People are jealous and can’t understand you and your beauty. So they attack you, copy you, try to one-up you, bully you, etc etc. 

So remember what I said about the double-venus? Here’s more evidence to back it up. 

Venus is exalted in the sign of Pisces. A planet’s exaltation is a sign of the zodiac in which it is thought to be particularly well-placed. So Pisces is gonna do Venus’ job very well. So keep the double-venus thing I mentioned in mind. Because when you read a birth chart (or at least when I do) it’s important to look at the planet’s individually and connections they have with other planets, asteroids, houses in a person's chart. So that said, Zayn having the Venus-Lilith-Ascendant conjunction I was talking about in a sign where Venus is exalted, this feeds the double-Venus influence that the public/GP sees. 

Follow me closely again. Zayn’s ascendant is at the 4th degree of Pisces. The 4th degree of astrology belongs to Cancer, a sign ruled by the Moon. Which is in his 7th house. Pisces’ traditional planetary ruler is Jupiter. In astrology, the planet that rules the sign your ascendant is in is considered your planetary ruler. So this means a few things: 1. At the most basic level, his Jupiter being in his 8th house (whole sign, 7H Placidus) the appearance of the individual is dark and others will find the native “sexy” and mysterious 2. Many will lust and thirst over the individual 3. With the Placidus interpretation, it can be seen as the native having many open enemies (7H)  who attack them for their appearance and self (1H). 

4. Jupiter is exalted in Cancer. His rising is Pisces. The 4th degree of astrology belongs to Cancer. Venus in Pisces is in his first house. 5. Not relevant to this Pisces-Jupiter-Cancer tirade I’m on, but the moon in someone’s 7th house is a significator of beauty.

DO YOU SEE WHERE I’M GOING WITH THIS? THE MAN IS BEAUTIFUL.

Moon 

It doesn’t help that his 5th house is ruled by the moon either. The “Zayn is beautiful” agenda is about to spill over at this point because I’m writing on the last centimetre of the page. His 5th house is in the sign of Cancer. The 5th house is originally home to Leo. Leo’s are beautiful, and they know it. The 5th house is the house of children, sex, games, etc. But In relation to this thread, I would say that the 5H rules over things like mirrors, makeup, jewellery, etc etc. Things you find in a vanity.This probably explains the whole “Zayn is vain” thing too because Leo’s are known to be vain, and with the Lord of his 5th in the 7th, ths just equals beauty beauty beauty beauty and MORE beauty. (Sidenote: His moon in sidereal astrology is in Leo)(Sidereal = different calculation) 

Zaddy Zayn

Where does the “Zaddy Zayn” thing come from? It’s because of 1. Everything in this post thus far and 2. Because he’s a Capricorn Stellium 3. He's Venus, Sun, and Rahu/NN dominant. Sun dominated men are the “it” boys of the zodiac. The sun is Masculine energy, hence why they are the “it” boys of the zodiac. They radiate that “zaddy” energy that Zayn does too (because he’s Sun dominant).  Zayn’s sun conjuncts Neptune in his 11th house. Neptune is the modern planetary ruler of Pisces, which happens to rule his chart because he’s a Pisces rising. When the Sun makes an aspect to the individuals planetary ruler, it strengthens the planet and what it does. In Zayn’s chart, the Sun shines a light on his.

Remember how I said Capricorn men are known for being sexy and they age like wine? The older, the finer? Applies to Zayn. Zayn’s tropical chart is dominated by Capricorn. Plus he was born at a Capricorn degree. Capricorn is known as the “father” in astrology, and it’s sister sign, Cancer is the “mother”. That said, he’s got a Capricorn stellium. A stellium is when someone has 3+ planets in a sign or house. Capricorns planetary ruler is Saturn, which is a planet of limitations, discipline, and rules. It’s disciplinarian, and authoritarian hence why the planet Saturn and the sign of Capricorn is associated with the “Father”. So that’s where “Zaddy Zayn” comes from. Plus, 22 degrees is a powerful degree. It is a degree associated with authority. 

Lastly, his Sun sextiles Pluto in a tight orb and Sun sextile Pluto is responsible for someone being “magnetic”. With the Plutonic influence on his MC, this explains why the Media/GP sees him the way they do. Zayn Malik is a man about his business thanks to all the Capricorn influence in his chart. He is a man who has mastered the art of power without words. He is a man of beauty. He possesses such rich beauty in himself physically, that he projects it outwards in everything he creates. Whether this is artwork, poems, music, or his writing.

Add. Info

Venus Dominated Men like to make their surroundings beautiful and create beautiful things because they have been blessed with creativity. While they are aware of the beauty they possess, they’d rather not have the spotlight on them. They are more focused on making beautiful things. Claire Nakti said in her video on Venus Dominated men, masculine individuals have smaller eyes and feminine individuals have eyes that are bigger.. This is because of the Sun and Moon. The Sun is masculine, the Moon is feminine. The sun projects light onto all of humanity and projects light onto the moon. That said, there doesn’t need to be a big window to project light. The moon receives light from the sun, and lights up the night around her. Feminine individuals have bigger eyes because they draw in the energy of those who project light. 

[dream-a-little-bigger-x]

Heathers | Sweet Pea

A/N: Part three! 

Act one - Act two 

Words: 2622

Pairing: Sweet Pea x Reader

Warnings: angst, fighting, cursing

Act three: Fight For Me 

Another day, another rehearsal. Today, we’re mostly revising the things we’d already done. Like Beautiful, Candy Store and Freeze Your Brain. Mostly Candy Store since Cheryl didn’t know we’d changed the choreo a little to have both of Cheryl’s and Toni’s in there. “Thanks a lot, Y/N,” Cheryl had attacked me viciously. “Don’t blame me, Cheryl. You should’ve been more professional.” Sweet Pea had glanced back at me with a smirk on his face, agreeing with my statement. The redhead scoffs, but then focuses on my mixed choreo anyway. I could tell Betty and Veronica had a lot more fun on stage since I did the number with them the other day. It’s fun to see everyone getting better every single time. “Let’s take five, guys, and then we’re doing Our Love Is God,” Kevin tells us when the Heathers have finished their Candy Store rehearsal. “Hey, Y/N,” I hear Sweet Pea’s voice behind me as I’m searching for my water bottle in my bag. “Hey,” I greet back when I’ve found it and stand up straight to face the tall Serpent. “I think I could get some pointers on Meant to Be Yours and I am Damaged. Would it be okay to rehearse together tonight?” I can feel my face heat up as a smile finds its way back to my face. “Yeah, sure! Your place or mine?” I ask and sip from my water. “Mine, if that would be okay? My auntie is dropping off my little cousin after school and I need to watch him for tonight,” he explains. “He’ll probably be in bed when you arrive though.” He adds it quickly as though that would be a reason for me not to come. I love watching children. And I love it when guys are good with kids too. Due to the gender roles and double standards, you wouldn’t think guys were good with kids and only women are meant to be gifted in that department. “Oh, that’s fine. I don’t mind. I’ll swing by after school? We could order some pizzas for dinner?” I suggest, making it an entire date. His eyes widen a little at the realization. “If I’m giving you some pointers, I’ll probably be there all night long,” I say in a teasing tone, and it makes him chuckle. “Yeah, after school it is,” he nods and gets to his spot so we can start rehearsing Our Love is God. I’m reminded of Friday night when we were at Pop’s and I’d started singing it softly, only to him, and then he’d continued singing. That was one of my favorite moments I’d ever had with a co-star. “Yeah-lo?” Archie says as Kurt Kelly on the other side of the stage, holding a vintage telephone horn to his ear. “Hi, Kurt. It’s Veronica… how did you guys know it was always a fantasy of mine to have two guys at once?” I ask in an innocent voice as Sweet Pea snickers beside me as JD. “Wow, uh… Lucky guess?” he exclaims, punching Reggie in the shoulder. “Well, if you want it to come true, meet me at the cemetery, at dawn,” I say and then hang up the horn. Archie does the same as he looks at Reggie in absolute merriment. “Free pussy!” he yells, and Reggie suddenly mirrors his expression. “And we don’t even have to buy it a pizza!” Reggie exclaims excitedly and the two boys fist bump, saying “Punch it in!” before heading into the wings, laughing, leaving Sweet Pea and I alone on the stage again. “We can start and finish wars We're what killed the dinosaurs We're the asteroid that's overdue The dinosaurs choked on the dust They died because God said they must The new world needed room For me and you” Sweet Pea and I sing the lines together, moving towards the center of the stage, staying close to one another. Then, Sweet Pea turns me, so I face him, and he keeps his hands on my hips while mine grip at his long trench coat. “I worship you I'd trade my life for yours They all will disappear We'll plant our garden here” Then I echo, “Plant our garden here,” after which we leap into a couple of “Our love is God”. I’m weirdly comfortable in Sweet Pea’s arms. I’ve only met him a couple of weeks ago when we started rehearsing and only really got to know him a bit better on Friday night. It does freak me out a little bit. But for now, it’s only a benefit to our acting performance that I feel this comfortable. I listen to him sing as I’m kneeled down next to Archie, who had been ‘shot’ first, as he’s keeping Reggie at gun point. For some reason, he looks hot when he’s about to fake kill somebody. He then ‘shoots’, and Reggie falls on the floor. “What the fuck have you done?!” I shout at him and get up from my spot on the stage to walk over to him. In the process of doing so, I slip on one of the boys’ shoes as they had to strip for this scene. I prepare for the fall, but it never comes as a hand grabs me by my arm and holds me up. When I turn my head, I’m face to face with Sweet Pea, who simply keeps going like a true theater professional. “I worship you I'd trade my life for yours We'll make them disappear We'll plant our garden here” Then, we leap back into the Our Love is God’s until the song finishes and Reggie and Archie get up again from their death-spot. The others from the cast in the audience, applaud for us, even Cheryl who didn’t used to do that last week or even earlier today when we did Freeze Your Brain. “Are you okay?” Sweet Pea then asks when he finally lets go of my arm. “Yeah, I just tripped over a shoe,” I reply with a smile, “Thanks for saving me though.” Sweet Pea opens his smiling mouth to say something back, but Kevin interrupts him. That’s also when I get snapped into real life again and out of my bubble with Sweet Pea. “That was amazing! Let’s do Blue now, and then we’ll wrap up for today,” he says, “Anyone who isn’t in this scene can go home if they want.” Sweet Pea turns his head to me, his face in a pained expression. I give him a smile. “You can go. Just text me your address and I’ll come over when we’re done here.” He nods his head, grabs the pistol prop from me and puts it in its place, so I can do the scene with Veronica, Betty, Archie and Reggie. I was kind of hoping I could go home with Sweet Pea instead. The ride on his motorbike on Friday was so amazing and so freeing, that I’d give anything to do it again. There was just something about holding him by his torso and feeling the wind whoosh on my face – I was wearing his helmet, so no wind through my hair. Or maybe it was just being so close to him that made it so much fun and easy. Oh no…

Sweet Pea had texted me the trailer number he lived in at Sunnyside, so I drove my car there and parked just in front of the park before getting out. Just as I shut my door and locked the car, I hear smacking and grunting and groaning. With furrowed brows I walk towards the sound, only to find Sweet Pea fighting some Ghoulie – another gang we should definitely steer clear from. Rumored cannibals. “Hey!” I shout and run up to the two. “Stop it! Stop it right now!” I yell, capturing both the boy’s attention. Sweet Pea’s face is almost covered entirely in blood and it pains me to see him like this. “Ah, Sweet Pea, don’t tell me this is her…” the Ghoulie says with a bemused smile on his face. “A Northsider, really? Out of all the people… I—” before the guy can even say another word, Sweet Pea lashes out and his fist hits the Ghoulie’s jaw, sending him to the ground. “Holy shit!” I yelp, bringing my hands up to cover my mouth. “Sweet Pea, come on!” I grab his arm and pull him away from the Ghoulie. Reluctantly, the tall Serpent backs off and follows me to his trailer. “I can’t believe you fought a Ghoulie,” I mumble as he unlocks his door and lets me in first. “Where’s your first aid kit?” he points to the door on my right, and when I walk through it, I find myself in the bathroom. It’s small. Really small. I doubt you could even move in here when there’s two people inside. Without judging it any further, I open the mirror-cupboard and grab the small red box with the cross on top. If this isn’t it, he needs to sort out his life. “How was the rehearsal?” he asks, hoping for the subject not to be his fighting. “Don’t,” I reply curtly, “Don’t pretend you’re not nearly bleeding and bruising to death, Noah.” I use his real name to get the point across right while wetting a gauze with disinfectant. “Don’t call me that,” he sneers, then hisses when I dab the wound on his forehead from the Ghoulie’s ring. “I was just trying to lighten the mood.” I sigh deeply, then grab another gauze since the first one is now covered in blood. He hisses again as the wet gauze comes into contact with the injury. “It’s not that bad.” “Why were you fighting that Ghoulie? And where is your cousin?” I ask two questions in one go. “My cousin’s in my bedroom, playing a game on my phone. I was just going out to get some apple juice for him from the supermarket when I bumped into the Ghoulie. He started bashing me about the musical and …” he trails off a little before adding, “you…” “So, then you decided to punch him in the eye?” I ask whilst covering the wound with a plaster. “Don’t give me shit about this right now, Y/N. Everything kind of hurts and I’m really regretting doing it all.” My lips pull into a pained grimace as I start on his bloody knuckles. I can’t really tell if it’s his blood or the Ghoulie’s. Maybe both. “Could you…” he starts, but then stops. “Never mind, it’s going to sound stupid.” I stop what I’m doing and look up at him instead. “No, tell me. Nothing you ever say would sound stupid. Anything Reggie says, however…” I trail off suggestively and earn a chuckle from the boy. “Just tell me, Sweets.” I encourage him before going back to cleaning his knuckles. “Could you sing for me? It always soothes me when you do,” he asks sheepishly, and when I look up again, he’s staring at his hand in mine. I take a deep breath before leaping into the first song that pops into my head. Which is also vaguely appropriate for this situation. “Hey, Mister No Name Kid So who might you be? And could you fight for me? And hey, could you face the crowd? Could you be seen with me and still act proud?” I glance up at him, shooting him a small smile. “Hey, could you hold my hand? And could you carry me through no man's land? It's fine if you don't agree But I would fight for you If you would fight for me” I bandage up his knuckles then, whilst still continuing the song. “Let them drive us underground I don't care how far You can set my broken bones And I know CPR” He chuckles a little at my suggesting expression, just as I would during the show.

“Well, whoa You can punch real good” I place a soft kiss on his bandaged fist. “You've lasted longer than I thought you would So hey, Mister No Name Kid If some night, you're free Wanna fight for me?” The next thing I do is grab a salve that I know also works for bruises. So, I put a dollop on my finger and begin to softly massage it into the spots that are already bruising and turning blue. “If you're still alive I would fight for you If you would fight for me!” My hand lands on his cheek and stays there as I finish the last high note. For a moment after, we stay like that; staring in each other’s eyes with my hand on his cheek and panting a little from the endeavor of singing.   “Thanks,” Sweet Pea whispers, and I catch him glancing from eyes to my lips. This can’t happen. I need to stay professional in this. So, I cough and snap both of us from our trance. “No problem. Let’s rehearse now, shall we?” I say and reach for my bag to grab my script. “Let’s order some pizza first, I think Jordan might be hungry or getting bored. Or both,” he chuckles a little while grabbing his phone to call the closest pizza joint. “Hey, why don’t we play some games with him instead of rehearsing? We’ve done plenty of it already and we can get back to it tomorrow. Let’s just babysit your cousin for the night, keep him entertained.” He nods his head with a smile and dials the pizza guy first before getting Jordan. The rest of the night, we spend playing games, eating pizza, and finish by watching one movie with Jordan together before we put him in his bed. “Will you be here again next time I stay here, Y/N?” Jordan asks when I tuck him in bed with Sweet Pea towering over me from behind. I smile at the little eight-year-old and push a strand of his long, curly hair out of his face. “I can’t promise you that, big guy. But I’ll try, okay?” He nods his head in response before wiggling down a little and snuggling into his pillow. “Shall we watch one more movie, and then I’ll get going.” “Or you could stay?” the tall Serpent suggests with a sheepish grin on his face. “Sweets, I—” before I can finish my sentence, he’s already cut me off. “Come on, Y/N. Please, stay?” he steps closer to me, and places his hands on my hips like he does so many times during the musical. “Besides, Jordan will love it when he sees you at breakfast?” he tries, hoping the mention of his way too adorable cousin will win me over. It does. My willpower isn’t that strong. I groan, rolling my eyes. “Fine.” Sweet Pea lets out a ‘yes’, “But we’re watching Heathers the movie tonight.” I point my finger at him as if telling him that would be my one condition to doing this. He nods his head in agreement, and the two of us settle on the sofa as I text my mother I’ll be staying over at Margot’s. If she finds out I stayed over at a Serpent’s house, she will kill me, and him. Even though I have a ‘I don’t care’ attitude towards them, my parents do not share the same morals. So, the rest of the night is spent like that; cuddled up on the sofa whilst watching Heathers until both of us fall asleep. I didn’t think I would have so much fun with Sweet Pea or feel so comfortable around him. It’s not that I don’t like it, it’s that it scares me a little.

[spookytomatoetuesday]

Project Wolf´s Cove

One – Tumbling towards catastrophe

The road ahead was winding, following a cliff´s edge. It was summer and therefore a bright day even though it was still early in the morning. It was definitely summer and the radio kept reminding its listeners of that fact. For the moment, however, the summer hits where too distracting. Becky turned the car radio off. She then returned to the conversation she had with her friend Rose who was sitting in the passenger seat. “The film wasn´t a period piece.”, Becky insisted. “It was set in a period in the past.”, Rose gave back. “No! The film is not on the nose about it, but it was set in the future. The future from when it was produced anyway.” Rose frowned at this just to reiterate: “Yes, and this means that it was still set ten years ago. That is the past. I cannot remember ten years ago, not with a living memory. It might as well be a chapter in a history book. Plus that it is a time ten years ago as imagined by people living 40 years ago. So this is like a page in a fictional history book from a freak dimension.” Becky laughed. She gave in: “Okay.” “Well, that is not my point anyway.”, Rose continued in a mockingly serious voice. “The man issue I wanted to raise was that the protagonist was absolutely alien to me. Not because he lived in a different time, mind you. I had issues with him because of how he acted.” “You mean how he dealt with a world full of isolated people and ravaged by a virus?”, Becky injected. “Yes! The illness is obviously transmitted from person to person. So you keep away from the next best person. Problem solved. The so-called protagonist, on the other hand, did it all wrong, sacrificing not only his life but also the one of his gal-pal.” “She was severely underdeveloped as a character. That was more scary then their fate actually.”, Becky observed. “True. There was just one reason the dude did dude around with her, mouthing about and ruining it all.”, Rose summarized. “Even if he made decisions for others that were not his to make, I think his motivations where understandable. You can’t be alone for all eternity.”, said Becky, while she turned on to the parking lot of Wolf´s Cove High School. “There needs to be a sense of community. If you can’t interact with the ones you actually spent time with, how do you know that you even exist and that you are not just an idea of a person that might be easily forgotten? Apart from that, loneliness hurts if it is not voluntary.” “Okay, fair. You raise some good points as well. I see a use for people in the plural there.”, Rose conceded. “Still, there is a danger to closeness that is not always only down to emotions.” She was quiet for a moment while she and Becky got out of the car, took their backpacks, and went towards the school entrance. “The thing is…”, Rose continued right before they climbed the four steps to the grand double doors. “You get only to take a limited number of breaths on this crummy planet. So you might as well be selective as to who you spent them with.” Becky smiled at her friend. “I thought I was.”

Biking to school always seemed like a good idea when the weather was clear and bright. That was until the last part of the road served as stark reminder that it was more sweaty than fun to bike upwards the serpentines leading to the cliff top where the school was located. John remembered that now. “This was not a good idea.”, John managed to say while slowing down despite putting all the more effort into cycling. His legs started to hurt. Neil nodded: “Fnaf.” “What?” “Fair enough.”, Neil pressed out. “Should it not be fen then?”, John wondered and had to slow down to do so. Neil shrugged and both continued their track up towards the high school in silence. Finally they made it to the big main parking lot and chained their bikes to a lantern there. They noticed Becky’s car as the only one parked here at this early hour. “Oh boy, if I’d known Becky would be here this early as well, I’d have asked her if she could pick us up on her way. Maybe next time. She’d surely do it.”, said Neil shaking his head. John just grunted and then decided to say defensively: “I do not think she is here that early regularly. No one but you is.” “And you, fellow friend and confidant. However, someone has to man the commissary and make sure that it is open when all the breakfast-skipping students arrive hungry from the long way up.”, said Neil. The two made their way to the side entrance of the main building. “I am not a fan of that name. When you say it, I can almost hear boots and trumpets.”, John commented. “The food stall then. After we’ve got rid of the old and truly awful name, we have no official title for it. I’ll still call it commissary on my CV. Universities and prospective employers like that kind of entrepreneurship and lexical knowledge. You should get an activity like this too. They expect this.” “I thought it is the point to stick out, to be so unique that others are interested in you. How does doing what everybody does the same, because that is what everybody has to do, help there?”, John asked while Neil unlocked the foods stand and went into the back where the wares were stored. Neil pointed at some packages of soft drinks. “Need to unpack those and put them into the fridge first.” While they both got to it, Neil added: “So we both understand the system. There is what they say and there is what they want. Still, I think my way to deal with that could pay off in the end. Maybe even more so than yours.” John nodded when Neil reached out for another soda can. They finished the work in silence. Afterwards, Neil put on his work apron and took up his place behind the counter. Above him on the wall painted in a fresh white there was the faint shadow of a mascot which had fallen out of time. In front of him, there was the tip jar while the cassette with the change was hidden under the counter. Neil seemed a little tired but content. John waved to him. “I will try to get some more sleep in on one of the lounge sofas before class. See you later.”, John said. “See you.” The most comfortable couches stood in the lounge of the Science Building that was still missing an S. So John went directly there after leaving the food stall. Once in the lounge, he noticed a movement coming from the astronomy room. Through the large windows in the double door he could see Becky and Rose working on something inside. He hesitated. Beyond the doors was the opportunity for a nice conversation with his friends. He should say hello. He was sure that would be nice. Still, he hesitated. For no reason and yet he still did not jump at this possibility. On the contrary, he had to push himself even though it was a push towards people he liked. For a moment, he shifted his weight from one foot to the other and back again. This was a warm-up and a collecting of resources. Then he knocked on the window in the door. They noticed him and he had to go inside now. “Good morning.”, John greeted. Becky answered with a “Hello, how are you?”, while Rose waved and nodded. “What are you doing?”, John asked to avoid an awkward break. Becky was still looking at him. “We got permission to use the school´s telescope to track the asteroid tonight.”, Becky explained. “It has a projector and with this camera here, we will be able to record the passage of our little friend while it passes through the night sky. We just set it up now before class.” “Interesting.” John strolled closer to the telescope while being careful not to touch anything. “Yeah.”, Rose added, “I hope the asteroid breaks open and reveals a truth about the nature of nature that is so unexpected, belittling, and unsettling, that it drops us into sheer horror.” John looked at her decisively unsurprised. “Or maybe it is just a cool image of an asteroid. Astronomy rocks and space is great.”, Rose more pretended to emote than said. But then she paused and added sincerely: “There is beauty among the stars.” “With some luck…,”, Becky added, completely serious, while finishing up with some adjustments, “We will get another glimpse at the vastness that surrounds us. How could not look at the sky with curiosity.” “Tonight you say?”, John inquired. “Yes.”, Becky answered. “Around midnight, it should be dark enough and we should be able to see it even with the naked eye.” “Will you be here and watch it?” “No.”, Rose said, stretching the o maybe a bit more than it was called for. “They do not want us here at night. So we have to set this up and hope for a great recording.” “Well… hope it works out.” John smiled at Becky and nodded at Rose. Then he excused himself and headed for the couches. He did not want to sleep just outside the astronomy room. So he went to the relatively lumpy couches in the Art building, named after local celebrity Burton Art. Becky and Rose continued to set up the telescope until the doors closed behind John. Rose peeked over the telescope and through the windows in the doors. When she saw that John was beyond earshot, she nodded as if she was part of a secret ring of spies. “Nice nice.”, Becky uttered in lieu of anything more substantial to say and tried to look even more busy. “Yeah. Nice how nice you two still are with another.”, Rose probed. “Almost as if it did not hurt.” “Hm…”, Becky answered. “It still does hurt a little. But it just was not… Well, it does still hurt. There´s a scar now on the heart. Maybe it´s healing, sometimes it feels like that. So it won´t hurt in the future or only when the weather is about to change. In any case, I feel that it´ll stay in some form.” “Sounds at least like it was real.”, Rose concluded and duck back down behind the telescope. The day that had begun so early dragged on in the middle. Biology class was turned into self-study by the absence of the regular teacher and the lack of a qualified substitute. John flipped through the textbook with his right, while his head rested on his left. There were not going to be any more test or quizzes or projects this year. Knowing that, John did not pay much attention to the contents of the pages and let his thoughts wander. “Do you think you would notice it as different when you were a duck?”, he quietly asked Neil who sat next to him. “Up until now I thought this self-study was even less useful than sex ed last week.”, Neil moaned loudly instead of giving an answer. Nearby, sitting at a bench next to Becky, Rose snickered. Some other students laughed, most were indifferent and bored. The moment passed. “Like, if you woke up tomorrow and were a duck. Would you remember how it was to be a person? Would you want to remember?”, John continued. “All I can say to this is: I hope not – on the duck thing. My uncle hunts those. This would make for super awkward Thanksgivings.” Meanwhile Becky read the newspaper, searching out the reports on the asteroid. “You cannot pretend to do biology while actually doing some work on another science.”, Rose insisted as she noticed. “That is like cheating. A weird way of cheating, but still… You should at least cheat on biology with social studies, or history. English or a foreign language would work as well, I guess.” “What are you doing?”, Becky asked back, looked up from the paper and at her friend. Rose pointed to her sketch pad. “Take it in. These are the initial drawings of the cycle of Solomar. You see them here as first mortal before they conquer the world by storm.”, Rose exclaimed. “Looks great.”, Becky said, studying the drawings. “I like this lone heroine. Looks a bit like a barbarian, like as if she was about wrestle with a dragon.” “How do you know that she is a lone heroine?”, Rose asked. “She’s one of yours.”, Becky said. At some point, the time for self-study officially ended. The students packed their things quickly into their bags and were in the midst of storming out. Neil strolled over to Rose and Becky, braving the current of leaving classmates. “Rose, you have a minute? There is something we should talk about. Something important.”, Neil announced. “Important like art, or just like life and death?”, Rose inquired while stuffing her textbook in her backpack. “Or like love?”, Becky added with a side-glance at Rose. Neil hesitated, clearly thinking about a reply. “Super important. This is about the social studies project we did together.”, he explained. “The one we handed in and got a grade? I thought the circle was completed, the fate sealed.”, Rose answered. She then waved Becky a short goodbye as Becky was leaving for English less prepared than she could have been. “Yeah, let´s see about that. I don´t think that it should be sealed. We should talk to Ms. French about the grade. -See you Becky.- Fran agrees with me on that. Let´s meet her now and go to Ms. French.” “Ok. But afterwards it is lunch time. Actually, I think it is lunch time now – but if you insist, I will postpone my meal. I hope you will use this chunk of my life time gifted to you to a proper end.”, Rose stated and grabbed her bag. “Of course. Have I ever wasted my or anybody else’s time?”, Neil replied. Both they then left the classroom and made her way to the Art building and Ms. French´s office. The cafeteria was emptier than usual. Rose and Neil had no problems finding an empty table. “Told you that it would go well. We just had to highlight the amount of work that had gone into the project.”, Neil repeated. “Hm.”, Rose replied and then decided to dig into the pasta instead of expanding on that. “I mean, your contribution was obvious. The illustrations were both bloody and really good. They might have distracted Ms. French a bit. It was her fault, though, as she gave us this particular topic. Thanks for showing up with Fran and me anyway. Now we can be satisfied with the grades.”, Neil said, a fork with food hovering close to his mouth. Rose nodded. “It was a fun project. We should hang out more often. Like we used to in the golden days of our youth. Like, like we used to up until a few weeks ago.”, she added. “Yeah.”, he put down the fork again. “Only… weird without the other two and weird with them now. That was easier before.” “True.” She eyed a suspicious lump in the red sauce. “There is one group-thingy I like and now it is that… weird. I wonder if they thought about what they are doing to us when they… did what they did. Now we are like a family, divorce and all.” “Hah, true.”, Neil exclaimed and then finally took a bite. “Maye we can educate the others and reduce the awkwardness.” “There’s only so much time before everybody moves away for college next year.”, Neil said in a low voice, leaving it open if this was unclear if this was an argument for or against. “Oh.”, Rose grunted. “Maybe we should not have sought to improve our grades then. And we should find a way to drag the ones of the others down. Then we can repeat a year or two or more. Stupid maybe, but happy.” “Yeah… no. Not sure if this would even work.” Neil decided it was time to go over to the dessert. “So this remains an issue for future me an you. It is also for future Becky and John, of course.”, Rose suggested. She discovered that the lump was just an oddly shaped noodle and ate without concern. “Future me and future you, future us, and them too.”, Neil repeated. Both he and Rose lifted their heads, smiled, and listened in anticipation. Instead of music, Becky arrived with a food trey and sat down next to Rose. “Hi. How are you two?”, Becky asked. “We are doomed due to our feelings and the feelings of others.”, Rose declared. “Of course we are. But who are the others this time?”, Becky wondered. Rose sighed theatrically and Neil smirked before shaking his head. After lunch, Rose and Becky had some time before the next class that was not already assigned to any task or activity and went outside. Rose walked directly to one of the battered blue payphones and punched in a number. “Hello, I would like to talk to the Ericsons, please. Yes, whoever of them is available right now… I am their daughter. The other one. Yes… thank you Mr. nurse.” While Rose talked to the bodiless voice in a strange city, Becky settled in the corner made by the phone and the concrete wall of the main building. There was a pause as Rose waited for her parents. Becky imagined how now their names would be called out over PA, how one of them would move through the hallways of the hospital, looking for the next available phone. While she imagined this, Becky looked across the school parking lot and then beyond its chain-link fence at the town across the small straight. It was nestled on that small ragged island with curved bays and towering cliffs with sharp edges. It was a rugged place between the ocean and the mainland. It was as if the town was clinging to a rock among the waves. There were a lot of houses with great views as they were built close to the cliffs. Even greater must have been the view for the cedars. The trees filled still the spaces people had left for them. Some crept very close to the edges and others even hang out a bit over the ocean, just barely hanging on to the rock. And yet they did. They even managed to reach out to the sky. Some storms were strong enough to break them and take them away. But a number of them was still left. Becky had some favourites among these cedars. Old and brave ones she always sought out when she had a minute to look out over her home town. Faster than expected, Rose was connected. She exchanged individual words with one of her parents. By the sound of this, it was her mother. No, Becky decided after three more words, probably it was her dad. “Well but that is good… like, given the situation. Hugh her from me… if, if this is possible. …Yeah. Bye.” Rose hung up. “Well that was… yeah, good. At least she is fine. For the moment at least she is fine. That is a win.” Becky turned towards her friend and nodded, then laid an arm around her shoulders. “Yes it is, Rose. I´m glad she’s doing ok.” John stood, his bike and himself ready to leave, already on the parking lot, a few steps away from the main building. Neil, on the other hand, still fiddled with his padlock, aiming to free his bike, but as of yet unable to make that plan a reality. Then he stopped suddenly in mid-fiddling. “Shit… should take a look and check if Pete has locked the commissary. I guess I should.” Neil wavered a bit. “Yes, should do that.” He let the padlock be for the moment and sprinted back to the main entrance. “Maybe go ahead without me. We can meet at my place. One of my parents is probably home. They´ll let you in. And if it´s my dad, you might get some chocolate milk while you wait.”, Neil said to John over his shoulder. “No. It´s ok.”, replied John. “I´ll wait. Let´s go together.” Neil gesticulated vaguely but then nodded. When he passed the doors and went into the main building, he passed Rose, and both gave each other high fives in passing. Rose then made her way to John. She stopped beside him on the parking lot under the warm sun. “All done for the day?”, Rose inquired. “Yes, all done.”, he reported. “Not just for today even. There is nothing going on tomorrow, right? Besides getting on the bus, I mean.” “True. So you are good and settled for the whole year then. Great!” “You?” “I am done as well. Done and done. Except for the asteroid business, but this is more of an extra credit and in any case something I do more to give a hand to Becky.”, Rose replied. “Look at us. We got all taken care of. So if we were to die now, we leave nothing behind that can further bind us as wraiths to this plane of existence.” “Lucky us.”, John smiled. “Could be an interesting experience to be a wraith, though.” “Nah.” Rose shook her head. “Probably not. Besides, that is something that you can try in the far-away future after dying of old age.” She mustered him. “How is our story going?” “It is going well… I hope. Maybe a few more weeks of work and then it is ready to be rejected like the other ones.” Rose nodded gravely before cocking her head and smiling a bit mischievously. “Well if this is not something to live for.” She was about to add something, but in this moment, Becky drove towards the two. She stopped the car and let the passenger side door swing open for Rose to get in. “Have a good one.”, John said. “See you.”, Rose gave back. “And remember: Always create something that, if aliens from the future would find it as only surviving artefact of our civilization would understand us at least a bit. Picture mankind naked and write about it.” “Will do.”, John said and laughed. Then he and Becky exchanged a smile and a wave, before the girls got into the truck and drove off. John was not alone for long, though. Neil returned right afterwards. “Oh, should have asked her to give us a lift.”, Neil exclaimed. “She’d have done it.” “Of course Becky would have done it.”, John said flatly. “Her pickup even has space for bikes in the back. That would have been great.” “We are not really going in their direction.”, John replied. Neil just shrugged and then went to unlock and unchain his bike. “Could transport at least one caged dinosaur on that truck. God, how I miss that old rusty lady.”, Neil exclaimed. After a brief pause, he added: “I mean the truck. With old lady, I mean the vehicle.” He then finally was able to open his rusty lock and free his bike. He went over to John and both took to their saddles and started to bike down to town. “Think Becky is going to sell her car when she moves for college?”, Neil wondered aloud and very eager to move the conversation forward. “Ask her. But do not take it for free.” As everything failed, there was nothing left but drifting into the cold darkness. All that while the mind raced and tried to imagine the end. A whole world was about to lose itself in the eternal night. The end and the way there would be lonely. Soon it would end, but the time until then was still long. Too long not to fear madness before the darkness. But then there was a little blue spot shining in all the darkness. Maybe this one was hospitable enough, close enough to save a life.

[shipfishwrites]

Survey: P.E.R.N. Summary

So, to begin: Pern is an acronym now. Of course it is. What a dumb reveal.

And, to further begin: “this pernicious system” is in the first line of the story, and that really ought to be the name of this blog.

Briefly: A team of people have been sent by the government (?) to look at interesting solar systems to see if they are habitable or useful for commercial interests. The story focuses on the exploration of this one habitable planet with weird dead patches on it. The team finds the planet is pretty much fine. They discover some plants and animals. (This is exciting if you can recognize them already.) Then they leave.

The Characters

Castor: he/him, no field given except perhaps Captain. Shavva: she/her, biologist, “latent qualities as a nexialist,” doubling as a botanist. “Now the default leader of the understaffed team.” the viewpoint character? Ben Turnien: he/him, geologist with some chemist in him. Sevvie Asturias: ?, paleontologist-medic, deceased Flora Neveshan: ?, zoologist-botanist, deceased Terbo: ?, zoologist-chemist, deceased Beldona: ?, second pilot and archaeologist, deceased Mo Tan Liu: he/him, nexialist, “[will] investigate whatever remaining aspects of the planet they had time to consider.”

The Events

The short story/ramble begins with Castor being pissy. (Get used to it, it’s his only character trait.) He and Shavva are having a conversation about the approach their vessel is on to their target, the third planet of a system. Shavva mentions that they will be entering normal to the ecliptic (sci-fi speak for at a right angle to the plane the planets orbit in) so they will only get to investigate the one planet, not the “heavy-weight planets” (super-earths? neptunian icey boys? gas giants? unclear) or the Oort cloud.

~ foreshadowing ~

Castor uses the word “fardles.” This is a future word for “fucking hell.” The two of them bicker about having to “double up” on investigatory duties during a trip to the surface. Ben pipes in with punchy comment that leads Castor to almost-mention that four people have died on this mission already. Two died (Flora, Sevvie) just on the last planet visited; this planet was acronymed D.E., dead end. Terbo was killed a while back, on a planet with Intelligent Life Found. Beldona died on a world Good Only For Large, Diversified Interests. Four people have died on this tour while previously they had been through four other missions unharmed. The system they are entering is identified as Rukbat; this is fifth of seven scheduled stops.

Castor can’t go down to the surface because his leg is broken. He appoints himself the holder-down-of-the-fort, and he’ll analyze all the samples and stuff the rest of the team sends back. Liu jumps in at this time (he didn’t get a line earlier, before “the four remaining team members each vividly recalled” some people dying, which is sloppy), saying he’s going to send some probes to look at the planet he’s nicknamed Numero Tres. He adds that “Federated Sentient Planets” needs to be sent a report about the recent deaths, which Castor does huffily.

Shavva does offer to do it, but Castor wants to gripe while he does it.

The Oort cloud is mentioned again. I should add that, unlike Kuiper belts, Oort clouds completely envelop solar systems on all sides; the ship should have been able to analyze the section of the cloud they zipped through even if it was on the normal. 

Ben talks about a “space virus” theory of planetary death and/or Oort cloud existence. Two of the planets they had visited this mission had had life but was stripped: Ben acknowledges he has no idea about one, but the other he theorizes to have been sterilized by repeated asteroid impacts. Ben thinks the space virus thing is bunk; Castor teases him about a Hoyle Wickramansingh theory; Ben thinks it’s bunk; Liu says yeah but that one fits all the particulars -- “What we really need is one in the process of being stripped.”

~ foreshadowing ~

I’d like to note that these theories are never mentioned again, despite being the obvious answer to a mystery presented on the next page.

There is a bit of narration as we learn a touch more about the mission and the people. Their specialties are introduced, their organization is introduced, and there is a brief overview of what sort of life and geology they will be looking for. Shavva mourns that she joined the Exploration and Evaluation Corps for the cool discoveries but didn’t expect to see her friends die.

The specialties, by the way, are weird? Like Ben is supposedly, after a ten-day whirlwind tour, supposed to be able to tell the geologic history of the planet for the last million years, and possibly find evidence of mass extinctions. Uh..... what? Did AM not know that mass extinctions are hard to find? In fact we kind of discovered a new one like, last year? Also Shavva is supposedly going to be able to make decent guesses as to whether native pollinators will be able to handle human crops, and whether things are majorly toxic. That... is not how ecology or toxicology work.

Also, I’d like to make another note: the deaths mentioned frequently throughout the story don’t amount to anything. They add Zero meaning to the story; it would progress no differently with the team was originally composed of four members, not eight.

Anyway, the probe data comes back, and it’s all the Pern stuff -- .9 G gravity, oceans, land, vegetation. Some volcanoes in a “chain of islands extending from the southern hemisphere” (that’s a foreshadow) and... oops, some weird circles? The pictures the probe sends back show barren “groups of circular patches, like ripples overlapping each other”. Ben thinks it might be a fungus.

The narration says Castor blames himself for the deaths, earlier, and that’s why he’s mean. Boo-hoo.

We cut to Shavva landing the shuttle in a grassland that seems suspiciously like the Landing field. Shavva thinks the terrain and air and such are quite nice and unspoiled, and the team begins to take measurements. The find nothing amiss with the barren soil, and note that plants are beginning to re-take the earth. Shavva notes “Great wind systems on this planet,” as if she’s visited the whole thing and not just one field. The team begins to hop west, chasing the sun, taking samples and soil cores and venture a bit inland to take rock cores. The planet doesn’t seem to have much “easily accessible ore or mineral wealth.”

They overnight at a beautiful cove that seems suspiciously like the location of Cove Hold. They same some algae, remark upon exoskeleton-having marine life, and find a motile fungus (???). They spot larger creatures in the water, then build a fire to keep themselves warm, and also to attract bugs. Liu seems disturbed that they haven’t found any large land animals yet.

Ben says they saw fat flying creatures earlier, those count. Liu disagrees. He thinks the ecology is missing elements. (You’re right, Liu. I like you.)

The next day, they go on to the ice caps and take some cores, then they head off to the norther of the two continents. Liu is worried about not seeing large animals and Shavva avoids a “reptiloid” animal... which is 10 cm wide and 7m long. Um.... Anne? That’s more than 21 feet. That’s a Large Animal. Also Liu calls the birds “wherries” because he recalls the name of a kind of barge. There is an unclear number of species; “two identifiable types” are mentioned, but it’s unclear whether that’s two species or large wherry and then some small ones or one big and one small. They find bugs, “a thousand types”, and eggs. (Dragonet eggs.)

They go to a tar pit and find 50kya ruminant fossils. Also apparently the grass isn’t grass? It’s not silica-rich, so why would ruminants have evolved anyway. Confusing and bad. (Anyway, this 50kya number is important: it is when I estimate thread began falling.)

Also, they find a “diamond pipe” in a rift valley fault. Shavva takes a hunk of diamond the size of her fist. (What was that about no mineral wealth?? Apparently diamonds aren’t valuable anymore, the galactic economy uses different cool gems now. Probably a lowkey shout-out to the Crystal Singers series.)

Ben, Liu, and Shavva talk a little bit more about how pleasant Numero Tres is to work on; Liu isn’t fully convinced there isn’t a problem, but he grudgingly agrees that yeah, this planet at least has earned an initial P.E., Parallel Earth. The team goes north and stops on Ista island. They find a tiny horrible creature who is my baby now who has no mouth and at least two tentacles, who gets spined by a needlethorn. The team packs up the spent needlethorn for analysis.

That night, as they prepare to send the day’s samples to Castor, Liu finds some glow-fungus. It’s cute. He calls it “Some kind of luminous variety of mycelium” which is a really weird way to say “glowing fungus.” Then, interrupting Liu playing peekaboo with the glow-light, the team hears some peeping and they go see a fair of dragonets -- in all colors -- playing games in the forest. All of the characters are quick to call these creatures magnificent and beautiful and gorgeous. They agree the creatures are “marginally sentient”. Ben hopes they’ll find large, related organisms for Liu to squeal over.

~ foreshadowing ~

They go look at reef systems the next day. Then they go to the tropical eastern peninsula (Nerat) and look at more reefs, which are apparently growing so old that they have fossils going back 500 my. Whaaaaaaat the fuck. You mean the oceans haven’t moved? This one spot. Has just been growing the same coral. For half-a-billion years. AM what the fuck.

Ben notes that the rainforest isn’t “stale-mated” which he thinks reinforces his theory about a recent meteorite storm, but which is actually a fairly subtle note about threadfall. Also, dude, you’ve found no geological evidence of impacts. So.... space virus it has to be.

The narration switches abruptly to talking about the circles, letting you know What Was Just Discussed It Relevant, and it is noted that the circles aren’t descructive enough to be meteorite impacts. The circles occur everywhere except the ice caps and “one small band of the southern hemisphere” (why???).

They do some more coring and go over the central delta area of the northern continent, noting that the area of Crom and Telgar has lodes of various minerals like iron and bauxite -- but it’s not enough goods to interest a mining consortium. They even find impressive gold nuggets just laying out in a stream: Shavva takes one the size of the end of her thumb.

And then... The part I like the least about this story. Shavva finds a tree with some good-smelling bark. And then... you have to know where this is going...

She boils it and drinks it. 

I’m.

Hey, Anne? That’s not how anything works. First of all, Shavva is a fucking idiot for eating some tree skin from an alien planet. Like, a fruit? A fruit I could get, fruits have been evolved for animals to eat them (not Earth animals, but still) but bark is Not Edible. There are only a very few barks on Earth that are edible and none of them are foods  they are spices. Shavva what the fuck!! Also! It’s fucking obvious that you’d have to dry and cure the klahbark before you can consume it! Why would you want some bitter, sappy, wet bark boiled in a pot to drink! Fucking eww!

Also Liu’s inner narration says “he, too, found the odor stimulating to his salivary glands” which is a really weird way to say “it smelled tasty.” Ben tries the second draft, which is brewed like a coffee, and gives the standard Klah Description (coffee, chocolate, but a little spicy). I’d also like to note it took No Breeding to get the klahbark perfectly edible and delicious. I’m just really mad about this one particular thing because it is so egregious.

Aaaand then the story starts to wrap up; the three are happy to let Castor call the planet Parallel Earth, Resources Negligible, unless they discover something crazy in the soil analyses that we never heard back about. Castor goes ahead and puts that tiny little c next to the acronym, because it can be colonized.

“That is, if any colonial group wanted to settle on a pastoral planet, far off the established trade routes, and about as far from the center of the Federated Sentient headquarters as one could go in the known galaxy.”

~ foreshadowing ~

[cruddyborderlandstheories]

“i had a dream about the Borderlands are Yours trailer last night for like the 7th time so i guess i ought to do the analysis before i have a breakdown”

find the trailer here

~discussion of the cloth map spoilers occurs in here, but nothing else. if you’re worried about those spoilers do not read~

non-spoiler tl;dr: we discuss why rhys’s head implant is yellow instead of blue in this one particular scene and also go thru a bunch of theories as to what tf is up with Zer0. and some other stuff about giant space lasers

so the intro is pretty much the same as the we are mayhem trailer so we’re gonna ignore that since we figured out where sanc-iii was

pretty sure this scene has been shown already too, in the official announce trailer, i remember taking note of the pink shots

another cov camp on pandora (see elpis in the back). ive said it before and ill say it again i adore amara’s as animations

seen this a bajillion times as well

from we are mayhem near the end. also im still lowkey convinced that robot directly to the right of moze is jakobs. i know i’m probably wrong but... i want to believe. it reminds me of a cowboy

The Are. this is directly below Sanc-III (u can see the wall in the background)

eden-6!!! im interested in the signs in the back there

Prison, Reliance, Jakobs Estate, and... amoe kyuri??? wtf does this say?? idek.

This A Way (glad to know Claptrap will haunt us from beyond Sanc-III)

im interested in the Prison. i wonder if that’s any of those concrete structures/buildings we’ve been seeing across eden-6. i was under the assumption those were like testing facilities, but a prison would also make a whole hell of a lot of sense.

actually

given this sign here over the bridge to the left of the above shot

and the fact we see this concrete structure on the far left in this coming shot

that might actually make some lick of sense...

also can i just say i love the aesthetic of this supply line

so there’s a lot of shots here we’ve already seen and gone over multiple times, im not going to do that again. sorry but... eh.

maliwan = cultists confirmed

i mean if the cult-themed t-shirts being maliwan colored didn’t already cue us in on that, this definitely should lol

and speaking of this shot, i wonder if this has anything to do with Rhys’s building? the one his office would be in. it looks like there are multiple levels to the right of this robo

ah maliwan working with the cult why am i not surprised

rhys gets fucking annihilated (TM)

in all honesty... given this quest name

“Space-Laser Tag” and the subsequent quest “Atlas, At Last” makes me honestly think rhys is about to seriously get fucked up

which sucks. i like rhys. we’ll talk more about this in a second, but i don’t think its coincidence the VHs have come up to the asteroid belt to stop the giant space laser and thus are not on Promethea where the laser is going to hit

better look at this shot, that definitely looks like a rampager to me. i get it, i think. gearbox is hyping up this rampager fight to be super awesome, show it in all the promotional material, have a kickass fight with it, then the twins come in and steal the kill from you. they steal the satisfaction from getting to kill this super hyped-up vault monster.

im picking up what you’re putting down, GB. 

did not realize fl4k actually snaps. how the heck do they do that?? gotta be hard with metal caps as their fingers tbh

404 space station not found

we’re back on the asteroid

... why this gun shoot tentacles :|

this is art

wheres his head going

i was so distracted by the razor blade status effect (??? zeroes??) i didn’t notice the giant-ass A on this banner

OwO what’s this for

~A~

also this which... looks like it could be an amara skill. maybe the one that releases elemental projectiles after an enemy is damaged? feel like we would’ve seen that one already tho.

thinking of this one, im pretty sure we should’ve seen this in one of the many, many gameplay videos (im so jealous) already available.

so if it is, baller, if it’s not, im not too surprised.

it does also seem to be targeting the double cause its shield becomes visible after being hit

i thiiink this is eden-6? in which case it may be that facility tina, brick, and mordy are in (the windows). which may, in retrospect, be that prison we’ve been hearing about

cool angle of the HBC. im pretty sure we’ve seen this shot before, too.

before we get to the actual best part of this scene

this looks very Athenas-like. possibly eridian? although the lights are throwing me off. i suppose the order or someone from the order could’ve built these structures... but what for??

heheheh

also this fucker has those rocks growing out of his head, too

the ones from the alien guns

somewhere outside the RC

back at it again in the space station

also this maliwan thing looks so fucking cool

duuuude looks like the cult got their hands on more than just maliwan hoverwheels, check out that dropship on the left!!! looking cool asf

the cars are STUNNING

holy shit this skin is amazing

very siren-esque

we’ve gone over this clip already but given now that we know the maliwan base thing is on the asteroid, it’s fitting to re-address it i think

a look at one of the metal bois (that im still convinced are jakobs lol)

i love the way this thing looks

the portal seems to be giving off the same blue sparkles we’ve seen on pandora

these

[edit] we also see them in the newest new trailer as Sanc-III zooms off into space. which is interesting.

dunno wtf that means, but yeah. they exist

probably some weird eridian/other dimension shit.

more eden-6

goliath looking amazing. not red and is wearing a helmet, so that’s interesting

looks like a part of the space station

biggggg hallway. im honestly loving how huge these maps seem to be

geniviv! i love her boss fight sooo fucking much.

honestly looks like so much fun

more c a r s

this fucker

probably eridian

i mean it seems to be absorbing the pink-ish energy from the moving stones so i assume its got some sort of link going on

also comparing the mask and arm bit to what we’ve seen rhys hand us on promethea

this thing???

but yellow instead of pink

u kno all this

ye

then again it does sorta ruin the eridian tech so maybe... it’s not lol

honestly my other guess is this is part of that ‘experimental forest’ we’ve seen signs for during the eden-6 demo. dunno why it’s destroying the eridian ruins tho. maybe those pink b e a m s are hurting it? entirely possible. some sorta... life succ ability like Tyreen.

but i don’t think it’s coincidence this thing has shown up right on top of some Eridian ruins/buildings/whatever. the leftmost part though looks like it could be human technology, which is weird. maybe some weird sort of mish mash. human tech that trees/plants grew onto and eridian ruins accidentally powered up. iunno man. im tiored.

rhys’s implant is glowing orange/yellow-ish which is very new

this is from the dev trailer (not glowing at all in the darkness)

from the promethea twitter trailer

and honestly that’s pretty wild to me because in tftbl rhys’s implant glows blue 

shown when he’s in the vault next to fiona

in bl3 during the We Are Mayhem trailer while using his ECHO eye

oh also since i just noticed

from the promethea demo

this scene

also from the promethea demo

they’re missing their monomolecular edge!

we’ll get back to zer0 in a secco

anyway you know who else’s head implant glows?

im not saying katagawa is replacing rhys because their implants are on opposite sides of their heads, but i am saying Katagawa WANTS Rhys in Maliwan and... well, Rhys’s forehead implant isn’t glowing yellow in any other shot we see of him

idk gamers i just think its sus

also rhys is holding onto that thing we see him handing to us in the Promethea trailer

this thing?? you know?

the eridian thingie majig

tho these look like two different areas... unless there’s like a very drastic wall change between angles (which there may be- these fans look identical)

which makes sense that Maliwan would want it (for the big laser thing maybe?? since we know they’re going for activating said laser)

... but honestly i get the feeling this is in some way related to... after the laser. especially since we know that that eridian thingie matches up with this one on pandora

in which case... wtf is the laser for? it definitely looks like its destroying stuff on the surface...

rhys also seems to have knowledge about the eden-6 vault key since he projects it during the dev trailer

me thinks someone got h a c k e r o n i e d

alright galaxy brain theory time:

rhys gets hacked by maliwan not only bc they want a merger, but also because he has info on the vaults/giant space laser, forces zer0 to be maliwan branded now since atlas is joining maliwan, zer0 finds out rhys is not willingly joining maliwan and is instead under maliwan control and tries to forcibly take the key away from him, we stop zer0 and save rhys from both the assassin and maliwan control

🤷‍♂️

Alright but in all seriousness there’s only 2 ways this can go

1. that’s actually our zer0

2. that’s actually not our zer0

and there’s a lot of theories running around about that and i guess we ought to address them

so for 1 there’s a few possibilities:

1. zer0 is a robo/cyborg and got hacked by maliwan (i personally don’t like this one bc i don’t want to know what zer0 actually is. it is a ~m y s t e r y~)

2. zer0 got paid more money to eliminate rhys and is doing so

3. zer0 decided killing their boss would be the ultimate challenge and thus decided to try it out... by joining maliwan

4. they’re faking rhys’s death and/or zer0 is infiltrating maliwan

5. zer0 got the brainwashed/their bodysuit got hacked (i would be interested to see if the monomolecular edge tech caused them to get captured or smth. i mean if there’s a tracker on it, then zer0′s decepti0n wouldn’t exactly work cuz they turn invisible... but they’d still be seen)

6. rhys got the brainwashed/hacked and zer0 is attacking him to get the eridian thingie/key/relic/whatever back

personally i’m curious how they’d play off 1-3 given Zer0 and Rhys are both shown on sanc-iii and zer0 even has crew challenges

im saying idk if the crimson raiders would appreciate zer0 attacking/trying to kill an ally without very good reason.

which is why i’d imagine 4-6 are the more reasonable answers?

also given the explosion of Promethea (what we’re assuming is Promethea) is green and also the laser we see maliwan controlling is purple, i wonder if that’s some brainwashing juice instead of... other stuff. cuz like.

this is elpis’s giant space laser. very radiant and like... ribbon-y? and has all that blue stuff and orbs and mm.

THIS is Promethea’s very solid and has circles and just. looks straight up like a death laser.

and yeah again it could be modified by that human-looking (?) tech around it to be like a brainwashing b e a m or something

or just more precise. that too.

and honestly idk if this could destroy a planet like how we see the planet (that we are assuming is promethea bc of the asteroid belt) in the sanc-iii article

it’s a solid ‘yeah that’s more likely than my theory’. might take a lot of time tho. or maybe those energy rings power it up or deal more damage when they hit the planet...

oh also given Tina literally says “WE blowing up this whole mother humpa”

and the reason im questioning the human-looking tech around it is because

typhon and leda 100% noticed something here. i guess if it was altered by humans after typhon and leda found it then that would make sense?

we’ve also got this from the tree guy, so i don’t know for certain.

anyway number 2

(2. that’s actually not our zer0)

i love these ones

1. that’s 0ne (zer0′s assassin’s assassin from the son of crawmerax dlc)

2. maliwan made a/hired a copy of zer0 and it’s easy to copy their voice/way of speech bc of the modulator (that’s just a fake implanted into atlas to steal all their secrets)

and all of these have the idea that the real zer0 shows up to save rhys at the end of this scene (explaining the blue light)

this

i personally disagree on that being zer0′s sword. tbh it looks more like a maliwan weapon or a laser or smth to me. that said it could be a weird effect because they’re in decepti0n or smth.

most of these theories have the idea that the real zer0 is either off with Fiona or Lorelei or just off on their own and only show up later. i wouldn’t even be surprised, given their line at the end of Tales. you know the one where they diss rhys like “i was talking to her” lol

so i don’t really have much to add to these. personally i believe that’s our zer0 up there, but i wouldn’t be shocked if something happened with the monomolecular edge that allowed maliwan to create a copy of zer0. or brainwash/control them. whichever. 

i do like the reintegration of 0ne into the story, that’d be a hilarious call-back, but i worry it’d be too obscure (a side quest in a headhunter dlc) for the majority of players. we’ll see

it’s weird if brainwashing or mind controlling thru the maliwan tech is the case bc the monomolecular edge isn’t present on their maliwan sword. or their future sanc-iii sword (but that part DOES make sense bc why would they keep that).

(alright also so i just took a bunch of nyquil cuz im sick as a dog so if this devolves into incoherent rambling im so sorry)

ah aurelia

i love her to bits but i don’t trust her because i mean... she worked alongside Nisha and Wilhelm and Alistair dislikes her. there’s like a 50-50 shot she’ll become evil

i would not be surprised if this is a boss fight (door looks frozen over on the left there) but also i would not be surprised if she’s helping us fight off waves of enemies given it looks like we’re in the jakobs manor

like i said 50-50

her attack does make the camera wiggle a bit, usually that happens if the attack injures the player viewing it (with the hud off) cuz it will give a stagger effect

so take that with a grain of salt. also we don’t see aurelia on sanc-iii when hammerlock and wainwright are both there in the group shot in the launch trailer

this fucker i already talked about a bunch in my reddit post on the eridium subject so im going to link that here. i might have already spoken about it on here tbh... i can’t remember lol

anyway here’s the copy and paste from there to here

you can see a huge Tink with Eridium growing out of his head and what look to be Eridium horns. And he's being elementally charged from an Eridian floor tile (in one of those temples, probably the Pandoran one but it could be Athenas, I guess). Kind of like how Bloodwing (also bigger) becomes elementally charged by Jack using element-throwers to change her element. i know it's a cultist tink because on his right shoulder (our left) he has those glow-y pink/purple tubes that are on the CoV guns and other cultists (like goliaths). and while i'm not sure if this is solely Eridian stuff (since they're in a temple) or because of the twins, it's definitely something that should be talked about. 

wait no yeah i did talk about this because of the athenas post. i just remembered lol

uhhh whoops. double dipping i guess lol sorry

still not sure if this is Pandora or Athenas. kind leaning towards Pandora atm

i like how this guy is able to make a cryo wall thing

he goes to smash it but we don’t get to see what happens cuz it cuts to another rampager

dishing out corrosive/radiation (??) attacks while someone shoots it with a fire weapon

this bamf which i KNOW i discussed in that athenas post

also something i haven’t noted is that his roar seems to be activating something here, like a spiral light of dooooom. also more blue sparkles. maybe summoning an assist? or a debuff/attack aoe. 

there is also this weird light near its legs that moves with the camera and sorta reminds me of the weird real-life face talky siren thing. you know the one

very curious as to what this is cause i haven’t seen it in any other scene with a rampager in it. maybe some sort of connection to the spiral/whirlwind thing it’s making?

oh wow im tired now lol

well bl3 is fully downloaded on my computer gamers, so we can officially say it’s happening!!!

[larryfanfiction]

Apocalypse AU 

🔥 red hands by reveries_passions 

“I’ve never told anyone,” Harry murmurs, voice so soft no one else would be able to hear, if it wasn’t just the two of them.

“But you’ve told someone,” Louis tells him firmly. “And that’s not gonna fucking happen around here. You don’t speak a word of it, or someone’s going to kill you, and we can’t let that happen.”

a dystopian au in which harry, an ex-soldier who’s escaped from his government run camp, accidentally stumbles across the biggest rebel movement in the country, and louis, one of the rebellion’s mysterious leaders who appears to hate him, seems to simultaneously have an obsession with keeping him alive. or: harry is wanted for treason, niall hasn’t changed in four years, liam is always smiling, and louis is angry. like, really angry.

🔥 you’ll always be my thunder by tomorrows (4k)

Louis doesn’t let himself think about it. He doesn’t think of The List or LA or the cobblestone streets he knows like the back of his hand by now. He ignores the way the sun reflects off the gold band on his finger and decidedly puts on the peppiest, most sickeningly upbeat tunes on his phone. The sound of Anne’s voice was enough for him, he thinks. Now it’s just a matter of coping. He wonders if he’s got the strength to ignore the pain in his chest for that long, until the end of his life, he presumes.

Based on these tags where a two-year long zombie apocalypse finally comes to an end and Louis and Harry don’t know if the other’s survived.

🔥 A King Beside You by stylinsoncity (26k)

When the aliens invade, the last thing Louis expects is to fall in love.

🔥 With a whimper by kitundercover (132k)

Dystopian AU. Louis has been alone for too long to remember how not to be, and Harry has too much to worry about to deal with a scrawny, wild, stranger. —

The man grips his arm tightly. “You’re not going to say anything.” It’s not a question.

Louis shakes his head, his body twitching.

“Fine.” Large green eyes survey him before letting go. “It’s cold. Take this. Wear it.”

Louis can’t help another flinch as the man’s long scarf is wrapped around his tender neck, it’s still warm. He touches the soft material. “Thank you.”

The man bears his teeth. “Don’t thank me. Don’t ever thank me.”

🔥 build me up and keep me warm by avatarlahey (21k)

Zombie/Warm Bodies AU. One day Harry wakes up and he’s dead. Or undead. Dead, but not dead. Whatever. This is his life and it kinda sucks, but Harry likes to think that there’s more waiting for him beyond the coldness of his heart.

or

The one where Harry yearns for something warm, Louis won’t stop talking, Zayn and Liam are out for zombie blood, and Niall is Harry’s zombie best friend who thinks his name is Naill.

🔥 Converging Fates by ForeverRememberLarryStylinson (83k)

The one where the world has mutated and become far more vicious, harsh, and deadly than ever before. It’s a survival of the fittest world, and only those whom are able to conceive children are kept to live. Most who aren’t, are left out to die.

Louis Tomlinson can conceive.

Harry Styles is the leader of a cult.

Together, there is fire.

🔥 When the World Comes Down by blue_marauder (6k)

“I wouldn’t breathe the same air as him even if we were the only two people on earth”

Harry didn’t mean that literally. Not until Harry and Louis are the only two people alive on this earth (to their knowledge).

🔥 whispering of fields half-sown by Eliane (7k)

“And how ironic is it that even now, at the end of all things, Louis’ mere presence makes Harry want to believe that anything is possible again. That the earth isn’t close to collapsing on itself, that the tomorrows are bright and shining and full of promises. Harry hates Louis for giving him something to look forward to when the sky only keeps getting darker. Harry loves Louis for it. ”

[All of his boys come back to him in the end, but it’s Louis, Harry has been waiting for all this time.]

🔥 Time Is All We Have by evelynegrey, fortunefavorsthebrave (20k)

“Okay, here’s the deal,” the man who’d met him outside started, “if you fuck up, or try to sell us out, or use us as bait, you’re out. Okay?” Harry nodded quickly. “And we will outsmart you,” he continued. “We will outrun you, so don’t even think about trying.” “I don’t want any trouble,” Harry told him, cowering slightly. “Good.” He tossed him his gun and Harry caught it clumsily. “We’re gonna have to teach him to shoot.”

AU where the world has gone to shit, Harry has accidentally survived, Niall likes root vegetables and no one knows anything about Louis except that they would follow him to the end of the world and back. Zayn and Liam are also there.

🔥 the riotous failure of our theories by Eliane (4k)

After the world has ended there’s still, etched on Louis’ skin, a compass pointing to home.

🔥 bruises on your thighs (like my fingerprints) by ariadne_odair (2k)

it’s the apocalypse. it’s the apocalypse, and louis has her girl by her side, harry’s face buried into her neck, their limbs tangled together so louis couldn’t escape if she wanted to. not that she’d have anywhere to go. it’s the end of the world after all. and she’d never leave harry. never.

🔥 All The Songs That You Sing In The Dark by pukeandcry (10k)

What happened was that first people got sick.

What happened after that was that they died.

But the worst thing was what happened after that. After they died, they came back.

🔥 things have gotten closer to the sun by starseas (49k)

it’s strange, making the choice to face his past—it almost feels like he’s heading for the sun straight on, like he’s screaming come on and burn me, i deserve it.

-

when a solar flare is announced to end the world in twelve days, harry reunites with the people that he used to know better than the back of his own hand.

🔥 The whirlwind is in the thorn trees by weddingbells (28k)

Louis Tomlinson has enough on his plate without having to worry about a Zombie Apocalypse, thank you very much. Too bad the world doesn’t listen to him, and too bad that among the constant fear of getting eaten, he meets someone that changes his life.

🔥 After Our End by missberrycake (23k)

He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has. Epictetus AD 55 – 135

‘Apocalypse’ unleashes Derren Brown’s most daring plan for a television show yet – to convince internationally renowned boy band One Direction that the country has been overcome by a cataclysmic asteroid strike, that deadly infected now walk the earth and that they are a few of the mere handful of survivors.

In which One Direction have a colossal, apocalyptic trick played on them. It brings their world to a temporary end. Literally.

🔥 The Exceptionals by iwillpaintasongforlou (12k)

The world has been decimated by a nuclear apocalypse. Harry lost his family and the love of his life, and is left with a nasty scar across his face and the mutated ability to heal people with his hands. When raiders come into his village trying to kidnap Exceptionals like him, Harry is forced to flee to people and places he’s never seen before– and maybe find a piece of his past in the process.

🔥 Time Is All We Have by evelynegrey, fortunefavorsthebrave (series)

“Okay, here’s the deal,” the man who’d met him outside started, “if you fuck up, or try to sell us out, or use us as bait, you’re out. Okay?” Harry nodded quickly. “And we will outsmart you,” he continued. “We will outrun you, so don’t even think about trying.” “I don’t want any trouble,” Harry told him, cowering slightly. “Good.” He tossed him his gun and Harry caught it clumsily. “We’re gonna have to teach him to shoot.”

AU where the world has gone to shit, Harry has accidentally survived, Niall likes root vegetables and no one knows anything about Louis except that they would follow him to the end of the world and back. Zayn and Liam are also there.

🔥 Endure and Survive by literato (62k)

“I don’t know if I can give you back to them. Now that this … now that everything between us has happened.”

“After all we’ve been through. It’s not for nothing.”

Or

An au where Harry, a young survivor 15 years into a zombie apocalypse, makes a promise to accompany a lad his age to a large group with a huge aim of finding a cure for the society in exchange for a new set of guns doubling what he lost. As they make their way across the country of United States, and out of their safety zones, they experience loss, truth, survival and love.

🔥 purple rain by fondleeds (WIP)

“I’ve got the same,” Harry says, pointer finger moving up and down in lazy, little lines as he talks. “In my notebook, I cross off each day. Write something down.”

“And what happens when you run out of pages?” Louis says, a little snarkier than he means it to be, slipping the matchbox closed. He can feel his ribs constricting, curling in to protect his chest.

“Well,” Harry says softly, looking out to the emptiness, to the dry, dead earth. “I hope it doesn’t come to that.”

-

AU. It’s the end of the world.

More Masterposts

[duhragonball]

Dragon Ball Z 040

Last time, Bulma got captured by aliens.  The good news is that it’s not that kind of anime, but the bad news is that it’s still anime, so she spends the whole episode stealth cosplaying Ellen Ripley in Alien.

Also, the aliens holding guns on the gang are all frightened children, so that makes things a little awkward.

They narrowly escaped a bunch of space invaders, and they think Krllin, Gohan, and Bulma are part of that group.   This assumption gets dumber the more we find out about the bad guys.   For openers, I’m pretty sure alien marauders wouldn’t wear a knit shirt that looks like it came out of my little brother’s closet back when he was five.   Bulma’s not dressed at all, which seems pretty un-menacing, and Gohan’s even younger than all of these refugees.

Krillin tells Gohan to power up, since it looks like they’ll have to fight their way out of this, but then a little girl runs up and kicks him in the shin.  Who’s the real alien monster here, I ask you?   Not Krillin, that’s for sure.

The boys in charge decide they have to kill their prisoners, since they must be working for some guy named “Frieza.”    Typical filler episode, introducing characters and concepts that’ll never get mentioned again.

Despite all the guns, the kids are reluctant to actually kill anyone, and then an alarm goes off.   Turns out the ship flew into a field of meteors.    Okay, I don’t want to sound like a killjoy, but stuff like this bugs me in outer space stories.   Space is huge, and so are asteroid fields, meteor showers, whatever.   Typically, every fictional spaceship has a seemingly all-seeing sensor array, which can detect anything that happens outside and throw an alarm.   But the damn thing never actually alarms until they’re already in danger.  If you think about the guy designing the ship, wouldn’t it make a lot more sense to alert the crew before they got close enough to hit something?    Because, again, space is huge.   However they ran into this obstacle, they’ve been heading towards it for a long time.

On the other hand, the bridge is being staffed by more frightened children, so that probably explains a lot about their crappy protocols.   Someone probably put the red alert klaxon in silent mode because it interrupted their screening of “Frozen”.    Kids, am I right?    Well, this isn’t one of your video games.   This is real life, and you only get one life in this “stage”.   So I suggest you unlock a new achievement by putting away your smartphones and doing some hard work for a change.

Sorry, I was trying to mock grumpy old people on Facebook, but I ended up disgusting myself.   What frightens me is that there’s probably people younger than I am who will eventually talk like that.    Hell, some of them probably already do.  Some idiot at my job put a printout on the bulletin board that had some quote about working hard, and it was attributed to Thomas Jefferson, and it took all my willpower not to write on it “Jefferson owned slaves.     He literally forced other people to do his work for him.”   But chances are he never even said the quote.  

Anyway, these kids are clearly out of their depth, is my point.

Back on Earth, Goku’s in the hospital, and he’s freaking out because the doctor’s going to stick him with a needle.  The doctor gives him that horseshit about how Goku’s being a baby because he hasn’t even stuck him yet.  Yeah, he knows that, stupid.   He’s upset because you’re going to stick him with a needle, because he doesn’t like needles.   If you had already done it, he wouldn’t care, because it would be over. 

I mean, seriously, fuck this guy.  Goku got crushed half-to-death by a giant ape.   The pain isn’t the issue here.   He doesn’t like the idea of having a thin piece of metal jabbed into his veins.   It’s the idea of it, that’s the problem.    Honestly, for me, the worst part about giving blood is when they prep my arm, and then later when I can feel the tube laying on my arm, and it’s warm.   Would it kill them to put a towel or something under it so it wouldn’t feel as weird?    Has that been an option all along and I just didn’t know to ask?    Maybe I could move it over myself, but no way in hell do I want to look in the general direction of that arm while the business is happening.  Would I pass out at the sight of the tube?   Maybe not, but I refuse to find out the hard way.   I’ll ask God when I die.    Is that weird?    A lot of things in life just don’t have answers available, and I console myself by thinking I can just do a Q&A with God in the afterlife.   The Almighty might refuse to tell me, but at least then I’d know that it’s just impossible for me to find out, and that’s sort of comforting in a way. 

Chi-Chi shames Goku in public, but that’s totally different.   The doctor’s supposed to show some compassion and make Goku feel better.   Chi-Chi, on the other hand, is clearly doing some sort of kink thing that only she and Goku know about.    Look at that face.    That is a thirsty man, right there.

Back in space, Bulma wants to bug out while they still can, but Krillin and Gohan want to help the kids.  

Of course, there’s not a whole lot martial artists can do in a situation like this, but the boys can lift stuff, so they do.

Bulma then gets frustrated with the ship’s pilot and takes over for him.  

Kid, if looks could kill...

She mostly works out the controls on her own, and snaps at a kid whenever she gets stuck.

For some reason the helm control looks like a keyboard, which seems a bit complicated.   It looks more like Bulma is coding a program instead of directly controlling the ship.    Anyway, her fingers are just flying on that keyboard.   Definitely a rare hero moment for Bulma 

Meanwhile, Gohan shoots something with a Masenko.   Not sure how that’s a good idea on a spaceship, but good hustle, Gohan.

Then, after Bulma flies them to safety, the kids still draw their guns on her, and accuse her of working for Frieza.   Look, the thing is, Frieza doesn’t even have any women on his team.     Unless this is some fandom AU where he’s surrounded by OC consorts, in which case I guess a blue-haired lady in her undies would fit right in.  “Yes, you certainly did an.... adequate job piloting this vessel, my dear.    However, I have other duties for you now... of the bedroom variety.”   “As you command, my lord.”   You still don’t need to hold a gun on her, though.

Can I just say that Bulma looks ri-friggin’-diculous in this episode?    Who was this for, exactly?   I mean, she looks normal for the style of this show, but that doesn’t lend itself to fanservice at all.   Like, her left arm looks okay, and the rest of her is all boxy and weird.  It’s like a self-hating hentai dude commissioned this.    He wanted to see Bulma in her underwear, but he didn’t want to enjoy it.   Oh, and I just noticed her weird baby hand.  Yeesh.

One of the kids is convinced that Krillin and Gohan are bad guys because they have super powers, but the ones who saw them help out know better.    I guess Bulma looks a little closer to the “sexy cartoon woman” style here, but I don’t think the fanservice crowd would settle for a shot like this.  

So now that everyone’s friends, the kids explain how their planet was invaded by guys working for some dork named “Frieza”, and their leader was apparently Cui, who we’ll meet a few episodes later.    Krillin finds the story similar to how the Saiyans operated, but the kids say their attackers didn’t have tails.    To be fair, Vegeta has no tail either, at the moment, but whatever.

The adults on the planet were slaughtered to clear the land for Frieza’s use, but they managed to evacuate the children onto spaceships.

But Frieza’s men chased them all down, except for this one, which was chrome-plated.    Apparently this was all they had to do for camouflage?   Seems a little fishy to me.

I don’t understand why the parents sent their kids off in spaceshps without sending at least some adults along to take care of them.   They just tossed them on a ship full of guns and booby traps and no one knows how to fly it, and that was their plan?    Maybe there was an adult pilot, and he got killed at some point.   The Earthlings ask them where they’re headed, and they explain that there’s another planet where they think they’ll be taken in.    You’d think Bulma would offer to double-check their heading, or at least teach them how to fly their own ship so they don’t run into any more trouble, but nah.

When he finds out they’re going to Namek, the refugee leader gives them coordinates for a shortcut, and Bulma rushes off to make use of it.   You know these are just children, right?   Their own shortcut took them through an asteroid field, so maybe you shouldn’t be following their advice too closely.

Then we cut to Planet Frieza No. 79.    Is this the same planet the kids came from?   It’d tie things together nicely, I suppose.  

Frieza’s men detect Vegeta’s ship coming in for a landing, so they send out guys to meet him.   One of them is a dog, and the other looks suspiciously like Sam Guthrie from the New Mutants.

But he doesn’t get out of the pod, and this raises some questions.   First, where’s Nappa?   Second, who wrecked Vegeta’s shit?

So they slap him in a regeneration tank.   It’ll heal him faster than the treatment Goku is currently getting, but let’s remember that it took Vegeta 18 days to get here, so he’s probably in even worse shape than he was in when he left Earth. Also, the healing tank isn’t exactly a quick process.

Get used to this shot, is what I’m saying.

In space, Bulma takes the ship on the shortcut to Namek, and this leads them into the opening of a Looney Toons short.  I hope it’s not a Foghorn Leghorn one.   Those aren’t as good.

There’s some space turbulence, and Bulma ends up landing in Krillin’s lap, so she slaps him for copping a feel.   Why is she still undressed?   

Doesn’t matter, because they’ve finally reached Namek!   And it looks... a little paler than usual...

Bulma finally puts some clothes on and it looks like we can finally get this thing started.

But in her haste to check out the planet, she never notices the ship’s computer, which has a flashing red warning.    Aw, probably the check-engine light.    She can take it to an Auto Zone on the way back.