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mst3kproject · 3 years

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The Neanderthal Man

Since I'm taking a break from fishmen, I might as well let Bigfoot catch up a bit. The Neanderthal Man isn't exactly a Bigfoot movie, but it’s along the same lines and its entire starring cast has MST3K pedigrees. Robert Shayne was in Indestructible Man and Teenage Caveman. Richard Crane was Rocky Jones, Space Ranger! Beverly Garland was in Swamp Diamonds and Gunslinger. Even the composer, Albert Glasser, wrote music for Invasion USA, Last of the Wild Horses, and almost all of MST3K’s Bert I. Gordon movies.

Some little mountain town in the middle of the Sierras (which the Portentous 50's Narrator takes some trouble to tell us is a primeval place where 'the defacing hand of civilization has fallen but lightly') is having a rash of saber-toothed tiger sightings! At first these are laughed off, but when the game warden himself sees one cross the road in the middle of the night, it's time to do something about it. The warden shows a cast pawprint to Dr. Ross Harkness in Los Angeles, who is interested enough to come up and see for himself. Local Mad Scientist Dr. Groves pooh-poohs the whole thing, which is enough to tell me that we're not dealing with a local cryptid here. Somebody is making prehistoric monsters.

So... I may not have actually run out of movies, but I seem to be running out of plots, because this is a remarkably similar movie to Monster on the Campus. The major difference between the two films is that Dr. Blake turned himself into a caveman by accident, while Dr. Groves here is doing it on purpose.

Another difference is that Monster on the Campus' story, while silly, was linear – events escalated in a way that felt logical, and there were reasons why things happened when and where they did. By contrast, The Neanderthal Man feels like a first draft. At the beginning of the film, we're dealing with the saber-toothed tigers that Groves has been creating by injecting cats with his de-evolution serum. We hear about these slaughtering game and livestock, and it seems like only a matter of time before they move on to human beings. The beginning of the film is quite upfront about the fact that Groves is responsible, too, as it is only mildly mysterious in its depiction of one of the creatures escaping his lab.

Sometimes the saber-tooths are represented by an actual tiger, usually filmed from behind or at a great distance so nobody has to put the prosthetic teeth on it. They do have prosthetic teeth, but they're only visible in a couple of shots. Imagine being at a bar and some guy tells you his job is sticking fake fangs on real tigers for a caveman movie! For close-ups, there's a hilarious puppet head that looks like the sort of thing you'd see mounted on a frat house wall as a joke. The director had the sense not to linger on this in motion shots, but later we see still photographs Groves has supposedly taken of his experimental subjects and they're even stupider-looking than we imagined.

Anyway, this goes on for a while with rising action, as the game warden goes to get Harkness and they manage to shoot one of the animals, only to have it vanish from the kill site when they try to show it to Groves (the movie never bothers to explain how that happened, incidentally. The ending suggests that the creatures change back when they die, but there's definitely no dead kitty cat at the scene, either). The whole movie could easily have just had the cats and their creator as the antagonists, perhaps even ending the same way as Dr. Groves proves his work to the other characters by injecting himself. That's not what happens, though. Instead, the story mostly forgets about the cats one we find out Groves has also been carrying on human experiments.

(Before himself, Groves' first experimental subject was his disabled Latina housekeeper. Another series of photos show her half-transformed into a cavewoman who for some reason is wearing drag queen false eyelashes. And as long as I'm talking about the movie being gross and bigoted, there's a bit where a woman is violently raped. This happens off camera, but the audience is not allowed to entertain any illusions about it.)

The problem is that before we see him give himself an injection in the arm, we have had absolutely no indication that Groves has been giving his serum to anything besides the cats! Cats are stealthy, cryptic creatures and if one of those has been seen wandering around killing things, then surely a full-on caveman beating people to death would not be able to stay out of sight! If what we were seeing were the first time Groves had tried the formula on himself then that would be an explanation, but his notes reveal that he's been doing it for so long that he's on the verge of losing control of the transformation and permanently reverting to a pre-human status, as indeed he does for the climax. Much like the stupid dinosaur in The Beast of Hollow Mountain, the movie's main monster is given no build-up whatsoever!

There's worse yet, though. The main characters, Dr. Harkness and Groves' daughter Jan, are barely involved in the 'caveman' part of the plot. They get phone calls about the various murders that Groves is committing in caveman form, and they snoop around the lab to figure out things the audience already knows. The same story could have been told without them, perhaps with the game warden and the hunter as protagonists, and it would probably have been more interesting. The script also repeatedly has Dr. Groves wander in and bluster about how the tiger sightings are hallucinations and tall tales, which seems a little unnecessary when we already know he's responsible. The film-makers can't seem to decide whether they want us to know that or not.

Dr. Groves wears glasses. Maybe the reason his primitive alter-ego is angry and breaking shit (although it does politely open and close the window it climbs out of, which made me laugh) is because it can't see. This is also my theory about why the Hulk smashes, and what do you know? In Avengers Endgame he's got Hulk-sized spectacles and only smashes when he's told!

The direction of The Neanderthal Man can probably best be described as 'serviceable'. It shows us what's going on, but doesn't particularly add anything to the proceedings. The 'Neanderthal' mask is immobile and uninteresting, not much better than somebody's Party City Sasquatch costume. Even the eyes are just painted on, meaning the poor guy in the costume can’t do much because he can’t see where he’s going.

The dialogue is often very strange, with characters talking like they're in a Jules Verne novel. If only one person did this, it might seem like a character quirk – it works for Dr. Groves, for example – but it's everybody. Seeing the cat carcass is gone, Harkness declares, “I refuse to believe in the supernatural! There must be some logical cause and effect to this unholy adventure!” Groves' fiancee Ruth berates him for ignoring her, saying, “I want you, the man I once knew! The good companion, the cheerful friend. I want the happiness we once found in each other.” It's bizarre to listen to, and often audibly awkward for the actors.

Monster on the Campus was kind of trying to be about how humanity must choose to evolve away from our inner savage, although the finale didn't bear that out. There's a scene in The Neanderthal Man in which this movie seems to be trying to go in the opposite direction, saying that we were never savage to begin with. Dr. Groves is speaking to a panel of scientists about the size of the brain in various 'primitive' species of human. He points out that by the time we reached Homo erectus we were already working with four times the cerebral jelly of a chimpanzee, and argues that our ancestors would have been recognizably human in their behaviour and problem-solving capacity.

(Amusingly, his chart of human evolution includes Piltdown Man, which was proven to be a hoax literally a few months after this movie's release. What makes this even more tragic for the writers is that their list of primitive humans seems to be the only place where they actually did any research.)

The problem with Dr. Groves' theory is that he already knows it's wrong. We soon learn that he's been experimenting on himself with his serum for a while already, and his notes show that he knows very well he regresses into a near-mindless animal. The movie does not even try to reconcile these ideas. If Groves were continuing his experiments in the hope that perfecting his serum would give him a more accurate reconstruction of ancient man, that would be one thing, but the script never goes there.

So now that we've had two 'man turns into caveman by injecting science juice' movies, of course I have to ask which one is better. Monster on the Campus wasn't a good movie but it was definitely an improvement on The Neanderthal Man in several respects, and although I don't have any way to find out for certain, I suspect it was an intentional remake. It's definitely more entertaining and gets bonus points for including the Meganeura dragonfly, but nothing in it is nearly as funny as The Neanderthal Man's fake tiger head. I guess if you're gonna watch one or the other, stick to Monster on the Campus, but if you're gonna watch both, start with The Neanderthal Man and do them in chronological order, the better to spot the inspirations and references.

Before I go, a fun paleontology fact: current thinking is that the saber-toothed cat's eponymous fangs actually didn't show when it had its mouth closed! There are zero cave paintings or ancient sculptures of a saber-tooth cat with teeth visible, and when scientists looked at the structure of the enamel in the canines, it suggested that in life the teeth were hidden by big, fleshy, St Bernard jowls. Google 'smilodon lips' and behold how this looks fully three hundred percent more ridiculous than you're imagining. I love nature.

#mst3k #reviews #episodes that never were #the neanderthal man #tw: rape #50s #curiously caucasian cavepeople

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shatar-aethelwynn · 3 years

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What are the warning signs of antisemitism in Gnostic studies the only one I could think of is that the hebrew worships a "false god" but are there others i should stear clear of

It depends on the text and they're often easy to miss because you need to be aware of subtext and background information. Sometimes its not what's said explicitly as what it implies. That's why it's important to read the texts with some kind of commentary. Very often the references are hidden in "scriptural" language because these are all "Christian(-ish)" texts, and it's easy to gloss over references as just another bible verse until you realize what is actually being said. ("-ish" because some forms of Gnosticism are heavily influenced by non-Christian sources as well) One that's easy to explain is the serpent's seed theory. And by "easy" I mean "once you start to understand the mythology and worldview of the Gnostics and how they cited scripture you miiiiight be able to notice these sort of things when they show up as you read. Maybe." I don't recall offhand which particular source this one is from, but I remember finding out about it and just going "what. the actual. fuck. Why is this a thing?" (Fairly sure this one is in one of the early "against heresies" books...Tertullian or Irenaeus maybe? I forget. If it is one of them, it's possible there's some exaggeration due to second-hand information going on and the actual beliefs weren't quite this extreme.)

Disclaimer: I categorically reject this theory from start to finish. It's bad. I'm only giving it as an example of an easy to recognize situation and I really do not want to discuss this one further after this.

First you have to realize that it didn't take very long for antisemitism to infiltrate Christianity in general. Some sects held out longer than others, but it moved from being a Jewish sect to being an anti-Jewish Greco-Roman cult rather quickly. Not everyone succumbed, but it becomes increasingly easy to find antisemitism the more divorced the religion became from it's Palestinian starting point. Gnosticism is not an outlier in this, but because of some of the ideas inherent in it, and the time period in which many of the surviving text were written, it's fairly safe to assume that most of the authors weren't very friendly toward Jesus's biological kin. Of course, most of them believed he wasn't ever actually biological so that didn't help matters.

In Gnosticism there's a general idea that not everyone is capable of, well, gnosis. There's a sort of genetic component, but it's spiritual genetics. Sort of. It's weird. Anyway, there's this whole convoluted story about how the physical world as we know it was created, and that's very bad, and the god of the OT is evil because by creating the world he doomed humans to fleshy prison, and sex makes it worse because it splits the eternal soul or something and makes more pieces trapped so it's harder for everyone to return to their perfect pre-physical form. Or something. But the Jewish God=the bad entity that is responsible for this hell we live in currently. Like I said, it gets weird. And there's other entities to keep track of along the way. Aaaaanyway, sometimes the Serpent is the good guy because he's just trying to free people from this bad not-really-a-god by waking their gnosis. Other times...that's where this particular theory comes in (isn't Gnosticism fun? you can get different versions just like all the other types of Christianity!). This one is based on that one time "the Jews" and Jesus were arguing and said they were the children of Abraham and Jesus said "no, you're the sons of the devil" and people understandably wanted to kill him for it (John 8, the most Gnostic-friendly of the canonical Gospels). This particular branch of Gnosticism absolutely ran with the idea and decided that they (the ones capable of gnosis, i.e. "real" people) where the sons of the "real" god (not the bad not-really-a-god who created this horrid flesh prison), but that the Jews were, quite literally, the descendants of the devil, i.e. the Serpent (yes, Eve had sex with the Snake in this theory, whether he was in Snake-form or not at the time isn't quite clear, but remember sex=bad in general), and were therefore a) evil and wicked and only out to cause the gnosis-capable further problems, and b) quite literally not actually alive and/or human. You see where this is problematic and can lead to Very Bad Places? Now try wrapping your head around that when it's not always stated outright and is only alluded to by quoting whichever books the author deemed to be Scripture (orthodox canon took a few centuries to get worked out).

Gnosticism: fun times! Weird, interesting, sometimes enjoyable (I think so at least), not always good. But that's hardly unusual when dealing with ancient texts. This is why it's worth having a guide who understands this sort of content when you start reading this stuff. Because on the one hand you get texts like The (Sayings) Gospel of Thomas which is actually very interesting and definitely worth reading, and on the other hand you occasionally find stuff like this that just makes you sit back and stare at the wall for an hour while your brain reboots.

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bellatrixobsessed1 · 3 years

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The Killing Cure (Part 8)

He doesn’t want to admit it, especially not to himself but he finds it quite heartwarming to listen to her read stories to those girls. He imagines a scene where she is still large and imposing; Daniela, Cassandra, and Bela are curled up in her lap, propped up against her, and sitting upon her left leg respectively as she flips the page of a book. Her free arm, holding Cassandra close.

In reality, Lady Dimitrescu sits in Cassandra’s lap while Bela leans upon her right side and Daniela on the left. She doesn’t hold a book at all, but rather relays her story from memory; either she has spun the tale herself or she has read it so many times that she doesn’t need the book itself anymore. Ethan isn’t sure which of the two is the most precious.

She pauses her story and inhales sharply. “Do you need a bedtime story too, Winters?”

“I...uh...well, I…” He rubs the back of his head.

“If you’re going to listen in, you might as well pull up a chair.” She grumbles.

“But don’t think for a moment that you can join the family huddle!” Bela declares.

He lifts his hands. “I wasn’t planning on it. I was actually planning on finishing up with that deer. The meat has almost been prepared…”

“Are you finished?” Lady Dimitrescu asks. “Because I would like to finish.”

“Sorry.” He mumbles as he pulls up a chair.

“Where were we, darlings?”

“The bat just took flight on his fluffy, gossamer wings.” Cassandra smiles.

“Right yes. On wings both fluffy and gossamer, the bat leaves his roost for the night…”

Now that it has lost its startling boom, her voice is quite relaxing, hauntingly so. Deep and rich, the auditory equivalent sinking into a plush chair. He can’t make sense of the story itself but he finds that his eyes are growing heavy.

He remembers when Mia would read Rose to sleep, even if Rose couldn’t comprehend a thing. Sometimes he thinks that she was reading more to him than the baby...he hadn’t realized just how much he missed storytime…

He swears that Lady Dimitrescu’s eyes are growing heavy too. And then her voice trails off and Daniela shouts, “Hey! Wait! Mother, you didn’t finish!” But the woman is out. Out and snoring softly. Daniela folds her arms across her chest. “You finish the story, Bela.”

“Me!?” Bela replies, “I don’t do good at story telling. Cass?”

“I always forget the dialogue.” Cassandra frowns.

Three pairs of eyes fall on him. He doesn’t know why he had expected any different. “I’ve never heard this story before in my life!”

“Then make one up.” Daniela quirks a brow as though that was the obvious conclusion and he is a complete dolt.

“Maybe I should take your mom back to her room…”

“Mother…” Bela lets the word sink in. “Is comfortable right here.” As if to elaborate, Cassandra rubs the slumbering woman’s shoulders. He wishes that she wouldn’t have drawn any attention back to the woman. To the way she curls up and leans into Cassandra. To the lax expression on her face--the sort he never seems to see on her in wakefulness. It is no wonder she has fallen asleep so readily; due to pain and stress he can’t imagine that she has slept particularly well in quite some time. Maybe he shouldn’t disturb her.

“Story, Winters.” Daniela demands again.

He thinks to tell the story of the Village of Shadows. He can’t imagine that they’d like to hear that one, all things considered. Instead he spins a tale of a man who went on a hunting trip with his teenage daughter. By the end of it, his stomach flutters with longing.

By the end of it, the three are asleep alongside their mother. Somehow, she looks smaller still, in sleep. Perhaps it is the way the nightgown hangs off of her body. He supposes that he will have to let the Duke know that she needs a size or two smaller.

He gives a slight jerk when each of the siblings tumble into three separate piles of snoozing flies. He wonders if they do this every night? They must do it often enough if Lady Dimitrescu doesn’t even twitch at the insects on her body.

He hates to admit it, but the woman is gorgeous. Somewhat frail, but skin pale and patchy in places. But she is lovely. Her generous figure, alluring...he finds his face flushing again. She isn’t even awake to take her jabs at him and he is flushing. God, he should have left this unholy castle while he had the chance.

.oOo.

Alcina winces upon waking, the cramping is back. It is more bearable, at least she can walk. But it is still a horrid ache. Leaning heavily against the bedpost, she heaves herself up. Her vision tilts ever so slightly, she feels around her nightstand until her hand comes to grasp the supplements and the bottle of pills. She massages her temples, she can’t remember which she is supposed to take or if she is supposed to take them both.

She moves them about in her hands and frowns to herself. She should know this, she should know how to take care of herself. She leans herself against the nightstand, a slip of paper drifts to the floor. Alcina stoops down to pick it up, ignoring the protest of her muscles.

‘Immunosuppressants - take once a day Dietary Supplements - as needed’ His penmanship is so atrocious that she can barely read it and his lack of punctuation is vexing. She wonders if modern schools fail to teach children how to write. Though she supposes that she has to appreciate his forethought to leave her instructions.

She swallows the pill and holds the supplement, she isn’t sure if she needs it. She isn’t sure how to tell. Her body is sending her so many cues lately and she isn’t sure what goes to what and which are important to pay attention to.

She could use a drink or perhaps a drag from her kiseru. She only has maid’s blood wine and that no longer suffices so she reaches for her kiseru. A hand clasps around her wrist and she scoffs. “Winters,” she growls, “remove your filthy man hand from my wrist.”

And he has the audacity to laugh at her. “You shouldn’t be smoking. That can trigger your condition. And besides, smoking is horrible for humans anyhow.”

“And who has told you this?”

“Oh right, you haven’t been human since, what, the thirties?” He chuckles. “Modern science, that’s who. New research.” Something about the way he says new makes her feel as though it is old news. Very old news.

“But right now we need to worry about your porphyria. Smoking triggers that.” He repeats.

“So can stress, Winters. You’ve taken everything else from me, you can let me have this.”

And the foolish man thing rolls his eyes. His hideous blue eyes… “you still live in a castle with all of this,” he gestures around the room. “And you still have three, very needy, kind of annoying daughters.”

“Do not speak ill of them!”

“I haven’t taken everything from you, I’ve given something back to you.”

“Yes. Thank you for that, Winters.” She hisses.

His eyes fall on the pill bottle. “I gave you your humanity.”

“Whoever said that I wanted it?”

He doesn’t seem to have an answer for that. But she does; deep down, she did. She said that she wanted it, many times to herself especially during the first few months of her transformation. And then once again, just as fervently--if not, more so--when the mutation blossomed in full. When she, for a moment, thought that she would permanently take the form of a rotting, fleshy dragon with a liberal amount of teeth. Deep down she has craved the acclimation of her humanity.

And in those doubting moments, she forgot to fear the repercussions of getting her wish.

#Lady Dimitrescu #Alcina Dimitrescu #Ethan Winters #Alcina/Ethan #Resident Evil #Fanfiction

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365days365movies · 3 years

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May 10, 2021: Blade Runner 2049 (2017) (Recap: Part Two)

Said I’d talk about artificial humans in sci-fi, so...

There are a HELL of a lot of examples of artificial humans in science-fiction, as well as the ethical and philosophical concepts that their existence raises. Now, your definition of “artificial” may differ from medium to medium. At its base form, these are humans that are not born, but made. I’ll be talking fleshy organic humans, not robotic ones. The most common of these is, of course, clones.

A clone, strictly speaking, is a genetically identical copy of a pre-existing organism, in this case a human. While this isn’t technology we’ve applied to humans as of yet (due to the NUMEROUS ethical problems and questions), we have done so with animals, mostly sheep and cats. It’s actually a good way to de-extinct certain species, and we’ve already done experiments with that. Of course...that has its own concerns.

Keeping up the Jurassic Park reference streak! Anyway...

There are a FUCKTON of examples of clones in science-fiction, but since I’m a massive comic book nerd, I’ll use Superboy. The genetic combination of Superman and Lex Luthor, Conner Kent is one of the most prominent clone superheroes. He’s not the only clone of Superman, of course. He’s not even my favorite clone of Superman, to be honest...

Bizarro am the worst. ME WILL LIVE ON THAT HILL.

Oh, and let’s not forget THE most prominent artificial human in comic books PERIOD. I don’t care what her origin in the movies is, that’s never been my favorite version of Wonder Woman. Making her a demigod robs her of something important, in my opinion.

...Should I make a comic book blog? Shit, thinkin’ about it.

OK, before I do that, these are just my favorite examples. Fact is, there are FAR too many examples of artificial humans to go into, whether they’re built, grown, sculpted, conjured, or a chemical reaction with an extra ingredient in the concoction.

And look, I could go on all day about this, but we got a long-ass movie to get back to. SO, lets jump back in. Part One is here!

Recap (2/2)

Understandably exhausted, K returns home, confused and conflicted. However, he’s greeted with a surprise from Joi: a prostitute! Namely, this is Mariette (Mackenzie Davis), one of the girls who approached him earlier. Joi’s called her here in order to be “real” for K, the effect is impressive, if somewhat...off-putting. Still, while K obviously didn’t need this to be happy with their relationship, Joi might, and Mariette’s all on board.

And it doesn’t take K terrible long to get on board, either. As both Mariette and Joi strip, it makes me wonder...how much does this subscription service for Joi cost. There’s no goddamn way this is free, right? Like, how exclusive IS this AI? And they cut from that scene to a Joi commercial, where we hear that Joi becomes anything you want her to be, and does anything you want her to do. But something tells me that...well, that it’s not quite so simple.

Once the night is over, Joi tells Mariette to leave, and not nicely either. Mariette leaves, rebuking her on the way out as well. K, meanwhile, knows that the Blade Runners will soon be coming after him. He’ll be going on the run, and Joi wants to go with him. And so, they put her inside of a remote device, while deleting her information from the main apartment console. This gets the attention of Luv, who head over to the apartment to figure out what’s going on.

K goes to Doc Badger (Barkhad Adbi), who analyzes the horse for him. It’s discovered that old radiation can be found there, and that amount and kind of radiation can only be found in areas where a dirty bomb has been set off. This would be in the desolate and weird-ass ruins of Las Vegas. While nobody lives there at this point, K and Joi go to check it out.

An IMMENSELY frustrated Luv, unaware of K’s discovery about himself, goes to confront Joshi about K’s whereabouts. Luv berates her for being afraid of change, and tells her that she “can’t fend off the tide with a broom”. Which is a great line. However, as Joshi is no use to her at this point, Luv just straight up kills her. Which, I’m sure, will go over well with the whole “Replicants aren’t dangerous” thing.

Meanwhile, in Vegas...shit is WEIRD. First off all, the desolate wasteland is full of statues of giant sexy wimmin, and I mean GIANT statues. Beneath one of them is a series of beehives, which K goes into to get a hand of beeeees. After that, he goes into an abandoned hotel/casino, rigged with tripwires and booby traps. OK. What.

So, somebody’s using this place as a hideaway, despite the entire city being destroyed by a dirty bomb, and probably extremely radioactive. K searches around and finds it empty. He begins to play a piano, hoping to draw someone out. He ends up drawing out a dog, as well as the inhabitant of the hotel.

Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford), baby! Quoting Stevenson’s Treasure Island and holding K up at gunpoint with dog at side is the original Blade Runner himself, Rick Fucking Deckard. God, I love this. Deckard hunts K down throughout the casino, where we see some trippy holograms, and the future of Vegas stageshows (probably).

The two fight, but eventually call a truce and decide to get a drink at the bar. K gets to it pretty quickly, and confronts Deckard on his potential child with Rachael. He confirms that Rachael was indeed pregnant by him, but he had never met his child. Which was the plan, to be fair. He wanted their child to be protected, not hunted down and eventually dissected.

Sometimes, to love someone...you gotta be a stranger.

To an old Frank Sinatra song, a forlorn K (now calling himself “Joe”) looks around, and sees carved wooden animals that resemble the horse that’s haunted his life and memories so much by this point. Which makes sense, considering the foil unicorn from the previous film. Neat little tie-in there.

But paradise is not all it’s cracked up to be, as someone soon comes to find both K and Deckard, despite the fact that K came alone. Although, now that I think about it, Joi may not be one that you can truly trust. Deckard and K try to escape their pursuers, but are caught pretty quickly. In the process, K is injured, but manages to get up in order to fight back. However, this is Luv with these people, and she beats K down EASILY. Turns out that Luv is actually an enforcer, rather than just a secretary. And when Joi awakens from K’s device to ask her to stop, well...she kills the device, and she kills K. In the process, she also takes Deckard away, leaving K behind. Fuck.

K wakes up, only to discover Mariette standing over him in the Las Vegas wasteland. She takes care of him as he wakes up, also stitching up with wounds from the explosion. She tells K to trust her, as well as her compatriots. One of them is the hooded woman from earlier, a Replicant named Freysa (Hiam Abbass). An old friend of Sapper’s she saw the delivery of the child, the “miracle”, and also hid the child away, as it was a symbol that the Replicants are more than just slave, that they are their own masters.

Freysa is building a revolution in order to free the Replicants once and for all. And I’m hard-pressed to disagree with their cause, not gonna lie. However, this comes at a price. In order to prevent Wallace from killing the cause, K must prevent Deckard from leading them to Freysa. They must do what they can until they can reveal the child to the world. For she will be their leader.

Fuck.

Understandably COMPLETELY crushed at this revelation, and more confused than ever, K collapses. Freysa tells him that they ALL wish they were the one, and they all believe. It’s at this point, that K realizes exactly who the Hybrid is: Dr. Ana Stelline. The horse from earlier, it turns out, did in fact belong to her, and she planted her childhood memory with the horse in K’s mind as a Replicant. Damn. DAMN! That’s why the memory moved her so: because it was hers.

Meanwhile, Deckard awakens to a separate nightmare: Jared Leto telling him how he feels about him. After all, Deckard helped to create the first Replicant-human hybrid. He asks him for his help in obtaining the child, so that the key of Replicant reproduction can be further unlocked. And he proceeds in convincing Deckard by playing audio of Rachael and his first meeting (from the first film, of course).

Niander fucks with him further, by suggesting Deckard was summoned all those years ago specifically to fall in love with Rachael in order to father a child with her. But despite all of this, Deckard refuses to give up any of his information. And so, Niander pulls out his ace-in-the-hole...and it’s a real shitty thing to do to a man in mourning.

Damn. Dude rebuilt Rachael, tries to tempt Deckard with her, FAILS, then lets Luv shoot her in the head. Fucking power move, and fuck Niander for playing it. Dude is a DICK. Meanwhile. that one visual from every single ad of this movie is happening, and I can FINALLY use one of the 8000 GIFs of it, goddamn.

Not gonna lie, it’s an iconic appearance, so I get why it’s so famous. Anyway, K considers a suicidal option, now that he knows the truth. However, before we get to see the final decision, we get to see Deckard being taken back to LA for interrogation by Wallace. However, to prevent him from potentially leading Wallace to the secret of Ana Stelline, K suddenly appears, opening fire on their ship.

The craft is downed, and K exits the car to engage in a firefight with Luv. He appears to win, but Luv isn’t killed once she’s shot. The two have a fistfight out in the rain, and Deckard waits for water to slowly kill the craft that he’s still inside of.

As expected, Luv handles herself well, and despite a number of close calls, she JUST. WILL. NOT. DIE. Damn, she’s resilient. However, despite K, Luv, and Deckard all nearly drowning in an INTENSE fight between the Replicants, an enraged and crazed Luv finally eventually drowns, ending her threat for good.

K saves Deckard from the sinking ship, and agrees to stage his death, allowing him to meet his daughter for the first time. Once at her facility, K returns Deckard’s horse to him, knowing that it was a gift from him. He tells Deckard that his best memories all come from her, implying that this makes him similar to Deckard’s son, which he picks up on when he asks if he’s OK.

Deckard goes to meet his daughter, and K hangs out on the stairs outside. He feels the snow fall on his hand, and he just...watches it all fall around him. He sits, and he watches it all. And meanwhile, Deckard meets his daughter for the first time.

...Can I just say...GODDAMN!

That movie was absolutely stellar, and it’s definitely landing in the high ‘90s for me, calling it now. I...wow. Seriously. Amazing.

See you in the Review!

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abduct-me-helen · 4 years

Text

Class 108's Apocalypse Field Trip | Chapter 1.

The world ended on a Tuesday. Quite suddenly, halfway through class. After the sky split open and green light bathed the earth, things changed. Some lived.

Some didn’t.

Class 108 stayed together, for the most part. They took up a base in the school, and boarded up the windows and doors.

Sydney was the one who first learned they didn’t need to eat. Other revelations of that sort followed. Sleep was not needed, nor was water. Air seemed to be, though, as they learned after Cal passed out from holding their breath.

The first one to die was Cú.

They don’t talk about Cú.

Of course, some things are unavoidable in the end. Logically, Sydney knew it was only a matter of time before something managed to slip under the cracks and they’d all get killed; god knows they’d narrowly scraped by enough times to be considered cosmically lucky. Tabitha had been spreading rumors, as was her nature, about the school itself being sentient, trapping them inside with false promises of safety.

On the worse days, Sydney believed it.

Sydney stepped into the classroom slowly, craning her head to where Tabitha and Rosie were explaining their theories. She didn’t know which theories, but she’d heard most of them by now.

“G’morning.” She said.

It was night.

No, she thought, the sky is dark, but that doesn’t mean it’s night.

Rosie gestures towards a desk, and she avoids the chair toppled over at her feet as she sits down on top of it. She takes not of who else had decided to attend this “session” of theirs today. There are 12 students left out of the thirty who had originally made up the class. Ten of them had disappeared after running away from the school in shock after the eye in the sky had first opened. They hadn’t been in homeroom during the “blink,” which is what they’d taken to call the eye opening, and hadn’t seen any teachers since that day.

She remembered it vividly.

Ms. Bruis had tensed, eyes wide in shock, before telling them to calm down and stay indoors. She immediately went outside the room to check on everyone else.

That was the last time they’d seen Ms. Bruis, but not the last time they’d seen her face.

Besides the initial chaos, there wasn’t anything attacking the school. It was just shouting and screaming and running. Sydney had stayed in the classroom, clumsily trying to close the blinds on the window.

People just, left. And they didn’t come back.

The first venture was when they lost Cú. She doesn’t like to talk about him, never mind think about him. Nonetheless, her mind often drifts towards his death.

It was about four hours after the chaos. People had been nearly sucked out of the building, teachers included. The only ones that remained were the thirty students of 108.

Sydney didn’t know why they were the only ones to remain. She still doesn’t now.

The students decided to have a short party go out and scout. Sydney, Katie, Cú, Tabitha and Rosie. Four survived, one did not.

Rosie was always the thinker of the group, and as such she took the front. Katie was chosen for her seemingly nonchalant disposition to going, and Tabitha for her mind, which was always going too fast and often arriving at far-out conclusions. Despite this, she was a quick-witted person and had been selected for her dexterity and speed. Cú was selected for his physicality. He was a teddy bear, but a strong teddy bear.

It didn’t save him in the end.

And Sydney, well, she was cautious. She wonders if she could’ve saved Cú if she’d been just a little bit wearier.

They wandered a few blocks before hearing the sound of skin and bone splitting. Tabitha immediately ran toward the sound, as was her nature. The rest, Rosie at the lead, followed, hiding behind a corner.

Katie didn’t make a face, but even she was visibly pale.

When the sound came again, louder, and a creature made of wet flesh and twisted muscle stepped out of the alleyway, she became practically white.

Sydney retched. She’s not ashamed to admit it, you would’ve too. Anyone would’ve retched if they saw that sight.

It got worse.

“Hello?! Someone! Help me, please!”

It was Ms. Bruis-no, it looked like Ms. Bruis.

Cú ran. He dodged the creature, running to Ms. Bruis and starting to try to pick her up off the ground, before he noticed she was rooted to the cement. His eyes widened as blood ran down her face

She smirked.

Sydney will always remember the flash of teeth before she plunged her hand-no, her claw-into his stomach. He made a choked sound before the creature bounded back over and ripped his jaw clean off.

They ran. They ran. They ran.

And then they came back to the classroom, and they wept.

There were more expeditions after that. They lost seven more after that, but in those ventures, they collected knowledge. This knowledge went on Rosie’s list, though it also doubled as a rulebook.

THE LIST

1. Some creatures can make copies of people you know in order to trick you. They don’t bleed, so your best shot at not meeting eyeball daddy up close is to yeet the fuck outta there//bold of you to assume I don’t want to meet eyeball daddy uwu//

2. Don’t trust meat. Ever. Meat comes alive. WE ARE VEGANS IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 2018(?)

3. Don’t answer the door, even if you’re armed. No, Eric, we do not count your big muscles™ as a weapon.

4. If you MUST answer the door, don’t. You have been stopped.

5. A short section on the happenings of the places(?) known to us as “nightmares.”

Nightmares trap humans in these crazy places. We’ve only seen two, but they are extremely dangerous, and both encounters ended in casualties. They trap your mind and make you experience terrible things, and like the rest of the world (to our knowledge at least) don’t follow normal time or space rules. Basically, if you want to avoid a ,’ , |,’_’, you should not screw with that shit.

6. Always check with someone else before eating or drinking. Sometimes, your mind will play tricks on you and you won’t notice that you’re eating something…not good. Honor cal for their sacrifice regarding this matter (sorry cal)

7. Always shut the blinds. Eyeball daddy is watching you//YOU DID NOT NEED TO SAY THAT TABITHA

8. Don’t leave the building without consulting all of class 108.

9. Don’t read books that others haven’t read first, especially if it says it’s from the library of Jurgen LeitnerSTUPID IDIOT MOTHERFUCKING JURGEN LEITENER GOD DAMN FOOL BOOK COLLECTING DUST EATING RAT OLD BASTARD SHITHEAD IDIO//yes, Riko, we get it, but good point. Be Jared, 19.

10. Don’t invite anyone in.

“What are we on today?” Sydney asked.

“Tabitha’s on about the categories again.” Cal said.

“I really think it could work!” she said loudly. “Look, there’s consistencies in every single encounter we’ve had. Think about it. Remember what happened at the theater?”

Katie grimaced silently. “How could we forget?”

Tabitha ignored her. “The webs. Spiders and the rest of those insects are different categories. The wriggly silver worms are more like, bugs and wriggly things and judging from the infestation we had they all work together.”

“Like a hive?” Cal asked.

Tabitha nodded. “Exactly like that. Spiders are different though; you saw how many were crawling about during the amphitheater incident. And that whole thing was about control. All those people who were laughing…they, they were there. They didn’t want to do it! They didn’t want to laugh, you saw their eyes. They were being controlled. And when,” she paused, gritting her teeth, “and when Marcy died she was being controlled too. Puppeted.”

That’s two. Then we come to the next one, guns and murder and war and shit like that. Simple enough. But I think it has to be humans killing humans, because the thing that killed, killed Cú wasn’t like that. It was, it was different. I don’t know. I’ll get back to that.

“Then we have the cover up, or the anonymous things. Things like those little creatures that hide in your plates that you can’t notice are there until someone tells you. That’s why I’m confused, because I think the weird fleshy creature we faced was aligned with that but also with those meat things that broke Rosie’s leg. I don’t know how to explain it, but, ah. Sorry. I think they’re the same category.”

“I’ll humor you; can a thing be two categories?” Katie questioned her dully.

“I think so. Maybe it’s like colors? Really angry colors. They’re all separate, but the same because they’re all made of the same stuff. And they all blur together sometimes?”

“Yeah,” Katie snorted, “we’re being killed by really angry colors.”

Tabitha flushed. “Hey! It was just an analogy.”

Rosie seemed to be considering what Tabitha had said, before she looked up. “I believe you.”

“Y-you do?” Tabitha blinked, taken back.

Rosie nodded. “It makes sense. Really angry colors.”

“Really angry colors.”

A few hours-well, time was weird, but Sydney supposed it was hours-later, the class was doing yoga. Well, not “yoga” per se. They were beating each other on the head with torn up yoga mats.

“Hey!” Riko shouted as Tabitha tripped over her mat while chasing Cal. “Watch it! This is where I sleep!”

Tabitha stuck her tongue out and Katie snorted, not looking up from her book. Sydney wondered how she did that; Katie always seemed to have an astounding amount of situational awareness at all times.

“Real mature.” Katie groused.

Tabitha grinned, and Rosie smiled softly.

“I’M GOING TO MAKE YOU MEET EYEBALL DADDY!” she shouted to Cal, who’s eyes widened in mock fear.

“Oh no! The horror! OwO!” They said dramatically.

“Did they just say “OwO”?” Sydney asked in a deadpan. Rosie nodded solemnly.

“You ever wonder…” Sydney trailed off, the muffled shouting of their peers drowned out into the background.

“Wonder what?” Rosie tilted her head in question.

“What happened to Mr. Sims.”

“He’s probably…not with us anymore.”

“Yeah. Still, could you imagine? He was a bloody cryptid. He’d probably take all this with no sweat.”

“Maybe he’d give us concerts too.”

“Good ole Jonny D’Ville.”

Rosie snickered.

“You know how he always drew eyes everywhere? During tests?”

“Oh god, don’t mention that to Tabitha, I don’t need her going on about another conspiracy.”

Sydney grinned to herself and Rosie groaned.

“Well, I was thinking, maybe it was an omen.”

“An omen?”

“Yeah. I’ve never been spiritual really, but the worlds gone to shit so who knows what’s real. Maybe the Mayans were just a few days off.”

“Ah, the apocalypse calendar.”

“Indeed.”

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK

A noise rang out from the entrance to the school, loud and imposing. Sydney’s heart started to thump wildly in terror.

They all shot up, and Katie got her switchblade out from her pocket. She was lucky enough to have it on her at the blink, and it was their best weapon.

Cypress shot inside the classroom silently, eyes wide, red curls bouncing. He clicked the door shut quietly, pale. “The others sent me. They’re hiding in place. I think we should just stay put.”

Rosie nodded, gesturing him to come over. She placed a finger over her lips in order to get them to stay silent, then nodded to Katie. Katie had always been gifted with really good hearing, and it had saved their assess more than enough times for Rosie to know that letting her try to hear who was at the door was the best safe bet for situation and the time being.

Katie closed her eyes, but after a quarter of a minute shook her head.

That’s when they heard it.

“Hello!”

Sydney brought a hand to her mouth to clamp down a scream.

It was Cypress.

Eyes wide, she glanced over to Cypress, her Cypress, who’s expression was now glazed over. Was his skin always that waxy? Why was his hair so smooth? It looked like that of a dolls, curls made of softly bent plastic.

Katie saw the flicker of light before she saw the blade, and she lunged.

Her switchblade pierced his skin-no, his stuffing, with a sound akin to ripping a toy. It didn’t seem to stop this not-Cypress.

Oh god, Sydney thought, today is the day I die.

There was a sound like static now in the air, and the faint smell of burning. Sydney began to feel sick, almost lightheaded.

The door swung open, and Sydney whipped her head around to see Cypress, who was trailed by…Mr. Sims?

#tma #the magnus archives #teacher!jon #teacher jonathan sims #tma fanfic #eyepocolypse #tma spoilers #tma au #season 5 #tma season 5 #gen z vs the apocolypse

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dontasktheradiodemon · 4 years

Note

so basically any time I've seen you talk about food it's a meaty thing, if I'm not forgetting something. do you ever do any meatless meals? also where do you get your produce? being a vegetarian in hell is suffering. but I guess that's the point huh

🎶 I do very few meatless meals, but then I do very few plantless meals, either!

🎶 That seems like an obvious statement, but from time to time it surprises people. There's a stereotype that cannibals primarily eat flesh as a large portion of their diet, I'm sure from watching those who like to eat meat fresh and in public—and I’m sure my own reputation doesn’t help! But watching a cannibal chew on a man in the street and concluding he primarily eats human flesh makes as much sense as watching someone pluck an apple from a tree and concluding he primarily eats fresh, unwashed apples: eating like that is more of a treat than a dietary staple! But I digress. I do like to take these little opportunities to clear up misconceptions about my dietary community, but let’s get back on track!

🎶 Aside from the rare raw fleshy treat, my preference is for well-rounded meals with a complex flavor palate—meat, vegetables, herbs, spices, grains... Either all in one dish or spread between a main course and several sides that compliment the flavor. All told, I find the best meals have more plant matter than meat matter in them, even if the meat is the central attraction... but most of my meals incorporate flesh of some kind, yes.

🎶 But I won't turn up my nose at a sufficiently delectable meatless meal! The most common, of course, being seafood—I don't know whether you count seafood as different from meat, I don't myself but I know enough people who do that I thought it worth mentioning—but I'll have pure vegetarian dishes too. I make a mean variation on eggplant parmesan using a plant native to the inner ring of the Seventh Circle. The common name for it is "blasphemer's stool," it looks rather like a squat maroon cactus, and after baking it to neutralize the poison and letting it soak a couple of days to soften up, it makes a wonderful eggplant substitute! You can find it at most imp supermarkets for fairly cheap. Let me know if you'd like the recipe!

🎶 Which leads right into your next question, doesn't it! Believe you me, Hell isn't kind to carnivores, either. You're not going to find a cattle ranch or chicken farm down here, and the local shellfish are universally toxic. Most of the cannibals I know who started postmortem—including me!—did so because we humans are actually far safer to hunt and to eat than a vast majority of Hell's native fauna! But I digress again, you're looking for produce!

🎶 There's no easy guarantee to getting good produce, but here are a few tricks I use:

🎶 One: learn all your nearby grocery stores. All of them. And when I say “nearby,” I mean every store in a thirty-mile radius! And don’t count out the unexpected spots like the ice boxes in gas station convenience stores! Sometimes there’s just no better way to get a particularly fussy ingredient than by going store to store to see who happens to have a healthy supply. It means a lot of extra legwork in the beginning, but over time you’ll get a feel for which stores are most likely to have healthy onions, which stores all get their tomatoes from the same farm, et cetera.

🎶 Two: learn when your nearby grocery stores expect to have their produce delivered! It will be least likely to be wilted or rotten when it’s first delivered! To best compete with your local gourmands, you want to be there when that truck is being unloaded—even if that’s three in the morning! Don’t despair if your first few trips leave you waiting for a truck that never arrives; food shipments and deliveries are irregular, especially in the city, and expected delivery times are more loose guidelines. Make friends with the stockers and slip them a little bribe and most will be more than happy to tip you off when that long-awaited truck arrives, or even hide a healthy pack of peppers for you to pick up!

🎶 Three: get to know your neighborhood farmer’s market—as well as the farmer’s markets farther abroad. There are hardworking sinners scattered throughout the nine circles doing their best to coax Hell’s soil into growing seeds from the mortal realm. Their individual crops’ successes will vary more widely than those grown in the secure facilities that sell to grocery stores, but when they do succeed, they’re typically healthier and heartier than their grocery store counterparts! Subscribe to some farmers’ periodicals to keep up with which circles’ growing seasons seem likely to thrive and which are struggling this year, and if some crop you particularly covet is looking to have a good year, consider making a road trip out to the circle where it’s flourishing.

🎶 Four: get to know your neighborhood black market! If you’re willing to pay a little more for better quality, smugglers moving goods out of the mortal realm are the way to go. You’ll have best luck finding smugglers near enclaves of inhuman demons—imps and so forth. Be prepared to barter! Never put part of your soul on the line no matter how desperately you crave a nice juicy lemon. Five percent of your soul here, five percent of your soul there, and pretty soon you’ve sold ten percent of your soul! Some native demons see human souls as a mere currency of convenience to be freely exchanged, but enough treat collecting souls as an end in and of itself that you should never sell to someone you don’t know. What you sold for a bunch of bananas, they may not be willing to let you buy back so cheaply. Resist the temptation and deal only with smugglers willing to trade in money, goods, and favors.

🎶 Five: try cooking with local ingredients. Unsurprisingly, Hell’s native flora thrives far more easily than transplants from the mortal realm! Most Hellish crops require much more labor to make edible, not to mention palatable; but if you’re a little adventurous and don’t mind accidentally poisoning yourself from time to time, learning to work with local ingredients is very rewarding. Like I mentioned earlier, imp supermarkets are a fine resource for most Hellish produce—but there are some plants that sinners have worked into recipes that native demons don’t eat, so consider picking up a guide to Hell’s edible flora and foraging for your own ingredients!

🎶 And finally, six: consider growing your own food! Many mortal realm crops need quite a bit more help than a mere green thumb to grow—why, some will take a green arm and a leg!—but if you’re skilled, careful, or lucky, you can maintain a few ingredients yourself. I myself recently acquired an okra plant and a pepper plant that have lasted several weeks in fine health! No okra yet, but the bell peppers are ripening beautifully!

🎶 To the carnivores out there, most of this advice also applies to meat and seafood, with the exception that most mortal realm animals are even harder to raise in Hell than mortal realm produce. If you’re trying to avoid cannibalism, don’t look into hunting your own meat unless you’re really, really into hunting—and it doesn’t hurt to be an adrenaline junkie.

#anonymous #ask

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ocularose · 4 years

Note

Hey! I hope that you're having a wonderful day (≧∇≦)! List 5 things that make you happy, then put this in the ask box of the last 10 people who reblogged/liked something from you

Oh wow i wasn’t expecting this, thank you ✌️!! This is always fun to do and to get!

1- Drawing! Sometimes because of depression etc it can be hard to do, but it’s always THE thing that makes me happy. The act of drawing is truly what makes me happy, but having others like what i do is always such a good feeling! The main reason i share art in public is in hope that my self-indulgent things (which is all of them) can inspire and/motivate people to do their OWN things. And to give content to those who like the same content as me.

2- METTATON. Him. The. Man. Of. My. Life. I may be aro but this? Man? Creature? With literally NO brain or braincells? My husband. Whether it’s think about him, drawing him, making AUs versions of him x1000 or seeing art of him (made by good people), it makes me very happy. The only reason i put it ‘below’ drawing is because the latter feels... Productive. I make so much MTT content (that i rarely share ngl... it’s too personal) that it’s like almost natural to me. I pratically make AUs weekly. Do i remember all of them? Not really. But it’s the thought that counts, and i may not be able to remember everything i did at once, but tend to recall things at SOME point. And of course i try to note/draw it as often as i can so i don’t forget.

3- Kinda ties to drawing? But character design. Definitely. I’ll probably never get tired of drawing disgusting looking creatures/monsters that are actually are straight up not meant to be taken seriously/meant personality and/or concept wise to be funny, or beautiful men whose personality is as the repulsive as the monsters mentioned above, and who- accessorily- are beyond stupid, and not to be taken seriously as well. There’s many more ‘tropes’ i enjoy drawing and designing, but. Yeah. It’s funny. I don’t even know what else to say. Makes me very happy.

4- Weird bugs. I just... Adore those animals, who- instead of developing simple ‘abilities’ like mammals (ex: a cheetah’s ability to be really fast, stuff like that) just kind of DECIDED to have actual super powers. With colorful, weird and varied appearances to top it all off. I say ‘bugs’ but that includes arachnids, crustaceans and much more. And it’s so utterly varied and a big world that i learn/find out about a species i didn’t know of practically monthly. And i still have to ‘dig’ (ha) through prehistoric species and THEIR super powers. Or weird appearance. Or both. In any case though i admire them from a safe distance, i don’t pick them up etc mostly because i know that it CAN be dangerous- both for me and potentially for the animal itself- and because... maybe it’s a weird reason, but because i want this small animal to be unaware of me- a creature so utterly big compared to it that it can never hope to understand me fully. Maybe ive read too much ocean/cosmic horror, but idk man maybe it’s better for this little animal to not interact with... fleshy mountains, whose ground vaguely pulses with a heartbeat. Like put that exact concept with a human instead of a bug and suddenly THAT’S terrifying- as it should be. Anyway bugs are great and my faves are mantis (any tbh but especially devil’s flower mantis) and centipedes (again any but especially feathertail centipedes)

5- big shocker that one- truly something that’s never been seen or heard of before, but my frieNDS? And famiLY (pets are part of the family)... they make me happy, and i do my best to make them happy too. There’s of course mutuals too! Im just shyer (is that a word?) with them... no idea why. I guess i just dont want to ‘get the wrong idea’ and accidentally break boundaries? Stuff like that.

#asks #i’ll send the things tomorrow because rn it’s past midnight for me im falling asleep as i write this lol #also i need courage to message people lollllllllll #6th would be good genuine art made by other people #like i follow MANY artists but legit all of their art makes ne happy- whether it’s original content or fanart #and ‘only’ in 7th would come general media. i have media special interests (touhou; and more) but idk. there’s more important things to me.#and in 8th... no idea. fictional men? sleeping? dreaming? 🤷‍♂️#maybe fictional horror and/or monsters. but it heavily ties with art made by others. so uh yeah #hope mobile tumble won’t mess my paragraphs ._. ...

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nyotasaimiri · 5 years

Text

Headcanon: Names

Wow, how long has it been since I last did a big theory post? I'm going to lead off with an unusual disclaimer: unlike most of my stuff, this is not based in canon. It's just some stuff I thought of and decided to explore.

So! Names. Human names are incredibly varied. Seriously, just give it a quick Google. We have so many naming rules and conventions for each of our countless cultures, and just as many ways to break those rules. Some colonies might even borrow conventions from the other cultures if they aren't from Earth. An entire thesis wouldn't be enough to cover them all.

Glitch names follow a fairly simple pattern, two nouns or a descriptor and a noun. It is likely common for Glitch to also add some manner of identifier to their names (especially in a community where there are several similar names), like Scribe Arrowmail or Tailor Rustlance. Some Glitch might choose to include a noble house or other faction in their name (i.e. Captain Brightsong of the Elusive Legion). Particularly notable Glitch could even be known as only their title. When someone mentions the Baron, everyone knows which Baron.

Apex names, like most things given to them, are standard issue. There is a designated list of names, and only specific nicknames that are permitted from those names. Some human cultures might have designated allowed names, but most of them don't go to the extreme of corrective reeducation for using the wrong nickname. Because of this rigidity, quite a few rebels rename themselves after escaping. Some do like their original names and keep them, but it's a common thing for a newly escaped apex to try a few new names, or even get friends to help them pick a new one. They often make new ones up, or borrow them from other cultures they encounter. Some rebels even abandon names entirely and just find an epithet instead. It helps quite a bit in keeping the Miniknog from identifying them.

Now we're getting deep into headcanon territory. I mentioned before that I think Floran language must have some kind of scent or pheromone component to it. This would probably be a good part of why they have experienced historical troubles in connecting with "fleshy" races. Perhaps their names also have a scent component? Two florans named Tan in the same settlement isn't a problem, the other floran know which Tan is being talked about, but an apex or hylotl wouldn't be able to figure it out so easily. Floran who spend a lot of time among other races sometimes adopt nicknames or a surname based on their home planet/tribe to offset this.

Hylotl names strike me as very much a work of art in their eyes. They start with their given name, and perhaps something from their birth city. Then as they hit major landmarks in life, they build on it by way of memorializing that event. A married couple might adopt matching additions; a new parent would also add to their name. Shortened "informal" versions are still used in conversation, but hylotl would probably want their names to entirely describe them and tell their story.

Avian names vary by religious status, at least to some extent. Stargazer avians have a ceremonial name used in rituals, and a common name used in everyday speech. Priests also have a third name that is given to them upon completing their training and the rites of accepting priesthood properly. Grounded avians tend to just stick with their common names; they have no use for the ceremonial names now.

Novakid names can be quite changeable, but less from their owner forgetting them (as some might suggest) and more from the novakid deciding they like a new sound. Given names are often based on such things as brand shape, coloring, gas composition, or close friends/relatives, with the full knowledge that the child will probably change it later. Once a novakid does settle in a favored name, they are more likely to tack on epithets than change it entirely. Novakid with similar names are usually given descriptors (i.e. Red Corvas or Blue Corvas). They also seem fond of nicknaming or entirely renaming their companions.

#starbound #starbound theory #starbound headcanon #starbound theories #starbound novakid #starbound apex #starbound floran #starbound hylotl #starbound human #starbound avian #saimiri's theories

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erekiosuncreativeideas · 5 years

Text

Reliving An Old Nightmare - Chapter 8

<= Chapter 7

Summary : Snatcher reunites with a familiar brat. Also available on AO3 : https://archiveofourown.org/works/22337299/chapters/54650140

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Hello everyone! I hope you're all going well!

This chapter was supposed to be wayyy longer but... I couldn't see the end of it and, at one point, I decided to split it. If I didn't, it would have taken me far more time to finish it and I didn't want to keep you guys waiting too much, especially after the previous chapter.

I originally drew three pictures for this chapter, but since I split the chapter, the first two drawings will be in this chapter and the last one will be in the next chapter. I'll probably draw something else for chapter 9, again.

In any case, I hope you're still interested in this story, and I hope you'll enjoy this chapter! Please don't hesitate to tell me your impressions, as they really help me to find motivation.

Happy reading!

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Chapter 8:

Snatcher had had enough. He was sick of everything. This was way too much than what he signed up for -HA- and it had been the final straw. Not only did he almost die -again- but he had seen his parents, only to fight with them.

This had to stop: that was what he was thinking while dressing up. He chose a long blue tunic with a hood, and brown pants. He also found black boots in his wardrobe and put them on. Standing up was still painful, though anger managed to keep his mind focused on other things. He tried to remember the way to the village square, only succeeding in getting quick flashes full of colours in his mind, but nothing more. The shade supposed it would come back to him once he walked there. After all, that was what had happened when he had entered the village for the first time.

He came closer to the mirror in the room and looked at his reflection. His face was very pale and his eyes were swollen and red. His hair was a mess too. Well… On the bright side, no one would recognize him at first glance, which was exactly what he wanted. Plus, he looked more like a ghost than a human at that moment! At least, that was a more usual appearance to him.

He put the hood on and stared at himself: no one would be able to recognize him like this. He barely did.

He turned back to the bed and crouched beside it, wincing at the pain caused by the action. Very carefully, he lifted the mattress in order to take back the kid’s poorly-made drawing. He didn’t like the idea of leaving it behind. Not because he found it cute! Absolutely not! He only disliked the feeling of leaving proofs behind him, that was all. Nothing more.

He shook his head, determined to forget his last train of thoughts. He stood up once again before putting the drawing in the left pocket of his pants. Only because no one would find it there. Obviously.

He cast a last glance at the room: he was definitely notgoing to miss it. On the wall touching the headboard of his bed was hanged a painting which featured both him and Vanessa. He held back a shiver at the sight of it. He had noticed it before, of course, but he had a much better view now that he was further away from it. He wanted nothing more than just rip the prince’s smile from the painting. What a fool.

He felt the anger coming back and walked to the door with heavy steps. He was so done with everything. He opened the door bluntly and stormed off. There was no one on the third floor to stop him, allowing him to go down the stairs without meeting any resistance. When arriving on the second floor, he could hear Vanessa’s cries from where he was. The ghost rolled his eyes: she wanted to cry? Whatever. He didn’t care. As long as she didn’t freeze him and the village, that is.

He ignored her and kept going downstairs, meeting one of the servants on his way to the ground floor.

-“My Prince?” they called out to him, more than surprised to see him out of bed. Snatcher simply ignored them, dismissing them with a quick hand gesture. He had no time for that and, even if he did, he didn’t want to stay there any second more than necessary.

His face must have shown those exact thoughts since the servant stepped back instantly, not insisting more. Good. The ghost passed them and quickened his pace. Now that someone had seen him, they would get help to try and reason with him. And Snatcher very much prefered to be outside before Vanessa found out about him running away.

The shade finally arrived at the ground floor and passed another servant. The latter didn’t even get the time to try anything as Snatcher silenced them just like he did for the first one. The other fled, presumably only to get Simeon as fast as possible.

“I have to get out of here now.” The butler would probably do anything to stop him, especially if it was an order from Vanessa. The ghost crossed the main hall, happy to see that no one was in the room other than him. The other servants were most likely trying to cheer Vanessa up or, at least, do something that wouldn’t make her angrier.

The spirit walked to the huge door of the manor and pushed it open. A bright ray of sunlight blinded him for a brief second until his eyes adjusted. The wind caressed his face and the ghost took a deep breath, filling his lungs with fresh air. He hated to admit it, but that was something he would miss, after regaining his spectral body. Feeling things… That was nice, even if it hadn’t lasted long.

He forced himself to stay focused: he couldn’t lose more time. Without looking back, he passed the door quickly and closed it behind him. His eyes fell on the big area between the mansion and the first houses of Subcon Village. Why did he have to have legs?

He groaned and began walking again, clenching his teeth in frustration.

“It’s only for a little while, it’ll be over soon…” However, it did very little to energize him. This was going to be a very long day… But how hard could it be? It was just walking! The hat-wearing brat could run just fine, why wouldn’t he be able to walk? This was nothing more than a mindset problem! If he wanted to, he could ignore the pain and walk just fine!

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

The ghost was, in fact, not fine.

Not only was the pain becoming more and more unbearable after arriving at the village, but having a crowd around him was starting to make him feel quite dizzy. No one had seemed to recognize him yet, fortunately. However, the noise all around him was so loud, so unusual to him, that he couldn’t help but feel nauseous. Furthermore, people kept touching him on accident. Sometimes it was almost unnoticeable, but other times it was more violent, with children running into him while they played. Being surrounded by people made it harder to find fresh air as well. The superposition of all those sensations… It was more than overwhelming. When he had woken up, it had felt nice to sense them again, after all those years being dead… Though, now, it was nothing more than pure torture to the shade. Everything was too much, too much, too much.

The spirit distanced himself from the rest of the crowd, to rest on a nearby bench. Sitting down was just what he needed. He kept his legs outstretched to ease the pain and rested for a while, watching the crowd moving before him. It was so… Surreal. All those people used to be ice statues two days ago… And now they were walking just in front of him, as if nothing had ever happened! Which, in a way, was the case because of that time travel problem? He wasn’t an expert, that was more the kid’s forte rather than his.

Speaking about the said kid, he looked at his surroundings. He had followed the crowd, hoping it would lead him somewhere he would recognize… But it only lead him where he was now. Was he close or far from the square? He had no idea. The place looked familiar, yes, but everything did. The spirit used to live there after all. However, his memories were fuzzy and with all the people walking and talking around him… Thinking was difficult. He could feel a migraine coming with just the loud noise of chattering.

“Oh no, not again.” Feeling physical pain really was something he wouldn’t miss, along with his stay in Subcon Manor. He shut his eyes, trying to ignore everything, in vain. All his senses were attentive, trying to catch any information they could get. His sense of touch could feel the draught of people passing right next to him, the heat produced by their fleshy body, the bench under him, the rays of sunshine on his face… His sense of smell caught many sents, not all of them enjoyable to him. He wrinkled his nose in displeasure, trying to focus on something else, anything. Finally, there was his sense of hearing: he could overhear people talking to each other, the sound of carts passing near him, rapid steps from children, their high laughter bothering him quite a lot… However, another noise caught his attention. It was… Water? Water being splashed not far from where he was?

He knew that sound. He had heard it before, he was sure of it. Snatcher stood up mindlessly, as vivid pictures appeared in his mind: memories he had done everything to forget, flashbacks of this village and of its various parts, even unimportant details… Now he knew where he was. His legs had subconsciously taken him exactly where he was supposed to go.

Snatcher made several steps towards the sound, pushing people out of his way as he passed the next building. His eyes fell on the one thing he was searching for: the village square. It was a place full of people, with several shops on the side. On the centre was a pond, from which came out a pole. The kingdom flag was attached to it and fluttered with the wind. The pond was surrounded by a wooden fence, opened on his side of the square. Kids were playing in the water, splashing each other while giggling stupidly. The shade looked at them, hoping to find the brat he was supposed to meet among them. However, even if he couldn’t see their face because of their masks, he knew she wasn’t among them.

That’s when he realized something: how would she be able to recognize him? He was back in his old human body, in a time period where her grandmother wasn’t even born yet!

With sudden fear, he took the drawing out of his pocket in order to look at it. His eyes widened when they fell on his representation: she had drawn him just like he used to look with his spectral form, not like his human one. She had no idea of what he looked like now. What if she was waiting for his ghost version to show up? If the kid was hiding, trying to find him first… Then she simply wouldn’t. What should he do in that case? What if he never found her at all? Or what if-

However, before his mind could find any other possible worst-case scenario, he was hit by something in the head.

-“Ouch!” He brought his hand to his head to rub the painful spot. Something fell right next to him and he lowered his eyes to examine it. It was a pebble, next to his shoes. He rose his eyebrows: did someone just-

As he was about to look up in order to find whoever hit him, he felt another bump on his hood, missing his head by very little. Alright, that was it. Someone had just signed their death warrant. The ghost lifted his hands, ready to strike anyone in range with his powers, but quickly put them down. No powers left, how could he have forgotten… Still, his eyes inspected the crowd, searching for the stupid person who had tried to mess with him. He looked, and looked, and looked, before staring at a particular mask visible among the mass. This one looked different than the others… While the latter looked like foxes or pink rabbit masks, this one was dark green and had some sorts of long antlers on the top of it. It is only when Snatcher looked a little lower that he saw the yellow cape and purple dress that he was searching for so much.

It was her! It was the kid! She was staring at him behind the wooden fence and waved at him.

The ghost remained motionless. Did she know it was him? But how? She did throw pebbles at him to draw his attention, though the spirit had no idea how she had guessed it was him, from all the people walking around them.

Before he was able to think more, the masked child walked backwards and gestured him to follow her, while maintaining eye contact. Or, well, Snatcher supposed she did, as the mask prevented him from seeing her face. The shade moved towards her, not wanting to lose her among all those people. He did wince from the pain, but it was nothing new at that point. He forced himself to focus on what was important rather than that and tried to follow her through the crowd. He had to push several persons aside, lowering his head not to be seen as he walked close to others. Keeping up with the little girl from the corner of his vision, he quickened his pace. Where was she taking him? Wouldn’t it be easier to take him with her onto her spaceship, by teleporting them away or whatever method she used? Why was she trying to take him somewhere else?

They finally stepped out of the mass of people and Snatcher saw the kid entering a dark alley, far from the main square. She wanted discretion? He could do that, though, was it necessary since everything was to be erased in the end? Well, time travel wasn’t his strong point, maybe he got it all wrong.

He entered the alley a few seconds after her. He could see her a few steps away from him, having finally stopped walking away. Just as he was about to call out to her, she took off her mask and replaced it with her usual top-hat, before giving him a bright and happy smile:

-“Snatcher!” The ghost didn’t get the time to reply, as the hat-wearing child pounced on him, hugging him tight in her little arms. The sudden contact made Snatcher’s body freeze instantly, as sensations submerged him. The impact caused the pain in his legs and hand to intensify and he bit his lower lip not to make any sound. A few seconds passed before he was able to push the brat away, purposely ignoring her pout, as he tried to regain his composure.

-“Yeah, yeah, kiddo, hello to you too, I got that.” He dusted his tunic with brief gestures and looked back at the child, whose eyes were still fixed on him. God, it felt so good to finally act like himself and not like that dumb prince he used to be!

-“Next time you want to call me, just come instead of throwing rocks at me, or something.” he groaned, still feeling the throbbing ache on his head from the previous hit. The kid simply giggled at him, with that awfully annoying laughter of hers.

-“Sorry, I wanted to be discreet. But it worked, didn’t it?” The mischevious expression painted on her face was enough to tell the shade she didn’t regret it in the least.

-“You’re lucky I don’t have my powers anymore, kid, you’re playing with fire here.” He stopped, thinking about what had been on his mind since the moment he arrived at the village square: “By the way, how did you know it was me?” He asked in a wary tone before adding: “You drew me in my spectral form in your meetup message, so how did you recognize me?”

His questions seemed to put the child ill-at-ease immediately, as her smile fell the instant she heard his words. Her posture shifted in clear awkwardness, as she hunched her shoulders, looking at everything but the shade:

-“Hum… Well I‌ was waiting for you and… I saw you from afar looking at my drawing, so I supposed it was you?” Her tone was unsure, clear signal that she was either lying or, at the very least, hiding something from him. And the ghost really didn’t like being lied to, especially after all he had to endure to come here: there were limits to his patience.

-“Oh yeah, so you just threw a rock at someone you didn’t know, just in case it would be me? Because I‌ was looking at something you couldn’t see from where you stood? Even if I could have been looking at any other paper?” He stared at her, unimpressed. He had dealt with many liars through his life as a ghost, with most of his contractors and everything, so he just knew when someone wasn’t telling him the truth.

-“Yes? Well, it was you, so why-”

The ghost cut her short, making her cower even more:

-“You’re lying to me.” He came closer and stoop menacingly upon her, using his lowest voice: “I don’t like that. So let’s try again: how. Did you know. It was me.”

The child remained silent for a few seconds, definitely tensed and uncomfortable. In any other situation, the kid would have laughed at him, not taking his threats seriously. But now, she was trying to avoid his stare as much as possible. She was hiding something, the ghost was sure of it. The girl shifted a little, as if she didn’t know what to do with herself. Eventually, she opened her mouth again, speaking with an anxious tone:

-“Okay, uh… Do you know what Time Rifts are?”

The spirit looked at the kid, as confusion slowly replaced anger on his face:

-“No? You’re the Mrs Know-it-all regarding time travel stuff here, not me.

-Well…” She paused for a moment, looking for words: “So, they are caused by broken Time Pieces. They’re like… Tears in reality, leading to alternate dimensions, where you can interact with things, mostly and…

-Get to the point, kiddo!

-I’m trying to!” She protested, not liking to be interrupted: “The thing is… While most of them are pretty standard, some are… Different.” She answered, her eyes avoiding his once again.

-“What do you mean, ‘different’?”

The question made the child cower more, as she muttered her answer hastily:

-“They’re linked to people’s memories.”

The shade stared at her, not knowing what she meant at first. However, his mind quickly connected the dots, between her explanations and the way she was behaving in front of him… She knew. His eyes widened at the realization and he felt a weight settling on his shoulders.

-“How long did you know?” The question left his lips as his mind was trying to process what he had just been told. In front of him, the child was rubbing her hands together in nervousness.

-“A while…?” She finally found the courage to look at him after replying. The shade didn’t know what to think. He had never told his past to anyone and the only person knowing about it was Vanessa herself. The thought of anyone other than himself knowing about it made him… Terribly ill at ease. It was as if a dark part of him had been revealed, for everyone to see. This past was something he had tried to hide for so long… And now someone knew and had even known about it for a while.

The ghost really didn’t know what to think.

-“Snatcher?” The girl’s quiet voice brought him back to reality. Her face was full of something akin to sadness and pity. The spirit didn’t like that. He clenched his teeth and, for once, was the one to look away this time.

-“I don’t need your pity.” He said with a low voice. Why did someone have to know? And why the kid of all people? Why did it bother him that much? The ghost eventually shook his head. Well, it was too late to do anything about it, now that she knew. His face softened as he looked at her once again:

-“Sorry you got to see that.” Just having flashes of his last moments made him feel terrible. The child probably hadn’t known how to bring the subject, no wonder she felt bad about telling him now. Silence settled between them, as no one dared to speak after that for a few seconds.

Snatcher was the one to break the silence, as he realized something else:

-“Wait, those Time Rifts… I think I saw two of them!” He remembered the one in the forest, just like the one which had appeared in his room. The kid’s message had actually come through it apparently. Did she know about them?

The child seemed to guess his thoughts, as she replied, visibly relieved to change the subject of the conversation:

-“Actually, those were because of me.” She explained, before continuing: “I was trying to find time anomalies and that’s how I learnt you were here too. But it kind of messed up some things in the process… That’s why they appeared. They didn’t lead anywhere though, they were only minor. I also used the last one to send you my message since, like I said, I managed to find your location thanks to the information I got from the time anomalies.

-’Time anomalies’?” He repeated.

-“Well…” She paused, as if she was trying to find simple words to explain something very complex. Which was most likely the case: “I was trying to understand what was happening. It’s very… Unique. It’s something I have never seen before and I only know this kind of situation through some theories I heard about.

-So… Are you telling me you can’t reverse it?” Dread settled over the ghost, as his biggest fear was starting to come true. This couldn’t be happening, this simply couldn’t be happening… His body was tensing up and his breathing was getting faster, just like his heartbeat. He couldn’t help but pray for the kid to tell him she was able to reverse everything, as if nothing had ever happened. Though, when he saw the hat-wearing child wince, his heart sank in his chest.

She couldn’t reverse it. Her stance was enough of an answer to the ghost.

-“It’s not that I can’t…” She started, hesitant, before being interrupted by Snatcher’s angry tone:

-“Then what? What’s the problem?‌” He lifted his arms, frustrated: “I’ve been stuck in this place, meeting people who are supposed to be dead, and you’re telling me you can’t bring us back?”

The kid put her hands on her face and took a deep breath, now frustrated as well:

-“Stop interrupting me!” She groaned in her palms in exasperation: “I can take us back! But it’s complicated!

-And what exactly is complicated, here? Can’t you just take us into your spaceship and reverse it by whatever means you’ve got there? I thought you were an expert on time travel stuff!

-I am, ugh!” she retorted, still grunting for a few seconds: “But it’s not a time travel problem! That’s why it’s complicated!”

The shade looked at her, bewildered. “Not a time travel problem”? What did the kid mean by that? How could this not be a time travel problem? His confusion must have shown in his features, as the child slowly lowered her hands to meet his stare. She sighed and continued her explication, conscious of the ghost’s wish to understand what she meant:

-“At first, I thought someone had broken a Time Piece. But the thing is… No one actually broke one.”

No one had broken a Time Piece? What was she saying?

-“Then why are we here? Didn’t we travel back in time or something?

-We didn’t. That’s the problem. We’re not in the past: we’re only in an imitation of the past.

-An… Imitation?”

The spirit couldn’t be more confused at the kid’s explanation. And, deep inside him, a new fear was starting to appear: the fear of being in a situation much stranger and harder to solve than what he first anticipated.

The kid nodded:

-“We’re in a Time Rift. And it’s not an ordinary one, it’s artificial. Someone made it from scratch using one of my Time Pieces.”

Snatcher’s body froze, as his mind was slowly starting to understand what the kid was trying to say.

-“You mean… Someone has recreated this?” He gestured to their surroundings in bewilderment.

-“Yeah. They didn’t break a Time Piece to get back in time, they used it to create a replica of the past, for some reason I don’t understand. I’m not even sure how it’s possible in the first place…” She crossed her arms, clearly dissatisfied by her own ignorance.

Snatcher’s confusion had reached his height. What? Why would anyone create an artificial past when they had the opportunity to actually go back in time? It didn’t make any sense! But what bothered him the most was that he knew who the person responsible was: Vanessa. It could only be her! She remembered things just like he did! There was no way she was innocent in this. But then again… Why would she create an alternate dimension when she could have gone back in time to erase everything bad from their past? Not only was it extremely illogical but it was strange, considering all the possible powers held by one single Time Piece.

None of this made sense to the spirit.

The child must have sensed his distress, as she extended her small hand to him:

-“I’ll be able to explain more back on my ship. I’ll show you what I’ve discovered until now.”

The ghost looked at the little hand that was offered to him. The situation had really changed for the worst, hadn’t it? He sighed and slowly gave his hand to her. When his left one touched hers, the child’s eyes drifted to his other hand, still painful from the frostbite:

-“Wait, what happened to your hand?” She asked, frowning. She let go of his left hand to grab his right one, not thinking about the pain it would cause to the shade.

-“Ouch, ouch, ouch, hands off, kiddo!” He tried to take it back, but the brat kept a tight grip on his skin, forcing him to give up his resistance. She examined it, inspecting it very carefully. Suddenly, a horrified look appeared on her face as she seemed to understand what, or more precisely who, was the cause of that injury.

-“It’s her, isn’t it?” She asked, with a knowing expression painted on her features. The shade only stared at his wound with a conflicted look, both sad and dismissive at the same time.

-“Yeah. She knows what’s happening too.”

The kid winced again. The situation was probably worse than what she had thought as well. She eventually let go of his hand and extended her arm instead for him to take.

-“Let’s go on my ship. I know how to cure this.

-You do?” He retorted, quite wary. He had seen what her spaceship looked like and it certainly didn’t belong to someone who knew how to take care of themselves. The brat guessed his thoughts and replied with an offended voice:

-“Hey, you were the one who forced me to go to Subcon Manor! I had to cure my own frostbites. Though, they looked better than yours does.”

He scoffed: oh yeah, he had forgotten about this contract. Well, at least it was a good thing for him now, as she knew how to cure that. Or he hoped she really did, as the pain was starting to become more than just unpleasant, at this point.

He finally extended his own arm, standing next to her, arm in arm.

-“Okay. Now what?”

She simply smiled at him and clicked her fingers. A beam of light appeared instantly and surrounded them very briefly. Snatcher then felt his body being transported in a way he absolutely hated, as if it was moving fast, too fast.

He was so going to kill this kid. But not before she got them back in their own time period.

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I hope you enjoyed that new chapter! Don't hesitate to tell me, any comment is a huge help to me! I can't wait to show you more of the story, as it's really getting somewhere from now on... Hehehehe!

See you in the next chapter! Please take care in the meantime :D

=> Chapter 9

#A Hat In Time #Reliving An Old Nightmare #RAON #snatcher #vanessa #hat kid #fanfiction #my art

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meadowmines · 4 years

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This will be mentioned once everyone gets to Altea for the tri-bonding but someone’s already asked and there is Amusing Backstory involved so... who did Shiro lose his title to?

Well, here’s the thing. Sometimes he kind of forgets how strong Alteans are. Not always, like--he’s always aware that Tavo or Merla could yeet him into the stratosphere with one hand. Other Alteans... not so much.

Sometimes he forgets how strong Coran is. And it’s really easy for him to forget how strong someone he’s never actually seen use her strength could be. Especially when she’s so young and cute and perky and...

...*sigh*

Romelle.

He lost to Romelle.

In the FIRST ROUND.

The worst part is, he realized she was going to be his opponent and not only underestimated her strength, he TURNED HIS LIMITER ON BECAUSE HE WAS AFRAID HE’D HURT HER.

Pidge designed his limiter with a very important safety feature: he can’t engage or disengage it while his arm is under load. Because it’d be very easy to turn it off while trying to lift something super heavy and end up launching that heavy thing right through the ceiling when he turned off his limiter, or accidentally turn it on and end up dropping something extremely heavy on his very fleshy and bony foot. So, Pidge coded in a safety feature that keeps him from doing that, and he can’t turn his limiter on or off unless his arm is relaxed.

If he had not turned his limiter on, he would have won. But he did, and by the time he realized he’d made a grievous strategic error it was too late for him to do anything about it other than try and hold his own against an Altean with an arm that was exactly as strong as his flesh-and-blood one. He put up as good a fight as any human person with human-person strength could, at least there’s that. He gracefully accepted his loss and went to sit with Curtis and when the two of them got done boggling over what the hell just happened, they both cheered Romelle on.

Which they did not have to do for long. About half of the other competitors ran like hell when they saw Shiro lose to this cute blonde girl because holy frap if she can beat the guy with the robot arm that easy she’s gonna LITERALLY KILL US. A few of the remaining competitors decided Shiro must have thrown the match somehow because there was no way this cute blonde girl was strong enough to beat anyone in a fair match. The first one she went up against very calmly accepted his loss, declared Romelle the real deal, and then casually asked where the nearest medical facility might be, no reason, asking for a friend.

She went on to beat the Warden, who came into the tournament with new and improved cybernetic arms hoping for a rematch with Shiro... and ended up making the exact same mistake Shiro did.

(also I kind of like the idea of Romelle being just freakishly strong even by Altean standards and utterly oblivious to that but anyway)

#three ring wedding #headcanon shitpost

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skyler10fic · 5 years

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K, so what if (big if) the reason the Doctor was so upset with Harriet in TCI was because he knew the Sycorax couldn't do much to harm the human race? He points out that he hasn't seen blood-control used for *years*, they fought using swords (ancient weaponry?) & were looking for a cheap power source & cheap laborers (the Doctor's regeneration energy & the human race as slaves). Even the leader's whip was stopped by the Doctor rather easily. Granted they did kill several people, though, so...??

meh, I do think both sides had a point here. Harriet isn’t so much afraid of the Sycorax at the end of the episode as what they represent. She’s afraid of the Sycorax spreading the word that Earth was relatively easy to mind control and ruled by fragile little fleshy humans who don’t even have exoskeletons! So tbh, I kind of get where Harriet is coming from with shooting the messengers as they run away in defeat. No survivors to tell the tale. And she’s right, as we learn more and more throughout RTD’s era and the Torchwood TV show after this, that the Doctor isn’t always around to solve things. So he can shout “it is defended!” all he wants but also can’t guarantee that he will be the one always here defending it.

Of course, the Doctor has a point too, that humans aren’t immune from becoming merciless monsters ourselves. I think that’s an important point that Doctor Who makes by having an alien protagonist. He (and now she) is all about defending the earth, but also not above judging the humans that occupy it. I think he/she really does want to believe the best about humans, sometimes to his/her detriment because sometimes humans are horrible, but we also can’t forget the Doctor is not one of us. I think that moment where Harriet makes a very human decision (prevent the spread of information to enemies to minimize risk) disappoints the Doctor because Harriet sees all aliens as potential enemies (which, again, she has a point), but the Doctor has seen and known so much more of the universe, and trusts that the warning not to come back will serve as a better warning to the rest of the species out there than no word of warning at all.

It is curious because it is often during a society’s “Golden Age” that it becomes self-protective and xenophobic, realizing how much it has to lose and how desirable it is becoming in the eyes of its neighbors. I think Harriet goes through that awakening here. Where before it was maybe “we’re sending a probe to celebrate peace throughout the universe!” now it’s “no one can know we’re here, and if they do, we will shoot them down if they trespass on our property.” It’s a very human instinct. But one that separates the Doctor from humans. That’s just not how he thinks. He’s always after the hope and exploration and doesn’t place much value in ownership of places and things, outside the TARDIS. So the ruthless pragmatism of Harriet, even good ol’ backbencher-turned-PM Harriet, breaks his heart and he knows he has to stop it before it gets out of hand. Maybe he fears her plans would go on the offensive against other species. Maybe he fears exactly what Torchwood became in the end anyway. Maybe he was arrogant and still carrying around the supreme-being-complex of the Time Lords. He always knows best, and it is his place to pass judgment on the humans he defends. Dangerously close to seeing them as children he loves but must reprimand. (Even though we do act like it sometimes.)

It’s a complicated scene, but I think there’s a lot more here than the humans unnecessarily fearing the Sycorax.

#the christmas invasion #tenth doctor #meta #rtd era #harriet jones #sycorax #Anonymous

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everdreamts-blog · 5 years

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Wyatt hadn’t been sure what to expect from any of this. The job offer had come so out of the blue that he’d needed a good two weeks to come to a proper decision, and only because his dreams had shown him he’d be relatively happy with the change. Getting into the police academy had been tough and draining, so a part of him couldn’t help but question just how much throwing that away for a place in an organization that calls itself “Supernatural Control Force” would be worth. Great salary and a new apartment he wouldn’t have to pay for aside. But Jihoon had been ecstatic immediately, and, well. As the only person intimately acquainted with all things supernatural, he had been – and still is – his best bet.

It’s still difficult, wrapping his head around this great, earth-shattering revelation. His dreams are more frequent now, or maybe he’s simply more aware of them after waking up instead of dismissing them the moment he opens his eyes. Mundane, everyday snippets, like Jihoon dropping his favorite mug and proceeding to wallow in sadness all day over it, or Lysander coming over with a baggie full of freshly-baked chocolate chip cookies. Before being told about his powers as a seer, Wyatt had always chalked those off as gut-feelings. Intuition. Heaving a sigh, he trails his eyes up the skyscraper Jihoon dragged him to. An endless expanse of boring grey, broken up by white-framed windows. On the wall next to its double-wide entrance door hangs a plaquet, plain silver with black lettering. “GoldLeaf Networks Inc.,” it reads. Wyatt furrows his brows. “Are you sure this is the right place?” Jihoon comes up behind him, humming in that too-enthusiastic way of his. “There’s a glamour here. The SCF is very secretive.” “Glamour?” Wyatt turns. “Whatever that is.” “Just,” Jihoon says as he taps a finger against the plaquet, “look closely. You’ll see it.” Wyatt is all but ready to turn around and change his mind, but he indulges Jihoon. He’s been doing that far too often lately. Squinting his eyes, he leans in, staring at the plaquet. Nothing happens. He stares a little harder, focusing on the letters, their crisp outlines and bland font. The letters begin to flicker, to warp, rearranging themselves, multiplying, changing forms. Wyatt stumbles back, his heart in his throat. “Supernatural Control Force, Seoul subdivision,” the plaquet now reads, “est. 1704.” Jihoon grins. “See? That’s a glamour. It keeps curious eyes away. If you’re not magical or a supe, you can’t see through it.” “Holy shit.” Grin fixed on his face, Jihoon walks past him and pushes the door open, motioning for him to step inside. The inside is spacious, as expected from a lobby of a building this size. Warm lights line the window-covered walls, though the main light source is a plethora of sleek, circle-shaped lamps, holes in their middles and varying in size, all over the ceiling. The only two walls not covered in windows are the one all the way on the other side of the lobby, lined with a row of elevators instead, and the one all the way to the right, the reception desk sitting in front of it. In the middle of the lobby, surrounded by various plants, a waiting area has been lowered into the floor, black leather couches and armchairs, metal end tables topped with stacks of magazines, and a water cooler, gurgling every now and then. Jihoon heads straight to the reception desk. He lacks all wonder and excitement Wyatt expected to see from him, faced with a sight such as this. He must have been here before. The woman behind the reception desk looks up from her book, her ruby-red lips a harsh line. “Do you have an appointment?” “Sorta,” Jihoon replies, something sheepish in his tone, “we’re here to see Lee Junsu.” The woman makes a noise, slightly disgruntled. She marks her page in her book and sets it aside to rummage in one of her drawers. “Names?” “Oh Jihoon and Wyatt Lyles.” She takes two plastic cards out of the drawer, both of which read “Visitor” in bold, capital letters. After typing something on her keyboard, her printer spits out a set of stickers, glinting gold. She peels them off and sticks one each on the cards, pressing them down with a slight hitch in her brow, before handing the cards to Jihoon. “He’ll be with you shortly.” With a vague gesture towards the waiting area, she dismisses them, going back to her reading. “What was that about?” Wyatt asks, following Jihoon to one of the couches. Jihoon hands him his card. “Visitor passes. There’s a lot of security stuff in this building. You can’t enter some areas without a pass like this or being an employee.” “Sounds very… non-magical.” Jihoon snickers. “Part of it is. Sometimes, the human way works best.” As too many things lately, Jihoon’s answer is just cryptic enough that it leaves Wyatt unsatisfied. He bounces his right leg up and down, letting his eyes flit about the premise. It’s so… normal. So inconspicuous. Modern and no doubt expensive, yes. But not at all what he thought a place like this might look like. There are no magicked items floating in the air, no people appearing out of thin air and fire places, no owls carrying letters and parcels. Harry Potter, as it turns out, is a big, fat lie. He fiddles with his card instead of ruminating on how media cleverly managed to deceive him. Sturdy but not heavy, it’s a little like the library card he’d owned as a kid. The sticker the woman behind the desk printed out is some kind of symbol, thin, intricate lines woven together. When Wyatt rubs his thumb across it, it emits the slightest pulse. He gasps. Of course, Jihoon snickers. “It’s spelled. Neat, huh?” “Didn’t you just say security here wasn’t magical?” Jihoon shakes his head. “I said part of it is. The sticker’s spelled to let you through the wards. If you didn’t have that, you’d be unable to go anywhere because the wards would simply… “ He gestures in the air, eyes roaming to the ceiling. “Kick you out. Like, physically. The not-magical part is in the card itself. There’s keypads and stuff you need to insert it in to unlock the mechanism.” Wyatt melts into the sofa. The leather is just shy of too stiff to be comfortable. Still fiddling with the card, he says more than asks, “You’ve been here before.” Offering a one-shouldered shrug, Jihoon shifts in his spot to stretch his legs out before him. “That’s part of being a supe. For a lot of us, anyhow. My parents brought me here after I was born so the SCF could create a file of me. It’s not mandatory, and a lot of people despise this system because it’s basically an excuse to monitor you all your life, but it comes with benefits. Like, not becoming potential targets. Unless you act up, of course. There’s health check-ups, too, and counseling, and as soon as you turn eighteen, you’re more eligible to be offered a spot here than if you weren’t registered.” Before Wyatt has a chance to respond, one of the elevators gives a melodious ding, its door sliding open. Out walks a young man, black hair and tan skin. He approaches the both of them with a welcoming, if a little sharp, smile. “My apologies for the wait.” He dips into a brief, but polite bow. Jihoon rises to a stand and does the same, and Wyatt follows with some delay. The young man introduces himself as Lee Junsu, informing them that he’ll be in charge of all new recruits this year. As their supervisor and personal point of contact both. He leads them to the elevator he’d come out of, still smiling, tone casual but polite. “I trust you’ve read the brochure you were given thoroughly?” Jihoon nods, and so does Wyatt. They’d perused it together, sitting on the living room floor with takeaway jjajangmyeon and too much Pepsi. Back then, Wyatt’s life had been relatively normal. It feels like such a long time ago, as ridiculous as that is. Since that day, he’s found out about this whole other world mingled with that of ordinary humans, about him and Lysander being witches, about Jihoon being a shapeshifter. Although he has somewhat come to terms with it, he still wakes up sometimes and forgets until it hits him in the face like a brick. And now, he’s here, about to sign himself up to get rid of the last piece of normalcy he had left. Junsu’s smile turns satisfied. “Very good. I would rather not repeat myself too often.” He presses a button, the elevator smoothly beginning its journey upwards. Wyatt gives himself a moment to take Junsu in. He’s older, but not by much, which means he’s either managed to weasel his way into this position, or he’s simply exceptionally skilled. If the SCF works at all like human companies do, promotions like these don’t come without their price. The uniform he dons, Wyatt is more than familiar with. He’d worn one of them in a very recent dream, though his had been less intricate. Black and form-fitted, Junsu’s jacket is longer in the back, tapering off and reaching the backs of his knees. The two buttons keeping it closed are vaguely diamond-shaped. Its high collar and cuffs are embroidered with silver swirls and shapes. His pants are plain, much like normal dress pants, and he wears a pair of knee-high leather boots, laced up tightly and polished to perfection. Underneath the jacket, he wears a crisp, dark grey button-down. A quiet peep breaks through the silence. Junsu whips his gaze down to his breast pocket, patting it gently. A tiny beak peeks over the hem, followed by the featherless head of fleshy pink, large-eyed baby bird. Junsu coos. “Well, well, well. You’re awake just in time.” Jihoon gapes at it. “Is that… ?” “My familiar, Velvet,” Junsu replies, rubbing the pad of his forefinger over the bird’s naked head. The bird chirps weakly, closing its eyes. “I’m afraid you’ve come at a terrible time to see him, but that’ll change. He’s been through a lot lately.” “You’re a witch?” Wyatt can’t help but blurt out, and Junsu graces him with a snicker. “Half, yes. And half shifter.” Jihoon’s eyes sparkle up at him like he hung the stars in the sky. “That’s so cool!” The elevator comes to a stop. Behind its opening doors is another, large hall, separated into several rooms by glass walls. Some rooms are large, with a long table and many chairs in the very middle, but most of them are stacked with cubicles like an office, people working away behind desks. Junsu gestures towards them. “Once your employment has been greenlit, you’ll be doing office work for a little while, just to get you acquainted with everything. Every hunter needs to know how to do their paperwork correctly, who to contact for irregularities, how to behave during their time here. You’ll also be doing paperwork every time you return from field work, so get used to the thought of plowing through protocols and regulations.” He leads them further down the hall, taking a sharp right at the very end of it. Behind a heavy door that only opens after Junsu inserts his card, puts in a code and scans his fingerprint, they find a smaller hall, once again separated into multiple rooms. This time, however, their walls aren’t made of glass, but something solid, clad with dark wood. “This is where your higher-ups are,” Junsu explains, pushing the door closest to the one they just came through open. “Which includes me, of course.” He lets Wyatt and Jihoon step in first and closes the door behind himself as he follows suit. Walking up to his desk, he reaches into his pocket, gently pulling Velvet out of his hiding place. Velvet chirps, sounding suspiciously sulky. Junsu places him in a little glass bowl padded with what looks like fluffy miniature pillows. Velvet burrows into them immediately. “Now, let’s see,” Junsu says, letting himself fall into his office chair. He motions for Wyatt and Jihoon to take a seat, too, and they do without complaint. “I know we already have a file of you, Jihoon… ah, here we are.” It only takes a couple of clicks on his computer for him to find what he was looking for. He scans whatever’s on his monitor quickly. “Yes, you’re a good choice. Iseul has an eye for these things, but I’m still impressed every time.” Jihoon’s cheeks pinken under the praise, but he beams at Junsu. “Thanks.” Junsu returns the smile with one of his own, sharp at its edges again. “And Wyatt… you’re not registered, are you?” Both Junsu’s and Jihoon’s attention snaps toward Wyatt. Wyatt clears his throat. “Uhm. No.” If he’d known about any of this, he’d have long showed up to register himself – if only to not seem suspicious. This delay hopefully won’t be an issue in the future. “I wasn’t aware of being – you know. Until a few weeks ago.” The noise Junsu makes is free of judgment, and not even a little surprised. “I figured. Your magic isn’t very refined yet.” And isn’t that fun. Another stranger seeing right through him, seeing that something extra in his blood he never suspected of being there. Wyatt’s stomach roils. Uncharted territory is one thing, and he’s far from being a coward, but this is unnerving in so many ways. How many people caught onto him not being a normal human? How many of the looks he’s received over the years were because of his magic? Nothing is worse than being the clueless one. “Yeah. I know.” Wyatt’s reply comes out a lot more strained than he would have wanted. He averts his eyes, watching Velvet squirming in his makeshift bedding. “That’ll change soon. I have a mentor now.” At that, Junsu’s brows rise high on his forehead. “Oh? How fortunate. The more tutoring you get, the better. Of course, we have highly skilled teachers, too, and you’ll be taking lessons to work on your magic, but it never hurts to have another pair of eyes on you.” “Lessons?” Wyatt leans forward in his seat. “You’ll teach me here?” Junsu nods. “Oh, yes. Everyone receives appropriate training. Our witches are schooled in everything magic, tutored through finding their specialization if they wish to have one, but you’ll also be undertaking combat training that’ll include more than what you’re used to. Your magic can be a weapon if you know how to use it. Mightier than a blade or gun ever could be.” Junsu’s voice drops at his last few words, and for whatever reason, it sends a ripple of a shiver down Wyatt’s spine. He shares a look with Jihoon, who all but vibrates in his seat. This job was going to be anything but boring.

#✼ * drabbles / wyatt.#✼ * drabbles / jihoon.#✼ * drabbles / junsu.#✼ * verse / where the wild roses grow.

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this-year-ive-read · 5 years

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Books I’ve Read in 2019 (A List in Progress)

The Devil and Sherlock Holmes - David Grann (***)

“The course of human events is not permanently altered by the great deeds of history, nor by the great men but by the small daily doings of the little men.”

Killers of the Flower Moon - The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI - David Grann (**)

“History is a merciless judge. It lays bare our tragic blunders and foolish missteps and exposes our most intimate secrets, wielding the power of hindsight like an arrogant detective who seems to know the end of the mystery from the outset.”

The Things They Carried - Tim O’Brien (****)

“They carried the sky. The whole atmosphere, they carried it, the humidity, the monsoons, the stink of fungus and decay, all of it, they carried gravity.”

“I survived, but it's not a happy ending.”

“But this too is true: stories can save us.”

Every Word You Cannot Say - Lain S Thomas (***)

“There are days when everyone needs you to be strong, even if you're dying inside, and you can only cry when no one's looking because you're petrified of letting them down.”

“I don’t know if I’m ever, really, ‘Here’”

Everything I Never Told You - Celeste NG (***)

“Before that she hadn’t realized how fragile happiness was, how if you were careless, you could knock it over and shatter it.”

“You never got what you wanted; you just learned to get by without it.”

Night - Elie Wiesel (****)

“To forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time.

“Those who kept silent yesterday will remain silent tomorrow”

The Alice Network - Kate Quinn (**)

“Poetry is like passion--it should not be merely pretty; it should overwhelm and bruise.”

“What did it matter if something scared you, when it simply had to be done”

Love her wild - Atticus (***)

“We are made of all those who have built and broken us”

“A sky

full

of stars

and he

was staring

at her.”

When we Left Cuba - Chanel Cleeton (****)

“For the dreams that slip through our fingers.

May we hold them in our arms one day.”

“You can love someone and still not lose your reason.”

“Not all of us have the luxury of setting the world on fire, simply because we’re angry.”

Crush - Richard Siken (***)

“A man takes his sadness down to the river and throws it in the river

           but then he’s still leftwith the river. A man takes his sadness and throws it away

           but then he’s still left with his hands.”

“You’re in a car with a beautiful boy, and he won’t tell you that he loves you, but he loves you.”

“They want you to love the whole damn world but you won’t, you want it all narrowed down to one fleshy man in a bath who knows what to do with his body, with his hands.”

War of the Foxes - Richard Siken (**)

“Someone has to leave first. This is a very old story. There is no other version of this story.”

“I want to give you more but not everything. You don’t need everything.”

Murder on the Orient Express - Agatha Christie (**)

“The impossible could not have happened, therefore the impossible must be possible in spite of appearances.”

Fool Me Once - Harlan Coben (***)

“All love stories,” Maya’s father had told her many years ago, “end in tragedy.”

“There are moments in life when everything changes.”

Pirate Hunters - Robert Kurson (*****)

“They made a sound I’d never heard before but somehow had known my whole life, a waterfall of muted chimes, dense and deep and old”

“When John asked his grandfather about being heroic, Arison told him that he had not done anything special, just what he thought was right”

“The world came alive when a person got a chance to be good”

“Do it now. Tomorrow is promised to no one”

“And promised himself that no matter what, he wouldn’t put off until tomorrow what his heart told him to go for today.”

“He just looked out at the world knowing it was finally too late for his father to have an adventure, and nothing seemed in color anymore.”

The Lost City of the Monkey God - Douglas Preston (***)

“But then the teules [foreigners] arrived and everything fell apart. They brought fear, and they came to wither the flowers.”

Crashing Through - Robert Kurson (****)

“It wasn't who a person believed himself to be or what he pretended he would do in a given situation. It was what he did when he got there that defined him.”

“May opened his eyes. Electric dots of silver-white, as many as the sound of a rainstorm, ran to every space in the world, and when he tried to see where they led there was no world anymore, they led everywhere, across a blanket of night that had no edges, and for a moment May didn’t know where he was among these stars, if he was under them or around them or beyond them, they were everywhere and he was everywhere, he was where he wanted to be.”

Shadow Divers - Robert Kurson (*****)

“This is where the hangers on, and wannabes, and also rans, and once greats keep believing in the sea.”

“I love you and you’re not here for me.”

Ross Poldark - Winston Graham (***)

“The greatest thing is to have someone who loves you and—and to love in return”

“Autumn lingered on as if fond of its own perfection.”

Demelza - Winston Graham (***)

“Strange sometimes how easy bitter words came, how hard the kind ones.”

“Let me stay a little longer in the sun.”

Love Looks Pretty on You - Lang Leav (****)

“You turn him into poetry because you can’t have him any other way.”

“I have been quiet lately, I know. Not because I don’t have anything to say but because I have too much.”

“I struggle with things that are as easy to others as breathing.”

“Here is the story of my life. Hoping they would care about me or wishing they wouldn’t care so much.”

“When love swept in like the ocean

And left me in drops, like rain.”

Jeremy Poldark - Winston Graham (***)

“Resentment and bitterness and old grudges were dead things, which rotted the hands that grasped them.”

“It isn’t where you’re born in this world, it’s what you do.”

Edgar: an Autobiography - Edgar Martinez (***)

“I concentrate on the moment and Don’t let the past or the future overwhelm me.”

“Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the greatest mariner of all time.”

Warleggan - Winston Graham (***)

“Their lives had been the tragedy of one woman who could not make up her mind.”

“It was not the cold of the night that she felt but an inner cold that no coat would cure.”

“Remember this she thought. In times of jealousy and neglect, remember this. He said: “so you are not to be rid of me, my love.” “So I am not to be rid of you, my love.””

The Black Moon - Winston Graham (**)

“Blemishes on the beauty of a person one loves are like grace notes adding something to a piece of music.”

“We can’t alter the world, we can only adapt ourselves to it.”

The Lost Girls of Paris - Pam Jenoff (*)

“It is simply not enough to be as good as the men. They don’t believe we can do this and so we have to be better.”

Emma - Jane Austen (***)

“If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more.”

“I may have lost my heart, but not my self control.”

Wuthering Heights - Emily Brontë (****)

“Because he’s more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.”

“I have not broken your heart—you have broken it; and in breaking it, you have broken mine.”

“The entire world is a dreadful collection of memoranda that she did exist, and that I have lost her!”

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall - Anne Brontë (****)

“beauty is that quality which, next to money, is generally the most attractive to the worst kinds of men;”

“But smiles and tears are so alike with me, they are neither of them confined to any particular feelings: I often cry when I am happy, and smile when I am sad.”

“If she gives you her heart,’ said I, ‘you must take it, thankfully, and use it well, and not pull it in pieces, and laugh in her face, because she cannot snatch it away.”

“This rose is not so fragrant as a summer flower, but it has stood through hardships none of them could bear: the cold rain of winter has sufficed to nourish it, and its faint sun to warm it; the bleak winds have not blanched it, or broken its stem, and the keen frost has not blighted it. Look, Gilbert, it is still fresh and blooming as a flower can be, with the cold snow even now on its petals.—Will you have it?”

Jane Eyre - Charlotte Brontë (*****) {Reread}

“You think I have no feelings, and that I can do without one bit of love or kindness; but I cannot live so”

“He made me love him without looking at me.”

“I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard to you—especially when you are near me, as now: it is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar string situated in the corresponding quarter of your little frame. And if that boisterous Channel, and two hundred miles or so of land come broad between us, I am afraid that cord of communion will be snapt; and then I’ve a nervous notion I should take to bleeding inwardly.”

“I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being with an independent will”

“Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong!—I have as much soul as you,—and full as much heart! And if God had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you.”

#book list #book recommendations #reading list #books

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