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lover-of-skellies · 2 years

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Fear of the Dark

Since I wrote a couple pieces for Lyzer/Sleep Paralysis Demon!Nightmare, I thought it might be cool to do something similar for Figment!Dust and Figment!Killer. This specific one is for Figment!Killer. Idk how similar the style is to the way I wrote the stuff for Lyzer, but eh. I spent two hours writing and it was like 3:30am when I finished, so yeah

Summary: Your partner begins picking up more shifts at work, leaving you home alone more often than you would've liked. Things are fine for a little while, but when an unseen guest begins attempting to get your attention, you make the fatal mistake of ignoring him every step of the way. Needless to say, there's nothing he hates more than being ignored

Small warning for implied body horror at one point. It's very brief and not much detail is used, but still. There's also a bit of sleep paralysis too, since yes,, I gave Killer and Dust that ability. They're not strong enough to use it to kill anyone, but that doesn't stop them. They just have to get creative with how they kill. Reader doesn't die in this, but,,,,, some stuff happens that could be considered build up to that

As you laid in bed, you couldn't help but blame yourself for the situation that you'd found yourself in. It all started so simple. A bit odd and seemingly random, sure, but... simple. Fate came knocking on your door, and like a fool, you'd answered it.

It was a sunny afternoon. Your partner had just left for work. You weren't fond of the idea of being left home alone all day, but you'd been managing alright thus far. It'd began with your lights. They had started flickering, despite the bulbs having just been changed. You'd even called an electrician to see what might've caused the flickering, and he was unable to find a reason for it, either. You'd decided to simply try ignoring it, telling yourself that it was probably a faulty wire or something; your house was old, so if there were wires that needed to be replaced here and there, you honestly wouldn't be too surprised.

And then the drawings appeared, stuck all around your home. They were messy, like drawings done by a child, and while you found it odd, you brushed it off, assuming it was some sort of prank that your partner wanted to pull on you. You'd confronted them about it, bringing out a shoebox that you'd started storing the pictures in, and your partner denied everything. Fearing that there may be a squatter living in your home somewhere like you'd seen in movies, you'd called the police and explained the situation to them, pleading with them to come check your house. You kept your box of drawings as evidence, and when the police finally came by, you waited on your porch for them to finish their search.

As you'd started to expect, they returned with the declaration that your home was free of squatters, as all possible entrance points had been properly sealed off. You asked them to take the box of drawings in hopes that maybe the intruder had left some fingerprints behind. While they seemed skeptical, they complied, taking the box and leaving you alone in your home. In the coming days, your partner had begun picking up more shifts at work, meaning that you were alone more now than you had been before. It grew lonely quicker than you'd like to admit, and you turned to your streaming services and the internet to entertain you most of the time. You weren't a people person, so you hadn't felt inclined to go to the library or the park, or even for a walk to that little ice cream shop on the corner. Wherever there were people, you made a conscious effort to avoid them, despite your increasing loneliness.

There were no more drawings for what felt like ages, and then it worsened. You'd started hearing voices, and no matter how thoroughly you checked your surroundings, you never found any trace of another person's presence. You tried your hardest to ignore it, passing it off as either a lack of sleep getting the best of you or your isolation from others starting to mess with your head. Sometimes you figured it might've been both of those things. The voices seemed to grow agitated when you ignored them, but you continued to do so anyway for the sake of your sanity.

The first night he made contact was one when your partner was away, pulling yet another double shift. You'd been lying in bed, trying your best to fall asleep, when the voice appeared, murmuring right beside you, "Hey, pssst. Open your eyes. Look at me." You ignored him, letting out a deep sigh and instead rolling over, turning your back to where his voice had just been. There was a moment of silence before he hissed. A hand could be felt latching onto your arm, and some unseen force suddenly shoved you back down onto your back. You let out a startled sound, your eyes instinctively shooting open, and from right above you, he spoke again, his voice a purr, "There we go... That's better." A floating target began to fade into existence, and you watched with wide, horrified eyes as the hand that'd been holding your arm began to slowly appear and solidify as well. It was somehow darker than the shadows around your room, and the longer it touched you, the hotter it became. When it began to burn, you attempted to scream, and your uninvited guest chuckled, moving his free hand and pressing a single finger over your mouth, stealing away your voice, "Shhhh. There's no need for that. I know it hurts, and I know you wanna scream, but... I'm afraid that'll have to wait."

He leaned over you, the only identifiable facial feature of his being a single white ring where you'd assumed his eyes would be. Withdrawing his hand from up by your face, he hummed, staring at you for another moment before speaking again, his voice almost carrying a hint of sadness, "This wouldn't have happened if you paid attention to me... If you didn't ignore me, we wouldn't be here right now." You wanted to question him, and you tried, but it was in vain. Your body refused to move, and you couldn't produce a single sound. Tears pricked at your eyes when his touch began to burn even hotter than before, and you silently wept, forced to endure it in silence. The figure's voice lowered an octave or two, and he hissed, "This is your fault. I tried to get your attention in the nicest way possible, but it wasn't good enough. You really shouldn't have ignored me. You shouldn't have been such an IDIOT."

Without warning, he seemed to snap, drawing his free arm back, and then plunging his hand into your chest, "If you didn't ignore me like THEM, then I wouldn't have to be doing this." His hand closed around something inside you and your eyes widened. The air was torn from your lungs, and when he began to withdraw that something from your chest, your body gave a very noticeable, very hard jerk, and you wanted to scream more now than you had before. Your heart raced and you began to silently sob, images of your loved ones flashing through your mind. Your stomach flipped, and the figure gave a soft scoff. Releasing your arm, he reached up to the floating target shape, disconnecting the outer ring.

Your body continued to jerk and twitch as if you were falling, and he only watched you, his silhouette suggesting that his only reaction was a tilt of the head. Uncurling his other hand, he revealed something that was oddly heart-shaped and that cast a faint glow. You watched, still lying helpless beneath him, as he lifted the heart shaped object, and when he slipped it inside the disconnected ring from the target, the falling sensation grew more intense. A scream finally managed to tear itself from your throat as you continued trying to thrash around, and the figure chuckled. The endless falling continued for what felt like a century, until he let out a deep sigh and returned what you'd begun to think was your soul. You gasped for air, trying desperately to calm your racing heart, and he hummed, "I got some other business to attend to, but don't you worry your pretty little head. I'll be back for you as soon as possible."

Light flooded the room and he vanished before your eyes. You shot upright into a sitting position, sobbing uncontrollably. When you felt a pair of arms gently envelope you, you jerked, crying out in surprise. Your partner had just arrived home from work, and the instant you were able to recognize them, you began to babble. They tried to make sense of what you were saying, clearly at a loss but still trying to understand nonetheless. Trying to make you feel as safe as possible throughout the ordeal, they'd started working from home and staying by your side as much as they could. You'd been refusing to sleep, and you'd been adamant that the lights stay on. Despite their concerns and complaints about your electricity bill skyrocketing as a result of this, they continued trying their hardest to be supportive.

This went on for a week. Soon enough, one week turned into two, and then two turned into three. You and your partner were both exhausted, and your patience with things was dwindling. There were some days when you argued and genuinely couldn't stand each other, but you tried your best to apologize and make up for whatever had happened between you. You really were grateful for them and everything they'd done for you, and you made sure to remind them of that as much as possible.

However, your three-week streak came to an abrupt halt. There'd been a thunderstorm that succeeded in knocking out all of your power at once, and you nearly screamed when darkness consumed your home. Your partner got out of bed, intent on going to find some candles and flashlights. You begged them not to go, but they promised to be back as soon as possible. Terrified beyond belief, you sat up, wrapped in blankets and on the verge of tears as you shook, trying to keep watch over your surroundings. Your partner returned, just as they'd promised, and you should've been relieved. You wanted to be, but you couldn't help the sinking feeling that something was wrong.

Without a single word, they'd laid back down beside you, a far off look on their face. You asked them about the candles and flashlights, but you were met with silence. You'd begun reaching out to touch them, but to your horror, you were roughly shoved down onto your back. Calling out to your partner for help, you immediately began to weep at the revelation that you were unable to speak. Just like that one time before. Looking at your partner, you watched, your heart sinking when their body jerked and twitched, and a sickening chorus of cracking sounds could be heard. A red target shape began to glow above their chest, and that voice from before chuckled, "I told you I'd be back."

#writing #figment!killer #killer sans #undertale #undertale au #tw sleep paralysis #sleep paralysis #slight body horror #tw body stuff #tw body horror

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sunnytastic · 1 year

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heyy, I'm new to sunnyblr, you seem like an intelligent person and I learned my lesson with previous fandoms so...: what should one know about the cast doing/saying things that's like very problematic (besides the very obvious stuff in the show)? (It's alright if you don't want to answer or spread negativity <3)

welcome to sunnyblr anon!!! we are happy to have you! as someone put it recently, sunnyblr is just a big group chat so you'll see a lot of the same faces pop up

admittedly, i'm pretty new to sunny and sunnyblr too (I started the show and joined in june) so I'm definitely not the person to go to for sunny cast history but there are plenty of other blogs that have been around for a while that can answer your question better than I can

that being said, the largest controversy around the sunny cast is the creators defense of the blackface episodes. idk how much you know about sunny so forgive me if I sound patronizing but sunny was created by rob mcelhenny, glenn howerton, and charlie day (who play mac, dennis, and charlie respectively). despite several people criticizing their use of blackface (and other racial caricatures) due to its overt racism, rcg jump up and down defending it by saying that it was satirical

but beyond the fact that three white men could never do a satire of blackface correctly and should not have even attempted to, the problem with satire is that it's hard to do right but very easy to hide behind. there is a famous quote that goes "satire requires clarity of purpose and target lest it be mistaken for and contribute to that which it intends to criticize." and unfortunately, rcg fall right into this trap.

i don't necessarily think it's a wrong to satirize blackface. satire, when done effectively, is one of the best tools for highlighting inconsistencies and hypocrisy in social issues. however, the only people satirizing blackface should be black people. unless you are black, you will not have the perspective that is needed to create a satire of blackface that captures the nuances of the history of black people's portrayal in films, television, and live productions and its influence on how black people are treated in real life.

additionally, even if rcg were genuine in their attempt to satirize blackface, they should have stopped after receiving backlash on the first episode. instead, they just doubled down on their excuse and then continued making more episodes with blackface.

not to mention, the episodes aren't even satirical. rcg says that viewers are supposed to be laughing at the wrongness of the characters doing blackface instead of finding blackface itself funny but if you have to tell your viewers how they are supposed to look at your content, you completely failed at your objective. again, satire requires CLARITY.

in the gang makes lethal weapon 7, they make a satire of the controversy but completely fail to realize why the controversy was warranted. in just the previous season, they had an episode that needed to be removed from streaming services because of brown and yellowface. and the entirety of lethal weapon 7 just reeks of disingenuine apologies as they claim they didn't know any better at time as if they weren't old enough or living in a century where they knew blackface was wrong. especially when on the podcast episode for america's next top paddy's billboard model, they were very dismissive of its criticism.

rcg are not alone in this blame. FX had every opportunity to reject the episodes and yet they were aired. unfortunately, this is another example where white people are a part of the problem they claim to be against. it does not matter how woke you claim to be if you do not listen to the voices of marginalized people. you will simply perpetuate a system that excuses the mistakes of those in power because they claimed they had good intentions. as funny as they are, rcg have lost my respect for their defense of blackface.

sorry, this is definitely a much longer answer than you were looking for but I have meaning to share my perspective on the blackface episodes and this was the perfect segue. though, I am a white woman and my perspective on this topic is limited by my lack of lived experiences as a person of color. however, I hope I was able to provide a genuine critique of the situation. I'm sure this topic has been discussed on sunnyblr before but I am interested in hearing other people's thoughts on it.

side note: while i primarily use the term blackface, it is intended to encompass all the racial caricatures seen in the show, which include black, brown, yellow, and redface

#ive only watched the removed episodes once and it was so uncomfortable #the sad part too is that the episodes were funny and absolutely did not need to include it #iasip #its always sunny #its always sunny in philadelphia #its always sunny podcast #rob mcelhenney #charlie day #glenn howerton

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mysteriouseggsbenedict · 3 years

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attempting to discern the setting of MBS (aka what years it takes place)

Okay I’ve thought a lot about this and here is my best guess. I do agree that it’s kind of an ambiguous non-existent period like asoue but this stuff is still fun for me to go down the rabbit hole into so here we go:

1) We can date Extraordinary Education fairly confidently as immediately post-WWII. We know it takes place after a war in the 20th century, so it’s either WWI or WWII (I think we can confidently say it’s not Vietnam and that (or the Korean war) is actually the war Mr. Benedict is a code breaker during), and we know that the US was involved in it for 4 years, which is how long the US was in WWII. WWI lasted 4 years but the US wasn’t involved the entire time. We also know that the orphanage has a Studebaker, which is a type of car that was first manufactured in 1912. The book describes it as “old” and needing repairs constantly, and if the book was set only a few years later that wouldn’t make sense. The final thing pointing towards a setting in 1946 is the description of the Rothschild family. They seem to fit all the marks of a robber-baren gilded age family (hella rich, in the public eye, around the period of phonographs and candlesticks and stuff) and so if they had died around 30 years before Extraordinary Education that fits the timeline of there being the one previous director in between the Rothschilds and the current one.

2) Book!Benedict is roughly in his seventies. If he was born in the mid/late 1930s, that fits with the hypothesis that the book is set in the year it was published, 2007. This makes sense in some ways but doesn’t in others. The whole idea of TV being the Thing that everyone is addicted to watching is in line with 2007. It was before people started cutting cable and getting streaming services, and mostly before the social internet really took off.

3) we know that computers exist. The whisperer uses them, which really doesn’t mean much, because it would be reasonable to believe that Curtain invented technology that was beyond what other people were using at the time. However, in Prisoner’s Dilemma there is a mention of Sticky using a computer to look up a library book. Presumably that must involve internet and the library having a website. So I don’t think we can say it takes place in like the 50s or 60s as much as I would love that.

4) There are some things that don’t make sense. Orphanages largely didn’t exist in 2007 as the foster care system had been in place by then. Also, circuses didn’t really exist, because you know animal abuse and ableism out the window that people are more aware of in the 21st century. There is circ de sole and that stuff but idk. All the other kinda old-fashioned stuff we can reasonably pin to the kids and Mr. Benedict just being weirdos, but those are 2 institutions separate from any individual choices made by the characters and that don’t fit in with 2007.

so the conclusion is...yeah it’s kinda hard to say anything decisively but 2007 is probably the most reasonable estimate if I had to make one.

#the mysterious benedict society #mbs #tmbs

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dana-chan-the-control-brain · 3 years

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Happy new year everyone 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉

I know 2020 has been hard for everyone.

And I want everyone to know, suffering isn't a contest and we all suffer in different ways. But I feel I should give my year in Review. Just some things that happened to me personally.

This was an intense, and long and spiritual and emotional journey for me...

I really discovered what it meant to have community, family and what my life means to me.

But I feel I need to get this in writing cause I can remember the year with vivid detail and I will probably forget if I don't get it down.

Do I have to share this publically online to my tumblr account for a bunch of strangers to see? not really.

Do I want to?

Yes. I think so. Just from how so many people on tumblr and real life have touched me.

This is kinda long and no one needs to read this.

(idk how to do a readmore on mobile. But this is where I would add it later. No one needs to read if they don't want to.)

January/February: (and some background on the last five years of my life cause.....well. it's important.)

As people knew, I got way into Invader Zim last summer. I spent most of my waking life working a dead end job at a grocery store. I lived a sad lonely life, going straight home to a single dark studio apartment. With not many material possessions outside of games, my laptop and my tablet to my name. Half of my material loves, such as home furnishings and books were still in boxes from when I moved in. In case I ever had to move again, or get some "big screenshot or copywriter" job in the city.

....

I lived in that city in the same dead end job and apartment for five years.

No friends. No social life. I often refused to make doctor appointments or attempt to establish myself in that city. I didn't even talk to anyone in my workplace.

Work. Go online. Go to sleep.

I lived like that for five years.

I thought it was good.

Even my therapist thought I was doing well.

When I really wasn't. My main character flaw I struggle with is motivation.

I can talk to someone about very detailed plans I have to fix a problem... But I tend to never follow through.

Just because I can describe in detail how to fix my personal problems, it doesn't mean I will do it.

(I have gotten better at this but it's a major struggle)

I might have been a Zombie during the day...

But by night I was pouring my soul into my AU and my analysis.

After being so thoughly ignored or overlooked by the Naruto fandom and the Undertale fandom, I felt like I had finally found my home and was settling into a community there.

I just loved that people loved what I had to say.

Especially my AU.

It's no secret that a lot of themes in my au revolve around found family, grief, and loss.......

Fatherhood, in particular.

What it means to be a father, how much do you need to try when you mess up, how willing should a child forgive their parent, especially those that have wronged you and how much of it is factually accurate and simply a self projection of what children want their parents to be and visa versa... What amount of forgiveness and change is nessasary...is it needed?

....

It's no secret that a lot of my AU is a giant coping mechanism for my Dad's death. Espessially the falling out and growing closer with a lot of my family members throughout the years following his death. (Most of the time I keep it ambiguous to how it relates to my personal life unless I include a readmore that states so outright. I feel my au can be enjoyed by a variety of people in the fandom who don't need to know me as a person or my life story.)

My Dad passed away in 2016 in February and my family still feels the aftershocks to this day.

It's part of the reason I moved to the city, alienated myself from my family and people that loved me and refused to experience life for five years.

My entire world was Zim, and I was okay.

March: When America finally realized and started to feel the effects of the pandemic....

A lot of people got scared.

Me included.

I didn't have any streaming services or access to the news. So I only heard accounts from my mom.

I didn't understand why the store was so dead quiet and empty for a few days, then it went into mass chaos and panic in the span of two days.

It felt like Retail black friday in the worst way. Everyone was packed like sardines. Everyone was yelling. The lines at the registers bled into the clothing department.

I was witness to customers shoving others for toilet paper, being rude to cashier's and just overall unpleasantness.

At the time, I didn't even fully grasp what the pandemic was, and I feel a lot of people at the time didn't either.

I ended up absentmindedly scratching my eyebrow in front of a customer and she screamed and villanised me for it. That they didn't want groceries touched by my "unclean hands"

I ended up breaking down into tears.

The customer behind me gave me a hug and told me I was doing a great job.

But the damage was done. It was the final straw, I couldn't stop crying and I was breaking apart.

Thankfully my Boss (the one who likes me) pulled me aside and asked what's wrong.

It was then that I quit. No notice. Same day. I had to get out of there.

I was planning to move to an apartment with my sister in the summer, but my Mom offered for me to move back in with her temperarily just so I can get out of the city and away from the pandemic.

So I did.

I got scared, broke my lease a month early and quit my job of five years that gave me nothing back.

He told me, "take care of yourself and your family, I won't keep you here, do what you need to do."

So I did.

April-June:

A very eventful few months.

My mom offered for me to live at her place, but for some reason she was acting like I would live there forever. That this wasn't a temporary arrangement, and that I didn't have an apartment set up already.

This was in large part to my sister, who had lived with my mom taking advantage of her for years.

Even though my sister and I were going to move in together, I was just never sure about it cause of how she never packed her stuff or made any effort to find a job.

My mom often acted like I was lazy and not searching and was treating me like... Well, an unruly teenager instead of a woman of 29 years. She acted like I was a failure for returning home when it was her idea in the first place.

I would have just been petrified in the city.

Like usual, I retreated to my au again.... And in the spring, something eventful happened.

In may, 8th 2020:

I was invited by @rissynicole to join an invader zim discord.

Now, I've never really used discord before. I always thought it's interface is too confusing.. and I'm a member of a few other iz discords and I usually don't follow them that closely.

Rissy assured me it was different cause some friends of thiers made it and it was smaller.

Before I knew it, I was sharing memes and getting to know everyone there.

It wasn't long after I invited my partner in IZ crimes, @paketdimensioncomic who was genuinely wary of iz servers due to a bad experience with the last one they were a part of.

But soon they were sharing memes and laughing with everyone else.

My eyes were starting to open and I was able to connect to fans of my work in an interpersonal way. And I was able to discover new artists and aus I never knew about.

I was also able to meet so many others of the community and invite them to the server myself.

The moo-ping 10 server kept me sane while I was living with my judgmental mother.

Not only that, the summer was very productive for my au.

Drawing was all I did, and it was a huge break from the job as a cashier I had.

Not only that, June came, and with it, me and Ceph's first collab fic:

A result of us just going back and forth in our DMs constantly about Professor Membrane and how he changed in ETF for the better and how much we adamantly stan "trying-to-be-a-good-dad-brane" and how much of his ETF development has to be implied off screen in order for the emotional resolution in the movie to matter.

The only reason I never professed my love for Membrane as a character in the fandom before the fic dropped was.... Well....

Membrane can be a decisive character in the fandom and I was so worried people would hate me if I did an analysis on him, simply because he's not the best parent in the world. (As an understatement)

Ceph and I really encouraged each other to scream our love for the science himbo loud and proud more frequently and so often.... I actually start to see less Membrane hate posts and breakdowns then their used to be.... I like to think it's a combination of Me and Ceph's influence, along with ETF and the Quarterly's painting Membrane in a slightly more nuanced light then he was previously.

I never wrote a collab fic before and it's such a rewarding and fun and unique experience that I don't think I'll ever have again. And I love working with Ceph on our fics so much.

So much so we did it again...

July-August:

I never thought I would be one of those people who writes NSFW IZ fic... But here I am.

The Brainbrane au started.... An au of my au where Membrane and the Computer fall in love and Membrane makes him a body.

This ship was based around the idea where we joked that Membrane and Zim's Computer would have funny interactions if they ever met, under the pretense Membrane thinks Computer is Zim's parent.

Our headcanons morphed and shifted until we just full blown started shipping them.

Just because Membrane and Zim's Computer have overall REALLY entertaining chemistry.

It's a character dynamic never seen in the show or comics (yet) and I imagine thier interactions to be nothing but entertaining banter.

The fic was also born from spite... Making fun of the troupes and cliches that we found personally destestible in some questionable zadr fics.

So an angry ace and a demi-bisexual collab on a porn and end up blessing the fandom with

Compapa headcanons,

Computer being recognized as a more common used fanon character,

The ship of Brainbrane.

The fandom having a crisis of "oh God, not only are we xenophiles we're technophiles too!!!" Or "why you gotta give Zim's Computer an ass"

More android Computer designs

It was an eventful summer.

In the midst of all this, I moved into my new place, got a new job, and I was able to see my friend (who is def my platonic straight soul mate) who lives in Indiana.

She came to visit, showed me how to decorate and how to take care of my body better! Things were looking up! It was great.

September-November:

My job was at a boat store. If was approaching the fall and my hours were being severely cut.

I was getting into a rut of depression again.

I thought things were changing but the same routine I was trying to escape from was the same thing coming back.

But instead of letting it take hold, I decided I was going to do something about it... I was gonna visit a museum and go with my sister. Just... variety stimulation.

Well that didn't happen.

I talked about this shortly in my au itself...but..

My sister had a complete mental breakdown.

She stopped taking her meds, went off the deep end and was in the hospital a total of five times throughout November.

A lot of it was acting out and the perfect storm of environmental factors that made her scream and act out so she would keep going back to the hospital.

It was traumatizing for me.

I just can't explain what it's like. For her and for me to be in that position.

I'm not telling the full story and a lot of bullshit things happened I won't share here.

She got diagnosed with bipolar one and my mom expected me to be a caretaker for her.

I threatened to disown my family and move away out of state.

It was just too much for me to handle.

So much I was a nervous wreck.

I tried to pick up a second job... Cause my sister was in the mental ward so frequently and couldn't pay the bills.

But I was fired within a week cause I was so stressed I couldn't retain the basic information they were training me for.

It was an office job.

My dream.

It could have been.

I was fired from something I really wanted.

I was only there for three days.

I could not retain any information.

I was a mess.

My sister was a trigger, my mom wanted me to live with her. I couldn't live like this.... I had to get out.

I had to get out.

December:

Remember my Indiana friend?

Well the first week of December is my birthday.

My 30th to be exact.

While I did pick up a seasonal position at Target (not my first pick)

I took the first week of December off so I could spend time with her. Cause she agreed, I needed a break from this crap.

Surviving 30 years is cause to celebrate and if I had to celebrate with my sister I would have cried.

I know there was a risk traveling out of state during a pandemic...

But I needed out, I needed a friend..

And I kinda wanted to look at the place since I was considering moving there.

My friend's mom was sick so she avoided me and her daughter and got us a hotel room.

It was fun! I got to swim in a salt water pool, we talked about Naruto, I showed her the iz and su art books I brought, also Computer and Membrane tea.

I also got to meet her other friends and get crunk. And her bf who is super nice and funny!

I had a super fun birthday....

Until her mom told my friend that her grandparents had covid and that was what she had. And my friend got sick within that same day.... As did I.

I owe so much to her family.

I was an entire state away...about a ten hour drive from home.... She let me stay at her house. "The covid house" we called it.

Cause everyone (except the father. He avoided everyone and booked a hotel immediately cus he was an ER doctor) had covid within a day.

I called in, the test results were positive and I had to stay with her family for ten days quarantine before I could work again.

Which would have been fine....

If my tumblr didn't log me out perminately of my old account. @dana-chan325 .... Which really sucked cause I had a constant headache and was too sick to engage with tumblr or much of the fandom. I didn't want to make a new account when my head was in a bad fog and I could barely breathe or smell.

It's not like I saw much of my friend either.... We all slept at different hours and she had more symptoms then I did.

It was just netflix, danganronpa v3 and cry.

I was miserable, but at the same time.... Not?

I really feel like God himself was the one who pulled me off from tumblr, and my living situation.

Maybe a whole extra week feeling like a bobblehead was what I needed.

It gave me some much needed clarity on my relationships with my mom and sis and friend.

Running away to Indiana was not the solution here.

Once I was better within ten days and no longer had a leave of absence, I drove home.

I am glad I fully recovered (but from how I understand it, my dear friend is still ill. I'm praying for her)

I might have gone to work a bit too soon, cause I had an asthma attack after trying to unload a single cart in the span of six hours.

My boss lectured that my speed was unacceptable, and even though I explained the covid situation and breathing problems many times, she threatened that I'd be fired if I'm that slow again.

Que the next few days of work where they put me on register.

Instantly I was sent into a panic remembering the last time I was on the register and how that panic attack caused me to quit.

I even asked if I could go back to stocking, since my breathing had improved. My boss assured me that I was put on the register cause they needed help and nothing to do with my covid thing.

Then as December concluded and the new year began, my boss said that this was the last shift for me cause my position was seasonal and they were letting a lot of people go.

I then asked why I was on the schedule for Sunday, and he told me to ignore it and I'm free to reapply for full-time.

I mean.... They can act smart about it...

But putting your general merchandise stocker onto register after she had an asthma attack and missed working the first two weeks of December due to covid.....

Not a good look.

So once again, I'm jobless once more.

Will probably continue to live with my sister for awhile.

But I do not feel as if it's a bad thing....

I met so many good people this year....

My friend's family even gave me 500 usd to cover my rent since I couldn't work for a majority of December.

I've seen evil and good from humanity this year. I've seen acts of god, good friends and what my real family means to me as well as friends I consider family.

This year really made me look back at the person in the mirror and say,

"I deserve better."

And actually worked for it this time.

Oh and after Christmas I got a horrible yeast infection that burns over most of my body currently.

Very accurate doodle to the pain I'm in right now.

(seriously my body is a fungus.)

But hey, good news, I respected myself enough to go to the doctor about it!!

So that's progress.

I really hope 2021 holds good things for me.

Thank you to the mooping 10 server for always being there and keeping me sane,

Thank you tumblr for liking my au and everything.

AND A SUPER SPECIAL THANK YOU TO @evartandadam and her family for housing me and my dumb diseased ass. Everyone, she is an angel and I can't express how much she means to me. Please check out her art and buy her stuff on redbubble.

Anyways... Byebye 2020.

I look forward to what I can accomplish for myself this year.

#danachan's posts #personal stuff #new year post #tw: covid #tw: yeast infection

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superjennysunshine · 4 years

Text

Day 9: Day 7 - Revelations.

Today was fun. Xenoblades been fucking amazing so far and I’m still looking forward to playing it everyday, unfortunately FF14 has taken a backseat to it but I’ll return once i finish up Xenoblade.

So lets talk about day 7 huh.

I said I didn’t have a post for day 7 cause it was a bad day and that’s partially a lie. It was mostly an average day until I wrote out the post for day 7, at which point it became a bad day.

I didn’t really know what to write on day 7. I tried a couple things and none of them seemed to work and as I kept deleting paragraphs everything kept getting a little more raw and emotional, Attempt 2 was more emotional and raw than attempt 1. Attempt 3 more than 2, etc. On my fourth try I found what I was looking for, that feeling when you’ve struck literature gold and your just typing away filling the page with word after word of exactly what you wanted to convey.

But then I realized something. What I was writing sounded exactly like a suicide note. The first sentence was “I just wanted them to know how I felt.” later i wrote “I want them to know none of this was there fault, there was nothing they could’ve done.” and I started balling in my room, my door was open so I was biting down on my lip, tears streaming down my face as I wrote this letter. Finally I reached an end after 4 paragraphs and just sat there crying.

Ultimately I didn’t post that letter for day 7, of course, and I’m better now, I know that probably doesn’t sound like much coming from me, especially with events as of late, but I do feel better than I did then. But thinking back to it, It felt so final. It was so filled with anger and bitterness toward the world, some sort of lamenting tantrum at everyone who would’ve read it. It read like the words of someone who was about to die and it scared me. Still does today, which I guess is a good thing.

I think about my own death a lot, hell I daydream about it nearly on the regular. I feel like I’ve told at least one or two people that but I’ve never told them specifically what I think about. I have two separate death dreams.

The first is the Car Dream. In the car dream, I’m driving, on some street near a closed gas station, when all of the sudden i get in a head on collision. there’s glass stuck in me all over, im bleeding out of my ears and my eyes are open wide in shock. I crawl out of the car and lay on the ground by the door, staring up into the sky as the dream camera very cinematic like floats up into the air as David Bowies’ Heroes plays. Melodramatic as hell I know. But that’s how it plays out every single time I have the car dream.

Btw David Bowie makes great credit music. Heroes, Moonage Daydream, Life On Mars they all have such an ending type of vibe too them, like you’re watching someone walk off the field in an 80′s movie. Or in my case die in a fucking car accident lmao.

Anyway..

The other is the Funeral Dream. In the funeral dream I’ve already died. Everyone I expect would be at my real life funeral is there all dressed up to the nines. It’s in the same funeral home as my dads, I guess because it was the last funeral home I vividly remember the look of. There’s no service or anything but there is a closed casket and a television. The Television turns on and a video begins playing. It’s animated the first I hear is Blue by Yugo Kanno, the ending track to Cowboy Bebop. Another very good credit song, mainly because it’s used in the series finale credits. The similarities don’t stop there, as a huge blue sky plays a pivotal role in the plot of this little animation. There’s a shot of me in a hospital bed, presumably in this dream I die of some sort of illness. Don’t know if I’d take it over a car crash but that’s a quandary for another day. I wont go into too much detail about the events leading up to the end of the video. But when the ending crescendo of Blue begins i start running up the side of the hospital, and jumping into the sky, and as the song ends I fly away, only to be seen watching the world below me while sitting on a cloud. It mirrors this picture from the ending of All Star Superman, which makes sense because it’s my favorite image a comic I love, and is also about someones death.

The video is honestly, quite beautiful. It’s stirred tears out of me more than a couple of times.

I’ve had revelations about these dreams recently. In both of them I’m killed by something completely out of my control. An Unstoppable Illness, and An Unseen Oncoming Vehicle. I go away to music, ending music, ending music I love, and in the funeral dream I get closure. I watch the reactions of the people I love and I watch them leave. Knowing that their lives will continue on.

A resolute end. A goodbye.

This entire break I’ve been dreading returning to my friends lives not because I hate them or anything but because It would make it so much harder to leave. I’ve felt exhausted of living for so long, since before I even knew any of them, though I didn’t know that back then. But I got involved in these peoples lives I became something to them no matter how small or big that thing might be I AM something. It all makes senses. I stop talking to my guitar teacher, I brush off every compliment that comes my way, I chuckle and say a half assed thanks when people show me genuine love, I confine myself to my room and never speak to anyone, because I’m trying to prepare. Whether all of it means to prepare to just disappear or kill myself is a question I don’t have the answer to.

The more important question is, now that I’ve figured it all out, how do I feel about it?

Idk. I don’t wanna die, not today. Not right now. I did on day 7. Will I tomorrow? Maybe.

Truthfully, I have no Idea how to process any of this information or what i want to do with it. emotionally I want to go through with it, just POOF out of peoples lives and chill either in this room alone or in the ether. Logically I don’t want to do any of that because that sounds fucking insane.

Idk man. Shits crazy.

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mysleepdeprivedass · 4 years

Text

Another ML fanfiction idea

And here we go for another prompt fic idea that I got while reading a fanfiction on AO3. I want to write this idea but I’m too lazy for writing a whole fanfiction.

And just want to keep in my head but it was driving me crazy sooo let's go.

Btw I inspired by the fanfiction MDR by Yilena (on AO3) (@xiueryn on tumblr) (also I haven’t finish the fanfiction yet but I need to let go the idea of my head)

(let's go for translate everything a wrote again T^T and I just saw how long a wrote, the translation it's gonna be looong x.X also idk some term are correctly translate sorry if it's not)

Also warning, i’m going to talk briefly about eating disorder, bullying and suicide so skip the part in italic if the idea or the word can triggered you.

Have a nice reading on my 2.am writing idea. \0/

AU steamer / youtuber Marinette

Marinette begging steaming around her fifteen, and she become quickly know for her skills for some game

Marinette have now like 19 yrs old, almost 20.

She plays a lot of different games.

At first (when she was 15 ) she wasn't doing face cam steaming. After a years and a half, she start face cam but disguise. Her disguise is, a clothes always in polka dots red and black, and she have a mask which hide almost all her face and she wear a red wig (she have different wig, pixie cut, big curly, straits, ect,... But they're all red)

On twitch she is know as Ladybug, and she have a YouTube channel where she post all her rediffusion of her twitch live.

Marinette have a big community verry supportive and nice. She's the kinda of girl that going to play with her fan during live if she met them on the game.

She doing some explained and tip live on game that she's really good at or that she's love.

Her favorite game are Ultimate Mecha Strike saga. And a new independent MMORPG game call " The Tale of Miraculous" a kinda fantasy/fantastic game, that's become more and more difficult when your reach a levels.

Also it's a no-miraculous idea

At first, when she started live’s, qhe was doing a lot, like every night she was doing a live which ended around 4 or 5am. But after a big meltdown on live (she was around 17 years olds) she make a calender, which sometine change depending on he mood.

Monday Night : Games of her choice, most of the time she play at TTOM (The Tale Of Miraculous) or fighting games. From 8 p.m. to 1 a.m. or 2 a.m.

Wednesday Night : if she started a let’s play, she is doing the let’s plays, if she not she’s doing two or three games, most of the time horror games or strategy games. From 8p.m to midnight or 1 a.m.

Calender most of the time :

Friday Night : chill night, she talk or debates with viewers while playing at Minecraft or she opening fan mail or for some occasion she is cooking. From 8p.m to random but between 3 a.m. and 5 a.m.

Sunday Night : Let’s plays or games selected by the community. From 8p.m to Midnight.

Marinette has become very hermits and go out just a few time. She works at her parents bakery and has her own shop (known as Ladybug) her community know that she makes homemade clothes and she has a lot of customers from her community but also from famous people.

Every other week she doing a live between 9 p.m. and 12 a.m. in addition, where she plays indie games or flash games or during fashion week (or any fashion show) she like to do reviews about it and commentary.

Marinette finished school at home because of harassment, she had ended up making several suicide attempts, and had a severe eating disorder and was anorexic

She suffered bullying very early, already in elementary school, and it got worse in middle school where the physical attack was violent. She got kicks, push down the stair, she got a lot a fractures, spit on, etc,..

After a big lynching after school, she try to kill herself, she got hospitalized and her parents finnaly knew about what she suffered. After that she become homeschooled.

A lot of cosplayers ask for commisions.

Chloé had started insults her in primary school but had stop everything before middle school except that others took over, like Lila.

Chloe apologized to Marinette after her suicide attempt. Even though Marinette and Chloe are not best friends, the two get along. Chloé always feels it's her fault that things got there

During her convalescence it’s when that she became Ladybug but was not in face cam.

She started streaming after being released from the hospital

She had a general ES bac (it’s a degree in french school, if you want i can explain french school in a other post... because I’m french ._.) and she studied fashion by correspondence.

For the 3 years anniversary of her twitch channel, she explain her firt years as the stramers, he past, and explain that twitch literaly save her live.

She self-harm for a long time (betwenn 11 and 16 years old)

She still have drugs and antidepressant, and she is follow by a doctor for her eating disorder.

During her depression, she developed agoraphobia, she doesn’t go to convention where she’s invited because of that, also because she wants to avoid overloading Tikki.

Fu is her psychologist.

Tikki is her service dog because she have anxiety attacks and panic attacks and she can hurt them during those.

Tikki is a Labrador, viewers sometine see her during live (try to climb on Marinette lap’s) or hear her bark (very rare but can alway happen)

Marinette loved roasted the clothing collections and clothing choices in video games. She also loves talking about RuPaul Drag Race.

She’s openly bisexual and gender fluid,

She lives in a small apartment not far from her parents to be able to stream quietly.(And without disturb her parents)

Viewers know other room of her apartment. She stream on green screen, but when she live and do open fan mail she is in front of a wall with drawings and gifts from fans that she received. They also know her kitchen but she rarely on the kitchen.

She don’t do much live on the Kitchen but she doing some videos edited on cook video for explain some bases and some recepis. It is to teach the beginner how to cook or the person who is on a tight budget.

Her first cooking live become a meme. She fall several times, managed to stick an egg to the ceiling (god know how), set fire to heroven, and spilled milk and flour all over her floor.

In her live chill, call “let's talk little, let's talk well” in her playlist of rebroadcast on her youtube channel, she brings people on discord to give their opinion on the subject or their experience. She has with subjects from religion, the LGBTQ community, mental illness, to motor disease, to lighter subjects like which animal people find the cutest or whether or not she should go and throw eggs at her neighbor that she hates or she talks about the series or TV show she watches.

Marinette only go out, for work, appointment or hang out with Luka, Juleka and Rose, all are her childhood best friends.And all know that’s she is Ladybug.

Marinette is known for screaming when she plays horror games and there's quite a lot of compilation of her falling off her chair or screaming, often accompanied by Tikki who jumps on her knees think of a panic attack and suddenly she falls off her chair because of Tikki.

*scene*

Marinette after a litlle jump scar :

“ son of bi-” * Tikki jump on her laps*

Luka is also a stramer mostly music related, but he some night doing game stream. He also have a youtube channel dedicate to music. He is call The Viperion Silencio.

“what the fu- !” *fall off her chair with Tikki on her, Tikki laying on her*

Luka and Marinette dated for a year and a half before realizing that they were better as friends that as couple. Their get along even better after they break.

Hours :

Tuesday night: 8:30 p.m. to midnight, play video games

Friday evening: 8:30 p.m. to 1 a.m., review and play with Marinette at Minecraft

On twitch he sing or do some music reviews that viewers recommend. And if not play

He always showed his faces.

On youtube he does covers, original songs, has critical videos. All the videos are directed by him and edited by Juleka, him or Rose.

He also have odd jobs

Saturday: 8 p.m. to 2:30 a.m., sing, some reviews and a the end he play video games

Nino, Alya and Adrien, are TTOM players, and Adrien is a huge Ladybug fan along with Alya.

He has always been close to Marinette and helped a lot especially for her eating disorder. It helps her eat and regain a healthy relationship with her body and food.

Nino and Alya hang out in each other's apartment in turn

Nino is not a big fan of Ladybug but likes to watch her lives sometine.

Nino and Alya live close to each other and are dating

On the other hand, he's a huge fan of what Luka does.

Nino meets Adrien on a dating site, he made a account for joking (before he dated Alya) and the two got really well, and they started exchange discord, and phone number, playing together, and they already saw each other.

Sometine, Alya and Nino go to Paris and sometime Adrien go to Bordeaux.

Nino and Aly live in Bordeaux.

Alya joined them and the three are very close and have already met in Paris.

Nino, Alya and Adrien are 20 years old, soon 21.

Inside joke between Adrien and Nino, on the fact that Nino “cheats” on Alya with Adrien or vice versa.

Too many “bro” between Adrien and Nino, and too many bro joke

Like, I imagined, Alya hant out at Nino place, the three playing at TTOM.

Nino die

Adrien it’s like “Noo bro, you’re my whole world bro, you can’t live me broo”

Nino is like “ Broo I hace to leave, Bro my end is close, I love you soo much broo, live my life broo”

And Alya his laying on her stomach on Nino bed, head buried in Nino sheets and she growls and insults both them and call them "drama queen"

Alya is a huge sore loser and a salty loser.

In the evening and especially when he is tired Nino is a big game trollers.

Alya is a Ladybug Twitch Admins, she was one of the first on Marinette's channel and she quickly was in her Discord. She chats a lot with her on Discord. And she helps Marinette to make special videos where there is real editing. Other admins do it too.

Adrien, Nino meets Marinette thanks to TTOM because Marinette has created a beginner party where no one knows her, she becomes friends with Nino (whom she quickly destroy) and TIN TIN TIN group chat between the 4 (with Alya in it).

Kim is Nino's childhood friend and he started playing TTOM to spent time with his bro, and ended up in group chat (with Alix because he drag her in the game too), he's not good at games and and just a cannonball but he like let off frustration by beat out the hell of the enemy

Baby step by baby step, the group chat add more people

He live with Alix in Toulouse, their roomate.

Alix plays a bit at TTOM but plays a lot of flash and horror games.

Ivan and Mylène have 22 years old and are a couple, they don't know Ladybug much, but they've already received a lot of donation from her for their environmental association and Marinette has advertised for them for free

Alix likes Ladybug but she is not her favorite streamer.she understand Marinette's struggle on her eating disorder because she had eating disorder since she was a child, Kim helps her a lot with it

Nathaniel lives in Auvergne with Marc, the two work together on comics but Nathalie also works as a freelance illustrator and he has already made the banner and stickers for steamers and youtubers, including Marinette.

Ivan and Mylène do vlogs and have a site and an environmental association that Marinette really appreciates.

Max is a little streamer well known to be one of Marinette's best rivals, especially on Ultimate Mecha Strike 3.

He also does video thumbnails and cover video illustrations for a lot of youtubers including Luka.

Nathaniel started chatting with Marinette because of this (Marinette commissioned him for her website, and her channels) and the two became very good friends.

He lives in Strasbourg and works in engineering stuff.

He does very little live but has a very loyal audience because he's a goddamn god on some games.

And some compilation of their best roasted and sassy moment are on youtube.

The two fight each year for the prize of UMS3

The two like to throw shades at each other when they playing together.. Very big sassy and roasted moment.

* A bit like RuPaul's Reading season 5 between Alaska and Alyssa Edward * (Yeah i’m kinda in some fever of RPDR right now)

Like :

There is a roasted meme running in their respective communities, because Max had been champion for two years when Marinette arrived and took that cup from him.

“Hey Bug In ! Here Ladybug, I'm with our dear friend The Gamer, undefeated champion of UMS3 oh whait -

They talk on discord

Okay I finish to translate everything, and shame on my I finish juste by copy paste from google translate.

* gasp then clap * bravo, it was a good one, Miss [insert thing that Marinette lost or meme of her]

And their conversation is basically shades and meme.

Bruh I wrote a lot :o

I don’t know if I’m going to do some update on it. Give me your opinion on it ! Also you can take some idea just tag me and let’s me see what you have do ^^ !

Good Night

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natashalie-lumley · 4 years

Text

What’s new Scooby Doo? Oh just more zombies

You know when you get bored so you scroll through the “to rent” section on your streaming service of choice looking at the new movies, trying to find something to scratch that itch, and then you happen upon the most random things ever? Yep, that’s exactly how I found this brand new answer to “what will they think of next that they really shouldn’t do”: SCOOBY DOO: RETURN TO ZOMBIE ISLAND!

From Amazon: Join Scooby-Doo, Shaggy and the Mystery Inc. gang as they win a vacation of a lifetime and attempt to put their mystery solving days behind them. As soon as they arrive to the tropical island, Velma, Daphne and Fred can’t help but notice how strangely familiar this island is, to a terrifying trip they once took decades ago. They soon find out paradise comes with a price when they encounter an army of zombies! Hop on board and travel with Scooby-Doo and the gang, as they unearth the mystery of Zombie Island in an original movie adventure!

So my first thought, upon seeing this exists, is “holy carp wth”. My second, upon reading the above description, is “decades???” And my third, upon watching the first half hour and listening to the cliche out-of-touch Sheriff describe what kids used to do in, idk, the sixties, was “wait, weren’t they out of school in the original ZI? And they had professions and everything? so if this is decades... how OLD are they?” (Of course, they don’t look any different, at all, because cartoons.)

Anyway I’m enjoying this ride and I decided to bring ya’ll along with me, all dozen of you who might see this lmao. Spoilers ahead!

This is a dream right? It has to be a dream because 1) when did Fred set up that trap, 2) their traps never work that well, and 3) Daphne just used a makeup brush to touch-up the Mystery Machine. Or maybe that’s just normal for her.

Oh it was a dream! Just to lead into the cliche “the thing you had a nightmare about didn’t happen that way but it did happen”

Shaggy and Scooby and their all-to-convenient Judge outfits

Again... very cliche out-of-touch adult.

OMFG ELVIRA! Didn’t she do a movie with them?

It’s at this point that I’m looking at imdb trying to figure out who voices Velma cause I don’t think it’s the original.

Lol one of the rumors about ghosts involves “an ancient ghost that asks you to program the VCR” and the obviously-teens going “what’s a VCR”. Cue me laughing my ass of remembering the days of SD movies on VCR.

Elvira’s convenient vacation offer is so ridiculously convenient I haven’t decided whether or not she’s in on it.

OH it’s Kate Micucci! that explains the voice.

“We’re noticing this strange things but absolutely none of us are going to consider it mysterious at all” is as useful in conversation as telling the jury to strike something from the record in a court show.

How is the original zombie movie “unsolved”. They solved it.

If the captain of the boat is that worried about the zombies why is waiting to come back right before sundown? Why not come at noon? ...... he’s in on it isn’t he. Wasn’t the original?

Um... don’t they have some sort of cell phone or GPS that could tell them what they have obviously picked up on “we’re clearly not in the Caribbean”.

“Wait until the last person is alone to actually say more than 2 words warning them to get away” cliche

Hasn’t the gang had a close friendship for this entire time? Have they literally never talked about anything but solving mysteries? I mean canonically I swear they’ve spent time in conversation about other things. There’s even whole episodes of shows where they have relationship and stuff... Are you telling me they’re only friends in circumstance?

(It’s at this point where I decide the other good thing about this live posting is I won’t be tempted to fast-forward through the parts that irritate me like all the hijinks of “we’re totally keeping our promise really”)

Did the driver’s phone literally just ring so we had the conveniently “dum dum DUUUMMMM” effect? ‘Cause he doesn’t seem in a rush to answer it.

So... they changed the name... to Moonstar. Instead of Moonscar. Wow. That one letter. Does so much.

CATS!!!!!!!!!! KITTIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! yes please

Ok so she’s recapping the first movie and saying “it was for a school project”.... but still...

“The only thing we have to do on this island is relax” and, idk, not look at a GPS or anything with location information...

“I’m sure there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for the guest book pages being torn out, right Alan?” “Moths.”

Why -are- there so many cameras.

Holy carp look at that it’s the same forking people just modernised a little.

Why is he flirting with Daphne.

I forget, is Fred canonically with Daphne rn? I can never keep that straight.

If this blonde lady says “yes and” again I’m going to be very irked. It’s not an improv class honey.

Why is she so horrified by their manners/lack-thereof?

Why is blonde lady crying? Other than the fact that she’s a horrible actress.

Also why has nobody noticed that Hotel Manager Alan is clearly wearing the same cat-head necklace from the first movie but painted.

“Shiatsu?” “No, Great Dane!”

Ah yes, cartoon details - Scooby slurps on a straw but the liquid level never changes.

Are... the zombies.... giving them....... massages? Or just really failing claw their flesh apart?

That arm was hollow.

If the Mystery Machine is in the frickin’ garage I’m either going to die laughing or bang my head on the table.

The cat necklace now has eyes.

Scooby just poked Shaggy in the nipple during their demonstration.

At this point the gang have seen zombies, witches/actual witch’s ghost, aliens, and idk what else. So why are they scoffing at zombies?

Three of the four people were facing Scooby and Shaggy entirely and somehow still missed them running away.

Ah yes, a trapped kitchen cabinet. These people truly do know how to deal with them.

Zombies don’t haunt.

The “I’m clearly acting, let me try to say that again”

It’s at this point that I start to think the cameras and the bad actor and the convenient look-alikes all mean that this is a setup for somebody’s idea of a TV show

Weren’t the original zombies faster?

I WAS RIGHT! IT’S A MOVIE! But also directors don’t normally act in their movies.

This is obviously just the setup-within-a-setup. Haven’t decided what the second one is... cause that’s definitely a were-cat-person.

Is Mr Bad-actor-director in on the second plot? Because he’s definitely over-acting this “oh no I’ve been found out” and is not crying.

If they try to make Mystery Monster Truck Machine sentient I’ll be really annoyed.

“I thought I was hallucinating!” “Why didn’t you tell us?” Um. because he thought he was insane?

Cartoon details - everybody is mysteriously dry minutes after being doused with water.

So they ask “what’s the next scene” and he walks away going “you’ll see” and then... nothing happens. For ages.

Why is the gang so bad at acting scared? They’ve all been scared before.

Was Alan supposed to be saved? Still not sure if he’s in on this or not...

So it is very definitely the second day now, close to sundown, and even though they know about the “making a movie” plot absolutely nobody has questioned if that changes the plan on how they’re getting home.

Ah yes the cats

“I know I should be freaking out” but I’m too focused on my job cliche

So what happened to the fake islanders that greeted them in the beginning?

Fred is waaaaaaay to in to his car. Like... is there going to be shipping in fanfiction now? (Please don’t tell me I really reAlLY REALLY don’t wanna know)

So who even ARE these three random mofos? And what is with that hairstyle?

Still not convinced Alan isn’t part of this second plot... gone back and forth several times.

Why do people on tv use 2 feet on the brake when they need to brake really dramatically hard?

Please tell me the ramp only sort of works and they end up landing in the middle of the hotel

Aaaaah darn, they made it.

What was the point of the bridge being taken out if the cat people make it to the hotel without getting wet?

Ah yes, the “hiding in the hotel and running from the bad guys” montage

This is such an odd music choice...

Cat person clearly saw Shaggy and Scooby run from their hiding spots, so why’d he smash it anyway?

Daphne has so far done a better job of hiding than anyone

Cartoon detail - blue vase that got smashed a few seconds ago is back in its spot next to the stairs

Ah yes, the “take them off guard and pretend to be a server in a restaurant complete with disguises from who knows where”

Cat people that don’t like fish.... ok.

That rug would’ve unrolled very quickly, or at the very least at the bottom of the stairs.

So the cat people sundial device thing magically points to the treasure... but didn’t the cat people not know where it was? It’s not like the original movie was the first harvest moon since Moonscar’s death. They would’ve been able to do that a long time ago if that was the point of the dial. I know I worded that poorly.

AH the islanders were in on the second plot! That makes sense.

Am I the first person to remember there’s a fourth catperson?

Cat whistle.... cat... whistle... ok

How did the police get there?

So was the cat moondial laser thing part of Fred’s trap?

Are you saying this is the first time the cats have decided to dig in that basement? And it just conveniently happens while they’re all there?

He just walks off with all the gold. Doesn’t even offer to share it.

Why -did- Fred sell the Mystery Machine? I mean it should’ve just been repainted and ta-da- it’s a normal van.

Why -is- the Sheriff there. Ostensibly they’re in a completely different state. Why... is Daphne crying now... this is... ridiculous.

If it weren’t for you (all 3 people who might read this) I’d skip this.

Why are they now friends with the cats?

So... the mystery of the fourth cat person is just... unsolved? that’s ridiculous. Especially because Velma would’ve counted that as a lose end that needs tied up.

So! That was a trip! lmao. Hope everybody gets a laugh out of it.

#spoilers #scooby doo return to zombie island #scooby doo #live-post movie

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set-phasers-to-whump · 5 years

Text

whumptober day 18

prompt: muffled scream

whumpee: harry dresden (idk if anyone really whumps him but whatever this is for ME)

fandom: the dresden files

apologies if this sounds a little weird, the books are written in first person but i cant stand writing in first person so it’s different (also i know there are probably not any forests in chicago just pretend this is on the edge of town or smthn) (this isn’t super good or probably very accurate to the books but i haven’t read them in a hot second sorry)

Harry, Karrin, and Thomas sprinted through the woods. Shit, this had gone bad fast! What was meant to be a simple confrontation with a man using magic for less-than-desirable purposes had quickly gone off the rails.

It was supposed to be easy. Murphy had caught wind of something fishy going on through a somewhat unreliable source, so she had passed the information on to Harry and Thomas, to see if they could confirm it.

And they could-Thomas had heard of the man-his name was James Lawless, a forty-seven year old banker with too much time on his hands and too many books of magic in his library.

So the three of them had assembled a quick effort to bring him down. What could one middle-aged man possibly have up against a wizard, a cop, and a vampire?

Drones. Fuckin’ drones were what he had, apparently. Three of them, one for each member of this unfortunate party.

There was quite a bit of magic at play here-not only were the drones functioning perfectly fine, they were firing bursts of electricity while staying on speed with the group. In the part of his mind that wasn’t tied up with fleeing, Harry realised they’d severely underestimated Lawless. If only there was something I could do, he thought, but nobody had time to turn around and take down a drone-they were too close, there wasn’t enough cover-and suddenly, there was.

A little log cabin stood in the distance. The lights were all off, but it had a roof and at least one wall (presumably more), so Thomas pointed it out.

“Yeah, I see it!” Murphy yelled back, dodging out of the way of a bolt of electricity. “Hurry up!”

The three of them ran even faster, Thomas completely outstripping the human members of the group. Harry and Karrin ran harder still, as Thomas’ drone sped up to catch him. Murphy pulled ahead for a second, leaping over an exposed root and ducking under a low-hanging branch, then barely dodging yet another electric bolt.

Harry, who had been slightly caught up in attempting to call up some magic, wasn’t so lucky as to notice the root. His foot caught on it, and he fell to the ground before he at all realised what was going on.

He stumbled to his feet quickly, ducking the branch and forgoing all attempts at fighting back-he could do that from the safety of the cabin.

Mercifully, the three of them all crashed through the door without being electrocuted. The voice of Lawless came through one of the drones from outside. “You think a couple wooden walls can stop me?”

“Shit! Fuck! The chimney!” Harry shouted.

As he spoke, one of the drones came shooting out of the fireplace, letting loose a stream of electricity. This time, however, Harry was prepared. He aimed his staff at it and snarled, “Forzare!”

The drone went up in smoke as another one came down through the chimney. Murphy took care of this one, grabbing her gun and shooting it until it clattered to the ground. Thomas shot down the remaining drone.

The trio looked at each other. “Okay. Okay. What’s the plan now? We’ve gotta stop him,” said Murphy.

“What if he’s got more drones?” Thomas pointed out.

“Well, we can’t just leave,” Karrin argued.

“I may have an idea,” Harry chimed in. “If there’s any service out here.”

There was, fortunately. (Luckily they weren’t too far from town).

“Yo. Billy. I need a favour from you.”

Billy came through, and soon the three of them were on their way back to Lawless’ remote hideout, assured that there were no more drones waiting for them.

Without his drones, Lawless wasn’t nearly so confident. He tried his best, of course. He used every spell he knew (which was not a lot). Harry knocked him back with a blast of wind, Thomas kicked aside the flimsy wand he’d been using to try to channel magic, sending it flying down the stairs, and Murphy trained her gun on him and pronounced him under arrest.

And then it was over.

And then it wasn’t, and Lawless struggled his way out of Murphy’s iron grasp and shoved his way forward, into Harry, who, completely unprepared, went tumbling down the stairs. Lawless scampered away, racing out the open front door as Murphy and Thomas raced down the stairs.

Harry staggered to his feet and moved to pick up his dropped staff-and found he couldn’t.

“Harry?”

He turned to look at Karrin.

“Harry, your arm is dislocated. I can see it even through your duster.”

He turned back around, picking up his staff with his left hand and starting for the door.

“What are you doing?”

“We can’t let him escape, I can see his footprints, we’ve gotta go!” His arm hurt, sure, but it was far-far-from the worst pain he’d felt. He’d be fine. He could cast with his left hand. Not as accurately, maybe, but still. He could.

“On it,” Thomas said, and, before anyone could say anything else, he sprinted out the door after Lawless.

Harry turned back to Murphy. “We gotta go help Thomas,” he said.

“Thomas is a big boy, he can handle himself for a minute. Let me see your arm.”

“It’s fine, Murph. Let’s go.” He gripped the staff more securely with his left hand, leaning on it slightly.

“Harry, please just let me see it. I’m pretty sure it’s just dislocated, but if it’s broken-”

“It’s not.”

“Can I please just see?”

“Fine,” Harry grumbled at last, not wanting to prolong this any further.

Murphy pulled his duster off of him and grabbed his right arm. He winced. “Jesus, careful, Murph!”

“I thought you said it was fine?”

He shut up at that. Karrin glanced about the room, her eyes settling on a green throw pillow.

“Sit down,” she instructed Harry, who listened. She grabbed the pillow and held it out to him. “It’s not the best, but it’ll do. Bite down on it.”

“Karrin, what-no, no, please don’t. It’s fine, really, I swear.”

“Your arm is going back into place whether you like it or not. Take the damn pillow.”

He took it and bit down, glaring up at her from his seat on the stairs that had done this to him. “This tastes like dust,” he remarked, voice muffled from the offending pillow.

“How long do you think it’s been here?” Murphy asked.

Harry thought for a second-and Murphy used his momentary distraction to force his arm back into his socket.

Harry let out a muffled scream, biting hard into the pillow and wrapping his good arm around it.

“Sorry,” Murphy whispered.

He took a few deep, ragged breaths. “It’s fine,” he said. “It’s fine, I’m good. Let’s go.” He picked up his duster with his left hand and draped it over his shoulders.

They found Thomas near the edge of the woods. He’d been, as Murphy had said, completely fine on his own. James Lawless was lying on the ground, tied up securely with several feet of heavy-duty rope.

“Took you long enough,” he remarked. “You alright, Harry?”

“Sure I am,” Harry replied. The staff was still in his left hand, which was also holding securely onto the top of his right arm.

“I popped his arm back into his socket,” Murphy explained. “He’ll be fine, just sore.”

“What’s new,” Harry muttered. “Nice work, Thomas.”

“What’s new,” Thomas echoed, hefting up Lawless and depositing him in the backseat of his car.

The rest of the group piled in after him, Harry stuck in the unfortunate backseat with Lawless, who glared at him as angrily as a man with his face pressed into the carpets of a car could glare.

Harry stretched out his legs, expertly ignoring the pain still radiating from his arm, placing his boots atop Lawless, who renewed his glaring with even more intensity. Harry gazed out the window as they rolled back into the city and up to the police department. He stayed in the car as Karrin and Thomas brought their prisoner inside and explained the day’s events in simple police terms.

He was drifting off to sleep by the time the other two returned. They spoke quietly on their drive, discussing their conversation with the police. Harry let their voices fade and mingle with the sounds of the road. He knew his arm would hurt when he woke up, but for the moment, he was content to fall asleep and forget about it for a little bit. Just another day in the life of me, he thought, before he finally fell asleep.

not super pleased with this but oh well! thanks if u read this!!

#whumptober2019 #no.18 #muffled scream #dislocation #field medicine #harry dresden #the dresden files #my writing #i say things

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epixolon · 5 years

Text

Hey so I started ORV about 2 weeks ago and I need to place down my feelings and I hope y’all appreciate it. Most of my predictions about immediate events turned out to be wrong, like they were through most of the novel, but some of the longer ranged ones might still be possible, and as you will read i haven’t edited these, so most of my stuff will be wrong, but I don’t much care, it’s stream of thought. Enjoy

Chapter 0-206

* Dokja will bookmark and use either Jonghyuk’s regression, or Nirvana’s reincarnation.

* Dokja will devour a constellation’s story in order to get their stigma, rather than go through the process of bookmarking it, with my personal guess being zeus and the lightning carnival since that’s been mentioned a bunch and he already has electrification.

* when the fourth wall has devoured things so far, dokja gets a better understanding of the being, so maybe if he devours a constellation like, say, zeus, he will gain a better understanding of the constellation to allow for bookmark

* Soon enough he’ll use unidentified wall to communicate with his allies, probably the underworld, maybe Uriel, definitely Jonghyuk and co. outside Seoul in an attempt to consolidate his power before the coming storm of the nebulae opposing him.

* Yoosung will find a way to be a sacrificial bastard like Dokja so she can upgrade her stigma from him by following his story.

* The fourth wall makes a lot of sense both as a representation of Dokja’s inner thoughts and subconscious, mostly seen as the ways that he’s been traumatized, such as with his mother, are when he becomes most like the fourth wall and the benefits are lost.

* The being inside the wall that his mother saw is unclear to me, i could maybe see the subconscious pride and confidence that he has with himself and the knowledge he possesses, but it could also be the author in some fashion, especially with that bit of advice he got in the outer god’s stomach

* The fourth wall is a great piece of writing for every reason possible, but also makes sense within the universe as to how it can do this stuff: we see everywhere that when a constellation wants to do something direct, it has to use up probability, and anyone that wishes to oppose its actions can use some of that probability as well such as with Kyorgius (I don’t remember how to spell his name, the tiny man), or even the outer god, and probability storms are when nobody will use this probability to oppose them, the universe sets the balance right. And so the fourth wall uses probability

* The fourth wall represents two things: 1. how probable is it that a book character can affect a reader? that’s unlikely right? even more so to be able to know the reader in some intimate fashion? and 2. we see sparks every time someone tries to read his mind/abilities. the fourth wall essentially absorbs that probability and stops the skill, and i think a similar thing happened with the unidentified wall as it seemed to be using a lot of probability to do anything and the fourth wall just took it all in “with a bigger spark”

* the unidentified wall i think will possibly become “identified” as something, either a definite thing straight from ways of survival, or it will be open to possibility like Heewon’s crouching figure, in which case i see like a 30% chance it is influenced by the fourth wall and becomes something similar to it

* I definitely think there’s a possibility the secret plotter is related to the author, and you see it much more when in a reread the constellation seems to occasionally hear his thoughts or potentially understand more about the situation than it should be able to, without being overboard obvious about knowing dokja’s attributes.

* ok and with it laughing when he forces down the fourth wall, like he could tell what happened, and when he was “snapping at the great old ones looking at you,” I’d say he’s pretty damn powerful, maybe even more than narrative grade, and maybe it’ll just be the christian god or the devil or whatever something, but it could also be the author i think

* As we’ve seen most clearly from Dokja’s use of the sword song of the maritime war god, but not Jihye’s ghost fleet, constellations can have multiple stigmas, so i at least am predicting Dokja will give the fourth wall or possibly character list, or maybe even a copy of the ways of survival text (i definitely don’t think she’ll get ORV or bookmark though, those are protagonist powers), as a stigma later on for Yoosung, but i def could be wrong about that.

* I think there’s a possibility Sooyoung will tell everyone that Dokja is a reader before he gets back, but i could see it not happening.

* when 41st Yoosung is born as a dokkaebi, i wonder if using her channel will break the contract he and Bihyoung have. i think he might switch over to the channel for his covert revolution actions at the very least, and just block channel access to the vedas and the other nebulae, and might switch over his scenarioing to the new channel entirely

* actually, when he was in Seoul, he said his contract was cancelled, so maybe he can stream with the both of them now, or even just 41st Yoosung

* i think there’s a possibility that Sooyoung actually did plagiarize the text, but just doesn’t remember, either because she’s becoming more like a character like the two prophets, because when the author deleted the text from the internet her mind got frazzled, or when she made her first clones, the memory of reading it went with it and got destroyed when the clone died

* the author in the first chapter said that their story won a contest, and while in retrospect it seems like a lie, i wonder if there’s the possibility that like with peace land, who’s author sold the setting, if the author wrote the story either without meaning to

* like if Sooyoung actually did just write her own story from a dream, maybe the author did the same and just got more of the dream enough to realize the coming reality of the story, and maybe the dream was them acting like actual prophets to the world before the constellations were going to show up anyway

* the debt/free service time mentioned by the dokkaebi in the beginning is interesting, and i wonder if the end of the scenarios is having enough coins to buy either the planetary system or even just more time of free service away from the constellations.

* Dokja might eventually get more attributes, maybe something like writer or fanfiction writer or revisionist to get new powers given the ways he’s changing the story, either something like avatar (or maybe he’ll just use bookmark for that) as a way to either die more or make a nebulae out of one constellation, or some bullshit reality bending power like writing is, or just like a more reliable use of the other constellations’ Deus Ex Machina to do anything he wants, with enough probability of course

* compounded because in his attributes window we see more skills ■’d out

* given Myungoh’s daughter, will Dokja be adopting a 4th child in the near future?

* maybe asmodeus wants to feed the 73rd demon king to his child

* do you think anyone we’ve met, maybe someone from the constellation banquet, has the ancient dragon’s heart we see Dokja looking at in the Ichthyosaurs’ stomach?

* does/will Dokja look very different from how he did previously because of the golden dragon heart (which based on the heart we’ve seen previously should give him a lot of regen and storage of his magic) and the arm? along with the rest of the broken pieces that became his ruined body that probably only vaguely resemble his face? and the demonic energy he had before and might have again, and maybe ending up as the 73rd demon king

* his face is apparently blurry to people, even with a new story on it, i wonder if he’ll lower the fourth wall to let people see him at some point

* Jihye mentioned that his face is blurry, but Gilyoung has mentioned that he looks fine, so to me that indicates it’s maybe the fourth wall

* do you think there will be any romance by the end? i get the Jonghyuk and Dokja romance implications, but at least as far as the Fate goes, it looked a lot more to me that Dokja’s true love was the love of a good story, and that he died from the story he told with his friends, that proof alone isn’t enough for romance to me, so i could see it ending with none, no romance at all and the story just ends with Dokja and his 7 adopted children.

* why are there 72 demon kings, but they’re in the 73rd demon realm and asmodeus has 32 realms under his control? is there a mistranslation or a misunderstanding going on or what?

* maybe asmodeus absorbs/devours/suborns any demon king that he can and just takes his land, and so he wants the 73rd realm

* could be related to the question of asmodeus’s child above

* i think destroy evil from samyeondang might come up in the demon realm

Chapter 207-214

* I love Uriel now I think, and Biyoo

* i wonder if Dokja can bookmark unidentified wall, or if Hayoung can learn bookmark

* I’m unsure if the revolutionary will end up being a bad person or not, because i think I might have a problem if Dokja just kills the revolutionary, but maybe they’ll sacrifice themselves, or die elsewhere, or maybe they can give it up willingly, idk

* i could see the end of the novel being all the star stream being destroyed, which means no dokkaebis and no stories, so the constellations start to die, and we either get a sad ending of Dokja dying as a constellation, or we get a nice one of him (and maybe some other nice constellations) surviving on Biyoo’s Bootleg, or maybe the same barstardry he pulls, with him doing another “I don’t die when I am killed” and coming back from death again

* I wonder if Hayoung and maybe Dokja will find/convince the 15 year old to allow/make a way for Sooyoung to keep her sanity while following the story, like maybe a new story for the constellation, idk

* ooh shit, Dokja having read the story is spreading, yoo sangah at least suspects, i wonder if everyone will know by the time he gets back

* it’d be a funny scene if Uriel notices Biyoo’s Bootleg and tells Jonghyuk about it to avoid the dokkaebi, and so they miss each other for a bit until Dokja does something stupid/self-sacrificing enough (maybe by a plan from the Duke) that Jonghyuk realizes it’s him and comes and saves him

* i had a dream the dokkaebi had british accents whenever they spoke, and the idea of a foul mouthed floating cat going around saying “oi cunts moider each other or ah’ll shank ya nan” is just hilarious to me

Chapter 215-224

* <3 <3 Fuck Kim Dokja <3 <3

* I figured the hair was going to be involved, but not explicitly that

* If Dokja can find a way to with relative consistency summon the soldier, that’s great

* ok asmodeus is the king of the 32nd. ok, not 32 of them

* Dokja normally says no to potentially unfair support like this from constellation level beings, but i’d actually like to see him deal with asmodeus and just manage to manipulate it so that he is the king of all demons or something

* If Dokja gets support from Asmodeus, than the demon will probably leave his incarnation body there and use it as a puppet to pop in when needed even as he attends to matters in his own kingdom most of the time. This’d open the possibility of Dokja getting to adopt another child, which is always good to see

* I’m also real curious how the possibility of the people who were once characters finding out they were, and what differences there will be to the “real” people, although the fact that the two prophets are characters now is intriguing

* So far it’s just Sangah who knows, but I wonder if Heewon and the others will even be allowed to understand the concept, given the ways the filtering has prevented it in the past

#long post #omniscient reader's viewpoint #orv #orv spoilers

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blatherkatt · 6 years

Text

Title: The Calm Is Terrifying When The Storm Is All You Know [Homestuck]

Chapter 33: Declarations

Summary: There were two kinds of trolls who went to Earth: rich shitheads with too much money and free time, and desperate assholes who couldn’t survive on Alternia, even with the best efforts of the young Condesce. Karkat hated the planet almost immediately, but with his home planet too dangerous for mutants, he really didn’t have any choice but to hide out on this weird little diurnal planet. At least he’d be safe. Or so he thought, right before blundering his way into an accidental friendship with the son of an anti-troll terrorist.

Rating: M

Chapter Warnings: Implied/Mentioned abuse, mentions of terrorism, death mention, injury mention, depiction of an emotional breakdown, trauma aftermath; Illustrated; Pesterlog

FIRST | PREVIOUS | NEXT

— carcinoGeneticist [CG] began trolling tipsyGnostalgic [TG] —

CG: WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU?

— tipsyGnostalgic [TG] is an idle chum! —

CG: FUCK YOU, I CAN SEE THAT FOR MYSELF, YOU PIECE OF SHIT PROGRAM. I’M GONNA FUCKING YELL ANYWAY.

CG: I THOUGHT YOU WERE GOING TO PICK ME UP AT NOON. IT’S LIKE, 1:30 AND YOU STILL AREN’T HERE, WHAT GIVES?

CG: IF YOU GOT KIDNAPPED, TOO, I SWEAR TO FUCK I’M PERSONALLY PUTTING THIS ENTIRE GODDAMN FAMILY UNDER PERMANENT WATCH.

CG: I’M NOT ABOVE SITTING ON YOU ASSHOLES IF THATS WHAT IT TAKES.

TG: okay first off i know youre like a literal alien but heres a protip for ya:

TG: general human earth etiquette is to not text people who you know are probably driving?

TG: its like a whole thing

CG: WHY

TG: idk probs because texting while driving’s a great way to fucking crash lol

TG: anyway!!

TG: yeah im real sorry about that mom fucking rang me up like

TG: hi im at the airport come get me!

TG: out of fucking nowhere because everything has to be a fucking hassle with this woman

TG: so i had to go get her

CG: WHY THE FUCK WAS SHE AT THE AIRPORT?

TG: because fuck me is why

TG: and THEN shes like

TG: ooooh i gotta do some mysterious whatthefuckever errand at some mall out in the middle of nowhere

TG: so now im sitting in the parking lot waiting for her to get back which might be a while because her bad leg’s been acting up lately

TG: and thats why im not there yet >:(

CG: WAIT. WAIT, HOLD ON, I’M CONFUSED.

CG: BY “MOM” ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT RACHEL? I DIDN’T EVEN THINK SHE HAD A BAD LEG.

TG: nonono

TG: ray is like. dirk and dave and rose’s mom

TG: i dont call her mom i just call her aunt ray cuz shes not my mom yknow

TG: my mom is aunt ray’s sister

TG: aunt ramona? they talk about her?

CG: OOOOOOH. YEAH.

CG: THE WOMAN WHO WRITES THOSE SHITTY SUPERNATURAL ROMANCE BOOKS KANAYA LOVES.

TG: hahaha yeah her trashy shit is great

CG: SHE’S HERE?

TG: apparently!!!!!!!!

CG: I’M SENSING SOME BITTERNESS.

TG: ugh its fine she just always does shit like this

TG: womans always gotta make a fuckin entrance even if that means not telling anyone shes coming

TG: and its goddamn annoying as shit!!

TG: but its fine i get it shes here to help out and we are kinda all hands on deck

TG: speaking of tho i heard something about kanaya not coming along after all?

CG: NOT YET, NO.

CG: SHE’S BEEN TALKING TO ROSE, AND APPARENTLY DAVE’S BEEN PRETTY UNEASY WITH THE NUMBER OF NEW FACES AT THE HIVE.

CG: HOUSE. WHATEVER.

CG: TEREZI’S PROTECTION DETAIL HAS HIM KIND OF ON EDGE, I GUESS?

CG: SHE’S GONNA COME AROUND LATER PROBABLY. AND MIGHT END UP STAYING WITH PORRIM AND KEEP IT TO VISITS, AT LEAST UNTIL THINGS SETTLE DOWN A BIT.

CG: SO IT’S JUST ME FOR NOW.

TG: ooooh yeah geez i bet

TG: poor dave :( :( :(

TG: i gotta tell you and mom some uh. serious shit about him when i pick you both up

TG: id pass it on here but its probs better if i just tell you face to face?

CG: OH, WONDERFUL!

CG: MORE NO DOUBT HORRIFIC NEWS REGARDING DAVE.

CG: I CAN’T WAIT. THIS PANIC ATTACK’S GONNA BE ONE FOR THE RECORD BOOKS, I CAN JUST FEEL IT!!!

TG: :(

TG: tl;dr hes not in great shape but hes getting better but theres some stuff we gotta go over

TG: jfc mom what the fuck are you doing its been ages

CG: SO WAIT. SHE JUST HAD YOU DRIVE HER OUT SOMEWHERE AND WALKED OFF ALONE?

TG: yeah

TG: woman can take care of herself just fine so like im not worried??

TG: but still, like. cmon woman!!! whatever it is hurry up a little

TG: it cant be that important we got places to be

In terms of location, it was almost an outlet mall; somewhat detached from the nearest city and surrounded by forest. It was mostly all one building, positioned in a dip in the ground next to a clear stream, and these features had helped make it a serviceable fortress during the invasion, although Derek had regularly complained that he’d have preferred a site that held the high ground. Still, they’d made do; the roof was high enough that one could see for quite some distance, the stream offered fresh water, the trees provided decent enough cover during skirmishes, and the walls were thick enough to turn away most weather and weapons. It hadn’t been much, but it had served well enough as home for six years for around threescore ragtag survivors-turned-fighters.

Out in the surrounding forest, those who hadn’t survived that conflict still lay buried in pitiful graves marked only with a stone or a chunk of wood. There hadn’t been time to properly put anyone to rest; it had been risky enough for two or three people to slip out during a stretch of quiet with a shovel and a body. They simply hadn’t been able to afford to have any sort of formal burial, not with the threat of an attack constantly looming.

Even so, even so…

Derek had picked a spot he would remember.

In life, the oak tree would have been the kind people would have thought of as a monarch, with branches spread wide and gnarled wood ancient and strong, holding children in its branches as easily as if they were made of nothing; but the tree had already been dead by the time the invasion started, a great, ancient, dried-out husk. Even so, decades later, it still stood, its branches reaching toward the sky, the other trees forming a circle around it as though too respectful to come too close. Mushrooms and trails of greenery crept about a quarter of the way up the ancient trunk.

At its roots, a rotting wooden spar stuck up out of the ground. This, too, had been reclaimed by flowers, grasses and mushrooms, decorating the splintered and decayed timber with dark summer greens and pale white-and-lavender blooms.

Derek Strider, down on one knee with his sheathed sword held in his right hand, sighed. Of course, the trouble with having to bury the dead so hastily meant that there’d been no one to look over the graves, so it was to be expected that it be in such disrepair, but even so, seeing this one choked out by the invading flora was…

It wasn’t right.

Overhead, the ancient branches rustled slightly, and the raucous calling of a bird broke the silence. Derek narrowed his eyes and ignored it, tried to write the disrespectful noise out of the scene.

The crow seemed to have other ideas. The bird lighted down on the wooden grave marker, red eyes fixed on Derek’s face. It flapped its wings a few times, cawing incessantly. Derek scowled, unsheathed his sword, and struck —

The blade passed through the bird with no resistance whatsoever. The creature’s body split in two, bloodlessly, as though Derek had cut through smoke — it even looked like smoke, like a cloud cut in two by a passing jet. As Derek looked on, uncomprehending and with a growing sense of dread, the bird’s body seemed to pull itself back together, a video played in reverse, and the bird’s accusatory squawks started up again as though nothing had happened.

Derek was on his feet in an instance, stepping away from the beast, and as he did, he happened to look up…

Perched on nearly every branch of the old tree were ravens. Unlike the crow, they were all silent, and aside from the occasional shifting of a foot or tilting of a head, motionless. Scores of staring animal eyes bored into him.

Derek had never been a superstitious man, but nor was he the sort of fool to ignore the truth his own eyes showed him. He’d spent six years fighting alongside a witch, and seen enough to learn that some things really couldn’t be explained away as coincidence.

Had it been anyone else, he would have responded to the sound of footsteps approaching this site with a furious attack; even Ben knew better than to disturb him here. But when he whirled to face the intruder, he froze.

She’d aged more since he’d last seen her than he would have expected. Hints of silver streaked her hair, and she leaned heavily on her gnarled black cane. A faint breeze stirred the black fabric of her dress, playing with the light shawl laying across her shoulders. The crow had fallen silent.

“Put that thing away before you take someone’s eye out,” said Ramona, nodding nonchalantly at Derek’s sword.

Derek narrowed his eyes, and did not respond aloud, instead choosing to slowly and deliberately slide the sword back into its sheathe. Only after his left hand had returned to his side did Ramona nod and continue.

“That’s better,” she said. “Now we can talk things over like reasonable adults. Mind you, I ought to do the world a favor and wipe you out right now,” and Derek took a slow, deep breath at that, as she continued, “But I’d prefer not to desecrate your brother’s grave by staining it with your blood. I respect him far too much for that. You, however, have somehow managed to exceed all of my worst expectations to a nearly unfathomable degree, as of late. I’ve held off on this confrontation out of respect for the past, but I can see now that this was a mistake.”

Derek shifted. “Everything I’ve done has been to protect our damn planet, Ramona,” he started, but was cut off.

“Really?” she said, “Well, then. I’m not about to attempt to ask you to cease killing trolls, as we both know that would be pointless, but I would very much like to know how exactly burning your own son alive plays into your grand battle strategy?”

“He…he turned on us,” Derek said, through gritted teeth, “He forced my hand, left me no choice!”

“He is a child!” Ramona snapped. “And you, of all people, should know better! If you really must follow this path of self-destruction to its end, fine, but he should never have been involved!”

“I—”

“And in any case, you had a perfectly good sword on hand, I’m sure. If young Dave really did need to die, you could have executed him with minimal pain, but no, you wanted him to hurt, to know he was dying and to fear you and suffer as he passed. How do you justify that, Derek? How does anyone, especially a child, deserve anything of the sort?”

The eyes of the ravens and that damned crow still drilled into him. He could feel the stares on his back, but kept his eyes locked on Ramona’s, refusing to back down.

He wasn’t going to take back what he’d done. There’d be no guilt, he’d done nothing wrong except overreact a bit. It was justified. That…that boy wasn’t Dave. Ramona was using the name like a blade, but she’d not win that way. He didn’t deserve the fucking name, didn’t deserve to have anything to do with Dave, he never would have let Rachel name the kid that if he’d known he was going to grow up to be such a pathetic, useless little coward.

“I don’t have to explain myself to you,” he said.

“No, I suppose you don’t,” said Ramona, folding her hands over the top of her cane. “I’ve a fairly good idea, in any case.” She sighed. “The war is over, Derek. The time to put aside this violence and misery is long since behind us. Our children do not deserve to grow up as we did.”

“The trolls are still here,” Derek spat.

There was a long silence. Ramona sighed again.

“Fine, then,” she said, “So be it. Do as you will. Chase violence as long as you like. But if you come near my family again, I will consider it an act of war.”

She turned, and he was tempted to take the bait, to try attacking her while her back was turned, but he held still. It was infuriating, knowing what a pointed insult turning her back on him was, knowing that she knew he would not risk attacking her—but she was right. She was much too dangerous.

“Come along, little one,” she said, abruptly. The crow rose off the grave and flew to land on top of Ramona’s cane. If Derek had cared to pay any attention, he might have noticed the crow look back at him with something like regret in its eyes, but Derek was already far too lost in his own thoughts.

As one bird, the ravens took wing, dispersing in all directions, leaving him alone again.

The trouble with trying to go from Alternian to English was a multifaceted one, to be sure, but so far the most obnoxious piece of it that Karkat could see was the tendency of guides on how to speak English to simply use the closest Alternian equivalent as an English word’s translation. More and more, the two languages were notably extremely different, and while he could speak English well enough that he’d never had any serious problems, there were any number of words that he kept tripping over as a result of a translation being extremely unclear and culturally misleading.

Witches, for instance, were clearly something very different on Earth. The Alternian word that was translated to English as “witch” was, like most Alternian words, a series of noises in the ‘click and growl’ family that most humans lacked the anatomy to create, and generally refered to certain lowblood prophets and healers in Alternian folklore. They were those who lived away from society and who, through some lucky genetics and convenient psychic powers, were able to fend of drones and effectively disappear from the world at large’s knowledge. They kept to themselves, sought to harm no one who didn’t attack them first, offered shelter to the weak and the hunted, and as such were always portrayed as utterly despicable beings in fiction, as no writer with any sense of self-preservation had dared to portray such reckless treachery under the rule of the last Condesce. There might have been some changes to the lore under the new one’s rule, but things like that changed slow.

In any case, they certainly weren’t anything like the old woman in a shawl who was sitting next to Roxy in the front of her car.

She was dressed all in black, for one thing. Alternian witches didn’t tend to wear much black. Some Alternian witches didn’t tend to wear all that much clothing at all, really. Most seemed to belong to ancient religions that weren’t particularly fond of shirts.

Ramona was definitely magic as shit, though, Rachel’d been right about that much. Was that all a witch was on Earth, just someone with magic? Fuck, if that were the case, then probably like at least a third of all trolls were witches by Earth’s standards. Then again, maybe magic was another poorly translated word? English didn’t seem to have a word to separate “things that we (read: trolls) know exist, like psychic powers and psiionics and ghosts and chucklevoodoos,” and “things that are super fake and don’t actually happen ever and make no sense.”

Whatever. In any case, Ramona didn’t look at all like Karkat had expected, and when he climbed into the back of the car, she didn’t react to his presence with anything stronger than an amiable nod. She seemed to have her mind on other things, and was largely silent at first.

Roxy wasn’t; she immediately piped up happily as Karkat swung open the door with a “Hey, man! Sorry about taking so long! Can you, uh, do me a favor and check on Jaspers? He’s in the carrier behind Mom, Rose asked me to pick him up while she and Aunt Ray were gone. He’s been missing them a lot, all staring out the window and kneading his blanket and shit, and he’s not a huge fan of car rides.”

“He’s asleep,” Karkat said after glancing into the little crate.

“Awesome. Alright, buckle up and we’ll get this damn show on the road.”

“On the road again, just can’t wait to get on—”

Karkat tilted his head as the car’s radio abruptly changed from quietly playing some human pop song over to something much louder and completely different. Ramona stifled a snort as Roxy stabbed a button, switching the radio back to the previous channel.

“No, thank you,” she said, glaring. “Christ, the fuck is with this thing today, I swear to god.”

“I suppose it may simply be getting into the spirit of things,” said Ramona with a smile. As the car pulled away from the curb, she turned back a bit to face Karkat. “It’s Karkat, isn’t it? Rachel’s been sending me any number of emails with updates, and from the sound of things, you’ve been rather instrumental in bringing young Dave back into the fold, so to speak.”

“…Into the what?”

“It’s a figure of speech, meaning in this case that you’ve helped us return him home as well as helping him to adjust to being there,” she said. “For which you have all of our heartfelt thanks. Ours is perhaps not the most functional of families, but it is ours, and as I’m sure you’ve seen firsthand, ripping away a piece of it the way Derek did has had some very painful consequences for all involved. We owe you a great deal.”

“Yeah, man!” Roxy said. “And from what Rose has been telling me, you were kind of a big part of why he finally spilled what he knows. Which, he did bee-tee-dubs, which means he’s off house arrest finally, so that’s good—”

“—And a partridge in a pear tree,” the radio crackled.

“What the fuck? It’s August,” Roxy scowled. She turned the radio off altogether as Ramona glanced hurriedly out the window.

“Speaking of Dave,” Karkat said, hopefully before anyone got distracted again, “Roxy, you mentioned that there was something that you needed to say face to face?”

“Right, shoot, yeah,” said Roxy. The car turned onto the long road that led eventually to the Lalonde hive. “Okay, so, like. There’s definitely some shit you should know before we get there, but I wanna preface it all real clearly by saying that Dave’s okay, y’know? He’s got a lot of healing to do, but the doctors said that as long as he’s looked after and we change bandages and shit and he gets plenty of rest, he’s definitely not in any danger anymore. He’s…weak, but he’s not like gonna keel over at any moment, okay?”

“Not actually making me feel any better, Roxy!” said Karkat. Oh, boy, with a preface like that…

“Well, fuck, I tried, I guess. Uh. So, Dave did get hurt…pretty bad, and there were some other complications—oh, for fuck’s sake!!”

“Watch me, watch me, hey, watch me, watch me!” The radio was louder than ever. Ramona’s hand flew up, poorly hiding a grin.

Karkat leaned around Roxy’s seat to glare at her.

“What the fuck, Roxy,” said Karkat.

“I’m not doing this!” Roxy said, waving her hand wildly. “I swear to fuck, I wouldn’t! I really do need to pass on some shit about poor Dave, and the radio’s never done this before? It’s been acting up since a little before we picked you up, keeps changing on its own and shit, augh!”

She fought with the controls, but the song stopped only for a moment before getting even louder.

“Why the fuck do you humans even have this obnoxious song?! Who listens to this?? It’s literally just some squawking wiggler screeching for its lusus’s attention!”

“I mean, I kinda love it for that honestly, it’s terrible and stupid and wonderful, but like, come the fuck on??? What’s with this thing?! Now is not the time!”

“Ass ass ass ass ass ass ass ass ass ass—“

“GOD, that’s even worse!!” Roxy yelled, slamming her fist down on the dashboard. “Fucking stop!!”

“That’s enough for now,” Ramona said, almost murmuring it.

The radio turned off. Karkat and Roxy both turned a suspicious eye on Ramona, and with equal simultaneity, decided to drop it for now.

“Anyway,” Roxy said slowly, “What I was trying to say is, um…Karkat, do you know what it means for someone to ‘flatline?’ Because, um. Dave kinda did, for like, a minute and a half.”

Karkat shook his head, realized Roxy probably couldn’t see him with her eyes on the road, and said, “Uh, I have no idea what that word means, no.”

“Well, um…”

“It refers to a heart monitor indicating that the heart has ceased beating,” Ramona said. “The machine indicates activity with a line which shows peaks and valleys, and it goes flat when that activity has stopped, thus, ‘flatline’. The organ we call a heart serves an equivalent function to what trolls call a ‘blood pusher’ or a ‘pump biscuit.’”

Karkat felt for a moment like his own pump biscuit had stopped.

“Shit, Mom, when did you get so good at translating to trolls?” Roxy murmured.

Ramona shrugged. “I’ve made efforts to reach out,” she said. “The war ended, after all, and since we’re allies now, it doesn’t hurt to learn about each others’ cultures.”

“His fucking—What?!” Karkat screeched, unable to keep the harsh buzzing whine out of his voice. God, that was such a moirail noise, and any other time he’d have yelled at himself for not keeping it under control, but not now, not when… “His fucking blood pusher stopped and I’m supposed to be calm!?!”

“They got it moving again!” Roxy said. “He’s okay now, the doctors said it was going strong! It was, um, mostly just exhaustion, they think? Like, the burn wounds could’ve killed him on their own, sure, but they got on those quick enough that if he’d been healthy to begin with he probably wouldn’t have been so bad off? But between ten years of, you know…and just, apparently he hasn’t been eating enough even while he’s been back with us? And Ray’s gonna get on his ass about that, but, just—look, the thing is, Dirk doesn’t know about this yet, and Aunt Ray’s asked that we try to keep it that way, and I don’t really get why but I think she has her reasons?”

Karkat was definitely hyperventilating, oh fuck, oh fuck—Ramona’s hand reached back to touch his own, snapping him out of it.

“It’s fine to be worried,” she said, gentle. “I promise you, though, it is as Roxy says: he’ll be fine given time to recover and the safety with which to do so. He’ll be alive when we get there.” She sat back in her chair, turning towards the road again. “As for Dirk, I suspect Rachel is waiting for things to settle down before breaking it to him gently. He is, for better or worse, very like his father, and Derek handled his brother’s death poorly, in large part because at the time we could not afford to mourn. Rachel probably wants to make sure that Dirk does not feel he has to force himself to be strong when she tells him.”

“Makes sense, I guess,” Roxy muttered. “Anyway, the main thing about that is that he’s not got a lot of energy right now, so don’t…take it personally if he just falls asleep on you sometimes? Especially with the painkillers he’s on, apparently that’s a side effect, too. He can walk short distances, but he gets wobbly quick and needs help sometimes, so there’s that too.”

“Fuck,” said Karkat, softly.

The next ten minutes of the ride were carried out in tense silence. This was broken by the radio once again bursting back on and blasting the ass song again, at which point Roxy threatened to pull over and smash the fucking thing to smithereens.

By the time they actually got to the fucking house, Karkat felt like his soul was going to vibrate right out of his fucking body with impatience. They had yet another delay in the form of Terezi’s protection detail—Terezi herself wasn’t there, but some officers were, and they insisted on knowing about any weapons the three of them had as well as names, and went in to check with the family while making them all wait outside by the car. Karkat already had his fucking bag in hand, he was ready to go, but no, they had to go through this tedious procedure! Sure, it was probably a smart move, and when he was feeling a little more sensible he’d be more okay with it as it was the sort of thing that probably would make them all feel a bit safer (especially poor fucking Dave), but right now the were a pain in the ass and he was going to fucking explode!!! If they didn’t!!! Let him get in the fucking hive!!!!!

Rose stepped out as they were still talking to the police, and for the first time in his life Karkat was unspeakably happy to see her. She quickly confirmed to the police that all three of them were in fact expected and trusted by this household, and then gently let Jaspers out of his carrier. The cat immediately yowled and threw himself into her arms, kneading at her shoulders and rubbing his face against hers, and it all would have been super cute if Karkat didn’t have his mind on other fucking things.

“Come on in,” Rose said, nodding towards the door. “Dirk’s on the couch and Dave’s in Mom’s room, as neither of them can handle stairs right now and Dave needs his bandages changed at least twice a day. Karkat, do you—”

She was talking to air. He was already in the fucking door.

And then had to face the fact that he’d never actually been to Rachel’s room. Fuck. Rachel was coming up the hall, though, and a slightly bewildered young human (wait, fuck, that was Dirk, what happened to his hair? It looked so weird hanging down like that instead of spiked up) was sitting on the couch with an Earth husktop on his lap. Roxy pushed in the door with Ramona right behind her, dropped a heavy wheeled bag right next to the door, and immediately launched herself at Dirk, who gave a startled yelp as she did so.

Rachel rested a hand on Karkat’s shoulder as she passed him, rushing up toward Ramona throwing her arms around her shoulders. The two shared a long hug, and Rachel kissed Ramona’s cheek.

“God, I’m so glad you’re here,” Karkat heard Rachel murmur, before Rose tapped his shoulder.

“I was asking if you knew where Mom’s room is,” Rose said.

“Uh.”

“It’s down the hall to the observatory, but you take a left before you get to it. Make sure to make plenty of noise on the way over, Dave gets really jumpy when he’s the only person in that room. He can’t block the door since we need to be able to come in and out, and it’s got him a bit on edge.”

Karkat nodded, unable to get any words out past the lump in his throat. He more or less just dropped his bag on the ground and pushed past, zooming around toward the room indicated. Dave looked half-asleep when Karkat pushed the door open, and waved as he sat up with some effort.

God, the photo Rose had taken didn’t do justice to how fucking bad he looked. There were bruises across his face and neck turned a weird greenish-gray but still dark against his skin, and bandages everywhere, his hair was a mess (although that might have just been from sleeping). He was in some oversized shirt with an Earth hoofbeast on the front that was probably Dirk’s judging by the size, and Karkat had no idea why Dave had it on but right now he didn’t care.

“Hey, man, uh. Shit’s been crazy, huh?” Dave said with an awkward grin. He didn’t have his shades on either, which made sense if he’d been sleeping, except they weren’t on the bedside table (which did instead contain a nearly empty glass of water, several bottles of pills and salves, and a first aid kit from which clean cloth bandages overflowed).

Two weeks of emotion boiled over all at once. Wordless, Karkat stomped across the room and grabbed Dave’s stupid fucking shirt in both hands and tugged him close.

“It was three days, Dave,” Karkat hissed.

“Wha—?”

“Three days! And you got yourself fucking kidnapped by a terrorist on day goddamn two!! What the fuck, Dave?!” His voice was threatening to abandon him, but Karkat forced it right back into place by sheer willpower. This tangent would not be fucking stopped, hell no. “I take my eyes off of you for two days, and you get yourself into shit again! What the fuck!!! Do you have any idea how-how fucking agonizing it’s been waiting for news?! And you’re just sitting there like ‘Oh, hey! What’s up?’ What’s up is my foot up your waste chute, you hopeless fucking—!” Okay, nope, his voice was leaving after all, actually. He felt tears roll down his face, and he should’ve been more worried about that, but Dave already knew about his blood color and he was the only troll in the house right now, so, fuck it, fuck it all! Helpless, he tugged Dave closer again, letting his face press against that stupid shirt, claws still twisted into the fabric as he sobbed.

“Holy shit,” Dave muttered.

“I was so fucking scared,” Karkat gasped. This was pathetic, they weren’t remotely a couple, Karkat had no right to be this worked up and he knew it, but…Dave wasn’t exactly pushing him away, either, was he?

“I’m sorry, man, I didn’t even…It wasn’t planned this time, it just sorta happened, and Dirk got hurt, and I…”

“I’m not actually angry at you, despite having so much right to be that legislacerators everywhere have preemptively declared me innocent. I’m just fucking screaming for the sake of it, dumbass.”

“Oh.”

The awkward pause that followed was filled with only the sound of Karkat’s weeping, which, fuck, he was probably too fucking embarrassed to tell him off. Except…Dave’s hand lifted up to rest gently against Karkat’s back, so, maybe he didn’t mind that much? Was that wishful thinking?

“Sorry for this,” he said, just in case, as he pulled away a bit. “It’s really fucking embarrassing, I know, I just…”

“It’s cool, man,” said Dave. Then, with a wink, he said, “I know you got your massive Strider homocrush, it’s only natural—”

“Dave, I swear to fuck, injured or not, I will pummel you into dust with a fucking pillow, don’t test me!” Karkat snapped.

Dave snorted. “Hey, man, it’s fine, everyone’s allowed to be a lil gay sometimes with their friends, it’s only natural.”

“I’ll ‘natural’ you!! Motherfucker, I spent the two weeks worrying about your wellbeing and you come at me with more of this bullshit!!”

Dave cackled with laughter. Karkat rolled his eyes and sniffled. He feigned annoyance as best he could, but, God, it was such a relief to hear Dave laugh. Rubbing a sweater sleeve furiously across his eyes, Karkat pulled back, sitting awkwardly on the edge of the bed. “Okay, but seriously, what’s with the shirt?” he asked, gesturing at the floating head of the hoofbeast. It wasn’t even a joke or a drawing. It was just…a straight photo of a hoofbeast’s face, with no text or explanation of any sort. What the fuck??

Dave glanced down, and snickered. “Oh, shit. Uh, yeah, we needed something that’s easy to get me in and out of, since the bandages on this fuckin’ burn need to be changed like, a lot, not to mention the gross-ass cream they have us slathering all over it on the regular. We tried a button down, but the buttons were kinda chafing, and like…who the fuck wants to ruin a fancy shirt with gross burn juices, right? And Dirk’s shit is more comfortable, and this one’s big enough that it’s real easy to take off even if I’m high on the damn painkillers.”

Karkat winced slightly, but decided not to comment. The scream from the video echoed somewhere in his think pan. “Where’re your shades?”

“Bro fuckin’ stepped on them or something, man, I dunno. They fell off at some point, and they were already cracked before all that, and Terezi just found pieces. Which fucking sucks, I mean God dammit, those were a gift from John. Shit sucks.”

“John?” Karkat tipped his head.

“Yeah, he’s like, an old friend of mine. Have I not mentioned him to you? Whatever, he, uh.” Dave scratched at the side of his head. “He was an online friend from before Bro started doing the, uh, raid shit, and I kept talking to him and another friend, Jade, for a while afterwards even though I wasn’t supposed to?”

“Jade’s name I remember,” Karkat said.

“Haha, yeah, yeah cuz I told you about…anyway.” He cleared his throat. “I guess since Dirk’s college is starting up again soon, not that he’s going for the first couple weeks with his leg and a fucking concussion, but, it’s starting up, and John’s sister goes there too, and he’s gonna come with so we’ll be able to hang out for a bit? Which is fuckin’ rad, I haven’t even talked to the guy in three years and we’re finally meeting in person.”

“You want him to be here? While you’re this badly injured?” Karkat yelped.

Dave blinked at him like he’d just grown a secondary head.

“I mean, yeah?” Dave said. “Like, yeah, I’m not in great shape and I guess it’ll be a lil weird for him to see me like this, but I’ve missed him.” Before Karkat could press the question further, though, Dave yawned. “Ugh, fuck, I wanna keep talking, but I’m…halfway to falling asleep, shit.”

“Oh,” said Karkat. He got up, ready to leave. He wanted to stay, wanted to curl himself around Dave’s obnoxiously lanky frame as best he could and protect this fragile idiot human from the entire universe, but…it wasn’t his place, was it? No.

“You leaving?” said Dave, rubbing at his unbruised eye.

“You said you wanna sleep,” Karkat said.

“Right. Uh. Could you, like…fill this back up for me, then, I guess?” Dave said.

“…Sure,” said Karkat.

He was…still confused, but Dave was tired, so he didn’t press. But he couldn’t wrap his head around wanting a friend around while he was so injured—well, he’d wanted Karkat around, hadn’t he? He’d seemed happy to see him, aside from the, uh, yelling. Still, it didn’t make sense! Every troll knew as a small child that the only people you could trust when you were injured were your lusus, your moirail, and maybe your matesprit! Anyone else might take advantage of the weakness and kill you, that was just basic logic! But Dave didn’t even seem to be thinking about it.

And…and yet, come to think of it, Roxy’d been awfully forthright about how bad Dave’s condition was. Hell, she’d heard it from Rose, who seemed like the one most likely to know not to spread that weakness, but the humans were all sharing it and passing it around. It wasn’t just that they didn’t seem to care who knew that Dave and Dirk were injured, it was like they wanted people to know.

And as he filled up the glass of water in the kitchen, he watched as Roxy and Dirk talked on the couch, as Dirk told her that he’d passed on the news of their condition to Jane already, that Rose had told her and Dave’s friends, and it just kept going. Everyone had to be up to date on the fact that both brothers were injured and vulnerable, and yet…

“I hope the flight wasn’t too long,” Rachel was saying to Ramona.

“Nothing would be too long right now,” she said in turn, blowing gently on a cup of tea that Rachel had just poured her. “Times like these, we all need to do our part. I know I might not be able to do much, mind you. My leg’s been acting up something fierce, as of late, but I’ll do whatever I can.”

Something clicked. All at once, the curtains pulled back and Karkat saw the whole picture—saw maybe not what it always was, and certainly not what the Lalondes achieved on any sort of regular basis, but what it was supposed to be, how it was meant to work.

On Alternia, everyone lived in constant competition. Trolls had to be strong as close to all the time as they possibly could, or at the very least find a moirail who could, because otherwise their society wouldn’t particularly care much if they died. That just meant they didn’t deserve to be a part of the gene pool or to contribute to society. If they were injured badly and left vulnerable, it was seen as normal for others to take advantage of that weakness and exert power or outright kill a rival. It was how they survived so long, or so the cultural narrative had so long stated: by this competition, the strongest survive. Nevermind that this survival was built on the corpses of uncountable trolls who didn’t make the cut, it Worked.

As a result, trolls had been bewildered just as Karkat had by how humans as a species managed to be so frail and yet so reckless and to still survive, especially when they didn’t exactly have the kind of numbers that trolls did. Humans lacked the numbers to be expendable, lacked the strength and toughness that kept Trolls alive, and yet they looked Death in the eye and pointed and laughed, and pushed themselves to extremes for no purpose other than to have some warped idea of fun. It was a question that had lingered around his consciousness for ages; how the fuck do humans even work as a species? How had such a seemingly doomed race not died off yet?

The answer that hit him now, as he watched Roxy help Dirk stand up and balance himself on a pair of crutches, was that humans didn’t have to be strong all the time, and that was the magic of their little social units, their families—they took care of each other. No one person had to be good at everything, or so good at one thing that it could keep them safe in any situation. It didn’t matter that their skin was thin or that they weren’t particularly strong or fast, they always, always had others around who would pick up the slack, others who would come even across oceans to offer what aid they could in times of strife; they weaved together all their strengths and weaknesses into a fabric able to withstand just about anything. Fuck, no wonder they’d wanted Dave back so badly. The Lalondes may have been less a tapestry and more a patchwork quilt, but it was still their quilt, and Dave was a part of it….

He felt a near-agonizing pang of envy that he didn’t have a quilt of his own. Humans might have been stupid about a lot of things, but this…this they’d gotten right.

“Fucking water? Is that really the best you could think of? Fucking dumbass,” Dave muttered to himself. God. This was stupid. This was all really fucking stupid. He couldn’t even deal with being alone while he was asleep, for Chrissakes! Too scared of nightmares of a big mean dog, like some fuckin’ little kid.

Yeah, he was tired, but he really, really didn’t wanna be alone right now, was the thing. Not with that fucking troll-drug-induced nightmare lingering around the edges, waiting to chase him down again at its first chance. But. Like. Karkat was kind of right? Bros don’t watch each other sleep, that’s fuckin’ creepy. Like. Okay, so maybe they’d done a bit of that way back when Karkat had been kidnapped, but they didn’t have a choice back then, and anyways they mostly slept at the same time during that experience, which was super different from just asking his best alien friend to fuckin’ hold his hand so the bad dreams wouldn’t get him. Fuck.

So he’d asked Karkat to refill his glass, even though he wasn’t thirsty right now, because it was an excuse to make Karkat come back, at least for a few more minutes, and they could talk for a bit, and maybe Dave’d stop being tired, wouldn’t that be rad.

Karkat came back in looking really thoughtful. He handed the glass over, and Dave took a sip to try and look like he hadn’t been 100% bullshitting there, and mumbled a thanks as he set it down. Then, just as a thought, he jerked his head toward the rest of the bed—it was a big king-sized one, probably left over from before the divorce and Mom had just never downsized or whatever, so there was a lot of space to Dave’s right—and told Karkat he could sit down if he wanted, Dave wasn’t gonna, like, pass out right this minute or anything, haha.

Karkat stayed quiet, which was fuckin’ weird, but he did sit down. He stared at the sheets for a minute, and then spoke up suddenly, saying, “I think I get it.”

“Get what?” said Dave.

“Why they wanted you back so bad,” said Karkat. “I mean, way back when you were first arrested. I kind of fought with Dirk over it at one point, because my only experience with the word Dirk used for why you should be with him was fucking Strider. And also I think I get why this shit all works, for humans in general. I mean, I’m probably just saying obvious shit, but it’s not how trolls work, we don’t take care of each other, not like this.”

Dave tipped his head.

“I mean with the whole fucking family thing,” Karkat said, rolling his eyes. “I’ve been trying to get it this whole time, but this shit’s used to justify so much bullshit with you humans, and I think I get it now, and why it’s so fucking important to you as a species.”

Dave snorted. “Dude, it’s not that big a thing—”

“It is, though! It just seems normal to humans because it’s how you always work, but, Dave, I’m serious, back on Alternia it’s every troll for themself. Maybe you have one person who has your back if you’ve got a moirail, maybe some are lucky like me and have friends who are actually consistently on your side and won’t take the first chance they get to kill you or fuck you up some other way, but we definitely don’t have a whole cluster of others we can just fall back on any time we’re met with something we can’t handle alone.”

“Makes sense, I guess,” Dave started, but Karkat just kept going. Apparently he’d had some sort of fuckin’ epiphany in the past two minutes.

“It took me so fucking long to get this, but I get it now! You know what I don’t get, though, is why the fuck you ever tried to convince me that Strider is part of your fucking family.”

Something in Dave dropped like a stone.

He’d…had a similar thought, really. Repeatedly. Multiple times, over the past week or so. He’d been kind of trying to avoid it, because every time it popped up, he got really stressed out.

“And don’t give me any of the bullshit about being ‘related’ or what the fuck ever, I don’t wanna hear it,” Karkat kept right on going. “I still don’t get why you humans care so much about that. The whole point of this family thing is that you all take care of each other, not that you’re related or whatever! Your aunt’s here, did you know that? She flew across an entire fucking ocean just to make sure she could help out you and Dirk! What the fuck did Strider ever do for you?”

It was a good question. And the answer, of course, was: aside from trying to kill him, do you mean? Hahaha.

Karkat was still talking, but Dave wasn’t really hearing him. Fuck, this had been a mistake, he should’ve taken his chances with the fucking nightmare dog. That was better than this old song and dance with his own thoughts.

The facts were pretty simple. He’d operated under pretty clear logic when he went up against Bro: We’re family, so he loves me, so therefore if I ask him to let me leave and explain that I really can’t deal with this, he’ll let me go. Except, Bro had tried to kill him, which meant that…

That was as far as Dave ever got. He couldn’t think any farther than that.

He felt like…like the next thought should be obvious, but he couldn’t make himself think it. It was too big—not so much a square peg in a round hole as it was trying to cram a grain silo into a pinhole, and the thought threatened to overwhelm and destroy him, so instead of thinking it, his brain kept rejecting it, the effect being like a broken record skip-skip-skipping, over and over, repeating the last thought he could get to before the Big One, because he couldn’t not think the Big One, either…

It was so fucking stupid, it was just a thought, why couldn’t he…

“Hah, yeah, now that you mention it, I guess I was always kinda wrong about this shit, wasn’t I?” Dave said, unable to stop the sardonic laughter bubbling up in his throat. “I mean, fuck, no wonder it took you so long to get, I probably gave you the wrong idea. My dumb ass was convinced he’d never try to kill me, cuz we’re family, and, well, here we fuckin’ are!”

Skip, skip, skip—

Karkat was still talking in stuttered phrases in the gaps of Dave’s own flood of words, looking almost scared, but Dave didn’t comprehned any of them, and anyway, the ranting had started, there was no stopping this shit now. “Like, what the fuck was I even thinking, right? I really thought that was gonna work, that somehow he’d just let me go if I asked, like a fucking idiot! Haha, what a fuckin’ dipshit, right?! And here I was thinking he—” Frantic laughter bubbled up, overtaking the words, not that more would’ve come, that next thought was just too big. Was he crying? Fuck, Karkat didn’t need to see any of this shit, but he couldn’t stop, couldn’t think

Skip, skip, skip, skip, skipskipskipskipskipskip—

It wasn’t Karkat’s fault. It really wasn’t. He might’ve set it off, but the storm had been building up for days, now, and it broke hard, sweeping Dave up in a torrent of just wordless mental screaming. He couldn’t think the next thought. He couldn’t. But the thing was damming him up, and he couldn’t ignore it anymore, and he was stuck in the middle and left to just completely melt down and dissipate into the flood.

A sound like a cicada crossed with the creakiest horror movie door ever to creak ripped through the tides, and suddenly Dave found himself tugged into a full body hug, wrapped up in four limbs with his face pressed into a thick sweater. The touch dragged him out of the flood and onto dry land, brought him back into now before he even knew what was happening. Karkat’s whole chest was vibrating with some intense cricket-cat hybrid purr, and this should’ve been so embarrassing but he was so tired and so lost and it was fucking comforting, so who the fuck cared. Who cared anymore. It was all bullshit. He could be embarrassed later.

Too soon, Karkat seemed to have the same thought, and tried to pull away. “Shit, sorry, I shouldn’t—fuck, I’m so sorry, this is really presumptive and I know you aren’t even into boys,” he babbled.

Dave groaned, wrapping his arms around Karkat’s chest and pulling him close. “Dude, if you try to make this about alien romance right now, I swear to fuck,” he gasped out between harsh sobs. Christ, he was going harder than Karkat did like twenty minutes earlier, what the fuck.

Karkat paused. Good. It meant his warm arms were still there. “Dave, I…I mean, this is troll romance, this is textbook moiraillegience, and I shouldn’t just be throwing myself at you because you had a moment of weakness, no matter how bad I, uh.”

Dave sniffled, wracked his brain for a moment…Karkat had explained this stuff about a million times, which one was…”That’s like…the bros quadrant, right?”

“The what.”

“The one that’s, like, platonic and shit.”

“…Yeah?” The cricket-purr started up again, cautiously.

“We fuckin’ kinda do most of that shit already, don’t we?” Like. Yeah. He wasn’t gay. That was still a thing. But Karkat was warm and solid and real and Dave was fucking exhausted and didn’t want to be alone, especially not when he felt right now like he was wrapped in safety. “Please, Karkat,” he added, because why not beg. He was already at maximum pathetic, there was no digging this hole lower, fuck it. “I really don’t wanna be alone right now, just, please don’t go.”

Karkat was quiet for a long moment, but finally, the cricket-purr went back to full volume and Karkat’s arms tightened around him.

“Okay,” Karkat said quietly. Dave let out a breath he’d barely known he’d been holding and went back to crying.

“We’re going to have to talk about this later,” Karkat murmured, which put him at about normal volume for anyone else.

“Later, then,” said Dave, and let himself finally fall the fuck asleep.

#dave strider #karkat vantas #davekat #roxy lalonde #longpost//#u BET UR BUTT THIS OENS GOIN IN THE DAVEKAT TAG #ITS ABOUT TIME #fanfic #fanfiction #calmvsstormfic #calmvsstormchapter #katt does a writing #jkdfsgfjhsfjshf not the best start to a relationship but like its something #lord this got long.#why tf did i think 32 and 33 would ever fit into one chapter.

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shutupandquityourcrying · 3 years

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I need a music streaming service that bases the radio stations / playlist / song suggestions off of lyrical content

Make me a music streaming service that suggests songs, generates playlists, and/or makes radio stations based off of lyrical content only. I want the complex mathz working behind the scenes to know nothing of genre, of sound, of decade or era; to know nothing other than what songs are about or are like interpreted to mean - so music without any words, it will understand how the song feels and pairs those with songs that it believes will make you feel the same sort of ways, lol. I didn’t realize till tonight that for a few years now I like am very very regularly like wanting that - like actively trying to find a way to get Spotify or lists on google and Reddit and shit to like help me find songs that have similar lyrics; themes, feelings, content, concepts, emotions, ideas, uhhh meanings, statements, perspectives, sentiments, etc. — it’s been AT LEAST 3 years since I’ve been like doing the like 5 or so different little things I attempt (over and over again) when I’m looking for songs / albums / artists / stations / playlists / any ~ music - to listen to when I’m like in a mood, which is most of the time tbh - like if I’m looking for ~ music ~ to listen to then it’s that time of the day I’m in a mood and like I’m not looking for a fucking sound, I’m looking for ... like ... yeah, lyrical content that relates to the song I am telling the application to make me a radio station based on. <- That’s like the day-to-day want/need for this app • There is also this want/need I have that is different but the same as that one, like they’re the same but I’ll be seeking with a different driving force, and that is that ... I’ll be like looking for new artists to listen to based off of one of my fave artists, but like my fave artists are my fave I believe moreso for like lyrical content than their sound, and like their era or genre like doesn’t mean SHIT bc 90% of what is like being suggested as similar, to me, like isn’t similar to the artists & I think that’s bc like genre & era play as big a factor in their relation as their ~sound~ and their ~sound~ is sometimes (often) not actually what I’m wanting from the new artists/albums I’m trying to hear for the first time or be reminded exists. Idk, idk - I just want a separate streaming service or even a website that just creates text lists and you have to go build the actual playlists yourself elsewhere - idc, I just want the computer to tell me songs in any/all genres based on “what the song is about”, and like, yeah I know that like lyrics can be interpreted to mean so many things and how is the computer gonna know wtf I want to project onto the words and therefore get from the song ... but like, the complex mathz will take into account all digitally noted interpretations on the internet + like it is just next level and is able to compute all the ways a human being might comprehend the words to mean all at once and then like go with the most common interpretation if just a single song is all it has to build it’s station/playlist/suggestions off of ~ and if like the user thumbsdown songs that it plays the skematics change and starts to shift into the second most common interpretation to base it’s suggestions off of instead. & if it was a group of songs the user input to create the playlist/radio/suggestions off of then it will take all of the lyrical content into account and be able to find same/similar/related/recurring themes and feelings and meanings and emotions and ideas and shit and make you something super sick & sweet —/// I’ve just had an even better idea wrt all this but I’m done writing about it for right now - I’ll come back with the new updates to the application lol

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theimpalaiscrying · 7 years

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You’re Not A Winchester Pt. 4

Title: You’re Not A Winchester

Author: theimpalaiscrying

sister!reader x Sam & Dean Winchester

Words: 2, 189

Warnings: Angst, swearing, bit o’ blood, implied depression, siblings (mine triggers me all the time idk ‘bout you).

A/N: Oh poop guys.

When Dean dug his way out of his grave, he was obviously exhausted, but also scared and confused as Hell (haha that pun...I'll go home). If he really was alive again, how was he back? Why was he back?

Actually, he didn't care. All he cared about was finding you and Sam... after he found something to drink, and maybe after he found a bite to eat. Yeah. That sounded right.

Later on, after he'd trudged down the nearest road and had an explosive occurrence (haha I'm sorry I'm feeling punny tonight) at an old gas station, he looted it of anything useful and headed towards the old phone booth across from the building. Cramming himself into it, he used whatever coins he had found in the cashier to try and contact Sam first, then Bobby.

After a few unsuccessful attempts to try to persuade the old fart that he was back and to contact his little brother, he looked down at the last of his change and thought of you. You always kept the same number since you always found it too tedious to remember all your contacts cell numbers.

He smirked, remembering how lazy you could be sometimes. He was excited to see you and Sam again. Inserting the last of his change into the pay phone, he dialled your number, excited to hear your voice again, even if you didn't believe he was back.

His heart sunk when the voice on the other end said your number was no longer in use. That could mean so many things; you could have changed your number, you could have lost your phone, or you could be... no. Dean refused to believe the last thought, though he was still worried. You had had that number since you were twelve, and every time you'd get a new phone, you always asked to have the same number.

With a huff of defeat, he stepped out of the phone booth and strode towards the old car parked outside the destroyed gas station, determination to see the ones he cared about most and protect them from the literal Hell he'd been through giving him extra strength.

~Time skip brought to you by Adam, cuz poor guy~

After he'd had holy water thrown in his face and convinced Bobby that he was back, Dean was quick to ask about his siblings and why their numbers had been disconnected.

"Well, they're still alive. As far as I know." Bobby answered.

"Good... Wait what do you mean, as far as you know?" Dean questioned, his chest filling with dread.

"Well, I haven't talked to either of them in months."

"You're kidding, you let them go out on their own?"

"They were dead set on it."

"Bobby, you should've been looking after them."

"I tried. These last months haven't been exactly easy, you know. For them or me. We had to bury you."

Shaking his head, Dean questioned Bobby again, "Why did you bury me, anyway?"

"I wanted you salted and burned. Usual drill. But... Sam and (Y/N) wouldn't have it." Bobby said.

"Well," Dean chuckled, "I'm glad they won that one."

Bobby continued, "They said you'd need a body when they got you back home somehow. That's about all they said."

Instantly, Dean became suspicious. What had they done to get him back, if it had been them in the first place? "What do you mean?" he asked, brows furrowed.

"Sam was quiet. Real quiet. But (Y/N)? She was a wreck. Sam took off, and she stayed here for a while. Sam wouldn't return my calls. I tried to find him, but he didn't want to be found. After she recovered enough, (Y/N) decided to go out and find him. She called me, sayin' she did but they were still going to take a break from each other for a while. After that, her number went out of service and I wasn't able to find her."

That damn near broke Dean's heart. He wasn't stupid, he knew you went through something after Sam left for Stanford. Sometimes, he would hear you crying silently when it was night and you didn't think he was still awake.

He was never able to approach you though since he was never a man of words. Instead, he was there for you and worked even harder to be a better brother. He wondered if you had to go through all that again when he died.

"Did you believe her?" Dean inquired, cocking his head to the side, "(Y/N) was a good liar. Even I could never tell if she was telling the truth or not. She can be really damn believable when she wants to be."

"I thought about that a few weeks later, and I wouldn't be surprised if she was lying. Though I don't know why she would lie."

After that, they decided to track down Sam, since he was definitely more predictable than you. When the laptop finally started beeping, indicating that it had located Sam, they made for Illinois, where he was supposed to be.

Once they made it to the dingy motel in Pontiac, Illinois, they knocked on the door to room 203, Dean's stomach swirling with anticipation and anxiety. When the door was opened by a young woman, he instantly got excited, thinking it was you. But upon further examination, the excitement on his face was replaced with confusion. This woman wasn't you, not at all.

"So... where is it?" The woman asked, cocking her head to the side. Definitely not you.

Glancing over at Bobby in confusion for a moment, Dean spoke, "Where's what?"

"The pizza... that takes two guys to deliver?" she answered, confused as well.

Feeling slightly crestfallen, Dean said, "I think we've got the wrong room." Dean and Bobby were about to turn away, when Sam appeared behind the woman, further into the room.

"Hey, is..." Sam trailed off when his eyes met Dean's, the eldest Winchester beginning to smile.

"Heya, Sammy." He greeted, his voice thick with emotion.

After Sam tried to kill Dean and the hot young woman had left, Sam was sat down and Dean looked down at him suspiciously. "So what'd it cost? And where's (Y/N)?"

"The girl? You know I don't pay, Dean." Sam joked, avoiding the question about you. Dean noticed this and narrowed his eyes more at his little brother.

"That's not funny, Sam. To bring me back. What'd it cost? Was it just your soul, or was it something worse? And again, where is (Y/N)?"

"You think I made a deal? You think (Y/N) made a deal?"

"That's exactly what we think," Bobby answered this time, his arms crossed.

"Well," Sam snorted, "I didn't."

"Don't lie to me," Dean warned intensely.

"I'm not lying!" Sam persisted.

"So what now, I'm off the hook and you're on, is that it? You're some demon's bitch-boy? I didn't want to be saved like this." Dean started advancing on Sam, clearly not believing his younger brother.

"Look, Dean, I wish I had done it, all right?" Sam mentioned angrily, moments before Dean grabbed him by the collar of his shirt, looking straight into his eyes.

"There's no other way that this could have gone down. Not unless (Y/N) sold her soul! Now tell the truth!" he snapped.

Tearing himself from Dean's grip, Sam began to rant, "I tried everything. That's the truth. I tried opening the Devil's Gate. Hell, I tried to bargain, Dean, but no demon would deal, all right? You were rotting in Hell for months. For months, and I couldn't stop it. So I'm sorry it wasn't me, all right? Dean, I'm sorry."

Finally relenting, Dean took a few steps back and inhaled. "What about (Y/N)?"

Sam was silent, not at all soothing the swirling ocean of fear in the eldest Winchester's stomach. "Sammy?" he asked quietly, his voice begging his brother to tell him their little sister wasn't dead.

"I... I don't know, Dean." he finally said, his voice low. He knew what was coming.

"What do you mean, you don't know?" Dean shouted, sadness and anger making him raise his voice.

"She was supposed to be with you!" Bobby interjected, his voice angry as well.

Sam didn't even look up, feeling too ashamed. It felt like something was blocking his throat and tears were already beginning to build in his eyes. "We... fought."

Those two words made tears fall from Dean's eyes, his hands coming up to grip his hair. His baby sister, his Bub was out on her own, probably dead.

"She found me when I was talking to a crossroad's demon. I was drunk and hurting and when she came walking over, I just got so angry. It was like she didn't grieve at all."

Dean had to turn away from Sam, his hands raking through his hair and covering his face. It was like he didn't know what to do with them as he drank in his brother's words.

"Trust me," Bobby growled angrily, "she grieved."

Nodding, Sam continued. "I said some shitty things to her, some really shitty things. I... I told her... she wasn't a Winchester, and that was it. She drove off."

Dean couldn't contain his anguish anymore. He turned and lunged at Sam, grabbing him by the shirt with one hand and punching him with the other.

"You! You did that! How could you do that?" he screamed as Bobby scrambled to pull the distraught Dean off of his brother.

Once the older man had finally ripped him off of Sam, Dean pointed an accusing finger at the younger Winchester. "How could you do that to our little sister? After all the crap you already put her through! After I was dead and all she had left was you! You let her walk away! Sammy, how could you do that to our baby sister! She needed you! You were supposed to protect her! And now she's out there, on her own!" he roared, tears streaming down his face.

"Dean! Stop!" Bobby ordered, standing in front of the taller male even if he wanted to punch Sam himself.

"I saw her again," Sam mumbled as he got to his feet, tears in his eyes and blood on his face.

Dean stiffened. "When?"

"Two months ago. At a diner in Arkansas. I tried to talk to her, but she wasn't having any of it. When she left again, I tried tracking her down. Dean, I really did. But she isn't using any of her aliases' and she ditched the car I saw her using that day."

Taking a deep breath, Dean tried to compose himself. "How was she?" he asked, Bobby still had a firm grip on his shirt.

Sam's expression immediately fell, and Dean could already feel the anger rising in his chest again. "Word spread that she was on her own, somehow. Demons were chasing her. She was in rough shape."

Dean tried to get at Sam again, but Bobby was holding him back. With an anguished scream, Dean gave up and pulled himself from Bobby's grip, tears falling down his face as he backed away. "Not our baby girl, Sammy." he whimpered, "Not our little (Y/N)."

It was bad enough that he knew that you were hunting on your own. Hearing that demons were chasing you? Now that near made him break down completely. He'd been there for you for your entire life, and he couldn't even fathom you being out on your own with nobody to watch your back.

"I'm so sorry, Dean." Sam's voice was just as thick as Dean's when he spoke.

With a sharp inhale, Dean shook his head. "I'm not the one you're supposed to apologise to." He couldn't even look at his brother, he was disappointed.

"We need to find her, Sammy. And when we do, we are never letting her go again. Is that clear? You are going to fix what you've broken." Dean finally managed to look his brother in the eye, fixing him with a stern glare.

Vehemently, Sam nodded his head. "I will. I promise, Dean." After that, the room was filled with a tension so thick, you could cut it with a knife.

"Dean. We need to consider the possibility that (Y/N) sold her soul. She might not be too happy to see us, and that's if we find her." Bobby said, keeping a wary eye on the eldest Winchester.

"Not now, Bobby." Dean said, turning on his heel and leaving the room, slamming the door behind him. He needed air.

If you want to be tagged, don’t be afraid to hit me up!

Tag List: @hunterpuff @spn67-sister @captonite @itsssmichelleee @trustnobodyshootfirst @27bmm @tomlinsonlovers @milesofmemes@b0byyy @simsguruforever2580@evyiione @sukanya99 @winchestersmut @fandom-hipster17@msimpala67 @mogaruke @practicallyawinchester @cookie-dough-lova @sammythemooseman @girlwithtwominds @peachy-jordyn @michelllewarren @deansbabygirlkazimpala @nightwings-protege @stilesneedsprotection @lbyers28 @thewinterquicksilver@littlegirlslost @wishedworld @marvelandwinchesters927@mariahoedt @lovesamwinchester @colagirl5 @cutiepielovely23@once-upon-a-psycho @imagineavengerz @fangirl-moment-x @avc212 @br0ken-smiles-and-fallen-angels @spn-applepie-imagines @shadok2015 @hating-life-rn @holmchester @dslocum89 @catswithasideofeverything @coralturtlenut @iamflanneltrash @itsoliviaguzman @winchester-writes @shortgirlshortstories @staticweekes @kylamw2003 @alittlerosebud @2kool-4chu @nvmoake @katflintstone12 @rileyloves5

#You're Not A Winchester #dean winchester #Sam Winchester #bobby singer #sister!winchester #SPN #supernatural #angst #i finally did it #lordy

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needsmoresarcasm · 7 years

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strip that down on the charts

I don’t know if you’ve heard but Liam Payne released this song called “Strip That Down,” and like it’s totally smashing, or maybe it’s definitely a flop. Because, like, it peaked at #441 on Icelandic Hits Bi-Monthly and everyone knows that’s the chart that really matters. But it was also the most played song in the 9 o’clock hour on KISZ 104.7 in Kennebunkport, Maine, which is totally unheard of for a debut single released by an artist with four (... sometimes five?) vowels in their name. Or something.

AKA a post in which I attempt to break down how Strip That Down has been doing on the (mostly US) charts (and what those charts actually mean) because every time I run across another poorly argued stan war a little piece of my soul dies, and I’m already running dangerously low on soul.

So, how much success has Strip That Down had? The answer is, of course, it depends. On worldwide streaming services? Fucking excellent. On US digital sales for a One Direction member? Pretty dire. Overall as a debut single? As with any serious question asked to a magic 8-ball, too soon to tell. So, like, let’s just get into some charts.

The Hot 100 | Chart Run: 42 - 65 - 51 - 44 - 34 - 33

Billboard’s Hot 100 is the traditional measure of success for singles in the US, so let’s start there. The Hot 100 ranks songs using a formula that takes into accounts radio play, sales, and streaming, where 1 download = 1000 radio audience impressions = 75 on-demand streams (or 150 radio-like streams). Thus, doing well on the Hot 100 is a holistic measure of success. Two caveats here: a song may do well overall, but its peak on the Hot 100 may not reflect that if it doesn’t do well on everything all at once. So a song like Awolnation’s “Sail” peaked at #17, despite going 5x platinum, because it essentially peaked twice: once on alternative radio, and once on mainstream formats. Second, a song may be a non-factor to the world, but have an artificially high peak because of first-week sales. My guess is no one in the world could hum more than a line of Taylor Swift’s “Today Was A Fairytale,” but that song had the same peak as “I Knew You Were Trouble” thanks to (at-the-time) record-breaking first-week sales. TL;DR: Hot 100, good success barometer, but like, don’t pray at its altar. Or do if that’s your thing. idk, I’m not gonna judge, people pray to way weirder shit.

On to Strip That Down’s run. It’s currently at #34, its peak, after six weeks on the chart. After falling from its initial position of #42, it has been steadily rising for the last month. Of course, without context, these numbers are about as meaningful as tickets to a Lauryn Hill concert. So for some damn context, let’s compare Strip That Down’s run to three songs released essentially at the same time as it: Bad Liar, Crying in the Club, and Swish Swish.

Swish Swish has been a tragic circus car disasterfest, and so like, Strip That Down has at least hurdled that unfortunately low bar. It’s not quite doing as well as Bad Liar, Selena Gomez’s lead single, but is outpacing Crying in the Club, Camila Cabello’s lead single. Crying in the Club is probably the best comparison here, as a debut lead single from an artist after leaving a popular group. (Admittedly an imperfect comparison, as 1D was bigger than Fifth Harmony, but Camila’s name as a solo act is better known to US radio stations thanks to a host of features.) Of course, there may be even better comparisons. And, let’s be real, that’s what everyone is here for. And as much as I do not want to get into these comparisons, you kinda need to to get any objective sense of Strip That Down.

Again, the resounding conclusion here is that Strip That Down (goddamnit if this song had a less terrible acronym I would be saving so many characters) is... doing fine. Like, not a whole lot of surprises in any direction. It’s certainly not close to the Hot 100 success of Sign of the Times’s early run. But its run is somewhat different looking from the other 3 debuts. It has seen fairly steady growth almost immediately, whereas the other songs fell for a handful of weeks before climbing again. (The reason for this is pretty clear: sales, but we’ll get to that in a bit.) Strip That Down’s run looks most like Slow Hands, a song that’s like kiinda smashing at the moment. Overall, Strip That Down is doing fine on the Hot 100. If it falls off a cliff tomorrow, it would have had a seriously disappointing chart run. But like, otherwise, don’t lose any sleep over it, but also don’t be one of those people arguing in the comments on a Youtube video about how it’s a smash hit. If you’re arguing in the comments section of Youtube, you’ve already lost. Even if you’re right. Which, you’re not, because you’re arguing in the comments on Youtube.

[Sidebar: Strip That Down has been pretty rockin on the UK Singles Chart, which tracks streams + sales. Its run has been 3-3-4-4-4-6 so far. The UK charts turnover much quicker than US ones, so that kinda longevity is already quite good. Like, it’s sticking around for longer than any of One Direction’s singles did.]

Sales | Total Sales: 121,653 (US), 253,408 (UK)

Sales are sales are sales are sales. Not a whole lot to explain here. Early sales are driven by fanbases, and then continuing sales are driven by the “general public” - the inexplicable holy grail of stan war arguments. In the US, Strip That Down started with 52K sales, which was pretty underwhelming compared to the rest of the One Direction solo debuts. This Town sold about twice as much initially (121k in two weeks), Sign of the Times sold 3-4x more (200k in two weeks). Just Hold On sold about as much as Strip That Down. Of course, all of this leads us to the incredibly shocking conclusion that Harry has the largest fanbase, then Niall, then Liam and Louis. Now, if that’s news to you, let me catch you up on some other things: Donald Trump is President, Vine is dead, adjustable-rate mortgages are a trap, he could see dead people, Talkies are the next big thing, and there’s an entire continent west of Europe before India.

Since then, Strip That Down has been steadily growing. It has spent the last two weeks or so in the low twenties on iTunes. increasing at a rate commensurate with its exposure. A quick note here: Strip That Down has never been discounted to $0.69, and discounts actually do have a pretty significant effect on sales - 11 of the current top 20 songs are discounted. So... overall, relatively poor sales so far in the US. If it has a long chart life, its sales could end up being amazing, so the writing is hardly on the wall. If they like it, they will come. (... phrasing?)

And if you feel the need to see success everywhere you look, it’s doing really well sales-wise in the UK. So grip that fact with white knuckles and mention it any time you talk to anyone ever. Here’s a sample conversation:

PERSON: I can’t believe Sarah Huckabee Sanders unhinged her jaw and consumed Glenn Thrush on live TV!

YOU: STRIP THAT DOWN BY LIAM PAYNE WAS CERTIFIED SILVER IN THE UK FASTER THAN ANY OTHER SOLO DEBUT SINGLE FROM A FORMER BOYBAND MEMBER IN THE LAST TWO YEARS. #KING 🔥🔥🔥💯 💯 🔥🔥 👣🥑

PERSON: Wow! That information really changes my opinion of that song! That really makes me want to buy Liam Payne’s music! Thank you, kind stranger, for letting me know.

~end scene~

Airplay | Pop: #21, Rhythmic: #17, 31.234M A.I.

Radio play is interesting because it’s something fans have essentially no control over. Because no matter how many times you Twitter request a song to get in on WHYT The Hytz’s Top 7 @ 7, that’s just a drop in the radioplay bucket. Instead, it’s dominated by label support, artist familiarity, and general audience reaction. The most commonly referred to charts (on the interwebs) for radio airplay are Mediabase’s charts. (Billboard draws its numbers from BDS, not Mediabase, but in the grand scheme of things, the similarities in the tracking systems far outweigh the differences.) Mediabase keeps genre-specific charts, and charts songs based on the number of plays (spins) the song gets on those stations. Aside from spins, the other important number for radio is audience impressions (A.I.) which measures how many people heard a song. Because a spin on New York’s pop station Z100 at rush hour is going to reach more people than a spin on WSTW, Wilmington DE’s Hot Adult Contemporary station at 2AM.

The chart people care about for the purposes of stan-warring is the CHR/Pop chart, which is exactly what it says on the tin: the pop chart. And wow, what do you know, here too Strip That Down has been steadily rising since its release (chart run: 36 - 31 - 26 - 24 - 24 - 22). You’d be pretty hard pressed to argue that this is underperforming. You’d also be pretty hard pressed to argue that it’s overperforming. So don’t! No one wants to be hard pressed. Well, actually... Err, where was I? Oh right, here’s a chart.

Again, aside from Swish Swish, which, lol, the general trend for all these songs is pretty similar. Bad Liar/Sign of the Times both grew way faster with some pretty significant radio deals. Everything else kinda chugged along. Strip That Down has been seeing a pretty linear increase in spins, and if it’s going to really climb, that’s going to need to pick up. But radio is super top-heavy, in that the top 10 songs account for a huge percentage of total spins. Maybe the radio gods will deign to grace Strip That Down and it’ll sky rocket. Or maybe not and it’ll stall in the mid-teens and like, that’ll be fairly respectable.

In terms of overall audience, Strip That Down is the 58th most-heard song on radio, reaching 31.235 million/week. A majority of that is from pop stations, but a sizable chunk is also from CHR/Rhythmic stations, which are more hip-hop/r&b leaning. (And, a small slice is from Hot Adult Contemporary stations, a format that skews closer to pop rock, but generally plays every big pop hit.) Strip That Down has been seeing its biggest audience gains in the last couple days, so who knows. The world is its oyster.

Streaming | Spotify #23 (US), #9 (Worldwide), Youtube #57

Because it’s 2017 and millennials refuse to spend money on anything but avocado toast and actively staying unemployed, streaming exists. And tbh, I don’t really know shit about streaming patterns because the last time I followed music charts closely, Spotify wasn’t really a thing. And like every old person who used to know something, instead of doing the research and educating myself, I’m just gonna speculate wildly and hope no one notices when I pronounce Zendaya like it rhymes with papaya.

From my rigorous research, it looks like streaming turnover is definitely faster than radio turnover. And streaming in the US (at least on Spotify/Apple Music) trends more towards hip hop/rap. It also seems like streaming is basically its own beast, but not totally insulated from label influence. IDK how Spotify’s top hits playlists work, but like, my guess is there’s not no money to be had there.

What really matters is that Strip That Down is kinda killin’ it. It’s been gaining in the top 30 for US Spotify streams, and in the top 10 for worldwide Spotify streams for the last month. It’s definitely had the benefit of being on the most popular playlists, so that probably explains some of it. I don’t know what explains the rest of it. But like, idk, I guess the youths are digging it. Let’s visually illustrate this multiple times to place more emphasis on the streaming factor because such an emphasis would be advantageous to the perception of Strip That Down that most appeases my carnal desires.

Wow, for once the analysis isn’t “idk we’ll see how it does.” For streaming, Strip That Down has just straight up done well regardless of the context or comparison you’d like to make. It’s already a streaming success for who knows what reason.

Let’s end on that note. Please use this information for good and not evil. I don’t care if you like Liam or hate him or WHATEVER (that’s a lie, I do care if you hate Liam, because you’re a monster), but have some basic grasp of what the various chart numbers mean, please. Or if you must continue to engage in petty, misinformed arguments with rando strangers on the internet, do it in a place where there is zero chance of me stumbling upon it. (Those places don’t exist on the internet, because I will scrape into the deepest recesses of the web to find people saying nice things about Liam Payne. Because I am so bored.)

But, y’know, if your mental well-being depends on Liam’s songs performing well, then there’s definitely enough here for you to tell yourself that he’s #smashing #kingofpop #yourfavescouldnever #heynowyourearockstargetyourshowongetpaid.

#liam payne #strip that down #yall studying for a test for two months is real fucking boring #and leads to shit like this

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