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salmonid-ink · 3 years

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Let’s talk about Salmonid intelligence!

There seems to be a wide misconception that Salmonids aren’t intelligent, or at the very least, aren’t as smart as Octolings or Inklings. This idea couldn’t be farther from the truth! And because I’m the Resident Salmonid Fanatic™ it’s my job to talk about this.

In hopes to make people consider and think of Salmonids in a better light, and NOT as pets, I’m going to do my best to pull evidence from in-game, as well as interviews, that imply or outright confirm that Salmonids are sapient, much like our beloved Octolings and Inklings.

To start, I’d like to touch on their interactions with other creatures, namely their trade deal with the Octarians. It’s hard to argue for Salmonids not being intelligent when you consider the confirmed fact that they actively trade with other creatures to benefit the both of them.

They exchange their useful Power Eggs (and perhaps vegetables and fruits) to the Octarians for mechanical blueprints, weapons, and machine parts (and potentially tentacle cuts for food). We can wager this trade deal has been going on for a long time, as the Salmonids are fitted to the gills with machinery, and you can make the argument that the Octomaw was inspired by Maws!

While the Salmonids could easily take these blueprints and make the machines exactly as the Octarians planned them, these fish take it one step beyond and put their own twist on things! With their intellect, they’ve customized traditional weapons to suit them better, and the examples can be seen in just about every boss you encounter.

Ink Storm + Brella -> Drizzler

Sting Ray -> Stinger

Ink Jet + Tenta Missiles -> Flyfish

Splash Wall -> Steel Eel

Baller/Splashdown -> Steelhead

Shielded Octotrooper + Roller -> Scrapper

Octocopter -> Chinook

Flooder -> Griller

Octo Seeker -> Mothership

Additionally, they are INSANELY resourceful, able to use any scrap of metal or machinery to make their contraptions, and make them decently reliable. Not to mention the fact that Scrappers are able to repair their cars! On the fly! All while under fire! That takes dedication AND smarts!!

Not to mention the fact that Smallfry, who could very well be babies (and I will argue that they are, as there is no benefit to stunting the growth of ANY creature), are able to pilot Flyfish. They were raised just right in the best environment, and now they’re super smart!

Also, Salmonids are crazy creative, with how they’ve incorporated their cookware into their weaponry. They take their aesthetic to the next level, man.

Next, lest talk about their homes!

It’s vastly clear that they have their own society. At the very least, we can take a glimpse of it with their houses. The Lost Outpost (known as the Colony at Sea in Japan) is a great example of this!

While these houses look like they were cobbled together with recycled parts, which falls in line with Salmonid resourcefulness, they are clearly stable living spaces that were built by he Salmonids themselves with ocean living and fishing in mind.

Additionally, towards the back of the stage, we can see another house with a city on the horizon. While this is purely speculation, I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to believe that this city is Salmonid-owned. The areas you go to are claimed to be restricted ocean zones, and given that you’re so far out that you need a house-sized radio dish just to communicate, it’s hard to believe that the city would be owned by anyone else.

I think these city-based homes would be owned by Salmonids that work with machinery, such as repairmen and mechanics. This could also include artisans! Farmers would obviously live in more rural areas, where they can plant and grow their crops.

We can also glean a similar idea from the Spawning Grounds (called the Salmonid Dam in many other languages):

I will argue until the day I die that the dam found in the Spawning Grounds, as well as the adjacent city, belongs to the Salmonids, as evidence by its proximity to the stage, the green water pouring from the dam, and the very clear Salmonid mark on it.

Whether this city was built by them, or it’s one they took ahold of and built upon during one of their past migrations is yet to be determined, seeing my speculations are even true. Either way, it’s clear that the Salmonids are capable of building structures and homes with ease!

If we talk about their homes, even if this is much more on the speculative end, we’ve also GOT to talk about the factory we can see at Marooner’s Bay:

Again, given the proximity to Salmonid territory, as well as the various Salmonid-themed items around the stage, we can speculate that these factories are Salmonid owned, and perhaps where they work on many of their machines and devices.

Things such as Scrapper Cars, Steel Eels, Flyfish jets, Grillers, and Motherships could be constructed here, or this place could be used for processing water or chemicals! It’s a rather vague factory, so again, this is all theoretical. I haven’t a clue what they do here.

Next let’s talk about their art. The existence of art alone should be enough of an indicator that they have minds to think and feel with! Especially when their designs are as intricate as these:

The most of these can be seen around the Lost Outpost and Spawning Grounds, but every single stage has a few of these markings floating around. I don’t currently have many in-stage caps on hand, but if you take the time to look around, you’ll find a few on the ground and walls!

While a lot of these are very clearly graffiti markings, the intricate designs may have some meaning. While we haven’t a clue what exactly they mean, or what they represent, I think they’re extremely fascinating, and give us a peek into what culture Salmonids have.

They’re likely made with stencils, but all the same, they were designed carefully, and must hold SOME significance.

I have a theory that these designs are primarily to mark specific territories. Perhaps certain marks mean different schools and families! Or some of them could be warnings, such as to indicate Grizz activity (such as with the bear icon, which appears in a few stages).

I believe in part, these are a form of expression, ESPECIALLY if they indicate schools. There are so many unique fish-shaped designs, it’d be cool to see how these correlate to individual groups!

They could also be a visual indicator for Inklings and Cephalopods that, yes, this is Salmonid territory, so you’d best stay away! Because while it’d be easy for a Salmonid to tell what area belongs to who by smell alone, Inklings certainly don’t have that luxury!

At any rate, I’d love to see what personal art looks like for Salmonids. What kind of crafts do they make? What sort of things do they love to paint? We don’t really know, and we can only speculate...

One thing we know for certain is that Salmonids appreciate music. It even seems as though they’re inspired by it, given the descriptions that the Salmon Run songs have.

I feel like this is worth stating, even if their existence is fairly common knowledge: ω-3. A band. That plays complex instruments. And does all their own mixing.

Pretty freakin’ smart, I must say!

Additionally, each of the members have VASTLY different styles. The Cellist is stern and stubborn, and won’t accept anything but the best, be it in passion or in radical works. The timpanist is soulful, passionate, and is straight to the point. The DJ is reckless and disrespectful, yet puts forth his best effort.

All three of them are so unalike to one another in style and personality. They may not even get along that well, but at the end of the day, they value working together SO MUCH that they make amazing, unique, and great-sounding songs that stir and inspire their people.

It’d be amazing to see what other types of music that Salmonids like, because this can’t be the only kind. However the style of ω-3 certainly goes hand-in-hand with the chaotic, resourceful, and determined nature of the Salmonids.

We should also touch up on the fact that Salmonids are stated to have tradition. Aside from their 70-year migration, they’re also stated to pass cookware from generation to generation in Sunken Scroll #19.

"Salmonids are known to keep their weapons in tip-top shape. The frying pans they wield have often been passed down from generation to generation. You can see the unwavering pride of these fierce warriors in their (somewhat crazed) eyes."

I like to think that they also pass things like recipes and other tools down to their offspring and kin. Family and schools on the whole appear to be very important to them, which ties directly into their drive to work together as a unit, rather than separately as a makeshift team.

For some conventional evidence, look at this one bit from the Merry Fishmas piece, posted by official Splatoon sources:

I LOVE this image, and there are so many tiny details that you can make out in this. Such as these two:

THEY ARE PLAYING CARDS, and this ain’t no dogs playing poker bit, either! It looks like the other one is losing really bad... Or going into a food coma. One way or another, the other Salmonid is trying to check up on them, haha. Or maybe they’re trying to sneak a peek at the other’s cards? Who knows! That sly grin tells a story.

Also, there’s this Goldie, who is fishing:

These are all pretty human-like characteristics, which makes me think, all the more, that they’re on par with Inklings intelligence wise. I REALLY want to see more interactions like this someday, it fills my heart with delight and joy.

Phew.. Well, thank you so much for sticking with me through this whole thing. I hope this helps people get more perspective on Salmonids, and what little we know about their community and culture.

#Salmonid #Salmon Run #Splatoon #Splatoon 2 #Other Headcanons #mod stinky

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nctsjiho · 3 years

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Relationship with: SM artists

For JiHo’s relationship with NCT check out the pinned post on my blog. By no means are these all SM artists or is this very detailed and my knowledge in some of these groups is also very limited so please bear with me. If I wrongly represent anyone now or in the future feel free to let me know, but keep in mind all of this is purely fictional.

Super Junior:

Oh dear Lord help poor JiHo

She’s the victim of endless teasing from Super Junior

Since JiHo is pretty sociable she got quite comfortable with SuJu

They might not hang out a lot but whenever they see the girl they’ll approach her to at least greet her (and vice versa, of course)

SuJu also love to bring JiHo up during variety shows to tell a funny episode they had with the girl and “expose” her

Eunhyuk is a bit like an older brother to her, during her trainee days she once walked up to him asking him if he could critique her dancing. He was surprised at how bold she was and could only agree with her because she was so intriguing. He thought JiHo was a great dancer and since that time they became really close, even having each other’s phone numbers and JiHo having Eunhyuk on speed dial. When she was still under-age Eunhyuk became her guardian (not legally) since she has no family in Korea

Red Velvet:

They aren’t really close with each other for a few reasons (nothing bad though)

JiHo joined SM just after Red Velvet debuted and since the group was very busy with promotions and practice JiHo rarely got to see them

Though JiHo was very talented she didn’t have that much training and she was still a little too young when SM thought of adding another member into the group, Yeri had joined Red Velvet in march of 2015 which was clearly an amazing choice

SM also thought, pretty early on, that JiHo wouldn’t be a great fit for the group’s concept and overall look so they quickly stopped considering JiHo to become a Red Velvet member

Even after years passed, JiHo didn’t really get much closer to most of the members, but she respects them a lot as artists

Out of the whole group she’s probably closest with Seulgi and Wendy, who kinda see her as a little sister they want to take care of

Wendy checks up on JiHo every once in a while through text or invites her out to have dinner and drags Seulgi along with her

They look out for her and tease her a lot when it comes to being the only female member of NCT

“You need to be surrounded by a bit more oestrogen every once in a while, JiHo.” ^^

They will give her advice or just try to cheer her up when they catch the younger girl looking a bit stressed

JiHo would love to do a dance cover with Seulgi sometime in the future

SHINee:

Honestly who doesn’t love SHINee?!??

I’m not saying JiHo is secretly a Shawol, but I am saying SHINee is one of the groups that introduced her to kpop

She always had (and still has) so much respect for the group and they are probably the reason she accepted the scout’s request to come to Korea to become a trainee at SM

A possibility to debut under the same company as SHINee?? YES MA’AM

She has a very friendly relationship with the boys

Saying hi in passing or making small talk whenever they end up in the same elevator

Maybe even went to get something to eat together in the company cafeteria, but besides that there isn’t very much interaction

Taemin has mentioned her a handful of times after SuperM formed since he’s in the same group of some of JiHo’s members now

It usually about how he thinks JiHo’s really cute definitely during her trainee days when she was a little shy towards SHINee or that she’s a really great dancer/performer

Fans have wanted Key & JiHo or Minho & JiHo interactions for a while now, thinking they would make iconic duos (because chaos-), but some other fans have mentioned how she and Onew would make for a great duo because the girl tends to gravitate to the calmer members in NCT more often as well

EXO:

Well Kai is her idol so...

A lot of teasing once again

Though funnily enough, some EXO members seem to be intimidated by JiHo or act awkward around her

JiHo has been pretty open about being an EXO-L and so many fans poke fun at EXO about them being awkward around the girl (they have adopted her into the fandom and she’s pretty well received there)

“She just has this aura around her~”

MTL to feel intimidated by/awkward around JiHo:

Most: Sehun, Suho & Kai

Least: Chen, Baekhyun, Xiumin (EXO-CBX ^^) & Lay (EXO-M <3, the former Chinese members were also not really awkward around her)

Not at all: Chanyeol & D.O.

JiHo’s fans are sad that her and Kai are so awkward around each other and blame EXO and NCT (mainly those in SuperM) for teasing Kai so much by mentioning JiHo looks up to him, that now he can barely look her in the eyes

People have also pointed out how funny it is that Kai and Sehun are especially intimidated by JiHo, comparing them to big dogs being scared of a little puppy (wait this is cute)

Chanyeol and D.O. get along very well with JiHo, Chanyeol mainly being kind of a big brother for JiHo, but a big brother who likes making fun of her and embarrass her

JiHo mentioned the group a lot in her first year of being an idol, after that she kind of stopped (theory: she got told of by SM for talking about EXO too much after getting a lot of mean comments from antis ＞﹏＜)

Interactions between her and the group have also been insanely spares since mid 2019

(another theory: fans think that JiHo isn’t allowed to talk/interact with EXO anymore)

She has only mentioned EXO members when talking about SuperM, but it was mainly to support the group’s promotions

#Bring_Back_JiHo_X_EXO_2021

SNSD/Girl’s Generation:

NCT has teased JiHo before saying that she’s scared of SNSD

She defended herself by telling everyone that it’s because they are her seniors and she really respects them so she tends to get nervous around them

Some of the members of the girl group have mentioned JiHo before and said they hung out a little

Hyoyeon has been very expressive about her fondness for the girl

She even said that she wanted JiHo to join her when she participated in Hit The Stage

It didn’t end up happening because the kind of dances she did where either “too mature” or “unfortunately we didn’t get permission (from SM) to let Jiho join”

Hyoyeon has posted some pictures with JiHo on instagram, either cheering her on during NCT promotions or just because they were casually hanging out

JiHo also really likes Sunny and Taeyeon and has been invited by the girls to attended their concerts a few times now

On the outside it looks like they have a very strict senior-junior relationship, but every once in a while the group tells them how they are actually closer to JiHo than people think, they just don’t have very many opportunities to show it

They also do NOT tolerate any hate towards JiHo (definitely from those who comment on her not deserving to be in a boy group or her skill as an idol in general) and WILL defend her and shoot down any comments

Aespa:

She trained with a few of the girls for a little while

But when it got announced that JiHo would be joining NCT instead of a girl group, she started training with the boys (NCT and trainees who’d join NCT)

Some fans speculated that JiHo and Aespa weren’t on good terms, but there was no evidence to back up their theories

More so, it was even revealed that JiHo knew the choreography for “Black Mamba” during a V Live

JiHo has openly supported the group by talking about their debut song and stages, but there aren’t really any other interactions between them

BoA:

A collab between them would be LEGENDARY

When BoA visited NCT during their practise of Black on Black during the filming of Master in The House, she pointed JiHo out and complimented her for being able to be as powerful as the boys

JiHo looks up to BoA very much and during a variety show has revealed that she used to practise a lot of her songs/dances while she was a trainee

It happened a few times that the singer has expressed her faith in the younger girl’s potential and skill and hopes that JiHo will get to show of more of her talent because “Currently, I think she’s not able to show all her skills. She’s a junior I am able to trust to deliver (a great performance) if I asked her to work on a project with or for me.”

BoA’s comments about the younger girl only solidified the theories that SM is suppressing JiHo’s talent

JiHo has spoken out about it very subtly, saying that she’s happy where she is now as long as she gets to keep performing with the boys

In response to an international fan asking if JiHo ever thought about branching out to work on a solo project like a mixtape or even just solo dance videos to show of her choreographing skills:

“It makes me genuinely happy to perform with my friends right now. I think I still have a lot of learning to do. If ever my company reaches out to me to do something like that I will think about it, but I don’t really feel the need for anything like that right now. I’m happy (with the way things are) right now.”

#jiho.guide #nct 24th member #nct addition #nct fluff #nct female member #nct scenarios #nct reactions #nct extra member #nct additional member #kpop!addition #kpop!oc

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hi-dread · 4 years

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Mirko x Reader: Chapter 3

A new beginning

I was given an apartment by the police in a very tall building. I found it weird that they would offer me this, but then again, I came out of nowhere and got nothing but my wallet, phone, and clothes. But it’s not like 2 of the 3 items I have left actually work or can be of any use. My phone is busted and my driver’s license might not even work here in Japan and my credit card is from a different world, so I only have my clothes left, and I need to get some more I suppose. When I was getting questioned a bit more by the police, I got the chance to ask a bit about this world. It seems like the hero Deku managed to beat the villain Shigaraki, but they had some devastating losses. I didn’t ask more into it since it seemed like it was a horrible event. I didn’t ask about anything else and I figured I shouldn’t ask them what I should do about going to the hospital. Mostly because I don’t have any meds for my knee, but well that’s one of the things that I should worry less about since I can still work out one way or another.

I was escorted by the police to my new apartment and I was given contact info of one of the chief officers I was talking with. I crumbled it and put it into my pocket as I got into my apartment. It was pretty big compared to what I would expect them to give me.

“Quite the hospitality they got” I said to myself as I was walking through the living room, kitchen, and bedroom. “I wonder if I have to get a job or some way to earn any money,” I said as I went to the kitchen to check the fridge. It wasn’t packed with food, but there was some. Even though I am in Japan, I can somehow read Japanese letters as if it were English. I suppose it is thanks to what happened to me through my phone. I looked at the clock and it was only 2 pm and I didn’t feel that hungry. As I closed the fridge, a foul smell hit my nose. I made a grimace and tried to find the source, but then it hit me. Because I was caught up in all of this, I totally forgot I was sweating heavily thanks to my workout, although I was a bit dry now, I’d take a bath and then go down to the city to see what there is. Before I turned on the water, I had to check if there were any clean clothes, and luckily there were some in the bedroom’s closet. Though it was some plain looking t-shirts and shorts, I shrugged it off since I didn’t really care as long as it fit and was comfortable.

I was walking down the street as a lot of people were looking at me and then looked away. I didn’t think much of it since I am pretty tall compared to the average Japanese person. I met a lot of people on my way, some had a mutant quirk and others had a combination. In between the masses, I saw some heroes patrolling, greeting the citizens and getting greetings back. I did not recognize any of the heroes since most of them weren’t shown in the Boku no Hero Academia manga. As that thought came to mind, I actually wonder if Mirko the Rabbit hero was doing alright because the last time I saw her in the manga, she didn’t look that well. Her arm was ripped off, her stomach was pierced, and she probably had a few concussions in between the fights as well. I decided that that was enough speculation for the time being since I have to focus on what I should be doing from now on. I am totally broke, although I have a place to stay at, I need to figure some stuff out.

I went back to the apartment and laid down on the bed, looking up at the ceiling and said “man, what just happened to me today?”. I got back up and went to the kitchen to get something from the fridge. It was already 6 pm and most of the food in the fridge was just food I should heat in an oven or microwave. I don’t really know what is in the various boxes besides what was written on the box. The only one that stood out was the curry. I just heated it in the microwave as it stood on the package and sat at the table in the living room and began eating. As I was sitting down, I saw a note on the desk which I totally missed. Probably because I was amazed by the huge apartment which was given to me for free. Anyway, the note explained to me that the police will be looking into my case and that I should not worry about food since a package will arrive every week with food for an entire week.

“Pretty cool” I mumbled with some curry in my mouth “Now I just have to find someone to talk to on a daily basis or else I might get insane. A workout partner would be nice, although I can’t go to a gym without any money… I’ll stick to running every day, I got too much time on my hands anyway” I chuckled and finished eating the curry. I completely forgot about the note I got from the police with a phone number on it. I laid the note on the dining table, so it will not vanish somehow.

I went through all the drawers and the entire closet in the bedroom to see if there was something. The only stuff I found were some gym clothes of some sort. Though I got some gym clothes given to me, I will still be using the clothes I was wearing when I got to this world. I took out some of the workout clothes and looked at the digital clock that was placed on the drawer right next to the bed “8:45 pm, great. I can go out and take a run” I said as I jumped into the gym clothes. I should thank the police next time I see them since they stored shorts in this apartment. As I was walking out of the huge building, I looked up in the starry sky. The small shining dots didn’t look any different from those from my world and for the moon, well, I couldn’t see it yet, but I could see the moon illuminating from behind a few buildings in one end of the city. One of the reasons why I decided to go for a run was because I wanted to see some more of it and another reason is that I should get used to the environment and know my way around here. I took off and halfway into running, I came by the park that I woke up in. I saw not too many in the park and decided to run through it. There were a few couples walking side by side and a few people walking their dog and others just sitting on a bench and enjoying the night. As I was approaching the exit I came in from, I saw someone doing some warmup. I took it as if they would be going for a run and was hoping if I could accompany them. What I didn’t expect was who it was doing the warmup. I approached them, noticing it was a female figure, but one of their arms looked a bit off, the same goes for their leg. I had a faint idea of who it could be, but as I was around 10 meters away, I slowed down and began walking.

“Hey.. uhm, sorry to interrupt you, but I couldn’t help seeing you doing some warmup, and I figured you were getting ready to run..” as I finished the sentence, the female figure looked up, the moonlight shining brightly in her face, revealing who it was. I was around 3 meters away from her and backed up a step. “You’re th..” she cut me short by replying “Yeah, I’m her. And you’re correct. I am getting ready for a run..” she finished as I saw her right hand slightly and awkwardly rubbing her bionic arm.

#mirko x reader #rumi usagiyama #mirko #fan fiction #fan fic #rabbit hero: mirko #Rumi Usagiyama fanfic #mirko fanfic #mirko fan fic #mha miruko #miruko #bnha miruko #BNHA: Mirko #bnha #boku no hero academia #boku no hero fanfic #boku no hero x reader #my hero academia #my hero fanfic

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bsd-bibliophile · 4 years

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✧･ﾟ:*Happy New Year*:･ﾟ✧

Thank you all for another year full of Bungo Stray Dogs’ authors and literature! Somehow this blog went from having 4,355 followers at this time last year to 7,770 followers!! Thank you to those of you who have stayed with me for another year and to those of you who have started supporting and enjoying this blog during this past year!

To celebrate I have compiled a list of the top 10 quotes from 2019. I hope we all have happy memories that we can look back on and use to help motivate and encourage us in the new year! Let’s have a great 2020!

Quote #10:

Stupid! Stupid, stupid. I am a stupid idiot. For what purpose do I live my life? I get up in the morning, eat, roam about, and then at night I go to sleep. And the whole time all I think about is having a good time. … But I’m a coward and a lazybones, so for the most part nothing happens beyond my imagining some excitement. I’m a speculator of the metaphysical. An adventurer only in my mind. A navigator within the reading room. In other words, I’m an insignificant dream-weaver.

- Dazai Osamu, “A New Hamlet”

Quote #9:

To love someone is to put your life on the line. I don’t take it lightly.

- Dazai Osamu, “Female” from Self Portraits

Quote #8:

People’s hearts are really so trivial. they bend easily to the left and right like grass that is blown by the wind.

- Dazai Osamu, “A New Hamlet”

Quote #7:

A woman of twenty-seven or twenty-eight is in some ways more mature than a man forty or more.

- Dazai Osamu, “Early Light” from Self Portraits

Quote #6:

I am completely absorbed in my loneliness Night after night, alone in my room, I think, and my thoughts ponder themselves In a paired performance of this unchanging heart

And whenever the train whistle blows I begin to recall a journey, those memories of youth But then I realize it’s not my youth, nor any journey of mine It only seems like a journey, like the moments of my youth…

Searching for memories that aren’t there, this heart of mine Closes itself up, languishes like an old moldy box of trinkets And then there are these sunken cheeks, these cracked lips- Bitterness bred in cruelty comes rushing out in silence…

I’ve grown accustomed to it all, and have leaned to bear it But sometimes any degree of loneliness can bring you down And while I cannot know for sure, sometimes it seems as if These tears are no longer tears for having loved someone…

- Nakahara Chūya, “Poem of the Sheep” from Poems of the Goat

Quote #5:

Spring will come again, people say. Yet I am heartsick. Nothing will happen when spring comes; That child will not come again.

- Nakahara Chūya, “Spring Will Come Again” from The Poems of Nakahara Chūya

Quote #4:

I’m in no position to stand above humanity, acting as prosecutor, or judge. I have no right to condemn others. I am a child of evil. Beyond redemption. I suspect my past sins are fifty or a hundred times greater than yours.

- Dazai Osamu, “Thinking of Zenzo” from Self Portraits

Quote #3:

I hate the idea of getting old and ugly, you know. I’m not so afraid of dying, but the ravages of age just don’t match my aesthetic.

- Dazai Osamu, “Urashima-san” from Otogizoshi

Quote #2:

Disappearing into the darkened sky, The longing that consumed me in my youth-

Resembling the stars of a summer night as ever, Obscured in the vast distances as ever.

Disappearing into the darkened sky, The hope, the dream of my youth.

I just grovel on the ground here Like some kind of beast, thoughts darken

There’s no way of knowing When those darkened thoughts will break.

It’s as if I’m drowning in the ocean And can see the moon glowing overhead.

Now that the wave is so swollen, And the rising moon so crisp,

This longing that consumed me in my youth of quiet sadness Is on its way to disappearing into the darkened night.

- Nakahara Chūya, “Lost Hope” from Poems of the Goat

Quote #1:

No one realized that I had become insane; when I recovered nobody could tell the difference.

- Dazai Osamu, “Toys” from Dazai Osamu: Selected Stories and Sketches

... ... ... seriously ...?

If you are interested in reading quotes and facts about all the other absolutely amazing authors who inspired Bungou Stray Dogs, you can check them out on my Quotes by Author, Quotes by Book, and Fun Facts pages. If you are interested in reading the novels, short stories, plays, poetry, and essays please check out my Online Library and Links page.

#happy new year #2019 most popular quotes #bsd-bibliophile #japanese literature #bungo stray dogs #bungou stray dogs #bsd

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soobiniebaby · 4 years

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Angels & Devils Part III: Give Me a Highlight

Tomorrow x Together Fanfiction

~ p a r t s : main post || prologue || part 1 || part 2 || part 3 || part 4 || part 5 || part 6 || part 7 || part 8 || part 9 || part 10 || part 11 || part 12 || part 13 || part 14 || part 15 || part 16 || part 17 ~ p a i r i n g : love triangle involving choi soobin and choi yeonjun ~ g e n r e : high school au | some social media au | some fluff & angst | childhood friends | love triangle ~ l a n g u a g e : English ~ w a r n i n g : contains swearing, alcohol, kissing (?) and may contain mature themes (angst, etc.) ~ a / n : This will be my first fanfic (go easy on me pls) and i’m just writing this as I go along, so bear with me juseyo The setting (place/country) of the story is up to the reader’s interpretation ~ s u m m a r y : What should she choose? Han Baby: the new girl with a troubled past MO Academy: her new high school Choi Soobin: student council president, member of the Ecosave club, volunteer at the Humane Treatment of Animals, member of the Honor Society, a vocalist in the Jazzed club, the school’s all around golden boy Choi Yeonjun: leader of the Dance club, star of the Jazzed club, the school’s it boy with a bad rep 5 best friends, 1 new girl, 1 childhood friendship, 1 epic love triangle? What will this school year bring?

Being a new student on the first day of a new academic year was a bit of an experience for B, especially since she always had at least one member of the student council by her side throughout the day.

After lunch, Beomgyu had walked with her to their French class. She was used to getting looks as she passed by, because even at her old school she knew that people knew who she was, but the looks she was receiving at MOA were different. No one really knew who she was yet, or what her family was like. They weren’t looking at her with cold judgement, they weren’t whispering about her family background, but rather they were staring at her with bright curious eyes, and a bit of, dare she say it, jealousy?

When she was walking with Kai, she didn’t mind the stares too much because 1) she knew that her best friend was popular so it was only natural for people to stare at him and 2) she had enough history with Kai and felt comfortable enough with him to know that no matter what people may think, he was her best friend and no rumor or speculation could change that.

But as she walked alone with Beomgyu and sat beside him in class, the stares felt different. As comfortable enough as she was around Beomgyu, she realized that the level of comfort she felt with Kai was on another level. With Kai by her side, she felt like she had a shield that could block out what other people might say, but being alone with someone like Beomgyu, she felt bare and prone to judgement.

It wasn’t Beomgyu’s fault. He was warm, he was charming, and she felt at ease talking to him and enjoyed his company. He cracked funny jokes and made her feel close to him so effortlessly that if it weren’t for the stares, she would’ve felt like he was a close friend already.

But she was always super conscious of getting stares, so much so that it had a tendency to affect how she acted when she felt them. And Beomgyu seemed to notice this.

“Hey, B, are you alright?” he asks her as they occupy a couple of empty seats in their French class.

B nods. She wasn’t very good at hiding her feelings, so she simply said “Yeah I’m fine, I just don’t like it when I see people staring. It really makes me feel uneasy.”

Beomgyu looks at her with concern then and lays a hand on her wrist. “Hey, don’t mind them, alright? It’s probably just cause you’re the pretty new girl, so everyone’s probably just curious, that’s all.”

“The pretty new girl? Really?” B says looking at him with her brow raised.

Beomgyu holds his hands up defensively. “Well, you are? Pretty sure that’s how everyone sees you. To be honest, I’ve had a couple of guys from my last period ask about you. Looks like someone’s popular.” he says, nudging her arm teasingly.

B laughs, surprised. “You’re joking, right? What did they ask? Were they cute?”

“They wanted to know about you, I just told them you were pretty nice and cool. As for their looks, well, I guess you can say that MOA has a fairly attractive student population. Take me, for example.” Beomgyu says, rubbing his chin and making faces. “I mean, if you ever feel bad about the stares you get, just imagine that they’re all focusing on my handsome face.”

B hits his arm playfully, laughing out loud. “I can’t argue with that! Thanks Beomgyu, that actually made me feel a lot better.”

Beomgyu laughs along. “Don’t sweat it. Call me Gyu, by the way.”

Just then, their teacher for the period walks into the room, and everyone settles into their seats.

“Bonjour, je m’appelle Jackson.” Their teacher begins, addressing the class.

Beomgyu groans quietly. “Aw shit, why did my parents want me to learn French. Do you know any French?” he whispers to B.

B shrugs and says. “Ah Cher Monsieur Gyu, Je parle un petit peu de français.”

Beomgyu’s eyes widen. “Well then, um, mademoiselle B. Uh…Omelette du fromage?”

B whacks his arm and lets out a laugh, then immediately shuts up and sits up straight as their teacher glares at the pair.

“Don’t worry, I’ll help you with French.” B whispers. Beomgyu squeezes her hand under the table and whispers back “Thanks, B.”

•°•

“Is it just me, or are the stares and whispers getting a bit ridiculous?” B asks Soobin as they walk into their English class, the last period for the day. She could feel the stares throughout the day and was starting to get used to them, but as soon as she and Soobin entered the classroom, the stares now came with whispers, which made it so much more uncomfortable.

“Don’t worry about it. As much of a hot topic you are, being the new girl and all that, I think everyone’s whispering about Yeonjun’s absence. It was also like this at my last class. Everyone wants to know why he skipped his first day of class after being suspended last term.” Soobin says, leaning in close and keeping his voice low. “By the way, where do you wanna sit?” he asks politely. The teacher wasn’t in the room yet and a lot of the students weren’t seated yet, so they had a lot of seats to choose from.

“Anywhere’s fine, really.” B says. Soobin nods as he leads her to a couple of seats to the side close to the windows.

“I can’t say I blame them. I mean, I know the reason why but my head’s still spinning with questions about the whole thing.” B whispers to him as they sit down. “You guys weren’t very helpful about it, either.” she huffs as she recalls how their lunchbreak ended.

It was like they had a script prepared for whenever anyone asked them about Yeonjun and his strange disappearances from school.

“It’s complicated.” “It’s not our story to tell.” “He has a lot of family issues.” “He’s a very busy guy.” “It happens a lot.”

Soobin laughs. “I’m sorry, but it’s not our story to tell. If you really want to know, you can just ask Yeonjun himself. I’m sure you’ll appreciate it more coming from him, and I’m sure that he’ll appreciate you talking to him directly rather than asking other people about it as well.”

B pouts, knowing that Soobin was right. “Can’t argue with that. Plus, no matter how much I’ve heard about you guys, I think it would still be different if I got to know you all on my own.”

“Oh? Just how much have you heard about us guys, exactly?” Soobin asks with a raised brow.

B bites her lip as she realizes her slip up. Whoops. She couldn’t take it back now, so she replied honestly. “I promised Kai I’d stay quiet about it because he didn’t want me to weird you guys out by asking questions, but I’ve heard quite a lot about you guys from a couple of girls in my Biology class.”

“Don’t worry about it, I guess it was bound to happen. When you’re a member of the student council, people are bound to talk about you I guess.” he says lightheartedly.

Yeah, and when you’re a group of 5 attractive, tall, and insanely talented nice guys B thought to herself.

“I’m really curious though, what have you heard about me? Good things, I hope?” Soobin asks with a hopeful look on his face.

“Actually, the girls told me all about the other council members, but I didn’t hear much about you.” B says.

Soobin’s face fell as he looked at her with puppy dog eyes. “Is that so? Damn being the council president isn’t as big of a deal as it used to be, I guess.” he said dramatically, feigning hurt as he put a fist over his heart. “Maybe I should stir up some drama to get people talking about me on the first day.”

B laughs at his antics. “No, silly. We didn’t get to talk about you because the bell rang just as your name came up in our conversation.”

He laughed along sheepishly. “Well, I feel silly now.” he says, rubbing the back of his neck. “I mean, not that it’s important to me, but you know, it would be nice to feel included since you’ve heard so much about the other members already.”

“Well, I’m sure I’ll be able to get to know a lot about you soon enough.” B says, just as their teacher walks in and everybody takes their seats. B notices that no one takes the other seat beside Soobin, as if they collectively had an unspoken agreement that it was reserved for the absent blue-haired boy.

The teacher makes a quick scan of the room and looks at his notes before facing the class. “Ah, yes, I’ve been informed that Mr. Choi has been excused from classes this afternoon. Let’s hope no one else will be making any more absences than deemed necessary.”

A few whispers are heard around the room before the teacher proceeds. “I also understand that we have a new student, and she’s a Sophomore too, so I hope that as seniors you will treat her well and welcome her warmly to MO Academy. I’m Sir Kim, your teacher for this term, and I hope you’ll enjoy my class, Ms. Han.” he says directly to B. He smiles when he realizes that Soobin is seated next to her. “And who better than our student council president, Mr. Choi Soobin himself to ensure that you’ll be comfortable and feel right at home here with us.”

Soobin smiles back at Sir Kim sort of shyly, not expecting his name to be mentioned. “I’ll make sure of it, Sir.” he promises.

Sir Kim nods approvingly. “Now, I want to give you a short introduction to our class, which is Creative Writing 101. I think the title speaks for itself, but I’d like to do things a little differently, starting with giving you your first project for the term, which will be worth 25% of your grade.”

B whispers “Damn.” under her breath while other students gasp audibly and some whispers start up again before Sir Kim quiets them down. “I know it’s only your first day of school, but for most of you it’ll be your last year at this school, so I want to maximize the time you have left here. For today, I will simply present the project to you and allow you to discuss and plan the output amongst yourselves so it won’t be too heavy. This project will be done by pairs of your choosing, which we will settle within the day. Those absent today will be given consideration.”

Soobin and B share a look then, and they smile when they realize they looked at each other at the same time.

“Partners?” B asks, knowing he was about to ask her the same thing.

“Sure.” he says, and they shake hands before turning their attention back to Sir Kim.

“For your first project, not only will you be doing creative writing, but you will be forming a narrative. Telling a story in a different way, through a different medium.” he begins, doing his best to make the project sound interesting. “I will be asking you to use social media platforms of your choosing to create a narrative, to tell a story, to develop characters, and to show creative writing in a creative way. You have a month to work on it, and I expect at least one entry, rather one social media update, every week. Each social media update should feature you or your partner. And all pictures or messages have to be taken by and composed by either you or your partner. Now, go into pairs, discuss it amongst yourselves, and if you have any questions feel free to approach me.” Sir Kim finishes, then he starts walking around the room as the class excitedly begins to pair up.

B turns to Soobin, caught up in the excitement along with the rest of the class. “Wow, I haven’t had an assignment like this before. It seems pretty interesting.”

Soobin nods. “Sir Kim is one of the well-known teachers at MOA, they say his classes are always fun, so I’m really excited to be taking it.”

“Well, do you have any ideas on what we should do for our project? It’s worth 25% of our final grade, so I think we should really put effort into it.” B asks.

Soobin looks at her then and he can practically see the gears turning in her head. “I was thinking we should decide on what social media platforms we should use first, and what sort of story we should tell with each post, but it looks like you’re full of ideas.”

“Yeah, my mind’s going a mile a minute.” B admits. “I like stories, but I’m not much of a story-teller. My idea sucks anyway, since we’re a boy and a girl, the first story idea that came to mind was me and Kai, which now that I think about it seems pretty boring considering we’re basically just childhood friends.”

“That doesn’t seem boring, really. A lot of things could happen between childhood friends.” Soobin interjects. “They could grow old together, they could drift apart.”

They could fall in love, he thought, but fortunately he was able to stop himself from saying the sudden idea out loud, not knowing where it came from.

B wrinkles her nose. “I mean yeah, I guess that hadn’t really occurred to me since I was just thinking of what my relationship with Kai is like. I don’t think we’ll be able to show us as childhood friends growing old together though considering we only have a month to do the project, unless we could make ourselves look years older with every post.” she says.

“That’s a fair point.” Soobin agrees. “I like the idea of us being childhood friends though, so our posts can start with us already knowing each other instead of us meeting each other for the first time.”

“Ooh, how about this.” B says, turning to Soobin excitedly. “Okay, we could appear as childhood friends in our project, but in real life we’re just getting to know each other, right? So maybe while we’re getting to know each other, let’s just document each other and create posts around what pictures or information we gather about each other? Basically, we just take pictures of each other every time we hang out or see each other, then we’ll make stories out of them.” she explains, trying to convey her ideas as clearly as possible.

“That would be a win-win, I think. We’d be getting to know each other while creating content for our project at the same time.” Soobin says. “Be ready for a lot of candid pictures though, I’ll be taking pictures of you like I’m paparazzi.” he jokes, pretending to hold a camera in his hands and clicking his fingers together.

“That’s gonna be hard for me since I’m really camera shy. I’ll feel like paparazzi taking pictures of you all the time, too.” she says, laughing.

Soobin scoffs softly. “Psh, you? Camera shy? You don’t seem shy at all.” he says. “I bet I’ll be able to get a lot of good photos of you for this project.”

B raises a brow. “Good luck with that. And yeah, I’m not really a shy person but everytime there’s a camera on me, I have a tendency to hide my face or look away.”

“Oh really? We’re opposite then, since I regard myself as shy but for some reason I’m fine with being on a stage or having my picture taken.” Soobin says.

“You? A shy person?” B says, looking him up and down. She shakes her head as she says, “I don’t believe it. I mean, you’re a giant so you automatically stand out in crowds, plus you’re the president of the student council, which doesn’t sound like something that a shy person would do.”

Soobin laughs at her analysis. “I mean I didn’t ask to grow this tall, and I’m fine with stuff like that, but it’s still a struggle for me sometimes. To talk to people and stuff.” he finishes a bit awkwardly. “If you don’t believe me, just ask Hyuka and the others.”

“Oh, I will.” B says skeptically. “Speaking of Hyuka and the others, I was thinking we could go grab a snack or something later after school? We could get started on our project, plus I’m sure Kai is curious to know how my first day of classes went, so I thought he and the others might want to come too.” B asks him. “I mean, only if you’re up for it.”

“Sure thing, we should start taking pictures as soon as possible so we’ll have a lot to choose from every week. Let me just ask the guys about it real quick.” Soobin says, whipping his phone out.

“Are you sure you’re allowed to be using your phone during class?” B whispers as Soobin puts his phone down.

“Everyone’s doing it, so…” Soobin shrugs. “And it’s settled, we’re going to Taehyun’s café later and the others are coming as well.”

“Oh wow, Taehyun has a café?” B asks, amazed.

Soobin nods. “Actually, it’s his family’s café but he helps around a lot, so we hang out there all the time. He works really hard, not just in school but outside of it as well, so he hates wasting his free time. It’s very admirable.”

“He sounds amazing.” B says, agreeing with Soobin.

Just then, Sir Kim approaches the 2 and says. “Hello Ms. Han, I hope you’re enjoying your time at MO Academy so far.”

B nods. “Yes, it’s an amazing school, I’m glad to be here. Thank you, Sir Kim.” she says, smiling brightly at him.

Sir Kim smiles and nods back before turning to Soobin. “That’s good. Now, Mr. Choi, I’m assuming that you and Ms. Han have been able to come up with a concept for your project? Would you mind giving me a brief outline?”

Soobin shares a look with B before he nods and smiles at Sir Kim. “Alright Sir, this is what we’ve come up with so far…”

•°•

“Okay, when you said we were all heading to the café together, for some reason, I thought we’d be walking.” B says, eyeing the big black vehicle parked close to the front steps of the school entrance.

Soobin scratches the back of his neck. “Well yeah we could walk, but walking there would take 15 minutes and driving there would only take 5, so…” he shrugs, and opens the passenger door for her. “Hop in?”

“But I called shotgun.” Kai whines, pouting. “I always sit shot gun.”

“Hush, let someone else have it, just this once. It’s her first day, after all.” Beomgyu says, dragging Kai with him into the back seat of the car with Taehyun following them.

“But I don’t like sitting at the back. It feels so crowded.” Kai continues to whine.

“It’s not crowded when it’s just Gyu, Yeonjun and I.” Taehyun remarks.

“…are you calling me fat?” Kai asks, while Beomgyu snickers.

“I mean, you can always sit in the back seat, Hyuka. My car can fit at least 7 people.” Soobin offers, shutting the passenger door and making his way over to the driver’s side.

Kai sighs, admitting defeat. “This is fine.”

“I’m actually not surprised that you have a car.” B says as they exit the school’s parking lot and head to the café. “It’s very convenient and I’m sure you’re more than capable of owning one. I should’ve asked my parents if I could have a car, or at least a bike. It would be so much easier than running to school everyday.”

“Did you run to school today, Baba? No offense, but you looked a bit flustered when we saw you this morning.” Kai asks.

“Yeah, I woke up late. I slept through 5 alarms.” B says, groaning. “I hope it doesn’t happen again tomorrow.”

Kai laughs out loud. “Why am I not surprised? You always were hard to wake up. I see you’re still a heavy sleeper. Do you live alone?”

B nods even though Kai probably couldn’t see her from the back seat. “Yeah, I convinced my parents to let me move into an apartment near the school. I’m surprised they actually agreed to it. I mean, you know how my parents are.”

“Ah, auntie and uncle still being overprotective?” Kai says knowingly.

“More like overbearing.” B says. “Thank god they let me transfer schools, too. I feel like for once in my life, I’m finally in charge.”

“I’m happy for you, Baba. You’ll have to fill me in on how you did it later.” Kai says, reaching over to squeeze her shoulder. B puts her hand over his and squeezes back. “Thanks, Ningning.” she says.

“Speaking of which, where do you live? If your plan is to walk to and from school everyday, then it must be pretty close.” Taehyun asks.

“Oh, it’s pretty near. It’s, oh-” B says, surprised when she looks out the window. “It’s actually that building right there, on the second floor.” she says, pointing to a building across the street.

The boys all turn to where she was pointing to while Soobin parks the car in front of the café. The building she was pointing to was right across the café.

“You live in that building right there?” Soobin asks, glancing along with the other boys.

“Yup, the second floor. Apartment 2B.” she says. “I chose it myself, made sure it was at a nice location and everything. Why do you all seem surprised?” she asks when she realizes that they were all staring at the building.

Taehyun laughs a bit shyly. “I actually live there too, with my parents and my older brother and sister. We’re in apartment 1D.”

“Oh wow, we’re neighbors! How do you get to school everyday? Maybe we could go together?” B asks excitedly.

“I usually just walk. And sure, I’d like that. Just make sure you’re out your door by 7 AM though, I’d rather have a relaxing walk than a panicked run on the way to school.” he says, half joking and half serious.

B laughs as she says. “Deal. I promise I’ll wake up on time. I just had a hard time waking up earlier today cause we had to be there earlier for the tour.”

As they step out of the car and head into the café, B looks at the interior. It was simple, spacious, and cozy. Even though there were several seats and different settings all along the interior, a lot of the seats were occupied. There was also a set of double glass doors that led into a small outdoor area with more seats. It was a nice café, and B could tell that it was frequently visited by students and workers alike.

“Hyunie, there you are! Quick, I saved you and your friends a table right here.” A woman says as she approaches the boys and gives Taehyun a quick kiss on the cheek. The boys smile and greet her.

“Thank you so much, auntie Kang.” Soobin says, giving her a quick peck on the cheek as he takes a seat. The other boys line up to follow suit.

“Oh hush now, no need to thank me. You boys are always welcome here. Speaking of, looks like you’re missing one? And you replaced him with a pretty girl!” Mrs. Kang says, opening her arms in B’s direction.

“Mom, this is B. She’s a childhood friend of Hyuka’s, and she just transferred to MOA.” Taehyun says, formally introducing B to his mom.

“Hello, Mrs. Kang. It’s really nice to meet you.” B says brightly.

“It’s nice to meet you too, dear. And it’s auntie Kang, to you.” Mrs. Kang says, pulling her in and giving her a quick peck on the cheek as she did with the boys. “It’s refreshing to see a girl around these boys. A rose among the thorns. May I ask where Yeonjun is today, though? I’m sure those girls sitting in the corner are crushed to see you walk in here without him.”

B looks confused for a moment before she scans the café and spots the group of girls Mrs. Kang was referring to. There was a group of girls sitting at a table that kept stealing glances towards them. They were wearing a school uniform that looked unfamiliar to B, and when they caught her looking at them, they quickly looked away and started whispering amongst themselves.

“Wow, you boys. Your popularity knows no bounds.” B says, shaking her head as she takes a seat.

“It’s highly understandable dear, you can’t blame them. My Hyunnie and his friends are a handsome bunch.” Mrs. Kang says, ruffling the top of Taehyun’s hair. “I’m guessing you’re all having your usual?”

The boys all nod. “Thanks, Mrs. Kang. Let us know if you need any extra help.” Beomgyu says, smiling at her sweetly.

“You just stay put, sweetheart. I’ve got all the help I need.” Mrs. Kang says. “And what will you have, dear?” she asks, turning to B.

“Oh, I guess I’ll just have what Kai’s having?” she says, not really knowing what was available but trusting that Kai’s regular order would be good.

Mrs. Kang nods as the other boys snicker. “Coming right up! Hyunnie, meet you back there in a few?” she asks. Taehyun nods just as Mrs. Kang disappears behind the counter.

“This place looks amazing, Taehyun. And your mom is lovely.” B says as they all settle in.

“We come here every day for a reason!” Kai says, putting an arm around B’s shoulders. “Plus, their egg tarts are the best. They’re my favourite. I order 5 almost every time I come in here.”

B laughs as she realizes what she just ordered. “Are you telling me I’ve got 5 egg tarts coming up, too?”

The other boys laugh. “You could’ve looked at the menu first.” Soobin says pointedly.

“I know I know, but I trusted you!” B laughs, looking at Kai.

“Trust me when I say that you won’t be disappointed then. You’ll love the egg tarts, I promise.” Kai says reassuringly.

B is about to say something back to Kai just as she notices Soobin has his phone pointed in her direction. She quickly buries her face in Kai’s shoulder as she realizes that Soobin was taking a picture.

“Hey, don’t hide your face!” Soobin says. “That would’ve been such a good shot!” he says, pouting.

“Um, Soobin? What’s with the pictures?” Beomgyu asks.

B and Soobin share a look before Soobin answers. “B and I are partners for this project in our creative writing class.”

“Ooh, tell us more. And tell me, why do you have to take pictures of my dear best friend?” Kai says, squeezing B’s shoulders.

B laughs as she realizes he was being a bit protective. “It’s a bit weird, but okay. Soobin, you tell them.” she says.

And so he does.

•°•

“Thanks for walking me home. You know you didn’t have to.” B says as they climb up the stairs of the building.

“Anything for you, Baba. I want to be able that I was here for you all throughout your first day at MOA. Plus, I missed you and I don’t mind squeezing in a few extra moments of Baba and Ningning time.” Kai says as she leads him up the stairs. “And of course, I want to make sure that you get home safe.”

B laughs. “The café is right across the street, so you didn’t really have to worry about that.”

Kai scoffs. “I know, but still. It’s your first time living on your own, right? Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if auntie and uncle hired private security guards to watch over you from a distance.”

“That does sound like something they would do.” B says, a bit worried. “I mean it sounds creepy and a bit stalker-ish, but at least I know I’d be safe.” she says rationally.

Kai laughs. “That’s true. Letting you live on your own is a big step for them though, and you must feel pretty good about it too.”

B nods. “I feel free.” she says, letting out a sigh. “I still can’t believe they let me do it after everything that happened last year, but I think that’s also partly why they let me do it.”

There’s a moment of silence before Kai says “You know, you never really got to tell me the specifics of what happened. I mean, I know things were bad, but-”

“Don’t worry, I’ll tell you all about it soon. But this is my stop.” B says as they stop in front of a door labeled 2B. “When it’s just us two, and when we have loads of free time, I promise I’ll tell you all about it. I promise.” she says, when Kai looks hesitant to let it go.

Kai lets out a defeated sigh before saying “Fine, but we have to catch up soon. Maybe this weekend? You know my birthday’s coming up, right? Maybe we could do something then?”

B grins and says “How could I forget? And sure, anything you want. Do you wanna come in, by the way? You thirsty? Want anything?” she asks as she unlocks the door and opens it a crack.

Kai shakes his head. “I’m good for now, thanks. You should rest anyway, I’m sure it’s been a long day.”

“Thank you for walking me home, Ningning. And thanks for today. I couldn’t have asked for a better first day with a better best friend.” she says.

Kai smiles. “No problem, Baba. Anything for you. See you tomorrow!” he says, giving her a quick hug before turning around and leaving.

B enters her apartment and locks the door behind her. Just as she makes her way to her bedroom, her phone pings with a few notifications.

She smiles as she sees the messages from the boys. They had exchanged contacts details at the café, but she was surprised to see that even Yeonjun had sent her a message even though he didn’t get to hang out with them.

She and Soobin also set up new Instagram accounts to use for their creative writing project, but she was surprised to see that he posted something so soon. She makes a mental note to herself to check and reply to each boy’s message later, but first she checked the Instagram notification from Soobin.

She laughs when she sees Kai’s comment and wonders how he was able to see the post so fast. She then decides to like the post and leave a comment of her own.

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let-them-eat-rakes · 4 years

Text

A PERFECTLY NORMAL, REGULAR OLD IKEA

Item #: SCP-3008

Object Class: Euclid

Special Containment Procedures: The retail park containing SCP-3008 has been purchased by the Foundation and converted into Site-██. All public roads leading to or passing by Site-██ have been redirected.

The entrance to SCP-3008 is to be monitored at all times, and no one is to enter SCP-3008 outside of testing, as permitted by the Senior Researcher.

Humans exiting SCP-3008 are to be detained and then debriefed prior to the administration of amnestics. Dependent upon the duration of their stay in SCP-3008, a cover story may need to be generated prior to their release.

Any other entities exiting SCP-3008 are to be terminated.

Description: SCP-3008 is a large retail unit previously owned by and branded as IKEA, a popular furniture retail chain. A person entering SCP-3008 through the main entrance and then passing out of sight of the doors will find themselves translocated to SCP-3008-1. This displacement will typically go unnoticed as no change will occur from the perspective of the victim; they will generally not become aware until they try to return to the entrance.

SCP-3008-1 is a space resembling the inside of an IKEA furniture store, extending far beyond the limits of what could physically be contained within the dimensions of the retail unit. Current measurements indicate an area of at least 10km2 with no visible external terminators detected in any direction. Inconclusive results from the use of laser rangefinders has led to the speculation that the space may be infinite.

SCP-3008-1 is inhabited by an unknown number of civilians trapped within prior to containment. Gathered data suggests they have formed a rudimentary civilisation within SCP-3008-1, including the construction of settlements and fortifications for the purpose of defending against SCP-3008-2.

SCP-3008-2 are humanoid entities that exist within SCP-3008-1. While superficially resembling humans they possess exaggerated and inconsistent bodily proportions, often described as being too short or too tall. They possess no facial features and in all observed cases wear a yellow shirt and blue trousers consistent with the IKEA employee uniform.

SCP-3008-1 has a rudimentary day-night cycle, determined by the overhead lighting within the space activating and deactivating at times consistent with the opening and closing times of the original retail store. During the "night" instances of SCP-3008-2 will become violent towards all other lifeforms within SCP-3008-1. During these bouts of violence they have been heard to vocalise phrases in English that are typically variations of "The store is now closed, please exit the building". Once "day" begins SCP-3008-2 instances immediately become passive and begin moving throughout SCP-3008-1 seemingly at random. They are unresponsive to questioning or other verbal cues in this state, though will react violently if attacked.

SCP-3008-1 is known to have one or more exits located within though these exits do not appear to have a fixed position, making it difficult to leave SCP-3008-1 once inside. Using any other door besides the main entrance to enter the structure or breaking through the walls of the retail unit leads into the non-anomalous interior of the original store.

Since containment began 14 individuals have managed to exit SCP-3008. Following extensive debriefing all individuals have been administered amnestics and released.

Incident 3008-1: At 00:37 on ██/██/200█ a human male exited SCP-3008, followed 10 seconds later by an instance of SCP-3008-2. SCP-3008-2 caught and killed the man before itself being terminated by armed response personnel. This incident represents the only time an instance of SCP-3008-2 has been seen exiting SCP-3008. A full autopsy on the corpse was performed; see 3008-2 Autopsy Log for more details.

The man was carrying an IKEA-branded journal seeming to document his time in SCP-3008-1, transcribed below verbatim.

- Close Journal

So, I'm writing this to document what I can only assume is my sudden descent into insanity. I can't possibly be THAT bad a navigator, and yet as I write this I've been trapped in Ikea for 2 days. I haven't seen another person in the entire time I've been here. I thought it was a prank at first. Turn the place into a maze, get all the people out and see how long it takes me to get lost, then everyone has a good old laugh. Realised that wasn't the case when I tried to backtrack. Everything had changed, so I ended up lost. Instead of the exit, it was just row after row of bookcases.

So, I'm trapped in Ikea. Sounds like the setup for a bad joke. The lights went out at 10pm. Nearly gave me a fucking heart attack, that loud electrical THUNK sound and then pitch blackness. Place is full of beds though and my phone has a torch on it - but no damn signal - so I found a bed and went to sleep. Spent most of the next day trying to find my way out with no luck. Did find a restaurant serving those meatballs though, so at least I won't starve. That's probably the punchline to that joke. Anyway they were still warm and fresh, but I haven't seen anyone around who could have cooked them. Made my way back to the beds before the lights cut out again since it's too dark to search with them off.

It's 9.10am now, the lights came back on a little while ago. I'm sure I've searched the entire area around where I came in now and the exit obviously isn't here, so I'm going to pick a direction and hope for the best.

Day 3 of my magical Ikea mystery adventure. If I wasn't sure that there was something seriously weird about this place before, I am now. Walked for 3 hours in a more or less straight line (insert Ikea joke here) before I came across a ladder next to one of those huge stock shelves they have here. Climbed up to get my bearings, and it looks like this place just stretches on forever. Like that scene from the Lion King, except instead of trees and grass it was all shelves and tables and crap. I did see a person moving not too far away though, so I headed over.

Thought it was a staff member at first - it was wearing the uniform. And hell maybe it was, maybe freakish 7ft tall monsters with long arms, short legs and no faces are just the kinds of thing they want working at Super Ikea. Damn thing completely ignored me though, and with no eyes or ears I can't even be sure it knew I was there. Thought about shoving it or something to get its attention, but its hands were big enough to crush a water melon so I decided against it. It just kept moving along and eventually I lost sight of it so I decided to carry on the way I was going.

Anyway, no comfy bed for me tonight. Looks like I've entered the Improbably Hard and Pointy Table section of the store. Guess I'll have to make do with some bunched up tablecloths. Phone battery died during the day too. Didn't work anyway, but I feel like I've just lost some vital lifeline.

You ever see one of those cartoons where they're going through doors in a hallway and they just pop out of another door in the same hallway? That's how I feel right now. I've seen nothing but the same identical bookshelf for 2 days now. Just row after row after row of them. I mean, come on. I love books as much as the next guy, but this is excessive. I'm obviously still moving forwards though, I can see the signs hanging overhead passing by. Too bad none of them say "Exit".

Not sure who I was addressing that question to. Lets just say it was practice for the autobiography I'm going to write when I get out of here. I'll call it "My perfectly normal trip to a regular old Ikea".

If I ever get out o

Finally found some other people! Yeah, turns out I'm not the only poor bastard trapped in here. Lucky for me, I guess. My 6th night here, 2 of those staff things came at me in the dark. Different from the first one I saw, but still messed up. Heard them coming, they were saying that the store was closed and I had to leave the building, all nice and polite like. I'm not sure which part of that was weirder, that they don't have mouths or that they were apparently trying to kill me while they were saying it. Came at me like rabid dogs.

So, I legged it. Sprinting through ikea in the dark like a fucking madman. I saw it when I cleared another stand of those giant stock shelves, all lit up with torches and floodlights. They've built a whole town in here! Got a massive wall built out of shelves and beds and tables and whatever else. I swear to god it was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. Anyway I guess they saw me coming (or maybe they heard my girlish manly bellows of fear), because they had a gate open and 2 people were there waving me in. Heard the staff things slam into the gate behind me after it closed, still politely informing us all that the store was now closed. They wandered off eventually though.

They call the town Exchange, because that's whats on the sign hanging from the ceiling directly above it. Exchange and Returns. All lit up against the night using lights they've found and plugged into the power lines. And there are beds and food and people. Over 50 wonderful people with regular sized limbs and a full set of facial features. It's now my 7th night here, and the first one not spent in darkness. A full week living in Ikea. There's probably a TV show in that somewhere.

Now that I'm around other people, I'm starting to feel more normal. Maybe normal isn't the word. But after a week with only the sound of my own footsteps for company, I was becoming increasingly sure that I'd just gone nuts. That I was tied up in some padded room somewhere, banging my head against the wall. But no, I feel quite sane now, thank you very much!

Apparently there are other towns out there. Some with more people, some with less. I found that fairly mind-boggling - how can that many people go missing with no one noticing. Surely someone would have noticed that everyone who goes to ikea seems to fucking vanish. Or maybe it's not everyone. Maybe we're just the lucky ones.

The people here just call those staff monster things the Staff. Apparently they are fine during the day, minding their own business walking the aisles. As soon as those lights go out though, they go fucking bonkers. So during the day people go out to find food, water and whatever else they need. Apparently there are restaurants and shops around that randomly get restocked. No one knows how. Maybe the staff do it. Apparently they aren't very good at their jobs though because the restocking sometimes takes a while, which means the food needs to be rationed. Maybe if they weren't so busy chasing people around in the dark they'd get more done.

Anyway when night comes the staff go nuts and everyone holds up inside the walls. Apparently it's the same everywhere in this place, whatever this place is. The Ur-Ikea, from whence all other Ikeas sprang. Or maybe we're all still just in the regular ikea and this is all some fever dream brought on by mind-numbing boredom. Who knows.

Been here for 10 days now. Most of the people I asked said they stopped keeping track a long time ago and one guy, Chris, said he'd been in here for years.

Years.

[ILLEGIBLE SCRIBBLES]

Apparently there are rumours of people who do manage to get out. And of people who see the exit, only to have it vanish before their very eyes. I get the feeling not everyone believes that, but I do. Explains how we got stuck in here in the first place (sort of). And I mean, come on. Staff monsters, row after endless row of high quality Swedish furniture. I don't know why they would find a disappearing door so hard to believe in.

Anyway, I went out scavenging for food at a nearby shop with Sandra and Jerry today. Once you learn the landmarks of this place it's not so hard to navigate. The overhead signs help a lot, but there are others; not too far in the distance a huge section of those giant stock shelves has collapsed against each other and way off in the east (we all assume it's east anyway - apparently Ikea doesn't sell compasses) is some kind of tower that looks like its made of wood, reaches all the way to the ceiling. Maybe they were trying to break out through the roof. Lights up at night so there must be people there, but its apparently a few days walk (which means it must be miles away) so no one here really knows for sure. Apparently I got incredibly lucky sleeping out in the open for a week without getting ripped to bits by the staff. That's me. Lucky lucky lucky.

We found some food in the shop. Guess the staff restocked it during the night, which was nice of them. There was a telephone on the wall, so I figured I'd try it out. There was a voice on the other end, but they were just talking nonsense. Random words strung together with no real meaning. You ever see a video of someone with aphasia? Kind of sounded like that. Didn't answer me when I spoke to them anyway. Sandra says all the phones in here are the same.

Oops, asking the journal questions again!

I was thinking last night. The ceiling on this place is pretty high and as far as anyone can tell it goes on forever. Shouldn't there be some kind of weather in here? I'm sure I read about some NASA building that was so big it had its own weather patterns, with clouds and stuff. This place is definitely bigger than that, but now that I think about it I'm pretty sure I've never felt so much as a temperature change in here.

I'll add it to the Grand List of Weird Bullshit.

The staff attacked the Exchange last night. Must have been 20 or 30 of them all just asking us to leave the store calm as you like, while trying to smash the walls down with their bare hands. Apparently this happens pretty regularly, so everyone is prepared for it. Knives from the restaurants, lawn mower blades made into hatchets, a fire axe. One guy, Wasim, even made a functional crossbow. Anyway the walls have holes in them, which I hadn't noticed before, specifically so we can stab out at the staff when they attack. Took a couple of them down myself. They don't seem to bleed, which is weird, but they go down as easy as a regular person once you start sticking holes in them.

We had to haul the bodies away in the morning. Apparently the dead ones will attract more during the night, so we had to get them away from Exchange. We have a couple of those trolley things they use to move big boxes around, so we loaded them up and took them over to Pickup. Apparently people just name everything in here after whatever sign is hanging overhead.

Pickup was grisly. There were hundreds, maybe thousands of dead staff all piled up. There was no smell, which was a blessing. Apparently in addition to not bleeding, these things don't rot either. My curiosity got the better of me while we were unloading them, so I took a look at one of the more cut-up ones. They're just skin, or something that looks like skin, all the way through. No muscle, no bone, no organs. Are they even really alive in the first place? They certainly seem like they have bones when they are moving around, pounding on the walls. And I'm sure I felt more resistance than just skin when the knife went in during the night. Maybe something happens to them when they die. Just one more thing on the ever-increasing list of Weird Shit that goes on in here, I guess.

Something occurred to me, after the staff attack the other night. Every time you see a situation like this on TV or in a film, like its the end of the world or everyone is trapped on an island or whatever, once groups like ours start to form people always seem to turn on each other. Fighting for food or dominance or whatever else. That hasn't happened here. Apparently people from other towns come by from time to time, just to check in or occasionally to trade if they are short on something. But everything is always cordial. Friendly, even. Maybe its the threat of the staff, or perhaps the constant restocking of supplies in the shops means there's nothing much to fight over.

Maybe people are just better than they are generally given credit for. That's a nice thought. I think I'll go with that one.

A dozen people showed up at the gates this afternoon from a town called Trolleys. Apparently the staff broke through the walls and tore the town apart during the night. These 12 are the only survivors out of over a hundred. We let them in, obviously. One more point in the human decency column. Later, I asked if anyone knew how many of these towns there were out there. Between us and the new folks, we managed to come up with over 20 names. 20 towns filled with people, and who knows how many beyond that.

The motto for this place should be "How Is That Even Possible". Surely someone, somewhere must be looking for the thousands of people that must be in here.

I've been here for a little over 2 months now. Not that much changes, as it turns out. A couple of new people showed up, same story as the rest of us. Nice little trip to Ikea and suddenly they're trapped in Billy Bookcase's House of Faceless Weirdos. The staff attack the Exchange once or twice a week. We kill them and haul their bodies off, sometimes they hurt some of us first. They killed a guy called Jared a couple of weeks back. It was awful, frankly. Turns out regular humans still bleed in here, even if the staff don't. We tried our best, but none of us are doctors.

Jared was a good guy. He deserved better. We all do.

It occurred to me a couple of days after that, none of us were really looking for a way out of here. I don't even know where we'd start.

One of those quad copter things with a camera attached buzzed passed Exchange today. I thought it meant that someone was finally looking for us, that help was on the way. Apparently it's not the first time this has happened, though. Same thing happened a few months ago, and everyone is still here.

No idea if it saw us, it didn't stop if it did. Just kept flying until we could no longer see it.

Note: Based on recovery time of the journal, this entry appears to line up approximately with our first successful test piloting a drone inside SCP-3008-1. Analysis of footage shows a walled settlement under a sign labelled "Exchange and Returns". Attempts to relocate the settlement failed. Origin of previously sighted drones is unknown.

I started talking to people about the stuff they miss from home during dinner today. Probably not the best idea I've ever had, everyone seemed pretty down after. A bunch of people here have families. Husbands and wives, kids. Dogs. Franklin apparently has a pet llama, though I'm not sure I buy that.

But apparently some of the people here have some seriously odd gaps in their knowledge. 3 of them had never heard of the International Space Station, 2 of them seemed to think █████ ███████ was the Prime Minister, and one of them had apparently never heard of the Statue of Liberty. I believe them, too. They seemed just as confused as the rest of us.

The more I thought about it though, the more it started to explain a few things. What if the reason no one is looking for all us missing people is because we haven't all come from the same place. This is going to sound weird (maybe that should be the motto for this place) but what if all the people here have come from different dimensions? Realities? Whatever you call it. I've seen enough TV shows to know the drill. Sarah comes from a place where there is no Statue of Liberty. They didn't launch a space station where Wasim is from. If everyone here came from different places, even from ones that seem identical, there'd be no huge missing persons panic. No mass search. We'd just be a blip, a single missing person in a world of non-stop news.

Well. That was a fun train of thought.

Just realised that yesterday was the six month anniversary of my arrival here. I wonder if Ikea sells party hats. The routine around here has remained more or less the same. More new folk show up, one every couple of weeks or so. Food supplies go up and down, but we've never actually had a major shortage. Occasionally we get a visitor from one of the nearby towns, usually Checkouts or Aisle 630. We check in with each other from time to time, occasionally trade supplies if someone gets particularly low on something. It's comforting, in a way. A reminder that we aren't alone in here, some small glimmer of civilisation. Sometimes they bring medical supplies. Apparently there's a pharmacy a few towns down from Checkouts that gets restocked every now and then, so they share out what they can. I've never heard of an Ikea with a pharmacy before but at this point I wouldn't be surprised if someone stumbled on an Ikea Organ Harvesting Lab. Would certainly explain the staff.

Speaking of our faceless jailers, their attacks have been getting worse lately. 3 or 4 times a week now, with twice as many staff as there used to be. No idea where they all come from, or why the attacks have increased. We tried following one of them during the day a few weeks ago, me and Sarah. Wanted to see if they lead back to a staff room or something. Didn't seem to go anywhere though, just randomly walked through the aisles. We had to turn back before we found anything.

We've been reinforcing the walls, trying to arm ourselves better. Certainly no lack of materials to use. Wasim has been making more crossbows, but it's pretty slow going.

Too bad Ikea doesn't sell guns.

Note: No new personnel have entered SCP-3008 at Site-██ in the time span indicated in this entry.

The attacks are getting bad now. Almost every night, and with so many staff that the bodies almost pile high enough for others to climb the walls. I think we're in real trouble here.

Exchange is

I think Exchange is done. We got hit pretty bad last night. Not many casualties, but the wall is wrecked. We finally figured out why the attacks had been escalating, too. A box of supplies had a chunk of one of the staff in there. No idea how it happened but apparently a piece of one will draw them as well as a full body. Too late now in any case, there's too many bodies for us to haul away and still have time to fix the wall before night. Candace has called a meeting. I suspect there will be talk of abandoning Exchange, maybe try and get shelter at Checkouts or something.

It's already getting late though. I don't think we'll have time to make it. Maybe some of us will. I was fine for that first week out in the dark, after all. But then, how often can I keep getting lucky.

I'm only writing this for a sense of closure, I guess. For me, or for anyone who finds this. If this is the final entry here, I hope whoever is reading this is doing so from outside of this place.

My biggest fear? If I do die tonight, I'll just wake up here again in the morning.

Note: This is the last entry. It is assumed that while attempting to reach the "Checkouts" settlement he was separated from the rest of his group by a pursuing SCP-3008-2 instance and happened upon the exit.

#scp #scp fandom #scp foundation #scp 3008 #ikea #posted from a pile of leaves #let them eat rakes

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clawdeenvolfed · 4 years

Text

As It Is: EP STARTERS Part 4

‘ There’s no God if this is all there is for me ‘ ‘ A temper and conceptions that I’m lonely ‘ ‘ When death comes, I’ll be ready ‘ ‘ I’ll waste my life preparing ‘ ‘ There’s so much more to life than breathing ‘ ‘ I see life through a dog’s eyes, a world in black and white ‘ ‘ A world that would so happily forget me ‘ ‘ I’m faithless, I’m shameless ‘ ‘ I just wanna believe in something ‘ ‘ I think that horoscopes are bullshit ‘ ‘ I make terrible decisions ‘ ‘ I pay for them in the fear that keeps my eyes glued to the ceiling ‘ ‘ If I drown, will you drown with me? ‘ ‘ I’d hate to leave you lonely ‘ ‘ All great men die young ‘ ‘ Just bodies in boxes or dust in porcelain ‘ ‘ I’m so fucking scared to outlive all I’ve ever known ‘ ‘ Tell me again ‘ ‘ Tell me every way I failed you ‘ ‘ Tell me everything, everything you think but never dare to speak ‘ ‘ Compared to you, I’m a statue that everyone sees through ‘ ‘ If no one else would miss me, then I'd like to think you would ‘ ‘ This dependency will shatter me ‘ ‘ Bitter, broken me ‘ ‘ If you’re the rain, then I’m the windowpane ‘ ‘ The one you’ll touch before you leave another day ‘ ‘ You kill me ‘ ‘ I’ll reconstruct myself to love your pain ‘ ‘ I’m screaming at myself cause I can’t bring myself to scream your name ‘ ‘ If I’m insane, then you’re the same ‘ ‘ A hopeless case ‘ ‘ I’m still the skin you shed ‘ ‘ I’m just the way you found me ‘ ‘ You’re ever so sweet ‘ ‘ You’re everything I know I don’t deserve at all ‘ ‘ You’re everything I dream about and live another day for ‘ ‘ You’re my favorite lie ‘ ‘ I can’t help the way my mind is hardwired to hate myself ‘ ‘ I swear that this is hell ‘ ‘ The way I desperately tried to save myself ‘ ‘ I can’t save myself ‘ ‘ A single breath in empty lungs, that’s all I got left ‘ ‘ A bad idea branded in my brain that I can’t seem to shake ‘ ‘ Another day in tired skin ‘ ‘ I shed and fray ‘ ‘ All I am is a textbook misery and my own mistakes ‘ ‘ As I’ve aged the only thing I think has changed is that the demons have moved from under my bed into the inner depths of my head ‘ ‘ I can’t escape the ugly things my mind creates ‘ ‘ I speculate that they’ll stay with me til the grave ‘ ‘ In broken bones, I feel at home ‘ ‘ I’m proud of nothing ‘ ‘ I tend to get attached so quick to all I’ve ever known ‘ ‘ I don’t seem to know a single fucking thing that can save me ‘ ‘ I’m my own worst enemy ‘ ‘ Is there any hope for me? ‘ ‘ I’m the boy who chose not to grow up and now I’m unprepared for anything ‘ ‘ Now I’m scared and I’m cold and alone because the world grew up without me ‘

#sentence starters #lyric starters #roleplay starters #rp starters #role play starters

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yastaghr · 5 years

Text

Broken Things Shine Brighter 12

Chapter 12 of BTSB is up! You can find it at the link below, or read it here under the cut. Enjoy!

https://archiveofourown.org/works/13431909/chapters/45890905

The sound of driving snow impacting against the glass windows was the only sound to break the still night of the house. Outside a blizzard raged on, but inside nothing moved. Nothing stirred. Well, something stirred. It was a skeleton.

Papyrus stared up at his empty ceiling. There were no stars, although there once had been. The ceiling still had the pale shadows of where they once were.

His mind was going a mile a minute. Places where someone had lied to him were standing out in his brain in the same way those empty patches stood out on the ceiling. The resulting shape was starting to build constellations in his mind. Who knew? Who knew that there was a way to reach the Surface?

Not Alphys. She killed humans in the same way they all did, destroying the soul so that the human had no chance of coming back.

Maybe Undyne. The way she took in everyone the Queen wanted dead...that spoke of a monster who had hope. Hope that things would change. Hope that people might live. Hope that there was a future for monsterkind to look forward to.

The monster behind the door definitely knew. That promise to look after the souls of the humans who came was a huge hint that there was a reason to keep them around. And the anticipation that filled his voice when he spoke of the Surface...he definitely knew. It was pointless to speculate about how and why until Papyrus could get his hands on a clue as to who that monster was.

The Queen had to know. All those speeches? All those lies? She wanted monsterkind to rot under the mountain. Not that surprising considering the gory nature of her tea parties, and the way she made food and water impossible to come by? She definitely wanted them dead.

The more he thought about it, the more people’s actions started to make sense. The Riverperson’s cryptic conversations at the shop? Gerson’s talk about the angel? Grillby’s messed up trivia about survival techniques on the Surface? So many monsters seemed to be in on the conspiracy. Gyftrot. Knight Knight. Pyrope. Ice Cap. So many.

Why hadn’t they done anything, though? Did that stupid rule of “don’t love and don’t be loved” really hold that much weight? Not only in itself, but in its ability to overrule self-interest? All they needed was seven human souls.

Once they had the human souls, how did they use them? Did you stick them in a jar and throw it at the Barrier? That seemed dangerous and wrong. Did you absorb them and walk through? How did you do it? Did anyone know? Scratch that, would anyone who knew willingly tell him? Probably not, except…

Papyrus squeaked his way upright from his old spring mattress, then slid his feet over the edge and into their shoes. He wiggled his toes until they were comfortable, wrapped them around his ankle, and tied them off. Then he stood up and started walking silently over to the sleeping skeleton that shared a room with him. Blue was fast asleep, curled up into a little ball around his ball of sheets. It was such a ridiculous way to sleep. Better to throw the blankets off entirely and sleep like a normal monster.

Once he was beside Blue’s bed, he reached out and shook him gently. Blue blinked his eyes slowly up at him and then smiled. It was an easy, happy smile that sent shivers down Papyrus’ spine. He made a note to try and get smiled at like that more often. It definitely felt good.

He was so completely wrapped up in looking at the smile that he completely forgot to ask his question. Luckily Blue was there to remind him.

“hey there, papyrus. why’d you wake me up? it’s, like, 3 am.”

Papyrus breathed in a big breath. “how do you use the souls to break the barrier? how do they affect it? why only human souls? what would it look like? would there be magical interference? would there be blowback? do you need to be a boss monster to use them? how-”

Blue held up his hands defensively, wincing a little at the movement. “whoa, whoa. whoa. slow down. i can only answer so fast. now, what do you want me to tell you?”

“how do you use the souls to break the barrier? Not in general, I need the specifics.”

Blue sighed. “i promised muffet i wouldn’t talk about it. sorry.”

“no you didn’t,” Papyrus said quickly, “you just said you ‘wouldn’t talk about it’, and, by context, you implied that you wouldn’t talk about the prinx, not the souls. muffet won’t hold it against you if you tell. she’s used to me weaseling my way around my words.”

Blue shivered, but nodded. “fine. just...promise me she won’t get mad? she seemed really mad.”

He didn’t even hesitate. He knew Muffet, and she wasn’t the type to blow up over something like that. It was just things relating to the former Prinx that were the problem. Everything else was fine.

“i promise. now, tell. the suspense is killing me.”

Blue worked himself up into a sitting position and explained, “well, first you need all seven souls in stable format, which means they’ve got to be in a living body or a magical vacuum chamber. human bodies do a good job of filtering out outside magic. Out in the open, a soul has no chance, hence the vacuum. i think ours were in a vacuum tube.”

“once you’ve got that, you need a way to channel it. um...i think i helped design a runic circle to do that? i can see it in my head, but i...yeah. i think you also need a chant, but i don’t remember that part. i think it’d be easy enough to figure out once we have the magic circle.”

“then you take all that raw soul power that’s coming out of the souls and throw it with a widdershins rotation of -90 degrees. i can actually remember doing the research for that. humans do most of their magic with a clockwise rotation, and the vectors need to cancel out. the original mages’ average vector of rotation was 90 degrees. ergo, the vector of rotation we needed was -90, or 180. The clockwise piece decided it.”

** “it should shatter like a piece of glass when the energy hits. the shards should dissolve, too. They need an energy supply, and the soul energy should destroy that. the other possibility is that the soul energy will eat away at the barrier like acid, but that’s only a 30% chance.”

“um,” Blue hesitated, “i think that’s it. do you have any other questions?”

Papyrus shook himself out of the shock and asked, “would there be magical interference? would there be blowback? do we need to be worried about a magical pulse?”

Blue said, slowly, “there might be a shockwave if it shatters, but not enough to knock out any devices. so, a low grade magical pulse would be possible. it might be enough to give people a headache, though.”

Papyrus jumped into the silence with more questions. “why only human souls? do you need to be a boss monster to use them?”

Blue answered, “human souls are insanely powerful. it would have taken every soul in my underground, which was more than two million, to equal the power of one human soul. they’re just that powerful. and anyone can do the spell. you’re not using your magic, just channeling energy.”

Papyrus nodded understandingly. He let out a big huff of air and asked, “if i brought you the materials, would you be willing to build the vacuum tubes? i can handle getting the human souls.”

“why?” Blue asked, stunned. “i thought everyone here looked after themselves. why do you want to break the barrier?”

“for sans,” Papyrus answered bluntly, “and muffet, too. and me. we used to have dogs, you know. five of them. they’d been thrown in the garbage to die. sans found them and brought them home. he took care of them, fed them, healed them, and loved them so much. he wanted to become the first monster vet. then they got out of the house one day and someone killed them. it was so hard, watching him bury their bodies. no other pups have fallen, but i can’t forget about his dream. i know there must be more dogs on the surface. even if he can’t become a vet, he needs more dogs.”

“and muffet? she hates it down here. the people, the rules, the gloom; all of it wears on her. she’s always wanted to see the sun, and i know there are more spiders up there she’d love to meet.”

“...and i’d like to study fish. not monster fish, just fish. i love everything about them; the scales, the slime, the barbels, everything! i love the water, and i’ve read every scrap of information i can find about them, but i’ve always dreamed of holding one in my hands. i want to see every species of fish i can. i want to learn about fishing, fly-fishing, and nets. i want to walk underwater and see fish all around. i just...i love them.”

“for those reasons, i want to break the barrier and see the sun. if it’s possible, then i want it. will you help me?”

Blue nodded. “i will. i’ve always wanted to see the stars. the real ones, i mean. i want to learn the names of every constellation and all the planets. i want to be an astrophysicist. I already have the science down. I just need to see the things behind it.”

Papyrus grinned. “it’s a deal, then. you help me break the barrier, and i’ll get the souls to do it.”

Blue smiled back. “deal.”

#broken things shine brighter #papyrus #sans #swapfell papyrus #swapfell #yastaghr

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dietaku · 5 years

Text

Amazing Quest 2: Chapter 1

The sequel to Amazing Quest. Honestly, I think this one is better.

-Controls-

Have you played an SNES-era JRPG before? Then you already know this.

-Cast-

Dood Z. Ma--

Wait, you haven't played an SNES-era JRPG before? Sigh. Okay then.

-Controls-

Control Pad – Move your characters or your cursor around, select things, etc.

A Button – Check/Speak/Confirm. You'll be using this a lot for obvious reasons.

B Button – Cancel. In battle, you can set this as a shortcut for Defend.

X Button – Open/Close Menu. In battle, you can use this to shortcut to your items menu. In the strategy guide, it lists this being used to launch things called the Push-of-War and the Dynamite Trigger. This is clearly not true, and has since become memetic in the fandom, where newcomers with questions that should be obvious are met with jeering posts of “Use the Dynamite Trigger!”

Y – Hold to dash on the overworld. In battle, this shortcuts to the Skill/Spell menu.

L/R – Rotates party members in order either back or forth.

Start – Pause the game. Also, in certain circumstances, unpauses it too.

Select – Opens the world map. Runs a 1/8126 chance of showing a pixelated green and black scene of Dood talking to some old man with a beret, who tells you to “SEEK DA TROOF”.

-Cast-

Dood Z. Male

Element: Light

Class: Pudding Warrior

Weapon: Swords. Four to be exact.

Special: Pudding Morph

Dood, as later side materials would go on to reveal, is the descendant of Hiro from AQ1, though with Pudding powers not dependent on the presence of others. Guess eugenics lost the bet on that one. Dood, like all AQ protags, can transform into the powerful Pudding Forms, but his have three-turn limiters where his MP is rapidly consumed away, however, this can be prolonged by feeding him MP restoration items. His stats are bolstered very, very high during this period, and can thus be a very potent character if built right.

Deliost Nu Toruble Element: N/A (Fire after her mid-game Time Wasp shenanigans) Class: Magic Student Weapon Type: Spoons Special Technique: Magical Assault

The quiet, reflective princess of Toruble, who is kept locked away from public viewing, due to her ever-growing chimeran traits (manifesting as kawaii cat eats and tail). She is a powerful offensive magic user, who only grows more potent as time goes on. However, she personifies the phrase “glass cannon” and has very low LP and Con scores for the duration. Also of note is her impressive figure, which I'm sure is an ancillary detail (You perverts.)

Kylie

Element: Earth (Default Form); Changes with Form

Class: Womanticore

Weapons: Variable Tail (Equippable Genes)

Special: Multi-Form

Kylie the womanticore was the result of a “DiY Womanticore Kit” project launched by the recurring miniboss fight, Balzac, who ended up escaping her captivity and mastering a life in the forest. Kylie is a “build your own” character, where she can equip up to three genes at a time, one in the “Head” slot, one in the “Body” slot, and one in the “Leg” slot. Her default form has middling stats and only a few skills it can learn on its own, but once she learns a skill from a particular gene, she will retain it forever, even if the gene is unequipped later on. Fans really like her, for... multiple reasons. Don't look! She's only 2 years old!

Genki Sake

Element: Wind

Class: Cat Thief

Weapons: Hair Clip

Special: Steal

Genki is of the kunoichi tribe (presumably of some relation to Kimyawa of AQ1, but that's just fan speculation), and strives to be the greatest cat thief of all time. In a very literal sense even, as her suit includes cat ears and a cleavage window you could lose mid-sized dogs in. Her weapons are hidden in plain sight, as she uses his hair clips as both weapons and tools of her trade to unlock doors and chests. When she's on point, she'll even automatically disable traps and she'll stop before running over trap floors. She has high attack and speed stats, but somewhat lacking in defense. And, to put the obnoxious fandom argument to rest, Sake is her family name and Genki is her given name. Now, stop fighting about it!

Chester D. Beaver

Element: Water, yup

Class: Beaver, yup

Weapons: Fish Guns, yup

Special: Spray, yup

Chester is quite an odd bucket of fish – literally and metaphorically. Being of the beaver tribe, he has a rather distinct means of punctuating most of his sentences, and as a mob boss over the beaver crime syndicates (which exist, apparently) he commands respect in such social circles. His spray attack allows him to make his normal attack target all enemies, which calculates damage akin to how all-hitting magic spell variants are done, and his bizarre fish gun series of weapons is always a joy to see in motion. He has high, all around stats, but very few skills to his name until almost at the endgame.

Deima the Immortal Element: N/A Class: Furry (Just Kidding) Weapon Type: Staves Special Technique: Magical Genocide

The eccentric and powerful chimera sorceress and eternal Pudding ally, Deima appears once more as a secret recruit you can find at around the midgame. She learns spells much faster and much earlier in the game than anyone else and has, bar none, the highest magical potency of the game and the biggest MP pools of any of the party, in particular her Hissatsu Zeikei Suki attack. Her field ability will also turn any animals you can hunt into burnt meat automatically, so, try not to use it!

Jaydea Varas Schoen Element: Dark Class: Pudding Noble Weapon Type: “Heaven's Blades” Guitars Special Technique: Regal Pudding Form

The Penultimate boss of AQ1 returns thanks to her gift of eternal life bestowed on her by the Goddess of Destruction. She retains her insane Pudding form, the Figgy Pudding Queen, and her love of Rock n' Roll. If you go out of your way near the tail end of the game and get her her fez and a Black Cow, you can have her join you, doubling your effective Pudding-related firepower. She has a stat build not unlike Dood's, but a heavier emphasis on defense, presumably reflective of her immortality. She does not want for offensive options, though, and will hold her own quite handily.

-Chapter 1: I'm Born! ~ Lone Idiot & Cub-

The game starts with a narrator speaking over a black screen.

Narrator: Nearly a century has passed since the legendary Hero-King of the Puddings sealed away the wicked goddess, Hulst.

JeffCom's translation team was not on point here. She was called Halst in the first game, Hulst in the second, and it wasn't until AQ3 where they finally got her actual name, Holstein, in the game correctly.

Narrator: When the red star appeared in the night sky, people called it the “Eye of Calamity” and said it was an omen of dark things yet to come. The people were without the heroes of legend and uncertainty took deep root in the tumultuous times. As a result, the Church of Sethan became home to many, seeking peace of mind and a road to hope, but not all was as it appeared to be.

Then, the image of a deformed skull appears on screen, in the center of what should be the forehead is a large, pulsating eye.

???: ****! Be careful!

Skull: I shall bring forth my revenge. Your efforts to stop me are in vain!

???: Oh yeah?! EAT THIS!

The Skull gets a large slash across its face. Uh, skull. Whatever.

Skull: Insolent Puddings! This is the will of the very stars themselves!

???: This is too dangerous! It's destabilizing!

???: But we're so close, ******! We can stop it now! ???: There's no time. Go on without me!

Skull: Trying to escape?! I won't let--

???: NOT WITHOUT A FALL GUY, BITCH! GLADIATOR!!! Skull OH SHIIIIIIIIII--!!!

The screen whites out then comes back in, late in the evening as some young boy in ragged clothes, with four sheaths around his belt stumbles into view.

Boy: … Huh? Wait... where...? Oh, I don't feel so good...

The boy shakily takes a few paces before falling flat.

Boy: Ungh! My face is in the dirt, isn't it?

The boy lies there for a moment as a well-to-do girl walks on screen, clad in a yellow ribbon and matching dress.

Girl: ! What?!

She hurries over to him and, for a moment, looks like she's going to help him up. Instead, she whips out a stick and begins poking him in the head.

Girl: Hey, are you dead?

Boy: …

After a moment of this, an elderly man in a suit, identified only as Butler, walks over.

Butler: I see. M'lady, allow me, if you would.

The butler, quite violently, kicks the boy.

Butler: WAKE UP, TWERP! THE LADY HAS DEMANDED YOU ACKNOWLEDGE HER!

Boy: OH GOD, THAT WAS MOST CERTAINLY ONCE SOMETHING VITAL!!!

The boy leaps awake and steps away from the two.

Boy: What was that all about?!

Butler: It's rude not to reply to a lady's inquiry! You vagabond!

Boy: Your... mom... is a bag of bonds...

Girl: What's your name?

Boy: I'm Dood.

Girl: I'm Deliost. Want to be friends? Dood: Sure, why not?

Deliost: Fantastic! Daddy always said I need to make some friends! And the last time I tried to make some, it didn't pan out so well.

Dood: Why not? Differences in hobbies?

Deliost: No, I tried to literally make them. Like build them. Out of straw and rocks. My therapist says I'm making great strides, though!

Dood: Great...

Deliost: I don't really get to go out and do much. Even when I do I have to stay close to the castle.

Dood: There's a castle? Deliost: Indeed. I am the princess of the kingdom of Toruble.

Dood: … What's a Toruble?

Butler: Shall I teach the boy a lesson, m'lady? Deliost: Please, do.

The Butler socks Dood in the face, knocking him out cold.

Deliost: BUTLER?! Butler: There. Lesson learned.

Deliost: I meant open a history book and tell him about the Toruble Kingdom! Butler: Oh. … Bully. Now I just feel silly.

The scene fades out, then returns with Dood laying in a bed.

Dood: Boy, I sure hope I get to maintain consciousness for longer than 10 minute intervals today. That'd be swell.

Deliost walks in.

Deliost: Dood, are you okay? Dood: I'm fine. I think.

Deliost: That's a relief!

A tall man in regal splendor walks in.

King: And this...? Deliost: This is Dood. You said I could keep him!

The King goes to Dood and eyes him.

King: You'd better take good care of my little girl, you got that? One step out of line and--

Dood: Sir. I'm pretty sure I'm like 10 years old. Probably. 10-ish.

Suddenly, some guards rush in.

Knight: Y-your highness! Monster attack! King: What you say?!

The scene cuts outside, as we see a knight get knocked down by some munchkins.

Knight: No!! Knight 2! He was the finest mind of his generation!!

Dood suddenly rushes outside.

Deliost: Dood, what are you--?!

Dood: It's fightin' time!!

Dood leaps into battle with the munchkins. This works as your tutorial, with the game briefly explaining Attack, Defend, Skill, Item, and Flee options that any RPG veteran should be very familiar with. If you try to flee from this battle, the munchkins hold up a pistol to a teddy bear's head and Dood insists it would be unjust to leave it as-is. But as Munchkins die to one attack each from Dood and his high offense build, it'll only take a moment. If you ignore the tutorials for Defend, Skill, and Item, and keep attacking, the game will let you do so, but scold you for not paying attention.

Dood: Hyaaa!!

Munchkins: Run away! Run away!!!

Deliost: Whoa, Dood... that was so brave! How did you do that?! Dood: Oh, it's easy.

Dood takes out one of his swords and points.

Dood: The pointy end is the business end.

Deliost: That's... not what I... okay. Sure. Alright.

Knight: That was incredible swordsmanship! Who taught you? Dood: … Um...?

Knight: You... do have a teacher, right?

You then get a prompt...

My parents!

My Master!

The Sun!

What's a teacher?

If you select My parents!

Dood: My parents!

Knight: Who are you parents? Dood: …

Tears well up in Dood's eyes.

Dood: Uwaaaaaaaah! I'm an orphan?!

Deliost: You didn't know that until just now?!

If you select My master!

Dood: My master! Knight: Who was your master?

Dood: … My Master. Obvs.

Knight: Yes, but what was his name? Dood: Mr. Ster.

Knight: You don't remember his name, do you? Dood: No.

If you select the sun!

Dood: THE SUN!!!

Deliost: What?

Dood: I stare into the sun and it fills me with power! Deliost: Dood, you really shouldn't do that...

If you select What’s a teacher?

Dood: … What's a teacher?

Deliost: Something you appear to be in dire need of...

Knight: … Well, your skills are undeniable! Maybe you should take up some work at the guild!

Dood: Work sounds good. Then I could buy MORE SWORDS!

Deliost: Um! Um! Yes, Dood, let us go and do good by the people!

Deliost grabs Dood's hand and pulls him off-screen as the knights idle. The camera soon catches up to them on a small dirt road.

Dood: Where are we going so fast?

Deliost: Anywhere! Now's our chance to get out and get away from the castle for a bit! C'mon!

Dood: Um. Okay!

You're then whisked away to FirstTown, where you're free to go around and talk to NPCs at your leisure. Here we can find a basic item and weapon shop, alongside a place with a sword and shield icon, wherein lies the guild and the plot. Inside is a lady in a dirndl is stationed at the counter.

Woman: Welcome, I am the guild stewardess. I'll post side miss-- I mean-- important jobs that you can accept here at the counter. In fact, there's a guild location in every city of the world, and due to our lightning-quick messaging services, we can relay information and jobs from all over the world to any location in a very convenient fashion!

Deliost: Ooo. What kind of work can we do here?

Dood: I wanna kill a dragon.

Deliost: Dood... do you know what a dragon... is? Dood: No, but I know I wanna fight one! Stewardess: No dragon slaying today, but I do have this. This might be a good test of your abilities.

Dood receives quest: find lost dog.

Dood: A lost dog?! That's... the saddest thing... I ever h-heeeeeeeeard!!!

Dood bawls.

Deliost: I had no idea you were so in-tune with your emotions, Dood! You're kind of like a puppy yourself...

Dood: I am? Deliost: Yeah. Like one of those small ones that never really gets terribly smart, and sometimes pees the floor out of excitement, but they mean well.

Dood: Aww, that's nice of you to say!

Now we can access the nearby inn, or leave town and see the world map. We're sort of stuck on a linear path for the time being, but we ultimately need to head to the north, near the mountains, but I wouldn't recommend going there until you're level 3 or 4, just to be safe.

Dood: I think it went this way!

Deliost: You can determine where the dog went... how?

Dood: Well, it's easy. To find a dog, you gotta think like a dog.

Deliost: You can do that? Dood: Watch me.

Dood gets down on all fours.

Dood: Woof! Woof! Barf, barf, barf!

Deliost: …

Deliost puts a hand to her mouth, trying not to laugh. You're then free to explore the mountain road. As you do, you'll see a deer munching grass.

Deliost: Dood, wait a sec.

Dood: What?

Deliost: Look there.

Dood: … Is that a dragon? Deliost: … Huh? No! Dood, it's a deer.

Dood: I'm-a kill it anyway.

Deliost: What?!

You then gain control of Dood and you're prompted to tap “Y” when near the deer, which you can sneak up on if you time it right. Dood will slash with his sword, turning the deer into large, cartoon meat on a bone. Deliost does her best impression of The Scream as Dood picks up and presents the meat.

Dood: I killed a dragon! Deliost: Uuuugh... I suppose hunting is a way to get supplies when our coffers are low... but... oh, Dood...

Now, when a random encounter concludes, there's a chance, depending on what map you're on, that a hunting event can occur, where you can kill some wildlife to get items. Dood hits with his sword, and will usually yield a meat, an item that restores health usually, and Deliost throws a small spark of electricity which is good for taking down small birds which Dood can't hit. As you go through the cave here, there's a healing spring.

Deliost: This is... it is. If we drink this water, it'll refresh us, body and mind. It's just like a good night's rest, Dood. … Dood?

Deliost looks over. Dood is shirtless.

Dood: So, we bathe in it, right? Deliost: KYAAAAAA!!! PERVERT!!!

Deliost gets a violent nosebleed, then smacks Dood in the face with her spoon. This sends Dood careening back into the wall.

Dood: BARF!

Dood and Deliost learn their first dual skill: Dood Toss, where Deliost swats Dood in the back, hurling him into the enemy for large damage. From here, you should grind at least a little, then proceed to the end of the cave. As you exit the cave, be sure you save, as not far from the entrance is the boss. Dood and Deliost walk a bit before the creature crosses their path. It's a duck with horns and large, pronounced feet.

Dood: Is that...?

Deliost: It is! It's a--

Dood: DRAGON!

Deliost: Dood! No! It's a Jackoduck!!

-Boss Fight!-

Jackoduck

LP: 500

MP: 100

The Jackoduck is strong, only because it's HP is very high compared to what you're likely used to at this point. However, it doesn't have many abilities of note, mostly involving its Duckaphony attack, which will hit you both for small damage. If you heal as needed, there shouldn't be any issue here, especially as at level 6 Deliost gets the first lightning spell, which deals good damage against it.

-Boss Fight!-

Dood: Whew. That wasn't so ba--

The Jackoduck gets up and bites Dood's arm

Dood: Oooooh nooooo! Deliost! Shoot it! Shoot it!!! Deliost: But it's still connected to you! Electricity will--

Dood: I don't care! Just shoot it! Deliost: Well, okay.

Deliost raises her hand as a massive storm of lightning drops down on Dood and the Jackoduck.

Dood: BARF!!!

The Jackoduck explodes and Dood drops.

Dood: I killed a dragon.

Deliost: Sigh...

You're then free to leave the mountain and you'll exit on the other side, whereupon you'll find... a frog.

Frog: Ribbit.

Dood: Is it--

Deliost: It's not a dragon, Dood!!!

Dood: No, obviously, it isn't.

Deliost: Oh, thank goodness...

Dood: It's the dog we've been looking for! Deliost: Say WHAT?!

Dood got... dog? Now we can head back to FirstTown. Once there, go to the guild.

Dood: We saved the dog! See? Frog: Ribbit.

Deliost: I'm sorry, he's slow on the uptake.

Stewardess: Ehn. Seems legit. Here's 500 currencies.

Dood: Yay!

Deliost's jaw falls and hangs open.

Dood: What next? Stewardess: Nothing right now, I'm afraid. But if you're curious, there's a new monster battle ring in the west where they've got a really neat lineup for the Monster Girl Festa.

Deliost: The... what?

Dood: Sounds kosher. Let's go!

You then can travel westward and enter into Corset, the mini-town that surrounds the coliseum area. Inside, you can't actually access the coliseum, due to a huge herd of people clamoring to battle with the monster girl champ, Balzac. Everyone in this town will tell you that to be anybody in this town, you have to win big at the coliseum, and that if you don't have one, a few stray monster girls run wild in the forest. You can tell this was a 90's RPG, as this, alongside a noteworthy minigame in AQ1 was wildly lambasted by Amelia Sardinian as the reasons why JeffCom+DTK and all its affiliates should, and I quote, “die horribly”. Anyway, we can go out into the forest and enter a little maze area where the enemies just love to spam poison as an ailment. The Mushroom Men, Dire Sparrows, and Vorpal Earthworms are indeed annoying, but if you brought lots of antidotes with you, it shouldn't be awful. At the end of it, you'll reach a clearing, where something considerably larger than you is leaping around the canopy, circling you.

Deliost: I don't think we're alone, Dood...

Dood: How can we be alone when there's two of us?

Deliost: I mean there's someone else here with us, Dood!

Dood: I didn't see anything.

The shadow blazes overhead again.

Deliost: There! Didn't you see that? Dood: Sorry, I can't see anything. I'm busy checking my eyelids for cracks.

Deliost grabs Dood's head and yanks it so he's looking up, just in time for the shadow to ninja past them again.

Dood: Whoa! There's someone here! Deliost: No, really?!

The shadow leaps down before them, revealing a curvaceous monster girl with large claws, long hair, and a long, scorpion-like tail.

Dood: It's...! It's...!

Deliost: Dood! Do not say “Dragon”!

Dood: … I'm still gonna think it.

The woman roars.

-Boss Fight!-

Womanticore

LP: 800

MP: 300

This is your wake-up boss fight. She follows up almost all her attacks with “Waffle Iron”, where she strikes with her claws after her normal attack, or she'll use “Mode Change” where she'll change color and use an elemental strike. She also has a huge pool of HP by comparison to anything we'd encountered. When her health dips below 25%, she'll give up using Waffle Iron, and grab one of your two characters with her tail, immobilizing them until the other hits her a few times, forcing her to drop them. This can be super frustrating, so heal early, heal often.

-Boss Fight!-

Monster Woman: Graaaaa--!!!

She falls.

Dood: I KILLED A D-- I mean... nothing.

Deliost rolls her eyes. The Monster Woman suddenly begins flailing, pounding her fists, feet, and tail up and down on the ground.

Monster Woman: Nooooo! It's not faaaair! I'm so hungry! All I want is a candy bar! But all there are to eat out here are bunnies and squirrels and they're TOO CUTE TO EAT! And the berries, good lord, the berries empty me out!!! A-bloo-bloo-blooooo!!!

She begins crying, with exaggerated anime water fountain tears and everything.

Dood: I can safely say I was not expecting that.

Deliost: Oh dear... maybe we should apologize to her?

Approach and speak to her, but all she does is continue her tantrum, reiterating how much she wants a candy bar. For now, we have to leave and return to FirstTown's item shop, which just got a fresh batch of Candy Bar items in, which we can buy on the cheap. For zenny vs. healing, candy bars are actually more economical than mundane potions, amusingly enough! Anyways, take at least one and go back to the Womanticore.

Monster Woman: W-w-what do you want? Sniffle. Hic.

Dood: Here!

Dood gave her the candy bar!

Monster Woman: … Ah! A candy bar?!

She hurriedly unwraps it, break it in half, and feeds half to her tail and eats half with her mouth.

Dood: … Pssst! Deliost! She just ate that with her butt! … Does she poop out her mouth?!

Deliost: You're not whispering, you know. She can hear you just fine.

Monster Woman: I'm Kylie. Who are you? And why are two little kids wandering around the forest?

Dood: Oh, this is Del-- Deliost: I'M ENKI AND THIS IS DOO... uhh... DUDU!

Dood: … Huh?

Deliost: (Dood! I'm a runaway princess! We can't just go around telling everyone who we are! They'll take us back to the castle if we do that!) Dood: (Yeah, but, why do I have to be Dudu?) Deliost: (You started talking about pooping out your mouth, so it just popped into my head!)

Until it says otherwise, Dood is listed as Dudu and Deliost is listed as Enki, even on the menu screen.

Kylie: How... old are you two? Dudu: I'm... 10-ish? Yeah, let's go with that.

Enki: I'm 11.

Kylie: Hm. Well, I clearly have to be the adult here, seeing as I'm 2!

Dudu: That makes sense! Enki: It... doesn't really. But we can just tell people she's 20 and they'd believe it...

Kylie: I'll go with you! That way we'll be safe!

Kylie joins! She is a customizable character, who starts with three copies of the “Womanticore” gene. As you get more, you can customize her, which changes her Head (her hair and horns), her Body (mostly her arms and color palette), and her Legs (which alters her legs and tail). This has made her very popular, as some late game combinations can be game-breaking, due to any gene being able to slot into any of the three options. Her starting skill is Roar, which ups one character's offense for a few turns. At this point, we can return to Corset and the crowd huddled around the door to the coliseum has dispersed. Inside, we can now register for the battle!

Receptionist: I see. Entering the Monster Girl battle with this Womanticore, eh? Well, if you want to do so, you'll need to pass our preliminary match against our director of monster resources!

Dudu: Kay.

Kylie: Me?! But aren't there younger, prettier monster girls you'd want to enter?!

Enki: Actually, I'd be legitimately surprised if there were any monsters here younger than you...

Now we can head over to a small dungeon-like room, to find a horrifyingly muscular man, whose head appears to be too small for his frame.

Dir. Of MR: OH YEEEEEEEEEEAH! Dudu: … I think I peed myself a little in reflective terror.

Enki: Me too.

-Boss Fight!-

Director of Monster Resources

LP: 500

MP: 0

This guy is a joke boss, if his LP didn't tip you off. He just shouts “AGE?! SEX?! LOCATION?!” at you and punches, which barely does any damage. There's literally no reason you should lose here if you're trying.

-Boss Fight!-

Dir. Of MR: OH YEEEEEEEEEEAH!!!

Dudu: I guess we passed?

Kylie: Yay!

At this point, you're invited to speak to the manager, July.

July: Ah, the new rising stars here to challenge Balzac, I presume? Dudu: I don't know why but the answer is “Yes”!

July: Lucky you, your opponent is a girl, so it'll be easy! Kylie: But... I'm a girl too... what's that have to do with anything?

July: Well, the truth is... the outcome is already set.

Enki: What? The fight is a farce?!

Dudu: And it's fake too?!

July: The cruel up-n-comer, who wants to win at any cost... slowly tortures her enemy... and kills her for the sick entertainment of this crowd! … I expect very high ratings.

Kylie's face goes pale, as her tail turns downward and actually vomits.

July: There is no way you will lose, Dudu. During the battle's climax, we will fire poisoned darts at the enemy monster. She will die and you will win. The ratings will explode through the roof as the old champ is unseated, and we will become very, very rich...

Dudu: We... uh... need to... go... place... now.

July: Be sure to get your advanced payment from your locker room!

Go there, and you'll get 1000 zenny. Immediately head out and deposit it in the bank, then return and try to go into Balzac's prep room.

Dudu: Balzac! Balzac!!

Enki: Dudu, what are you doing? Dudu: We have to warn him! We have to protect his monster girl!

Balzac: I can't sign autographs right now! I'm, uh, preparing my girl for battle! Y-yeah, that's the ticket.

Kylie: It's no good. We'll have to do something else.

Kylie paces back and forth as her tail scratches her head.

Kylie: Ah! I got it!

Kylie's tail snaps like fingers as a light bulb lights up over her head.

Kylie: Dudu, let me borrow your coin purse!

Dudu: It's a coin pouch.

Kylie: Now's not the time to argue over your fragile masculinity. Hand it over!

Dudu gave Kylie all his money.

Kylie: I'm gonna get two antidotes. When I fight his monster, we'll both take one and then we'll be safe! Dudu: Great idea!

Enki: Be honest. You're taking all his money so you can stock up on candy bars, aren't you?

Kylie's tail nods.

Kylie: No! … Yes.

She hurriedly walks off screen.

Enki: Aren't you upset?! Dudu: Not if she gives me one!

Enki: Ugh...

You then take over as Kylie solo. At this point, you now have two antidotes in your key items, so you can get your money back and do any prep you need to before the fight. When you're ready, go inside and go to to the arena floor. There, a huge crowd excitedly cheers. Opposite you is a strange, cyclopean cat girl creature.

Kylie: Hi! I'm Kylie!

Monster Girl: Hmph! You're goin' down!

Balzac: Yeah! What she said!

-Boss Fight!-

Cat-oblepas

LP: 600

MP: 800

While Cat-oblepas (ugh, the puns) lacks the raw hitting power of Kylie, she has the ability to turn her to stone for one round with her “Cat's Eye” technique. In itself, this does no damage, but it gives her an opening to hit you before you can act again. If you leveled her a bit, Kylie should have the “Lick Wounds” skill which restores HP to one target, and is generally more efficient than the healing items you'll have access to at this point. This is a war of attrition and you'll be going back and forth and sometimes the random off-chance that is Critical Hitting or Counter Attacking can shift the tide, resulting in some infuriating lucksacking scenarios. Just be patient and you'll win!

-Boss Fight!-

Dudu: Kylie! Knock her out! Quickly! Enki: What he means is SHOVE HER OUT OF HARM'S WAY! The way he's saying makes it sound useless and vague, as she's already unconscious!

At this point, you have a few moments to act and push the KO'd Cat-oblepas out of harm's way. If you do, Kylie immediately chugs an antidote (one for her tail, one for her face) and presents a hearty thumbs-up to the player. If you don't, she force-feeds an antidote to Cat-oblepas and drinks one, but faints and you'll have to take on the next boss without her. Either way, this event gives Kylie her first customizable gene – Poison! The next scene is just the party walking to July's office.

July: What's the matter? You didn't like my script, Dudu? Dudu: MY NAME IS NOT DUDU. I AM DOOD.

Enki: Because that's so much different...

July: Come at me, bro, I'm fekken ripped!!

July bursts into smoke as the boss fight cues. An amusing point, Dood's name in Japanese is read as “Doo-dii”, so what he's actually screaming is “I AM NOT DOO-DOO, I'M DOO-DII,” because apparently JeffCom has 13 year olds as writers.

-Boss Fight!-

July

LP: 1200

MP: 500

If there was really a battle that you run the risk of losing in chapter 1, it's this one. He hits like a truck, can use Waffle Iron, can hit the entire party with ice damage, and also, you can accidentally end up fighting him and be a party member-down! So definitely come here with Kylie. Deliost should also have her fire spells at this point, which you'll want to use liberally here, as they'll do maximum damage against this guy. Dood should stick to attacking, and have Kylie use whatever buffs she has at the ready when you arrive. If she's a sufficiently high level, she should have “Proud Cry” which ups defense, which Deliost should definitely have cast on her. This guy doesn't have any weird tricks or gimmicks. It's just a heavy clash of titans here. Do your best.

-Boss Fight!-

July: N-no way! My script... run through the shredder?! Impossible...! B-but don't think for a second that just knocking me down will stop our God's wrath!

Kylie: You try to murder and deceive, yet speak of God?! What deity does one as sick as you worship?!

July: BARF!

July explodes.

Kylie: … I wasn't expecting that.

Dood: Wow. July was a real monster over his profits! Deliost: That joke sucked!!

And you then leave, concluding Chapter 1!

#Adventure #fiction #fantasy #science fantasy #writing #infrequently asked questions #Amazing Quest

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80steenmovie · 6 years

Text

Single: Part One

Billy Hargrove x OC

part two

Summary: in the days leading up to when billy would officially meet your parents, you reflected on the the events and the time you had spent together.

Word count: 3.8k

Warnings: none

a/n: ahh I did a thing!! my first billy story so don't be too hard on me but tips and constructive criticism are always welcome. there's probably some common writing errors but I edited so quickly and needed to get this out already. I know this first part barely has any billy but good things come to those who wait I promise!! (also thought I should mention that what initially sparked this idea in my head was the song single by the neighbourhood so that’s where I got the title. it was initially going to be a short little thing but here we are.)

________

Attending an all girls private school meant no interaction with the opposite sex, just how your parents wanted it. That meant for eight hours a day, they didn’t have to worry about anything their precious daughter was doing besides preparing to attend an Ivy League school. But the other sixteen hours, aside from sleeping in your bed and being at home with them, they had no control over. As long as your parents believed you were at a friends house studying or staying after school for college prep classes you were free from their realms and were free to do whatever, with whomever.

February 1985

Hawkins High was located in the town right next to yours, but was only a few blocks down the road from where the town borders met. Rumours had circulated their way from Hawkins High into the halls of St. Jude that their was going to a huge party this weekend, the party of the century some were speculating.

You were at your locker, collecting your books for last period when a petite girl with short, brown hair jumped next to you.

“Three words. Party. You. Me. Going.”

“Lexi, that’s four words.”

“Oh. Yeah. Gee, how the hell did I even get into this school?” She joked.

Lexi always made you laugh, right when you needed a good laugh, and sometimes when you shouldn’t be laughing which was admittedly the times when you wanted to laugh the most. You bonded at orientation over the fact that neither of you were thrilled to be attending a school made up of a hundred percent estrogen and zero percent testosterone. For only being 5’3” Lexi was a fireball who wouldn’t let anyone stand in her way, and wouldn’t let a second go by without defending you against anyone. If it weren’t for Lexi, you might have still thought you would have had no life outside of school. But from that time freshman year when she invited you over for a “sleepover”, only to find out that there was no sleepover and her plan was sneak into a Hawkins High football game, you knew the next four years were going to be anything but dull with Lexi by your side.

“There’s parties all the time, what makes this one so special?” You speculated.

“Don’t tell me you’re going to make me go all by myself.”

“No, never. It’s just another lie I have to make up to tell my parents. It was fun for awhile, but now it’s starting to feel like a chore.”

“I’ll make up something and tell them for you.”

“No, I don’t want you to do that. But you never answered my question.”

“Shit girl, I don’t know. Apparently some kid who lives in a big ass house with a pool is having it as his house because his parents are out of town.”

A girl passing by in the hall was holding a bright yellow piece of paper and Lexi didn’t let her go by without checking it out. She quickly asked the girl if she could borrow it and you and Lexi quickly skimmed the flyer for you both to see Lexi’s assumption to be confirmed.

“party @ the harrington house

saturday @ 8

b there or b square

food and drinks 4 dayzzz”

“Be there or be square. How original.” You quipped.

“Okay so whoever this Harrington kid is isn’t acing English but no one makes flyers for a party unless it’s going to be insane.”

“Lex...I don’t know…”

Lexi cupped her hands together and with a puppy dog face pleaded, “Please, Anna. I promise if it blows we’ll leave.”

“Not the puppy dog face, come on.”

With that, Lexi pursed her lip and bowed her head even more than before.

“Damn you, you know I always fall for the puppy dog face.”

“So you’ll go?”

“Yes, I’ll go.” You sighed.

“Yay! I promise you won’t regret it!” She bubbled and wrapped you in a hug almost knocking you over. “Meet up with you after class!”

As you watched Lexi trot off to her next class, your mind started to wander and you hoped you wouldn’t regret this decision as Lexi had promised.

______

Last period seemed to drag on for forever and a day as you were scrambling your brain for a feasible lie to tell your parents what your whereabouts would be tomorrow night. It would be the third time this week you were going out after dark and you worried your parents would get suspicious and start asking questions. You’ve been to a handful of parties before and had no problem telling your parents you would be at Lexi’s or going to a study group but there was a pit in your stomach telling you this wouldn’t be like the other parties and things would be...different.

“Anna!”

You had spaced out from your mind racing and hadn’t noticed that the bell rung and Lexi was standing in front of you at your desk.

“Are you good? When I got here you were staring at the ground and I said your name like three times.”

Still collecting your thoughts and being pushed back to reality you tried to form a coherent sentence by opening your mouth. But your brain wasn't cooperating and nothing came out.

Lexi could tell you were troubled and sat in the desk next to you. “Are you still worried about talking to your parents?”

It only just now occured to you that for almost three years the majority of your conversations with your parents were based off of lies, lies that you created. If it were up to them you would be in school all day until it was time for dinner and then to sleep for seven to eight hours. You couldn't live your life like that. And after the one time freshman year when you asked them if you could go to a small party and their reaction was anything but reasonable, that's when the lies started. But their disciplinary nature drove you to that, and you couldn't possibly try to reason with them now. Yet still, in the back of your head you feared a day would come when they find out and you would be on house arrest for the rest of your life. There was anxiety looming over you at the thought of having to tell another lie straight to their faces.

You lifted your head and shifted your body to look at Lexi and said, “Honestly, for the first time in three years I'm scared to death.”

“Hey, I'll do all the talking. You just stand there and nod in agreement. Deal?”

You couldn't help but smile and let out a small laugh at Lexi’s sly manner, “Deal.”

______

“Mom? Dad? I'm home. Lexi’s here.”

The only response was the echo of your announcement.

“Well, they're not home so I guess we’ll have to tell them later.”

Lexi had a big grin on her face and wagged her finger at you, “Ohhh no you don't. We're telling them tonight and you're not getting out of it. What happened to what we agreed to?” She protested.

You sighed out of defeat and pursed your lips as there was no way you could back out of an agreement with Lexi.

“Remember. I’ll do all the dirty work. You don’t have to do anything except stand there and look pretty. Got it?”

“Got it.” You hesitantly agreed.

“Good. Cause a car just pulled into the driveway.”

Your eyes went wide and your heart rate accelerated, you quickly whisked around to see your father grabbing his briefcase out of the backseat and headed towards the front door.

Lexi grabbed your hand and pulled you towards the kitchen. She took hold of your shoulders to place you on a seat at the island then grabbed a glass out of the cabinet.

“Anna? Are you home?” Your father called.

“In the kitchen dad!” You replied.

You were leaning on the island with one hand under your chin and the other tapping the marble. Lexi was filling a glass with water and shot a quick glance at you assuring you that she had it under control.

A tall, tan man with blonde hair that had recently started graying at the roots entered the room. He set his briefcase on the island before greeting you with a kiss on top of your head. The most your father ever greeted you with was a warm smile. This was extremely unusual, but you went along with it as if everything was perfectly normal.

“Hello, sweetheart. How are you?” He greeted while holding his hand to your cheek.

You placed your hand on his and replied, “Alright, Dad. How are you?”

“Just alright? Is everything okay at school?”

“It's okay, there's just a lot to do before spring break.”

“Ah, of course. Spring break. I had been meaning to talk to you about that.”

Lexi broke in before the conversation between you and your father went on any longer, “I apologize for interrupting Mr. Prescott, but there's actually something we wanted to talk to you about first if that's okay.”

“Oh Lexi, you were so unusually quiet over there I almost didn't notice you.” He griped.

You knew Lexi well enough that if it were any other time she wouldn't let that snide remark from your father pass, but she needed to be on his good side and let it slide.

With a wide smile almost through gritted teeth, she mustered up a reply to his remark. “Again, I sincerely apologize for interrupting. As I was saying, there's something Anna and I would like to talk to you about. It's actually my idea so if you're not okay with it, don't put any of the blame on her. I'm solely accountable.”

“Go on.” He muttered.

“St. Jude and Hawkins High are conducting a joint bake sale to raise money and I was put in charge for St. Jude’s contribution. My mom is an amazing baker and I thought if Anna, myself and my mom all put our heads together we could whip up some great ideas for the bake sale.”

You were unaware of what Lexi was going to prepare to tell your parents until just now and you sat there in shock at the performance she just gave. Your mouth was slightly agape and Lexi motioned to you to close it as your father turned his attention towards you.

“Anna, did you agree to this?” He questioned.

Quickly closing your mouth you replied to your father’s question, “Uh, yeah. You know I’m always looking for ways to get more involved at school. Lexi had this great idea and I thought she should pitch it to you.”

Before he said anything else he squinted his eyes and furrowed his brows staring at the ground for a moment and for a split second you were worried he would ask more questions out of suspicion. Your eyes darted to Lexi who was raising her brows in confusion, then back to your father.

You couldn’t bear the dead silence in the room and finally spoke up. “Dad?”

“That’s fine. Do you need money for supplies?” He said flatly.

You were surprised at his question, you were given a monthly allowance which was more than enough and never asked for more unless it was something extremely important, which was rare. But not knowing what may come of tomorrow night, and wanting to be fully prepared, you didn’t hesitate to take him up on his offer.

“Actually, yeah. That would be great.”

“Take whatever you need out of the safe and make sure to close it back up when you’re done.” He murmured while gazing at the floor.

Still a bit taken aback by his offer, you slid off your chair and at first only lazily putting your arms around him then pulling yourself closer and resting your chin on his shoulder. He hesitated before putting his arms around your waist and lightly pressing his lips to your cheek. Your father was never one for warm embraces, the most affection you ever exchanged was a cheek to cheek kiss, and that was a rarity. To your parents, a hug was barely touching the other with at least a few inches in between them. Your mother would lightly place her hands on your father’s shoulders and your father would place his hands under your mother’s elbows while their lips touched as if there was a force pulling them apart. Sometimes you wonder how you even got here.

“Come on Anna, we need to start brainstorming.” Lexi interjected.

Hesitantly pulling away from your father you gave him a warm smile and said, “Thanks Dad, for everything. I love you.”

“I love you too dear.” He replied with a faint smile in return.

You almost forgot Lexi was still standing in the corner of the kitchen sipping her water before she uncomfortably cleared her throat.

“You better get going before it gets late.” Your father stated.

“Oh and one last thing, Mr. Prescott. We’re probably going to be up late whipping up baked goods, so is it okay if Anna spends the night?” Lexi asked.

“Yes, Lexi. Now go on.” He said.

As you grabbed Lexi’s hand to hurry upstairs she shouted back, “Thank you Mr. Prescott!”

______

Entering your parent’s room, you guided Lexi towards the back of the closet where the safe was located. Neither of you uttered a word till you opened the safe and reached in and took out a few hundred dollar bills, “So now what?” You questioned.

To your dismay, Lexi’s face didn’t share your satisfaction and only showed disappointment.

“What is it?”

“So are we just not going to talk about it?”

“We both know damn well that was something out of parallel universe.” She quipped.

Your face fell, avoiding Lexi’s gaze, you brushed past her, making your way out of the walk in closet and sat on the end of your parents bed staring at the shiny hardwood floor.

“I’m sorry. That was a shitty thing to say.”

“No, you’re right. I really don’t know what the hell just happened. I hope he’s okay. He’s not even like that towards my mom.”

“You mean being so affectionate?” Lexi inquired.

“His entire body language was strange, it felt...off. Something told me that was the right thing to do. Now I feel awful for lying to him. Maybe if I tell him the truth, he’ll try to be understanding.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. You don’t know that and it’s probably better this way.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right.” You sighed. “Can I ask you to do something for me?”

“Anything.”

You lifted and turned your head to look at Lexi and worriedly said, “Help me not regret doing this.”

“I think I can do that.” She said with a sly grin.

______

Saturday mornings usually consisted of 10 AM breakfast on the balcony with your father’s head in the newspaper and your mother discussing her latest case. That was the routine, and you didn’t assume this morning to be any different. In anxious anticipation of what lied ahead, eager to start the day, you rushed down the stairs and headed towards the back of the house to the kitchen to see everything was untouched and pristine, aside from the glass Lexi had used yesterday.

Did they eat without you? Why did it look as if no one had been in the kitchen? Did your mom even come home last night? These among several other questions that were swirling around in your head, still not fully awake.

You knew no would respond, but shouted to the air anyways asking if anyone was there. To no surprise, you and the dust in the air were the only ones residing in those walls. Too worried and anxious to eat a full meal, you would have opted for coffee made by your father but the espresso machine was sparkling clean and you could never make it like he did. Trudging over to the refrigerator, about to open and stare at it fully stocked but still claiming there was nothing to eat, a note stuck to the door stopped you.

“Your mother and I had some business to take care of this morning. I apologize for missing breakfast on both of our behalf's. Here’s a 20 for food in case there is nothing to eat. - Love, Dad.”

Taped to the note was a crisp twenty dollar bill; you stared at it for a few seconds, then back at the note, then again at the dollar in your hand.

Something was happening with your parents that they didn’t seem to want to let you in on, whether it was good or bad you didn’t know and couldn’t even begin to make a guess. You would have to contemplate it later, the party was consuming any other thoughts and you and Lexi still had plans to do quite a bit before eight o’ clock.

______

You weren’t expecting a call from Lexi, she knew your Saturday family ritual and made a point to not call and interrupt it. You always knew it was her without her having to say it. She quickly told you to make yourself look decent, meet her at Benny’s and hurry before she hung up.

The town car pulled up to the front of the diner and you threw the door open before it came to complete stop. “Thank you, James!” you yelled back while slamming the door shut.

Jogging towards the door and almost tripping over your own feet, you shuffled into the diner not letting the music from the jukebox or the voices talking over each other distract you. Quickly pacing the room, you spot Lexi nestled in a booth, seemingly unharmed.

Breathing heavy, you throw your bag in the booth and almost fall into the seat.

“What’s with you? Did you run here?” Lexi asked with a puzzled look on her face.

“I thought it was an emergency. You made it sound like you were in trouble!” You blurted while still trying to catch your breath.

“Wait, so you did run here?”

“No, of course not. I took a town car.” You hissed.

A waitress with bright red, curly hair and big glasses strided towards your table with a wide smile on her face and cheerily asked, “Can I get you anything young lady?”

“Black coffee with two sugars and a splash of non-fat milk please.” You hastily replied.

“Will that be all?” She asked.

“Yes, thank you.” You said with a forced smile.

“And your food will be right up dear.” The waitress mentioned to Lexi.

With the same forced smile, Lexi thanked her and gave her your menus. She put her hand on the table, and tried to make eye contact with you to break the tension.

“Your dad called this morning. He said your mom and him were going to be out, and that I should meet you for breakfast somewhere. He also told me to make it a surprise. Not exactly sure why but I took matters into my own hands by calling you and sounding worried because I knew you would ask questions.”

You met her eyes and there was only one thing you took from that entire explanation. “My dad called you? Willingly?” You were perplexed.

“His voice is the last I would expect to hear on the other end. I thought he was going to chastise me because he found out I was lying and I almost hung up. Everything has been super weird since last night.”

“I mean, why would he call you and not me? He left a little note on the fridge that I almost didn’t see.” You mumbled.

“I’m sure he just didn’t want to wake you.”

“If something is wrong, I would hope they would tell me. It feels like they’re hiding something.”

“They probably have a big surprise for you, your birthday is coming up soon. I know it’s easier said than done, but try not to worry too much. In any case, I’m here for you no matter what happens.”

You put your hand on top of hers and smiled softly, “I know.”

The red-headed waitress made her way back to your booth with your coffee and Lexi’s food, “One coffee with two sugars and a splash of milk and an order of french toast with a side of hash-browns.” She announced. “Are you sure you don’t want anything to eat hon?”

“Yes, I’m good, thank you.” You replied with a now genuine smile.

“Alrighty, enjoy.” She said with a genuine smile in return.

“Are you sure you don't want some of this?” Lexi muffled with mouth full of food.

You laughed at Lexi’s lack of social grace and shook your head while taking a sip of your coffee. She was mumbling something about how that was the best french toast she's ever eaten when your attention was diverted by a bell above the door and a young man walking in. He took a seat at the counter and you noticed the red headed waitress rush back into the kitchen out of the corner of your eye. Maybe he was a rowdy regular who tried to give the employees trouble? The cigarette between his lips and his dangly earring didn't exactly exude warmth and kindness. Or maybe it was the clunky boots and what seemed to be permanent scowl on his face. But you knew better than to make assumptions based on what someone chose to show the world. Especially not with a face like that.

“Anna, you have to try this. I-” Lexi said still with a full mouth.

“Lex, turn around. But don't make it obvious.” You urged.

Disregarding your request, Lexi whipped around and her jaw dropped. “Damn, cut me off a slice of that.”

“Lexi!”

“Sorry but he’s just - wow. He's like nothing I've ever seen before.”

“I know.” You hummed.

“There's something about him that's so…”

Forget his stature and finely chiseled figure. Forget the way those jeans held his posterior. Forget his salty locks and golden skin. Forget his eyes that he stole from the ocean. Even with a scowl painted on his face, you felt a fiery glow deep within him buried by coal and you were determined to dig it out. He was like a fallen angel who spent a few too many nights with the devil and now couldn't get out of a bad deal. Could you be his guiding force?

“Otherworldly.” You whispered.

It felt like you were staring, or maybe you were dreaming. You couldn't take your eyes off of him and he demanded your attention without saying a word or looking your way. You were hooked on every move he made; a sip of coffee into his soft lips and down his throat, a shift to get more comfortable on the bar stool, his chest puffing out and back in from a deep sigh. You longed to be in his ember glow and could feel your body temperature rising and your slow breaths getting deeper and deeper.

tag list: @hipsmcgee @xicarcalii

#billy hargrove #billy hargrove x oc #stranger things #stranger things fanfiction #stranger things 2

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themagiciansreccenter · 6 years

Text

Author Spotlight: @under-the-shady-tree

Every week we are going to be interviewing a writer from The Magicians fandom. If you would like to be interviewed or you want to nominate a writer, get in touch via our ask box.

First things first, tell us a little about yourself.

Well, my name is Lauren, I live in Indianapolis and groom dogs for a living. I have a very tight-knit family so I spend pretty much all my time hanging out with them and having fun being the “cool” aunt.

How long have you been writing for?

Since I learned how to write. My parents gave me a diary for my 6th birthday and from that moment on, I was writing all the time. I used to write stories about me and my friends and reading my stories during recess became a thing. I moved onto fanfiction once the internet came around and still continue to journal and write original fiction.

What inspired you to start writing for The Magicians?

A Life in the Day. I hadn’t written anything for almost two years. Life got rocky for a bit and I just couldn’t do it. I would get ideas for stuff, even The Magicians, but nothing would come of it. But that episode got whatever was blocked in my brain knocked out and it’s been non-stop since then.

Who is/are your favourite character(s) to write? What it is about them that makes them your favourite?

Quentin. I just relate to him so much and understand how that brain could work. He comes really easy to me. Eliot also is one of my favorites, I find so much emotion and love buried under his persona and that is so much fun. Writing them together is just a joy. I also really like writing Margo and that one surprised me because I am so different from her, but like Eliot I’ve found what’s underneath all of her bravado to be so interesting to write.

Do you have a preference for a particular season/point in time to write about?

I guess season 3 since it’s the most I have written about, but I’ll write where ever the inspiration takes me.

Are you working on anything right now? Care to give us an idea about it?

Right now my time is pretty much all focused on my timeline 23 fic, We Will All Be Changed, it’s kind of a monster of a story for me so it’s got most of my attention. But I have a few things brewing. More of the mosaic lifetime, kind of examining how Quentin, Eliot and Arielle worked as parenting team and how they dealt with her death. I’m also dying to write teenage Rupert!

How long is your “to do list”?

Too long!

What is your favourite fic that you’ve written for The Magicians? Why?

That’s hard, I always hate picking favorites. I lean more toward Destiny Is Bullshit I think because it was my first big one and it’s what really got me going into writing again. I really found Quentin and Eliot’s voices working on it and found that I actually could write Margo. The response I got from it was so positive as well and it really gave me a confidence boost that I never had before. It also inspired more than just that one story (now 8 in the series) and gave me a way to fill in the blanks for the rest of the season and for their mosaic lifetime.

Many writers have a fic that they are passionate about that doesn’t get the reception from the fandom that they hoped for. Do you have a fic you would like more people to read and appreciate?

I would have to say my fic All That Remains is Love. It’s a 5+1 story dealing with death so it might be too depressing, but it’s all of my favorite things. It’s missing scenes we didn’t get to see, angst and Queliot falling in love very slowly. I also worked non stop on it once the idea hit me and it drove me a little insane until it was done. It emotionally drained me writing it so I just want to shove it at everyone and be like “LOVE THIS!!!”

What is your writing process like? Do you have any traditions or superstitions that you like to stick to when you’re writing?

It depends on the length of what I’m writing. For the shorter fics I usually have more of an abstract idea and a few lines of dialogue or a surprise ending in mind. I have a few playlists for certain moods. (I’m a little obsessed about having a soundtrack to everything I do in my life, not just writing) Then I just start working it out line by line.

For longer ones, it’s a much bigger process because I like to plan. I don’t even consider starting a multi-chapter fic unless I’ve worked out the beginning, middle and end and what the conflict is. I create a playlist that goes to that particular fic and that always sets a good tone for me. Then I break it down chapter by chapter and start writing. I get the bare bones out, like the dialogue and where they are. Then I add the inner thoughts and actions and emotions and just kind iron it all out.

Sometimes it changes a lot while I write, sometimes it sticks close to what I thought.

Do you write while the seasons are airing or do you prefer to wait for hiatus? How does the ongoing development of the canon influence and inspire your writing process?

I’ve only been writing since midway through season 3 and haven’t stopped so I see myself just writing during both pretty consistently. As far as what will happen, it will only inspire more. I have a series that sticks very close to canon so I can get all my added scenes and further in-depth peek into the show. So that will only help that grow. And ideas that fit out of that bubble come along too and I just go with it.

I think it would be kind of fun to continue some of my season 4 speculation stuff right into au territory because I’m sure what I wrote won’t happen, so who knows.

What has been the most challenging fic for you to write?

Of fics that are finished, The Mess We Made. It was hard because I realized early on that I was writing a younger Quentin and Eliot than who they were in Destiny is Bullshit. I kind of struggled with getting them to fight, because I just spent months writing them with a lifetime together under their belt and a deep understanding of each other. The Mess We Made was them a few years into that lifetime so they were still learning things about each other and experiencing things for the first time. I ended up kind of leaning into that difficulty with getting them to fight and tried to amp up the fighting to a few big blow-ups.

My timeline 23 fic is quickly becoming my most challenging though, it’s basically 3 or 4 full-length fics that sometimes crossover and then all end up mashed together. It’s pretty challenging.

Are there any themes or tropes that you particularly like to explore in your writing?

Angst, angst and more angst, lol. I am also a sucker for deep connections between people, be it romantic or otherwise, and really expose the good, the bad and the ugly about those relationships. So you know, more angst. But happy endings are my favorite too.

Are there any writers that inspire your work? Fanfiction or otherwise?

I’m always inspired by all the other Magicians fanfiction writers (honestly, Magicians fanfiction is really the only fanfic I read right now)

Alice Sebold is probably my favorite writer. She has a way of writing emotion in a way that feels really real and honest to an almost uncomfortable degree. It’s almost too real. Also the authors of my youth, Ann M. Martin and Judy Blume, I wanted to write because of them.

What are you currently reading? Fanfiction or otherwise?

I am reading “Written in Blood” It’s a book looking into the death of Kathleen Peterson of Stairway fame. (I love true crime) Also, I’m actually reading The Magician King. My sister is reading the Magician’s books for the first time so I’m reading along with her so we can discuss. I also am keeping up on whatever comes up on AO3!

What is the most valuable piece of writing advice you’ve ever been given?

Keep writing, whether it’s good or bad, just get it out and you can build on it later but it needs to be out there to fix.

Cringe time:

Are there any words or phrases you worry about over using in your work?

Oh man, I don’t know, I sometimes think everything I write is just a repeat of the last thing lol. Looked, people are always looking at each other and it’s hard to come up with different ways to express that.

What was the first fanfic that you wrote? Do you still have access to it?

I wrote an American Girl fanfic. My best friend and I traveled back in time to 1774 and went on an adventure with Felicity! I still have it, in a notebook in a box in my closet. I have two boxes (not huge boxes or anything) of old diaries, journals and notebooks full of my writing. My parents didn’t want to throw that away growing up.

Rapid Fire Round:

Self-edit or Beta? Self-edit

Comments or Kudos/Reblogs or Likes? All of the above!

Smut, Fluff or Angst? angst!!

Quick & Dirty or Slow Burn? Slow burn, the slower the better

Favourite season? 3

Favourite episode? A life in the day

Favourite book(The Magicians books)? The Magician King

Three favourite words? Triskaidekaphobia, Loquacious, Fuck

Want to be interviewed for our author spotlight? Get in touch here.

#the magicians rec center #author spotlight #author: rays/under the shady tree

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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15 Best Video Game Cheat Codes of All-Time

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Cheat codes may not be as prominent in video games as they once were, but there was a time when entire magazines, TV shows, and websites were dedicated to sharing these commands, codes, and tactics that would change the way you played your favorite games.

The thing about cheat codes is that they’re rarely just about the “cheat.” Yes, there’s a certain joy to becoming invincible, unlocking new items, or just skipping a few levels, but the thing that separates the best cheat codes from an endless selection of similar cheats is the way they would often go on to define the games they were in to such a degree that it almost feels stranger to think of playing those games without cheats enabled.

From tanks that appear out of thin air to secrets that made you the most popular kid in the neighborhood, these are the absolute best cheats in video game history.

15. Grand Theft Auto 3 – Spawn a Rhino Tank

The Grand Theft Auto series belongs in the Hall of Fame of video game cheat codes, but if I have to pick one cheat from this series to highlight, it has to be the “tank” code from GTA 3.

By entering CIRCLE, CIRCLE, CIRCLE, CIRCLE, CIRCLE, CIRCLE, R1, L2, L1, TRIANGLE, CIRCLE, TRIANGLE (in the PS2 version of the game), GTA 3 players could spawn an invincible Rhino tank that could destroy any other vehicle with one cannon shot. It was the cheat you relied on when you were about to quit playing or were feeling especially frustrated/destructive. Sure, it sometimes broke the game and slowed the framerate to a crawl, but those drawbacks honestly just highlight how insane and delightful this cheat was.

14. NBA Jam – Unlockable Character Cheats

Long before Fortnite let John Wick shoot Superman, NBA Jam was the undisputed king of bizarre character cameos that led to truly wild competitive matchups.

Depending on which version of the game you were playing, NBA Jam let you take the court as Bill Clinton, Reptile, Warren Moon, “Air Dog,” Prince Charles, Will Smith, and so many more truly bizarre characters that we used to impress our friends before we refused to tell them the cheat code we used to unlock them.

13. Star Wars Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast – Dismemberment Debug Code

For years, Star Wars fans asked the question, “Wait, wouldn’t a lightsaber just instantly cut through anyone it touched?” While most of us knew the reasons that we never got to see that effect in the movies, many of us secretly hoped that we would one day get to see what a lightsaber could really do.

That day came the first time you realized that Jedi Outcast contained one of the best cheat codes ever. By opening this PC classic’s debug menu and using the “helpusobi 1” code, Jedi Outcast players could unlock the “realistic” lightsaber combat option that allowed you to chop off enemy limbs and heads or even just give them the old Darth Maul special.

12. Metroid – The Mysterious Justin Bailey Code

While Metroid’s “Justin Bailey” password/cheat code is certainly memorable for what it unlocks (Samus’ bodysuit design and a collection of gear, weapons, and items), the enduring legacy of this code is its mysterious origins and the many myths it inspired.

For years, fans argued about the meaning and origin of “Justin Bailey.” Some speculated that Justin Bailey was the name of a Metroid developer (or their child) or that it refers to Samus being “just in” her bathing suit. Years later, though, we learned that it’s actually kind of a coincidence that this specific password works at all and that it may have been discovered by someone named Justin who entered their own name and found something incredible.

11. Sonic the Hedgehog – The Debug Cheat

“Debug” modes are pretty common in PC games, but it’s always been wild that Sonic the Hedgehog featured a cheat code that essentially enabled a kind of debug mode that not only let you spawn items but manipulate certain elements of existing levels.

The extent of this cheat’s functionality helps it stand out from the comparatively simpler codes of this era, but the thing that really impresses me all these years later is how this cheat showcases just how much on-screen chaos the Sega Genesis could handle without catching on fire.

10. The Sims – “Rosebud” Money Cheat

In theory, the ability to earn unlimited money in The Sims by using the “Rosebud” command should ruin a game built around the idea of growing your character and improving their life over time. In practice, though, this cheat just gave us a different way to experience one of the most influential PC games ever.

Unlimited money let us build the house of our dreams, engineer truly wild scenarios, or even just focus on elements of The Sims we wouldn’t otherwise get to enjoy. This cheat proved just how robust The Sims’ core mechanics and endgame options really were.

9. Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater – “The End” Time Travel Skip

Ok, this isn’t actually a “cheat code” in the strictest sense of the phrase, but it’s impossible to talk about the best video game workarounds and exploits ever without mentioning this brilliant piece of game design.

The battle against elderly sniper “The End” in Metal Gear Solid 3 is arguably one of the franchise’s best boss fights, but if you just don’t have the time for all that, it is possible to skip this fight entirely. You just needed to set your PS2’s internal clock a couple of years into the future before starting this encounter. If done correctly, you’ll trigger a special cutscene that shows The End has died of old age and makes you feel bad about your tactics.

8. Age of Empires 2 – The Shelby Cobra Cheat

Age of Empires 2 features so many memorable cheats that you could honestly argue they helped define the legacy of this classic RTS. However, there is one cheat code that stands above the rest.

By using the cheat command “how do you turn this on,” you can spawn a Shelby Cobra in AoE 2 that happens to function as one of the better siege weapons in the game. Nothing beats turning this strategy game into a Fury Road simulator by assaulting a desert stronghold with a small army of sports cars.

Games

20 Nintendo Games That Changed History

By Matthew Byrd

Games

25 PC Games That Changed History

By Matthew Byrd

7. Super Street Fighter II: Turbo – Play as Akuma

Some of my favorite cheat codes ever are the ones you could use against unsuspecting friends to blow their minds and possibly ruin their day. So far as that goes, there are few cheat codes more memorable than unlocking Akuma in the arcade version of Super Street Fighter II: Turbo.

Actually, the only thing more memorable than playing as Akuma was actually managing to input this cheat code correctly. The series of steps required to unlock Akuma is so precise that it’s honestly harder to pull off than most combos in other fighting games. In fact, this cheat code (which required you to navigate the character select screen in a very specific way) was so tough to properly input that even some of those who knew the method suspected it was fake.

6. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 – Moon Physics

The only thing better than cheats that break a game are cheats that break a game and present an entirely new way to experience it in the process.

That’s why I’ve always loved Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2’s “Moon Physics” cheat. Does it make it possible to pull off record combos from a standing jump? Yes, but navigating these physics proves to be a challenge in and of itself, as anyone who has ever ruined a million-point combo by seriously misjudging a jump will tell you.

5. The Legend of Zelda – The Second Quest Secret

Sure, you can unlock Zelda’s “Second Quest” (a remix of the original adventure) by actually beating the game, but many of us discovered that feature by entering “Zelda” as our character name.

It’s impressive enough that Nintendo managed to pack this much content into an NES cartridge, but the best thing about this cheat is how easy it was to unlock it. More than a few kids accidentally played the Second Quest by assuming that their character was supposed to be named Zelda.

4. Doom – The “God Mode” Cheat

Doom’s invincibility cheat command (IDDQD) deserves some love for becoming a video game meme before memes were really a thing, but what stands out to me all these years later is how this code kind of changed the conversation about Doom for many.

As the first first-person shooter many of us played when we were young, Doom could be incredibly intimidating in terms of its mechanics, concept, difficulty, and even tone. However, when someone put in this code and made you invincible, it really made it easier to appreciate just what a joy this classic was and how that whole FPS thing was probably going to stick around for a while.

3. The Konami Code – Gradius

It’s the code you knew was going to be on the list the moment you saw it, but the slight twist here is that I’m specifically highlighting the use of the Konami code in Gradius: the game that started the most famous cheat code in video game history.

The story goes that Kazuhisa Hashimoto was working on the NES port of Gradius but found it difficult to properly test the game due to how punishing it was. His solution was to create a cheat command that would give him the power-ups he needed to progress. The game was accidentally shipped with the cheat code still enabled, players discovered it, and the rest is history. There’s just something great about a “work smarter, not harder” game developer/tester pretty much pioneering video game cheat codes as we know them today.

2. Mortal Kombat (Sega Genesis) – The Blood Code

Early arguments between Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo fans usually ended in a standstill. Gamers on both sides typically refused to concede any ground to their “rivals” in the debate over who owned the better video game console.

That’s what makes this cheat code so special. The moment that Sega Genesis owners showed their Super Nintendo friends that it was possible to unlock blood in their version of Mortal Kombat, there wasn’t a single SNES fan in the world that could pretend to be anything less than impressed. You had no playground rep if you didn’t know the Mortal Kombat blood code (A, B, A, C, A, B, B) by heart.

1. GoldenEye 007 – The Facility Invincibility Run

There are a few cheats from GoldenEye 007 that belong on this list (DK Mode and Paintball certainly stand out), but if we’re talking about the best of the best, then we’ve got to talk about unlocking GoldenEye 007’s “Invincible” cheat.

In order to unlock the ability to become invincible in GoldenEye 007, you had to beat the Facility level in 2:05 or less on 00 Agent setting. At first, you think it’s impossible. Then, after about a dozen runs or so, you start to see how you might be able to pull this off if absolutely everything goes perfectly. What follows is something that defined many N64’s owners childhoods. To this day, few moments in gaming match the feeling of finally completing that one perfect Facility run and wiping out the heartache of the dozens (maybe hundreds) of failed attempts that came before.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Years later, we learned you could just unlock this cheat by entering a series of control commands. Of course, it’s the process that matters so much more than the cheat itself.

The post 15 Best Video Game Cheat Codes of All-Time appeared first on Den of Geek.

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#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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quasithinking · 3 years

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Gravity’s Rainbow: Part XIII

If you were a reader thinking "I wonder what The White Visitation looks like and one compelling story about the patients who used to be housed there" then this is the section you've been waiting for! Because it begins with those things! In the story about the patient who escapes from The White Visitation when it used to be solely a place to house the insane, we learn that the Lord of the Sea has been named Bert. This might be important later. Try to remember it's a Pynchon novel. Every weird bit with a general eating shit directly from a woman's ass or some guy jerking off on an encoded war missive is probably important! The White Visitation slowly became more than a mental hospital as the war began. The new military occupants' first piece of business was to set up a broadcasting station to broadcast paranoid thoughts into Germany on a constant basis; it's why The White Visitation was chosen: high on a cliff overlooking the sea and facing the Continent. It was the perfect place to beam wireless paranoia directly at the German people. A BBC broadcaster named Myron Grunton took up the job. And being wireless, his paranoid programs also infiltrated the dreams and daily life of the locals. How could it not? Paranoia isn't exactly a domesticated and controllable entity. Myron's broadcasts became the first iteration of Project Black Wing. The idea of Project Black Wing began when Pirate brought back intel on a group of ex-colonial Africans—the Hereros—now living in Germany and involved in a secret weapons program for the War. What better subject to fire up paranoia among the Germans than the possibility of a race war brewing, based on the Hereros' vengeance for Germany's colonial and genocidal treatment of them back in Africa in the early 1900s? They named them the Schwarzkommando and they broadcasted, continuously, descriptions of the possible (probable!) danger of their discontent. Moving on from Project Black Wing, also headquartered at The White Visitation is our Pavlovian and his dogs, Pointsman. As the War is nearing its end and victory is in sight, Pointsman grows more and more desperate and disillusioned. His experiments have not provided him with any material to make his name known; the War, while being an apt conduit for funding, turned out to not be the ideal situation for Pavlovian ideas. And he knows that when the War ends, so will his revenue. This is why he is so desperate to get his hands on Tyrone Slothrop and his bomb predicting boners. It's hard to show how making dogs drool can be turned to usefulness in the war effort. But figuring out the cause and effect, discovering the stimulus present to give a man's penis the ability to predict where a rocket will fall, how can that be denied by the people parceling out the money?! Pointsman's biggest obstacle to more funding is Brigadier Pudding. "Ernest Pudding was brought up to believe in a literal Chain of Command, as clergymen of earlier centuries believed in the Chain of Being. The newer geometries confuse him. His greatest triumph on the battlefield came in 1917, in the gassy, Armageddonite filth of the Ypres salient, where he conquered a bight of no man's land some 40 yards at its deepest, with a wastage of only 70% of his unit. He was pensioned off around the beginning of the Great Depression—went to sit in the study of an empty house in Devon, surrounded by photos of old comrades, none of whose gazes quite met one's own, there to go at a spot of combinatorial analysis, that favorite pastime of retired Army officers, with a rattling intense devotion." That's Pudding. Pynchon adds more that evocative opening description of Pudding which is well worth reading but my goal isn't to transcribe the entirety of the novel here! I'm just trying to come to an understanding of what is happening in every section of this book. That's not going to be easy because I already feel like I've failed with the Slothrop's Sodium Amytal hallucination. One of the great things about reading a 1973 Thomas Pynchon book in 2020 is that I have the Internet at my disposal. So when Pynchon says something like "Maud Chilkes, who looks from the rear rather like Cecil Beaton's photograph of Margot Asquith, sits dreaming of a bun and a cup of tea," I can simply Google "Cecil Beaton's photograph of Margot Asquith" and voila:

Maybe, for some reason, I'd have already been familiar with this if I'd read the book in 1973. But I doubt it! Unless there was some big Cecil Beaton revival that year.

Whether or not readers of Gravity's Rainbow in 1973 would have recognized this image, it's beyond doubt that 80 year old Brigadier Pudding would have used it as a point of comparison in 1944. He probably jerked off to that image on multiple occasions as a wee lad of 63. The point of Pudding's mini-biography in his introduction is to point out that he's not really happy being in charge of doling out money to a bunch of maniacs who nobody would have thought twice about pre-War but he's too old and set in his outlook to be of any serious use to other parts of the war effort. Here, have a line that broke my heart: "In the ARF wing, the stolen dogs sleep, scratch, recall shadowy smells of humans who may have loved them, listen undrooling to Ned Pointsman's oscillators and metronomes." It's just one line so it only brought me to the brink of weeping as opposed to the section on the Dodos and the other section on the Hereros' plans for generational suicide. And now we get into discussions of Pavlovian theory. It's not as confusing as Alan Moore's Lucia James chapter in Jerusalem (I mean, what is? Could I have at least chosen something understandable without unending hours of torturous speculation and guesswork? Like maybe Memento or Lost Highway?) but more confusing than the boner I get reading and Archie and Jughead comic book (because of Veronica, of course! Va-va-va-voom! If it wasn't for Veronica, the boner would be more confusing than the discussion of Pavlovian science). It's sad that I don't understand it because I'm pretty sure it's all this smart theoretical stuff that is the key that unlocks the door to the room where all the good porn is hidden. The porn is a metaphor for postmodernist themes. One dog, Vanya, has entered "the 'equivalent' phase, the first of the transmarginal phases." That means her response to the stimulus is no longer dependent on the strength of the stimulus. Her response is the same no matter how great or how meager the stimulus. Vanya's body and mind are literally being changed by her exposure to overwhelming stimuli. She no longer perceives a difference between inconsequential stimuli and life-and-death stimuli. Vanya has become numb to not just subtlety and nuance but to any degree of difference in outside stimuli she's exposed to. This is commentary on us, isn't it?! Especially in a time of war where rockets exploding around us have become just a part of our daily lives. It's an example of Roger's earlier confession to Jessica upon driving by scenes of devastation where people are searching for the living and wounded. "Once Roger and Jessica might have stopped. But they're both alumni of the Battle of Britain, both have been drafted into the early black mornings and the crying for mercy, the dumb inertia of cobbles and beams, the profound shortage of mercy in those days. . . . By the time one has pulled one's nth victim or part of a victim free of one's nth pile of rubble, he told her once, angry, weary, it has ceased to be that personal . . . the value of n my be different for each of us, but I'm sorry: sooner or later . . ." See? This is why this project is good for me in understanding Gravity's Rainbow. Because now I get why all the Pavlovian stuff! It's making sense! After the bit about the dog Vanya, Pynchon describes Brigadier Pudding's weekly group meetings. It's fucking hilarious but I won't go into it here. It's another example, 80 pages in, of how hilarious this book is and, at the 80th page or so, easily still a surprise, especially if it's your first time reading it. A reader could easily make it this far having missed the truly hilarious other parts of the book (like, say, maybe the reader thought of themselves as too intellectual for toilet humor or slapstick. Why, they would have been doubly, but sternly, apoplectic over Poinstman's hunt for a dog that winds up with his foot stuck in a toilet!). But I submit there's nobody who could get to this section and not think to themselves, "Oh! Ha ha! Good show, chap! Mighty funny, this!" Unless, of course, they missed it because they were so confused by the transmarginal stuff it caused them to miss the way Brigadier Pudding's meeting devolves into other topics so that they read the entire section and thought, "Oh! I mean, what? 'Vertical interest'? I don't get it." One scientist, Géza Rózsavölgyi, is concerned not with Pudding's meetings but how everyone at The White Visitation will be funded after the war. He believes they need a powerful program to justify their existence rather than a charismatic leader able to secure funding through pure force of ego and will. The work is what should matter; it is what should drive the science. Currently, Géza Rózsavölgyi believes that Tyrone Slothrop is their best bet for studies which will lead to a promising post-War program. And so Géza Rózsavölgyi sets out the parameters for Chapter Two: "Precise-ly why," leaps Rózsavölgyi, "we are now proposing, to give, Sloth-rop a complete-ly dif-ferent sort, of test. We are now design-ing for him, a so-called, 'projec-tive' test. The most famil-iar exam-ple of the type, is the Rorschach ink-blot. The ba-sic theory, is, that when given an unstruc-tured stimulus, some shape-less blob of exper-ience, the subject, will seek to impose, struc-ture on it. How, he goes a-bout struc-turing this blob, will reflect his needs, his hopes—will provide, us with clues, to his dreams, fan-tasies, the deepest re-gions of his mind." Eyebrows going a mile a minute, extraordinarily fluid and graceful hand gestures, resembling��most likely it is deliberate, and who can blame Rosie for trying to cash in—those of his most famous compatriot, though there're the inevitable bad side-effects: staff who swear they've seen him crawling headfirst down the north façade of "The White Visitation," for example. "So we are re-ally, quite, in agree-ment, Reverend Doctor. A test, like the MMPI, is, in this respect, not adequate. It is, a struc-tured stimulus. The sub-ject can fal-sify, consciously, or repress, un-consciously. But with the projec-tive technique, nothing he can do, con-scious or otherwise, can pre-vent us, from finding what we wish, to know. We, are in control. He, cannot help, himself." Christ that was a pain in the ass to transcribe! Basically, the plan is to expose Slothrop to the rocket in more direct and intimate ways than just wandering around London getting boners where rockets will land. See what he makes of it. See how he reacts. Watch his paranoia run out of control until the world is exactly what he thinks it is: people manipulating his life to the point that he has practically no free will. And, I mean, yeah. How does one account for the observers observing the observation ruining the experiment? I mean, if you're manipulating a guy to see how he reacts and he reacts by assuming his entire world is being manipulated, does that mean, you know, anything?! Oh, and who is Rosie trying to emulate? What person is the most famous Soviet war-era compatriot? It sounds like it should be Spider-man! I said the section begins with a description of The White Visitation. But that's nothing compared with the actual detailed description of the building on which the section ends. It's practically a treatise on postmodern architecture. And that's it! This was a most enlightening section to re-read. How come we can't just re-read books instead of having to read them first before we can re-read them? They'd be so much easier to understand!

#Gravity's Rainbow #Thomas Pynchon

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chefgeofframsay · 7 years

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Desperate Minds [4/7]

Title: Desperate Minds Pairing: Aaron Marquis/Reader Rating: PG-13 Chapter Word Count: 4,318 Summary: “How do I know you’re not doing…your siren thing?” asked Aaron, giving you a skeptical look.

“Oh come on,” you just about snarled, turning on your heel to face the werewolf fully. “I never use my abilities on anyone. Just because I have the ability doesn’t make me a predator. Or a murderer!” “Historically,” he started, crossing his arms and nodding, “your powers make you both.”

The next week was quiet, blissfully. Your usual trip to the ocean for your water supply wasn’t as lonely as it usually was considering the city was getting ready for the end of summer beach bash, that for some reason actually took place the week before Halloween. You couldn't argue it wasn't the end of summer. It took them a week to clean the beach (which always bothered you because they were supposed to be keeping it clean all the time) and they seemed to start bright and early in the morning. You usually went around nine in the morning, if you weren’t still asleep, and you were amazed to see the beach full of volunteers. A few of them waved to you, being people you knew vaguely, and you smiled and waved back. You were just lucky that you weren’t having the same loss of control as you dipped your bottles into the water that you’d had two weeks ago because it could have been a lot worse with everyone on the beach.

That didn’t make what Aaron did remotely okay...but you had to acknowledge it made it slightly less bad.

You finally had a day to yourself; you hadn’t actually been alone since the walk back from the police station two weeks ago. There were days it was the whole group, or just your roommates, or just one person, but you’d not been alone since then and as much as you appreciate the fact they cared, it was getting to be too much. You had to be alone for more than four seconds. You’d decided to spend most of your day outside of the house; you wandered shops, picked up something to wear to the summer beach bash, and a few new odds and ends. You had lunch in your favorite cafe and didn’t worry about how long you took to eat your lunch for once in your life. There had been a moment on your walk to the arcade down from Castaway’s where you’d almost walked into a familiar (but you couldn’t figure out how) guy who was glaring at you like you’d just murdered his family, but he didn’t follow after you and the pinball machine drove it right from your mind.

Around dinner time, Lindsay texted you for the first time to ask if you were down for a dinner plan. You’d been talking about getting everyone together to make something for one big dinner because everyone in your friend group asserted they could cook but never did so for anyone other than themselves. There had been talk of doing it at some point that week, and tonight seemed to be the night. You texted her to let her know you’d be down and what you’d be cooking.

You stopped at the grocery store on your way home to buy what you needed to make your portion of dinner, and you’d run into Jon, who was doing the same. You went to greet him, stopping short as you thought you saw the glaring man from earlier glaring at you from the soup aisle.

“What are you staring at?” asked Jon, whipping around to face in the same direction. He squinted at a spot in the other direction of where you were actually looking.

“Nothing,” you mumbled, not seeing the man anymore and instead turning back to Jon. “So, what are you making?”

“I’m probably going to make some meatballs?” Jon offered, looking down into his basket.

“Probably?” you repeated, laughing as you glanced to see what Jon had picked up. You saw some herbs and garlic and a few pounds of ground chicken. “Who...makes meatballs with chicken?”

“People who care about their heart,” he told you before laughing and shaking his head. “I don’t know. I wanted to bring something different to the table.”

“That’s totally cool,” you told him, smiling. “I think I’m going for soup,” you explained, holding out your own basket. “I figured it might be smart to not have four entrees.”

“That’s...shit, yeah that’s good,” he agreed, nodding. The both of you headed for the checkout, speculating what the other two were planning to do. Both had been particularly secretive when you mentioned it that morning; you had to admit, you were a little worried. Once the two of you had paid for your stuff, Jon stopped outside the front door of the store.

“So, are you heading over with me?” he asked.

“I actually have one more place to stop,” you sighed. “Mostly because I just realized I forgot.” You’d meant to stop at a store not far for a present for his birthday. Seeing Jon in that moment reminded you and you were thankful you had remembered before his actual birthday. You had the habit of finding things insanely early and then forgetting about them entirely until after someone’s birthday.

“Here, give me your shit,” he said, holding his hand out. “I’ll bring it back to the house and throw it in the fridge.”

“Thanks dude,” you said, smiling at him and handing off the bag. “I promise I’ll be home soon.”

Once you split ways, you busied yourself with going through your camera roll to find exactly what it is you had seen and liked for your friend. You always took pictures of things to buy later so you knew what it was. It saved you an insane amount of aggravation. When you looked up, hearing that you were nearing a corner based on the fact it sounded like cars ahead of you, your heart sank. Aaron was on the other side of the street, and looking right at you.

“Oh, fuck,” you groaned, deciding instead to take a shortcut down an alleyway to get to the next corner and out of sight, and hopefully out of mind.

You dipped down the nearest alleyway, whipping around the corner of the brick building and nearly crashing headfirst into a grimy dumpster. You sidestepped it awkwardly, looking anything but graceful as you nearly threw yourself off-balance and topped over, and continued your speed walk down the dark corridor. You were just turning another corner down another alleyway that you knew would let out near the road that led home when he caught up to you. You hadn't seen him coming, but when you sped around the corner, you found yourself stopping short to avoid colliding with his outstretched arm as he leaned against the wall.

“Fuck,” you swore under your breath, stumbling back against the building in an effort to balance yourself. It played directly into his hand and before you knew it, his other arm was on the other side of you, palm also splayed out against the brick, boxing you in place. With nowhere to go, you looked up at his face as it loomed closer, wanting to punch that smirk right off his face.

“Now, now,” he started, his voice dripping with the satisfaction of getting you where he wanted. “Where do you think you're going, sweetheart?”

“What do you want, Marquis?” you asked angrily.

“We need to talk,” he informed.

“Not until you back up,” you told him, looking at his arms that were trapping you where you were. You got another whiff of the spicy musk paired with dog that you smelled a few weeks ago on the beach. “You've already chased me down two alleys. You've got my attention.”

“Fine, fine,” he sighed, pushing himself off the wall you were against, and taking a step back. You sighed with relief that your personal space was no longer being invaded.

“About what now?” you snapped. “Who did I kill this time?”

“Nothing besides my hopes and dreams, sweetheart,” he informed, chuckling a little.

“Exactly what I live for,” you sighed.

“I can’t stop thinking about you,” he told you nonchalantly, and that made you stop. You slowly turned on your heel to look at him to see his arms crossed as he studied you.

“Why the fuck…” you trailed off, unsure if you should ask why he was thinking about you or why it was he was telling you.

“Because,” he started, “correct me if I’m wrong, but a side effect of a siren’s call is that the thrall thinks about the siren.”

You rolled your eyes, turning away from him. “Aaron, you need to get over it, okay? Lots of people in this city are sirens. I fail to see why you’re so focused on me.”

“Because a lot of people think about you, it seems,” he explained. “At least they do at Castaway’s and I can’t help but wonder…”

“Wonder what?” you asked, glancing over your shoulder at him.

“How do I know you're not doing...your siren thing?” asked Aaron, giving you a skeptical look.

“Oh come on,” you just about snarled, turning on your heel to face the werewolf fully. “I never use my abilities on anyone. Just because I have the ability doesn't make me a predator. Or a murderer!”

“Historically,” he started, crossing his arms and nodding, “your powers make you both.” You could feel that fire of anger that clouded your brain flare up and you desperately wanted to scream or punch him or something.

“Historically, I punch assholes in the face,” you growled, nostrils flaring as you glared at him. “And I want you to know the only reason I'm not hitting you is the gun. The second you don't have it, I will.” To your displeasure, he looked amused as he stared back into your angry face.

“If you say so, sweetheart,” he crooned. “But you see how I wonder about these things.”

“Yeah, because you don't do your fucking job,” you snapped, rolling your eyes. His amusement was replaced by a look of confusion, eyebrows knitting together.

“Yeah?” Aaron asked, trying to seem as nonchalant as possible but that flash of worry in his eyes gave you the satisfaction of knowing you'd gotten under his skin, if for only a moment. “How do you figure?”

“Because if you bothered to talk to anyone who knows me, they could have told you as much,” you pointed out. “The only siren-like thing about me is the fact I can't touch fresh water.”

“Well, that and the fact you get drunk and use your call to get attractive people at parties to give you attention,” he countered; that was a punch to the gut. “I'll give you that you at least give them the ability to decide for themselves what they want to do about things. I'd have arrested you a long time ago if you didn't.”

“You're watching me?” you asked, a look of disgust on your face as you looked up at him, your plans long since forgotten.

“It's my job,” he sighed, “like it or not, you're a potentially dangerous situation. I'm a cop. I'd not be doing my job if I let you run around unchecked.” At the look on your face, he sighed again. “You're not the only one, if that makes you feel better.”

“It really doesn't,” you told him, tears stinging your eyes as you looked quickly away from him, hoping he wouldn't see how close you were to crying. You had plenty of helpful abilities; you could calm someone down if they needed it, and you could survive underwater and swim like you had been born into the water, even as a hybrid born on dry land, which proved incredibly useful when someone was drowning. Still, the call was the only thing anyone seemed to think of. “But if you're keeping tabs on me, you should have known I wasn't involved. I haven't been near the beach in two weeks, except for five minutes to collect water, in front of a dozen witnesses.”

“I don't tail you,” he told you, “I do have better things to be doing.”

“Then go do that and leave me alone, Aaron,” you snapped, rubbing at your eyes as the tears that threatened to spill over did. “I‘m just going home.”

With that, you sidestepped the werewolf in front of you as quickly as you could and took off towards your house, desperate to get away from him already. You were glad to find that your front door was open as you flung yourself at it, and when you fell into the living room, you were greeted by the sight of Jon and Lindsay sitting on the couch, controllers in hand, playing a video game you couldn't make out through blurred vision.

“What happened?” Jon asked, the most serious look on his face you'd ever seen. Your bitter chuckle was watery as you shook your head.

“We’re not monsters,” you stated, rubbing at your eyes, trying to dry them.

“Not really,” Jon agreed.

“And yet, our lovely sheriff is watching us,” you told him, making a face. “He seems to think otherwise.”

“What?”

“Yeah, he keeps tabs on all of our kind,” you explained, “though he informs me we’re not the only ones. As if that's actually supposed to make me feel better.”

“You know,” Lindsay piped up, “Mariel works for the police department. Aaron's been reading a lot about what a siren’s call is like when you experience it since before these murders even started happening. I don't think he's researching the case. I feel like it's more about if he's actually attracted to you or if you're trying to use your call to throw him off.”

“You've got to be kidding me,” you scoffed.

“You said it yourself,” she pointed out, “he keeps calling you sweetheart.”

“That means literally nothing.”

“Add to the fact he's trying so hard when he's investigating you,” Jon added.

“Because he thinks I'm a murderer!”

“Or really, he's trying to find a reason to exonerate you,” Lindsay suggested. “Why do you think he's leaving no stone unturned? We all know he doesn't try this hard for anything.”

“Because he's got some weird fucking vendetta,” you guessed, shrugging. “Jon’s a siren too! And he doesn't live far from the beach. Fuck, all the sirens live around here, why is he so fixated on me?”

“Because he's always been,” Jon snorted. “You can’t tell me you never noticed…” he trailed off, eyebrows climbing up his face as he saw the look you were giving him. “[Y/N], he was so into you in college.”

You snorted derisively, “you've got to be kidding me. Are you seriously going on about this again?”

“He was!” Jon protested, “you were always the first person he went to when there was a group project and he'd always find his way to you when we were at the same party.”

“And he's been a complete ass every time I've ever spoken to him,” you pointed out. “He never did any of the work he was supposed to and nothing out of his mouth isn't smug or sarcastic. Every party, there was another backhand compliment about how I looked and he made fun of basically like everything I told him I was interested.”

“So, he's lazy and into negging,” Lindsay pointed out. “Or maybe he doesn't know how to talk to women.” She paused before adding, “actually, I've seen him out at bars. He definitely doesn't know how to talk to women.”

“He looked at me like I was the devil when he found out what I am,” you told your friends. “When I was out of water, and one of the girls in our seminar offered me one of her extra bottles, I had to ask if it was salt water and he butt his way into the conversation and wanted to know why...and I made the mistake of telling him. Aaron's pretty much avoided me since.”

“That…” Jon trailed off, making a face. “Yeah, that one I can’t explain. Maybe he thought the reason he was into you was because you wanted him to be? Maybe that you were using your powers on him?”

You snorted and gave a derisive laugh. “You know just as well as I do he thinks I’m a monster,” you informed. “Like he’s anyone to judge on who is and who isn’t dangerous. Werewolves aren’t know for being cute and cuddly.”

“[Y/N],” Lindsay sighed.

“No! If he’s going to assume I’m some sort of murderer because I have the ability, it’s more than reasonable I do the same,” you said, “especially since he’s far more likely to have done something than I’ll ever be.”

“But isn’t the whole reason you’re upset because he’s just making assumptions?” she asked. “How does this make you any better?”

“It doesn’t make me any better,” you sighed. “But it makes me feel better and until you’re the one getting accused of killing a man, I don’t think you get to judge me.”

The both of them sat on the couch, looking up at you with displeased looks on their faces; it was definitely the end of the conversation when Barbara appeared from the kitchen, flour on her cheek. Her smile faltered as the vibe in the room washed over her and she looked from the couch to where you were standing.

“What’s going on in here?” she asked cautiously.

“Don’t worry about it,” you sighed. “Can I get in the kitchen?”

“Do you need the oven?” she asked, nodding back towards the inside of the kitchen. When you shook your head, she smiled. “Yeah, you’re good then.”

“Cool, I’m gonna go do that,” you informed, nodding a couple times before stepping around your roommate to head into the kitchen. Considering how Barbara had flour all over her, you were surprised to see how clean the kitchen was. Then it hit you because she had magic and didn’t have to clean by hand. You were excited to see the pans were clean, and you didn’t have to dig out the pot you needed because it was sitting on the stove, waiting for you. You went to the refrigerator to pull out what you needed to see Jon had just left your bags on a shelf with everything still in plastic.

“Yeah, alright,” you muttered to yourself, pulling both bags out. You made quick work of pulling everything out and separating it all out into piles. You grabbed what you needed from cabinets, turning on the stove and pulling oil from a side cabinet to pour some into the pan to heat up. You busied yourself with cutting up vegetables and putting them in the pan. Cooking, like everything else you’d done today, did a pretty good job of distracting you from things that upset you. It took some very violent chopping to get the idea that anyone could think Aaron Marquis could possibly be into you out of your head, but it did its job sooner or later.

By the time it actually got to dinner time, it was out of your mind entirely. You weren’t thinking of the fact you’d been accused of doing something you certainly didn’t do, forcing someone you didn’t particularly care for further into your life. All you think about was how good Jon’s chicken meatballs, as strange a concept as they were, smelled, how you were proud of how the soup turned out, and how you were surprised to see Barbara had made a pizza and Lindsay some sort of cake for dessert.

“I’m going to be honest,” Lindsay said as she took her place at the table. “I’m pleasantly surprised.”

“Me too,” you chuckled, “I was worried we were going to end up with four main courses.”

The four of you ate, and for a while, the conversation was all compliments. For some reason, no one thought the others, despite the fact that you and Jon were the youngest (and already nearing a hundred), could actually manage to cook. It was a lot of jokes about poisoning but everyone seemed pretty pleased with their food in the end. It was only after the cake was cut did the conversation go anywhere else.

“So,” Lindsay said conversationally as she leaned back in her seat. “What do you think happened to that guy?”

“What guy?” asked Barbara before putting a forkful of cake into her mouth.

“The guy [Y/N] was supposed to have killed,” she explained. “What do you think actually happened to him?”

A heavy silence fell over the table as all four people at the table took to eating their cake and not answering the question. Linsday, for a fleeting moment, looked to have regretting asking the question, but when Jon answered, she looked relieved.

“Someone had to have drowned him, right?” he asked. “Maybe it was an ex or some shit like that.”

“I think,” you started cautiously, keeping your eyes on your food, “I think he just stumbled from Castaway’s onto the beach and drown. Total accident.”

“Wouldn’t the tide have swept him out to sea, though?” Jon asked, “someone had to have drown him and pulled him back onto shore.”

“Then it definitely couldn’t have been me,” you sighed. “There’s no damn way I could have pulled him back onto land. Aaron’s barking up the wrong tree.”

“That's fair enough,” Lindsay said, “I think he’ll figure that out sooner or later.”

“Sooner would be preferred,” you answered. “I don't understand how they could have made him sheriff.”

“He's usually got things figured out pretty quick,” Lindsay pointed out, shrugging. “I’ve seen a drop in sensational news reports since he became sheriff.”

“Probably because he had all the reporters rounded up or some shit,” you grumbled, taking a particularly hard stab at the cake on your plate.

“Or maybe there's just less crime?” Jon suggested hopefully.

“You know,” you said, looking up from your cake. “He tried to walk me home from the bar. You know, after telling me he's investigating me?” You shook your head, “and you know what he said too sway me? He asked if I knew what happened in the city. So, I really doubt he's got crime on lockdown.”

“He was worried about you,” Jon pointed out. “Especially since he's right, some shitty things happen in the city.”

“Why are you always on about me and him?”

“Honestly, I wonder about that too,” Barbara piped up. “He does seem not...great. And in any case, [Y/N] really seems not to like him.”

“Even if you wanted to convince [Y/N] to give him a chance,” Lindsay interjected, “he really doesn't anymore. Threw that out the window when he arrested her.”

Jon sighed and then nodded. “You're right,” he conceded. “I just think they had potential. He's not always such a dick.”

“I refuse to believe that,” you scoffed.

“Look, he lived my dorm when I lived on campus,” Jon explained. “He helped me out a lot. Especially when I was drunk. He asked about you a lot.”

“Yeah, right!”

“Seriously!” exclaimed Jon, sitting up in his chair.

Before he could say anything, a knock at the door made all of you jump. You glanced over to it before back to the table. Everyone looked surprised enough to tell you that neither of your roommates had invited anyone else over. You sighed, sliding your plate onto the table and got out of your chair. You headed for the front door, shrugging. As soon as you opened the door and saw who was on the other side, you groaned and went to slam the door. Aaron’s hand shot out to keep you from closing it, and pushed it open.

“[Y/N], you need to come with me,” he informed, and by the serious tone, you could tell it was official business.

“I really don't,” you shot back.

“This isn't…” he started, but stopped to instead sigh at the look on your face. He reached to his belt, going for his handcuffs. “You're coming with me one way or another but I'm giving you the chance to come on your own. I suggest you take it, [Y/N], please.” The last word seemed to particularly pain him.

“What…” you trailed off, eying the handcuffs in his hand, tangling by his side. “Not until you tell me why.”

Aaron sighed, “There’s another body.”

“I’ve been here all night!” you exclaimed quickly, turning back to your friends for some support.

“[Y/N],” he said, “just...please get into the car.”

“You’ll have to make me.”

“I will,” he told you, standing up a little straighter. “Don’t make me drag you out of here. It’s really not something I want to do.”

“[Y/N],” Lindsay said from behind you. “I think you should just go. You know full well that you’ll be home sooner than you know it.”

“I’m getting a little sick of my time getting wasted because the police department have no idea how to do their fucking jobs,” you snapped. Aaron sighed again, taking a step towards you and you took a step back.

“We need to go,” he informed. “It already took me longer to find you than I thought.”

“It was hard for you to find me,” you started, “in the place where I live? And have been for hours?” He rolled his eyes, and you saw the handcuff open and you sighed. There was really no way out it.

“Fine, I’m coming,” you muttered, reaching for your coat on the rack next to the door. His eyes followed your movements as if you were actually going to find something to attack him with, and when you slid your arm into a coat, he seemed to deflate slightly. You rolled your eyes at your friends before stepping outside, letting Aaron lead you to the car where he’d left it.

“What a waste of everyone’s time,” you muttered as you slid into the backseat, crossing your arms. Aaron said nothing as he got into the driver’s seat and turned the car on.

You could have sworn you heard a sigh of relief as he pulled away from the curb.

#aaron x reader #fic #rt imagine #ragehappy #rt reader insert #series: desperate minds #wc: 4K #urban fantasy au #2spooky month

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lifeonashelf · 4 years

Text

CKY

Do any of you remember a film from the ‘90s called Shazaam?

Allow me to refresh your memory: Shazaam was a vehicle for C-list comedian Sinbad, who is perhaps best known for starring in a 1994 sitcom that was creatively titled The Sinbad Show—which I never watched because the show starred Sinbad. The Sinbad Show didn’t even last a full season on the FOX network (probably because the show starred Sinbad), but sometime either shortly before or shortly after that program was cancelled, its namesake landed the lead role in a film entitled Shazaam, a part which allowed him to stretch his acting chops by playing a wisecracking genie who acted exactly like Sinbad.

I distinctly remember seeing the trailer for this cinematic tour de force. To the best of my recollection, the plot revolved around two precocious children—one girl and one boy, naturally, to ensure that twice as many kids would beg their parents to buy the tie-in merchandise that would inexorably be produced if the film was successful—who one way or another encounter a djinn named Shazaam. Though their initial meeting befalls as a startling surprise for all parties concerned, they quickly become the best of pals and Shazaam subsequently convoys his youthful comrades through a rote series of comical PG hijinks. The specific nature of their shenanigans has been lost to the haze of time, but those details don’t matter much; a mid-‘90s movie built upon that scenario and geared toward that audience sort of writes itself (I doubt there was a subplot about Hungarian sex traffickers, for instance). I’m sure Shazaam helps the moppets surmount some sort of reasonably benign conflict and everyone learns a lesson about the true meaning of family by the time the credits roll. I’m assuming a clever dog is also involved in some fashion, and I’m confident the film features at least one protracted flatulence gag. Mind you, this is all just speculation; I can’t verify any of it since I never actually watched Shazaam (I decided not to because the trailer revealed that the film starred Sinbad).

Perhaps you already know where I’m going with this, but in case you don’t: Shazaam likely qualifies as the least successful celluloid offering ever concocted, because it is a movie which literally nobody watched. Oddly, this dearth of viewership didn’t have anything to do with Sinbad starring in it; the main reason nobody watched the film Shazaam is because the film Shazaam doesn’t actually exist. And I have a real difficult time wrapping my head around this, because not only am I ABSOLUTELY FUCKING CERTAIN that I remember viewing the trailer I’ve described, I can also readily visualize the VHS case for this movie that was never really a movie on the shelves at Blockbuster Video (imagine my incredulity when I learned that Blockbuster Video never actually existed, either). And even stranger, there are evidently thousands upon thousands of people who recall the existence of this movie that does not exist as vividly as I do.

If you kept up with the brief internet furor about this topic which arose a couple years ago, you’re undoubtedly aware the Shazaam phenomenon has been explained away as some peculiar mass delusion known as the Mandela Effect—apparently, so many human brains muddled the title and star of the ill-advised Shaquille O’Neal genie flick Kazaam that our collective hive-minds fabricated an illusory film to match our erroneous memories. (Of course, this begs the question: do those of us who remember Shazaam subconsciously wish there was a film in which Sinbad plays a sassy, flatulent genie…?). This clarification makes a kind of sense, even though my vague recollections of the corporeal Kazaam and my lucid recollections of the false Shazaam differ substantially (in my brain, Sinbad never raps or does karate in his movie, yet both disciplines factor into major plot-points in Kazaam—and Shazaam doesn’t meander into a baffling second-act detour about Hungarian sex traffickers like Shaq’s film inexplicably does).

So here’s the reason I’m bringing this up here: when I sat down to write about the band CKY, the paramount thing I intended to delve into was how I was introduced to their music. Do me a favor and keep that in mind—this information will come in handy later.

When I was a twenty-something in the very late 1990’s-slash-very early 2000’s, I worked at Domino’s Pizza as a delivery driver, which was a really excellent gig at the time. I had almost no bills and gas was a buck a gallon, so I only needed to work about 20 hours a week to earn enough money to enjoy a comfortable lifestyle. And like most twenty-something males who make their living as pizza conveyance professionals, when I wasn’t on the road, my comfortable lifestyle mainly entailed spending inordinate amounts of my free time listening to a bunch of punk rock, smoking a bunch of pot, and playing a bunch of video games.

[To be clear, not all of my co-workers at Domino’s did even one of these things. There was Dennis, for instance, who to the best of my knowledge did not enjoy punk rock, marijuana, or video games. He did, however, regularly come into work with cartons of expired baked goods that he extracted from the dumpsters behind Vons, which he would then rinse in the sink to make them “fresh” again. The prevailing rumor about Dennis’s backstory was that he was a former surgeon who had a nervous breakdown after losing a child patient on the operating table. I’m not so sure that was true, although I am very sure that he once brought in a plastic grocery bag filled with vomit instead of pastries and attempted to rinse that in the sink, too—which is why I tend to lean more toward believing Dennis was probably just fundamentally insane. There was no preamble to his unambiguously unhinged act; the dude simply strolled into the prep area at the start of his shift and said “hey, Taylor” to me like it was any other day… except he was carrying a sack of upchuck with him, clutching it right below the straps, as if girding the parcel to ensure he wouldn’t spill any of his cargo. My manager sent him home when she saw what was in the bag, but Dennis came back to work the very next afternoon—sans puke satchel—and the incident was never spoken of again. To this day, I cannot fathom how Dennis accumulated all that vomit, why he was hauling it around in his car, or what he was hoping to accomplish by soaking it in the same basin where we washed our pizza pans. Anyway, what I was getting at is that he didn’t especially fit the stereotype I outlined. We got along okay, though; I always made it a point to be really nice to the guy—you know, considering his alarming derangement and all.]

One of the staples of my Playstation habits in those days was the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater series. Despite having only spent a combined total of maybe zero-point-three hours on an actual skateboard in my entire life, my best friend Andy and I logged approximately 19,000 hours guiding the avatars in those seminal games through a multitude of gravity-and-logic-defying feats which no human being could ever possibly achieve with or without a skateboard. In the real world, I probably couldn’t even pull off an elementary trick like an ollie—but in the realm of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater I was a four-wheeled fucking god who could effortlessly grind up the side of a building, soar off the opposite edge, perform roughly nineteen twisting flips on my way back down, then execute a perfect landing on the downslope of an opportunely-placed ramp so I could launch off that and catch enough air to do nineteen more flips. Though I have never been an aficionado of that particular sporting pursuit, the Tony Hawk games were incredibly fun and offered endless replay potential due to the almost pornographic extremity of their facets. The conscientious city planners in THPS’s utopia were mindful to randomly insert dozens of half-pipes and empty swimming pools all over their towns, and none of their edifices featured a single surface that could not be utilized for some sort of astonishing aerodynamic exploit.

Instead of composing an original musical score for the series, the developers of the Pro Skater franchise rather ingeniously opted to license fifteen-or-so songs by relatively popular bands for each installment. These tunes supplied the background inspiration during gameplay, and were ostensibly chosen because they represented genres which the skater demographic enjoyed—unsurprisingly, the soundtracks predominantly relied on crowd-pleasing punk and hip-hop material (although one of the sequels featured a song by Powerman 5000, whose fanbase was roughly equivalent to the number of people who have watched Shazaam). However, a cycle of only fifteen tracks doesn’t go a very long way when it’s entirely feasible to play 100 rounds in one sitting—as Andy and I regularly did. So as you might suspect, we ended up hearing the same song-batch an incalculable number of times throughout the course of any given session, which inevitably burned every one of those tracks permanently into our brains. This is how I became intimately familiar with the band CKY, whose cut “Flesh Into Gear” appeared in one of the Tony Hawk releases and was consequently submitted for my listening pleasure hundreds upon hundreds of times.

Luckily, “Flesh Into Gear” is a really cool tune, a prime slice of appealing proto-metal with an insidiously catchy chorus and a snaking stoner-rock guitar riff that would undoubtedly inspire anyone in their right mind to rail-slide across a chain of forty conveniently-equidistant park benches. I could hardly believe a song this excellent and shrewdly-crafted was coined by an outfit like CKY, since the group’s foremost point of notoriety at the time was their drummer’s family ties to one of the cast members of Jackass—an obtuse reality television showcase for the misadventures of a squad of unabashed idiots whose misguided testosterone impelled them to launch bottle rockets out of their rectums, drink animal semen, and obsessively scour the ends of the earth searching for various objects to pummel each other’s testicles with.

My persistent exposure to “Flesh Into Gear” via Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater eventually motivated me to purchase CKY’s 2002 release Infiltrate-Destroy-Rebuild, the album the track was borrowed from. I have been spinning that disc repeatedly since I started writing this, and—while the rest of the band’s material is satisfactory but un-extraordinary—every single time “Flesh Into Gear” comes on, it instills me with a rush of delightful nostalgia. I cannot remember the last time I played any of the Pro Skater installments, but with “Flesh Into Gear” navigating my recollections just like it navigated my board-wielding avatar seventeen years ago, I can still clearly visualize the games’ indelible imagery and virtually weave my way through the vast intricacies of those levels I traversed countless times back then. And these evocations are accompanied by a flood of additional splendid reminiscences, snapshots from a far simpler and more idyllic time—perhaps my very favorite phase of my life—an era free of real jobs and real responsibilities, when on any given day my best friend and I could unreservedly spend endless hours engrossed in Playstation, and the most critical concerns in our purview were what combination of toppings we should order on our pizza and whether or not we would be able to track down an eighth so we could smoke a bowl before watching that evening’s new episode of South Park.

This is the true and immeasurable splendor of music. Even this many years removed, I can still listen to “Flesh Into Gear” today and instantly be enveloped in those potent and wonderful memories, transported back to a comfortable living room in Lakewood, sitting in front of a big-screen television beside someone who is closer to me than a brother, our fingers frenetically tapping on the joysticks which control our destinies on the monitor, beautifully oblivious to the evaporating hours because we are twenty-one and our time seems infinite and our futures are wide open and we have a whole lifetime of escapades ahead of us. On these glorious occasions, Andy and I weren’t just mindlessly zoning out on some silly skateboarding game. We were ardently devoting ourselves to having fun, pure and unadulterated fun, the kind of serene merriment you only get to have for a woefully short yet richly blessed period of your existence, the kind of immaculate and untroubled amusement you don’t realize you won’t ever experience again until that phase of your life imperceptibly cedes to the next and the ravages of the real world begin to methodically devour your body and your soul. We were also laughing, a lot, often so vigorously and exuberantly that our giggle-fits overtook us in irrepressible paroxysms that brought tears of elation to our eyes. Simply by being in the same room with each other, we were celebrating just how special a friendship that spans literal decades truly is, and how singularly magnificent it feels to spend time with people whose mere presence has the ability to make you happy. So, it didn’t ultimately matter how many times we heard “Flesh Into Gear”. I never got sick of that song. Who could ever get sick of laughter and happiness?

The list of CKY’s quantifiable merits isn’t an especially long one. Nevertheless, they created something which conjures a surge of jubilant memories that I will never forget, and would never want to. Thus, they will always occupy a warm place in my heart, a place where they are inextricably tied to one of the most joyful epochs of my life: those euphoric and carefree days when my best friend and I had all the time in the world to listen to “Flesh Into Gear” over and over and over again while we were playing Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater.

Okay, are you ready? Here comes the Sinbad part…

In the interest of accuracy, I went online to look up the Pro Skater series and clarify which installment this particular track was used in. As I said, each of the Tony Hawk releases featured a different assortment of songs, and since Andy and I enthusiastically immersed ourselves in all of them as they came out, we heard and re-heard the music on all of those playlists accordingly. I was fairly certain “Flesh Into Gear” was part of Pro Skater 3’s soundtrack, but I wanted to verify that it hadn’t instead appeared in one of the previous games before I started waxing nostalgic here.

What I found out is this: CKY’s song “Flesh Into Gear” did not appear in any edition of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater. The band did indeed supply a track to THPS3, but it was an entirely different cut called “96 Quite Bitter Beings”, which I do not have in my collection because it isn’t even on the same album as “Flesh Into Gear”. This means that for the last however-many years, I have been assigning a reverent sentimental significance to a song that, for all intents and purposes, has absolutely no relevance to the detailed web of memories I have snuggled around it. The crystal-clear recollections I have of guiding a pixilated daredevil through a labyrinth of nosegrind-ready obstacles while “Flesh Into Gear” churned in the background never happened.

Shazaam.

For the record, Andy is still my best friend, and has been for 33 years and counting. Our lives have changed significantly since our Pro Skater era, but our bond has not. Though we are only able to hang out every couple months or so at present, whenever we do, we still play video games. And we still watch South Park. And we still approach ordering pizza like the medley of toppings we select are variables in an intricate and vitally-imperative equation. And we still laugh a whole fucking lot.

Sure, I miss the old days—anyone who doesn’t miss the old days obviously wasn’t doing the old days right. Yet, despite only seeing Andy a handful of times a year and having to drive two hours to Oceanside to do so, I never get so wistful for the way things were that I neglect cherishing the way things are now. I love Andy’s wife, Neisa, and I love having a front-row seat to the incredible and inspiring marriage they have built together. I absolutely adore the two remarkable humans they created, Shae and Nixon, and I consider it the most profound honor of my life to be their Uncle Taylor. There are plenty of things I would change about my own contemporary reality, but there isn’t a single thing I would change about theirs.

Still, every now and then, I do find myself wishing I could revisit that living room in Lakewood, settle down in front of that big-screen TV with Andy, turn on the Playstation, and feel as infinite and invincible and utterly content as I did back when I was a twenty-one year-old pizza conveyance professional whose universe was far too harmonious and secure to generate even an inkling of anxiety about the present, let alone the future. If I did return to that time and place, it wouldn’t be so I could instigate any sweeping amendments or pass on some sage piece of cautionary wisdom to my younger self. No, I think I would let the pages of that chapter turn exactly the way they did. Because, all things considered, spending entire days on end doing something as enchantingly frivolous as playing Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater with your best friend in the world isn’t really all that irresponsible—it’s probably precisely what life is all about. And, you know what, it wouldn’t matter to me one bit which CKY song was on the soundtrack, just as long as Andy and I were having fun while we listened to it.

I hope you enjoyed this piece. Even though it starred Sinbad. If you don’t mind, I’m going to go ahead and roll the credits here on that poignant note. I’ll save the story about my run-in with Hungarian sex traffickers for another time.

July 21, 2018

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