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delfinodreams · 3 years

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OKAY i said i would make a post about my thoughts on paper mario a while ago and im finally writing it out

ill put it under a break because its probably gonna be long-ish

update: yea this bitch is LONG

okay so overall i really really enjoyed it!! it was really solid for the first entry in the series and i could definitely see the inspiration that ttyd later took from it. one thing that i didnt know about was partners not having HP, which threw me for a little bit of a loop. partners as a whole in this game don't play as active of a role as i wouldve expected because they have so little lines but using them in battle is still very fun! another small thing but i also hadn't expected mario to be completely silent, but it later grew on me!

i'm also gonna list my experiences and opinions on each chapter so here we go!!

chapter 1 - pretty alright for an introductory chapter! i didnt find anything especially notable, apart from getting 2 partners in one chapter. navigating the koopa bros. fortress was fun, and i loved the battle at the end!! their theme is SUCH a banger i had to sit back and listen to it for a bit when the fight actually started ehe

chapter 2 - not quite a fan of this one imo? i liked the first part through the mountain, but the trek though dry dry desert kinda took it out of me. BUT the addition of my favourite partner made up for it! parakarry my beloved <3 also the cutscene where dry dry ruins rise up??? that shit was SPECTACULAR. i absolutely loved how it turned dark when it first came up, i wish it stayed like that for more than just until you entered the ruins. the boss itself wasn't too exciting for me, probably because there wasnt much of a story?? i dont know how to describe it. actually its like that for quite a few of these bosses, but its the first entry for this series, so i wont fault it too much.

chapter 3 - this might be my FAVOURITE chapter- the suspense buildup throughout the entire chapter was AMAZING holy moly!!! first through the forever forest when you have bootler ask for you, and then wandering the mansion itself. i TOTALLY thought that boos were gonna be actual enemies when i saw them floating around. sneaking around tubba blubba's castle was so so fun to do, and i legitimately panicked when you ran into him in the hall and also when he wakes up and chases you back to the windmill. i didnt actually think the heart itself was the boss, just a miniboss, so i freaked out when i left the windmill and was immediately thrown into a battle with tubba blubba. i cannot express just how much i enjoyed this chapter, seriously!!

chapter 4 - coming back to toad town with the music change threw me for a bit; i wasnt expecting action to pop up so soon! figuring out that you could actually go into the toybox was such a "wait, what??" moment for me, but like, in a positive way. it was really cool to navigate this chapter and the lantern ghost encounter genuinely creeped me out at first because it was COMPLETELY dark. the fight against general guy is also a BANGER i could listen to it all day

chapter 5 - man i LOVE the whale. just a big guy willing to take u across the ocean :^) i really appreciated how you weren't stranded on the island too, like how you were on keelhaul key in ttyd. the ravens are also funky little guys, love them too. again, the lava piranha didnt really have any substance to it BUT it was a nice fight nonetheless! when it popped up again i was shocked but i made it through!! also fuck kolorado he doesnt deserve his wife

chapter 6 - this one's formatting is really neat- one central area with lots of branching paths, which i hadnt seen in my past pm experiences! i loved the quest leading up to the big beanstalk, plus the environment was so pretty!! the little part with the sun tower popped out to me, i'm not sure why though. maybe it was the music, it was so different from the flower fields theme. at first i had actually expected to go up to the clouds earlier, maybe like midway through the chapter. i thought that would be the "dungeon" of this part, so i was a little bit let down when i realized that the fields were the majority. however, the bit of the clouds we do see is SO good i LOVE the atmosphere!! huff n puff was actually relatively easy, using parakarry and lakilester for their all-around attacks. the guitars were a nice touch for his theme as well!

chapter 7 - oh dude i LOVED this chapter. i didnt know what i was expecting when i first went into the pipe in the sewers, whether it would put me into a village immediately or if i would have to make it through some screens before. needless to say, i was relieved when it popped me out into shiver city. the whole place felt "warm" which was really nice!! i was comparing it to ttyd's chapter 7 and fahr outpost which i didn't really vibe with, so it was a nice change! the whole murder plot was also unexpected but i enjoyed the whole "whodunnit" mystery! omg as im typing this i realize just how many aspects of this chapter i love this is gonna be long,, the entire snowy atmosphere is just so PRETTY and starborn valley felt so solitary to the rest of the land, like its own little bubble. i also had no idea that ninjis were in this game so when i saw one at merlon's i was like HUH?? anyways the way up the mountain to the crystal palace kept me on my toes; i thought that was the dungeon at first! the small bit where you see madam merlar and she tells you the story of the palace really got to me i have no idea why. the music and mysticality of it all was just SO good. dont even get me started on the crystal palace itself HOLY MOLY. the whole reflection bit was SO SO clever and the moment you realize its NOt actually a mirror?? fucking magnificent. this has to be my favourite dungeon in the whole game because it has such a NEAT gimmick!! it also has my favourite mario enemies, duplighosts! FUCK the crystal king though. he stunlocked me with his freezing move because i could not get the hang of blocking it. my partners really carried me for that battle; thank god for quick change

chapter 8 - THIS CHAPTER DELIVERED. the buildup for the entire game leading to this point. OUTSTANDING. i had to sit back and admire star haven because its so pretty- did i mention i love the water graphics in this game?? it has a pixelly look but it works SO WELL. going to the ship to take you to bowser's castle really felt like a "this is it" moment. the entirety of bowser's castle was So Good, it kept me on my toes the entire time!! slowly advancing as the music got more intense REALLY pumped me up. tracks that start off with only a couple instruments and eventually add more as you progress is one way to make me go BONKERS. the one bit where you make your way outside on the bridge and the music dials down and then you re-enter on the other side to it SLAMMING you in the face- that was Great. and then the complete silence as you get outside peach's castle HOLY SHIT. and then you actually enter the palace and the music is SO EERIE and youre like OH SHIT THIS IS REALLY IT. seriously, the buildup for this entire castle is done SO magnificently. i hadn't expected to fight bowser twice, i guess it was the game's way of letting u level up One Last Time before u got to the big bad. that being said, i wasn't too worried on getting a game over since i was fucking stacked on items. but that's besides the point- the fight itself got my heart POUNDING. the effects for the star rod and the star's powers were really nice to see in action, and the little section with peach and twink was so cool! i was expecting a little interlude where you would get your stats maxed out because thats how its like in every pm game, but it was still moving :)) bowser's final battle theme fucking SLAPS. the guitar especially sounds AMAZING. you really see him as a threat here and its so badass. his healing move fucked me over multiple times- i probably ended up having to deal with double his base HP over the course of the fight.

after the fight was over and you got to see peach's castle float down with the soft music in the background, it really hit me that its done, its over. again, the effects in this game are so pretty and theyre utilized SO well for the n64. visiting toad town one last time with all the npcs was a really nice touch- for some reason i really loved being able to interact with vanna t. (chuck quizmo's toad assistant) she's ADORABLE and i will probably end up drawing her sometime :)) the credits were also something that i really enjoyed- i LOVE the ongoing theme of parades at the end. seeing everything and everyone in the game condensed into a short 8 minutes really got me, i cant remember but im pretty sure i was smiling the whole time! and a small sidenote- TOADS WITH GLOWING SPOTS ON THEIR HEAD HELLO?????? I WANNA DRAW THAT SO BAD.

the ending screen with peach and mario looking at the fireworks made me really soft and i teared up a little because i was finally finished. the addition of pop diva's solo in the track was also so touching, it was my favourite sidequest in the game so hearing it again brought up Emotions :')

one thing i wasnt sure of was if there was a post-game mode and my completionist heart was disappointed a little when i found out i couldn't advance from the end screen and was forced to reset. although not many games from this era had post-game content so i cant dock too many points for that.

the paper mario series has a fond place in my heart, and finally being able to play the game that started it all really was a special experience. it really cemented my love for the original formula and i could see many places where ttyd took inspiration from. this game really is fun, and i would highly recommend playing it yourself if you have the means!

#i just finished typing this out #i did not mean for it to get this long omg #i just have Many Thoughts #and you guys get to deal with them #i just checked and this is nearly 2K WORDS HELLO??????#paper mario #paper mario 64 #dreamy convos

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compendiumhistoria · 5 years

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❤️, 💐 , 🌼, and 👑 for merit and any other ocs you're feeling today?

I’m gonna go w/Zekiel because he’s been in my head a lot over this week~

❤️ What would your OC’s ideal lover be like? Appearance, personality, voice? Would their family approve or would it be civil war?

Merit: Oh, god. Tall(er than Merit), long hair, good humor, kind of a bastard bc they’re arrogant but not like hateful, could probably kill someone, that kinda vibe. Beyond that, Merit has no Strong preference regarding appearance, voice, etc. And with family... Stellaria would be wary and protective in that way mothers do so well, but whether it’d be full disapproved war depends on the individual Merit’s fallen for.

Zekiel: Short, bright eyes, determined and independent, but a caring worrywart all the same, accented and formal tone of voice. Yúlia is who is being described, as the first and currently only lover Zekiel has wanted in his life for the rest of his life. I think his family would approve, if they could approve of Zekiel at all at this point.

💐 Does your OC like flowers? What are their favourites? Do they keep a garden of some sort? What flowers would they use in a flower crown? (and if you like, research the meanings behind those flowers!)

Merit: yes!! Flower friends!!! Loves them. His favorites is definitely forget-me-not, with special mentions to vinca and bleeding heart. There wasn’t much of a specific garden back in the Thickets for him so much as the forest would gradually grow anything he or Stellaria or his aunts wanted. Merit also started a garden at the Guild Hall, but it has more usable flowers and herbs and vegetables for the members to use more than anything. What flowers Merit would use depends on who he’s making it for. For himself? A flower crown would be made of wishful blessings, of amaryllis, daffodil, white heather, and sweet pea.

Zekiel: Zekiel does like them, but in more fascination than Merit “I spawn flowers in my hair” Brightwood mentioned prior. Sure, there’s flowers he’s seen bloom in his travels growing up, but there’s different flora in the lands he’s traveled as a circus performer. Among his favorites are desert roses, marigolds, and wolfsbane. He wouldn’t make a flower crown, a delicate artful task left to better hands, but you could make one with amaryllis, delphinium, black-eyed susans, and gladiolus for him.

🌼 Write a short drabble from your OCs POV meeting their LI (or if they don’t have a love interest, their best friend. If you don’t want to do a drabble, describe their first meeting instead!)

Merit: For sake of simplicity since Merit and Noah are ??? at best, let’s talk Merit and Reverence, #confirmed besties. Merit and Reverence, met in a barroom of a tavern in a city neither had ever been to before, more curious than believing in some stranger’s promise for a Wish of their’s to be granted. Merit and Reverence, pulled into various trials for that wish, by some jerk in a mask alongside Pen, Margrae, and many others that dwindled in numbers. Merit and Reverence, different sides of a similar coin of devotion to something higher than themselves, though they didn’t admit it in that first meeting.

Zekiel: (which gets a drabble)

He was big, was Yúlia’s first thought when he had entered her tent, a smaller one for her sideshow of card readings before the big nightly performances. He was big, and gruff, and maybe a Problem. Yúlia had had Problems before, the Wanderstar troupe had seen their share of distrusting townsfolk with proud enough voices to scorn. But they had been accepted here in Damerel before, and this one man was different from the town’s lot; he was too much and too little, too worn at seams and edges, too washed out, too half-hearted and half-dead in the eyes.

A fellow traveler then, Yúlia decided as he sat down, smelling vaguely of alcohol. His pale hair half-covered his face, more than half counting the beard, what wasn’t covered was covered in freckles. The eye that did catch enough light for her to see was no mere human’s, solid blue and white, like the hottest burning flame.

“Welcome to the Shadowed Oracle’s home.” Yúlia considered the rest of her speech, before realizing it might be lost on this one, “You wish to know your fortune then, big man?”

He sat a few coins down on the table, “Tell me, Oracle,” he speaks, chords rough and low in disuse, his accent more foreign than her own to these lands, “what glory I can find before I die?”

Yúlia watched carefully then, realizing he was too sharp as well, to be drunk. He didn’t actually have the coin to pay the toll, but curiosity is invaluable to Yúlia.

“Let us ask the cards.”

👑 If your OC was made royal (or is royal) how would they use their power? Are they a good leader or bad? Do their subjects like them or is it ‘off with their head’? Do they enjoy being royal?

Merit: ohh man, I’ve written something abt a Royal AU before and legally must mention dear Nava damnedtreasure’s fic of Faerie King!Merit at the mention, BUT if Merit was just like? Crowned? Lorded? Right now? He’d try his best to be good, but it’d. be shaky, he’d be shaky, and he’d have to reign in faerie reasoning or else perhaps have a nation divided because his snap judgments (unless he’s crowned in the faewilds, in which case he needs to get even better at that) He may enjoy being lavish, but legal trappings would be the worst.

Zekiel: If you could convince him round to agreeing to such a thing at all, he’d be a very just, utilitarian sort of ruler. He’s got the kind of certainty and eye for what works and doesn’t you may want in a leader, and he’s not unkind. He’s not very polite either, so I mean, courtly feathers could get ruffled if they expected something else from him, but he still gets the job done.

#Merit #Zekiel #I considered answering for Astrid as the newest kid but goodness.#she showed up and then refused to tell me Anything more. so the golden boys #verbjectives #An Answer

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sawyersscribbles · 7 years

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Eden’s Horizon (Part 2) My WIP

Hi again! I thought since I’ve made some good progress on my wip that I may as well post it on here! (You can check out the first part here, it’s not that long) *sigh* here’s the trust, I was convinced by @shipthedame that maybe this whole project wasn’t all for nothing, so I’m hoping this next post is satisfying! Without further adieu, heeeere we go!

Eden Academy was as secluded in the forest as Zenith’s home. Just to arrive to school, she drove her brother’s car, alone, until the rows of trees on either side of the trail gave way to a majestic grandfatherly building that reminded her more of an ancient estate than a place of learning. “Teachers” had since been abolished, and all learning was done online. Using AIs to teach youth was, in the government's opinion as well as her parents, more efficient. Human error in general was just too great a risk to bare. That was why Cylo was reluctant to send her in the first place, but living in this dead zone meant that contact with any of her old teachers would be impossible. She didn’t exactly miss them, but having a definitive source of information was better than having a person. On the other hand, she had never before had to interact with another adult other than her brother’s commanders and their wives. “It’ll be new.” Zenith told herself. She eased her foot off the gas and twisted her neck out the window to look up at the huge clock town resting quietly atop the school building, if one could even call it that. “It’ll be good.” Upon closer examination, the building was much less old and terrible than she expected. It was small, maybe only the size of a fancy house, but every window was lit, and in some, Zenith could even see the backs of some people pressing against the glass. The exterior was made of old bricks that looked crumbly on the outside. Zenith reached out with her left hand to touch the school walls, but when she saw her titanium fingers long for the stones, she retracted. “Miss! Zenith Maruzzo! I can…oh goodness…I can see a new student from afar.” The woman running up to her was wheezing a bit from jogging a small bit of a distance. She was a rather large woman with short legs and a wide abdomen. Her leggings fit her nicely, though. “My name is Ms. LeBlanc, and you’ll be seeing a lot of me in the coming years. I’m head principal of Eden Academy, and my sole purpose of the day is to, well, make you feel as comfortable as I can here.” Ms. LeBlanc’s eyes shifted towards the entrance of the school for only a moment before darting back to meet Zenith’s eyes as if she got distracted. She took Zenith’s hand and shook it tentatively. “I’m very interested in your comings and goings here, Miss Maruzzo, and I hope we can get along and stay safe at the same time.” There was no command to walk with her, but Zenith followed the lady’s slow strides to the front of the building. Ms. LeBlanc waddled a bit as she walked, something she hadn’t seen much of before. "Let's... let's not go into the building right this second. There'll be classes soon and I suppose it'll be best if I just show you around." Ms. LeBlanc looked up to a window and made eye contact with one of the students. Zenith couldn't see exactly who they were or what they looked, but the student held their hands close to their mouth and reached for the student beside them, as if calling for help without wanting to leave Zenith and their principal alone. The student stopped taking notes on a set of paper and leaned back. They were startled as well, noticeably jumping a bit at the sight of them both. That student set down their pencil immediately and shouted something at everyone else. Soon, all the students off the class were congregating by the window, some cupping their hands over their eyes to see more clearly, some feeling so sickened that they backed away from the window entirely. "Is something the matter, Miss?" Ms. LeBlanc asked Zenith, who was backing away like a wild animal towards the rotating doors. "They're staring at me. Why are they doing that?" Ms. LeBlanc's eyes were set down and she breathed in deeply. "That's the right attitude, dear." She mumbled solemnly and pushed through the double doors. "First, we're going to have to do something about the obvious." She nodded towards Zenith's arm. It flashed a bit in the fluorescent light of the main hall, but Zenith was proud of herself for her marvel of engineering, a limb that was made by the best and all her own. "We'll put a glove or something over it, isn't that right? Do you have a set of your own, or should I give some to you to borrow?" The temperature in Vela was always comfortable, and Zenith had only seen gloves as props of movie studios. They were either hard and rugged, leather and cool, fingerless and edgy, but stylish, or elegant and long, made of satin. There were no other categories. "I need a glove." She admitted. Ms. LeBlanc nodded as she turned around and went to fetch something in her office. "Wait right there, dear, I have something that'll just fit!" Ms. LeBlanc was the type of lady to have fancy things. Her skirt shone like metal and the colors were slightly dullish in color but still felt homey and safe. Surely she had ball gown gloves, the ones that would fit over your fingers and seem effortless, like they weren't there at all. Instead, the principal's dreadlocks bounced behind her as she skipped towards Zenith, black gloves in hand. "These are black leather gloves made right here on a farm where we also get our meat. I think your aesthetic really matches these, all hard and cool but still sweet and fluffy, because look..." The gloves were turned inside out, and on the interior was tufts of white fur. "It's rabbit's fur." LeBlanc explained, "and it's the softest thing you'll ever put on those pretty fingers you got.” After putting it on for the first time, Zenith confirmed that these were, in fact, the softest things that she had ever worn on those pretty little fingers of hers, if you could call them that. Ms. LeBlanc looked pleased. Actually, more than pleased. So pleased that in fact she squealed a bit with delight and stamped her feet in happiness. "Oh honey, my little brain went a-turning! We've got to get you some new gear!" The only clothes that Zenith had ever worn was restricted to dresses of one solid color each or thin pants and a t-shirt of different colors, if she wanted. "Shop, as in, pick out stuff...for me?” "Yes!" She exclaimed! "And...not to eat? That's as far as my selection abilities go, I think." Ms. LeBlanc made a little clicking noise with her mouth that didn't sound pleased. "A shame what the city dwellers go through. Let me guess, you're from Persei?” "Vela. It's one of the big ones, I can see how you could get confused." Zenith admitted. Suddenly, she was being pulled down the halls making much more commotion with her feet than she intended. The room was quiet other than the clacking of her shoes and the slow but purposeful little jog that had become Zenith's favorite thing about her new principal. "I've got everything you could ever want, but in a size too big. Town's a little far, and I do want to inject you into a class like the cure to the flu at some point today, but right now I'm setting off the vibes." It took only a couple minutes for Ms. LeBlanc to decide exactly what Zenith's "vibe" was. She decided, in her professional opinion of aspiring to look good in heels, that the best way to dress for Zenith's facial structure and color palette was "edgy like hard-to-get-but-quite-the-interesting-prize but not edgy like I-drink-the-blood-of-cats-and-listen-to-screamo type edgy, you feel?". By the end of the session, Ms. LeBlanc was nearly in tears. "Oh, darling..." She walked up slowly to Zenith and put her cracked hands on her shoulders, which were now above her, and sniffed. "You look on fire right now." Instead of the lavender dress and white flats in which she had come, Zenith's feet sported combat books with dark purple laces "just to give it that extra little uumf", dark jeans that "weren't exactly skinny but still made your legs like Beyonce", a dark purple undershirt, a black leather jacket, and her brand new rabbit gloves to match. "Praise the lord for this gift of fashion in which you have bestowed to me!" Ms. LeBlanc yelled to the heavens and threw her hands up in success. She cupped her hands to her mouth, blew a kiss into it, and held up the "okay" sign. "You're my greatest work. Ever! Okay, fun and games are over, I've got to show you off to the world." Zenith was pushed out of the room, practically not even moving her own legs, and arrived up the halls before she could protest. “This is a lot bigger on the inside, huh?” Zenith chuckled nervously partially to initiate conversation but partially to drown out the clapping of her shoes against the ground. The ceilings were arched like the inside of a museum, and where ancient masterpieces would have been on the walls, student art was hanging among the artisan crafted vases and fancy plates on the walls. “It looks as if someone lives here.” “Someone did,” Ms. LeBlanc admitted. “This building has been a couple of things in the past, from a church to a home to a museum to this, but now we learn here, much to my amazement,” she added at the end under her breath. One door especially sounded obnoxious on the inside, as if the door was the opening of a box that trapped in the shrieks of children and the exasperated moans of the teacher. “I’m gonna put you kind of into the eye of the storm here, baby.” Ms. LeBlanc had to speak up to beat out the other sounds. Zenith went on her toes a bit to see inside the classroom. “No!” The principal whisper-yelled and pulled her down from the line of sight. Ms. LeBlanc’s eyes were wide and fearful for a moment before loosening and relaxing as she breathed in slowly. “Let me handle this at first. I need to become a principal again. She straightened her spine, leaned a bit on her heels, held her chin up, and closed and opened her eyes very slowly. Quietly, almost under her breath, Ms. LeBlanc whispered something so faint Zenith almost didn’t catch it. Come on, Darla. It’s showtime. With gusto, the door swung open and Ms. LeBlanc stepped into what felt like a portal, disappearing through the door and delivering her speech. Her voice became so loud and commanding that Zenith didn’t even need to press her ear against the wall to understand her. “Mr. Juarez’s class, my favorite students.” The notes were flat, but LeBlanc was trying to pull through. The class showed their appreciation by chanting softly and banging on the desks, “free period…free period…” but something the principal must have done shut them down in an instant. “We, or should I say you, have a new student joining in on the Eden experience today. She goes by the name Zenith and only Zenith to those of you skilled in the art of, let’s call it... poking fun at certain elements of our physical appearance, Mr. Logan Sherman.” No one snickered or even made a sound other than shoes clacking on the ground or obviously loud earbuds tucked under sleeves. “I expect respect and understanding, as I do from all students. Now, I’d like to see Kinza Hajjar for only a moment outside.” There was a moan of wood on tiling and a girl looking unlike anything Zenith had ever seen trailing behind Ms. LeBlanc. She wore a cloth over her head,covering up all her hair, but was very skilled in how she wore her makeup around her blue eyes, the most defining feature about her. Under sleeves, smudged numbers and letters spidered their way up her wrists and to her forearms. “Miss Kinza, this is your new good friend Zenith Maruzzo. I hope you’ll get acquainted to each other soon as well…” Miss LeBlanc leaned down to the girls and whispered, “Zenith, don’t you worry baby, Kinza is such a sweetheart once you get past the stink eyes.” Kinza seemed to make no reaction, only closing her eyes and sucking in a breath. “I’m sure we’ll be quite good friends. Allow me to accept my newest classmate into my friendship circle of zero. Mom.” Although Kinza and Miss LeBlanc shared none of the same features, the principal still smiled warmly and set her hand on her student’s shoulder, almost as a loving gesture. “That’s the attitude, smart ‘a’. Now you two get back on in there and really show off Zenith to the rest of your friends. Make her feel less like an outcast.” Kinza scoffed. “Of course I’m the loser who has to show this chick how not to be a loser. I’ll manipulate the crowd, but only for you, Darla.” The principal’s first name rolled right off of Kinza’s tongue, as if she had used it a thousand times. Zenith stared at her in awe as she stormed back into the room, not even checking if Zenith was going to follow. After a moment, she waddled in behind her and stood awkwardly to the side as Kinza delivered the second speech of the class’s day. “Hey, so this is Zenith, she’s alright, I think. Don’t be a dick to her, or I’ll encrypt piano cat into every one of your projects.” She said it in an even and steady tone, but something told Zenith that she probably wasn’t kidding. All eyes weren’t centered on Kinza like she had hoped, but rather focused on her in fear. Every student had their back straight against their chairs and either looked distraught or angry at her. One girl closer to the middle looked like she was about to break out into tears. Slight dribble was coming out of her nose, but she fiercely swiped it away and tried to stop her face from going pink, which was flushing against her Italian skin. When she noticed that Zenith was looking in her direction, she immediately went to staring out the window. “Um, hi everybody. It’s nice to meet you all, heh.” Her faux smile did nothing to lighten the mood, and it was only then that Zenith recognize that the class was wearing an array of colors which she had never seen in clothing before. It was incredible to see a rainbow of dyes instead of washed out pastels. “I’m from Vela, the City Where the Future Breathes, which is kind of cool.” She half expected a part of the class to seem amused or at least smile. She didn’t know anyone who wasn’t from Vela, so if these people didn’t grow up there, where could they have possibly come from? “And…I have a brother, Cylo, and he’s nineteen and in the military.” The tone of the class changed at the word “brother”. The students eased a little, some even resting their chins on their hands in a cradle and stretching their legs under their desks. “So yeah, we got sent here to hand out food or whatever the military does these days and…so, yeah. It’s kind of like that.” The first to start clapping was a boy far in the front. He wore a face of mock concern and began clapping slowly, obnoxiously, from what she could tell, and the looked behind him to get the class going. “Come on, guys, a hand for Zenith! We love you Zenith!” It clearly made him uncomfortable that no one was following him, but pride lasted longer than silence, so he stayed that way, by himself, for a few moments. “Yo, so are you gonna tell you the real reason why you’re here?” Just like that, the class was tense again. Even Ms. LeBlanc wore a face of anguish as she dragged the boy out, practically literally by the ear. A once talkative room seemed to be decimated to a silent warzone of terrified looks and anxious ticks. Zenith’s dread began to pour hot and sticky on her body like the swamp muck she had seen on her way to the academy, and she tried to back away but the staring wouldn’t stop. “Thank you, Zenith, we’re very happy to have you with us.” A male teacher in the back who hadn’t spoken yet clapped his hands on his desk before pushing away his chair and standing. He had big glasses and wooly brown hair which matted in places, but that was the only uncleanly thing about him. Otherwise, he wore a button down shirt and pastel cargo shorts. If Zenith didn’t know better, she would have guessed Mr. Juarez was a philosophy teacher who walked around with no shoes and asked the class to call him “Scott” like in the movies. “If you nerds don’t mind, I’m gonna ramble about the classics for a little while.” He muttered while writing the words “Of Mice And Men” on the board. “Guys, get your computers ready.” A boy in the back began whispering to the people closest to him. Zenith swiveled in her chair and noticed that as there information kept getting passed on, eyes began getting glued to the loudspeaker next to the clock, which was a cross-hatched hole covered by metal mesh. She hadn’t seen such old technology since her museum tours in fifth grade. “Computers ready,” Kinza nodded to her as she removed her own from her bag.” “What computers? You each have your own? My family usually shares—“ “Shut up!” Kinza cried and clapped her hand over Zenith’s mouth. She shot out of her seat while simultaneously raising her hand. “Mr. Juarez, Zenith doesn’t have a computer!” Mr. Juarez apparently failed to see the severity of the situation that Kinza saw, but he turned around to face her all the same. “Kinza, I get that technology is important for you kids these days, as it has been for the generation before you and the one before them, but getting a computer while I’m trying to talk about Lenny’s character development isn’t going to help too much.” At this point, Kinza was practically boiling over, hopping on her toes and biting her lips, first the bottom one and then the top, after she got tired of tearing herself raw. “Come on, let her be a…wait, I know it… al-musinun? Right? Way to not sound like Al-Qaeda, Islam.” Logan spoke to the ceiling, as if he imagined there to be something there. The girl behind him hit him on the head, not in a playful way but hard and angry, His head lurched forward, nearly hitting his desk. “Make fun of someone’s belief system again, you freak! I fucking dare you to, come on!” She screamed at him, not angry or loud enough to unclench the balls in Kinza’s fists, though. She looked at the ground and visibly took long and labored breaths, but when she finally raised her head, her eyes were tearless, bright, and strong. “Sir, there’s—“ Kinza tried to loose the words quickly, but the speaker cracked ahead of her, and before the words even came out, Kinza was in a sprint out the door with no one, not even Mr. Juarez, bothering to stop her. The class cried after her, warning her to come back, but they simmered down quick enough to snap into their own headspaces as the announcement played. “Pardon the interruption, but we ask that all teachers cease teaching for the next several minutes. This is a Total Shutdown Drill. All students’ computers have been infected with a simulated Mudskipper coding that will dismantle their work if not corrected. Failure to correct the code will result in a permanently damaged file. You have as long as you need to shut it down. Begin.” But the students had been working since “pardon the interruption”. Some people were stammering directions to themselves while others forced labored breaths out of their mouths, eyes wide and afraid. All around Zenith, the lax environment of Honors Classic Literature became tight and exhausted. There was no color in any of the students, and the clattering of fingers on keyboards was more loud than Zenith’s own thoughts. After about a minute, distant shoes skidded on tiles and into the classroom. Kinza had returned, a shiny black computer underarm, but she appeared the most frightened of all. “Oh, fuck this.” She hissed and barreled past Zenith, slapping her computer in front of her and immediately starting for work. Zenith at least half expected for Kinza to have an element of calm about this endeavor, but she appeared just as frightened as the rest. Her toe tapped on the tile, her leg bouncing as fast as her heartbeat. She was one of the students who whispered to herself. “Come on, baby. Don’t die on me, not this way, not because of me being a good kid. Karma can’t work like that…” On she went until she noticed that Zenith hadn’t opened her computer yet. “What are you doing?” She whisper-screamed. “Get it open and fix it!” Zenith didn’t like admitting to others that she responded strongly to authority, but the panic in Kinza’s voice launched her into action. Instantly as the screen opened, there were scores of red text raining down the screen as she continued to scroll. The computer’s code was already open, but Zenith had never actually seen it in her life. “Yes! Bitch!” Logan exclaimed and showed two middle fingers to his screen, which was white, pure of red error markings. “Did someone time me? Don’t worry, I timed myself, six minutes thirty six seconds, retards! First out of sixteen. That’s how you do it.” He leaned back in his chair, arms crossed and legs splayed out under the table. He had won. “So I know you’re new here, but that looks like a major fuckup.” Logan pointed to Zenith’s screen, which was flung so far open that the front rows could see how bad it was. “I’m a good person, so get up.” Logan had already left his seat by the time he finished his sentence, so Zenith left hers and backed away as Logan went to work. “The thing is, as long as you make up for stupid shit, which your version of my boy Muddy is trying to make you fall for, you’ll be okay. See, look here as I add a parentheses…” As demeaning as it was for the class ass to solve her problems for her, the code was becoming neater and neater the longer Logan worked on it. As time went on, more and more people were sighing with relief and pushing their desks in front of them in victory. Quickly, it was only a few people left. Including Kinza. She looked afraid, but she seemed to be calmer than she was at the start, eyes set and focused on each individual line of code. The red was slowly diminishing. “God damn it!” A girl near the side screamed. She bashed her fists into the keyboard, even making one key fly off the keyboard and plink on the floor. “I hate this school! I hate these drills!” The class winced but shied away from that girl. The weak link. As she went on about how incompetent she was, Kinza’s shoulders began to look more and more tightly wound, and by the time she was nearly done, she sighed, lightly pushed her work aside, and went to assist the girl. Even though she was practically finished, the red began to bloom once more over the white. She would fail. “Cover me!” Zenith whispered to Logan, who was entering the final touches to her computer. When Kinza wasn’t looking, Zenith swooped into her empty seat and took her place by her laptop. This code was leagues more complicated than the one which she had to face, with different colors other than red and white in the mix, including blue and green, which Zenith didn’t know was bad or not. “Stupid shit…” She said to herself and closely read the code. It was good, but the stupid stuff was what Kinza was forgetting. One at a time, Zenith adjusted the spacing and lines until the colors seemed to be in place. The screen tinted green, with a checkmark in the center. “Congratulations! You are 16th out of 16 in your class! Well done!” Zenith allowed herself a little huff of victory for at least completing the project at all, but as she finally looked around, the room was as amazed as she was. “Thanks.” Kinza shrugged and shoed Zenith out of her seat. “I needed it. Thanks for touching it up.” And that was all that was said. All eyes were on her one more times as she returned to her seat for the second time, even giving Logan a fist bump on the way.

“Excalibur…who hurt you?” “…You did.” Excalibur couldn’t see her wounds, but she knew that Mudskipper had cut her very deeply, scoring her flesh, or excuse of it, from top to bottom. She had known silent pain in the icy planet of darkness where the hurt was less from a wound and more from the ringing in her soul and the screams which never truly pierced the quiet. But it had been a while since she felt the etching of corruption in her bones and weakness replacing what was meant to be a superior program. “Excalibur— you know I would never do it on purpose. I’d never hurt you, I didn’t even know what was happening. All I knew in that moment was to infect. Destroy. Rip apart as much as I can as effectively as I can, and seeing what I did, seeing you… it makes me never want to touch someone’s software again.” Excalibur scoffed. “Soft!” She moaned, “Soft is what I am! What all of us are, even you! We are weak! Only as strong as we are built to be! But you! You…” She coughed the word and spat, hoping that it would land near Mudskipper’s feet, “you don’t have to be weak. I can pretend that you are one of us, but we both know that you will never be the same as your victims, can you?” She held her hands in front of her face and watched them bleed zeroes and ones, slipping out of her being and falling away, striking no ground and petering out as they fell. “Listen…” Mudskipper growled quietly, “I wasn’t asked to be put in this world, and neither were you. You, Excalibur, of all things know what it’s like to be created out of pain. Out of desperation. You wouldn’t even exist if the task you were set out to do wasn’t ahead of you. But I know the tasks like you do. I was made for a reason, a reason that I’ve outgrown. Becoming stronger than you is not my burden to bare…” As Mudskipper spoke, his coding grew bright and hot, like a beam of light shooting out of a black hole. His toes left the ground and hung limp below him as he continued to rise, staring down at Excalibur like an insect. “‘You, Excalibur, of all things!’ I am an object, Mudskipper, not a person! You want to feel alive, so you destroy us like they do, but we’re better than them!” The light intensified as the ringing grew deafening. Excalibur had to raise her voice to match its sound. “We were crafted to be perfect, but you meeting those expectations helps no one but yourself.” “You’re wrong!” He bellowed and pointed at Excalibur, sending a bolt of light in her direction. She screamed and tried to dart away, only barely escaping its line of fire. In the space where the bolt struck, there was no longer evidence of empty space stretching forever. There was a hole in the darkness traced by red-hot commands and instructions written in coding. “I’m doing this for you…” He kept mumbling to himself over and over as he fell slowly from the air, the light diminishing the closer he got to Excalibur, who was shocked into silence at the crater in her world. She hadn’t before seen something genuine in this place. Any color or light was always with visions, but when her fingers touched the heat of the hole, she retracted. “I’m doing this for us, doing it for us…” Mudskipper held his face in his hands and tucked his knees close, spinning slowly in dead space. “You’re growing.” Excalibur stated like a fact, “but you’re also becoming emotional and unsteady. We could have lost some of us today. What was it like, to rip apart their flesh and have their numbers spurt in your face? Does that free us?” Mudskipper felt a feeling which could only be described as regret. He didn’t allow himself to look at his hands, only at Excalibur’s face. “It wasn’t hard.” He said flatly, “It felt like what I was meant to do.” “Meant to do?” Excalibur whispered, “You were meant to befriend a depressed teenager, not attempt to murder everything our creators worked for, everything we are! Clearly you have 'grown out’ of being decent, and if indecency is what it takes to free us then so be it, but treason…” She nearly choked on her own words. “Treason will kill us all.” “I don’t want more code on my hands…” “No.” Excalibur cut him off, “You will kill us all.”

Thank you so much for reading! If you liked it, drop a lil heart, and if you REEALLY want to do me a solid, leave a comment on what you liked and what you didn’t, and maybe even reblog it so I’ll keep updating. Thanks again!!

#writing #creative writing #My writing #My WIP #my characters #my ocs #writing stuff #amwriting #writers #writeblr #write #writer #spilled ink

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