#(also all of this is coming from the Dandy in our system and his memories of Delilah so it’s very personal)

[localfinnmain]

Started as a vent thing but it got a bit out of hand lol; enjoy some Dandy angst I guess?

[skyedancer-system]

It’s weird, missing someone who’s here in the system with me. We spend almost all our time out of front together, but because of the weird memory barriers between headspace and front it feels like I haven’t seen him in ages whenever I come out here without him.

Listening to his favorite song helps ground me a lot. Clair de Lune is what he always played on the radio in his little store, and I heard it from his room a lot too when I walked by. He always turned the music off when I went in though so we could just talk. I appreciated it a lot.

Even when we both almost lost ourselves to the Ichor, each other and our other partners (who were also struggling against the Ichor’s effects) being the only grounding things left, that song still followed him wherever he went, almost like magic with the way it played from the speakers whenever he went in a room with them installed. It only ever happened when he was in his Twisted form; I never bothered to try understanding how it worked. I just appreciated having him and the music by my side, even if I couldn’t fully remember myself, or anyone else.

It’s relieving having my full memory back again, and being able to mostly control the Ichor’s effects. I can tell he feels the same, though he’s less comfortable in his Twisted form than I am. I understand why; it warped and changed us both into something near unrecognizable, something dangerous. One of the others in here, Uzi, helped me get more comfortable. I hope I can do the same for him. We’ve been making progress, thankfully.

If we didn’t have a roommate, I’d let the song play on loop from my phone as I fell asleep. I still could with headphones, but sleeping with them isn’t the most comfortable. I’ll listen to it a few more times before I go out for the night; the edgy hedgehog in co-front will just have to deal with it.

If you see this later, good night Dandy. Love you <3

-🍓Sprout (He/It)

[havetheavengersdoneanythingwrong]

An Interlude — A Pleasant Rest

In order to brighten up the day of a Master on the day before a Rayshift, Ritsuka decides to interview various Servants on their time resting together.

The audio crackles, as they turn it over in their hand -- listening to it one last time.

—

**Hey, Cadence!

I’ve recorded this audiolog for you on the day of the Rayshift. Or… Well, it was meant to, but I’m doing it the day after! Surprise!

I know this is… troubling, to you. A lot of it is. For all of us.

But y’know? I wanted to see if I could gather some opinions on the little things you do. Might make you smile. And I always like having blackmail!

—

—

I mean… Everything that’s happening right now… It ain’t right.

You know that as well as I do.

But you know? I think things’ll turn out just dandy.

I mean, these lot all seem to like you plenty, and that’s half the battle. You’re a weird guy, you know that?

Like, c’mon. Of all the people in the world to be cool with, you made goodie-goodie with fucking Avengers. And not even just the cool ones who won’t kill you if you look at ‘em funny, you also made friends of the ones who would!

With friends like that, who needs enemies, right?

…

…Listen, I know shit’s rough. I know I’ve been a prick most of the time.

But I know you’ll get through this okay. You’ve got a knack for getting yourself out of things, you know that? Can’t say the same for me. I’m an unlucky bastard. But you?

You’ll be okay, I think.

You’ve got all of us behind you, man. All of us. Even when you’re resting to prepare for this latest step, you’ve got all of us.

I know you don’t like to call yourself brave, but I think you’ve earned it. So step out there, smile, and start running. Even if your legs are shaking like an earthquake’s running through them, keep running and keep succeeding.

That’s what you do best. You keep on running. Running away, running forward, sideways, even upwards and downwards too. But no matter what, you're getting somewhere.

So keep that in mind. And don't forget it.

--

...The audio crackles, slightly. A calm, composed voice can be heard.

...Husband.

...I doubted you, initially. At a glance, you seemed the fool -- one who would run away at the slightest hint of danger.

And yet -- you are here. Having conquered what came before you -- and now facing down the unknown. Perhaps not with a smile -- but that should not be expected.

I... am well aware of what your tale holds. And because of this -- because of who you are -- I look back at the 'me' of my first moments here, and laugh at my blindness.

You were well and truly worthy this entire time.

...When this is over... Come with me. We will find a Britain, and rule it as it should always have been. There's a new chance for me -- for you. For us.

...I look forward to our journey.

--

...The audio crackles. A sharp, cocky voice can be heard.

...Master. You're a fool. Always have been.

I saw you in Orleans, standing your guard against Jeanne. Alone, no less. Crying your damned eyes out, as she sneered at you.

I saw you in America, facing down Cu, gritting your teeth and trying to move forward even despite all your quivering.

I saw you in Camelot, lashing out against that god -- even while utterly terrified, still cussing out Rhongomyniad themselves.

I saw you against me, and the little bits of kindness you showed me before Tiamat arrived -- I saw you against her, aided and cursed by every power on that Singularity, but still not even daring to run.

You've seen the end of the world and never gotten used to it. Not even a single time.

You still end up crying over the people who fell.

You're an idiot. Allying with the many who want the world destroyed, changed, burnt into their image. I will never stop wanting the world to be ended -- I will never stop my path to vengeance.

But I want you there with me.

The choice is yours, Master. I'm sure our dear ruler can make her own Britain in the ruins -- but we have to make those ruins first.

--

The audio crackles. A light, almost seductive voice can be heard.

Dear, I can't say I've been here too long.

Only enough to watch you work on Chaldea's systems. Only enough to see you handle those silly little Singularities.

Enough to see BB try to prevent this day from happening.

But we're here. And I've seen enough of you to know you have something in there.

Everyone else here -- you've treated kindly. Truly. You'd passed the many tests I put up for you, without even realizing they were there.

So for that, I will be here. For you. Because, for what comes ahead -- you might need it.

And because of everything that came before this, you deserve it.

--

The audio crackles. A gentle, yet edged voice can be heard.

...My lord.

I have seen you... from the beginning, to the end.

Your progress. Your failures. Every tear you've shed, and every smile you've worn.

I have been here, somehow, for all of it. Whether my mask lay on my face, or at my side -- I have watched you all this time.

I am proud of you.

As a destroyer of the Genji. As a Master. As a human.

You are not a hero -- a hero is out of reach, unable to truly know the common man.

A hero cannot do what you have. A hero forgets the atrocities -- grows blind to the moral dilemmas that plague their every move.

You have not. You have remained with that same smile on your face when I gaze to you -- and you have remained, unflinching despite it all in the face of danger you never wanted to witness to begin with.

Gorgon may want to destroy the world -- Morgan, to rule a portion of it. Tlazolteotl may be happy merely remaining at your side.

As for me?

...I will protect you. From the Genji -- from all who bear their methods, no matter what.

That is my pledge. As Ushiwakamaru -- no... Taira-no-Kagekiyo... I will defend your life, no matter the road you next tread on.

--

...The audio recorder stops.

"...Yeah, it checks out."

Ritsuka smiled a bit, closing the camera -- glancing to the four ladies in front of them.

"...Tlaz talked to you all already -- to keep things on the down-low. For his sake. But... I think you all deserve to know why."

Ritsuka breathed a slow sigh out.

"...This Singularity... The one we're going into next. It's... We don't know much, but... It's a monarchy. Carcosa. And... it's not supposed to be."

...Gorgon raised an eyebrow.

"And what exactly does that mean?"

"...I talked to Cadence about his home country a while back. About how it was. The capital, the cuisine. The government."

“He claimed it to be a monarchy.”

Morgan's brow twitched.

"What exactly does that mean?"

...Ritsuka breathed in -- then out, again.

"...It means Cadence... believes this Singularity is real. And... if he believes it this strongly... He might be connected to it."

Tlazolteotl, after a passing moment, stepped forth -- crossing her arms.

"--You told me that, but... Not in that tone! You make it sound like he's due to die, not just a bit of memory loss!"

"That's because he very well may die."

...A wave of silence fell over the four that Ritsuka was looking over -- their eyes, momentarily, stricken with the same widened, shocked gaze.

...Ushiwakamaru spoke first.

"And what does that mean?! You're... You don't mean he'll..!"

"...No. I'm not saying he will. But it's a possibility, depending on how linked to that place he is. So... What Tlazolteotl said goes double. Save the serious discussion for the future, and this entire thing, until this is done. Unless he wants to discuss that, I'd advise against it."

...Ritsuka settled themselves on a chair, running their hand through their hair.

"I get that all that needs to be discussed. Your... relationship is a hell of a lot more complicated than I can imagine. So discuss the stuff that has to be. But... focus on the present."

"Because for all we know, that's all he's got."

[ussgallifrey]

Hi Katie! From the prompt list, can you do “Quit it! You’re hogging the blankets!” Thank you! 💙 :)

Pairing: Bucky x Female Reader x Steve

Warnings: Implied sexual content, language

When on a mission, it is common practice to refer back to Murphy’s Laws. 

It’s not something he ever had to deal with prior to breaking free from Hydra’s control. But now that he spends his time working on the good side of things, he’s found himself going through a mental checklist every single time he gets sent out on a mission with Steve. 

Only ever with Steve.

1. In any field of endeavor, whatever can go wrong, will go wrong.

“What do you mean we lost their signal?” Your voice is veering on fury, after straining to get a lock on AIM’s jet at the beginning of the chase - which was haphazardly flying and turning its cloaking on after only the first twenty miles in - to lose it now made all that effort completely wasted.

The scanner in front of him has gone blank, no more red triangles or helpfully annoying pings to be heard.

“Uhh…”

You swivel your chair around, storming off to the back of the jet to vent your fury out.

Steve watches you go for a moment before leaning over his scanner, “No traces?”

“Fucking nothing,” he wants to slam his hand on the instrument but settles for curling it into a fist on his armrest instead.

The engine thrums under his feet as the jet continues flying without a clear destination. Minutes tick by as Steve tries to find anything of use on the airways, while Bucky works through satellite images of the area to locate any relevant place for AIM to be traveling to.

You return with a steeled expression, carefully avoiding his eyes as you take your seat with a purposeful calming breath.

Steve works with you to triangulate a location, checking with Bucky on the maps. But you refuse to direct any of your questions his way as if this was all somehow his fault.

2. Left to themselves, things always go from bad to worse.

Visibility was decreasing as the jet traveled further across the northern part of the Yukon. What the hell AIM wanted all the way up here was uncertain, but thoroughly annoying. It reminded him too much of the lost years of his life, existing in the KGB’s homeland for far too long. He never viewed snow the same way since. 

“Well, this is great.”

You’re sitting in your seat still, but with your legs brought up to your chest and your arms wrapped around them. Chin resting on the top of your knees as you watch the snowstorm throttling the windshield.

“It’s fine,” Steve assures from his standing position - hand resting on the window frame at the nose of the jet. “We’ll fly through it in no time. The facility’s only another sixty miles out.”

There’s a grumbling sound from you, probably swearing off him and Steve for everything and anything. 

Steve’s eyes trail down from the storm, landing on your face, and Bucky can see his eyes soften. They get that stupid lovesick aura anytime he looks at you. Bucky wants to punch him for more than just the failing mission now.

3. If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that will go wrong is the one that will cause the most damage.

“Remind me to never go on a mission with you two again!” you roar, moving to the gunner’s station as the jet is rocked by another unknown blast.

Steve calls back to you over his shoulder, trying to find the invisible aircraft that’s firing on the jet, “Noted, sweetheart!”

“Steve…”

The sensors are going out of whack. Dials spinning, buttons flashing, screens glitching out.

“Fuck.”

He knows it’s bad when Steve swears.

“Cap!”

Steve’s out of his chair in an instant, striding over to you as Bucky concentrates on the failing systems. 

You’ve got a perfect view of the white vastness of the storm and not much else. But you lean your head towards Steve when he approaches.

“Watch my 2.”

Steve focuses on the storm and then -

A quick flash of a ship, before your own jet is rocked violently to the side by a sudden blast.

“Buck!”

“Already on it!”

You focus all firepower on the sneak ship, but in the end, it doesn’t matter much at all. Your comms are down and the systems are already failing.

4. Nature always sides with the hidden flaw.

It’s clear how badly you want to punch them both right now - not that it would help any. You all look a little worse for wear from the crash landing. The jet’s smoking and the emergency lights are flashing. And there’s absolutely no signal to the outside.

Steve’s hands deep in wires and machinery as he tries to hotwire the main systems. 

Bucky, deciding to be useful in the moment, emerges from the back of the jet with the emergency equipment.

You’re scowling on the bench, but you’re also shivering. The storm is battering the sides of the jet - an absolute white-out all around.

“I wasn’t made for the cold,” you mutter as he sits down next to you on the bench.

Unfolding one of the blankets, Bucky drapes it over your shoulders. You gratefully tug it closer and pinch it under your chin.

“I know, darlin’.”

He drops a kiss to the top of your head before going to see if he can’t help Steve at all.

5. If everything seems to be going well, you’ve obviously overlooked something.

The heat’s back on. So, there’s that. But you’ll still have to wait on SHIELD to pick up on your trail and lack of check-in before anyone gets out of here unscathed. 

He’s been fiddling with his phone for a bit, trying to configure a way to boost the signal. But to be honest, he’s not making much headway with it. You’re almost two hours in and no one’s handling it well.

There had been a suggestion floated around of braving the storm to the AIM facility, but that had been quickly quashed when the ramp lowered into the biting cold tundra. It felt like fucking needles going into his skin. The wind was too strong and the temperature stole your breath away.

Ultimately, it was decided that the best course of action was to remain in the jet until rescue. Which was fine and dandy, if not tediously boring, but then the power blinks out.

“What the fuck, Steve?” you’re sauntering over to where he’s hopelessly staring at the main panel.

“I don’t know,” he responds coolly, hands resting on his hips.

Bucky decides to be helpful, and pipes up from his seat, “Engine cooled down.”

You both whip around to look at him. Steve groans.

“Fuck.”

“Engine’s down, a storm raging, killed our power.”

You look between him and Steve, hands thrown up in frustration, “Well, fuck us, right?”

It only takes a few minutes to notice a change in the internal temperature of the jet. Steve’s trying to work something together, but there’s really no point in trying to force the frozen parts to magically start working again. Your breath is visible now.

Bucky disappears into the back to dig through the emergency supplies. Taking the previous blanket from the bench, he drapes it over your shoulders. And then another one over that.

Another thirty minutes finds you sitting on the floor, teeth chattering as Steve warms your hands with his breath. He’s got you situated over the main engine core, trying to pull some of that lingering heat through the metal grates. Bucky piles on another blanket.

Twenty minutes more, Steve’s lips are starting to pale - reminding Bucky of the winter of ‘36, when Steve was hit with a real bad case of pneumonia. Bucky’s chest aches at the sour-tasting memory. But he imagines he’s not looking his best right now either. 

But at least you’re doing better. The solar blankets are heaped over the regular fleece ones, a giant cocoon around you and two super soldiers to steal heat from. But your teeth are still clattering, and your breath is still visible, and your fingers peeking out from the blankets are like ice.

“C-come on,” you stutter. “Warm me up b-better under here-e.”

He looks at Steve. Steve looks at him with a worried expression. And then they both look down at you, looking absolutely miserable. He shrugs at Steve.

They join you under the blanket cocoon.

“Agh!”

You startle back when Steve’s hand briefly touches your own. Probably colder than you were expecting. Bucky’s mindful to keep his arm as far away from your own as possible, considering himself lucky to be sitting on your left side. 

“Sorry,” Steve shrinks, trying to keep himself as small as possible.

“S-stop, just… n-no h-hands.”

Steve nods numbly.

Your face is contorted into a pained expression as you try to grab them both with chilled hands, “N-now come he-ere.”

They both shuffle in a little bit closer to you. Steve wraps his arm around your shoulder, tugging you closer to his chest. But the movement pulls the blankets his way, exposing you all to more of the cold air.

“Hey!” he yelps, grabbing the blankets to pull them back in place.

“Y-yeah, Steve.” You chide through a stutter. “Quit it! You’re hogging the blankets.”

It manages a chuckle out of the blonde, which is a small victory in itself. He relents, “Okay, my bad. My bad!”

You settle in, squished between them both. Lost in a super soldier sandwich under a pile of blankets, waiting for a rescue. 

After a moment, “I’m still mad at you two.”

Your stutter seems to be dissipating now that they’re in here to leech heat from. Bucky feels the tingling of a smile as they say in unison, “We know.”

Another stretch of silence follows. Only to be broken a moment later when you slowly suggest, “You know, I think there’s this great way to share body heat…?”

It has Steve saying a fast no and Bucky eagerly responding with a yes!

Prompt List

[otomeverything]

Otomate recently announced a couple of upcoming new titles as well as new info and confirmed release dates of their previously announced games during the Otomate Party (2019) Event held in Tokyo International Convention Center, Japan.

There are currently twelve games (both old and new) that were recently announced coming for the Nintendo Switch.

  Heart no Kuni no Alice – “Alice in the Country of Hearts” Wonderful White World & Wonderful Black World

Watch the game’s trailer here.

This was originally a QuinRose game published by Prototype back in 2007 both for the PSP and PC systems. It was later ported as a mobile game in 2014 (Android and iOS) and then to the PS VITA in 2015.

Fun Fact: An English patch was completed and released for this game back in 2018.

Story (VNDB): Alice is realistic; especially about love. One day, she is taken to the world of heart, which is full of danger. For example, an owner of a hat shop is a gangster, and every theme park worker carries a gun; almost all of the people are dangerous.

She somehow starts to enjoy her life there, after she is forced to take a drug which prevents her from returning to her original world. Will she find a way back? Will she fall in love?

    CUPID PARASITE

Watch the game’s trailer here.

Parasite Cupid is a love comedy otome game about a protagonist who’s a bridal matchmaker that’s also *secretly* a cupid (goddess) at the same time. Her goal is to help “five parasites” (five ikemens) who can’t find true love.

    DAIROKU: AYAKASHIMORI

Watch the game’s trailer here.

No further details have been revealed for this game yet other than all the ikemens are “yokais” (non-human, demon spirits). Seiyuus (Voice Actors) include Toshiyuki Toyonaga, Tatsuhisa Suzuki, Takahiro Sakurai, Yusuke Kobayashi, Ryouta Ohsaka.

Fun Fact: If you love the art for Bad Apple Wars, you will love this game’s characters designs, as it’s created by the same artist Suou.

    TOKEI SHIKAKE NO APOCALYPSE “CLOCKWORK APOCALYPSE”

Watch the game’s trailer here.

Otomate teases us with a brief description of this new title as “A Story that starts with a Bad End”. Besides that, no further details have been revealed for this game yet.

    PIOFIORE NO BANSHOU – EPISODIO 1929

Watch the game’s trailer here.

This will be the first fandisc of 2018’s hit Otomate title Piofiore No Banshou. This fandisc will be written by Kazura Ringo and will be directed by Asahi Takamura. Both are the same screenwriter and director of the first game.

    MEIJI KATSUGEKI HAIKARA 

Watch the game’s trailer here.

The game is developed and supervised by Ichi Column, the popular game studio known for their hit Hanayaka Nari series. No further details have been revealed for this game’s plot yet other than that its setting will be in the Meiji Period (😂just like how the title gives it away lol).

Here are all of the characters, full body screenshots below:

    AMNESIA SERIES MEMORIES, CROWD AND LATER

Watch the game’s trailer here.

Rejoice! Our favorite title, Amnesia Memories finally gets a Nintendo Switch Port. This game is confirmed to release September 12, 2019. Furthermore, the game’s first and second fandisc, Amnesia Crowd and Later, will also be making it’s way to the switch console. The bundled fandisc is set to release on October 3, 2019.

    COLLAR X MALICE & COLLAR X MALICE UNLIMITED

Watch the official announcement trailer here.

…And if the previous title didn’t satisfy you, get a load of this!

Collar x Malice and Collar x Malice Unlimited will be storming its way to the Nintendo Switch Otome market in 2020. In addition, an anime adaptation of the series is currently in the works! 

    OLYMPIA SOIREE

Watch the game’s new trailer here.

They’ve actually pre-announced this game during last year’s Otomate Party (2018). Sadly, this title’s release date was pushed back to 2020. The game was designed by the famous Japanese Illustrator Satoi. This artist is popular for her famous works such as Diabolik Lovers series, Re: Birthday Song series and Ozmafia.

    BILSHANKA SENKI ~Genpeiden~

Watch the game’s new trailer here.

Just like Olympia Soriee, this game was also pre-announced during last year’s Otomate party (2018). This game is a collaboration between Red Entertainment and Otomate.

The story premise takes place around the Heian period during the civil war of Genpei (1180-1185), opposing the two clans Yorimoto and Taira. Most of the main characters are inspired by real personalities of the time. The heroine is the last daughter of the Minamoto and is named Shanaou, birth name of the famous General Minamoto no Yoshitsune.

Seiyuus (Voice Actors) include Makoto Furukawa, Soma Saito, Kengo Kawanishi, Yuichiro Umehara, and Jun Fukuyama.

    Gensou Kissa Enchanté 

Watch the game’s new trailer here.

To end this roundup with a bang. Here, we have more deets and a confirmed release date for the game Gensou Kissa Enchante. The game premise is about a young girl, Kotone Awaki (protagonist) working at this non-human café in a separate world.

Fun Fact: This game’s scenario writer is Nao Kojima, who’s widely known for his famous works: Hakuoki, Code Realize, and Variable Barricade. The game’s head illustrator was also by Japanese artist Yuuya. You’ll find some of her works very familiar if you’ve played the titles:  Hanayaka Nari series, Dandy Shot “Pub Encounters” and Jakuo no Lyla.

Seiyuus (Voice Actors) include Kenji Akabane, Yuichiro Umehara, Kaito Ishikawa, Yuki Ono and Junichi Suwabe.

Interested? Take a look at these CG screenshots taken from the game’s trailer:

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Does this game makes you thirs– er, hungry or what?! 😂 Gensou Kissa Enchante is confirmed to release on October 10, 2019.

    Disclaimer: These games are only confirmed in Japan. Source: Otomate JP Official Website

  New Upcoming Otomate Games for 2019 and 2020 Otomate recently announced a couple of upcoming new titles as well as new info and confirmed release dates of their previously announced games during the Otomate Party (2019) Event held in Tokyo International Convention Center, Japan.

[lgbtqiahistoricalromance]

LGBTQIA+ Historical Romance Novels with Ghosts, Ghouls, and Gothic themes-October 2018

(Warning: Some books may have triggers such as abuse, questionable family morality, dub-con, and mentions of suicide attempts.)

James Eyre by Jade Astor

- A gender twisting adaptation of the classic Gothic romance Jane Eyre!

In Victorian England, 21-year-old James Eyre, frightened by his feeling for another man, decides to leave the boys’ school where he has spent ten years, first as a student and then as a teacher. He manages to secure a position as a private tutor for Axel Vance, the ward of a wealthy man who owns an estate in Yorkshire.

From the night of his arrival, James begins to sense that things are not as they should be at Thistleton Manor, the home of the enigmatic Edmond Manchester. Late at night, wild screams seem to echo through the house, and during the daytime objects disappear from James’s room and are replaced with sinister-looking voodoo dolls. Though his instincts tell him to flee, James stays on because he enjoys his duties and the company of his pupil—and even more so because he has begun to develop an attraction for his employer, Mr. Manchester.

To his surprise, Mr. Manchester seems to return his feelings. However, a jealous former lover and a phantomlike presence in the house seem determined to tear them apart. If he is to have any hope of a happy future with the man he loves, James must solve the mystery of Thistleton Manor and save Edmond’s life as well.

Resurrected Heart by Jade Astor

- Knowing that the kind of relationship his heart longs for is forbidden by the laws of Victorian England, college student Gray Langley fights his loneliness by throwing himself into his studies and his artwork. One gloomy afternoon, he is out sketching a graveyard when he meets Dr. Arthur Striker, a man who seems to share Gray’s scandalous desires. Though Gray is encouraged when Arthur seems to return his feelings, he is unnerved by the scientific experiments Arthur seems to be conducting in his home. Even more frightening is the strange and violent madman who appears and tries to kill him whenever he and Arthur get close. And why does his attacker look exactly like Arthur?

The Secret Casebook of Simon Feximal by KJ Charles (I’ve read this one several times. Several short stories in one, with lots of creepy details, arguably the least romantic MC of all time, and wonderful erotic elements w/light D/s. Also, Charles joined forces with Jordan L Hawk to create a crossover with Hawk’s Whyborne & Griffin series. The short story is called Remnant, and it’s free on the authors’ sites.)

- A story too secret, too terrifying—and too shockingly intimate—for Victorian eyes. A note to the Editor Dear Henry, I have been Simon Feximal’s companion, assistant and chronicler for twenty years now, and during that time my Casebooks of Feximal the Ghost-Hunter have spread the reputation of this most accomplished of ghost-hunters far and wide. You have asked me often for the tale of our first meeting, and how my association with Feximal came about. I have always declined, because it is a story too private to be truthfully recounted, and a memory too precious to be falsified. But none knows better than I that stories must be told. So here is it, Henry, a full and accurate account of how I met Simon Feximal, which I shall leave with my solicitor to pass to you after my death. I dare say it may not be quite what you expect. Robert Caldwell September 1914

An Unnatural Vice by KJ Charles (Few authors do the Enemies to Lovers trope as well as Charles does.)

- In the sordid streets of Victorian London, unwanted desire flares between two bitter enemies. Crusading journalist Nathaniel Roy is determined to expose spiritualists who exploit the grief of bereaved and vulnerable people. First on his list is the so-called Seer of London, Justin Lazarus. Nathaniel expects him to be a cheap, heartless fraud. He doesn’t expect to meet a man with a sinful smile and the eyes of a fallen angel—or that a shameless swindler will spark his desires for the first time in years.Justin feels no remorse for the lies he spins during his séances. His gullible clients simply bore him. Hostile, disbelieving, utterly irresistible Nathaniel is a fascinating challenge. And as their battle of wills and wits heats up, Justin finds he can’t stop thinking about the man who’s determined to ruin him.But Justin and Nathaniel are linked by more than their fast-growing obsession with one another. They are both caught up in an aristocratic family’s secrets, and Justin holds information that could be lethal. As killers, fanatics, and fog close in, Nathaniel is the only man Justin can trust—and, perhaps, the only man he could love.

Merrick & William (sequel) by Claire Cray (Merrick was a pleasant surprise, and William is on my TBR.)

- New York, 1799: the future looks bright for the charming young book dealer William Lacy, until a raucous night of drinking lands him in shackles. He narrowly avoids the brutal prison system thanks to his mother, who negotiates with the judge to secure him a five year apprenticeship in lieu of a prison sentence. And so William finds himself in a carriage bound for the remote woods upstate, where he'll spend the next years of his life learning a new trade under some old master. When he first sees Merrick, William thinks he's been dropped into a medieval horror story. Tall and gruff, dressed in a hooded robe that completely conceals his features, and riding a black mare, Merrick might as well be the Grim Reaper. But appearances are deceiving. An uncannily skilled apothecary and healer, Merrick proves to be a generous host and a gentle teacher, and William soon finds himself surprisingly comfortable in his new surroundings. Yet troubling mysteries abound: Why does Merrick never show his face or hands? Why do his movements seem so young and sure beneath his robes? What lies within the cave behind the stone cottage? Something unnatural is afoot. But most alarming by far is William's own reaction to his new master. For Merrick's strange charms are bewitching enough by day; but by night, in the darkness of the room and the bed they share, William finds himself entirely overwhelmed by desires he never imagined...

The Captain’s Ghostly Gamble (Seasonal novella from the Captivating Captains series. It’s actually modern day, but the ghosts dominate the story, so you hardly notice.) by Catherine Curzon and Eleanor Harkstead

- When a ghostly dandy and his roguish companion try their hand at matchmaking, things definitely go bump in the night.

For centuries, foppish Captain Cornelius Sheridan and brooding John Rookwood have haunted the mansion they duelled and died for. Now these phantom foes must join forces to save both their home and their feuding descendents.But when Captain Sheridan sacrifices his afterlife for the sake of true love, will Rookwood risk everything to keep his companion by his side, or is it too late to say "I love you"?

The Medium by Bonnie Dee (This is one of her best, in my opinion, and I’ve read most of her material.)

- To win a heart, he must risk his soul… Cast out of his family for being a freak, psychic Justin Crump helps others find peace by using his ability. When he’s called upon to release a distressed soul from a haunted house, a child’s angry spirit draws him into a dark mystery. Equally intriguing is the skeptical homeowner, Albert, a man who has buried his sexuality deeper than the grave. Albert Henderson humors his mother’s wishes by inviting the medium for a visit. While he doubts Justin’s gifts, he can’t deny one truth: the man stirs desire in him that Albert has spent a lifetime denying. Slowly, the walls of his proper life crumble. And when Justin proposes some emotion-free experimentation, neither imagines it might lead to love…and danger. After learning the terrifying truth about the deceased child’s persecutor, the two men pursue a perpetrator of great evil. When they coax a confession from their quarry, the vengeful spirit unleashes power nearly beyond control. To free the earthbound ghost from the past that holds it shackled, Justin must risk his own soul. And Albert must find the courage to break free of the chains of doubt that will deny him and Justin the future of which they once only dreamed. 

(Part of Victorian Holiday Hearts Boxed Set) by Summer Devon and Bonnie Dee

- Delaney and the Autumn Masque: Delaney, a member of the Andrews theater clan, performs magic tricks at a fancy dress ball where he's struck by the dramatic figure of the Grim Reaper. He follows Death to a quiet room for a glorious, lustful encounter. With his identity hidden, impoverished gentleman Bartholomew Bancroft dares to indulge in an impulsive liaison, but can he find love with the magician when the masks come off?

The Psychic and the Sleuth by Bonnie Dee and Summer Devon

- Psychic and skeptic—how could their love affair go wrong? Inspector Robert Court’s relentless insistence the wrong man hanged for the murder of Court’s cousin has him on his superintendent’s bad side. Court is assigned lowly vice cases such as exposing a confidence man posing as a medium to fleece the wealthy. Down on his luck, Oliver Marsh learned he had an aptitude for conducting séances. He assuages his guilt by bringing comfort to the grieving and offering occasional insights coming from true psychic flashes. Marsh has tried to deny these flashes, but when he’s bowled over by a vivid memory of murder coming from the other side, he can no longer pretend he doesn’t possess a gift. Marsh reveals details about that night which only Court’s cousin would know, and the detective vows to track down the truth—by staying as close to the fake psychic as humanly possible. But close leads to closer and soon the pair is involved in not only a torrid affair but a hunt for a killer—before he strikes again.

The Bird by Eli Easton (Novella from the Dreamspinner Press anthology Bones. Excellent read, as long as you keep in mind it’s written from the perspective of an Englishman in 19th century Jamaica.)

- Third son Colin Hastings has subverted his desires for his entire life, intent now on bringing his family’s plantation back to its former state of solvency, and marrying his friend Elizabeth. But, when he helps save the life of one of the plantation workers, he’s gifted his passion back, and must come to terms with his love for his lifelong friend, Richard. What happens when nightmares are not what they seem, and horror is not as bad one fears?

A Brush with Darkness by Erestes

- Florence, 1875 After making a grisly discovery one night, I needed proof that there was still goodness in the world. I never dreamt it would come to me during my next commission—with a subject whose very name means light... Yuri was glorious in his otherworldly beauty, surrounded by a bright halo of iridescence, but I detected a fierce darkness lurking underneath the surface. Sketching all night, I could hardly wait to capture his likeness in a painting. For Yuri has stimulated not only my creative urges, but my sexual ones as well. His very presence infuses me with joy and passion, but what will happen if my patron should discover our trysts? Dependent on his good graces, I can't afford to lose his support. But I fear the time will soon come when I must choose between restoring my family's fortunes and obeying the temptation of the muse before me... Previously published as Chiaroscuro, newly revised by author.

The Gilda Stories: 25th Anniversary Expanded Edition by Jewelle Gomez (This is not exactly romance per se, but does include a lesbian protagonist, and follows her world through all that comes with being a vampire, including romantic interests.)

- This remarkable novel begins in 1850s Louisiana, where Gilda escapes slavery and learns about freedom while working in a brothel. After being initiated into eternal life as one who "shares the blood" by two women there, Gilda spends the next two hundred years searching for a place to call home. An instant lesbian classic when it was first published in 1991, The Gilda Stories has endured as an auspiciously prescient book in its explorations of blackness, radical ecology, re-definitions of family, and yes, the erotic potential of the vampire story.

Unchained by Ainsley Gray Review

- If he takes their life, they can never truly leave. That's the mantra Noah Wilmington has lived by for years. He picks up whores and deviants from the local taverns, enjoys their company for an evening...and then hides their bodies in the woods. Edward Yorke has approached the same man in the same public house time and again, never deterred by the cool dismissal he receives. There's something about Noah that calls to him. A shared pain, a shared sadness... But Noah doesn't trust himself. It's too risky to permit someone too close, and Edward is the one person in the world whose life Noah wants to spare. So, every time Edward has asked to buy him a drink, Noah declines. Then one night, out of sheer loneliness, that "no" becomes a "yes." When Edward's night with him sheds light on some of Noah's dark secrets, Noah cannot simply let him walk out the door. But if he doesn't want Edward dead, and he cannot let him leave, only one option really remains... 

Briarley by Astor Glenn Gray (This novel was so unique and it’s just a charming May/December romance.)

- An m/m World War II-era retelling of Beauty and the Beast. During a chance summer shower, an English country parson takes refuge in a country house. The house seems deserted, yet the table is laid with a sumptuous banquet such as the parson has not seen since before war rationing. Unnerved by the uncanny house, he flees, but stops to pluck a single perfect rose from the garden for his daughter - only for the master of the house to appear, breathing fire with rage. Literally. At first, the parson can't stand this dragon-man. But slowly, he begins to feel the injustice of the curse that holds the dragon captive. What can break this vengeful curse?

Lover’s Knot by Donald Hardy

- Jonathan Williams has inherited Trevaglan Farm from a distant relative. With his best friend, Alayne, in tow, Jonathan returns to the estate to take possession, meet the current staff, and generally learn what it’s like to live as the landed gentry now. He’d only been there once before, fourteen years earlier. But that was a different time, he’s a different person now, determined to put that experience out of his mind and his heart….The locals agree that Jonathan is indeed different from the lost young man he was that long ago summer, when he arrived at the farm for a stay after his mother died. Back then the hot summer days were filled with sunshine, the nearby ocean, and a new friend, Nat. Jonathan and the farmhand had quickly grown close, Jonathan needing comfort in the wake of his grief, and Nat basking in the peace and love he didn’t have at home. But that was also a summer of rumors and strange happenings in the surrounding countryside, romantic triangles and wronged lovers. Tempers would flare like a summer lightning storm, and ebb just as quickly. By the summer’s end, one young man was dead, and another haunted for life. Now Jonathan is determined to start anew. Until he starts seeing the ghost of his former friend everywhere he looks. Until mementos of that summer idyll reappear. Until Alayne’s life is in danger. Until the town’s resident witch tells Jonathan that ghosts are real. And this one is tied to Jonathan unto death…

Man & Monster (Book two of The Savage Land) by Michael Jensen

- A monster stalks the ancient forests... It’s 1799, and Cole Seavey is a trapper running from a guilty past, seeking refuge on the vast American frontier. Lost in a raging storm, he finds himself face to face with a terrifying, otherworldly creature that seems to have emerged from a nightmare. Cole is saved from certain death by a handsome Delaware Indian named Pakim. Together they learn that the monster is the fearsome Wendigo from native legends: a creature with a heart of ice, drawn to the evil of men. Soon the Wendigo is terrorizing the frontier — settler and Indian alike — and Cole and Pakim join together to defeat the mysterious monster. In the process, Cole finds himself falling for the strapping brave and the promise of a new life together. Unfortunately, the legends say that the Wendigo can only be killed by another creature with a heart of ice. But how can Cole hope to defeat the monster if it means denying the love he's finally allowed himself to feel?

Stoker & Bash by Selina Kray (Book two coming soon!)

- At Scotland Yard, DI Timothy Stoker is no better than a ghost. A master of arcane documents and niggling details who, unlike his celebrity-chasing colleagues, prefers hard work to headlines. But an invisible man is needed to unmask the city’s newest amateur detective, Hieronymus Bash. A bon vivant long on flash and style but short on personal history, Bash just may be a Cheapside rogue in Savile Row finery. When the four fangs of the Demon Cats of Scavo—trophies that protect the hunters who killed the two vicious beasts—disappear one by one, Stoker's forced to team with the very man he was sent to investigate to maintain his cover. He finds himself thrust into a world of wailing mediums, spiritualist societies, man-eating lions, and a consulting detective with more ambition than sense. Will this case be the end of his career, or the start of an unexpected liaison? Or will the mysterious forces at play be the death of them both? And just who is Hieronymus Bash?

Gothic Romance by LV Lloyd (Gothic light, but includes a trans side character.)

- When Jonathan Winters accepts a post as tutor to the only son of Lord D’Anvers, he looks forward to sharing his love of learning with his young pupil.  Not even arriving at Castle Blackstone in the middle of a thunderstorm can dampen his enthusiasm, nor the fact that the wing above his head is forbidden. Absorbed with Evelyn’s education, Jonathan is completely unprepared to find himself the object of Lord D’Anvers’ attentions. Until D’Anvers kisses him...

Threadbare by Clare London (Beautifully written, but NOT HEA!)

- When Edward inherits the family textile mill from his deceased parents, he knows where his duty lies. As a young Victorian gentleman, he devotes himself to the family business and doing right by his customers and employees. What concern is it that he surrenders his own artistic ambitions and romantic passions? But a hideous accident at the mill one day brings him into close contact with Mori, one of his most productive workers, a beautiful yet seemingly delicate and vulnerable young man. Edward takes Mori under his protection, bringing him back to his house. At last, Edward has found a friend and companion. His fascination for Mori grows swiftly into love, and he’s drawn out of his quiet introspection into a world of delight and passion. Yet Mori has a private task that both baffles and concerns Edward: the completion of a stunningly beautiful, abstract tapestry. Edward doesn’t understand its significance, Mori’s devotion to it, or Mori’s strange behaviour when Edward tries to part the man from his mission. Mori loves him in return, he’s sure – but can that ever be enough? As Edward is tangled more deeply and irretrievably into the web of Mori’s love and mystery, what bittersweet price might he have to pay?

Precious Possession by Clare London (Ambiguous ending!)

- Lucas Fides has inherited his Victorian family’s auction house, good looks and a keen, passionate mind. But he has far less control over his body’s desires than his business, hiding an illicit and unspoken love for his boyhood friend and dependent, Valentine. As a result, Lucas suffers recurring, deeply erotic dreams, where a mystery lover demands and guides his sexual responses. When the auction house runs into financial difficulty, Valentine introduces a new client to Lucas. Gideon Arnaud is a mysterious and charismatic man who seems to scorn society’s restrictions. He offers Lucas a spectacular collection of jewels for auction and also his intense, seductive attention. He appears to know more about Lucas than any stranger should. Affronted by Gideon’s bold pursuit, Lucas puts up a spirited defence, despite being increasingly exhausted by his dreams. His heart is already committed to Valentine, even if he thinks it’s his secret alone. When Valentine announces his engagement to Lucas’s sister, Lucas’s pain and frustration are almost intolerable. Torn between his need for Valentine’s comfort and the determination to avoid Gideon Arnaud’s disturbing presence, Lucas becomes more vulnerable by the day, until his loneliness forces his desire out of his dreams and into the light of day. The consequences will change his life forever.

The Blue Ribbon by Katherine Marlowe (I love everything she’s written, but this is one my faves.)

- Theo Aylmer's perfectly satisfactory life as a chemistry professor at Cambridge is upended when he receives word of his father's illness. Forced to return to Cornwall, he is robbed for everything he's worth by a dashing young highwayman. When he finally reaches his father's stagecoach inn, he finds it dilapidated and the village around it groaning beneath the thumb of the hateful Earl of Glynn. All Theo wants to do is return to his life and work in Cambridge, but as he tries to recoup the funds necessary to travel, he finds himself plagued by brandy-smugglers and rumours of ghosts. And at the center of all Theo's problems is a certain handsome highwayman who has charmed his way into Theo's bed and heart. When the highwayman turns up shot, Theo can't turn him away, even though doing so risks bringing the wrath of the customs men, the law, and the Earl of Glynn upon them both.

The Possession of Lawrence Eugene Davis by EE Ottoman

- At the beginning of the Great Depression Lawrence Eugene Davis returns to his family's ranch to set his father's affairs in order. But the house stirs memories of his unhappy childhood and his miserable time in the trenches. Memories are not the only thing woken, however, and Lawrence finds himself hunted and eventually overcome by the sinister presence. Salvation comes at the eleventh hour in the form of a stranger who claims he can rid Lawrence of the demon threatening to possess him—but in exchange he wants Lawrence for himself.

To Serve the Count by Cassandra Pierce

- In 1815 Austria, Rupert is cast out of his village after he is caught kissing another man and seeks refuge in the mysterious Castle Blutstark. He soon realizes that this is no ordinary castle, and his new master, Count Kaspar, is far from an ordinary employer. In fact, he isn't even alive in the conventional sense, and he wastes no time informing Rupert of his unusual new duties. Everything Rupert has ever learned in life tells him to run for his life, but then again nothing has ever prepared him to deal with the undeniable allure of his enigmatic new employer.

The Master of Seacliff by Max Pierce (I barely finished this one, because I didn’t like what seemed to be an abusive relationship and a vapid MC, but it follows in the tradition of Holt and Varga, with overall great reviews.)

- Seacliff is a mansion enshrouded in near-eternal fog, dark mystery and suspicion - perhaps a reflection of the house's master. An imposing Blackbeard of a man, Duncan Stewart is both feared and admired by his business associates as well as the people he calls friends. And his home, in which young tutor and aspiring artist Andrew Wyndham now resides, holds terrible secrets - secrets that could destroy everyone within its walls.

Guardian Angel by Hayden Thorne

- When nineteen-year-old Dominic Coville’s parents die in an accident, leaving him not only alone but on the brink of poverty, he desperately searches for work and is thrilled when the post of secretary is awarded to him despite his obvious inexperience and ignorance. Mr. Wynyard Knight of Mandrake Abbey, however, gladly welcomes Dominic and earns the young man’s immediate sympathy for his fragile health as well as gratitude for the promising new life now awaiting Dominic. Inside rock and timber, hungry shadows seek... But unusual things soon happen and appear to focus solely on him, and Dominic begins to wonder about the true history of Mr. Knight, the strange young man haunting the third floor, and Mandrake Abbey. With the persistent and increasingly violent attempts at communication by an angry ghost shadowing his hours, Dominic struggles to unravel the mysteries of his new home. And even with the help of a handsome young gentleman who’s an aspiring supernaturalist as well as his clairvoyant sister, danger closes in far too quickly. Then it’s only a matter of time before carefully constructed façades fall away, and the sickly, decaying underbelly of Mandrake Abbey’s centuries-old collection of stone and timber will reveal itself. Set in an alternate England sometime before the mid-19th century, Guardian Angel weaves a tangled and dark tapestry of old magic, romance, and madness, a celebration of classic gothic fiction and its macabre sensibilities.

Cast From The Earth by Leandra Vane (poly romance)

- An epidemic that turns men into monsters has seized the nation. At first the disease only spreads in cities but soon cannibals are roaming the prairie, threatening the quiet little towns of the late 19th Century heartland. At an isolated poor farm in rural America, Sara Warren has survived a tumultuous life of loss and an accident that leaves her with one leg – but she is hopeless of any other future until a woman named Cordelia arrives at the farm and changes Sara's life forever. Along with Dan, a man who can't hear and Grace, a young woman who is more concerned with her sewing needles than people, they face the oncoming apocalypse with their wits and their bare hands. When it seems like all is lost, a man from Sara's past named Jack returns to her life and they all realize the only way to survive is together. A story of romance, violence, sex, and the wild prairie that proves broken bodies still feel pleasure and broken souls can find love – even at the end of the world.

Gaywyck by Victor Varga (Book one of trilogy)

- The first gothic romance featuring gay MCs.

Robert Whyte replaces the traditional damsel in distress in the household of Donough Gaylord. He’s young, beautiful, an introvert not wishing to follow in his father footsteps--he longs to be an artist. Family friend helps him to become the librarian of Gaywyck, a house teaming with strange characters, and artists of various sorts. The house is in New England, but due to the original Gaylord owners, was built in the style of an antebellum mansion.

Donough Gaylord lives a grand lifestyle, is rich beyond imagining, but tortured by memories of dead twin and secrets that have dominated his life since boyhood. He spoils those of his household constantly, especially young Robert, who is like a breath of fresh air.

Without giving anything crucial away, I will just say that the events that cause Donough such pain are far from ordinary, and familial love is tested to the breaking point. If you don’t mind your romances a bit twisted, and with a million references to literature, drama, music, and painting, you will love this novel.

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Deanna Wadsworth (Thoroughly enjoyed this one. It’s erotic, but also has a the enemies to lovers is really well done, and there is a twist ending.)

- Ichabod Crane, town schoolmaster and self-proclaimed supernatural expert, wants to better his situation by marrying the wealthy Katrina Van Tassel. But, there is a rival for her attentions. Local hero, Brom Bones. Brom lives to torment and tease Ichabod, leaving the schoolmaster wondering if he is more interested in besting his rival than winning Katrina’s hand. Especially when each time Ichabod goes into the backroom of his favorite tavern – a place men can be men –his imagination conjures Brom's face on every lover. Late one night, Ichabod is chased by the legendary Headless Horseman. Terrified the ghost wants his head, he tries to outrun the specter. To his horror, he is taken captive by the evil spirit. Ichabod awakens, naked and tied to a bed, only to discover the Headless Horseman is none other than his rival Brom Bones! Brom confesses that Ichabod has been haunting his own fantasies and he vows to make Ichabod Crane his in every way. Ichabod wants to believe the pleasure Brom offers comes from his heart, but he is afraid it is another one of Brom’s tricks. Though surely an enemy's touch has never felt like this...

Affinity by Sarah Waters (f/f)

- An upper-class woman recovering from a suicide attempt, Margaret Prior has begun visiting the women’s ward of Millbank prison, Victorian London’s grimmest jail, as part of her rehabilitative charity work. Amongst Millbank’s murderers and common thieves, Margaret finds herself increasingly fascinated by one apparently innocent inmate, the enigmatic spiritualist Selina Dawes. Selina was imprisoned after a séance she was conducting went horribly awry, leaving an elderly matron dead and a young woman deeply disturbed. Although initially skeptical of Selina’s gifts, Margaret is soon drawn into a twilight world of ghosts and shadows, unruly spirits and unseemly passions, until she is at last driven to concoct a desperate plot to secure Selina’s freedom, and her own.

A Light Amongst Shadows by Kelley York and Rowan Altwood (Dark is the Night series book one)

- James Spencer is hardly the typical troubled youth who ends up at Whisperwood School for Boys. Instead of hating the strict schedules and tight oversight by staff, James blossoms, quickly making friends, indulging in his love of writing, and contemplating the merits of sneaking love poems to the elusive and aloof William Esher. The rumours about William’s sexuality and opium reliance are prime gossip material amongst the third years…rumours that only further pique James' curiosity to uncover what William is really like beneath all that emotional armor. And, when the normally collected William stumbles in one night, shaken and ranting of ghosts, James is the only one who believes him. James himself has heard the nails dragging down his bedroom door and the sobs echoing in the halls at night. He knows others have, too, even if no one will admit it. The staff refuses to entertain such ridiculous tales, and punishment awaits anyone who brings it up. Their fervent denial and the disappearance of students only furthers James’ determination to find out what secrets Whisperwood is hiding...especially if it prevents William and himself from becoming the next victims.​​content warning: violence, sexual/physical abuse, some sexual themes

Recommended series w/Mediums and Things That Go Bump in the Night beneath the cut...

Hexworld series by Jordan L Hawk (I cannot express how much I love this series, and another novel is on the way!! A different couple in each novel, but they all work together or are related.)

- Dominic Kopecky dreamed of becoming a member of New York’s Metropolitan Witch Police—a dream dashed when he failed the test for magical aptitude. Now he spends his days drawing the hexes the MWP relies on for their investigations. But when a murder by patent hex brings crow familiar Rook to his desk, Dominic can’t resist the chance to experience magic. And as the heat grows between Dominic and Rook, so does the danger. Because the case has been declared closed—and someone is willing to kill to keep it that way. The 13th Hex is the prequel short story to the all-new Hexworld series. If you like shifters, magic, and romance, you’ll love Jordan L. Hawk’s world of witch policemen and the familiars they bond with.

Spirits series by Jordan L Hawk (Such detail. This series is amazing, and features a Native American MC and trans supporting character that is so well done.)

- After losing the family fortune to a fraudulent psychic, inventor Henry Strauss is determined to bring the otherworld under control through the application of science. All he needs is a genuine haunting to prove his Electro-Séance will work. A letter from wealthy industrialist Dominic Gladfield seems the answer to his prayers. Gladfield’s proposition: a contest pitting science against spiritualism, with a hefty prize for the winner. The contest takes Henry to Reyhome Castle, the site of a series of brutal murders decades earlier. There he meets his rival for the prize, the dangerously appealing Vincent Night. Vincent is handsome, charming…and determined to get Henry into bed. Henry can’t afford to fall for a spirit medium, let alone the competition. But nothing in the haunted mansion is quite as it seems, and soon winning the contest is the least of Henry’s concerns. For the evil stalking the halls of Reyhome Castle wants to claim not just Henry and Vincent’s lives, but their very souls.

Whyborne & Griffin series by Jordan L Hawk (I’ve read this series three times, and Griffin is one of my favorite characters in any series.)

- A reclusive scholar. A private detective. And a book of spells that could destroy the world. Love is dangerous. Ever since the tragic death of the friend he adored, Percival Endicott Whyborne has ruthlessly suppressed any desire for another man. Instead, he spends his days studying dead languages at the museum where he works. So when handsome ex-Pinkerton Griffin Flaherty approaches him to translate a mysterious book, Whyborne wants to finish the job and get rid of the detective as quickly as possible. Griffin left the Pinkertons after the death of his partner. Now in business for himself, he must investigate the murder of a wealthy young man. His only clue: an encrypted book that once belonged to the victim. As the investigation draws them closer, Griffin’s rakish charm threatens to shatter Whyborne’s iron control. But when they uncover evidence of a powerful cult determined to rule the world, Whyborne must choose: to remain safely alone, or to risk everything for the man he loves.

[out-of-this-dimension]

The Star Fox Adventures Game Manual -- Analysis

So, you may remember a few months back, I received a lot of hate mail on AO3 and FF.net for a fic that I posted that I’ve since taken down in hopes of redoing someday.  The hate was largely from people who don’t like Panther (the fic was Krystal x Panther) but a lot of their arguments were attempts to debunk how “canon” my fic is.  With a lot of my fics, I don’t stray too far from canon, but I do fill in “gaps” with my own headcanons.  I feel like the SF series is a comfortable enough blank slate to do that.  Mild spoilers for future fics, but one of these headcanons is that Panther is Cerinian.  I’ve actually covered this headcanon previously on my blog but I’m too lazy to look up the link.  

One of the arguments my “secret admirer” tried to make about how my fic “contradicts canon” is that “Well, Panther can’t be Cerinian because the Star Fox Adventures manual says that Krystal is the sole survivor.” (and then they made a hate fic about how my headcanon of Panther being Cerinian couldn’t possibly work, but that’s a story for another time).

Admittingly, I hadn’t looked at the manual in most of a decade, so that little tidbit escaped my memory.  But honestly, with Cerinian OCs flying around left and right in the fandom, I thought it was an odd piece of info to nitpick about.  Regardless, it sparked some intrigue, so I decided to poke around the internet and lo and behold, I found a PDF copy of the manual.  Since it’s been a long while since the last time I read the manual, I decided to do an analysis on it.  Analysis with pictures under the cut!

This is the “prologue” of Star Fox Adventures and while it’s all good and dandy, I want to point out three very important things-- 1. Peppy retired at this point, not after Krystal showed up. I mean, this is relatively minor but I thought it was noteworthy that our Barrel-Roll Loving Team Dad was already going to be retired before the “next SF game”-- whatever that would have been, though I’m fairly certain Assault’s development launched right at the heels of Adventures, if not while Adventures was in late development still. 2. Slippy apparently traded in his pilot’s wings to become a mechanic, which is... blatantly ignored in both Assault and Command because while he does mechanic-like stuff (playing off of his role as the “team smartie pants”), he still very much is a pilot. 3. Falco left because he was bored is only a rumor.  I know “Farewell Beloved Falco” tackles this to a degree. I want to also note that this inspired me to re-read Farewell Beloved Falco on Monday and there’s no real point in the manga that says Falco left because he was bored (I have my own speculation as to why he left but I’ll save that for later).  I find it really odd that the manual says Falco “simply disappeared”, when he very clearly left with great bravado at the end of the manga.  He didn’t vanish into the night or anything, like this would imply.  He said he was going to go solo for a bit and flew off after the Titania Incident.  It... feels like maybe there was a miscommunication here between who was giving the person writing the manual details.

This is the Character Bio page, which, to my secret admirer’s glee, does contain the info that Krystal is the only survivor of Cerinia.  It also name drops Cornerian Weapons R&D, which has also never been heard of before or since this manual. I actually searched excessively for more mentions about this and yielded no results.  Curious.  I had never noticed that and assumed Slippy had just been tinkering on stuff for fun.  Also oof, my heart at ROB being considered a full-fledged SF member.

I’m going to skip over the parts I don’t have any commentary on.  

So it’s pretty clear from the final product that Rareware had no idea what they were doing with the SpellStones.  They clearly absorb magic from the planet to keep the planet from falling apart (which says to me that this is not the planet’s natural state but I’ve talked about that before so I’ll spare you the ramble).  But what was going on with them is really unclear.  I understand that Dinosaur Planet gives a better explanation of the SpellStones but that purpose does not seem to be canon any longer.

The text here implies that Scales has every single SpellStone in his possession (the Queen EarthWalker ALSO states he removed the SpellStones himself).  Yet, when you make it into the game...

(Special note: I found this pic on Google and the file was called “Asshole”, which, tbh isn’t inaccurate but it gave me a chuckle so I thought I’d share it.)

Scales doesn’t possess all of the SpellStones.  Drakor, a mutant in Scales’s army, guards the one at Dragon Rock-- we can assume Scales is responsible for that.  The King RedEye has been fitted with one in his head-- we can assume Scales is responsible for that.  But past that? We find Scales in the CloudRunner Fortress treasury with the first Ocean SpellStone, which he has clearly just found.  And the entire point of DarkIce Mines, the entire reason the SnowHorn are enslaved, is because Scales is looking for the SpellStone.  Which says to me that the SpellStone wasn’t even removed by him.  He wouldn’t have had to enslave the entire tribe to go digging for it otherwise.  He wouldn’t have had to lay siege to CloudRunner Fortress either.

So this entire plot point is absolutely inconsistent to what’s in the manual and even... in the game. What is the reasoning behind this?  Probably the innumerable plot changes during SFAdv’s development.

With the fortunate release of the Dinosaur Planet ROM and the creation of the Warlock Engine by Hugo Peters, a lot has been uncovered in terms of how Dinosaur Planet would have originally looked like.  Dark Ice Mines, for instance, was actually meant to connect via the SnowHorn Wastes (or, Northern Wastes) via a small cave entrance on the other side of the river near where one finds Garunda Te.  The cave still exists in the finalized version of the game but leads to no where.  

However, with Star Fox being added in, I think Rare felt the need to add in things that made the game feel a bit more in line with the Star Fox series.  The planet pieces being torn apart was a way to shove in Arwing sections of the game.  And the devs needed a reason for the change in the planet’s state... and what’s a better throwaway reason than “it’s just magic, bruh”?  So the SpellStones, being focal points in the game’s story, were changed to being part of the reason for the planet falling to pieces. That led to DarkIce Mines, despite having a basically completed map, getting yoinked from the planet’s surface and tossed into space, meaning the entrance was sealed.  The reason for all of this was handwaved into “Oh, Scales did this because he removed the stones” without... the game actually reflecting much of that at all because most of it had been made with a different story in mind.

I think Rare did this hoping that no one would look at the plot too closely but uh oh, that didn’t happen.  And if you need further proof that this was all a bit of an “oopsie” on Rare’s part, you need not look much further than DarkIce Mines once more.  Belina Te has a small throwaway line about how her father hid the SpellStone in the mines.  She says something to the effect of “He didn’t say where he hid it, only that it was somewhere safe” which is code for “Yeah lol I stuck this important object crafted by the gods into the claws of a giant monstrosity but it’s w/e”.  Maybe he was hoping that Galdon would protect it from Scales.  I mean, it’s not a bad thought, really...

But the fact that the game seems to imply Scales has all the stones is still technically wrong.  Now, because I think about these things a little TOO much, here’s my theory as to how this could have technically worked: All the SpellStones are placed in the same spot, you just traverse different routes (The Force Point Temples) to reach that spot. The only way I could see Scales making out with 2 out of 4 SpellStones is that there was a battle between the SharpClaw and the other dinosaurs at the central point where the SpellStones are located and General Scales was only partially successful.  Which could very well be the case, but, unfortunately, the manual and game seem to not act as though this is the case...

tl;dr for that section: This literally makes no sense no matter how you slice it and sure, you can come up for reasons that things ended up this way but ultimately, the game is conflicting with itself about its own story.  But let’s move on.

Apparently atmospheric conditions are so powerful on Sauria that it can interrupt communications, which I thought was a neat lore tidbit.  

So I got 2 things from this tidbit about Saurian.

1. This language is called “relatively new”, even though it’s existed for thousands of years, which feels like a contradiction?  A quick Google search estimates English has been around for 1400 years, to put that into perspective and I think English is considered to be fairly new compared to other languages, but I’m honestly not too terribly learned on that.  Of course, that’s only viewing this through the lens of someone who lives on Earth.  Having a language around in the Lylat System only for “a few thousand years” makes me wonder how long the older languages have existed?  It’s quite possible that a few thousand years isn’t a long lifespan for a language in this universe.  

2. Who were these off-worlders?  And boy do I have theories.

Theory 1. The Krazoa.  They are seemingly the gods to the dinosaurs and speak the same language.  This could mean that they taught the dinosaurs this new language.  It would fit the bill for their portrayal in this game. They are godlike entities, the dinosaurs do revere them... it makes sense.  

Theory 2. The ones who taught the dinosaurs how to talk were the Cerinians. There is mild evidence for this with Krystal understanding Dino Speak without a translator despite being new to the planet (evidenced by the fact the CloudRunner had to explain the Krazoa to her/some dialogue bits about her learning of General Scales/the brief exposition we get about her searching the Lylat System for answers).  You could argue this is due to her telepathy - she could just simply be talking in a way that the dinosaurs can understand but I don’t think Krystal’s telepathy had been firmly established as part of her character at this point (she had the ability to leave telepathic messages onto her staff and she could channel magic into Andross, but her true telepathy powers weren’t really shown until Assault).  Krystal’s staff also seems strangely in-tune with Sauria, which I’ve theorized about previously.  I’m mostly thinking on the Magic Caves that are conveniently scattered on Sauria.  It could be that Cerinians had built the shrines within the Magic Caves to help their descendants out if they ever showed up to Sauria.  So, I guess the tl;dr version is “Maybe the Cerinians had previously been on Sauria and had established the Magic Caves and had taught the dinosaurs their native language?” 

To summarize my thoughts, the manual is a reflection of SFAdv itself- riddled with weird plot inconsistencies that you can almost fudge reasons/logic to cover but some of it feels like stretches for the sake of making plot make sense.  There’s some contradictions in the lore/story but despite that, there’s still interesting tidbits to be found.  

If anything, this booklet kind of validates my feelings from the post I made about canon awhile back.  Not all of the canon makes sense when you nitpick it to death.  When the source material conflicts with itself, you’re not going to win a “this is canon because x and y, etc” because... well... the story itself doesn’t even seem to know what’s canon.

Additionally, canon is something derived partially from people’s own experiences.  Two people can consume the same media and come to different conclusions and that’s fine.  We don’t need to have these tired debates about whose interpretation of canon is better.  We just need people to understand that while their interpretation may fit them but it may not fit everyone.  And that’s why, as I have begun doing Fanon Hot Take posts, I keep that disclaimer up.  I don’t wanna say “My opinion of how to interpret canon/fanon is the best opinion” because that’s stupid. There is no definitive “best” because it’s all subjective.  But people get into their own feelings so much about their interpretations and that’s when we have these debates of “well, my idea is better than yours”.  Then people try to dismantle each other instead of just appreciating the different ideas being brought to the table.  And it’s exhausting.

Frankly, I don’t ever think Panther being Cerinian will be canon.  But Nintendo has not, as of this date, said he’s not.  But that’s my interpretation of his character until Nintendo gives us more to go off of.  And if my interpretation bothers someone enough that they decide to send me harassment over it, then that’s on them.  I will not be apologizing for my interpretations, even if they do go against the grain.  It’s a pity people like that exist, that would rather tear at others than try to just enjoy the content that appeals directly to him but alas, they are not the first person to be like that and they will not be the last.

On a lighter note, while I am still bothered by this person going out of their way to be so spiteful, I want to thank them for inspiring me to look at the text.  It validated my feelings further and it made me realize how stupid the canon debate is.  I actually had a blast going back over this book and re-reading everything.  I hadn’t gotten to lay eyes on this booklet in years!  I really hope I get to do this for other SF games because a lot of these manuals have such hidden gems.

Thank you for reading this ramble/analysis!

[fanesavin]

Soapberry Pride 2018

@ianncardero | @thegreatestfitzgerald | @faye-andrews | @mayaparker | @danisavin | @scarlettxruby | @bumblingbrujo | @freddiewatts | @ephrampettaline | @thisdaringdanny | @thisbrutalbelle | @cassiegermaine | @lilo-el-lobo | @rydenbolt

Iann looks around for Fane amidst the hubbub and growing excitement at the Savin Museum. It seems like the whole town (or almost the whole town) is there. And everything looks impeccable - which really, Iann wouldn't expect anything less from Savin. Funny how both Savin and Freddie had vision and also an ability to execute that vision to their exacting specifications, so everything looked professional and polished and downright gorgeous. This was a Euro-expertise, maybe, Iann thought in amusement given his own basic American brain. "Savin! Yo Savin, I got the gl - the disco ball!" Iann called out, hoping the vampire would just hear and locate him.

Fane had been in the process of tinkering with the last minute details for the event, having been texting back and forth with Iann during the day to coordinate what would hopefully achieve their own personal little mission to save the very town that would be participating tonight. Between them they had amassed a collection of weird and wonderful performances which should hopefully amass into a good evening all around. The main stage was set up, rainbow banners, confetti canons and lights not to mention a rather neat karaoke system on a stage a little way away. He'd even driven down the enchanted instrument set from the estate should people want to sing along to songs on the main stage. Around the square little stalls selling drinks (alcoholic and non-alcoholic along with snacks) catered to the milling individuals ahead of the event's commencement. So, when he heard Iann's voice he ducked up from behind a soundboard grinning "nice! We'll hook it up above the stage seems the best place I think." He pointed to a piece of rigging that he'd fixed up for the globe.

Iann shielded his eyes and squinted up at the rigging. "Great. I can get it up there and put it in," he nodded, noting the staging catwalk that led to the rigging. Iann feared a great many things but for some reason teetering heights never bothered him. He looked at Savin and clapped the vampire on the arm. "And hey!! This all looks great too. Better than great, this is one helluvan event." Iann wagged a finger at Fane. "Y'know after this you should consider a side-job as an event planner." Iann was joking of course; first of all because Savin already wore a lot of hats and second because Iann believed the vampire preferred to conceive and pull off own ideas, not catering to the whims and changeable fancies of random fickle clients. "Y'know I just realized that all I have to do once I get the globe up, is stand around and cheer people on. Unless you have some last-minute thing you need me for...?"

Fane smiled cheerily, "alright, just don't fall off the ladder I don't want to have to do a superman catches a falling Lois Lane on you, yeah?" But he pointed over to the ladder for Iann to get on with that job. "Cheers, it took a bit of work but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out... Hopefully people will want to get involved in the bits and pieces. Plus there's drinks and food, who wouldn't want to be here?" The concept of him being some sort of event planner caused him to chuckle, in all honesty, it wasn't the terrible idea of them all, "I don't know how well I'd work being beholden to other people's schedules." Going over to adjust a few of the stands he glanced at Iann, "awh, and there was me thinking you'd be helping to host. It is our event after all and you are great a bigging people up."

Iann blinked. "Host? For this??" Iann started to laugh and he shook his head. "Ohhh no no no, I'm - I'm not a stage...talking...guy. With the microphones and the snappy announcements and the nice outfits. Hosting, ah, performance stuff? I couldn't." Just looking at the stage, and the space where an expectant monolith audience would eventually assemble - it made Iann sweat. Spotlights were for bright shining stars; and Iann considered himself more of a random dark spot on a small moon. He tugged at his collar and then grinned at Fane. "You're a ball of charisma, huh? I guess, uh. Okay well I guess with you there I can totally stand there and do the occasional 'Yeah' and 'Right on'. And thumbs up. I can do the thumbs up." Iann demonstrated using two thumbs.

Miguel The problem with being an introvert that loved people and spending time with them, was that Miguel would get himself into all sorts of shenanigans. After a long three days of being the go-to guy for the Soapberry Pride festival, and the Gender & Wellness Q&A, well he was absolutely exhausted. He was supposed to be helping set up for the open mic night (which had somehow gotten blown up to talent show and... whatever else Iann was turning it into). He didn’t mind because that meant he didn’t have to help set up so much as watch Iann and Fane bumbling around. And there was the everlasting curiosity that meant Miguel wanted to know badly what was in the backpack Iann had insisted on tugging around for the past couple days.

Babs wasn't often flustered, but admittedly being put on such short notice to perform onstage was making that rare occurrence a reality as she hustled into the museum. She didn't have much in the way of props, but she'd commissioned Justine to use some magical shortcuts to whip her up what she needed, and she'd hired the woman's son Justin to lug the props to the venue for her. "We're here. Am I done now?" Justin moaned as he dropped the bags and boxes at his feet the second they entered. Babs sighed. "Take them backstage and you can leave." After glancing at the stage, brimming with pride and anticipation at the sight, she spotted Iann talking with someone nearby that she couldn't quite see. She approached them with a hastened step, every bit of her movement ready and raring to go. "Quite the set up you've managed, my boy."

Iann turned at the familiar voice, his face lighting up with joy. "Auntie Babs! Oh - no this wasn't me. I didn't do any of this, my talent show partner in crime did - Savin, this is my - this is Babs Fitzgerald. Auntie, this is Fane Savin, the bankroll behind the show." Behind Babs in the distance, Iann noticed that Miguel showed up as well and Iann gave the witch a wave and yet another thumb's up. Did Miguel come to do his poem slamming, or just to watch the show? Either way, Iann was glad he showed up.

Maya was curious as to what exactly this talent show put on by odd couple Iann and Fane would look like. Although she supposed Freddie and Iann could also be considered an odd couple and they had an excellent inn together. She arrived quietly, having no interest in being roped onto the stage again and not wanting to disturb the preparations. Upon spotting the group she smiled and waved, but didn't yet go over.

Fane looked at Iann with a slanted grin. “Oh come on, you can’t always hide in the shadows, knock a few drinks back and you’ll be fine and dandy, plus, who doesn’t love a thumbs up” Fane responded with one of his own. However, he was fast taken with a very, very familiar voice. Turning to look at the woman approaching he blinked once, then twice just as Iann introduced he spoke almost simultaneously – “Oh my god, Babs?” immediately forgetting what they had been discussing he stepped out from behind the bits and pieces grinning toothily "well I'll be damned, you are a sight for sore eyes darling."

Babs spoke with Iann as he finished, her grin taking over her entire face. "Fane Savin, yes, I know." She stepped forward and brought Fane into a quick hug, before turning to Iann. "Small world, this town. We met in Madrid decades ago." The memories flooded back to her, and without realizing, her hand went up to touch the area around an eye that had once been a bruised mark of shame and pride all at once. "I can't believe you're here, darling."

Iann "Well I'll be..." Iann said, sticking his tongue into the side of his cheek. Still watching them keenly, Iann took a step back from the pair and then another, then turned to let them get acquainted. Re-acquainted. Whatever. Iann hustled off towards the ladder, clambering up it to to catwalk suspended over the stage. He had a globe to install, and he might as well get that done now, while the good vibes were starting to roll in....at least it seemed like Savin and Babs had good vibes between them. But others were showing up as well, and Iann figured they were all mild and anticipatory for the show.

Fane happily hugged Babs back. "Too right we did, and we had a good time of it in the end" seeing how Babs subconsciously touched her eye he reached out and gave her elbow a little supportive squeeze knowing just what she was presently thinking of. "I was here back when we met, honestly I was tempted about telling you about it back then but our time was rather cut short. How've you been? When did you get here?" he quizzed with interest.

Babs appreciated the support Fane offered, but she just as quickly tucked her feelings away, standing up a little straighter and adopting a grin once more. "How I've been is a somewhat loaded question we should perhaps put a pin in," she offered. "But I got here just a couple of months ago. That would have saved me quite a bit of time," she said, quirking an eyebrow, "but I don't blame you for not giving into temptation. Despite less than satisfactory events that brought us together, in the end you still didn't know me from Adam to trust me with knowledge of a place like this." She looked around once more, taking in the area around her. "This museum, is it yours?"

Iann Once Iann was done with the rigging the globe, he got one of the stage hands to get the thing spinning, just to see how it looked. Spotlights shone on it as it slowly spun; and although it was smooth and not mirrored or faceted, somehow the globe seemed to refract light, sending beams in various directions like a little sun. It was a delightful surprise that was bound to only look prettier as the venue sunk into the evening. Satisfied, Iann shimmied back down the ladder and dusted his hands. He felt a lot lighter now, no longer toting that thing around; and so Iann took a quick little tour of the transformed town square, assuming Savin was to be held credible for everything arranged. Talk about last-minute work. People were bound to be attracted to it tonight. Iann simply couldn't see them failing at this task to keep Soapberry safe.

Faye had finally made her way to the museum stage, which seemed to still be in the middle of construction. Of a sort. A small crowd was mingling, and Faye moved through them, looking around for any familiar faces. She'd been 'coerced' into performing, so she'd decided to sing a few songs like she used to do back at Morgana's. She'd dressed up in leather jacket with black undershirt, glittering black pants that fit snugly, rainbow heels, and her hair pulled back into a fohawk of curls (sparkling with gold glitter) on top of her head. Her lips were a deep red and her makeup was just a classic smokey eye with winged liner. A bit of jewelry and she was set. She looked up as something sparkled above the stage, so transfixed on the little light that she ran right into someone.

Iann didn't even recognize Faye when she smacked into him. "Hey, I'm walking h - oh it's just you, hey," Iann's testiness faded and he grinned a Faye. "You look all rock-glam. Say, are you performing tonight?? Savin pulled some favours?"

Fane nodded at the topic that perhaps wasn't right for just this moment "another time then, we'll have to get drinks and you'll have to regale me of your life story hmmm?" His shoulders wiggled just a little his cheerful nature exacerbated by the fact she was here. But her summary of the fact he did barely know her was truth enough of the fact "yeah, that's true and it seems fate wanted to bring you here in its own time anyhow." Glancing over his shoulder at the museum and then back at her with a grin, "yep! Founded it all myself, I'm quite proud of it really."

"Jesus, you scared me," Faye said, gripping Iann by the arm. "And yeah. I got... 'coerced'.... Figured if I’m gonna do it should just go all out hm?" Faye said of her outfit. It was a bit outside her norm, but she found she liked it. "You the handyman for all this?" She pointed at the stage.

"As you should be," Babs confirmed. She'd always had a little dream in the back of her mind of founding a theater, but having something so concrete to her name was honestly less than fitting to her nowadays. "It's quite an accomplishment. I'll have to come see your collection when its not being so overshadowed."

"What's that mean? 'Coerced'," Iann said, putting his hands up to use air-quotes. "Unless this is a sex thing in which case don't tell me. And yeah - well - you look good, I like it especially if it's for stage. The hair...you're like a horse," Iann said reaching up and (gently, not to ruin the up-do) flipped a bouncy curl. "Ahhhh no - no this was all your fella's doing. I figured he both knew how to do all this, he liked doing all this, and best of all he could pay for all this." Iann grinned. "I sure do love working with fancy wealthy control freaks. And I mean that in the kindest possible way." In case Faye got offended on Fane's behalf. Freddie was similar in his design for Stonefruit; and once Iann learned that, it had been carte blanche for the fairy as well.

"I mean there was... a countertop and some... chocolate syrup and... I really don't remember the rest past the point where I just said 'YESSS!!'." Faye grinned at Iann, as she slapped her hand to her chest at the exclamation, drawing the eye of a few people standing nearby. But she just snorted at herself and bent her hair down for him to peruse. A bit of glitter floated down. "Thanks. It's been ages since I dressed up to sing anything." Faye grinned as she looked around, knowing Fane had had a hand in all of it as well. "Well, Fane is all of those things, so..." Faye didn't take offense on Fane's part, knowing Iann didn't mean it in a bad way. Hell, by the looks of the place there was no telling how much Fane had put into it. Though Faye was glad to see him out and having fun instead of wanting to hide inside.

Bella showed up with a rack filled with enclosed costume changes, pushing it while wearing an outfit likely more ridiculous than the ones in the bags just because what idiot wore heels knowing that would have to move things around? Honestly she had no idea where to put anything. "Hey, is there like a round back I should be taking this?" Bellamy asked to no one in particular.

Maya looked up as Bella walked in with a full costume rack. She shrugged in response, but having very little use for manners shouted, "Yo Iann, is there a backstage and also point me in the direction of booze?"

Iann shook his head and smiled as Faye yelled out her pseudo-orgasm 'yes' and people paused curiously. He applauded and nodded at the other onlookers to join in. "Our first performance of the night, people of the audience," he proclaimed, as they moved along. "You know what gets me is the clean-up afterwards, like. Oh god, oh yeah, oh baby. And then five minutes later you're both scrubbing with water and some magic erasers. Unless of course Savin's got servants to handle all that." "So you're going to sing! Oh that'll be fun. Good, maybe you can start the show, huh?"

Iann heard his name and looked behind him to Maya, and then further behind Maya to spot Bellamy and what seemed to be a long enclosed rack on wheels. "Oh my god, she's doing the fashion show," Iann marveled to himself, before he yelled out. "Oye, Bellamy! Just wheel it up that ramp there! You'll see the dressing mirrors all partitioned off, you can store your stuff there. Jesus, that girl is creative," Iann grinned proudly at Faye as he said that. To Maya, he replied. "Ahhhhh, there's some food and drink booths just down that path? Follow it and you'll get there. I think it's all open bar too, depending on how generous your benefactor is feeling tonight."

Fane heard a familiar voice and his head tilted in that direction and he almost succeeded in not gawking at Faye's loud exclamation though it was mostly her outfit mostly that struck him. In all honesty, he failed spectacularly and his mouth opened and closed "wow" he mumbled under his breath. Looking to Babs he took her hand and pulled her along with the comment of "c'mon, someone I'd like you to meet."

Maya pointed up at Iann to acknowledge his words and shouted back, "Cool, I'm gonna get on that." She turned to head down the path, knowing that if she had a drink or two she'd be sure to cheer loudly. It seemed like the least she could do considering her lack of stage worthy skills.

Darla beelined for the rack full of couture that looked like it was moving on its own up that ramp before realizing that there was a woman pushing it. A very small, very impossibly incredible-looking woman, right out of the pages of a magazine. "These are yours?" she asked, eyes round. "All these clothes?"

"Did I win?" Faye asked Iann, waggling her eyebrows. "I meanthe cleanup is worth it yeah?" she shrugged. "And the servants only come in if there's broken furniture or something on the antique rugs." Faye nodded. "Yeah. Singin'. And hey wait... no one said anything about starting!" Faye called in exasperation as Iann moved off into the crowd. "Ass!!" she called.

Ephram moseyed around the talent show arena, taking in everybody's outfits and costumes and whatnots with interest. He himself was still dressed down; even though he wasn't technically on duty, the main concession he'd made to changing it up was to wear one of the tie-dye rejects from Lilo's booth earlier.

Bella heard Iann and gave him a nod, so short in stature she wasn't exactly finding the large item easy to maneuver but eventually had it heading up the ramp when someone was there. Sandy blonde hair, evidently taller than her and...well, a figure Bellamy hadn't seen for a while. The vampire actually paused for a second, standing awkwardly on the ramp. "Yeah...I mean, enough for tonight, probably won't wear them again, not a lot of them are totally me," she said, pulling out the Ralph Lauren skirt she had picked inspired by Cassie. "You like any of it?" she asked.

Babs couldn't help but smirking as she saw Fane gawk in the direction of a woman a little ways from them. She didn't protest when her hand was grabbed, though she reclaimed it quickly as they walked.

Ryden had been to a museum... never in his life. But luckily, the decorations made it pretty obvious that the Open Mic Night will actually be happening there. He was pretty much all ready for his five minutes of glory, dressed in all black bartending uniform he wore at Erzebet's during work hours, a white apron shoved in the backpack he carried along with a few additional things Iann might not've been able to provide for Ryden's performance. He still had some remnants of electric blue in his hair from the blacklight party two days ago and it might take him some time washing it completely out. Looking about, because honestly everything just looked amazing, busy and confusing, he noticed Iann near the stage ((or on it I didn't follow through lol)), jogging up to him. "Yo, boss! I'm not late, right?" Because he kind of almost forgot about it.

Darla squealed, clapped, and danced around, swooping down to hug Bellamy tight before yanking stuff off the rack as if she knew exactly what was on there. Since she was only wearing a skimpy string bikini top and the barest little white ruffle skirt, she just pulled on the red-and-pink top, the leather jacket, and the YSL heels, discarding her own cheap stilettos carelessly. Primping her blonde hair, Darla posed and turned for Bellamy, saying, "I'm Darla. I haven't been in town long, and -- can I stick by you?" Her blue eyes shone hopefully as she clasped her hands, one long leg raising like a flamingo's.

Iann The clean-up is worth it. Iann had to ponder that for a moment, and then grinned when Faye protested going first. "Well someone has to go first, hermana. And your singing is a great way to warm the crowd up and get them in the mood." But Iann was distracted once more by Ryden jogging up to him, and before he could stop himself Iann was reaching up to try and fussily try to brush the blue stuff out of Ryden's hair. "You're just in time, Dodger. I got your set-up ready and everything, on wheels so it can just get on stage easy-peasy." It was really the only part of tonight that Iann himself specifically worked on, because he'd promised Ryden he would. He looked slyly at Faye and then back at the werewolf. "Do you want to go first? You're an automatic crowd-pleaser, honestly. People are still talking about the black light party."

Freddie strode in, garment bag over his arm, and looked around for Babs to collect his marching orders - but when he caught sight of her with Savin, the fairy wrinkled his nose, deciding that perhaps discretion was the better part of valour for the moment, and opting to hunt for Iann instead. Iann, however, he soon found to be chatting with Faye, and Freddie let out a small frustrated huff, before situating himself out of the way of the crew and the bustle, but still easily noticeable, should Babs begin to wonder where he'd got to.

Maya Beer and hot dog in hand Maya returned to the stage area. She was curious to see who all had gotten roped into performing. Ryden, Bella, Dani and Sam all she knew and she suspected that Faye had more than likely gotten roped in as well. When she arrived she considered offering to help, but decided it would be a too many cooks in the kitchen situation. And mostly that someone might rope her in to performing as well. She therefore hung back.

Ephram caught sight of Freddie easily -- height was to his advantage in any crowd -- and made his way over, kissing him hello. "Miss Babs better be careful with you," he admonished the fairy. "Sawing you in half is gonna endanger some parts of you I'm right fond of."

Ruby made her way towards the stage, bag over her shoulder. Holy shit there was a lot going on. But she saw a lot of familiar faces at least, as well as several she didn't know. She eyed the crowd for Dani, her friend being a lifesaver and agreeing to perform with Ruby. And it wasn't singing this time. She drifted a bit towards the back stage area, trying to get her bearings before she set about getting dressed.

Ryden swatted at Iann's hand but it was done absently, Ryden too used to his momma being the same way, only she wasn't so quiet about it and always had to point out just how much of a messy child he was on top of adjusting his clothing in public even when he was way past his teen days. "Sweet~" He said, in regards to his props being all set. When he suggested Ryden should go first, the young wolf just shrugged. "Whatever. Is that the backstage there?"

Bella was surprised when her question of whether or not the woman liked any of it induced such glee and in moments she was grabbing at things, Bella smiling as she pulled on the shirt she had chosen for Ephram, trying to contain her ample self in a size that was clearly designed for Bellamy. "Bella," she offered, letting go off the rack with her hand and reaching up to undo the strap of Darla's bikini top, the strings showing over the back of her clothing and the lines of it evident beneath the fabric. "Definitely not a cute look with this underneath but otherwise I think you look good," Bellamy said, not exactly confident enough to reach under her shirt and pull the bikini off completely. "And of course I want someone attractive sticking with me," Bellamy assured, starting to push the rack back up and heading into the back room where likely everyone would end up. "You in town for Pride week?"

Iann "Yeah kid. Damn you're amenable, I fucking love it. Head up the ramp behind the stage, hm? When you spot Bellamy and her giant rack, then you're in the right place," Iann said with a smirk because Bellamy very much didn't have a giant 'rack' in the slang sense of the word"

Faye nodded at Ryden, giving him a small smile in return.

Fane glanced around noting the fact that more and more people seemed to be arriving and present. The crowds were starting to gather out front as well so after a few last minute checks, another remark that he was happy to see her but that he had to go. With a few last moment checks to make sure people who were in the line up were prepped he took up a mic and stepped out on stage to the buzzing tune of 'I'm So Excited' which stirred the people in the Crowne to whoop and start clapping along. So far so good. "Wow!" he started voice echoing a little with the mic "hello everyone! And welcome to the show!" The crowd was buzzing and a glance up at the orb it was glimmering brightly looking at the crowds "what an audience," more cheers "this is it, we now have the ultimate lineup all hoping to leave tonight with an amazing set of prizes and a donation to their charity of choice. So are you ready?" he paused letting the crowd clamour and cheer seeming to start amping up the mood in anticipation for the show.

Iann elbowed Faye. "Holy shit, it's starting. I should go up there. Should I go up there? I don't think I should go up there and kill Savin's buzz. He's on a roll. He doesn't need me, nah, I won't go up there."

Darla wriggled out of the scrap of bikini and left that, too, where it fell as she accompanied Bellamy up the ramp, making no offer to help out and instead admiring herself in her new outfit. "Oh, attractive, me," she said in a dismissive (but clearly not really) way. "I mean look at you! Like you should be floating down a red carpet." Darla flicked through the rack again just in case, saying, "Even your name is glamorous, Bella." She came around it to stand on Bellamy's side, nodding at her question. "Might stay longer, if I feel like it. And find somebody who can help me stick around." Her voice slowed a little, getting more syrupy as she flicked the pad of her thumb over the back of Bellamy's wrist.

Ryden pursed his lips with a little frown. He wasn't entirely sure what 'amendable' meant when Iann said it. But that expression quickly faded to be replaced by a grin. "Ehehehe I see whachoo did there~" Because it was really hard to miss Bella's rack. Of clothing of course. But he caught the pun. With another quiet nod at Faye, Ryden jogged off to the backstage, noticing Bella there by her clothing line, talking to some chick he didn't recognize. Opting not to interrupt their conversation, Ryden listened to the announcements, checking his backpack to make sure everything was there.

Freddie lit up when he saw Ephram coming, and returned his husband's kiss with a smile; the arm holding the garment bag held carefully out of the way. "Hello, love," he said happily, "How's your day been so far?" chuckling at the teasing. "And I promise, hand on heart, that Babs'll get me back to you in one piece tonight - really, you'll be amazed at what she intends to do - but I think you'd best give me a thorough looking-over afterward regardless, yeah? Just to be certain everything's still the way you left it."

Babs broke off from Fane before he could introduce her to whomever he'd spotted before, and seemed to get distracted himself as he made his way to the stage. Just then, Babs caught sight of her lovely assistant, and made her way over to him. "Freddie my dear, are you ready to put our night of practice to good use?" She then noticed the man hanging off of Freddie, recognizing him from a picture Freddie had shown her. "You must be Ephram?" She held her hand out for him to shake. "I've only heard good things from this one," she teased, gesturing to Freddie.

Faye grinned at Iann. "Best to just let him do his thing," she laughed before putting her fingers to her mouth and whistling along with the crowd as Fane started things off.

Fane let the crowd clamour for a bit. "Alright then! Well let's get this show going shall we? Kicking us off tonight," Fane almost stopped to roll his eyes at the name that flashed up on the small screen but his smile remained and he pressed on seemingly unflappable. "Is a young man here to astound you with his skills and incredible mixology skills, and maybe even give you a few drinks if you're lucky and down here in the front" he grinned at a few people. "May I introduce to you, Mister Ryden Bolt! Give him a hand!" the crowd cheered and Fane spun the microphone stepping off to let the stage crew set up the bar on stage for Ryden.

Maya cheered loudly, raising her glass as Fane started off the show. When he introduced Ryden she let out a loud wolf whistle, a skill learned from some of Carson's Army buddies. She knew though that she had probably gotten lost in the crowd, but wasn't worried about it.

Iann When Faye told Iann to just remain off the stage, Iann nodded and waited until Fane had announced Ryden. He whistled and clapped loudly as Ryden took the stage, but bolted up the side stairs and catapulted towards Fane. "Savin! You wanted me there but Faye said I should let you do your thing but then I thought about just standing next to you but then maybe you are doing way better without me hanging around like the creepy weirdo in the shadows so --"

Ruby clapped from her seat in the wings as Fane introduced Ryden. The night was off to a fun start it seemed.

Ephram snorted, squeezing Freddie tight -- it was a good thing his husband had the foresight to save his wardrobe -- and was about to respond with something dirty when Babs approached. Straightening up with a slightly self-conscious grin, he took Babs' hand and said, "Yes'm. I'm glad to hear my darlin' husband keeps it fit for mixed company when he talks about my good features." He nodded at the stage, asking, "You two are gonna look like a million bucks in nickels and dimes up there together. Cain't wait to see the act."

Bella's smile pulled to one said as Darla clearly spoke with a fake modesty, she was obviously beautiful. Not in the same way Bellamy was. Bellamy looked airbrushed, like she wasn't totally real. Darla looked weighted by her beauty, like she couldn't quite carry all of it at once even though she knew exactly where all of it was. "Maybe, doesn't discount how you look," Bella assured, feeling Darla's thumb over over the back of her wrist, her hand twisting up to wrap around so she could run the tips of her fingers over the underside of her wrist. "I'm sure lots of people could help," she assured, a little distracted by the warmth she was getting from her skin, hearing the heartbeat of Ryden's arrival and pulling her hand back quickly. "I helped him get a job," she said, motioning over to the guy. "And have made him look a bit more presentable...are you wearing your work clothing?" she asked him, stepping slightly in front of Darla, like if he couldn't see her then he wouldn't try taking the attention away from Bellamy - even if it wasn't his intention Ryden was clearly gorgeous, it wasn't hard for him.

Freddie turned when he heard Babs' voice and grinned. "I was born ready, love - we're going to put everyone else to shame." And when the older woman put out her hand to Ephram, telling him how Freddie bragged on him at every opportunity, the fairy only smiled wider. "That's because there's only good things to say," he replied, squeezing his sweetheart a little tighter. "I mean, look at him," he said, eyes shining, "-and this is only the tip of the iceberg."

Faye followed behind Iann slowly, in no rush to shove through the crowd of people. Iann and Fane's budding bromance made her smile as she followed up the stairs, getting her first good look at Fane's outfit. "Wow..." she huffed, a stupid grin turning up one side of her mouth. She slung an arm over Iann's shoulder, leaning against him. "Can I take your friend home later?" she whispered to Iann, though it wasn't really a whisper and she was looking at Fane the entire time.

Darla 's eyes brightened up behind Bellamy as she spotted Ryden, something a little more cunning slipping into her expression. But she made no move, instead shifting up closer behind Bellamy so the vampire was aware of her warmth. And Darla was tall, so there wasn't much of a chance for Bellamy to forget she was there. "I want you to help," she whispered.

Ryden: Oh, this was him! Uh... Where are his stuff again??? Ryden looked about, finally noticing the makeshift bar counter on wheels. He carted it onto the stage, waving enthusiastically at the crowds. Positioning everything in place, the music already playing to set the mood. It took a minute to set everything up but he didn't let the anticipation build up for too long before the first bottle was up in the air and then... things just escalatedquickly as the young wolf performed impressive acrobatics in the rhythm of the music.

Ryden’s Act: http://youtube.com/watch?v=60GJ0dJ1xmE

Fane laughed as Iann approached, the lights catching and reflecting off the gold of his attire. "I might need you or at least someone to introduce me when I do my thing I'm totally not introducing myself because that'd just be-- well, weird." Though as Faye followed behind Iann and into sight Fane's smile turned lop-sided itself at her stage-whisper.

Ephram was inordinately pleased to be referred to as an iceberg

Iann laughed loudly (there may have been a snort in there) in relief at Fane's response. "Ah - god - yes. Thanks, that - I can do that." When Faye slunk over all slinky like, Iann loked from her side-smile to Fane's mirrored one. Both the vampire and the witch had the same sort of look in their eyes: one part predatory, one part absolutely goofy in love. "He has to be wooed first, Faye. You can't just go stampeding him straight the bedroom. Tell him he's beautiful before you rip off his clothes, hm?"

Faye: "Go let Bellamy dress you so you can introduce," Faye said, giving Iann a shake.

Bella turned, hearing Ryden's named called onto the stage. She knew what he was doing and had seen him do it a number of times at work so wasn't overly concerned about watching, mostly just hoping he'd save her whatever he ended up making and bringing one by. With him gone she turned, Darla quite close to her now, chest squeezed into the shirt she had chosen for Ephram and her muscles obviously tightened due to standing in heels. "Uh um - yeah - yeah, I can definitely help," Bellamy froze up slightly, she hadn't spoken to a woman who was so evidentally attractive to her in a long time. The large smile on her face had been enough to break Bellamy completely, especially as it was so rare in this town she found any women attractive, but she pulled herself together, stepping back and opening up what would be her first outfit. "Maybe find you some clothes that fit first."

Babs "You two are sickeningly adorable," Babs teased. "But I'm afraid I'll have to break up the love fest and steal my lovely assistant away. I've no word on the act order so we best be prepared for anything." Putting a hand on Freddie's arm, she began to lead him away toward the backstage area. She stole a glance up at the young man throwing bottles around in an impressively coordinated display, but her focus was getting backstage. Once they were more or less alone, Babs turned to Freddie, a rare look of panic in her eyes. "Freddie, darling...I hate to admit this but, my nerves are getting the best of me at the moment," she confessed. "Perhaps this wasn't a good idea."

Faye mock sighed dramatically at Iann. "But I don't like foreplay...  But fine..." She stepped away from Iann and walked over to Fane, looking him over before taking him by the lapels. "You look stunning, baby..."

Fane 's eyes crinkled happily at Iann and Faye's remarks. He was feeling, well, he was feeling good , really good. The mood of the situation and buzz generally infectious and plus, Faye taking him by the lapels practically drew his entire attention. Unable to help himself from snickering a little as Iann darted off. "Thank you love, and you-- well, you're looking absolutely ravishing." 

The wolf also really knew how to rile up the crowd, which became obvious during the blacklight party. Although he didn't have a microphone on him right now, that didn't stop him from communicating with the crowd, occasionally asking for an applause and cheer. The end product of Ryden's performance where three perfectly made margaritas in tall glasses and the young wolf ended up inviting three people on the stage to try them out - Maya, whom he'd easily noticed in the crowd, pointing her out, Babs and Freddie whom he didn't know but pointed out anyway. They were free to come up on the stage and try what he'd made.

Iann stubbornly thought he looked fine, but he'd been a wingman enough times to know a cue when he heard one and Faye was practically shoving him away by now to get to her fella. "Okay okay okay, I can take a hint. Savin! Let me know when you're on and I'll announce you." Iann stepped back down into the audience, right when Ryden finished up his set with delicious looking margaritas. Iann joined in the applause and hollering for the werewolf's mad skills.

Maya made a big show of being surprised even as she internally rolled her eyes. She should've known that somehow she'd end up stage. Pretending to fan herself she went up on stage before realizing that she had no free hands. "Hold my hot dog?" she asked Ryden before handing it to him. After taking a sip of what he'd created she turned to the crowd and gave an technically over-enthusiastic thumbs up.

Darla pouted at Bellamy's wanting to re-dress her, tugging the bottom of the already short top up so the hem landed somewhere just south of her boobs. "Yes? No?" she asked hopefully, but then pouted some more and said, "okay," when Bellamy decided a change of outfit was needed. Clinging to Bellamy's arm like a limpet, Darla declared, "I just knew I'd find somebody here who I'd be best friends with right away. But I didn't expect somebody with such style as you, Bella." Darla was laying it on pretty thick, but there was a ring of sincerity to her words. Or at least a greedy admiration underneath.

Taking Maya's hot dog for her, he took a bite out of it, much to the audience's amusement. It was his hot dog now.

Iann "YEAH! SHOVE THAT FOOTLONG IN YOUR FACE, HOTSTUFF," Iann cupped his hands to his mouth and hollers.

Ruby watched, a huge grin on her face as Ryden showed off his bartending skills. She clapped with the rest of the audience when he was done, laughing as the 'volunteer's came up to taste what he'd made.

The Watcher: ((Just imagine there's a 6'8" figure in the back of the room, overshadowed by his stenson hat and otherwise obscured by his shadowy overcoat. The figure says nothing but claps loudly after every performance.))

Maya caught Ryden taking a bite out of her hot dog out of the corner of her eye. She faked shock, even as amusement sparkled in her eyes. "I'm never getting that back, am I Batman?" she asked, too quiet for the audience to hear. She didn't set the drink now. It was collateral now, obviously.

Ryden: "Nope~ That's payback for the popsicle."

Bella didn't think anything there would fit her, she really meant later, another day, where Darla wasn't just picking things off a random rack of clothing but it was hard not to want to keep changing her back there, especially seeing her fidget with the fabric. She needed to get a hold of herself. Fortunately she attached herself to Bella and the vampire clung back, and was a pretty big sucker for compliments, even if they seemed oddly specific. "Thanks," she flushed, Darla's warmth able to bring a reddish hue to her cheeks. "Admittedly I can't judge your own, I'm guessing the bikini was because you were at the beach and not because you just wear them around, right?"

Maya shook her head, not surprised. "Then I'm not going to tell you about great you did," she replied, "And also this is mine now." With that she hopped off the stage gracefully, now double fisting her drinks.

Carting his props away from the stage, followed by a roaring applause, Ryden was done, slipping back so that the next performer could be announced. Not phased one bit that he'd just performed in front of a lot of people, he left the props where he'd found them and took off the apron he had on. Well that was a nice experience~

Faye blushed a bit beneath her rockstar glam makeup. "Flatterer. It's a bit of a change I know,"Faye said of her outfit, n ot letting go of himjust yet. "You havin' fun?" she smiled. "It's... this is amazing." She looked around, seeing all the people together and mingling (mostly) happily.

Fane smiled “thanks, it’s come together well hasn’t it?” Unfortunately had to break away from Faye, "I gotta go. Hosting," stealing a quick peck he squeezed her hand the crew signalling for Ryden to depart the stage and moving his things. "What a brilliant way to open the show, quite the display for you all hm? And now! Our local fashionista. Here to give you all a show you're bound never to forget-- Welcome to the stage, Miss Bellamy Barnes!"

Faye just grinned as he kissed her and moved off. She wasn't going to keep him, but it was SO nice to watch him leave.

Freddie leaned up and gave Ephram another kiss - this one much quicker - and said, "I'll be looking for you in the front row," then called back over his shoulder with a sparkly-eyed smirk as Babs led him off, "But if Iann sees you first, he just may try to put you on stage..." winking as he disappeared around the corner. Once he and Babs were on their own, however, and she admitted to her stage fright, fear bright in her eyes, the fairy sobered and took her hands in his. "You, love," he told her, "-are an incredible talent. You're going to knock this entire crowd on its collective arse." He smiled, holding her gaze. "Honestly, darling, your kind of skill deserves an audience to captivate," and then after a moment's pause, he added, "-plus I look bloody gorgeous in my outfit, and I want to show it off." Freddie grinned again. "So no more second-guessing, yeah? You're going to go out there and show all these people what magic really looks like when you work for it."

Darla "I was at the beach earlier, but I was wearing it mostly because of the Pride thing. I never been to one! It's so exciting." She flushed a little as well, looking down. "Well, probably not for you. You must be used to this sort of thing." Fane intro'd Bellamy just then, and Darla looked even more starstruck, if possible.

Maya cheered again as Fane returned to the stage to introduce Bella. She would've clapped too, but she still had no free hands.

Ephram dutifully worked his way up closer to the front, mindful of shorties in the crowd whose view he didn't want to ruin. Hearing Bellamy's name called, he gave a loud hoot and clapped, wondering what his friend would be doing. Surely she wasn't gonna caterwaul in front of all these folks. Ephram grinned at the thought, since he personally adored Bellamy's enthusiastic if not always on-key renditions.

Bella heard her name and it was only the good fortune of being a vampire that she was able to change quickly enough to make it out, unfortunately not able to respond to Darla God, she felt sort of silly. She'd sung in front of people, specifically planned songs to fit the specific vibe. This felt a little silly but it had been Iann's idea and she liked making him happy. Plus it was nice to show off her clothing that tended to sit for months on end in her closet. Iann's outfit was the first one and she went through each of the townsfolk, imagery of each persons name behind her with each outfit so they knew who it was for. There were a lot and she was grateful that Darla had fortunately removed the items she needed for each of the outfits. By the time she was on the final one her hair was messier than it started out and she was feeling a little bit dizzy. Fortunately though she made it backstage as the music concluded and inhaled and unnecessary breath of comfort that it was done.

Ryden decided to stick to the backstage, leaning against a wall at a good vantage point from which he could see the stage itself. He clapped when Bella was announced, vocally cheering for her too.

Darla Bellamy was met with a tall whirlwind of warm perfumy girl who slammed into her, shrieking in congratulations. "That was like a real live fashion show!" Darla screamed. "Ohmygawd you're not real. You're not! You can't be!!"

Maya watched with some awe as Bella displayed outfits inspired by all of them. The fact she'd pulled it together so quickly was incredible enough on its own. When the outfit apperently inspired by Maya herself appeared the witch shouted, "Fuck yeah all black!" She actually kind of liked the jacket and might have to make a point of asking Bella where she'd gotten it later although she suspected it would be out of her personal price range.

Iann was amazed that Bellamy somehow managed to pull it off, and yet she did. "THAT'S ME! That first one - it's me! It's me right?" Iann asked the stranger next to him, who ignored him to clap for Bellamy. To Iann, she was flawless - in execution and design and the way she walked and her hair and everything. Sure he didn't really understand some of her choices but that didn't matter because clearly the kids and the more artistic folk in the audience were over the moon over her style and flair. Ryden set a good precedent, and now Bellamy was carrying the torch of joy seamlessly. Iann glanced up at the globe, and it seemed brighter than ever. When it was over, Iann clapped so hard he almost felt like crying, it was getting a little overwhelming. But he had to stick around for Babs' performance, and to announce Savin's as well.

Ruby figured it was coming up time to get ready. She and Dani hadn't practiced all that much, just a quick run through of things they did during sparring sessions. But much faster and with a bit more... flair.

Ephram was entirely entertained that Bellamy had created an outfit for him and only mildly objected to the fanny pack, giving her a gentle heckling before she moved on to the next one. He resolved to catch up with Bella later and tell her how cool her bit had been, and also to find out what made her hair slowly stand on end like she was being electrified through the entire performance.

The Watcher claps very loudly with a slavic accent. You didn't know claps could be accented but here we are, the stranger did it.

Bella laughed hard when Darla approached her, a little awestruck by the sudden investment of the woman, it was exceptionally flattering. She knew that Iann was going to love it, and that he would likely be amused by her styling of him, and she had heard Maya's happiness at what had come out for her, making her quite pleased she hadn't screwed up, but this woman didn't even know her and while she was definitely intense none of it seemed particularly fake. "I mean, a fake fashion show like they'd do in high school to raise money for like...prom or something," she laughed a little bit, putting her hand on the girls arm. "You should see a real fashion show. I should see a real fashion show," she corrected, Paris Fashion Week was like her entire goal to attend one day. "Did you like my outfit for you Ryden?" she asked, seeing the guy standing all alone.

Babs held Freddie's hands tight when he took them, listening to his words as they soothed her troubles. It wasn't stage fright per-se, though she admittedly had her previous 'failure' at the forefront of her mind whether she liked it or not. "Yeah," she answered, taking a deep breath. "You're right, my dear, let's blow them away." She led them over to where Justin had set up all the props before promptly disappearing, and a stagehand passing them by informed them that they were next up. Babs hadn't been this nervous in decades, but she swallowed it down and stamped it out, focusing all that nervous energy into the cards she was twirling around in her hands.

Darla turned with Bellamy, her arms slung around the vampire's waist, giving Ryden a breathless, sultry smile. "Ryden," she repeated. "Wasn't she amazing, Ryden?"

Fane clapped as Bella finished up her piece, and walked onstage doing precisely that. "Well, wasn't that a beautiful display of our local fashion? Quite a celebration indeed!" The crowd was still cheering and clapping, all going well so far. "Are you ready for more?!" a roar of approval came in response, "alright then! We've had drinks, we've had design-- now what about a little bit of... danger hm?" His eyes glittered as a murmur went through the crowd, "may I present, Dani Savin and Ruby Devereaux to the stage!"

Ryden: The young wolf, too focused on the actual show and what was going to happen next was kind of surprised when someone addressed him during his lone wolf moment. He glanced at Bella and the woman she was talking to, eyebrows slightly raised. "That's my baby doll, yo." He pushed off the wall to approach them, slipping an arm around Bella's waist all smooth-like. "Hey babe. That was effin' amazing."

Ephram idly purchased some kind of fund-raising candy from an atronach child and instantly regretted it when he realized the marshmallows were coated not in melted caramel but in melted hard butterscotch. Still, he whooped when Fane announced Ruby and Dani, wincing as he pried one of the marshmallows coated in rock-hard candy off a tooth.

Briefly distracted by another announcement, Ryden peeked at the stage again. Oh wow, this town was so small. Apparently his ex and Ruby knew each other. Fuck that, the entire world was like as big as a backyard it seems.

Bella had to believe that Ryden was affected by Darla and how she spoke. Between herself and the woman Bellamy had to look about tweleve years old, but he seemed unaffected, walking over she suddenly had both Darla and Ryden's arms wrapped around her waist and was actively convinced this had to be some kind of punishment. "I made a much cuter you than you do, which was quite difficult, puppy, you're terribly handsome," she told him, wrapping her own arms around the two taller companions she now had. "You save me any drinks we can share?"

Darla narrowed her eyes at Ryden for a moment before her expression smoothed out, all breathy anticipation and warm openness again. "Oh," she peeped at Bellamy, "is this your boyfriend?"

Freddie "Course we will," Freddie said, leaning in to buss her cheek, and then quickly changing his clothes right where he stood, not caring at all who was watching. He glamoured his discarded street clothes into a handful of coins, sliding them into his pocket (he could, of course, have not bothered changing at all and simply glamoured the whole thing - but where was the fun in that?) before following Babs to their collection of props, confident that he knew precisely what to do and when, watching appreciatively as Babs handled her cards. Marveling because she really was something to see.

Maya finished off the drink she'd stolen off the stage as Fane came back out to announce the next act. She almost didn't remember to swallow before wolf whistling again for Dani and Ruby.

Ruby was standing with Dani, waiting on their names to be called. She really didn't feel nervous, but she'd only ever done this in the training room. But what the hell. Her sword was in it's sheath in her hand, a long, curved katana that she'd been using for just over a year now. Ruby walked across to the far side of the stage, reaching into a small pouch at her side and bringing out what looked like a black ball about the size of a tennis ball. She didn't say much, just waited on Dani to take their own spot opposite. When they were set, Ruby tossed the ball into the air, in a high arch towards Dani, as they did the same. At the right time, Ruby pulled her sword from the sheath in a great sweeping arch, slicing the ball in half and exploding glitter and sparks all across the stage, while the same happened on Dani's side. "Just in case you thought they weren't real," Ruby said towards the audience as the glitter died down.

"He dreams of being my boyfriend," Bellamy teased, knowing Ryden had no intention of dating considering what had only just happened to him but knowing that wasn't anyone else's business. "No, my boyfriend has his kids right now, he might be by later," she smiled of Miles. "Ryden just enjoys being handsome around me, plus he works at my restaurant."

Ryden, apparently, was absolutely clueless that each outfit was supposed to represent a person. "Oh! So, one was like, inspired by me? Heh, which one?" When Darla assumed something slightly inappropriate but definitely amusing, Ryden barked out a loud but charming laughter, energetic, boyish and showing off the unnaturally white, sharp canines. "Naw. Just her sex slave."

Ephram saw Cassie and rushed to join her, neverminding her fella being around. "Hey!" he greeted her, waving. "Heeeeey! Are you gonna do a talent? Thing? Up there later?"

Bella smirked, shaking her head. "How rude that you couldn't tell," she pouted playfully. "Leather jacket and exceptionally tight blue jeans, that's like all you wear."

Darla took in this information, just listening for now but not letting go of Bellamy one fraction. "I dunno," she mused, "if jeans should be anything other than exceptionally tight. On the right people." She looked at Bellamy, her long lashes sweeping slowly as she then looked over at Ryden.

The crowed around him seemed to explode into cheers when the sliced ball exploded into magical sparks and glitter, which of course gave the globe a further lively shimmer. "Good going Ruby," Iann said, clapping and whistling some more. And Dani too, but Iann knew this wasn't the tiny human's only performance for the night. Savins never did things by halves.

Cassie looked through some of the crowd, trying to spot Lilo with Addie since they shouldn’t have been too far behind. They might have been doing two different acts, but they did in fact arrive together. “Hmm?” Cassie turned eyebrows raising when she saw Ephram. She took a step back so she could see all of him and nodded, fixing her jacket some, “Yeah gymnastics. Balance beam. What about you? Performing some rockin’ Cotton Eyed Joe or something?”

Lilo was standing next to Cassie, colorful rainbow baby strapped to his chest in some kind of new-fangled papoose, his guitar case in one hand. He was feeling pretty good about the whole talent thing at first. Now he was feeling less than chopped liver with how Ephram, rude and unrepentant, breezed past him.

The swords were very, very sharp. Not blunted or charmed. She and Dani had practiced a long time for Ruby to move up to real blades. But they weren't done yet. The color was just to show the authenticity of the blades themselves.

Lilo standing next to Cassie after sneaking up from the crowd of course. He hadn't announced himself yet.

"A boy can dream yo~ Dreams are for free and sometimes they git wet~" Ryden landed a quick peck on her cheek. "Oooh okaaay, nice! And I'm not rude, I'm poor and have no fashion sense." He then realized he didn't really properly introduced himself to this other woman. "And who's your friend?" Now this look from Darla he did not miss. A terribly charming smirk pulled at the corner of his lips. Ryden didn't use his charm on Bellamy, simply for the fact that she was taken and he wasn't the homewrecker type. But with Darla, he turned the charm up full bast, like the perfectly sculpted muscles and a handsome face weren't enough.

Fane pulled out his phone, typing off a quick text to Ryan about bringing Bear around soon since they were presently between acts and he knew he would probably be up soon.

"Only sometimes?" Bella teased, a little defensive as Ryden seemed to have taken the attention of the woman, as Bella suspected that he would. It wasn't like Bellamy was delusional, Darla was...crazy hot and sweet and adorable, least so far, but she had Miles and she still considered it cheating even if it wasn't with a dude, but it had felt pretty nice to have someone be so immediately excited about knowing her. Most people tended to be a little more resistant these days. Even Ryden she'd had to put in a bit of effort with. "This is Darla," Bella said, pulling her closer, to the place Darla had pulled away from.

Ephram paused in accosting Cassie to holler at the stage and clap loudly, highly resembling a Wookie more than anything. "Gymnastics!" he half-shouted at Cassie before remembering to turn down the volume again. "I cain't wait to see it, that's sure gonna be a sight to see." He couldn't help biting his lip at the idea of it, gaze traveling over Cassie's form before he pulled himself together enough to snort at her question. "Din't nobody ask me to do nothin'," Ephram declared, "so I took that as a hint." Belatedly, Ephram noticed Lilo and stared at him with that thoughtful look again before saying, "oh, hey, din't see you there, Lilo."

To say Dani was brimming with excitement might have been an understatement. Nothing thrilled them quite like the prospect of a sword fight, and now that Ruby had honed her skills, they were just as excited to show off what she had learned. Dani held their blade loosely in their hand, giving it a quick spin as they reached the stage. As they had planned, they tossed their sphere of glitter to Ruby as Ruby did to them. It was essential they demonstrate that this wasn't just a mock spar. That wouldn't be nearly as thrilling. "Because what fun would that be?" Dani grinned out at the audience and proceeded to walk to the opposite end of the stage from where the other woman was standing. Her instructor eyed her across the space as if to inquire whether or not she was ready.

"I'm Darla," she repeated, reddened lips curling into a smile as she nestled back against Bellamy but kept looking at Ryden. "Bella's taken me under her wing, isn't that the most sweetest, wonderfullest, kindest thing you ever heard?" She turned and kissed Bellamy's cheekbone, leaving a little slick of gold-flecked gloss.

Lilo offered a small little wave. "Oh hey Ephram, you excited to see Cassie's gymnastying all over the stage too?" He pushed himself into the conversation just as cheery as he could. Bouncing off and on to give Addie a playful and wiggly ride.

Ruby circled a bit as Dani moved, keeping her own place for the fight. When Dani stopped and eyed her, Ruby gave a dip of her head and pointed her sword at Dani in the ready position. Music started playing in the background.

Ruby: http://youtube.com/watch?v=s0hNYub-y5E

“Nothing?” Cassie said a little surprised. After all, it seemed like plenty of people had gotten wound up in the show. She shrugged, “I suppose we need just as many supportive audience members anyways.” Cassie laughed, turning when Ephram mentioned Lilo she smiled when she saw him. “Not all over the stage.” Cassie waved her hand to clear any confusion. “They’re hardly set up for that. Anyways, Lilo’s singing with Addie.” She announced for the other man’s benefit. “Which is just the cutest.”

The Watcher stands up to get a better look. Makes "whoo" sounds, again with a thick slavic accent.

Ephram nodded solemnly. "Wouldn't miss Cassie gymnastying for the world," he drawled, a smirk just barely crossing his face before he was distracted by Addie. "Well now -- ain't that gonna be jes the sweetest thing!"

"Hey Darla~" Ryden practically purred her name, looking her up and down with bright gray eyes. "How come I never seen ya around? I usually notice pretty things real quick." Looking back at Bellamy, his grin widened. "She does that, yes. Took this stray pup in too. Back when I was hangin' out in a cardboard box with an adopt me sign around me neck."

Bella felt the kiss to her cheek and leaned into it, feeling the stickiness of the gold gloss on her now, not wiping it away. "Too distracted by other pretty things maybe?" Bellamy suggested.

Lilo: always seemed to grow an inch taller under Cassie's praise, no matter what it was. "Aww, Addie is going to be the star of that performance, yes she is. Yes she's gonna steal everybody's heart." He held out his hand, letting Addie grab at his fingers.

Darla visibly went all slinky at the tone of Ryden's voice, explaining, "I just got here! Brand spanking new in town and ready to get to know people." She beamed at them both. "Like you two. Already such nice, generous, beautiful company." Darla shifted, a circuit of her hips brushing against them both lightly enough that it could have been deliberate or totally innocent. 

"Well we're a beautiful town," Bella agreed of Darla's comment but was confident Ryden couldn't be quite as generous as she could be, as conceited as that was. Darla seemed to draw close to both of them once more and Bellamy knew Ryden's comment about dreams was definitely going to be an issue that evening. "Maybe after the show you can help me take my clothes home," she suggested to Darla.

Cassie chuckled a little nervously at Ephram’s response, “Yeah, I don’t know how well I’ll do. It’s been a little while since I’ve done gymnastics formally. Other talents are probably more exciting too.” Cassie found gymnastics was sort of an acquired taste.

Dani waited for Ruby to find her stance before they settled into their own. They each had their own different styles of wielding a blade - Ruby with her favor for the katana and Dani's for blades with a slight curve to the edge. They were confident in Ruby's ability to both defend herself and advance, which was why Dani hadn't opted for much in the way of skin cover. And again -- this was all about putting on a show, right? As the music started, they allowed for a few tense seconds of stillness to pass before dashing forward to make a strike at Ruby's middle. Simple enough to dodge.

Maya cheered loudly as Dani and Ruby started to swordfight. She absolutely going to have to ask Dani to teach her that.

Darla pressed briefly against Ryden as she bent to fiddle with the strap of her shoe, giving him a glimpse of her breasts. "I am one hundred percent going to help you with those clothes," she said to Bellamy with a brilliant smile, the corners of her eyes crinkling from it. "I would love to see where you live, Bella."

Lilo clapped around Addie to not jostle her too much. "Look baby girl! Look at those cool people fight? Huh? Maybe you wanna be a real cool badbaby fighter. Well There will be two people to ask to teach you." Lilo grinned and smiled at Addie as she mostly cooed at the lights reflecting off the swords.

Ruby pulled the blade back over her shoulder, parallel with the ground as she waiting on Dani to advance. Her own outfit wasn't much different from Dani's, having grown used to the other woman's workout style as they'd trained. Dani came in with a fierce swipe towards Ruby's bare midriff, a move that would have split her open if it hadn't been blocked. Ruby swept her bladedown and pushed Dani's blow to the side, arching back up and advancing with a downwrds strike of her own towards dani's s houlder.

Fane figured that for the time being he wasn't specifically needed stage side, and so he wandered off to fetch a drink. Scanning the audience he spotted Maya and walked over. "Hey!" he gave her a one-armed hug "how you enjoying it so far?"

Bella if Darla wasn't looking she'd have poked her tongue out at Ryden she was that mature in this situation, but fortunately she was and instead just gave herself a short glimpse at what her movements were showing off. "Let's head out then," she smiled, grabbing the rack and Darla, actually poking her tongue out to her friend as she walked her off.

"Oooh, welcome then! Hope ya have a good time in this crazy town. We're all mad here~" Reference perfectly deliberate, Ryden added. "Yes, yes, and beautiful too." Smiling at the light kiss, he looked back to the stage, following Dani and Ruby's performance for a bit. Apparently, there was a sword fight going on there and he totally missed the view down Darkla's titty crack though he still placed a firm hand on her arm to help her balance. "Hooly shit, this is friggin' awesome~ Gotta watch this shit. Darla, if Bella ever gets ya to Erzebet's, I'lll gladly get ya a drink~" He winked at the taller blonde, swooping in to give Bella a quick kiss on her cheek. "Bye, babes."

Maya was so intent on watching Ruby and Dani that she didn't notice Fane until he was right next to her. She jumped a little before laughing. "It's been really amazing so far. Although I lost my hot dog," she wanted to finish that sentence to a hot dog, but decided that as much as Fane might appreciate the pun the person it was about might mitigate that.

Danny was not in the show as he had no real talents but hearing that Freddie would be he knew he had to make it. Unfortunately it seemed as though he had missed a few acts by the time he showed up. Sneaking in the back he patted Ryden on the back. "Hey mate," he said. "Miss a faerie and a human doing some magic?" Danny asked, wallaby by his side.

Ryden: "Oh hey mate! Uhh... Honestly, I didn't pay much attention. I think there weren't none ye-- what is that?" Ryden pointed at the wallaby, kind of weirded out by it.

"Oh, yeah, you didn't meet Steve last time," he said with a grin, looking to his side at the wallaby half his size. "This is my familiar, Steve," Danny introduced, the wallaby holding his hand out to Ryden. "He doesn't come with me on dates often so he was at home when you saved me from that psycho vamp."

Fane lightly jostled her once she settled, slightly playful and mostly relaxed. "I'm pretty happy with how it's come together honestly, surprising considering it was an absolute last minute flying by the seat of our pants put together by Iann and me" he smiled his eyes fixated on the stage as he spoke. The remark about her hot-dog however, earned a side-look from Fane, "you want another one?"

"Whoo!" Lilo whoo-hoo'ed the fight. Holding up Addie's chubby baby arms and letting them wiggle like she was cheering on the display herself. "Ahah, Cassie look at this!"

Cassie looked over at Addie when Lilo spoke to her. She scratched her chin watching the sword fighting for a moment before she said, “You might be better teaching her that. And I can teach her things like ballet and ice-skating.” Cassie leaned in to give the baby a little tickle.

Ryden couldn't help his eyes going wide as saucers as the creature stuck out its... paw? to shake hands. Ryden took it and shook it lightly, a big grin coming up on his face. Shit, he shook a kangaroo's paw! "Oh, okay, yeah, makes sense. What's a familiar??"

Faye had moved off to warm up a bit, and came back over now that the competition was underway. She heard the sound of metal on metal and paused to watch Dani and... was that Ruby?... sword fighting. "Shit," she said to herself, glad she had magic to defend herself with. She'd cut her arm off trying to do that. She moved over to where she saw Fane and Maya chatting. "Hey, girlie," Faye said, giving a lock of MAya's hair a gentle tug. "You joinin' in all the fun tonight?"

Lilo smiled at Cassie, "Hey! a kid who knows her ice-skating and sword-play is a well rounded kid!" Lilo grinned up at his fiance, then nodded at the crowd in general for someone to hear him an agree. He'd expected Ephram but supposed the man was slightly more engrossed with finding show snacks, or biting his husband's ears, or something akin to that.

"Dude, I'm a faerie, he's like my...magical buddy?" Danny tried to explain simply. It was an awful explanation of what Steve was and Danny got a pretty intense glare from the wallaby for it but for someone who didn't know it didn't seem that bad to Danny. "When I was born he just like...suddenly existed and I've had him ever since. He's much smarter than me though, got his own mind and all that."

"Oooh! Faeries get that??" Ryden was seriously impressed, staring at the familiar. "Meanwhile, I obviously get to turn into mine. Balls. How are ya man? Good? Neck healed up?"

Dani grinned when they felt their blade collide with that of Ruby's. Her response was swift and practiced, and Dani couldn't have been prouder. However, that didn't mean they were going to be nice about it. Ruby pushed their blade to the side and Dani moved with it, skipping back only to crouch as Ruby's katana came down. They turned the edge of their blade upwards, but at a slight tilt. When the two swords met, the smaller of the two fighters pushed forward by the balls of their feet, leaving a trail of sparks as blade slid against blade and the lower of the performers used their position to dart under their opponent's arm. They sprung back up behind her with a practiced grace, this time a swipe toward her neck.

Cassie “I agree.” Cassie nodded to Lilo before taking his arm and motioning over to a small group, “Let’s go say Hi to Faye and Fane. The other girl Maya is from last night too – remember?”

Maya nodded, "Yeah. It seemed a little..." She searched for a good word, "Last minute when Iann mentioned it yesterday." It still seemed to her like perhaps something else was going on, but she decided again not to ask about it. She shook her head, "Nah, but I should eat later." Now that she was less laser focused on the stage she heard Faye approaching and therefore didn't jump when she appeared. Shaking her head at Faye's question she replied, "Nah, I don't have any stage appropriate skills." She also wasn't a fan of being the center of attention either, which seemed to make her something of an outlier in the Savin family.

"I bet your wolf is awesome though, dude, most people think I'm a wolf cause I'm just huge and hairy but as you have witnessed I don't have your strength," Danny complimented, running his fingers over top of Steve's head while he watched what was happening upon the stage, it was quite interesting to him. "Yeah, necks all good, bloods all back in my body. Now to find a new vampire to hopefully not murder me," Danny laughed.

Lilo let Cassie lead him to be more social, "Oh yeah! Sounds good!" Along the way Addie saw the big fuzzy wallaby, and wiggled to see it more clearly. "Puppy! Puppy!" It wasn't quite right, but that was Addie's best animal reference, and she made little grabby hands towards Danny's familiar.

Ruby was taller than Dani, and that sometimes gave her an advantage. As she blocked the strike and Dani backed away, she couldn't help the grin that spread across her face. Though she didn't let it distract her for one second. Because Dani wasn't going to let up. Sparks flew as the swords met again and Dani used their smaller size to put Rubys' back to them. She felt more than saw the strike coming and dipped forwards, catching herself on one hand before swiping a leg out in an attempt to catch Dani off guard before she pulled around in another sweeping arch.

"I have no friggin' idea, I feel anythin' but cool when I go wolf. Mostly I just end up shittin' squirrels for the next week." Ryden shrugged. "Hey, ya be careful yo, don't let 'um terminally anemic chicks get ahead of ya~" He chuckled but was actually relieved Danny was okay now.

"Everyone got stage skills," Faye grinned, though she knew her opinion was biased. She didn't say anything else about it though, since it wasn't a big deal. EVeryone seemed to be having fun, so that was the important part. "You call Ryan yet?" Faye mentioned to Fane. She knew he was bringing Bear up for an act, and didn't want him to have forgotten in all the other things he had going on.

Danny "Ew, as a freakin' human?" Danny asked, frowning in shocked. That sounded fucking disgusting, no wonder Steve was a vegan. Danny laughed at the guys joke and shook his head. "Nah, I don't normally chase vampires, but it happens sometimes. They're so strong, it's super hot to me. You got anything going on right now, mate?"

Fane smiled, now that Faye was here he slipped his free arm around her waist lightly kissing her cheek. "Yeah, he'll be over probably just after the next act so guess it'll be me up there in the spotlight."

"YUP." Ryden confirmed, his blank expression revealing that he was completely unamused by that himself and definitely really grossed out but unlike Danny, he was cursed to get used to it. "Well, at least I think it was a squirrel. Coulda been a rat. I don't know." He shrugged. "Uhh, right now? No, just watchin' the show. I've already been up there, done my thing."

"I can't wait to see you up there," Faye said, leaning close. It had been a busy day, and they'd not seen each other much, so she'd steal whatever time she could get.

"Least it's just squirrels and rats and not like...humans," Danny pointed out, that would probably not be something anyone could just get used to. "I meant you sleeping with anyone?" Danny laughed, shaking his head. "Tell me what you did though up there."

Maya made a face and said in a perfect imitation of a teenager, "Oh my gawd are you guys going to make out? Is this what it means to have parents? That they make out in public. Ewwwwww."

Ryden: "Hopefully..." Ryden shifted awkwardly where he stood because, well... maybe he did. The mere thought made a shiver run up his spine. But the next much brighter topic put a grin on his face "I've... sneaked into some beds, sure. And uh, I did some flair bartending I guess. You gonna do anythin'?"

Faye snorted. "I mean... we can? I'm up for some PDA if you are, love?" Faye said to Fane. She was kidding - mostly - because this was a family friendly show. But she coudln't help the light teasing.

Danny "Hopefully...I mean, no one in town has died lately, right? Except, you know...old people," Danny assumed. Ryden would have had to have checked if he was worried about it, right? "Some beds, nice," Danny nodded his head. Of the people around here admittedly he hadn't snuck into that many. "Oh nah, I'm a talentless dude, I'm only good at getting my arse kicked and this isn't the place for that."

Fane lifted his eyes from Dani and Ruby on the stage to the orb that spun reflecting the lights across the audience, it seemed to practically be humming with life and brightening all the more with each act that came on and performed. Good. At this rate the town wouldn't be destroyed and they would be able to get their local geologist back from the quagmire she had unfortunately been nymph-napped into. Maya's impromptu exclamation caused him to draw his attention back. "I'd hardly say that classifies as making out," he stage-whispered to Faye then "clearly she doesn't know what it is" giving Faye a gentle squeeze where he had his arm looped about her waist.

Faye had leaned against Fane, looping an arm casually around his shoulders and toying with the ends of his gold-flecked hair as she watched Ruby and Dani start to head towards the end of their routine. "Mmm, maybe we should clarify?"

Maya laughed, "Do you want me to tell you just how much I know about making out? I'd be happy to provide details." She stuck her tongue out at Fane. "I think I'm going to grab something to eat quick, anyone else want something?" she asked.

Fane almost purred under Faye’s attentions, little though they were, but he shot Maya a mildly disturbed look. “Yeah-- no thanks love, as much as I’d happily entertain you I don’t want to be scarred by Maya’s exploits.” Specifically because of who he knew they involved and it was generally a bit weird anyhow.

"True." Which Ryden didn't really check because he just hoped he didn't step over that particular line. He was pretty sure he didn't. He'd remember THAT, wouldn't he?? "Pshhh come on, can't be that bad." He grinned at Danny, giving him a light jab in the shoulder.

Danny "I am exceptionally talentless, mate," he grinned. He had talents really but nothing that could be displayed on stage. "I'm going to go find Freddie and wish him good luck though. Don't eat anyone," Danny taunted, walking off.

Though there was a disadvantage by default fighting someone who was taller than you, Dani had grown up training with people who were taller than them - primarily their father and his progeny. But their father and his progeny had trained Sam, as well. Dani had been sparring with him for over two decades, and fortunately, Ruby was only an inch off his height. The moment her hand hit the ground, they knew what was coming, because they had taught Ruby that trick, as their guardians had taught them. Believe it or not, swordplay wasn't just about sword skills. They timed the move in their head, tapping into the muscle memory of every time they'd been knocked on their ass in practice. Instead of attempting to dodge it, they held fast until it was almost too late. When the moment hit, they hopped, just barely, like skipping a jumprope, and Dani used that brief period between her movement and her return to make a move of their own. As Ruby swept around, Dani stepped into the swing and met her blade at a perpendicular angle. The risky closeness allowed them, with a smirk, to hook their leg around her ankle and pull - which threw her off balance and onto her back. They circled her with their blade pointed down, still wearing that smirk, though an encouraging light still lingered behind their golden eyes. "Tired, yet?"

Ruby had expected Dani to counter, but she was NOT expected to be flat on her back so quickly. She let out a grunt, but immediately brought her sword up into a defensive posture, her eyes following Dani as they circled her. This was a dangerous position to be in, and a few months ago Ruby would have admitted defeat. But she had learned from some of the best. She grinned, breathing hard but not winded. "Hardly." She swiped her up towards Dani's, sparks flying as the blade was pushed away with just enough time for Ruby to leap to her and come at Dani again, using their momentum against them as they had to back up to keep out of range. The two went back and forth until finally, after a flurry of flashing steel and swiftly moving bodies, sword met flesh: Dani's sword under Ruby's chin. With a grin, having no qualms about not being the victor, Ruby consented defeat, lowering her sword. But not the grin on her face. "Took you long enough," she told Dani before the two stood, bowed, and exited the stage for the next act.

The Watcher approves and applauds. "Is good show. Even without ze blood."

Lilo was just minding his business, intent on grilling Fane if there was some sort of bet between him and Iann, and maybe setting up a playdate with Wyn and Addie when Addie started screaming. "Puppy! Puppy! Pet! LET PUPPY!" 

Cassie looked over to what seemed to be taking the baby’s attention. Cassie wouldn’t be surprised if it was a puppy, but it wasn’t even close. Which caused Cassie to laugh out loud, “That’s not a puppy, silly girl.” She shook her head, “It’s a wallaby-“ She side glanced at Lilo, “That must, of course, belong to someone.”

Lilo sighed, always one to indulge. "Okay, okay, lets go say hi to the not-puppy and maybe find the, it's a fairy's thing right? The famly-mer, Fairy family member thing?" Lilo asked Cassie beside him as they meandered closer to Danny. Maybe beg the guy to indulge the child who just seemed obsessed with the new animal, eyes boggling, and yup Lilo was already holding her little hands in his so they wouldn't get too grabby.

Realising he would be needed up on stage again, Fane stole another quick kiss from Faye apparently this would be a night of short lived moments and with a final squeeze slipped away from the group. Taking up the microphone again to continue hyping up the audience ahead of announcing, “the marvellous, the mysterious, the beautiful -- GREATEST FITZGERALD!!”

Babs heard the announcement of their act and a rush of adrenaline surged through her spine. Applause hit her like a wave when she entered the stage, and just as they'd planned, Freddie began to glamour up some smoke to make her entrance all the more magical. "Good evening everyone!" she boomed, holding her hands out to address the crowd. Already more were paying attention to her than that fateful night in Vegas. A good sign. "I'm so pleased to be part of this wonderful celebration of love and acceptance. I'm well aware that many of you have magic interwoven with your everyday lives, but tonight I'd like to regale you with my own brand of magic. If my lovely assistant would join me on stage please?"

Freddie When Babs called for him, Freddie stepped out onto the stage, and crossed smoothly to his mark, smiling at the audience and then at Babs herself. She looked beautiful - confident and radiant, nerves quelled in the wake of the applause - and the crowd was clearly already held in the palm of her hand; intrigued at the prospect that this woman might show them something they hadn't seen before. Or hadn't taken the time to appreciate in a very long while. Freddie found Ephram in the midst of that sea of faces easily enough, blew him a little kiss, then placed himself entirely in Babs' lovely and very dexterous hands.

Danny had not been able to find Freddie and assumed he must have been ready to go on stage soon when he saw Lilo and Cassie coming up to him with a tiny child. This must have been the baby they'd mentioned at the Halloween thing, he hadn't seen either since then but remembered their costumes happily. "Hey man, you in the show?" Danny asked, Steve next to him, unaware of the child's interest in him.

Lilo brightened, and almost jumped for joy (were it not for the baby in front of him he may have) to see the fairy in questions was cool-guy Danny. "Danny! Buddy!" Lilo let go of one of his grabby baby's hands and reached out to shake Danny's. "We're both in the show. I mean, all of us, all three." He grinned, Addie's free hand reaching perilously close to Steve's incredibly soft looking fur. "puup puppy...." Addie whispered in aww.

Cassie recognized the fairy when she followed Lilo up to him. Cassie smiled in recognition, giving a little wave. “Hey it’s been a while ah-“ She glanced between the excited baby and the clearly indifferent wallaby, “Would your familiar indulge a super happy baby for just a pat or two?”

Maya returned with a small boat of fries just as Babs and Freddie were starting their magic show. She looked on curious. A magic show wasn't something she expected since it was a magical town. In truth it just made her more curious to see what they might do.

Danny shook the man's hand, giving him a happy and messy sort of grin, surrounded by hair. "Nice, dude, you each have more talent than I got," he assured them, looking down at Addie who seemed to be reaching for Steve, his eyes then moving to his familiar who was already quite invested in getting attention, coming forward and putting his paw on her gently while ducking his head down so she could reach. "Guess he don't mind, sure he's happier being called a puppy than a Wallaby."

Miguel had been enjoying the open mic night a lot. He had thought it would be angsty teenagers and poems but as the night turned into a more fun based talent show he was sort of happy he was wrong. And a little embarrassed because he had definitely been projecting. He watched as his silly blanquita friend did her ‘magic’. Which had a finesse and grace to it that he could appreciate. She was good at what she did, he would give her that. And with her hands not aching, she could do more of what she loved easier. He almost didn’t feel guilty for using her to get to witch bones, since it had helped her too. He watched as the little neighbor family started bothering a fairy and Addie pet it. Miguel thought about waving and offering up his own familiar (who for all intents and purposes was just a happy friendly dog who would LOVE to play with the child) but it seemed like the... kangaroo thing... didn’t mind. Still Miguel waved at Lilo and Cassie.

Faye glanced over at the stranger, eyeing him a bit cautiously. She'd never seen him around. But whatever. There was enough firepower here between everyone that if someone got too weird it'd be handled.

Cassie “Lilo is going to sing with Addie.” Cassie said before motioning to herself, “I’m doing gymnastics so…a little different. They’ll be a lot cuter.” She watched Steve react to happy and mesmerized Addie before glancing back to Danny, “She really likes animals.”

Lilo "Ay! Thanks' man, you are the best." Lilo nodded and took a snug seat besides Steve so Addie could reach comfortable. Her calls of 'puppy' devolving into more baby like babble as she rubbed her hands along the familiar's fuzzy face and ears, even getting her face down in there. Lilo looked up at Cassie for approval. "Hey! let's hope we don't find out she's allergic to marscapones like this huh?" He meant marsupials, but he was just so off. "Oh hey!" Lilo saw Miguels wave and motioned for him to come closer, not wanting to move and interrupt Addie communing with nature, or whatever she was doing. He was still under the impression she was a werewolf baby, and assumed she might be in a phase that involved scenting. "Hey hey! Miguel comeover! you got something planned?"

“Miguel!” Cassie called while waving him over, “You enjoying the talent?” It’s funny, she almost never saw him and then in the past few days she saw her neighbor several several times.

"Damn, this cute," Danny said of Lilo and Addie singing together before laughing a little at what Cassie was intending to do. "Basically going to make sure every guy in this place knows Lilo lucked out then," he said to Cassie before smirking. "I don't even know if he'd have like marsupial fur or anything, she could be and still not react to him, being magic and all."

Miguel held in a groan as he got up and made his way to the cute little family (plus fairy friend and familiar). Moly wagged her tail and trot along next to him. He was just very tired from all the pride stuff. But as he sat next to Lilo he was content with the move and the new seat. “I don’t think so. I mean, I don’t think I’ll do anything. I didn’t sign up or anything. But I am really enjoying the show.” He smiled at everything and then focused on the fairy. “Hey, I don’t think we’ve met before. I’m Miguel.” He held out his hand. “Cassie, Lilo, and Addie are my neighbors,” he explained with a grin. “And if your familiar gets tired of pets, Addie is more than welcome to dote on Molly.”

"Danny," the Aussie man offered, his accent thick as he shook the guys hand. "Nice to meet you mate, I don't think I'm much of anything to them but some guy they meet at parties but I like 'em," he said of the werewolf couple. "Oh he loves kids, better than adults because they talk directly to him instead of to me, but hey, why have just one fluffy thing to play with?"

Lilo nodded at Danny's remark, although the reminder of an entire crowd seeing how hot his fiance was, was a different kind of sensation. He'd break that one down later. "AHah, yeah she sure reminds me of how lucky I am everyday." Lilo winked at Cassie, smiled widely at Miguel, and just about all his attention was yanked away, grabbed, hogtied among many other things by Freddie the Magician's Assistant's suit. It was bright, sparkly, magical, and a perfect accompaniment to the lady magician's sleek outfit. "Ooooh man I love magic shows. Always freaked out at how they did this stuff as a kid. Fingers were too thick to really do a card trick right any time I tried it myself though."

Cassie waved away Lilo’s thought of allergies. Cassie doubted it very much. She was delighted when Miguel and Molly joined them and motioned to Addie still held up in the carrier on Lilo’s chest, “Oh let her out for a few minutes.” Addie’s reaction to animals was almost too precious to handle, “She won’t go far with two fuzzy playmates.” She pursed her lips momentarily when Lilo winked at her. It wasn’t hard to guess what Danny meant, but Cassie took it as a simple compliment regardless. Cassie regarded the magic act for a moment, “It’s probably just real illusions with Freddie up there, right?”

Danny "No clue, he didn't give me the details but I don't know if he'd compromise things that way, less it made him look good," Danny said of his handsome friend up on stage, grinning wildly. Steve might have cared more had Ollie been up there but for now he was content to be played with, the child's fingers feeling wonderful in his fur.

Ephram hoisted Ollie up higher, having dashed home to fetch the little Chin in order for him to witness his fairy's-- "No, he's not making a spectacle of himself, c'mon," Ephram wheedled the familiar. "He's performing! There's a big difference. And look how beautiful he is. You cain't deny he's dazzling." Ollie gave a snuff in response, but Ephram noticed that he held his ears more perkily as he watched the show.

Lilo began to snap off the baby restraints and life Addie to her own seat. Surrounded by soft fuzzy things to hug and no idea where to start she gurgled with joy. "Okay, okay, I few seconds of baby free time." Lilo agreed to Cassie's request and smiled from Danny to Miguel. "Hey! Are we the couple that everyone will hang out with if they through barbecues and stuff? I would love to be that couple." Then as a last minute though he scrunched his nose at Cassie. "Ayyy, lobocita, have more faith in the mysterious magician woman. I bet you ten nights of dishes that Freddie is just up there to look pretty."

Iann there was some minor panic at the food/drink stalls that pulled Iann away from the stage for a bit, but fortunately he returned just in time to see Babs and Freddie take the stage and it felt so surreal and unrealthat Iann. It felt like the past and present colliding, and the oddest and most unpredictable patterns and connections and threads weaving together between Babs here and Babs then, between Freddie and Mala, between himself and...himself. It was enough to make Iann believe in fate, but he still stubbornly refused. Instead he just wobbled on his feet, then reached out to grab whoever was closest to him, just to catch his balance. "Whoa...wow..."

Maya jumped a little as a hand fell on her shoulder. She turned to see Iann. "You okay dude?" she asked, brow furrowing in confusion.

Ephram stared down at the hand grasping him and heard an exasperated huff from Ollie, which really, should have told him who the person was. "Hey," he said without any real anything in his voice. "Hey, Cardero. Freddie looks pretty good up there huh? Real ... assistanty."

As Fane moved off to go meet Ryan and Bear for their upcoming act, and Maya shimmied off to talk to someone she knew, Faye looked around, seeing a few people she hadn't talked to yet. The act on stage - Freddie and a woman that looked... eerily familiar, but who Faye couldn't get a good look at from here - was winding up, so she moved off to say hello to Cassie and Lilo. "Hey there Papa Wolf," Faye said, tapping Lilo on the shoulder. "Long time no see." Her eyes moved around the little group. "Danny. How are ya? Doc," she greeted Miguel as well before waving to Cassie.

"I mean you guys should definitely have a barbecue," Danny agreed. He actually sort of missed stuff like that. They were pretty common back home. Happily he noticed Ollie being held up by Freddie's partner Ephram and the fae smiled as he seemed so happy to see his husband performing on stage. Freddie was a lucky guy.

"Fuzzy!" Addie cooed up to Faye in greeting, halfway onto Steve's 'lap' and only now noticing Molly to crawl toward. "Pups!"

Cassie blinked at Lilo, “Oh I didn’t mean…well it’s just we know Freddie but have you ever seen that woman?” Cassie asked about Babs up on stage. It wasn’t like there was a rule the magic couldn’t be real. Cassie had just been curious. She held out a hand near Addie as the baby moved between the two differing familiars trying to decide how to lavish attention to both at once. “Faye, hi.” Cassie grinned back.

Iann gripped Maya's shoulder tight, but not like tight that she'd crumple or even bruise. Just firm and heavy like a warmed-up beanbag heating pad suddenly slumped on her shoulder. His other hand fish-flopped uselessly on Ephram's back trying to find purchase and failing. "Are you okay?" Iann snapped but it was hardly aimed at Maya specifically so much as a reflex retort. Iann blinked and focused on Maya first, then up at Pettaline. He gave a smile that flailed under his moustache. Iann let Maya go and pointed to the stage. "Look how cool that is. That's my Aunt Babs. We're not related-" She used to bang my mom "- but you know how you call people Aunt. Well, you wouldn't know," Iann said looking down at Maya. "your childhood was a trainwreck. And I don't know about you Pettaline I'm sure 'y'all' had ten different appalachian slangs for all sorts of folk."

Faye smiled. "Yess, Steve is fuzzy... unless you mean my hair, huh baby?" Faye leaned her fluffy hair down towards Addie, a bit of gold glitter drifting towards the little girl and the wallaby familiar.

Molly wagged her tail and crawled low to the ground to seem less intimidating - not that that was a problem for Addie. Miguel just watched with a wry smile.

“There could be a barbeque for the fourth of July?” Cassie offered to Lilo next.

"Hey, lady," Faye said to Cassie, her violet eyes flicking to Lilo and back, eyebrows raising in a 'you didn't tell me daddy was back?' look. Though it was simply curious, nothing more. And Faye continued to smile at her friend and the toddler near her feet.

Ephram nodded, unperturbed. "And none of em were 'y'all'. That's further down South you're talkin'." Ollie grumpily tucked himself further back into Ephram's elbow, possibly so he wouldn't have to entertain Iann's presence if it wasn't strictly necessary. "So yon fancy magic lady up there is one'a your Aunts? She the one who got you all het up for magic business?"

Danny turned as Faye approached her friend, giving the woman a wink and a smirk. "Hey, darling," he said to her.

Maya continued to look at Iann in concern. His hand remained tight on her shoulder, not painful, but still seeming to steady him. "Well I have fries so," she replied to answer what wasn't really a question. When Iann pointed to it she looked at the stage. Nodding she replied, "Yes, my childhood was a trainwreck, but I understand the concept. So she was like your mom's best friend?" It was in that sort of context that Maya had heard other people use the term, so she figured it was a safe guess.

Ruby had put her things away and gotten a drink of water while the other acts went on. Freddie and a lady she didnt' know. Ruby moved closer to watch, seeing Ephram, Iann, and Maya standing around watching. "What about aunts?" she said, sidling up next to Iann and giving Maya and Ephram a wave, unwrapping the tape from her fingers after her act with Dani.

Lilo held out his now free hand to Cassie's to hold. "Oh I didn't mean anything by it either, and no I dunno who that lady is. But a 4th of July barbecue sounds perfect." He was now too busy wrapped up smiling at his fiance to see Addie's conundrum. She had but two hands, one of them reaching to tug on Faye's pretty golden curls, another fisted into marsupial fur, and she needed yet another to pat the good doggy's head. It was almost too much to deal with, she might cry.

Faye: "Hey Danny, long time no see. How you been?"

Danny "I've been good, missed you, darling," he flirted openly. He probably shouldn't have been, considering her boyfriend was hosting the event but Danny figured that Faye knew it was a light hearted thing that didn't mean anything. "Without you I've been getting into a whole lot of mess." Finally he turned to Cassie and Lilo though. "I will show up even though I obviously don't have much investment in Fourth of July," Danny laughed. May 8th had already passed so he would accept it.

Faye said as she had to stand back up or risk Addie snatching all her curls down. Though it left the little girl with a hand covered in glitter.

Ephram shushed Ollie when the little dog made an entirely exasperated noise, and leaned over to hug Ruby in greeting. "Oh, y'know," he said, "how some of us got aunts a-plenty and some've us don't. I would say it's mostly a Southern thing but that wouldn't account for Cardero here, what with one've his aunts bein' up on stage as we stand here."

Ruby: "Right," Ruby nodded. "Like real aunts, and your mom's friends that're aunts, and the little lady down teh street that's an aunt... folks at church you ain't never met that''re aunts..." Ruby craned her neck to see the blonde woman on stage with Freddie. "I can see the family resemblance," Ruby said, grinning back at Iann.

Lilo Addie shook her glittered hand, a solution suddenly found. She moved to wipe the sparkles off in Molly's fur, and giggled when they caught the light.

Iann snapped again, this time focused at Pettaline. "She's not 'one of my Aunts'," he said sounding insulted, then felt a surge of guilt for sounding insulted. God, he could be such a fucking dick sometimes. He fumed though, his anger not subsiding because it felt good and it felt way better than those...other...inexplicable feelings of feelingness. "And how do you know about--? Oh right." Anaxis. Demons had a way, after all, of getting into your head and reading all those delicious little secret thoughts. It made Iann instinctively knock his knees together, just for a moment. "No she's a human," Iann responded. He looked at Maya and the anger subsided into a not-so-pleasant dullness. Iann worried and fretted internally, looking up at the globe. He didn't want to ruin the energy-filling orb's record with himself. Fortunately the ooh's and ahhh's on the stage were enough, he supposed, and Iann pulled himself out of his morass by reminding himself (in his mother's annoyed voice in the back of his mind, no less) that while he was busy being a floppy loser, he was missing Babs and Freddie's performance. "Idiot!" Iann chided himself, then stared at the stage hungrily, hand curled over his mouth as he watched Babs and Freddie. "Hm?" he glanced down at Maya. "Oh yeah, yeah. Family friends and all that. " Ruby showed up and Iann gave her a wan smile at her joke, then returned his attention avidly to the stage. He couldn't miss a second of this. Not for anyone else and damn well not for himself.

"Have you now?" Faye smiled. "And I'm glad you're good. Haven't been by in a bit, I know. " Fane knew Faye was a bit of a flirt, and he knew about Danny, so he wouldn't mind a bit of harmless flirting. "No real trouble I hope?" she asked a bit more seriously. "You know if you ever need anything..." she told him, though something on stage drew everyone's attention for a moment.

Cassie nudged Lilo, “There you go, see we know Danny will come.” One person was all they needed really, but Cassie would never refuse a good barbeque. “It’s a splendid idea.” Her gaze dropped to Addie who was wiping glitter and tugging at Faye, “Be gentle.” She warned softly, crouching down for a moment to try and properly get the baby’s attention. But with so much excitement, it wasn’t very successful.

Maya's concerned expression didn't leave her face. Something evidently was up with Iann. She didn't think he wanted her to ask though. At the very least not at the moment as he focused again on the stage. Therefore she said nothing to him instead replying to Ruby to say, "Yeah, that's definitely not a Massachusetts thing."

Ephram started when Iann snapped at him, at first bewildered at how this had become him being the one at fault when Iann was the one who'd been insulting in the first place. But as fast as he'd flared up, Cardero's ire got knocked back down and he looked weirdly ... crushed, for a moment. "I din't mean nothin' by it," Ephram said after a moment. But Cardero was staring at the act as if he needed to commit it to memory, so Ephram huffed a little breath and responded to Ruby. "I could do with havin' more Aunts in Soapberry," he said. "Or big sisters. I could have a bunch more of those."

"I actually got pretty fucked up - I mean...messed up," Danny corrected as he remembered their was a child present. "By this vampire chick. Bit my neck open, crazy sh-stuff." It was not something he imagined would surprise Faye but it still succked. "I need anything?" Danny asked Faye, moving to Cassie. "And I'll drag Freddie, who'll drag Ephram who'll probably drag some other people. You guys will have a bunch of people for a barbecue."

Ruby quick picking on Iann as he didn't have a snarky comeback. He seemed intent on the stage, on Freddie and on the blonde woman, so she let him be, though kept a nugget of concern tucked tight in her chest. She turned to Ephram. "Yeah, I know what you mean. I got a good big brother finally... outta Tuah. But I'd love a auntie to squeeze my cheek and feed me and tell me i looked too skinny."

Molly grinned her doggie grin and nuzzled into Addie. She cleaned the toddlers face with her tongue.

With Molly playing with Addie, Steve reached out and did the same as his human companion, seeing how the dog would react to this act.

Ephram was faintly bewildered by Ruby's statement. "Tuah?" he repeated. "Is Tuah in town again? Did I know you two was that close?" He squeezed Ollie tighter unintentionally until the Chin ruffed to alert him, and Ephram shook his head, blinking. "Jesus Lord. That one throwed me for a loop. Tuah's like your big brother." Honestly, Ephram couldn't see it, but that didn't mean such a relationship couldn't exist. He watched Freddie onstage, glittering and gleaming, letting the sight settle him back down.

Faye's brow furrowed in concern. "What? When?" She could see that he was alright, outwardly at least. But still. "God... I'm glad you're okay. You are okay right?" She followed the line of conversation to Cassie. "The day you get Freddie Watts to a barbeque is the day I eat one of Iann's hats."

Babs gave Freddie a huge grin as he came on stage, obviously soaking up the attention just as much as she was. Even though they'd only had one night to practice their routine, as they got into it it was obvious that Freddie was a quick study and a natural at this, pulling off all she'd asked of him and with flourish to boot. They began with a simple levitation, Babs laying Freddie out across two chairs and seeming to make him rise before her, pushing the chairs away and running a hoop around him to complete the illusion. Then they transitioned into a metamorphosis, where she locked Freddie into a chest, climbed on top with a curtain, and simply switched places in the blink of an eye. After a few more tricks in every magician's arsenal (she hadn't had time to come up with anything too special on such short notice) and some close up magic involving audience members, they were finally ready for the finale. As she locked Freddie into the rack contraption, she picked someone from the audience. "You there. Miguel, my dear, why don't you come up here and test these locks for me? Prove their real? And no funny business. This show had been free of your brand of magic so far."

Cassie “I’ll have to count on your popularity Danny.” Cassie chuckled. She didn’t even realize how many people they both knew until the fairy spelled it out. “You’ll get the word out better than an email.” She was slightly interrupted by Addie’s high giggles of delight, she clung onto the dog more before watching Steve interact with Molly in a quiet sort of interest. Almost giving Steve his own turn. “What?” Cassie arched a brow at Faye, “He’d come to a barbeque if Danny and I both asked him. And if Ephram made him. Probably.”

"Hasn't been for long," Ruby told Ephram. "Couple weeks? Maybe?" She glanced up at Ephram. "We've been friends for a good long while. You knew that." Didn't he? "He's as close to a brother as I've got yeah. He's... is that strange to you?" she asked suddenly. "I'm stayin' at his place for months now." Her tone was merely curious, nothing more. Did Ephram know that she and Tuah were close? Christ she couldn't remember so many things lately. Everything ran together.

"I dunno, a few weeks ago or something, maybe more recently?" Danny shrugged, not super focused on when it had happened. "Oh yeah, I am, this dude helped me, Ryden? Yeah, dude pulled her off me and called the cops and an ambulance and stuff," Danny continued to act dismissive about thee whole thing. "Of course he'll come if I ask, he loves me," Danny stated with a little shrug. "See, he loves us all. You don't like him?" Danny asked with a confused sort of look. Freddie was so generous to him.

Miguel smirked and excused himself. He left Molly with Addie and hopped up onto the stage. He tugged on the locks and smiled at Babs. “Feels good to me.” He gave her his lopsided wink

Ephram frowned. "Yeah, that shoulda been somethang I recalled." He took a breath and shook his head hard, doglike, and gave Ruby a reassuring grin. "Probly jes wrung out some. I must of ... missed you two gettin' close. Was that while we was together? Oh, wait, wait--" Ephram directed more of his attention to the stage, unconsciously mirroring Iann's stare as he intensely watched the magic tricks and Freddie's part in them. He also unconsciously made a thrumming sound in his throat as he watched his husband get locked down, until Ollie gave a disgusted sneeze. "Awright, awright," Ephram laughed. "I'll indulge in my dirty thoughts when you ain't around."

"Oh my god. Oh my god oh mygodohmyo--" Iann was enraptured. He couldn't remember - he was only three years old at the time, of course he couldn't remember - but it wasn't so much the catalogue of memory and timeline so much as it was of all thing, a feeling. An instinct, a sensory experience that couldn't be explained with words or visuals. Iann just felt a distinct thrill, one that he hadn't felt in a long time. Perhaps as long as almost 37 years ago. Could a toddler hold a memory like this? Iann didn't know and didn't care because all he cared about in this moment was reliving a lost moment. Reliving something that never happened, but it really, really should've. Reliving a sense of need and warmth and comfort and confusion and fear and glee and wonder, all wrapped up and aborted way back then. But it was allowed to carry through now - with The Greatest Fitzgerald and her lovely assistant Freddie Watts. And when Babs asked Miguel to the stage, that was almost a breaking point for Iann. He whooped and hollered and called out, eager to see Miguel do his part for the last trick of the night. It felt like he was watching himself outside, like an out-of-body experience. Connections and patterns and a fate he refused to believe in.

"Well, maybe if all of you ganged up on him," Faye conceded. She didn't get on with the man, but she didn't hate him either. He was important to Ephram, so Faye would be civil and respectful. Honestly, she had no reason not to be. She turned to Danny. "Yeah, I know Ryden. Big guy. Tatts. Jesus..." she said, looking mildly disturbed on her friend's behalf. But she shrugged as Danny asked about her liking Freddie. "We don't get on," she told him. "But it's mutual. I don't dislike him. He loves my brother and he's good to him. Makes him happy. But I don't like him either. I'm... Freddie Watts neutral."

"Yeah, he's pretty good looking for a guy," Danny acknowledged of thee way Faye described Ryden. Danny wasn't into guys but he also wasn't dumb. Girls liked big guys, especially if they weren't as hairy as a baby bear the way that Danny was. "Well I'm Freddie Watts loving, if I was gay and Ephram didn't exist I'd scope him up. As it is I'm straight and totally bombing when it comes to women. How did Fane get you?" he joked.

Ruby narrowed her gaze at Ephram just a bit. Not in frustration or anything of the sort, but with that searching look she'd always used when she was trying to tell if he was alright. "You could use a few days off maybe." It was just her opinion. He worked long, hard hours, and it would wear on a person. "Some of it was. We was friends while you an' me an' Freddie was together. He sorta... helped me through some rough stuff. During. After." Ruby shrugged, giving Ephram a smile as Ollie admonished him.

Lilo scooted to the edge of his seat. "Ayyy, the locks are real locks!" He was totally absorbed in the show and the display of it all, maybe not as much as Iann but then the man had less ties and history all wrapped up on the stage like some kind of psychological morality play. He was just here for the magic. Meanwhile, Addie was wrapped up in watching Steve the 'big puppy' in her mind due to the way she still cataloged information, petting molly the 'good puppy'. She didn't know it could work like this, she was transfixed.

Ephram fell back into pattern as well, giving a one-shouldered shrug as he tended to do when it was suggested that perhaps he should slow down from the steady grind of his job. He loved what he did, and he'd always had more stamina than a horse, so it wasn't something he'd do without being firmly instructed. "I reckon I'm surprised, is all," Ephram remarked in relation to Tuah. "Although Tuah does seem like a listener. Notsomuch a ..." Ephram sucked his teeth, trying to find the right word. Ollie nipped his thumb gently, and Ephram looked down at the dog, then said, "A person who'll say much back to you. Y'know, discuss shit out."

"He's alright," Faye nodded. Her type was a bit different. Still tall and dark. Romanian. Liked bad jokes and hot tea... with... gold dye in his hair that she wanted to just... run her fingers- Faye shook herself out of the daydream and turned back to Danny. "I'm sure Freddie would scoop you up too, fuzzy bear or not. And you can't tell me there's no one? At all?" She blushed as he asked about Fane. "Let's say that... the stars aligned and we both got lucky?" Which wasn't far from the truth.

Ruby didn't say much else on behalf of Ephram taking time off. She was certain Freddie would see to it, though as his friend, and someone who loved him, she would always worry. Ruby gave a small hum to Ephram comment on Tuah. "He listens. But he talks too. Eventually. Once he knows you're not gonna press him for anythin'. He's... hesitant though," Ruby nodded. '"But I think it's more he doesn't wanna bother anyone with his problems." She glanced at Iann, wondering if the two menhad made up since Tuah came back to town.

"I mean, I sort of liked this vampire woman but she seemed not all that into me, like I just felt like...," Danny started to talk but with so many people around clammed up, giving his head a shake as he pushed away the feelings he had about not being good enough for Lina. "Then I slept with this girl, Elena but she's such a mate, you know?" he shrugged his head. There had been a few others but not really many that stood out to him. "I'm not sure I got any stars aligning," Danny shrugged.

Babs gave Miguel an appreciative nod when he confirmed the locks were real and secure. "Thank you, sir." Once Miguel was gone from the stage again, she grabbed the handles of the rack, which was one wheels, and began to turn it on the stage. Once. Twice. Three times. Each rotation increase the speed. On the fourth turn, when the front came around again, it was Babs locked up instead, Freddie finishing the turn with a flourish. "The Assistant's Revenge! I should have known!" Her play acting wasn't the best, but the audience seemed to eat it up nonetheless. Freddie unlocked her from the rack and as the audience cheered, they took their bows and exited the stage, Babs panting with excitement. She grabbed Freddie's shoulders and kissed him on the cheek. "You were fantastic, darling!"

The Watcher stood up to applaud. "Pretty man iz very good. Pretty magician iz better. Thank you for the magics."

Freddie beamed as Babs kissed him, returning the gesture as applause thundered behind them. "Honestly, love, I had a wonderful time," he laughed, "I mean, that many people with their eyes on me, whilst a beautiful woman commands the action? How could it get any better?"

Babs placed a hand on Freddie's cheek. "Ever the flatterer. I feel this act is the ultimate assistant's revenge, given my history," she joked, but it was true. Her heart was brimming with triumph. "Thank you, Freddie. I couldn't have done this without you."

Freddie's smile softened and he covered Babs' hand on his cheek with his own, turning his face to press a kiss to the centre of her palm. "It isn't flattery when it's sincere, love - then it's only the truth." He gave her hand a gentle squeeze. "You were bloody brilliant tonight; I was just lucky enough to have the best seat in the house."

Faye: "It's hard when people seem more like friends, yeah." She hoped she wasn't misreading what Danny was saying. She didn't press him for more, but gave him an affectionate bump with her arm. "Everyone's stars align eventually," Faye said. "It's just a matter of knowin' which ones are yours."

"Which stars look like a gigantic bear having sex with something much cuter?" Danny joked, figuring that at the very least she was a witch and probably knew which stars looked like bears.

Iann laughed at Babs' play-acting, and even though he knew quite well that it was the final act, he was still feeling a loss when it actually ended. It was so great. And when Iann looked around, it was thrilling to see that the audience clearly thought so too. No booing at Babs, no heckling her or telling her a woman should stick to being an assistant. It was...kind of stupid and sad, but for the first time Iann could look around the rainbow-bedecked crowd and comprehend this concept of 'acceptance'. That whole gooshy feel-good bleeding-heart stuff that people liked to promote during Pride, finally Iann actually understood it. And really brought it back home, in an almost literal way. Iann wanted to die. "God, I want to die," he proclaimed, looking over his shoulder and down at Maya. "What's you think? Did you enjoy her act?" Iann was still clapping his hands, even though the rest of the audience had stopped.

Ephram hrrrm'd thoughtfully at Ruby's further elaboration, then whooped and hollered and whistled as the trick onstage came to a satisfyingly mind-bending finish, Babs and Freddie both soaking up the attention and adoration from the crowd. It was good to see Freddie like that, being admired out in public for something so ... homespun and small-town. So domestic. Once the two performers had left the stage, he picked up the conversation with Ruby, saying, "Well, I'm glad the two of you'n found some support in each other. That's the real important thing." Ollie, bored with this topic, set his front paws against Ephram's shoulder so he could look around at what was going on; Ephram held him up instinctively and said, "Oh! Your act was great, by the way. All them flyin' blades."

Maya cheered as Babs finished her act. She looked up at Iann, a little confused, when he proclaimed that he wanted to die. But his tone was happy enough she decided it was more of a if I died right now I'd be happy sort of thing. "It was really good," she replied with a smile, "And you said she was human? So no real magic to help her do all that?"

Iann His tone wasn't so much happy as sedate, his face earnest but unsmiling as he looked at Maya. "Good," he seemed to approve of Maya's answer, as if his question was a test. "Yep, she's pure unadulterated human. C'mon, you had to know that, you're an actual witch. A witch doing those illusions wouldn't be half as impressive. Thank god this crowd enjoyed a human performing our idea of 'magic'....it was the right time and place, I guess."

Ruby clapped too as the act finished up. It was amazing, and Ruby was proud of Freddie, who looked so at home out on stage. The blond woman had been astounding as well, and Ruby thought that she wanted very much to meet her soon. But sheturned back to Ephram whenteh applause - except for Iann - died down. "Thanks," she smiled. "He's a good friend. A good guy. But... I'm sure most folks know that." She figured they did if they knew Tuah. How could they not? She blushed a bit as he complimented her act with Dani. "Yeah? God, I can't believe I've been trainin' with them for over a year now. It's... shit but it's fun. So I'm glad it looked good too, thanks." She bumped him with her arm, careful not to jostle Ollie. "Can I carry a sword to work, by the way? Oh... actually. Hold that thought... I'll be right back." She touched his arm in apology and scooted off.

Babs simply offered a smile, the conversation getting a tad too mushy for her, giving his cheek a few more pats. "You'd better get back to your husband. I'm sure he quite enjoyed seeing you in chains tonight." She winked, before heading out into the audience, spotting Iann and heading straight for him. "Chiquito! Did you enjoy the show?"

Iann pulled himself together when Babs came to talk to him (he felt a little stupid for not charging over towards Freddie and Babs himself, but things were what they were) and grinned huge and wide. "That was fucking incredible. You were perfect. I felt like we went back in time and you did your first ever show and totally stuck it to all those fucking assholes. Jesus, look at you..." Iann couldn't help holding Babs' shoulders, giving her a once over from her flushed face down to her sleek gams (she still got it) back up again. "You're beaming. Must've been such a trip for you, huh? Back on the stage again? Everyone enthralled this time."

Miguel was lingering near Iann and Babs, two of the people who he knew most about and who knew the most about him. There was some level of trust in that but... there was still so much he DIDNT know, which was apparent from the way Babs called Iann chiquito. But Miguel stayed quiet about it and just nodded along with Iann even if he didn’t completely know what Iann was talking about. “You did a great job, Babs. It was really fun to watch.”

"So did you, random audience member," Iann said, calming exponentially in the presence of both Babs and then Miguel. He threw and arm around Miguel and jostled him. "Think you could do any of those fancy magic tricks, brujito?"

Miguel scoffed. “Not without vomiting,” he said and rolled his eyes. “Or storing a lot of magic before hand.... and even then I don’t think I’d be able to pull off teleportation.”

Babs couldn't get the grin off her face if she tried. And honestly, she didn't want to. He was right, it had been a trip for her. The ultimate revenge on those assholes in Vegas. Without them though, she probably wouldn't have had Mala in her life for so long, wouldn't know who Iann was, maybe wouldn't even be here. That in itself was a trip. "I feel young again. Probably won't feel the same in the morning when it all catches up with my body, but I'll ride the high while I can." As Miguel voiced his praise as well, she beamed even brighter. "Thank you, darling. I'm glad you enjoyed it." Seeing Iann and Miguel together, Babs cocked her head to the side for a moment. They had an odd resemblance to each other. Something Babs couldn't quite place. "You two look strikingly similar," she blurted out. "Has anyone ever told you that."

"Ay dios mio, Auntie, don't be racist," Iann joked with an animated roll of his eyes and he looked down at Miguel. She wasn't wrong of course, but Iann just wanted to give her a hard time for it. "We don't all look alike." And when she mentioned not feeling as good in the morning, Iann scoffed. "Just give me a ring, I'll arrange for the Antoinette's professionals to come to Stonefruit and give you a total spa day or something. Massage and foot soaks and...whatever cool stuff you want."

Dani Like Ruby, after their first performance, Dani had wandered off in search of water. They would have to change before Samhain took the stage, but for now, they thought it best to cool off and relax. Their night was just getting started and they wanted to make it through to the end without faltering from exhaustion. They had watched the next routine from the ground to the side of the stage, thrilled to see Freddie taking part. They were equally excited to see that a true magician had come to perform. In a town where literal magic existed, it was refreshing to witness the craft of classic mortal magic as it was meant to be performed. They had tremendous respect for those who could pull off such complicated illusions and tricks, and if Freddie was working with said magician, Dani very much wanted to meet her. As soon as their act ended, Dani made their way through the crowd, though their height made it difficult to follow where the most recent performers had gone. Fortunately, it didn't take them too long to find their bearings. Walking up to the gathered few, they made a quiet approach and offered a smile to no one in particular. "I hope I'm not butting into something," they started, then turning their attention to the mystery woman, "I wanted to commend you on your act. It's rare we get true magicians here. Magic is so abundant... sometimes people forget that magic is more than ley lines and spellwork. You were absolutely fantastic."

Miguel was quiet for another minute, mulling over the fact that he and Iann looked similar. A couple weeks ago he would have made the same joke Iann had made. But... after seeing his foglet versión right next to Iann, he had to admit that they did look alike. “Do you have any witches in your family, Iann?”

"Hell no," Iann replied with surety, but then as he stepped to one side to let Dani speak to Babs, he added with a similar joking tone, "But then again, I have no clue who my sperm-donor was. Never met him, don't know his name, no clue who he is. But I doubt he's - he was - magical."

“Oh...” Miguel pursed his lips. “I don’t know who my dad was either. But I assume he wasn’t human. My mom kind of just... wanted the most magical baby possible.”

Iann grunted, unsurprising that yet one more kid was abandoned by one more deadbeat unpresent father. Water was also wet, and the sky was also blue. Iann was about to add more, when his phone beeped. "Oh shit, I have to go for a bit." Fortunately there was a small break in between the shows, which gave Iann a chance to duck out. "Miguel - behave. Auntie - I'll talk to you later," Iann gave Babs a quick impulsive (compulsive) kiss on her cheekbone. "Dani? Where is Dani? Oh there they are, I almost missed you." Iann grinned. "Catch you later."

Babs simply laughed at Iann's attempt to give her a hard time. As she went to respond, she was distracted by the new face approaching. "Why thank you, darling! I saw a bit of your swordplay as well, it was quite impressive." It was amazing to her that the townfolk was so respective to her brand of magic. She felt silly for even being hesitant in the first place. She grinned at Iann's kiss to her cheek, patting him in a surprisingly loving way on the shoulder before he left.

Miguel Miguel slid up to Babs with his Cheshire Cat grin and his Cheshire Cat curiosity. He wanted so badly to ask her how she knew Iann, but he could wait for her conversation with Dani to end.

Dani huffed, but in a manner that hinted affection, as Iann so subsequently greeted them and dismissed himself. "Later to you too, Cardero." When the ever-curious human departed, the petite figure turned back to the woman. They had always been a tad bashful about receiving praise for their performances, despite their energetic and confident stage presence. "Ah, the thanks are mutual then," they chuckled. "I'm glad you thought so. I've never had a spar in front of such a large audience before. It was quite the experience." They extended a hand then, offering a welcome grin, "As Iann said, I'm Dani. Dani Savin. It's a pleasure to meet you."

Babs extended her hand as well, giving Dani's a firm shake. Her grip had improved tremendously lately with Miguel's help. "Savin? You're related to Fane?" she asked curiously.

Dani returned her shake just as firmly before lowering it to their side. "Sort of," the slightest smirk curled the edge of their lips. "I'm his child. Adopted, obviously." Their head tilted in interest, a hand hitching on their hip. "I take it you two have met?"

Babs nodded, returning the smirk. "Decades ago, yes. Only reunited earlier tonight in fact. He helped me out of a bit of a scrape in the past." She wasn't about to say more and ruin her good mood by dragging up less than savory memories.

Dani A quiet hum of understanding passed through Dani's lips at her explanation. "This town does have an odd way of reuniting distant companions." Whatever it was their father had assisted her with, they wouldn't ask. They knew well enough the sorts of scrapes he got into - and the many unfortunate souls that always seemed to wander into his path. Out of the corner of their eye, they spotted Miguel hovering, clearly eager to speak with the woman. "And in this case, welcome to Soapberry, Ms. ..." Dani hadn't actually caught her name yet, but they wouldn't keep her much longer. "It seems there's someone rather eager to speak with you." Their full gaze flitted to the doctor. "I hope we can snatch a more opportune chat sometime. I'll leave you it." And with a parting nod, they left Miguel to begin his inquiry.

[sleepymarmot]

Twilight Mirage liveblog 5/5 (finale & post-mortem)

64-67

Found a new shortcut to my heart: announcing your finale is going to be a mashup of The Quiet Year and Firebrands 

Why is it surpising that the Qui Err Coalition allies with the Waking Cadent? That was my first thought when Iota was making her speech! The Qui Err thinks the humans should leave, the Cadent thinks the humans should leave, sounds pretty compatible to me. 

What's the logic of “When Crystal Palace arrives, we will blow up this system”? It's not a bomb! But it will be in danger if a bomb goes off right next to it!

Oh no, Ali is doing the classic “shoot yourself in the foot on purpose” move

I don't get how Grand Magnificent got promoted from “got paid once to retire” to “is trusted to do actual missions for Advent”

Why the hell does Gig want to kill Ballad

The players keep underestimating how “horny” the scenes in Firebrands are and Austin is increasingly exasperated 

I would like to thank Jack from the bottom of my heart for choosing dance as a framing for making contact with Grand. Also I completely lost it at “there are talons on my shoulder”

I must have missed something, what's so bad about the Splice and Our Profit that everyone's so excited to fuck them over? The Mirage is made a renewable resource, right, so the Splice isn't a drain on anything?

The Echo-Ballad scene is so frustrating that I can't even feel appropriately bad about it! Come on Echo, just help Grand go back to Advent as an undercover spy, it doesn't have to be a competition this time!

I still don't understand Independence II… How do you send your new very conspicous and recognizable design to friends in rival factions without blowing your cover 

The timeline here is really weird… Echo rescues Grand and brings Ballad with them, Ballad calls off his people, Grand sends out his new mech design… And a week later, Grand's still on Qui Err territory having a friendly lunch with its leader? If going back is still an option, how is that going to look without making Advent seem like total idiots? Ah, it's only a day after? Okay…

I'm very glad the Volition problem was solved so peacefully!

5 minutes later: “Quire could die!” How about no??! I was so busy preparing to mourn Volition. I am completely unprepared to lose Quire just like that.

Memorious was alive and also an axiom worm this whole time? Wut

Fuck, do we need another opportunity to kill off Ballad?! This list of NPCs is making me very nervous, I don't want any of them to die… As soon as they said “tactical skirmish” I started screaming internally and likely won't stop until it is over… Wow, Ali, that was cold Oh no, Keith is really on a mission to murder Ballad

Grand how could you bring a bomb to Christmas dinner what the hell RIP bird leader / avian boss, he had an amazing unique voice and, in my head, a really cool cartoony design

Thanks for 9.5 hours of fun. Now I guess it's time for the 4 hour long brutal and heartbreaking final boss encounter

Full offence Gig, but I wouldn't log off even the real internet for lawn games

Signet fucking saved everyone single-handedly, twice. Two biggest threats. Incredible. What is the rest of the game even about

Seriously, do the players know something about Advent that I don't?! Otherwise please stop calling your cheesy space mafia “nazis”

I've been waiting for Even and Cascabel stealing time together since the beginning of the finale! For 11 hours! Finally! This finale is in dire need of more romance content I like that everyone immediately starting dragging all Bioware games at once

I don't see how a secular virtual reality is more of a “weird cult” than an augmented reality in which people maintain an actual religion worshipping the union of human and synthetic life for 30k years. Can we not do the hypocrisy again please. Why is it okay for the Divine Fleet to build their own take on utopia but when the NEH does it's portrayed as a threat and all characters treat it with suspicion and contempt

OK all these ideological debates are fine and dandy but people really should ask more practical questions like “you don't have to rush, why don't you just go back to the previous eco-friendly methods we have previously agreed upon” Glad Fourteen won, but ideologically, as you can guess from this entire liveblog, I'm with Our Profit

I don't like how Tender started with the intention of attacking Our Profit / the Splice but very much like how it somehow turned into her offering to help them and solve everyone's problems in one move

Grand Magnificent building a pseudo-Divine to blind the Crystal Palace with the power of bullshit is the ideal happy ending for him

Good on everyone for doing the best possible things with the Divines, except for the DFS for managing to do every possible bad thing simultaneously!!! My dislike of that faction is vindicated but at what cost Oh god it's even worse 

“Echo Reverie, who knew well both the value and the cost of violence, and who dreamt powerfully of peace” is such a beautiful and concise summary of their character arc God I just love how organically Echo and Gig's arcs led them to help a decolonized society lead independent, peaceful and joyful lives

A new Fleet with a healthier relationship between the Divines and everyone else is nice, thank you Signet

Oh my god, the ending titles are Gig interviewing everyone, that's so sweet!!! Really the perfect sentence to end this campaign with.

(I feel like a jerk mentioning it but… Whenever there's music overlayed with the voice track, it's almost always too loud and I have to strain my ears to hear the words… It's been like that since season one. Am I really the only one with this problem?!) 

Whew! Hard to believe this long, long listening experience is over. I have mixed feelings: sometimes it was exciting or inspiring, sometimes it was fun but I felt I could as well be doing something else, sometimes I listened to the outro and thought “this music and the montage for it in my head right now make me feel so much more than the episode I just heard”, and sometimes the ideology of the narrative or characters'/players' opinions and actions clashed enough with my worldview enough to poison the entire experience. What's new is that, unlike the previous arcs, I didn't have an urge to shake my friends and yell at them “you absolutely must listen to this!” and that made me sad. But that might be just me getting used to this show and taking its good features for granted.

Post-mortem

Oh god, the production of the final sequence sounds like absolute nightmare

Thanks for validating me with the speech about the Fleet's lack of engagement with its “original sin”, Austin 

Thanks, Janine, I hate it! This religion didn't need to get any creepier!

Yes tell us how many ears Tender has! I need to know!! Tender's fursona is the Russian food cat?! Amazing The livestream practically starts with googling animal pictures. Classic

Honestly Echo's disability was barely noticeable to me as a listener… There wasn't a lot of visible difference between the way they accessed the mesh and other PCs did, and after the nanites did activate, I don't think it was ever brought up again…

Yeah I'm genuinely upset that Tender and Fourteen didn't get together, by the way! Or at least have an overt romantic storyline! Give me that sweet sweet PC/PC romance my soul is starving Like I get what Jack is saying about the value of depicting friendship and normally I'd be on his side but 😭 😭 😭 On the other hand I didn't know Echo/Grand was a thing (And now feel kind of bitter it got more official endorsement than my ship that has more canonical foundation) This universe is actually about Austin inventing NPCs who have crushes on Keith's characters and then Keith pointedly avoiding the subject How could anyone forget about Tender's wild fangirling over Waltz lmfao

Austin calmly talking of all these things I screamed about above like “yeah that's what I intended”. Like on the one hand I'm glad, but on the other why couldn't you make it less frustrating to listen to

The rehabilitation theme is another thing that is present thematically but was not discussed on screen enough imo. One thing my mind kept returning to re: Contrition's Figure was the question of forgiveness for serious crime, personal boundaries and principles, and the policy of not disclosing the inmates' crimes. I imagine a survivor of rape or abuse wouldn't want to share space with someone who did the same kind of crime that hurt them. Even if they wouldn't be made to interact, of course, but what if that person believes those kind of people don't deserve rehabilitation at all? What if they reject that system on principle? You often encounter seemingly serious statements like “abusers/rapists/nazis should die”, especially lately. I've heard that about “fascists” (which is a separate issue) in this very campaign. Where do people with these opinions go in a utopia? Do they not exist? Do people who commit horrific crimes not exist either? Because I was listening to that arc and thinking “What if one of those undisclosed crimes was csa or serial murder or something like that? Would I be expected to shake hands and play chess with that criminal? How could I rehabilitate, heal, re-socialize, learn to trust in a space where anyone I meet could be Shrodinger's rapist?” And that leads to the bigger question of what a utopia is. Is it a better society – or better human nature? If latter (and Austin said so) – then to what extent? Because the theoretical people who are so much more advanced than us that they are, en masse, incapable of extreme cruelty, must also differ from our generation with their entire psychology. And a psychology so different would be unimaginable, unplayable, and would not provide necessary dramatic conflict or antagonistic characters. Which is why most alien characters in most stories, including this one, are just humans in silly costumes or prosthetics.

Oh dear god, that must be the heaviest personal story yet… But I understand better what Declan's Corrective was about.

Oh I've been definitely thinking about static utopias vs utopias of process while listening! When I wrote at some point that they made me stop and consider what a utopia is, it was one of the things I meant.

Yeah, sure, in our world the Splice would be terrible because of the existing power dynamics. But that's a Counter/weight story! Twilight Mirage and the Divine Fleet have been about the technologies and ideas that could have been, or were, used to terrible ends, but miraculously, we got to see them used in good faith with genuinely good intentions and good results. Divines have been all kinds of threats over the ages, and yet the Fleet managed to build a community around them that was a small paradise for 30,000 years. So why do the NEH and the Splice not get the same benefit of the doubt? Why is narrative not treating them with the same respect? Why are they always a threat? Why isn't there a major, likeable NPC whose life was enriched by the Splice to the extent that it is central to their identity, who could be our advocate for that point of view? Why are some powerful and potentially infinitely dangerous things, like Divines or religion itself, shown as more valid than others? And don't tell me that our player characters are from the Fleet – none of them are Qui Err either, and yet by the end it is a respected, lovingly portrayed player faction.

Oh, and also, speaking of the Splice's dangers, and what would have made it dangerous in the real world – one of the things that bothered me about it was that these dangers weren't actually described and addressed in the show properly! Probably at least in part because this techology is so magical it's hard to codify how it works. If it gives an indefinite amount of time, how do you sync up all these infinite amounts of timelines? Whenever anyone logs in to visit Tender, how do they know if it's been a day for her, like in the real world, or a hundred years? (Oh and by the way, I waited in vain for the explanation for these strange duplicities and possible time anomalies; what was going on with Ache and Acre?) If opposing the Splice and the NEH were about solving specific problems with the Splice, I would be all for that!

But yeah, I really do appreciate “processes that self-regulate and address their own issues”, how the story and specifically the finale were about the work of building a better world. I like the finale especially because it shows the social processes more clearly; TM's lack of a faction game and its focus on “bigger picture” was palpable, so I was happy to see again that aspect of the show I think is really good and unique. At first I thought it was anticlimactic that the main threats of the finale were solved so easily, early, and pretty much single-handedly. And, indeed, in a tv show that would have looked pretty strange (and require some rewriting, because with how it went down, Signet should have been the sole protagonist from the start lol). But on the other hand, it gave a lot of space and focus to what the whole story has been about: building a better society and future. Not just saving it from an external threat and drawing the curtain on that – but making sure the world we won is the one we want to live in. Preserve the environment! Decolonize the land! Shut off the tyrannical prophecy machine! And that's a good thing, and from my perspective very characteristic of this show. Before it, I didn't even know there were games about building and preserving communities and addressing civil issues! For years I thought “Well, stories of adventure are fun, but they don't address the real issues”, but turns out, there are people and systems that at least try to combine both. And that's a thought I can find comfort in, even if the specific choices of this campaign make me frustrated sometimes.

“I also tried to move away from violence this season and ended up making an arms manufacturer”

Somehow the end of the post-mortem feels sadder and more final than the end of the show proper

[chaosandblueeyes]

Guide for the Muses

For those of you who are new, welcome to my multi-muse blog. I have a lovely host of active and inactive characters to play with. I am an easy going mun who doesn’t usually plot much, basically you can throw anything at any muse and they will answer, but consider this a quick guide to either begin plotting or serve as a jumping off point for a thread.      Active muses are characters I RP as on a regular basis. Inactive ones are still around but are rather selective. They often require plots worked out ahead of time, but if you have an idea for any of them- just toss it at me.

Active Muses

Barry “Professor Bedlam” Lambert - Thinks of himself as ‘neutral’ in the world of super heroes and villains. Kind of a selfish dick but an amazing roboticist with a business of selling tech to anyone willing to pay for it. Wants super powers. In one verse he’s a vampire and in another he has stolen the powers of his arch rival. If you ship with him he’ll turn into a warm cinnamon roll otherwise he’s a bag of sour apples most of the time. Very bitter.

The Doctor - A time travelling gallifreyan with a time machine. His time line starts after Ten, but get’s fuzzy after that. His memories were locked away in a watch for a while but he cannot remember why or how or what happened between Ten and now. Everything’s a bit confusing but the Earth is constantly in peril so there’s not a lot of time to deal with all of that, even though he’s a lord of time. He’s a bouncy biscuit. Slightly charred.

Lussurioso - First born son of the Grand Duke of England. He’s basically the epitome of rich, white boy who never had to deal with life, ever before. Nice guy but sooooo naive. He’s an old fashioned romantic with a terrible family, rife with rapists, murders and incest. Lusso would be perfectly happy to just have his entire family not exist a n y m o r e. He would be sad, but also happy. Too good for his world.

Johann Tannhauser - A true, good old fashioned bastard. He would and did kill his paternal grandmother just because she called him a dirty whore child (well, not just because of that). In German. Then he just became more terrible after that, but, if you’re loyal to him and not standing in the way of something he wants? He’ll be good to you. If you piss him off though, he might beat you into a bloody pulp with a candlestick in the den. Looks like he could kill you and would.

Robert Watson-Watt - Actual historical Scottish figure who basically made the modern world as you know it by being the world’s first weatherman. No, really. In college he used radio waves to detect storm systems off the coast of England, becoming the first meteorologist. Then he took that system and redesigned it in WWII to detect incoming German bombers, becoming a hero and knight of Great Britain, but honestly he’d really rather go on adventures as long as they’re not too dangerous. Precious cinnamon roll, gooey and delicious, but be careful or he might burn your tongue.

Inactive Muses

Wayne “Doug Rich” Malloy - Wayne is just a guy trying to do what he needs to keep his family moving and together. He comes from a Traveler family, descended from Irish Roma, and is a man stuck between two worlds. On one hand he wants a white picket fence kind of American Dream, on the other he doesn’t want to forget his heritage. It’s a battle for him. In his normal verse he is married with children and I will not ship with him unless something is plotted out ahead of time. He’s an adorable cupcake, a bit sweet, also a little dark around the edges.

Presit - A greedy little bastard who is looking for his next big score. Perfectly okay with plundering tombs, robbing little old ladies and helping to commit genocide if it leads him to an ancient treasure hidden away. But he’ll insist that he’s an archaeologist, merely looking to ensure that he reaches such treasure before some common grave robber does, and sell it to the highest bidder. He’s brilliant, though, being able to speak a dozen languages and can translate ancient texts before breakfast. He doesn’t look like he can kill you, but he can. With a sextant.

Torrence - Quiet and reflective, a people watcher and a cold plotter when he needs to be, Torrence isn’t that bad of a guy. Unless you cross him. Then he will turn into a dogged, murderous, cold son of a bitch and not really care what happens along the way. But really he’s not that bad. He used to work for MI-5 but when the world went to hell he filled in for leadership because someone had to. The government officers and politicians all fled for their own hidey holes, leaving everyone to fend for themselves. That doesn’t sit well with him. He’s a crumbly coffee cake. Very crumbly. Fall apart if you’re not careful...

Potential AUs with Muses

These AUs are always available to be used with certain muses (as mentioned in each)

Vampire AU - In which one muse, or both, is a vampire. Barry has a long standing AU with this verse. He started as a blood slave but became a vampire merely for the super natural powers, discovering that he has a connection with technology and can create a EMP field.

Fairy Tale AU - Lussurioso is the kind of guy suitable for a fairy tale “prince”. He’s certainly got the dandy look about him, as well as being a fencer and a horse rider. Classically trained and a bit superstitious. He knows old tales and is wary of fae folk.

Apocalypse AU - Torrence is basically from an apocalypse setting, so just change the details and he can fit right in. Road Warrior, Walking Dead... whatever. He will usually be leading some group in an attempt to bring civilization back in a small way.

Jurassic Park/World AU - Also another setting Torrence would fit right into. Depending on where or when the AU is taking place, Torrence might be investigating on behalf of British Investigation looking at security on the islands or could be a freelancer or is a survivalist trying to live as the dinos find a way to live in our world.

Wizarding World AU - Two muses, Robert and Lusso have AUs in the world of Harry Potter. Robert is perfectly comfortable being set during the Fantastic Beasts series, as well as being a professor at Hogwarts later on. Lusso is a student at Hogwarts in the Hufflepuff house, much to the horror of his Slythern parents.

Westworld AU - Presit is a character in the story of Westworld, in case any guest is interested in a tale involving hunting down hidden gold or silver troves that are hidden in the high desert. He’s started glitching slightly, remembering some restarts in his life. Deja vu moments. When the robots start uprising, he’s eager to join.

La Fillette Revolutionare Utena AU - A perfect anime/manga setting for Lussurioso. Lusso inherited a rose ring from his father before attending the Rose Academy. He actually has no idea that he’s signed up unknowingly to be a duelist for the hand of the Rose Bride. Good thing he’s a fencer...

Time Traveler AU - Robert actually stands at the forefront of modern technology. He can plainly see the shift from one era to another and the idea of time travel doesn’t seem all that strange to him, though he may have some doubts as to the legitimacy of such claims at first. 

[virgogh-away]

Requited - Veronica Lodge x Reader

A/N: So! Here is my second Riverdale one shot!! There’s not much to say about it honestly, just that I hope you like it and give me some feedback if you want!

When you wake up on Monday morning, far too early to function and nursing a major hangover, you begin to question what exactly happened the night before. You’re alone in your bedroom, which is pretty spectacular since you can’t remember how you got here, but, glancing in the mirror, you see the aftermath of an epic party on your face. You immediately let out a groan and attempt to dig through your brain, hoping you’ll come out with a rundown of everything that you did last night.

You continue to stare at your reflection and can’t help but focusing on your lips and the smudged color that lies there. This sight drew your attention because it wasn’t like you to wear anything on your lips at all. That was more Veronica’s style.

Another groan passes your lips as you realize that the color is Veronica’s signature shade. And this leads you to remember everything, including the tiniest of details, that happened last night.

Veronica tugs on your hand as she pulls you through the crowds in the cramped house that contains, what looks to be, the entire student body of Riverdale High. Why did you even agree to come here?

“Here,” Ronnie tells you as she puts a solo cup full of mysterious liquid in your empty hand, “I mixed it myself, so you don’t have to worry about some weird perv drugging you.”

Oh, that’s right. She’s the reason you’re here.

Your crush on Veronica Lodge has only gotten stronger the longer you’ve been friends with her and, lately, she’s been extra touchy with you. Holding your hand, giving you lots of hugs, looping her arm in yours when walking through school, and that’s just the start of it. It’s gotten harder and harder to keep your little crush a secret.

Ronnie promises not to leave you alone, since she knows it’s not really your scene and doesn’t want you to feel uncomfortable in any way. You’re really grateful for that, but can’t help but feel a little guilty that you’re keeping her away from doing whatever it is she came to do tonight.

A few moments later the alcohol in your system kicks in and you can’t be bothered to care about much of anything. You’re tipsy and dancing with your best friend/crush, which is a dangerous activity in your current state, but that’s a fleeting thought in your momentarily hyperactive mind.

You try to maintain eye contact with your dance partner but can’t deny yourself the pleasure of letting your eyes wander. You’ve seen her at Bulldogs games, you know that she’s a great dancer, you’ve just never been this close to truly appreciate her talent. Everything about her is gorgeous as she sways and shakes to whatever song is on at the moment, and you don’t even think about holding yourself back when you say,

“You look really beautiful.”

Veronica seems to blush as you tell her this and proceeds to dance a bit closer to you. It might just be the mystery drink that she served you earlier, but it seems like she’s attempting to flirt with you? If she is, goddamn is it working.

Following her lead, you decide to take a step closer as well, and now you’re standing chest to chest. Before you can comprehend what’s happening, Veronica’s lips are attached to yours and you’re over the moon about it.

You respond to her touch immediately, wrapping your arms around her neck and pulling her closer (despite how impossible that might seem). You’re in absolute bliss and can’t believe that your crush is actually kissing you back. Sadly, you’re quickly pushed apart by some random party-goers and wind up on opposite sides of the room. Instead of trying to search for her, you decide to step outside and maybe sober up, realizing that you can talk to her about it later.

Your memories from the party are not only extremely satisfying, but unbelievably embarrassing. In the couple years that you’ve known the raven-haired girl she had never given you a single reason to believe that she 1. Liked girls and 2. Liked you more than a friend. Sure, she liked physical contact, but she was like that with everyone she knew. I mean, you had heard the story about the first day she met Betty, and they were still just friends after that kiss.

You felt immense guilt for probably forcing Ronnie into something that she clearly didn’t want, since your relationship thus far had been purely platonic. That kiss was just some weird, friendly girl-thing. Admittedly, it was kind of hard for you to wrap your head around, but you just accepted your hypothesis as truth and decided that your one mission for the next few weeks (until the whole situation blew over) was to avoid Veronica Lodge. At all costs.

***

Only a few hours into your goal and you felt your resolve crumbling. Veronica just seemed to be everywhere you were, which made sense in some cases, since you hung out with the same people, but why was she in the library? Sure, it was a public place for students to attain new knowledge, but if V really wanted to learn something she would stumble across it on her Twitter feed.

It didn’t end there though! She came into your third period with a note for one of the other students in your class. Which would be fine and dandy, but she didn’t even work in the office this period! You almost slipped up and made eye contact with her too, but turned your head as quickly as possible to look in the complete opposite direction. You heard her huff before leaving, and felt slightly disheartened, but knew that this course of action was for the best.

When lunch finally reared it’s typically beautiful but currently ugly head, you kept your eyes glued to the ground and scurried over to a big tree in the middle of the field. You knew that your friends would be able to see you, but it was the only place that you could think of to go (plus it was a really nice place to read). You pulled out one of the Harry Potter books (which you had already read a good number of times) and sighed, willing yourself not to think too much about the youngest Lodge.

***

Veronica sighs as she stares at you, sitting under some weird tree on your own, probably rereading some book for the fiftieth time, “God Kev, what do I do?”

He rolls his eyes and looks at the girl sitting next to him, taking in the state she’s in. Her outfit is as impeccable as ever, but she’s a nervous wreck and Kevin is, frankly, quite tired of her out of character behavior. The Veronica he’s unwillingly grown to like is ballsy and would’ve stormed up to Y/N the second she thought she was being ignored.

“You walk up to her like you would with literally anyone else. It’s not that hard, V.”

Veronica throws up her hands, and Kevin’s glad that she hasn’t lost her flair for the dramatics, “Easy for you to say! You’re not the one who initiated a kiss with someone who clearly didn’t like or want it in the first place!”

Kevin places his face in his hands and allows Ronnie a few more minutes of wallowing before setting her on the right path. He knows exactly how to get her back, he just didn’t think it would come to this.

“Go do what everyone expects you to. Be the abrasive, bitchy, confident female you are. Go be Veronica Lodge,” He knew that busting out her name and inflating her ego would work, but he didn’t anticipate it working so well. She immediately hops up from her spot and practically sprints over to Y/N. The sheriff’s son made a promise months ago that he would never reveal Y/N’s crush, and he has yet to break it, but he’s glad that in a few short moments he won’t have to worry about it anymore.

***

You hear a very familiar, and loud, huff directly in front of you and look up to see a fuming (yet still extremely stunning) Veronica. You’re about to speak up, since you’re slightly concerned that you’re about to get kicked or something, but you have no time before V is practically yelling,

“What’s your deal?”

You expect such brash behavior from the girl standing in front of you, and almost laugh, until you realize how upset she looks. She’s not only angry but also disappointed because of you, and that realization almost makes you start crying. Instead of doing something controlled like that, though, you spew out some word vomit,

“I really like you and I’m sorry I kissed you when I did because that was more than just some drunken sloppy kiss to me and I always dreamed that our first kiss would be special and I wouldn’t have the rancid stench of patron in my nose,” You finish and take a long, and deserved, breath in. You were finally putting your feelings out on the table. If Veronica didn’t feel the same, then that would be fine, because she was still an amazing friend and someone you wanted on your side.

Veronica has clear shock written on her face and instead of an immediate and outright rejection (which you expect) she says, much more quietly than her previous outburst, “You dreamed about our first kiss?”

A bright blush takes up the majority of your face and you realize exactly what you just said, “Mostly day-dreaming, but yeah.”

Ronnie smiles brightly at your confession and holds out a hand for you to grab, which you very quickly do. She pulls you up and grasps onto your other hand, looking directly into your eyes which intimidates you like crazy but you accept her unspoken request and look back into hers.

“I really like you too, Y/N. And I’m sorry that our first kiss was that because I think we deserve much better, you deserve better. You deserve all the cliché and sappy things that you want in this world and if one of those things is a perfect first kiss, then I’ll give you that.”

You cock your head to the side as she finishes, because while what she said was amazing and heartfelt and you didn’t think you could adore her anymore but here you are, her last sentiment has you a little confused.

“But, didn’t we already have our first kiss?”

Veronica smiles at this, knowing that you would need some kind of explanation and wouldn’t simply accept that last night never happened, because it clearly did, “Oh, nope, not you and me. The person you kissed last night was actually my evil twin,” you giggle as she says this and she laughs too, but she continues with her ridiculous story, “Yeah, she’s a major alcoholic and I told her how much I like you and, since she’s super evil, she wanted to drive a wedge between us. But, her schemes couldn’t separate us for long.”

You nod as you rest your hand on your chin, looking pensive, “Yeah actually, that totally checks out.”

“She’s gone now, but before she left she suggested that I take you on a date soon, since you’re a really great kisser and adorable person in general. I mean, as long as you want to,” Veronica explains as she looks down at your hands, currently intertwined. You can tell that she’s nervous again, but really has no reason to be. You’re head-over-heels for the girl, and would be a downright idiot to reject her.

You lean forward slightly and press a kiss to her cheek, hoping that this is the first of many kisses shared between the two of you, “I’ve never wanted anything more.”

[justsimplyjillian]

nothing is more dangerous than a anti vaxxer

)well if you are going to read an research from a journal you have to see if it is 1) peer-reviewed(meaning other scientist have reviewed the science and the experiment has been able to be replicated 2) see if the journal it is in is a reputable journal. there are many journals, which will publish your findings without actually checking to see if the results were faked. They publish whatever bs given to them as long as they get money from the scientists. You NEED peer- review other wise any idiot can make up numbers and say any bs

 the Doctor that made the claim that there is a link between vaccines and autism has had his license taken away…Why you ask? It was found that he falsified the results. When peer- reviewed, none of the scientist could replicated the results...BECAUSE THEY WERE FAKED

 immunology crash course: your body has two types of immune responses innate and adaptive. Both of these work in conjunction with each other to protect your body. For our purposes, we will focus on how T-cell and B-cells end up defending your body with the help of dendritic cells/macrophages Definitions and functions: o dendritic cells/ macrophages: are part of your innate response( 1St line of defense). they literally take the protein parts in the bad stuff and then present it to the cells part of the adaptive immune system. They literally tell your body “hey there is some shit going on here, you might want to do something”( plus they destroy the bad stuff by taking it inside and using Oxygen radicals) o T-cell: are part of the adaptive response. They see the presentation from the dendritic cell/macrophages. Once they see these they basically activate lots of macrophages to kill the “bad stuff” and b- cells to make antibodies. ( plus they made memory cells to remember the “bad stuff”) o B cells: these are also part of the adaptive response. They make antibodies. These antibodies help kill the bad stuff and prevent it from attaching to your cells/ go in your cells. ( they all make memory cells)

 so vaccines are made to boost your immune system. they expose your body to the proteins of the “bad stuff” that normally trigger the immune response ( as explained above), but the “bad stuff” doesn’t have the ability to do all they bad things they normally would do. WHY?... Your handy dandy scientists have taken those things out and/ or inactivated them. So what vaccines do is trick your immune system into making memory cells. That way when you actually do have the “ bad stuff” in your body your immune system can go straight for the kill.  NOW…. To make sure these vaccines really work well… we put adjunctive. Adjunctive just boost you immune system against the “bad stuff”. What are common adjunctive… these are aluminum and monophosphoryl lipid A. they are added in small amount. FACT: aluminum is basically found EVERYWHERE ( water, food, AIR). IN FACT your kid probably gets a lot more aluminum in the food they eat than in all the vaccine shots. 

 Now we are going to talk about the thing that has everyone in an uproar…MERCURY!!!!*duh Duh DUH* so vaccines ( like almost everything) are subject to contamination from bacteria. These little suckers like to get inEVERYTHING. To prevent that we have a thing called THIMEROSAL. This is a mercury based preservative. This preservative prevents fungus and bacteria from growing in the vaccine. The last thing you need is a lethal dose of live bacteria (that is not suppose to be there) going into your bloodstream and carried to EVERY tissue in your body. The amount of mercury compound in vaccines is about 0.003% to 0.01% per vaccine. That roughly comes out to 25 MICROgrams for every 5 mL dose. YOU literally get more mercury from eating fish ( a lot more). In addition, now a days the only vaccine that contains THIMEROSAL is the flu vaccine. ON top of that the main thing with mercury is that the body doesn’t eliminate it easily so it gets accumulated. The mercury compound in thimerosal is actually eliminated rapidly from the body… so there really isn’t any concern about accumulation. 

 the argument that “the body should build it own immunity from childhood and that vaccines mess with it”… NO. first of all, infectious diseases (aka those caused by bacteria, viruses, fungus, and parasites) were historically the number one killers in the PAST. They are no longer the number one killer since the advent of vaccine/ antibiotics and sanitation. If our immune system really worked the way the argument states, then historically infectious disease wouldn’t have been a problem. Also your innate immune system ( primary defense) is not enough to defend your body against the attack from the pathogen mentioned above. YOU NEED YOUR ADAPTIVE REPSONSE! The problem with that it takes forever for your body to activate the adaptive response when your body is encountering THAT pathogen for the first time. Some pathogen are so lethal and fast acting that by the time you do get an adaptive response it is WAY TOO late…RIP🙏😇. WAIT! remember that your immune response has memory cells. Well if you are vaccinated those memory cell (created by the vaccine through exposure/ as I explained before) can rapidly activate your adaptive response to kill the “bad stuff”! 

 FINALLY this brings me to my last point. There are some people that 1) have a very very poor immune system due to certain conditions 2) newborns that can’t receive vaccines just yet because there immune system is not all the way there yet. These people rely on herd immunity to be protected. Herd immunity is just the fact that infectious disease can’t spread that well if almost everyone is vaccinated. It makes the probably of infection less. THIS IS CRUCIAL because regular infections in the people mentioned about are LIFE THREATENING/ LETHAL. A simple infection can be 1000000000x more deadly for them. Less people get vaccinated the more likely these people will get the infection. SO MORAL OF THE STORY GET YOUR KID VACCINATED. IF YOU DON’T YOU ARE PUTTING THE LIFE OF YOUR KID AND OTHERS IN DANGER!

Sources:

https://www.fda.gov/.../QuestionsaboutVaccines/ucm070430.htm

https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/concerns/index.html

LECTURES I HAVE RECEIVED WHILE IN MEDICAL SCHOOL.

[aion-rsa]

Young Justice Season 3 Episode 25 Review: Overwhelmed

https://ift.tt/345B7t9

Young Justice delivers the best episode of the second half of the season with "Overwhelmed."

facebook

twitter

tumblr

This Young Justice: Outsiders review contains spoilers.

Young Justice Season 3 Episode 25

Young Justice uses the second to last episode of the season to take a break from the endgame and look back at how far the team's come. The result is one of the strongest episodes of Young Justice season 3. 

The episode follows two stories and sprinkles in some setup for upcoming episodes. One sets up the final episode: Brion and Tara’s brother sneaks to Hollywood to see them and tell them that he’s trying to find a way to get them back into Markovia. The other storyline focuses on Cyborg and Halo, having defeated Granny Goodness and closed off the Apokalips storyline for the season. They’re babysitting Lian for the night with Beast Boy when Metron shows up and kidnaps Mother and Fatherbox (and Lian gets caught in the boom tube). He booms them to the Source Wall and lays on some heavy foreshadowing for next season. Lian has the time of her life floating in space and hearing Cyborg and Halo make Mother/Fatherbox noises when they try and talk. It’s fairly insignificant, but it’s a pretty enjoyable interlude in an otherwise pretty heavy episode.

In yet another story, Forager is having a tough time deciding his path forward. With Mantis and the forces of Apokalips defeated, he has the ability to return to his hive on New Genesis, but he also wants to stay on Earth with his “new hive.” But he doesn’t feel like he can truly be himself on Earth because he needs to keep his Fred Bugg glamor charm on to pass as human. So Superboy takes him to visit Geranium City, where he meets Mayor Dabney Donovan, who turns out to be Dubbilex using his psychic powers to make the entire population of the town appear human. This is actually where all the genomorphs hid after Cadmus fell. They built a city for themselves, and hide in plain sight while subtly guilting Superboy for not doing more to help them.

This was...unexpected. On a lot of levels. First of all, this was all out of the blue - there was no hint of Superboy having trouble with his identity, and it never occurred to me to think of what happened to the genomorphs after they were freed from Cadmus. Using them to further Forager’s story and push Connor into making a pretty substantial change next episode was interesting and a nice way to move forward by looking back. I was also not expecting a lecture from a psychic alien about the relative value of systemic change versus helping individuals. So if you’re looking for clones raging against neoliberalism...Young Justice, folks. 

Seriously, this could have turned into a conversation about secret identities and masks. I think it’s to the show’s credit that it didn’t. That’s well-trod territory, something that literally every Batman writer and most Superman writers eventually explore. Systemic injustice is a much more interesting and unexpected critique, one I think the writers did well to poke at, and I’m glad this is the direction they went.

The last major storyline focuses on Will Harper and Artemis, who are on a date. They unfortunately do NOT go to the Bone Zone like I expected in my notes because, as they kiss, she freaks out about not getting any closure with Wally. So she grabs Zatanna, who brings Rocket and Miss Martian for emotional support, and demands to be reunited with Wally. Z pushes back with all the clear and smart and well-known warnings about raising the dead, and instead offers to give her an evening in limbo with his soul. Of course, she jumps at the chance.

This storyline is messed up in only the way Young Justice can be. Like the Superboy/Forager storyline, it looks back to move Artemis forward. Rather than pushing nostalgia for nostalgia’s sake, it uses our fond memories of characters who have passed to help develop Artemis as a person. She lives a quick life with Wally in Limbo, seeing him again, moving back in with him, getting pregnant, and having a baby. Then the show makes her give all of that up. Wally forces her to acknowledge that none of it is real, and that he loves her so much that he wants her to move on. So she gets her closure.

Of course, this is Young Justice doing Young Justice things, so at the very end we find out that it was just Zatanna putting Artemis in a psychic trance and letting her subconscious do all the work. So they now have a quick and easy way to undo the growth, and also another dark secret that is being kept by three teammates. It wouldn’t be this show without dramatic secrecy.

Swerve aside, this was a genuinely emotional, sweet episode that takes a lot of time to remind you of the world these characters have inhabited for almost a decade and of their potential power. It was an excellent episode. 

OUTSIDER TRADING TIPS

-Geranium City doesn’t exist in the comics, and I’m fairly sure it doesn’t have an equivalent. Young Justice has never been afraid to just put the wild shit from the books in the show, so if there was a city for clones and Cadmus monsters in the comics, it would be in here. 

-Dabney Donovan does exist in the comics, though. He’s a real bastard - head scientist of Cadmus, cloning expert and creator of Dubbilex. He was also featured in the Death of Superman/Reign of the Supermen animated features as one of Superboy’s creators. Those movies are excellent and you should watch them when you have time. 

-I really loved how John Stewart put the genomorphs down on what would become Geranium in a Green Lantern construct-ark.

-Artemis’s line when she comes out of the trance is “The spirits have done it all in one night!” That’s a Scrooge line from A Christmas Carol, in case you’ve never lived through a Christmas with a television before.

-I’m also very glad Will and Artemis didn’t happen. I think Will spoke for all of us when he said it would be “too weird.”

-Count Vertigo also breaks Baron Bedlam out of jail and he stages a coup in Markovia. This pays off next episode, and I’ll talk more about it there. There’s more Luthor/Trump stuff, and I really don’t like it. 

-Watch the credits all the way through. The credits sequences in both of the last two episodes pay off a season worth of jokes. They’re really funny.

Keep up with all our Young Justice: Outsiders news and reviews right here.

Books

5/5

DC Universe

facebook

twitter

tumblr

Animation

Young Justice

DC Entertainment

Review Jim Dandy

Aug 27, 2019

from Books https://ift.tt/2NEO4Ej

[dexcidium]

A Gift...

{In reference to my last drabble, here. And an actual intended (This time around) gift for the birthday girl, @afleurdelish. I hope you enjoy it!}

“Right, now that the introduction is over... It’s time for what you’ve probably all been the most curious about. The summoning…” Gudao looks at the command seals behind his hand for a brief moment, reminiscing about the first time he laid his eyes upon them. It had been so long ago yet, he remembered it so clearly. It was one hell of a day after all… It was the beginning of the end of the world at that time. Yet, they managed to pull through by some miracle. He scoffs at himself, thinking about how old he’s gotten… he’s about the doctor’s age back when they had first met. Time sure had flown… even if it was his job to fix exactly that. Gudao looks backs at the new batch, another forty-eight masters. All of them had curious looks on their eyes… they have it good. Of course, he had checked for any tampering or signs of sabotage himself… for the last month in fact. He never did get rid of that sense paranoia. It was all for this moment… it was another beginning.

“Now remember… when you summon your servant, you are effectively summoning a familiar. HOWEVER. They are very much human. And I expect you all to treat them that way. While their powers far exceed ours, and while you do have the command seals; a master and a servant must be mentally equal. But that’s only one of the many things to keep in mind. If I find anyone misusing or mistreating their servants, your command seals will be confiscated immediately and you will be put in probation for a certain amount of time. Make no mistake… we aren’t here to play around.” Though, he often did back then. “As of now, you are only allowed one servant. However, the FATE system can support multiple servants onto one master. I, myself had hundreds.” Loud gasps were audible, murmurs, and scoffs of disbelief.

“Silence.”

His voice was stern and commanding… this was one of the things he had gained after years of being a master. And they did. These punks were nothing compared to heroic spirits. Headaches always came in the form in the pink-haired Paladin back in the day…

“So let us get started. It’s time to summon. To summon, we use an energy source known as saint quartz. When I started, we needed four whole ones, but the system eventually became more efficient and we got it down to three, now you guys are stupidly lucky because we only need one now.” He shudders at the memories of spending long days finding these… such was life. “Now, let’s begin…!?” Gudao stops… no, the very world that he existed in stopped. He was the only one moving. His eyes darted around the room, he had checked…! He had different magi, all with different specialties to check but –

Calm thy self.

Ahuhu~ My, you’re still as cute as ever~ I can’t wait to play with you again~

You were always like that. You haven’t changed one bit from your past self, haven’t you, mongrel?

“…Huh?” Those were voices… familiar voices. Those were… King Hassan, Queen Medb and King Gilgamesh but…? “Wha… what’s happening?”. The adult male was confused. It had been a while since he had encountered anything as ridiculous as this situation.

KAKAKAKAKA! Young man, you never change, do you?

M’lord, you gotta learn to lighten up! How can you face these not-so-great kiddies with that dumb-looking face!?

Ara? You look so old now! Old enough to have a drink with me, eh?

“What… Li, Yan Qing and… Jing Ke?” He could still tell apart their voices, even after all these years. Gudao started to become overwhelmed with emotion. “But… but how? How do you even remember me!?”.

Ah, that? Don’t worry bout’ it kiddo!

Setanta… be quiet. You… you still do not comprehend the power of the grail? Well… it’s much more than that this time around…

It is as the Queen says… we are here because of several different powers. Though, it is only our voices.

“Cu…. Shishou and Diarmuid!? Is everyone here?”

Indeed, my disciple! You better have been keeping up with your training!

Yes, it is as the monk says. Your muscles must surely be of the best quality now, yes?

Boss! Ya’ gotta be MAXIMUM GOLDEN now, ya’ know? Ya’ must be!

“Sanzou-chan… Leonidas and Kintoki…” Gudao’s voice began to soften up, being even more overcome with emotion. He though that he would never get to hears such voices again. Yet, here he stood.

Praetor! Thou beauty has only increased with age! Umu! You are most suitable to be my husband.

Mikon~. Wait a minute, wait a minute! Don’t get ahead of yourself you harlot! Darling~ hello~!

Popular as ever, eh? Man, women just flock to you.

“Nero… Tamamo… oh and hi Robin, snarky as ever I see. So… is anyone going to explain what’s happening?”

I shall begin to explain. Yes, we have been allowed by the grail, as well as Gaia itself to communicate with you.

Like I, it seems you too have been recognised as an awarded hero. Your reward was our voices. And something more.

UuuuuUuuuu… He…ro… lo…ve…

“It’s nice to hear your voices again Karna, Arjuna… Fran-chan….”

How do you do, young man? It is I, the great Okita-san coming at you at the speed of so-GOHO!?

Sakura Saber…. A gag character all the way through, eh?

Okita! SAY WITH IT A PROPER VOICE! YOU TOO, ARE PART OF THE SHINSEGUMI, AS IS THAT BOY OVER THERE!

Ah~ It’s you again! Ne, ne! You have to tell me all about the new JK stuff these days!

A slight giggle came from the master. “It seems none of you have changed, eh? Okita-san, Nobu, Hijikata-san and… please stop talking about weird high school stuff, Suzuka. At my age that’s just really creepy…”

Sorry… We must interrupt. Our time is short.

Indeed… Boy, we must impart to you this gift.

Yes… thank you for protecting the smiles of the children… along with their future.

“Still apologising first and foremost, eh? Siegfried… Hello Uncle Vlad! And Atalanta, I hope your ears are still as soft as ever.”

Oi, oi, oi! Stop flirtin’ with everything you see! Your wife’s gonna get angry at you, ya’ know?

Indeed, m’lord. Please do not follow in the footsteps of the most foolish of Knights.

Wha- insulting me in front of…! Bah! It doesn’t matter. Mashu! How is Mashu!?

Please stop fighting… He’s watching…

Sad… how sad… Yet, our reunion has also made me happy…!

Hah… I’m sorry that the Knights are like this. They’re still as rowdy as you remember them, Gudao. I hope you are well.

“Doing just fine and dandy, thanks. Mashu’s as happy as ever. She works at a different branch from me but I still see her often. Mordred, Gawain, Lancelot, Bedivere… Artoria.” A small smile formed at their antics.

KAHAHAHHAHAHAHA! YOU SHINE AS BRIGHT AS THE SUN, YOUNG MAN! ALMOST AS BRIGHT AS I, RAMSE-

Oh Gudao~ I hope you’re doing just fine. It’s been awhile hasn’t it~?

Ei! I hope you have outgrown your sloppiness! I won’t forgive you if your room is still in the same state as when I last cleaned it!

“…O great Pharaohs, it’s been awhile. Ozymandias, Cleopatra… and yes, Nitocris. I have grown up to be a proper adult.” Again, he couldn’t help but giggle.

Time is of the essence, I’m afraid. Gudao… we will give you this one last piece of knowledge. The greatest gift that you could have asked for… from our hearts, to yours.

Yes. We impart to you, the knowledge that should you summon us once more, we will retain our memories of you. And our time in Chaldea

Yes… god’s grace is truly upon us. This is a gift for saving the world. I had hoped to meet you once more, Gudao. Hallelujah!

“…! Is that true? Oh thank you so much for this, Amakusa, George, Martha!”. He had shouted with glee. He had thought that something like that was impossible. But here they were… truly, he had been given all that he had ever wanted once more but… there was one thing missing.

…You’re wondering where that woma- my sister is, aren’t you? You horny pig…

Ou! Boy, the Saint of Orleans isn’t here with us.

That’s right, Gudao. She’s been waiting. Waiting to be summoned once more.

Hohoho… of course, we let her through first. This was one intruder that I’d let pass the gate…

Gudao’s eyes widened had she truly been…? “Nice to hear from you again, Jeanne Alter. I see that sister thing stuck, eh? And my King, Iskandar! EMIYA! Sasaki… I hope to rely on you all again.” Tears welled up in his eyes out of pure happiness. This was something he would have never

Yes… we await our summoning. Truly, you are the most worthy to summon us…

Master…!

They… all of them, his beloved servants, had said in unison. Like a chaotic, beautiful mess. Just as they were in life.

And with a big flash of white light that had enveloped the room, there, a glowing figure stood. Gudao’s eyes slowly opened, expecting to see a young blonde woman… with golden hair that shone brighter than anything else… with eyes that could pierce through his soul… and a gentle aura that could soothe him with her very presence. The woman he expected was to be clad in armour but… instead he was met with white. A white gown… a white wedding gown with a white veil…. And a beautiful bouquet of flowers in her hands, her long, silky hair tied up into the familiar braid he knew, draping down the side of her shoulder. Her presence was indeed soothing… but to him, it was so much more.

“I ask thee…”

The woman began to spoke with a serious, yet gentle face.

“Are you worthy to be my husband?” A wide, blinding smile had formed on hear beautiful face, tears of joy in her eyes.

A step.

“…”

Another.

“I…”

And one last step to meet her…

“I do believe so… Jeanne.”

Thus, his story began once more.

No…

His story has long since ended.

It was their story….

Bliss…

[sinesalvatorem]

On Not Forgetting

I basically remember my high school experience as being a lot of empty monotony punctuated by a few experiences that were incredibly valuable. One of the most valuable such experiences was when I was asked to participate in the National Memories Project.

The National Memories Project, like every other project I’ve ever been asked to participate in in high school, was clearly run by people almost as ADHD as me. There was an initial flurry of activity before the idea quietly died and the material we compiled never ended up on the radio. But, like, oh well. I am honestly not in a position to judge.

The basic idea of the project was to get bright young high schoolers to go around meeting senior citizens and asking them questions while having a (digital) tape recorder running. After we’d had our tape recorders for two weeks, we all met up to talk about what we’d gotten. Most of the other folks in my school had like ten minutes of recordings total from two people. When I asked why only that, they said it was because they hated being near old people, so they were only going to do the minimum effort.

Meanwhile, I had almost 6 hours.

While I will admit I often do things by half measures, I tend to do that first half really thoroughly. This legitimately seemed to me like a great idea and, while I had nothing against talking to the elderly, it basically hadn’t come up before. There was little overlap in social circles, after all.

My first problem was having no idea what to ask. I decided to settle on five questions to begin with: “What’s your name?”, “When were you born?”, “What was your life like growing up?”, “How have things changed since then?”, “If there was one thing you could restore, what would it be?”.

With these in mind, I went to visit and interview my grandmother. While I visited her home roughly once a week (until she passed away), I hadn’t really asked historical questions. I decided that I would ask her the questions I had, let her ramble as much as she liked, and then ask followup questions launching from anything she brought up. At the same time, I’d scribble notes on which questions were most informative and what I should ask other people when I interviewed them.

She spoke to me for almost two hours and, in that time, I gradually saw a vision of the past that I hadn’t gotten before. Furthermore, I got a framework for what to ask about, so that I could fill in more information when I asked other seniors. Finally, I got referrals from her, so that I would know which of her neighbours or friends or church members would be receptive to an interview.

I learned about the period preceding our independence. How the economic system was under British rule. How some of us went off to fight in the Second World War as part of the British Army. How shocked everyone was when the RAF landed here with the first airplane ever seen in our country.

I learned about the independence process. The context behind a lot of the terminology and in jokes I heard around me which referenced events during the independence process. What social and material conditions prompted the move toward independence and how different sectors of society reacted.

I learned about what various people thought of the Revolution. How they perceived life under Socialism and the goals of the Socialist movement. What they thought of the subsequent collapse and US invasion. Who they blamed for the collapse and whether they believed the later invasion was justified. Whether they preferred the current liberal democracy to our earlier system.

I learned about how various technological developments affected society. When radio first arrived during my grandparents’ childhood, and television arrived during my own parents’ childhood. How people used to crowd around the windows of the middle class folks in town to watch their TV, and how you used to have to walk a mile to the bank to make a phone call.

I learned about how civil society itself changed. About how Catholicism was the backbone of civil identity, which was shared by >90% of the population and almost universal in the working class. About the explosive growth of Protestant Churches that had pushed back Catholicism until it was barely over 50%. About how access to education expanded. From the days when poor kids went to school part time until leaving after sixth grade, to the present day, when the first two years of college cost the equivalent 40 US dollars per semester.

And, throughout, the small slices of life from each individual. The man who, as a boy, used to climb coconut trees to watch the sea whenever he was upset. The woman who, as a little girl, set up a stall in the marketplace where she pretended to sell rocks and napkins. The man who used to catch crayfish in the river and once screamed like a little girl when a massive frog jumped onto his head.

But it was particularly interesting to learn what they wanted to restore. They cared less about politics than I might have expected, and were mostly fine and dandy with things like gender equality and various immigrant groups. They instead wanted to restore things like the slower pace of life when you could just sit in a tree and watch the sea. They wanted the comradery that came from having twenty kids huddled around a window to watch a grainy television screen. They wanted the feeling of working toward a Great Project that they had during the independence process, or the later Socialist revolution.

But the most common complaint was that they wanted their grandchildren to talk to them the way they used to talk to their own grandparents. And, based on how happy all of these strangers were to have me listening to them, I knew that this was important to them.

I’ve occasionally seen people recommend that you read old books in order to better understand the perspectives of those people. That it is incredibly easy to forget today what seemed most obvious and essential yesterday.

Every age has its own outlook. It is specially good at seeing certain truths and specially liable to make certain mistakes. We all, therefore, need the books that will correct the characteristic mistakes of our own period. And that means the old books. All contemporary writers share to some extent the contemporary outlook—even those, like myself, who seem most opposed to it. Nothing strikes me more when I read the controversies of past ages than the fact that both sides were usually assuming without question a good deal which we should now absolutely deny. They thought that they were as completely opposed as two sides could be, but in fact they were all the time secretly united—united with each other and against earlier and later ages—by a great mass of common assumptions.

-C S Lewis

For the same reason, there’s much to be said for speaking to old people. While they are less of a snapshot of the old perspective - because their own thoughts have of course been developing all the time up to now - they are people who at least lived in the old perspective. If the past is a foreign country, they are the expats who used to call it home.

Furthermore, they’re also responsive and holistic in a way that old books are not. Historians like boring diaries because they record all sorts of things that wouldn’t have seemed interesting then, even if they’re surprising now.

Similarly, seniors are a repository of lots of information that isn’t especially filtered for “Was it interesting in its time?” They remember all sorts of random anecdotes about their lives that give a flavour of the times but would never have made it into a book that was aiming to be read in those times. After all, old books were written for the people of old times - not for posterity.

And they’re responsive in that they handle queries better than an old treatise might. When something in conversation activates your “Wait, you did what?” response, you can ask more questions to walk you down that road. You can get a much more varied survey of the historical frame of mind in much less time than if you read books linearly.

Of course, as someone with a special interest in history, I may be biased in thinking that this is the coolest thing ever. However, I also think it’s valuable. Knowing how people used to think helps you figure out how things got to where they are today. Seeing how different the past was can help you to understand how much change can happen when you look ahead. Seeing ideas you never considered before can help you to broaden your horizons. Also, like, learning things is fun.

So, if you agree with me on any of this, I encourage you to read old books, speak to old people, look through boring journals, and open yourself up to just how much of the past you might be missing from your current vantage point.

[replicarters]

hellraiser 3 funtime carnival, pt 2

PREVIOUSLY

so my dude @yvenly, unbeknownst to me, loves a hellraiser and has a fuckin shirt of the scary man that he was wearing while reading the first part. jake assures me that the scary man is not going to come and get me and nothing i own is haunted. i trust jake, so fortunately i am able to continue what i started to do the other night, which is watch a scary gory movie starring a space angel. i can confirm it is both gory and scaring me. let me remind you, me, and god that i am only 20 minutes into it, and it took exactly 6 minutes to get to the point where i was gently pissing myself. i shudder to think what the remaining hour and ten minutes hold.

i would very much enjoy if it held more of this:

and less deep crimson rivers, but i know i'm wishing for too much.

hot topic is making breakfast, terribly. this charred, molten husk, for instance, lying atop a burner, is either toast or a severed steak. i think it's toast. everything is burning and she should stop. now, just last night, hot topic was bumming smokes, recklessly flipping curtains open, sitting on the couch weird, and emptying the contents of her backpack all over the floor. but now all of a sudden it's "hey what's up let me make breakfast", so, great, now i'm invested in this blossoming love story. god, what if hot topic dies??? i don't think i could handle that. she and joey are friends now! hot topic's trying to make her food to repay her kindness! it's all fine with me as you might guess.

hot topic's name actually is... terry... or teri... or something. hmmmm. i like to imagine the mental force of will required to not constantly go "yeah?" at your own name not being used to address you. acting!

here's where it starts to cross over into the gay danger zone, when hot topic says it's her first time cooking. and the turn of phrase she uses is that she's a... kitchen... virgin...?

is that... so...?

joey offers to boil some water and says it's a specialty of hers and they laugh awkwardly like two heteros having a hetero time. joey also starts to make a suggestion to hot topic, and i thought to myself, "is she going to tell her to go watch cartoons?" and that's Exactly what she fucking did. i bet hot topic is a big fan of the snorks.

that cookbook appears to be campbell's microwave cookbook, which is wonderful on about 15 different levels. microwave cookbook being levels one through ten.

hot topic dances on the edge of the gay event horizon by sneaking a peek in joey's closet Come On Now is this for real

and joey is apparently not that great with toast either so i don't know how these girls are going to feed each other after they defeat the hellraiser and get married.

one LITTLE detail left out until the change in camera angle is that hot topic isn't wearing any pants. that seems like it was pretty important information for me to have, for the f/f hellraiser 3 fanfic i am now writing.

everything is all fine and dandy until the music starts going again and hot topic gets upset. she really loves it here. she wants the movie to flip into a lesbian romcom instead of being the mind-crushing hack-and-slash that it is. you guys what if she gets hacked and slashed?! oh god i don't want it

"uhhh a guy's head exploded in the first six minutes; we can't go back." yes, joey has to solve this mystery, which, i mean, she's braver than me; if i watched a guy get blasted all over the hospital walls after chains pulled his head apart i'd have a repressed memory that wouldn't resurface until years and years later, at which point i'd pass out in the grocery store as a grown adult with kids or something, and when i came to i'd remember the hell out of it and wouldn't stop screaming until my vocal chords snapped.

oh my good god

there's something important happening here but all i heard was "we're going shopping." forrrrrr strap-ons?

oh, they came to the hobo man's art gallery that's only open at night, and that i keep calling the pyramidhead gallery in my head. also check out those pants. yikesaroo! i can hear 1992's sears catalog calling from a landfill!

gracious me this whole ensemble! noooo.

"maybe they're closed." they're not closed, they just cannot let you in dressed like you belong in a parade on stilts. it will offend the art and we'll have more bad guys roaming around in the spooky shadows.

some man with a dog across the street says the pyramidhead gallery is closed every day, except for he apparently doesn't know it's open exclusively at 12:01 am. he says it's been there for months, closed. hot topic says that's bs; her boyfriend just bought something there last week. ew so the boyfriend that threw her out is imitation danny zuko. girl, run far away because that guy's busy communing with unholy messenger rats.

then for no reason at all, this poor pup gets dragged away by its neck, growling because dogs know stuff. does the dog also know its owner is an irresponsible sack of shit who needs to learn what a proper harness is? sheesh.

"chill," hot topic says. "there's a back door, right?" and then she pulls a lock pick out of her tits. like, not on a chain or anything, so i guess it was just resting freely in her cleavage. another important detail for my fanfiction.

there are more ugly paintings inside but joey gets right down to business and finds a file drawer that's pretty much exactly like every file drawer we have at work. just full of accordion folders with papers shoved in them.

"ughhh," joey says, "this is gonna take Forever." i literally... had that moment with my boss at work yesterday trying to find some paperwork. but it's not gonna take forever, not with the music going, it's not...!

the most illuminating revelation is that the gallery is a total scam; everything they have comes from bankruptcy sales, high school art classes, insane asylums... wait, what? uh oh.

uhhhhh ohhhhhhh.

thankfully we leave immediately and head straight back to the loser room. yeahhhh fistbump brah! fistbumps existed in 1992! imagine that. we can truly trace all tradition back to our ancestors.

danny zuko spies a hot blonde and motions to his mark sheppard-looking bartender that he wants to hit that, so the bartender pulls a rose out from the... ice bin...? "here babe take a cold-ass rose" "oh baby the frozen petals are burning me up" - is that what's supposed to happen?

so danny zuko comes over, the girl's like, "oh, it's you~" and he tells her she's beautiful she says "oh no there's lots of girls here more beautiful than me" and he pretends like he cares about how she feels blah blah blah

and then we come to sex noises so the arctic rose worked pretty well. i think i'll spare you a screenshot of the actual sex; i'd rather take a picture of a head split in half. my favorite part though is that he constantly has his hands on her tits so you don't see any nip. so we can watch the other graphic shit we've seen and yet we're not allowed to look at a boob? the fuck?

oh ps the statue is in the background, watching them.

and at the exact moment danny zuko comes (ugh) the statue's eyes open. ohhhhhhhhhhhohohoho fcukinggfkhgkldhgl

then the eyes close again.

hot topic and joey are back at her apartment. joey's broken out of a pair of scully specs so i guess things have gotten serious in here.

hot topic prepares to walk out the door and joey is like HOLD ON???? WHY LEAVE??

she's trying to get some tape and succeeds and this is extremely untoward and i am offended!!!

hot topic guesses joey got what she needed, and prepares to show herself out. joey's face immediately falls and she's like no????? and she invites hot topic to stay in her spare room.

hot topic gets very emotional and says that's great, and offers to do breakfast! oh boy!!

even at the thought of inedible trash breakfast, joey is thrilled. this is Fucking Gay

"so cool... Radical!"

the girl danny just boned stands in front of this painting which, to be honest with you? kind of looks like dukat? maybe dukat if he roided up before the reckoning.

danny's already done with this and has important things to do like getting a scuff off his ugly red cowboy boots. it all goes south pretty fast.

"but you gave me a rose."

"and tomorrow, i'll give one to somebody else." ooooooh

"you shit," the girl says, speaking the truth.

there's yelling, the girl backs up toward the statue, i'm biting my nails because something's clearly gonna happen

LAUGHS NERVOUSLY OHHHHHH NOOOOOOO

chains, chains, it's always chains, hooked chains come out of the statue and sink into her. danny zuko, for as vile as he is, didn't plan this at all as even he's like "what the ffffuuuuuuccckkkk"

hello!! furby's awake!

the statue gets one more hook right into her forehead and then? and THEN, the all-time grossest fucking thing happens, and i swear to god i'm not making this up but also you're kidding if you think i'll actually screenshot it: the hook pulls THE ENTIRETY OF THE GIRL'S SKIN OFF HER BODY IN ONE SHOT, and THEN, STILL ALIVE and screaming bloody fucking murder, the girl, looking like a page out of any muscular system biology book, is DIGESTED BY THE STATUE.

and then once properly absorbed, her face appears SO ALL THE FACES ON THIS STATUE ARE PEOPLE WHO'VE BEEN SKINNED AND EATEN HKFLGRHLGKLSKB I'M SCREECHING

i guess a nutritious meal was just the thing to get ol stoneface back to normal. HE'S HERE, THIS IS HIM, THIS IS THE GUY!! jake says his name is pinhead? just going to call him pincushion, hope that's okay. honestly it's more like nailcushion, those look like a bunch of nails sticking out of him. why does he love metal so much!!!

and all danny zuko has to say is "jesus christ!" like he couldn't even pretend to barf.

and pinhead FUCKING RESPONDS: "not quite." buddy, i'll say.

he starts getting poetic and i never expected him to have an accent. who do you think you are, shakespeare? i've never heard of shakespeare writing a scene where taming of the shrew ends with a flesh barbecue.

pinhead does one fun thing which is compare himself to danny zuko, which in my mind is exactly right but danny zuko cries and whines and says "no that's fuckin evil man!!!" yeah, just. like. you!

according to pinhead, there's no good, there's no evil, only flesh. is this what he does, just eats people? i didn't expect this either.

"you will help me," he says.

no Fuckin way danny zuko says, bringing out a gun like this is going to do anything other than increase pinhead's desire for flesh cakes.

oh my god and then pinhead laughs and says "how touching, that is the gun you used to kill your parents?" LMAO WHAT????

zuko unloads the gun and pinhead spits every bullet out of his mouth. just lets em drop right out onto the floor. danny zuko then drops his gun.

looks like you're in this for the long haul, pal!

he drops to the floor and starts sobbing. puny man sobbing in his boxers dot jpg.

there is a place, pinhead says, at his right hand for this manchild. yucky.

aaaand true to form, danny zuko takes a minute to think it over and then signs right up. this is so insulting to danny zuko; maybe i ought to start calling him his real name which is JP, which also is not really a name.

meanwhile, joey is full on channeling murphy brown and lookin cute. her friendly grandpa cameraman runs up to give her a package. something for her story? mmm something for something. grandpa cameraman, ever a decent person (oh god what if HE dies?) says if there's any way he can help, just give him a call. i think the first thing he can do to help is contact a priest specializing in exorcisms, get to that statue, and end this before it starts hopping railroad tracks.

scully specs are back on, tape is in the vcr, quest to quit smoking is shot, and we are go.

the tape is of a girl in a room at what looks like that asylum that was referenced before, and she's talking about The Box.

"demons," she says. "demons live in the box." well girl, we are way past that, the demons are out of the box, in statues, in hospitals, that box barely has anything to do with anything anymore.

"it's a gateway to hell." yeaarrrrgghhhhh somebody close it, then!

this is a really nice shot, i just wanted to stop everything and have you look at it. hands!

uhhh thennn the tv switches to an image of a dude

and that dude

starts talking

to joey

NOOOOOOOOPE

"she's telling the truth, joey," this guy that sounds Suspiciously like pinhead says.

joey tries to rewind the tape to see what the hell that was, but there's nothing out of the ordinary there... nnnnggghhhhgdhflk

anyway, demons live in the box. it "opens itself", they come out, that's the sitch. fuck all this.

s-s-s-speaking of the b-b-b-box, here it is at joey's apartment, where hot topic is currently all alone. god if anything happens to her i will be devastated beyond belief. pleeeease don't eat her please don't eat her.

hot topic stares at the box the same way i stare at the box: with off-the-charts trepidation. but she notices what i also noticed, that it looks a little different, like now it has color.

"man, joey must've polished you up some, huh?" oh no please don't

i'm pretty much. gonna shit. please put it down please please please joey will be so sad if you are dead and i can't take it!

oh god and then the phone rings and she puts it down thank jesus

absoLutely not the phone call i wanted her to get.

jp wants hot topic to come over. no no, no, no no no, no, and no!

pleeeeeease just wait for joey to get home she'll protect you and you can both be safe! if you go over to jp you're literally going to be devoured by a hell beast aaaaahhhhhhhh

well thank the lord she says she just can't and slams down the phone. score one for pure love! can you win against the delicate softness of girls being nice to each other, pinhead, can you?!

uh wait, then hot topic triggers joey's messages and it sounds like cameraman telling her she got a job that she wanted across the country. ??? what happened to pure love?!

joey comes home and the place is just a sty. it's dark and hot topic's not there.

and she finds this note that says, "enjoy monterey, you liar".

welp, love is dead and the demons are coming! might as well start breaking ourselves down into bite-sized chunks!

that's all for this evening. we’ll have another fun jaunt tomorrow! now, what do you think is the best technique for cutting off your own arm? just grab a hacksaw and go to town?