#(because of my non-astro background)

[zipquips]

god it's only day two of class and i feel so so so so very behind

[nyahkmenrah]

Uh oh! I have an alter who’s skin doesn’t match the body!

An analysis??? Rant??? From a fictive of an ancient Egyptian. This will be long, so more under the cut.

TLDR: these things just happen sometimes, but don’t be racist.

I feel like this debate has mostly been settled nowadays, but occasionally I just see a take so bad I need to,,, ramble about it.

So we’re all aware that you don’t always have control over who you split as correct? The same fact goes for what the alter will end up looking like. So no one is going around deliberately splitting alters of varying races just for funsies. Any good, responsible system will abide by the one golden rule that fixes the entire ‘issue’

Bodies appearance/conditions = the privileges you do and don’t have.

No, you can’t say slurs because one of your alters is from a group that technically could. Because they’re fronting in a body that gives (or takes away) certain privileges. I front in an Australian-Italian body, we’re pale as hell with thick, dark Italian hair, blue eyes, are trans masc and pass for able bodied (unfortunately for us, all our ailments are invisible ones). So I absolutely cannot be going around claiming to have experienced the discrimination a modern day Egyptian has faced (I’m also literally ancient, I have no idea what a modern day Egyptians life looks like. I’m pyramids years old). I can however, tell you about the shit you have to endure living as a trans person, or what an Italian living outside Italy childhood is like.

If the body is for example, Asian and able bodied, then you have the privileges/lack there of, of an able bodied Asian.

If the body is a trans European, you have the privileges/lack there of, of a a trans European.

If the body is black and disabled, then you have the privileges/lack there of, of a black disabled person.

No matter what the individual alters look like, are based on, have exomemories of, it all comes down to the body you’re fronting in. Use your brain and understand what rights you do or don’t have in the body you’re fronting in and act accordingly. It’s part is system accountability.

Next part: why would someone split an alter who is a different race/ethnicity from the body? I’ll give you a few reasons! But believe me, there’s more than these.

1. They’re an introject, like me! If you’re gravitating towed a particular character/person and end up splitting them, then whatever that character/person happens to be will end up how they appear in sys (although sometimes introject can form in a non canon way). 7ish year old Astro didn’t just go “I’m going to split the pharaoh” it kind of just happened, and now I’m here. Ahkmenrah, the ancient Egyptian, is now hanging out in a body decent from the Romans, rather ironic.

2. The people around you. If you have people from different backgrounds around you, your brain is going to remember that. And when it splits an alter, it may take the information it’s stored away if all those people around you and use it. If your best friend is Hawaiian, you could definitely split a Hawaiian alter because your brain has all these details and images of what a Hawaiian looks like from seeing your friend and their family all the time.

3. Learning. If you’re learning about a certain culture/civilisation school, or maybe you’ve moved to a new place, the same kind of information storage thing can happen. You’ve learnt all this information about the culture/civilisation, it’s sitting there in your brain and when you split, that information gets used in the split.

It is my no means bad to not match the body. These things just happen, you can’t really control it. As long as you’re using common sense and not saying slurs/ culturally appropriating/ speaking over POC your body is not a part of, there’s absolutely no issue.

Some people just don’t understand plurality, and want to be seen as being on the right side of history by trying to stand up against racism/cultural appropriation etc. and while I get where they’re coming from, plurality is a whole ballpark involving complex psychology and brain stuff that makes the situation very different than wearing something you shouldn’t be.

Your existence in your body even if it doesn’t match is perfectly fine. Your name is perfectly fine. You are perfectly fine. Don’t let people on the internet tell you otherwise.

[captainqster]

People I Want To Get To Know Better

Tagged by: @midnightmagicks, @nabaath-areng, and @sundered-souls. Thank you all! ♥

Tagging: I'm gonna try to tag people I didn't tag last time this went around (excuse my poor memory). @disaster-husbun @ornerykarakul @uldahstreetrat @ravandfriendsxiv @haila-wetyios

Last song: Perturbator > Messalina, Messalina

Favorite color: Soft greens and gray-blues

Currently watching: The Terror but I can barely say I'm watching it. I just need something playing in the background so occasionally I look up and see what I think is a polar bear doing terrible things to people

Last movie: Galaxy Quest. If you haven't seen it please give it a watch, it's so hilarious and sincere and a nice love letter to fandoms. I like to watch it when I need a pick-me-up.

Sweet/spicy/savory: Spicy and savory. I have a strong sweet tooth but most of the time I need some salt. I can rarely stand anything sugary in the morning especially.

Relationship status: Married

Current obsessions: Uhhh ffxiv and the RPs I have associated with it, the local library that I just recently visited after living near the town for almost two years (I'm slow). The Horizon games (I still need to finish the sequel, ugh), this jigsaw puzzle we're working on, probably Astro Bot now because it's adorable and fun.

Last thing in my search history: "house plants non toxic to cats".

[zyrafowe-sny]

Thanks for the tag, @grey-automa!

EDIT: I think @violet-prism-creatively also tagged me in this a very long time ago (had to do some digging in my Tumblr notifications).

were you named/named yourself after anyone?

My middle name is my maternal grandmother's first name. All of her children (my uncle included) had her first name as their middle name, and a good chunk of her grandkids do too.

when was the last time you cried?

A few months back when I was visiting a place I knew I wouldn't return to again in a while - I was a combination of extremely overheated, hormonal, frustrated with people with me, nostalgic, and overcome by the passage of time. I don't think I cry all that often, but enough happened to stack at once that it came out as tears.

do you have kids?

I have roommates who are significantly shorter and younger than me.

do you use sarcasm a lot?

Never ever

what's the first thing you notice about people?

This feels like a question Spencer Tracy asked Katharine Hepburn in Desk Set.

Uhh... rough relative height/age? whether they are trying to actively engage with me or are just going about their day?

what's your eye colour?

dark brown

any special talents?

I can read non-technical English with solid comprehension faster than most people I've encountered (back in high school, I could read the same short story twice in the time we were given in class to read it once, and I always need to wait for my partner to catch up when we're reading the same thing).

scary movies or happy endings?

Happy endings, I guess? Not a big fan of scary movies.

where were you born?

about an hour from where my parents lived because they were paranoid and wanted a bigger hospital (my mom was considered old for a first-time mom at *gasp* 30 and they had trouble getting pregnant)

what are your hobbies?

I got back into writing fanfic after a long hiatus (thanks to Thanks to Them). I also sing in a community choir. There was a stretch when I was a little more outdoorsy (though never hardcore), but that's scaled back substantially.

have any pets?

Don't feel up for the responsibility right now. Maybe someday - my living situation is more pet friendly than it used to be - but I'm already drowning in home stuff and don't think a pet would help.

I did have a dog as a kid, but he passed away fairly young when I was in middle school.

what sport do you play/have you played?

I did marching band all through high school, if that counts. I like to ski but it's expensive and a 3-5 hour drive in reasonable weather. I don't ice skate nearly as much as I probably could/should (not sure where my skates are). My partner and I took some sea kayaking lessons once upon a time and I'd like to try that again, but it's not cheap and would be hard to fit in our schedules.

how tall are you?

5'7"

favourite subject at school?

That all depends so much on the teacher and exact class. I really enjoyed my high school physics/AP Physics teacher and even considered a major in physics/astro along with a social science major (am a hopeless generalist), but really didn't like my professors or classmates in college. (I have any regrets that I didn't push through because I like the notion of more women in STEM, but oh well.)

My favorite class as an undergrad was probably anthro of food - it had interesting readings and I got to interview people for a research paper (probably my favorite college assignment).

In grad school, I took a great class on human rights that's colored how I see many policy issues.

dream job?

I wish I knew.

I like: being useful, asking questions, figuring out answers to questions/analyzing things, figuring out how to best communicate answers to things, switching between more quantitative and qualitative work, being able to be just the right amount of stimulated between the work itself and/or any background media, being able to body double (I do well with cubicles/shared offices and less well when I'm in a room by myself), working more on deliverables than project/people management and presenting, and getting several-hour blocks when I'm allowed to just focus and only be interrupted by the most urgent fires.

I might have burned out badly in a past job when also going through some other personal stuff.

I'll be job hunting for the first time in a while probably inside the next year, and am dreading it.

no pressure tagging: @abstract-moth @thegrimshapeofyoursmile @enigma-the-mysterious/@sir-ballister-boldheart @childlikegoblinqueen @sercezgazety

And of course anyone else who wants to.

I turned off reblogs because some of this information approaches personally identifying, but feel free to copy-paste the questions into your own post!

[radioactive-earthshine]

Obligatory Pinned Post

🦣🌌✨ Call me Orla. She/Her. Ms. Honey Sweet. I'm 21+, and very queer 🏳️‍🌈 Neurodiverse. Pacific Northwest.

I've been reading comics for as long as I can remember. This blog is 21+ and there will be occasional mature/adult content or themes. I tag everything that is commonly triggering but if you need a specific tag let me know.

Find me on AO3 as just Earthshine.

Comic Kon Discord Server

Prompts and writing requests are generally always open.

I am a multishipper. We do NOT do ship wars here, and we do not do character bashing. I really am enjoying KonBart, HalBarry, Brainy/Lyle, Scottbarda and Lightrion atm but there's dozens more. Because people keep asking me if it's not posted; no I do not ship batcest.

KonBart Shipping Manifesto and Friendship Deep-Dive

I love and embrace all trans headcanons.

Fanon vs Canon nuanced statement - I just want my non-Bat faves to stop getting mischaracterized in fanworks just to prop up Bats because I cannot filter these types of content out because it is so widespread, and no such universal fanon tag exists, this is heartbreaking to me as I love comics for their depth and nuance. More characters exist than Bats and they are not 'background characters.' I hate seeing my favorite characters being reduced to sexy lamps in ship fic. Does this make sense?

This blog is my escape from the world so I stick to fandom here or things that generally interests me. The world is brutal enough.

Comics that I blog about frequently and are my zone:

Impulse Superboy Young Justice Legion of Super-Heroes L.E.G.I.O.N. and R.E.B.E.L.S. New Gods Orion

Other random interests and series that will come up:

The works of Osamu Tezuka (Astro Boy, Jetter Mars) Pluto Banana Fish (manga) The Dark Crystal Tolkien (The Silmarillion) 90s

Sometimes I make really stupid mistakes that I proclaim with all the assurance and confidence of a gold medal Olympian. Oops. Sorry it's part of being human, regrettably.

Ask Box is always open but I really do mean this; I do NOT answer or respond to or even acknowledge hate, bait, troll or general messages intended to cause an inflammatory reaction. You WILL be blocked, even on anon, as Tumblr has that option. So if you're new and from Twitter and didn't know, now you do.

Unless the person is actively causing HARM, or intends to harm me or someone else, or you are warning me about Zarabithia's return, please do not send me callout messages. It's exhausting.

Again I do not ship batcest, incest, adult/minor or underage nsfw ships. I am furious I even need to post this.

[oflgtfol]

NOOO WHAT HAPPENED TO HUBBLE why am i only just hearing about this now

[opia-tarot]

❁ astro observations ❁

placements I find sexy part 3 (18+)

=====================================

➜ venus-mars (especially the sextile). Charming people. They have the sexiest energy. They are so great at seducing people. Their sex appeal is so in your face. Ugh i love it! They’re also fucking enticing. You speak to them once and then it’s like boom. Clothes are gone😂 They can charm the pants off anyone.

➜ pluto-sun (emphasis on the square). Wow these people are so resilient. They are very intimidating. They’ll make you listen, their energy demands your attention. It’s a part of their identity. They don’t shy away from the taboo. I like how they pull you in the deep end. And how they use their passionate nature in whatever they do. I love it! If you can handle this then you’ll be transformed. Changed. You’ll have sex with them and the next day you’ll dye your hair and move to Mexico😂

➜ moon-mars. They have this underlying intensity. Like a timebomb, almost like you know they could explode at any moment. I like how they defend the people they love. These people are just raw. They aren’t afraid of shit. I love the animalistic nature of these people. Take it out on me🥺😂. Seriously though these people are very fucking sexy.

➜scorpio venus. They have this look. They can turn the charm on like it’s nothing. A flip of a switch and suddenly i’m stripping😭. You look in their eyes and you see their soul. I love these people! They make obsession feel so sexy. Anyone can be put under their spell. Abracadabra yourself into my bedroom please. Thank you😂

➜taurus mars. Sensuality is their middle name. Honestly they have this really grounded sexiness about them. Their confidence is so addictive. They. Are. Fucking. Determined. Oh you think you can tell them what to do? You can try but I can guarantee you’ll fail. They’re HOT. Just don’t push them to boiling point. SEXY! So fucking sexy!

➜ leo venus! They’re always so sexy! They give fur coat and martini vibes. They know their worth and they aren’t scared of being demanding😂. They have this glamorous sexual energy. Their movements are so sultry. Their style is so sexy too. Their appearance is important to them, so they really look after themselves. They ooze expensive.

➜venus/taurus 8th house. Oooo these people are f*cking seductive. They’re so fucking alluring. They remind me of the doja cat streets sillohette challenge. Remember that tiktok trend where you stand in the doorway and the red light is shining in the background? Yeah if you know you know. But these people are magnetic! So many people want them. Pick me🙋‍♀️ choose me💀

➜mars-neptune (especially sextile and conjunction). They move like they are sex personified. Sensual. Ethereal. They are so entrancing. I can’t take my eyes off these people. They have this magical bubble around them and it just grasps my attention. They are destined to be seen. Many people imagine all sorts of sexual fantasies about these people. Hypnotic people. They’ll be doing the most mundane task and i’m sitting there like 🌀_🌀

➜ scorpio rising. Staring pros. They stare until they get your attention. And you’ll feel it. Because you can feel their presence from across the room. They don’t need to do anything. They just wait. They know their energy alone is enough to lure people in. Every scorpio rising i’ve seen is a f*cking snack. 3 course meal. Prove me wrong. You can’t😂. Their stare feels like they’re stripping me layer by layer. Like yes give me a pure orgasmic experience just from your eyes.😭

➜mars-uranus (especially the square). Ahh these people are so fucking fun. The definition of brats. They loveeee to provoke and when you react, it encourages them even more💀 They’re so spontaneous. Sexually free. They’re non-judgmental too. You can be yourself around these people.

-————————————————————————-

♡ send me suggestions! I’m posting a general tarot ♡ reading soon. If you have any things you want me ♡ to do a reading on let me know.

No plagiarism!!

©️opiatarot rights reserved

[beefgnawpolis]

PS4 shit I’ve been playing lately

I do still need and want Episode Ardyn but I’m kind of FFXV’d out for right now, also I have this PSVR stuff that needed played with.

"Beefgnaw, does the VR make you barf, what about your glasses does it work with glasses?”

FUNNY THING ABOUT THE MOTION SICKNESS ISSUE. Games where you-the-player-avatar do not move, or don’t move much, but you’re free to turn your head and look around 360 degrees don’t bother me at all. Like, I can play Beat Saber for hours, because your avatar is standing still and the blocks are coming at you. Games where you sort of teleport from one point to the next are okay, or if you’re like... climbing a ladder or something, that doesn’t bother me. Games where you can walk but like... on rails? Mostly okay.

The problems start when you-the-player-avatar can walk around freely (looking at you, Rec Room), or if your view is on rails and you can’t look around by turning your head, or--the big one--if you-the-player-avatar are riding in a car (looking at you, Blood and Truth). That first one is an even bigger problem if the game expects you to play while standing (again, looking at you, Rec Room). If my character is walking and I’m standing still that throws all kinds of fun error messages in my brain and by “fun” I mean “not fun at all.”

(Blood and Truth has a good enough story and A++++ voice acting that I’m willing to soldier through it and also the part where you can DJ WHILE YOU’RE HAVING A SHOOTOUT WITH BAD GUYS is, by itself, worth the price of admission and possible motion sickness from the car bits.)

As for the glasses thing: not really a problem. Your mileage may vary depending on your prescription and frames but... I’m not having any trouble with it, so take that as you will.

Anyway, this weekend I finally got around to playing all the demos on the demo disc that came with my PSVR shite. There are a few gems on there, some of which I did not expect to like as much as I did...

Moss is one I started up and pretty much immediately fell in love with and ran straight to the PS Store to buy. God fuck hell yes please let me be a gentle giant helping a tiny mouse find her missing uncle for just a little while. (aside: call me an old fart but I still prefer to buy my games in a format I can hold, however this whole thing where I can feed my console without having to deal with... public places *shudder* or even putting on pants is starting to grow on me). 

Thumper: Simple controls. Very Rez-like. Didn’t give me motion sickness issues; you’re in a little beetle ship thing on a track, but there’s not a lot of shit moving around in the background so it’s not bad. Wishlisted.

Headmaster: And here’s the one I did not expect to love but could see getting super hooked on. The premise: you are a football (soccer for ‘murrcans) player whose club has sent you to a remedial heading training facility because, I guess, you suck at hitting balls with your head. You don’t need any controllers. Just the headset and camera. Things launch balls at you. You hit them with your head. That’s it. That’s the game. But it’s one of those Very British Humour Games and I legit cackled out loud multiple times. Wishlisted.

Superhot VR: Another one I did not expect to love but could see getting hooked on. Player avatar doesn’t move around, enemies come to you. Enemies only move when you move. Enemies shatter like glass when you punch, shoot, or throw things at them. Very satisfying.

I wanted to like Job Simulator. It’s one of those that makes you stand up and... no thank you. Astro Bot Rescue was cute, but not really my kind of game. The Persistence... I wanted to like it. It had kind of SOMA-esque vibes and I wanted to give it a chance, but the controls and camera are awful. Kitchen... ah. ok. it’s a Resident Evil trailer. murder zombie in my face in VR. no. no, thank you.

In the non-VR department, I played a couple of PS Plus offerings: Erica and Fall Guys.

Erica is not so much an actual game as a movie with input. A pretty well-acted and well-produced one, too. I could see paying money for it. There is an app that lets you use your phone as a controller, I played with that and have no complaints. It does have a pretty fair amount of potentially triggery content, particularly gory bits and abuse so be aware of that.

On the absolute opposite end of the spectrum, we have Fall Guys. It’s pretty much a multiplayer Wipeout-like game show, where the contestants are all little chubby bean people. You can win or buy funny costumes for your little bean person. You can sabotage your opponents by hugging them. Some of the games are obstacle races, some are survival games where you just have to not fall into the goop, there’s at least one logic game, there are some team games. You WILL come this close to qualifying for the next round and get eliminated at the last second and you WILL yell at your TV about what bullshit it is that you just barely got beaten and you will be laughing your ass off while you do it. The servers seem to be a little flaky sometimes, but that may just be due to the shitloads of new PS Plus players this month. 

And finally... while I was slam-dunking Moss into my cart yesterday I noticed that the Whole-Ass Kingdom Hearts Series Bundle was on sale for $30. Shit. 

I now own the whole-ass Kingdom Hearts series.

I have not played a Kingdom Hearts game since 1. I haven’t played that in at least 15 years. And of course y’all know KH is one of those series where missing one game is like missing one episode of LOST, you pick up the next one and WTF EVEN IS HAPPENING HERE WHERE ARE WE WHO IS THIS WHAT HAPPEN. And since, you know, Squeenixney had to spew KH games across EVERY POSSIBLE PLATFORM, some of which I did not own... yeah.

So I figured I’d better start with 1.5 and sure I remember the overarching plot and the Traverse Town music and paopu fruit and shit but as for like, how to solve any given puzzle...

It’s like playing for the first time all over again! gawd.

Anyway I have ALL THE KINGDOM HEARTS so I can finally see for myself just how far off the rails this series goes!

[atinyidea]

ATINYIDEA’S (LATE) 500 FOLLOWERS SPECIAL

                                  · · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

HELLO! Welcome to my 500 followers special!

BEFORE WE START, I want to apologise because I'm 5 followers away from 600 followers and therefore there won’t really be much of a ‘game’ or a ‘special’ with this one!

HOWEVER, if you wanted to send in small things? maybe like MTL’s or something? feel free to! 

note: I will be doing another game (maybe a prompt game? or maybe a voice game so it’s more interactive?) in the next special!

ASK BOX

This one is going to be rather long so I'll put the cut here: ^.^

HERE is my original 500 Special Layout:

HELLO! So to do something different for the 500 special I decided a few weeks ago to create an interactive fic! It’s called The Lost Island and is based on the korean tv show ‘Dunia: Into a New World’ that i’m like 63% sure is based on the game ‘Durango: Wild Lands’ but I haven’t played that game!

As usually, stick around till the end for a follow forever and a special thanks!

HERE is the link to the beginning post!

HERE is the link to the secondary post!

THE SPECIAL FOR THIS POST SPECIFICALLY IS where you choose the background of the reader!

ALREADY CHOSEN:

GENDER: Female

NAME: Soobin

AGE: 19-21

TO DECIDE:

HOMETOWN:

Seoul

Busan

Incheon

Daegu

Jeju

FAMILY:

Mother?

Father?

Siblings?

SKILLS:

suggest your own!

IN ORDER for this to be a fully interactive fic, I invite you guys to decide on the most consequential factors including the dynamic between each character (not just between the reader) as well as potential love storylines!

I HOPE this is a good and exciting idea we can work on as a collective!

Here is my ask box!

HERE is the before post I never got around to actually posting:

It’s been a while and I’ve compiled all the results. following my own rules (at least one member of each group with at least three girls) the results are as follows:

Chan, Yunho, Seoho, Luda, Bona, Eunseo, Hongjoong, San, Yeosang, Jongho, Hyunjin, Changbin.

I thought about just making ‘your’ character gender neutral but i gave you the choices so, this is Your character:

Soobin, 19-21, Female.

breakdown as follows:

Bang Chan — 25

Yunho — 17

Hongjoong — 15

San — 13

Yeosang — 10

Changbin — 9

Hyunjin — 9

Jongho — 8

Luda — 8

Seoho — 8

Bona — 7

Felix — 7

Minho — 5

Eunseo — 5

Hwanwoong — 5

Seola — 4

Xuan Yi — 4

Leedo — 4

Xion — 4

Jeongin — 4

Mei Qi — 3

Dayoung — 3

Soo Bin — 6

Chae Min — 4

Other (Da Bin) — 1

Other (Yoo Mi) — 1

Other (Sara) — 1

19-21 — 7

22-24 — 3

16-18 — 1

Female — 6

Male — 3

Non-Binary — 2

FOLLOW FOREVER:

0-9:

@07tens  / @1haos / @2002cla / @223235 / @4everatiny / @1picasso1 / @3rachachanie / 

A:

@a-nik7 / @a-tothe-z / @aattinnyy / @acampos9 / @atinyluna / @acewren / @achamii / @actualday6trash / @addysonsophia / @aesthedick-minmin / @akkabuteo / @angelcakeloveschuboo / @alcheist / @alyssafangirls / @amandapakzads / @analu-bg / @aoaseolhyuns / @art-ificialfool / @astronomyturtle / @asvoltasdaterra / @ateellaz / @ateenz / @ateez-trash / @ateez-jongho / @ateezartblog / @ateezts / @atiny-lesgeddit / @atinybuttercup / @ateezwyd / @aonograyman / @anaroon / @amoirtxt / @alekol / @ateezonew / @ardentlyblushing / @alyj12 / @atinygroupcalledateez / @ankaaes / @atinyzes / @alferherrod / @agracestar1 / @avacado-avalance-whatever / @alekolala / @anxious-piece-of-bread / @angieneedsalife / @anniemin / @aashi001 / @atiny-dumbass / @astraw-astro / @arissayoo / @adorepjm / @annikasleeps / @ateezsanity / 

B:

@babesmara / @bangchansurl / @bangtanateez / @basiccc-daysiccc / @bbgmimii / @bbymielpops / @bellerose99 / @bertholdt-hoovers-butt / @biebersxbooty / @biesrack / @bigcashhumanathlete / @binniebinnie-changbinnie / @binting23 / @blackbutlerfreak14 / @blatherskiteflop / @blessmeachoo / @bluecookies-and-ink / @bodaciousasian / @bonana112000 / @bluedelilah / @briefrebelpeachcalm / @bloglealinhyun / @blessings-wait-for-u / @byounggonsss / @bemypanties / @berrylip / @bbyrcses / @bapuppies / @bangtanxstacy / @bestateezperfect / @baoomy / @bluespeckledegg / @bonjavaneux / @bitterbitterbinnie / @bunnyeosang / @bubbletina / @btsevenafterlife / @breya10 / @bri-ne / @beechuchu / @buffsquirrel / @bforbangchan / @backhugsforhyunjin / @bratzhwa / 

C:

@c3stia / @celestial-yunho / @changbinpng / @chickadeejisungie / @chocohoshi34 / @cloudyyskz / @cotton-chandy / @crudegiggles / @cryinginshiber / @curb-check / @cuteez / @cutieyeosanggie / @cuddlesbaek / @coocoocrazy / @crielll / @clearcollectivepaper / @coffeekpopandcookies / @cloudystorm / @chogiwamypace / @curledlife / @chloeskyee / @canvas-and-paints / @choicetiny / @clxirvyant / 

D:

@d-sliceloveangelbean / @daeyoulovehwi / @date16live / @dearkanesya / @deathangel2015 / @denybgib321 / @desired-love- / @devilsurvivor17 / @dillys-things / @dlovesateez / @doeozmag / @dancinglikebutterflywingsx / @dasnaddy / @dreamsofnightshade / @dyoungx / @d10nysusmp3 / @darkatiny / @diavory / @dork-charm / @disneyditz19 / @dodoong / @doggsarefun / 

E:

@easytolovemp3 / @elementz-emrys / @elisamousse / @elysianraynne / @emdotdilly / @endlessbias / @embrxces / @esdblu /

F:

@faeoffaith / @fallenforhan / @fenderbenderr / @felixis-es / @flaming-humanoir / @frodobaggays / @fuckabassline / @futuristicranchbananadeputy / @fxsed / @flightblahblah / @funsize-lucifer-hongjoong​ / @feckinbecky​ / @filiapallaswtaekook / @frickfrackjimin / @fluffyyunho-main / @fighterixz / @franta-tastic / @fancy-smancy-weeaboo-trash-can / 

G:

@gem-young / @grungnr / @givememyhatbackjordan / @gotosleepstupidperson / @gucciwoojin / @generalbanditdeanflower / @guesglasses / @guardians-of-exo​ / @goldenxxxs​ / @ghostiemakingposties​ / @gigglysan / @golden-slumbering / @gorewhorez / 

H:

@hazy-spirits / @heatlenked / @hellevatored / @helperofthenight / @honeytobees / @honeyjoongie / @hongbinshanzo / @huntersxhunted / @hushed-hearts / @htr018 / @httpseulgii / @hyunjinanticlub / @hwa-san / @hannahdinse8 / @hwaseongtrash / @hookedonkpop / @heoneyology​ / @hellokarii​ / @hongbinshanzo​ / @hobischerry​ / @hongjoong-enthusiast​ / @heejinsclub​ / @heychaaaaan​ / @hyunjinxss​ / @hoseom​ / @haveyoueverseenthemadness​ / @httpyoungbin / @hehetmonchi / @honestlynervoustimetravel / @hong-shua / @honeyedhj / @highkeykpopmulti / 

I:

@i-need-your-love-befor-i-fall / @iconseventeen / @idntrllycare / @igotstay / @ilovetrivialove / @ihtscuddlesbeetchx3 / @ilylee / @im-mei / @imusuallyobsessed / @immaculateseo / @iis4d / @infinitemilkshakee / @injunctzen / @if-i-believe-in-you / @intricxte-jaemin / @ioohoney / @isabel-b / @itslikevelvet / @itssehunbitch / @idc-and-idk / @iimapleheroii / @itsme-jessss / @isaahyung​ / @imnnctfact / @introverted-stay24 / @ihaveaboringlifefilledwithkpop​ / 

J:

@jaeemiee / @jcnghyvn / @jennjongin / @jeonshii / @jhiddlesbatch / @jooniesdimple-s / @just-a-kpopstan / @johnnyspanda / @jinjinmyworld / @jaehyunay / @jong1yun / @jonlydia / @jimeanies / @jongins-sidehoe / @jinghosapples / @jiminspussi​ / @jomojomo / @jwyworld​ / @jenlesbian​ / @jcnhui​ / 

K:

@kaoutarxx / @katieetie / @knicolewolf / @keepingupwithjacobkowalski / @keepingsecretss / @kennedyfk / @kholley86-blog / @kili-my-feels / @killingmc / @kkxnex / @kookiesbananauyu / @kpopdrabs / @kpopstanstings / @kpopxtra / @kqshiber / @kris-bou / @krithjay1234567-blog / @ktyhorn / @kyulcafe / @kylhoe / @k7nt5u97 / @kyokotfup / @kpoplalalove / @kiwibaekie / @koreanhoxey / @kingakame / @kayla-rain / @kpopper-queen-posts / @kkimyohan99​ / @kswiss43​ / @kpopweird​ / @kingmingyu2 / @katierosexoxo​ / @koinoyokanjohnny​ / 

L:

@larilarilep / @latteforschool-art / @lazlowrites / @leemarkmywords / @leoxqueen / @levoli2407 / @lifeofwordsbydani / @lifewithkpop / @limariojichuu / @littfallenrebel / @lizbether01 / @llscxlack / @lmaojeongin / @loggyj / @lohverx / @looney-joonie / @loudestgirl / @loveydowey / @lovisak98 / @lross603 / @lucky24op / @lullaby-in-the-dark / @lunaneedsleep / @luwoobae / @lingdidi / @lilhwahwa / @linlailluvia / @leoslut6969 / @lee-thought-so / @littleaprilcherryblossom / @leahlupin​ / @lostintheendlessvoidthatislife​ / @littleprincess-5 / @lordandsaviourjisooschrist​ / @live4bandmerch​ / @lil-kookie-06 / @l0nelyn1ghts-world​ / 

M:

@magicalgirlviolet / @maisie-sullivan / @mal-neon-kitty / @mellamosallie / @melso1229 / @melwooa / @micaelavvvvvvvvv / @middlegguk / @minni-i / @momoeirin / @monyoongles / @mooneylooney1 / @mrsblue1992 / @multitasking-multiple-fandoms / @maris41s / @miranda676 / @moonchildsg / @mailani-annie / @mostexoticwinebottle / @matshyoza / @mischievouskpop / @mirajunheeswife / @marsgotnojams / @mypirateking-hongjoong / @mintmingi / @multifandomhoee / @meralien52 / @monstaxsquad / @multixrad / @moodringprincess​ / @marshma11ow07 / @magdelenauchiha / @marvelsbts​ / @marshmellow-hwa / @mysaarahstuff​ / @multikzen​ / @mingisfixonexe / @moonmork​ / @minghaore​ / @madnpan​ / @mikayuu211200​ / 

N:

@namjoon-ahhh / @nico-vastia / @nochucometrbl / @notthattennagewitch / @nattyct / @nsfwyoonji / @noisyfairydonkey / @never-ever-gonna / @needle-ss-to-say / @nicolaharlot​ / @nekdnblock​ /

O:

@officially-jungshook / @ohmyseoul / @ohwooyoung / @omgkeylla / @omgphilip12 / @oncenanas / @ohwenjunhui / @ongnie / @oopssun​ /

P:

@pagangoddess1 / @parkmin99choi / @peachynamuu / @peaches-an-vegan-cream / @pockys-world / @pieeeapple / @primaryofyunhoismyteddy / @prettyseonghwa / @princesselementdark / @pt82897 / @princessmara-sfw / @pwark-jisung / @pitchblvckk / @perhapseonghwa / @pure-3vil / @pastozen127 / @pumpkinpcy / @princessminkiatinylov3​ / @parade-star​ / @proudslytherin18 / @pyqapyqot / @peachesandmark​ /

Q:

@qualitybonkfishsports / @quiet-seoks / @quitewindy​ /

R:

@radioactiveteddybear36 / @rasmusen14 / @reallyfancytrash / @realpamie / @reapermeohmy / @ren-jvn / @retrohyuk / @rialoca / @royaitease / @ryleeroseb4 / @re-biirthday / @redxfangirl​ / @rosecrystalteartrop / @redcoloredblack​ / @read-all-about-kpop​ / 

S:

@saf1ya-j0nes / @sanshineeeee / @santanlatte / @sarahallenqueen11 / @sazleeanas / @sea-ship / @seeosix / @seesawsmin-flower / @seolrose / @seonghwalove / @shajiii / @shiberpng / @shikyus / @shining-universe / @silentiona / @suhway / @simplykpopfantastic / @sjksxicuyd / @skinnygirl-wanna-be / @skzsuniverse / @smol-joong / @snowkissangel / @snowyuki10 / @solanaris / @sopeloveee / @softfor-sweaterpaws / @softforchanyeol / @softforyunho / @soobinniesun / @soulofatiny / @stanmesstm / @stannex7 / @starlightatiny / @stayatiny325924 / @straypatchkids / @stu-ffel / @stuffulzzangxxx / @sunshinehanjisung / @sierrah-rose / @sansbada-da / @softjunh / @sleepyninibear / @swaegjhoe / @skz-voices / @sweetarto / @sleepingsag / @skzsoftieuwu / @sanlusts / @superluvr / @sswlvjstdnc / @skkarut / @sackofpotatoes64 / @stopthecats / @sunshine-sungie / @seonmintbby / @seungminjilix / @shoot-ingstars / @sailor-baek / @seojonneh​ / @socially-conbaffelated​ / @sassyateexbtspalace / @softkstan​ / @schone-lie​ / @siren-e​ / @sana-yaa / @seominsoo-main​ / @seokurity / @sticylee​ / @sillyprunebasketballpickle​ / @smolchild-lol / @softteez​ / @sanshinexe / @saniscute​ / @sansprincess​ /

T:

@tae-bae03 / @taeclsz / @taehyungdearest / @taerowe / @thatfangirlnamedbeth / @the-atiny / @the-riddle-master / @theartofcherishing / @thegirlwholovesthem / @thekeyssstoyourheart / @thevalianthideoutcollector / @thirlwallsky / @thirstyforjungjaehyun / @tia18012002 / @tinyspaceblossom / @tkiahpoe / @treasuresatiny / @trotlover / @thantophcbic / @teandmilkk / @totallynotannie / @thegreenflamingojanette / @timaeustestified42069​ / @trinity-belly93 / @tonyyystank​ / @thatfiloitaliankid​ / @tinyjisung​ / @tapikachu​ / @sir-tophamhat​ / @thegirlwiththedorkydad​ / @theshytsuki​ / 

U:

@un-kpop-ular / @velvetsense / @untainted-memories / @venussbabyy / @verivery-cute / @uwujisungoppa​ / 

V:

@vinweiisbae / @voulavioli / @vutegukk / @vforvividimagination / @vrenons / @valex19​ / @videogayminsung​ / / 

W:

@warmbodiesbrokenheart / @whatevermakesyousad / @wintermaedchenworld / @wonbuns / @wonwowzers / @wooyonology / @wooyounger / @wildly-lost-lantern​ / @woojinloveschicken​ / @were-all-stardust-in-the-end​ / @winnie1603​ / 

X:

@xhanjisungiex / @xiao-xui / @xiaobapling / @xodori / @xuphori / @xsabsnor / @xx-beautyqueen-xx / @xxxcottencandyxxx / @xokpop-aestheticsxo​ / 

Y:

@yanzwut / @yeosaangs / @yeosangelz / @yeosangkang / @yoonriise / @yoyoyogurtpot / @yukine-smx / @yunhobear / @yunhoonthestreet / @yunhoswife / @yunhosworld / @yuta-the-mountain-man / @yxngoxe / @yeosangishot / @yunhosqueen / @youseissi / @yeehaw-gang / @yeoddang / @yangfeinia​ / @yanderetbzkids​ / @yunhosfadedhair / @yeethee​ / @yeeskzhaw​ / 

Z:

@zhruwu​ / @zebraluv1990​ / 

SPECIAL THANKS:

TO the 95 people (included) who followed me while I was putting this together!

TO my friendly atiny anon/ my soul partner: I just wanted to put this here bc i’m still clueless as to who you are!! love u

AND TO everyone who reads my work and comes to follow my little blog!!

THANK YOU x

[zipquips]

.

[its-artsy-author]

Purple Comes From Red And Blue Chapter One

prologue

chapter one:  in which the Naughty Boi takes the Pure and Nerd Bois on a ride, and aliens happen (part one of two)

ship(s): klance as a fusion, eventual klunk

word count: 3,883

tws/cws: running away, being yelled at/ridiculed by authority figures, aliens??? is that a trigger???, syringes, medical experiments, non-consensual experimentation

Our story begins with a flight simulator in the most prestigious astro-explorer academy in the world, the Galaxy Garrison.

A dark-haired boy in an orange, white and grey flight suit grabs a walkie-talkie from its stowage point above him, “Galaxy Garrison flight log 5-11-14. Begin descent to Kerberos for rescue mission.” He tilts the control stick on his dashboard forward.

“Ugh. Klance, can you keep this thing straight?” A large Samoan boy in the same flight suit exclaims, hands moving frantically over a screen in front of him. He retches, nauseous, as the ship swerves.

Our pilot, Klance, is a tall boy with dark brown, almost black, hair and pale brown skin. “Relax, Hunk,” presumably the engineer behind him, “I’m just getting a feel for the stick. Besides, it’s not like I did this!” Klance jerks the control stick sharply to the right. The ship swerves in that direction, tossing its contents around wildly.

“Klance, stop it, unless you want to be stuck on cleaning duty again! I will throw up!” Hunk grabs the dashboard in front of him, stomach lurching. Klance huffs an annoyed sigh, but complies, shifting the controls for a smoother flight. A disruptive beeping sounds from the walkie-talkie that the communications officer has hanging on a small perch above them. The smaller figure, pale and slender with wide owlish eyes, calls out to the rest of their team, “Klance, we’ve picked up a distress beacon!” they peer over at the pilot, who somehow manages to exude an aura of nonchalant confidence while also having taut muscles and a focused expression.

“Look alive, team! Pidge, track coordinates.” The communications officer- Pidge, their name was- turns back to their console, muttering their assent, just as the ship begins shaking again; the overhead fluorescent lights flash red and alarms blare from every speaker.

Hunk groans, clutching at his mouth and pushing his monitor away from him. The craft rumbled and shook again, “Knock it off, Klance, please!” he complains, lurching in his seat.

Klance sends a sharp look Hunk’s way, “Oh, this one’s on you, buddy. We’ve got a hydraulic stabilizer out, and, last I checked, that was your area of expertise, not mine.” He turns back to the front window of the craft.

Hunk pulls his monitor back to himself before leaning forward and clamping a hand over his mouth. “Oh, no-” his stomach lurches again and Hunk barely avoids retching.  Klance groans, running a hand through his dark hair and rolling his eyes- a kind-of dark indigo-blue.

“Nope! Fix now, puke later, Hunk!” He refocuses intently on the screen. Pidge calls out to their team that they've lost the signal because of the shaking. “It’s interfering with our sensors!”

Klance drives the base of his palm into his temple, chastising his nauseous teammate as he returns to the screen in front of him. “Ah, nevermind, boys, thar she blows!"

Fatal last words, he thinks, standing in front of Iverson and taking his shit yet again.

"You are the most incompetent officers I've ever seen in this program, and what's more, the worst team! This kind of shit is what cost the lives of the men on the Kerberos mission!" Klance (literally) glowed in anger at that, their two souls dangerously close to splitting. Keith nearly punched Iverson, and Lance barely held them together and shoved a hand over the indignant mouth of his crewmate, Pidge. "Tomorrow'd better be the best run you've ever had or so help me god, you won't live to see the end of this program!" Klance winces at his harsh tone, flinching as spit falls on his face with the end of his sentence. "Get out of my sight," he growls.

"NEXT!"

That night, Klance and Hunk sneak out.

Hunk bites his fingernails, looking around nervously as he and Klance creep down the halls. "This is a bad idea- This- This right here? This is a really bad idea." Klance makes an offhanded, nonchalant noise in response, opening the roof door with a creak. Hunk winces at the sound, head whipping back to see if anyone heard.

A lone figure rests there, hunched intently over a bright screen of numbers. Large headphones engulf a good bit of their head. Klance tiptoes over to them, eyes widening in surprise at the figure being Pidge, then smiles impishly, reaching out one hand to yank off the headset. "You come up here to test your cryptid theories?" Pidge's head turns so fast it gives them whiplash, flailing in the air and losing their balance onto the concrete roof.

"Wha- I- No- What are you doing here? You're the one always complaining about your beauty sleep."

Klance mumbles to himself, "Keith's the one who never washes his goddamn face, but sure,"

Hunk looks at him weirdly, "Dude, what'd you say?"

"Uhh, nothing?"

"Sure, Jan."

"Anyway, what're you doing up here? Shouldn't you be, uhh... Doing... Something? Look, I'm not good at this, okay?" Klance rambles, reaching down to his waist to fiddle with something, but it's not there. He looks almost worried before seeming to remember something.

All this is observed by Hunk, resident goofball, and crusher on friend of Klance. He and Klance met on the first day at Garrison, and they've been roommates ever since. Granted, they were governmentally mandated roommates, but they got along happily besides! Hunk has a moderate anxiety disorder, and Klance is usually great with helping him out with it. (In the sims, he got really weirdly focused and couldn't deal with anyone's anxiety but his own, but otherwise he was really good about it.) Hunk suspected that Klance had some sort of behavioural disorder, as he displayed symptoms of ADHD, but found it difficult to remember social cues occasionally.

However, that didn't stop him from being an absolute living meme, and Hunk truly enjoyed being in his crush's friend's company.

"So, what're you even doing up here anyway?" Hunk is jolted out of his reverie by Klance peering over Pidge's shoulder at their code.

"You wouldn't understand. Or take me seriously, for that matter."

"Try me."

Pidge sighs, "We're not alone in this universe. Now, I know what that sounds like, with me being an avid cryptid fan, but, seriously." They grow somber. "I've been scanning the solar system, and picking up alien radio chatter."

Hunk shook his head, "What? So- so you mean, like, aliens? They exist?"

Klance looked both skeptical and enthused at the same time, if that was possible. He settled on enthused. "Ahh! Oh my gosh, really? That's so cool! Show me!" He slips on a pair of headphones, his eyes growing brighter as he hears the supposed '"alien radio chatter."

"They've been repeating one word: Voltron."

"Really?"

"Mhm."

"Awesome!"

Their nerding out is interrupted by a bright spot on the horizon. Klance snatches up a pair of binoculars of Pidge's, staring up at the dot of fire. "That ship is not one of ours!" He exclaims, Hunk panicking in the background. It crashes with an explosion behind a hill near the Garrison building.

"We've gotta go check it out!" Pidge jumps up, packing up their tech and running back to the roof door.

"I don't know..." Hunk mumbles.

"C'mon, Hunk! Think of it as a team-building excercise!" Klance dashes after them.

"Oh, this is the worst team-building excercise ever." Hunk grumbles, reluctantly following the pair.

 They set up shop on a cliff ledge overlooking the place where the ship crashed. Pidge has their tech out, graphing data from the crash; Klance looks at the crash site, overrun by med techs and officers, through binoculars; Hunk bites his nails worriedly behind them, occasionally commenting on their collected data.

"What the heck's even in that ship?" Klance asks himself, wincing as Keith has a different opinion than Lance. His- Their fingers glow, and hethey struggles to keep it together.

"Dude, you good?"

"Uhh..." They pull their sleeves over their fingers. "Yeah, all good!" Klance says, high-pitched with the lie, feeling the glow subside as they reassimilate. They- he's going to have to defuse soon. Staying fused after nearly unfusing isn't good for them- him.

"Sure, Jan."

Klance leans over Pidge's shoulder. "How's it coming on that security footage?"

Their eyes are trained completely on the screen. "Almost there... c'mon... got it!" The screen fills with a live feed of inside the ship.

[Shirogane struggles against restraints.]

'You've got to listen to me! Aliens are coming!'

 "Whoa." Klance jerks back from the screen. "That's Takashi Shirogane! The best pilot at the Garrison!" Pidge looks like they want to argue, but stays quiet as Klance continues his rant. "And is that Matt Holt? And they're not even going to listen to them? How dumb can you get?" Klance is shushed and the quartet trio returns to the screen.

"The subjects appear to have cyborg prosthetics, sir. One with an arm, the other a leg."

"Put them under until we find out what those things can do."

"No, no, don't put me under! You have to listen to me! Listen to me-"

[Shirogane's voice cuts off, strangled, as a med tech injects a syringe into his arm. Next to him, another humanoid flails wildly, being put under a similar procedure. The second subject is identified as Matt Holt, though he stays silent.]

Pidge looks up, wide-eyed, to Klance- except Klance isn't there, he's sprinting towards the ship. Pidge calls out to him, but he's too far. As Klance knocks out the guards with a few well-placed punches, Pidge settles for watching the live feed of the med room.

The med techs inside are taken out swiftly, and Klance lifts both of the patients up- seriously, this guy has the strength of two men- and hefts them out of the ship.

Pidge watches as they exit. Klance picks up a small, round item out of his pocket and lobs it in the opposite direction. A small explosion rocks the area there soon after. He makes his escape swiftly, grabbing an unused Jeep and tossing the pair in. "Pidge! Hunk! C'mon!" He hops in the driver's seat, and Pidge and Hunk race down the hill to meet them.

Sometime along the bumpy journey over sand dunes and rocks, Pidge realizes something. "Do you even know where you're going?" They shout over the motor, sand spraying their face.

He yells back something garbled that sounds like, "No, but Keith should!" and they know they've misheard.

"What?"

"I said, uh, I think I should!"

"Oh, okay!"

It's got to be three in the morning, the moon shining over the Arizona desert, when they finally reach a little middle-of-nowhere, dilapidated shack that looks like it's falling apart slowly under sand spray and wind erosion.

Pidge gives zero fucks, however, and drags Matt in, collapsing on a couch and passing out. Hunk does similarly on a loveseat. Klance situates Shiro on the floor, dragging a couple blankets onto him before going to Keith's tiny, cramped room and defusing.

Lance barely stumbles into Keith's arms before dragging them both into the tiny double trundle bed and tangling their legs together, kissing him sloppily once and passing out five seconds later.

Pidge wakes up with a crick in their neck and a taste like old lemons in their mouth. They yawn and open their eyes blearily, pinching sleep out of their eyes. They snatch up their glasses, smiling in relief at Matt's sleeping form, silhouetted by the desert sunrise. Shiro is curled up next to him, and their hands are clasped together like a lifeline. Pidge chooses to ignore that fact, looking around the small, shabbily furnished room. Something looks a little off, though, and it takes their sleep-addled brain a second to catch up to their surroundings.

Where's Klance?

Memories from last night come rushing in. How did Klance even know this was out here? Is it his?

Pidge shoves themself up forcefully from the couch they passed out on, wandering on unsteady legs down a tiny hallway that has three doors. One is ajar, grimy tile and porcelain visible in the dim light of a bulb on the ceiling that fizzles out soon after they turn it on. The other is a small closet, filled with supplies like rope, a ladder, and is that a hatchet?

The last room is firmly shut, and, upon further inspection, is locked with a rusty bolt used well beyond its years. A strong scent of coffee wafts from the room. This must be Klance's room. They knock, "Klance? Y'in there?"

Klance's voice shouts back at them, "Uh, yeah! Be out in a bit!" His voice seems off. It's too gravelly, too masculine, although that could be attributed to waking up.

Inside the room, Keith sighs in relief in tandem with Lance. "C'mon, Lance. Let's fuse." His voice is bored and tired, but the creases in his face light up when he says the word fuse. For them, it's the ultimate form of intimacy and closeness, something physical contact just can't compare to. Opening your mind, being vulnerable to your partner and sharing your entire self with them- it's perfect to them.

Lance makes grabby hands at Keith, pulling him close and giggling at his truly elegant squawk of surprise. Lance presses himself against Keith, and then they're not Lance and Keith, not two separate beings, they're one. Klance.

Klance shrugs on a black t-shirt and Lance's green army jacket, undoing the bolt on the door and stretching. He slips on a pair of flip-flops, trudging towards the kitchen and setting a pot of coffee. He mutters a greeting to Pidge, dutifully ignoring their questions about their location, and fries up some bacon and scrambled eggs. Toast? In the toaster. Plates? On the table. Hotel? Trivago.

Pidge pours the coffee on Klance's request, refilling the pot and handing out mugs to people. Hunk is shaken awake, and Shiro is woken up by the smell of coffee. He and Matt sit quietly in the corner, sipping coffee and watching their surroundings warily.

The strange congregation perches on various bits of furniture, eating quietly, when Pidge pipes up, "Okay. Enough's enough. Where are we?"

Klance sighs. "This belonged to my parents." It's not technically a lie.

Pidge raises an eyebrow, "I thought your parents were from Cuba. They pick you up every year."

Lie, lie, lie. Deflect, deflect. "Uh... a couple generations ago, the conquistadors came here and a couple eloped?"

"The conquistadors were Spanish."

"Fuck."

"It's mine," Shiro puts in. "I gave it to K- Klance before I 'went off gallivanting into space,' as your mother would put it." He smiles weakly.

Pidge rounds on him, "You know Klance? From where?"

"Hey, hey, let's calm down. We don't need to know all the answers at once," Matt puts in sleepily. Pidge practically vaults over the table to get to him.

"Matt! You're okay! What happened to your leg? I knew you were alive! They kept saying you were dead but I never believed them, oh my god, Matt, you're alive!"

"Yeah, I noticed." Matt says tiredly, giving Pidge a sloppy hug and ruffling their hair.

After breakfast, Klance puts their ragtag team into employ to... drumroll please... Clean the cabin! They all work together, and, with some music from Klance's iPod (all his stuff is purple, red or blue. It's creepy, almost. Like those colours mean something. -Pidge, making observations as they enter the rich life of a Garrison student.), they make quick work of it.

 After they've finished cleaning, the group drapes themselves over a variety of furniture. Pidge spies a sheet covering something in a corner. Unable to sate their curiosity otherwise, they walk up to it, yanking down the sheet and gasping at the board behind it. Pictures connected by strings and charts and graphs cover the corkboard. Star charts depict the exact date and time that Shiro and Matt arrived. Pictures and data readings of a giant mechanical thing litter its surface.

"Hey, Klance?"

"Yeah, Pidgeotto?"

"What's this?"

"Shit."

"Alright, everyone! Gather round, children, because it's time for Uncle Klance to tell you a story," Klance calls the group to sit in a semicircle around the closest chair to the corkboard. "Okay. So, I've been sneaking out at night." It's not technically a lie, because Keith had been sneaking out to the shack and Lance had entertained his "crackpot conspiracy theories." "But, while Hunk-a-burnin'-love over here thought I was sucking dick, I was actually coming out here. There's this crazy energy out here. It felt... Almost like it was calling me to search. So I did. And I found this cave with these weird lion carvings."

Pidge jumps up, "Do you think that that's Voltron? Weird energy, that could be aliens."

Hunk hums, considering. "Could be. Do you have proof?"

"Yeah. I've been tracking the energy. It's a tangible thing, like something on the periodic table. It's not any element I've ever seen before, though."

"Maybe I could build something to look for it, like a Voltron Geiger counter."

"Sure. The wavelength is so weird. It looks like this." Klance holds up a sheet of graphing paper with a seemingly random red line on it.

Matt snaps his fingers, "Give me that!" He snatches the paper, muttering an apology as he lifts it up to a picture of the cliffs near the cave. The red lines up with the outline of the cliffs almost exactly.

Hunk whistles. "Creepy, my man."

------

The group treks through craggy terrain made of crumbling reddish rock. Hunk and Pidge have a complicated setup of wires and junk parts going. Although the sound of the makeshift tech is annoying, the group follows with minimal complaint (apart from Klance, who says what Keith's thinking with Lance's attitude.). They approach a cave, Klance leading the way once he starts recognizing landmarks ("Ooh! I remember busting my ankle on that rock!" -Klance. "Dude, that's why you couldn't walk for a week?" -Hunk. "Oh, I thought he just got really fucked out." -Pidge. "Language!" -Shiro. "Yeah, watch your fucking language, kiddies." -Matt.)

The group stands at the mouth of the cave, peering down into the dank, dripping gloom. "Well!" Klance bounds forward, "This is the cave, so, if you'll excuse the miscellaneous coffee cups, various pieces of tech and other junk lying around, let's go!"

Matt shoves his hands into the pockets of his borrowed hoodie, looking at the cool carvings everyone is gawking over. "I don't see what's so special about carved rock," Matt says, wiping the dust and rock debris from one of the carvings of a lion.

A piercing noise, not unlike a sound effect in a show or movie, emits from the walls, and the carvings glow bright blue. The blue energy spiderwebs across the cavern floor like cracks, and that's about when the floor collapses and they all splash down into a lower level in the cavern.

In a gigantic blue bubble- the same colour as the carvings glowed- lays an equally gigantic blue mechanical lion. Klance hums and steps forward. Shiro gasps. "So this is what's been causing all this crazy energy out there."

Pidge gulps and rubs their eyes, "So this is it? This is the Voltron?"

Klance shrugs, "Must be-"

Five lions, a voice rumbles in their minds, deep and timeless. Five lions become one. Six souls, one bond. Deeper than life itself. The bond of the lion. Voltron.

"Did everyone else just see that?"

"Voltron is a robot. Voltron is a huge, huge, awesome robot!"

"And this is only one part of it. I wonder where the rest of them are!"

Klance steps forward, pressing his hands against the bubble, "Now, I wonder how we can get in here."

Matt shrugs. "Maybe you just have to knock?" He raps his fingers against the bubble, jumping back when it disappears and the lion's head moves down to him, opening its jaw. He laughs. "Well, alrighty then," smirks, and walks up the platform.

Klance glows blue and red behind him.

-------

"You," Klance says between gasping breaths. "Are the worst. Pilot. Ever!"

"Pidge has told me that you thought I was one of the best pilots at the Garrison, so, like..."

"Shut your fuuUCK!" Klance trips on his own feet in the cramped cockpit.

       Iverson and a lower-ranked officer stand on the roof, a pair of binoculars shared between them.

"What in the Sam Hill is that?"

"It appears to be a flying blue lion, sir."

Matt grins back at the others. "Isn't this awesome?"

Hunk makes a motion as if to vomit. "Make it stop! Make it stop!"

"I'm not doing anything. It's like it's on autopilot!"

The blue lion soared ever higher.

"MAKE IT STOP!"

"I just said, it's on autopilot!"

"Hey, what's that up ahead?"

"Holy crap- is that an alien ship?"

"They found us."

Matt tries to steer the lion as best he can. He feels a rumbling in his chest- like the lion is trying to speak with him- and he listens. "Guys the lion is talking to me. It says we need to fight the alien ship."

"Okay, you're crazy," Klance grumbles.

"What did it say, exactly?" Pidge asks, short of breath.

"I- It's not like it's saying words, more like feeding ideas into my brain, kind of."

Hunk spoke up. "Well, if this is the weapon they want, why don't we just, like, give it up? Then they'll leave us alone, right?"

Shiro glares at him. "You don't understand. These monsters spread like a plague throughout the galaxy, destroying everything in their path. They won't stop until everything is dead, and giving them this weapon won't help anyone."

 Everyone turns to look at Hunk.

"...Oh. Nevermind, then."

The Galra ship, which previously was lying cold and dead in space, opens fire at them as they breach the atmosphere.

"We have to get that ship out of here!" Pidge says frantically.

"Okay, I'll try!" Matt says, shooting lasers and avoiding recapture, moving away from Earth.

Inside the ship, a Galra officer faces a large screen. "Lord Zarkon, the escaped prisoners and their people found the lion. It attacked us and is heading out of the system."

On the screen, Zarkon's magnified face says, "Follow that Lion and alert all ships in the area to intercept. Capturing that Lion is your first and only priority."

"Yes, your majesty." The call ends, and the galra turns their head back. "FULL POWER AFTER THE LION!"

       The lion speeds away, the Galra ship in close pursuit. Hunk bites his nails. "Oh, no!"

In front of the lion, a huge circle of swirling bluish-purplish light opens up in front of them. "I think the lion wants us to go through there!"

Pidge furrows their brow, "Do we know where it goes? Matt?"

Matt defers to Shiro. "I don't know. Shiro, you're the highest-ranked officer here. What do we do?"

Shiro picks at his cuticles. "Um- Okay. Whatever's happening, the Lion probably knows more than we do. If we don't listen to it, we might die in this ship. I say we follow what it thinks, but we're the only humans up here. We're a team now."

Matt nods at him, shoving the controls forward and blasting through the air to get to the wormhole. Klance shifts nervously.

"Guess we're all ditching class tomorrow."

next chapter

[asterlizard]

UK trip summer 2019

(Argh! I’m sorry for the delay! I meant to finish this back in June, but I haven’t had much time to finally get around to it)

I haven’t been to the UK in 3 years, and while the feelings were admittedly mixed, because it involved a lot of cleaning up and donations of my grandparents’ items, I did get to have a bit of fun and do some new things on this trip.

Our flight would leave in the middle of the day, but we still had to wake up early so that we could arrive at the airport, do airport security, and get to our boarding gate in plenty of time.

This started off by waking up at around 7:00 in order to meet a Lyft driver (for a first time rideshare, Uber failed to find someone for us) who would take us to a bus stop, which would take us directly to the airport.

As we were arriving at SFO, I could have sworn I saw some beehives in a patch of grass between the weaving roads. However, researching it doesn’t seem to bring up anything. Hmm...

I was looking forward to eating pizza at the selection of restaurants before the security checkout, but unfortunately it was closed, and all of the other restaurants seemed to have been replaced. So the only thing that appealed to me then was Chinese food. It was pretty tasty though.

The entertainment on the flight was a little different than what I’m used to (then again I haven’t flown in a few years). They had more limited music options, and the only decade available was the 80s. I could also zoom in anywhere on the map, which is a horrible distraction for someone like me :P Also, the food was pretty tasty, especially the mango sorbet, which was the definite winner for me :P

Cool view of Alcatraz just before we flew past it

I witnessed an airplane halo, also known as a ‘glory’!

Since we travelled light, we didn’t have to wait to collect our luggage afterwards. We also breezed through the passport check, since we’re British citizens.

I like this mirror effect, but the distortion made it extra cool

At this point, it was 7 in the morning, and we had to meet up with a family friend who lives in London, where we would stay at overnight before progressing to our destination. Along the way I saw some students using the Tube to get to school (it was a school day after all). This was kinda interesting as someone who grew up in America and never had to wear a school uniform.

We actually had to meet our friend by walking from the nearest Tube station to her house (which is fine, I don’t mind walking! Especially after a 9 hour flight). Not long after we met up, she showed me this little fox sleeping outside her window (I don’t think I’ve ever seen one in person before!) It likes to do this when the sun is out. Unfortunately for it, it was sleeping next to a couple of squawking magpies.

We then went on a short walk along the canal. There we saw a swan family and a coot family (and babies!!)

We would then head over to the British Museum. Our friend told us in advance that it would be hosting a manga exhibit, and we arrived the day after it debuted. Just before heading over, she brings up that the Rosetta Stone was also there. I didn’t anticipate this, because I thought it was held in a different museum. So I was getting more excited to see the Rosetta Stone over seeing the manga exhibit xD (I joked that I was about to meet my ‘rock star’)

It was about ￡20 to enter the exhibit, so only I went, while our friend and mum explored the rest of the museum. The exhibit started off with a ‘trip down the rabbit hole’, in reference to perhaps the most influential British work in Japanese media, Alice in Wonderland, and its appearances in manga over the years.

Then it showed the history of manga, manga influences, a brief manga how-to, and genres of manga. I saw some familiar works, like Astro Boy, DragonBall, Sailor Moon, a work from the creator of Akira, One Piece, Golden Kamui, Saint Young Men, etc. I also saw some works that I've never encountered that I'm interested in (a rugby manga, a wheelchair rugby manga coming soon, a murder mystery manga at the British museum, a manga about a saxophonist)

There were also some video exhibits, whether it's clips from anime next to their respective manga, creators/staff talking about their creative process, artists drawing their manga, or a series of clips from Ghibli films, but you weren't allowed to take pics of these.

At one point, I even saw an Attack on Titan cosplayer! (ready to take down the giant inflatable titan head I presume)

It’s difficult to read, but this is Morohoshi Daijiro, and it says that Hayao Miyazaki was strongly influenced by him. I’ll have to look at his stuff sometime.

I probably spent about two hours in there, longer than I expected. Admittedly I was tired, and my legs were getting sore, and a little over half an hour before I was done I needed a loo. I was feeling all sorts of physically gross at this point, and I had no idea how much of the exhibit I was actually absorbing even though I tried.

Before the end of the exhibit, I waited in line to get a photo taken, so the machine would add a comic-like gradient to it and insert it into a comic panel. Once I was done, I made a beeline to the nearest loo (for a split moment I panicked that they would be the ‘pay-to-use’ loos, and I didn’t have any money on me, as all of my stuff was with mum, thankfully it wasn’t).

After meeting back with mum and our friend, we headed back to our friend’s home, as I was feeling too exhausted to do anything else.

By the way, I did get to see the Rosetta Stone, but I would need to see it again when I’m not jet-lagged and there’s less people. By the way, I also learned that the figures on the pediment over the British Museum were created by my ancestor, so... y’know, there’s another reason to revisit the place.

I finally went to bed after some dinner, dessert, and a refreshing shower. I had been awake for about 32 hours!

The next day, mum and I stocked up on food (most of which I missed after a long time of not eating them. I still wish I could eat them more often!) and travelled by train to our destination.

The train also was different than what I’m used to. The livery is different, and instead of there being a ticket(?) on the top of an occupied seat, there was a red/green light above the window that indicated whether the seat was occupied or not.

At some point our passenger neighbours were cracking up and couldn’t stop laughing, which was contagious enough for me and a few other strangers to laugh. It was a great moment. When we arrived, we met up with my aunt, uncle, and cousin, and we had fish and chips and a good chat.

The day after we arrived, we already got started with clearing my grandparents’ house. At this point, I already made peace with the fact that we would need to sell the place (nobody in the family wanted it, plus it needed a lot of work done to it, which would have been pretty costly). Unfortunately, because they had a lot of things, we had to be a bit ruthless with what we had to get rid of, because we certainly couldn’t keep it all. I also let go of a few things I grew up with that I was willing to part with and donate. Still there were several items we were able to keep and bring home with us. Thankfully mum’s friends also would try and keep other things for us. It was still a bit of a heartbreaking process though.

I also finally (after a long time) had a 99! It feels good to walk into an ice cream shop and order one, and they'll know what you're talking about :P

Speaking of food, according to my friend, it’s apparently a crime that I haven’t been to a Gregg’s yet, so I tried some of their food, which were delicious! Unfortunately, they didn’t have an iced split, which my friend has, and is apparently really good. (I love international chats, because my friend can say something like 'try a 99 with monkey blood', and it will make no sense to non-Brits) Even the berries are tastier here! idk if it’s because we’re closer to berry farms, but they’re sweeter and juicier than the ones I get back in America.

Speaking of which, the shops in town are different than what I remember. Only a few places I visit regularly remained.

I also got to see a circus for the first time. Although the acts were amazing, my favourite part of the show, believe it or not, were the clown segments. They consisted of a father and 10-year son duo, and the antics were amusing (the duo trying to run and hug each other but missing and in the end hug ‘around’ each other instead, the father getting an audience member to throw a potato onto a carving fork held in his mouth and epically missing, the father getting some audience members to ride an invisible motorbike with him, etc) Unfortunately the show did have some strobe lights and animal segments (even if they weren’t hurting them, I still don’t see the appeal of watching wild animals doing unnatural things :/ )

One of the things that hadn’t changed was our local cobbler still being in business. Even before the trip, mum wanted to pay him a visit so that he could repair her shoes. He's one of the last relics of the old town, he's 78, and has worked for 57 years including 7 years as an apprentice. He was even one of mum’s first memories from when she was small! There’s something charming about a town shoe shop having several piles of stuff, topped with a huge pile of shoes and the smell of glue and shoe polish while a shoe repair motor runs in the background :)

The local bookshop owner also had a charming shop, with piles of books everywhere. And yes, it’s so small and narrow, only one person at a time can visit. We visited his place a few times to donate most of my grandparents’ books, as well as old items like maps and photographs. We can breathe a sigh of relief that they will be protected and given a new home.

Went for a 2.5 hour walk, first along the beach, then through a newer and more secluded area of town that I’ve never visited before (I ALMOST saw a robin, I’ve only seen the American robin in person)

At one point after shopping, I was holding a leek in my hand, and a lady passing by quipped to me, “I know we’re Welsh, but that’s a bit excessive” :P

Also, idk what made me think of it, but I imagined, instead of dog shows, there would be snail shows. It would last for hours, walking the snail would last for 10 minutes instead of 10 seconds, and the awards would be something like: 'Largest Snail', 'Fastest Snail', 'Hungriest Snail', 'Perkiest Snail', 'Longest Antennae'...

>:U

(I took quite a few panorama shots during this trip)

Unfortunately, a pathway I like to take was closed off

We visited some friends of ours, and some friends of ours visited us. My family and I also did a little burial ceremony for my grandparents (originally mum wanted to buy sweet pea flowers, as they were my grandmother’s favourite. I then ask if my grandfather had a favourite flower. Mum didn’t really know, but she did remember he would always buy my grandmother a rose because he loved her so much. So we bought a red rose as well (afterwards I learned from a friend that sweet pea flowers are a symbol of protection and goodbyes, which is INCREDIBLY SWEET BUT SAD 😭))

The next day we had miserable weather due to Storm Miguel. It was surprisingly the only bad day we had weather-wise. And yet, for some reason mum and I decided to eat out at an Indian restaurant (the food was pretty tasty)

During most of the trip, my family have been fervently trying to research who the people in my grandparents’ paintings were and how they were connected to my family. The only thing I got out of it so far is that my family might be more Scottish that I thought!

Went shopping in Carmarthen (and crossed a bridge next to some sheep, close enough to hear them), but I had to make a train that arrived half an hour after I woke up! Ate at Pizza Express (the food was tasty, but the strawberry still lemonade was PERFECT) Unfortunately we had to cut our shopping time short, because our earliest trains to catch were at around 14:30 and 17:30, and we would rather get back home as soon as possible. We were able to get most of what we wanted though.

One day while I was hanging out with my younger cousin (we chatted a lot during the trip, he does Irish dancing, and he taught me the difference between the different dances), he introduced a couple of fun games that the family got to play: Camping, and Spoons

Camping: Preferably played with 3 or more people It's a rotation game in which the rest of the group has to figure out what the leader's pattern is Starting with the leader, each person says 'I'm gonna go camping, and I'm gonna bring...' and then a noun. When the leader says their phrase and noun, they have an unspoken pattern they decided to follow, whether it's a bit of subtle body language they make while saying it, or if it has to do with the nouns themselves. The next person then says the phrase and a noun in hopes that they will follow the pattern. If they do, the leader will respond to their phrase, 'you can come', otherwise 'you can't come'. After the pattern is revealed, the next person becomes the leader, and the cycle continues. Players are allowed to guess the pattern depending on how many people got it (eg: you are allowed to ask for hints if stumped, and if everybody gets it, the pattern can be revealed) In hard mode, if your attempt is part of the pattern, regardless of whether you know the pattern or not, you have to sit out the rest of the game. (examples of patterns: saying whatever while having both feet on the floor and hands on lap, dog breeds, alphabetical succession between players (eg: 'hedgehog', 'iodine', 'Jamaica'...), the nouns have to begin with the same letter as your eye colour (lol I never got this one because I don't regularly make eye contact with people), the noun has to begin with the same letter as the cardinal direction you're facing, the noun has to begin with the same letter as the colour shirt the player after you is wearing)

Spoons: Preferably played with 3-13 people It's a game of speed, similar to musical chairs There are n-1 spoons in the middle of the table for n number of players and n number of ranks One player becomes the leader, in which they shuffle the cards and deal four per player. When the leader says 'go', every player including the leader removes a card and places it for the person to their left to grab, while each player must always end up with four cards per 'go' (when saying 'go', the key is that there shouldn't be much time for thinking, the game must move quickly, but there should be about a second or two to organize your cards if needs be, so roughly every 3-5 seconds per 'go') If a player has four of one rank, they must grab a spoon, and all of the other players must grab a remaining spoon as quickly as possible, in the hopes that they won't be the last player without a spoon A player that ends up without a spoon loses a life, and after three lives are up, they're out of the game. With this, a spoon and a group of four of a rank also sit out of the game When it's down to two players, one of the players sitting out must shuffle the remaining deck, so that the two remaining players don't know what kind of deck to expect, and say 'go'

Went for a lovely walk near the beach

Tiny friends!

Ah yes, this bed of rocks looks comfortable to sit on...

I also got to finally try a 99 with monkey blood, though the syrup isn’t called monkey blood where I’m from apparently. Mum and I also tried to feed the sparrows, but larger birds were lurking and wanted to sabotage the efforts.

After some final decisions on what to bring and what to keep, mum and I left the house for what might have been the last time. We will miss it though. I did take some videos of the place not long before we arrived, as a kind of snapshot of the place, not only for memory, but for a potential reference in one of my stories.

At the airport, I got a pat down for the first time in my life because I had worn the wrong trousers that had more metallic fixings on them >:[

During the flight, I chose a better selection of films on the plane:

旅猫リポート: Cute but kinda sad film about the life of the man who adopted a cat and why he has to give it away to someone he can trust.

Christopher Robin: Very charming film, and the British wildlife scenery was depicted beautifully

Wonder Woman: Well-written film

(I’m curious to know where this is near London)

Overall, this trip was different than what I’m used to, not just because it was less of a family visit, but rather a lot of aspects of what I’m used to have changed a lot over the years. I’m hoping, even if I never live in that house anymore, that I can still pay the town a visit somehow in the future, as it’s still a dear place to me that I had grown up with all my life.

[binnie-binnie-bambam]

get to know me tag!

answer these questions then tag people you would like to get to know better!

I was tagged by @uwujpgs and @soulclub thanks, ily cuties! 💜💜

nickname: some people call me Aly, others, mostly my family, calls me Lyss(y)

height: 5'5"

time: idk prolly really late coz I'm in an ER waiting room, aka a different dimension

fave bands/artists: umm, I listen to everything 😂 so this is hard

kpop -

Astro, Got7, TXT, and Monsta X. I will find more to add to this list, I can 100% guarantee it 😂

non kpop -

Panic! at the Disco, Twenty One Pilots, Journey, Hall and Oates, Michael Buble, Adele, Owl City, The Eagles, Black Veil Brides, Jack White, Queen, Harry Styles, Paramore, Maroon 5, Blink-182, I DON'T KNOW HOW BUT THEY FOUND ME, Superorganism, Shawn Mendes, Fall Out Boy, oh god there's so much more but that's all I can think of off the top of my head.

song stuck in my head: monsta x's entire discography 😂 no mainly Trespass and In Time. and Think of Me from Phantom of the Opera.

last movie I saw: Wreck It Ralph 2. I think. I haven't watched a movie in a long time tbh.

other blogs: my main (I really don't think I can call it that anymore since haven't been on it at all since I created this one 😂) @pineappleatheist and a side blog off that for some that I don't remember the name of because I haven't used it in so long 😂

do I get asks: yeah I do! when I ask for them haha. I get some great anons tbh 😂 but seriously people can talk to me whenever they want to! I may be weird but I don't bite 😂

why I chose this username: this is in my (unusually long) bio. but it's the names of my first two biases in a stupid little play in Selena's song Bidi Bidi Bom Bom. She said that it meant "It's the sound the heart makes when you see a man pass by." So it just made sense haha.

following: 115-120(?) somewhere around there.

what I'm wearing: a baggy, off the shoulder, bat wing sleeve t-shirt over a bra and underwear (my usual)

dream job: I want to do everything honestly 😂 but without limitations, oceanographer. I've always had a strong fascination with the ocean and have always wanted to be one of those people who gets to discover new species in the murky depths!

favorite food: all of it. no seriously there are very few things I don't like. I. Love. Food. but I do have a really big sweet tooth so I love pretty much anything sweet. I love carbs the most though 😂 gimme a potato, pasta, or bread and I'm good to go haha.

play any instruments: a little guitar and ukulele and I sing if that counts as an instrument

hair color: mousey, dirty blonde, light brown, somethin 'er other. idk what it's considered. it's my natural color so I can't give a box color name haha

language you speak: english. learning Japanese and I want to learn a lot more including Korean.

most iconic song: idk how to answer this, I'm prolly just dumb, but I genuinely don't know

random fact: I can wiggle my ears. and here's another one I just figured out today. I can sing Think of Me from Phantom of the Opera note for note and I am nowhere near a trained professional. I'm oddly proud of that so I wanted to mention it 😂

describe yourself in aesthetic things: (crap I am so shit at this I'm sorry) bright lipstick, sunday morning cuddles in bed, stuffed animals, steaming tea, round glasses, lit candles, bubble baths, pearl earrings, quiet giggles, ocean waves, seahorses, fairy lights, fresh baked cookies, old photographs, soft background music, stolen kisses, all black outfits, worn books, dripping ice cream cones, hair pets, succulents (idk man that probably doesn't make any sense but I tried haha)

I tag @kaptain-k-pop @mylifeinhopeworld @ilikeeverythingonmypizza @13-scoups @jusgyeom and @inkybeanies and anyone else who wants to do it!

[ballandcone]

I’m absolutely enamored with your work, the emotion it elicits I can’t put to words, but I wish I could. Is it weird if I ask what the inspiration behind it is? I never seen something quite so unique and inexplicable and I’d love to know more about it

Thank-you!!

Here, from a few years ago, is an interview that Claire Donner of the excellent donnerpartyofone tumblr conducted with me via email:

Q: People seem to like origin stories. What is the origin of Ball and Cone?

In the fall of 1976 while in grad school, I made my first oil painting, a dreamy image of a small brick house with a tall cone standing just outside the open front door and, visible through a window, a blue ball in on corner of the warmly lit interior. (Neither object had eyes or feet.) In retrospect, I think it was about my anxiety over having gotten married just a few months earlier; I wasn’t quite all in psychologically. The following spring, I gave the painting to my best friend from high school Dell Trecartin and his bride Cathy as a wedding present. For many years, it resided in their basement rec room in Ohio, an enduring presence for their two sons, one of whom grew up to become the famous video and performance artist Ryan Trecartin. Years later, Ryan told me that the painting had fascinated him when he was little and that it influenced him more than any other artwork he knew of. After he finished art school, he appropriated it and took it with him to the various cities he lived and worked in with his entourage of collaborators and hangers on. And it came to pass that on arriving in Philadelphia some years later that it was stolen from the roof of his car, to which it had been tied. A tragic loss. After that I thought that I should make a new version of the painting. A few months ago I made a small drawing inspired by its memory.  I made the ball and cone more explicitly anthropomorphic than they were in the original painting. That was “Ball and Cone 1,” in which Cone looks in through a window at Ball, who is sitting on the floor looking sleepy and bored.

Q: The floor of what? It seems like the adventures of Ball and Cone always take place either inside an unfurnished architectural space or in plain air, but you almost never see the outsides of the buildings, or what sort of larger environment they are in.

A: What almost always seems to be going on has to do with relationships between inside and outside. When Ball and Cone are inside, they are looking out or in a process of going out. Their shadowy doppelgangers often are looking in at them. Crossing over the boundary between one state and the other is a recurring drama in Ball and Cone. Apropos of this, my mother sent me this bit about a psychological phenomenon called “the event boundary” (I forget where she got it from):

“Ever walk into a room with some purpose in mind, only to completely forget what that purpose was?

Turns out, doors themselves are to blame for these strange memory lapses.

Psychologists at the University of Notre Dame have discovered that passing through a doorway triggers what’s known as an event boundary in the mind, separating one set of thoughts and memories from the next.

Your brain files away the thoughts you had in the previous room and prepares a blank slate for the new locale. Thank goodness for studies like this. It’s not our age, it’s that stupid door!”

Q: Speaking of states of mind, it is remarkable how much emotion you seem to get out of characters whose only expressive faculty is a single eyeball. I have a theory that when the reader takes in the on-panel circumstances, they project their own feelings back on to Ball and Cone - but maybe that’s not giving credit due to your bold, stark cartoons. What is your secret?

A: Somehow the mind/brain system has a way of enriching what enters consciousness through your optical equipment and through your other senses. This is happening all the time whether you’re looking at “real” things in the world or images on a flat surface.  The excitement of comics is in the way the mind fills in a relatively meager sensory input to create experiences of extraordinary emotional, cognitive and imaginative depth and breadth. I like to play with how little is needed to make that happen.  One of the not-so-secret secrets of Ball and Cone is that they are like children in a perplexing, sometimes scary, sometimes fun world. I guess that’s something everyone has lots of feelings about. I know I do.

Q: This makes a lot of sense to me, because I often unconsciously superimpose the idea of “rods and cones” over Ball and Cone. Maybe this is also because their entire faces are composed of a single eyeball. It is interesting that their adventures are so emotionally charged, since the presence of threat is felt, but the nature of the threat is unclear. For instance, you have an episode in which Ball and Cone are actually murdered, but it doesn’t wind up being a big problem for them. Similarly, there’s a sense of intimacy between Ball and Cone, but it isn’t any clearer than the basic idea of a companionship; they could be siblings or romantic partners or in a parental relationship, but they’re not telling. Do you deliberately exploit this kind of vaguery for its emotional potential, or is the writing part of Ball and Cone more of a free association process?

A: Nothing I do with Ball and cone is conceptually premeditated in the way my answers here might suggest. I work out of some combination of image and feeling. What I’m trying to do most deliberately is making something funny. They’re not called “comics” for nothing.

That said, the comic is, for me, a kind of philosophical playground. It seems I tend to think in terms of universal sorts of relationships and situations. That’s why the comic is so abstract.  So companionship seems to me a kind of relationship that any two people can be in together. At first I thought that Ball and Cone’s relationship might be sexual, but then it seemed that would over-determine certain types of situations and events. It would be more about the relationship between them than about their relationship as friends to the situations that befall them and the actions they undertake. For Ball and Cone as traveling companions the possibilities seem more open-ended.

The experiences they undergo also are universal: being inside and outside; going from one place to another; watching and being watched; following and being followed; being bored, being excited; feeling safe and feeling scared; being trapped and escaping entrapment, and so on. The things that they do and that happen to them are things that all people do and experience.

A major theme has to do with being limited. They only have one eye each and they don’t have arms. Real humans would be like gods to them. But real humans are limited, too: why don’t we have eyes in the backs of our heads or four rather than two arms? Being limited is a condition of being. But so is over-coming limitations. Despite their inadequacies, Ball and Cone have some pretty interesting adventures.

Having said all that, it remains a wonder to me that they elicit emotional responses in me and in their readers.

Q: You are not from a comics background in the strictest sense, neither personally nor professionally. How did you decide to convert the concept of an old painting to an ongoing web comic? Are there certain comic artists that have inspired you?

A: When I made the first few drawings last April, I knew there would be more to come, but I had no idea it would become a web comic. A friend insisted that I start posting on tumblr, which I didn’t know much about. The comic format was something I played with back in the late 70s and early 80s. (See image, a pencil and gouache from back then).

I’ve always loved the comic style and the intersection of Pop, Surrealism and Psychedelia. Some favorite artists include John Wesley and Jim Nutt. From the comic world: R. Crumb, Daniel Clowes, Charles Burns and Lynda Barry. Too many others to mention here. And, of course, Krazy Kat.

Q: Indie comix have experienced a huge revival in recent years, but curiously, the most successful creators don’t reflect the hairy, wet aesthetic rebellion of the ‘60s underground, but rather the hygienic, adorable affectations of Japanese consumer imagery. Ball and Cone don’t really look like anything so easily namable as Astro Boy or Hello Kitty, but they are awfully kawaii on their own terms. If it was important in the 1960s to defy or pervert expectations of cuteness from cartoon characters, is it important in some different way to embrace or exploit cuteness now? What are your feelings on cute?

A: Of his time drawing cards for the American Greetings Corporation, R. Crumb recalled, “My boss kept telling me my drawings were too grotesque. I was trained to draw ‘cute’ little neuter characters, which influenced my technique, and even now my work has this cuteness about it.” Crumb seems abashed about the cuteness in his work, but without it I doubt it would be nearly as compelling. I think I would lose interest in Ball and Cone if they weren’t so darn cute. It’s kind of embarrassing, though, a grown man doing these cute little things. What’s that about?

               An interview with a philosopher named Sianne Ngai I came across recently went a long way to helping me understand. She wrote a book called “Our Aesthetic Categories: Zany, Cute, Interesting.” At the start of the interview, she explains, “I’m interested in states of weakness: in “minor” or non-cathartic feelings that index situations of suspended agency; in trivial aesthetic categories grounded in ambivalent or even explicitly contradictory feelings. More specifically, I’m interested in the surprising power these weak affects and aesthetic categories seem to have, in why they’ve become so paradoxically central to late capitalist culture. The book I’m currently completing is on the contemporary significance of three aesthetic categories in particular: the cute, the interesting, and the zany.” I love how seriously Ngai takes these topics and how much she unpacks from them. Here’s more on cuteness: “The asymmetry of power that cuteness revolves around is another compelling reminder of how aesthetic categories register social conflict. There can be no experience of any person or object as cute that does not somehow call up the subject’s sense of power over those who are less powerful. But, as Lori Merish underscores, the fact that the cute object seems capable of making an affective demand on the subject—a demand for care that the subject is culturally as well as biologically compelled to fulfill—is already a sign that “cute” does not just denote a static power differential, but rather a dynamic and complex power struggle.”

              Reading this makes me think that in making cute comics I’m doing something really important. But if I wasn’t feeling rebellious against the idea of importance – preferring the trivial, the silly and the stupid – there wouldn’t be much fun in it. It’s all very paradoxical in my mind when I think about it.

Q: Rebellion against importance sounds like a pretty good agenda. However, you come from a comparatively “important” high culture background, and your ostensibly low brow comic isn’t totally immune to its influence. For instance, the main threat in most of Ball and Cone’s scarier adventures is simply being seen, with multiple panels and story arcs revolving around being pursued, spotted and spied upon; the idea of gazing as an act of aggression is an obsession for lots of fine artists, photographers and filmmakers. Do you sense yourself importing ideas from other disciplines?

A: The ideas animating Ball and Cone that interest me most come less out of art than out of philosophy, in which seeing is a huge topic. The relationship between what we see – or, what we think we see – and what mind-independent reality  might be like has been endlessly pondered by thinkers from Descarte to Derrida and beyond. For Aristotle, a basic feature of human consciousness is a capacity for wonder and a drive to understand, which we satisfy much of the time by looking at the world and, metaphorically, looking inward. Most of the time, it seems to me, Ball and Cone are looking as if they’re just wondering what is going on in any given situation. They just want to understand. The gazes of the black Ball and Cone may seem possibly menacing, but it’s hardly ever clear that they pose any kind of real threat. But the dynamics of looking, seeing and being seen do have to do with power, as the seer usually has, at least momentarily, the advantage over the seen. So there is a certain political dimension that probably relates to voyeurism as a feature of modern life at least as reflected in photography and movies.

              Another kind of seeing involves not optical perception but an ability to “see past”  or “through” surface reality as registered by our senses.  That’s just something that cognitive intelligence does. Sometimes it’s called insight. You “see” some underlying pattern that is invisible to ordinary vision. Often the same thing may be seen in different ways, and seeing something one way may preclude seeing it another way. That’s what the duck-rabbit figure is about, a favorite topic for Wittgenstein. When  seeing from a singular perspective meets an apparently ambiguous reality that seems to change depending on how it is seen: that’s a moment I think I’m always hoping Ball and Cone will encounter, wonder about and try to understand by looking. It’s a moment when the nature of mind comes at least hazily into view.  You have to look in order to see. Then you see your own seeing.

               Then there’s the possibility of being able to see through reality as delivered by our senses to a metaphysical or transcendental reality that has no material being but exists nevertheless in some world-determining way. Nothing I’ve experienced in my life convinces me that such a realm exists, but I’ve always loved the fantasy of it. It’s a fantasy that urges a kind of mental adventuring, because as Hegel writes, whatever might be there to be seen will ever exist only be virtue of someone going there to see it:

“It is manifest that behind the so-called curtain which is supposed to conceal the inner world, there is nothing to be seen unless WE go behind it ourselves, as much in order that we may SEE as that there may be something behind there to be seen.”

I think that’s why windows and windows within windows – as well as doorways and other openings in the fabric of the picture – figure so often in Ball and Cone.

Q: One final question: everyone knows that young artists are probably just going to starve, so do you have any advice for young philosophers?

A: I love philosophy but I’m not a professional philosopher, so I wouldn’t know what kind of career advice to give a young philosopher other than, in the immortal words of Joseph Campbell, “follow your bliss.” The best advice I ever heard from a real philosopher about reading philosophy was from my friend Nick Pappas, a professor at CUNY. I mentioned in an email that I’d been dipping into Hegel and Heidegger and finding their writings strangely repetitious and opaque yet somehow hair-raising. I wrote, “Were those guys on drugs or something? They sound like stoners to me,” to which Nick replied, “H. and H. both have the stoner’s obsessive attention to – well, to everything.  And one thing I try to learn from them but especially from Heidegger and the best Heideggerians who came after him: not to be in a hurry.  Let other writings get to the point.  Philosophy is on its own clock.” I love that. We are obliged to obey hurrying clocks all the time. In art and philosophy, we can enter other, less utilitarian time zones. What, after all, is the rush?

http://ballandcone.tumblr.com/post/62988401247/my-name-is-ken-johnson-and-i-am-the-author-of

[coffeeandmonbebe]

Tag game

I was tagged by my one and only @sinful-kpop-imagines

and I tag my babe @ardwmjangmi25 @verbalglitch

nicknames: Tala (I’m from the Philippines and this is what most people here call me but it’s hard to pronounce for foreigners), Tilly (the name I usually use online and some of my close friends call me this lol), Taloola

zodiac sign: libra (like ma boi Jooheon)

height: 5′0 YES I KNOW IM TINY I HAVE ACCEPTED THIS TRAGEDY

age: 19 

time: 11:00 PM

fave artists: MONSTA X, bts, astro, red velvet, momoland, dean (i really love other artists too but i’m only including bands that I’m confident I know all their names, personalities, etc. relatively well)

non kpop favs: the beatles, elton john, childish gambino, drake, barbra streisand, maurice ravel, tchaikovsky

song stuck in my head: 5:14 (Last Page) by Monsta X i swear that shit makes me cry but it’s so catchy at the same time im--

last movie I saw: a quiet place

last thing I googled: a quiet place download torrent HAHAHA

other blogs: none bc im a lazy piece of shit

do I get asks: nope, because my followers know im a lazy piece of shit BUT I’D LOVE TO GET ASKS, I’LL POST ABOUT OPENING UP REQUESTS SOON

why I chose my username: because all the other cute names I thought of with “monbebe” in it were gone so i thought “hmm i love coffee and I’m a monbebe so fxck it”

following: around 500 ppl

average amount of sleep: could be 15 hours one day, then 2 hours the next. There’s really no in between, my body clock needs hELP

lucky number: 5

what I’m wearing right now: my boyfriend’s oversized Pringles t-shirt and some short shorts

dream trip: Iceland! my parents have been there and showed me pictures. it looks gorgeous. but I heard it’s dead expensive so... :(

dream job: to direct movies (and to be rich lmao) and maybe to have a mildly successful youtube channel someday (hope im not too old to start on one lol)

fave food: TMAC N CHEESE btch im craving for a classic box of Kraft mac n cheese

play any instruments: ukulele (bc my hands are too small for a guitar), a bit of piano

fave songs: dramarama, 5:14, Jealousy, fighter -monsta x, you were beautiful-day6, DOPE- BTS

play any sports: i have rlly bad hand feet coordination and i suck at sports in general but I did badminton, kickboxing, and cheerleading once upon a time (sucked at all of them but i hope that counts)

hair color: black

eye color: dark brown

most iconic song: fighter by monsta x makes me feel like mulan when she reached the top of the pole and started to train better than the rest of the men in her squad it basically makes me want to kick serious ass

languages: English, Filipino, really bad Japanese

random fact: i got my palm read a while back and it basically said i won’t live past 40 or 50 huhuhuhuhu

describe yourself as an aesthetic: one of those shitty 90′s backgrounds that look like they were created with MS paint 

[deadcactuswalking]

REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 12th August 2018

Top 10

Yep, we still have the same top two here, in fact the top five has stayed mostly still overall. “In My Feelings” by Drake featuring City Girls has stayed on top due to the video and streaming power, and I don’t see it stumbling for quite a few weeks.

Right behind it is “Shotgun” by George Ezra, still at the runner-up spot.

“No Brainer” by DJ Khaled featuring Justin Bieber, Quavo and Chance the Rapper is up a spot to number-three, swapping places with...

“Rise” by Jonas Blue featuring Jack & Jack, which is down a single position to number-four.

“Youngblood” by 5 Seconds of Summer is steady at number-five. Funnily enough, I recall saying these guys had their five seconds of fame back when I reviewed “Want You Back”, so don’t rely on me for predicting anything.

Also staying stable is “Jackie Chan” by Tiesto and Dzeko featuring Preme and Post Malone at number-six.

At number-seven, up a space from last week, is “Girls Like You” by Maroon 5 featuring Cardi B.

Meanwhile, at number-eight, we have an 11-space gain straight to number-eight for “Body” by Loud Luxury and brando. I didn’t think this would be as popular as it ended up being, to be completely honest, and I’m very surprised at how fast this has gotten into the top 10.

Then we have our highest debut from Travis Scott’s ASTROWORLD, which has landed an album bomb of sorts – three songs, as is the limit on the UK Singles Chart. That debut, unsurprisingly, is “SICKO MODE” featuring uncredited vocals from Swae Lee and Drake, at number-nine.

Also, we have Tyga and Offset creeping into the top 10 via a one-space jump to number-ten, with “Taste”, and that rounds off our top 10 quite nicely.

Climbers

Now for the climbers and, honestly, despite the album “bomb”, not much happened of interest on the charts other than those three songs, in fact, barely anything has really happened. The only notable gain out of three non-top 10 gains is the 11-spot leap for “Eastside” by benny blanco, Khalid and Halsey, which is now at #12. The other gains are only single-space increases so it’s pointless noting them.

Fallers

The fallers, however, are a bit of a different story. A lot of pop girls struggled this week, including Ariana Grande with “God is a woman” down three spots to #13 and her feature on Nicki Minaj’s “Bed”, which has dropped seven spaces to #38. Speaking of Nicki Minaj, “FEFE” with 6ix9ine and Murda Beatz whimpered down four spots to #21, and the other female rapper on the charts right now, Cardi B, hasn’t exactly been gaining either, as “I Like It” featuring Bad Bunny and J Balvin is down five spaces to #14. Anne-Marie’s “2002” is down six spots to #32, Jess Glynne’s “I’ll be There” got hit identically down to #36, while “This is Me” by Keala Settle and The Greatest Showman Ensemble is down seven spots to #40. Drake had it particularly rough as well, with “Nonstop” down two to #30 while “Don’t Matter to Me” with Michael Jackson is down six to #19. The biggest fall, however, is definitely “If You’re Over Me” by Years & Years, falling a whopping 21 positions straight to #28. How much of this is due to Travis Scott? I’m not exactly sure.

Dropouts

“Ay Caramba” by Stay Free Get Lizzy Presents Fredo and Young T & Bugsey, or whatever on earth that title credit was, is unsurprisingly out straight from the debut at #38, while “Paradise” by George Ezra is also out from #39 – it had a good run. “Leave a Light On” by Tom Walker is also out from #36, but that’s it, so let’s run through the Ed Sheeran Update!

The Ed Sheeran Update

“Perfect” is down three spaces to #60, while “Shape of You” stays at #77. Not much to see here.

Well, that was quick. No returning entries so let’s go right into our new arrivals.

NEW ARRIVALS

#37 – “Best Life” – Hardy Caprio featuring One Acen

Okay, so before Travis Scott, we have a song that been bubbling under the top 40 for quite a long time, and to be honest, I was dreading the day Hardy Caprio returns with another hit, because, God, is he boring? At least now he has a guest star to maybe improve or diversify things but has that really helped at all? No, because it’s still the same faux-dancehall faux-grime stuff to expect. I call it that but it’s really just desaturated trap with some shrill synths and keys that make a just listenable beat for the two rappers to spit over, however the song is mostly the singing chorus, assumingly by One Acen, who also sings during the post-chorus, and he doesn’t have a bad voice so I’m not complaining at all, but maybe I wanted something more interesting to combat Hardy on the first verse biting a Lil Baby flow from “Yes Indeed”, because, out of all the songs to copy, you had to copy the worst possible trap-rap song you could find on the Hot 100? Okay, Hardy... To be fair, this isn’t awful and they both ride the beat well, even if the rapping is actually quite brief. It’s just more of the same, more of the same. In fact, I think I’m going to coin a name for this. Damhall – it’s watered down dancehall with grime-ish lyrics and trap percussion, as well as autotuned vocals, rapping often with melodic, R&B-inspired flows. It’s not the best name in the world, but it’ll be better than saying “faux-dancehall faux-grime schlock” week after week. Not feeling this damhall genre to be perfectly honest. Now let’s take a ride down to ASTROWORLD.

#29 – “CAROUSEL” – Travis Scott featuring Frank Ocean and Big Tuck?

We start with the second track on the album, “CAROUSEL” featuring uncredited vocals from... Frank Ocean? Damn, Frank doesn’t seem like the guy to be doing pop features as often, so Travis and the beat must be something special that made Frank want to lend his immense vocal talent.

Not really. I do like the beat, however, it’s pretty cool how it’s just constant gang vocals going from the left to the right channel as a backdrop behind your typical trap-rap production, which makes it have a party-ish aesthetic that I really like and think fits Travis’ flow really well. Frank, on the other hand, on the hook, sounds asleep and bored, and he does throughout most of the song until his verse where he starts straining his voice very forcefully and frankly, it sounds pretty terrible over a club-ready beat. Come on, Frank, the bored flow at least works for stuff like this, you didn’t need to put any effort or emotion into this performance, yet, you do for some of it and it just doesn’t sound good at all. Stick to sounding like you’re on half a Xan during your guest features, it works much better. Oh, yeah, and this song is barely three minutes and ends very abruptly. It’s just kind of sloppy if anything, mostly because of, unfortunately, Frank Ocean. The song’s serviceable, I suppose, and I know why it charted – it’s catchy, it’s at the start of the album, yet I’d have much preferred “NO BYSTANDERS”, “SKELETONS”, “R.I.P. SCREW” or even “STOP TRYING TO BE GOD” to chart instead of this and the next few tracks, although this next one I’m not necessarily complaining about.

#15 – “STARGAZING” – Travis Scott

Ah, the opening track to ASTROWORLD, and one of the few songs that doesn’t have features as well as actually being somewhat astro-themed, as it’s very psychedelic and trippy yet does feel like a theme park ride in its structure. Let me elaborate.

It starts with some slow, eerie chords with some beautifully autotuned singing throughout, before you get a drop – the bass and the rollercoaster – which starts initially with some pretty disjointed drum patterns, as your mindset would be during a ride, as Travis says, “going crazy” and “rolling”, quite similarly to the effect of psychedelics. He has some pretty... interesting falsetto vocals here, as well as the classic ad-libs we know him for crowding the catchy hook, before the drums start to collapse briefly and we get a moment of peace, of build-up, with some sweet guitar and extra keys, which sound really pretty, especially with all the sound effects of people screaming and having fun on Astroworld building the atmosphere. It then comes to a sudden stop and you’ve gone down the biggest slope in the rollercoaster, so you’re calmer but the ride hasn’t stopped. The beat switches and now you’re going through maddening keyboard loops whilst a slick trap beat plays, allowing Travis to spit some surprisingly impressive bars here, with a simple flow but some funny lines like about how it’s not a moshpit without injuries and how Kylie’s jumping off him like Moby – you figure it out – while a faint “alright, alright” vocal sample plays, and then it just comes to an abrupt stop. Your ride has finished, but it’s only the first track so you’re ready for the unimpressive mediocrity of the other rides in the theme park that you only go on because you have younger siblings with you.

#9 – “SICKO MODE” – Travis Scott featuring Drake and Swae Lee

Speak of the devil.

Alright, so this track is three songs, and the only reason why this absolute mess of a song was the biggest hit is because of Drake, but you know that already. Let’s analyse each part of this five-minute trap-rap trilogy.

We start with a fantastic sample, and one of the best moments on the album as Drake just sings over one of the best beats I’ve heard this year, God, I love that sample so much, but then the percussion comes in and he starts rapping, for one bar. Yep, the last line (the title) echoes and we go into a completely different song with a serviceable beat, where Travis Scott starts rapping with a flow I feel we’ve heard from him a few times before, with some extra classic hip-hop samples acting as ad-libs to his rapping, as well as some pitch-shifted chopped-up Big Hawk samples acting as bridges while Swae Lee just repeats one line in the background, but then after two verses, that one transitions too, pretty abruptly, into a boring Tay Keith beat for Drake to go all “Nonstop” on. Drake does half a Xan on a plane and is out like a light (like a light, ayy, yeah, what), and it tells. Over a Memphis-influenced instrumental, Drake delivers a decent enough verse but really, neither him nor Travis have enough charisma and energy to carry this. I appreciate how the beat goes all DJ Screw on us by the end, leading into the next song on the album, “R.I.P. SCREW”, but really, isn’t this just a huge waste of money for Travis? Sure, he’s probably getting it back and more, but a huge feature in the form of Drake, two guest vocalists (Swae Lee and Sheck Wes) hired purely for ad-libs, at least three samples, two of which are short clips that really aren’t worth the royalties he and his label probably had to pay, can’t be cheap, especially considering the four to six producers probably involved in this that had to get their paycheck too, even though knowing the industry, they probably won’t be getting them at all.

This song, as it is, is just a five minute slog, especially considering only the first minute is worth listening to. If someone has a separate track of just that Drake intro, I’d appreciate a link.

Conclusion

Yeah, Best of the Week goes to Travis Scott for “STARGAZING”, who also bags Worst of the Week for “CAROUSEL” with Frank Ocean and one of the two Dishonourable Mentions for “SICKO MODE” with Drake and Swae Lee, with the other going to Hardy Caprio and One Acen for just being void of anything interesting in “Best Life”. See you next week.

L