#Have fun with those weird ghost gals

[desues-randomness]

Question, I guess

I don’t know what else to post right now, so, instead, where should Percy go to research first.

This will help with what research notes I’ll have Percy write, in the duration that the poll will be up, I’ll be posting OCs and my Sona doing random shit instead of the Percy stuff.

[melefim]

This is about Dead Boy Detectives but also applies elsewhere:

I know it can be hard to just talk to random people you meet about things you’re passionate about, but legit it works. If you can push past the social anxiety (I know it’s hard, I struggle with it too) you’ll be surprised how receptive people can be!

One of the best things we can do to up the chances of getting the show renewed is to get the views up, and while rewatches are great, more and newer viewers are even better. So whenever I can, I’ve been talking the show up to everyone I see.

I just checked my car in for service and the gal taking my info was STOKED when I told her about it because she was looking for a new show to watch. Grabbed her phone and added it to her Netflix list as I was standing there.

The little old lady who does safety inspections at work apparently loves Halloween and all things spooky.

The new security guard mentioned his husband and was excited when I told him about how refreshing the queer normalization is in the show (and showing him a pic of Lukas Gage as the Cat King definitely didn’t hurt either).

The head of Facilities has been watching Doctor Who since the first episode in the 60s and was intrigued by the quirky, campy aspects of it.

There are so many aspects to this show, so many angles of interest, you’ll be surprised how quickly you can sell people on it sometimes!

For me, the ‘opener’ I’ve found most effective is something along the lines of “Hey, I know this is super random, but do you like Sci-fi/fantasy/spooky stuff?” From there, a yes leads into “There’s this show I absolutely love called Dead Boy Detectives on Netflix, you should check it out!” And a bit of info on the show. (It’s about two ghosts that solve supernatural mysteries! It’s fun and weird and funny and so well made!) If there’s time, I’ll pull up the trailer or the teaser for them to watch. Far more often then not, they’re interested.

And if they say no? “Yeah, the genre’s not for everyone. But if you know anyone who does like it, you should have them check out Dead Boy Detectives, it’s super good.”

They may or may not be interested. They might watch it or they might not, could recommend it to others or forget about it completely. But they definitely won’t do any of that if they don’t know it exists.

Right now, I know of 21 people that I’ve told about the show who have come back and told me they loved it. 7 of those have also told me they told their friends and family about it and they’re now watching it too. (And those are just the ones who’ve come back to me about it- there could be even more!)

If there’s one thing I learned from being on a competitive Gish team for a decade, it’s that you never know who will say yes when you ask them something random!

It can be scary to put yourself out there. I really, truly get that. But if you’re able to push past it, it’s truly an effective way to spread the word.

[e1dritchqueer]

hi!!! id love to hear all about ur xcom characters:3 especially your rangers! ... I don't know what that is but id love if you told me!

okay okay okay my xcom sillies!!!! So context for xcom 2, after the first game the like... xcom program lost and this fascist alien organization takes over and xcom 2 takes the perspective of a resistance origination fighting against the aliens rather than like... a weird government project in xcom 1

So the big appeal for xcom 2 (TO ME) is dressing up all the characters and making them all cool and silly and seeing them grow (and sometimes die :( but this is my first playthough so I'm MEGA savescumming) and making them gay and making propaganda about it

All xcom characters are randomly generated so I try not to change much about their name and appearance UNLESS I want to transgender them

ANYWAYS

my rangers

Rangers are a really fun class in xcom bc they're like the melee guys and ugh they have a lot of cool mechanics, and unlike my other guys (like generic grenadier, generic grenadier. generic grenadier)

here they are (xcom has some very cool post making features :))) )

I realized this post is REAL long bc of photos so all of their details are below !!!

anyways, going by each one by one, starting with Sergio "Pathfinder" Valdéz

He was my first ranger and it def shows!!! He started off a bit silly but slowly he becomes swaggier

my favorite thing about him (apart from him being literally one of the most experienced fighters in my run) is that he's gay married to his alien bestie, Mox. Xcom 2 has a mechanic where soldiers can bond and do teamwork stuff but I was like nah they're gay now

anyways this is their beautiful evolution, I love them so much. Mox is an alien catman now I love him (bonus mox pic as a treat). Those two were also part of the group that took out one of the big bosses permanantly (chosen assasin) and now Pathfinder rocks their cool ass shotgun

also ugh I have so many screen shots of him

Kong "Jetstream" Guo

I only got another ranger till I was DEEP in the campaign but that was Jetstream!

I think I mostly sent him on covert missions until Pathfinder got REALLY taken out for a bit and like now gah I love him. Covert missions increase soldiers' stats and it really showed for him How he started out: (also if the poster tags aren't silly goofy that's bc xcom makes an automatic poster for each mission and sometimes I don't have a joke but the posters look nice/have good pics of the xcom guys)

Anyways I call him Jetstream bc while making his armor look all cool I realized I had accidentally made Jetstream Sam's armor so like????? slay!!! I literally just went with that. He specs really well into mele enow and has a special blade (the chosen assasin katana) that is REALLY good against armored mechanical enemies. Also like gah he's so good with that weapon, he took out like... three armored enemies in a single overwatch turn with that blade so like yeah... jetstream sam type guy.

I love that second image bc it was one of those auto generated ones bc it has this spooky quote and he's just like :)

Jane "CATastrophe" Kelly

Actually my first character but I never used her bc she's like... the only pregenerated character you have so for a while I didn't know what to do with her till I got this cat armor mod and was like "I know what I'm gonna do with her". Anyways she's an axe wielding catgirl for the resistance.

anyways she's slay I love her she wields two fusion axes and throws them at big robots she's really fun :>>>>

Anyways here's her throwing an axe at a sectopod

also I love her lil tail :3

Raine "Spectre" Elliot

Okay she was a weird little cis guy when I got her but I since turned her into a cool transgender half alien gal :>>>>

I gave her that cool lil mask and also gave her the Apex/Titanfall Ash voicelines bc like... idk felt with the vibe of that mask

She also has the WRAITH suit which allows her to phase through stuff so like she's very cool and ghost coded. Idk much else abt her yet but her bondmate is a cool sharpshooter lady and when that happened I was like "yeah slay okay they're girlfriends"

I have a lot of other xcom sillies (including literally ottacon) but this post is getting waay long. Thank you for the ask!!! I love my xcom sillies and love talking about them

[beardedhandstoadshark]

Managed to get the og Etrian Odyssey running again after my card broke a few years ago <3 And was instantly smacked with the memory they still translated the first 2 games. So because of that, here‘s some German translation and localization fun-facts (?)

For example, official releases are usually translated directly from Japanese to German instead of using English as a jumping-off point. I can’t actually tell you why, since speaking English as a second language is really common nowadays, but because of this (and probably ridiculous love for accuracy in general), they usually end up being more accurate (or if not, then at least more fitting) than the English ones in meaning but also tone, which tend to be more lean regarding certain pieces of dialogue.

This sometimes ends up in weird shenanigans like various eastereggs across the Zelda franchise being either NA or German PAL only, or Emmet and Ingo from Pokemon being called "Hin und (and) Her“, which literally just means "back and forth“,to keep the pun in, even though those aren’t actually names and their English ones work perfectly fine in German otherwise.

Speaking or Etrian Odyssey, a few lines in you’re greeted by this:

"Euch“ right here means you. But not just you, not even the polite you, no no. That’s the noble you. The type of you you‘d youse for royals…or to show something plays in medieval times.

(They’re also both plural versions of the regular plural you, but not the singular one liked used here.)

The "Jungs und Mädels“ basically translates to "guys and gals“, I wonder if he says it like this in English too? In any case, it helps making his dialogue more causal and pushes that royal You more towards general fantasy instead of high noble speak. (By playing further it becomes obvious they’re doing it for the fantasy setting)

And this. THIS. It translates to "is this Guildname comfortable/pleasant/agreeable/… ?“ But the thing is, that word, "genehm“, according to The German Dictionary ever, Duden, that one’s old. It’s never used by people nowadays (having in fact changed to "angenehm“ as a normal word) and is so rarely seen it’s fancy even for fancy royal speak. Words like these are the German equivalent of dropping Shakespearean English.

…but it does work perfectly fine for a high-fantasy medieval setting. :)

However, my absolute favorite thing has to be something like this. The photo here is from Mario & Luigi Dream Team (Bros)

"Do you dare having the rules explained to you?“

"No!Fear!“ "Let’s hear (it)!“

So "wagt“, or "wagen“ in it’s neutral form, means "to dare“, however it’s specifically a kinda old-fashioned word. Definitely still somewhat used and you won’t really be looked at weirdly, but it’s rather uncommon and primarily used in media for the dialogue of nobles or to show someone’s, well, old-fashioned. For example, ghosts! And look at that, the dialogue is being said by a spooky ghost flame.

Idk if "No! Fear!“ is also a thing in any other versions but it sure is funny

And then there’s "Lass hören“. I’ve put "it“ in the translation in brackets because it kinda needs to be there to make sense in English, but in German, there is no object in this sentence. Word for word this actually translates to "Let hear“. And even though this also doesn’t make any sense in German, not even qualifying as a proper sentence, it still kinda does, and is perfectly understandable. As total slang.

"Lass hören“ isn’t just a casual way to say "Lass es uns hören“ (Let us hear it), it’s the most casual of causal you could potentially go of any of the many ways you could say this sentence, which is just so immensely fitting for a character whose job is being a plumber. And it’s not even the only instance. Any time you get speech bubbles like these, the answers Mario gives will always be in the lowest possible way of talking casual German. This even includes simple Yes/No questions, which Mario will always answer with a variation of "Yea!“/More casual version of"Nah“. (I swear at one point the no option is "Lass ma‘ “ y’all it’s so casual)

And it is always Mario, because the one time you have to play Solo as Luigi in Superstar Saga?

The answers become normal in tone. :)

Translation and Localization done with care my beloved.

[xplrvibes]

hey so what do you think is the fandom’s general consensus on M and K? I feel like there’s a loud minority, and then ppl didn’t know M existed until that photoshoot of him hugging him or NYE depending if ppl actually looked through the tagged at the time (or were chronically online).

Because I don’t see hate comments on the girls’ posts, or their numbers skyrocket or plummet. Just a bit of an increase (at least on instagram)

Saying this all because I’d love to see a collab with everyone! I have a feeling the girls were in the room with the guys with that weird react video (and based off of the black background the gals have used on insta and tiktok)

To be completely honest, most of the outer rings of the fandom probably don't know or care one iota about these girls and all the drama the stan side of the fandom are drumming up because of all this.

Stans of any fandom, while generally being the loudest, are not the majority stakeholders in a fandom the size of snc's. snc have fans from all walks of life across all platforms; the majority of those fans just want to watch these idiot boys fumble their way through ghost hunting and then keep it moving lol.

That's why when shit happens and the stans threaten to stop watching snc videos in protest - like, ok. Have fun. A few thousand less views in a sea of 10 million is like pulling one grain of sand away from a beach and expecting the whole thing to suddenly disappear.

The only thing that is going to make the fanbase at large and the casual viewers walk away is if the content itself goes to shit or isn't interesting. Some casual viewers might not tune in if they had unknown people (like M and K) in their videos, but overall, more people than not would tune in and give it a watch because why not?

Anyway, let me get this train that I just derailed back on the tracks - I think the stans themselves are, as usual, divided on the subject of M and K.

You've got the stans that would make shipping edits with Colby/Sam and a paper bag if they felt it necessary, just to get the almighty notice and to prove that they are the good and supportive stans.

You've got the stans that were so heavily invested in the dream of Katrina/Sam getting married and repopulating the earth with a bunch of little singing philosophers that their whole being is now consumed with revenge and hate for K because she got in the way of their endgame, and we all hate the interloper, right?

You've got the stans who do not ever want Colby to be let out of the gilded cage the fans put him in, so him dating M without clearing it with them first (and M very emphatically not being {insert girl they shipped him with here} adds fuel to this particular fire) is a personal insult against them so of course, M is now manipulating Colby and must be stopped.

And then you've got the stans that just don't like change. They don't like that things are changing and snc are growing and aren't as accessible anymore, and they have to have someone besides the obvious culprit (THEMSELVES) to blame, so hey - those girls are mighty good targets.

Mind you, very few of the haters will actually hate to these girls' faces - in fact, most of them pretend to be fans of the girls' to their faces to avoid getting blocked, so they can continue to hate stalk them in perpetuity. So, the girls will see an uptick in views and followers, but on the surface, only a slight uptick in hate comments on their actual pages - cause the haters are engaging just as much (if not more) than the overly obsessed lovers are.

Anywho, mix all these dissenting opinions together in the hellish-hate-vacuum that is social media, and we get what we are getting today, which is a really loud few drowning out or acting like they speak for the vocal majority who do not care one way or another.

All this to say - I think the girls are very polarizing for certain sections of the fandom, and a non-factor for others. And I would be surprised if snc have them in a main channel video anytime soon...maybe a react, definitely a person channel video (if they ever brought those back), and there is almost a 100% certainty that we will eventually get tiktoks (just a hunch!)...but snc probably don't want to deal with the hassle of getting screamed out and called degrading names on twitter for a video that probably wouldn't break youtube anyway lol.

[laughingpinecone]

Candy hearts exchange 2024 letter

AO3: laughingpineapple (double-checked a-ok for treats as per the recent AO3 update blah blah)

Hello and thank you for writing for me! I hope you’ll have a great time playing with one of these wonderful canons!

I love a wide variety of fics - from the most delicate gen to explicit, any tense, any format, big yes to all kinds of weird experiments up to and including interactive fiction. In general, I love canon expansion (showing new places in the setting or exploring those that are barely mentioned, just outside the borders, and ditto with events), character work of all stripes (expanding on little quirks, putting characters in situations that complement/challenge certain personality traits of theirs, just... observing these weirdos as they live their lives, for better and for worse), magical realism and adjacent approaches. I eat up emotional moments with a spoon when a fic is character-centric (danger! catharsis! hurt/comfort! the nitty-gritty of attraction!) and also love abstract stuff that is not character-centric at all: fake academia, a wider focus, inhuman povs, anything goes.

For both romance and friendships, I love it when it’s clear (not necessarily to the characters themselves, but to the narrative) what they like about each other, how they get along, if and how they trust each other, what’s annoying but worth it, what flaws of the other are they or are they not well equipped to handle... The specificity of each dynamic! I also love it when the characters are very into something that makes sense for them, be it a hobby or a kink or whatever, even if it’s something I may not personally care for.

For art, I love when characters are doing something. I much prefer a simple illustration of a moment in their lives (basic examples: sharing coffee, walking together) to a more ornate symbolic illustration like eg a tarot reimagining.

DNW: non-canonical rape, non-canonical children, focus on children,  pregnancies, unrequested ships (background established canon couples are okay, mentions of parents and paired-up OC randos are okay!), canon retellings  

GHOST TRICK

Alma/Cabanela/Jowd: Jowd navigating the "whoops turns out I'm bi" part of the whole thing is always fun Alma/Jowd: what's their dynamic, exactly? I'm open to many possibilities, for example an Alma who's just as much of a cosmic pessimist as her esteemed husband! Cabanela & Pigeon Man: unexpected intergenerational friendship of my heart, Cabs is A Lot and Pigeon Man expertly wrangles him. Guess he’s good with birds Cabanela/Jowd: please let them be intensely ridiculous about their attraction Emma & Jowd: double menace pls Jowd & Pigeon Man: what sparked PM's unshakeable devotion toward Jowd? Alma/Cabanela: fashion! and legs! Clothes swap? Some time on their own?

PYRE

Bertrude/Pam: they get each other quietly… anything based on their paired ending, especially Downside? Ignarius & Oralech: I’d just like to weaponize Iggy’s fascination for big survivor demons and point it at an unsuspecting Oralech, for fun Oralech/Tariq: beyond the Scribes' vision… Oralech/Volfred: Downside reunion! How do you let go of all that mis-aimed anger AND mourning? Volfred & Pam: here's a guy who's very pragmatic about reaching his idealistic goals, and a gal who's a trained agent. Or maybe just two teammates after a rite. Volfred/Tariq: Tariq's small attempts at defiance?

DISCO ELYSIUM

Call Me Mañana & Steban: that time when Steban tried to talk Mañana into joining the group and it sounded like he was hitting on him (at least according to Harry, who is, on occasion, an uncannily accurate judge for this sort of thing) was fun! What about a second meeting between them, or would Steban be willing to just sit next to him and talk? DJ Flacio & DJ Mesh & Kim: I just want Kim to meet his loud, vulgar, communist-leaning (according to one line in reply to Harry, at least) heroes. Maybe after he got his shout-out? (Harry and Kim/Harry welcome if you want) Liz/Cindy: Things got very real very fast for Liz at the tribunal, can actual gang member Cindy help her through it or make things worse? Dros & Nilsen: bitter, cancelled old codgers, how unpleasant could they get? I like to picture Nilsen's ghost bothering assorted leftists in the game and Dros could do with the company… Uli/Steban: a Wirrâl session turning intensely homoerotically charged? Anything else turning intensely homoerotically charged (looking at the canon slap, it's kind of what they do)? What Mazov/Nilsen parallel do they see in themselves?

SACRED AND TERRIBLE AIR

Khan & Nilsen: as one of Elysium's famous disappearances (as per a stray line by Lilienne in the game), Nilsen should by all means be part of Khan's special interest. Khan who, for his part, dresses as a dialectical materialist, so did he like what he was reading about Elysium's Most Cancelled? Khan & Tereesz & Jesper: any exploration of their strange, frayed friendship, the ways in which they care for each other, their breaking points, how they're all called to the void… Khan & Zigi: does Khan find him, at the end of the world? Or is Zigi forever out of reach, beyond even the totality of the pale? Or does Khan manage to reach Rodionov's Trench at last, in dreams or otherwise? Mazov/Nilsen: they held hands… any exploration of any part of their lives (first meeting? Nilsen's return from his feral hut era? Reunion in the pale?) and their beliefs and their opposite responses to defeat? Lund sisters & Rodionov: party at the heart of the pale! Tereesz & Frantiček the Brave: echoes, archetypes, feeling the weight of dead revolutionaries and joining the ICP, the same story happening again, once as tragedy twice as farce… Zigi & Nilsen: ngl I need seven seasons and a movie of these two. The dialectical angle is great, the embodiment of the core dialogue between communism and nihilism, the imaginary frenemy angle is great, the ghost story is great, the concerning amount of applicable Breaking Bad memes is also great, and so on…

FULL CORE STATE NIHILIST

Esteban/Hulio: political posturing and transgressiveness bleeding in and out of actual queerness. Any exploration of nihilist, petrofascist Innocentic seat and global superpower Mesque is welcome, as well as the characters' approach to nihilism vis-à-vis Ambrosius'!

PENTIMENT

Gnaziu/Baltas: I love Baltas' whole thing and seriously what is UP with Gnaziu. I thought I'd missed some plot but he's just… hanging out there? How does he spent his days over at Baltas', in this little village so far away from home… Magdalene & Andreas: post-canon letters, maybe even a collaboration on some book to print? Otto & Ulrich: they were my act 2 faves and I just think they're neat? ;^; to Tassing's martyrs, to their kindness…

[trashcatsnark]

Some Cyberpunk NPC Fashion Headcanons: Misty, Judy, and Panam

Okay, so this has been burning in the back of my brain for five thousand years- as an unfashionable fatass loser who loves the idea of clothes and style in theory, I project this love onto fictional characters. Mostly my oc, but also canon characters. So, of course in game characters wear one outfit but I've developed kind of my own idea of what their style would be based both off those canon outfits and the vibes I get~

If you disagree, that's your business- but I'm having fun with the barbie dolls rn.

Misty- Cozy quirky goth gf

dresses in quirky goth fashion or like a victorian ghost, no in between

eclectic as fuck

cozy sweaters are always a favorite though

dresses with peter pan collars, i have no explanation, i just feel it

those kitschy chunky earrings that are like little raisin boxes or like weird clown babydolls

general kitsch touches, she likes things a little weird, keeps life interesting

**crystals~**

definitely has a purse or bag with thousand of weird little pins and keychains- she sees the value of minimalism but she just loves weird cute little things

fishnets and different patterned tights

weird chunky boots

Examples:

Judy- Punk contrast techie

shorts and overalls obviously, always with a strap undone for the aesthetic~

idk why but i just get the vibe she loves asymmetry- one shoulder, asymmetrical cut out, fuck yeah

and like contrasting patterns and stuff, like shorts and pants with mismatching legs

i see her in bright plaid punk pants, it just fits the vibe, don't ask me why

crop tops more often than not- likes showing off her tattoos

bushido merch

not a big jewelry gal but she likes a fun belt

has to have pockets- do not get her on the topic of non-functional pockets

feel like she probably has tattooed on eyeliner, not her full eyeliner look is tattooed- but like a base layer of it is

has band merch shirts and clothes too for sure, she's passionate about her interests and will wear them with pride

Examples:

Panam- Nomad tomboy gremlin

fashion isn't exactly a huge priority in the nomad world, but Panam still has her taste- notably her love of bodysuits

also does love the off the shoulder look- but finding bras that work with it and her tits is the bane of her existence

Bras are generally the bane of her existence- you wanna hear a rant ask this woman about having the underwire snap in her last good bra and stabbing her in the tit when she's 4 hours into a 12 hour drive and miles away from civilization

cargo pants, torn jeans, and ratty shorts

so many of her clothes are torn

tattered old crop tops and tanks

almost always has her aldecaldo jacket thrown over whatever she's wearing- even if it clashes

also not a big jewelry person, just not super practical- her and a friend in the clan tried to piece their own ears when they were kids and all they did was earn themselves some nasty infections

this girl has camo pants, idk if that's my brain associating her with 6th street from that one gig or the connection between aldecaldos and vets- this girl has camo pants

more of her clothes are stolen from other aldecaldos than she'd care to admit

Examples (ignore the jewelry in some of these):

Bonus Round:

My V (Aidan Becker)- crouching punk hidden pastel

leather jacket 9 times out of 10 (definitely stole it off a corpse)

black crop tops, stomach almost always showing

ripped pants and shorts, often with fishnets beneath

subtle hidden touches of cute stuff, like she'll take off her combat boots and have pink heart socks on beneath

skirts when she's feeling fancy or slutty

flannels for pops of colors occasionally

if she's not one arm raise away from flashing her tits- whats the point?

only wears bras if they're meant to be seen

bright blue nail polish always

teddy bear hoodie when she's home alone and vibing- very few have seen it, embarrassed by it- but it's very cozy

Examples:

[daja-the-hypnokitten]

Jukebox reviews part 9! For context, see my post “A Project” under this same tag. If you want to see a full list of his EMCSA stories, they can be found here, sorted alphabetically.And if you want to see some of his drabbles, check out his blog at @jukeboxemcsa

 Situation

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3/15/2009                                     mc ff

Heh, such a thing to read when I'm planning to be flying in just a handful of days, and will be at the airport hours before my flight. Not that I'd particularly enjoy being in this position - it's one of those ace things - but still, the idea of being brainwashed to be sweet and doing what I'm told is always fun. I do hope Heather enjoys sex more than I do, though. It's quite an abuse of authority, regardless, but a hot one! 8/10 spirals

  Invisible Touch

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3/21/2009                                     mc mf md

Jack and Diane are back! And I think for pure comedic lines, this has my favourite of any of the stories yet - “Quite sure. No Opera Ghost, of either the Pratchett or Webber variety.” Maybe that's just because I have a major soft spot for Phantom of the Opera (and do enjoy using Music of the Night to sing a partner into trance), but still. Jukebox outdoes himself here, even as I would hate to be in Diane's position. The suggestion itself? Brilliant! Her awareness that its her own subconscious? Sublime. Doing it in public, *at an opera*? That's just beyond the pale, Jack. But despite that, I love the chemistry between these two, making this an easy 10/10 spirals.

  Only Happy When It Rains

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3/29/2009                                     mc mf ff sf

This is a good sci-fi story, but it hits just enough of things I dislike that I feel unable to give it a fair rating. If you like alien planets and parasitic (or potentially symbiotic) control, you'll probably get more out of this than I do. 3/10 spirals for hitting a bunch of not-quite-squicks.

  Talk Dirty To Me

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4/5/2009                                       mc ff hm

This squicked me out too much to even finish it. If y'all like students controlling their teachers, take a look, though!

  How Far We’ve Come

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4/12/2009                                     mc ff

This one's a little sweetly romantic, if you squint. I do wonder what Zoe and the others look like, outside of spring cleaning time, and how Martine interacts with all of them. But I appreciate the deep dive into the "how" of the control, seeing the cascade of effects of each bit of control, and how Martine handles it. It hits a number of sweet spots for me, though the lack of consent in play makes me enjoy it slightly less than some others. 8/10 spirals.

  Goody Two Shoes (Jukebox)

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4/18/2009                                     mc ff

heh, I'm glad to see Chasity getting some comeuppance for how much she talked over Paula's objections, but maybe not quite this way. I do hope Paula's participation in this whole thing is consensual, but I somehow doubt that. It's an interesting story that focuses less on the control and more on how Paula is effected by it day-to-day, but what we do see of her control and the conditioning process are satisfying. 7/10 spirals.

  Unsent

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4/25/2009                                     mc

This story is a bit hard to follow, for exactly the reasons that Justine highlights as she writes, but all the same, it's interesting. I'm not entirely sure that I *like* it - it's a good experiment in storytelling format, but between the challenge to follow it and just how much sex is intertwined through it all, it doesn't go much past "interesting" for me. Someone who likes the sort of "brainwashed sextoy babbling about her enslavement" narration may enjoy this, though. 6/10 spirals.

  Weird Science

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5/3/2009                                       mc mf ff fd hu

Oh hey! Penelope from "The Future's So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades"! This is fun, and also relatable AF as a gal who has a degree in science. Mad science isn't *my* interest, of course - I'm far too neutral good for mad science - but I still relate to her anger and frustration at the gatekeeping, and more power to her. The mind control here isn't even all that mean, really, though also a little too sudden for my preferences. Mostly I just like the story. 7/10 spirals.

  Push

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5/9/2009                                       mc mf

This is an interesting description of a mind control power. And I'm impressed by the ... not control, exactly, but precision of how he uses it. I dunno if it's really *erotic,* really, but it's a good story of control and power, and the consequences of using that power without caution. 8/10 spirals

  Hip to Be Square

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5/17/2009                                     mc md fd mf ff bd ds ex ma hu

None of this is how neurons or the brain work. AT ALL. I know we don't actually see the explanation of how the effect is caused, but even what IS shared doesn't pass my BS detector. Having said that, it's an interesting premise, for sure. I'm fairly sure just boosting intelligence wouldn't cause the sort of effect that the increased interest in books brings - after all, social conditioning has its effects just as strongly as academic pursuits. But it's fun to see the change and the questioning of social norms, even if it's so far out of the realm of realistic for me not to even consider it sci-fi. It's pure science *fantasy.* 7/10 spirals.

[gunterfan1992]

Episode Review: ‘Together Again’ (Distant Lands, Ep. 3)

Airdate: May 20, 2021

Story by: Jack Pendarvis, Kate Tsang, Hanna K. Nyström, Christina Catucci, Jesse Moynihan, Adam Muto

Storyboarded by: Hanna K. Nyström, Anna Syvertsson, Iggy Craig, Maya Petersen, Serena Wu

Directed by: Miki Brewster (supervising), Sandra Lee (art)

Across Adventure Time’s ten season run, the show explored a bevy of “mature” themes and story ideas—topics, like love, sexuality, depression, and grieving. The show also touched upon death, but the emphasis was usually placed on the emotional toll of a loved one dying, not really what happens when you die. We knew there were Dead Worlds and Death. We knew that there was reincarnation. But how does it all fit together? What does it mean? How does it work?

With “Together Again,” we finally have many of the answers.

This special opens with a marvelous fake-out episode simply called “Finn & Jake,” that sees the two steal a magical cartoon of 50-flavor ice cream before rescuing Turtle Princess and LSP from the clutches of the villainous Ice King. This is all deliberately anachronistic and over the top. Ice King is back to his season one ways, Finn has both arms, and he is still wielding his golden sword that he lost in season two’s “The Real You.” There’s lolrandom dialogue and silly monsters; it’s like a parody of seasons 1-2. But then, this adventure starts to get all wonky, and in time Finn realizes that he is in a some sort of trance or illusion: one that ends with Jake being buried in the ground. Suddenly, Finn awakens from his reverie. He’s an old man. And he’s dead. We’re then presented with a new title card that lets us know the episode is actually called “Finn & Jake Are Dead.”

Holy Glob! They actually went there.

Turns out Jake died years before Finn, so naturally Finn is super excited to see his best bud. But something’s wrong—he cannot find Jake!! They planned to spend eternity together. But all that Finn can find is his very own psychopomp, Mr. Fox (voiced by Tom Herpich, whose purposefully stilted line readings are the epitome of delightful). Finn rightfully assumes that Jake is in a different Dead World, and so, being the ball of spunk and energy that he is, he demands to meet with Death, only to discover that there’s a New Death in town (voiced by Chris Fleming). The episode eventually explains that New Death was the son of Death and Life, and after New Death killed his father, he became the sovereign of the afterlife. New Death hates his job and decides to just blow up all the Dead Worlds so he doesn’t have to deal with it all. (I won’t get too much into the details here, because there would be a lot of story to parse out.)

Finn soon learns that Jake has reached nirvana in the 50th Dead World, where there is nothing but peace and serenity. Finn nevertheless tracks down Jake, pulls him from paradise, but in doing so, accidentally lets New Death in, who promptly obliterates Elysium, sending all the enlightened souls—including those from different levels of the afterlife—to the 1st Dead World. This gronks up the afterlife, temporarily halting the reincarnation process.

Well, Finn and Jake are rightfully ticked, and so they haunt the material plane looking for Princess Bubblegum. She’s not home (more on that later), but Peppermint Butler is! After Ghost Finn and Ghost Jake explain the situation, Peppermint Butler tells them what to do: They need to find Life and explain the situation. The duo manage just that, and Life is rightfully angry that her kid has stopped the transmigration of souls. After Life gives Finn a McGuffin sword that can hurt Death, Finn and Jake return to his abode. A brawl ensues wherein we learn that New Death has been possessed… by none other than that spirit of the Lich.

That’s right, it’s the Lich! He’s back, and boy is he evil.

The Lich explains that by possessing Death, he can destroy the afterlife, thereby destroying a key aspect of reality. Naturally, Finn and Jake are not cool with this, and they engage in combat. After Mr. Fox grabs the McGuffin sword and uses it to annihilate the Lich and New Death, he is proclaimed the New New Death and sets everything right. Finn is slated to be reincarnated, and Jake is slated to return to the 50th Dead World where he and Finn will one day be reunited. As Finn is pulled into the wheel of souls, Jake suddenly decides to go back with Finn, too, “Just for fun.” The episode ends with a card letting us know that the episode is neither called “Finn & Jake” nor “Finn & Jake Are Dead.” Instead, it is “Finn and Jake Are Together Again.”

As they say, “And there wasn’t a dry eye in the place.”

If you were to tell me several years ago that the last episode to star Finn and Jake would revolve around them dying, I think I would’ve been upset. Not simply sad, but rather frustrated because “they all died” can feel like a cheap ending. But with “Together Again,” it all works. And a large reason that it works is because the show goes all in with their ideas. Finn and Jake don’t magically leap back into their old life (no, no, they very much do bite the dust). Instead, the special emphasizes the cyclical nature of life through the transmigration of souls. The episode ends with a beautiful scene of Finn and Jake, bound together as soul-brothers, being reborn into a new, mysterious (possibly Ooo 1000+?) world. It’s both aesthetically and emotionally pleasing; it doesn’t feel off the way over finales might. This is right. This is the way life works. “Round and round as nature goes,” and all that jazz.

I loved the series explanation of how death works. It seems that souls land in a specific Dead World, where they ‘marinate’ for a bit, presumably being rewarded or punished based on their life in our meat reality. After a time, they are then reborn. This process repeats, with each soul reaching higher and higher levels of enlightenment until they hit nirvana, which is the 50th Dead World. So in a sense, Adventure Time has a roughly Buddhist cosmology with a dash of Greco-Roman mythos thrown in for flavor. (As to what happens after a soul stays in the 50th Dead World for a long period is anyone’s guess, but I’d speculate that when all the souls in the multiverse have been purified and land in the 50th Dead World, they will all collapse into one another and form one perfect Monad. Perhaps this is the sphere of perfection that the beings who merged into Matthew thought they were connecting to? Who knows! It’s anyone’s guess!) I was a little disappointed that we didn’t get to see who Death, Prismo, Life, etc.’s boss was, but perhaps that’s a mystery better left up to the imagination!

One minor thing that I loved about this special was the number of characters who made cameos as well as all the callbacks that were made to previous episodes. Regarding the former: Finn and Jake’s canine family show up (including the oft-forgotten Jermaine!), as do Tree Trunks and her myriad husbands. Tiffany plays a major role in all these shenanigans as a “death cop” of all things. There is a delightful rogues gallery stuck in the 1st Dead World (including, among others, Maja, Sharon from “The Gut Grinder,” and Wyatt). In the 50th we find Ghost Princess and Clarence happily at peace next to Booshy, the weird spirit mentioned in the Pen Ward classic “High Strangeness.” As far as callbacks go, perhaps my favorite is the clap (from “James Baxter the Horse”) that Jake taught to Finn in case they ever do get separated in the afterlife. And of course, there are myriad references made to “Death in Bloom,” the episode that planted the seed for what this would grow into.

Going into the special suspecting that it would involve Death, I was curious how they were going to handle Miguel Ferrer’s character. (In case a reader is not aware, Ferrer played Death in episodes like “Death in Bloom” and “Betty,” but he sadly passed away a few years ago). The producers’ choice to feature him in a non-speaking cameo—despite playing a relatively significant role in the story—was wise; I’m not sure if I can articulate the exact reasons, but something about his role felt appropriate and not gross, as some post-mortem memorials can be. Speaking of which, the wonderful, lovely Polly Lou Livingston was featured for the last time in this episode as Tree Trunks, happily in heaven with her literal harem of husbands. It was funny, it really was, and I’m sure that Polly Lou would’ve gotten a kick out of seeing it on screen. (Also, this is a pro-Tree Trunks safe space. Any Tree Trunks haters will be chucked into the 1st Dead World with Wyatt.)

The biggest mystery in this whole thing, for me at least, is the question of Princess Bubblegum and Marceline. Several years ago, I wrote an essay about what could’ve happened to them in the Ooo 1000+ universe. I speculated that they peaced out and left Ooo behind. In this special, neither Bubblegum nor Marceline are to be found in the Candy Kingdom—Peppermint Butler seems to be the one in charge, given that he is now wearing Bubblegum’s crown. Likewise, the duo aren’t anywhere in the Dead Worlds either. Maybe the two of them skipped town and got a duplex in the Nightosphere? Who knows… I just want my favorite gals to be OK!

All things considered, “Together Again” was a marvel: An episode that managed to feel like a series finale even more than “Come Along with Me” already did without taking away from the series itself. An episode that managed to make the idea of dying funny. An episode that brought back the Lich in a way that wasn’t forced. An episode that made Mr. Fox the New New Death. An episode that gave us a beautiful ending to Finn and Jake’s story… as well as the beautiful beginning to a new one. I said it on Twitter, and I’ll say it again here: “Together Again” was the end of a sentence in a book with infinite pages. Truly, the fun will never end.

Mushroom War evidence: Everything takes place in the Dead Worlds, so not really. Perhaps a more eagle-eyed viewer can inform us...

Final Grade: That’s right, I’m gonna do it...

Post-script, I actually messaged Jesse Moynihan to ask about his writing credit. He told me that it was for an unused story idea that he had developed. I’m not certain, but I’ll bet it was a part of the cancelled TV movie they were trying to make during season 5, since that would’ve seen Finn and Orgalorg journey to the various Dead Worlds.

[sassykattery]

Hi Sassy :D

🌝, 🎬, and 🚲

Hiiii Tia! Thanks for asking!

🌝 - Day or night

I'm a nighttime gal! I love going for drives around town at night, I love city lights at night, I'm more awake and focused at night.

🎬- Favorite Movie

This one is hard! I have so many. As a kid it was Ghost Rider, hands down. Now I have to say maybe... is it weird to say The Conjuring? 😬 I really love those movies.

🚲- Preferred Type of Transportation

I really enjoy car rides! When my husband and I went on our honeymoon last year, we did a road trip and I loved it! It was so fun to see the sites and idk it's just great. I also got a new car a couple months ago and it's so fun to drive, so yeah. Driving. Flying is cool too but only for a little bit and then I want out 😅

[yeo-rims]

thanks!!! @melonatures for tagging me in 5 books i want to read this year, omg that’s hard

1. jonathan strange & mr norrell, basically piranesi was the most! amazing thing I've read last year, it made me think about my own loneliness, it helped me get thru a very difficult moment and i was so charmed by clarke’s writing i convinced myself to read her first novel, which is about wizards??? idk. i’m not much of a fantasy gal, but the pandemic made me read hp so anything can happen at this point. also, the book is almost 1k pages so it would be good if i did this before my semester at uni starts and my last year eats me alive or something.

2. the city we became, so i’m trying to be someone who reads more than just adults being sad (which is my go-to genre in everything tbh), and i bought this book last year after everyone said it was amazing. it’s urban fantasy??? there’s a character that is Paulo (São Paulo!! amazing) and idk it sounds fun and just different. Apparently, the cities are alive and they’re people and shit happens? Well. I’ll know once i read it.

3. ghosts, i can't possibly go thru my sally rooney era and not read about a sad 30yo woman dealing with her breakup, right? idk, it just feels like the type of book that is pretty much about nothing but sad white girl, which is honestly something i like to read when i want to think about my life and feel a bit better about >myself< lol. (the only reason i haven't read it so far is that i can't find a legal copy of it on scribd, and the kindle version is way too expensive and there’s a pt-pt kindle version but also... reading in pt-pt is weird).

4. before the coffee gets cold, it’s about sad people but they’re japanese and there’s a time-traveling element to it and it has like jdrama healing vibes, you know? i have it on scribd and i look at it every other day but the truth is i never know what i’m going to read. but this one i have friends that enjoyed and i should read any other japanese author that isn't murakami (nothing against him is just that ive only read his books so far lmao).

5. babel, it’s from poppy war’s author (a book i wont ever read but everyone loves) and it’s like dark academia but with diversity but it feels like it actually has something to say and i’m very intrigued by the plot. i’ll probably buy the eng. version once the book is out, and i’m very excited to read it. i confess i dont like the dark academia aesthetics (i dont like the concept of devoting ones life to an aesthetic, especially an elitist one... and also how like it seems those people failed to *get* what the secret history is all about) but ive read if we were villains past november and it wrecked me and i’m a sucker for stories about a group of deranged friends and crimes. and in this case it feels like the author has a lot to say, so, excited!

also cheating but i should read anything by a brazilian author just bc i dont think ive read anything written prior to 2000s last year and I love br literature, so i must read something. probably guimarães rosa. and i need to finish this book im reading about gays in the xix century. and i want to read more essays too, i’m reading some didion this week and i like it a lot. other than that i know i’ll be reading a lot of psychology-related stuff so in my free time i tend to read for fun, so fiction and poetry is what i love the most.

well, i talk too much but this was fun!! thank you <3i’m tagging: @rughydrangea @rain-hat @damn-salvatore @tinytrashqueen

[numbaoneflaya]

You can count on me to pull up with a thousand of questions sbdhdh. A3, A22, C5, D3, F3 for Jilly ; A18, A23, B9, C1, H2 for Nirn ; A5,B9, C8, D1, I5, for Thurwen ; A9, A13, C1, E8, and G6 for Valkya? 😏

A3, A22, C5, D3, F3 for Jilly ;

A3.Do they have any emotional or psychological conditions? Are they aware of it? Do they try to treat it?

Shawty got that stockholm syndrome in a way. She is…. Sometimes aware of it, though she wouldn't call it that any more. Maybe at first in the basement she was more aware, but now that she can come and go she thinks its a thing of the past. tries not to dwell on it. Kind of in a “well its literally not that bad its kind of fun its kind of romantic were just quirky <3” way, will get mad if someone insists she has stockholm or that the relationship is fucked. Will get enraged and upset on Vincent's behalf, probably cry and yell at you.

A22. Is your OC intended to be found generally attractive? Unattractive? Average? Is there a reason why?

I intended her to be fairly average, maybe kind of cute. It's generally the way she dresses/acts in public that draws attention, not her looks. I tend to make most of my ocs on the average scale besides a select few.

C5. Do your OC’s morals and rules of common decency go out the window when it comes to those they don’t like, or when it’s inconvenient? Aka, are their morals situational?

Good question…. Jillys morals are pretty simple- always be kind and nice, murder and hurting other people is bad, and you shouldnt lie. She sticks to those pretty strictly herself despite the situations she gets put in, often to her own detriment. But she doesn't always put a stop to those behaviors from the people she surrounds herself with, so she's sort of accomplice to bad acts of violence just by not snitching. So somewhat situational? She tries not to think about it.

D3. How comfortable are they with the idea of death?

Not comfortable! She hadn't seen a lot of it before her early twenties and was always sort of sheltered. dead fish are flushed down the toilet bcs they go to the ocean to live again, right? Thought cows and such all died of old age peacefully before they were made into burgers until she was like… twelve. 💀Won't kill mice and other critters despite her prey drive bcs she would feel too bad. And this is just for animal death, she's much more uncomfortable with human death. Also a thing she tries to ignore.

F3. Could they ever live in a “tiny home”?

God no. She hates small spaces unless she's hiding in them and tiny homes have no room for all the shit she stashes! No room for zoomies, or climbing on the furniture, or wrestling around on the floor. It would be filled with junk within a week.

A18, A23, B9, C1, H2 for Nirn ;

A18. Do they get jealous easily? Do they feel bad if they do?

He's never had much to be jealous of, as he's never really been over involved in romantic relationships. They were usually mutually beneficial and somewhat clinical in nature. Hes also pretty sure of himself and his value as an asset and lover. If he finds someone who peaks his interest and they become an item though, he might get jealous if he catches them flirting with other people. Hell be peeved at first but know flirtation in business has its value, so to make himself feel better might flirt with someone else while they are nearby. Make a game of it, see who wins.

A23. Does your OC place much importance on their appearance? Do they feel confident in it?

Appearances are crucial to him and spends a lot of time and money making sure he looks his best. He needs to appear above the rabble and impenetrable, dressing well and having immaculate posture and an air of both grace and otherworldliness.

B9. What kind of humor does your OC like the most? Slapstick, ironic, funny sounds, scare pranks, xD sO rAnDoM…

Definitely not one to find fart jokes funny. Very rarely laughs genuinely or full heartedly, he keeps all his expressions of emotion close to his chest. Sharp sardonic wit is appealing to him in the right circumstances, even a jab directed at himself can make him chuckle if it's well formed enough. Irony almost always gets him, even if its dark irony or gallows humor. Bit of a hard nut to crack. Would laugh enough that hed have to cover his mouth with his hand if he were to see Felix fall face first into mud, though. More often than not you can tell he finds something amusing by a gleam in his eyes and a slight squint.

C1. Does your OC have a moral code? If not, how do they base their actions? If so, where does it come from, and how seriously do they take it?

Well he used to have a real moral code :/. Now I mean…. The ends justify the means. By any means necessary. He considers his family's needs first, then the good of the world, then any individual in the world. Has ordered executions of entire families, had babies stolen and sent away, sent armies to certain death knowing full well they would all die, commanded individuals be tortured for information, sacrificed many in what he considers to be a game of chess where he is the player and others are the pawns. He finds senseless violence and savagery to be unforgivable, but if violence has a sense and purpose to employ it, then he will do so.

H2. Is your OC a thoughtful partner, in whatever aspect of that you want to cover?

Nirn tends to be a very thoughtful and attentive person in general, just for the wrong reasons lmaoooo. But with a lover? He's going to be utilizing that to show them how much he cares and using his powers for good. Mention you like a certain fabric while shopping one time and then complain your favorite tunic has a wine stain in it several months later, he's going to be taking your measurements for a new one in your preferred material without a moment's notice. Very keen on picking up moods, expressions and tone. Also has a very good memory. He doesn't really think about it but gifts are how he shows his love. Also a great attentive listener.

A5,B9, C8, D1, I5, for Thurwen ;

A5. Are they good at handling change in their life?

I would say so, yeah. Shes been used to things constantly changing since she was little and has had little to no control on outside influences. Shes also not one to over think about the past and lament, shes more of a one foot in front of the other, the only time is the present kind of gal. Of course large changes like becoming a warden were a bit more severe, but shes mostly able to think in the present as long as she has immediate problems to deal with.

B9.What kind of humor does your OC like the most? Slapstick, ironic, funny sounds, scare pranks, xD sO rAnDoM…

Slapstick is always gonna make her laugh as long as nobody gets seriously hurt, even if its her own ass tripping into a tree. Not a fan of scare pranks, 0/10 recommend trying to scare Thurwen. You will end up with a broken nose at best and an angry elf. Likes puns, but she's the one to groan at them and try and hide the grin spreading across her face. Gallows humor but only if its her in the gallows, otherwise doesn't find it funny at all. If a little kid calls someone a fartcicle she will be tears in the eyes giggling, which is hard when your warden commander and everyone looks toward you to be serious and mature gyshsdhdfsghsd.

C8. Is your OC more practical or ideal morally? I.e., do they hold people to high expectations of behavior even if it’s not realistic for the situation, or do they have a more realistic approach and adapt their morality to be more practical?

She definitely holds herself to moral ideals and is very hard on herself, but has realistic moral expectations for others. She can understand self serving and people only wanting to survive and she will only give people a little bit of shit for it, no one's perfect. But then she expects herself to be perfect and berates herself constantly for not living up to the hero of ferelden warden commander ideals.

D1. How religious is your OC? What do they practice, if anything? If they don’t associate with any religion, what do they think of religion in general?

Atheist ever since her mom died when she was a kid, but now Shes in a weird mixed state ever since the urn of sacred ashes where shes like. fuck the maker, but Andraste is cool I guess. So respects/believes in the power of Andraste while thinking the maker is a piece of shit and the chantry sucks ass. Even she doesnt know what she really believes, but she did see the ghosts of Andrastes disciples and Shartan, used her ashes as healing salve, killed an old god, etc. So shes been in a weird place recently, crisis of faith/non faith pretty continual.

I5. Are they a good cook?

I mean…. She can cook basics. Shes been feeding herself and the alienage kids since she was old enough to walk so she knows how to get protein and make things edible. Does it taste good? Probably not. She didnt see her first spice till she was 17 years old, but she can skin a rabbit in seven seconds.

LA9, A13, C1, E8, and G6 for Valkya? 😏

A9. Does your OC make a lot of excuses? For themselves? Others?

She tries to excuse bad behavior of herself or others a lot, yeah fgdgdsfhdhs. Mostly she doesnt have to make excuses for herself because she can wholeheartedly be like “yeah i fucked up but whatever im sexy and large and awesome and everyone loves me 🙄whatever baby” and when other people fuck up shes pretty sympathetic even though they are not as large nor as sexy. Shes very used to forgiving and excusing herself its totally alien to her when she really fucks up and is suddenly like wait… valkya…. Did bad?? What is this feeling. Shame?? Guilt?? IMPOSSIBLE.

A13. Does your OC have any phobias? If so, where did they come from?

She hates those giant bugs in morrowind and valenwood a whole fucking lot but I wouldnt exactly place it as a phobia. Those huge mosquitoes and haorvers got no respect but she really hates the morrowind bugs ever since they knocked her over and jumped her while she was pants down peeing drunk as hell in the sand :/ never forgave. Never forgot.

C1. Does your OC have a moral code? If not, how do they base their actions? If so, where does it come from, and how seriously do they take it?

She was raised in a healthy household that tought the basics, prety much “harming others needlessly, stealing, torture, rape, dessecrating the dead, being selfish and not doing right by others, etc etc all basic bad things” are her morals. Her morality is basically treat others how you want to be treated. And if they treat you badly, then have fun beating the shit out of them to show everyone else not to fuck with you. Its a pretty nordic morality in that way. Her morality is also since she was ‘blessed’ with being so large and strong, that she has to also look out for the little guy who cant protect themselves. So If someone treats them how valkya wouldn't want to be treated, then beat the shit out of the person harming them to show them the little guys got backup. Her parents raised her to be a hero and thats p much how she sees herself, which has its benefits and its fuckin problems.

E8. What’s one of your OC’s biggest regrets?

Fucking up Dem and Dariens relationship for sure dude :/ valkya always gonna be sulking over that one. She doesnt regret becoming a vestige, even though it would have made her so much happier not to be because it ended up saving so many people and the world. She regrets not spending more time with Naryu, regrets always having other life saving business she had to run off to, regrets not cherishing the time they had together. Regrets not telling Lyris how she feels, either. Regrets not being able to save as many people as she should have, regrets she wasnt stronger in coldharbor and didnt break out herself. But she tries not to think about it <3

G6. Do they have any favorite childhood memories?

When she was seven she once spent two months training to hold her breath underwater, because her cousin always held it longer and won the gold bet. She trained for hours almost drowning in the river until she could comfortably hold it for up to three minutes. During the next holiday when they all got together again the competitions were on and they both went under- her cousin won, holding their breath for four more minutes before they decided to come up. This was the first lesson she learned that shocked her world view- you always need to know your opponents capabilities. (after she lost 26 gold in the bets, her mother later had to inform her that her cousin was an argonian.)

[1meengreenie]

Greenie’s Year-End Media Reviews

Thought I’d do something new this year and talk about all of the media I enjoyed in 2021. If you want my take on stuff or would like recommendations if you have similar tastes as me then click below the break! I’m a nerd so it’s just like... anime and games haha.

Nothing is in any particular order, it’s just as I remember things.

Anime I Watched in 2021

(keep in mind I watch anime with subtitles so if the dubs of any of these are bad I wouldn’t know, haha)

The “Watch ODDTAXI Award”- ODDTAXI Please watch ODDTAXI it’s so good, haha.

This is a mystery anime! The main character is Odokawa, a taxi driver who interacts with a large and colorful cast of characters through driving them around the city. The hanging question throughout the show is “what happened to the missing girl,” though each episode presents new questions while answering others. It’s one of those shows where I can’t say much more about it because it would ruin the fun.

I watched this show as it was airing and every single week I kept saying “oh crap” and “oh god no why did it have to end like that” because I was so invested in the story. You might be able to figure out what “the deal” is before it’s revealed, but there were a lot of story bits that caught me off guard.

If you do give this show a try, I’d recommend reading the radio play translations over on the Wiki, since they ran together and the radio play reveals a bit more than what was in the show itself.

Tenchi Souzou Design-bu/Heaven’s Design Team

This is a great comedic anime that both animal lovers and artists can relate to (all those commission revisions), and it’s actually fairly educational, providing reasoning as to why different mythical creatures can’t exist and why stranger animals look the way they do. Want to know why owls have weird skeletons? This anime answers that and more.

The designers themselves are also really great and I love them all! My favorite character is probably Venus.

Inu to Neko/With a Dog AND a Cat, Every Day is Fun!

A series of shorts featuring the author of the manga living with her sweet dog and grumpy cat. If you need a little something cute to cheer yourself up, this show is perfect for that (assuming you like animals, of course). The contrast between the excitable, friendly Inu and irritable, sneaky Neko is great. Check out the manga too; the anime barely made a dent in adapting it.

I have a plush of Inu-chan and he’s adorable haha

Eden

An anime that takes place in the far future where the world is solely inhabited by robots rather than people. Easiest way to summarize the jist of this anime is “Wall-E but instead of a plant they find a human girl out of cryosleep.”

The plot can be kind of predictable (I guessed the twist reveal, for one) but it still emotionally destroyed me and I will admit that I cried multiple times. :’) Crazy-Uncle Robot is the best.

Digimon Ghost Game (in-progress)

This one is still in the early-stages of airing, but so far I’m really enjoying this season. For those familiar with older seasons of Digimon, I’d compare this one to a lite version of Tamers mixed with a bit of Appmon, as it has that “real world drama” combined with (so far at least) a “monster-of-the-week” type of story that focuses on how different Digimon cause problems for the people of the city.

I like all of the main cast so far (barring Jellymon; I just don’t care for her personality and Kiyoshiro is my favorite and she is just so mean to him haha). Gammamon is very adorable for a lead Digimon and his interactions with Hiro are so cute and it is going to destroy me when this series ends, knowing this franchise’s track record.

These aren’t from 2021 but I watched them in 2021-

Gyaru to Kyouryuu/Gal and Dino

Dino is one of the greatest characters of this generation and he is just so precious and funny and must be appreciated.

In all seriousness, this anime is completely weird, which isn’t a bad thing. There are segments of the show that are in a traditional anime style, web-video-themed bits that feature Dino attempting to do something simple, live action segments that are totally bizarre at times, and even little minigames like “spot Dino.”

This is a slice-of-life anime about a fashionable girl and a mute dinosaur living together, and the overall vibe of the show is just relaxing. If you need to chill out after a day at work or school, hang out with Kaede and Dino and friends. The ending theme is even vaporwave-y, how chill can you get?

Doukyonin wa Hiza, Tokidoki, Atama no Ue/My Roommate is a Cat

A man adopts a cat while visiting his parents’ grave. Ripping your heart out and driving over it with a big rig ensues.

The best way I can describe this anime is very cathartic? If you need a good cry this is a great anime for that. By the time I was done I was a wreck :’)

DISCLAIMER: THE CAT IS OKAY, REPEAT, SHE IS OKAY

Houkago Saikoro Club/After-School Dice Club

I loved this anime! It’s a bit formulaic and very much “cute girls doing cute things,” but as someone who’s always been interested in board/card games it was very interesting learning about all of the different games they played in each episode. You’ll want to check all of the games out yourself!

I relate to Miki way too much, haha.

Houkago Teibou Nisshi/Diary of Our Days at the Breakwater

Another school club anime, but instead of playing games, they’re going fishing! Again, made me want to try out fishing by the time I was done with it, haha.

Only problem I had with this one was their mentor/teacher, she’s... not the best role model for these poor girls.

Eh-

Digimon Adventure: (2020)

It’s... ok. And by ok I mean the only thing I really liked about this series was all of the monster-fanservice where they featured Digimon who have never made an anime appearance before (such as the new Pendulum guys). It’s very much “baby’s first Digimon anime” because everyone’s personalities are so flat and the stakes are incredibly low compared to previous seasons. I am really hoping that Ghost Game turns out much better, and so far it looks like it might be.

Games I Played in 2021-

The “Remastered My Childhood” Award- New Pokemon Snap!

For a sequel to a game that came out ages ago, NPS is amazing. It improves on the original in every possible way. There’s so much to do (so much to see, so what’s-), the ways the different Pokemon interact with each other is so cute/cool to see, getting the 4-star photos for everything is VERY difficult at times (looking at you, Minior and Jolteon/Joltik) and as icing on the cake, there was free DLC too?? I can see myself coming back to play this when I need a slightly more meaty experience than the original (which I still love, but it’s 100% beatable in one sitting for me after I’ve played it so many times haha).

Did you know that there’s a cameo referencing this game in Pokemon Secrets of the Jungle? When I first saw it I was like “YO IT’S THEM” haha

Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl

HGSS is still holding up as my all-time favorite Pokemon game. ...Ah, we’re talking about BDSP. As much flack at this game gets, I don’t really know what else could be done with it (aside from having Platinum’s post-game content; please give me the Battle Frontier back, I’m begging you GF, please, I’m dying over here). The Grand Underground is a vast improvement over the original, contests are a bit more fun (though part of me misses the stupid dress-up section), and I for one do not miss the original speed of the HP bars. :S

That being said, it’s lacking a bit of charm. And polish. As funny as all of the memes involving bugs and glitches are, a part of me kind of cringes seeing all of these huge problems present on the initial release copies of the game that required patching to fix.

Pokemon Wilds

This is actually a fangame, but I got really addicted to playing it for about two weeks. Best way I can describe it is “Minecraft (or Pixelmon would be more appropriate) combined with Pokemon Crystal.”

You get to wander around a vast map encountering wild Pokemon both in the overworld and in the tall grass as per usual, you can build structures, corral your Pokemon into pens, steal Pokemon eggs, explore dungeons like the Pokemon Mansion, etc. There’s a day/night system and the nighttime is actually pretty scary if you’re not expecting it to be.

It’s such a fun game and I absolutely loved playing it. I highly recommend trying it out if you can find it online.

Deltarune Chapter 2

I have had to re-type this review at least five times because every single time I’ve written it, I’ve written an entire novel about how much I love Spamton and the actual game review was like... 10% of the actual review. So tl;dr funny kromer man is my #1 husbando, I want to pay for his therapy, don’t @ me I already know V_V (He’s a good boy deep down, don’t give me that look ;~; )

In all seriousness, Toby and friends did an amazing job with this chapter. I enjoyed every single aspect of it and honestly I liked it better than Chapter 1. All of the characters were memorable (and creative), the music SLAPS, the pacing is great, the entire thing really just came together near-perfectly. I absolutely love things with this kind of aesthetic so I got invested in it more than the previous chapter, haha.

He got me to feel sorry for junk mail and advertising, what the hell Toby

Potassium

It Takes Two

Technically I haven’t beaten this game yet (my friend and I are playing it very slowly due to our schedules being different), but we’re about 85% done with it.

This game is a blast to play and I’d definitely recommend it for anyone who wants to sit and play something with a friend for a good chunk of time (our playthrough is on 14 hours so far but we get distracted by objects in the environment very easily haha; the game has a TON of little fun things to play around with).

The story is a tad bit serious (I’ve been referring to it as Divorce: The Game), but there is still quite a bit of humor. We both want to punt Dr. Hakim into orbit haha.

The other games I played this year either weren’t noteworthy enough to talk about (ie. very short itch.io games that I don’t have any real commentary for) or they’re games that I’ve already played before and am revisiting/still playing (ex. Pokemon Cafe Remix, ACNH, Stardew, etc.)

I’d say I was satisfied with this year. I know a lot of people weren’t, but it allowed me to get through a backlog of stuff I’ve been meaning to get through. A large portion of the year was spent watching Twitch vods so I got to experience a lot of new games through those.

Thanks for reading! I hope next year is just as good if not better.

[halloweenismyfav]

《 Here's Mallory's relationship list! Up next is Thorn's. I included my other OCs here too, along with RSA! (You can clearly see which ones I've thought of more) This is a long one, so buckle up. 》

Mallory Robinett's Relationships

Heartslabyul

Riddle Rosehearts: Mallory has a strange fascination with Riddle. She was a Disney gal when on Earth, Alice in Wonderland being her favorite movie they made. She kinda hated the Queen of Hearts since she was all high and mighty, but when she saw Riddle...all she thought was "omg smol tsun tsun". After his overblot, she held him close and allowed him to hide his tears. Riddle finds her obsession fascination with him a bit odd, but he's seen weirder in his own dorm, so he just lets her do her thing and is her friend nonetheless.

Trey Clover: "Big brother Trey". That's pretty much it. One time, Mallory told Trey about chocolate-hazelnut wafers and how she loved them back on Earth, so he made them for her after. She was delighted and it's become tradition for them since. He's basically her big bro. It's pretty wholesome.

Cater Diamond: Mallory finds Cater a bit annoying, she won't lie. She just finds the whole "influencer" thing a bit odd. Other than that, she doesn't entirely mind Cater. They don't talk all too often however, so they don't know each other too well. Mallory hopes to have that change before they graduate or before she goes home.

Ace Trappola: If these two are seen together, you may wanna run. Mallory and Ace are pretty much inseparable after finally getting along during Heartslabyul's episode. Mallory will admit, she finds Ace attractive, and she's said it to him before on a couple occasions. She may feel more than just that, but she doesn't like love and stuff like that, so she tries to ignore her rapidly beating heart whenever she's with Ace...

Deuce Spade: Deuce is one of the few people who sees Mallory's sweet side. She always makes sure he stays in line and if he starts to go all delinquent-mode, she pulls a "pull it together major". Of course, that's only if he starts to go overboard. Mallory knows what it's like to feel like a disappointment to a parent, so she reassures Deuce that it'll get better if he's truly wanting to be better.

Thorn Valley: Oh, these two despise each other. The only thing they can agree on is that they dislike Leona and that's pretty much it. Some people at NRC like to say they're like an old married couple(mainly Cater) and they always have to clarify that they hate each other. They can tolerate each other during events like Fairy Gala and such, but even then, they'll still bicker.

Savanaclaw

Leona Kingscholar: Another person Mallory hates! She finds Leona's laziness a menace, while he gets a kick out of annoying her. Their relationship is similar to how Vil and Leona act to put it bluntly. They do have similar humor though, so it's strange whenever someone else sees them laughing together.

Ruggie Bucchi: One time Ruggie stole her sandwich and she makes sure he'll never live it down. Knowing he had a rough time back in the Afterglow Savana however, she tones it down by a lot. She knows he's a gremlin, but she also knows that he's a human like anyone else and tries to treat him with some kind of kindness and respect. They don't talk all too often, but they've talked enough to be considered a bit more than acquaintances.

Jack Howl: He gives her piggyback rides more often than you would think, but it's always cause she asks if he can. He can't say no to her face, he doesn't know why, so he goes along with it. He finds her more as his sister than anything, Mallory finding the feeling mutual. She loves to hang out with him and Epel, but the one time that Jack offered her to come with him and Vil to jog, she backed up ten feet and said no.

Octavinelle

Azul Ashengrotto: Mallory was infuriated when Azul took Ramshackle away from her and Grim for those couple days. She was doing that thing where she was telling Adeuce and Jack to "hold her (nonexistent) earrings" or to "hold her back". After finding out his backstory however, she softened, even if only by a bit. Her relationship with him got better after Scarabia's incident.

Jade Leech: Mallory doesn't like Jade, but she doesn't hate him either. He's probably the most tolerable person in Octavinelle to her. She was also close to slapping Jade once. She doesn't interact with him too often, so she can only go off of how he was during Octavinelle and Scarabia's episode.

Floyd Leech: Floyd is the vain of Mallory's existence. During the Octavinelle episode, she almost slapped him into oblivion. She honestly can't tell who she hates more, Thorn, Leona, or Floyd. He's constantly trying to "squeeze" her like he does with everyone else and she can't stand it. She doesn't like to talk to him and tries to avoid him when she can.

Marius Seymour: Mallory doesn't entirely mind Marius. She kinda finds his sadistic-ish personality a bit annoying, but she's learned that it's a reoccuring thing in Octavinelle. Marius' sadism isn't as bad as the other three. She lowkey ships him with Ashe and isn't shy about it. She finds him kinda fun to be around and likes to eat with him at lunch from time to time.

Scarabia

Kalim Al-Asim: The first time she talked to him, she knew that he was so precious and was wondering if he belonged at RSA. He's also one of the few people to see Mallory's sweet side. She can't bring herself to be sarcastic with him, so she acts almost entirely different with him. It basically goes as such...

----

Mallory: *being all sweet it Kalim*

Everyone else: Wow...

Mallory: What?

Everyone else: You're just so nice to him...

Mallory: Oh, I'm sorry, do you want me to yell?!

Everyone else: No-!

----

Jamil Viper: Mallory's...indifferent to Jamil. She almost slapped him after his overblot, yes, but she doesn't entirely hate him. She knows he was in Kalim's shadow for so long, so she doesn't have too much against him. She still isn't happy with how he treated and hypnotized Kalim, but she tries to let it go as much as her heart and brain will let her. She doesn't talk to him much after his overblot, but if she needs to talk to him, she won't throw a tantrum.

Pomefiore

Vil Schoenheit: At first, Mallory thought that she'd hate Pomefiore, especially Vil. But...she saw and heard how much effort it took for Vil to get to where he is now, so she has a lot of respect for him. For Ghost Marriage, he chose an outfit for her so that she fit the theme of the event and she actually liked his outfit choices. It was a dress, which she tends to hate, but she genuinely enjoyed wearing it. She may not talk to him a whole lot, but she respects him greatly. After his overblot, that respect and empathy went up even more.

Rook Hunt: Mallory, like many others at NRC, finds Rook weird and creepy. She already found the fact that he has photos on his walls creepy, but then he lists off her, ADeuce and Grim's height, class, and seat number. She tries to avoid him at all costs, similar to Floyd. She hates how he randomly pops up behind her and the others too.

Epel Felmier: Mallory loves Epel! She likes to hang out with him, Jack, and Deuce. She's trying to learn how to carve apples, though she's gained many cuts on her fingers because of it, the cuts always bandaged up by Epel. Since she's taller than him, she likes to use him as an arm-rest from time to time, much to Epel's demise. All in all, she adores him and wishes the best for him.

Ashe Aspen: Mallory finds Ashe fun, but they don't talk as often as she'd like. He's really tall, so she likes when he gives her piggyback rides too. She's witnessed his truly scary side, and she's sworn to never make him mad since. Similar to Ruggie, they may not talk much, but they've talked enough to be considered a bit more than acquaintances.

Ignihyde

Idia Shroud: Best of friends. Specifically BGFFs, "Best Gamer Friends Forever". Idia introduced Mallory to a bunch of games in Twisted Wonderland and she couldn't put them down. They talk whenever they can and everyone is shocked when Mallory says she's Idia's friend. She likes his hair a lot too.

Ortho Shroud: Mallory finds Ortho like the younger sibling she never had but always wanted. She always makes sure he's ok, telling him that he can come to her if he ever needs to talk. She also thought that he did amazing during the VCD Auditions.

Diasomnia

Malleus Draconia: She knows for a fact that if she was still her same seven year old self, she'd want him to give her a piggyback ride so she could hold his horns. Mallory finds his innocent outlook on some things adorable, but more in a sense of "wow he's pure" rather than romantically. For the most part though, their relationship is the same as it's portrayed in the game.

Lilia Vanrouge: They have a relationship like Mallory does with Riddle, just flip it around. Lilia seems to be fascinated by her, seeing as she's a human from another world while he's a fae who's lived for hundreds of years. She may be taller than him, but he always floats above the ground so he's at least her height. She finds him fun to hang with, so she's fine with his strange fascination.

Sebek Zigvolt: She finds him too loud, but she appreciates his devotion to Malleus. Sometimes it concerns her, but other than that, she respects it. They don't talk often, but she kinda wants that to change soon. Other than that, he's the member she's the least close to.

Silver: They're cuddling buddies and don't even know it. Mallory spends a lot of time in Diasomnia, so naturally she is close with the dorm's members. She likes to crash in Silver's room at times, so that's how they became secret cuddle buddies.

Other

Dire Crowley: Mallory finds it kinda fun to toy with Crowley, but found it incredibly annoying when he left to go on vacation during Scarabia's episode. Although it's something she'd never admit, Mallory sees Crowley as that fun and strange father she never got to have.

Divius Crewel: She hates him with a lot of her being. She hates how he treats them all like dogs. However, when there are those few times he's nice to her and makes sure she doesn't make an explosion in Alchemy, she's thankful.

Mozus Trein: She finds his class pretty boring, but she loves playing with his cat. She does appreciate when Trein gives her extra help if she doesn't understand something revolving around Twisted Wonderland's history.

Ashton Vargas: Mallory is a bit indifferent to Vargas. While he can be nice to her, she finds him a bit odd. She does however appreciate how Vargas makes sure she takes care of her physical and mental health.

Libi Koko: Libi and Mallory are pretty much the best of friends. Since Libi is one of the few females in NRC with Mallory, it feels nice that she can talk to someone who understands some issues they may have that the guys don't. They have a lot of inside jokes and, again, Libi is one of the few poeple who have seen Mallory's sweet side.

Che'nya: Prank duo, right here. If they're together, it's like an Ace and Mallory situation, but worse. Since they go to different schools, they can't talk often, but they managed to exchange numbers who knows when just a bit after the Heartslabyul incident. Sometimes, Che'nya likes to give Mallory hugs, but he's always invisible and know one except Mallory can tell he's there. He likes to tease Mallory a bit, much to her slight demise, so she's started to do the same. It's an endless cycle now.

Neige LeBlanche: Mallory already adored Neige the first time she met him. Her first thought was "he's baby. I must protect". They may not talk often, due to being in different schools, but they exchanged numbers to ensure that they still had the ability to talk. Neige is in a situation similar to Kalim in terms of how sweet Mallory is.

[le-switch]

Yes, that’s right, 125 pecking headcanons

This has been in my notes for way too long dfjkdf

I’ve been writting down headcanons for the switch in time au for a while. I stopped doing that now so i thought i might as well share what i got done

@switch-in-time It is time- JK you already saw these

💫 Empress thinks the other kids are really cool but doesn't wanna admit it 💫 After sneaking through the manor, Snatch started to strongly dislike cold weather, and even became a little afraid of it 💫 Moonjumper also started to dislike cold weather, just not as much as his brother 💫 The florist is taller than everyone else. She makes fun of everyone for it but will stop if someome gets actually upset 💫 Grooves prefers instrumental music over lyrical music, since he can create his own lyrics for them 💫 Despite being a very popular and talktative kid, Grooves doesn't feel comfortable enough to sing in front of others yet 💫 Connie is the only one who has heard Grooves' singing voice. It was an accident, but he doesn't regret it 💫 Empress would be nicer if everyone taught her how to do the things they are able to do (Like MoonJumper's arts and crafts, for example) 💫 The moon penguins got to know each other thanks to Grooves, and they'll always be grateful to have him as a friend 💫 The express owls already knew each other before meeting Connie 💫 The express owls know that Connie isn't really as mean as he pretends to be, and they all care for him 💫 Hattie's bed is not hers anymore. It was completely invaded by the kids and she now mostly sleeps in her pillow fort 💫 Split Nessa is more unorganized than Gen Nessa, since her appereance doesn't really matter anymore 💫 Snatch stole everyone's left socks at some point 💫 Split Snatch and MoonJumper have an ant farm and they love every single one of their ants 💫 Connie and Grooves will overdramatize everything since they wanna be actors, no matter how mudane the situation is 💫 Mafia Bab once tried to "kidnap" Mu by trying to block her way with chairs. It did not work 💫 To join the mafia you must shave your hair since "Mafia boss is only mafia member allowed to have hair" 💫 Split Snatch and Moonjumper can't be found separated from each other. If you see one of them alone, the other must be nearby 💫 Nessa is usually very polite and shy, but once she's comfortable around you she can become a little bratty 💫 Everyone thinks Split Snatch is adorable and he hates it 💫 Empress doesn't like to play in mud 💫 After being defeated in his "boss battle", Snatch became so exhausted he accidentaly fell asleep on Hattie 💫 MoonJumper loves to swim and play with water 💫 Snatch on the other side, hates water and it's a pain to force him to bath 💫 Empress was supossed to get temporary glasses after her eye got scarred but she refused, and will refuse for the rest of her life 💫 Every kid has called Hattie "Mom" at least once. Most of them are accidents tho 💫 Nessa is the only one who hasn't called Hattie "Mom" by accident because they're all on purpose 💫 Shapeshifter is one of the kids Connie considers an "enemy" since the day they tricked him into giving them his nuggies 💫 Shapeshifter also wants to be an actor like Connie and Grooves, but their shyness wont let them even practice 💫 The Prince from the Split timeline was a Gemini 💫 Every mafia kid wants to be an actual mafioso when they grow up, except for one, who wants to be a paranormal investigator 💫 Despite wanting to be a paranormal investigator, this particular mafia kid is afraid of paranormal stuff. He's trying his best tho.... I'm talking about Goofy Mafia obviously- 💫 The Subcon trio once played 'Kingdom' and Nessa got to play as queen. They never played this game again 💫 Mafia bab and Goofy Mafia were the most hurt by Mu's betrayal, and yet, they were the first kids to forgive her 💫 Snatch was caught trying to steal Hattie's cereal once. Instead of giving it back like a normal child, he started to run yelling it was HIS cereal now 💫 Empress used to like theater until she learned it was for "nerds" 💫 Split Snatch is not an actual ghost despite being like one. He still has to eat, sleep, breath and has a heartbeat 💫 How are babies made? This is a question only Badge knows the answer to 💫 Mafia bab and Goofy Mafia love pizza but the other Mafia kids like hamburguer better 💫 Connie can, and will bite your legs if you make him mad, wich is very often so you better wear long pants 💫 It's very hard to make Grooves mad, but if you do, he'll give you the silent treatment 💫 When Snatch gets sick he will either take full advantage of the situation or pretend he's perfectly fine and push himself to his limit 💫 Mafia bab to Empress: What do you MEAN theater is for nerds??? 💫 Shapeshifter likes to hang out with the penguins and Grooves the most 💫 After a while, Snatch learned that calling any of the alien gals "mom" is the ultimate manipulative move 💫Goofy Mafia and Mafia bab, despite having pretty much opossite personalities, get along so well to the point of being considered best friends 💫 Mafia bab somehow recognizes and knows the names of every single one of the Mafia kids 💫 Mu subconsciously plays favorites. She can't help it, she has to take care of almost 100 kids, if not more 💫 Nessa has a small crush on Snatch. The feeling is, sadly, not mutual 💫 Snatch snatches Nessa's crown sometimes. He likes to pretend he's a king 💫 Mu's cape looks REALLY messy and it's mostly an amalgamate of stitches and fabric. That's because Mafia made it. It was a Mafia gift 💫 Goofy Mafia's other best friend is Thor. Thor would like it better if he spoke like a normal person tho 💫 Bow is a GREAT actress. She can save entire shows with the power of her presence alone 💫 The reason Snatch is more afraid of Victoria than MJ is because he was the closest to being caught. This means he got to see her eyes and the cold stare she always carries with them 💫 This may sound ironic but Snatch strongly dislikes snowball fights. He'd rather build a snowman while drinking hot cocoa 💫The only way Snatch and Empress get along is when it's winter and neither of them want to go outside 💫 Shapeshifter and Empress both have a massive sweet tooth 💫 Thor eventually manages to break Goofy Mafia's habit of speaking in third person. The Mafia kids are confused and Mafia bab is scared 💫 When Nessa gained a lot more confidence, she started to show public affection towards Snatch with the sole purpose of making him flustered. He hates it 💫 Thor can tell when Mafia bab breaks his stuff on accident, even if he tries to pretend it was on purpose. He can identify when he's nervious or guilty 💫 When Split Snatch gets REALLY mad, he burts into flames. The Fire spirits love when this happens 💫 When someone dies, they are given the options of going to the afterlife, stay as a Subconite if they feel like they died before it was their time, or stay as a Dweller to guard the forest if they don't have any issues left but want to be helpful 💫 The Dwellers don't remember their past life, since it'd get in the way of their duties. However, they can feel conections to those who were close to them 💫 If you were really REALLY close to a Dweller when they were alive, they might give you a flower 💫 A particular Dweller gave Nessa a flower once. She was really confused but felt the need to keep it anyways 💫 The swamp tries to drown Hattie at first, for she is an intruder. However the forest eventually warms up to her and stops trying to harm her 💫 Even if the forest didn't warm up to her it would've made no difference since the Subcon trio likes her 💫 The forest also may or may not be a little jealous of the kids' attachment to Hattie. Especially the Split timeline's forest 💫 Goofy Mafia learned about the types of cables and what they're useful for against his will. Guess who taught him 💫 Thor learned about far away planets and the life forms they might contain against his will. G u e s s w h o- 💫 Empress calls Snatch adorable nicknames like 'Marshmallow'. Don't missunderstand, she does this in a mocking way with the sole purpose of making him mad 💫 When Snatch and Empress fight, it's never certain who will win. The Mafia kids like to bet when it happens in front of them 💫 Split Snatch can sing decently. He usually gets the notes right, but he's not a great singer either, so he almost never sings. Gen Snatch's voice cracks every time he tries 💫 Star kid is a very good writter. They make whole stories by their own and sometimes help Grooves with the creation of his songs 💫 Goofy Mafia actually, geniuenly needs his weird swirled glasses to see 💫 Thor convinces Goofy Mafia to be as nerdy as he wants to be. Being a "cool boy" is overrated anyways 💫 The one thing Mu succesfully taught Mafia bab is that beating kids that can't or won't fight back is stupid. It's not like you win something from it. It's not even fun 💫 Snatch is surprisingly good at strategy videogames. One would think he'd mindlessly go for the strongest attack in rpgs, but he doesn't 💫 Goofy Mafia can, and will kick your butt in racing games like Mario kart 💫 Empress is a natural in fighting games. She knows and plays games she really shouldn't. Like Mortal Kombat 💫 Thor and MJ prefer games where you build and take care of a place 💫 Empress is great at biology. She knows body parts, functions and where to stike to kill you. She doesn't want to be grounded for life tho, so don't worry too much about it 💫 Hattie interrupted a Mafia theater play once. The options she inmediately thought about for that situation were -Say sorry and leave -Play dead -Sweat a lot and stand there awkwardly 💫 Thor can be VERY sassy when he wants to be 💫 Goofy Mafia eventually learns about the power of sass thanks to local goggle boy. He barely uses that himself tho 💫 One of Snatch's biggest dreams is to bite Victoria's ankles 💫 Goofy Mafia makes sure that everything "behind scenes" goes without problem at the Mafia theater when there's a play. He even has a checklist 💫 The checklist is actually nothing but scribbles no one except him can understand 💫 Hattie started a "Too self-conscious to act/sing in front of crowds" club to try and help some kids and herself to be more confident in that aspect 💫 Since Goofy Mafia is like the theater's manager he rarely acts in plays. But he's surprisingly good at playing villains. This confuses E V E R Y O N E, no exceptions 💫 Thor often visits Alpine Skyline when he gets tired of being in Mafia Town. He does this especially when he's working on small projects that don't require big tools or too much material 💫 Little Grooves tried to befriend Empress once. Keyword Tried 💫 Caw agents are the type of children that will carefully observe their toys to see if they move after watching Toy Story 💫 Mu hesitated for a second in The Finale when she saw that both Goofy Mafia and Mafia bab were scared of her 💫 Caw agents often say the same thing at the same time when talking to someone else. No one knows how they do it 💫 Caw agents can be described as 'those kids everyone says are weird, but secretly think they're cool' 💫 Warm weather: Nessa, Empress, Snatch, Connie, MJ, Starkid, Express owls, Hattie, most Mafia kids, Mafia bab 💫 Cold weather: Mu, Grooves, Moon Penguins, Caw agents, Goofy Mafia, Thor, Cookie, Cap'n Warlus and his crew 💫 Both are good: Shapeshifter, Badge, Bow, The Nomads, Nyakuza cats 💫 Nessa spaces out often when not in the manor. Don't laugh at her if she crashes into something or someone when walking, it's already embarasing enough 💫 Badge may not talk much but when they do it's always something wise or confusing that leaves people thinking. Goofy Mafia loves it 💫 Just so you know, wise and confusing can also mean out of place and things kids shouldn't know yet 💫 Badge likes snakes and snakes like them back 💫 Nessa doesn't know how to write things other than her name. Her mother told her that's the only thing she needs to know how to write so she can sign stuff 💫 Split Snatch taught his Nessa how to write. Gen Snatch tried with his, but he's more impatient 💫 Victoria moves similar to a snake when mad. Her massive hair starts moving slightly like tentacles, giving her a medusa-like look. What makes it so scary is that she remains calm and calculating when moving like that 💫 Nessa hates her name. There's people who actually believe her name is Nessa and not Vanessa because she never introduces herself like that 💫 Don't forget that despite that, Nessa is still Vanessa in a sense. She can get REALLY clingy. They're working on it 💫 Mafia kids are REALLY strong. They can take a lot of damage and hit hard 💫 Goofy Mafia is not strong. At all. He is however w a y more agile than the other Mafia kids 💫 Thor doesn't find Mafia bab as annoying when he's geniuenly thinking and trying to understand something. It's even endearing sometimes 💫 Cookie is, unsurprisingly, not very good at acting. But she sometimes plays secondary characters in Mafia plays, since some of those characters might need a more unique look and Mafia kids can't provide that all the time 💫 Empress, after a l o t of self-convincing attended one of the "nerd plays" to see Cookie act, and saw how she rarely fit her roles 💫 Cookie expected Empress to regain at least a little bit of her former love for theater with the play she attended to. She didn't 💫Mafia bab once told Goofy Mafia that he would teach him how to be tough. He didn't believe him, and it didn't really work anyway. If anything it was Thor who taught how to be tough 💫 Empress forces the Nyakuza cats to watch Cookie's cooking tutorials. They ended up liking them so it's not that bad 💫 in stressful situations Goofy Mafia will often hide behind Mafia bab. If he doesn't then Mafia bab will automatically put himself in front of him, so it might as well just happen 💫 Subcon's favorite holiday is halloween. They adore it and will put a lot of attention to detail. Even the queen enjoys some parts of it 💫 The reason Victoria enjoys some of it is because she chooses a group of random people to terrorize all night 💫 The candy for halloween is not for the children. It's for the people Victoria keeps up all night, and it's their decision if they wanna share it with children 💫 Mu actually lives in a cave. She can actually get a normal home, but the cave is cooler and bigger 💫 Mafia was not born in "Mafia Town". One beautiful night Mu woke up to find 100+ children, all of them asleep in boats 💫 If you ask Thor what the worst day of his life was, he'd tell you it was day he woke up to a bunch of random children running around in the usually pacific and quiet town, only to have one of them yell at the top of his lungs that they were staying 💫 Shape can be very forgetful sometimes. Don't call them out if they say "happy birthday" 10 times on your birthday

[mor-beck-more-problems]

Juice Box || Morgan & Cece

TIMING: Current

PARTIES: @thebickedwitchoftherest & @mor-beck-more-problems

SUMMARY: Oh, right. The box. The box from Roy. The box stolen specifically from Roy. Roy’s box.

CONTAINS: ex-roomie shenanigans

Morgan would have gone to see Cece after she was out of the hospital anyway. She felt awful about what had happened at the morgue, and how it had probably cost her a friend, at least for a while. And then there was whatever weird pain and damage a banshee scream would have on human ears. Something like guilt twisted in her stomach as she adjusted in her old spot on the couch and set her water glass on Cece’s coffee table. This wasn’t anything directly to do with her, but she could probably afford to be a better friend than she had been lately. But maybe a little magic research would be a good distraction from the awfulness around them. They’d had enough adventures like this before, maybe Morgan was just feeling nostalgic for earlier times. “So,” she said, nodding at the box, which sat perched on a stack of books she’d brought over. “Any ideas?”

After the morgue incident, Cece was happy to relax at home with something to distract herself. She had felt a surprising amount of guilt following the incident in the hospital. In her less than 48 hour stay she had managed to piss off Grace and steal the memories from Janus the janitor. Both in an attempt to cover the tracks of a woman who refused to talk to her. Maybe Regan had been right, trying to build a friendship with a coworker or boss was a bad idea. It certainly seemed overrated at the moment. Morgan had enlisted Cece’s help to study this magic box. Cece didn’t have all the details yet, but was slowly pressing for more before attempting to open it herself. Before, when Morgan and Cece had discovered a magical artifact used when those lobsters were hanging about the artifact that drained magic. They had been able to quell it by working together and sharing the magic between the two. If this were a similar situation, Morgan didn’t have the same magical abilities she had before. “Well I’m sure it’s magically locked. Probably needs a spellcaster to open it. But I don’t know exactly how to open it. Or if it’s boobytrapped. What context can you give me about the box?”

Morgan laughed uneasily. “Uh, promise not to hate me?” She flashed Cece a sheepish look as she brought it onto her lap and ran her fingers over the markings on the surface again. “It belongs to a crime boss. Some undead asshole named Roy something or whatever. He’s after a friend of mine and she’s hoping to figure some stuff out so he can’t, you know, bump her off so easy. It’s important to him, enough that it was kinda hard to steal. This sigil here--” Morgan pointed to one and held it out for Cece to look at, “Gets used a lot in containment rituals, like when you’re trying to seal something up. It’s a little intense, so maybe whatever’s in here is volatile, or rare, or ephemeral somehow. Problem is, I can’t figure out these--” she pointed to the row of markings along the lid. “Are. Probably if I had done my homework a little more in grade school, I could read it. But I thought I’d ask my genius witchy friend instead of renting a time machine, you know?”

“A crime boss eh? I feel like I’m in a heist movie or something.” Cece wiggled her eyebrows and leaned around the box to study the sigils as Morgan pointed them out to her. She discarded the wine glass she had been holding, abandoning it on the coffee table as she studied the signs closer. “I guess I don’t want to know what a friend of yours is doing pissing off a crime boss?” Actually, Cece very much did want to know. As much as Cece had seen, a crime boss wasn’t something that she had spent a lot of time around. Cece loved trying new things. “They’re a mixture of things from the looks of it.” Cece slid off the couch and onto her knees on the floor, pressing her face close enough to the box that her breath fogged up the silver of the box. “Please, Morgan. Flattery will get you everywhere. Some of these are more containment spells, but some-” Cece pointed at the symbols as she described them, “Are hexes. I can’t tell exactly what they’re supposed to do. But my guess is that it’s a last ditch effort to keep the contents safe in case someone got it open.”

“Uuuuhhhh…” Morgan’s voice lilted up shrilly. Cece had enough mischief in her to pass for fae. It wasn’t hard to figure that she did want to know, but the whole criminal justice system thing was still...a lot for Morgan to wrap her head around. “I could tell you, but you definitely can’t tell your boss. I don’t think she’d be happy knowing I’m a corrupting influence. I’ve lost count of how much weird shit we’ve gotten up to together by this point. You’d think the whole me being dead thing would mean less trouble, but I think we’re getting worse.” She smirked as she spoke, and angled herself in as many weird ways as she needed to look at the hexes Cece had identified. “You ever wish people would just print out a nice label on these things? Like, beware, magic dynamite inside! Or, angry bloodclingers within! But, that looks kinda like some Irish curses I’ve seen in this book… Doesn’t it feel weird to you how light it is?”

Morgan set the box between them and reached over for the book in question, flipping through the pages too quickly to find what she was looking for.“Hey--” she said, turning the pages slowly now. You’d say if you weren’t okay, right?”

“Yeah, well. My boss and I aren’t exactly on speaking terms right now anyways.” And by that, Cece meant that Regan was not on speaking terms with Cece. Despite the repeated attempts on Cece’s part. The whole thing was bullshit. Especially considering that despite this, Cece had still gone out of her way to make sure that no one poked their heads around Regan’s business or questioned her abilities to do her job. “That being said, I love the idea that you’d be able to corrupt me. I for one cherish every moment we share getting dragged into some crazy shit.” Cece laughed. Sometimes it was easy to forget that Morgan had died. Especially since she hadn’t seen it for herself, “Well there’s nothing like the afterlife, am I right?” Cece had to admit that Morgan had a point. It would sure make things a hell of a lot easier. “Witches are way too dramatic to do anything as simple as that, unfortunately. They can never make anything easy.” Morgan pointed out how light it was and Cece had to agree, leaning in closer but not being able to tell anything further. “This whole thing feels weird to me. What would a crime boss need with a magically sealed box? There must be more than meets the eye with this guy. If I’m careful, I should be able to strip the hexes before I start working on getting the box itself open. But keep reading to see if you find anything I don’t know.”

The distraction wasn’t enough, since Morgan decided now was a good time to dive into the personal questions. “Me? Almost certainly not.” Cece laughed the question off. After a moment, she decided to not completely brush the question off, “If you’re asking about the morgue then I’m fine. I’ve had worse done to me than some exploding glass and an earache.” Cece hadn’t told anyone about her days with the coven but figured Morgan would be one of the few she would trust with the information. At least some of the information. Cece didn’t need all of her skeletons dancing around the house. “Nothing that a few glasses of wine and solving a mystery with you can’t solve.” As far as not talking about issues went, Cece wasn’t the only offender, “What about you?”

Morgan scrunched her face up in a way Cece was long familiar with. “I didn’t just mean that,” she said. “But that is good to know. I just… I mean as much as I can’t imagine leaving here anytime soon, I know it can be really cruel sometimes. And you’re all Miss Tough Gal with a smile, but you don’t have to be like that all the time, you know? I just don’t want you to slip through the cracks just because I’m not here so much anymore. I’ve been kinda swept up lately, but I do care about you, tough gal and all. And not just because you do so many nice favors. But if you’re good or you wanna say you’re good, then that’s…good. And, oh, you know me. Cursed or not cursed, apparently there’s always something. Lots of gory details we didn’t make it to sharing on the dash.”

It took Morgan a few more pages to find what she was looking for, but she hesitated before showing the witch, just in case there was more to say.

Cece supposed there was no better time than now to discuss this, though Cece usually preferred any serious conversation be prefaced with a lot of alcohol. More than Cece had drunk so far. More than Cece probably had in the house. “Honestly? I’ve always been like this. Full disclosure, I was in a coven before I came to town. Things didn’t end so well with them and it always keeps me a bit on edge. Even before joining the coven, I wasn’t really one to take life super seriously. I had a pretty laid back childhood with a surprising lack of trauma so I guess when I turned eighteen life decided I had to make up for it.” Cece talked with an airiness, trying to show Morgan that she was trying to be sincere without trying to sound too much like she was whining about her past. “I have plenty of things that should keep me up at night, but I promise the injuries from the morgue aren’t one of them. I’ll seriously be okay. But trust me, even living apart I know you’ve got my back. Same to you.” Gory details didn’t exactly inspire confidence. “Yeah, what the hell? I thought you were done with the whole curse and ghost bullshit? Because ‘gory details’” Cece made finger quotations to match with her tone, “doesn’t sound very fun.”

Morgan listened thoughtfully, smiling wistfully at the thought of a good or ‘before’ times that lasted longer than eight or twelve years. But how awful, still, to know exactly the stability you were losing. To never be able to exhale or relax. Well, that part Morgan  knew too well. Maybe that had something to do with why they got along so easily. You had to keep things light when you had one eye on the present and one over your shoulder. “Those are some pretty ominous Sparknotes. I’m starting to take back all those times tiny me wished for a real coven besides just my parents. If any of them come knocking, you’ll holler though, yeah? Partial magic immunity makes for a great zombie perk in a pinch.” Morgan smirked at Cece’s question to her. Fun was...definitely not a word to use for this. “You’d be right,” she said. “I...honestly don’t know what the sparknotes version of that is. So maybe you’ll have to drag me into a sequel session just to find out.” She huffed and held out the book. “Found our guy. Check out the common uses. What does ‘source’ even mean? Like...power source? Is that a real thing?”

“I’ll keep that in mind. But fingers crossed I never see any of them again.” Cece laughed, although the idea of any of her former coven members finding Cece’s location and showing up in town was anything but a laughing matter. Something told her they wouldn’t want to catch up. And if they did, Morgan wasn’t who she would want to get involved although she made a good point about the magical immunities. Cece had always figured that her best bet if any of them were to show up in town would be to count her losses and cut and run. As the two had talked, Cece slowly worked on rubbing the hexes away from the box. It was more exhausting than it looked, a constant string of magic being poured into her fingertips in order to break the seals without cursing herself into oblivion. Whatever those hexes did, Cece didn’t want to find out. “You’ve got yourself a deal. You. Me. Pick another night and get drunk off our asses. You can give me the sparknotes version of your story and I can try to elaborate a bit on mine. It’ll be a good time.” Morgan found something in the book and leaned over to see what she had found. A power source? It didn’t mean much at first, until she remembered that Morgan had mentioned that he was undead. Cece still couldn’t be sure, but suddenly something started to make sense. “Holy shit.” Cece let go of the box for a moment. “You said undead, right? Do you know what kind?” If they didn’t then…. “I think this is a fext. And if I’m right- yikes.” Cece didn’t know how else to describe it. Cece had heard of fext from the coven. To witches, they were a sort of horror story or monster under the bed type. A monster whose special power was stealing the magic from witches. Was there any fate worse than that in the eyes of a coven? “If he is a fext- then I have a feeling that I know what’s in this box too. I think I have all the hexes cancelled out. Now I just have to pop the thing open. Give me a minute.”

“A--a what?” Morgan stammered. She hadn’t thought about fexts in a really long time. Some old witchy wives tales, stories her mother would tell her to scare her into behaving one day and dismiss as folklore the next. It was never anything to devote a lot of headspace to. “Those are--real? They’re like what...witchy-vampires?” She searched Cece’s expression. Her friend looked very serious and certain. “What’s the big yikes? Can he do weird creepy magic things to normal humans? I mean, I know he set her house on fire, but does this mean there’s worse things? Magic things? Wait--” She gaped, mouth dropping as the pieces aligned themselves in her mind. “Is that--does mean there’s just...raw magic in there?” That definitely explained why it was so light for something that was supposed to be important. “Are you sure you want to open that? Is it going to--- do something?”

“Exactly. Or something like that at least.” Cece couldn’t speak with any certainty. She had never seen one for herself. “The coven used to talk about them. Supposedly they can drain magic from spellcasters and then use their magic.” No word on whether the witch lost their magic completely or not, but all the horror stories claimed they did. Could just be a part of the chill factor, though. “Exactly. Chances are that fire was taken from another witch.” Cece nodded her head. Chances were that it was. The problem was, without seeing for themselves they had no idea what kind of magic it was. That wasn’t going to help Morgan’s friend. “I don’t know. Things could go bad. But knowing what kind of magic is stored in here might help your friend.” She couldn’t guarantee it. For all the things that didn’t scare Cece, this one at least made her a by apprehensive. “Moment of truth. Do we open it or not?”

“Shit.” Morgan took the box for herself, looking it over. “Why couldn’t I be a dead witchy vampire?” She grumbled. “I mean, obviously: very spooky. That is some dark, sketchy shit and a hard diet to work with sustainably. I’m just saying, it wouldn’t be the worst thing if I could work some magic after death. Why do things like this have to happen to assholes who light funeral homes on fire and run underground organ trading rings? That’s just not fair, is all I’m saying.” She examined the markings and little groove the lid depended on. “I’m a little worried about what would happen if we did open it. Hypothetically, I have the least amount of risk of getting whammied by something, but what should I be on the lookout for?”

“You’d make the coolest dead witchy vampire.” Cece agreed, “And you’d definitely use your power for much better than Roy uses his for. What a prick.” Cece didn’t know the man but just from the bits and pieces she had learned she had to say that he didn’t seem like a stellar dude. In fact, he seemed like an ass. “You got the short end of the stick for sure.” It wasn’t surprising that Morgan was offering to open the box and take the brunt of the spell for the two. Morgan was selfless like that. And although Cece was worried about it’s contents, she had a list a bit of confidence that things would mostly be okay. “Well- what the coven explained to me once was that spellcasters and artifacts acted as a sort of conduit to magic. Without it, there’s no where for the magic to go. Using that same logic, it might be that raw magic is just that. If we open it it’s just a mass of magic until someone that can use magic channels it.” The logic wasn’t exact, but based off of what she did know about magic this at least seemed semi plausible. “On the flip side, if this is some sort of summoning spell, it could already be activated and take effect as soon as the box opens. Hypothetically opening it could literally summon a demon. But the chances of it being that are pretty low. Probably.”

“Probably?” Morgan squeaked. “Okay, come on, grab something powerful, we’re doing this outside.” She took the box, held out in front of her and pressed between the tips of her fingers like it was hazardous waste. “I really don’t want to punch a demon or chase one into the woods, but I think our evenings together have taken weirder turns, so--” Morgan opened the back door with her elbow and walked out into the yard. She couldn’t tell if she was overreacting (because who would seriously leave potent magic just in a booby-trapped box? There had to be other layers, right?) or if this was the most reckless thing she’d done yet. “Maybe, uh, stay back--?” She called, looking sidelong at Cece.

Come on. Waiting wasn’t going to change what’s inside. They had to know for sure if they wanted to correctly identify this asshole. One eye pinched shut, Morgan thumbed the lid open.

No flashing lights, no demon. Morgan finally risked a look inside. “Oh. That’s a little anticlimactic.”

“Well I can’t see the future Morgan!” Cece defended herself. She very rarely spoke in absolutes. She couldn’t be blamed or held responsible if shit went south if she told them probably or most likely. “Divination is not one of my skills.” Nor one of her interests. For all of the planning that Cece liked to do- her escape from the coven had taken more than a year to pull together- Cece had no interest in seeing her future. At Morgan’s request, Cece hopped onto her feet and began following her outside, only to spin back around and grab her wine glass and falling behind Morgan again. “You said grab something powerful.” She shrugged, taking a sip and standing with her former roommate out in the backyard. Now it was time to actually open the damned thing.

When Morgan did it was… well it was boring. Morgan was right, that had been anticlimactic. She stepped closer to Morgan and leaned in to get a look at the vial. “Can I squeeze in real quick?” Cece reached her arm in, running her hand over it without actually touching it. Magic was different. In some ways it felt alive or like an aura. And every aura was different. If someone was familiar enough with a certain branch of magic they may be able to pick it out just like someone could look at someone and see what color their aura was. “Well, bad news is that I’m pretty sure this actually was summoning magic. Whoopsies.” Cece sucked air through her teeth and slid away from the box again, “But on the plus side it didn’t summon whatever is in there! So another point for the former roommate dream team!”

Morgan’s stomach turned. There was no consciousness in the box, no traces of who the spellcaster had once been, but after what Roy had done to Erin’s home, she felt pretty confident that they were dead. She knew, on one level, that it was the same as the stock of brains she kept in the fridge. But thinking of his cruelty, the way he crushed people for nothing more original than gain, she felt disgusted. Morgan snapped the box shut and turned back to Cece. “Thank you for this. You’re a really good friend, you know?” She pulled her in a one armed hug. “I’ll make sure this guy get’s destroyed, okay? Do you want to hang onto this, in case you need it someday? I’d rather it be with a real witch than with Roy.” She squeezed her friend carefully. “But definitely, definitely another score in our dream team column. We are, without a doubt, the most badass pair in the Crest. Maybe we should start charging the town for all the favors we do them, huh?”

“I’m supposed to be holding up my tough girl reputation Morgan. Don’t expose me. You know this unbeating heart only flutters now and again for you.” Cece playfully shoved Morgan’s shoulder, careful not to do it hard enough to jolt the vial resting in the overdramatic box. “He sounds like a real dick, so I can’t say I’ll be mourning his loss or anything. But you and your friend need to be careful. If Fexts are even half as scary as the stories are, you don’t want to underestimate this guy. He’s going to be dangerous as hell.” Cece had no idea what kind of nightmare fuel this bottle could summon. Keeping it around probably wasn’t the greatest idea. But if Cece could figure out what it was, she may be able to use it someday. “I will happily take this little container of evil. What could go wrong, am I right?” What an awful question to ask. It’s like she was begging for demons to fuck up her life. Good luck trying to screw up something that was already so royally fucked, demons. “We really do. I’ll brainstorm some business titles. Double bubble, toil trouble? Never mind. We’ll keep workshopping.”