#July's title is...titles of things that already exist

[midsummer-semantics]

the hint of a spark

Written for day 3 of @steddieangstyaugust.

Prompt: "The sunset looks lovely, doesn't it?"

Rating: G | WC: 2k | S4 Canon Compliant

Title from "I Will Follow You Into The Dark" by Death Cab For Cutie

divider from @steddiecameraroll-graphics

The calm before the storm is always Steve’s least favorite part. The idle waiting they all have to do before a plan can be set in motion. It’s worse now, somehow, than it was in ‘83 or ‘84 (he doesn’t think about ‘85, when most of the waiting was done tied to a chair under the heavy influence of Russian drugs). Now, half of their group is AWOL and there’s a new person that shouldn’t have been involved in the first place.

It’s still early, their plan not beginning until after the sun goes down, but Steve is restless. He wants to finish this. Finally. Three years of his life tied to the bullshit that this Vecna guy has pulled and for what? What’s the goddamn point?

“Brooding all by yourself, handsome?” a voice comes, startling Steve out of his… okay, he was brooding. He looks over to find Eddie climbing the ladder that leads to the top of the caravan, which Steve had retreated to with a flimsy excuse of ‘keeping watch’ while the others tried to get some rest, charge up for the night ahead of them.

He waits until Eddie takes a seat next to him, offering a crooked smile before responding. “Got an image to maintain.”

Eddie snorts as he settles, one leg extended so his foot hangs off the side of the RV, the other bent so he can rest his elbow on his knee. “Even in the face of impending doom, you’re still the formidable King Steve,” he quips, but it lacks the bitterness that Steve’s used to hearing when that nickname comes up.

Steve bumps his shoulder to Eddie’s, a silent acknowledgment of the joke.

It’s quiet this far away from downtown. Not the suffocating quiet of his house or the droning quiet of Family Video on a slow day. A peaceful quiet. The kind of quiet that Steve hasn’t experienced in a while. The kind that lets him delude himself into thinking that the world is a quiet place, where the leaves rustle on the trees and crickets chirp to give the temperature and there’s no alternate dimension ready to rise up and raze the town. 

It’s a shame it’s March, he thinks. If it was summer, the fireflies would be beginning their nightly dance, one turning to two turning to a hundred as the sun sets over the open field. There’d be the smell of impending rain as another summer storm rolls in and a fox or two running to find a burrow.

Steve’s always been a big fan of summers: the sunshine and the adventure, the possibilities, the liminal space between school terms that allows him to just exist without thought for what came before or what comes after.

He still likes summer, even if the beginning of July is likely to be less exciting after last year. A lot of things have been ruined thanks to the crap they’re going to face later.

“How do you do it?” Eddie asks, once again breaking through Steve’s contemplative silence.

“Huh?”

Eddie flicks open his zippo, which is the only thing that survived the dive into the Upside Down since his cigarettes didn’t. Steve watches him spark a flame, snuff it out, open, spark, snuff, repeat.

“All of—” Eddie waves his free hand over them then the RV they’re sitting on, “—this. The battles. The interdimensional plot twists. The fucking….” He sighs, shaking his head, his hair swiveling around under the bandana he’s already tied over it. “Everything.”

Steve takes a moment to look, really look, at the man sitting beside him. Eddie’s eyes are huge, pleading, but beyond that they glisten in the fading daylight. They contain the horrors that he’s faced in the last few days, but they also contain galaxies, the beginning and end of worlds as they sparkle and shine.

He’s a little pale, sure, like he hasn’t seen daylight in two years, but the color rising to his cheeks as Steve studies him gives heat to the simmering in Steve’s stomach that started since Eddie held a broken bottle to his throat. 

Since before that, probably. The first time sophomore-Steve saw Eddie Munson stand on top of a lunch table and wax poetic about the system and forced conformity. 

The first time Steve really thought ‘I want to be like that.’

He doesn’t mean loud or angry or volatile, he has plenty of that hidden between the bricks of his carefully crafted walls. He knows what attention feels like, knows that, at one point, people looked to him like he brings some sort of message only they can get from him. No. He means unapologetic, open, himself.

He hasn’t really felt any of that since November ‘83. He’s made an active effort to feel nothing at all, because feeling means hurt and pain, and nothing means…

“You get used to it,” Steve states, tone light despite the tempest swirling in his being.

Eddie stares at him for several beats, enough time to have the younger man almost turning away. “That’s pretty fucked up, Steve.”

Steve scoffs, mostly because Eddie’s right and he knows that, but also because it’s second nature. Scoff at the drama, the trauma, the ridiculous things. 

Old habits die hard.

“No, but really,” Eddie continues. “You’ve been through a lot. Way more than you’ve told me, I know for sure. So…”

Steve shrugs, brings a hand up to scratch the back of his neck. “Well, normally we have—”

“The girl with super powers, yeah, I get it,” Eddie snaps. “But that doesn’t explain how you get through it all. Because if I’m honest, man, I’m about three seconds from running at every moment and you just…” He inhales and exhales heavily. “You just keep going. How?”

Steve sighs, turning back to watch the sky begin its change from blue to orange. 

“I dunno, man. I haven’t really gotten a chance to stop and think about it since it all started.”

That’s not entirely true. There’s been lulls between events before, time when Steve probably should have processed everything he’s been through. But again, it’s easier to just ignore it. Count his lucky stars that he survived another fight and then move on in the hopes he doesn’t have to do it again.

Eddie continues to fiddle with his lighter, occasionally spinning it between his forefinger and thumb before going through the motions once more. Open, spark, snuff, again.

“I guess that’s part of what I don’t get. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since it happened.”

Steve doesn’t ask him to clarify, he doesn’t need to. Not when he gets it completely.

“Barbra Holland died in my pool,” he says, once again looking out over the field. The sun has dipped below the treeline now, the sky darkening.

Eddie’s movements stop altogether. “What?”

“Yep,” Steve says, popping the P. “The night Will Byers went missing. The demogorgon that took him also killed her.”

He can feel Eddie’s eyes on him as the metalhead speaks. “And… where were you?”

Upstairs. Taking Nancy Wheeler’s virginity.

“Inside with some friends. It happened so fast, no one even heard it.”

“Shit, dude. So you’ve really been in this since the very beginning.”

Steve nods absently. “Yeah, I guess so.”

He doesn’t really think of it like that. Or, he hadn’t until now, he supposes. Mostly, he just blames himself, even though realistically he knows there’s nothing he could have done at the time even if they’d all been outside with Barb. It likely would have resulted in all of their deaths instead. There was no nail bat or firearms at that point. Just four stupid kids and an innocent girl who didn’t deserve to die.

“Billy didn’t die in the mall fire either,” he redirects.

“Oh jeez,” Eddie groans. “Don’t tell me, another demogorgon attack?”

Steve chuckles, can’t help it. “I wish. No, Mind Flayer that time.”

“It’s really uncomfortable the way all of these monsters are named after D&D characters.”

Steve laughs again, fiddling with the zipper tab on his vest. He wishes Eddie still had his cigarettes.

“Yeah, a bunch of people went missing and it turned out they were all melting into goo to create this 50-foot monster thing,” he explains, glancing over at Eddie’s horrified look. Honestly, it sounds unbelievable, like something entirely made up, so it’s a little sad to see in real-time that Eddie believes him. “Billy was working for it, I guess. I don’t really understand the connection even now. Anyway, we tried to take it out with fireworks—”

“Fireworks?” Eddie guffaws. 

Steve snorts. “Yeah well, it was all we had available. Well, that, and Nancy had a pistol, but there’s no way it would have stood a chance against this thing. But yeah, Billy tried to fight it, it was going to kill El, er, Supergirl, and Billy… I don’t know. Had a change of heart?” He shakes his head. “It was too strong, though. And he… he didn’t…”

Steve trails off, memories of that night flashing through his mind. It’s still, even now thanks to the drugs that had been in his system, but the crunching of bones and the piercing scream Max let out still ring in his ears if he listens close enough.

“So yeah,” he says after a moment. “I just try not to think about it.”

Eddie still looks scandalized when Steve looks at him again, his brows furrowed and his eyes shining in the dying daylight. He’s thinking, Steve can tell by the way his jaw flexes and his eyes dart over Steve’s face. Finally, the metalhead brings a hand up, resting it on Steve’s shoulder.

“And here you are, about to run head-first into battle again. You’re pretty amazing, Steve.”

Steve’s heart thumps hard at Eddie’s words, the touch to his shoulder that he can’t really feel through the tactical layers, but the weight of Eddie’s hand is enough.

“Thanks, man,” he replies, hesitating only for a moment before bringing his own hand up and resting it on Eddie’s bent knee. He can feel Eddie’s skin under his palm through the rip in the denim, and he absently drags his thumb across it. “So are you.”

It’s probably too forward. They barely know each other, and Steve might be overly familiar with what a crush feels like, but this doesn’t seem like the ideal time to explore that feeling. Although, if they’re going to die tonight, then he might as well let it ripple out in the open while he can.

Eddie drags his gaze away from Steve’s face to look down at his hand on his knee, this breathing a little shallower. Steve doesn’t stop touching him, won’t unless Eddie tells him to. But Eddie doesn’t, he swallows harshly and looks back up at Steve with a question in his eyes that Steve gives a nod and small smile to. They don’t need to talk about it. Either they survive tonight and can talk about it after, when the dust settles, or they don’t and talking wouldn’t make a difference anyway.

Instead, they sit in the quiet calm before the storm, Eddie only moving to brush the hand on Steve’s shoulder across his back to the other side, scooting a little closer to lay his head on the now free shoulder. Steve keeps his hand on Eddie’s knee, moving it just enough to cup the inside of it, holding him a little tighter.

“The sunset is lovely, don’t ya think?” Eddie asks, hushed, like it would shred the little blanket of night that’s folded over them.

“Yeah,” Steve replies, resting his chin on the top of Eddie’s bandana-covered head, wishing it wasn’t there so he could press his lips to Eddie’s hair, feel the curls against his skin, take in his scent if it’s the only chance he’ll get to do so. “It is.”

[slaymitchabernathy]

Enjoy The Show

Coriolanus Snow is less than happy as he walks through the arched entrance of the Capitol zoo.

He hasn’t visited the zoo in years, not since he was a small child who was easily entertained by the silliest of things such as odd looking animals.

Animals that are now all dead.

Once the war started, feeding animals was the last priority for most people, especially when they could hardly afford to feed themselves.

Still, he keeps his head held high as they make their way down the paved pathway, the crowd dispersing once they see him. He parts the crowd like the sea.

“Honestly, they couldn’t have picked a hotter day to do this,” his mother mutters behind him. Even though it’s the beginning of July and the weather is scorching, Coriolanus is still wearing the expected attire. Burgundy trousers, a white button up with a burgundy suit jacket over it. The complimentary rose is of course, pinned to his lapel.

His golden curls are on display, his black leather shoes shine brightly as the sun beats down on them.

He looks like a Snow.

“We can not control the weather darling,” his father reminds her, “once we get a good look at his Tribute, we can determine if there’s any point in spending a cent on her or if we can just sweep this entire thing under the rug.”

Coriolanus hopes it’s the latter. Prays for it in fact. He has been furious when he was assigned the female Tribute from District Twelve to mentor.

Twelve.

Not One or Two. You’d think being the President’s son would garner him a decent District but no, fucking Dean Highbottom was clearly out to get him, to taint his pristine reputation and this was a clear message about his true intentions.

Coriolanus hadn’t even bothered to stay for the Reaping itself. Not after he saw his parents leaving Heavensbee Hall, his father just as mad as he was.

“Casca has gone too far,” he had boomed once they returned home, “plaguing my son with some underfed runt girl. He should count himself lucky that I don’t personally see to the stripping of his title and all that he’s worth.”

Coriolanus has agreed with his father entirely. This was unfair, he wouldn’t even have a chance at his Tribute winning, not when the upper Districts always won, more so the boys than the girls.

But, he couldn’t act like a sore loser. Not before the Games had already begun. So, he decided he would put a spin on it, make this years Games the one to remember.

“I’ll show him what happens when you give a Snow a challenge father,” he had told him, “I’ll get her to the finish line, get everyone to root for her.”

His father had looked doubtful and Coriolanus couldn’t blame him one bit. Father had sighed and then nodded before giving him a stern look, “It won’t be about her son. No. It’ll be about you. She belongs to you. Make it about Coriolanus Snow, use her to win, to land on top.”

They had shared a knowing look before Coriolanus repeated the phrase that had been ingrained into him since birth.

“Snow lands on top.”

꧁ ꧂

Mother is right about one thing though, it’s dreadfully hot today. Coriolanus wishes he could forego the suit jacket but it would be a sign of weakness and showing weakness isn’t what won them the war.

He keeps his gaze forward as they push through the crowd. Well, as their security detail pushes through the crowd. Many people stop and watch, whispering to one another. Coriolanus has grown more than used to it. His classmates treat him normal for the most part although certain ones like Festus Creed and Livia Cardew love to tease him about his father’s job.

“She should be in the last cage darling,” mother says, “all the way in the back.”

It’s just his luck that his Tribute has been kept in the back, faraway from the crowds where no one will notice her or pay her any attention. How can he win this thing if no one knows she exists?

When they pass the cage that belongs to her District counterpart he can’t help but glance inside and swallow at the size of the boy. The male Tribute who has been assigned to Lysistrata Vickers is nearly as tall as Coriolanus. He’s got a mop of brown hair that swoops over his brow and his skin is tan. He’s got this wild look in his eyes that makes Coriolanus glad he wasn’t assigned this particular Tribute.

Not that any of the Tributes are decent human beings but being assigned a girl gives him certain advantages. The first being that all women are below men. He’ll be able to manipulate her easier, coach her, train her. Trying to convince a boy to give the Capitol a good show would be much more difficult but with a girl he can easily persuade her with his famous Snow charm.

He’s always been good with the ladies.

He slows his approach when he spots the small cage his Tribute has been assigned. It looks like it used to be a bird cage. He certainly never paid it any attention when he visited before the war. The bars are rusty and there are several small swings hanging from the ceiling for the birds to perch on.

There’s a rather large swing in the middle, most likely designed for several birds to sit on at once and perform a song or two. He thinks he can recall the zoo putting on little shows with the birds, training them to chirp little melodies for the visitors.

Instead of a bird he finds his Tribute sitting on the swing, her hands wrapped around the iron rods that hold it up.

Coriolanus is beginning to wish he stayed for the actual Reaping. At least he’d know what she looks like. He can only see her from behind and she has long blonde hair that falls to her waist. There’s a pink ribbon tied in the back but it’s a bit lopsided, like she hasn’t had the time or energy to fix it.

He can see that she’s wearing a pink dress, it’s short, and it looks like it’s made of tulle. It’s dirty but that’s no surprise. He walks around the cage and listens to her hum, she sounds quite good if he’s being honest. Much better than his own mother who only sings once she’s got enough alcohol in her system.

When he finally reaches the front of the cage he’s at a loss for words. She’s pretty. She’s very, very pretty.

She’s got a small face and it’s covered in freckles. Her skin is as tan as her male counterpart and she’s got the most startling eyes he’s ever seen. They look almost blue with a mix of gray if that’s even possible.

She looks as surprised to see him as he is to see her but she recovers smoothly and slowly stands up, dusting off her dress. It’s light pink and has two thick straps of tulle holding it up. She’s also wearing high heels which is a rather strange choice of footwear. If he knew there was a possibility of going into the arena, he’d be sure to come to the Realing dressed to fight.

She brushes her hair behind her ears and just as she goes to approach him, she shrinks back.

Coriolanus furrows his brow, confused as to why she’s hesitating but one look over his shoulder is more than enough to explain. His father.

She absolutely knows who Crassus Xanthos Snow is. President of Panem. The man who ended the war.

She’s probably had nightmares about him.

Coriolanus looks back at her, he has to look up since the cage is slightly elevated on a slab of cement but she doesn’t look too tall, even in heels. She looks skinny, not underfed but skinny. Her days in the zoo certainly won’t help with that though. She won’t last long in the arena is she’s starving.

“Let’s go,” his father calls, seeing no need to waste another moment on this girl.

Coriolanus can’t seem to tear his eyes off of her but he nods, slowly turning on his heel before finally looking away and starting at the back of his parents heads. “She won’t last a day,” his mother says with the shake of her head. His father grunts, “That’s if she makes it to the arena.”

Coriolanus feels a small frown tugging on his lips, the least he can do is make sure she gets to the arena. But that might mean actually helping her, feeding her, looking out for her. And he can’t do that.

Can he?

꧁ ꧂

“What did you think about your Tribute Snow?”

Coriolanus looks up from his notes to find Festus Creed looming over him with that sky grin he’s always wearing, “There wasn’t much to think about Festus,” he replies. There really wasn’t. Not when he couldn’t get her to talk or even get relatively close to her.

Festus leans against the desk in front of him, “Yeah, my Tribute is pretty promising. Her names Coral, you know, since she fishes, I guess it makes sense. But she says she’s good with a trident. But who the hell uses a trident?” Coriolanus furrows his brows, he hadn’t thought that other Tributes might have advantages due to the work they do on a regular basis. District Twelve was known for coal.

“I didn’t get to talk to my Tribute yet,” he admits and the surprised face on Festus says it all. “But you saw her didn’t you?” Coriolanus nods and tosses his pencil onto the desk, “I did. And then my father decided that no time or money shall be wasted on her. He doesn’t even think she’ll make it into the arena.”

Coriolanus hadn’t said anything to his parents since they got back from the zoo yesterday. He went straight to his room to try and devise some sort of plan but kept coming up short. It was hard when he knew nothing about her and he couldn’t rely on his father for help.

“Why don’t we go to the zoo today?” Festus asks, “I was gonna go visit Coral, maybe bring her something to eat.” Coriolanus had forgotten that he did in fact have free will and didn’t need his father’s permission for everything but still, he hesitated.

Festus caught onto it immediately and gave him a toothy grin, “It’s not like she can get to you through the bars Snow. I’ve seen your Tribute, you could snap her in half if you had to.”

Well, he has a point.

“Alright,” he decides, “we’ll stop by the zoo after school today.”

꧁ ꧂

After a rather unpleasant interaction with Dean Highbottom, Coriolanus and Festus took off for the zoo.

“I really can’t see what that guys problem is,” Festus says as they approach the familiar sight of the zoo, where the crowd is much smaller than it was yesterday, “I mean, if you hate kids then why work at the Academy?”

Coriolanus gives Festus a knowing look, “Because he’s dead set on making everyone around him miserable, including the students.”

Dean Highbottom might be the pettiest man alive and Coriolanus just knows that his Tribute assignment is living proof of that.

“Well, I’m gonna go find Coral. Good luck with your Tribute,” Festus calls before veering off to a different path. Coriolanus gives him a wave before shouldering his satchel and making his way to the back of the zoo.

He spots the boy from Twelve in his cage and he seems to be talking to someone. He’s grabbing the bars and his back is facing Coriolanus. This boy might just be a top contender for the Games considering his sheer size.

As Coriolanus gets closer, he realizes that the boy is talking to his Tribute. The girl is also standing in her cage, her fingers wrapped around the rusting bars. They’re not too far apart in their cages but both of them have to speak loudly to clearly communicate and Coriolanus only catches the last bit of their conversation.

“…keepin’ us out of the way.”

“Well, what did you expect Jessup? It’s not like we’re anything special.”

So his name is Jessup. An interesting name although Coriolanus is well aware of his name and its own difficulties. Jessup turns the second he senses Coriolanus and glares down at him from his cage. Coriolanus doesn’t take it to heart, mainly because he’s not the one locked in a cage that used to belong to a bear.

His focus is solely on his Tribute who’s watching his approach. She still looks pretty but she’s gotten a bit dirtier since yesterday. She watches as he slowly approaches until he’s right in front of her.

Neither of them seem to know what to say.

“I’m your mentor,” he finally says.

The girl tilts her head and looks across at Jessup before looking back down at Coriolanus, “My mentor?” She repeats and her voice is so heavenly. Like sweet honey rolling off the tongue. Coriolanus nods, “Yes. I’ve been assigned to mentor you through the Games.”

That seems to register something in her brain because she lets go of the rusted bars and walks away, “Well I’m afraid you won’t be much help. I won’t win.”

Coriolanus doesn’t think she’ll win either but she doesn’t need to know that. She needs to know that she has just as much of a chance as any other Tribute. He follows her around the cage to the front where he saw her yesterday, “You don’t know that,” he says, “you don’t know that you won’t win.”

The girl laughs and shakes her head, “Look, I’ve seen your arena. There’s no place to hide. I’m not gonna win, but thanks anyway.” Coriolanus feels somewhat defeated and he’s not even a player. How can she give up so easily? He’s going to have to turn to other tactics. He reaches into his satchel and pulls out a sandwich he’s wrapped in wax paper, the sound alerting her of something maybe worth her while, “Well, you might as well have something to eat,” he offers, holding it up to her.

The girl hesitates to step towards him but his father isn’t behind him like last time. All that stands between them are the iron bars of her bird cage. He pushes his hand through a bar, a risk since she could easily grab his arm and force it against the iron bar, breaking it.

But she doesn’t seem like the type to resort to violence, and she certainly doesn’t look too strong. She’s limber, not lean.

“Come on,” he says, nodding towards the sandwich, the sandwich he smuggled out of the dining hall like some damn fugitive. He can’t let all of his hard work go to waste. “You’ve got to be hungry by now. How long has it been since you last ate?”

The girls swallows, her eyes flitting to the sandwich then back to him, “Since the Reaping,” she finally says, her tone softer than it was before, less resentful and more reserved.

“Then you should definitely eat something. Please, take it, free of charge,” he insists, his arm beginning to grow tired.

The girl finally gives into her hunger and approaches him, crouching down to pluck the sandwich from his hand and their fingers brush up against one another and he feels a small shock roll through his body.

The girl begins unwrapping the sandwich, her nimble fingers working quickly on the wax paper.

Coriolanus takes this as a moment to study her up close, noting how smooth her legs are or the fact that her heels look quite uncomfortable. Her dress looks so soft, making her look quite elegant for a District girl. Coriolanus doesn’t even realize that he’s reaching out to touch her dress until they’re both frozen, staring at each other without a clue as to what they should say.

The girl finishes chewing and wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, “It’s my momma’s.”

Coriolanus blinks once, twice, pulling his hand back, “Sorry?”

The girl gestures to her dress, “This dress was my momma’s before she passed away. Feels like she’s wrappin’ her arms around me right now, keepin’ me together.”

Coriolanus has never heard such a clear District accent before. This girl has such a distinct twang in her voice and yet it feels like a warm drink after a long day, like she could sing him a lullaby to make all his worries melt away.

“What does your father do for work?” He asks, not wanting to get into the death of her mother. The war took many lives and he can only assume that her mother’s was one of them.

The girl gives him a wicked grin, like she knows something he doesn’t, “My daddy’s the Mayor of District Twelve.”

Coriolanus can’t stop his mouth from dropping.

He had assumed that she came from the nicer part of District Twelve, if that even exists, but to be the Mayor’s daughter adds a whole new level to this. Coriolanus can’t imagine what it would be like to draw your own daughter’s name out of the Reaping Bowl and then read it out loud for everyone to hear.

No wonder she looks so much better than the other Tributes. Her pretty dress and high heels are more than enough to proclaim her status to the world.

And yet here she is, locked away in a dirty bird cage within the Capitol zoo.

“Yep,” she says, taking another bite, “guess the odds weren’t exactly in my favor. But I guess someone’s gotta take one for the team of Mayor’s kids. Guess you saw how heartbroken he was on the television.”

Coriolanus scratches the back of his neck, it’s getting hot and he’s getting a bit personal with her now which can’t be a good sign. “I actually didn’t stay,” he admits, watching her eyes widen in surprise and maybe…betrayal?

“Why not?” She asks, tilting her head, “Didn’t feel like I was worth stickin’ around for?”

Well my father didn’t feel like you were worth sticking around for, he thinks to himself while shaking his head, “I had previous engagements that I had to attend to,” he smoothly lies, watching her raise her her eyebrows, “Did you now? I thought it was mandatory for everyone to watch the Reapin’ ceremony, but I guess I was wrong.”

Coriolanus shrugs, Reaping day can be dreadfully boring by the time they reach Twelve. “Well, when you’re the Presidents son…”

“They make exceptions,” she concludes, biting into the last bit of her sandwich, “well, thanks for stoppin’ by, I appreciate the sandwich. Maybe you’ll get luckier next year and get a better Tribute.”

A frown tugs on his lips because she’s not going to get to the arena with that attitude. He grabs onto the bar nearest to her face, leaning in a little bit, “I could help you,” he whispers even though no one is around to hear them, “help you in and out of the arena if you let me. I can get the people who live in the Capitol to fall in love with you if you want, make them do everything in their power to keep you alive in and out of the arena.”

There’s only so much that can be done for her once she’s in that arena but that’s on a need to know basis. And she doesn’t need to know.

The girl mulls over his proposal for a moment before shaking her head, “I can’t win, I’ve seen the other Tributes, they’re bigger and strong than me. I’m not even dressed for the arena,” she pulls at her tulle dress. She’s got a point.

“But you’re dressed for a show,” Coriolanus tells her, watching her face morph into one of confusion, “part of the Games is getting people to like you. Putting on a show. Do you have any talents? Anything that can capture peoples attention?”

The girl looks around the barren cage she’s trapped in and bites her lip, “Not at the given moment no,” she admits, “only got my charms to live by I suppose.”

She is very pretty but that can only get her so far.

Coriolanus looks her up and down for a second, trying to formulate a good strategy for them to get her to the arena at least.

The Games will be a different story.

“Can you sing? I heard you humming when I first saw you,” he recalls. It had been a short lived interaction but she sounded pretty good.

“Kind of,” she mumbles, brushing her hair behind her ears, “not much of a show bird though.”

Coriolanus points at the giant swing she was sitting on when they first saw each other, “But you can be a songbird right? If you start singing then I bet people will start listening. They’ll come over here and you’ll start to get attention. No one comes over to this part of the zoo.”

The girl rolls her eyes, “Yeah, I’ve noticed that. Jessup seems to be keen on scarin’ them off.”

Jessup seems to be a problem where Coriolanus is concerned.

He cranes his neck to look over at the bear cage and finds Jessup watching them, watching him more specifically. “Is he…are you two friends?” He asks carefully, not wanting to uncover some hidden romance if he can help it.

He doesn’t want to get too involved.

The girl laughs, a genuine laugh and it does something to his heartbeat, “Are you askin’ if he’s my boyfriend?”

Coriolanus holds his hands up in defense and rises back to his full height, “I’m just trying to get my story straight in case any reporters ask me any questions about you two.”

The girl looks over at Jessup, a small smile on her lips, “No, we’re just friends. An unfortunate pair the two of us but there’s nothin’ between us.”

Coriolanus nods, that’s all he needs to hear.

“Well, maybe try and convince him to let some people come over to you. I promise they won’t bite.”

A bittersweet smile grows on her face and she stands up too, “No, they’re not the ones in cages now are they?”

Coriolanus manages to look somewhat sympathetic, he does feel a little bit bad about her predicament being the Mayor’s daughter and all but it was probably long over due for someone like her to be sent to the arena.

“No, they’re not,” he agrees, “but they’re the ones you’ve got to impress if you want a better shot at winning,” he sticks his hand through the bars again, “do we have a deal?”

She contemplates it which slightly pisses him off because she should be jumping for joy at the chance he’s giving her. Sure she won’t win, but she’ll make him look better and that’s all that really matters at the end of the day.

She finally comes to a decision it seems and her small hand grabs his large one, giving it a firm shake, “You have yourself a deal Mr. Snow.”

Coriolanus grins, “Mr. Snow?” He teases.

Most people in the Capitol simply address him by his first name, only public servants use a title such as that one. But one day, he’ll be President Snow.

A much better title in his opinion.

She shrugs and smiles sweetly at him, “Didn’t know if we were on a first name basis yet.” Coriolanus chuckles and reaches into his satchel, pulling out a small water bottle, “I’d say we’re partners now, so I’ll allow it.”

He hands her the water bottle and watches her down the entire thing within seconds, maybe she really hasn’t eaten since the Reaping.

“They don’t feed you in here?”

She shakes her head and pulls the bottle away with a gasp, screwing the cap back on, “Gave us somethin’ on the train ride here but the rats got to it before we could. I suppose they don’t really care what condition we enter the arena in.”

But they should, he thinks, if they wanted a real good show then the Capitol would do well to ensure all the Tributes were somewhat healthy.

“I’ll stop by with more food tomorrow,” he promises, “if people like you then they might give you some food as well.”

“Sounds great,” she says sarcastically, swaying on her feet a little bit. Sweat is shining on her face, she must be so hot, so tired and dehydrated. It makes him a little bit angry, she’s the Tribute of Coriolanus Snow and she’s wasting away in this bird cage.

He ought to make sure she’s well taken care of until the Games, to ensure people can see how wealthy the Snows are, how generous they are that they’d waste their time and their money on some lowly District girl.

“You should get some rest,” he suggests, “it’ll get cooler in the evening.” She nods, grabbing onto the bars again, “Alright, I’ll see you tomorrow Coriolanus Snow.”

He grins, shaking his head at her teasing, “I’ll see you tomorrow…”

He still doesn’t know her name. He would if he stayed for the entire Reaping, but alas, here he is.

“Soarynn,” she finishes for him, “Soarynn Nightingale.”

Soarynn, what a pretty name for a pretty girl.

“Soarynn,” he tests it out, liking how it rolls off the tongue, “I’ll see you tomorrow Soarynn Nightingale.”

She gives him a small nod, “I’ll be here.”

She certainly will be. And Coriolanus finds himself enjoying that fact as he strolls out of the zoo, knowing that she’s going to be right where he left her.

Safe and sound.

In her bird cage. His songbird.

| Part 1. |

| tumblr oneshot/drabble |

[jokeroutsubs]

[ENG translation] Joker Out: The destinies of "the Jokers" are linked

An interview with Joker Out published in the September 2024 issue of Pil magazine. Original article written by Jelka Šutej Adamič, photos by Vita Orehek. Translation by a member of JokerOutSubs, review by @kurooscoffee, proofread by IG GBoleyn123.

The band Joker Out is at the centre of the Slovenian music scene, they're travelling from concert to concert, and they also have more and more fans. Right now, they're still on a big European tour titled 'See You Soon', on which they will have, or have had, at least 22 concerts in 13 countries¹. They've announced the release of a new album in the autumn. We caught up with them during the hot July days and chatted with Jure Maček, Kris Guštin, Jan Peteh and Nace Jordan, whilst Bojan Cvjetićanin wasn't able to join the conversation.

¹This interview was conducted in July 2024 and published in the September issue of Pil; the See You Soon tour is now already over.

A question that has probably been asked a hundred times already: how and when did you get together and form the band?

We formed the band out of two pre-existing ones, the bands Buržoazija and Apokalipsa. We met at a concert and decided that we should form a band together. That was in 2016, when we got together for rehearsals for the first time and named the newly formed band Joker Out.

Last autumn you sold out Stožice Arena, now you're preparing the new album and have been on a European tour for several months already. Did you imagine that you would rise so quickly?

Maybe not that it would be so quick, but we've always been quite ambitious, because we had hopes and dreams. It's true, however, that we didn't know exactly what it was that we wanted.

What would you suggest to beginners who have similar ambitions to you? How should they get to work?

They have to practise a lot and persist, they have to find the people around them who complete them. Our friends and family members helped us out a lot in the beginning. Jan's dad, for example, constantly drove us around for the first two years. We wouldn't have gotten anywhere without him. Our advice would be to use (in the positive sense of the word!) anyone who can offer help. But of course, you primarily have to play as much as possible, including with various musicians who show up on your path.

Aside from hard work, another important thing is probably the producer, someone who gives you direction, takes care of your sound, gives you advice?

Our producer is Žare Pak, who is admittedly a "peculiar fellow", but Joker Out probably wouldn't sound the same without him. He is the sixth ear of the band who listens critically and determines whether something is good enough to make a recording. At the end he puts everything we record into one package and that's what we then listen to.

Who are the other people who are by your side professionally?

We have Niko, our driver, security guard, the dad of the band. We have Maša and Sanjin who always make sure that we look good and make a good impression in interviews. Also very important is Mark Pirc, who started out as a video producer, but our collaboration has expanded into general visual artistic co-creation and coordination. Mark is our main visual producer. All the people who help out, who make a concert happen, are also part of our team, and that's not a small number. Right now, we wouldn't be able to put on a concert on our own anymore, without help. We also have to highlight Andraž Drobnič, who takes care of our clothes, our stage costumes.

Do you currently live in Ljubljana?

In Ljubljana, Logatec, and Vrhnika.

You performed in various venues on the tour – from Helsinki to Istanbul, where you're yet to go². Were any of the performances abroad particularly memorable?

Whenever we go to Finland, we're thrilled. It's always top-notch there. Last year we played in Turku where 2800 people came to listen to us, which was something special for us. The venue was sold out.

²The Istanbul gig the interviewer is referring to was later cancelled.

How does a festival performance differ from one in a concert hall or a club? Do you prepare a different programme for one versus the other?

A lot of people who don't know us come to a festival, and we adjust our playlist accordingly. The advantage of being at a festival is that we can hang out with other musicians who are playing at the same festival, because at solo concerts, we stay backstage. The most important thing at a festival is definitely that you also get the attention of people who don't know you, whereas at your own concerts, you primarily have to satisfy the wishes of your listeners.

And the audience? How does it differ from country to country?

They don't speak Slovenian anywhere, so it doesn't matter. (laughter) They differ in energy, since each country has its own unique energy. At some concerts, the audience is more intense and very energetic, at others, they sing very loudly or participate in clapping and singing on their own... Each country is a little different. Finns are the most like us, while Lithuanians are the best of all at waving. We do have a lot of fans who are with us at most of the concerts. They follow along...

Are you perhaps planning a tour in the USA?

No. Of course we'd like to go, but it's not the right time for a tour yet.

What else do you like to do when you're not behind your instruments or the microphone?

I spent all day yesterday fixing my moped. (Jure)

I like to cook, I made a good lasagna the other day! At home, I often take a look at what's happening on the music scene: innovations, new releases. (Jan)

I have a small puppy and I spend most of my free time trying to raise him to be a nice dog. (Nace)

I go to Rožnik³ to cool off. (Kris)

Basically, we like to use our free time for ourselves.

³Rožnik is a small wooded hill in Ljubljana, a very popular place for the locals to go for a walk and exercise.

Do you also hang out privately?

Yes. We would probably do that more if we weren't together so much for business too. We also go for drinks together or meet up at our rehearsal place to chat and hang out.

How do you react when you get recognised on the street? Are you nice to your fans?

We are nice and we take photos with people if they wish to do so. There might be a problem after concerts, when there are really a lot of people and you can't please everyone. But otherwise it's not a problem to sign an autograph, but what's best is to have a bit of a chat.

You've opened an Openstage platform, which makes it easier for your fans to access your activity. What has the response been like? Has it "stuck"?

It has stuck, but it's true that we constantly have to promote it. We've reached ten thousand fans on Openstage, which means that more than ten thousand people have access to exclusive things like, for example, hearing a pre-premiere snippet of our new single 'Šta bih ja', which was released in July. Besides that, they're always the first ones who can buy new articles, CDs, vinyls, and they will often have a chance to buy concert tickets on pre-sale, and maybe have some discounts too. We also get a lot of information out of it, which helps us going forwards. The fans tell us where they are and where they want to listen to us, so we can plan a tour based on that as well.

In 'Everybody's Waiting', a very intimate song, you highlight topics like anxiety, success, individualism ... How has success affected your lives?

Ever since Eurovision, we often get the feeling that we're not in control of our lives anymore. We are more or less dependent on a bigger goal and at least four other people. It seems like our future, our destiny is irrefutably linked now, and we often have a feeling that the individual can get lost within that.

I'm sure you're sticking with rock'n'roll. Nevertheless, are you still tempted by any other music genres?

We're staying based in rock'n'roll, but we can always add rhythms from other musical genres to our songs – from a hint of world music to jazz chords, electronic music, samba rhythms...

What do you think of Pil⁴?

We read Pil and we were always excited about the posters. We hope we will get another edition of the poster. (laughter) We're glad that Pil still exists, that it's just like the one we knew from our childhoods. The fact that we were already on a Pil poster once means a lot to us.

⁴Pil is a Slovenian magazine for pre-teens and young teens which has been published since 1948 and has been an important part of many Slovenians' childhoods and teenage years.

[defjux]

Here are 81 of my favorite albums of 2024 If you noticed the lack of hip hop albums on here, that's because i already posted a separate list for hip hop which you can find here if you're interested. Chart with album titles included I probably listened to the Chelsea Wolfe album more than anything else here but the cure album was such a pleasant surprise for me that I had to put it as number 1. I thought it was a great year for music overall though. I'm really happy with the first few rows on here and those are for sure the albums i'd recommend the most, even though i think everything on here is worth checking out. If you believe there's something i might've missed or your favorite albums of the year aren't on here, let me know! Feel free to leave your own list in the comments, i'd be interested in seeing it. As always, i'll make it so the album titles are a hyperlink that'll take to wherever you can hear it. Peace. 1. The Cure - Songs Of A Lost World 2. Chelsea Wolfe - She Reaches Out To She Reaches Out To She 3. Iglooghost - Tidal Memory Exo 4. chat pile - Cool World 5. Frail Body - Artificial Bouquet 6. Whirr - Raw Blue 7. OKSE - OKSE 8. Blood Incantation - Absolute Elsewhere 9. Trauma Ray - Chameleon 10. Gouge Away - Deep Sage 11. drive your plow over the bones of the dead - Tragedy As Catharsis 12. Thou - Umbilical 13 . Moor Mother - The Great Bailout 14. Terry Green - PROVISIONAL LIVING 15. Krallice - Inorganic Rites 16. Nala Sinephro - Endlessness 17. Punchlove - Channels 18. Beth Gibbons - Lives Outgrown 19. Tenue - Arcos, bóvedas, pórticos 20. Crumb - AMAMA 21. Hammok - Look How Long Lasting Everything Is Moving Forward For Once 22. Infant Island - Obsidian Wreath 23. Meaningful Stone - Angel interview 24. Kamasi Washington - Fearless Movement 25. Arooj Aftab - Night Reign 26. Ulcerate - Cutting The Throat Of God 27. Camila Bañados - Viento 1. 28. Nilufer Yanya - My Method Actor 29. Oranssi Pazuzu - Muuntautuja 30. Mary Halvorson - Cloudward

31. Nails - Every Bridge Burning 32. Godspeed You! Black Emperor - NO TITLE AS OF 13 FEBRUARY 2024 28,340 DEAD 33. showmore - Liquid City 34. Blushing - Sugarcoat 35. Magdalena Bay - Imaginal Disk 36. Lip Critic - Hex Dealer 37. Joel Ross - nublues 38. State Faults - Children Of The Moon 39. geordie greep - The New Sound 40. Candy - It's Inside You 41. SATOKO SHIBATA - Your Favorite Things 42. Julia Holter - Something in the Room She Moves 43. Gigan - Anomalous Abstractigate Infinitessimus 44. Knoll - As Spoken 45. Jaubi - A Sound Heart 46. Cindy Lee - Diamond Jubilee 47. Blind Girls - An Exit Exists 48. Julie - my anti-aircraft friend 49. Milton Nascimento & Esperanza Spalding - Milton + esperanza 50. Hiatus Kaiyote - Love Heart Cheat Code 51. Isleptonthemoon - Only the Stars Know of My Misfortune 52. Liana Flores - Flower of the soul 53. SML - Small Medium Large 54. Maruja - The Vault 55. Spirit of the Beehive - YOU'LL HAVE TO LOSE SOMETHING 56. Fievel Is Glauque - Rong Weicknes 57. Leaving Time - Angel in the Sand 58. Rita Payés - De camino al camino 59. TURQUOISEDEATH - Kaleidoscope 60. Babii - Daredeviil2000 61. Jessica Pratt - Here In The Pitch 62. HERIOT - Devoured by the Mouth of Hell 63. Dim - planted in the soil 64. Contention - Artillery From Heaven 65. Convulsing - Perdurance 66. The Body & Dis Fig - Orchards of a Futile Heaven 67. Uboa - Impossible Light 68. Melt-Banana - 3+5 69. DIIV - Frog in Boiling Water 70. Amiensus - Reclamation: Part 1 71. Ginger Root - Shinbangumi 72. Hannah Frances - Keeper of the Shepherd 73. Ravyn Lenae - Bird's Eye 74. Garden Home - Garden Home 75. Aara - Eiger 76. graywave - Dancing in the Dust 77. Martha Skye Murphy - Um 78. Mo Dotti - opaque 79. Luna Li - When a Thought Grows Wings 80. Pluma - Não Leve a Mal 81. Twine - New Old Horse

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Lisa Needham at Public Notice:

It’s been barely a week since conservatives on the US Supreme Court radically upended the balance of power between the branches of government, giving the federal courts the exclusive power to interpret statutes rather than deferring to agency experts. And we’re already seeing impacts on the ground. Right-wingers have been in the habit of running to their preferred courts to get regulations overturned, but the decision in Loper Bright v. Raimondo, which officially destroyed agency deference, will make it easier — even routine — to block every Biden administration rule they don’t like.  Lawsuits to invalidate specific rules had been proceeding through the federal courts before Loper Bright, generally arguing that agencies exceeded their authority in promulgating a rule. These lawsuits exist in no small part because the Supreme Court made it clear they would destroy Chevron deference for years now, with Justice Neil Gorsuch having led the way well before his appointment to the Court. 

Trump appointee Sean Jordan, who sits in the reliably hard-right Eastern District of Texas, was so eager to block a Biden administration’s overtime rule that he dropped his decision the same day Loper Bright came out. It runs 36 pages and mentions Loper Bright multiple times, which means either Jordan was so confident of the Supreme Court decision that he either wrote it in advance or he hurried to stuff Loper Bright into his already-written opinion. Jordan’s opinion also rests heavily on dictionary definitions rather than expertise from the Department of Labor, which issued the rule. So now, the rule that would have made 4 million more Texas workers eligible for overtime, and thus more pay, is blocked thanks to a hurried read of a SCOTUS opinion and Webster’s Dictionary. 

What this mean is that anytime a business doesn’t like a federal rule, it can just sue. It promises to be a free-for-all. Three hospitals in New Jersey sued HHS the day Loper Bright came down, saying the agency’s interpretation of a statute governing Medicare reimbursement is unlawful. In another case, filed before Loper Bright, a trucking company challenging the Biden administration’s rule that addressed misclassification of independent contractors filed a memorandum on July 2 arguing that Loper Bright means the court should not defer to the Department of Labor’s interpretation of the law. The next day, Trump appointee Ada Brown of the Northern District of Texas enjoined enforcement of the Biden administration’s rule prohibiting non-compete agreements but limited the injunction to the plaintiffs, which are various pro-business groups like the Chamber of Commerce. 

[...]

Bigotry from the bench

Unsurprisingly, much of the assault on administration rules relates to any regulation that would protect transgender people. Four days after Loper Bright was handed down, another Trump appointee, Judge John W. Broomes in Kansas, enjoined the Department of Education from enforcing its Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Sex in Education Programs rule in Kansas, Alaska, Utah, and Wyoming. The Department of Education spent two years finalizing the rule, which would have prohibited discrimination based on gender identity under Title IX.  The unofficial text of the rule, which runs 1,577 pages with supporting material, is jam-packed with legal analysis. Hundreds of pages are spent explaining how the DOE considered and addressed public comments and the document details the mental health impact of discrimination against LGBTQ students. 

Broomes’s expertise is in natural resource law, a background that does not lend itself to a detailed understanding of Title IX, sex discrimination, or gender identity. But none of that matters. His opinion sneers about “self-professed and potentially ever-changing gender identity” and insists that things like using correct pronouns for students and allowing them to use the bathroom that conforms with their gender identity is an issue of “vast economic” significance. Given that the only costs of the rule are things like updated administrative guidance and perhaps hiring additional Title IX staff, the idea it is a vast economic question is, to put it politely, a reach. Instead, Broomes sided with the conservative plaintiffs, including Moms for Liberty and an Oklahoma student who asserted that using the correct pronouns for other students violated her religious beliefs. Because of this mix of conservative state litigants, private anti-trans groups, and an Oklahoma student, the extent of Broomes’s injunction is even weirder than the patchwork blocking of the HHS rule.

Besides blocking the rule entirely in four states, the rule is also blocked for the schools attended by the members of two private plaintiffs, Young America’s Foundation and Female Athletes United, and all schools attended by the children of members of Moms for Liberty. So now, if you are a transgender student unlucky enough to attend school anywhere in the country where a child of a Moms for Liberty student also attends, you’re out of luck. If your school is free of children of book-banners, you get the protection of the federal rule — unless you live in Kansas, Alaska, Utah, and Wyoming, in which case it doesn’t matter what school you go to.  Over at Law Dork, Chris Geidner has a good rundown of not just how the courts are sledgehammering LGBTQ rights, but also how having courts, rather than regulators, make these decisions results in an uneven patchwork of rulings over a Health and Human Services rule that prohibited health care providers from discriminating based on gender identity. Only five days after Loper Bright was issued, three separate federal courts issued rulings blocking parts of the HHS rule. There’s no chance that William Jung, a Trump appointee to the federal district court for the Middle District of Florida, hadn’t already written most of his decision before Loper Bright was issued, but the case gave him far more ammunition. Fung’s ruling in Florida v. Department of Health and Human Services blocked part of the Nondiscrimination in Health Programs and Activities rule from going into effect — but only in Florida. 

The Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo ruling by the judicial activist MAGA Majority on the Supreme Court is having devastating consequences.

[orangedodge]

What's going on with the X-Men relaunch?

When they first used the Infinity Comic to reset Charles and Alex to their pre-Fall of X versions, I didn't think it was that big of a problem. Charles isn't appearing in comics at the moment, and the fact is that no one really cares about Alex Summers anyway. But Magneto is core cast of the flagship title. Fundamental alterations to his status quo need to be covered in that publication, not preempted by however many months in advance with digital only content that most readers will never even know exists. Even leaving aside inherent scumminess of paywalling required supplementary content, there's no indication anywhere in X-Men that you need to go open Marvel Unlimited if you want the full backstory.

This isn't the only mess they've gotten into with digital content since July. Previously, they spent two months inserting blank pages into the print and kindle editions of all of their comics, that could only be redeemed for a final page on the Marvel app. Before finally backtracking they spent two months fighting their fans on social media, and insisting that these pages were only fun bonus that you didn't have to worry about. Yet several titles used them to introduce their respective villains, and the X-Force relaunch chose to simply redact the actual final page of the issue, for phone readers only.

It's just not a fun way to read things. No one wants to have to put down a physical comic, or close out kindle, and then go open a separate app on their Apple/Android device to finish the story. Or to have to remember to check Marvel Unlimited every Tuesday for weekly backup strips to find out what's going on with the co-lead of the comic they're already paying for. I've seen it suggested that these amount to schemes by the publisher to get more people to install Marvel's various phone apps, and that's probably true, but whatever inanity is going on behind the scenes there is at least some measure of obligation on the part of the editors to not make the rollout so intrusive. The actual comics need to at least be readable.

[dailydemonspotlight]

Balor - Day 66

Race: Tyrant

Alignment: Dark-Chaos

July 8th, 2024

For how relatively obscure Irish myth can tend to be, it has a surprising amount of influence over contemporary fantasy. If you walked up to someone on the street and asked them who Dagda was, they'd likely never be able to answer, but if you showed them a picture of a Banshee or a Changeling, they'd... probably still not know what you were, and ask you to leave, but whatever. If you went into a D&D party and asked that same question, you'd get many recognized looks and nods of understanding, at least, for what it's worth. As gone over far earlier in this series, during the Dad- ahem. Dagda analysis, Irish mythology is wide and has surprising roots in a lot, especially relating to the main antagonistic force throughout, the Fomorians. And who else leads this roving band of pillagers but today's Demon of the Day, the single-eyed giant, Balor!

While the Fomorians are a demon in their own right within the SMT series (and a personal favorite of mine at that,) the topic of them is unavoidable when it comes to Balor- after all, being the leader of the bunch, the most fearsome of them, and being a star player in the Tuatha Dé Danann as a whole, it's impossible to divorce their leader from, well, them. Balor's name roughly translates to 'The Flashing One,' as purported in Myth, Legend & Romance, a book that goes in-depth into general stories throughout Irish mythology- things such as the Ulster Cycle where Cu Cuchulain originates, or, in the case of Balor, the Mythological Cycle, the book going over the eternal war between the Tuatha Dé Danann and the Fomorians. In the Mythological Cycle (and thankfully looping back to Balor after such a detour), Balor is one of two major leaders of the Fomorians, and one who leads the charge into a battle with the Tuatha Dé Danann.

In the story, Balor is described as a giant monster with a single eye. To quote,

The first was Balor, of the Mighty Blows, balc-beimnech. A remarkable thing about him was that one of his eyes, which he generally kept covered, brought instant death to everyone on whom its gaze fell.

I think that 'of the Mighty Blows' is meant to establish a great stature, especially given the amount of chaos he wreaks later on in the battle itself. As the champion of the Fomorians, and the greatest warrior who led the charge, he played an incredibly important role in getting the Fomorians an advantage, in that he killed Nuada Airgetlám during the first major battle of the war, granting an upset, given that Nuada was the leader of the Tuatha Dé Danann. Later on in the battle, however, Balor was betrayed by his own grandson just as he went to open his eye, intending to bring a swift stop to the fighting- a Tuatha Dé Danann named Lugh, his own grandchild, went to battle with the one-eyed giant, and after some teamwork to forcibly close the destruction the giant's eye was wreaking, Lugh ended up firing a boulder through it, killing Balor. After his defeat, Balor fell backwards, ending up crushing several of his own men.

Hilariously, as the Wikipedia article about Balor says regarding the source of Balor's eyes' power, "O'Curry tantalizingly stated he was in possession of a manuscript with an alternate explanation on how Balor got his power, but does not elaborate due to lack of space." Honestly, kinda tragic. It's commonly believed that Balor's eye's power, mainly depicted in the Cath Maige Tuired (a collective title for two saga texts in the mythological cycle,) originates from an exposure to magic fumes his druidic father, Buarainech, the collective father of all Fomorians as well.

There's also an entire folkloric side to Balor, but I'll leave you to read into that yourself. What I find most interesting about Balor is his apparent role as a representation of the 'Scorching Sun;' Dáithí Ó hÓgáin, a scholar in the field of Irish mythology, purports that the already existing depictions of Balor as the 'scorching sun that would bring crop failure and drought,' to quote the Wikipedia article, likely comes from the physical resemblance between Balor and a Cyclops, giving light to a hitherto unnamed Celtic sun god from the Bronze age. As he speculates, the deity mentioned could be Balor, and his appearance had been conflated with that of the Cyclops, giving way to the strange similarities between Balor, Cyclopses, and a relatively obscure Welsh giant named Ysbaddaden, which is its own can of worms.

In SMT, I find the depiction to be really interesting, and frankly pretty cool- the hairy body may be drawing a connection between Balor and the Fomorians design in SMT, given that Fomorian is depicted as a giant ram. The single eye up above in a cage is a unique design element, and while I'm not sure where the cage came from, I really do enjoy how unique it is- besides, the writhing mass of worms surrounding the single eye makes Balor resemble a Beholder, which gets HUGE ups from me. I LOVE BEHOLDERS!!!! RAHHH!!!!!! In gameplay, from my experience, Balor tends to be a mid-game physical attacker, which fits very well. I kinda wish he would get a signature skill based around his eye, maybe one that's sorta like Mudo? But I digress.

Overall, the Fomorians are a rabbit hole I find utterly fascinating, and Balor is just one example of why that is. Trust me when I say there is a lot more to this- I'm only really scratching the surface- and I'd highly recommend reading more about the Mythological Cycle if you're interested!

[butchsophiewalten]

FINDJACKWALTEN 6/29/23 UPDATE #2 WALKTHOUGH

Findjackwalten updated last night! To properly understand the content of this update, you'll probably wanna check out these other posts on the 6/27/23 update: [HERE] and the 6/29/23 update #1: [HERE] if you haven't seen them already.

This one's a fucking Doozy. The main page has updated to a full on Jack Walten Takeover.

Most of the existing page has been put under a red filter, and images of Jack and Rosemary (cut off in this screenshot) Walten have appeared. The 'page under construction!' text has changed to read "CLOSED PERMANENTLY. (effect:072074)", the second half of that being the date Bon's Burgers shut down. The play button present in the site's previous incarnation is still here, but now plays various Christmas carols, rather than Battle Hymn of The Republic, starting with Silent Night.

The "CONTACT & INFORMATION" button that became clickable earlier in the day still leads to an unchanged /0714-74 page.

The "MEET BON!" button that also became clickable earlier in the day leads to a /mynameis-bon but with Bon himself now missing.

The most significant update has been to /caretakerlibrary, which now contains four new audios from Richie.

Our first new Richie audio, Richie 3, is titled "AUD06-27-74opnn-nights" meaning it's dated for the 27th of June, 1974. The "opnn-nights" referring to it being the night before Bon's Burgers opening day. I've roughly transcribed this audio as follows:

Another day, another dollar, as they always say! Sorry- sorry, dude- just ignore that, I don't know- I don't know what I was doing, okay, uh, forget it. Yeah- yeah! Uh, tomorrow's the big day! You excited? Uh, Boss gave me some instructions to give you for today. So, uh- get those in a second. Uhm, I needed to- wanted to say I uhm, I put the chairs down. That, y'know, next to the tables, so uh, just- save you the hassle of having to do tha- having to do that tomorrow morning, so you're welcome. Uhm, uh, if you can, keep an eye on the uhh, the- whatchamacallit, Poker maze? It's, uh, pretty easy for kids to get lost in there. So, y'know, just, don't want anything to- anything like that happening. Just, uh, y'know, pop in like every minute or so, just make sure there's no kids crying, screaming, y'know. Actually, don't get lost in there yourself, either. You're still a teen, right? How old are you again? That's- doesn't matter, whatever, you'll be fine. Uh, don't worry about it. Unlock the generator room, uh, clean the bathrooms- especially the men's bathroom, more on that later. Uhh, right, right, right! Uh, keep the main stage curtains closed. Uh, for the time being, we uh, we transferred Sha to the secondary stage for this week, so she'll be next to Boozoo. The uh, Bon animatronic won't be performing this week, uh, he's uh- they- they gotta do an extra week of maintenance on him. So, that's a shame, but nothing we can't fix. Uh, luckily we do have a- uh, a costume! A, uh, Bon costume! Uhm, the uh, sister company gave it to us a while ago. So, y'know, if you wanna earn some, uh, extra bucks, you might wanna pop in that thing. Dance around, tell some jokes, whatever. Uh, Felix will probably tell you what to do, they're kids, they're stupid anyway, they won't notice. Uhm, just- try ignore the smell. Right, uh, that, uh- that reminds me. Uhm, uh- apparently, uhm, apparently some employee might've, uh, might've been, uh. Smoking pot. In the men's bathroom. Uh, so, uhm, just, just- um. Y'know, don't mind the smell, if you, uh, keep the windows open, just try and freshen up the place. Uh, make sure Felix doesn't notice. Uh- I- uh, wouldn't want whoever that was to, y'know, get in trouble. If, uh, if they did smoke pot in there, which I doubt. But, y'know, just in case. So, uh, yeah! That's it, goodnight.

The next audio, Richie 4, is titled "AUD07-01-74BCKSTG-DAY", meaning it was recorded on the 1st of July, 1974. I've transcribed it as follows:

Hey man! Okay, so, uh, we got some good news, and some bad news. So I'll start with the good news! So, uh, Boss is happy! He said we did good work- said we did good work on the first week. You did a good job with the Bon costume actually, I was surprised. I actually got it all recorded on film, so, uh, if you want, I can show that to you next week. Or, I could use it to blackmail you at some point in the future? Kidding, kidding, kidding. Uh, nah, I wouldn't do that. Uh, um, oh yeah, uh! I bet you're happy to hear: Bon will be back on stage by tomorrow! Yeah, uh, Felix set it up himself, so uh, maybe they worked out their differences after all! Sorry, just, trying to make a joke. Um, right, ah, okay onto the, uh, the not so good news. Uh, so, um, we- uh, we have a- um. We have a associate. I- uh, I believe she does the, uh, art for the restaurant. Um, she's been coming in a lot lately, she keeps going on about like, her, uh, husband or something. She's not well. Um, to put it lightly, I- I don't wanna sound mean, but. She, uh, there's something wrong with her. And, and uh, I- I believe you know her? Uhm, like, um, you've been talking to her whenever she comes in, um. I- I appreciate it, I appreciate it, right? Um, and I'm glad you are, y'know, helping her. Uh, but, mmn. How do I say this? Um, she's been- uh, she's been, uh, let go out of the company yesterday, and uh, so, it's now a company policy that if a former employee makes any sort of drama inside the restaurant, uhm, they'll be permanently banned from entering, so. Uh, if- if you see her again, tell her to keep quiet. It's, um, Boss' orders. Uhm, I'm sorry if that- I'm sorry if that's insensitive, um. Okay. Okay, uh, lighter note: nobody got lost in the maze! So, good job! Uh, you're a natural! Or whatever. Uhm, uh, okay, on with the, uh, bad news, I guess. More bad news, uhm. The backstage is now locked for the week. Um, I asked staff for explanations and they refused to elaborate, so um. Ba- uhm, Banny will be off the stage for a few days, uh, so, keep the curtain on Banny's stage closed. Uhm, what else? Oh, uhm, all of the, uh, animatronics must be sent to the men's bathroom at night, instead of backstage. So, uh, yeah! Uh, let me know how you've been. Um, I had a blast last week. I will say, uh, you make a really good cook! I'll tell you that. So um, yeah, see you tomorrow then. Goodnight!

The next audio, Richie 5, is titled "AUD07-12-74LLY-NIGHTS", meaning it was recorded on the 12th of July, 1974. The second part of this title likely is "Lily nights" and refers to Lily's birthday party. I have transcribed the audio as follows:

Uh, hola amigo! Is that how you s- is that how you say it? Agh, I never knew how to say it. Uh, yeah! Uh, good things are happening, my friend. Uh, the- the backstage is still locked. Uh, but! The, uh, the generator room is where we sh- should be, uh- should be keeping the robots for now. Right- uh, we actually, uh, we actually have a new one. Uh, agh, what's the name, what's the name? Bob- uh, Bobby the clown! Buh- buh- Billy the clown! Billy- ah- yeah, Billy. He, uh, just arrived yesterday, actually. Um, top of the line technology, man, I'll tell you. I- I was messing with their, uh, little radio thing all day. Uh, Bon seems to be working fine now. Uh, his- his, uh- his gloves keep falling off? Like, uhm- not gloves, uh, what- what're they called? Uhm, blue hand thing- y'know, the suit, uhm. And it's revealing the mech underneath. Uh, so just, uh, be careful with like, the hands and stuff. Okay, whatever, uhm. The, uh, oh yeah, we have a birthday party coming up! A birthday party on the, uh, the tw- no, uh, fourteenth? Yeah, the fourteenth. Uh, we're going to be using the, uh, Billy robot. It's actually, um, the daughter of one of our associates, uhm. Augh, what was the name? Forgot the name, doesn't matter. So yeah, uh, we gotta m-make it look extra good, okay? Uh, I might even come over, y'know, show up in the Bon costume myself. I dunno, we'll see how it goes. Uh, well, if you show up, actually, we could, y'know, stay smokin' in the arcade area? You smoke, right? Ah, whatever. Um, yeah! Look forward to seeing you there. Take care, man!

The last audio, Richie 6, is titled "AUD07-20-74CLSD-MRNING", meaning it was recorded on the 20th of July, 1974, the day Bon's Burgers shut down. Transcribed, it reads as follows:

C'mon, man, where the hell have you been? Some big shit happened, alright!? Whuh- we're- we're sh'down! It's fucking bad, dude, we are SHUTTING DOWN! We're DONE! We're fucking DONE, Alright? Augh, god, I- I- I clocked in last night, right? Some staff were still in the restaurant, right? It's all good, it's all okay. FOUR IN THE MORNING, I get a call from NORMAN, right, telling me the cops BROKE INTO THE PLACE, right? Some call about, like, SCREAMING inside the fucking restaurant? Whole neighborhood was freaked out. They- uh- they checked the place, most doors were locked so they just shrugged it off, anyway. There- there's nobody inside. But, uh, Norman's shutting us down! He said the- the- the scene it caused is humiliating. Alright, everyone's outside the fucking restaurant, claiming that somebody got killed! It's fucking BAD, man. Agh, he gave us, uh, THREE DAYS, we have three days to shut everything down. Ugh, sorry, oh god. Sorry, it's been a fucking crazy night. Uh, there is, uh, the bo- sorry. Uh, the Boss came up with a new plan, alright? He hasn't shared it with CyberFun yet. But, uh, long story short, we gotta take all the fucking items from this place and put them in a truck and take 'em to the storage place somewhere. Tha- he didn't say where. It- uh- it's BIG fucking money, dude, alright? It'll only take a few days. Uh, you in? Also, uh, just for the record, don't- don't tell this to anyone, okay? See you tomorrow, then. See you tomorrow, man. I'll be there at six, Bon's.

Revisiting the main page, the new Silent Night audio contains a peculiarity that might go unnoticed.

If you listen for long enough (a little more than four minutes), you can hear backwards text-to-speech audio overlaid on top of the end of The First Noel. When reversed, this speech can be heard as such:

Transcribed, this audio reads as follows:

"[We] here at BSI apologize for the confusion regarding the shocking scene from last night. Apparently, screams for help were heard inside our installations. Thanks to the help of the Brighton police department, this has been confirmed as a hoax and that nobody has been harmed inside our restaurant. Nevertheless, for budget reasons, we are shutting our doors until further notice. Thanks for joining us on this small adventure. Kindly, the Bunny Smiles family."

[mushiemellows]

On Rivd and AI

So last night I made this post and said I'd elaborate more in the morning and when I had the time to do a bit of research. Upon doing said research, I realized that I had misunderstood the concerns being raised with the Rivd situation, but that isn't the case any more. However, some of my thoughts on ai still stand. Heads up, this is going to be a long post. Some actual proper blogging for once wow.

I'm going to discuss the Rivd phishing scam, what can be done for fic writers as ai begins to invade fan spaces, and my elaborated thoughts on Language Learning Models. Warning for transparency: I did utilize chat gpt for this post, NOT for the text itself but to provide examples of the current state of LLMs. Some articles I link to will also be ai generated, and their generated quality is part of what I'll be warning about. This is not a generated post and you can tell because I've got those nifty writing things called "voice" and "style."

ANYWAYS:

Okay so what was the Rivd situation? So two days ago this post was uploaded on tumblr, linking back to a twitter thread on the same topic. I saw it late last night because I was traveling. A reddit post was also uploaded 3 days ago. According to google trends, there was a slight uptick in search traffic the week of June 23rd, and a more severe uptick last week (June 30th-July 6th). That's all to say, this website did not exist until last week, caused a stir, and immediately was put down.

Rivd is not longer up. Enough people contacted its web hosting service Cloudflare and they took the site down. This happened yesterday, from the looks of it.

So, then, what was Rivd? And more importantly, what was the point of scraping a chunk of ao3 and re-uploading it? There seems to be 2 possible theories.

1) The more innocent of the two: they genuinely want to be an ao3 competitor. I can't look at the website any more, and very little positive results appear when googled, but I did find one ai-generated puff piece called "Exploring Rivd: The Premier Platform for Movie-Based Fanfiction" posted to Medium last week by one "Steffen Holzmann" (if that is your real name... x to doubt). This account appeared the same week that Rivd had that first little uptick in google queries, so it is undoubtedly made by the people running the website themselves to create an air of legitimacy. Medium appears to be a safe enough website that you can click that link if you really want to, but you shouldn't. It's a bad generated article, there's very little to glean from it. But it is a remnant source on what Rivd was claiming to be, before it was taken down. Here's the conclusion from the article, the only portion that gave any actual information (and it barely offers any):

Rivd is the ultimate platform for movie-based fanfiction, offering a diverse range of content, a supportive community, and robust interactive features. Whether you’re a writer looking to share your work or a reader seeking new adventures in your favorite movie universes, Rivd provides the perfect platform to engage with a passionate and creative community. Start your journey on Rivd today and immerse yourself in the world of fanfiction.

There's a second article by Holzmann titled "Mastering the Art of Fanfiction Writing in 2024" that's essentially similar ai bull, but trades explaining that fans can write Star Wars fic for explaining that you can make OC's and maybe get a beta (not that that's advice I've ever heeded. Beta? Not in this house we don't.) This was posted six days ago and similarly spends half the time jerking Rivd off. That's all to say, if they are to be believed at face value, this website wanted to just be a fic hosting site. Scraping Ao3 would have made it seem like there was already an active user base for anyone they were attempting to attract, like buying your first 50,000 instagram followers. Anyone actually looking to use this as a fic site would have quickly realized that there's no one on it and no actual fan engagement. There's already fan community spaces online. This website offers nothing ao3 or ffn or wattpad or livejournal or tumblr or reddit didn't already.

Similarly, it reeks of tech bro. Between the scraping and the ai articles, the alarms are already going off. According to that Reddit thread, they were based out of Panama, though that doesn't mean much other than an indicator that these are the type of people to generate puff articles and preemptively base their business off-shore. Holzmann, it should be mentioned, also only has 3 followers, which means my tiny ass blog already has more reach than him. Don't go following that guy. The two comments on the first article are also disparaging of Rivd. This plan didn't work and was seen right through immediately.

If fan communities, and those who write fic know anything, it's how to sniff out when someone isn't being genuine. People write fic for the love of the game, at least generally. It's a lot of work to do for free, and it's from a place of love. Ao3 is run on volunteers and donations. If this genuinely is meant to be a business bro website to out-compete ao3, then they will be sorely disappointed to learn that there's no money in this game. It would be short lived anyway. A website like this was never going to work, or if it was, it would need to ban all copyrighted and explicit materials. You know, the pillars of fic.

So then what was the point of all of this? Unless there was a more nefarious plan going on.

2) Rivd was a phishing scam. This is so so so much more likely. The mark for the scam isn't fic readers, it's fic writers. Here's how it works: they scrape a mass of ao3 accounts for their stories, you catch it, you enter a lengthy form with personal info like your full name and address etc. requesting they take your work down, they sell your data. Yes, a lot of personal info is required to take copyrighted materials down on other sites, too. That's what makes it a good scam. Fic already sits in a legal grey area (you have a copyright over your fic but none of the characters/settings/borrowed plot within it. You also CANNOT make money off of fic writing). So the site holds your works ransom, and you can't go to Marvel or Shueisha or fuck it the ghost of Ann Rice herself to deal with this on your behalf. Thankfully, enough people were able to submit valid DMCA's to Cloudflare to deal with the issue from the top.

Remember this resolution for the next time this situation arises (because of course there will be a next time). Go through higher means rather than the site itself. These scams are only getting more bold. Me personally? I'm not going to give that amount of personal info to a website that shady. Be aware of the warning signs for phishing attacks. Unfortunately, a lot of the resources online are still around text/email phishing. We live in a time where there's legal data harvesting and selling, and illegal data harvesting and selling, and the line in between the two is thin and blurry. Here's an FTC article on the signs of phishing scams, but again, it's more about emails.

I should note, I do not think that Rivd is connected to the ransomware virus of the same name that popped up two or three years ago [link is to Rivd page on PCrisk, a cypersecurity/anti-malware website]. It's probably just coincidence.... but even so. A new business priding itself on SEO and all that tech guy crap should know not to name itself the same thing as a literal virus meant to scam out out of a thousand dollars.

That's all to say, this was absolutely a scam meant to take personal info from ao3 writers. And that blows. To love art and writing and creation so much just to have your works held hostage over data feels really bad. Of course it does!

So, should you lock down your ao3 account?

That, to me, is a little trickier. You can do as you please, of course, and you should do what makes you feel safest. Me personally, though, I don't plan on it. I really, really like that guests can interact with my work from the outside. Ao3 still uses an invite system, so a lot of regular users still don't have accounts for any number of reasons. I read a lot of the time logged out anyways. I started writing again last year after all the info on the ao3 Language Learning Model training had already come out. Like I talked about in my last post, I set out to write things that a computer couldn't produce. (from here on out, I'm going to be using One Piece fic as an example, simply because that's what I write. It's also in a really prime position for a lot of ai discussion due to the size of the fandom and the size of the original work)

I'm going to be honest, I'm not all that afraid of my work being scraped for LLMs to train off of. Text generators have existed for a decade now, but they really popped off last year. LLM's are at a point, though, where the tech is sort of stagnating after the initial boom. The flaws of current ai chat bots are so baked into the flaws of ai itself that they won't be ironed out soon. They make up info, they're easily manipulated, they simply are not people. The flaw here is deep- you can trace it to the fact that we don't know enough about neuroscience itself, and even then neuroscientists don't make ai. Ai programers do. Complex info already has to make one synaptic jump without losing any understanding from person to person, and then it has to be perfectly abstracted for a machine to comprehend. It can't be done with the tools we currently have. I DO hate to admit it, but there are some decent uses for ai. if you are specifically a python programmer. The rest of us? Maybe not.

I don't like generated fic, I don't read it on principle. Checking on ao3, though, there's only 4 total generated op fics (3 in spanish, one in english, 3 xreader, 1 zosan but 2nd person zosan? and the author edited the framework the computer generated text. I still didn't enjoy the fic, tho.) But that breaks down to .005% of all op fics. I went into chat gpt and asked it to generate a drabble for me based on One Piece, and this is what it wrote:

[Image ID: A screenshot of chat GPT. The first line shows my prompt. It reads: You- write me a short 100 word fanfiction based on the manga One Piece. Next line, Chat GPT- "On the shores of an uncharted island, the Straw Hat Pirates stumbled upon a hidden treasure trove. Among the glittering gold and jewels, Luffy discovered an old, weathered journal. Inside, he found sketches and notes detailing the adventures of a legendary pirate who once roamed the Grand Line. Excited by the prospect of a new adventure, the crew set sail. following clues left in the journal. Along the way, they faced formidable foes and forged new alliances, unraveling the mysteries of the lost pirate's legacy. With each island they conquered, they grew closer to uncovering the ultimate treasure- a legacy that would shape their own journey." End ID]

Okay so like, this blows, yeah? 75,000 One Piece fics to train off of on ao3 and it still can't like, write a decent little story. This reads more like an episode summary or a book dust jacket blurb. Drabbles have an internal structure that make them interesting, much like a single sentence short story. You have to get very baby shoes never worn with them, yeah? Ai doesn't understand that, it just knows how many words it has to generate. It doesn't have any sense for creative language, metaphor, simile, poetry. I asked it to write me a poem and it wrote me the same poem with thesaurus replacements each time it re-generated one. A lot about dreams and stars and midnight and whispers, over and over again. The same rhyme scheme and cadence too.

It's also- vitally- so unhorny that it's almost a crime. For a test, I asked it to generate a story about a uhhhhh robot and an archeologist kissing. Just to see what it would give me. I ran 4 tests, a robot falling in love with an archeologist, a robot kissing an archeologist, an archeologist kissing a robot, and an archeologist falling in love with a robot. All 4 were incredibly chaste, quiet little drabbles about the innocence of discovery or whatever the fuck. Here's one of them:

[Image ID: A screenshot of chat GPT. The first line shows my prompt. It reads: You- write me a short 100 word story about an archeologist kissing a robot. Next line, Chat GPT- "Int he dimly lit chamber, Professor Evelyn Porter stared in awe at the ancient artifact- a remarkably lifelike robot buried for millennia. As she leaned closer to examine its intricacies, a surge of curiosity and admiration swept over her. In a moment of spontaneous fascination, she brushed her lips against the cool metal of its cheek, a gesture of reverence and connection across ages. The robot, dormant for eons, stirred faintly in response to the unexpected contact. It was fleeting, almost surreal exchange between past and future, bridging the gap between human exploration and technological marvels of ancient civilizations." End ID]

So like, some of these phrases gets to what's vaguely intriguing about this dynamic, sure. But at the end of the day it's still uhhhh chaste as hell. A reverent kiss??? Not what I want in my fic!!!! This is all to say, LLM's can scrape ao3 all they want, that doesn't mean they can USE what they're stealing. The training wheels have to stay on for corporate palatability. I'm stealing, I'm taking these dolls out of Shueisha's grubby hands and I'm making them sexy kiss for FREE.

In my opinion, the easiest way to keep your work out of the hands of ai is to write something they cannot use. If the grey area of copyright lies in how much is transformed, then motherfucking TRANSFORM it. Write incomprehensible smut. Build surreal worlds. Write poems and metaphors and flush out ideas that a computer could never dream of. Find niches. Get funky with it. Take it too far. and then take it even farther. Be a little freaking weirdo, you're already writing fic so then why be normal about it, you know? Even if they rob you, they can't use it. Like fiber in the diet, undigestible. Make art, make magic.

Even so, I don't mind if the computer keeps a little bit of my art. If you've ever read one of my fics, and then thought about it when you're doing something else or listening to a song or reading a book, that means something I made has stuck with you just a little bit. That;'s really cool to me, I don't know you but I live in your brain. I've made you laugh or cry or c** from my living room on the other side of the world without knowing it. It's part of why I love to write. In all honesty, I don't mind if a computer "reads" my work and a little bit of what I created sticks with it. Even if it's more in a technical way.

Art, community, fandom- they're all part of this big conversation about the world as we experience it. The way to stop websites like Rivd is how we stopped it this week. By talking to each other, by leaning on fan communities, by sending a mass of DMCA's to web host daddy. Participation in fandom spaces keeps the game going, reblogging stuff you like and sending asks and having fun and making art is what will save us. Not to sound like a sappy fuck, but really caring about people and the way we all experience the same art but interpret it differently, that's the heart of the whole thing. It's why we do this. It's meant to be fun. Love and empathy and understanding is the foundation. Build from there. Be confident in the things you make, it's the key to having your own style. You'll find your people. You aren't alone, but you have to also be willing to toss the ball back and forth with others. It takes all of us to play, even if we look a little foolish.

[rachelsnotebook]

Wishes wrapped in Red String

Intertwine by Crescence Studio

Two souls, and an eternity to endlessly intersect. Intertwine lovingly takes the player's hand and leads them through glimpses of these souls' many lives.

You'd be hard pressed to find another game that feels uniquely special from the second the title screen pops up! It wasn't long before I felt a strong wave of emotion wash over, as noted during my first playthrough:

And it was gentle. Van and the player character's stories were worth every minute I spent playing (and replaying, and replaying...). How could anyone not latch onto that hope of finding your soulmate?

Intertwine is broken up into four short sections. Each one gives the player a satisfying taste, but it will leave you feeling greedy for so much more!

I love this game exactly how it exists, but I'd be lying if I didn't selfishly wish there were several more tales. For now, I'll just happily leave things to my wild imagination.

Reasons to Love:

- The writing reads like your new favorite book. The stories you'll find are charming, hopeful, laugh out loud funny, and romantic.

- Van might be my soulmate trapped in a visual novel for this lifetime...

I swiftly fell for his charm, and felt like a clown when the game called me out on my own cheesiness.

- I can't praise the voice acting enough! The subtle differences to each lifetime's Van was always filled with personality. The performance brought him to life and transformed these stories into very real feeling conversations.

- The replay loop mechanic was exciting. Each time back at the title screen felt like a treat. Where would Van and the playable character meet next?

- I adored the visual design of Intertwine's title screen from the start. As I learned the flow of the game it became clear that it also held a fun secret. That mechanic was delightful and unexpected. And also incredibly fun!

- As Van once said... "Fuck, this is embarrassing."

So, I think every CG scene got a surprised gasp out of me. The artwork is so lovely to stare at. There wasn't a single moment where I wasn't impressed!

- I know I already pointed out how special the writing is, but I need to throw extra confetti praise over the banter. This is probably my personal favorite aspect of Intertwine. The banter is so well done!

There's a lifetime where the player and Van are coworkers who hate each other, and then briefly worm their way into each other's hearts. I adored this change, and the chance at being a bit mean. There's something thrilling about a love that bloomed from a seed planted in frustration.

I would share some of my favorite lines from that lifetime, but I'm afraid that I would end up with 80% of that section posted here. I took so many screenshots.

~~~

Intertwine came out swinging and hit a home run. Now I could be biased as a hopeless romantic, but this is my blog. It's safe to say that Intertwine leaves a lasting impression and going straight onto my Best Games of 2023 list!

This piece was originally posted on July 19th, 2023 at rachelsnotebook.wixsite.com

[superman86to99]

Worlds Collide: The Milestone Side, Month 1 (July 1994)

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT: We now have a newsletter! It's the exact same thing as this blog, but in email form. You can subscribe for free at: https://buttondown.email/superman86to99 (make sure to check your spam folder for the confirmation email) More details in an upcoming post!

"Worlds Collide" was pretty unusual for a Superman-related crossover event: it only included one of the four main Superman titles (plus two spin-offs), it happened right in the middle of another Super-storyline ("The Fall of Metropolis"), and it came out right before another crossover event involving alternate worl-- sorry, "timelines" (Zero Hour) but had absolutely no connection to it.

The basic idea is that Superman, Superboy, and Steel meet the characters of Milestone Comics' Dakotaverse thanks to a mailman who switches universes whenever he goes to sleep. However, at least in this first month, the Milestone side seems way more into the crossover than the DC one -- their issues are completely devoted to the event, while the Super Titles have a ton of other plotlines going on. (Then again, they always had a ton of other plotlines going on in this era.) In an effort to help our readers understand what the hell's going in the Superman issues when we cover them, here's what happened in the Milestone ones:

Static #13

This issue isn't technically part of the crossover (it's from the month before it started) but it does show the other side of the scene from Man of Steel #35 when Fred Bentson, the aforementioned superpowered mailman, unwittingly switches universes in the nude and runs into the Dakotaverse's most famous inhabitant, Static.

Fred tries to steal Static's flying disk (or "Static Saucer," as they called it in the Static Shock cartoon) to take it back to Metropolis as proof that he isn't just dreaming the Dakotaverse. He doesn't succeed and runs off, leaving Static like "eh, probably just some nut and not something that will end up putting the existence of multiple universes in jeopardy..."

Hardware #17

This issue reveals Fred's other superpower: picking the worst possible sleep clinic in every reality. We already saw him going into a super shady Metropolis-based one in Man of Steel, and this issue shows that he also went into one owned by Edwin Alva, Milestone Comics' foremost unscrupulous businessman (and the boss of this comic's titular character). Alva wants to exploit Fred's reality-hopping powers, so he orders Hardware to go into the DC Universe with him in order to find out how they work.

Hardware obeys and finds himself teleported into the middle of Metropolis, which is in such poor shape after the events of Action #700 that he initially mistakes it for Detroit.

After saving a woman from some bizarre would-be rapists (that you'd never see in a Superman comic), Hardware suddenly sees Superman's Pal, Steel, looking at him from the other side of a mirror. Both are big black dudes who used their super-smarts to build themselves badass robotic armors, so I can't blame the universe(s) for getting them mixed up. Steel breaks the mirror from the other side with his hammer, causing Hardware to fall into a nightmare where people from his life call him a sellout and a terrible person.

Hardware wakes up back in the city of Dakota, and it turns out the only thing he managed to bring from the other universe is an issue of the Daily Planet... which is still enough to convince Alva that he can use Fred to conquer two worlds.

Icon #11

Superboy #6 (which we'll cover in the usual Super Titles Round-Up post) ends with Fred accidentally taking Superboy into Dakota. Icon himself, who is pretty much the Dakotaverse's Superman, barely appears in this issue, but that's fine with Superboy because he gets to meet, and be a perv towards, his sidekick Rocket.

This is the issue where Fred realizes he can create beings with the power of his imagination, which is bad news for everyone around him because he's an anxious little fella. Fred starts bringing his biggest fears to life: first, an army of IRS auditors who look like Superman's enemy the Parasite (who attacked him in Superboy #6)...

...and then, a building-sized version of his Fifth Grade bully. The young heroes put aside their differences to defeat the big bully in the most appropriate way they can think of: Superboy uses his tactile telekinesis to drop his pants, and then Rocket pushes him down while he's distracted.

Superboy, Rocket, and Icon (who finally decides to show up for his own comic) take Fred back to Alva's sleep clinic for further study. At Alva's, Superboy tries to hit on Rocket again, but she freaks him out by simply being a pregnant teenage superheroine, something that can't exist in the DCU.

Oh yeah, and this leads to an important event in Superboy's life that I'm surprised didn't happen in his own comic: the moment he realizes he has no bully button.

Anyway, Alva gets Fred to teleport himself and Superboy back to Metropolis by asking him to imagine himself "as a bridge between worlds." This works a little too well, since not only does Fred jump universes again, but he also creates a literal bridge between them...

Blood Syndicate #16

The bridge scene is repeated from different perspectives in Steel #6 and in this series, which follows a bunch of gang members who get superpowers after the police throw radioactive tear gas at them. As a result of that incident, known as the "Big Bang," half of the bridge connecting Dakota with the gang-ridden Paris Island was blown off -- which is pretty convenient for this crossover, because Metropolis also has a half-blown-off bridge, courtesy of a fight between Superboy and Spider-Man But Evil during "Reign of the Supermen."

Now Fred has merged both half-bridges into one interdimensional bridge connecting both universes, which is very confusing to the Blood Syndicate gang (for once, when I call a group of superheroes a "gang" I mean that literally). It gets even more confusing once they cross the bridge, thinking the bombed-out Metropolis is Dakota, and hear people talking about Superman. You know, from TV! Wait, does this mean the Blood Syndicate watches Lois & Clark?

Then they run into Superman and assume he must be some insane "Bang Baby" doing cosplay, while he assumes they must be working for Luthor. It doesn't help that they're quite rude towards him and drop swear words no one in the DCU has probably heard before. The issue ends with the whole gang about to attack Superman while one of them, a talking dog called Dogg, says "Yo, Superman, where's Krypto?" (SPOILERS: In Superboy #6, with Bibbo.)

Worlds Collide #1

This one-shot brings all the characters together as we transition from the "meet and fight" to the "team up to face the greater threat" part of the story. Fred finds himself back in Dakota and runs into a bunch of high school kids who are working on their own comic book. When Fred looks at one of the pages of the comic without meaning to, he summons its equally destructive hero and villain into existence.

One of those comic nerds happens to be Static in his secret identity, so he gets to work on stopping the runaway characters and soon bumps heads with Superboy as he's trying to do the same thing.

At this point, Fred starts enjoying his powers a little too much and adds his own childhood comic book creations to the mix, all of whom look like him but with way more muscles. Things get really chaotic, and this is when we learn that Static actually reads Superboy's comic -- though I'm confused by his mention of the "no belly button" thing. Does this mean Static read Icon #11 up there? My head hurts.

Rocket also drops by to help, and there's a bit about Superboy panicking when he realizes that she, a jacket-wearing teenager with "kinetic energy" powers who works with an iconic superhero, is his Dakotaverse counterpart. This reminded me of Magdalene Visaggio and Darick Robertson's Superboy pitch in which Conner Kent transitions into Connie Kent and becomes a superheroine called Skyrocket -- if DC hadn't rejected the idea, they could have used this scene as foreshadowing. (I asked Visaggio on BlueSky if she knew about the Superboy/Rocket thing when she picked the name Skyrocket and she said "Nope!")

At one point, Fred merges with all of his creations and becomes a super-jacked gunslinger with wheels for feet. When Superboy makes the mistake of criticizing his fashion sense, we learn the ultimate source of Fred's trauma: Adam West's Batman.

Meanwhile, Fred's body is also at the sleep clinic in Metropolis and somehow at Alva's lab at the same time, and both places are trying to pull him to their side in order to exploit his powers. The process tears Fred apart, both physically and psychologically -- leaving in his place a giant, all-powerful, scary-looking being calling himself RIFT. He even does the "Fred Bentson is no more!" thing, so you know shit's getting real.

As for Superman, he's losing his patience with the Blood Syndicate, especially after they dare to mess with the hair.

After some more fighting, Superman finally convinces them that this isn't Dakota, it really is Metropolis from the comics. They're like "ah, okay, not our problem then" and head back to Paris Island... just as Rift grows so large that he's able to pick up the entire island and throw it in the ocean, creating a massive tsunami wave that seems to be about to wipe out what's left of Metropolis.

NEXT IN "WORLDS COLLIDE": Shit gets even more real! (But not real enough to impact the other Superman titles.)

[nemaliwrites]

2025 WIP Cleanout

anyway i was thinking about Jessica Abel's thoughts on idea debt and @/bettsfic's newsletter on triaging wips and realized there is a LOT of drawerfic i have that my brain refuses to actually leave in the proverbial drawer

it was easy then to be like 'ok whatever i'll just scrap this' but harder to realize that...i don't actually want to scrap them

i don't know if it's the ideas themselves that keep haunting me or the potential that i know those stories can have if only i put the work in - so here is me, vowing to put the work in

i've got 4 fics, over 300k more words to write, and a plan of action for all of them - here's everything i've got on the list (they all have titles too so that's how you know i'm serious about them LOL)

Something Man-Made is Here

Beef, Amy/Danny, Amy/Paul

this one is what inspired this cleanout bc i've literally had this fic on the backburner FOREVER :') i first started it back in june 2023 and wrote like 20k words before taking a break. then i picked it back up for nano 2023 and wrote the 50k before taking another break. finally in july 2024 i wrote the last 30k and then promptly buried the doc so deep in my folders that i didn't look at it again

i do think this one has good bones and is worth polishing up, but i mean, to state the obvious...absolutely no one is going to read this. there are like 10 fics for this fandom - for so long i've been feeling like it would be a waste of time to fix this up.

but!!! it wouldn't!!!! because as we have established, this will keep haunting me until i actually do something about it. so! plan of action

currently, the draft is around 100k and 27 chapters. but! it is a mess

i think the final chapter count will actually be less....chapters 24-27 feel like they could be consolidated into one or two, just to tighten up the pacing a bit

the entire thing also needs probably a straight up rewrite so....that will be fun

a lot of the smaller things this needs - a sweep for pacing, characterization, etc etc - will probably be covered in the rewrite so i just need to put the time in

final word count will probably be somewhere around 80-100k? i think a lot of what i have will be cut and replaced, so it'll also be tightened up

2. Hold Up Our Mirrors

AI: The Somnium Files, Iris & Saito

started this one back in february 2023...wow. it's currently sitting at 17k words, but i think the reason i dropped it is because it has no audience except for me [do you see a pattern here...] and also because it needed a lot of canon review that i wasn't really in the mood to do

this one also has good bones! back when i started this, i found the theme/motif that i wanted it to center around, so that's a lot of the groundwork done.

canon reviewwww.....i have no idea who these people are anymore.

probably will scrap most of what i have and start fresh, mostly bc i was in a very different place when i wrote this and i think starting over will help put me back into the headspace of the story

good bones good bones!! i actually have most of the major beats of the story already written down, so most of the rewrite's focus will be on characterization rather than plot

i don't think this one should be very long? [fully aware that i will probably eat my words] i was thinking around 50k, so we'll see

3. Swim Back to Your Shore

Persona 4, Yu & Nanako, Yu & Investigation Team

ahhh another fic that will only appeal to me. this one is actually more recent than the others on the list..i started it back in august 2024. so far, i've got 29k written, but about 20k of that was written with dictation, so it's more of a zero draft than anything coherent.

the first like...8k though, i'm actually quite happy with! don't think it'll require as much work as the rest

okiee first of all, need to rewrite all of the dictation-written chapters (5 of them) into something resembling prose

after that, actually, i think it's just writing the rest? the plot is like.....a vague mishmash of things that only exists in my head, so finding the right thread to pull might take a while

thinking around 80k for this one

4. Maybe Life Will Love You Home

Miraculous Ladybug, Shadybug/Claw Noir

so this one might actually appeal to people other than me!! all....two of you LOL

started this one back in may 2024, and originally meant to finish it for the ML big bang, but..idk the vibes were off, so i scrapped that idea. this one's currently sitting at 15k, but i think i need to start fresh with this one too.

read through what i have and cannibalize it for ideas

just write! for this one at least, the plot is a bit more concrete in my head? maybe bc i've been thinking about it for so long....haunting me...

thinking also around 80k for this one!

deadline for all of these is by the end of the year, 2025. godspeed, future me

[mydetheturk]

Title: I Don't Want You to Leave (Will You Hold My Hand?) Author: mydetheturk Rating: T+, bordering on M,so we'll call it M for uh. mildly graphic depictions of how much pain Vash is in. Word Count: 6,730 Warnings: Vash spends a lot of time in pain in this one, Vash has Chronic Pain and it messes with his head, There's a handful of implied and understated "wolfwood has been fucked up" moments as well. If there's anything else I probably should have warned about, let me know and I'll update the post.

Summary: Vash knows, intimately, when the seasons change and there are going to be storms. He tries to avoid being in places where the seasonal lightning storms can turn into water storms, but he isn't always successful. He's lucky this year, in that he has people who care so much about him.

~~

Author's Note: This would normally be going up on AO3, but I'm still waiting for our wife (AO3) to return from the war (Dealing with the DDoS attack), so y'all get to read it here on tumblr. (and if i have to, i will make a dreamwidth/unearth my fanfiction.net account so its a little easier to read. You'll be updated on that.)

This is for @mashwoodweek's Day Two! the prompt I chose was "Seasons," the title is from Sam Smith's "Stay With Me" (feat. Mary J. Bilge).

Enjoy.

~~~

Seasons don't truly exist on No Man's Land. It's hot year round, but people argue about which times of year are worse. Hot, hotter, lightning, and sandstorm are the generally accepted "seasons,” if one deigns to use the term at all. It's easy to track the passing of the days through the weeks and the months, so long as one can track them. Vash has long since given up on tracking individual days, letting the sands wash over him in an endless loop. It's easier for him to notice when the seasons shift; not necessarily between hot and hotter, but between those and the times of the year when lightning and sandstorms are more common.

His body aches, between his prosthetic and all of the scars and metal plates and how he's missing the cartilage in one of his knees. Vash has noticed Meryl gets snippy when the rare storm has rolled in during the off-season, and this is his first lightning season with Meryl and Wolfwood together.

(Right after Wolfwood found him again didn't count – the season was almost over by that point and Vash's memories of them before July were shattered into pieces. The season after is the hottest part of the year, where Vash learned exactly how far Wolfwood pushes himself, even in the heat, to keep Vash and Meryl safe and alive. The sound of a glass ampule shattering is one that haunts Vash in his dreams, when he dreams.)

So Vash knows, intimately, when storms will be rolling in, sand or lightning. He suspects Meryl knows too, can see the pinching of her brow and the way she rubs at her eyes, even if she often doesn't quite realize it until it's too late.

“There's a storm coming,” Vash says, staring out the window of the truck. There's not a cloud in the sky, but Vash knows. There's a pressure in the air that wasn't quite there an hour ago, a hint of something in the way the sands roll off the endless dunes.

Wolfwood sits up, scanning the horizon. “You sure?” he asks. His tone isn't quite disbelieving, because he knows, even more intimately than Meryl, what Vash is. (Vash had spooked him once, bolting upright from a nightmare of July. Wolfwood had been twitching in his sleep, and Vash had hovered his hand over Wolfwood's shoulder, and Wolfwood had woken. Vash's speed had been the only thing to save him from a barely-conscious Wolfwood lashing out. When Vash tried to question him about it, Wolfwood had looked at him with haunted eyes and said he looked like Knives. Vash has never asked, and he probably won't, but he avoids looking at himself in the mirror for a reason.)

“Yes,” Vash states.

Meryl nods. “Alright. Should we push on to the next town or do you guys think we should find a place to hunker down?” She's already got the pinched look in the corners of her eyes, just visible behind her sunglasses.

Vash's knee, the one missing its cartilage, is the first thing to hurt when lightning storms roll through. He taps his fingers against it, thinking while Wolfwood grabs the map and does some math.

“It'll probably be another day or so before it hits this area,” Vash says. The pain will radiate outwards, and the deepest scars will start hurting next. “A town would be nice.”

Meryl's grip tightens minutely on the steering wheel. Wolfwood moves his fingers against the map, picking out coordinates.

“I think we might make it to the next town before then,” Wolfwood says. “If we drive through the night.”

Meryl bares her teeth at the windshield and Vash grimaces. He can't drive, and if he's timed it right, by the time the suns set and night has fallen, Meryl won't be able to any more.

“Don't give me that, Shortstack, Blondie. I can drive.”

“Last time you drove you crashed the truck!” Meryl snaps back.

“How was I supposed to know fucking Zazie was going to show up like that! I don't control the shit they do!” Wolfwood protests.

Meryl slows the truck to a stop and throws it in park so she can bang her head against the wheel a couple of times.

"Ah! Meryl!” Vash leans forward and pulls her back from the wheel, readjusting her sunglasses.

"Fine. Nick can drive. Don't crash the truck,” Meryl says. She's making a face like she thinks she's going to regret letting Wolfwood drive.

"We'll pull over at sunsdown and make the switch then, yeah?” Vash suggests. Meryl sighs and gets the truck started again. She nods, though, a frown on her lips and her brows furrowed. She doesn't mind when Wolfwood drives the bike, but he's the only one of the three who can glide Angelina between the dunes with both Vash and Meryl, the sidecar, and the Punisher at once and not crash her. But the truck is her baby, was Roberto’s before July. It’s one of the few things she has left of her mentor.

“Works for me.” Wolfwood settles in to nap until sunsdown, his (Vash's old) sunglasses shading his eyes. His breathing evens out, steadies as he drifts into sleep until Meryl will come to a stop in a few hours.

“Go until you need to rest, yeah?” Vash says quietly, once he's reasonably sure Wolfwood's out for the afternoon. “Don't push yourself too hard. If we have to stop sooner, we can.”

“It's fine, Vash,” Meryl says. She smiles at him in the rear view. “If we come across a way station, we can make the switch there. Sound good?”

Vash nods. “Yeah. Sounds good.”

Clouds start drifting across the sky as they drive on. The ache in Vash's bones slowly starts to deepen, and he makes a hissing noise when Meryl hits a particularly rough patch of rock and sand.

”Sorry,” she says, eyes soft in the mirror.

”It's fine,” Vash replies. It's not as bad as it could be – not as bad as it will be, in just a few more hours time. Human painkillers don't have much of an effect on him, only make him irritable and paranoid. The only thing that really kills the pain is heat, whether that be from a soak in a hot bath or from being trapped under blankets by Meryl and Wolfwood. Mostly from Wolfwood, if Vash is honest with himself – something about the experiments Wolfwood has gone through leave him burning hotter than the average human. Not as hot as Vash should run, nor as hot as one of Vash's sisters, but far warmer than Meryl.

Another hour passes, the suns starting to settle low in the sky. A way station sits on the horizon, and Meryl angles the truck for it.

”Careful waking him,” she says. Like Vash needs the warning.

Vash places his hand on Wolfwood's shoulder, slowly adding pressure. Wolfwood wakes with a jolt anyway. He doesn't come up swinging, the way he has in the past, but he does startle, smacking his head against the window.

Vash pulls his hand back, murmuring quietly. “We're in the truck, Wolfwood. We're coming up to a way station.”

It still takes a moment for Wolfwood to blink himself fully conscious. There'd been an incident while Vash was Eriks, one that neither Wolfwood nor Meryl would talk about. Meryl because she doesn't know the details, and Wolfwood because even now he holds his cards close to his chest. There's something different about the ampules that Wolfwood still doesn't talk about. Vash hasn't had the heart to take one and crack it open to inspect it.

Wolfwood sleeps deeper now, though, if he thinks he's somewhere the Eye can't touch.

So, the truck, mostly.

“How late's it?” Wolfwood asks. His voice is a little slurred, raspy with sleep.

Vash smiles, glancing at Meryl in the mirror and seeing her eyes crinkle with her own smile. “The parent sun should set here in about an hour.”

Wolfwood hums, stretches out. His back crackles against the seat. “Great. Could use a bit to walk around.”

“Another couple minutes,” Meryl says in the front seat. She presses the fingers of one hand to her eye and smooths out her brow. From the one movement alone, Vash knows Meryl's starting to feel the shift in pressure. He can feel it in his stump now as well.

Wolfwood is fully awake by the time they pull in at the way station, Meryl pulling the truck up to a charger. It's got enough to get them to the next town, but it's always good to recharge the truck when they find a way station.

“Gonna take a bit,” Meryl says. “Wanna get some supplies while we're here?”

“We should probably get dinner so Wolfwood doesn't have to catch us some worms again,” Vash teases. Meryl makes a face that Wolfwood snickers at while he lights up a cigarette.

His deep sigh at the first inhale pokes something brittle in Vash's heart. Smoke filters away from Wolfwood as he goes from the truck to the little store of the way station. Vash catches that he'd grabbed their canteens to refill while inside. Its sweet of him to remember.

Meryl stretches out and makes her way inside as well, while Vash watches them both.

He loves them. They love him, refuse to leave his side despite everything.

With a soft smile, Vash pours himself out of the truck. There's an ache in his hips that he hadn't realized had started up, and he stumbles slightly. They're the only ones at the way station right now, and Vash is glad for the lack of witnesses to his fumble.

The sooner they can get to a town with an inn, the better.

Inside, Vash finds Meryl and Wolfwood debating the merits of the various shelf stable and easily snackable foods in the way station's shelves. They're doing it surprisingly quietly for them; he's used to them being much louder about it. Wolfwood's the one with a basket in hand; the canteens have been slung over Meryl's shoulders. The way she's walking, Wolfwood must have filled them first thing.

Good man.

Vash drapes himself over Wolfwood's back and makes a noise deep in his chest. Wolfwood absently reaches back and pets Vash's hair as he continues to debate with Meryl.

“I'm telling you, the red ones taste better,” he says. He's holding a pack of gummy candy. It looks like straws, and there's a little bit of something crystallized on the outside.

“They're too sweet,” Meryl responds. “The black ones are better.”

“You think I like that bitter crap?” Wolfwood makes a face, his nose crinkling cutely.

Vash reaches around and grabs a handful of both types to inspect them. The red ones are coated in sugar crystals, but the black ones have salt on them. He didn't think anywhere outside Sanforrd made the black ones like that.

“I like them both,” he says.

Both of them stare at Vash. They're still not used to him expressing the things he likes and doesn't like. Meryl lights up though, and Wolfwood softens under Vash's weight.

“We'll get some of both, then,” Meryl decides. She grabs a small bag and scoops a handful of black straws into it, handing it to Vash, who drops his own into the bag as well. She does the same with the red ones, and Vash hands the bag to Wolfwood, who clutches the bag tightly. “We should grab more suckers too, Nick,” Meryl points out.

“Way ahead of you, shortie,” Wolfwood says. He's already moving to grab another bag to stick suckers in. Vash lets him drift away.

Vash has noticed as they've traveled together that Wolfwood doesn't like bitter things – he prefers sweet, and prefers sour to sweet, even. Meryl is the one that likes bitter foods despite how the taste makes her nose crinkle. She's cute like that.

They continue drifting through the way station, all three of them idly watched by the station's manager behind the counter. Vash enjoys watching Meryl and Wolfwood debate. He really doesn't have many preferences, other than the occasional head shake when one of them presents something for his opinion. Most of the proteins are repackaged worm or thoma, and Vash doesn't care which he gets, when he's eating. He does prefer thoma jerky, however, and he's pleased to see that one of them has placed a couple of packages in the basket for him. Meryl's the pickiest eater of the three of them, but it's alright. Vash also doesn't see the point of snatching worm larva from the air and crunching on it raw.

He'll leave that to Wolfwood.

The truck is long-charged by the time they finish in the way station, laden down with enough to keep them going through the night and into the next day if they have to. Vash sets their prizes down in the back seat, Wolfwood’s bag of suckers and gummy red sticks in the front while Wolfwood inspects the truck and Meryl unhooks it from the charging station. Vash is riding in the back; the passenger’s seat won’t give him enough room to stretch out properly.

Meryl keeps touching her face and smoothing out her eyebrows absently. Vash can feel the ache in his bones and he keeps having to dodge Wolfwood's concerned looks. Meryl hasn't caught on just yet, but Wolfwood has. Vash watched the way his brows twitched and his eyes narrowed when he put all the pieces together.

Wolfwood knows. From what Vash has seen, Wolfwood doesn't get the aches from lightning storms, the rare one or two that've occurred outside the season. Sandstorms get him down, putting his hackles up and making him more leery of everything around him. Vash isn't quite sure if it's his body aching or if it's the sound of sand blowing against everything, but the sandstorm season they've spent together already has Vash's heart aching for him.

“Who wants shotgun?” Wolfwood asks, sliding into the driver's seat of the truck. “Or are you both holing up in the back?” He grumbles a bit as he adjusts the seat. “Jesus, Shortstack, how do you even fit in here?”

“Not all of us have legs a mile long, Nick,” Meryl deadpans. She's smirking a little though. She likes how long Wolfwood's legs are. She likes draping herself over them when they all share a bed before they actually turn in for the night, if they've found a motel to crash at.

Meryl would drape herself all over Vash's legs too, but she claims he's too bony in the joints. Vash is longer and slightly broader in the shoulders than Wolfwood, but Wolfwood does have more mass. Vash has conceded the point.

She climbs into the back with Vash today, though, scooting into the middle and up against Vash's side.

“Drive, chauffeur,” Meryl says. She says it with a giggle and Vash nuzzles his face into her hair.

“Yeah, yeah,” Wolfwood says. There's a smile in his eyes behind the sunglasses, though, when Vash catches them in the mirror.

The parent sun has set by the time they get moving again, and the child isn't far behind. Only one of the moons is full tonight, the others in various states of waxing and waning. This far out in the sand wastes, there aren't many radio stations to catch. Vash and Meryl share a glance when the static hissing quietly through the truck's radio catches a station and Wolfwood changes it within a few words.

EOM? Meryl draws on Vash's thigh.

MAYBE, Vash traces back on Meryl's hand. It's one of those things Wolfwood either won't or can't talk about.

Meryl keeps pressing at her eyes and the movement has extended to her temples.

“You should rest, Meryl,” Vash says.

“I'm fine,” Meryl says. “My eyes are bothering me, is all. I think the drive was a lot today.”

“Passenger's side pocket has a bottle of painkillers, shortie,” Wolfwood pipes up from the front seat. “Gonna storm, remember?”

Meryl blinks, and Vash watches the wheels turn in the light of one moon. “Oh. How did I forget? How do I always forget?”

The pressure difference of a storm rolling through wears her out, and Meryl's too stubborn to give in at first. Wolfwood had first hand experience after July. Two lightning seasons worth of experience, and three seasons worth of sandstorms.

Vash feels like an outsider at Wolfwood's words, but there's nothing to be done. They looked after each other for two years, trying to find any indication that he was still alive.

Vash is grateful for it.

He is grateful for it. Really. He is.

The heartbroken way Wolfwood had given him his Colt back is another feature of his dreams, soft and broken and so, so apologetic. Like he desperately didn't want to pull Vash back into life on the run but couldn't stay with Granny and Lina himself. There are people relying on Wolfwood, more than just Vash and Meryl. Vash has seen the envelopes he sends back to December and Hopeland with Meryl's reports. He hasn't tried to convince them to swing back to Hopeland, but Vash knows Wolfwood would like to go back.

Meryl leans up and forward, reaching into the passenger's side and rummaging around in it. Vash steadies her, hand on her waist while she leans.

“Got it,” Meryl says, and Vash pulls her back. She twists the cap off after squinting at it. Meryl's nose crinkles. “This is the stuff that makes me sleep, isn't it?” she asks.

Wolfwood waves a hand. “Maybe. I just grabbed whatever.”

Vash peers over her shoulder at the bottle. The moons give off just enough light for him to see, even if Meryl's thumb has Wolfwood's handwriting covered.

Meryl sighs, making Wolfwood scoff. “You need it anyway.” He reaches back and pokes at them. Vash taps Wolfwood's finger with one of his own. “Take your meds and get some sleep. You too, Spikey.”

Grumbling, Meryl grabs one of the canteens and takes two of the little pills.

“I'll keep you company for a while longer, Wolfwood,” Vash says.

Wolfwood withdraws his hand and rummages in the passenger's seat for a sucker. Meryl's given him enough of an earful over smoking in the truck.

“Do what you want,” Wolfwood says. His attention drifts back to the sands.

The truck rumbles easily under Vash, and Meryl snuggles into his coat.

(It's not his original SEEDS Project coat from Luida and Brad, though it is from Home. Their first “mission” after finding Vash again had to drag him Home to get him checked out. Vash had gotten a new coat then; no matter how hard Wolfwood and Meryl had scrubbed, they couldn't get the original coat clean and red again.

Wolfwood had taken to wearing it alongside Vash's darkened shooting glasses, and it soothed something in Vash's heart seeing it. Wolfwood didn't wear it all the time, but the fact remained.)

Meryl grumbles a little bit; she soothes and starts drifting as Vash pets her hair. The tightness in her eyes fades as she drifts away into sleep on Vash.

Vash drifts in and out as well, jerking into full wakefulness at one point when Wolfwood brings the truck to a stop. His leg had fallen asleep and off the back set, jolting pain up his leg.

Vash's gasp of pain has Wolfwood looking at him over his shoulder. “Sorry,” Wolfwood explains, “I need to stretch out. We'll start up again in a few.”

“Time's it?” Vash asks. He presses the heel of his palm down his thigh, hoping the pressure will help with the ache.

“Late. Early? Parent sun’ll probably be rising after a while, if the clouds aren't too thick.” Wolfwood gets out of the truck, easing the door closed so he doesn't wake Meryl. Vash watches as he lights up a cigarette, flipping his lighter instinctively as he does. Wolfwood paces back and forth for a bit while he smokes and stretches out his back and shoulders. If Vash listens hard enough, when Wolfwood stretches his arms up and over his shoulders and leans backward, he can hear Wolfwood's vertebrae pop against one another. Vash has run his flesh and bone hand up Wolfwood's back and has an intimate knowledge of those vertebrae.

There are more than there should be.

Wolfwood finishes his cigarette surprisingly quickly, getting back in the truck after just one.

“Everything okay?” Vash asks.

“Just wanna get to the next town before the storms roll through,” Wolfwood says in a rare bout of honesty.

He tries.

Vash loves him for it.

Wolfwood makes a face back at Vash in the mirror. “Go back to fucking sleep, Blondie. We've still got another couple hours, probably.”

“Alright, alright.” Vash can't seem to kill the smile on his face, though. He hides his smile in Meryl's hair, peering at Wolfwood over her. Meryl snuffles and snuggles in closer, and Vash isn't sure how his chest plate is comfortable for her.

It's dark now, properly dark, now that Vash processes it. Wolfwood has the glasses off, and the moons have either fallen or the clouds have rolled in thicker. Vash rumbles a purr deep in his chest and closes his eyes. Meryl's weight is comforting.

He drifts again to the sound of Wolfwood humming.

When Vash opens his eyes again, his whole body aches. It's settled in deep, and Vash makes a noise as he eases himself upward. Meryl's no longer on him, having migrated to the front seat at some point. They must have stopped after Vash drifted off, deeper than he thought.

“Hey sleepyhead,” Wolfwood says. The sunglasses are back on his face. Vash quietly mourns losing seeing his eyes. “How're you feeling?”

Vash blinks and thinks about it. “Sore,” is what he says. Its a bit of an understatement.

Meryl hums and leans over the center console to look at him. She's also wearing sunglasses, but he can see how she's managed to bruise under her eyes by pressing at them. “Yeah, me too.”

Vash finally puts a word to what he's been seeing. “How's your head?” he asks.

“I'm being stabbed in the eyes and the thought of driving is making me feel sick,” Meryl says. “Even with the good pills, I feel like someone's stabbing me in the temples with a dull knife.”

It's a bad one, then. Vash leans forward slightly and taps their heads together.

He hums at her, a low tone in his throat that he's only heard out of another Plant a brief handful of times. Another Plant was trying to soothe him while she was fading. The other times had been at Home, while hiding in the Plant Chamber of the ship; the other Plants sensed his upset and sang for him.

“How much further?” Vash asks. The words come out of his mouth with a rumble and Meryl blinks at him from behind her sunglasses.

“Not sure. Parent sun should be up, but the cloud cover's pretty thick. We might be in town a couple days,” Wolfwood says. He nudges Meryl back into the seat so he can get at the gear shift.

Vash agrees with that statement. The pain will likely knock him down for at least one of those days and he's going to need to take off his prosthetic.

Blinking out the window, Vash sees what Wolfwood means. This season, at least in this area, might be incredibly active. Vash hasn't been through here in a couple of decades; not at this time of year anyway.

They might need to leave sooner rather than later, once Vash and Meryl are recovered well enough. Wolfwood's going to have to be their main point of contact while they're in town. Rain is slightly more common in lightning season, but still rare, and Vash’s body disagrees with rain.

“Sooner would be better,” Vash says, laying back. He can't quite stretch out fully, but he can get his feet up on the window frame so he's on his back. Meryl coos at him; there's a tired note to it, though.

Vash dozes again to the sound of Wolfwood humming and Meryl messing with the radio. She finally settles on a station that's playing music, someone singing with a guitar. Wolfwood hums along with the song, fingers gently tapping to the beat.

“It's not a sin if it don't make me cry,” Wolfwood croons under his breath. Vash idly wishes he could hear Wolfwood sing for real as he lets the movement of the truck rock him to sleep again.

Vash wakes as the truck pulls to a stop. The pain eclipses his body, but there are points from where the pain radiates the most. His (lack of) arm, the chest plate, the knee where his cartilage is just gone.

“We made it to town,” Meryl says quietly. She's peering at him from over the back of the front seat. “Nick's going in and getting us a room. He's gonna try to get one with a bathroom, if they have one.”

Vash grunts slightly, his breath rattling. It's not the injury rattle, though it is pained.

“Just a bit longer, Vash,” Meryl says. “Nick should be out soon.” She reaches over the center console and takes Vash's hand in hers, rubbing her thumb over the back. His glove prevents skin-to-skin contact but for his index and pinky, but she's never really seemed to care. Vash thinks he loves that about her.

True to Meryl's word, Wolfwood comes back out of the building soon after.

He leans against the back door of the truck, breathing deeply a couple of times before he opens it. “Got a room for a couple of days,” he says. “Its not much, only one bed, but there's a private bathroom. It sounds like it might even have a tub we can use.” Wolfwood reaches out and pets Meryl's hair briefly.

He's worried and bad at showing it. Vash rattles a weak purr at him. Wolfwood strokes Vash's cheek from nose to ear.

“I'll get you two settled, then the truck moved. Shortstack, you good to walk?”

“Yeah. Might take a minute if there's stairs though.”

“Convinced them to give us a first floor room. Didn't want to risk you two with anything higher up.”

Vash loves him. Wolfwood claims he's not kind and then he does this? Liar.

Meryl gets out of the truck and shoves her sunglasses as far up her face as she can. She's got her shoulders hunched up and her jacket around her shoulders, the collar flipped up to hide some of her face and block out extra light. Vash lets Wolfwood slide him out of the truck into his arms to carry Vash bridal style. Vash swallows heavily, and Wolfwood murmurs something against his forehead. Vash doesn't quite hear it over the grinding of his joints, but he tries to get his arm around Wolfwood's neck anyway. Not that he needs to – Wolfwood can carry Vash with no problems even easier than he slings the Punisher around.

Wolfwood kicks the door closed behind him once he's got Vash safe in his arms. Meryl makes a cranky noise but goes inside first, holding the inn's door open for them. Vash process the fact that the innkeeper calls Wolfwood Padre but doesn't get much more as a wave of pain cramps up his leg.

“Easy, angel,” Wolfwood murmurs.

“Soon,” Vash mumbles. “It's gonna storm soon.”

The wind is kicking up – Vash curls his body as he can and presses his face into Wolfwood's throat. He's always hated this season, tries to avoid the parts of No Man's Land that are in it whenever he can. The storms that flare up out of season he can handle – most of them are over quickly. When the seasons – and Vash uses the word loosely – change, Vash knows intimately. Especially when he's gone into an area where the season's already moved in. The red sands should have tipped him off when he spotted them two days before, but all he'd thought about at the time was a flash of memory he didn't realize he'd lost.

Vash thinks Meryl leads them through the inn to the room the innkeeper lent them, but the next little while is a blur, tucked into Wolfwood's throat as he is. He'll probably have markings from Wolfwood's rosary on his face when he emerges, Vash thinks with a horrible giggle. It's better than the Plant markings that show up. Had he lost Meryl and Wolfwood that day on the sandsteamer, Vash wouldn't have blamed them.

Another pulse of pain, sharper than the way his stump pulses with his heartbeat. Vash might make a noise. He's not terribly sure. Tears leak out of the corners of his eyes, and a gentle hand wipes them away. The size of the fingers indicate Meryl. They're small and delicate, calloused in a different way from Wolfwood's, from Vash's own.

Wolfwood gently deposits Vash on the bed and disappears through one of the doors for a moment when Vash cracks open his eyes. The sound of water hits Vash's ears and he shudders a breath. “’sit hot?” he slurs.

“Nick's checking, Vash,” Meryl says. He thinks she says that, anyway. He's not sure he hears her properly over the sound of the now-howling wind. He lets her manhandle him slightly to get his coat off, lets her take off his shooting glasses and place them delicately on the bedside table. He can hear the click of that just fine, but the shape of the words from his own partner's voice? Clearly not.

He flinches when she moves to take off his prosthetic, eyes half-lidded and heat spreading from the end. She doesn't need to be doing this, he thinks, she's already hurting and feeling terrible.

Someone starts petting his hair, and Vash leans into the touch. This, he can handle at the moment. A second set of hands joins in, carefully getting Vash's shirt off him. Vash sucks in a slightly panicked breath, but he knows those hands. They're Nico’s.

“We've got you, Vash,” Nico says. “I ain't letting anyone take you away again.”

This time, he lets them take off his arm. Nico unhooks Vash’s gun belt, slides the leather from around his waist and thigh. He doesn't crack a joke or anything about it, which means Vash looks as bad as he feels. One of them gets Vash's boots, and Nico disappears for a moment. Meryl wrestles with Vash's pants, and Vash helps where he can. Trying to get his leg to bend is impossible, though, and she slides the pants off his legs. Vash gasps, but Meryl's seen him like this before.

The wind howls, and all Vash can hear is the sound of his fluid pulsing in his ears over the burning of rubble and the crashing of ships. It's bad, then.

A hand on his shoulder has Vash flinching back, grabbing it in his own and squeezing. Blinking fiercely, Vash focuses his vision on Nico, who just looks at him with too soft eyes. Too soft for Vash to deserve.

“Easy, Angel,” Nico says again.

“Nico,” Vash rasps. He lets go of Nico's arm and reaches out with his hand.

Nico comes easily, tucking Vash under his chin and into his chest. “I'm here.”

“Meryl?”

A small body leans against Vash's back. “I'm here too,” Meryl says. Vash slowly calms down.

“Sorry,” Vash mumbles eventually. Meryl shakes her head into Vash's shoulder blades and Nico snorts softly into Vash's hair. Vash is trapped, but not in danger.

“Storm rolled in faster than any of us thought,” Nico says. Vash can hear it now, over Nico and Meryl's steady pulses. It's not a regular lightning storm; there's rain too. It could be flooding where they were an hour or two ago.

“It's why my head is so bad,” Meryl says. Her lips tickle against Vash's spine.

“And pro'ly why you're such a wreck,” Nico adds. He trails his fingers up and down Vash's side.

Vash just nods. Okay. That's... that's fine.

“Lemme get you up,” Nico says, and Meryl pulls back a little. Vash sways slightly as he sits up on his own, and Nico's hand doesn't leave his shoulder even as Nico stands up off the bed. “Water should still be hot, but you like it hotter'n we do anyway.”

Vash blinks a couple of times as he sluggishly processes this. “That sounds... good.” Meryl slides off the bed beside Vash, her hands hovering around his waist, just above his underwear.

“May I...?” she trails off. She's always trailed off if she's asking to take off his underwear, and she's always asked.

“I don't think I can bend?” Vash offers. He instinctively tips his head slightly and the movement twinges the nerves and tendons and muscles down his back. He hadn't forgotten about that particular injury – it just wasn’t as prominent until right now.

Meryl presses a soft kiss to Vash's sternum, and her hands settle on the waistband of his underwear, peeling them off carefully. Nico holds Vash steady as he steps up and out, hissing as Vash tries to bend his knee and fails. They end up on the pile that Vash dimly recognizes as his clothes.

Nico carefully manhandles Vash into the bathroom, where there's a tub of still-steaming water waiting for him. Vash could cry. Vash might, in fact, be crying. He's making awkward hiccupy noises, anyway.

“I got ya, I got ya,” Nico says. He scoops Vash up and carefully deposits him in the tub. It's an old clawfoot, big and deep enough for Vash to stretch out near-fully in the water.

It's deliciously hot, and he sinks in shoulder deep. The heat is already sinking into his body, almost too much before his muscles start to relax. Vash groans as his locking muscles and joints unlock. It's almost painful, but in the opposite direction of actual pain.

Vash makes a curious noise when Nico pets his hair. Not even the deep rumble of thunder covering up Nico's words could prevent Vash from staying in the tub and Vash makes a protesting noise and sinks down almost nose deep. Nico chuckles and kisses Vash's forehead.

Nico leaves Vash in the bathroom to soak in the heat. Vash stares at the door for a while before he slowly raises up so his mouth's not in the water any longer. He can just hear someone – Nico, by the footsteps – walking around in the other room.

With a heavy sigh, Vash tips his head back against the head of the tub. The heat is helping. He dozes in the tub; the storm raging outside can't chase him out of it now.

The door creaks open and Vash sluggishly blinks his eyes a few times so he can see.

Wolfwood is at the door, stripped down to his shirtsleeves. He's shoeless and as Vash roves his eyes up and down over Wolfwood's frame, he notices little things missing. His sleeve garters, his shoulder holsters, his belt – all are missing from Wolfwood's body. Vash is a little too tired to parse much more at the moment though.

Wolfwood looks softer than usual, dressed down and not on alert for once.

He pads in to check on Vash. “Hey angel,” Wolfwood says. “How you feeling?”

“Hi yourself,” Vash responds. “Warmer. Better than before. Doesn't hurt nearly as much.”

Wolfwood smiles, one of the real soft ones that Vash loves.

“Good. Shorty's out like a light again. Head's still killing her.” Wolfwood sits on a bucket beside the tub that Vash hadn't noticed before. “Gonna wash your hair, alright? Since you're already in here.”

Vash narrows his eyes a smidge at the uncharacteristic generosity. Wolfwood's been extra sweet the last day, and if Vash had more energy it would be putting him on edge. As it is, Vash wouldn't mind if Wolfwood washed his hair. Wolfwood shouldn't, but its not like Vash can stop him.

“Fine,” Vash says. Wolfwood's smile turns more tender.

“Good. I managed to charm the innkeeper out of some soap. It's not half bad, either.” Wolfwood rolls up his shirtsleeves. “I'm gonna get a cup and the soap. I'll be back in a minute, sweetheart.” Wolfwood tips Vash's face up with his fingertips and gives him a careful upside-down kiss. Wolfwood disappears out the door but he returns just as fast, a cup and a bar of soap in his hands and his sleeve garters back on his arms.

“Could've taken off your shirt,” Vash says. He doesn't mind, really. The garters only emphasize Wolfwood's muscle in a tease that Wolfwood usually plays up.

“Not just yet, pretty thing,” Wolfwood replies. “Don't think you'll be up to anything frisky by the time I'm done with you, anyway.” He's got a slight smirk playing on his lips.

Jerk.

Wolfwood combs his fingers through Vash's hair a couple of times and fills the cup with water. It's still warm on Vash's skin, and Vash sighs deeply at the touch. Wolfwood scratches lightly as he works the soap into a lather in Vash's hair, making Vash flutter his eyes closed and a low purr escape from his slightly parted lips. Despite how he's ached the last day, this is nice.

Vash lets Nico manhandle him so he can wash Vash's hair, carefully working his fingers through the dusty strands. Nico's humming that song from this morning, the one from the car. The humming dies off, and Vash makes an inquisitive noise. “Gotta rinse out your hair, sweetheart,” Nico says. “Lean forward for me?” Vash tips forward; from the corner of his eye he sees Nico scoop the cup through the water so he can pour it over Vash's head. The motion repeats a few times as Nico rinses out the soap and the sand and anything else Vash might have in his hair. Nico runs his thumbs up and down the back of Vash's neck a few times. Vash moans a little bit when Nico rubs out a particularly tense knot; he knows he's going to get teased by the tone of Nico's half-snort.

“Gettin' you all worn out and I ain't even got you in bed yet, sweetheart,” Nico teases.

“Don't be mean,” Vash whines. All he wants now is to curl up with his two favorite people and sleep off what aches remain.

Nico's lips press against the top of Vash's spine in a gentle kiss. They're slightly chapped – Nico must have worried himself sick over Vash and Meryl being down.

“Let's get you out of the tub, yeah?” Nico says. The skin where he's pressing his lips to tingles under his touch.

Vash leans back up with some crackling, but there's less pain overall. Nico guides Vash out of the tub, helping him stand and drying him off with a soft, worn towel. Vash's sleep clothes are already in the bathroom, much to his surprise. Nico'd been ready whenever Vash was, apparently. Slowly, Nico helps him dress; Vash is worn out by the time they're done and the sound of the storm still going outside is distant. Nico scoops Vash up in his arms again, back in the bridal carry from earlier to take Vash to the bed where Meryl has long since fallen asleep in. Nico makes sure to deposit Vash behind Meryl where he can lay with his full arm free. Vash presses himself in against Meryl's back, arm slinging around her waist.

“Coming to bed?” he asks over his shoulder.

“Nah. Gonna be up a while yet.” Nico throws a lightweight sheet over the two of them. Meryl snuffles down into it in her sleep, tucking up against Vash. “Rest. I want you full up if we have to run out of town if someone realizes who we are.” Nico strokes Vash's hair again and goes to the door, where Vash can hear him messing with the Punisher.

Vash will rest. When he's done, he'll make Nico rest. If he can't, Meryl will. Vash closes his eyes to the sound of Nico cleaning his gun, the storm on its way out, and Meryl's soft snores. He might not sleep again, but he will rest.

[bikwin5]

Elly's Adventure 1.3: The Holiday Update

->itch download page!!!<-

Elly's Adventure has a new version! It's only been almost half a year since the last one. This might be the last update ever. This update has some bugfixes and a brand new cheat engine, letting you type in cheat codes to do fun things. One such fun thing is the all new Merry Mode, which gives a holiday-themed spin on things. Try it now, or wait three months to celebrate Christmas in July with hhgregg.

Elly also has a website now! There is not much there that isn't already on the itch page but it might be worth looking at for a few seconds.

Below are more details on the update and how to activate cheats:

A couple of months ago, a dear friend of mine streamed my game start to finish and he very much enjoyed it. Despite that, he found a number of bugs I hadn't seen while making some inane suggestions. At the mercy of his whim, I had no choice but to contract an illness and then start working on the game again weeks later.

If you download the new version, there doesn't seem to be much different at a glance. In addition to bugfixes there is now a brand new CHEAT ENGINE! Cheats can be activated on the title menu by typing the letters CHEAT on your keyboard, then typing in the corresponding cheat name, which will show up in the top right of the screen. Cheats can be up to 12 letters or numbers and are not case sensitive.

To start you off, here are some helpful cheats:

MERRY- Activates the all-new Merry Mode! This mode is purely graphics and sound replacements, and is the reason why the game is now a few megabytes larger. If you are interested in replaying the game I recommend this for a freshly jolly experience.

NATALIE2COOL- Unlocks extra mode without having to beat the game.

NOBABY- Removes twizzler baby from the game.

GODMODE- Makes the player invincible, and falling down pits no longer takes away a life.

SELECTMAP- Lets you jump to a stage from the main menu. This will overwrite your current save file.

The last two cheats in particular will prevent you from seeing the special 1CC screen, so if you are interested in doing that perfect run then avoid them at all costs. Check the readme for slightly more detailed information on cheats.

Additional changes:

Fixed a problem with stage 19 where bouncy enemies could leave a certain room

Fixed a few misplaced tile graphics

Fixed problem with switching palettes on the pause menu using a gamepad stick or d-pad

Fixed an issue with the options screen where left or right input was usable on an option when there is nothing to select

Fixed incorrect palette when adding new sprites. If you have existing save data from a previous version, your palette will probably be reset to default upon loading.

Fixed incorrect sprites when using the rocket powerup

Added ability to go back to the main menu and change palettes when paused on a bonus stage

Added Nintendo DS support

Sandwich now rotates

[jainasoloswife]

Fic Masterlist

July 22, 1955 | Agents of SHIELD + Agent Carter

The team's attempt to save Agent Sousa's life in 1955 doesn't go like it's supposed to. He survives, but Daisy, May, and an extremely confused Sousa are all stranded in the past. Without Mack there to stop her, Daisy decides to make the world a better place, timeline be dammed.

This fic is my baby. It's by far the longest thing I've ever written, the product of copious research, and I've had a ton of fun with it. Updates weekly on Thursday evenings (Eastern time)

The No Good Very Bad Trip to Westeros | PJO + A Song of Ice and Fire

Annabeth and Percy, now juniors at New Rome University, just wanted to catch up with Frank over lunch. Instead, a demigod with a grudge sent all three of them to some fucked-up medieval fantasy world, where everyone seems to want to kill everyone else, and they have to intervene in the local monarchy's succession crises before they can find a way home. They may be obsessed with noble titles, but Percy is technically a prince after all.

Percabeth and Frank appear in the sky over Dragonstone right before Melisandre sets the statues of the Seven aflame. Frank saves them from going splat by turning into a dragon, chaos ensues. Inspired in premise by The Old Gods Called, They'd Like Their Kingdom Back, I'm really enjoying writing this. Irregular updates- though I've got plenty of stuff planned!

October 14, 1960 | 1955 'Verse

The first of what will likely be many one-shots in the July 22, 1955 universe. Short and sweet hurt/comfort.

The Seashell, the Wolf, and the Eagle | Old Gods 'Verse

After the fall of Riverrun, a forgotten Queen is sent west, surrounded by guards who have orders to kill her should she forget her place. After escaping her cruel mother, who had never forgiven her for falling in love with the enemy, Jeyne Westerling Stark, Queen Dowager of the North and Trident, strikes out on her own in the Riverlands. Not long after winning her freedom, she begins to hear strange tales from the North. Tales of her husband’s family retaking his home, with the aid of a warrior goddess sent by the Old Gods of the First Men. Jeyne resolves to make her way North, despite the cold winds and bloodied lions, in the hopes of finding a home among the siblings her Robb had loved so dearly. What she finds there is beyond her wildest imaginings. The North has three queens now.

Old Gods, but if Jeyne Westerling existed instead of Talisa. Jeyne-centric. This was originally a one shot but it expanded- I'm most proud of chapter one.

Unexpected Revelations | Star Wars

When Luke falls ill a few weeks after the Battle of Yavin, the Rebellion's medical droids run some tests to find out what's wrong. No one expected a simple DNA test to turn up a relative already in the Rebels' databanks…

Crack treated seriously. I had fun with this.

[herrlindemann]

Sonic Seducer - September 2004, interview with Till and Flake - part 1

Thanks to ramjohn for the scans!

For a long time it was quiet around frontman Till Lindemann's scandalous, muscle-bound troupe, who completely cut themselves off from current music events after their last album 'Mutter' and, apart from the DVD 'Lichtspielhaus' at the end of last year, didn't let anything be heard of themselves.

But from July 26, the Berlin Neue Deutsche Härte flagship rockers will break their strict news ban with their single 'Mein Teil' and the fourth album that will follow at the end of September, in order to once again put the tolerance limits to a hard test after their abstinence and in domestic bourgeois idylls again blowing the deer antlers, cuckoo clocks and dusty Spitzweg oil ham with their bombast metal from the oak paneled walls.

Rammstein are back — with a vengeance! For a good year and a half, singer Till Lindemann, drummer Christoph Schneider, keyboarder Christian 'Flake' Lorenz, guitarists Richard Kruspe-Bernstein and Paul Landers as well as bassist Oliver Riedel have holed up with regular producer Jacob Kellner to work on Album number 4 (whose ultimate title at the time was not 100% certain when this issue went to print, after having already discarded working titles such as 'Reise, Reise' or 'Das rote Album') to go into group dynamics intensively, to collect oneself and to discuss the impatiently awaited successor to the controversial one in Stockholm, completely undisturbed 2001's chart-busting ‘Mutter’ to work. The fact that a lot has happened in the meantime with the notorious Provo Rock pyromaniacs from the Spree can now be clearly heard on the first single release 'Mein Teil', with which Rammstein, after numerous heated discussions, settled for artistic freedom , good taste, piety or political views in the past once again best recommend as probably the most controversial and most polarizing German band of the hour: In the usual ambiguous manner, 'Mein Teil' invites you to a macabre feast, the source of inspiration from the sensational cannibal murder trial of Rotenburg is fed in the middle of last year. After its successful general overhaul, the battleship Rammstein is once again tackling all existing conventions and moral concepts - and it's not just musically that you shoot out of all guns, as Till and Flake, who lined up for the six-eyes talk, make clear in great detail in our multi-part interview.

However, the Berlin command center is not aware of any concerns about finally breaking the bank with his calculated taboo. Fire free for Rammstein: "I wouldn't expect anyone to get upset about 'Mein Teil'. Making a song about something that really happened is the most normal thing in the world to me! Nobody complains to the spokesman for the Tagesschau either, what horror reports he reads again”, says Flake indignantly. "Of course people will get upset again — whether I understand it now or not," Till Lindemann, in the past rather reluctant to be interviewed, also intervened. “With the last album, the headline in BILD was about us: 'Disgusting - dead baby as record cover! This band should be banned!' I was really happy about that and thought for the first time: We've really made it... I think there will be something really, really bad to read about us this time too... “ (smiles). And even with songs like 'Mein Teil', 'Daila Lama (Fear of Flying)' or 'Amerika' the chances of a respectable repeat success in terms of page 1 scandal band are more than good. Since the release of the 1995 debut 'Herzeleid', the blameless average citizen has had a highly allergic reaction to the distorting mirror held up by the widely misunderstood metal satirists and will presumably also react to the new tracks about plane crashes, the Iraq war or masturbation of any kind of humor or Traditionally closed to sarcasm. Entertainment or derailment - as with all uncomfortable artists, the crucial question, the answer to which each listener must be left to themselves against the background of great art. “Actually, you can go just a little bit deeper into the subject matter of the individual songs, read the lyrics or take a look at us, you can't misinterpret Rammstein - unless you're really really stupid!” “Or malicious,” adds Lindemann. “I very often have the feeling that Rammstein is dragged through the dirt with spiteful superiority! I do not know why. There is absolutely nothing to misunderstand with us.”

Such discussions have been held too often and for too long in the past, against more or less unfounded accusations, false suspicions and nasty slander, for one to still feel any great desire today to explain oneself and one's texts to the masses like a mantra . Although, as in the case of some of the content on the last album, this seems to have been a matter of urgency for some. Rammstein is undoubtedly one of the very few German/German-singing bands whose lyrics and forms of expression make you reflect and question them, as Till Lindemann's very own (thought) world and lyrical expressionism are not always easy to understand; the quirky, deep black humor and latent sarcasm are not always immediately apparent and misunderstandings seem to be inevitable. “Many will once again not understand it and will be terribly outraged at us... But you simply cannot change the world, and so we don't care anymore! Let them get upset with us as much and for as long as they want!” That the relationship between Rammstein./. While the general public is irreparably shattered, Flake also has to admit: "One example: I don't like Daniel Küblböck either, but I would never scold him or call him an asshole or a spasm. He gives me no reason to get upset with him and no one forces me to listen to his music either! That's why I can't understand why people complain about us — we don't force anyone to listen to our records either! If people don't bother to find out what our songs are about and if we possibly do things, then they have no right to judge us!”

“It's getting on our nerves so much now, talking about these stories over and over again, discussing it, evaluating everything... - our success simply proves us right! However, the fun stops at these malicious things: If the press writes things that we didn't say, or cuts our statements together incorrectly, then there's a bomb in the leg, as is well known, someone must have noticed that painfully (a few years ago Rammstein played on at a festival, they 'pranked' the then MTV program executive by tying him to a chair and tying a smoke grenade to his leg because the TV station had spread falsehoods about the band). That's just the last thing for me, you just don't do that! Then the journalists should just pull something out of their fingers and write about us in their newspapers and just leave us alone! But if you meet face to face and it is then distorted or lied to afterwards, then it's on the mouth!” Unmistakably clear words from Till Lindemann, who, however, cannot really deny that the cultivated middle-class household shock effect has always been a more or less important part of Rammstein's artistic identity.

With the tongue-in-cheek to sarcastic anti-USA song 'Amerika', they venture into completely unknown territory for the first time; This time, Rammstein pull the manic national pride and the almost totalitarian American Way Of Life hysteria of the American throwaway culture through the cocoa in an almost cabaret manner.

In the past they repeatedly emphasized that they wanted to do without deeper messages in their songs, but this time they seem to be making an exception. “We don't transport a message in 'Amerika', but state facts and facts in a slightly sarcastic way. We dealt a lot with the Iraq war at the time of writing the song and felt that now was the time to say something about it.” Flake adds: “Everyone is quite outraged by the lyrics and asks us how dare we suddenly say something about politics. (laughs). We tried to make a song that sounds very positive and beautiful at first and which is also in a little bit of English so that Americans would be happy! We look forward to the moment when Americans think they're being courted and that Rammstein also ended up writing an anthem to America and that everyone — even Rammstein — would end up loving it now. We think it's a great gag, since anyone who listens to the song more closely will immediately understand what the lyrics are actually about. When it comes to the live implementation of 'Amerika', I could very well imagine that we will drop a few bombs, you could do a great job here with pyro and airplanes...” Rammsteiner-style humor, with many a politically correct joker saying this this time too Laughter should get stuck in your throat...

But it gets even funnier: The second part of our big Rammstein interview will follow in the next issue! No animals had to suffer for this photo session. It is a photomontage.