#alas. we have a huge single episode instead

[twotiime2]

Reality Adjustment, pt. 5

[[ Discord log to follow, yadda yadda, this one is SUPER long! Best read in Dark Mode! ]]

[[ tw for: Themes of not trusting your perception of reality, frequent use of casual ableist language. Later on there are mentions of animal death, some implied light nsfw descriptions, and a whole lotta Fake Nonsense Science Jargon since neither of us have any formal education related to any sciences. Toward the end there's a scene that includes some accidental fantasy racism, but it's very brief and handled with more than a generous amount of apology and guilt... and then that goes straight into Fiction territory. this is an isekai now. ]]

After some shuffling things about and repeated neuralization of Otome, the pizza dinner was back underway and back on course. As it turned out, Otome knew the following things - and nothing else…

The Technocratic Union was a super secret conspiracy agency (probably of the government, or some global international thing?).

The Union did spy stuff using cutting edge technology that the commercial market wasn't ready for.

Normal people weren't ready for the supertech stuff because of some quirk of ultra-high technology science something.

Nobody could ever learn of the Technocracy, or the weird science quirk thing would happen to everyone, everywhere, or something.

The Union was basically MiB, like in the movies, but… whatever they dealt with was secret. Might be aliens. Maybe not. Who knew?

Simon worked for Q Division, the tech support and computer R&D department.

There was also the money group, the MiB spy people, the biolab freak science people, and the space research people.

The Union protected the world from super dangerous forces that defied reality somehow (Cthulhu, Demons, Aliens, whatever?)

The Union was super into Loyalty and Secrets and Trust, keeping your mouth shut won tons of brownie points.

The Union had seemingly unlimited authority, resources, and money. And thank God too, because they'd need it to fight Demons.

Otome's knowledge of anything deeper was limited to guesses and things she kept to herself, either because she wasn't sure she was right, or because she was pretty sure that Simon had one of those Memory Pen Flash things and he might flash her and leave her if she knew too much. So, she was a Good Girlfriend™️ and kept it to herself.

And of course Simon was brilliant with super secret agency technology that might be from space or another dimension. After all, he was certifiably insane and a walking checklist of eccentric quirkiness. He was perfect for the job!

Once all of this was known and settled, and pizza had been redone in detail - Simone/Edith had some real talent for detail - they began the dinner again from when Otome had just put down the drinks and rejoined Simon and Simone. This time, she was kept clear of any clues as to Simone's reality-breakage, excessive special effects, or any questions about reality's limits and the depths of the Union's activities.

- - - -

Instead of asking Simone, Simon asked Otome, "So, when did they come out with new Mountain Dew flavors? They only had original green-yellow lemony-limey whatever for… ever." He waved his hand in a vague circle from the wrist, as he was trying to describe the flavor of Mountain Dew.

At the end of the sentence, while waiting for her reply, Simon stroked Edith's back, all the way down to the tip of her tiny tail. It was genuinely such an adorable form! So very distracting. And he was, again, not much of an animal person, before.

- - - -

Otome thought while she chewed, and after swallowing, said, "I have no idea. But it sounds very Googleable."

- - - -

His eyebrows screwed up. "…The doctor said something about a Google, and now you've used it as a verb. What the fuck is a Google? Like, I know a googolplex, but I feel like that isn't something you would usually consult for obscure bits of information. And he had no idea what Dogpile… was. I guess."

- - - -

"Isn't a dogpile when there's a bunch of guys on one girl?"

" That's a gangbang. Big difference. "

"Google is a search engine. Like, the search engine. So much so that Googling something is a slang term for looking it up. On most devices, if there's a search bar for you to type into, chances are it defaults to the Google search engine. They're so big now, as a company, that they own YouTube, FitBit, Waze, and a bunch of others, plus they own investment capital in Robinhood, Duolingo, Uber and… well, a bunch of other stuff."

She paused, noting his expression. "Uh… they're a search engine that got crazy rich and owns like ten percent of all the names people think of when they think of the tech industry."

- - - -

Simon closed his eyes and tilted his head, consternation clear on his face and in his knit brow.

"Rmm. So much jargon that flew over my head. That explained everything. Thank you for the simplified version."

He finally took another bite of his pizza, still delicious as before and hitting a craving he hadn't realized he was suffering. "And, uh, you were thinking of a gangbang. Dogpile was a search engine that launched toward the end of the century- it'd pull results from everywhere, even like, other search engine results- and, personally, MetaCrawler had nothing on it. Shame it's not being used anymore."

- - - -

"I thought you still used 'Crawler? Oh, I guess you wouldn't remem- yeah, they're still around. You're the only person I know who uses it, but it's around."

" They relaunched in 2017. "

When he clarified that she'd referenced a sex act, Otome choked a little on her japanese soda, turning red. After clearing her throat, she said simply, "Oh."

"Uh… yeah, not that. Hey… is it wrong to ask what the 90's were like? I mean, we were in diapers during those years in the real world, so…. what was it like? I know how they show it on TV, but that's…. that's fake, right?"

- - - -

He gazed at her over his pizza.

"…I have no idea how they show the 90s on TV. If it's anything like they did the 70s and back, probably not. I'm not sure what to tell you."

- - - -

She pondered that for a moment, and shrugged. "That's fair. And probably accurate. It's just a little awkward having you back, but not… really being able to talk about anything we'd normally talk about."

She touched his hand with hers, but only along the outer edges of their hands, since they both had pizza-hands.

"But I'm trying."

- - - -

His gaze softened, and he reached to touch her back.

"…I appreciate the effort. On the bright side, we can have a movie marathon where you show me your favorites of the last twenty years? And introduce me to mine, again? Totally blind, not even having seen the trailers during ad breaks on TV." He considered for a second. "And the ones you hate. Especially those. If you can sit through them."

- - - -

Her head tilted. "TV has ad breaks during the shows?"

- - - -

Aaaaand his gaze hardened again. "Tell me you're not fucking with me again. Did they finally get rid of the two-minute breaks between five minutes of show?"

- - - -

She shrugged, "I have no idea. I don't watch TV. I stream everything, and I always have. I mean, I think we had TV when I was like, super little? But I don't remember it."

- - - -

Seriousness gave way to consternation. "Tell me what you mean by 'streaming'."

- - - -

She winced. "Oh! Oh, right… sorry. Streaming has replaced a lot of TV for a lot of people. It's when a streaming service, like Disney+ or HBO, or YouTube, keeps a big library of watchables in their servers and users subscribe - usually for a monthly fee, but not always - to the services they want, to watch the things they want to watch, when they want to watch them. We could go log in to Disney+ right now and watch Snow White… on a television, a computer, a cellphone… any device with a screen and an internet connection. It's like hitting play on a video file, except instead of having the movie on a flash drive, the movie is on Disney's computers… and you need to make sure your internet connection is solid enough to watch it without any screwups. But you can do it anytime you want… if you have a subscription."

- - - -

"…Huh." That explanation sounded very logical and also fucking impossible given what he had known of technology's capabilities in the 90's. They didn't even have external storage that could hold one movie-length video in the common market, much less that could hold multiple, or internet connections strong and fast enough to access those video files on external servers, then play them. He chewed as he thought about that, staring into the middle-distance.

The Union had brought technology a long way in the last twenty years.

They didn't quite have Mobius's sentient-nanite tech in the Consensus yet, but boy, were they well on their way.

"Wow. Do you even still keep hard copies of the shit you can stream? I am gonna have so many questions."

- - - -

"Yes. Because… what if it's not streaming anywhere when you want to see it? Not every service can sustain more than a hundred titles in active rotation at a time, while some can handle several hundred. Usually, the shows and movies go on rotation from one service to another, and sometimes, it's just… not showing. Or they decided not to stream it for cultural reasons… like some of the old racist stuff in cartoons and movies where celebrities tap-danced in black face and stuff. And then there's …. you know…. adult material. That doesn't stream anywhere."

" Except for every porn site ever. "

"Unless you count things like PornHub, but… that's not a real streaming service."

" I'd make a joke here, but it's too easy. And a little gross. "

- - - -

"Fair." He nodded to Edith, in response to her, not that Otome knew that. "…Well, at least it's not all online-only yet. I have to say, with a clear head and in retrospect, having everything exist only in a digital space is just asking to lose humanity's cultural history to a disaster way less impressive than burning a whole library to the ground. Data decay was already a bit of a problem, I can't imagine how bad it effects things now."

"But, uh, it's not great that they're deciding what is and is not available to people that are paying them for the ability to watch the things in their archives. They're- you're- paying for the service expressly for access to that company's stuff, so it's… really shitty they hold anything back without it being a restriction of their tech rather than their policies."

- - - -

Otome paused. "Uh… Boybot? Most of your video games are online only. Some consoles and computer games are only online gaming capable."

- - - -

Oh, that brought a distressed grimace. "Jesus Christ."

And then a disappointed shake of his head. "Why??"

- - - -

She looked confused. "Because it's easier and cheaper for indie game devs to publish and distribute through Steam on PC, or through Online Marketplace for Polystation, Sintendo, XXXBox, and the rest? They can just put up a few paragraphs of description, a few screen shots, maybe a video file trailer, and sell their game for $5 or $20, without having to pay for marketing and packaging and stuff. And it keeps clutter to a minimum."

- - - -

He looked at her from above his glasses, head half-hung from where he shook it. "Is that true? Or is that just what those companies want you to think? I- well, I admit, I don't know anything about the gaming scene now or its variety of content. But without those companies cornering the market, would it actually be that hard for individually-published titles to be distributed? Word-of-mouth or of-text on like, bulletin boards, used to work fine. And game hardware was simple enough, they could be made into console cartridges without too much trouble."

"My collection was… my collection. From their publishers. But they were my copies. What happened to that?"

- - - -

She looked thoughtful and nodded between bites. "Something we've discussed many times. Skipping to the end, I don't know what the Union is capable of, and I don't know what could be if things radically changed… I just know what is. Without knowing more, I don't think I can really know enough to feel that strongly about something I can't change."

- - - -

"Hmph." He harrumphed over his next bite of pizza. "The decline of physical media is a crime to people's right to the things they pay for, based on capitalism's own rules of exchange. Fucking stupid, full stop."

Simon sulked for an entire slice, and its bones.

- - - -

She offered a sad smile, "Okay, Che, calm down. At least you're still you on some things."

- - - -

He paused, considering her remark, and then nodded. "Good. I never liked how the Union supported that crap; it was like, part of the main thing I left 'em for."

It only occurred to him after a few bites that he was still working for them in this reality. "…In. The life in my head. I just heard the dissonance."

- - - -

Otome did look confused, but then nodded when he explained. "So… they put you inside the Matrix, but back in the 90's… and you left, in the simulation? Must've sucked."

"Caution here. I wanna know too, but you should keep it to a minimum. Unless you wanna do this pizza thing a third time?"

- - - -

He raised a brow and glanced at Edith, noting her warning, but continued to Otome after a moment.

"…Yeah. I had an alternative offer that gave me the same creative freedom without all the fellating of Capitalism- or, at least, as much. It was still kind of the Union anyway, though- just, like, an offshoot. I think maybe some of the drugs they put in me while they were trying to keep me alive fucked up their Matrix sim in more ways than just crazy dreamscapes interspersed with details of my actual life."

- - - -

"You think maybe the offshoot thing was part of the… whatever the doctors called it? The psychotic reaction thing?"

" Bored now. I'm going to go upstairs and do something more fun than talking about capitalism and crap. If you take too long down here, I'm going to walk down here naked and force you to have to try and carry on your conversation with me being lewd or whatever. That way, you don't bore Otome to death, and I still have something to do. "

The kitten hopped down and stood as a girl once more, before finishing her root beer shot.

" You better pray I find a comic to read or something, or I'm comin' back down here in my birthday suit."

- - - -

Simon pouted at Edith. "Aww, come on, we're establishing personal belief baselines! What do you wanna talk about, Eed? Besides how much pizza to leave in the box for you when I bring it up, or whatever you consider 'lewd'."

- - - -

Edith rolled her eyes and sulked, shoulders slumped. "But that's boooooring!! Can't we go take something apart, or blow something up, or juggle chainsaws, or something? I'm falling asleep over here! You're my boyfriend, darnit! You're supposed to keep me entertained!"

- - - -

"Oh, I'm supposed to keep you entertained? When I haven't hardly had any time with either of you, t'do anything yet, much less time for myself to let this reality set in? D'you want things to go back to kinda-normal, or do you want me to be trying to figure out how it is you want me to entertain you while also trying to puzzle through my life with Otome without any time to hang out with her? I'm sorry you can't exactly participate in the conversation, here, but it's not my fault you don't care about the things we're talking about."

He had half-turned in his seat to face Edith, legitimately frustrated with her self-centeredness and perceived lack of care for the differences between what he knew and what was. It may have been self-centered of him to be wanting more to catch up than to just spend time, but, he felt it wasn't unreasonable for someone in his position to want to do so, before they tried to do anything else.

"If I could fucking hang out with both of you at the same time, that would be great, but guess what? I can't do that. So."

Simon fixed her with a more legitimate, annoyed frown.

- - - -

Otome blinked in surprise at his outburst, and so did Edith. The latter hesitated, before going upstairs, muttering something about staying out of his way.

His girlfriend looked where he was looking, then back at him. "Is everything okay? Did I do something?"

- - - -

Simon suddenly felt kind of like he had yelled at a child harshly, for just wanting his attention while he was busy with something else, and all of his annoyance deflated into guilt. He turned back to Otome, that guilt coloring his face.

"…Ugh. No." He wiped one pizza-hand on his pants, and then ran it through his slightly-damp hair. "Edith wants to do something, because our conversation is boring her to sleep, and said I'm 'her boyfriend, aren't I supposed to entertain her?' but like, having these kinds of foundational conversations is kind of important, and… god damn it, does my having come out of a hospital maybe an hour ago, not knowing a goddamn thing about the life you guys know, not take priority right now?"

He stared at his pizza, suddenly far less hungry.

"…I guess that is kind of self-centered, too, but… things aren't gonna settle back to normal in a day just because I'm awake and home, you know? I'm not… I'm basically not the me you guys know, and I have to get to know you guys without any prior idea of what you're like or what quirks you have or what your favorite colors are. I get you've been missing your-me, but-" He looked up at Otome from above his glasses. "-that's not - I can't be relieved to be back, because I didn't know you two and haven't known I had anyone like you to miss."

He ran his hand through his hair again, and rested that elbow on the table, half-burying his face into the crook of his elbow while that hand hung in the air slightly above his head, playing with a curl between his index and thumb.

"I've barely landed, why can't she let the jet-lag wear off a little before dragging me around?" he muttered into his arm.

- - - -

Otome's hand was patient and her tone comforting, as if this particular anguish were a well worn road under their feet.

"I quote an expert in the field, when I say, 'Because Edith is part of what drives you and vice versa. Every perfect score, every new program, every brilliant breakthrough, every obsession, every time you got up and did the impossible, when all you wanted was to stay in bed… was, partly, her fault. Because she doesn't let you stay in your ruts, ever.'…"

Otome paused and then offered, with a shrug, "Maybe she thinks you need to be something besides hanging out with your girlfriend, if you want to get better. Usually, her tantrums annoy you, but lead you to the next big thing. I always know when you're about to go off on some crazy marathon project because the first tell-tale sign is you and Simone being inseparable and you complaining about it in bed, talking about how you need a break from her."

She shook her head, hands up at her sides, "Or… maybe she's just being a twit? I mean, you are the only one she lets see her."

- - - -

He listened, and watched Otome's body language, still sulking in his arm while she spoke.

Then sighed out of his nose, slightly fogging up his glasses from the air being redirected upward by his arm.

"I… I dunno, what she said doesn't feel like a tantrum? She's just being insistent about doing something instead of talking about "capitalism and crap". That something might be her, honestly? But. I don't wanna neglect you, by spending all my time on my first day with her, and I also feel like I'm neglecting her right now. I don't know what the right thing to do here is."

- - - -

Otome took his hands in hers - her own having been cleaned at some point he hadn't noticed, but the dirty napkins beside her told the story none the less. "Simon… it's not a competition. I love you and I know you, and I know I'm not the only woman in your life. I've known that since we first started dating. We've talked it out endlessly and we found a way that works for all of us. And you have no idea what it is, and I get that, too. And yes, sometimes, Simone - cat or girl - is a little needy. But, monkey… when Simone gets antsy, it's a sign. It's always a sign. Sometimes it means you're going to do something at work that gets you a raise. Sometimes it means that I'm going to need to buy us a new microwave or toaster or blender, and start keeping little fire extinguishers around the house. And, in one memorable case that shines above all others, it means I'm going to come home to clouds and wind and a snowstorm happening in our living room, with the tile floor in the kitchen being turned into an ice sheet."

She touched his cheek softly.

"And I've made peace with that. Maybe she's being a selfish brat. Maybe she's getting triggered by all your heightened brain activity from the accident. Maybe she's horny. I have no way to tell. And it's none of my business. But whatever is going on… it's okay. We'll get through it. I'm not going anywhere."

- - - -

His eyes searched her face.

She seemed genuine, and caring, and her touch made him raise his head a little bit, if only to lean into the touch of another person in such a familiar area. The softness of her treatment made him sigh, more in relief of a little of the stress he had been holding than in the accumulation of that stress.

"…OK." It was quiet, and he couldn't look at Otome's face for more than a moment, comfortably. "I- I think I should probably go apologize. Sorry, 'Tome."

Simon turned his face into her palm, holding her hand still with his own, and put a small kiss into it, then pulled away from her, gently, leaving the pizza and drinks in their places. "I'll try and come back down later. I really don't want to like, favor one of you guys to spend time with, and make the other one feel left-out… so I'm gonna try t'make time for you, even if you guys had a system going that worked, before. You deserve my time, too."

Then, after another lingering look, Simon left the kitchen to see Edith in her room- or wherever he ended up finding her.

- - - -

He found her dismantling a controller on her bed with tiny tools, and a flashlight strapped to her head. Her movements were slow and she didn't seem to be very into it, her face still making her seem quite rejected and saddened. When she noticed him out of the corner of her eye, she shuffled around a little on her butt, on the bed, to keep more of her back to him. Her voice was heavy with reluctance, but soft in tone.

" . . . . . Hey. "

- - - -

He tried to approach gently, and sat down next to her in an area that he hoped didn't displace any of the controller pieces she had already removed, without encroaching too much into her space.

"…Hey."

Uncertain what to start with, or how to approach this sort of thing, he just opted for the straightforward route.

"I'm sorry I snapped at you, Eed. You've been open and genuine and energetic with me all day… and I haven't given you that, back, at all; I've been too caught up in how overwhelmed I am with… everything, without actually asking you how you're doing. And then, after I totally swapped my attention to someone else… I got upset with you when you wanted your own needs met. That wasn't fair. I'm sorry."

- - - -

She kept working quietly for several seconds, before saying.

" I know. It's not your fault. "

She reached up and turned off her headlight before she looked at him, her red eye greatly magnified by a worker's loop flipped down over her eye to help her work.

" Your head's not in the game, Boybot. You need to accept three things: first, this is real. You're not going to wake up from this, on some weird planet's victorian era, or something. Second, your life is only off by twenty years. Sure, that means a lot for friendships and relationships and family… but everybody knows that and nobody is asking you to make that go away or to catch up all at once. Everybody is being super cool with your time-brain thing. And it means that you have some tech homework to do and a few new company names to learn. Buuut…. that's kind've all it means. This isn't Venus or a space station in a universe you don't know, and it's not some weird hyperviolent cyberpunk future in the year 3050-something. It's… 2023. Woo? Most of the countries are still the same. Heck, most of the elected representatives and major companies are even still the same. Electric cars are more common and so is gun violence. Homosexual and transsexual people have more rights and respect now… unless you just suck at being nice to people who are different. "

She removed her headgear, leaving her ponytail a tangled mess in its wake.

" So…. stop acting like it's a weird new world that has to be deciphered or interrogated. It's new. New is good. New is interesting. New means potential to be better. Stop acting like a victim. I'm sorry you lived a false life in a cyber realm. But I keep trying to take your mind off of it and help you focus on what's ahead, and you won't stop watching the rear view mirror and questioning the now. We're in the car, bro. We're going places. The world passing you by is scenery, not a tragedy. So hands on the wheel. "

She held out her small tools to him.

" Keep your eyes on the road. "

- - - -

It took him a minute of looking down at her tools to mentally chew on what she had said to him. A lot of the smaller details were insensitive at best, but the message she was trying to get through to him was also a little hard to swallow: "Stop lingering on what happened, and start focusing on what you'll do now."

The 'false life in a cyber realm' was real barely half a day ago, to him- it was fresh, and a hard space to emerge from when the space he was entering felt like so much more- but for Edith and Otome, Simon was just trying to recover from a lengthy, bad dream, and they knew what to expect from him, and had their own ideas of how to help him through it. The dream would fade, and he'd settle back into reality and into the same patterns of behavior they knew him for, because, as he had said to Edith when they 'first' met: he was who he was, "whether that's who this reality expects or not."

He couldn't change what had already been done, but he could decide what to do with what was left. And if he was going to do it well, he had to build up his resources, workspace, and knowledge, in order to use all of his tools effectively; it didn't matter what happened before this point, except that all of those moments were stepping stones that brought him to now.

And he needed to focus on now and stop thinking of his life as over. It had just begun again, hadn't it? He just had a little catching up to do.

Edith could see all of these thoughts playing out as Simon considered them, uncertainty and slight insult slowly evolving into a kind of courage: the determination to move forward, to take that next step, after the path he thought he was supposed to take had crumbled in front of his feet. He just had to pivot and keep moving, and he would get wherever he needed to go.

Simon took up Edith's little tools, then, and released a breath he didn't realize he had been holding.

"Right. Let's get moving."

- - - -

Eed dragged out two of the consoles, their controllers, and some cartridges. She walked him through dismantling them, anytime he hit a wall, explaining modern methods of sealing products… though, there wasn't much need, since it was mostly the same - just with more and smaller screws, holding down more things. Nothing was glued, but there were a few pieces where plastic tabs were fit together in a way that would (normally) require special tools to open - to help keep the technology and its repair and modification, proprietary.

"I guess you don't remember anything about what we were working on, huh?"

- - - -

As he tinkered and took things apart, noting the newer methods of holding the plastic together and applying the effective dismantling techniques to future pieces, Simon listened and watched Edith with the senses he wasn't using on his current project. The circuit boards weren't very different, at least, even if the consoles themselves had gotten more complicated and required more bits on the board to control their new features.

"Can't say I do, no. Tell me about it?"

- - - -

"Well…" she said, watching him work, "Your mind seems pretty preoccupied with code and program stuff and whatever. When we first met, you were the same way… but…"

She watched his reaction carefully, almost like she might be worried about how he'd react.

"… we'd gotten pretty far beyond that, even before you learned about Q Division. That's why you wanted to join it, to work with their gadgets. But you were getting frustrated by their restrictions, before the accident."

- - - -

Simon paused, at that, and looked over at Edith with a raised eyebrow.

"Beyond that? Like how? Applying those principles to hardware?"

- - - -

"Kiiiiiind of, yeah. I mean, we've been at this - I know you don't remember - for fourteen years. We went through coding, hacking, wrote our own OS, brought down a few crappy companies' websites for awhile, had some close calls with police and stuff… then we made our own computer designed to run our OS, and explored the Net in ways that were really cool and Matrix'y… but…"

She slumped a little. "It was fun, sure… but you realized that…. it didn't mean anything."

- - - -

He tilted his head and pulled his brows together, then, uncertain. That seemed like a lot! He had made his own ZackAttack-esque Web-interface computer, for his own custom OS! That… didn't change anything for other people, but as steps forward, those were huge!

"…Uh-huh?"

- - - -

"So like… we did some cool stuff, some fun stuff, we made things for the Web, even got inside of it and did some TRON Matrix stuff for a couple of years… it was a ride."

She watched him work at the console, following his hands with her eyes.

"… But the Crash changed all of that. The Union guys call it the Dimensional Anomaly. Tech-heads in particular, they called it the WhiteOut. And we barely escaped it alive. This massive surge of extradimensional energy that blasted the entire digital webspace into nothing. Like Nothing nothing. Even the mundane internet was riddled with signal and domain errors and service problems, for like a week. The whole planet's internet was crap, and everybody was struggling to find or access even the most basic services. And then, suddenly…. it all came back. Everything except for the digital space… that got wiped clean. A lot of it's been rebuilt, but the WhiteOut still lurks online like a roving power surge virus or something."

"But it got you thinking about how… virtual reality wasn't as safe as you'd thought, as a 'world of the future'. Because if mankind moved into the virtual universe… it could be wiped out without warning, by something nobody was able to stop."

She offered him her headstrap, with the flashlight and the magnifying loop eye lens attachment.

"So you started exploring ways to apply new science ideas that might've worked inside the web, outside the web. Sometimes, it goes really badly. Sometimes it works great! But the Union… has some pretty strict rules about what should and shouldn't be. So innovation has to stay within limits. That was the part bugging you."

- - - -

Simon nodded to himself. "…Yeah, I was saying that before- how data decay could totally wipe out humanity if we moved to entirely-virtual space. I didn't know about the WhiteOut, though…" He took her headgear and fixed it to himself, after having made sure nothing he was working on would fall or move out of place when he took his hands off of it.

"Maybe all those Web-spiders fucking up the Web and connections to it and computers was like, my head's way of remembering that… I saved this really cool User from being murdered by that, actually- he went by ZackAttack. Nice guy. A little condescending, if I'm being honest, 'cause he figured the only reason I got past his door encryption was it being too old and not as secure as his newer stuff. I think he had been trapped in the Web for like, a week, before I found him and got him out- and I had to do that after Morpheus updated Zack's old computer to be, like, made of his nanites and safe from the web-spiders."

He shrugged. "Not that any of that matters. It was just, like, one of the last things I did before things went sideways for me."

"So, we were trying to make Web constructs and functions work in Meatspace? What've we gotten to work so far? What did they not like us trying?"

- - - -

"The spiders… are a whole other thing. I'll spare you the details, your memory loss is a blessing on that one. It makes sense that they'd make their way into your nightmare fuel."

"The Union doesn't know about--"

Her next two words sounded more dramatic, being slightly louder and sounding as if they were spoken through a series of echo-filters and were dubbed over her actual words in the after-editing of the audio for his real world moment. And it happened that way every time she said it.

"--'The Lab'. If they ever learned of 'The Lab', they'd probably label you a deviant or a threat to their Consensus. It isn't so much that we were making web constructs in the real world, so much as we were figuring out how to dig through all the junk code that the Union has decided is 'reality' and 'physics', and find the real source code for reality's laws, so we could build machines and utilize forces that had been overwritten by and large, but were still there in the underlying code that reality really runs on."

- - - -

Simon stopped his work and looked at Edith entirely, then, eyes sparkling despite his slight difficulty understanding.

"…We were trying to hack reality and unbury some cool shit?"

Memories bubbled up of being stuck in a padded cell, with voices speaking to him- just hack reality to get out. He wasn't sure when they happened, but he was certain it was a reality he briefly woke up in- and one that he got re-awoken in at least twice, when he didn't respond correctly the first time. But he still remembered the first time.

…It was before Allison's reality. Right before.

"That sounds fucking awesome. But I don't remember how we accomplished it."

- - - -

"Hacking reality is something we tried, but… it went bad, really fast. But it was technically possible. What we were onto more recently was… well, okay, here's an example."

She sat facing Simon more fully.

"Anti-gravity. Possible, or impossible, and why?"

- - - -

Simon squinted at her, and set his current project on the floor so that he could focus on Edith fully.

"…Theoretically possible? I didn't do a lot of research into it, but, I'd imagine pushing against the force of gravity in order to achieve lift is definitely not the same thing. Not sure how you might turn off gravity in an area, but that doesn't mean it isn't possible."

- - - -

"Turning it off wasn't the question. Is Anti-Gravity possible? And you answered… yes. Yes, it is. Gravity is what everyone thinks it is… but it's not only what everyone thinks it is. And it's not everything that everyone thinks it is. The stuff that it isn't, was laid down via conspiracy by the Union over many, many years… and everyone believes it, which makes it quasi-real. That's the Junk Code in this example. But under it all are actual laws of gravity. That's the Source Code. And we were working on ways to sift the Source out of the Junk, across all kinds of topics. Computers run on some basic rules that can be broken, and some foundational laws that can't. Everything else above and beyond that are rules and conditions imposed by the software and hardware you attach to it or install into it. But strip all of those away and it's still a computer, able to parse the simplest commands via the most rudimentary programs that they all understand."

"Reality is a computer. Add new hardware - like land and air and water, animals and humans, sun, moon, stars, the universe - and new software - ideas and scientific or religious beliefs that are taken as widespread fundamental truths - and you get The Real World."

"Some of that Real World is kinda crummy… so you dig through the code and wiring, find what you can do without and what you can't do without… and make new hardware and software - new physical objects and new ideas on which they function - accordingly."

"If…. if enough people can be made to accept the new programs and devices, then the Computer stops being one model and becomes another. Upgrade."

"That became your new slogan… Don't Escape. Upgrade."

"It came to you during one of your big slumps… you read a girl's breasts - I mean, her t-shirt - and the phrase you saw stuck in your brain and made you change your whole way of trying things away from the virtual and computerized and toward mad science, as you put it."

She held out her hand in a sweeping slow gesture.

"The shirt said…. The Road Not Traveled Never Reveals Its Secrets."

She shrugged. "Since you already knew the secrets of computers, you went a different direction."

- - - -

Simon's eyes went fuzzy while Edith explained to him and he imagined these concepts in application. The rules of reality, of the decorations on top of the fundamental forces that made the rest possible, were just commonly-believed "truths". Like the face of a webpage. The common User thinks of that as the page, but anyone who knows better would be able to look at its code, its foundation, and if they also knew the language of its source code, change anything about its face.

Those same principles could apply to Reality, too- if he knew the language Reality was written in, he could do anything with it, within the capabilities of that language in its application. And even those capabilities could be bent with some creativity.

"So… anything about reality I thought could be better, we went about trying to figure out how it worked, and then used its foundational ideas to try and upgrade that facet of reality? Or was there more to that?"

"…Can I see the- uh- The Lab?"

- - - -

"I think you're thinking of much broader, sweeping changes than we were ready for. We're still learning what is and isn't Source or Junk. But… yes."

Eed held up a single finger between the two of them, drawing his attention sharply.

"Otome must never learn of The Lab. We never go to The Lab. We go to Polka Practice. She has no idea what that really means, but she knows it's code for 'I have to go do my super secret stuff for awhile'. She'll leave us alone, and won't follow us or ask to come along."

Edith lowered her finger and scootched off the bed, stretching as she stood.

"We haven't been to The Lab in a couple of years. Because of the Union. But you're off the grid, for now. Doctor Gemini and his Sidekick ½ can finally get back to work!"

- - - -

All of this seemed absolutely ridiculous, which also seemed right up Edith's alley, and made it all charmingly funny. Simon couldn't hide an amused grin. "Polka practice? We couldn't come up with anything better than that?"

Still, he got up, leaving her cute gadget-headpiece on the bed with his half-deconstructed electronic, and made to go to the door.

"I gotta admit, that's stupid and hilarious and really exciting. I can't wait to get into it."

- - - -

SERIOUS TONAL SHIFT HAPPENS HERE

- - - -

Edith ran down the stairs and was waiting for him in the driveway, behind the steering wheel of a …. car? [[a/n: this is a link to the image for the car! ]]

"C'mon!! Let's get going!"

She pulled on big leather gloves, before fastening goggles over her eyes and putting an old bomber's cap on.

- - - -

Simon called out the door behind him on his way down the stairs, "HEY OTOME WE'RE GOING TO POLKA PRACTICE I'LL SEE YOU LATER!!!"

His big grin never faltered, despite the complete absurdity of this situation, as he got swept up in Edith's energy and jumped into the passenger's seat next to her. Then buckled his seatbelt- or, would, if the car had them.

It didn't.

Suddenly a little nervous.

"Wooh!! Oh, man! This is crazy."

- - - -

"Crazy!? Crazy is for beginners, Bay-Bay!! We're going straight to Psycho!!"

Many gears, levers and dials were adjusted in rapid succession, and off they went!! No seat belts, no doors, no roof, just Eed and her 1890's Driver's Outfit, ripping through traffic at … 76 knots? The car's digital speedometer measured speed in knots!?

- - - -

Simon was trying really hard to just take this in stride and believe Edith knew what she was doing. They were completely destroying all road laws, driving insanely fast, with minimal safety features in the car and a windshield that did basically nothing for him or Edith in terms of its namesake. He had to hold onto his glasses for dear life, when he wasn't holding onto his seat with white knuckles or laughing with exhilarated terror. She was not kidding.

Over the wind, he yelled to her, "Can other people see this??"

- - - -

"Nope!! Imaginary car!! Invisible but veeery solid!"

She continued slicing and weaving through other cars, before yelling, "HOLD ON!"

Which is when she jerked the wheel hard to one side, lifting the car from four wheels to two for a moment, taking a left hand turn across active traffic without waiting for the light, dodging cars and settling back down on a smaller four lane road.

- - - -

Simon clenched his asscheeks and gripped the seat with his hands so hard he probably ripped the leather a little bit. Imaginary car!! So, still up in the air over whether he was certifiably insane and that level of belief just allowed things to manifest in reality, or if she was some imagination-fueled being who was just really into his specific brand of weird. Cool. Awesome. Please don't kill him by accident with no way to fix it.

When they leveled out, it took him a shaky second to relax a little bit from his whole-body muscle cramp, but he managed, somehow.

"J-Jesus Christ."

- - - -

"Atheist, actually. Or maybe agnostic. I dunno."

The car then came to a very abrupt halt, showing him the value of the padded dashboard and low-laid rise behind the short windshield as his face slammed into cushion and leather quilting.

"Ta-Da! And I never even drove before. Hah! I just learned by watching you, and then ignored all that slowing-us-down signs and lights garbage you do. Not bad, right?"

Edith pulled off her Driving Accessories, leaving them in the seat, and hopped out.

They were perfectly parallel parked…. between two other cars?… outside of a mansion… castle… thing!? That his shades claimed was an empty lot.

Because why wouldn't this be his evening!?

- - - -

"Mrph." Great. It took him a second of checking to make sure his nose wasn't broken before he got out of the "car", also pulling his glasses off to make sure they hadn't broken and then turning them off so that they wouldn't try to capture the rest of this insanity.

The mansion/castle/laboratory was… impressive, on the outside, even if "reality" said it was an empty lot. He jogged a few steps to catch up to Edith after that second of admiring the building.

"You are so lucky I had faith you knew what you were doing." She didn't even know how to officially drive!!!

- - - -

"Oh, c'mon… imaginary friend, imaginary car, imaginary mansion, imaginary mad science lab…. I'm in my element!! What could go wrong?"

She pulled out numerous keys on a long chain from her back pocket and began unlocking numerous locks on the gate. The gate itself had many warning signs posted to it.

BEWARE : SCIENCE !! CAUTION : SCIENCE INSIDE MAD SCIENTIST AT WORK, COME BACK LATER PROUD REALITY REBELS WITHIN FOR SCIENCE!!™️ YES, WE CAUSED THE BLACKOUT NO SOLITICERS HOT TECH GIRLS WELCOME NO TRESPASSING CLOWNS WILL BE EXTERMINATED IF CAUGHT SCIENCE!!™️ WE DO WHAT WE MUST, BECAUSE WE CAN!!

Eed finally finished unlocking the gates and put her keychain away, swinging it open for him. "Doctor."

She beamed at him with open adoration and admiration.

- - - -

He was… thoroughly confused, but entertained, and followed along with her by walking past with his chin high, shoulders straight, and hands clasped behind his back. "Thank you, ½."

He had no idea what to expect within the property. This was really stretching his idea of what imagination could do.

- - - -

As he crossed the threshold, Simon found himself wearing an outfit similar to Edith's 'For Science!™️' attire. His was more grand, of course, because he was the Doctor, and wore a long lab coat over his apron, with the words Dr. Gemini sewn into it. When she finished closing up behind them, and hurried to catch up, Eed was wearing her outfit as well, her own lab coat saying Sidekick ½.

She walked along, one step behind and to his right, mimicking his stride and posture.

"Welcome home, Doctor Gemini… to Half House!"

The door unlocked itself and opened before his approach. Inside was a blend of victorian antique and cassette retrofuturism styles, in all things. The wooden walls were wallpapered from halfway, up to the ceiling, though electronic panels and retro-computer clunky tech were set into the walls, framed by finely polished wood, making it stand out elegantly from the wallpapering.

- - - -

[[ a/n ]]

- - - -

He had no idea what the hell most of this stuff was for beyond ornamentation.

The hard time he was having taking this at its face manifested as dropping his 'professional' affectation to take off one glove and run a hand through his hair. This was getting to be a lot.

"You know, initially, I thought we were just gonna walk into the closet, or something. For some reason this," Simon gestured to the grand spectacle of the room, "is way harder to fully let myself believe is real. You work on a level of imagination I'm not totally sure I'm up to yet, Sidekick."

- - - -

He saw her remove her own glove and run her hand through her hair as well. "Yes, of course, Doctor. It will take some time for your neuro-mnemonic-pathways to re-integrate into appropriate patterns of cognitive activity and actualization."

She grinned. "I'm a science!"

They were then interrupted by an elderly male voice that was very clearly computer-generated, despite its british accent.

"Ah! Doctor Gemini! I am so deeply elated to see you alive and well, sir. Welcome home."

An automaton approached the pair.

- - - -

Simon flinched away from the automaton, very much not expecting the auto-butler or his aesthetic despite everything that surrounded them. "D'ah!! Uh-! Th- Thank you!"

He leaned down to Edith. "Who is this?"

- - - -

She leaned up and into him and whispered sideways, "Your butler, Mister Gearwhistle."

- - - -

He considered this, then nodded. "Right."

"erhem. Thank you, Mister Gearwhistle. How have things been in our absence? I heard from my Sidekick that it has been a few years, now, since our last visit- I'm not sure how closely you've been monitoring things on the outside, either, given recent events…"

Definitely play along. This was so weird.

- - - -

The butlerbot made its way into the room using a limited range of motion that never the less emulated human movement quite well. His metal mustache moved when he spoke.

"I never bother with the outside world, good Doctor. Much too dirty. And so uncivilized. No, sir, none of my business. Quite the opposite. Besides, I've been far too invested in maintaining the Imaginarium in your absence. Miss Half has been kind enough to assist me from time to time, during your long travels, sir."

Despite having been turned 'off', his glasses still notified him in the corner of his vision, that he had left known space and could not be located by GPS at this time, nor could his glasses connect to a network. This seemed more like a safety advisory, than anything else, in case he didn't know his own situation.

Sidekick Edith 'Eed' ½, stepped forward to deflect on Simon's behalf, by holding up a 'stop' hand toward Mister Gearwhistle.

"The Doctor has no time for pleasantries, I'm afraid. We must away to the Imaginarium, right away!"

The robot nodded, stepping aside.

"Yes, yes, of course. The Great Work never sleeps, does it, Miss Half?"

She took the lead and said quietly, as if to herself, in a very serious but immature play voice, "Science Never Sleeps."

- - - -

Simon mentally frowned at his glasses still tracking his position and network status- he'd have to find a way to genuinely turn them off, later. But it was good to know, he had to admit, that he was really off the grid, even if that was definitely outside the realm of possible. None of this was possible. It was kind of cool, though.

He followed behind Edith at a steady pace with his long stride, eventually almost catching up to her, to stay within the narrative of the one who knew what he was doing and was in charge. He was totally just letting her lead.

And had no idea what the Imaginarium was, beyond what it sounded like.

- - - -

She led him to a full phone booth standing against a wall at the end of a hallway on the first floor. After opening the door for him and letting him step inside, she followed and closed the door behind them. A small wall phone was set into the rear wall of the booth and Edith picked up the receiver, wound a revolving lever on the right and then dialed a number on a rotary dial, and hung up the phone.

The interior of the phone booth then began to descend into the floor. An elevator with a secret code, it seemed.

At the speed they were going, it looked like they'd have a moment alone.

She looked at him, searching his face. "Worried, huh?"

- - - -

He pulled his glasses up, then, and gave her a nervous smile. "I am way out of my depth right now."

- - - -

"I grew up here," she said softly, before leaning on his arm like he were a pillar.

"Half House has been my home for as long as I can remember, except for when I moved in with you. And then, Otome moved in, and I didn't want to be forgotten, so I stayed around. I thought for sure if I moved out, you'd… move on. You know?"

The elevator continued slowly rolling down its path on what sounded and felt like well maintained wheeled tracks at a steady pace.

"When you started trying to break the laws of reality in the real world, and not just the digital one… I knew I wanted to share the house with you, and make it yours. It's changed a lot since then, thanks to your presence and imagination."

She bounced lightly on her toes as she stood back upright. "You're not out of your depth, Boybot. This is your pool. It only goes as deep as you want it to. If you see water that's too deep? Don't swim in it. Go back to the shallows and get used to the water some more."

Her arm slipped into his. "I believe in you. You may not know what the heck is going on… but you can… because you have… so if you want to…. you will. Sooner or later. I know you will."

- - - -

Simon fixed Edith with a gently confused and sympathetic look, smiling very slightly in fondness and aforementioned sympathy.

"So… you existed here before you were in school with me? Or revealed yourself to me, I guess? And even after that, it was your house you went home to after school- and what that airship was thematically based on?" It was a lot of questions, but less of an interrogation and more of Simon trying to get her timeline straight. He shook his head gently, eyes closed. "You might've given me the reins, but this is still your horse, Eed. What are you?"

- - - -

She nodded in response to his questions and guesses. "The house used to be the airship, actually… but otherwise, yes."

To his last question, she simply gave him a slightly sad but most reassuring smile as she touched his cheek. "I'm what you needed. I still am, and happily. And I will keep being, for as long as you need it. And I'll love every moment."

The elevator began to slow, before settling into what felt like a cradle at the bottom. There were no windows on the outside this time.

"Deep breath. And try to remember… we worked together for years down here. Okay?"

- - - -

That didn't really answer a damn thing. Simon's eyebrows knit, and he frowned at her, but when she released his face, he pulled down his glasses and did his best to steel himself for whatever was behind that door. He was sort of expecting a Frankenstein-esque mad science lab with a slab in the middle and lots of machines around the outside of the main space. It probably wasn't that, though. That was for making monsters, not breaking the rules of reality.

- - - -

When she slid the door aside, what was revealed was… actually fairly close to what he'd imagined… except bigger… with sections and areas….

And a fucking train.

"Welcome… to the Imaginarium!"

- - - -

Simon had to take a long minute to let the enormous, full, crazy area sink in. There was a train! IN the room! Why?!

He took a step out of the elevator-phone-booth, sidling past Edith, in order to not feel trapped in the tiny space. It wasn't much better when he was surrounded by all of… this, if he was honest with himself. And all of this was way more than he imagined when Edith first broached the subject of figuring out the foundations of reality, to him.

He turned back to her, stomach fluttering, honestly feeling a little queasy but trying his best to just trust the unreality of the space. And the potential flexibility of his sanity.

"…Ready to start the tour?"

- - - -

She looked confused, before comprehension crept across her face. "Oh! Oh, oh…. no. No, no… no. This place isn't really a… tour… kinda situation. You just wander around, until something makes you curious enough to engage, and then…. you start futzing with it. Eventually, you figure out what it is, how it works, and from there…. you figure out how you could make it better, or why it isn't working. It's an Imaginarium! Like…. like a laboratory, but for your mind. There's nothing in here that your mind can't handle… and if you get stumped, there's always something else to work on. After awhile, you start having a few things you're working on at a time, going back and forth between them."

She walked in, gesturing all around in a slow spin while she walked.

"In here, reality is whatever you need it to be… right up until you Throw The Lever!™️ and see what will really happen. And then you tweak and tweak… and it gets better and better, and so does your understanding of how it really works."

"Reality's code doesn't have a neat, tidy console to read off of. That's why people Experiment. But in here, you're not limited in your experiments to what the Union has signed off on. Only reality's source code determines what can and cannot happen, in here."

"We've worked together on hundreds of projects over the years. We built that train!" she said, smiling.

"It runs on psychic energy… more or less. So no matter where we go… if there are people - or even just a boatload of animals - it'll stay fueled up. And it can leave Earth. That was kind've the whole point of making it. We needed some stuff from other dimensions, so we needed a way to get there. We had some spare parts for a locomotive so we went with that."

She pointed toward an alcove with green-liquid tanks and giant tesla coils. "We invented living Pocket Demons right over there. But only three."

- - - -

He stared incredulously as she pointed to devices, and stopped at the tanks with wide eyes and a straight face.

"…Which ones?"

- - - -

"Sparksqueak, Watortoise, and Grassaurus."

- - - -

"…Pikachu, Squirtle, and… Bulbasaur? Where are they?"

- - - -

"They…. they died. Old age, a few years ago. We were only able to give them a life expectancy of four years. But they also provided blood and organs, as signed donors, for future works. We have a template still in the Genesis Engine, but… we never came back to that project."

- - - -

Oh. That was sad. He gave Edith a sympathetic little frown and set a hand on her shoulder. "…Oh. I'm sorry."

Losing a pet was always hard, as far as he was aware (having not had any pets he was aware of), and he hoped the sympathy at least helped. It probably didn't though.

"…Are the scientist getups part of the expected reality in here?" he had to admit it was not his usual look, and a little stuffy.

- - - -

"No. We just thought it would make being down here more fun, to do it in character."

She carefully removed her goggles. "Sorry… "

She muttered under her breath, "Still better than suits, though."

- - - -

He patted her further, then took off the gloves and gently cupped her face with one, bare hand. "Hey, no need to apologize. This is already nuts, okay? And they are way better than the suits. Definitely appreciate that. But I'm not quite used to it enough to need to play pretend in the imaginary-workshop I just got invited to see and work in. Okay?"

- - - -

She nodded, offering a light shrug as she shed her outfit in its entirety as if it were a single bathrobe, leaving her nude as her science outfit pooled in layers on the floor. Little ripples of prismatic and beautiful rainbow sparkles wove their way from her toes, to her ankles, knees, waist, chest, shoulders, and then the top of her head - and in their wake she was wearing her shortalls outfit again, with a ballcap that said SIDEKICK across the front and had a little white hat-pin on it of her Simone kitten form as a cute anime kittyball.

She wore big, wide circular glasses around her mismatched eyes and her hair was in a curly ponytail now, with frizzles sticking out all over.

"So… do you want to see the Genesis Engine, then? Or maybe take a look at the Vampire Detector? We could play in the Ball Pit of Doom, if you prefer, and learn about physics! Or, I guess we could climb inside the Tesla Dome…"

"I dunno… what, about reality, would you like to tinker with, break, fix, and improve?"

- - - -

Oh, shit, she was naked!! And then did a Sailor Senshi into a mechanic-girl! Simon's face went beet-red, with the blush artfully extended off of his face to either side without his intent as emphasis of just How Much he was blushing and flustered. "Buh- uh-!!"

Why couldn't he change outfits like she could? Super not fair. But also, she had adorable tits and a great figure and her muff was just. Hoo-boy. He turned around to try and hide his burgeoning arousal, rubbing the back of his head while the other hand went to his hip.

"W-well! I kind of just wish I had a way to catch up on what I already knew, quickly! I have never needed remedial classes and honestly it kind of sucks!"

- - - -

"Hey!! That's a great idea!!"

She ran over and hugged him tight.

"Inside the Imaginarium, we can fix your memory! As an EXPERIMENT!™️"

She looked around frantically. "We just have to find something that works with the mind… Hypno-Helmet? No, too invasive. We wanna unlock old memories, not write new ones. Forget-Me-Stick? No, you already forgot. Hrmmm…. there's gotta be something around here!"

Eed hopped off on a walk that was almost a skip. "If I were a Mental Experiment, where would I be?"

- - - -

"The loony bin, usually," Simon sighed back to her, after he had unfrozen from being hugged by the previously-naked cute girl.

"But that's for the failed ones. Could we like… apply hypnotherapy principles to the helmet's system somehow? I think I remember seeing shit on TV about how therapists can use hypnosis to help people unblock traumatic memories…"

Yes, he did still have a half-stiffy, no, he was not going to acknowledge that.

"Hey, how do you change your outfit like that?"

He jogged lightly to catch up to her, again.

- - - -

"Sure we can! We can do anything we want! That's the whole point of this place. Huh? Oh, my clothes. Sorry. I just shed one costume to make room for the next one, and called for it. If the thing that you call for is close enough, it comes right to you."

She reached out to her side, and he saw her concentrate for a second, and a brass sphere flew off of a table across the room, straight at her and into her waiting hand.

"See? But if it's too far away for that, like these clothes were, then they have to come to you - or in this case, me - through a channel in reality. My clothes know how I wear them, so… they appear already where they know I'll want them to be."

She held his hand and slipped the little sphere, roughly the size of a golf ball, into his hand. "You used to be able to do it, but stopped when the Union told you it wasn't acceptable. Do you want me to teach you again, or should we get right to work figuring out how to wire a hypno-device to do memory recovery?"

- - - -

Edith's hand got held onto, gently, after she gave him the little ball. She was soft and warm, and he wanted to hold her hand for a second longer.

"…It'd be nice, if you could show me some easy tricks before we get into things. Some pre-work prep, maybe."

- - - -

Edith nodded and wrapped her fingers around the hand he was holding the ball with.

"Feel it. Really explore it, with your senses - most importantly, with your mind. Your mind takes in the temperature, the texture, the shape… but also the weight and density. So don't just feel it with your hand… explore it. Become familiar with it. Everything about it. Toss it around, catch it, juggle with it…. whatever it takes, to get to a point where you know the ball well enough to feel like you could almost treat it like a part of yourself. Like if you toss it up, you'll catch it just the way you want to, without thinking about it. It'll take some time… but it's the fastest way."

"You see, space… isn't space. Space is full. There's no such thing as vacuum, because even a void is something. It's filled with a devouring hunger that drags all light and air and life into itself, but… that's still a thing. It's a force, like gravity, or an idea that can be physically observed, like time."

"But space… the amount of room between you and the ball… is filled with a whole rainbow of unseen forces. If you can become familiar enough with the ball, with the metal and the weight and the feel of it… not just as a ball, but as a thing that is kind've part of you - or could be - then you can throw the ball… and use that unseen force to catch it. Like undo'ing the throw. Or taking back a bad idea. You can pull it back to you, through that space, by tugging on the ball with the space itself… like pulling a yoyo up by its own shifting momentum on the string."

"It's actually harder to figure out, than it is to do. Most of this stuff is. Takes forever to learn…. but once you get it, it's easy. Like basic math, or riding a bike! It's a struggle, right up until you can do it!"

- - - -

Simon frowned at her, looking with an intensity that surely meant he was paying very close attention to her words, visualizing the concepts in his mind while she spoke and trying to understand them from her description alone. It was a little difficult.

"Almost like the ball is a yo-yo, or… the air can be moved back into place where it moved it, sending the ball back in the direction it came from…?" He was having a little bit of a hard time grasping the concept, and that was frustrating.

- - - -

"Kind've. Stick with the yoyo-part… the ball is the yoyo… you must have a good, deep, touch-memory for the yoyo and the way it moves on the string, to make it doooo anything. So the ball is the yoyo… and the string… that's the hard part. The string is the space between your hand - usually the middle or upper middle of the palm, since that's where you started learning it from the first time - and the object - in this case, the ball. The string only exists… if you can hold it in your mind hard enough to get a kind of phantom sensation of it in your hand or imagination, or, preferably, both."

"If you can get used to tossing it and catching it, and feeling it and whatever… always trying to remember that string is there, when the ball leaves your hand…. then when you've finally got it down… you'll be able to let the yoyo fall and then tug the 'string' back up toward your hand. Except, instead of a little tug with your wrist or finger, this tug is more like a mental tug, inside your hand, to reel the string back on."

"Got it?"

- - - -

Simon spent a little while after Edith's explanation just… holding the ball. Tossing it between his hands, back and forth, feeling its weight and how it hit his palm until he Knew the feeling, or, at least, thought so- then, took some time tossing it upward, trying to catch it while looking and then trying to catch it without looking and then trying to pull it back to his hand on an invisible little cord. When he felt comfortable with those motions, he finally started trying to treat it like a yo-yo… It had been a little while, and Edith did her best to encourage his Actual attempts to move it with his Will, or give him some coaching, but he was really starting to feel the mental strain before he even got to the point where he started dropping the ball and trying to pull it back up.

- - - -

Finally having had enough of his inability to grasp the concept (obviously he just wasn't there yet, to his infinite chagrin), Simon threw the goddamn brass ball across the room - instantly regretting his outburst. He instinctively tightened his hand, still outstretched, as if to try and catch it even though that moment was long gone… and yet… he felt the space around the sphere clamp down on it, like a perfectly fitted round velvet pocket of air that just gripped the orb suddenly, stealing all of its momentum. The brass sphere simply remained where it had been, some six yards away, perfectly still in the air. It didn't bob, it didn't rotate, there was no motion at all. It was as if the ball were caught in time and space alike.

The instant his concentration faltered, it fell to the floor with a loud clang and rolled along a little bit, until it came to a stop.

- - - -

Now he sort of understood what Edith meant when she said it was more often something that was harder to get than to just do.

Simon stared angrily at the sphere for a moment, on the verge of a headache for the third time since waking up, and reached for it in order to pull it into his palm (from the palm-point relative to his middle knuckle) by… pulling it through a tunnel in the gas of the air, a vacuum from his palm directed at just that little asshole ball.

- - - -

It took longer than he would've liked, and he was just about to give up, when he felt it… she was right. There was an unseen force… not quite gravity, not quite space, and certainly not the air. But it was there… a kind of psychic tether, between his hand and the brass orb. It flickered in and out of existence, erratic and wholly untenable and at the very edges of his perception… but when he finally found his sense of it and managed to hold on to it in his mind… to keep the tether there… the tension in his arm, as if flexing a muscle behind his wrist, pulling from somewhere in the air behind his physical hand, he touched the ethereal. He felt the line, made of nothing, completely invisible, intangible, nothing but dream and imagination, latched onto a scientific principle that offered no proof of its own existence… and he drew in the distance between his palm and the brass ball, causing it to fly from the floor and whip painfully back into his grasp once more - as if it had been dragged straight to him by a high-powered tow cable under great force.

He had called it back to himself. Reclaimed it, from the floor. He had reduced the space between the ball and himself and become 'whole' again, in that vague way.

And now that he knew what the sensation felt like… now that he knew what mental, imaginary feeling he was trying to feel, what sensation he was searching for… he knew that he could do it again. Maybe not every time, it would take practice. But he'd just outright broken the known laws of physics as they pertained to forces like kinetic and potential energy, gravity, inertia… but he'd done so by applying a law that he hadn't known existed.

Part of the hidden source code of reality. A force unnamed and unknown, long buried by the Technocratic Union and erased from the Consensus. He'd found one. He had no idea what to call it, of course… but he knew it was there, what it felt like, and a vague impression of how it worked, what it did… a space between spaces.

She was right. Even nothing, was still full of something.

- - - -

Completely mentally exhausted, frustrated, and really at most limits of his stamina, Simon Castor threw his arms into the air and exclaimed, "WOOOO!! YES! I fucking DID IT!"

And then he threw the ball with all the force of that tow cable, and wanted to stick it into the wall hard enough to make a crater. FUCK that ball.

- - - -

The ball flew across the room, tinked gently against the wall, then returned to his hand once more.

- - - -

Simon made a frustrated growl and plopped his ass onto the floor. He couldn't remember where Edith had taken the little ball from in order to return it there, but god damn it, it had come back, and he was fucking tired now.

- - - -

The ball, sharing his exhaustion… fell from him resting hand, limp and rolling along the floor until it came to a stop. Simon could almost feel the ball's frustration and exhaustion, as tired of this exercise regimen as he was.

- - - -

Oh, aw, that garnered some sympathy from him toward the little object. He called it back and held it in both hands, trying to share that feeling of shared accomplishment, too, with it.

"Hey, man, you did great. Thanks for working with me with all that crap."

- - - -

Edith sat down beside him, seemingly out of nowhere. "Once you get better at feeling things out through the aetherium, you'll be able to try finding the ball when it's nowhere nearby… and the next step after that is calling it to you through the space in between, the way I do with my clothes. But… I don't think you'd be able to do any of that outside the Imaginarium. After all…"

She looked around. "… this place is kind've like an emulator, letting us work through reality's settings. But outside, the Union's rules kick back in, in full. That's why we work in here, until a device is totally ready to be applied out there. You wanted to bring some Q gizmos in here to fix them up and work on them, but you said you were pretty sure that they'd somehow find out the Half House existed if you did that, and come deconstruct it or something."

- - - -

Simon nodded to her, still holding and looking at his little ball friend. "Yeah, probably. Unless we took it apart at home and removed anything they could use to track it, but, y'know, with that… aetherium?… the guys who made it can probably track its individual pieces, too. Any luck with that thing? What've we gotten to work outside, so far?"

- - - -

"Any luck with what thing? OH! The Hypno thing… I'm so sorry, I got distracted by the Digitracer. Outside? Well, we've got the MVD - the Mobile Vampire Detector, it's a handheld little version about the size of a keyfob. There's also the Death Ray, the Barrier Shield, Encrypto, and…. uh…. there was something else…. "

She looked off into the distance, absently.

"…. OH! Oh. Um…. yeah. The other thing. Don't worry about the other thing."

She waved her hand at him, all Jedi-like.

"There is no other thing."

- - - -

He frowned at her, totally not mind-tricked at all. "You mentioned it, now I gotta know what you're talking about."

He would ask about those other things after she spilled these metaphorical beans.

- - - -

She reddened a little. "Can't we just pretend you didn't hear that one? Oh! Where's your neuralizer?"

- - - -

He pressed the button on his glasses that made them into mirror-shades. "Nuh-uh. Come on. You can open up a little, and if you're blushing that much, I'm certain it's probably fine since you've been coming onto me since we got home."

- - - -

"Some things are private!"

- - - -

He snorted. "Eed, if you're my imaginary friend and we're in my imaginary mansion slash mad science lab, and it's all mine by rights, nothing is private here. Come onnnnnn."

Simon crossed his arms, still holding the little ball in one hand.

- - - -

Her face fell flat and she sighed. "Fine. But don't judge me."

She reached behind herself and held out her hand, which was now covered in a bright pink and purple wad of writhing tentacles with little ridges, the hues fading beautifully from one into the other and back. It uncoiled and one bright blue eye with an octopus-like figure '8' pupil opened sleepily. Upon seeing Simon, it tensed, shrieked like a horror movie scream queen and slapped him across the face with one of its tentacles, covering its writhing amorphic body mass with other tentacles, before trying to hurry back into Edith's hammerspace.

"He's sensitive."

- - - -

He was not prepared for the tiny tentacle monster, nor for being slapped in the face with one of its brightly-colored tentacles after it screamed at seeing him. He was definitely staring at it and now the situation was completely ridiculous.

Simon very quickly averted his gaze so that it didn't feel so… violated? Was it for violating Edith? He wouldn't have been surprised, though its- his- sensitivity was surprising. Simon now sported a tentacle-print red mark on his face.

"S-sorry, sorry, I have to admit I was not expecting a little tentacle monster! He is fine to exist outside??"

- - - -

She nodded. "His name is Kaiju II."

She blushed as she made sure the little monster was tucked away in the nowhere. "You tried to make one for Otome, but it didn't survive and it turned out that she has a tentacle phobia. But Kaiju I was able to divide and reproduce before dying, and Kaiju II survived. So, I adopted him."

- - - -

"Oh, shit, a phobia? I thought her mentioning her nightmare-version's lack of tentacles was like, a reference to her preference for hentai. I wonder what caused the phobia."

Once Kaiju II was away, he turned back to Edith.

"…Sorry about the first one. You guys… had a lot of little experiments die, huh? I don't… really think experimenting with life is generally a good idea, myself."

- - - -

"It wasn't about experimenting with life, that was just how we dug through the metaphorical code. Curing diseases, seeing which medical conditions are real and which ones have been created as byproducts of Consensual Science, seeing if humans can be made better by weeding out weaknesses that've been bred into them… you have to create life, to have life to study. Even the Vampire Detector required experimenting in the Genesis Lab."

- - - -

He nodded along, though did seem uncertain about one thing. "…Let's. Not do the eugenics experimenting anymore. If that's okay. I really feel like creating life only to give it diseases we wanna cure is extremely immoral."

- - - -

She looked at him in horror, "Who would do that!?"

- - - -

"…Was that not what you were just implying we were doing??"

- - - -

"No!! That's awful!! We didn't create Kaiju to make them sick! We didn't even grow a whole vampire just to tear out its heart! That's just cruel! You only grow the stuff you need, or lifeforms you think will be beneficial in some way! Like the Conductor Worm!"

- - - -

He gazed at her with alarm. "…Conductor worm?" He was thinking of MiB2's big worm.

- - - -

"Yeah. After a few too many accidents in the Voltaic Icosahedron, we designed and tinkered and when it was finally ready to be a stable lifeform, we used the Genesis Engine to create a little worm. It enters the body and feeds on your bioelectrical field, growing like a second nervous system all throughout the body. It takes days, and keeps you fatigued, but once fully grown, a healthy Conductor Worm is able to absorb and redirect otherwise dangerous amounts of electrical current through a human body without damaging tissue or jolting the system."

- - - -

"Ohhhh." He nodded to himself. "Okay, yeah, that sounds like a smart thing to have done. Kinda fucked up, given it's an organic parasite instead of like, some kind of wearable grounding apparatus or something, but still pretty smart. We could change the whole face of the electrician position."

"I thought you were talking about a parasite that controls people, or, like, the giant subway worm from Men in Black Two."

- - - -

She just looked at him. "He has a name. It's Geoffrey."

- - - -

He held his hands up in a mollifying gesture. "Right! I couldn't think of it right away, sorry, it's been years since I saw that movie."

- - - -

"And a wearable device has limits based on what the Union's done to material conductivity and dispersion tolerance. But an organism is limited only by its own biology. Why would we be making mind control worms down here? What kind of mad science do you think we were into?"

- - - -

He shrugged helplessly at her, eyes wide, tone defensive. "I don't know!! I have no idea what you guys were doing down here!"

- - - -

"'We' guys, Boybot. You and me. You'd never go for a mind control worm. Especially after seeing Star Trek II. The original, not the reboot franchise."

She leaned on his shoulder.

"Do you still wanna work on that Hypno-Helmet recalibration, or do you wanna break after learning how to contract spacial aether?"

- - - -

He considered for a second, lips pursing, gaze wandering around the room.

"…I do feel like I just completed a solo mathcounts competition when I was supposed to be part of a team."

Then leaned his head onto hers.

"And I'm not sure how to apply trauma therapy principles to a device I don't remember making in the first place. What do you think?"

- - - -

"I think we didn't build the Hypno-Helmet. We fixed it… but it was already down here when we found it. But, I get what you mean. I don't know anything about therapy stuff either… but does that matter? It's not much different than reversing the function of your Neuralizer, is it? Except that the Hypno-Helmet can do more than make people forget. And since hypnotherapy is already a thing that has been made part of their Consensus, we don't even have to rip out junk code…. just wire it into the helmet somehow."

- - - -

Simon considered her ideas further, nodding absently along. "That makes sense."

Leaning up off of her, Simon used the arm not under her head to turn himself and cradle Edith so that she didn't just fall over as he got up. "I think that settles it; how about we get working on that helmet? I don't wanna lose steam, you know?"

- - - -

She stood with him, using his arms as leverage. She still didn't weigh what a person should, even a shorter framed person like her, not by half or better.

"Steam isn't bad, but it's terrible for the environment, because of the coal and lumber and stuff. Carbon! That. Buuuuttt….. we were working on a Phlogiston Collector and an Aetheric Energy Converter, before you stoppe--…. oh, you mean like… right. Got it."

Edith took his hand and led him toward the HypnoDrome, which was apparently one of the chambers that branched off of the main lab via a corridor large enough to drive a … train… through.

- - - -

Simon looked at her curiously as she led him into this branch of the Imaginarium. "Phlogiston Collector? And Aetheric Energy Converter? So we were working on clean, efficient energy alternatives?"

He did note her continued lack of mass, but was caught up more with the energies Edith suggested than the continued problem of her existence.

- - - -

She nodded. "Some of our designs need more juice than conventional power can provide. Best solution? New power."

She gestured around the pipes and bundles cables that lined the wide and tall tunnel, whose metal grate flooring and general vibe made it seem like the interior of an oversized nuclear submarine.

"Their Consensus refuses to allow anything to run on Essence, sooo… gotta find alternative power sources. The world won't accept them, especially not as commercially viable alternatives… but we can use them."

She frowned. "Stupid Consensus."

- - - -

He patted her tugging hand with his, smiling in sympathy. "Yeah. Some of the restrictions on reality are stupid. I'm excited to see past them again."

Casting his eyes around, Simon found himself somewhat disliking the haphazardly-bundled cables and maze of pipes running around the place, and he frowned to himself. Couldn't they have kept things a little tidier? Or was the pursuit of progress more important than aesthetics, now? If he had cared enough, his room full of wires and cables and things would have, ideally, been streamlined and organized and had all of its cables at least carefully laid out to keep them out of the way, but, well, he hadn't cared enough to do all of that at the time. At least, not in the history he had in his head.

Maybe with a girl to impress with his work, this-him's formative years had been different… and certainly would've been happier.

- - - -

They entered the HypnoDome, a vast… well, dome… with a black and white spiral design that was a little disorienting, painted all across the wide ceiling. It didn't move, he didn't think, but it sure tricked the eye into seeing it move when he looked up at it, which threw the room into a slight tailspin.

All around were enormous tesla coils, electrodes… were those vacuum tubes?… control panels, various work stations… the air here smelled of burnt ozone.

Eed smiled apologetically, "Sorry for the mess, we had to store the Symphoniator in here, because it kept damaging things in the Voltaic Icosahedron. On the bright side, we can work to music, if you don't hold anything metal up too high!"

- - - -

The dizziness made Simon hold onto Edith a little tighter, forcing him to hold his attention on her rather than gazing at the ceiling for even a moment more else it might make him hurl. That concentration expressed itself as a very intense stare at the girl, eyebrows furrowed and mouth set into a hard line.

"Symphoniator? And you keep mentioning the icosahedron, what were we doing with that?"

- - - -

She nodded to his first question and gestured to the room at large. "I have Sweet Home Alabama programmed into it, still, if you want me to turn it on. The Voltaic Icosahedron is where most of the direct energy work gets done."

- - - -

He gazed at her. "…What is a Symphoniator? I mean, I'm not huge on that song, but if it's cool I'm not gonna say no."

- - - -

"It uses voltaic shock and plasma discharge, in phased bursts, to burn the air in ways that create music when set up in advance to fire at different phase frequencies and time intervals."

- - - -

That sounded like just enough plausible bullshit to work, so Simon shrugged permissively. "OK, sure, playing music with electricity, why not?"

And he sat through a demonstration of tesla coils playing "Sweet Home Alabama* through the room, loud enough to make his ears ring and definitely at a frequency that made his headache just the slightest bit worse. He winced on every low note, the buzzing of the electricity hitting a bad spot on his range of hearing, but, over all, was sincerely impressed by the performance.

"…Cool. What else do we have on this thing? Can you do a playlist of songs for it?"

- - - -

"We have over nine hundred songs programmed."

- - - -

"Then why is it not playing right now? Besides my headache."

- - - -

She grinned and went to one of the control stations and began punching in various songs and setting it to shuffle and run, as the room lit up with strobing blasts and strings of electricity in blue, purple, yellow, orange, green, and pink. When she returned, she came back with a gumball-looking thing.

"Chew on this and suck all the juice, until the whole thing is dissolved. Cures headaches and hangovers."

- - - -

That was sincerely impressive- more impressive than the tesla music, if he was honest with himself. Given his chronic migraines, he hoped they had a whole mess of these at home. Simon took the little ball and popped it right into his mouth, very much hoping it was well-flavored, too.

- - - -

It was like chewing on a Whopper, except instead of chocolate and malt, it was crunchy blue raspberry that slowly dissolved into chewy juicy bits.

Eed came back over to him with a large helmet that encompassed the whole head, and trailed spiraling cables from a big box unit on the back of it.

"We'll need to tune it to your current brainwaves before we can begin. I think. I don't actually know how this thing works, but it did help get rid of your lisp some, and it can make curly fries. So, I think we're good."

- - - -

The curly fries comment did dampen his enthusiasm a little bit.

"…But it's not gonna fry my brain like those fries, right?" He thought the Union helped him get rid of his lisp, but, well, who's to say what is and isn't from this crazytown science lab anymore? He took the helmet from her and looked it over, trying to gauge how it might be tuned and calibrated as he usually did: fiddling.

- - - -

"It shouldn't fry your brain. It never has before."

The interior of the helmet had a range of speakers and viewscreens, as well as ample cushioning. The exterior had little to work with. The box section on the back, though, had a veritable switchboard of tiny wires and plugs, going to and from different holes in a neat arrangement, as well as four dials and three toggles. It looked like he'd made tiny stickers with tinier writing, trying to label them - but some ended with question marks.

- - - -

That did not inspire confidence in the apparatus. Still, Simon took it over to some kind of seat and plonked it onto his head after sitting down, then gave Edith a double thumbs-up.

- - - -

He heard her put her goggles back on and felt her hooking numerous cables into the back of the helmet, and then the clicking of dials being turned as a low hum gradually grew in intensity, underneath the music happening overhead. And then, he heard Edith throw a loud, frankenstein-esque electrical lever as she screamed without warning, "FOR SCIENCE!!™️"

The inside of the helmet flared to life with violently bright polychromatic flashes of light and barely audible pulses of sound from all around his head, while also spraying him in the face with a fine strawberry-scented mist.

- - - -

The mist was definitely the most unexpected part of this experience, though the rest would've made a migraine instantly if he hadn't just had the little gumball that defeated his headache. Instead, it threw his sense of balance off entirely and made tingles run down his neck and spine from the sound waves, and basically blinded him with all of the flashing lights, while he mentally tried to weather the shock of sensory input and also the discomfort of being misted in the face for no good reason. Silently, Simon was grateful his glasses kept the helmet from just spritzing him directly in the eyes.

As it worked, he yelled to Edith (or thought he was yelling, was he yelling? Could she even hear him?), "Is it working? What's with the strawberry mist?!"

- - - -

His eyes were rapidly growing to sting, and then burn and felt as dry as sand. Blinking hurt.

"It's our not-legally-patented moisturizer to protect the eyes from the mimetic desiccation dangers!"

- - - -

"Oh!" He reached up to take his glasses off, then. Ow ow ow.

Except he couldn't get his hand into the helmet. Shit.

Simon scrunched his face around and tried to intentionally displace his glasses to get them out of the way of the scented mist. It mostly worked, to which his eyes were grateful.

- - - -

The mist helped immediately, just as his headache was gone and showed no sign of returning, despite him still having some medicine-ball still in his mouth (it lasted a little bit). It felt weird at first, but he quickly got used to it, just like he would have gotten used to walking through fog in a breeze.

The weirdness show continued on, surrounding him with increasingly aggressive and overt and wildly chaotic displays of intensity… and then the whole thing shut off with a loud 'thwack' noise, of … maybe a breaker getting tripped? He smelled smoke.

- - - -

He very quickly took the helmet off of his head, worried it might start an electrical fire or something. AC/DC zapped in the background.

- - - -

The smoke was coming from a small fire located at the rear of the helmet, but just as he noticed it - once the helmet was removed - he was hosed with a fire extinguisher that left him… cold and uncarbonated and smelling stale air with a bitter tinge.

"Sorry. I didn't know you were taking it off. I think it worked! One of the things in the back exploded a tiny bit and set fire to some stuff, and it tripped the circuit over there!"

She pointed excitedly to the wall, where the lever she'd thrown earlier was now broken and looked like it was also on fire a little.

"So now we just need to fine tune it and strap you back in, rev it up…. fix the wiring… and see what happens!"

- - - -

That was just the calibration process. Okay! Okay. At least he didn't have a headache, and his ears weren't pouring smoke, though the helmet being slightly on fire was not terribly encouraging, either. For Science!!™️…?

Simon actually opted to take his glasses off for this one, setting them on a table nearby. "Y'know, I think maybe we should cut the music so that you can listen for any like, warning noises. And I wish you had told me about the mist! My glasses totally got in the way."

Still, he turned the helmet around and examined the wiring, where it had shorted, and how he might be able to fix it, or even entirely prevent the short from happening again.

- - - -

Edith shrugged, "Who wears glasses inside a helmet? That one's on you, Boybot. And don't worry about the music, there's never any warning sounds for most of these things. The sound of progress is a lot like the sound of catastrophe… it just depends on where the fires break out and how bad they are."

When he got himself a better look at the burnt helmet's inner panel, he saw that one of the labeled stickers was lightly singed. It read, AUDIO REGULATOR B-3? and the fire seemed to have started there. The cable plugged into that port ran to another port that was labeled POWER SOURCE - CHANNEL 3.

As Simon scrutinized the connections in the adjacent spaces, he realized that 'Audio Regulator B-3' was definitely mislabeled. Audio regulators elsewhere were plugged into ports along the left hand side of the lower grid; this one was in the upper middle, where other power regulation ports seemed to be. So… one of the wires had been feeding energy from a regulator, into a regulator, and wasn't allocating that power to anything else, anywhere.

Further examination showed him that he had already sorted most of the switchboard's ports - and it looked like he had been able to refit the holes into new places in the grid so that it made more sense to him - and he was able to quickly rearrange several plugs in ways that he was pretty sure would set the machine to (1) not burst into flames this time, and (2) induce memory regression and recovery without any active participation from a second party… by giving it a list of questions to pose during regression and hooking that list into the secondary input port. He was pretty sure the primary input port just went to psychedelic bullshit recorded for playback inside the helmet.

It was… completely haphazard and improvised, and yet he felt fairly certain that it would work, based on what he'd seen.

Maybe this was what being crazy felt like… total certainty based on practically no information.

- - - -

Simon checked around him for a few label stickers and a pen to write on them with, so that he could re-label what he had just done and add some notes about the primary input port's recording. Then all he had to do was come up with the questions to put into the secondary port…

"OK, Eed, I think I've got what we need to do here- follow me on this. We should give the helmet some questions to pose during the process, through the secondary input port, that should induce the regression and recovery of my memories without you needing to do much of anything."

During the explanation he pointed at the secondary input port, now newly labeled.

- - - -

"Then who's going to ask the questions?"

- - - -

"…Probably the screens and audio through subliminal messages or something, based on what we write in a program we have the helmet run?"

He raised one eyebrow at her.

"I dunno, man, this is all improv, you know that."

- - - -

"We don't know the OS the helmet runs on, or even if it uses modern programming concepts. It seems to be purely mechanical, like… like analog tech. No digitals. If you write the list down, I could plug a microphone into that port and read off the questions every so many minutes, so you hear it while you're under? Or we could pre-record the questions and plug the cassette deck into the input and hit play? We have options, I guess, is what I'm saying. I was going to plug the Opticon into the helmet's output and record whatever you experience, for later review, too - just to see if maybe it helps you make sense of things more, or maybe like if you don't remember what you remembered, because you were under at the time. I dunno… just seems like we should come at this a few different ways, to be on the safe side."

She gave him a slight hug. "Science wouldn't be science if it worked exactly the same time, every single time, would it? No, then it'd just be…. I dunno, facts or something. There's gotta be some risk and some doubts and some kind of chaos element for it to be real science."

- - - -

He chuckled at patted her between the shoulder blades, then gave a slight squeeze. "Right. Sure. Whatever fucked up, crazy take on things makes you possible, I'm all for it."

"The problem is, I have no idea what sorts of questions should be asked to kick my brain back into its previous gears. Do you have any ideas about that?"

- - - -

She pursed her lips and hopped up on a worktable, wiggling numerous gears and small tools away from the spot with her butt.

"I don't know therapy stuff. I'd say we could google it, but there's no internet down here. We still have the Society of Oracles and Scholars - or the SOS for short - that people turn to for answers in times of need… but I wasn't going to throw you that far down the rabbit hole, this soon."

- - - -

Simon nodded, setting the helmet down into his lap. "Or… Maybe we go find a book in that enormous library wing?"

- - - -

"Oh, I mean… maybe? Most of those books aren't for anything so… mainstream. They cover lore of other dimensions, astral physics, demiplane navigation and creating worlds, portal construction, dreamscapes, Otherworlds, dragons, stuff like that."

- - - -

He blinked at her, eyes owlish. "…Oh." And then waved his hand dismissively. "Well, pssshh, of course all that exists to be researched down here, I mean, that's super important shit to our SCIENCE!!™️, but it kind of sucks that it isn't a universal library where we could look up anything." It was definitely a little sarcastic, but the sentiment was genuine.

"If that's not an option, then I guess the SOS is what we should consult… Or we should go upstairs or outside to ask the internet."

- - - -

"That depends on whether or not you're ready to board the train and make the short trip into another world, to ask a question. If you'd rather go upstairs, I'd understand completely, and will happily wait here while you Google. Just pull out your phone, hit the multicolor 'G' icon and type your question. And the internet will answer. Just avoid results that say sponsored, or ad… they have laws requiring that, now."

"If we take the train, we'll both need to change clothes. I can't go home looking like this, everyone would stare at me funny."

- - - -

FANTASY RACISM WARNING.

- - - -

"……." Simon stared at Edith for a long second.

"So you're a fucking extradimensional being?!"

- - - -

"Not exactly, no. Just because it's another world, doesn't mean it's another planet or another dimension. I keep telling you, I'm Imaginary. I don't understand what's so hard about that."

- - - -

He frowned. He thought he had figured it out! He thought he had finally found an explanation for The Girl Nobody Could See But Him. Alas, she continued to confound him, and that was also frustrating.

"Sorry. I don't- imaginary people were not on my radar until I met you, so I'm just. I guess not understanding how you're so…" Simon gestured to All of her. "Crazy and your own person and possibly my completely made-up girlfriend and--"

He stopped himself, covering his face with his hands. "God damn it."

"Imagi Nations. You're. You're literally a person from the realm of imagination. You're not- I dunno why you attached to me as my imaginary friend, but like, you are a "real" person in the person sense- you're just not from this reality and your native laws work way different? Like a fucking Toon?"

- - - -

She frowned in return, her frown turning into an angry scowl at the end as she hopped off the table and leaned over to look him in the eyes from her mere five feet in height (give or take, it was hard to tell) while he sat on the testing chair, lifting a hand part way and pointing it upward under his chin.

"Did you just call me a fucking Toon, you self-righteous, racist, rigid-minded Meat Sock!?"

- - - -

Simon's eyes went owlish over his fingers for a totally different reason this time, and he physically shrank into the chair, giving her the upper hand in the power dynamic of the conversation.

His voice was small and aghast.

"oh shit that was racist??"

- - - -

"Simon, you just told an imaginary girl that she was--"

She held up a finger for each thing he'd said, counting them off with her other hand as she spoke.

"--a quote 'fucking extradimensional being', crazy, 'My Own Person' - real nice, by the way, very self-centered and invalidating of my right to exist without you - made-up, for fuck sake, a real person…. and a FUCKING TOON!!!"

She slapped him hard across the face.

"You…. you….." she seemed at a loss for something vile enough to call him, in her moment of anger, before she found the perfect insult to hit him with for his sudden onslaught of specist rhetoric.

"You Human."

She fumed, arms crossed.

- - - -

It may not have had the same impact that she was expecting, but the slap was unexpected and did hurt his feelings more than just being called "human" did. He had basically been human his whole life, and all of her Imaginary shenanigans had been stretching the bounds of his idea of what was possible, hardcore. Basically this whole time Simon had been staving off some kind of nervous breakdown by just moving forward like he had agreed he would earlier.

He turned back to her, holding his bright red cheek tenderly, eyes a little wet from the sting, and squashed down any guy-feelings about being hit that would have made him yell back, hit back, get angry, anything that wasn't the sincerely horribly guilty and apologetic he knew he needed to be, instead. Simon tossed the helmet to the floor and slipped out of the chair to stand on his knees in front of Edith, hands clasped in a gesture of pleading.

"Holy shit, Edith, I am so fucking sorry," he started, looking up at her. "I didn't- I wasn't meaning to be racist, or invalidate your individuality, and I am so, so fucking sorry that I was anyway. I didn't know that language was so fucking awful, and I won't say it again, I promise, I am so fucking sorry, Edith."

- - - -

She looked down at him, confused as hell, but also touched. She'd clearly never expected him to take the argument this direction. After a huffy moment, sentimentality won out and she sighed and helped him stand.

"Okay…. fine…. I guess. Apology accepted." She sounded like she was really trying to let it go. He could tell that they'd had this fight before, from her reaction, and that she wasn't used to it going like this.

"Um… so… I don't remember what we were talking about."

- - - -

FANTASY RACISM SCENE OVER.

- - - -

He gave her an enormous hug as a "thank you" without actually saying the phrase, because he knew that was not appropriate when you had just hurt someone so profoundly, but trying to comfort them at least helped, right?

"When I remember what it all is, I am so treating you to all of your favorite stuff. But, uh-" he let her go and held her shoulders, "We were gonna go to the SOS and ask about restorative hypnotherapy? I actually wanna go now and see what it's like, now that I get it, and asking the internet would be the boring solution."

- - - -

She looked him up and down, as if re-evaluating him somewhat. "You… cannot… be all stiff-brained and uptight and… that stuff you just did…. if we go. You know that. Right?"

- - - -

He nodded enthusiastically. "No, yep, no, I get it, not doing that anymore and if I do please slap me again."

To be entirely truthful, understanding what Edith was and how she worked as an entity was a relief to Simon's mind, rather than a strain- of course this imaginary space is Real, of course this imaginary girl is Real, why shouldn't they be? Just because they worked on different principles than his idea of Real, it didn't make them any less so, he just had to operate under the assumption that it all was a "reality" with different rules to it. Like the Web, or a waking dream, or Seeing monsters in the way Hunters did. Working on a level that was not a Human one. Totally reasonable. If she knew how he was wording this in his head, he would probably have the daylights slapped out of him.

Simon smiled nervously at her. "Please."

- - - -

HERE'S ANOTHER TONE SHIFT.

(( mentions of parenthood moving forward. ))

- - - -

She nodded, seemingly satisfied, and pulled a little whistle rod from her pocket and gave it a blow - making the loud sound of a steam whistle, that silenced the electrical music playing around them. He heard the locomotive start its own engine down the large hall and the wheels and their pistons begin to turn as it tried to come toward the whistle's call.

"We'll change once we're aboard the Prismaticka."

The steam engine - only a single locomotive engine of exceptional size, since it also seemed to contain living space and such... like a steam engine locomotive that was also a road RV - came chugging slowly into view, spewing multicolored water vapor out of its smokestacks and rainbow sparkles as sparks from its wheels and gears.

- - - -

Simon was infinitely enthused by the train's fantastical exhaust and rail sparks, and Edith saw his face light up. "Oh, shit, that's fun," he had a smile in his tone. "Can't wait to remember how to call for my own clothes, though- what do we have on the train? Er, Prismaticka?"

He held one of her hands in his, and squeezed it gently.

- - - -

"We lived on board for a year and a day, while we traveled across a handful of years and lived as basically husband and wife. When we returned, only a day had passed, just like I'd promised. Uh… speaking of which… do you like kids?"

The locomotive came to a halt in front of them and its door slid open, folding in half as stairs unfolded down and locked into place for them.

- - - -

His eyebrows raised into his hairline. "Jesus Christ it's a Doctor Who time-train," he mumbled to himself, before she got to the 'kids' part, which had him pale spectacularly.

"…Kids?" Oh, despair. He could not tell Otome if he and Edith had kids.

- - - -

"Yeah. Do you like them? Or no?"

She grabbed the handrail and hopped up onto the first step, before climbing the steps and going aboard.

- - - -

The memories of ghost-pale kids with sharp teeth and black eyes jutted into the forefront of his mind; Simon tried to shake them away and remind himself that was likely not real. He hoped those weren't part of this Consensus… everything they dealt with was. A Lot.

But normal kids? Simon considered, while he climbed up behind Edith. "Uh, well, it turns out I can kinda get petulant back at them if they're being snotheads," he confessed, remembering the Peter Pan-esque adventure he and Madison had been on, "But in concept, they're fine? Do we have kids, Edith?"

- - - -

She hesitated before answering, quietly. "Only a couple."

And then hurried past the driver's compartment, which had no one in it. The interior styling was nearly identical to the wooden finery of the airship he'd seen. Every window was circular and stained glass, and the doors were wooden with stained glass interiors, that folded in half when slid to the side. Nice crimson carpeting laid along the walkways of the floor, while powerfully blue carpeting laid directly overhead of those paths, from which tiny chandeliers hung and lit the way in scintillating tinted colors.

"The wardrobe is back here in the master bedroom!" she called from down the hall. He passed a short staircase upward on his right and another directly opposite it going downward on the left, that looped around to keep going up or down respectively. She was in the space beyond, straight ahead, through another set of doors.

- - - -

Simon followed Edith, totally quiet. Oh. They did have kids. And she still let him have a girlfriend?

He couldn't get over the fact that he had kids. What the fuck. He hoped he had been a good dad. He also wondered where the hell the kids were. Part of him wondered what the kids were.

The space of this train was frankly ridiculous, having two more levels at least and this many rooms for each… he decided not to pay much mind to that, as it was Imaginary and didn't have to fit inside the façade of the train it was in, instead following Edith into the master bedroom.

- - - -

The 'master bedroom' was a suite in various wooden hues with a red floor and a blue ceiling, luxurious furniture and many color-tinted mirrors and stained glass windows, in a circular floorplan. On the wall hung a beautifully painted portrait of a family crest… a clockwork gear that was red on the right, blue on the left, steel along the outer edges and digital pixel-fade toward the center where it faded into nothing. The gear served as the circular frame inside of which was a vibrantly rainbow hued butterfly whose body was actually a collage of super tiny paintings that blended together to create an overall rainbow hue effect, while the wings were stained glass.

It was their crest.

She was already dressed in vibrantly colored, overly elaborate and mildly-steampunky Victorian elegance. Her hair was a series of coiled curls and a woven loop in the back, ears and neck adorned in tasteful jewels and gold, while her flowing gown and buttoned collar with its tied bow were hues of blue and red, violet and pink, with the faintest hints of outlying green or yellow here and there.

She held out a bright, vivid blue hat with a stark red satin band around the base of it.

"Your city wear, Mr. Gemini."

- - - -

Her dress was stunning. The room was stunning. The entire space had an elegance to it that really married their styles well; was she some kind of nobility where she was from? Simon took the hat, absentmindedly, preoccupied with all of the detail in Edith's clothing, and then came back to himself with a realization: "Ah, shit, my glasses are on the table--" he set the hat down and made to leave the room, then stopped himself. Maybe he could…?

Simon tried to pull his glasses into his hand, knowing their weight and feeling by heart given he had worn them all of his remembered life, without pulling the air around them- rather, he wanted the space they occupied to be in his hand, instead of on the table. He hadn't tried this yet, so he wasn't sure if it would work, but maybe if he just tried to feel it hard enough…

- - - -

A different pair of glasses appeared in his hands, answering his summons. They felt… somehow more familiar in his hand. They carried the same style as everything around him, each lens colored to match his eyes, and the frames were delicately etched with tiny artworks of pixellation, gears, and even some super-tiny binary code engraved in gold along the hinges. It read GEMINI.

"The hat will dress you. When… um, when you're ready."

She blushed a little and turned to sit ladylike on the edge of their enormous bed as the train began to move again.

- - - -

Hell yeah he did it!!! Simon pumped the other fist in silent celebration, even if it wasn't the exact pair of glasses he had been looking for. He then turned back to Edith, grinning, and took the hat back up.

"I kinda figured, when you just handed the hat to me," it was his turn for a sailor senshi transformation! He put on the hat after rolling it along his arm (a trick he had picked up for fun since it seemed cool as hell), holding it by the tips of his fingers gently on the top.

- - - -

The hat sent a ripple throughout Simon's body; his clothing was blasted away in a cascade of red and blue beams, before new, elegant, Victorian-styled attire befitting a gentleman with title and holdings of the era, slid across his body in scintillating pixel crawl at high speed. As the glow of his naked flesh died down, the transformation left him clad in stark white and black, gold and silver, one cufflink a ruby and the other a sapphire, his beautiful, tinted, round-framed spectacles sitting gracefully on the bridge of his nose and his top hat having turned from red and blue to black and white.

- - - -

He did a little twirl and then bowed to Edith, one leg crossed over the other and left hand sweeping his hat off to hold it in proper fashion. The other hand was held gracefully behind his back.

When Simon came back up, he was beaming. "This doesn't match your dress by a long shot, but it's still really spectacular. Did we design these ourselves?" He settled the hat back on top of his head.

- - - -

"We had them made by a specialist. He felt it fit our family dynamic best to have one of us wearing one set of our stark contrasts while the other one wore the other set."

She smiled softly and joyously from her seat.

"You look quite dashing, Mr. Gemini. I… I'm sorry about… I know this will be a lot for you, going back now, the way you are. There's so much you won't be ready for. I suppose it won't be as happy a reunion for you as it will for the others. But, we can at least consult the SOS and make sure that your memory restoration is free from glitches or complications."

- - - -

Her speech was suddenly far more demure and eloquent- Simon supposed it was probably her preparing to go home and getting into a suitable mindset. The outfit did make him want to be a little more polite, though, too. He came over and sat next to the girl- his wife, actually (still wasn't over how incredible that was)- and rested a hand on her thigh, over her dress.

"It's alright. I opted for this, didn't I? Whatever happens, at least I'll have you there to bolster me." His hand pressed gently down, in a way he hoped was comforting.

- - - -

She gazed up at him, much more openly in love than she normally let herself seem and laid her hand lightly upon his.

"Not just me. I may be the one who found you and stayed with you, but… there is the matter of my… sister."

- - - -

His eyes widened in alarm. "…You have a sister?!" Not that it was a problem, but, he had not been expecting that. Why hadn't he been expecting that? He had a brother, and she seemed to have a lot in common with him.

- - - -

"We're half sisters. I found you, but… earlier on, you two… got along better. I was pretty jealous at the time. She seemed like she was so much better for you than I was. I mean, I'm just an Imagen, very rustic by comparison… but Chip is a Cypherian, so much more sophisticated and advanced in their ways… and so much more forward and bold in their attitudes. And you did so adore Cypher, as opposed to Imago."

- - - -

Those were definitely the names of places and the people from them, but he had no idea what they were actually referring to, and thus just blinked owlishly at her and tilted his head (only slightly, so his hat didn't fall off) like a dog who was trying to find the source of a sound.

- - - -

Edith smiled.

"Imago is what you would consider an Antiquarian culture, whose sciences and technology are befitting a bygone era, but are fueled by a more free-thinking approach to innovation and industry. Cypher is a realm of lights and dark places, where everything works and moves very quickly and life is fast and dangerous. Like your cyberpunk fictions. Chip's father was a Set. I think his name was Ram or Rom?… My father was a Gemini. But very few Sets attended the dual wedding. It was a sad moment for poor Chip, but she understood. Most Cypherians don't find Imago to be a very suitable place for… much of anything, really. And they believe our social ceremonies are much too long. They'd rather hold marriages over a video conference, so nobody has to stop what they're doing, to attend."

- - - -

One eyebrow raised, and he frowned, gently. "Oh. That's a shame. What's a Set, and a Gemini? Am I a Gemini? Your- wait, I'm married to both of you? Or did your mom marry two men? Or both??"

- - - -

"Well, our mother did marry both of our fathers, yes… but yes, you did marry us both, in a beautiful dual ceremony. We're twins, you see, we were both conceived during the same… uhm… evening. The Geminis and the Sets are both very respected Kin Houses. And since our mother was a Libra, it made perfect sense for her to have two husbands, one for each aspect of her sensibilities. My father, the erudite and cultured gentleman of refined tastes and eloquence, and Chip's father, the fun loving, brash, bold, spontaneous adventurer of an exotic domain."

- - - -

He nodded. At least that was understandable. "…Right. Let's get my memory back before I say something really insensitive about all of this by accident, hm?" He leaned his head against hers, turning to breathe in the scent of her and give the top of her head a little kiss.

"At least I know you stayed with me, and Chip didn't. I guess she had more important things to be doing than hanging out in my reality."

- - - -

"Chip was undecided on the matter, at first. I found you first and that meant you belonged to me… but I knew you were more her type, back then, and I was willing to share. And it went really well for awhile… but the Digital Realm - the Web - in your world was just too dangerous. That was why we spent a year and a day roaming the worlds, after the wedding… trying to find a way to undo the WhiteOut threat, so we could all live together. But… we never found a way. It was just too deeply ingrained into your reality and affected too many parts of what she'd be doing. So, she stayed behind, in Cypher, with Simon II. Taylor wanted to live in Imago with Simone and Edward. But we returned to Earth."

"And then, a while later… you met Otome."

Edith kissed his cheek.

- - - -

He blinked owlishly again. "…Me and Chip have kids too? Christ, I need to keep condoms around." That was a phrase he never thought he would have to say. And he didn't even know what Chip had been doing in the Web. And he realized he had married these girls early, before he met any Earth girls he would click with at all. Was that sad? He decided that was a little sad.

Given a couple of the kids's names, Simon still wasn't that creative with names, apparently. "Why did the kids stay in Imago, and not come with us? They could fill out Half House, couldn't they? …Was Half House your dad's before it was mi- ours? I mean, it's all Victorian Steampunk, and that… isn't really my jive, as much as it seems like it's the Imago aesthetic."

- - - -

She lowered her gaze a little. "You… weren't ready to raise children on Earth. Too expensive, you said. And you were probably right. Besides, the Gemini have always had nannies and house servants raise the children and they spend a lot of time in school. They'd be about the right age though, to start spending time with us, if you wanted to bring them home? Well, the three we can pick up, anyway. We can go to Cypher while we're traveling, if you'd like, too? You can meet Chip and Simon II all over again. Maybe she knows more about recovery from bad implants, now that I think of it…"

- - - -

She didn't answer his question about the House, but that was fine. "…Mmm. I feel like that'd get complicated, trying to hide them, and our life with them, from Otome. Unless you finally let her in on," he waved his hand around, "this. Which didn't seem like it was going to go well."

"And, I'm not totally sure I'm comfortable having Mister Gearwhistle raise our kids while we're busy with other stuff? I'd rather we have a more personal role in their lives, if you're alright with that- it just seems. Really impersonal, and a good way to get them to resent us."

"…How long ago did all this happen?"

- - - -

"The last time I tried to include her more in our lives, she thought I'd become some kind of poltergeist manifesting your insecurities about your relationship with her into a weird psychic phenomenon. You have to remember, m'Lord, she knows just enough to make some very wild guesses and consider them utterly possible, but not enough to know when she's being irrational about them."

"Mr Gearwhistle would never raise our kids! He's a butler, not a nanny! Besides, they're practically grown now. And they've never been to the Real World, but they keep asking to go. Um… which 'all of this' are you referring to? We've had a busy life."

He noticed bright light coming in through the stained glass windows around them. They were outside, somewhere. Somewhere silvery-white, from the look of the gleam through the stained glass. He didn't see any other colors or details moving by though, just light.

- - - -

It was probably some space-between-realities they were moving through, like the inside of a wormhole, or the time between selecting a hotlink and actually popping into the space it linked to. Like a loading zone. Simon didn't pay the lack of color much more mind.

"I- well, I guess if they keep asking t'go…" he was visibly uncomfortable at being called "M'Lord", and generally with her suddenly extremely polite mannerisms, charming as they were. The M'Lord really struck him with just how formal Edith's speech had turned, though. "But, I uh, I meant… the wedding, and the kids, since, if they're grown now, but we've only known each other a little over a decade, time must be pretty dilated between worlds…"

- - - -

"Time doesn't dilate, that's a Humanism. It's just different, in different places, at different times. Like how some days take forever to end and others zip past too soon. Clocks measure time out by their pre-approved portions and keep track of those portions, but the rate at which they actually occur is highly variable. The machine is a machine and doesn't experience time the way self-aware beings do, so it just ticks away… but to the person watching that clock, time only passes at the same speed for the person and for the clock, while the person is watching and counting along with it. Once they stop paying attention, time changes again."

She shook her head. "Time is really no reliable measure of how long something is anyway. But they're all well into their teens now. Practically young men and women! And we've visited them several times, each year. They know about your accident, don't worry. They'll just be glad you're okay!"

- - - -

Well. That did make a bit of sense, he had to admit, and just nodded as confirmation of that, to Edith.

"…Right. Well, at least we visit them semi-regularly, and they know I have no idea who they are or how… well, maybe they don't know I can't remember our life, but at least they know something went really, very wrong with my brain and I'm gonna be weird because of it. Weirder? Weirder."

- - - -

She glanced at the windows. "Would it be alright if I opened a window? I always love this part of the journey home."

"Would you like to know anything about your children, or just… be surprised? You go back and forth between asking many questions and asking none, so I can't tell."

- - - -

Simon raised an eyebrow at her. "Well, yeah, of course you can open a window. Is it not just, like, featureless white, outside?" He helped her stand from the bed, if she so desired, intending to follow her to the window to look out at their surroundings once he had a clearer view. "I mean… I have no idea what to ask. What are they like, I guess? Who takes after who? Did we want kids, or were they… y'know, an acci- well, a happy accident?"

- - - -

"Very happy accidents, as I recall your cries of passion, my darling."

She smiled back at him over her shoulders when they'd reached the window, before unlatching it and swinging the two curving halves open, outward. A sweet breeze blew inside the cabin, smelling of spring rains, winter snows, wildflowers, and fresh cheese. Beneath the Prismaticka locomotive was a railway track made of mirrored crystal and glass, with supports and railings that ran into the infinite universe below as the train made its way through its own prismatic vapor trails across the expanse of the solar system. Earth loomed large at one end of the winding trackway which followed no clear path through its own maze of scaffolding, each strut reflecting the lights of moons and stars and cities. They were near enough that Simon could clearly make out the whole of Australia as the planet spun slowly beneath them, and the movement of the clouds and the waves of the seas. Far too near was Luna, bright white and pock-marked with her shadows and craters, her dark side glittering with the lights of megacities unseen by human eyes. Only just beyond the moon were the enormous asteroids that spun and drifted lazily yet beautifully, a ballet of stone in the dark velvet of space, lit only by the delighted faces of billions of twinkling stars that collected themselves into the vibrant ribbon of the Milky Way in the furthest distance - clear and bright and vivid in its splendorous colors to Simon's eyes. Giving silhouette to the wafting ocean of drifting solar rock was the great red eye of Mars, watchful and judging, unwilling to offer gentle approval of anything it beheld. But behind him was Jupiter, off to one side of the Red Planet with her wife Saturn, her rings' scintillating hues glistening in the reflections of the unseen Sun.

Edith leaned her elbows on the windowsill and rested her chin on her folded hands, gazing out upon the Solar System That Could Not Be. "Isn't it lovely?"

- - - -

And it Sure Fucking Was, wasn't it? Mars wasn't that close, by any estimation of human observation, nor were Saturn or Jupiter- and he didn't see Venus or Mercury on this side of the train at all, though, given their position relative to Earth, it was likely that didn't matter one wit to where they actually were out in all of this vast insanity. Simon marveled for a while, stunned into silence at the sight, taking in perceptible Truths that Could Not Be if he held on to Human ideas of what Was and what Wasn't.

It seemed he really couldn't do that anymore if he wanted to have any chance of holding onto any semblance of rationality, not that he had a firm grasp on that when he came-to in the hospital this morning.

His hand came to rest on Edith's back, both to share the moment and to ground himself a little bit, nearly dizzy from the vastness of the space before him. He completely forgot what the subject of their conversation had been.

- - - -

They gazed together, quietly and with awe, at the view of the cosmos as the train whisked along its path at speeds that could not be reached through bodies that were much too close together, along a track that may not have ever existed… only when the silvery glow of the moon's bright side had finally passed and the lands far below were the towering starscrapers of vast mega-metropoli lit by neon that shone upon roads that looked like the fine strands of complex circuitry from high above, and the horizon loomed angry and red under the light of Mars, did she finally close the window. The scent of cheese and wildflowers had become one of cigarettes and bourbon, the smell of rain and snow remained but had been joined by the tinge of unhealthy city air.

She lit a blue raspberry candle to brighten the scent in the room, with a wooden match, and retook her seat upon their bed.

"All of your children are roughly the same age - two sets of twins, one from myself and one from my half-sister. We didn't even know that Imaginary women could take child from a Human, but… well, the honeymoons proved that theory wrong."

She offered a loving smile.

"Our children are Simone and Edward. She's the older by a few seconds and is still in that rough period of needing to prove herself to everyone… including herself. She's always been a bit bossy toward her brother, but she looks out for him as well. She, of course, refuses to accept a woman's life in Imago, just like I did. She wears the pants, between them. Edward prefers skirts and the clothing of young ladies, though never to excess. Timid and shy, he's a very sensitive and loving boy with a big heart, who will find a wonderful husband or wife to care for him someday. Where Simone refuses to accept her assigned gender, Edward often asks what it's like to be a woman, and prefers domestic affairs and hobbies, in contrast to his sister's rambunctious adventures. Taylor is your daughter by way of Chip, and she's as adventurous as Simone, and as kind and gentle-hearted as Edward. Her brother Simon II is more reclusive and introverted, preferring the anonymity of Cypherian schools and online organizations to actual in-person friendships."

- - - -

Blue Raspberry seemed to be a theme with their miscellaneous items, he noted, as he came back to ground from the lofty sights of the passing system. He didn't mind the smells of cigarettes, bourbon, or City; they reminded him of Noir media, of the more mundane, gritty cyberpunks that came around after Bladerunner, and that movie's entire aesthetic. It reminded him of the kind of person he on-and-off wanted to be: a gritty, skilled, tough fighter with a soft spot in his heart hardened by lead, alcohol, and grief. He was also grateful that wasn't his life, though, as it seemed like a hard one and Simon didn't really believe he was cut out for that sort of suffering.

Once Edith smiled at him, Simon took his seat beside her, resting his hand once again on the small of her back and listening quietly until she took a pause.

"…Simon II reminds me of myself when I was- in the sim, when I was growing up, and in-person interactions were complicated and I felt like nobody in the world liked or understood me. Taylor, though, is kind of like if my brother- if he even exists- were kind instead of nice. He was definitely the more adventurous of us, and outgoing, and he could find a friend or asset pretty much anywhere he went; I was jealous of him a lot." He stared into the middle-distance toward the door out of the room, watching snippets of made-up memories that felt real as she did beneath his hand. "…My whole family, on my dad's side, we always ended up with twins; I never knew my uncle, or aunt maybe, but I'm sure Dad misses them. It's too bad Sie' doesn't want to come see Earth with Taylor… I'm sure she'll miss him, too."

- - - -

"Her brother is the only one who has seen Earth. He watches, through the Digital Web… despite the dangers."

She sighed softly. "He just can't seem to pry himself away from the Virtuality."

Edith laid her head on his shoulder.

"Sometimes I wonder what it must be like for you. Shackled to a world you can't change, desperate to fix it like it were one of your inventions, or a program that needed troubleshooting. Having to live in a place that never quite feels like home… but never having anywhere that ever really does. I've done my best to be there for you, to be by your side, always… but you still seem so alone sometimes, all up there in your own head."

- - - -

Simon nodded to himself; that made sense, too, for Sie to go out of his way to watch the world he couldn't be part of, even or especially if it was dangerous for him. That self-destructive and isolation-reinforcing behavior was one Simon himself was very familiar with; it was why he really, deeply hated romantic movies of most kinds, before. He would have to take Edith up on the offer to visit Cypher, so that he could at least commiserate with Sie, if not ask Chip about malfunctioning implants and their interactions with devices that could simulate the experience of an entirely different life.

He rubbed Edith's back in a way he hoped would come off as reassuring. "…I can certainly say that without you, it was a totally different kind of painfully lonely. I think having you in my life really influenced it, and me, for the better, even if sometimes being in-between everything still gets to me and feels like too much to handle. You're probably the best thing that ever happened to me, Eed."

- - - -

She smiled up at him and kissed his chin. "That part goes without saying, Sir Boybot."

She sighed happily at the little backrubs. "If you go to see Chip, let her know that I still miss her, please? And try not to get shot too many times, this time?"

- - - -

He grinned back at her, and leaned down to actually plant a kiss to her lips, chaste and quick. "You don't at least wanna come with? We can do the TRON-suit thing, like the poster on your door!"

- - - -

She gave a light laugh and shook her head. "I wish! No, I'm afraid I… I just can't. Not after what happened. i know you don't remember, but… I can't risk returning to Cypher. There's too much that could go wrong. I miss my sister, but… it's safer this way, for all of us."

- - - -

Simon tilted his head at her, then decided, "…I won't ask. You don't have to relive the memory if it's bad enough you can't go back- I'll remember when I get my head on straight."

Finally, he looked at the window they had recently left, trying to gauge where they were by the color of light outside. "And… how much longer 'til we get to Imago?"

- - - -

"Just as soon as you wake up, my darling husband."

END SCENE

[gren-arlio]

I'm back after a small break. Welcome to Waku Puyo Extras.

Hello everyone, I'm alive once again after taking a small break and from posting on a Wednesday. It's been a bit, but I think we'll be back on schedule now. Might throw a funny image or the sort down here every Extra, IDK.

I want Extras to be more casual than the others, so besides the actual translating part, expect me to be more informal and joke around more.

First things first, I want to start off by saying thank you to everyone who reads these. Wasn't expecting so much support from the community, and it was a fairly good motivation boost, so I feel more confident than ever about what I do now.

With that thing outta the way, I think I'll start this post by something simple: Revisions from previous episodes. Obviously, when I started, I wasn't so great at this, so I made a couple of mistakes, notably:

Schezo (unfortunately) doesn't call Rulue a bitch in the first episode. Wish he did but alas, he doesn't. Instead, by an anon telling me, he more calls her a "Meat-headed woman," or something along the lines of "All Brawns and no Brains."

This also goes for episode five, where Schezo first hears Doppelganger Schezo. While yes, he does call Doppel "Kisama," a very rude version of saying "You," with how Puyo is, I don't think they'll be hard swearing anytime soon. I believe it's more of "You little..." or just "You," though any Puyo translation experts can correct me on that one.

This post will have two things:

A new video. It's a short one.

The Menus for the shop, provided by @kirstenonic05. Special thank you to you.

With those minor things out of the way, time for the first actual part of this:

A whole new video.

It's not a long one at all. It's fairly short compared to the rest.

This was the Witch and Succubus thing from my Retrospective. It's fun.

Timestamps:

Schezo says "Hm? There's no one here..." at the start.

Succubus Refight: (23:30, defeat at 25:25)

Witch Trade Offer: (27:25)

With that, this'll be the Read More section of the blog.

Succubus Refight: (23:30)

Schezo:

It's you again!

Succubus:

Why are you so happy about it?

Schezo:

Hey, how does that remotely sound happy?

Succubus:

You're not very honest, so your sense of joy is very twisted.

Schezo:

Don't decide that on your own!

Succubus:

As usual, you're still shy...You okay? You can be honest with yourself. ♡

Schezo:

Leave me alone!

Succubus:

With that, I want you to be my servant. ♡

Schezo:

What's the "Why" then! I've had enough!

Succubus:

Well...guess I'll have to force you to be mine.

Schezo:

Oi, oi, that's the woman's line!?

Succubus:

Come on, be mine!

Schezo:

No thanks!

(After her defeat, she says "Ahh...I can't take it anymore..." and then when Schezo opens the chest, it says "Schezo got a book.")

----

Witch Trade Offer: (27:25)

Schezo:

Dang (or Damn)... it wasn't here either...

But what exactly is this Grimoire?

Witch:

Ahh ♡ (Here we go again.)

Schezo:

There she is again...

Witch:

You...I want it. ♡

Schezo:

Ugh, you're persistent! I'm not getting undressed here!

Witch:

...I was going to say "I want that Grimoire that you have," you know.

...Though of course, I'll take your clothes too. ♡

Schezo:

(Hm, is this grimoire really worth that much?)

[Text says Give or Don't Give. They say Give.]

Witch:

...I finally have my hands on the "Meteor Grimoire".

...Yes, in return, I'll give you a copy of the "Areiado Special Grimoire".

Schezo:

Ah...

Witch:

...Now if you'll excuse me, I gotta go.

...Oh, and as for your clothes, I'll get them later. (WE WENT 3 SENTENCES WITHOUT CLOTHES BEING MENTIONED. HUGE DAY.)

Schezo:

"The Areiado Special Grimoire"!? Well, let's see if it's true...(it was.)

-----

For the past 3 years I've had this image of Witch from Puyo Tetris saying "SHE will turn you into HORRORS BEYOND ALL COMPREHENSION." and never understood it. Now I do.

(Maybe someday there'll be a remake. Or I'll remake it IDFK. This single girl has given me like 3 sleepless nights from translating, so thank her for that. Still my 3rd favorite character)

That's the small translation piece out of the way, now it's time for the good part.

SHOP MENUS.

Thanks to Kirstenonic helping me out, I've now been able to translate the menus of the shop. You'll still be a bit confused by some stuff but its better than nothing, I hope.

There'll be no timestamps for this.

Here's how it goes:

The player goes into this menu, and this happens: (this part will look odd.)

Momomo:

Welcome to the shop.

Icons appear, from the left side being:

[Cash held: 58]

And the right being:

[Buy

Sell

Back]

Player clicks buy.

Momomo:

What do you want to buy?

The left now shows:

[Cash

Cost]

Page 1:

Magic Crystal:

A mysterious crystal that revives you when you hit 0 HP.

Curse-Breaking Scroll:

A scroll that removes an equipped curse (I assume debuff.)

Scroll of Light:

A scroll that makes floor traps, magic circles, and scrolls disappear.

Water:

Nothing will happen if you drink it. Its just water.

Hermits Wine: [Unsure of the name.]

Restores MP by 50.

Medicine:

Restores HP by 50.

Green Potion:

A potion that restores your status at the cost of half you HP.

------

Page 2:

Delicious Herbs: (It also says Grass but I'm going with Herbs. Replace Herbs with Grass if wanted.)

Edible Herbs. Might cause a stomachache.

Gentian Herbs: (Type of flower.)

Herbs that make your strength go up by 1.

Cotton Herbs:

Herbs that make your skill go up by 1.

Zoysia Herb: (Or the No-Mow flower. Both being the same. Had to study a bit about flowers.)

A herb that increases your magic by 1.

Happiness Herb:

Herbs that increases your luck by 1.

Spinach: (...Is it spinach?)

Slightly restores HP.

Mental Herb: (Slightly unsure of this name.)

A Herb that restores MP.

Antidote Herb:

Herb that cures poison.

-----

Page 3:

Geranium Herb: (Another flower.)

Herbs that make you stay afloat for a while. (...What?)

Apple:

An ordinary apple that'll fill your stomach.

Golden Apple:

Level up by 1. A mysterious apple.

Curry and Rice:

A normal bento that'll fill your stomach.

Super Spicy Curry and Rice:

A bento that makes you feel full, but halves HP.

Large Curry and Rice:

A very filling bento.

Special Extra-Large Curry and Rice:

A bento that'll make you full.

Don't overeat it.

Ice-Storm Grimoire:

A grimoire that allows Arle to learn this spell.

-----

Page 4:

Palm of the Fire/Water God: (They have the same description.)

A manual Rulue can use to learn this special skill.

-----

The player then goes back to buying to see Momomo lines.

Momomo: (In order.)

What're you going to buy?

I don't think you have enough money. How about something else?

That'll be 30G. Will you buy it?

There's no reason not to buy it.

-----

After that, they go to sell.

Momomo:

What are you selling?

Showing the menu, it's:

?Medicine

?Medical Ring

?Medicine (Back to back.)

Ring of Fire (1)

?Ring

?Medicine

?Food

They click one of the ? items.

Momomo:

What're you going to do?

Menu pops up with:

[Sell, <-

Identify,

Break Curse

Stop]

Momomo:

Unidentified things are worth 1G. Is that okay?

(They say yes, and leave.)

Momomo:

Thank you for your continued patronage.

Hope to see you again. (At the very end.)

-----

That's episode 1 of Extras. Bit scuffed, but it'll ease in. Have a few things planned for next time. And remember, if you want anything specific from the game translated, let me know. I'll try my best.

That'll be all. Thanks for tuning in.

[luna13e-blog]

Hello

For the asks 3, 8, 13. I was going to be kind and copy and paste but the world is frustrating just now so sorry but I didn’t.

♥️♥️♥️a

Hello lovely,

And thank you. I really like to be asked. So here I come (I warn you, I am bored and chatty so it's going to be a long ass answer)

3. 3 films you could watch for the rest of your life and not get bored of?

Though one. I feel like since the pandemic my attention span shrank and since then I can barely watch 45min episodes so I'm afraid I'd get inescapably bored with any movie now. But I can tell you the movies I hold close to my heart that, perhaps, I can watch again and again even if I haven't watched them in a long time.

- Chocolat directed by Lasse Hallström, 2000. I had to google that but I know by heart that it has Johnny Depp and Juliette Binoche. I can't remember the first time I saw it but I remember it was with my mom in a time we were both having a fangirling time over Depp. I know I watched it at least three times after that, once I forced my crush at the time to watch it when I was a teen and I know that I eventually developed a crush on Juliette Binoche (it was developed because the first time I watched I was 10 and unaware I could like girls, yes, I was already aware that I liked ratty men, blame my mom). What I love about that movie is the story it tells around women (empowered by Vianne and her sensual chocolates), strong women that leave their abusive husbands, strong women that realize the wonders of being throughly fucked, and of course the main storyline: A single mother with a 6yo daughter, trying to make a life, honor a mother and building a village when they had nothing but each other. Is sensual and magic and I love it.

- The lord of the rings trilogy. I believe I don't need to specify actors and directors on this one. I watched it several times and even when I have to admit that watching the three of them in one go is something I'm not going to do ever again, I can still fall into the comfort of any of the three movies at any time. I'm a bit of a geek about how things are done and all the work they put in that movie (the camera tricks to make the hobbits look smaller, the detail in the costume's design, the architecture, the hundreds of extras they had to dress up because CGI was still shitty) still leaves me in awe. That and the fact that I believe the battle of Helm's Deep is still the best night stormy battle ever filmed (cof, not like certain GoT battles in the last seasons, cof). And I like the music. I also spent many hours shredding this movies into pieces with my favorite cousin because we read the books and a bookworm doesn't forgive certain things, but I was 9 (yes, I consumed that fucking huge trilogy at 9yo) and he was 19 and I'm forever thankful for the bonding opportunity those movies provided that otherwise would've been complicated to have.

- Arrival, directed by Denis Villeneuve, 2016. This is probably the only movie that doesn't involve bonding with people I love, but it does involve something I love ferociously: language. And something that fascinates me: Deep space and its creatures and the relativity of time. You already know that I like to nerd about memory, and that I've researched about how memory is altered by the words we use to tell it, how it changes it so deeply that it can also alter the perception of a given fact for a whole community. This movie explores that but instead of memories with the future, with a language so powerful that can alter the way we perceive time. And I find this amazing and beautiful. Because I do believe that words can alter time.

8. any reacquiring dreams?

Sadly, no. I used to have some when I was little but I don't remember them anymore and lately it's uncommon that I dream, and when I do I don't repeat it (thankfully because it's mostly nightmares).

13. what are you doing right now?

A weird question since evidently I am answering this ask, but alas, as I stated I'm a bit bored so I can elaborate. I'm sitting in the dark on the little thingy that's not a stool nor a chair by my living room window in a hoodie and underwear. I was smoking while I was answering the first question but I've stoped now, so in this second I'm regretting the decision to stay here since this thingy doesn't allow me to rest my back, I keep crouching over my phone because I am blind and I don't have my glasses on and my shoulders and neck are killing me. This fact explain why the other thing I'm doing is craving a massage. I'm also singing incessantly in my mind "and for a fortnight there we were forever", just that sentence in a loop. I also am thinking (yes, I type things and think about another) about a draft I was writing about Moody!Barty before I decided I didn't have the energy to pull it off tonight and drifted to this ask and, at the same time, thinking about an Evan's reply I started for you but decided it was starting to get uncannily sad so I moved to sad Moody!Barty and ended up here. I promise if you read all this I'll get your reply tomorrow.

Sending you many many squeezing hugs.

Btw, I don't know if it was a random choice or not, but 3, 8 and 13 are among my favorite numbers because they belong to the Fibonacci sequence. The 5 is missing between 3 and 8, but it'll do 😉

[whenimgoodandready]

When you wanna put a stop to something, you take action. Like how the Bee Miraculous does it’s job by paralyzing the person they sting. Chloe had that job and then Zoe. Both sisters did well, but only one earned it by using their intended purpose for it wisely and for the greater good. Chloe sought fame and recognition as a super (“Queen’s Battle Part 2:Queen Wasp”), but Zoe was the one with the moral compass to only look out for the people and lend a hand (“Queen Banana”). Perhaps maybe Chloe would’ve eventually grown to do the same had she not been so selfish and listened to Ladybug (or Marinette/Ladybug giving her a chance more instead of a personal grudge), but alas it did not happen and we got a huge mess of a character from Chloe. That’s exactly what will also happen to the world if we don’t give it a chance and it causes a huge mess! We need to take action! How!? Read and learn:

*Action-This here special takes place in the middle of Season 5 and it turns out, Monarch was re-creating the world before the finale! How? Well, there’s a heat wave in Paris and Gabe was “solving the problem” by using 3-D Adrien and Kagami to promote these decorative (yet single use) plastic fans, that Mayor Andre had installed in vending machines all throughout Paris, which get discarded into the Seine river which pollutes it re-creating the city (and eventually the world) into a planet of trash!

None of the adults would help or understand the dangers of plastic pollution:Nadja with her news network (but for ethical reasons cuz she’d lose her job and not support her child), Gabe with the fan advertisements and even Mayor Andre on removing the vending machines selling said fans. Not even when Marinette and the gang decide to get to the root of the problem by going over to the head of the plastic industry and confronting Bertrand King, “The King of Plastic” (think Colonel Sanders, but “bubblegum flavored”), about their issue helped cuz Bertrand refuses to listen to the kids on reducing plastic, so they hijack the news station and point out (along with their Miraculous World friends) how over endorsing plastic can be harmful. These kids play hardball, let me tell ya, when they want to get a point across, they do it! Go big or go home!

This causes Gabe and Andre to save face by claiming to be “unaware” of the negative effects plastic can do for the environment and humiliating Bertrand to be akumatized, with the Bee Miraculous, as King of Plastic. An all plastic looking villain with the power to turn anyone he touches with his staff into colorful paralyzed plastic. When I first saw his look, he looked a bit too colorful to be a “plastic” themed villain. He looked more like a King Candy type of villain, but after seeing the ep, I realized that the reason why he was so vibrant was because all plastic is like that and he was like the human version of his multi-color changing pen that you see tween girls carrying in their trapper keepers! (Shhh! I have one too! It’s scented!), so it was fitting. The dynamic duo struggled with him at first, but it turned out his strength, was also his weakness! Whomp! Whomp! Whooooooop!

First ep to not be written/directed by Thomas Astruc and instead by the Breteau Foundation and despite the ep seeming “bland” and “Captain Planet” esque theme, kids shows tend to have episodes focused on environmental care so they can get their attention and take part in saving the world (in small doses that is) and having a little something for elementary school classrooms to learn from in a “Bill Nye:The Science Guy” type of way. Part of what motivates the kids to take action and not be so careless for the Earth. Which is why Zoe was more worthy of the Bee Miraculous as she was taking part in helping to minimize plastic use and Chloe was just there watching the interrupted news special (perhaps maybe this’ll come back to her and she’ll finally get that redemption arc we’ve all been dying for). Like before, this ep stands on its own being set in the middle of Season 5 possibly between “Confrontation” and “Collusion” which is why the more eco-friendly atmosphere isn’t established yet cuz of our new mayor, Bustier, and why Gabe/Monarch isn’t rotting in the dirt in his wife’s place (“The Last Day Part 2:Re-creation”). Not much else to go by since this whole special was pretty self explanatory and alls I can say is that we should do what we can to stop pollution and that I’m just waiting for the next special with Shadybug and Claw Noir!😉. I will still be back with that and the Season 6 premiere with new frames and thoughts on the show. Good-bye fellow Miraculars, the power is yours!

[twinkrundgren]

been thinking about the hell show and i think i've finally like, got some good ideas on how to write a comprehensive critique. i want to write it as someone who wants to understand why people like it, why people are willing to look past so much around the shows and even in the shows and enjoy the show.

part of it i think is that people want to see deviantart OCs be legtimiatized in a professional setting, and you know what, yeah, me too. i don't think theres anything wrong with trying to tell a real story with your childhood OCs, i think that's actually pretty cool, but you need to back it up with good storytelling, which hazbin is unable to do so.

from what i know, half the story behind hazbin and helluva boss are given through old comics and livestreams. to understand hazbin hotel, to really evaluate it as a complete work, you need to be a super fan. you need to read all the extra material and watch all the directors cuts to understand it. because the story itself is just a bunch of *ideas* that would be really cool to see happen, but due to her abysmal storytelling ability, the best parts of the show are instead relegated to just being told they happen or worse, merely implied, like angel dust turning his life around due to husk's influence.

I'm told people really see angel dust and husk as a couple, but to me, they only see it because the show is forcing it. Some things can be excused due to the 8 episode limit, but the 8 episodes spend way too much time trying to traverse a huge plot point that could NEVER have been developed in 8 episodes. It's 0 to 100 so quickly and characters that we're supposed to empathize with are relegated to a single episode, if not less, of actual character development, and the rest is either wasted by events happening with no buildup or foreshadowing. Like, why did we get a whole episode dedicated to Alastor taunting Lucifer over being a surrogate father to her (which he never did except in this episode) and way too much time dedicated to seeing Vox spy and hate on Alastor only for him to not even do anything about it? (And no, sending Sir Pentious to spy for him doesn't count. that gets resolved as soon as they find out. Vox is just a guy who gets mad that things happen in the only other times he appears.)

The best episode is also the one people freaked out about for being storyboarded by a reprehensible person. And you know what, fair. But watching the episode itself, I found myself empathizing with Angel Dust and seeing what is probably the most complex and deep character in this entire universe probably, and if that came out of someone with a rape fetish... damn son.

every hazbin fan i've talked to have seen my ideas for actually writing the themes vivzie wants to tackle as a huge improvement. maybe i'll write them out sometime but the one thing is that I think season 1 should have just been about something way lower stakes and sir pentious relegated as a pathetic recurring villain ala Jack Spicer before he finally joins the Hazbin Hotel. The clash with Heaven should just have been a time limit that haunts all the characters, with Charlie at least rehabilitating Sir Pentious and Angel Dust *properly* before asking what Heaven thinks is worthy of redemption. God, I can see it now how funny an episode would be of these characters trying to do good samaritan things like walking a granny across the street in *Hell*.

Theres so much you can do with these characters, and I think fans of the series see it... but they are entirely willing to take vivzie at her word that these characters have depth and these stories are epic and deep without any actual substance behind it. i can almost feel it too, which is why i'm so willing to want to go and rewrite it to actually be good. I actually *like* Angel Dust and I'm willing to overlook the overdesigned scene ocs.

I can almost see the show like a fan would, but above all I can say that the show does *not* give you the tools and substance to convince anyone but someone who wants to believe it's good.

[v-e-l-v-e-t-g-o-l-d-m-i-n-e]

One of the reasons for Voyager being my least favorite Star Trek show (yes, imo every modern Trek show is better than Voyager and also Enterprise IS better than Voyager, fight me) is because is really frustrating to see this show throwing away every single chance it had to explore its huge potential.

Voyager had an amazing premise, perhaps the best of all Trek shows - a single Federation vessel lost in a completely unknown quadrant, uncapable of contact with anyone back home and having two different crews be forced to work together. This premise alone is incredible, but it demanded two little things - conflict between the crews and continuity of the show as a whole, and Voyager did neither of these things.

The conflict between the Maquis crew and the Starfleet crew are resolved in a couple of episodes, sometimes it gained a few mentions here and there, but that is it. It was resolved that Starfleet was The Way and that Maquis crew should Comply and Fall Into Line, or else. And alas, that was what happened, but it really shouldn't tho - this story could take at least a full season to be fully explored, and the fact that it didn't take more than two episodes just make it seems like the Maquis crew really didn't have all that faith in their own cause. They look a bit shallow for it.

But the most damning thing is that Voyager needed to have continuity. The premise demanded that. I'm not saying it couldn't be episodic - Deep Space Nine was also episodic, but with a strong sense of continuity into its seasons - but it needed to have this continuity. What we got instead was Bland TNG-like episodes where the characters were all stuck into having the same character development over and over and over - if they were lucky enough to have it, that is, because Harry Kim and Tuvok rarely were granted this opportunity at all.

Other thing that Voyager should have been is like, a damaged ship. Sort of like a lighter version of the Equinox crew, perhaps, but it should not have been that pristine and clean and comfortable all the time. By its very nature, Voyager feels like a show where the characters should know hardship and struggle, but most of time their troble are like, discovering that the anomaly of the week is or what adventure they're choosing to play in the holodeck that day.

This bit of Voyager bashing is just to pay a compliment, actually, and to say that The Void is one of the strongest episodes of the seventh season because it delivers in the premise that Voyager always absolutely refused to do, and does it quite well actually. I didn't remember much of this episode so it caught me unaware of how good it actually was.

The Void sees Voyager lost in 'pocket' in space - a place with nothing, no stars, no planets, no chances to get out of. They're hit by enemies as soons as they come and are in a very hostile enviroment. They need to ration everything and seem to finally be in a tight spot, and work together to get out of it.

Janeway forges an alliance with some of the other lost ships and honestly I loved to see her attempts to win them over, while sticking to her principles. Kate Mulgrew was a powerhouse here - she often is, Mulgrew is perhaps the strongest actor on Voyager, and she oftens saves a little even very bad scripts with her presence, but in this case the script works with her. She's very intense here, very commanding and showing some real leadership here. Would love to see her like this more often.

I also loved to see the alien species native to the void communicating through music - they were a nice touch in the episode, and I love that they were the key for the alliance's victory - Janeway's and the EMH's kindness towards them being returned with their help in getting them out of there.

The Void is a pretty great example of the potential Voyager always had being made into practice - the show certainly could have used more episodes like this during its seven seasons.

[angelmichelangelo]

i’m about five years too late and nobody asked for this except me and i need to just get this out of my brain because it’s 2am so here’s a list of things i wish happened on glee that didn’t HERE WE GO:

- new directions being actual teenagers. just them hanging out. going to group sleepovers. giant study sessions (because school exists in this universe?) like remember in tpp when they were eating lunch together ? that’s what i wanted MORE of. just them being actual friends. a sleepover episode is all i wanted imagine all the abba songs we could have gained from that episode

- a halloween themed episode. the closest to this that we got was the ‘thriller/heads will roll’ mashup which YES was iconic but im greedy and it’s not enough. my idea for a halloween episode is that the gang gets trapped inside the school after staying behind to idk rehearse? or something? and then things get progressively worse as they start to go a little mad, thinking the school is haunted and they split up into pairs trying to find an escape and they think they’re seeing ghosts/someone lurking around the school and they’re getting real spooked but it turns out it’s just sue fucking with them lmao

- kurt and finn being brothers. THE POTENTIAL WAS THERE and sadly after furt we are left with crumbs. why ?? WHY?? little moments like finn saying that he’s driving back home with kurt or them saying they can’t do something because they have a family thing would have been good enough. more scenes of them hanging out in their home with their parents would have been *chefs kiss* but alas. it never happened because glee writers are bastards

- based off my last point: sam actually living at the hudson-hummel house because he actually did live there? but nothing is ever said like what’s the dynamic there why weren’t kurt and sam and finn close if they all lived together for what? like a year? was sam living in the mf shed? did he ever get close to carole and burt?? where tf did he live when everyone went off to college did he just stay in their house lol who knows not me LMAO

- blaine dealing with his trauma ? mental health was never dealt with very well on this show. emma’s ocd was just ignored after she got married or whatever and blaine mentioned his trauma once and then it was ignored until it was mentioned in passing a few seasons later and even he just brushed it off and it was never brought up again like wtf. i have no idea how they wrote a whole episode about hate crime in bash and they never once thought to have blaine and kurt have a single conversation together, let alone a conversation about how they’d both been victims of a hate crime. AND THE ONLY TIME BLAINE DOES MENTION IT IS IN TESTED WHERE ITS JUST USED AS A REASON FOR THEM TO FIGHT AAAAAAAA no wait im calm it’s okay. i just would have liked to have seen kurt and blaine have an emotional moment together in that episode that didn’t include blaine singing and kurt being knocked tf out. just sayin.

- kurt dealing with HIS trauma !! again, glee gets bad points for talking about mental health and it just is crazy that they had so much potential with kurt, ie: depression, anxiety, ocd (kinda?) his bullying, being literally assaulted (i see u ryan murphy taking that whole plot line so loosely mmhm) and then shoehorning in the fact that he was suicidal AT THE SECOND TO LAST EPISODE when they had a whole episode about suicide and they could have mentioned it at any time but ofc they didn’t because the writers just wanted to shove in as much as they could in the flashback episode AYE AYE AYE the potential!!!! oof.

- literally just more tina. jenna ushkowitz is a fantastic actor/singer/preformer and she was criminally underused. i like the episode props because of two reasons: one. everyone switching characters was amazing. and two. some actual tina scenes. even if she.. technically was rachel but also herself or something? either way. i digress

- this is just in general but MORE ABBA AND ALSO THE CARPENTERS and also some sound of music songs would have worked GREAT but they already had like a million songs and as the show progressed they veered away from old songs and more towards popular songs at the time to help chart numbers blah blah blah whatever it’s cool. but also how did they only do a few abba songs that is criminal

- a more fleshed out ending that wasn’t so rushed. like rachel won a tony and everyone else is just? there? why is sam at mr shue’s house ??? how did artie get up the stairs? did quinn graduate from yale? and where tf was kurt and blaine’s child during ‘i lived’ because burt and carole are vibing in the audience and rachel isn’t pregnant so like? is the baby just?? alone somewhere in the wings?! lmao where are u bby girl!! but once again i know they didn’t have the time to do it so idk it’s fine what they did it just sucks we didn’t get more! but again. fanfic exists so yah im all good

- more of blaine’s mum. or mom, in this case i guess. why cast gina gershon and then give her ONE line like ? ik there was a whole deleted script that explained why she was there but i love that up until that point blaine seemed like he genuinely murdered his parents, lived in their big house all alone and when people got suspicious he just told them that they were “out of town” :) either way pam is great i love her and i wish she had more to do in the one episode she was ever in. not even a moment with blaine?? wasted.

- more of cooper anderson, matt boomer is so fucking funny everytime i think of the emotion tornado i bust a lung laughing like it’s so fucking stupid but oh my good i love it. (and if you haven’t watched the special feature of cooper’s transformers audition tape please please watch it because it’s just so funny.) ik he was just a special guest but i wish they got him back for at least the wedding ep but guess my mans was just busy. boo ;(

- going back a couple of points, i wish they’d done a whole episode like props. every actor here just shines when they’re impersonating each other. finn and puck as kurt and blaine is beautiful and quinn and sugar is incredible. also idk why they refused kevin the right to wear the cheerios skirt; they could have put a little more effort into some characters but that’s glee for ya lmao but yeah. a whole episode like that would have been so much fun

- they should have let chris colfer write more episodes. purely for the fact that he wrote with his own bare hands the whole scene where lea michelle’s character gets dragged down a road by dogs. this guy. it’s a shame he only got to write one since he actually did a really good job! i would have loved to have seen what other episode ideas he had :)

- glee in the summer! obviously it only was centred around the school year but after season 3 who honestly gave a shit about the glee club and mckinley lmao i wanna see them in SHORT SHORTS and POOL PARTIES but nope we just got september - june so like rip all my hopes and dreams

- WHAT HAPPENED TO DALTON? bitch just burst into flames ?? and for WHAT?? oh yeah plot convenience smh this is so sad i wish they’d either written something better than “we need the warblers to team up with new directions so uhhh the school burnt down” like. it’s a private school. if the school is gone and they’re just staying at mckinley what are the parents paying for? they’re just cool with sending their kids off to public school now? every adult in this universe has been murdered by these kids, haven’t they? they’re just doing whatever they want jfc

- a wedding was a good episode. ish. and yknow, huge kudos to them because gay marriage wasn’t legal in the us at the time so im less harsh on the fact that they definitely threw up the rainbow flags and made it less about the characters getting married and more so “we have gay characters and look they’re getting married what a concept” but i do wish we could have gotten some more married!klaine since they don’t really have much to do after this understandably but a little moment alone together after the wedding would have been nice :) IT WOULD HAVE BEEN NICE IM TELLING YOU

- get rid of the hummelberry friendship and send mercedes to new york instead. i have nothing else to add to this other than the fact that i mourn the fact that kurt and mercedes went from bffs to just. school mates. this is tragic this is traaaaagic !! and all for more of the rachel berry show smh

- every day i wonder what was going through carmen tibideaux mind when she watched the kurt hummel preform not the boy next door and was like :) and then watched rachel berry have a breakdown on stage and then proceeded to give rachel the spot at nyada and kurt gets payed literal dust. and THEN she had the nerve to tell him it was because his performance had no heart. AND HOW DID ADAM GET IN THIS BABY GOT BACK MOTHERFUCKER?! nyada is a circus school oh my god !!!!! kurt deserved better im telling yall he deserved so much better

there’s so much more i could rant about but im going insane im so tired and i need psychological help after watching glee so im gonna leave it here and say peace out homies it’s been fun but i need to sleep so bad

[fermented-writers-block]

Just recently, I stumbled across @owls-house‘s post on MSN’s article about some of the first look details of The Owl House while looking through some of the older posts about upcoming news on the show before it came out, and this particular section caught my eye in light of everything we currently know about the Boiling Isles and the cast of the show:

The Owl House:

The Owl House is a living structure that Eda has charmed so that she could live there and be safe from outside forces. Quaint and cottage-like on the outside, with a storefront facade, the inside of the Owl House is full of secret rooms, with a labyrinth for a basement. Hooty, the door knocker, serves as the home’s defense system.

Given how the Owl House is supposed to be Eda’s safe haven and how she hasn’t really shown that much of an interest in puzzle solving and mysteries, the two bolded details immediately stood out to me. 

I mean, from what we’ve seen of her, Eda has never really struck me as someone who’d construct or even want to deal with a labyrinth in the first place - particularly one that’s completely unnecessary if its supposed to be a basement to simply just store things in - and I very much doubt Eda would install a whole bunch of secret rooms into her house that presumably go unused when she likes to collect things so often, let alone go through all the trouble of making entire rooms dedicated to being secret when we’ve seen her be content with the amount of rooms she already uses.

And that’s without asking where and what the heck these secret rooms are supposed to be about specifically, as while they are secret and thus understandably not generally supposed to be easily found, they would have to be VERY small rooms to fit inside with the relative dimensions of all the rooms we’ve seen so far compared to the size of the exterior, and that’s without asking about what purpose they would even serve.

As for the apparent labyrinth, such a word tends to evoke the image of some incredibly huge and complex maze-like structure with single overall path and no dead ends - although it’s often been used interchangeably used with ‘maze,’ which is basically a labyrinth with dead ends, so who knows what it actually looks like here - and yet there is no sign of any kind of tunnel when an animated Hooty stood up in Hooty’s Moving Hassle let alone hardly any implied space for the kind of grand, sprawling structure the word ‘labyrinth’ evokes.

Now, I’ve brought this up in my last theory about the Owl House as a structure, but as a brief summary, I deduced that it is not a place that Eda had constructed completely all on her own, but rather an amalgamation of a bunch of parts of different buildings that had gotten attached to one center section: aka the middle part of the house with white brickwork - or the Owl Temple as I’ve dubbed it before.

And after looking through the flooring and walls of the rooms we’ve seen so far of the Owl House, I’ve concluded that the labyrinth at the very least is located or accessible from either underneath the carpet in the living room:

Or somewhere inside the parapet/battlement thing that serves as the floor of Eda’s balcony:

Obviously, considering the likely size of both of these rooms in relation to the dimensions of the house, they must be hidden away by magic, whether it be through magical pocket dimensions or the like, but this just raises the questions of why these rooms exist in the first place.

For me, I can see only two possible explanations for both questions, both of which I’ve outlined extensively down below:

TLDR: Either the original people who used the Owl Temple a long time ago had build those rooms into it, or they are a potentially significant part of Hooty’s biology as the house itself

Option 1: They were built by the original inhabitants of the Owl Temple

Like I’ve discussed before, I suspect that - from the owl mural and the way the curtains are arranged - the living room used to be used as an altar or ritual room for some kind of owl spirit/deity, so following off that kind of conclusion, it’s possible that the rest of the temple was designed in a similar fashion related to the Owl Deity.

Perhaps these secret rooms are only unlockable through puzzles and riddles to play into how owls are usually portrayed as wise old creatures, hiding away ‘treasures’ not of gold and wealth, but rather of information and books. Maybe these secret rooms could have been like places of study where one could peruse ancient tomes or collect knowledge without being disturbed, or they could simply be full on ordinary rooms that people lived and slept in but with doors that can only be unlocked in a particular way ala the Ravenclaw dorms in Harry Potter.

As for the labyrinth, it could have been meant as a way to test one’s mind and observation skills/as part of one’s initiation, requiring an attentive eye to detail or such to figure out the one single route in and out of it. Maybe it holds some kind of great secret of knowledge or an important ancient artifact that only those who can figure out the path can find/use.

Of course, there IS the small chance it functioned more like a quirky cult with the labyrinth posing as part of kind of bizarre ritual or being used for sacrificial duty, but I very much doubt that this would even get past the censors let alone even got implemented with how un-cult-like the glimpses of the base design of the Owl Temple has been so far.

That said, given how I’ve speculated that something happened that led to the Owl Temple being abandoned, falling into disrepair and obscurity long before Eda first discovered it, she likely has next to absolutely no idea about the existence of at least most of these rooms, so it would be interesting to see exactly how the cast will eventually and inevitably find and explore these hidden rooms and labyrinth, especially with the chance at discovering long-forgotten knowledge or even uncovering dark secrets and old truths that have been suppressed and forgetten by the present day.

However, though I think this explanation and ramifications thereof would be interesting to explore in its own right, I can’t help but think that the second, more likely explanation would easily expand upon and add quite the intrigue to a particular character I’ve had my eye on for a good while:

OPTION 2: They are a part of Hooty and are only increasing in size and number as he grows

We all know that Hooty IS the house itself as demonstrated by his manipulation of various parts of the structure and from statements by Eda, but whereas the prior explanation was based on the idea that the old inhabitants had created the secret rooms and labyrinth themselves before Hooty came into the equation, here I’d like to propose that the rooms are a side result of Hooty slowly regenerating back into a full sized Owl Temple.

With the kind of importance and likely amount of people that would be present or living in such a place, it seems rather likely that what we see of the Owl Temple in the Owl House is but a small-ish remnant of the entire thing, especially with the doorframe in Eda’s room that most likely connected to another section or large area that she either couldn’t salvage in an intact-enough state or didn’t care about to bring with her.

However, though Eda’s additions seems to have been integrated relatively neatly with what she found of the Owl Temple for Hooty to probably be able to affect them, they are likely nowhere near enough to make up for the rest of the missing Temple. 

As such, Hooty could potentially and unknowingly be growing new rooms to make up for the rest of the Temple - kind of like a yolk becoming a baby chick inside of its shell, forming organs and bones and etc until it’s big and strong enough to emerge. 

Though here, instead of breaking apart the foundations and outside of the Owl House entirely, perhaps this transformation would be more like the structure suddenly expanding outwards and quickly stretching everything about itself similar a video about plant growth on fast forward, up until the outer dimensions match the ever increasing inner dimensions. 

With this kind of analogy, it’d make sense why Eda wouldn’t know about these rooms and why Hooty wouldn’t bring them up, as to the former, they literally weren’t there when she salvaged what she could of the Temple, and for the latter, they’re just such a natural part of his body that he simply doesn’t notice.

Now, why I think that this would add an interesting layer of mystique to Hooty’s character is because of the important question of - if and when he finds out about these rooms - whether Hooty would be able to consciously control their structure and arrangement however he wants. 

After all, if the answer is YES, then we might get to begin to see the full capacity of both Hooty’s power and his patience if he gets ticked off and decides to turn the inside of the house into this:

It would not only be an amazing opportunity for some glorious mind screwy animation with the transformation of a location we’ve all become accustomed to into something straight out of M C Escher’s nightmares, but would also give an opportunity to build Hooty’s character MUCH further beyond the complete butt monkey he’s been portrayed as.

Outside of Eda calling him a “state of the art defense system” in the first episode, he has barely gotten any respect and has never been treated seriously compared to even King. And even when he seems to have temporarily died in The Intruder given the crossed-out eyes and the lights going out in the house when they’re apparently directly controlled by him, Luz and King didn’t really stay that concerned for long. Heck, King was more annoyed at hearing Hooty’s voice again rather than being happy that he was still alive.

After enduring all of that, it’s a wonder that Hooty hasn’t snapped any sooner, so how he’d react when he finally can get people to listen to him without them being able to just simply ignore him or leave would open up the gates to his inner psyche and how he really feels about everyone and the way they treat him. 

Exactly how he’d manipulate the interior dimensions would be extremely telling of what kind of character he truly is at heart, what with the sheer kind of power trip from being in complete control over such a space vs how he would be calmed down from it, AND it’d mark a major and permanent shift in how everyone treats the being they live in on a daily basis due to how much mutual trust and respect both Hooty and his inhabitants would likely have to rebuild in each other to be able to go about their day and keep their relationships intact.

That, and it’d be a REALLY interesting glimpse into the full eldritch nature of a house with many more rooms on the inside than the outside suggests, one that actually has a mind and consciousness to drive it and thus one that you don’t really want to piss off if you can. Just think of all the fun horror/mind screw that could be done with such an episode about this.

Of course, this does bring into question exactly what is the deal with the labyrinth, but running off the seemingly one-time joke from the first episode where - instead of simply opening the door like he’s done in every other episode - Hooty lets everyone in by opening his mouth and even burping, the entire living room could easily be equated as Hooty’s stomach. 

I’ve discussed this with @sepublic​ a bit, but because of how he can stretch vertically instead of just his neck as shown above, as well as the likely placement of the labyrinth underneath the living room, I suspect that the labyrinth might be doubling as Hooty’s intestines given the way real intestines fold and twist around while also having one single route through them like a labyrinth does.

That, and that Hooty may have gained Eda’s trust as a good enough defense system for her to rely on by being able to do this to whoever tries to attack the house from time to time:

I would not be surprised if Luz or Eda or whoever checks out the labyrinth later in the series might find the remains of some of Eda’s old enemies down there.

That said, considering how much bigger the original Owl Temple might possibly be than the Owl House, Hooty would likely require quite a LOT of material/energy to build back those rooms and other parts of the Temple. And given how he doesn’t exactly seem to passively be feeding off ambient magic or something alongside the comparison to intestines, well...

It just makes one wonder just what state those remains are in, let alone how recognizable they even still are in the first place.

[camelotremix]

2020 Camelot Remix REVEALS & MASTERLIST

♥ Thank you everyone for joining us again this year, we hope to see you all again next year! ♥ We've had some fantastic remixes this year and want to thank all of our remixers for your hard work - you've been AMAZING. ♥ Thank you to everyone who read, commented, kudosed or showed love in any way for the works created. And if you haven't left some comments, kudos, or love. Here's your chance! Your ever-loving mods, Kitty & Fifty ♥ 

Fic: slantedknitting wrote A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Merman (the ocean remix) for lfb72 (Merlin/Arthur – NC-17 – 42k) Summary: Merlin lives a fairly simple life underwater. He teaches history, and he teaches magic. The magic teaching isn’t allowed, though, and to test his loyalty, Queen Nimueh sends him on a mission to destroy a nearby ship and drown any and all passengers. When Merlin can’t bring himself to kill the handsome sailor, instead saving his life, Queen Nimueh bans him from the ocean, forcing him to take up a new life on land. Fic: awyvern wrote Revenge (the Hat of Horror Remix) for kunstlerin69 / keeperofstories (Merlin/Arthur – NC-17 – 1.5k) Summary: Morgana arranges a bachelor auction, and Merlin gets assigned the worst attire. But had Arthur anything to do with it? Fic: schweet_heart wrote Know Him Blind (the Looking For You remix) for aeris444 (Gwaine/Percival – G – 852w) Summary: "And then my soul saw you and it kind of went 'Oh, there you are. I've been looking for you.’” – Iain S. Thomas. Two men walk into a bar. What happens next is history. Fic: geekslave wrote Where I Find Peace for moonflower999 (Merlin/Arthur – PG – 4.5k) Summary: Growning up, all Arthur longed for was a true place to call home. By the time he was twelve, he found two of them - one was a magical spot in the woods. The other was a miracle named Merlin. Art: altocello created Knowing When (to hold me close, let me go): the Mother's Love remix for merlocked18 (Merlin/Arthur (implied) – G – Art) Summary: Hunith, knowing when to hold her child close in his grief, and when to let go. Fic: camelittle wrote The Rats are Getting Bigger! The 'Hot Mess DragonDads are Back' Remix for fifty-fifty (Merlin/Arthur – PG-13 – 10.8k) Summary: It was bad enough that Merlin had to keep both his magic and his almighty crush on the prince a secret, while simultaneously having to occupy a space next to the room where Arthur bathed, slept and changed. But having to hide a baby dragon as well? Intolerable. Fic: keeperofstories wrote The Delights of Eavesdropping (A Tasting His Lips Remix) for dhampir1508 (Merlin/Arthur – PG-13 – 3.7k) Summary: Merlin gets a compliment. Several, in fact. Arthur gets a little hot...and then very bothered. ART: eisbaerfussel created Coffee made by a King - A "Until the End of Days" Remix for clea2011 (Merlin/Arthur – G – Art) Summary: Soft light, a bright kitchen, and coffee made by your King... this is how love goes, isn't it? FIC: ajsrandom wrote On My Way (The Homecoming Remix) for elveatas (Merlin/Morgana – E – 1.1k) Summary: Merlin contemplates his impending homecoming, especially what he wants to do to his wife, whom he hasn't seen in three years. FIC: excaliburstark wrote Go Gently (When I Die Remix) for geekslave / Geeklover (Merlin/Arthur – G – 1.3k) Summary: When Arthur Pendragon witnesses a car crash it forces him to to open up about his deeply buried feelings for his best friend. FIC: aeris444 wrote The Prefect bedroom for fractionallyfox (Gwaine/Leon – PG – 592w) Summary: Gwaine doesn't understand why Leon has such a large bedroom ART: lfb72 created The Once and Future Roller King (AKA the roll to me remix) for pelydryn77 (Arthur/Merlin – T – Art) Summary: Arthur had been back from the dead for five days when Merlin decided to take him roller skating. Merlin’s primary motivation was to see the mighty king fall on his backside, alas, just like everything else, Arthur takes the eighties disco scene in his stride and totally rocks in his red satin shorts and sunglasses. FIC: impala_chick wrote Looking to the Sky (the Oh Canada remix) for amphigoury (Merlin/Arthur – T – 8.8k) Summary: It's Arthur's last year as a Snowbirds pilot, and he wants to ensure the squadron has the best year they've ever had. He's confident that his half-sister Morgana will be their new rising star, but he's completely unprepared to meet his match in the form of pilot Merlin Emrys. FIC: lairofthedragon wrote Hypopyrexia for camelittle (Merlin/Arthur – E – 4k) Summary: If anyone had asked Merlin what he expected his day to be like, he would have said, "Nothing special." How could he have known that he'd end up getting drugged, shot at, and mated, all within the span of two very short hours? FIC: clea2011 wrote Perfect 10 (The Affectionately, Adoringly Remix) for violeteyedhair / KimliPan (Gwaine/Leon, Merlin/Arthur, Gwen/Lance – PG – 9.5k) Summary: Merlin works in Gwen and Lance's coffee shop. And what every coffee shop needs is a postcard exchange, obviously. In which Merlin tries a spot of matchmaking for lonesome Leon. Gwaine is not his first choice. And Arthur is absolutely not supposed to join in, whatever Gwen thinks. Of course, nothing goes to plan... FIC: degrees / aoigensou wrote Theatricality (Variation on a Duet Arranged for Two Lovestruck Imbeciles and Pianoforte) for awyvern / wyvern (Arthur/Merlin – M – 21k+) Summary: When Lord Arthur Pendragon, son of His Grace Uther Pendragon, 11th Duke of Norfolk, went to the Theatre Royal that fateful evening he hadn’t been expecting to become so enchanted with the lead actor, Mr. Merlin Ambrose. But Arthur is used to getting what he wants, and if he wants an actor then he will do what it takes to get him regardless of the societal norms that forces him to keep his desires hidden. Even if it means lying about his identity and obtaining work behind the scenes. Little does he know, Mr. Ambrose has a secret of his own. OR: The gay Regency romance fic nobody asked for. FIC: linorien wrote A Week in Your Shoes for ajsrandom (Merlin/Morgana – PG – 14.5k) Summary: When it all became too much, Morgana and Merlin just wanted a week off. No annoying nobles, no troublesome students. But they couldn’t afford a week off. However, they could come up with a clever way to trade responsibilities (and bodies). FIC: dhampir1508 wrote The Harvester Remix for excaliburstark (Merlin/Arthur – PG – 1.8k) Summary: Merlin can't wait for his husband Arthur to return from a weeklong family visit. ART: merlocked18 created Remix of You've Made An Addict of Me for impala_chick (Merlin/Arthur – M – Art) Summary: Arthur can't stop thinking about Emrys, the King of the Druids, and the way Emrys had made him feel last time he visited the man in his cave. Emrys was no angel, he was magic, able to manipulate and manhandle Arthur, using magic to gods know what nefarious purposes, yet Arthur could not get him out of his mind. Arthur almost wished for clashes between his patrols and druids, so that he may request another meeting and fit his arms around that lithe waist and lose himself in taste, scent and otherworldly sensation again. FIC: fractionallyfox wrote Strength of the Land (The New Growth Remix) for linorien (Gen – G – 2.8k) Summary: Gwaine takes his promise as Steward of the land very seriously, as seriously as he guards his friendship with Merlin and his oath to Camelot. He fights for Merlin and the land until the very end. And at the end, the land is there for him. FIC: pelydryn77 wrote Kilgharrah, If You Please for polomonkey (Merlin/Arthur – M – 12.4k) Summary: In which I, Kilgharrah the Great, give a fair account, noble and true, of the events that occurred in the story "Get Sick Soon", recorded by Polomonkey but experienced first-hand by me. Don't let any reports of the unreliability of eyewitness testimony sway you. This is what really happened. I was there. And I never misrepresent anything. Just ask Merlin. He'll back me up on this one. Or I'll scratch up his favourite woodcut. The one with the runes designed to ensure potency in bed. FIC: moonflower999 wrote A Bit Of A Shock (The Trust. Remix) for digthewriter (Arthur/Merlin – PG – 1.2k) Summary: Merlin has gone. Arthur finds him after searching for him high and low. Will Merlin forgive him ART: digthewriter created Tarot Cards for altocello (Arthur/Merlin – G – ART) Summary: The Magician and the King of Swords. Merlin: Manifestation, resourcefulness, power, inspired action. Arthur: Mental clarity, intellectual power, authority, truth.Wednesday FIC: polomonkey wrote Through His Eyes (The Look At Me Remix) for lairofthedragon / TheDragon (Arthur/Merlin, Merlin/Knights – R – 2.5k) Summary: He loves to watch and Merlin loves to be watched. He loves to dominate and Merlin loves to be dominated. They’re a perfect match for each other in so many ways. Arthur and the knights have their way with Merlin. ART: amphigory created Decisions, Decisions (the Episode - Choose Your Shovelware Remix) for eisbaerfussel (Arthur/Merlin – R – ART) Summary: Arthur has to decide what to do when he catches Merlin playing NSFW video games during work hours..... AGAIN! FIC: fifty-fifty wrote The Quartermaster Who Loved Him (The Bondverse Remix) for degrees / aoigensou (Arthur/Merlin – NC-17 – 9.2k) Summary: Merlin Emrys is a researcher and one of Her Majesty’s best and brightest at MI6 headquarters. His latest tech is a huge hit with the secret service and everything seems to be going swimmingly, until a hot new 00 agent comes along and messes things up royally. Or how Merlin and Arthur met, and what happened next. FIC: elveatas wrote The Mistletoe Conspiracy (The Mistletoe Madness Remix) for slantedknitting (Arthur/Merlin – G – 3.7k) Summary: As a prank, Morgana has put up enchanted mistletoe all over the castle, which traps whoever steps beneath one until they've been kissed by their true love. As such, Arthur has memorised every single location of mistletoe to avoid being trapped and having to confess his inappropriate love for his assistant, Merlin. And his vigilance pays off; he doesn’t get caught even once. But Merlin does, which is worse. ART: eisbaerfussel created Meanwhile, In Another Dimension - A "The Adventures Of Arthur Rabbit" Remix for schweet_heart (Arthur/Merlin – G – ART) Summary: The problems one might encounter if one was born as a bunny.

[shoujocentral]

Symphogear G- Sequelitis Strikes Again...

So, after watching the first season of Symphogear, finishing it in three days, and being hooked in an instant, naturally I was pumped to get to the next season to see what they would do with the plot, what new characters we'd get to see, how the old characters would be expanded upon, and how much more awesome the fights would get. And... would it be too harsh to say that it basically failed on most of that criteria?

Okay, yeah it would. But still, the reason this review took so long to come out is because I found this season to be a chore to get through. I still had a lot of fun, don't get me wrong, but it was a far cry from the excitement and investment I experienced in the first season. Where exactly did Symphogear G go wrong? Well, let's dive into that now.

Once again, this review will be spoiler-free for any who haven't seen the show yet.

Plot:

What is Senshi Zesshou Symphogear G about?

After the events of the first season, Hibiki, Tsubasa and Chris along with the DRS are working with the esteemed Dr. Ver to preserve Solomon's Cane, a device that Finé used to summon Noise. However, it is soon revealed that the doctor is evil, and working with a terrorist organization known as Federal Institutes of Sacrist (FIS), and with Solomon's Cane in their possession, they now have control of the Noise.

On top of that, three new Symphogear users appear, only they are working on the side of FIS. The leaders of the three, Maria Cadenzavna Eve, claims to be the new reincarnation of Finé's soul, and she also possesses a dark version of Gungnir, Hibiki's Symphogear. With such a formidable ally, FIS demands that the world's governments relinquish all control to them, lest they unleash the Noise upon them in an all-out assault.

How will our heroes stop this new global threat? And why are a group of Gear users working for the enemy?

At first, I thought the plot had a lot of intrigue and potential. While the first episode didn't grab me by the balls like Season 1 Episode 1 did, I was still interested to learn about the villainous Gear users and how the enemy's nefarious schemes would unfold. Unfortunately, if I could describe the execution of said plot in a single word, it would be "unbalanced."

Basically, the first half of G had great character and plot setup, but I found the fights somewhat lacking. Then, by episode 8, the fights had returned to their usual epicness and badassery, but the plot and characters had taken a turn for the worst.

Whereas Season 1 felt like it was continuous building and building with each episode, stuff just... happens in Symphogear G. Characters motivations are set up, but either forgotten or completely changed halfway through the show. It honestly felt like the writers were making G's story up as they went along.

The issues I had with Season 1's story are present here as well, in that the villain's motivation is incredibly confusing and not made 100% clear until the last couple of episodes. FIS's main goal is to save humanity from the Moon, which will soon crash into the Earth due to the damage it endured from Finé. However, they go about this by... killing people? I understand innocent bloodshed is necessary in most evil "save the world" schemes, but is this really the best way to convince the rest of the world that you're here to help?

Either I'm just really dumb, or Symphogear just isn't very good at explaining things.

Another thing that bothered me about this season was the usage of Swan Songs. In Symphogear G, there's not one, but TWO methods that allow Gear users to sing their Swan Songs without dying. "Tension? Consequences? WhAt ThE hElL aRe ThOsE?!"

However, the worst part about this confused and structurally unbalanced plot is how it affects the character development.

Characters:

I'm going to cover the three lead characters and Miku very briefly (cause there honestly isn't much to talk about) so we can discuss the new characters in more detail.

Remember how I praised Hibiki in Season 1 for being a flat character done right? Well, in G, the writers attempted to give Hibiki somewhat of an arc by having the villains call her a "hypocrite." At first, I was intrigued as to what they meant by this. Then, there was a point where Hibiki went Berserk again, and I figured "Oh, they mean that because she can't control her Gear, she's a danger to the people she's trying to protect!" Nope. Once Hibiki returns to normal, she never goes Berserk again, and her plot becomes about her dealing with the Gungnir fragments slowly killing her from the inside. Soooo... why is she a hypocrite again? An excellent question! ...that's never answered. Weak.

I wasn't the biggest fan of Tsubasa in Season 1, finding her over-the-top EDGE a bit too much for my taste. However, I will give credit that she at least had an arc. In G, she does absolutely nothing. She has no arc, no motivation, and contributes nothing to the plot (thankfully her strict, yet compassionate personality is left untouched). I initially thought she would have some conflict with Maria, given that the two had a bit of a standoff in Episode 1, with Tsubasa angry at Maria for possessing Kanade's Gear. Much like Hibiki's Berserk Mode, though, this conflict was never expanded upon or brought up again, relegating Tsubasa to a glorified background character.

Chris was my favorite character in Season 1, with her fiery tsundere personality and redemption arc. But much like Tsubasa, she suffered the fate of being pushed to the sidelines. Chris started out in a tough spot, transferring into Hibiki and Tsubasa's school and bearing little to no social skills. This new environment throws her for a loop, especially when a group of her classmates try to befriend her. I interpreted this as Chris not only struggling with social anxiety due to her hatred of people in Season 1, but also still harboring some guilt over her actions and not feeling worthy of friendship or care whatsoever. Okay, fair enough.

Well guess what else the writers forgot about?! 🤪

And alas, let's talk about Miku...... Oh my sweet little angel, what have they done to you??? Miku was the heart and soul of Season 1; she was Hibiki's emotional support; her Sun that warmed her whenever she felt dark. In G, she's just useless. The writers, like Hibiki, try to give her an arc (that doesn't start till episode 6...) where she wants to protect Hibiki from the Gungnir killing her. The way the writers execute this promising arc, however, is nothing short of insulting. Long story short, she fails to protect Hibiki in any single way. Instead, Hibiki ends up being the one still protecting her. Good job, Symphogear G.

With all that out of the way, I can FINALLY move onto something more positive. While I may not like what G did with the protagonists, the same cannot be said for the villains. These people are what made this season enjoyable to me.

Maria Candenzavna Eve

Maria is objectively the best character of the season. I really don't see how anyone could argue otherwise. She has a gut-wrenching backstory, a clearly defined motivation, and every action she takes, while not always the most logical, makes sense to how she is feeling at the time.

Maria's sister, Serena, who was also a Gear user, used her Swan Song to save FIS from an out-of-control experiment. Immediately following this, the scientists berated the deceased Serena for destroying something they had put so much work in. Maria was enraged by the idea that they would do this to someone, a child nonetheless, who had just sacrificed her life for them. However, instead of retaliating and seeking revenge on FIS for this, Maria dedicates her actions to protecting human lives so that Serena's sacrifice wouldn't be in vain. And unlike the rest of FIS, she actually goes out of her way to avoid killing anyone! Of course, she eventually learns the hard way that saving everyone may be an impossibility...

Also, she gets one of the most adrenaline-pumping and yet emotional fights, accompanied by her kickass battle song, which is probably my favorite of the entire series now.

Kirika Akatsuki

Hot-blooded, cheerful, and insistent on ending every sentence with "I say!" Kirika is nothing short of a joy to watch. She's a welcome entry in the villain faction, which desperately needed someone lighthearted to counteract the dead sister angst. Of course, this doesn't mean she's is without her own conflicts.

Kirika's main drive is, aside from saving the innocent, protecting her girlfriend best friend Shirabe. She's constantly trying to cheer her up cold-hearted friend and remind her that what they're doing is the right thing. However, this protective instinct leads to a discovery that changes her for the worst, and the rest of the show is her tragic and slow descent into madness, leading to a heartbreaking scene in the final battle that left me going "damn, they went there."

Kirika's Gear is cool enough, but not my favorite. It's mostly just a scthye and boomerangs, making it not much different from Tsubasa's Gear. Or at least, her Gear isn't as impressive as our next antagonist...

Shirabe Tsukuyomi

Cold, distant, but ruthless in combat (beware the quite ones), Shirabe is a great foil to her lover friend Kirika, or "Kiri-chan" as she likes to call her. One could say that Shirabe is an emotionless husk, but as the story plays out we learn that, like most tsunderes, this is merely a mask to hide how much she cares for the people around her. She harbors a deep respect and admiration for Maria and an unbreakable bond with Kirika.

Shirabe bears a strong resentment towards Hibiki, being the one to drill home the fact that she's a "hypocrite" (for reasons I'm still not hugely clear on...). She believes that FIS is the only hope humanity has for survival. Of course, once her idol, Maria, starts to lose sight of this goal, Shirabe becomes conflicted, and starts to question which side is right. I love it when villains don't know which path to take. Such delicious angst! 😬

As much as I love Chris' Gear, Shirabe's may just be my new favorite. Her pigtails transform into mechanical arms with sawblades! She can spawn a giant sawblade to ride around on like a giant wheel! She can turn into a giant robot with sawblades for arms! Y'know, I'm starting to think I like saw-based weapons...

Professor Nastassja

My only complaint about this character is that no one ever made fun of her name.

Prof. Nastassja, or "Mom" as Maria, Kirika and Shirabe call her, is the serious, straightforward thinking mastermind of FIS's operations. She was there when Serena died in front of Maria, and after seeing her determination to protect people, she decided to push Maria towards their ultimate goal of "saving" mankind from the Moon crashing. Thankfully, this woman actually has a head on her shoulders, and comes to realize that killing people probably isn't the best way to save them (who'da thunk?) and thus sets out on a path of redemption. Damn, what's with villains this season realizing that they might be wrong? I love it!

Of course, on the deep end of the villains spectrum, we have the only one who doesn't realize the error of his ways...

Dr. Ver

Just a sample of the many amazing faces this guys makes.

Everyone loves a good psychopath. And oh boy, does this guy really underline the "psycho" part of that word. Constantly laughing manically, making theatrical gestures, spawning Noise with an itchy trigger finger, and declaring loud and proud that HE is the hero of this story. I could watch him for hours.

While Dr. Ver's motivation does stem from FIS's overly convoluted plot, he makes it very clear that he has his own agenda. He may claim he strives for the salvation of humanity, but his actions say otherwise. And that's why he's so great. He doesn't have a complex backstory or a redemption arc. He's just evil through and through and he loves every minute of it. As Alfred once said to Bruce Wayne: "Some men just want to watch the world burn." 😈

Alright, that's all the new characters out of the way. Time to move onto my favorite section before I wrap things up...

Yuri:

The yuri content this season was, like the rest of it, a mixed bag. The best way I can sum it up is that it took one giant leap forward, and another giant leap back.

First and foremost, our star couple of the show: HibiMiku. Or they would be the star of the show if they had more screentime. Yeah, G really did this couple dirty. They don't even hold a conversation together until Episode 6! And then they throw in the whole conflict of Miko wanting to protect Hibiki. I guess the writers were relying on the sentiment they'd built on HibiMiku from the last season, but I feel like the two could've have at least TALKED about Miku not wanting Hibiki to fight before throwing her into the action. There was one scene twowards the end with the two of them that really got me in the feels, but it was hardly enough to make up for the whole lot of nothing we got from the rest of the season.

Second, we have the two that ultimately saved the yuri content in G: KiriShira. They look good together? Check. Complimenting personalities? Check. Emotional support? Check. Each character has their own motivation and arc outside of their relationship? Check. These two are not only absolutely adorable together, but unlike HibiMiku, which is more implied (even though there shouldn't be any doubt they're dating), KiriShira actually gets a love confession! I haven't seen that in a magical girl show since Sailor Moon Crystal when Hotaru confessed to Chibi-Usa! I'll have to see more of these two before I can say for sure, but I might actually prefer KiriShira to HibiMiku at this point. Gonna have to see how the rest of the series plays out!

Conclusion:

Symphogear G is a considerable step down from Season 1 in my opinion. While I absolutely adore the antagonists and love (MOST) of the yuri content we got, the story and protagonists just didn't do it for me this time around, which is a shame considering how much I liked them in Season 1. The fight scenes in the first couple of episodes were less than impressive, which had me nervous, but they thankfully stepped up towards the end, delivering one hell of a climactic finale.

Also, I'm not gonna lie, the final episode got me choked up.

I may have been to hard on this season when I started this review. Despite my numerous issues, I still enjoyed myself throughout and I am looking forward to the next season. I sincerely hope my issues with the plot and protagonists are rectified because I do love this series. What's done well in G is really good, but what fails in G really fails. Oh well, not every season of a franchise can be a masterpiece. I'm just praying that it's all uphill from here. 🙏

Rating: 6/10

Hope you all enjoyed! I'll see you in my review of Symphogear GX, my fellow yuri lovers! ❤️😊❤️

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S2 Ep 21: Hey, It’s a Party, Lets All Get Kidnapped!

Ah, it’s been a while since I’ve worked on these. I’m back from my cross-country travels, I’ve overcome my food poisoning because of said travels, and I did like 2 Inktobers so I’m officially allowed to quit and then never do Inktober again till the end of the month so now that’s over with, lets get back to Yugioh. Thankfully, Joey is here to recap for us what has been going on so far in the show, via a phone call to his sister where he literally started off the episode saying this line.

It is episode 21, Joey has run out of excuses, and the crew has decided that now is the time to finally find their friend who definitely is being tailed by a murderer with psychic powers.

Because no one wants to ever call the cops on this show.

I can see why Yugi and Grandpa might not, since Pharaoh may have done some criminal nonsense before he reformed at the end of S1 (I mean Season Zero isn’t not NOT canon) and I can see why Joey might not because bro mentioned that he had some sort of dealing with the mini-Yakuza or something in Season Zero (I look forward to that). Tristan already thinks he is a cop so I can see why he doesn’t either. But maybe Tea should call the police. She doesn’t work at the must-be-18-to-work-here-so-it’s-probably-a-stripper-joint-after-10-PM burger place anymore, she’d be fine. Probably.

I mean they did illegally invade a country last season and was complicit in the removal of that country’s leader’s right golden eyeball so like...yeah...

But now that Yugi has the company of three people inside of his head and Kaiba alongside him--who is always communicating with Mokuba on his jacket walkie talkie (like he went out of his way to make a jacket that has solely one function because it clearly doesn’t keep him warm without those arms--and the function is to call up his little brother and complain about the people who are two feet away and can hear him complaining about them), but this means Yugi actually has more people in his 2-person party than the other crew of 4 people. Anyway, he’s certainly not lonely.

But first we gotta throw Tea’s phone around and have some comedy hijinks.

(read more under the cut)

Tea x Cell Phone giving me more energy than Tea x Yugi but that’s actually true of every teenager and their intense relationship with their phone. Accurate. Hell, it’s true of me as an adult.

I also love how they throw this phone in our face just to remind us how neither Yugi has called Tea or how Tea could easily call Kaiba AKA the guy in charge who knows where everyone is, since he’s in their High School phone book, but wtv. We gotta first sort out who’s gonna pick up Serenity from the hospital although her bandages aren’t even off yet.

We’ve already clarified how dangerous this whole tourney is, and the fact that during these finals they might be ground zero for when the world might actually stop functioning entirely, maybe don’t throw your blind sister into the mix? Girl has enough problems right now. Maybe keep her in the hospital preemptively. Y’all are probably going to end up there anyway. She can book you a reservation.

I do appreciate the Tristan stance in this shot.

Anyway, sensing that the crew might actually do something, Bakura decides to show up and make some mad insane nonsense again. Ah, our wild card, Bakura, our Charlie Kelly.

Lol What? His big master plan is to feign an injury? (I’m assuming this is fake? But he’s also sweating a whole lot? Maybe they had a fight club behind the scenes that got edited out?) But you know, if you’re gonna try to sell a broken arm then wouldn’t you want to like...wear an sling?

Wtv, we’ve already learned from last season that literally all these people are the very worst boy scouts and would absolutely die in the woods. Apparently they would also absolutely die if they had to administer actual first aid rather than vague card magic. I was kinda thinking that Marik miiiight be a better scout from all his tomb runs, but from the looks of it he’s too busy being as incompetently evil as possible to learn how to tie a simple bandage.

Nice that Bakura waited until the moment Tristan left to start being shady again. I guess that Bakura also remembers that one time that Tristan hulk-punched him so hard - in the shadow realm where mere mortals should not be able to even move - that God-Mode-Bakura passed out for like 45 minutes.

I’m a little confused at how this at all works with Marik’s plan, since it’s really not that hard to abduct Grandpa, but o well, this was the plan they went with. They ARE teens after all, and teens kind of live by the mantra of “I dunno, it seemed like a good idea at the time.” I guess it’s less complicated than making sure he watches a haunted VCR tape.

So off Grandpa goes with Bakura, meaning Gramps is probably going to be a card or some other sort of lifeless husk in a few episodes or so. It was a good run, Gramps.

Honestly, Bakura should just heavily suggest Gramps just go back to work the counter of his Super Gonna Curse You Weasley’s Wizard Wheezly’s, you know, the shop he actually owns. That shop who’s name is canonically “Turtle Game” (good name for a card shop, really gets it across. Great business decision.) And really, it’s been 2 days since he’s stayed open past 9 AM. Does he not pay rent? He seriously might not, we do not know who’s the owner of that house/shop. For all we know it’s Yugi’s Dad who is........somewhere?......

And speaking of missing people, the two most direction-less folks in the universe decided to make this show even longer when they could have easily skipped like 8 episodes if they had just crossed the street. Instead, they’re going to backtrack back to the Shamu exhibit while somehow not overhearing Bakura screaming in his British(?) accent.

Sometimes I’m impressed by all the well placed irony in this show. Here come the two God-characters of the A-team. One has the infinite reaches of technology, the other has the infinite reaches of dark magic. They can do anything except navigate a map and find their friends who are within I assume a 10-block radius.

Now I know, I know, Namu’s an actual name people actually have. Much like Mary Jane. Or AceBluntz420. But forgive me, I am from California.

Also I just went down a rabbit hole of K-pop and the only song I could find that said “tree” enough times was “tree of Sephiroth” which was a pretty good banger but not what I was going for. Again, I’m stymied by my naive, elementary level K-pop education. One day I will be a master of K-pop but I am yet just a newbie with a couple of Black Pink and BTS on my Spotify.

One day I will know enough about Kpop to know which of the songs are about romance and which are about weed but alas, I just like looking at the pretty lights and the pretty colors and the fun dancing like a newborn babe.

But anyway, couldn’t help but notice - THAT’S the name he actually chose for himself, huh?

I mean I looked it up and Namu is also a Buddhism reference in Japanese and that’s probably what the show makers were going for, but safe to say, Marik is clearly not a Buddhist. He is literally in charge of a Pharaoh cult. Well, used to be. It seems like Marik’s just out to destroy his own God. He’d be the hero in really any other anime with motives like that. Hm.

Honestly, if it wasn’t for Marik wanting to vaguely rule the world I’d probably side with him completely, lets be real. Pharaoh is kind of a huge problem. And while I do like Pharaoh now, it took me kind of a while, and if Marik showed up S1 I’d be like “Yes, finally, please kill the already dead insufferable ghost.”

So, Marik decides to become friends with Joey and Tea.

This sure was a lot of work to become friends with Joey and Tea. Did Marik not realize that if they’re also buds with a guy who is possessed by a ghost, they might have low enough standards that he doesn’t need to jump through any hoops?

Marik could have just walked up and said “hey, remember me? From class?” and these two would have been like “yeaaaah” because it’s been so long since they’ve attended that they would have had no idea that he was never enrolled.

Anyways, Pharaoh’s arrived to scream at the top of his lungs about a bomb threat at a theme park.

Bummer that Mako Tsunami finished his act and I guess went back to his home island on the back of another whale he had parked outside the theme park.

Also it says a lot about what this town goes through that Yugi, shouting about how everyone’s going to die, doesn’t seem to perturb a single member of this audience. They’re just like “shaddup, I’m looking at the large dolphin.”

The total amount of time that Marik could handle being friends with Tea and Joey : maybe about 30 seconds.

Which makes you wonder why he even bothered with this charade, but maybe he just wanted to get rid of Bakura because that guys kind of a mess.

And then just when I thought it would never ever actually happen.

It happened.

I don’t recall any era where non flip-phones had little antennae. I think this was kind of before my time. Good. Finally something on this show that I’m too young for.

Jokes on this mook for thinking he could ever crush a Nokia with his shoe. Actually impossible. I’m sure there’s Nokias that have outlived being run over by a Jeep.

Yo my payphones never had digital minute indicators on it. You can even read the numbers on the numpad? And there’s no gum lodged in the coin slot? This is not how I remember payphones.

Yo second thought, maybe those are 33 seconds and not minutes? Eh, what do I know, I’m a millennial, I don’t really remember how those awful things worked. RIP payphones, you were always spooky and the worst. Like honestly if a ghost Pharaoh would live in anything, it would be a payphone. If you ever had to use a payphone with a phone card, then you’d understand that it’s more an unsolvable puzzle than any puzzle pyramid.

And I guess that Mokuba just felt left out, so he decided to leave his brother and just wander off by himself on a rooftop where there’d be no witnesses?

Mokuba, why are you on the roof? How does everyone in Domino have roof access? And is the internet so bad in this town that you must be on a roof to get any signal?

please admire the leg wraps on this guy’s ankles. They’re like high fantasy legwarmers.

*why ever duel with cards when you can freakin fly*

WOW, KIDS SHOW. That sure is dangling a small child off a helicopter!

And like, Mokuba just hangs there for a while--no joke, he’s just hovering in the background of every shot for kicks and I’m just like...how did this kid’s show get made????? The 00′s was a different time.

This past week I’ve been watching my older brother’s 5 kids and so I’ve been watching their TV shows and youknow The Descendants 2 would have been a very different movie with edgy, rogue helicopters in it. Though I will admit Yugioh could do with a couple more dance sequences. (and Yugioh might legit have better fashion than The Descendants 2, why the hell was Cruella DeVil’s son wearing bright red baggy capri shorts to a cotillion ball? Anyway, I’m putting Descendants on my “possibly recap this later” list.)

I get that the intern who was putting this scene together might not have known about the helicopter incident in the shot right before this when they drew in these people just on the street on their cell but mannnnnnn.

I love the implication that this happens so often to children in Domino that no one freakin cares anymore.

Reminder that Kaiba refuses to believe in magic and has no idea wtf is going on. Like he knows there’s some yummy cards he wants--that’s it. He doesn’t think this is the end of the world, he doesn’t think anyone here is magic. He just thinks Yugi is a super weird kid from Spanish class who's voice keeps cracking and that Marik is some sort of weird mafia boss. He was not expecting this tourney to become kidnapping central and I mean no one could have predicted this next part either.

...

So Marik’s plan, lets just walk through it.

These two loose to Kaiba and Yugi, then these two violently pass out, Pharaoh runs over and shakes up the fat one for a little bit, and then Kaiba and Yugi go to a theme park. These two guys intentionally lost and got beat up for no reason?

And then, he sends the same people who have Already Lost back to Yugi and Kaiba, to use a different deck than the one they used the first time?

Why not use this amazing deck they had the entire time the first time? Why are all of Marik’s plans so roundabout?

I mean I guess they had to lure these two to the roof but not really actually--once you beat Yugi in a game then boom the puzzle is yours so you don’t actually have to...whatever, they’re on a roof and and it’s edgy and it’s scenic and it’s gonna get real Jack Baur on us.

oh man this workaround to “but they never actually go splat because they die before they hit the bottom” which is infinitely worse than actually just falling down.

So seeing no other solution, they decide to endanger the lives of hundreds of people and play this exploding rooftop version of Yugioh.

I mean last season we sure did go through a lot of time trying to get Kaiba off a ledge of a tall building and now he’s just...back on that ledge. Well. OK then. These kids and ledges.

Really was a line in the show that Kaiba listed the only two things these guys have done wrong and it’s like--well they used the wrong deck the first time. That was probably actually a really big thing they did wrong. Also they could have kept Pharaoh in an infinite rock-paper-scissors loop but passed up on the opportunity. TBH these guys make a lot of mistakes but we’ve been over this before, Kaiba can only remember 2 things. Weird that this has become canon, but here we are.

I guess Kaiba suddenly remembered he had a grudge.

He forgot for a few episodes, but the grudge is back. He must have written it on the back of his hand “don’t forget you hate Yugi” and then when he went to  scratch an itch was like “OMG I can’t believe it, I forgot again!”

That bean.

Anyway, next week, on Yugioh:

Does Kaiba’s helicopters get into a helicopter fight with Marik’s helicopters and keep Mokuba dangling there the entire time? Does Joey get to throw a couple mooks over his shoulder like that time he took on 18 ruffians in a warehouse or will these ruffians be too ruffian even for Jo? Will Tea, after her hearts been consumed by darkness, and she becomes a nobody or a heartless or whatever, realize that she’s dating a dark wizard this entire time so it literally doesn’t matter?

Anyways, I mentioned K-pop so here you go, a moment of happy handsome boy Zen in this overwhelming world.

[curestardust]

if you want: (copy-pasting from my previous review cause it didn’t change) well, it’s BNHA lmao / amazing animation / amazing music / shounen / superpowers and heroes / to have a good fucking time

BNHA S01 review: (x)

DAMMNNN

For the techinical aspects, feel free to read my previous review. The music, the voice-acting. everything brings the same quality as S01, most notable of which is the animation. I was sorta worried that the longer run time will lead to more sloppy shots and such but I really shouldn’t have, it’s just as amazing as it was in the beginning.

Season 2 has 3 arcs. The sports festival, the internships and the final exam. As someone who grew up on Yuu Yuu Hakusho, I was obviously excited for the sports festival arc as it brought us something that every good shounen has: a tournament. The internships bring our attention back to Midoriya while the final exam serves as a nice wrap-up to the season. 

Being such a franchise, as interesting Midoriya’s journey is, it needs some great side-characters which we get plenty of. The characters set-up as more important in season 1 get some really great character building moments, solidifying their personalities and goals. We also have a few more who get thrust into the highlight, namely Todoroki, who serves as a great middle-ground between Midoriya’s sweet and Bakugo’s intense personality.

The rest of the class also get some time to shine, bringing us closer to them and making it feel like we’re truly watching a whole class’s journey instead of just a select few. Alas, they didn’t have as much relevance as in the USJ attack in S01 but still were enjoyable to watch.

All in all, I’m truly amazed. There was some filler and some slower points in the anime where my attention wavered for a second but BNHA always managed to bring me back, making me exhilarated throughout the whole thing.

I can’t wait to dive into S03 and see where these characters’ roads lead to and how the story progresses. (9/10) (x)

Recommend: HELL Yeah! | Yes | Eh??? | Nope | This anime killed my parents

if you want: tragic gays / gritty, dark and depressing story / 80′s USA with a focus on the mafia and a bit on gangs

WARNING: Banana Fish contains a lot of possibly triggering content. Please be careful if you’re sensitive to: Pedophilia, Rape (the act is never shown just the aftermath) (both are brought up, talked about and happen multiple times)

Banana Fish, or as it’s affectionately called, “Banana Gay”, was my last anime left over from the Summer season.

BF is...horrible. But in a good way. But also in a bad way...what I’m trying to say is that if you become attached to the characters’ in the beginning, you won’t be able to take a single breath throughout the whole runtime of this anime. Literally every episode has some sort of twist or event that made me wanna scream “NOOOO” and it just doesn’t let up! There are very, very few slower parts where you can finally relax for a second but then you blink and the craziness starts all over again. It’s like a really exhausting roller coaster ride.

So what is it about anyway? BF is based on a manga by the same name that was written in the 80′s. It takes place in the USA and we follow a boy named Ash. He is basically the powerful pet of the mafia boss and the leader of the gangs in the downtown area. We start out with Ash rebelling against the mafia. The rest of the anime is just a combination of gang wars, manipulation, shootings, murder and all kinds of disgusting shit that’s typical for most fictional stories taking place in the USA in this time period.

And while the premise and the execution is alright, it’s not interesting enough to draw such a fanbase as it did. And this is where the “Gay” part comes in, as Banana Fish is basically just a tragic love story. And yes, love story, without quotation marks cause if any of these 2 were a woman, people would 100% call it that so no one can say anything, period. Anyway, in the beginning we are also introduced to a young Japanese guy called Eiji, who comes with his friend, a photographer, as his assistant. Ash and Eiji’s very first meeting sets them up as a peculiar pair. Eiji comes off as very naive, sweet and innocent and yet he isn’t scared of Ash despite knowing that he is a gang leader. This fascinates Ash and we go from there, basically. Their personalities are like ice and fire. Ash becomes incredibly attached to Eiji and wants to protect him at all cost (even with his life if necessary). Eiji returns the sentiment, although in a much more subtle matter. Their relationship is what kept me personally completely invested but it was fucking painful cause nothing seems to go right for these two, sigh.

From a technical standpoint, Banana Fish has as many flaws as positives. As I said, if you get attached to the characters, these flaws will be easier to ignore but they are still there and due to this being a 2-cour series, some of the annoying stuff is there long enough to actually become annoying. 

The story itself is going in a 100 different directions with many players on opposing sides. There was a huge problem which only became prevalent near the last third of the anime. That is, there was seemingly a limit as to how high the stakes could be. We start from more minor stuff but with time the threats become bigger and the stumbles become deadlier and deadlier. However, at one point it starts to seem like we’re going in circles. The situation literally can NOT become any more deadlier and thus sometimes it feels like we’re reliving the same plot points over and over again, just in different settings. This isn’t helped by the fact that some characters are hellbent on their decisions and no matter what happens they will not consider anything else.

The animation and the music are both really good but some cracks show through. With the music, it uses multiple genres: melancholic classical instruments and pulsing synth heavy electronic tracks for example. All of the tracks are really pleasant to listen to however they were not used in the best way. Some scenes were missing some background music to elevate our emotions. The art style and animation are a bit unique but you can get used to it in a few minutes. Choppy linework and muted colours create a nice aesthetic with fluid animation especially during combat. Unfortunately, it does have some wonky shots but that wasn’t what annoyed me most but the inconsistent shots. From one angle a character is looking at the wall then when the camera switches to another angle they’re looking at the speaker. From one angle they have their arms crossed, from the next their arms are at their sides. It’s kind of minor but I still couldn’t help but notice and get taken out of the story for a few seconds.

To wrap up...I don’t like the ending. Don’t worry, I won’t be spoiling anything however I got accidentally spoiled on it and I’m honestly glad cause I’m pretty sure I would’ve started screaming like a lunatic if I didn’t. The ending feels a bit rushed. Banana Fish tries to quickly wrap up most plot points but we don’t particularly see their outcome. It was...uhm. Well, let me just say, I wasn’t satisfied and will now on just ignore the canon. mkay. 

I really wanted to downgrade this to a 7 because of the ending but it was a pretty wild and entertaining ride so I don’t think that’d be deserved. Banana Fish is definitely not for everyone but if you are interested in stories set in these settings you might give this a go (and now goodbye, time to read the manga) (8/10) (x)

Recommend: HELL Yeah! | Yes | Eh??? | Nope | This anime killed my parents

[starwarsopinion]

‘Star Wars Fatigue’

Before we begin, I would like to say that this is my opinion! It is NOT my intention to insult or, in any way, hurt anybody’s feelings, but alas, it’s impossible for everyone to agree on everything. Somebody’s bound to get their knickers in a twist. So, I’m just going to apologize in advance to everyone who find the following displeasing.

As you may know, there has been a lot of talk about the so called ‘Star Wars fatigue’. I personally don’t find it surprising. Ever since Disney purchased Lucasfilm in October 30, 2012 (for $4.05 billion, mind you), the Star Wars franchise has gone downhill. One would expect Disney to treat such a beloved franchise with love and respect. But we fans don’t always get what we want, now do we?

Now, some might argue that Star Wars was already ruined by the prequels. I say that’s bullshit! I was but a little girl when I first saw all the movies, prequels first and then the originals. And I absolutely love all six movies! My favourite one as a little girl was the Phantom Menace. I know that might sound crazy to some, but as a little girl, I could really relate to young Anakin. Also, I found (still do) Qui-Gon Jinn so calming and great mentor! He has such a beautiful voice. It was perfect casting, and while we’re on topic of perfect casting, let’s take a look at a couple of other great casting choices: Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan Kenobi and Samuel L. Jackson as Mace Windu are freaking perfect! I honestly can’t imagine anyone else playing these characters!

These characters, along with an infinite list of others, made a huge impact on me. They were well-written, relatable, lovable, and what’s more, the main villain was someone you could actually hate with every fiber of your body and soul. I don’t thinks there’s a single fan out there who wouldn’t love to throw Palpatine/Darth Sidious off a tall building. (Of course, I may be wrong.)

Now that I’m almost 21, I’ve fallen in love with these movies, and the franchise, even more. That is, until Disney came and fucked it all up for me. I don’t hate the new movies. I just don’t like them. They don’t feel like Star Wars. They feel like feminist propaganda, because let’s face it, there is a clear agenda behind practically all Hollywood movies these days, Captain Marvel for one, but I’m not going to talk about that. wanting and supporting female and LGBT+ rights is fine, but please, for the love of all that is good and pure, DON’T FORCE IT IN TO MOVIES!!

Marketing a leading female character as a ‘strong, independent female’ is downright obnoxious! These are strong words, but it’s my opinion, as a woman! Some people have been wrongly accusing men for outright female-hatred. I’m not saying that there isn’t men in the world who hate women, because there are, just like there are women who hate men. I’m saying that most men don’t hate women and have absolutely no problem with female characters, whether in leading role or a supporting role or as a random background character.

People like me who have a problem with today’s film-industry, specifically with how female role’s are being marketed, are not bad people. Some have said that if Alien had been released today, Sigourney Weaver as Ripley would have sparked out same kind of negative reviews as, say Captain Marvel and Rey. This is not true simply because Ripley had not been portrayed, at any point, as a ‘strong female character’. And that’s why she is an iconic character. Even I know her even though I’ve never actually seen the whole movie.

My point is, people would be much happier, more open-minded if we weren’t told beforehand how and what to think of a character. Let us make up our own minds! Rey was marketed over and over again as a ‘strong female character’ and that’s what I expected to see in the movie, but when I saw The Force Awakens, I was brutally disappointed. Instead of a character I could relate to, I was given a mere shadow of what she could have been. I find Rey incredibly annoying. Of course, there are a lot of issues with the new movies, but this would get out of hand if I started to write about that as well...

I brought up the ‘Star Wars fatigue’ and as Mark Hamill himself has said, yes it is possible it exists. The conversation of the topic was fueled by Solo’s bad performance in the box-office, which, in my opinion, is due to the hate The Last Jedi got. I don’t hate the Last Jedi, but I certainly don’t like it. I hate what they did to the character of Luke Skywalker! It’s not right, fit or proper! As for the Solo, I actually kind of liked it. Sure, it has some issues as well, but compared to Force Awakens, Last Jedi and Rogue One, it was pretty damn good.

Cinemablend made a poll about ‘Star Wars fatigue’, and by the time I answered it, the results were as follows:

44% said that they aren’t as excited about the franchise as they used to be, whereas 33% said they are still excited about the future of Star Wars. 23% (that includes me) said they have mixed feelings and 2% said ‘other’. Now, I have mixed feelings because I still love Star Wars and I’m kind of excited to see the new movies, but at the same time I’m terrified. What if it gets worse? Rogue One is, in my opinion, the worst Star Wars movie ever made. I had been wondering for so long how the Rebels got the schematics of the Death Star, and that’s what Disney came up with?! What the hell?! It was garbage and garbage won’t do! Again, I know that many enjoyed that movie, no offence intended. This is my opinion that I’m entitled to have!

So yeah, I’m not as excited as I used to be about Star Wars, but man was I hyped when they saved the Clone Wars! Though that was clearly a political stunt to get some of the fan base back and excited on something that so many love.

I have one final point that I’d like to share with you:

Disney’s Star Wars: Episode VIII.V - All The Projects Blown Away Like Alderaan.

LucasArts was working on Star Wars Force Unleashed III video-game and what did Disney do? On April 2013 Disney shut down LucasArts, fired several of its employees and canceled several of its projects. So, no Force Unleashed III, no ending for the Starkiller’s story-arch, no amazing video-game what so ever. This sucks because I really liked those games. I want to know what happens to Rahm Kota, Starkiller, etc. But I’ll never get my answer. Because the games, the comics, the whole Star Wars Expanded Universe, or Legends, is no longer canon. Disney just picks bits and pieces and makes their own stuff.

And these are some of the reasons I have felt ‘Star Wars fatigue’and why I think Disney Ruined Star Wars. This has been a long rant. But I just wanted to get this off my chest. As we can establish, the phenomenon that is known as ‘Star Wars fatigue’ is quite real and Disney really needs to take it in account.

Hope you guys enjoyed this, sorry if I offended anyone and may the Force be with you! :)

@madamrogers 

[thegreatyin]

U.04 Thoughts...basically a review/reaction. But also not. Because I'm a sarcastic narcissist.

So- I- WOW.

I HAVE A LOT OF FEELINGS RN

OH. MY GOD.

(spoilers ahead, be warned!)

(Also, I wrote this on my Kindle Fire, so expect spelling mistakes.)

(Also, this is vry long yes™, so it's under the cut. Read at your own risk.)

First off, I'm gonna clarify - this is my thoughts on the FIRST VIEWING. I'm gonna re-watch it later and think about stuff more then. I haven't watched it a single time after the first, because I needed to write this.

Second...

Ink was portrayed BRILLIANTLY in this episode. This is EXACTLY what he is- only in it for his own entertainment/benefit. He is Chaotic Neutral at best, and Chaotic Evil at worst. And here? He's at his worst. Straight up ELIMINATING the rest of the Multiverse, breaking the natural order of things- all because he was bored. Goddamn, I love/hate that asshole.

I gotta give props to the animation, as well- it was gorgeous. Jakei is an EXCELLENT animator, and this episode was WORTH the wait. I actually paused the episode at certain points just to appreciate how a character breathed, or how good they looked.

While the humor wasn't a prime focus, one always has to give it a HUGE shoutout. The joy, of course, usually came from my own squeals at Error's usual crazy reactions to things (imsorryilovehim) but there were also times where I took a break from my sobs just to laugh hysterically. Lots of them, in fact.

Enough praises though, lets give it a rundown. Skipping over the part that was previewed, we start in Underwap, with X-Tale Alphys. Now, what I noticed here is that Code Frisk seemed a bit surprised at all this- but I'll put that down to out-of-ut shenanigans. Anyway, X-Tale Alphys somehow uses one of the X-Tale TIMELINES to 'quarantine' Underswap, that's the main thing. Here, we also get an explanation for why Papyrus didn't come with them...there wasn't any point to it. Which is kinda a grim start for the episode, if you ask me.

Skimming over the Underfell bit- I don't have much to talk about there, surprisingly - lets discuss Nightmare and Killer and X-Tale Chara. Nightmare got a few chuckles out of me here, I have to say. Mainly from the look he gave Chara after they wanted to get the vial. It was the perfect embodiment of 'dude wtf' 

I find it interesting here that Nightmare says that he 'owns' Chara. I mean- once they get to full power, they could just OVERWRITE him away.

Then again, it won't happen if he kills Chara first. Which he plainly can, dear Lord.

Now, what REALLY gets me in this scene is what Killer said. Because they took Classic's soul, they interfered with the UT Universe, thus making a ripple effect across all the timelines connected to it. This way, Killer knew EXACTLY what was going down.

This makes me wonder- does that mean, currently, all the Sanses in the Multiverse will be aware of the X-Event? Or just the ones closely intertwined with the main UT universe, like Killer's? It's a shame they never touch more on this, I personally find it fascinating.

Anyway, we finally make our way to Outertale, where we stay for almost all of the remaining episode. Here, the Sanses, Swap, Fell, and Sans, decide that they're done with Ink's bullshit. They want to go home, and they miss their brothers.

Unfortunately, Ink went missing, because he's a little shit that can't stay in one place like a good boy. So Classic has to take a break from his beautiful, busy hair-brushing and babysit this douche. AKA, go find him.

While looking, Classic finds a meteor shower, which...has no real importance. I'm not even sure why I included it, it's just a nice moment. Followed up by a fart joke.

Long story short, Sans encounters Outer, who is actually really fucking chill??? And I love?????? Him?????????? So much????????????????

Skipping ahead a bit, Nightmare attempts to force-feed Chara some poor monster's soul, but Chara can't eat that shit. You know what they can eat? Their soul! That's right - Glitchlord, aka ERROR, is here to find Ink and beat the crap out of him.

Little personal note- I love how he goes from basically 0 to 100 in a second. "Sup Nightmare, WHERE THE FUCK IS INK."

Turns out, Ink isn't feeling things, because not even Nightmare, who can sense emotions, can find him. Which means that Ink didn't take his pills today- naughty boy.

It's a shame we don't get more of Outer, tbh- I really liked him. That's definitely one of this episode's flaws. Alas, Killer has to kill SOMETHING, otherwise his name means literally nothing.

Skipping ahead, since I, again, don't have much to say about anything else- the Error and Ink fight.

DEAR LORD, THE ERROR AND INK FIGHT.

This thing is BEAUTIFUL. It's basically a game of keep-away between a grumpy glitchlord, a mad artist, and a smol anger child. Because that's what it is- and it gave me CHILLS. Mainly Ink. He gives me chills. How he looks, the way he can effortlessly throw down everyone WITHOUT his brush, the cut Error gave him- this is what he really is, at heart. Or should I say, without one.

The fight pauses so Ink can give a speach, and now? Now, we have CONTEXT.

Record Scratch.

Freeze frame.

That context.

Ink did this all because he was going to be empty without new AUs. He sided with X-Gaster because he needed something new. Something interesting. Something to fill the emptiness that is eternally there, he did it because he was bored, he did this all to have something new, he did it to play a game that would never end- and I'll fight you on it, that is the most human thing he's done, ever. Period. Never again, I show ship Ink and X-Gaster, we're calling it Creation, you can't stop me, it's sailed, and I'm the captain.

But, you ask, why did he have to be soulless to do it? Because he would otherwise feel guilty about leaving behind Cross- a genuine FRIEND. And if that also isn't the most human thing to do, if you can find a better example I'll write a bad Jerry X Reader fanfic.

(I'm not joking. I will, please pm me if you find something.)

Anyway, the real takeaway here is that Ink successfully summons Satan, AKA X-Gaster. And he proceeds to murder everyone, shove Error in the Anti-Void for being bad, give Ink's brush back, shove Classic back into UT, kill the AUs (no, actually, Error did that, but shh-) and make Cross...come back?

Horray! Start the victory parade!

...but not really. Because, from what I can tell(?), almost everyone is in a 'Quarantine ' zone, probably to wait while Ink and the X-Tale crew break bread and make their new world. Infact, from what I can tell, the only people besides them who aren't there are Error (who's having a fit in the AV), Cross, Dream, Fresh, and Nightmare and Killer, but those last two might just be around because Nightmare blends in with the background WAY too much.

x-Faster leaves, giving Cross the option to join him, and...I hope he doesn't. I pray he doesn't.

But enough of that. Let's talk about 'Valiant Heart' for a second, huh ~?

(Putting a break to pretend like I'm organized)

Tbh, I actually thought that Dream would DIE in this scene. Really - Nightmare saw a chance to get rid of a KNOWN thorn in his side, and he took it. Luckily, Cross saved him, and they both escaped...

But this scene has other things to talk about. First off, it's beautiful. This is the only thing in Underverse (so far/as far as I know) that isn't fully animated, instead shone in quick images and only having GORGEOUS song lyrics. I LOVE this part, and it might just be my favorite out of the whole episode.

Although..... I'm 25% percent sure that Dream and Cross went to X-Tale to hide, and Nightmare and Killer are now left alone in the black space that used to be the Doodle Sphere. Do they stay there? Is Nightmare's castle still existing?? This is like Killer's line at the start- I want insight to this.

For the sake of keeping this (long) thing short, I'm gonna end here, but...wow. Things are BLEAK rn. I can't even theorize any good possibilities - I'm shook. What a way to end an arc.

....or, should I say, what a way to start one~?

[girlreviewsgirlmovies]

Jane the Virgin (Episode 1)

Okay, I don’t want to be that person who reviews a show based on one episode, because unlike movies, a single episode is not a single piece that can always be taken individually but...

Someone please let me know if this gets better? Because the way this episode portrays sexuality in general is kind of rubbing me the wrong way. It’s not entirely in the text, but there is some significant virginity-related actual text that comes before it so my mind was very aware of whether it would actually put effort to subvert the message it gives in the first few minutes or reiterate the message throughout the rest. Let me break it down.

Pre-emptive disclaimer: keep in mind I am a deconstructionist. If the show later does things that go against my first impression and deconstruct itself, that’s great, but this is just the messages that I felt were apparent in episode one. 

So we open up on our protagonist Jane in her childhood years, getting the good old harmful chewed-gun monologue that has made girls think that losing their virginity makes them less valuable as people from her grandmother, whose using the “crumpled up flower” version. Cut to years later when Jane is an adult whose made the choice to stay a virgin. Now, every woman 100% has the right to make this choice themselves, but the show lets us know this by specifically showing Jane has the flower framed on her wall and when her boyfriend is making out pretty heavily with her she looks at it, and when a petal drops she cuts things off. This flower is set up to represent Jane, and shows that by making out with this guy Jane is loosing something, she’s going too far. Not exactly the best symbolism to launch at us right after another character actually gives us the “having sex makes you worth less as a person” monologue. 

Now, I’m okay with the character feeling this way if the show admits at some point that her mindset is unhealthy-- because seriously, if she’s so caught up in this virgin thing that she’s got the flower framed, she’s probably too caught up in it to have a healthy relationship with sex within marriage either. The problem with the flower or gum monologue is that there is no metaphorical equivalent of getting married for a chewed piece of gum. It’s value is diminished no matter what the context it was chewed in, and it’s a documented fact that some girls internalize this teaching so much that they still feel like they’ve lost something of themselves when they have sex within marriage. And it’s okay if the character feels this way and they address it, but I’m not going to be impressed if this character ever gets married and there isn’t backlash from this teaching without a whole lot of character development between now and then. Someone tell me if the show is worth my time and addresses the psychological implications in its premise or if it just glosses over this as if the chewed gum monologue is a healthy way to teach abstinence. 

Anyways, cut to some guy having a conversation with his wife. Now, she says one line that kind of rings the, “Maybe this person is a bit greedy” alarm bell that the only people who feel guilty about taking money are the ones who have too much, but this woman is labelled as his wife and she tells him to calm down and gets on her knees... cut from blowjob to the on-screen text calling her a “maneater”. Hilarious blowjob pun on the surface, considering the show then indicates that the man is unhappy in this relationship... but we haven’t seen that much yet, so this line not-so-subtly connects the fact this girl is a bad person with the fact she gives her own husband blowjobs before she even does anything bad. I mean, maybe it was just a blowjob pun and this girl is going to be a great person, but blowjobs are not the first thing I think of when I see the word “maneater”, it’s literally a word for slut, and it’s a word for women taking advantage of men without caring about them. Considering this show has already given us a speech of “virginity good, sex bad”, this scene gives me the impression that going forward the show will be reinforcing the opinions of the characters, not just representing characters with these opinions. Because Virgin Protagonist Good, Blowjob Lady Bad. 

Next concern comes in the show introducing a lesbian character. Now, representation is great... but the first impression we get of her wife is that the wife is loose (she’s having an affair). Then our lesbian character whose been cheated on makes a huge medical error that causes problems for our protagonist. Not to say that lesbians aren’t people who make mistakes just like all other people, especially (in terms of the doctor) when they have a good reason to be upset and off their game... but I’m not super impressed that within its first ten minutes the show is 2/2 on lesbian characters doing bad things. And honestly this kind of also connects to the umbrella of “Bad Women Have Sex” because these are two married lesbians.

Next comes what I was expecting, which is the character realizing there’s a misunderstanding... and the show goes, “Alas, it was too late”. Except, it wasn’t. Plan B... like, exists. Call Jane back, tell her immediately that she was mixed up with another patient, give her the pill, and the egg would be prevented from implanting. So this kind of connects back, for me, to the idea that once you have sex you’re a damaged person that the show has shown us so far. 

Beyond that, the show loses basically all of the doubt I was giving it for happening to make a character making a mistake whose a lesbian, because instead of calling Jane right back and trying to fix the problem, our lesbian doctor starts looking for a lawyer. Sorry, you just went from “character making an understandable mistake” to “character being a terrible person”. We do get another lesbian introduced here, though, so at least it’s now only 2/3 at the moment for bad people lesbians... no wait, the ex here tells her not to say anything because she could lose her license instead of, “Hey, you know, maybe don’t wreck a person’s life to try to protect yourself from a medical malpractice suit over medical malpractice you actually committed.” Maybe I’m having a strong reaction here because I’m childfree and afraid of pregnancy, but seriously, I’m counting this as 3/3 terrible lesbians here. 

And don’t get me wrong, I get that this is jumping through loops because the point of the show is a virgin pregnancy and it wouldn’t happen if these characters did the compassionate thing... but seriously, you had to introduce four people being dicks in the first episode when any of them could have been men, and you made all of them women and one of them a lesbian. Well, I mean, there was a dude who was a dick when the sperm-sample guy mistook Jane for someone he saw at a strip club but honestly, while I get her being insulted he thought she was a stripper, but it’s honestly that much a dick move. A stripper isn’t a bad person or anything... but this show is treating all sexual women as bad women so far so that kind of fits in with all that bad impression.

And honestly it just keeps going in introducing sexual women and then indicating they’re bad women. Jane’s mom checks out a guy on the bus and then goes off about how “slutty Crystal” is cheating and sending nudes. 

And now we’re back to Shitty Doctor and she’s literally told the father before she’s told Jane and MY GOD LADY YOU JUST REALLY HAVE TO BE THE WORST POSSIBLE PERSON IN THIS SCENARIO DON’T YOU? She does at least offer an abortion pill very chill and nonchalantly, which is honestly more than I expected of this show at this point... 

Okay, so her boyfriend proposes despite their timeline, which makes me lose a little respect for him... but to be honest, I do think it’s a realistic portrayal of a virgin-until-marriage relationship for the most part. A lot of religious abstinence-only young people do marry early in part because of the no-sex-before-marriage thing. Even if he says that’s not it. There’d be no reason not to stick to the timeline, really, if they can’t raise kids right this moment (because like, he don’t know she pregnant), except so they can start having sex. 

I was ready to give this show some credit for showing Jane thinking about it and talking to her boyfriend before deciding about the abortion, but while I’m totally okay with the character deciding to keep the baby because that’s her choice... I am kind of disapproving of the fact that actually it starts right in on the idea 

Oh, and it turns out Jane’s mom got pregnant as a teenager for “being irresponsible” (Jane’s words, but still, the show has very much aligned us with her here as the straight man, and she literally says she doesn’t want to turn out like her mom) and “grandma made you [have me]”. And we’ve seriously moved into anti-abortion and punish-kids-with-pregnancy area here. Loosely, not as heavy-handed as the “sex is bad, virginity good” theme that the show has been hammering. 

And then we have the sperm-donor and his wife literally deciding they want the child before Jane even decides if she’s going to keep the child, let alone if she’s decided she wants a complete stranger in her child’s life just because it was his sperm. And now that they’d meeting, I’m realizing that telling the dad not only what happened but Jane’s name was a huge illegal privacy breech. Seriously, if this lady doesn’t get her license revoked by the end of this I’m going to scream... And like, by the time he tracks her down, she might’ve already had an abortion and he just like... assumes she hasn’t? I dunno, I’m just getting the jeebies from the way this subject is being handled. I’m glad she did actually consider it fully, it wasn’t just “Hey, I’m glad I wasn’t aborted so I won’t abort”. Like, she’s thought this through a lot. 

“You didn’t drop the cancer card”. First off, at least props to him for not doing that. She doesn’t owe him a biological child just because it’s his only chance and I’m glad that the show has kind of shown that. Given, I’m still seething about the fact that he even had the tools (name) to track her down... But in this same scene, we definitely learn Petra is a maneater in the non-punny sense of the word. And a gold-digger. So yeah, still pretty much all for all on sexual women getting a bad name here...

URG. Grandma on the other hand, did not think this through. She’s doing the whole “I’m glad you weren’t aborted so you can’t abort this baby will be the best part of your life!” thing. And we don’t address the fact Grandma was snooping in Jane’s room and feels personally fucking betrayed by what she thinks Jane chose to do with her own damn body. 

“I’ll convince your brother not to report you to the medical board.” UMMM JANE CAN/SHOULD DO THAT TOO. SHE’S THE ONE WHO’S PREGNANT NON-CONSENSUALLY. HELLO. 

“I want to support you no matter what, but I don’t want to support you with another guy’s kid.” Sorry, but this was Artificial Insemination Rape here. I mean, I’m glad this asshole showed his feathers and will be gone from her life, but seriously. His girlfriend basically has a rape baby and he’s telling her that if she doesn’t abort it he doesn’t want to be with her... god. I mean, I would break up with him and then abort it, to be honest, if I were her, but. Look, I’m just pissed that they’re representing the one pro-abortion argument besides Jane’s, who we know preemptively is going to be convinced away from because that’s the whole point of the show, by this absolute asshole just being an asshole. Jane says “Of course I get why” but like... you really shouldn’t. You really, really shouldn’t. You are the victim here of medical malpractice, and he can either treat the kid like his own if you chose to have it or he’s an asshole. DNA don’t mean shit. You didn’t cheat, so there shouldn’t be a problem. (Further convinced this guy proposed for sex, btw).

Just on a completely separate note here than the “sex bad, virgin good” thing this whole thing has going on... I’m not particularly impressed that this show broke up two interracial couples in the first episode. Nothing much to say on that, just... I dunno, with having three terrible lesbians and now this, just... not impressed. And then got them back together after we already know they’re unhealthy relationships... *sigh*

Positives: POC represent. (And I know it’s weird to put this as an end note after talking about how I think certain things the Latino characters are spouting which is probably a realistic thing... my problem isn’t that, it’s how the universe of the show in general appears to align with what they say and tell us that thematically we should be aligning with the things they’re saying.) That there are lesbian characters at all. And to be fair there is still the one thing against my read of “sex bad” in that Jane does get pregnant despite doing “everything right”, which is almost a hint of a subversion of the “sex uses you up” theme. Characters having opinions is fine, my only issue is that the show seems to be aligning us with some pretty toxic opinions, 

So just... someone tell me if the “sex bad” message gets better or not.

[seyaryminamoto]

What makes you like avatar do much? Bc I watched it the other day and it's just...meh?

… how did you end up on my blog at all if you think Avatar is meh? O_o do you know me irl and you followed my internet trail into this blog? Is that what this is about…?

Okay, well, you’re in luck because you’re asking someone who’s not going to crucify you for thinking Avatar isn’t all that. Fact is, I first tried to watch it with my family and the first few episodes didn’t make much of an impression on me. I only went back to it after I was so disappointed by the airing anime at the time that I thought maybe I had to try my luck with non-japanese stuff for a change… (yep, in my days I was absolutely invested in anime, I’m not going to hide that fact).

So, compared to a lot of content out there these days, I think Avatar is vastly superior (uh I am referring to ATLA specifically though, let’s not open more cans of worms than we already have) because it’s not only straight-forward about what story it’s trying to tell, but it tells that story in a new fantasy world that, despite it’s gazillion mishaps in worldbuilding, is still a really worthwhile world to explore. There’s a lot of lore that’s worth looking into, and while you can certainly feel it’s childish at first, that childishness even in the first episodes includes serious topics like genocide, self-sacrifice, child soldiers and more. Add to that the expansion of cast in the next seasons, which gave me my favorite character in the franchise, and there’s just so much worth exploring here.

Truthfully, I subscribe to Henry Jenkins’ assertions that fandom is born from a mix of admiration and frustration. If I don’t care for a certain source content, I don’t create anything for it, and I don’t care to participate in that fandom. It’s what happens to me with LOK, even with Voltron (I watched the first season of that one and frankly I don’t think anyone could make me watch the rest), and a whole lot of other content that I’ve watched but really doesn’t strike a nerve with me.

But frustration is also essential to me. I am indeed rather frustrated with ATLA because of all the potential it had that wasn’t thoroughly explored, and even more frustrated to see that, when it could be explored further (in comics, or LOK), it wasn’t. There are so many world-building things worth working with, so many characters whose stories are still far from over, and yet we only get stories that seem to have no idea where they’re going or how they’re going to get there. We get stories that literally have their own main characters questioning if their work means anything at all, as Korra does in LOK’s finale, because instead of being humbled she’s just been given a storyline of repetition and scarce real change (she’s relegated to fighting hopelessly as the bad guys cause change, as she always initially fails to stop them, only defeats them after change can’t be stopped but just before things get much worse, then feels like a failure for not stopping them sooner, moves on to the next baddy, cycle begins anew), which contrasts against Aang’s quest to stop something really evil, and against Aang’s success at stopping it, which ushered a new era of change that happens by Aang’s hand, and not by that of his enemies.

Anyways, uh, what I meant there is that where people like me charged into ATLA and were left eager to see more, we got sequels and spin-offs that really didn’t quench that thirst. After a story that absolutely had a goal and a purpose, we find a huge string of stories that seldom do. This is without mentioning ATLA’s ton of inherent issues, too. The show’s far from perfect, and I’m certainly not going to lie to you that way, but what I mean is… where ATLA had flaws, the extended material has even more of them. And all this piles up into the frustration that Jenkins talked about.

So, with all this in mind, why am I so invested in ATLA? Because I see its potential, I’ve been frustrated by its shortcomings, I’ve found content I really enjoy exploring in this franchise and I think there are still many stories worth telling in this setting. If you think it’s best to look for other content that proves more satisfactory for you, fine by me, you can go ahead and do as much. You really don’t need to enjoy Avatar, you don’t have to love any of it, and you probably will find other stories and shows that suit your interests better. But alas, I’m invested in this show namely over what still needs to be addressed and likely won’t be, and what could have been better if given a little more thought. I feel like this franchise has every single element (pun not intended) needed to tell fantastic stories, and the fact that it’s the cartoon with most fics on FF.net should prove that other people feel the same way. But my interest comes out of a mix of criticism and admiration, of loving mostly the world and the characters, and wanting to make the most of what they have to offer.