#apple hoof verse

[strangefoxee]

Spike in Apple Hoof

Why he so hurt? Daybreaker

But it's not that bad. There's nothing that can't be recover after time... Hopefully

Also this is reason why Twilight become Defender

And now he needs to make sure that she doesn’t completely plunge into madness

He just so tired...

How he look without bandages:

[starshinedragon]

SSO: LIFE WARDENS The magic trees of Jorvik

Main tree: Jordrassil in the Jorcrater -> The Crater is where the first pandorian contact happened, Aideen met the centaurs -> She combined the 3 magics (Light, Earth, Pandorian) and fought Garnok. -> Jordrassil is the first tree, manifestation of Aideen’s life powers. -> Also the place where she dispersed, gave up her light and souls to the creatures of the island -> Master portal- planted many other trees on the island, so she can get around quicky in the war. -> Jordrassil has the strongest hints of Aideen’s light (other than MC) would be a top prize for G to corrupt

Life Wardens: Primeival trees -> Fast travel system, their roots for portals after saying the right incantation.  -> From Jordrassil you can fast travel to ANY (living, friendly) tree -> From other trees only to the next in the network -> Guarding and strengthening any magic: Aideen’s or Garnok’s if corrupted. -> They can be awakened and speak, have different personalities.

1. Harvestlands: -> Sleeping Widow: Forgotten Fields. Helped Lisa, 1st one we meet. Wants to reconnect with the other Trees. Protective of the little one also growing in the Forgotten fields. -> Golden Lady: Scarecrow Hill. Grows Golden Apples, which are pure Aideen/Light power. Neighbors and best friends with the Widow. -> Ancient Sentinel: Wildwoods. Protected by the Wild Horse tribes. There is a pandorian rift underwater in the lake, through which Pandorian magic seeps through, infects the area. We close it when Garnok fully corrupts Pandoria and manage to prevent the Sentinel from being corrupted. -> Singing Yew: South Hoof. Helped Justin. Slumbering in the fields, the winds blowing through the branches make a song. -> Silent Poplar: Firgrove Mountain. Very mysterious. Turns out a hundred years ago he was corrupted and almost lost to the darkness, but they used the cleansing ritual to save him. -> Hidden Willow: Fort Maria. Hiding underground in a cave, guarding the library. The first place we go when we unlock the Tree Portal fast travel system. Guards the knowledge about the Life Wardens.

2. Winterdale -> Fire Glory: Ashland. Red pine, likes the warmth there, very lively, constantly talks about how much she likes the warm and finds the fires and the volcano beautiful. -> Glacier Heart: Dino Valley. Sister to the Ashland one, likes the cold. Constantly annoyed by Fire Glory’s neverending chitchat about Ashland, which she can hear. -> Astral Crown: Starshine mountain. Next to the Secret Stone Circle, protects it, she is why the DRs can’t come close to the circle. -> Silver Runebark: Rimefang woods. Silver leafs, revered by the Kallters, likes them, his bark covered in glowing azure runes. -> Wise Leaf : Anvil woods. Helped the druids protect the forest from DC, gives them advice. Talks in verses, metaphors and tales.

3. Springvalley -> Royal Cedar: Blossom woods. Majestic and reliable, he has been guarding the Blossom woods and Springvalley from the storm in Winterdale. -> Everbloom Elm: Everspring plateau. Covered in various flowers, she’s very proud of them. Gives you some random herbs every day if you go say hi to her. The tree is so full of herself, she’s basically giving you an autograph, don’t worry about it. -> Sun Queen: Suncrown lake. Cleansed from corruption by MC and SRs. Protects the Von Blyssen manor and vineyard. -> Twilight Oak: Morrinweald. The source of the valas’ power. Was corrupted by dark powers, later cleansed by MC and SRs.

4. Summerplains -> Restored Guardian: The Great Clearing. Was cut down long ago. We grow it back, like the one in Forgotten Fields. -> Elder Witchwood: Old Morass. She liked to watch the rituals the witches did in the swamp. Quickly becomes best friends with Pi and Mrs Holdsworth. -> Shadow Chestnut: Claymore mountains, hidden. He was tasked with keeping an eye on the Claymores- they have been serving evil for a long time. -> Aspen King: Lone Star canyon. Yellow-golden leaves, huge tree. Likes the Lone Star Cowboys, who bring gifts (anything from horseshoes to elk skulls). 

The New Fast Travel System: -> Advantage of using the trees: you pay for the trailer rides, but you use the tree portals for free. -> With all 4 big areas unlocked, you will need to cover great distances. You have a lot of choices: 1, Trailers (costs money, but most accurate, quickest) 2, Tree portals (free, but less accurate, takes a bit of time) 3, Pandoria portal in-between shortcuts (free, jumps great distances, but least accurate). -> Trailer rides now cost more money the farther the distance you go. Prices: 25 JS:  if you travel inside a great area (e.g. staying inside Harvestlands). 50 JS: if you travel to another great area next to you (e.g. from Harvestlands to Winterdale) 75 JS: travel to another area second next to you (e.g. from Harvestlands to Springvalley) 100 JS: travel to third next area (e.g. from Harvestlands to Summerplains) -> [Keep it in mind, that by our game design the JS cap has been raised to 100.000 and you earn more money, via reworked quest rewards.]

[lazer-screwdriver]

:D River Song, like a surprising amount of things in the DW universe, is a result of convergent evolution. Yk the carcinisation meme? Or how whales are closer related to hoofed animals than fish even though they look alike? That’s convergent evolution.

Time Lords (no scientific name given) are a specific species from a specific planet, with specific biological layout — including time sense and regeneration. River Song was born to two human parents and is unequivocally not that. Her DNA was affected by the time vortex from being conceived in a TARDIS in flight, like time lords reportedly were throughout their evolution, but a vortex-affected human does not a different species make!

Calling her a time lord because she (presumably) has some time sense and can regenerate is like calling an apple tree an orange tree because they both use sunlight to produce fruit — verses a character like Jenny, that does count as a time lord, because she’s a genetic experiment much more like the stuff people do with citrus, taking clippings and grafting branches together.

No idea if this is hot take or not but I feel it must be said. With as much love towards her as possible, River Song is NOT a time lord, or even part one. That is not how it works.

[silversupremacy]

in the veins of a prev ask, what are all ur ii critter designs based on??

Oh god, all of them?? Well

Apple isn't specifically any animal but I intended to give her hoof-like feet because farm girl vibes. Her tail blossom is only something that shows up in adulthood/past her species' puberty. It releases scents that will be appealing to someone she wants to connect with (inspired by cats. As they communicate a lot by scents, owners will often notice that their cat smells good but only to them! This is cause we suspect that cats release scents as a sort of 'be my friend!' vibe)

Balloon is based on on a rat! I think he has rat vibes (affectionate, this is a pro rat account I love those smart little guys) He his little gremlin paws that he can puff up his body and it'll make his claws pop out! He also has higher static electricity when stressed/angered and can give shocks!

Baseball has hooves cause of the s2 ep where he's mining w/ a pickaxe taped to his foot. So it would make sense that he doesn't have little hand-feet like Nickel does. His tail is also mechanically inspired by the kangaroo! He will use it as an additional limb, and lean back on it to deliver powerful kicks w/ his legs!

Blueberry isn't inspired by any animal, just a little cute plant guy! His leave change color w/ the season turning more dry and brown in the winter. But he sheds the leaves off and new ones grow in the spring!

Bow and Bot aren't based on anything, but they have a little nub tail that you don't see often! If I had to species assign them I'd say bear vibes?? Also note that my first viewing of Bow was s3 pre-reveal w/ bot.

While Bow has two up ears w/ a heart shaped tuft, Bot noticeably has one flopped ear on her Left due to the repairs Test Tube made and Bot thinking flop ears fit her more. Bot also has the extending limbs, which are noticeably metal when she extends them (since she doesn't mind people knowing she's technically a robot, since robots in this verse are equally as sentient as creatures)

Box

Cabby was initially meant to have an owl-like tail w/ plenty of sheets of paper... but it jsut looked weird to give her a tail?? I might go back to it eventually but for now it's kinda set aside. Otherwise, her fur/ears are made of paper coming out of her drawers. If you opened up her head drawer (unless told otherwise by canon) it's closed off cause she has organs in there. Her arms are buff cause she needs to carry herself occasionally, such as up a short flight of stairs. But the cabanas in iii are all wheel friendly, and her room/bathroom has additional space since she's a bit more bulky compared to the rest of the contestants for moving around.

Candle's tail is the only really insp from an animal; it's meant to be red panda inspired! I also had this concept at a time that Candle's body is actually more like a "wax shell" and internally she's fire based. So if she were to fall into that volcano she would like, melt her skin ig?? but she'd be fine cause she's fire based so she could jsut come out and go eat some wax to regain her proper self. So she's like, half magic based half bio based. She would only be functioning at like half efficiency in her pure fire form since she's missing some organs/structure that the wax makes up.

Clover's tail is a clover flower! They were one of my childhood flowers that I would see constantly and I would pick to give to my mom :3c Otherwise, her paw pads are meant to be horseshoe-like cause luck- tho I alternate between that shape and star shapes. I also only sometimes give her the star-freckles cause XwX I jsut forget a lot of the time to put them on. Otherwise no species in particular! She's jsut meant to be cute. Fan is insp by birbs, obviously. But to be honest, I'd say he's more Yi Qi or Microraptor dinosaur inspired in mannerisms? I change his design every time I draw him cause I can never decide if he should have yellow or red paws XwX He can glide w/ his wings! Just can't directly fly all that well. Sometimes I forget to give him his tassel tail XwX I also like to occasionally give him little features that are bird of paradise inspired! Cause he has those fail boy vibes.

The Floor is not animal inspired. In fact he wears a pair of cat ears to feel included w/ the other creatures. He is able to teleport a small circumference of items with him, because technically if you dug him up without issues you'd find he has a small packet of organs underground (they are his organs he did not steal them). He's mostly a magic-based species, but still has a few biological features. If I were to assign him an animal- I'd weirdly assign him human mannerism cause he's such an oddball in species of the group. He is able to also pull together stuff from the surrounding area to him, such as shells or pinecones, to give himself certain appearances.

Goo! Goo is actually normally 100% looks like canon However he wants to feel included w/ all the other creatures so he makes himself a pair of kibby ears and a tail! He is like 99% inspired by a tabby slime from slime rancher XD I jsut like those little guys.

Knife is!! weirdly!! a kittydog 100% because I like the silver spoon knife siblings headcanon sdakjgfkjsdhkfh so he's a kitty dog more dog leaning. He still has the retractable claws tho!

Lifering as I said, seal based in his biology. Ears he uses for flag signally, and his tail can send flashes of light. He's basically perfectly build for the ocean rescue life.

Lightbulb!! She's a kibby ENTIRELY cause I think it's cuuute. I have nothing else to say here sgkjhdfkjg She's 100% designed for the cuteness more than what fits her abilities and personality. Marshmallow isn't really insp by any animal- but her tail is a twisty marshmallow rainbow treat (its a thing trust me ;w; ) and her horns are burnt marshmallow. Technically, Marsh is a nymph of her species! While she is 100% an adult in her current form, in certain circumstances she can achieve a status that I'd equate to a queen bee. The burnt on her horns grows more over her body, she becomes more dragon-like in her structure, and she grows wings! In her full 'queen bee' form her body is fully covered in burnt marshmallow scales, and her core/center is magma based!

Mepad isn't insp by any animal, I just think the long clawed paws are cool! I also like to think he can telekinesis stuff, so he doesn't need exceptional dexterity.

Mephone originally was gonna be a kitsune... but then I was like He has tanuki vibes also. His cord tail is normally at just one, but he can easily bring out more cord tails up to 9! He has the ability to change matter into different things (like shapeshifting but more permanent) as well as simple illusion magic. He's basically just a really powerful kitsune/tanuki. He also has a robot limb version and a furry limb version, depending on how he's feeling abt himself that day. Sometimes he feels bad abt not being a biological creature.

Nickel isn't insp by any animal, except maybe rodents w/ his terrible little nimble finger-feet. I gave him a spade tail cause I like to bully him <3

OJ is rabbit insp! He has the orange sliced ears cause of the rabbit insp. He normally doesn't have claws like my canon vers. OJ; but when I do draw him with claws it's cause I'm drawing my alter OJ who does have claws :) The straw tail is 100% jsut cause it's cute.

Paintbrush is- somewhat lion-based w/ the tread tail (that casey my friend came up with thank you casey) but mannerisms side I'd equate them more to a leopard or cheetah. I occasionally draw them with spots! They will jump down from up high to attack their enemies and are technically a quadruped. But since most species in ii-verse are biped, it's not too hard for them to learn to walk on twos. They can switch between the two depending on how fast they need to run or what's convenient.

Paper isn't insp by anything. He has flat-ish limbs! And yes his organs are in there they're jsut like One Cell thick dghsjfhdkg

Pickle is both sea cucumber based and sea bunny based! You know, those little white sea slugs that look like a bunny? Yeah! His "plant" tail is actually fully flesh-y it's just like a sea dragon-style mimicry.

Salt isn't based on an animal, but she's meant to be ocean based! Her simple design has her w/ fins kinda as sleeves? on her arms. Cause sea salt. And she has a spade tail just cause it's fun. I think she's semi-land dwelling but would need to keep up the humidity to a decent degree so it doesn't dry her skin out.

Silver is a kittydog 100% cause I was into bfdi first and I had made lollipop a kittydog dfhjkfsgkfd,, His ears and tail are not normally shaped like that- he just keeps them in a rigid shape because stress of keeping up appearances. Normally his ears droop downwards a lot more, and his tail is uncoiled. Otherwise, he has a hyper limber spine similar to cats, so he can just like, turn around and twist himself in weird ways. He's also a quadruped! But he thinks running on all fours is degrading and would only maybe do it in severe emergency or panic.

Suitcase is kinda duck mixed with otter based! She has little webbed paws that she can use to swim, and is very buoyant in the water unless she wants to sink.

Taco! She's semi cat-inspired... but her arms are weirdly gibbon inspired?? Just like longer than average limbs time.

Tea Kettle is- god, such a weird combo. She's lion, velociraptor, and I've had someone say jeaboa which she totally looks it so yeah that too. And yeah I guess elephant but it's only cause of the snout. I don't know why I gave her big old dew claws but I wanted her to look both inviting but also you know she can tear you apart.

Test Tube isn't based on anything! But the only real part of her tail is the star at the end. Otherwise the green goop is just something she can control and she can extend and retract her tail as she wants as long as she still has green goop in her. Her goop is called Science Goop cause it will become random things at random times in part due to her emotions.

Tissues isn't insp by anything except- maybe dog w/ the ears. The feet were only made like that so that his cube body would be supported properly!

Toilet is axolotl and cat based XD this was a semi-request from the person I met at last object show meetup in July. They were super fun to meet and I'm honestly so surprised I got put next to someone in line who had seen my work XD Anyways Toilet's tail is also a coil so he can bounce around on it if he needs to.

Trophy- I think I made 100% on vibes alone. No species in there only whatever I thought looked cool.

And finally Yinyang is technically a kittydog. Yang is a cat, Yin is a dog. They have a split tail because I think it's cool. Yin has One flop ear when he's unfused.

[yourdeepestfathoms]

Beside The Dying Fire (part two)

[DnD AU with the tour!verse]

Part 1

Word count: 2862

---------------------------------

In a whirl of spears and flicking ears and stomping hooves, the stranger had been ushered away from the village. Several people looked nervous, while others were outraged at the idea of an intruder in their territory; there were only two entrances into the town, one in the very front and one in the back that led to the interrogation area and holding cells. The rest of the perimeter was covered in a wall of thorns that Katherine’s father had enchanted to grow. That meant the stranger had to fight off the painful, prickling plants to get into their village.

And that was not good.

Katherine rubbed her forehead tiredly. She had to spend several minutes calming down townsfolk (and stopping Anne from singing a way-too-jolly doomsday song), assuring them that everything was going to be okay. After all, what’s one little Tiefling to all of them?

When she finally finished her “forest princess duties”, she walked back over to Faedi’s hut to check on Catalina, only to see the Aasimar outside, on her feet, wearing her steel-plated shoulder paddings and holding her sword. She almost looked silly in the armor with her protruding pregnant belly, but her face was serious and she looked ready to stab someone.

  “Catalina,” Katherine sighed. “I told you to stay inside.”

  “I did,” Catalina said. “But then I got bored and wanted to come help. So I still kinda half-obeyed you because I stayed inside for awhile!” Her shoulders slumped with a rattling of metal; if the pads hindered her because of her pregnancy, she didn’t show it. “But I missed everything! What happened?”

Katherine couldn’t help but laugh slightly at her friend. Even in a time of possible crisis, Catalina still knew how to lift her spirits just by being herself.

  “There was an intruder, that’s all,” Katherine told her, steering Catalina back into the hut. “A Tiefling.”

  “Oooo,” Catalina said in interest.

Katherine wondered if she felt for the stranger or was fearful of her like the others. After all, Aasimars and Tieflings were very similar to each other, with just one being of celestial touch and the other being of infernal touch. 

  “Why are they here?” Catalina asked.

  “I don’t know,” Katherine answered as she began unbuckling Catalina’s shoulder pads. “I’m going to go see them after this.” She caught Catalina opening her mouth and quickly added, “You can’t come with me.”

Catalina pouted, ruffling the golden feathers in her hair. “That is SO unfair! I can be useful! Look, I can be intimidating, watch,” And then she made an intimidating face. Katherine laughed loudly.

  “You are so cute,” Katherine said, earning a wrinkled nose and glare from Catalina. “You just stay here for now, okay?”

Catalina huffed and slumped down onto the bed. “FINE!”

Katherine smiled and kissed the top of her head. “Thank you, love.”

After making sure Catalina wouldn’t escape and follow her, Katherine headed out to Ghent’s prison.

Not that it could really be considered a prison. It was a giant tree that her father had hollowed out with his magic. The prisoner would be stuffed inside the trunk and then the hole would be wrapped in enchanted thorny vines to keep them in. 

Maggie was standing guard outside the tree, still holding her spear. She was probably the only other person in the entire village who believed they needed a security system, and she wanted to be head of the guard. She was very cunning and ambitious, always wanting to prove herself, like how she jumped into a proper position when she saw Katherine coming.

  “The prisoner has been safely detained,” Maggie said. 

  “Thank you, Maggie,” Katherine said. “I’ve just come to see them.”

Maggie nodded. “Just shout if you need anything stabbed.” She gripped her spear and smirked.

Katherine thanked her again, then walked over to the cell. Inside, hugging their knees as far away from the vibes as possible, was the Tiefling.

Unlike the rest of her kind, her sweaty, dirt-spattered skin was a strange pure white color that gleamed like polished pearls in the faint light. Scraggly, white-blonde hair stuck to her lean face, falling around her bony shoulders. Strands of thorns were tangled around her stubby horns, which curved back over her head, and long, whip-thin tail, and there was mud stuffed in her cloven feet. She was small, thin, and lithe, and looked very tired.

  “Hello there,” Katherine greeted softly as she sat down in front of the tree. “My name is Katherine Howard. What’s yours?”

The Tiefling didn’t answer. She didn’t even look over at Katherine.

  “Why are you here?” Katherine asked.

Again, no answer. The Tiefling showed no signs of being cooperative.

Katherine sighed. “Sweetheart--”

That got the Tiefling to glance up. Her eyes were a startling grey color.

  “Sweetheart,” Katherine said again, slower this time. “I need you to work with me. I don’t want you to be hurt. Can you please tell me your name and why you are here?”

The Tiefling looked at her for a long moment, then curled her tail in close and hugged her knees tightly. The poor thing seemed very shaken, or perhaps she was just too exhausted to speak. Katherine sighed again.

  “I’m afraid you’ll have to be interrogated, then. I wish you luck.”

So, an hour later, the young Tiefling was hauled out of the cell and to the place of interrogation. For Ghent, that was a pond.

The pond was further into the forest, where the trees opened up to the sky. Paths were cut through the surrounding shrubbery for easy access to places to watch. Thick cattails and reeds lined the edges of the water, which rippled peacefully with aquatic life. Several rocks led up to a large, flat stone at the center of the pond, and there was a larger, sloped rock in front of it. Katherine’s father took his place on top of that one, while the prisoner was prodded onto the flat stone with sharp spears.

The area was soon packed with people. It seemed as though the entire village came to watch and see the weird-looking Tiefling, not that Katherine blamed them. A Tiefling had never been to Ghent before. Several children were gawking at the girl with wide, adoring eyes, pointing and whispering things to each other. As Katherine passed by, she heard a small faun say something about the Tiefling’s tail.

Katherine climbed onto the tall rock where her father, Edmund, was already perched. He was an old, but wise wood elf with neatly-combed dark brown hair, even darker brown eyes, and ears like knives. Clad in animal furs and wielding a heavy wooden quarterstaff, he held himself like a real king and not just the chief of a forest village.

In the crowd, Katherine spotted Maggie and Anne near the back. For once, Anne didn’t have any instrument in her hands, but Maggie still had her spear and she was shifting from hoof to hoof, her gait haunches bursting with energy. Closer near the rock Katherine was on, was Catalina, who had stubbornly attended despite Faedi’s orders for bed rest. Catalina caught her gaze and flashed her a smirk that said, “No baby is keeping me from missing drama.” Katherine chuckled in reaction.

One of the villagers in charge of leading the stranger, a big, burly Tabaxi that had the pelt patterns of a cheetah, leaned down and clasped a pair of metal shackles around the Tiefling’s wrists, then quickly stepped away. The Tiefling glanced back at him with a wounded expression, then frowned down at the restraints. Edmund thumped his staff on the rock, and she squinted up at him.

  “I am Edmund Howard, Chief of Ghent,” Katherine’s father said, his voice booming around the clearing, resonating with the wind. “This is my daughter, Katherine. We welcome you to our village.”

The Tiefling just blinked at him, then tugged lightly against the shackles. The tip of her tail flicked back and forth like a calculating cat’s. 

  “Have nothing to say?” Edmund said. He waited, but got no answer. “Hm. Not to worry.” He tapped his staff twice on the rock. “Shall we formally begin? What is your name?”

Grooves and swirling symbols engraved around the shackles lit up white and the Tiefling’s body shuddered. She wide-eyed them, now tugging more frantically against them.

  “Hyurk..” She grunted.

  “I don’t think I specified,” Edmund said, “Those shackles are enchanted. If you lie, the pain will worsen. So advise you to tell the truth.”

Katherine always hated the shackles. They seemed cruel, forcing people to say things against their will. Though, she did fine Catalina’s experience with them the first time she came to the village extremely entertaining.

( “Does it really hurt when you lie? I wanna see! Ask me a question, Kat!”

  “What’s your favorite kind of pie?”

  “Apple-- OW, DRAGON SHIT--”)

  “Joan,” The Tiefling forced out through gritted teeth. She was shaken, clearly in pain. Her voice was soft and youthful, but also hoarse, like she hadn’t drank water in decades.

Joan, Katherine repeated to herself in her head. What a beautiful name.

  “Surname?” 

  “Meutas”

  “Where are you from?”

  “A-a small village. Near the ocean. I think it was called Shul? Yeah, yeah... Shul. I was from there.” Her neck tendons strained as she spoke.

  “Are you a traveler?”

  “No.”

  “Where are you parents? You’re awfully young to be on your own.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “How old are you?” Katherine butt in suddenly, earning a scolding look from her father.

  “Fifteen.” Joan answered, and Katherine felt a wrench in her heart for the little one.

  “Why did you come here?” Edmund regained control of the interrogation.

Joan looked like she attempted to fight back and not answer, but it didn’t seem to go well from the way her body jerked with massive discomfort, like she was about to be sick. Her tail slid across the top of the rock and dipped into the water.

  “Didn’t mean to,” Joan gasped through a wave of pain. She must have hesitated slightly. “Was running. Stumbled in. I didn’t mean to, I’m sorry.”

Edmund raised his eyebrows in interest. Katherine glanced at Catalina, who was giving Joan a pitiful look. Her hands were folded protectively over her pregnant swell.

  “Running from what?”

  “Just travel-- Agh!!”

In response to her lie, Joan’s thin body crumpled over on itself. Her tail lashed like a snake on fire, and she moaned in obvious pain. She almost fell into the water, but the Tabaxi held her up firmly by the shoulder. Katherine could see his claws digging in. Through heaving breaths, Joan let the truth spill out:

  “Th-these people. I-I really don’t know their names. Th-they just don’t like me ‘cause I’m a Tiefling and I look funny. I-I think they w-want to hurt me, s-so I avoid them.”

Katherine didn’t like this anymore. This wasn’t interrogation, it was torture. This poor, innocent child was being stripped of her will and humiliated.

  “And did you just lead these people to us?” 

  “I-I-I don’t know,” She was stammering horribly. A sheen of sweat glistened over her milky white skin. She looked ill, like she was being forced to function with a fever. That was the effect of resisting the magic.

  “Do you want to hurt us?”

  “Nnnnnggg...” Joan moaned as her stomach appeared to cramp. “N-no... J-just wanna...rest...for a little while...”

There was a hissing sound, and Katherine realized that was the shackles. Smoke was rising from Joan’s wrists. 

  “I-I’m gonna throw up...” Joan gurgled.

But nobody except Katherine seemed to notice or care.

  “Hm.” Edmund studied the girl closely. Then, he waved his staff in front of him and whispered an incantation that sent ice through Katherine’s veins. “Let me look into your head, Joan. I must know what you’re hiding.”

The whispers that eddied throughout the clearing sounded like thunder in reaction to the statement. Some people looked fearful, while others looked excited. Katherine glanced at Maggie and Anne, and saw that they were both wide-eyed in interest.

It was unknown if the fragile living psyche could stand such a trauma of having someone look through their head. It was a violation that nobody, no matter what they had done or who they were, should have to go through.

Katherine exchanged nervous glances with Catalina. This was cruel, they both agreed. The stranger was just a girl; she didn’t deserve this. They watched as their chief held his hands out to Joan and closed his fingers into fists.

  “Who are you really, Joan?”

Joan’s eyes popped open wide. She rasped, “Wh-what are you doing?”

  “Do not resist.”

The words did nothing.

Joan’s head jerked back before her whole body hauled forward, doubled over on her knees. Only the whites of her eyes could be seen, with a faint glow coming from the sockets; blind.

  “No. Please stop, I--”

She cut herself off with a heartbreaking whine. Blood snaked from her nose. Tears soon joined them.

  “P-please stop,” She panted. “Please...”

  “Submit.” Edmund growled.

But the girl did not.

She began shrieking, body seizing wildly, tail spasming out of control. Her eyes, blank and white, faced the grey sky, but were unseeing. Tears ran red, and she cried blood. The vessels in her ears burst, next, then her mouth, and then her entire face became a horrific shiny red because she was bleeding from every orifice in her head.

Katherine grabbed her father’s arm and shook him. “Father, stop!” She yelled. “You’re hurting her!”

Edmund didn’t hear her, though. He was lost, too.

  “That’s enough, Father!” Katherine tried again, but to no avail.

Thunder rumbled deeply overhead. Small tide pools of blood collect on the surface of the stone. Joan’s fingertips and nimble claws flushed crimson and then bled; the spell was starting to attack her extremities. If Katherine had to take a guess, it was probably to make her submit to the investigation of her mind. 

Katherine gave up on her father and jumped down from the rock. She landed heavily in knee-deep water, but ran through it as fast as she could to get to Joan. Catalina hurried over a moment later. 

  “For a pacifist village, you guys got some brutal interrogation methods,” The Aasimar said in an attempt to lighten the mood. But Joan was still suffering under the spell, so Katherine couldn’t think about humor at the moment.

  “We have to free her,” Katherine said. “My dad is going to kill her. She can’t take this.”

  “Don’t worry, I got this,” Catalina said as she took out her sword.

  “Are you going to STAB my DAD?” Katherine yelped.

  “No!” Catalina snapped. “Just trust me! Oh, and cover your ears.”

Katherine obeyed, immediately slapping her hands over her sensitive elf ears. She watched as Catalina raised her sword skyward, noticing the way the silver seemed to glow with charged energy, murmured an enchantment, and then brought the blade down onto the stone.

The resulting crack of thunder was like nothing Katherine had ever heard before. Even with her ears covered, she still felt like she went deaf for a moment as a booming, apocalyptic crash exploded throughout the area. It rattled Katherine’s bones in her body, and then she realized that was just the ground and water quaking with the noise. She nearly buckled underneath the overpowering sound, but managed to stay on her feet as her ears rang painfully. Rain began to pour down heavily. 

Behind her, Edmund gasped sharply, staggering backwards from the shock of being startled out of the spell. His eyes were wide, bulging in their sockets. Many loyal villagers ran to his aid, while others pointed their weapons at Joan, who was laying face-down on the stone, unmoving. Katherine fanned the closest Tabaxi and his spear away as she propped Joan up in her arms.

  “She’s alive,” Katherine told her friend. She unlatched the shackles, revealing bright red blisters burned in Joan’s wrists. “She needs to be tended to. Come on.”

Scooping Joan up into her arms, Katherine hurried through the water, back down the path to the village, and to her treehouse as quickly as possible. With the help of Catalina, she dressed the blisters around Joan’s wrists with old man’s beard lichen and cleaned her face off with a wet rag. By the time they were done, the storm had turned into a mini hurricane outside. Katherine shut the shutters on her many windows, which usually aired out her home when it wasn’t raining, while Catalina watched over Joan closely.

  “I think you may have flooded the forest,” Katherine said.

Catalina shrugged innocently. “I helped. I think I did good.”

Katherine smiled at her. “You did do good, Lina. Thank you.”

Catalina puffed out her chest proudly. “Hell yeah I did!” She then looked down at the little Tiefling laying in Katherine’s bed. “What are you going to do with her?”

  “I’m not sure yet,” Katherine said, sitting down next to her friend. For now, Joan looked peaceful as she slept. “I don’t think she has anywhere else to go. Maybe Father will let her stay here. After all, what’s the worst that could happen?”

[duncan-rawr-x3]

Ayyy, I decided to get around turning Bow and Snap into gay fathers of Scootaloo and Rainbow Dash ;w; I know, I know.. I'm gonna get a LOT of comments saying things like "Scootaloo and Dash aren't sisters, they just see each-other as siblings" and "Snap Shutter and Mane Allgood are Scootaloo's parents!" All I can say to that is, yes, I know- But I have to remind you that the Mainverse isn't based on the canon universe, Mainverse is my own version of FIM and the ending of FIM, just like Pandoraverse, Starburstverse (idk what @/kianamai calls her mlp ng universe..),  LegacyVerse and many more other verses created by other MLP Next gen users, it is their own universe/AU. So in my universe, Bow and Snap are both gay parents, and since they are both males (and not one of them are a unicorn) So, Windy Whistles steps in as a surrogate mother.. she had been Bow Hothoof's loyal best friend for many years, so she was happy to help Bow and his husband. And thus, Dash and Scoots were born to be sisters. As you can see, I based Bow Hothoof of Rainbow Blaze slightly tweaking his mane to be kidcore themed, and giving him a sweater which was (possibly) knitted by Aunt Holiday's wife, Auntie Lofty. And removed his exposed hooves, but I still kept the cutiemark only changing it's rainbow colors and made the cloud brighter. As for Snap, I made change his mane a bit, still kept his tail and added a 'scootaloo's mane color' streaks in them. His outfit is still the same. I imagine them living in separate homes (despite not being divorced), just that they both couldn't agree on where they could settle down: Bow Hothoof, wants to still live in cloudsdale so his future kids can become future Wonderbolt flyers or work at the weather factory. While Snap Shutter wants to live in Ponyville so their future kids can visit their aunts or experience the many places they can go in ponyvile or become a world traveler/adventurer like him. So, they came up with a solution, The kids can visit their father, Bow, in cloudsdale and stay there for a week then come and visit their dad, Snap Shutter (if he isn't around, they go and stay with Aunt Holiday) for a week. Plus, Earth Ponies can't walk on clouds unless a unicorn cast a spell on them anyways :/ __________________________________________________________ Name: Bow Hothoof Nicknames given: Bowie, Hoof, Bro Hothoof Gender: Male Age: 45 Species: Pegasus Sexuality: Pansexual Personality: Prideful, Brave, Loyal, Good listener, Enthusiastic, Charming, Inspiring, Optimistic, Rational, Self-assured, Fearless, a Thrill-seeker Talent: Flying Cutiemark: Rainbow and cloud with a horseshoe in front Job: Formerly Flight test instructor Parents: Rainbow Swoop (Father) Grape Soda (Mother) Siblings: - Grandparents: - Married/Dating: Snap Shutter (Husband) Children: Rainbow Dash (Daughter), Scootaloo (Daughter) Relatives: Aunt Holiday (Aunt-in-law) Auntie Lofty (Aunt-in-law) Spur (Aunt-in-law) Sonic Boom (Grandson) Sky Skimmer (Granddaughter) Zap-Apple (Grandson) Zip-Apple (Grandson) Zoom-Apple (Grandson) ____________________________________________ Name: Snap Shutter Nicknames given: Gender: Male Age: 51 Species: Earth Pony Sexuality: Gay Personality: Adventurous, Has a strong sense of values, Creative, Wild, A thrill-seeker, Reassuring, Flirtatious, Forms strong bonds, Honourable, Enthusiastic, Smart, Quick-witted, Trusting, Compassionate, Risk-taker, Talent: Taking photos, traveling Cutiemark: Flash Camera and map Job: Adventurer, Photographer Parents: - Siblings: Aunt Holiday (Sister) Grandparents: - Married/Dating: Bow Hothoof (Husband) Children: Scootaloo (Daughter), Rainbow Dash (Daughter) Relatives: Auntie Lofty (Aunt-in-law) Spur (Aunt-in-law) Sonic Boom (Grandson) Sky Skimmer (Granddaughter) Zap-Apple (Grandson) Zip-Apple (Grandson) Zoom-Apple (Grandson)

[afterspark-podcast]

My Little Pony/Transformers: Friendship in Disguise, Part 2 Transcript

[This can also be found on AO3!]

[Stinger]

O: [laughing]

S: Like, I told you about this before.  You- you know my reasoning, you know where it comes from.

[Intro Music]

O: Welcome back to our April Fools’ Special!

S: For the My Little Pony/Transformers crossover.

O: Today we will go through issues 3 and 4, which will finish this little series and now on to part 1 of issue 3- Fluttershy makes friends, or [clears throat] um, ‘Pet Sounds’.

S: Fluttershy and Discord are in Fluttershy's house having a tea party, when they hear a very loud noise outside.

O: Discord, for reference, is a reformed villain in the series.  He's basically just Q from Star Trek if Q were an amalgam of a bunch of different critters all smooshed together.  (Including being played by the same actor.)  Ah, but he's good friends with Fluttershy at tha- this point in the series, presumably.

S: Outside in a crater, Soundwave emerges concluding that this world is ‘illogical’.

O: Fluttershy asks Discord if he's trying to play a trick on her, but he says even he can't think of something this bizarre.

S: Soundwave scares several of Fluttershy's animal friends, who flee into her house for safety.

O: Fluttershy attempts to calm them by saying, “No one's all bad!”  Before she catches sight of Ravage, Ratbat, Rumble, and Laserbeak.

S: Her first instinct is, “I can bond with this person!  He has PETS!!!”

O: Pretty much.  Fluttershy gathers up a few of her animal friends and flies directly over to Soundwave to introduce herself.

S: Said animal friends do not appear to be happy about this turn of events.

O: I don’t blame them!

S: Soundwave does not detect a threat from Fluttershy, but correctly detects a threat from Discord.

O: Meaning Soundwave can scan for chaos magic.

S: Well, considering Starscream, I'm pretty sure he can just scan for chaos in general.

O: [laughs] That's not a bad way of looking at it!  Soundwave begins attacking Discord, while the cassettes make a beeline for Fluttershy

S: Rumble, being the only one who can presumably speak in this group, starts badgering Fluttershy for information about this world's defenses.

O: And also, “Why does everything smell like lavender!?”

S: The Decepticons… I guess, know what lavender smells like.

O: I think the question is, do the Decepticons like what lavender smells like?

S: Very good question.  Discord proceeds to make a nu- a nuisance of himself to Soundwave, transforming into a metallic version of himself.  With puns even!

O: [snorts] Fluttershy, being Fluttershy, spots a scratch on Ravage's nose.

S: Or a booboo, as she calls it.

O: And pulls out some ‘booboo cream’ to tend the wound.

S: Ravage looks rather disarmed by all of this attention.

O: The rest of the animal cassettes all gather around Fluttershy, while Rumble is in the background getting more annoyed as he protests that it's not a ‘booboo’ it's ‘battle damage’.

S: Rumble backhands the cream out of Fluttershy's... hand?  Hoof?

O: Hoof, probably. [laughs]

S: To the shock and chagrin of the rest of the cassettes, Discord, and all of the animals in the vicinity.

O: Fluttershy gets upset because she was, “Trying to be nice!”

S: The other three cassettes turn on Rumble, as Discord transforms Fluttershy's animal friends into little robot versions of themselves.  Surprisingly menacing ones!  And they all attack Soundwave.  Soundwave gets to learn what being attacked by a dozen rabid little bunnies feels like.

O: Rumble attempts to dissuade his fellow cassettes from murder, invoking the ‘f word’.  The ‘f word’ being ‘friendship’ here.

S: Fluttershy immediately changes her tune and asks if friendship is what they really care about.

O: Soundwave responds with, “Unquestionably: Friendship superior.”

S: While being covered in a bunch of tiny, rabid, metal animals.

O: Yes.  The fighting stops, as Fluttershy says they can start over and be friends.

S: Discord points out that he could just turn them all into little pretty ponies, but doesn't.

O: The animal friends are returned to normal, and Rumble apologizes to Fluttershy.

S: Megatron coms Soundwave at this point, and tells him to meet up with the rest of the Decepticons.

O: Soundwave responds in the affirmative, but with the caveat of, “Eventually.”

S: And the final panel has Soundwave sitting down and looking on at- as his cassettes and Fluttershy frolic.

O: It is a stupidly cute panel.

S: Mm-hmm, Rumble has a bunch of bunnies in his arms.

O: Ravage is playing with a birb.

S: Laserbeak and Ratbat are both giving tiny animals rides.

O: And Discord is giving Soundwave a thumbs up.

S: It's happy communication all around.

O: Right!? Like, this is what Soundwave deserves, okay!? This is my humble opinion- Soundwave should just stay here and be happy.  I actually would pay good money for a crossover- like, a crossover fic of them.  Just Soundwave helping with like, Fluttershy's animal hospital thing.  That sounds so cute! [laughs]

S: It would be a relaxing vacation for him.

O: He deserves a relaxing vacation.  My boy deserves a relaxing vacation!  Also, just going to pause- if you guys hear creaking, I am super sorry.  But we- my neighbor is moving around a lot for some reason, and there's a lot of cranking going on here.  So, sorry you can hear that.

S: Issue 3 part 2, “The Flying Fox Trot,” begins with Rainbow Dash reclining on a cloud and chomping on an apple, content with life.

O: At least until Windblade zooms by, dissipating Rainbow's perch.

S: The two introduce themselves to each other and rainbow proclaims herself as, “The fastest in Equestria!”

O: To which, Windblade, seasoned warrior, plane with literal jet engines, asks, “Until I showed up?”  Of course, the only way to settle this is with a race, apparently.

S: Considering Rainbow Dash's personality, yeah.

O: Yeah.

S: At the starting line we get cameos from some horse-based Transformers, Mach Kick and Battle Unicorn.

O: Which, honestly, since one’s a horse and one's a unicorn, I'm just amused that these exist at all- in a toy line for boys.  And also, I kind of want them on principle.

S: They're-

O: They look amazing. [laughs]

S: With very convoluted transformations.

O: Apparently.  Because apparently, you can't, you- you- you- can take the horse out of the organic but you cannot take the horse out of a horse.

S: [laughs]

O: I know that wasn’t right.

S: You can take the organic out of the horse, but not the horse out of the robot.

O: Yes.  So it's, uh, anatomy is just about as bad as a real horse is what I'm getting at here. [laughs]  Windblade and Rainbow Dash take off and are neck and neck, figuratively speaking, since Windblade doesn't have a neck right now, but whatever.  Until they run into a gaggle of Decepticons.

S: Misfire and the Rainmakers not- well, to be specific.  And honestly that just sounds like a band name?

O: Jem and the Holograms’ new rival! [laughs] I like- great- okay, okay, I know- I know- I know that we were talking about this in our warm-up, not in the actual episode but if you want to get into weird things you can that like, fit into the Transformers-verse, arguably Jem and the Holograms takes place in the fit into the same continuity.  And in fact, there was a G.I. Joe character whose entire backstory is that he was a roadie for Jem and the Holograms, and G.I. Joe definitely takes place in the same universe as Transformers.

[Okay, so like, I’m not wrong per say, but arguably Transformers, Inhumanoids, G.I. Joe, and Jem and the Holograms all take place in the same universe due to the presence of Hector Ramirez in all four series. ~O]

S: And considering the comics, which definitely have had multiple G.I. Joe crossovers.

O: Yeah, but not Jem and the Holograms.  Like, I think the last IDW Jem and the Holograms was kind of weird because it didn't- it didn't tie in with the rest of like, the Hasbroverse.

S: Mm.

O: Anyway, I'm sorry, tangent!  It just cracks me up that's all.

S: [laughs] The Rainmakers popped up in a season one episode, in G1, when the Autobots had to visit Cybertron.

O: Misfire doesn't show up in G1 till like, very late season four, and by late I mean, season four only has like, what?  Three episodes?

S: Mm.

O: But, you know what I mean!  And he's more widely known from his IDW appearance with the Scavengers, who are ‘sirs not appearing in this comic’.

S: And also for his incredibly bad name-

B: [laugh]

S: And also for his imp- incredibly bad aim, for which, poor Misfire gets his name.

O: Rainbow Dash suggests doing the ‘Flying Foxtrot.’

S: Which Windblade, understandably, is not familiar with.

O: And I'm half convinced that Rainbow Dash made it up, but whatever!  This entire thing seems to be baiting the Cons into shooting heat seeking missiles at the two of them, and then nyrooming behind them so that the missiles hit the Cons instead.

S: The comic ends with Rainbow Dash and Windblade agreeing to a tie and sitting atop a pile of Rainmakers and Misfire.  Who all look like they are regretting their life choices.

O: They were defeated by a pony, [speaks while laughing] I would hope they were regretting their life choices! [returns to speaking normally] Issue 4, part 1, is, “Strength in Numbers,” featuring Applejack and the Insecticons.

S: It opens with Applejack being very upset that there are some giant ass bugs in her orchard, eating everything.  And, I mean, she unfortunately has a super big pest problem here.

O: Which is a bad thing when her entire income is dependent upon farming.

S: Yep.  The Insecticon horde is very happy, and surprisingly cute as they munch on delicious apples and trees.

O: Applejack attempts to chase them off in multiple ways… none of which work.

S: Spraying them with the hose, hitting them with rakes, spraying them with the hose again, and then trying to push them off the apple trees.

O: Back inside her house, she brainstorms more things to try when Discord appears out of nowhere and she too is like, “Are you playin’ a prank, Discord!?”

S: Well, if i lived in ponyverse or-

O: Equestria.

S: Equestria, I think that might have been my first thought too.

O: I mean, fair.  Giant insects are eating her apples.  Like, who else could do that but Discord on a normal day? [laughs]

S: Mm-hmm.  However, Discord says that this stuff is too mundane to be one of his pranks.

O: Applejack asks for his help.  He declines, as he'd much prefer to watch this madness, but he does summon all of the Apple Family to aid Applejack.

S: The Apple Clan is here!

O: No, really, like, ALL of them are here.  And I am not listing them off, because it's pretty much every single Apple character that appeared in the show at some point.

S: So all of the Apple Clan charge in, and I'm kind of wondering now if he like, showed up and briefed them all- just-

O: [laughs] I think they all saw through the portal, and saw bugs eating apples and were like, “My people are calling me!” [laughs]

S: My- my home needs me!

O: My home needs me, exactly.

S: Babs Seed, Big Mac, and Apple Bloom take out an insecticon by themselves by kicking it,

O: Which are Applejack's cousin, older brother, and little sister, respectively.

S: Several other Apples take out other Insecticons with ropes.

O: And an elderly Apple accidentally kicks one of Bombshell's Cerebral Shells back onto him and then orders him to go away while she's sort of flailing.

S: Accidental mind control, here we are!

O: And the day is saved thanks to the Apples, and we move on to the final chapter of the crossover fittingly called, “Finale.”

S: We open in the Crystal Empire with one of the other princesses of Equestria, Princess Cadence, as several of Twilight’s students report back to her that the Decepticons are nowhere to be found, but are likely planning an attack according to the Autobots.

O: Speaking of attack!

S: [sighs] The wall is smashed in as Megatron, Queen Chrysalis, and their allies arrive and demand that they hand over all the magical artifacts.

O: Twilight Sparkle and Optimus arrive just in time.

S: Optimus attempts to get Megatron to leave with politeness.

O: Surprising no one who's dealt with Megatron for more than 10 seconds, he declines. [laughs]

S: And with a combined call of, “Transform and trot out!” and, “Till everypony are one!”  …Oh, so grammatically incorrect.

O: [laughs]

S: The Autobots and their allies go on the offensive.

O: And I get secondhand embarrassment from those lines existing in a printed form.

S: Pinkie Pie throws a pie in poor Soundwave's face.

O: And we get a pretty great two-page spread where a variety of things are happening...

S: Rarity is riding in Arcee's vehicle mode as they launch themselves at Shrapnel.

O: Optimus is punching the crap out of Starscream.

S: Megatron orders Shockwave to just get some magical shit already!

O: Bumblebee goes on a tangent about Equestria's tasteful decor.

S: More bickering back and forth, and went- then Twilight summons the orange cap of shame onto Megatron's Fusion Cannon.

O: For reference, this is referring to the fact that Megatron with his original alt can't normally be sold without said orange cap identifying that he's not a real gun.  Which was a thing that was put into place after- or like you know, late 80’s, early 90’s.  Um, at least, you know, he can't be sold without this in the states and personally I think it's fucking hilarious.

S: And through the powers of friendship and Spike's awesome skills, the Space Bridge opens and Spike and Grimlock come through and assist.  And this is dragon Spike.

O: Yes.

S: Not human Spike.

O: Oh- to which, dragon Spike is wearing adult human Spike’s exo suit though.

S: Mm-hm.

O: To make this more confusing, how many Spikes would you like to go around?  That sounds really dirty within the fandom- and I'm gonna move right along!

B: [laugh]

S: Twilight and Optimus use alicorn magic and the Matrix in tandem to send the Decepticons home.

O: One delightful tea and Energon party later… the Autobots arrive back home themselves.

S: Optimus then explodes the space bridge behind them to protect Equestria from the Decepticons.

O: Much to the sadness of the Autobots, who enjoyed their time with their new friends.

S: Unfortunately for the ponies, Shockwave might have figured out a way to bring them to Cybertron instead.

O: And on that sequel bait, the crossover ends.  And yes, there is actually a sequel that's been announced.  In fact, I think the first issue or two might be out, and we're definitely looking forward to reading it at some point.

S: I feel like I've definitely seen a cover…

O: Other than that, what were your thoughts and feelings about this crossover?

S: The colors and such were really nice, but the cartoony style that the My Little Pony artist used for the robots didn't really work for us.

O: And we want to add, we're not saying they're a bad artist!  It was merely a stylistic option that didn't mesh well for us, specifically for the robot characters.

S: Mm-hm.

O: Um, this was further compounded by the fact that normal- like, Transformers artists that we are more used to doing comics, were also involved in other issues.  And so, they were drawing the robots better, and then the ponies also didn't look like terribly off model or something.  So it was just less distracting when they were doing it.

S: Mm.

O: Overall the special was good, and we recommend it to you if you like Transformers and My Little Pony.

S: Not that you should, you know, wait for our recommendation or anything.

O: [laughs] Uh, the Fluttershy/Soundwave chapter was a standout for both of us.

S: It was very cute, and I really enjoyed how emotive the non-speaking cassettes were.

O: I loved seeing the poor man have to deal with Discord's nonsense.

S: I feel like... we could have done with something longer having him deal with Discord’s nonsense.

O: I- yeah, it was constrained in the way that they did this, where each- there were only four issues, and each issue was- was split into two parts.

S: Yeah, and it's only 24 pages an issue or something.  So it's very- they're very minimal and very constrained.

O: Right.

S: It's just an issue with the medium.  I also really enjoyed the Spike/Grimlock chapter, because it was nice to see them both admiring each other's qualities, and supporting each other, and just being so uplifting.

O: And cute!

S: Mm-hm.

O: My second favorite was probably the Pinkie Pie chapter though, because it was just completely batshit insane.  Uh, just- again, Shockwave had a whisk and a spatula, because he was planning on eating the ponies.  I- where do I go with that?  How do I make that better!?  I can't, that's the answer! [laughs]

S: Shockwave just really wants to- to practice his, um…

O: Culinary arts? [laughs]

S: Yeah. I don't know, the implication that Cybertronians have culinary arts is- it just kind of weirds me out.

O: [continues laughing] Yeah, but- but Gauge was like, “I have a recipe!”

S: I know!  Well, that's the entire implication, it's just like, oh.  Mm.

O: I love that we probably got more actual like, culinary cannon from a fucking My Little Pony crossover than any of the other Transformers comics combined!

S: Yeah.

O: That's weird! [laughs]

S: I mean, the fact that it does come from effectively a pre-war era does mean that we'd potentially get more culture.

O: Eh, yeah.  I mean, but I don't think this was pre-war.  It seemed like it was mid-war?

S: I know, but just the fact that the uh, IDW2 is mostly pre-war.

O: Ah, that's true, that's true.

S: The characters all felt in character, the relationships were entertaining and sweet, and barring the one artist everyone was very expressive.

O: And with that, thanks for joining us for our April Fools’ special.  We hope ya’ll enjoyed, join us next time as we go back to business with episode 43, The Golden Lagoon.

S: Yay.  And that just about wraps it up for us today.  Remember to check us out on Tumblr or Pillowfort as Afterspark-Podcast, for any additional information, show notes, or links you may have mentioned.  You can also find us on Facebook and Twitter at AftersparkPod (all one word), and various other locations by searching for ‘Afterspark Podcast’ such as AO3, iTunes, Spotify and Youtube, just to name a few.  And feel free to send us questions on Tumblr, Youtube or AO3.  Till next time, I'm Specs!

O: And I’m Owls!

S: Toodles.

[Outro Music]

[at-the-exd-of-everythixg]

Ok,,,,Pascal's alien species,,,,

On his father's side (who he has never met), that relates to Majesdane. They're a race that is very similar to Aspherane, except I would bad their culture more on Egyptian styles rather than Turkish culture. Very similar to Aspherane in body-types with exceptions of being around 5'5-6-5, typically having black-seared tattoos to symbolise life events. Males typically carry young and while Aspherane are typically based on bees and nudibranches, Majesdanes have evolved to be more like seahorses and butterflies.

I have...more thoughts about Majesdane now. Fuck. But I'm gonna quickly move onto Molly Solberg's linage.

ßönnënlicht (the ß is a S) is a German inspired planet where the year lasts around 7 Earth years and is a very summer and desert based planet with 14% water surface and dry seasons that last around 8 months. A lot of the layouts for communities tends to take place with small villages grouped together with only a small handful of capital cities. ßönnënlicht is a large war based planet that has often used their prophesy gifts in order to aid favoured planets in exchange for favours and supplies.

As the landscapes are typically deserts, intricate cacti and willow trees spending large enough for a tennis court can be found across plains, where a large majority of bird and reptile species live. These then lead into jungle landscapes where most mammals live. A good majority of thes species have hoofed and pawed feet for digging and climbing as well as....many bugs. Aside form that, it's quite common to have small bird, reptile or rodent based creatures as a pet.

People of ßönnënlicht are based upon spiders! They range from 5'10-7'0, have dark skin shades and often have four arms as well as long winding tail. Males are often smaller and are born with bright colour patterns across their skin, with longer claws and horns often used to dig and hunt and are often at 5'10-6'5. Females are more darker in hues and often have more weight to them in order for fights and while they lack in horns they often have large fangs that contains source of poison to liquidate meals and kill foes. Females are 6'3-7'0 and will often take two to three males as her partners while only staying with one or two females if preferring women.

Comparing to Pascal, he has more weight and lacks any horns due to being born female, but has sharper nails than most now and has very large fangs..and doesn't know that most people don't have fangs. When he started transitioning tho, he started gaining large yellow child-like patterns across his back but hadn't realised yet since he can't see them. Doesn't know that his smiles ate terrifying and that most people...don't liquidfy their meals when eating.

In lost lights verse, Pascal actually starts to grow some horns and gets a little bulkier while he no longer needs bandages, but had a constant glow of colours coming out of his eyes....life ain't exactly good for Pascal in LLV I'll tell y'all that.

Anyway, Licht's actually have a sub series that live off in mountains that are the only places on the planet with cold weather and those are the ones with fluffy coats and funny enough, Cassandra got those genes and gave Molly carpet burn when sliding out. Hell, maybe I'll give fluffyness to Pascal, u can decide if u want it. Also he's like....strong. really strong. Doesn't realise it cause he's a himbo and had a poor concept of normality growing up. Cassandra gets a Aspherane partner and tbh I'm kinda thinking a desgin??? Feel free to whack me to ask for them.

Licht's are required to go to school up until they're 20, and to then take a brief two year span of working on their gifts, which at the time is the mark for adulthood. Every six months there is a mass party for the latest ßönnënlicht reaching adulthood together. Fashion takes place in the form of long skirts and loose fitting shirts for casualness while formal events have styled dress-pants for men with styled tank tops (easier to dance) while females get choices of long skirts or dresses in more muted tones. Although a lot of females will often wear colourful clothing most times in day to day life unless they are looking for a partner.

Hygiene is a relatively large concept and often there are horn cleaning services for men on streets as well as hoof cleaning stores. You're expected to be clean when going into large cities but other than that? It's a desert planet, ur always gonna be a bit dusty. Group baths are often the norm of cleaning though. Foods are often based on German cuisine, which means that dinners and breakfasts aren't very big and often people will group together in the village to have very large lunches. They grow wine, which tastes oddly of apples and often import mead from Asgard as well as pastries from Aspherane.

Twins are rather common in ßönnënlicht and pregnancies take 11 months, with names often being themed with light, colours or gemstones as wel as German mixed names. Pascal and Cassandra were heavy babies depsite the fact that Molly was a 4th generation ßönnënlicht with her twin, Märcus.

Uhhhh I think that's it??? Guess one more fun fact is that nb people typically go by Fae/Fair instead of they/them

And lemon thought is that typically penis le lengths are 6-7 inches while inner vulva and anus walls are barbed to manipulate the length for quicker release, not harmful at all.

[jadeile-writes]

Fanfic Progress Update 67

Hey-o, peoples. How you doing this fine Saturday? Let’s see what we’ll be getting next week. Stay tuned to the end of this post for a spoiler-y glimpse into the next chapter of Adventure gone Mini AND now also the next Radiohusk drabble I’ll post sometime next week!

Current WIPs:

Adventure gone Mini

Fandom: Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild / The Minish Cap

Summary: Sidon is given his very own Sheikah Slate, the first replica Purah has managed to make, and sets out to travel with Link with the intention of registering warp points for convenient travel in the future. However, when a malfunction shrinks them down to the size of bugs, and they meet little people called the Minish, they have to change their plans from “fun adventuring” to “getting out of this mess”. Not that those two have to exclude one another. Link/Sidon.

Progress: Chapter 39 is the current latest chapter and was posted on 27th of May. Chapter 40 half done and scheduled for 17th of June.

I post a new chapter every three weeks on Wednesdays. These updates always include a sneak-peek for the next chapter, slowly getting longer over the three weeks waiting period.

—–

That month of the year

Fandom: Hazbin Hotel

Summary: Every year, for a single month, the Radio Demon gets… emotional. His antlers are in velvet and he’s pumped full of hormones that make him behave quite unlike himself: suddenly, everywhere he looks, instead of seeing fellow demons all he sees are helpless little fawns that nobody is taking a proper care of! Solution? Adopt them.

Husk, Niffty, Camille, Honey, and the rest of the older Fawns put up with their Mom/Dad’s nonsense every year, but this time there’s a new, rotten apple in their midst and they have to protect Alastor from this crook. Without Alastor knowing about it. As Husk likes to put it: “This is fucking bullshit. …I mean fudgy nonsense.”

(Crack taken seriously. Gen)

Progress: The first two chapters are finished. The third chapter is more than halfway done. I want to have a few chapters written before posting anything, because this is hella slow to write. I did some good editing! That sure is something done for once XD;

This fic is co-authored by Maximillian!

—–

Hah! Our afterlife is the most hilarious bushwa, dearest

Fandom: Hazbin Hotel

Summary: This is not a stand-alone story! This is a oneshot/drabble collection in the universe of “Shit, the Radio Demon is a part of my afterlife”. Read the main story before bothering with this one.

I decided to give my readers a chance to throw Radiohusk prompts at me, and had the Afterlife-verse as an option to set the stories in. Everyone liked that, so this fic is now a thing. Enjoy the extra mischief from these two dorks!

Progress: Chapter 18 is the current latest chapter and was posted on 5th of June. Chapter 19 hasn’t been started yet, but the scheduled posting date is 12th of June. A sneak-peek will be posted on Thursday.

I have 18 prompts left.

This fic receives a new chapter every Friday.

—–

Secret drabbles and ficlets!

Fandom: Hazbin Hotel

Summary: I’ve occasionally written completely random Radiohusk fics and shared them with a bunch of friends without posting them on AO3 or here. I’d like to rectify that and start posting them here at random for everyone to read. I won’t be posting them on AO3 because I don’t want to, so keeping an eye on this blog is even more rewarding than before for a while.

Progress: I have three separate ficlets at the moment, and a few nearly finished ones that I’ll probably get done sooner or later (with one exception that I’m unlikely to actually finish at all). I’ll post them at most once a week, on whatever day I feel like doing it. Basically, keep your eyes open ;)

—–

Other WIPs I’m not currently working on but intend to get back to someday:

PoE Drabbles (Pillars of Eternity)

DC Drabbles (Justice League)

Diaphanous Relations (Forgotten Realms, R.A. Salvatore’s books)

Experiment in Romance (Hazbin Hotel)

—–

That’s it for the WIPs! Here are the promised sneak-peek into Adventure gone Mini (Note: the text may end up slightly different in the fic itself due to more editing happening before publishing). Enjoy!

Mini

Link and Sidon were man-handled through a hallway between two mushrooms into another part of the building. Whereas the first room had been vast and grand looking – and thus perfect to play tag in – the next place had a more… sacred temple kind of atmosphere. There were ornate pillars all around the place, mystical yet peaceful looking paintings hanging from the walls, and an altar against one wall. There was also a small fountain in the middle of the room. Before the fountain stood an adult Minish dressed in the same robes as the children were. They turned around to look when their rather noisy group entered the room. "Oh, visitors?" they asked, rather unnecessarily in Link's opinion.

—–

Random drabble

Husk was casually lounging in the hotel's communal living room, feeling thoroughly disinclined to open the bar yet – it was way too early to get enough customers to make it worth his damn while. So instead, he was sitting on the couch, idly working on a sudoku puzzle in one of the "recreational activity books” that Charlie had placed around the room. It was one way to kill time, and the hard puzzles at the end of the book actually posed an intellectual challenge that the crossword puzzles in the newspaper sorely lacked.

He lifted his eyes from the book when he heard another person enter the room. Mind, he didn’t need to look up to know who it was, as Alastor’s shoes had a very distinctive sound to them thanks to the hoof-prints on the bottom. But look he did, and as he did so he noticed that something about the way Alastor carried himself looked… off. Or maybe it was his expression? Or his soundscape? Fuck if he knew what it was, but he knew it was something anyway.

He said nothing as Alastor made a beeline to the couch and sat down next to him, just a hair’s breadth away, their sides and legs barely not touching. It made Husk way too aware of that side of his body, and how the smallest movement on his part might cross that line. It was damn uncomfortable.

—–

That’s it this time. See you next Saturday!

AO3    FFnet    Purple Crayon    Ko-fi

[strangefoxee]

Friendship Defender

Sorta cursed Twilight

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

the larger courier six verse, media influences

tagged by @sybil-writes ty

the bibliography for this thing is extensive. my taste is wide and omnivorous. i try to drop what i was thinking about when i wrote a particular bit into the author’s notes, and i think i’ve credited all the direct references, but I consume a lot of dystopia and post-apoc media and harder scifi/fantasy with rules, and i don’t keep an accurate running list of shit I like, so i’m certainly not going to get everything in one post. this is mostly me looking at the very limited number of books i have with me and frantically looking at wiki lists like “yes read that liked that stole that”. if i link everything i will die. if you have trouble finding a specific thing lmk tho. this feels real goddamn pretentious like Ah Yes Look At The Media I Have Consumed but here goes 

music: one of these days I will drop links to the network of playlists I have for these kids, but they’re all of Spotify and not super accessible. Danger Days, a post-apoc desert graffiti/neon/cars album by My Chemical Romance. the soft, nonsense love songs off Pretty. Odd by P!ATD. the poppy but sad neon bullshit of Too Weird To Live, Too Rare To Die also a P!ATD production. Wasteland, Baby! by Hozier, specifically Talk and Dinner & Diatribes. Halsey’s cover of I Walk The Line, Rihanna’s Desperado. Everything by Orville Peck but mostly Roses Are Falling and Take You Back (The Iron Hoof Cattle Call). Instrumental stuff: the opening to Silverado, the Billy the Kid musical, bits of Lawrence of Arabia. It’s Been A Long, Long Time. Fitz & The Tantrums’ Get Away. Mother Mother’s album O My Heart. Gorillaz’ Plastic Beach. 

filme: 

the Dollars trilogy ofc

the sheer bullshit nonsense of Wild Wild West and Blazing Saddles and Turbokid. 

a lot of the interaction between many characters in a tight space from Stagecoach. my dad really loves John Wayne, so I am constantly thinking about Monument Valley even though that’s nowhere near the Mojave. honestly whenever i’m thinking about how to describe landscapes I’m thinking about The Searchers, even though I have a lot of problems with that film. 

the colorful nonsense future of The Fifth Element. 

the gritty self-surgery and prospecting of Prospect (2018). 

SO much Trigun and Cowboy Bebop, for space western flavor and the same sort of analog-cassette-future. u kno how everything in Star Wars looks like it’s been there forever? the absolute opposite of a slick Apple future? that. 

god I wish Firefly was...good

Akira, bc every time I think about motorcycles the Akira motorcycle slide gif plays in my head. 

speaking of which probably a decent chunk of Adventure Time, esp the Super Porp episode. 

a smidge of how a platonic trio works from Samurai Champloo. 

anything with a big sprawling market and a chase scene, even though the only things I can think of are Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets and the first Indiana Jones. oh Skyfall also

the set dressing from Tank Girl

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. look I just really like airships and retrofuturisum but art deco

honestly a lot of Ghibli- the aviation fantasy of Porco Rosso, the gardens from Castle In The Sky, a lot of Sophie Hatter energy from Howl’s Moving Castle, the underground bits in Nausicca, the otherworldly sea from Ponyo (except the Fallout sea is probably much emptier). the lovely homey-ness and gadgetry of Sherlock Hound. 

almost certainly some Metropolis for how I think about cities

thinking a lot about The Incredibles and earlier James Bond movies recently for that sort of sleek but still small physical gadget spycraft 60s bullshit

the team and found family dynamics in Leverage

The Man From U.N.C.L.E. the more recent film which I have stolen ENTIRELY too much of the Angel + Blondie + Six dynamic from 

mad max: all of them, to some extent, but a lot of Fury Road. I have a theory about how the Dollars films take place in reverse order, bc of how they feel next to the Mad Max films. The first Mad Max film is about a specific person in a specific place and time doing really specific things. it feels like a movie made off the info of someone who was there. GBU also feels like that- it’s really place-specific in a way? The second Mad Max film is a little hazier, and focuses on mostly people trying to accomplish a goal. For A Few Dollars More also feels a little hazier, like it’s a little more metaphorical/a morality tale and it’s being told by someone heavily embellishing secondhand events. the third Mad Max movie is just over the top nonsense. feral children living in the wreckage of an old plane escaping in a working plane? sure. why the fuck not. For A Fistful Of Dollars also feels like this. of COURSE this big bad gunslinger drifts into town and escapes in a coffin and invents the bulletproof vest. why the fuck not. 

books: i like shit that goes beyond the wander/scrounge/defend trio of verbs. 

the trying to wrap your life around a huge unknowable event from Roadside Picnic, 

too much Le Guin and Butler to really fit here, 

god if anything i write ever has a tenth of the flavor of Kill Six Billion Demons i’ll be happy, 

the postwar feel of Vonnegut and Heller,

Margaret Atwood’s biopunk Oryx and Crake trilogy 

the incredibly sad decaying biopunk/mutation/last days novelette The Drowned World by JG Ballard. 

the space-opera political machinations from the Ancillary trilogy by Ann Leckie. 

World War Z’s accounts of survivors has always felt like reading terminal entries from Fallout games. 

Philip Reeve’s Fever Crumb trilogy, for its interpretation of high-tech artifacts and archaeological reinterpretation of those artifacts. 

Tales of the Bounty Hunters. Tales from Jabba’s Palace. 

A Canticle for Leibowitz of COURSE. 

the original three books in the METRO (2033, 2034, 2035) trilogy, for their tight dense locations and resource management and life-threatening travel/exploration. 

the Family Trade comic by Jordan & Ryan, for setting and intrigue and a very unorthodox power source  

Elizabeth Bear’s short story And The Deep Blue Sea, about a different kind of courier. 

how Gibson’s The Sprawl trilogy (a trilogy i have MANY opinions about, not all of them positive) does worldbuilding when it implies a vast sprawling richly imagined world with casual in-universe references that you can extrapolate a lot from.  

The Gernsback Continuum, for making me think about stranded architectural bits that survived

a little bit of the Empress’ energy from Cavendish’s The Blazing World. 

the short story The Rational Ship by Caro Clarke, about a ship that runs on orgasms, from the EXTREMELY out of print Memories and Visions: Women’s Fantasy and Science Fiction edited by Susanna J. Sturgis. i’ve scanned it in as a pdf and will send it to anyone who asks. the stories in this volume are WILDLY varying in quality and terf-yness. i would not buy this book on purpose. 

i think each separate Vault storyline is a tiny separate Lost World story, so just pick your favorite and insert it here. 

Westerfeld’s Leviathan trilogy was FORMATIVE for baby me. biopunk! big trans energy! SKY WHALES 

fucking hate  Paolo Bacigalupi for what he does to his female characters but Ship Breaker was good from what I remember of it

there are three very oblique Sherlock Holmes references in “blow a kiss, fire a gun” for my own amusement. 

Fallout scifi seems to be very Verne and Wells and Burroughs derived? a lot of very pulpy  “pseudojournalistic realism to tell an adventure story with little basis in reality.” or “hey look at this COMPLETE NOVEL i found in a bottle by the sea OR locked in my weird great-uncle’s things, i shall retell it to you here” 

idk i think The Road and the Hunger Games have so profoundly shaped the state of the genre, there’s probably at least a little bit of both these things in here even if I didn’t particularly like either of them. There’s also a lot of super bleak post-war stuff I read but am not necessarily incorporating, like Nevill Shute’s On The Beach. probably some Dune in here too if i’m being totally honest. why have a desert if there’s not going to be a giant worm, Fallout: New Vegas???

jesus i gotta read more lady authors. there are probably way more that i’m not remembering bc almost all the books i own are in a storage unit seven hours away that i haven’t touched in three years. there are probably way more comics also. 

OH not a book but the decaying-rich-people-paradise of Bioshock. pity how they never made a third game 

[glapplebloom]

Back to the fold and we’re back with reviewing the show again.

It begins with Fluttershy on Flower Detail. The Princess is coming to Ponyville and everyone is getting ready for it. But while Fluttershy and her woodland critters were gathering them, she discovers something.

Say hello to the Parasprite. These little things multiply worse than rabbits and eat up all the food in the area. But Fluttershy didn’t know that (or thought anything wrong about it eating all her apples in such a short time) and decides to take it to Ponyville.

In Ponyville, we’re establishing that the friends of Pinkie don’t take Pinkie seriously as she eats all the treats that were made for the Princess. Pinkie claims she was taste testing but it was more like how Scooby and Shaggy taste test food.

So when Fluttershy arrives with the Parasprite that became three, Pinkie is the only one who knows what it is and decides seemingly randomly to get instruments. Now there are two ways the episode’s plot could have been solved right here.

Plot Solved #1

Pinkie Pie: Ugh! A parasprite? Are you kidding?

Fluttershy: Ugh?

Twilight Sparkle: A para-what?

Fluttershy: What’s a parasprite?

The two, who don’t know what it is, ask the one, who does, what the creature is. Pinkie would tell them and take care of it before it becomes a problem.

Plot Solved #2

Fluttershy: Ugh?

Twilight Sparkle: A para-what?

Fluttershy: How could you not like...

Pinkie Pie: They’re creatures who multiply and eat up all the food.

Pinkie, who sees her friends not have the same knowledge as her, quickly inform them of the information. That way, they can know the situation beforehand and help Pinkie gather the instruments. I would also say nip it in the bud as the numbers are only three, but we’ll see why Pinkie’s plan was likely the best.

But since basically we need a plot, logic is thrown out the window as Twilight spreads it to the other Main cast (not Applejack) and Pinkie working on gathering the instruments without explaining why she needs them.

Next morning, everyone who only had one Parasprite now has a ton of them. So they gathered as much as they can to take them to Fluttershy, who has been established that she doesn’t know what these creatures are. So here’s another point where the Plot could have been solved.

Plot Solved #3

Rarity: [gasp] I see we're having the same problem.

Rainbow Dash: Ditto!

Twilight Sparkle: Pinkie Pie called these things Parasprites. Surely she knows how to deal with this.

They find Twilight, who was just at Rarity’s, and she informs them the only way to control them is with music. Problem solved. But nope as they go to Fluttershy who also has the Parasprite problem. Applejack arrives to bring Fluttershy apples and they come up with a plan that seemingly works.

Wrangle them up and send them to the Everfree Forest. It seems to work but Pinkie is still asking for help on gathering instruments. And another time.

Plot Solved #4

Pinkie Pie: Exactly. That's why I need you gals to drop what you're doing and help me find some maracas.

Twilight Sparkle: Maracas? Pinkie, we've got much bigger problems than missing maracas.

Pinkie Pie: Unless you have every single one of them, music is the only way to make sure these Parasprites are gone.

Again, if Pinkie Pie informed them why we could have solved this problem here and now. But instead, they keep ignoring her and she keeps saying they should listen to her despite not explaining her reasoning and we get more problems.

Because Fluttershy kept one. That one became a hundred and so on and we’re back to square one with less time than before. Now I won’t put the blame fully on Fluttershy here. If one happened to show up, there is likely a hoard of them somewhere hidden. So even if Fluttershy didn’t kept one, they would likely still be here.

Second Verse. Same as the first. But the twist is this time its with a tornado and because of conflicting plans the Parasprites are now back in Ponyville. Keep in mind the following line.

Twilight Sparkle: Will you forget about your silly instruments for one second? You're ruining our efforts to save Ponyville.

Pinkie Pie: Me? Ruin? I'm not the ruiner, I'm the ruin-ee! Or is it ruiness? Ruinette?

Applejack: Come on girls, there's no reasoning with that one. She's a few apples short of a bushel.

Pinkie Pie: Hey! I'm trying to tell you all that the ruining is on the other hoof. If you'd just slow down and listen to me!

Remember this. Because this is the CLOSEST she got to trying to inform her friends.

In Ponyville, the Parasprites are eating every food in sight. Applejack abandons the team because Sweet Apple Acres is possibly the main source of food according to this Apple Bloom dream sequence. Twilight thinks a spell that would make them not want to eat food will help. Good news, the spell worked.

Bad news, they want to eat anything else. In a last desperate action, Twilight brings one to Zecora hoping she knows how to deal with them. Zecora’s response: doom. But Twilight suddenly hears music playing and we see why Pinkie Pie was gathering the instruments.

She’s the Pied Piper of Parasprites and Played Polka to Purge Ponyville of these Pesky Pests. Just in time too as Celestia arrives outside town to inform her she has to delay her visit (by 12 episodes) because Fillydelphia has an infestation she has to deal with.

Twilight learns that she should listen to her friends even if they don’t seem like someone you should take seriously and apologizes to Pinkie for not listening to her sooner.

Applejack: So you knew what those critters were all along, huh Pinkie Pie?

Pinkie Pie: Well, duh! Why do you think I was so frantic to get my hooves on all these instruments? I tried to tell you.

If this was a video review, I would be playing this clip right after this. She didn’t try a bit! In fact, I bet she purposely let them on. Why do I think that? The first thing she needed was a trombone and she didn’t seem to use it for the Parasprites. Do you know when she did?

Right after they discovered what happened to Ponyville.

So for a first time viewing it would be good. Like Twilight and the others, you wouldn’t expect Pinkie’s Randomly wanting Instruments out of nowhere to be the solution. You probably could have predicted it since you noticed how she acted, but never really expect it to work as it does. But in repeat viewings it does make the problem super simple to fix. Like imagine playing an RPG where you know about a certain character’s betrayal.

As for a rewrite, its Apple Bloom who tries to deal with it. She has the ring power to deal with it but Pinkie informs her that playing music would solve the problem. With the ring, no need to gather them all. She could just make them. Solving a simple problem with communication and a magic ring that can create anything.

[shalebridge-cradle]

Be Somebody

It’s Spooky Day.

The ceremonial markings are prepared. The crimson candles cast a dull and sinister light over the chamber, as the stomping and chanting of the hooded figures grows faster. They chant in an old, almost forgotten tongue, begging the forces of all that is foul and unholy for their profane blessing. As the thumping of feet grows faster, as the voices of the cultists grow to a scream, a burst of flame materializes in the center of the circle, burning blindingly bright for only a second, before a horned figure takes its place.

One of the cultists, presumably the leader, speaks. “Candeus! Great Duke of Hell, Seer of Past, Present and Future, Procurer of Treasures Both Carnal and Shining Gold, we have summoned thee!”

The devil pauses to think. No doubt the words from its mouth would form a baleful new verse for its worshippers –

“What.”

The atmosphere of the room, the triumph and anticipation, falters for just a moment. Luckily the hoods hide their identity, and by extension their facial expressions. The leader, to his credit, doesn’t seem fazed.

“We ask you for a boon, O Illustrious Duke! We seek your aid in making our fortune!”

A second stanza. “What the fuck.”

“We call upon your power! Grant your conjurers a precious, glittering boon!”

“What the fuck is going on?” And thus, the prayer was complete. “I’m not Duke! Is-is this some sort of prank? An elaborate attempt at blackmail? Are you seriously asking me for cash?!”

The leader turns to his compatriots, who shrug. “I… yes?”

“You’re a demon,” one of the other cultists pipes up, “you can do that, right?”

“We did the sacrifice and everything,” says another.

“You what?” The demon looks down at the bloody markings on the floor, meant to bind it in place, then behind it. “Oh, shit. Oh. Oh my God. What the – Jesus Christ…”

“I thought I did a pretty good job with the seal,” mutters the leader. The other figures nod or murmur in agreement. One pats him on the back.

The demon slowly turns back, surveying the cult with horror and disgust. “You know what? Fine. Fucking… whatever.” It snaps its fingers. “Bam. You all got a billion dollars in your bank accounts, go build a casino or some shit. I’m leaving.”

“Well, uh, we have to properly unbind you and unsummon you first -”

“Nope. Not doing that. Fuckity-bye, freaks.”

And the demon walks out of both the circle and the chamber, unknowing or uncaring of the panicked cries of ‘it shouldn’t be able to do that’ that follow it.

-

The Sherwood Cemetery has its gates locked. Usually, the council doesn’t bother. However, on Halloween night, they’ve found paying for a cheap lock and chain saves them hundreds in cleaning off graffiti, eggs and other fluids from the grave markers and tombs.

Not that it matters. One kick from a cloven hoof, and the gates swing open in a crash of metal on stone.

“Veronica Sawyer!”

The humanoid figure saunters down the lines of graves. Curved horns protrude from its forehead. A pointed tail lashes from side to side. Its eyes are alight with hellfire, glowing in the darkness of the night.

“It’s time for you to face the music,” the demon continues. “It was your idea for all of us to dress up. It was your idea to buy a pair of devil horns. It was your idea to put them on my head after I repeatedly told you I wasn’t wearing a costume! I remember what you were, and if I’m right, which I usually am, you’re here! Come and see what you’ve done!”

An awful grinding, screeching noise echoes from further away. The demon frowns, and sets off in search of the source.

It’s not hard to find; Sherwood isn’t a big enough town for its cemetery to have many tombs. This one has a door of bronze, turned green by time and neglect. The decorations carved into the stone had also been worn away – the proud lions, once regal and intimidating, were nothing more than vaguely cat-shaped mounds on the sides of the vault.

The door is currently being destroyed. A whimpering emanates from inside the tomb, as gnarled fingers pull at the metal gate. It crumples like cardboard, eventually falling off its hinges as the only moving inhabitant stumbles out.

She’s grey, both with fright and from a lack of a pulse. There’s stitches and sutures everywhere, holding her together, like she’d been the victim of every slasher movie villain ever conceived. Clouded, glassy eyes land on her observer, and she straightens, clearing her throat.

“There are dead bodies in there,” she mumbles, gesturing toward the tomb.

“That’s where they’re supposed to be,” the demon replies, arms crossed. “Speaking of dead people, explain what’s going on or I throw you back in.”

The corpse blinks. “…Heather?”

“No shit, Sherlock. You should know. You’re the one who did this to me.”

“I’m the one who did this to…” Any confusion quickly turns to righteous indignation. “I put a pair of plastic horns on your head. I expected to you to sulk for a while, maybe, definitely not this!”

“Well, if you hadn’t insisted on playing dress-ups -”

“It’s Halloween, Heather! You wear a costume, you get candy, it’s entertainment for all ages! It’s not like I forced Heather to hand-sew that sweet witch outfit! I didn’t pick out Heather’s cat ears against her will!”

“We’re not twelve!” Heather snaps back, “Imagine what everyone would’ve thought if we showed up to the party in costume. It’s childish!”

“It’s fun! I know you know how to have fun, Heather Chandler, and I don’t mean by fucking over someone else. We’re not even eighteen yet. Why do you have to act like every social event is a life-or-death situation?”

Heather is about to reply, when Veronica’s face is suddenly illuminated by light. Any righteousness left on Veronica’s face is once again replaced by a mask of fear.

“Hello, officer,” she croaks.

Heather dares to look over her shoulder. The cop, who looks pale even for someone bathed in moonlight, has one hand on his torch and the other on his holster. He opens his mouth, but all that comes out is a choking noise.

“We apologize for the disturbance,” Heather adds, with just a hint of anxiety. “We were just leaving.”

The cop’s countenance contorts further at the sound of her voice, but he manages to get out, “I feel like you shouldn’t.”

“With all due respect, officer, I think the laws of God are out of your jurisdiction.”

The officer puffs up his chest for a moment, and manages to get out half of the word ‘trespass’ before his confidence quickly fades. His eyes flicker to the corpse, to the demon, to his own gun. After a moment’s thought, he shakes his head.

“Let me…” he swallows. “Let me escort you out, then.”

“I’m happy with that. Well? Lead the way, officer.”

“…You go first.”

-

The door closes gently, and two figures trot down the front steps and onto the sidewalk of a quiet street. The first, not quite four feet tall, brushes down her costume with a reverence that a felt pumpkin outfit does not often receive. Her expression, one of excitement and gratitude, quickly morphs into a pout. The second, much taller and with a short yet carefully coiffed hairdo, bends down to examine the contents of the girl’s matching basket.

“That’s mine,” she whines.

“You heard Mom. I have to check your candy hasn’t been tampered with.”

“That was Mrs. Applegate! She teaches kindergarten!”

“You can never be too careful,” the boy replies.

The girl stomps her feet. “Peterrrr, we’re wasting time! You can check later!”

“I don’t understand why people don’t hand out more chocolate bars. The wrappers are much safer, you can tell if someone’s messed with them. She gave you an apple, honestly, what was she thinking? Do you know how many razors you could stick in there? If she wanted to do something nice, she’d give you some money to donate to a charity of your choice.” he pauses in his rambling, then looks up. “You haven’t complained in almost twenty seconds. What’s wrong?”  

The girl’s face is a perfect mixture of indescribable terror and reverential awe as she points. “Look at their costumes!”

Peter looks up, his gaze following the finger. There’s a zombie and a demon, just visible behind the bushes, strolling along and exchanging quiet, heated words.

Peter frowns, then calls out - “Veronica?”

The zombie’s head snaps up, dead eyes wide as saucers. The demon looks at her, and the smile doesn’t reach her eyes as she disappears into the thicket of foliage.

“It is you,” Peter approaches, one hand holding his sister back, “isn’t it, Veronica?”

“Yep. This is me. In costume. And makeup, lots of makeup.” A pause. “It’s Halloween.”

“Sure is. What are you doing back there?”

“Looking for someone.”

“Ask her about her costume,” the girl whispers in her brother’s ear.

“Yeah, yeah, in a minute. Who are you looking for? The devil girl?”

Veronica scowls. “Well, yeah, it’d be nice if she stuck around…” She takes a deep, steadying breath. “But I’m looking for Heather. Duke. We took separate cars, and we can’t find her. You know of any bonfires, or big lakes, or… uh, lynch mobs close by?”

“...I’m sorry, what was that last part?”

“Ask about her costume!”

“She’s dressed as a witch, just wanna cover all areas,” Veronica says quickly.

“No,” the little girl says, butting her way into the conversation with confidence she shouldn’t have, “we’re talking about your costume. How’d you do it?”

Veronica doesn’t answer immediately. She just stares, thrown off, before she points at her eyes. “Contacts.” Her ragged clothes. “Old hand-me-downs.” Her forearm, apparently sewn on with what appears to be exposed bone. “Prosthetics and makeup.”

“She doesn’t know what the word ‘prosthetic’ means.”

“Uh... Fake stuff? Yeah, that’s probably right. It’s fake, zombies aren’t real.”

This isn’t the answer the little girl was hoping for, if the scowl is any sign. She marches up to the zombie and yanks at her wrist, sticking her face so close her nose is almost touching the skin.

“Mary!”

Peter picks up his sister, much to her displeasure - “I wanna see what to do for next year!” Veronica just stands there, stunned, holding onto her arm like it’ll fall off if she lets go.

“I’m so sorry,” Peter babbles, “I didn’t know she was actually gonna grab you. She didn’t ruin your costume, did she? You said it was makeup.”

“Uh, well, I might need a touch-up. Back to my question-”

“No lynch mobs that I know of, but there’ll probably be a lot of bonfires tonight. Try Remington.”

“...Okay. Thanks.”

Peter gives a sheepish smile, and Veronica watches as he wrangles his screaming sister back to the sidewalk.

When they’re far enough away, the demon reappears, sporting a smug, fang-filled grin.

“Still having a good time?”

“Shut up, Heather. I’d be totally fine with her checking out my costume if it was just a costume.”

Heather crosses her arms, incredulous. “You’d seriously be okay with her putting her snotty little hands all over your outfit?”

“Look,” Veronica huffs, spreading her arms wide -

And the limb the girl had pulled drops, dangling, held onto Veronica’s body by a few loose threads.

“Wow!” Heather exclaims, her voice and her smile now filled with fake enthusiasm, “That’s something I really wanted to see tonight - the inside of my friend’s arm! Halloween sure is fun!”

“...We need to find Heather.”

-There’s a bare patch of grass behind the Chi Zeta Gamma fraternity house. At least, there was grass there at some point in the past - while it made a few pathetic efforts to grow back over the summer, parties and hazing and bonfires pulverized it time and time again. Now, it was packed-in, bone-dry dirt.

And, just for tonight, a pile of wood and leaves, surrounded by hollering, staggering young men.

Two girls stand off to one side, inappropriately dressed for the cooling weather. One’s gaze is hard, cynical, while the other’s eyes were wide, either with surprise or fear. Their attention is focused on the gathering.

“They’ve done a better job than last year,” one says.

The other tears her eyes away. “On what?”

“I guess since the party’s on Halloween, they have to make it different. I remember a couple of them asking me where to buy needles after I refused to make it myself. I mean, I know why they asked, but I dunno where they’re sold. Never needed to.”

“What do you mean?”

“Sewing’s for girls, remember?”

The younger one considers this, then points to the thing propped up on the pyre. “So, they got someone to make that for them?”

“Maybe. Last year it was just a bunch of sackcloth and a dollar store hat. At least now it’s human-shaped.” The older one squints. “...Yeah. I don’t think they made that. Looks too good for a bunch of dude-bros with masculinity so fragile you could break it by talking too loud.”

“Shit.”

Both women whip around, shoulders tense, which does not ease when they see no sign of the speaker.

“Maybe we should go back to the sorority house,” the younger quavers.

“Sisters stick together,” the older replies automatically, but her voice is filling with worry. She pauses to think. “I’ll tell them you’re feeling sick, and that I’m taking you back. Wait for me.”

“Fine... fine.”

The younger is already halfway back to the house before the older manages to make her excuses.

All the leaves and garbage in the general vicinity has been piled on top of the wood, and some of the ample supply of alcohol was poured out in memory of the frat house’s missing members (who weren’t dead, just suspended).

“A torch!” one cries, “It’s a witch-burning, we gotta have a torch!”

To general cheering and whooping, he takes a large enough piece of wood and ties his alcohol-soaked shirt to one end. He grins as he looks up at the fake witch they’d made, clad in a cheap black dress and hat, tied to one particularly large piece of wood. For a moment, there is conflict in his drunken mind - it looked good, but he can’t be proud of his part in that.

“A lighter!”

One bounces off his head, to a mismatched chorus of guffaws, and he laughs along as he picks it up. The little flame is lit, he pulls it closer to his makeshift torch -

Someone grabs onto the back of his head. It isn’t the ruffle of hair he might have expected - the hand does not move, does not let go. It squeezes, just slightly.

The babble of the crowd dies. In the distance, he hears a female voice say “Now what?”

All hell breaks loose around him.

“What the fuuuuuuuuck!”

“No no no no no no no, too spooky!”

“It’s a hand, dude! A hand!”

“Whose hand?” The fraternity member looks this way and that, sees his bros running from him, tripping over each other in their panic, but the pressure on the back of his head remains the same.

One of the few who remained behind screams, “I dunno! It doesn’t have a body!”

The former firelighter takes a moment to process this, then he starts screaming, too, as his friend gets behind him and pulls. There’s a tearing sound, the hand drops, and the few remaining partygoers flee the scene.

After a moment of blessed quiet, out steps a corpse. Her demonic companion follows

“Oh, wow,” Veronica mutters, picking up her detached forearm, placing it under the arm that’s still there, then picking up the hand. “Now I’m disarmed and...” she pauses, contemplating, “...unhanded. They’ve unhanded me, Heather. Do you get it?”

Chandler ignores her, clambering up what would have been a bonfire to examine the figure on top. After a quick patdown, she rips off the dummy’s sackcloth head.

Underneath is a girl, already on the edge of hyperventilating, now staring at her dubious saviour with her eyes almost bulging out of her sockets.

“Hey, Heather.”

The captive gapes wordlessly, before deciding on, “Hey.”

“Now, before you ask, no, I didn’t try to kill you. Nor did Veronica. We don’t know who put you here, actually, if your experience was anything like mine. One minute you’re all laughing at some dumb joke Veronica made, the next there are a bunch of satanists asking me for money.” Silence. “Side note, I may have busted the economy.”

“Okay. There’s a lot to take in, there, but - how are you getting your voice to do that?” Duke asks.

“It just does, now. I blame Veronica.”

Veronica uses her severed hand to wave. Duke makes a strangled noise in response.

Chandler presses on. “The more important thing is you can fix it. You dressed as a witch, and since Veronica can pull down an inch-thick metal door with no problems, you can probably cast a spell and make it so this never happened.”

“Maybe that’s why everything’s falling off now,” Veronica mutters to herself.

“What about Heather? I don’t see her with you.”

“We’ll get to her - wait.” Chandler turns to Veronica. “She was dressed as a cat. Would she be a regular cat, or, like, a cat-person?”

“What, like a furry?”

The demon gives her a glare that would reduce any lesser being to ash. Veronica, no lesser being, just shuffles awkwardly.

Duke gives a long-suffering sigh. “Just... untie me. Please. Get Heather, and I’ll see what I can do.”

-

It’s late. The sun is well below the horizon now, but the lights at the ‘Paws for Thought’ Animal Shelter are still shining on. A large sign is taped to the glass door - No Adoptions Today.

A woman, middle-aged and dumpy, the sort of person who looks like they were born to be that way, totters around the reception. She checks every door, examines every kitschy poster, straightens every decade-old magazine on every end table. She nods, satisfied with a job that didn’t need to be done, and takes out her keyring, so full of keys that it could be used as some sort of weapon.

Then, she stops. She seizes, as if her whole body were flinching.

“Ugh,” she says, “this is - I don’t like this.”

She snaps the lock on the front door, sticking her head out.

“Coast is clear. C’mon.”

Two young women enter, exposed under the sterile, flourescent lights. One is dressed in sackcloth, the other has an arm sewn on with some sort of twine.

“I remember this place,” Veronica says, “this is where I got JFK. Geez, still smells the same as it used to.”

“Why did you name your cat after a dead president, anyway?” Duke inquires.

“I didn’t. It stands for Jumpy Furry Kitty. I was seven when I got him, so I wasn’t too great with names.”

“That’s... kinda sweet.”

“That’s not the cat we’re here for,” says the woman, in a harsher tone than she’s probably ever used in her life. “I have about the same amount of keys as the jailors at San Quentin must have. Help me figure out which one opens the door. I don’t wanna be wearing this hag like a skin-suit any longer than I have to.”

“Don’t call her a hag,” chides Veronica, “she’s probably doing her best.”

“I’m a demon, Veronica. I don’t have to be nice.”

It takes them a good five minutes to find which of them opens the door. The woman fumbles for the light switch, and with the buzz of the lights comes a rising chorus of meows.

“We’re looking for a blonde cat,” the woman says, “or a black one. Or a blonde one with black ears. Or, we’re looking in the wrong place entirely, and Heather’s lost in an alley somewhere.”

“Or she’s a furry.”

“NO.”

“I’m a witch,” Duke offers. “Maybe I can... fortune-tell my way into finding the right one.”

Veronica grins. “You’re a witch - does this mean Heather’s your familiar?”

Duke blushes. The woman currently possessed by Chandler snorts.

“I mean, that wasn’t the idea when we - never mind.” Duke straightens, speaks as if she were giving a speech. “If you’re Heather McNamara, can you meow for me?”

The meowing had never ceased.

“Stick your right front paw out of the cage if you’re Heather McNamara,” Veronica calls over the caterwauling.

There are already a number of cats doing just that, hoping to gain some food or attention. Some are angling for both.

“This isn’t gonna work,” Chandler grumbles through someone else’s voice, “just to your little ritual thing here, Heather. If one of these cats is Heather, we’ll find out.”

Veronica’s brow creases. “These cages are tiny. What happens if she’s in one, and she becomes a person again? She’d be crushed.”

“Okay. Let out all the cats. See how that goes for you. You know cats eat corpses like you, right?”

“Hello, Heather!”

All three intruders freeze. The voice is from behind them, and their eyes say they recognize it.

“Hey, Heather,” Duke quavers.

“I saw you going in,” McNamara says from behind them, “you were looking for me, right?”

“Well, of course. We were worried about you.”

“Been a weird night, huh? Like, we were laughing about how much Heather’s devil horns fit her, then I’m in an alleyway.”

“That sounds about right,” Chandler croaks.

“Anyway, I’m fine. I’ve had a lot of fun. Kids love me, they keep petting me when they see me.”

Veronica finally speaks up. “Heather?”

“Hmm?”

“How many legs are you standing on right now?”

“Two, of course. Why?”

The other three share a look, and once again Chandler is trying to kill Veronica with her eyes. Veronica, taking this as a sign, turns.

There’s a regular-sized cat behind them, standing on its hind legs like a meerkat. It blinks up at them with big yellow eyes.

“I can’t decide whether or not this is worse,” says Veronica.

-

A big stone slab stands before the four. A long time ago, the indents and worn-down carvings might have meant something - now they were given use again.

A chalk circle has been drawn, gibberish markings adorning its edges. In the center, there are four small candles, pink and blue, the sort you’d see on a birthday cake and not for use in some dark ritual.

Witches make do.

Duke admires her handiwork, then turns to her friends. “Who wants to start the chant?”

No answer. Chandler idly scratches McNamara’s head.

“None of us know the words,” Veronica volunteers.

“I don’t know them, either. Let me try - what was the Latin? Quaeso ut mihi: in domum suam.”

“Sounds ominous,” Chandler hums, “let’s do it. Heather. Veronica.”

A chant starts up. McNamara trips over her own tongue, but manages to bluff her way along.

A wind begins to blow. Barely a breeze at first, it builds as the girls raise their voices to compete. The flames on the candles change in a whirl of color - red, blue, green, yellow - almost horizontal in the gale forming around them.

Chandler pauses, then checks behind her. through the dust and leaves, she sees figures.

Hooded.

“Contain the Duke!”

“Ah, fuck.”

While Duke and McNamara keep chanting, Duke out of commitment and McNamara from ignorance, more faces end up appearing around their circle - two officers in uniform, a bunch of young men, the plump woman with her ring of keys and a face full of fear. Some try to reach them, but their bodies are tossed back by the wall of force.

“Keep going,” Veronica urges. Chandler pauses, then starts up her chant again.

“Get the zombie! I know that hand!”

“You’re under arrest for trespass and the destruction of public property, come quietly-”

“No, we gotta beat up the zombie first. It ruined our party!”

“Gentlemen, this is a police matter-”

“No one can know what we’ve done - Father Ripper can’t know about this!”

“What did you do?”

“We had a good time -”

“Officer, I’ve been possessed, how do I file charges against -”

The wind ceases. The four are gone, and those that followed are left, empty-handed, in the middle of a forest.

-

10:49.

Chandler stares at the clock, as if willing it to be wrong. No-one else is with her; there’s nothing but the plastic headband and the difference in time to tell her that anything at all happened.

Duke looks down at her costume, exquisitely hand-sewn, sequined and untouched after tonight’s events. She hangs it up in her closet - maybe Heather will let her wear it next year.

McNamara makes use of her newly-restored opposable thumbs to ring as many people as she could. She had an amazing night, and everyone needs to know about it.

Veronica checks her pulse, her limbs, her face in the mirror. JFK saunters in, she scratches her old friend under the chin.

Martha Dunnstock sleeps peacefully, the leather-bound book resting on her bedside table.

It was a fun idea for Halloween. A shame spells weren’t real.

[aion-rsa]

The Simpsons Season 32 Episode 4 Review: Treehouse of Horror XXXI

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This The Simpsons review contains spoilers.

The Simpsons Season 32 Episode 4

Halloween is the special time for many series, giving them the chance to throw logic and canon out the window to plumb the fantastic for fearful flights. But The Simpsons season 32, episode 4, “Treehouse of Horror XXXI” opens with the scariest of all fantasias: Reality.

The episode begins a short while after Halloween on what looks to be the most frightening day in recent memory, the upcoming election between Trump/Putin and Someone/Anyone. The sequence includes a list of reasons to vote against Trump (Made it okay to shoot hibernating bears, put children in cages, called Mexicans rapists, imitated disabled reporter, looks lousy in a tennis outfit, can’t get wife to hold hands, called third world countries **** holes, called Tim Cook ‘Tim Apple’ …). Each more surrealistically real than the last. The list is long, so long you can’t make them all out during the crawl. They are detailed, amazing, includes one that is made up, and thorough. Homer’s commentary is priceless. But so are the rest of the political barbs in the pre-segment, such as when a heavily medicated octogenarian tells a potential voter he needs two forms of ID. “Twelve if you’re a Democrat.”

The opening segment isn’t all blatant politicking. Some of it is strictly silly. Homer understands and knows where he stands on all the judges and propositions, but when it comes to the presidency, he can’t pick. It’s not like he has to choose between beer, pretzels and donuts. Of course, the dire predictions of doom are slightly exaggerated in the animated, and Halloween-infused, world of “Treehouse of Horrors,” but it’s probably scarier than the entire season of The Walking Dead: World Beyond. The rest of the episode plays it for laughs.

Toy Gory

The first segment is a parody of the children’s classic Toy Story. Marge is a loving mom, giving Bart his last moments with his toys before he gives them away to charity. But we learn from the cleverly worded and Disney-sonic opening song this is not a kid who plays well with others, breathing or plastic. “You put a dent in me, you broke my head in three,” a sorrowful and scornful Randy Newman knockoff sings in a throaty nasal. Bart is apparently the rotten kid next door in this tale. Is it any wonder, though? His new Radioactive Man action figure comes with real radioactivity. The Simpsons likes to play with the after effects of atomic energy. The box warns about keeping the toy away from users’ scrotums, Abe thinks he left his in his other pants and Homer’s had a long history with the atomic effect.

Speaking of effects, the imagination captures the 1995-era computer-animated look and feel of Toy Story with subversive intent. Krusty the Clown, Bart’s most beloved toy one imagines, is the Woody in this. He is also the one who fosters dissent and leads the revolution. Ultimately, Bart becomes the perfect toy owner, but it’s not exactly a happy ending. Dr. Hibbert’s X-ray of Bart comes straight out of the Operation game. Hibbert explains Bart’s bones are Tinker toys. He has a Build-A-Bear heart and his brain is pop rocks and silly putty. He also has tennis elbow, hoof in mouth, frog in throat and is limited to only one semicolon. Not only that, he now stoically appreciates bad puns like “Don’t ask, don’t Mattel.” The Simpson family lost Bart at “I love you” and the message of the segment is don’t buy toys. It is perfectly chilling.

Into the Homer-Verse

The Simpsons go full on Homer-Barbera for this tough-loving tribute to the classic cartoon studio. A search for Halloween candy leads Homer on a hunt through the nuclear plant in search of giveaways sweeter than Advil. The bit where Homer is actually going through all the N&Ns and Rhesus snacks on his desk is a highlight, reminiscent of when Elaine ate a centuries-old, and terribly expensive, wedding cake on Seinfeld. Burns, who has Hansel and Gretel caged in a secret lab, prefers his snacks stringy and tough, so there wouldn’t be any sweets there. While he doesn’t find candy, Homer does cause a quantum flash of celestial energy which bursts a hole into an unstable universe, one where no one knows what a Murgatroyd is. The other realm is filled with cartoon Homers, from his Snaggle Puss counterpart through his noir version to a gaming animation pixilation. Disney Princess Homer brings new tonal beauty to the word “d’oh.” It sounds confusing, until Lisa sings it.

The best exchange of the Homer-Verse is when Homer walks past security in a restricted area. The guard says no one is allowed back there. When Homer asks what the guard is doing back there, logic and tasers go flying. It is a surrealistic solution to an abstract problem. The Krustyburger solution of having to find “other sources of meat” to contend with the six new, and hungry hungry Homers is equally surreal, but far crueler, which makes it just as funny. Until Gil gets there and you realize someone might lose their lunch.

“Eat the bacon, victory is mine,” we hear as Japanese Anime Homer sits down with the rest of the misplaced beings to a hearty breakfast. It is a very short segment but exquisitely executed. The Homers overwhelm Marge’s kitchen and threaten the delicate balance of interdimensional relationships. The portal they opened also affects labor relationships as the Burnsiverse knows where to get cheap, undocumented labor and the Smithersverse takes copious notes. Each of the Homers will die over and over again, which isn’t a horrible problem, except they will also die again. Lisa, of course, solves the problem using Harlon Ellison’s law of circular storytelling, as the episode exits, stage left, to run a circular saw over the same premise from a different angle.

Be Nine, Rewind

The Groundhog Day sendup begins with Harry Nilsson’s “Gotta Get Up,” the song, which was also featured in Russian Doll, grows more frantic as days and things get pounded like so many bubbling waves. It’s Lisa’s 9th birthday and she’s not sure if she’s ready to be halfway to adulthood. She doesn’t even want to put “Night Night Moon” in the hand-me-down box. The box is for Bart, who is actually ahead of Lisa in school, making it an eye-roller of a bit. Everything is fine until Homer steals frosting from the birthday cake with his finger. The many deaths of Lisa which follow are a tour de farce. Almost every line and sight gag builds on the ones before it, although the most specifically funny death involves a vanity mirror and is both the most and least expected of the lot. It is a millisecond of comic transcendence.

That can’t be said for Krusty’s balloon animals: a cigar, a snake, a worm and a 2×4. He gives out the same unimaginative throwaways at every party, and most Krustyburger grand openings. It’s a running gag that his jokes are all stolen, so feel free to read into the clown’s less than stellar performance. The closing scenario is the most hopeful. Probably just because we lose Gil, again, during it. He generously gives Patty a great set up. He kills a kid on the road test for his driver’s license. He’d better make it up on the written portion. It’s funny because, in many states, it’s relatable enough to be true.

The Simpsons season 32 has been offering consistently satisfying episodes of straight and subversive humor. “Treehouse of Horror XXXI” is the best of the season so far, but the Treehouses are always season highlights, and more reliably than Christmas episodes. No character is safe on Halloween. You can kill Gil as many times as you like. The Simpsons always packs a devilishly delicious trick or treat bag, with nothing so frightening as razor-blade-concealing apples, or anything else remotely nutritious. The opening segment is a political thriller, but the segments themselves are classic comedy.

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[allwicca]

Lore of Samhain

The Lore of Samhain – symbols and more

In the Celtic Year Wheel, Samhain is the beginning of the New Year. Samhain is the time of the death of the Sun God the Oak Lord and now its the time of the Holly lord until his rebirth at Yule, It is also the time of the Crone and her wisdom.

Samhain is believed to have Celtic pagan origins and there is evidence it has been an important date since ancient times. The Mound of the Hostages, a Neolithic passage tomb at the Hill of Tara built between 3350 and 2800 BCE, is aligned with the Samhain sunrise.

It is mentioned in some of the earliest Irish literature and many important events in Irish mythology happen or begin on Samhain. It was the time when cattle were brought back down from the summer pastures and when livestock were slaughtered for the winter. As at Bealtaine, special bonfires were lit. These were deemed to have protective and cleansing powers and there were rituals involving them.

Like Bealtaine, Samhain was seen as a liminal time, when the boundary between this world and the Otherworld could more easily be crossed. This meant the Aos Sí, the ‘spirits’ or ‘fairies’, could more easily come into our world. Most scholars see the Aos Sí as remnants of the pagan gods and nature spirits. At Samhain, it was believed that the Aos Sí needed to be propitiated to ensure that the people and their livestock survived the winter. Offerings of food and drink were left outside for them.

The souls of the dead were also thought to revisit their homes seeking hospitality. Feasts were had, at which the souls of dead kin were beckoned to attend and a place set at the table for them. Mumming and guising were part of the festival, and involved people going door-to-door in costume (or in disguise), often reciting verses in exchange for food. The costumes may have been a way of imitating, and disguising oneself from, the Aos Sí.

Divination rituals and games were also a big part of the festival and often involved nuts and apples. In the late 19th century, Sir John Rhys and Sir James Frazer suggested that it was the “Celtic New Year”, and this view has been repeated by some other scholars

It is traditional on Samhain night to leave a plate of food outside the home for the souls of  the dead.  A candle placed in the window guides them to the Summer-lands, and burying 3 apples and in more modern days to  add a pomegranate also in the hard-packed earth to “feed” those who have  passed on for their journey to the Summer-lands and as an offering for the earth.

You may also add an offering of any or a combination of the following: Beetroots, turnips, apples, corn, nuts, gingerbread, cider, mulled wines and pumpkin dishes are appropriate, as are meat dishes (once again, if you’re not vegetarian tofu is seen as a ritually correct offering).

Tools, Symbols & Decorations: Black or orange altar cloth and candles, Halloween items, jack o’ lanterns, oak leaves, acorns, straw, bale-fire, besom, black cat, black crescent moon, cauldron, divination tools, grain, magic mirror, mask, bare branches, animal bones, hazel-wood, pictures of ancestors

Symbolic  Decorations: Figures of horned and hoofed animals Figures of death Jack O Lanterns Owls Dried  leaves Evergreens Bones Evergreen twigs Animal’s horns and teeth Dried plants Pine cones Acorns

Colors: Black (ward off negativity), orange (good luck), indigo, homemade apple or mint scented herbal candles to light jack-o-lanterns or for altar candles

Customs: Ancestor altar, costumes, divination, carving jack o’ lanterns, spirit plate, the Feast of the Dead, feasting, paying debts, fairs, drying winter herbs, masks, bonfires, apple games, tricks, washing clothes.

Animals: Bats, Cats, Dogs, Stags, Owls, Crows, Ravens.

Mythical beings: Pooka, goblins, Medusa, beansidhe, harpies

Gemstones: Black stones, jet, obsidian, onyx, carnelian Orange Sapphire or other orange stones.

Herbs: Allspice, broom, comfry, dandelion, deadly nightshade, mugwort, catnip, dittany of Crete, ferns, flax, fumitory, Mandrake, mullein, dragon’s blood, sage, straw, thistles, oak(leaf) acorns, wormwood (burn to protect from roving spirits)

Incense/Oils: Frankincense, basil, yarrow, lilac, camphor, clove, wood rose, wormwood, myrrh, patchouli, apple, heliotrope, mint, nutmeg, sage, ylang-ylang

Rituals/Magick : Divination, honoring/consulting ancestors, releasing the old, understanding death,  rebirth and the cycle of life, entering the underworld, divination, dance of the dead, fire calling, past life recall, runes, tarots, dark mirrors.

Foods: Apple, beetroot, pomegranate, squash, hazelnuts, corn, seed bread’s, pumpkin pie,  pumpkins, seasonal fruits, nuts and vegetables,  ale, cider mulled wine and herbal teas,

Photo by dce_76

from Lore of Samhain

[strangefoxee]

Finally I get some art of Stringlight (Starlight from Apple Hoov AU). In this AU she destroyed the time travel scroll, even though Twilight's words made her think. And so they returned to the future where everything is a scorched desert. Her village is burned and destroyed. Realizing what she had done, she began to create a spell to fix it. But the spell didn't work as she expected. Due to the amount of magic passing through her, her hooves and horn were burned, and she herself went completely mad