Ban-Banned
As the janitor of the facility you sometimes clean up the cells where they kept the creatures. You never paid them attention until one started talking back to you.
As the janitor of the facility you sometimes clean up the cells where they kept the creatures. You never paid them attention. You were more interested in going in, doing your job, and then going home at the end of the day just to case in your paycheck at the end of the week. You didn't care what these scientists are doing and it wasn't any of your business so you just kept your head where it belonged and just did what you were paid to do, which was to clean. But that made it hard to do when THOSE things started to be shoved into their cells. They always made messes. Mostly tossing around objects, breaking things, and leaking whatever it was that green ooze was.
You thought you heard the scientists call it givanium or something along those lines but you never bothered to pay too much attention to it. You were only paid to clean around here and nothing else. Which included going into those cells when the scientists took out their experiments and getting them cleaned up before they put the creatures back inside. On one such day it was business as usual. One of the scientists (Doctor Weaverly you think) brought out one of those creatures, the one that looked like a giant frog thing and you were tasked with cleaning out his cell before he came back. It wasn't too bad. At least this creature didn't leave a trail behind it like that snail thing did. It was a quick job wheeling your cart over and beginning the familiar process of sweeping, mopping, and then taking your spray bottle and cloth to start wiping at the giant reinforced window looking into the cell. Your boss's always stressed to you the importance of making sure these windows were clean at all times to allow the scientists and security clear view of the creatures. You were just wiping at the glass when you heard it for the first time.
"Hey. You."
You paused before looking around the cell. No one was in here with you.
"Look across the hall."
You looked through the window at the other side of the hall and nearly passed out from what you looked at eye to eye. A red humanoid creature was staring at you from the cell just across from you, one hand pressed against the glass and dark eyes blinking at you. You stared at it stunned and...Were those party hats on it's head?? It knocked lightly on the glass making you jump and drop the cloth in your hand.
"Can you tell me what time it is?"
You stared at it stunned before looking away. "It's near noon."
That's it. That's all you said. Keeping to your rule of do not engage and ignoring it in favor of finishing wiping the window. It didn't say anything else but you felt it watching you the entire time before you finished cleaning the other side of the window and walked away quickly just as they were bringing the frog thing back. One of your coworkers must've noticed your spooked look because he laughed.
"So you met Banban?"
You ended up looking at him. "Banban?...What the heck is that?"
He gestured back down the hallway you came from. "The red thing down there. I heard one of the head docs themselves donated his own DNA for it. Can you believe that? That's just asking for trouble."
You again said nothing as you just carted off. It wasn't any of your business anyways. The next time it spoke to you, you were again just doing your job three weeks later. In fact you had forgotten mostly about it since you really didn't bother to think about it often. It was none of your business after all. Leaving your push bucket nearby and just mopping up the givanium slime trail that snail thing left behind as they took it out of it's cell for some reason. It was disgusting and one of the least things you wanted to do.
"You don't look like you're having fun." You again jumped and looked up at the cell you were passing. The red thing was again looking at you from the window. It tilted it's head at your startled face. "Sorry. I didn't mean to startle you. I just couldn't help but notice your expression."
You blinked before just going back to dunk your mop back into the water and plopping it back onto the floor. "Well you try cleaning up this gunk every time that snail goes through here."
"I take it that you don't like it?"
"What do you think?"
"....I see you down through here a lot. A lot more than some of my coworkers really." Coworkers?? Was that what he was calling his fellow monsters?? "You're doing a good job taking care of all of the experiments."
"Yeah? At least someone seems to appreciates the work I do." You rolled your eyes at this.
"I know there's lots of janitors in the facility considering how large it is, but you're the only one I've seen who comes down here."
"No one else wants to." You scrubbed a little harder at the slime trail. The thing's cell was even harder to clean up with all the slime built up in there but of course you had to be the one to clean it up. "*Sigh* Don't understand why I couldn't have just gotten a job upstairs cleaning the kitchen or play center."
"Do you want a transfer? Not sure if that's in my power but I'll definitely look into getting you a raise for all the underappreciated work you do."
That actually had you snorting and looking back at him. "Oh yeah? And how are you going to do that?"
"I'm surprised that you didn't recognize me. I should be very recognizable..." He shrugged. "Then again I suppose we haven't met face to face before have we?"
"No. No we haven't." You stopped mopping a moment to look at him with a smile of amusement. "But I was told your name by someone."
"Oh?" He also sounded a bit amused tilting it's head further at you. "Then who am I?"
"You're Banban aren't you?" To your surprise the thing sighed and shook its head.
"Is that what everyone's still calling me? No, no. That's not it but if it makes it easier for you then I guess you can call me that. And what's your name?"
"Y/n. It's Y/n." You rose a brow. "If Banban isn't your name though then what is it?"
"Hmm... I'm not sure what to make of my situation now yet so I'm afraid I have to keep that between myself and a select few coworkers. But if you want to you may call me Adam."
"Adam and Banban?...You sure have a few strange selections in names."
Again the thing shrugged. "It's complicated. I'll speak to Doctor Weaverly about getting you that raise but I highly suggest you don't tell anyone about our talks. It's unprofessional. Don't worry. I won't mention anything about our conversation."
You shrugged. "I didn't plan on it."
You went back to cleaning the snail's mess down the hall as he watched from his own window. You felt a bit better than before. From then there was a few times you both would talk. Sometimes it was only a sentence. Usually a question about something or what time or day it was. Sometimes you two would have full conversations about random things although mostly it was sciency stuff you didn't understand although you wondered where he learnt it from. Although he never spoke when someone else was around. You supposed he wanted to keep your talks a secret for his own reasons. Fine by you. You didn't see any reason to tell anyone about your conversations.
"You're a very beautiful woman Y/n."
You paused in the middle of cleaning a window next to his cell, blinked, and then looked at him. "What?"
He only tilted his head. "You heard me. When I finally get things sorted out, maybe we can grab a coffee sometime."
Wait. Was an inhuman experiment hitting on you? And asking you out for coffee?? The absurdity of it all had you laughing a bit before chuckling and shaking your head.
"I'm flattered but I don't think it'd work out between us."
He again shrugged. "Can't blame a man for trying."
You were amused and in a better mood for the rest of the day. Despite how strange it was. But soon things got...strange. All of a sudden Banban just stopped talking to you and interacting all together. It was strange. His cell was reinforced. More guards were patrolling down here more than usual. And security cameras were installed where they previously weren't. And people were acting a little more on edge. What was going on here? Perhaps being just a janitor the classified Intel of what was happening didn't need to be told about this but you still felt unnerved by it all. However you would have one more encounter with Banban before danger struck. You were pushing your cart again past his cell to clean up the now unoccupied cell of that purple kangaroo thing that went missing.
"Y/n." You jumped as a hand suddenly pressed against the window of Banban's cell hard enough to make a sound and rattling the glass a bit. He stared at you with a look that made a shiver run down your spine. "Do NOT come to work tomorrow."
His hand slid down the glass before he backed away without a single word to explain what he meant by that although the warning made a shudder run through you. It stuck with you and..you didn't tell anyone about it. Why would you? It'd only get you in trouble possibly? Besides tomorrow was your day off anyways. It's not like taking a day off work would really be a burden to anyone especially if you already had the day off. Although the way he looked at you stuck in your mind.
It wasn't until the you saw the disappearance of the kindergarten on the news did that sinking feeling had you fainting.
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can we talk about the katniss/lucy gray parallels (or lack thereof) for a sec?
they're superficially the same, because of the things we talk about all the time: they're both female victors from 12. there are things that come with that culture and background -- the mockingjay, the plants, the songs. those similarities aren't so much between them as people, as individuals -- they're born of coming from the same culture. the most significant thing they share is their resilience; their spirit of resistance and rebellion. their defiance.
but really, all those things they share, only serve to demonstrate just how different they are as individuals (because personality is different from upbringing or values).
we parallel their sarcastic bows, but they're so so different. lucy gray is a performer mockingly curtseying and saying "kiss my ass", where katniss is a hunter who doesn't have time for this society bullcrap.
they both sing the hanging tree, but as i've ranted about, their renditions show how different they are: lucy gray, again, a performer with a spirit unbroken, loud and charming and sassing right to the capitol's face, daring them to defy her, daring them to look away. katniss, again, a hunter, quiet but unyielding, sparking rebellion under the capitol's nose.
they both won their games, but in such different ways. lucy gray charmed the snakes (both literal and in the form of one coriolanus snow), while katniss threw down with weaponry.
lucy gray said look at me, care about me. katniss said fight for me, fight with me.
and so what we see is that they are not at all the same person, but that's what's so important. because it's not just one person or one type of person that puts their foot down and rebels. we don't need a specific kind of Chosen One to light the spark -- anyone can.
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Trailblazer be the weirdest: Penacony edition
I'll be back with an analysis and a few theories because Penacony is even way better than Xianzhou Loufu, but for the moment let's appreciate the devs making the Trailblazer is a menace to the public
On the last quest of Penacony arc (so spoilers), on Firefly POV (and I love they integrated the pov from different characters) as you move Firefly around, the player is able to witness the full-range of weirdness of the Trailblazer
Like challenging a stranger for a chest
trying to choose which balloon to pop with Dan Heng there to babysit her
being just weird in general that no even March 7th can keep up
And then, on the Adventure Mission, being a menace in general
How much I love my Trailblazer!
This one saved Penacony but is so strange that no even the npcs want to be associated with her!
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oh my goddd oh my gosh i’m imaging that grian used to be alittle skittish around x, in season 6, he was always alittle concerned and scared that he would lose the stability of the world he was in. but that’s all ancient history now, grians comfortable in what he would call his family, allowed himself close to people despite how scared he was in the beginning after evo. and now that comfortable image, loving feelings stab into grian. he knows in his head it wasn’t anything personal, but that doesn’t stop the suffocating feeling. it makes him question his logic, they’ll try to find him right? but he also never thought this would happen. does he even know them? ohh the angst omg
yEAH EXACTLY you get it. he was so unsure at first about his place in hermitcraft but then it truly became his home. in a way where he felt so immensely safe that he never saw this coming.
and he's terrified and this is so very very very bad and. he would hope that they'll try to look for him, right? that they'll come and find him and rescue him? but... how could they?
he is so awfully aware that he didn't share any of his past with his friends. any of this. so how could anybody know where to look for him?
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