#better than those ugly crying baby figurines
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Found these figurines earlier today and I’m so sad that they have the reboot girls on them because I would have 100% bought these:
They’re legit cute! Unfortunately it’s a no for me though. Why do they keep mixing and matching? 😭
Also, because Tumblr is blocking the website I found these on (???), they’re made by Pop Mart. They also made the creepy ugly crying baby toys that I absolutely hate, so I was shocked to see something cute for once.
#weird merch#blossom#bubbles#buttercup#honestly I’m bummed I totally would have gotten them#better than those ugly crying baby figurines#powerpuff girls#ppg
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part thirty-five to this
***
Shizuru will break his fingers if he touches T.K.’s ceramics without her permission, so Hiei settles for pressing his face against the glass of her china cabinet and admiring the rabbits from afar. He counts more than seventy of them.
She’s in a good mood today, so either the cigarette cravings aren’t bothering her or Botan came by and they--
Nope. He refuses to follow that train of thought any further.
Shizuru pushes him aside and opens the cabinet door. “It’s definitely the second thing,” she says. She waggles her eyebrows, because his suffering is her delight.
Fucking psychics.
Shizuru laughs as she pulls out a figurine. “You’re so easy to rile up. I can’t not do it.”
It is, Hiei acknowledges with a heavy heart, a real and personal flaw.
She taps her chin thoughtfully before picking a rabbit from the back. “This is the first one T.K. ever made.”
Hiei politely says nothing.
“Yeah,” Shizuru concedes. “It looks like something out of a nightmare, doesn’t it?” The figurine is disproportioned, with bulging eyes and mismatched ears. It bears more resemblance to something Hiei would see on Makai than a small earth mammal.
It’s exceedingly hideous. “Did he actually give this to your grandmother?”
Shizuru tenderly kisses the rabbit’s nose. “Nope. It wasn’t until their fifth anniversary that he started giving her the ceramics he made. She found the early failures when they were spring cleaning a few years later. The fact that they were ugly as fuck didn’t stop her from absolutely adoring them and demanding the whole set be kept together.” She carefully puts the rabbit back in its place. “Usagi didn’t care much for looks--the heart is what matters.”
Kuwabara is like that. He kept looking for Hiei’s heart, even when Hiei believed he didn’t have one.
She pulls out a different rabbit. “Year nine.” This one is almost photo realistic. The rabbit sits on its haunches, ready to leap out of Shizuru’s hands and into Hiei’s.
“It’s very good.” T.K. must have spent weeks mastering the craft. Failure didn’t stop him from showing his wife how much he loved her. Hiei admires that; the only thing he himself has shown equal dedication to is his swordsmanship.
“That’s not true,” Shizuru says quietly. “You’re a far cry from the little punk my brother got involved with all those years ago. You make it a point to see your sister every week and that Kazuma goes to sleep at a reasonable hour. You had to learn how to let yourself care about people. Don’t you think that shows dedication, too?”
Hiei thinks of the way Kuwabara smiles in the morning, sleepy and satisfied because Hiei is in his bed and they are truly together again. “I want to be better,” he says. “I want--” How to put it into words?
Shizuru tucks him under her arm. She offers him the rabbit to hold. Hiei takes it before she can change her mind. “Usagi was really strong. Physically, I mean. I remember a car broke down outside our house when I was really little. It was this couple and their newborn baby trying to get back home after leaving the hospital. She was...Genkai’s age, maybe? Usagi fed them cookies and tea, listened to their story, and decided that waiting for a tow truck would take too long. She lifted that old clunker by its fender and hauled it three miles to the family’s house--with them in it, mind you.”
If only Hiei could have met her, at least once.
Shizuru picks out another rabbit. It’s bright pink with crescent moons carved up the length of its ears. “Usagi grew up dirt poor. She would literally dig through garbage cans for food because her family couldn’t always afford to feed her. This area was less developed then, practically country. The only work she could find was back breaking stuff: hauling lumber, digging ditches, shit like that. People would laugh her off until she showed them that she could lift a boulder over her head--this is year twelve, by the way. T.K. started moving away from realism towards a more experimental approach.” There’s a set of rabbits dueling each other with a spoon and fork, another rabbit designed to look like it’s made of water.
“Was she a warrior?” Hiei has always found Kuwabara’s raw strength attractive.
“She was a survivor,” Shizuru says. “Although I guess some people would say they’re the same thing.” She points out a rabbit dressed in a school uniform holding a book over its head. “I think some of these figurines are inside jokes between Usagi and T.K. I’m pretty that’s T.K.’s high school uniform.”
“How did they meet?”
Shizuru smiles. “I’ve heard two different stories. You know that creek a couple of blocks east of here? The water barely comes up to your knees--yeah, your knees.” How is it possible that he married into a family of tall people? “Well, there was a sudden rainstorm in Usagi’s day, and that creek turned into a raging river. Usagi’s walking through all of this rain when she sees a man fall into the water. She doesn’t think twice--she dives right in after this guy trying to save him.”
It would be foolish of most humans to attempt such a rescue alone. Of course, he can easily imagine Kuwabara doing the same. “I take it the man was T.K.”
“Oh yeah,” Shizuru says. “The way Usagi described it, the current was like, a minor inconvenience. No tougher than a stiff breeze. T.K., on the other hand, was completely helpless in the water. There wasn’t a doubt in his mind--he would have drowned if Usagi hadn’t rescued him.”
Of course T.K. was devoted to her from that moment on. What do the humans say about such stories? “And then they lived happily ever after.”
“Ha.” Shizuru grins. “Actually, Usagi didn’t remember who T.K. was until he reminded her of it months after it happened. She pulled him out of the river, dumped him on the bank, and when she saw he was alive she continued walking home without even asking his name. You see, T.K. hadn’t been at the creek by accident. He’d been trying to work up the nerve to ask Usagi out for a long time. They were classmates--he also had to remind her of that. Almost dying kind of put a crimp on his plans, but it also made him more determined.”
Kuwabara says he kept his feelings for Hiei a secret for years. There might be a universe where he kept them a secret forever.
“I have never met your grandparents,” Hiei says. “But they have left behind many objects that tell the story of their lives and their love for one another.” He gently places the rabbit figurine with its brethren. “I want to do that for Kuwabara.”
He wants his husband to be bear the proof of Hiei’s love in his hands, and to believe in it unwaveringly, as much as Usagi must have looked at these little ceramic rabbits her husband made and believed.
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Riverbound, Chapter 1
Your name is MSPA READER, and you are currently vibing outside of the known multiverse.
Well, you don’t really use that name anymore, on account of it not actually being a name. Names sound something like Emily, or Muhammad, or Patrick, or Shamita, or a million other put-together syllables and sounds.
Names are something personal. A title is anything but.
You do have a new title, though, one you like much better.
The Guardian.
Because that’s what you became when you yoinked the timeline away from the control of Ultimate Dirk and that Director lady, whoever she was. You looked Canon-With-A-Capital-C in its ugly face, spit on it, and then bent over to wipe your ass with the fabric of reality itself. Out of desperation, love, and most importantly sheer spite, you took it upon yourself to defy fate so that there is at least one timeline where everybody gets to live happy lives. This was victory at its finest. This is what it felt like to finally get everything you wanted. Your friends? Safe. Multiverse? Secure. Hotel? Trivago.
In the vast and rich history of pro-gamer moves, you believe you might have made the most powerful move of all.
After using the Green Sun- no, sorry, the Green Sun to make your own timeline, you did what any other person would do and took a big fuckin’ snooze, curling up around your universe like a mama cat protecting her kittens. You earned it.
And, if you were being completely honest with yourself, that’s how you would have spent the rest of time.
It’s not like you didn’t want to live. No, living was good. It’s just… you were so damn tired. You’re tired of always running from place to place, person to person, era to era. You’re tired of being injured, scared, and alone no matter how many friends you made. All the gods of the Furthest Rings know you’d gone through more in like a year than most people go through during their entire lives. Couldn’t a bitch just enjoy eternity in the void?
Apparently not.
The dreams began innocently enough. Playing video games with Dave, John, and Karkat. Exploring Jade’s island with Jake and Bec. Baking with Jane. Kanaya teaching you and Sollux how to sew. FLARP-ing with Vriska.
Laying side-by-side with Roxy as you two watched the sun rise. Role-playing with Nepeta. Movie night with Eridan. Getting high off your ass with Gamzee and scaring the shit out of some teal visiting their kismesis a few hives away. Discussing politics with Feferi.
Escaping that hellhouse the Soleil twins called their home. Watching those eerie lights in the corpsefield beside Fozzer. You and Remele beating a purpleblood to death.
You barely realize how nightmares had invaded your mind until you woke up with Karako’s yowls of terror in your ears. You didn’t have ears anymore, though, or a physical form, so it just sounded like your favorite clown son was screaming all around you in the abyss.
Okay. This was fine. This was fine, you kept telling yourself. After everything that’s happened to you, you were bound to develop PTSD at some point. That was completely natural.
Except this wasn’t just PTSD. This was something else entirely, because even when you were awake you saw the faces of your oldest friends burning in your mind’s eye. Something churned in your gut, ancient and primal. It was a feeling you knew well, and was usually accompanied by you launching yourself into whatever stupid shit you found next. The longer you tried to ignore it, the stronger it became, until you were permanently wrapped up around yourself like the most pathetic ball of Guardian that had to have ever existed.
You knew long before you actually put words to what was going on.
Of course. Of course it wasn’t over, because why would you ever get to have anything for yourself? Why would you ever get to just rest? For the first time in… who even knows how long, you sob hysterically into the sleeves of your hoodie.
A galaxy twinkles in the outer shell of your universe, lighting up the zig-zag sign on your chest. Mallek’s lazy smile fills your thoughts. If at all possible, everything hurts even more, until you can’t even cry to let out the pain.
Did he miss you? Did all of them miss you?
Oh, God, Daraya. You promised her you’d take her to Earth sometime, and then you just totally fucking vanished from the face of Alternia. What a fucking dick move. Granted, you hadn’t meant to do it, but still!
Your traitor-asshole brain reminds you of the fact that all of them are dead now. As in, Tyzias tried to lead a rebellion against the Alternian Empire, and then they all got killed. Your traitor-asshole brain also notes that it’s all your fault for encouraging those kinds of ideas.
Way to go, you absolute tool.
Except… they don’t have to be gone. You are the Guardian of your universe, and you make the rules. It feels so wrong to even think about it, but… yeah. You’re basically a god now. You can do what you want and nobody has the power to stop you.
Which brings about a whole new plethora of fuckery. If you were to go back, if you were to rewrite history… are you any better than Ultimate Dirk? Granted, you’d do it out of love, not because you’re a power-hungry bastard, but still. Shenanigans of this level are not to be taken lightly, even by sad Guardians with absolutely nothing better to do.
You sleep on it, which of course results in you waking up bawling like a baby as you remember the best roleplay sesh of your life, which was when Wanshi proudly gave your Soldier Purrbeasts OC her full name: Twinklemoon. You had a Soldier Purrbeasts OC named Twinklemoon. That’s why you were crying.
That’s it. You couldn’t stand it anymore.
You need advice, and you know exactly where to get it.
<>
You find her on the 8rigantine, furiously scribbling something down on a chart with a bunch of little figurines in the middle of it. You know better than to just haul your little friendslut ass up there while Vriska Serket is in the zone, so instead you knock on the hull and call up to her.
“Hello! Lady Spinneret, an old friend is in dire need of some advice!”
It takes about two seconds for a familiar spiky head to poke over the side of the deck. Vriska’s one dark eye lights up upon meeting your gaze, followed by a toothy grin that’s both menacing and completely genuine. She reaches back to grab something behind her. A rope ladder drops down and nearly nails you in the noggin, just like it did whenever you dropped by to FLARP with her.
“What the hell, bitch! I missed you!” she yells. Despite everything, you can’t help but smile. Vriska’s wild personality and no-bullshit attitude was just what you needed.
You’re very proud of yourself when you scale the ladder with ease and scramble up onto the deck without getting too much out of breath. With the amount of insane shit you’ve gotten yourself into during your travels, getting into shape came pretty easily. You’ve been told by several reliable sources that your legs are to die for.
“The 8-ball foretold your arrival. I brought snacks.” Vriska points to a bag next to her chart, not looking up from where she was drawing an impressively detailed kraken-looking thing. “Eat something before you start gabbing.”
That was sound logic, so you drag the back closer to you and start rooting around for something good. You find a bag of stinkroot chips, open that bad boy up, and start munching. Damn, did it feel good to eat something, and to also have a corporeal body to eat things with.
As you gather your thoughts, the hairs on the back of your neck prickle with the sensation of somebody’s eyes on you. You instantly look up to see Vriska staring at you. Her expression is blank, but her good eye held all the energy of a thunderstorm.
You swallow your chips. “What is it?”
“You look… different,” she says, setting down her pencil. “It’s like I can really see you now.”
“Huh?”
Vriska huffs, but she still doesn’t take her eye off you. “Before, you kinda looked like… I dunno, like somebody cut out a whole in reality and shoved the silhouette of a person inside? Like, I know what you looked like, but I couldn’t tell you the color of your hair, or what facial structure you have, or, like… dude, you have freckles.”
“I have freckles?” You reach up and touch your cheekbone, feeling the soft skin. Oh, hey, there’s some acne. Dammit. “Are they cute?”
“Sure? I think freckles are more of a human thing, so you’d have to ask John or Jade or whatever. Also you’re blonde, like Rose,” she tells you, thoughtfully scratching at her chin. “You’re still short as fuck, though. I could probably punt you off the poop deck.”
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. Congrats on not looking like a hole in reality.”
You finish off your chips and flop back to stare at the night sky. With all the time you’ve spent on Alternia, you can now name a lot of the constellations. Right now, the Empress’s Trident poked up at a forty-five degree angle behind the pink moon. “I think I know how we can overthrow the Alternian Empire.”
Vriska’s pencil falls out of her hand.
You continue. “Have you read any records on a rebellion that occurred about… like, fifteen sweeps ago? I don’t know the exact date.”
Vriska’s mouth opens and closes a couple of times, and then she nods. “I sure fuckin’ did. Sollux did some of his mumbo-jumbo and got me some documents. He called it an early wriggling day present, but I know he wants to help my little… agenda. How do you even know…?”
“Because I helped encourage the right people to do it. I was there, Vriska. Those kids were my friends, and now they’re dead.”
She’s silent for a moment. “The leader was a teal named Tyzias.”
Your eyes are hot with tears. “I knew her. We met because she tripped on the sidewalk while carrying a shitload of her homework, and I helped her pick it all up when it went everywhere. She had a matesprit named-”
“Stelsa,” Vriska mutters. “Holy shit. She worked closely with some jades who lead their little army. They caused a hell of a lot of damage to the Empire before it all went down, I’ll give them that.”
Neither of you speak for a long moment, which you appreciate as you try and hold your messy self together. The longer you think about your old friends and all the good times you had with them, the more you’re certain about what you want to do.
They deserve to be here.
Your blood pressure spikes just thinking about it.
It’s Vriska who puts your thoughts into words. “You want to go back and help them win the rebellion.”
“Yeah.”
“That’s fucking crazy.”
“Yeah.”
She scooches over to you so she can stare down into your soul. “If we combine our resources and collaborate back and forth between the past and the future, we can make it so less people die. We could even take out that pathetic bitch of an Heiress they had back in the day. With your powers…”
“It’s possible I could compact time itself to create a world where we… where we can make things right. We could even help Feferi…”
You can’t bring yourself to say it in case you jinxed something, but by the look on Vriska’s face, she knows what you mean.
“It could work,” she breathes.
Slowly, you sit back up. Your heart was pounding so hard you felt it in your skull. “How do you think the others would feel about it?”
“Oh, they’d shit themselves,” Vriska snorts. “A full-scale rebellion across time and space?”
“True.”
“But it could work!” she repeats, staring into empty space.
“And they’d have a huge advantage they never had before. Me,” you say, talking to yourself more than to Vriska. You’d created this universe with your own power. It was time to protect it. “Vriska, I need to go before I chicken out. Tell the others what’s happening and that I’m sorry if this all goes to shit.”
“Wait!”
You look back at her as she grabs your arm, claws digging into the fabric of your hoodie. “I… you need supplies. No frickin’ way you’re going anywhere without at least a hydration flask.”
You know what she’s trying to say, and your chest fills up with all the warmth of a bonfire. God, you love this absolute bitch of a kid.
Vriska drags you to your feet, and then you’re both sprinting for her hive.
Amazingly, you don’t die trying to keep up with the cerulean as you charge up the stairs to her respiteblock together. You’re still out of breath by the time you reach the top, though, but Vriska’s already grabbing a backpack and tossing shit into it.
“Get me that jacket off the door,” she orders as she tosses in what looks like a small medical kit. You obey and throw her the jacket, the black leather one with the bright red hood.
She then waves you over, and you slip around her desk to see what’s up. In her hands is a black sheath, with a matching handle sticking out at the top.
Vriska pulls the sheath off to reveal the blade: a brilliant silver-blue metal that nearly glowed in the darkness. It’s incredibly beautiful and very scary to look at.
“I’ve had this thing forever, so I’m giving it to you, okay? Don’t fucking lose it. Press that little gray button at the top of the handle to heat up the blade. Good for starting fires and cauterizing wounds.” She shoves the jacket into the backpack and hands you the dagger.
“Vriska, I don’t know what to say,” you begin, but she smacks you.
“Shut up and strap it to your belt. You better come back soon. I want a detailed report on everything. Single-spaced,” she snaps.
You grin. “Yes, ma’am. I should be back, in like, ten nights. Maybe eleven.”
“Ten,” Vriska growls. “I’m coming for your ass otherwise.”
“Noted. Tell everybody I said hi.”
“Obviously.”
You reach into that little part of yourself, which in turn reaches back out into that chaotic river that is the flow of time. You throw the anchor down and wade upstream. It’s a little rougher than usual, but you won’t let that stop you. There was no turning back now.
Time travel is always like trying to hit a moving target, but you have great aim, and when you find what you’re looking for you feel your face split into another huge smile. There’s nothing different about this part of the river than any other, but you know. When it comes to the people you care about, you always know.
Everything feels more real to you than it has in years. Two moons shine even brighter in the sky, the chilly air stinging your face, and you’re no troll but it still feels like you’re going home.
You open your eyes.
“Ten nights,” you say to Vriska, and you let yourself fall through the current.
Your name is MSPA READER, and you are currently vibing outside of the known multiverse.
Well, you don’t really use that name anymore, on account of it not actually being a name. Names sound something like Emily, or Muhammad, or Patrick, or Shamita, or a million other put-together syllables and sounds.
Names are something personal. A title is anything but.
You do have a new title, though, one you like much better.
The Guardian.
Because that’s what you became when you yoinked the timeline away from the control of Ultimate Dirk and that Director lady, whoever she was. You looked Canon-With-A-Capital-C in its ugly face, spit on it, and then bent over to wipe your ass with the fabric of reality itself. Out of desperation, love, and most importantly sheer spite, you took it upon yourself to defy fate so that there is at least one timeline where everybody gets to live happy lives. This was victory at its finest. This is what it felt like to finally get everything you wanted. Your friends? Safe. Multiverse? Secure. Hotel? Trivago.
In the vast and rich history of pro-gamer moves, you believe you might have made the most powerful move of all.
After using the Green Sun- no, sorry, the Green Sun to make your own timeline, you did what any other person would do and took a big fuckin’ snooze, curling up around your universe like a mama cat protecting her kittens. You earned it.
And, if you were being completely honest with yourself, that’s how you would have spent the rest of time.
It’s not like you didn’t want to live. No, living was good. It’s just… you were so damn tired. You’re tired of always running from place to place, person to person, era to era. You’re tired of being injured, scared, and alone no matter how many friends you made. All the gods of the Furthest Rings know you’d gone through more in like a year than most people go through during their entire lives. Couldn’t a bitch just enjoy eternity in the void?
Apparently not.
The dreams began innocently enough. Playing video games with Dave, John, and Karkat. Exploring Jade’s island with Jake and Bec. Baking with Jane. Kanaya teaching you and Sollux how to sew. FLARP-ing with Vriska.
Laying side-by-side with Roxy as you two watched the sun rise. Role-playing with Nepeta. Movie night with Eridan. Getting high off your ass with Gamzee and scaring the shit out of some teal visiting their kismesis a few hives away. Discussing politics with Feferi.
Escaping that hellhouse the Soleil twins called their home. Watching those eerie lights in the corpsefield beside Fozzer. You and Remele beating a purpleblood to death.
You barely realize how nightmares had invaded your mind until you woke up with Karako’s yowls of terror in your ears. You didn’t have ears anymore, though, or a physical form, so it just sounded like your favorite clown son was screaming all around you in the abyss.
Okay. This was fine. This was fine, you kept telling yourself. After everything that’s happened to you, you were bound to develop PTSD at some point. That was completely natural.
Except this wasn’t just PTSD. This was something else entirely, because even when you were awake you saw the faces of your oldest friends burning in your mind’s eye. Something churned in your gut, ancient and primal. It was a feeling you knew well, and was usually accompanied by you launching yourself into whatever stupid shit you found next. The longer you tried to ignore it, the stronger it became, until you were permanently wrapped up around yourself like the most pathetic ball of Guardian that had to have ever existed.
You knew long before you actually put words to what was going on.
Of course. Of course it wasn’t over, because why would you ever get to have anything for yourself? Why would you ever get to just rest? For the first time in… who even knows how long, you sob hysterically into the sleeves of your hoodie.
A galaxy twinkles in the outer shell of your universe, lighting up the zig-zag sign on your chest. Mallek’s lazy smile fills your thoughts. If at all possible, everything hurts even more, until you can’t even cry to let out the pain.
Did he miss you? Did all of them miss you?
Oh, God, Daraya. You promised her you’d take her to Earth sometime, and then you just totally fucking vanished from the face of Alternia. What a fucking dick move. Granted, you hadn’t meant to do it, but still!
Your traitor-asshole brain reminds you of the fact that all of them are dead now. As in, Tyzias tried to lead a rebellion against the Alternian Empire, and then they all got killed. Your traitor-asshole brain also notes that it’s all your fault for encouraging those kinds of ideas.
Way to go, you absolute tool.
Except… they don’t have to be gone. You are the Guardian of your universe, and you make the rules. It feels so wrong to even think about it, but… yeah. You’re basically a god now. You can do what you want and nobody has the power to stop you.
Which brings about a whole new plethora of fuckery. If you were to go back, if you were to rewrite history… are you any better than Ultimate Dirk? Granted, you’d do it out of love, not because you’re a power-hungry bastard, but still. Shenanigans of this level are not to be taken lightly, even by sad Guardians with absolutely nothing better to do.
You sleep on it, which of course results in you waking up bawling like a baby as you remember the best roleplay sesh of your life, which was when Wanshi proudly gave your Soldier Purrbeasts OC her full name: Twinklemoon. You had a Soldier Purrbeasts OC named Twinklemoon. That’s why you were crying.
That’s it. You couldn’t stand it anymore.
You need advice, and you know exactly where to get it.
<>
You find her on the 8rigantine, furiously scribbling something down on a chart with a bunch of little figurines in the middle of it. You know better than to just haul your little friendslut ass up there while Vriska Serket is in the zone, so instead you knock on the hull and call up to her.
“Hello! Lady Spinneret, an old friend is in dire need of some advice!”
It takes about two seconds for a familiar spiky head to poke over the side of the deck. Vriska’s one dark eye lights up upon meeting your gaze, followed by a toothy grin that’s both menacing and completely genuine. She reaches back to grab something behind her. A rope ladder drops down and nearly nails you in the noggin, just like it did whenever you dropped by to FLARP with her.
“What the hell, bitch! I missed you!” she yells. Despite everything, you can’t help but smile. Vriska’s wild personality and no-bullshit attitude was just what you needed.
You’re very proud of yourself when you scale the ladder with ease and scramble up onto the deck without getting too much out of breath. With the amount of insane shit you’ve gotten yourself into during your travels, getting into shape came pretty easily. You’ve been told by several reliable sources that your legs are to die for.
“The 8-ball foretold your arrival. I brought snacks.” Vriska points to a bag next to her chart, not looking up from where she was drawing an impressively detailed kraken-looking thing. “Eat something before you start gabbing.”
That was sound logic, so you drag the back closer to you and start rooting around for something good. You find a bag of stinkroot chips, open that bad boy up, and start munching. Damn, did it feel good to eat something, and to also have a corporeal body to eat things with.
As you gather your thoughts, the hairs on the back of your neck prickle with the sensation of somebody’s eyes on you. You instantly look up to see Vriska staring at you. Her expression is blank, but her good eye held all the energy of a thunderstorm.
You swallow your chips. “What is it?”
“You look… different,” she says, setting down her pencil. “It’s like I can really see you now.”
“Huh?”
Vriska huffs, but she still doesn’t take her eye off you. “Before, you kinda looked like… I dunno, like somebody cut out a whole in reality and shoved the silhouette of a person inside? Like, I know what you looked like, but I couldn’t tell you the color of your hair, or what facial structure you have, or, like… dude, you have freckles.”
“I have freckles?” You reach up and touch your cheekbone, feeling the soft skin. Oh, hey, there’s some acne. Dammit. “Are they cute?”
“Sure? I think freckles are more of a human thing, so you’d have to ask John or Jade or whatever. Also you’re blonde, like Rose,” she tells you, thoughtfully scratching at her chin. “You’re still short as fuck, though. I could probably punt you off the poop deck.”
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. Congrats on not looking like a hole in reality.”
You finish off your chips and flop back to stare at the night sky. With all the time you’ve spent on Alternia, you can now name a lot of the constellations. Right now, the Empress’s Trident poked up at a forty-five degree angle behind the pink moon. “I think I know how we can overthrow the Alternian Empire.”
Vriska’s pencil falls out of her hand.
You continue. “Have you read any records on a rebellion that occurred about… like, fifteen sweeps ago? I don’t know the exact date.”
Vriska’s mouth opens and closes a couple of times, and then she nods. “I sure fuckin’ did. Sollux did some of his mumbo-jumbo and got me some documents. He called it an early wriggling day present, but I know he wants to help my little… agenda. How do you even know…?”
“Because I helped encourage the right people to do it. I was there, Vriska. Those kids were my friends, and now they’re dead.”
She’s silent for a moment. “The leader was a teal named Tyzias.”
Your eyes are hot with tears. “I knew her. We met because she tripped on the sidewalk while carrying a shitload of her homework, and I helped her pick it all up when it went everywhere. She had a matesprit named-”
“Stelsa,” Vriska mutters. “Holy shit. She worked closely with some jades who lead their little army. They caused a hell of a lot of damage to the Empire before it all went down, I’ll give them that.”
Neither of you speak for a long moment, which you appreciate as you try and hold your messy self together. The longer you think about your old friends and all the good times you had with them, the more you’re certain about what you want to do.
They deserve to be here.
Your blood pressure spikes just thinking about it.
It’s Vriska who puts your thoughts into words. “You want to go back and help them win the rebellion.”
“Yeah.”
“That’s fucking crazy.”
“Yeah.”
She scooches over to you so she can stare down into your soul. “If we combine our resources and collaborate back and forth between the past and the future, we can make it so less people die. We could even take out that pathetic bitch of an Heiress they had back in the day. With your powers…”
“It’s possible I could compact time itself to create a world where we… where we can make things right. We could even help Feferi…”
You can’t bring yourself to say it in case you jinxed something, but by the look on Vriska’s face, she knows what you mean.
“It could work,” she breathes.
Slowly, you sit back up. Your heart was pounding so hard you felt it in your skull. “How do you think the others would feel about it?”
“Oh, they’d shit themselves,” Vriska snorts. “A full-scale rebellion across time and space?”
“True.”
“But it could work!” she repeats, staring into empty space.
“And they’d have a huge advantage they never had before. Me,” you say, talking to yourself more than to Vriska. You’d created this universe with your own power. It was time to protect it. “Vriska, I need to go before I chicken out. Tell the others what’s happening and that I’m sorry if this all goes to shit.”
“Wait!”
You look back at her as she grabs your arm, claws digging into the fabric of your hoodie. “I… you need supplies. No frickin’ way you’re going anywhere without at least a hydration flask.”
You know what she’s trying to say, and your chest fills up with all the warmth of a bonfire. God, you love this absolute bitch of a kid.
Vriska drags you to your feet, and then you’re both sprinting for her hive.
Amazingly, you don’t die trying to keep up with the cerulean as you charge up the stairs to her respiteblock together. You’re still out of breath by the time you reach the top, though, but Vriska’s already grabbing a backpack and tossing shit into it.
“Get me that jacket off the door,” she orders as she tosses in what looks like a small medical kit. You obey and throw her the jacket, the black leather one with the bright red hood.
She then waves you over, and you slip around her desk to see what’s up. In her hands is a black sheath, with a matching handle sticking out at the top.
Vriska pulls the sheath off to reveal the blade: a brilliant silver-blue metal that nearly glowed in the darkness. It’s incredibly beautiful and very scary to look at.
“I’ve had this thing forever, so I’m giving it to you, okay? Don’t fucking lose it. Press that little gray button at the top of the handle to heat up the blade. Good for starting fires and cauterizing wounds.” She shoves the jacket into the backpack and hands you the dagger.
“Vriska, I don’t know what to say,” you begin, but she smacks you.
“Shut up and strap it to your belt. You better come back soon. I want a detailed report on everything. Single-spaced,” she snaps.
You grin. “Yes, ma’am. I should be back, in like, ten nights. Maybe eleven.”
“Ten,” Vriska growls. “I’m coming for your ass otherwise.”
“Noted. Tell everybody I said hi.”
“Obviously.”
You reach into that little part of yourself, which in turn reaches back out into that chaotic river that is the flow of time. You throw the anchor down and wade upstream. It’s a little rougher than usual, but you won’t let that stop you. There was no turning back now.
Time travel is always like trying to hit a moving target, but you have great aim, and when you find what you’re looking for you feel your face split into another huge smile. There’s nothing different about this part of the river than any other, but you know. When it comes to the people you care about, you always know.
Everything feels more real to you than it has in years. Two moons shine even brighter in the sky, the chilly air stinging your face, and you’re no troll but it still feels like you’re going home.
You open your eyes.
“Ten nights,” you say to Vriska, and you let yourself fall through the current.
Your name is MSPA READER, and you are currently vibing outside of the known multiverse.
Well, you don’t really use that name anymore, on account of it not actually being a name. Names sound something like Emily, or Muhammad, or Patrick, or Shamita, or a million other put-together syllables and sounds.
Names are something personal. A title is anything but.
You do have a new title, though, one you like much better.
The Guardian.
Because that’s what you became when you yoinked the timeline away from the control of Ultimate Dirk and that Director lady, whoever she was. You looked Canon-With-A-Capital-C in its ugly face, spit on it, and then bent over to wipe your ass with the fabric of reality itself. Out of desperation, love, and most importantly sheer spite, you took it upon yourself to defy fate so that there is at least one timeline where everybody gets to live happy lives. This was victory at its finest. This is what it felt like to finally get everything you wanted. Your friends? Safe. Multiverse? Secure. Hotel? Trivago.
In the vast and rich history of pro-gamer moves, you believe you might have made the most powerful move of all.
After using the Green Sun- no, sorry, the Green Sun to make your own timeline, you did what any other person would do and took a big fuckin’ snooze, curling up around your universe like a mama cat protecting her kittens. You earned it.
And, if you were being completely honest with yourself, that’s how you would have spent the rest of time.
It’s not like you didn’t want to live. No, living was good. It’s just… you were so damn tired. You’re tired of always running from place to place, person to person, era to era. You’re tired of being injured, scared, and alone no matter how many friends you made. All the gods of the Furthest Rings know you’d gone through more in like a year than most people go through during their entire lives. Couldn’t a bitch just enjoy eternity in the void?
Apparently not.
The dreams began innocently enough. Playing video games with Dave, John, and Karkat. Exploring Jade’s island with Jake and Bec. Baking with Jane. Kanaya teaching you and Sollux how to sew. FLARP-ing with Vriska.
Laying side-by-side with Roxy as you two watched the sun rise. Role-playing with Nepeta. Movie night with Eridan. Getting high off your ass with Gamzee and scaring the shit out of some teal visiting their kismesis a few hives away. Discussing politics with Feferi.
Escaping that hellhouse the Soleil twins called their home. Watching those eerie lights in the corpsefield beside Fozzer. You and Remele beating a purpleblood to death.
You barely realize how nightmares had invaded your mind until you woke up with Karako’s yowls of terror in your ears. You didn’t have ears anymore, though, or a physical form, so it just sounded like your favorite clown son was screaming all around you in the abyss.
Okay. This was fine. This was fine, you kept telling yourself. After everything that’s happened to you, you were bound to develop PTSD at some point. That was completely natural.
Except this wasn’t just PTSD. This was something else entirely, because even when you were awake you saw the faces of your oldest friends burning in your mind’s eye. Something churned in your gut, ancient and primal. It was a feeling you knew well, and was usually accompanied by you launching yourself into whatever stupid shit you found next. The longer you tried to ignore it, the stronger it became, until you were permanently wrapped up around yourself like the most pathetic ball of Guardian that had to have ever existed.
You knew long before you actually put words to what was going on.
Of course. Of course it wasn’t over, because why would you ever get to have anything for yourself? Why would you ever get to just rest? For the first time in… who even knows how long, you sob hysterically into the sleeves of your hoodie.
A galaxy twinkles in the outer shell of your universe, lighting up the zig-zag sign on your chest. Mallek’s lazy smile fills your thoughts. If at all possible, everything hurts even more, until you can’t even cry to let out the pain.
Did he miss you? Did all of them miss you?
Oh, God, Daraya. You promised her you’d take her to Earth sometime, and then you just totally fucking vanished from the face of Alternia. What a fucking dick move. Granted, you hadn’t meant to do it, but still!
Your traitor-asshole brain reminds you of the fact that all of them are dead now. As in, Tyzias tried to lead a rebellion against the Alternian Empire, and then they all got killed. Your traitor-asshole brain also notes that it’s all your fault for encouraging those kinds of ideas.
Way to go, you absolute tool.
Except… they don’t have to be gone. You are the Guardian of your universe, and you make the rules. It feels so wrong to even think about it, but… yeah. You’re basically a god now. You can do what you want and nobody has the power to stop you.
Which brings about a whole new plethora of fuckery. If you were to go back, if you were to rewrite history… are you any better than Ultimate Dirk? Granted, you’d do it out of love, not because you’re a power-hungry bastard, but still. Shenanigans of this level are not to be taken lightly, even by sad Guardians with absolutely nothing better to do.
You sleep on it, which of course results in you waking up bawling like a baby as you remember the best roleplay sesh of your life, which was when Wanshi proudly gave your Soldier Purrbeasts OC her full name: Twinklemoon. You had a Soldier Purrbeasts OC named Twinklemoon. That’s why you were crying.
That’s it. You couldn’t stand it anymore.
You need advice, and you know exactly where to get it.
<>
You find her on the 8rigantine, furiously scribbling something down on a chart with a bunch of little figurines in the middle of it. You know better than to just haul your little friendslut ass up there while Vriska Serket is in the zone, so instead you knock on the hull and call up to her.
“Hello! Lady Spinneret, an old friend is in dire need of some advice!”
It takes about two seconds for a familiar spiky head to poke over the side of the deck. Vriska’s one dark eye lights up upon meeting your gaze, followed by a toothy grin that’s both menacing and completely genuine. She reaches back to grab something behind her. A rope ladder drops down and nearly nails you in the noggin, just like it did whenever you dropped by to FLARP with her.
“What the hell, bitch! I missed you!” she yells. Despite everything, you can’t help but smile. Vriska’s wild personality and no-bullshit attitude was just what you needed.
You’re very proud of yourself when you scale the ladder with ease and scramble up onto the deck without getting too much out of breath. With the amount of insane shit you’ve gotten yourself into during your travels, getting into shape came pretty easily. You’ve been told by several reliable sources that your legs are to die for.
“The 8-ball foretold your arrival. I brought snacks.” Vriska points to a bag next to her chart, not looking up from where she was drawing an impressively detailed kraken-looking thing. “Eat something before you start gabbing.”
That was sound logic, so you drag the back closer to you and start rooting around for something good. You find a bag of stinkroot chips, open that bad boy up, and start munching. Damn, did it feel good to eat something, and to also have a corporeal body to eat things with.
As you gather your thoughts, the hairs on the back of your neck prickle with the sensation of somebody’s eyes on you. You instantly look up to see Vriska staring at you. Her expression is blank, but her good eye held all the energy of a thunderstorm.
You swallow your chips. “What is it?”
“You look… different,” she says, setting down her pencil. “It’s like I can really see you now.”
“Huh?”
Vriska huffs, but she still doesn’t take her eye off you. “Before, you kinda looked like… I dunno, like somebody cut out a whole in reality and shoved the silhouette of a person inside? Like, I know what you looked like, but I couldn’t tell you the color of your hair, or what facial structure you have, or, like… dude, you have freckles.”
“I have freckles?” You reach up and touch your cheekbone, feeling the soft skin. Oh, hey, there’s some acne. Dammit. “Are they cute?”
“Sure? I think freckles are more of a human thing, so you’d have to ask John or Jade or whatever. Also you’re blonde, like Rose,” she tells you, thoughtfully scratching at her chin. “You’re still short as fuck, though. I could probably punt you off the poop deck.”
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. Congrats on not looking like a hole in reality.”
You finish off your chips and flop back to stare at the night sky. With all the time you’ve spent on Alternia, you can now name a lot of the constellations. Right now, the Empress’s Trident poked up at a forty-five degree angle behind the pink moon. “I think I know how we can overthrow the Alternian Empire.”
Vriska’s pencil falls out of her hand.
You continue. “Have you read any records on a rebellion that occurred about… like, fifteen sweeps ago? I don’t know the exact date.”
Vriska’s mouth opens and closes a couple of times, and then she nods. “I sure fuckin’ did. Sollux did some of his mumbo-jumbo and got me some documents. He called it an early wriggling day present, but I know he wants to help my little… agenda. How do you even know…?”
“Because I helped encourage the right people to do it. I was there, Vriska. Those kids were my friends, and now they’re dead.”
She’s silent for a moment. “The leader was a teal named Tyzias.”
Your eyes are hot with tears. “I knew her. We met because she tripped on the sidewalk while carrying a shitload of her homework, and I helped her pick it all up when it went everywhere. She had a matesprit named-”
“Stelsa,” Vriska mutters. “Holy shit. She worked closely with some jades who lead their little army. They caused a hell of a lot of damage to the Empire before it all went down, I’ll give them that.”
Neither of you speak for a long moment, which you appreciate as you try and hold your messy self together. The longer you think about your old friends and all the good times you had with them, the more you’re certain about what you want to do.
They deserve to be here.
Your blood pressure spikes just thinking about it.
It’s Vriska who puts your thoughts into words. “You want to go back and help them win the rebellion.”
“Yeah.”
“That’s fucking crazy.”
“Yeah.”
She scooches over to you so she can stare down into your soul. “If we combine our resources and collaborate back and forth between the past and the future, we can make it so less people die. We could even take out that pathetic bitch of an Heiress they had back in the day. With your powers…”
“It’s possible I could compact time itself to create a world where we… where we can make things right. We could even help Feferi…”
You can’t bring yourself to say it in case you jinxed something, but by the look on Vriska’s face, she knows what you mean.
“It could work,” she breathes.
Slowly, you sit back up. Your heart was pounding so hard you felt it in your skull. “How do you think the others would feel about it?”
“Oh, they’d shit themselves,” Vriska snorts. “A full-scale rebellion across time and space?”
“True.”
“But it could work!” she repeats, staring into empty space.
“And they’d have a huge advantage they never had before. Me,” you say, talking to yourself more than to Vriska. You’d created this universe with your own power. It was time to protect it. “Vriska, I need to go before I chicken out. Tell the others what’s happening and that I’m sorry if this all goes to shit.”
“Wait!”
You look back at her as she grabs your arm, claws digging into the fabric of your hoodie. “I… you need supplies. No frickin’ way you’re going anywhere without at least a hydration flask.”
You know what she’s trying to say, and your chest fills up with all the warmth of a bonfire. God, you love this absolute bitch of a kid.
Vriska drags you to your feet, and then you’re both sprinting for her hive.
Amazingly, you don’t die trying to keep up with the cerulean as you charge up the stairs to her respiteblock together. You’re still out of breath by the time you reach the top, though, but Vriska’s already grabbing a backpack and tossing shit into it.
“Get me that jacket off the door,” she orders as she tosses in what looks like a small medical kit. You obey and throw her the jacket, the black leather one with the bright red hood.
She then waves you over, and you slip around her desk to see what’s up. In her hands is a black sheath, with a matching handle sticking out at the top.
Vriska pulls the sheath off to reveal the blade: a brilliant silver-blue metal that nearly glowed in the darkness. It’s incredibly beautiful and very scary to look at.
“I’ve had this thing forever, so I’m giving it to you, okay? Don’t fucking lose it. Press that little gray button at the top of the handle to heat up the blade. Good for starting fires and cauterizing wounds.” She shoves the jacket into the backpack and hands you the dagger.
“Vriska, I don’t know what to say,” you begin, but she smacks you.
“Shut up and strap it to your belt. You better come back soon. I want a detailed report on everything. Single-spaced,” she snaps.
You grin. “Yes, ma’am. I should be back, in like, ten nights. Maybe eleven.”
“Ten,” Vriska growls. “I’m coming for your ass otherwise.”
“Noted. Tell everybody I said hi.”
“Obviously.”
You reach into that little part of yourself, which in turn reaches back out into that chaotic river that is the flow of time. You throw the anchor down and wade upstream. It’s a little rougher than usual, but you won’t let that stop you. There was no turning back now.
Time travel is always like trying to hit a moving target, but you have great aim, and when you find what you’re looking for you feel your face split into another huge smile. There’s nothing different about this part of the river than any other, but you know. When it comes to the people you care about, you always know.
Everything feels more real to you than it has in years. Two moons shine even brighter in the sky, the chilly air stinging your face, and you’re no troll but it still feels like you’re going home.
You open your eyes.
“Ten nights,” you say to Vriska, and you let yourself fall through the current.
#hiveswap#homestuck#riverbound#c1#MSPA reader#The Guardian#Vriska Serket#Hiveswap Friendsim trolls#pesterquest
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Two magical sisters texting, Part 1
Under readmore for length (sorry mobile users)
Nadia: Hey, Elisi! Just got your card! Thank you so much, it’s really funny and touching. Always thinking of you, your sister, Nadia.
Elisi: Hi, sis! Good to hear from you. Glad you got the card okay. How’s the store doing these days?
Nadia: Oh, can’t complain. Getting the usual crowds in now that school is winding down for the summer. Are you still a warden for the national parks? How has that been lately?
Elisi: Just for Noatak. It’s been fine, yet another decline in wildlife. The snow’s all melted, so we should be seeing birds and elk and all the usual suspects, but it’s been really quiet in the basin. Nothing that hasn’t happened before.
Nadia: Maybe noone’s come out of hibernation yet?
Elisi: We don’t have much that hibernates. Some rabbits, foxes, and weasels. Saw plenty of those at the first snow melt. And there’s tons of fish, plants and berries, so the ecosystem isn’t hurting any. So I know the herds didn’t move from lack of food.
Nadia: Hmm. Well, you’re the expert. If it’s happened before, then there shouldn’t be anything to worry about.
Elisi: Yep yep
Elisi: Did you get birthday wishes from anyone else?
Nadia: It’s still two weeks away, so no.
Nadia: How is the family doing?
Elisi: Great! Grandbaby hatched a month ago!
Nadia: Congradulations!
Elisi: ((picture of a newborn Krampus troll, fuzzy, black, yellow eyes open like a cat that just saw the red dot))
Nadia: So this is great x16 grandbaby?
Elisi: Eh, I don’t bother with that stuff anymore. It’s just a grandbaby from now on.
Nadia: Grannie!
Elisi: Shush
Nadia: Grannie, grannie, sixteen generations removed!
Elisi: Hey, it wasn’t that long! Stop making me feel old!
Nadia: Great
Nadia: Great
Nadia: Great
Nadia: Great
Elisi: Stop
Nadia: Great
Nadia: Great
Elisi: I’ll block your number
Nadia: Hee hee
Elisi: Anyway, pic was of Orsan. You really should come by and visit everyone before they forget you again.
Nadia: It’s been so long, I don’t think I know anyone at your house anymore.
Elisi: Fol is still here. He still remembers you.
Nadia: I remember Fol. Give him hugs and kisses for me.
Elisi: Will do
Elisi: Brb, gotta make dinner.
Nadia: Ah, so do I. Let’s chat later.
Elisi: Yep yep. Talk to you later.
(A day later)
Nadia: Hi, Elisi! You free?
Elisi: Sure. What’s up?
Nadia: One of my customers gave me a birthday present!
Elisi: Really? That’s cool. What’s the title?
Nadia: Actually, it’s a figurine they painted. It’s really well done; I didn’t think anyone in town painted sculptures at all.
Elisi: Oh, cool! So, is it going in your shop?
Nadia: Yep! Lemme take a picture.
Elisi: (laughing emoji face) Need me to tell you how?
Nadia: No, I got it. One sec.
Nadia: ((picture of a small statue, lined up next to three dictionaries for reference. It’s a four legged, furry animal with a fox-like face, bulging eyes, and two tiny antlers sticking from behind it’s mouse like ears. It has four clawed feet and a furry tail with a large bushel of fur at the very end. It’s colored in pinks and greens, and given a glossy sheen.))
Nadia: The eyes weird me out a little, but it looks like a fey creature. It’s very creative! What do you think?
(There’s no response from Elisi for five minutes.)
Nadia: Elisi? Are you there?
Elisi: That looks just like the small statues I’m finding around the park, and around town. Most of them are broken, but I recognize that head. Where did the kid say they found it?
Nadia: I didn’t ask. I just assumed they made it or bought it from a store.
Elisi: I found three broken ones around the park by the river. And when I came into town, I saw some kids playing with some intact ones. I ask where they got them, and they insisted they made them. Their grandpa had more.
Nadia: Maybe it’s a popular thing on the Internet? Alora knows about that kind of stuff.
Elisi: Maybe?
Elisi: If it is, someone’s littering, and I don’t tolerate that in my park.
Nadia: How were the ones you found painted as?
Elisi: They weren’t painted yet. They’re just rock. Still. Not appreciating this.
Nadia: Well, if my customer comes back, I’ll ask about it. I’m sure it’s a silly internet thing. I’ll ask Alora.
Elisi: Sure.
Elisi: And again, happy early birthday!
Nadia: Thank you!
(Same day)
Nadia: Hey, Alora, are you busy?
Alora: Not for my favorite sister. How’s you?
Nadia: Good. A customer gave me an early birthday present!
Alora: Wait. Birthday?
Alora: Shit. I forgot you changed it again. I’ll get you something.
Nadia: Aw, that’s okay.
Nadia: ((sends the picture of her statue))
Alora: (laughing while crying emoji) OMG WTF even IS that?
Nadia: You don’t know?
Alora: Nope. Why, what is it?
Nadia: One of the kids said they painted it for me. I showed it to Elisi and she said she’s finding these statues everywhere at work and in town.
Alora: Huh. Haven’t seen or heard of anything like that.
Alora: The colors are awful. Those buggy eyes are killing it for me.
Alora: Like someone tried to make a jackalope having never seen one before.
Alora: Or made the unholy baby of a jackalope and the word’s smallest furry Godzilla.
Alora: ...
Alora: This would probably meme up a storm in the right place.
Nadia: Okay, okay, I get it.
Alora: It’s like
Alora: Steward Little had sex with the Geiko gecko.
Nadia: STOP!
Alora: (laughing emoji) Okay, okay.
Nadia: It was a gift, so it’s still going in my shop.
Alora: Is it ceramic? The colors are too dull to be ceramic.
Nadia: No, it was heavy. I think it’s solid rock.
Alora: Huh. Actually, that’s a little weird. I’ve painted ceramics and sculptures in my day, and I can tell you that either one is time consuming. Sculptures, well, you gotta chip away the rock carefully to get the right shape. That level of detail probably took months! I mean, look at the fur! Is that all carved or a painting technique?
Nadia: Oh, it was all solid, not painted that way. So, that must have been carved too.
Alora: You said it was one of the kids? The school kids that’s in your store all the time?
Nadia: Yeah.
Alora: High school?
Nadia: Yes. Why?
Alora: That’s a lot of dedication and skill for a high schooler. Wouldn’t it be easier to make a ceramic figure? Than carve solid rock?
Nadia: Arcadia is a weird town. I wouldn’t put it past someone to make this a hobby. The kids here aren’t on such tight schedules as you might think.
Alora: Alright. But the thing is just ugly.
Alora: I’m gonna take a picture of it when I visit and put it on the internet. And make you internet famous.
Nadia: Ugly statue woman?
Alora: I can do better.
Alora: Frograt.
Nadia: It doesn’t look like a frog.
Alora: Dose eyes.
Alora: Frograt.
Nadia: It doesn’t look like a rat either.
Alora: Frograt.
Nadia: Oh, do whatever you like.
Alora: I’ll split the earnings with you.
Nadia: How much do memes make?
Alora: If you plan everything out carefully with copywrites, it’s a wealthy $0
Nadia: Oh you!
Alora: Seriously, I’ll come visit after summer, if you don’t come visit first.
Nadia: Sounds like a plan to me.
Alora: Which one?
Nadia: You coming to visit. I’m not really a beach person.
Alora: Fine, fine. I’ll swing by in Sept.
Nadia: Yes!
Alora: Gotta go, lots of beach stuff to do.
Nadia: Alright, I’ll talk to you later.
Alora: When you talk to Elisi again, let her know that I still wanna punch her in the face.
Nadia: What?! Why?!
Alora: It’s a running gag. Don’t worry. (laughing emoji)
Nadia: Oh, okay.
Nadia: Have a good one, Alora.
Alora: TTYL
(Two days later)
Alora: (sends a picture of a similar creature statue, curling in fear of something, uncolored)
Alora: Nadia
Nadia: What is that?
Alora: Found this and three others like it on the beach. We need to talk.
Nadia: Why? What’s wrong?
Alora: This is K-Spar.
Alora: This is a troll.
Nadia: That
Nadia: Doesn’t look like any troll I’ve seen before
Alora: You said Elisi saw a bunch like these at her park?
Nadia: Yes
Alora: Have you found any?
Nadia: No, just the one given to me.
Nadia: Is something going on?
Alora: I don’t have Elisi’s number. Can you give it to me so I can talk to her about this?
Nadia: Why?
Alora: Hunch.
Nadia: Okay. I’ll try to find any info I can on this.
Nadia: So these statues are tiny, dead trolls?
Alora: There’s no mistaking the texture. This one looks like it got a face full of sunlight.
Alora: Are you telling Mother War that she doesn’t know what a dead troll looks like?
Nadia: No, I just want to be certain.
Alora: Me too.
Alora: Calling Elisi now, thanks Nadia.
Nadia: I wish you well. I’ll try to research what I can. Talk to you soon.
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Oh shit we can submit holiday shit? Boi I’m gonna request what you think the RFA+V+Searan (spelled that wrong) would do with MC for a Christmas Date before she goes to have celebrate with her family by her own (say they haven’t been dating for long enough to meet the family)
A/N: I hope this is okay for you, love
Masterlist~
*YOOSUNG:
-HEWANTS TO DECORATE A TREE WITH YOU
-Evenif it’s small. Or you won’t be there on Christmas with him to see it. He stillwants it
-Thinksdecorating it together is the most important part of the tree anyway
-Causethe two of you get to pick and choose what goes on, where, and you get tocompromise and work things out
-All soyou can combine two images of the perfect tree into one
-Andit’s! All! Yours! No one else’s! No one can tell either of you how to decorateit because it is his definition of perfection~
-Seriouslythough, like he takes a ton of pictures of the two of you decorating it too, hewants to make a small Christmas scrapbook
-Picturesof you hanging an ornament, pictures of you stringing the lights as the shineon your face /just/ right, goofy pictures of the two of you posing in front ofthe tree
-Andespecially sets his phone on a timer to get a picture of him holding you up toput the star on top of the tree! That’s the most important part and he /has/ todocument the two of you working together to do it
-Excepthe’s clumsy. You’re clumsy. The two of you fall over. The tree topples over.Ornaments are flying and the two of you are screeching. The camera got apicture of it mid-action. He’s embarrassed but loves the picture because itdescribes the two of you, and your holiday, perfectly
*ZEN:
-Tisthe season for some carols, fa la la la la, la la la la
-Hebundles you up in one of his coats, a scarf, and even one of his hats and takesyou out caroling
-Becausehe wants to lowkey show off his voice for you, but it’s nothing new. You likeit though so you just let him go for it~
-Atsome point in the night though? It turned? Into a competition among the angels
-Thetwo of you fought for singing dominance until he couldn’t take it anymore andbroke down, complimenting you and praising you like crazy because?? He lovesyou so much
-Athome, the two of you attempt to write each other carols
-Yaknow, to show your love! Sing about your burning passion and love for eachother, he’ll melt
-Thetwo of you agree not to tell the others because it’s really sappy but he can’thelp but record yours, and you can’t help but do the same for him as well
-Youjust gotta hope Saeyoung doesn’t get a hold of it
-He does.
*JAEHEE:
-“MC,Santa isn’t real. You’re an adult.” “We can still makecookies!!!!!”
-Holidaycookies!
-Youactually planned the date, to decoration tons of cookies
-Thekitchen is decked out in sprinkles, candies, different flavours and colours offrosting, all of it
-Handingher a huge box of different shaped cookie cutters, she’s amazed you’ve takentime and effort to put all of this together
-Shemakes the batter while you run from her and her wooden spoon because you keep/eating/ the batter
-But youmake cookies specifically for her, she does the same, and the both of you workon making cookies for everyone else as well!
-Sheloves glancing over and seeing how determined you are to get the frostingright, how your face lights up in delight when you’ve finished one, or when youscrunch your nose up because you have to sneeze from getting flour all overyour face
-She’sjust very happy to get this time with you, and she wouldn’t have it any otherway. Well, except one thing.
-Shewishes you didn’t get flour across the entire kitchen.
*JUMIN:
-He’sactually got the chillest date of them all planned
-Hejust wants to sit with you, all day, and watch every Christmas movie known toman
-Okayat least the really popular ones. He had no need to watch them, but people keepmaking references that he doesn’t understand and he’s tired of it
-So hemeets you in the living room with a horrid cat Christmas sweater. You laugh.You laugh /hard/. You’re on the ground. Rolling. He’s very concerned.
-Once you’vesettled down though, he’s got a matching one for you, and you have to just biteyour tongue to keep from laughing. The sweater’s surprisingly warm??
-He hadhis chef make tons of Christmas desserts and snacks, and the two of youmindlessly nibble on them all during the movie marathon
-He’llask you to explain a lot of things in the movies. What’s so important about thelamp shaped like a woman’s leg? Why is this green furry man stealing all theChristmas things? Why is this child’s Christmas tree literally just a stick?
-Like acomplete c h i l d. He’s constantly moving. Switching positions. Laying acrossyou. On the floor. DIRECTLY IN FRONT OF THE TV.
-Buthe’s absolutely adorable and it’s hard not to love it. The way he looks at youwith child-like excitement over the next movie, the bright smiles he’sconstantly shooting your way, what an adorable man
-Exceptwhen he wasn’t paying attention and sat on the table. On top of some of thedesserts. You laughed until you fell off the couch but he just sat there, deadpanlook on his face. He couldn’t even begin to accept the fact that he sat on thefood. What an idiot
*SAEYOUNG:
-Hepicks you up in one of his babies, but of /COURSE/ he’s got those ridiculouscar decorations with the reindeer antlers and large nose
-Hewon’t blast any Christmas music because he hates it, actually, he dislikesChristmas in general. But with you around and his brother back, it isn’t asbad. So he decided it couldn’t hurt to celebrate a bit!
-Takesyou to a ton of different stores so the two of you could find the /perfect/ugly sweaters for each other
-Saidhe was okay celebrating a little more for Christmas this year, right? Liar.
-So,instead, you try your best to distract him instead. With your ugly sweaters on,you initiate an all out snowball /WAR/
-Thisgoes on for hours, relentlessly. You’ve called a truce, or so you’ve thought.
-In theblink of an eye, you’re tackled into a snow bank- now the owner of a hole theshape of the two of you
-Thetwo of you make snow angels, decorating the others with a halo or puttingpinecones where the eyes should be
-You’reboth completely soaking wet. And cold.
-Youcall him from your family’s home the next day, cursing him out for getting yousick. He’s on the other end of the phone, laying halfway off the couch, with acold just as bad as yours.
*JIHYUN:
-One ofthe best dates for him has to be just relaxing at home with you, but you wantedto be festive before you had to go to your family’s house!
-So yousettle on decorating the house!
-Helooks at the amount of boxes you brought over, he was honestly in shock. Howcan one person have so many decorations for just one holiday?
-He’shelping you hang up stockings, place figurines on shelves, hanging up handmadepaper snowflakes!
-Can’thelp but snap a few pictures on his phone of you stringing the lights becausethey’re just such a soft white and against your face, they (and you!) areabsolutely breathtaking.
-It’shis new favourite photo and is sure to print it out once you leave and frame it
-Justwhen he thought everything had been either placed or hung up, he came acrossthe last box that had a little something extra in it
-With asoft song in his tone, he calls for you to turn around. Looking up, you see himholding mistletoe over the two of you, and a bright, goofy smile on his face
-Youcup his face with both of your hands, giving him one of the softest kisseseither of you have had before, and he, nor you, could ask for anything betterthan that
*SAERAN:
-Hewasn’t one to make a big deal of things in the first place, like holidays andthings
-But hedid want to go see lights and decorations
-So thetwo of you bundled up (you even talked him into sharing a large scarf!) andwalked down several heavily decorated streets
-Heloved stopping in front of each house, taking his time to look at everydecoration and trying to get into the mind of the decorators- why did they pickthere? Why did they put that one up instead of another? Why that colour?
-Buthis favourite part was watching your eyes light up, your smile stretching fromear to ear, the way your whole being just shines like a star when you’re happymakes his heart flutter
-Takesnotice of your favourite decorations, combination of lights, everything. He’slooking at the houses but his analytical mind is on you.
-Laterthat night, he calls you outside to look at the front of the house, and theresat all of your favourites over the night, strategically set up in the bestviewing positions, him standing in front of it all with the biggest grin on hisface
-Hefreaks out though because you start crying? Why are you crying? Was he wrong?Fuck, he picked the wrong ones, didn’t he?
-Placeshis hands on your cheeks as you wrap your arms around him, smiling through thetears that fell. You told him this was one of the sweetest things anyone hasdone for you, and the absolute best date you’ve ever had in your life. Hekisses your forehead and tells you that he just wanted to do something to makeyou happy
-Butnow he’s decided it’s been enough happiness. It’s 3 am, it’s cold, and hisdumbass gave you his coat. It’s time for bed.
#request#mysme#mystic messenger#mm#mysmes#mysme writing#mystic messenger writing#mysme headcanons#mystic messenger headcanons#mysme hcs#mystic messenger hcs#mystic messenger scenarios#mysme scenarios#mystic messenger reactions#mysme reactions#mystic messenger imagines#mysme imagines#yoosung#mysme zen#jaehee#jumin#saeyoung#jihyun#saeran#mysme christmas
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5 Sucky Things That Suck On Purpose
This may come as a surprise, but I like it when things don’t suck. In fact, I would say that I devote 80 percent of my efforts toward avoiding suckage. Sadly, though, I can’t control the actions of others, and I won’t ever be able to until The Device is perfected. But until then, some people make shitty things, and the rest of us have to deal with it. And while we can comfort ourselves with the knowledge that everyone makes mistakes as we eat a pizza which inexplicably arrived topped with double olives and pineapple, there’s no solace in the knowledge that some people do shitty things entirely on purpose. On that note, here are five terrible things which people made fully knowing that they’d be terrible.
5
The Google Glass Battery
If you were sober or literate in 2013 and 2014, you may have had to endure the deluge of tech profiles and extremely not-boring thinkpieces on Google Glass. If you could not in fact read or legally drive in 2013 and 2014, Google Glass was basically Google’s answer to the question “What’s a super expensive piece of shit I can intrusively wear on my face which will obscure my vision and make anyone around me fearful that I’m videotaping them like some kind of creeper?” You know, a question that we’ve all asked.
While most of us immediately dismissed Glass as being about as appealing as a herpes scab parfait, there were naturally a few fans who couldn’t wait to be the dollar store version of Geordi LaForge. But even amongst those die-hard tech fluffers, there was a clear issue: Glass had a battery that sucked like a leech in the coldest recesses of the vacuum of space.
The battery life of Google Glass clocked in at around 45 minutes, meaning that you had just enough time to stream yourself watching one episode of Young Sheldon and then crying about it afterwards before it shut off. Google tried to explain this away as an intentional design feature that was actually beneficial and not an example of a battery assembled by a one-eyed guy in an flea market who smells like cats.
According to Google, your cellphone is just a dangerous espionage device constantly listening to you from your pants pocket and maybe sending all that sweet, sweet pants gossip back to Samsung or the Kingsmen or whoever the fuck cares what you’re doing. So in an effort to heroically protect you from filthy spies, Google intentionally made a shitty battery so that the New World Order agents will only be able to watch half of your masturbation session before they’re left hanging. Suck it, dickholes! You’ll never know how this one ends!*
*Hastily, with a climactic yawp.
4
Low-Quality Viral Commercials
In 2011, the internet was blessed with one of the worst commercials for a taxidermy business that anyone had ever seen. I say this not as a connoisseur of taxidermy ads, but as a logical human being. Also, do taxidermy places really need commercials? What more needs to be said, other than “Hey! Do you like wolves, but hate the bitey, movey kinds?”
youtube
This commercial for Ojai Valley Taxidermy featured the one-two punch of Chuck Testa’s taxidermy skill and acting, and made us all fall in love with the stuffed corpse of a coyote and the overall awfulness of the entire experience. It was poorly made, clearly cheap, and its only redeeming quality was that all of the badness made it charming as hell. Chuck Testa became an internet hero. And it was all bullshit.
Testa is just one of many viral commercial stars made famous for being in videos often shared as “the worst commercial I’ve ever seen.” One commercial for a mall from 2014 featured employees singing a jingle that sounded like a cross between 3 a.m. barf-in-your-own-shoe-drunk karaoke and a cat stuck in a well. It sucked large, and people went nuts about it.
youtube
For a local business trying to drum up some attention, you have two options: Legitimately make a forgettable, boring, low-budget commercial which blandly explains whatever you’re trying to sell, or roll the dice on potentially going viral by making an abomination. Create such an abysmal crime against advertising that the sun refuses to shine when the video is playing and birds immediately stop singing and synchronize-shit on your car. Make it so bad that everyone immediately shares it with everyone they know. And then your craptastic commercial becomes an internet sensation.
They say people are ten times as likely to share a bad experience with a business than a good one. People like to complain more than they like to praise, probably because if something goes right, it fits in with your expectations and is therefore unremarkable. It’s only when things go wrong that you get worked up and make a stink over it. So when you see a commercial that damn near offends you with its utter fuckshittery, you’ll share that monstrosity with everyone. And that’s exactly what they want.
3
Web Brutalism
When I first got the internet in my house as a kid, we got a state-of-the-art, badass, lightning-fast 56k modem. I could download an MP3 in like ten minutes, and sometimes an entire dirty picture would load up before something went buggy and the poor woman was cut off at the knees. And seven out of every ten websites looked like a low-res My Little Pony pony ralphed cotton candy and Four Loko across a small-town church bulletin board.
As time passed, we all grew up and became better people with better websites. Dancing baby GIFs gave way to interstitial ads and Flash videos. Designs that looked like they were made by a guy with vinegar in his eyes working in the dark faded away, and sleek, professionally designed mega porn sites took their place. It was a great time to be alive. Or so we thought, because I guess people got sick of things that don’t look like shit and Web Brutalism was born.
If the terribly cheesy name didn’t give it away, Web Brutalism is a kind of artsy shitsy internet aesthetic. You purposefully make your website look like the south end of a northbound horse. Ugly, disorganized graphics, shockingly off-putting colors, a veritable dumpster of design techniques shat out onto a screen — if your site doesn’t look a fourth-grader’s glue and cardboard collage, you’ve failed.
A classically bad website was designed on Angelfire by your aunt who collects figurines of Jesus playing sports when she wanted to do something to commemorate her love of beat poetry. Some links were unclickable, images didn’t quite line up right, and it had charm in the same way your macaroni artwork had charm to your mom, who never told you that it looked like shit because she loved you. By the way, your macaroni art looked like shit. It’s cool, though, mine looked like the shit that shit takes after eating shit sandwiches. And somehow, someone decided a forced version of that was a good idea.
Web Brutalism seeks to make a website harder to navigate and uglier to look at than a fine, upstanding site, like the one you’re currently enjoying. Why? The answer is best summed up in this quote I heard from a guy in a bar once: “Fuckin’ because.”
2
Bioware’s Female Designs
Back in the day when I had an NES, there were basically two female characters you could name across the spectrum of video game characters: Princesses Peach and Zelda, and I don’t even think Zelda was actually in her game. But I did beat Super Mario Bros. 2, and Peach helped a brother out on that one, so yeah, you could say I’m like a video game feminist or some such. Which is why Bioware’s curious history with female characters is such a headscratcher.
Bioware makes some pretty impressive-looking games, like Mass Effect, and the character designs are amazing. There is a definite problem with some of them, though, insofar as that amazingness is in how straight up nuts-on-a-donkey ugly they are.
When Mass Effect: Andromeda was released, fans were quick to notice that the male version of the player character, Ryder, looks super badass and cool and almost exactly like the male model who lent his likeness to the game designers. The female version of Ryder looks like the model if you rolled her in a sack of sadness and didn’t let her sleep for four days while feeding her a straight diet of CHUD.
Twitter
So why, if you have the ability to render characters in a way that makes them look like not vaguely emotive ballsacks, would you make your character look like a vaguely emotive ballsack? This one requires a bit of creative tinkering in the ol’ thinky bag, but it does make sense. Female characters in gaming, as you may be aware, have a bit of a lackluster history in terms of realistic representation. After Princess Peach, the next big name in lady characters was Lara Croft, who was at first presented as polygonal boobs on blocks, and then later as well-vectored boobs on well-vectored short pants. And thus began a tradition of most video game women being little more than boobs and confusion. So maybe Bioware makes their female characters less appealing on purpose so as to not be considered sexist or douchey.
youtube
Bioware has never come out and said they’ve made purposefully ugly characters. They have acknowledged abhorrent animation issues and terrible facial expressions which they set to work on fixing, but fans were all pretty convinced that there had to be more behind the distractingly objectionable visages of the female characters. As noted gamer nerd and feminist Lisa Kerzner argues in her video, it looks an awful lot like Bioware put considerable effort into downplaying the character’s face to make her more of an ugmo hero type (but just in the face), while trying to pawn it off as a technical limitation. Despite the fact that numerous other games can feature women who don’t look like victims of barnyard mad science, including a lot of Bioware’s previous games.
Unfortunately, dealing with matters of sex, sexism, and gender in video games is like opening a bag of cat shit lined with explosive squibs right in your damn face. If you recall anything to do with Gamergate, you know this is ground no one wants to tread on, so you almost can’t blame Bioware for not saying jack shit about it, as you don’t want to feed any trolls. But at the same time, when it’s obvious that they can make a nearly identical male character, there’s clearly a reason they’re not putting that same kind of effort into their females.
1
Scam Email Grammar
Usually when I send emails, I spell the multi-syllable words incorrectly and use grammar that’s about as fucked as a friction-burnt Fleshlight. But that’s my own bugaboo to deal with, and has little-to-no bearing on the world of scam email.
The odds of you having never received a Nigerian scam email are slimmer than Slender Man’s weird dick, which I’ll tell you about sometime if you buy me a few beers. But for the sake of the kids in the audience who are reading this on the wall I inscribe all my articles on and have never received email before, a Nigerian scam email is a poorly worded piece of fuckery that shows up in your inbox claiming to be from some African prince who has millions of dollars tied up in banks overseas, and if you could just help pay some transfer fees, you can keep a buttload of it!
Typically, these emails use terrible grammar and atrocious spelling, not because the person sending you the email is a blithering idiot, but because they need you to be so gullible that you believe a Wakandan prince personally sent you a one-way ticket to being a millionaire, and he typed the message with a greasy turkey leg in his hand while riding a homemade roller coaster.
Most of us can identify a scam email right away. Another subsection of people will be suspicious but interested. And an even smaller division will write back to test the waters. The scammers want nothing to do with any of those people. They want the person who immediately responds with their bank account number in the signature line, because they only want to deal with people who may have mistaken a ham bone for Tony Danza more than once in their lives. So don’t be too proud if you recognize right away that someone sent you a weak as shit attempt at ripping you off; they just didn’t want you to waste their time.
Ian’s Twitter is awesome on purpose. Go look.
Does Troll 2 suck on purpose? Find out for yourself, and go down the rabbit hole of recommendations like Samurai Cop and more!
Read more: http://ift.tt/2gTq5jG
from Viral News HQ http://ift.tt/2AazPyt
via Viral News HQ
0 notes
Text
5 Sucky Things That Suck On Purpose
This may come as a surprise, but I like it when things don’t suck. In fact, I would say that I devote 80 percent of my efforts toward avoiding suckage. Sadly, though, I can’t control the actions of others, and I won’t ever be able to until The Device is perfected. But until then, some people make shitty things, and the rest of us have to deal with it. And while we can comfort ourselves with the knowledge that everyone makes mistakes as we eat a pizza which inexplicably arrived topped with double olives and pineapple, there’s no solace in the knowledge that some people do shitty things entirely on purpose. On that note, here are five terrible things which people made fully knowing that they’d be terrible.
5
The Google Glass Battery
If you were sober or literate in 2013 and 2014, you may have had to endure the deluge of tech profiles and extremely not-boring thinkpieces on Google Glass. If you could not in fact read or legally drive in 2013 and 2014, Google Glass was basically Google’s answer to the question “What’s a super expensive piece of shit I can intrusively wear on my face which will obscure my vision and make anyone around me fearful that I’m videotaping them like some kind of creeper?” You know, a question that we’ve all asked.
While most of us immediately dismissed Glass as being about as appealing as a herpes scab parfait, there were naturally a few fans who couldn’t wait to be the dollar store version of Geordi LaForge. But even amongst those die-hard tech fluffers, there was a clear issue: Glass had a battery that sucked like a leech in the coldest recesses of the vacuum of space.
The battery life of Google Glass clocked in at around 45 minutes, meaning that you had just enough time to stream yourself watching one episode of Young Sheldon and then crying about it afterwards before it shut off. Google tried to explain this away as an intentional design feature that was actually beneficial and not an example of a battery assembled by a one-eyed guy in an flea market who smells like cats.
According to Google, your cellphone is just a dangerous espionage device constantly listening to you from your pants pocket and maybe sending all that sweet, sweet pants gossip back to Samsung or the Kingsmen or whoever the fuck cares what you’re doing. So in an effort to heroically protect you from filthy spies, Google intentionally made a shitty battery so that the New World Order agents will only be able to watch half of your masturbation session before they’re left hanging. Suck it, dickholes! You’ll never know how this one ends!*
*Hastily, with a climactic yawp.
4
Low-Quality Viral Commercials
In 2011, the internet was blessed with one of the worst commercials for a taxidermy business that anyone had ever seen. I say this not as a connoisseur of taxidermy ads, but as a logical human being. Also, do taxidermy places really need commercials? What more needs to be said, other than “Hey! Do you like wolves, but hate the bitey, movey kinds?”
youtube
This commercial for Ojai Valley Taxidermy featured the one-two punch of Chuck Testa’s taxidermy skill and acting, and made us all fall in love with the stuffed corpse of a coyote and the overall awfulness of the entire experience. It was poorly made, clearly cheap, and its only redeeming quality was that all of the badness made it charming as hell. Chuck Testa became an internet hero. And it was all bullshit.
Testa is just one of many viral commercial stars made famous for being in videos often shared as “the worst commercial I’ve ever seen.” One commercial for a mall from 2014 featured employees singing a jingle that sounded like a cross between 3 a.m. barf-in-your-own-shoe-drunk karaoke and a cat stuck in a well. It sucked large, and people went nuts about it.
youtube
For a local business trying to drum up some attention, you have two options: Legitimately make a forgettable, boring, low-budget commercial which blandly explains whatever you’re trying to sell, or roll the dice on potentially going viral by making an abomination. Create such an abysmal crime against advertising that the sun refuses to shine when the video is playing and birds immediately stop singing and synchronize-shit on your car. Make it so bad that everyone immediately shares it with everyone they know. And then your craptastic commercial becomes an internet sensation.
They say people are ten times as likely to share a bad experience with a business than a good one. People like to complain more than they like to praise, probably because if something goes right, it fits in with your expectations and is therefore unremarkable. It’s only when things go wrong that you get worked up and make a stink over it. So when you see a commercial that damn near offends you with its utter fuckshittery, you’ll share that monstrosity with everyone. And that’s exactly what they want.
3
Web Brutalism
When I first got the internet in my house as a kid, we got a state-of-the-art, badass, lightning-fast 56k modem. I could download an MP3 in like ten minutes, and sometimes an entire dirty picture would load up before something went buggy and the poor woman was cut off at the knees. And seven out of every ten websites looked like a low-res My Little Pony pony ralphed cotton candy and Four Loko across a small-town church bulletin board.
As time passed, we all grew up and became better people with better websites. Dancing baby GIFs gave way to interstitial ads and Flash videos. Designs that looked like they were made by a guy with vinegar in his eyes working in the dark faded away, and sleek, professionally designed mega porn sites took their place. It was a great time to be alive. Or so we thought, because I guess people got sick of things that don’t look like shit and Web Brutalism was born.
If the terribly cheesy name didn’t give it away, Web Brutalism is a kind of artsy shitsy internet aesthetic. You purposefully make your website look like the south end of a northbound horse. Ugly, disorganized graphics, shockingly off-putting colors, a veritable dumpster of design techniques shat out onto a screen — if your site doesn’t look a fourth-grader’s glue and cardboard collage, you’ve failed.
A classically bad website was designed on Angelfire by your aunt who collects figurines of Jesus playing sports when she wanted to do something to commemorate her love of beat poetry. Some links were unclickable, images didn’t quite line up right, and it had charm in the same way your macaroni artwork had charm to your mom, who never told you that it looked like shit because she loved you. By the way, your macaroni art looked like shit. It’s cool, though, mine looked like the shit that shit takes after eating shit sandwiches. And somehow, someone decided a forced version of that was a good idea.
Web Brutalism seeks to make a website harder to navigate and uglier to look at than a fine, upstanding site, like the one you’re currently enjoying. Why? The answer is best summed up in this quote I heard from a guy in a bar once: “Fuckin’ because.”
2
Bioware’s Female Designs
Back in the day when I had an NES, there were basically two female characters you could name across the spectrum of video game characters: Princesses Peach and Zelda, and I don’t even think Zelda was actually in her game. But I did beat Super Mario Bros. 2, and Peach helped a brother out on that one, so yeah, you could say I’m like a video game feminist or some such. Which is why Bioware’s curious history with female characters is such a headscratcher.
Bioware makes some pretty impressive-looking games, like Mass Effect, and the character designs are amazing. There is a definite problem with some of them, though, insofar as that amazingness is in how straight up nuts-on-a-donkey ugly they are.
When Mass Effect: Andromeda was released, fans were quick to notice that the male version of the player character, Ryder, looks super badass and cool and almost exactly like the male model who lent his likeness to the game designers. The female version of Ryder looks like the model if you rolled her in a sack of sadness and didn’t let her sleep for four days while feeding her a straight diet of CHUD.
Twitter
So why, if you have the ability to render characters in a way that makes them look like not vaguely emotive ballsacks, would you make your character look like a vaguely emotive ballsack? This one requires a bit of creative tinkering in the ol’ thinky bag, but it does make sense. Female characters in gaming, as you may be aware, have a bit of a lackluster history in terms of realistic representation. After Princess Peach, the next big name in lady characters was Lara Croft, who was at first presented as polygonal boobs on blocks, and then later as well-vectored boobs on well-vectored short pants. And thus began a tradition of most video game women being little more than boobs and confusion. So maybe Bioware makes their female characters less appealing on purpose so as to not be considered sexist or douchey.
youtube
Bioware has never come out and said they’ve made purposefully ugly characters. They have acknowledged abhorrent animation issues and terrible facial expressions which they set to work on fixing, but fans were all pretty convinced that there had to be more behind the distractingly objectionable visages of the female characters. As noted gamer nerd and feminist Lisa Kerzner argues in her video, it looks an awful lot like Bioware put considerable effort into downplaying the character’s face to make her more of an ugmo hero type (but just in the face), while trying to pawn it off as a technical limitation. Despite the fact that numerous other games can feature women who don’t look like victims of barnyard mad science, including a lot of Bioware’s previous games.
Unfortunately, dealing with matters of sex, sexism, and gender in video games is like opening a bag of cat shit lined with explosive squibs right in your damn face. If you recall anything to do with Gamergate, you know this is ground no one wants to tread on, so you almost can’t blame Bioware for not saying jack shit about it, as you don’t want to feed any trolls. But at the same time, when it’s obvious that they can make a nearly identical male character, there’s clearly a reason they’re not putting that same kind of effort into their females.
1
Scam Email Grammar
Usually when I send emails, I spell the multi-syllable words incorrectly and use grammar that’s about as fucked as a friction-burnt Fleshlight. But that’s my own bugaboo to deal with, and has little-to-no bearing on the world of scam email.
The odds of you having never received a Nigerian scam email are slimmer than Slender Man’s weird dick, which I’ll tell you about sometime if you buy me a few beers. But for the sake of the kids in the audience who are reading this on the wall I inscribe all my articles on and have never received email before, a Nigerian scam email is a poorly worded piece of fuckery that shows up in your inbox claiming to be from some African prince who has millions of dollars tied up in banks overseas, and if you could just help pay some transfer fees, you can keep a buttload of it!
Typically, these emails use terrible grammar and atrocious spelling, not because the person sending you the email is a blithering idiot, but because they need you to be so gullible that you believe a Wakandan prince personally sent you a one-way ticket to being a millionaire, and he typed the message with a greasy turkey leg in his hand while riding a homemade roller coaster.
Most of us can identify a scam email right away. Another subsection of people will be suspicious but interested. And an even smaller division will write back to test the waters. The scammers want nothing to do with any of those people. They want the person who immediately responds with their bank account number in the signature line, because they only want to deal with people who may have mistaken a ham bone for Tony Danza more than once in their lives. So don’t be too proud if you recognize right away that someone sent you a weak as shit attempt at ripping you off; they just didn’t want you to waste their time.
Ian’s Twitter is awesome on purpose. Go look.
Does Troll 2 suck on purpose? Find out for yourself, and go down the rabbit hole of recommendations like Samurai Cop and more!
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