#but eh. colour coding them was easier.

[transformer-hardlyknowher]

So, I still haven't watched the third season of earthspark, but apparently Starscream has a tea party with the chaos terrans corpses?

So obviously I had to fix that. One big, very silly, very evil, family!

Version without the text:

[kaylinalexanderbooks]

OC interview

Thanks @mysticstarlightduck here!

Rules: answer the questions in the POV of an OC!

This time, I'm feeling Liam!

Are you named after anyone?

“Yes, I am. I made sure of it. Liam is an extremely common name, see, I've met a million of them. Liam could be referring to any number of Liams, and you would never know which one. Besides, now in certain situations I must be called Beaumont, which I just think sounds cool.”

When was the last time you cried?

“Pfft. I don't cry often. Sure, there's, like, a psychological reason for why doing it is healthy, but I just find myself in situations that don't call for it. When you need a good pathos, sure, being able to cry on the spot is an extremely good skill that I have. Crying isn't something I usually do when I'm upset. I try to stay focused on the facts to craft my argument. So the last time I cried was for my AV club. We were filming a commercial. It had puppies.”

Do you have kids?

“Oh, absolutely not. There are a million reasons, seemingly, why. First: I'm barely eighteen. Second: I'm not quite sure I want any of my own to begin with. Many different personal reasons I would much rather not get into right now. Third: not only the last two, but I'm going off to college next fall. Do you think I'm gonna have time to raise a kid? Nah. If it's to be, I'm going to wait until after graduation. Then I'll reassess where I am in life.”

Do you use sarcasm a lot?

“It depends on who I am talking to. I love sarcasm. Use it when I can. However, I've found that being blunt works better for others. Saying what you mean has a more effective, direct approach that clears up any potential misunderstanding. On the other hand, sarcasm is an effective tool to use as humor or to throw an opponent or challenger off-guard. It can be a gotcha moment. It can piss people off, ruffle some feathers, if you will. You understand my point, I assume. Sarcasm is a tool that must only be used when appropriate and should never go to waste.”

What’s the first thing you notice about people?

“... I notice everything about them. Their posture, where their eyes are, hands are, everything I can, I analyze. Why? It makes talking to them a lot easier. I bet Wade said 'general vibe', and I'd have to say that is a correct assessment of what there is to notice first. I need to know how to talk to people. How to approach this conversation.”

What’s your eye colour?

“Green. Objectively the best choice for myself. I have a very...eh, Sam would call it a 'naturalistic aesthetic.' What she means is that my color palette consists of colors associated with nature. Brown hair and green eyes help that, I presume. It fits with my 'vibe' so to speak. I would love to argue that assigning aesthetics is a little ridiculous, I do enjoy general color theory.”

Scary movies or happy endings?

“Who the hell decided these were opposites? Aliens is horror and it has a technically happy ending with four characters alive and well. I'm ignoring the next movie. This is absolutely ridiculous. I'm sorry, as a film student--or someone on track to be--this is stupid. Who wrote this question? Tragic endings or happy endings. Scary movies or feel-good movies. Technically, one could be both. Die Hard, for example, is pretty intense but gives the 'warm fuzzies' at the end. Nothing is binary except computer code. This is ridiculous. I consider myself to be a highly opinionated person, but I'm not sure I could debate either side of this. My opinion is this question is stupid, and I uncharacteristically refuse to answer.”

Any special talents?

“I can edit. Very well. Would like to edit YouTubers' vids. Generally good at cinematography and vision. Apparently I can also turn anything into an argument. Speaking of which, what defines a special talent? What makes you special? Everyone is 'special in different ways' but what is special? Some may consider my argumentative streak to be a special talent, but some may just think it's an annoying personality trait or psychological issue that I need to seek help to treat. Or is it actually healthy? I argue it's both. And what is a talent? Something we are natural at, or something that we became good at? A mix of both?”

Where were you born?

“Bit invasive. Earth. Narrowed it down to Alium or Ceteri. Which Earth? You decide.”

Do you have any pets?

“I have a cat named Beans and a dog named Macie.”

What sort of sports do you play?

“Unless arguing or debate is a sport, I do not play any. I say debate counts. It requires a good offense and a good defense. Strategy. Approach, follow through, anticipating movements. You get it.”

How tall are you?

“About 170 centimeters or 5'7. Some call me short but on Alium I'm neither short nor tall. Next to Sam I feel tiny but then I'm next to someone like Tyler and I feel much better about myself.”

What was your favourite subject in school?

“Uh, debate. I would debate you on that, but I think you get the point. Other than that, film classes and computer science are the best classes I have ever taken.”

What is your dream job?

“I want to be a filmmaker so bad. I want to direct and boss people around. I want to be a cinematographer or an editor. I want someone to use my movie as a good, ideal example in film school. I want to write my own script. See my film premiere on the red carpet. Cast all-stars, nepo babies, and fresh blood. I want it all. Call me ambitious, but I could rock this industry.”

Other Liam: questionnaire

Other interviews: Wade, Jazlyn, Gwen, Lexi, Carla, Carmen, Maddie

Tagging @somethingclevermahogony @badluck990 @theprissythumbelina @talesofsorrowandofruin @loopyhoopywrites

Blanks below the cut!

Are you named after anyone? When was the last time you cried? Do you have kids? Do you use sarcasm a lot? What’s the first thing you notice about people? What’s your eye colour? Scary movies or happy endings? Any special talents? Where were you born? Do you have any pets? What sort of sports do you play? How tall are you? What was your favourite subject in school? What is your dream job?

[irrfahrer]

The flowers Ziv told Cayne to pick were small and of a light green colour. When he reached for them the small flower heads closed its petals and leaned away like small scared mice. “Vegetarian? -then pup, you are already the kriffing perfect botanic student. I bow before our perfection-”, playfully she dropped a dramatic little curtsey in all good humor before Cayne. Only to have her broken rip protest promptly, making her shot up straight suddenly and hissing like a snake: “ Kriff, I hate this -”, She grimaced, showing her razorsharp teeth until she had fought down the pain again, and pressed out from between clenched jaws: “You know,I can not even kriffing taste most of the stuff I am growing for people due to my biology, most fruits and vegetables taste like I am licking kriffing sand. Carnivorous tastebuds and all that kriffery, you know. It would make things a lot of kriffing easier for me if I could actually eat what I am already growing, especially when it comes to staying on a plant to terraform alone for months or years, but eh, things are as they kriffing are, so what-kriffing-ever.” She motioned the other to follow her along the narrow beaten paths, while the small flowers thin, little roots curled around Caynes fingers; gently holding to him.

“A song? See, kriffing perfect botanist, as I said it before. Plants kriffing love the vibration a voice leaves in the air, especially when ist melodic on certaine frequenzes. The tree that bears those silver fruits would not have fruits until I would not everyday sit at its foot and kriffing purr for half an hour while leaning against the treetrunk. I would kriffing laugh about it, if it wouldn't be so kriffing annoying. You got the potential, now we only need to fill that head of yours with the pretty little fitting botany facts-”

There was a noise above the glassdome that was the biodoms roof and Zivs head suddenly snapped up, pale ears jolted up like an alerted animal. For a second she looked up into the blue sunlight falling like water inside the dome, listening keenly, wondering if the pirates had returned. The young forest around her was quiet, holding its breath along with her. Then slowly, when nothing followedand quietness started to droop back into the dome and Ziv breathed out before she turned back to Cayne: “...I am just...probably just nervouse, no need to kriffing worry.”

In the shadow of a young tree with blue leafs that seemed to glow like sapphires in the azure sunlight was standing an old metalcontainer in which harvestmachines were transported. At the side was a electric pad in which the Tynnan swiftly entered a code so the door swung open with a creaking noise that hurted in the ears: “The cuddly flowers are good to be prepared as a healingsalve I already have some prepared, but I will show you how you can start your first batch yourself so you can do that on your own. Also this one is perfect as a ground-cover plant when you start to cultivate an area, its saving water in the soil and filtering poisons out of the ground to prepare the ground for bigger plants in some years. Also they only open their flowers when they do not catch any vibratons, so when you are bored you can sit between them and look how long you manage to sit without moving until they open their flowers. One of my teacher called that meditaive, I call it kriffing boring, but what-kriffing-ever.Yeh, I know years sound kriffing long but thats how terraforming and growing stuff works.”, years were probably for Ziv a lot of longer than for Cayne,not that the Tynnan knew that. Yet in the long days she spended alone on different plants with only the rustling of leafs in her ears and every other sentient life millions of miles away, those years felt especially long,especially lonely, especially silent: “Like This is only one of three biodomes I had set up at the same time on this planet and which between I am rotating regulary. When the atmosphere and growth becomes steady in them, I will widen the domes reach step by step by making them bigger and eventually close them together to one in which than settlers can live in.”

“Pass me the flowers, I will start to pluck off the petals and you get that white metal barrel from inside. Its closed, but you will still smell it before you see it. Also get me one of the pots with animalfat and one barrel with water for you to start with the flowers preperation. Then maybe you can tell me why you are so intrested in terraforming.” huffing quietly the Tynnan sat down on the red grass , grabbed inside her collar, pulled out a potato- peeler and without another word started to peel the silver skin of the fruit to collect the peel on her lap.

Caynes feet on the ground did not made any sound because he did not walked like someone with feet would walk, Ziv heard. Caynes scent and the pheromones were not read by Ziv on the others state of mind or physical health, because he did not used the pheromones that a body like his would usually emit, Ziv smelled.

Caynes movements did not left the vibrations in the Tynnans Vibrassea, as someone of their size would usually do, Ziv felt.

The Tynnan with the naturally horrible bad eyesight did not needed to see the others hand glitching into a tentacle and back to a humanoid illusion, to know that there was something very wrong about her visitor. She never trusted her eyes anyway. Also Ziv did not cared.

They were here to learn and Ziv was more than willing to help and support anyone who was willing to learn. Also Ziv liked to show her gardens.

Teaching and learning, especially about healingherbs and terraforming as topics to help people, was never bad, in fact, it was the most noble thing one could do as a teacher. So whatever or whoever her visitor was,was not important. Also Ziv loved teaching and Cayne was willing to be teached. 

Too overly dramatically to be serious in the slightest, Ziv placed a small paw on her chest and gasped theatralically from between sharp teeth: “That you say when honey is the best kriffing antiseptic you can find at any planet where there are some kind of bee-relative? The poor kriffing sugar, what a kriffing bad name you give it! How could you!” The Tynnan managed to keep up the dramatic facade for exactly one more second, before she wriggled her fluffy ears like a humanoid would wriggle their eyebrows, wildly enough to make her earpiercing plink. Carefully she turned around, holding the fruit in one of her small paws:

“I am joking, don´t worry.You are right, yeh, sugar is not exactly the best thing to put on a kriffing injury, but what we will use from this fruit is not the sweet fruitflesh, but the silver peel. What the tree does to keep insects away from the fruitflesh that is to support its seeds, are chemicals and enzyms that work poisonous for the insects on the trees homeplanet. But as it is often, its the amount of the Kriffey that makes the poison and in our case its poisonous enough to kill bacteria in an injury and keep it clean, but not poisonous enough to actually hurt me by entering my body through the open injury.I mean,I know I am a tiny kriffer and you are-” she looked up to Cayne, then down at them and tilted her head to the side with a smile that showed the sharp ends of her carnivorous teeth. The Tynnan did not said anything about the height of the others disguise, because in a dark part of her mind she knew it was a disguise like a small animal would instinctive know a coming but yet not seen stormwave would drown it and could never be survived or stopped by anything the small animal could ever do, but the humor was still in her voice: “...-Well. I and you are for sure bigger than the insects that bite on the trees homeplanet into the peel, so that poison is not enough to actually hurt us. The kriffing opposite, actually. Also, have you ever eaten the fruitflesh I mean, I have to look out for what I eat, so its kriffing sharp no for me because 90% of my diet is kriffing blood, bonemarrow and flesh, but when you are already here I could actually let the fruit be eaten and enjoyed instead of using the fruitflesh as compost.” Ziv turned around, cheeped quietly and held a free paw to her side where the sudden movement stabbed a flash of pain from a broken rip into her torso, before, taking deep breaths for a few seconds. she forced the pain down and continued on the narrow, beaten path. Although her voice sounded a little more flat than before and her movements were heavier: “Come along, pup. There is still another herb to get and then I show you how you can prepare those, yeh? Small steps and small beginnings and all that Kriffery. ”

[ @visceratorn​ ]

[fondnesses]

roscoe’s notebook post

A while back I said I was going to write a post about the way I use notebooks for writing projects. This is the first of several posts about Writing Process I’ve been tossing around in my drafts for a little while as a result of conversations with friends, so bear with me.

I. Love. Notebooks. I genuinely would have to deeply overhaul my whole Process of writing anything on the longer side if I were to go paperless; I find physical paper pretty invaluable when I’m outlining, brainstorming, and researching, and I still probably write ¼-⅓ of all my actual content on paper first. (That proportion used to be a lot higher, but I’ve gotten better at being productive on a computer in recent years, which is great.) I’m a very visual person, so notebooks really help me visualize my ideas, story structure, etc. It’s very helpful to be able to use arrows and diagrams and physically strike things through, and the tactility is really soothing to me. If I show people my notebooks or talk about them, I often get a response like “this is so organized”, which is sort of true, but I have to stress that it’s “organization for a disorganized mind”; I can’t misplace ideas or notes if it all goes into the same physical object, vs. electronic notes, which are much more, like “Did I say that in a voice memo? PM it to myself on Discord? Leave it in a desktop sticky note? Write it directly into the Google Doc? Who knows! It’s lost to time!”. It’s very much an ADHD management strategy.

It helps that I’m a very neophyte stationery hobbyist and appreciate any excuse I have to use my pens, but I also will go off at any opportunity about how helpful I find them for writing projects, which is why I decided to just make a post about it. Right now I mostly use them for (fan and original) fiction projects, but I used a notebook for a very similar purpose when I was working on my undergrad thesis, and I have a slightly different but equally necessary-to-me approach to notebooks I use at work.

My typical structure for a notebook that’s devoted to one project only looks like this:

I always leave the first couple pages blank so I can go back and retroactively index bujo-style. I don’t always actually do the index, because sometimes I get too lazy, but I like having those blank pages there to give me the option. I also usually put epigraphs/inspo quotes on the first page.

After that, there’s often (but not always, I’ll talk about it) a couple pages at the start where I’m frantically jotting down loose brainstorming ideas before they've coagulated into a story structure. Just, like, vomiting into the void.

Stemming out of that, I usually write out about like 5-10 pages of outline-style notes in chronological order, laying out all the main story beats and charting out the story trajectory. This will inevitably get revised and rewritten many times, but I find the process of writing these wide-angle synopses really useful for dislodging ideas, making connections re: thematic threads, etc. from my brain.

I’ll devote a couple pages after that to specific things like "sex scene brainstorming", "random scene ideas/minor details that don't have a clear place in the outline right now but I'll turn to for inspo later" [this is what I refer to as “bits” in one of the later photos], "page where I just outline the Motifs And Themes", "research notes", "to-do list", "stuff to check on a second pass", "things to put in the a/n and AO3 tags", etc.--the specifics vary with the story.

Then, I skip ahead to approx. halfway through the notebook and cordon off the rest of the pages to be “free writing” space, AKA writing of actual content rather than planning, with the expectation there will be no internal organization and I’ll transcribe to laptop as I go. Writing on paper feels less binding than typing something on a computer; it’s like a little secret kept with myself, and it doesn’t need to go anywhere or be seen by anyone if I decide I don’t like it. Setting aside pages in the back half of the notebook means that, as more things come up re: planning, I can go back and add those in the rest of the pages that were intentionally left blank. This is how I avoid (for the most part) having the whole thing be a jumbled mess where there’s no separation between the notes and the actual story writing; I learned this the hard way via the first notebook I’ll show you in a second. I’ve recently gotten really into using Muji sticky note tabs to label any pages/sections of particular import that don't want to have to refer back to in the index and would rather just flip to instantly.

I do use notebooks that aren’t specific to any one project, but those are much less organized and less worth sharing.

Before I look at more recent stuff, here are some selections from my notebook for the project that got me into writing longfic, my Golden Kamuy canon divergence AU (with apologies for the bad photos, my phone’s camera is trash). I worked on this from Sept 2018-July 2019. It was a learning experience in a lot of ways, and notebook utilization was one of those. I’ve always used notebooks for keeping track of writing projects, as I said earlier, but before this it was largely without much organization or structure; just total chaos. Having a physical notebook became really important for this project because it was a sprawling multichapter story with rotating POVs and a lot of historical research. I also learned a lot about what not to do with a notebook, personally, or at least things that don’t work so well (for me). This was a college ruled spiral-bound Decomposition Book, for the record.

By the time I bought a notebook for it I already had a (very basic) plot outline in mind, so I wasn’t doing that very initial ground-zero brainstorming in here; I was copying out of my phone’s notes app, basically, and then going from there. 

This is one of the first pages in this notebook; I wanted to visualize the relationship web between the four central characters in the story in terms of how they feel about one another. The two colours correspond to the POV characters (Sugimoto in orange, Ogata in pink), and I used this colour-coding throughout the notebook with highlighters, etc. to keep track of information that was more relevant to one character than the other. Tsurumi and Yuusaku aren’t POV characters, but they’re prominent in the story and their presence impacts the central relationship between Sugimoto and Ogata, and it was helpful to me to map out the emotional ecosystem, as it were.

(There are coffee stains all over this, because I wrote the vast majority of the story in coffee shops because I didn’t want to be around my roommates, lol. This is part of why I never do fiction writing in notebooks that are too nice, I get neurotic about needing to keep them tidy. I can’t use ones that are too shit though, either, so it’s a bit of a narrow window. I’ll talk more about brands and paper quality etc. later.)

As you can see, this is the first page of many I set aside specifically for jotting down different pieces of historical information relevant to my story. It’s about fictional characters who are members of an army division that existed in real life, and both the canon and my fic involve a high level of attention to detail with regards to which divisions were present for which battles, etc., as well as general historical details specific to the Russo-Japanese War setting--what did people eat in the trenches? What did they do to fill time? How did they get through the winter? What did third party observers have to say about the conditions? What were the specs of their weaponry (particularly important because one of the POV characters is a sniper and gun nut)? I did a lot of reading (and watching of antique gun collector Youtube videos... the things I do for love, eh), and it came in handy so many times, because it turns out it’s much easier to write trench warfare slice of life if you have factual details to pull from when you don’t know what to do with a scene! Imagine that!

This is the first of three “grid outlines” I made; this is a way I sometimes like to visualize a story outline all on one page, with the columns representing chapters and the squares within the columns representing sections/scenes within the chapters. As you can see, early on I was hoping to get this done in five or even FOUR chapters (whatmakesyouhaha.mp3), with POV switches happening internally within the chapters. This proved to be unwieldy for many reasons, so I revised the outline:

Here I’d come to terms with the fact this story was going to have a lot more chapters than I’d planned, and I rearranged things so that it would happen in ten, with each chapter belonging to only one POV character. This also needed revising later, and in the end the story looked a bit more like this (though it did in fact end up being twelve chapters, but only because Chapter Ten was like, 12k, and needed to be split in two chunks):

I must have remembered to bring my fineliners to the coffee shop this time, lol, because as you can see it’s properly colour-coded this time. This outline was made when I was already four posted chapters into the fic, which hopefully gives you a sense of the way in which I am sort of a planner and a pantser; I can’t get into a longer project without an outline, but the outline inevitably changes many times throughout writing and I often end up with a finished product that looks pretty different from what I was intending. My creative M.O. as always is Do The Maximum! Amount! Of! Work! Possible!

This is what a “free writing” page looks like, for me. In this notebook I didn’t set aside any specific spaces for free writing so it’s strewn throughout the notebook in a really disorganized way and I was constantly flipping through looking for bits I’d written and forgotten to transcribe, and I decided to be more organized in future as a result of that. If something’s crossed through, that means I transcribed it. As you can see, they’re often small sections, sometimes just a coupled decontextualized sentences. About 3/4 of what I write in a notebook makes it into the story, I’d say; some of it never goes anywhere, and that’s OK. I have less of an issue killing my darlings if they never make it off the paper page.

A very brief, top-down chapter outline, where the goal was not to get too bogged down in details and just to visualize the beats and pin down what they’re trying to accomplish. Chapters for this fic typically ran about 6k, and five or six scenes per chapter was pretty common, so the average scene length was about 1-1.25k words/scene. IDK why I called it storyboarding when I didn’t make drawings. (Margin numbers are to keep track of word count, since I was using a daily word count tracker while writing this.)

This page was, as titled, for keeping track of the various balls in the air when I was about 2/3-3/4 of the way through the story and really feeling the pressure with regards to tying up the various loose ends. This was... a struggle. I hadn’t ever written anything longish (this fic ended up just under 70k) that had an action plot before, let alone a canon divergence scenario where I had to engage with and explain away various canon plot elements so I could maintain the audience’s suspension of disbelief.

Now, I mentioned earlier that I learned various “things not to do” with my notebooks while working on that project. One of those lessons I learned is to be more realistic when assessing how big a project is likely to get, not least because I RAN OUT OF PAGES around the chapter 9-10 mark. In my defense though, that’s because I’d never written anything even half this long! But I know better now, and try not to be in denial. Finishing the notebook early was a way bigger problem than I’d anticipated, and was part of the reason the last few chapters took several grueling months to finish. The issue was that I needed to be able to use a notebook to maintain my workflow--attempting to do it only on a computer was dismal--but it seemed silly to start a notebook of a similar size to the one I’d finished (80pg, approximately B5 dimensions) when there was no way it would need that much space, especially since the reference pages, like the historical notes, didn’t need to be transcribed over. I was also pretty broke at the time and didn’t want to spend money unnecessarily, lol. I tried to get by using a Moleskine Cahier for a month or so because I had one lying around, but it was horrid; it was too small to be used comfortably, it wasn’t spiral-bound so it wouldn’t lay flat, the ghosting is terrible and I hate the way Moleskine paper feels, etc. Eventually I caved and went to Muji and bought a 30ish page A5 with closer to lay-flat binding, and I finished the story in there. I would take a comparative pic for you of the relative notebook sizes and include some of the scene staging diagrams, etc. I put in there, but I can’t find it :(

So I learned that specs really do matter, and it’s okay to be picky if the pickiness is going to make the difference between actually using a notebook or not. Things that are important to me in my notebooks:

Ruling (gotta have ruling, I can suffer through grid but blank or dot is a no-go)

Size (I can’t use anything smaller than at least a medium-large notebook, I find it claustrophobic and get miserly about page space)

Binding (twin ring is my preference because it looks and feels better than a classic spiral but has the same comfort of use with regards to bending the pages back to suit workspace size and laying flat with ease)

Paper quality and colour (I don’t like anything too slippery/smooth or with too much visible ghosting, and I strongly prefer an off-white paper to bleached paper--part of why I don’t use Decomposition Books anymore, the paper is scratchy and it’s too damn bleached!)

Pagecount relative to size of project

Portability (in non-COVID times; anything bigger than a B5 wouldn’t fit in the satchel I used to bring to work at my old job), etc.

But everyone’s taste is different in this respect, and the only way to figure out what works for you is through trial and error, I’m afraid. I also suspect I’m more neurotic and particular about the sensory experience of using a notebook than most people are, but I yam what I yam.

Now to talk about the notebooks for my current projects, where I’ve refined my approach somewhat. I’ve included less photos for these because they’re ongoing WIPs I don’t want to spoil completely, but I’ve tried to include some outline-type stuff to give you an idea.

My big bang fic is in the very ugly twin ring notebook on the right; I got it at a dollar store by my house because I needed something to work in and didn’t want to wait for an online order, but it’s been very serviceable for my needs. The paper isn’t even bad. The bigger notebook (B5) is my Sangcheng fic.

I wanted something with a lot of pages for this, because I knew it was going to be a long story, and for some reason the fact it’s smaller than my usual preference doesn’t bug me (I think it’s an A5?); it just fits this story, somehow. I’m not sure exactly how many sheets are in here but I’d guess about 150.

Because this notebook has upwards of 100 sheets, I made a lot of use of sticky-note tabs to label high-priority pages. The colour coding of these doesn’t mean anything, it was just whichever ones I had at hand at any given moment. These are those tabs from Muji I mentioned, I’m really obsessed with them--the shape makes them so much less obtrusive and more practical than conventional squares/rectangles OR flag shapes, IME.

My big bang story is nonlinear, so, similarly to what I did with colour coding for the two POVs for my GK fic, this story has two main colours corresponding to whether a given section takes place in the “before” or the “after” portions of the timeline, with blue as “after”, yellow as “before”. This is what the most current version of the outline looks like in there:

If you squint, you can see the alphanumeric notes in the top right of each section entry; I gave them each a code like “A3″ or “B5″ corresponding to their position in the story sequence (so, it goes A1, B1, A2, B2, etc., through to B9 and then the epilogue). [Unintentional that this schema overlaps with notebook size labeling and so is kind of confusing in the context of this post.] At first I was just keeping track of the sections via the highlighted titles, but it got confusing because I’d write down “Wedding” or “Yiling” in my notes and then refer to the notes later like “but there are multiple marriages?? and multiple scenes in Yiling??”. Stuff gets struck through with a straight line if it’s been written in a more-or-less complete form and crossed out with a squiggly line if it’s been cut from the outline or made redundant.

As I said earlier, I started out all the initial brainstorming for my Sangcheng fic in its notebook, instead of brainstorming it in someone’s DMs/my notes app/a voice memo/etc. and then transcribing it into the notebook in a somewhat more organized fashion, which is how my stories usually start out. Because of this, the first five-ish pages are basically just stream of consciousness rambling where I was trying to jot down every disconnected thought I had about the story concept. I don’t have photos for that because it’s too spoilerific for later developments in the fic, but I can show you some of the stages the outlines went through, once I was able to corral those initial notes into a story structure:

All the chapters in this fic have their own highlighter colour, so when I started trying to make sense of my initial brainstorm notes I just went through and highlighted stuff in the colour of the chapter it would make the most sense for, and then transcribed things more-or-less in chronological order into the relevant chapter outline. I later ended up rewriting all the chapter outlines AGAIN to refine them and divide them internally by the individual scenes, which makes them a lot more legible and less wall-of-text-y. They look like this now, with about four sheets per chapter:

Because this fic is on the longer side, I have some pages that are just for keeping track of other story elements, like this, where I refer back to whatever the fuck the “themes” are supposed to be whenever I forget what this fic is about:

It’s all about the visionboarding... Anyway, that’s most of what I have to offer, since most of these two notebooks is Forbidden Content.

With regards to brands/supplies, I really like this Kokuyo Campus Wide notebook that I’m writing Sangcheng in, it’s pretty perfect for me. I also like the B5 Muji twin rings, but those only come in 30 sheets, so I wouldn’t use it for anything above a ~20k project. The B5 Maruman Spiral Note 6.5mm ruled/80 sheet is another good one, though I wish it was twin ring instead of spiral. As you can tell, I like Japanese stationery brands because it’s easier to find decent paper quality and minimalist design without shelling out $$ than it is with American/European brands, at least IME. I like Rollbahns too. But honestly, I can usually find pretty serviceable random notebooks that aren’t brand-name from Asian dollar stores; it’s really not something where you need to shell out tons of money.

[warsamongstthestar-keen]

Chapter Thirty-Three

The crew looks at each other, Ezra sensing as panic seeps into the room. "Okay, well, we'll just have to get them out before they reach the planet."

Hera smiles at his enthusiasm, "That's easier said than done. There's no way the Ghost can get into the system without being seen."

Sabine looks at the Twi'lek, "I might have a plan for that."

*Later*

The Mandalorian snuck aboard an Imperial ship, successfully stealing a transport, with her normal flare.

The crew gather's in the cockpit, surrounding a hologram of the Grand Moff's ship.

"The transport you stole will get us close to the fleet over Mustafar. We know they have Kanan and Keen on Tarkin's Star Destroyer," Hera states.

Zeb rolls his eyes, grumbling, "And it's surrounded by a bunch of other Star Destroyers."

"Uh, lots more. We'll need a distraction to cover our entry," the Twi'lek turns her chair to face the girl, "Sabine?"

"Engine room's here–" she points at a place on the hologram. All the power for the ship. If we could get inside the docking bay, I could rig something, black 'em out. But our transport ship's not gonna fit in there."

"We need something small enough to get into that hangar bay," Hera sighs. "Too bad we blew up all the TIEs at that base."

"Well...uh," Ezra pipes up, nervously rubbing the back of his neck, "there is one left. But it's not at the base."

Zeb's ears press flat against his head, glancing nervously at Hera, "Uh-uh. Uh-uh."

"Look, this is serious, Zeb. For Kanan and Keen."

The Lasat sighs deeply, "Fine."

"What's going on?" Hera demands, looking between the Padawan, Lasat and Mandalorian.

"The TIE we stole a while back, we, uh–we didn't exactly crash it."

The Twi'lek glares at him, "And by 'didn't exactly', you mean–"

"We didn't crash it," Ezra responds quickly, "We kept it."

"You all knew about this?" she demands. The other three rebels look down guiltily, not meeting her eyes. Hera sighs, "I should be angry. I should yell at you for disobeying a direct order. But right now, I'm just grateful we got it."

"Uh, there's a slight problem with it."

"What kind of problem?"

"Yeah, what kind of problem?" Zeb growls.

Ezra and Sabine lead the other two to the TIE fighter. It sits in the middle of a field, hidden behind a few peaks. The ship is covered from top to bottom in a rainbow of colours, all coming together to form a beautiful array of colour and design.

"Okay. Well, this is awful," the Lasat grumbles.

"What? It's some of my best work," Sabine shrugs.

"It'll have to do," Hera states, inspecting the paint job.

"I thought you were supposed to be the sane one. This whole plan is as crazy as those colours."

"Maybe you're right," the Twi'lek responds to the ranting Lasat. "Maybe this mission doesn't make military sense. But Kanan is family. Keen is family. And we've all lost enough family to the Empire. So rescuing them makes sense to me. I-I'm not ordering you-- any of you-- to come along. But you need to decide now. In or out?"

"I'm in," Ezra and Sabine chorus. Chopper agrees as well. The four turn to look at the Lasat.

"Karabast. I'm in. But what about that?" he nods to the TIE.

"Eh, no time to fix it. Besides, the Imperials will only scan it. By the time the Imperials see it–"

"It'll be too late," Sabine finishes for the captain.

*Tarkin's Cruiser*

Kanan presses back against the table. Electricity streams through his body, screams erupting from his throat. It cuts off abruptly, knocking him forward.

"Still protecting your precious crew," Darth Vader sneers, tired of torturing Keen, and since she passed out, he figured he might as well interrogate Kanan, "Quite admirable. But what I want to know is about the other rebels, code name, Fulcrum."

The Knight sighs, "I know nothing of a larger rebellion. And if I did, I'd rather give my life than tell you."

"So heroic. Just like your master. Tell me, Jedi, how did you survive Order 66, hmm? It was your Master Billaba who laid down her life for yours. Do you remember her last word to you, her last and final breath before she died? You do, don't you? You see it in your sleep. You hear her voice when you wake. Tell me, Jedi, what was her last word to you?"

Throughout the Sith Lord's spiel, the Knight had looked more and more distraught, "Run," he states, although it barely comes out as a whisper.

"And does your loyal and precious crew...know you ran as your Master fell, abandoned her and the Jedi Order...when they needed you most? What do you think your rebels would do...if they know their leader was a coward? You're even afraid of your own power. You don't have the courage to wear your full saber out in the open. Let me tell you something, Jedi. You're right to be afraid. You couldn't save your Master then, and you can't save your followers now."

"Keen knows. She knows it all. Just as I know what happened to her. What did you do to her?" he demands, his voice raising in volume.

"She was asked the questions I asked you. She refused to give straight answers. I did what had to be done. We didn't really need two Jedi to interrogate anyway. Why would we, when we have you."

The Knights head drops back down, against his metal restraint, the questioning continuing.

*Ghost Crew*

"I'll send in our transporter code as soon as we know they are there. Ezra?" Hera says, turning to face the kid.

"Well, here goes nothin'," he gulps. He shuts his eyes, delving into the Force, searching for the two recognizable Force signatures.

"So anything?" Zeb asks a few seconds later. The boy scrunches brow, doing his best to tune out the conversation happening over his head.

Hera's voice snaps through his concentration, "Ezra, are they there?"

The Padawan snaps his eyes open, gasping, "They're there. Kanan, Keen, they're alive!"

Smiles cross each Ghost members face. "Sending codes."

It's a tense few minutes of silence, until cutting through the comm's comes, "Transport Ship 63378 cleared for docking."

"They bought it," the Twi'lek declares, turning to the astromech "Chop, send in Sabine's present."

Chopper babbles at her, saluting. He quickly releases the TIE, remotely flying it to the Transport.

Hera smiles at the other crewmembers, whilst docking the ship. She once again turns to Chopper, "This shouldn't take long. Keep the engine running."

The droid responds in his grumbles, not sounding happy.

The rebels infiltrate the Cruiser a little too easily, finding the docking bay crowded with unconscious Stormtroopers.

"These guys will wake up soon," Sabine supplies.

"How soon?" Ezra questions.

"Too soon, I reckon," comes the Lasat's haughty response.

Ezra stops at an intersection in a corridor, turning both ways, his hand outstretched, and eyes clamped shut. He points to the right with surety, "Come on. This way," he calls. The commlink sparks to life and Chopper warns of Imperial reinforcements.

"Don't worry," Sabine brushes it off, "On a ship this big, it'll take 'em a while to find us."

The group rounds a corner, to meet three Stormtrooper's, blasters raised at them. "Drop your weapons! Hands up!"

"They found us," Ezra groans. He slices at them with his lightsaber, leading the crew through the nearby blast doors. He uses the Force to slam them shut, freezing the controls by stabbing his blade through them.

"Pretty clever, kid," the Mandalorian compliments, "So what's next?"

"Kanan and Keen are down that hall," the Padawan indicates to the blast doors, "I just cut off only way to get to them."

Hera glances around the corridor, spotting a vent, "Might be our only way, but it's not yours." The boy smiles up at her, racing for the vent, jumping down inside. "Let's go. Let's go," she encourages the other two rebels, leading them down the corridor.

[oneheadedcerberus]

Transformers Review #2

Here I am again with the second installment of my very own incredibly self-indulgent toy review (potential) series that is an obvious and thinly veiled excuse for me to talk about the things I like + substitute for true socialization in the wake of quarantine.

And since he’s the one I keep on my desk to hold my tablet pen like a tiny, evil secretary who is no doubt plotting against me:

This is War for Cybertron: Earthrise Voyager Starscream.

Right off the bat, it’s a good first impression. The shape and colours are very classically ‘Starscream’, which is no surprise, given the entire gimmick of Earthrise (and the wider Generations line, really) is essentially ‘G1, but newer’. Nostalgia is a deep pool that companies like Hasbro are never afraid to dip into, what can you say?

The reds and blues are lush as hell (although I have seen a bit of chipping on the red paint! Blue seems to be coloured plastic, tho), but frankly the grey is a bit dull and boring. It wouldn’t be so bad if the back of him wasn’t such a wall of grey. Face him forwards on the shelf, I suppose?

The orangey-yellow of the cockpit is a nice splash to really bring the A-game of the primary colours, very eye catching, and all of it topped off with a glossy black head.

His eyes don’t have much to bring to the party with how small and strangely sunken into his face they are, especially with the awning of his forehead casting them into eternal shadow. They’re honestly a bit difficult to see. Maybe its a statement on Starscream and his duplicitous nature? Yeah probably not. They are a lovely red when I shine my phone light on them, however. 

The face sculpt is a good point as well, with nice, clear features and even a bit of a sulky frown, for extra Starscreaminess.

And even if his neck is a kind of hilariously thin, it does give him a good amount of mobility in his head, both tilt and swivel.

His whole body is riddled with sculpting and detail, absolutely covered in little roboty looking lines and bits and bobs that help bring him to life and help the weapons ports and seams blend in. Much like the colours, there’s more on the front than the back, but seeing how the back is mostly jet as a opposed to robot, and thus largely flat and smooth, I can forgive.

His proportions are just the tiniest bit off to my eye - arms just a touch short and his head just a bit small, but that’s probably so it can fit into the nosecone kibble-hat hanging gracelessly off his back, which I would have an easier time being mad at if it didn’t allow for my favourite feature of the whole toy

would you believe this is the first thing I did after opening the box? Because it was.

He’s got large, stable feet perfect for balancing, stepping over ones enemies, or climbing the ranks. You go, Starscream.

Good, solid legs with no awkward hollow sections. Unfortunately the big ol’ solid stompers are about the highlight of the legs- the posing ability on this guy is lackluster, to say the least

His shoulders and elbows are about standard, nothing spectacular, but that up there is as far as his knees and legs will bend. The knees manage 90~ degrees, but he can’t even really sit down, and to move his legs up at all you need to raise his little red skirt crotch flap thingy. They don’t move backwards at all, being blocked by part of the alt mode. Hm.

But, y’know what? He does have those classic turbine tits, so there’s that. Silver linings.

The transformation is about 30 steps, and once I’d done it a few times I found it to be easy to memorize and a decent amount of fun to do. It had some neat little steps such as folding his forearms around the rest of his arms and then hiding them in his chest- after removing the cockpit, of course. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the cockpit in his chest is the actual one in the alt mode, I’m far more used to Seeker molds using a fake-out for that. Although it does leave his chest with a bit of a gap in it in alt mode. Eh. Give and take.

The actual act of opening his chest was damn difficult and a touch nerve racking, it was stuck fast and I ended up having to pry it open (thank you, trusty prybar thing I keep on my desk) all the while being sure I was about to break it. Luckily, it didn’t break and is opening easier now that I’ve done it a few times. The wings did pop off, tho. Good thing they go straight back on.

His legs are pretty simple, pull his shins open, fold them up, clip them together and click them in place, in a move that is similar (but much simpler) to his arms. I actually managed to get to that stage without the instructions before realizing I was baffled by where to stick his arms. I’m not the best at puzzles, ok?

Or, if you are so inclined, you can skip the legs and make a bit of an awkwardly upright gerwalk

y’know. If you really wanna.

Once you get through all the major steps, the alt mode snaps together pretty satisfyingly.

The nosecone really beefs up the length of this thing (it’s actually a bit too long for the lightbox I use for my photos, damn), and the sheer jet-ness of this alt mode makes me kinda want to woosh it around the room making my own low-flying aeroplane sound effects. So I did. At least I resisted the urge to toss him. For now.

On the downside, the underside kinda shatters the illusion a bit. He’s head is well hidden, if technically still visible if you know where it is, but damn does his torso look like a torso. The rest of him might be disguising itself as not-a-body a bit better, but it sure as shit ain’t disguising itself as a jet. And there’s no landing gear. *Siiigh* I suppose you can’t have everything.

The topside, while very jet-y, is a bit of a slab of grey as well. Only the touches of red, white and blue and the lovely purple Decepticon badges stop it from looking kinda unfinished. But, hey the cockpit is semi-transparent, and you can just about make out a lil seat in there for a hypothetical pilot which I think is cute for some reason :). My one issue with the topside is the weapons port smack dab right in the middle there, like some kind of space-robot blowhole.

As for accessories go, he comes with his two null rays and that’s about it. They got well on his arms in robot mode and on his wings for the alt mode (or you can stick one in the blowhole if you really want, I suppose?), but he can’t really hold them in his hands like pistols, just in case you wanted him to do that.

They go pretty well on either his upper arms, as I prefer, or you can turn his arms and put them on his forearms if you so desire.

Sadly, no crown... though I’m sure one is available online if you really, really want.

His box, strangely enough, doesn’t have a secret code in it to fit with the Earthrise gimmick of decoding a star map. It did come with the little red bit of plastic for finding the codes, however.

In conclusion: The alt mode is pretty great and a lot of fun to play with, and I’m pretty happy with this to be the main Starscream of my collection and I‘m certainly not hankering for a new one anytime soon, I do kinda wish he had better posing. And the disappointing legs almost make me wish I gotten the Siege one instead, which I hear has some pretty amazing legs, with super deep knees. Fortunately for me I am a bit of a sucker for an Earth jet alt mode over a Tetrajet, so I can’t despair too much.

And he does do a superb job holding my pen.

Like so.

[buckleyirondad]

v. gunpoint 

This one is pretty long (4.8k) and is easier to read on AO3.  This work was inspired by an episode of the X-Files. (Monday, 6x14)

Warnings: Shooting. Temporary Major Character Death. Descriptions of a dead body.

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

Tony cradled Peter in his arms, he brushed his fingers across his cold cheek and muttered soft promises as he slowly rocked back and forth. He knew he was already gone but he couldn’t let his heart go there. Peter was different. They could save him. Bring him back. They had too. He couldn’t die like this. 

They’d only gone into the bank to deposit May’s paycheque that wasn’t a hard job.  It’s a normal day-to-day task. A trip to the bank.  You wait in line, do what you came for, and leave. It’s boring, it’s a part of life.  Tony couldn’t remember how they got here. He was dazed. The world around him didn’t make any sense. The shooter’s name was Jack. He had a gun and a bomb. What he wanted was self-explanatory but it hadn’t gone according to plan. He wanted to get the money and get out before the cops arrived. Peter got in his way and paid the price for that act of heroism. Tony wasn’t quick enough. He didn’t save him. “We’re gonna be alright, kid....” He muttered softly as he brushed a hand through Peter’s curls, “You and I. We’re gonna be okay.” He leaned down, pressing a kiss against his forehead, “You’ll see.” “Stop talking.” Jack threatened, pointing his gun towards Tony. “My kid is bleeding out, Jack!” Tony bellowed, “You can’t tell me what to do.” “Yes, I can…” Jack hissed, “I’m in charge.” “You’re in charge…” Tony nodded, “So, what are you gonna do now?” “Walk out of here.” He shrugged, “They won’t shoot me.” He gestured to the bomb strapped around his front, “Not with this.”  “They don’t know you have the bomb.” Tony told him, “They can’t see you! So, they don’t know.” “They do.” Jack said, through gritted teeth, “They do know.” The front door crashed open, and a team of police stormed in, guns blazing, “No!” Tony screamed, he pulled Peter closer to his chest, as Jack flipped the switch and they were enveloped in a flash of white. 

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

Tony burst awake, he leaned forward as he let out an exasperated sigh, he locked his hand in his hair. He was sitting in the backseat of his car. Shit, he couldn’t remember the last time he fell asleep like that, because he never did. 

When he slept, if he did at all, it was either in bed with Pepper or on the couch with his kids.  If he was falling asleep in the car, then he was really overdoing it.  He felt someone prodding him in the arm. He looked up. Peter was the culprit. The kid was staring at him, with wide-eyes, and a mischievous grin, “You having fun?” Tony asked, raising one eyebrow.  Peter snorted as he stopped poking him, “You’re so old.”  “What did you just say?” Peter’s smile grew wider, “So, you’re nodding off in the car and you’re going deaf too?”

“Kid, you’re not too old to be grounded, you know?” Tony leaned forward, tapping the back of Happy’s chair, “Pull over here, please Hap. We can walk.” “Sure thing, boss.” Happy pulled the car up on the curb, Peter jumped out first, “Thanks, Happy!” “No problem, kid.” Tony playfully nudged Happy’s arm with his fist, “You’re the best, Hap.” He climbed out and closed the door. Happy sped off like there was no tomorrow. Tony turned, wrapping an arm around Peter’s shoulders, as they headed down the street, “Why’s he not coming with us?” Peter asked. “He’s got a date…” Tony bounced his eyebrows up, “With May, remember?” “Uh, uh.” Peter squirmed away and plugged his ears with his fingers, “Shut up, shut up, shut up! That’s so wrong.” “Wrong?” Tony scoffed, “You already call him ‘Uncle’ Happy.” “Because Morgan does!” Peter exclaimed, holding out his arms to amplify his point, “It’s not an excuse to date my aunt…” He stuck out his tongue, “Eh, gross.” “They’re happy together.” A look of betrayal etched over Peter’s face, “Why would you say that?” “Okay, I’ll stop.” Tony buried his hand in his back pocket and pulled out one of his cards, he slapped it into Peter’s palm, “Here. You pick up lunch, I’m gonna grab a paper.” “Wow.” Peter backed away, “You’re so old.” Tony narrowed his eyes, “Watch it.” Peter skipped away, chuckling as he went. Tony started to walk over toward the newspaper stand but was stopped when a firm hand wrapped around his wrist, stealing his attention, “Stark.” An unknown man muttered quietly. Tony snatched his wrist back. The man looked like he was sleeping rough, and Tony felt guilty for pulling his hand away when the poor guy probably only wanted a few dollars. However, for Tony, being defensive, was an occupational hazard. “Yes?” “You know me..” The guy stuttered, “Well, you should. Um, uh, I’m David.” He looked over his shoulder, like he was afraid of something, “You need to go home.” Tony stifled a laugh, “Pardon?” “Go home, now.” David pleaded, “Don’t go to the bank. Grab your son, and come back tomorrow instead.” Tony’s heart leapt up into his throat, “How…” The public knew about Peter, but only in a professional capacity. The world thought he was simply Tony’s intern. Tony had only recently entered a co-adoption with May, but that wasn’t being made public for another week, “How do you know about Peter?” “You adopted him.” “Yes, but that’s not public until next week.” Tony hissed, “So, I’ll ask again, how do you know that?” “Just trust me.” David didn’t falter, he stood strong in his plea, “Don’t go to the bank.” He hurried away, leaving Tony with more questions than answers. Peter walked over, holding onto a singular hot dog, he’d already scoffed his own, “Who was that?” “No idea.” Tony said, Peter held out the hot dog, “You eat it, I’m not that hungry.” “Uh...okay.” Peter turned, “Come on, I’ve gotta deposit May’s cheque before she kills me.” 

Tony walked beside him, “Let’s use an ATM.” He didn’t believe David’s warning but he wanted to be cautious, “The banks gonna be rammed.” Peter tried to answer but his mouth was full, he’d demolished the hot dog like he hadn’t eaten in years. This morning, he had two stacks of pancakes that Pepper made. The kid’s metabolism was truly insane, “Don’t talk with your mouth full.” They turned the corner towards the ATM, Peter pulled the cheque out of his backpack and leaned over, pressing the side of his machine, “Eh. Out of service.” He groaned, “I thought tech would be better in 2024. Guess not.” Tony looked over his shoulder, he knew there was another machine close by,  “We can see if the one around-- “ When he turned back, Peter was gone, “Kid?” “I’ll be quick!” Peter called back, he was heading up the steps, into the bank.  Tony felt dread swallow him whole as he charged after him. “Peter!” He shouted, urgently, but with his voice low.  Peter was waiting at the back of a queue, Tony stopped beside him, “Why are you being so weird?” Peter asked, tilting his head to his shoulder. “Weird?” Tony’s voice involuntary went high-pitched, “I’m not being weird.” “Yes, you are.” Tony cleared his throat, “I’m not.” “So just old, then.” Tony rolled his eyes, “No.” Peter squinted, “...Senile?” “Kid…” Tony was about to mock him in retaliation but Peter’s smile dropped, and the colour drained from his cheeks, as he frantically started looking around the room, “Hey, Peter, what’s wrong?” Peter looked at him, his eyes widened in alarm, “Are you okay?” Peter shook his head. “Customers, face down!” A man bellowed from beside them. He was holding a gun up, waving it around, with an inexperienced trembling hand. Some of the customers screamed, while others muttered under their breath, they all complied, getting down onto the floor, “You know what this is!” He was wearing a dark green parker, it was zipped up to the top. It was June, so it didn’t take Tony long to work out what he had hidden under there.  Tony pushed Peter’s shoulder, “Get down, kid.” Peter listened, for once, he got down on his front, leaning his head to the side to watch on. Making sure he was ready to jump in if it came to it. Tony stayed on his feet, he crushed his panic button on his watch. Alarmingly, it didn’t work. It failed. That was impossible unless this shooter was ridiculously clever and had a way to jam the network. “Shit.” Tony dropped to his knees and lay down beside Peter.  Peter tapped his fingers on the floor in morse code. S-P-I-D-E-R-M-A-N. Tony shook his head in response, Peter nodded.  “Money, in the bags now!” The guy screamed, “No alarms!”  Tony flinched as the robber’s footsteps got closer to them. From now on, Tony would always have his nanotech suit prepared. Ever since, he retired, he never brought it out. In light of celebration, he forgot that the world was still such a dark place.  “Stark.” The man roared cheerfully, he reached down, grabbing hold of Tony’s shoulder in an unforgiving grip and pulling him to his feet. He reached over, pressing his fingers into Tony’s cheeks, holding his face in his hand, “I’ve hit the jack box today, haven’t I?” “Have you?” Tony mumbled. The man released his cheeks, and Tony extended his jaw to numb the sting. “You’re retired.” The man brushed down Tony’s jacket, “No suit with you, and I’ve jammed the signals.” “Yes.” Tony raised his eyebrow, “Well done, not many people can jam my tech. I’d say almost no one. Who helped you with that?” “Like I’d tell you.” Tony turned his eyes to the side, Peter hadn’t moved yet, but he knew as soon as the man made the wrong move, the teen would be up on his feet in no time, “Okay, buddy. I’ll give you whatever you want if you let everyone go first.” The man bent down and grabbed Peter’s arm, dragging him up onto his feet, “What are you doing? “He with you?” He barked. Tony knew there were two ways to play this. The man wanted to use Peter as leverage, as a bargaining chip to get what he wanted. Tears filled Tony’s eyes, as he shook his head. The guy sneered, “Liar.” He locked an arm around Peter’s chest, and pressed the barrel of his gun against Peter’s temple, Tony’s stomach flipped, and he had to bite down on his lip, “You’re gonna listen to me, or the kid gets it, you hear me?” “Okay, okay.” Tony held up his hands in surrender, “I’m listening.”  Tony didn’t like how calm Peter was. He was almost emotionless. It hurt to admit that seeing his kid, straight-faced, unafraid of a literal gun held against his head, was worse than the day he’d disappeared, begging to be saved. This was either a bravado, or Peter wasn’t scared to die anymore.  Peter grabbed the man’s wrist and with an effortless swing, threw him over his shoulder, down onto the ground. Tony let out a loud squeak; when Peter wasn’t in the suit, he often forgot how strong he was. “Come on, kid.” He beckoned, holding out his hand.  Peter leapt over the man, who was gagging as he forced air back into his shocked lungs. Peter looked dazed like he hadn’t expected that he could do that. It was Peter’s hazed mind, that stopped him from seeing what happened next. The man grabbed his ankle, and Peter stumbled. Tony leapt forward, reaching out, ready to ball his hand around Peter’s backpack to pull him to safety.  It was too late. The man pulled the trigger, and the bullet hit Peter’s chest, at close range. “Peter!” Tony slid over on his knees, catching Peter in his arms, as he crumbled to the ground. “Hey, hey.” He cried out frantically, as he brushed his fingers against Peter’s cheek. Peter didn’t speak or even mummer. His eyes were half-open, and he kept blinking, slowly. He wasn’t with it, he was lifelessly staring down, as he desperately gasped for air, “Kid?” Tony pressed his hand against the wound, his throat cracked as blood covered his palm, “Kid, look at me, please.”  The man got back onto his feet, cocking his gun, holding it in Tony’s direction.  Tony wanted to kill him but knew he had a duty. An oath Peter had taught him when they first met. When you can do the things that I can, but you don't...and then the bad things happen...they happen because of you. Tony had two jobs, keep Peter alive, and save everyone else in that room. He wasn’t going to do that with violence. Tony looked up, “So, what’s your name?” He asked as he stroked his fingers through Peter’s hair, “I’ve gotta call you something.” “Jack.” “Okay, Jack.” Tony spoke gently as if he was talking to a rebellious child, “He’s still alive but I’ve gotta get him out of here. You don’t wanna be a killer, do you? You just need cash.” Jack gritted his teeth, “You know nothing about needing cash.” “Perhaps not. But I can help you, if let me save my kid, please.” He pleaded, blinking tears away as he rocked forward. Jack said nothing. “Did you blip, Jack?” “Yes.” “And life is different now, isn’t it?” He asked, “Everything feels wrong. Out of place.” Jack stepped forward, shaking his gun, “You don’t know what it’s like!” “This is Peter.” Tony said hastily, as he pressed his fingers against Peter’s neck, “He’s my kid. He blipped, and I...I only just got him back. I don’t wanna lose him again.” He choked on a sob, “Have you got someone you love? Someone you can’t lose.” “My best friend.” “Best friend, hey? I’ve got two of those, James Rhodes and Happy Hogan.” He smiled falsely, to give Jack a sense of security, “They’re great. I bet your friend is great too. Would he be happy…” He trailed off, “..If he knew you were doing this?” “I’m doing this for him.” Jack spat, “He needs…” “Help. I can help him.” Tony promised, “If you let everyone go.” “No!” Jack unzipped his parker, revealing the bomb strapped around his front, “No one leaves! “Okay, okay.” Tony strained as he went back to threading his fingers through Peter’s hair. “Peter’s only seventeen, and he’s got a best friend too, Ned, who loves him very much.” He explained, “You understand that, don’t you, Jack? How much you love your best friend?” Jack jumped around, throwing a tantrum. Tony had obviously hit a nerve, “Shut up!” “Tony…” Peter choked out. An invisible weight hit Tony’s chest, stealing his breath, as he looked down at his kid, “Hey, baby. You’re alright.” A gut-wrenching gargle escaped passed Peter’s lips as Tony bounced him, back and forth, “Pete?” Peter’s eyes rolled back, and he grew limp in Tony’s grip, “Kid?”  At first, Peter’s breathing was unrhythmic and violent, then his breaths grew longer, but further between. The violence quickly slipped away, replaced by two peaceful breaths, and then, there was only silence. “Peter?” Tony whimpered, he cupped his cheek, “Please don’t do this to me, bud.” He brushed his fingers through Peter’s curls, “We’re gonna be alright, kid...You and I. We’re gonna be okay.” He pressed a kiss against his forehead, “You’ll see.” “Stop talking.” Jack spat. “My kid is bleeding out, Jack! Don’t you fucking tell me what to do.”  “I’m in charge!” “You’re in charge…” Tony shouted, “So, what are you gonna do now then?” “Walk out of here. They won’t shoot me.”  “They don’t know you have the bomb! And you’ve jammed the signals, so they can’t call! They don’t know what your plan is!” “They do. They do know.” The front door crashed open, and a team of police stormed in, guns blazing. Jack flipped the switch, and Tony welcomed the darkness that followed. 

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

Tony shot awake, gasping for air. He was in the car on the way into town, with Happy and Peter. Yeah, he was seriously overdoing it lately. “Are you okay?” Peter queried, nudging Tony’s shoulder, with concern reflected in his eyes.  “Yeah…” Tony nodded, “I’m fine.” Peter snorted a laugh, “You’re so….” His face crumpled, and he dotted his eyes to the floor. “What?” “Sorry…” Peter chuckled, “...That was weird.” “What was?” “I don’t know.” Peter shrugged, “Just a sense of Déjà vu.” “I get you, kid.” Happy commented, “Every time I drive you two around it’s a sense of Déjà vu.” “Very funny, Hap.” Tony said, monotone, “Pull over here, please. We can walk.” “Sure thing.” Happy pulled up onto the curb. “Thanks, Happy!” Peter leapt out of the car, Tony followed swiftly behind. Peter let out a gentle coo and skipped over to a dog that had been left tied to a lamppost outside a newsagent, “Aw, hello. What’s your name?” He asked as he knelt, the dog jumped up, greeting Peter excitedly.  “Stark.” A man muttered as he tapped Tony’s shoulder. “Do I know you?” The question sounded foreign in Tony’s mouth because he did know him, he just didn’t know why.  “No.” The man sighed, “Whatever you do, don’t let your son go into the bank today.” He hurried away, as quickly as he appeared, “What?” How did he know that Peter was his son? That wasn’t public knowledge yet, “Hey!” “Who was that?” Peter asked, reappearing at his side. “I don’t know.” Tony turned, and unzipped Peter’s backpack, taking out May’s cheque. “What are you doing?” Peter asked as Tony zipped the bag back up.  “You go and get lunch.” Tony handed over his card, “I’ll deposit this and meet you outside.” Peter bounced back on his heel, “Cool beans.”  “Cool, what now?” Tony asked as Peter skipped away, “Huh, teenagers.” Tony cautiously walked up the stairs into the bank. He didn’t know why he was on edge but something was happening, something he couldn’t explain. Peter was right, it felt like Déjà vu. Tony joined the back of the queue and his mind turned to the man outside. How did he know Peter was his son? And why didn’t he want Peter to go into the bank? Why did Tony recognize him? Nothing was making any sense. “Everyone on the floor now!” A man ordered from behind. He had a gun, he was inexperiencedly waving it around. He had a bomb too, Tony could tell by the parker he was wearing.“You know what this is!”Tony wasn’t shocked, not as much as he should be. He knew this was going to happen, how did he know that? “Shit.” Tony cursed under his breath when he realised his panic button didn’t work. “Stark?” The man sneered, he strode over, keeping the gun held up. “If I knew you were here, I wouldn’t have done this.” He gestured to the room, civilians were down on the ground, while the bankers were stood, waiting to be ordered around. “You’ve got me.” Tony told him, “Why don’t you and I get out of here? I can give you everything you want if you let all these people go.” “No.”

“I’m offering you...anything you want,” Tony said. The man didn’t react, “What’s your name?”

“Jack.” “Okay, Jack. What do you want?” Jack raised his eyebrows, and grinned, “I think you know.” “Money? Of course.” Tony clapped his hands together, “Let everyone go, and we can talk.” Jack stepped back, “What is that?” He gestured to Tony’s prosthetic arm with his gun. “This.” Tony pulled the sleeve down. Jack recoiled. Tony knew why, the arm was painted the same colour as the Iron Man armour, it would look pretty intimidating to a criminal.  “Take it off!” Jack barked. “I can’t.  It’s not part of a suit. It’s a prosthetic arm.” Tony explained, “I lost it in the final battle. Do you know that? And my kid’s designed it, that’s why it looks like this. It’s harmless.”

“Take--” The door swung open, and Peter walked in, holding a paper bag with their lunch in. He had his earplugs in, he used them to drown out sounds when he was experiencing sensory overload. It meant that his fight or flight reflect was dampened, he hadn’t sensed the danger when he entered. Tony leapt forward in an attempt to disarm Jack, but he was too late. Jack pulled the trigger.  Tony heard Peter’s lifeless body hit the floor before he turned to see, “Peter…”  Peter was curled up on the floor, his lifeless eyes stared forward. Blood poured from underneath his head. Tony pressed his arm to his mouth as he retched, “Peter!”  Jack turned back, wide-eyed, “What?” Tony stumbled over to where Peter lay. “No.” Tony looked over his shoulder as Jack unzipped his jacket to reveal the bomb underneath. “He’s got a bomb..” Tony muttered like a mantra, “He’s got a bomb, he’s got a bomb.” Jack flipped the switch.

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

Tony jumped awake. He was safe, in the back of his car, with Happy and Peter, “Woah, Mr. Stark.” Peter held out his hand grabbing his shoulder, “You okay? You fell asleep. You know, like an old man.” “Yeah, I guess I did.” He rubbed his temple, “Wow, I’m overdoing it.” He tapped the back of Happy’s chair, “Pull over here, Hap. We can walk.” “Okay, Boss.” Happy pulled over. Peter opened the door, and bounced out, “Thanks, Happy! See you later.” “See you, kid.” Tony jumped out, he stopped Peter by placing a hand on his shoulder. He quickly unzipped Peter’s backpack and took out May’s cheque. Peter turned around, with a raised eyebrow, “I’ll take this to the bank. You go and save us a table at McDonald's.” “...Alright.” Peter turned and hurried away.  Tony headed over towards the bank, a man reached out, grabbing his arm, “Stark.” “It’s you.” Why did he say that? He’d never met this man before, or had he? The man’s jaw dropped, “You know me?” “I…” Tony trailed off, “...Think so. Don’t know why though.” “I’m David.” He introduced as he released Tony’s arm “We do know each other, we’ve spoken every day, for the past four-hundred-and-thirty-six days.” He explained, “This day. Today. It’s never tomorrow. It’s always today.” He pointed over to the bank, “You and Peter go into the bank every time, and you both die. My best friend, Jack, he kills you. Every time. No matter what I say. Sometimes you listen, but you go in anyway. Play hero. Other times, you’ve told me to beat it.” Tony’s forehead creased, “How can I trust you? You could be making this all up.” “But you know me.” David told him, “It’s getting inside your head like it’s in mine.” “I need proof.” “Your son.” David sighed, “Did he bring his suit with him? It’s in his backpack, right?” Tony stepped back in horror, “What?” “It’s taken me so long to figure it out.” He admitted, “Why would you adopt some random kid from Queens? I worked it out, he’s Spider-Man. You met because you’re both heroes.” Tony’s blood boiled, “If you ever lay…” He couldn’t tell if this man was truly trying to help him, or if he was threatening Peter. He knew who Peter was, that made him dangerous, right?  “I won’t.” David interrupted, “I just want this to be over.” He pointed to a car parked on the sidewalk, “I’m going to get in my car, if you want to know more, just ask.”  Tony watched him walk away. Curiosity twisted its spindly fingers around his wrist, and pulled him away, into the bank. He hovered in the doorway taking in the scene. He noticed a man, hunched over the desk, scribbling down on a piece of paper. Tony didn’t know why he knew but that was Jack.   “He’s got a bomb, he’s got a bomb, he’s got a bomb,” Tony muttered.  Faint outlines of memories Tony shouldn’t have crossed his mind, and he hurried back outside, scrambling for his phone.   “Tony? What’s up?” Peter answered with his usual exuberance “Listen to me, kid.” Tony said, urgently, “This isn’t gonna make any sense but I need you to put your suit on." “What, why?” “Just listen, please. Put the suit on. On the road Happy dropped us off on, there’s an old car...a Volvo, I think. It’s rusty, looks like it’s falling apart. There’s a guy in there, grab him, and bring him to the bank with you.” “I don’t…” Peter blurted, “...understand.” “Just do it, okay?” Tony pleaded, “He’ll know what it’s about.” “Okay, I’ll be there as quick as I can.” He heard Peter hurrying around, “Love you.” “Love you too.” Tony hung up and skipped back into the bank.  He cautiously walked over to where Jack was stood, he placed his hand on the desk, and Jack flinched, looking up at him with piercing eyes, “Jack, right? You know who I am, and I know who you are.” He started, “I don’t want anyone in here to get hurt.” He gestured to the door, “If you walk out of that door, right now, I won’t come after you. You have my word. Change your mind, you’re better than this.” “I am this.” Tony shook his head, “You don’t have to be.” “There is no other way.” Jack turned, holding up his gun, “Everybody down! Now! You know what this is!” Everyone screamed, and threw themselves to the ground, doing what he said. Tony heard the door creak open. Peter rushed in, hidden behind the Spider-Man costume, with David by his side. “Jack!” Tony called, “Ask him!” He gestured to David, “What does he think?” “David.” Jack breathed, shocked, “Get out of here, now!” “You’re hurting him, you know?” Tony barked, “Everything you’re doing. He’s lived this day, over and over again. We all have. Hundreds of times, and we all die. If you loved him...you wouldn’t keep doing this.” “Shut up.” Jack spat, “Stop...talking…” Peter shot out a web, and it attached to Jack's wrist, he tugged on him. Jack was quick, unzipping his parker to reveal the bomb. Tony held out a cautious hand, “Spider-Man, stand down.” Jack pulled on the web, dragging Peter closer, “What are you gonna do now, Spidey?” He asked, “We don’t need people like you anymore! This city needs people like me! Who fight for the people we love.” “You don’t love me, Jack…” David sighed, tears swimming in his eyes, “If you do this. You say we’re like brothers but Stark’s right...You’ve made Stark watched his kid die hundreds of times!” Peter turned, Tony couldn’t see his face past the mask, but he could imagine the horror in his eyes, “This isn’t you.”  “I’m doing this for you!” Jack screamed. David shook his head, “I don’t want you too.”  “Tough…” Jack turned his gun in Tony’s direction and pulled the trigger. David leapt in front, the bullet hit his chest and he fell to the ground, boneless. Tony hurried to his side, as Jack fell to his knees, dropping his gun. Peter webbed his hands behind his back, as Tony rolled David over, “Hey.” “This never happened before.” David choked out, his eyes rolled back, and his body stilled. Tony looked up at Peter, with teary-eyes, because he remembered. He knew he shouldn’t but he did. Every day, every hour, every second. He watched his kid die over five hundred times and that's enough to drive anyone insane.

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

Tony found Peter, out of his suit, sat on a wall, a few streets down from where everything happened. “Hey, kid.” He tugged on his shoulders dragging him into a hug. He rubbed circles against his back, “How are you doing?” “Okay.” Peter squeaked, Tony, leaned back to look him in the eye, “You?” “I’m okay too.” He hopped up onto the wall, Peter leaned against his side, holding his arm. “So, we were in a time loop?” “Yes.” Peter brushed away tears with the back of his hand, “And you figured it out?” “I think we all did….” Tony sighed, “In a way.” “Yeah, something felt off.” Peter agreed, “How long were we in it?” “About a year and a half.” “Wow.” Peter sighed, in disbelief, “How did he do it? David. How did he turn back time?” “He was inhuman.” Tony dipped his chin to his chest, “He just didn’t know it. The loop broke when he died.”  “It’s not your fault, you know?” Peter squeezed his arm as he tucked his head against his collarbone. “I know,” Tony sniffled, “You... died.” “Not really.” Peter reassured him, “I’m still here, aren’t I?” “Yeah.” Tony pressed a kiss against Peter's hair, “Let’s keep it that way, hey?”

You can follow this month of scheduled Iron Dad Angst on AO3

[asknightmareanderror]

Bittersweet

Contains swearing and innuendos.

Over the next few days, the glitch hadn’t slept properly at all. Sure, he felt tired, abnormally so, but he couldn’t get a full night’s rest without waking up. He said nothing though, not thinking much of it.

Perhaps it was simply due to the fact that he had gotten intimate, gotten so close to Nightmare that his body was still buzzing, still active. Either way, he chose to pay no mind to his restlessness, more than proud of himself. He felt so much more magic pulsing through his bones, even with his fatigue, it felt surreal.

However, it was on the day they decided to destroy a universe that he got himself into a bloodbath.

~~~

Numerous red bones shot out of the ground, pummeling the human into the air, piercing through every last pore in their body and crushing their bones into nothing. Blood rained down, closely followed by their insides, a blue string caught the crimson soul.

“...someone’s eager.” Nightmare grimaced, edging towards Error, unsure.

“Never liked this place.” The glitch grinned in response, opening a portal to his anti-void, tying the soul up with countless others.

“Yeah but...now you’re a mess.” Nightmare sighed “I can hardly see your face under all that blood...” Error chuckled, amused. “Here I thought you’d be a lot cleaner than the others...I guess I was wrong...”

“...this is actually the first time I’ve ever been showered in blood...” He told him “...I don’t think...it’s gonna turn into a habit, heh...it smells gross and it’s sticky.”

“Good...it better not turn into a habit, I swear to god...” The oil monster grumbled, unimpressed by the amount of blood covering the glitch. “Go to your room and take a bath, we’ll finish the rest off...”

“...fine...” Error groaned, opening another portal and stepping through it.

“I’ll go find you some pyjamas after, alright?”

“Yeah...” The portal shut, he sighed into his jacket, taking it off. He pulled his jumper over his head, kicking his slippers off as he turned the hot water tap on.

He stared at it for a full minute before groaning, removing his shorts reluctantly and sitting in the hot water. He pulled the curtains shut, pouting to himself, hating the situation he had brought on himself.

In all honesty, he had no clue why he killed the human the way he did, he hardly controlled the bones themselves. Though, it felt nice, seeing them practically disintegrate into nothing but blood and mush. However, he didn’t know if Nightmare appreciated such a mess.

After a couple minutes, he heard the bathroom door opening, eyeing it warily as he watched the black blur from behind the shower curtain.

“...I’ve seen you in the bath before, Error...there’s no need to use the curtain.”

“Yeah but what if you were someone else?” Error tilted his head as Nightmare pulled the curtains aside “You don’t want anyone else to see me like this, right?”

“No...not really but, as you asked last time, I’m gonna sit with you.”

“Eh?!”

“You asked last time if I could sit in the bath with you...remember?” He thought deeply, concentrating, trying to find the memory in his head. Eventually, it popped up, leaving him with a golden face. “Besides...we’ve done weirder stuff.”

“Uhh...true.” He rubbed his left eyesocket, glancing away from Nightmare, unsure. “...you don’t...mind?”

“If I did mind, I would tell you...” He felt him sit down in front of him “This’ll make it easier to clean you though.”

“Stop being weird...” Error mumbled numbly, hugging his knees to his chest. “...you don’t have to ‘clean’ me.”

“...do you mind that I’m in the bath with you, Error?”

“Yeah but...I asked...it...it’s fine, I can handle it...” He bit his tongues, feeling Nightmare edging closer. “I--...w-what are you doing?” He turned his gaze back to the oil monster, staring at how close he was. “I-I...”

“You’re such a mess...” He muttered, grabbing the shower head with a tendril, using another to turn it on. “Honestly...I don’t understand how you can just sit there, covered in blood and worry more about me getting close to you.”

“I...j/ust...umm...” He trailed off, feeling the warm water hitting the top of his skull. “Y-you’re...weird...”

“Uh huh...” Nightmare smiled slightly “Let me get behind you...it’ll make this a lot easier...”

“Eh, no.”

“Why not?”

“‘Coz knowing you, you’re probably thinking of twenty different ways of harassing me if I let you do that.”

“You know me so well...” A tendril wrapped around his chest, pushing him to the side, allowing Nightmare to move behind him. Error growled lowly in response, unimpressed, but he let the oil monster continue. “You’ve got a very nice spine...”

“It’s bruised and dented...how’s it nice?”

“Little imperfections...the colour is so vibrant...you should feel lucky for something like that.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t.” Error murmured, shuddering a little as Nightmare traced a finger down each vertebrae in his spine.

“Why not? I think it makes you stick out from everyone else...” He leaned into his back, binding his arms around him, only for the glitch to squirm away. “What’s wrong?”

“D...don’t, okay? I...can’t stand people sneaking up behind me as it is...” Nightmare frowned a bit, rubbing the back of his skull lightly.

“...why do you have bruises on your back?”

“...from lying on the anti-void floor...it gave me pains and stuff but...it’s alright now.”

“Don’t you sleep with your strings though?” He heard Error let out an exasperated sigh, clearly not wanting to explain anything.

“...I didn’t always have my strings...it took a while for the anti-void to eat away at my code and turn me into this mess.” He gazed at the glitch for a couple minutes, cleaning the blood off him.

“...well...it has its benefits, right?” He finally said “You’re with me, right? Plus, I think you’re a hot mess.”

“...cheesy...” Error grinned a little, slowly leaning back, into Nightmare’s chest. “...but thanks.” That earned him a chuckle from the oil monster, obviously amused.

“Is it safe to say that I helped you?”

“Yeah...with a lot...to be honest...” The oil monster paused, staring at Error, his eye growing wider.

“I...uhh...did you...eat anything? And...store it in your stomach...?” He asked cautiously, Error shook his head, looking up at him, bemused.

“Why?”

“Then what the fuck is that?”

~~~

First | Previous | Next

~~Author’s Note?~~

(Ask if you want to know what’s happening and how stuff like this works with skeletons, I’ll be more than happy to explain)

[chill-that-ur-inmyhead]

Have you ever felt a baby kick? nope

What colour pants/shorts are you wearing? black leggings

When is the last time you did something truly fun, and what was it? recently listened to a vinyl my ex got for me and it just escalated to me listening to all my vinyl’s in my room!

What was the scariest moment of your life?                                                June 2020, I had submitted my dissertation and it meant no more uni now it was real life.... and real life meant a global pandemic - safe to say I had some panicky moments

Have you ever heard of Leonard Cohen? nope

Pancakes or flapjacks? flapjacks

What kind of computer are you on? dell Inspiron 15 3000 laptop (black)

Do you eat Chinese food? If so, what’s your favorite dish? YES, chow mein usually chicken

What are you usually doing at midnight? scrolling through twitter

Have you ever developed feelings for a friend, but you were already with someone? yeah but I didn’t realise it had happened until after I moved away

If so, how did it turn out?                                                                                  we didn’t see each other since I left the place we worked at together

Give me your brief definition of love. just pure bliss that feels like home

What is the most beautiful part of the human body, male or female? eyes, they are the windows to the soul

What kind of shoes do you wear? I like dad sneakers, very chunky

What is the worst thing you’ve ever done when you were really angry?        told my ex boyfriend’s new girlfriend that he was still talking to me 

Are there any pills you take on a daily basis? If so, what?                        birth control

Do you like the smell of coconuts? yes

What is the heaviest you think you can lift? ooof I don’t know really

Do you take Tums? nope??? no idea what that is?

Have you ever walked on a pier at the beach? yes, we have one in my home town

How about under one? yes

At what age do you first remember feeling butterflies in your stomach around someone? I guess I had crushes on a couple of guys in my class back in the day so I guess below the age of 10, maybe around 8 or 9

Do you feel that way around anyone now? not right now

Do you ever talk to yourself or think deep thoughts while on the toilet? yes

Do you ever sing to yourself? sing along to music but never without - I am tone deaf

What is a sound that relaxes you? hmmm I guess the sound of the beach, waves crashing the usual nature sounds

How hard has it been to reach your main goal in life?                                      main goal is to be happy and it has been difficult in a pandemic

Do you remember the song about hoes in different area codes? ummm? no? sounds like a bop haha

What is your main heritage? British

What kind of pickles do you prefer, if you like pickles? not for me

What kind of cheese do you prefer, if you like cheese? mature cheddar is my daily go to but I like a lot of cheeses

If you could have a sea creature as a pet, what would you want? dolphin 

How about a farm animal? horse

So, do you have hoes in different area codes? I used to but they left me ;) 

What is the most annoying song you can think of that came out recently? tbh any song that has been ruined by tik tok

What is a song that you hate to admit you like? rick astley never gonna give you up - before rick rolling was a thing I bopped to this song and still can

What inspires you to get off your bum and do something productive? pinterest mood boards, e.g if I can get my room to look as good as they can then I’ll do something productive

Do you ever use Urban Dictionary? yes

Do you find the definitions on there to be generally funny or stupid? funny

What comes to your mind when you hear the word ‘transformation’? transformers movies

What was something you regularly played with as a child? Barbies forever

Have you ever given in to peer pressure? sure

What part of your body have you had the most problems with in your life? feet!!! they just hate me

Do a lot of people check you out when you’re in public?                                not in a way that is annoying I guess 

What is a good name for a turtle?                                                                Raphael

Can you imitate any accents well? If so, which one(s)? american is pretty easy, maybe australian

Do you like having your ear nibbled on? depends who is doing the nibbling

What makes a good kisser a good kisser? soft lips, not too much tongue and can keep the teeth at bay How many times a year do you have a family thing? with extended family usually twice a year

What are the best things to put in a smoothie? strawberries, bananas, yoghurt and milk (maybe I should branch out because that’s literally all I have)

Do you ever eat with your eyes closed and just focus on the taste? chocolate for sure

What do you dislike most about where you live right now? we are in lockdown and I can’t continue practicing my driving!!!

Has anyone ever given you a rose/roses? yes, honestly you would think flowers are cliche but oh boy do I love receiving them

Are you watching your weight? yup..... watching it GROW haha

Have you ever become really good friends with someone you found online?                                                                                                                for my second and third year of uni I had to find flatmates online and yeah friendships were formed 

What makes your best friend your best friend?

I can talk to them about anything and even tho life can take us to different places we’ll always have each other

Do you have a drunk uncle? nah

Do you hear weird noises in your house at night? I used to, it was only the old boiler kicking in the heating but recently we got a new one and it doesn’t make weird noises, I kinda miss them

What is something you do that is generally more like something the opposite sex does? eh I don’t think I do anything ‘guy’ like

What is the girliest thing you do, if you’re a girl? just girly things hahaha eh idk, I like getting my nails done every month or so

What is the coolest tattoo you’ve ever seen? I think it was Rihanna that got a tattoo at the centre of her chest and I thought it was really cool with the placing and style

Have you ever created anything artistic that you’re proud of? If so, what? nah

Do you only eat the middle of the oreo, if you eat oreos? I eat all of it

Do you know anyone with a huge ego? yes

If so, is there anything else about them you actually like? they have moments of being humble too

Do you have any friends who are more like siblings to you? hmmmm not yet

If so, what about them do you like most?

What do you like on your hotdogs, if you eat hotdogs? ketchup!! 

What is everyone else in your house doing right now? sleeping

How long do you think it would take you to run a mile? ah 15 mins maybe idk?????

Look down. What do you see? my cute pjs - been really into pjs ever since moving back home and not living independently anymore   What is a subject that makes you uncomfortable? homelessness

What is a subject you can talk on and on about and not get sick of it? taylor swift (can’t guarantee whomever I am talking to about her will get sick of it haha)

What kind of mood were you in most of today? not too bad, just a constant state of boredom waiting for the day for this pandemic to be over

Has anyone ever walked in on you naked? yes but we were dating so nbd

Tell me an inside joke you have with someone. my grandad was born in India and I used to go around saying that I was 1/4 Asian but ofc my friends knew I was joking now it’s a running joke

What is the worst thing you’ve ever done to someone emotionally? I guess led someone on

How do you feel now about the first person you ever dated? glad I had nice first dating experiences to reminisce about

How about the last person (your last ex)? bit more painful since we were together longer and went through a lot but as time moves forward it gets easier

What is the best invention ever invented? apple airpod pros(noise cancellation is a dream)

What is something that needs to be invented? honestly up until a year ago it was noise cancelling bluetooth earphones

What always makes you burp? I don’t usually burp tbh

What are you doing tomorrow? going for a walk in the rain to try out my new raincoat, fixing my curtain and finally putting up my fairy lights

[screeeeeeaaaaam]

1. Blue!

2. My colour would probably be Green, even though I prefer blue.

3. I'd love to see the surrealist landscapes of Zendikar in real life, but

4. Living in Ravnica would probably be easier...

5. Favourite planeswalker is either Tibalt for meme reasons or Ashiok for character and power.

6. Favourite NON-planeswalker would probably be Muldrotha. Not only one of my favourite characters for canon and lore, but it was my first legendary as well!

7. Card art plays a huge factor for me, but I love wacky and unique concepts. Whether it be some strange effect, or strange in-canon powers doesn't matter. Individuality is my favourite!

8. More control, by far. Never really liked aggro. Not enough structure to it, in my opinion.

9. I find either one card I adore, or an engine I would adore exploiting, and run with it. Base everything around it.

10. I don't name them, strangely enough! I colour code them instead. I get deckboxes for each if them based on the most memorable colour in the deck.

11. Eldrazi is my favourite creature type by far. I've been trying to build a blue-green scion ramp deck for a few months now, with no progress. I just like eldrazi enough to sink this much time into a deck for them!

12. My favourite card is Omniscience. It's a touch boring, I know, but the potential is to good to not love. If you can play an Omniscience and an Enter the Infinite, you basically win right then and there.

13. My dream deck would be an pimped out Eldrazi Titans ramp deck. You've heard of turn 3 Karn? Now get ready for turn 4 Emrakul. (except he's foil, too)

14. Favourite block/set? Rise if the Eldrazi, from Zendikar.

15. Ideal Tribal? Crabs. Just see how many Crab Based cards you can fit.

16. I have played in a tournament once. Nothing fancy or special, but I came third place! I was new at the time, and it was a begginers tournament, so I'm a little ashamed of how badly I understood the game at the time. Luckily, my opponents were somehow worse than me! I got a prerelease-dated foil Mizium Meddler. It's not a particularly great card, or a particularly rare or valuable card, but it was my first tournament prize. So it means a lot to me!

17. Favourite format is a tossup between casual and commander. I prefer playing Commander, but there's an itch sometimes that can only be scratched by having a janky, rules-bent game of kitchen table magic.

18. You can search for a land, and put it in your hand, provided you've been mana-fucked throughout the game. It's no fun if the opponent has no mana!

19. In interest of keeping the game going for longer, take an extra 10 health at the end of the game. Winning is fun, but playing longer is more fun.

20. Eh, kinda. Standard, but without land. Instead, your Mana pool goes up one, every single turn. Just one less thing to worry about!

21. I don't know enough about the subject to have an opinion!

22. Nope! Not in any kind of order, anyways. I know who likes who, who hates who, and thats all I need.

23. Favourite story is that of Innistrad. It's just spooky as hell!

24. It kinda goes without saying at this point, but ancient Eldrazi titan. Pretty simple.

25. Nope! Never liked the whole idea of OC's. Think I'm alone in that opinion though, lol

26. I love Zendikar a lot, but I'd really really really like more Ixalan.

27. TIBALT

28. Favourite mechanic is Monarch. No real explanation, just think it's neat!

29. Favourite flavour text is really hard for me. Not because I have so many favourites, it's just that very few are memorable. Eldrazi Devastator sticks out the most, though. It's somewhat poignant in its simplicity. It's a strong card, imposing art, and a hopeless view expressed by the flavour text. Just kinda bleak in general. And that makes it cool as hell! Least favourite is easier, though. Least favourite at the moment is Lightning Helix, because it doesn't feel like Ajani's character at all. He's a perfect goody-two shoes and this isn't the kind of thing someone like that woukd say. Feels like he would advocate against rage in general.

30. The fact that it's so damn popular! I know it sounds bad, but it isn't. If you mention MTG in a room, chances are that someone will know what you're talking about! It's a good way to make friends.

31. Angels

32. Merfolk

33. Vampires

34. Blue Zombies

35. Hybrid

36. Eldrazi

37. Multicoloured

38. Dragons

39. Elves

40. Enchantments

Magic: the Gathering Asks

What’s your favorite color(s) to play with?

What do you think your color is?

Which plane would you want to visit?

Which plane would you want to live?

Who is your favorite planeswalker?

Who is your favorite non-planeswalker character?

Do you focus on tribal, flavor, general synergy, or something else?

Are you more aggro or control?

How do you go about building your deck? What’s the process?

Do you name your decks? If so, what are their names?

Do you have a favorite creature type?

What’s your favorite card?

What’s your dream deck?

What’s your favorite block? Favorite set?

What creature type would you want tribal, no matter how ridiculous?

Have you played in a tournament? What format? What did you place?

What format do you prefer?

What are your personal friendly rules for 60 card?

What are your personal friendly rules for Commander?

Have you and/or your friends ever made your own format?

What blocks or sets do you think would go well together?

Do you keep up with the story?

What’s your favorite story/article?

If you could be any creature type, what would you be?

Do you have any Fanwalkers? Or other OCs?

Is there a plane you’d like MtG to visit/revisit?

Is there a character you’d like MtG to visit/revisit?

What’s your favorite mechanic? Least favorite?

What’s your favorite flavor text? Least favorite?

What is your favorite thing about Magic: the Gathering?

Angels or Demons?

Merfolk or Pirates?

Vampires or Werewolves?

Black Zombies or Blue Zombies?

Phyrexian Mana or Hybrid Mana?

Eldrazi or Allies?

Multicolored or Monocolored?

Dinosaurs or Dragons?

Goblins or Elves?

Artifacts or Enchantments?

[toricrypticice]

Lets get personal

No one tagged me but why not?

RULES: you must answer these 92 statements and tag 20 people (Lmao, no)

THE LAST:

1. drink: Iced Tea 2. phone call: My mom 3. text message: “?” 4. song you listened to: Pretty Girl -Cheat Codes X CADE remix 5. time you cried: 7:35 pm today  6. dated someone twice: yes 7. kissed someone and regretted it: yep 8. been cheated on: sort of 9. lost someone special: yes, I lost an important friend as of kind of recently. :( 10. been depressed: yep right now but I’m getting help  11. gotten drunk and thrown up: Nope

LIST 3 FAVOURITE COLOURS:

12-14. - Maroon, seafoam green, and Teal.

IN THE LAST YEAR HAVE YOU:

15. made new friends: Yeah and they all are pretty great (≧▽≦) 16. fallen out of love: kind of  they broke my heart once and I was stupid enough to get back with them only to realize I had gotten over them between the time we were apart. 17. laughed until you cried: Yes XD 18. found out someone was talking about you: not really no one does. 19. met someone who changed you: Mmm, yes. in real life and online. 20 found out who your friends are: yeah, a lot some people don’t stay I guess and some are closer than others.  21. kissed someone on your Facebook list: Yep 

GENERAL:

22. how many of your Facebook friends do you know in real life: All of them except two actually  23. do you have any pets: Not myself but my family has four cats who I love but I want a dog 24. do you want to change your name: Ehh unsure yet I like Tori but I also like Marsh. A lot of my friends call me Marsh.  25. what did you do for your last birthday: Well the day of my birthday not much I mean we had something I picked out for dinner. But two days before my B-day I hung out with my other family and they got me a cake, brought me out to eat, and walked on the beach with me. I missed them a lot.  26. what time did you wake up: Today around 3 but went back to sleep until 9 am 27. what were you doing at midnight last night: Chilling on my phone, mostly instagram and Snapchat 28. name something you can’t wait for: FOR ME TO GRADUATE  29. when was the last time you saw your mom: today at 3 30. what is one thing you wish you could change in your life: Money issues. I wish we didn’t have to constantly worry that we might lose the house and the roof we live under. 31. what are you listening to right now: A fucking Spotify Ad (ಠ ∩ಠ) oh wait well now Broken Strings by James Morrison 32. have you ever talked to a person named tom: Yep,  33. something that is getting on your nerves: A lot and really there is no reason. Acne, my body, my anxiety, my depression, summer school (눈_눈), and of course my family. 34. most visited website: Youtube 35-37. lost questions?? ?Wat 38. hair colour: Naturally brown but dyed partially blonde 39. long or short hair: Short but growing it out  40. do you have a crush on someone: Right now no but I kinda wish I did. 41. what do you like about yourself: Creativity 42. piercings: None (my ears closed on me) 43. blood type: Fuck I don’t know lmao 44. nickname: Tori/Marsh (Tori short for Victoria, Marsh short for Marshall) 45. relationship status: Single 46. zodiac: Taurus 47. pronouns: Any 48. favourite tv show: hmmmmm idk I don’t watch much but I like the classic teen titans not the sucktacular new one, oh and Steven Universe is super good. 49. tattoos: Nope    ....But doesn’t mean I won’t be getting some ฅ•ω•ฅ 50. right or left handed: right 51. surgery: nah 52. piercing: wat....this was already a....aw whatever 53. sport: Sports don't agree with me. I mean I’m good at frisbee and badminton, other sports are fun but I’m not the best. I do like watching Hockey and Ice Skating though. 55. vacation: Nah my family doesn’t have the money. We never go on vacation. 56. pair of trainers: .....oh this is talking about shoes XD.... I was like trainers who gets two and why is this a common thing. lmao welp guess I answered that with a big fat nope!

MORE GENERAL

57. eating: thirty minutes ago 58. drinking: Been drinking a lot of over sugared ice tea, monsters, and water lately. 59. i’m about to: Push all my clothes onto the floor so I can chill on my bed instead of chilling on the floor.  61. waiting for: this shouldn’t be a hard question but somehow it is, uhhhh oh for all my friend to be free so we can get together I wanna go to Quassy for $0.50 cent night 62. want: To get to my goal weight :P 63. get married: I do XD   I hope to meet someone that I can hangout with to recharge There’s a Youtuber I watch who has a great relationship with his wife. I want that. 64. career: I’m so unsure. Being a YouTuber has been a huge interest but everyone shits on that along with my acting dream so I guess anything to do with art  65. hugs or kisses: I love both but I do like hugs a lot even though I act rather stand offish I appreciate hugs

66. lips or eyes: i think it depends on the person honestly, but probably eyes 67. shorter or taller: Hmmm I don’t know   it doesn’t matter to me I don’t get why people say they NEED someone who is taller. If the person is sweet, acts like a child, enjoys games, and loves movies they are my kinda person.  68. older or younger: I don’t know I like people who are rather mature but can also horse around 70. nice arms or nice stomach: Eh Don’t care much for either. 71. sensitive or loud: Both, and they need to know when loud is appropriate and when it isn’t, because I have no patience for immaturity in that way. Idk maybe that’s just me 72. hook up or relationship: Relationship. I don’t think I can hook-up because I’ve been realizing I’m pretty sure I’m on the demi-sexual side of things. Plus i don’t know a hook up just seems terrible. You hook up and give someone a part of you and then you never see them again I don’t know maybe its just not for me. 73. troublemaker or hesitant: i prefer someone who is hesitant, but with a slight troublemaker streak because I am very hesitant myself. Yeah as long as we don’t get arrested/expelled/fired I’m up for it. 

HAVE YOU EVER:

74. kissed a stranger: nope. 75. drank hard liquor: Yep but just a sip  shhhh 76. lost glasses/contact lenses: Yep and then you can’t find them because you need glasses to see but thats what you lost. 77. turned someone down: Yeah, but it never gets any easier I just feel so bad cause I know what its like to be on both sides. Both sides are horrible. 78. sex on the first date: NOPE!!!! 79. broken someone’s heart: Yeah God I felt so bad :(    But I think they are over me, we are still friends.... but I still feel bad.  80. had your heart broken: Yeah twice and both times were horrible 81. been arrested: No and I hope it stays that way 82. cried when someone died: Yeah but not usually when I first get the news it takes awhile before it sinks in. I’m bad with emotions. 83. fallen for a friend: Yeah all of them. They all didn’t work though :P

DO YOU BELIEVE IN:

84. yourself: Not really, I rather mean to myself but kinder to others. but I’m also a jerk at times to people I care about.  85. miracles: Uhm. Only because I’ve seen some, tbh.  86. love at first sight: Kind of.  87. santa claus: Nah man its not possible.....wait unless he’s a wizard OH SHIT___!!!!! 88. kiss on the first date: Maybe, idk, probs not, but there’s a chance. 89. angels: not really I don’t believe in god sooooo 

OTHER:

90. current best friend’s name: Mikayla and Michelle   They are the closest people in my life.  91. eye colour: blue/green with a brown ring around my pupil 92. favourite movie: UGh I can’t really choose, I love movies so its super hard. like there are musicals, dramas, romance, thriller, animation, comedy- I could go on forever. My favorite movie changes. Right now its Winnie The Pooh Piglet’s Big Adventure but tomorrow it will most likely change. Dude I should watch that. 

Who’s Tagged? (I chose most of them randomly)

@seashell-calling @theauthorolive1215 @i-ship-septicplier @i-did-it-because-i-can @elentori-art @konoira @queer-coffee @planet-pastels @peachymints @ethan-works @lemememeringue

[honestlysoconfused-blog1]

Playing a Game

I wrote a thing! Probably all wrong but eh, I had fun writing it.

Key Points

Sherlock series four was created from fandom theories

The fandom is currently playing a ‘Game’ on itself

Evidence in Summary

The number of fan predicted moments that are portrayed in the series

The larger ‘ARG’ elements that have currently been explored (TLS site, Dale Pike) have been ‘exposed’ as being part of the fandom

Foreword

Firstly, my apologies for any mistakes and I honestly encourage anyone to point out flaws or counter arguments or indeed assumptions I have made that could invalidate this argument, because I think healthy scepticism is required when looking at anything currently surrounding Sherlock. I’m also placing this in a essay like format so it should be easier to pick apart or add your own sections/thoughts.

Background - Derren Brown and Prediction Techniques

Derren Brown has always fascinated me and so I have watched a fair amount of his stuff. Certainly not all of it, but enough to start recognising some patterns. The first, of which he seems very fond of, is making things that should be random appear planned. The beauty of doing this is to create a sense of being able to predict the future, or future actions of people. This can be seen in pretty much every show he’s ever done, and I’m not going to pretend I know  how he does it, but an example is when, throughout a show, he encouraged a man to take more chances and eventually to bet his savings on the roll of a die. The roll of the die should have been random but obviously ended with it landing oh-so-amazingly on the correct number and the man winning lots of money.

More details here although as it is an old episode, the link to the Channel 4 video no longer works but the comments give you a brief overview: http://derrenbrown.co.uk/derren-discusses-secret-luck/

The second of Brown’s favourites is making things that appear planned random. This I believe is the more key element and is beautifully summarised by a trick he played on a group of people (including David Tennant!) whereupon they were put into a room containing various different coloured playground objects (balls, space hoppers if I remember correctly, sticks, and so on). They were told that a counter (displayed on a large screen for the people to see) had to reach 100 within a set time limit and then they would each win some money. Cue the people running around the room, bashing sticks, grabbing certain coloured items and generally doing stupid and silly things trying to work out the pattern to make the counter go up.

Briefly outlined here (Series Two, episode title - Supersitition): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trick_or_Treat_(TV_series)

The trick?

It was completely random. There was an adjudicator in a completely separate room watching a tank with two fish in, clicking a button whenever one of the fish swam over a line drawn on the tank. This is what made the counter increase. Derren also revealed that there was a briefcase containing a much larger prize of £150 000. If one of the players had decided to step away from the game, wander back a little and look up, they would have seen the a giant sign saying ‘Congratulations, you’ve just won all this money’ or words to that effect (I can’t quite remember whether it was instructions to get to the money, but the point remains the same).

What does this have to do with Sherlock?

The parallel I would like to draw is that the players (the fandom), are staring at the room (series four) full of objects (hints, clues and ‘fuckery’) trying to create an explanation and draw a pattern that will get us to 100 (the explanation, the rug pull, the truth and/or ‘The Lost Special’).

I believe it could also be an explanation as to why so much doesn’t make sense regarding series four and its aftermath.

The Game - Setting the Stage

Here I have to make some assumptions.

The first of these is that there is actually a reason behind series four being, well, bad.

I don’t think anyone can seriously defend the continuity errors, the villainous character repetition[1], the gaping plot holes, the ludicrousness that is a cameraman being left in shot and the show ignoring its own canon[2]. If this is prime-time, heavily promoted television and if there is not a greater plan then all of my argument is invalid, although I would then be questioning the state and sanity of the BBC at large.

However, for now (and frankly because it is more fun) let us believe there is a plan.

The second assumption is that series four as we saw it had not been filmed before the trailers had been released.

On this assumption I would very, very much like people to chip in to either disprove or provide evidence for as - confession time - before series four I was what you would probably call an enthusiastic casual. I certainly knew very little or nothing about the conspiracies[3] and codes[4] and predictions surrounding them[5] but I could read the surface level ones[6] and regularly picked up on the amount of romantic subtext between the characters of Sherlock and John. After series four and being very confused as to why my one time favourite show had turned, to quote, into a parody of itself[7], I sought answers and that led me, naturally, to the online world.

Of note here, I was surprised at the various levels of defence of the show there was on certain platforms (Reddit[8]) whilst anger and disappointment on others (Tumblr and to an extent Twitter[9]). This, unsurprisingly, seemed to run parallel to how much the show was, and is, analysed and the level of dedication the average user has to the show. In other words, ‘casual’ viewers picked up on plot holes but dedicated fans were more likely to be emotive (and therefore later engage in the game).

It is also here where I would like the define the term ‘stage’.

The crowd are who you want to direct, encourage and discourage but what platform this is done on is actually very important. Ethically and morally the I believe platform would have to be ‘open’ and partially anonymous. This is to provide players with an escape route should they need it so a closed platform, such as Facebook, where posts are hidden behind a login wall and are more likely to be linked with personal data, would not be suitable. It also provides the benefit of a larger audience, encouraging others to join in and engage. As Sherlock already had a stable fanbase on Tumblr, this I believe was largely left alone. However, again, as I was not ‘around’ for it, please do counteract this if there were Tumblr specific Sherlock promotions designed to encourage engagement.

The platform to be developed was Twitter, which was actively and officially encouraged first with the live tweeting event[10], then grew unofficially through the Tumblr platform by fans with #Norbury[11] and finally the ‘contact’ accounts of @contactSH and @contactJHW[12]. At present it has been stated that the contact accounts are “not real”[13].   

This, in essence, is what I believe the final stage to look like; Tumblr the hardier and staple platform with Twitter as the advertising and set dressing element.  

The Game - Gathering a Crowd

The crowd, to a large extent, already existed but I suspect has quietly been grown amongst ‘casual’ viewers like myself.

Much of this is hesitant guesswork but certain articles on the actor’s private lives and the rumours around Sherlock’s possible cancellation[14] which has previously never been in question strike me as a deliberate ploy to garner more attention from populist media (The Mirror, The Sun etc.).

However, as there are ‘real human lives’ at stake with this particularly on the first point regarding people’s private lives, I do not encourage further rumours or any assumptions made on my opinion. Simply take it as that - an opinion. As to the implication of my opinion - are the rumours true? - again on the first point I would actively encourage not to think about the content but rather the means, motive and opportunity of said rumours. The means by which they were reported, the motive of doing so - which I have already stated I believe to be a plot to get more people actively engaged - and the opportunities that arise.

Reaching an un-engaged audience through manipulative mediums (which populist media are, give them the hint of a scandal and they lap it up) to pull in more potential players also nicely mirrors the pointed warnings in Sherlock series three - “I don't have to prove it, I just have to print it”.

The Game - Selecting the Players and Providing Motivation

The guide the audience one must next pick key players that - knowingly or not - guide the wider mass. It is here that my assumption of series four not being filmed until after the trailer had been released comes into focus.

In order to make your audience trust the players and follow their lead, one must make them credible. The easiest way to do that regarding a television show is to validate their theories - people are more likely trust someone who has been right about a plot theory or arc before. Here I will decline to mention any specific accounts or names, and I endeavour to remember the real human lives element. However there is a startling correlation with series four following predictions made on Tumblr. [I may here ask said accounts for permission to name them, but for now out of respect I would like to leave them out but encourage others to look at who predicted what.]

At this point there is one key element missing - the motivation to play. It has to be carefully implanted and made big enough to distract and focus everyone’s attention: this is, I believe, ‘The Lost Special’[15] and possibly the affirmation of a canonical, romantic relationship between John Watson and Sherlock Holmes in Sherlock[16a]. On a wider scale though, the prize could simply be ‘the thing that makes the series make sense[16b].

With key players selected, validated and motivated the next step is to start directing them towards playing the game itself.

The Game - The Room of Random Objects

Continuing on the first assumption, creating a series based off fan predictions has the dual benefit of not only validating the players but providing the perfect room of random objects.

Each clue, visual or textual error becomes an object on which the players can focus, discuss and generally ‘play with’ and the potential randomness of where the mind of the crowd will turn becomes much easier to predict. The mind of the fandom has essentially been mirrored.

It also accounts for the clues that didn’t amount to anything, namely the 8th of March, which taken in this context actually provides further proof of this theory. The reveal - nothing happened - is that there is no real game.

The problem here is that using the Derren Brown room metaphor the stated prize is cheap and the potential larger reward comes from stepping away from the game. If we believe that they are using this gameplan rather than another, a reward will be given at the end but it will not be as great or satisfying as if the players were to step back. In contrast to this point, the motivation of the gamemaster must be taken in account.

In the Derren Brown series he is the gamemaster and his motivation is to make a television show, get some people looking silly on camera, and provide an important message about confirmation bias.

Is this the same message being put forward? Or is there another message?

What is the motivation of the gamemasters, if I am correct, in this case? And does the second, larger prize exist?

I do not know.

But on the off chance I am right, here I am, making the point.

In Conclusion

Series four of Sherlock was a huge disappointment and the possibility of redeeming it is very tempting. It’s dragged me here, to Tumblr actually posting this, a place I never thought I would find myself.

However, knowing that the writers are clever, and that at least one is a friend of Derren Brown (and who of course appeared in the show itself), I can’t help but think we are, or where, being played and played against ourselves. Such a thing is fun initially, yes, but at some point the game must end.

If it doesn’t, or it doesn’t exist, and if they truly, unequivocally and totally defend series four as it currently stands then I shall remember series one to three of Sherlock as being fantastic.

References, evidence bits and expansions on points

[1] Toby Jones’ character Smith is described as the most “dangerous and despicable” man Sherlock has ever come across, very nearly the exact words used to describe Magnussen. Moriarty is also described as the most dangerous man Sherlock had ever faced.

[2] In His Last Vow (series three) the character of Sherlock Holmes is shot in the chest, prompting the character of Molly Hooper to remark “It’s not like how it is in the movies. There’s no great spurt of blood and you go flying backwards.” However, in The Six Thatchers (series four) the character of Mary Watson is also shot in the chest; shown jumping in front of the bullet (flying backwards) as blood spurts from the wound. In His Last Vow, the character of John Watson is shown burning the AGRA memory stick which contains the details of Mary Watson’s life before she met him. In The Six Thatchers the character of Sherlock Holmes explicitly states “she destroyed it” referring to the memory stick and Mary Watson. There are many more examples.

[3, 4 and 5] TJLC, Tie Hell, The Elephant in the Room as examples.

[6] The mirrors between characters, of note John Watson’s girlfriend in A Scandal in Belgravia and Molly Hooper’s boyfriend ‘Tom’.

[7] https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2017/jan/16/sherlock-how-the-tv-phenomenon-became-an-annoying-parody-of-itself and http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/sherlock-season-4-episode-one-benedict-cumberbatch-martin-freeman-tv-series-mary-watson-amanda-a7509261.html  

[8] Despite pointing out plotholes, the general impression is of enjoyment with a comment thread about enjoying the episode having 2000+ points and plothole threads ranging from the hundreds to low 1000+ Whether or not this a true reflection of being annoyed by said plotholes or amused with the comment delivery could be debated: https://www.reddit.com/r/Sherlock/comments/5o6t49/the_final_problem_postepisode_discussion_thread/

[9] As Tumblr and Twitter are a more fluid platform this is harder to prove, but I saw the Tumblr reaction firsthand trying to find explanations/theories, and nearly all of the posts were pointing out plot holes or attempting to find a redemption with the ‘Secret Fourth Episode’ theory. This article notes a ��mixed’ reaction on Twitter: http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2017-01-17/31-tweets-that-perfectly-sum-up-the-mixed-reaction-to-sherlock

[10] http://www.bbc.co.uk/events/efwwhn/live/c36g9r

[11] I’m reluctant to link the Buzzfeed article as it was written by a user named Christopher Melas which may or may not be a reference to the BBC John Watson’s blog post The Geek Interpreter. Whether this article is then a reliable narration of events can be questioned: https://www.buzzfeed.com/chrismelas/twitter-is-destroying-bbc-sherlock-right-now-2ssvd?utm_term=.cxzeqXBgXX#.pqywAKR9KK

[12] https://twitter.com/contactsh?lang=en and https://twitter.com/contactJHW

[13] https://twitter.com/joelidster/status/821029727439900672

[14] http://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/sherlock-end-because-benedict-cumberbatch-9635585 and http://www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/2017/01/17/sherlocks-cold-shoulder-could-cumberbatch-freemans-frosty-relationship/ and https://www.thesun.co.uk/tvandshowbiz/2629818/sherlocks-benedict-cumberbatch-and-martin-freeman-cast-doubt-over-further-series-due-to-frosty-friendship/

[15] http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2017-01-23/steven-moffat-responds-to-fan-theory-about-a-secret-fourth-sherlock-episode

[16a and 16b] I don’t believe in demanding plots from writers and if this is truly not the story the writers want to tell, so be it. (On the one-in-a-billion chance anyone of note reads this: why not, though? Really, genuinely curious, why not?) But I will damn well demand that the plot makes sense and this series had plot holes and nonsense in abundance.

[moosetrackart-old]

For Good Old Times' Sake

A Batman fanfiction. I haven’t written one in an eon, so here.

I learnt that BatJokes is a canon ship through The Lego Batman Movie, and it made me fangirl really hard.

Btw, they’re not Lego people in this. Also, in this AU, Joker’s makeup can be removed.

Fluffy aF

———————————————–

Joker sat in Arkham, feeling kind of down; his Batman, as he calls him, hadn’t come around to check in with him lately. He sighed and leant against the wall, a frown on his face.

“Oh Batman, my Batman, why don’t you come around? I thought that you hated me enough to keep me down… Oh Batman, my Batman, it’s never enough. Why don’t you come to check on my stuff?” the clownish man sing quietly to himself. “My Batman, my Batman, why don’t you come to check on me? My Batman, MY Batman, you’re the best to be seen…” He drifted off and sighed again, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Hello Joker,” the vigilante hummed as he walked up to the thick glass that the Joker was held behind. “What are you singing about me?”

“I was just wondering by singing where you’ve been and why you haven’t come to see me in a while. Nothing too vulgar,” J said with a laugh. “Anyways, when are you gonna let me out of here again? Aren’t we supposed to be playing cat and mouse?”

“I suppose we would be, but now that I’ve finally got you behind glass, I don’t need to ‘play’ with you anymore.” Batman turned around briefly to think before turning back around. “Say, what if I DID let you out? What would you do?”

“I-I don’t know,” the villain stuttered, messing with his hair to make it look good to him. “I guess I’d just make my way into the city to have you find me. Doesn’t that sound like fun?”

A pause.

“How about we make a deal?” Bruce in disguise pondered aloud.

“I’m listening~” the Joker purred curiously.

“You don’t use weapons or try to destroy the city, and you won’t hurt anyone, and I won’t use weapons to find and stop you? That sounds safer and less destructive, if you ask me.”

“Oh, sure! Just punch in that code and give me an hour’s start, and then we can play our fun game of hide and seek, eh?” Joker’s eyes lit up, and he got an even wider smile on his face. “It’ll be so much fun!”

“Of course.” So, the Bat opened up the glass door and let the Joker go free. “Good luck. Your time starts now.”

“Got it!” And the humorous, murderous, comedic villain skipped down the stairs and made his way into the city, hiding in the darkest of places after changing into a black suit to blend in.

“One hour, he said. That’s a good amount of time to give him to hide.”

–

An hour passed, so Batman started making his way after his target. He searched far and wide, and finally found him hiding against a wall, wearing the suit that was previously described.

“Ah, I see you’ve discovered me. Now it’s time to catch me!” Before J could run, Batman had him by the collar of his outfit. “O-oh, I-I guess that was easier that I thought it would be…”

“You got yourself cornered. That’s your own fault,” B purred, bringing the villain closer to him. The nose of his cowl gently nudged Joker’s own nose, soon aiding the vigilante in pressing their mouths together.

“B-Batsy, wh-what are you d-doing?” Joker mumbled underneath Batman’s lips.

“Shh, shh, trust me.” The taller man separated their lips and pressed their open mouths together, slipping his tongue in his villain’s mouth. “You’re my villain. I hate you so much.”

“Aw, I hate you too~” J cooed, moving his arms around the back of Bruce’s neck. He threaded his fingers through his kisser’s hair and pulled lightly. “I hate you so much~”

“I hate you the most,” Batman said sweetly, moving his kiss to Joker’s neck. “Come with me.” He led the boy™ to his mansion.

–

“Hello, Bat-Batmaaaaaaaaaaa……” Alfred’s mouth fell open when he saw the Joker in the Batcave. “What in heavens’ name is he doing here?”

“Oh, we just need to clean him up a bit. I’m thinking a bit of bleach for his hair and removal of all the makeup, minus red lipstick, because that’s hot,” Batman purred, laughing quietly at Joker’s small noises of protest.

“U-um, sir, I don’t think that this is a good idea. I mean, he is a maniac, for crying out loud!” the butler protested.

“Just trust me. Get a couple gallons of bleach and some makeup removal stuff and we can reform this dapper young man.”

“Alright, sir.” Alfred left the room and returned with the desired materials.

–

“Joker, please sit down in this chair,” Alfred said, motioning to a nice chair.

“Alright then.” So, J sat. He hissed when the bleach was painted into his hair, as his roots had to be saturated in order to be completely blonde. Next, his makeup was washed off, revealing a very pale man. “Man, I really need to get out more,” he pondered aloud as he looked at his face in the mirror.

“Yes, you do. You need to not wear so much makeup all the time, despite your villainy attire,” the butler replied, brushing Joker’s hair. He noted how few knots there were. “Do you brush it every day?”

“Well, I always keep a brush in my pocket…” A small smile covered the vanilla villain’s face. “I like to look good when I’m playing- I mean, fighting with Batman.”

“That is a very good idea, since Batman is very picky when it comes to looks.”

It was weird, Joker thought; Alfred, the loyal father father figure (and also butler) to Batman/Bruce was praising one of his son’s greatest enemies. He let it happen, though, because it felt good to hear praises from someone who isn’t one of his goons.

The two shared kind banter as Alfred spruced up the man, putting lipstick and blush onto him and making sure his hair looked good. “You look amazing. It’s like you’re a whole new person!”

“Thank you, Alfred! I’m sure my Batman will love it.”

“Your Batman?”

“He’s mine. We hate each other so much, and it makes me tingle good on the inside~”

“How come 'hate’ is your word for love?”

“He doesn’t really say that word, so hate is what we use. It makes me feel so good that he’s using that word, since it’s our codeword for love~ Ahh~” Joker sighed with happiness, clasping his hands together. “Say, how come you don’t… Hm… Hold on. One sec. Let me look for words… Who is Batman, and why don’t you refer to him as his regular name?”

“I refer to him as Batman while he is in costume because I don’t want to say his real name aloud. His identity, I do not want to reveal.”

“Alright. Well, can I make a guess as to who he is? Please?”

“I do not see why not.”

“You have to tell the truth whether or not it’s him, okay?”

“Alright…”

“Is he Bruce Wayne in disguise?”

Alfred stuttered and nodded his head, covering his mouth.

“I knew it! That’s why the manor is on top! Speaking of the manor, may I see what it looks like on the inside? I made a promise that I wouldn’t destroy anything.”

“Yes. Yes. Of course.” The butler was still in shock as he led the Joker upstairs and into the manor.

–

“…And finally, this is the dining room table, complete with gold-coloured cups and gold-coloured fringes on the tablecloth edges. It was one of my favourite places in the manor to decorate.”

“I do agree that it is very nice! Thank you for giving me a tour!” Joker was very excited as he spoke to Alfred. “Do you know where Brucey went?”

“Probably to his room. He might be waiting for you there. It’s the first room to the left when you go down that hall.”

“Thank you, Alphy~!” Joker cheered as he practically ran to the Bat’s personal bedroom.

–

“Oh Batman, my Batman? Are you in here?” J wondered, looking around the manor owner’s room. “I want to speak to you, dear! See, I made it rhyme, just for you~” A smile crossed his face when he spotted the caped crusader looking in the mirror.

“Lay on my bed,” was the simple, gentle command. “Please.”

“Okay~!” Gently, but excitedly, the villain laid onto his loved one’s bed. “Whats your plan, Brucey?”

“Oh shoot… You found me out.” Bruce laughed as he removed his cowl. He turned around and smiled. “How’d you know?”

“I mean, if Wayne Manor™ is above The Batcave™, obviously you’d have to be the owner of both. I won’t get into the details as to how you gained the house’s will, but yeah…” Joker smiled and patted the place next to him. “Please, join me, baby.”

Bruce laughed again as he removed his costume, getting dressed in a suit before his lover’s eyes. “Bam. Cloooothes~” He slid next to J and pressed a kiss to his freshly makeup-removed forehead. “You taste a whole lot better now.” He smiled and ran his hands through the other man’s hair, feeling how silly smooth it was.

“Mmm… Bruce, you are handsome as hell~” Joker nuzzled beneath Bruce’s head, purring quietly as he got comfortable.

There was a pause.

“Joker, what’s your real name?”

“Um….” J didn’t answer for another thirty seconds. “I… It was… Jack.” A frown crossed his face. “Jack…” Tears welled in his eyes as he gripped on Bruce’s suit.

“H-hey, it’s okay! Shh, shh, J, it’s okay. I’m right here.”

What Jack didn’t know was that his lover had kept on his cape, which Bruce now wrapped around the two of them in an act of love. He wants to protect and care for him. He loves him.

“Bruce, I… I love you.” Hate was a hurtful word, which the vanilla villain realised right then.

“I…” Bruce mouthed 'love you too’, and Jack hummed happily, kissing his lover gently.

“You’re awesome… You’re buff… You’re gentle, but strong… You’re… You’re comfortable…” J closed his eyes and curled up in Bruce’s cape with his lover beside him.

“You’re so cute. And nimble. And perfect. And I really l-love you for your personality and- and you’re more exciting than I am…” B nuzzled J gently and petted his head to help the two of them to sleep.

I guess that makes for an okay ending? I’ll write another one another time. For now, here you go!

[atasteforsuicidal]

"#fics where tony makes the whole tower and not just clint's floor accessible also makes me happy af" excuse me but i need these fics pls for science

Hmmmmm. I’m not sure I have anything -explicitly- about that, it’s usually in the details, but I’ll see what I can find!Here are my bookmarks for things that were tagged with Deaf Clint Barton, though, for starters.

But, okay, let’s see... This is probably going to devolve into something a little more general, but, eh. Mostly because one of the really common things is Tony making better hearing aids for Clint, which isn’t so much about the tower.

Titanium

Okay, tbf, it is on Clint’s floor in this one, but I think it’s reasonable to assume these features would be everywhere in the tower.

He creeps down the hallway, mentally accounting for the odd angles that he had Tony leave in the apartment. They make for great cover, but are terrible for sightlines.

[okay, not so much about accessibility, but Tony accepting the designs requests of one of his paranoid superspies, yes pls]

--------

“Just give me a second, I can’t hear anything you’re saying.” He taps the one corner of the counter he’s kept clean ever since Tony installed this feature. The counter lights up and displays a blinking cursor in the corner. “Okay, now talk. JARVIS will let me know what you’re saying

”Why do you need JARVIS to tell you what I’m saying? lights up the counter for Clint to read.

--------

The lights flash. On. Off. Beat. On. Beat. Off.

It’s the code that he worked out with JARVIS for non-world-ending emergencies.

Call to the Colour-blind

“What was that?” Bucky asks, pointing at where the light was on, next to a modern atrocity that Tony said was a chandelier. Clint follows his gaze and nods in realisation.

“It comes on whenever JARVIS is interacting with me. If I don’t have my hearing aids in, writing will appear on the nearest surface - like subtitles?” Clint explains and Bucky nods, interested. “Stark designed it when I told him about my hearing problems - he likes to be helpful,” Clint’s voice drops into a whisper, conspiratorially low. Bucky smiles.

“Doesn’t like people to know he has a bleeding heart?” Bucky suggests and Clint grins.

Clint Barton’s Super Secret Snipers’ Club

When he gets into the workshop, Tony is sitting at his desk, slouched back in his chair with a tumbler of what looks like whiskey in hand. He’s still in his suit trousers, white shirt and red tie, though the shirt is rumpled, the sleeves rolled up and the tie pulled loose. Not a good sign. Clint keys in his code and the door opens, and he steps in cautiously.

“What’s up? Skybot said you wanted me.”

“Upgrades,” Tony says, and picks something up off the desk, spinning his chair around to face Clint. His eyes are suspiciously bright, and Clint isn’t sure how much he’s had to drink. He hates being around Tony when he’s drunk like this; he trusts Tony but it still sets him on edge.

Clint steps forwards and his brows shoot up in surprise as he sees what can only be two minute in-ear hearing aids held in Tony’s fingers. He walks forwards and takes them, looking at them closely.

“You did these tonight?”

“You’ll get fourteen thousand hertz at about 16 decibels with those, instead of the thirteen thousand five hundred at twenty that you get at the minute,” Tony says vaguely. “Quite a jump on paper, but I guess you’ll have to tell me how much difference it makes.”

“Should be able to hear Hill whispering that she’ll throttle me across the table,” Clint says, impressed. “But only if Fury isn’t threatening me at the same time.”

Tony snorts, eyes fixed on his monitor. “Still having trouble with background noise?”

“Sometimes,” Clint says. “Thanks.”

--------

He’s in his room attaching fletchings to a new set of arrows when his phone flashes at him; a familiar blue light that tells him Jarvis has a message for him.

“What’s up, Jarvis?” he asks as he puts down the glue and reaches for the phone. A line of text appears on the screen.

Someone is trying to get your attention. You may want to turn your ears on.

“May want to turn your ears on,” Clint mimics in his best approximation of a British accent, dropping the arrow and pushing himself up off the floor. “What was Stark thinking when he programmed you.”

Another line of text appears.

Clearly he was thinking about how best to utilize me to annoy and frustrate his fellow Avengers.

--------

“Have you still got my old BTE’s?” Clint asks, and Tony sends him a pained look.

“What did you do to the new ones?”

“Just slept in them, want to give my ears a breather.”

Looking at him curiously, Tony cocks his head. “Why not just go deaf for the day?”

Clint shrugs, evasive. “Not an option today.”

Tony mutters something that Clint doesn’t catch, but seems to realize what he’s done straight away. “Everyone is having a shit day, it seems,” he says, and walks over to one of the cabinets. He digs around in a drawer that’s labelled Hawkeye - and that doesn’t leave Clint feeling a little odd at all - and then comes up with his old hearing aids. Well, he says old, but they certainly weren’t purple last time he wore them.

“What did you do?” he asks as he slips them on. They feel strange behind his ears after so long, but he’s just relieved to have them.

“Well I wasn’t just going to upgrade the one set, was I?” Tony says, and glances back towards the rear of the workshop.

“I love you,” Clint announces as he switches them on and Tony’s voices comes though amazingly clear. Hell yeah he upgraded them, this is awesome. He can hear just as well with these as the new ones.

--------

“It moves as well as your real hand,” he says, and Bucky lifts it, flexes his fingers absently, staring down at the metal that’s shining dully in the light.

“Yeah, until it doesn’t,” he says deprecatingly. “When Stevie bought me here, he said there was someone who’d be able to do maintenance on it. Fix it up if anything went wrong.”

“Well he wasn’t lying,” Clint says. “You trust Tony to touch it?”

Bucky shrugs. “Steve trusts him,” he says, but Clint hears the unspoken ‘but I’m not sure I do,’ that’s obvious in the hitch of his shoulder, the twist of his mouth.

“I trust him to make my ears,” Clint says, reaching up and tapping the hearing aids. He's still wearing the BTE's; Bucky has admitted that he finds it easier when he knows if Clint can hear or not, and the in-ear hearing aids are all but impossible to spot. It's a small concession to make, so Clint doesn't mind.

Bucky’s eyebrows go up slightly. “Yeah,” he says slowly, like he’d not thought of that. “Yeah, I guess. But they’re not attached to you. I’d have to be there in person."

I know there have definitely been others, but I either didn’t love them enough to bookmark, or they’re not tagged, but I’ll keep skimming through my general Clint bookmarks, if you’d like ♥

[raspberrystethoscope]

What to buy for second year med

One of the things I most wanted to know when I was starting med school was what I needed to buy. I kind of wanted to own All The Medical Things because that would somehow make it more real.

But if you’re like me and most students and have “budgetary constraints” - let me start by saying there is very little that you absolutely NEED to buy before you arrive at med school.

The essentials are…

Lab coat

For Anatomy and Histology labs you’ll need a clean, long sleeved white lab coat within the first month or so (if you don’t have one from health sci or your first degree, you can buy one from the uni but they’re around $40 - look online for better deals or second hand ones if that’s not manageable).

Women with long hair, it’s a good idea to keep a little purse/pencil case/ziploc bag in the breast pocket of your lab coat, where you can put a stash of hair ties, bobby pins and your plastic ID card holder. I am terrible at remembering a hair tie and constantly had to ask demonstrators for one, so I definitely plan to do so this year!

Basic stationery

You’ll need ordinary things like pens (although they give you a lot in O Week) paper, access to your preferred note-taking method, and a scientific calculator.

The not-so-essentials are...

While you could totally get away with only buying the lab coat before arriving, I found buying med-related things was exciting, and made me feel like I was actually going to be a real med student. Here are the things you might like to get for second year.

Stethoscope

Even though you could totally get away without a stethoscope of your own, they are very useful in the cardiovascular, respiratory and gastrointestinal modules. Plus, there’s something kinda symbolic about it eh? (I wrote more about this here).

There are lots of posts online about which ones to pick. Mine is a Littmann Classic III and my Dad and grandparents got it for me from Medisave. I chose it coz 1) people online reckoned it was alright 2) I’m not great at looking after my things so figured best not to get a super expensive one and 3) it’s freaking raspberry. So pretty. Medisave does engraving for free, but if you get the OUMSA steth you can get in on a bulk engraving order they put in later on.

Aneroid sphygmomanometer

To practice taking blood pressures. Can buy through OUMSA or hit up MediSave. Don’t go too cheap or the cuff’s velcro will be crap.

Clinical skills bag

Not essential, but I found it useful to have a single bag to keep my clinical skills book, steth and sphyg in. I just bought a super cute new one from Totes Amaze run by an Otago student (who happens to be my sister’s rad flatmate). I keep hand sanitiser, tissues and mints/gum in my clinical bag too.

Giant uni bag

You are likely going to be carrying a laptop, lab coat, several lab books, lunch, pencilcase, water, wallet and more. Your bag needs to be big enough to accommodate all of this and ergonomic enough not to give you aches and pains. I’m obsessed with my Rains msn backpack (it’s waterproof!)

Paper filing system

You get given a lot of paper handouts, some of which aren’t available on Moodle (although most are). It’s a good idea to have a method of holding onto and protecting these in your uni bag, and a method for filing and storing them at home. Kmart does a good document folder with compartments/tabs so you can separate out different subjects. I’m personally using a smallish A4 ring-binder with dividers, and sellotaping an L-shaped folder inside for loose bits of paper without holes punched in them.

Flashcard system

You need to have a system for making and retaining flashcards. A lot of people use Anki, which is great if you like electronic cards. Old fashioned Collins pre-lined index cards work well for me, using a stripe of highlighter to colour code them (could use a sticker or something, I just find this easy). You’ll likely want to keep hold of your flashcards until 5th year exams, so making decent ones consistently throughout medical school is a good idea!

Textbooks

See what you can get hold of for free on a USB - there are PDFs of most major texts floating around. I’d also suggest waiting for a while and just using library copies until you get a feel for which texts work well for you when you’re actually studying.

I personally am not a fan of learning from textbooks and have managed to make it through this year only referring to books a handful of times - so absolutely don’t feel that having a huge library of books is compulsory, unless you really want to.

If you absolutely insist on buying textbooks before you arrive, make sure you check out OUMSA pre-loved textbooks, Second Hand Books Otago etc for good deals! 

These are the ones I’d bother with:

Gray’s Anatomy for Students (latest edn) - not my favourite anatomy text, but heavily referenced in labs so would make anatomy lab prep easier

Netter’s or Gray’s anatomy flashcards - bit spendy but good for OSPE prep

Robbin’s Basic Pathology -  but you can read this for free via ClinicalKey!

Bonus pretty one: Gilroy’s Atlas of Anatomy - my fave Anatomy lecturer recommends this one and truly it’s utterly gorgeous. One of the prettiest anatomy atlases out there.

Just for fun

I’m sure I’m not the only meddie who is a bit of a geek for med-themed stuff.

Why not get an anatomical heart cookie cutter?

Or a medical school survival spoon for your bestie (or yourself)?

Or a med school problems mug?

Now I’m really just using this as an excuse to shop for cute med things on Etsy, I must be stopped! Happy shopping.

This post is part in a series on surviving second year medicine. The list of posts (updated as new content is put up) is available here.

[ruffsficstuffplace]

The Keeper of the Grove (Part 37)

Weiss stared at Lifira.

Then she stared some more.

She opened her mouth and raised a finger, looked like she was about to say something, then she closed it. She might have been trying to think of something to say, but with a face like that, her brain's probably decided to talk a walk around the block, get some fresh air and put this problem on the back burner for a while.

Yang grinned as she put her arm around Weiss' shoulders again. “Yeah, turns out Ruby's really got a thing for platinum blondes, just like her mom did for blondes.” She winked. “Better watch yourself, princess!”

Weiss heard a scream of pure, unbridled teenage fury before Ruby slammed full-force into Yang, horns first. Because this is the Dreamscape and Rune Rangers is PG-13 most days, she only gets sent flying off, before Ruby jumps her and starts beating the shit out of her whilst yelling at the top of her lungs.

I'll spare you the unnecessary details of what she's saying exactly, and just call it “Angry Yelling and Cursing In Actaeon.”

“That happens a LOT, don't worry,” Lifira chirped. “It's just how Ruby and Yang show how much they love each other!”

“Play Fighting is oftentimes encouraged between young Fae as a form of bonding and training, to better prepare them for both social life and the dangers they face on a daily basis,” Penny added.

Weiss looked at the two off to the side. Ruby had Yang pinned on her back, holding her arms down as she repeatedly, violently smashed her horns into Yang's skull. Lifira put her hand on her shoulder, and she turned back around.

“You're going to be a great Sapphire Ranger, Weiss!” Lifira said. “I can see it in you: the Wisdom to do what is Right. And don't worry about the team: everyone's super friendly once you get to know them, and Ruby is a fantastic leader.”

She winked and giggled, before she disappeared.

A few seconds later, Weiss' brain finally decided to clock back in. “… Is there… is there anything like a private instance here...?”

Yang kicked Ruby off of her. She flew off like a tiny missile and slammed into one of the walls, adding some visual interest with a new crater shaped like her. Yang picked herself up, perfectly fine because of the power of CENSORSHIP!

“I got this!” she said.

Magic circled around them both from the feet up, till they were whisked away, off to someplace only Yang knew.

Weiss found herself by a cabin deep in a forest. It was a nice place: peaceful, quiet, and more than enough space for a very big family—or, in this case, a giant garden that was right next to a training grounds similar to the one in Keeper's Hollow.

“Where are we...?” Weiss asked as she looked around.

“Where me and Rubes used to live, before The Shit went down,” Yang explained. She smiled. “Lotta good memories here...” she frowned “… lotta really bad ones, too, but all that's important is that Ruby stays away from this place like the Scourge.”

Weiss winced.

“So, wondering why Lifi looks almost exactly like you? Well, before Life beat the Innocence and Wonder outta you, anyway.”

“Yes, I am,” Weiss replied flatly. “I'm assuming it wasn't a spur-of-the-moment decision to leave me unharmed, once she knew I was in that carriage...?”

Yang snorted. “Hah! Don't flatter yourself, princess: there's like 10 billion of us humans and three to four times as many Fae here in Avalon; I guarantee you, Lifira was probably based on hundreds if not thousands of white-haired hotties, real and fictional!

“Besides, Eluna comes much easier to mind than you when imagining a platinum blonde dream girl.”

Weiss nodded, pacified if insulted.

“… Though, the fact that you do look a lot like the golem I caught her trying to make out once with probably helped!” Yang sighed. “Man, I wish I hadn't deleted my holo of that, the look on her face...” she smiled and shook her head.

Weiss groaned. “Do you really have to share all of Ruby's embarrassing secrets like this?”

Yang took on a look of mock offense. “Weiss, Weiss, Weiss! I thought as a little sister yourself, you should know that one of a big sister's most important duties is to embarrass their younger siblings in front of their friends, and especially their potential girlfriends!”

“Then please stop making things painfully awkward for everyone, because I am not the slightest bit interested in Ruby.”

Yang paused. “Seriously? You two aren't--” she made a sexy animal noise.

Weiss' face turned red in rage and embarrassment. “Ugh! No! Why does everyone think we're--” she made an adorable, somewhat sexy animal noise.

Yang sniggered.

“What?”

“Okay, one: that was the cutest way to say--” she made a sexy animal noise “--that I have ever fucking heard in my entire life.” Yang's face turned serious. “And two: because the Eldan Council doesn't just take in every last human that happens to survive whatever lurks in that hell-hole we call the Valley, either on their own or with the help of the Fae. In case you haven't noticed, princess, they're pretty serious about making yourself useful.

“There's got to be a reason that they're keeping you on. A big reason. At the very least, they think you might be this generation's key to keeping the Keeper bloodline alive.”

Weiss blinked. “Pardon...?”

Yang groaned and clutched her head in pain. “I'd tell you more, but there's this niggling in my head that's telling me I've already said too much… look, Weiss, if in case I get my privileges revoked after today, I want you to know that Ruby hasn't had an easy life, alright?

“Dead mom, broken family, and being raised by Uncle Qrow for the past 14 years aside, Keepers are like all those Nikos kids with the Holy Shepherd: an institution first, before a person. Only for Ruby, it means a lot more than just a fancy title you got from your famous dead grandma, and having to make public appearances every once in a while to appease the Flock.”

Yang groaned again, shaking her head as the throbbing faded away. “The only thing I think I can say is that there's a REASON they've all lived in a swamp, far away from everyone else.”

Before Weiss could ask more, there was a flash of light, and they were both standing at the entrance to the Valley.

The world around them was frozen, which was probably a good thing, seeing as the goons staring them down looked like serious business—full-on AFA types, not just private mercs.

“Hey guys! Sorry we're late, wanted to get a private audience with Princess Snowflake over here,” Yang said, waving as she walked up.

“It's fine!” Ruby said, much calmer now. “Did you happen to teach her about metamorphing?”

Yang snapped her fingers. “Shit, knew I forgot something...”

“Eh, that's fine, we'll just show her!” Ruby said. “Everyone but Weiss, form up on me! It's a triangle formation, me in the center, and from your right to your left, it goes Yang, Blake, me, Penny, and then you, Weiss.”

Ruby spoke as they went through the motions. “It's really simple: you just throw your arm into the sky in a badass way; wait for the suns, the moons, or wherever the light is coming from to reflect off your rune; shout 'Avalon's Might!' and wait to metamorph!

“Get into your pose, cry 'Rune Rangers: Viridian Vanguard!' and then we can all go kick some butt!

“Oh, and for reference: I'm Ruby as in the Ranger, and my pose is kneeling on the ground and looking like I'm about to smash my horns into someone; Yang's Onyx, and her pose is looking like a bear standing up and getting ready to maul someone; Penny's Emerald, and her pose is looking cute with her tail curled back into a heart; and Blake's Citrine, and her pose is… well, being her and clawing at someone, I guess.”

“What's mine?” Weiss asked.

“Whatever you want it to be!” Ruby chirped. “You want some time to think it up?”

Weiss shook her head. “I'll just take whatever Lifira's was.”

“Then that'd be looking like a fox mid-pounce!”

“Like this?”

“Perfect! You're a natural at this, Weiss.” Ruby said as she and the others broke formation, turned back to normal. “Want to do a dry run, or go straight to the fight?”

“I think I can wing it,” Weiss said.

“Alright!” Ruby said. “Places, everyone: it's showtime!”

Unfreeze.

Human and cyborg AFA soldiers formed a wall around the Rune Rangers, armed to the teeth with body armour, batons, rifles, shields, and dirty looks. The Rangers didn't look the slightest bit intimidated, glaring at them right back.

From the semi-circle of rovers behind them, their Captain popped her head out from the top of hers, activated the speakers. “Rune Rangers of the Viridian Valley! I ask you all to please stand down, and surrender Ms. Weiss Schnee immediately! You are guilty of kidnapping one of our citizens, and pursuant to Environmental Order No. 8921 of the Acropolis Accord, this land is now reserved for the use of and future development by the Schnee Power Company!”

Penny smiled. “I am sorry, I am afraid we of the Viridian Valley do not fall under your jurisdiction! I highly suggest that you invalidate that order in the records, take whatever physical copies you have of it, and insert them in your bodily orifices that are generally left unexposed to sunlight~”

Weiss stared at her, before she turned to the others.“Did she seriously…?”

“Yeeep...~” Yang said, grinning.

Weiss snickered, before she put her Game Face back on.

The Captain grimaced. “I was afraid you were going to say that... this is your final warning: surrender now, or we will use lethal force. You are outnumbered, outgunned, and are facing a foe more than ready to wage a prolonged campaign against you:

“What could you possibly have that makes you think you have a chance against us?”

Ruby grinned as their runes appeared in their hand. “These. All together now--!”

“Avalon's Might!”

The night sky glowed red, blue, yellow, black, and green as the Rangers raised their runes to the sky. The AFA shielded their eyes and started having second thoughts about signing up for this as the four teenagers and one golem before them turned into colour-coded, spandex-clad warriors with matching animal-themed helmets, their actions completely in-sync.

“Rune Rangers: Viridian Vanguard!”

Boom.

Weiss yelped and dropped to the ground as the mandatory post-pose explosions happened just behind her. “WHY DID NOBODY TELL ME ABOUT THAT?!” she said as she picked herself back up

“We thought you knew about it already! Sorry!” Ruby cried.

“This is what you get for not watching enough HV, princess!” Yang added.

The Captain sighed and rolled her eyes, before she got back on the loudspeaker. “Alpha Squad: attack! The rest of you: stand by! We're going to need manpower if we're going to make any real progress tonight...”

Weiss saw words appear in her visor:

Qrow's Commands:

Perform 3 Team Acrobatics with Weiss

Perform 3 Team Attacks with Weiss

“The hell…?” she asked.

Something to shake things up, princess; it'd be boring if we just made every episode about beating the bad guys in the most efficient and boring way possible.

“Mhmm!” Ruby said. “And speaking of which: Blake, Weiss: get the shooters! Yang, help them get there! Penny, you're with me!

“Ready?”

“Ready!” everyone else but Weiss said.

“Charge!” Ruby yelled as she ran horns-first into the front-liners, smashing her horns into some poor sap's gut.

Yang ran up in front of Blake and Weiss, crouched and got into position. “Air Xiao Long now boarding!” she said as she held out her hands.

Blake ran up, Yang catapulted her over the front-liner's heads. She somersaulted through the air, and ended up just in front of the riflemen at the back line. No surprises that she landed perfectly on her feet.

“Do I really have to?” Weiss asked.

“It's not Rune Rangers without somersaults and team attacks!” Ruby yelled as she kept some baton-wielders busy, Penny giving her back-up.

“Last call for boarding, princess!” Yang said.

Weiss shook her head, ran up and put her foot into Yang's waiting hands. Her trip through the air was… much less graceful than Blake's was, though at least she knows how to do a tuck-and-roll landing.

<Didn't take gymnastics in school?> Blake asked as she pulled her up.

“I took fencing...” Weiss said as they turned to the shooter in front of them.

He raised his gun up to fire, Blake ducked and kicked out his leg, brought him down to his knees. Now that she could reach, Weiss wasted no time grabbing his head and introducing his jaw to her knee.

Pow!

“… And some hand-to-hand combat with Ruby,” Weiss continued as the poor sap fell down for the count.

<Nice!> Blake said. <I was wrong, Weiss: you might just survive out there in the real world!>

She jerked Weiss to the side.

A bullet whizzed past her helmet, missing by less than an inch.

Underneath her helmet, Blake smiled.

<Might.>

Underneath her helmet, Weiss rolled her eyes, before she smiled back.