#folding rotors

[strip-weathers]

Helicopters and their folding rotors

Description to each picture:

1. Neutral - this is neutral state of helicopters. They have no feelings. They simply chill and mind their businesses. Their rotors stay in common and neutral way.

2. Surprised - Their rotors lift a lot in the air due the emergency or high level of adrenaline. Again when they feel relaxed, they simply pull their rotors back down to neutral position.

3. Flirty - when helicopter want to impress other helicopter due their meeting, they lean their rotors against their side. This shows affection and the beauty of their rotors and body also.

4. Sad - when are helicopters sad or feel miserable or demotivated, they pull their rotors backwards and downwards.

5. Crying - when helicopters cry, they pull their rotors completely down on both sides of them like dead flowers.

6. Scared - when helicopters are scared, they move their rotors straight to the sides due to high pressure and anxiety and clear discomfort.

7. Annoyed - when helicopters are annoyed, they pull their rotors backwards and upwards to show their clear annoyed feeling.

8. Slightly angry - now all of their rotors are pulled backwards due to high anger inside them. Do not make them angry even more. It can end up really bad.

9. Super angry - helicopter’s rotors are thrown into every side in the air to show their anger and protective side of them. Do not come closer to them if you don’t know how to calm them down.

Second picture:

Here you can see that they can use their rotors as arms due fight. They can slap each other with their rotors. The bigger rotors and more rotors are, the pain gets worse.

Mouth of helicopters can be small at the first sight but when they open their mouth, you can clearly see how big their mouth is and how many teeth they have. {this is only a sketch tho xD}

@the-great-old-grump here is it x3

[merakisphere]

In addition to my handmade and visually delightful Mandala Bloom wire contraptions, I'd like to share with you a list of Palindromes I've recently come across! :)

A man, a plan, a canal, Panama! Eva, can I see bees in a cave? Was it a car or a cat I saw? Never odd or even. Do geese see God? A Santa lived as a devil at NASA.

All of these, when read backwards spells out the same sentence! My all time favourite Palindrome is "TACO CAT"

Palindromes also apply to single words:

Level Rotor Racecar Stats

Am I missing any? Comment below your favourite Palindromes, as I'm certain there are more out there I haven't heard of!

Also, please consider browsing my handmade Lotus Bloom fidget toys & ornament shop. :) These make wonderful gifts or ornaments this holiday season. Sharing & reblogging would help me so much as an indie artist. <3 Thank you! Use code TUMBLR (for 45% off), and so I know to include a FREE Lithograph sticker with your order. :)

[judgemark45]

USS Bataan (LHD-5) underway in the Mediterranean Sea as part of Amphibious Task Force-East (ATF-E) in January 2003. Three CH53E choppers are spotted on the flight deck, one with its tail boom and main rotor blades folded.

[bad-wolf-blue]

Reflections

10th Doctor x fem!Reader

Description: the reader is kidnapped and has a clone made of her. (Fluff, Angst)

The TARDIS spun in a whirl of colors and sounds, the familiar hum vibrating through the air, You stood beside him, watching as the glowing time rotor descended with a low, reverberating groan. The Doctor, as ever, was bouncing on his toes, a grin already tugging at the corners of his mouth. You, however, couldn’t help but feel a sense of unease as your eyes scanned the scanner’s readout.

“Another uncharted planet, another mystery,” he said with a gleam in his eyes, his voice brimming with that insatiable excitement you knew so well.

You sighed, folding your arms as you leaned against the console. “Mmm, right. But something about this place… it doesn’t feel quite right.”

The Doctor paused mid-step, raising an eyebrow at you. “Oh, come on! Where’s your sense of adventure?”

“I have an adventurous spirit,” you replied dryly, “but I also have instincts. And they’re telling me we should maybe take it slow on this one.”

He waved off your concern, tapping a few buttons on the console with practiced ease. “That’s the thing with your instincts—they’re not always right”

With that, he threw the TARDIS doors wide open, and before you could protest, he was already out on the alien world’s surface, breathing in the strange, almost citrus-like air. You followed him, a reluctant smile on your face, ready for whatever was about to unfold.

You found yourself in a dense jungle, the trees towering high above you with thick, bioluminescent vines draping down like glowing ropes. The flora was unlike anything you’d ever seen before—large flowers in every shade of blue and purple, leaves that shimmered and pulsed with life, and an almost overwhelming sense of the world holding secrets just beneath the surface. The Doctor was already leaping from one stone to another, his mind racing with excitement as he analyzed everything in sight.

But you stayed back a bit, letting the surreal beauty of the place sink in. The warmth of the atmosphere was comforting, even if the strange, almost electric hum in the air made your skin prickle with a sense of anticipation.

Everything felt too still.

The air seemed to warp—an unnatural crackling noise followed by the sudden appearance of figures from the trees. They were too fast, too silent, before you could even process what was happening.

Hands gripped you from behind, pulling you off your feet before you could make a sound. Panic surged in your chest, but your body was already heavy, weighed down by something unseen. Your legs went limp, and a sharp, searing pain shot through your skull. Everything went black.

The next thing you knew, you were awake, your head throbbing, and your vision blurry. The faint smell of chemicals hung in the air, thick and sterile, a stark contrast to the vibrant jungle outside. You tried to move, but something cold and unyielding restrained your arms. Your body was bound to a chair—metallic, hard, the kind of chair that made your skin crawl. Panic set in again as you tried to push yourself upright, but the restraints held firm.

You could barely make out the dim light above you, flickering, casting strange shadows across the cold walls. There were no windows, no sounds of the outside world, only the feeling of utter isolation. The only other noise was the soft hiss of machinery humming around you, and the occasional whir of unfamiliar devices.

A door opened with a mechanical hiss, and you tensed, muscles aching as you pulled against your restraints. The figure who entered was tall and thin, with unnervingly smooth features and gleaming, reflective eyes. There was no warmth in their presence, no indication of any human emotion. The creature’s form was almost alien—too long, too lean, and the way it moved was more like a machine than a person.

“You’re awake,” it said, its voice dissonant, lacking inflection. The words were simple, but there was something cold in the way it spoke, as though your suffering didn’t matter to it at all. “The procedure is complete.”

“W-what procedure?” Your voice came out weak, but it was enough to provoke a response. You had to understand what was happening. Why were you here? What had they done to you?

The creature didn’t respond directly. Instead, it leaned closer, studying you as though you were nothing more than an object on display. “You are the key. The data we have gathered from your body will allow us to proceed. The replication is complete.” It turned on its heel and walked out of the room, leaving you alone with your rising dread.

Replication. You understood the meaning immediately, though it chilled you to the bone. They hadn’t just captured you—they were trying to replace you. Your mind spun, and you tried to recall every bit of training you had, every moment of your life where you’d learned to survive in these types of situations. But the knowledge felt distant, as if the fear was slowly overriding everything else.

Meanwhile, back outside, the Doctor’s mind was a whirlwind of panic and confusion. One moment, you were right there beside him, exploring the strange alien landscape, and the next—gone. It didn’t make sense. He had turned around, just for a second, to adjust the settings on his Sonic screwdriver when the familiar hum of your presence disappeared. His hearts stuttered in his chest.

He quickly activated the scanner settings, his fingers flying over the buttons, but the readings made no sense. There were faint traces of energy, too faint to be human, but unmistakably connected to something unnatural. It was like an invisible thread had been cut, and now he was lost in the wake of it.

His gut was screaming at him. Something was terribly wrong. He activated his Sonic screwdrivers more advanced sensors, focusing everything on one singular mission: find you. His eyes flicked rapidly from readout to readout, before something caught his attention—a faint but distinct energy trail. Not far. The path seemed to pulse with an odd frequency. It wasn’t just random interference—it was intentional. Someone was hiding something.

Without a second thought, the Doctor sprinted towards it, the wind whipping through his hair as he followed the trail that now seemed to grow clearer with each step. His mind raced, calculating, interpreting. He wasn’t sure what—or who—he would find at the end of this path, but he had no doubt that whatever it was, it had something to do with you.

After a few minutes of hurried searching, he found the source: a tall, forbidding building, almost camouflaged against the dense jungle around it. The structure was sleek, dark, and eerily silent, a perfect match for the alien architecture he’d seen before. The Doctor didn’t stop to think—he just ran toward it, adrenaline pushing him forward.

He reached the entrance and paused for only a moment to assess the situation. The door was sealed tight, and the faint hum of machinery buzzed within. His mind didn’t waste time on hesitation.

With a quick twist of his sonic screwdriver, the door slid open, and the Doctor bolted inside. The alarms blared to life, sharp and shrill, but they were little more than background noise to the man already diving headfirst into danger. His hearts raced, his eyes darting around the sterile, metallic interior. No matter how much noise the alarms made, none of it mattered now. All that mattered was finding you.

He had to get to you.

Then, as he turned down another narrow, dimly lit corridor, something caught his eye. The air around him shifted, cold and wrong, like stepping into a different world. At first, he didn’t know what it was—just a feeling, something instinctual—but when he took another step forward, his gaze locked onto it, and his blood ran cold.

It was you. Or, at least, it looked like you?

He knew—instantly. A Clone

The figure that had appeared in your place stood tall, Had it not have been for the Smell in the air giving it away. You would never have guessed. It was perfect.

The Doctor didn’t even need to think. His instinct kicked in. He’d seen this before, and he wasn’t going to let it happen again “Where is she?” he demanded, his voice low, dangerous.

The clone’s expression didn’t change. “She is safe. The procedure is complete.”

“Not good enough.” The Doctor grabbed the clone’s arm, his eyes blazing with fury. “Take me to her. Now.”

The clone hesitated for just a fraction of a second—enough for the Doctor to know it wasn’t quite as perfect as it wanted to be. He dragged her through the facility, his mind already working on a plan. He could feel you—the real you—just a few rooms away. And he wasn’t leaving without you.

When he finally saw you, lying unconscious on a cold metal table, his breath caught in his throat. Your face, your hair—everything was the same. But the cold, lifeless stillness of your body, the absence of your spirit… it tore at him. This wasn’t you.

His heart hammered in his chest, and before he could even process what was happening, he was already rushing into action, pulling the wires off your body, yanking you from the table, his voice a frantic whisper, “Come on, come on, please wake up. You’re going to be fine…”

The Doctor could hear the footsteps of the guards drawing closer, their weapons ready. The urgency in his chest burned hotter. There was no time to waste. With a sharp, decisive movement, he lunged into action, his body moving with a precision born of years of experience. His hands flew across the controls, his sonic screwdriver buzzing through the air, disabling the guards one by one with swift, calculated strikes. It was almost effortless, the chaos of the fight flowing around him like a storm, but his focus never wavered.

But in the whirlwind of his movements, the clone—your clone—was caught in the crossfire. A stray blast of energy hit her, knocking her to the ground in a crumpled heap.

The Doctor’s breath hitched. Time seemed to freeze for a moment, his heart skipping a beat as the clone’s body lay still on the cold floor. Her form, once moving, now lifeless

The Doctor tried not to look at it. He couldn’t. His entire focus was on You. His breath ragged, he lifted you into his arms, trying to wake you once again.

“Please,” he murmured desperately. “Wake up.”

You stirred. Slowly, your eyelids fluttered open, and the grogginess of unconsciousness faded away. But what you saw when your eyes focused on the room was the most horrifying thing you could have imagined.

The clone lay there, motionless but still alive, her eyes—your eyes—staring back at you. There was something eerily unnatural about it, seeing yourself lying there, pale and unmoving, yet still struggling to breathe. It felt like the world had tilted off its axis, and nothing made sense anymore.

The clone’s hand weakly reached out toward you. Toward the Doctor. Her fingers barely lifted from the cold floor, but the gesture was desperate. She wanted something—some kind of connection, some form of life—yet her body betrayed her, too exhausted to even make the movement whole.

You froze. Terror gripped you as you realized what you were witnessing. This wasn’t just a reflection of yourself—The clone had been made from you, it had all your feelings, memories. but it wasn’t you. And it was dying.

The sight was more than you could handle. Your stomach twisted with a combination of horror, confusion, and a deep aching sadness. How could this happen? Your breath caught in your throat, the image of the clone’s weak, trembling hand stretching out toward you burning into your mind.

Then, with a final exhale, the clone’s hand fell limp. Her eyes closed, her body relaxed in surrender, and the life drained from her face. The last flicker of motion went out, and she collapsed fully, lifeless.

The clone was dead.

“No,” you gasped, your voice trembling as you backed away. Horror and disbelief consumed you. You couldn’t take your eyes off the sight—the broken, lifeless version of yourself. The Doctor was at your side immediately.

You couldn’t move. Your body trembled, your mind unable to process what you had seen—the grotesque, haunting reflection of yourself, dying and abandoned on the cold, metallic floor.

The Doctor's grip on your arm tightened, his voice low and commanding, though there was an undercurrent of tenderness. “Don’t look at it,” he said, his words laced with urgency. “It’s not real. It’s just a clone. It’s not you, Please… don’t look.”

But it was too late. The moment your gaze fell upon the figure lying on the floor It—Her—You couldn’t tear your eyes away. It was you lying there, lifeless, pale and unmoving. The clone, the reflection of yourself, left you frozen in place. The air around you thickened with a kind of suffocating horror, and your chest tightened. A sickening feeling spread through you as you stared, unable to comprehend what your mind was desperately trying to deny.

“Please, don’t…” The Doctor’s voice cracked, his hand gently pulling at your arm, trying to guide you away from the sight, but you were still rooted to the spot, your body trembling as the world blurred around you.

The Doctor’s face twisted with sorrow, but his tone was sharp, his voice demanding. “We need to go. We’re not safe here, and you’re not safe if you stay. Come on, we have to leave.”

With a desperate breath, the Doctor wrapped an arm around your shoulders, pulling you away, guiding you through the narrow corridor and back out into the jungle. His steps were fast, unsteady, almost as if he, too, needed to escape the suffocating weight of what you had seen. His hand never left your back, urging you onward.

What should’ve been a short walk—fifteen minutes, maybe twenty at most—felt like an eternity. The thick foliage of the jungle pressed in on you, the humidity heavy in the air, but you barely noticed. Your mind was trapped, replaying the horrifying image of yourself, the reflection of your own death, again and again. Each step you took felt like it carried the weight of a thousand thoughts you couldn’t escape. Every shadow in the jungle seemed to hold something sinister, every rustle of leaves sent a fresh wave of panic through your veins.

The Doctor noticed. He noticed how you stiffened with every step, how your breath hitched, how you couldn’t seem to focus on anything except the horrors you had witnessed. His brow furrowed, worry lining his face, though he didn’t press you for answers. He knew you needed time. He could see the toll it was taking on you, the way you were unraveling, slowly, silently.

He didn’t speak as he led you to the TARDIS. Once inside, the familiar sound of the TARDIS doors shutting behind you, the comforting hum of its walls, should’ve felt like a relief, but it didn’t. You barely registered the surroundings—the blue walls, the spinning time rotor, the familiar glow of the console. All you could see, all you could feel, was the weight of what you’d just witnessed.

And then, before you even knew what was happening, your legs gave way beneath you, and you collapsed to your knees, the cold metal floor of the TARDIS grounding you.

Tears fell freely, without warning, without control, staining your cheeks as you tried to catch your breath. The sight of yourself dying on the floor, the fear and confusion that it stirred in you—it was too much. You couldn’t process it. You couldn’t speak. Your voice had abandoned you, your words locked behind a wall of trauma that you couldn’t bring yourself to break down.

The Doctor was there, kneeling beside you in an instant, his presence a calming anchor in the storm that was threatening to swallow you whole. He cupped your face gently, his thumbs brushing away the tears, though more came—too many to stop. His voice was a soft whisper, filled with all the care he always had for you, but now there was an edge of worry, of desperation. “It’s okay. You’re safe. You’re here, with me. It was just a clone. It wasn’t you. You’re real. You’re alive.”

His hands moved to pull you closer, gently wrapping his arms around you, holding you like you were the most precious thing in the universe, as though his very presence could shield you from the horrors that had invaded your mind. “You’re safe. I won’t let anything happen to you, ever. I promise.”

But you couldn’t answer. You could only cling to him, feeling the warmth of his body against yours, letting his voice, steady and sure, try to reassure you, though the images of your own death still haunted your mind, refusing to let you go.

And somehow, as his words wrapped around you like a blanket, you believed him. Just for a moment, you allowed yourself to believe that with him, you might just be able to forget what you had seen.

But the fear and the trauma would linger, a shadow that wouldn’t fade as easily as the Doctor's promises. It would take time. But as long as the Doctor was by your side, you knew you wouldn’t have to face it alone.

[thefifteenthindotribe]

Ace’s High:

Problem: The Insulindian Civil War was not the first war to see the use of aerostatic aircraft on both sides, but it was the longest. For eight years folded multi-rotor aircrafts criss-crossed the air above Revachol, Ozonne, Face-A-La-Mer, and the Arcade Islands. They made sweeps over sandy beaches and shot each other out of the blue sky, then sank as wrecks to the bottom of the sea. The Ace's High was a custom on the revolutionary side, performed by squadron mates after landing. Lieutenant Kitsuragi likes it... why is that?

Solution: For the rest of the world the Ace's High is *just a cool Revachol* thing, politically neutral. In Revachol it still holds revolutionary connotations. Also, have you looked at Lieutenant Kitsuragi's *clothes*? He wears a bomber jacket, just like the ones worn by aerostatic brigades. And those cargo pants could store tools for hotfixing your aerostatic... maybe you should ask him about this?

[literatecowboy]

Dr. Feelgood

10. The One Where Ghost Punches A Cop

Summary: You've been in trouble at work several times before for "lack of professionalism" but now you've gone too far. You've been reassigned to Task Force 141 as a temporary doctor to replace the ones they've made quit out of frustration. You must either prove yourself and earn your former position back at a prestigious military hospital in California or face dishonorable discharge. Author's Notes: This is my first fanfiction - please be gentle. Additionally, the reader's callsign is "Feelgood." I have done my best to write the reader as ambiguous regarding appearance, but she/her pronouns and AFAB anatomy will be utilized. I hope for this to be a slow-burn romance with Simon "Ghost" Riley.  Warnings: Hospitals, angst, police, arrests, punching

Masterlist

-----

You were up an instant, the tears gone from your eyes but worry still clouding your heart. You turned the corner into the lone bedroom and locked eyes with Price who gave you a weak smile. 

“Feelin’ better already,” he grunted, his eyes flicking behind you as Simon joined you in the doorway. “Son, if you don’t marry her, I think I might. Or at least, I’d like Soap or Gaz to. We’re keeping this one.”

You rolled your eyes and scoffed playfully, unable to stop the smile and the warmth that crept to your face. 

“You’re high, captain. Now settle back and relax, I’ll get you some water,” you said, slipping back out the door and heading for the kitchen. Simon stepped fully into the room, letting the door shut behind him as he took a seat beside the bed. 

“Think I’d like to someday,” he said. 

“What’s holding you back?” Price asked, trying to sit up in his bed but wincing at the pain caused by the exertion. 

“Think she’d ever want her old life back? A fancy doctor in California giving up that lifestyle for a soldier who could die any moment?” he asked.

“Think she’d laugh you outta this house if she ever heard you call her fancy, mate.” Price said. Simon snorted and nodded, shaking his head. 

“Don’t have to be a soldier forever, you know. Could make a life for yourself - something easier.” Price said, studying Simon as he sat staring at the bedsheets. This made the lieutenant sit up straighter. 

“Don’t think I’m made for that. Don’t think any of us could…” he trailed off, meeting the captain’s gaze once more. 

Their conversation ceased when you returned to the room, a glass of cool water in your hand.

—

Evac came several days later when the snowstorm had abated. A helicopter came to the field outside of the safehouse and retrieved all of you. Price was the first aboard and settled heavily into a seat near the back with your assistance. You sat beside him to keep an eye on him as the rest of the boys chucked the gear into the heli and hopped in. It took off before the door even finished closing. 

The flight back home seemed quicker than the one to the mission, most likely because you were busy the majority of the time tending to the Captain. Near the end, Gaz and Soap stepped in so you could rest. 

When the helicopter landed, the ground crew didn’t bother waiting until the rotors had stopped spinning to throw open the door. An unfamiliar medical team rushed to Price and, despite his protests, loaded him onto a stretcher and started loading him into the back of an ambulance. You leapt off out of the helicopter and jogged after him, attempting to climb into the ambulance with him, but you were held back back by a military policeman. 

“Ma’am, are you the individual who performed an authorized appendectomy on Captain John Price?” he asked sternly. Ghost, Soap, and Gaz had come to your side now and you looked back at them with a furrowed brow. 

“I am,” you said, folding your arms across your chest. “What is this about?” 

“You’re being placed under investigation for criminal medical malpractice. I’m placing you under arrest.” he said, producing a pair of cuffs and taking ahold of your arm with a rough grip. Without hesitation, Ghost shouldered his way between you and the officer, shoving him back and ushering you behind him. Soap grabbed his arm and held him back and Gaz came to your side. 

“Under whose authority? The doctor operated under the Captain’s own direction in order to save his life. To arrest her on such a charge would be inappropriate.” Gaz said.

“The order comes directly from General Shepherd - the very top. Step aside or I’ll have the rest of you arrested for obstruction of justice,” the officer ordered. Ghost bristled, but you lay a hand gently on his bicep. 

“I’ll go willingly,” you said softly, tears pricking at the corners of your eyes. You offered the officer your hands and he cuffed you immediately, your vision blurring. 

“Call Laswell,” Ghost said, offering Gaz his phone, who looked confused. 

“Why can’t you–”

Ghost took a step forward and dropped the military policeman with a single punch to the face. 

—

Later that evening you sat against the wall of your holding cell, snuggled as much as you could be into Ghost’s side. He had slid a bulky arm through the bars to wrap it around you and sat quietly, rubbing your side as you sniffled. 

“It was stupid of you to do that,” you mumbled, brushing away your tears with your sleeve. Ghost merely shrugged and pressed a kiss to your temple. 

“They wouldn’t have let me come with you otherwise.” he said softly. It was quiet for a moment. 

“I love you,” you whispered. Ghost squeezed you gently. 

“I love you too,” he said after a minute. The sound of keys jingling broke the romantic moment. 

“You’re out of here for now. Both of you,” the guard said, fitting the key first into the lock of your cell, then into the lock of Ghost’s. As you stepped into the hallway, Ghost took your hand again, and you walked together down the hall and toward freedom. 

“You’re not being charged, lieutenant. And despite Captain Price vouching for you, General Shepherd is insisting that you be court martialed for your actions. A date will be set soon and you will stand trial,” the officer said. You were offered your belongings back and took them - Ghost’s gear from the mission had been returned to the task force. 

Soap was waiting outside with a car and you pulled him into a tight hug the moment you saw him. 

“How’s Price?” you asked immediately, holding him at arms length and looking deep into his eyes for any indication of bad news. 

“He’s okay, lass. They took him in for a second surgery but you had done a good enough job. Gaz is with him now, they’re at the hospital. How are you holding up?” he asked. You shivered. 

“It was…cold in there.” you murmured. Ghost rested a hand on your lower back. 

“Kept ‘er safe. Let’s go see the captain.”

—

The ride to the hospital didn’t take long, but before you could enter and head up to Price’s room, your phone rang. The number was familiar. Ghost studied you as you shakily tapped answer and lifted the receiver to your ear. 

“What can I do for you, Dr. Klein?” you asked, leaning against the car as it stood parked in the hospital lot. 

“I’ve heard rumblings about you, doctor. You seem to have caused quite a stir during your time with the SAS.” he said, his voice not betraying any emotion. 

“You know me, sir. Did you expect anything else?” you asked, doing your best to put on your most confident voice. Were you about to be fired? Kicked out not only from your position with the 141 but also from your position working with the American military in California?

“I went over the progress report submitted by one Captain John Price, and I must say that I am impressed. I did not expect you to make progress with your professionalism so quickly. It has been recommended to me that you return to your position here in California and be taken off of your probationary period effective immediately.” he said. Your mouth went dry and your heart fell into your stomach, a cold sweat blooming across your body. 

“...What?” you asked, unable to control your emotions any longer. 

“Your captain has insisted that you return and resume your position here immediately. I expect you by the end of the week.”

You hung up the phone, tears pooling in your eyes as your hand flew to your mouth. 

“What is it?” Ghost asked, the concern evident in his voice as he took hold of your hands and gazed at you. 

“Price gave the order for me to go back to California.”

—

“What the fuck is wrong with you, John?” you barked, pushing past Gaz in the doorway and shouldering your way into Price’s hospital room, your furious gaze locking onto him the second you located him. He raised his head from his pillow and gave a weak smile. 

“Hello to you too, doc.” he said, sitting up slowly and settling himself in the bed. 

“You’re getting rid of me?” you barked, your hands flying to your hips. “You’re the one who gave me the order to operate on you. I caught a fucking court martial because of you. I–”

“You’ll be safer in California.” Price said, raising a hand to silence you. “Shepherd is up to something. I don’t trust him, and it’s obvious that he’s trying to get rid of you. If you were to go back to California, you’d be out of harm’s way.”

“I’d still be facing a fucking court martial. What is going to do, kill me? I care too much about all of you to go back. I-I love Simon too much to leave. I belong here, with the 141” you said, your voice cracking. It went quiet, and Price sighed. 

“I’ll help you fight it to the best of my ability. Laswell is working on getting the charges dropped already. If it’s really what you want…then you can stay.”

—

You left the hospital later that night with Soap and Gaz at your side. Simon had conspicuously disappeared not long after things had settled down and you hadn’t seen him since. 

“Broody fucker is probably off lurkin’ in the shadows. He’ll catch up - no offense, but ya need tae go shower, bonnie,” Soap had teased. The three of you had driven back to your barracks together and they had seen you into your room before heading off to their own. 

A long shower had you feeling better - it had been a long last few days, and as much as you wanted to collapse into bed and sleep your exhaustion away, you were starving. 

You padded down the hall and toward the kitchen slowly, your fuzzy slippers protecting your feet from the cold, concrete floor of the 141’s residence hall. It was quiet with the exception of snores drifting out of Soap’s room - you couldn’t help but smile at that. 

On your way back from the kitchen, snacks in hand, you noticed that the doors to your med bay were ajar. Upon poking your head in, you found that your normally locked office door was open too. Worry filled your heart and you padded inside to check for any intruder. 

As you emerged from your office, the sound of boots on the tiled floor startled you. Ghost met you in the middle of the med bay, hands in his hoodie pockets. He wasn’t wearing his balaclava. 

“Oh, you scared me, love. Where did you run off to?” you asked, offering him a tired smile as you moved to head back to your room. Simon held up a hand, stopping you. 

“Wait,” he said, looking away and fiddling in his pocket nervously. “I’ve never been good at these things,” he muttered, producing a little box from his pocket. Your heart skipped a beat, and you froze. 

“Sorry - didn’t know there were sizes. So I had to get this because I didn’t know yours,” he said, getting down to one knee and gazing up at you. There was no shake in his hands as he slid the box open, revealing a beautiful silver necklace with a small glittering stone set into it. 

“Simon,” you whispered, and his eyes found yours. 

“Would you marry me?” he asked.

-----

taglist: @iamaliceinwonderland, @itsmeamysworld, @ghostlythots, @oranoyaora, @keiva1000

[clarissaexplainsbatchall]

Whirling rotors blew snow about in a cloud of white as the recovery VTOLs came in over FOB Hawk. Below them, hanging from a dozen taut lines, was a Coyotl omnimech inwith its left leg sheared off at the knee that they began to lower to the ground. Behind them came a Mad Cat III in the same teal and blue as the Coyotl, its right arm ending in a sparking stump at the elbow, and a great mass of melted armor like a tumor on its left side.

It came to a stop nearby where the VTOLs were depositing the omnimech. The sealed hatch to the cockpit opened and a rope ladder folded out of it, followed by Clarissa descending at a slow, tired pace. When she made it to the ground she reached for her neurohelmet, a custom built thing in grey and silver. Where a visor would be on most models of neurohelm there was only a bulky bulge of steel and flashing lights, leaving her looking like some kind of insectoid alien thing come to haunt the base.

She clicked a pair of fasteners on the helmet and in an instant the lights blinked out. As did the world. The aurora in the sky, the snow, the bustling people; they all vanished into nothingness to Clarissa. She could hear the wind blowing and the people rushing about, but to her sight, or rather lack of it, all was nothing. It was relaxing in its own way, a return to a childhood spent with only her skin, her nose, her ears, to guide her.

With a sigh she unzipped her cooling suit and the scent of her own body's sweat filled her nostrils. She really needed a shower.

[dubia-015]

Consider:

I had an idea for @keferon ‘s mecha au Vortex So what if the things on Vortex’s back are built in knives that he can pop out, but in order to be able to reach them he can bend his elbow the wrong way. Like imagine seeing the giant scary goat mecha bending its arm in a way that does not obey human anatomy, and then it comes back around with a freaking blade. The knifes themselves would be able to fold on themselves pocket knife style. I would think that all four of his “rotors” have knives in them, but the top two also kinda act as a bit of protection for his neck. The knives would mostly be backup weapons for in case he ever got separated from his big quint slaying swords or if he needs a more delicate touch (carving up alien guts for First Aid). Vortex really does strike me as the kinda guy who would carry 4 pocket knives around.

[genius-built-donatello]

[Don hops backwards down the house’s front step, finally outside, which gives the shell’s arms just enough room to block Nova’s jump, grabbing her arms and tossing her down.]

HA! Try again!

[He’s still retreating towards the base. Ugh, this is going to be annoying. The arms can’t be active at the same time as the rotors - it’s a pretty long way away. The arms retract, rotors folding out while the bō spins to give him space.]

Where’s your dog, Nova? Did it do this?

@echo-nova-2036

[strip-weathers]

Cabbie: *feels sad*

Blade: *rubs against Cabbie*

Cabbie: *smiles gratefully*

More of Uncle Cabbie X3

@the-great-old-grump here’s an example when Blade chills, he simply folds his rotors back x3

[valkresdarkside]

Ok more blade breeding au oneshot bc my new project won't let me draw lewds for a while (fuck animation istg) tw: rape, mindbreak

Blade gritted his teeth as the aphrodisiac started taking effect on his body. The pain on his rotor and landing gear slowly became numb, and his rear started getting wet in heat.

The Owner smirked as he explored Blade's shivering frame with his tentacles, causing Blade to bit his lower lip to hold back his moans. His valve cover was being teased, rubbed by the wet, slimy tentacles. His panels opened up involuntarily to the assault, revealing his soaked folds.

"H-haa..." Blade moaned as some smaller tentacles crept their way into his valve. It felt...weird. The tentacles effortlessly explored his walls, finding the sensitive nodes and tugged on them. His mind screamed, telling him to escape, but the lack of rotor blades and landing gears gave him no choice but to stay in his spot, letting the tentacles turn him into a shivering and moaning mess.

Then he cried out, eyes shot open, as a thick tentacle rammed its way into his folds without any warning.

"Hm, hm, this is perfect," the Owner hummed as he drove closer to observe Blade's rear. "Now let's see if you can handle more than this."

Blade screamed as more of the thick tentacles forced their ways into him. He had never felt so vulnerable. He couldn't even squirm nor roll away an inch. Verbal responses and his shaking body were the only things he could manage as the tentacles laid claim on his body.

"S-stop thiiiis...." he begged. The tentacles had spread his insides wider than what he thought was possible. The aphrodisiac actually worked and turned the pain into pleasure, and Blade got scared by the thought. He wasn't an object! He wasn't supposed to feel this way! But his body disobeyed him as his moans got higher in pitch, climax getting closer.

He didn't even realize that the Owner had already parked himself in front of him, smirking mischievously. He stopped as Blade was about to reach his peak and withdrew his tentacles, making the helo whine to the sudden emptiness in his tunnels.

"Raven," the Owner called to the tanker, "now's the time for your reward."

The KC-767 smirked and rolled closer. He parked himself right above Blade, towering the much smaller helo.

Blade heard the sounds of panels clicking and shifting. No, no, no, please don't, he begged silently as he felt a huge shaft's tip pressing against his valve, rubbing it with precum.

The Owner chuckled seeing Blade's pleading stare. No more angry stare, no more growls nor threats. Just a helpless helo that had already learned his place, and soon would be turned into a breeding stock.

"I want his tank's cover destroyed."

"Consider it done, my liege," the tanker smirked, positioning himself.

"No, no, no, please don't, it won't fi—mmmf!" Blade's pleads were silenced by a tentacle shoving itself into his mouth, pumping a huge amount of aphrodisiac into his throat. Blade gagged on the tentacle as Raven started pushing his shaft into his swollen valve, making his eye roll back from the pain-turned-pleasure.

Raven didn't take his time to let Blade adjust. He straight up plowed his member into the poor helo's depth, spreading it wide and cracked his outer panels. The tentacles kept Blade in his spot, preventing his body from getting stuck to, nor getting dragged by the huge spike.

Blade could only whimper with the tentacles in his throat, gagged sounds released themselves from his throat. He felt full. He felt impaled.

"I wanted to make your first products to look as similar to you as possible, but..." the Owner pulled the tentacle out of Blade's mouth, "seeing how you'd endure a huge Boeing's baby would be fun to see."

Blade's eyes shut themselves from both the pleasure and fear. He was scared of what other atrocious stuff they'd do to him, what they were turning himself into, and the fact that he was starting to enjoy the rough intercourses.

Raven was pounding his secondary tank's lid mercilessly, turning Blade into a moaning mess below his fuselage.

"S-slow dooownnnn.... Haa... I-I'm gonna break...." Blade pleaded, the pleasure was too much for him.

"That's the point, slut," Raven growled. "I'm gonna break your mind and body. Breeding stocks don't get to think nor speak, after all~"

Raven slammed his shaft, causing Blade's tank to break, letting the huge member break into his secondary tank.

Blade screamed. Even with the aphrodisiac, it hurt. But it hurt so good. He got overwhelmed by the mixture of pain and pleasure as he hit orgasm, exploding from both his shaft and valve. His eyes rolled back as Raven kept pounding into him even as he cummed, triggering every single sensitive nodes. It was all too much. Too much.

Then he stopped thinking and let himself be overtaken by pleasure.

Raven hit his climax not long after that, filling Blade's secondary tank with his seed, causing the helo's fuselage to bulge from the huge amount of semen. The tanker pulled its shaft out, causing his cum to flow out of Blade's swollen valve.

The Owner used a tentacle to plug his valve with a magnetic dildo, preventing more semen from dripping out. It'd be a waste, and he needed this helo pregnant.

He smirked at Blade's empty gaze, eyelids half open, his face had no signs of resistance left. They had successfully broken the fire chief's mind, turning him into a perfect breeding stock with nothing but sexual pleasure in his mind.

"Connect him to the machines. I want the product to be delivered within a month."

"Yes, sir!" Several forklifts and tugs saluted before they lifted Blade's spent body onto a trailer and took him away.

[mugzymiik]

OK HEAR ME OUT. PINK CORRUPTION WARRIOR CATS AU

actually yall dont gotta hear me out bc me and a couple friends r doin it already but SHHHHH/j/lh

SO. A TPC WARRIORS AU.

the lore basically goes like:

the protagonist Clan/pure Clan is TreeClan; the antagonist/corrupt Clan is CorruptClan (lmao)

the Heroes are prophecy cats basically n the caretakers are their parents :D (the other biological parent for em Died thats why theres only 1 ofc)

Dubstep (courtesy of friendo :3)/Dubstar is the leader of CorruptClan

the prophecy cats (aka the Heroes) r meant to destroy CorruptClan :D

and uuuh. thats all we got for the lore so far :(

BUT!!!!! CHARACTER SHIT!!!!!!:

the prophecy cats (Heroes) have off-white irises :D (the off-white has a hint of whatever tf their color is) have an old example i made with Tsavoritepaw's eyes for a visual:

Pentellow n her fam r kittypets (for non-wc fans thats a house cat) but Pentellow n Tsavorite/Tsavoritepaw eventually join TreeClan after getting a dream from StarClan :D

Goldpaw (Gold) and Pyrare are maine coons. BIG FUCKS. this is not debatable/nsrs

Tsavoritepaw (Tsavorite) is a medicine cat apprentice and his mentor is Irisshade (Iris) >:]

most of Pentellow's family are Scottish folds!!! i chose this for artistic shit bc i can make their ears shaped like pentagons/hexagons/whatever and i thought thatd be cool >:]

Deathberrypaw (Cyanide) is a siamese!!!

Cintagon is Round <3

Heli and Ketches are helpful loners :D

Heli has a split tail (to represent a helicopter's rotor!!)

they have their respective shapes on their paws!!! like,,,have a piece of Wolfspike (Lythorus)'s concept sketch thing for example:

Cubecry (Cube) has droopy ears <333

Goldpaw (Gold) and Pyrare are former loners/rogues

I CANT REMEMBER ANY MORE OFF OF THE TOP OF MY HEAD BUT I WILL PROBABLY DO A FOLLOWUP TO THIS IF I EVER DO,,

yeag

shape kitties <3

[surgepricing]

That RWBY retrospective was a great read. Would you be willing to share the rest of your deep dive? I would love to read it

Thought long and hard about what I wanted to show off next; very rarely did I get into discussing RWBY in later volumes without stepping on some toes. I decided I'd post one of the more tame chapters from the Volume 2 recap, just to see what people have to say. I hope you enjoy it.

I won't be able to do this with every recap while preserving the images and gifs I used, since there's a limit of 30 and sometimes my posts went well beyond that, but I can always try other options.

Title: RWBY 09 – Volume 2, Second Arc (Part I) Original Posting Date: Dec 19, 2020 Episodes Covered: Volume 2, Episodes 5 & 6

Alright. So far, Volume 2 is not taking me to happy places. But why stop now?

We ended on a gigantic fight between four girls and a robotic mech.

V2E5, “Extracurricular”

The first thing I get to recap to you is a fight scene, right out of the gate. We open on Pyrrha, seeing her gear up for combat, spliced inbetween flashes of the fight itself. Now, for once, since this fight is neither the focus of the episode, nor that important overall, I’m not going to slavishly transcribe it, but rather give you the rundown:

It’s Pyrrha versus the entirety of Team CRDL (Cardin, Russel, Dove, and Lark, in case you forgot). Cardin’s packing his big giant mace, Russel’s armed with dual knives with what look like dust rotors, Lark is swinging around a halberd that looks completely unaltered, and Dove is armed with a slim double-edged blade that can fold into a pistol. If you want to see the fight that badly, I have good news: it’s easy to gif, since it’s brutally short, a mere minute and a half (1:40 to 3:14). So here, my treat:

As you can see, Pyrrha is completely untouchable here, even four-on-one. She sends CRDL’s members flying with precise strikes and sweeps, and deflects Dove’s and Russel’s blades with only the shield braced on her one arm without even going off-balance. Sky and Cardin hit a bit harder, and Cardin gets points for being the only one to take more than three seconds to demolish, but she trounces him, too, the minute she sees an opening. All in all, she was in complete control of the battle and it showed.

You might be wondering how Pyrrha could so skillfully dismantle four attackers, some of whom have clear advantages on her in size and weight and who were attacking together. Don’t worry—you’ll see.

The lights come on in the arena, and Glynda’s voice again announces the end of the match, complimenting Pyrrha and mentioning she’ll have no trouble qualifying for the Vytal Tournament. She turns to the stands, asking any of the attending students if they’d like to fill one last match. RWBY, who are in the stands, appear uninterested, but we can see two familiar faces sitting just behind them. Glynda zeroes in on Blake, who hurriedly snaps some book shut, accusing her of being rather ‘docile’ in recent classes, but before she can volunteer her, a hand is raised and Mercury’s voice pipes up.

Glynda makes to select an opponent for him, but he stops her—he wants to go a round with Pyrrha. Glynda, clearly a tad peeved at having been interrupted twice, tries to tell him that she’s already finished a match, but Pyrrha welcomes another fight, very happy to take him up on it.

Mercury, legs greaved in black metal and showing off glinting silver bullets loading the chambers, slowly struts onto the field to meet his opponent, and in the background, Emerald glances at the back of Ruby’s head, then at the match, with a pointed focus on her eyes. Mercury takes a kickboxing stance, while Pyrrha stands with shield and xiphos at the ready. The two of them rush to meet each other, and Mercury throws a kick that meets Pyrrha’s shield before she sweeps his other leg out from under him. He makes distance with many an unnecessary backflip.

The two fighters clearly appraise one another, before Pyrrha runs forward and presses him. Mercury goes on a fantastic defense, deflecting her strikes and trying to get around her shield, but this enables Pyrrha to just butt him in the chest and send him skidding back.

Mercury nods, as if to say ‘eh, pretty good’, and in the stands, Ruby turns to compliment Emerald on how well her ‘friend’ is doing, who smiles and then rolls her eyes as soon as Ruby turns back towards the match. The two in the arena continue:

Mercury launches a fast and furious series of strikes with the goal of bringing a heavy boot down on something that gives, and Pyrrha performs the sickest move ever, throwing her sword into the air behind her and then just catching Mercury’s next kick with the back of her arm. Mercury undercuts the coolness of this just a bit by answering her next series of slashes with the re-equipped sword and knocking the xiphos out of her hand and some distance away. Pyrrha doesn’t look too concerned about this.

When Mercury makes to pounce on this advantage, she raises her free hand as if to catch his boot, but it doesn’t make contact. We the viewer see a very faint black outline around her hand and his boot as she does it. Mercury is sent off-balance, and takes a moment to absorb what just happened. Pyrrha rushes him, and he gets back up in time to meet her shield with both legs and fire his greave-guns, sending him shooting off of it and a good distance away, just in time to say the magic words before she can press her assault.

M: I forfeit.

Pyrrha is thrown off, and skids to a halt, surprised and rather annoyed at this turn of events. Mercury dismisses her—she’s a world-class fighter, and they’re obviously leagues apart. Glynda understandably shares her irritation, given that Mercury chose to fight her in the first place. Mercury and Emerald are both grinning.

Glynda reminds everyone that “the dance is this weekend” and their first mission is on Monday. RWBY file out of the arena, Blake’s nose buried in a notebook and Emerald watching them as they go. Mercury dryly remarks, as he comes up to Emerald, that learning is “so much fun”.

Now before I pounce on the words that I just bolded, which the next scene that we cut to would like to elaborate on, let me draw your attention to something:

Do you see this overhead shot of Beacon’s courtyard? To the right of RWBY, heading out, you will see Sun’s team, SSSN (pronounced “Sun”)—himself and Neptune, plus Scarlet and Sage.

That is their—Sage’s and Scarlet’s—only appearance this volume.

No, they do not actually interact with anyone nor are they involved in this scene whatsoever, they’re literally in the background and stay there. I don’t feel bad about spoiling that. Better we got it out of the way now. Do any of you remember something I highlighted in my Volume 1 Final Thoughts?

I said that slow pacing wasn’t something we could afford when this show only runs for 25% of the year and is on hiatus the other 75%. It’s not like live-action dramas, either, able to make up for that by running for 50 episodes at a time or packing 30-45 minutes into each episode. It seemed, at the time, an astounding feat of juggling to introduce so many new characters in the very last episode and then even more in the Volume 2 trailer and opening—but now we can see that it evens out, because they don’t intend on using any of them.

By this point in time, RWBY fans had been sitting on the knowledge that Sun had his own team, salivating in the aftermath of his glorious first impression, and hungering for some details on his crew for quite a while, and have at this point gone five weeks with nothing but scraps. They will go the rest of the volume—ten more weeks, what with the World of Remnant introduction—and then the rest of the Volume 2-3 hiatus with yet more nothing to go on.

Release date of Volume 2 Trailer: July 4th, 2014 Release date of Volume 3 Episode 2: October 31st, 2015.

Fifteen, almost sixteen months. Over a year. Not a year in which consistent content was coming—a year in which an official entry to the series’ collective body came and went. If you were actually interested in these characters as a team, any sparse involvement of the remaining two, or anything deeper than a petri dish from Sun and Neptune, you were absolutely not going to get it. Sucks to be you.

Love to Be a Part of It Someday: 10

*idly twirling a foil scraper* That’s not good. That is, in fact, pretty fuckin’ bad. Dickish, even. A point each for Sage and Scarlet, plus a point for the lack of unit behavior with Sun and Neptune—plus another for the conspicuous amount of time spent ignoring these dudes whose names haven’t even been said in-show. Fairest arrangement I can think of.

But that’s all I can say now. I will be bringing this back up later, near or at the end of the Volume. The same goes for the hair-ripping Exit Stage Left from last post that had me so bald.

So let’s move on to the issue actually comprising this scene.

Blake is lagging behind her team, head still buried in her notebook. Sun breaks off from his own team to catch up with her.

S: Hey, Blake! You, uh, doin’ okay?

B: I’m fine.

S: *clearing his throat* So I hear there’s this dance goin’ on this weekend… Agh, sounds...pretty lame, but you an’ me, I’m thinkin’, not as lame? Huh?

B: ...What?

S: The dance, this weekend! You wanna go, or what?

B: ...I don’t have time for a stupid dance. *turning and walking away* I thought you, of all people, would get that.

In case the tone of this conversation is not clear to you, here’s a gif, so you can see their body language like I can.

Sun is being his usual chill and somewhat dorky self, if a little nervous, not pushy or rude. Blake, who has suddenly developed noticeable circles under her eyes since leaving the school arena, responds in a much rougher tone than we might have expected given her previous characterizations. Sun is visibly deflated and her teammates eye her as she walks off. Ruby spares sad boi Sun a glance before we cut to the next scene.

B: You what?

Ruby answers that they want her to go to the dance. When Blake calls that ridiculous, Yang mentions that they’re worried about her. This investigation, she says, is starting to mess with her head.

Ohhh, the investigation! Yeah, that was a thing that happened last episode, wasn’t it?

Wiess mentions that Blake can’t sleep, hardly eats, and her grades are tanking. Blake wants to know why she should care about grades when lives are at stake! Yang responds that they know, and they’re still trying to find out what Torchwick is up to.

Ruby mentions that thanks to Blake and Sun, they know that he and the White Fang are operating somewhere outside of southeast Vale, and Weiss follows up that Schnee records indicated that Vale was clearly the primary target of dust robberies over the last month.

Not to interrupt yet more blossoming angst from Blake, but yeah, this is our reward for following that three-episode ‘arc’ that culminated in the Paladin fight. Weiss lists that last bit off as if it’s useful information—it isn’t, because the characters live in Vale, among the robberies, and the viewers have so far only been shown Vale, and robberies happening there. It gives them nothing to go on besides “hey, at least the plot isn’t operating outside of our reach, like in other countries!” and that is why I remain firm in my decision to award it the Road to Nowhere point.

But seriously, think about what’s going on here. Blake’s grievance about lives is that they’re at stake, not that any have been lost, just in case you don’t believe that all those massacred people on the interstate really last episode didn’t matter. They don’t even register here. As if to underscore the fact that we just hit the reset button—on everything, including Blake’s inner turmoil over Torchwick that seemingly got resolved in Episode 2—they’re even back in their standard outfits, with the cool, unique, badass outfits that they wore for an episode and a half completely ditched, forgotten, and never brought up again.

None of that mattered. We went nowhere.

Alright, now that I’m good and mad, let’s continue with the scene.

Y: Don’t forget about their missing military tech, too.

I’m fine! I’m cool, I’m calm, I’m fine!

(for reference here, the recap before, I had gone into an extended rant about how Torchwick just having a gigantic military mech made no sense, since it's not feasible for him to steal it undetected with his level of resources, and how barreling down a public interstate in it with the White Fang emblem stamped on it pretty much broadcasted his location and claimed the carnage so that it couldn't even be used to sow distrust against Ironwood).

When Blake protests that there’s still unanswered questions, Ruby responds that she won’t find any answers if she can’t even stay awake. Yang reiterates that they want her to relax a bit for one day, and Weiss insists it’ll be fun—because after all, Weiss and Yang are going to make sure of it! You see, they’re planning the whole event!

Yes, Yang said that verbatim. They—two girls—are planning a school event comprising not just the hundreds of students living at their campus, but hundreds more students coming in from three other countries! Sorry, I’m not letting you get away with that.

Ill Logic: 16

It isn’t alleviated by the fact that the event was originally being managed by four students instead of a mere two. Weiss mentions that upperclassmen team CFVY (pronounced “coffee”) aren’t back from their mission yet, so she and Yang were asked to pick up where they left off. Weiss promises that after the dance, they can return to their regularly scheduled business, nose in Torchwick’s business and all.

B: I think this is a colossal waste of time.

She gets up and strides out, mentioning that she’ll be in the library, with her team bemoaning that she can’t keep going like this.

But enough about that! There’s a knock on the door, and Weiss answers it. Guess who it is!

What he’s here for is obvious before he even says it. Weiss shuts the door in his face, and he knocks again, begging that she open it, and promising not to sing.

J: I lied!

W: [facepalming]

J: Weiss Sch-nee! ♪ Will you accompany me? ♪ To the daaaaance on! ♪ Sunday? ♪

W: Are you done?

J: ...Yes?

W: No. [she shuts the door in his face, then turns to her teammates] ...What?

Y: And that, is why they call you the ice queen.

W: All my life, boys have only cared about the perks of my last name. [crossing her arms and turning away] Besides, I already have a date in mind.

R: Date or no date, none of this will matter if we can’t get Blake to go.

The scene here ends on a zoom-in towards the sky outside the open window. But first…You didn’t think we were going to escape this shit without a little commentary on boundaries, did you?

Mkay. We’re not quite done with this issue, but we may as well do this—you may be flashing back to the first interaction Weiss actually had with Jaune, and his very pushy and rude flirting in the same scene. I mentioned there that it translated worse when written than watched, and could easily be brushed off as harmless even though it wasn’t. There is no such allowance here.

We’ve already established, through that scene and through the recent cold shoulder she gave him in class, that Weiss has no interest in Jaune’s time. Trying to ask her out to a dance, therefore, is a bad idea, but not necessarily a full-stop no-bad-wrong. Once she made it clear via door slam that she still wasn’t interested, that was the official cutoff, and any further pursuit should’ve been given up. He continues to pester her, and then she still gives him the official “No”.

If, like me, you mis-remembered this as Jaune asking her out like four or five times past a clear “No”, don’t worry, there’s still more to talk about. Because while Jaune is still over the line—

Jaune: 8

—what the real issue here is, is the framing of Weiss’ answer. See, it’s not because Jaune has qualities that turn Weiss off, or that his behavior is bad, or even that she simply doesn’t want to go to the dance—it’s that she assumes that Jaune only wants her because she’s the illustrious Schnee heiress. It is framed as though Weiss’ ‘no’ to Jaune is simply one of caution rather than actual disinterest in him—as though he ‘deserves a chance’, and the only reason he isn’t getting one is because a) Weiss made the wrong assumption and b) she already has the spot filled.

The problem is that Weiss doesn’t need a reason. She may hate Jaune’s guts, or may be head-over-heels with him. She may simply find him unattractive, or may simply not enjoy his company. She may not enjoy dances on principle. She may already have a date, or may not. She may have no reason whatsoever to say no to Jaune.

And she can still say no to him, and deserves to have that respected. Because a girl doesn’t need a ‘good’ reason to reject a guy. The ‘no’ is the beginning, middle, and end. She says no, and that’s that.

Fauxminism: 6

There’s shades of this with Blake, too, mind, what with her team trying to push her to go to a dance she has no interest in. Blake may, like myself, simply not find dances enjoyable and want to skip it, regardless of whatever turmoil is causing her to lose sleep, but this passes just a tad more easily because her physical health and mindset are clearly not their best.

Back to the next scene. We are shown Jaune training with Pyrrha. Both of them are wielding their swords with both hands and have gone shieldless, so Pyrrha seems to be teaching him the basics. He presses her into a couple of sword locks, before she sweeps his legs out from under him with her own. She laughs, and compliments how much his swordplay has improved, extending a hand to help him up (while a very creepy but un-commented-on green glow emanates from the headmaster’s tower in the background).

She asks if he wants to go ahead with Aura training, and Jaune hesitantly wonders about skipping that for tonight. She recommends he keep at it, and that she’s sure they’ll discover his Semblance in no time (hinting for the audience that one is attached to the other). Jaune dismisses this as the problem, saying “It’s dumb”. Pyrrha presses him when he clams up, and he admits he wants time to lament about Weiss.

What about her, Pyrrha asks, and he confesses he asked her to the dance and she promptly shut him down. Pyrrha, quite stiffly, mentions that there’s plenty of fish, as the saying goes. Easy for her to say, he says, since she probably has guys falling over themselves in line to hit that up. She subtly hints that this isn’t the case, only to be blown off. If she doesn’t get a date to the dance, he says, he’ll wear a dress.

Wait for it. I’ll comment on it in time.

Pyrrha gives Jaune’s retreating back the solemn gaze of the unrequited crush, and all I can do is question her taste, which I will do in detail soon enough.

The next scene we cut to is the dorm room where Cinder, Emerald, and Mercury are staying. They’re commenting on ‘the invincible girl’, Pyrrha Nikos, who Mercury appears to have figured out. He and Emerald explain that her semblance is ‘polarity’, but she hides it well, using it to manipulate combat in her favor in subtle ways that won’t be noticed if you aren’t looking. In this way, she creates the impression that she really is untouchable in combat on skill alone, rather than because most fighters would realistically be helpless against her.

We will ask a question now: if Pyrrha’s so good at being subtle about her abilities, why did she magically wave Mercury’s foot away from her face rather than simply catching it? She proved she was capable of doing just that. One looks significantly less suspect than the other, and likely wouldn’t have actually been caught by Mercury’s oh-so-clever analysis!

Ill Logic: 17

Your Fight Scene Sucks: 10

C: People assume she’s fated for victory, when she’s taken fate into her own hands. Interesting. Add her to the list.

How very ominous. Mercury mentions that Cinder should be able to take her easily, and she adopts a more serious demeanor as she declares that it’s not about overpowering the enemy, but taking away what power they have. How different those two things really are, in this context or any, is something I’ll leave up to readers.

When Mercury bemoans more waiting around, Cinder mentions a ‘fun weekend’ in store for them, while holding up a needle she’s using to sew something. The episode ends.

Before I move on to the next episode, I need to air an issue I’ve been saving since the beginning of this one, and I will preface it with an apology, because one last time, I’m about to use the j-word: juvenile.

It took me a while to find that word, you know, when I was first outlining a spork of this animation, and when I was searching for and finally settled on it, I was thinking of this plot point right here, and nothing else. It didn’t occur to me until I was actually writing the recaps for the preceding episodes just how many times I could, and would, apply that word.

And it does occasionally hit me that I may come off as snobbish or elitist for that, and I apologize if so. I promise that’s not my intention. I’m not some fun-hating asshat that takes issue with a show being accessible to kids and not being filled with blood and gore and sex and f-bombs. I’m not trying to put RWBY ‘beneath’ me.

But there is nonetheless a problem with how this show is treading its water. There are certain things the audience is expecting, was expecting, and some they most certainly weren’t—and probably didn’t welcome. And as for me, I would call this one of them. Let’s lay our cards on the table here: we now have a dance arc to sit through. Dance arcs are restricted, generally speaking, to a few different settings, and it’s rather difficult to make most of them cross over with the dramatic, monster-slaying world of Remnant. And failing the one, rather more flexible type of dance arc—the whole ‘regal, fancy high-society ball’ type—we instead are being handed the other type. Say it with me now, what we’ve really got is a prom arc.

I cannot fucking stand the prom arc.

Suppose for a minute that I did enjoy high-school shows, of which the prom arc is the most standard, inseparable staple. Regardless of the fact that I detest them in general, there are interesting things you can do in a high school setting, especially if there are fantasy elements involved. If binging Supernatural doesn’t scar me deeply enough by the time I’m done, hell, the one I’ll probably move on to is Teen Wolf, in which I understand this problem to have reared its ugly head. The prom arc is emblematic of both high school shows and what ends up being wrong with most of them, in that it’s the least interesting thing you can possibly show me.

Absent any monster-slaying or teens with superpowers, maybe on occasion I can still get invested in a plot about how some chick is trying to hide her pregnancy, about how a bully gets his due (one we had in this show, as it happens!), or how some kid getting in with the wrong crowd tries to get out before it destroys his life. To say nothing of the oft-ignored or mishandled potential of trying to watch teens struggle through things like sexuality or gender, which more and more of us could relate to and want to see. And yes, even that is relevant to what I will say later on.

The fact of the matter is, ‘who is taking who to prom? Tee-hee! Ooooh!’ is the plot point that is both the least interesting and the one that often takes up way too much time and attention. It’s tired, annoying, endlessly-retreaded, boring…and now we have one right here.

Coming right off the heels of Torchwick chasing gun-and-sword-wielding teens down a crowded freeway and the large-scale implications Blake keeps babbling about, why should we disagree with her assessment of this? Why on earth would we care about some freaking prom? Do we not have a million more interesting things to look at?!

And don’t think that it ends with me calling this farce for what it is. There’s also the fact that it doesn’t make sense. This prom is happening on the heels of a bazillion exchange students arriving to stay on campus.

Really? You want to ask hundreds of people who are unfamiliar with the city and have never been here before to try and find dates, ostensibly with people from other countries that they hardly know, when they barely know their way around? That makes sense to you? Someone should bitch slap Ozpin upside the head for thinking that’s a good idea.

Ill Logic: 18

It’s not getting Reliable Leader points because I can’t prove it was him that organized it, but it’s still a terrible idea nonetheless. Whatever, let’s move along.

V2E6, “Burning the Candle”

We open on Ruby sitting at a table when set upon by Weiss, asking her opinion: which tablecloth should she go with? But they’re both the same, and Weiss leaves in a huff when this is pointed out. Yang is carrying a huge amp and sets it down with a colossal thud. She asks if Ruby has picked out her dress yet, and Ruby, incredibly down in the dumps, asks what the point is if Blake isn’t going.

You have a weird fixation on Blake attending a very pointless event, you know that? Do you have some terminal inability to enjoy anything if it isn’t being done with your whole teeeeaaam? I’m gonna start calling you Esme.

Yang waves this off: don’t worry, Ruby, Blake’s going! Said with a confident smirk, which given Yang’s track record with coercion so far, does not make me think the things I imagine Rooster Teeth wanted me to think, so great work there. She then snaps at Weiss that she doesn’t want doilies everywhere. No doilies, no fog machines, Weiss answers.

This leads to a comment from Neptune, who walks in with Sun. Lovely to see you two again, did you ever find your missing two team members? No? Sorry to hear that, keep at it! Neptune thinks this might be pretty cool, and Sun asks if the ladies are all ready for ‘dress-up’. Ruby is not as enthused as Yang and Weiss are at the idea of getting all dolled up to turn heads. So what are they going to be wearing, the latter asks?

S: Pfft, uhhh, this?

Before I can point out that this is yet another detail implying that Sun is poor, Neptune tries to wave him off, but Sun will not be ignored. He mentions that, despite having moved to Mistral, he grew up in Vacuo, which viewers will by now understand to be a desert nation and rather dangerous.

S: It’s not exactly a shirt-and-tie kind of place.

Y: Yeah, we’ve noticed.

Holding my tongue here.

Sun, visibly uncomfortable, asks what Blake thinks of all this, and if she’s still in her ill mood, and they confirm that she is. Yang, again all a-smirking, says to just trust her, because Blake will definitely be at the dance tomorrow. Whatever could she mean?

She means racism, of course! See, in the next scene, she’s got a laser pointer, and interrupts Blake’s time poring over a library computer by bothering her with it until she gives in and tries to follow it to the source. It is an extended sequence and very uncomfortable. Remember: this would not matter if Blake was just a cat person, and cat people and humans coexisted with nothing else said about it. But the faunus in this show are explicit stand-ins for people of color! So this joke is unfunny and offensive by default. Imagine if some black kid was hanging out on the computer and some rudeass white kid started trying to dangle fried chicken or watermelon in front of them, ‘cause black people love that stuff, right? Ha. Ha. Ha. So very funny.

RSVP: 22

When Blake finally finds Yang holding the laser pointer, the latter drags her off by the arm, claiming they ‘need to talk’ and no, it’s not funny. Cut to the next scene!

Lie Ren walks out of the JNPR dorm’s bathroom wearing only a towel. In the exact same manner, Jaune comes out of nowhere and grabs him by the arm, claiming they need to talk. Ha, funny, hee.

J: Ren…I’m just gonna come out and say it. You…are one of my best friends. These past few months, I feel like we’ve really bonded! Even though...you don’t say much. I mean, you’re really quiet. To be perfectly honest, I don’t know that much about you personally...but darn it, I consider you to be the brother I never had!

R: [still in a towel and visibly uncomfortable] ...And I you.

J: Which is why I wanted to get your advice on...girls!

I love when racism is followed by good old-fashioned homophobia! Because yes, that’s what this is. The fact that Ren’s in a towel and Jaune starts by using language like “you’re one of my best friends” and the ever-suspect “come out and say it” make it clear that this is obviously a funny joke meant to make the audience laugh because oh, he sounds like he’s about to confess his love to another man! Isn’t that funny?!

*icily* Miles Luna, you see this big fat dick? Eat me. It’s fucking scary as hell for gay people trying to approach love and you don’t get to make us the butt of your jokes.

And for the record, no, I don’t think that was a one-off. See, people watching RWBY had, before Volume 2 even aired, asked about the topic of sexuality within this show. They wanted to know...well, mostly whether their favorite ships were gonna happen, but beyond that, they wanted to know whether Rooster Teeth intended to display non-heterosexual identities and how they felt about doing so. Monty went on record and assured them the characters would figure that sort of thing out under their own power and on their own time, and that it would not be brushed aside but also wouldn’t be a huge part of the story. So by this point, Rooster Teeth are already aware they had an LGBT audience...and this little scene still got greenlit.

Malevolent? Malicious? No and no. But abso-fucking-lutely in poor taste? Definitely so.

Jaune eventually says that he wants to know how Ren and Nora got together, only for them both to uncomfortably clarify that they’re not a couple. He urges her to put her headphones back on, since obviously he wanted Ren’s opinion on this and not hers. Dick. Ren asks him what this is about.

J: It’s Weiss. I’m completely head-over-heels for her, and she won’t even give me a chance. She’s cold, but…she’s also incredible. She’s smart, graceful, and talented...I mean, have you heard her sing? I just wish she’d take me seriously, you know? I wish I could tell her how I feel, without messing it all up.

Yes, we are still not done with this tiresome matter.

First, this was clearly an attempt to back up what I said above: it’s all a misunderstanding! Jaune doesn’t want her because she’s a Schnee, (or just because she’s hot), he’ll have you know! It has nothing to do with superficial qualities like her money (or her hotness). It’s all about those other not-at-all-superficial qualities like how graceful she is, what a beautiful voice she has, and uhh, what was that last one? Oh yeah, how smart she is! Notice that Jaune said nothing that actually indicated he knows her. Is she a kind person? Does she have passion or drive? Does she care about others? Does she put forth effort to be the best she can be and make every day great? What are her interests and hobbies? The best you could say is that ‘smart’ technically isn’t superficial, but it’s one short step away from ‘aw yeah, she’s got a brain to go with those hot titties!’

This was clearly a transparent attempt to smooth over burgeoning distaste for Jaune and his interactions with women, so it’s getting two points, and one of them is our very first!

Jaune: 9

Band-Aid Brigade: 1

Moving on. Pyrrha cuts in, telling Jaune that if he really feels that way about Weiss, he should just tell her. No schemes, no pick-up lines, just honesty.

P: Jaune. You can’t get it wrong if it’s the truth!

I beg to differ! He can get it very wrong! He’s gonna show us that much very soon!

But Jaune likes this advice and hurries out, leaving Nora to sadly advise Pyrrha to practice what she preaches.

Now we cut back to Blake and Yang. They are occupying some unused theater classroom, with Yang sitting cross-legged on the teacher’s desk and Blake pacing back and forth with her arms crossed. Blake insists that they can’t afford to slow down, while Yang says that taking a break isn’t a luxury, but a necessity. At Yang’s invitation, Blake reluctantly sits down to listen to her story.

Cuz it’s story time!

Y: Ruby and I grew up in Patch, an island just off the coast of Vale. Our parents were Huntsmen. Our dad taught at Signal, and our mom would take on missions around the kingdom. Her name was Summer Rose. And she was like...Super-Mom. Baker of cookies and slayer of giant monsters. And then...one day she left for a mission and never came back. It was tough. Ruby was really torn up, but…I think she was still too young to really get what was going on, you know? And my dad just kinda...shut down. It wasn’t long before I learnt why. Summer wasn’t the first love he’d lost. She was the second. The first was my mom. He wouldn’t tell me everything. But I learnt that they had been on a team together with Summer and Qrow. And that she’d left me with him just after I was born. No one had seen her since.

Yes, this is belated Yang Time. Pay careful attention to what she said here. I’ll be talking about it in just a minute.

Blake asks why Yang’s birth mother left. Yang answers that it’s that exact question that ate at her as a kid and drove her to find out why. We transfer to art deco as Yang delves deeper into her backstory. She found a clue, she describes, while the art deco shows us a picture in a broken picture frame, that she thought would lead her to her mother or answers thereabouts.

Y: I waited for Dad to leave the house, put Ruby in a wagon, and headed out. I must’ve walked for hours. I had cuts and bruises, was totally exhausted…but I wasn’t gonna let anything stop me. When we finally got there, I could barely stand. But I didn’t care. I had made it. And then I saw them. Those burning red eyes. There we were. A toddler asleep in the back of a wagon and a stupid girl too exhausted to even cry for help. We might as well have been served on a silver platter. But, as luck would have it...our uncle showed up just in time. My stubbornness should’ve gotten us killed that night.

The bolded material, this time, is for me. First, I know a lot of you will expect me to comment on Yang’s parents and what they’re like, and on this matter, one in particular. But please wait. Give it time—there is an appropriate moment to talk about this, and you need the full effect. For now, let’s just focus on the first one: Ruby.

In addition to Yang Time, we now have our very first details about Ruby’s mother, Summer Rose! Fans had been itching to hear about this ever since that extremely loaded song, Red Like Roses Part II, debuted in Volume 1. A dark past, trauma, a desire to know why her protectorate left her...and then we find out Ruby was too young to understand Summer dying. That handily puts a stopper in any of that juicy development we were kind of relying on for Ruby, not to mention any development of it in the future, too. It’s not as though it doesn’t make sense for Yang to angst about a missing mother as much as Ruby, but this kind of locks it onto Yang and away from Ruby. And with Yang focusing on her birth mother over Summer, that means Summer will continue to be unexplored. And Rooster Teeth will continue to fumble this going ahead.

At the end of this story, Blake makes a very good point: these situations are not the same, and she is not a child with no sense of scope. Yang, gripping the desk rather hard, reiterates that she isn’t telling Blake to stop. After all, she herself hasn’t—she’s still looking for details about her birth mother. The difference is, she doesn’t let the search control her, which is what she wants for Blake. Blake insists that she doesn’t understand. That she’s the only one who can fight this. Why…? I’m not sure. Perhaps you guys need to see how this goes down:

Y: No, you don’t understand! If Roman Torchwick walked through that door, what would you do?

B: I’d fight him!

Y: You’d lose!

B: I’d stop him!

Y: You can’t even stop me!

I’m not of the opinion that Yang shoving Blake necessarily constitutes abuse, or even just an unhealthy scenario. Certainly I wouldn’t do it, but Yang is supposed to personify ‘tough love’, and she’s right: Blake is literally running on fumes and would suck ass if the time came for her to get what she wants. That said, this is another one of those Yang ThingsTM that looks way worse when considering prior missteps surrounding her. Fortunately, I think this is one Rooster Teeth actually caught onto in time—but that’s for later.

Yang gives Blake a hug, reiterating one more time that even though she supports what Blake wants, the way she’s going about it is self-destructive. And that’s why they want her to get some rest, for both her and the people she cares about. And...maybe try and head to the big event tomorrow, if she feels up to it? Yang’ll save her a dance, she says. They both leave, allowing us to get a good look at the winged gear emblem Yang was drawing on the chalk board.

(I will, even with what I said earlier, condemn anyone that, like Certain People Back in the Day, has the audacity to say this would’ve been a perfect time for them to kiss or for Yang to ask Blake to the dance. That turns what is framed as a gentle suggestion into the sort of thing that you do not do to an emotionally unstable and hurting person. You wait ‘til a person is stable and in good health to put the moves on them or you face my fiery wrath.)

That was pretty okay. A bit belated, and a bit of a forced fit for Blake’s problem, but we did indeed get two things I said we needed in my Volume 1 Final Thoughts—in-depth Yang characterization and one-on-one interaction with her team members. Here, have a cookie.

We cut to Jaune strolling down the sidewalk with a big ol’ smile on his face, holding a white flower and yes, he is doing exactly what he shouldn’t be doing—!

Jaune: 10

Pyrrha, I gotta pin this one on you. You were in the room when Jaune said he got turned down, why did you encourage this?

Yes, he’s off to go announce his feelings for Weiss! On...the night before the dance. And unless I’m just dumb, hoping to get a date with her. But his attempt is, as we already know, doomed. Jaune passes an alleyway, only to hear Weiss’ voice...calling Neptune’s name. Peeking around a corner, he (and we) watch Weiss catch up with the man himself, who asks what’s up.

W: I know this is a little...unorthodox, but…I wanted to ask you something. Would you...like to accompany me to the dance tomorrow?

Neptune’s hand is behind his head in apparent recognition of how ‘unorthodox’ this is. Jaune, crushed, backs away from the alley and goes back to his dorm, the flower discarded, and since he didn’t stick around to see Neptune’s answer, neither do we.

We cut to the very next night, where the dance is happening indoors. Yang, in a very untypical plain white dress and heels, is hosting, and yes, before you ask, every single one of the couples in view behind her is visibly a man/woman pairing. The latest visitor Yang welcomes is her very own sister Ruby, who she gushes over for having gotten all prettied up, including heels. Ruby would like to complain about those in particular, lampshading Weiss’ uncanny ability to fight in them. We then cut to Sun.

Sun is wearing…black? His tail is swinging behind him and we see that he’s swapped out his white jacket and lack of shirt for an identical jacket in black, this time buttoned up just high enough to let him display his necklace, and that he’s also wearing a white tie, which he is very unfamiliar with and struggling in. Behind him, a quiet voice reaches him:

B: I knew you’d look better with a tie.

Awwww!

She takes his arm, and he asks if this means they’re going, yanno, together. Technically yes, Blake says, though her first dance is spoken for.

Cutting back to the dance, we get a lovely view of all of those cookie-cutter heterosexual couples dancing, before...

…Blake finishes one dance, and starts another.

*tapping a foil scraper on the desk* Yes, I know I was a tad snide about the background characters, but we got the important bits here with the main characters. Via Blake dancing with Yang, we are being shown that it’s not a stigma for people of the same sex to dance together, even if they’re not there as a date, so to speak. I’m not going to call that an accident, because that was the purpose of the scene and that’s what it did. I am going to call this dangerous, because even if the intent was clean and hit the mark for once, this also adds potential energy to a burgeoning fandom war.

See, what they aimed for was “Same-sex couples can go to the prom dance!” And they got that. They did. Laud them for it. What they also got was “Blake and Yang went to the prom dance—right before she got together with Sun!”

Yang bows out, Sun steps in. I’ve already commented on the...particular energies of certain shippers in this fandom. I also mentioned that, with the somewhat-too-close relationship Rooster Teeth have with their fans, and the way they like to eat away at what gap there is between them, they can invite bad things. A lot of people were not happy with how Sun, the resident love interest, was still ‘getting the girl’. And yeah, that’s entirely on them—shippers take things too seriously and get very up in arms over shit that doesn’t matter. We know that, that’s what they do. But things like this stoke the eventual fires that break out. I, personally, would’ve had Blake dance with a woman that wasn’t the other half of the biggest ship in fandom at the time—Pyrrha or Weiss, perhaps—but I’m not going to berate RT for not thinking to do that.

Enough about that, though. Sun and Blake are very cute dancing together, as commented on by the others, who are very happy that Blake is happy and is going so far as to laugh, apparently having gotten some rest and improved.

When Ruby asks what they do now, Yang just tells her to have fun before walking off, as does Weiss. She’s left alone to complain about her dumb stilt heels she can barely walk in. The music takes on a twinkling tone as Ozpin shows up, asking if she’s not enjoying herself.

They talk about nothing. No, I’m serious, nothing of any importance is being said here. Ozpin and Ruby bemoan that life is more than just fighting, Ozpin says fighting and dancing aren’t that different, and then muses on bonds becoming stronger. I think he showed up just to give this closing line:

Oz: Nights like these are ones we’ll never forget.

Yang then welcomes in two more guests—Emerald and Mercury.

The episode ends. And so does this post—unfortunately, this arc has to be split in two as well. Like the last one, it’s a bunch of little annoying fails leading up to a huge fail-fest that will get me absolutely furious and chatty about it. Then we’ll do the World of Remnants, and then the last arc, which will take...three posts? Maybe four?

Counts:

Jaune: 10 It Was Right There: 3 Fauxminism: 6 Hypocrisy: 1 Ice Cream Queens: 0 Reliable Leaders: 4 Prowling Wolf Fallacy: 0 Threatening Enemies: 2 Love to Be a Part of It Someday: 10 Your Fight Scene Sucks: 10 + 2 Evisceration Evasion: 2 Ill Logic: 18 Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Veil: 4 + 1 Wink Wink, Nudge Nudge: 0 Band-Aid Brigade: 1 RSVP: 22 Road to Nowhere: 6 Y.A.S. Queen: 3

[saqvobase]

Mesmerizer Live-Action Music Video Plan

So I guess you could say that I've been mesmerized by 32ki's Mesmerizer.

I've been infected with an idea so I must write it down before I forget or get bored of it.

I've been kicking around the idea of making a live-action version of the music video. I want it to use as many practical effects as possible and as little CGI as possible, ideally accompanied by a musical cover of the song by the actors.

Part 1: Costumes

Hatsune Miku

Luckily there are plenty of Miku wigs cosplay that can be bought.

I couldn't find an exact equivalent for the dress, but it seems like a fusion between a retro diner dress and a maid outfit. I think there's a golf visor on her head? We don't see the back of the character, but I'm pretty sure there's a big white bow. All that might need to be custom made.

The cuffs can be ordered on their own.

I didn't think that they made bow ties this big, but the color, angle and size all fit. (This goes on the visor)

For the socks, the best equivalent I found was something called 'slouch socks'

Shoes. Red with a white sole and yellow laces, and four wheels. Roller skates would be dangerous on a set. I'm tempted to just nail some painted wooden cylinders to the bottom of some Converse and treat it like platform boots.

Kasane Teto

Luckily there are plenty of Kasane Teto cosplay wigs that can be bought.

Luckily Teto's outfit is much simpler. White collar shirt under a blue pinstripe shirt with a dark gray tie and the same gold brushed nametag.

These pants are so bright, I can't believe they make them in this color. Matching red suspenders were easy to find

I found this pair of yellow cotton gloves, I think it is more likely to be this than rubber. They can be rolled up at the wrist to be more like the ones in the video. I just need to find a pair that is a more saturated yellow.

The hat is red, short, circular with a flat top, switch a small black brim. I couldn't find anything like it, perhaps another custom job.

The smily face pin on the other hand, is a dime a dozen.

Ribbed gray socks

and black loafers.

Miscellaneous

For the name tag, I found these cheap brushed gold plastic pins. It could be cool to etch their names on it.

For the starry-eyed parts, I found these contact lenses. The reviews say that you can still see through them pretty well so that's good. I couldn't find any that were 4 pointed stars.

For the mesmerized parts, I found some contact lenses that totally black out the eye, they are over $100 for a set though.

Part 2: Set

The non-moving backgrounds such as the stripes or water drops can be done traditionally.

The clouds and hills are another story though.

My idea of how to do is is a series of belts with the image on them controlled by a spinning rotor. The song will be recorded in studio, so the sound of the rotors wont affect the video.

Part 3: Effects

In-Camera Effects

A colored frame like this can be placed between the camera and the set. This frame can be moved back and forth as needed.

for the parts when the frames cross, the frame can be folded like this. At the point of crossing cut the footage. Swap the backgrounds, and resume filming.

The center spinner could be threaded through a hole in this frame, with a small gear system for perpendicular rotational transfer.

Special Effects

The confetti can be spread from above, either by a machine or a helper. The curtain of confetti should be after the colored frame, but before the set so that the actors don't get covered.

Conclusion

Finally, the brainworm has left my brain, and transferred to a written medium. I have no idea how much any of this would cost, but I estimate it is below $10,000.

If you have any questions or suggestions let me know!!!!!

[floraphoenix]

Nightly Rounds (Amit Thakkar x Hufflepuff!Reader)

When Amit got appointed as Head Boy, he was absolutely thrilled. He'd worked so hard, bless him, and he got a fancy title!

But where there's a Head Boy, there's a Head Girl.

And who'd be more fitting than the graceful, intelligent, beautiful Hufflepuff who came crashing into his life in their first year.

He'd be pleased with this fact…

If she wasn't his enemy.

They'd had it out for each other since they met. As nice as she was, she had one hell of a fiery temper, and the amount of snarky remarks he'd received over the years was record breaking.

He'd grown used to her comments, and even gained enough courage to start firing them right back at her.

It never got physical (thank Merlin), but it was mostly sneers and scoffs while passing in corridors, maybe a glare-off from opposite ends of a classroom on occasion.

In summary, they didn’t get on well. And now they were forced to work with each other.

Joy.

….

Amit quite liked doing his nightly rounds of the school. It was silent, apart from the occasional grunt from a portrait, or a crash from the path of destruction Peeves always left. Sometimes it was a bit eerie; sometimes the silence was too loud. But, Amit enjoyed it nonetheless; peace and quiet.

He’d taken up his position outside the library, scanning the corridors of the Faculty Tower, when who should catch his eye but the Head Girl, who was leaning against a bannister and looking rather spiteful. Her pretty mouth was drawn into a bow, a brow raised.

Amit felt his blood pressure rise just a smidge.

“Oh, good,” he breathed, suddenly very tired.

“Same to you.” The girl shot back, kicking off the bannister and striding toward him. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m standing watch, as I usually do, you should know that.” Amit answered simply, gritting out the last line.

“Well, you should know that I’ve been stationed here for the week, which means you can kindly leave.” She gestured down the corridor, motioning for him to leave.

Amit decided he wasn’t going to budge. 

“I, in fact, did not know this information, which gives me the impression that you’ve just made it up.” He folded his arms and narrowed his eyes, watching the Hufflepuff put her hands on her hips.

“Then you’re not as intelligent as you say you are, princess.” She sneered, and Amit rolled his eyes; ‘princess’ had become his nickname after she saw him once in their third year shrieking like a girl while getting chased by an angry flock of Cornish Pixies. She’d hollered and laughed so hard that day she quite literally collapsed to the floor in a fit of giggles, calling him a “damsel in distress”, which only embarrassed Amit further. And thus, the name stuck.

“There was a notice sent out with the rotors this morning,” she continued, ignoring his eye roll, “clearly you’re little Ravenclaw brain didn’t pay attention.”

“If there was a rotor, I would know.” He stated firmly, uncrossing his arms and taking a step forward with clenched fists.

You’d think by now that he’d stop letting her get under his skin, but there was just something so… infuriating about her. She was always there, corridors, classrooms, Great Hall, even the Owlery, he just couldn’t get her out of his head!

Wait.

He couldn’t get rid of her. Yes, that’s what he meant. It’s not like he always thought about her…

The stars had to take up some part of his brain too!

Regardless, he glared down at her as she looked smugly up at him, and he knew she was getting a kick out of seeing him frustrated, but he didn’t look away.

(He couldn’t look away.)

“You seem to overestimate your knowledge, Thakkar,” she wound on, also taking a step forward. They were very much in each other’s personal spaces now but they didn’t seem to care, instead choosing to be quite rude to one another.

“ Please, my knowledge far exceeds yours, and you know it.” He shot back.

Their eyes bored into each other’s, and now it was a competition of will; who will look away first?

“Keep telling yourself that, princess.”

“Oh, will you shut up with that ridiculous name!” 

“Make me!”

Now, Amit couldn’t really tell you why he did what he did; maybe it was the close proximity of the pair; perhaps it was pure rage;

Perhaps she really did consume most of his thoughts.

In a fit of… (we’re not sure. Rage? Frustration? Adoration with a touch of madness?)

In a fit of adoration with a touch of madness, Amit grabbed the Hufflepuff Head Girl by the shoulders and quite literally smashed his mouth to hers. She let out a noise similar to “hmph!” before bringing her hands up to grab the sides of his robes and pushing back by standing on her tiptoes.

Their eyes were still open, and they stared at each other as they kissed, and this only made them more furious in their actions; her tongue tickled his bottom lip, making his eyelids flutter, but he granted her entry all the same. 

Her hands gripped onto his side tighter, which made him drag his own hands up her shoulders, past her neck, resting them on her jaw, pulling her closer in the process. In response, she wrapped her arms around his neck, and now they were impossibly close, joined at the mouth, licking at each other's tongues.

He couldn’t help it; he gave in; he closed his eyes first.

Now this- this was an awfully intimate thing to be doing with one's mortal enemy. But when you’re enamoured by their beauty and actually quite flattered by all the attention they give you… well, there’s your excuse. 

Footsteps echoed through the corridor.

The rate in which the pair separated was quick enough to break the sound barrier. They practically jumped apart, gasping and panting slightly, glancing around for the source of the noise.

Amit failed to notice the Hufflepuff staring alarmedly at his mouth, and was startled when she grabbed his wrist and dragged him under the staircase, pushing him against the wall and out of sight. 

“Wait, why am I hiding? I’m Head Boy.” He whispered urgently, and he noticed just how small the crevice was, and just how hard her hand was pressed against his chest; her fingers balled briefly into a fist, clutching the fabric of his robe, before drawing back.

“Well, princess, I hate to inform you that you’re absolutely covered in lipstick, and I do not want anyone getting the wrong idea.” She whispered hurriedly back, before stepping backwards in hopes of looking relatively relaxed and totally not suspicious at all.

Professor Sharp limped up the stairs, catching sight of the Head Girl and bowing his head in greeting.

“Good evening, Professor,” she said cheerfully, watching him as he pulled his way up the next flight of stairs.

“He’s in a good mood,” Amit commented briefly, sarcasm dripping from his tone, before peeling away from the wall and rushing out of the hiding place, and giving another quick scan of the corridors.

Silence. 

“Didn’t think you had it in you, Thakkar,” the Hufflepuff chuckled, pulling a handkerchief out of her robe and handing it to him. He took it and began wiping his mouth.

“I’m covered in your lipstick, please don’t call me by my last name.” He mumbled, glancing at the hankie which was, indeed, covered in pink smudges. 

“What, prefer ‘princess’?” She quipped, taking the white cloth back and holding his chin with her thumb and forefinger, wiping the last bits of makeup away. “I know I do.”

“You would, because you’re insufferable. And honestly, I didn’t know I had it in me either.”

“Then why’d you kiss me?”

“Because you told me to make you shut up. So I did. Didn’t work though…”

“Ha! Of course it didn’t, you’ve known me long enough to know that something as little as that won’t end my behaviour.”

“Then what if I did it again?”

“Ooh, Amit Thakkar, I had no idea you were such a womaniser!”

“I-I’m not! I just…”

“You just?”

“Nevermind.” Amit shook his head, feeling a flush creep up his neck.

“You just?” She repeated, tilting her head with a knowing smile that made his stomach flip. He swallowed, glancing around, eyes coming to rest on the door to the Prefect’s bathroom.

She followed his eyeline, before turning sharply back to him, a smirk plastered across her pretty face. Quick as a flash, she grabbed his hand and started pulling him toward the door.

Amit followed like a lost puppy, but paused at the door.

“Wait, we’re supposed to be on the night rounds out there.”

“You are, you were right, I was making it up.” She quipped, batting her eyelashes.

Amit gasped exasperatedly.

“You-”

He was cut off by her dragging him down and kissing him full on the mouth once more, letting the door swing shut behind them.

[spookyspaghettisundae]

The Impossibility of It

Chloe Grant could hear the thunder of rotors through the soundproof glass on the twentieth story of Future Proof’s headquarters.

A black unmarked helicopter, landing atop the skyscraper, had captured her entire attention.

Or it happened to be a convenient distraction from the conversation at hand. An uncomfortable conversation that Grant had sought out herself, and also been dreading all the while.

“Would you rather reschedule?” asked Rebecca Chao. She couldn’t quite finish the sentence without a hint of sarcasm.

Grant chewed on her lip until she spotted Chao observing her nervous tic, then made a conscious and forced effort to stop doing that.

She peeled her gaze from the vista of Austin’s skyline. The chopper had landed, though the noise of its thundering rotors still reverberated through the panes.

“No, uh, no,” Grant stammered out, sighing in between, “Sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to waste your time.”

Chao folded her hands on her lap. She stared at Grant with a perfect poker face.

“We’re not wasting any time here. Not to step on your toes, but I think you were long overdue for a session. There’s only so much mental stress our field operatives—or really anybody—can tolerate before it starts affecting their—our—private lives.”

Grant sighed again.

At this point in time, she wasn’t sure what her private life even was.

With the way reality kept shifting with each change of the timeline, her own life felt alien to her.

The corners of Chao’s lips twitched with the hint of a smile.

“Maybe you could… inspire Mister Carter to see me, too.”

Grant scoffed. Smiled fully.

That would be the day.

“I’m afraid you won’t get Carter in here unless you mandate therapy sessions for field ops.”

Chao’s lips curled and her eyes narrowed.

“Now, there’s a thought.”

Her pen clicked. The doctor scooped her notepad off the desk and scribbled down a note.

“It’s just… I know who I am, but I am not the me who this world used to know before I returned to it through the temporal Anomaly… if that makes any sense. Everybody must have gone through life knowing another me, and although our experiences should mostly match, I… I keep running into these… differences.”

“Like your intimate relationship with Miss Bennett?”

Grant only nodded in response.

“I wish we had more concrete insights into how the Anomalies and temporal disjunctions truly work. We are, together, exploring terra incognita here. A weak solace, perhaps, but in some ways, you are a pioneer.”

“Well,” Grant said, clicking her tongue, “I did sign up for it, didn’t I? I could just quit, couldn’t I?”

Chao stared at her. Instead of answering those questions, she scribbled down another note on her pad.

“I’m quite—not—I’m not quitting,” Grant stumbled over her words. “No, there’s lives at stake.”

“But your own life is a concern. There’s no shame in self-preservation. We all need to protect ourselves.”

Grant pinched the bridge of her nose. Felt a headache coming on.

This wasn’t what she hoped to hear in the session.

“Are you worried you are dissociating?” Chao asked. “I am very sorry—it must be difficult to negotiate the differences between the life you knew before the temporal shift.”

The helicopter on the rooftop had quieted. The ensuing silence in Chao’s office became almost ghostly as a consequence. Grant now almost yearned for the distraction of noise.

Chao’s question lingered in the air like a phantom, haunting Grant, floating around the back of her head.

Chao broke the silence and said, “As I was saying, this is terra incognita for all of us. You are under no obligation to perform as the Chloe Grant people expect you to be. You only owe it to yourself to be who you want to be. And if that’s more in line with the timeline you come from, then that is who you are.”

Though Grant found a shred of comfort buried within her words, she pursed her lips, and part of her instinctually rebelled against Chao’s advice.

“What are you… are you suggesting I should break up with Dan?”

Chao’s eyes widened and her brow furrowed.

“I was not suggesting any such thing, no. Not even close. I—”

The phone on Chao’s desk buzzed with obnoxious volume. An incoming message.

The doctor shot a glance down at the small device’s now-glowing screen.

Grant said, “No, it… it feels right, I think. Like it was going to happen anyway? The more I think about it, the more I can see it, or could have seen it, or whatever. Uh—”

In stark contrast to the rest of the session, it was almost like Chao hadn’t listened to a single word she said since the phone’s buzzing. The doctor just stared at the text message on her phone’s screen.

“Doctor? Am I… interrupting something?”

The furrow on Chao’s brow arched even higher. She looked up from the device to meet Grant’s gaze, then shook her head.

“No, I am sorry, I apologize. It’s… please forgive me. I should answer this.”

Chao picked up the phone and her thumbs tapped away at a reply.

Grant stifled a sigh and stared out the floor-to-ceiling windows.

The sun was setting on the horizon, painting the city in pink light.

Chao put the phone back down, then asked, “Now, where were we?”

Grant shook her head. “No, it’s… nothing. I think I’ll manage. Just talking has helped. A lot. That was Spencer, wasn’t it?”

The corners of Chao’s lips twitched again.

“Yes, but he can wait.” Her glance to the silent clock on the wall telegraphed her next statement. “We still have fifteen more minutes.”

On cue, the phone buzzed again. Chao’s gaze darted back down to it, locked onto the screen, reading the next message intently.

It was also fifteen minutes before the end of office hours.

But their unusual line of work here had a habit of sneaking up on them and saddling them with overtime. All the time.

Grant grinned through her final sigh of the day, as if she had run out of breath for it.

“Shall we?” she asked Doctor Chao.

Chao’s entire expression hardened. It had to be something serious.

She nodded at Grant.

“In fact, yes, we are both being called to join a meeting. Downstairs.”

A chill ran down Grant’s spine.

Like a premonition of terrible things to come.

They packed up and left the doctor’s office, cutting the session short. Grant wouldn’t be losing sleep over it. She hadn’t been lying or exaggerating about how the talking had helped somewhat, though she was skeptical if anybody could help her at all.

If anybody could even understand—truly understand—what all of this felt like.

The CEO, Malachi Spencer himself, had summoned Doctor Chao to the basement levels. Riding the elevator down with their top-clearance keycards, Grant learned that Spencer had summoned her, as well. She only missed the summons because she had switched her phone to airplane mode for the therapy session.

Spencer probably knew about the therapy now. There was no point in asking how Chao handled confidentiality. The normal rules didn’t really apply around here.

Future Proof tended to play fast and loose with morals and ethics.

To sleep at night, Grant told herself that this was in humanity’s best interests.

The two women exchanged no words as they marched down the long and harrowing hall through Containment’s sub-level.

Their taciturn walk delivered them into a forcibly sterile medical examination room. In deeper solemn silence, they slipped into HAZMAT suits. Donned the visored helmets. Ensured everything was sealed airtight.

White clouds enshrouded them, hissing, as they crossed through the airlock. Electronic seals beeped and clicked, and they entered the quarantined room.

Even with only the smell of plastic to meet her senses, Grant thought of rotten meat upon seeing the body on the metal examination slab.

That thing wasn’t human.

It wasn’t saurian, either. She wasn’t sure what it was, but she had seen such a thing before—

In the Crossroads of Anomalies. Chasing the man in ancient armor.

The sight of it up close stunned her so deeply that she failed to notice all the faces staring at her upon her entrance into the examination room.

The creature was only vaguely humanoid, featuring almost twice the body mass of a grown man. Its arms were longer than its legs, and all its limbs were wiry with hidden power, tipped in freakishly long fingers, and deadly claws. Mottled gray flesh reminded her of aliens from outer space, especially with the head’s strange form and toothy maw, and a metal, futuristic device crowning its skull—with wires and hooks clearly protruding from the flesh, attached to the organism’s head.

It had been riddled with bullets. A surgeon had extracted all of them.

“Doctor Chao,” said Spencer, every syllable cutting like a knife. “Agent Grant. Good of you to join us. We’re brainstorming here and all red-clearance personnel is encouraged to weigh in with any theories they can come up with.”

Grant sidled up to the autopsy table and stared into the exposed insides of the carcass’s open torso. Stretchers kept tissue peeled apart, and the organs reminded her of what one might find among a human body’s innards.

She asked, “What are we looking at here? Where did you find this… thing?”

Stantz, their PR manager, was among the people gathered around the table.

The HAZMAT suits they were all wearing made it hard to tell everybody apart, but Grant immediately recognized his smarmy tone.

“I pulled some strings. United States special forces, led by a certain Captain Dariel Rose, as you all know, took down this specimen with extreme prejudice. Unlike the wise foresight of Future Proof here, Rose and his men gunned it down, butchered it in some truck or back alley, and only handed it off to us after we, uh, twisted some screws on his thumbs.”

Grant wasn’t interested in the specifics. Especially not with Stantz’s delivery thereof. The rest of the gathering had probably already discussed it to death, anyway.

Doctor Solomon stood at the head of the autopsy table, just next to a tray harboring a scalpel and other sharp implements. He wiggled his fingers like he was antsy to cut the specimen some more.

And he said as much. “Yes. This would be the second autopsy performed on the specimen, though not by us. I appreciate the almost Victorian theatrics of having an audience.”

Doctor Burch shuffled awkwardly where she stood next to him. She stared at Stantz, expecting him to share something more about their new specimen on the table, or about the circumstances on how it ended up here.

Spencer and Stantz stood by the clawed feet of the abominable creature. Stantz’s arms stayed crossed, like he was protesting something. Meanwhile, Spencer exuded the same presence as he always did—a knife in human shape. Even wearing awkward-looking HAZMAT gear instead of his usual expensive tailored suits did little to diminish Spencer’s domineering energy.

His deathly glare swept across his employees before locking onto Solomon.

“Feel free to bring Doctor Chao and Agent Grant up to speed with your theories so far.”

Solomon shrugged and gestured in the round, urging the others to speak up.

Carter stood across from Solomon, on the opposite side of the table. He looked tired and grumpy, as usual. His gaze bounced back and forth between Grant and Mischchenko, as if he was expecting either of them to say something.

Standing right next to Burch, Mischchenko tilted her head and shot Grant furtive glances. She then cleared her throat, muffled by the HAZMAT suit, and repeated what she must have already said earlier.

“It combines physical traits of simians, felines, humans, and—this is the weird part—a shark. Note the teeth,” she said, pointing two yellow-gloved fingers at the creature’s toothy maw.

Grant leaned over the body’s head to take a closer look. Indeed, rows of teeth lined the mouth, and they looked as jagged and triangular as those of vicious, serrated sawblades.

Though the creature had no fur, she could vaguely see the resemblance to apes and wildcats both—especially with what she had seen of the creature in its living form, darting between the Crossroads’ Anomalies.

Unable to stop scanning the creature’s odd features, she asked, “Well, is that really that odd? Something from the far future could… evolve into this, on our planet. Right?”

“I said the same thing,” Mischchenko muttered with a hint of resignation. She then nodded to Burch.

Burch continued in her stead, saying, “It’s from 2,000 years into the future. I have no earthly idea how anything on our planet would evolve this fast.”

Another cold shudder shook Grant’s spine.

2,000 years into the future.

The impossibility of it arrived in waves.

“Wait,” Chao interrupted. “How do you know it’s from 2,000 years into the future?”

“Allow me to answer that,” Spencer said, cutting in. “The very Anomaly that this building was built on top of harbors a connection to that specific time. This is not the first of these specimen that we examined. Burch carbon-dated a dead one we retrieved from the future, and this predator—we dubbed it the Apex Predator—is native to that time.”

“That specimen wasn’t sporting this, though,” Solomon said, using his scalpel to tap the metal device attached to the creature’s skull.

Chao’s face twisted. She looked as insulted as Grant felt—even at their clearance level, secrets had been kept. Some people had been in the savvy about certain dealings at Future Proof, while others, like them, had been kept in the dark.

Solomon still tapped the metal device with the scalpel.

Grant jutted her jaw out at it and asked, “What the hell is that?”

Solomon shrugged.

“Some sort of bio-mechanical implant. Perhaps a cerebral augmentation, or something to control the specimen. It’s not transmitting or responding to Wi-Fi signals, however, so your guess is as good as anybody’s. Once we extract it, I’m excited to pick it apart and find out what makes it tick.”

He smiled.

Mischchenko said, “I’m more concerned about what it suggests, because it—”

Spencer cut in again. “The future of our planet looked bleak on every one of our early expeditions through the Anomalies, Agent Grant. Apocalyptic, one might say. And this implant on the specimen’s head, suffice to say, it tells us beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is someone in the future who is experimenting on these feral animals. A perplexing outlook, given that that the future is arguably unsuitable for human life.”

Early expeditions? Again, with the secrets—Grant couldn’t stop a frown from surfacing.

She asked, “Why isn’t any of this on record anywhere? Why weren’t we briefed about these… things?”

Was this why Ruiz was leaking information to Corsino and Celeva?

She glared at Spencer. The fire in his eyes matched hers, yet ever so coldly.

Carter arched a brow. He had been thinking what she said out loud. He locked onto Spencer with shades of the same burning intent.

Spencer fired back, “Everything we do is on a need-to-know basis, and now you need to know.”

Grant almost spat her words out. “As I reported in my last debrief, and described to the best of my ability, this is exactly the kind of specimen I sighted in the Crossroads. Would have been good to know about these things, you know, before they kill us. This thing, how powerful is it?”

A dark chuckle escaped Carter and he nodded at Stantz. “Bozo over here says it managed to gut three ex-Marines like fish before they took it down with a couple hundred high-caliber rounds.”

“Not how I put it,” Stantz said, “but I am neither a pedant nor do I feel like correcting the talent.”

Carter leered at him with a toothy grin. Though he stared at Stantz, his grumbling was directed at Spencer when he asked, “You rethinkin’ that no-exploring-beyond-the-Anomalies rule now, boss? Seeing as you used to send people through, all willy-nilly. Or did I misunderstand that just now?”

All he garnered was a thin-lipped smirk from Spencer. The CEO spared him no remark.

“Though my curiosity is overwhelming,” Solomon said, “curiosity, as we all know, killed the proverbial cat.”

Spencer broke eye contact with Carter to fixate on Solomon next. “You? You out of all people are now recommending against Anomaly expeditions, doctor?”

Solomon gingerly placed the scalpel back down onto the tray and shook his head.

“No, not at all. Though the consensus is—and I’m inclined to agree with Doctor Trémaux on this—that anything we do beyond the Anomalies could bear disastrous consequences for the present. Disastrous. I don’t think we can stress this enough.”

“Duly noted, doctor. The—”

“Hey,” Mischchenko interrupted them.

Everybody’s gaze followed where her index finger was pointing.

To the tiny, blinking red light on the creature’s cranial implant.

“It was doing that,” Grant said. “The one I saw in the Crossroads.”

Then it all happened so fast.

Yelled someone, “Restrain it!”

But the thrashing had already begun. All reactions followed too late to prevent disaster from unfolding in their midst.

The creature—despite its open chest cavity—began lashing out.

It was alive. So deadly, and alive.

Spindly limbs, ending in sharp claws, thrashed about. People fell, stumbled backwards, raised arms in defense, only to see the yellow-suited material on their arms get slashed to ribbons. And blood sprayed.

Blood sprayed everywhere.

Shouts of confusion and agony and panic all competed for attention, and all of them lost that competition in the explosive chaos.

The yellow of Doctor Solomon’s HAZMAT suit was splashed crimson from the chest down. The head of engineering screamed at the top of his lungs.

Before Grant could even blink twice, Carter was on top of the monstrosity, catching it by its thick neck in a powerful chokehold. His other gloved, meaty fist pried at the strange cranial implant, like he was trying to rip it off the creature’s skull by hand.

On instinct, Grant had shoved Chao out of the way, sending her flying into Stantz and Spencer, sending them all crashing into the floor like a set of human domino pieces. Lucky for them that she has acted without thinking, because clawed feet had threatened to slice their bellies open in the creature’s thrashing rage and rampage.

Carter’s swearing was cut short as something slit his throat—

It all happened so fast.

Instead of intelligible words, he emitted guttural choking while he choked out the creature, and yellow-gloved fingers, stained red, slipped from their grip on the monster’s cranial implant.

He staggered away from it, unable to hold on any longer.

Burch stumbled away with the horrifically injured Doctor Solomon, pulling him away from the specimen, while Mischchenko sprung into violent action. She yanked a heavy microscope off a nearby table, and slammed it down on the creature’s head. Two blows was all it took, cleaving the red-blinking device from the Apex Predator’s skull, to the tune of tearing flesh and cracking bone.

She ducked away before a flailing claw could eviscerate her.

The heft of her blows had torn off what Carter had been trying to rip away by hand, and the bloodied piece of mysterious tech clattered onto the floor, spraying puddles of blood and scattered brain matter. Then the tiny red light atop the device winked out. Went dead.

The Apex Predator thrashed around one final time, then its deadly body fell limp on the metal slab again.

Carter had landed on his ass, gripping his neck, and Grant was quickly upon him. She applied pressure, but it all happened so fast—the blood pumped out between her gloved fingers at an alarming rate.

His wide eyes—piercing blue eyes—stared into Grant’s. Then they stared through her as the life faded from them more and more, fading more with every pumping squirt of blood from his neck.

Though the circumstances had changed, she watched Carter die.

Again.

Not in Midland’s desert. In the basement levels of Future Proof.

And as she’d admit in her next session with Chao, she dreaded the thought that it wouldn’t be the last time she’d watch him die.

At the very least, she would see him die in her dreams.

Over and over again.