#i guess I just thought it was one of those quirky things anime did

[itsjustbell]

Everytime I remember all the things I’d say from my childhood before I realized I was queer I get psychic damage

[heartlilith]

My Placements and How They Manifest

Capricorn Ascendent:

My mother told me that when she gave birth to me, it was worse than my other 3 other siblings by far. She had to be induced because there was no sign of me wanting to come out into the world (lol). She said she was in labor for hours and when I finally came out, she started hemorrhaging. It wasn't fatal obviously because she's alive today but yeah, I kind of associate that with my Capricorn rising. Still to this day, change is very uncomfortable for me especially if I have no control over what's happening. My childhood was great until my mom divorced my dad and remarried, that's when shit went south! I had new siblings, a stepfather, and had to see my dad heartbroken while also battling melanoma and being laid off (2008 recession). My sister stayed with him and I went with my mom. They were always fighting and spiting each other but it was my sister and I that missed out. It was always "what is your father saying about me?" yada yada yada. Growing up, I was bullied by my sister a lot, in my opinion, it was more than the usual sibling fights. My mom also took a lot of her anger out on me; she ended up getting a divorce not too long after remarrying, became an alcoholic and filed for bankruptcy. Being a Capricorn rising and dealing with the backlash of that, I always have money saved, ALWAYS. I'm like a squirrel hiding nuts I stg. If I'm completely broke I'm an anxious mess. It's also why I strive to be independent and self sufficient. It's why I manifest being filthy rich. High school was terrible tbh and I battled with depression and anxiety. College was a lot better and moving away from my mom and chaotic family did me well, I went from a 2.6 GPA in high school to 3.85 in college. Rereading this it sounds kinda like a sob story and that's not what I'm trying to accomplish so I'm just going to move on.

1st House Neptune, Uranus, Lilith:

I made a separate post either on here or Reddit about how my features have changed so much over the years. As a child, my hair was blonde then it turned blonde/red in late elementary school. Since then, it's turned darker and darker through the years. Now it's dark brown. My eyes were dark blue as a child and now they're light green - I attribute this to Uranus and Neptune being on my Ascendent. In my opinion, I'm not photogenic at all (Cap rising?) and I think I look different in every picture I take or is taken of me. With Lilith being in my first house, I was sexualized a lot growing up by older guys/men. And also bullied by boys my age; I remember they thought I was "too girly". Guys, I shit you not after I had enough of it, I started showing up with boy shorts and those tank tops guys wear HAHAHA to be more of a "tomboy"... I'm not really sure what that is but yeah, I must've been 10 or 12 or something. People would always say "it's because they have a crush on you/because they like you!" and I would be so confused. Nowadays, I think I rub some people, specifically men, the wrong way and they dislike me for "no reason", or maybe they have a reason but they never come out and say it. My Uranus in the 1st shows up as being quirky I guess? I'm not really sure. Maybe it's that my parents were never disciplinary at all, I could do whatever I wanted. At the time I loved it but deep down I think I wanted to them to care, so I would act more and more reckless. Today, maybe that sets me apart. One last thing about Neptune/Uranus in the 1st is that I can't stand to see people treating people/animals/or what have you, the wrong way. I can't even watch Youtube videos of animals starting off abused... even if the videos end with them being happy and healthy, I CAN'T DO IT. It deeply disturbs me.

Side Note (1st House Lilith):

As a small child I was obsessed with being naked all the time and skinny dipping LMFAO like it was a problem. Luckily there were no creeps and I was fine but would this placement indicate that in anyway? Let me know because it doesn't really fit with my Capricorn rising.

(I'm really sorry this post is so long and detailed I think I'm having word vomit)

Virgo Moon:

As a child I was really reserved and "chill". I already talked about my relationship with my mom and she was critical and whatever. One thing that sticks out about this placement is that she would always push the idea on me to "stay pure" and to "stay innocent", especially when I was a teen. Always pushing this on me. Always telling her friends I was "naive" and yeah maybe I was in a sense. I don't know it's weird how that fits. My mom wasn't all bad though. She definitely had many faults but she was a great mom in certain aspects. Growing up, I realized she's just a human like me, with problems of her own. I don’t hold it against her. Today, my Virgo moon makes me sooo anxious and worrisome. I definitely see the negative qualities it brings but the good qualities out weigh them. I love buying people gifts and I'm a great gift giver if I do say so myself. With my Capricorn rising and Virgo moon, I hate PDA and it can be hard for me to be lovey dovey (even with all my Leo), so I show love by buying gifts - kind of like my dad. My parents were never there for me emotionally but they bought me great gifts hahaha, I guess that's why. Also I tend to "mother" my partners; I do their laundry, do the cleaning, make their doctor appointments, and take care of them in a sense - like my mom did for me. Writing this out I can now see why I am the way I am lol.

Moon square Jupiter, Pluto, and Saturn:

Ooooff. Well I won't dive into it too much. I will say it affects my mental health greatly and I've had a lot of trouble in that department. My Moon square Jupiter really makes my moods go up and down. Like high highs and low lows for sure. I try to look at it positively even though it's hard sometimes. Having the high highs brings out my inner child (Jupiter in the 5th). When I'm happy I'm really happy and giggling and silly. And of course the flip side is low low :( But I like the high highs so I deal. Also with this, I tend to avoid being sad at all costs. All costs. I'm a true escape artist when it comes to emotions. With Pluto and Saturn squaring my Moon, I am infact a MOODY BITCH. LOL, hey at least I can admit it. It brings intrusive thoughts, obsessive thinking, insecurity, and guilt with it too - all that great stuff. Moving on.

Cancer Mercury:

I like my Cancer Mercury a lot, even though it's paired with my all my Leo placements which can make me a ~smidge~ dramatic. I wasn't the best student in high school but I did take the hardest English courses they offered, which in hindsight saved my GPA lol. In college, I studied English with a concentration in creative writing. I mostly wrote and studied poetry which I loved so much. I'm a great listener and if I could write an advice column I would. I love how my Cancer Mercury makes me empathetic and how I'm able to put myself in anyone's shoes. One negative about this placement is that I get hurt easily (paired with Leo Sun and Virgo Moon esp), but I won't let you know I'm hurt, I'll just get angry and mean. I don't like that about myself and I wish I was more vulnerable in that aspect but it's easier to be angry than sad... right?

Leo Venus and Mars:

After talking about all the above placements, my Leo side is definitely my ray of sunshine in a way. I feel like with my Virgo Moon and the aspects it makes, it kinda settles my Leo ego. That's not to say I don't have an ego, I definitely do... just look at this post it's all about meee :) I have pictures of when I was 3-6 years old and flexing my muscles hahaha and I thought I was so strong I would go around and show everyone that I could pick my mom and older sister up. So weird. Other than that, when I dislike someone I tend to go on rant for awhile about everything I dislike about them. My least favorite thing is when someone makes me feel inferior or small, that will put me on 10 easily. I don't get mad all that much, it takes a lot but when I do get mad, I see red. Maybe cause I have Mars at 0 degrees. I do get over things quickly though, emotionally anyway, but I do hold a grudge. Also yesss, I have Leo hair. It's long and thick and hard to manage. Growing up, my mom would never let me color or cut it and I'm kinda glad now looking back on it.

8th house Moon & Venus:

This is why I hold grudges hahaha. In my opinion, the 8th house can be hard to understand/put into words until you experience it (in synastry, transit, natal, etc), then you just know. With Venus here, every person I'm romantically involved with transforms me but also takes a piece of me as well. In my experience with the 8th house, you can gain a lot of good things but it comes with a price. Whether its a mix of my placements or just these placements specifically, love really hurts! Break ups have put me in dark dark places. When I do love someone, I want to merge with them, like become "one" if that makes sense. So when it comes to an end, I have a huge hole left. In my life, this has manifested as when I ran away from home to a different state and ghosted my family and friends just to get back together with my boyfriend, all on a whim. I'd give it all up for someone I love. With Virgo Moon being in my 8th house, my anxiety mixes with my obsessive behavior which manifests as dermotillamania. I struggle with it so bad. I'm working on it but yeah that's kinda interesting looking from an astrological sense. Moon in the 8th house gives me great intuition though... I'm always right about the vibes. But this comes at the cost of feeling things extremely deeply.

Scorpio MC:

This is another placement that I like about my chart because my Capricorn rising makes me come off as intimidating and my MC makes people see me as powerful and mysterious. I don't know if people actually see me this way but even it being a possibility gives me like Olivia Benson vibes. I love her. Anyway, one thing I will say is I don't have social media anymore and haven't for years (besides Tumblr and Reddit) because I really value my privacy. I don't like people knowing things about me unless I decide to share it with them, even small things. Tumblr and Reddit are okay in my mind because I don't know anyone in real life. But even this post I'm already thinking of deleting and I haven't even posted it yet lol. When I did have social media, I would overshare and then delete the post an hour later. I was always deleting pictures and revamping my aesthetic. I became obsessed with likes and comments and scrolling that it was too much and I didn't like the power it had over me. Something else that I think manifests from my MC is that I love psychology, astrology, and things that tie into personalities.

5th house Jupiter & Saturn:

It always confused me on how to interpret having Saturn, the planet of limitations and responsibility, and Jupiter, the planet of expansion and luck, in the same house. I thought that they canceled each other out in a way, or level each other out... is a better way of putting it.  I actually messaged @astrosky33 and asked how they interpret it. Her (?) answer was interesting and made a lot of sense. Jupiter and Saturn in the same house gives off both energies at the same time (why didn't I think of that? lol). So for the 5th house, in terms of my hypothetical kids, I would be a parent that has fun and is silly but also strict in some ways and responsible. One way Saturn in my 5th house manifests is that I don't want to do anything creative unless I feel it's productive in some way, which I don't like about myself. Meaning, I don't want to read a book if the genre is fantasy, I would rather read non-fiction or a self help book; something that I can learn from. Also, I really like hobbies where I can produce something, like making candles or making spell jars. If I can make money from a hobby that I love then even better. Jupiter in the 5th house manifests as being child-like and also loving kids. If things are going well and I'm happy, then I can be excited and goofy like a child. If things aren't going well, then I can throw a tantrum like a child. I love kids because my early childhood was the best time of my life before life hit me upside the head (lol). This past Halloween, I made goodie bags for the trick or treaters and got so excited when the doorbell rang. I don't know, I just want to protect kids and shield them from the bad in the world. Kids, out of everyone, deserve to be happy.

Sun sextile Jupiter:

Things tend to work out for me, well, as of lately anyway. I struggled a lot growing up and I was always wishing my life were different. I couldn't wait to leave home. Now, I have a boyfriend who I love very much and we live very comfortably. I have a great job and I am so much happier than I was before. Of course, life isn't always perfect and there are problems at every turn. I wish I could go back in time and tell 15 year old me that everything is going to be okay, more than okay actually. I have a dog and two kittens who I love very much and I'm very fortunate to have the life that I do. I try to stay positive because there's no point in being negative and sulking all the time. Plus, you never know what can happen so be thankful for what you have, even if in your eyes, it isn't enough. I believe in being nice to people, you never know how far one act of kindness can go. Lord knows I needed it during some pretty tough times in my life.

Venus square Saturn (TW: Eating disorder, drug use, phobias):

Going back to having fear of abandonment and being uncomfortable with PDA... well here is the culprit. Or some of the culprit. Since Venus is in my 8th house, I feel like this aspect plays into my fear of my family dying, more specifically, my parents. Whenever I visit home and I see they look a little older, move a little slower, I get really sad. Their birthdays are supposed to be for celebrating but I can't help but get sad. It takes over me and I obsess about what I'm going to do when the day comes and they're not here anymore. I put on a brave face though and I buy them nice gifts and send flowers on holidays... but it's always in the back of my mind. This aspect also manifests as having low self esteem and growing up this was very prevalent. I didn't care about myself at all; I did drugs, I put myself into bad situations that I get anxiety just thinking about what could've happened. I had an eating disorder, dated boys that were awful. I'm fortunate that I made it out okay. I still have insecurities today but during that time in my life it was so intense because even as a teen without this aspect, you deal with insecurities. It was like double trouble.  

If you read this far, thank you. I hope it was semi-interesting and Im really curious to know what you guys think. Should I make a part 2? I’m feeling a little “out there” by posting this so I hope it's not too much. Thanks again for taking the time to read this.

(let me know what you think!)

[asktheghosthost]

Some scattered thoughts on the 2023 HM movie

Maybe I'll do something more in depth later after the wide release and when I'm not so exhausted

But for now, here's some notes. There are a couple of minor spoilers, so I'll still put this under a read more. Be warned.

I really enjoyed the Easter eggs. I'm looking forward to getting the blu ray and pausing it every five seconds to see what I spy in the background.

Our mortal crew is very likable. Ben is definitely the stand out character for me. His arc is lovely and sympathetic and he almost made me cry.

I liked how the film approaches grief and loss and love. It felt sincere. And it was handled in a way that I think most kids would get, too. If anything, it may help open up conversations for some of the younger audience.

Lots of character cameos, and multiple new ghosts created just for the film. Really appreciated the new spirits. They fit right in. The extras and supporting cast playing these quirky ghosts were great. ... Pay them. Pay them what they're worth. You couldn't have this massive menagerie of the macabre without them

I've seen a lot of reviews say the jokes can fall flat. Most of them hit for me. "It'll cost you... three dollars," still made me giggle.

Hatty... I'm so glad Disney finally made a proper outright villain again. Not a twist villain. Just a straight up murderous, power hungry, manipulative, absolute asshole. It's been way too long. Pay your writers, and pay them well so we can get more of this.

The way the Mansion would change and rearrange itself was great. I love that the house is a character all on its own. It has a backstory. It's its own entity in a way. Love that. Properly pay your animators and special effects team, because their work is the only way that kind of thing is accomplished so well.

William Gracey is a total sweetheart and I love him. His backstory is actually super similar to Edward's, so that might bug some people. But he's different enough in his demeanor, I think, that maybe it won't be really obvious if you're not thinking that hard about it. But, yeah, there are a couple of things that feel repeated from the 2003 movie. I don't know how much of that to chalk up to tropes, or if it was some intentional reworking. This isn't a remake, it's still its own thing, but it's easy to see some inspiration from the previous film.

Loved Connie. No thoughts in that head except "WHACKITY-WHACK!" She's chaotically vicious for the sake of it, and that's fun. My perfect Constance is Debbie from Adam's Family Values. Or a slightly sympathetic schemer, for a more grounded route. But I'll take maniacal seriel killer Connie, too. One moment with her actually got the biggest laugh from me.

Thinking about it, it also borrowed plot elements from the 2003 video game, too. But did those elements better. For the most part.

That's all that's coming to mind right now. Might talk more about it later. I had a good time. I do recommend it. Are there things I'd do differently? Well, yeah. I still want something where the ghosts are the focus. But I guess I'll just provide that myself. And the IDW and SLG comics also give us that.

I look forward to discussing it more with the fandom once the film has been out a while longer. I think there'll be a lot of different opinions on it.

[crusherthedoctor]

4, 39, 40 :D

4. Where do you find inspiration for new ideas?

The first one is obvious… Sonic himself! Wouldn't make sense to spend so much time on a Sonic fic if I didn't care about his universe. That said, I don't intend to pull an Archie with the lore. Stellar focuses on its own story and setting that just so happens to partially incorporate one previous bit of lore, in a similar manner to what SA1 did with the backstory introduced in S3&K. There are some mild references to other lore, but never in a way that tries in vain to wrap it all together in a neat little bow.

The environments are also largely inspired by that of previous Sonic locales. Mostly from non-mainline installments, since for various reasons (being on a handheld ala Advance/Rush, being a racer ala Riders/Rivals/Sonic R, being on motion controls ala Storybooks), they didn't have the same level of freedom as those in the main games, meaning there's a lot to expand on and make something new out of.

The other major influence for environments and aesthetics is, you guessed it, Spyro. I make no secret that le purple dragon has helped shape up the world of Viridonia aesthetically, but unlike fans who think Sonic should be little more than Furry DBZ, or IDW making random anime references that don't work, there is some thought put into it, and never at the expense of the Sonic universe's own identity. I think both worlds are very similar in aesthetics anyway, so if I see something in Spyro that makes me think "Wow, that would be so cool to see in Sonic!", I then think of how to translate it in a form that benefits Sonic's world, as opposed to wondering why the square doesn't fit in the round hole.

For the mystic entities that are tied to the Ethereal Zone, since they each have different powers, shapes and colours, I got the idea to base each of them on a different mythological creature for a subtle thematic resonance despite how otherwise different they are from each other. They're not one-to-one like the creatures they're inspired from mind you, they're definitely Sonicy interpretations (eg: the fire-themed one is a mix between a phoenix and a feathered serpent ala Quetzalcoatl, since I wasn't sure if making it a phoenix straight-up would make it sound too similar to Ifrit from Rivals 2), but I thought it'd be a fun twist on the giant monster schtick… though it helps that all of them are controlled via Time Eater-esque cybernetics by a certain round chum. Going out of control? Upstaging Eggman? In a Crusher fic? Not happening, son.

And speaking of the doctor, obviously I've took notes from many of his game portrayals, with S3&K's determination, SA1's dickery, and Forces' cunning being three of the biggest examples. But another influence for my interpretation of the doctor is the Mother 3 portrayal of Porky Minch: specifically, how he is clearly working towards a big end goal, yet is also simultaneously setting up seemingly unrelated projects all over Viridonia, playing its population (save Trudy) for fools, and overall treating the island as though it's his personal playground. This is not a Mephiles situation however: all of this does turn out to play a part in his endgame. He just happened to plan it out in a way that can also feed into his ego and hedonism in the meantime.

And Trudy… is Trudy. There were some mild influences for certain aspects of her design, but her personality pretty much grew upon itself as I built on her. I wanted to create a character that was mellow, but still fun and quirky, and could still bounce off Sonic and Co without being seen as "the boring one" or "the nag who can't be bothered with Sonic". I also find an appeal in shy characters finding the courage to do things they'd never expect themselves to do, so y'know.

There are other bits of inspiration I could mention, which includes concepts that are neither Sonic or Spyro-related… but I don't want to spoil more than necessary for now. XP

39. Share a snippet from a WIP

Note: This is a slightly older draft of the moment in question, so there might be some minor differences in the final one.

Sonic grew concerned by her stunned reaction, hoping that he didn't offend her. "You don't mind it, do you?"

"No, of course not. There is absolutely nothing wrong with it. It's just…" Her right hand clutched the fingers of the other, subtly squeezing them in the process. Her vision was directed at a nonspecific pile of red leaves not too far away from them. This all seemed so silly. There was really no justification for this. No excuse for her to treat such a thing with the kind of awe reserved for being within the presence of an omnipotent. And yet…

"No one's… no one's ever given me a nickname before…"

Sonic appeared to be puzzled by this, which was then followed by him exchanging a brief glance with Tails. His lifelong pal simply gave him a shrug in response.

"If it's any consolation," the fox piped up, with a faint hint of a smirk morphing on his face. "Some of his nicknames are better than others."

"Hey!" Sonic playfully raised his arms in defense, which did nothing to hide his sheepish grin. "So what if they can get a little simple! If she doesn't like it, I can totally drop it! If I have to get my head around the right pronunciation of her name, then so be it!"

"No, it's… it's nice," she insisted softly. A gentle smile slowly found itself on her face as well. "It's an honor, truly. You can call me that if you want to."

"You sure?"

A simple, meek nod was what he received, and it was at this point that her eyes shifted once more. After what appeared to be some hesitance, they gained the courage to meet with Sonic's own.

Sonic's eyes held onto their shared gaze for a couple of seconds, before he turned to Tails again. The fox only gave another shrug, this time to suggest that there was no further reason to debate the matter. After a silent understanding between the two heroes, the hedgehog nodded triumphantly.

"Well then," he announced, with a wink for his new friend. "I guess it's truly Trudy from now on!" As he gave a characteristic thumbs up, she could only continue smiling at the display, and her ears lowered ever so slightly. This was all so very sudden for her even now, but if they sincerely value her company and assistance, then maybe... maybe... it wouldn't hurt to keep tagging along with them.

40. If someone were to make fanart of your work, what fic or scene would you hope to see?

I wouldn't be fussy, since I'd be grateful for any moments, or environments, that they decided to portray.

But if I had to pick one… I suppose a certain confrontation between Trudy and Eggman would be awesome. Or a certain heart-to-heart between Trudy and Sonic. :>

[frozen-snowflakesandsunflowers]

Wish review 🌟 | Analysis

I just saw Wish today. I loved it. It was funny, it was lovable, it was cute, the songs were great too. It's not a big movie as the story isn't so groundbreaking and super dramatic. But not everything has to be. You can't compare this movie to Frozen, Encanto or any other Disney movie because it's its own movie. Definitely a classic I will say. If you're looking for something chill, not or big of a story, something simple and light-hearted, touching at times then this is your movie. I guess everyone's used to big changing stories which is why it's not so attracted to audiences. The story was a shirt so it did feel like things were happening a little fast but that doesn't overshadow it too much. And like I said it's not anything like Frozen as some initially thought it'd be. And I'm not just being biased, but Frozen is on another level especially with where the franchise is headed. But that's not to say Wish isn't fun and worth watching. It's just a more simple, cute, fun story. Fun trying to catch the Easter eggs too.

Now for the characters. Spoilers below!

Let's start with Asha. She's a great protagonist who is only doing what her family and Rosa deserve. So selfless. She wants to grant her grandfathers who turns 100 and her mother's Wish, and in order to do it she signs up as Magnifico's apprentice. But when she cuts to the question after "At all costs". Magnifico doesn't grant the wishes until a month to a year later so because she asked as soon as she gave hers it got to him and he snaps which gets Asha to learn he'll never give the wishes back. She goes through a lot in this movie but doesn't give up. If we're going by personality she's a bit like Anna and Rapunzel in the sense that she's a little goofy and quirky but she's got less than those characters do.

Magnifico, a very interesting and loved villain. Honestly I don't remember his backstory because he only tells Asha and it's very vague. But due to events of his past he wants to avoid, he keeps the wishes to himself to keep Rosa safe. But I guess as he became powerful, greed and power hunger came to him. He loves his wife a lot and listens to her mostly but it's not until he gains more magic from the book that gives him his powers in the first place that he turns evil and more power hungry. He even threatens his wife, Queen Amaya. His song "This is the thanks I get?!" is quite catchy and one of the best songs in the movie. To his defeat the power of people's wishes and Star brings them the strength to defeat Magnifico having him out in a mirror. There was no other way to cure him so because he would only get more evil putting in the mirror was his only option.

Amaya, the real Queen of hearts. Amaya has to be my favourite character. She felt like a mother to Asha, her friends, star and the animals. She didn't side with her husband until she saw how evil he had really become. She's quite pretty and very much reminds me of Elsa which I'll get to in another post.

Asha's friends. I like them being a nod to the seven dwarfs. That was nice. They were lovely and supportive in their own right way. But then there's Simon. Who tells Magnifico about Asha stealing wishes because well... I don't honestly remember but it wasn't a logical reason in my opinion. Magnifico grants him his wish in return only to make him evil too. Then at the end he apologises and all is forgiven. But then you wonder what the point of his betrayal was. I mean in the beginning all of the friends call him boring which is quite sad. Like who says that to their friend? This isn't his reason for the evil turn either so..

Star and Valentino. I loved Star and Valentino . They're chaotic duo. Star is very cute and Valentino is well interesting..

Conclusion:

Now though this movie has its few flaws like all movies do and though it's not a big blockbuster that doesn't mean it deserves the hate it gets. A Disney movie can be chill and simple. But I understand that it's a film that marks 100 years of Disney and it didn't lead to their expectations but it's still got that Disney element to it. And so I loved it. A Disney classic for sure ✨

[twotiime2]

Reality Adjustment, pt. 5

[[ Discord log to follow, yadda yadda, this one is SUPER long! Best read in Dark Mode! ]]

[[ tw for: Themes of not trusting your perception of reality, frequent use of casual ableist language. Later on there are mentions of animal death, some implied light nsfw descriptions, and a whole lotta Fake Nonsense Science Jargon since neither of us have any formal education related to any sciences. Toward the end there's a scene that includes some accidental fantasy racism, but it's very brief and handled with more than a generous amount of apology and guilt... and then that goes straight into Fiction territory. this is an isekai now. ]]

After some shuffling things about and repeated neuralization of Otome, the pizza dinner was back underway and back on course. As it turned out, Otome knew the following things - and nothing else…

The Technocratic Union was a super secret conspiracy agency (probably of the government, or some global international thing?).

The Union did spy stuff using cutting edge technology that the commercial market wasn't ready for.

Normal people weren't ready for the supertech stuff because of some quirk of ultra-high technology science something.

Nobody could ever learn of the Technocracy, or the weird science quirk thing would happen to everyone, everywhere, or something.

The Union was basically MiB, like in the movies, but… whatever they dealt with was secret. Might be aliens. Maybe not. Who knew?

Simon worked for Q Division, the tech support and computer R&D department.

There was also the money group, the MiB spy people, the biolab freak science people, and the space research people.

The Union protected the world from super dangerous forces that defied reality somehow (Cthulhu, Demons, Aliens, whatever?)

The Union was super into Loyalty and Secrets and Trust, keeping your mouth shut won tons of brownie points.

The Union had seemingly unlimited authority, resources, and money. And thank God too, because they'd need it to fight Demons.

Otome's knowledge of anything deeper was limited to guesses and things she kept to herself, either because she wasn't sure she was right, or because she was pretty sure that Simon had one of those Memory Pen Flash things and he might flash her and leave her if she knew too much. So, she was a Good Girlfriend™️ and kept it to herself.

And of course Simon was brilliant with super secret agency technology that might be from space or another dimension. After all, he was certifiably insane and a walking checklist of eccentric quirkiness. He was perfect for the job!

Once all of this was known and settled, and pizza had been redone in detail - Simone/Edith had some real talent for detail - they began the dinner again from when Otome had just put down the drinks and rejoined Simon and Simone. This time, she was kept clear of any clues as to Simone's reality-breakage, excessive special effects, or any questions about reality's limits and the depths of the Union's activities.

- - - -

Instead of asking Simone, Simon asked Otome, "So, when did they come out with new Mountain Dew flavors? They only had original green-yellow lemony-limey whatever for… ever." He waved his hand in a vague circle from the wrist, as he was trying to describe the flavor of Mountain Dew.

At the end of the sentence, while waiting for her reply, Simon stroked Edith's back, all the way down to the tip of her tiny tail. It was genuinely such an adorable form! So very distracting. And he was, again, not much of an animal person, before.

- - - -

Otome thought while she chewed, and after swallowing, said, "I have no idea. But it sounds very Googleable."

- - - -

His eyebrows screwed up. "…The doctor said something about a Google, and now you've used it as a verb. What the fuck is a Google? Like, I know a googolplex, but I feel like that isn't something you would usually consult for obscure bits of information. And he had no idea what Dogpile… was. I guess."

- - - -

"Isn't a dogpile when there's a bunch of guys on one girl?"

" That's a gangbang. Big difference. "

"Google is a search engine. Like, the search engine. So much so that Googling something is a slang term for looking it up. On most devices, if there's a search bar for you to type into, chances are it defaults to the Google search engine. They're so big now, as a company, that they own YouTube, FitBit, Waze, and a bunch of others, plus they own investment capital in Robinhood, Duolingo, Uber and… well, a bunch of other stuff."

She paused, noting his expression. "Uh… they're a search engine that got crazy rich and owns like ten percent of all the names people think of when they think of the tech industry."

- - - -

Simon closed his eyes and tilted his head, consternation clear on his face and in his knit brow.

"Rmm. So much jargon that flew over my head. That explained everything. Thank you for the simplified version."

He finally took another bite of his pizza, still delicious as before and hitting a craving he hadn't realized he was suffering. "And, uh, you were thinking of a gangbang. Dogpile was a search engine that launched toward the end of the century- it'd pull results from everywhere, even like, other search engine results- and, personally, MetaCrawler had nothing on it. Shame it's not being used anymore."

- - - -

"I thought you still used 'Crawler? Oh, I guess you wouldn't remem- yeah, they're still around. You're the only person I know who uses it, but it's around."

" They relaunched in 2017. "

When he clarified that she'd referenced a sex act, Otome choked a little on her japanese soda, turning red. After clearing her throat, she said simply, "Oh."

"Uh… yeah, not that. Hey… is it wrong to ask what the 90's were like? I mean, we were in diapers during those years in the real world, so…. what was it like? I know how they show it on TV, but that's…. that's fake, right?"

- - - -

He gazed at her over his pizza.

"…I have no idea how they show the 90s on TV. If it's anything like they did the 70s and back, probably not. I'm not sure what to tell you."

- - - -

She pondered that for a moment, and shrugged. "That's fair. And probably accurate. It's just a little awkward having you back, but not… really being able to talk about anything we'd normally talk about."

She touched his hand with hers, but only along the outer edges of their hands, since they both had pizza-hands.

"But I'm trying."

- - - -

His gaze softened, and he reached to touch her back.

"…I appreciate the effort. On the bright side, we can have a movie marathon where you show me your favorites of the last twenty years? And introduce me to mine, again? Totally blind, not even having seen the trailers during ad breaks on TV." He considered for a second. "And the ones you hate. Especially those. If you can sit through them."

- - - -

Her head tilted. "TV has ad breaks during the shows?"

- - - -

Aaaaand his gaze hardened again. "Tell me you're not fucking with me again. Did they finally get rid of the two-minute breaks between five minutes of show?"

- - - -

She shrugged, "I have no idea. I don't watch TV. I stream everything, and I always have. I mean, I think we had TV when I was like, super little? But I don't remember it."

- - - -

Seriousness gave way to consternation. "Tell me what you mean by 'streaming'."

- - - -

She winced. "Oh! Oh, right… sorry. Streaming has replaced a lot of TV for a lot of people. It's when a streaming service, like Disney+ or HBO, or YouTube, keeps a big library of watchables in their servers and users subscribe - usually for a monthly fee, but not always - to the services they want, to watch the things they want to watch, when they want to watch them. We could go log in to Disney+ right now and watch Snow White… on a television, a computer, a cellphone… any device with a screen and an internet connection. It's like hitting play on a video file, except instead of having the movie on a flash drive, the movie is on Disney's computers… and you need to make sure your internet connection is solid enough to watch it without any screwups. But you can do it anytime you want… if you have a subscription."

- - - -

"…Huh." That explanation sounded very logical and also fucking impossible given what he had known of technology's capabilities in the 90's. They didn't even have external storage that could hold one movie-length video in the common market, much less that could hold multiple, or internet connections strong and fast enough to access those video files on external servers, then play them. He chewed as he thought about that, staring into the middle-distance.

The Union had brought technology a long way in the last twenty years.

They didn't quite have Mobius's sentient-nanite tech in the Consensus yet, but boy, were they well on their way.

"Wow. Do you even still keep hard copies of the shit you can stream? I am gonna have so many questions."

- - - -

"Yes. Because… what if it's not streaming anywhere when you want to see it? Not every service can sustain more than a hundred titles in active rotation at a time, while some can handle several hundred. Usually, the shows and movies go on rotation from one service to another, and sometimes, it's just… not showing. Or they decided not to stream it for cultural reasons… like some of the old racist stuff in cartoons and movies where celebrities tap-danced in black face and stuff. And then there's …. you know…. adult material. That doesn't stream anywhere."

" Except for every porn site ever. "

"Unless you count things like PornHub, but… that's not a real streaming service."

" I'd make a joke here, but it's too easy. And a little gross. "

- - - -

"Fair." He nodded to Edith, in response to her, not that Otome knew that. "…Well, at least it's not all online-only yet. I have to say, with a clear head and in retrospect, having everything exist only in a digital space is just asking to lose humanity's cultural history to a disaster way less impressive than burning a whole library to the ground. Data decay was already a bit of a problem, I can't imagine how bad it effects things now."

"But, uh, it's not great that they're deciding what is and is not available to people that are paying them for the ability to watch the things in their archives. They're- you're- paying for the service expressly for access to that company's stuff, so it's… really shitty they hold anything back without it being a restriction of their tech rather than their policies."

- - - -

Otome paused. "Uh… Boybot? Most of your video games are online only. Some consoles and computer games are only online gaming capable."

- - - -

Oh, that brought a distressed grimace. "Jesus Christ."

And then a disappointed shake of his head. "Why??"

- - - -

She looked confused. "Because it's easier and cheaper for indie game devs to publish and distribute through Steam on PC, or through Online Marketplace for Polystation, Sintendo, XXXBox, and the rest? They can just put up a few paragraphs of description, a few screen shots, maybe a video file trailer, and sell their game for $5 or $20, without having to pay for marketing and packaging and stuff. And it keeps clutter to a minimum."

- - - -

He looked at her from above his glasses, head half-hung from where he shook it. "Is that true? Or is that just what those companies want you to think? I- well, I admit, I don't know anything about the gaming scene now or its variety of content. But without those companies cornering the market, would it actually be that hard for individually-published titles to be distributed? Word-of-mouth or of-text on like, bulletin boards, used to work fine. And game hardware was simple enough, they could be made into console cartridges without too much trouble."

"My collection was… my collection. From their publishers. But they were my copies. What happened to that?"

- - - -

She looked thoughtful and nodded between bites. "Something we've discussed many times. Skipping to the end, I don't know what the Union is capable of, and I don't know what could be if things radically changed… I just know what is. Without knowing more, I don't think I can really know enough to feel that strongly about something I can't change."

- - - -

"Hmph." He harrumphed over his next bite of pizza. "The decline of physical media is a crime to people's right to the things they pay for, based on capitalism's own rules of exchange. Fucking stupid, full stop."

Simon sulked for an entire slice, and its bones.

- - - -

She offered a sad smile, "Okay, Che, calm down. At least you're still you on some things."

- - - -

He paused, considering her remark, and then nodded. "Good. I never liked how the Union supported that crap; it was like, part of the main thing I left 'em for."

It only occurred to him after a few bites that he was still working for them in this reality. "…In. The life in my head. I just heard the dissonance."

- - - -

Otome did look confused, but then nodded when he explained. "So… they put you inside the Matrix, but back in the 90's… and you left, in the simulation? Must've sucked."

"Caution here. I wanna know too, but you should keep it to a minimum. Unless you wanna do this pizza thing a third time?"

- - - -

He raised a brow and glanced at Edith, noting her warning, but continued to Otome after a moment.

"…Yeah. I had an alternative offer that gave me the same creative freedom without all the fellating of Capitalism- or, at least, as much. It was still kind of the Union anyway, though- just, like, an offshoot. I think maybe some of the drugs they put in me while they were trying to keep me alive fucked up their Matrix sim in more ways than just crazy dreamscapes interspersed with details of my actual life."

- - - -

"You think maybe the offshoot thing was part of the… whatever the doctors called it? The psychotic reaction thing?"

" Bored now. I'm going to go upstairs and do something more fun than talking about capitalism and crap. If you take too long down here, I'm going to walk down here naked and force you to have to try and carry on your conversation with me being lewd or whatever. That way, you don't bore Otome to death, and I still have something to do. "

The kitten hopped down and stood as a girl once more, before finishing her root beer shot.

" You better pray I find a comic to read or something, or I'm comin' back down here in my birthday suit."

- - - -

Simon pouted at Edith. "Aww, come on, we're establishing personal belief baselines! What do you wanna talk about, Eed? Besides how much pizza to leave in the box for you when I bring it up, or whatever you consider 'lewd'."

- - - -

Edith rolled her eyes and sulked, shoulders slumped. "But that's boooooring!! Can't we go take something apart, or blow something up, or juggle chainsaws, or something? I'm falling asleep over here! You're my boyfriend, darnit! You're supposed to keep me entertained!"

- - - -

"Oh, I'm supposed to keep you entertained? When I haven't hardly had any time with either of you, t'do anything yet, much less time for myself to let this reality set in? D'you want things to go back to kinda-normal, or do you want me to be trying to figure out how it is you want me to entertain you while also trying to puzzle through my life with Otome without any time to hang out with her? I'm sorry you can't exactly participate in the conversation, here, but it's not my fault you don't care about the things we're talking about."

He had half-turned in his seat to face Edith, legitimately frustrated with her self-centeredness and perceived lack of care for the differences between what he knew and what was. It may have been self-centered of him to be wanting more to catch up than to just spend time, but, he felt it wasn't unreasonable for someone in his position to want to do so, before they tried to do anything else.

"If I could fucking hang out with both of you at the same time, that would be great, but guess what? I can't do that. So."

Simon fixed her with a more legitimate, annoyed frown.

- - - -

Otome blinked in surprise at his outburst, and so did Edith. The latter hesitated, before going upstairs, muttering something about staying out of his way.

His girlfriend looked where he was looking, then back at him. "Is everything okay? Did I do something?"

- - - -

Simon suddenly felt kind of like he had yelled at a child harshly, for just wanting his attention while he was busy with something else, and all of his annoyance deflated into guilt. He turned back to Otome, that guilt coloring his face.

"…Ugh. No." He wiped one pizza-hand on his pants, and then ran it through his slightly-damp hair. "Edith wants to do something, because our conversation is boring her to sleep, and said I'm 'her boyfriend, aren't I supposed to entertain her?' but like, having these kinds of foundational conversations is kind of important, and… god damn it, does my having come out of a hospital maybe an hour ago, not knowing a goddamn thing about the life you guys know, not take priority right now?"

He stared at his pizza, suddenly far less hungry.

"…I guess that is kind of self-centered, too, but… things aren't gonna settle back to normal in a day just because I'm awake and home, you know? I'm not… I'm basically not the me you guys know, and I have to get to know you guys without any prior idea of what you're like or what quirks you have or what your favorite colors are. I get you've been missing your-me, but-" He looked up at Otome from above his glasses. "-that's not - I can't be relieved to be back, because I didn't know you two and haven't known I had anyone like you to miss."

He ran his hand through his hair again, and rested that elbow on the table, half-burying his face into the crook of his elbow while that hand hung in the air slightly above his head, playing with a curl between his index and thumb.

"I've barely landed, why can't she let the jet-lag wear off a little before dragging me around?" he muttered into his arm.

- - - -

Otome's hand was patient and her tone comforting, as if this particular anguish were a well worn road under their feet.

"I quote an expert in the field, when I say, 'Because Edith is part of what drives you and vice versa. Every perfect score, every new program, every brilliant breakthrough, every obsession, every time you got up and did the impossible, when all you wanted was to stay in bed… was, partly, her fault. Because she doesn't let you stay in your ruts, ever.'…"

Otome paused and then offered, with a shrug, "Maybe she thinks you need to be something besides hanging out with your girlfriend, if you want to get better. Usually, her tantrums annoy you, but lead you to the next big thing. I always know when you're about to go off on some crazy marathon project because the first tell-tale sign is you and Simone being inseparable and you complaining about it in bed, talking about how you need a break from her."

She shook her head, hands up at her sides, "Or… maybe she's just being a twit? I mean, you are the only one she lets see her."

- - - -

He listened, and watched Otome's body language, still sulking in his arm while she spoke.

Then sighed out of his nose, slightly fogging up his glasses from the air being redirected upward by his arm.

"I… I dunno, what she said doesn't feel like a tantrum? She's just being insistent about doing something instead of talking about "capitalism and crap". That something might be her, honestly? But. I don't wanna neglect you, by spending all my time on my first day with her, and I also feel like I'm neglecting her right now. I don't know what the right thing to do here is."

- - - -

Otome took his hands in hers - her own having been cleaned at some point he hadn't noticed, but the dirty napkins beside her told the story none the less. "Simon… it's not a competition. I love you and I know you, and I know I'm not the only woman in your life. I've known that since we first started dating. We've talked it out endlessly and we found a way that works for all of us. And you have no idea what it is, and I get that, too. And yes, sometimes, Simone - cat or girl - is a little needy. But, monkey… when Simone gets antsy, it's a sign. It's always a sign. Sometimes it means you're going to do something at work that gets you a raise. Sometimes it means that I'm going to need to buy us a new microwave or toaster or blender, and start keeping little fire extinguishers around the house. And, in one memorable case that shines above all others, it means I'm going to come home to clouds and wind and a snowstorm happening in our living room, with the tile floor in the kitchen being turned into an ice sheet."

She touched his cheek softly.

"And I've made peace with that. Maybe she's being a selfish brat. Maybe she's getting triggered by all your heightened brain activity from the accident. Maybe she's horny. I have no way to tell. And it's none of my business. But whatever is going on… it's okay. We'll get through it. I'm not going anywhere."

- - - -

His eyes searched her face.

She seemed genuine, and caring, and her touch made him raise his head a little bit, if only to lean into the touch of another person in such a familiar area. The softness of her treatment made him sigh, more in relief of a little of the stress he had been holding than in the accumulation of that stress.

"…OK." It was quiet, and he couldn't look at Otome's face for more than a moment, comfortably. "I- I think I should probably go apologize. Sorry, 'Tome."

Simon turned his face into her palm, holding her hand still with his own, and put a small kiss into it, then pulled away from her, gently, leaving the pizza and drinks in their places. "I'll try and come back down later. I really don't want to like, favor one of you guys to spend time with, and make the other one feel left-out… so I'm gonna try t'make time for you, even if you guys had a system going that worked, before. You deserve my time, too."

Then, after another lingering look, Simon left the kitchen to see Edith in her room- or wherever he ended up finding her.

- - - -

He found her dismantling a controller on her bed with tiny tools, and a flashlight strapped to her head. Her movements were slow and she didn't seem to be very into it, her face still making her seem quite rejected and saddened. When she noticed him out of the corner of her eye, she shuffled around a little on her butt, on the bed, to keep more of her back to him. Her voice was heavy with reluctance, but soft in tone.

" . . . . . Hey. "

- - - -

He tried to approach gently, and sat down next to her in an area that he hoped didn't displace any of the controller pieces she had already removed, without encroaching too much into her space.

"…Hey."

Uncertain what to start with, or how to approach this sort of thing, he just opted for the straightforward route.

"I'm sorry I snapped at you, Eed. You've been open and genuine and energetic with me all day… and I haven't given you that, back, at all; I've been too caught up in how overwhelmed I am with… everything, without actually asking you how you're doing. And then, after I totally swapped my attention to someone else… I got upset with you when you wanted your own needs met. That wasn't fair. I'm sorry."

- - - -

She kept working quietly for several seconds, before saying.

" I know. It's not your fault. "

She reached up and turned off her headlight before she looked at him, her red eye greatly magnified by a worker's loop flipped down over her eye to help her work.

" Your head's not in the game, Boybot. You need to accept three things: first, this is real. You're not going to wake up from this, on some weird planet's victorian era, or something. Second, your life is only off by twenty years. Sure, that means a lot for friendships and relationships and family… but everybody knows that and nobody is asking you to make that go away or to catch up all at once. Everybody is being super cool with your time-brain thing. And it means that you have some tech homework to do and a few new company names to learn. Buuut…. that's kind've all it means. This isn't Venus or a space station in a universe you don't know, and it's not some weird hyperviolent cyberpunk future in the year 3050-something. It's… 2023. Woo? Most of the countries are still the same. Heck, most of the elected representatives and major companies are even still the same. Electric cars are more common and so is gun violence. Homosexual and transsexual people have more rights and respect now… unless you just suck at being nice to people who are different. "

She removed her headgear, leaving her ponytail a tangled mess in its wake.

" So…. stop acting like it's a weird new world that has to be deciphered or interrogated. It's new. New is good. New is interesting. New means potential to be better. Stop acting like a victim. I'm sorry you lived a false life in a cyber realm. But I keep trying to take your mind off of it and help you focus on what's ahead, and you won't stop watching the rear view mirror and questioning the now. We're in the car, bro. We're going places. The world passing you by is scenery, not a tragedy. So hands on the wheel. "

She held out her small tools to him.

" Keep your eyes on the road. "

- - - -

It took him a minute of looking down at her tools to mentally chew on what she had said to him. A lot of the smaller details were insensitive at best, but the message she was trying to get through to him was also a little hard to swallow: "Stop lingering on what happened, and start focusing on what you'll do now."

The 'false life in a cyber realm' was real barely half a day ago, to him- it was fresh, and a hard space to emerge from when the space he was entering felt like so much more- but for Edith and Otome, Simon was just trying to recover from a lengthy, bad dream, and they knew what to expect from him, and had their own ideas of how to help him through it. The dream would fade, and he'd settle back into reality and into the same patterns of behavior they knew him for, because, as he had said to Edith when they 'first' met: he was who he was, "whether that's who this reality expects or not."

He couldn't change what had already been done, but he could decide what to do with what was left. And if he was going to do it well, he had to build up his resources, workspace, and knowledge, in order to use all of his tools effectively; it didn't matter what happened before this point, except that all of those moments were stepping stones that brought him to now.

And he needed to focus on now and stop thinking of his life as over. It had just begun again, hadn't it? He just had a little catching up to do.

Edith could see all of these thoughts playing out as Simon considered them, uncertainty and slight insult slowly evolving into a kind of courage: the determination to move forward, to take that next step, after the path he thought he was supposed to take had crumbled in front of his feet. He just had to pivot and keep moving, and he would get wherever he needed to go.

Simon took up Edith's little tools, then, and released a breath he didn't realize he had been holding.

"Right. Let's get moving."

- - - -

Eed dragged out two of the consoles, their controllers, and some cartridges. She walked him through dismantling them, anytime he hit a wall, explaining modern methods of sealing products… though, there wasn't much need, since it was mostly the same - just with more and smaller screws, holding down more things. Nothing was glued, but there were a few pieces where plastic tabs were fit together in a way that would (normally) require special tools to open - to help keep the technology and its repair and modification, proprietary.

"I guess you don't remember anything about what we were working on, huh?"

- - - -

As he tinkered and took things apart, noting the newer methods of holding the plastic together and applying the effective dismantling techniques to future pieces, Simon listened and watched Edith with the senses he wasn't using on his current project. The circuit boards weren't very different, at least, even if the consoles themselves had gotten more complicated and required more bits on the board to control their new features.

"Can't say I do, no. Tell me about it?"

- - - -

"Well…" she said, watching him work, "Your mind seems pretty preoccupied with code and program stuff and whatever. When we first met, you were the same way… but…"

She watched his reaction carefully, almost like she might be worried about how he'd react.

"… we'd gotten pretty far beyond that, even before you learned about Q Division. That's why you wanted to join it, to work with their gadgets. But you were getting frustrated by their restrictions, before the accident."

- - - -

Simon paused, at that, and looked over at Edith with a raised eyebrow.

"Beyond that? Like how? Applying those principles to hardware?"

- - - -

"Kiiiiiind of, yeah. I mean, we've been at this - I know you don't remember - for fourteen years. We went through coding, hacking, wrote our own OS, brought down a few crappy companies' websites for awhile, had some close calls with police and stuff… then we made our own computer designed to run our OS, and explored the Net in ways that were really cool and Matrix'y… but…"

She slumped a little. "It was fun, sure… but you realized that…. it didn't mean anything."

- - - -

He tilted his head and pulled his brows together, then, uncertain. That seemed like a lot! He had made his own ZackAttack-esque Web-interface computer, for his own custom OS! That… didn't change anything for other people, but as steps forward, those were huge!

"…Uh-huh?"

- - - -

"So like… we did some cool stuff, some fun stuff, we made things for the Web, even got inside of it and did some TRON Matrix stuff for a couple of years… it was a ride."

She watched him work at the console, following his hands with her eyes.

"… But the Crash changed all of that. The Union guys call it the Dimensional Anomaly. Tech-heads in particular, they called it the WhiteOut. And we barely escaped it alive. This massive surge of extradimensional energy that blasted the entire digital webspace into nothing. Like Nothing nothing. Even the mundane internet was riddled with signal and domain errors and service problems, for like a week. The whole planet's internet was crap, and everybody was struggling to find or access even the most basic services. And then, suddenly…. it all came back. Everything except for the digital space… that got wiped clean. A lot of it's been rebuilt, but the WhiteOut still lurks online like a roving power surge virus or something."

"But it got you thinking about how… virtual reality wasn't as safe as you'd thought, as a 'world of the future'. Because if mankind moved into the virtual universe… it could be wiped out without warning, by something nobody was able to stop."

She offered him her headstrap, with the flashlight and the magnifying loop eye lens attachment.

"So you started exploring ways to apply new science ideas that might've worked inside the web, outside the web. Sometimes, it goes really badly. Sometimes it works great! But the Union… has some pretty strict rules about what should and shouldn't be. So innovation has to stay within limits. That was the part bugging you."

- - - -

Simon nodded to himself. "…Yeah, I was saying that before- how data decay could totally wipe out humanity if we moved to entirely-virtual space. I didn't know about the WhiteOut, though…" He took her headgear and fixed it to himself, after having made sure nothing he was working on would fall or move out of place when he took his hands off of it.

"Maybe all those Web-spiders fucking up the Web and connections to it and computers was like, my head's way of remembering that… I saved this really cool User from being murdered by that, actually- he went by ZackAttack. Nice guy. A little condescending, if I'm being honest, 'cause he figured the only reason I got past his door encryption was it being too old and not as secure as his newer stuff. I think he had been trapped in the Web for like, a week, before I found him and got him out- and I had to do that after Morpheus updated Zack's old computer to be, like, made of his nanites and safe from the web-spiders."

He shrugged. "Not that any of that matters. It was just, like, one of the last things I did before things went sideways for me."

"So, we were trying to make Web constructs and functions work in Meatspace? What've we gotten to work so far? What did they not like us trying?"

- - - -

"The spiders… are a whole other thing. I'll spare you the details, your memory loss is a blessing on that one. It makes sense that they'd make their way into your nightmare fuel."

"The Union doesn't know about--"

Her next two words sounded more dramatic, being slightly louder and sounding as if they were spoken through a series of echo-filters and were dubbed over her actual words in the after-editing of the audio for his real world moment. And it happened that way every time she said it.

"--'The Lab'. If they ever learned of 'The Lab', they'd probably label you a deviant or a threat to their Consensus. It isn't so much that we were making web constructs in the real world, so much as we were figuring out how to dig through all the junk code that the Union has decided is 'reality' and 'physics', and find the real source code for reality's laws, so we could build machines and utilize forces that had been overwritten by and large, but were still there in the underlying code that reality really runs on."

- - - -

Simon stopped his work and looked at Edith entirely, then, eyes sparkling despite his slight difficulty understanding.

"…We were trying to hack reality and unbury some cool shit?"

Memories bubbled up of being stuck in a padded cell, with voices speaking to him- just hack reality to get out. He wasn't sure when they happened, but he was certain it was a reality he briefly woke up in- and one that he got re-awoken in at least twice, when he didn't respond correctly the first time. But he still remembered the first time.

…It was before Allison's reality. Right before.

"That sounds fucking awesome. But I don't remember how we accomplished it."

- - - -

"Hacking reality is something we tried, but… it went bad, really fast. But it was technically possible. What we were onto more recently was… well, okay, here's an example."

She sat facing Simon more fully.

"Anti-gravity. Possible, or impossible, and why?"

- - - -

Simon squinted at her, and set his current project on the floor so that he could focus on Edith fully.

"…Theoretically possible? I didn't do a lot of research into it, but, I'd imagine pushing against the force of gravity in order to achieve lift is definitely not the same thing. Not sure how you might turn off gravity in an area, but that doesn't mean it isn't possible."

- - - -

"Turning it off wasn't the question. Is Anti-Gravity possible? And you answered… yes. Yes, it is. Gravity is what everyone thinks it is… but it's not only what everyone thinks it is. And it's not everything that everyone thinks it is. The stuff that it isn't, was laid down via conspiracy by the Union over many, many years… and everyone believes it, which makes it quasi-real. That's the Junk Code in this example. But under it all are actual laws of gravity. That's the Source Code. And we were working on ways to sift the Source out of the Junk, across all kinds of topics. Computers run on some basic rules that can be broken, and some foundational laws that can't. Everything else above and beyond that are rules and conditions imposed by the software and hardware you attach to it or install into it. But strip all of those away and it's still a computer, able to parse the simplest commands via the most rudimentary programs that they all understand."

"Reality is a computer. Add new hardware - like land and air and water, animals and humans, sun, moon, stars, the universe - and new software - ideas and scientific or religious beliefs that are taken as widespread fundamental truths - and you get The Real World."

"Some of that Real World is kinda crummy… so you dig through the code and wiring, find what you can do without and what you can't do without… and make new hardware and software - new physical objects and new ideas on which they function - accordingly."

"If…. if enough people can be made to accept the new programs and devices, then the Computer stops being one model and becomes another. Upgrade."

"That became your new slogan… Don't Escape. Upgrade."

"It came to you during one of your big slumps… you read a girl's breasts - I mean, her t-shirt - and the phrase you saw stuck in your brain and made you change your whole way of trying things away from the virtual and computerized and toward mad science, as you put it."

She held out her hand in a sweeping slow gesture.

"The shirt said…. The Road Not Traveled Never Reveals Its Secrets."

She shrugged. "Since you already knew the secrets of computers, you went a different direction."

- - - -

Simon's eyes went fuzzy while Edith explained to him and he imagined these concepts in application. The rules of reality, of the decorations on top of the fundamental forces that made the rest possible, were just commonly-believed "truths". Like the face of a webpage. The common User thinks of that as the page, but anyone who knows better would be able to look at its code, its foundation, and if they also knew the language of its source code, change anything about its face.

Those same principles could apply to Reality, too- if he knew the language Reality was written in, he could do anything with it, within the capabilities of that language in its application. And even those capabilities could be bent with some creativity.

"So… anything about reality I thought could be better, we went about trying to figure out how it worked, and then used its foundational ideas to try and upgrade that facet of reality? Or was there more to that?"

"…Can I see the- uh- The Lab?"

- - - -

"I think you're thinking of much broader, sweeping changes than we were ready for. We're still learning what is and isn't Source or Junk. But… yes."

Eed held up a single finger between the two of them, drawing his attention sharply.

"Otome must never learn of The Lab. We never go to The Lab. We go to Polka Practice. She has no idea what that really means, but she knows it's code for 'I have to go do my super secret stuff for awhile'. She'll leave us alone, and won't follow us or ask to come along."

Edith lowered her finger and scootched off the bed, stretching as she stood.

"We haven't been to The Lab in a couple of years. Because of the Union. But you're off the grid, for now. Doctor Gemini and his Sidekick ½ can finally get back to work!"

- - - -

All of this seemed absolutely ridiculous, which also seemed right up Edith's alley, and made it all charmingly funny. Simon couldn't hide an amused grin. "Polka practice? We couldn't come up with anything better than that?"

Still, he got up, leaving her cute gadget-headpiece on the bed with his half-deconstructed electronic, and made to go to the door.

"I gotta admit, that's stupid and hilarious and really exciting. I can't wait to get into it."

- - - -

SERIOUS TONAL SHIFT HAPPENS HERE

- - - -

Edith ran down the stairs and was waiting for him in the driveway, behind the steering wheel of a …. car? [[a/n: this is a link to the image for the car! ]]

"C'mon!! Let's get going!"

She pulled on big leather gloves, before fastening goggles over her eyes and putting an old bomber's cap on.

- - - -

Simon called out the door behind him on his way down the stairs, "HEY OTOME WE'RE GOING TO POLKA PRACTICE I'LL SEE YOU LATER!!!"

His big grin never faltered, despite the complete absurdity of this situation, as he got swept up in Edith's energy and jumped into the passenger's seat next to her. Then buckled his seatbelt- or, would, if the car had them.

It didn't.

Suddenly a little nervous.

"Wooh!! Oh, man! This is crazy."

- - - -

"Crazy!? Crazy is for beginners, Bay-Bay!! We're going straight to Psycho!!"

Many gears, levers and dials were adjusted in rapid succession, and off they went!! No seat belts, no doors, no roof, just Eed and her 1890's Driver's Outfit, ripping through traffic at … 76 knots? The car's digital speedometer measured speed in knots!?

- - - -

Simon was trying really hard to just take this in stride and believe Edith knew what she was doing. They were completely destroying all road laws, driving insanely fast, with minimal safety features in the car and a windshield that did basically nothing for him or Edith in terms of its namesake. He had to hold onto his glasses for dear life, when he wasn't holding onto his seat with white knuckles or laughing with exhilarated terror. She was not kidding.

Over the wind, he yelled to her, "Can other people see this??"

- - - -

"Nope!! Imaginary car!! Invisible but veeery solid!"

She continued slicing and weaving through other cars, before yelling, "HOLD ON!"

Which is when she jerked the wheel hard to one side, lifting the car from four wheels to two for a moment, taking a left hand turn across active traffic without waiting for the light, dodging cars and settling back down on a smaller four lane road.

- - - -

Simon clenched his asscheeks and gripped the seat with his hands so hard he probably ripped the leather a little bit. Imaginary car!! So, still up in the air over whether he was certifiably insane and that level of belief just allowed things to manifest in reality, or if she was some imagination-fueled being who was just really into his specific brand of weird. Cool. Awesome. Please don't kill him by accident with no way to fix it.

When they leveled out, it took him a shaky second to relax a little bit from his whole-body muscle cramp, but he managed, somehow.

"J-Jesus Christ."

- - - -

"Atheist, actually. Or maybe agnostic. I dunno."

The car then came to a very abrupt halt, showing him the value of the padded dashboard and low-laid rise behind the short windshield as his face slammed into cushion and leather quilting.

"Ta-Da! And I never even drove before. Hah! I just learned by watching you, and then ignored all that slowing-us-down signs and lights garbage you do. Not bad, right?"

Edith pulled off her Driving Accessories, leaving them in the seat, and hopped out.

They were perfectly parallel parked…. between two other cars?… outside of a mansion��� castle… thing!? That his shades claimed was an empty lot.

Because why wouldn't this be his evening!?

- - - -

"Mrph." Great. It took him a second of checking to make sure his nose wasn't broken before he got out of the "car", also pulling his glasses off to make sure they hadn't broken and then turning them off so that they wouldn't try to capture the rest of this insanity.

The mansion/castle/laboratory was… impressive, on the outside, even if "reality" said it was an empty lot. He jogged a few steps to catch up to Edith after that second of admiring the building.

"You are so lucky I had faith you knew what you were doing." She didn't even know how to officially drive!!!

- - - -

"Oh, c'mon… imaginary friend, imaginary car, imaginary mansion, imaginary mad science lab…. I'm in my element!! What could go wrong?"

She pulled out numerous keys on a long chain from her back pocket and began unlocking numerous locks on the gate. The gate itself had many warning signs posted to it.

BEWARE : SCIENCE !! CAUTION : SCIENCE INSIDE MAD SCIENTIST AT WORK, COME BACK LATER PROUD REALITY REBELS WITHIN FOR SCIENCE!!™️ YES, WE CAUSED THE BLACKOUT NO SOLITICERS HOT TECH GIRLS WELCOME NO TRESPASSING CLOWNS WILL BE EXTERMINATED IF CAUGHT SCIENCE!!™️ WE DO WHAT WE MUST, BECAUSE WE CAN!!

Eed finally finished unlocking the gates and put her keychain away, swinging it open for him. "Doctor."

She beamed at him with open adoration and admiration.

- - - -

He was… thoroughly confused, but entertained, and followed along with her by walking past with his chin high, shoulders straight, and hands clasped behind his back. "Thank you, ½."

He had no idea what to expect within the property. This was really stretching his idea of what imagination could do.

- - - -

As he crossed the threshold, Simon found himself wearing an outfit similar to Edith's 'For Science!™️' attire. His was more grand, of course, because he was the Doctor, and wore a long lab coat over his apron, with the words Dr. Gemini sewn into it. When she finished closing up behind them, and hurried to catch up, Eed was wearing her outfit as well, her own lab coat saying Sidekick ½.

She walked along, one step behind and to his right, mimicking his stride and posture.

"Welcome home, Doctor Gemini… to Half House!"

The door unlocked itself and opened before his approach. Inside was a blend of victorian antique and cassette retrofuturism styles, in all things. The wooden walls were wallpapered from halfway, up to the ceiling, though electronic panels and retro-computer clunky tech were set into the walls, framed by finely polished wood, making it stand out elegantly from the wallpapering.

- - - -

[[ a/n ]]

- - - -

He had no idea what the hell most of this stuff was for beyond ornamentation.

The hard time he was having taking this at its face manifested as dropping his 'professional' affectation to take off one glove and run a hand through his hair. This was getting to be a lot.

"You know, initially, I thought we were just gonna walk into the closet, or something. For some reason this," Simon gestured to the grand spectacle of the room, "is way harder to fully let myself believe is real. You work on a level of imagination I'm not totally sure I'm up to yet, Sidekick."

- - - -

He saw her remove her own glove and run her hand through her hair as well. "Yes, of course, Doctor. It will take some time for your neuro-mnemonic-pathways to re-integrate into appropriate patterns of cognitive activity and actualization."

She grinned. "I'm a science!"

They were then interrupted by an elderly male voice that was very clearly computer-generated, despite its british accent.

"Ah! Doctor Gemini! I am so deeply elated to see you alive and well, sir. Welcome home."

An automaton approached the pair.

- - - -

Simon flinched away from the automaton, very much not expecting the auto-butler or his aesthetic despite everything that surrounded them. "D'ah!! Uh-! Th- Thank you!"

He leaned down to Edith. "Who is this?"

- - - -

She leaned up and into him and whispered sideways, "Your butler, Mister Gearwhistle."

- - - -

He considered this, then nodded. "Right."

"erhem. Thank you, Mister Gearwhistle. How have things been in our absence? I heard from my Sidekick that it has been a few years, now, since our last visit- I'm not sure how closely you've been monitoring things on the outside, either, given recent events…"

Definitely play along. This was so weird.

- - - -

The butlerbot made its way into the room using a limited range of motion that never the less emulated human movement quite well. His metal mustache moved when he spoke.

"I never bother with the outside world, good Doctor. Much too dirty. And so uncivilized. No, sir, none of my business. Quite the opposite. Besides, I've been far too invested in maintaining the Imaginarium in your absence. Miss Half has been kind enough to assist me from time to time, during your long travels, sir."

Despite having been turned 'off', his glasses still notified him in the corner of his vision, that he had left known space and could not be located by GPS at this time, nor could his glasses connect to a network. This seemed more like a safety advisory, than anything else, in case he didn't know his own situation.

Sidekick Edith 'Eed' ½, stepped forward to deflect on Simon's behalf, by holding up a 'stop' hand toward Mister Gearwhistle.

"The Doctor has no time for pleasantries, I'm afraid. We must away to the Imaginarium, right away!"

The robot nodded, stepping aside.

"Yes, yes, of course. The Great Work never sleeps, does it, Miss Half?"

She took the lead and said quietly, as if to herself, in a very serious but immature play voice, "Science Never Sleeps."

- - - -

Simon mentally frowned at his glasses still tracking his position and network status- he'd have to find a way to genuinely turn them off, later. But it was good to know, he had to admit, that he was really off the grid, even if that was definitely outside the realm of possible. None of this was possible. It was kind of cool, though.

He followed behind Edith at a steady pace with his long stride, eventually almost catching up to her, to stay within the narrative of the one who knew what he was doing and was in charge. He was totally just letting her lead.

And had no idea what the Imaginarium was, beyond what it sounded like.

- - - -

She led him to a full phone booth standing against a wall at the end of a hallway on the first floor. After opening the door for him and letting him step inside, she followed and closed the door behind them. A small wall phone was set into the rear wall of the booth and Edith picked up the receiver, wound a revolving lever on the right and then dialed a number on a rotary dial, and hung up the phone.

The interior of the phone booth then began to descend into the floor. An elevator with a secret code, it seemed.

At the speed they were going, it looked like they'd have a moment alone.

She looked at him, searching his face. "Worried, huh?"

- - - -

He pulled his glasses up, then, and gave her a nervous smile. "I am way out of my depth right now."

- - - -

"I grew up here," she said softly, before leaning on his arm like he were a pillar.

"Half House has been my home for as long as I can remember, except for when I moved in with you. And then, Otome moved in, and I didn't want to be forgotten, so I stayed around. I thought for sure if I moved out, you'd… move on. You know?"

The elevator continued slowly rolling down its path on what sounded and felt like well maintained wheeled tracks at a steady pace.

"When you started trying to break the laws of reality in the real world, and not just the digital one… I knew I wanted to share the house with you, and make it yours. It's changed a lot since then, thanks to your presence and imagination."

She bounced lightly on her toes as she stood back upright. "You're not out of your depth, Boybot. This is your pool. It only goes as deep as you want it to. If you see water that's too deep? Don't swim in it. Go back to the shallows and get used to the water some more."

Her arm slipped into his. "I believe in you. You may not know what the heck is going on… but you can… because you have… so if you want to…. you will. Sooner or later. I know you will."

- - - -

Simon fixed Edith with a gently confused and sympathetic look, smiling very slightly in fondness and aforementioned sympathy.

"So… you existed here before you were in school with me? Or revealed yourself to me, I guess? And even after that, it was your house you went home to after school- and what that airship was thematically based on?" It was a lot of questions, but less of an interrogation and more of Simon trying to get her timeline straight. He shook his head gently, eyes closed. "You might've given me the reins, but this is still your horse, Eed. What are you?"

- - - -

She nodded in response to his questions and guesses. "The house used to be the airship, actually… but otherwise, yes."

To his last question, she simply gave him a slightly sad but most reassuring smile as she touched his cheek. "I'm what you needed. I still am, and happily. And I will keep being, for as long as you need it. And I'll love every moment."

The elevator began to slow, before settling into what felt like a cradle at the bottom. There were no windows on the outside this time.

"Deep breath. And try to remember… we worked together for years down here. Okay?"

- - - -

That didn't really answer a damn thing. Simon's eyebrows knit, and he frowned at her, but when she released his face, he pulled down his glasses and did his best to steel himself for whatever was behind that door. He was sort of expecting a Frankenstein-esque mad science lab with a slab in the middle and lots of machines around the outside of the main space. It probably wasn't that, though. That was for making monsters, not breaking the rules of reality.

- - - -

When she slid the door aside, what was revealed was… actually fairly close to what he'd imagined… except bigger… with sections and areas….

And a fucking train.

"Welcome… to the Imaginarium!"

- - - -

Simon had to take a long minute to let the enormous, full, crazy area sink in. There was a train! IN the room! Why?!

He took a step out of the elevator-phone-booth, sidling past Edith, in order to not feel trapped in the tiny space. It wasn't much better when he was surrounded by all of… this, if he was honest with himself. And all of this was way more than he imagined when Edith first broached the subject of figuring out the foundations of reality, to him.

He turned back to her, stomach fluttering, honestly feeling a little queasy but trying his best to just trust the unreality of the space. And the potential flexibility of his sanity.

"…Ready to start the tour?"

- - - -

She looked confused, before comprehension crept across her face. "Oh! Oh, oh…. no. No, no… no. This place isn't really a… tour… kinda situation. You just wander around, until something makes you curious enough to engage, and then…. you start futzing with it. Eventually, you figure out what it is, how it works, and from there…. you figure out how you could make it better, or why it isn't working. It's an Imaginarium! Like…. like a laboratory, but for your mind. There's nothing in here that your mind can't handle… and if you get stumped, there's always something else to work on. After awhile, you start having a few things you're working on at a time, going back and forth between them."

She walked in, gesturing all around in a slow spin while she walked.

"In here, reality is whatever you need it to be… right up until you Throw The Lever!™️ and see what will really happen. And then you tweak and tweak… and it gets better and better, and so does your understanding of how it really works."

"Reality's code doesn't have a neat, tidy console to read off of. That's why people Experiment. But in here, you're not limited in your experiments to what the Union has signed off on. Only reality's source code determines what can and cannot happen, in here."

"We've worked together on hundreds of projects over the years. We built that train!" she said, smiling.

"It runs on psychic energy… more or less. So no matter where we go… if there are people - or even just a boatload of animals - it'll stay fueled up. And it can leave Earth. That was kind've the whole point of making it. We needed some stuff from other dimensions, so we needed a way to get there. We had some spare parts for a locomotive so we went with that."

She pointed toward an alcove with green-liquid tanks and giant tesla coils. "We invented living Pocket Demons right over there. But only three."

- - - -

He stared incredulously as she pointed to devices, and stopped at the tanks with wide eyes and a straight face.

"…Which ones?"

- - - -

"Sparksqueak, Watortoise, and Grassaurus."

- - - -

"…Pikachu, Squirtle, and… Bulbasaur? Where are they?"

- - - -

"They…. they died. Old age, a few years ago. We were only able to give them a life expectancy of four years. But they also provided blood and organs, as signed donors, for future works. We have a template still in the Genesis Engine, but… we never came back to that project."

- - - -

Oh. That was sad. He gave Edith a sympathetic little frown and set a hand on her shoulder. "…Oh. I'm sorry."

Losing a pet was always hard, as far as he was aware (having not had any pets he was aware of), and he hoped the sympathy at least helped. It probably didn't though.

"…Are the scientist getups part of the expected reality in here?" he had to admit it was not his usual look, and a little stuffy.

- - - -

"No. We just thought it would make being down here more fun, to do it in character."

She carefully removed her goggles. "Sorry… "

She muttered under her breath, "Still better than suits, though."

- - - -

He patted her further, then took off the gloves and gently cupped her face with one, bare hand. "Hey, no need to apologize. This is already nuts, okay? And they are way better than the suits. Definitely appreciate that. But I'm not quite used to it enough to need to play pretend in the imaginary-workshop I just got invited to see and work in. Okay?"

- - - -

She nodded, offering a light shrug as she shed her outfit in its entirety as if it were a single bathrobe, leaving her nude as her science outfit pooled in layers on the floor. Little ripples of prismatic and beautiful rainbow sparkles wove their way from her toes, to her ankles, knees, waist, chest, shoulders, and then the top of her head - and in their wake she was wearing her shortalls outfit again, with a ballcap that said SIDEKICK across the front and had a little white hat-pin on it of her Simone kitten form as a cute anime kittyball.

She wore big, wide circular glasses around her mismatched eyes and her hair was in a curly ponytail now, with frizzles sticking out all over.

"So… do you want to see the Genesis Engine, then? Or maybe take a look at the Vampire Detector? We could play in the Ball Pit of Doom, if you prefer, and learn about physics! Or, I guess we could climb inside the Tesla Dome…"

"I dunno… what, about reality, would you like to tinker with, break, fix, and improve?"

- - - -

Oh, shit, she was naked!! And then did a Sailor Senshi into a mechanic-girl! Simon's face went beet-red, with the blush artfully extended off of his face to either side without his intent as emphasis of just How Much he was blushing and flustered. "Buh- uh-!!"

Why couldn't he change outfits like she could? Super not fair. But also, she had adorable tits and a great figure and her muff was just. Hoo-boy. He turned around to try and hide his burgeoning arousal, rubbing the back of his head while the other hand went to his hip.

"W-well! I kind of just wish I had a way to catch up on what I already knew, quickly! I have never needed remedial classes and honestly it kind of sucks!"

- - - -

"Hey!! That's a great idea!!"

She ran over and hugged him tight.

"Inside the Imaginarium, we can fix your memory! As an EXPERIMENT!™️"

She looked around frantically. "We just have to find something that works with the mind… Hypno-Helmet? No, too invasive. We wanna unlock old memories, not write new ones. Forget-Me-Stick? No, you already forgot. Hrmmm…. there's gotta be something around here!"

Eed hopped off on a walk that was almost a skip. "If I were a Mental Experiment, where would I be?"

- - - -

"The loony bin, usually," Simon sighed back to her, after he had unfrozen from being hugged by the previously-naked cute girl.

"But that's for the failed ones. Could we like… apply hypnotherapy principles to the helmet's system somehow? I think I remember seeing shit on TV about how therapists can use hypnosis to help people unblock traumatic memories…"

Yes, he did still have a half-stiffy, no, he was not going to acknowledge that.

"Hey, how do you change your outfit like that?"

He jogged lightly to catch up to her, again.

- - - -

"Sure we can! We can do anything we want! That's the whole point of this place. Huh? Oh, my clothes. Sorry. I just shed one costume to make room for the next one, and called for it. If the thing that you call for is close enough, it comes right to you."

She reached out to her side, and he saw her concentrate for a second, and a brass sphere flew off of a table across the room, straight at her and into her waiting hand.

"See? But if it's too far away for that, like these clothes were, then they have to come to you - or in this case, me - through a channel in reality. My clothes know how I wear them, so… they appear already where they know I'll want them to be."

She held his hand and slipped the little sphere, roughly the size of a golf ball, into his hand. "You used to be able to do it, but stopped when the Union told you it wasn't acceptable. Do you want me to teach you again, or should we get right to work figuring out how to wire a hypno-device to do memory recovery?"

- - - -

Edith's hand got held onto, gently, after she gave him the little ball. She was soft and warm, and he wanted to hold her hand for a second longer.

"…It'd be nice, if you could show me some easy tricks before we get into things. Some pre-work prep, maybe."

- - - -

Edith nodded and wrapped her fingers around the hand he was holding the ball with.

"Feel it. Really explore it, with your senses - most importantly, with your mind. Your mind takes in the temperature, the texture, the shape… but also the weight and density. So don't just feel it with your hand… explore it. Become familiar with it. Everything about it. Toss it around, catch it, juggle with it…. whatever it takes, to get to a point where you know the ball well enough to feel like you could almost treat it like a part of yourself. Like if you toss it up, you'll catch it just the way you want to, without thinking about it. It'll take some time… but it's the fastest way."

"You see, space… isn't space. Space is full. There's no such thing as vacuum, because even a void is something. It's filled with a devouring hunger that drags all light and air and life into itself, but… that's still a thing. It's a force, like gravity, or an idea that can be physically observed, like time."

"But space… the amount of room between you and the ball… is filled with a whole rainbow of unseen forces. If you can become familiar enough with the ball, with the metal and the weight and the feel of it… not just as a ball, but as a thing that is kind've part of you - or could be - then you can throw the ball… and use that unseen force to catch it. Like undo'ing the throw. Or taking back a bad idea. You can pull it back to you, through that space, by tugging on the ball with the space itself… like pulling a yoyo up by its own shifting momentum on the string."

"It's actually harder to figure out, than it is to do. Most of this stuff is. Takes forever to learn…. but once you get it, it's easy. Like basic math, or riding a bike! It's a struggle, right up until you can do it!"

- - - -

Simon frowned at her, looking with an intensity that surely meant he was paying very close attention to her words, visualizing the concepts in his mind while she spoke and trying to understand them from her description alone. It was a little difficult.

"Almost like the ball is a yo-yo, or… the air can be moved back into place where it moved it, sending the ball back in the direction it came from…?" He was having a little bit of a hard time grasping the concept, and that was frustrating.

- - - -

"Kind've. Stick with the yoyo-part… the ball is the yoyo… you must have a good, deep, touch-memory for the yoyo and the way it moves on the string, to make it doooo anything. So the ball is the yoyo… and the string… that's the hard part. The string is the space between your hand - usually the middle or upper middle of the palm, since that's where you started learning it from the first time - and the object - in this case, the ball. The string only exists… if you can hold it in your mind hard enough to get a kind of phantom sensation of it in your hand or imagination, or, preferably, both."

"If you can get used to tossing it and catching it, and feeling it and whatever… always trying to remember that string is there, when the ball leaves your hand…. then when you've finally got it down… you'll be able to let the yoyo fall and then tug the 'string' back up toward your hand. Except, instead of a little tug with your wrist or finger, this tug is more like a mental tug, inside your hand, to reel the string back on."

"Got it?"

- - - -

Simon spent a little while after Edith's explanation just… holding the ball. Tossing it between his hands, back and forth, feeling its weight and how it hit his palm until he Knew the feeling, or, at least, thought so- then, took some time tossing it upward, trying to catch it while looking and then trying to catch it without looking and then trying to pull it back to his hand on an invisible little cord. When he felt comfortable with those motions, he finally started trying to treat it like a yo-yo… It had been a little while, and Edith did her best to encourage his Actual attempts to move it with his Will, or give him some coaching, but he was really starting to feel the mental strain before he even got to the point where he started dropping the ball and trying to pull it back up.

- - - -

Finally having had enough of his inability to grasp the concept (obviously he just wasn't there yet, to his infinite chagrin), Simon threw the goddamn brass ball across the room - instantly regretting his outburst. He instinctively tightened his hand, still outstretched, as if to try and catch it even though that moment was long gone… and yet… he felt the space around the sphere clamp down on it, like a perfectly fitted round velvet pocket of air that just gripped the orb suddenly, stealing all of its momentum. The brass sphere simply remained where it had been, some six yards away, perfectly still in the air. It didn't bob, it didn't rotate, there was no motion at all. It was as if the ball were caught in time and space alike.

The instant his concentration faltered, it fell to the floor with a loud clang and rolled along a little bit, until it came to a stop.

- - - -

Now he sort of understood what Edith meant when she said it was more often something that was harder to get than to just do.

Simon stared angrily at the sphere for a moment, on the verge of a headache for the third time since waking up, and reached for it in order to pull it into his palm (from the palm-point relative to his middle knuckle) by… pulling it through a tunnel in the gas of the air, a vacuum from his palm directed at just that little asshole ball.

- - - -

It took longer than he would've liked, and he was just about to give up, when he felt it… she was right. There was an unseen force… not quite gravity, not quite space, and certainly not the air. But it was there… a kind of psychic tether, between his hand and the brass orb. It flickered in and out of existence, erratic and wholly untenable and at the very edges of his perception… but when he finally found his sense of it and managed to hold on to it in his mind… to keep the tether there… the tension in his arm, as if flexing a muscle behind his wrist, pulling from somewhere in the air behind his physical hand, he touched the ethereal. He felt the line, made of nothing, completely invisible, intangible, nothing but dream and imagination, latched onto a scientific principle that offered no proof of its own existence… and he drew in the distance between his palm and the brass ball, causing it to fly from the floor and whip painfully back into his grasp once more - as if it had been dragged straight to him by a high-powered tow cable under great force.

He had called it back to himself. Reclaimed it, from the floor. He had reduced the space between the ball and himself and become 'whole' again, in that vague way.

And now that he knew what the sensation felt like… now that he knew what mental, imaginary feeling he was trying to feel, what sensation he was searching for… he knew that he could do it again. Maybe not every time, it would take practice. But he'd just outright broken the known laws of physics as they pertained to forces like kinetic and potential energy, gravity, inertia… but he'd done so by applying a law that he hadn't known existed.

Part of the hidden source code of reality. A force unnamed and unknown, long buried by the Technocratic Union and erased from the Consensus. He'd found one. He had no idea what to call it, of course… but he knew it was there, what it felt like, and a vague impression of how it worked, what it did… a space between spaces.

She was right. Even nothing, was still full of something.

- - - -

Completely mentally exhausted, frustrated, and really at most limits of his stamina, Simon Castor threw his arms into the air and exclaimed, "WOOOO!! YES! I fucking DID IT!"

And then he threw the ball with all the force of that tow cable, and wanted to stick it into the wall hard enough to make a crater. FUCK that ball.

- - - -

The ball flew across the room, tinked gently against the wall, then returned to his hand once more.

- - - -

Simon made a frustrated growl and plopped his ass onto the floor. He couldn't remember where Edith had taken the little ball from in order to return it there, but god damn it, it had come back, and he was fucking tired now.

- - - -

The ball, sharing his exhaustion… fell from him resting hand, limp and rolling along the floor until it came to a stop. Simon could almost feel the ball's frustration and exhaustion, as tired of this exercise regimen as he was.

- - - -

Oh, aw, that garnered some sympathy from him toward the little object. He called it back and held it in both hands, trying to share that feeling of shared accomplishment, too, with it.

"Hey, man, you did great. Thanks for working with me with all that crap."

- - - -

Edith sat down beside him, seemingly out of nowhere. "Once you get better at feeling things out through the aetherium, you'll be able to try finding the ball when it's nowhere nearby… and the next step after that is calling it to you through the space in between, the way I do with my clothes. But… I don't think you'd be able to do any of that outside the Imaginarium. After all…"

She looked around. "… this place is kind've like an emulator, letting us work through reality's settings. But outside, the Union's rules kick back in, in full. That's why we work in here, until a device is totally ready to be applied out there. You wanted to bring some Q gizmos in here to fix them up and work on them, but you said you were pretty sure that they'd somehow find out the Half House existed if you did that, and come deconstruct it or something."

- - - -

Simon nodded to her, still holding and looking at his little ball friend. "Yeah, probably. Unless we took it apart at home and removed anything they could use to track it, but, y'know, with that… aetherium?… the guys who made it can probably track its individual pieces, too. Any luck with that thing? What've we gotten to work outside, so far?"

- - - -

"Any luck with what thing? OH! The Hypno thing… I'm so sorry, I got distracted by the Digitracer. Outside? Well, we've got the MVD - the Mobile Vampire Detector, it's a handheld little version about the size of a keyfob. There's also the Death Ray, the Barrier Shield, Encrypto, and…. uh…. there was something else…. "

She looked off into the distance, absently.

"…. OH! Oh. Um…. yeah. The other thing. Don't worry about the other thing."

She waved her hand at him, all Jedi-like.

"There is no other thing."

- - - -

He frowned at her, totally not mind-tricked at all. "You mentioned it, now I gotta know what you're talking about."

He would ask about those other things after she spilled these metaphorical beans.

- - - -

She reddened a little. "Can't we just pretend you didn't hear that one? Oh! Where's your neuralizer?"

- - - -

He pressed the button on his glasses that made them into mirror-shades. "Nuh-uh. Come on. You can open up a little, and if you're blushing that much, I'm certain it's probably fine since you've been coming onto me since we got home."

- - - -

"Some things are private!"

- - - -

He snorted. "Eed, if you're my imaginary friend and we're in my imaginary mansion slash mad science lab, and it's all mine by rights, nothing is private here. Come onnnnnn."

Simon crossed his arms, still holding the little ball in one hand.

- - - -

Her face fell flat and she sighed. "Fine. But don't judge me."

She reached behind herself and held out her hand, which was now covered in a bright pink and purple wad of writhing tentacles with little ridges, the hues fading beautifully from one into the other and back. It uncoiled and one bright blue eye with an octopus-like figure '8' pupil opened sleepily. Upon seeing Simon, it tensed, shrieked like a horror movie scream queen and slapped him across the face with one of its tentacles, covering its writhing amorphic body mass with other tentacles, before trying to hurry back into Edith's hammerspace.

"He's sensitive."

- - - -

He was not prepared for the tiny tentacle monster, nor for being slapped in the face with one of its brightly-colored tentacles after it screamed at seeing him. He was definitely staring at it and now the situation was completely ridiculous.

Simon very quickly averted his gaze so that it didn't feel so… violated? Was it for violating Edith? He wouldn't have been surprised, though its- his- sensitivity was surprising. Simon now sported a tentacle-print red mark on his face.

"S-sorry, sorry, I have to admit I was not expecting a little tentacle monster! He is fine to exist outside??"

- - - -

She nodded. "His name is Kaiju II."

She blushed as she made sure the little monster was tucked away in the nowhere. "You tried to make one for Otome, but it didn't survive and it turned out that she has a tentacle phobia. But Kaiju I was able to divide and reproduce before dying, and Kaiju II survived. So, I adopted him."

- - - -

"Oh, shit, a phobia? I thought her mentioning her nightmare-version's lack of tentacles was like, a reference to her preference for hentai. I wonder what caused the phobia."

Once Kaiju II was away, he turned back to Edith.

"…Sorry about the first one. You guys… had a lot of little experiments die, huh? I don't… really think experimenting with life is generally a good idea, myself."

- - - -

"It wasn't about experimenting with life, that was just how we dug through the metaphorical code. Curing diseases, seeing which medical conditions are real and which ones have been created as byproducts of Consensual Science, seeing if humans can be made better by weeding out weaknesses that've been bred into them… you have to create life, to have life to study. Even the Vampire Detector required experimenting in the Genesis Lab."

- - - -

He nodded along, though did seem uncertain about one thing. "…Let's. Not do the eugenics experimenting anymore. If that's okay. I really feel like creating life only to give it diseases we wanna cure is extremely immoral."

- - - -

She looked at him in horror, "Who would do that!?"

- - - -

"…Was that not what you were just implying we were doing??"

- - - -

"No!! That's awful!! We didn't create Kaiju to make them sick! We didn't even grow a whole vampire just to tear out its heart! That's just cruel! You only grow the stuff you need, or lifeforms you think will be beneficial in some way! Like the Conductor Worm!"

- - - -

He gazed at her with alarm. "…Conductor worm?" He was thinking of MiB2's big worm.

- - - -

"Yeah. After a few too many accidents in the Voltaic Icosahedron, we designed and tinkered and when it was finally ready to be a stable lifeform, we used the Genesis Engine to create a little worm. It enters the body and feeds on your bioelectrical field, growing like a second nervous system all throughout the body. It takes days, and keeps you fatigued, but once fully grown, a healthy Conductor Worm is able to absorb and redirect otherwise dangerous amounts of electrical current through a human body without damaging tissue or jolting the system."

- - - -

"Ohhhh." He nodded to himself. "Okay, yeah, that sounds like a smart thing to have done. Kinda fucked up, given it's an organic parasite instead of like, some kind of wearable grounding apparatus or something, but still pretty smart. We could change the whole face of the electrician position."

"I thought you were talking about a parasite that controls people, or, like, the giant subway worm from Men in Black Two."

- - - -

She just looked at him. "He has a name. It's Geoffrey."

- - - -

He held his hands up in a mollifying gesture. "Right! I couldn't think of it right away, sorry, it's been years since I saw that movie."

- - - -

"And a wearable device has limits based on what the Union's done to material conductivity and dispersion tolerance. But an organism is limited only by its own biology. Why would we be making mind control worms down here? What kind of mad science do you think we were into?"

- - - -

He shrugged helplessly at her, eyes wide, tone defensive. "I don't know!! I have no idea what you guys were doing down here!"

- - - -

"'We' guys, Boybot. You and me. You'd never go for a mind control worm. Especially after seeing Star Trek II. The original, not the reboot franchise."

She leaned on his shoulder.

"Do you still wanna work on that Hypno-Helmet recalibration, or do you wanna break after learning how to contract spacial aether?"

- - - -

He considered for a second, lips pursing, gaze wandering around the room.

"…I do feel like I just completed a solo mathcounts competition when I was supposed to be part of a team."

Then leaned his head onto hers.

"And I'm not sure how to apply trauma therapy principles to a device I don't remember making in the first place. What do you think?"

- - - -

"I think we didn't build the Hypno-Helmet. We fixed it… but it was already down here when we found it. But, I get what you mean. I don't know anything about therapy stuff either… but does that matter? It's not much different than reversing the function of your Neuralizer, is it? Except that the Hypno-Helmet can do more than make people forget. And since hypnotherapy is already a thing that has been made part of their Consensus, we don't even have to rip out junk code…. just wire it into the helmet somehow."

- - - -

Simon considered her ideas further, nodding absently along. "That makes sense."

Leaning up off of her, Simon used the arm not under her head to turn himself and cradle Edith so that she didn't just fall over as he got up. "I think that settles it; how about we get working on that helmet? I don't wanna lose steam, you know?"

- - - -

She stood with him, using his arms as leverage. She still didn't weigh what a person should, even a shorter framed person like her, not by half or better.

"Steam isn't bad, but it's terrible for the environment, because of the coal and lumber and stuff. Carbon! That. Buuuuttt….. we were working on a Phlogiston Collector and an Aetheric Energy Converter, before you stoppe--…. oh, you mean like… right. Got it."

Edith took his hand and led him toward the HypnoDrome, which was apparently one of the chambers that branched off of the main lab via a corridor large enough to drive a … train… through.

- - - -

Simon looked at her curiously as she led him into this branch of the Imaginarium. "Phlogiston Collector? And Aetheric Energy Converter? So we were working on clean, efficient energy alternatives?"

He did note her continued lack of mass, but was caught up more with the energies Edith suggested than the continued problem of her existence.

- - - -

She nodded. "Some of our designs need more juice than conventional power can provide. Best solution? New power."

She gestured around the pipes and bundles cables that lined the wide and tall tunnel, whose metal grate flooring and general vibe made it seem like the interior of an oversized nuclear submarine.

"Their Consensus refuses to allow anything to run on Essence, sooo… gotta find alternative power sources. The world won't accept them, especially not as commercially viable alternatives… but we can use them."

She frowned. "Stupid Consensus."

- - - -

He patted her tugging hand with his, smiling in sympathy. "Yeah. Some of the restrictions on reality are stupid. I'm excited to see past them again."

Casting his eyes around, Simon found himself somewhat disliking the haphazardly-bundled cables and maze of pipes running around the place, and he frowned to himself. Couldn't they have kept things a little tidier? Or was the pursuit of progress more important than aesthetics, now? If he had cared enough, his room full of wires and cables and things would have, ideally, been streamlined and organized and had all of its cables at least carefully laid out to keep them out of the way, but, well, he hadn't cared enough to do all of that at the time. At least, not in the history he had in his head.

Maybe with a girl to impress with his work, this-him's formative years had been different… and certainly would've been happier.

- - - -

They entered the HypnoDome, a vast… well, dome… with a black and white spiral design that was a little disorienting, painted all across the wide ceiling. It didn't move, he didn't think, but it sure tricked the eye into seeing it move when he looked up at it, which threw the room into a slight tailspin.

All around were enormous tesla coils, electrodes… were those vacuum tubes?… control panels, various work stations… the air here smelled of burnt ozone.

Eed smiled apologetically, "Sorry for the mess, we had to store the Symphoniator in here, because it kept damaging things in the Voltaic Icosahedron. On the bright side, we can work to music, if you don't hold anything metal up too high!"

- - - -

The dizziness made Simon hold onto Edith a little tighter, forcing him to hold his attention on her rather than gazing at the ceiling for even a moment more else it might make him hurl. That concentration expressed itself as a very intense stare at the girl, eyebrows furrowed and mouth set into a hard line.

"Symphoniator? And you keep mentioning the icosahedron, what were we doing with that?"

- - - -

She nodded to his first question and gestured to the room at large. "I have Sweet Home Alabama programmed into it, still, if you want me to turn it on. The Voltaic Icosahedron is where most of the direct energy work gets done."

- - - -

He gazed at her. "…What is a Symphoniator? I mean, I'm not huge on that song, but if it's cool I'm not gonna say no."

- - - -

"It uses voltaic shock and plasma discharge, in phased bursts, to burn the air in ways that create music when set up in advance to fire at different phase frequencies and time intervals."

- - - -

That sounded like just enough plausible bullshit to work, so Simon shrugged permissively. "OK, sure, playing music with electricity, why not?"

And he sat through a demonstration of tesla coils playing "Sweet Home Alabama* through the room, loud enough to make his ears ring and definitely at a frequency that made his headache just the slightest bit worse. He winced on every low note, the buzzing of the electricity hitting a bad spot on his range of hearing, but, over all, was sincerely impressed by the performance.

"…Cool. What else do we have on this thing? Can you do a playlist of songs for it?"

- - - -

"We have over nine hundred songs programmed."

- - - -

"Then why is it not playing right now? Besides my headache."

- - - -

She grinned and went to one of the control stations and began punching in various songs and setting it to shuffle and run, as the room lit up with strobing blasts and strings of electricity in blue, purple, yellow, orange, green, and pink. When she returned, she came back with a gumball-looking thing.

"Chew on this and suck all the juice, until the whole thing is dissolved. Cures headaches and hangovers."

- - - -

That was sincerely impressive- more impressive than the tesla music, if he was honest with himself. Given his chronic migraines, he hoped they had a whole mess of these at home. Simon took the little ball and popped it right into his mouth, very much hoping it was well-flavored, too.

- - - -

It was like chewing on a Whopper, except instead of chocolate and malt, it was crunchy blue raspberry that slowly dissolved into chewy juicy bits.

Eed came back over to him with a large helmet that encompassed the whole head, and trailed spiraling cables from a big box unit on the back of it.

"We'll need to tune it to your current brainwaves before we can begin. I think. I don't actually know how this thing works, but it did help get rid of your lisp some, and it can make curly fries. So, I think we're good."

- - - -

The curly fries comment did dampen his enthusiasm a little bit.

"…But it's not gonna fry my brain like those fries, right?" He thought the Union helped him get rid of his lisp, but, well, who's to say what is and isn't from this crazytown science lab anymore? He took the helmet from her and looked it over, trying to gauge how it might be tuned and calibrated as he usually did: fiddling.

- - - -

"It shouldn't fry your brain. It never has before."

The interior of the helmet had a range of speakers and viewscreens, as well as ample cushioning. The exterior had little to work with. The box section on the back, though, had a veritable switchboard of tiny wires and plugs, going to and from different holes in a neat arrangement, as well as four dials and three toggles. It looked like he'd made tiny stickers with tinier writing, trying to label them - but some ended with question marks.

- - - -

That did not inspire confidence in the apparatus. Still, Simon took it over to some kind of seat and plonked it onto his head after sitting down, then gave Edith a double thumbs-up.

- - - -

He heard her put her goggles back on and felt her hooking numerous cables into the back of the helmet, and then the clicking of dials being turned as a low hum gradually grew in intensity, underneath the music happening overhead. And then, he heard Edith throw a loud, frankenstein-esque electrical lever as she screamed without warning, "FOR SCIENCE!!™️"

The inside of the helmet flared to life with violently bright polychromatic flashes of light and barely audible pulses of sound from all around his head, while also spraying him in the face with a fine strawberry-scented mist.

- - - -

The mist was definitely the most unexpected part of this experience, though the rest would've made a migraine instantly if he hadn't just had the little gumball that defeated his headache. Instead, it threw his sense of balance off entirely and made tingles run down his neck and spine from the sound waves, and basically blinded him with all of the flashing lights, while he mentally tried to weather the shock of sensory input and also the discomfort of being misted in the face for no good reason. Silently, Simon was grateful his glasses kept the helmet from just spritzing him directly in the eyes.

As it worked, he yelled to Edith (or thought he was yelling, was he yelling? Could she even hear him?), "Is it working? What's with the strawberry mist?!"

- - - -

His eyes were rapidly growing to sting, and then burn and felt as dry as sand. Blinking hurt.

"It's our not-legally-patented moisturizer to protect the eyes from the mimetic desiccation dangers!"

- - - -

"Oh!" He reached up to take his glasses off, then. Ow ow ow.

Except he couldn't get his hand into the helmet. Shit.

Simon scrunched his face around and tried to intentionally displace his glasses to get them out of the way of the scented mist. It mostly worked, to which his eyes were grateful.

- - - -

The mist helped immediately, just as his headache was gone and showed no sign of returning, despite him still having some medicine-ball still in his mouth (it lasted a little bit). It felt weird at first, but he quickly got used to it, just like he would have gotten used to walking through fog in a breeze.

The weirdness show continued on, surrounding him with increasingly aggressive and overt and wildly chaotic displays of intensity… and then the whole thing shut off with a loud 'thwack' noise, of … maybe a breaker getting tripped? He smelled smoke.

- - - -

He very quickly took the helmet off of his head, worried it might start an electrical fire or something. AC/DC zapped in the background.

- - - -

The smoke was coming from a small fire located at the rear of the helmet, but just as he noticed it - once the helmet was removed - he was hosed with a fire extinguisher that left him… cold and uncarbonated and smelling stale air with a bitter tinge.

"Sorry. I didn't know you were taking it off. I think it worked! One of the things in the back exploded a tiny bit and set fire to some stuff, and it tripped the circuit over there!"

She pointed excitedly to the wall, where the lever she'd thrown earlier was now broken and looked like it was also on fire a little.

"So now we just need to fine tune it and strap you back in, rev it up…. fix the wiring… and see what happens!"

- - - -

That was just the calibration process. Okay! Okay. At least he didn't have a headache, and his ears weren't pouring smoke, though the helmet being slightly on fire was not terribly encouraging, either. For Science!!™️…?

Simon actually opted to take his glasses off for this one, setting them on a table nearby. "Y'know, I think maybe we should cut the music so that you can listen for any like, warning noises. And I wish you had told me about the mist! My glasses totally got in the way."

Still, he turned the helmet around and examined the wiring, where it had shorted, and how he might be able to fix it, or even entirely prevent the short from happening again.

- - - -

Edith shrugged, "Who wears glasses inside a helmet? That one's on you, Boybot. And don't worry about the music, there's never any warning sounds for most of these things. The sound of progress is a lot like the sound of catastrophe… it just depends on where the fires break out and how bad they are."

When he got himself a better look at the burnt helmet's inner panel, he saw that one of the labeled stickers was lightly singed. It read, AUDIO REGULATOR B-3? and the fire seemed to have started there. The cable plugged into that port ran to another port that was labeled POWER SOURCE - CHANNEL 3.

As Simon scrutinized the connections in the adjacent spaces, he realized that 'Audio Regulator B-3' was definitely mislabeled. Audio regulators elsewhere were plugged into ports along the left hand side of the lower grid; this one was in the upper middle, where other power regulation ports seemed to be. So… one of the wires had been feeding energy from a regulator, into a regulator, and wasn't allocating that power to anything else, anywhere.

Further examination showed him that he had already sorted most of the switchboard's ports - and it looked like he had been able to refit the holes into new places in the grid so that it made more sense to him - and he was able to quickly rearrange several plugs in ways that he was pretty sure would set the machine to (1) not burst into flames this time, and (2) induce memory regression and recovery without any active participation from a second party… by giving it a list of questions to pose during regression and hooking that list into the secondary input port. He was pretty sure the primary input port just went to psychedelic bullshit recorded for playback inside the helmet.

It was… completely haphazard and improvised, and yet he felt fairly certain that it would work, based on what he'd seen.

Maybe this was what being crazy felt like… total certainty based on practically no information.

- - - -

Simon checked around him for a few label stickers and a pen to write on them with, so that he could re-label what he had just done and add some notes about the primary input port's recording. Then all he had to do was come up with the questions to put into the secondary port…

"OK, Eed, I think I've got what we need to do here- follow me on this. We should give the helmet some questions to pose during the process, through the secondary input port, that should induce the regression and recovery of my memories without you needing to do much of anything."

During the explanation he pointed at the secondary input port, now newly labeled.

- - - -

"Then who's going to ask the questions?"

- - - -

"…Probably the screens and audio through subliminal messages or something, based on what we write in a program we have the helmet run?"

He raised one eyebrow at her.

"I dunno, man, this is all improv, you know that."

- - - -

"We don't know the OS the helmet runs on, or even if it uses modern programming concepts. It seems to be purely mechanical, like… like analog tech. No digitals. If you write the list down, I could plug a microphone into that port and read off the questions every so many minutes, so you hear it while you're under? Or we could pre-record the questions and plug the cassette deck into the input and hit play? We have options, I guess, is what I'm saying. I was going to plug the Opticon into the helmet's output and record whatever you experience, for later review, too - just to see if maybe it helps you make sense of things more, or maybe like if you don't remember what you remembered, because you were under at the time. I dunno… just seems like we should come at this a few different ways, to be on the safe side."

She gave him a slight hug. "Science wouldn't be science if it worked exactly the same time, every single time, would it? No, then it'd just be…. I dunno, facts or something. There's gotta be some risk and some doubts and some kind of chaos element for it to be real science."

- - - -

He chuckled at patted her between the shoulder blades, then gave a slight squeeze. "Right. Sure. Whatever fucked up, crazy take on things makes you possible, I'm all for it."

"The problem is, I have no idea what sorts of questions should be asked to kick my brain back into its previous gears. Do you have any ideas about that?"

- - - -

She pursed her lips and hopped up on a worktable, wiggling numerous gears and small tools away from the spot with her butt.

"I don't know therapy stuff. I'd say we could google it, but there's no internet down here. We still have the Society of Oracles and Scholars - or the SOS for short - that people turn to for answers in times of need… but I wasn't going to throw you that far down the rabbit hole, this soon."

- - - -

Simon nodded, setting the helmet down into his lap. "Or… Maybe we go find a book in that enormous library wing?"

- - - -

"Oh, I mean… maybe? Most of those books aren't for anything so… mainstream. They cover lore of other dimensions, astral physics, demiplane navigation and creating worlds, portal construction, dreamscapes, Otherworlds, dragons, stuff like that."

- - - -

He blinked at her, eyes owlish. "…Oh." And then waved his hand dismissively. "Well, pssshh, of course all that exists to be researched down here, I mean, that's super important shit to our SCIENCE!!™️, but it kind of sucks that it isn't a universal library where we could look up anything." It was definitely a little sarcastic, but the sentiment was genuine.

"If that's not an option, then I guess the SOS is what we should consult… Or we should go upstairs or outside to ask the internet."

- - - -

"That depends on whether or not you're ready to board the train and make the short trip into another world, to ask a question. If you'd rather go upstairs, I'd understand completely, and will happily wait here while you Google. Just pull out your phone, hit the multicolor 'G' icon and type your question. And the internet will answer. Just avoid results that say sponsored, or ad… they have laws requiring that, now."

"If we take the train, we'll both need to change clothes. I can't go home looking like this, everyone would stare at me funny."

- - - -

FANTASY RACISM WARNING.

- - - -

"……." Simon stared at Edith for a long second.

"So you're a fucking extradimensional being?!"

- - - -

"Not exactly, no. Just because it's another world, doesn't mean it's another planet or another dimension. I keep telling you, I'm Imaginary. I don't understand what's so hard about that."

- - - -

He frowned. He thought he had figured it out! He thought he had finally found an explanation for The Girl Nobody Could See But Him. Alas, she continued to confound him, and that was also frustrating.

"Sorry. I don't- imaginary people were not on my radar until I met you, so I'm just. I guess not understanding how you're so…" Simon gestured to All of her. "Crazy and your own person and possibly my completely made-up girlfriend and--"

He stopped himself, covering his face with his hands. "God damn it."

"Imagi Nations. You're. You're literally a person from the realm of imagination. You're not- I dunno why you attached to me as my imaginary friend, but like, you are a "real" person in the person sense- you're just not from this reality and your native laws work way different? Like a fucking Toon?"

- - - -

She frowned in return, her frown turning into an angry scowl at the end as she hopped off the table and leaned over to look him in the eyes from her mere five feet in height (give or take, it was hard to tell) while he sat on the testing chair, lifting a hand part way and pointing it upward under his chin.

"Did you just call me a fucking Toon, you self-righteous, racist, rigid-minded Meat Sock!?"

- - - -

Simon's eyes went owlish over his fingers for a totally different reason this time, and he physically shrank into the chair, giving her the upper hand in the power dynamic of the conversation.

His voice was small and aghast.

"oh shit that was racist??"

- - - -

"Simon, you just told an imaginary girl that she was--"

She held up a finger for each thing he'd said, counting them off with her other hand as she spoke.

"--a quote 'fucking extradimensional being', crazy, 'My Own Person' - real nice, by the way, very self-centered and invalidating of my right to exist without you - made-up, for fuck sake, a real person…. and a FUCKING TOON!!!"

She slapped him hard across the face.

"You…. you….." she seemed at a loss for something vile enough to call him, in her moment of anger, before she found the perfect insult to hit him with for his sudden onslaught of specist rhetoric.

"You Human."

She fumed, arms crossed.

- - - -

It may not have had the same impact that she was expecting, but the slap was unexpected and did hurt his feelings more than just being called "human" did. He had basically been human his whole life, and all of her Imaginary shenanigans had been stretching the bounds of his idea of what was possible, hardcore. Basically this whole time Simon had been staving off some kind of nervous breakdown by just moving forward like he had agreed he would earlier.

He turned back to her, holding his bright red cheek tenderly, eyes a little wet from the sting, and squashed down any guy-feelings about being hit that would have made him yell back, hit back, get angry, anything that wasn't the sincerely horribly guilty and apologetic he knew he needed to be, instead. Simon tossed the helmet to the floor and slipped out of the chair to stand on his knees in front of Edith, hands clasped in a gesture of pleading.

"Holy shit, Edith, I am so fucking sorry," he started, looking up at her. "I didn't- I wasn't meaning to be racist, or invalidate your individuality, and I am so, so fucking sorry that I was anyway. I didn't know that language was so fucking awful, and I won't say it again, I promise, I am so fucking sorry, Edith."

- - - -

She looked down at him, confused as hell, but also touched. She'd clearly never expected him to take the argument this direction. After a huffy moment, sentimentality won out and she sighed and helped him stand.

"Okay…. fine…. I guess. Apology accepted." She sounded like she was really trying to let it go. He could tell that they'd had this fight before, from her reaction, and that she wasn't used to it going like this.

"Um… so… I don't remember what we were talking about."

- - - -

FANTASY RACISM SCENE OVER.

- - - -

He gave her an enormous hug as a "thank you" without actually saying the phrase, because he knew that was not appropriate when you had just hurt someone so profoundly, but trying to comfort them at least helped, right?

"When I remember what it all is, I am so treating you to all of your favorite stuff. But, uh-" he let her go and held her shoulders, "We were gonna go to the SOS and ask about restorative hypnotherapy? I actually wanna go now and see what it's like, now that I get it, and asking the internet would be the boring solution."

- - - -

She looked him up and down, as if re-evaluating him somewhat. "You… cannot… be all stiff-brained and uptight and… that stuff you just did…. if we go. You know that. Right?"

- - - -

He nodded enthusiastically. "No, yep, no, I get it, not doing that anymore and if I do please slap me again."

To be entirely truthful, understanding what Edith was and how she worked as an entity was a relief to Simon's mind, rather than a strain- of course this imaginary space is Real, of course this imaginary girl is Real, why shouldn't they be? Just because they worked on different principles than his idea of Real, it didn't make them any less so, he just had to operate under the assumption that it all was a "reality" with different rules to it. Like the Web, or a waking dream, or Seeing monsters in the way Hunters did. Working on a level that was not a Human one. Totally reasonable. If she knew how he was wording this in his head, he would probably have the daylights slapped out of him.

Simon smiled nervously at her. "Please."

- - - -

HERE'S ANOTHER TONE SHIFT.

(( mentions of parenthood moving forward. ))

- - - -

She nodded, seemingly satisfied, and pulled a little whistle rod from her pocket and gave it a blow - making the loud sound of a steam whistle, that silenced the electrical music playing around them. He heard the locomotive start its own engine down the large hall and the wheels and their pistons begin to turn as it tried to come toward the whistle's call.

"We'll change once we're aboard the Prismaticka."

The steam engine - only a single locomotive engine of exceptional size, since it also seemed to contain living space and such... like a steam engine locomotive that was also a road RV - came chugging slowly into view, spewing multicolored water vapor out of its smokestacks and rainbow sparkles as sparks from its wheels and gears.

- - - -

Simon was infinitely enthused by the train's fantastical exhaust and rail sparks, and Edith saw his face light up. "Oh, shit, that's fun," he had a smile in his tone. "Can't wait to remember how to call for my own clothes, though- what do we have on the train? Er, Prismaticka?"

He held one of her hands in his, and squeezed it gently.

- - - -

"We lived on board for a year and a day, while we traveled across a handful of years and lived as basically husband and wife. When we returned, only a day had passed, just like I'd promised. Uh… speaking of which… do you like kids?"

The locomotive came to a halt in front of them and its door slid open, folding in half as stairs unfolded down and locked into place for them.

- - - -

His eyebrows raised into his hairline. "Jesus Christ it's a Doctor Who time-train," he mumbled to himself, before she got to the 'kids' part, which had him pale spectacularly.

"…Kids?" Oh, despair. He could not tell Otome if he and Edith had kids.

- - - -

"Yeah. Do you like them? Or no?"

She grabbed the handrail and hopped up onto the first step, before climbing the steps and going aboard.

- - - -

The memories of ghost-pale kids with sharp teeth and black eyes jutted into the forefront of his mind; Simon tried to shake them away and remind himself that was likely not real. He hoped those weren't part of this Consensus… everything they dealt with was. A Lot.

But normal kids? Simon considered, while he climbed up behind Edith. "Uh, well, it turns out I can kinda get petulant back at them if they're being snotheads," he confessed, remembering the Peter Pan-esque adventure he and Madison had been on, "But in concept, they're fine? Do we have kids, Edith?"

- - - -

She hesitated before answering, quietly. "Only a couple."

And then hurried past the driver's compartment, which had no one in it. The interior styling was nearly identical to the wooden finery of the airship he'd seen. Every window was circular and stained glass, and the doors were wooden with stained glass interiors, that folded in half when slid to the side. Nice crimson carpeting laid along the walkways of the floor, while powerfully blue carpeting laid directly overhead of those paths, from which tiny chandeliers hung and lit the way in scintillating tinted colors.

"The wardrobe is back here in the master bedroom!" she called from down the hall. He passed a short staircase upward on his right and another directly opposite it going downward on the left, that looped around to keep going up or down respectively. She was in the space beyond, straight ahead, through another set of doors.

- - - -

Simon followed Edith, totally quiet. Oh. They did have kids. And she still let him have a girlfriend?

He couldn't get over the fact that he had kids. What the fuck. He hoped he had been a good dad. He also wondered where the hell the kids were. Part of him wondered what the kids were.

The space of this train was frankly ridiculous, having two more levels at least and this many rooms for each… he decided not to pay much mind to that, as it was Imaginary and didn't have to fit inside the façade of the train it was in, instead following Edith into the master bedroom.

- - - -

The 'master bedroom' was a suite in various wooden hues with a red floor and a blue ceiling, luxurious furniture and many color-tinted mirrors and stained glass windows, in a circular floorplan. On the wall hung a beautifully painted portrait of a family crest… a clockwork gear that was red on the right, blue on the left, steel along the outer edges and digital pixel-fade toward the center where it faded into nothing. The gear served as the circular frame inside of which was a vibrantly rainbow hued butterfly whose body was actually a collage of super tiny paintings that blended together to create an overall rainbow hue effect, while the wings were stained glass.

It was their crest.

She was already dressed in vibrantly colored, overly elaborate and mildly-steampunky Victorian elegance. Her hair was a series of coiled curls and a woven loop in the back, ears and neck adorned in tasteful jewels and gold, while her flowing gown and buttoned collar with its tied bow were hues of blue and red, violet and pink, with the faintest hints of outlying green or yellow here and there.

She held out a bright, vivid blue hat with a stark red satin band around the base of it.

"Your city wear, Mr. Gemini."

- - - -

Her dress was stunning. The room was stunning. The entire space had an elegance to it that really married their styles well; was she some kind of nobility where she was from? Simon took the hat, absentmindedly, preoccupied with all of the detail in Edith's clothing, and then came back to himself with a realization: "Ah, shit, my glasses are on the table--" he set the hat down and made to leave the room, then stopped himself. Maybe he could…?

Simon tried to pull his glasses into his hand, knowing their weight and feeling by heart given he had worn them all of his remembered life, without pulling the air around them- rather, he wanted the space they occupied to be in his hand, instead of on the table. He hadn't tried this yet, so he wasn't sure if it would work, but maybe if he just tried to feel it hard enough…

- - - -

A different pair of glasses appeared in his hands, answering his summons. They felt… somehow more familiar in his hand. They carried the same style as everything around him, each lens colored to match his eyes, and the frames were delicately etched with tiny artworks of pixellation, gears, and even some super-tiny binary code engraved in gold along the hinges. It read GEMINI.

"The hat will dress you. When… um, when you're ready."

She blushed a little and turned to sit ladylike on the edge of their enormous bed as the train began to move again.

- - - -

Hell yeah he did it!!! Simon pumped the other fist in silent celebration, even if it wasn't the exact pair of glasses he had been looking for. He then turned back to Edith, grinning, and took the hat back up.

"I kinda figured, when you just handed the hat to me," it was his turn for a sailor senshi transformation! He put on the hat after rolling it along his arm (a trick he had picked up for fun since it seemed cool as hell), holding it by the tips of his fingers gently on the top.

- - - -

The hat sent a ripple throughout Simon's body; his clothing was blasted away in a cascade of red and blue beams, before new, elegant, Victorian-styled attire befitting a gentleman with title and holdings of the era, slid across his body in scintillating pixel crawl at high speed. As the glow of his naked flesh died down, the transformation left him clad in stark white and black, gold and silver, one cufflink a ruby and the other a sapphire, his beautiful, tinted, round-framed spectacles sitting gracefully on the bridge of his nose and his top hat having turned from red and blue to black and white.

- - - -

He did a little twirl and then bowed to Edith, one leg crossed over the other and left hand sweeping his hat off to hold it in proper fashion. The other hand was held gracefully behind his back.

When Simon came back up, he was beaming. "This doesn't match your dress by a long shot, but it's still really spectacular. Did we design these ourselves?" He settled the hat back on top of his head.

- - - -

"We had them made by a specialist. He felt it fit our family dynamic best to have one of us wearing one set of our stark contrasts while the other one wore the other set."

She smiled softly and joyously from her seat.

"You look quite dashing, Mr. Gemini. I… I'm sorry about… I know this will be a lot for you, going back now, the way you are. There's so much you won't be ready for. I suppose it won't be as happy a reunion for you as it will for the others. But, we can at least consult the SOS and make sure that your memory restoration is free from glitches or complications."

- - - -

Her speech was suddenly far more demure and eloquent- Simon supposed it was probably her preparing to go home and getting into a suitable mindset. The outfit did make him want to be a little more polite, though, too. He came over and sat next to the girl- his wife, actually (still wasn't over how incredible that was)- and rested a hand on her thigh, over her dress.

"It's alright. I opted for this, didn't I? Whatever happens, at least I'll have you there to bolster me." His hand pressed gently down, in a way he hoped was comforting.

- - - -

She gazed up at him, much more openly in love than she normally let herself seem and laid her hand lightly upon his.

"Not just me. I may be the one who found you and stayed with you, but… there is the matter of my… sister."

- - - -

His eyes widened in alarm. "…You have a sister?!" Not that it was a problem, but, he had not been expecting that. Why hadn't he been expecting that? He had a brother, and she seemed to have a lot in common with him.

- - - -

"We're half sisters. I found you, but… earlier on, you two… got along better. I was pretty jealous at the time. She seemed like she was so much better for you than I was. I mean, I'm just an Imagen, very rustic by comparison… but Chip is a Cypherian, so much more sophisticated and advanced in their ways… and so much more forward and bold in their attitudes. And you did so adore Cypher, as opposed to Imago."

- - - -

Those were definitely the names of places and the people from them, but he had no idea what they were actually referring to, and thus just blinked owlishly at her and tilted his head (only slightly, so his hat didn't fall off) like a dog who was trying to find the source of a sound.

- - - -

Edith smiled.

"Imago is what you would consider an Antiquarian culture, whose sciences and technology are befitting a bygone era, but are fueled by a more free-thinking approach to innovation and industry. Cypher is a realm of lights and dark places, where everything works and moves very quickly and life is fast and dangerous. Like your cyberpunk fictions. Chip's father was a Set. I think his name was Ram or Rom?… My father was a Gemini. But very few Sets attended the dual wedding. It was a sad moment for poor Chip, but she understood. Most Cypherians don't find Imago to be a very suitable place for… much of anything, really. And they believe our social ceremonies are much too long. They'd rather hold marriages over a video conference, so nobody has to stop what they're doing, to attend."

- - - -

One eyebrow raised, and he frowned, gently. "Oh. That's a shame. What's a Set, and a Gemini? Am I a Gemini? Your- wait, I'm married to both of you? Or did your mom marry two men? Or both??"

- - - -

"Well, our mother did marry both of our fathers, yes… but yes, you did marry us both, in a beautiful dual ceremony. We're twins, you see, we were both conceived during the same… uhm… evening. The Geminis and the Sets are both very respected Kin Houses. And since our mother was a Libra, it made perfect sense for her to have two husbands, one for each aspect of her sensibilities. My father, the erudite and cultured gentleman of refined tastes and eloquence, and Chip's father, the fun loving, brash, bold, spontaneous adventurer of an exotic domain."

- - - -

He nodded. At least that was understandable. "…Right. Let's get my memory back before I say something really insensitive about all of this by accident, hm?" He leaned his head against hers, turning to breathe in the scent of her and give the top of her head a little kiss.

"At least I know you stayed with me, and Chip didn't. I guess she had more important things to be doing than hanging out in my reality."

- - - -

"Chip was undecided on the matter, at first. I found you first and that meant you belonged to me… but I knew you were more her type, back then, and I was willing to share. And it went really well for awhile… but the Digital Realm - the Web - in your world was just too dangerous. That was why we spent a year and a day roaming the worlds, after the wedding… trying to find a way to undo the WhiteOut threat, so we could all live together. But… we never found a way. It was just too deeply ingrained into your reality and affected too many parts of what she'd be doing. So, she stayed behind, in Cypher, with Simon II. Taylor wanted to live in Imago with Simone and Edward. But we returned to Earth."

"And then, a while later… you met Otome."

Edith kissed his cheek.

- - - -

He blinked owlishly again. "…Me and Chip have kids too? Christ, I need to keep condoms around." That was a phrase he never thought he would have to say. And he didn't even know what Chip had been doing in the Web. And he realized he had married these girls early, before he met any Earth girls he would click with at all. Was that sad? He decided that was a little sad.

Given a couple of the kids's names, Simon still wasn't that creative with names, apparently. "Why did the kids stay in Imago, and not come with us? They could fill out Half House, couldn't they? …Was Half House your dad's before it was mi- ours? I mean, it's all Victorian Steampunk, and that… isn't really my jive, as much as it seems like it's the Imago aesthetic."

- - - -

She lowered her gaze a little. "You… weren't ready to raise children on Earth. Too expensive, you said. And you were probably right. Besides, the Gemini have always had nannies and house servants raise the children and they spend a lot of time in school. They'd be about the right age though, to start spending time with us, if you wanted to bring them home? Well, the three we can pick up, anyway. We can go to Cypher while we're traveling, if you'd like, too? You can meet Chip and Simon II all over again. Maybe she knows more about recovery from bad implants, now that I think of it…"

- - - -

She didn't answer his question about the House, but that was fine. "…Mmm. I feel like that'd get complicated, trying to hide them, and our life with them, from Otome. Unless you finally let her in on," he waved his hand around, "this. Which didn't seem like it was going to go well."

"And, I'm not totally sure I'm comfortable having Mister Gearwhistle raise our kids while we're busy with other stuff? I'd rather we have a more personal role in their lives, if you're alright with that- it just seems. Really impersonal, and a good way to get them to resent us."

"…How long ago did all this happen?"

- - - -

"The last time I tried to include her more in our lives, she thought I'd become some kind of poltergeist manifesting your insecurities about your relationship with her into a weird psychic phenomenon. You have to remember, m'Lord, she knows just enough to make some very wild guesses and consider them utterly possible, but not enough to know when she's being irrational about them."

"Mr Gearwhistle would never raise our kids! He's a butler, not a nanny! Besides, they're practically grown now. And they've never been to the Real World, but they keep asking to go. Um… which 'all of this' are you referring to? We've had a busy life."

He noticed bright light coming in through the stained glass windows around them. They were outside, somewhere. Somewhere silvery-white, from the look of the gleam through the stained glass. He didn't see any other colors or details moving by though, just light.

- - - -

It was probably some space-between-realities they were moving through, like the inside of a wormhole, or the time between selecting a hotlink and actually popping into the space it linked to. Like a loading zone. Simon didn't pay the lack of color much more mind.

"I- well, I guess if they keep asking t'go…" he was visibly uncomfortable at being called "M'Lord", and generally with her suddenly extremely polite mannerisms, charming as they were. The M'Lord really struck him with just how formal Edith's speech had turned, though. "But, I uh, I meant… the wedding, and the kids, since, if they're grown now, but we've only known each other a little over a decade, time must be pretty dilated between worlds…"

- - - -

"Time doesn't dilate, that's a Humanism. It's just different, in different places, at different times. Like how some days take forever to end and others zip past too soon. Clocks measure time out by their pre-approved portions and keep track of those portions, but the rate at which they actually occur is highly variable. The machine is a machine and doesn't experience time the way self-aware beings do, so it just ticks away… but to the person watching that clock, time only passes at the same speed for the person and for the clock, while the person is watching and counting along with it. Once they stop paying attention, time changes again."

She shook her head. "Time is really no reliable measure of how long something is anyway. But they're all well into their teens now. Practically young men and women! And we've visited them several times, each year. They know about your accident, don't worry. They'll just be glad you're okay!"

- - - -

Well. That did make a bit of sense, he had to admit, and just nodded as confirmation of that, to Edith.

"…Right. Well, at least we visit them semi-regularly, and they know I have no idea who they are or how… well, maybe they don't know I can't remember our life, but at least they know something went really, very wrong with my brain and I'm gonna be weird because of it. Weirder? Weirder."

- - - -

She glanced at the windows. "Would it be alright if I opened a window? I always love this part of the journey home."

"Would you like to know anything about your children, or just… be surprised? You go back and forth between asking many questions and asking none, so I can't tell."

- - - -

Simon raised an eyebrow at her. "Well, yeah, of course you can open a window. Is it not just, like, featureless white, outside?" He helped her stand from the bed, if she so desired, intending to follow her to the window to look out at their surroundings once he had a clearer view. "I mean… I have no idea what to ask. What are they like, I guess? Who takes after who? Did we want kids, or were they… y'know, an acci- well, a happy accident?"

- - - -

"Very happy accidents, as I recall your cries of passion, my darling."

She smiled back at him over her shoulders when they'd reached the window, before unlatching it and swinging the two curving halves open, outward. A sweet breeze blew inside the cabin, smelling of spring rains, winter snows, wildflowers, and fresh cheese. Beneath the Prismaticka locomotive was a railway track made of mirrored crystal and glass, with supports and railings that ran into the infinite universe below as the train made its way through its own prismatic vapor trails across the expanse of the solar system. Earth loomed large at one end of the winding trackway which followed no clear path through its own maze of scaffolding, each strut reflecting the lights of moons and stars and cities. They were near enough that Simon could clearly make out the whole of Australia as the planet spun slowly beneath them, and the movement of the clouds and the waves of the seas. Far too near was Luna, bright white and pock-marked with her shadows and craters, her dark side glittering with the lights of megacities unseen by human eyes. Only just beyond the moon were the enormous asteroids that spun and drifted lazily yet beautifully, a ballet of stone in the dark velvet of space, lit only by the delighted faces of billions of twinkling stars that collected themselves into the vibrant ribbon of the Milky Way in the furthest distance - clear and bright and vivid in its splendorous colors to Simon's eyes. Giving silhouette to the wafting ocean of drifting solar rock was the great red eye of Mars, watchful and judging, unwilling to offer gentle approval of anything it beheld. But behind him was Jupiter, off to one side of the Red Planet with her wife Saturn, her rings' scintillating hues glistening in the reflections of the unseen Sun.

Edith leaned her elbows on the windowsill and rested her chin on her folded hands, gazing out upon the Solar System That Could Not Be. "Isn't it lovely?"

- - - -

And it Sure Fucking Was, wasn't it? Mars wasn't that close, by any estimation of human observation, nor were Saturn or Jupiter- and he didn't see Venus or Mercury on this side of the train at all, though, given their position relative to Earth, it was likely that didn't matter one wit to where they actually were out in all of this vast insanity. Simon marveled for a while, stunned into silence at the sight, taking in perceptible Truths that Could Not Be if he held on to Human ideas of what Was and what Wasn't.

It seemed he really couldn't do that anymore if he wanted to have any chance of holding onto any semblance of rationality, not that he had a firm grasp on that when he came-to in the hospital this morning.

His hand came to rest on Edith's back, both to share the moment and to ground himself a little bit, nearly dizzy from the vastness of the space before him. He completely forgot what the subject of their conversation had been.

- - - -

They gazed together, quietly and with awe, at the view of the cosmos as the train whisked along its path at speeds that could not be reached through bodies that were much too close together, along a track that may not have ever existed… only when the silvery glow of the moon's bright side had finally passed and the lands far below were the towering starscrapers of vast mega-metropoli lit by neon that shone upon roads that looked like the fine strands of complex circuitry from high above, and the horizon loomed angry and red under the light of Mars, did she finally close the window. The scent of cheese and wildflowers had become one of cigarettes and bourbon, the smell of rain and snow remained but had been joined by the tinge of unhealthy city air.

She lit a blue raspberry candle to brighten the scent in the room, with a wooden match, and retook her seat upon their bed.

"All of your children are roughly the same age - two sets of twins, one from myself and one from my half-sister. We didn't even know that Imaginary women could take child from a Human, but… well, the honeymoons proved that theory wrong."

She offered a loving smile.

"Our children are Simone and Edward. She's the older by a few seconds and is still in that rough period of needing to prove herself to everyone… including herself. She's always been a bit bossy toward her brother, but she looks out for him as well. She, of course, refuses to accept a woman's life in Imago, just like I did. She wears the pants, between them. Edward prefers skirts and the clothing of young ladies, though never to excess. Timid and shy, he's a very sensitive and loving boy with a big heart, who will find a wonderful husband or wife to care for him someday. Where Simone refuses to accept her assigned gender, Edward often asks what it's like to be a woman, and prefers domestic affairs and hobbies, in contrast to his sister's rambunctious adventures. Taylor is your daughter by way of Chip, and she's as adventurous as Simone, and as kind and gentle-hearted as Edward. Her brother Simon II is more reclusive and introverted, preferring the anonymity of Cypherian schools and online organizations to actual in-person friendships."

- - - -

Blue Raspberry seemed to be a theme with their miscellaneous items, he noted, as he came back to ground from the lofty sights of the passing system. He didn't mind the smells of cigarettes, bourbon, or City; they reminded him of Noir media, of the more mundane, gritty cyberpunks that came around after Bladerunner, and that movie's entire aesthetic. It reminded him of the kind of person he on-and-off wanted to be: a gritty, skilled, tough fighter with a soft spot in his heart hardened by lead, alcohol, and grief. He was also grateful that wasn't his life, though, as it seemed like a hard one and Simon didn't really believe he was cut out for that sort of suffering.

Once Edith smiled at him, Simon took his seat beside her, resting his hand once again on the small of her back and listening quietly until she took a pause.

"…Simon II reminds me of myself when I was- in the sim, when I was growing up, and in-person interactions were complicated and I felt like nobody in the world liked or understood me. Taylor, though, is kind of like if my brother- if he even exists- were kind instead of nice. He was definitely the more adventurous of us, and outgoing, and he could find a friend or asset pretty much anywhere he went; I was jealous of him a lot." He stared into the middle-distance toward the door out of the room, watching snippets of made-up memories that felt real as she did beneath his hand. "…My whole family, on my dad's side, we always ended up with twins; I never knew my uncle, or aunt maybe, but I'm sure Dad misses them. It's too bad Sie' doesn't want to come see Earth with Taylor… I'm sure she'll miss him, too."

- - - -

"Her brother is the only one who has seen Earth. He watches, through the Digital Web… despite the dangers."

She sighed softly. "He just can't seem to pry himself away from the Virtuality."

Edith laid her head on his shoulder.

"Sometimes I wonder what it must be like for you. Shackled to a world you can't change, desperate to fix it like it were one of your inventions, or a program that needed troubleshooting. Having to live in a place that never quite feels like home… but never having anywhere that ever really does. I've done my best to be there for you, to be by your side, always… but you still seem so alone sometimes, all up there in your own head."

- - - -

Simon nodded to himself; that made sense, too, for Sie to go out of his way to watch the world he couldn't be part of, even or especially if it was dangerous for him. That self-destructive and isolation-reinforcing behavior was one Simon himself was very familiar with; it was why he really, deeply hated romantic movies of most kinds, before. He would have to take Edith up on the offer to visit Cypher, so that he could at least commiserate with Sie, if not ask Chip about malfunctioning implants and their interactions with devices that could simulate the experience of an entirely different life.

He rubbed Edith's back in a way he hoped would come off as reassuring. "…I can certainly say that without you, it was a totally different kind of painfully lonely. I think having you in my life really influenced it, and me, for the better, even if sometimes being in-between everything still gets to me and feels like too much to handle. You're probably the best thing that ever happened to me, Eed."

- - - -

She smiled up at him and kissed his chin. "That part goes without saying, Sir Boybot."

She sighed happily at the little backrubs. "If you go to see Chip, let her know that I still miss her, please? And try not to get shot too many times, this time?"

- - - -

He grinned back at her, and leaned down to actually plant a kiss to her lips, chaste and quick. "You don't at least wanna come with? We can do the TRON-suit thing, like the poster on your door!"

- - - -

She gave a light laugh and shook her head. "I wish! No, I'm afraid I… I just can't. Not after what happened. i know you don't remember, but… I can't risk returning to Cypher. There's too much that could go wrong. I miss my sister, but… it's safer this way, for all of us."

- - - -

Simon tilted his head at her, then decided, "…I won't ask. You don't have to relive the memory if it's bad enough you can't go back- I'll remember when I get my head on straight."

Finally, he looked at the window they had recently left, trying to gauge where they were by the color of light outside. "And… how much longer 'til we get to Imago?"

- - - -

"Just as soon as you wake up, my darling husband."

END SCENE

[dyadhogs]

sonic thought that maybe yagi would know a little of what to expect from tails then if they had a friend in a similar vein. the fox was friendly, there was no doubt about that, but honestly quirky was a good way to describe tails at times. not that the rest of the hedgehog's friends didn't have their odd moments. he guessed that was why they all got along so well. they didn't really judge one another, knew what each other was really like and that they all had a good head on their shoulders and even bigger hearts.

cheesy, but it was all true.

he still looked puzzled, however, as the other tried to rephrase what they were getting at. luckily it didn't take that long for realization to hit him and he let his mouth form a little 'o' shape as it did. ❝ oh yeah, we all have those. well...except for our friend sticks. she's just a feral badger, pretty sure she was born that way or something. ❞

not exactly the point, sonic knew, but he was starting to get the feeling he was going to have to give the other a quick run down of how things worked. not unexpected but still a first for the speedster. clearly things varied a bit from here to the other's world. and by a bit, he meant a lot. though it seemed they had a similar base to go off of.

❝ nah, we look like this because, strictly speaking, we are animals. just a little more evolved than the ones you see running around in the jungle, ❞ actually it was a lot more evolved given what he was going to say next but he wasn't trying to be overwhelming. just factual. ❝ we aren't human, never have been, things just took a turn somewhere on the progression of life and we came around. most of us have natural powers of some kind though. like my super speed or my friends' strength. pretty sure tails' smarts is all natural though. ❞

it was just a guess but it could be true for all he knew.

❝ but, yeah, sonic is my real name. never really had to use a secret identity or anything, though that would be kinda cool. but i'm not that kind of hero. never thought i'd be in these shoes in the first place, but i guess that's life for you. ❞

Peace...it was a good thing- the one thing Toshinori strove for- but he didn't crave a momentary relief. No, he wanted something far more permanent- not that his current state would let him achieve that. He nodded, though the frown on his face remained. No one should have to fight villains. No one in the world...should have to suffer. No one- on any world, actually.

"Sounds like the inventor type, alright." Best to move on to other things- things that made him smile. Best not to ruminate on what he couldn't change. "My friend David is quite similar." He could all but see where the miscommunication had occurred- this world didn't have Quirks. Or rather,...they probably called them by another name. What was it they were called, in those comics he read as a kid?...the comics from way before the appearance of such things- back when such abilities were mere fairytales... "I- didn't mean 'quirky'. You see- where I'm from, super powers are called 'Quirks'."

The tall human was quick- or rather, slow- to follow, wary of the vast difference in the two's strides. Sonic- undoubtedly, another Hero name- but why the 'hedgehog' part? Part of his---...Anthro? Clearly not?--- So...those who had animalistic appearances here,...they weren't heteromorphs?

"Actually,...it's not so clear to me. Among Quirks, there are those that result in animal attributes- so I have some friends who look similar- or borderline identical- to yourself, or like a walking cat, or other similar things...such Quirks are generally labeled as 'heteromorphic'...though, I will do my best to remember that there's a difference, here." It really didn't feel like it to him, but. It wasn't his world- so it wasn't his place. "If Quirks don't exist here...then may I ask- is 'Sonic' your real name? You don't have to answer, if you're trying to hide some other identity or something. I've just never met anyone with such a unique non-Hero or villain name." There was little he could do, really. He was floundering for information- any step could undoubtedly result in more miscommunication- but there was little to be done to correct it.

At the very least, he had no intent to treat Sonic like some animal- which some deranged people did for the more 'animalistic' heteromorphs. They were still sentient- as Sonic clearly seemed to be. Besides- where would Yagi be if he didn't show the other some level of respect? He was, after all, a visitor to a strange place.

[hajihiko]

Ok first off I love you and your opinions are 100% valid BUT I've been thinking for a while and I disagree about hajime and nagito clashing once Nagito wakes up. And this isn't a shipping thing I just want them to be friends. They had some sort of vibe in chapter 1 enough for Hajime to feel betrayed by Nagito's "oops-I'm-crazy" reveal, but even after that Hajime always just wanted to understand Nagito. And yes then chapter 4 happened and Nagito was an ass to everyone especially Hajime, but in the anime they seem like friends now?? Hajime was the only one there when he woke up and Nagito recognized he was Hajime and not Izuru immediately. They even ate on the boat together. Nagito definitely needs to change some of his mindsets thru therapy but the anime made me sad for him, the guy has no friends and he wants to be friends with kaz and fuyu and the others, he just needs help getting there. And he says weird stuff and can be creepy but Hajime accepts every other quirky person on the island so..? Idk I would love your thoughts :)

Ok so a while ago I talked about how I can imagine Nagito either, a) would resent Hajime for choosing his Just A Guy self over Izuru, or b) idolize him (like he idolizes all the Ultimates, but more) for nonetheless being The Ultimate Superguy. I'm not 100% on either, just figured those would be the two most likely scenarios. I also think both would not sit well with Hajime who now has a bit of a complex identity that he might not fully get himself, and having it sorta put in the spotlight all the time might be uncomfy.

I also sort of do-and-dont consider the anime, since I liked a bunch of things about it but some felt rushed, so I think of that ending as like .... thematically accurate but not necessarily how it went down? And I guess that includes the Nagito OVA. Like, thematically yes, Nagito is gonna be friendly with everyone now and it's reinstated how Hajime is himself (including Izuru) and they come a full circle with mimicking each other's poses from the start of the game; thematically YES very good. But i think it kinda happens too easily?

Tbh I just kinda think it's more boring if they're both immediately totally cool with one another, and I think they're more interesting when they clash and make each other think about things differently. Same with like, Mikan and Hiyoko, I don't buy that they're just immediately chill around each other after All That. That's not as satisfying as them having to work on themselves and the relationship. Like, with Nagito specifically digging at Hajime's insecurities and singling him out like he did, causing Chiaki's death (which he had a good reason for but it obviously hurt for Hajime especially), and just generally how Nagito was treated through a lot of the game (badly), and his views on Social Hierarchy being super challenged by Hajime even existing... having them just end as being wordlessly ok with it all is anticlimactic imo.

So like, whenever I talk about post-wakeup dynamics, in my mind I'm kind of thinking they had at LEAST a year together before the scene in the anime where everyone's awake and healthy and working together.

[professionallyunprofessional]

ToonMakers Sailor Moon- The (No Longer) Lost Pilot episode

If you or someone you know is part of the Sailor Moon fandom, it’s very likely that you know about ‘Saban Moon’, the English version of Sailor Moon that almost was. Created by a company called ToonMakers and taking a page from the success of Power Rangers (which itself is a combination of action scenes from Japan’s Super Sentai series and newly created storylines for Western audiences), it was the original concept for Sailor Moon in the US and would have combined live-action with animation. It was never greenlit, however, and the only evidence of its existence for years was in the form of a music video that was shown at Anime Expo in LA. In the early 2000s, a few animation cels and a script *for* the pilot appeared. However, there was still no episode to be found. Until now.

YouTuber Ray Mona has spent months investigating the lost pilot episode, getting in touch with anyone who might be involved with the production, from directors to cast members. Her investigation is spread across two videos, which you can check out here. I highly suggest you do, because the amount of work that went into this is beyond impressive.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdYD5StqHxk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0L67YFwnQCQ

The second link, at the 1 hour and 45 minute mark, is where the lost pilot episode can be found. When I heard the news, there was no way I *wasn’t* going to watch it and review it here. As always, review under the cut.

Right away, the animated bits are very reminiscent of the 1985 version of She-Ra. As someone who grew up with that cartoon, I personally don’t mind the animation style. Slightly less successful is that the voice acting during these parts also reminded me of the 1985 version of She-Ra. I won’t say it was bad, but it was definitely a product of its time. I will say, though, that I love its dedication to keeping a few things from the anime. The Sailors’ respective color schemes, Jupiter and Moon’s attacks looking like those of their anime counterparts, even Tuxedo Mask’s signature rose throw. With the last one, I thought it was a nice touch that the rose actually did something and gave Sailor Moon a power boost.

The live-action parts were very 90s, in terms of both the acting and the way it was filmed, and I kind of loved it. The ‘dressing up for the dance’ montage, the quirky jump cuts and dance moves...it was kitschy and charming as only a 90s kid show could be. One thing that immediately caught my interest is that, in this version, Sailor Moon’s civilian name is Victoria. That’s the exact name used in the original promo for DiC’s dub of the series:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLYx-sGdjUc

Does this mean we would have also gotten Blue (Sailor Mercury), Sarah (Sailor Jupiter), Dana (Sailor Mars), and Carrie (Sailor Venus)? I guess we’ll never know, as Victoria is the only one whose name is mentioned in the pilot. Speaking of Sailor Mercury in particular, she just by herself would have sold me on this series if it had aired. 1994 was about the time when I first started using a wheelchair myself, so seeing a girl in a wheelchair as one of the heroes would have blown my tiny mind.

Am I glad that we ended up with the dub that we got? Yes. DiC’s dub of Sailor Moon, despite its problems, paved the way for a lot of other anime to be introduced to North American audiences. Do I wish we could have gotten to see more of this version? Also yes, I won’t lie.

[noro-noro-noro]

someone on deviantart sent me the entirety of season 2. thank you random citizen! i've only watched this fight bc this one's my favorite.

they did a really great job of adapting this fight from the manga except for some minor things, which i only noticed because i reread this fight like once a month.

my main complaint against it is that we didn't get this panel put in. i liked the headbutt a lot. sad!

my other major complaint is that i didn't that they made minor changes to the post-fight scene.

not the same....the vibe is off....get his teeth out of there....and take those daark shadows off too!! daamn!

one thing that did really tick me off was the "i might never box again" scene & how they adapted that to the anime

. idk why it waas changed to "making a comeback as a boxer may not be possible..." this makes it sound like he wasn't boxing? like he stopped? he still does his boxing matches & rama even cheers him on - he didn't quit his position to become a bodyguard 100% of the time.

mostly i really liked the [thinking negatively about the future] [stops to drink water & smiles] "I have no regrets" *smiles* course of action - this was a character defining moment for him for me. he's thoughtful. he's taking a step back to think about it. in the anime he says the wrong thing & then drinks the water while thinkign it. it doesn't show the separation of his actions, which is something i valued. because i'm insane.

OTHER THAN THAT a lot of the dialogue was almost exactly spot on!

they cut the headbutt panel that i liked so much & the "fast punch sfx" sounded like somebody saying "fft" & a a couple times, kanoh referring to himself as "we / us / etc" when he was in formless mode was also changed to be first person. also gaolang's "...talk is cheap" got changed to be "whatever". why did they do that...so flippant... AND they shrank kanoh's ass.

& how they animated "formless" was really really goofy looking, but everybody's already been on their case about that. and it's a difficult motion to show in animation as well...much easier just to draw an infinity sign in themanga & be done with it.

the water-like dodge to knocking down sequence also looked weird, but that's another thing that's hard to replicate in motion.

other than that...fantastic fight. really pleased with it!!! idk why they changed "rama" to "raruma" but i can get over that. they didn't put very much budget into him. i think his hair should've been a darker brown bc the skin/hair contrast was super low compared to the manga but i'm just a hater.

more importantly

they cut ALL of katahara's silly old man moments. i guess they're trying to preserve the vibe of being an incredibly regal and imposing old man, but it was more fun because when he's hanging out with his other super rich bestie he's sooo sillay. oh well. his fun-loving side is lying on the cut content pile along with HIS SON. WHY DIDN'T THEY PUT RETSUDO IN THE ANIME IM' NOT EVEN A RETSUDO FAN IT JUST FEELS LIKE A MISSED OPPORTUNITY .

AND THEY TOTALLY DROPPED RAMA'S USAGE OF THE ROYAL "WE" I REALLY LIKED THAT HE WAS QUIRKY!!!!!

kengan s2 is out today......maybe i'll ask my mom nicely if i can get on her netflix i want to see gaolang vs agito now now now

[ladyloveandjustice]

Spring 2021 anime overview: Quick Takes

Now for my Spring 2021 anime thoughts! I’ve decided from now on if a season’s like, 20- to-24 episodes I’m just going to wait ‘til it’s done to review it unless I feels super passionately, so though I watched To Your Eternity (it’s good!) and MHA (eh), I’ll comment on them next time. Also, for the record, I watched the first eight eps of Joran: Princess and Snow of Blood but I dropped it because it had clearly crossed the line from entertainingly dumb to boring dumb. 

I will probably give Supercub and some other stuff a shot later, this was a stacked season! May give updates on all that later, but this is what I have for now.

ODDTAXI

Quick Summary: A mild mannered middle-aged walrus taxi driver is drawn into a case involving a missing girl, yakuza, Youtube clout-chasers, manzai comedians and idols with big secrets.

It’s rare to walk away from media and be like “that is a singular experience I will definitely never see repeated again” but ODDTAXI is definitely one of those. A tense noir thriller murder mystery starring cartoon animals that spends an entire episode detailing the one (cat)man’s very fall into darkness triggered by addiction to gacha games and an online auction for a novelty eraser? Also there’s a porcupine Yakuza who speaks entirely in rap? Also there’s tons of meandering conversations about stuff like manzai comedy and the struggle to go viral on Twitter?

Admittedly, I had a hard time getting into the first episode, the dry meandering humor not being enough to hold my attention while I was sitting still, but once I watched this while I was working out at the end of the season, I found it an easy binge. A ton of characters with dark secrets or dangerous ambitions, each with their own part to play in a tableau of intersecting events- and it all actually comes together really well.(As for the female characters, it’s a pretty dude driven story, but they do get nuanced characterization and even some good heroic moments from one of them.)

 It’s a great example of a carefully planned narrative paying off, with all the twists appropriately seeded and foreshadowed to reward viewers who paid attention. Even when it ended on a perfect “OH SHIT” moment and denied me closure, I couldn’t help but respect it. If you that all sounds interesting to you, definitely check out the first couple episodes and see if you like it- you’re likely to have a memorable, satisfying experience!

Shadows House

Quick Summary: Emilyko is a ‘living doll’ who’s told she was created to act as the ‘face’ of her shadow master, Kate. The shadows and their ‘dolls’ all reside on the mansion and are required to pass a ‘debut’ to prove they’re a good pairing. If they don’t pass, they might be disposed of. And so the mystery of the Shadow mansion grows...

This slice of gothic intrigue was my favorite of the season, tied with ODDTAXI. With an interesting premise, slightly tense undertones and a strong focus on character building and relationships, it kept me hooked the whole way through. And for any squeamish fans put off by the hype about it, don’t worry, while there are some suspenseful elements, I wouldn’t qualify it as horror. I thought the relationship between Kate and Emilyko might end up being a completely sinister one, but it’s thankfully a lot more complex than that and it’s really interesting to follow how both their characters and relationship grow. The focus of the show is, unsurprisingly, on the “dolls” slowly discovering their autonomy and personhood as they struggle under the rigid system imposed on them by the mysterious elders of this weird Victorian mansion. Can they develop a more equitable relationship with their shadow “masters” (who are also shown to suffer under this system)? There’s a lot to dig into there, and the show has the characters develop through learning to understand and appreciate each other, which is pretty heartwarming. Our hero, Emilyko, is the typical plucky ball of sunshine (they even nickname her sunshine), but she’s also shown to be clever in her own off-the-wall way and she bounces off the far more subdued and cynical Kate well, not to mention the other ‘dolls’ she ends up befriending. 

What’s more, the show spends plenty of time to developing several other character pairings and combinations, and they all have their own interesting dynamic that makes you want to see more of them. Same-gender bonds are at the forefront of this show, and many of them are ripe for queer readings (I definitely appreciated the healthy helping of ladies carrying ladies), but even outside that it’s nice to see a show where a strong, complex bond between girls is at the forefront. My only real complaints about the show are the anime original ending is noticeably a bit rushed (though it’s not too bad, and leaves room for a season 2) and I wish the animation used the whole “shadow” theme more strikingly (like the opening and endings do)- instead the colors are a bit washed out which makes the shadows blend into the background sometimes. The “debut” arc also drags a bit in places, but it makes up for it by having a lot of good character integration.

I hope to check out the (full color)! manga soon and see more of this quirky, shadowy story. There’s some physical abuse depicted, sad things happening to characters and naturally the whole “oppressive familial system” thing, but otherwise not much I can think of to warn about. I give this one a big rec, especially If you’re a fan of gothic fairytales and stories of self discovery.  

Zombie Land Saga Revenge

Quickest summary: In this sequel season, everyone’s favorite zombie idol group must claw their way back into prominence after a disastrous show- the fate of the Saga prefecture LITERALLY depends on it!

This was a fun follow-up to the first season- if you liked the first zombie-girl romp, you’ll probably enjoy this one. In fact, there were a couple areas it improved on- namely, Kotaro failed, ate crow and embarrassed himself a lot more this season, which made him more likeable (as did the fact the girls gained a lot of independence from him). This season also shed more light on what the ‘goal’ of this zombie raising project is and what kind of shit Kotaro got involved with to make this happen, and it’s appropriately off-the-wall and ridiculous. We finally got some backstory for Yugiri too! I wish it had focused on more of her interiority, but she got to be a badass in it, and it was a treat to see this zombie idol show turn into a period piece for a couple episodes (also her song ruled).

 Tae also got a cute focus episode and there was a particular SMASHING performance early on! Also That revelation last season that had the potential to turn creepy hasn’t yet, and hopefully never will. The finale was heartwarming with big hints of more drama to come- I’m definitely down for more zombie hijinks!

Vivy: Flourite Eye’s Song

Quickest Summary: A songstress AI named DIVA (nicknamed Vivy) is approached by another AI named Matsumoto, who says he’s from the future and they must work together to prevent AI exterminating all of humankind 100 years from now.

This show is absolutely gorgeous visually with some really nice action scenes, but when it comes to the story my feelings basically amount to a shrug. It’s fine! I guess! Vivy starts out as an interesting layered character- and I guess still is by the end- with her stoic but stubborn determination bouncing off her fast-talking bossy partner Matsumoto well. She never listens to him, which is delightful. The way the show took place over the course of 100 years was an interesting conceit as well. However, it bought up a lot of themes and then sort of... dropped them. For instance, Vivy interprets her mission (PRIME DIRECTIVE if you will) as protecting humans at all costs, no matter how destructive said humans are or what their fate is supposed to be, and is perfectly willing to murder her fellow androids to do this, showing she inherently thinks of androids (herself and her own people!) as less worthy. Which is a little alarming! There’s a very dramatic point in the show where they bring this up as a potential conflict for her character but then it’s sort of...dropped. Pretty much.

Actually, despite the premise, the show doesn’t dip into the “AI rights” as much as you think it would with the main theme being more about Vivy’s search to find her own creativity and discover what it means to ‘pour your heart into something’. Vivy herself doesn’t actually care if she has rights or anything. Which is in some ways fine, because ‘AI as an oppressed class’ has been done to death, but IT’S ALSO KIND OF IN THE PREMISE, so that means that the show just shrugs really hard at a lot of the questions it brings up  basically just going “humans and AI should work together probably” and that’s it. There’s a lot that feels underexplored. The antagonists in the show also either have motivations that don’t really make sense or have boring hackneyed motivations. In the finale in particular, it feels like a lot of things happen “just because” and it falls a little flat.

I also have to warn that one of the arcs focus on a robot ‘pairing’ where the dude-coded robots actions toward his partner are straight up awful and rob her of her autonomy, but it’s played like a tragic love story. I suppose you could read it differently too, but it definitely made me go ‘ew’ the story seemed to want me to sympathize with this robo dude,

Overall, I wouldn’t anti-recommend this show, it’s an all right little sci-fic romp (and definitely SUPER pretty). My favorite element was definitely the episodes where Vivy develops an entirely new (an loveable) personality, because it played with the idea of of an AI getting “rebooted” really well and interplay between her two “selves” was done really well. But there are a lot of other parts of the show that just feel...a little underexplored and empty, making me have an ‘eh’ feeling on the show overall. It’s definitely an ambitious project, and while it didn’t quite stick the landing, there’s something to be said for a show that shoots for the stars and falls short over a show that just languishes in mediocrity.

Fruits Basket The Final

Quick summary: The final season of that dramatic drama about that weird family with a zodiac curse and the girl who loves them.

It’s very weird that after not cutting a lot out, they kinda sped through some material for, you know, the finale. I guess they thought they couldn’t stretch this final arc to 26 episodes? Or weren’t cleared for another double cour? However, though there were a couple places that felt awkward, despite being a bit condensed it mostly held together pretty well for a D R A M A T I C and ultimately heartwarming conclusion. I was really disappointed they kept the part where Ritsu cut their hair for the ‘happy ending’, I thought  their intro episode not showing them in men’s clothes meant the anime had decided their presentation didn’t need to be “fixed” but WELL I GUESS NOT. That was the only big upset for me though, otherwise the adaptation went about how I expected, sticking to the source material. Furuba has a lot of bumps, from weird age gap stuff to ...gender, but it also has a lot of important feels and great character arcs. It was a gateway shoujo for many and has its important place in animanga history, so I’m glad it finally got a shiny, full adaptation.

[nattikay]

So I saw this post while browsing toa tags the other day. While I don’t think being obsessed with the school mascot automatically makes Toby a furry (though it is funny to joke about lol) since “being a furry” actually just means “being a fan of anthropomorphic animals” and doesn’t necessarily require any form of costuming or interest in such, it did get me thinking, hmmm...if he was a furry, what would his fursona be? 🤔 And from there I started wondering what Jim’s and Claire’s would be as well because y not ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  

BUT WAIT, I hear you say--haven’t you already drawn the trio as werewolves and wolfwalkers etc.? Wouldn’t those be their fursonas??

Well yes....but actually no.

I guess it’s a little hard to explain, but there’s a nuance between “[person] but as an animal” and a proper “fursona”. While a fursona is an animal character used to represent its person, it doesn’t have to physically resemble them at all as you would expect [person]-but-as-[animal] to. For example, if you were to design me but as a cat, you’d probably give it light brown fur and green eyes like I have irl. But my fursona, unlike my human self, actually has blue fur and purple eyes. You can give your fursona matching physical traits to your own if you want to, and some people do, but most use only a pinch of their irl appearance, if any at all.

The choices people make when designing their fursonas vary wildly from “it looks like me irl” to “it looks like who I want to be”  to “I just really like this color scheme” to “this particular color/marking holds deep personal meaning to me” to “this particular pattern represents a particular defining moment in my life” to “idk it looks cool and i vibe with it” etc. etc. etc. Everyone has different reasons of varying depth for the decisions they make in designing their fursona.

Therefore, to design a fursona for Toby etc., it’s less a question of “what would this character look like as [insert species here]?” and more of “how would this character choose to present himself with his own [animal] character?”

And that’s a much trickier game than just transferring a character aesthetic to a new species. ^^; We have to kinda dive into the characters and makes some guesses about how they, if given infinite creative freedom to design an animal avatar with no rules or limits, would choose to present themselves.

So all that said, here’s what I came up with:

Starting with Toby because he’s the one who inspired the post. I think Toby might choose a wolfdog fursona. A lot of people who choose wolves as fursonas consider themselves to be overwhelmingly loyal to their friends, a trait that fits Toby very well. However, while Toby likes to be “cool”, I don’t think he really thinks of himself as much of an “alpha” type--he’s more of a sidekick, and he knows that, and he’s ok with that. He’s the wingman. So what better way to incorporate that than to add dog into the mix? Man’s best friend=Jim’s best friend. Sociable, humorous, and unwaveringly loyal. Wolfdog it is!

With the species decided, we can move on to the design itself.

I can’t imagine any form of Toby in anything other than warm colors. This is extra emphasized by the flamelike patterns on his legs and tail, which both speaks to his desire to be totally awesome-sauce as well as acts as an allusion to his flaming warhammer. It’s fairly common (not universal, but common) for people to give their fursonas a more “ideal” physique than the person actually has as a sort of way to live by proxy physical goals or fantasies they’ve been unable to attain irl for whatever reason. Given that we’ve seen Toby struggle with fitness from time to time, it wouldn’t shock me to see him take this route. His wolfdog self is still relatively short and stocky, but it’s all muscle, babey. 

This fursona is strong, fun, boisterous, and generally just kicks butt. Concentrated awesomesauce flows through his veins. Just don't mess with his friends, or you’ll feel the flames!

.

Moving on to Jim. Jim was the hardest to nail down, and most definitely the hardest to keep my personal biases out of oof. Which I may have failed to do anways because yes, ok, I made my favorite character a blue feline, sue me ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  But hear me out first!

For Jim I ultimately settling on a cheetah/lion hybrid.

Cheetahs, in a way, are sort of the underdogs (er...cats?) of the feline world--at least, in their local ecosystems. They are built wholly for speed, not strength--and as such, just about every other large predator in their environment has them beat when it comes to raw strength. Remind you of a certain Trollhunter? plus the long lanky legs. don’t forget those lol

However, because of this disadvantage, cheetahs...usually surrender. They know it’s not worth it to defend their kill from larger, stronger opponents, so they’ll give it up and just catch something else. This aspect doesn’t quite fit our protective, selfless protagonist all too eager to risk everything to save his loved ones--so a pure cheetah may not be the right choice.

So what animal is brave and protective? That’s where the lion part comes in, of course!

Why not just make him a pure lion? Well, a little similar to making Toby a wolfdog instead of a pure wolf. A straight-up lion feels a little too “chad” for our sweet Jimbo. Too much of a jock. 

Jim has the humble underdog nature of a cheetah as well as the bravery and fierce protective drive of a lion. Cheelion? Leetah? idk, but let’s design it!

Like Toby and warm colors, I don’t think I can possibly associate Jim with any color but blue. While it’s never directly stated, given that we’ve never really seen him wear any other color (with the exception of the Eclipse armor), I think it’s pretty safe to assume that that’s his favorite. Blue sweater, blue jeans, blue shoes, even his backpack and bedsheets are blue. So naturally, his fursona would be predominantly blue as well! Plus some yellowish accents to (somewhat) match the natural colors of his chosen species(s).

I imagine he originally designed the character without horns, but then added them after becoming the Trollhunter, since it became such a major and impactful aspect of his life.

His lion’s mane also continues down his back in imitation of the “mantle” found on baby cheetahs. This youthful feature could subtly represent the fact that he’s been forced to grow up too fast and take on so much responsibility so young--so his fursona can still be young and carefree as long as he likes even while his real self struggles with the weight of the world on his shoulders.

This fursona is relaxed, calm, and confident. He’s not just cool--he’s crispy!

.

Lastly but not leastly, we have Claire. Out of the three, I think Claire was actually the easiest to choose--or at least, I had the clearest idea of what I thought she might go for.

Claire is a bit of an interesting duck, because while she’s shown to be fairly popular at school, she’s definitely far from the stereotype of The Popular Girl™. Yes she’s smart and pretty, but she’s also a little spunky or even a bit quirky--she’s a theatre kid, she’s a huge fan of hard rock band Papa Skull, and while I wouldn’t quite call her “rebellious” per se, she’s certainly willing to bend some rules if she feels the situation calls for it (not telling her parents that she was going to the concert with Steve, literally sneaking into Jim’s basement to try to find out what was up with him, etc).

That said, I think Claire might go for a hyena fursona--something a little out of the box, but not totally out of left field. (she also shows a slight Gurl Power™ streak here and there “the staff was not meant to be wielded by man--” “I am not a man!!!”) and if you know anything about hyenas...well, yeah lol)

I think Claire would lean into her punk-rock “rebellious” side with her fursona design. This character is completely free of the pressure of being the councilwoman’s daughter and having to maintain her mother’s public reputation, and thus allows Claire to express a less restrained side of herself. She has a bold semi-edgy color scheme with bright accents (and some earrings to match her person’s hair clips) while still remaining feminine and (her own brand of) fashionable. 

This fursona is spunky and sassy; she’s spicy and sweet all rolled up into one. She knows what she wants and she’s not afraid to chase it down. She lives her own life and she’s dang proud of it.

.

....sooooo yeah there’s my take on what Toby’s, Jim’s, and Claire’s fursonas could hypothetically be. And I guess since this post was inspired by a joke about Toby’s infatuation with the school mascot, here’s just some quick thoughts on how they might approach fursuiting to end us off:

Jim I don’t see as much of a suiter. He might try it once or twice if given the opportunity, but at the end of the day it’s not really his cup of tea--he’d rather act as the “handler” for his friends, if anything.

Toby and Claire, on the other hand, I could definitely see as suiters. In fact, with her interest in acting, Claire would probably particularly enjoy it--she’d be one of those suiters who really gets into character, absolutely refuses to break the magic publicly (outside of any actual medical emergency), and popular at cons because she just performs so well. 

Toby, meanwhile, would be the more chill type--uses his normal voice in-suit, isn’t really too stressed about “breaking the magic”, just kinda hanging around like he would normally except “look I’m a talking dog, cool right?”. 

also while I was typing this it occurred to be that since Eli is canonically a cosplayer then he could be a fursuiter as well; in his case i imagine he actually made his own suit it’s a protogen and it’s full of little LEDs and other electric gadgets, it’s not the prettiest thing ever as sewing is not his forte but boy did he try!! good for him. good for him

[k7l4d4]

Two new AUs. Owl House and a Crossover!

Hello all, time for me to unleash two new AUs for you all to enjoy! This first one was inspired by the work of my friend and associate, Flamestar50, give them a hand folks!

Owls, Amphibians, and Evil, Oh My!! This AU, if the name didn’t give it away is, you guessed it, a crossover between the Owl House and Amphibia!! The idea is one I’ve had on the backburner but never really bothered to add detail to until I saw Flamestar’s own, so once again give ‘em a hand!

Sasha, Anne, and Marcy were a team. A unit. An inseparable trio. Ever since that fateful day that Sasha helped Anne and Marcy on the playground, they had been together. Sasha was the leader, the tough one. When things went wrong, they could always count on Sasha to get them through it together. Anne was reliable, dependable, when something needed done, she got it done, and they loved her for it. Marcy, sweet Marcy, was a genius, brilliant beyond compare, if easily distracted by her love of games and books. They never really thought about anyone else joining their group... never, that is, until they met Luz Noceda.

A year older than the girls, though you wouldn’t know it with how she acted, Luz was an enigma. She marched exclusively to the beat of her own drum. She did what she wanted, when she wanted, and no one could stop her when she decided to do something. And now, that something she wanted to do was befriend them. They honestly should’ve seen it coming when she made it clear people usually avoided her and that she didn’t have any friends. Great, now they were bummed just thinking about it!! Ah well, what’s the worst that can happen, right?

Luz fit in. Almost eerily well. It was strange considering just how easily she meshed with them, but none of the girls honestly felt anything wrong with it. She was an odd one, simultaneously someone relatable and connectable, yet just far apart that they couldn’t treat her the same as they did each other, yet they never considered not one of them. EVER. Luz was a free spirit, incredibly so. For a time, it seemed like Sasha would dictate how and what they did, and how and why they did it. Luz didn’t fall into that. Luz was so completely and utterly unconcerned with things like peer-pressure that, whenever Sasha decided they should do something, it was always a toss-up whether Luz would go along with it, or do her own thing and drag them along for the ride by virtue of sheer magnetism. And she was! Luz had a draw to her, an energy and charisma people couldn’t bring themselves to look away from; for most, this energy was terrifying, something so untamed and foreign that just being near it made it feel like they were burning, yet for the girls, it was mesmerizing, an intensity that filled their every waking moment around Luz. When Luz did something, they went along for the ride, and even in the early days that Sasha would pout over not doing what she wanted, none of them could deny that those were the best times ever, no matter how much trouble they got into.

Luz wasn’t cool. Nobody in the world would claim that and mean it. But that suited Luz and the girls just fine. If Luz were “cool” people would try and draw her away from them, and Luz valued who she was far too much to ever be anything other than herself. Of all the girls, Marcy loved this aspect of Luz the most. Luz didn’t just not mind Marcy’s passions, she enjoyed and often shared them! They would talk for hours about the latest games, the newest novels, anime and manga, they clicked together so well, it was like magic, which was also something they both loved! When Marcy was with Luz, it was if all the insecurities and fears she kept buried in the back of her head, the ones that told her Anne and Sasha didn’t like her, that they only kept her around for a laugh at her clumsiness, that all she was good for was homework, they all just vanished. When Marcy was with Luz, she felt truly free.

Anne often wondered how her life got to this point. Ever since she, Marcy, and Sasha met Luz, life took a turn they never thought it would. Sasha was always protective of them, and her silver-tongue worked wonders when her fists couldn’t, fists that were even now pummeling away at the nearby tree in a rage. The frantic scribbling of Marcy’s pens and pencils drew Anne’s gaze, looking on as her smartest friend almost feverishly sketched out and planned elaborate strategies to FIX THIS; Marcy had always been comfortable with her intellect, and outspoken about who she was, but it wasn’t until Luz, free-spirited, funny, accepting Luz, came into her life that she finally pulled herself out of her books and games and used that intellect in the ways she always dreamed of but was just slightly to afraid to try. Anne didn’t know what to do. She wasn’t smart like Marcy, wasn’t fierce like Sasha. She was just Anne. The normal one, and occasional Angel of Death, who got things done so she and her friends could have their fun. But now, it was all crumbling down. Luz... had screwed up. Seriously, snakes and FIREWORKS!? What had she been thinking!? In all likelihood, she hadn’t. When Luz wanted to do something, nothing could really stop her from doing it. It was what they loved about her. What allowed her to balance the tightrope of roles she held among them: the quirky nerd, the bubbly optimist, the spacey-yet-wise big sister. All these roles, and more, were what helped Luz hold such a special place in their hearts. A sudden shout drew her eyes.

Marcy: I’ve GOT IT!!

This was a horrible plan. Anne really wondered how Sasha and Marcy managed to talk her into this. Okay yes, she stole the admittedly cool frog-themed music box, totally Luz’s style, and Anne’s too honestly, but they could always return it or come back and pay for it. Totally. But bringing out stolen property around Luz’s sweet, but VERY straight-laced mother? Who was a nurse? And would most likely report them for having stolen property!? Yeah, nothing at all could go wrong! As she and the girls made their way to Luz’s house, they whipped their heads at the sound of Luz’s annoyed grumbling, seeing her chasing after... an owl carrying a sack? Weird, but yet totally Luz. Sharing a look, the three friends booked it, chasing after their friend. As they gradually caught up to Luz, their eyes flew open in shock as Luz barreled through the glowing Door with a freaking EYE Set into it!! At the utterly baffling sight, none of the girls really noticed as they lost their footing, dropped the box and... *FLASH!*

Okay, was gonna post a second one, but I think this is perfect enough to be standalone. Let me know what you all think, and this AU and premise is totally free to use as you like, just make sure to credit me with the original idea!

[side-shawty]

What the Tech?

Fandom: DC

Type: one-shot

Prompt/Summary: Damian Wayne with a quirky, tech-savvy girl.

Pairing(s): Damian Wayne x Reader

Requested? YES by Anon

This is an old old old request that I found in my drafts when I had a different fic account and I figured I’d share it with all of you. I was too shy to post things like this back then but now I’m more than happy to. (I couldn't find the og request so that's what it is lol)

-Duckie

Stupid Hackers.

Technically speaking it wasn’t exactly Damian’s fault that his katana had practically sliced Tim’s laptop in half. He should have never been working so close to the training area in the first place.

So now here he was, spending his free period in the library grumbling at his laptop as he attempted to break the codes that Tim had put on it as his way of revenge.

That was when you walked in. As per usual, you were spending your free period working on a new coding program in hopes of impressing the judges at the Wayne Tech contest next month. You always impressed the judges. However, it became harder and harder to work with Damian Wayne cursing under his breath and slamming on keys.

With a sigh you stood up, dark curls swishing in your face with the speed, and waltzed over to him.

You put a hand on the desk he was working at and leaned over the back of the computer, “What exactly did that laptop do to you?” You questioned looking curiously at your fellow senior.

“And what does it matter to you?” He asked without ever looking up at you.

“It matters because I can feel your frustration from the other side of the library, Damian Wayne.”

At the use of his full name the young heir finally looked up at you. This was your first time seeing him so close since the week-long project you did together freshman year. Since then it had been distance looks from the other side of the classroom and your stupid school girl crush came back ten-fold.

He was no longer the baby-faced 14-year-old and puberty had hit him like a truck. His face was all angles, blue eyes, and tan olive skin with a head of black hair that Y/N wanted to run her fingers through.

As Y/N cleared her throat and stood up straight again she failed to realize that Damian was having the same train of thought. He thought of how much she had filled out in all the right places and how she had gone from cute to dangerously sexy in the past few years—even in the school uniform. Her dark skin stood out against the pristine white of her button-down and her curls were a casually organized mess.

He cleared his throat, throwing a playboy smirk on his face as he leaned back in his chair. “Y/N Y/L/N, just the person I need. You’re good with computers right?”

You rolled your eyes, “Well I’d hope so considering I am the head of the computer club. What do you need?”

“One of my many idiot brothers has decided to put a series of codes and viruses on my computer and on it, I have a paper that’s due at midnight. Mind lending a hand,” he asked with a voice that could have made you rob a bank if he so desired. Walt, was he flirting with you?

“I’m sure if you just apologize and ask nicely he’d remove everything,” Y/N told moving around the table and leaning over slightly to have a better took at the screen.

“You don’t know my brother,” Damian scoffed, “he’d make me grovel and I refuse to ever have to stoop to that humiliating level,” he said, nose in the air and crossed arms.

You sighed, “Well move over and let me see what the damage is,” you motioned him to switch over to the next chair whilst you took his seat and got straight to work.

As time ticked by the awkwardness that had settled in the silence was driving Y/N crazy so she stared to ask Damian questions while she worked and soon enough he began to ask too. The awkwardness was long forgotten by the time the bell interrupted Damian’s next question about animals.

“Well if you have a last period class I can finish up here. I have computer graphics but I’m excused for today,” Y/N told him.

“It’s fine,” Damian replied, too quickly before he cleared his throat and regained his composure, “I have history but Mrs. James is so old she’ll forget to take attendance again.”

“Okay, well in that case maybe we should take a little break,” you stood and stretched all of your limbs exposing just a bit more leg that the young man couldn’t help but stare at as you went back into a standing position and held your hand out to him. He took it almost instantly and felt a warm electricity in his hand and spread all through him. you gave him a warm smile before walking to the vending machines just outside of the library.

“Pick anything you want, this one’s on me,” you said with a wink and never let go of his hand as you fished a debit card from your breast pocket.

Damian got an energy bar and you got a pack of skittles, your hands were intertwined until you sat down again and Damian felt an immediate loss of warmth.

You were about to start working again when you froze, “Good lord Damian is your brother so kind of brainiac level hacker? He put like fifteen more locks on it while I left,” You gave a heavy sigh and leaned far back in your chair, silently counting to ten before pulling eyedrops from your bag, using them, throwing your curls into a messy bun and cracking your knuckles.

He sighed and closed his eyes, rubbing his temples, “Maybe I should just rewrite the paper.”

You laughed and patted his shoulder reassuringly, “Don’t worry I can help.”

And with that, you stood to get your abandoned laptop from its place at the next table over just as the bell ending the final class of the day sounded.

You and Damian looked to each other in question.

“Do you, uh, wanna finish this back at my place?” Damian asked bashfully with a hand rubbing at the back of his neck.

“No!” you answered too quickly, and it took everything for the Wayne heir not to flinch, “Um, I mean, we can just go to my house. I live closer and, uh, I wouldn’t want to intrude,” it was your turn to look sheepish as Damian smiled softly.

Not wanting to make you any more uncomfortable Damian said, “Okay, I’ll drive.”

And that’s how it started. Every day you and Damian would meet up during free period and then after last class (if either of you went) he’d drive you home. His excuse was because he insisted that the beginnings of October were much too cold to walk home in a skirt and tights.

You couldn’t argue and you didn’t really want to.

During the daily meet-ups, Damian couldn’t help but notice the little things about you, like how you never wore the uniform tie and seemed to have a different color or patterned one every day. How you loved to change up the style of your curly hair as much as you could.

One day after school you asked Damian if he could drive you to the hair solan instead of home and when he asked why you saw a glint of sadness in his eyes. Why would you want to change anything about those beautiful curls?

But when you told him you were going to get box braids he seemed much happier. He even stayed with you for all the hours it took to finish them. This was when Damian knew he was in too deep, going as far as checking on your house during patrol and never telling the others why he’d stopped coming home immediately after school (or earlier).

Damian was happier and he knew the reason was you. He was happy with knowing that fact, and he told himself being your friend was more than enough. He was wrong.

Damian usually got to the library first but he got caught up talking to Colin and Maps on his way and when he got there your attention was occupied by one of the football players. He was obviously flirting with you and Damian hated the feeling that this gave him. But some of the tension fell when he realized how desperate you seemed to get out of that situation.

So Damian sprung into action and approached the two of you. You caught his eye over the jock’s shoulder. A look of utmost relief on your face and Damian cooly slid in and put an arm around your shoulders.

“Everything alright here, Y/N,” Damian asked as you placed a warm hand on his back in gratitude.

“Fine, Wayne, I was just asking Y/N here about her plans after the game on Friday,” the jock, Brandon, said smiling at you and doing his best to ignore Damian altogether.

Damian’s back muscles tensed beneath the white button-down at his words, “I’m afraid she’ll be otherwise occupied,” Damian replied and after being friends with him since the beginning of the school year you could read him much better now. But this was something different, like a mix of anger, and annoyance and…jealousy?

But that was crazy. Right? Why would Damian be jealous, it made no sense. Unless...

“Well, that's too bad. I guess we’ll catch up some other time, yeah?” He asked and you only nodded with a tight smile on your lips before Brandon turned and left. But Damian never let go of your shoulders.

You looked up at him but his eyes were glued to the spot that Brandon once stood, glaring.

“Damian,” you said looking to get his attention.

And when he turned to you, all of the tension instantly left him and he found himself lost in your Y/E/C orbs, kind face showing nothing but concern for him. He took in all of your features, from the polka dot hair tie to the electric blue tie tucked beneath her sweater vest. He realized he’d been staring for too long, but couldn’t bring himself to stop.

“What’s wrong? Is there something on my face?” You asked and he smiled softly at you. A smile only you ever got to see.

“No it’s perfect,” he almost whispered.

Though the blush wasn’t prominent the heat worked its way into your cheeks anyway.  

“Good. Now quick question.”

“Mmm?” he hummed.

“We’re you jealous?” You asked with raised eyebrows and his eyes widened in the slightest.

He sputtered just a bit and released his hold of your shoulders in favor of standing across from you.

Damian didn’t look at you as he asked, “Does it matter if I was?”

You stood shocked for a few seconds at his earnestness before replying in a teasing voice.

“Damian Wayne was jealous over little old me? Wow wait until the papers hear about this one,” you said and he finally turned to you at that.

“I might have a better story for them,” he told you, and his sudden mischievous aura sent a tingle down your back.

“And what would that be?” You asked.

“This,” he said before unexpectedly closing the distance between the two of you in a sweet kiss. He tasted like peppermint and you were quick to melt into him as he placed his hands on your waist.

When you finally pulled back he was smiling and you couldn’t help but do the same.

“Oh yeah, Vicky Vale would have a field day with that one.”

[courtlyharlequin]

omg this event you've made is so adorable 🥺🥺 congrats on 100 followers too btw! 🎉🎉 for my request... I'd like to order a Lavender Rose White Mocha with Cater please !

The Only One

Warning(s): female reader, mutual pining, slight angst, slight fluff at the end

A/N: Aww thank you, Marzi~ And I’m at 250 now. Whoops lol. This took so long to write because I wanted to make it angsty even though it was supposed to be funny.. I literally can only write angst. It’s kind of sad. But Cater is good angst material ohoho~ But don’t worry it’s just a little sad not heart wrenching. I hope you like it

Cater took a liking to you. More than he would've liked. It was silly, after all. You were just another regular at this coffeeshop. There were a handful of you, but out of all of them, he just had to like you enough for it to be labeled as a crush by his colleagues. His juniors poked fun at his "special treatment" towards you. But what of it? There was nothing. He simply thought you were down to earth and nothing more.

You were mundane, nothing striking about your appearance. You were pretty, yes, but you were pretty in a way where everyone looked at you for a moment, concluding that your appearance was a little above average, then turn away and rarely ever steal a glance at you again. You dressed comfortably and did not care much about how others perceived you. You dressed for yourself, nothing sparkly, nothing that stands out too much. To someone like Vil Schoenheit, a fellow barista, you would be named a potato on the spot. If you were a potato, you would be Cater's favorite potato. But, you're not a potato. You were more like a yellow carrot. A simple vegetable, but striking in your own, unique way.

Punctual, you were. You came to the café every day at the same time to order something to-go and leave within ten minutes. The only exception was on the weekends because you reserved those days to catch up on sleep lost during the week whilst selling your soul to the oh so prestigious Night Raven College, the school which he also attended. He saw you around, but never properly conversed with you.

He preferred keeping his fondness for you as a customer as just that– fondness.  Fondness from afar. He liked this invisible bond you two had, how he just knows what you're in the mood for, how he prepared a shot of espresso especially for you, and left it on standby, waiting for you to claim it.

There was nothing more than that. You weren't even friends. He was content with the fact that he could even talk to you at all. Perhaps it might be a self-projection, but he liked you because you seemed to have everything Cater ever wanted– an appearance that wasn't over the top and a distaste for all things eye-catching and glittery. But most of all, an authentic personality. You were real. There was no pretending. You didn't beat around the bush when ordering your initial order– the rosé latte.

"I just wanted to see if my soulmate is here," you smiled.

But they weren't. Or so you said.

"He's not here, I guess..."

Anyone would have been crushed, but you... you shrugged it off and came back the next day and the day after that and the day after that. You came every, single day.

Cater made sure not to touch on the subject of soulmates during your conversations. A little part of himself hoped that you were "the one", but he knew from his sisters' horror stories, that love does not always last. From their tales, he was much more cautious and hoped for someone while aware that they won't be around forever. "The one" is not just the person you first lock eyes with in a hallway. "The one" is always your first kiss or your first time. "The one" could be from a different universe. "The one" was unrealistic.

When he had met you, it was love at first sight and also love at first response. When you admitted that you believed the rumors about the latte unlike the many customers who denied the fact that they were desperate for love, Cater was taken aback by your honesty. He was bewitched by it.

Part of him was hoping that you would say that he was your fated lover though he acknowledged that the chances of that happening was as slim as Vil's stiletto heels. At the moment, he was completely, and utterly infatuated by your simple appearance. He had subconsciously projected his idea of "the one" onto you, hoping, by the love of god, that you were his soulmate. He knew it was a long shot from the start.

Nevertheless, when you said that there was no soulmate for you at all,  it hurt. For him. For you. But, if there was one thing Cater was good at, it was faking a smile and hoping for the best. And he did just that for you.

"Ah... don't worry, (y/n), they're bound to be here for sure!" he winked.

God, it was painful.

Some time passed after that and the way his heart throbbed at the thought of you not having a soulmate, and that he was not said soulmate, only festered. You came every day, on the hour. As punctual as ever. As vivacious as ever. You came as if the concept of soulmates did not exist. You came happily. You talked to him so easily as if he was not the one who witnessed your pitiful epiphany. Not that he questioned it, of course. He never wanted you to leave. He wanted to spend more time with you and defy fate just to be with you, but he kept his distance.

On the contrary, you concluded that he was holding back on something, but you did not want to push your luck. You didn't even have to ask. His body language displayed dejection, a slight discomfort. You often wondered why he was so chummy with you compared to the rest of the regulars in the shop. It was probably out of pity after your first encounter. But in truth, you had found your soulmate. Were you certain that he was your soulmate? Of course not. There is no certain way to confirm it. You've watched other girls come in and simply declare that someone was their soulmate after sipping that latte.

"How did the other person feel?" you wondered.

You were unsure as to how to go about it so you just left it at that. It was so silly. But what's even more absurd is that a drink could help one find their "one and only". You decided to go with your gut... even if you took a liking to a certain quirky and peppy barista. You wanted to get to know him more.

Part of you wanted to shout: "I'm your soulmate!", but that was ridiculous. That declaration was something the other person cannot decline. It was unfair for "your soulmate" if they did not feel the same way. If you had shouted: "I'm your soulmate!", it would be more of an obligation for the other person to love you. You did not want that for him. But... you did like him. A lot. You took it upon yourself to mold a relationship with him more organically.

You came to know that despite Cater's appearance, he was a coffee nerd at best. He liked to make small talk with you, talking about how stainless steel cups were the absolute bane of coffee and how ceramic cups were superior. Cater appreciated the fact that you were a woman of culture, who used ceramic cups for her to-go orders, who understood his coffee trivia or his random talks about events on Magicam.

While no significant bond formed between the two of you, one could say that you knew each other well enough to be acquaintances. There were rare occasions he shared Magicam posts with you, ones that he found worthy of wheezing whilst waiting for an order with a particularly long assembly process:

"Pfttt, (y/n)! Have you seen that video of a chicken running around in pants?"

"No? Wait! Is there such a thing?!"

"Here–"

"No!! It's probably really cursed like that picture of Professor Trein in stripper attire!" you yelped, covering your eyes.

"Okay fine. Have a picture of puppies instead."

You turned your attention back to his phone, only to regret it the moment you saw the post, "Cater!! I said I didn't want to see it! Now I can't get it out of my head..."

"It's funny though isn't it?"

You stifled a laugh, "I suppose. But it's very wrong at the same time. Animals and clothes don't go together, usually."

"Hmm... I think they weren't meant to be, but they still look good together. Like dogs look good in clothes. You can confirm that with Professor Crewel's Magicam page. It's like ahh- what is it called- oh! A happy accident! That's what that artist called it right?"

"But it looks so wrong on a chicken."

"Now are you saying a chicken can't pull off jeans?"

"Well, maybe?"

"I'm just messing, (y/n)," he chuckled, turning back to work on your beverage, sliding his phone into his back pocket.

You watched his back in silence. When he was done with your order, you thanked him and left the café.

That night, you searched up the video yourself, wondering why you found it funny the second time around. It shouldn't be funny, but it was.

It became apparent to you that Cater liked those animal videos. He showed you the next day as well.

"They're cute," you said.

In truth, they were. Were they his favorite kinds of posts? Perhaps. He did like adorable animals, but he leaned towards posts about music. Or at least, the side of the personality he showed to a majority of others did. Cater wanted to be himself around you. He tried. He showed posts about kittens and puppies to you to stir up a casual conversation. It worked most of the time. However, he also wanted others (and you, of course) to like him. Whenever his classmates came around, he would cease conversation with you or, if he was showing you a post and could not put his phone away fast enough, he would swipe to his more "manly" posts, the ones about skateboarding tournaments and such.

"Yea–"

"Mornin', Cater!"

"Pfft! No, they aren't! Oh but check this out instead! There's a new set of headphones and it sorta matches my skateboard, dontcha think?" he nervously shrugged, turning to his colleague, "Mornin', Ace!"

"Can I see the headphones too? They sound so cool!"

"What kind of upperclassman would I be if I didn't show my junior something like this," Cater grinned.

A struggle, it was.

After you left the café, Cater cursed himself. Did it come off as rude when he abruptly halted the conversation to greet a fellow barista? Did it come off as rude when he changed the subject of the conversation the moment Ace came onto the scene? He sure hopes not. He loved to make you laugh. Many have told him that the opinions of others don't matter, but old habits die hard. He's always been a people pleaser even if they weren't looking or listening to him rambling to you about animals.

Well, whatever, right? This was his poor attempt to flirt with a crush without being too direct. Cater didn't know why he even tried. You probably found your soulmate already. You might've met him after you left the shop outside on the sidewalk or something. Cater was content with seeing you every morning before you headed off to school. There was a time where he was mopey about it, but he needed extra cash so he chose that course so he could work the morning shift at this café. Now, he was glad he had late start classes if it meant having one on one time with you. He loved to talk to you; he also liked the days where you sat in the silence, listening to the clinks of cups and spoons.

Cater wasn't the sharpest crayon in the box, but he wasn't the dullest either. He was perceptive as one would say. You came here around the same time every day– always wanting to try something new, but always leaning towards the drinks with subtle floral. He liked how your nose crinkled whenever the fragrance was too strong, meaning you would have a hard time swallowing the concoction. From there, he assured you that he would dilute the flowery flavors for your sake, thus opening your options. Your grateful beam was what he lived for these days. Your giggle was like jingles of bells, like how fairies talked. Seeing you on a daily basis was his dose of caffeine. It brightened his day. He hated how he waited for you and panicked when you were just a few minutes late. You were always on time. You always ordered to-go but stayed for a few minutes to dilly dally with him. Cater wasn't one for routine or rules. He never understood Riddle, his coworker, for always wanting things to be a certain way– all day and every day. But with you, he understood the redhead just a little bit more.

And because he more or less understood Riddle's need for things to be in order, today was an off day. You were late. Very late. Later than usual. Later than ever before. It was the weekend and you slept in, meaning you swung by around early noon when the sun was at its midpoint in the sky. It was sundown now. Moreover, it was raining. Cater assumed that you stayed home because of the rain, but it was not raining in the morning so what kept you?

He hated himself for relying on you as a source of happiness. How could he not though? You made his heart race a thousand miles per hour. You weren't that pretty. You were plain, but he liked that. He was confused as to why... but he liked the fact that you did not invest your time in over-the-top ensembles. He liked how your lashes were of a decent length and how they didn't look like butterflies were resting on your eyes. He liked how your makeup if you were wearing any on a particular day, enhanced your natural beauty rather than make you look like a clown.

Cater liked, no– loved, you more than he should've. You were not meant to be with him. He was not your soulmate and you were not his. It was like how people were meant to fall in love, but could not be together in the long run. You didn't have to say anything to him. He knew that he wasn't meant for you. You deserved someone real, someone unlike him.

The barista smiled sadly as he wiped the last speck of dust on the worktable. Yes, you deserved better than a café fling. You deserved better than a facade that was molded so that he could survive school.

He stared out the rose-tinted windows. The rain poured like an endless stream of tears. There was not a soul on the streets. Cater turned to deposit the rag into the to-wash bin. The door chimed, signaling a new customer. Oh boy... he was not in the mood for this...

"Hey, sorry, we're closed right now!" he said, feigning a peppy aura.

"Cater..."

"(y/n)? What are you doing here? And you're soaking too! Wait let me get you a towel. I'll be right back–"

His body reacted before his mind could process. Before he knew it, he was right by your side. He was close enough to touch you, but he only hovered, waiting for permission to lightly hold you by the shoulders.

"No, no, Cater... It's fine. I just wanted to talk to you," you whimpered, taking his wrists and bringing them to your shoulders.

"You're freezing! Sit down. I'll make you something to warm you up."

He ran back to the counter, whipping out his supplies and getting to work as fast as his hands could allow him to.

"No, listen, this will be quick, I promise. I don't intend to waste any more of your time than I already have."

You obeyed, making yourself comfortable at one of the barstools.

"You've never wasted my time, (y/n)," he said, staring intently into your eyes, sliding you a to-go cup.

That was... fast. You hoped Cater wasn't waiting for you all day, just to give you this beverage. The cup was filled to the rim with whipped cream and lavender sprigs. It looked like something out of wonderland, something the Mad Hatter would serve Alice if it had to be something other than tea. His viridian green eyes peered into your soul. It was hard to decline. Hesitantly, you took the cup, taking a sip out of it. Ah... warm. Thank goodness he wasn't waiting for you. Or was he? You weren't sure how brewing coffee worked, but you knew he always kept a shot (or was it a pot?) for you on the side. He seemed distraught. The last thing you wanted was for your beloved barista to wear such a raw and broken expression.

"Did you wait for me all day?"

"...Yes, but don't worry about it! It's not your job to come here every day. How's the mocha though? I made it in such a rush that I don't know if I eyeballed the ingredients properly."

"Mocha? That's new."

"Oh yeah!  That's a Lavender Rose White Mocha! I heard lavender is supposed to have calming effects. Thought it would help you with whatever you're dealing with."

"How thoughtful of you."

"I know, I know," he smirked, "Now, answer my question: what are you doing here so late? And in the rain with no umbrella or coat too!"

"I wanted to see you."

"You could have seen me in the morning," he groaned, flopping his upper body onto the counter.

"I needed some time to think about exactly what to say."

"Well, you're here now. Shoot."

You inhaled, "I'm your soulmate."

Cater shot up from his sprawled positioned, eyes glistening, brimmed with excitement– a flood of emotions. You could not tell if they were positive or not.

You continued before he could say anything, "I'm sorry I didn't tell you anything before. I just... wanted our relationship to develop organically."

"There's a 'but' somewhere in this, isn't there?" he smiled sadly.

You nodded, "Our relationship developed organically, alright, but I feel... like... you don't deserve someone as ordinary as I am. You like to skateboard and you like to raise the cutest mandrakes for the fun of it... and I... I'm just a girl who likes people with interesting stories, people who lead lives without a single pause. I like you, I do, but I feel like 'the one' for you is so much more than what I can offer. I feel that is so unfair for you. Just because I drank something and declared that you are mine does not mean that you don't have a say in this too. I didn't know how to tell you, knowing that you would probably want someone better. I tried. Every single day since I tried that damn latte... but I couldn't... I always chickened out..."

"(y/n)..."

"But, now that I told you, I can finally let you shine like the star you are. Thank you for everything, Cater."

"Wait, (y/n), I also–"

"I don't need your pity. It's okay," you sighed, leaning forward to press a kiss on his lips, "I just wanted to do that... at least once."

And with that, you bolted out of the coffeeshop in embarrassment, in regret, and woe. You ran as fast as you could. It was so stupid!! The sole concept of someone to be "made for you" was so superficial, unreliable, and unrealistic. You hated how you fell for the idea of a soulmate rather than the person himself, believing that Cater was the boy for you. But that's burdensome for someone who never felt the same way. He would have liked a "cooler" girl not a plain Jane, vanilla kind of girl. The rain masked your tears. It truly hurt you. Your heart was so detrimental.

"(y/n)!! Wait!"

You stopped to turn around to meet the owner of the voice. It was all too familiar. You had spent at least ten minutes with him every day for a couple of months now, after all.

"Cater?"

"S-Slow down... I'm in the light music club, not track and field," he wheezed.

You did not heed his words and spun your heel, preparing to run off to your dorm once more.

"HEY!!! LISTEN!!!" he yelled as he tackled you with a bear hug from behind.

"No!"

You squirmed, but to no avail.

"Cater...What is there to listen to? I'm just in love with the idea of you being my soulmate, not you... I doubt that you would ever fall for such a simple girl like me without that latte. You're so cool and trendy. I could never be your lover! T-That's just not fair to you!" you sobbed, the tension in your muscles relaxed in his grip.

"Who said anything about being fair?! You just jumped to conclusions without asking about my feelings!"

"I still don't think we belong together. We're on completely different levels."

"CHICKENS IN PANTS!" he screeched as his grip on you tightened.

"What??"

"You heard me. Chickens in pants... They're not meant to be together, but they exist anyhow and they look really good together in my opinion. So if you feel that way about not being "meant for me" then think of use like that! But for your information: I actually really like simple girls! I really, really like them a lot! I like you too, idiot! I like you a lot! You're not interested in how 'cool' I am and I couldn't care less about anything flashy. I need a break from that lifestyle. You're just that for me. Please accept my feelings."

He nuzzled the back of your neck. You felt the trail of hot tears running down his cheeks.

"Pfttt. Okay. I accept. On one condition though: I'm the chicken. I don't want to be the pants," you laughed.

"Deal. Let’s head back to the café. The rain isn’t going to clear any time soon. We might catch colds.”

“Sounds like a good idea,” you hummed as you intertwined your fingers with his.

“You know, this could have been way easier if you just told me that you were my soulmate from the get-go,” Cater exasperated.

“I don’t like the idea of soulmates. I think you’ve heard me say it a thousand times before. I don’t think ‘the one’ exists at all. I feel that nobody should be projecting their fantasies onto their lover and expect said person to fulfill that ideal. I was a hypocrite though because I ended up assuming your type and who you would like. I apologize for that.”

“Ahhh so formal! So deep! I never thought about it that way. And..  I’m sorry for giving you mixed signals too.”

“They weren’t that mixed. I just felt like you wanted a girlfriend who had the same aesthetic you had.”

“Those signals were definitely mixed. I… grew up in a place, a really well off place where even the streets shimmered. It was so sparkly. I also had two sisters so I ended up taking a liking to cute things and such. Turns out that in middle school and beyond don’t like pretty boys from sparkly places who like cute things. I’ve been hiding behind something myself. I’m actually not that cool, you know, especially for hiding behind this cheerful persona.”

“I guess we’re both in the wrong now.”

“But since, we’re chickens in pants, we can do anything together!”

“Oh my god, Cater, no!”

“Yes!”

“I already have my work cut out for me already… Oh! We’re here, let’s dry up. Wait? Did you really leave the shop unattended just to chase after me?”

“I forgot about that, oops!” he shrugged.

“Well, your managers aren’t here so it should be alright.”

“Wait! Before we go in, I want to take a picture.”

“Cater, we’re soaking wet and it’s still raining.”

“Just for a second, okay?”

“Ugh. Fine.”

“Say ‘soulmates’!”

“Soulmates…” you rolled your eyes.

“Cute. Caption: I finally found her. Oh and for the tags– hashtag: soulmates, hashtag: chickens-in-pants, hashtag: rainy-day-kisses andddd posted!”

“Wait. Chickens in pants?”

“That’s our new shtick now!” he winked, kissing your cheek and opening the café’s door.

It was then and there you finally let all of your emotions out in the form of a hyena’s laugh.

It was then and there you finally let all of your emotions out in the form of a hyena’s laugh. The real Cater was quite dorky. You were hoping to get to know him more and in turn, he did the same for you.

Because for you, there are no such things as soulmates or “the one”, it was just a person who would walk alongside you. And that person, as fate would have it, was Cater and he was the only one for you.

[numbaoneflaya]

You can count on me to pull up with a thousand of questions sbdhdh. A3, A22, C5, D3, F3 for Jilly ; A18, A23, B9, C1, H2 for Nirn ; A5,B9, C8, D1, I5, for Thurwen ; A9, A13, C1, E8, and G6 for Valkya? 😏

A3, A22, C5, D3, F3 for Jilly ;

A3.Do they have any emotional or psychological conditions? Are they aware of it? Do they try to treat it?

Shawty got that stockholm syndrome in a way. She is…. Sometimes aware of it, though she wouldn't call it that any more. Maybe at first in the basement she was more aware, but now that she can come and go she thinks its a thing of the past. tries not to dwell on it. Kind of in a “well its literally not that bad its kind of fun its kind of romantic were just quirky <3” way, will get mad if someone insists she has stockholm or that the relationship is fucked. Will get enraged and upset on Vincent's behalf, probably cry and yell at you.

A22. Is your OC intended to be found generally attractive? Unattractive? Average? Is there a reason why?

I intended her to be fairly average, maybe kind of cute. It's generally the way she dresses/acts in public that draws attention, not her looks. I tend to make most of my ocs on the average scale besides a select few.

C5. Do your OC’s morals and rules of common decency go out the window when it comes to those they don’t like, or when it’s inconvenient? Aka, are their morals situational?

Good question…. Jillys morals are pretty simple- always be kind and nice, murder and hurting other people is bad, and you shouldnt lie. She sticks to those pretty strictly herself despite the situations she gets put in, often to her own detriment. But she doesn't always put a stop to those behaviors from the people she surrounds herself with, so she's sort of accomplice to bad acts of violence just by not snitching. So somewhat situational? She tries not to think about it.

D3. How comfortable are they with the idea of death?

Not comfortable! She hadn't seen a lot of it before her early twenties and was always sort of sheltered. dead fish are flushed down the toilet bcs they go to the ocean to live again, right? Thought cows and such all died of old age peacefully before they were made into burgers until she was like… twelve. 💀Won't kill mice and other critters despite her prey drive bcs she would feel too bad. And this is just for animal death, she's much more uncomfortable with human death. Also a thing she tries to ignore.

F3. Could they ever live in a “tiny home”?

God no. She hates small spaces unless she's hiding in them and tiny homes have no room for all the shit she stashes! No room for zoomies, or climbing on the furniture, or wrestling around on the floor. It would be filled with junk within a week.

A18, A23, B9, C1, H2 for Nirn ;

A18. Do they get jealous easily? Do they feel bad if they do?

He's never had much to be jealous of, as he's never really been over involved in romantic relationships. They were usually mutually beneficial and somewhat clinical in nature. Hes also pretty sure of himself and his value as an asset and lover. If he finds someone who peaks his interest and they become an item though, he might get jealous if he catches them flirting with other people. Hell be peeved at first but know flirtation in business has its value, so to make himself feel better might flirt with someone else while they are nearby. Make a game of it, see who wins.

A23. Does your OC place much importance on their appearance? Do they feel confident in it?

Appearances are crucial to him and spends a lot of time and money making sure he looks his best. He needs to appear above the rabble and impenetrable, dressing well and having immaculate posture and an air of both grace and otherworldliness.

B9. What kind of humor does your OC like the most? Slapstick, ironic, funny sounds, scare pranks, xD sO rAnDoM…

Definitely not one to find fart jokes funny. Very rarely laughs genuinely or full heartedly, he keeps all his expressions of emotion close to his chest. Sharp sardonic wit is appealing to him in the right circumstances, even a jab directed at himself can make him chuckle if it's well formed enough. Irony almost always gets him, even if its dark irony or gallows humor. Bit of a hard nut to crack. Would laugh enough that hed have to cover his mouth with his hand if he were to see Felix fall face first into mud, though. More often than not you can tell he finds something amusing by a gleam in his eyes and a slight squint.

C1. Does your OC have a moral code? If not, how do they base their actions? If so, where does it come from, and how seriously do they take it?

Well he used to have a real moral code :/. Now I mean…. The ends justify the means. By any means necessary. He considers his family's needs first, then the good of the world, then any individual in the world. Has ordered executions of entire families, had babies stolen and sent away, sent armies to certain death knowing full well they would all die, commanded individuals be tortured for information, sacrificed many in what he considers to be a game of chess where he is the player and others are the pawns. He finds senseless violence and savagery to be unforgivable, but if violence has a sense and purpose to employ it, then he will do so.

H2. Is your OC a thoughtful partner, in whatever aspect of that you want to cover?

Nirn tends to be a very thoughtful and attentive person in general, just for the wrong reasons lmaoooo. But with a lover? He's going to be utilizing that to show them how much he cares and using his powers for good. Mention you like a certain fabric while shopping one time and then complain your favorite tunic has a wine stain in it several months later, he's going to be taking your measurements for a new one in your preferred material without a moment's notice. Very keen on picking up moods, expressions and tone. Also has a very good memory. He doesn't really think about it but gifts are how he shows his love. Also a great attentive listener.

A5,B9, C8, D1, I5, for Thurwen ;

A5. Are they good at handling change in their life?

I would say so, yeah. Shes been used to things constantly changing since she was little and has had little to no control on outside influences. Shes also not one to over think about the past and lament, shes more of a one foot in front of the other, the only time is the present kind of gal. Of course large changes like becoming a warden were a bit more severe, but shes mostly able to think in the present as long as she has immediate problems to deal with.

B9.What kind of humor does your OC like the most? Slapstick, ironic, funny sounds, scare pranks, xD sO rAnDoM…

Slapstick is always gonna make her laugh as long as nobody gets seriously hurt, even if its her own ass tripping into a tree. Not a fan of scare pranks, 0/10 recommend trying to scare Thurwen. You will end up with a broken nose at best and an angry elf. Likes puns, but she's the one to groan at them and try and hide the grin spreading across her face. Gallows humor but only if its her in the gallows, otherwise doesn't find it funny at all. If a little kid calls someone a fartcicle she will be tears in the eyes giggling, which is hard when your warden commander and everyone looks toward you to be serious and mature gyshsdhdfsghsd.

C8. Is your OC more practical or ideal morally? I.e., do they hold people to high expectations of behavior even if it’s not realistic for the situation, or do they have a more realistic approach and adapt their morality to be more practical?

She definitely holds herself to moral ideals and is very hard on herself, but has realistic moral expectations for others. She can understand self serving and people only wanting to survive and she will only give people a little bit of shit for it, no one's perfect. But then she expects herself to be perfect and berates herself constantly for not living up to the hero of ferelden warden commander ideals.

D1. How religious is your OC? What do they practice, if anything? If they don’t associate with any religion, what do they think of religion in general?

Atheist ever since her mom died when she was a kid, but now Shes in a weird mixed state ever since the urn of sacred ashes where shes like. fuck the maker, but Andraste is cool I guess. So respects/believes in the power of Andraste while thinking the maker is a piece of shit and the chantry sucks ass. Even she doesnt know what she really believes, but she did see the ghosts of Andrastes disciples and Shartan, used her ashes as healing salve, killed an old god, etc. So shes been in a weird place recently, crisis of faith/non faith pretty continual.

I5. Are they a good cook?

I mean…. She can cook basics. Shes been feeding herself and the alienage kids since she was old enough to walk so she knows how to get protein and make things edible. Does it taste good? Probably not. She didnt see her first spice till she was 17 years old, but she can skin a rabbit in seven seconds.

LA9, A13, C1, E8, and G6 for Valkya? 😏

A9. Does your OC make a lot of excuses? For themselves? Others?

She tries to excuse bad behavior of herself or others a lot, yeah fgdgdsfhdhs. Mostly she doesnt have to make excuses for herself because she can wholeheartedly be like “yeah i fucked up but whatever im sexy and large and awesome and everyone loves me 🙄whatever baby” and when other people fuck up shes pretty sympathetic even though they are not as large nor as sexy. Shes very used to forgiving and excusing herself its totally alien to her when she really fucks up and is suddenly like wait… valkya…. Did bad?? What is this feeling. Shame?? Guilt?? IMPOSSIBLE.

A13. Does your OC have any phobias? If so, where did they come from?

She hates those giant bugs in morrowind and valenwood a whole fucking lot but I wouldnt exactly place it as a phobia. Those huge mosquitoes and haorvers got no respect but she really hates the morrowind bugs ever since they knocked her over and jumped her while she was pants down peeing drunk as hell in the sand :/ never forgave. Never forgot.

C1. Does your OC have a moral code? If not, how do they base their actions? If so, where does it come from, and how seriously do they take it?

She was raised in a healthy household that tought the basics, prety much “harming others needlessly, stealing, torture, rape, dessecrating the dead, being selfish and not doing right by others, etc etc all basic bad things” are her morals. Her morality is basically treat others how you want to be treated. And if they treat you badly, then have fun beating the shit out of them to show everyone else not to fuck with you. Its a pretty nordic morality in that way. Her morality is also since she was ‘blessed’ with being so large and strong, that she has to also look out for the little guy who cant protect themselves. So If someone treats them how valkya wouldn't want to be treated, then beat the shit out of the person harming them to show them the little guys got backup. Her parents raised her to be a hero and thats p much how she sees herself, which has its benefits and its fuckin problems.

E8. What’s one of your OC’s biggest regrets?

Fucking up Dem and Dariens relationship for sure dude :/ valkya always gonna be sulking over that one. She doesnt regret becoming a vestige, even though it would have made her so much happier not to be because it ended up saving so many people and the world. She regrets not spending more time with Naryu, regrets always having other life saving business she had to run off to, regrets not cherishing the time they had together. Regrets not telling Lyris how she feels, either. Regrets not being able to save as many people as she should have, regrets she wasnt stronger in coldharbor and didnt break out herself. But she tries not to think about it <3

G6. Do they have any favorite childhood memories?

When she was seven she once spent two months training to hold her breath underwater, because her cousin always held it longer and won the gold bet. She trained for hours almost drowning in the river until she could comfortably hold it for up to three minutes. During the next holiday when they all got together again the competitions were on and they both went under- her cousin won, holding their breath for four more minutes before they decided to come up. This was the first lesson she learned that shocked her world view- you always need to know your opponents capabilities. (after she lost 26 gold in the bets, her mother later had to inform her that her cousin was an argonian.)