#in my head it's a blob that can shapeshift

[mcyt-crack]

uhhhhh practice sketches..i think?

[calliecwrites]

Shifter HRT, part 1 – Egg, Cracked

So you want to be a shifter? You’ve read about humanity replacement therapy, or species HRT, but can’t find anything about the shifter version? You’re scared, you’re worried this isn’t the path for you, but part of you wants it more than anything?

You’re not alone. I’ve been there. I’m still there. And I’ve taken the first steps. Tomorrow I have my first appointment, though not with a doctor, and if all goes well, by this time tomorrow, I’ll have taken my first dose.

I’m writing this so you’ll have it easier than I did. Also, I want there to be a record, in case something happens to me. I’m not exactly doing this the traditional way.

* * *

I’ve known what I wanted to be since I knew shifters existed. Everything I heard about them – being fluid, shapeshifting – felt right. I started imagining myself as one. If you’re reading this, you probably know how that feels.

I hid it. Even as a kid, I knew people wouldn’t react well to what went on in my head. You’re not supposed to relate to monsters.

Then things got complicated when I realised I was trans. I told myself that wanting to be a shifter was all about wanting to fix my body, since being able to shapeshift would make that easy. I certainly did want that – but I’d imagined myself as a shifter since long before then. I’d imagined being able to change myself in many other ways, before transition became the most important thing. And after transition, so much was better, but that longing didn’t go away.

This isn’t a contradiction. Fixing one thing, even the most urgent thing, like I did, doesn’t automatically fix everything. But I was in denial. I’d transitioned (once); everything was supposed to be fine, now. I told myself the rest was a fantasy.

Then I heard about species HRT. I read about someone becoming a slime – and that did something to me. Slimes are fluid, and so are shifters. Shifters are slime-adjacent, for sure. Maybe this wasn’t just a fantasy. Maybe it could be real.

I’m not in denial anymore. Egg cracked. Time to transition again.

* * *

Were there signs? Oh yes, there were signs.

Nimona. Mystique. Slime girls. The Changelings. And when a character says no solid could ever understand, feeling it like a punch to the gut. Wanting to understand.

Wanting to fly, wanting to swim. Wondering what it’s like to be huge, or tiny, or a tree, or a rock. Wanting to be everything. Fluidity. Freedom. Flowing and pooling, wanting to be a blob of goo with no form at all.

Learning to phantom-sense extra limbs. Being a shifter in daydreams. Learning to lucid dream so I could learn to shapeshift in there. Still being sad because it could only ever be an approximation.

Sitting by the lake, longing to merge with the water and lose myself for a while. Wishing it wasn’t water, but other shifters, welcoming.

Sometimes want isn’t the word at all, but need.

And there are people who can actually do these things, and I can’t? How is that fair? What sort of world has shifters in it and I’m not one?

Sound familiar?

I read everything I can find about them. Not stories written by humans – those aren’t accurate. Most are just sex, or all about fear and hunger and absorption. Shifters don’t absorb people! – it’s their biggest taboo. I read stories shifters write for themselves – and I can’t get enough. Just don’t look in the comments: you’ve got humans calling them monsters, telling them what they should go do to themselves – and a few brave shifters saying how much the stories mean to them. Sometimes the stories disappear, but they always come back.

‘Fluid as the ocean, wild as the wind, and cannot be contained.’ That’s a thing they say about themselves. That should be me.

I don’t comment, don’t interact – hiding, remember? But the stories mean so much to me, too. They’re a window onto how my life could be. I tried to tell myself this was just a sex thing for a while – more denial. There are plenty other stories I could read, if that was all I wanted. But that isn’t what I imagine when I imagine shifters, or even shifter sex. I imagine being one.

Haters would call me a traitor to my own species. They’d call me sick, mentally ill, monsterfucker, monster. Like I haven’t heard all that before for being trans. I want to tell them I’m nothing like them, that they can keep their precious humanity if this is what it looks like – but I don’t dare. I’m too afraid: what if they’re right? I know what I want to be, I know what I should be, but I look at my body and think: this is what I am, fixed, solid, human. I can’t do anything about it, no matter what I am on the inside, no matter how much I hate it. And this is familiar, too – I felt the same way before my first transition. Trapped as something I hated being. Powerless.

* * *

Except, now, there is something I can do about it.

No doctors prescribe shifter HRT – unlike for other species. The only source is the few shifters who figured out how to make it. They keep it tightly controlled, so they can control who gets it. They want to make sure we meet their standards – that we’re shifter enough. I don’t like that. But other people, who want to make it freely available, haven’t figured out how to make it yet.

I’m not waiting for them, not now that I’ve decided. I couldn’t. I could die – accidents happen, after all. How would I feel, knowing I was dying human, still wondering what it would have been like? Never really having been me? No. I’m not waiting.

So I got in touch, and I spoke to one of them online. She arranged the appointment, and now she’s flying in – and I’m pretty sure that means as a bird, not on a plane. All I have to do is convince her. Tomorrow determines everything. If it goes well, I’ll be starting right away.

I still can’t quite believe it. It feels too good to be true. But it is. It really is. It was the same before – I couldn’t believe anything would change till I took my first dose of estrogen. Sometimes reason isn’t enough, planning isn’t enough, sometimes it takes direct contradiction to break the hold a belief like that can have on me. I’ll never take hormones, meet I am now taking hormones. Suddenly I see I was wrong, and there is hope again.

And tomorrow it’s going to happen again. Hopefully. Finally.

And then I really won’t be human.

Next

I'm doing one of these now too! Inspired by the many other animal HRT stories, especially the two slime HRT series by @sandyca5tle and @scrubbinn. In the beginning it's drawing a lot on my own transition, but will be going very different places.

If you want to read more without waiting for the rest of the series, take a look at my other stories – shifters turn up in lots of them.

Oh and that list of signs? They're all real :)

Tag list (tell me if you want to be added):

@leahnardo-da-veggie @sandyca5tle @scrubbinn

[gasolinerainbowpuddles]

Jizz Fingers║ ⓞⓝⓔⓢⓗⓞⓣⓢ

|| ꂵꍏꀤꈤ ꂵꍏꌗ꓄ꍟꋪ꒒ꀤꌗ꓄ || | PAIRING(s): alien!Joel x reader

| RATING: explicit material | 18+ | WORD COUNT: 3.2k | CONTENT: This is a crackfic. Joel is not Joel. He’s an alien that can shapeshift and isn’t into the splorgimums on their own planet. He wants to nut in you with his creampie fingers. It’s not supposed to make sense. It’s not supposed to be anything but fun and sexy and silly. It’s meta. It’s tongue-in-cheek. It’s self-indulgent. If you’re not into that kinda thing then idk what to tell ya, bud. 

| SYNOPSIS: u get creampied by a dick finger alien Joel Miller.

The sonorous silver ship glided above you before descending gently into a large clearing in the field ahead. Bright light flooded your vision as a hidden door pushed away from the spacecraft and revealed an occupant.

It appeared to have an amorphous, fluid corporeal form, but no matter the shape it always remained an off-white greenish gray color. Six large onyx orbs were situated near the top of the form. You assumed they must be eyes or some other sort of organ. When the greenish grey flaps snapped together and apart a few times in quick succession, you realized they were in fact lidded eyes.

A warbled voice sounded inside your mind. “Do not be afraid. I come in peace, and I stand before you with no intention of harming you.”

You realize the creature is speaking to you through your own mind.

You should be afraid, but instead you’re just fascinated and exhilarated. You aren’t sure why they’d say the same thing twice, though, just in a slightly different way. You also aren’t sure if you should respond in your head, out loud, or at all.

“That’s kinda a weird thing to say. Like, you said it twice,” you point out, speaking loudly and clearly enough that the creature can hear you.

At least, you think they can hear you. You don’t see any ears. Then again, they possess the capability of telepathic speech, and there must be some equivalent to hearing for that. You try to think what that is called or what that might be called when the creature shifts back and forth but still doesn’t approach.

“Those were two separate statements,” the voice in your mind contends firmly.

“Huh?” you ask. You’re sure you sound dumb, but you were never really going to be a match for a higher level intelligent being anyways.

“When I bust, it is peaceful for every being involved. I also greet you with good intentions,” the voice patiently clarifies.

Suddenly you are standing no more than arm’s length away from the being. “I saved your achilles the trouble,” the voice in your mind said, as if it was some huge favor.

“My achilles is fine,” you grumble awkwardly. “I know I should hit leg day more, but sometimes it’s just so–”

“Our sex organs are complimentary,” the voice interrupts. “We could perform the Divine Dance, if you’d like.”

You wanted to ask why they had to come all the way to Earth just to get laid, but you think better of it.

“The splorgimums on my planet just don’t get me,” the voice explains. You realize you said your thought aloud.

“Oh. Uh, okay. S-Sorry about that. I, uh, didn’t mean to offen–”

The creature waves a gelatinous blob arm dismissively. “No offense taken. You’re not like other splorgimums. I can tell. You’re different,” it assures you.

You feel a blush creep onto your cheeks. “Oh. Well, uh–” an awkward giggle “—thank you. But I’m not really that special, here on Earth I mean. There are other women who are wayyyyyy more attractive. Oh! I know! You should try driving by Doja Cat’s house because oh my god she is so. fucking. fine. Like, if I had her in that I’m A Cow Bitch Moo costume for 5 minutes I’d—”

“No. No Doja Kitties. Only you.”

You shrug and accept their obsession with you.

“Okay. So now what? I don’t know where your Divine Dance hole is, and your floating blobs are sort of freaking me out,” you admit.

You keep tabs on the hovering goops that orbit the creature. They remind you of the time you tried to make Key Lime Jello Shots for your uncle’s cousin’s dog’s recital but added too much vodka.

“I can take the form of something pleasing to you. An earth male, perhaps? The female of your species is more difficult to capture as they are far superior.”

“So fuckin’ true,” you agree. “But, hhmmmm, a male specimen? I mean, I hate all men, but Pedro Pascal seems pretty decent. Maybe you could turn into Joel Miller? You know, from The Last of Us?”

The creature nods — you think it’s a nod — and transforms into Joel. Game Joel.

“Oh, uh, look, Pixel Daddy is fine as hell, especially in part 2, but I meant the HBO adaptation of the game. Please,” you correct.

“How’s this?” Pedro’s version of Joel’s voice asks aloud.

Your pussy bottoms out. “Oh, fuck yeah.”

You disrobe completely as you enter the spacecraft.

“I set it to 72º Fahrenheit. Is that a suitable climate for your meat suit?” Joel asks.

“Yeah, that’s perfect. Mr. Alien, could you, like, put more of the twang into his voice? And use words like he does?  Like, how he sounds on the show? You know what, let’s watch a few clips to get it right.”

You pull up your account on your phone, but it takes you a minute to find it because you forgot they changed it from HBO Max Go to just Max. “So fuckin’ stupid. Purple is a better color than blue anyway,” you mumble to yourself as you pull up an episode.

The galactic creature uses some magical time skip thing to binge the entire series and gets a yucky smudge of goop on your phone screen when it attempts to find season 2.

“There’s just one season? Please tell me there’s another one,” Joel implores.

“Yeah, there’s a second season, but it’s not out yet,” you inform him.

“Damn. But you said there’s two games already? So what happens in the second game?” he asks.

“You know what, we super don’t need to get into that right now. Let’s see what you’re working with,” you quickly change the subject and grab at his crotch.

He grunts in approval. “Needy lil thing, aren’t’cha? You want my cock, baby?”

Your eyes narrow suspiciously. “Did you use a time jump thing to read a whole bunch of Joel Miller smutfic on Tumblr?”

Joel blushes and scratches the back of his neck. “Eh, mighta read a few.”

“Oh my god, you’re gonna be super nasty and dominant, aren’t you?” you sigh.

“Only if that’s what you want, baby. I’m a consent king,” he assures you.

“Well, alright then. I want you to rawdog me and slap my ass, okay?”

He smirks and pulls you close. “I’ll give ya what I give ya, and you just gotta take it,” he grunts into your neck as he nibbles and sucks downward.

You gasp at the sensation and grind your hips into him. “Oh fuck, Joel,” you whine. “I want you to wreck me, please!”

“Gonna fill that cunt up,” he says gruffly as he gropes your ass and breasts.

“Yes, Daddy, please!” you beg.

He pauses for a moment and looks confused.

“Oh, uh, you must not have got to those kind of fics–” you cough awkwardly “–uh, anyway. Sorry. Joel. Yes, Joel, please.”

“I can sense the vibrations of your inner sex organ when you call me that. If it is sexually gratifying to you, I wholly welcome the use of it,” the original voice says inside your mind.

“Oh wow. I love that you’re not kink shaming me. Glad you didn’t make it to that side of Tumblr,” you huff in a laugh.

Joel suddenly pins you against the wall and presses his hard, clothed cock against your bare skin. Even through the denim you can tell he’s huge. Apparently all those fic writers were right all along.

“Who’s gonna fill up that pretty cunt uh’yours, huh?” he demands as he grabs the back of your neck for leverage.

“Y-You, Daddy,” you say in an aroused tremble.

“That’s fuckin’ right. When my fat cock is inside you, I better hear you singin’ some thank you’s to Daddy for fillin’ you up so good,” he warns.

“Yes, Daddy, I’ll be your good girl,” you promise. 

He flips you around without warning and pushes your chest flush against the wall. 

“Even good girls need to be reminded every once in a while what happens if they don’t listen to Daddy,” he says in a low gruff.

His clothes have magically disappeared with the help of his alien outerspace boi powers. You feel him firm against your backside before a harsh slap of his palm replaces it. You jump and yelp in pain at the surprise spanking.

“Mmmm, pretendin’ you don’t want it, but I feel you pushin’ your ass back for more,” he taunts. 

You whine because he’s right. You can only imagine the derisive comments he’d make if he felt how wet you are. 

He lands another three harsh swats on the same patch of skin. Tears prickle up in your eyes. “D-Daddy,” you moan. 

“You gonna thank Daddy for keepin’ you in line, baby?” Another swat. It stings so much you know there must be an imprint of his hand clearly outlined by your welting red flesh.

“Thank you, Daddy!” you choke out. “Th-Thank you for k-keeping me your good girl and not letting me b-be bad, Daddy. I only wanna be good for you, Daddy!” you wail.

“That’s what I like’tuh hear, baby,” he grunts into your ear. “Ask Daddy to make you into his own little cocksleeve. Ask Daddy to give you this big, fat cock.”

You whimper as he slips his length between your folds and rubs back and forth in teasing passes. 

“Daddy, I want you to use my pussy. I need it so bad. Please. I just wanna be your cocksleeve. Use my holes, Daddy,” you whimper.

You barely finish your sentence when he flips you around again and lines himself up with your entrance. Apparently the alien creature was just as into this as you are because their altered form reverted back to the amorphous gray green blob. You’re way too horny to be picky about it right now, so you squeeze your eyes shut. You forgot to charge your vibrator, anyway.

Their penis was more like fingers that kinda moved around randomly. You don’t know. You’re not an astrophysicist or whoever it is that would best be knowledgeable about alien wieners.   

Its spongy gray appendage felt firm and slimy as it entered you. There was some sort of phantom connection to your mouth and throat as well, the sensation of its finger-penis dragging back and forth, able to be felt in both your pussy and your mouth. It was weird, but you knew if it was Joel Miller doing it then it would somehow become totally fine and very hot. 

“You’re getting too lost in the sauce,” you whine. “You’re in your true form again. Change back.”

“Mmmmm, sorry, baby,” came the familiar gravelly voice once more.

When you felt brave enough to open your eyes again, you saw those familiar Wreck-It-Ralph sausage fingers and sighed in relief. The alien had changed back to your preferred form of Joel Miller as portrayed  by José Pedro Balmaceda Pascal.

As much as you wanted to stare at his face, you also wanted him to dick you down through the floorboards of the ship. You wiggle to sink down onto your hands and knees. “Wanna be wide open for you, Daddy,” you pout.

He makes an approving growling noise and scrambles behind you, shoving you downward between your shoulder blades until your face is smushed into the floor. He makes no effort to warn you before slamming his entire length into you. The impact of his wide tip against your cervix is so forceful it punches the air out of your lungs. You let out a panicked, strangled moan, suddenly unsure if you were going to be able to take this dick like a champ.

Joel grabs your hips for leverage and starts pistoning rough, deep strokes into your drenched pussy. “Gaahh–Goddamn! Fuckin’ chokin’ it, honey,” he rasps in a labored voice. “Feel so fuckin’ tight for me.”

“It’s s-so big, Daddy. I dunno if I can take it,” you cry.

“You can take it. You can take it for Daddy. Be a good girl or m'gonna hafta punish you,” he cautions. As a reminder of what that might entail, he strikes your backside so hard your entire body jerks as you let out a sob.

A high pitched moan gathers in Joel’s throat as you start to accommodate his size. “Yeah, fuckin’ like that, huh? Like when Daddy spanks you? Makes ya listen?”

“You’re so good to me, Daddy!” you sob. Your arousal is practically dripping down your thighs. You listen to the hum of the engines mixing with the sounds of your drooling cunt being fed Joel’s massive cock over and over again. He grabs your wrists and pulls you upward, using your limbs like reins on a horse. You have no control over the depth of penetration in these positions, and Joel is opting for nothing less than utterly devastating your pussy.

“M’gonna give you these fingers, too, baby. Know you can take it,” he pants.

He releases your arms and lets you scramble to catch yourself before faceplanting.

“Hey! You could’ve at least–”

“Shut your fuckin’ mouth and take what Daddy gives you,” he snarls.

You whine and clench around him. You feel a boogery churro type object prodding at your asshole. You turn your head quickly enough to see the creature has let Joel’s arm halfway revert back into the wiggly blobby thing.

“Did I say you could turn around?” he barks. He spanks you again with his 100% Joel hand, hard enough that you know there are pinpricks of blood beginning to seep through.

“I’m sorry, Daddy!” you scream.

You feel him now inside both holes. It’s overwhelming and amazing. The phantom throat thing is back again, and you like how you gag even with an “empty” mouth.

“Got enough for every hole you got and then some, sweetheart,” he practically slurs. He sounds completely wrecked.

You feel your lower belly heating up and quickly tightening.

“Oh my fucking god, Joel. I’m getting so close,” you gasp.

“THAT AIN’T MY FUCKIN’ NAME WHEN I’M STUFFIN’ YOU WITH MY COCK, SWEETHEART,” he grits out as he wraps his hand around the front of your throat and squeezes.

When your breaths quickly become hard to take, you know you’re going to come soon.

“I want your space juice inside me, Daddy!” you cry out, not caring if you’re breaking the illusion. You still needed to be clear and consensual in your approach to this intimate exchange, and you needed to address the weird topic of whether or not your birth control could do effective hand to hand combat with spaceboi cum. 

“Our sexual organs are compatible, but our reproductive hormones and liquids are not,” the voice explained in your mind.

The Jim Carrey baby grinch was kinda cute, but you still felt better knowing you weren’t going to birth a little green gremlin alien baby. (Although you did think Victor or Clementine would be nice names.)

“Put a baby in me, Daddy! Fuck your baby into me!” you beg now that you know you can’t actually get pregnant. 

“Uh, I mean, there’s just so much pregnancy fic out there,” Joel hedges carefully, still maintaining his merciless thrusts. “You don’t really wanna make this into a whole thing do you? Ya know, with the pregnancy storyline and stuff? Some users have actually said they prefer—”

“No, Joel, I’m not actually—” you interrupt in a huff “—I’m just saying it to be sexy. It sounds sexy. Besides, there’s some fic writers who basically only write creampies but none of their characters ever seem to get pregnant. It’s kinda wild. There’s a fic writer I can think  of right now, actually. She loves creampies so much.”

“So she’s just really into pussy gettin’ drenched but nobody’s gotta deal with babies? Sounds like a pretty sweet deal if ya ask me,” he approves.

“Yeah, I think the only pregnancy fic she has is, like, this really nasty oneshot where the reader is already pregnant and she gets double teamed by Tommy and you at the same time. Oh and she lactates. I wasn’t into it at first, but it was kinda hot. Maybe you’ve read it? The author calls herself Puddles?”

“Oh, her? That Gasoline Rainbow lady? I thought she just made memes?” He sounds surprised and impressed. He’s hitting your cervix repeatedly with such force that you feel like your vagina is going to look like somebody dropped a tray of lasagna on a pubic hair linoleum floor.

“No, she actually has, like, legit fic on there, too. She’s, like, really talented. I can’t believe she doesn’t have more followers,” you laugh incredulously. 

You’re glad he doesn’t ask how you would know how many followers she has since that isn’t publicly available information. You hate it when plot holes have to be smoothed out nicely and still fit in with the story. It’s so boring and way too much work sometimes.

“Maybe stuff like alien jizz fingers is a little too much for people to–”

“Okay, this is getting too meta. Let’s just get back to you fucking me so rough I can’t walk right for an entire week, okay?”

“Hnngg, fuck yeah. Daddy’s gonna wreck this cunt,” he hisses as his thrusts pick up pace.

“DADDY, I’M GONNA COME,” you cry as you start clenching and seizing around the massive circumference of his cock.

Joel lets out a guttural, choked moan as he empties inside you. You can feel it from his weird creampie fingertips, too — even the invisible one in your mouth and throat. You’re trembling, trying to keep yourself upright as Joel fucks into you through his orgasm. You lick your lips. There’s a flavor there. Is that….?

“You like Daddy’s brisket cum, sweetheart?” he grunts as his thrusts slow to a sloppy grind.

“I thought I tasted barbecue,” you muse. It was bewildering, but mostly satisfying.

“Yeah, tastes just like those Fourth of July backyard get-togethers you love in that Texas heat,” he breathes. "You runnin' around in barely anything, makin' me hafta adjust myself so your dad don't catch his best friend ogling his precious daughter."

“I’m starting to think you read more fic than you admitted to earlier,” you assert.

“I like it, darlin’,” he shrugs.

“Are you gonna follow Puddles now? Oh! Can you do a mind link thing with her and see what she’s working on next?” you implore.

Joel appears to zone out for a minute, and you take the opportunity to stare at his naked body. He looked perfect. His eyes focused again as he looked at you.

“Her waveforms are erratic and very concerning, but once I subdued a Brain Goblin inside her mind I was able to discern she is likely to be releasing some Ezra from Prospect centered fictional stories,” the voice inside your head revealed. "They are very sexually aggressive."

“Nice,” you say under your breath.

“So you gonna let me have that sweet pussy again, sweetheart?” Joel drawls.

“Yes. But I’m going to need you to familiarize yourself with Pedro’s extensive works. I’m thinking we could do some really great Mando roleplay in this spaceship,” you say with a big smile as you gesture around.

Joel smirks at you. “Don’t matter what form I take. You’re still gonna be callin’ me Daddy.”

“Yes, Daddy,” you agree with a big grin.

I hope those splorgimums understand what they lost bc that's our man now! Special thanks to Multiversed Daydreamer (Fuzz) for inspiring part of the title and @xdaddysprincessxx for the shared derangement over That Old Man™.

Undying thanks to @psychedelic-ink and @bonezone44 for writing some of my fave ~aLtErNaTiVe KiNk CoNtEnT~ and inspiring me to let my brain run wild with this crackfic.

Art in graphic includes transformed works of the Mucinex booger man.

catch ya later, ♥Puddles♥

P.S. - I counted how many times "Daddy" appears in this, and it's 29.

tagging: @wannab-urs, @gracieispunk, @milla-frenchy, @patti7dc. @lumoverheaven, @not-a-unique-snowflake-blog, @toxicanonymity, @rubyfruitjungle, @huffle-punk, @jupiter-soups, @swiftispunk, @theywhowriteandknowthings

[counttwinkula]

@spicymangoman this is such a thought provoking question (re: my jeffrey jerome cohen's monster culture (seven theses) post)

i think the shortest answer is that the monster is polysemic; it is a sign with multiple simultaneous interpretations and meanings. ocean vuong writes that a monster is a "hybrid signal"; any contradictions it may hold are, in some way, part and parcel of being a monster.

the monster does often introduce category crisis regarding the difference between self and Other! this is an extremely common monstrous trope:

the hivemind is the most obvious example of a monster that blurs the boundary between self and Other

the blob also comes to mind, as an Other which quite literally threatens to incorporate the self into its body

through the same logic as the blob, we can see this same threat of the self being annihilated and incorporated into the Other through any monster that engages in cannibalism or consumption

(i'm currently researching The Haunting of Hill House and boy howdy is that theme present)

infectious monsters (vampires, zombies, werewolves) pose a similar threat, the Other whose influence may cause a loss of selfhood and subsequent incorporation into a noncontiguous monstrous body

frankenstein's monster and shapeshifters both challenge the stability of the self, or the self as a singular, knowable body, thereby posing a problem for the self/Other binary

we must also keep in mind that the Other represented by the monster is quite often a coded representation for the racialized, gendered, sexed, classed, etc. other. i think that here we find a general anxiety of category crisis with regard to "you look like me but you're not me" and the differences then being exaggerated through the monster's nonbinary and excessive body

so, while the creature from the black lagoon or guillermo del toro's amphibian man do not pose these same threats of losing the self to the monster, they still represent a sort of me/not-me problem through their anthropomorphism alone (while simultaneously standing in for the racialized, "savage" other)

cohen also writes that "one kind of alterity is often written as another", meaning that not only do the metaphors within the monster often overlap, but the monster often troubles multiple binaries at once. he gives the example of the cynocephalus, a human with a dog head and intersex characteristics, thereby sitting at the border of human and beast as well as the border of male and female

regarding category crisis, cohen writes that the monster "defies easy categorization" and continues:

This refusal to participate in the classificatory "order of things" is true of monsters generally: they are disturbing hybrids whose externally incoherent bodies resist attempts to include them in any systematic structuration. And so the monster is dangerous, a form suspended between forms that threatens to smash distinctions.

i would say that the monster's nonbinariness stems, in some ways, from the fear of the unknown, and more specifically the fear of the unknowable. by existing across binaries and disrupting systems of classification, the monster presents a challenge to defining it and knowing it

knowledge is typically the antithesis to fear. Alien and Child's Play both rely on the audience not catching full glimpses of the monster, utilizing a half-seen, in the shadows, out of the corner of your eye aesthetic to maximize fear. the first step to solving a monster of the week episode is mulder or giles defining the monster. the longer the monster challenges knowledge, the longer it remains a threat, a danger, and an object of horror

similarly, the fear of the Other is a fear of the unknown, because the body outside the self can never be wholly, comprehensively, reliably known. in my opinion, this is probably the source of that overlap in the metaphor: the monster embodies category crisis and the dread of difference due to their common roots in the fear of the unknown

[rheesvandar]

TOH cast favorite movies!!!! I’m really enjoying this series (edit: series of posts. TOH is my favorite TV series of all time and “really enjoying” doesn’t do it justice)

Luz: The Good Witch Azura (2?). It’s canon

Amity: Also The Good Witch Azura

Hunter: Balto. He has Balto and Jenna plushies for him and Willow

Willow: Little Shop of Horrors. Hunter gets the songs stuck in his head every time they watch it.

Gus: Now You See Me. He likes seeing how human magic is done and thinks the end is hilarious.

Vee: Nimona. She loves seeing another shapeshifter outcast character finding family.

Masha: Fright Night (the original). Mostly because it scares Vee, who wants to cuddle.

Camilla: Cosmic Frontier 2: The Wrath of Khaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnn. The best of the series!

Eda: Ferris Bueller‘s Day Off. She’s loved it since it was in theaters.

Raine: Amadeus. Music and drama? Sign them up!

King: Dragon Ball Z: Broly. Eda showed it to him and he thinks he can go “Super Titan” if he screams loud enough.

Hooty: Scooby Doo live action. He tries to make “Hooty Hooty Hoot!” his catchphrase every time he sees it.

Lilith: National Treasure. She thinks it’s Bad Girl Historian training.

Alador: Ghost in the Shell. He likes the cyberpunk aesthetic.

Darius: The Blob. He thinks it’s about an Abomination experiment gone wrong

Boscha: Mean Girls but the lesson is completely lost on her

[3ofpents]

Mothman Moth Wings // Fabric Design for @shapeshiftersvt and The Cryptid Collection

It's time to talk about my Mothman fabric design!

This was another fabric design where I didn't have a poster yet to pull design elements from, so I was working entirely from scratch. I actually designed two different Mothman fabrics and fully intended to illustrate both of them, but then our whole household got covid and my entire workflow shut down and my design schedule got thrown off. I may or may not have adapted the second design to a bonus drop that may or may not be coming soon. But this is the one that Eli and I both really wanted for The Cryptid Collection, Eli especially because they'd already designed their Mothman runway look to incorporate a cape made with this fabric.

When I was brainstorming designs, the big thing I was focused on was how to utilize the common visual shorthand for Mothman — a black humanoid figure with moth-like wings and big red eyes — without unintentionally encroaching on someone else's interpretation. It did not take me long to decide against depicting Mothman literally and to remember that the coolest looking moth wings almost always have a pair of false eyes on them.

I wanted a very sooty look, like I had in my head the story of the moths in London during the Industrial Revolution whose wings got darker in theory because the sudden extreme rise in the amount of smoke and coal in the environment darkened the bark of the trees that the moths hung out on. I didn't want it black because I still wanted the pattern to be visible so that you really got the effect of the moth wings.

I opted for more of a blood red with the eyes just to keep that kind of broody, vampiric vibe too. It is plenty bright and obvious amongst all the greys.

There might ... also ... be a bit of an easter egg ... for fans of a certain game ... thinking about ... how ... dreams ... and manipulating people's dreams ... to try and save them ... is a big part ... of Mothman's mythos ...

I actually had to go through like two rounds of unofficial proofing to get this final version of it. When I say "unofficial", I mean that I went through Spoonflower's digital proofing process, we ordered a couple of yards in different fabrics, and when we got them, we discovered we were victims of the reason you should really do a physical proof: The colors were way too dark. Which makes perfect sense! It looked fine on my laptop screen, but my laptop screen is a giant LED light. A yard of fabric isn't. So what I saw as pretty good detail on my screen, just ended up being mostly undefined black blob when it was printed. So I lightened the colors a bit.

Then, when orders started coming in for binders and sports bras, we realized that the eyes were set too close to the edge of the fabric to accommodate multiple sizes. So I moved the eyes in to the center of "wings". Which also proved to be better for the cape too, which got remade with the new print.

As frustrating as it was to, like, go a couple of weeks thinking the print's good and finished, and then hear from Eli that there's something wrong, fix it, then go another couple of weeks thinking it's good and finished, and then hear from Eli that there's something else wrong, and fix it ...

I'm really pleased with this design. I don't think it's exactly what I had in my head at first conception? But part of the reason it changed so much was just the medium it was designed for. It was a really practical education in how a piece can change from digital art to rendering in a different medium. Like, I knew that was a risk in theory, but it helps to see it happen and understand why. Now I have more knowledge about how to avoid it in future projects.

As I mentioned in the last post, if you'd like your own chest binder or sports bra in this fabric like the ones pictured above, you can find them here (along with the poster print) on the Shapeshifters website.

If you'd like to purchase the fabric for your own sewing projects, you can do so through our Spoonflower shop. There are three different sizes there — small, medium, and large. The large is a single pair of wings that takes up the entire yard; the medium is two sets of wings across the width of the yard; the small has three sets across the width of the yard. Though keep in mind that these were designed with Spoonflower's sport lycra in mind, which is wider than some of their other fabric options. For fabrics under 56" wide, one or more of the wings may get cut off, so you may want to take that into consideration when you're choosing which size you want.

[bugwolfsstuff]

Trials of Loki AU Chapter 1

@parrotxx I did it!

Well atleast the first Chapter. I'm still not sure how i'll get him to earn his place back to godhood. And it was a little rushed near the end. Also havent proof read.

------

Hi, I'm Loki Laufeyjarson. I used to be a god—err, Jotun. My 'godly membership' was revoked two thousand and sixteen years ago.

In my many, many years of living (if you can call most of it life), the Aesir have punished me in lots of creative ways. They've forced me to go get new golden hair for Sif. Let my mouth get stitched up. Murdered my sons and defiled their corpses to chain me to a rock. Put a snake over the aforementioned rock to drip venom on my face until Ragnarok.

But never in my immortal existence have they done something like this.

And I'm not even sure how they did it.

The last thing I remember was making an err...tactical retreat after a flyting with Magnus Chase. Being in a walnut that I definitely chose to be in, then sitting on a table surrounded by very angry Aesir, and then falling. Buildings spiralling in and out of my view. I tried to shapeshift into a bird, a dragon, or maybe even a butterfly—something that, as a Jotun, should come naturally to me, but I just kept falling, still humanoid. Which is very...uncomfortable.

Thankfully, I had a soft landing.

I sat up, groaning in a pile of leaves, spitting out a red leaf, and glaring at the park groundskeeper, who was staring at me bewildered. My ribs ached, and I was pretty sure were broken.

"What?" I snapped, "Never seen a guy fall from the sky?"

The groundskeeper's jaw dropped, and he fled, leaving his rake behind. Pretty sure he needed that.

The very annoying voice of Odin rang in my mind: YOU BROUGHT THIS ON YOURSELF, LOKI.

"Very helpful, Odin. Now, how do I fix it? Do I have to watch one of your stupid PowerPoints?" I asked, "Get you a new raven?"

Odin's shrill voice boomed in my head like he was yelling too close into a microphone: FIGURE IT OUT YOURSELF.

I rolled my eyes, massaging my temples. Great. Just great. Not only do I get—

—AND MY POWERPOINTS AREN'T STUPID, Odin bellowed before going completely silent.

Well, they are, old man, I thought before attempting to pick myself up from the leaf pile. My ribs cracked and throbbed in protest, and my stomach clenched. I barely managed to stand up before I wanted to sit back down again.

My vision blurred. I was in some sort of park. Blobs that I assumed were mortal children were playing loudly on a bigger blob—a playground of some sort, maybe?— nearby. Another grey blob stood in front of me—A statue, sadly probably not of me. I could hear running water, a fountain?

I took a deep breath, which was a mistake.

"Owwwweee!" I hissed through my teeth, "Yep. Yep, ribs definetly broken!"

My entire body screamed at me to lie back down. This mortal form was so... fragile. Every movement felt like snake venom dripping on my face, only this time it was my entire body. Everything was so soft and painful — How do you humans live like this? How do you deal with being so, so...weak? So fragile? Broken that easily? I hated it!

I managed to —painfully— drag myself to a bench, which proved to me once again that my ribs were definitely broken.

On the bright side: my vision finally decided to stop pretending it's a funhouse mirror and I could properly take in my surroundings.

I was right about the statue, it was not of me. Very sad. It was of that one guy—Leaf I think his name was. Seriously you mortals should get a statute of me erected (haha) instead of that nobody.

The sound of wolves howling rudely broke me out of my thoughts.

Which meant Fenris' pups were on the prowl.

Now usually I'm fine with wolves, my own son Fenris was born a wolf after all and these were his children—my grandchildren. But, I knew well enough to tell the difference between an 'I'm hungry let's go hunt, guys' howl and an 'Oh my gods guys. I love you all so much' howl.

This howl was the former.

And I'm not sticking around for it. Not because I think they'll attack me. They wouldn't dare try that. But because watching my grandchildren tear apart a mortal or the odd demigod brings back some very um.... unpleasant memories.

With a very painful protest from my squishy, broken, weak mortal body, I got up from the bench and started hobbling out of the park.

As I trudged out of the park and up the street, It started pouring rain because I clearly hadn't been humiliated enough. Thor decided to soak me.

"Really?" I yelled at the sky, slightly regretting it at the sharp sting of my ribs.

YES REALLY, Odin's voice boomed in my head. Though that could have been my imagination or delirium from the broken ribs.

"I'd never do this to you!" I retorted, pointing angrily at my head. Earning some weird looks from passing mortals.

YES YOU WOULD, several Aesir said in unison before going silent once more.

It's true I would. But that was beside the point! 

I am once again asking how you mortals deal with this? THIS IS TORTURE! And I should know! I've been tortured! Many times!

A car driving past decided I wasn't soaked and miserable enough and lovingly gave me a splash of muddy water, soaking my clothes, causing them to cling to my body.

I snarled before shivering.

I have to get out of here fast, I thought bitterly. I couldn't stay in one place for too long, not unarmed and injured anyway; I have too many enemies. All of which want me dead. Can't imagine why, I'm a delight!

But the problem with having as many enemies as I have is that I don't have many allies. There's my wife Sigyn, she's the only person I truly trust to not stab me in the back—mostly cause her hands are full from holding the bowl over my face but I digress.

But that opens up a whole other problem: I don't know where she is. She could be across the country ceramic bowl shopping for all I know!

So that kinda leaves me only one option, and I know neither one of us is going to like it. But I am really starting to feel woozy and I don't have a choice.

I stood outside Randolph Chase's mansion—well more Magnus Chase's mansion. I think Randy died, pretty sure I killed him. Not too sure about that, some of my memories are a bit foggy. Hope that's not a permanent thing.

Despite our rocky history of me trying to kill him and possibly killing his uncle, the son of Frey has proven himself to be somewhat sympathetic to me in the past. So maybe, I could appeal to his sense of compassion.

And if that doesn't work then I'll just convince one of my children to let me in. Because my children just cannot say no to me.

Because if they say no I'll make them say yes because they owe it to me for their powers and creating them.

Yay, parenting! 

The snarling wolf knocker rattled as I knocked on the door. Seriously what was it with Randy and wolves? Like, dude your sister got mauled by wolves have some decency...oh right he worked with me. He doesn't have that.

I yawned and rubbed my eyes. Why did I feel so tired all of a sudden? Why am I even doing this?

The door swung open and I had to dodge to avoid being hit in the face, something my broken ribs enjoyed very much.

It was in fact not Magnus that made an attempt on my life through door. It was the green-headed menace that I called my child.

Alex Fierro.

He—she? I couldn't tell, guess Odin didn't just take my immortality—didn't react to me in her/his usual hateful face. Which was a good sign. What wasn't a good sign was the fact that my vision was starting to swim again.

"Hey, Alex!" I chirped, before promptly passing out.

Oh for fuck sake.

------

Chapter 2: Will be written soon.

[simplepotatofarmer]

Hello!!! Would absolutely love to know if you have any personal headcanons of each dsmp character appearance i.e the hybrid types they may be? (Is Dream human? Or is he some kind of goat-hybrid? Or shapeshifting blob??!)

HM.

for c!dream, he's either human or a rabbit hybrid to me! i tend to think that 'just human' is more canon, if you will, but rabbit hybrid is kinda my favorite. i think it's very fitting, as someone who has a rabbit! i specifically see him as a light brown flemish giant or a palomino rabbit, leaning more towards the latter!

c!wilbur is usually also just a guy but if i give him animal features, in my head he's based off a secretary bird!

c!bad is a very tall demon man. c!ant is basically just a cat except a little bigger. think puss in boots. that's ant to me.

c!puffy and c!schlatt are both sheep! a cotswold and a jacob's sheep respectively.

c!tubbo is a goat i guess because it's popular headcanon but honestly? i see him as his minecraft skin. he is just some blonde teenager to me. same with c!tommy. you could find both of them at a mall or whatever.

c!skeppy to me is like.... a diamond construct thing. or at the very least, some kind of diamond based imp. but generally i see him as this small construct! kinda like a copper golem but skeppy.

i dig the idea of a pig hybrid c!niki (i love pigs) but generally she's either human and pretty buff or i'll go with the cat hybrid thing!

c!tina is a jackalope demon thing masquerading as a cat girl. c!hbomb is, hear me out, a cow hybrid also masquerading as a cat girl. this makes sense in my head.

then a lot of my opinions do fall in line with fanon opinion for the most part. like, yeah, phil is a blond dude with wings. techno is obviously a pigman. same for the rest of the dteam (though i kinda have a thing with c!george being part warden 'cause of how much he sleeps, don't ask but they're also both blue coded so). c!sam is obviously a creeper hybrid of some kind.

i want so badly to have c!eret be a swan or peafowl hybrid because those are so elegant and especially peafowl have some amazing colorations that scream royalty but i do dig the herobrine lore connection.

if i had my way, c!jack would be a cyborg donkey hybrid, specifically a mammoth jackstock. it would look so sick.

anyway. my favorite websites are livestock ones, can you tell?

[expandingetheria]

" Well with the cloning project complete i can do a little "taste test" on one of my copies ! There's no harm in finding out my flavor! "

The blobby mad scientist said with excitement before going into a manical laugh that caused her entire body to jiggle like jello .

Meanwhile a special shapeshifter was sneaking up behind her with their teeth turning to fangs and their hefty tail sliding across the floor .

" oh entrapta darling you weren't the only one curious about your flavor you know ~ "

The shapeshifter's maw opened wide before entrapta could even get a word out they were practically inhaling the princess meal right along with the hoverpads keeping her anywhere near active all sliding down their throat. That behemoth set of buns being the hardest to swallow down as entrapta squirmed and pleaded .

" y-you can taste one of no! All my clones and use that tech yourself just don't do this! "

The shapeshifter wasn't even listening as their flabby arms just pulled more of blobtrapta in eventually swallowing the head that was pleading with them before taking their sweet time gulping down the rest of the second biggest blob in brightmoon . Until there was no sign the princess was even there outside of the behemoth belly the shapeshifter now possessed as their own true size was let out the shifter no longer worried about even remotely trying to keep appearances up.

" nobody likes the taste of a cheap copy darling . Besides you were causing problems for my own plans for brightmoon so this had to happen ~

And well it's survival of the fattest around here wouldn't you agree ?~ "

They said with mocking tone and a smirk as they patted their gut the original entrapta would soon become just another part of.

The original entrapta is gone and now all that remains of her madness is a bunch of entrapta clones

[five-rivers]

A Star is Born!

AO3

@astatia-ghast

After revealing himself as a ghost (as a hero) (as an inhuman monster), Danny had gotten used to people staring at him.  Even people who had known him for a long time.  Especially people who had known him for a long time.  Something something, couldn’t reconcile the person they knew with the person they admired, according to Jazz.  

Danny had, honestly, enjoyed the attention at first.  It was kind of like with the Yetis!  But the thrill of being invited to every party wore thin fast.  Now he just ignored it the best he could.  

Today, however, was different, and it was really getting on his nerves.  Today, there was giggling.  

So, he normally didn’t mind giggling, but it was coinciding with an awful lot of pointing and whispering.  That, he was less fond of.  

Still.  What could he do about it?  Other than be annoyed.  He was going to do that anyway.  He got his breakfast (the lunch ladies were staring) and sat down at his usual table to wait for Tucker.  Sam was taking a zero period cooking class, and wouldn’t meet up with them until ten minutes before the bell rang.  

“Oh my gosh!”

Danny looked up.  Tucker was standing a few paces from the cafeteria doorway.  His eyes sparkled with emotions Danny had never before seen outside of an anime.  He looked delighted.  

“Danny, dude!” said Tucker, and now he flung his arms out and to the sides so violently the stylus attached to his PDA went flying and would have been lost to the mysterious and forbidden lands behind the breakfast-line counter if not for Danny’s swift use of telekinesis.  “Where did you get those nekomimi?  They look so realistic!”

“The what?” asked Danny.  

“The cat ears!”

“What cat ears?” asked Danny.  

There was a moment of silence as the whispers stopped.  

“He doesn’t know,” hissed someone, their voice carrying easily across the cafeteria.  

“I need to film this.”  There was a mad scramble for phones, PDAs, and in one notable case a full sized TV camera that absolutely should not be on campus.  

“Tucker,” said Danny, “are you telling me that there are cat ears on my head right now?”

“I mean, I guess they could be dog or wolf ears, but, yes.”

Danny raised his hands to the sides of his heads and found his earlobe.  It felt a bit… weaker, more fragile, than it had before.  He traced the sides of his ears up and up and up and…

“Tucker,” said Danny, holding onto the very tips of his ears, “why?”

“I don’t know, man.  Didn’t Frostbite say you might get shapeshifting powers?”  Tucker shuffled forward.  “Maybe you’re thinking too hard about cats.  Do you have a tail and is it fuzzy?”

Danny opened his mouth to say no, but then experienced the always-unsettling sensation of his spine reconstructing itself while he was still human.  Then, to Danny’s mortification, there was a terrible ripping sound and a fully formed and very fluffy tail unrolled itself.  

Across the room, Paulina stood up, a determined expression on her face.  “If you do requests, can you make your eyes green and pretty and sparkly and huge and slitted like a cat’s?  I’ve always wanted to see what that would be like on a human.”

Danny wasn’t intending to take requests.  He didn’t even know what was really going on.  But no one had given his power that memo, so it did it anyway.  

“Wasn’t there a cat guy ghost alr–?” started Ashley.  

“No, we don’t talk about them,” said Paulina.  "They don't count."

More importantly for Danny, who also wanted to forget that particular ghost, the cat (boy) was out of the bag.

"What about wings?  Can you do wings?"

"Make yourself look older and you can buy beer at–"

"Younger!  I want to see what Phantom would have looked like as a baby!"

"Can you do plants?  Oak trees?  Roses?"

"Dragon! Dragon! Dragon!"

"What about other ghosts?  What about blob ghosts?"

"Ooh!  Ooh!  Can you become a cockroach?"

"No!  Don't make him be a cockroach!"

"Metamorphosis, people!" shouted Mr. Lancer.  "What is– I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream!"

It was really impressive how Mr. Lancer said that all in a single breath.  Well.  Shrieked it in a single breath.

"HI, Mr. Lancer," said Danny, miserably, having become a shambling mound, "can I call home?"

"Can you- can you not… turn back?"

There was a sort of slurping sound as Danny's various body parts rearranged themselves.  

"I don't have a good handle on it yet," said Danny, trying to affect unconcern.

"Involuntarily transforming into whatever people say?" asked Tucker, voice slightly washed out.

"Something like that, I think."  

"Well," started Mr. Lancer.  

The cafeteria doors were thrown open and Mrs. Woods strode in.  "Where is my latest drama star?"  She didn't wait for an answer before shouldering through the crowd and picking Danny up off the floor.  "There you are."

"I'm not in drama," said Danny.  

"Nonsense!  You'll be a natural.  Just imagine all the parts you could play!  We'll immerse you in the world of drama.  Acting.  Staging.  Theater!  You'll have all the drama you can stomach!"

"But I don't want any drama," Danny tried protesting again, but she was already dragging him off.  "To the stage."

"Mrs. Woods!  I don't think I can stomach anything!"

"That's fine!  Many are the great actors who barred from stage fright!"

"It's not stage fright!"  It might have been a little stage fright, but becoming a loose heap of assorted body parts via shapeshifting not five minutes ago was playing a much larger part in his reticence.  "Mrs. Woods, I can’t–"

"There is no can't in drama, only yes and!"

"Isn't that improv?!" wailed Danny as she carried him through the door.  

“Yes, and?”

“My elective is astronomy!”

“And I’m electing to ignore it!”

“Holly!” called Mr. Lancer.  “You can’t just kidnap students!  The time to change classes is over!  We’re halfway through the term, for love of education!”

Like this would be any more okay if it was still the beginning of the term.  

“An exception can be made!”

Sometimes, Danny wondered if Mrs. Woods was a ghost.  She certainly acted like it, sometimes.  Either way, he’d had enough.  He phased out of Mrs. Woods’s grip.  

“No!” she hollered, even as Danny hid behind a horribly out-of-breath Mr. Lancer.  “My star!”

A door down the hallway opened up.  “Are you looking for me?” asked Star.  “Can it wait?  I’m making up a test.”

“It’s not about you,” said Danny.  

“Great,” said Star.  She eyed Mrs. Woods.  “Good luck, or whatever.”  She shut the door with a clunk.  

“So, uh.  Can I go home?” asked Danny.  

“Go to the office and ask if your parents can sign you out.”

“I can fly–”

“You’re sick, right?”

“Yeah.”

“You need your parents to sign you out.”

“William,” said Mrs. Woods.  “You can’t do this to me!  I supported your bid for a field trip to the Shakespeare festival!”

“You did that for your own reasons!”

Danny, wisely, slunk away.  He definitely wouldn’t be coming back until he could control his new shapeshifting powers.

[mutable-manifestation]

The Ghost King (of Miscommunication) Ch. 19

Part 1-12,Part 13,Part 14,Part 15, Part 16, Part 17, Part 18

Part 19!

***

If you ignored the skeleton-people (Jason sure was) and the floating furniture, the castle almost reminded Jason of Wayne Manor. In a vague sort of way. Lots of rooms, lots of hallways, a garden, a library, a giant dining room, etc.

It is much bigger than the manor, though. The building itself turns out to be thirteen stories tall, same as the library.

It needs it.

“It was already big when it was just the last king’s castle, but then there were three and eventually eight - now nine - permanent residents - not to mention the frequent guests and the standard visitors - which has grown it to what it is today,” Danny tells him, filling the silence as they fly.

Their first destination is the garden biome.

Rather than carved from the garden, the stone path he’d seen floats in the air just above the low-growing plants beneath, keeping stomping feet from causing damage while also providing shade.

The seating areas aren't floating. Instead, the picnic area and the benches here and there are all formed from still-growing trees, apparently shaped over their lives to serve their purpose while remaining healthy and alive.

The picnic table itself appears to be made from a single tree which rises from the ground and curls left to form a table and benches before reuniting in a single trunk to curl up and over as an awning to the whole thing.

“This area is Sam’s” Danny continues, drifting slower to admire a trio of what appeared to be potted bouquets. “My wife-”

“Wife? Aren’t you, what, 15?” Jason risked interrupting - for all the needle-threats and implied expectation of obedience (and the underlying sense of strength that radiated at all times, a memory of the title ‘Great One’ echoing always in the back of his mind) Danny had been… nice.

He hadn’t been bothered by Jason dunking him in snow, hadn’t gotten angry when he’d hesitated at the edge of the Far Frozen or held them up to stare at the island’s sky. He figured small talk was safe enough.

Danny merely snorted, shaking his head. “Nah, I’m actually 114. Appearances here don’t mean a lot since the only ones that age are neverborns and naturalborns. And shapeshifters, I suppose.”

‘Chalk another one up for the fae theory’ Jason thinks, remembering tales of humans spirited away to unending parties and returning to find hundreds of years had passed without them.

Aloud, he asks, “...Neverborns?”

“Kind of what it says on the tin, really. Neverborns are never born, instead rising into existence from the ambient ectoplasm of the zone. They can vary immensely, though - from a tiny little blob with eyes to the concept of time given form.”

“Let me guess: a small green clock?” Jason jokes in lieu of the dozen new questions he wants to ask.

He’s glad Danny is so forthcoming with answers, and now he knows can ask more later, better not to distract the guy and risk missing something important on the tour - or hitting up against an unknown time constraint because he delays them too much.

Danny snorts a laugh, grin nearly cheek-splitting. “Not wholly incorrect. Anyway, you’ll get to meet Sam tonight at dinner, since she managed to finish up that recovery project a day early.”

“Recovery?” Jason asks - though he’s pretty sure he can guess. Being prompted to talk about oneself endears the target to the askee - that’s being a Wayne 101. More endearment equals more trust, which will make his eventual escape easier to manage. Yay for false senses of security.

(Just like the one Jason has been struggling with)

“Yeah! She does plant cataloging, conservation, and restoration. She also started dabbling in medicines a decade ago in conjunction with Jazz and Frostbite. She’s gotten really far with it considering everything else on her plate!”

Danny’s smile stays proud and content as he leads them inside to weave through the layers of the tree-tower. Jason can’t help relaxing the more they talk, the more answers he is freely given.

(He has to relax less, stop letting himself slip into trusting Danny. Danny shouldn’t feel like safety.)

(A part of him misses the Pit - it never would have let him fall prey to this kind of self-sabotaging emotional positivity - but isn’t that it’s own kind of Stockholm Syndrome?)

Despite the lush paradise just outside, the castle itself contains even more plantlife.

The tower is reminiscent of the library in that he can’t see the actual walls beyond the plants that cover them, a sheet of green - and other intense colors he wouldn’t normally associate with plants - cascading from ceiling to floor. The entire first floor is practically overflowing with the amount and variety, enough to put the garden outside to shame. The next seven levels are more of the same.

Then they come to what looks like labs - where Danny tells him medicine and ‘the opposite of medicine’ is dabbled in.

Wulf beelines straight through the ceiling to minimize his time in that room, and Danny doesn’t let him linger, suggesting that this one is better to avoid or “at least don’t touch anything.”

Danny practically races through the next two rooms - a large study and a conference room - grumbling out a simple ‘paperwork.’

Jason leaves it at that. He ran a gang; he gets the idea.

“And this is the sitting room!” Danny stops in the next room, arms spread to gesture at everything as he floats in the center.

It’s smaller than the lower floors, perhaps half the size, and is positively littered with beanbags, hammocks, armchairs, and one cushion-filled pit in the floor.

Instead of the plants from the lower floors or the ink-black bark of the labs, the walls here appear to be made of glass, glowing the same soft lavender as the leaves that can be seen curling around the room from all sides - save for a ladder in one corner of the room that disappears into the ceiling.

“The ones in the towers are private, though - just for friends, family, etc,” he explains. “The castle ‘s pretty empty now, but it can get really busy. If you need a place to escape to, you're welcome in any of them.”

Jason just nods.

It had already been clear that Danny was socially important, what with all the ‘Great One’s and the ‘meetings’ and the ‘my home is a literal castle.’

The three towers would be key locations; he and his spouse could be combatants in charge of this wing - or all three, given the implication of ‘any of them.’

Though nothing about the tree tower really screamed ‘military defense location.'

‘Some kind of royal relative?, Jason ponders, ‘Maybe a prince?

Maybe.

He’ll ask later.

Danny offers his hand again and phases them straight across the empty space between towers and into the private sitting room in the pyramid.

It’s a near mirror of the other one, save for the artificial scenery of a day on the beach projected over every surface - illusory water just barely reaching the cushion-pit before retreating back to the far wall.

“This is Tucker’s area - my husband. You’ll also meet him at dinner tonight. He’s already here, but he’s locked away in pyramid-lab 1 - the closest one of the three outside - updating his PDA.”

Jason nods as he scans the ceiling - the roof is flat instead of pointy, and once again the only break is a ladder into the ceiling.

“What’s up there?”

“Hm? Oh, the top floor of each tower is a bedroom.”

The rest of the pyramid-tower’s floors are similarly thematic, 16 levels full of tech that Jason couldn’t place and Tim would likely be salivating over - 18 depending on how the illusion projector worked and if the bedroom had something similar.

Unlike the garden, they skip visiting the pyramids outside - apparently two of them are mostly for paperwork and meetings, and pyramid 1 is closed up for now ‘for the obvious reason.’

‘It’s not obvious. Literally what part of a system update requires complete isolation???’

The next part of the tour brings them to an entire separate building inside of an empty room the size of the library.

“This is my parents’ area - they’re off on a hunt with Skulker right now, so it’ll be a few days before they’re back.”

It was a normal building, aside from the fact that it was inside of a castle and had a metal monstrosity on top of it with “SPECTER” written in bright green letters.

As it happened, the rooftop monstrosity could turn into a blimp. Or a jet.

The first and second floors were almost jarringly normal - bedrooms and closets set atop an open kitchen-dining-den setup that looked like something out of a Metropolis apartment advert.

Then it was rooms of giant open space - a shooting range, a training room, a training room with a simulator.

And then labs reminiscent of the ones in the tech-tower. Except instead of tasteful, high-tech builds there were labfuls of half-built devices that looked like a sci-fi novel threw up (so like the ones in the dining area and on his wrist).

The top three floors were armories full of similar devices, of which the top one was off-limits for being too dangerous. A few of the things in the second armory looked a bit sleeker, however.

One thing looked familiar.

“Is that a 9mm?”

It had the same hideous silver paint-job as the sci-fi weapons, but the only green was around the muzzle and trigger - no ‘Specter’ splashed across the side.

Danny’s eyes lit up alongside a shit-eating grin the moment they hit the weapon, and he practically teleported to it.

“Oh man,” he enthused as he uncaringly removed the weapon from its place on the wall, “I completely forgot about this thing; this is the Foley Bazooka.”

“Bazooka!?”

“I know right! Tucker figured out how to miniaturize the tech - my parents design, the big gun from Armory 1 - into a fold-out system. He and Sam used to mainly use lipstick blasters and wrist rays, and as you can see my parents' tech tends to be ‘bigger = stronger,’ which set some expectations…the look on Walker’s face when it folded open to blast him…”

Danny visibly tried and quickly failed to stifle his laughter, doubling over cackling while Jason took in the whole ‘blasting people in the face with Bazookas’ thing.

Thankfully for Jason’s Gothamite sensibilities, Danny’s laughter didn’t last too long.

And then.

“Wanna test it out?”

“...test it out?” Jason hastily shoved down the paranoid thought that Danny might be about to shoot him in the face.

(Not that it took much shoving when he felt so utterly safe.)

‘He wouldn’t keep me this long just to kill me now, he probably just meant the shooting range.'

“Yeah! Jazz said you seemed pretty enthusiastic about the Wrist Ray, so I thought you might want to try this out down at the range. It’s an older model, but it’s small enough to carry without needing some kind of sling-suit. Plus I figured you might like a higher-power option on hand - assuming you decide to keep it.”

Then, despite his better judgment, Jason asked: “...aren’t you worried I might shoot Wulf or something?”

‘Or you.’

“Of course not! Jazz already told me you have great aim,” he said, completely missing the point. “Unless, of course, you want to?”

His friendly expression didn’t change beyond a slight head tilt. Wulf merely snorted and bared his teeth in what might’ve been a smile.

“N-no!” Jason hastened to deny, “No, of course not, it’s just, y’know, a bazooka.”

Danny merely placed the gun back on its platform and floated forward to lightly grasp Jason’s shoulder and look him in the eye, expression softening in complete disregard for what his response really should have been.

“Jason, I know it might be a bit of an adjustment given how humans abhor violence - especially given the…brand of it... Gotham tends towards - but here? Fighting is just. Socializing. Not that there aren’t still serious fights, but the difference is almost always obvious given the whole ‘tendency towards unrestrained emotions and monologuing’ thing.

The risk of anyone getting seriously injured in a social fight is incredibly close to zero. It’s normal to want to fight; it’s like the human equivalent of saying ‘hello nice to meet you let’s get to know each other better’ combined with sibling roughhousing. Even most of the fights that do contain genuine animosity or disagreement would mostly just be the equivalent of a heated debate in the human realm. It’s okay if you’re feeling fighty - a good sign, even!”

Wulf nods along as if that makes perfect sense.

Jason uses the silence that ensues to try to think of a way to say ‘Actually no I just want to know why you would let me have something I could use as leverage to threaten you into letting me go home, which is a thing that I want to do because I like not being kidnapped’ without making it obvious that he’s a flight risk.

Before he can, Danny’s understanding and patient expression turns into an unholy grin. Jason has all of 2 seconds to process it before the hand on his shoulder disappears in favor of a tackle-grab.

He doesn’t know how fast the guy can go, but he barely has time to blink before he’s being dropped into a snow pile.

When he sits up, he is promptly greeted by a snowball to the face.

So marks the beginning of Snowball Fight 2: Battle Royale.

Danny’s second move is to wave a snow mound into existence for protection.

Wulf is opportunistic, siding with Danny initially, only to switch sides when Jason manages to lure them into the trees - where he can make use of their surroundings as protection in lieu of being able to make snow appear on a whim like a cheating cheater who cheats - and beans Danny in the face - vengeance enacted and vision obscured.

Eventually Danny and Jason end up teaming up against Wulf, which is when a new player arrives.

Jason can’t see her right away, given that their opening move is to empty a tree’s worth of snow onto their heads.

And when Danny frees them they both immediately get snowballs to the face - it’s becoming a bit of a pattern for Jason.

“Woo! Weeb Team versus Newb Team let’s gooo!”

The girl looks like she could be Danny’s fraternal twin if not for the fact that she was clearly a year or two younger.

Then again Danny was over a hundred years old, so what does Jason know?

“Newb!? I’m literally older than you!” Danny shouts, floating a little higher in offense.

“Then fight like it, old man!”

The girl fades from sight just in time for Danny to get knocked forward by a snowball to the back of the head.

Jason barely manages to dodge Wulf’s snowball, distracted as he was from the surprise attack.

With that, Snowball Fight 2 descends into a team battle.

***

@kyrianclawraith, @do3y, @someonebored0100 @omegasmileyface

[calliecwrites]

Shifter HRT, part 4 – First Changes (2 Months)

It’s happening! Slowly – but surely. I noticed the first small changes over the last few weeks. And, despite obsessively checking myself for changes every day, I found the first thing completely by accident.

I don’t bleed anymore. I nicked my finger while cooking, and nothing happened. Eventually there was a little blob of red goo there, but it wasn’t watery like blood, and after a while it seeped back into the wound. That’s what my blood is like now. It kinda makes sense that it would be the first thing to change, since it’s already liquid, and it’s what’s carrying the shifterising hormone around my body. I can’t feel it, I can’t control it, but knowing that I’ve got goo in my veins (what a thing to say) is weirdly validating. All those pills I’ve been taking are actually doing something! And I’d swear the cut healed faster than usual – though that might just be me seeing things where there aren’t any.

Speaking of seeing, my eyesight is changing. Or, maybe not the sight itself, but what my brain is doing with it. I’m noticing details more. It’s like how, sometimes, after meditation, I feel like I’m seeing things more as they are, rather than seeing what I expect to see. I imagine it’s what it’s like for an artist studying something they want to draw. Except now it’s happening spontaneously, and more intensely. For a moment, I can look at a tree and take in the whole thing at once, every leaf and branch, and remember it. It’s intermittent – more often than not I’m still seeing things the old human way – but it’s happening enough to notice.

Everyone always says shifters have a really good eye for detail. In all the human stories where shifters are monsters, that’s how they’re able to imitate and replace people so easily (assuming they don’t just absorb them, which also often ends up happening in those stories). I think this must be the start of it.

Some patches of skin feel different, too. There’s one on my leg, one on my stomach, and another on my back. They look the same, but the texture is slightly different, and I can tell where they are even without touching them. If I really focus, I can make them feel just a bit softer and squishier than normal flesh. Not quite like goo, not yet, but definitely different. I’m thinking these will be the first parts to turn fluid, eventually.

And one more thing: I bought one of those shifter art things. Maybe you’ve seen them? – a little bowl full of goo, with a button on the side that you twiddle to change the goo into different shapes. Or, maybe ‘putty’ is a better word – it’s a bit like wet clay that doesn’t dry. It’s a sculpting toy, basically – that shifters invented. I’ve wanted one for years, but never dared, because someone might see it and… guess what was going on in my head? Who am I kidding? – no one is going to see that and think maybe you want to be a shifter! If they even noticed it, they’d take one look, think that’s a funny little thing, and move on. Paranoia is… well. I don’t think paranoia is too strong a word for it. Everything I did had to be checked against would this make people suspect?, and that overrode everything else. Any sign had to be hidden at all costs. I still didn’t dare buy it in a shop – I ordered it online – but now it’s here, sitting on my shelf, and so far no one has called me a monster. I don’t think anyone’s even noticed.

Right now it’s in the very rough shape of a dragon. Well, OK, so it’s basically a blob with two little blobs that kinda maybe could be wings… and looks more like a mushroom… what you can do with the button is very limited! But the real appeal of these is that once I can turn fluid, I’ll be able to flow into it, mix with the putty, and sculpt it from the inside using my own shapeshifting ability. It’s no wonder shifters love these things. Some of the pictures I’ve seen online are amazing – almost as amazing as what they can do with their own bodies. What I’ll be able to do, eventually.

And so that’s it! Two months, and things changing already! I’m still taking my human hormones – I’ll have to keep doing that for a while – and I still haven’t told anyone (ugh, don’t want to think about that), but for only having been on this for such a short time, things couldn’t be better!

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[kachikirby]

GranEssex Chronicles: Chapter 2 - Adjustment

It was the day after Meta was brought aboard the GranEssex and Kurabe felt it was time to get him used to the ship and her crew.

"Meta, allow me to introduce you to Mercury."

To her, there was no better person to start that with then with the vice-captain of the ship, Mercury. There was one problem with this, though: Meta still seemed wary about her, despite showing much curiosity about the metal woman yesterday. Mercury herself could also tell that the child was wary as well, so she decided to show off her specialty. The woman's body began to morph into a different form, becoming a silver copy of Kurabe. This instantly grabbed Meta's attention with his hesitance dropping a little.

"How did you do that?!" He said in amazement.

Mercury gave a soft chuckle. "I am a Limet, a race of shapeshifters. I can become anything-"

She then morphed into an exact copy of Meta.

"Or anyone. I have my limits, of course, there's a few things I can't copy, and some transformations use up a lot of energy. When I run out of energy..."

She then morphed into a small silver blob.

"I revert to my original form."

His curiosity further piqued, the child picked up the small blob, which was roughly the size of his foot.

"Is this how you really look?" He asked.

He then gave the blob a light squeeze. "You're so squishy..."

Internally, Mercury was trying to remain calm. Not only did she not like being in her original form, she also didn't like being squeezed. But if it meant getting Meta to warm up to her, she would just have to deal with it.

"Squishy... squishy..."

Admittedly, Kurabe was much too entertained by the child's amusement to say anything.

"...what's this?"

He gave a slight squeeze to the blue, diamond-shaped object within the blob. That's when Mercury shot out of Meta's hands and transformed back into her preferred appearance.

"That was my core. My heart, in other terms. I'd appreciate it if you don't do that. Ever." She uttered, clenching her chest with her face a bright red color.

The child gave a silent nod, shuddering from how sudden the action was. It was then that Kurabe stepped forward and spoke up.

"I'm sorry, Meta. I should've mentioned that you can squish any other part of her but her core."

"You have nothing to feel bad about, kid." Mercury said, her composure regained. Though she did shoot Kurabe a glare as well.

"I... I'm sorry..." Meta uttered, looking down at the floor.

"I said it's fine. You didn't know. Just be careful from now on." Mercury then placed her hand on Meta's head.

There was a moment of silence.

"...why do you stay in that form? You're a lot cuter and squishier in your true form..."

Mercury's face became a shade of crimson. She was never good at receiving compliments like that.

"I just prefer this form. It's what makes me Mercury and not just another Limet..." She murmured while covering her eyes with her hat.

"It's also because you like to be tall." Kurabe said with a slight smirk.

"That's irrelevant, Kurabe." Mercury said with a pout.

The warrior only laughed in response. "Well, I have to go do some work now. You two get along now and enjoy your tour of the ship!"

This made her student concerned and confused. "Sensei, what are you going to do? You never told me anything about what's going on..."

"I have to fill out some paperwork to allow you to become my student and stay on this ship. I also have to do some negotiations with my colleagues..."

There was a moment of pause, as if the child needed to process this.

"I understand, sensei." Meta said, sounding somewhat worried upon hearing that. He then received a pat on the head from Mercury.

"It'll be fine, kid. No one's a more forceful-, I mean, skilled interrogator than her." She said with a slight laugh.

"Are they really that bad?" The child asked.

"Stubborn is a better term."

Kurabe gave a shrug as she said that. "Anyway, I'll check on you later, Meta. Listen to everything Mercury says, there's no one more reliable than she is."

"Ok." The child nodded in understanding.

"Good, I'll talk to you two later."

With that said, Kurabe closed the door to her room, leaving just Mercury and Meta in the hallway.

"Now I suppose I'll show you the most important facility first. Our first stop will be the command room.

Meta nodded in response and began to follow after the woman.

---------

As the two walked Meta kept noticing crewmates wearing similar armor doing all sorts of different tasks.

"Ms. Mercury-" He suddenly asked.

"Please, just Mercury."

"...Mercury, who are those people? I figure they're other crewmates."

"Those are the Bukisets. They're normally armored mercenaries, though the ones here are under the direct command of Kurabe... and me when she isn't around."

Meta looked back at the armored mercenaries.

"How many of them are there?"

"There are eight of them on this ship."

"Are they all named Bukiset?"

"Yes, all of them are named Bukiset."

"How do you tell the difference between them then?"

"Small details. While each of them are very similar to one another, it's the small differences that make each one stand out. For example, the one sweeping the floor over there is left-handed, all the others are right-handed. The one polishing the windows over there always drinks orange juice even if orange flavors don't mix well with the food we serve. There are several others, but those are just a few examples. Being able to point out small details like that is a very important skill to have, Meta. Make sure to keep that in mind."

"I know... I had to be like that back when I was living on my own..." The child uttered with a sigh.

"Then you already have experience. Good, that'll make teaching you easier. Now come on, we're almost there." She seemed to grab his stub and drag him the rest of the way there.

Wherever this woman was taking him, she seemed to be very excited about it.

---------

After a few minutes, they arrived at the command room.

"Alright this is the command room. Think of it as the main base of operations. We meet here for strategy meetings, giving out orders, and contacting and receiving calls. When she's not filling out paperwork or training this is usually where you can find Kurabe."

This made the child scratch his head a bit. "Then what's the purpose of her room?"

"Everyone has their own rooms. Mainly for recreational purposes or just to sleep. She prefers to handle paperwork and personal matters in her room."

"Personal matters?"

"Matters that pertain only to her. Like when her mentor just wants to talk with her, for example. Everyone's entitled to privacy, you know?"

He looked at her curiously. "I see. Privacy wasn't a thing back on that planet."

"Well, now you have it here." She replied with a slight laugh.

"So that room I slept in last night…"

"Yup, that was your personal room. If you want, one of these days I could help you decorate it to make it more personalized for you."

The child didn't really understand how they would do that when he didn't know what to do to make it more personalized for him, but he agreed to it anyway. After hearing that, Meta went off to look around the room. There was a large table in the middle of the room with various chairs against it and several large monitors on the walls. Some of these were blank screens, and others seemed to just project security footage from elsewhere in the ship. There were also several expensive-looking gadgets, likely for contacting people outside of the ship. Not to mention the room itself was massive, likely to fit the entire crew into this room. Such a large size also made the child feel small.

"…doesn't she ever get lonely sitting around in a big room like this?" The child suddenly asked.

"Maybe, but she usually isn't alone. She's always accompanied by someone, usually me. But now you also get to fill that role."

"What do you do in here?"

To the child, it didn't look like there was much to do inside this room if no meeting was going on.

"If there's no meeting going on, we use room to give out commands. Notice the communication device right there? It's connected to every speaker in the ship. This room is entirely for function. Now let's head to our next destination. I think you'll enjoy it."

Hearing that made the child excited.

---------

While Meta was on his tour, Kurabe was in a meeting with the rest of the Grand Five. The Grand Five is the five greatest members of the organization, led by General Z, the leader of the organization as a whole and more importantly, Kurabe's mentor.

"That concludes my report on yesterday's mission. Now, on to the primary subject of today's meeting, the child, Meta. I would like to request permission to take him in as my student and allow him to live on the GranEssex."

General Z looked at his old student with an impassive expression, which then turned into a small smile.

"I don't see any reason to not allow this. If he truly is as powerful as you say, Kurabe, then I can't think of anyone better suited to teach him."

Kurabe smiled at this, but her smile faded when her "rival" spoke up.

"With all due respect, general, I have to disagree. According to her report, this "Meta" she is talking about is a child."

This was Reedy, the Silver Tactician. He was a Limet like Mercury and the head strategist of The Organization. In Kurabe's opinion, he was also a huge pain in the ass.

"Yes, but that has not stopped us from recruiting children before, has it?" She seemed to glare directly at him.

"No, but we've never sent children into war zones before either, Kurabe. I know you; you go overboard with all of your students."

"Experience is the best teacher at times. There's some things that are better learned on the battlefield than in a simulator or training room."

"Young Kurabe is correct."

This old-sounding voice came from Bio Raiden, known as "the Lightning Shinobi" and grandmaster of the Bio ninja clan. "It may be true that he is a child, he also grew up on Opasnost Star, the planet nicknamed "the death trap planet". He has lived in a war zone. He would be safer under Kurabe's watchful eye."

"I understand that and agree with at least getting him off that planet. What I disagree with is bringing him into war zones and traumatizing him more than he more than likely already is."

Reedy gave a matter-of-fact reply, pushing up his glasses.

"Speaking of which, it is quite irresponsible of you to not have him undergo a medical exam or a psychological evaluation, Kurabe. Though I guess that's a given due to how sloppy and spoiled you are."

"That's an awful lot of assuming you're doing, Reedy. For starters, I just met him yesterday. Do you really think I'd have enough time for either of those exams?"

"What were you doing during that time you could have been administering them? Taking a nap? Training extensively? Or did you simply forget about it?"

"I was busy trying to get him to warm up to me so I could gain his trust and he wouldn't try to attack or anyone else on my ship whenever we administered those tests! Also, when did I say I would be throwing him into a war zone instantly? That's just something you came up with."

Reedy only replied with an irritated sigh and pulled up a series of notes, presenting them as if it was evidence. "Every student that has quit learning from you has said that. Besides, that contradicts with what you said about experience being the best teacher and battlefields."

The warrior only gritted her teeth before quickly responding. "There's no contradiction. I said I wouldn't do it instantly. I still need give him that psych test and medical exam. Not only that, but I need to actually teach him how to fight properly. Once I believe he's ready, that's when I'll place him onto the battlefield. Also, every student that quit? You mean all five of them compared to the thirty that didn't? Reedy, I know exactly what this about. I get it, you're a father and don't like seeing children in pain. But, you have no reason to doubt me as a teacher."

Reedy sighed before folding his hands in front of him. "How do we know you're going to follow through with that promise? You're an impatient woman."

Before things could escalate, the final member of the Big Five spoke up.

"Reedy, I understand where you are coming from. However, you are being quite unfair. Kurabe does have the tendency to be hot-headed and impatient, yes. However, she never breaks a promise either."

Reedy seemed to groan, as if he knew that he couldn't deny that. The final member was a powerful mage named Momo, the Hidden-Fanged Witch. She was the head of the magic division of The Organization and usually the voice of reason in the Big Five, especially when it came to Kurabe and Reedy's arguments. Under normal circumstances, she is very soft-spoken and kind. However, all the other members know that there's more to the mage than what's on the surface.

"Let's bring this to a vote." Z said before any more debates could break out. "Momo, you go first."

"The child is a Star Warrior, correct? Then I have no doubts in Kurabe's ability to teach him. Though I would like to show him a bit of magic, if that's ok with you. I vote yes."

Z nodded at the response. "Reedy?"

The Limet became silent, as if he either refused to agree or he was thinking about it. Noticing this, the general decided to give him time to think.

"Raiden, what do you think?"

"I have no objections. Young Kurabe has proven herself time and time again. My vote is yes."

Z nodded before turning to his former student.

"Kurabe, do you promise to devote yourself to this Meta?" He asked with a deadly serious tone, much different from his initial kind one.

"I promise." She responded, her tone equally serious.

Z's kind smile returned. "You know my answer then. Reedy, have you come to a decision?"

The final member replied with a sigh, thankfully lacking any of his earlier exhibited hostility.

"Kurabe, allow me to ask you one single question: Why exactly are you so desperate to let Meta become your student?"

The warrior glared at him with a serious look in her eyes.

"He was abandoned on a planet where only the strong survive. He might be a sweet kid, but he unfortunately has a warrior's bloodlust. I already see a lot of myself in him, both the good and the bad. As a fellow Star Warrior... no, as another orphan who was lost for a long time, it's up to me to look after him. He was already on the path to becoming a knight the moment I met him. It's up to me to make sure he thrives as one."

Reedy stared at Kurabe, trying to analyze her to see if she was lying. No... all he saw was a woman who desperately wanted to watch over a child.

"Kurabe, if you screw up, I'm taking him away from you." Reedy finally said.

"So, is that a "yes"?"

"It's not a no." He uttered under his breath. His screen then turned off, signifying that he left.

"...you think one of the kids was messing with his device again?" Momo asked, Kurabe giving a slight chuckle in response as Raiden let out a sigh.

Z cleared his throat, immediately gaining everyone's attention. "Kurabe, as you now have a new student, here's your new assignment: I want you to spend as much time training him as possible, so you'll have two months of being off-duty. Don't worry about pay, this'll be a S-class mission, so you'll be compensated accordingly. Any objections to that?"

"I have no objections to this, sir." She then stood up and gave a bow of respect. "Thank you very much for this opportunity."

She was grateful that she kept her eye visor on at this time, as she began to feel her eyes water.

---------

It didn't take Meta long to figure out that the place Mercury was talking about was the training room.

"Alright, we're here, Meta. Welcome to our training room."

The child looked around wide eyed at the large area. Various exercise machines were lined against the wall, but there was one thing that caught his attention completely.

"Mercury, what's with those robots?"

"These are robots used for combat training."

"Can I examine one?"

Upon seeing Mercury's confused face, Meta elaborated.

"Sometimes while scavenging for supplies, I would come across different types of machines. They always fascinated me." He seemed to utter shyly.

"Oh... then go ahead. Take as much of a look as you want."

The child quickly got to work. The training machines were about the same size as Mercury, and each had a symbol on the chest. This symbol presumably being the symbol of The Organization.

"Mercury, how powerful are these machines?"

"The strength of these machines vary based on whatever symbol you see on the front of the robot. It's based on the classification system used by The Organization."

"Classification?"

"The organization classifies missions, groups, and individuals with a ranking system. F rank is the lowest. F rank subjects are usually of no threat. Then E rank, then D, C, B, A and finally S rank. S being the most dangerous."

The child looked at the woman in interest. "Has sensei fought all of those?"

"Oh, definitely. I have as well. Would you like to fight one for yourself?"

"Uh-huh!" He nodded enthusiastically.

"Then let's start off with something simple. I'll have you fight two F rank and one E rank at the same time. Sound good to you?"

After seeing another nod, Mercury walked over to the wall and pressed a button on it. Then a part of the wall opened, revealing various training weapons.

"Pick whichever you'd like."

Meta walked up to the stash of weapons and inhaled a sword, gaining a purple hat. Other than inhaling, this was the inherent ability of all Star Warriors, known as the Copy Ability.

"Ah, you went right for the sword? How interesting."

"It's close enough to the sticks I normally use." Meta breathed in and out, his eyes becoming sharp and focused. "I'm ready."

"Good luck."

Mercury pressed a few buttons on a remote, activating three of the machines.

The two F ranks rushed forward with their claws, only for Meta to swing his sword horizontally, the sheer force of the swing tearing the robots in half. The E rank began to fire its gun arm from a safe distance. The child jumped up high and landed right behind the machine, thrusting his sword straight through it. He had defeated the machines in just under one minute.

"How impressive... though I guess that's expected from a Star Warrior like you."

Meta's eyes were still sharp. "Bring on the next one." He uttered.

Mercury shook her head. "No, this was just a taste of what's to come. You'll have plenty of opportunities to train later."

The child only pouted in response as his eyes lost all their previous sharpness. Suddenly, his stomach growled, causing his cheeks to turn bright red.

Mercury gave a laugh as she took his hand. "Come on, let's get lunch."

---------

The cafeteria amazed the child Meta. After years of needing to scavenge for food and water, a place like this was almost unbelievable. Before Mercury could say anything, she was cut off by the child shouting.

"C-can I have all the food I want here?!" He exclaimed immediately with his eyes sparkling.

"Not all of it. You need to leave some for the rest of the crew." She said with a chuckle. "But you can choose whatever you want."

"But I don't know what I want! There's sooooo much good stuff here!" He exclaimed.

"Then it's a good thing you're going to be here for a long time." said Kurabe as she walked in through the door. "You'll have plenty of opportunities to try everything, Meta. Don't be in such a rush."

He still looked unsure about what he wanted to eat. Kurabe decided to do things herself and got a plate full of food for the puff.

"It's all good, Meta, so enjoy it, and please remember your table manners."

The child paused for a moment to think about what she had said.

"So... no inhaling?"

"No inhaling." She firmly nodded as she placed the food in front of him.

Meta looked at the dish for a moment before immediately eating everything on it. He absolutely loved every bite he took. Before now, all he had to eat was what he could find, mainly beef jerky. While he did find other things he could eat, they were either scraps or moldy. While he could eat the scraps, they weren't that filling unless he ate a lot of them. Not only that, but he also learned the hard way that he couldn't eat moldy food. As a result, he sometimes went to sleep hungry. That why this place was simply amazing. He could eat whenever he wanted!

Suddenly, he felt a pat on his head.

"Take your time, Meta. No one's going to take it from you." He looked up to see Kurabe quietly stroking his head.

With a nod, Meta kept eating until eventually his plate was cleaned off completely.

"So, what did you think?"

"This was great! Though I think I liked that chicken you made yesterday more."

His mentor gave a slight chuckle. "Well, thank you. I'd be happy to make other dishes for you sometime."

She then looked at Mercury, who had also finished eating. "Mercury, inform the crew that we'll be taking off in one hour."

"Right away, Captain."

As the vice captain saluted and walked away, she turned her attention back to Meta.

"So, what do you think of the GranEssex?"

The child seemed to hesitate in his answer for a moment. "I... I like this place but... it makes feel strange..."

"Strange how?" She asked, in a concerned tone.

"It makes me want to smile... I've never felt like that before."

The warrior smiled in response. "That means you're happy, Meta."

"That... so?" He uttered quietly. "I think I like it..."

Kurabe gave a slight hum. "Well, I hope you continue to feel that way-"

She was suddenly caught off-guard by a hug from the child. She briefly looked at him in surprise as she heard a few quiet sobs escape from him.

"Meta?"

There was silence as she placed a hand on his head and stroked him softly.

"...thank you..."

---------

The hour of prep time has passed and the GranEssex was ready to take off. Meta was now in his room, looking at the planet he lived on for one last time. He felt the ship rumble and leave the ground.

"I suppose this is goodbye..." He uttered with a sigh.

"I assume you wanted to just say goodbye to it one last time?"

He turned around to see Mercury standing in the doorway.

"Not really. This was my home, but I don't feel sad about leaving it."

The woman gave a nod as she entered the room. "Yeah, after hearing Kurabe describe it, I can't imagine you'd ever want to go back here again."

"No. I hated this place, but it felt necessary say goodbye to it."

"Ah, I understand that." The woman nodded upon hearing that.

The two simply stood in silence as the ship continued to fly up through the atmosphere. Suddenly, Meta squeezed Mercury's hand.

"Hmm? Something wrong?"

"...you're a lot better when you're squishy."

A bright red blush immediately shot across the woman's face.

"Y-you want squishy, huh?" Mercury uttered.

She then ripped off a small part of her body, which quickly regenerated.

"Here, kid, it's a stress ball."

The child took the blob and squished it in his hands. It was just like when he was squishing Mercury in her true form this morning.

"Thank you, Mercury!"

"No problem, kid! I hope you enjoy your time here!"

Meta nodded and went back to looking at the planet he once called home. Now he had a new home. A home he needed to protect. Suddenly, a wave of tiredness surged throughout his body. Mercury seemed to notice this as well.

"I'll let you get some sleep. I'll see you tomorrow, Meta!" She said with a smile before heading out of his room.

"Then... good night..." Meta replied quickly.

"What a strange phrase. Hopefully, I'll get used to it." The child thought to himself.

He then walked over to his bed and got underneath the blankets, curling up into a slight ball. It felt... warm. He let out a satisfied sigh.

"Good night, Meta." said Mercury's voice. Hearing this made him slightly jump awake.

"M-Mercury...? Where are you?" He uttered, tensing up.

"You know when someone says good night, you aren't supposed to wake up, right?"

Meta noticed that her voice seemed to be coming from the stress ball she made. He silently blinked in confusion.

"But how...?"

"I can talk through any part of my body, even if that part is separate from my main body. Now get some sleep, kid, no doubt Kurabe's gonna push you to your limit tomorrow."

He gave a nod in response. "Alright. Good night again, Mercury."

Meta quickly fell asleep soon after, dreaming about his new life with his new family.

---------

Extra: Toyhouse Pages for Appearing Characters

General Z

Reedy

Momo

Bio Raiden

[unculturedmamoswine]

Happy Forduary! For Week One's theme, Family, I wrote some dad Ford with baby Shifty! Technically a prequel to a fic of mine but you don't need to read that to understand this. Just know that Shifty is a good boy who does NOT want to murder anybody in this AU.

Maybe Fiddleford was right, and he was being overly indulgent, Ford considered. Maybe he was anthropomorphizing this thing a little too much to be entirely healthy. Certainly he was losing some measure of objectivity, he could admit that to himself.

“Come on,” he told the blob on his kitchen table. He tapped a cereal bowl in front of it to catch its attention. His (the creature’s) eyes tracked the motion. “Just yesterday you turned into this bowl. Can you remember?”

It looked up at him, blinking, then quivered and became a perfect replica of the cheap bowl.

“Yes! Look at that,” Ford said to Fiddleford, who sat back in his chair, hands held off the table as if the shapeshifter would pounce on them the instant they came near. “As long as whatever I want him to become is no more than the mass he usually possesses, nothing fazes him!”

Ford held the real bowl and the shapeshifter in each hand. They were identically cool, of identical weights, and the shapeshifted bowl even had the same chip on the rim, showing white against the blue of the ceramic. Ford, grinning, feeling oddly triumphant, held the imitation bowl up to his face. “Well done!” he told it.

“You know,” Fiddleford began gently, “you oughtn’t talk to it like that. We don’t got no clue of what that thing is or what it could do. It could become anything for all we know.”

“In four days he’s never become anything more dangerous than a hot cup of coffee.” Ford wanted to roll his eyes, but Fiddleford did have good reason to be wary of unknown organisms after his encounter with the gremloblin. Ford was trying to be understanding. “You aren’t dangerous, are you, Shifty?” he asked the bowl, which promptly turned back into its default, gooey, insect-like shape. Ford set the real bowl down and rubbed Shifty’s head. The little creature rubbed back, burbling.

Fiddleford squawked. “Ford! You can’t name the thing! Even if you’re baselessly convinced it won’t kill us both, it ain’t in the least professional!”

“I’m hardly the first researcher to name my subject,” said Ford defensively. “And I’m taking notes!” He gestured at the notebook on the table. “Besides, he needs a name. It’s practical.”

“Alrighty.” Fiddleford stood up, taking his lab coat from the back of his chair and putting it on. “I won’t argue with you about it. Today, anyway.” He scratched at his chin. “Think I might head home, turn in early. Call Emma-May, talk to Tater.” He grinned at Ford, but it seemed strained. He was tired. Fiddleford had been unfocused and weary lately, nervous and unhappy with everything. “You have fun with that…fella. Whose sex, I’d like to remind you, we don’t even know.”

“Alright.” Ford moved the shapeshifter to the crook of his arm, standing to clap Fiddleford on the shoulder. “Get some rest. Take the weekend, Fiddleford. I’ll see if I can make any progress with the mystery of this little guy!” 

As Fiddleford waved and walked out of the kitchen, shaking his head, Ford looked down at the little creature (extraterrestrial life form? Extrauniversal life form? Just a weird bug?) and asked him, “What do you think? Are you mysterious?”

In a blink, Shifty turned into a hand, which gave a vigorous thumbs down. Ford laughed in surprise.

“Impressive! High six!” It slapped his palm. “Hmm.” Ford turned Shifty over in his own hand. It was his own hand. The shapeshifter had used Ford’s hand for a model. High six, indeed. “Well, then. Not mysterious at all, you say? An open book?” he teased, guessing what to expect.

Sure enough, the rascal instantly fell open in Ford’s hands in the form of Ford’s own journal. Ford chuckled, then frowned thoughtfully. “Hmm. Perhaps I was wrong about your shapeshifting being limited by your mass. Surely my journal is more massive than you in your true form, if you’ll excuse the assumption, my boy. Do you think your little gooey self is your true form?” The pages of the journal turned restlessly back and forth as if wind-tossed. Ford noticed they were blank. Perhaps he couldn’t mimic writing?

“Well,” he said quickly. “That’s alright. You can be whatever you want to be! Literally! Now, what do you say to a walk in the woods? You might spy an interesting new form to try. And I could use a chance to stretch my legs.”

A mouse scurried up Ford’s arm to perch on his shoulder. It squeaked and stuck its nose in his ear. “I hope you didn’t see that form in the house,” Ford said.

-

Ford breathed deeply as he stepped into the trees with Shifty, crunching over twigs and feeling the softness of centuries of decay under his boots. “Perfect weather for a walk, don’t you think?” 

The mellow warmth of the day loosened its grip even more as he and Shifty walked deeper into the trees. Ford talked as he walked, pointing out items of interest to Shifty. If he was an alien, Ford wondered if they had forests on his world. He wondered if Shifty would ever see them for himself. How long had that egg been in the ground? Perhaps he was entirely alone in the universe, a species of one.

After a little over an hour, Ford sat on a log generously coated in moss, enjoying the sounds of the forest. Shifty explored, scurrying up and down their log and onto the ground in front of them. He never strayed far, frequently returning to Ford for some unknown reason. He approached, inspected, and briefly became a fallen branch covered in lichen. Then he turned back into a mouse, sniffed at the branch, and bit the lichen.

“Hungry?” Ford asked, curious. He hadn’t been able to tempt the shapeshifter with any food at all so far. All Ford had seen him eat was the shell of the egg from which he’d hatched.

Shifty tossed his head viciously, making no impact whatsoever on the lichen in his mouth. “Um, do you need help?” Ford offered. Shifty let go of the lichen, squeaked loudly and repeatedly, then swiftly changed until he was a beetle at least a foot long. He tore a mouthful of lichen from the branch with his jaws and scurried back to Ford, who automatically reached down to pick him up.

Once on Ford’s lap, the colossal insect jerked his prize toward Ford. Ford hesitated, then took it from him when Shifty tossed his head again.

“Thank you,” he said. “But I’m not hungry right now.”

Shifty stomped his many legs and spun in several circles while gnashing his mandibles, seemingly frustrated. He resumed his usual form, stretching his body, clearly reaching for the lichen. Ford gave it to him, bemused. Shifty rocked from side to side, emitting a soft, high whistling sound Ford hadn’t heard him make before. It was a long, sustained noise that made Ford grit his teeth. Just when Ford was about to– well he wasn’t certain what, but something, the sound resolved itself into something else entirely.

“What.”

Ford blinked. He looked around for the source of the voice, then snatched Shifty up from his lap, holding him at eye level. Surely he’d misheard. “What?” Ford demanded. Shifty waggled the chunk of lichen at him.

“What,” he repeated. “What. What?”

“Oh, my…” Ford breathed. “You– spoke. That was speech.” Ford leaped to his feet. His heart was pounding. To say he was shocked would be a gross understatement. He’d always (well, in the few days since his hatching) spoken to Shifty as if the little thing could understand him, and he was clearly intelligent, responding in his own way, but this was nothing Ford had expected.

Shifty squirmed slightly in his grip, blinking his huge red eyes at Ford. He should have been repulsive, Ford thought, a bit numbly. His usual form was squishy, pale, with pointed limbs and sharp teeth spaced widely around his gaping mouth. He shouldn’t have been able to be cute.

“What?” Shifty repeated again.

“It’s, it’s a lichen. This?” Ford asked, just to be certain. He poked at the stuff, hanging from Shifty’s mouth. Shifty bounced excitedly. “It’s oakmoss. Neither moss nor, in this case, living on an oak.” Ford laughed, maybe a little hysterically. “It resembles a plant but isn’t one. It’s actually quite interesting; a lichen isn’t an organism unto itself, really. It’s a composite of an algae and a fungus.” “Hmm,” said Shifty in a small voice, turning again into Ford’s disembodied hand and feeling the oakmoss between his fingers.

“Incredible,” Ford murmured. When Shifty looked up at him by raising two fingers as if pointing at Ford, he added, “It’s a nice sample. If you’d like, we can take it back to the lab. We can compare it to the lichens in some of my books. How does that sound?” Shifty gave him a thumb’s up.

“Wonderful! I didn’t realize you had such a keen scientific mind! But you’re a smart boy, Shifty.” He patted Shifty’s back and started toward home, picking his way through the towering firs.

Afternoon was drifting into evening by the time Ford made it through his front door. He looked down at Shifty, grinning. At some point on their way home, he’d fallen asleep against Ford’s chest, his prize still clutched in his fist.

[cool-cube]

this is the shapeshifter / gooey guy of this playlist. He's also my personal favourite of the ten. Anywho, here's Inkwell!

Species: Scriyoboid

Homeworld: Blancavanz

Abilities: Inkwell is effectively a big ol' blob of ink who can take basically any shape he wants. He can willingly change the colours of any part of his body, aside from his head. Inkwell's main ability is to bring his art to life, literally. He uses his inky body to draw on any surface & can then bring said art into the real world to use in combat.

Weaknesses: Inkwell & his art are both deathly weak to water. The slightest bit of water is enough to severely incapacitate him. Along with that, he's basically incapable of harming others without using his art, due to him just being a liquid. All of his art dissappears upon detransformation as it is made of his own genetic matter.

Trivia: It should come to no surprise that the Scriyoboids are a very creative species. Their kind are known for always finding new ways to push what others consider art. While they do dabble in visual & audio arts, they dabble in all sorts of "concept arts", such as "gaseous arts", "organic arts", "pyrokinetic arts" and so many more. They're a very docile species & haven't participated in any notable battles. They aren't exactly viewed as a threat to the rest of the Milky Way.

[goliath-de-senfina-sango]

A Phantom Adopted

Murder Misery

A devil and a priest go on the hunt, while a late fee collector and his cousins withdraw from attempting to teach a 15-year-old baby. discussions are had, plans are made.

Ao3

One would expect that a soul-sucking shadow demon would be somewhat difficult for people not particularly well versed in tracking others down to find - even more so considering that Leico’s attempt to scry her failed him.  Still, it turned out that feeding on misery in order to sustain one’s looks made one unpopular, and so finding Penelope Spectra was no challenge.  The irritating part was merely that she had someone with her.

A green blob with red eyes, claws, and a fanged mouth arched a brow that wasn’t there a moment ago at them, looking wholly unimpressed.  A corpse-pale woman wearing a cropped black shirt and black pants covered in green flame accents turned around to look at them both, purple lips pulling back to reveal a smile full of fangs.

“My my, it appears someone went about seeking us out, Penelope.  We don’t get many clients who want us, do we?”

“No, we don’t.  I assure you, gentlemen, that I’ll be perfectly able to help you through whatever it is that you’ve got going on in those little heads of yours.”

Leico reached under his cloak, pulling from behind him a silver mace that hummed with power.  Duncan pulled out his pistol, disabling the safety he’d installed after one too many close calls with drunken family.

“You can help me by sitting still and letting us purge you from existence.”

“You can help me by giving me a moving target.”

Five cracks rang through the air as bullets, engraved with infernal sigils, flew and dug into the pair of ghosts with lightning speed and deadly precision.  Duncan grinned at the pair, 3 holes blasted into Spectra and 2 splatters of goo flung from Bertrand’s gelatinous form.

The grin fell and a yelp escaped him as the blob took on the form of a large cat of some kind, and claws sliced into his tail as Duncan tried to dodge out of the way.  Wonderful to learn that one of his opponents could change form like that, very nice.

“What violent little men you are!  You are men, aren’t you, not a pair of monsters trying to make themselves-AH!”

Bertrand was forced back rather quickly when Leico’s hand, wreathed in blinding grey light, slapped the shapeshifter in the center of his body and over half of it was burned away by the light.  The warbling screech Bertrand made as he retreated was music to Duncan’s ears, and he fist bumped Leico while Bertrand turned into a small bird.  

A crackling bolt of violet light flew toward them and the brothers jumped away, putting some space between themselves.  Grey-violet-green light swirled into a ball in his hand, a veritable maelstrom of color, and scoffed at Spectra.

“May your soul face proper judgment at the hands of the Queen.”

“The only Queen I answer to is myself, you pest!”

Spectra rose into the sky, as much as it was the sky, and raised a wall of ectoplasm.  The bolt of holy light pierced it like a rocket through glass, and with a flare of incandescence and a hellish wail, Penelope Spectra was nothing more than a wispy ball of shadow floating aimlessly through the void.

Bertrand flew after the core, hoping to fly his oil stain of a mistress away from the battle.

CRACK

Metal coated in literal hellfire slammed through Bertrand’s wing, and he lost hold of his falcon form.

CRACK

Pain became his world and Bertrand was reduced to naught but his core, the ectoplasm around him too thick with holy and infernal magic from their attackers to pull into himself, to build a new body.  That was fine, he would be fine, they’d assume this was the worst that could be done and walk away.  Humans didn’t know how the soul worked, after all.

CRACK

Another bullet sailed through Penelope Spectra’s core, and even stripped down to a core himself, Bertrand could feel her screams, fire and shadows exploding into nothing.  He shuddered with a violent sorrow that threatened to rip him apart.

CRACK

Rather than joining his precious Penelope, Bertrand was faced with a far more horrific reality.  Without his core, he was unbound from the ectoplasm that made up the liminal realm, and without it there was nothing.  No sight, no sound, no touch or smell or taste.  The countless senses that being a ghost afforded them, gone.  He simply was.

True destruction would have been a mercy, but demons and priests were not known for mercy when dealing out retribution.

Duncan sighed, checking over his pistol before holstering it.  Taking a deep breath, he let fire rise from within, sealing up the miniscule cuts that Bertrand had managed to land on him, and shook out his limbs.

“That was disappointing.  I expected a fight not 12 seconds of executing a couple of weaklings.”

“They preyed on children, Duncan, what did you expect?   I’m honestly just surprised they managed to nick you.”

“Yeah yeah, rub it in.  I just didn’t know that there’d be a shapeshifter, or I’d’ve backed up a bit more.   Whatever.   Think there’s a bounty we can collect on?”

“What currency would ghosts in a multicultural melting pot of an afterlife even use?  Energy?”

“True, it’d probably be a barter system or IOUs.  Whatever, let’s get back home, shall we?  Truly a riveting tale on how long this took to get to.”

Leico snorted and put away his mace, gesturing at the air in front of them.   The ectoplasm swirled up and out into a shimmering grey-violet disc, resolving into a gateway onto the deck of the Rose Phoenix.  Sharp winds and arctic cold flew out of the Gate and Leico shivered, wrapping an arm around Duncan for warmth.

“Well, if Toby and Valdan got wrapped up with the kid, Dave is dealing with learning the medicinal technology.   Hopefully this doesn’t turn into a fight.  I can feel that place sucking in my heat from here.”

The pair walked onto their spelljammer, leaving Spectra and her assistant to think about what they’d done for however long it took for souls to connect with ectoplasm.  Or however long it took until a lich found them, either or.

#

Jazz rushed over to check on Danny, and after several minutes of making sure there were no bruises, bumps, or cuts, she had to admit to that overprotective sister within that he was fine.  She turned to glare at Cole, who drifted lazily down beside her to give Danny his own cursory once over.  She took a deep breath, and spoke in a near hiss.

���What just happened?”

Cole held up his hands in surrender and shrugged, which did little to soothe Jazz’s building irritation.

“I dunno, probably used up a lot of energy learning a new power and tossing it out at me.  I’m not the best at all this spirituality stuff-“

“You’re literally half air spirit but alright, cous.”

“-I do know how to keep people from pulling on my magic to fill up their own drained supply.  Your brother needs to eat more.”

“Most likely needs more food filled with ectoplasm, it’s incredibly energy rich.  Maybe he should spend some time in the Ghost Zone?  Who knows.”

“As I asked, do you know where Elle is?  I personally haven’t tried my hand at scrying her but I’m rather certain that she’d feel it if we did that and I’d rather not creep her out when we go find her to offer her help.”

“I can try to look for her, I guess, but I’m pretty sure that Elle is laying low to avoid grabbing Vlad’s attention.”

“Who exactly is this Elle person, Tucker?”

“Oh yeah, we never did end up telling you about her.  Save any and all yelling until the end of the explanation or I’m going to stop telling you, got it?”

Jazz took a deep, measured breath, and nodded to Sam.

“Ok, before you start telling that tale, I’ve gotta say I’d find her better if I had the Fenton Finder­­­TM since that could track down her ectosignature.  Buuut, I’d need Vlad’s record of that ectosignature in order to look for it in particular.”

“We should also probably get Danny into an energy rich environment so he can recover faster.  How do you kids feel about seeing our ship?”

“No.  We’ve just met you, it’ll take more than one meeting to establish the trust needed to get us to a secondary location, especially with Danny passed out.  I’m taking Danny home now, we’ll contact you when we’re ready to meet you again.”

“Well, that’s a fair enough point I guess.  After we sneak into Vlad’s place to get some more data, I’ll get back to you on finding Elle if we do before you.  Regardless, you should probably tell us before you go to get her, so we can talk with her as a group - familiar faces and all that.”

“Well now, if it’s breaking into some rich guy’s house to steal information, I can help you out with that.  Kinda my specialty and all that.”

“You don’t have a specialty; you just do everything.”

“Thank you, yes.  So, you guys head back to your place, we’ll figure out what we’re gonna do on our end, and we can meet back… well, how about here?”

“Oh sure, we can turn the observatory into a real homebase.”

Tucker paused as he considered that, tilting his head.

“Actually, yeah, why don’t we do that?”

“Tucker, schemes later, getting Danny in the car now.  Thank you, Toby, Valdan, Cole, for helping us out.  We’ll keep in touch, see what you can teach the kids.  For now, have a good day.”

Tempting as it was to ask just how old Jazz was to be calling the others kids, Valdan knew when to cut his losses.  So he nodded and shook Jazz’s free hand, while Cole picked Danny up and carried him over to Jazz’s… car.

“I don’t like the vibes this thing gives off.  You got here in this?”

“Well if you’re connected to the weather like you claimed then I imagine you wouldn’t be all that pleased near a car.  I’ve tried to convince my parents to make an engine that’s eco friendly and isn’t running on ectoplasm, since that’d just animate the car itself.  They’re not much into making things that aren’t related to ectoplasm.  I might just make a new engine myself, actually, that’s probably a lost cause.”

“Welp, you’ve lost me so I’m gonna go now before you start rambling about machine parts the way Duncan and David do.  Bye.”

A cloud of shimmering vapor and ice swirled into Cole’s hand and flew out to an empty spot a few feet away.  Lightning flew from his hand to the cloud and it compressed into a flat circle of sky blue and toxic green, which swept out to the edges.  On the other side was the deck of a ship, surrounded by a howling blizzard and blinding white snow and ice.  Laughing at the sight, Cole grabbed his husband and cousin before jumping through the portal, which sealed shut behind him.

“Alright, a lot of things happened just now.  Let’s talk about that on the way home.  But first, Tucker, you’re going to tell me about this Elle person.  We’ve got plenty of drive to go before we even get to Sam’s house, so don’t try to say ‘it’s a long story’.”

Tucker sighed and settled down in shotgun, sticking tongue out at Sam when she glared from the backseat.

“Ok, so it all starts with Vlad.”

#

The Rose Pheonix was currently in the shape of a submarine, and David wondered about that.  He did not, after all, instruct it to change into any particular kind of vessel when they approached the massive iceberg that bordered the seemingly infinite Far Frozen realm, having no plans to go into it on the ship – he’d modified his and Apogo’s armor to be perfectly suited for the cold after all.  He would have to check the engines and see how the ectoplasm around them was affecting the mythallars.

Returning his attention to his family, however, David looked them all over and sighed.

“Duncan, didn’t we agree not to have weapons at the table?  Put your guns away before Valdan and Leico see them.  You don’t need em to regale us with how amazing your battle with Spectra and Bertrand was.”

Duncan rolled his eyes but got up anyway, stalking out of the room with a shout over his shoulder.

“It was barely a fight anyway!  Next targets need to be tougher.”

“Next time we need you to kill someone, I’m sure they’ll be a better opponent.  For now, we should focus on finding this Elle kid and getting her the help she needs.  Thankfully, the Far Frozen have agreed to lend us their medical technology and offered their services in actually checking out Elle’s stability issues and all that after we mentioned that she’s the clone of Danny.”

“Apparently they had this prophecy about him beating the big bad King of Ghosts single-handedly, and he did, so they find him worthy of worship or whatever.  Makes me wonder what kind of tyrant that king had to be for that kind of love for a kid ya don’t know.”

“Welp, that’s a whole other thing to look into but let’s keep our priorities straight, shall we?  First we need to find and help Elle, then we track down this Vlad character and see how best to eliminate him from the equation.  After that, I kinda wanna stay here for a bit, their world feels like it’s in need of help to maintain a balance with nature.”

“Before we can take out Vlad we need to find out if he’ll come back as a regular old ghost or if there’s a way to properly purge him, because there’s no reason he can’t shapeshift to look like his living self and resuming business as usual.  He’s a threat to everyone we’ve gone and gotten attached to here, and there’s no guarantee that he isn’t a major threat to Elle too since he made her.”

“Find and help Elle, research and kill Vlad, guarantee he stays properly dead for long enough that the kids don’t have to deal with him until they’re adults, and then we can split up jobs between helping the material world with whatever imbalance it’s having with nature and technology.  That sound good?”

There were agreements all around the table, and the twins walked in setting down food along the table.

“Glad you guys decided on a plan, cause it’s time to eat now.”  

“We’ll start actually working on things after, got it?” A chorus of ‘yes sirs’ rang out in a rainbow of tones and the Lumanos sat down to eat.

#

This here is for @floralflowerpower, @ebonyheartnet, and @five-rivers ! I hope you enjoyed! Have a lovely December and feel free to toss out conflicts I can shovel onto Danny's plate if you think I've been a touch too nice to him.