#it feels like our very humanity is being poured into a blender

[mortiscausa]

it does make you wonder at the point of sharing art sometimes if it's just gonna be fed into a machine by some thoughtless fucking ai bro

[goodhorse413]

Ramble incoming. No particularly brilliant insights contained therein.

I've been thinking about AI and automation lately. I'm fascinated by the composition of firms. They aren't talked about in economics often enough. They're very different from other things in economics. They operate like very small centrally planned economies rather than markets.

I work in a smoothie shop, and I often think about the shop as a large and complex machine, many of whose appendages are human beings. I think it was actually Marx who turned me on to thinking about production like this. There's a bit in the Grundrisse where he says:

"The production process has ceased to be a labour process in the sense of a process dominated by labour as its governing unity. Labour appears, rather, merely as a conscious organ, scattered among the individual living workers at numerous points of the mechanical system; subsumed under the total process of the machinery itself, as itself only a link of the system, whose unity exists not in the living workers, but rather in the living (active) machinery, which confronts his individual, insignificant doings as a mighty organism"

Working in the smoothie shop feels like being a machine part, who just so happens to be conscious and have a life outside of the production process. Hundreds of tasks are performed with hundreds of materials, in an extremely efficient manner. Materials and customer orders come in, the machine processes the inputs, the machine performs a series of steps, and smoothies come out. No step necessarily requires a human. They just haven't invented a machine cheaper than us yet.

Some things I feel can be automated soon. The role of the cashier seems ripe for automation by AI. Everything the cashier does, including more "off-script" duties like checking with the manager and fulfilling unique customer requests, can be done by an LLM only slightly more powerful than the most powerful currently existing models. I don't think GPT-4o could do it, but GPT-5 probably will be able to. Most of the cashier's job is already automated via the "ToastPOS" system which is rapidly being adopted by every restaurant in town. The shop's money is counted by the system, orders are delivered to the kitchen via the system, inventory is counted by the system, payments are made with the system, it's all done with the system except for the part where you talk to the customer, and the customer already gets half their instructions from the screen (Pay now! Tip! Would you like a receipt? Sign up for rewards!) I give it less than a decade before we're ordering fast food from big-eyed chibi animals, who speak every language (including ASL), know the menu's contents inside and out, can communicate simultaneously with the customer and the kitchen, and never need to be reminded to smile by the manager.

Actually making the food is much harder. An LLM could already just TELL you how to perform the set of tasks necessary to make a smoothie, but even a supergenius-level AI still wouldn't have hands. There are around 50 different ingredients in our kitchen, and I have a hard time thinking of a better way to get arbitrary combinations of 50 ingredients into blenders than putting them all in boxes and paying a human to scoop them in. For more complex foods like omelettes and pastries and the like the problem is even harder, by a large margin. There's just nothing AI could do to make that process more efficient. You'd have to make a big convoluted physical machine

Well... Maybe you could have a big array of ingredients on the ceiling in a grid, and a robotic arm carrying a blender moves under a specific square in the grid, and a little tube under a box opens up for half a second, allowing the right number of ingredients to fall in. The blending, pouring, and serving seem doable as well, although it might be easier for the customer to lid their own drink, since it's a bit of a delicate procedure. All in all such a machine would only be economical if wages were extremely high, and thus labor was extremely costly. And it would take up a lot of space.

The task I just can't see being automated no matter what is prep work. Opening up boxes, cutting up fruits and vegetables. Juicing, putting things in containers, labeling things, taking things in and out of fridges. The above machine would require a prep guy to restock everything. There are so many prep tasks, most of which individually take up a small portion of a week's labor, and they require a lot of moving around, fine motor coordination, and general having-handsedness. Until like, literal androids become cheaper than minimum wage, I think food prep jobs are going to continue to exist.

Management could easily be automated with AI, but management decides what to automate so they will presumably not automate themselves. Something something Adolf Bearle and Gardiner Means. Also, workers would fucking HATE their AI bosses. Can you imagine a computer having authority over you. It could never be tolerated. Not a good idea.

[delimeful]

not always what they seem

finished g/t space au commission for @legendsgates ! it was super fun to work on, i hope everyone enjoys!

warnings: dehumanization, treating people like animals, abduction, miscommunication, remus being remus, deceit, misguided but good intentioned light sides

-

“Hey, kid, wake up.” 

Virgil groaned, shifting to his side. It was still dark, why was someone bothering him? 

“There you go. It’s a great day outside, open your eyes already.” 

Wait. He lived alone. Who was talking to him?

Visions of chatty burglars or insane door to door salesmen breaking and entering flashed before his eyes, and he jerked upright with a gasp, eyes flying open. 

Darkness. He couldn’t see a thing. “What?” 

Virgil nearly poked himself in the eye in his haste to check his face for a blindfold. He should be able to see plenty; there was an annoying streetlamp just under his apartment window. Had he spontaneously gone blind? Had he been kidnapped? Was he in a trunk, slowly suffocating to death? 

“Hey, calm down. Everything’s going to be fine, don’t pass out on us now.” 

A burst of unhinged, echoing laughter nearly cut off the end of the sentence, and chills ran down Virgil’s spine. “Oh god. Look, I take terrible care of my body, you don’t want my organs, I promise.”

There was an aggrieved sigh nearby. Virgil hesitantly reached his hands out to feel the space around him. It didn’t feel like a car trunk. He was sitting up just fine. 

“I don’t think we’re being trafficked, but if we were, you’d be pleading your case to the wrong guy. I’m in the same situation as you.” A dull knocking accompanied the words. “Unfortunately.”

Virgil carefully turned his body to face the direction of the voice, squinting in case he could make out any sign of an attack. “...Right, sure. Care to fill me in on what-- what exactly that situation is?” 

The stranger only seemed sardonically amused at the bite in his voice. “We’re trapped in a room. There’s glass walls dividing the room into sections. There’s a little bit of light coming in through the roof, your eyes will adjust soon. That’s all I’ve got. Remember anything from before you woke up?” 

 Virgil shoved down the rising panic, rising to a tentative crouch with his arms outstretched for balance. He’d been… What had he been doing? “I… I don’t know.”  

Another sigh. “Yes, I assumed so.” The outline of a silhouette seemed to be coming into focus. Unless Virgil was just imagining things. “Thank you so much for being helpful.”   

He bristled at the tone, but before he could respond, another giggling laugh reverberated around them. 

“Don’t fret so much, figments,” a new, somewhat nasally voice said cheerily. “I’m sure your terrible and inevitably gory deaths will only hurt for as long as the dream lasts.” 

Virgil took a long, shaky inhale. “What the fuck.” 

“‘The fuck’ is Remus, the third occupant in our room. As far as I can tell, he believes this is all a hallucination brought on by sleep paralysis. Best to just ignore him,” the first stranger advised dryly. 

“I’m still ignoring you back,” ‘Remus’ returned in a singsong. Virgil almost couldn’t blame him. He’d really rather wake up and realize this was all a dream, too. 

He wasn’t going to bet on it, though. He stumbled forwards, feeling the walls for a door, a switch, anything. 

“Do you think I’m an idiot?” the unnamed stranger scorned. “I’ve already checked everything that could be checked. Nothing’s going to happen--” 

His voice was cut off by three quick, consecutive beeps from somewhere above their heads. Virgil turned his head this way and that, searching for an intercom or mechanical device nearby. “What’s that?” 

Neither stranger answered, and Virgil realized that this was something new just as one side of the room began to slide upwards like a garage door. He raised a hand as bright light poured into the room, backing up as far as he could. In the corner of his vision, another person was doing much the same.

Something large moved outside the room, its shadow falling on them and making it a little less difficult to see. 

Unfortunately, what he was seeing was impossibly horrifying enough to be real.

A huge figure, like a giant from a children’s fairytale, was visible from the torso up. It was wearing something close to a full body hazmat suit, its inhuman face visible behind a pane of red-tinted glass. Piercing red eyes were placed just slightly too far apart, and a shiny black shell covered the bottom of its face like a curved medical mask.

It leaned closer, and Virgil recoiled harshly enough to slam his back into the corner of the room. The eyes settled on him for a moment, before flicking over to the other occupants. Adrenaline surged through him, but there was nowhere to channel it. He couldn’t flee, and there was no way he could fight. He was helpless.

In the section next to Virgil, a short man dressed in formal wear stood carefully still. He was meeting eyes with the monster, his expression neutral and still. Where Virgil had felt like a deer in the headlights, this man acted more like a snake assessing prey. The only sign that he was unsettled was the white knuckled fists at his sides.

The monster made an unsettling sound, like a hum interspersed with clicks, and then turned its attention to the only human still laying on the ground, presumably Remus. A few rigid plates along its forehead twitched downward, and it chittered at Remus. 

Virgil caught what looked like mandibles protruding from under its face plate, and felt lightheaded. 

“Remus, I suggest you look alive,” the snakelike man muttered, attention still locked on the huge creature. Remus didn’t respond, though whether it was because of the monster or because he was still ignoring them was anyone’s guess.

A moment later, the monster reached up with a limb, the suit glove doing nothing to conceal the creature’s spindly, clawed fingers, arranged like an osprey’s talons. It tapped the glass between them, and Virgil was abruptly reminded of a child at an aquarium. The ‘room’ they were captive in was a mere box to this being. An enclosure.

Remus finally sat up, stretching lanky arms as though it was a normal morning. He cocked his head at the monster, squinting. “What are you looking at, you big bitch?” 

Virgil inhaled sharply through his teeth, but the monster didn’t react beyond its forehead plates shifting back up, and before long, it was looking down at a strange grey cube, flicking talons along its surface like it was a touchscreen. 

In his section, Remus had unfolded to his ridiculous full height, and was ambling up to the wall separating them. He smiled, something about it vaguely unhinged. “Hmm, hallucinations aren’t supposed to be this expansive! It’s almost like we’re actually here, captured by giant monsters that are probably going to stick us in a blender for a morning smoothie!” 

The snakelike man rubbed his temples, still holding onto his composure. He didn’t dignify the gory statement with a response, but Virgil was more than happy to. 

“Hey, it was Remus, right?” Virgil asked, and he saw the man nodding enthusiastically in the corner of his vision. “Please shut the hell up.” 

“Never been very good at that!” 

—-

Roman glanced up from the data sheet, watching as the new specimens wandered about and made little noises at each other. He couldn’t help but hum a bit at the sight; the little animals were so charming. 

“Roman!” a familiar voice trilled, and he turned to the lab’s entrance, clicking in greeting at the sight of his partners. Though he’d been uncertain about working with beings from other quadrants at first, they’d managed to overcome most of their original hurdles and now worked smoothly together. There was nobody he’d rather have as his research team, even with the disapproving twitch in Logan’s ears. 

“Dear friends,” he returned, gesturing widely and making all the specimens freeze up again. “I swear I haven’t opened a single sect, only gazed upon our newest finds. You’re going to love them Patton, they have the strangest little noises.” 

The Nilh wasted no time in scampering forwards, just barely prevented from bumping the enclosure by Logan’s tail tugging him back slightly. “Oh, they’ve already started communicating with each other? What about body language, did you have the vidfeed on?”

“Yes, and of course,” Roman gestured with a pointed flourish, “I have also followed procedures and had the cam on since I entered the lab, treasured nerds.”

Logan’s hand flicked in an exasperated gesture, but his ears were no longer angled down, so Roman counted it as a win. Patton tugged the Glanrim closer by the tail, using his multitude of hands to push him into his spot. “Look, Lo! I think this one is threat displaying at me! They’re all acting so differently, it’s going to be so exciting to figure out what sort of sounds they use!” 

Despite his professional demeanor, Logan’s eyes all widened with excitement as he bent slightly to inspect their samples. “There’s quite a variety in patterns and sizes as well,” he observed, voice low and resonant. The little creatures all seemed to stiffen at it. “I would almost believe them different species entirely if not for the similar body structure.” 

“They’ve even got little primitive outfits, see?” Roman pointed towards the calm one in the middle, eyeing the seams. “There must be a bonding purpose for it, like how some mammalian animals will use pigment-dyes for enhancing appearance to attract mates. The real question is, how did they all end up looking so different? Which one is closest to the traits that make one desirable?” 

“I don’t see any reason we can’t find out!” Patton responded brightly. “We’ve got three samples, one for each of us, so what say we each get started on recording all the information we can!”

“We only have three specimens, so it’s important that we don’t push too far with any of them. This is only preliminary work,” Logan cautioned. “That said, I agree. The sooner we begin, the better.” 

“I’ll take the yellow one!” Roman immediately chimed in, his wings vibrating slightly inside his suit. 

—

“There’s three of us, and three of them, so of course they’re going to eat us.” Remus remained blithely oblivious to Virgil’s glower. “It’s lucky there’s not one more, otherwise we’d have to rock-paper-scissors on who gets torn in half.” 

Of course, this was the moment that the monsters stopped their odd, chitter-click-buzz noises to turn back to the container, and the first monster, the red one, began to fiddle with the side of the glass. Virgil started to breathe heavily as there was mechanical clicking around them, and then the ground under their feet shifted slightly. 

Without another second of suspense, Red reached under the box and slid the middle section out like a book from a shelf. The man in formalwear went with it, stumbling slightly and pressing against the glass for balance. 

“Oh hey, you got the freaky insect one,” Remus said, waving cheerily. “Hope your death is really cool and gory! Try not to make it cooler or gorier than mine though!” 

“Very helpful,” the man hissed through gritted teeth, his eyes slightly panicked. Virgil stumbled forwards to the front of his section as though he could reach the other human through the glass, terror chilling him. It was a pointless gesture, but as he was carried out of sight, the man offered him a nod anyways. 

Remus seemed to be unfortunately correct about them being split up, since next the one with the six arms and rocky skin pried the tall man’s section out and left with it as well. That left Virgil with the last one, a monster whose face was covered in neat fur and long whiskers. It looked at him with way too many eerie slitted pupils, and Virgil couldn’t help but compare it to a predatory big cat. Maybe several predatory big cats.

Its gaze was nothing compared to its size, of course, and Virgil couldn’t help but drop to a crouch, curling in on himself as gloved hands curled around the glass box he was stuck in and lifted it with ease.  

The floor of the box was transparent, and he stared at the dizzying drop to the floor the whole transferring process. When there was finally solid ground beneath him again, he looked up and found that his box had been placed on a sterile, shining counter. 

Before he could get much of a read on his surroundings, a shadow darkened the floor around him, and he barely got to flinch before cool fingers were descending on him, lifting him from the box. 

The hold was firm and clinical; his arms pinned to his sides, and a finger under his chin to prevent biting. The pressure on his throat was just slightly too much, and Virgil let out a choked cough, struggling to breathe through his panic. 

Thankfully, it only lasted for a moment. In the next, he was released, and his hands and knees met a solid surface. He scrambled to his feet, glancing around. 

The bad news was that he was out of the relative safety of the glass box. The worse news was that he appeared to be in a warped version of a hedge maze, walls and corners twisting around him. The worst news was that the monster was still present, and now it was manipulating some kind of square device. 

A heartbeat later, the walls around him started to buzz ominously, making the hair on the back of his neck rise up as he pictured every Saw movie he’d ever seen. 

“Fuuuuck this,” he muttered, shifting to his feet and starting down the nearest path. He alternated between making sure he didn’t get too close to the walls and making sure the monster hadn’t moved or otherwise acted suspiciously. The creature was watching him unerringly every time he looked up, and having all those eyes on him didn’t help his increasing unease at all.

As he turned a corner, he was faced with something new, and automatically ducked away in case it was going to start shooting at him. The small orb continued to sit in the middle of the path innocently, at just the right height to take out someone’s achilles heel. 

Virgil shuddered and turned around, backtracking to the last fork in the path. He wasn’t messing with monster traps, no fucking way. 

Above him, the monster seemed to sigh slightly.

—-

“... just too timid,” Logan was saying when Patton re-entered the main area of the lab. “The specimen didn’t engage in a single puzzle during our session, not even one.” 

“What a puzzling situation!” Patton chimed in, carefully slotting his own specimen unit back into the container. Inside, the little creature continued to make a bizarre assortment of calls, not even in Patton’s direction. 

Logan exhaled shortly. “Am I to assume that your insistence on wordplay means that you had greater successes than us?”

“Well, you could go with that, but you know what they say about assuming!” he replied, tucking a pair of arms behind his back as he wandered over to the others. “The little guy seemed pretty aggressive, so I tried to see if there were any specific threat calls I could make out, but… it almost never repeated. Either they have very complex body language that I’m missing or my little friend is a few sticks short of a tree!”

The other two looked disheartened, and the linguist glanced over at Roman. “You two didn’t have any luck, either?” 

“No. My specimen barely participated in the trials I set up, and so I haven’t discerned what level of intelligence we are working with yet,” Logan gritted out, ears flat.

Patton tilted his head slightly. “Not even the treat ball? Most sentient life forms have no trouble with that one.” 

“No, no interaction at all. It may be worth looking for more compelling bait…” 

Roman cut in, antennae flicking in displeasure. “Anyways, mine was uncooperative too! I was trying to get a few samples of their outer shells to see what the fabric is constructed of, but it was so resistant after just one layer that I started getting worried that maybe removing any more would actually harm it.” 

“Good. Better not to risk damaging them.” Logan turned to the units, nose twitching as he thought. “There are other non-invasive tests we can try, but results might shift if we try different samples for different tests.” 

Roman click-buzzed in complaint. “That could take forever, though! We’re supposed to be coming up with significant research, not trading specimens around!” 

“Maybe, instead, we could observe all of them at the same time,” Patton suggested, getting both of his teammates’ attention. “After all, isn’t controlled engagement with multiple specimens one of the tests?”

Roman and Logan exchanged a look, before the latter inclined his chin, slowly. “It’s worth an attempt, at least. Just watch carefully for any signs of aggression. They can’t harm us, but they could certainly harm each other.”

---

By the time the monsters finally decided to put them all in a penned-in space with each other, Virgil was almost too exhausted to be worried. Almost.

He shuffled away from where the three bizarre creatures were looming over them, but carefully remained out of grabbing distance from the other two humans. He wasn’t stupid; he barely knew these people.

“Aliens,” Remus greeted them, holding his hands up in an exaggerated pose. “I’ve totally cracked it.” 

“You’ve totally cracked,” Virgil shot back, but most of his attention was on the well-dressed man. Or, formerly well-dressed, since now he appeared to have had all top layers except his undershirt removed. “Hey, what happened?” 

“Oh, is it not obvious?” the man hissed, arms crossed tightly. “I’ve been robbed. Clearly, this must all have been an elaborate mugging for my blazer and button up.”

Remus cackled. “Yeah right! That suit is cheap as hell!”

The man rolled his eyes, and Virgil couldn’t help but notice the way he was shaking. It didn’t seem like a fear shake, not with this man’s demeanor. “Okay, but are you okay? You seem, uh, cold.” 

“Of course I’m not cold. Why ever would a half-dressed, anemic man in a glass box be cold?” the man snapped. One of the aliens moved slightly, and their gazes all flickered up for a moment. 

Once it became clear no grabbing was happening, Virgil sighed lowly, pulling at his zipper and shifting the sleeves of his hoodie off. “You’re kind of a bitch, huh?” 

The man snapped his head around, opening his mouth to deliver a scathing retort, but Virgil interrupted him by tossing the hoodie at his face. “Excuse m-- oof!”

“Don’t spill anything on it,” Virgil muttered, ignoring the man’s perplexed stare. “You can pay me back with your name.” 

“... It’s Dee.”

---

“Did you see that?” Patton bounced on his toes, tugging at Roman’s talons. “It gave away it’s covering!” 

“Astonishing,” Roman replied, not tearing his eyes away. “Is it a social hierarchy thing? Did you see any familiar dominance displays?” 

“I… didn’t, actually,” Patton replied, face scrunching in perplexion. “Maybe this one is less attached?” 

“No.” They both turned to Logan, whose eyes had gone wide. “It was an act of assistance. The yellow specimen was shaking, likely from temperature exposure due to losing some of it’s covering. It was… kindness.” 

“Woah, what?” Roman clicked, antennae perking up. “But that would mean--” 

“Look!” 

At Patton’s cry, they all watched as the other specimen seemed to attack, almost jumping forwards to intervene. At the last moment, Patton’s arms pulled them back. “No, wait!” 

Though the small, gangly creature had flopped onto the shorter one, the action seemed to elicit no pained cry or battle screech, only mild grumbles as the two readjusted in their impromptu pile. The one that had given away its covering made a face before carefully folding into a sitting position as well, a seat that kept it between the aliens and the other specimens. 

“These specimens were all pulled from different locations,” Logan half-stated, half-asked. Roman nodded, eyes wide. “They can’t be nestmates. What in the galaxy is this?”

“They’re sapient,” Patton blurted, a hand pressed to his mouth. “The sounds, they’re too complex because they’re not calls, they’re words. Language.”

“Language? But, the planet was said to only contain primitive lifeforms!” Roman protested, wings flaring up in agitation. “You’re telling me… Oh man.” 

“The heat sharing, the communication, even the extreme caution shown in unfamiliar circumstances,” Logan spoke slowly, as though warming up to the idea. “It… does seem to be a potential explanation.”

They all looked back to the tiny bipeds, now seeing their every action in a new light. 

“Well, there’s only one way to be sure,” Patton said, lifting up a hand and waving it slowly in a generic friendly gesture. “We’ll just have to figure it out for ourselves, using our own judgement.” 

After a long moment, one of the specimens-- no, aliens-- waved back. 

[dammitadolfnomorecake]

Once Bitten, Twice Stupid prt.23

Keith had been had. Lance had slipped out of talking to him by making him flustered, then they’d put a totally dumb movie on... and the stupid night had slipped away before he knew what was happening. Lance was infuriatingly relaxed. He’d laughed at the big pieces of garlic on the pizza, complimented him for not being a bad first timer in a weird way that made Keith’s heart go weird, then started making fun of the horror comedy they were watching. There was some name for the genre that Lance had used, it wasn’t comor, or hormedy, but it was something as equally stupid sounding. After half a dozen drinks it’d sounded good enough to laugh at. Now Keith was laying in bed, hiding himself away from Lance. He’d been aiming to get Lance’s guard down, not his own... What even was last night? And what the heck was Lance doing making so much noise too early in the morning? How was he supposed to ignore his existence when Lance sounded like he was demolishing the house? What happened to getting up and sneaking into his office for his morning meal? And why was keith trying to do the brain without the coffee? He couldn’t brain without the coffee.

Shuffling into the kitchen, Keith grimaced at the noise. Hunk was talking a million miles an hour as he blended something, Pidge sitting at the kitchen table with her knees up and laptop in front of her

“Hey, man! I’m making breakfast smoothies! Do you want one?!”

Yelling over the blender, Hunk’s stupid face was smiling too much... that was mean. Hunk was alright, but too much smile in the morning was weird

“Coffee...”

Lance was already working the coffee machine, Keith frowning as he noticed the way Lance’s hands were shaking

“Way ahead of you. Sit down and I’ll bring a cup over. Don’t disturb the gremlin, she’s extra cranky this morning”

Keith was perfectly fine avoiding a cranky Pidge, carefully taking Lance’s usual seat, lest he bump the table and set the gremlin off

“Get fucked”

Keith raised an eyebrow, not sure who the comment was directed at

“Fucking piece of shit!”

The laptop? It had to be directed at the laptop... right? Shuffling over to him, Keith eyed Lance. He looked like he should still be in bed, most of the coffee in Keith’s cup was now pooling on the saucer under it

“Sorry... here we go”

As Lance set the coffee down, he winced at the minute amount of sound it made. Catching Lance by the wrist, the vampire cringed, Keith staring up at his unwell face

“Lance? Have you fed this morning?”

“Couldn’t... Company”

An unfed vampire wasn’t safe... Not that he was worried about how ill Lance looked... or felt strangely concerned about his wellbeing. That was the lack of coffee talking

“Go feed, I’ll cover you”

“But...”

“Just go already. You’re disturbing my coffee”

Lance stumbled over his own feet as he shuffled off. Keith staring at his half empty coffee cup sadly. What a waste of coffee... Fuck being socially polite. Lifting the cup off the unmatching saucer, something very unLance, further proving how bad he must feel because everything always had to match, Keith poured the other half his coffee back into his cup as Hunk cut the blender. The lack of sound was welcoming. Grinning, Hunk went to turn to Lance

“Here... huh... where’d he go?”

Pidge grunted, Keith trying to get the coffee in the cup when it insisted on running down the side and under the saucer

“Keith?”

“Just a... fuck”

Fuck all coffee wound up in his mug, Pidge snickered as Keith frowned deeply

“Keith?”

“He had to check his work phone”

“Oh, maybe I should take this down to his office... it’s best if he drinks its right away”

“No! No, ugh. We had a late night...”

That wasn’t how Keith wanted it to sound. Pidge closed her laptop, but her and Hunk giving him a funny look

“What?”

“You two had a late night, hmm?”

“Not like that”

“Not like, what?”

Keith groaned. He should have kept his mouth shut

“Shut up”

Pidge poked her tongue at him. All Keith wanted was his coffee. Pouring out the strangely green smoothly, Hunk smiled at him

“Man, if there’s something going on between you and Lance...”

“No”

Cackling, Pidge wasn’t having it

“Me thinks he denies too fast”

“Me thinks I need my coffee”

Keith died a little on the inside. Who the hell was he? He didn’t talk like that

“Keith and Lance...”

“Sitting in a tree?”

Hunk didn’t sound sure about continuing Pidge’s teasing

“Look, it’s not like that. He’s a friend. I’m just worried about him...”

Oh. Fuck.

Pidge grinned at him so widely that she surely thought she was right with her line of teasing. Hunk, on the other hand, lost his smile

“Something’s wrong with him, isn’t it? He said it was Miriam. Was he having tests? Is that why he wasn’t responding? He’s been acting really weird for the last few weeks”

“He’s acting weird because he’s been hiding his boyfriend”

“Pidge, you know what I’m talking about. He like never leaves without letting us know”

Raising the cup of coffee to his lips, Keith was so close...

“Keith, what’s going on with Lance?”

Why did people have to think he could human before his coffee? It was cruel and inhumane to bully him like this. Lowering his cup slightly, Keith sighed

“Lance is fine. We’re not dating. My stupid brother took off and thinks being here will be good for me. Shiro has like no chill, as you should know Pidge. Miriam had a really bad fall, broken hip and messed up her face. He was organising things in Platt”

It was on the tip of Keith’s tongue to mention that Luis had been there, but he didn’t know what Lance had told his two best friends in relation to his family, outside of Miriam being his grandmother.

“And he didn’t have another doctor’s appointment?”

By “doctor’s appointment” Keith assumed that was Lance speak for a visit to Coran. The previous days talk with Coran felt like it’d happened weeks ago

“Nah. I mean, I wouldn’t know. He does his own thing”

“He always has. We totally tried to have him move in with us when we were in Platt, but he wasn’t having it. He’s always been a bit odd”

“And here I thought you guys were best friends?”

“We are. He’s our odd best friend. And you’re our new odder best friend. We totally decided that in group chat”

Keith didn’t know what to make of that

“You talk about me?”

“Only to tease Lance. You do know you’re like the first person he has ever like warmed up to like this. That’s why we were sure you two were secretly dating”

“Oh, we totally are. Keith’s dick game is totally on point”

With his coffee cup heading back towards his lips, Keith was glad he didn’t have a mouthful or it’d have been sprayed across the table at Lance’s casual remark

“Lance!”

“What? You’re a total dick and you know it”

The bastard vampire shot him finger guns as Keith’s heart decided it needed to keep racing from Lance’s comment. Pidge cackled with laughter

“Oh, man. If I wasn’t convinced before, I am now. You should have seen the look on your face!”

Being a total arsehole, Lance placed his hand on Keith’s shoulder

“Did you tell them all about us, baby cakes?”

Keith growled. Why the fuck had ever been worried about this dick?

“Keep touching me and I’ll break your hand”

“Look at them, Hunk! Okay. So you’re like weird room mates...”

“Yep. For now. At least until I paint the house”

“Have you thought of a colour scheme yet?”

“I was thinking of going full ‘70’s. Shag pike carpet, lots of mismatched prints...”

Why was Lance’s hand still on his shoulder? And why was Keith now hyper focused on the fact Lance was touching him? He didn’t like it. He didn’t like Lance. He didn’t like the way he felt all weird since coming to the house... Something was definitely wrong with his heart, it kept racing for no good reason

“You do that and you’re dead to me”

“If I’d known that, I would have done it sooner”

“That enough you two. Here, I made you a smoothie. It’s chocked full of the good stuff”

Lance finally removed his hand from Keith’s shoulder. The idiot walking into the dining chair in front of him. Maybe Lance had been using him for support, and there was no greater meaning to it? Shiro did say he had the tendency to over think things...

“God, you’re worse than me. Sit down before you break your whole house”

Lance took a seat next to Pidge

“Better?”

“Much”

“You’re not as cranky”

“And you don’t look as dead”

Pidge wasn’t seeing Lance the way Keith was. Lance had a little more colour in his face, but there was pain in the corner of his eyes

“Damn, I was hoping to be the best looking dead guy in town. I take it you got their number plate?”

“I got more than their number plate. I got their home address and two dozen eggs that’d look great splattered across their windows”

“Pidgeon, that’s not my field of expertise”

“Then they shouldn’t have sideswiped my car”

So that was what Pidge had been so cranky... her anger hadn’t been directed at him

“No, but violence only leads to more violence”

“That’s why I’m egging their house and not punching them in the face. Hunk, help me out here”

Hunk placed the glass of smoothie in front of Lance who wrinkled his nose at it

“I’m kind of with Lance here. Besides, I already helped you out, dad’s organising the repairs as we speak”

“Merp”

“Merp to you too. Hunk, do I wanna know what’s in this?”

“Nope. Drink it all fast”

“I hate it when you say that”

As Lance drank his smoothie, Keith settled back in his chair, finally able to enjoy his first, half empty, cold, sad looking coffee.

*

Lance was not having a fun day. He’d had a very, very, very vivid dream. A very, very, very vivid dream about bending a very, very, very emo vampire hunter over his kitchen table... He’d woken up feeling strange, waking up secondary to the lower parts of his anatomy that’d apparently had a pretty good time without his permission. Washing his underwear had been a lesson in humiliation, the only consolation being he had his own private bathroom. His dream had been way too vivid, like waaaaaay to vivid to the point he swore he could feel Keith on his skin... and after showering, he just felt deflated. Like he was running on a third of his strength. Weak and shaky, worse than he had the day before. He’d barely been out the shower five minutes before Hunk was calling to say they were on their way, and Pidge was pissed.

Trying to choose something to wear had been a struggle, by the time he’d done that, he could hear Hunk’s car coming, his stupid senses deciding he needed to hyper aware. He hadn’t had time to feed, nor to prewarn Keith, or get his shit together because how he was supposed to face Keith. He felt as if he’d violated the man by dreaming about him... Especially when he kind of wanted to reverse the positions... He was a goddamn pervert... Keith wasn’t... they hadn’t... He hadn’t been horrible company the night before. He’d tried to press him for information, but couldn’t a guy just relax and eat some bad pizza in peace? Not that the pizza had been bad... Keith didn’t know better when it came to a pizza drowning in toppings.

When Hunk started the blender Lance had felt as if his brain was in their with the other half dozen ingredients. Pidge was murderous, someone having sideswiped her car during the early hours of the morning. She’d spent the morning reviewing the security feed from the front of her house... Lance not quite able to find the right time to slip out the kitchen and drain a blood bag like his body was telling him he needed to do. He hadn’t thought Keith would see how poorly he felt, his hands were shaking as he tried to banish the thoughts of his unwanted dream. He felt like he should be apologising repeatedly and begging not to be decapitated for betray him like this.

Then Keith had gone and been even nicer, sending to feed while he babysat Pidge and Hunk. Lance had nearly torn the blood bag in half in his rush to feed. Coran had said “changes”, not damn dreams like he was a teenager again. They’d had a bonding moment watching TV. Keith was pretty funny when he wasn’t trying to murder him, or being stupider than words could describe. His taste in movies really was as bad a Pidge’s, the pair would be an unstoppable remote hogging pair if they teamed up. Keith just... He’d opened up somewhat, awkward with Pidge and Hunk, but not as awkward as he’d been. He talked. He covered for Lance over what had happened in Platt. He’d covered for him a lot, and Lance didn’t know why he was going that little bit extra to keep Hunk and Pidge from worrying.

“Dude, I’m surprised your kitchen’s this messy. Normally you’re a clean freak in here”

As Lance recovered from the horrible green sludge he’d choked down for Hunk’s benefit, he was almost envious that Pidge had missed out. He’d take a dirty kitchen over that smoothie any day of the year

“Keith made pizzas last night. We couldn’t be bothered cleaning up after”

“Keith, man. Another cooking aficionado?”

“No”

Keith’s answer was blunt. The fact he’d pulled himself together after Lance’s little temper tantrum was to be applauded. The wood fire stove came with the house, but rarely got used for anything other than pizzas. The thing was a temperamental old bitch on the best of days, but at least she was always there when there was no power or gas. Poor Hunk didn’t know how to deal with Keith

“Not from scratch, but it was pretty good”

“Are you two sure you’re not dating?”

Lance really wished Pidge would give the topic a rest. He’d had a tough enough morning as it was

“Pidgeon, I wouldn’t hold out on you if we were. I know how much you love those tiny little details...”

Pidge covered her ears with her hands

“I don’t want to know”

“Then give it a break already. Hunk, what are you Pidge up to for the rest of the day?”

“Not much, man. This wasn’t even planned...“

Planning would have been nice. Then he could have planned to hide until he died. He wouldn’t have had to face Keith. What kind of idiot put their hand on a caffeine deprived hunter and cracked lame jokes? Oh, that was right, it was him. He was the idiot. He wasn’t even sure why he had. He’d felt a little woozy as the blood rushed through his system, but once his hand was on Keith, he’d had a hard time letting go.

“... I’ll probably help my dad at the garage today. What about you, Pidge?”

“Seeing I’m not allowed to egg houses even when they house arseholes, I’ll probably set up a board and see what I can figure out. It’s been ages since we went on a proper hunt”

Pidge had the remnants of various boards tucked away in the attic of her family home. They were essentially murder boards for supernatural things. Photos, timelines, interesting articles. It was something she didn’t really talk about around outsiders, and something the three of them had taken to doing together. Lance felt a flare of jealousy over the fact Keith was being made privy to secret group information. Hunk didn’t seem to care

“Ooooh. Why didn’t you tell me you started a new board?”

“It’s an old one. Garrison, again. I mean, like, you’d think they would have fixed the arrangements of the wars. We all call it the Third World War, and sure there was a huge technology jump, but it was aaaaaaaages before the First World War”

It was and it wasn’t. That was the weird thing. Everyone knew it happened, yet when you tried to focus really hard on it, things became a bit muddle. Lance couldn’t quite put his finger on it either. It was kind of like some mass imagination thing had happened, but there was proof of it happening even if they couldn’t say exactly when. Personally Lance wouldn’t have listed it as a world war, and more an allies skirmish between two sides who both thought they were right and leader who had peanuts for brains... or maybe one of those monkeys with the cymbals that smashed them together every time they got remotely close to a good idea

“The good old Garrison board. How we loved you so. You revisiting the hospital?”

“No, I was thinking of re-examining the building usage lists. I want to see if we can set up again for another night in another building. Lance is probably going to be busy with Miriam, so I’m keeping it local for now. There’s this total members only club in Platt, that I have been dying to see. They reckon it’s run by werewolves who were born werewolves and that all the staff are werewolves that drank from water in their footprints”

Werewolves. Lance’s mood shifted again. He was turning into a breeder, with two new werewolf roommates coming. Werewolves could be quite lusty, and his arse was definitely saved for someone else. Someone with a big dumb black mullet... Lance chocked on air as he quickly cut that train of thinking off. Keith was basically a working condom advertisement. Emotional issues that’d never been treated, far too good looking to be human, cranky 24/7, plus he wasn’t even domesticated. He was never going to be interested in him and the sooner his brain got it together, the better it’s be for him.

“How about Pidge and I go pick the board up, then we all can work on it together?”

Noooooooooooo. Lance loved Hunk with the power of a billion suns, but noooooo. He didn’t want to be trapped on the couch next to Keith. He still needed time to settle his instincts, and to push down that damn dream... mostly the dream. Making the mistake of closing his eyes, the dream popped back into the forefront of his mind. Back’s had never really been sexy, but Keith’s broad shoulders and muscular form as he gripped the table... the sounds he made as Lance rode him hard into the table... The warmth... Keith was so fucking warm and loud... Whining, Lance clamped a hand over his mouth as his eyes shot open

“Dude?”

“I think I’m going to be sick”

He was... Hunk’s smoothie had to come out one way or the other. Bolting from the kitchen, he heard Keith covering him again. Why couldn’t keith go back to being a dick! Things were so much easier then, and now he was all friendly with his friends

“We kind of got drunk last night. He’s probably hung over... I’ll check on him. Why don’t you guys come back this afternoon and we’ll work on your board then?”

“Damn, man. I’ve never seen him hung over before...”

“Are you sure it’s just a hangover?”

“He’ll be fine. I need more coffee”

[chrismerle]

what’s up i spent way too long typing up a post about my thoughts on P5S, and it isn’t even all encompassing. i guess if you’re curious about anything i didn’t mention in this trainwreck just ask.

my spoiler-heavy thoughts/pseudo-review below the cut

THINGS I LIKED:

The characterization, broadly speaking. If you, like me, loved the Thieves in P5/P5R then you’ll be pretty happy with them here. There are a couple moments that made me roll my eyes (lookin’ at you, hot springs) but on the whole, the main cast are unchanged.

The new characters. Sophia and Zenkichi are great. Sophia is precious and Zenkichi straddles a very fine line of ‘realistically out of the loop, but gives as good as he gets.’ I don’t even care how silly their costumes were. Sophie looked like the Stay Puff Marshmallow Man, though I did like her little emoticon visor, but also she had no pants. Wolf’s mask was badass but the fact that his stupid pointy hat was riveted to the top of his stupid disco high collar killed it and I wanted to see someone grab his hat and pull it back to see it fling back into place like a drinky-drinky bird. Even so, the characters were great, and when I noticed that all the attacks for Sophie’s initial pseudo-Persona had question marks after them (Kouga? Dia?), it made me laugh, and Wolf’s a good all-purpose party member because he hits like a fucking truck and nothing is immune to Almighty. Plus in some of his post-battle dialogue he calls them all ‘kiddos’ and they consistently call him Gramps.

The gameplay. I mean, yeah, it’s VERY different than P5, but you all know that. And hey! The game no longer immediately ends if Joker gets knocked out (unless he’s the only one left in the party, obviously). It ran pretty smoothly, there’s something weirdly charming about the other Thieves showing up perched on cover points, and the only consistent issue I ran into is that in segments where the camera gets forced into a certain angle, it can switch back so abruptly at the end that you accidentally go walking right off a ledge.

I’ve never really played a Dynasty Warriors-type game before, so it took me a Jail or so to get used to it, but then I was just cackling as I mowed down swarms of Jack Frosts like a weed-whacker in a flower field with a knife the size of Joker’s torso. Honestly, it took me the longest to get used to the fact that the circle button became the all-purpose ‘interact’ button than anything else.

Actually, that’s a lie. It took me the longest to get used to the fact that if I left a Jail, I wouldn’t be losing any time. I’m very used to Persona games having the calendar constantly counting down, which wasn’t the case here.

The story, broadly speaking. It had some hiccups and some issues, which I’ll get into, but for the most part, it was fun. I’m...not going to outline every detail of the story here, but it felt very P5-y and I enjoyed it.

THINGS I LIKED BUT THAT NEEDED WORK:

The writing. It was a little inconsistent, beyond just the usual weirdness that I have accepted comes along with Persona games. (//patiently clicks through numerous conversations of the gang going ‘did this super obvious thing that this memory threw in our faces happen? Let’s debate about whether the most likely answer by a huge margin is the answer’ and several conversations of ‘are we sure this person is bad? We saw them playing nice, like literally every other villain we’ve faced’) A lot was great! Like, the bit with the Okinawa locals breaking into the RV while the kids hide in the bushes? Genuinely unsettling! Akane’s Jail and the fake Thieves was fun, and seeing Zenkichi scuttle from hiding place to hiding place without Thief powers was funny, and his Shadow’s glowing eyes watching him before becoming his Persona was both badass and unsettling. The realization that EMMA was actively lying to Konoe was nice. Character interactions were great and I loved that Sophia went with Ichinose at the end. There was a lot that was good. But there were also a lot of missteps.

Like, it kind of felt like the direction for the writing changed partway through. It started out as if each member of the Phantom Thieves was going to get their own time to shine, identifying and empathizing with a Monarch. Ann realized she could have been Alice. Yusuke realized he could have been Ango and also saw redeeming him as sort of like redeeming Madarame by proxy. Mariko was a link to Haru’s childhood and her father. The ghost Jail on Okinawa lured Sophie in and by the end she realized how much she meant to her friends ryuji said fuck. Akane was Zenkichi’s literal daughter. And then it went to Konoe and then EMMA, so Ryuji, Futaba, Morgana, Makoto, and Joker didn’t get a chance to shine in that regard. The switch from ‘a Jail for everyone to identify with’ to ‘whelp here’s the decoy and the end boss’ felt like they came from two separate drafts of the script, and it’s not like they had to watch the time; I got through P5S in about a third the time it took me to get through P5R. It took me about 35 hours. Considering the game kind of relies on you having played P5, they already knew their target audience has a longer attention span than that.

Owada was talked up as kind of a big deal, but he had like two scenes on-screen and otherwise was an entirely off-screen character. There’s a lot of mid-combat dialogue that is very difficult to focus on, which was sort of annoying when some of it was actually relevant. Ichinose’s reveal as a villain is very info-dump-y.

Plus, Joker wasn’t utilized particularly well as a silent protagonist. He’s got more implied personality than basically any other Persona protag. Which means he’s actually pretty expressive throughout the game, but I can probably count his lines of dialogue outside of combat with fingers left over. No one expects Yu Narukami to actually react to anything, so it doesn’t feel odd when he doesn’t. But the combination of Joker being reasonably expressive and having a demonstrated personality means you’re perpetually EXPECTING and WANTING him to say something about the shit going on, and when he doesn’t it feels like mentally missing a stair.

THINGS THAT I DIDN’T LIKE:

The cut corners. Like, a lot of things just seem lazy. There were scenes that really should have been included that weren’t, like how the Thieves escaped from the hotel after the police showed up; it cut from Zenkichi warning them and getting arrested to them arriving at the temporary hideout, so we never even got to see how the Thieves reacted to realizing the cops were outside. Requests to bond with the other Thieves only got a couple of text boxes, when they could have shown a tiny scene of them hanging out like they had all over P5. Rather than having Sae actually on-screen for her brief scene, the camera instead very unnaturally switched to an angle as if it was from her point of view, which was literally the only time the camera did that in the entire game. All of the Sentries look the same from Jail to Jail, instead of being unique to each Jail. Igor is completely absent for the entire game, and other than a throwaway ‘my master can’t be here’ from Lavenza it’s just not really acknowledged.

The missed opportunities. Like, there is no way to look at this except to assume that Joker was a horrible friend to literally everyone in this world state. Like, I can pass off the fact that everyone has their baseline Personae as being because they haven’t had access to their powers for a while, but when you combine it with the fact that NONE of Joker’s other confidants show up or even know he’s back in Tokyo, it leaves little to assume except that in this world, no confidants got maxed out. On top of that, the Personae are all basically pointless. They could be Pokemon or Stands or Digimon or fucking YuGiOh cards, and it wouldn’t make a difference; NOTHING about the game says ‘these entities are integral to this world and important to these characters.’ Also they could have had Akane actually realize who the Thieves were and it would have been hysterical, but that’s just my personal sulk.

The Requests. I liked the Mementos missions in P5/P5R. They felt like they had a point. Requests in P5S are all basically just fetch quests. ‘Go to Location A, fight so many of Enemy B to get so many of Item C. Turn in Request.’ Hell, one of them bugged out on me, I swear. There’s a Request to teach Zenkichi how to cook a simple meal, and Haru gives you a recipe including beef. I had no beef on me at the time, because if you want SP restoratives you gotta cook a fair amount and I used it, and I could find literally no beef in the city I was in at the time so I had to abandon the Request. On top of that, outside of getting food or a few moments where another character specifically asks for Joker’s attention, character-specific Requests mostly replace the ability to bond with the other characters individually.

The restoratives. Or, more specifically, the disparity between HP restoratives and SP restoratives. There’s essentially one cookable recipe to restore SP for every four recipes to restore HP. Even if I stopped at every store and vending machine, I’m pretty sure there were a couple cities where I could find NO SP restoratives for sale, while most stores and vending machines had at least two or three HP restoratives. And while it is true that you can go in and out of a Jail whenever you please to restore SP, that doesn’t help you if you run out during a boss fight you weren’t expecting (mini-boss encounters are virtually identical to regular monster encounters) or during one of the times where you CAN’T leave the Jail for reasons XYZ.

The final boss, and not just because I died and had to start over a few times. As a concept, EMMA could be cool, but in reality she just seemed like the writers threw Yaldabaoth and Maruki in a blender and poured the results into the game. Like Yaldabaoth, she is a false god who seeks to control humanity, claiming it’s what they want. Like Maruki, she seems genuinely deluded into thinking it’s for the best and that she’s not doing anything wrong. Her Jail looked like a slightly sci-fi reskin of the Depths of Mementos. The shtick with the multiple platforms and getting to actually SEE an all-out attack at the end were nice, but for the most part the fight itself was nothing special. Ultimately, EMMA had nothing unique going for her except her name.

Plus, EMMA’s entire rationale was that the majority of humans want someone else to control their lives for them, essentially out of convenience. And she’s presented as being more or less right, but that just being one of the hurdles of being human. It seemed a little dour and far-fetched. Like, the Thieves repeatedly point out that struggling allows people to grow, and they’re right, but in my experience, I’ve never actually met anyone who, upon hitting a roadblock, decided ‘Jesus take the wheel.’ Considering the greed with which her weird tentacle arms snatched up the solidified Desires, the pettiness of the complaints she used as a “gotcha,” and the fact that she just kind of reiterates her ‘people want to be controlled’ point over and over, I think it would have felt a bit more true to life and given her more agency if, instead of presenting her as largely correct, it instead acknowledged that everyone at some time or another hits a wall and wants someone to tell them what to do and had her capitalizing on those individual brief moments to hook people in, despite her having reams of data that for most people, those moments are temporary.

[reyrapidsbutgayer]

Since Faro the flesh merchant was such a big hit, I thought I would cook up an interesting little offer.

Faro has six demon friends who want to come to earth, but they need a human vessel in order to take physical form. Your Oc’s get demon powers, and the demons can interact with the human world to get into their demonic hijinks. 

It is a mostly painless process.

Let’s meet the demons! Rules for submitting OC’s below the cut.

Acari “Nature’s Quiet Strength”: A demon who loves animals, especially insects. He never stops moving, and is always doing something. He is a little awkward around people and prefers the company of animals. His aspect is ‘conservation’, meaning he protects all life and works to avoid conflict. He carries turtle across the road, hand feeds baby birds and gives pep talks to ants. He also sorts people’s recycling while they are asleep and picks up bits of litter. He prefers to act unseen, hiding in sewers and jumping from roof top to roof top. Despite his stoic exterior he considers every tiny bit of suffering the world his fault and never shuts off. He is secretly a big cry baby and loves hugs. He likes calm summer nights where he can look at the stars.

Forming a contract with Acari will grant you immense physical strength, the ability to talk to animals and control over insects and invertebrates.

Limax “A creative burst of madness”: A very bizarre demon, Limax is a creature of extremes. She overindulges in everything from food to video games to reading math textbooks. She finds people stuck in ruts in need of inspiration and uses her illusions to let them explore their own minds. Most often scientists and artists. Her aspect is ‘mire’ which means she specializes in addictions and lies, helping people turn their lives around by getting their worst aspects out of their systems. Limax is an overprotective know-it-all who is equally prone to bouts of intense energy and great lethargy. Whenever she is in one of her own ruts she loves reading math textbooks, scientific papers and news magazines. She loves consuming any information she can get her hands on.

Forming a contract with Limax will cause your best and worst attributes to come forward, granting you equal amounts of inspiration and delusion. You will also gain her abilities of illusion.

Felsic “Healthy Controlled Chaos”: A powerful demonic lord capable of great destruction and suffering. Luckily he is a big softie who is easily distracted by just about everything. His aspect is ‘impulse’ meaning he finds humans who are not enjoying life to their fullest. He helps people get over their shyness or anxiety by pushing them to the exact limit of their comfort zones. His seemingly random actions always tend to end up helping those he initially inconveniences.  The molten lava pouring from him can be formed into whatever he chooses, forming temporary constructs that fulfill their purpose before tuning into ash. Such as a car that will drive you to your location or a blender that will make you a smoothie. He might be a bull in a china shop but his actions always come from a place of kindness and those around him always benefit. He loves making artistic sculptures out of his lava.

Forming a contract with Felsic will grant you the ability to create temporary constructs. You will also become oddly impulsive, but dumb luck will keep you from harm.

Caedo “Nobility in Destruction.”: Few are as dedicated as the demonic knight Caedo. In every aspect she lives up to her aspect, ‘Justice’. She was built to kill those who did harm, but she broke free and now seeks to bring redemption. She works to reform the corrupt and the ignorant with her demonic powers. Caedo can be a bit dense and often has trouble with boundaries, but she has a good heart and a strong moral code. Her powers allow her to speed up, slow down and reverse time temporarily, often showing people glimpses of their past/present/future until they see the error of their ways. She fancies herself the helpful ghost to many a ‘scrooge’ She may come off a little cold but she is genuinely trying to put more good into the world. She has a habit of collecting bits of broken china and sea glass.

Forming a contract with Caedo will make you duty bound to help her in her crusade. Caedo will stand by you as a loyal friend and protector. You will also gain minor time dilation powers, allowing very brief visions of the past and future.

Otverzát “A healing purge”: Not many see eye to eye with Otverzát at first, but sooner or later they all come around to her way of thinking. Otverzát loves to see people grow and heal, especially if they believe they are unable to. Otverzát‘s aspect is ‘truth’ meaning that no one can lie in her presences. Not just little white lies but the deep honest truths within our hearts. Her abilities let her see into the past and she can help people overcome long buried traumas.  Once she has gotten a person to open up she is a deeply loyal friend. She never lies and never has ulterior motives. She is caring soul who can get a little shy at times. She enjoys playing volleyball and tends to frighten easily. Her powers can be painful at first but she ultimately brings a deep peace and lasting healing to her friends.

Forming a contract with Otverzát will render you unable to lie, but no one can lie to you. You will also gain her ability to view the past or any object or person.

Environ, “A Comforting Silence”: Environ strives be level headed and moral, and their two heads often debate with one another before they preform any action. Having two opinions on every matter lets them make better decisions, even if that makes them a little slow to act. Environ is quiet and solitary, often choosing to observe humans at a distance. Their aspect is ‘navigation’ which means it is their duty to help lost souls find a home. Environ controls shadows and can appear and disappear at will. They often follow those who feel lost and using their power direct them to places where they will be accepted and loved. They have a soft spot for children and help abused children find healthier families. Environ likes being left alone, reading books and listening to calming music. They hate obnoxious people, especially youtube pranksters and instagram influencers. 

Forming a contract with Environ will grant you a sense of direction, you will instinctually know where you need to be at any given moment. You will also gain their powers of teleportation.

CONTRACT RULES:

Submit a reference drawing of your OC with a short description of their personality and backstory, select a demon you want a contract with.

In return you can get a sketch of your OC fused with their demon. Their new appearance will be based on how well they mesh with their new demon friend.

Patrons will get first priority! 

Have fun!

[bloodandpaintchips]

Bar & Murder Tips

Tagging→ Andrea Sheldon, Johnny Arcos Time Frame→ 11/29/2020 around midnight. Location→ Sangren, Colorado General Notes→ They’ll continue these conversation topics after the hangover.  

For a moment, Andrea was distracted with all the bottles lining Johnny’s counter, and their colors. He’d told her things here and there, tips on working behind the bar at TARTARUS but this was the first time he was showing her anything. She’d mentioned the need for a small purpose again, needing somewhere to be and a schedule before she lost her mind or herself again. She didn’t know what to expect, her palette for alcohol being very limited considering she didn’t start drinking beer until her mid-twenties and liquor, until after she “died.” She could be terrible at this, or she could be mildly competent; she had no way of knowing. “So...the sheer possibility of combinations here is kind of intimidating.”

"I find it odd that you still get intimidated," purred the witch as he set yet another bottle on the counter. Nothing too expensive, but definitely nothing he served the more... economical customers. The drinks he intended to make with Andy, no matter how terrible, would not be wasted. "Someone tells you what they have a taste for and you follow the notes of that taste to produce something they would like." With a wave of his hand, he willed the lights in the kitchen to dim and music to waft into the room like a breeze. "It does help, however, to know what the alcohol tastes like. Do you know what vermouth is, my Andy?"

Andrea snorted, turning her gaze away from the bottles to look at him. “You’d be surprised what things change and what things don’t.” She left it at that, drumming her fingers on the countertop and listened to his explanation. “Seems simple enough, except I don’t know what most of this tastes like. And no, I have no idea what vermouth is. Except I’ve heard the word. I know shots of whiskey and various beers. Please don’t be as judgemental during this as you are about my clothes,” she joked. There wasn’t much to make fun of at this moment; the great thing about training at home was the fact that she could learn this in the oversized tee she slept in, bare feet on the floor, barely feeling the cold.

"I will absolutely be as judgmental about this as I am about everything else. Your clothing is awful," he tacked on. He pulled a glass from the counter behind them, then reached for the bottle of Cocchi Vermouth di Torino. "We will drink." He poured her a glass and then himself. "Hold this. Smell it."

The only comeback she gave him was an eye roll before he moved on to grab a fancy bottle (they were honestly all fancy, nothing you’d find in the liquor store with the flickering OPEN light downtown). She could already smell it as he was pouring it, and she was intrigued, taking the glass from him and inhaling like he asked. “Wow. It’s like sweet and spicy. Really…” she raised her eyebrows a bit, holding the glass away a little. “Strong. I like it though. Makes me think of autumn.”

He sipped a bit at his glass, rolling the amber liquid along his tongue. "Vermouth comes in this sweet, red form, but also in a dry, white form - which is used for martinis. I prefer the sweet, but with the dry, I like to pair it with lemons. What do we think pairs well with our autumn taste?"

She listened, making a mental note. “In the past I may have hated the dry version, but lately I’ve been trying a lot of things I may have hated and liking them, so who knows. I like the sweet though. And I don’t know, maybe something like orange? Citrus seems like the way to go still. Do people ever pair things with juice?” She took a sip, surprised to find she really enjoyed it alone. She liked the spices and the warmth in her mouth. It made her throat prickle in a way she liked.

Nodding approvingly, he downed the rest of his drink, then poured another glass. "Everything can be paired with juice, but one must be aware of the full flavor of things. Red vermouth is sweet already, spicy... woodsy and herbal - orange is an excellent choice. Add gin and you have a cocktail." His freshly poured drink went back just as fast and he set his glass in the sink. "What is a taste that you like that isn't citrus?"

Andrea smirked, a little proud of herself like a good student when he said the word “excellent.” She watched him knock back the drinks, an eyebrow raising in curiosity. “I like cranberry. I like most berries actually. Chocolate...I’m not sure what the right answer is really.” She ran her fingers along her glass before pushing it towards him. “Do you get drunk easily? Like in terms of being human?”

"Oh, I get drunk very easily," he told her, even as he took her glass and pulled the bottle of cognac forward. Her used glass went into the sink and was replaced with a clean one, which he poured a taste into before giving it back. "Cognac can be spicy as well and has hints of fruit and chocolate. Hold it on your tongue a bit."

She took the new drink from him, taking a sip and holding it in her mouth like he asked. “I can taste that...but the thing I think I taste the most is nuts. Maybe walnut? Kinda think this would taste good with blood.” She said the last part quietly, briefly thinking about how she had to take care of that soon. She’d succeeded in making it feel like a job. For a few seconds she felt like the lamest creature ever, but she pulled herself out of the distraction by downing some more of it. “What goes with this?”

"That is not the first time I have heard that; many of our... guests at the bar have asked for a bit of this with a few fingers of O-positive." Johnny watched her drink the mouthful with curious eyes, lingering over her expression to gauge a reaction. "Overall," he continued, "Cognac is very good - alone, mixed with ginger ale or lemonade, all kinds of ways really." He poured himself a taste and knocked it back, shaking his head as he began to feel the drink. "Tequila next, I think."

She raised an eyebrow at that, feeling strangely validated she wasn’t the only one who thought that about the flavor profile. “I need to get more comfortable saying things like that. I still talk about blood like it’s my dirty secret,” she said, laughing a little. “But lemonade seems like it’d be really good with this too, so I’ll also keep that in mind. “Tequila. Don’t people usually just take that in shots?”

"Tequila is really quite versatile - shots, sours, cocktails... margaritas!" He turned and reached for the blender beside the sink then, with a blink of empty, black eyes, the blender was filled with a light green mix of alcohol and ice, buzzing away until he stopped it.

Squinting her eyes at the witch, Andrea couldn’t help but smile as she noticed he was getting a little looser with every swallow. “You get a little swishy when you’ve had a couple drinks, Johnny,” she told him, smile getting wider as she admired him. An eyebrow raised when he materialized margarita mix and she simply helped herself. “I think you should know that I’m beginning to feel these and will probably pay less attention to how the drinks are made, so for now let’s just focus on how they taste,” she said, sipping. 

"You have to know how to taste... how the drinks taste when you are serving them," he agreed with a lofty nod, holding out a glass for her to pour his margarita into. He gulped a mouthful, scowling at the brain freeze, but soon he was moving his hips to the music playing and chuckling. "'Swishy' is a good word, my Andy. More tequila - a sunrise! Ironic."

Andrea laughed, rolling her eyes and taking another sip of her drink. “Ah yes, sunrises. Loved those.” She tried to make it sound like she said it in jest, but it likely just came out as bitter. “Hopefully the drink is pretty,” she added, smirking whenever she noticed him get a brain freeze. It made her very aware of her lack of one. The more she had to drink, the more she found herself getting lost in thought about those changes.

"Yes, a sunrise!" He reached for her hand then and rolled her cool fingers between his own. "I will give you sunrise," he said, then sealed the promise by lifting her fingers to his mouth for a kiss. He then reached for a new bottle of 1942 and the grenadine. "You will find, my Andy, that adding grenadine to just about any drink will please any sorority girls that wander into the bar." Once he was finished with the drink, he swiftly exchanged her margarita for it.

She let herself be distracted by his promising kiss to her knuckles, smiling and letting him take her glass. “For a moment I was worried you were going to give me a literal ball of fire, but this will do fine.” She chuckled at his advice, tucking it away for future reference, because if she remembered anything, she remembered the greek crowd. Sipping the new drink, her eyebrows went up and she downed it before setting the glass down. “I like that one.” She slid the empty vessel toward him so he could refill it. “Can I tell you something that I have to say out loud before I explode?”

He hummed inquisitively as he swallowed the last of his sunrise and waved his fingers so that the music changed to 'More Than A Woman' by Aaliyah.

She turned around and jumped up to sit on the counter as she waited for him to make their drinks again. Swinging her legs for a moment and listening to the song, she finally went on. “I think I burned the bridge with my dad. Like burned it, totally,” she said, holding out her palm in a leveling motion. “I went back there to fix things and made them worse. I should stop trying to fix things. Drink more tequila sunrises.”

This stalled his hand as it reached for the next bottle and he turned to look at her quizzically. "Fix things? ...Is he dead now?" Quick as he could, he tried to pull what he knew about necromancy into the forefront of his fuzzy mind, but even as his fingers wrote runes into the air between him, he just as quickly forgot what he had intended to do. "Is he dead?"

Andrea laughed dryly, watching him attempt something and quickly forget with a smile on her face. “No, he’s not dead. That probably would have been easier. I didn’t make it worse like that, I just got angry at him. More angry than I’ve ever gotten at someone in like, person. I wanted to talk, but he still thinks I’m a demon. And then I kind of acted like one.” She shook her head and downed another drink. “But fuck it.”

"Well... you are a demon, I think, so the behavior is expected." He frowned down at an empty glass on the counter, then licked a finger, rimmed the lip of the glass with it and willed another drink into it. After taking a sip, he lifted his gaze back to Andy and said, solemnly, "So what shall we do about this, my Raggedy One? It sounds as if your father doesn't understand what kind of town Sangren really is."

She set her glass down and folded her arms, scoffing a bit until it turned into a full blown laugh. “You know, I guess I am a demon. I wish that felt cool instead of just me feeling like my lame self, but meaner and more okay with murder,” she replied, shaking her head. Meeting his gaze, she shrugged. “I guess there’s nothing to do about it. I don’t wanna see him again. You know, he actually mentioned he had an idea of this town and just hoped we dodged it or something. Like he couldn’t save me from the town in the end.” She growled a little, rolling her eyes and sliding her glass toward him to ask for another. “Like he’s fuckin Super Frank and movie nights and Hungry Man dinners would shield his poor daughter from the hellmouth. Incredible.”

Johnny took the time to contemplate what a hungry-person meal could possibly entail by taking another long sip. By now, the fuzz was starting to warm him from the inside out and the need to reach out with his powers to support Andy's growing agitation was growing ever more tempting. "These are survival instincts - the need to shield a child from exposure to evils for your father and that feeling 'okay' with murder for you... all survival."

Andrea was quiet for a moment, sipping her newly filled glass. “Survival. Maybe that explains the why of it, but that didn’t really work out for him did it? The pretending. His wife walked right into it all and it claimed his daughter. His daughter, who is now a demon,” she said gesturing towards herself. “I guess it’s a form of survival but it didn’t do a lot of good for him did it? He still lost everything. Staying blind on purpose and turning me away....I guess I see how it’s a survival tactic but it also feels like it was easy for him to love me and that changed in an instant. He just seems like a coward to me.” She set her glass down after downing it and slid down against the cabinets to the floor. “I...also think it’s more than being okay with murder. Saying it like that just feels better.”

He waved his hand dismissively. "'Murder' is such an inconsequential term to creatures who are no longer mortal, my Raggedy One. It's a wonder you have any appetite at all - Magic requires sacrifice, no matter what form it comes in. You see it when I bleed myself. You see how strangely it burns through Gunnar. You see it in death here, especially. It calls for this death, these sacrifices - what are people placed in your path for if not to be sacrifices?" He finished his drink, then suddenly slouched against the counter. "I'm drunk."

She let his words sink in, staring down at the ground for a moment with her eyebrows furrowed. “Sacrifices,” she repeated. Something did burn through her, and surprisingly his drunken advice had given her a bit of clarity. Just a bit. When she thought about death and sacrifice and magic in the way he described it, it made a little more sense. “Guess I’m just getting used to the order of such things,” she said, reaching up to grip the side of the counter and stand. “You are. I am a little too. How about I walk you to your room? That seems like the best course of action now.” She laughed a little and moved towards him, gently slapping a hand on his back.

He had straightened, but found himself buckling a bit at her slap. "You forget yourself," he chided lightly, even as he recovered and stood ramrod straight to allow her to lead him to the staircase that led to his bedroom. "I wonder, how long it will take for you to realize that you are now an apex predator, my Andy?"

She ran a hand through her hair and winced. “Sorry, I actually swore I was being gentle,” she replied, rubbing the spot and taking him up to his room. Being ahead of him, she walked in and pulled his sheets and comforter back so he could just fall in. She hadn’t responded right away to what he said but once they were inside his bedroom, she responded. “Yeah. Me too.”

"Come sleep," he sighed, already burying his face into his pillow. "I could have sworn I was better at drinking. I haven't done it in so long."

Laughing a little, she nodded and kicked off her jeans before jumping into the soft bed opposite of where he laid. Andrea relaxed against the pillow, smiling and turning her head to face him. “Personally I thought you were great at it.” She snuggled in, sighing and continuing to think about their earlier conversation until his words “sleep,” echoed in her head and she closed her eyes to let herself.

[a-mad-scientists-writing]

The Doctor (Times Twelve)

I finished writing this ages ago but I was determined to try and finish one of my WIPs before I posted it... since uni and exams and SO MUCH is going on and it's rare enough that I get to write anyway, I decided whatever. No sense in not showing what I /do/ have. 

AO3

His head hurts and is probably on fire, along with everything else.

Something is gone and shouldn't be and something else shouldn't be here.

The house that the pair of twins in front of him inhabit holds much more than it seems...

“Hey Mason, how’s this one sound?” Mabel asked from her position flat on her stomach, the eyebrows on her little face scrunched up in critical consideration of her own big, careful writing.

She cleared her throat.

“Dear God-”

“You don’t haveta write out prayers, Mabel,” her brother interrupted immediately, lying on his back on the lower bunk-bed and squeezing a fluffy purple rabbit between his fingers.

��Well then why’s there heaps of siddurs in our house?” Mabel countered. “Plus the Torah, and My First Prayer Book, and-”

“The Torah’s not really a prayer book,” said Mason, but there was touch of uncertainty in his young voice.

“Yeah it is,” said Mabel stubbornly. “’S a book. With people prayin’ in it.”

Mason didn’t seem to be able to fault that logic, and let it go with an, “Okay,”

Mabel cleared her throat again.

“Dear God,

“Were you just asleep? Sorry if you were asleep. I didn’t wanna wake you, but I promise it’s a ‘mergency. There’s… a crack in our wall,”

Here, her chirpy little tone wavered noticeably. Mason stilled his fiddling with the toy. Like it was drawn with a wire, his head turned to look at The Wall.

A jagged, winding crack zigged and zagged through the plaster. It arched downward slightly, like it was imitating a crooked grin. However, he and Mabel hadn’t dared to put googly eyes above it.

They already felt like they were being watched enough.

Mason swallowed, not seeming to want to look away now that he was staring at it. Mabel’s eyes, already squeezed shut in concentration, screwed up tighter. The small fingers of her clasped hands were going white.

“It, like… talks’n stuff…”

The script she had written out on paper had run out.

Like she hadn’t been able to find the words.

“So, can you send someone to fix it? That would be greeeaat. Okay, that’s all, talk to ya later!” She finished brightly, springing up to feet and dusting her hands of with a pleased expression, content in the knowledge of a job well done.

Mason remained very still, staring at The Wall.

“I don’t think anyone else’s coming, Mabel,” he said, very quietly.

Anyone else.

It should have implied that there was someone who they had told about the crack. But there wasn’t.

No one had existed for them to tell about it.

“Mason, d’you hear that?” Mabel asked, puzzled, sticking a finger in her ear and wiggling it around.

A sound that was a cross between a whine and a roar, like the distant scream of a jet engine at full power, was steadily rising in pitch.

And becoming louder.

The pyjama’d kids looked at each other with wide eyes just as an almighty crash came from their front yard – not unlike a shed being flattened.

□

“See Mason, I told you he’d send someone!”

“Hello? Is anyone in there?”

“This is so COOL!”

Two young voices were the first sensations to fight their way through Ford’s mind – besides the warning tolls of the cloister bell, that was. And the acrid smell of smoke. And the heat of various fires burning all around the console room. The armchair was completely ablaze. He hoped the axolotl’s tank had survived.

So, to rephrase: the sound of the two young voices were among the first sensations to assault Ford on his way to consciousness. Or, if not the first, then they were still at least assaulting him. His head ached.

He found a surface that wasn’t searing hot and dragged himself to his feet, barely able to see through watering eyes, black smoke, heat hazes, and the flashing purple and yellow lights sparking like small suns against his retinas.

That last one was probably not the TARDIS malfunctioning.

Ford stumbled towards the general direction of a door. His boots sizzled.

It’s fine. This is fine. It’s not the first time you’ve crashed a burning spaceship into Earth.

Not even the tenth time, really.

The bolt on the door slipped out of place easier than it ever had, like the ship was trying to eject him itself. The door burst open and he practically flew out, tumbling off the porch and face-planting neatly into dirt and grass.

Correction: the TARDIS definitely wanted him out.

Ford spat out soil and at least one leaf and became momentarily convinced that he’d gone blind upon pushing himself to his hands and knees.

The cool night air of – he breathed in, letting the scents of the wind, shrubbery and nearby surroundings wash over him – Oregon, USA, Earth, Dimension 38:! was a stark contrast to the burning insides of his ship. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust. When they did, he saw two kids holding a large flashlight between them, jaws dropped and eyes wide. They looked similar enough to be twins…

Something prodded insistently at his memory. Something person-shaped. Something missing. There hadn’t been someone else in the TARDIS, had there? No, there couldn’t have been. Though the last hour or so was fairly chaotic and scrambled in his memories, surely he would have noticed another person with him? There had been explosions, and tumbling, and falling, and malfunctions all over the place – he’d barely survived as it was, a human definitely wouldn’t have… so there couldn’t have been anyone else. Yes.

There was still a big blank space in his memory among all that frantic confusion.

“Are you okay?” asked one of the kids. Despite the thick bobble-hat ensuring that any colds or flu were doomed in their siege against it, fluffy brown curls stubbornly worked their way out from under its grasp. He and his sister – wrapped equally warmly in a sweater – looked about six years old.

That was when the first warning bell went off in his head. Although, he was still pretty stunned from that last collision with the console: it could just be his ringing head.

The kids looked at each other worriedly. Ford realised he should probably reply and stop staring sightlessly.

“Yes, I’m fine,” he said hurriedly. He tried to stand up but tipped over halfway, staggered for a few steps feeling like the rest of his body was being dragged around by his head, and fell back onto his knees again.

“Uh huh,” said the girl, looking sceptical. “Um, you’re bleeding. But it’s a nice red,” she added optimistically.

His head really was sore. That would make sense.

“Well, we can’t all be perfect,” Ford said dazedly.

“Are you an alien?!” Gasped the boy suddenly, looking from the trail of smoke in the sky, to the ship, to Ford, and back again.

“I’m as human as you are – as long as you’re not human. Are you human?” He peered at them. Gosh, it was hard to think.

The kids couldn’t have looked more excited if he’d doused them in waffles and ice cream. Food. Yes. He needed food.

“Is that your spaceship?!”

“Mystery Shack,” the boy read off the TARDIS’s camouflage circuits. “It’s a house! You fly a house?!”

“A big flying wooden house!” shrieked the girl, beaming.

“He crushed our shed!”

“He crushed our shed!”

They didn’t look upset at all about that, bouncing up and down and turning the torch into a strobe light as they were, but Ford apologised anyway.

“And he’s here to make the crack stop!” the girl continued.

Another warning bell.

“Crack?” Ford repeated.

“Yeah, there’s this crack in our room-” said the boy giddily.

“-And you’re gonna fix it it-”

“-And it’s gonna go away-”

“-And it’s gonna be okay because God sent us a broken shack and a bleeding, burning man!”

What was going on?

Ford held up a hand to stop the flood, trying to piece together the gabbled words. It proved too much to take in, and another stab of pain complete with its own exhaustion bill took first priority.

“Alright, first things first.” Ford took a breath, closed his eyes momentarily, and made his body obey him as he stood up.

The kids stilled, eyes widening more with every moment, ready to hang onto the next words he said with everything they had.

“Where’s your kitchen?”

□

The kitchen, and more importantly the fridge, was inside. It was full.

The house was big. It was empty.

Yet another bell went off in Ford’s head, and this time it was unmistakeable.

The most pressing facts:

A tremendous crash had just resounded from right in front of this house and only the two six-year-olds inside had come out to investigate.

There didn’t seem to be anyone else around.

They’d said they wanted him to “stop” the crack in their wall. So what had it started doing?

“Where are your parents?” he asked them, stepping back out into the hall and glancing up and down it. Completely deserted.

From back inside the kitchen, the girl shrugged as she looked through the contents of the fridge, and the boy replied aloofly, “Don’t have parents,” as he stood on a chair to examine the cupboards.

Oh.

“You must have someone looking after you, though?” Ford pressed.

Two more unconcerned shrugs.

Absolutely nothing about this was looking good.

At least, until the girl returned victoriously from the fridge with approximately half a million Joules of energy in the form of sugar-infused snacks.

“Party!” she whooped, spreading out the various boxes and tubs on the table. There wasn’t even any room for her brother to put the plates out.

“How hungry are you?” The girl said, eyes searching him piercingly. He wouldn’t be surprised if she was gauging just how much of a dent he was going to put in their food stash.

“Not particularly,” Ford assured her. “I’m more tired than anything else. I just need some energy and I’ll be fine,”

“Energy? Nooooo problem!!” Suddenly enthusiastic, the girl became a whirlwind of activity as she gathered various ingredients, shoved them into a blender, blasted it for a few moments, and poured the pink, glittery, (be-dinosaur-ed?) contents into a glass for him with a look on her face akin to that of a mad scientist strapping down their latest subject to the operating table and seeing the lightning rods begin to spark.

“Mabel-juice!” The girl – Mabel, he presumed – proclaimed proudly.

Out of her field of view, the boy blanched at her creation. Ford made eye contact with him. Then he looked at Mabel’s eager expression and watched her excited little bobs up and down where she knelt on her chair. He looked back at her brother. The boy shook his head mutely. Ford reached out, took hold of the glass, and downed the bright concoction in one – avoiding the, yes, plastic dinosaurs.

Some sort of bomb went off on his tongue and if his insides were a car they would have been revving like he was going 120 in second gear.

He slowly lowered the glass.

“Did you like it?” asked Mabel excitedly.

“Mabel, I’m going to need a whole pot of this,”

□

The boy’s name, as it turned out, was Mason, and he was Mabel’s twin brother. Mason and Mabel were six years old, lived in a large house in Gravity Falls with no adults around, and were frustratingly vague when Ford tried to press the point about who was taking care of them. Otherwise, they were very friendly and happy and may have gotten him addicted to Mabel-juice, which, as long as it kept him awake and alert and made Mabel delighted to see him drink, he saw nothing wrong with.

Mason applied a band-aid decorated with a classic green alien face to the cut on his forehead. He smiled shyly when Ford thanked him.

They really were taking all this very well.

And despite the illusion of normalcy around him… that was not a normal reaction.

Fortunately, Ford did not specialise in normal.

“So, what’s your name? What do we call you?” Mason asked when the rest of the food had been packed away and they had settled at the table with some hot chocolate that Ford had made in return for the Mabel-juice pick-me-up.

“I’m Doctor P-”

“Ooh, you’re a doctor?” Enthused Mabel before he could finish.

“Yes,” Ford nodded. “Actually, I have twelve doctorates – none of them in medicine though, which in hindsight would definitely come in handy sometimes.”

Mason’s eyes had blown as wide as coins.

“Twelve?!” Mabel exclaimed. “That makes you like… a super duper smarty pants doctor! You’re like… the doctor!”

“Are you an alien doctor? Or did you get them on Earth?” Mason asked.

“A bit of both,” laughed Ford.

“Why did you come here?”

“I like to look for weird stuff, and your planet has plenty – including a certain brilliant young chef like you-” he tapped Mabel playfully on the nose – “and a clever young investigator like you,” He tapped Mason’s nose as well. The actions earned him a very broad and crooked-toothed grin and a pleased if slightly bashful one.

“What planet are you from? I’ve got a book with them all in,” Mason informed him, growing bolder.

“Well, unless I’ve completely mistaken what century I’ve landed in, I doubt my planet will be in it. It’s called Gallifrey, and it’s a very long way from here,”

In awe, Mason mouthed the word Gallifrey after him.

“Does everyone from your planet have six fingers?” he asked.

“Only the lucky ones,” Ford said easily, years of practice and experience among the much wilder and weirder universe allowing him to believe the sentence much more than his younger self had. “I’d say I’m still not as lucky as you and that birthmark though. Did you know that that particular star cluster hosts the most dazzling and renowned solar storm patterns in the galaxy?”

One of Mason’s hands automatically moved up to flatten the hair over his forehead before he registered the encouragement and sincerity in Ford’s voice, and lowered it again with his happiest smile yet. Suddenly wondering if he should give Mabel a compliment to even things out, Ford found she was entirely unconcerned by the imbalance, nudging her brother fondly with a whispered, “Told you it’s cool!”

There was a comfortable silence for a moment, and then Mabel asked, slurping her drink, “Why’d you crash?”

Ford opened his mouth to reply, and found that he had nothing to say.

Hmm. Suffering from memory loss. That person-shaped hole in his mind…

“I’m not sure,” he said slowly. Most likely temporary. “However, I think you two are far more interesting than me,”

At the pair of doubtful expressions aimed at the alien that had just drunk all their Mabel-juice and flattened their shed with his spaceship, Ford nodded resolutely, not backing down.

“I’m certain of it. Of the three of us, who has had their home invaded by a strange man flying a shack and had to patch him up and feed him all by themselves? Not me, that’s for sure. Well, except for one unfortunate Wednesday morning. Anyway, most people would have hosed me off the property, especially at this hour. You two are incredibly brave and capable, you know that? Your definition of ‘frightening’ is very different to everyone else’s,”

He watched them carefully.

“So that must be one heck of a scary crack in your wall,”

Like he’d flipped a switch, the comfortable atmosphere vanished and Mason and Mabel’s expressions dropped into something splintered and fragile.

□

“Hmm,” Ford said, staring at the crack.

Mason and Mabel watched his examination carefully.

“This crack is certainly not a normal crack, you’re right,” he pronounced after a moment. The analyser he’d picked up several galaxies and/or decades ago was going haywire in his hand.

Hearing a muttered, “Well, duh,” from behind him, he looked back at the kids, standing by their shared dresser – and that was another thing. They shared a dresser, and a bedroom, in this generously-sized house of theirs (re: absent of any other humans). They might just be attached to each other, but… considering the day he was having, he was more inclined to believe the version of events in which things just didn’t add up.

“There’s a voice coming from it,” Mabel continued. “I thought it was fairies from the bushes on the other side of the wall, but me an’ Mason looked for them and couldn’t find any,”

“Well done of you to rule that out.” Ford nodded. “Fairies can cause trouble like that, although beware when you do investigate them – the danger of being hit by projectile vomit is surprisingly high.” He pressed an ear to the wall, right over the crack, and heard nothing but the pump of blood through his ears.

There was a tug on his coat. He looked down to find Mason offering him an empty glass of water – recently emptied, going by the puddle near the dresser.

“You gotta use this,” the boy said.

Ford pressed the rim of the glass against the wall, still looking at Mason. Then he listened at it.

“Prisoner Zero has escaped,” announced a loud, distant, robotic voice, reverberating faintly through the glass.

“Prisoner Zero has escaped,” said Mason, exactly in time with the repeated alert. He had clearly heard it enough to mimic the tempo perfectly. Ford slowly removed his ear from the glass and handed it back.

“It sounds like there’s a prison on the other side of this crack,” he mused. Endeavouring to appear more upbeat about the situation for the sake of Mason and Mabel’s unsettled faces, he launched into an explanation. “Not on the other side of this wall, though. This crack isn’t in the wall, this crack is in everything,”

“Like… the air?” asked Mason, puzzled.

“The air, the wall, the space between the electrons of all those atoms. This crack,” he gestured, “is through time and space itself – and for some reason it has appeared in your bedroom,”

“Cool. How do we close it?” Mabel said immediately. Well, he supposed he couldn’t expect her to be enthused about it after however long it had been stressing her out for. Maybe she’d be more impressed when she was older – for now, at least Mason was trying to be excited, but Ford suspected that was more due to the possibility of making it go away.

“Well, it wasn’t us that made it – was it?” The six-year-olds shook their heads. “Good. You should probably be supervised if you play with dimensional tech.” Not to mention in your general daily lives. “So hopefully it was the prison on the other side. I expect they’ll close it once they realise it’s there – no one likes draughts. So,” Ford marched a few steps away from the wall to where the kids were, and about-turned, taking their hands. “We just have to draw some attention to it,”

“How?” asked Mabel, grinning and bouncing up and down a little in eagerness.

“By making some noise; knocking usually works.” And with that, Ford slammed his boot against the wall with a mighty bang.

The kids looked at each other, and began screaming nonsense, interspersed with enthusiastic but random attacks on the plaster of questionable innocence in order to attract the attention of whatever was on the other side. While they did seem all too happy to unleash themselves upon it, Ford pulled them back after the listening-glass shattered passionately against first it, and then the floor.

The crack split wide open.

Bright white light shone out, clearing to reveal a dark void housing indistinct shapes beyond. They looked like bars.

“PRISONER ZERO HAS ESCAPED. PRISONER ZERO HAS ESCAPED,”

Mason and Mabel were clutching his hands equally tightly. He was losing circulation in them. The loud tones, harsh tones, robotic tones of some sort of alert system blared.

A massive eyeball whipped over the crack, the icy blue iris swivelling to take all three of them in.

“PRISONER ZERO HAS ESCAPED,”

The crack snapped closed.

After a moment, Ford stepped closer to the wall, tugging the twins forward when they didn’t want to let go of his hands.

The crack had disappeared.

“It’s gone!” Mabel cheered, and she and her brother whooped and let go, jumping and dancing ecstatically around the room. Ford remained staring at the wall.

“It’sgoneit’sgoneit’sgoneit’sgone!”

So it did lead to a prison, Ford thought, the trickle of dread that had been winding its way through him ever since entering the house becoming more of a shower. And they’re on the search for a missing prisoner.

It occurred to him to wonder about the realistic number of ways such an obviously high-security, heavily fortified jail could allow for a prison break.

It occurred to him to wonder where the prisoner could have escaped to.

With a recently-opened crack in time and space leading out of the prison suddenly available.

“Mason? Mabel?” he said, raising his voice above their chants, having difficulty looking away from the now-closed – now locked – wall.

“Yeah?” they chorused.

“How about you take me on a tour of your house now?”

□

“And here’s another bedroom, and here’s another one, and another one – oh, no that’s just a closet…”

Nothing, nothing, nothing! There was nothing to suggest anything else in the house was out of the ordinary – except for everything! So many empty rooms, never filled, never lived in, the only signs of something existing and living in the house those left by the children currently dragging him through the halls. On the one hand, for a very specific reason, that was good, but on the other hand, for various obvious reasons, it wasn’t.

“And that’s about it for this floor…”

“Down the stairs!”

Everywhere he looked, there was a frightening absence of-

…everywhere… he… looked…

Slowly, bringing the children’s rushed progression through the house to a halt, he turned his head, eyes sliding over to the side first, and looked through his peripherals at the hall of doors he’d just toured through.

He saw something new that had always been there.

“Whatcha looking at?” asked Mabel brightly, swinging his hand.

“I’m not entirely…” he began.

The deep, echoing ring of a bell filtered through their surroundings. Ford’s head snapped up, and his heart started to beat faster.

“Oh no,”

He sprinted outside, the twins on his heels, spouting questions.

“It’s the TARDIS-”

“You mean the Mystery Shack?” corrected Mason.

“Yes, the engines are phasing!” Ford explained rapidly as they ran for the still smoking and flaming husk of his ship – wow, he hoped it was still functional enough to repair itself…

“I need to take it to a safe space and let it burn off the excess energy or-”

“Or it’ll explode the house?”

“And the tectonic plate below us,” agreed Ford, stopping the kids before they ran up the veranda after him and fishing his key out of his pocket. He turned back to them before he opened the door. “Stay here, keep together, I’ll be back in a few seconds.” Their mouths opened. “It’s a time machine too, I’ll explain later,” Their mouths stayed open. “Don’t worry, everything’s going to be fine, and I’ll be back before you know it-”

Mason interrupted his deluge of jabbering.

“That’s what people always say,”

Ford looked up from struggling with his key.

“They always say they’ll be back,” Mason repeated, resigned and quiet. Mabel wasn’t smiling anymore.

“And I mean it,” said Ford, looking them firmly in the eyes. He smiled at them briefly with as small an amount of panic as he could currently muster, and saw them start to smile hopefully back. “Count the seconds!” He called, and dived through the doorway.

Two was what he was aiming for. Three at the latest.

□

He was shouting before he made it out of the console room, which was full of black clouds of striking resemblance to those inside the crystal ball of a fortune teller living on a volcano. Fires were still burning all over the armchair. The axolotl was lucky his tank’s crash protection mechanism still worked.

“Alright! The engines are stabilised!” Ford ran, coughing, and pulled open the door. “How many seconds did you make it, kids? I’m sorry, it was longer than I meant it to be – navigation’s not doing too well,” The TARDIS belched smoke behind him. “But I’m back now, so-”

It was daylight.

He was fairly sure it had been near midnight when he left.

Something dropped in his stomach.

“Kids?!” He shouted to an empty front garden. It was silent. He broke into a run for the front door.

He had not left them alone in the house, alone in this house, overnight, he had not left them alone for hours when he had seen how wrong everything was here, when he had seen what was inside-

“KIDS!”

The front door burst open under his weight.

“Mason! Mabel!” He thundered down the hall, did a double take and glared fearsomely at what he saw, and ran for their bedroom door.

“Wake up, I’m getting you out of here right now – not via TAR- I mean, Mystery Shack, but maybe there’s a burger place down the street somewhere or in the next… country. Kids! Are you in here?”

There was a yell from behind him and running footsteps too heavy to be a six-year-old’s and Ford got a hand on his gun and pain exploded on the back of his head and everything went dark.

□

“Okay, Operation Sleepwalker is a-go,” Mabel muttered, keeping a grimly determined watch on the entrance of the hospital from her concealed position in the bushes across the road. They were prickly, but only if she moved, so simple solution. Plus, it was just their way of showing affection; she was fine with it.

She eased her foot into a more comfortable position under her and got stabbed by about a million tiny thorns.

“Stop loving me so much!” she hissed.

The rosebush stabbed her again.

“Oh, you…”

This waiting was getting pretty boring. Not to mention, various parts of her were going numb. The things she did for the sake of the mission…

“Mabel!”

She jumped and fumbled for the walkie-talkie in her pocket as another burst of static erupted from it.

“Mabel, you need to get back here!”

“What? I can’t do that! I’m on a mission!” she protested.

“Who cares about that anymore!” Her brother sounded unusually panicked. “It’s the Doctor! Or someone who looks a lot like him – he’s even got the trenchcoat and the red sweater and the weird strap thing!”

That piqued her attention in a big way, but then suspicion poked at her. Sure. He was back. Right.

“What do you mean you think he’s back?”

The voice on the other end of the line cracked in mingled guilt and stress. “I may have hit him in the head with a baseball bat, which knocked him out before he could say anything. Now I’ve handcuffed him to the radiator – but I think it was justified!”

“What the heck man! What’d you do that for?!”

“He broke into our house, Mabel! What was I supposed to do? And besides, I heard a clang!”

“What do you mean ‘a clang’?”

“A clang! Like when you hit a pot with a spoon! It sounded like that when I hit him in the head with the baseball bat!”

“You think he has a pot for a head?”

“I did think he was a robot simulant planted here to kill and/or prank us actually, but we can’t discount that theory either! No trustworthy person has a head that clangs when you knock them out with a baseball bat! Did I mention that? I did, didn’t I? I knocked him out with a baseball bat!”

“I think you’re fixating a little now,”

“You might be right. You have to get back here!”

A car pulled into the staff parking area of the hospital. Mabel’s eyes widened.

“No can do. She’s just arrived and I need to confront her! Again. Anyway, it sounds like you’ve got the situation back there aaaaalllll under control, so good luck! I’m switching this off now,”

“No! No, I do not have this under control! What if he wakes up? What should I do? Knock him out again?”

“Yeah! Or interrogate him,” Mabel suggested. “We don’t want a pothead robot simulant dressed like the Doctor going around killing and/or pranking us! Especially when you’ve just attacked him with a baseball bat. Bye.” She turned the walkie-talkie off amidst her brother’s frantic objections and shoved it back in her pocket. Then she exploded out of the bushes in a flurry of petals and leaves and a little bit of blood and raced over to the physician about to enter the building.

“AHA! I’ve caught you now, Zombifier!” She cried, pointing an accusatory finger right into the culprit’s face.

Doctor Ramsen looked surprised at her sudden appearance, then annoyed - as any crook would at being trapped! The way her eyes rolled were a clear sign of a guilty conscience!

“Mabel-” she started impatiently.

“The patients in your coma ward, are they or are they not compelled to get up at random hours of the day and night and walk around town completely conscious?”

“They are not,” said Doctor Ramsen, distinctly unamused.

“Still going with that story, huh? Well, you’ll be left with no legs to stand on today, you… legless… villain!”

“Mabel, you and your brother have had fun with this for the last few weeks, but I’m getting very tired of it now-”

“Because today I have proof of your dastardly insomniac deeds! Right here! Deny them if you dare!”

“I do. Now I want you to stop with this nonsense and go home, right now,” “No matter how hard you try, you can’t squirm out of it this time-”

“MABEL!” Shouted Doctor Ramsen. Mabel’s voice died in her throat. “Do I need to call your uncle? Again?”

“…No,” Mabel said after a moment.

“Good. Now go home, and enjoy your weekend without harassing anyone in this hospital please. Off you go.” She turned and walked through the hospital entrance, leaving Mabel frustrated and fighting off instinctive hot red clouds of shame. She didn’t have anything to be ashamed of! She was helping uncover the mysteries of this town, unlike everyone else who seemed content to just be complicit in them…

A strange thought occurred to her.

Maybe Doctor Ramsen wasn’t the root of the problem. What if it really was something else? She should call Soos and ask him to pretty please with sugar on top use his status as a nurse to do some more recon work on the coma patients when his shift came on. His answer was always the same: no patients were missing, everyone was unconscious in their beds, as usual…

She looked down at the picture on her phone that she had been brandishing at Doctor Ramsen.

On it, a lady dressed for the coma ward was depicted wandering down the street.

□

Ford jerked awake. This was difficult, due to the cuffs restraining his right wrist.

He was slumped at the end of the hallway against a thankfully-turned-off radiator. Down the hall, the nightmare faced him.

You left them here all night…

“Who are you and what are you doing here?” Demanded a voice.

A boy in a blue and white hat was standing nearby, pointing a baseball bat at him with false bravado. Ford’s head twinged in recognition.

“Who are you and what are you doing here?” He demanded right back, which seemed to throw the kid even more off-balance than he already was. How old was he? Twelve? Thirteen? Where the hell had he come from? Could he be a neighbour, perhaps?

“I- I’m Dipper,” the boy stammered out and then winced, like he hadn’t meant to let that slip.

“And what are you doing here?”

“Uh, I’m investigating some zom- I mean, coma patients… it’s a long story… but I needed to pick up my camera.” He gestured to the bag at his feet, which Ford could see through the open top was indeed holding a video camera. Ford’s gaze flicked back up to him, and he shifted uneasily. Definitely hiding something, Ford surmised, but he couldn’t focus on it now.

“I’m Stanford,” He introduced himself in an attempt to build some rapport. The boy’s eyes narrowed. Forget it! “Now, where are the children that live here? A boy and a girl, Mason and Mabel, where are they?”

The boy frowned, opening and closing his mouth, clearly trying to work out when exactly the roles of interrogator and interrogatee had reversed. There was no time for this, not anymore. He had to get everyone out of this house pronto before his suspicions were confirmed. The view of the hallway behind Dipper seemed to loom larger.

“Kid! Just answer the question! This house is dangerous, and we need to get far away from it now!”

“Dangerous?” Dipper looked alarmed. Finally, he was getting through.

“Extremely, and even more so if you don’t let me out of these cuffs right this minute!” He pulled on them for good measure, but Dipper was looking over his shoulder, down the hallway, following the line of sight which Ford’s gaze had been flickering along for some time.

“What’s wrong with it?” He asked, looking back at Ford.

No time! It’s been too long already!

“The kids.” Ford stressed. “Where are Mabel and Mason?”

Dipper was looking over his shoulder again, forehead creased. “Huh? They… um… haven’t been here for a while…” he answered vaguely.

Ford’s insides froze solid.

“What?”

He hadn’t been that long, he was only out by about six hours, he hadn’t been that long!

“What do you mean?”

Nothing had happened to them before he arrived, so why would anything have happened to them since?

“Dipper, what do you mean? How long is a ‘while’?”

The boy turned back to him, shaking his head a little, and appearing to have reclaimed some of his authority.

“Alright, that’s enough questions. What are you really doing here, Doctor ‘Stanford’?” The quotation marks thunked into place around Ford’s name. “Are you some sort of robot imposter-” and there was a swell of righteous anger in that word – “here to invade us? To take us all prisoner? To kill us? To… prank us?! Answer me, pothead!”

Ford stared at him for a moment before his heart resumed its heavy beating of a tattoo against his ribs and the frustration and fear all came back.

“What in the name of- didn’t you hear me? This place is dangerous and we need to leave now!”

“Yeah, I’d say so! Some crazy guy just broke in and ran around yelling like he owns the place, and now he keeps trying to convince me to let him keep doing it!”

Ford would probably concede that point at any other time, but it was far too late to start rationalising with the kid.

Make him understand, make him understand!

“How many doors are in this hallway? Tell me, right now,”

Glaring uncomprehendingly, Dipper must have realised Ford was far too stubborn to allow him to direct the conversation because he sighed impatiently and gestured around them at each door without looking.

“Five. One, two, three, four, five-”

“Six,”

Dipper stopped.

“Look behind you,” Ford instructed. Dipper didn’t move, but he wasn’t contradicting his count. “Look behind you. You know there’s something wrong, don’t you? Something there, in the corner of your eye…”

□

Slowly, Dipper turned his head. His eyes strained to look into the area normally guarded by his peripherals. He faced the end of the hallway.

No way…

“Why haven’t I seen that before?” He breathed. There was a door. Door number six, sitting at the end of the hallway as innocently as a grenade. His heart beat faster. There was a whole other room in the house. A whole other room. How could he not have noticed?

“There’s a perception filter around it, tricking you into looking away, convincing your brain into skipping over it every time your eyes cross it,” The fake’s voice answered from behind him. Dipper took a step towards it, and another.

“No, stay away from it, stay back!” The fake ordered. “That perception filter was put there by something so it could hide, so it could stay here without being noticed!”

A whole other person had been living in his house? All this time?

The was a clinking and a clattering as the imposter tried to get free again. Dipper’s feet were still being drawn onwards like they were magnetised to the mystery at the end of the corridor.

That was a seriously creepy thought. There was someone else in the house with them? There had been someone else in the house with them this entire time? No, wait…

The guy hadn’t said someone, he’d said something…

On the other hand, they hadn’t been making much of a nuisance of themself. At least he didn’t have to do dishes for them as well.

His hand closed around the doorknob.

“Dipper!”

The door swung open easily at his touch. Not a squeak of the hinges. Not a stick in the movement.

It was accustomed to being opened and shut.

A particularly vicious clank sounded, along with some swear words that Dipper conscientiously edited out from his mind.

“Why do you even have handcuffs?!” The fake shouted.

“They’re my uncle’s,” Dipper answered vaguely, looking around the new room that was so, so old. It hadn’t been maintained along with the rest of the house over the years. It was bare, with peeling wallpaper and a creaky, bare wooden floor. Not so much as some blankets, or a table, or any furnishings at all were inside – although with the way Dipper was already struggling to keep the waves of panic at bay, he wasn’t sure he could have handled any irrefutable evidence that someone had been insidiously and possibly even ubiquitously part of his life since…

“Why does your uncle have handcuffs?” The voice echoed frustratedly back from out in the hall.

“No idea…” Dipper mumbled, still taking in the room. It was silent and still, the floor housing a fine layer of dust. There was nothing living in the slightest. Not even bugs.

“Dipper?” There was a tinge of worry in Stanf- in the imposter’s voice. He mustn’t have heard his answer.

Dipper shook himself.

“There’s no one here,” he called out loudly. “It’s empty,”

“How do you know?”

What? How did he know if it was empty? What, like he didn’t have eyes? Jeez, was this guy demanding. How hard was it to tell if a room was occupied or not?

“Because-” Dipper floundered helplessly for a moment. “Because I can’t see anyone!”

There was silence. His own words hovered in the air.

Tricking you into looking away, convincing your brain into skipping over it every time your eyes cross it…

Something there, in the corner of your eye…

Dipper swallowed with a dry throat.

“Dipper, get out of there,”

He turned his head, examining the four walls from his position in the centre. Nothing left, nothing right…

“Don’t look for it, just come away,”

He was very conscious that he didn’t have eyes in the back of his head.

“Dipper!”

And whichever way he turned, his back was always to something.

He looked around again. Nothing. Again. Nothing. His breaths filled his ears and his pulse filled his head.

He slowly made to look to the left… and whipped around to the right.

TEETH. Huge fanged TEETH. Translucent skin covering a reptilian, snakelike head and a long neck or body or whatever winding up to the ceiling and it opened its mouth wide and hissed at him, the TEETH impossibly huge.

Dipper screamed and hit it with the baseball bat. Then he ran.

Two steps into the hallway, slamming the door behind him for all the good that would do against huge freaking monstrous FANGS, two steps out and he ran into the Doctor, who had been pelting towards him. His whole body jarred with the collision and he went flying backwards-

-would have gone flying backwards if the Doctor hadn’t caught him, grabbed him, lifted him bodily off the ground and run for the front door, the handcuffs dangling from his right wrist knocking Dipper’s hat askew on the way.

Sunshine filled the world and kicked his brain back into gear and he started struggling to be put down. Most of the way across the front yard, the D- the imposter abruptly stopped and Dipper seized the chance, wriggling out of the guy’s grip, his feet thudding into the grass.

“We’ve been living with a monster this entire time!” He half yelled half gasped, trying to suck air into his aching lungs and expel it at the same time with as much success as could be expected. His hand leapt for his walkie-talkie – he needed to tell Mabel, he needed to talk to her, he needed to find her and then they’d go find Stan together- but it was missing, left behind in the bag with his camera-

“There’s a shed in this yard,” said Stanford.

“What?!” said Dipper wildly. “What?! Yeah there’s a shed! And an ALIEN in the house back there, in case you somehow missed it!”

“It’s old – it’s years old,” Stanford said in disbelief, looking at the wooden building like it held another translucent reptilian being.

“So? Let’s go! We need to get out of here!”

“No, you don’t understand – there can’t be a shed here, I destroyed it when I crashed…”

Desperately trying to pull himself together enough for both their snakes- their sakes before the alien came out and ate them both, Dipper took a deep breath and grabbed the man’s trenchcoated arm, tugging it – uselessly as it turned out. If Stanford didn’t want to move, he didn’t move, apparently.

“Look, it’s great that you admire my uncle’s shed-making skills so much-”

“Your uncle? He made this? Who is he?” Stanford said sharply.

Dipper waved his arms in a general gesture of franticness, helplessness, and lack of information or care, knocking his hat even more out of place. “He’s- he’s Stan! He’s my uncle! Showed up not long after-”

“How old is it? How old is that shed?”

Dipper ripped his hat off. “I don’t know! How many seconds is it since you told us to wait for you?!”

Stanford froze.

□

How had he missed it?

The boy’s fringe and fluffy hair sprang up out of hat-pressed flatness. That vivid red birthmark with the incredible likeness to the Big Dipper – how had he missed it? – glared out at him, as did a pair of fierce brown eyes.

“We need to go,” Dipper insisted, tugging on his arm again. Ford pulled himself together.

“TARDIS,” he said.

“You mean Mystery Shack,” Dipper corrected.

“Right.” He looked around for where he’d landed this time – which turned out to be on the property line, one corner of the house edging onto the road. Part of the fence had been obliterated, and Ford was forced to admit that sometimes its exterior, while relatively small, was still rather large to find parking spaces for.

As they turned to it, shutters rolled down inside the windows, the door locked audibly, and the sound of some sort of contained explosion went off inside.

“Ah,” said Ford. “Maybe not until it’s repaired itself,”

Dipper gasped and he whipped around to face what could now be comfortably called the haunted house.

“Zombie,” the boy said in a tight voice.

There was a man in a hospital gown standing in the doorway. He opened his mouth and snarled with an impossible number of humongous and needle-like teeth. Dipper’s body seemed to have completely locked up beside him.

“Well,” Ford said lightly. “On the bright side, we know that Prisoner Zero is also a shapeshifter,”

“That’s a bright side?”

“Would you rather we not know?” He grabbed Dipper’s hand. “Run!”

Their feet thudded on pavement, across grass, on pavement again. Houses, streets, cars flashed past. They weren’t being pursued. They weren’t being visibly pursued. Dipper was having trouble keeping up. Ford only stopped when a loud scream of feedback rang out of an ice cream van’s loudspeaker by the side of a park.

Wheezing and coughing, Dipper was bent double trying to take in air. That didn’t stop him from trying to make his lungs obey him so he could voice all his questions as soon as possible, that investigative curiosity he’d had as a younger child only having grown since. Good God, he’d been six five minutes ago…

“Prisoner Zero’s been in our house?”

“Yes – and they’ve not been idle. To take a form like that they’d need to develop a psychic link with a host,” The ice cream van had got the feedback under control, but still seemed to be having some technical problems.

“Where’s your sister?” Questioned Ford. “Is she alright? Didn’t you say something about coma patients earlier?”

Dipper straightened up and started breathing evenly again. “Yeah, she’s fine, she’s at the hospital. We keep seeing patients from the coma ward walking around town, so-” He stopped, eyes widening. “They’ve been Prisoner Zero?” He stopped again, his head cocked.

“What is it?” Ford knew before he’d finished the question.

“-incinerated. Repeat. Prisoner Zero will-”

“No way,” Dipper murmured disbelievingly. A harsh, robotic, and above all familiar loud voice was sounding over the ice cream van’s loudspeakers.

“-eject the human residence, or-”

It wasn’t just the loudspeakers. Twenty feet away, along the jogging track, a woman was staring at her earbuds strangely. On the other side of the park a teenager’s stereo was blaring the same robotic message. Through the curtains of someone’s living room, Ford could see a large blue eyeball swivelling back and forth on a television screen.

“-residence will be-”

Someone in the park shouted, pointing up at the sky. Ford and Dipper and everyone within sight were suddenly looking upwards in fear, in confusion, in curiosity, in panic, as the sun shimmered and dulled to an orangey-yellow and people could watch it without having to avert their eyes in pain. Everyone gaped at the incomprehensible sight.

Everyone except someone in a little corner of the park, who looked very familiar to Ford now that he was thinking along the right lines.

He cleared the fence posts in one leap.

“Mabel!”

Ford skidded to a halt in front of her and spent a second trying to adjust to how similar and different she was now compared to then – still in a wonderfully bright sweater, taller now obviously, hair longer, an expression a lot more shocked-looking than it used to be when she looked at him, but she was alright – they were both alright. (Dipper came to a stop by crashing into his sister, legs still not fully under his control after such a long run). Ford didn’t know how much the uncertainty of not knowing for sure what had happened had been stressing him out until he felt it vanish upon seeing the twins side-by side, if a little scared, again. So many things were going wrong today, but at least this was mostly okay.

“IMPOSTER!” Yelled Mabel, recovering her balance both physically and emotionally and brandishing a finger at him. She had braces now.

“No, no, I swear Mabel, it’s me, I’m back,” Ford said quickly, waving his hands placatingly. “The T- uh, the Mystery Shack’s navigation was fairly… melted and it clearly had a hard time trying to find the right time again, I’m so sorry. But I’m back now. Right, Dipper?”

Dipper was silent. He looked away from Ford’s stare.

“What? Dipper? You really don’t believe it’s me?” It didn’t seem possible, not after all that had just happened. And yet here the boy was, looking at him now that he had a moment to breathe with just as much unwillingness to believe, to hope that it was really Ford, and that he was really back.

“You said your name was Stanford,” He said, crossing his arms.

“That is my name!”

“No it isn’t,” Mabel said stubbornly. “That’s some sort of- of weird robot name you came up with because you’re a weird robot imposter!”

“Isn’t your uncle’s name Stan? It’s not that weird,” Frowned Ford.

“Not the point! The Doctor didn’t have a name! He was just the Doctor, mister, which you’d know if you were the Doctor!” She folded her arms too, confident that she’d trapped him. Ford suddenly felt like those few times Dipper had looked at him back at the house – like something was going on that was so obvious he didn’t know where to begin explaining it.

“Of course I have a name!” He burst out. “I never told you it because you interrupted me when I tried!”

A thoughtful expression crossed Mabel’s face. “Oh yeah, that did happen… and that does explain it.” Then she turned hard again, and Ford’s heart sank. “But not all of it! You never came back!”

“And why would you now?” Her brother chimed in, equally distrustful.

“I’ve already-” Ford pinched the bridge of his nose and tried to calm the steadily encroaching tension making its way over him via the strange sun and the robotic message and Prisoner Zero and the two kids in front of him who… who he’d left when they didn’t have anyone else, and it didn’t matter that they hadn’t been alone for long before their uncle apparently showed up – he’d still left them, and broken their trust as easily as they’d given it, and now they were no longer small with unguarded hearts.

“Do you know how many psychiatrists Stan practically had to beat off with a stick?”

“Or how many seconds there are in six years? ‘Cause we do,”

Ford knelt down. Their faces were set, but at least now they had to look at him.

“I know you don’t want to trust me again,” he told them, “but you know it’s me. You know it, and I am back now, and I promise I can still help. So for now,” He stuck out both his hands to them. Hands that he was fairly sure they wouldn’t have seen many like in this small town, and hands which he was certain they remembered from his first visit. Dipper and Mabel looked back and forth between them and his face. Ford introduced himself anew.

“I’m Doctor Stanford Pines. I have twelve PhDs from various corners of the universe, I fly a Mystery Shack through time and space, and I’d like your help in solving this current crisis,”

They stared at his six fingers, and the still-warm soot on his jacket, and the traces of glittery dinosaur Mabel juice on his sleeves.

“Please,” he implored them. “There’s no one better suited to the task, or who I’d rather have,”

Hesitantly, with equal expressions that told him that maybe their hearts weren’t too guarded against him just yet, they shook his hands.

“Alright,” Dipper said.

“We’re really the only people who’ll have any hope of saving us anyway,” shrugged Mabel, and Ford laughed.

“But first, what is happening to the sun?” demanded Dipper.

“-residence, or the human residence will-”

“And the weird broadcast,” Mabel added.

Ford stood up. “Nothing good, I’m afraid.” He pulled his analyser out of his pocket – noting with some exuberance that Dipper and Mabel’s eyes widened as they recognised it – and aimed it at the sky. After a moment, a little hologram of something that looked like a snowflake at first glance blinked up on it.

“Allow me to introduce Prisoner Zero’s cell wardens – the Atraxi.�� The spiky, delicate looking spaceship spun in place, a super-sized blue eyeball in the centre. “There’s currently a fleet of them surrounding the planet, searching for Prisoner Zero,”

“Well that’s good, isn’t it?” asked Mabel. “They’ll find them and take them away-”

“-and we won’t have to worry about some creepy alien hiding in our house,” added Dipper.

“What?”

“Oh yeah, it’s horror movie kind of stuff. I’ll tell you about it later,”

“The fact that they want to take Prisoner Zero away? Yes, that is good,” Ford informed them. “What they’re threatening to do? Not so much,”

“What are they threatening to do?” frowned Mabel. “It’s just looks like they’re floating around up there,”

On cue, the teenager nearby pressed the wrong thing on his stereo and the most certainly planet-wide broadcast boomed out at full volume.

“PRISONER ZERO WILL EJECT THE HUMAN RESIDENCE, OR THE HUMAN RESIDENCE WILL BE INCINERATED. REPEAT. PRISONER ZERO WILL EJECT THE HUMAN RESIDENCE, OR THE HUMAN RESIDENCE WILL BE INCINERATED,”

Dipper blanched. “The human residence… as in, ‘Earth’?”

“Exactly,” confirmed Ford. “So we need to find Prisoner Zero, who’ll be needing to stay close to any subjects of their psychic link in order to maintain their disguise,”

“The coma patients!” Realised Dipper.

“I feel like I’ve missed a lot,” Mabel complained.

“We need to get into the hospital!”

“Now that I understand!” She pulled her phone out of her pocket. “Soos to the rescue! He’s on his shift right now!”

“Alright! We can do this! Is there anything else?” Dipper asked Ford eagerly.

“I’ll need a computer-”

“Wendy has one! She’s right over there!”

“How convenient!” Ford praised.

“So that’s it, right? You do whatever you need to do with the computer, then we’ll go to the hospital and wrassle with an alien, and then we call the Atraxi and they can take Prisoner Zero away and not incinerate us, and everything will be fine!” Mabel cheered, putting her hands on her hips and huffing out a relieved sigh. “Simple! And it’s not even like there’s a twenty-four-hour time limit, like in the movies!” She laughed.

Ford’s stomach dropped at her innocent statement, and his mood change did not go unnoticed by the twins.

“What? There is a time limit?” Mabel said in some distress.

Reluctantly, Ford admitted, “Well, the Atraxi have technically already started the incineration process,”

“They’ve what?” Shouted Dipper.

“Force-field in the upper atmosphere in order to contain the explosion,” Ford said, waving his hand at the diluted sun.

“So how long do we have?” Mabel said, considerably more nervously.

And this is what he’d really have wanted to avoid telling them.

“Considering the mass of the planet, the density of the core, and the power needed to charge up a sufficient fusion blast… about twenty minutes,”

Mabel looked like her voice was being strangled in its formation. Dipper was bending over double and taking in whooping great breaths again. Ford decided that he wouldn’t mention how it was likely closer to fifteen now, after how long they’d been talking for.

Dipper straightened up again. “But you can still do it, right? You’ve had worse odds before, or something?” he said desperately. Mabel turned to him with equal expectancy.

With great reassurance, Ford placed a hand on each of their heads and ruffled their hair gently.

“Not really. This pretty bad. But with you two helping, things should be much easier! Now, which one is Wendy?”

[softshelltaakos]

what’s up everybody! it’s time for part 2 of my taz graphic novel review.

part one covered (most of) my beef with the writing and storytelling choices. this part is gonna cover character designs!!! you should know going into this that my opinions are not positive. this post is also a lot less analytical in tone than part 1, because art is not my forte.

disclaimer: i love the mcelroys. i truly do. taz has gotten me through some very difficult stuff and i have a tattoo. all this to say i’m not doing this because i hate them or because i like hating things. if you feel the need to message me about how i am overreacting, specifically to green taako, or about how i should just calm down and ignore it, or about how it’s sad that i’m getting so worked up instead of just enjoying the show, i’ve heard it and i don’t care. you will not be taken seriously. save yourself the energy.

there are spoilers for the graphic novel under the cut.

alright. i’m getting the elephant in the room out of the way first because it’s the most important thing to address, and once it’s out of my system i’ll feel better goofing on the rest of the designs. as i mentioned in the disclaimer: Green Taako Is Bad.

[ID: a panel focusing on taako. he’s skinny and minty green with chin-length light blonde hair and a big, pointy nose.]

now, a lot of people have made posts about this before, and i’m not saying anything new about it by any means. i’m also not the most equipped person to talk about why green taako is bad, because i’m a white gentile (i’ve heard conflicting opinions on whether or not green taako is antisemitic, but it feels remiss not to mention that there’s been discussion) and therefore not part of any groups affected by this whole debacle, but in short: when pressed for more diversity, specifically in taako’s case as a pretty large chunk of his arc involves literally inventing a mexican cultural food (fun note: that’s never mentioned in this book,) carey pietsch decided he should be green and the mcelroys were down with it. this is not an issue that cropped up when this design was released; it was something that there was already a ton of discourse surrounding, and it should never have gotten concepts drawn, let alone made it to publish.

this article by natt cuesta has been linked before on the subject, and i think it’s a good, concise explanation of why green taako is bad as well as why aracial characters in general are bad. this is a racist design.

now that we’ve gotten those ethical ramifications out of the way... i’m sorry, but it’s an ugly design, lmao. he looks like a palette-swapped version of pearl from steven universe with less character. the ONLY thing about this design that i like is the prominent lower lashes, if only because they’re the only thing that keeps him from looking entirely generic. because, like, y’all, when has anything about taako been generic?

[ID: a panel focusing on magnus. he’s a muscular fair-skinned man with auburn hair, a bushy beard, and a scar over his left eye.]

generic is a word that’s going to come up a lot over the course of this review, because i genuinely can’t think of a more apt descriptor for pietsch’s designs. it feels like she went with the lowest common denominator of every character’s design, a synthesis of all of the most popular (and most boring) ones, except in instances where that would lend any personality to a character’s design. magnus fits what brief description we’re given in the podcast: auburn hair. beard. big. and i guess that’s all you need?

i understand that by appealing to the most common and basic designs for these characters you’re inviting a lot less ire than you might by going with something more individual, so i get the motivation behind it -- or i would, if her designs hadn’t always been about this dull. but it’s bizarre to me that in a story as unique as the balance campaign, we ended up with the most basic ass Fantasy Hero lookin’ dude in the world as one of our protagonists.

i just really don’t have a lot to say about this. i’m just bored by it.

[ID: a panel of merle. he has medium-dark skin with a smooth white bun and beard.]

merle is simultaneously the design i like most out of the boys and the one that throws me the most, because i feel like he’s the most out on a limb one. which... oof. most merle designs i see give him a floral motif (i guess he has a few petals in his hair, maybe?) and big coke-bottle glasses, and i miss those things with this design, but at least it doesn’t totally feel like pietsch threw every merle she could get her hands on into a blender and poured it out on a page, although honestly, that might have been more satisfying. people do some really fun shit with their merle designs, but again, he’s. generic.

as the cuesta article mentions, with how much of an issue it was to get any of the boys to be poc in the first place and in conjunction with minty up there, this design also feels like tokenism -- an appeasement rather than an honest attempt at diversity or god forbid because the artist actually headcanons merle as a person of color. personally, i wish that she’d gone a step beyond re-coloring his skin and idk given him a natural hairstyle or something. he still feels very much like a recolor to me rather than a character who was designed as a person of color from the beginning.

i feel like he looks more like a cleric than he looks like a merle, which i feel like is pretty contradictory to who merle is.

[ID: a cutaway showing griffin, a white man with brown hair and glasses wearing a collared shirt.]

i’ve said before that it feels a little odd to talk about her design of a real person, so i’ll keep this brief, but... you know how every drawing of a basic white dude looks a little bit like griffin mcelroy? you know how that one arthur character looks a little bit like griffin mcelroy? you know how everyone is constantly messaging mysillycomics about how her avatar looks like griffin mcelroy?

how did carey pietsch manage to actively attempt to draw griffin mcelroy and miss the mark? it boggles the mind. he doesn’t not look like griffin, i guess, but he doesn’t look like griffin, either. i don’t know, man

[ID: a generic gerblin. he has yellowy-green skin, slight tusks or fangs, and weird, nubby little horn-type things.]

i hate these gerblins. they are ugly. next

[ID: two images of klaarg/g’nash. he’s a bugbear with brown fur and yellow eyes as well as a mouth full of pointy teeth. in the first image he looks pissed off; in the second he’s starry-eyed and delighted.]

klaarg is probably my favorite design in the book, and that’s just because he looks like a cute dog for most of the time he’s on the page. he’s fluffy and i love klaarg anyway, so like. did not take a lot to reach this mark. especially considering how i feel about most of the other designs lmfao

i do definitely think he keeps up the trend of looking generic, though.

[ID: an image of barry bluejeans. he looks like tom arnold, kind of; he’s square-jawed and white with thick-rimmed glasses. he also has a light brown mullet.]

i hate this. i hate the mullet. i’m sorry, y’all, i really, truly, cannot stand the mullet. i don’t feel like barry has mullet energy. i feel like it’s too powerful a move for him. it wouldn’t be a good move, mind you, but it would be a big one. i don’t know y’all it’s just bad

[ID: an image of killian. she’s a green-skinned orc woman with prominent eyelashes, eyebrows, and tusks, and straight brown hair.]

i can’t have been the only one who was hoping for a badass, visibly muscular, maybe even butch killian design, right? that wasn’t just me being a big old lesbian, that’s a pretty common theme of killian designs? i guess kudos for going out on a limb again, but then, like, take the kudos back for going out on the most boring limb possible again. i could hang with the face if her hair wasn’t so boring, but it’s... it’s so boring

[ID: an image of magic brian. he’s a drow with long white hair and an oblong face and oddly shaped nose.]

for how many of her designs are syntheses of popular ones, i..... don’t understand how this happened. i don’t understand how whimiscal and flamboyant magic brian who’s often drawn as taako-but-a-goth-dark-elf ended up looking like this. he looks like he used to play football and got his nose busted up and peaked in fantasy high school. he looks like the first quarter of a monster factory video where the thing’s just ugly but doesn’t have a personality or any endearing traits yet. he didn’t have to be the goth twink we all know he is but what.......... is this

[ID: an image of gundren rockseeker/bogard. he’s a light-skinned dwarf with dark long hair and a matching beard.]

..........listen i know they’re cousins and distant cousins at that but all of merle’s cousins are light-skinned and, like, not to say that that can’t happen but having them be anywhere near merle’s skin tone would’ve been such an easy way to help bolster the obviously inaccurate idea that this is a work concerned with diverse character designs, or rather to help ppl claim it was being bolstered, and yet

[ID: avi, a fair-skinned man with long dark hair kept up in a ponytail and slight scruff on his face.]

i feel like maybe avi is intended to be east asian so i think at this point that brings the count up to a whole two characters of color. we’re almost done with the book. cool. he’s cute, i guess, but guess what word i’m about to say again (it’s generic)

[ID: a panel of several unnamed cameo characters. from right to left: carey fangbattle, a light blue dragonborn; brad bradson, a green orc man with a long brown ponytail; and presumably lucas miller, a tan human with glasses and dark hair.]

ok. deep breaths.

first off, there’s another panel w these three as well as boyland, who looks fine, but i didn’t grab that one bc it’s harder to make out detail. carey is cute. brad is fine.

i assume the third guy is lucas miller because i’m not entirely sure who else he would be, and... oof! as you may know i can’t stand lucas miller, which has nothing to do with his necromancy or nerdiness and everything to do with the various human rights violations he commits in the small time he’s got focus as well as the fact that he’s got a theoretical redemption arc that’s not actually an arc so much as us being told he’s better now. lucas is an entitled jackass who repeatedly uses other people’s bodies and minds without their consent, from the obvious offense of using the bugbears as brainwashed chore-doers (read: slaves) to the less-oft discussed dragging of noelle and others out of the astral plane into robot bodies, again to do his chores for him. because of this, it has always sat very uncomfortably with me when people make lucas a poc, because everything about him screams Shitty White Nerd Boy to me. it sits extra uncomfortably coming from carey pietsch, given how white all of her other designs are.

it’s a little hard to tell because i took all these pics with my phone camera in my room’s lighting so they’re not super high fidelity or anything, but pietsch’s lucas is noticeably darker than any other character we’ve seen so far save merle. maybe he’s just a white guy with a tan, but all the same, it strikes me as incredibly skeevy to have one of so few characters of color be this fucking guy.

[ID: johann, a black man with an oblong face and textured dark hair.]

johann’s design is fine, although this is a similar face shape to that brian from earlier and i just. i don’t. understand it. it’s not especially interesting, but hey, at least he’s not another generic white guy.

that being said, as i mentioned in part 1 of this review, johann’s role is severely cut in this -- he’s reduced to three panels, when in the show itself he’s the one who escorts the boys to the voidfish’s chamber and inoculates them. as i mentioned in that post i understand that they shifted it some to give lucretia a more prominent entrance, but as i also mentioned in that post, they should have compensated for that. three panels.

johann is not a character with a great deal of screentime as it is, but he’s a character with a major impact. he is the reason story and song happens. his song serves as a direct foil to john’s nihilistic conversion of his own home plane into the hunger. the fact that he’s been reduced to three panels with little to no characterization at this point, especially in conjunction with the fact that he’s one of very few poc, makes me really, really uncomfortable. avi is in more panels in this book than johann is, and while i love avi and as i said i am parsing him as an asian dude, he’s also still light-skinned enough and the style is nondescript enough that there are definitely people who will parse him as white, and also, avi’s role in the story is not as big as johann’s.

it doesn’t sit right with me.

[ID: an image of davenport, a fair-skinned man with a big red mustache and slicked back red hair.]

ginger davenport with a big mustache. groundbreaking.

[ID: an image of lucretia, a slender black woman with short white hair dressed in blue layers.]

and finally, lucretia. now, i’m biased, and it’s hard for me to see a lucretia design i don’t like. i also think that this is, compared to a lot of the others at least, one of the more interesting designs in the book, at least as far as her clothes go. it’s not a long robe that would be hard to move in, and i appreciate that -- it strikes me as a pretty practical outfit while also being ornamental and wizard-y. and she’s pretty, and she’s not whitewashed, and that’s all great. i like her earrings.

all that being said, i feel like it’s not enough. luc’s hair continues a theme with merle’s and johann’s (as well as the preview we’ve seen of angus,) which is that it strikes me as very low-effort on pietsch’s part. it’s short and it’s definitely not straight, but it doesn’t feel to me like it had as much thought put into it as, say, minty green taako’s hair. we could’ve had a lucretia with a big beautiful afro, or long box braids, or so many other natural hairstyles; we got this. it’s not bad, but i do think it’s disappointing. without going looking for it and without being a person who reads a great deal about character design, i’ve seen a fair amount of discussion from black women (artists, writers, and none of the above) about the portrayal of black women as it pertains to their hair. they’re never designed to be as feminine as their white counterparts. their hair is never treated with the same amount of detail or respect as their white counterparts. it’s short, maybe curly if you’re lucky.

i’m gonna circle back quickly to killian’s hair. it’s long and smooth and kept down, despite the fact that killian is an action-oriented women and might not want it to be in her face all the time -- it could have at least been braided or in a bun. it could’ve been short! and that would’ve made sense. and i don’t mean to say that lucretia couldn’t have short hair, but she’s a very elegant woman whose dress is described as intricate. she wears business regalia. she could have any number of hairstyles, from something elaborate to something simple but more out-of-the-box than this, but she doesn’t. i found this on a quick hunt through my ref tag -- it’s a tutorial for drawing black folks with just a small selection of interesting things you can do with afrotextured hair. these resources aren’t hard to find! and i’m doing this for fun -- carey pietsch is a professional artist who was paid for these designs. if she’d put in more than the bare minimum effort, we could’ve had some really interesting shit going on, but she didn’t.

and that’s the core of the issue here. i truly do not feel like pietsch put the same amount of care into the designs for the few characters of color we see as she did into the white ones, and that’s upsetting and emblematic of a larger problem in the work: neither pietsch nor the mcelroys put in very much care at all for the fans of color who spoke up and asked for representation.i know i said i was getting taako out of the way first so the majority of the post could be goof-heavy, but goddamn, y’all, it’s hard to goof about when it’s so blatantly shitty. pietsch’s designs are boring at best and racist at worst, not to mention conspicuously lacking in anyone who is not skinny, muscular, or a dwarf. people have praised this thing so uncritically, including people whose opinions i generally really respect, as if the fact that the mcelroys signing off on green taako made it above reproach.

it didn’t, by the way. there’s no such thing as an unproblematic fav, because everybody fucks something up now and then, but even then, this is a pretty egregious fuck-up! and it was willful!

i’m not saying y’all need to burn your copies of the gn or stop listening to the mcelroys entirely or anything of the sort -- you may remember the disclaimer at the top of the post where i say i really, really love them, and more specifically, i really love taz: balance. but i am BEGGING YOU to think critically about their work. good, good boys can do bad, bad things. white people can produce work that’s racist even if they’re gay women. it’s not mean to critique the boys and it’s not homophobic (or god forbid reverse racist, which is still not a real thing) to critique carey.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ the real kicker of this whole thing for me is that there’s a small fanart gallery in the back of the book. most of them aren’t labeled with the artist’s handles, just their names, but there are some truly beautiful pieces featuring diverse designs -- galacticjonah and milkychai both have beautiful latino taakos featured! galacticjonah’s is fat, too! but even after the backlash against green taako, even aside from that being the design that people are going to accept as canonical, there are pieces in the gallery of green taako, as if doubling down on it was the right move.

and by the way, yeah, i’ve read griffin’s apology. but i thought we all learned in kindergarten that an apology doesn’t count if you don’t act on it.

[lycorogue]

Who Wants to Meet My OCs? (Part 2 - Gyateara)

First and foremost, I meant to have this whole series to be sort of churned out the same day/week as Part 1. Life.... didn’t let that happen. I then figured “okay, I’ll update the series every Sunday” and then yesterday came and went...

Regardless, from the NEXT POST onward, I’m aiming to update every Sunday. Now, back to the series itself.

Ever since at least November, I’ve wanted to do individual posts for each of my OCs so you could meet them all. Well, I’m finally getting off my butt and working on this massive project (we’ll ignore that I’m spending hours working on this instead of my ML fanfic.... >_>).

In Part 1, I gave a broad overview of this whole Meet My OCs series, as well as gave some generic IRL background to the two main worlds my OCs hail from:

1) Gyateara

2) Glitches

Well, in this part of the series, I’m going to stay IRL as I explain where each individual OC within the Gyateara universe came from. If this is interesting to you, feel free to check below the break.

If you’d rather just skip ahead to the character bios themselves, my first one about my Glitches character Willow should be up in two weeks (sorry for the wait).

If I’m talking about Gyateara characters, I should probably talk about the one that first birthed the world: 

Amara Yori

Amara was my first-ever D&D character. I had known of the game for ages since my father used to play it frequently (and apparently roped my mother into at least running the monsters so she’d be included; ignoring that she’d rather not be included XD). 

I really got interested in D&D when I was a teen and saw the gorgeously stylized covers for AD&D ver 3.5. My father had passed away before officially introducing me to the game (although we did used to play Dungeon all the time, so that was a start...), and none of my friends were going to touch that “nerd culture” with a 10ft pole, so I simply admired the books, but never actually played. Then I went to college and managed to Nerd Out.

Hubby (then boyfriend) offered to help me build my first-ever character, but in 2004 the D&D 3.5 expansions were so massive I had far too many choices to choose from.

So Hubby had me go through some of his extra minis, and let me pick out one that I really liked. With his help, I ended up with the 2003 version of the Wood Elf Skirmisher.

Based solely on this mini, I started building Amara.

Hubby suggested that I try out the Scout class for my first one, since I couldn’t choose between a Rogue, Ranger, or Druid, and Scout is sort of in between at least the Rogue and Ranger classes. For whatever reason - I can’t remember it now - I also decided I wanted to play a half-elf.

Upon reading the generic backstory description the D&D books had for the Scout class, I figured my character needed some sort of Tragic BackstoryTM that would explain her scouting skills. Things like trap finding and dismantling, masterful rope use skills, hiding and tracking skills, and connection to animals.

I was in a big The Vision of Escaflowne kick at the time - which shows up in a couple other characters’ backstories - and was fascinated with the history between Van Fanel’s parents. Van’s human father Goau stumbled upon Varie, a Draconian woman, in the woods one day. Draconians have the ability to manifest feathered wings which allow them flight. It was rare to see a Draconian, and her beauty - with her wings shimmering in the moonlight as she waded in a small pool of water - mesmerized Goau. He instantly fell in love and brought Varie home to be his wife. The duo seemed to love each other deeply. Amara’s parents, on the other hand....

I’ll get into more when I break down their actual bios, but I took the idea of “Human stumbles upon exotic non-human in the woods and instantly marries her” and twisted it slightly. Amara’s mother was very much emotionally, and possibly even physically (I haven’t confirmed this yet), abused by Amara’s father. Amara, being a half-elf, also had to deal with abuse at the hands of many of her fellow clansmen - both the human and the elven clans; pretty much exclusively because she was a “half-breed” (Yes, I was really into InuYasha then too).

As I kept building Amara, I kept adding more and more tragedy to her backstory. I do enjoy what I created, but, especially after reading a lot of posts here on Tumblr, I’m afraid her history is nothing but a giant knotted ball of cliches and tropes. For now, though, I’m running with it. Perhaps I can figure out work-arounds later....

I never did get to play more than a session or two with Amara before the game disbanded (which seems to be a repeat thing with my gaming group), but she still lives on in my mind, and eventually in Gyateara.

Natalie

As I mentioned above, The Vision of Escaflowne very much inspired me while I was working on the earliest bits of Gyateara. Therefore, Natalie is your basic Isekai protagonist.

For those who don’t know the term (I didn’t know an official genre term existed until about a year ago), Isekai refers to a subgenre of fantasy/speculative fiction where the main character is abruptly teleported from their world to a new one; usually one with a fantasy setting.

It’s a massive subgenre and includes most of the fantasy animes I’ve watched:

InuYasha

The Vision of Escaflowne

Fushigi Yuugi

The Devil is a Part-Timer

The Rise of the Shield-hero

The Saga of Tanya the Evil

The Familiar of Zero

How to NOT Summon a Demon Lord

Sword Art Online (technically)

.Hack//Sign (technically)

Digimon (first season, specifically)

Psyren (manga)

The list can go on, but that’s not the point of this post. Getting back to the actual point, I clearly enjoyed this genre without even realizing there was a term for it, and created my own Isekai story. Natalie is from our world, but is abruptly teleported to Gyateara’s main Northern Isle, where she must save the country from being destroyed by a power-hungry, put painfully charismatic, villain.

I had taken elements from Kagome (InuYasha), Hitomi (The Vision of Escaflowne), Miaka (Fushigi Yuugi), and I think I had Ariel (The Little Mermaid) in there as well at one point. She was - and still kind of is - just “Generic Isekai Female Protagonist”, which is one of the main reasons the story she was in failed so soon into NaNoWriMo back in... 2014, I think. Almost a solid decade after I started dreaming up her Isekai story. She definitely needs to go back to the drawing board a bit to be properly fleshed out.

Connor

He was from the same story as Natalie. Connor was a denizen of Gyateara’s Northern Isles, and became Natalie’s traveling companion as he helped her try to find a way home. Ya know, that old Isekai chestnut. I even leaned heavily into the cliche and had the two of them fall in love throughout their journey. Which would lead to a third-act twist of “Okay, we can defeat the villain, but then what? Could they stay together? Would Natalie stay on Gyateara? Will Connor instead try to go home to Earth with her?” Real original. I know. Add in that Connor was a sort of Frankenstein’s monster of a character. Grab a snack, this is going to take a minute...

Connor’s traits included:

The basic backstory and drive of the player character in the video game Fable, in which his father was killed, his mother and sister tortured (and presumed dead, only to be proven still alive and captured), his home village burnt down, and he was taken in by the local guild so the guild master could train Connor to become the hero the GM believed Connor was prophesied to be.

The half-demon traits of InuYasha (InuYasha), which transformed him into a sort of were-cat. His mother, a full-demon, could become a 15ft (4.57m) tall panther with split tails. Connor’s half-demon heritage was hidden from him, and he only transformed under extreme moments of stress.

Yes. The “love interest is the only one who can snap the protag back from a monstrous rage” trope was heavily evident throughout the story.

His overall look was inspired by Link (Legend of Zelda video game franchise). His basic fighting style - swordsmanship and expert archery - was a sort of tag-teamed “thieving” from Link as well as Van (The Vision of Escaflowne).

A highly resistant, and begrudging submission to become the Hero of Prophecy lifted off of Tamahome (Fushigi Yuugi).

I know he was much more influenced by Van from Escaflowne when I was first making him. I even used Van as a reference guide when I tried to create character head shots of him. I just can’t recall now what else I swiped from that character.

I feel like there are also other male anime/video game protags I swiped traits from, but I can’t recall them anymore. Regardless, I threw them in a blender, and poured out the mixture that became Connor.

Jolene Crisslebalm

Ah, the character whose last name I always have to look up, because I can’t recall how I spelled it. Good starting point, right?

I am a very reserved person. In particular, a very sexually reserved person. But I do enjoy sex, and I love the act of flirting, and the “thrill of the chase” when it comes to dating, so a part of me always wonders what I would be like if I had let go of my reservations and just enjoyed the carnal pleasures of life.

So, two characters in particular - Willow (from Glitches) and Jolene - are my exploration of that Path Not Traveled. 

A friend of mine was hosting a D&D campaign via Roll20.net, and wondered if I wanted in. I hadn’t been involved in a D&D game in a year or so at that point, and I’ve enjoyed playing a couple of one-offs with him DMing, so I leapt at the chance to join. I had almost always played a form of Rogue class (hence the internet persona) in previous D&D campaigns, so I decided to stay the course, but with a twist I hadn’t tried before.

I wanted Jolene to be a sort of reluctant adventurer, preferring instead to be a cat burgler, but I also wanted that sexual/sensual exploration of character. So, she was a traveling prostitute (not exactly legal without proper ties to a brothel; much like a Sex Trade Guild sort of thing), but she also used her “alone time with clients” to scope out the place to see if it’s worth robbing.

Fast forward about 3 years, and I end up watching the first episode of the Freeform Marvel series Cloak and Dagger... where I saw Tandy doing the same thing, but roofying her targets instead of sleeping with them first... Great minds, and all that?

Eh, Jolene figures “might as well make money off of them before coming back and robbing the rest... less to carry later...”

In the end, while Jolene had an.... interesting run... and one I actually did enjoy role playing, even if it did leave me a bit frustrated afterwards (a good frustrated?)... Jolene just didn’t fit the world the DM created, nor did she fit in quite as well as I would have hoped with the other players.

They were all AMAZING players, by the way. Some of the best role players I’ve had the pleasure of meeting, and such fantastic writers as well. BTW, we wrote out everything in the Roll20 chat log instead of verbally playing or using video-chat. I must admit, I was quite envious of their skills. It was just a tighter knit group, and I wasn’t able to feel out their play-style well enough to continue with the group. Eventually they all had to go their separate ways anyway when their schedules no longer lined up.

Still, I LOVED Jolene, and she was the D&D character I had the joy of running the longest, so she NEEDED to live on. She did, in my first NaNoWriMo “win��. I managed to hit those 50,000 words, but I still had about 3/5ths of her story to write. 

See, while coming up with Jolene’s jaded attitude towards love and her pull towards a more hedonistic lifestyle, I went with the good old cliche of Heartbreak Was The Culprit. (With so many cliches in my character builds, is it a wonder why I just stick with fanfiction... the characters are already created...)

Jolene had her heart broken five times between the ages of 13 and 21. She was the type who fell quick into love, and fell HARD into it, and always felt intensely betrayed by her lovers when they left her. To be fair... they did routinely leave her for a woman of better social standing, or - in her youth - someone more willing to put out, or just straight up abandon her without so much as a farewell note. Eventually, she gave up on trying to find love, and joined a brothel, and then the thieves guild, and then headed out on her own from there.

The DM thought it unlikely that she was a prostitute for the better part of 5 years without a single pregnancy, so he rolled for it, and Jolene had one miscarriage, one still born, and one healthy child she gave up for adoption. I was not expecting to include that in her backstory, but it actually worked fairly well.

And all of that was the subject of my NaNo project: Lost Loves and Paramours. Jolene’s full biography leading up to the campaign: every man she fell in love with, every person she slept with, the one client who tried to murder her to avoid a scandal of his lust getting the better of him, the pain of her miscarry, the devastation of her stillborn, the heart break of giving up her surviving child, the struggles against a stalker, and her over-all YOLO attitude.

(Bitmoji is a beautiful thing...)

Well, second long post of this series is now complete. Next week, I’ll talk about the IRL inspiration for my Glitches characters. Thank you so much for indulging me on these epic ramblings.

[djseaward]

my zero waste progress (& DIY oat milk recipe!)

you'd have to be living under a rock to not have heard the term "zero waste" thrown around. next to "adaptogen", i am predicting it's one of those buzzwords of the last year. and why not? even though it sounds like a phase and trendy, i am whole-heartedly on-board with zero waste becoming a thing that we just all do without thinking! zero waste doesn't have to mean that you absolutely create no waste at all, but an overall catchphrase for people trying to make steps to cut down on waste in order to live as zero waste as they possibly can in that time of their life.

making substitutes and compromises for the good of humanity and the planet. i'm all in for that. it also goes hand in hand with a thifty, frugal and minimalist lifestyle.

so i wanted to share some "zero waste" or more ecological changes i've made over the past year and some goals of mine for next year. maybe it’ll give you some ideas or hopefully inspire you a little to try something out! 

i feel proud that 2018 was the year that we've really hunkered down and got more serious about zero waste and the switch to a more ecological, sustainable household.

pre-2018 there have been some really ecological switches we've already made. we started composting within the first two years or so that we moved to budejovice, and lucky for us, our landlords have a compost heap that they kindly let us put our bio into, which in turn fuels our building's garden! pretty neat. since we started doing this, we only have to take out the (small sized bin) trash about once every three weeks! hooray! that may sound strange, but there’s nothing stinky in there since we have a separate compost container which is emptied once every couple of days (choose something with a lid that closes completely!).

of course we've been recycling (no brainer), always bring shopping bags with us when we go (always on foot) to the supermarket and throw almost no plastic away.

we also had been using old holey socks as a dusting rag and plastic produce bags as "saran wrap". we've never bought saran (plastic, cling) wrap here before.

since the beginning, we've bought compostable dog poo bags for ferdie. (tip: it's better to dispose of these in bio bins vs. trash bins where they'll decompose slower because the trash isn't allowed to aerate like the compost is)

i'm very passionate about purchasing only recycled toilet paper as entire areas are deforested just to make new, fluffy toilet paper. #knowbetterdobetter

we bring our own containers, cups and utensils when we travel or go on day trips. i’ve found that glass jars make excellent “tupperware” containers as well as impromptu wine glasses for a picnic. if i were in the market for a new travel tumbler, i’d definitely spring for a stojo collapsible tumbler! that’s always my problem that i bring my tumbler and then it takes up space for most of the trip, unused.

alex is very adamant about unplugging nearly every appliance when not in use. with how expensive electricity is in europe, it helps a lot not to having a computer sucking it up! it's also much better for your battery appliances to unplug from the wall as soon as they are finished charging, so you're also taking better care of your things.

here are some recent changes we've made just over the past year.

-- eliminating use of aerosols. i personally decided i wouldn't buy any more, but the problem for a long time had been: where the heck can you find non-aerosol shaving cream? i found my answer in d'fluff shaving cream in a tub from LUSH. it smells like their rockstar soap and although it doesn't foam, i'm down with this change!

-- we switched to bamboo toothbrushes, which i had to order by mail because previously, there were no local shops that sold them! i have since found a couple so i think we're good to go now. before, i ordered from the bam and boo, which sent them so quickly even with a special, personalized note in czech which i thought was so sweet as they came from portugal.

-- choosing bar soap vs. liquid soap which has to be sold in packaging.

-- eliminating purchasing anything with palm oil or high fructose corn syrup (or glucose-fructose syrup, as it's known here). for years i believed in the myth that HFCS was banned in europe, but you can still find it in everything!

-- the switch from typical supermarket laundry soap and dishwasher tabs to an eco-label laundry soap (made from soap nuts) which is highly concentrated and therefore more ecological and more earth-friendly dishwasher tabs. both of these switches are more expensive than what we used to buy, so i totally understand going more eco-friendly isn't for everyone and all budgets. however, if you wouldn't notice an extra few dollars here and there, why not make this simple switch? i like the czech brand of laundry soap tierra verde out of brno. (why is everything cool is out of brno these days?)

-- switching from disposable feminine products to a medical-grade silicone menstrual cup has been a complete.game.changer. it's one of those things you kick yourself for not getting much much earlier. did you know a tampon applicator takes 500 years to break down? i went with first greener and am really pleased  that i did. as a menstruating human, this seems like one of the single biggest improvements you can make to take steps towards zero waste. cost was an barrier for me with this and not being able to shell out for one for awhile, but the company i purchased from often runs deals for only $10 (that includes international shipping). i’m pleased some companies are making menstrual products more accessible to women of all income levels.

-- right at the end of the year, i finally found reusable produce bags that were a reasonable price. hoorah!

-- we have nearly stopped buying paper towels, using regular old towels or other cloths instead.

-- purchasing our vegetables in the warmer months from a local CSA (community supported agriculture) vegetable box program cuts down both on plastic wrapping, supports local south bohemian farms and is just a fun, healthy way to make sure we eat loads of season veggies. it also challenges me to stop being lazy and cook or make something with them before anything goes bad. (for my local budejovice friends: you can order a vegetable box starting usually around june from u dobraka)

-- alex says he's most proud of our household's switch to alternative milks vs. dairy milk. this helps loads with water consumption, is far more ecological, and much more animal-friendly.  (alternative milk recipe at the end of this post - woo!)

changes i would like to make in 2019

-- one of my challenges is zero waste hair products. most drugstore products are aerosol or just the typical tube. i think i will end up purchasing from LUSH's hair line as not only have i already raved about their products but i so appreciate their commitment to reusable packaging, as well as their vocal stance against animal cruelty.

-- do better with food waste. i have already eliminated a lot of issues i’ve had with food waste over the past year and meal planning helps SO MUCH with not only reducing waste, but also saving some crowns. i’ve made some great strides in the past year, i’d like to do even better in 2019 getting my food waste down to 0%. laziness can be a big (bigbig) factor here, and that’s a tough one to overcome! i will also try making or buying less products that i don’t finish.

-- i'd like to remember to start taking what few glass empties i have back to a supermarket to get a refund. this is extremely common practice in germany, but not quite as common here, and we normally just go to the normal glass recycle bin. it would be nice to start getting a few crowns back here and there vs. nothing!

-- i'd love to invest in a set of cloth linen napkins i'm actually proud to use! will look to a thrift shop or bazaar before checking a store.

-- collectively, one of our main focuses as a household is a reduction in goods which use plastic, single-use, throw-away packaging, such as musli, for example. buying musli or any cereal here in the czech republic is such a headache -- it is either expensive or contains palm oil, for the most part. there is one brand i like, but i find i am eating it over and over and get so tired of it. any of you out there DIY your musli or cereal? please share your wisdom!

easy DIY recipe: oat milk

one of my big goals is to DIY even more. i already do quite a fair bit of DIY in terms of household products and foods, sauces that i can't buy in the czech republic, but i'd like to DIY more with products i already buy to avoid excess packaging and saving money. in the first few days of the year, i've already decided i will no longer buy oat milk at the store (40kc or $1.70 per liter) and instead, make it. it is startlingly easy to do, takes only 10 minutes of active time and can be a huge money saver! this recipe also happens to be zero waste as you can use the remnants.

you'll need...

-- a blender -- cheesecloth (or similar) -- large pitcher -- 1 cup of oats (your choice) -- 1 liter (approx. 4 cups) of water -- 1-2 TB honey or maple syrup -- 1 liter glass bottle

1) soak your oats in plenty of water for at least an hour.

2) rinse your oats and plop them in the blender with the 4 cups of water and your optional tablespoon of honey or maple syrup*.

3) blend blend blend!

4) place the cheesecloth securely over the pitcher (a rubber band helps). pour the oat milk mixture from the blender onto the cheesecloth so it strains, with the milk passing into the pitcher. wring out the cheesecloth to make sure you've got all excess liquid.

5) pour the strained oat milk from the pitcher into a 1+ liter glass bottle which will be your "milk bottle" and pop in the fridge.

6) shake vigorously before each use. consume within 2-3 days.

7) scrape off the oat bits from inside the cheesecloth and store in the fridge - you can easily tuck them into your morning oats when you make your next pot of oatmeal or porridge!

use this oat milk anywhere you would typically use milk: in your cereal, coffee, oatmeal (double down!), wherever.

* 1 TB of sweetness is just enough to give it a similar sweetness as dairy milk has, 2 TB if you like it a teensy bit sweeter - even this does not taste “sweet”, so to speak. experiment.

finally, i feel like i need to give a biiiiig shout out to polly - former expat/travel blogger turned absolute zero waste maven at green indy blog and inspires me every day with thought-provoking topics i hadn’t even realized or considered she has loads of information on her blog, instagram and even runs e-courses helping people cut back on waste and save money.

i do want to state here that i am simply learning and am a student at this whole zero waste thing. i’m not an expert by any means and am not perfect. zero waste isn’t zero. this post is simply keeping track of my progress and hopefully a way to hold myself accountable for my goals. although i don’t think we all should be one of those people who can fit their trash in a jar or anything, there is a lot of work we can do. you don’t have to have a lot of money to “join the movement”. it’s not about going out and purchasing fancy bamboo utensils or whatever. it’s just about using what you already have, being creative and resourceful, and when something you have stops working or breaks, upgrade it (funding allowing) to a more ecological version.

how do you feel about the zero waste movement? i'd love if you shared a big win from the past year and maybe also something you want to improve upon as well! here's to a greener new year. 

ps, you might like how i travel on a teacher’s budget or thoughts on living without stuff.

[elvendara]

Hey!! I love your writing (Yooran best OTP)💕 Could you maybe make something with Yoosung working on a cafe? Please!! Thank you ♡

I’m so sorry this took so long! Thank you for being patient! I just needed a little break after April! I hope you enjoy it!!!!!!!

“Hey, Yoosung, listen. I need you to do something for me.”Yoosung’s supervisor sidled towards him, that smarmy grin on his face. Healways made Yoosung’s skin crawl. He grabbed the blender and hugged it to him,using it like a shield.

He’d been so excited when he got the job at Starshucks. Thepeople he worked with were mostly other college kids trying to make a few extrabucks, just like him. Their manager however, was a disgusting human being.

“Ineed you to start training our new hire. But, I have to warn you, he is alittle difficult. I’m just not sure he will fit in with us.”

“Ifhe’s so difficult, why did you hire him?”

“Unfortunately,that’s way beyond my pay grade. It was a special favor from the owner.” Herolled his eyes. “So, make sure you treat him with kid gloves ok? I’m puttinghim with you because you seem to be the most patient and friendly out of theteam. I’m sure you’ll make him feel welcomed.” He reached out to tap Yoosung onthe arm, but Yoosung flinched backwards and slammed into the counter.

Themanager laughed and walked away. Yoosung sighed when the man was out of sight. Hedidn’t even wonder about the new employee and got back to work.

“HeyYoosung!” Yoosung, who was in the process of making an iced mocha frappacinnowith half whole milk, and half heavy cream, almost dropped the concoction atthe sudden interruption.

“Saeran!What are you doing back here? You should't be here, my boss is going to flip!”Yoosung tried to shove Saeran back around to the opposite side of the counter,but the man was resisting.

“Ihave every right to be here.” He complained, holding up a hat and apron.

“What?”Yoosung stepped back and watched as Saeran slapped the hat on and slipped theapron over his head, tying it around his waist. He had that all too familiarsmirk on his face.

“I…don’tunderstand. Joon-Ho said the new hire was a favor for the owner. How…I don’teven know the owner!”

“Yesyou do.”

“Whatare you talking about?”

“Saeyoungbought the café.” the grin was wider and Yoosung moaned, rolling his eyes.

"Ofcourse he did!" He took his visor off and ran his fingers in aggitation throughhis hair. He sighed and closed his eyes. Taking a deep breath, he opened hiseyes and smiled, intending to make the most of it.

"Okthen! Let's get started!

Yoosung spent the next few hours showing Saeran how to brewthe coffees they served and where they kept their supplies. He was actuallyvery efficient and didn't need to be shown more than once for him to do itperfectly. Yoosung was rather enjoying having Saeran around. He wasparticularly useful when the manager was around. All Saeran had to do was glareat the man and he would scurry back into his office. The other employees were gratefulas well and the day passed with them all in a better mood.

"Ok, I think you're ready to do this on your ownSaeran! How about you do the next order?"

"Sure, as long as I don't have to take theorders." he grumbled. Yoosung laughed.

"Don't worry, I'll take the order, you can just makethe coffees, sound good?"

"Sounds perfect." Saern matched Yoosung's grin.

A young woman walked in, her dark hair in a ponytail, afashionable jumpsuit on and highheels clicking on the white tile. Yoosung puton his best smile and met her brown eyes with his amethyst ones.

"Welcome to Starshucks, how can I help you today?"She smiled wide, her eyes twinkling, and she leaned over the counter to giveher order.

"Hi. Ok, so, can I have a Java Chip frapaccino with lowfat whipped cream and no sauce, blended extremely fine, I hate bits of ice youknow." She giggled.

"Sure, that's not a problem. Can I have yourname?" Yoosung picked up a cup and a sharpie, ready to write on it.

"Ji-a. And, you could put your number on there to ifyou'd like." she licked her lips and swayed her hips, glancing at Yoosungthrough her eyelashes.

"Oh." Yoosung's hand shook. It wasn't as if no onehad ever flirted with him, but none had ever asked for his number. He wonderedif she was just teasing. He wrote the name and vacillated whether to place hisnumber on there as well.

He placed the cup on the counter and told Saeran what tomake.

Saeran began to grind the beans and put together the coffee.He was very meticulous but fast. He was rather enjoying himself. This wassomething simple but strangely satisfying. He grabbed the cup and poured theconcoction into it, topping it off with the correct whipped cream and slappingthe top onto it. He read the name and was about to call it out when he saw thenumber under it. He blinked in confussion, why had Yoosung written his phonenumber on the cup. He looked up and watched as Yoosung and the woman bothleaned over the counter, smiles on their faces and entirely too close.

His heart began to beat rapidly and sweat broke across hisforehead. He clenched his jaw and his chest ached as something crushed it. Heslammed the cup between them and glared at Yoosung. The cream went flying upwardsthrough the hole on the top and splashed on them both.

“Here’s your coffee!” he hissed through gritted teeth.

“Saeran!” Yoosung’s eyes were wide and surprised. Saeranturned and walked away. “Wait! Uh, I’m sorry.” He apologized to the woman andmade eye contact with another employee. They understood and took his placebehind the counter as he followed Saeran out the back.

“Saeran!” he yelled, the man kept walking. He’d taken hishat and apron off. It was balled up against his stomach. Yoosung grabbed Saeran’sarm and turned him around. “What the hell was that?”

“Just go back Yoosung!” he shoved the apron and hat into Yoosung’sbelly and turned away again. “This was a bad idea.” He mumbled.

Yoosung threw the bundle on the ground and grabbed Saeran’sarm again. “That’s bullshit! Don’t do that! Don’t shut me out! What happened inthere? You were doing fine. I thought, I thought you liked it.” He went fromanger to insecurity, looking down and away by the end.

“It was stupid to think I could do this. I’ll leave youalone now, just, go back and…keep flirting with that girl.” He muttered andtried to leave again. Something clicked in Yoosung’s head and his jaw dropped.

“Is that it? Were you…jealous?” the words were out of hismouth before he could think about them. He slapped his mouth, his eyes huge andterrified as Saeran slowly turned back to face him. He wasn’t sure what he saw,Saeran was good at keeping his emotions hidden. His eyes were narrowed, hismouth thinned, his cheeks flushed. From anger or embarrassment, Yoosung wasn’tsure.

After a few intense seconds, Saeran sighed, his shoulderssagging. “Go back Yoosung, it doesn’t matter.” He sounded defeated, a hitch inhis throat. He reached towards the door of his car. Before he could open it,Yoosung turned him around and pushed him against it roughly.

“I told you! Don’t do that! Don’t fucking do that! You andSaeyoung! I’m tired of it! Damn it! Stop shoving your feelings aside, trying tohide them, just tell me! Tell me what you want to say! For god’s sake Saeran! Saeyoungbought this shop just so you could spend time with me and you can’t admit howyou feel?”

“The whole company…” Saeran whispered, unable to meetYoosung’s eyes.

“The whole…he…” Yoosung ran his fingers through his hair.Saeyoung hadn’t bought just the single franchise, he’d bought the whole company?!He shook his head, still mind blown by how the rich just threw away money whilehe had to work for every nickle and dime.

“Don’t change the subject!” he pressed back. Saeran bit hislower lip, his eyes closed. There were tears manifesting behind his lashes andYoosung suddenly felt guilty. “Saeran…” he wiped the tears away and Saeransniffed. Before he knew what he was doing, he leaned in and kissed the tearsaway. Saeran’s eyes fluttered open and they stared at each other. Saeranswallowed, afraid to move. They were so close all he had to do was lean in andtheir lips would meet.

[livingcorner]

How To Stop Foxes Coming In Your Garden: Fox Deterrents

Foxes are a beautiful animal, they look amazing, however they are very much an unwanted garden pest. They chew, dig, poo and just generally ruin your garden, much like the dog you never wanted!

They can cause considerable damage to your garden, destroying your bins, flower beds, hose pipes, and just about anything they can get their little paws on.

You're reading: How To Stop Foxes Coming In Your Garden: Fox Deterrents

Perhaps the worst thing about foxes is that they’re territorial, which means even if you get rid of a single fox you might well have another jump straight in its place looking to take over the previous foxes “patch”, there a bit like their own individual gangs! It isn’t just a question of removing the foxes it’s also about deterring any future ones.

In this post we look at:

Understanding the fox, what do they love & hate

When are foxes most active

What smells do foxes hate?

What problems do foxes cause

General tips to deter foxes

What products can keep foxes out your garden for good

Tips on how to prevent further fox problems

What Do Foxes Love & Hate?

To understand how to get rid of foxes, you first need to understand what the foxes love and what they hate, so you can implement both. They’re quick, intelligent and survivors, so you have to be smart in trying to get rid & deter them.

A word of warning before we get going. Foxes do have quite bad eyesight, and although it isn’t within their nature, they will attack a human if they feel threatened, so try not and confront them head on if at all possible.

So without further ado, here’s their loves & hates:

Foxes Love:

Quiet areas – Shouting out your window at every fox might not quite cut it, we’ll go into this later, but there’s a product that makes a sound which can deter foxes

Darkness – Now you may have already guessed this as there often active at night, but just having a motion sensor light can help fix the fox issue

Security – Like we mentioned, they spread their scent and are territorial, so they like to ensure that the whole area is secure and safe for them… make it unsafe and unwelcoming

So, what do foxes hate?

Being surprised or startled

Light

Vibrations

The area being uncomfortable or unsafe

I mean, it’s quite straight forward, what they hate is the opposite of what they love! If you keep reading, we’ll go into depth on a general look on how to stop them coming into your garden, some tips, when they are most active, some of the problems they cause and how to prevent future fox related issues.

When Are Foxes Most Active?

You’ll find there are a few times in particular that you should be on the lookout to see if you have a fox problem, based on the amount of calls and issues here are the times that foxes are most active:

Their breeding season – which is roughly between December and February, they like the cold

When the cubs leave the parents, which is roughly Autumn

They are nocturnal, and peak hours are between dusk and dawn – They typically spend the day time resting

What Smells Do Foxes Hate?

Foxes have an extremely powerful sense of smell, if you want to deter them, this is one of the main things to use against them. There are a lot of DIY ways you can repel foxes from your garden through just smell alone, here are a few smells they hate:

Chili Peppers

Garlic

Capsaicin

Here’s a bit of a DIY method to get rid of them – try boil some garlic and chili pepper with some water, mix it together in a blender or cut it up really fine, put the mixture in a spray bottle and spray the areas of your gardens where you regularly see fox activity or droppings.

What Problems Do Foxes Cause?

If you’ve seen the first fox in your garden and are lucky enough to have escaped the encounter without any damage then you may just be doing some initial research. Well if that’s the case, you may want to know whether it’s worth the effort to deter them, or to just let the fox do it’s thing.

I can certainly assure you that you should get rid of them at the first sign. Foxes are an absolute pain! They destroy pretty much everything they can get their hands on. They dig holes, rip up your flower beds, go through your bins, chew your hose and riffle through anything else they can, they’re curious creatures.

Tips On How To Stop Foxes Coming In Your Garden

There are some general things you can do in order to stop foxes coming into your garden. These tips target some of the loves & hates we mentioned foxes have and can help deter foxes and prevent them coming back:

Read more: 10 Things You Should Know about the Garden of Eden

Make sure you keep your garden as clean as you possibly can, remove any rubbish that might be blowing around, and just generally keep it tidy – Foxes won’t come back if they have no reason too

If you have a fox issue, unfortunately they will leave faeces. Make sure you pick these up regularly, which we know isn’t the most desirable job – you have to thoroughly hose down the area as well. This is part of them leaving their scent, so use any smell repellents or the DIY smell repellent we told you about earlier in the place of the faeces

Move things around – foxes like familiarity, so make sure you move your gnomes, hose, whatever it is, just try and disturb the area

Cut the grass, trim the hedges & keep everything in check. They like shaded areas, the less of them the better

If you have noticed an area they regularly bed down and find comfortable, place a large object that they can’t move on it

Invest in some of the products that we are going to mention later!

Now you may not want to do this it’s completely up to you, it sounds bad but stay with us. Pour male urine in the areas the fox regularly spends time – it’s a deterrent believe it or not!

If you’ve followed all the tips we’ve given so far and you’re still struggling to get rid of them then there are a few products that you can invest in, which we’ll go through next!

Products To Keep Foxes Out Your Garden

Sometimes homemade DIY solutions just won’t cut it. There are a lot of products out there that you can use in order to prevent and deter foxes coming into your property, and most of them aren’t expensive.

Fox Wall Spikes These will often be enough to do the trick. Most of the time foxes come over your fence or gate so adding some spikes to the top of them can act as a great deterrent, not only for foxes but cats, birds and other animals wanting to get in via the fence.

Here are a few of the features of the wall spikes:

They come in a wide range of different length and widths, often in packs of 10 or more

They are ideal for fences, window sills or walls, as long as you get the right size of course

Most are designed for all weather conditions – with foxes being active in winter, this is important

They are humane, they don’t hurt the fox, they just irritate it to the point it won’t enter

If you get the wrong size or it doesn’t quite fit, it can usually easily be cut to do so

Easy to fit

Here are our top fox wall spike picks for you, as you can see relatively speaking their pretty cheap compared to some of the damage the fox could do:

Before committing to buying any fox wall – make sure you get the right size & read all the reviews of the product.

Fence Roller Another thing you can do to your fence, similar to that of the spikes is to install a roller at the top, so when they jump up they can’t grip onto anything and just fall straight off. A quick Google search for “Fence Rollers Anti Climb” will give you an example of what I’m talking about.

These rollers are fool proof if installed correctly, they can be a good solution if the spikes aren’t quite working, but it will be more expensive generally to buy and harder to install, so should be a secondary option.

Taller Gates & Fences You obviously have to stick within government limits, but if you’re having a real problem and they’re still getting over the fences despite putting on a fence roller and spikes then you may want to consider taller gates & fences so they can’t easily jump over them.

In the UK you’re allowed to have a fence & gate of up to 2m. A fence or gate of this size should prevent foxes getting in, that way at least.

Add Lights, Everywhere – Foxes Hate Light As we mentioned earlier in the article, foxes hate the light. It startles them and they’ll often run off if they see any sudden appearance of light. You may have already guessed at this point, but if you get a sensitive motion sensor light fitted to the exterior of your building where the foxes often walk then you can make it uncomfortable for them & deter them.

Motion sensor lights are essentially as the name suggests, they have a motion sensor built in, if it picks up any movement in it’s coverage vicinity then it will activate the light.

We’ve picked out a few products for you that should do the job, but make sure that you read the reviews. As foxes are of course smaller than humans you will need a light that is very sensitive, you also want to pick one that is bright enough to startle the fox.

Here are a few of our top motion sensor light picks:

Automatic Fox Water Repellent System It’s again trying to work on the aspect of startling the fox, making it uncomfortable. A great way of doing this is an automatic fox water repellent system, which is a fancy way of saying motion sensor sprinkler.

These sprinklers are easy to use and install, and when the fox walks by them, they’ll get a nasty surprise and hopefully run off.

Here are some of the general features of these systems:

They are used to deter unwanted visitors from your garden

It’s a harmless jet of water, you won’t hurt the fox

You can position it near flower beds or anything you want to protect

The built in sensor often detect to a range of around 10 metres and activates in just a few seconds

You can get options that work with batteries, meaning installation is easy

Here are our top motion sensor sprinkler picks:

SaleBestseller No. 1

Defenders Jet-Spray Pond & Garden Protector, Green

Motion-activated: The Jet-Spray Pond & Garden Protector contains a motion…

Adjustable coverage: Covers a radius of up to 10m (or 32 ft) in a…

Versatile use: Pond & Garden Protector can be used in different situations…

Battery-powered repellent: Requires 2 x AA alkaline batteries (not…

Humane repellent: An alternative to cage traps and other repellent devices….

UltraSonic Fox Repellent We mentioned that foxes don’t like loud noises, and there’s a solution for this too. Remember that mosquito sound they developed to try and keep kids away from street corners at night? These are essentially the same for your garden to pests.

These products each have their pros and cons, so it’s best to look through them thoroughly. We can’t detail the specific features for you because each one is quite unique in what it’s offering. However, without further ado here are out UltraSonic pest repeller choices:

Fox Smell Repellents As we’ve detailed in this post, Foxes have a strong sense of smell and there are DIY ways you can create a smell repellent, however there are also several ready made solutions to choose from.

Most of the repellents come as simple sprays or pellets, and all work in the same fashion. These can be effective but I would also group it with another one of these methods as well just to ensure it properly deters foxes.

Here are our top smell repellent choices, Scoot is probably the best known out the few:

Read more: The Best Material for Raised Garden Boxes – Weed ’em & Reap

Bestseller No. 1

Karlsten Fox Repellent Granules Natural Effective Anti Fouling and Digging Deterrent

Karlsten Anti fouling fox repellent Granules, natural Citronella…

Effective Citronella formulation , strong waterproof granules keeps…

Sprinkle surrounding areas in which you have seen the foxes over a…

One step soluton to protect surrounding areas by the strong scent of…

SATISFACTION GUARANTEED. If you believe the product does not work we can…

Bestseller No. 2

Karlsten Anti Fouling Garden Protection Fox Repellent Spray

Karlsten Anti fouling fox repellent spray natural Citronella formuation…

Effective Citronella formulation keeps foxes from leaving a mess in the…

spray surrounding areas in which you have seen the foxes. Masks…

One step soluton to protect surrounding areas by the strong scent of…

SATISFACTION GUARANTEED !!! If you believe the product does not work we…

SaleBestseller No. 3

Scoot 50g Fox Repellent Sachets (Pack of 2)

Humane deterrent

For use on lawns, trees, shrubs, seeds, bulbs and hard surfaces

Causes no harm to animals or the environment

Treats an area up to 34 sqm

Easy to apply with a watering can or sprayer

It’s worth noting as well that some of these solutions may not be great if you have pets yourself, as it can often harm cats & dogs.

Prickle Strips Prickle strips are a good solution to the problem as well, you essentially embed them in your soil or grass and it makes them uncomfortable to walk on for all small animals – make sure you wear shoes in the garden if you put these down!

Here are the features they generally have:

Safe and won’t harm animals as there plastic, just uncomfortable

Works for all kind of pests, not just foxes

Easy to wrap around poles or trees

They stop foxes digging up your garden

Easy to use

Here are our top prickle strip picks:

Bestseller No. 3

Defenders STV628 Prickle Strip Dig Stopper, Cat and Dog Repellent 28 cm x 2 m, Black

Protect garden areas from digging. Defenders Dig Stopper prevents pests…

Easy to install, position just below ground level and lightly cover with…

Weather and UV-resistant plastic pest repellent strips can be in place…

The flexible deterrent strips allow plants to grow through the plastic mesh…

Dig Stopper is a humane deterrent with no harm caused to targeted pests and…

How To Prevent Further Fox Problems

Now you’ve got rid of the foxes, but there’s every chance that they could come back. As well as some of the things we’ve mentioned previously there are a few more things you can do to try and prevent it happening again:

For the love of god, don’t feed them! This should go without saying, please don’t feed the foxes. If you feed foxes it makes their territorial area much smaller (your garden) and it also means they are more likely to dig and foul in the area, which of course you don’t want. Feeding them will mean they return constantly, they’ll try harder to get into your garden if they know it means food.

Get those bins bolted down One of the main things that foxes come into your garden for is food, and to them, food is in your bins. If your bins are unsecured and you’ve left something nice in there for them to eat then they’ll keep returning. Make sure you secure your bin storage in an area they can’t get them, like a shed.

Keep the garden clean We’ve mentioned this above, but keep your garden clean. Any rubbish will attract them. Overgrown gardens also give them more shelter, which they love, make sure you trim the hedges back and cut the grass, don’t let them be comfortable.

Source: https://livingcorner.com.au Category: Garden

source https://livingcorner.com.au/how-to-stop-foxes-coming-in-your-garden-fox-deterrents/

[quiveringbunny]

Making Merry - An Olicity Holiday Story (G - 3/3)

Well, here I am, a bit late with the final chapter of this fluffy holiday meringue. I do hope you are entertained by the resolution. 

Many thanks to everyone who encouraged me along on this one with comments and kudos. Extra hugs to the world’s most overqualified beta @tinaday3w for being awesome in every possible way.

(Ao3 Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3)

Chapter 3: The Aftermath 

It was well-after midnight when Felicity finally finished her work. She had stopped the service attack on the SCPD, strengthened security measures, and written up a situation report. She also managed to trace the ne’er-do-well to a server in Russia. Fracking Bratva. Every so often, some guy had to show off to his boss by breaching an American network. Trying to have the offender arrested by Moscow police would be a wasted effort, but Felicity did manage to forward the hacker’s IP address to Interpol’s Cybercrime division as well as a couple of European white hat hackers she knew who liked to dabble in law enforcement.

She wasn’t tired in the least, but rather feeling a bit overstimulated from the rush of problem-solving she had engaged in. The thought of going straight home and dwelling on her botched date with Oliver Queen was more than she could bear. They had exchanged texts around 10 pm. He said he hoped her night was going okay. She sent back a hurried string of anxious looking emojis punctuated with panda bears. He responded with a thumbs up. So much for an evening of holiday romance.

In an effort to embrace her epic wallowing, Felicity decided to find a bar and have a drink before heading home. She engaged a Lyft driver to take her to Poison, Max Fuller’s notorious watering hole, but on the way, they passed Verdant. She recalled that Oliver had a connection to the club. Deciding that if she couldn’t see him, she could at least drown her sorrows somewhere associated with him, she asked the driver to amend their route at the last minute. A hefty tip was added to the final bill.

Felicity had never been inside what some of her police cohorts referred to as “The Jewel of the Glades” before. It was pretty impressive. Spacious and colorful. A solid crowd of smartly-dressed people from Central Casting filled the place. The sound system was quite good. When the early notes of a popular song played, a number of people fled the bar areas to fill the dance floor and Felicity took the opportunity to find a stool at a bar near the back of the space.

The bartender was drying barware when she sat down. He nodded to her, finished a glass and then leaned forward with a nod.

“What can I make for you, Beautiful?” His face was made for smiling, she thought. That was a good quality in a bartender.

“Do you have a blender?”

He looked genuinely contrite. “Sorry, I do not.”

Felicity’s face fell. So much for submerging herself in a super-girly frozen pina colada.

“How about I make you one of my super mojitos. Sweet and minty. Or maybe a chocolate martini.”

“Are there nuts? Because I can’t have those. I’ll look like a balloon in the Macy’s Parade and then I’ll die.”

“No nuts.” He raised his fingers in the Boy Scout salute.

“Can you make a chocolate martini a double?” She couldn’t help the sigh that escaped her lips at the end of the question.

“I’ll take care of you.” His voice was warm and understanding before he turned away to gather the magical ingredients he needed to soothe his forlorn customer.

While he worked, Felicity spun her seat around a couple of times before stopping to watch the people. The happy people. They were moving together to the beat, almost like water swirling in a pool and it was mesmerizing. She was distracted by it until the bartender placed a drink in front of her with a flourish.

“Here you go,” he announced. “One Mega Chocolate Martini. Guaranteed to help you forget whatshisname.”

Felicity dropped her head into her folded arms.

“Oh God. It’s that obvious.” She looked up to meet the bartender’s eyes. They were nice, but they weren’t Oliver’s eyes. God, she was so pathetic.

“I am so, so lame,” she continued, then raised the drink to her lips and took a deep draw while the mixologist looked on with curiosity.

“He’s a scoundrel and he doesn’t deserve you.” The bartender didn’t say it in a flirty way. He said it like a brother might say it, she thought. Nice. She didn’t have a brother. But if she did, she would want one who could make a chocolate martini like the one that was currently seducing her taste buds and dulling the sharp ache in her brain.  

Felicity shook her head. “Nope. He’s wonderful. And amazing. It’s me. I blew it. We had a date and I blew it.” Felicity took another draw on the glass. “You know, Chocolate is the only edible substance that melts around 93° degrees, just below our human body temperature. That’s why chocolate melts so easily in your mouth.”

The man squelched a smile.

“What could somebody as cute as you do to ruin a date with Mister Wonderful and Amazing?”

“I had to cancel. Really last minute. Work. Stupid Russian mob.”

The bartender looked on her with curiosity, then observed as she downed the rest of the martini in several gulps, then planted the empty glass on the bar

“Keep ‘em coming, Barkeep.”

The man nodded and resigned to look after this one. She was on her own and obviously having a bad night. No need to see it get worse.

Tommy Merlyn liked to work behind the bar occasionally. It was good to experience the club from a service perspective. It allowed him insight into the current customer base. He didn’t mind the fact that people really did look for consolation in the counsel of a bartender. Tommy wasn’t exactly a wise man, but he was a good listener, which was often times all the other person needed.

Tommy continued to make the sad blonde drinks, albeit progressively weaker ones, for nearly an hour. Eventually, he offered a glass of water to help reduce the pain that was likely to come the next day. When another bartender arrived to relieve him, Tommy moved to the other side of the bar and sat with her for a while.

On her third martini, Tommy finally learned her name. Suddenly, everything made sense. That morning, he met his best friend at the gym to collect his truck and the man was smiling. So many teeth. It was disconcerting, really. Tommy pressed for an explanation and was rewarded with a ten-minute book report on a woman. She was brilliant and funny and unpredictable and remarkable. Oliver Queen never described a woman as remarkable in his whole life. So, he made a point to file away her name for future reference. Felicity Smoak.  

>--->

The sound of the doorbell caused Oliver to wake suddenly and roll off the sofa in the den of the Queen Mansion. He had fallen asleep in front of the fire a couple of hours earlier and it was only embers now. It was 2:30 in the morning and he immediately felt dread overtaking his initial annoyance at the situation. Bad news was often delivered at this ungodly hour. He tugged the hoodie around his t-shirt and lounge pants and trudged to the foyer.

Nothing prepared him for the sight, really. There in the doorway stood his best friend with a ridiculous grin and his arms full of…

“Tommy!” Oliver gasped as his best friend moved past him to enter the grand foyer.

“Shh. Please assure me this slumbering princess is the correct Felicity. The one you were mooning over this morning. Because if she isn’t, this was a gross miscalculation on my part.”

“Of course it is. What happened to her?” Oliver’s voice was louder now. The sight of Felicity looking slightly disheveled, her purse piled in her lap as she rested in Tommy’s arms was very disconcerting.

“Down boy.” Tommy gave him a pointed stare. “She’s just sleeping it off.”

Oliver scrubbed his face with his palms. He was still waking up, really, and his brain was trying to make sense of the situation.

“Where do you want her?” Tommy asked blithely. With more thought, he corrected himself. “I mean, where should I carefully place your girl?”

“Sofa in the den. I’ll get blankets.” On that, Tommy headed for the Queen Mansion’s only casually appointed room and Oliver bounded up the stairs to fetch what was needed to make his guest comfortable.  

When Oliver returned, several blankets and pillows bundled in his arms, he found Felicity still sleeping on the sofa and Tommy in a leather chair. He had stoked the fire, sourced the scotch, and had a tumbler in hand. Another glass was set on a table next to a matching chair, presumably poured for his host.

The room was warming up again. The fire blazed and crackled in the hearth. The flames reflected off the modest-sized, beautifully appointed Christmas tree twinkling with white lights that filled one corner. It was one of four trees in the house. There was another in the Great Room next to the foyer, and both Oliver and Thea’s rooms had trees as well, as was the tradition.

Oliver carefully placed a soft, warm blanket over Felicity, taking a moment to study her face and assure himself that she was okay. He actually tucked her in, eliciting a snort from Tommy. Oliver shot him a glare and returned to smooth the blanket. Finally convinced the lady was in a deep and comfortable sleep, he plopped himself in his chair and grabbed the drink that was waiting for him.

“Okay, you want to tell me what happened?” He kept his voice quiet and even, so he wouldn’t disturb her.

Tommy took a swig of liquid and snorted. “All the gin joints in all the world and she shows up in mine. Ours.”

Oliver shook his head in disbelief and waited for a deeper explanation.

“I thought at first it was some kind of post-work, post-crisis thing and the woman needed to unwind, but she was just really sad. Fate brought her to me, I guess. And so I bring her to you.”

“Tommy, she’s a person, not an offering. Wait, sad?”

“Yeah, apparently she had a hot date tonight she wasn’t able to keep. Felt terrible about it.”

Tommy’s lips curled into a smirk as Oliver nodded and hinted at a smile. He was sorry she was so disappointed about what had happened, but he couldn’t help but feel happy knowing it had meant something to her. He meant something, perhaps?

“Good. I mean, it’s good you were there. Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me. She may have imbibed her weight in chocolate martinis…that I made for her.”

Oliver threw Tommy an exasperated glance. Tommy Merlyn shrugged.

“Hey, it was what the grown-up lady wanted. And Ms. Smoak assured me she wasn’t driving. Then she started waning and kind of fell asleep on the bar. I looked in her purse...just for ID, and her address was there. I thought about taking her home, but I was worried she would be alone when I left her there. So, I figured you were good for hangover nurse duty in the morning.”

Oliver sighed, signaling that he now understood.

“Of course. I’m glad you brought her here. It was the right thing. I’ll look after her.”

Tommy Merlyn affected a whisper now. “By the way, she may or may not work for the Russian mob. I'm not sure. She was kind of wasted. Anyway, she’ll keep you on your toes, Ollie. I approve.” He saluted Oliver with the remnants of the drink in his glass and finished it with a hearty swig before bolting for the door.

“Thanks, Buddy.” Oliver gave Tommy a smirky grin.

“Alright. I’m out. Beauty sleep. Santa’s coming.”

>--->

It was early on Christmas Eve morning when Oliver was gently nudged awake by his housekeeper. Raisa was a woman of formidable character and exceptional warmth who had been a part of the Queen family since Oliver and Thea were children. When it came to the Queen siblings, she was loved just as hard as she loved in return. Still, she took no sass from either of them.

“Mister Oliver,” she hissed. “Why is this young woman asleep on your sofa?”

Oliver’s eyes fluttered open and his brain skidded into wakefulness as he shifted in his oversized chair. He sighed heavily.

“She’s a friend, Raisa.”

“I should hope so,” she countered. “But that does not explain why a girl with the face of an angel is asleep in the den. The last time I cleaned, this house had five guest bedrooms with nice comfortable beds. It makes no sense to be on a sofa.”

It was rare that Raisa lectured him now that Oliver was a grown man, but he felt suitably admonished.

“I know. Tommy Merlyn brought Miss Smoak by quite late and she was already…asleep. I worried she might wake in the night and feel disoriented. This seemed like the best solution.”

Raisa studied him, as she had done hundreds of times, searching his face. When he was a callow youth, she had usually seen right through his attempts as misdirection. All she saw this morning was sincerity. Oliver Queen had outgrown his youthful stupidity years earlier to become a gentleman of character. That didn’t mean she didn’t keep him on his toes now and again.

“Mister Tommy should know better too. Now, you will be needing coffee for two?”

“A very large pot, please, Raisa.” He sighed and carded a hand through his mussed hair.

The woman looked over at Felicity and nodded before making her way toward the kitchen.

“Eggs, fruit and scones?”

“That would be wonderful. No nuts though. She’s allergic. Do we still have some of those preserves you make?”

“She must be special. You never share your favorite preserves.” Raisa smirked as she headed through the doorway.

“Thank you, Raisa.”

“Oh, Mister Oliver.” Raisa poked her head back in. “There may be some mistletoe…around.”

The woman smirked as Oliver rolled his eyes.

>--->

It was a crazy dream. One of those long ones that just goes on and on. So long that you suspect it’s a dream while you’re in it. There were panda bears and somehow Felicity was in charge of them. She liked that because they were obedient and she got to pet them. And her 9th grade gym teacher, Mr. Sadler, was there. He was wearing a furry hat like the Winkies in the Wizard of Oz and even though Felicity never smelled things in her dreams, he smelled like cigarettes. She just knew it. He was the enemy and everywhere she went – the grocery store, a server room at MIT, and the balcony at Winterfell. And he kept swinging an umbrella at her panda bears. That really pissed her off. In an unexpectedly aggressive move, she hit Winkie Sadler with an uppercut that dropped him on the ground. Felicity woke up when the panda bears hailed her as their leader.

She murmured, “Yes, I’ll be your queen,” into the soft brown suede of the couch that rubbed softly against her cheek. The utterance of his surname caught Oliver’s attention enough to pull his gaze from the weekend newspaper to his guest.

He studied her from his chair a few feet away, as he had done numerous times in the past hour. It wasn’t easy being a Queen. He had wondered for some time if he would ever find someone to share his life with. All of the obvious choices, from seasoned socialites to driven businesswomen, had drifted in and out of his life, but there had been no one who stood out, who challenged him and taught him. None of those women connected with him and made him think and laugh quite like this lady had since Friday night. Felicity Smoak was different. She saw things from a different angle, she was vivacious and funny. She could be trouble, he thought, challenging at every turn. But maybe he was ready for that. He didn’t want to rush anything, but maybe she was it. Maybe one day she could...  

“Queen of the Pandas,” she clarified in a groggy voice. Her arm even raised so she could wave to her subjects awkwardly before it dropped suddenly and she whacked herself in the face.

Oliver would have laughed quite loudly if he hadn’t been concerned she might have hurt herself. A moment later, she was sitting up, shaking off the pain. It didn’t take long for the blonde woman to look confused. Where was she? How did she get here?

“Felicity.” Oliver spoke quietly, trying not to surprise her. “You’re okay. You’re at my home.”

She looked at him but it was like she didn’t recognize him out of context. Then she scanned the well-appointed room and ran her fingers along the cushions.

“No way. This looks like a museum. This couch is suede. I can’t stop petting it. Nobody has a suede couch.”

“Felicity, it’s me. Oliver. You slept on my sofa last night.”

Suddenly, Felicity’s eyes grew wide and her skin turned pink. “Oh, my God. I drank too much. I had a cab bring me here, didn’t I? How presumptuous and rude. I am so, so sorry.”

Felicity bolted up and searched for her shoes, which were at the foot of the couch. Oliver watched wordlessly, not sure what to say next. As soon as she finished putting them on, she made a beeline for the door, but Oliver finally sprung into action and quickly headed her off before she got to the foyer.

“Don’t run away. You weren’t presumptuous at all. It was Tommy who brought you here.”

“Tommy?”

“My friend, Tommy…Merlyn.”

“Designer ski mask Tommy Merlyn?”

“Yes, him. You ended up at Verdant last night. Our club. Tommy served you some drinks and when you got…overtired…he brought you here. I hope you don’t mind.”

She cringed at her memory of the past evening. Not her greatest showing. Now Oliver probably thought she was a barfly.

“Oh, I’m so embarrassed.”

Oliver’s expression reflected a warm, charming smile. He placed his hands on her shoulders and leaned in for emphasis.

“Don’t be. You had a tough night. Were you able to fix the problems at SCPD?”

“Oh, yes. BritneyLovr888 won’t be infiltrating Starling City servers again for some time.”

“You found him and he’s caught?”

“Nope.” She sighed loudly. “He’s some jerkwad hacker in Moscow. I stopped him.  I would tell you what I did to him, but a lady likes to maintain some mystery. Just know it was fairly terrible and he won’t be bothering the SCPD anymore.”

“Wow. You’re kind of a badass, aren’t you?” Oliver grinned at her and watched her blush in return. It was fun to have her on the ropes for a moment, given how clever she was. “I guess I can take comfort in knowing that you cancelled dinner for a very good cause last night.”

Felicity’s head dropped against his chest and talked into his shirt. Oliver looked down at the top of her head and smiled.

“I did not want to cancel. I hope you know that.” She murmured.

“I know.”

Felicity looked up at him with sparkling blue eyes. “Good,” she replied.

“As far as I’m concerned, dinner wasn’t cancelled. It was postponed. Okay?”

“Okay, Oliver.” The air felt lighter suddenly. Oliver felt the change in energy and decided to embrace it.

“It’s Christmas Eve. Do you have plans?”

Felicity chuckled. “I don’t even know what I’m doing for breakfast.”

“Ah,” Oliver pivoted and pulled Felicity’s arm into the crook of his and began leading her across the foyer and toward the kitchen. “You are in luck. Raisa, she helps Thea and me with the house, she has made us a delicious breakfast.”

“Coffee?” She moaned.

“Yes, ma’am. And then, I was thinking…you have a great Christmas tree, but it’s not decorated.”

“Oh, I don’t want to make a fuss with it. The tree doesn’t need fancy decorations.”

“I was thinking simple, actually. When Thea and I were kids, our parents would make bowls of popcorn and we would string it and hang it on one of the trees while we watched movies.”

“One? How many trees do you have?”

Oliver looked embarrassed. “Four. We had eight one year. That was crazy. Now that it’s just Thea and me, we have four. Not very big ones.”

Felicity’s eyes twinkled. “Well, as long as they aren’t very big.”

Suddenly, Oliver gathered her up in a hug. He rubbed his cheek against hers as he had done the previous day and it made her giggle. Oliver held her until she stopped. He really didn’t want to let go. But eventually, she pulled away to look up at him.

“Could we do the popcorn thing tonight, Oliver? It would be perfect.” She sounded genuinely excited.

“Sure. As long as you’ll let me take you to dinner after Christmas.”

“Okay. No interruptions this time. Even if the city is under attack from ninjas.”

“Is that likely to happen?” He adopted a serious tone.

“You never know.”

Oliver took her arm and began to lead her toward the hall, the shortest path to the kitchen.

“I should warn you in advance, our housekeeper, Raisa, is a bit…how do I say this? Totally of her own volition, she may have spent the past hour putting mistletoe up all over the house instead of making breakfast.”

Felicity smiled quietly, then paused.  

He felt her stop moving suddenly.  Oliver wasn’t sure what might be wrong. Before he could ask, the blonde, so much shorter than him, rolled up on her toes, gathered her hands to reach around his neck, and pulled him down for a kiss. Her mouth was warm and soft against his. Without thinking, he wrapped an arm around her waist and pressed fingers into her soft hair, extending the moment a little longer. When their lips finally parted, Oliver pressed his forehead against hers and they shared the same air. Feeling her so close felt right.

“Felicity Smoak. You really are remarkable.”

“Well, I am impatient. I couldn’t wait for the mistletoe.”

>--->

That night, Oliver Queen made dinner for Felicity Smoak at her apartment and they strung popcorn to hang on her Christmas tree. It was a lovely evening and marked a tradition they would revisit again and again. Thea and her beau managed to get in a bit early on Christmas Day. When Oliver introduced Felicity as his girlfriend, Thea congratulated her brother on his fast work and took all the credit for bringing them together.

Tommy joined the party later in the evening. He watched Oliver and Felicity with interest, noting how they seemed to complement each other in every way that mattered. Later, he waited expectantly for Oliver to open his Christmas present. No one laughed louder than Oliver when he found a certain designer balaclava inside the box.  

The End.

Tagging: @scu11y22, @tinaday3w, @dettiot, @mel-loves-all, @andjustforthismoment, @aussieforgood, @florence-bubbles, @flailykermit, @diggo26, @olicityaddicted, @thewidowpazzy, @melsanfo, @emilybettqueen, @yourviewingparty, @lynslogic, @tanyaslogic, @angelalafan, @coal000, @triciaolicity, @choiceofluthien, @emilybuttrickards, @seaolicity, @supersillyanddorky06, @swordandarrow, @watsoncroft, @jsevick, @readerkas, @yespleasehawkeyee, @geniewithwifi, @befitandchase, @caedmonfaith, @myhauntedblacksoul, @casydee, @jamyfan-blog, @awesomeziziblr, @bigdeesmallworld, @alemap74, @angelicmisskitty, @almondblossomme, @callistawolf, @miriam1779, @imusuallyobsessed, @vaelisamaza, @mochababychristy, @juliesioux, @pjcmfalcon, @josephine-in-mirkwood, @i-m-a-fan-world, @ms-mags, @red-devilkin, @ah-maa-zing, @itshandledd, @olicityandsteroline, @turn-thy-paige, @wildirish23, @nlh03, @alanna-the-lionheart, @charlinert, @amytosh, @stygian-omada-fan, @multi-fandom-crazy-fangirl, @machawicket,  @biermank, @i-am-wordaholic, @memcjo, @jaspertown, @itchiygo, @oliverfel4, @tolivers, @ccdimples88, @ap-n, @pleasantfanandstudent, @emmilynestill,  @kainesbitt77,  @anthfan, @lyricalarrow, @laurabelle2930, @ellefraser17, @ireland1733, @mammashof, @chachurka, @somewhatinvisible, @tdgal1, @buffaleen, @suziesammy-blog, @missyriver, @lovelycssefan, @kh2o, @codebreakinsmoak, @letsnevergrowupfan, @memcjo, @bwangangelic, @arrowolicity88, @thebookjumper, @arrowlainie05, @pineprincess, @saebrfan, @olicityinmyheart, @razorbladenitro, @letsnevergrowupfan, @1106angel, @xflarrowbeforebloodx, @omglovechrissie, @benisa1608, @simonona-blog, @blindspot-fanatic, @hecatesan, @hope-for-olicity, @fangirlingkitten, @scandalnewbie, @just-arrowolicity

[we-are-guildmaster]

Original Story: Dreamer

I like to write in my spare time and I’ve decided to share a little of it here when the mood strikes me. Below is the first part of a story I’ve been working on for a while, I got off to a good start then stalled a bit. I hope you enjoy.

It’s 6:32 am on a Sunday and I was woken up by a Dream. I don’t Dream often anymore, I find as I get older my nights are filled with normal dreams. But tonight I had a Dream. It was of the get together of course, it almost always is. Normally, I would roll over and go back to sleep. But this early morning I received a text.

Prepare to report.

That’s all the text says, and it’s from a number I’ve never seen before. But I know the message is for me, and that there is so much more to it.

The hunt went wrong this year.

Let me tell you a story. On a small farm some where deep in the countryside lives a family, we’ll call them the Johnson family. The Johnson farm is in a remote part of the country and is far from just about anything. It doesn’t produce much, a little of this, a little of that. But each year the Johnson Family farm plays host to a get together.

People from all walks of life come out. They drive for hours, fly, bus, take trains, or do what ever it takes to get there. Most years it’s a different group of people, rarely the same person twice. They show up on what ever day they are suppose to, great the Johnsons with familiarity, even if they have never met before. They are welcomed in and treated as old dear friends. Each person, never more that 13 in total, sometimes as few as two, leaves their donation on the hall table as they arrive, a cashier’s check for $100,000 U.S. funds. Dad Johnson collects the checks in the morning and deposits them in the bank.

The rules are simple. On this one night a year, you don’t go outside, you don’t invite your friends over, you forget the world outside your bed room door even exists. You stay inside. Because this is the night the monsters come out.

Simple back ground, in nature there are predators, the best ones look like something other than what they are. Insects especially are good at this trick. They can look like sticks, or leaves, or chunks of wood, but when the time is right their true colors show through.

Now that that idea to the next level, there are predators who hunt humans as prey, their trick? They look like us. A mistake most people make is thinking that these things are, or were human. They aren’t and never were. They just wear our look to fit in and bide their time. The good news is that just like every other predator-prey relation ship, there are a lot more of us than there are of them.

The ones that are good at what they do, you never hear about. They lead their seemingly normal lives and no one is the wiser. People on the fringe of society near them just disappear from time to time, old folks in nursing homes who have no next of kin, homeless people on their last leg with nothing left to loose, you get the idea.

The ones that are not so good, well, you read about them in the paper and their names are hard to forget. Gacey. Daumer. Bundy. They have the monster equivalent of an eating disorder.

To keep from being wiped out wholesale the monsters have what are essentially game wardens. They monitor the heard and let the other predators know which members of the heard can be picked off safely, when, and how. The world is divided up into 13 regions, and each region has a warden.

Each year, if a warden is having a problem with one of his monsters, he comes to the Johnson farm on the right day and meets with other wardens who are also having problems. They trade information about their problem children, decide on a course of action, and then seal the pact with a traditional hunt.

And what do they hunt you may ask with dread in your voice? One of us of course. Not one of the dregs this time, not this night. When you are sealing the deal, it’s a full on prime specimen. An athlete, a career violent offender, a military special forces operative, someone who actually has a fighting chance. They hunt them, kill them, and feast on the body. The next day Dad Johnson goes out with the tractor, digs a very deep hole, and drops what little remains in and buries it.

But this year there was a problem. This year dinner didn’t go down quietly. And now here I am on a Sunday trying to rub the sleep from my eyes and waiting for the next phone call.

You might be thinking, this guy must be one of the wardens, after all he knows so much. Or maybe he’s just one of the monsters, a silent hunter who has a guilty streak and wants to share his story. Unfortunately wrong on both counts. I am one of the few humans who is born with the ability to Dream. Capital D.

When you go to sleep, your brain takes the miss matched chunks of information, throws them into a blender, and spills them back out across the inside of your eyelids as dreams. Little d. There is no real rhyme or reason to them, it’s just a random bunch of crap your mind puts out there for you to unwind.

When I, or some one like me, which is about 1 in a 10 million people, go to sleep we normally get what you get, dreams. But sometimes, when it’s important, we Dream.

Look at it like this. Jim and Frank get into a fight and they both get arrested. Jim says Frank started it, Frank says Jim started it and no one can figure out what really happened. Jim’s story paints Frank as the bad guy, Frank’s story paints Jim as the bad guy, and both of them believe in their hearts that they are telling the truth. Now in most cases there isn’t much you can do. A judge will listen to both sides and decide what’s what and hand down his verdict. Who ever is ruled against feels cheated and it’s fairly inefficient.

But let’s change it up a bit, let’s say that there was a video camera hidden where Jim and Frank were and caught the whole thing. Now the judge has a blow by blow accounting from an unbiased source. Things become a lot easier for all involved. Those of us who Dream, we’re the video cameras, and we only video tape monsters.

No one knows why we can Dream. Even the really old monsters can’t remember a time when there weren’t Dreamers. But every monster knows we’re out here, and every monster knows that if something big goes down, a Dreamer is going to see it. So from time to time we get asked to come in and tell the higher up monsters what went down so they can keep the rest of the beasties in line. The rules concerning Dreamers are simple. We come when called, answer truthfully and completely, and we stay off the menu, that’s it.

Now why would we be on the menu in the first place you ask? A good question. You see Dreaming take a lot out of you. It’s kind of all we’re good at and built for and it takes up most of the resources out bodies produce. So your average Dreamer is sickly, and dysfunctional in a big way. People on the fringe of society, old folks in nursing homes who have no next of kin, homeless people on their last leg with nothing left to loose, you get the idea. Prey.

Me, I’m one of the really lucky ones, a high functioning Dreamer. I’m confined to a wheelchair, barely able to make it from chair to bed on my own, but completely together in the mental department. That makes me a valuable tool for monster society.

The phone rings, it is 7:04. They must be really on the ball this time, usually takes then over an hour to get to me on the list. As tempted as I am to let it ring I answer on the second tone. “Did you Dream?” the voice on the other end is raspy, and impatient.

“Yes.” I try to hid the fear in my voice, but I know he can hear it.

“We’ll send the van. Be ready in an hour, pack a bag.”

“I’ll be ready.”  Pack a bag. That’s a new one. I slowly transfer into my chair and begin my morning ritual, bathroom, hair, clothes, meds, pack the bag. That’s what life boils down to in the end. Rituals. What we do when we go into auto pilot, the things that pass the time between. I finish up and check the clock,7:49. They’ll be here soon.

8:02, a sharp knock on my door, prompt as always. I roll over to the door, place my bag on my lap, and open it. Big guy this time, serious looking, smells of expensive smoke and leather. “You are prepared?” his voice is deep like distant thunder.

“I am.”

“Then we go.” I roll into the hall and lock my apartment door. He takes the handles and moves me down the hall at a study pace. I use to wonder what they were under the skin. I gave that up after a few visits. Monsters don’t like people asking questions. Besides, it’s better that I don’t know. I have nightmares enough with out seeing the naked truth.

We exit the building and he rolls me over to the van, the ramp is already down with the engine running. I’m the only passenger. No surprise there. We make good time to the airport, no small talk, no radio, just driving and my own thoughts. We bypass security with the wave of some credentials, probably fake. A private jet is waiting for us on a back runway. A tall slim woman in a tan suit is waiting by the stairs to the jet. The big guy lifts me out of my chair and loads me into one of the front seats with out a word.

The lady suit and the big guy board and he closes the hatch behind them. She taps the pilot’s door and says, “We’re ready.” I hear some chatter from behind the door and the cabin starts to pressurize. She sits down across from me, “Are you comfortable? Do you need anything?” She has a soft voice with a hard edge, like a razor covered in velvet.

“A glass of juice would be great.” I answer. She waves a hand to big guy, and he pulls open a mini bar and pours me an apple juice. As he does that I look around the plane, nice interior, plush carpets, leather seats with work stations tucked into the sides.

She points to the big guy as he hands me the glass. “Anthony will be your escort. I am Ms. Landers. Our flight is international, do you have your passport?” I nod and pat my bag. “Good. It’s always nice to work with someone who is efficient.” She pulls some papers from a side pocket of her chair. “Have you ever met the Council before?”

The Council. Shit. I try to keep my voice calm and study, no need to tempt fate by appearing any weaker then normal, “No ma’am. I always report to my local handler and he relays to his superiors.” Shit, shit, shit. This is really bad. The Council never sees Dreamers. There are always intermediaries. One of the game wardens must have been important.

“If I may ask ma’am, why am I meeting the Council? My reports have always been factual and prompt when requested.”

A sly grin passes her lips, the kind that makes you think of a fox in a hen house, or a snake in the grass. “Indeed they have been. In fact that is the primary reason you are being selected. The Council has recently…” She pauses as if looking for words, “come under new leadership, and they wish to meet such a valuable asset as yourself.” She leafs through the papers, a bare glimmer of amusement wrinkles the corners of her mouth. “The First Lord wishes to have a better grasp of events than what was being offered through the local handlers.”

A new First Lord, new Council members, could mean a shakeup in the whole monster rank structure. I sip my apple juice slowly, trying to figure out if I am being called to my last report. Anthony sits across from me, his big frame causing the leather of the seat to squeak as is settles under his weight. Ms. Landers hands him a several pieces of paper. “Your travel papers.” He glances over them and slides them into his inside pocket. “Make yourself comfortable, it’s a 7 hour flight. If you need any of your needs met, Anthony is a skilled nurse provider.” Her tone tells me that the conversation portion of our flight is over.

I settle into my chair and adjust my leg blankets. I close my eyes and drift in and out of sleep. Snippets of conversation between Ms. Landers and Anthony drift through my mind as I rest. They speak in a language I’ve heard before, but never learned the name of. Images of castles and dungeons pass through my worried mind, with all the dread of a child waiting for the monsters to come out of the closet.

I hear the wheel screech on the tarmac and feel the impact of the plane hitting lightly on the ground as it lands. The pilot says something in that language and we begin to slow down and taxi onto the runway towards a terminal. The sky outside is cold and grey as the plane comes to a halt we’re still well away from the terminal. The door opens with a slight hiss/ pop and the steps extend. Outside is a long black car with the rear door open.

[wineanddinosaur]

The 15 Best Drinks-Focused TV Shows — and What to Sip While Watching

Binge-watching a favorite television show is a universal hobby, and that was true even before the pandemic. While we wouldn’t recommend binge drinking while doing so, pairing a can’t-miss series with a must-have drink is a natural combination. With moderation in mind, of course.

As it happens, many of the best television shows of all time are also the booziest. We’ve seen everything cross our screens at this point, from iconic television bars to cartoon characters who would handily drink anyone under the table — and even entire drink revolutions spawned by popular shows. The Cosmo, anybody?

Pull up your streaming service, find your favorite show below, and get ready to pop open a bottle or mix up some cocktails with these perfect TV-drink pairings.

15. ‘Succession’

Viewers of “Succession” were likely introduced to the idea of “hyper-decanting” (read: blending, as in, with a blender) your wine prior to serving. But beyond that questionable idea, the show has plenty to offer. “We think ‘Succession’ is the best show television has seen in a long time — from the acting, script, and the epic music, it’s a winning combination,” says Joseph Mintz, co-founder with Amanda Victoria of Siponey canned cocktails.

“Amanda is a huge fan of Scottish actor Brian Cox, who plays Logan Roy, and I would love to share a dram with Mr. Cox,” Mintz says. Not a bad idea, considering that Cox enjoys enduring internet fame for the video pronunciation guides for Scotch brands he made with Esquire. Pair with a hard-to-pronounce single-malt Scotch — only the best for the Roys!

14. ‘Dead to Me’

The Liz Feldman-produced dark comedy has gone through two seasons thus far, with a third en route. And while many shows have unofficial drinking games, “Dead to Me” and Netflix posted an official one before Season 2 dropped this spring. Highlights include drinking twice if someone drinks on screen, or finishing your drink if “Karen almost ruins everything” (trust us, it happens).

Wine is very much what’s being glugged on screen, though you’ll find a cast of characters willing to open a bottle of just about anything on this show. But for a pairing, go with a gluggable red or an orange wine, which gets name-dropped in the first episode of Season 2 by way of a sub-Reddit about menopause.

13. ‘BoJack Horseman’

Everything you need to know about “BoJack Horseman” the show, and BoJack Horseman the, uh, horse man, can be summed up with a scene where he’s looking for a drink to forget his problems, gets served vodka, and taunts the bartender in response, “What is this, breakfast?” For Ben Rojo, brand ambassador for Don Papa Rum, such a scene encapsulates the show’s ethos. “’BoJack Horseman’ is my favorite show of all time! It’s such an honest and human depiction of depression, through the lens of a giant cartoon horse-person,” he says.

For Rojo, the ongoing theme that setbacks are not the opposite of progress is a highlight, and one of the best reasons to watch. “The characters’ sublimation of trauma through substances is a little on the nose,” he says, “but there’s something oddly gratifying about watching Princess Carolyn down a bottle of ‘Catbernet’ after a rough day while sitting on your couch and doing the same.” “Catbernet” it is, though Cabernet will do in a pinch. Just don’t try to go drink-for-drink with BoJack.

12. ‘Entourage’

“Entourage” was either the show you loved or the show you loved to hate. But either way, you probably watched. And the freewheeling, big-spending lifestyle certainly lends itself to some fun drink pairings.

“So, with ‘Entourage,’ there’s one guy making all the money and a bunch of other people orbiting him and starting shenanigans; it’s like Seinfeld only everyone is super hot, and like all my favorite trash TV, it’s easy to get hooked whether you want to or not,” says Erica Long of Sourced Craft Cocktails.

She suggests going just as big as the characters might. “Watching ‘Entourage’ screams an occasion to be a little over the top to me and that means bubbles,” Long says. “A bottle of Moët and a bottle of Dom because Vinnie Chase would never pick just one.”

11. ‘The Simpsons’

“The Simpsons” doesn’t pull many punches with its social commentary, and the world of drinking is taken head on, too. Barney Gumble is the poster boy for a love of drink gone wrong, as is Duff for the ubiquitous big-brand beer that will sacrifice all for more profits. We’ve heard there are one or two scenes where Homer indulges in a few of the beers himself.

Then there’s Moe Szyslak and his eponymous Moe’s, a neighborhood dive if there ever was one. Until, that is, the smash success of the Flaming Moe, a drink Moe stole from Homer. Duh duh duh. If you’re feeling fancy (and have a fire extinguisher handy, just in case) make a flaming cocktail and you’ll feel like you’re right there at Flaming Moe’s, too. Otherwise, channel your inner Duff with Schlitz or Natty Boh.

10. ‘Archer’

If James Bond drank even more than he already does, followed even fewer rules, and generally caused even more mayhem, the result would be Archer, Sterling Archer. The title character of the show by the same name is famous for his one-liners, and none more so than, “All I’ve had today is, like, six gummy bears and some Scotch.” The man enjoys himself a drink or 12.

In the show’s world, Glengoolie is Archer’s Scotch of choice, a drink known as being “for the best of times.” At other times, though, Archer lambastes the use of sour mix in a Margarita, and praises the virtues of the Bloody Mary, saying: “Forget the glass, Woodhouse, just give me the pitcher. For I am a sinner in the hands of an angry god. Bloody Mary, full of vodka, blessed are you among cocktails. Pray for me now, at the hour of my death, which I hope is soon.”

You have plenty of options, clearly, for your drink of choice while watching. Of course, if you want the evening to be the best of times, Scotch is the way to go.

9. ‘It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’

Pull me a pint at Paddy’s Pub and I’ll be a happy man. Just don’t make me do any Charlie work for the privilege.

“’It’s Always Sunny’ is the greatest show in general but drinking might help you get on the gang’s level a little easier,” says Nick Sadowski, distiller at Philadelphia Distilling. “The show comments on every hot topic in society, usually with some part of the gang taking one side and the other taking the other side.” The show is edgy, delving into controversial conversations that others might steer away from. What makes it work is that the characters have these un-P.C. conversations in a way that showcases their ignorance and obliviousness to the rest of society. “All the jokes are ultimately on them — with them or without them realizing it — and it’s the reason they’re still making the show 15 years later.”

Sadowski says he doesn’t want you to overthink your pairings here. “Rip some shots and drink a Coors or Hamm’s, or whatever you can find, bud,” he suggests. “Eat some rum ham and a hard-boiled egg while you’re at it.”

8. ‘Game of Thrones’

Raise your hand if you own an “I drink and I know things”  T-shirt. There’s a few of you, at least. Meanwhile, in Westeros, the only thing more common than a dead royal is a dead royal who liked to drink too much. Siblings Tyrion and Cersei Lannister enjoyed more than their fair share, as did, of course, Robert Baratheon. But few characters didn’t imbibe heavily in the show, and who could blame them? Living in a world rife with betrayal and back stabbings, murders and coups, dragons and White Walkers and … yeah, that Dornish red looks pretty appetizing.

With the popularity of the show and its penchant for booze, some official options for your pairing pleasure were made available, including partnerships with Ommegang beer and Johnnie Walker Scotch. When you don’t want to go corporate, though, just fill up a beer stein with the strongest suds you can find — all the better if you opt for an old-school barleywine or mead.

7. ‘Futurama’

In the “Futurama” universe, robots must heartily consume alcohol as fuel, and the underpinnings of that metaphor are fairly clear. “Looking at Bender as a character representing the ‘working class everyman’ it’s easy to see why he’s literally fueled by alcohol,” says Sother Teague, beverage director of New York’s Amor y Amargo. “For him, it’s an absolute necessity to perform optimally. For us, it’s often a crutch to help cope with the things we either can’t change, disagree with, or don’t understand. Obviously this is an exaggerated characterization but one worthy of a little navel gazing.”

Even so, there’s room for bartenders in the show. “It’s also comforting to think that the role of bartender is still a valuable member of future society as portrayed by iZac, a parody of the beloved ’70s era barman of TV’s ‘Love Boat,’” Teague says. He’s going everyman with his suggestions, too, calling for you to find your favorite lawnmower beer, or what he prefers to call hammock beer, more properly fitting how he’d partake. “And on the side, Jägermeister! Plus, there’s a scene where iZac pours Jäger.”

6. ‘Absolutely Fabulous’

For Aubrey Slater, a bartender who’s worked at many New York bars over a 25-year career, British sitcom “Ab Fab” is the perfect call back to the neon-tinged ’90s, when “the economy was great, everyone had money to spend,” she says. “I was also a go-go dancer at Limelight and Palladium, and had a lot of friends in the vogue-ball houses. One of them introduced me to “Absolutely Fabulous”!

Slater describes the characters as icons who epitomized the decade as independent businesswomen, who were also fashionistas and party girls. “They had a frosted glass double-door refrigerator constantly stocked with Veuve and Bollinger, and they drank Stoli Martinis like water,” she says. As a perfect pairing, Slater recommends the Stoli-Bolli, a tall glass of Stolichnaya on the rocks topped with the Bollinger Champagne, which was created on the show.

5. ‘Billions’

In “Billions,” the only thing more important than having entirely way too much money is ensuring that the world knows it. Then there are a few subplots, like achieving those perfect moments of comeuppance, and planning new ways to screw over your rivals.

Both Bobby Axelrod and his cohorts, as well as Chuck Rhoades, know their way around a bar. Most typically, a whiskey bar, stocked with absurdly expensive bottles like Michter’s Celebration, or highly touted imports such as Kavalan. By all means, feel free to join in with a bottle of either. Or, just grab your favorite special-occasion whiskey from the shelf and pour yourself a dram of that.

4. ‘Sex and The City’

“Sex and the City” launched the Cosmopolitan to stratospheric heights, of course leading to its inevitable crash back to Earth. The Toby Cecchini-created drink is now often wrongly derided as a symbol of the darker years of cocktailing (when Appletinis and Long Island Iced Teas were the most interesting cocktails you could find).

Of course, there’s more to it than that. “’Sex and the City’ is the ultimate grab-your-girlfriends, veg-out-on-the-couch, and finish- off-your-favorite-bottle-of-booze show,” says Effie Panagopoulos, founder of KLEOS Mastiha. “That show was directly responsible for a huge increase in Cointreau sales in the ’90s, since it was a love letter to the Cosmopolitan and the city it was created in, New York.” For a classic combo, pair a “SATC” viewing session with a Cosmopolitan.

3. ‘Mad Men’

Ah, the good ol’ days of corporate life, when the two-Martini lunch wasn’t merely acceptable, but expected. From costume to set design, “what I loved most about ‘Mad Men’ was how incredibly detailed and on point every aspect of the show was,” says Alex Jump, head bartender at Death & Co Denver. “Of course, as a bartender, too, I appreciate how much attention they paid to the drinking trends and fads of the time, from how vodka was perceived, to Heineken’s role as a newer beer in the U.S. market.”

The bottle of whiskey at the desk channels Don Draper better than anything, and points us to the best show drink pairing. “Of course, I mostly drank whiskey while watching the show, particularly American whiskey for me,” Jump says. “I wasn’t trying to keep up with the guys on ‘Mad Men’ though, so sometimes I’d even enjoy mine as a Highball rather than slammed back in one quick gulp.” A modern solution!

2. ‘Scandal’

“Scandal’s” Olivia Pope, played by Kerry Washington, lives a very stressful life, putting out one political fire after another. And in times of need, wine is her friend indeed.

Crystal Sykes, a cocktail and culture writer based in the San Francisco Bay Area, says she thinks about “Scandal” every time she writes a story with a personal element. “There’s no Black woman alive who hasn’t felt gutted by being a superwoman placed in the shadows,” she says. “So, whenever Olivia Pope, at the brink of mental and emotional collapse, took solace in a glass — or bottle — of Bordeaux, I could almost swear it was cascading down my own throat as she gulped it down. And so did my homegirls.”

Sykes says that “Scandal” gave her friend group a reason to meet up on Thursday nights. “[We’d] drink wine and talk about how no matter how hard it may be to be a Black woman in today’s world, we’ll always be standing in the sun together,” Sykes says. A bottle of Bordeaux it is, then.

1. ‘Cheers’

“Cheers” depicts the platonic ideal of the neighborhood bar, the local, the “third place.” Sometimes — and we cannot stress this enough — you really do want to go where everybody knows your name.

“’Cheers’ is the ultimate drinking show because, well, it’s entirely set in a bar!” says Paul Hletko, founder of FEW Spirits. “It’s a caricature of bar tropes, sure, but the characters are all lovable but flawed, and, to a large extent, ‘Cheers’ was my first view into ‘bar life’ as a youngster unable to go to bars.”

Surely, this is no time nor place for a craft cocktail. No sir. “I would drink old-school for ‘Cheers,’ with a shot of FEW Spirits Straight Bourbon Whiskey and a High Life,” Hletko says. Beer and a shot sounds about right.

The article The 15 Best Drinks-Focused TV Shows — and What to Sip While Watching appeared first on VinePair.

source https://vinepair.com/articles/best-drinking-tv-shows/