#it must suck to be ryuk

[beyondbirthdayzzz]

Times Light Yagami made ryuk feel like a dumbass (the final one's a bonus, where a random shinigami roasted ryuk)

[honeybewrites]

Character Voice Tag 4

Thank you @willtheweaver for the tag!! We're already on a part four guys!! Part 1 is here, part 2 here, and part 3 here. I can't help it I love this one so much

Rules: Rewrite the line of dialogue from the person who tagged you into the voice of your OC! Pass on the tag with a new line of dialogue.

My line: "Guess luck was not on my side today."

Echoes of War Chronicles OCs!

Asset 703: "I'd like to be lucky just once."

Fres: "I thought I took all the luck with me when I left the Mors? Guess I must have had a few stowaways"

Rage: "Have you ever had a lucky day in your life? Because at this point you're just passing your bad luck onto me simply by being in proximity to me and it's a little annoying."

Legend of the Ancients OCs!

Ryuk: *stares at the camera like he's on the office* "Why?"

Emaeh: "Hmm. I saw that going differently in my head."

Vern: "I must have pissed off the Ancients, because today is just not my day First I get my breakfast stolen, then Faralt makes me clean out the stables, and now I'm suck being everyones punching bag for the next two hours? I'd have rather the Ancients just strike me down."

Tagging @the-ellia-west @minamaybe @charlesjosephwrites and anyone else that wants to hop on!!

Also, sorry if I have double tagged anyone, having done four of these now, I have lost track of who I tagged on what.

Your guys line: "um, whatcha got there?”

[nofr1lls]

god this post sucks anyway bullet points on total drama death note below:

ryuk is chris and rem is chef. duh

contestants include light, L, mello, near, matsuda, matt, raye, naomi, takada, mikami, ide, aizawa, god fucking damnit I'm running out of contestants, that guy light kills in an alley to get eliminated first, SPK members like halle gevanni and rester, mafia members, mogi, lind l taylor, fuck it higuchi can compete I guess their ages r all smoothed out so they r all 16-19 or 20 for a generous but plausible age range

whatever anyway light gets L eliminated like halfway thru the season bc he pulls his little gambit from the show where he utilises rem's illegal alliance with misa to rig a vote to kick L out in order to save misa's ass. its CRAAZY

rem doesnt 'die' (get fired) as a result of this though she just has to endure a moderately embarrassing punishment set by ryuk for the duration of one challenge

lights got that alejandro rizz like he and L have got that whole aleheather thing going on. he fucking dies alejandro style too. yeah.

getting into more cursed territory mikami and mello have a courtney/duncan romance.

love triangle w matt obviously. love polygon. light uses mikami but he remains loyal even after being eliminated

I think realistically mikami is so annoying he would get voted out pretty early but girlboss lawyer his way back into the show like slay

the only ones who know eachother beforehand btw r mello and near

finale is light v near but I think matsuda sabotages (unsubtly ofc) light in the final contest for revenge and stuff

naomi and raye get played by light pretty early on but they can host aftermath. for funzies

obviously misa is like sierra levels crazy abt light

like it's soooooososo funny in my head I can't even begin to explain 2 U guys

its dramatic and cringe and they're all soooo serious

WORLD TOUR MUSICAL STYLE OFC. L AND LIGHT SING PLAYING HIS GAME

ok whatever I'm having a shower now will get back to editing this post maybe or not IM BACK I don't think this post has an audience but can somebody PLEASE tell me how large my brain is

oh lordy they must be sorted into teams. hekp

I kinda want harold to still b there idk. sorry I just miss him ig :/

bloodbath

[the-haunted-office]

While there is no law or rule that specifically states a Shinigami must remain within a certain proximity to the human who has possession of their notebook, Doom typically prefers to follow them everywhere they go. A curious creature, she likes to learn every little thing about their lives that she possibly can. Sometimes this is to file the information away for later, for manipulation purposes or just because it's interesting. Other times it's because she's bored and doesn't have anything else she wants to do. Sometimes it's purely to annoy the human. And then sometimes it's all of the above.

This is one of the times it's mostly out of curiosity. Elliot seems to have gotten over his fear of her, at least for the most part. She hasn't been able to get a scream out of him in days, and now he's talking to her like she's not some hideous monster hanging out in the corner of his room. She could make his days at work very difficult for him by jumping around all over the place and making a bunch of noise while he's trying to talk to people, but she's deciding to play nice for the time being. Besides, she did bribe some apples out of him the other day - Honeycrisp apples - and that's put her in a more cooperative mood. She was able to trade them with Ryuk for some really cool shiny rocks he found that she'd been beginning him for for months.

The small, rabbit-like Shinigami comes crawling out from under his desk the moment he walks into his office. His injured hand is the very first thing she notices and naturally she has to inquire.

"Ooooooh, classified information, ehehehehe. What are you afraid of, Elliot? That I'm gonna go spilling all your secrets on a steamy bathroom mirror? Actually, you're right, I probably would do that. You learn fast," she says, grinning. "But what a tough guy. Getting in fights. You could have just written down their names and killed them, you know."

She finds his injury both interesting and uninteresting. It's interesting because it's an injury, it's something she as no concept of. It's uninteresting because it's an injury, it's something she has no concept of. The concept of injuries doesn't mean much to a semi-immortal being who can't feel pain. She knows what pain is, but can't really grasp it. Can't grasp it, can't feel it, can't comprehend it. She's seen humans react to it. Succumb to it. Dish it out. Die from it. But she's never felt it herself, so what does it really mean to her but her human's hand has changed colors and now he's put a piece of cloth over it?

Humans are as weird as they are interesting.

There's no change in her expression. Still that darkly amused sort of grin, like she knows someone's about to die and she doesn't feel inclined to say who.

"What? I can't just come hang out? Maybe I was lonely. Your house sucks. There's nothing to do. Why would I wanna hang out there by myself?" she snorts before letting out a chuckle. Her eyes have changed from the thin crescents they were when they first met. Now they're nearly full discs, like a pair of glowing silver coins set in darkness. They watch him in amusement. "When you say you aren't gonna use it 'right now', do you mean like, now now? Or now as in, at all while you're here in this building? Or in this room? Or standing in a specific spot? Or under certain conditions? I need details, Elliot. That's where the devil lives, after all, ehehehe."

"What happened to you?"

Shinigami Doom to Agent 38!

@the-haunted-office

38 is sitting at his desk in the IAA office, bandaging up his left hand. Putside his window is a view over the city. The view stretches out as far as the Pacific Ocean.

Now that he is in his office and not at home where he had the privacy to talk at a normal volume for his new shinigami companion, 38 speaks in a hushed tone.

"Oh, had to help some guy uh- no. That's classified information." He has to stop and think about how he'll describe what he's been up to without spilling the beans. "Ah, just got into a fight... with some guys. My knuckles are a bit sore."

He looks up to her once he's finished bandaging his knuckles and hand. "What are you doing here? I'm not going to use the book here... right now."

[queersturbate]

Weird dn related questions! What do you think Light’s first kiss was like/who was it with? How long do you think L or Light can go without any mental stimulation (I always wonder how Light dealt with boredom during confinement.) L and Light’s Least favorite foods. Any ideas about what Light is BAD at? He can sew, has a genius intellect so school is easy, he’s good at logic puzzles, sports, socializing etc… he must suck at SOMETHING!

Okay that’s a lot of questions lol, I’m also bored right now :p

hey!! this disappeared into my inbox! im sorry!

I think L just went around kissing anybody who let him between the ages of 12-19 LMAO. He got very good at it tho which Light appreciates. But his first kiss was probably weird and the most autistic a first kiss can be lmao. Like grabbing this person by the shoulders and smacking their lips together. Teeth digging into their lips and just standing there not moving. L at the time didnt see the appeal of kissing another person but it seemed like everyone enjoyed it so he continued kissing anyone who said yes until he found the appeal and then he just kept doing it because it was fun.

Light's first kiss was only one of three before he met L i think, the third one being Misa LMAO. I thiiink i saw this from @translightyagami but i could be entirely wrong tbh. But I like to think his first kiss was in a game of 7 minutes in heaven when he was shoved, as a joke, in a closet with a boy. I think he probably would've been 13/14/15. He kissed the boy because "it's part of the rules." and the other boy kissed back before Light tilted his head and was shoved against the wall. So they sat silently for the remaining 5 minutes. (if you want to know his second kiss, it was definitely with a girl when he was like 16 outside in a quiet area at the park. He did not like it and called the girl a name before leaving her alone)

As any neurodivergent people, Light and L can go awhile without outside mental stimuli. Because they are stupid geniuses and will create a game or anything inside their head. I imagine during Light's confinement, he played games by himself. Also I think L probably entertained the games a little. Light would count how many bricks were in his cell, how many bars there were, how many times Ryuk bothered him, etc. L and Light would play 20 questions and they've stumped each other a few times by the 20 question mark. Light would also tell him some stories from his childhood and sometimes L would tell him he's lying and Light would laugh and ask him how he knew. I think they stimulated each other during that period. Also probably some nsfw things LMAO

L and Light's least favorite food, hmmm. L prefers not to eat normal nutritional food, lol we love scurvy! anyway he probably hates shrimp and has a distaste for fish which Light teases him about because he's in Japan and raw fish is kind of a Big Thing there. He probably also hates Thyme and Parsley. Messes with his sensory issues. Also doesnt like spicy food.

Light loves spicy food i bet. But he probably doesn't hate much, i see him as like someone really into food and cooking. He pretends to hate sweets and stuff but he doesn't, although he doesn't like ice cream that much. like he'd pick someone over ice cream but he'd still eat it. i think he hates oysters lol

Finally, yes Light must suck at something. He's even a fucking gamer. Why can't he be bad at anything, the absolute loser. But i bet he's bad at beer pong. He's a somewhat light-weight and he isnt even good at it when he first starts either. Also i think he's bad at drawing, like personally i never say anyone is bad at art, but i think he is. he over analyzes everything and doesnt put emotion to it. if he does draw, which he doesnt, he could get good at it but it would just be like boring and no emotion or feeling behind it. so. he's bad at art and beer pong in my head apparently. LMAO

[thessalian]

Thess vs TLoVM Ep. 6

So now that I have a decent desk chair, actual liveblogging!

Hello, Dominic Monaghan!

Matt really is in every episode, isn’t he? Then again, men with brown longish hair aren’t exactly uncommon. Still, there was an eyepatch! And then he was crushed like a soda can.

So the giants look like Ryuk from Death Note. That’s ... special.

“What, ‘cos we all know each other?” THANK YOU, GROG.

So @true0neutral needs to watch this because Yennen is such an awesome priest of the Dawnfather.

Oh SHE SEES ORTHAX DAYUM. I’m sorry, but seriously - beyond the white hair and everything, he hasn’t said enough to determine how much he’s changed yet.

See, I liked the conversation about who’s actually leading, and Keyleth did actually put it best. They each lead when it’s appropriate for them to lead. They shift and change leadership roles depending on what strength is required to get through anything that gets in their way. That’s always been Vox Machina’s strength. It’s when they start thinking any one of them is The Leader that they get all fucked up.

Okay, this is Grog as I know and love him. “Yeah, all this sucks and it’ll probably make a good fight and that asshole fucked me up with his sword so I kind of want to kill him but this just sucks and-- wait. These assholes mean no ale? I. Would like. To--” “GROG NO.” “Oh, let him destroy a thing or two. It’ll be a good warm-up for him.”

I’m sorry, Yennen. But it sounds like Percy’s friend Archie hasn’t changed one tiny bit.

“You’re playing on my emotions. And I can’t say I blame you.” Yeah, nobles and priests sometimes have to be manipulative little shits, but I do love the, “You’re playing me. And it’s working. And I’m so proud of you” tone of voice.

...They’re actually going to do the beret. Oh. My gods.

This is a “Pike needs to internalise the fact that she’s worthy” thing, isn’t it. The fight with the Briarwoods even before she got hit with Delilah’s spell, her not being able to help as much as she wanted to, it’s all a doubt thing.

Well, Stonefell, there might be no room for heroes in Whitestone, but there’s clearly room for dishonourable weasely cowardly bastards using a chained-up dwarf as a punching bag. (Also you’re gonna find that heroes don’t take up that much room until they’re busting your door down. Just by the way.)

Also, HI DARIN DE PAUL! He must have had so much fun with this...

Rory. McCann. HELLO. ...So wait, we get to see Scanlan force that guy off a roof? I’m liking this idea.

This is why At Dawn, We Plan was a whole thing. You’re right, Vax. Mostly. Keyleth’s plan wasn’t bad. I mean, assuming there are any animals worth a shit in Whitestone.

"Nothing but Bad News.” PERCY YOU SHITHEAD. Still, great use of the scope.

I mean, I knew they kept the door bit, but AAAAAAHAHAHA.

“Congrats. Everyone’s getting out early for bad behaviour.” AHAHAHA I LOVE YOU VEX.

Well. That’s ... one way to get through the door.

Nice use of illusions, Scanlan!

And that, right there, is a call to vengean-- DAYUM KEYLETH. I mean, narratively speaking, crushing the head of the resistance fighter who saved the life of one of their own basically marked Stonefell and the entire Briarwood rulership for extinction, but it’s nice to see that as a catalyst for Keyleth coming into her own righteous fury. Also, hello Minxie.

Okay, now THAT was a shot. A shot that could break the haft of a maul that heavy? Also the accuracy of it. Just a really nice touch.

“I wanted you to know it was me.” GAAAAAAAH THAT’S FUCKING TERRIFYING. Kudos to the animators. Also to Taliesin Jaffe because this is all way creepier than his original yelling.

...Then again, the yelling is equally creepy. And again, kudos to the animators; rage like that tends to look laughable in this animation style, or at least ... well, two-dimensional, pardon the pun. But the combination of rage, horror and just plain disgust on his face, both during the shooting of Stonefell and later, when yelling at Vax about his vengeance...

And then the animators let him go to horror-tinged vulnerable shock. No one gets to say the animation in this is bad. Ever.

Yeah, even knowing what does ultimately happen (though I understand that liberties will be taken here), I still get that feeling that whether “I have a sister” ends well is up in the air. I mean, that “This changes nothing” scene is all it took to flag up a few very key points: that Cassandra’s in a bad situation and might well just be going along to keep herself alive, that Cassandra might hold a grudge about being left for dead (because we can see that de Rolos hold grudges), that she has been in the custody of a vampire who likely has no qualms about messing with her head... Just a couple of lines and it sets up Cassandra’s whole moral and psychological battleground, and the defenses Percy’s going to have to get through in order to make “I have a sister” a reality.

So, six episodes in ... while the campaign will always have a special place in my heart (and now I kind of want to watch it again), I like this version ... not better, but in a different way. They’ve managed to find ways to set up the important themes in a lot less time, in subtle yet powerful ways. Haven’t seen much of Mae Catt’s stuff - then again, Mae Catt hasn’t written that much - but this was a winner.

Wait.

Waitaminit.

I happened to see who wrote Ep. 7.

Travis. And Sam.

I have got to see their writing chops. I have to. It’s not an option. I require food first, though.

[hollowxxclouds]

The Capture of Ryuk

Monday Morning:

A regular day for 15-year-old Ryuk in 1980, in Westville, he was serving at the bakery, Charlotte’s Home Sweets.

“Come on Ryuk! Business is coming low!” Mrs. Charlotte hollered from the front door of the bakery,

“Yes, Mrs. Charlotte!” Ryuk replies as he brushes off the sweat from his forehead. Legend says Mrs. Charlotte has been running the bakery since WW2, and she doesn’t even seem that old. Although her mood has never changed, you see Mrs. Charlotte’s husband was fighting WW2 but died in Hawaii when Mrs. And Mr. Charlotte were on vacation, she managed to escape, but Mr. Charlotte was right on the scene, and Mr. Charlotte died. But Mrs. Charlotte heard something strange in that scene, Mr. Charlotte’s last words were, “Aliens are here..” and aliens were of course make-believe in the WW2 occurred, so no one genuinely believed in aliens.

“Hi, Mr. Buck, what would you like to order?” Ryuk questions, as he has a coffee in one hand cinnamon rolls in another,

“Oh come on Ryuk! You know I love the regular!” Mr. Buck exclaimed as he pointed his smoking pipe to Ryuk. Mr. Buck’s smoking pipe was from his great grandfather.

“You know where this pipe came from?” Mr. Buck asked,

“N-no sir,” Ryuk stammered,

“A day in West Virginia, My great Grandad, was on his carriage with his two white horses, Philly and Emilly, he was having a normal day going to his work when he heeded something very glistening, he deemed it was a bird with a fragment of glass, but a tobacco pipe came falling’ from the sky, he called it the ‘holy pipe’”.

“Wow I didn’t know that, but could that glistening thing be aliens?” Ryuk questioned,

“No son, there is nothing such as aliens.” Mr. Buck frowned, gave him the money, and left the shop. Later that night, Ryuk came home and started arranging dinner, he seized out two eggs and started boiling them. Ryuk thought more profoundly about what could have been the glistening object in the sky, Ryuk smelt some burnt smells and black dust coating the kitchen, he instantly lowered the heat and poured the burnt egg on a plate, and threw himself on the sofa going into a deep sleep.

Tuesday 7:30 am:

“Knock! Knock! Ryuk! Are you there?!” The newspaper yelled. Ryuk heard some mumbling sounds, and then quickly got up and brushed his eye with his quite red fingers, and opened the door,

“Yes?” He squeaked tiredly,

“Newspaper!” The guy said, Ryuk took the newspaper from him, and locked the door with his lavish strength, he opened a window and then launched the newspaper outside.

8:45 am:

Ryuk locked his door and headed outside, to the bakery, to start his very hard-working job. Ryuk lost both his parents at the age of 5 months, he never really knew what happened to them.

“Oh good! Start by cleaning the dishes!” Mrs. Charlotte said in a somewhat polite way,

“Yes, Mam!” Ryuk answered with very little enthusiasm.

5:30 pm:

It was the end of the shift and Ryuk was heading home to go to bed.

“Hey look, it’s the kid who works at the bakery, what a poor idiot!” Easton giggled with his 2 other friends,

“Leave me alone,” Ryuk sighs and said in a very tired way,

“Oh is that so? Do you want some money, so you can have a bed?” Easton assured. Ryuk ignores them and starts heading home-

“Look, the orphan bakery nerd is running home!!!” Easton and his other mates laughed quite hard. That’s when Ryuk lost his mind took out his right arm and punched Easton in the right eye,

“Oww!! Fight that loser!” Easton said looking like he declared war, one of Easton’s friends tried to kick him but Ryuk grasped his leg and slammed him on the terrain. His other friend started to sneak behind him and strangled him. Ryuk was trying to get his muscular hands off his throat, and that’s when Easton spotted a rock and thrust it as hard as he could on Ryuk’s face, Ryuk went all black.

Wednesday 9:45 am:

“Honey, are you ok?!” A lady asked,

“Oh yeah, I am ok,” Ryuk guesses, as he sees dark blood on the ground and then touches his face,

“Honey, I think you should be at the hospital!” The lady said with fright,

“No, I am okay,” Ryuk smiles and runs to the bakery. As he was running one thing on his mind was, ‘are aliens real?’

“Oh my!! What happened?!?” Mrs. Charlotte asked, hoping for a long answer,

“I fell, there is nothing to worry about,” Ryuk said with a fake smile,

“Come to the kitchen!” Mrs. Charlotte demanded,

“I am serious, nothing happened!” Ryuk said with determination,

“Did those three hooligans beat you up again?” Mrs. Charlotte questions, as she gets the medkit out,

“Yeah,” Ryuk mumbles, Easton’s father was the richest in the town, he owned all the bakeries, Easton also went to school but Ryuk didn’t because he couldn’t afford it,

“I will tell you what, you can take some rest for this shift, and I will give you some money to go get some ice cream,” Mrs. Charlotte smiles, and puts the bandage beneath his left eye,

“Are you sure?” Ryuk asked, Mrs. Charlotte, nodded.

10:10 am:

Ryuk was at the library licking his ice cream and started playing alien games. There was a spaceship, and it would suck up many people from the beach. The game was indeed dull, to be truthful, but Ryuk was so interested that he never got bored, he played it on for hours and hours until it was lunch. Ryuk yawned and stretched his arms and legs and went to eat lunch. He loved eating lunch at McDonald’s, the cheapest restaurant in town but had the best tasting food.

Moments later:

“McDonald’s! What would you like to order Ryuk?” Mrs. Tucker asked, with a very pleasant smile as if she got a promotion,

“The Big Mac, thank you!” Ryuk said with the least excitement,

“That will be $3.15!” Mrs. Tucker said, Ryuk looked at his money and he had three dollars and twenty cents left, he gave 3 one-dollar bills, and 3 nickels. Mrs. Tucker’s regular consumer was Ryuk. Ryuk munched the big mac as if he was the hungriest person on Earth, he thought in his head are aliens even present? Would aliens take over the world? Is Mr. Buck’s smoking pipe from the aliens? And what does Mr. Charlotte’s last word supposed to even mean? All these thoughts were circling Ryuk’s head.

“Hey, Ryuk, are you ok?” Mrs. Tucker asserts,

“Yeah kind of,” Ryuk confirms,

“You look like you are in deep thought,” Mrs. Tucker said with concern, Ryuk takes a deep breath,

“I know you might think this is a stupid question but are aliens real?” Ryuk replies, with very limited expectation, for Mrs. Tucker to not say he’s stupid,

“My big brother was a Xenoarchaeologist, in Hawaii, while he was doing an experiment he passed away,” Mrs. Tucker cries,

“I am so sorry,” Ryuk stated,

“Before my brother’s death, he gave me this artifact which has a different language written on it and he said to return it to them,” Mrs. Tucker said with misery,

“It must mean that it’s from the aliens, right?” Ryuk asked,

“Yes, at least I think so,” Mrs. Tucker,

“I need to go, Mrs. Tucker, bye!” Ryuk conveys,

“Bye!” Mrs. Tucker responds with her half crying voice.

Thursday 9:00 am:

Ryuk was walking down the road until he saw multiple posters that say, ‘Your chance to go to Hawaii, state why you want to and can be the winner on August 5th in city hall at 2:45 pm’. This was Ryuk’s only chance to know what Mr. Charlotte’s last words meant.

Two months later:

It was Wednesday, 2:00 pm, Ryuk got in his best clothes, ate some bacon and eggs, and entered outside, but that’s when he ran into someone,

“Look who it is! The nerd of baking, I heard he is studying about aliens,” Easton giggles, and then the 3 of them start to laugh,

“I am studying about aliens, and they are just a different type of species,” Ryuk whispers putting his head,

“Oh is that right! This loser thinks aliens are real,” Easton blabbers,

“It is, you see I was playing this game in the library-” Ryuk said,

“I don’t CARE! Look, just stay out of my way, I am going to Hawaii and you are going to be a poor loser working in that bakery!” Easton yells,

“You have all that money and you can’t go to Hawaii?” Ryuk questions,

“Look, my dad thinks I have to earn money myself, and then spend it to go to Hawaii,” Easton said in a way that sounds like his dad is a villain. Ryuk nods and just heads to the city hall, but the city hall was very far away, about 30 mins, and Ryuk couldn’t walk 10 miles, he already wasted a good amount of time talking to Easton, he had to take the cab.

“Ryuk!! Are you going to the city hall?” A man said from a far distance approaches Ryuk with a taxi,

“MR. BUCK!! You saved my life, I was wondering how I would get to the city center, Thank you so much!” Ryuk answers with a large smile,

“No problem, always happy to help!” Mr. Buck replies. Ryuk opens the yellow smooth taxi door and gets in the cab, the seats were a printed design of circles and triangles.

2:40 pm:

Ryuk and Mr. Buck get out of the car and enter the City hall, there were rows of seats filled withs crowds of people, the soothing opera music made people dance around the massive building. Mr. Buck and Ryuk got the front row seats, everyone there looked like they wanted to go to Hawaii.

“Hello everyone! I am Atticus Wilson, which all of you probably know, and today we’re going to have participants give reasonable answers on why they want to go to Hawaii!” As Mr. Wilson states, the whole crowd cheers. Many participants go by until it was Easton’s turn,

“Easton!” Mr. Wilson yells,

“Coming Dad!” Easton replies,

“Okay,” Mr. Wilon responds, Easton sprints to the stairs and goes to the middle of the stage,

“I want to go to Hawaii because I want to enjoy life!” Easton assures.

“Next participant, Ryuk!” Mr. Wilson hollers,

“Oh LOOK it’s the loser!” Easton said as he runs down the stairs, Ryuk goes to the middle of the stage,

“I want to go to Hawaii, because of my love and interest in aliens, either mythical or true living species. I want to go and discover it by myself. I also want to know what Mr. Charlotte meant when saying his last words!” Ryuk said with a proud smile. The crowd starts clapping.

“Okay, that’s enough! The winner of-” Mr. Wilson doesn’t complete the sentence, but Easton runs to the stairs, knowing he would win,

“What the heck are you doing?!” Mr. Wilson said with a concerned face,

“Oh, I was just coming up here because I won!” Easton said proudly. The whole crowd seemed blank. Mr. Wilson quickly ignores,

“Sorry about that, the winner of this competition is Ryuk! Please come to the stage,” Mr. Wilson said with a smile. The crowd starts applauding,

“What?! THE LOSER BAKING NERD WON?!” Easton screams,

“Easton! YOU DO NOT call people that?!” Mr. Wilson yells back. Ryuk runs to the stage and goes to the middle.

“I loved your reason! Which is why I chose you as the winner!” Mr. Wilson said,

“But WHY?!” Easton hollers,

“Let me tell you why, when I was your age I also worked at the bakery, I did not have a rich dad,” Mr. Eastons said, the crowd gasps and so does Easton and Ryuk,

“So you were also a loser like Ryuk?!” Easton asked,

“No, and Ryuk is not a loser, I loved mythical creatures especially the Loch Ness Monster! And the mayor at my time had a contest to go to Scotland, I won and I went to Scotland to research the Loch Ness monster, and I saw this passion inside of Ryuk so that’s why I chose him!” Mr. WIlson confirms. Mr. Wilson gives the ticket to Ryuk,

“Thank you so much!” Ryuk said respectfully, Mr. Wilson smiles and nods.

4:00 pm:

“Well Ryuk, when is the flight?” Mrs. Charlotte asked,

“Its next week Monday,” Ryuk said with panic,

“I will tell you what you can have this whole week, off you’ve never been on an airplane, so get mentally prepared and do go pack your luggage,” Mrs. Charlotte smiles and pats Ryuk’s back,

“Thank you!” Ryuk said happily and walked away. As Ryuk was walking down the road he bumped into someone-

“Oh, I am so sorry!” Ryuk said with dismay

“Oh it's alright, wait you’re the winner from the City Hall today,” The girl who is 1 inch shorter than Ryuk and has freckles,

“Uhh yeah, who are you though?” Ryuk questions,

“I am Crystal! Nice to meet you!! You know there are two seats, so I was wondering if I could come?” Crystal said with cute dog eyes, her eyes were blue and her hair was golden,

“Wait, yeah um it does say two seats, so we just met, um,” Ryuk tries to deny but doesn’t know what’s the right choice,

“Oh yeah, I know we just met but come on!!!!! Please???” Crystal tries very hard to convince Ryuk,

“The flights on Monday, 6:45 am, sharp!” Ryuk with serious,

“Ok, I will come to pick you up with a cab, at 5:30 am,” Crystal said,

“Ok I will be ready by then, and my streets in Coronado drive 1142, my name is Ryuk,” Ryuk said with a happy smile,

“Bye! See you on Monday!” Crystal said with a superb amount of enthusiasm,

“Yup!” Ryuk replies.

Monday 5:20 am:

Ryuk got up from his bed, brushed his teeth, he was very sleepy, his eyelids were almost pouring like a liquid to his face, but that’s when he remembered what cartoons do when they are sleepy; he went to his kitchen, and opened one of the cabinets, he took out the toothpicks, and placed from his eyelid, to beneath his eye. His eye still had a scar when Easton threw the rock, but his pain was gone. Ryuk yawned, and poured some milk in his red transparent glass, he drank the milk as if it was his last meal, he took a banana and started munching on that too.

“Knock! Knock! Knock!” Ryuk ran to the door and opened it,

“Hi! The cab came a little earlier than planned,” Crystal said, with very little excitement,

“Oh ok! I am going to get the suitcase,” Ryuk said,

“Ok!” Crystal replies. Ryuk goes straight into a dark hallway and returns with a pleasant smile and a suitcase in his hand. Ryuk takes the red and ripped suitcase and places it in the trunk of the cab.

“All set!” Crystal announces,

“Yup!” Ryuk said as he was locking the door. He slides in the car, and closes the door,

“I am 13, and I am studying about alien stuff,” Crystal said,

“Oh, aliens are cool, but I am going to Hawaii, so I can solve a mystery,” Ryuk replies. Crystal nods and they both get comfortable to lay back.

6:00 am:

Crystal and Ryuk reach the airport, it was the biggest thing Ryuk had ever seen in his life,

“This is humongous, we’re gonna get lost in it,” Ryuk said with fright,

“Don’t worry silly, we won’t get lost, just look at the gate number,” Crystal remarks,

“27A,” Ryuk said with confusion,

“Oh ok! That means it must be this way,” Crystal points as she states. After following Crystal for a few moments, they ran into an elevator,

“We’re gonna need to use this,” Crystal said with excitement. They both go inside and Crystal presses a button, they go up, and they see a very large line, Crystal, walks straight into that line, and Ryuk follows her behind.

“Wait, why are we here?” Ryuk asked,

“Check-in line,” Crystal replies quickly. Crystal looked like she was very rich, all her cosmetics, made her look like her father worked for the president, even her suitcase,

“Ok!” Ryuk, blinks, and then Crystal was gone

“Crystal???!!” Ryuk yells, then a parade of people comes shoving him,

“Watch it, kid!!” A guy roars,

“Sorry,” Ryuk whimpers. And then he saw his luggage gone, he saw a man with a black cap, with his luggage running,

“HEY! Give it back!” Ryuk yells, with all his voice. He sprints, as swift as he can, and slams many people,

“Hey oww!” A woman shrieks,

“What a hooligan!” Another woman hollers. Ryuk saw a bike and hopped onto it. He chases the man for a few moments, until the man trips, and runs away,

“Finally!” Ryuk pants,

“You dummy, where were you?! I hate running you can get in trouble, in the airport realize?!” Crystal said, with terror,

“Sorry! Long story short, some guy stole my suitcase,” Ryuk said,

“I guess at least we’re not late,”

“Why don’t like you like running?” Ryuk asked,

“My mother died by running by running,” Crystal whispered,

“Ok, let’s do the check-in,” Crystal said with disbelief. Crystal approaches the women’s side, and Ryuk to the men’s side.

“Do you have any electronic devices son?” The officer asked with his shades on,

“No,” Ryuk confirms,

“Any jewelry? Liquid? Weapon? Sharp stuff? Or batteries,” The officer pulls, his shades down, and looks at Ryuk’s eye,

“No sir!” Ryuk said with confidence,

“Ok your good son, now I want you to stand like a tree, with your arms stretched,” Officer demands,

“Ok,” Ryuk replies. The officer gets an electronic gadget and touches Ryuk with it all over his body,

“You all good, son, now take your luggage and you can go,” The officer smiles, Ryuk goes straight and takes his luggage, and waits for Crystal.

“Ok so it’s 6:30, just 15 mins, before the flight, so we will go to gate 27A, and board there,” Crystal remarks. Ryuk nods as if he understood everything, which he didn’t.

A few moments later:

“Boarding flight, please come to the boarding station!” The lady on the speaker announced. The whole crowd, including Crystal and Ryuk, rushed and formed a line.

“Next person,” The Karen lady said impatiently,

“Hi! This is our ticket,” Crystal affirms, and hands the ticket to the lady,

“All set you can go!” The lady said Crystal and Ryuk enter a long hallway made out of the grey, rough carpet. Ryuk pulled his red suitcase with max strength because the suitcase was getting stuck on the carpet.

“Hi, this is Hawaiian Airlines Boeing 737, welcome in!” The kind flight attendant said, Crystal nodded and went inside the airplane.

“Who was that?” Ryuk whispers with a frown,

“The flight attendant, the person who cleans and makes the food of the airplane,” Crystal replies back.

“Seat 31C and 30B,” Ryuk announces,

“I will sit in 30B, and you can sit in 31C,” Crystal said. They walk until find 30,

“Ok you are right behind, and you get the window seat,” Crystal said as she lifted her suitcase, and put it on the top compartment, Ryuk did the same thing. Ryuk slides in his seat, and he sees an old woman coming in his direction.

“Hi, honey! Is this sit 31B?” The old lady asked,

“Y-yes, mam!” Ryuk stutters,

“Oh, goodie!” The old lady smiles. The lady gets slides in the middle seat. Then when Ryuk saw something glistening in the sky it might have been the sun, but it was moving.

“This is captain Bill, we will be taking off now, please put on your seat belts,” The radio announces. Ryuk puts his seatbelts on and prays that this will be very safe. The engine starts to rev, and then the airplane goes into its top-tier speed and Ryuk closes his eyes.

A few hours later:

The flight attendant had given his food, and Ryuk started to open it, it was beef tacos, he munched on it as quickly as possible so he fell asleep again, but he had swallowed it too, so he was probably not going to go to sleep again. Once Ryuk wakes up he cannot go back to sleep.

“Honey do you want a cookie, I baked it for my grandson,” The old lady said with kindness, and offers Ryuk a cookie,

“Thank you!” Ryuk said as he took one. He munched on the cookie, it was chocolate and strawberry, two of Ryuk’s favorite flavors. As Ryuk ate them, he thought that this lady must have had a very good experience baking cookies.

“This is awesome,” Ryuk said with astonishment,

“Well back in my day we used to have a lot of bakeries, and I used to work in one, my boss, taught me how to make the best cookies,” The old lady informs,

“Oh! That makes sense!” Ryuk confirms. Ryuk gets comfortable and closes his eyes.

“We have a slight problem, but there is nothing to worry about, stay cautious we might run into turbulence,” The captain remarked. Ryuk was afraid that they would crash or something, but it probably wasn’t going to happen. Ryuk got up from his seat and headed to the restroom. He opened the door and went in. There were no lights in it so he didn’t lock the door.

“We have a bigger problem, there is something in the sky that is visible, we are still trying to figure out what it is!” The captain yelled. Ryuk got out of the bathroom and sprinted to his seat. He puts on his seatbelt and starts to pray. Then he saw something very flashy, it came in quick, and it broke one of the wings of the plane, which exploded. He went black and then he heard the radio on the plane,

“MAYDAY! MAYDAY! BRACE FOR IMPACT!” The captain screamed, Ryuk looked out the window, he saw the plane going super fast into the water.

“Ryuk?!” Crystal screamed,

“Is this heaven?” Ryuk replied,

“NO! You are alive!” Crystal said with concern,

“It’s a miracle?” Ryuk said as he got up. He saw his hand bleeding wildly. Ryuk got up, and he looked at the island, it wasn’t big but it wasn’t small either,

“How are we supposed to get out of here?” Ryuk asked,

“I don’t know, maybe a boat or an airplane will come?” Crystal said with uncertainty.

“We have to survive here somehow, well first I am going to take some rest, I need to take all of this in,” Ryuk said while wiping his forehead. Crystal nods,

“I am going to check out the other side, to see if there are any other survivors,” Crystal declared. Ryuk lays down in the sand and closes his eyes.

A Few hours later:

Ryuk wakes up from the sound of the waves, he sees Crystal stargazing at the sky.

“Are there any survivors?” Ryuk questions,

“No, just us,” Crystal replies,

“What about food, will it last us days?” Ryuk asked with a positive attitude,

“Just 2 days,” Crystal replies,

“We’re kinda doomed,” Ryuk said tiredly. Ryuk goes to a large coconut tree and sees a big leaf on the ground, he takes the leaf and wraps it around his hand, and goes to bed.

Morning:

Ryuk yawns and gets up. He sees Crystal circling the trees in deep thought,

“We need to build a shelter, so we can be protected from the weather, there is a high chance of a storm coming in,” Crystal announced to Ryuk,

“Yeah! You're right, but we also need the materials. We can make the shelter out of bamboo,” Ryuk said,

“Your right I am going to go check if there are any materials that are floating in the ocean,” Crystal informs,

“Oh ok! Then I will look at the materials on the island,” Ryuk declared back. Crystal dives into the ocean and goes at full speed. Ryuk sees a ton of big leaves on the ground, and he got a good idea. He took one of the leaves and put sand in it. He also broke the leaf and a sticky goop came out, he put it in the leaves and wrapped it, this was his idea of a pillow. So he made two of these, for a pillow. Ryuk found big rocks. This can be a good idea to write something on the ground or protect from the weather. As Ryuk was done with it, he waited until Crystal came back.

“I am back, I got some supplies!” Crystal said with excitement,

“Nice!” Ryuk replies,

“I found a hatchet, some wet blankets, lots of pretzels and peanut packs, and lastly, a big shield, well not exactly a big shield, its the door to the airplane,” Crystal said happily

“Well, the hatchet will be very useful!” Ryuk decides,

“We can cut down the coconut tree and use the wood from it,” Crystal suggests,

“Yeah, I was thinking that too,” Ryuk said. Ryuk takes the hatchet and gives all his force at the coconut tree, but it didn’t do a dent,

“The problem is it would take a million tries, by that time it will be dull,” Crystal remarks,

“Your right but we’re gonna have to keep trying until we have successfully done it,” Ryuk said with confidence and keeps swinging,

“I got an idea!!” Crystal face glows up,

“What is it” Ryuk questions,

“Is there any rope,” Crystal asked,

goes fast, doing a lot of damage to the tree

“Yeah!” Ryuk said. Ryuk gave the rope to her, and Crystal tied it between two other trees, she took the hatchet and pulled it with rope like a catapult. The hatchet flew onto the tree, making a lot of marks on the tree. Ryuk and Crystal tried it over and over until they were exhausted,

“This might take us forever, and I am really hungry,” Crystal said with tiredness,

“Me too, we need to find food, I saw a bus with berries earlier, let’s eat the berries,” Ryuk said as he pointed in a direction. Crystal follows Ryuk until they reach a big thorny berry bush.

“Wow, that’s a lot of blueberries!” Crystal jumps in excitement

“Those aren’t blueberries, they are huckleberries,” Ryuk consults. When Ryuk was 8, he used to live with his uncles, until they died from a tragic accident, before that accident he used to go on the boy scouts team. From there he learned all about berries, now he practically could identify any berry in the world.

“I see!” Crystal said as she pulled one from the bush. She tastes it and makes a sour face,

“They are very sour, I guess we have to stick to the food that remains,” Ryuk said hopelessly. Crystal pulls out a bag and sees all kinds of food there. He first started eating the pretzels, they were very salty, he saw the old lady’s cookies and started thinking whether he was the chosen one to live. He saw Crystal devouring the cookies one by one.

“I am full Ryuk!” Ryuk declared,

“Me too,” Crystal replies while rubbing her stomach. They get the hatchet and start cutting the tree again.

“BANG!” The tree falls after numerous amount of tries,

“Finally!!” Ryuk yells and brushes the perspiration off his forehead. Ryuk chops the tree into pieces and uses some of the pieces to make a bed and the other to construct the shelter. He takes the rope, bamboo, and coconut tree pieces and ties them together to make a whole shed.

“Great we made a shed, to protect us from rainy weathers,” Ryuk said proudly,

“Ok now we got a place to sleep tonight, we’re gonna need blankets because it’s gonna start getting cold,” Crystal exclaimed,

“No problem we got these large leaves, we can use this as a blanket,” Ryuk replies,

“Yeah, that’ll work!” Crystal gives a quick response and smiles. It was the evening, Ryuk and Crystal started circling the island.

“There’s a lot of rocks, we can form a word from using these rocks, like ‘HELP’” Ryuk articulates,

“That’s a fantastic idea,” Crystal said with joy. Both of them take huge rocks and form the letters h, e, l, and p.

“Let’s hope someone can see this!” Crystal exclaimed. Ryuk nods and heads on to the food basket,

“There are 6 meals, it will help us for today’s dinner and tomorrow’s lunch and dinner combined,” Crystal declared,

“Oh that means, after that, we need to make our food,” Ryuk said with dismay. Crystal nods and walks away.

“What do you think the time is?” Ryuk questions, Crystal stops midway,

“Probably 7 pm or 6:30 pm,” Crystal said with uncertainty,

“Well then let’s have supper!” Ryuk exclaimed,

“I am not that hungry, you can eat,” Crystal remarked,

“Okay I guess, Ryuk said. He opens the transparent box and sees two cold tacos, he eats them like he never ate in his life. Ryuk finishes quickly and goes to the shelter,

“You sure you don’t want to eat? The food will get col-” Ryuk doesn’t finish his sentence when Crystal interrupts,

“THE FOODS NOT GONNA GET COLD OKAY? Look I JUST CAN’T TAKE ANY OF THIS!!” Crystal screams as she walks away. Ryuk goes to his bunk, lays down, and goes to sleep.

“Ahhh What a beautiful day,” Ryuk says as he stretches his arm and gets up from his hard bed. Sleeping that night was horrible, the bed was so hard Ryuk had a backache in the middle of the night. Ryuk looked beside and saw Crystal’s bed with a huge leaf on it. Crystal probably used that as a blanket.

“Look I am sorry about last night I just couldn’t believe it! Can you please forgive me?” Crystal asked,

“Yeah, sure!” Ryuk said politely when he steps on something smooth but hard, Ryuk looks down and sees a turtle,

“Ahhhh!” Ryuk yells,

“Silly it’s just a turtle!” Crystal laughed,

“Can we keep him?” Ryuk asked,

“Am I your mom? Yeah, we can keep him,” Crystal said with thrill,

“Let’s name him Roca,” Ryuk declared,

“Sure I guess, as long as she’s fine with it,” Crystal says with a pleasant smile. Ryuk can have Crystal play with Roca the whole day.

Another day passed, like nothing, and Roca was gone from his sandpit. Ryuk yawns,

“Where’s Roca?” Ryuk asked with solicitude. Crystal wakes up in an instant,

“Maybe he went for a walk or a swim?” Crystal guessed,

“Probably,” Ryuk remarked. Ryuk stared at Roca’s pit for a minute and went to the side of the island, there wasn’t any way they could brush their teeth, so Ryuk and Crystal used the salty water to rub it against their teeth. You might be also wondering by now, how are they drinking water? They are using the salty one till now.

“We can’t stick with the salty water, it’s toxic and it’s not like the salt is going away from our body,” Crystal declared,

“Your right,” Ryuk responded while wondering what can be another solution,

“How many coconuts are there?” Crystal asked,

“From the tree, we cut down, um a solid 50,” Ryuk said,

“Well, that’s awesome! That’s more than enough for us to last about 25 days,” Crystal yelped,

“Well, I think we should start by cutting the coconuts!” Ryuk exclaimed. He took the dull hatchet and kept on slicing the coconut with his one hand until it broke.

“Crack!” The coconut cracked,

“Okay I got one cracked, I need to do another,” Ryuk remarked,

“You can just do this instead,” Crystal said, as she placed the hatchet straight and then started banging the coconut on the hatchet,

“Crack!” The coconut cracked,

“See this took way less time,” Crystal discloses. Both of them start munching on the copra and then drinking the coconut water.

“Good breakfast!” Ryuk exclaimed. Ryuk took the last of his remaining rope, a long stick, and sharp rock, and combined it to make a spear.

“Now this can be good to catch fish!” Ryuk said as if he invented something new. Happiness wasn’t a critical mood in this situation, it is hope, belief, and determination. Ryuk’s clothes were all ripped and his hand was still healing. They knew that they were hopeless, but most importantly they had belief in themselves and each other. Ryuk ran to the ocean with his spear in one hand, after several tries he caught a fish,

“I CAUGHT ONE!” Ryuk yelled in astonishment,

“Just one?” Crystal said,

“Well, they are really fast,” Ryuk remarked,

“I am going to make a fire so we can cook the fish,” Crystal said,

“Okay I will try to catch more fish then,” Ryuk replied. Crystal finds a lot of extra wood from the other day and finds flint rocks and a little bit of steel from her pocket, it must have been the metal necklace she had been carrying, she rubbed the flint and the little bit of steel together for a pretty long time until the fire came out she placed it on the wood,

“I made a fire!!!” Crystal said,

“Nice, I am trying to find more fish,” Ryuk announces. As Ryuk goes back to the ocean he sees Roca with two large fish in her mouth,

“Roca got us fish!” Ryuk exclaimed,

“Thanks, Roca, we’ll cook one for you too!” Crystal affirmed. Crystal took the two fish from Roca’s mouth, she took two sticks and put them inside the fish.

“Now we can roast it over the fire like they’re a marshmallow,” Crystal exclaimed with happiness as if she got what she wanted for her birthday. Ryuk got his large leaves as a plate. After a long time, the fish was done, Crystal gave one fish to Ryuk, one to Roca, and one for herself.

“Roca's, it's really hot, so be careful!” Crystal said as if she was Roca’s mom. Roca did not listen to a single word to what Crystal said and she started munching like she never ate before,

“It needs a lot of things,” Ryuk affirmed,

“Yeah it does, but we don’t have any of the ingredients,” Crystal said hopelessly,

“One of the most important things that we need is a taste to this fish, maybe we should put some berries there,” Ryuk conveyed,

“We can, but the berries have a horrible taste,” Crystal affirmed,

“We can try it right?” Ryuk responded,

“Fine, we can try it at dinner, but if anything goes wrong it’s all your fault,” Crystal acknowledges.

Eight hours later or 9 pm:

Crystal went to the berry bush and plucked out 10 berries, This is not the best idea Crystal thought inside her head. Crystal loved reading, in school people called book addicts, and that’s why she can go deep in pretty much anything you can think of. Crystal walks over to the fire and starts setting the fish up.

“Hey on the bright side we get to experiment with things!” Ryuk exclaimed,

“I am not giving the ‘tasted’ to fish Roca,” Crystal replied,

“Fine,” Ryuk remarked, Ryuk walked away and went to the other side island, so he can gather leaves to make a plate, he plucked leaves off the tree, then he turned around saw Crystal,

“H-ow?! Did you come here so fast?” Ryuk stuttered with confusion,

“I used to run in my school, you know, like cross country and track and field,” Crystal said nervously. Ryuk nodded and walked away, Ryuk knew something was up. That day when he won the prize several people came to Ryuk as if he was a king and he can grant any wish, be he still doesn’t know why he chose Crystal.

“Ryuk food is ready!” Crystal chanted,

“I am coming,” Ryuk sprinted to the fire.

PART 2 WILL BE COMING SOON!

PART 2: “Okay let’s see how the fish tastes,” Crystal remarked. Ryuk took a huge bite of the fish and closed his eyes,

“This IS awesome!!” Ryuk replied,

“Seriously,” Crystal said as she takes a bite of the fish. Crystal was super surprised that the fish was going to taste that good.

“See I told you,” Ryuk smirked. Ryuk looked at the sky and saw something shiny,

“Do you see that?” Ryuk asked,

“See what?” Crystal back,

“This weird shiny object, probably a shooting sta-” Ryuk didn’t finish the sentence,

“We need to go, immediately!” Crystal bellowed. Crystal and Ryuk went behind a boulder, the “shooting star” was gone. Ryuk got up,

“It’s probably just a shiny, nothing to worry abo-” Ryuk doesn’t finish, and a huge piece of metal lands on the fire. Crystal pulls Ryuk behind the boulder. Then suddenly Ryuk remembers, what he saw in that flight,

“It might be aliens,” Ryuk said in uncertainty,

“You silly! It’s no time to joke around, I study about it, but science has shown that it isn’t real!” Crystal said with an annoying accent.

“BRFFF!” A deafening sound hits Ryuk’s ear hits.

“RYUK! WAKE UP!!” Crystal screamed into Ryuk’s ear. Ryuk got up started walking and then fell on the sand flat on his face.

“I am okay!” Ryuk confirms as he does a thumbs up,

Morning:

Ryuk yawned and woke up from his sand, which was very uncomfortable, probably the reason he had his backache. Ryuk brushes his with his sharp fingers and goes to the water. He takes a whole handful of water and throws it at his face.

“What the-” Ryuk exclaims, as he turns around. He saw a circular object with a bubble type on top,

“What is this?” Ryuk asks,

“I stayed up all night, you were sleeping this just floated from the beach,” Crystal said. She looked all fresh and kind of absurd.

“Could have been from the flight?” Ryuk questions,

“It isn’t when it hit the flight it was very much stable,” Crystal replies,

“Are we gonna try to on it?” Ryuk suggested,

“Just press this switch, and I think it turns on,” Crystal said with doubt,

“Okay, first we must be ready,” Ryuk said,

“We’re ready,” Crystal said in rush. Crystal pressed that big red button in heavy uncertainty, if the switch didn’t work she looked like would drown in a sea of grief. The bubble-type lid opened, and you could enter, both of them jumped in, and in a flash they teleported.

“Where are we?!” Ryuk panicked,

“Somewhere…” Crystal confirmed. They were surrounded by purple walls and two vents.

“Let’s go through the vents and see which one leads to what,” Ryuk remarked. Crystal nodded and pointed to the vent she wanted to go to,

“Let’s go through this one,” Crystal said as she pointed,

Both of them go through the vent for a long time, and then they heard some heavy whisperings, it was an unknown language for Ryuk. Ryuk deeply thought inside his head, it must have been aliens, as he was thinking “DHAM!”, Ryuk slammed on the ground with Crystal,

“AHHHH!” Ryuk screamed in fear,

“How did humans come here,” The unknown being object said, the voice sounded like a robot,

“We have stumbled upon your place, we are truly sorry, please mercy us,” Crystal said with a weak voice,

“Our leader will decide,” The being remarked. Then the alien said a secret code, where a really short person who looked two million years old pondered in,

“Cr-yst-al?!” The old man yelled,

“Dad!” Crystal remarked. Ryuk was dead confused,

“W-hat?” Ryuk stuttered. The old man led Crystal and Ryuk to a big room.

“You see this is my daughter, she actually a million-year-old, but she was born with three superpowers, one: she can time travel, this was a family gene we all could do it, and so was immortality which she also has, two: make herself look young, and lastly three: she can run really fast,” The old man said as he ran out of breath,

“Oh, so that explains everything!” Ryuk said with sweat dripping down his head.

“But there’s is a problem, a long time ago an emperor had two puzzle pieces that were very valuable, but he lost one of them, they were important because they make the alien city function, but one day a robber stole one of the pieces, which was never found again. And now we only have one more piece but we can’t seem to find it at all. People say that Xenoarchaelogist found it but he died afterward,” The old man spoke with all his energy,

“Wait you mean this?” Ryuk asks, as he looks in his pockets, and pulls out a black piece of plastic material and a purple light glowing on it,

“This? The light didn’t glow before,” Ryuk said,

“Oh my yes!!! This is the piece thank you so much, it glows, as you start getting closer and closer to the place,” The old man shined like a light bulb. The old man took the piece from Ryuk and he put it into a machine, which started getting brighter and brighter, and Ryuk woke up on the sand. All alone.

“Crystal?! Hello anyone?!” Ryuk panicked, as he saw a motorboat coming near him, he saw a group of men coming,

“Hola! Buenos dias, Como estas?” The man said in concern,

“I no comprehend Espanol,” Ryuk replied,

“Oh ok, where do you live,”

“I live in Westville, North America,” Ryuk said in a panic, thinking that they won’t understand,

“Okay, how long have been here? Have any family? Anyone else here?” The man asked,

“What’s the date? And no family and no one else is here” Ryuk asked as he thought about Crystal and where she disappeared,

“August 31st,” The man replied,

“21 days,” Ryuk said in disbelief.

“Okay, I need to take you to the nearest airport,” The man said, they both jumped on the boat and left the lonely island.

Two months later:

“Hi, Mrs. Charlotte long time no see,” Ryuk exclaimed,

“Oh my hello, how was your journey?” Mrs. Charlotte asked,

“Fantastic!” Ryuk replied,

“You know a girl named Crystal, she came to visit and see if you were there,” Mrs. Charlotte said as she was mopping the floor,

“Yes, do you know where she went,” Ryuk questioned in astonishment,

“Yes, she said something about meeting her on a specific island in Puerto Rico,” Mrs. Charlotte replied. Ryuk nodded and thought what will happen next is the question.

[androgynousblackbox]

Lucky Light AU: Where Light kinda does find his shit

Ryuk: Light. Hey, Light. Light. Hey, Light. Hey, hey. Light. Light. Light. Hey, Light. Hey, Light. Light. Hey, Light. Did you chose yet? Did you chose yet? Did you chose yet? I know you can’t talk to me while in class, but I gotta know. Did you chose yet, did you chose yet? Hey, class is over, so you can talk to me right now, huh...? Where are you going so fast? Ryuk: Hey, Light. Hey, hey. Light. Liiiiiight. Don’t ignore me, you know that won’t help you. Uh? Wait, this is not the usual way to home. What are you doing now? Oh, I like this warehouse. It looks creepy and cozy. Nice place for a murder, if I do say so myself. Are you going to answer me anytime soon, Light? Hey, Light! Light: ALRIGHT, ALRIGHT, I GOT IT, JUST PLEASE SHUT THE FUCK UP ALREADY. Ryuk: Well, look who finally decided he is not mute! Light: SHUT UP. Ryuk:... Light: Sorry, that was too much. I know you must be frustrated too, especially because I kinda left you hanging there... But god, you are annoying. Ryuk: It has been almost a month now, Light. I didn’t say anything because of the apples. Don’t think I don’t appreciate you buying me some each morning. That is nice of you. But if you don’t want to do anything with the Death Note, then you should give it up already. It makes me feel like I am a pet you are keeping around for pity and I don’t like that. Light: Yeah, yeah, I know, I know... I am sorry. Look, I have been thinking about all of this and... well, I think I could do it. Ryuk: Oh, really? Light: I mean... I am not really that smart. You noticed that already, right? Everytime the teacher calls me to read something or to solve a math problem on the front, something always happens. Suddenly someone has an asthma attack or someone rings the fire alarm as a joke or a dog sneaked into the classroom or there is a fight o there was a explosion from a fireworker someone brought or there is a gas leak or... Ryuk: I got the idea already. I did noticed it and tell you the truth, if I wasn’t following you permanently I would almost think you were doing it somehow. Light: Well, that is the thing. I don’t. And you would have noticed too that, despite not really knowing how to read English well or solve math problems, I still have the best grades at the school. Everyone thinks I am the best student. Why do you think that is? Ryuk: How the hell should I know...  Light: It’s because I just get lucky! And I am a fraud. This has always happened and at first it was fun because, sure, I don’t actually need to study so I can spend more time reading manga and playing videogames, that is fine. But people treat me differently if they think I am a smart and relaxed student. They think I am cool. My family... Light: Everyone treats me differently. Better. Like I matter, you know? But I don’t. I am no different than any other kid that is going to live buying body pillows and filling his room with DVDs and figurines, that embarass his parents. The only reason they don’t see that is because I just have the luck of filling the right circles on some tests. So that got me thinking, maybe I could get lucky enough to do something good with the Death Note. Ryuk: That is one way to look at it, I guess. Light: I will probably never do anything more important or significant than that. My family counts on me being a cop, working the same as dad, but even if I managed to do that, I know I would only spend the entire day following someone’s else orders and dad would never say it, but I will know he knows I suck at that and that I never knew what I was doing. That I was faking it the entire time. Ryuk: So you want to use the Death Note to kill your father? Light: WHAT. No! How the hell did you reached that conclusion?! Ryuk: I don’t know, you just keep dancing around the bushes and that was the only interesting response I could think of. Light:... Fine. To summarize: I want to use the Death Note for good. And the only way I can think of is taking away all the bad people I would never get to do anything if I ever became an actual cop. Dad would agree too, there are some people that just don’t deserve to live. He wouldn’t say it, of course, but I know that is just he feels. How could he not when he see so many people hurting others? I might not be the genius son he wants me to be, but I at least can help this way.  Ryuk: He he. Sure, why not. You can try it at least. I never heard of anyone else attempting it before, so you might actually be lucky enough to pull it off. In any case it could be fun to see. Light: Until you write my name on your own notebook, right? Ryuk: Exactly. Light: About that... can I ask you a favour? Ryuk: Mmmm, I could hear it. Light: Just... write it down when I ask you to. I know my luck better than anyone else. The moment that it rans out or I start doing more bad than good, then write it down. The show will be over for both of us. Alright? Ryuk: I can’t really make promises such as those, Light. There is a good reason humans are not supose to know when they are about to die. But I will consider it. Light:... fine, I guess is the best I can ask. I will do the best I can so it’s worth it.

[pepucz]

Death Note personal thoughts

I saw a post about thoughts on “everyone goes to Mu” part of the manga by one of my favourite tumblr users - 13eyond13 and I originally replied to it, but I figured my thoughts were more about my personal feelings than adding something relevant to the original post, so I decided to post it totally separately here just for my own satisfaction. (also my English can suck hard, so if anyone decides to read this all, I’m sorry for any mistakes)

_______

I must admit I was rooting for Light and was truly a KIRA supporter at the beginning (till the moment he killed Lind L. Tailor), I also took the information from Ryuk about Mu as a fact for everyone just like Light did, but that's probably because I'm an atheist and I have lots of nihilistic thoughts, so Ryuk saying the “Mu” part would only prove my own views and beliefs - the nihilistic aspect of the whole story is also one of the reasons why Death Note remained one of my most favourite mangas of all my time and why I’m so happy to have my love for it fully restored and be actively back in the fandom...

So yeah I agreed with the original intention of Light with the Death Note, he was pretty careful with what kind of criminals he killed, he "wouldn't kill those who killed accidentally or without malice like car accident deaths for example" (chapter 47), but I didn't agree with his God complex, that was probably the first thing that didn't click right with me even though it does make a sense as Light wanted to set new rules for humanity by his own standarts, I just don’t like the idea of “God” or whatever, but the real endgame for me was the moment he killed Tailor, he didn't know if he was criminal, he killed him just because he challenged him. That was the point where I stopped rooting for him. I also saw killing Raye Penber and the rest of the FBI agents as even more unnecessary steps and also a pretty obvious way to cast suspicion against himself. But we wouldn't have a story if it wouldn’t happen 🙃 And I still loved his character even after this tbh :)

I must admit I don't value a human’s life as something more valuable than an animal's life (of course I do value my dearest's lives super lot, I would die for them anytime or rather I do continue living for them, but those lost humans' lives of people, whom I hadn't known personally, haven't heard their story or whom I simply didn’t like just don't spur any real pity for them in me, earth is overpopulated anyway, what truly upsets me in the worldwide spectrum is losing some extinct animal species - I even cry when I see the planet lost some animal species just because of the human greediness) and I'm sick of ppl making so much fuss over the loss of a human life than over animal's one especially if they don't know those humans personally. Death is part of the human life, sometimes it’s unfair how some lives end, but the World won’t stop spinning because of it and it’s not like humans are endangered species... it’s pretty much the other way around. I mentioned this bit of my feelings about general mankind because I was pretty irritated when the task force or someone in DN universe was upset with ppl dying even if they were/might be a piece of shit, just because it’s “human life!! Human!!”. Like - I loved Soichiro Yagami as a father figure and I really loved his love for Light, but I was totally done with him ruining L’s plans in Yotsuba’s arc XD Same for innocent Light in this arc, but at least he didn’t try to do anything that would ruin L’s plans just to stop the criminal’s deaths (Misa managed it in the end and everyone was satisfied thanks to that for the time being) XD

Back to the topic of using Death Note - I would plan to use it as Light did in the beginning, but target mainly animal abusers, it would also be super hard for me to find names and faces and 100% proof that they are the guilty ones. Also I would never think of myself as a God, that's totally stupid IMHO. I would be just a mass murderer like Light by human's standards. 'Murderer' is still a word invented by humans alone, so it wouldn't faze me as much as it fazed Light being called like that... Also maybe I would never use Death Note to the extent as Light did, because now even criminals have GDPR protection and their names and photos are often kept secret (which I find to be super unfair). Light would never commit a murder without a Death Note, and I’m the same (even though I can’t guarantee what I would do if I saw someone torturing animals/my loved ones in front of me.... I still think I would go berserk probably). Anyway even with knowing there is nothing after Death for sure, I would still try to make the world a better place by what I believe is right, I don’t care that it would seem evil to some ppl, I also don't give a shit there is no meaning for human's lives in the vast of the universe, I wouldn't care that this plan of making the World a better place would also mean nothing compared the whole Universe and its timeline... I would still try to do it, because it would satisfy me for the time of me being alive...

All humans have a choice to not hurt others, those who decide to do it especially when it concerns truly innocent human's lives or animal's ones (I truly hate humans, who abuse animals just for fashion, cosmetics, household products, money or for some sick sense of fun) just don't deserve their life in my mindset and I don't care how wrong it is in human society's view. I get especially angry when some criminal runs away from Borstal (because he is not put in prison as he is mentally ill and commited crime because of it) or from prison, of even worse when a criminal is released by the court for good behaviour or some shit and then that individual ends innocent life again.... in such cases I just get furious at the impotence of our laws because it means this individual can harm someone close to me too just as simply because “as a human” he still has all the human rights even after he violated someone else’s rights, that’s just super unfair. I also don't believe in real peace, human race is not capable of it imho. That's why we have to have laws... and here I’m getting back to Death Note - our laws serve the same purpose as Kira's law did in my opinion, only Kira was more successful because it was pretty definitive and striked even those who otherwise wouldn't give a shit about our weak laws. There are people who want to live peacefully and don't need any law for that, then there are some who live in peace just because of the fear of our laws' consequences and then we have those who don't give a shit about laws because it won't cost them their lives... + a small group who don't give a shit even it would cost them their life... (we don't have a death sentence in Czech Republic anymore as it was deemed too "inhuman", I must add that I must agree that there are crimes where it's almost impossible to convict the criminal as 100% guilty and it's better to just put them in the prison - as I already mentioned I would have a really hard time using the Death Note because I would be too afraid I might kill someone innocent). So Kira's idea about peace was no different than the current worlwide idea of peace with our laws.

Now to get somewhere else for a bit - I fell in love with L and Near and I was quite happy with the ending of Death Note and how Light was served and killed by Ryuk. I felt a bit of pity for his death, but it didn't traumatize me like L's (or Mello's) death tbh. I woudn’t really change a thing about L’s and Light’s deaths anyway...

When I look at the overal picture of Death Note, Light still managed to save more innocent lives than Near and L imho. During his time the crime dropped by 70% worldwide. 70% is truly a large number considering the worldwide measure. A lot of innocent humans didn't die because of rapists and murderers thanks to Light. But as DN is pretty nihilistic the world returned back to the old standards after Light's defeat and the crime percentage grew back as it was before Kira's reign. So defeating Kira served right only to people who's life’s purpose is fighting criminals - they need them to exist otherwise their job would be meaningless - and Kira almost took it from them. L's life purpose was solving crimes, but what would there be to solve if criminals were ceasing to exist? I see it as the main reason why he got involved in the Kira case at first even if he himself wouldn’t admit it. Kira was threatening his life's purpose. But of course that's just my impression. I still fell in love with L the most even if our views differed.

_________

Dunno if this whole rant makes sense or not but that’s just how I feel....

Death Note doesn't exist unfortunately and even if it would and I would get my hands on it, if it would be haunted by Ryuk, I would be definitely served by him pretty soon anyway, because he would probably get bored with me very soon 😂 I'm not a genius and I would be afraid of harming innocent beigns, so I would be extremely careful with using the Death Note.

Might try to bargain with apples but knowing Ryuk it wouldn't be enough to keep him from writing my name down sooner than my time is up 😂 I wouldn't even blame him 🙃 I'm simple and boring average woman, who is totally done with human race and most of the humans.

BTW I really love this little bit from the pilot chapter of Death Note:

"But that would probably mean you'd have to kill the majority of mankind." 👍

(might delete this whole post later because of my social anxiety or if I get too roasted for my opinions, because I'm a coward 😄 I do stand firmly behind my beliefs especially IRL but I also prefer to be invisible on public sites 😄)

[monofanii]

→ commissioned from artist. | HIGH QUALITY BC TUMBLR SUCKS.

If you remove this caption or artist credit, I’ll haunt you.

if i disappear / ¿ǝɯ ɹoɟ ʞool noʎ llᴉʍ       — together, or not at all.

Yagami Light & Makise Kurisu, Death Note & Steins;Gate.

My friend and I have crafted a crossover AU that we write together, thus how this commission was born. In which Kurisu and Light form an unexpected friendship and, in a plot that mashes together events of Steins;Gate & Death Note, jump from world line to world line to reach Stein’s Gate and find a reality where not only is the world saved from the destruction of the time machine race, but also where the two of them can survive together.

Tbh, my favorite AU / Crossover I’ve ever had the pleasure of writing with a friend and absolutely my favorite commission I’ve ever gotten, because the artist did SUCH an amazing job and I couldn’t have been happier. ♥ I got it a while back, but never posted it, so here it is now.

I’ll put a bit of (wordy) plot context under the cut because I think it’s a lot of fun and gives the commission more #insight, if anyone is interested, but I could talk about this AU we’ve written all day, so I’ll just leave it at an (as quick as possible) rundown of events in our story setup lmao.

THIS PLOT SUMMARY, THOUGH AN AU CROSSOVER, WILL SPOIL SOME CANON EVENTS FOR STEINS;GATE, STEINS;GATE 0 AND DEATH NOTE.

Light attends the Nakabachi conference Kurisu ends up running out of curiosity and is, at one point, overheard by Okabe Rintaro when he thinks he’s alone with Ryuk discussing his plans as Kira.

Light & Kurisu meet at this conference after her argument with Okabe. The two of them end up making a positive first impression on one-another due to their intellect and personalities & exchange contact information / begin talking.

Kurisu doesn’t die initially: she presents her research to her father, but Nakabachi is angry when she doesn’t hand it over solely to him and storms off without inciting violence.

The world line changes because of an unknown d-mail sent by Rintaro elsewhere, which contains information sensitive to leaking Kira’s identity, rearranging Light’s fate and alerting SERN.

Both Kurisu & Light realize something is wrong, but eventually shrug it off.

Kurisu still pursues Okabe and joins his lab due to his peculiar persona. Everything proceeds as per canon, with all the usual s;g lab members and their d-mail shenanigans, but Kurisu tells Light about the PhoneWave early on and he, too, becomes a lab mem alongside her, wondering if this supposed “time machine” can be used in the event he needs to dodge suspicion from the investigation team searching for Kira.

Through all those nifty plot setup chapters s;g has, Light and Kurisu begin to form an unexpectedly strong and very close friendship and end up spending the majority of their time together, both inside and outside of the lab.

She discovers Light’s identity as Kira after incidentally ending up in possession of his Death Note and its contents. This is on the night that Shit Gets Real(tm).

SERN invades the lab as per canon, but Light is the one who is shot and killed as opposed to Mayuri. Thus, Kurisu time leaps to the past using the PhoneWave.

Both Light and Kurisu retain their memories and are the only ones among the lab mems who have such a strong Reading Steiner, taking Okabe’s place, though Rintaro is still a prominent figure that Kurisu ends up confiding in.

In almost every attempt Kurisu makes to save Light’s life from SERN, the investigation team formerly led by L (already deceased), which has been given the information Rintaro leaked in his d-mail by SERN, is most often the cause of his death instead.

This is the ALPHA world line, where Kurisu survives the present, but Light is murdered by SERN and/or killed by the investigation team / Ryuk (as per DN canon) a few days after the PhoneWave is completed. Eventually, the world is trapped and cut off by SERN when Kurisu is taken hostage by them and forced to complete their time machine research (and later killed, framed as the “mother of the time machine” against her will.) In this world line, Kurisu has to time leap continuously in hopes of saving Light’s life and avoiding SERN / the IT.

During this time as they grow closer, Kurisu comes to terms with Light being Kira and promises to keep his secret even though she doesn’t agree with Kira’s ideals and doesn’t approve of his actions. In the ALPHA world line, their friendship steadily grows stronger until Light as a person becomes more important to her than the fact he’s Kira and because the friendship is mutual, he believes in her and trusts her with his secrets. Kurisu makes him promise he won’t lie to her anymore and when he says he won’t, she believes in him, too.

Kurisu ultimately does not waiver or give up because she refuses to leave a friend who has become so important to her to die. Like Rintaro with Mayuri, she cares less about the state of the future and more about saving a friend she’s come to love.

After much trial and error, by undoing all d-mails as per s;g canon, Kurisu eventually completely reverses the timeline by discovering and undoing the d-mail Rintaro sent regarding Kira, protecting Light’s identity from the IT moving back into the previous world line and preventing SERN from detecting the presence of a time machine.

Light gifts her an Upa phone charm he wins from an arcade machine after she demands he win her one to celebrate escaping the ALPHA world line. It’s a rare metal Upa, that later becomes relevant in Nakabachi’s role.

They reconnect with the lab members in this timeline.

All seems well for a few days, until Suzuha suddenly appears once more to warn them of an oncoming war and, almost two weeks later, after the PhoneWave has been recreated for the sole purpose of time leaping (no d-mail) as everyone figures out what to do, Kurisu is murdered by her father in her hotel room, who steals her research to frame as his own and flees the country.

This is the BETA world line, in which Light survives the present, but Kurisu is murdered by Nakabachi. The world erupts into World War III as countries war over Kurisu’s laptop and research to build the first time machine and, in the future, Light is eventually discovered to be Kira, captured, and executed. In this world line, Light is the one who must continuously time leap to save Kurisu’s life and stop WW3 from happening.

Kurisu gives Light permission to abandon her or do whatever he needs to in order to reach the utopia he dreams of creating with Kira if that’s what makes him happy. Light, however, refuses to leave her behind and presses forward not only for the sake of saving the world from its war-torn future so that he as Kira may thrive, but because Kira’s utopia no longer exists unless Kurisu is alive & part of it alongside him.

Stein’s Gate in this timeline constitutes a world line in which : the time machine is never built, detected or perfected, thus the race and war are completely prevented from happening and the world is in no greater danger in the future, Kurisu survives and is not killed by her father or external factors, Light survives and is not killed by SERN or external factors, and Light’s identity as Kira is ultimately protected by Kurisu, allowing him to evade discovery by the IT and escape execution by Ryuk.

Since both Light and Kurisu have worked together this entire time, retaining their memories with every time leap, and thus keeping all memories intact through the entire plot, their reunion upon reaching Stein’s Gate together is a heartfelt and familiar one, because they both remember everything / each other.

Upon reaching Stein’s Gate, Kurisu gifts Light a fairy Upa charm for his phone and tells him he’s only allowed to remove it if he finds another metal Upa, in which case he can have the metal one and she’ll take the fairy instead, so they can “match.”

That quick plot timeline is the gist of it, this is a massive AU with a lot of small details I just can’t fit here, but I’m so glad to get to write it with someone. Props to Biancnya, my lovely furry spouse, because without her, writing all the convoluted plot that comes along with this premise wouldn’t be nearly as enjoyable. ♥ Light and Kurisu’s friendship has been so much fun to explore and if you read my tldr summary, I hope you at least find it interesting, too!

Or at the very least enjoy this beautiful work of art.

[dansphlevels]

A Sword, A Little Bit Of Magic, And A Whole Lot Of Pizza

This story was made in part of the @phandomreversebang, based on these art posts by @myawfod, and edited by @smiles-are-toxic! Make sure to check out the art before reading!

Summary: When Dan and Phil are following strange dark creatures that appeared out of nowhere in London, things go wrong and they end up being sucked into an alternate dimension, where magic exists and they must find a way to use it in order to contain the creatures before they completely overrun this new world. Warning: contains the use of ‘spork’ as an insult, the destruction of a perfectly good library book, and questionable pizza physics. 

Length: 15k words 

Themes: alternate universe (literally), magic, alternate dimension, prophecy, two dorks trying to survive in an alternate dimension, fluff, light pining

 In the corner booth of the pizza parlour sat two boys. College-aged, maybe a bit older. They talked quietly over an already half-eaten pizza. They blended in just fine with the other customers in the shop, save for the fact that they smelled a little off. But they knew that they didn’t quite belong. These boys weren’t from this city, or even this country. In fact… these boys weren’t even from this dimension.

 And this is where our story begins. Two boys, in a pizza shop, with hardly an idea how they got here and no idea how to get home, but some idea of why they’re here. But I suppose, in order to understand fully what’s going on, we have to start at the beginning.

---

“Come on Phil,” Dan muttered quietly, crouching as he crept along. “I think I saw another one.”

“Dan, are you sure? I'm not sure if…”

“Shh! Phil, look!”

They peered over a large tank of something, careful where they stepped. The warehouse was a mess, with pipes and tools scattered aimlessly. One wrong move would knock something over, and the creatures not thirty meters away would spot them.

Phil rested his hands on the tank, which hummed underneath him. The factory, however disorganized, was active.

“What do you think they are?” He whispered.

Dan narrowed his eyes, trying to make out the dark figures in the minimal light. They were as black as shadows, from what he could tell, so that they blended in with the shadows of the surrounding machines. But through a large hole in the ceiling, the moonlight shone through and gave them some form.

Shadowy, scaly limbs, tendrils of darkness swirling up towards the light. Their eyes were gold, huge and reflective. They were truly creatures of pure terror.

“They look like the guy in Death Note,” Phil suggested helpfully. “What's his name? Rick?”

“It's Ryuk, you spork. And he was a death god; these are clearly monsters of some kind.”

Phil scowled, pouting. “I think they look like Rick.”

“Ryuk!”

One of the creatures growled gutturally, whipping around in their direction. The two boys ducked, breathing shallowly.

They waited in silence for a few seconds. “You think he saw us?”

“Oh my gosh Phil, stop assigning gender to this creature just because it's scary! For all you know, it's a ‘she’, and you just hurt her feelings!”

The monster growled in anguish as if to emphasize the point.

“See? Rebecca’s upset!”

Phil peaked over the tank, finding Rebecca in the darkness. “I think she's more of a Becky.”

Becky’s glowing eyes locked on Phil, and she let out a horrible wail, causing Phil to stumble back in surprise. “She's calling for backup!” Dan stage-whispered, horrified.

“Um, Dan?”

“How many of them do you think there are? I see at least five, but it's hard to make them out!”

“Dan!”

Dan spun around, “What?”

Phil gestured to the contraption behind them: a mass of tubes, all connecting to one central control panel in the center. All the lights on the panel were glowing.

Dan's eyes widened. “Phil…”

“I didn't mean to! I just… tripped!”

“You klutz! How many did you press?”

Phil chewed on his lower lip. An alarm started going off, whirring loudly in warning.

“Phil!”

“Most of them!” He confessed. “Not all of them! But most! Dan, we need to get out of here!”

The monsters wailed in agony at the noise, writhing in agitation. A pipe burst, spraying them with some sort of watery substance.

“Dan, come on!”

Dan held up one hand silently. “Wait. Watch what's happening.”

Another pipe burst, and then a third, showering the creatures in blue foam and brown sewage. “That's disgusting!”

Becky let out a wail that tore through the entire factory, causing the foundation to shudder. She stomped, and a thin tube burst, mixing with the chemicals already on the floor and exploding in a blast of white light, throwing Dan and Phil backward.

Phil landed on the floor roughly, sliding back to hit his back against a machine. “Dan!”

“Over here!”

Ignoring whatever was going on at the site of the explosion- clearly, the monsters had more important things to focus on than two puny humans- Phil ran over to the site of Dan's voice. He'd landed in a mass of broken piping. “Are you okay?”

Dan brought his hand to his head, touching carefully. His fingers came back reddened. “I hit my head. But it's not that bad, Phil- look.”

Phil turned around, looking where Dan was pointing. There was a gaping hole with a mass of swirling blues and purples where the monsters had just been.

All the monsters had been sucked in, all except Becky. She whined, backing up against the machines.

“A portal,” Phil whispered.

Cracks spider-webbed across the floor. The entire building was shaking with the power of the portal, the winds from it almost too strong.

“Come on Dan, we have to go!” Phil tried to pull Dan up, but the boy wasn’t thinking about escape.

“Phil… we don't know where that portal is going. The monsters…”

“Dan, come on, we need to leave!”

Dan cast one last glance at the portal- wistful, almost? —and stood. “Okay. Let's go.”

They turned, and the floor crumbled beneath them. They shouted in surprise as the portal engulfed them.

---

They landed on grass that looked soft but was as hard as pavement upon impact. Phil groaned. “Ow.”

He looked up, just in time to spot the last of the dark creatures disappear into the shadows.

Dan grunted. “Well, that was fun. Where-” he sat up and stopped mid-sentence.

They weren't in London, that much was obvious. In fact, it looked like they weren't even on Earth anymore.

“It’s…erm…” Dan mumbled. Phil could only nod, awestruck as he took everything in. They were in a park, in a big city, bigger than London even. Skyscrapers reached up, trying to grab the misty clouds that floated by in the lilac-pink sky. Huge serpentine creatures seemed to swim in the sky, writhing gracefully like eels in the ocean.

“It's like New York,” Dan realized aloud. “But... on drugs.”

He wasn't looking at the sky. Slowly, Phil allowed his gaze to lower, taking in the brick and glass apartment buildings, then the trees, which were green, yet seemed to glow a faint blue, like they were radioactive. Lower still were the sidewalks where people- and Phil used that term lightly- walked. They'd been to New York before, and if you didn't look too closely, this place didn't look much different. People in New York dressed weirdly sometimes, but this... was a little different. Phil spotted pointy witch hats, top hats, hats with strangely lifelike horns protruding from them. Cats walked freely through the throngs of people, most of them with stark black fur. A woman and man kissed on the corner, and the woman dropped her purse. Instead of falling, it stopped, levitating in the air patiently.

Phil swallowed hard. “I don't... think we're on Earth anymore.”

 ---

It took about three days for them to adjust to the new world. They slept in alleys and ate out of trash cans, until the second day when Dan went out for a little while and returned with a cluster of wallets. “Pizza money,” he explained with a devious smile.

 There were libraries, and banks, and cars and busses. There were pizza parlors and tall buildings that reached for the sky. They were significantly lower than the skyscrapers in New York, Phil decided, but with a similar structure. He and Dan could go about their business under the radar. The people and creatures that lived in this world were all so strange that no one bothered to question the two boys, even if they were a little unkempt.

 The world was strange. Besides the humans that milled around just about everywhere, there were a lot of creatures that they'd never seen before. Lots of cats- many of which seemed obsessed with Dan, following him everywhere- and almost all were black. They sometimes appeared seemly out of nowhere. Many women walked around wearing all black, with large, pointed hats on their heads and hefty purses. Sometimes the cats appeared from under their skirts, scurrying out and running to catch mice.

 There were also lizards- or something like lizards. They were the shape and size of lizards, except they had rubbery bats wings, barely large enough to support their body weight in the air. They ate small bugs and pieces of human food and were eaten by moths the size of baseball hats.

 Dan didn't like the moths. Out of all his courage, his bravery that had led them to this world in the first place, he was terrified of moths. Go figure.

 A few times, they saw the dark creatures that had led them to this world. Maybe ‘saw’ wasn't the right word- they saw places where shadows were darker, dark swirls of black in the distance knocking over trash cans or eating cats. The creatures had a strange quality to them like they had a different filter on them than the rest of the world. One thing was clear- they didn't belong here.

 But what were Dan and Phil to do? They didn’t even belong here.

---

 "The tourist’s guide isn't very helpful," Dan noted. "I think it's in Chinese."  Phil was only half listening, skimming his fingers along the spines of the books that lined the library shelves. The shelves were packed impressively tight, like there were twice as many books as there was space, which was ridiculous, as the library seemed to go on endlessly. "Mm-hmm," he mumbled. He pulled over a book at random, the books immediately slamming together, closing the gap where it had been. Phil eyed the books suspiciously, but didn't question it. "'Chapter One: Feeding and Watering Your.... Manta Jay?'" He read from the book.  "It must say 'manta ray,'" Dan corrected, still looking through the illegible tourist book. He sniffed it longingly, sighing in delight. "It has that new book smell. God, I love that smell."  Phil chose to ignore Dan's weird sniffing. Ignoring Dan was actually one of Phil's most impressive talents. "No, 'manta jay'. Is that a manta ray, like a sea pancake, but... it has wings and eats berries?"  "Or maybe it's a bird, that has through weird flappy swimmy things," he suggested. "Like, a blue jay with no feathers, just skin."  Phil cringed. "It says here to feed your manta jay 'assorted fish and nuts. Trail mix and salmon is higher recommended.'"  "Too weird," Dan decided. "New book."  Phil went to put the book back, but with a quick look at the shelf, it was clear that wouldn't be an easy task. Instead, he set it on top, patting it slightly awkwardly, and going to get another one.  He trailed his fingers along the spines again, waiting to find one that stuck out to him. His fingers had just closed around one when behind him, a book practically jumped out, knocking him in the back of the head with a WHAP!

 Phil yipped, collapsing to the ground, his hands covering his head protectively. "What was that?!"  "It was a book," Dan walked over, eyes wide. He picked up the book, trying to open it, but it didn't let him. "It's stuck!"  "Let me." Now standing (and blushing), Phil reached for the book and opened it easily. He glanced at Dan.  "Don't you say a thing," Dan warned, his cheeks warming up as well. "I may not be very strong, but I can open a freaking book." His cheeks just grew redder as Phil didn't respond. "Well? What does it say?"  "It's... a guide to magic." Phil read quickly, his shoulders tensing. "'Only some people have the capacity to use magic, and everyone's abilities are different. You may be able to use potions, but not cast spells, or vice versa. And of course, you may not have an aptitude for either. You can find out online with our immediate magic aptitude test for a small fee of 29.99....'" He trailed off, skipping ahead a few pages. “Oh look, this is inspirational. ‘The first step to being a good magic user is believing in yourself. The rest comes after.’”

 “That’s nice,” Dan commented, bored. “Does the book have anything else besides inspirational quotes and online surveys?”

 Phil flipped ahead a couple dozen pages, stopping at random. “Here’s a recipe for a potion. ‘The Cure of Desperamos is a potion made for making invisible or hardly visible creatures visible.’”

 Now Dan was interested. He moved over, peering over Phil's shoulder. "Where do you see that? The page is blank."  "Huh?" Phil looked up, looking confused. "No it's not. Look: 'The Desperamos potion is made for making...'" He read the line again, this time underlining it with his finger. "See?"  Dan shook his head. "I don't. It just looks like a blank page."  "Guess we need to make the potion so you can see the words," Phil joked. "All we need is.... ‘4 oz of Jupiter's Solvent, a chopped source of tears, and a pinch of gourd, and tine and nage and stoke’.” He blinked, reading it again, this time the full recipe. It said:

For this potion you will need: 4 oz of Jupiter's Solvent a chopped source of tears a pinch of gourd, and tine, and nage and stoke Mix them together until they croak. Chop them up with which berries and kale dance. Use 10^-2 meter wavelengths to turn it balmy And then screw it all, for the powder palmy

"Yeah, okay, I think it might be more difficult than that. I don't know what any of those ingredients are. Or how to make it.” Phil glanced around, checking for librarians before quickly tearing the page out, shoving it in his pocket.  "Phil!" Dan accused.  "It's cool!" Phil defended. "And who knows? Maybe we can find... whatever the heck a 'Jupiter's solvent' is. It could be useful." He nudged Dan playfully. "Maybe we could use the potion to find your self-esteem."  "Or my dignity," Dan added dryly. "Still...." he shrugged, letting it go. Phil went to put the book away, but Dan quickly stopped him. "Wait! I wanna sniff it!"  "You're so weird!"  "I don't care!" Dan ripped the book from his hands, inhaling through his nose deeply. "Oh yeah. Old book smell. Almost as good as new book smell, but dustier. Here, sniff it."  He all but shoved the book in Phil's face. He sniffed quickly. "It smells- ac-hoo!" He sneezed, and Dan yelped. "Sorry! Bless me!"  "The book!" Dan was saying. Phil wanted to roll his eyes, when he looked over and realized that the book was burning in Dan's hands. He dropped it, stomping on it.  "How'd it catch on fire?" Phil looked around rapidly, but there wasn't a candle or lighter anywhere around.  "It's because you sneezed!" Dan accused, stomping out the flames.  "What?!"  "I don't know how, but as soon as you sneezed it set on fire-"  A librarian walked over, and stopped when she saw the commotion. Phil, looking a little nasally, and Dan, stomping on a book. She went to step forwards, the shook her head, turning and leaving.  "She must think we're crazy."  "Well, you. You're assaulting a book. So mean Dan, what did that book ever do to you?"  "Hey you're the one who set it on fire!"  "Am not!"  "Are too!"  "Am n- achoo!" He sneezed again, even more forcefully than last time.  They looked around worriedly. No fire. "See?" Phil defended. "It's not-"  A few feet away, the carpet sparked and caught ablaze.  They put out the fire, and hurried out of the library with only the page from earlier. Phil felt horribly guilty about setting the book on fire, but he also didn't want to go to some weird magic prison, so they booked it out of the building.  As they sped walked along the streets, Phil sneezed a few more times, lighting more fires along the way. "Stop it, will you?" Dan warned, grabbing Phil's hand to pull him along. Phil almost jumped at the contact, his cheeks going red once more.  "I can't!" He defended. "I think I inhaled a bunch of that dust into my lungs!"  "It's magic," Dan decided. "It must be. You heard what that book said, some people can do it. I guess you're one of the people who can."  "What about you?"  Dan stopped walking suddenly. "Well... maybe I can."  "Maybe yours is stronger," Phil agreed. "Don't sneeze. You'll cause a nuclear explosion."  Dan snorted, and they kept walking. Their hands shifted, so they were holding hands more naturally, less forced. Phil wondering if Dan had forgotten. He certainly hadn't- would Dan notice his sweaty palms? He hoped not.  But Dan's thoughts were elsewhere. They turned a corner, with no particular direction in mind besides away from the library they'd vandalized. "You think you can do more than just sneeze and set thousand year old books on fire?"  Phil shrugged. "Maybe. Like what?"  They looked around. Finally, Dan pointed. "Do that."  Phil looked to where he was gesturing, at a couple kissing. Phil felt his heart jump around a little. "You want me to... kiss you?"  "What? No, look behind them. At the broom. See? It's sweeping the sidewalk, but there's no one there. It's moving on its own."  "Or there is a person behind it, but they're just invisible," Phil argued. "Hey, we could use the potion!" He looked at Dan, who was looking at him with an annoyed but somehow still sweet expression, like 'that was so stupid but actually kind of could be true, oh my God you're so ridiculous I love you'. But that might have just been how Phil saw it.  Phil shook his head. "Okay. Right. Let me try. Wait, I need a broom."  "Just try to make something move. That paper cup, on the grass? Try throwing it away."  Phil stared at the cup. He narrowed his gaze, trying to focus solely on it.  Dan brushed against his side casually. Phil wanted to whimper. It was so embarrassing, whenever he was around Dan his heart just seemed to beat faster and his palms were all sweaty and he always blushed and-  "Well?" Dan asked expectantly. "Do you think it'll work?"  Phil'd forgotten he was supposed to be trying to move the cup. But now he was too distracted.  He shook his head, standing up fully. "No. I guess I can't do it."  Dan sighed. "Well, sneeze-fires are still cool. Maybe you can tone it, make it so you can set things on fire without having to sneeze first." —-

 They were making camp for the night when it happened.

 “Final Fantasy is definitely better,” Phil argued, absentmindedly drawing in the gravel floor of the alley. “You can’t even say that Mar-”

 Before he could finish his sentence, Dan had grabbed him, covering his mouth with his hand. Phil made a noise of surprise, and then one of protest, and Dan shushed him quickly. “Look!” His whispered.

 Only a dozen meters away, a swirling mass of shadows lurked, tendrils black as night floating around like the feelers on an ant. Dan and Phil watched in horror as someone walked past, a woman with a black pointed witches hat and dark purple cloak, and before they could call out, the creature struck. The woman was absorbed into the black seamlessly, and the creature slinked away. All that was left was her purple cloak, discarded on the ground.

 Dan let go off his hold on Phil, but he didn’t bother stepping away, too in shock. “You don’t think-”

 “It consumed her,” Dan agreed, his mouth open in horror. “That was one of those creatures, wasn’t it? Phil, we have to do something! We have to find a way to get rid of these monsters, before…”

 “Woah woah woah, slow down.” Phil stepped away, turning so he could look Dan in the eyes. “I agree that we have to do something, but what can we do?”

 Dan was about to respond when his eyes caught onto something. “What’s…?” He stepped forwards, around Phil, and went over to the discarded cloak. He pushed it aside, revealing something metallic and shiny.

 Phil walked over to see what it was. As he got closer, his eyes widened.

 The stared at it in silence for a few moments. Then finally, Dan spoke up. “It’s a sword.”

 It was. But not in the typical way. It was a little less than a meter long, and curved slightly, with one sharp side, not two. Phil reached over to pick it up, but as soon as his fingers made contact, he lurched back. “Ow! It’s burning hot!”

 Dan seemed to be in a sort of daze, as if his reality was replaced by a daydream. He leaned forwards and trailed his fingertips along the metal, picking it up by the grip. It fit into his hand perfectly. “It’s not even warm,” he mused.

 Dan took a few steps forward and swung the sword. It was a perfect weight, and when swung created a deadly silver arc.

 “You couldn’t read the magic book,” Phil realized. “And I can’t touch the sword… it’s like we’re being pulled in different directions. Magic, and…”

 “...and combat,” Dan finished, eyes following the sword with utter fascination. “This sword must be used for killing the creatures. It has to be, it can’t be a coincidence.”

 “Um, Dan?”

 “What?”

 Phil had gone over to the cloak, and picked it up fully, checking the pockets. He pulled out a slip of paper, reading it uncomfortably. “‘This Katana is to be used in the banishment of creatures from a world where they do not belong. To work most effectively, make a clean cut in between the eyes. Works best when creatures whole forms are visible. Warning: not to be used on humans.’”

 Dan blinked. “Is that all it says?”

 Phil hesitated. “‘Dry clean only,’” he continued. “‘Made in China.’”

Dan swung the sword experimentally, cutting through the air. “I knew we were here for a reason. I need to… to use this sword to banish the creatures back where they came from, before they can… consume too many people, I guess.”

 Phil gulped, looking back at the cape on the ground. The witch had had a sword, and she’d been consumed like it was nothing. “And me?”

 Dan’s eyes lit up as the puzzle pieces connected in his mind. “You need to use the potion,” he realized, eyes widening. “From the library! It’s used to make things visible!”

 “It could be used to make the creatures visible, so you could banish them.” Phil realized. “We can actually do this.”

---

 They were walking around the next morning when Dan almost tripped over a rock. Except, it wasn't a rock.

The thing- whatever it was- looked up at Dan lazily. It was bright blue with the body and face of a turtle, with a rough shell and sagging eye bags. Sharp spines trailed from its neck to its tail, and its feet were like dolphin flippers.

 “Mooooooo,” it whined mournfully.

 “That's the ugliest-”

 “That's the coolest thing I've ever seen!” Phil interrupted, hurrying over to pat the turtle-creature's head. “What do you think it is?”

 “A mistake?” Dan suggested. He eyed it wearily, watching as its head bopped happily with Phil's petting. “Just be careful, it might bite yo-”

 Phil scratched below the creature's head, and it moaned out another moo. “I think it likes me!” The turtle opened it’s mouth, licking Phil’s hand affectionately with a long, purple tongue.

 Dan rolled his eyes but smiled. “Come on. We have to keep moving, every minute we wait the more creatures are getting it on, which means more babies for us to deal with.”

 Phil pouted. “Can't we take him with us?”

 “Him? First of all, stop assigning gender, oh my God Phil-”

 “It's a boy! I'm sure of it.” Phil scratched behind the turtle's ear holes. “I can feel it.”

 Dan cringed. “You can… feel it? Come on Phil, let's just go. We can't take him with us, he'll be too slow.” Dan stood, pulling Phil up with him, holding onto his upper arm. “Let's just go.”

 Phil pouted again but nodded. “Okay.”

 They started walked away from the turtle. “Mooooo….”

 “Don't look back. Just keep walking.”

 “Moooo!”

 A loud clopping noise sounded behind them, and they both jumped, spinning around.

 The turtle stared at them sadly. He was almost a full meter closer.

 “Moooo!” Pushing off of all four dolphin flippers, the turtle hurled itself forwards, flopping on the ground and doing it again. Clop. Clop.

 Phil grinned. “Good boy! Good Bessie!”

 Sighing loudly, Dan facepalmed. “I- Bessie is a girl’s name- I just- ugh.” He sighed again. “Phil, can we please just-”

 “Yeah, we can go now! Bye, Bessie!” He waved, and Bessie lowered her head to the ground sadly but didn't try to follow them as they hurried along. “Well, that was cool.”

 “That was… just… great.” Dan tried for a smile. “What next?”

 “Well, I need to get the other things for the potion. The Jupiter's Solvent and ‘source of tears’, whatever that means.”

 Dan nodded. “Let's focus on the source of tears.” He clicked his tongue a few times, thinking. “Tears like crying? Should Should we find some John Green books to add to the potion?”

 Phil snorted. “Maybe. I… I might have an idea, but I’m not really sure? What about… an onion?”

---

Phil lay on the bed, his head supported by his hands. After their adventure searching for an onion in the grocery story, which had resulted in them being chased by shadow creatures and topple a display display of maple syrup, they'd decided to crack open their funds funds and funds and shell out for a real room, where they could both take a much needed shower. There was only one bed, but it was just big enough for both him and Dan to lay on.

 Dan walked out of the shower, a towel draped around his waist. Phil watched him, doing his best to keep his eyes on Dan's face and not any lower. “Hey, Hobbit.”

 “I've got a sword,” Dan warned, the threat empty. “Call me a hobbit again and you'll be diced and shish-kababed before you can say abra-”

 “-Cadabra?”

 Dan grabbed his sword from where it leaned up against the dresser, spinning around dramatically- and accidentally knocking over a lamp. Phil laughed as it collapsed to the ground, the light bulb shattering. “Nice Dan. Oh yeah, you showed me.”

 “Shish-kababed,” Dan reiterated, smiling lightly despite the light blush across his cheeks. He pulled up the towel around his waist, holding it up with one hand. “You better watch out. I'm getting pretty good with this.”

 “Yeah, I'm really scared, Dan. If any lamps come to get you, they'd better watch out!”

 “Hey, you never know. One of these days it may happen, and then you'll eat your words!” He swung the sword around a bit to emphasize the point, letting go of his towel for a moment to swing the sword like a baseball bat- when his towel fell to the ground. “Oops.”

 In synch, the two boys looked down, then looked at each other. Phil rolled onto his stomach, covering his eyes to give Dan some privacy. “My innocence.”

 “Drama queen.”

—-

"Are you sure this is the right place?" Dan whispered, keeping his body flush against the wall.  Phil shrugged. "Not really. But the lady at the potions shop said that Lady Ember might have it, so we might as well check."  "Why do we have to sneak in? Why can’t we just ask Lady Amber-"  "Lady Ember," Phil corrected. “Like fire.”   “That’s comforting. Why can’t we just ask Lady Ember if she has the herbs?"  Phil hesitated. "Well... she’s a witch. I don’t know what witches are like in this world, but I don’t know why she’d want to help us. She might not even have the stuff we need. Better just peek in and see."  "You mean break in." Dan blinked hard, looking to Phil. "You want to break into a potentially evil witches house, look for some drugs-"  "Herbs."  "Look for some herbs.... and hope that everything just goes well? What if we get caught? Could we be sent to magic jail?"  Phil shrugged. "Maybe. Look, she’s leaving."  Sure enough, a little ways down the street an old woman appeared from her front door, closing and locking it behind her. On her head was a large pointed hat the shade of raisins, and in her hand she carried a large purse.  “They know their way better than anything else does,” Lady Ember said, talking into her phone. “They are a little shadowy, but I like them. They’re the only beings you can rely on to always follow through on their destiny.”

 They waited until she had walked a little ways and turned a corner to move. Then they hurried down the street, trying to run and tiptoe at the same time. "We should’ve just acted casual!" Dan whisper yelled.  "Too late now!" They got to the door, and Phil tried the knob. "It’s locked!"  "You don’t have a plan for getting in?"  "Well I’m sorry this is my first time breaking in somewhere!" Phil whisper yelled back. "Why don’t you try, mister 'bad boy'."  Dan gave him a look, and pulled out his sword. "Watch out. I’m going to break the door in."  Phil stepped back, and Dan reared his sword back, swinging it like a baseball bat. It clanged against the door, not even sticking.  "Amazing," Phil complimented. "You should do this professionally, you’re so-"  "There’s some sort of barrier!" Dan defended, still swinging the sword, it bouncing back every time. "I think it’s magic!"  "Magic? Oh, I can do magic." Phil imagined a ball of fire, making motions with his hands like he always saw in movies, as if he were forming a ball of flames straight from the air. He thrust his imaginary ball at the door, not expecting anything to happen, when they door exploded backwards.  Dan looked at him with wide eyes. "How’d you do that?"  Phil blinked. He hadn’t thought that it’d actually work, he was just joking! But it /had/ worked.  He shrugged. "I told you. I know magic." He stepped through the doorway, trying to avoid the splintered wood.  "Yeah right. More like you were pretending, and got lucky."  "I’ll look for the 'gourd' and 'tine', you look for the 'nage' and 'stoke," Phil delegated, happily ignoring Dan's correct assumption. He knew him too well. "What do you think 'gourd' looks like?"  Dan grunted, stepping into the apartment too. They were in the living room, it seemed, with two flowery couches around a coffee table, and soft pastel wallpaper. It didn’t seem like a place where you’d expect a witch to live. It was more of a place Phil's grandma might have lived.  The peeked around the living room, but didn’t find anything that looked right. Phil almost thought he’d found it when he found a basket under one of the couches, but it was filled with knitting needles and yarn, not 'gourd'. Unless, of course, gourd was something you’d use to make a scarf. But Phil doubted it.   Meanwhile, Dan peered around the bookshelf set up across from the front door. He sniffed the books, pulling one out in particular. "This one's called 'Retiring From Magic Gracefully.' What if she's retired, and got rid of all her magic stuff?"  Phil chewed on his lip. "Well... let’s just hope that’s not the case. Anyways, if you were a witch, would you ever want to stop?"  He had a point. "Let’s go downstairs," Dan decided, nodding to some stairs in the corner of the room. "Maybe she has a kitchen or something. Think you could use 'nage' in a pie?" —-  You should not use nage in a pie.  They descended the stairs. At the bottom, they opened up to a large room crowded with shelves, counters, and in the center, a large black cauldron. Cooking books crowded the shelves, packed almost as tightly as the books in the library had been. A bag of flour had been knocked over on the floor, and little paw prints lead out of it.  "A cat?" Dan asked, looking at the prints.  Phil squatted, looking closer. "They look a little too big for a cat. Maybe a dog?"  "That’s the only thing that would make this quest worthwhile." Dan scanned a drying rack of herbs, smiling when his eyes caught on one. "Hey, good news. I found nage."  Phil walked over, looking at what Dan pointed at. It was a little green stalk with black leaves, or maybe flowers...  Phil's stomach turned as he looked closer, and the image clicked into place. "They’re.... leeches."  Sure enough, the leaves moved. They were slimy, sucky, squiggly, leeches.  "Ew! You get them Phil, I don’t want to touch them!"  "You get the nage and stoke, I get the gourd and time," Phil reminded. "Look around, maybe there’s a bag or something you can use."  Dan made a disgusted face, but managed to get a cloth bag and stuff a few stalks of the leeches in it, closing it by pulling the drawstring tightly. "You have to carry it though. You’re the magic guy, I only play with a sword."  "Fine." Phil took the bag. "Just don’t play with your sword when I’m around, please."  Dan wrinkled his nose in disgust. "That sounds really bad."  Phil could feel his face heat up. "What? I just meant-"  "Yeah, I know what you meant, but it still sounds really nasty."  "I found the gourd!" Phil announced, trying to change the subject. "It looks like dirt. But it's not alive, see? Only two more to go."  They managed to find the other two ingredients with only a few setbacks and bad innuendoes. In fact, they almost managed to make it out of the place scot free, when Dan turned around a little too fast, and knocked a large wine bottle containing bright orange liquid over. It fell to the ground and shattered, one of the pieces of glass hardly missing him.  "Dan?"  "Fine," Dan called back, leaning over to look at the stuff. "Phil, look at this. It’s bubbling."  "That doesn’t sound good." Phil came over, peering over Dan's head so he could see. Unfortunately, at that same moment Dan stood. He accidentally head butted Phil, and in Dan’s attempt to grab him before he fell, they both toppled forwards into the potion.  Phil opened his mouth to say something, but no words came out. He blinked hard. Everything seemed so much bigger than before. He was laying on the ground, yes, but it was as if everything in the room had grown to be three times the size.  "Just so you know," Dan said a little bit away. "I completely blame you."  Phil pulled himself to his feet, but he hardly went up at all. What was going on? Had he shrunk?  Phil looked down, and almost passed out. He /had/ shrunk.... sort of.  A brown calico cat stood up, eye level with Phil. "Did everything just get really big, or-"  Phil looked down. Where his hands had been were now orange, fluffy, adorable.... paws.  Dan screamed, but it was more of an angry MREOW!  "Do you realize what just happened? We’re.... we’re..."  "Cats!" Phil finished for him, testing out all four of his feet. He’d never felt so balanced. "I don’t know whether this is a good thing, or...."  "Um, excuse me?" The brown calico- that would be Dan- turned and looked at Phil indignantly. "How is this fair? How come you get to be the orange tabby?"  Phil strolled over to a nearby mirror, checking himself out. He was lean, with short orange fur and subtle stripes. He flicked his tail, trying it out. It was as natural as moving his arm. "I’m a handsome cat," he decided. "And I guess I’m a ginger because that’s my natural hair color. Normally, I wouldn’t go for it but... what do you think? Does it suit me?" He struck a pose, but Dan seemed to be focusing on something else.  "Um? Phil, we’re.... we're freaking cats!" He looked in the mirror, so in shock he could hardly move. His fur was covered in brown and black splotches, save for a white stomach. His brown eyes were wide with shock.  Phil looked back at himself. His own eyes looked back at him, still as blue as they had been when he was human. Slung across his shoulder was a little sash, like the type scouts wear to display their badges. On it were miniature versions of the items he’d been holding, or carrying in his pockets, including the newfound ingredients, and the scrap of paper with the recipe on it, wrapped up tightly like a scroll.

Unfortunately, Phil did not have more time to look at himself in the mirror. Because that’s when they heard the dog.  They were on their feet and across the room before Phil could say Puppy!   "Why am I running away?" Dan asked, still running. "I want to see the doggo!"  They sped through an open doorway, into a more conventional kitchen. Leaping onto the table gracefully, they backed up, watching with worry.  "I bet it’s our feline instincts," Phil guessed. "Did you know that kittens don’t open their eyes until they’re a week old?"  "Fascinating! How do we get out of here?"  Phil didn’t have time to respond, because that’s that’s when the dog barreled around the corner. It was the cutest, most malicious corgi they’d ever seen.  It barked loudly, running up to the table and jumping. It made it almost high enough to see Dan and Phil, but not nearly high enough to get /on/ the table.  "That’s right!" Dan mocked over the edge of the table. "That’s what you get for having stubby legs!"  The corgi jumped again, snarling and biting, almost getting Dan. He howled, jumping backwards.  "Did he get you?" Phil asked with worry.  "No! But he almost did!"  Dan had made such a noise of protest and pain, one would think he’d been mortally wounded. Mocking? Overreacting? Dan was acting more and more like a cat every moment.  The corgi backed up, like he was going to take a running start. Then, he sprinted forwards, golden fur flowing and black eyes glistening, and he leaned onto a chair and then directly onto the table.  Phil practically hurled himself off the ledge. His instincts kicked in, and just like that he was on the ground, on his feet, and running at full force to get away. He leapt onto a stool, but overshot, instead hurling himself over it like the most graceful and most stupid Olympic hurdler.  He looked around, hoping Dan hadn’t noticed. Luckily, he was too busy running for his life, the corgi snarling and snapping at him, right on his tail.  Phil looked around for an escape. His eyes caught on an open window, right by the table. Why hadn’t he noticed it before?  "Dan! The window!"  "A window? Phil, we’re in a basement!"  He was right, but at the same time, that window was there. Outside, he could see the pink sky go lavender, meaning the sun was setting. "It’s a window! And it’s open, come on Dan!"  "Um, I’m kind of busy!" Dan leapt onto the table, but couldn’t turn to get to the window, not with the corgi nipping at his heels.  "I’ll distract him!" Phil decided. "You jump! We should be on the first floor, and cats always land on their feet anyways!"  Phil launched himself forwards, colliding with the corgi. He jumped to his feet and ran in the opposite direction, the corgi immediately getting up and chasing after him. The dog was a little dizzy from running the other direction, and ended up sliding into the closed dishwasher, but he was back on his heels in no time.  Meanwhile, Dan just stood in front of the window, frozen in place. "Jump! I can’t do this all day!" Phil called, feeling his legs stumble beneath him.  "I can’t!" Dan cried back.  "Why not?"  "It’s so far Phil! And I’m... and I'm..."  "You’re what?"  "I’m afraid of heights!" Dan admitted, his voice breaking at the end of his sentence.  Phil almost slammed into the wall. "You’ve gotta be kitten me! Since when?"  "Since the Japan trip!" Dan admitted shamefully. "The tower! It scared the shit out of me!"  "Good time to have a litter box," Phil thought out loud. "Just go a little closer Dan, maybe it’ll make you less nervous!"  Dan scooted closer. "Like this?"  "Closer!" Phil was getting tired fast. The corgi snapping at him, far too close for comfort.  Dan scooted closer to the edge. "This good?"  "Purr-fect!" Phil kicked the dog the jaw, leant up on the table, and tackled Dan, right over the windowsill.   —-

 “I’m never going to forgive you,” Dan sniffled, pawing at some scraps of cloth, trying to form something that resembled a bed. “Never, ever, ever.”

 “I saved your life,” Phil reminded him, licking his paws. “The least you could do is thank me.”

 Yep- they were still cats. And even as they argued and Dan complained, Dan refused to look at Phil- mostly because he was incredibly adorable, and who could be mad at that face?

 “I will not thank you for throwing me off a window ledge,” Dan decided. “Especially not after you found out about my deathly fear of heights. Where was the consent?”

 “I’m sorry for not asking your consent before saving your life,” Phil said, giving in.

 Dan sniffed, better now that he’d gotten an apology. He was such a princess.

 “Are you feline better now?” Phil stretched out, extending and retracting his claws comfortably.

 “Please, no more cat puns.”

 “Well, you can say them too. What, cat’s got your tongue?”

 “Phil…”

 “Now feel free to paws and think about it a bit.”

 “Phil.”

 “If you need to, you can tail me later.”

 Dan squeezed his eyes closed. He was either trying not to laugh, or trying not to cry. “You done?”

 “You tail me.”

 Dan slumped to the ground in defeat, giving in. He should’ve known there was no way they could be turned into cats without at least half a dozen puns.

—

 The next morning, they woke up back to normal. Phil stretched out his normal human arms and normal human legs, checking to make sure he didn’t have a tail anymore. He sat up, looked over at Dan still curled up on the too small blankets, and smiled.

—

 Phil crept along, his feet sloshing in the layer of water on the ground. The sewage leaked into his trainers, making a gross squishing sound. Eew. Phil hoped it was just water.

 Hovering above his palms was a swirling blue orb that gave him enough light to see down the dark tunnel. He'd gotten better at this type of simple energy magic, but he could still feel the pull of it, draining his own energy reserves faster than normal. He needed to start bringing granola bars with him or something.

 Phil looked back uncomfortably. He'd had his reserves about wandering down into the sewers, but it was so much worse now that he was actually here. The orb of magical light made him feel a little better- he wasn't completely defenseless. Out of the two of them, Dan was the fighter, but now that Phil had magic he felt a little more… powerful. Granted, when Stephen King’s IT popped out and tried to eat Phil alive, he'd probably still cower.

 The thought made him cringe.

 There was a quiet pattering behind him, and Phil tried not to crawl out of his skin. Please don't be a clown, please don't be a clown…

 He turned around, holding up the orb and trying to pretend not to be scared.

 Nothing.

 Phil turned back around, and shrieked, practically launching himself backward. His orb of light bounced like a basketball, slamming into the wall and splattering into a shiny, blue light puddle. Phil scrambled to his knees, his entire butt and back drenched.

 “Mreow.”

 A black cat sat in front of him, seeming to smile at how he'd made Phil jump. The cat sat on top of the water- literally, on top of the water- and stretched, not getting at all wet.

 “Stupid Jesus cat,” Phil muttered, pushing himself to a standing position. “That was rude.”

 The glow on the wall, no longer attached to a power source, began to fade. “Better make another orb,” Phil decided, raising his hands and concentrating. “What color should this one be? Checkered, perhaps?”

 He swirled his hands around the orb of light that was beginning to form, magical lines reaching around and twisting together in a magical ball of yarn. The cat watched with uncanny interest.

 Now… checkered.

 The ball exploded with the sound of a broken kazoo, and Phil was plunged into darkness.

 Well… not complete darkness. The cat- which Phil was deciding to name Sooki- actually faintly glowed in the dark.

 Phil quickly formed another blue ball- he had a lot of those these days- and kept walking, Sooki following alongside him.

 After at least another half kilometer of walking, Sooki stopped and pawed at the wall. Phil stepped closer, reading the words that were faintly ingrained in the stone.

 Does thou art seek the cure of the Desperamos?

 “Yes,” Phil answered loudly, his voice echoing through the sewer.

 The cat meowed, gesturing with his head at the stone. Looking closer, Phil saw that there was something more written, and he rubbed away the dirty concealing it.

 Check yes or no.

 Phil dragged his finger along the dirtied stone, a blue check made of light burning into the stone next to yes.

 A few steps further, another message appeared.

 Does thou art consider thyself worthy of the spell? Is thou art well trained in magic?

 Then, smaller, it wrote: Does thou art even lift bro?

 “I don't have time for this,” Phil decided. He tried to move his feet, but the walls shifted, trapping him in his place.

  Is thou art too good for a little riddle?

 “Let go of me!” Phil whined. His light had dissolved, but the entire section of wall had begun glowing.

 Thou art is selfish. Thou art doesn't have time for a nice, tax-paying wall like mineself.

 “You pay taxes?”

  Thou mother is a tax! Thyself is a good wall, whom only wants to support mine family! I haveth nine children and a wife!

 “How… is that even possible?”

 Now listen here, thou insolent maggot. Thou needs to collect the solvent of Jupiter to complete the potion, correcteth?

 “Correcteth. I mean… correct.”

 Then thy must solve this riddle: What is black and red and white all over?

 Phil blinked. “What?”

 Are thine daft? What is black and red and white all over?

 “I don't know, what?”

 Thine mum! Ha!

 Phil growled, trying to pull his feet out of the rocks to no avail. “Hurry, I need to get this ‘Jupiter solvent’ fast! Dan's waiting!

  Oh, so there IS someone else. Who is this ‘Dan’ anyways?

 “He's my friend, and if I don't hurry, he'll start to worry about me.”

 Don't lieth! There is something special about this Dan, I senseth.

 “I'm an English Lit graduate, and I'm very sure you're not even speaking Shakespearean. You're just saying ‘thou’ and adding ‘th’ noises to random words.”

 Shutteth up, thy insolent Cracker Jack! I bite my thumb at thee! Now, tell me, who is this Dan boy to you anyways?

 Phil bit his lip. He did need to go, soon, before Dan started to worry. “He's my friend. He's… I want to be more than friends, but he isn't really… like that… so, we’re just kind of, friends, you know?”

 The wall took a few moments to create a response, the stone bubbling as it tried to form words. Finally, words emerged; Thou art is a pussy.

 “Hey!”

 The Jupiter’s Solvent is the sewage at your feet. American city sewage is one of the most radioactive things on this planet. Now go, and seek out this Dan. Tell him how you feel, blah blah. Letuth me know how it goes.

 The wall returned to its original form, the only trace of the conversation being the slight glow coming from it. Phil’s feet were released and he stepped away.

 “Ok, um… thanks.” Scooping up some of the sewage in his flask, he turned and hurried back the way he'd come.

 Sooki the cat sat on top of the water for a moment, staring at the wall. After a few moments, a new message appeared.

I totally shipeth it.

---

 “Dan, I found the-”

 “Shh!” Dan was crouched by the side of a large brick building, peering around the corner. “Look at this!”

 Phil hurried over, trying to be quiet. His shoes squished with the sewage, leaving wet footprints in his wake. “What is it?”

 “Babies.” Dan narrowed his eyes. “Evil babies.”

 Phil peered around the corner, trying to get a good view of- whatever it was they were looking at.

 Dan looked at him. “You see them too, right?”

 Actually, Phil had been more preoccupied with the fact that their shoulders were touching. “Hmm?”

 “The… the things! The… eggs!” Dan gestured frantically around the corner. “They're reproducing rapidly. Haven't you noticed there's been a lot more creatures than what came here with us? Within a month, they'll overrun the city!” He stopped for air, but before Phil could say anything Dan was speaking again. “You got the solvent?”

 Phil nodded. “Yeah. And um, speaking of which, there was this wall…”

 Dan shushed him, flattening against the wall. A few creatures came out from the alley, starting out small but growing to full size quickly. They didn't notice the two boys, instead slipping away and dissolving into shadow.

 Dan looked around for more. “We can't stay in an alley again. Maybe another motel? I'll have to do more pickpocketing…” he trailed off, thinking.

 “We could go on one of the rooftops?” Phil offered. “Maybe we could see the creatures from above. See how many there really are.” He'd wanted to tell Dan about what the wall had said, but now that he was right here, he couldn't do it. Dan was his best friend in the whole world, and to Phil’s knowledge, he was straight. Phil couldn't handle his rejection.

 But Dan didn't know what Phil was thinking. He looked up to the top of the buildings, and shuddered. For a moment, Phil saw what Dan had looked like as a cat again: the twitchy ears and wide brown eyes. Dan knew he wouldn't get hurt by the fall, but still he wasn’t willing to jump until it was almost too late.

 Dan quickly regained his confident stance. “Yeah, sure.” His voice only shook shook a little.

 “We don't have to-”

 “No.” Dan tried for a confident smile. “I think you're right. It's our best option. We can get ready, you can make the potion or at least prepare to, and then tomorrow we can figure out the best way to kill the creatures. This is our best chance.”

----

 It was midnight. No, it must have been later. It was two, three in the morning, so late that Phil could hardly keep his eyes open but he knew he had to, had to stay awake.

 They'd climbed onto the top of a building- they used the fire escape of course, so it wasn't that difficult- and now they prepared for the following days underneath the stars.

 Dan didn't seem too fazed by the lateness of it all. They were both night owls, but sometimes Dan scared Phil with how late he'd stay up. At that moment, he was sitting on the edge of the roof, sharpening his sword against the stone edge with a horrible scraping noise.

 Phil finished getting his things together. He measured out the Jupiter solvent, crumpled up the mismatch of herbs he'd gotten from the witch, and had Dan come over. His sword was made specifically for ‘banishing souls back to their realms’, but apparently, it also worked well as a kitchen knife, mincing up the onion as if it was as soft as butter. Phil gathered the different materials in separate containers. He'd read and reread the recipe for the potion, but still didn't understand most of the lines, especially not the ones describing how to mix them together.

Chop them up with which berries and kale dance.

Use 10-2 meter wavelengths to turn it balmy

And then screw it all, for the powder palmy

 What was that even supposed to mean? Where did berries and kale dance? Wasn't kale that vegetable? Why was it dancing? And what was ‘balmy’?

 “That's it,” Dan decided, breaking Phil’s concentration. “I'm done. I can't do this anymore.” Phil looked at him in confusion. “It's late Phil, and I'm tired. We can finish getting ready in the morning.”

 Phil sighed in relief. “Yeah. We need our sleep. Tomorrow, we can get everything together and make a plan, then I'll make the potion so we can get rid of the creatures already.”

 Dan stumbled over to him, dumping his sword on the ground and practically collapsing next to it. “Yeah,” he mumbled dreamily. “Then we can go home.”

 Phil bit his lip. Home. A few days ago, that was the goal. It still was… right? “Yeah. Home.” His voice betrayed him, and for a second, Phil was worried that Dan had heard the doubt in his voice. But when Phil looked over, Dan was already fast asleep.

---

 Phil did not snore. He did not kick in his sleep, or thrash, or move around or sleepwalk or anything. He did not. But when he opened his eyes, low and behold, he found his back pressed against Dan's chest and almost wanted to cry in exasperation. After everything he'd done, all the emotions he'd repressed, he still couldn't control his subconscious.

 Phil sat up quickly, hoping to move away before Dan woke up. Cheeks red, he looked around, trying to discern what was happening as everything came into focus much too slowly.

 The roof. The morning sky, a dark lilac- it must have been early. The sky was more of a light pink at midday and turned darker and more purple in the evening and morning. So it was… what, six, seven in the morning? The concrete of the roof seemed to glow a light tan, it’s aura more visible the longer Phil stared, as most things in this dimension were. A few feet away, a transparent black mass of shadows pawed at Dan's sword, struggling to pick it up.

 “Ahh!” Phil shrieked screamed, his voice nothing less of manly. Before he could process what was happening, he'd picked up the backpack beside him- the one with the extremely important potion ingredients in it- and chucked it at the beast. The backpack sailed through it, the creature's black eyes following it as it passed through its body. The backpack landed a few feet away, right on the edge of the roof.

 The creature snorted. If shadows could grin, this creature did. It smirked and snatched up Dan's sword in its maw, screeching with joy as it scurried over to the side of the roof and threw itself off.

 “Wait!” Phil got up and lunged to the side of the roof, staring down in horror. The creature landed with hardly a bump and scurried away. “Dan! Get up!”

 Dan groaned, rolling over. “Muuuuuuuuuummmmmmm….”

 “Dan!”

 Dan sat up, rubbing his eyes. “Phil? Wha…?”

 Before Phil could warn him, a shadow descended on Dan, knocking him forwards. With a mighty screech, the creature trampled him, sprinting across the roof and leaping past Phil, off the edge.

 Dan sat up, much more awake. “What's going on?!”

 “I don't know!” Phil looked down, hoping to see the creature splat at the bottom of the drop. Instead, it stumbled slightly and began sprinting away in the direction of the other one.

 Phil looked closer. On the ground, shadows morphed and shifted, changing forms from creature to darkness seamlessly. They all shot across the ground, all headed in the same direction.

 Something brushed against Phil, and he almost jumped- which would have been very, very bad, what with him leaning over the edge of the building. But it was just Dan, already having woken up and rushed over to see the chaos. “What are they-”

 “Dan!” Phil jumped Dan, and they toppled to the ground as another figure passed by them, so close it almost hit them.

 Dan looked up. His eyes went wide, and he grabbed Phil's shoulders, rolling them away as another creature swooped down. “Where are they all coming from?”

 “The eggs in the alley!” Phil remembered. “I just didn't think they'd hatch so fast!”

 “Stupid blobs!” Dan shouted up at the sky, shaking his fist. “Let me sleep!”

 “Dan!” Phil grabbed him, pushing him to the ground as another creature leaped over. For a moment, everything was in slow motion. Phil pressed Dan into the ground, his hands on his friend’s shoulders. The creature was so close that Phil could feel his hair move in the wind it created.

 Then it was gone, and Phil was stuck in place, just trying to catch his breath.

 His cheeks were very pink, there was no doubt about that. Phil focused on breathing, not bothering to move for a moment until he looked down and saw Dan trying not to laugh beneath him, and Phil rolled to the side.

 “Wow,” Dan said, clearly making fun of him. “What a hero.”

 “It was flying right at you!” Phil defended.

 Dan looked like he wanted to press the matter further, maybe make a few more jokes, but more and more creatures were appearing every second. It was hard to see where they were as they changed form, turning from black swirls that seemed almost solid to forms that seemed completely made of gas. Another creature appeared on the roof- who knows where from- and solidified into the shape of a water buffalo, black eyes glowing against its stark black fur as it stampeded do forwards. One of its hooves hit Phil's backpack and it skidding across the roof with impressive force, thudding against the ledge. Phil cringed. If the recipe was torn, or one of the containers broke….

 Dan ran a hand through his hair. He looked more awake as if just realizing what all was happening. “They're going to a central force. Something's…. something's calling them.”

 Phil’s throat was made of chalk. “Something's calling them?”

 “They didn't attack us,” Dan observed. “They were too busy running towards that thing.”

 “Or away from something else,” Phil realized. “Do you think… do you think they're being chased?”

 They looked to the horizon, to where all of the creatures were coming from. Nothing out of the ordinary, except for the shifting in shadows. It was hard to see where the creatures were unless they were practically on top of you, and even then, distinguishing their bodies in any way was near impossible. That's why we need the potion, Phil realized. So we can see them.

 Another creature formed from shadows, bursting past them in a gust of wind. Yet it paid practically no attention to them at all, as if they were beneath the creatures notice.

“I guess it has priorities,” Phil realized. “And we’re just low on the list.”

 “Sounds about right. We're here in this world for one reason- to destroy them- and we're beneath their notice. Great. We’re still irrelevant.”

 Phil turned, the truth sinking in. “We have to find where they're going.” Another one rushed past them, making Phil stumble forwards. “Dan- we need to get out here!”

 Dan didn't question him, just swallowed, nodding. “Okay. Okay. Where do we- do we climb down the fire escape? It'd be slow, and I… I still don't like heights, but-”

 Phil shook his head. “No. Too slow.” He looked at the sky. “Dan?”

 “What?”

 “You trust me, right? Because you're not going to like this.”

 All the color drained from Dan’s face. “I'm not going to jump. Phil, those creatures-”

 “I'm not asking you to jump!” Phil tapped his hands against his leg, looking in the clouds for one to appear. “Just to trust me.”

 “I trust you,” he said, though his voice shook. “Phil?”

 “I wasn't supposed to use magic last night because of the light,” Phil remembered. Dan grabbed his hand, pulling him away as another creature roared past. The wind assaulted them, making their clothes whip against their skin. “Because the creatures are like moths, they're drawn to light! It's still dark, it could…”

“Phil?”

 “Close your eyes!”

 Dan squeezed his eyes shut, cringing into himself as more creatures stormed past them, the hissing of laughter and thunder of hooves shaking their whole bodies. “They're closed! Phil, what are-”

 “Trust me!” More creatures were appearing, whipping past them. But Phil had to ignore them. He closed his eyes, raising his hands in front of him and summoning an orb of light. This time, however, it wasn't a light blue-glowing orb- this time, it was a ball of white hot fire, so bright it hurt Phil’s eyes even as they were closed.

---

 It took longer than it should have.

 The wind whipped around them, tearing at their clothes. Dan hugged himself tightly, just trying to keep his eyes shut and keep from flying off the building. And Phil- well, Phil concentrated.

 He was in a white room. It was empty except for him. His clothes- which in real life, were filthy- were washed and clean, and stark white. He wasn't in the wind, with monsters shooting past him. He was in a clean room, with nothing to worry about and nothing to fear.

 Phil willed the fluorescent lights of the room to turn on. Slowly, they did, until the natural lighting was replaced with the factory made whiteness. Phil willed them to get brighter. It had to be bright, so bright that the being Phil was looking for could see it, so bright that it would hurt to look at unless you were a creature of the sun.

 He could feel his energy drain, being sucked into the orb of light he created. Already, he was becoming weak, and he hadn’t even made the potion yet! How would he have the energy to make it when the time came?

The light dimmed slightly. No, Phil thought, willing it to return to its prior luminescence. No self-doubt. He couldn’t afford for this not to work.

 The wind seemed to hit harder, and more randomly. Phil tried to ignore it until he realized.

 "Dan!"

 "What!"

 "Keep your eyes closed!"

 "Okay!" Dan’s voice was slightly unsure, but his words weren’t. I trust you.

 Now Phil just had to hope that his plan was worth trusting in.

 He held a hand over his eyes, and slowly, allowed himself to open them again. Even with his hand covering the worst of the brightness, the intense light made him squint and blink.

 Phil turned to his left and almost forgot how to breathe.

 The beast was huge, with a serpentine body glistening in shades of emerald and lime. It had landed on the roof, it’s snakelike body curled slightly, it’s tail with small fins flapping in discomfort. It didn’t like being on land, and it made sense; this was a creature of the sky.

 Tied around its midsection was a little pink balloon with a smiley face drawn on it. Phil decided not to question it.

 It’s huge mocha eyes were trained on the orb of light, almost in a trance. But it wasn’t going to stay long, nor could Phil keep up the magic for long.

 "Dan, I’m going to lead you over to something, and you’re going to have to sit on it. Hold on tightly, no matter what. I’ll tell you when you can open your eyes, okay?"

 Dan was sweating, from the heat from the intense light, or from nerves, Phil didn’t know. But he did know that his light was dimming and that the serpent wasn’t going to stick around for long.

 He led Dan over, helping him to straddle the neck of the serpent, and find good gripes. Dan clutched on desperately, his chest held tightly against the serpent’s back. Phil hoped desperately that his plan would work. Otherwise.... well, otherwise they were toast. It was a long way down.

 Phil hefted the backpack over his shoulders. "Okay... Marsha. Yeah, you look like a Marsha. You think you could help us o-"

 As if flipping a switch, the orb dissolved into the air without a trace. Marsha puffed out some pink flames in agitation, hiccuping aggressively and taking off.

 "Wait!" Phil ran and jumped, just barely grabbing onto the end of Marsha's tail as she shot into the sky.

—-

It turns out, the sky serpents were not made to be ridden. Phil wished he’d realized that earlier, but it was a little too late now.

 They shot through the sky as if propelled by rockets, much faster than reasonable. Phil jostled around aggressively, barely managing to hold on to the slippery scales of the monster. It didn’t help that Dan was screaming at the top of his lungs. Phil would’ve given him more warning, but he didn’t realize how fast Marsha was.

 "Phil Lester! When I get my hands on you-"

 "Don’t worry Dan, we’re fine! You can open your eyes now!"

 Dan was quiet for a few moments. Then he began screaming again, somehow even louder than before.

 "Ahhhhhhhh! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Ahhh-hhh-hhh-wwww!"

 The shot through a thick layer of clouds, and slowed suddenly, making Phil’s head hurt.

 They floated gracefully above the clouds, the serpent's body seeming to swim through the sky gracefully. Hanging onto the tail wasn’t the best method of transport, but it was far better now that they’d slowed.

 The morning sky was a lovely shade of pink. Below them, clouds tinted a much lighter shade of pink swirled gracefully. It was beautiful.

 "Lester!"

 Dan was still holding onto the serpent's body tightly, clutching onto it like a koala. "I’m going to freaking end you! You know I’m afraid of heights!"

 Phil rolled his eyes, just glad to be alive. "We have to get to wherever the creatures are going, and this was the fastest way."

 "We could have taken the freaking subway!"

 Phil's face fell. "Oh. Yeah, I guess that would've worked too."

 "Phil! How are we getting off of this thing?"

 They were swimming gracefully through the pink sky, and as far as Phil could tell, they were going in the right direction. The swam to the edge of the cloud bank and were able to look down at the city below them. "Wow," Phil exhaled. "What a view."

 "We’re going to die!"

 Marsha didn’t seem to like Dan’s yelling. She flapped her tail agitatedly, and Phil realized what it was a moment too late.

 Marsha hiccuped, the violent convulsion making her entire body spasm, especially at her neck. Dan was launched up, just enough to lose his grip, and he was falling.

 "Dan!" Phil screamed.

 Dan let loose a bloodcurdling scream, grabbing onto the serpent's body desperately for a hold, and then he was hanging, by one hand.

 "Dan! Hold on!"

 "You don't think that’s what I’m trying to do?" His voice shook from fear, eyes squeezed so tight his entire face scrunched up as he tried desperately to get a better grip. "Get your magic ready, I’m going to fall!"

 "Hold on!"

 "Get your magic ready, dammit!"

 Phil watched his friends dangling body helplessly. He didn’t know how to make someone fly, he’d never tried something like he, he’d probably need a spell or-

 His eyes, previously trained on Dan, lowered to the city below them. A mass of darkness had surrounded a large warehouse, pouring in. "The creatures!" Phil realized. "Marsha, to that building!"

 "You named the freaking-"

 Phil blocked out his friend's words, closing his eyes and imagining once more. He would have enough energy, he would be able to use the magic, he would save them.

  The first step to being a good magic user is believing in yourself. The rest comes after.

 Phil believed. He believed in himself. He believed in his magic. And right now, he believed with all his heart that when he opened his eyes, the roof of that building would be lit up like a disco ball.

 Marsha hiccuped in delight and dived.

 —

 There was a huge hole in the roof. They didn’t know what was below it, but hopefully whatever it was was softer than the hard asphalt of the top of the building.

 They jumped, Phil taking all the power that was going into making the roof shiny and imaging a huge snowbank in the building below. A nice, soft landing, so they could land as snow angels instead of pancakes.

 And then- the impact. It was jarring and made Phil’s legs ache something horrible, but they weren’t pancakes.

 Dan groaned in pain. “We have to stop jumping into holes when we don’t know what’s at the bottom. What is this stuff?”

 Phil opened his eyes, blinking in the change of lighting. They were in…. a bowl of some kind, huge and metallic. Underneath them was a light tan sticky substance...

 ...And a thin layer of frost. Phil smiled proudly. He’d managed a soft snow landing after all. One centimeter of it, but it was something.

 “Is this…” Dan scooped up some of the brown stuff, sniffing it. He considered, then popped a little bit in his mouth.

 “Dan!” Phil warned.

 Dan’s eyes went wide. “It’s pizza dough! That means… we must be in that giant pizza factory!”

 “No!”

 “Yes! Look at this bowl, it’s huge. And that’s pizza dough, I know it. If I have one skill in life, it’s identifying pizza.”

 “Someone call Britain’s Got Talent,” Phil remarked dryly, trying to stand up. “What do the creatures want in a pizza factory?”

 Dan shrugged. “Dunno. A snack?”

 From outside their bowl, a loud wail bellowed through the factory.

 “Becky!” They said in unison, looking at each other with worry. Struggling to climb over the mushy dough, they made their way over to the rim of the bowl and peered over.

 The creatures were everywhere. Dark shadows with only glowing gold eyes to distinguish their bodies, swirling around in such a way that it was impossible to tell which way they were looking, what they were doing; where one ended and another began.

 “Get your potion read,” Dan commanded, his voice low. “I can’t fight these without seeing them.”

 Phil bit his lip. The potion remained a mismatch of ingredients in his bag, which, while he was lucky he still had it, were useless unless he figured out how to combine them. But, for the moment, he ignored that, choosing to focus on a different issue. “You need to kill them a specific way?”

 “Not kill,” Dan corrected. “Banish back to their realm. They don’t belong here, and if they keep breeding, they’ll overrun this entire world.”

 “Yeah, but you need to do some certain way? With your sword?”

 “Yeah.” Dan didn’t seem to realize what Phil was getting at, still focused on the creatures around the bowl. They snarled and played with each other, from what Phil could tell, while others sniffed around, clearly looking for something.

  They know their way better than anything else does, the old woman had said on the phone. They’re the only beings you can rely on to always follow through on their destiny.

 Had she been talking about the creatures? Before, Phil wouldn’t have been so sure, but now seeing them all in this one place, looking for something…

 Phil didn’t have time for those thoughts. “Dan, to kill the creatures you have to use your sword to cut in between their eyes, right?”

 “Yeah?”

 “So how do you plan to do that with no sword?”

 Dan turned around, looking at Phil like he was crazy. “Come again?”

 “On the roof? One of the creatures took the sword.”

 Dan’s eyes were getting increasingly wide. “You mean-”

 “Yeah. One of these creatures probably has it. Also, I don’t have the potion. I don5 know if you realized this or not, but I still don’t know what the heck ‘Chop them up with which berries and kale dance’ means.”

 Dan put his face in his hands. For a moment, Phil thought he had given up. Then he said something.

 “What?” Phil asked, having not heard him.

 “Goddamnit,” Dan muttered. “Phil, you use kale and berries to make smoothies. You put it in a blender, and it chops it up.”

 Phil blinked. “Oh.”

 “Yeah, oh is right you-”

 “What about the other lines? The ‘use 10-2 meter wavelengths to turn it balmy’ and stuff?”

 “Wavelengths? Like, Gamma Rays?”

 Phil snorted. “Mic-ro-wave.”

 Dan looked at him like he was a genius. “Phil… I think that might actually be it! Okay, so you blend it, microwave it, and then… I don’t know. But there must be a break room somewhere in this building, you could go and see-”

 One of the creatures shrieked shrilly. They were getting more agitated.

 Phil nodded quickly. “But what will you do?”

 Dan’s expression was grim. “Get my sword. Do me a favor, do you think you could light a fire?”

—

  There was no blender.

 Phil didn’t know how well Dan was doing, just that there were a lot of shrieks coming from outside the break room. He thought most of them sounded like they came from the creatures, but a few…

 Phil decided to ignore it.

 He found a microwave and a mini-fridge in the break room. Phil tore through the cabinets, searching desperately for a blender when suddenly…

 “Aha! Got you!” Phil held up his prize proudly- a blender at least three years old, with a sticky note labeling it ‘Karen’s Kale Smoothie Maker’- and set it on the counter.

 Outside, in the main warehouse came a loud crash. Phil winced. He hoped Dan was alright.

 Dan had scooped up a fistful of pizza dough and had Phil light it ablaze, using the little magic he had left. The idea was that maybe the creatures would be so mesmerized by the light, they’d let him just take his sword back. If not, he could try burning them. Phil desperately wanted the former to work, but based on all the noise coming from the other side of the wall, the latter was more likely.

 He poured all of the precious ingredients into the blender; the Jupiter’s solvent, from the sewer; the ‘chopped source of tears’, aka an onion from the local supermarket; and the herbs from the witch’s basement apartment. It didn’t say how long to microwave it for, so he made his best guess. In the end, it bubbles and turned a nice lime green, the consistency of pudding.

 He stepped out of the room and immediately wanted to turn around and go back.

 The creatures surrounded Dan, who wielding the ball of burning dough in one hand, and his sword in the other. The creatures snapped at him, trying to steal the sword back, but so far they hadn’t had any success. When one got close enough, Dan swiped at it with the blade. Most of the time he missed and the creature retreated, seeming completely unaware of the blade that had just passed through it. But every few moments he’d hit it just right, and the monster would shriek and dissolve into a small puddle of sparkly black goop.

 He was doing well so far, but there were too many creatures, and only one Dan. He wouldn’t last long.

 Dan noticed Phil out of the corner of his eyes. “Did it work?!”

 A creature snapped at him and he slashed his sword upwards, hardly bothering it. It snapped again, and Dan repeated the process, this getting lucky and destroying it.

 “It worked!” Phil called back. “I think.”

“Then use it!”

 “How?”

 Dan cursed under his breath, waving the burning dough- which had turned to half-baked bread- around himself threateningly. “Figure it out! And hurry, I can't kill them without knowing where to swing at!”

 Phil looked at the lime green gel. “Um… take that!” He threw it, it flying through the air until it hit one of the creatures- and sailed right through.

 The creature screeched in annoyance.

 “Phil! You just violated Becky!”

 “How do you know that one's Becky?”

 Dan started to respond when a creature leapt at his back. They toppled, grappling and fighting against each other, the creature violently thrashing against him. Dan tried to get up, but it jumped him again, scratching and pawing at him.

 Dan thrashed, trying to swing at it, but his sword went right through it, not getting the right angle. “Oh- God- fu- dam-” the creature dragged him over to a corner, throwing him against the ground like a rag doll and pouncing once more. The only consolation was that as Dan failed to harm the creature, it seemed to struggle just as much. Its shadowy teeth couldn't penetrate his skin, it's blackened claws unable to mark any marks. Dan laughed in triumph, realizing this, only to result in the creature pulling his head forwards and slamming it into the ground.

 “Goddam- fuck it! Fuck it!” Dan kicked out, slamming his feet against a big red button on the wall. Above him, a bowl rotated, ready to pour.

 “Watch out!” Phil called out in warning, finally getting his voice back. “It could be boiling hot!”

 Dan gave him such an annoyed expression, Phil took a physical step back. His friend sent him a quick middle finger, as the bowl tipped over.

 But it wasn't a boiling hot mixture. Instead, it was perfect white flour- and it poured out directly onto Dan and the creature.

 Everyone held their breath- both Phil and the creatures waiting to see what happened. Phil slouched against the guardrail, his magic and energy depleted.

 One of the creatures sniffed at the green pudding on the ground; the potion that was supposed to make them visible so they could be defeated. After a few moments of considering it, it swallowed the potion whole, shuddering and retreating, but still completely dark.

 Finally, the creature shot out of the flour pile, yelping indignantly, colored completely powdery white. It's body, for once, was completely recognizable: it was a blob of white that shifted and morphed, forming and unforming legs. Its eyes shone emerald green. But most importantly, it was clear to see where the top of its head was, and exactly where the sword needed to slice.

 Dan dragged himself from the flour, gripping onto his sword tightly. He coughed horribly, letting out little puffs of white, before standing and facing the creature.

 It didn't stand a chance. With Dan's new ability to see where he needed to attack, the creature was a puddle on the floor in no time at all.

 He wiped his brow, panting with exertion. Dan’s nose was bleeding, and he was covered from head to toe in flour and speckles of monster goop. Despite all this, he grinned. “Phil… is palm flour a thing?”

 The room was beginning to spin for Phil. He clutched the railing, desperately trying to keep last night's dinner down. “Maybe? I think so.”

 “‘And screw it all for the powdery palm,’” Dan recited. “It was the key all along. Palm flour.”

 He didn't have much time to revel in his discovery, however, because by then the creatures’ shock had worn off. They jumped him, and Dan was lost in a dog pile of shadows.

 “Dan,” Phil mumbled, his vision going patchy. He'd have lasted longer if he had had breakfast, or if he'd have time to rest in between such big spells, but alas, he'd had neither. In one last desperate attempt to save his friend, Phil summoned up all his remaining energy and prepared to shoot it at the creatures. Would it even work? What if it didn’t? It may pass straight through the monsters and hit Dan instead, but he couldn't just be idle as his friend was attacked…

 Phil felt himself drop to the ground. He had no power left. Dan was going to lose this battle, and there wasn't anything Phil could do.

  You can do it, a voice whispered. Phil groaned, he must be hallucinating. You can do it.

 Across the room, Sooki the cat watched him, waiting for him to move.

 He pulled together all his strength and aimed again. His aim drifted up slightly, and he shot a blast of white-hot power into the pile of flour.

 Phil rolled onto his back, the corners of his vision going black. The last thing he saw was a snow of white powder, and then everything went black.

-----

 “Phil. Phil, come on. Wake up.”

 Phil curled his toes. Why was it so dark?

  You have to open your eyes, silly.

 “Phil, please wake up. Phil, please!”

 Phil smiled dreamily. He was so, so silly. He just needed to open his eyes! Ha, ha. Wait- how did he do that again?

 Phil heard a weird noise, some sort of weird breathing. Like…. nose breathing? Sniffling, his brain supplied.

 “You should get a tissue,” he mumbled, head lolling against the ground. “You might have a cold.”

 “Phil! Oh my g- you're okay!”

 Phil opened his eyes. It was very bright, very very bright. Dan leaned over him. As Phil’s vision came into focus, he realized Dan was a mess. “What happened to you? You look like you just fought the Pillsbury doughboy.” Phil coughed, the motion painful. His lungs felt like they'd been filled with sand.

 Dan laughed, too happy to speak. Phil didn't understand why. He was truly a mess- white flour was smeared across his whole body, making his hair stick up wildly. The bottom of his nose was caked with dried blood, and the side of his right eye was turning red with bruising.

 He looked really funny all covered in flour. It made his face look paler than normal, all except for a few streaks down his cheeks, where water had apparently washed away the powder. His eyes were a little red, but he laughed with relief.

 Dan helped Phil sit up, feeding him tomato sauce from a coffee mug. He told him about the battle; “...attacked me, swinging and swiping, but I was swinging my sword just as fast…”; and about the prophecy; “...I can't believe that it all came down to pizza flour! All that searching, for the stupid ingredients…”. Phil sat and listened without commenting, allowing Dan to feed him the tomato sauce obediently. Dan told him of his actions too; “...I knew I'd have to cover them in flour somehow, but I had no idea how. Then they jumped me…. if you hadn't completely baby powdered them, I would've been screwed.” He tilted his head to the side, a little off balanced. Flour floated from his hair like dandruff. “Even so, I think I have a concussion, and my nose bled a lot. And my ears have been ringing for a while. I ended up passing out too after I killed them all. Sorry about that.” He shrugged apologetically, though he hadn't stopped smiling since Phil woke up.

 With some food in him, Phil managed to stand with only a little help from Dan. Slowly, they descended the stairs down to the main area, where Dan had been fighting. They were almost at the bottom when Dan stumbled, his legs giving way underneath him, and he collapsed down the stairs, bumping his head against the ground. He rubbed it, smiling comically, but it was clear he was in pain.

 Phil helped him up, and they walked leaning against each other, Dan needed Phil’s support as much as Phil needed Dan’s.

 They retrieved Dan’s sword from the ground, next to an alarming puddle of blood.

 “So what do we do-” Phil started speaking, when Dan's eyes went wide. He shoved Phil to the ground and leapt- intercepting the glowing green creature midair. Becky exploded with a horrible wail, and Dan landed on the ground roughly, sliding a few meters.

 Phil could feel his heartbeat in his temple, his vision going out of focus for a moment before returning. Dan was on his knees, coughing up his lungs. He had done a good job hiding it, but if Dan didn't get medical help soon…

 Phil managed to get to his feet, stumbling over to Dan. “I'm fine,” Dan insisted, standing up too quickly. He collapsed backward against a huge control panel on the wall, unintentionally pressing most of the buttons.

 They watched in horror as many things happened at once that wasn't supposed to happen at once; a large mixing bowl was lifted into the air, a vat of sauce was dumped onto the ground, and a machine line started dropping toppings with nothing to catch them. They watched in horror as an alarm went off, and a huge sack of flour was brought across the ceiling and slammed into a mass of pipes. The pipes exploded, chemicals falling to the floor, where they mixed with the glowing green remains of Becky.

 They watched in horror as the chemicals popped and fizzed, mixing together into a glowing blue portal.

 “We can go home,” Dan whispered in amazement.

 Phil’s throat felt it was filled with cotton balls. “Yeah. I… guess we can.”

 Dan's eyes were bright. “Back to London. Earth London, with no creatures or potions or heights or serpents named Marsha-” he looked at Phil, only then noticing his expression. “You do want to go home, right?”

 Phil felt his face go red. “Well, yeah, I mean…. obviously, I just….” he looked back at Dan and lost the ability to speak. Dan, with his hair covered in flour. Dan, with his new found fear of heights. Dan, swinging the magic sword like he'd been born to do just that. He couldn't lie to him. “I want to stay,” he admitted. “This… adventure has been hard, but I feel like I was meant to be here. I want to learn how to use my powers. Actually use them, and not pass out after two spells.” He snorted, looking at his feet. “And I understand if you want to go home.”

 He didn't look up at Dan. He'd made his choice- now it was was time for Dan to make his.

“I want to go home,” Dan admitted.

They were silent for a few moments. Phil nodded slowly. “Then I guess we should… say goodbye?”

“Fuck.”

Phil looked up at Dan in surprise.

“Fuck!” Dan said again, more angrily. “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck fuck fuck fu-”

“What's wrong?” Dan looked like he was in serious pain, his eyes squeezed shut, leaning heavily against the controls. “Dan, what's-”

Before he could finish his sentence, Dan had grabbed his shirt collar and yanked him forwards, smashing their lips together in a forceful kiss. Closed mouth, nothing too invasive, but a kiss nonetheless. Angry. No, not angry- frustrated. Then Dan pushed him away.

“I'm sorry,” he was saying immediately. “I had to do that. I couldn't leave without-”

Phil stepped forwards, shutting him up with another kiss. This one was less innocent, now that they both knew they wanted it. Phil pushed him against the control panel, cupping his face in his hands as they kissed deeply, refusing to break apart. Dan's hands wrapped around his waist, only pulling him closer.

They kissed for too long. Dan needed to go, but neither wanted to break apart. Finally, Phil remembered and pulled away sharply, gasping for air.

“You have to go, the portal will-” he turned and stopped. The portal was gone.

“-close,” Dan finished for him. “I know. I saw it close. Phil… I'm staying right here.”

Phil didn't have time to process his words, because right at that moment, the factory doors burst open.

----

At first, they refused to be loaded into separate ambulances, but then Dan fainted and Phil decided he'd rather Dan be taken care of than stay with him. Still, it was hard letting go. Now that he had Dan, he didn't want to ever leave him.

In his ambulance, they gave him some medicine that made everything fuzzy. When it wore off, a day had passed, and he was in a hospital bed in a hospital gown assumably in a hospital.

He had more questions than the nurses had answers, and they chided him for using his voice, which was brittle from disuse and raw as a side effect of the medication. But Dan was fine, they promised, already awake and aware. Phil was taking longer to heal, as his injuries were a result of overextending his magic. The nurse suggested making sure to eat a hearty breakfast, and keeping some protein bars on hand.

“Now please rest. You can see Dan a little bit later, after you're both feeling better.”

“But-”

“You need to give your voice a rest. I can answer more questions later.”

Phil nodded but had one more question to ask.

“How did the ambulance know to come and get us?”

She furrowed her brows.

“You didn't call? It was from an anonymous number inside the factory. I suppose someone saw that you needed help.”

“But-”

It was just then that Phil noticed they weren't alone in the room. Behind the nurse, on a small table sat a black cat.

Sooki had always seemed smarter than most cats. Always hanging around them, helping find clues and other things they wouldn't have otherwise noticed. She always seemed to have their best interests in mind.

Thank you, Phil mouthed.

Sooki blinked. Then she dipped her head down, like a little nod.

In case you skipped over the note at the beginning, this story was made for the @phandomrevrsebang, with the artist @myawfod and beta @smiles-are-toxic. That basically means that @myawfod came up with the idea, and created art to base the story around (art can be found here), along with helping me figure out the story plot and stuff. Then, @smiles-are-toxic helped me come up with ideas, edit, and generally survive the mental breakdown that came with loosing a bunch of writing and having to re-write it. Make sure to check out the art if you haven’t, and keep an eye out for othr phandomreversebang stuff coming out in the next month!

Request A Fic / Fic Masterlist

[abstractedthinking]

D•E•A•T•H•N•O•T•E

Meet my sides

What my sides look like

Ficlets: First day Sleepless Hold onto me (cause I'm a little unsteady) You Can Run Away With Me

I do not own deathnote or any of the content portrayed in the Anime. This is created by a fan in order to expound upon the love I have for it.

Now that we have copyright issues out of the way I do need to say that this has VERY MILD spoilers of episode 12: Love. Nothing beyond that. This is made because immediately after the *sterotypical dumb blonde* appeared and revealed their motives, I immediately started to pick them apart and try to understand them on a psychological basis.

If you are not up to episode 12, DO NOT READ IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO HAVE IT MILDLY SPOILED!

With all that out of the way, let us begin. (Ps this also apparently takes place at a time after Sleepless)

****

Everything has started to finally relax after the attack from Salem on Parker and her sides, Parker went to a new doctor and got a new prescription for an antidepressant known as CeleXA, and after it kicked it Salem's clutches upon her loosened slightly, just enough for self-preservation to win out every time, and since Salem was much weaker, Katya's injuries got less and less severe but she still was just as exhausted each time.

Parker had decided that she wanted to take care of Katya's injuries as, 'it was the least I can do... you've saved my life how many times now?'

After a slightly more aggressive attack from Salem, Katya and Parker sit on the couch in the physical world watching Netflix together. More specifically Deathnote. A show that both of them had been wanting to watch for a long time. Originally they just planned to watch one episode as Parker cleaned and bandaged a scratch on Katya's wrist, but, Parker had pushed up her leather jacket and black flannel sleeves to see that all the old scars that littered her arm had reopened, "Katya! Why didn't you tell me it was this bad?"

The side simply shrugs, avoiding the host's eyes, "Take off your jacket. The flannel too."

"Not gonna happen, Park. It's really not that bad." She shoves down her sleeves and hunkers in, watching the anime intently. When the credits roll the anxious side unfolds herself and stands and readies herself to sink out, "If you let me take care of all of your injuries I'll marathon this with you."

The Anxious side slowly turns to look at her, the wheels in her head turning, ".... if we marathon it, it'll be available in the mindscape for me to watch whenever."

"I know."

"If I can watch it whenever I'll be able to see how popular culture of the time and even theories possibly influenced the anime."

A smirk, "I know."

Parker can feel Katya's own excitement buzzing under her skin, and can practically see the wheels turning as she weighs the pros of staying (Deathnote, psychological evals of the characters, Deathnote, conspiracy theories of the time period, Deathnote!!! Psychoses of the characters! DEATHNOTE) verses the cons (jacket gone. Flannel gone. Skin on display. She's going to touch me. She's going to see all her old scars. What if that causes her to relapse. Will I be able to save her again.) Katya turns her matching green eyes to the host's, taking Parker apart and seeing if her own her own desires could possibly be taken into consideration and fulfilled for once. After thorough examination of her consenting host's mental state, she sighs heavily, "Start up episode 2." She slowly begins to remove her jacket and carefully fold it up, followed by her flannel so she only has a soft black tank top on. The various marks on her arms are on full display, the reopened wounds stand out vibrantly against her pale skin. She lowers herself back to the couch and scrunches into a ball, resting her head on her knees, stiffly holding her arm out.

Parker gives her a grateful smile as she pushes play, making sure it's started before she begins to clean and bind Katya's wounds. Too focused to notice how some of tension leaves the other at her touch.

~

It takes her a bit to finish cleaning and covering the reopened wounds, but as soon as she says she's finished, the anxious side immediately pulls her flannel back on, "... you know you don't have to do this every time right?"

"What do you mean?"

"Parker. Come on," Katya leans forward and presses pause, stopping somewhere in the midst of episode 4, "I'm a side. I'm not an actual person so I can't die, I need a few of the things that humans need to survive, but at the end of the day... when I get hurts it's not a big deal."

Parker stares at the other open mouthed,"Okay. You're an aspect of my personality, yeah. But that doesn't mean that you or your hurt are any less important," she grabs the others hands, just slightly colder than her own, "You're physical. Right here, right now you're real flesh and blood and bones. Which makes you just as deserving of care. Hell, even when you sink out you're still deserving of care! You protect me so much that literally the least I can do is to is try to help ease your pain afterwards! I can't be there all the times and that sucks, but when I can be I'm going to try to fix you up as best I can and try to take care of you. If movies are included with that, then we're gonna watch movies!"

Katya looks down, a small rare smile crossing her features and reaching her eyes, "I forget how stubborn we all are sometimes...but thanks..." she clears her throat, a bit uncomfortable, "Back to the Anime for crying out loud!"

~

The credits for episode 12 start to roll, "WHAT?!" Katya pushes stop, and gets to her feet, "Okay no," she starts to walk a line in the floor, turning back and walking the same line, pacing. Her heavy platforms loudly thunking with every step she takes, "Nearly everyone in this show is real messed up. So, we've got L, Light, and this blonde bitch, Misa. L is the most normal, he's a genius, he might be a sociopath- no it's more likely he's on the autism spectrum with how he operates. He's also highly functioning with a strong sense of justice-"

"He must be protected."

A pause in the rhythmic thumps, "Shh." The thumps Resume as she continues, "I really want to pick him apart but... I don't know enough yet!"

"If he gets hurt I'm gonna cry."

The platforms once again pause, "Don't even say that," they resume their stride, "Light is a huge piece of work.. Light could 100% be a sociopath but-"

"-But he exhibited signs of distress when he realized the Deathnote was real and was actually killing people."

"Don't blame him for that," Katya chuckles, "so even though thus far he exhibits a lot of signs of sociopathy... he might not be one. It's more likely-"

"-or lightly!"

"Don't start that. You're not as clever as you think. Anyway, he could have antisocial personality disorder... he exhibits lots of those traits..."

"He is also really narcissistic, I mean 'I will be the god of this world' come on!"

Katya smirks, "Yeah. He's definitely a narcissist. But he's also detached... he didn't give a shit in one of the first episodes if Ryuk was gonna take his soul.... but again, sociopathy... he doesn't give a shit about what happens to people if it helps him create his perfect world."

"Hmm... he's also extremely detached with himself since he was able to stay cool under L examining him.... so he could have some aspects of psychopathy as well.. if the spaceland date was anything to go by he's also emotional abusive with the girls he interacts with, and he only interacts with people if it will benefit him."

"I bet he pulled wings off of butterflies as a kid," Katya states ceasing her pacing and staring at Parker.

"There's no doubt about it," Parker nods.

"... but he also treats Kira as a separate entity, so he could have multiple personality disorder."

"... that's true. But now what about Misa-"

"Don't get me started on blondie. She's stupid! And arrogant! And she gives up half of her lifespan so she can maybe help him out by killing L? Did the shinigami dying for her give her some sort of a god complex?! And she wants to meet Kira so badly?! She does what's called Monster Worship! UGH!" Katya flops back onto the couch, drawing her knees to her chest. Parker looks at her, snickering when she's reminded of L,"How do you know so much about psychology? I thought it was Athena that handled all my knowledge."

"I'm left brain too. I know stuff too, plus it's interesting cause it lets me see people's motives easier."

Parker slowly nods, "I gotcha."

"But this show is driving me crazy! The characters are just... GAH!!"

The two are quiet for a moment before Parker breaks the silence,

"So you wanna watch more?"

"Fuck yeah."

"Light needs lots of drugs. Lots of prescription drugs to fix all that," Parker says, leaning forward to start the next episode.

"No fucking joke."

*

sorry this took so long to get up! I've had it written but no time to edit it

Please leave feedback and let me know if you would like to be added to the tag list!

@parkersanders / @xaandiir @emo-space-trash @sunshinelollip0ps @gabe-killed-me-with-ace-cream @ssides @ashrain5 @sketchymel @theoneandonlyfangirlofpower

[todokori-kun]

The

 queen is back and I’m so freaking happy <3

‘annoyed’ nothing you say is annoying ok, I’m actually just really relieved and happy that I’m helping in any way at all. Also you listen to my rambling all the time and you supported me with my anxiety (you have no idea how much our convos helped after I first saw a doctor about it and was feeling really confused about what to do) so ‘what did I do to deserve you’ is probably what I should be saying to you.

Tbh when things are as serious as you’ve described then you’re definitely not overreacting. Like I said before, I’m always ready to listen/talk when you need to. And you don’t have to stress about replies; I honestly don’t mind at all as long as you’re ok.

Thank you Queen Luna you’re the best ;-;

Also, good news and bad news:

Bad news- A bit after I sent the last message mom apparently found out about Tumblr and decided that I probably shouldn’t get an account here because of all the NSFW content. I get why she’s worried so I guess I won’t be getting an account here for a while.

Good news- HOWEVER, I was chatting with someone on ao3 and they asked if we could move our convo somewhere else. They recommended something called Discord so I got an account there. If you’ve never heard of Discord it’s basically a voice and text chat system usually used by gamers, but it seems to be pretty popular among non-gamers too. PMing is possible there :D (The only flaw is that you can’t send very long messages, so you have to send multiple short ones, which is a bit annoying…but otherwise it’s pretty neat so maybe we can try it if you’re ok with that?)

XD yeah that’s actually pretty accurate.

*reads Luna’s message*

*inhale*

UM. DO YOU HAvE ANY IDEA HOW AMAZING YOU ARE. LET ME TRY TO BE A GOOD, SUPPORTIVE FRIEND AND TELL YOU

Yep it was one of the grossest things that ever happened to me OTL I’m still swimming but I’m taking a long break right now- a break that started because my little sister broke her toe and we were basically stuck at home taking care of her (the pool is a bit far for me to go on my own so if mom’s stuck at home so am I), and then got longer because the pool’s old and some things had to be ‘fixed’, and then got even longer because my coach is getting married (just reread that and realized that I sound super annoyed, I’m actually not, I have no problem with my coach getting married XD). I’ll probably start again around next month, though :)

Thanks ^^

Oooh are you a comic fan??? I haven’t read any superhero comics because there seem to be so many AUs(?)/different timelines so trying to figure out where to start is really confusing, plus I actually sorta prefer manga/manhwa art styles (not that wester comics are bad- a lot of them have really good art too, I just personally prefer the manga/manhwa styles (especially for the panels). Also the ecchi-ish costumes/anatomy for almost every single female superhero gets a bit ridiculous sometimes lol). Some of them seem really fun, though, and I’d like to try them out someday…

It’s really cool that you’ve been a fan of T'challa for so long, it must’ve been even more exciting to see him in the movie :D

Imagine everyone watching The Winter Soldier together. Then the  'brainwashed bucky’ scenes start.

Illumi: *stares intently at the screen*

Illumi: I see no problem with this.

Watching Civil War and Leorio goes Dad Mode and covers Gon’s and Killua’s eyes when Hisoka starts making…innappropriate…noises during the fight scenes

(Hisoka low-key writing reader insert lemons about various MCU heroes. Most likely Natasha (because she’s a lot like Machi, his only female crush so far), Bruce (how Hisoka would love to unleash the beast), Thor (he’s a literal GOD imagine how badly he could mess Hisoka up *schwing*), Wanda, and Vision (he probably liked Loki too before Loki got beat up by the Hulk and Hisoka was like ‘oh I have a new senpai’)

Then Illumi gets Milluki (his tech genius little brother) to hack into Hisoka’s computer for info and is like 'what is this Hisoka I do not understand why you derive pleasure from this trash’)

Everyone thinks Gon should relate to Tony on a personal level but he doesn’t, because despite being a sunshine angel he’s also a freaking weird kid who doesn’t hate Ging. At all. (Though that might have something to do with the fact that he doesn’t even consider Ging his parent in the first place; he never even calls him 'dad’ or 'my father’)

Killua, on the other hand, relates to Bucky a bit too much and thinks HYDRA is basically the Zoldyck family.

Everybody’s Team Cap except for Illumi, who’s Team Iron Man (“Why would you want to break the rules?”), and then Hisoka randomly shows up like 'Team Hulk ;)’

Every time Howard Stark is mentioned everyone just stares at Ging, who shifts uncomfortably

(Yeah did I tell you about the time Leorio punched Ging for being a trash dad?)

OMG. Thank you for that. I’ve seen a lot of 'Hisoka as the clown from the 'It’ movie’ posts on tumblr but never any fanart for that idea. Run, Gon. Run.

I’m considering teaching myself to animate just to make those animatics XD

(Also, random thing: it’s Chuseok over here (basically like the Korean version of Thanksgiving, I guess?) and usually, people recieve money from older relatives during holidays like this in Korea. I got about 80 dollars (50 from my maternal grandparents, 10 from my paternal grandfather and 20 from my uncle) so I’m debating on what to spend it on: It’s either a tablet so I can learn how to do digital art (I’m thinking about polishing my drawing skills for a while and then making a webcomic. My parents support this so they’re willing to pay a little extra for a tablet) or a ukulele (I like the piano but I realized a while ago that it’d be great to have an instrument that I can carry around, so I did some research and the ukulele seems good. I really like the sound so I’m willing to put some effort into learning it). Idk which one I should choose, though. Technically the tablet should be my priority but I also like the ukulele…

(and idek why I mentioned this either, guess the talk about animating reminded me of the tablet lol))

I thrive on angst. Tragedy fuels me. (But tbh HxH is a LOT darker than I was prepared for. I’m currently shipping an ant king with a genius human girl and I know from spoilers that they’re both going to die)

Yeah, she’s alive :D but apparently Kaneki is now 'dead’ (though I don’t think he is really, if Ishida kills him off now (after all the stuff with Hide? All the character development Ken hasn’t gotten yet? When he still hasn’t talked about anything with Shuu or Hinami or even Akira?) and gives us a new protagonist or something I might finally rage-quit this series.

Or not, since with all the Touken stuff and Kaneki being sorta insensitive ever since he became the OEK…maybe a new protagonist is what we need?). I was liking all the parallels with Arima in the first series until this, because it was just…um. I think my main problem with the whole thing is the freakng PACING because it just feels so clunky and awkward. This is probably one of those chapters that will be really good if Ishida somehow manages to connect it with the next chapters and has everything make sense later, but if he doesn’t do it well it’s going to suck forever OTL

At least TG finally confirmed Naki’s death, though. I mean, the ideal situation for me is if he never died in the first place, but at least a confirmed death is better than Ishida suddenly bringing him back to life after that panel with Yamori. And his death scene was handled well. (Now please just tell me that he, Kanae and Hairu aren’t coming back as Kanou-Furuta zombies and I will be semi-satisfied)

Also AOT if you haven’t read the new chapter yet spoilers but

(The-Reiner-Eren reunion I HAVE WAITED SO. LONG FOR THIS

Also Eren’s grandad ;-;

And maybe we’ll finally be seeing Annie again soon since she’s been appearing in so many flashbacks and Reiner’s probably going to ask about her if he and Eren get to actually talk

Love those hints about something finally starting to change

ANOTHER PERSON FROM MIKASA’S CLAN? I hope we see this lady again, she’s lovely

I can’t believe how much the art has improved, it actually looks GOOD now 0.0)

Aw, that’s ok! I’ll be looking forward to seeing it when you get a new skirt :D

Yeah, I’m really excited for OC’s name too…must be something important if they’re keeping it hidden for this long. I guess it’s French (or a word from some other non-English language) since 'Ciel’ is French for 'Sky’…and it probably has a meaning related to the sky since they’re twins. Idk. Maybe it’s the word for 'star’ ('etoile’) since stars are also a big thing in this arc?

Looking forward to your reaction! I haven’t read the novel yet but from what I know it sounds great :D (also I cannot resist the L + Naomi duo even if they never actually interacted in manga/anime canon)

Btw, is it ok if I ask how far you’ve gotten with the DN anime?

(Also fun fact: Ryuk was originally designed to look like a handsome young man (an 'attractive rock star’, in the words of DN’s creators. You can find a pic of his original design on google). His design was changed because the creators felt like he was overshadowing Light XD

But also, I just found a post on tumblr that said Takeshi Obata (DN’s artist) mentioned that Ryuk’s face in canon could just be a mask to hide his true appearance…which means that he could technically still look like that in canon. Wow. I actually think I have the book where it says Obata mentioned that, I have to go and check it now lol)

Watch it if you dare and prepare to weep over all the wasted potential, because now that I read/watch more about it I guess the saddest thing is that it COULD have been great. I mean, like I said, the visuals are REALLY good, L’s actor could have been a good L if not for the bad script, Ryuk’s actor/design were also super great (it’s just his role in the movie and his motivations they messed up ;-;)…

I don’t watch Avatar (I’d like to when I have the time, though, because it seems like a great show) but I’ve heard of that movie and tbh I can’t even.

Ty :D (Ayy the queen said I’d make a cute Peridot *fangirls*

You’re also my closest friend right now and I love talking to you so much <3 thank you for everything Luna.)

See this is why you’re awesome. Thank you so much ;-; (and what, did Queen Luna mention me to her parents. Did I make a good impression. Omg. (jk, jk lol))

Also: I’d like to rec a song to you, it’s called 'Lovely’ by Twenty One Pilots :D

Oh look I actually replied within a week :’)

OK ILL START W DISORD BC IM EXCITE. I already have one, from a while ago, my # is 5773! So add me whenever you want ^^ ((But please just send me a short message here, cause I turned notifs off for it, so i can turn them on again ^^)) Well, uh, here’s the thing about short messages.  If a site/app has an instant message feature, you can bet I’ll be the one to split a sentence into 10 separate messages for dramatic effect… So, uh, prepare to have 42 new messages instead of like 4 waiting when you open the app ^^

I never ever ever have any problems with listening to you. I just appreciate you’re comfortable enough with me to be able to come to me. Honestly, I truly appreciate you in my life, especially considering that you can always reassure me with your words ^^ Truly a writer’s talent :p

Well, I’m going to a psychologist soon, so we’ll see what they’ll say. Idk tho, I dont think I even care anymore. I just want this stomach thing to pass as soon as possible.

Ouch, I hope your sister is better now… I’ve never broken anything so I wouldn’t know the feeling. Aww, coaches getting married is actually the cutest thing ever XD My archery coach got married a few years back and she was practically glowing.  Ah, if you don’t mind me asking, do you have a particular stroke you specialise in or do you just swim everything? 

I could say the same about comic/manga styles. Tbh, I don’t really consider myself a comic fan? When I was a kid, I used to buy the children’s comics to ward off boredom, but never really continued after I got into reading actual books. Black Panther happened to be among those comics and I remembered him when they mentioned T’Challa in CW. I wonder if i still have those old comics somewhere… But yeah, i was pretty excited when they mentioned him XD

That viewing actually sounds amazing… I get the feeling they’d all want to do an in depth analyzation of the characters? (But idk i don’t really know the characters that well) except for Hisoka, who’s probably just schwinging around being creepy per usual. I’m torn between wanting to read those lemons and just backing the fuck away…. Probably read like a paragraph and then set everything on fire. Yeah, that sounds good. 

I presume you’re not gonna watch IT? Random, but i thought of it bc of the fanart… Tbh I won’t watch it either. I’ve never watched a single horror movie in my life and i intend to keep it that way. Unless you count Coraline as horror, which I actually would in some ways? Idk tho, that movie traumatised me. Not even joking when I say I occasionally have nightmares related to it. Advice; if you haven’t, DO NOT WATCH CORALINE. Don’t be fooled by the fact that it’s a cartoon. I mean 9 is a cartoon, but it’s also freaking dark. HAPPY TREE FRIENDS IS A CARTOON AND I WOULDNT TOUCH THE VIDEOS WITH A 9 FOOT POLE.  Long story short, cartoons are not a joke.

For some reason I confused the Ukulele with a Lute and was like ‘I’m not gonna judge, but… why?’ then i actually googled it and realised I’m an idiot.  But, um, I can’t say anything other than it’s your choice and you should do whatever would make you happier? There’s that trick of throwing a penny in the air and if you’re disappointed when it lands heads/tails, you know you want the other one. Idk, tho, both options sound equally nice!

… HxH gets weirder every time you tell me about it

KANEKI IS WHAT NOW Um, okay then.... alrighty...

guess who dropped TG again

WELL FUCK IM SCREAMING ABOUT THE NEW CHAPTER WHOAH EREN’T GRAMPA WHOAH THE REUNION However, the best part is Reiner acting like a dad during the festival

Oooh Etoile would be interesting!

I’m still at the ep where L dies ;-; I haven’t had the time to move forward, so I’m hoping I’ll be able to watch some during this weekend

Well, uh. My mom came into my room while I was writing this and had to ask me why i was crying (I’m pretty sure she thought I was having one of my all-time-lows again). The reason why I was actually crying? The song. Words can’t express my gratitude. I’d download it, but tbh I feel like I’ll start ugly sobbing again every time I listen to it...

random note, i started going to school by train! It’s actually a lot nicer than the bus and cheaper XD Idk why i put this here but yay

[beardycarrot]

Because... I don’t know, I’m some kind of idiot, I’ve decided to watch the Netflix Death Note. I know next to nothing about it, aside from the fact that they cast a white actor to play Light, and American fans have been bothered by the production every step of the way (the Japanese internet doesn’t seem to mind the casting). This should be an interesting experience, given that I’m actually very familiar with the source material... but don’t really like it that much.

I watched Death Note as it aired in 2007, and really enjoyed it right up to the point where L welcomed Light to his team and moved them into a pointlessly gigantic building. Death Note starts out absolutely amazing, but then for a majority of its run is dull, uninspired, and unsatisfying.

Years later, I watched Bakuman, a semi-autobiographical series from Death Note’s creators, and they made it pretty clear (through what happens with Reversi, the in-universe analog to Death Note) that they hadn’t been allowed to end Death Note at the point that they’d originally intended. Going back and reading the Death Note manga... yeah, this was exactly what had happened. The reason Death Note started sucking was because the authors were forced by their editor to keep the story going.

While I haven’t seen the Japanese Death Note movies, I have seen the live action tv adaptation, which... Well, it sucks. They make a lot of completely pointless changes, totally changing the tone of the series. Instead of being incredibly clever and secretive, L was bold and bombastic... and for some reason, had a habit of changing his shirt in virtually every scene he was in. The changes to Near and Mello were even weirder.

It’s fine to change things (there’s no point in adapting something like this if you keep everything the same), but there are two things that MUST remain true for the story to work: first, Light has to be bright, charismatic and loved by everyone, to the point that him being Kira is completely unthinkable. Secondly, L has to be one of the greatest intellects in the world, always, ALWAYS one step ahead of Light, only tripping up because of factors impossible to take into consideration.

So, how does Death Note: A Netflix Original Movie hold up?

I kinda liveblogged myself watching the movie, which you can read below, but in general my thoughts are... it’s okay, bordering on bad. Some things are adapted fine, while others are just stupid. They Straight Up Goofed, making Light an unlikable social outcast and having him outsmart L in the end, the two things I directly said ya just can’t do. Though to be fair, at all other times Light is such a complete idiot that L is easily ten steps ahead of him. L and Watari are the only characters that are somewhat faithful to their original portrayals, although L is never really shown being that clever, and kinda... has a mental breakdown and chases Light through the streets with a gun?

They changed so much in the story, with Light being the one hopelessly in love with Misa (in this version, Mia), while she’s more interested in acting as Kira, to the point of writing Light’s name in the Death Note to force him to give it to her. Ryuk is cruel and seems to have no fondness for Light at all, and Light’s dad... is even more of a generic cop character.

These characters and what they go through are SO different to the source material that I’d go so far as to call it an original story which pays homage to Death Note’s story in certain places. Honestly, it would’ve been so simple to make this an original Death Note story that most would be happy with: just change the names. Make Light... Elliot, change L and Watari to Number 8 and Winston, bam, you have a new story in the Death Note universe. It wouldn’t have been great, as there are some stupid bits and parts that don’t make sense, as well as Death Note rules that directly contradict ones from the manga... but it would’ve been better.

Unfortunately, since they’ve decided to reimagine the original story, direct comparisons are going to be made... and this version is missing the single most important thing to the original’s story: the cat-and-mouse between Light and L. That’s really the core of Death Note, and a version of this story without it just falls flat.

So, is this a good adaptation? Absolutely not. Is it better than the tv drama in which L is constantly changing his shirt, Near is a woman in her twenties, and Mello is literally a ventriloquist’s dummy? Ehhhh.... I think I’d put them on about equal footing.

The important one, however, is whether the movie is worth watching... and to that, I’d say yes, if you’re a Death Note fan. If you’re unfamiliar with the series, you’re better off checking out (the first half of) the anime, because if you watched this movie first you’d probably think you have a grasp on what Death Note is, which the movie definitely does not provide. It’s far from Dragon Ball: Evolution levels of missing the mark, but it’s definitely only for Death Note fans who want to laugh at all the weird choices that went into this thing.

We open with.... Uh, Seattle? Yeah... Yeah, okay, I can get behind this actually. I hadn’t even thought of where it might be set, but Seattle works for me.

Also, Netflix has apparently decided to do this thing where the subtitles are half over the movie, half over a black bar. I’m not turning the subtitles off, so... that’s something I’m going to have to deal with.

‘MURICA. You have no idea how much my heart sunk when I saw this. American public school culture as it’s typically portrayed in movies is NOT a good fit for Death Note, and with the cheerleaders, football players, and the weird outcast guy doing homework over at the edge of the field (which TOTALLY happens in real life, honest), it feels like that’s what they’re going for. Eurgh.

Did I say weird outcast guy? Because I meant Yagami Light. Wwwwwwhat. I can understand why he doesn’t look quite as sharp as the real Light, given that American public schools don’t have uniforms... but why does he look like that? This isn’t a charismatic character that everyone loves, this is the guy who gets the crap beaten out of him and shows up to school with his dad’s gun.

Some cheerleader makes eyes at him, a storm rolls in, and the Death Note falls from the sky right next to him. This... is asinine. In the original, Light notices the notebook falling from the sky because he happens to be looking out the window, and after class picks it up because he’s walking by. If there was a sudden storm out of nowhere, everyone would be looking up at the sky and see the notebook.

Anyway. Light is promptly beaten up (of course he is) for defending Eyes Girl in the most pathetic way possible... and because this is written by idiots, he’s the one who gets in trouble. The teacher who found him lying unconscious in the rain apparently decided to look at the papers he dropped instead of helping him, and discovered that he’s been doing other students’ homework for them. I am literally FIVE MINUTES into the movie and they’ve both completely missed the point of Light’s character and fallen into the single worst school cliche. Lovely.

I’m trying not to be negative, really, but how this is shot just rubs me the wrong way. I’ve seen Dutch angles, transitions zooming in and out of objects, the edges of the screen fading to black or being out of focus, heavy shadows in what should be normal lighting... Basically, the “trying just a bit too hard” school of cinematography. I’m only to the fourth scene and the cinematography is already bothering me. This is going to be a long movie.

Anyway, Light has detention. The moment the teacher steps out, he pushes all of his books, including the one she just put on his desk, onto the floor (...?), and pulls out the Death Note. The rules written in the Death Note consistently refer to it as a “note” and not a “notebook”, despite calling a notebook a “note” being a purely Japanese thing and doesn’t happen in American English. The rules actually ARE supposed to be written in English, as Ryuk just used one of the most widely-spoken languages on Earth and dropped the thing at random... but calling it a “note” instead of a “notebook” was for the convenience of the Japanese audience, and makes no sense in English.

My first thought was, “okay, they know the rules are iconic among fans, so they probably wanted to keep the phrasing exactly as it was”... but then they’ve completely cut off the second half of the second rule. C’mon! That’s one thing they definitely SHOULD have changed for an English adaptation, isn’t it??

Okay, okay, okay. I need to think positive. I need to stop nitpicking this movie, and enjoy it for what it is. It’s going to be dark and brooding and probably not very faithful to the source material, but it can’t be THAT bad throughout.

Eight minutes. I got EIGHT MINUTES into this movie before just completely checking out. Fine. Whatever. Light is in fact the LEAST cool character in existence in this version, let’s see where they go with it.

Light meeting Ryuk before ever using the Death Note completely changes the dynamic, turning him from someone who has developed a god complex learning of the source of his power into... a screaming idiot kid being tempted to sin by a demon. Light kills some jackass, and it turns out that Light’s mom is dead, his sister is... potentially nonexistent, and his dad is still a cop, but more of a disagreeable hardass (because ’murica).

Finally, about fifteen minutes in, we get the first interesting change: someone has written in the Death Note that Ryuk is not to be trusted. This is a complete departure from the original, as Ryuk could be trusted completely. He was only in it for his own entertainment, and found everything Light did entertaining, so was basically just a chill friend and willing to help with whatever. Light not trusting Ryuk will completely change his motivations. I’m actually interested to see where they go with this.

Whaaaaat is thiiiiiiiis. Who talks like that. Nobody talks like that. Also, Light Turner is a terrible name. Is that a pun? Is the movie going to end with redemption for Light? Eyes Girl turns out to be Mia, a near miss on Misa, and... Light just straight up tells her about the Death Note in what seems to be their first conversation ever. They’re really wasting no time, huh? Also, I guess this means Misa’s Death Note won’t be in the movie. It turns out that she’s totally okay with him killing people straight away. Moving right along, I guess?

Did I mention the heavy shadows? Light is too much of a weenie to kiss Mia, so she kisses him instead. That’s what you’re looking at here. What follows is the obligatory ♥ Teen Romance Montage ♥ intercut with them choosing victims, and those victims dying. It hasn’t established that people die of a heart attack if no method of death is specified, and they’re giving their targets fittingly ironic deaths... which makes me wonder how L is going to get involved. Kira only came to exist in the public conscious because criminals were dying of mysterious heart attacks. Are they going to just decide to make themselves known, or--

Alright, before the montage is over they’ve done just that. They had a bunch of inmates kill themselves and write a message about Kira punishing them on the walls in their own blood or something. I guess that works! This would be a good time to mention just how violent and gory this movie’s been so far. Every death has unpleasant practical effects.

Cut to Tokyo, where what looks like a black guy in a hoodie and mask awkwardly pokes around a crime scene. Uhh. Alright.

Oh hey, is that Masi Oka? Neat. The subtitles spoil for me that the guy in the mask is L, though it’s pretty apparent anyway. Apparently leaking the information on these criminals has helped him determine that Kira is in Seattle, not Tokyo, though it doesn’t do a very good job of explaining it. Through a narrative contrivance L hires Light’s dad, and L reveals the first criminal Kira actually killed... but this just comes across as a major logical leap on L’s part. That said, L is the most source-accurate part of the movie so far.

In a kinda interesting twist, Light doesn’t want to kill the FBI agent set to tail him, and Mia is the one who does it. Presumably, she got the information on who all the agents are similar to how it was handled in the manga, though this isn’t really explained and would probably be confusing to someone seeing this movie and nothing else. Ryuk has his first speaking role in a while, and... wow, I am like 98% sure that’s Willem Dafoe. Good casting choice!

L is so sure that Light is Kira that he has his father go on tv, with his name stated beforehand, and trash talk Kira. Mia wants to kill him (obvs), but Light refuses, and... still seems to be basically the same guy he was at the beginning of the story. That’s a huge departure, and I really have no idea where they’re going from here. It feels like Mia is building up to becoming the villain, I guess? Maybe? In any case, L meets with Light, and when asked why he doesn’t just arrest Light on suspicion of being Kira, says “I don’t go for checks, only checkmates,” which is an AWESOME line! It’s not very true to manga L, who was always too gloomy for his confidence to cross over into badassery, but it’s a great line nonetheless.

Light and Mia use the Death Note to command Watari to give them L’s name, but given that he doesn’t know he, end up sending him to the orphanage where L was raised to find it... and Watari disappearing, obviously, alerts L that something is going on. WOW is this version of Kira incompetent. Ryuk remains a lot more menacing than in the source (I mean, if you’ve got Willem Dafoe, ya gotta use him, right?), implying that as soon as Light gives up the Death Note, Ryuk will find a new keeper and have them kill him.

Most of the stupid cinematography tricks have stopped by this point, though it’s still dark as all hell. At the homecoming dance (’murica) Light calls Watari, who is killed right before telling him L’s name, and Light finally learns that Mia has been Kira’ing behind his back... and has written his name in the book, specifying that his heart will stop at midnight. She wants him to hand over ownership of the book, after which she’ll burn the page, which... apparently prevents him from dying. This is a direct contradiction of one of the rules, which states that the person will die even if the Death Note is destroyed. This is bad adaptation. For whatever reason, rather than immediately burning his page, he writes down a whole bunch of names from a “hey Kira kill these people” website and then runs from the police, including L chasing him with a gun due to Watari’s death. L does an honest-to-god Dukes of Hazard slide across the hood of a car. I really have no idea what’s happening right now.

He also firmly plants this guy’s face in a bowl of soup.

L eventually corners Light, who tries to explain things, until a Kira-supporting busboy knocks him out a a 2x4. Light makes it to the ferris wheel where he promised to meet Mia, and she betrays him (of course she does), choosing the Death Note. It’s revealed that Light wrote her name in it as well, just in case... and then Ryuk starts psychically tearing apart the ferris wheel (Ryuk has telekinesis in this version).

They both fall from the ferris wheel, Mia landing in a giant crate of... uh, flower petals, I guess, dying instantly, while Light lands in the water. This was a boardwalk amusement park or something, the film didn’t really establish that very well. L arrives on the scene just in time to see the loose page from the Death Note fluttering through the air, and for whatever reason he decides to follow it, where it lands in a burning barrel (I guess this is a boardwalk amusement part frequented by old-timey vagrants...?), and he sees what’s written on the page as it burns.

CONVENIENT.

A mysterious figure (well, as mysterious as someone can be while wearing a baseball cap) finds the Death Note washed ashore, and takes it. Cut to L being berated by some higher-ups, because there have been four new Kira murders while Light is in a coma. The mysterious figure walks up to Light’s bed in the hospital and puts the Death Note on it. Pretty ballsy, considering he’s in a coma and and nurses will be checking on him regularly... but no, as it turns out, enough time has passed that he’s conscious now.

L realizes that the method Kira uses for killing can be found in Mia’s house based on things Light said, and finds a page of the Death Note. In a twist, it’s revealed that the whole ferris wheel thing, Mia’s death, the page burning, and the guy retrieving the Death Note were all part of a plan Light put together while writing those names down during the dance. His dad figures out that he really was Kira, and L seems poised to write Light’s name on the page in Mia’s room... but then, maybe decides not to? Ryuk laughs and says that humans really are interesting.

...Then the credits roll. That’s how it ends. I was certain that there would be scenes during/after the credits giving more of an ending, but nope, just some bloopers because this is apparently a comedy movie now.

[samtheflamingomain]

welcome to death note, where the plot makes no sense and the rules don’t matter

Unless you've been living under a rock the past few months, you're aware that there's a live-action American Death Note movie on Netflix.

I wasn't going to watch it because I knew it would be bad and I am a MASSIVE DN fan. I didn't want it to ruin one of my favourite things.

While I wouldn't say it did that, I will say that it was, without exaggeration, the worst screen adaptation of anything I've ever seen.

I went in with low expectations and knowing they'd have to change the plot around to fit into 90 minutes. The bar was so low and yet they managed to disappoint me at every turn.

So let's get into the details. Spoilers ahead, but who cares this movie is garbage.

I'll break it down into several aspects: acting and characterization, pacing and plot, visuals and sound, and finally, the sheer amount of nonsense and bullshit this film vomited into my face.

Okay. I hated every single character's personality. NONE of the characters were even remotely similar to the characters in the manga/anime. Light is a stupid, naive teenager who thinks with his dick. Mi(s)a is a sociopathic, manipulative cunt, Light's father is EXTREMELY stupid, Ryuk is not a neutral character (which is extremely important), and, finally, L. Oh, lord, L.

L is a cold, detached, calculating super genius detective. In the original. In the movie, he's a ballsy, irrational, emotional mess who somehow knows how to drive and wield a gun - unthinkable of OG L.

And to touch briefly on the acting: Nat Wolff is the only one I really have a problem with. He wears a constant look of confusion the whole movie and acts like a troubled child, not like a fucking serial killer.

Now, to your immense surprise, there is one character that I found was nearly spot-on: Watari.

And finally, the movie lacked in sheer number of characters. The ones I listed are, quite literally, the only ones in the film who speak. I get it, they didn't have time to do the Near, Mello, Takada, or Mikami plots. But I guarentee this movie would've greatly benefited from a Matsuda character, a Rem character, and Light's mother and sister.

Onto pacing and plot.

Again, I know they only had 90 minutes, but within the first ten minutes, Light has the notebook and hooks up with someone he barely knows (Mia), shows her the notebook, and they’re instantly dating and having some creepy murder sex. Within the first 30 minutes, nearly everyone knows Light is Kira.

Now to the main problems with the plot itself: there is no reason to give Light more motive to become a killer. It's his personality and his worldly outlook that causes him to take up killing. In the movie, they sloppily throw in some bullshit about his mom being killed, but they don't make that the actual motivation for killing. How do we know this? Well...

In the movie, his first kill is a bully at school (something OG Light was smart enough to realize is fucking stupid) and when told to add a cause of death, he immediately jumps to "decapitation" - revealing instantly that he's a sick fuck. Sure, bullies suck, but do they deserve to be fucking decapitated? Light Yagami only killed actual criminals (until he has to kill people investigating him).

This might seem petty, but it's actually super important: Ryuk shows up before Light kills anyone. In the original, Light needed no prodding from a Death God to begin his murder spree. In the movie, it's Ryuk that goads him into his quest. This goes back to the fact that Ryuk is supposed to be neutral. It takes away Light's agency and makes it feel like Ryuk is controlling him.

L makes WAY too many guesses with little logic or evidence. It takes a lot longer for L to deduce Light is Kira in the original. Movie L makes some very uncharacteristic leaps of logic just for the sake of driving the movie on.

There's a scene pretty early on that mimics a similar scene in the original with Light and L sitting in a diner together. In the original, it’s not super important. Movie version involved L outright accusing him of being Kira on flimsy-at-best evidence, and then, in what might be the worst event in the movie, Light readily admits to being Kira and taunts him about not knowing how he kills.

After some bullshit about Light mind-controlling Watari (more on that later) to try and get L's name and Watari dies, L goes on a destructive car/foot chase with Light. In the original, it's important for L to figure out how Kira kills before killing him. This movie L doesn't seem to care about anything but revenge and being proven right.

I keep saying this, but another horribly-written thing happens that might be the worst part: L has Light cornered with a gun on him and someone randomly comes and knocks L over the back of the head, the very epitome of a Deus Ex Machina.

Then we get to the climax, which is an extremely long scene where Light and Mia hijack the Seattle ferris wheel, take it to the top and fight over who should own the book. They've both written each others' names down and the pages need to be burned by midnight if they want to live (groan, unnecessary race-against-time). They spend a good 5 minutes dangling from the wheel when RYUK causes it to collapse; something OG Ryuk would have NEVER EVER DONE, because, as the movie fails to explain, Ryuk’s motivation is supposed to be boredom. I’ll touch more on why this happens in a bit. Mia falls to her death, Light falls into the water, into a coma, and wakes up two days later.

Okay, now I do have to give the movie a bit of credit here: it seems at first like a bunch of ridiculous coincidences that lead to Light outliving Mia. Turns out he saw all this coming (somehow) and had quickly used the book to ensure that: the wheel collapses, Mia falls from the wheel and dies, the page with his name is burned so he will live, that he's rescued from the water after his fall, that he's in a coma but murders continue via a random criminal writing in the book before delivering it back to Light just as he wakes from the coma. I'll pick this part apart in a minute because there is just so much wrong with this sequence of events that I can’t even.

And finally, the ending, if you can call it that. The writers were VERY clearly trying to be clever and leave us with a cliffhanger.

L is "proven wrong" about Light being Kira because the murders continued while he was in a coma, and is supposed to go back to Japan, before he suddenly remembers that Mia has a page of the book at her house. He gets there and finds the page she used to kill invesigators behind Light's back. The movie ends with L, shaking in uncharacteristic anger, about to write Light's name. Fade to black.

Finally, one last thought on the plot before I touch on other elements: this is a terrible adaptation, but an even worse movie. As a stand-alone movie, viewers new to Death Note would no doubtedly leave feeling confused and like nothing important was said in the movie. It does nothing to touch on the ambiguity of Kira's actions vs. L's. It has no underlying takeaway besides "Hey look at this cool book!"

Okay, quick thoughts on visuals and sound. Visuals are great (minus whatever bullshit paper mache project that is Ryuk). They dont' shy away from gruesome depictions of murders. I'd cite the incredible series of events that lead to Kenny being decapitated as the best example.

Hated the audio. Random songs start playing where score would've been better.

Okay, now onto the nitty-gritty details that make this movie absolutely fall apart.

Most of them are to do with the mechanics of how the Death Note is supposed to work. The original only has one page of rules and no names in it yet. Movie Book has pages and pages of rules and names filled in. There are rules that don't exist in the original (like the burning of the page to save the life of the victim, the fact that Mia can't see Ryuk after touching the note*, and most deplorably, the rule about "must be physically possible" being shattered into pieces at every turn.

*When Light first shows Mia the book and has her touch it, he assumes she’ll be able to see Ryuk WITH NO REASON TO BELIEVE THIS. In the original, Ryuk has to tell Light about this rule. In the movie, Light GUESSES that that’s how it works. And he’s wrong: unlike the original where Mia would’ve seen Ryuk, Ryuk claims in the movie that only the owner of the book can see him - super convenient for Light, who walks around school with the book in full view.

But there's a lot of other bullshit that ruins this monstrosity. There's a turning point in the movie where Mia tries to convince Light to kill his own father. The prompting event doesn't happen in the original, but I have no doubt that OG Light would've killed him without hesitation, as he outright says in the original. Because OG Light would be smart enough to know that leaving his father alive in that situation would immediately implicate him.

Here's one of the worst offenses (again, I know): Light writes the name "Watari" in the book. And it works. Watari is not his real name, and even if it were, who only has one name?

L does the whole "taunting Kira to kill him on TV" as in the original, but this event leads him to the conclusion that Light needs a name and a face - something that makes absolutely no sense for him to instantly know after one test.

Now, about the ending sequence at the ferris wheel and the hospital. The police are chasing Light and Mia, the two threaten the wheel's operator with a gun to take them up. And then he's later "officially" exonerated because the murders continued while he was in a coma, but because Light killed his mother's killer, his father "knows” he's Kira, which, of course, Light admits. If he's "officially" not Kira, why did he run from the cops and hijack a ferris wheel? L knows the power of killing can be transferred to another, yet doesn't explain this fact to anyone when the killings continue during Light’s coma.

And the biggest shitshow of nonsense? The way Light kills Mia and ensures he lives and ends up with the book again. Waaay too much of it is contingent on luck, along with some great rule-breaking.

Light writes: Mia takes the book, the wheel collapses, she falls to her demise, and the page with his name on it is burned. That's not how it works. There cannot be a passive action in a Death Note murder. He would've had to write: Mia takes the book, burns Light's page, then falls to her demise.

He also writes that he himself falls but goes into a coma, set to wake up in two days. Also impossible. You can't create a sequence of events that affect someone other than the murder victim. And you especially can’t use it to (directly) save someone’s life.

Essentially, Light is writing things he'd like to happen in the book. It's a Death Note, not a Life Note, and certainly not a Wish Note.

He also writes that criminal number one retrieves him from the water and revives him. The criminal would have to know there's a kid in the water, where he is, and how to revive him. Possible, but not foolproof because of the "physically possible" rule. If dude didn't know CPR, Light would've died.

Then, he has criminal number two retrieve the Death Note and continue writing names in the book for the two days he's in the coma, and then return it to him in the hospital. This is less about "physically possible" and more about somehow being able to brainwash him. The events leading up to his death have to be something he could conceiveably do on his own. See also: the brainwashing of Watari.

Let me explain a bit more: in the original, Light experiments with the "physically possible" rule. In one test he writes: (criminal) draws a perfect likeness of L's face on his prison wall before dying. This isn't physically possible because the criminal doesn't know what L looks like, so it's inconcievable that he could, under any circumstance, draw L's face.

Similarly, there's no way that Watari would think of going back to the orphanage to get L's real name, nor is there a conceivable way that a criminal would think to go to Light's specific hospital room and leave him the book. It has to be something they could potentially think of themselves.

Now, I know these are a lot of extremely fine details, but to people who know how the book is supposed to work, it all looks messy and contrived.

Finally, let me leave you with one last gripe/thought. Death Note is an IP originating from Japan. I get that it's a purposely American adaptation meant for American audiences, but something in the movie happens that kind of pissed me off:

Light chooses the name Kira (instead of his fans choosing the name) largely because it means "killer" in Japan, then decides to try and throw people off his scent by focusing his murders in Japan. I have no doubt that this was meant to be a nod to its Japanese origins, but it comes off as... kind of like kicking the original when it's already down. You're taking a Japanese IP, taking it to America, then using Japan as a scapegoat for American Light. Maybe it's just me, but it really made me think, "Haven't they suffered enough just by the fact that this movie exists?"

I'm sure there's a bunch of stuff I've missed due to repressing the memory of ever seeing this terrible movie, but those are my major (and minor) problems with it.

Don't see it. It's bad.

And DEAR GOD, PLEASE DON'T MAKE A SEQUEL.

Stay Greater.

[mahrirae]

Reflections on Netflix Death Note Movie...spoilers

So I watched the Netflix Death Note movie the other day and I went into it with an open mind. I looked at it from two POVs. One that had never heard of Death Note and one that is a huge fan and would most likely rip it to shreds (let's be honest most anime/manga movie adaptations suck).

The me that watched this and is a huge fan, without much shock, hated it. Light's character felt all wrong and the suspenseful cat and mouse games that made the anime so good weren't there. I was not a fan of the casting, which is a whole other issue, but even that is not an excuse for a lacking execution of very prominent parts of the context material. I also understand that it was supposed to be an adaptation and not the original anime/manga retold, but it is hard not to compare when you are trying to use the original character's personas and just changing there entire personality.

I think the me that hated this movie would have liked it more if they decided not to rehash the originals, but continued the story with different characters in America. It would not be hard to believe that after Light and L's death another Shinigami or Ryuk chose to drop another book in a different location (America) where it is found by a Kira supporter who decides to continue his legacy. Maybe that is just me, but I would have found this much more acceptable than using the original characters and then undoing all that made us love them in the first place. Ryuk was actually the best character and I really wish they would have given him more scenes.

End Butthurt fan rant...for now...

Now the me that watched this and knew nothing about Death Note thought it was..."meh". It was a good time waster if you needed something to fill in an hour or so, but it was hard to be invested. The concept, of course, is amazing, but the execution was lacking. Everything seemed to happen too fast. You looked away for a second and he had the death note, the next second he is showing it to a chick he just met (I mean he barley spoke a word to her and the conversation started with an introduction, so it was like "Hi my name is Light, and since you're hot let me tell you about my magic book that can kill people?"), then a few scenes later they are literally getting off on killing people, then he is Kira and people worship him.

None of this spiral into a homicidal God complex is explained in detail, only a montage accompanied by off-putting music. The whole thing felt like a generic teen movie complete with whiny teenage lead that is bullied and mad at the world, has a crush on the cheerleader and a relationship with his father that can only be described as "complicated" because his mom is dead and he wished his dad would have done more about it. It took an interesting concept and dumbed it down because this is about a teenager and apparently there is only one formula for teenager. It ultimately ended up as one of those movies you watched once and would probably not watch again. You've seen it once and that's enough.

As a movie it was okay, good for a one time watch to get rid of your complete boredom for an hour, but it still lacks too much to be a "good" movie, just your average teenage movie gone horror that is tolerable to watch, but not a favorite or must see.

Ranting continues...

As an anime/manga adaptation it fails pretty bad, loosing all the good points that made Death Note a favorite of mine. Light reverted from the intelligent high schooler able to match wits with a world renowned detective, to some whiny kid trying to impress a girl by killing all the "bad people" and getting lucky enough to not get caught.

Not to mentioned they got rid of his happy family life. One of the things that made Light interesting was that his motive was purely his deranged sense of justice. There was no "my mom is dead and the guy walked away now I am going to get rid of criminals by feeding from my dark past." Light's life was fine, he didn't have a dark past. He had a loving family and a stable life. He used this to his advantage. He actually made it a point to not come across as a "problem child", he wanted to fit a perfect mold because it made it more believable that he was innocent.

The movie felt like it was tying to make Light some kind of misunderstood teenage kid who was not all that sadistic but mostly misguided. By the end it almost felt like they were trying to make you feel sympathy for him, because it was his girlfriend who was "really" bad. I mean he wanted to kill, but ONLY the criminals. In fact she felt more like Kira than Light. Instead of him manipulating an obsessed girl with words of love to get what he wants, she manipulated him, so why not just make her the lead.

Light from the anime/manga was interesting because he was unmoving in his mission. He would take out whoever he needed to make sure his vision became a reality, but in this movie he is ready to back down as soon as it looks like he is going to get caught.

L's character while keeping true to being weird, was way too rash and lost his composer to easily. He seemed to breakdown every time something happened and the emotionless deduction freak was lost by the end of the movie where he goes against everything he believed in and hunts down Light in a police car pointing a gun at him.

...and how the crap did Light kill Watari? Wasn't that an alias?

Not to mention they removed rules of the Death Note like seeing the Shinigami when you touch the book (This would have given Ryuk more scenes and I would have enjoyed that). The Death Note itself was too over powered to me. He was able to write an entire final destination style ending that seemed much to specific for it all to align at the perfect time. If I am not mistaken (and I could be wrong) what you write in the book has to be possible and reasonable for the person to do. Which made it interesting to see how Light could manipulate them to still come out in his favor.

So how was he( Light in the movie) able to spell out everything that happened?

Like did he put an "if" clause in there somewhere? "IF she takes the book, then the insanely specific chain of events will follow just as I have written them". If she didn't take the book, by the rules shouldn't she still have died? Her name was still written down, so heart attack? And how would he know exactly what time this would happen...don't you have to give a specific time for all these events to take place?

Whatever I suppose it doesn't really matter, but if you can just write crazy specific stuff like this, it sucks the fun out of watching because Light no longer has to be clever, he just had to know how to spell.

I really like the idea of using anime/manga for more inspiration in main stream American media, but it would be nice if it wasn't completely "Americanized" into the same stuff we have seen a thousand times, just with a shiny new wrapper of being based on anime.

End rant for real now...

But none of this is in anyway how everyone should feel. I just thought I would write a reflection since I am sitting in a store with only my thoughts.

Thanks for listening to me babble.