#my mind has been warped by glee it's not my fault

[soldierandawar]

buck bursting out into "my name is not susan" when tommy called him buck and not evan.

[nebula-starlight]

Glitch

Just a little alternate take on the Void & Anti fight from Comatose had Dark not arrived. Enjoy! 

“I should have expected you’d find me sooner or later, Virus.” 

Her head rose, eyes glowing as she heard the sound of footsteps behind her mixed with the crackle of static. How entertaining was it that after months of her existence in his world, the Irish glitch finally had the gall to seek her out for a personal chat. He’d learn awfully quick why she was a fan of attack first, ask questions later. Talking led to missed opportunities for inflicting rather devastating injuries. And besides, she wasn’t keen on leaving much time for petty discussion that would be worthless anyway. 

“Name calling wasn’t what I expected from the pretty lassie.” She chuckled under her breath at his remark, getting to her feet from where she had sat cross-legged on the barren floor. 

“Don’t start claiming you’re a nice little puppet-master on my account. Try to have some dignity before I rip it to shreds just like the rest of you.” The air around her crackled, the change bringing a smile to her face before she closed her eyes and jumped. 

Magic long ago torn from her soul now flowed freely, creating wispy trails that extended off her eyes as the slitted pupils shrank the second she flipped around in mid-air to deliver a kick to his back. Human bodies were frail and if her limited knowledge of its anatomy was correct then the speed and force would surely break a few bones... Only he wasn’t standing in that spot anymore. 

“Stand still!” She screeched, rolling into a landing with strangely practiced ease for a being who hadn’t been human long. 

Whipping her head around at the sound of static, she bent back to avoid a knife swiping at the very spot where her neck once was. Thinking fast, she grabbed his wrist and twisted it, eyes glowing a bright shade of green as she bared her teeth with a snarl. Let him upstage her! Sure that blasted community kept feeding him with attention but she was... 

“Sure you’re all there?” Anti scoffed, knife falling from his hand before he glitched away out of her grasp and snatched up the blade before it was able to hit the dark floor. “Wouldn’t want you to phase out of existence or anything. At least, not until after I’m done with you.” 

Void closed her eyes with a huff, lifting a hand before the aura flared stronger from under her closed eyelids. A ghostly green flicker of a sword phased into her palm and her lips split with a wicked smile. 

“Ready?” 

She darted forward with half-opened eyes, swinging the blade down only for an irritated growl to slip free as he blocked the hit with his knife. Sparks flew from the clashing metal before they broke apart and glitched back a few steps. Gripping her weapon tighter, she shifted her weight on her feet as her gaze studied him. The equal yet opposite of her in every way. Controlling, possessive... not unlike how she also was with who had been her host. 

“One mistake is all I need. You screw up and you will find out exactly what I am capable of doing...” 

Anti crossed his arms, tucking his knife down into the crook of his elbow. “Then we’ve reached an impasse. No matter how hard we fight our skills are equal-“ 

“Or not.” She growled, taking a single step forward. “You forget the advantage those loyal little puppets offer you... A power boost I am far too lacking.”

The Irish glitch twitched in place, neck distorting even before he tilted his head to the side. “And who’s fault is that?” 

Void’s gaze narrowed as she dropped into a crouch, passing her aura-created sword to her other hand. With barely any measure of effort, a second blade was formed and she spun the steel around, chuckling as the visible scar across her throat looked infected with black instead of the dried red. 

“Oh just come at me already!” 

“It’s your funeral.” 

The eagerness with which he started forward only made her smile widen. Death held no peace for her now. Besides, she’d already crossed into that realm and finally embraced exactly who she could be. There was no fear left when revenge was the sole driving force of a continued existence beyond reality itself. 

Void lifted her blades, shifting her weight back onto one foot to block the angry swipe that had been aimed at her chest before throwing her other weapon. She watched with an almost sickening glee as it ripped through fabric and skin before finally getting lodged in his neck. Every single time each enemy she fought made the same idiotic mistake. They all forgot about the second blade... although it wouldn’t be enough to truly take him down as she wanted. 

No matter. She had pushed her magic too far already as the wispy trails faded from her eyes shortly after the blades shattered apart. He’d get enough attention from the fans to make her attack seem like nothing but a distant memory. By that point she may not even exist anymore... 

“Not gonna finish me off?” He rasped, the sound gurgling in his further damaged throat before making it out of his mouth in a tone that made her want to act on the still burning fire churning in the depths of her broken soul. 

Still she turned, crossing her arms over her chest in a soft sigh. “I’d love nothing more but, alas, even my magic has limits. I shouldn’t even be technically alive from the damage done and yet here I am... A disgrace to the once proud beings I used to consider my family.” 

Void heard the static crackle behind her as she closed her eyes, knowing well that the sound meant he was going in for another strike but she made no attempt to stop it. A part of her was done trying to cheat death... the same speck that irritatingly saw naught but good in each life. Maybe it was time to submit to fate...? 

The stab felt like she’d been punched, his voice rasping out a curse at the black ooze that leaked free from her body. Anti had known exactly where to attack but the knife in her back wasn’t the issue any longer. No, what he just did only opened up a far darker box she rarely allowed herself to admit was available to her unstable being. Where most souls who took over a host seemed to nullify the abilities of the original, her possession had somehow only locked away the former she-dragon’s elemental magic. And now with that cage unlocked... she wasn’t going down without a fight. 

Metal warped, sinking deeper into her body as she turned, opening one eye as it glowed bright green. “Shall we try one more time?” 

“What type of demon are you?” The angry shock she heard from Anti only seemed to bring out his accent and she couldn’t help but snicker. 

“Not a hell-spawn I assure you. Consider me the offspring of corrupted magic and unquenchable vengeance... and you happen to be unlucky enough to be right in my crosshairs.” 

The glitch growled, summoning one more knife with a twitch of his hand. “Then I’ll just keep hitting you until you fall.” 

“Good luck trying to kill someone that’s already dead.” Void shrugged, lifting a hand as thin wispy vapors of shadow rose from her fingertips almost mindlessly. “I suggest you go back to doing what you do best. Being nothing more than a rather persistent thorn in the Irishman’s side. Always lusting after a chance to draw more power from those puppets...” 

Another knife was hurled into her back, only bringing out a short bark of amused laughter from the unstable spirit before it too met the same fate as the previous one. Violently cracking her neck as her body glitched in place, she closed her open palm and brought her risen hand down. It did not matter who was superior now. She had an edge over him - at least in her mind - and that was enough. Each blade he threw would do nothing to her who had already entered into death’s barren realm. 

“Cease trying to damage me. We both know it won’t work,” Void chuckled under her breath. “Or would you prefer I return the favor?” 

The single pop that faded into silence with was oddly eerie, bringing up vague memories she had repressed for so long of drowning in nothingness. Lack of noise, barren blank space all around her... 

Not again! She wouldn’t be cast aside and forgotten. She had power and... And nothing mattered. Once more she’d been left to rot away in some empty void just the same as how she was created. If anything could ever come close to breaking her then the weight of what pressed in all around her was a great contender. 

For a brief second she could hear something, a familiar giggle almost before dissolving into the hiss of static that faded away. 

“I could have continued our spat but leaving you here like this is more fun. Do enjoy your eternity of isolation.”

@illyriashade56 @marginmaster87 @rogue-of-light-analyzed 

[goldhatted-highbouncing-blog]

Hippies in 2018: A Summer of Tattoos, Communism, and Way Too Much Tofu

This is part One of Many! While I have an official, very Formal “article” to be sent to my university newspaper, this is a more narrative-style creative non-fiction piece, exploring more than the first article could. Nearly all of the official article is incorporated into this piece, this one just expands on it. Enjoy! 

may 18th, 2018.

“Five more minutes. If you really wanna run, I’d say do it now.”

Standing in the pouring rain, beside a busy road, I listened as my travel companion hung up the phone and turned to me. “I’d say stick it out.”

I looked around at my surroundings. A squat station building. A single train track, overgrown with weeds. A large Amtrak sign, which said, in glistening letters, “Charlottesville”. A hill, a bridge, buses. Cute coffee shops and street lanterns. Massive puddles were forming in the divets in the road. Behind me sat a single Northface backpack and a rolling suitcase. If I decided to make a break for it, I could hack it.  

How did I make it here? Was I going to give up on the dream I had waxed on about for the last three months? Was I going to run out of fear of what came next? Or out of fear of my own disappointment?

……………………………….

march 2018.

I was midway through my second semester of college. I was an athlete, participating in two sports, and captaining one. I was performing in a show, attending multiple clubs, and attempting to balance a massive workload.

My first semester had been revelatory and filled with happy moments, achievements, and new friendships. My second semester, however, was a Sisyphean march towards an eventual burnout. I rarely saw my friends, I was struggling to run races that would have been a cakewalk 6 months ago. My commitments began drowning me.

“Did I really come to Sarah Lawrence for this?”, I thought often. Sarah Lawrence is a place to radically reconstruct our norms of education and activism. The classes and extracurriculars that once excited me and made me actually want to write 20 page papers were now just another hurdle towards the ultimate sign of achievement: The Degree. Instead of joining clubs because of a true interest, I was simply thinking of padding my resume.

And, like my peers, I was suddenly swept into the immense wave of Summer Plans. At the apex of this discussion lay the most prized of the summer positions: The Internship. To both appease my anxious mind and fit in with my other high achieving peers, I applied for probably fifteen internships, in various unrelated fields, simply because it seemed like I should. And while I received some yes’s, the overwhelming response was “nope, try again next year!”

The thought of something greater had been rolling around in my mind for the last few years. In high school, a friend mentioned going on a tour of a commune in Virginia that made tofu. At 16, it wasn’t feasible to travel 6 hours away from home, alone, to live in the woods for three weeks. But now, at 19, with a job and independence, it seemed like I could make it work.

I opened an application to a visitor period at Twin Oaks, an intentional community in rural Virginia. Based around the principles of feminism, income equality, and environmentalism, it seemed almost too good to be true.

At Sarah Lawrence, I was taught radical new ideas that reshaped the way I understood the world. I can wax poetic on Chaucer, analyze American political trends, and evaluate carbon sinks in Yonkers. Through my education, I have passionately written for 25 pages on the merits of composting or how to construct an artificial language. We are taught to learn not for the sake of a grade, but in order to better ourselves and the society we will eventually enter upon graduation.

And yet, for all this passion and love of understanding the world, we still live unethical lives. We overuse plastics and never recycle; we buy clothes made in sweatshops; we use words like bitch or slut to degrade our peers. Though we may espouse ideals that, in theory, aim to make the world better, we don’t always live up to these expectations.

At Twin Oaks, however, “communards” have chosen to devote themselves entirely to the principles many of us simply choose to ruminate on. Founded in 1967 out of the hippie revolution, Twin Oaks has existed as a safe haven from the capitalistic pressure cooker of the mainstream world. Within its old growth forests and ramshackle buildings live 100 individuals, all working under the common goal of supporting each other.

On “the farm”, individuals work forty-two hours a week in communally owned businesses, dometic labor, food production, or on a myriad of other tasks, in order to provide food, shelter, healthcare, and friendship to one another. No one earns a paycheck, but no one pays a cent in order to live there.

It all seemed like a dream, to me anyways. My adolescence was spent in a world where to be successful was to be considered worthy. The Boston suburbs, where I was raised, produce doctors, lawyers, and more Ivy students than anywhere else in the country. From birth on, children are raised with the singular goal of “success”. Flute lessons, Russian math, soccer club, summer school- we were fed a strict diet of intense education and little rest, with our senses of normality crushed when we leave for college. When you grow up believing that earning less than $100,000 a year is a marker of poverty, you come out the other side with a warped sense of both the world, and yourself. I spent my nights petrified of the future, wondering if I was smart enough, strong enough, brave enough to make it in “the real world”.

In high school, this cutthroat environment collided with my own personal neurosis. My terror of being unsuccessful was compounded with my low self esteem, which resulted in years of depression, anxiety, and multiple relapses of an eating disorder. And I wasn’t a unique case: by senior year my entire circle of friends was in therapy or taking some sort of medication.

I came to Sarah Lawrence for a fresh start, believing like so many other first years do that it was a space devoid of the competitive nature of the outside world. I imagined myself free from the prison of my own creation, and for the first time in my life, seeing education not for the result at the end, but for the betterment of humanity.

It wasn’t meant to be. Though I made friendships to last a lifetime and my mental health has improved leaps and bounds, it wasn’t the life-changing reset I thought it would be. And I ended up right back where I started: in a pressure cooker environment, surrounded by people who fed into my selfish and harmful behaviors.

And here, I suppose, is where Twin Oaks came in. 

After my application, I began to dream of a life so different from my own- hard farm work, a lack of stress, a world of new friendships and relationships. A place where my activism isn’t for nothing, where my actions speak louder than my words. A place where, for all my faults and neuroses and vices, I could belong. 

When I was accepted to a visitor program in May, I was over the moon. I alerted my friends and family with glee, most of them curious and none of them eager for my departure. But it didn’t matter- for I, Plain Jane, was off on the adventure of a lifetime! On a commune! 

……………………………………………..

may 18th, 2018.

So how did I end up here? Running from what would become the most transformative experience of my life?

Two words: Jim Jones. 

part two and more coming soon!

[rememberthemonster]

Twitch Plaze Blazed Glazed 33: Just Go With The Flo

When we last left our honey of a heroine, she just came back from another dimension, where she met Luke, one of Luke’s friends, and a shiba that was definitely not an Uxie. 

But don’t worry -- she’s back in the REAL world again.

Will the Poke Mart be her first stop?

Apparently not, as she’s headed over to “Soheal’s Strait.” I’m not sure if that’s supposed to mean something or if it’s a corruption of “Spheal’s Strait”, but either way, it doesn’t look like the kind of place a Spheal would hang out, so it still doesn’t make sense.

Okay, THIS looks more like Spheal territory. But not knowing Surf, we head back and checkpoint at the Pokemon Center.

“...are delicious...”

Yes, it’s weird that an entire region’s name is donut backwards.

As we head in the direction of the Seaspray Dam to presumably finally deliver that package, Honey gets roped into a double battle.

It’s against Beauty Gabrielle and Youngster Joey. Notably, Joey is trying to impress Gabrielle so she’ll go out with him. The chat didn’t seem to notice at the time, but now that I’ve written it down, I can already hear the TPP headcanon triggers going off.

And yes, this Joey has a Rattata. Sorry, no loophole. He also has a Taillow, btw, and Gabriella has a Pidgeotto and Clefairy.

After the fight, Gabriella informs us that the Seaspray Dam provides renewable energy to the entire Tunod region. Hmm... if I were an evil electric rodent seeking to do bad things and stop the plans of anyone trying to stop me, I’d probably make a stop there. 

Just saying.

Yeah, I’d say things aren’t looking real great for AJ.

After wandering into some tall grass, Honey does some badge farming.

This Houndour has no name, and isn’t the same as the one Honey eventually adds to her team... but shh, spoilers.

There’s also Growlithe, Pikachu, Marill, and Mareep in this tall grass. 

Quite frankly, my dear, I... think the joke is just too obvious. 

He thinks otherwise, though, claiming that the dam fills him with glee.

Welcome to Seaspray Dam. Who wants to bet that some sort of hostile takeover is going to happen here?

See? The nice man is giving us a warning. Or maybe he just doesn’t want our sticky fingers on all the machinery. Or maybe he and the other guy are going to challenge Honey to a Double Battle. 

Which they do. She wins.

This guy informs us that nobody is allowed on the upper floor. Given how much effort Honey went to to try to get the elevator into the Penthouse despite not having the key, I don’t think she’ll listen.

She doesn’t. Either despite her dad’s advice, or because of it. I guess she thinks this is the time and place for breaking rules.

It seems like the flow of the electricity determines where Honey can walk and where she can’t. It also seems like the water is flowing straight off the edge of the endless void of the fourth wall.

“And now is not the time or place to electrocute yourself.”

Aha! I knew something was up here! Even if that something is merely supply and demand, and thus simple economic problems...

Although when said demand is for regionwide electricity, and said supply is in finite numbers, I guess it’s pretty serious. Still simple, but serious.

And this is where the lag bites us, and Honey spaces out again.

What is this person saying? “Evening”? “Every”? By the time the Stream picks back up, this is what Honey hears:

“...needs of Tunod...”

Yep, it’s economics. Simple, potentially devastating economics.

Seems safe enough for you, uh... sir? Madam? 

The lag returns, and Honey’s ability to completely blank out to what people are saying strikes again. This next scene goes by pretty quickly, but I managed to capture the split second:

“...need, kid, I’m busy.”

Honey, who by now is used to snappy women being rude to her, hands Flo the sensor that Professor Willow gave her.

Whatever Flo says next, Honey appears to tune her out. Possibly the talk got way too technical for her. By the time the stream picks back up, Flo’s at this point of talking:

Honey affirms this.

Sure, Honey is used to doing favors for rude people.

And Honey phases out again. Her mind’s elsewhere. Possibly the human world, the one without Pokemon... possibly just thinking about Luke, and wondering if that ‘friend’ of his is his girlfriend, and if not, if he’s available.

Eventually Flo commands her attention back.

Say, Tongo’s sort of a greenish-blue Gem... 

OOC: Bill here is referring to Tongo the Lil’ Monster, who was born from the Nail Gem during the pre-Chatty Yellow intermission game “Lil’ Monster”. In some TPP canons, notably those of N8, Pioxys, Emoji_Master, and the author, Lil’ Monsters are the children of the fossil deities of the TPP universe, and as such are sort of deities themselves. 

Tongo was considered to be the child of Sail (Connections) and Plume (Technology, Cheating/Hacks), and the author considers him as the fossil of dreams, imagination, reality paradoxes, and pirated ROMs, and as largely (or at least partially) responsible for all the dimension-hopping that Monster Rancher host Aya did during the pre-Chatty Yellow intemission. This dimension-hopping broke the universe to the point in which the Voices and Emotes were literally everywhere all over Kanto by the beginning of Chatty Yellow, and even the major trainers were transformed into Emote-headed abominations.

But to be fair, Tongo had been pretty much kidnapped by a guy named  '666fR that he couldn’t stand, so maybe it wasn’t his fault. Maybe.

ahem But, anyway, back to Honey:

She tells us to take the card to pass through the corridor that the guards are blocking, and to “HURRY UP!”

Yeesh. Rude, lady, rude. Yelling at people isn’t cool. Yelling at disabled people is less cool. Yelling at disabled people with hidden reality-warping superpowers is likely to get you in all sorts of troubles later on, especially when and if you have to fight them for a gym challenge.

But in the meantime, Honey has a job.

To be continued...

OOC: I now imagine this song mashup to be Honey’s theme. Funny how her greatest asset -- her dimensional powers -- seem to be hindering her ability to function as a normal person, because she’s always halfway in another world. As a woman with invisible illnesses and oversensitivity issues, I feel I can relate to that. Honey, so far, seems to be very much like me IRL.