#oh since Joey is NOT dead maybe it was the NEAR death that was like ‘oh no :0m

[starlooove]

Dickjoey and vicjoey like they’re literally soulmates they def happened maybe they’re not together now but when it was there it was THERE!!

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S4 Ep 15: Yami Joins the Bay Area Tribe By Throwing a Riot About Sports on Caltrain

So as you’ve probably guessed because of my lack of posts--I got kinda busy with life stuff and just got hit with this really nasty flu at the same time. Yes, I am in a Coronavirus-affected area but no, I don’t have it and I am not dying (although I did do the right thing and quarantined myself anyway, much like a whole lot of the Bay who are just...working from home. Traffic’s been great.) It’s just that every January/February I tend to fall apart and get the flu so bad I lose my voice for 5 days. This year was 6 days. I just catch the flu a lot, but at least I get my shots so it’s not as bad as it would have been.

So, I took a hell ton of Nyquil and Dayquil and while I’m...functional...I don’t know if any of this make sense. So forgive my rambling. I usually ramble, today I’ll be like...hella rambling. About TRAINS.

So anyway, Lets talk about Yugioh.

Lets board a Californian train!

Yugioh has decided that out of every vehicle they’ve devoted episodes to--they haven’t done trains yet, so it’s train time. Train time...in America...which is not a great place for trains. Like I never really think about it but...people take the freakin Greyhound over trains. Which is wild, guys, the Greyhound is...it’s a state of mind. We ignore trains so much.

It’s just really funny that they left Japan to go to America to ride a train when it’s like...the show takes place...in Japan. The land of wonderful trains. But wtv, they wanted ye Old Western experience.

Anyway, Rebecca really wanted to go on the train with them, but everyone pretty much decided that children were no longer safe on this trip with Yugi and co. The fact that Yugi and co are also children is something I guess we decided to push under the rug. I mean Duke Devlin has a freakin job and a work Visa at 17 so...that’s adult enough, right?

(*in a very Roaring Camp Railroad Commercial voice, and over the dulcet sounds of a banjo* More TRAINS under the cut!)

And then Arthur decided to just really grill it into Yami for some reason.

I think it was mostly to act as a recap but damn, Arthur Hawkins just really seems to hate Yami for killing Yugi. Anyway, lets get a good look at our train.

Surprisingly for this show, they decided not to put us on the Roaring Camp Railroad through the Santa Cruz Mountains, instead, they put us on an actual legit commuter train, and it blew my mind because...it’s the CALTRAIN.

That’s my train! What’s my Caltrain doing in Yugioh!?!?

They even got the paint job right! This is absolutely the Caltrain!

We never update this train. So yes, it still looks like this over 10 years later. It’s very underfunded.

+++THIS IS TRAIN FACTS FEEL FREE TO SKIP TRAIN FACTS+++++

So the Caltrain was originally privately owned tracks--which is how they are really nicely laid out--a private company bought everything/pushed out the old owners before the place got developed. When trains went under, the tracks were purchased by the State and then given to Amtrack to manage. So, Caltrain is strictly property of the State Government but still run by the Federal Government at the same time. Don’t ask me how it works, I don’t know, I just pay my taxes and it goes vroom.

We’ve wanted to extend the Caltrain down to Southern California for a very long time, but because of corruption and a lot of people in politics refusing to expand the Bay out of the fear of maybe dropping our housing prices to reasonable limits, and the fear of making it way too feasible to get more children to Disneyland, the track has stayed roughly the same length for over 40 years.

Overall, It’s less drive time than this duel that takes up this next arc, I’m pretty sure. I’m gonna guess that the duel will be 3 episodes long because c’mon. This is Yugioh. It’s always 3 episodes long, like a Nintendo boss.

Anyway, all these train facts are things that are probably so weird and foreign to places that have ample trains--but in America, we just don’t have a strong train lobby compared to our auto lobby. So, I’m sure that people in Japan making this series thought “Oh they’re on a train--it can just go forever because why wouldn’t it be long? Aren’t all American trains connected?” but uh...it’s a short train. Like we’re talking like a few hours max, and that’s only if they’re starting from Gilroy.

I will say that BART is longer and has multiple tracks, so you would think they’d just take BART instead. But, it goes under the ocean for part of it, and we’ll get to why that would have been a very big problem in this episode later. Also, BART is very gross and no one wants to animate that outside of a horror movie.

But at least they didn’t go way out of left field and take the SF trolley. The Caltrain does actually go pretty fast. It...kind of makes sense. They did actual research into a real thing that we do have.

++++END RANT ABOUT THIS TRAIN AND HOW NONE OF THIS EPISODE MAKES SENSE BUT IT’S YUGIOH SO I WILL IGNORE THAT++++

And youknow...there’s something just so adorable about seeing desert mesas reflected in the window of the Caltrain. It’s just delightful. Because, in reality the entire stretch of the Caltrain is very densely suburban/urban, and the only place where it isn’t surrounded by city is when it’s flanked by the sea.

But yeah, just put mesas on it!

*freakin curtains*

Joey and Tristan hit the “dining car,” which I don’t think is a thing in any form of commuter train. These trains are for trips the length of about 1 extensive Puzzles and Dragons session on your phone, give or take.

(And man, speaking of, the Yugioh PAD collab was so good, guys. Ah man. Been wrecking like every dungeon in multiplayer ever since Bro and I both got a Yugi to put as our leader. He’s basically one of the best leaders in the game right now and I feel like people at PAD were huge Yugioh fans because they were like “what if we made...basically every Yugioh pull into a freakin beast that broke every dungeon in the game?”)

I can’t believe Joey Wheeler went thousands of miles from his homeland and was like “I better drink an American soda” and chose Orange. I mean he might be drinking an Arizona Tea, but I’m pretty sure he thought “ah, Kenan and Kel, right?” and just nabbed the nastiest soda that exists outside of grape.

I feel like I can still taste the orange soda I drank over 20 years ago. It is terrible. It is SO orange. Gross. But at the same time...good? I really don't know with Orange Soda. It’s probably gross.

Meanwhile, Tea decides it’s an appropriate time for Yami to work on his social skills. Now. When he’s visibly grieving after being berated by his Basically-Step-Grandfather and Rebecca.

And then we find out something I’ve never realized before, and it’s that Tea is really bad at social cues. Like maybe even worse than Yami. Like, I dunno how Pharaoh could look more like an angry cat/hedgehog but Tea was not picking up on it.

And y’all I’m not making that up, these are the topics Tea actually came up with for the guy who just saw his best friend die/was very implicit in said murder. Beaches and Bathing Suits.

She got over Yugi being dead like immediately.

Of course, this episode is kind of weird because, much like this show has done so many times already, these guys are still struggling to truly understand that Yugi is two people in one body. Tea sort of comes to this realization as if she...forgot that she has stepped inside his actual head and seen this for herself.

Or maybe it’s denial, but I’m thinking maybe the show did this for the new people coming to the show, to explain a rather complicated thing that took 3 seasons to cement in our minds. But still, it makes Tea seem very forgetful over a guy she should sort of be dating I guess.

Anyway it’s their first real fight. Kind of. I mean it’s hard to tell if anyone on this show is dating, and it’s equally hard to tell if they are fighting, too.

Well, first real fight if you don’t count Zero when Yugi tried to make out with Miho over a card duel, but I think we’re all doing our best to forget that ever happened. Yugi especially.

Or I guess that time she strangled him nearly to death in the nurse’s office when Shadi took over his body. That counts as a fight, right?

Ah. Now we’re on Caltrain.

Don’t take it the wrong way, Caltrain is actually our higher end safe train, compared to our other transit, BART, which will always sit you next to a weirdo, guaranteed. Caltrain--you can take a good nap on Caltrain. BART...you will never feel comfortable enough to take a nap on BART (also because there’s not enough seating room anymore)

But a lot of people who take the train are just freakin WEIRD. I used to take the Caltrain with my older brother (different bro than the bro of this blog, this is my chaotic neutral bro) because we both worked near the same place in downtown SF, and he would always take with him--I kid you not--a 2 liter bottle of Mountain Lightning for a snack.

For those not in the States, Mountain Lightning is the offbrand Walmart version of Mountain Dew. Yes. I know what I said. It seems dumbfounding as Mountain Dew is already an off brand of Sprite--the true lemon/lemon lime--but indeed, like Inception, you can always go deeper, and if there is a soda so bewildering and random, my older brother will be ON IT.

Anyways, my older bro is a train weirdo, so not only does he prefer Mountain Lightning to Mountain Dew, he would take out a 2 liter from his backpack, tilt back his head, and just chug the whole thing straight from the huge ass bottle in front of God and everyone on that train.

He’d polish it off completely on the ride there and the ride back, because my older brother has this weird medical problem where he can’t really feel pain and he has an insane metabolism and never gained weight until he was like 32, so he can just...chug as much soda as he freakin wants. So, at some point of the trip he would have to use the very tiny bathroom, and it would be very urgent, and he’d just scramble over me to get to the aisle and then kind of skip and hop all the way there on the rush hour train that was completely full of people.

Like, most people don’t even know that Caltrain has a bathroom--well now you know, and for several years there, it was just always taken by my brother violently pissing. That was us (well...him). My apologies.

In case your curious, now my bro has hardcore acid reflux, and all he needs to do is stop drinking so much damn soda, but it’s been very hard for him, so he has cut back to “diet soda”. This is still a lot of soda and it still causes acid reflux. His doctor is working on him.

And yes, Diet Mountain Lightning exists. That’s just so many steps removed from Sprite at this point.

Anyways, enough waxing long about train memories, lets get back to the show, because it’s not this season of Yugioh until there’s a problem with the commute.

Unrelated to Pharaoh punching the walls, everyone has “disappeared.”

My bro looked up the Wiki that says there's “no explanation for the missing train passengers” but we all know what that really means on this show, right?

So, how many people fit on Caltrain?

There’s just NO WAY they’re alive anymore, right? Like Yugioh went and killed 756 Bay Area passengers because...it’s a filler season!

I really feel like there’s just no way Seto or Bakura will ever catch up to Darts’ death count at this rate.

After this, we have ourselves this fun train-jumping trope.

Pretty sure it was the superhuman opposing force of Tea jumping from the back train to the front of the train that forced the back to lose all of it’s 100+ mph momentum and immediately come to a full and complete stop.

Not sure how Darts did this thing with the train separating. But he did. Or maybe it was Rex and Weevil? Either way, he somehow managed to do this well enough to strand Joey and Tristan on the other side of the line that now has no engine.

(course I say this like in 1400 AD the Bay wasn’t full of the Ohlone. this place was basically always developed because...the weather’s hella good when it’s not on fire.)

Now if you go East--southern Utah looks like this, and parts of me wonder if maybe the artists thought they were taking the train all the way to Florida. Did the English dub add “we’re taking the train to the airport” because they knew there was no one in their right mind in America who would take a California-Florida train?

I have no other explanation for why the Bay Area looks like this, than to assume that this is an alternate California where there never was a Loma Prieta Earthquake and also one where Seto and Pegasus bought out and destroyed both Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. Which makes Seto and Pegasus sound like just real true heroes, never paving any sort of way for Mark Zuckerberg to happen and unintentionally (or intentionally who knows) screw up our elections.

Or maybe that was entirely Darts? Maybe it was Darts who’s been eating up the Bay, harvesting nerd souls for the leviathan and knowing that no one will miss these Twitter developers if Twitter never happens in the first place. Especially if he’s just ghosting entire Caltrains willy nilly.

But anyway, fun fact about the Caltrain that the creators of this show didn’t know--the train is a push-pull train, so...It has an engine on both sides of the train. Joey and Tristan...still have an engine. It would have never stopped, even with Tea’s incredible backward momentum.

This is normal train stuff and is something you should always assume about a commuter train that cannot afford the time to reattach the locomotive in order to turn around, but we forget about this in TV shows basically all the time.

However, there are fantasy rules that we give to TV that we sort of don’t extend to other places. We suspend our disbelief for things like this train stopping in a track that would, realistically, have another train passing by in 10 minutes anyway. Things like rogue waves that topple over ocean liners. Or CEOs in Silicon Valley who have ass-length blue hair that is tied with one single hair precarious band.

The point at which we no longer can suspend our disbelief when it comes to TV is SO interesting to me. Because I’m fully willing to let go of the fact that Caltrain is A Push-Pull train because it’s still a fun trope although this can never really happen to you on...almost any train at all anymore. But if this were a movie? People would be losing their freakin MINDS. Look what they did after Star Wars. They lost their entire minds over force-field science that doesn’t even exist.

Like, maybe the people who made this episode really do know that San Jose is the 3rd largest city in California, and that this is a push-pull train, and that there are no mesas anywhere near the ocean of San Fransisco. Maybe they did know that--but they decided to suspend our disbelief by pushing this Wild Wild West fantasy aesthetic SO HARD so it makes it believable although this is just...so wrong. Mostly because...it’s fun TV. Not because it makes any sense, but because I would like to have fun instead of thinking.

Which is also how most romance novels work ps. But Yugioh, although *almost* understanding the key ingredient to how romance actually works, I will assume never figures that out.

I hope.

Also, Rex is here.

Bro would like to bring up that Red Eyes is not a rare card in the real world. So Rex is going out of his way to venge a card that costs...$4.50 at Target. That’s less than a meal at McDonalds. This card may have been in a Happy Meal at McDonalds.

*pictured here, the actual canyons of San Jose*

So something that’s interesting between Yami and Joey is that Yami gives in basically immediately and decides to duel Weevil, who would be very easy to just gently push off of this train. Joey on the other hand, looks down at both of his punching fists and is like “why would I bother?”

Not that it mattered, it’s just interesting that even Joey has more restraint than Yami, who has 0 restraint, apparently, when it comes to dueling cards.

Joey has more restraint that Yami, and Joey is the kid who has tried to punch out Seto Kaiba in nearly every conversation he has ever had with Seto Kaiba over the last 4 seasons.

Also, Tea is just standing on top of this train like it’s a completely normal day outside. Girl has no fear.

Wouldn’t these people be covered in bug guts? Like how are they not getting assaulted by so many flies and birds?

But because she has no decent cards the Oricalchos just kicks her out? I dunno. There’s a lot of weird physics in the next scene.

And she just grabs onto a moving train with her bare hands. I feel like Tea is just so woefully overpowered in this group but for the wrong game. I say this a lot. She’s like their One Punch Man but will never, ever know.

So anyway, that was a long time between updates and now I’m out of sync and behind on everything so...hell knows when the next update will be. Depends on the length of episode I guess? Bro really wants to get to what comes next soon though. He’ll pester me until I do it.

Now I can’t mention Mountain Lightning without sharing with you what you do with 2-4 liters of Mountain Lightning after your brother leaves and then just...doesn’t have enough room for all of his Mountain Lightning AND his baby in his car, so he just leaves it in your house.

It’s called Mountain Dew Cake <-(that is a link) and it’s actually pretty damn good.

I made this once and fed it to a British person and they were like “this is so decadent--what’s in this?” and I uh didn’t know how to respond to that other than “it’s really just Mountain Dew, I’m so sorry” and that was a lie, because it was full of Mountain Lightning.

Anyway, if you just got here, this is a link to read these recaps in order.

[the-blueish-trashcan]

He’s in Charge; Chapter Eleven

Pairing: Henry/Bertrum

Warnings: Death, murder, suicide

A/N: This one’s... a bit heavy, but plot intensive. It looks like Grant’s promise to make things right is going to pay off.

Chapter word count: 2,916

{First part} {Previous part} {Next part}

Chapter Eleven; Dirty Deeds

As he sat at the small table in the kitchen the next morning, Henry caught himself lost in thought as he stared out the back window, fingers drumming lightly on a warm mug of coffee. His thoughts ranged from drawings to Joey, and what could really be happening behind the scenes, and on days like this when he wasn’t scheduled to work. He was comfortable physically having borrowed clothes to sleep in from Bertrum that turned out to be loose on him, but mentally, not so. Bertrum, dressed in a gray tank top and pale blue pajama pants with slippers, stood over a pan of scrambled eggs. Just next to him, carrying out a conversation in a language Henry couldn’t understand was a man he had to assume was the designer’s personal chef watching over a pan of bacon. If nothing else, he certainly looked the part of a chef. Ferris laid at Henry’s feet, his tail quietly thumping against the floor. 

The animator sighed softly, shaking his head. His gaze shifted from the well-kept back yard and garden to his coffee cup as he took a small sip. He leaned back in his chair, still holding the cup, and threw a glance to Bertrum. The man’s back was to him at that moment, but a smile slowly made its way onto his face anyway. Even with all the chaos at work, at least right then, he had a moment for peace. 

After a few minutes, Bertrum plated the eggs, his chef moving the slices of bacon to their own plate for him to bring over. Grinning, Bertrum set a plate in front of Henry. “Here we are!” He said cheerily, taking a seat at the other side of the table.

“Thanks.” Henry’s voice came out more quiet than he intended. He set his mug down finally, instead taking up a fork. 

“Did you want to stay for the afternoon? I’m between jobs now, we could go out somewhere.”

“I don’t know. I’d like to go home and get some clean clothes, at least. Then maybe we can meet up later?”

“I can send someone out to get you a new set so you don’t have to drive back and forth, if you’d like.” Bertrum offered.

“What? Oh, no, I couldn’t have you do that, isn’t that a little excessive?” Henry waved his free hand dismissively.

“Please, it just makes sense. Unless you’d like someone to drive you to your apartment instead? If you’re just coming back in a few hours, I see no reason to send you away.” He shrugged.

Henry could only sigh. “That’s way too much effort for someone to have to put in for me, I may as well just wear the same clothes…”

“I do have a washing and drying unit, if you’d rather wash your clothes here.” Bertrum indicated a door behind Henry, pointing out where they were located. 

“Now that’s something that makes some sense. I’ll have to take up that offer, as long as you don’t mind me hanging onto these for a while.” He gave a slight smile, indicating what he was already wearing.

“Not at all. I think that’s a much better idea.” Bertrum returned the smile, then went quiet, giving them both some time to eat. They were both nearly done when he spoke again. “About what you said last night… Regarding Drew…”

Henry froze, looking up at him briefly. “I know I sound crazy… I’ve been thinking about it all morning.”

“No, Henry, you have probable cause. It may not make much sense to me, but regardless, it does seem a bit strange that so many people are gone- you said- without a real explanation, and you’re clearly suspicious of some kind of list you saw Drew keeping.” He paused and Henry nodded. “If you want me to, I really am willing to hire someone to look into it for you, but I’d like to speak with someone else first. Perhaps Drew’s accountant, you said he’s in charge of paperwork.”

“Right… I don’t see a problem with that, you could come meet him on Monday if you wanted. I’m sure he’d appreciate someone investigating, honestly.”

“All right, then.” Bertrum nodded once, then took a slice of bacon from the plate and held it down to Ferris.

*****

By the time Henry’s clothes were cleaned, dried and he was dressed, Bertrum looked like he was already ready to leave the house. He was dressed in a t-shirt and jeans, sitting at the foot of the stairs Henry was coming down to tie his shoes. He offered the animator a smile when he saw him.

“It’s a lovely day today, I thought perhaps we could take Ferris out to the park. It’s a lovely walk, and there’s plenty of shade there.” He offered, standing.

“Sure, that sounds nice.” Henry paused a few steps from the bottom, leaning on the banister. 

Bertrum shifted to face him, thinking for a moment. He gently grabbed Henry by the shoulders, shifting him to the side slightly and pulling him down one step. He leaned forward and pressed his lips to Henry’s forehead, that time without having to bend down at all. “There. Ready?”

Henry let out a small laugh, his cheeks quickly turning color. He stepped down the last few stairs, on his way to the door. “Whenever you are.” 

*****

Monday, when Henry walked into the studio, the remaining staff- just under what looked like two-dozen people- were all gathered near the main entrance. They stood in front of Joey, who was still wheelchair-bound, glancing at each other nervously. As Henry joined the group himself, he noticed that he hardly recognized anyone there, save for a man named Thomas. Other than his name, he didn’t really know him. Since there was space and Thomas was fairly tall, Henry moved to stand in front of him to face Joey.

“Ah. Good, everyone’s here.” Joey started as he spotted Henry. He looked much more sickly than the last time Henry had seen him, his face a sort of gray with prominent dark marks under his eyes. His voice was much more slurred than before. “It is with a heavy heart that I have to announce the death of Grant Cohen, my accountant.”

A soft murmur went around the group. Henry could hear Thomas grunt, then sigh.

Joey continued after a moment. “As it stands right now, it is a suicide. As we speak, there is a team of investigators downstairs confirming this fact. That said, please do not go down there until further notice. Even you, Connor.”

“Okay, I get that you don’t want anyone interrupting ‘em. What about basic maintenance of the pipes down there?” Thomas’s deep, gruff voice answered from behind the animator. 

“They were very clear to me that no one is to be down there for any reason. End of story.” Joey stated more firmly. “Now… I would like to give you all some bereavement time off, but we simply don’t have time for that. Please, do your best to do business as usual.” That said, he rolled himself off down the hall, towards his office. 

“Stupid cunt.” Thomas seethed quietly, meaning Joey, obviously. 

Henry shook his head slowly, going to his desk. Grant dead? And so suddenly? “This doesn’t add up…” He mumbled. 

“Hey.” Thomas Connor’s voice came from behind him. When Henry turned, Thomas was leaning against the wall.

“Uhm, hi.” Henry tilted his head. 

“You didn’t know Grant all that well, huh?”

“No… I only met him a couple of times. He was always so nervous…”

Thomas nodded slowly, grinding a toothpick between his teeth. “I knew ‘im pretty well. Had to work with ‘im a lot.”

“Oh… I’m so sorry-” Henry started, but Thomas held up a hand.

“Don’t be. He held out for a long time. He was in a lot of pain. I’m not surprised, I’m just hopin’ he’s got some peace now.” He shrugged his shoulders. “I didn’ come here to complain, though. Grant just wanted you especially to know he’s done the right thing here. He had a plan, and it’s gonna happen.”

“What are you talking about? Did he leave a… a note or something telling you that?”

Thomas shrugged again. “Not that you’re aware of, you get me?”

It took Henry a moment to understand, a look of shock crossing his face. “You have his suicide note…? Why? Isn’t that tampering with evidence?”

“Not if he asked me to take it. There were two notes and an envelope. One had my name on it, and said to take everything before anyone else saw. Make sure it ended up with the right people. I found his body, no doubt those investigators are gonna wanna talk to me soon.”

“And… you’re going to, right?” Henry’s voice had dropped, his arms crossing over his chest.

“‘Course. I’m goin’ down there right now and then quittin’. If it works out like he wanted, it’s best to get out now before any more shit hits the fan.”

“You’re just leaving?” Henry asked, then instantly felt stupid.

“Yep, and I suggest after today, you do the same. There’s some shady things happening here, Henry, and if you value your life, you’ll get out now. Somebody’s gonna protect you when you do.” The mechanic paused. “Actually. You should come with me so somebody with the law can keep an eye on you, Drew clearly thinks you’re some kinda threat based on what Grant said. I don’ think anybody would benefit from you kicking the bucket, too.” He started down the hall and gestured for Henry to come with him.

“I can’t do that, I’m on thin ice with Joey as it is…”

“Then I’ll drop your name an’ you’ll have somebody come up and talk to you instead.” He shrugged as he rounded the corner and was gone, save for the fading sound of his heavy work boots.

*****

As promised, not even half an hour or a full sketch later, a young man dressed in a police uniform arrived to retrieve the animator and bring downstairs. The man didn’t speak to him at all on the way down, which put him on edge. Once at the foot of the stairs, Henry was escorted by a different officer across the half-finished main room and to where Grant’s office was. Not far from it, the group had set up a sort of impromptu workroom, though the area was otherwise taped off. Just the sight of the caution tape sent a shiver up Henry’s spine. Just outside of the scene, Henry was met by someone he had to assume from the more plain clothes was an investigator.

“Hello sir, sorry to bother you.” The man held out his hand. “Warren Hoss, investigator, you must be Henry Stein, right?”

Henry nodded, shaking his hand a few tentative times. “That’s me.”

“You didn’t know Grant Cohen well, did you?”

“No, sir. I only met him a few times properly.”

“Right. Well, both he mentioned you in his letter and Thomas Connor gave your name when the question of Joseph Drew came up. Any idea why?” He obviously knew, but wanted Henry to tell him himself.

“Well… From what I knew about Grant, Joey kept him on a pretty short leash and… He threatened him a lot, from what I heard, sir, and he does the same to me. Grant knew about it, and he knew I know more about Joey than most people.”

Officer Hoss nodded. “How did he threaten Grant Cohen, exactly?”

Henry bit his lip, looking around nervously. “I don’t know, really, I’m sorry.”

“You say he threatens you too. How so?”

“He… physically threatens me a lot… Constantly threatens my job. He says he wants to make my life Hell, just because he thinks I know more than I should.” Knowing better, he left out everything about Bertrum- and about Joey’s dark magic. 

Officer Hoss didn’t press for more on that on Joey’s treatment of them. “And what do you know that’s so important he’d want to ruin your life?”

“I-I can’t say for sure, but…” He glanced around again, seeing only other officers nearby. “All of these people disappearing… Joey says they’re getting fired. Grant says- er, said- they’re not, not according to his records… People don’t just disappear, sir, and Grant was really good at his job as far as I knew.”

“Are you trying to imply that these people who were fired were actually murdered?”

Henry hesitated. The idea shouldn’t be coming out like this. “I’m… not sure.”

“Do you think Grant Cohen was murdered?”

“No, sir. I think he really did do this to himself. He was scared, more than I am.”

“Do you think Joseph Drew could be capable and willing to commit a murder?”

“I believe he could be now, yes.” Henry breathed. 

“Hm.” Officer Hoss’s eyes trailed down the hall, towards Grant’s office. “You and I may be in touch if we need to know about Mister Drew. Would you write down a number we can contact you at, please?” From a pocket in the front of his shirt, he produced a small pad of paper and a pen, holding it out to Henry. 

Taking it, he began to scribble his home number on the lines, as well as his name. “Of course, of course. Have you spoken to Jack Fain? He was good friends with Grant, if his letter wasn’t enough, Jack might have known what was going on with him.”

“That’s the second time Jack Fain has been brought up. No one of that name works here anymore, according to Mister Drew.”

“Oh.” Was all Henry managed, handing the notepad back a moment later.

“Thank you for your cooperation.” Officer Hoss gave a short nod, then ducked under the yellow tape and disappeared in Grant’s office.

A sort of numbness slowly crept into Henry’s chest. The scene was surreal at best. A man he knew personally was found dead at his desk, and his boss had briefly been suspect. He shook his head and turned away, making his way back out of the area.

Only when he was crossing the ditch in the middle of the floor did he catch on to quick feet moving behind him, calling out, “Sir!”

When the animator turned, it was the young officer that had escorted him down. “I’ve been asked to walk you back upstairs, I apologize if that bothers you.” While his tone was cheery, his face didn’t reflect it.

“Oh, no, not at all!” Henry responded automatically. Then it occurred to him that it might be a good idea on the off-chance Joey was upstairs.

Just like before, the young officer was quiet, and Henry couldn’t think of anything to say.

*****

Later that afternoon, not getting any work done without meaning to, Henry’s attention was pulled to the hall at his back by the heavy bootsteps he recognized as Thomas Connor. He shifted to look before the man could speak. 

“Grant thought that Susie gal died. That’s why he did it.” Thomas stated, taking a toothpick from between his teeth.

“What?” Henry’s eyebrows went up, shocked. 

“Grant’s final letter. He said Drew killed Susie and that was the last straw. Drew’s gettin’ personally investigated. Grant had some freaky-lookin’ pictures of his office.” Thomas’s voice stayed flat. “I dunno who else to tell about it. Wally’s gone, Grant’s gone, Jack’s gone. Wally liked ya, so I guessed I should tell you. I’m leavin’ this afternoon for good b’fore anything else goes belly-up and I think you should do the same. Seriously. You can’t bail out the same way Grant did.” 

His voice hadn’t changed at all, but the distant look in Thomas’s blue-gray eyes caused Henry’s expression to become concerned. “How close were you with him, Thomas?” He asked quietly.

He shook his head, his voice slowly dropping. “Not very, but… I tried to look out for him, y’know? He wasn’t that good at takin’ care of himself. He hated workin’ here, but insisted he didn’t have a way out ‘cause of Drew. He found one, I s’pose.”

“Are you okay?” The animator tried.

“I’m in disbelief. Grant’s dead. That’s it. He’s just gone. An’ I don’t think he’s the only one that’s died here, and that scares me.” He glances at Henry, sighing and shoving his hands into his pockets. “Yeah, that’s right, I’m scared. Grown man, scared of death. Sue me.”

“I’m so sorry, Thomas. I don’t think it’s wrong for you to be scared, as far as you know your boss is seriously…”

“Deranged? Unhinged? No kidding, you didn’t see those pictures, didn’t see his blood all over the fucking place… That blood’s on Drew’s hands!” Noticing that his voice is rising, he takes a deep breath and lets it out heavily. “Sorry. I don’t mean to put my grief on you, you’re in his situation now. Please be careful.”

“No, no, it’s okay. I-I understand, you’re in pain. It’s alright.”

Thomas nodded. “Be careful.”

“I will. I’ll watch out.”

“Good. Good.” He placed the toothpick  back between his teeth, turning on his heel and shuffling away. 

The whole conversation left Henry with an ache in his heart, and the idea in his head that Thomas was right. He had to get away, but he needed to know just what happened to the rest of his friends. He doubted the police would be saying anything about it, anyhow.

[dahniwitchoflight]

Candy 18-21

oh, oh no

I’ve heard things about Jane x Gamzee

now I get to experience them, oh boy...

Gamzee gets, strangely serious about stuff for once, huh, who would have thunk it

yeah, It’s clear Jane’s political stuff seem to stem from some kind of fear that one day humanity won’t exist on Earth C for whatever reason

that over time, the population of trolls versus humans will eventually skew so much that there won’t be any adam and eve left to match up with each other

in her mind she really doesn’t hate trolls, cuz its not really about the trolls, not at all, but obviously her actions are equivalent to someone who does hate them and she just doesn’t get that

and like, yeah if you just left them to their own devices, maybe that would happen, but then (and I can’t believe I’m saying this) Gamzee has an extremely good point that they already did that when they plopped all the ectokids down and called it a day for a 1000 years, like, they managed to figure it out on their own just fine

and also

ectobiology will literally never stop being a thing so like, as long as some of the god kids stick around, eventually you can just make more humans it’s no big deal to restart the human gene pool since it will be identical to the first time they started it

there’s no reason to make sure this system runs smoothly the “natural way” it won’t, this situation is unnatural for both species

Jane’s just gotta realize that if she wants humans to keep sticking around, she just has to keep supporting the human population, that’s it, whatever trolls do or don’t do doesn’t matter for that goal

course it doesn’t help to compare trolls to animals when talking about their breeding rate and how it naturally evolved over time unlike the apparently non animal humans Janey

Also Alternian society is def not how troll society naturally is but like how could she know that? And how could any troll near her really explain that? 

aaaand I got so up in taking this seriously I forget who was talking

Jane’s into troll blackrom though that’s interesting and unexpected 

oh wow, Jake was there the whole time

Did they really name Jake and Jane’s baby Tavros??? oh jeesus

Yeah Kinda figured the Jane x Jake thing wasn’t gonna actually be happy

I’m really surprised Jane’s version of happiness apparently involves boinking a weird funny man I mean, she canonically likes clowns and jokes, so at the same time I’m not surprised, I mean, she WAS raised by the condesce, it’s just weird how that influence comes out in her sometimes versus how it doesn’t come out in her

literal Jake nightmare scenario though I think lol

really hammering home how the passions of youth don’t really translate well to happy adult relationships

Oh, so there’s the part where Jade reveals she has Bec biology, considering the fandom reaction you’d think we were gonna get some kind of gross M rated sex scene where she pegs Karkat or something

but all she does is talk about how she’d love a normal family and home life and lament that her circumstances ended up not really allowing that and giving enough hints that we can figure out why that would be

it’s not handled grossly at all, even if the subject matter is odd and it doesn’t come off as some sort of character sabotage

this whole time what we’ve known all Jade was that she was lonely and just wanted a family, not that hard to figure out why, girl’s got the same complex as Joey Claire about her family situation, but she’s more reserved about her feelings since she didn’t get to have a comparison of role models like Joey did with her babysitter and also Jade’s food and shelter needs were somewhat taken care by a planet guardian so the affect was somewhat lessened on the outside, she just didnt get the same chances as Joey to be able to articulate her emotional turmoil about it

aww Jade’s not happy either, well, that’s how it goes when you make relationship decisions based on flimsy passions that are more about fulfilling the needs of the self than about actually wanting good things for a partner

More like Jade’s sort of realized that Karkat and Dave don’t have a genuine romantic interest in her and she’s the only one keeping this ship afloat

oh shit, a dead younger jade, oh damn wait she’s the one from Meat that was trapped in the house juju and then immediately died from space razors

Yeah’s she’s a bloody symbol of meat that’s for sure, theyre making that pretty clear

“Her eyes go wide and she feels the breath go out of her for a moment. She looks directly upward. Where did this body come from?”

Again, if we take that symbolism circle of Breath = Sugar = Drugged up High =  Breath

This little dash of meat falling into wonderland would break the breathy haze for a bit wouldn’t it?

So if this kind of thing can happen to others besides John, there’s hope yet for something of value to come from Candy

“ There’s a peaked skylight at the top of the foyer that splits the morning sun like a prism, spilling multicolored dots across every surface below. Amongst those dots are drips of teen-Jade’s blood. It’s so dark on the spotless tile that it looks nearly black. “

I wish I could draw things, I’d love to draw this exact scene here, it’s pretty and morbid

Yeah, the relationship theme of Candy seems to be that everyone’s jumping into Kismesis plus Matesprite threesomes, that seem to be neither of what anyone actually wants in totality

There’s some realization that their Candy filled atmosphere is actually more a drug or a poison, teen jade can’t be revived, and it’s not because of what happened to her, but more because of the environment she is in now

Ah Roxy, ever the social chameleon people pleaser, not working this time though

Jade’s is easily explained already as she has the social graces of an elephant

It is kinda sad tho to see most of the human characters actually aren’t that good at being cool about troll stuff

“CALLIOPE: pUrple roses traditionally represent love at first sight, however these roses are actUally red roses that we prepared Using a blUe dye.CALLIOPE: the blUe rose is the most elUsive and mysterioUs of all flowers.CALLIOPE: the combination of red and blUe in this context is meant to evoke the dUal natUre of death, in that there is nothing more mysterioUs and impossible to comprehend than the vast void of the afterlife, bUt also there is nothing that makes Us appreciate the life and and love that we already have than the mystery of death.CALLIOPE: while death is terrifying, there is always joy to be foUnd among the sorrow. each time we witness death, we fall in love with the important people in oUr lives all over again.“

Why do I get the feeling Calliope is talking about actual rose here somehow?

Is it because she started off with “here’s the symbolism of Purple Roses”?

a Red Rose dyed Blue

Now if Cascade taught us anything Blue and Red certainly represent a mutual destruction of opposites coming together to create a third new thing in the blaze of the aftermath, but that thing was a Green Sun, not something purple, so why bring Rose into mind for all of this?

We have been seeing the effects of what happens when people in candyland awaken from their drug haze with a smattering of blood, but in that case why not make the symbolism more clear by saying a Blue Candied Rose dyed Red as if with Bloodied Meat?

is it more to mean that the correct path lies NOT in Candy being dyed Red, but in Meat being dyed Raspberry Blue?

I Mean, Candy!Rose certainly seems shaken here, having gotten jolted out of her drugged haze at some point, but unable to See, and she’s actually starting to be concerned about that and Meat!Rose is kind of out of commission at this point, So I guess to get things back on track, Candy!Rose would have to go back to the Meat somehow, or might be the influence needed to snap Meat Rose out of her daze

Though I don’t like how this is taking place in the context of a funeral, specifically bringing to mind how Dirk did the same thing using the vessel of Death, I hope Candy Rose doesn’t try to just, off herself

with Dirk taking control of Rose’s ultimate self in Meat, Candy!Rose might be the only true Rose left to take heroic action

Aww, Callie is still head over heels for Roxy, I’m really surprised with this theme of threesomes that nothing ever came of a John x Roxy x Callie, but then again all the threesomes so far have been painted Black and Red, and unless John or Roxy was to form a Kismesis with Callie, I don’t see it happening at all

OH SHIT SPEAKING OF RED AND BLUE

Damn, Sollux and Aradia are here

“KARKAT: MAYBE FUCKING NEPETA IS ABOUT TO POUNCE FROM BEHIND THAT GROTESQUE STATUE OF THE HUMAN SUFFERER T-POSING OVER THERE.”

Karkat don’t tease me about Nepeta but also again WHY is actual Jesus here.

Is Roxy a christian in this timeline? Was she legit just praying to actual Human Jesus? That’s so, weird, especially for Roxy to do, what the fuck in Roxy’s upbringing on an apocalypse earth would make her want to worship Jesus?

Oh wait, that’s obviously what she thinks that every other human sincerely does, since she only had human media to go off of, and like, technically no human has ever said they DONT worship christian gods to her.

“GAMZEE: wHeN tHe DoOr Of ThAt FrIdGe pOpPeD oPeN iT wAs LikE i Be AlL sEeIn ThE lIgHt AnD sHiT.

SOLLUX: well yeah

SOLLUX: that’s what happens when s0me0ne 0pens a d00r t0 a t0tally dark encl0sure.“

Gamzee has had a weirdly meta understanding of what’s going on so far, for some reason, I can’t fathom what could be the Lighty influence that he’s gotten

unless...

Dirk really IS starting to subsume Ultimate Rose, and that’s bleeding over to every Ultimate self connected to Dirk

the more Gamzee knows meta shit and says oddly correct things, the more we know Dirk is “winning” over Rose

Oh, that’s why Gamzee is really here isn’t he? I mean, storywise? He’s a Dirk thermometer/gauge/thing, he’s our way of measuring how far Dirk’s influences are going in Meat

“ARADIA: its so nice that you believe all that gamzee

ARADIA: i think i can honestly say

ARADIA: im reasonably happy for you?“

lol

“blue smoke”

You don’t really tend to describe Smoke as being Blue right? At least, I don’t think that’s usual

But if we’re straight up associating Candy with Blue  to complement Meat with Red now, it’s just making the whole Sugar = Breath thing that much stronger

*EDIT* DUH OF COURSE OF CANDY’S COLOR IS BLUE

BLUE GUSHERS. OBVIOUSLY. *end edit*

and I mean, what is Breath but a weird bluey smoke?

Roxy just wants to be happy with all her friends, that’s all

It is a good shake at trying to explain the nature of infinite possibility, that in reality, there isn’t really more weight put into one possibility over others, that’s how it works in real life anyway

unfortunately a storyline of canon is going to favor some version of events over others, and people make choices because they have preferences for that choice over other choices, something that seems kind of lost on Candy!Roxy who seems to just be okay with going along with anything because everything has an equal chance for having happytimes in this place

Roxy may be starting to lose her sense of self as well, and with her knowledge on things and how’s she’s been described as immutable so far, I wouldn’t be surprised at her having easily and subtly slipped into Ultimate Self hood herself and just being really okay with the idea that there is no one true Roxy, that she is just one piece of many, and not like, needing to delve into that further, not needing to connect with all her alternate selves, happy just being singular but at the same time completely malleable

Oh! Baby time.

Oh fuck, Al!Calliope in Jade time.

Why is Callie so afraid of Alt!Callie? That didn’t come across in their meetings in Homestuck as much, so why is that different here?

Is it because of Jade’s earlier comment of “there can only be one instance of a person here” and Callie doesn’t think she can win against Alltie?

Also, all these instances of Alltie appearing in Jade’s body is making me worried Alltie is doing something to both of their Ultimate Selves, like she’s subsuming Jade somehow like Dirk is subsuming Rose

I mean, they are fighting one another, so if Dirk’s doing something she has to keep pace right? In her mind, it’s probably totally justified

this is getting long enough for this post though, off we go again but I’m still reading

[teamkaiforever]

FROZEN IN TIME

(requested by anon/anon)

Kai Parker x Reader word count: 3 802 summary: After May 9th 1994, Reader – Kai’s cousin and his only friend, is frozen with a spell by his father to use as leverage in case he ever got out of the Prison World.  * gif by me

_________________________________________

Eighteen years.

That’s how long it had been since the last time Kai had gotten the chance to see his only friend – his cousin Y/N, when she had unexpectedly show up for his birthday shocking his father with her wide smile and the two large gift boxes for him in her hands. They had a lot more in common besides being a Gemini but unlike the rest of his screwed-up family who always found a way to bring him down, she always found a way to make him smile. To forget all the awful names his family called him. To her he wasn’t an abomination. He was just Kai and he liked that. Y/N always listened to him, trying to understand him though, he doubted she’d understand what he had done on May 9th 1994.

After he had come back from 1994 he had tried to reach out to her and explain things but hadn’t been able to find her and shortly after the merge and becoming the new Gemini coven leader, he had tried again. But every locator spell was a dead end and he figured she had probably cloaked herself knowing he’d go looking for her. Kai refused to let the thought she had died or that something else had happened. No. Y/N had probably gotten married to that weird neighbor with the giant crush on her and probably has kids, and after what he had done she probably didn’t want him anywhere near her. That had to be it.

A sigh left his lips and he took a sip from his bourbon. Spending his time at the Grill hadn’t been the first place he had thought of or wanted to go, but had been the first place he had seen while walking around the town of Mystic Falls. No one from the gang liked him but in the bar, he was just another guy attempting to drown out his sorrows and forget about reality. Kai swiped his finger on the phone screen tying in his Yelp review before leaving it on the bar next to him and ordered another drink, getting lost in his thoughts. The bartender poured him a glass and tried to take away the bottle when Kai’s phone rang. He pulled out his phone glancing at the screen – DAMON.

   “What is it Damon? Not in a mood to deal with yo—”

   “Oh, I think I have something in my possession that will definitely put you in a mood.”

   “Trust me, you have nothing in your possession that I want. And if that’s about me helping you get out your psycho mother out of 1903 – forget it.” stated Kai, trailing his fingers on the glass’ lid. “Find another way to –”

   “Kai?” said a female voice so familiar for a moment he thought he was losing his mind. Or perhaps he already had. “Kai! Oh my God! You are –”

   “Y/N?” he questioned, getting up. “Y/N, is that you?”

   “Awwh look at that. I do have something you want.” said Damon. “Meet me at the house. One hour or your only friend is going to find out exactly how your little brother felt before he died at your hands.”

Kai stared at his phone screen trying to wrap his mind around everything that had just happened when a message popped up. A photo of… Y/N chained to a chair and unless he was imagining it there were two puncture wounds on her neck. But there was something else that caught his attention. Something absolutely impossible to actually be true. His cousin, the only real friend he has ever had, looked exactly the same way she had when they had last seen each other as if no time had passed at all or she had been frozen in time. Her eyes had that spark which always made him feel warm on the inside, she was wearing a black t-shirt with a black and white flannel shirt and her hair was pulled in a messy pony tail. Without thinking about it for another second, he left some money on the bar and headed straight for the Salvatore house, putting a cloaking spell on himself. His thoughts spun completely out of control while he tried to figure out how that had happened. It was entirely possible that this was some trick, an illusion or something but a part of him knew better and it didn’t take him long to put two and two together. His father was involved and somehow, he had found a way to preserve her body with a spell to use her as leverage, no doubt, in case he ever found his way out.

Kai sat in the corner of the room watching his twin sister Jo and the rest of his siblings play some pointless birthday game while his father kept smiling, laughing and taking pictures. No one even payed him the slightest bit of attention even though it was his birthday too. He was used to it by now. His father would act like he didn’t exist even on this most special of days, which in a way he liked better than being called a monster and/or an abomination. All Kai would get is a ‘happy birthday’ from Jo and maybe his brother Joey and that was it.

A sigh left his lips and he got up from the comfy chair heading towards the window when the doorbell rang. His father shot him a warning glance and went to see who it was. Kai didn’t even bother going after him. It was probably his aunt coming to wish Jo a happy birthday or some other relative who had come to see his twin sis, but whoever it was definitely wasn’t there for him. Or so he thought until the door opened and he heard her voice, a voice he’d recognize anywhere.

  “Hello, uncle. I hope I am not too late for the birthday celebrations. I’d hate to miss this most special of days. Twenty second birthday. It’s quite important for us Geminis.”

  “Y/N.” he heard his father say, a hint of smile in his voice. “What a lovely surprise. Come on in.”

  “What?” muttered Kai and headed towards the door to check if he was hallucinating or not.

He took a peek around the corner and instantly his lips curled into a small smile. There she was, Y/N, his cousin and his only friend rocking the grunge look like no one else could, holding two large boxes with bows and a smaller one on top. Instantly her eyes lit up when she saw him and she took a small step inside while Joshua Parker glanced between his son and her. His father sighed and stepped aside to let her in, shooting Kai a warning look. Always the warning look saying ‘Don’t embarrass me in front of our family more than you already have being born an abomination.’ Though that look did not bother Kai one bit in that moment, all because of Y/N being there.

  “I assume those are for Jo?” asked his father.

Y/N ran her fingers through her hair and somehow managed to hold onto the boxes with one hand, getting the one at the top. “Sort of. This one is for – Jo!” she smiled when his twin popped up into the hallway. “Happy Birthday!”

  “Thanks Y/N.” smiled Jo. “Need some help?”

  “No, I um … I got it.” said Y/N, handing her the small box. “This is for you. I really hope you like it.”

Jo took the small box and glanced at Kai who glanced at his shoes. His twin sister was the only one who didn’t look at him as if he was an abomination. To her he was just her twin, but as much as she tried to make him feel welcome in their home, it didn’t always work out.  “Thank you, Y/N. Come in. You arrived just in time for cake.”

  “Is it chocolate?” she asked. “It has to be chocolate.” she glanced at Kai, who smiled under his breath but remained still. His gaze kept drifting towards his father but mostly his eyes were focused on her. “What? No hug for your best friend?”

Kai laughed under his breath and ignoring the death stare his father was giving him, took a step towards her and gave her a hug, whispering in her ear. “I am so happy you are here.”

  “Happy Birthday.” she said with a smile while he was barely able to make himself pull away from her. She brushed her palm against his cheek and gazed into his brilliantly blue eyes. There were traces of tears in them and she knew even though he acted like it didn’t bother him his family ignored him on his birthday, that wasn’t the truth. However, there was more than a few sparks of happiness in them in that moment.  “Oh my God, I cannot wait for you to open these.”

  “W-what?” he asked confused.

  “Your birthday presents, silly.” she said as if it’s obvious and took his hand when the twins ran right past them and into the kitchen, laughing. “Come on. OH hey Liv, Luke. Keep your hands off that birthday cake!”

Joshua ran after the twins and Jo returned to the living room to look after the rest of their siblings while Y/N and Kai sat at the bottom of the stairs and she gave him one of the boxes – a medium sized one, with light blue birthday themed wrapping and a white bow. Kai took it in his hands and placed in his lap, glancing at her.

  “What are you waiting for?!” she poked his shoulder. “Open it.”

  “I just –” he said quietly. “—you never fail to amaze me, Y/N. No one even remembers it’s my birthday. Only Jo and… here you are. With not one but two gifts. Um, that other one is for me too, right?”

Y/N smiled tucking in a strand of hair behind her ear and leaned in towards him. “There are actually three, but the other one I am saving for last. Don’t want you-know-who to find out. And I couldn’t miss your twenty second birthday. It’s a big day. Soon you will do the merge and become the most powerful leader this coven has ever had –” she sighed. “—and then I will get to say, I knew him when he was just boring, annoying –”

  “Oh, shut up.” he laughed, playfully punching her shoulder. “We both know you love me.”

  “Yes, I do.” she smiled. “Now, aren’t you curious what your best friend got you for your birthday?”

Kai tilted his head lightly, squeezing his eyes for a second and grinned. “Oh-kay.” he lifted the first box to his ear and lightly shook it. Y/N’s eyes widened but she didn’t say anything. Carefully he let the box back down on his lap and checked the birthday card tied to the bow, all ‘i’s written with a heart.

“Happy Birthday to my favorite cousin. Something to keep you smiling at all times, because your smile is the most beautiful thing in the world. Your annoying little cousin, Y/N.”

His eyes drifted towards hers and he unwrapped the box, opening the lid right after before taking a look inside. At the top there was a picture frame with a photo of the two of them by the lake from this past summer when they had sneaked away from the rest of the family and had gone for a swim. A smile showed on his face and he looked at her. He remembered that day clearly – his father was doing a barbecue; the twins were running around and Jo tried to keep up with them and keep them out of trouble. Y/N had sneaked behind him on the towel he was sitting on and had covered his eyes with her palms. He had guessed who it was in a second, pulling her down on the towel with him, both of them laughing… and then she had whispered in his ear ‘Let’s go have fun.’ Without anyone realizing it, they had sneaked away to the other end of the lake and had spent the next hour and a half swimming, laughing and splashing each other with water. Then they had taken a picture of themselves, still wet, both of them smiling like crazy. By far this one was one of the happiest moments in his life.

  “Go on.” she nudged him, looking more excited by the second.

  “Hey, I thought it was my birthday.” he teased, reaching inside the box again while she laughed under her breath. His fingers wrapped around something thick and square and when he glanced at what was in his hands he realized it was a camera. He held it carefully in his hands, almost as if he was afraid he’d break it or that someone would take it away from him and looked at her. “You got me a camera? I don’t know what to say. Which is new since I never stop talking –”

Y/N smiled at him. “You don’t have to say anything. I know you love taking photos. Every time your eyes light up just like they did just now and I thought you’d like to have your own camera. You know, to capture the moments worth remembering –” she said, when all of the sudden his arms wrapped around he tightly. “I take it you like your first present?”

  “Absolutely love it. And I don’t need a picture to remember this moment, sunshine.” he said softly. “I’ll remember it forever.”

  “But you are going to take a picture, right?” she held him tight.

Kai smiled, burring his face in the crook of her neck when he caught a glimpse of his father watching them. “Don’t you know me?”

Kai walked around the boarding house looking for open windows or unlocked doors he can use to sneak in and get Y/N out safely when he saw her sitting in the living room with chains around her and her wrists. Her face was a mix of anger and confusion and her eyes followed Damon’s movements while the vampire paced around the room with a glass with bourbon in his hands, talking. Y/N tried and tried to get herself free but her tries were futile and judging by the look on her face, either those were magic dampening cuffs or she didn’t have her magic. Otherwise he couldn’t figure out how they had gotten the drop on her. Her lips were moving and judging by the vampire’s look – her sharp tongue wasn’t taking it easy on him. A small smile showed on Kai’s face which quickly faded away when Damon whooshed himself to her and smashed the glass he was holding in his hand sending glass shards everywhere. All the way from the glass doors he could see his least favorite Salvatore’s vampirism showing and a wave of panic flooded him at the thought what the vampire could do to her.

   “Knock knock.” said Kai, waltzing inside through one of the large glass doors. He glanced at Y/N, whose eyes had widened so much at the sight of him there it was almost as if they were about to pop out, and smiled at her before turning towards Damon. “That’s no way to treat a lady, Damon. No wonder Elena decided to erase her memories of you. I mean, let’s face it – she is probably better off without them anyways and your little nice act won’t deceive her for long.”

Damon clenched his jaw, crunched his nose and launched towards Kai who raised his hand causing the vampire a witchy migraine. The young siphoner took a step closer towards the eldest Salvatore with a smirk on his face and knelt down.

   “Awwhh, did I put I kink in your masterplan to manipulate me into doing whatever you wanted?” cooed Kai while Damon groaned in pain on the ground, holding his head. “Sorry, buddy, but you are not going to lay a finger on her again.” he snapped the vampire’s neck. “Magical neck snap. Never gets old.” he said amused and almost ran towards Y/N, taking a better look at her trying to figure out if she was real or just some kind of an elaborate illusion Bon Bon had created.

   “Are you going to keep starring or are you going to help me so we can get out of here?” she said with a little snark in her voice. “You have made some really twisted friends. We have to talk about this –”

Kai smiled widely at her. “I missed you, Y/N.” he pulled at the chains and when that didn’t work he used magic to get them off her. “They are not my friends, sunshine, trust me. You haven’t changed a bit since the last time I saw you. H-how is that possible?”

   “Your father.” she replied, rubbing her wrists. “He called saying you’ve been badly hurt and you wanted to see me. I drove to your house and he jumped me, took away my magic. I spent like half a week in the basement—”

   “I hate that place.” he swallowed hard.

    “—while he kept trying to get some kind of preservation, freezing spell or whatever working.” she finished, looking him up and down before wrapping her arms around him. “He um, he said you –”

   “I did… and I got myself sent to a Prison World for it… for eighteen years.” he rubbed gentle circles on her back expecting her to push him away after confirming his father’s story, but her grip on him only tightened. “You d-don’t hate me for what I did?”

   “I could never hate you. Though you could’ve handled your anger better.” she said quietly. “But it wasn’t your fault. It was your father and if someone understands how messed up he is, that’s me.” she cupped his face and gazed into his eyes, her lips curling into a smile. “God, you really are back.”

   “I am.” he smiled at her and took her hand, starting to head towards the exit. “Now, let’s go before –” he started when Elena flashed before them.

   “Sorry, your reunion will have to be cut short.” said the latest doppelgänger, turning towards Y/N. “Your friend and I need to have a little chat.”

Kai wound his hand around Y/N’s waist, holding her tightly towards him. “I am telling you as a semi sane person, you do not want to let Lilly’s closet full of crazy pants out. Also, Y/N and I stay together. I will not let you hurt her any more than you already have –”

   “So, your father was right.” groaned Damon, rubbing his neck for a second before in vamp-speed he ran towards them. He grabbed Y/N holding her tight, ready to snap her neck at any moment. Kai took a step towards them but Damon shook his head. “Easy there, twerp. Neck-snap easy around here.”

A sigh left the siphoner’s lips and he wiped his face. “I can’t get your psychopath of a mother out. She is a ripper. You don’t solve a ripper problem by unleashing another ripper.” he stated. “What kind of a person has to have this explained to them?!”

Damon growled, his eyes burning with fire, and his hands lightly moved around Y/N’s neck. Elena took a step towards them, shooting him a warning look while Kai remained in the middle trying to figure out his strategy. Two vampires and a girl who he couldn’t bear losing. Even the lightest thought he might end up being responsible for his only friend being hurt, or worse –dead, was enough to break him in ways he never even knew were possible. Y/N struggled against Damon’s grip, barely taking her eyes off Kai’s and he couldn’t help but notice how there wasn’t fear in them. Only defiance as usual.

   “I need my brother back.”

   “Let her go.” demanded Kai. “She has nothing to do with this. There has to be another way to get Stephon’s humanity back.”

   “Maybe not with this, but she has everything to do with you.” stated Damon, turning towards her. “He cares about you, you can see it in his eyes. But if he won’t cooperate… All I have to do is apply a little pressure right here –” he squeezed her neck, and she choked struggling to breath. “—and your neck snaps.”

Kai clenched his jaw and he took a slow step towards them. Y/N grabbed onto Damon’s hands trying to pull them away and when that didn’t work, she stepped on his foot with all force, biting his hand right after and the vampire stepped away from her. Instantly she ran towards Kai, who ran towards her, when suddenly she hit a magical barrier. A groan escaped her lips and she banged on the invisible wall separating them, cursing under her breath.

    “Hey, Kai? After this is all over –” she placed her palm on the invisible barrier, glancing at her hand and then at Kai.

   “Yeah?” he replied, placing his palm on the other side right where hers was.

   “—remind me not to kill them.” she smiled innocently at him, slightly glancing at his palm to see if he had gotten her point.

   “Sure thing, though I can’t make the same promise.”

Damon glanced at Elena who glanced at Bonnie who popped up from the library, clearly holding up the spell, and then finally glanced at Y/N and Kai making googly eyes at each other. “You two love birds done already? I need the newly elected president of the Gemini freaks to get my mother out of 1903 so I can –”

   “You know what. I changed my mind. We start with him.” muttered Y/N, motioning with her head towards Damon. Kai laughed under his breath and glanced at her friends with a devilish spark in his eyes. All of the sudden she fell towards him and right into his arms.  Everyone looked at each other startled and Damon launched towards Kai and Y/N at the same second Kai muttered ‘Invisique.’ and both of them vanished into thin air right before their eyes. The vampire groaned in frustration while Elena placed her palm over her forehead, shaking her head in shock and disbelief.

   “Damn it.” cursed Damon. “What are we going to do now?!”

Kai laughed under his breath and turned towards Y/N with a smile on his face. “I believe you and I have some catching up to do.”

   “That we do.” she smiled back. “But um … can we go get something to eat first? I am starving.”

   “Anything you want, sunshine.” he put his arm around her shoulder. “And I think I know just the place…” ________________________________________ MASTERLIST - SMUT MASTERLIST - FLUFF

[gulescamisade]

Betty Crocker Headquarters:  Arrival

JADESPRITE: -She drifts -- or rather nyooms down toward the lakehouse encampment, green glowy gooing her way through one of the walls and looking around for just about anyone that's in sight.-

DIRK: -HE'S HERE. just sitting around the living area with his leg bouncing restlessly. he glances in jadesprite's direction when she oozes in.-

JADESPRITE: dirk!!

JADESPRITE: everyone

JADESPRITE: we need to go

DIRK: -OH GOOD. AN EXCUSE TO STAND UP. he does that.-

DIRK: What's up?

JADESPRITE: somethings happening at the hq

JADESPRITE: terezis there

JADESPRITE: i think this might be our chance

JOHN: -stands up- 👀

ROSE: -She's fiddling with her needles. The creepy ivory quills she got from deep down on LOMAT. She's going to be using them pretty soon, it seems, might as well be ready.-

ROSE: You mean already?

JADESPRITE: -she nods- we should head there now

JADESPRITE: im sure shes going to need our help

JOHN: -isn't terezi supposed to be dead??? but now is no time for questions he has BEEN ready for action.-

JADESPRITE: where is everyone else? we should get everyone

URSAIS: -SHE'S HERE TOO. Bear rumble.- should i rally th' troops? they're on standby.

ROSE: Some injured, but I suppose most of us are... around the area.

ROSE: Do you have a large bell we could ring to summon them? Communicators would probably tip them off.

JOHN: i have an airhorn.

JOHN: :D

DISCIPLE: -her eyes peek from atop a shelf-

JOHN: -he really wants to use the airhorn.-

DIRK: Use the airhorn.

JOHN: yesssssssss.

JOHN: -....-

JOHN: -dramatic pause-

JOHN: -HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONK.-

DISCIPLE: -YOWLS!!!-

DIRK: -🙏-

JOEY: 8D

JOEY: should we come up with a battle cry?

MITUNA: WH47 7H3 FUCK

LATULA: -well shit an airhorn wakes her up-

MEULIN: -YOWLS FROM SOMEWHERE-

LATULA: SH1T DUD3.

LIFERA: -FUCKING POWER LEAPS DOWNSTAIRS- W)(AT'S )(APP-ENING??

JOHN: (ehehehehhehhehehe.)

JOHN: put up your dukes! it's time to fight!

LIFERA: GLUB???

PENNY: -GROGGY AS SHIT. Walks in.- ugh????

ULFURA: -She's currently outside, just feeding and petting this GIANT ASS DRAGONFLY. Her precious...-

HEITOR: -probably fiddling with the electricity or something-

URSAIS: -texts her and everyone.-

ULFURA: !!

URSAIS: -i really need to think of a cool name for this little abnd of rebels but for now you're just URSAIS'S CREW.-

ULFURA: -SHE IS OKAY WITH THAT NAME!!!-

ULFURA: -At this message, she runs to the lakehouse door and all but KICKS it open.-

ULFURA: WE'RE GOIN'???

PENNY: -squints at everyone...-

HESONY: =He's just been looming in a corner this entire time but was currently ourside on self-appointed guard duty. Since they arrived, he has been uncharacteristically quiet. Best not draw any unnecessary attention to himself and all that.=

URSAIS: we'rRe goin'. and we'rRe gon bring the pain. t' wherRe the fightin is thickest. -glances at dirk.-

ERIDAN: -was watching Sunny this whole time from his brooding place in the ice cream truck. Yeah he knows that color and name bruh. He knows it.-

MICEXA: -She's already paying attention to all this... and heading out to tell Sunny what's up. ANOTHER FACE ERIDAN CAN RECOGNIZE, INCIDENTALLY.-

MICEXA: Hey.

ULFURA: YEAAAHHH!!! LET'S DO IT!!! -jumps and PUNCHES THE AIR.-

ULFURA: SHE'S ALL READY TO GO!!!

ERIDAN: -He's reading all about it on the Alternia newsfeeds, don't worry.-

ERIDAN: -taking this time to change back into his combat gear. Good thing he's outside.-

HESONY: Hey. =he replies, his expression softening a fraction.= Are we moving again?

MICEXA: Yeah.

MICEXA: To the HQ.

JOHN: are we gonna go grab jake? my dad? -IF THEY WERE BRIEFED ON A PLAN...john might've just forgotten it.-

HESONY: =stares like she just grew an extra head= What.

JOHN: -forgive him-

JADESPRITE: it seems like terezi is going to try to get them out

JADESPRITE: but of course if they need help we will help them

JADESPRITE: right?

ROSE: Death really doesn't take the way it used to, does it?

JADESPRITE: no, it doesnt

JADESPRITE: theres definitely something different about her, though

JOHN: lucky for us! -laughs nervously-

JADESPRITE: ... -glances around like maybe she shouldn't have said that-

JADESPRITE: either way, we need to get moving

JADESPRITE: -floats toward the wall-

DIRK: -just grunts about that and tries to raise his voice over everyone's excitement- Ok, I need some of you to stay here and watch the injured. The rest of you follow Jadesprite.

DIRK: ... Like, through the door.

MICEXA: Yeah.

MICEXA: ... This is it.

REDGLARE: -STARTING TO STAND TO LEAVE ANYWAYS-

JOHN: -just starts shuffling towards the door even though he's a doctor....-

JADESPRITE: -schlorps through the wall on that note!-

PENNY: .... so whos stayin?

JOHN: -NOTHING TO SEE HERE.-

DIRK: -points at rose's white board of THE INJURED.- If you're on this list, you're not going.

DIRK: That means you, Redglare.

HESONY: =he laughs, shaking his head= We're going towards the people who want to kill us...

HESONY: =he patted her shoulder and squeezed it.= Okay. We don't stop.

REDGLARE: -STOPS AND STARES DAGGERS AT THE WHITEBOARD-

ROSE: -...one dagger-

MICEXA: -she reaches up to cover his hand with hers, her grip a little tighter.-

MICEXA: You don't leave my side.

REDGLARE: >;|

DAELOS: -Also not too happy about this arrangement because he's on that list.-

REDGLARE: -SITS LOUDLY-

PENNY: what about Riley?? shes sure as fuck not going.

DIRK: Of course she's not.

DIRK: -LOOKS AROUND SUSPICIOUSLY... is she trying to sneak away...-

HESONY: Wouldn't dream of it.

PENNY: -SHE BETTER NOT BE-

DEREK: -walks in- Dont worry I locked her in the bathroom.

HESONY: =also dropping eaves on the people behind them=

PENNY: ... -sNORTS-

PENNY: good deal.

ROXANNE: Good call. -At Derek, yes shes totally been here.-

PENNY: I uh.

PENNY: (God damn it.)

PENNY: I can stay and watch her.

PENNY: and the rest of you folks. nobody get any crazy ideas.

JOHN: -where's kankri? john wants to make sure he stays behind with his tiny knife and otherwise complete lack of being able to defend himself, but also one more hug would't be bad...-

PENNY: -LOOKS ESPECIALLY AT REDGLARE-

KANKRI: -Hes certainly staying behind to take care of people, he knows he and his little knife would be useless on this type of mission.-

MICEXA: .... -sighs a tightly held breath before glancing at the dragonfly.- \|/e should start boarding up.

REDGLARE: 3xcus3 m3?

REDGLARE: Who 1s th1s wom4n. D1d w3 just... coll3ct h3r.

REDGLARE: -GLARES AT PENNY WOW-

JOHN: -SQUEEZES HIM FOR STRENGTH.-

PENNY: ;)

PENNY: from the dump specifically.

KANKRI: -John so help him dont you be reckless.-

PENNY: hi. Im your new nanny.

JOHN: -He's going to be as nonreckless as you can be while you smash people with a hammer and use magic wind powers.-

KANKRI: -J o hn.-

HESONY: =he nodded giving her shoulder one more squeeze. No more promises of living through this. That only ever brought back luck.=

REDGLARE: >;I

URSAIS: -MOUNTS THIS DRAGON FLY like it's no big deal.-

MICEXA: -Well, she's going to do her best to make sure it's true, even if unspoken. She heads for the dragonfly.-

MINDFANG: -Also she is ready to brawl, she even did some maintenance on her arm even without your help Hesony. Now it probably wont fall off while she fights.-

ULFURA: ALRIGHT COME ON GET YOUR FANNIES ON BOARD!!! -gestures aggressively at the many rows of carrying seats on this dragonfly's butt.-

RUFIOH: -Waiting outside for people to gather... he's anxious as he shuffles his wings but. Didn't come here to sit on his ass. As much as he would like to. Shit's scary...-

ROXANNE: -Climbing on board with no time to waste, shes got important people to save.-

HESONY: =yeah, but i bet that piston still sticks, Wolfchow=

JOHN: -While he's huging people, Dirk and Rose also get a squeeze b4 they board. Wait? Is that Rufioh? Also hugged? Meulin? Hugged.- be safe you guys!!!  

LATULA: -HUP. She's climbing on-- she got used to the dragonfly a while ago, slinging out her rifle as she takes a seat.-

LATULA: 41ght!!!!

JOHN: -he's very liberal with these warm hugs.-

MEULIN: -HEY SHE IS HERE, peering out from around the lakehouse.- AH--

MEULIN: EVERYONE'S GOING?

MEULIN: -snugs JOHN!!-

MICEXA: -climbs RIGHT ON BOARD. It's possible she's ridden something similar before at some point as well... but either way, she's not hesitating to get a move on.-

URSAIS: -sitted near the front.-

JOHN: -after he's done spreading his love around, he hover into one of the farthest seats cuz tha back of the rollercoaster is always the most fun.-(

LIFERA: -She runs out and climbs on board, too, also toward the back. She figures they're going to need people watching the butt.-

JOHN: B)

HESONY: =clambers on=

SOLLUX: -And he, meanwhile, finally drags himself out of the lakehouse. His appearances have been infrequent, but he's here now, quiet as he navigates awkwardly toward the dragonfly and then floats himself into a seat.-

SOLLUX: -MAY HAVE SAT ON SOMEONE??? We just don't know.-

URSAIS: o//o -SUDDENLY HAS SOLLUX IN HER LAP. jk. or not???-

SOLLUX: -hello-

SOLLUX: -is this what seats are supposed to feel like???????-

URSAIS: -....clears her throat. casually picks him up and places him into the seat next to her instead.-

SOLLUX: .... 0h.

URSAIS: safety first 'n all.

SOLLUX: ...

ROSE + DISCIPLE ALSO: -OH IF EVERYONES CLIMBING ON THEN THEY ALL GET ON THERE-

SOLLUX: -slowly rests face in hands.-

SOLLUX: -there's no other choice. he's going to have to die today.-

DIRK: -you son of a fuck-

HESONY: =pondering how this crew has survived for so long=

SOLLUX: -LOOK BITCH-

DIRK: -no fuck you-

DIRK: -ANYWAY HES ALSO HERE. AND THE REST OF THE ONES OF MINE GOING.-

JOHN: -WAVES AT THE REST OF THE GROUP!!!-

JOHN: -the ones staying behind, i mean.-

[[ WHAT AN EXPEDIENT PROCESS. Once everyone going is on, Ulfura eyeballs the whole troupe. ]]

KARKAT: =is here=

ERIDAN: -Hi everyone. This fish is here. Most people probably don't know who he is??? He's just a guy sitting here with a big gun in his lap, half his face wrapped up in scarf.-

ERIDAN: - >> -

KARKAT: =SOME DOUCHE=

ERIDAN: -Yeah, true.-

ULFURA: -climbs the dragonfly and gets on the upper part of its back, grabbing reins and settling in up there.-

ULFURA: WE READY??? GIMME THE WORD!!!

ROSE: As ready as I can possibly find myself, yes.

JOHN: heck yes!!!

JOHN: let's try our best everyone. -anime voice on purpose-

JOHN: -the only way to respond to this horrifying situation is to be INCESSANTLY CHEERFUL.-

SOLLUX: (i swear t0 g0d egbert.)

JOHN: (ehehehhe. get fucked.)

RUFIOH: }:o

RUFIOH: -gonna be flying with the gang off to the side... Gives the dragonfly a pat though. Wishing it the best of luck and a safe flight.-

URSAIS: go ahea' and kick off, pupper.

URSAIS: we got a lot a shit to do an little time t' do it in.

ARANEA: -does rufioh mind if she joins him? her wings are getting strength back but she figures she needs them for the battle... so she's giving them a stretch!-

[[ The dragonfly flickers its wings in buggy acknowledgement. It feels so FRESH and reassured now. ]]

RUFIOH: -He does not mind at all. Side eyes Aranea.-

DAELOS: -stares through the window in the rain at her. he wants to slay their enemies alongside her again. :(-

ARANEA: -reaches dramatically for daelos with her heart...-

ULFURA: YEAH!!!

ULFURA: LET'S DO THIS!!! COME ON FLAP FLAPS!!! -tugs the reins gently and nudges the dragonfly with her communing powers-

ARANEA: ::::) -at rufioh-

DAELOS: -just be as ruthless as possible for him-

ARANEA: -SHE WILL-

ULFURA: HOLD ONTO YOUR BUTTS!!!

[[ The dragonfly suddenly lurches, kicking off from the ground, and its wings start flapping wildly to take them up into the sky. Takeoff and landing is the hardest part. ]]

RUFIOH: -pchooooooooooo time to fly!-

URSAIS: -This part always makes her a little queasy. She doesn't like being off the ground. ʕ灬￫ᴥ￩灬ʔ-

ERIDAN: -scrunches up his face at the wind buffeting his hair. He thinks he smells rain on the horizon...-

JOHN: -basically uneffected-

[[ They rise into the sky quickly, if not weaving side to side a few times between the wind and the dragonfly adjusting to its new weight. It soars above the treetops, higher into chillier air. The pressure and wind aren't super comfortable, but Ulfura keeps it from going too high. They're on the way, headed straight for Golden Valley. ]]

ROSE: -Twirling those needles in her hands, thinking. Working off nerves. This... really is happening. The flying doesn't bother her-- it's everything else. It's the fact that she can't even fathom seeing something useful with her powers, or the fact that she can hardly conjure a spark. She just focuses on breathing. Deep breaths. Think. Don't get impaled by a fork.-

ROXANNE: -Is probably sitting next to Rose, because its unlikely she would let anyone else take the seat next to her daughter right now.-

ROXANNE: -And she also glances at her with a touch of concern, but unfortunately most of her expression is just determined sternness for what is to come.-

JOHN: -YELLING to be heard above the wing flaps and buffeting air.- SO! I DON'T THINK. I KNOW THE NAMES OF LIKE ...75 PERCENT OF YOU. YOU WANNA LIKE...TELL ME THEM? -he has his own ways of working out his nervousness.-

HEITOR: NO

JOHN: WELL I MEAN. OKAY. THAT'S VALID. IF YOU WANNA BE A DICK ABOUT IT. ANYBODY ELSE?

ERIDAN: -No. Giving John the cold shoulder. Don't look at him, motherfucker...-

JOHN: -He has his eyeballs on you Eridan. All over you.-

MICEXA: ... -does she even want to yell above this wind...-

HESONY: .... =well he sure isn't going to be an ass! He glanced up to see a flying human. Okay. He will accept this.= ....Hesony. =He says, in his regular voice.=

MICEXA: -side eyes Sunny like pls-

JOHN: -HE IS FLYING WITH EVERYONE ELSE CURRENTLY. ON THE BIG BUG.- HEY...SUNNY? SUNNY? OKAY. NICE TO MEET YOU! I AM JOHN.

HESONY: =EXCUSE only FRIENDS call him that. Whatever=

HESONY: Greetings, John.

MICEXA: -gosh.... she loves this grumpy doofus-

MICEXA: MICEXA NESHEN. PURSUANT SEAKRAIT.

JOHN: COOL. EXCELLENT. THANKS FOR HELPING. -

MINDFANG: -John do not thank them for anything.-

MICEXA: -just sort of softly grunts at that.-

JOHN: - He doesn't know these are the peeps that fucked up his friends otherwise he might be less friendly. -

HESONY: =Anything for Terezi's friends, no matter how ungrateful they are.=

HESONY: No problem. =he says instead=

ERIDAN: -gazing at these legislacerators. Saying nothing. Sipping tea with just the look in his eyes.-

[[ Below them, they'll being to see signs of smoke and fire, and the vague sounds of explosions and weaponry through the buffetting wind. In patches where they can see, it looks like there are scattered Alternian troops fighting little scads of rebels. The further they go, the more fire there is. Looks like quite a few things blew up down there. ]]

MICEXA: -why's this bitch got an in flight beverage...-

LATULA: -SHARP INTAKE-

LATULA: sh1t dud3 th4t lookz pr3tty n4sty.

URSAIS: - EL SQUINTO-

LATULA: no off3ns3 but 4r3 your p33poz gonn4 b3 4bl3 to hold out?

JOHN: - promptly shuts up at this point. he's totally stoked and not sick/scared-

[[ The dragonfly sways here and there to try to avoid the plumes of smoke. It's likely Ulfura is guiding it around them; bugs tend to react badly to signs of fire. ]]

URSAIS: - bracing herself- worRy bout yerRselves.. we'rRe used t' this. shit.

URSAIS: an' stay brRave.

SOLLUX: -he doesn't seem to react much there next to Ursais... just tilted his face out toward the outside of the seat, almost like he would be looking down at the ground if he could see.-

[[ They fly over lakes and green landscape -- it would be beautiful in just about any other circumstance, but today, the serenity of the landscape only seems to be feel cold and empty for the reality of what's happening below. ]]

JOHN: -equips Zillyhoo. It makes him feel better, even if it does put chanting voices in the back of his head.-

JOHN: -zi-hi-hi-hilly hoo~-

URSAIS: -ʕง•ᴥ•ʔง-

HESONY: =Same, Sparky Jr. Cept he has eyes. You dont. Neener neener neener.=

SOLLUX: -LET HIM BROOD IN PEACE, TEREZI'S OLD FRIEND GUY. JEEZ.-

ARADIA: -by sollux cuz you don't get to brood alone-

DIRK: -ha, that gives him an opportunity to brood alone too. YOU CAN'T STOP HIM HE'S IN CHARGE.-

SOLLUX: -oh so now YOU'RE in ursais' lap???-

SOLLUX: -CUT IT OUT GOD-

DIRK: -he might as well straight up be doin the thinker pose he's so contemplative right now-

ARADIA: -where am I...I am everywhere...-

SOLLUX: -just hoping she's flying alongside him tbh-

SOLLUX: -just out there smiling and being a creep-

[[ As they fly along, they'll finally start to see it breaching the line of the trees. The headquarters turned into something almost fortresslike, and empty expanse instead of trees -- water surrounds the building on all sides, centering it in a huge lake. Sticking out of the water nearby is a giant silhouette-style statue, but instead of the businessman it used to be, it's in the shape of )(er Imperious Condescension. ]]

[[ The building has been rebranded, of course. Instead of the original spoon, there's a bright red trident. ]]

ROSE: -eyes that silouette. plz...-

JOHN: :/

DIRK: -squints at all this. that's where they're being held... they're so close he thinks his heart is about to jump right out of his chest. he's never not anxious, of course, but the possibility of him or anyone dying here has never felt more real.-

QIRIN: How charming. ^_^

DAVENFORTH: Qirin please

QIRIN: =SHE'S KIDDING=

ARADIA: 😊

JOHN: okay if we win or finish early can we all mutually agree that needs to be heavily vandalized or blown the fuck up.

LIFERA: -just staring at this statue. It's ridiculous, but also... it's so huge. It looks like the way the Condesce feels -- larger than life, the figure that's loomed over her since she hatched. And now...-

DAVENFORTH: -Puts a hand on Lifera's thigh-

LIFERA: -She sort of jumps -- but only just barely, and looks over at Davenforth. She doesn't smile this time, but she acknowledges him.-

ERIDAN: -He more or less feels the same as Lifera about seeing these real actual headquarters. But with knowing NO ONE, he refuses to voice it. He fixes his eyes on the building, determined. Hopeless.-

QIRIN: =You stop that=

DAVENFORTH: -Squeezes gently. It's all cake baybe, we got this.-

QIRIN: =Get your pessimism out of the optimist club=

MICEXA: -yeah they're probs gonna die-

QIRIN: =what the fuck did i just say?=

ROXANNE: -Why do all you new people always assume we're going to die.-

MICEXA: -LOOK MAN-

HESONY: =because it HAPPENS that's why=

ROXANNE: -Nuh uh. No one is dying this time either, nope.-

HESONY: =thats what he said last time then terezi bit it=

[[ From closer they can also begin to see ships on the lake -- most of which appear to be Alternian in nature, but also some that aren't. There's a lot of pirate-style fighting going on down there. Boy howdy. ]]

MINDFANG: -Nice.-

JOHN: -HE JUST WANTS TO GET OFF THIS DRAGON FLY AND START FIGHTING. It's like ripping off a band aid.-

JOHN: -Hhhhhh-

QIRIN: =Patience, my padawan=

ULFURA: I'M BRINGIN' US IN CAP!!!

ULFURA: -she's starting to weave this dragonfly even more now, to avoid any lines of fire they may ultimately end up in. They're beginning to do a slow circle around the headquarters building.-

URSAIS: ya did grReat now, pupperR.

ULFURA: -SHIMMERS... but quietly.OF COURSE SHE DID GREAT.-

[[ The dragonfly SWOOPS, knocking at the mainsail of one of the Alternian ships on its way around with some of its legs. It rattles everybody a little. ]]

DIRK: -(mccree voice) whoa there- =swears under his breath=

[[ The dragonfly finally swoops down to the platform entrance of the building -- it's almost a tight fit for such a big fucking bug with wide wings, but it manages. ]]  

[[ It lands with an even bigger rattle. ]]

[[http://stmedia.startribune.com/images/10011821%201gmills100114.JPG]]

[ayma-nidiot]

In the White Light - Prideshipping fanfic Chapter 22

Also on AO3.

Author’s note: I know this is a weird time to mention this, but did I happen to mention the strong, frequent Fire Emblem influences throughout this fic yet? :3 For instance, the “ancient Egyptian” is just the backwards Japanese lyrics to FE songs that have lyrics.

Fire Emblem Fates is said to be the worst game in the series, but I quite like it. This fanfic might as well be considered a Yu-Gi-Oh/Fire Emblem Fates crossover. Overall, I love Yu-Gi-Oh to death, but Fire Emblem has been part of my life for over 17 years and will always be my number one fandom. I highly recommend the "newer" Fire Emblem games (Fates, Awakening, Echoes, and Three Houses).

Chapter 22 – Dawn Breaks

Yami Yugi waited for Mana and Kisara’s departure before saying anything. “Kaiba…”

“…Pharaoh.” At first, Kaiba didn’t mind the old rival’s tension that lingered in the air. But that feeling lasted only a few seconds before the KaibaCorp president approached Yami Yugi and hugged him.

“K-Kaiba… My love?”

At that moment, Kaiba dropped his tough demeanour, not giving two shits at the “Dweeb Patrol” that saw this side of him. “You know, ever since I started that duel with Bakura, I’ve realized something. I love you. I’ll never find another man like you, one who can match my skills and fulfill my every wish. If I can’t have you because we live in different times… If I have to go back to modern day Domino City without you, then… I would rather die alone.”

“Me too, Kaiba…” In between kisses, Yami Yugi spoke, “Just like in my past life, I refuse to find a queen if that queen isn’t you. I’ve sworn my heart to you ever since the events in Dartz’s lair.”

Kaiba now held the pharaoh by the shoulders and looked into his eyes. “So. What is this ‘information that you have learned today?’”

“I have finally learned what my real name is. I’ve finally learned the last piece of my forgotten memories. But now that our true enemy is vanquished, I’ve no need to use its true power.”

“Good.” Kaiba pulled Yami Yugi in again. “I think we’ve had enough ‘epic’ battles for one day.”

Just then, a voice with seemingly no source appeared. “That’s fine with me! It will make taking over all Egypt that much easier!”

“Oh, great,” Kaiba scoffed. “How many times do people have to die in this joint before they really die? Bakura.”

“Listen more closely, love. It sounds like the Bandit King, but his voice is warped. I mean, more than usual. In fact…” Yami Yugi gasped when he slowly started to realize just who it was that now stood before him. “…Zorc.”

“Pharaoh.” Zorc stared the couple down. “We meet again. Ah, if the Bandit King wasn’t dead because he sacrificed himself to revive me, then I’d thank him.”

“Tristan, don’t even make jokes about this guy’s penis again,” Joey spoke.

“Joey…” Kaiba had never addressed Joey by his first name before. Already half-shifted, he ordered, “All of you need to get the hell out of here!”

“No way, Kaiba! Don’t you remember how we all fought together on Atlantis?”

“No, Joey, he’s right,” added Yami Yugi. “I admire your courage, but this is not your fight. Go take the others where it is safe!”

“Pharaoh… Fine, then I trust you.” Joey summoned Red-Eyes Black Dragon, and everyone else quickly mounted it. “Hiyah!”

“How bold of you to think that just two puny humans could defeat the all-powerful Dark One Zorc! What makes you think this fight will be any different from the fights we’ve had in the past?”

“I’ll show you what I mean.” Yami Yugi closed his eyes. “Hear my name and tremble, Dark One! I am the son of Aknamkanon… Atem!”

Kaiba said nothing as a beam of light emitted from the man he loved, revealing a man with a gold crown, white tunic, and skin the colour of cinnamon. “Atem…” He loved the sound of the pharaoh’s name.

“Kaiba… There is only one way to defeat him. You must shapeshift while I weaken him with the Pharaoh’s Incantation.”

“No! What if you-”

“There is no time!” Atem yelled as hordes of zombies and mummies crept out of the dunes. Adding to the gravity of the task were the presence of golems, hurling rocks at Atem that he barely dodged in time. “I hate to sound like a broken record, but don’t forget our promises.”

“And ours!”

“Joey!” Kaiba turned around. “I thought I told you dweebs to flee.”

“See, here’s the thing you gotta learn about us friends, rich boy. We don’t concern ourselves with trivial things like ‘fleeing.’”

“And we don’t concern ourselves with trivial things like letting Joey Wheeler show us up!” Rex and Weevil spoke in unison, completely in human form now.

“You shouldn’t be out here either! Unless…”

“Y’all heal fast,” Joey finished Atem’s sentence. “Eh, must be a shapeshifter thing.”

“Truth be told, I’m still tired as hell from that last battle, so I can’t transform… But I can use this!” Rex summoned Serpent Night Dragon, and soon after, Weevil’s Metamorphosed Insect Queen followed.

“I am by your side too, my pharaoh,” Kisara joined in with her Blue-Eyes White Dragon.

“So am I!” Mana twirled her staves about. “This is for Master… I’ll show you all what he’s taught me!”

“I will use my cards for good this time,” spoke Marik. “You can count on it.”

“Everyone… Join me! And fight for the salvation of all Egypt!” Atem paused before beginning the Incantation. “Ukuyimusus ot e imay… Azuo on aukah anorustu…”

“My power is… fading… But why?” Zorc glared down at an unfazed Kaiba. “Priest Seto’s modern incarnation… It’s all your damned fault! I’ll kill you just like I’ve done in the past!”

The light from Kaiba’s transformation shone brighter than the sun directly above. “Zorc… I am going to destroy you once and for all!” he growled as he, with an energy beam at the ready, charged at the Dark One.

“Hah!” Nice try, you dumb dragon!” Despite his colossal size, Zorc could evade Kaiba’s attack just fine. He leapt from sand dune to sand dune like a hare while locking his spite-filled gaze on Kaiba.

Neither the constant need to take a deep breath nor the whiplash from the recoil after many shots stopped Kaiba from his attempt to kill the Dark One. “You get weaker and weaker! Is this seriously all you have after all these years?”

“Oh, quite the contrary, Kaiba.” Zorc smirked. “You haven’t seen the last of me yet! The powers of all that is unholy compel you!”

“Oooh. I’d be shaking in my boots, if I had any.” Kaiba attempted to shoot another Shining Neutron Blast at Zorc, but every time he did so, a fiend or some other appeared to take the hit instead. With each fiend destroyed, the cloud of sand whipped up even more. “See? I can fight like one of you shapeshifters now!”

“Don’t you dare put yourself on par with my kind, vermin!” Kaiba thundered, soaring into a lone cloud and firing a beam across the desert.

“You’re right, I shouldn’t,” Zorc admitted halfheartedly as he lured Kaiba farther from the dragon’s allies. “After all, I am superior to the likes of you!”

“You’re not going anywhere!” Kaiba, with a powerful gust underneath his wings, followed Zorc towards the villages. “Here? Does your wickedness know any bounds?”

“What’s the matter, dragon boy? Scared of harming this pathetic excuse of a country?” Zorc heckled as he demolished a few houses near Kaiba without remorse.

“If you hate it so much, then why do you live in it?” Kaiba returned the attack, narrowly avoiding destroying a stone building.

“Because it is my goal to rid this country – along with the rest of Earth – of all its life.” Spurring Kaiba to follow him to an especially poor village, Zorc aimed an attack there. “This village… It doesn’t need to exist. Don’t you agree?”

“Oh gods…” A butcher left his shop, staring at Zorc with chills across his body. “What is that thing?”

“No!” A baker, with a weak leg, from across the street clung to a nearby wooden post. “It’s an evil god! He’s going to destroy our village!”

“Don’t you dare, Zorc!” Kaiba warned through an expression full of hatred.

“Oh, yeah? What are you going to do to me? Use your self-destruction Shining Nova? I dare you to try! I am going to blast this puny village, and there’s nothing you can do about it!”

“Zorc, no!” Kaiba, ignoring the cruel whip of the wind on his face, tried to block the shots. But already had witnessed wood splinters and rubble of the village scattered where it once stood.

“Our… Our village…” The butcher, who along with his fellow villagers barely managed to escape the explosion, knelt on the sand and mourned as the splinters dug into his knees.

“It’s now a wasteland…” The baker and his wife held each other while they cried. “We need to get the survivors to the nearest medical ward! Maybe the palace…”

“Don’t think I’m going to let you live!” Zorc threatened, poised to shoot the village’s survivors down.

“Don’t think I am going to let you kill them!” Kaiba let loose a long beam that blocked Zorc’s shots.

“Out of my way!” Having lost interest in the villagers, Zorc returned to just outside the palace. He noticed that during the course of the battle, Rex and Atem had been separated from the rest of the army. “Pharaoh…”

“Argh…” Kaiba tolerated the fresh gash on his left temple and endeavoured to catch up with his opponent.

“Prepare to fall, pharaoh!”

As Zorc prepared another attack, Rex happened to notice the Dark One before Atem could turn around. Whilst running to protect the pharaoh, the dinosaur duelist yelled, “Atem! Look out!”

“Rabbit stew! Babe!” Kaiba didn’t care that the gash slowed him down, he tried his best to conjure up an attack of his own anyway.

Luckily, he wouldn’t have to, as a “new” ally came to Rex’s rescue, chanting, “Urataw imu on arozihsoh! Asabust ikaneragek!”

“Isis!” Atem beamed in relief at the sight of his High Priestess, whose incantation created a barrier. “Thank Ra that you’re okay! But Mahad… He-”

“I know, my king, I know… That is why I will fight alongside you and protect you.” Isis looked up to Kaiba, who had just arrived at the scene. “And you as well, Kaiba.”

“Ishizu… No, Isis.” Kaiba turned his attention back to Zorc. “Let me handle this dirtbag.”

“Grr! Why do you care so much about the people of this country?” Zorc temporarily ceased fire. “Are you not the president of a modern corporation who rejects all ‘occult nonsense?’ What is the point of doing it all if you’re destined to return to your own time anyway?”

“I just want to prove how much better I am than you, that’s all. And… I want to leave behind a peaceful world for the man I love.”

“A man of few words, I see.” Zorc generated a rope of thick shadows from his hands. “The only thing you’ll be leaving behind, however, is your corpse when I unleash this attack upon you.”

“Of what do you speak, fool?”

“Oh, you’ll see soon enough.” The rope of shadows danced about the desert, clearing the dunes in its path. “And now, be prepared to taste the power of the darkness of people’s hearts of the past five thousand years!”

“That’s a few too many ‘of’s’ for my lik-”

For a short while, Kaiba held his position firmly, ready to give his life to protect Egypt. The shadows abruptly emerged from the dunes, catching him off guard and hitting him square in the chest. As quickly as a peregrine falcon, the dragon dove headfirst into the sand dune below, too weak to hold onto his dragon form.

“K-Kaiba! No!!” Atem shrieked, beginning to panic.

“Red-Eyes! Take us to where Kaiba just fell!” Joey ordered as the others followed.

“Hehehe…” Zorc didn’t intervene. “It’ll be fun watching Kaiba slowly die before the lot of you dies!”

“Do you see him anywhere?” Atem asked.

“Not yet, milord,” Isis replied as she helped her pharaoh survey the area.

“What if he…”

“Atem! Over here!” Marik alerted, having spotted tufts of chestnut hair barely sticking out from the sand.

“If he’s buried that deep, then…” Atem frantically started digging as he feared Kaiba’s fate even more. The sight of his beloved’s mutilated body shattered his heart. “Oh… no… Kaiba!”

“What awful wounds…” Weevil gaped, covering his mouth with his hands.

“Kaiba… Kaiba, can you hear me?” Atem picked Kaiba up, attempting to slap him awake. “My… My love… Please, open your eyes…”

“Pharaoh…” spoke Joey. “Kaiba is…”

[jflashandclash]

Attrition of Peace

Forty: Euna

Parka Fluff Hugs

(or: A Stony Disposition)

             Even the gods fear nothingness.

           Euna couldn’t place where she’d heard it before, or why her brain was slogging over it, but the words kept repeating like the mundane mantra of a school pledge—something you repeat everyday without really caring why. She stared off into Camp Half-Blood, where Phobetor had been severing people’s limbs as a timer to torment his little brother.

           Some uncomfortable part of her understood Phobetor’s absentmindedness. Some part of her agreed with Alabaster—or as much as she got out of Alabaster’s rant—that they should kill the unworthy god.

           Something she’d heard the plants whisper— the plants? farmers? worsphipers?--- slithered through her mind, They manufacture us in mass quantity until perfection is reached, while the unworthy and weak are tossed without concern, and the perfected are consumed by a thankless, thoughtless overseer.

           Demigods harvested like plants. Or plants harvested like demigods. That sounded like something stupid her English teacher would say about some book she’d say she read, and actually read through the glory of SparkNotes. Did the gods weed out their unwanted children, to force the others to grow stronger?

           Euna shook her head. What was wrong with her? She never had thoughts like that before. One of her favorite past times had been not thinking about things. Blank walls could be as captivating as the plot for Game of Thrones when you were good at zoning out.

           “I heard what happened to Joey.”

           Euna jumped. Apparently, she was still really good at zoning out.

           She’d been trying to listen to Thalia and Christiana—something about Lesedi waking up, and sound coming from inside the camp. And something about a dragon rolling in toilet paper? Christiana had left…

           When she focused her eyes on Thalia, she registered what Thalia had said.

           Joey.

           Euna opened her mouth to respond, and was confused to find she couldn’t. Her voice wouldn’t work. Her face felt warm, except for a tiny line of cold streaking down her cheek. At first, Euna thought it was just a side effect of such a weird sleep schedule and constant fighting and running, but…

           For the first time since they’d left Santiago’s horrible Mayan temple, Euna could feel a tear leak out, like her body needed to emit a worn down, desperate sigh.

           Thalia’s stunning blue eyes softened with understanding. Euna wondered how many sisters this huntress had buried.

           Thalia didn’t try to say she was sorry or something stupid like that. Instead, she pulled Euna into a tight hug.

           Euna felt the fluff of Thalia’s silver parka compress against her face. The fur lining was so warm. The material acted like a muffler, and Euna enjoyed how the sounds of the Romans attending to bodies and the sounds of a waking camp all quieted to a murmur of fluffy silence.

           Euna patted Thalia’s back with one hand. Without realizing it, she’d left her other on the pommel of Backbiter.

           “Hey, if you ever need anything, you know where I am,” Thalia said.

           “All over the wilderness,” Euna noted. Thalia smelled like the wild. “That narrows it down.”

           She’d meant the comment legitimately—there wasn’t a lot of wilderness left. But she realized how ridiculous it sounded when Thalia laughed.

           “I think I want to be with you,” Euna said.

           Thalia’s grip tensed. She stopped laughing.

           “Assuming the offer is still there,” Euna continued, “I don’t have a reason not to be a huntress anymore, and it sounds like a cool gig.”

           “You wanna be a huntress,” Thalia said like she was clarifying Euna’s comment, though Euna didn’t think there was much to clarify.

           “Yea.” Maybe Euna could find some peace like that.

           She thought about her father—how warm his face was when they were gardening and how stern it was when scolding. She didn’t want to see how he’d be without Joey around. Especially since Euna wouldn’t be able to replace Joey’s ambition and strength.

           She couldn’t go back to her old life after watching her sister die like that either. She couldn’t bother with school. After seeing the little taste of Santiago’s corpoerate meeting and his league, she could never be part of an office space. What if she zoned out during a holiday party and strangled everyone with the laurel and mistletoe because she was having flashbacks?[1]  

           Backbiter’s pommel became uncomfortably icy to Euna’s touch. She withdrew from Thalia. The world came back to its loud harshness: Romans shouting, confusion in Camp Half-Blood, injured screaming—

           Euna thought about how the Romans might come after her when this was done. “I guess it would be a good place for you to keep an eye on me too.”

           Thalia raised an eyebrow. “If you mean to keep you safe, sure. We take care of our own.”

           Someone shouted from behind Euna.

           Thalia made a face, then waved in return. “Looks like Lesedi’s up. That means the other campers are waking up. You should come—”

           “I’ll be over in a minute,” Euna said.

           Thalia nodded, her black, choppy hair dipping momentarily to cover her tiara. She squeezed Euna’s shoulder.

           Then she was gone, running back towards the others.

           Euna stood there, in the small patch of shadow between two floodlights, almost at the end of the strawberry fields. Something moved dimly in the shadow.

           There was a bustle of strawberries near the edge of the caution tape. When Euna focused on it, she could see a tiny, grey piglet staring at her through it.

           Despite Euna’s hatred of Phobetor, she knew how it felt to be pigballed and had some sympathy.

           But only enough to hold off for a second before drawing Backbiter. Maybe some people had qualms with killing cute things, but Euna could go for some pork belly from this jerk.

           The piglet huffed before melting into black tar.

           The tar warped and twisted upward until the minstrel-adorned, bird-skulled piccolo player stood before her with a hatchet.

           Someone yelped.

           The monster turned and Euna could see Alabaster and Pax nearby.

           Back by the barracks, none of the Romans or conscious Greeks seemed to see the God of Nightmares.

           He took a step closer to Alabaster, twisting his hatchet.

           The child of Hecate looked unarmed. She thought she’d seen him poof his staff earlier. Alabaster withdrew his card deck from his pocket, but neither he nor Pax looked ready for another fight. However, the head on Pax’s beltline looked ready to belt out a battle cry.

           “How dare you make me something cute,” Phobetor huffed at Alabaster.

           Pax looked more offended by that comment than scared. “Dude, how are we related?” he asked while stepping between the god and child of magic.

           Euna knew Pax was comfortable having dumb conversations with gods, but she’d rather be more practical.

           Euna lunged forward.

           Phobetor stumbled away from her, further beyond the caution tape. A disgruntled sound sputtered from his mouth, and she realized something valuable—he was afraid of her.

           Ikelos, twisted coward, one who refused to side with me to spite his brother, Backbiter hissed.

           Oh, now you can talk, Euna thought. But that didn’t matter. What mattered was collecting this god’s head.

           Phobetor held up his hands as she took a step forward.

           “Wait--!” Pax squeaked.

           Alabaster reached around Pax for her arm, probably to stop her from falling asleep beyond the camp’s boundaries.

           But nothing happened. She stepped into the caution tape and felt it stretch against her arms.

           Phobetor sputtered again, “Wait—young child of Demeter—your sister—don’t you want to see your sister again?”

           Euna wanted to call his bluff. Her sister was dead. Nothing the God of Nightmares could do would change that.

           “My dearest aunt said you should see Joey finish off her quest in Hera’s cabin. It will be quite the fun spectacle. I’ll let you in.”

           Although she didn’t see eyes in the kiwi bird skull, she could sense his gaze lingering on Backbiter’s blade.

           “Uh—we shouldn’t do anything my mom considers ‘fun,’” Pax whispered.

           Euna paused. What quest could Phobetor be talking about? The convoluted Traitor’s Prophecy could hardly be called a quest. But—

           Hera. Hera’s quest box. Where Hera wanted Joey to bring her the key to a happy marriage in exchange for her blessing Joey and Apollo’s… relationship? Euna felt slow when her mind clicked all the pieces together.

           “When she comes to me for aid, I will do what I can,” Persephone had told Euna. Had Joey visited Persephone after death? Her godly sister lived in the Underworld during this time of year, right?

           Euna ran forward into camp, past Phobetor. She felt the caution tape snap against her and flutter down in the freezing breeze. The world didn’t blink or anything to signify that she’d fallen into Phobetor’s dream world. Instead, she felt the temperature rise slightly.

           Camp was still too cold compared to its normal temperature. With each step, her vision diminished; the shadows inside the camp swallowed the floodlight’s illumination. The smashed strawberry field and gnarled trees became dark twists as she ran past. In the distance, she could hear the whisper of the camp’s river, but—other than that hushed din—there was nothing.

           No pegasus clopping. No campers laughing. Not even a monster snarling out of the trees. Euna couldn’t shake the feeling that this wasn’t their camp, but an eerie abandoned memory.

           Shouts trailed dimly behind her, and Euna was aware Alabaster and Pax had come after her. Their rushed footfalls meshed together with the sound of hers—

           Euna tripped on something.

           She stumbled and kept going without looking back. By now, she could see the soft flames of the central hearth, silhouetting the newer, small cabins—except Hecate’s, which cast its own green flicker. The central fire’s amber light glowed off the larger monoliths, making Zeus and Hera’s marbled columns look like those of mausoleums.

           The bodies of campers were scattered all over the camp’s center. Everyone was wearing PJs. Phobetor must have lurked into camp at night, just early enough for someone to sound the alarm. Then everyone fell among the sleep.

           “Just asleep,” she caught Alabaster’s hiss. He and Pax were almost directly behind her.

           A few campers looked like they might be stirring, but she didn’t have time to check.

           She instinctively slowed down when she saw the light from Cabin Two’s ajar door. There was another fire inside. A giant marble statue sat on a throne in the far end of the cabin. More like a temple than a cabin.

           When Euna got to the doorway, she paused.

           There were two figures inside. They were so faint, like holograms in mist, she thought they were tricks of the light.

           One was a Caucasian, pale haired boy with a giant crack in his skull and blood staining his unsteady visage.

           The other was her sister.

           What was left of her sister.

           Joey’s black and pink bob had been singed. From what Euna could see of the shade, her sister’s pale skin was charred black. Euna wasn’t even sure how she knew it was her sister, but—

           “—whatever, Will. Like I’m going to sit around waiting for a goddess. I’ve got better things to be doing, you know.”

           That was definitely her sister.

           Will sighed. “I guess we could be trying to scare the campers awake outside.”

           Joey huffed—a motion that would have normally puffed her hair out of her eyes if her ghostly hair hadn’t been so crisped. “I’m still creeped out that Al and Clubber—”

           “Kléber.”

           “—said most of those bad guy spirits were funneling out here. You don’t… you don’t think this is what Persephone was talking about, right? The whole strife following this thing?” Joey gestured with a small box in her hand.

           Will shook his head, considering Hera’s statue. “No, I don’t think us coming here caused any of this… I just wish the gods gave us better instructions. I don’t even know where to look for Nico or Melinoe—”

           “Joey?! Will!”

           Pax shattered the hushed conversation.

           Until that moment, Euna could pretend this was all a dream Phobetor had rigged.

           When Joey jumped, and turned to them, Euna felt some part of her give.

           Joey’s face was almost completely destroyed. Her jaw bone was cleanly exposed. There weren’t any eyes in her sockets.

           “Pax?!” the ghost squeaked in indignation. “You’re not supposed to be here! Augh—I haven’t touched up my make up since before hearing Mr. Charon’s horrible taste in Christmas muzak.”

           Euna could hear Pax’s voice quiver with sobs. “It’s okay, I’m sure you would still look like you’ve been through Hades and back.”

           “You know you can alter your appearance from that of a corpse,” Alabaster said calmly.

           Joey turned on Will and Euna got the feeling her sister was glaring. “Did you know we could do that? Why didn’t you tell me?!”

           “It was in the pamphlet I gave you,” Will said. As he said it, the blood receded from his face, and the crack in his skull vanished.  “I didn’t find it necessary when it was just us.”

           Joey huffed again. Then her burnt out face turned towards Euna. “Stupid pamphlet,” Joey grumbled. She fumbled something out of… her pocket?

           After a second of scanning the pamphlet, Joey’s skin reappeared in its pale glow. Her black bob with the pink streak fluffed back out—still looking disheveled, but there. Her face reconstructed, down to the mascara tear-streaks on her cheeks. Euna forgot that Joey would still be in their dark clothing from when Miranda had ordered a stealth hit on the Hermes cabin. That had been so long ago. Joey had tied her black shirt to the side to expose her midrift.

           Then Euna’s fourteen-year-old sister was before her, hands on her hips, giving Euna a skeptical scowl. “I’m sure you’ve been just as lazy as ever since I’ve been gone.” Joey rolled her eyes. Although her words sounded scathing, Euna could see the red rim around Joey’s dark gaze and the way she bit her lower lip to keep from sobbing.

           Euna choked back some tears. The world felt like it was dissolving. Her sister was here.

           She tried to think of something—anything—to say. Finally, she settled on, “Joey, I told you not to talk back to people like that—“

           Joey folded her arms. “Santiago pulled a thing of thorns through Pax’s tongue—”

           “I have a cool tongue ring because of it—”

           “—I couldn’t just sit around like the rest of you—”

           Euna thought about how her body wouldn’t react that day—how she couldn’t think after taking Hemera’s god droplets until she heard Joey’s death scream. But her words were now coming out of reflex, not thought. “But you’re always getting us in trouble because of that stupid mouth of yours! And I’m your older sister—I’m—I’m supposed—I’m supposed to protect you—”

           “’Because I’m the oldest,’” Joey mimicked with the deadest expression she could. The tears lingering on the edge of her eyes disappeared. Although she was shouting, and trying to look angry, Euna could see a smile tugging at the corner of Joey’s lips. “Just like how you’re supposed to get all the highest scores and kick the most butt at the dojo?”

           Euna felt herself smile. If she wasn’t certain her hand would go through Joey, she probably would have slapped her sister.

           Will glanced over to Pax and Alabaster in confusion.

           “As far as I can tell, the species of Song children express affection through acts of anger,” Pax explained.

           Joey snorted, gesturing at Alabaster. “Who is this guy with you? And why do you have that sword, Euna? And Pax—EW! Is that a HEAD attached to your belt?! Is it HUMMING?!”

           From behind her, Euna could hear Jack’s screeching chuckle as he said, “A spitfire. I like your personality, kid.”

           “Oh, that is disgusting,” Joey complained.

           Will’s face fell. “Is that the psychopath’s head?! Holy Apollo—did the gods give him Orpheus’s curse?”

           “QUIET!” someone thundered.

           The room shook.

           The voice seemed to resonate from the walls themselves. The fire pit in the center dimmed.

           The massive statue in the back of the room leaned forward from its throne. Those cold, white eyes emitted contempt. Euna remembered how colorful this goddess looked when she first saw her: the glisten of peacock feathers, the vibrancy of her cloak, the gold of her hair ribbons. But here, she looked cold.

           “How dare you use my sacred cabin as a place for revelry and ruckus!”

           “Hera,” Will said in awe, dropping to one knee. He shot the rest of them a look. Euna didn’t really feel like kneeling. The effort to get back up would be annoying, but she figured the consequences for not doing so would require further effort.

           Something scraped behind her.

           Euna glanced back in enough time to see someone dart out of the cabin. Alabaster and Pax weren’t anywhere to be seen.

           “Ah, the girl who thought she could handle the same trials and tribulations of Psyche and Hercules for the hand of a god. Have you returned to finish your quest? The Underworld appears to have treated you well,” Hera sneered.

           When Euna turned around, Joey still looked stunned. She shook her head, cleared her throat, then made a face. “Wait—augh—was that really why I got that quest? For Apollo? Gross.”

           “Hey,” Will protested, “Still my dad.”

           Joey sighed. “At least I got a quest out of it. One ahead of Miranda Gardener and my sister.” She stepped—really hovered—forward. She paused, glanced back over to Euna, and gave her a warm smile, like she had when they were little and Joey won her first dojo competition. She turned back around to set the rosewood container at the feet of Hera’s statue. “Here’s Persephone’s box with the ‘secrets to a happy marriage’ or whatever.”

           Despite everything, an expansion of happiness warmed Euna’s chest. Maybe Euna would have to visit home after this. Then she could tell her dad that Joey had done the Song family proud. Maybe Euna could get Pax to make a trophy that said Heroes First Solo Mission.

           Hera glowered. “You no longer want Apollo’s hand in marriage? Fickle girl. Marriage takes dedication and work.”

           “Yea, we have this wonderful invention called dating to figure that out if we wanna marry someone, now.” Joey waved her hand and Will looked like he might pass out from her flippant reaction. Euna felt it justified. Apollo was way too old for her sister. “Apollo made me realize I should prioritize good looks and dancing below making me laugh and caring when I get shoved into a sacrificial fire pit. If I would want anything for what I did, it wouldn’t involve him.”

           “Want?” Hera sounded livid. The statue gripped its armrest. “You heroes, always seeking rewards for the tribulations you bring upon yourselves.”

           Joey raised her chin. “No—I mean—yea, I’d like to not look like a corpse as a reward. But… no…”

           Joey stared off to the side for a moment, her right hand tightening into a fist. Euna wasn’t used to seeing Joey hesitate. That was something Euna thought was pretty awesome and annoying about her sister: her resolve. Joey knew what she wanted and didn’t hesitate to go after it.

           This was new and—for the first time—Euna wondered what Joey had gone through since she died. What could make her sound so uncertain?

           “I… I want a chance to be important in the scheme of things,” Joey said, her voice shaking. “I don’t want to fade away or be forgotten or forget. Hera,” Joey made eye contact with the goddess again. Er—stone to eye contact. Could Hera see through this rock? “I… I would like to complete another trial. I would like to do another tribulation. Let me do a quest for you.”

           “Also,” Will piped up. “If you could warn the other gods of what’s happening in Camp Half-Blood—”

           Hera’s face twisted towards Will. “This camp wouldn’t exist if the gods would honor their marriages,” she snarled. “Why should I help the children of whores?”

           “Irony alert! Because none of our parents had to wreck a marriage to have us!” a voice came from outside. “My mom may be a horrible whatever, but she’s not a whore, you b—”

           “Ajax, shut up,” another whispered.

           Hera snorted. Her face turned, like she was surveying the occupants of the room. Then, the statue leaned over to pluck Persephone’s box off the floor. The room shook with the movement and the grinding of rocks reverberated off the walls.

           “Um—Persephone said not to—” Joey started.

           “Heroes don’t usually volunteer themselves to me, Joey Song, daughter of Demeter. I need to check that you completed the quest sufficiently before I can give you another.”

           Hera opened the box.

           Everything hushed. The light from the central fire dimmed further. All Euna could focus on—all any of them could focus on—was the small slip of paper Hera withdrew from the box.

           When she shut the lid and set the box on the ground, the universe seemed to sigh in relief.

           Except Joey. Joey swallowed audibly.

           Hera went completely quiet. There was no expression on that stony face. After a few more moments, Euna thought Hera’s statue had gone back to doing what statues normally do: be a statue.

           Enough time had passed that Euna was about to ask Joey, Will, Alabaster, and Pax if they could consider their breakfast options. She was feeling some breakfast burritos.

           Then, Hera spoke, in a voice too sweet, “Joey Song… I can give you everything you want. You won’t look like a corpse anymore. And you won’t fade away or be forgotten.”

           “Wait—you’re—you’re okay with what Persephone gave you?” Joey asked. Although Joey was facing Hera, Euna could envision her sister’s gape. Joey scrambled to gain her composure while saying, with much more confidence, “You’ll give me another quest?”

           Joey twisted to give Euna another grin, as though to say two quests a head of you. Get on my level.

           “Oh no. A quest won’t be necessary. I know a fitting reward for conspiring with Persephone,” Hera said, and snapped her fingers.

           Nothing seemed to change. Euna couldn’t understand what was wrong, though she knew something was. Her sister was still smiling at her. Hera’s statue resumed its original position of glowering down at them.

           Will stared at Joey in horror.

           Euna didn’t get why. Even if Hera hadn’t given Joey another quest, at least Joey had completed this one. They could go get breakfast, swap stories, and exchange their goodbyes. Joey could scold Euna for joining the huntresses of Artemis and for not trying to get in Calex’s pants. Joey could depart for the Elysian Fields with a proper party. That’s where ghosts like Joey would go now, right?

           Would it be rude to eat in front of ghosts? Could they get ghostly meals for Will and Joey in a mini celebration? Euna knew how terrible it was to watch others eat when you didn’t have anything.

           But Joey didn’t continue to gloat. Nor did she shout indignantly when Hera’s presence exited and they were left with this icy, silent room.

           She kept grinning at Euna with that same proud smile. Euna couldn’t see through Joey anymore. Her sister’s skin looked ashy. Euna hadn’t understood when a grey-white color spread from Joey’s foot, up through the rest of her. Not until Euna stepped forward and touched Joey’s cheek, now as cold as the walls of Hera’s cabin.

           Everything was so quiet. All this time, Euna had been hoping for silence. She’d wanted the plant and farmer prayers to quiet. She’d wanted to get her sister’s scream out of her head. She’d wanted everyone to stop asking her if she was okay.

           Now, all Euna could do was stare at her sister’s form—frozen in a life-size statue, matching the one of Hera behind her—wishing Joey would talk.

           Euna’s fist shook around Backbiter’s hilt. Her gaze drifted over to the rosewood box. The silence was filled when Backbiter reminded her, Even the gods fear nothingness. 

 Soundtrack time! Written to Arai Tasuku’s Aileen’ Unseen Things and Time Passing Bell.

Mel Beta-comment: “I NOW WANT EUNA TO GO AFTER HERA AND CHOP HER UP!”

Thank you for reading! Mel is ready to pass out Camp Othrys Part II: The Fillet of Hera shirts. Stay tuned for next week’s chapter: Ajax: We Could Have Had a Slide or a Fireman’s Pole to see who else joins in that shirt party.

Footnote:

[1] What Euna doesn’t realize: office parties inspire this type of anger in anyone. The traumatic past is unnecessary.

[omsrandom]

In This Tunnel, There is but One Light {Full Fic}

Written for @ask-joeydrewstudios​ upon the reveal of the Death List for all of the known characters so far.

“I’m sorry…”

The world tuned out, the edges of his vision blurring and ears ringing as the doctor continued to talk. Two words, said in a tone filled with dread, it made him want to sit down and weep. He wanted to cry, because even though they had spent so long together, it felt like no time at all. He didn’t know what went wrong. It just seemed like a normal day…

The first had been Norman, who passed in his sleep. It had been coming for some time, after all. Ever since the Toons came to life, the elder had started to lag. He made fun of it, but they could all see it in his eyes.

The weeks following the news were somber, yes, but since it had been expected, not much had changed. Sometimes, when he passed the orchestra room, Henry could hear the man’s laugh, or orders to play a certain note. Sammy sometimes went to go argue with the new conductor, starting off with a yell of the old man’s name before stopping, a look of grief passing over his features before returning under his mask. Joey and Susie found that the music didn’t sing just quite as well as when Norman did it. The toons, perhaps, were hit worse.

There had been others leaving, if for children or weddings or other jobs, but never once for death. Alice had found a type of kinship with him, and often could be found holding his hat, which he had placed on her halo the day of his retirement party. Bendy and Boris, of course, were with her during this duration of grief.

Thomas went next due to smoking; lung cancer. It had been too late to tell, too late to properly prepare. It comes as a low blow, because everyone became very aware of the cigarette in Sammy’s mouth as they all stared at their former co-worker’s nurse. As before, grief settled across the studio, and as before, the Toons were the ones to suffer the most.

Joey went in front of all of them. Boris, Alice, Bendy, Henry, Dianne, Sammy, Susie, Wally. The Original gang, minus Norman. Each, he told them something; something that on any other day, would’ve lightened their hearts. Bendy was told that Joey was forever proud that his ‘first born’ had found a way to enjoy life, even in this type of imprisonment. Boris was told that no matter what, he was forever loved and always the best wolf-ink-son he could’ve asked for. Alice was his darling girl, a true angel amidst demonic rituals. It went this way through the humans, all the way up to Henry. “Take care of them,” Joey whispered. “Or I’ll haunt your…” he trailed off.

“Aw, c-c’mon,” Bendy sniffed, head curling into his Creator’s side. “A-A word wou-wouldn’t h-hurt.”

“Hush, Bendy,” Joey murmured. “You’re the owner, Henry. Please… Keep us…” he was gone before ‘going’ could pass his lips. Bendy wouldn’t let them near the body for a day, to which it took Alice, Boris and a group of ‘seekers’ to remove him from the room.

And for once, since the opening day, Joey Drew Studio fell silent. Silent it stayed for three weeks, the workers in too much shock to raise their voice beyond a whisper, which often sent the Toons into a fit. Wally, for all that he complained, couldn’t find it in him when he found the poor demon curled in a puddle, shaking uncontrollably as he rocked back and forth. Sammy, for all that he bitched, found that the little shit wasn’t actually as bad as he seems when he was in too much grief to do anything, which was… actually disheartening.

Slowly, things resumed to normal. Lives were lived, stories were made and told. Up until, of course, Death made its strike again.

Shawn, their toymaker, went of old age, leaving his wife and children behind. He had been working on an Alice Angel doll for the said Angel when he closed his eyes and just… never opened them again. Alice… well, somethings were best left unsaid.

They had more warning with Sammy, but it was still unexpected. Susie stuck with his side, all the way to the end. The twins, 22, helped all they could, but even so, some holes just couldn’t be filled. The music studio was in a dilemma. Sammy was rough around the edges, and not a generally nice guy, but everything just felt wrong when his son stepped up to the plate, looking frazzled and tired.

The studio was just… never the same.

Henry found Susie in her husband’s old office, sketches of happier times clutched in her hands. Offering his own, he knew his eyes reflected his own tears. “I’m sorry…”

The next time it happened, it was a rainy, cold day. As before, everything seemed, well, normal. She had woken up and went through her altered morning rituals, still not used to waking up to a half empty bed, right side cold and stiff from disuse. Eleven years had passed since her love said his final words, and a day didn’t go by where she didn’t think of him at least once.

Still, she went through the routine of applying her lipstick and straightening her hair up, she grabbed her purse and pulled on her peacoat before heading out the door. Grey fog and wet concrete met her sights as the gentle patter of rain fell. Pushing her collar up – fond memories came up as she did this, making her smile bittersweetly – she continued down the sidewalk, only a few blocks away when a terrible sound screeched through the air.

Something hit her side, sending her flying into the building. A sharp pain in her neck led her laying halfway in debris, staring at the grey clouds as the rain continued to fall, her world slowly fading out.

Three blocks away, the day in the Studio hiccuped. Stephen and Stanley were, of course, asked of their mother and her whereabouts, to which they responded a ‘don’t know’ until around 4:16, when Henry got a phone call from the police department, asking if Stephen and/or Stanley were there.

He would never forget the twins’s screams when it was revealed a very, very old coworker of theirs had been driving with no brake pads, over the speed limit in the rain, and hit and killed their mother just three blocks down.

Grant had been hospitalized, having apparently said the wrong thing at the wrong place. They expected him to be ok, for the most part.

No one expected the mafia getting involved. In a twisted sense a humor, it was funny to see Grant’s past come out, but in context? It broke Henry’s and Dianne’s hearts. They had trusted him so much, yet he didn’t return the favor? He must’ve known they would’ve helped, which is why, of course, he probably didn’t ask for any help.

The years shifted, employees left and joined, and for a while, everything was good, happy, even. Henry’s phone rang from beside him, startling him slightly from where he had been doodling a design Joey would’ve shot down instantly with one of those blasted sticky notes of his. Picking up the phone, he spoke. “Joey Drew Studio, can I help you?”

“Yes, is this Henry Batim?” A woman asked.

“Yes, can I help you?”

“It’s about a Wally Franks? It was requested that you and the studio would be notified when this happens.” Dread and apprehension filled him. “It’s to my condolences that I must inform you that as of today, Mr. Franks was found dead in his room.”

“I see…” he rasped out. “I’ll inform the others. Thank you ma’am.” Hanging up the phone, his arm brushed an old picture. Picking it up, he smiled at the scene they had managed to capture. Joey sitting in the center, Bendy, himself and Wall to the elder man’s left, Boris behind him and Alice, Susie and Sammy to his right. With a sigh, he stood and gently set the frame down. “Looks like it’s just… me…”

The year of 1990 was… unbearable

Dianne had been laughing at a joke Benjamen had told her while a cake was being baked in the oven. He had been on the phone, talking to Boris when a sudden shout of “MOM!” and when he turned, their eldest son was towering over her as she had a hand over her chest, over her heart. At first, he thought maybe she had laughed a little too hard, but her face turned pained, and her fingers dug into the borrowed sweater, and that’s when he knew.

The phone fell to the floor as he all but threw himself towards her armchair just as the first gasp came. “Honey? Honey?!” He could see Ben going to the phone, hanging up before sharply pulling it off the hook again, only receiving the dial up tone in return.

“Henry,” Dianne whimpered, green, pain filled eyes pleading. Pleading for him or for the pain to stop, he didn’t know because her next words were outdrowned by Benjamen’s screaming for help, that his mother was having a heart attack. When he was finished, Henry was left crying as her breaths grew more and more shallow.

By the time the ambulance was there, Dianne was already gone.

Perhaps… perhaps his fate was honestly the worst. He knew from day one there had been a very high chance that he’d outlive Norman and Joey. But Sammy? Susie? Wally? His precious Dianne? It made him want to cry. Oh, don’t get him wrong, the past eleven years had been a joy, even if the first year or so was numb. The Toons adored having someone living full-time with them again, but they could see it on him as the last few years begun to set it. He could tell, because Bendy was starting to act more distant, less like the prankster he was. Boris was clingy and almost never left his Creator’s side. Alice was over helpful, often taking papers even when he didn’t need help.

At first, it was a little endearing, but as the weeks passed, the feeling quickly fled when they tried to get him to stop drawing. He put a stop to that quickly, but he knew everyone would be watching him closely. “Stanley, Stephen, do you know why I called you in here?” He asked them one day when they were in his office, well aware of the toons’s eyes on him.

“Studio Business, right?” Stanley asked.

“Yes. Or, rather, Studio Succession. Joey Drew named me owner upon his passing, but for a while there, we all thought in some way we would have been left, well, leaderless. I don’t want to do that to these guys.”

“Uncle Henry?” Stephen questioned, face filled with concern. “Are you alright?”

“No, Stephen.” he sighed. “I’ve never been alright. I’m old, and tired. I know I don’t have much longer,” Boris burrowed his head into Henry’s side at this, making the old man smile slightly and pet him. “Which is why when I finally go, you two will be in charge. You grew up with the Toons, and both of you are doing so brilliant as department heads. It’s without a doubt you two can take over my place.”

“I… Henry, we…” Stanley shared a look with his twin and they went around the desk, hugging the man they considered to be an uncle. They broke at the same time, crying into his tweed jacket as Alice and Bendy also enveloped him into a hug. A hug none of them wanted to end.

Weeks passed, and on day, he walked into the studio, eyes narrowing at how quiet it seemed. “Joey?” He called out before frowning. Why did that seem wrong? There was pitterpatter and a black, faceless entity was in front of him.

“Bendy, get back here!” A familiar voice called. Joey Drew rounded the corner, and stopped behind the faceless blob. “Oh, hello there Henry.”

“Joey, what is that?” He found himself asking, unable to shake off the deja vu.

“It’s Bendy! I made him this weekend. Isn’t he lovely?” The old man asked, hands clasped and head tilted towards his creation.

“What do you mean yo-?” He cut himself off, looking around. “This is too familiar.”

“Hah, I was wondering when you’d point it out,” Joey chuckled, breaking character as well. “For lack of better words, you’re dead, and this is, well, Heaven.”

“But you sold your soul?”

“I did,” Joey confirmed. “But apparently that only takes place if I passed a line.” There was an awkward pause as the black body disappeared.

“Is… is everyone else…?”

“Oh, they’re about.” Joey answered, waving a hand around to motion to the studio, which looked exactly how it had been when Joey ran it. “I think you should go to your desk, however. There’s a present for you there.”

Frowning in confusion, Henry watched his old boss start to walk away before heading towards his old workstation, freezing at the sight that greeted him.

There Dianne sat, no more greys in her hair and laugh lines gone from her face. Her green eyes sparkled in both joy and grief as she threw herself at him, arms locking around his neck. Immediately, he buried his face into her neck and twirled her, stopping only just to start shaking and sobbing.

“I’m sorry.”

[mitjo-deactivated]

Submission

First was the dark circles. Infatuated or not with the little dweeb you couldn’t miss the dark circles under his eyes. Then there was the lack of annoyancey. Annoyingness? Annoy? Fuck whatever either way he didn’t get into his normal piss baby mood when I bugged him. So I laid off on the teasing and he seemed pretty grateful for that which also worried me too. That kid was either never grateful for my good deeds or didn’t acknowledge them. I decided I had enough when the little bugger fell asleep in history class, his second favorite to photography. And you couldn’t even CALL it sleep because the distrust and painful teeth gritting he did whilst napping wasn’t exactly considered beauty rest. So when the bell rang and the little fucker peeled himself off the desk I grabbed his bag. “M-mitch” the “i” was dragged out so at least he was coherent but there was jack shit of a struggle in that voice. As if he was more irritated in being forced to speak then his things possibly being stolen.

“C'mon Wagnerd we’re going to the lake.” I headed out the door and towards the front gates, god damn I hope he didn’t just give up, spots wasn’t the type to put up a fight so I had to bank on knowing his notebook he was taking notes on his powers was still in here. Sure as shit a few minutes later he was dragging his feet out the door as every other mindless student pushed past him. I carried on my way towards the woods smiling. I pointed random shit out, a rock that looked like a dick, a tree I vaguely remember carving a dick into, a raccoon that was currently eating half a bird, you know cool shit. And I may have pointed out as the sun was setting the sky looked a little like orange sherbert and he’d probably want to take a pic for his dumb camera nerd class. None of these findings offered a verbal response but at least when I snuck a look back he was smiling weakly at the sky. Baby steps. When we got to the lake clearing I tossed the bag towards an overturned log looking around sitting my ass on a nearby rock.

When the kid finally caught up he collapsed on the log and nudged his bag closer to himself with his foot. We were both silent. Shit say something Mitch. Fuck don’t tease him you need to be straight up and ask him what’s wrong. “So did your panties get bunched too tight in the fucking wash or what?” god fucking dammit. He looked up sighing. He was just so… tired? Like it wasn’t angry or upset he just looked fuckin exhausted. He stood up slugging the bag over his shoulder. “If you just dragged me here to make fun of me I’m not really in the mood mitch. I’ll see you la-”

“Wait spots… Jonas just fuck don’t leave just yet.” needy son of a- I took a deep breathe and rubbed my eyes. Why was this so damn difficult? I glance up and he had stopped walking away. An eyebrow raised and for once didn’t look so dead. Oh yeah that’s why. C'mon mitchell get it the fuck together. “Will you tell me what’s fuckin wrong with ya?” there you go, that wasn’t so hard. The kid grabbed his backpack strap a little tighter, a slight wisp of green light vaguely floated around his hands.

“I-I don’t know what you-re talking about.”

“Oh bullshit. I’m not that big of an idiot spots. Somethings bugging ya. You’re drifting off but you’re still fighting with something in your head. You’re not eating, you ain’t talking to your friends, fuck at least I can usually count on some kind of retaliation from the bullshit I ping off you constantly!” I stood up getting closer to him. “You ain’t yourself even I can see that and maybe no one else has the balls or the fucking decentness to say nothing but I am.” I was right in front of him now. “these used to be red for fuck’s sake!” I pointed to his face and he stared at me. His eyes going wide and the green lights getting violently shaky around him. Why was he- I followed my own hand and now being up close noticed the red under his eyes were in fact still there. And so was the black but there was this spot of skin that didn’t exactly- wait a fucking second. He tried to run but I grabbed his wrist and jerked him back.

“Mitch wait please I can…” he halted when I grabbed his cheek and licked my thumb wiping it under his eye with the other hand.

I let go instantly. Partially because of the painful hiss and partially because I didn’t want to see just how bad that black eye was. I chose to look at the makeup on my thumb instead. No doubt something he borrowed from his clone’s room. Guess that was one good thing about having a twin sister. Jonas crumbled back to his previous seat his arms wrapped around himself staring at the ground. “It’s not as bad as it looks.”

“Are you sure because it looks pretty fuckin bad Joey!” my voice got away from me and I felt like a complete ass when he flinched. Nows not the time Mitch. I took another deep breath pacing. A few more to talk myself (And the few levitating pebbles around me) down before I went back to kneal down in front of him. “Will… jonas, spots… please. Tell me who’s wailing on ya?” he didn’t stop staring at his feet when he spoke. That was okay. He didn’t give me an exact name either but that was okay too.

*

It’s been four hours now and I’m watching the dude damn near piss himself trying to unlock the door to his car. Each time he turns the key a simple snap of my fingers and the lock bolt shoots up again. He’s getting more nervous, stopped glancing back and is now full on turning his head at every little noise I make, a trashcan lid falling, the rocks grating against the brick wall, that cat that is not at all happy it’s feet are not touching the ground by unseen forces. I lose focus for a second and he gets the door open before I can get it locked again. Tragic. He pulls out from the bar parking lot and I wait. When he gets a few yards up on the road I hold out an open hand. I walk into the street as his wheels are squealing an inch away from pavement. He sees me from his mirror and I am damn positive he pissed himself by now. The car’s a bit heavier than I had thought though and already I can feel the start of a sick bloody nose under the mask I’m wearing. Fine it should be good enough for tonight. I close my fist and the wheels of his car touch down back to earth. He fishtails for a second but speeds off none the less.

*

Spots is laughing with his friend, the tall curly haired nerd no doubt making a joke about some comic book or whatever. Jonas sees me, smiles, says something to the other as the nerd takes off down another street. It’s been almost what two weeks now? There’s still a bit of greenish purple under the left eye but it’s almost completely faded now. Good. I pull out the keys to my truck and open the door. “Wait Mitch!” I smirked watching the shorter male jog up to me. His bag slung over one shoulder and a pair of drumsticks in one hand. Must of just come out of practice. Before I can tease him about it he comes up and wraps his arms around my waist. His head only comes up to my chest which is terrible cause his hug is doing terrible shit to my heart beat and I’m hoping he doesn’t notice. He pulls away after a second and smiles. Its an actual smile, one that isn’t so damn tired. He looked around the mostly empty parking lot and bites his lip. “Thank you.”

“Pfft for what Wagnerd?” he rolls his eyes sarcastically but he still looks grateful. God it’s cute.

“Dean hasn’t even yelled at me once since then. I don’t know what you did but… but I know you did something just… thank you.” I smirk and ruffle his hair before getting in my truck.

“I don’t know a damn thing you’re talking about spots but hell I’m glad you got peace with your old man.” I take off and in my mirror I can see him standing there, still smiling. God that kid was gonna be the death of me.

GOOSSHH THIS WAS REALLY REALLY NEAT I LOVED IT,,, OH MY GOSH I HAD SUCH A BAD FEELING IN MY STOMACH THAT IT WAS DEAN AND IT WAS AND AUGHGHGHGH

THIS BROKE MY HEART HONESTLY................. I LOVE THESE BOYS, I WANT MITCH TO PROTECT JOEY SO MUCH,,

[cmg10372]

It's LIVE!!! FROM THE RUINS (A Satan's Knights Novel) by Janine Infante Bosco Publication Date: September 26, 2017 Genres: Adult, Contemporary, Erotic, MC, Romantic Suspense Are you ready to get ruined with Pipe and Layla? Happy Release Day to Janine Infante Bosco - Author! ¸.•´✶FROM THE RUINS¸.•´✶ #AVAILABLENOW Amazon US: http://amzn.to/2wtQoCc Amazon AU: http://amzn.to/2u9Ugb3 Amazon CA: http://amzn.to/2v5M4vj Amazon UK: http://amzn.to/2hvpl6W Add to #Goodreads: http://bit.ly/2vqslHx .•´✶COVER CREDITS¸.•´✶ Cover Designer: JB's Cover Obsession Design Model: Michael Joseph Photographer: Reggie Deanching, R+M Photography #FromTheRuins #GetRuined #RiseUp #SmokinPipe #SatansKnightsMC #JanineInfanteBosco ​¸.•´✶SYNOPSIS¸.•´✶ ✶Pipe✶ In every man’s life there comes a day of reckoning. It’s the day darkness is exposed and sinners are punished for their trespasses. A day when loyalty is destroyed and a man is left in ruins. When he walks away from his club and loses his religion. Whoever said from the ruins they will rise again never walked a mile in my shoes or the pair of red ones I was left holding. ✶Layla✶ He’s bitter, cold and angry. He’s seen his share of heartache. Lived through tragedy and despair. He’s my neighbor. The man I know should stay away from. The man who will destroy what’s left of me if I get too close. He’s Lee Jameson, and I’m Layla Milano. This is our story. The story of two people left in ruins forced to rise again. ***NOTE: Contains explicit sexual situations, violence, offensive language, and mature topics. Not recommended for people under the age of 18*** .•´✶#GIVEAWAY¸.•´✶ #Amazon #GiftCard! Signed paperback of From the Ruins (Signed by Janine and Michael) $15.00 Amazon Gift card Giveaway direct link: http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/6dc324a88/? .•´✶#EXCERPT¸.•´✶ Excerpt From The Ruins © Copyright 2017 All Rights Reserved by Janine Infante Bosco. Excerpt: Pipe confesses some of his truth. Sitting on the floor next to Oksana’s shoes, I reach for the bottle beside me and take a hefty swig. The liquid slides down my throat, burning my belly. I embrace the pain. I relish in it and wish for more. If I had any balls whatsoever, I’d take a knife to my own throat and feel the pain she felt when her life ended. “Hey, babe,” I mutter. “You with me today?” I ask the shoes, praying that by some miracle of God they’ll answer me. They won’t. They never do. But tonight, more than anything, more than whiskey and pain, I need her. I need to believe that she stills walks beside me every day. It doesn’t matter that she’s unseen or unheard, just as long as she’s near. It’s selfish of me to want her with me considering everything I’ve done since she’s left this earth. The booze, the nameless women, the list is fucking endless. “I forgot,” I confess as I close my eyes and take another gulp. “For a little while I forgot and it wasn’t because I was shitfaced or because I was too busy getting off to think of anything else. For the first time since you died, I distracted myself with a woman and didn’t fuck her. The shit thing is, it felt worse than sinking my dick into some faceless stranger. I came home, saw the shoes and felt guilty for playing you dirty.” Placing the bottle on the floor next to me, I lift my hands to my face and rub vigorously. “I’m losing it, Oksana,” I mutter. “I’m losing my fucking mind trying to live when all I want to do is die. What’s the point in living when everything I ever loved—you, the club, everything—is gone.” Taking a deep breath, I draw my hands away from my face and lean my head against the wall. “I forgot,” I whisper. “I forgot I had nothing because at the hardware store I was the guy who had everything. In the grocery store I was the man who had too much, and in Layla’s kitchen I was the man who wanted more.” When Layla’s friend Joey showed up and set me straight, I walked away. One glance at him and I remembered who I was and what I was worth. There is a reason men like him have everything and men like me have nothing. It’s nothing new to me. In fact, it’s something I’ve learned through the years, through the loss I’ve experienced myself and the loss I’ve witnessed through the eyes of my brothers. It’s the reason Wolf has three ex-wives and Jack buried his son. It’s the reason Riggs almost lost his woman and his child, and it’s the very reason Bones died. It’s why Blackie brings Christine flowers on a Saturday and I’m sitting here talking to a pair of shoes. It’s the choices you make when you’re young, the choices you think have no consequences. I’d be willing to bet my life that guy Joey doesn’t live with a mountain of regrets. A man like that rides on the right side of the law. He works hard for everything he has and that’s why he gets to keep it. He is rewarded for the choices he made when he was younger, when he fought against temptation and struggled instead of taking the easy way out in life. It is men like that who work a nine to five who never worry about bombs and bullets, and who live life to its fullest potential. I used to call those men pussies. But I’m the one sitting here with a half empty bottle of booze and a pair of shoes, looking for the courage to end my nightmare. The excessive knocking on the door jolts me away from my pity party and forces me onto my feet. Without wondering who it might be, I pull open the door and stare at Layla’s pretty face. Lifting the plate in her hands, she smiles warmly and a fire spreads throughout my chest. It’s the pain I’ve been looking for, the sweet satisfaction of my punishment. “Hi,” she murmurs. “You left kind of abruptly before—” “Why are you here?” I sneer, cutting her off. “Well, I thought if you couldn’t stay for dinner then I could bring dinner to you,” she explains, extending a dish toward me. She’s nice. Too fucking nice. I can’t handle nice. I can’t handle good. She made me forget today. She made me wish for more. Now I need her to remind me of the truth. I need her to lash out at me and give me the rawness of pain. I need her to prove to me I’m not worthy of her spit. I need the bitter, angry Layla who isn’t afraid to tell the guy next door he’s a bastard. “Look, lady, I fixed your fucking sink, played bitch to you and your kids all day and started the repairs on your car. Now I thought we were done for the day. What more can you possibly need from me? The roof cave in and you need some jerkoff to patch it up for you?” Her eyes flash and her nostrils flare as she glares at me. There it is. Give it to me, killer. Show me the truth. “Have you been drinking?” she asks, clenching her teeth. “What’s it to you?” I fire back. “I ain’t on the clock again until tomorrow.” Silently, she stares at me and I figure she’s getting a glimpse of the devil until her features soften. She cocks her head to the side and the fire fades from her eyes. “What’s happening here?” she whispers. “I thought we were okay. I mean, today—” “Today, nothing. Today I fucking bent over backward and took it in the ass because I felt bad for you.” “You felt bad for me?” she repeats. Come on, give it to me. “I pitied you. Look, lady, I get it. You’re lonely. Your husband left you, probably for a woman half your age. That would explain why you’re so fucking bitter, but I’m not looking to lick your wounds and play Daddy to a bunch of brats,” I sneer. “Maybe you can get that Joey character to pity fuck you and take on your tribe.” Suddenly, she drops the plate and rears her hand back. Her palm connects with my cheek and I grin devilishly at her. Burn. Make me burn. “That the best you got, killer?” “Fuck you,” she shrieks, pushing her hair out of her face as she clenches her jaw. “Not that it is any of your fucking business but Joey is my best friend’s husband! As for my marriage, I’m the one who left. My children have one father and one mother and that’s all they’ll ever have. You ever talk about my kids like that again, so help me Jesus I will fucking gut you. And as far as looking for someone to fuck me, I have standards and a vibrator, and even if I didn’t I’m pretty sure you’d be the last man I’d want to satisfy me. I wasn’t looking for anything. I came here because you were helpful to me and my children and I wanted to return the favor but you can…” Her words trail off. “Don’t stop there,” I growl. Following her gaze, my eyes zero in on Oksana’s shoes. “Of course,” she laughs sarcastically. “I should’ve known you’d have company. You must be slacking though since there is only one pair of shoes tonight,” she shouts as she goes to reach for them. “You’re a fucking pig,” she seethes. Snapping, my control flees and I reach for her wrist. “Don’t you fucking dare,” I scold, foaming at the mouth. “Those are my wife’s shoes,” I holler as I lose my footing and stumble back. Falling on my ass, Layla pulls her hand free from me and takes a step backward. Her eyes widen and she looks appalled. “You’re married?” she asks with her voice full of disgust. “Oh my God, you’re fucking married? I didn’t think it was possible for you to be a bigger piece of shit but—” “She’s fucking dead,” I shout, unable to listen to her anymore. I thought having her tell me I was a worthless piece of garbage would make me feel better, but having her think I’ve been stepping out on my wife is too much. Call me all the names in the world, blame me for her death, but don’t tell me I wasn’t devoted to her. I’m a lot of things but I’m no fucking cheat. “Lee,” she whispers hoarsely. “Get out,” I order, combing my fingers through my hair. Angling my head back, I meet her pitiful gaze and I shake my head. “Don’t look at me like that.” “I’m sorry,” she murmurs. Instead of taking a step backward, she takes two forward and kicks away the broken plate. She bends her knees and crouches down in front of me. It’s wrong. So fucking wrong. I don’t want her pity. Fuck her and her sorrow. “Go away,” I plead. Leave me to my hell. Leave me to my grief. Leave me alone where I’m meant to be. “I didn’t know,” she explains. “It doesn’t matter,” I say, turning away from her. “Lee—” she whispers. Then I feel her. Her hand touches mine and an electric current passes from her fingertips to mine. It’s too much and I snap my hand back. My eyes find hers and the burn in my chest deepens as the tears roll down her cheeks. “Get the fuck out,” I growl. She doesn’t move for a moment before she wipes her eyes and whispers her apologies once more. Without another word, she stands, but before she turns around she glances at the shoes. The truth is in those shoes. They’re the reminder. For those red shoes don’t only symbolize the sharp knife of a short life. They prove the worse consequence of all is waking up every day in a world you’re unworthy of living in. That’s the fucking truth I forgot. The truth Layla made me forget. A truth I’m unworthy of forgetting. #FromTheRuins #GetRuined #RiseUp #SmokinPipe #SatansKnightsMC #JanineInfanteBosco .•´✶ABOUT AUTHOR JANINE INFANTE BOSCO¸.•´✶ Janine Infante Bosco lives in New York City, she has always loved reading and writing. When she was thirteen, she began to write her own stories and her passion for writing took off as the years went on. At eighteen, she even wrote a full screenplay with dreams of one day becoming a member of the Screen Actors Guild. Janine writes emotionally charged novels with an emphasis on family bonds, strong-willed female characters, and alpha male men who will do anything for the women they love. She loves to interact with fans and fellow avid romance readers like herself. She is proud of her success as an author and the friendships she’s made in the book community but her greatest accomplishment to date would be her two sons Joseph and Paul. ¸.•´✶CONNECT WITH JANINE¸.•´✶ Website: http://www.janineinfantebosco.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/janineboscoauthor/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/JanineBosco Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/grassking205/ Goodreads: http://bit.ly/1FJa8S3 Newsletter: http://bit.ly/29Dfru4 Amazon Author Profile: http://amzn.to/2b98hQM Book Bub Author Profile: http://bit.ly/2kXDpo1

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S4 Ep6: Gozaburo Kaiba Just Casually Started WWIII And Only This One Guy Cares

Welcome to November, where we celebrate writing a 50,000 word book as if I don’t do that every single time I write about an episode of Yugioh. Hello, this is my season. It’s wordy season. I’m so freakin good at doing this. I can’t say most of what I’ve made is any good, but I CAN say at least I’m prolific. Do enough content to fill that bitter pit and walk right over it, that’s been my motto for the past 5 years.

Anyway, I had an awful flu this past week. (Everyone I live with had it so every bathroom was like ground zero) It was SO bad. I still can’t eat spicy food over a week later (Which is so hard for me because usually I can keep up with my Indian friends, that’s my spicy level--max spicy, please--but since this illness, my white taste genes went into overdrive and I tried putting pepperoncini slices in my sandwich and it set my mouth on fire. Pepperoncini. It’s v embarrassing.)

I did attempt to write this post. Unfortunately I never made it past this cap because I got VERY distracted by the emblem on Alister’s face, and how it isn’t proportionally adjusted to match the angle of his face, and it was like three paragraphs of just wanting to talk about it. And then at some point I got very distracted talking about how many empty glasses I was given at my place setting at this baby shower I went to during the flu epidemic, and it mattered a whole lot to me at the time, but I think, overall, was mostly just some sort of nonsense. The things I’ve spared you. 

(bro has just informed me that the 4 gold-lipped crystal goblets I was given at this baby shower was actually very distressing and a very big deal and that I should absolutely talk to at least someone about it, but maybe he’s just saying that to make me feel better, but I have no idea. I am too sick for sarcasm at this time but my god why was I given so many glasses????)

I straight up have no memory of if I’ve made this joke before. Maybe.

(read more under the cut)

Since it feels like 8 years since the last time I could just eat chicken without feeling like I consumed an entire Thanksgiving meal, a little recap:

-Alister pretended he was Pegasus to lure Kaiba and then, off screen, murdered everyone in Pegasus’ castle

-Pegasus got murdered by I’m pretty sure Mai (which is like...OK then...)

-Yugi and Co went on vacation by driving directly through San Francisco and peeking out the window and saying “yeah that’s enough for me”

-No adults, not even Roland, bothered to come with their kids this time, so the only adult of the entire crew--Pegasus--is dead

-Rex and Weevil are luggage

-The Eye of Sauron showed up and it was the end of the world but Yugi threw a dragon at it so I guess everything is OK now

-Monsters are real but they are hard to animate so we’ll just pretend like they’re causing havoc everywhere although most of the planet seems basically unaffected by this.

-The Grim Reaper is a friendly monster that hangs out in a Japanese park and that feels fairly on brand.

And I think that was all that was happening so far.

In a weird twist of fate, Mokuba is the only one in this room that isn’t trapped which sort of...if you’re the only one NOT kidnapped wouldn’t that also be a type of being kidnapped?

And we finally get to figure out why Alister wants to Murder Kaiba so bad and, spoiler, it reaches.

???

I’m gonna get more to the obvious problems with Alister’s devotion to murdering all the Kaibas in a bit but yes, Alister is in fact going to try and Kill Kaiba on this kid’s show because of Kaiba’s Dad, who is such a horrible and abusive person that Kaiba essentially drove the bastard out of Japan and straight to the bottom of the ocean.

Just kinda feels like Alister has been living under a rock...which, I guess he has been. He has been living in some weird Atlantis structure so I guess he never got the memo that Gozaburo Kaiba is hella dead.

So that’s what they’re up to. How’s Sausalito?

Um.

Huh.

So the North Bay is a really classic scenery. It’s rolling hills. It’s NAPA. It’s like...definitely not Arizona. California has a couple of mesas but they’re no where near here and the Monument Valley style Mesas really only exist in Monument Valley.

And I know it’s because the background artist for Yugioh is all horny for horny rock structures but like...this couldn’t be farther from the Bay Area in the way that it is drawn and it is such a shock after all the work they did last episode to research that Bay Area lore. Once they crossed the Golden Gate they were like “well no one will care about this part” which is true not only of Yugioh but also of real life Californian politics.

Anyway, I have been making a map, but unfortunately my original file will not suffice. time to fix it.

There we go. Now they’re in the right place. Just smack dab in Monument Valley, Arizona, smack dab in the middle of the Navajo Nation and so hypothetically, not even in the United States anymore.

While in the car, Yugi has just been anxious as hell the entire time, and just going “y’all I have a bad feeling I’m uncomfortable I have a bad feeling” while Joey and Tea just patiently stared at him flipping out in the corner. So...kinda like a normal trip with someone who has high anxiety/possessed by a ghost. I  kinda feel like this is every girls trip to Disneyland for me. There’s always one Yugi who’s like “no one said anything about CROWDS.” and you kinda just gotta let them do their thing. Just let them get it out of their system and hide in the bathroom when they need to hide in the bathroom and don’t fight it, they’ll be fine. Just hold their spot in line when they desperately look for a secret place to medicinally vape because there’s too many freakin children at Disneyland.

And it is HILARIOUS that Yugi is able to have this type of premonition but cannot figure out that they have somehow missed San Fransisco and have wandered into a DESERT.

Back in Pegasus’ California (an island that legitimately looks more like California than actual Yugioh California) Alister has decided to go completely off the rails and it happens so fast and without any warning.

the line is actually “This doll used to be my brother’s” which is a very different meaning but both are likely from weird ass Alister and this weird ass show, so I’ll leave the cap like this (although yes, this is what I thought Alister was saying for kind of a while until I recorded it for this blog and was like “oh shoot I heard the line wrong when I had the flu huh.”)

Man, RIP Noah, he would have been excellent this episode.

Honestly seems like just yesterday when Seto and Noah were pitted against eachother by a cyberdemon Dad-head floating in the sky, Mokuba was possessed for some reason and being used as a human shield, Tristan was a robot monkey, and Yugi was just shrugging at Kaiba from across the field like “Kaiba if you don’t play good you die--oh my gods, he died. Well that was bound to happen...again.” Man.

Alister should be their best friend, this is nonsense.

So lets do the math to 7 years before 2002.

I searched Wikipedia for wars during 1995 (they do have a list of 90′s wars) and looked for any that involved heavy use of tanks and their artillery fire (on big swatches of cities like this), inner city western architecture, temperate landscapes, and western clothing that match Alister and Mikey (AKA WWII vibes) and found out:

Nothing fits that description

UNLESS Alister and Mikey are time travelers from a WWII bombing in Europe. This is Yugioh. That could happen. Probably not, but youknow...it’s not too late for Yugioh to bring in time travel.

I mean if you don’t want to get super political in your cartoon just invent a world war I guess? We’ve already clarified that Gozaburo was Big Boss, so at this point I can easily see him inventing wars just to sell ships.

(I could probably add thousands of more deaths at this point but I have no idea where they are, if they’re on a tiny island or an entire country so I’ll just...leave the count alone but just now it’s implied that a hell ton of people died during this episode)

People going off about how Sesame Street is so amazing for talking about issues like you’re Dad going to prison while Yugioh was straight up talking about the intricacy of the War Economy. Yugioh being all “don’t forget kids, your good capitalist economy survives off of the undeserved bloodshed of civilians in other countries! Eat the poor!” and it’s like hot damn this heavy commentary came out of freakin no where.

Anyways, this is stuff most kid’s shows will delicately skip over but nah, Yugioh is going to go here, and they are going to steamroll directly through it with massive tanks.

So, lets kill this kid’s entire family and talk about the terrors of the World War of 1995 and all the war orphans who get recruited to become soldiers at the ripe old age of 9. Alister was 9 when he was recruited to be a child card soldier.

This kid’s show.

Alister is...basically Raiden, right? Like as long as we’re talking about Metal Gear, this kid is just one step away from cyborg implants and weird colored blood?

Better wear bright red when you visit the war crime scene, surprised Gozaburo didn’t invite like an entire photo -op crew to incriminate him even further.

Now we did look up “where the hell is Alister from Yugioh from?” (there is no answer) and we did find out a little factoid. In the Japanese version of the show, Gozaburo had bought the land and was just forcibly evicting Alister and his family from their home with tanks.

Which is wild.

He just straight up evicted an entire metropolitan city????

Like the dub did a way better job than the sub at this one, I’ll give them that.

It’s just so weird that Gozoboro just didn’t like...raise the rent like a normal bad landlord. Instead he was like “rather than gentrify my land and save me a ton of money, I’ll just destroy everything I just bought and murder everyone here” which is like...

...Seto did the world so many favors when he kicked out his Dad, right? Like Damn. I don't understand why Alister isn’t freakin worshiping Seto right now when his whole deal is “I must kill Gozaburo” and Seto’s like “yo I already did that. Twice. I didn’t even have to literally kill him either, I just embarrassed him so bad that he killed himself. His stupid tank company sells joke games now. I literally turned the man into a joke.”

Then again, Alister is on the green magic and like I think it alters your brain chemistry somewhat.

(How ripped did Alister get in this episode, by the way? The kid is like 16 years old or something so how did this happen? ...The perpetual horny line running straight through Yugioh, man. Look at it run. That 16 year old is drawn like he’s 28 and really into Crossfit and his crop top gets smaller and smaller like every scene.)

So like this is a very gray issue that I cannot believe they brought up in a kid’s show (like can you imagine if Scrooge McDuck had to face facts that his company murdered tons of people???), but also this is Seto Kaiba. Seto grew up in the system, so like he doesn’t need to be lectured to about dirty money because he was on the losing end of that not too long ago. Seto is himself basically a upscale war orphan since he was adopted by Gozaburo to continue the machine like a freakin maniac (a Solidus Snake, if you will) so of all the people on this show I don’t get why Seto would care about this. This is just how Seto views the entire world as either losing or winning and no reason to feel bad about it because he’s been both.

Also...Seto stopped the machine. Kind of. He was unaware that cards were the same thing as weapons, but at least he stopped the sale of huge child-stealing tanks.

So they play the game for a little while and Seto does kind of poorly as usual, and just when I thought this episode couldn’t get any weirder...

And just like that, Seto peaces out. Like he does almost every single time he has ever played a card game solo except for that one time he was playing Joey Wheeler. (Which was also one of the few times Seto ever won.)

Like I just want to remind you that this segment is in the same episode as WWIII and the tonal whiplash is pretty remarkable.

That’s right, we’re back in the Unnamed Monster World, which is not the Shadow Realm, and which I thought you could only access if you were dreaming and able to search through the puzzle maze.

Apparently this can just happen at any time and all that stuff with the guiding Kuriboh and Yugi and Pharaoh trying to find this place was just...them wasting time.

Again he ditches the legendary sword so freakin fast because who needs a sword when you have a dragon? Only this anime.

And that’s how Seto, who was absolutely going to lose this game, somehow just barely came to a draw.

So just to recap, Seto has yet to win a card game that he didn’t get prophetic help for via a hallucination or Yugi telling him what to do. Unless you count Joey and grandpa.

Then, the one last adult I forgot about, the driver of Yugi’s car, decides that it’s about time that he also died and left this show as adult free as possible.

THE HELL ARE THEY?

Also...maybe it’s the angle but the writing on that gas station looks a lot like kanji.

Yo, what if this is the backgrounds for a different show and they’re just sharing? I mean I doubt it because Yugioh had a good enough budget but...what if? What if that’s why they’re in Arizona?

Anyway, next time we’ll find out if this guy just drops dead or has been a Yugioh monster this whole time, and I think maybe both?

And if you just got here, this is a link to read all my Yugioh recaps in chrono order

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S4 Ep7: Mai Gets a Day Job (Killing People For Sport)

So, I looked at the calendar and realized, if  I don’t get this post up this week then you’ll only have one update from me for the whole of November since I’m leaving for over a week again. :/ So I’m just gonna get right to the good stuff because it has taken just a crazy amount of time to get to episode 7.  How great would it be if I also got to episode 8. Real great, right?

So lets do this, I can do this, I can write a recap without getting insanely distracted, watch me do it: This episode starts with Tristan sticking to the fatal flaw of his character sheet and seeing listed at the very top “low key toilet obsession.”

Ah Tristan.

And when you think “well, OK, they’re stuck by some historic Mesas, this is fine,” suddenly they are beset by the world’s most random biker gang of like 20 full grown adults/biker assassins.

And it’s not super clear if their driver died out there in the Arizona desert, or if he just put on a different outfit and joined this gang, but it won’t matter because like...it’s a filler arc in Yugioh so there’s gonna be some deaths.

This season seems to change genre like every 10 minutes, and so for right now we are in a Mad Max post-apocalyptic territory and PS every one of these bikers uses a lead pipe?

I feel like this is way more violent than a gun???

(read more under the cut)

And so, out the horizon comes another biker, like a masked cowboy on horseback, except she shoots these things instead of bullets.

These are trained assassins, by the way, just completely incapacitated by paper.

I just love the marketing team working alongside of this show that’s like “and what else can Yugioh cards do? destroy biker gangs. That’s right, one single card will absolutely destroy a biker!” and the writing staff was like “yeah, we can work that in. That totally works in universe, you don't even know.”

It’s Mai! Back from murdering the hell out of Pegasus, I guess she decided to ninja these 20 bikers, and did it so devastatingly, that they somehow blew up a motorcycle next to a live fuel tank? Like we’re talking Oliver Queen precision throwing here and like...

...Mai’s only been gone like a year right???

And so, seeing that this card is a harpy, which I dunno...doesn’t seem like it’s all that rare in comparison to a Blue Eyes or a God Card or I dunno any of the other signature cards we’ve heard about, Joey immediately recognizes Mai. Despite the fact that everything she is doing right now is completely out of character, and despite the fact that they are in freakin California.

RIP to all 20 of the people in that gang of bikers, because no one followed this limo away from the scene--everyone was, I assume, hella dead.

Youknow, I never expected Mai to kill more people than Bakura. I would have predicted Joey before Mai. I would have predicted Rebecca before Mai. Literally anyone else on this show before Mai.

Seto, crawling out of this oversized castle that I guess...is back on the real estate market now...decides that the irresistible pull of dragons printed on paper cards is stronger than listening to his brother’s needs to put down the damn cards and make a contractually obligated theme park.

I mean Mokuba kept him off the cards for nearly a whole year. What a healthy year that was for Seto.

Back in Arizona, apparently they didn’t make it more than a mile before Tristan busted the car. Not really clear why or how this happened, but they’ve decided to argue with eachother about it despite the fact one of them is clearly magical and does not really need to eat or drink or even maybe sleep?

Like we’ve seen Bakura basically survive off of one plate of tacos and 2 pints of blood, so just make Pharaoh push the car all the way back to California. Or just make Pharaoh use his millennium AIM to call up His tomb keepers and be like “Marik, we need a lift.” or maybe summon a very real monster because that’s a thing now?

Course this would rely on Pharaoh remembering that he has superpowers, which, somehow after 4 seasons, he always forgets how to use the moment he uses them. It’s like reverse Sailor Moon--Usagi tends to level up her Super powers, Pharaoh kind of tosses them out of the window and goes “oops” and becomes more and more mortal every single season.

So instead of magic they will just use Tea.

Amazing how none of them are really willing to date Tea seriously but they will acknowledge, out of the four of them, Tea is the best looking. So their strategy, bear with me, wasn’t to use the fact they’re children to get help from adults driving by, instead, the boys hid behind a rock so they could really make sure they were getting a hella pervy truck driver that would only stop for a single teenage girl stuck in the desert.

Only this group of kids would be like “Hey lets make sure the guy who picks us up is statistically most likely to be a serial killer” and then, weirdly enough, this horndog pedo truck driver ended up being the only person who didn’t try to kill them this entire episode.

So, lets go back to SF but coming from the north side...which makes no sense...but then again, they put Mesas in Napa County.

So last episode I assumed Rex and Weevil were dropped off in Oakland, but Rex informs us this episode that they are in “the worst part of town”

Where they get robbed twice, only to be saved by Duke Devlin, who I guess just lives here now because maybe it’s the only place he can afford in this expensive as hell city? Maybe he isn’t bothered by the crime-rate after that week he spent on Kaiba’s blimp/Seaquest mmo adventure?

Anyway, for some reason Duke--who is a game shop owner/developer by day--is wandering around the Tenderloin as a vigilante and saving people by throwing dice at them as some sort of side hustle and this is never discussed at all.

I would watch that spinoff series. Religiously.

Fun fact, there is definitely sketchy and bad parts of the Tenderloin you will know not to go to (you can smell it actually), but like a third of it is part of the best shopping district in the city and we used to just shop there unsupervised when I was a kid. It has an Anthropologie.

Not saying the parts that are bad aren’t bad. Whenever I drive through the non-shopping parts, I see at least one super sketch thing making me thankful I’m in the car. But I just don't know how Rex and Weevil managed to get robbed twice in one day. Just go five blocks in literally any direction.

Bro and I were like...HOW did this shot happened from this angle on the freeway...and then I only just now realized it. Something I forgot about because it’s from my parent’s generation...maybe the animators weren’t aware that the Embarcadero fell down after Loma Prieta?

So this was the SF landscape before the quake of 89′ (Which I have no memory of since I was a baby when this happened)

and after 89.

Like maybe the animators they had on this team remembered an SF from their youth that had a huge iconic raised street wrapping all the way around one part of it and just...never got the memo that an Earthquake made the entire thing fall down?

Either way, Duke is either driving these two directly out of SF, or he is driving them into 1988 and is taking a lovely drive on the Old Embarcadero, an experience which does not exist anymore, and which makes a lot more sense since Duke has to be somewhat near downtown, going by the skyscrapers and the vicinity to the Tenderloin.

Man. In the Yugioh Universe, Loma Preita just never actually happened. How is that factoid alone not the weirdest part of this episode?

(I am so glad Serenity is not here now that Duke’s back)

Welcome back to the show Duke, glad you’re bringing...Rex and Weevil...

To be fair, Duke has absolutely no idea who is and isn’t Yugi’s friends. Duke just kind of shows up and pretends like he’s part of the gang, and the gang has lost so much brain matter from all the cards and all the dark magic, they just assume he’s been here the whole time.

So at first I was like “this has to be a pun on Industrial Light and Magic” since there’s virtually no other film studios in the city--but ILM moved to SF 3-4 years after this season came out. So it’s just a weird coincidence, I guess. Or maybe it’s just a really uninspired name?

And so Mai, who I guess has been just waiting on this ledge for 8 hours decides to drop in.

Mai has evolved a lot since S1.

But, although Mai is just...straight up evil now, at least we get to see it taken out on Pegasus who, as far as this show is concerned, is a pretty evil bastard.

A pretty evil bastard who took like 3-4 episodes to beat in S1 but Mai could just do it off-screen.

It’s just funny that the entire time on the island Pegasus was probably pretty sure everyone there was trying to kill him EXCEPT for Mai and then the moment his back is turned he’s like “oh whaaaat?”

Like Bandit Keith is already in America. But rather than use Bandit Keith for this, lets use Mai to give Joey something to angst about. We can’t put her in a coma again--so lets instead get her vaguely possessed. Although seriously, if someone I liked did this to me I think I’d be over that crush really fast.

And then, speaking of Bandit Keith, we get to have a Greek Chorus this duel from the minibosses. Valon and the other guy with the handlebar-muttonchops.

I looked up “where does Valon’s accent come from” and literally there is no consensus, as far as I know.

And that’s where this episode ends.

Now I’m gonna go out of town for a week and then will need another week to make more of these so I’ll be on another hiatus. Holding out if I’ll maybe bring a laptop or something to where I’m going so I can type out recaps when I’m bored.

The problem is having the uhhhhh photoshop to do the caps. I can’t bear to do this in MS Paint because hell will freeze over before I lose all of my actions and hotkeys I made specifically to reduce the time it takes to make these. But we shall see.

anyway, if you want to see these from the beginning, click here.