#the boat logic in this dream was very strange....

[eolande]

omg i just had a dream about a beastren girl named milly who had lost her family and only had her very young baby brother left.... she became part of kind of a boardwalk community and she had a little floating stall but someone bad was looking for her so she had to untie her little boat/raft from the rest of the dock to flee and just pray for the best.... the girl in the shop next to her was her friend and attached their boats together?? too so she wasn't traveling alone.... but then her baby brother fell overboard on one stormy night it was so upsetting.... but in the dream that was all in the past and in present day she had a shop that was a pet grooming service....

[spamdelta]

A Re-Insight on Jolli and Jokir (Oh, and Seam is there too)

(note: this is a re-upload of my og post regarding part of my past "pre-corrupted" jevil's backstory in my au. It's being reuploaded for archival purposes (as i deactivated my old blog) and for it's relevance to my au. There have been some edits in wording but nothing really significant. Enjoy!)

Synopsis:

Based on the two joker cards in a deck, Jolli and Jokir are twin siblings that originate and live in the Card Kingdom. They’re two jesters who enjoy performing in acts and entertaining darkners, and Jolli and Jokir often have respective personas when putting on a show. However, most darkners don’t care for their acts, and as a result their audience is pretty slim to sometimes none. The only opportunity where the twins CAN perform for large audiences is when they get to perform with Seam – the Card Kingdom’s Court Magician – when they host the annual circus for all of Card Kingdom to see. The problem, however, lies in the fact that performers of the circus need permission from the four kings who rule Card Kingdom to participate – something that the kings never grant the jesters; since the last time the twins performed in the Circus years ago, an accident involving the siblings occurred and caused the circus to end in such a disaster the four kings deemed them both responsible for it – thus kicking them out of the Royal Court permanently. As such, Jolli – the more optimistic jester – works as hard as they can to practice performing and gaining the attention of more darkeners with the help of their brother, Jokir. Through their performances, Jolli hopes they both can one day become popular enough to gain the attention of the Kings again, where Jolli hopes the kings will give the twins a chance to redeem themselves and participate in the circus again – and potentially allow them back into the Royal Court once again. Meanwhile, Jokir – the more pessimistic jester – doesn’t believe the kings will grant them another chance, but doesnt have it in his heart to break Jolli’s spirits. One day, though, a powerful yet strange lightner falls into Card Kingdom and strikes a deal with Jokir, promising to help the two jesters become popular and gain attention from the kings. Believing this to be the most realistic path, Jokir agrees only to help fulfill Jolli’s dreams of joining the Royal Court again.

Jolli; They/Them; 30 years old (1996):

Being the optimistic sibling, Jolli’s slightly younger than Jokir and extroverted at heart. Jolli is a social jester with a confident, charismatic, and sometimes boisterous personality, and is also very genuine; they find no reason to hide their true personality or emotions. At the same time, Jolli can also be very blunt, eristic or stubborn with people – especially when they struggle to find logic behind things that don’t make sense to them. 

Given their sociability, Jolli is friendly to anybody they meet and often tries to make friends; however, due to their strong personality and sometimes brutal honesty, not many people care to indulge in Jolli or their antics past Jolli’s entertainment. As a result, Jolli secretly feels pretty lonely a lot and admittedly doesn’t like admitting they don’t have other friends out loud – it’s one of the few secrets the jester has (this has caused a bit of a misunderstanding from Jokir, who thinks Jolli has a lot of friends due to their sparkling personality when in reality both of the twins are in the same boat). Nevertheless, Jolli tries to not let that get them down and often hangs out with Jokir or Seam to fill that loneliness. 

Jolli, in essence, is also a go-getter; because they dream to join the Royal Court again, Jolli often works hard to practice performing and tries to encourage Jokir to do so as well – even if Jokir isn’t as enthusiastic about it (though, if Jokir is feeling too tired/fatigued Jolli wont force him to practice performing. Instead, he’ll act as the critic!). Jolli is also proactive and tends to take the initiative in general – often preparing themselves for the day or events ahead of time. 

While Jolli is often responsible, Jolli also loves playing pranks and causing chaos (they are an energetic clown, after all). When Jolli and Jokir were part of the Royal Court, Jolli would often playfully prank the inhabitants that lived there — including the Kings — much to people’s annoyance though they didn’t take it too seriously as, for the most part, the pranks themselves were pretty harmless (and at the time, a lot of darkners enjoyed Jolli as an entertainer anyway). Nowadays, though, since their relationship with the Kings is strained Jokir asks Jolli to keep their pranks to a minimum to avoid trouble and tarnishing their reputation (they may not live in the castle anymore, but who knows how long word would spread to the Kings if a prank went awry – people love to gossip). As a result, Jolli tries to reserve their pranks for Jokir sometimes but most often for Seam (as they enjoy seeing the plush’s reactions every time), but sometimes they slip up and cause chaos where they shouldn’t. 

While Jolli is a pretty energetic darkener themself, Jolli also has a weak soul (much like Jokir). Jolli’s soul will sometimes cause chest pains as well as make them suddenly feel weak and fatigued, making it difficult to even walk sometimes. While this instance happens sporadically, if Jolli overexerts themself the likelihood of it happening increases. Because Jolli doesn’t recognize their own limits sometimes, Jokir often reminds them to take breaks and is there to care for Jolli if they’re suddenly too fatigued. 

In performances, Jolli’s persona is somewhat similar to their personality; when acting, Jolli plays as the “Happy-go-lucky” jester who is quite energetic and silly. In these performances, Jolli loves to perform and act in stories/tricks/jokes they and Jokir wrote (though in terms of jokes, Jokir writes most of them). They serve as the counterpart of Jokir’s persona. 

Jolli’s optimism stems from their belief that life is much more enjoyable when you hold onto hope and determination – whether that be for yourself or the people you care about. Jolli also believes that even one cannot truly enjoy life if they don’t do the things that make them happy. 

Jolli, unlike Jokir, also tends to take things more literally at points. As a result, sometimes the meanings behind certain jokes or comments will fly over their head (unless Jokir explains it to them). Jolli isn’t that great at telling jokes, either, which Jolli personally considers their most fatal flaw as a clown. 

Due to their energy and go-getter attitude, Jolli tends to get bored easily. As such, they crave excitement and prefer to occupy themselves as often as possible with either their current hobbies or responsibilities (e.g. chores, practicing for performances, gardening, etc.); Jolli also likes trying new or exciting activities, too. As mentioned before, though, Jokir reminds Jolli to take breaks and pace themselves for the sake of their soul. 

Regarding the twins’ relationships with each other, the two are very close. Jolli considers Jokir their best friend and looks up to him a lot (even if Jokir can be annoying), and they wouldn’t trade Jokir for anybody else. However, Jolli also wishes their brother would gain more self confidence in themselves and tries to encourage him or help Jokir in social situations for that reason.

Jokir; He/They; 30 years old (1996):

Being the pessimistic brother, Jokir is slightly older than Jolli yet strikingly almost the opposite of them; Jokir is mostly reserved and introverted, often observing situations rather than commenting on them. He is also pretty soft spoken, and likes to speak in lyricism and rhymes when conversing with others. At the same time, though, Jokir has major social anxiety when interacting with many people and often looks to Jolli for help. 

Around others, Jokir often acts shy and nervous due to their anxiety and unconfidence when talking to others they’re uncomfortable or unfamiliar with; similar to Jolli, this has caused Jokir to feel lonely due to their difficulty in making friends (though he’s more verbal about it), and as a result Jokir tends to stick with Jolli and/or Seam most of the time. 

However, whenever Jokir’s around their sibling or friends, their true personality blossoms as Jokir becomes much more laid-back, easygoing, and witty. Feeling more comfortable, Jokir is much more chill around Jolli especially and likes to joke around with them often — sometimes to the annoyance of Jolli. He also doesn’t get stubborn easily (unless you count not wanting to talk to people, to which yes, Jokir can get pretty stubborn with that), and is pretty flexible when it comes to changes as Jokir doesn’t particularly care. Around Jolli and Seam, Jokir also likes to be goofy on purpose sometimes too.

When Jolli and Jokir lived in Card Castle and were part of the Royal Court, Jokir’s personality was much more apparent as he acted much more silly and often told jokes to other darkners in addition to entertaining the Court. Additionally, he also partook in pranks and caused chaos with Jolli because it was fun and it was a sort of bonding time between the twins. After the accident years ago, though, Jokir developed a sort of fear and anxiety with getting into trouble, so he tries to steer Jolli away from causing it. This is because whenever Jolli gets in trouble, Jokir also gets in trouble, too – much to the uncharacteristic annoyance of the latter at first (likely stemming from Jokir’s insecurity revolving their reputation) This situation has also caused Jokir to dislike causing disruptions or chaos. 

Whenever they’ve gotten into trouble, Jokir often feels the need to take responsibility on behalf of Jolli; this gives darkners the impression that Jokir is the more responsible twin, but this isn’t really the case. Jokir doesn’t really like doing a lot of work or planning, as he often feels unmotivated or drained to do work (or even take care of himself, sometimes); Jokir coughs it up to just being ‘lazy’ though. Whenever Jolli’s fatigued, though, Jokir is willing to drop everything and take care of them (or if he can’t, Jokir will ask Seam for help). 

Similar to Jolli, Jokir has a weak soul – though the way their soul affects Jokir manifests differently. Consistently, Jokir has chronic pain (taking in the form of dull aches) mostly in parts of their upper body (e.g. arms and shoulders), though if he over-exerts himself Jokir may also experience chest pains too. This is also partially why Jokir doesn’t like doing things a lot because doing too much manual labor makes them fatigued (though not to the extent of Jolli). 

Unlike Jolli, Jokir isn’t very adventurous. He prefers to stay indoors and read books or write poetry/new material for their performances. Though, Jokir will go out with Jolli if Jolli wants to hang out, but Jokir likely won’t do anything really extreme and instead will probably just observe/joke around with his sibling.

Jokir’s pessimism mainly stems from his fears and anxiety for things going wrong and negatively affecting the twins. He also tends to look a little more negatively at the reality of certain situations and tries not to get their hopes up. Inwardly, he sort of believes that optimism isn’t really realistic (based on past experiences), but Jokir would never admit this to Jolli – after all, he could be proven wrong. Notably, though, Jokir doesn’t like letting his pessimism affect others – he prefers to be more of a chill jokester and treats others equally; Jokir is surprisingly very kind to others, but not as much towards himself.

In performances, Jokir’s persona is what most darkner’s impression of him is rather than his actual personality: a sad, negative clown who worries about everything. Jokir acts in this persona because in performances, he finds it easier to play as someone else than to be more genuine (even if it means exaggerating their anxiety). 

Regarding the twins’ relationship with each other, Jolli is also Jokirs’ best friend and loves their sibling a lot. While Jokir may not share Jolli’s optimism he does respect it (as opposed to thinking Jolli is foolish/naive) and admires Jolli a lot. Jokir see’s Jolli as the coolest person he’s ever met, and sometimes wishes he was like them. 

Seam; They/It/She; 35 years old (1996):

Seam – pronounced “Shawm” – acts as the official magician for the Royal Court. They’re a friendly, easy-going darkner who gets along with others well. It’s also been good friends with Jolli and Jokir since the jesters were part of the Royal Court years ago. Whenever Seam visits the two, they often bring all sorts of nicknacks it’s bought or found to show off, or she also likes to stay for tea or board games the twins have. When the three play games, Jolli is the one that usually loses while Seam and Jokir are equally matched even towards the end. This usually makes the end of the game more intense as to who’ll win (or at least, Jolli makes them intense by adding dramatic narration), but there’s generally a 50/50 chance either Jokir or Seam will win (the two never take it too seriously like Jolli, though, and like to laugh about it). 

Before the accident, Seam often worked alongside the twins to entertain the Kings with her magic tricks, which it still technically does today; however, since the twins have been kicked out Seam acts as the sole entertainer of the Royal Court – which can sometimes be stressful or unfulfilling as Seam is alone and the Kings are generally not amused. When the annual circus comes around, additionally, Seam feels more stressed as they’re in charge of planning preparations as the host (though luckily she doesn’t have to lead the circus thanks to the ringmaster, just plan and direct it – Seam can just play as the main magician performance-wise); this is different from when the jester twins were part of the Royal Court as the two often helped Seam out with preparations for the circus (being the other two Royal entertainers), but now that the two can’t join the Kings forbade Seam from seeking help from Jolli and Jokir (which Seam has broken a few times anyway to ask for advice from the twins. I mean, who’s gonna stop them?). Seeing how badly the twins want to join the circus and be part of the Royal Court again as well, Seam asked the Kings many times to grant them one more chance to perform in the circus but to no avail – the Kings won’t listen, especially the King of Spades. 

Even though the jester twins were kicked out of the Royal Court years ago, Seam visits them sometimes anyway because she enjoys their company and as friends. Seam enjoys Jolli’s enthusiasm and antics (though is always surprised somehow (comically, so) by their pranks, but Seam laughs at itself anyway afterwards), and Jokir’s laid-back and humorous attitude is also enjoyable to be around. She also finds the occasional bickering between the two twins very amusing, as well. However, Seam’s noticed how the two seem so hard on themselves in regards to their situation (with Jolli always pushing themselves despite their disability, and Jokir’s insecurities and anxiety manifesting in criticizing himself), and because of that Seam sympathizes the twins and wishes they wouldn’t push themselves so much (and tells them such) – the two have inherent value even if they don’t ever end up performing in the circus or joining the Royal Court again.

[ness010]

There's something weird i'd like to point out. It's amazing that the 7 EGGs are safe and sound, some of them now recovering, and that we have brand new three eggs... But where the heck is the Eggstatistics? They should've been back now, right? Maybe they are waiting for new pixelart and stuff, or waiting for the admins' deserved break to be over. Or, maybe, something sketchy is up. And so, this post will be assuming that. You haven't forgotten that there has been some sketchy stuff happening with the eggs, that we don't yet have answers for, right? And a lot of them. Some of them are: 1- We don't know who made them dirty/broken. Some say the federation, but we are not sure. 2- The reason Chayanne commanded the others to flee away. It seems to be connected to some sort of creature/entity Talullah awaked/enraged, maybe the dark figure in some of the eggs dreams? (this also probably connects to point 1) 3- The three new EGGs' origin is still unknown. We only know they were on Egg Island, hidden on a cave. This, is simply strange. How can new EGGs just pop in? Something is definitely strange about either: The new EGGs' origin The old EGGs' origin The New EGGs seem to be ommiting the fact they came in on boat, somehow knew about the explosion and hid, and none knows about the name "Egg Island". Maybe its only that they don't know if they can talk about it in /rp, or, this is actually on purpose. They, as well, don't seem to be a monitored Fed experiment, as they took Cucurucho by surprise. Maybe they were made by the Eye/The Watcher, as a "evil" counterparts of the old EGGs? Maybe they're old experiments that escaped/were considered failures by/are malfuctioning bc of the Feds, just like the EGG "Hope"? Or is the Island just a natural home for EGGs? If the last possibility is right, then the Old EGGs could have been kidnapped from Egg Island and experimented upon, or they are clones of an EGG from Egg Island, and so not being completely artificially created by the Feds.

4- The three new eggs, alongside Dapper, were given strange rules, seemingly by the Admins: No Armor and No Totems. They seem to be planning a change, one related with the EGGs... something with the EGGs Tasks/functionability? To less tasks? Because with no armor and totems, they become much more very vulnerable, and, it was confirmed by one of the new EGGs that they could still die. It kinda matches with the nerf on the mobs, but not at all with the strength of the code monsters. Maybe, its a way to be able to kill them, bc the n.i.n.h.o. made it basically impossible. Or, perhaps, it's for the growth much have been waiting for, atleast for the old EGGs. 5- The old EGGs are resting since they didn't have a day of peace unlike Dapper, who slept for four days straight, from november 18 (the end of purgatory) until november 22 (when he reappeared). If they only need four days of sleep to recover, in that logic, the other EGGs should wake up at november 25, on a saturday. But. Can we really trust the Federation with their sleep? How can we make sure the thing the EGGs were fleeing from won't hunt them in their lowest...?

Thus, to the reason why we don't have the Eggstatistics there are four possibilities: -They are waiting for the other EGGs to wake up because they are going to wake up different. Maybe grown, or maybe with some weird condition, like being captured again by the entity that hurt them. -Something strange is gonna happen/is going on with the new EGGs, and so they will have a different hud or a different status post just for them. -The EGGs tasks or lives, which are, the EGGs mechanics, are going to change drastically. -Or, all of the above. Its possible. TL;DR: They are making drama because something is going to change with the EGGs mechanically or in lore. I'm here for any thoughts about this :D

[quilleth]

so what's going on with vanora and water?

oh my gosh thank you for asking this because this is basically me when encouraged to talk about my girl at all xD

There are a couple of things that are important to know about Vanora and whatever is going on with her. First, her subclass is a slightly tweaked path of the depths, which is tied into her backstory. Second, she has no idea about any of it xD As far as Vanora's concerned, she's just a normal barbiebarian genasi travelling to find her friend.

I left the details of how exactly she gained her subclass and what happened there up to our dm, so I also don't know, to be fair. Like i know which traits she'll get (or is supposed to get) when, but don't really know how they'll manifest. My AMAZING DM has been great about tying it into sessions when I remember to bring it up.

And onto the explanation, which is a brief summary of some shenanigans:

Since the party encountered a mysterious obelisk, which seemed familiar to her, similar to one she saw back home, in an ancient temple during one our our sessions, Vanora has been having strange dreams/ visions of her missing friend, which is where the beginning of the discomfort/ fear of water started. At one point, she had a dream about being on their beach at home and drowning, which freaked her out.

About a week and a half after that, the party fought a giant evil fish thing (which we, the players, know was some kind of aboleth, but in game, no one knows what it was), that appeared during a boat race they were watching. Vanora jumped in the lake to fight it, and while underwater, her dredge line first appeared! When she got out of the water though, she couldn't breathe and was coughing up water--drowning, basically :D Which as far as she is aware, is impossible for her. It also felt sort of familiar to her and like the obelisk. After that, she went back to the inn for a nice relaxing bath that turned out to not be either nice or relaxing, since she had another freaky dream of her friend and wasn't able to move (which has become a whole other Thing for her...Her fear has The Range xD).

From there we went to a different lake town, where we found out there has been some magical fuckery that happened and there are dead(undead?) things in the lake. Of course, we need to sail across it to get where we're going, and in doing so 1) there is a magical storm 2) thanks to a terrible dice roll, Vanora got knocked over board, was unable to move or breathe again, but for having another visit™ from her friend (much confusion, such feels), who was able to activate her dredge line, which pulled her back out of the creepy, weird, full of dead things lake, though she also passed out in the process.

And that last thing happened maybe 5 or so days after the fight with the giant evil fish thing, so she hasn't had time to process any of it :D She's not exactly afraid of water yet, but she definitely does not trust any of these lakes! She is very much "Empire, explain!" about them and "If i don't think about it, it can't hurt me. Nothing bad will ever happen following this logic" about what's been happening, which is absolutely going to come back and bite her in the ass at some point lmao. We will at some point be sailing on the ocean, on a route she's already taken, so I guess finding out if something awful happens during that too will inform more of her feelings on water, but at the moment, she is definitely not happy or comfortable around these lakes specifically!

[cottontail-penumbra]

The dream I had the night before was about how the Bunny parts came to be so many (outside of the recent splits, theres a series of old splits that go even more undetected than Bunnies usually are)

Bunny parts are meant to remain alone, that’s the very essence of them. Existing not around people and usually very specifically our bedrooms over the years

So in the dream, there was a beast part(Cerberus possibly) who had the duty of ‘killing off’ the last Bunny to reboot the concept of the Bunny part, one who preserves that safe alone time

He had to ‘kill them off’ because being alone was violently intruded on by a ‘stranger’ on a semi-regular basis until it all suddenly Stopped.

The ‘stranger’ was a vague concept that kept any violence in the home quiet, with mom making it known that it was really outsiders who were after our family, specifically out to rape me. I ended up with a PTSD diagnosis because she had me so paranoid and deeply entwined around this belief that I couldn’t leave the house without having all my safe things on hand as if I’d need to make a getaway at any moment. It’s such a solidly rooted belief that the idea that most sexual abuse happens with people you know rather than a total stranger is just.. I can’t accept that. Logically I know its true, but I feel blocked from knowing. No, it’s everyone else in the world that’s unsafe

So in this dream, it had been revealed that the Stranger was actually a perpetrator already at home, and it shattered this belief that someone was going to come through my window, because he came through the door instead.. Flower things ensue. Paralyzed, mindless pain and tension riddles my body. Seeing my bed, (which was like a life boat for bunnies) made me start screaming and thrashing in the dream

Ahh, there was some weird stuff about Mom showing up in that room, forcing me to clean to look for answers to why Bunny Is Dead was a thing

I woke up knowing that Bunny had been culled kindly at least 13 times. (Which is strange, I don’t have numbers ever) and that I made my bedroom just as untouchable as me (by hoarding and not cleaning, as well as not bathing or changing or washing my clothes much). Suddenly it makes more sense why all the ‘classic bunny’ memories are so chopped up and disorganized, as if I had rebooted at life itself so many times.

It was just a dream, but it had that same terror and weight to it any dreams about the Well has.

Hmm this is all very uncomfortable

I only remembered my dream just now because Rebunzel was nearby, flooding me with a need to prepare to say goodbye to Chime in person before we get to them. She’s always saying goodbye and planning what words to say when we’ll inevitably be murdered next time we go grocery shopping too. Its intense and makes me sad that she lives in this constant trapped hypervigillence and dependance on mom

[onlyscrollingby]

Literally been trying to explain to my family that just because they don't FEEL the effects of US blue fascism doesn't mean it's not fascism... your lives are more impacted than you think but you've been taught to believe an alternative is irrational and impossible, and also, third and second world countries (most obvious example being Palestine, but also every country that we rely on for our luxury goods and cheap foods/products because of human rights abuses and generally poor economic opportunities) are VERY aware of US fascism and suffer its effects daily. We're honestly so selfish here that it's gross to me, literally the epitome of "if I can't see it, it doesn't exist." People asked the college protesters here why they cared if the genocide in Palestine didn't effect them... that is the most selfish question ever, when did we forget literal elementary school logic of kindness. It's very weird to learn over the past year that essentially my entire family is, by definition, strangely fascist. Americans are so terrified at losing the slightest advantage and comfort in our daily life that we will sacrifice thousands to millions of lives and dreams of others just to not rock the boat.

Ive said it before but I feel I must say it again; Fascism, as defined by Benito Mussolini, is the union of state and corporate power.

Fascism thrives within liberal and neoliberal democracies.

Fascists aren't just those guys you don't like. Fascists aren't just people executing minorities in the streets. Fascists aren't just people building camps. Fascists aren't just white men with tiki torches.

Keeping Trump out of power doesn't keep fascism out of power.

Joe Biden is ideologically a fascist. So is Kamala Harris. So is Hillary Clinton. So is every politician that listens to corporate lobbies.

Every politician that engages in insider trading is a fascist by definition.

Beat that Vote Blue No Matter Who Drum all you like, but I need you to acknowledge that you're putting a fascist in power.

In fact, understand that you are putting effective fascists in power. Understand that your quiescence is what makes fascism function.

Blue Fascism is worse than Red Fascism because it puts the trembling useless creature that is the 'liberal leftist' to sleep. Which means that instead of caring about the world around them they can slumber beneath the earth until they pupate like cicadas in 4 years and beat that fucking drum again.

[prismartist]

Ponk’s discoveries and what they mean

Y’all haven’t been paying attention to Ponk and it shows. /lh

He has made many discoveries in his recent streams that are just begging to be talked about, and I, as the resident maker of farfetched theories, will take up the job of compiling and connecting them to the current lore.

For those who don’t know, Ponk recently built up the lore of Not A Very Good Town Town, aka the village that went mad, through a book he found in the basement of Jack’s (the potato farmer, not Manifold) Ye Old Farmhouse, written by Jack himself. And it reveals some interesting information.

There’s going to be a few sections for this post: first, breaking down what is in the journal, then theories as to what exactly happened to the village, and how these discoveries can tie into the current storyline.

The journal

For one, Jack seems to have interacted an entity that’s eerily similar to Foolish. In the first page there’s an entry that reads:

“Day 790 The strange man is back, his body made of straw but eyes of emrald.”

On the second page as well, it mentions:

“Day 800 A NEW LAND! A land that uses sand as stone! Gold.... GOLD EVERYWHERE!”

Which, of course, probably pertains to Foolish’s desert home, which also has a significant amount of gold due to the Egyptian theme.

But why would we get Foolish lore from Ponk of all people, instead of the totem god himself? Well, Ponk was the first person Foolish interacted with on the server aside from Dream, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they talked more after that and collabed for lore.

But anyways, now we move on to the more interesting section:

“Day 840 The Strange man has returned his name still unknown... BUT! he has brought a caravan of good! he talks about ancient magic and gifts 21 statues transported in make shift boats.”

Jack then goes on to describe that the statues are “calming” for him, before the next entry, written ten days later, show a disturbing shift in attitude.

“Day 855 CATS I HEAR CATS, CATS IN THE WALLS IN THE WALLS”

And another one five days later:

“DAY 900 murder... the cats murder ,,, the people I showed Shrimpy my satues he seems too intrested BUT THEY ARE MY SATUES”

Now those who saw the episode know that Jack and Bob (Shrimpy) turned out to be the murderers of the “canon round”. Seeing as those two people were the only ones exposed to the statues as we know, it’s logical to assume that the statues were the reason they went mad.

And this is backed up by the next entry:

“Day 905 SUDDEN URGE TO MURDER, THAT HELGA WOMEN IS TEMPTING BUT DAMN HER HUSBAND NEEDS TO GO BY ANY MEANS NESS…..”

Then there are two blank pages before the journal concludes

“Day 1040 Just me and Shrimpy and the cool statues life is good go od goo d g ood go odgood g oodg ood go odg good goo dgood goo dgood g ood good good good goodgoo d go od g ood go od dgo od g oo go od go o d - JACK”

It’s creepy as shit. But moving on.

There’s a lot of questions to be asked here. Why did Foolish–if it is Foolish–visit the Town? Why exactly did he gift a bunch of statues that drove Jack and Shrimpy to madness and murder? Why are there cats in the walls?

(Well, cats are very significant to Egyptian culture, even to a cult-like status, but that’s for another post.)

There are a few possibilities.

What exactly were the effects that Foolish had on the Town?

(Here’s the farfetched theories part lmao)

The simplest (and let’s be honest, the most likely) theory is that the statues probably had way too much power that caused people to become overprotective over them. Foolish just didn’t realize and wanted to give some nice gifts, but the statues drove Jack and Bob to insanity after being exposed to them for way too long. So they killed everyone.

However, considering certain factors, there is another possibility, specifically surrounding:

The “non-canon” round.

Did Karl say that it was a practice round and thus not canon? Yes. Am I suggesting it’s canon anyway for the sake of this theory that probably won’t be true? Also yes.

Besides, Karl probably also didn’t plan for TVTWM to be influential to the storyline, but because of it his character’s now a time traveler and Ponk is pulling out more lore so.

I think Foolish came by and gifted the statues, the first round did happen, and he brought them back to life after the first game. But the resurrection affected Jack and Bob, driving them to madness à la gothic horror lit character that just saw something they weren’t supposed to. Perhaps their attitude became cult-like, praising Foolish, thus the overprotectiveness over the statues as they were connected to the god, or they were of the opinion that “Hey no, everyone’s supposed to be dead,” and then sought to make that true once again.

“But then what about the first round, where everyone also died?” You may scoff at the ridiculous theory, poking my chest accusingly. “Why were the killers different?”

Well, I have a simple answer for that.

Egg.

“What, the egg again-“ I know, I know, it may seem tiring tying everything back to the egg, but hear me out.

In another one of Ponk’s streams, “Dreams of potatos?”, at 58:15 (correct me if wrong) Ponk had a dream where Mayor Jimmy was saying disjointed sentences to Jack, scolding him, telling him to stay away from Helga, and also something about burning Miles Memeington being burned at the stake for being a witch (????). At the end of it, Jimmy turned to the camera.

And his eyes were red.

Which, of course, is a telltale sign of being infected by the egg.

The egg being the main plot right now, seeing as it can easily be connected to the “Red-Eyed Village Wars”, and the fact that it is known to control people to murder, I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to point to it as being the cause.

It also helps that Jimmy was only a character from the first round; in the “canon” round, Bad had changed his character to some sort of constable or something.

So the egg may have controlled Jimmy and Cornelius, the murderers in the first round, to kill everyone, Foolish then came along, resurrected everyone murdered in the first round, gotten rid of the egg’s influence, and then left. Then whatever effects the statues had on Jack and Bob took affect.

Alternatively, the statues may have been the ones to resurrect the dead, or have been given as protection from any threats, but became haywire for one reason or another. They influenced Jack and Bob to protect the statues at any cost, and they took it too far. Which may seem a little hypocritical as the egg literally does the same thing, but fire fights fire and all that.

And, just like with Karl, if Foolish has had to deal with the egg before, it makes sense why he’s so averse to it now.

Current lore

Now, how does this tie into the current storyline?


Aside from the egg, if resurrection and items do affect one’s psyche, then maybe that’s the same reason why Schlatt and even Dream–the only other two who know how to resurrect–acted the way they did, becoming apathetic to the wellbeing of other people.

Also, it is worth noting that in the basement where Ponk found the journal, there were 21 villagers in boats, the same amount as the statues. Thus Ponk concluded that they are the statues. And Foolish does have an affinity for villagers, if King Toad is any indication. This implies that Foolish can not only bring dead people back to life, but can also grant life to objects that never lived in the first place. Or, they were once living, but had their life taken away from them before getting it back for one reason or another. If Foolish really has this much power, it could be foreshadowing for future events where those powers will be utilized.

About the bloodvines, if Foolish has defeated them before, there’s a chance he may do it again. Unless something goes wrong and he accidentally drives a few people to madness.

(or maybe they were predisposed to madness, who knows-)

TL;DR

Foolish may have interacted with Not A Very Good Town Town before to save them from the egg and resurrect the dead, driving Jack and Bob to insanity as a consequence. Thus he could have a lot of power and will be the one to potentially defeat the egg once again.

[overfedvenison]

D&D 3.0 released just as the pop culture influence of The Phantom Menace was at it’s apex, and as such it is the only edition that has a dedicated Double Weapon system. Basically: You can use one of these Double Weapons, and act as though you are two-weapon fighting OR using a two-handed weapon, but not both at the same time. This allowed you to make the Darth Maul of your dreams Most people who used them - which was rare in practice - tended to go full Two Weapon Fighting and use them for style. An very few people used any that were not a Double Sword or Quarterstaff, because... Well, the rest are kind of monstrosities of fantasy weapon design. I LIKE them, but in a weird, silly way. I’m looking at two 3.X Double Weapons, and giving some thoughts while I wait for my laundry..

I think it's pretty appropriate that the Dwarven Urgosh, the Dwarf Double Weapon, is literally just an axe with a spike on the bottom. Of all the double weapons, this is probably the most practical. It’s original art here is even fairly realistic, excepting the overlarge blade that comes with the territory of fantasy weapons, with a fairly long shaft It's worth noting that in that edition, you need 15 Dexterity to get the two-weapon fighting feat. Dwarves have a -2 to that attribute, which means they actually max out at 16 at low-levels. Therefore, it is incredibly rare that a dwarf could even use both ends at once. However, Dwarves gain this weapon as a free proficiency automatically, as long as they have martial weapon training in the first place. I don’t know if this was the intent... But, the narrative of that is that it really is more of an axe that gives you the option of poking than a proper double weapon. And that’s... Actually quite logical and good, given what it is. A dwarf ranger gets dual wield for free, even without the requirements, so that could be the best option for this weapon. I could see this being fun... Rangers specialize in one enemy type, and Dwarves gain several bonuses against specific races (Giants, Orcs, and Goblinoids.) So if you flavour it more akin to an Orc Hunter than a typical naturey ranger... Yeah, there might be something there Theoretically, a dwarf fighter could also be SO GOOD they can dual wield even without the feat, relying on pure skill and power to get in an extra stab in... But that is unlikely.

This one is silly, but I can’t justifiably be angry that it is. That’s kind of exactly what a Gnome Hooked Hammer should be The Gnome Hooked Hammer is a fairly mundane weapon with few special features, boating fairly high damage for a dual-wielded weapon. Notably, picks like this have a very high crit rate; the blunt head deals 3x crit damage, and the hook deals 4x. The off-hand being a 1d6 x4 weapon does theoretically make up for the weak off-hand attack, but that is VERY luck dependant. This also strikes me as not... SUPER good on an actual Gnome? Like, Gnomes are not exactly the best melee combatants, and make only adequate Rogues. However, I could see it being more of a multitool over journeys, able to be driven into walls to climb, used as a pickaxe, a hammer, or a device to open doors as well as a weapon. It also have kind of a good presence to the race it is keyed toward... This is a quirky thing, fitting for a gnome. I could see a gnome using this like a cane, with the “hook” as a ‘foot’ But, that all being said... It seems like a really strange thing to actually fight with. Do you just like, spin it? I mean, I guess I could see a gnome rotating around like a deadly beyblade, actually... ...Actually, I think I got it:

[skyabove]

Theory Time! - Home Space isn’t Real!

Ok so here’s a relatively straightforward theory while I procrastinate a more complicated one (King and MB)

Basically, there is a fair amount of evidence that the Home Space is not a real location in the ‘Sky world’, but instead is a ‘non physical location their minds can enter, similar to the locations the Elders are in.

Lets start by looking at the main way you can reach Home Space. This swirly white pool of light.

We see this kind of light in a few different places. In places we can travel to Home, at meditation points, to interact with the Elders, to trigger memory based cutscenes (Season of Dreams final memory), inside activated memory cubes in Vault, the rising platform in Vault,  and in the Forest Treehouse shared space. (there is also the Assembly minigames, the Valley races, and the boat to ark but I’ll mention that later)

The one thing that all of these locations have in common is their connection to transferring thoughts/consciousness from one place to another. The meditation points have you think of a message and then it appears as a readable white candle. The spots to communicate with the Elders takes you to the ‘in between place’ that they are located in, in which you can move around, but when it's over your body is just where you left it in the real world so only your mind was moved. The cutscene trigger at the coliseum inserts you into the spirits memory, an event that has already happened and now only exists as a memory in their mind, but you can freely move around and again when it is over your body is where it was left - side note this is not the same as the spirits memories manifesting in the real world as the entire setting is as it was before they died, not just a certain scene being re enacted. The memory cubes in Vault seem to be transferring or projecting energy into the floating diamond to power it, and while not seen in this particular instance the cubes essentially contain information which can be projected. We don't know how this information is captured but, would it be too much of a stretch to assume they are stored memories? Memories and light seem to have a connection in the rest of the game so the spirits finding a way to directly store and replay memories as a way of documenting things doesn't seem too out of place. The rising platform in Vault is again less obvious, but it has been stated that at least the later levels of Vault are supposed to be less real and more dreamlike, so how much of Vault is ‘real’ is unknown. Potentially everything after the first few levels may exist outside of the ‘real world’ therefore requiring the transference of the mind. And finally probably the clearest of them all is the Treehouse Shared Space. When you try to enter you get the message “Temporarily leave others and enter your mind to Build and Edit your Shared Space”. And how is your mind entered? A white light spot, with a statue (which is another thing I’ll talk about later)

(there are also white spots for the Assembly minigames, the boat to the Ark, and at the Valley races. These are definitely just gameplay necessities, and I cant think of a logical in universe reason for them)

Now I know there are other ways to get to Home such as the gate button in the emote menu and the bird statues in Wasteland and Forest, but the emote menu itself is purely a gameplay necessity, and the bird statues are left overs from the old version of Sky and have been removed in most places.

So now that we’ve looked at how we get to Home, let's look at the contents of Home. The first things are the realm gates. This is the only place we see realm gates, when you go through them there is no gate on the other side. The only other places we see gates are at the end of the 8-player area in Prairie, and in Orbit before being reborn. The first is interesting, it is different as there is no image of the place you are traveling to, but was probably built by the spirits in the area with some connection to their title of ceremonial worshipper. The second is in a location between life and death, most likely made and controlled by Megabird themselves so is not connected to the main Sky world - BUT is important for later. So overall, the gates and realm fast travel seem out of place in the real world.

The next point is access to the constellations. From Home you can summon and communicate with any spirit you have saved. This is the only place you can do this without having to go to their grave stone/marker first. You can also create copies of any Skykid you have friended. You are not literally summoning them, it is an illusion/duplicate of them, they are lacking their chest light and often look darker or not glowing and you can't interact with them in the same way as the spirits (friendship tree).

Similar to the spirits from the constellation, Home is also where Travelling Spirits, i.e. spirits that have already been freed and returned to the stars, voluntarily return to. This is also where a copy of the Questgiver spirits appears, and the daily quest/shop boat spirits appears. The daily quest spirit is interesting as they dont have a body/memory to be freed from in the realms, but we know they were a regular ancestor as they appear as a child in the Confident Stance spirits memory.

And finally there is the Eden Gate. The gate which is locked until you have “returned the light” to all of the Elders, and collected 20 winged light. We know this is not the actual Eden door as when you enter there is the same gate which needs to be opened by 8 switches. And the requirements for opening the Home Eden gate just so happen to be the main missions the Skykids were created to fulfill.

When considering all of this, could Home Space be a non physical location created (by Megabird) for the Skykids? This would explain the methods of access - thought/mind transferring light patches; the access to the constellation spirits and copies of other Skykids - the freed spirits have returned to the stars/become one with Megabird again so if anyone can send them somewhere, MB sending them to a realm of their creation would make sense, and since MB has a connection to the Skykids, showing them copies of other connected Skykids isn't too odd. The Traveling spirits and Questgivers also fall into this category. The realm gates is more of a gameplay necessity, but does have connections to MB as there is a MB gate at the end of Orbit just like the ones in Home. The Eden gate could be MBs way of making sure the Skykids have done what they are supposed to, and have gathered enough winged light to survive until the final area. And we know that “in between planes of existence” exist as that is where the Elders are.

The final thing to look at is the strange statues that accompany the Home white light spots. I believe that these may be a representation of Megabird themselves, or at least the concept of Megabird. To keep it brief because I will hopefully be looking at this in more detail another time, Megabird is seen as the creator of all things connected to the light, when living things die they return to Megabird etc. When we see what is most likely Megabird in the game they are made up of massive amounts of creatures of light and children of light, with the orb at the centre. The statues themselves are interesting because they dont particularly look like the spirits. They have no mask, instead having a face with closed (round, rather than diamond eyes like the spirits and Elders) eyes very similar to Skykids under their masks. The head covering/gown clothing at best could be similar to Lamed or some of the Vault scholars, and it does feature the triangular pattern around the trim.

The pose of the statues, with their hands outstretched, and the use of them, to hold flame, creates the image of a peaceful figure, different from the spirits or Elders, who is offering or giving flame - the embodiment of life and the thing that connects all creatures in the Sky world - and looks oddly similar to an unmasked Skykid, a creation OF Megabird. We know that MB has a “human” form as well as their star/orb form, just like how the Elders have a “human” and star form. Now, this “human” form  might be more of an assumption from the spirits, or them projecting their own appearance on their god like many religions do, but either way it fits that MB could be represented in that way.

The final point about the statues is that they are only found at Home Space white spots (it can be safely assumed that these are not leftovers from the spirits era, as they are in random places only convenient for Skykids - for gameplay purposes but in universe I guess you could say MB put them there for them), in Home before being returned to your body where you last were, marking the point to enter your mind at the Treehouse, and in Eden, where there are a lot of them. Without going into it too much because that's a whole other topic for another time, the fact they are only found in/on the way to Home, at an entry point for another mind/inbetween place, and in the place most connected to King, the Children of Light, and the Eden Diamond, it should be a safe guess that it is indeed MB - or at least representing the idea of MB.

In summary: Home Space isn't real, and is instead an in-between place similar to where the Elders are, made by Megabird for the Skykids.

[oldtvlover]

And today then A Stranger in the Mirror from 1993, based on a novel by Sidney Sheldon. Cast: Perry King - Toby Temple Lori Laughlin - Jill Castle Geordie Johnson - David Kenyon Juliet Mills - Alice Tanner Christopher Plummer - Clifton Lawrence Lochlyn Munro - Alan Preston and many more 

Story: Toby Temple, a low comedian with no luck, is sent out to the country but he makes it till Hollywood where he is still low but meets the right woman, Alice. She brings him into contact with Clifton Lawrence who becomes his agent and so Toby's career slowly but steadily takes off. He even gets his own TV show. On the other hand, Josie works as a waitress but dreams also from a Hollywood career, yet when David, her big love, marries another woman, she goes there and learns the hard way how they do business there. She changes her name to Jill and meets Toby at his show. Well, he's quickly attracted to her and can be very persistent to get a date. It works and they even marry, despite his agent's doubts and Jill uses her power over him to get what she wants. Until a stroke hit Toby who then can't talk and walk anymore but Jill doesn't give up and gets him back on his feet. They are happy to go to London where Jill/Josie meets David again what Toby sees quickly that there's more behind it. Clifton, meanwhile, has discovered the old porn movie and wants to show it Toby but they are away. At the airport, Toby plays around and gets a second stroke, leaving him more or less bed-ridden. Jill is ready to kill him but Toby can all of a sudden speak to her in her mind. Or she thinks, with his eyes. Never mind, Toby still sees what's going but he's drowned himself with his wheelchair in his own pool where he dies. After some grieving time, Jill decides to take David's offer on a cruise where Clifton shows him the movie and David flips out, leaving the boat. Clifton then shows up and tells Jill about this. She's angry but can't do anything. In the end, she hears Toby's voice and follows it. At her balcony, she sees his face in the water and follows him, to be with him.

Well, the movie is available on Youtube and be aware of some strange twists. Logic works not always.

[reveriesofawriter]

Hi Meghna!! 11, 33, 47 ♥️♥️♥️♥️

11: Do you have any strange phobias?

water where I can't touch the bottom, I'm thinking the ocean for the most part but in swimming pools where it's like 12-13 feet deep under the diving boards, that counts too. I had a sort of half lucid nightmare recently where I was floating in the ocean and I could see the coast but we (I can't remember who I was with but there were at least two other people there) tried swimming toward it and weren't making any progress, I asked how deep the ocean was under us right then and the guy who answered me said "about 20 miles" and that's when my brain started yelling at me that it was just a dream and that I shouldn't panic but I still felt my chest tighten with this fear even though logically I know how to swim at least well enough to not sink... that being said idk if it counts as a phobia bc it doesn't actually stop me from doing things like swimming or getting on boats

33: Choose: East Coast or West Coast?

you're asking someone who lives in the center of the country lol if we're talking about Coast as in beach then west bc that's all I've experienced (imagine me owning an artsy little storefront in some beachfront town near big sur) but I'm a sucker for a big, walkable city with tall buildings and a functional public transit system, which seems to be more of an east coast thing

47: Do you have any obsessions right now?

I'm very preoccupied with the idea of being able to have conversations with people who are often the subjects of fic and shipping and that whole section of the fandom experience and just kind of lay it out for them in a way that makes it clear that shipping (when practiced in a way that doesn't cross boundaries) is less about trying to prove something about real people and more about dynamics/projection/creativity/etc

eta: also I want to explain that fic in particular is not a medium meant for artist interaction or involvement, that it arguably should be separate and that it's not the same as gossip or indirects bc It's Not About You and You Don't Need To Know About It

[littlemissagrafina]

Like a boat out on the ocean (I'm rocking you to sleep)

Read on AO3

"Okay, wait, wait, wait. So lemme just me get this straight," May's voice echoed through the lab, her astonishment clearly seen thanks to the video call she and Tony were currently on. "Peter was hit by two different spells and the effects of the two combined together managed to turn him into a kid again?"

Tony sighed, rubbing a tired hand over his face, using the other to support a now very young and very much asleep Peter on his lap.

"That's about it, yeah. There was a wannabe Voldemort that decided to make an appearance after he decided he was the all powerful lord of the mystic arts or some shit like that."

"The others didn't want to take any chances so we called in Strange for some help since the sorcerer side of the villains are a bit out of our usual Tuesday routine. Between all of us we managed to get the situation handled pretty fast but there was a little scrabble towards the end and a stray spell got fired towards Peter."

Tony saw the small flare of panic in May's eyes and he rushed to carry on explaining before she interrupted and started stressing herself out. "Strange shot his own spell to try and stop it but it was too slow to fully block it and they merged together just before hitting Peter. With the distraction of those spells, the others were able to apprehend Lord Wannabe while Strange and I took care of Peter."

"That still doesn't explain how we ended up with a spider baby instead of a spider teen, Tony. I'm pretty sure the sorcerer wasn't just throwing around spells to turn people into children." May raised an eyebrow at him in a way that reminded Tony way too much of his mother. Damn, why are Italian women so terrifying?

"No, he wasn't." Tony paused. This was the part that he was slightly hesitant to tell May. Yes, it was fine now but the danger of the situation had still been very real and prominent in the moment.

"The spell that was going to hit Peter was apparently one that would reverse the natural state of whatever it hit until they, essentially, became the dust they once started from. When it mixed with Strange's spell trying to block it by freezing it in time, the effect was that it de-aged Peter back to around three or four years old."

May nodded, taking it all surprisingly well. Way better than Tony himself had taken it although he wasn't going to admit that anytime soon. He was the definition of cool and collected after all. And no, no one was allowed to give the many many instances proving him to be the opposite of calm and collected where Peter was concerned.

May speaking brought Tony back from his thoughts. "And that was the only effect? No injuries or anything else to be worried about?"

"No," Tony shook his head. "Nothing else of major concern besides the obvious. "He nodded down to the still asleep child in his arms. "And he still has all his memories and powers as far as we can tell, it's just the body and mindset that got a bit of a reset."

May couldn't help but feel relieved to hear that. She couldn't imagine having to tell Peter about his parents or Ben all over again or even begin to know how to explain everything about the spider bite and Tony. "That's good. Do you know how much longer he's going to be like this for?"

"According to Strange the spells should wear off in a few weeks and he will most likely just revert back to his actual age and size." 

"Right, considering his track record I'm definitely grateful that it wasn't anything worse. I'll try and get up to you guys by morning if that's alright? I don't want to chance driving in the dark with the roads still full of ice." As much as May wanted to get to her kid to reassure herself that he was really okay, she knew that she still had to be logical and careful and driving on roads riddled with black ice at night wasn't the way to go.

"You'll be okay with him until tomorrow?"

Tony nodded, shooting her a reassuring smile. "Yeah, we'll be fine, May. Clint is letting us use some of Cooper's old clothes until we can buy some for Pete tomorrow so we're all good here for now. Besides, Morgan is having the time of her life now that he's younger."

May gave a chuckle at that. "Oh I'm sure she is. She adores that boy so much. It must be a dream come true for her to have a "little" brother now. Anyway, the boss is calling so I have to go. I'll be up there tomorrow! Take care of our kid, Tony."

"Yes ma'am!"

---

Tony was woken up that night by little footsteps and sniffles. Sleep was quickly brushed away as he sat up, Friday automatically turning the lights up until it was just bright enough to see without disturbing Pepper sleeping next to him.

He was momentarily surprised to see a little Peter instead of Morgan thanks to the small footsteps, before he remembered the events of the now previous day seeing as it was just after 3am thanks to a quick glance at the clock on his bedside table.

Tony made his way quickly and quietly out of bed, used to the same routine when Morgan had nightmares and he woke up before Pepper did. He bent down, back only protesting slightly thanks to the small amount of extremis that found its home in his blood after his use of the gauntlet.

"Hey there, Roo." Tony whispered to the little child, slowly kneeling in front of him and giving him a small smile as he wiped away a few stray tears from rosy cheeks. "Whats'a matter, huh? You have a nightmare?" 

Peter nodded, his chin wobbling and tears welling up in his doe eyes once again. He made little grabby hands towards Tony and the man instantly scooped him up, holding him gently to his chest with one arm and cradling the back of his head with the other.

Slipping out of the room, Tony padded quietly down the hall. Just before he reached the stairs he heard a creak from behind them and turned around to see Morgan's head peeking out from her door.

"What are you doing up, Mongoose? Little Stark's are supposed to be asleep, sweetheart."

"Heard Petey get up, Daddy. Is he okay?" Morgan matched her father's still hushed voice.

Tony felt like his heart was melting right then and there. He would never get over how much it meant that his two kids, despite having no blood relationship between them, loved each other so much. "Yeah, baby, he's okay. Just had a bad dream but we're gonna go and help Petey get some sleep again."

His daughter stared up at them, intelligent eyes scanning them for a moment before she disappeared back into her room only to come back a few moments later with her favourite Hulk blanket.

She marched up to the two of them and pulled Tony's shirt, asking him to lean down and he did so, careful not to drop Peter.

"Hi, Petey," she whispered, feeling instantly happy when her brother gave her a small wave. "You can borrow my Brucie blanket. It makes the bad dreams go away."

"Thank you, Morgie." Peter whispered back as Tony took the blanket and wrapped it around the little boy.

Heart feeling like it could literally swell out of his chest because of his sweet children, Tony stood up again. "Thank you, Morgan. Are you okay to go to bed or do you wanna come with Petey and I?"

Morgan shook her head. "I'm okay, Daddy. Take care of Petey? You can dance him like you do with me cuz it makes me sleep really nice?"

"Sure will, Morgs. Go get some sleep, Little Miss."

With a smile, the girl went back to her room and peeked her head out once more. "Night night, Daddy. Night night, Petey."

"Goodnight, Morgan."

Her head ducked away and Tony waited to hear her get under her covers before he continued down to the living room and perched on the edge of the coffee table for a moment.

"Pete? You still awake, Bud?" Peter nodded and Tony shifted him back away from his chest so he could look at his kid's face. "We're gonna choose some music to play quietly okay? You wanna choose or me, Bambino?"

Peter lay back against his chest. "You." It was said quietly but decidedly as well.

"Okay." Tony got up, making sure the Hulk blanket was still wrapped around Peter, and moved to and open spot in front of one of the windows looking out across the lake.

"Fri, can you play Morgan's Tiptoe playlist for me, please?"

Soft music soon filled the air. Song after song playing as Tony held Peter close, shifting and swaying in a dance that you only knew when you held a child in your arms. He swayed and shifted, moving around in patternless circles and lines that had Peter relaxing further and further until he was fast asleep against Tony's shoulder.

Peter slept, but Tony carried on dancing. He felt at peace with the music softly echoing around him as his son in all but blood slumbered restfully in his arms.

---

Having a family hadn't always been in the cards for Tony. The fear of being the father to a young child the way that Howard had been to him… well, it was enough to make him nervous at the thought of having his own family even as much as he desired it.

Tony never wanted to make a child feel unwanted the way that he had been made to feel. He never wanted them to feel that they weren't loved, important, or valued.

If there was ever a time that Tony could have kids of his own, the last thing he would do was make them feel as he had felt growing up.

Any child of his would be loved and cherished with all that Tony had. It was a promise to himself that he would never break.

Standing with Pepper as they watched Morgan and Peter race across the yard towards them, both trying to be the first to hug them, Tony couldn't help but feel as if he had fulfilled the promise to himself.

[itsuki-minamy]

K - SIDE STORY COLLECTION: MISSING KINGS

DISTANT SEA OF DOGS AND CATS (BY SUZUKI SUZU)

* Projects & Chapters

Translation: Naru-kun Raws: Ridia

"Where is this?"

While standing on an isolated island in the sea, Kuro Yatogami muttered in a daze, but Neko was looking away.

The Strain girl whose real name is unknown is Kuro's partner.

However, even if we say that they are friends, they do not always act together. They are followers of the missing "King", they are acting to find Isana Yashiro. Since it is faster to search separately than to act together, the basic position is to decide only the confluence and to search in the Japanese archipelago separately.

However, this time, Neko's idea was to act together.

The idea she had was:

"Since Shiro was swept away by the sea, he must be floating somewhere in the sea!"

In saying that, she had a point. If he was somewhere on earth, it was strange that he hadn't even contacted them. He did not contact them because he cannot contact them. The reason he cannot contact them is because he is still adrift.

Based on that logic, Kuro and Neko set sail from Tokyo Bay. As a speedboat propelled by Kuro lightly traverses the North Pacific Ocean, Neko monitors the west and Kuro monitors the east. "It should be around here!" Faced with the search posture at the place where it was marked by such a plan, you could see how frustrated Kuro was.

Kuro realized that only ten hours after the boat left, the boat was run over by a typhoon that suddenly appeared and was thrown into the sea.

As for Neko, she quickly adapted to the situation.

"I have it!"

A flash of energy, a blow from Neko with the shovel broke the water. Like an unknown fish swimming in the shallow waters they were tossed onto the beach, rippling. Kuro desperately moved his hands, looking at her with a bored look.

Neko thinned her lips as she kicked the water back onto the beach.

"Silly Kurosuke. Don't play around, I'm going to get rid of this thing soon!"

"I'm not playing games! I wonder if we can make a flame!"

Neko bent her neck.

"Huh? Why?"

"To make the rescue signal!"

It seems that Neko had completely forgotten that they were currently in danger. Tired of dealing with an idiot, Kuro went back to trying to light the fire. The fire starter made of driftwood still didn't even have a flame.

At that moment, he heard the sound of a helicopter from a distance.

"......!"

Kuro raised his face. He looked at the black dots, moving slowly across the sky. They were some teaching assistants. However, there were no signs of the flame igniting.

He stood up and shook both arms loudly.

"Hey! Here! Help us!"

"I don't know, but should I tell them that Wagahai is here?"

"That's right! Don't be out of focus, do it too."

"It's easy!

Along with the enthusiastic voice, the sound of a bell ringing was heard.

Immediately, a beckoning cat appeared behind Neko, it was an illusion created by Neko's ability as Strain and the ability to manipulate cognition. He grew up in the blink of an eye and became a giant cat that soared through the clouds. Gold and blue eyes looked at the helicopter and said "Come on." with the hand slightly bent.

"Hey, how about this? Okay?"

"Hey…"

The helicopter heading towards them made a U-turn and disappeared into the sky just as it was, thinking it was confused.

Neko bent her neck.

"Oh?"

"Oh? No! If a ghost cat suddenly appears, I'm sure I'll run away!"

"Nyahahaha, what a coward!"

Neko was not afraid at all and slipped away, and Kuro collapsed on his knees on the beach.

STORIES COLLECTION: "K - MISSING KINGS"

Benefits for theater visitors. (2014.07 / 2015.04)

Explanation:

Theatrical version "K - MISSING KINGS". A short story posted on a bonus card that was distributed to theater visitors on a weekly basis.

"Distant sea of dogs and cats", "Birthday", "Blue that melts in the city of red", "Public stance", it was about the date of the week it was actually distributed. "Mukaebi", "Under the empty sky", "I talk with the late mentor in late summer" first appeared in the attached Blu-ray / DVD booklet "K - MISSING KINGS".

Miyazawa's comment:

The idea was to match the actual time the privilege card was distributed with the date of the story written on the card.

"K - MISSING KINGS" was supervised by Azano-san, and everyone else wrote the part in charge at the same time, which was an irregular style, but in the script, we couldn't understand the postures by ourselves. I remember it was very complicated.

When I saw the movie, Anna was spectacular with the wonderful visuals and direction from GoHands. Especially the scene of the dream that she had was impressive. Even in the preview, the crying leaked out.

[some-dr-writings]

Kokichi and Kiibo x the SHSL Strategist

Kokichi Oma:

·       You were a fascinating case to Kokichi. Despite being called the Super High School Level Strategist, no matter how hard he looked, he saw no sign of your talent anywhere. You never went about doing things in the most efficient way, you seemed to only be average in games like chess or backgammon, you didn’t even seem interested in anything that used much cognitive activity, most daydreaming in class, the teacher having to go to extremes to regain your attention. Your eyes were never focused, always just staring off in the distance at something only you perceived. You were also oblivious of your surroundings, often bumping into things or tripping and falling over. What exactly were you always day dreaming of he wondered.

·       At first he pulled some pranks on you, quickly escalating in intensity, but you never seemed to notice. He soon just started following you. Mimicking your actions, wondering if he could understand you better through this. Well, he learned you walked a lot. You’d often wander off campus, just going wherever your feet lead you. Sometimes you’d find your way onto a construction site and balance along those surprisingly thin beams, other times you’d slip onto a ship, sit on the railing and lean back, looking to the sky or the bridges the boat passed under. When you’d inevitably get caught, you never acted guilty of sneaking aboard, nor did you act like you had no idea where you were, “I just happen to be here.” Was the only explanation you’d ever give.

·       You never spoke much either, you’d only answer questions, and those questions were always met with no response or single sentences.

·       It was so strange it was as if you were here, yet not at the same time. You were aware of your surroundings, and not.

·       Wanting to learn more, he kept following you, wherever you went, no matter how far or downright dangerous the path you tread or how long it had been since either of you last slept or ate. He kept following. You found so many beautiful sights in the most unexpected of places. Some hidden grove in a park, amongst the scaffolding of a draw up bridge, atop the roof of some person’s house, hidden away in an abandoned town where plants had begun to take over, a railway that ran along a lake where the city in the distance appeared to float atop it.

·       One time the pair of you sat atop a tram for a while. Kokichi reflect on his time with you. You had met a lot of people, many were very kind, some not so, but… those kind acts outshone the bad so much. It was rather nice seeing. “Sometimes, you need to be reminded the world is not as bad as others try to make you think.” Kokichi’s gaze snapped to you. For a moment he thought he was hearing things before you turned to him. “Thanks for reminding me of that.” You smiled, holding you hand out to him. “Uh, you know my name, but I never introduced myself. My name, it’s Y/N.” With a beaming smile, and wide sparkling eyes Kokichi took your hand into both of his. “I’m Oma Kokichi!”

·       You began to talk sometimes, mostly little comments about your surroundings. At school you started approaching him, but you’d simply watch mindlessly. “Hey, Y/N, what do you think?” Laying on his bed, crayon in hand he turned to you, presenting his sketch book. You looked to him inquisitively before pointing to yourself. “Yeah silly! Show me your talent! I want to see the ultimate strategist at work!” “… But it won’t be fun anymore.” “Huh?” You pointed to the sketchbook. “If I think, if my head’s not empty, you won’t have fun. Making the plan is fun, but if I think, I’ll get everything done in the best way, there’ll be no surprises or challenges. I’ll forget people are people and not board pieces again.”

·       So that was why…

·       After that Kokichi started asking for your input more and more. He’d keep you up all night, making scheme after scheme together. Eventually you gave in and went all out when planning. You were brilliant, terrifyingly, spine-chillingly so, getting the most amount of victims while using the least amount of materials, even sketching out escape routes. If Kokichi didn’t know any better, he would have thought you were a completely different person with how you so logically chatted away, going through your thinking processes and explaining everything in such detail while still being engaging, but… Kokichi knew you. This was the side of yourself you feared, always trying to run away from. After all, in a world of pure logic, if your mind was always buzzing with how most efficiently to do things, likely, you’d be awfully bored and lonely, you could maybe even do something crazy because of that maddening boredom like destroy the whole world over night.

·       Kokichi would follow your plans, but sometimes, he’d add some twist, not tell you completely what he was planning, and he managed to even catch you off guard a few times and you became his sole victim. You soon took to trying to out smart him, sometimes succeeding, sometimes failing. You were much more present after that. You’d freely speak with others, always so cheerily smiling. Sometimes you overly pragmatic side would seep out, which when left unchecked could scare others and yourself with how little regard you held for others, but you managed to hold it back most of the time.

·       One day during one of your many escapades off the campus you and Kokichi were loving the view sitting atop the bus, that was till some cops spotted you. Kokichi took your hand and the pair of you ran. The pair of you used your surroundings to your advantage and managed to lose then, but your excited laughter kept giving your location away. You only managed to escape when you dashed into a train just as it was leaving the station. You and Kokichi kept giggling to yourselves watching as you sped past the cops. “That was so exciting!” “Yeah, yeah! We should do that again!” “Great idea! My goodness we should have started this long ago! We could have been running all this time instead of just being caught, but I guess the younger me probably wouldn’t have seen the point, but I had no idea this could be so fun!” You looked to him, a light blush spreading on your cheeks as you hesitantly squeezed his hand. “Everything is always so fun and exciting with you. No matter what it is. Heh, heh. At this point I can’t tell if it’s just because you are you or because I have a crush on you.” You chuckled at yourself, finding this situation rather silly, not noticing how Kokichi was a giggling mess, hugging and nuzzling into you. “Aw~ Y/N~ You just made the WORST mistake in your life. You’re stuck with me now! I like you too.”

   Kiibo:

·       You hummed thinking over the question. “Well, Humans as a whole, as a collective are predictable. That’s how I can misdirect people, lead them away so I can be the only person in line and just get my shopping done with. Such predictability is so boring, and sad. The only excitement I can find anymore is interacting with others on an individual basis, learn of their past, see if they’ll open up to me, find out what makes them tick, when in the context of interpersonal relationships, each person is so unique and unpredictable. It’s the only excitement I can find anymore honestly. Connecting with others. It may seem cold, like I only see others as entertainment, but… Hmm, I’m not sure how to explain it any other way. Even if I don’t like a person, I still want to get to know them, who knows, maybe I’ll find some trait in them I could admire, you’ll never know till you try! So, even if I’m more fond of certain individuals, I want to know everyone, and everyone deserves to be treated with decency, you never know what exactly others have been through, it could possibly make their day if you treat them like a fellow human being.”

·       You were a social butterfly, always smiling and friends or were at least on friendly terms with just about everyone. You always were able to read people. You were everyone’s confidant, their best friend. Kiibo was quite impressed with how you were able to keep up with everyone. It did get him to wonder though… Did you like anyone more than the other? Like, say, have a crush on anyone, like how he had a crush on you? You didn’t seem to have a biases towards anyone, but… could you maybe? And that was your answer, the answer of the Super High School Level Strategist.

·       You were so smart, able to manipulate people. You weren’t that great at battle tactics or making plans or at board games, but you absolutely knew how to control the masses. You understood people, their emotions, their thoughts. This fascinated Kiibo, you seemed to be what Kiibo wished he were. He was still learning about people and himself, about emotions and how it could relate too and affected logic. Kiibo was desperate to learn all he could from you, and about you. You seemed to see emotions in a logical way, a way most other people didn’t seem to perceive it as. “Oh, well, a good way to start is to see things from their perspective and position.”

·       It was not often, but when Kiibo got a moment alone with you, he always learned so much and had fun. In the moment he didn’t think of it, but he wondered. Since you treated everyone the same, even those you didn’t like… Was he your friend? Did you, in fact, not like him at all? He certainly liked you, but… he had no idea what you thought of him, at all. And would you even tell him the truth if he asked? Would you lie so you could still be with him and learn more about him? The more he thought about it, he soon realized that he had a crush on the you he had made in his mind, not… not the real you, whoever that was. Then as he thought more on it, he wondered if you were lonely. If you had any real friends. Were you happy like this? You said that connecting with others was the only excitement you had anymore, so what if you weren’t happy, but this was just the best you could find…

·       How were you… the real you, he wondered.

·       And so he had a new resolve to know you. “You connect with others, but what about the other way around? Do others know you?” “Well, people are more inclined to open up if the other does so too.” “But how deep is that connection! Does anyone really know you?” “… What’s gotten you so curious?” You leaned your elbows on your desk, resting your chin on the back of your interlaced fingers. “I want to know you, the mastermind behind the strategist seeking excitement.” Your gaze sharpened, turning to something dark. It wasn’t much, so simple, just the tiniest shift in expression and yet that single look terrified him. You also smiled, a smile practically inviting him with how naturally kind it was. “I’d like to see you try.” There was a light chuckle bubbling up in your voice as you spoke. It was deadly serious and threatening, yet playful.

·       Though slightly confused and scared Kiibo went ahead befriending you again. You wondered what Kiibo would find out. What he would think of you. This was certainly not a development you were expecting, you were curious to see where this would lead.

·       And so this sort of game between you and Kiibo began. And well… Kiibo only fell for you the more and more he got to know you. Nothing about you was fake. You were able to appease others and get to know them while still being honest with yourself. You used your skill set so much without other’s notice, mostly stopping fights before they could even begin. You also acted a little differently with Kiibo than with others. You were a bit colder and more methodical while still having that warmth in your voice. Everything, your entire world, was logical. Every last aspect was like that.

·       It was a bit of a slow process through. Despite being able to so fluidly move through any social situation, you didn’t feed off of it, in fact it drained you being an introvert. You liked people, but you couldn’t stand to be with too many for too long. It was also a very slow process for you to open up. You were blunt and honest, like Kiibo himself, but you didn’t just freely share yourself, a sort of unspoken trust had to be built up before you’d go into more detail.

·       With Kiibo and you spending so much time with one another everyone just sort of assumed the pair of you just started dating. It also certainly didn’t help that Kiibo became a flustered, blushing mess when you were teased about it. “I mean, it only makes sense, ANYONE can see we’re crushing on each other.” “W-w-w-w-wait! Hold on a second! You, you know, and like me too!?” You smiled, leaning over and kissing his forehead. “What do you think?” Your smile only grew as you started to snicker seeing Kiibo’s blush grow.

[anthropwashere]

deadfic: Get Out, Get Gone

Yet more deadfic for @goodintentionswipfest! And also another giftfic I never finished, because that’s just who I am as a person! \o/ 

@ghostfiish did this truly excellent art of Danny’s transformation rings as a galaxy way back when that I promptly lost my whole entire shit over, and also took it as an opportunity to get some kind of manic with the writing style. That, combined with my sort-of accidental, sort-of intentional smashing yet more rad headcanons into it until the whole thing collapsed under its own weight. Still, I remain very fond of this one and what I was trying to do back in 2014, so here we are. 8.7k’s nothing to sneeze at, at least.

Oh, and! While we're at it, have an old Danny playlist I never got around to sharing that fits the mood this fic is going for. Title comes from To Kill a King's "Bloody Shirt (Bastille Remix)," which is unfortunately not included on the Spotify playlist.

=

There’s a weight to you now that wasn’t there before. You’d think with your powers—

(and doesn’t it feel strange to call them that, when you shake and shiver at the sight of your bones under your meat, when you walk down the stairs and your feet don’t touch anything at all)

—you’d weigh less, be less. A thing of smoke, and ectoplasm, and all that awful electricity arcing through your nerves. But that's not what happened. 

You remember that day with a surreal nightmare quality, memories fuzzing and skittering like white noise in your skull. Pain and green light and being so, so certain that had been it. Zap! That’s all she wrote. But it wasn't, and here you are, hovering three inches off the grass and praying no one will see, that no one will know.

You aren’t less for all that’s changed, for all that’s changed in you. Tucker and Sam haven’t said anything about it, and it’s clear they don’t have a clue. Your first—

(disastrous, embarrassing)

—fight against the Lunch Lady knocked you right out. They had to carry you all the way home from school after you failed to stop her. It’s a wonder nobody stopped them, dragging your sorry carcass across town. If either of them had noticed, if either of them could have noticed, they would have told you. Or worse, they wouldn’t have managed to get you home at all.

You noticed it when you changed. Not the first time, in the shadowed, silver throat of the Portal—

(electricity cooking you from the inside out, the Portal writhing, burning, tearing itself into existence, a physical hole ripped so cleanly between realities even your parents don’t understand it and they built the damn framework, boiling ectoplasm splashing on you, over you, inside you, changing you forever)

—but after. Changing back and forth without any control, cringing behind dumpsters and hedges, tossing desperate prayers skyward that nobody had seen the light, that nobody had seen you change from kid to freak. So much of you changes when this strange, alien light stretches across you, not just your clothes and eyes and hair, no, you’re different now down to your cells, down to the very structure of your DNA. You know, you’ve checked. So much of you is different, it’s a wonder you didn’t figure it out sooner.

When you change, you’re heavier. Heavier. Not like ten pounds or something any normal kid might stress over. You become the kind of heavy that leaves brushstroke smears in asphalt, reduces sturdy brick walls to dusty rubble, punches craters through solid ground. It hurts when you fall, god does it hurt. But your bones never shatter. Your guts never liquefy. Your brain never dribbles out your ears. How? How can you possibly survive the beatings every new ghost is so eager to give you? 

Ah, but there's never any time to think about it though, not really. No time for anything but a raw, thready panic and clumsily scrawled homework copied five minutes before the bell. Your chance to tell your parents came and went, and now there’s always another ghost attacking the city.

Mom and Dad are so happy now. You’ve never seen them happier than this, with the stuff of your grade school nightmares on the rampage. It’s proof they aren’t crazy, proof they haven’t wasted their whole lives on a pipe dream, proof that everybody who ever called them quacks were wrong. Good for them, you guess. Meanwhile you’re picking yourself out of the wreckage of another storefront, glass needled all down your spine, and you can’t help but marvel at the damage your body has done. Can do. Will do.

Because you’re stronger, you’re getting stronger every day. The weight in you that your Sam and Tucker don’t—

(can’t)

—notice grows more noticeable, and after a few fights you're quicker, too. And perhaps you're changing still, perhaps the accident isn't done with you yet, because one day there’s sickly green light at your fingertips, and in no time at all you can manipulate the energy buzzing inside you—

(the electricity and hot ectoplasm from the accident screaming through you, out from your palms and striking down the things that used to scare you as a little kid, back when door knobs and faucets were out of reach of your tiny fingers and there was so much dark in your big big house, and now your hands trail light like after images from staring at the sun too long, now you can patch your hurts up by the light of your own blood, now you're learning that you don’t need to be afraid of what hides in the dark anymore)

—in ways you never thought possible. Sure, lots of what you do is learned the hard way, mid-battle against sizzling green things with teeth like hunting knives, running on instinct and adrenaline and terror all tangled up in your throat. Lots more is later, when it’s quiet and safe again, practicing things you’ve seen other ghosts do again and again and again until you can mimic it, improve it, make it yours.

But no ghost you fight has the same heaviness as you do. No improbable weight that defies the logical mass of their ectoplasm. If it’s big, it’s heavy. If it’s small, it’s light. Unexpected logic from creatures that defy logic in every other way. 

There’s a lesson you learn the hard way, testing the strength of these invaders against your bruised and splitting knuckles. You learn caution. You learn restraint. If you punch them hard enough, some ghosts, the little formless ones your parents have captured once or twice now, burst like water balloons—a hard pop of searing green, an overwhelming smell-taste of citrus and hot pennies. Too much of your supernatural strength pressed into the soft hide of a monster and the end result is a glowing puddle where someone used to be. 

You learn this lesson quickly. You learn that even when you’re fighting for your life, you’ve got to hold back. You defend, you protect. Death scares you too much to risk killing—

(is it killing when it’s already dead, where does a ghost go when it dies, is there something more to the Ghost Zone than what you’ve glimpsed with your own eyes or is that it, is that all, have you erased someone from reality forever, these are the questions that make your stomach hurt, that make it hard to breathe, that make it hard to fake a smile when Jazz asks if something’s wrong)

—something so much like yourself. Even if it’s got teeth like hunting knives.

You think you’re an anomaly, a freak, the only one stupid enough to walk into a Ghost Portal and zap yourself full of juice that by rights should have killed you—

(and a little part of you wonders if that isn’t just what happened, if you’re just a dead thing walking around in your body, wearing it like a meatsuit and waiting for the rot to show, but it’s been a month, it’s been months, and you eat more and you sleep less, not because you don’t need it but because there’s never any time, and you’ve grown another inch and there’s new definition to your muscles, and that all must mean you’ll be okay, that you are okay, it has to)

—until Wisconsin. Until Vlad.

He’s in the same boat as you, plus twenty years of experience and enough self-made loneliness to turn him bitter and crazy and dangerous. He wants Dad dead and Mom his, like she’s some kind of carnival prize he can win if he throws his weight around enough. Swing the mallet, hit the bell, and congratulations! The woman you haven't spoken to in twenty years who has made her own life without you is now yours to take home! Ugh.

But god, he can hit hard. Lightning, real lightning, nothing like the weak little zaps of electricity inside you, rattles at his fingertips like a living thing, furious burning strikes of pain, and he knocks you aside like he’s bored. You have a thousand questions, but he won't give you a single answer unless you concede defeat or whatever he wants, so it looks like you’ll just have to beat the answers out of him instead. Who cares if he’s got twenty years on you? He’s not out most nights pummeling wayward ghosts back into the Ghost Zone. He’s not out most days saving people from ghosts with bloodthirsty, power-hungry vendettas. What you lack for in time and experience you make up in rooftop fistfights and stolen first-aid kits. 

Sure you managed to outwit him—

(barely, hardly at all, he just wanted to save face in front of Mom, if he hadn’t cared about that, if he’d just tried overshadowing Mom instead it all could have turned out so differently, and doesn’t that thought make it hard to sleep the first few nights back home)

—but you can’t stop thinking of what it had been like to fight him, of what it was like to see another person do all that you can and so much more. You remember every second of each fight, like it’s been burned across your eyelids. You replay it all every time you blink for days, for weeks. It’s easy as thought to recall the light arcing around his waist as he’d transformed. Just like yours, and yet nothing like yours. The color, sure, that had been the obvious difference. When you change it’s a white light, sharp and searing enough to leave stars in your eyes if you look at it. His transformation—

(black like cave darkness, black like a power outage, black like the vastness between stars, sucking in light like a hungry thing, like it’d swallow you whole if it had had the chance)

—had been like a punch to the gut even before he’d buried his fist in your gut. You’d known without words, known in some primitive bit of brain that still looked up at the night sky and thought magic before science, you had known. You and Vlad were made out of the same mess, but maybe, just maybe, those twenty years were stacked against him.

Trouble is, the transformation is so quick you can’t make much out but the light/non-light of yours and his, and luckily—

(unluckily?)

—he’s all the way in Wisconsin so you don’t have many opportunities for a closer look at his. You ask Sam and Tucker to take pictures and videos, change back and forth so often you almost forget which side of you is which, but the quality is never good enough to see what you know is there—

(but can’t explain, not with words, even though you try for the benefit of your friends because they’re the ones there for you when everything else has gone topsy-turvy, but you’re just a kid who leaks green when dead people hit you too hard, just a kid with bad grades and a lot of questions to evade, and what you’re trying to pinpoint frame by frame is something so beyond your vocabulary you can only shrug, can only say you want to know more about your powers and hope this is one of those white lies nobody catches you in the act of)

—so you stop.

Do you give up? No, but there are more important things to focus on. It isn’t shelving your questions so much as putting them on the backburner. There are ghosts to deal with. Ghosts that want to hurt you, ghosts that want to hurt humans, more and more ghosts with strange and terrifying abilities pouring out from the Portal all the time. Closing the Portal doesn’t slow them any, which doesn’t make any sense to you. Then again, Dad was up to his elbows in most of the Portal’s guts and wiring, so applying logic to any inch of it is pretty pointless. You’ve learned not to ask too many questions about anything with a Fenton sticker slapped on it.

You’re busy now, busy all the time, bruised and burned and even stitched up all the time. Super strength is only so good when you’re fighting things with teeth like hunting knives. But it’s whatever, it’s no big deal, really. Because you’re keeping people safe. You’re learning more about the Ghost Zone and the things that inhabit it. You’re learning more about yourself; your powers, your weaknesses, how quick you can be with a snarky quip. Yeah, your parents are aiming guns and questions at you. Yeah, teachers with red pens and detention slips are hounding after you. And yeah, you’re fourteen years old bare-knuckle fighting monsters and no one ever says thanks because they think you’re just like every other ghost out there or maybe that you’re some human-loving freak—

(and when you think of your life like this, in lists of who wants answers and who wants to see you bleed, it sounds so bad, it sounds like you should be one inch away from a complete breakdown, but is it weird to say you’re happy, is it weird to say you couldn’t imagine your life any other way)

—yet you grin through a mouthful of red-and-green and keep going. Elated? Maybe, sometimes. Scared? Absolutely, sometimes. You’re just a kid with eyes that flare like headlights when somebody’s pissed you off. 

It’s only right to be scared, sometimes.

Still, it’s the weight of you that keeps you grounded, keeps you human when you need to be. Sit in a chair, walk across a bridge, it all makes the same creak under you as it would for Sam and Tucker. But take one of Skulker’s shoulder rockets to the face, you leave a crater in Central Park so big they decide to just turn it into another duck pond. A permanent new addition to the park, and all your face gets is a nasty bruise Dash takes the credit for. You let him, because Lancer overhears. Dash is the one getting detention for once, and there’s a nasty satisfaction to be found there.

You and Jazz share a bathroom, and she’s got a scale she keeps in the towel cupboard. Curious, you take it out one day after school and try to weigh yourself. Last time you checked, you were somewhere near 120, puberty stretching you faster than your appetite can keep up. This time, the numbers whirl past 280 pounds before the scale makes a metallic groan and crumples like tissue paper under your sneakers. Sheer reflex launches you into the air, and you bounce off the ceiling with your knees hugged so tight to your chest you can hear tendons creak, your heart a thundering jackhammer in your chest. Thank god you’re home alone, because you hover there for who-knows how long, too scared the floor will crack under your illogical, impossible weight, too scared you’ll plummet straight down to the hard steel of the lab if you try to stand, too scared you might plummet even further.

When you finally do scrounge up the courage to touch down, an air bubble in the old linoleum crackles under your heel and you damn near jump out of your skin. After that, all you can do is laugh and laugh until your sides hurt. You throw Jazz’s scale out in a dumpster a block away and never tell her what happened to it.

What does this mean? Is the weight of you optional? If you think about it too hard, does it become real? What about when you’re fighting, causing all that property damage the city hates you for? You’re not thinking of the strangeness of your mass during a brawl, you’re thinking in terms of survivability. Punch this hard to win, get punched this hard to lose. What about when you’re thinking about it at school? Why don’t you break your desk, or the floor, or the stairs?

You don’t know. Your parents might be able to figure it out if you told them, but you don’t. Knowing about you, about what you really are—

(a freak, a monster, an accident, an anomaly bleeding out energy with every burst of green light you bury into the spiny hides of other monsters, who knows how long until your white rings burn black, if one day you’ll look in the mirror and be no different than Vlad, not because you didn’t try your hardest but because there was never any biological choice, what kind of choice can a species of two even make)

—would just scare them. It’s easier, keeping them in the dark, even if it means they’re trying to hunt you down and take you apart molecule by molecule any time you’ve got white hair.

But it’s not just flying and invisibility and energy you can summon with a thought—

(ray or bolt or fire, you don’t know what to call your power, you never really did pay attention when your parents got going even before you had to worry about all their blinking tech going nuts around you, but sometimes your green light is cool and wispy and other times it's hot and sizzling, sometimes you know which one will bloom between your fingers and sometimes it’s a surprise, sometimes it’s almost like your body knows what to do in a fight better than you, sometimes it’s easier to stop thinking and just let it happen, to just be the freak that you are, to burn white-hot and damn the consequences)

—you have to worry about. You’re stronger every day, stranger everyday too. You feel a little bit more at ease as a ghost as time goes on. It stops being a strain and starts being an ease, even a comfort, and some days you dread the thought of going to school because a ghost might not attack and you’ll be stuck as a human all day. 

That kind of thinking should worry you, probably. 

But so what? You could sneak into your parents’ lab in the middle of the night and try more tests, more experiments, but really, what would that do? You’re a freak, plain and simple. You and Vlad poked your noses in places you shouldn’t have and paid the price, and that’s that. 

Eventually you get sick of worrying and just let it be. You’re a freak who can walk through walls, disappear, and fly. You’re the freak protecting a town full of people who pretty much hate you. Really, what can you do? The same old same old, that’s what. Try and get a little more sleep outside the classroom, maybe. As for the townsfolk? Well, you can’t always avoid the property damages, but you can at least save a few lives along the way.

People even start to say thank you, even if it’s from a distance, even if they think you're some crazed vigilante ghost, and doesn’t that make this whole superhero thing worth it?

But then of course something has to come along and ruin even that much, ruin this budding chance at gratitude, at finally feeling like a real life superhero. And it isn’t a ghost this time. It’s a human. You hadn't ever considered humans to be dangerous the way a ghost can be.

Freakshow happens, and all that hard work is undone in just a few short days. Days you can’t remember with any clarity, just blurs of color and noise, your hands full of stolen money and no matter how hard you tried you couldn’t let go, you couldn’t stop. Attacking the cops when they pursued, terrorizing any humans that got too close, puppeted by that grinning, painted maniac who treated you and the other ghosts like animals, like slaves—

(minions, he’d called you all, and he didn’t even bother to learn your name before he sunk his fingers into your brain, and you never did find out who any of those other ghosts were, what their names were or who they had been before that crystal ball had pulled them under, and they were gone before there was a chance to even ask)

—and tanked Invis-o-Bill’s reputation to a whole new low. Trashing nearly every car the Amity Park Police Department has and robbing the city blind at the behest of a psychotic ringmaster would have done that even if you’d been considered the hero you try so hard to be. Oh well. At least nobody was hurt in all that, unless you bothered counting Mr. Lancer getting left in the custodial closet for a weekend. You mostly don’t feel guilty about that. Mostly.

Sam says you ought to count yourself too, but you try not to think about any of what happened—

(all that time spent exhausted and hungry, he never let you rest, not once, because ghosts don’t need sleep, ghosts don’t get tired, ghosts don’t need friends, but it’s over, it’s all over now, you don’t have to hear yourself laugh as the little humans scream below, you’ll never have to watch Sam fall and wonder if your body will listen to you in time, you’re yourself again, you’re in control again, everything’s alright, you’re alright, you’re safe, you’re home, you’re yourself again)

—and try to pass yourself off as fine afterwards instead, just confused, just tired, just sorry for everything that’s happened.

For weeks after the police shoved Freakshow into the back of a car, your dreams are red. Not with blood, thank god for that. No, it’s like a filter. A stain. Strawberry candy red, saturated fire engine red, the color Sam said your eyes were when you were under his control. It doesn’t matter if you’re having nightmares—

(more common than you’d like, but you’ve never been one to shout after a bad dream and you don’t intend to start now)

—or regular old brain dump dreams. It doesn’t matter if you’re dreaming of broken bones and monsters or forgetting to study for a test; it’s all filtered through that darkroom shade of red.

What does it mean? You don’t know. You don’t bring it up to Sam or Tucker. They’d just worry, and they worry about you enough as it is. Besides, you’re fine. The Circus Gothica billboard is up for two weeks after Freakshow’s arrest, and it doesn’t do anything to you, not like before. You don’t lose time, you don’t say anything creepy. Your eyes stay blue or green, depending on whether or not there’s a ghost in need of wrangling nearby.

It’s just a weird, harmless after effect, that’s your best conclusion. Then you do your best to stop thinking about it. Who you were under Freakshow’s control wasn’t you. It wasn’t. You tell yourself that until you almost believe it. Eventually, you dreams return to their factory settings. Huzzah.

Meanwhile everywhere you go, people badmouth Invis-o-Bill like they’re getting paid to do it. They call him—

(you)

—thief and monster and dangerous, they call him—

(you)

—a menace and a bad influence on the children. A liar. Traitor. Conspiring with other ghosts to earn the trust of humans to terrorize Amity Park all the better. Kids at school spread awful stories about Invis-o-Bill, say he—

(you)

—was probably the ghost of a troubled teen who got in too deep with bad people and paid the price, and now he—

(you)

—spends his afterlife seeking revenge on humans and ghosts alike. They say a lot of bad things about you, for a while. You try not to pay much attention. You’re getting pretty good at that.

After Freakshow, there’s a lull. That doesn’t mean ghosts don’t stop attacking or causing havoc, it just means that, for a handful of weeks, it’s just the little ones. Hungry animals and disoriented blobs and the Box Ghost. Easy stuff. You actually have time to unwind, time to let the tension bleed from your bones, time to catch up on all your late homework and even squeak your grades up to passable. It’s nice. You’d almost call it relaxing.

Of course, the lulls never last. You know this, you’ve learned this, they made you understand this from your very first—

(disastrous, embarrassing)

—fight with the Lunch Lady. You have one fight with Sam the wrong ghost overhears, and everything that’s happened is wished away. You are wished away. For a couple of days, you never walked into your parents’ ghost portal. You were never torn apart and melted back together by heat and light and pain. You were never Phantom at all. Worse still, you have no memory of your erased past, not so much as the slightest disquiet to niggle in the back of your brain when Sam walks up to your locker and starts going on about imaginary monsters like they're real. 

Sam Manson—

(a stranger, a total stranger, just a bottle-black pretty girl you stare at because you’re fourteen and desperate for a connection you’ve never had and don’t understand, she’s nobody else, she’s nothing else to you but a chance at your first kiss and later you will hate yourself for thinking of her like that, not as a girl because of course she is that, but as a prize you might earn, and who cared if she was crazy because she just might have kissed you for some unfathomable reason, and Sam is so much more than the sum of her body, Sam is worth so much more than that, Sam is worth so much)

—is the vehement Goth girl who's in half your classes and is [unfinished]

=

In those stumbling, halting days of dismissal followed by doubt followed by a desperate curiosity to believe that there might be more to life than growing up and settling for less, that movies haven’t lied and there really is something beyond the disappointment growing up has been for you so far. Sam’s purple mouth is a thin, grim line of—

(worry, guilt, fear, shame, envy, panic, uncertainty)

—complicated emotions you can’t parse as you zip up the jumpsuit your parents got you for your birthday. You’ve never worn it before, the fabric stiff and reluctant to bend at your joints. You don’t know how they’re comfortable wearing theirs all the time [unfinished]

=

Sometimes after a fight wears you out, leaves you bruised and smeared with shining green, you don’t fight the transformation. Not because you can’t, but because it feels good to have that fake pulse vanish, to hear real blood pounding in your ears. The weight of you shifts too, and even though you’re so much weaker when you’re human, it’s easier to sink your fingers into the dirt, to haul your meat out of the mess your ghost left behind, easier to duck out of sight before the news vans and curious bystanders get too close. Nobody ever sees you. Nobody ever puts your bruises and Band-Aids and the trashed Dunkin’ Donuts together. It helps that nobody’s ever heard of a half-ghost, that Vlad was cunning enough to hide his powers. Everybody’s heard of the Wisconsin Ghost, but Wisconsin is a big damn state and unlike you, Vlad and Plasmius hardly look like the same man.

Everybody at school just thinks you’re the football team’s personal punching bag, which is definitely true. Thing is, after spending a couple months fighting ghosts, a gut-punch from a junior is kind of a joke. You’re getting ganged up by a bunch of guys in letter jackets behind the auto shop and you have to mime pain to get them to leave you alone. 

Is this real life? Yup, and it’s hilarious.

Time passes, as it does. You get stronger, faster, heavier. You hone your powers. You stop losing control, mostly. New ghosts terrorize the streets. Old ghosts do too, they’re just smarter about it. They all know who you are by now. Hell, a whole other plane of reality knows your name by this point, knows who Danny Fenton really is. Funny though, none of them ever spill the beans to any humans. What better way to take down the one person standing in their way of world domination or an army of hypnotized teens or whatever they’re trying to score than to oust his secret identity?

You don’t ask. Maybe they haven’t caught on that humans have no idea you’re trying to keep a secret. Maybe there’s some kind of code among ghosts; don’t spill a guy’s weakness, even if you hate his ectoplasm. Maybe especially if you hate his ectoplasm?

You’ve had a couple more run-ins with Vlad too. Each time he changes, transforms, you breath hitches, because you can almost see it. Whatever makes up the both of you, piecing the mystery together through the differences—

(light and dark and it’s cliché as anything, it’s so transparently Star Wars, but maybe there’s something to clichés, because you might be the one wearing mostly black but he’s the one with a sucking core, a void, something more horrific for its absence, like he used to be full of stark white light too but it’s all been burned up and whatever’s left is just playing through the motions, pretending at being something else, who knows what it means but you know that it scares the hell out of you)

—between you and him. He goes on and on about how you’re more like him every day, but he’s wrong. He’s so wrong. You’ll never be like him, and it isn’t just a matter of morals.

What you are, down to the complex disaster of your DNA, is different than what makes up Vlad, and you don’t need to slide a piece of him under a microscope to see that. You thought differently once, but now you know better. A glance is all you need. What you are and what he is, has become—

(powerful yes, but ugly and hating and cruel, the rings that flash at his waist are just shadows reflecting light, trying to hide a black mouth brimming with hungry teeth)

—well, you might as well be different species.

Vlad’s crazy and Vlad’s a jerk, but he is right about one thing. There’s so much about the Ghost Zone you don’t understand, and it’s this ignorance that just might get you—

(or somebody else, and isn’t that an old favorite in the nightmares)

—killed. You don’t know if it was fate or a simple coincidence that your parents were working on the Ecto-Skeleton when Pariah Dark woke up. You’re fourteen years old and you can shoot lasers out of your fingers; you don’t have the wherewithal for philosophical theology. You’re just glad they got it functioning in time to stop the King of All Ghosts from overrunning the city, even if the stupid thing nearly kills you.

You don’t fret much about the Ecto-Skeleton vanishing after you pass out. You do, however, remember Pariah’s nasty grin—

(having that much power, it’s a burden, isn’t it child)

—when you stumbled under the strain. You don’t know if he meant what the suit enabled you to do or if he meant the power in your own two hands. Either way, you remember those words, like they’re branded onto your brain, and you don’t have a choice but to hear it over and over every time you try to sleep. They rang in your head like bells in the days after you’d pushed him back into that sarcophagus, stuck in bed aching and weaker than you’ve ever felt in your life.

Because it is a burden. Everybody hates and fears you, but at the same time they happily expect you to protect them from hordes of skeletal ghosts. Sometimes you panic, so aware of how young you are, of how little comic books and video games have prepared you for a life like this, hiding bruises and spinning bold-face lies to everybody from your parents to the U.S. government. Teenagers are supposed to rebel, sure, but if you ever come clean you’d be thrown in a cell and they’d never, ever let you go. Not just because you’re a criminal—

(and you are, thanks to Freakshow and thanks to dozens of ghosts, and you’ve left an imprint of your tiny, impossibly heavy body all over the city, and you’ve done your best to protect everybody but you leave rubble and shrapnel wherever you go, ambulance sirens wail through the streets every day, and everybody’s just as scared as you are, just as fascinated as you are, and yet so many students and teachers have left Casper High, so many faces you used to see everyday in the hallways have vanished, so many business and restaurants and homes sit empty, gathering dust and graffiti, and it’s your fault, if you hadn’t walked into the Ghost Portal none of this would be happening, none of this would ever have happened at all, and you’re too much of a coward to show your face, to tell anyone but your best friends what kind of a monster you really are)

—but because you can phase through solid objects, you’re considered a monster with less rights than a dog.

Sometimes you wish Sam wasn’t a budding ghost-rights activist. You’d probably have an easier time studying if she didn’t rattle off all these statistics and news articles, stories of government agents in white suits quarantining whole city blocks to purge the ghosts inhabiting them, of ghost attacks stopping all at once in little towns after strange men with guns and knives and felonies like grave robbing and murder slunk through in the night. Ghosts are dangerous, there’s no questioning that. But so are bears. So are people. Just because something is dangerous doesn’t mean it should be destroyed.

Maybe that’s why the ghosts have never spilled your secret. You’ve never tried to kill them. You just want them to leave Amity Park alone. Who knows for sure though? You don’t have the guts to risk asking any of them.

Still, this whole mess is worth it. It is. You can fly, for god’s sake. If you’re careful you could juggle minivans, mimic all your favorite action movies and outdo even the craziest Hollywood stunts. What kid hasn’t dreamed of doing any of that? But you’re not being selfish. You’re not. It’s like Dad says; you can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs. Progress is a disaster when you’re living it, when it isn’t past tense, when it isn’t all tidied up in a few short paragraphs in a high school history book. What’s happening now is worth it, for the future.

If you ever do tell Mom and Dad—

(you’re not afraid of what they’ll think, you’ve never worried about that, not really, they’re your parents before they’re scientists, and any experiment or test would be to ensure your safety and your health, because that’s what parents do, that’s what good people do, and they’re the best people you’ve ever known)

—you know they’d be able to break down your powers into reams of clinical data in no time. They’d figure out how you survived the accident, how your abilities generate and develop in power, maybe even pinpoint the how of your strange, mutable weight. They’d tell you what that light is, when you change, that light that reminds you so strongly of the stars. After all, just because they’re too oblivious to realize their son is the infamous Ghost Kid doesn’t mean they don’t know what they’re doing. They aren’t known as the leading scientists, engineers and weapon smiths in the paranatural fields for nothing. Mom’s practically got more letters after her name than there are in the alphabet, and while Dad may only have a fraction of that he thinks like nobody else out there. Most Fenton tech are his designs, wild and absurd and covered with stickers of his beaming face, and Mom’s the one who works out the bugs with fond exasperation.

Still, they have to get their knowledge from somewhere, and you’ve seen what they do down in the lab to the formless, red-eyed ghosts, the ones too weak to do much more than snarl wetly. Sometimes they snare something bigger and stronger, something fond of curling prickly tendrils around the nearest human and squeezing. More often than not it’s Dad that’s the unlucky one, always so eager to parse the secrets hidden in each fanged little beastie they’ve fished out of the Ghost Zone. He’s got nearly as many as bruises as you do, some weeks, but he’s never happier than when he’s holding a bag of frozen peas to his head.

After a good wrestle with something that wailed and whistled like a boiling kettle, Dad’ll limp up to the kitchen and settle heavily into a chair, grinning and running his mouth nonstop, talking about how much progress they’ve made today—

(wait ‘til the boys over at the GIW hear about that one, he’ll say with a bray of laughter, makes the piddly little Class Threes look darn near cuddly, didn’t it Mads, why Danny you should’ve seen the fangs on this fella, nearly bit through the exam table in one bite, y’oughta come down to the lab more often, Danny, seeing these spooks up close and personal’d be a great way to help you get over that silly fear of ‘em, and there you are, smiling meekly and holding up your hands and making up any excuse you can think of off the top of your head to keep you out of the lab when your parents have all their equipment up and humming, just in case, aw Dad I dunno, I’ve got this essay due, not today Dad I’ve got like six pages of algebra I haven’t even started yet, sorry Dad I’m sleeping over at Tucker’s tonight and his mom insisted I come early for dinner)

—and every time, Mom will smile indulgently, like she’s falling in love with Dad all over again. She’ll push him back into the seat and tell him to quit fidgeting so she can clean up the nasty cut behind his ear, and every time you smile behind your hand and think, how could Vlad ever hope to break your parents up? They only thing they might love more than each other would be you and Jazz and ghosts, and you’re all so much of their lives they can’t help but love you all completely. How they love each other and their kids and the ghosts they’ve studied all their lives, well, that’s like saying they love breathing. They love each other because without each other, they wouldn’t be themselves. It’s sappy as hell and like any kid you hate seeing your parents get all lovey-dovey, but you can’t help that secret smile as you walk out of the kitchen to give them a little privacy.

Seeing Mom and Dad so hard at work, so happy at work, is why you don’t tell them. They think you’re slacking off, they think you’re getting bullied, and they’re worried about you sure, but better they think their son’s lazy than a freak. If they knew what you did, what you could do, if they knew you were the one facing up against ghosts that made the ones they picked apart in their lab look like kittens, if they knew you’d heard all the awful things they want to do to Phantom once they finally nab him—

(you know they wouldn’t say it if they knew you and him were one and the same, you know you know you know, but sometimes you can’t help but be hurt anyway, to see all that fierce dedication focused on seeing whether or not Danny Phantom has bones, and if he does, how much pressure could they withstand before breaking)

—they wouldn’t know what to do or say or think. They’d be so eaten up with guilt, why hadn’t they known, why hadn’t they realized, what if they’d finally gotten a lucky shot in, what if one of all those cruel ghosts had gotten a luck shot in, what if what if what if—

(and you’ve pictured it a hundred times, it’s so easy to imagine the looks on their faces, the horror the shame the fear, and you know they’d love you all the same, you know this like you know the distance between the Sun and every planet, even little Pluto they just declared wasn’t a planet at all, but you’re young and selfish and definitely some kind of stupid because sometimes you can’t help but feel they’d shun you for the freak you are, turn you over to the GIW because they couldn’t bear to look on the thing their son’s become, and you know that couldn’t ever ever ever happen but still, it’s so easy to imagine)

—and you couldn’t do that to them. You won’t do that to them, no matter how many times Sam or Tucker try to convince you otherwise. How it is now, secrets and lies and detention slips and broken curfews, can’t last forever. You know that. But until then, it’ll have to do, and you’ll have to parse all your growing weirdness without all of Mom and Dad’s knowledge or experience, fingers crossed that their ticking and glowing machines won’t reveal your secret before you’re ready to do it yourself.

=

But you’re turning out stranger in ways you can’t even recognize, and for all that Sam and Tucker are by your side to help you as you change and burn brighter and hotter and faster and heavier, they don’t see it either. Jazz is the one who points it out, one day not long after the Spectra… thing, all out of the blue. She’s been noticing lots of things lately, and acting so strange, like she might have pieced it together. But she can’t have, of course not, you’re so careful, you are always so careful. Jazz is just clever, Jazz got all the brains and you got the leftovers. Everybody knows that. Even you know that.

She comes into the kitchen one morning with a curious little spin to her step, craning her head around and around like she’s running late for school and can’t find her keys, but it’s a Saturday. You’re there by the fridge, cobbling together something that might resemble an edible breakfast, moving slow because you’ve got a bruise all down your right side that makes it hurt to do more than breathe shallowly or raise your arm more than a couple inches. You sniff the milk and instantly regret this decision, and while you’re pouring the lumpy mess down the sink Jazz asks if the kitchen’s always been on the second floor.

You stare at her, too tired and baffled to give her the proper what the hell a question like that deserves, but she drags you over to the kitchen door and pushes it open, and since when has there been a door to the kitchen and oh my god the kitchen is on the second floor.

She gapes at you and you gape right back, and the rest of that morning is spent going over every inch of the house and seeing what else has changed compared to your shared memories.

Everything has, in some way or another. Doorknobs have shifted, cupboards have lowered, doors moved from one part of a room to another. Even chairs have changed their heights. There’s a whole new door neither of you can remember ever existing before connecting the upstairs bathroom directly to your room. Thinking back—

(staggering through your open window, mouth thick with the hot penny burn of ectoplasm and blood, your right hand pressed against the throb all down your side, and aren’t you grateful for your weight, your sturdiness, because before you finally peeled the faceguard off of Skulker’s exoskeleton and sucked that little jerk into a Thermos he got a good shot in with a rocket that hit you hard right in the ribs, and if you’d been normal there would have just been a dark wet hole where your torso used to be but lucky you, you’re every inch the creepy little freak Spectra called you, so you get to limp home and clean up as best you can on your own since it’s four in the morning and no way are you gonna wake Sam or Tucker up again, and you have to be quiet, you have to be so quiet, biting down pain, you can’t make a sound or Jazz might hear, grabbing the first-aid kid from your underwear drawer and slipping into the bathroom, and for once the hinges didn’t squeak, thank god, you think, thank god)

—you hadn’t even noticed last night or even this morning that a door had sprung up where there’d just been NASA and Nat Geo posters before. And your windows have moved, and your bed has moved, and you and Jazz just stare and stare. Why had neither of you noticed any of this until now? Why haven’t your parents? How long has this been going on? 

What could cause something like this?

It takes half an hour to convince your mom that something’s off about the house, and even longer to get your dad to grasp what you both are trying to say. Their eyes just keep glazing over the differences, even something as huge as the kitchen being on the wrong floor. Once they finally do see though, it’s a whole other story. After the initial shock, they drop all their experiments and spend the next week measuring and scanning every inch of the house.

Their conclusion, a week and some change later? The Ghost Portal leaks. 

Even with the huge steel door locked up tight, it seems there’s enough residual energy slipping through to warp, literally warp, the house. Somehow. The way your mom’s lips thin as she says all this means she’s not satisfied with this conclusion, but she puts on a wide smile when Jazz asks if you’re all in any danger. A smart question, one you think you might’ve asked yourself. Y’know, if you still needed to worry about something like exposure. Your dad just laughs big and loud and says not to worry about it, says if there were going to be any creepy side effects they would have manifested by now. Everything’s fine, they assure you both, but you look at the crease between your mom’s eyebrows and you wonder.

Later, when they’re out taking readings from the ectoplasm-damp wreck you and the Lunch Lady made of a McDonald’s and Jazz is studying at the library, you creep down to the lab and pull up all their documentation of the house. Most of it is dry as dirt; neatly typed spreadsheets and tidy, color-coded graphs (clearly your mom’s handiwork), but there’s also nearly a gigabyte’s worth of photos. Clicking through them, you can see Dad’s sloppy angles and the occasional square pinkie slipping into the frame. Most of the first hundred photos have been untouched, but the two hundreds have been filtered all to hell, like Mom and Dad went through the house a second time, trying to find something the human eye can’t see. Just shy of 300, the photos turn a dusty black and white, splattered in places with an all-too-familiar starkly glowing green.

No. Not splattered. A few spins of the scroll wheel zooms in on a crooked picture of the kitchen. There’s green all over everything; the fridge, the microwave, the drawers and cupboards, cluttered thickly at the kitchen table. These aren’t splatters. They’re handprints, slapped in layers and layers over themselves, like somebody dipped their hands in neon paint and went to town.

Every photo taken in that black and white filter shows the same thing. Handprints on doorknobs and railings, footprints on tile and carpet, green smeared and stamped everywhere, tracking the movements of something—

(somebody)

—for what must be as long as the Portal’s been active.

Why didn’t Mom and Dad say anything about this? Why haven’t you sensed it? There’s a ghost, an entity, some thing lurking around your house like it has every right to be there! Green gathered on the couch, on every table and sink, even the upstairs shower and your room and—

(the pictures of jazz’s room are nearly clean, the pictures of Mom and Dad’s room are spotless, but your room is practically bathed in green from floor to ceiling, your bed and desk nearly washed out by a poisonous haze, and no wonder Mom had looked so worried and no wonder Dad had laughed so loud, they know something’s wrong with you, they’ve always known you were messed up thanks to the accident but now here’s irrefutable proof, how can you lie your way out of photographic evidence, how can they look at you and not see you for the freak you are)

—oh.

You close the files, power down the computer, and walk quietly out of the lab. That’s… that’s all you can really do. Sooner or later your parents will knock gently on your door and ask you to come downstairs. Just a few tests, they’ll say. It’s for your own good, they’ll say. We’re worried about you, they’ll say.

But they’ll find out. They’ll find out what you are, and it’ll go one of two ways. They’ll either accept you as the freak you are, or hate you for the freak you are. Either way, there will be no more hiding. It’s… it’s almost a relief, to know the other shoe is finally going to drop.

Except it never does.

You wait, quietly, patiently, expectantly. They don’t treat you any different. They never say a word. When they call you down to the lab, it’s just to show off the latest in Fenton ghost hunting technology. Why? Why don’t they ask? Why don’t they administer tests, if not on you than on the house and the Portal? Why does nothing change?

=

They’re wrong on nearly every count, sure, but you’ve got hurts aplenty to hide. Sam and Tucker have seen the lightning splashed across your skin dozens of times by now, and when they hear the A-listers spreading this bad joke of a ghost story and see you laugh, they laugh too. There wasn’t much chance of hiding it for long from them, after all, when it’s so much easier to patch up the nastier cuts when you’re bleeding sluggish ectoplasm instead of blood pumped by a heart full of adrenaline.

The first time Sam had insisted on unzipping your suit to get a good look at the slash on one shoulder, Tucker cracking a half-hearted attempt at a dirty joke with hands shaking so bad the first aid kit rattled like a live thing, they’d both stopped cold. For ten long seconds, they just stared, pinning you down with matching expressions of horror. It was the longest ten seconds of your life. You’d been scared before, of being found out for the freak you are, of being overwhelmed by powerful ghosts, but this, you’re pretty sure, was the first time you were ever terrified.

But then Sam hugged you, and Tucker had smiled and squeezed your good shoulder, and that had been enough. There wasn’t anything to worry about after all.

They understand now why you gasp when your ghost sense goes off—

(shock like plunging feet first into a frozen lake, shock like drowning with a chest full of dead air, shock like electricity buzzing hot and cold and terrible through your nerves, leaving you breathless and tingling, your fists clenched so tight your knuckles burn white, teeth clenched and grinding as you dart for the nearest lonely corner to gather up your heaviness and summon the starlight in your heart)

—and they know why it took you so long to realize you don’t have a heartbeat when you’re a ghost. The first few times you changed, you’d felt it, felt it like a rush of blood flow to a sleeping limb, but it took weeks to put it together. To realize the stinging, cool pulse radiating from your hand to your chest wasn’t your heart but something else altogether. All that star-bright scar tissue pulses. Involuntary, but without any reaction to how much energy you exert. A constant, steady [unfinished]

=

Breathing is optional too, when you’re a ghost. You’d found that one out the hard way, choking on mud in that stupid duck pond and tangled in one of Skulker’s nets.

[waterbearwaltz]

Seed

For @flashfictionfridayofficial | Prompt: Dipped in Silver | Word count: 936

Her dream is about a garden in a glass jar. It’s a dream she’s had again and again. Understandable, for a woman who’s never seen a green thing in her life. But this time the jar sinks slowly into the sand. No, not sand. Bright yellow, with a sharp, chemical scent. 

The autopilot’s alarm buzzes Sai awake, and she shuts it off fast so it doesn’t wake Ru. It’s her turn to keep watch. Dawn has just begun to sink red tendrils into the sky as she checks their pitch and yaw, altitude and fuel. They’ve been flying for about a day. She fully expected to be shot down by now, and yet. For the first time, something rises in her. Not hope, not yet, but something. The acknowledgement that maybe, maybe this could work.

They’re getting close when she finally nudges Ru awake. He’s fully alert at the barest touch of the shoulder. She recognizes this reaction, and it sets her mouth in a grim line. How many times has her survival depended on that same ability to become instantly and completely awake?

“We’re close. Maybe an hour out.” He nods and reaches for water. Another reflex. They have humidity regulation on this plane. It’s why they stole it. But the impulse to reach for water if it’s available is not just about logic. 

He wipes his mouth. “No trouble?” As though he wouldn’t have woken if they’d been shot out of the sky.

She smiles, but there is no humor in it. “Nothing. Guess they didn’t realize what we took until it was too late to catch us.” This is what she wants to believe. What she actually believes is that the bomb they set off was stronger than they’d guessed, and there is no one left to raise the alarm. At least until the authorities finish sorting through the rubble. But saying that would spoil the good mood.

The hollow way Ru laughs, he’s probably thinking the same thing. She touches his face, briefly. His stubble pricks her fingers.

“Take the pit? I want to check the cargo.”

The cargo. The other reason they picked this behemoth. The only boat with stealth tech and a cargo hold big enough for this much silver. She slips into the cavernous belly of the plane and checks barrels for leaks, runs diagnostics on the release mech, sets up the machines that will open barrel after barrel into the sky.

‘Agl’ is printed in bright red letters on the side of every container. Silver iodide. She’s seen it once, the loose powder. Bright yellow, not at all what she’d imagined. A teaspoon more valuable than gold, oil, even water. The closest thing to ice outside of a lab. And they took all of it.

On her way back up, Sai vomits on the walkway overlooking the hull. The force of it brings her to her knees, makes her nose run and her eyes water. She took too long, breathed too many fumes. It doesn’t matter, she only needs a few more hours. It’s not like they were ever getting off this plane anyway. 

Kneeling there, staring down at her own sick, she thinks, inexplicably, about reclamation tech. She learned how to press water out of a corpse when she was 6. Could repair the machines that did it by 8. The Waste takes what it takes, and so must you. The lives of everyone on that base, and god knows how many below them. 

She stands, cleans up the mess, rinses her mouth with a sip from her satchel, and rejoins Ru in the cockpit. 

“Everything’s ready,” she says. Ru eyes her strangely, and she realizes she probably looks like she’s been crying. She is embarrassed that he thinks this, and then decides not to be. She wishes she was a person who would cry right now. He nods at her and it is a question. She nods back. 

“We’re here,” he says, eyes back on the desert. ‘Here’ looks the same as every other stretch of nothing they’ve passed over. But this is the place, the computers say, where a special type of wind wraps the earth. And this wind can carry their silver everywhere. 

“This used to be an ocean,” Ru says very quietly. Sai frowns at the land below them. It just looks like more sand to her. 

“How can you tell?”

“I learned about it at the academy. It used to stretch all the way to the colonies, and east as far as Greater Europa.” His voice catches like he might cry. Maybe he thinks he has permission now. She never knows what to say when he gets like this. All glassy-eyed and romantic over trivia from a world that was gone before their grandparents were born. 

“No wonder you were a terrible soldier.” It’s the only thing she can think of that isn’t unkind, so that's what she says. He laughs, and this time maybe it’s genuine. 

“Are you ready?” he asks, flipping back the safety casing over the release button. This plane was built to drop bombs. Maybe had, in the past. 

The rains, once they start, won’t be the predictable, contained showers wealthier cities pay so handsomely for. This will be cataclysmic. Will remake the endless deserts beneath them. Will, certainly, kill many. Perhaps a great many. And who is she? A jumped-up mechanic, an angry little girl from the Deep Waste, deciding who lives and dies.

“Ready.”

He reaches for the button, but Sai beats him to it. He just got teary over an old map; she will be able to bear this better than he can. He looks annoyed, but she doesn’t care. Slowly, they steer the plane to follow the path of the currents, wind lifting a cloud of yellow haze behind them.