#the suffering never ends for Gir though

[reynaruina]

Do you still make art abt Competent Zim?

if so

PLS MAKE MORE (with gir i want to find out more abt them and dr mem)

its one of meh fav iv AUs beside Merzim and lovebug

(First of all, sorry to everyone who have been tossing asks my way! i've gotten them all, my inbox is just more stuffed than a gimp on a good weekend and it gives me Mad Performance Anxiety. Literally having to have a friend of mine in a corner of the ring here massaging my shounders as I sip on mineral water, to even consider tackling this. Jesus)

There will be more CZ coming, yes!! Very soon, matter of fact!! finished a new comic on stream a bit ago, just leaving it on Patreon first for the ppl there then will bring it here :D And I DEFINITELY wanna touch up more on Membrane and Gir later on!! Especially Mem and his relatiohship w the RoboParents, It's one of my favorite dynamics of this entire AU, just a lil' glimpse of how f'ed up things can get over here :D

[hcneymxxn]

excuse me did you see CANDICE SWANEPOEL hanging around palmwood studios? oh no, that was PERSEPHONE SINCLAIR, the 36 year old ACTRESS who plays ALISON POPPY on SCHITTY'S LAKE. yeah, you know rumour has it they're -IMPULSIVE, and -PARANOID, but their fans all say they’re +OPTIMISTIC  and + METICULOUS. around palmwood studios they’re known as THE POP ICON . ( CISFEMALE, SHE/HER)

when i said i was gonna have self control with characters this time...i lied xoxo. her intro is the same, but i added where she’s been in her absence! for those of you that haven’t met this angel girlie yet - she’s basically inspired by britney spears!

WANTED & TAKEN CONNECTIONS || FILMOGRAPHY & DISCOGRAPHY || PINTEREST

being the first born child of the sinclairs thrust persephone in the spotlight from the moment she was born.

her mother was a prominent talent manager and her father was a music producer, meaning that fame truly was the only option for her. her parents had been insanely controlling, practically forcing persephone to be the star that they always dreamed she’d be.

from the time she was a little girl, persephone was acting. at the age of only two years old, she was cast on an incredibly popular family sitcom (full house vibes) and in between filming for that, was cast in a plethora of disney channel movies and shows, commercials, nickelodeon shows, and eventually went on to star in blockbuster, hit movies.

she was a true child star, not knowing a life outside of hard work or celebrity status and as she got older, she began to get into a bit of trouble.

being exposed to the night life, partying and having anything she wanted at her disposal made it easy for the girl to live a wild life behind the scenes. drugs and alcohol became regular things in her life by the time she was only twelve years old and her parents simply allowed it. if it kept her famous and relevant, they didn’t care.

however, their plans of oscar awards and absolute stardom came to a screeching halt when persephone was just fourteen years old and found herself pregnant by one of her co-stars.

the plan was for her to get an abortion, but her doctor sold the sonogram pictures and her medical records to the tabloids and it was now time for her parents to do some serious damage control.

instead of their original plan, they made persephone keep the pregnancy - which ended up being a twin boy and gir - kaiden and aphrodite, and forced her and the baby daddy to stay together.

as soon as the babies were born, persephone’s parents took control, practically raising the babies themselves and completely managing persephone and the baby daddy’s relationship - painting them as this picture perfect teen couple who defied the odds and were raising their family.

persephone was thrust back into the spotlight, now being forced to start a career as a pop-star, even though she wasn’t exactly an amazing singer. however, her father’s producing skills came in handy - all of her music was completely autotuned and manufactured.

with her mother taking care of her babies, grooming them and raising them to be stars just like they had persephone, persephone was free to continue climbing the hollywood ladder. with the public so focused on her and fascinated by how she juggled it all, she became a pop sensation overnight and by eighteen years old, she had five grammys under her belt and had embarked on multiple international world tours.

at twenty one, she and the father of her children got married, her parents letting them know that it was time and on the covers of magazines, it seemed like persephone had managed to defy the odds and have a picture perfect life.

however, that couldn’t have been further from the truth. persephone suffered with severe post partum depression after the birth of her twins that was never taken care of and was simply given drugs to numb herself and keep her going, she had been forced to return to work and embark on becoming a world famous pop star and didn’t have any power or control in raising her own children - and her husband shared the same frustrations, which caused their relationship to absolutely crumble.

they were divorced by the time persephone was twenty four and when she was twenty five, she had a complete, public mental breakdown. she had been seen leaving nightclubs completely disheveled in the middle of the night, starting fights with paparazzi and anyone who came in her face, and even showed up to one of her shows completely intoxicated and passed out on stage - which was the final straw for her parents, who immediately sent her to rehab.

after spending an entire year in rehab getting herself together, persephone finally had clarity and realized that her parents were at fault for everything that had gone wrong in her life. she took her children, moved to the outskirts of los angeles and lived the next ten years out of the spotlight.

her children were eleven years old, but she was just learning to be a mother. however, she poured her entire heart and soul into making up for the lost time. but of course, the apple didn’t fall too far from the tree. with her children being raised to want to be famous, persephone was always one to support their dreams and managed her children’s careers when they both decided to be actors.

however, she’s a different kind of controlling than her own parents were - she’s controlling in the sense that she’s fiercely protective over her kids and doesn’t want them making the same mistakes she had made, which causes them to argue quite a bit, even though they’re both now 21 year old adults.

after getting them both cast in roles on palmwood studios, persephone was shocked when she was approached by the producers of schitty’s lake and although she swore she’d never step into the spotlight again, she figures maybe this time it’ll be different, because this time, she’s completely in control.

present day:

persephone recently took a two month hiatus after she felt herself close to relapsing. with everything going on with her kids and the drama in her own life, she needed to step back for a minute.

she spent the past few months in tulum, living on the beach, going to yoga classes daily, and working on self care.

now that she’s refreshed, she feels like she’s in a better headspace to step back into the spotlight and the craziness that is hollywood.

she’s loving her role as the over the top and ditzy alison poppy on schitty’s lake and loves being on a set where comedy and making people feel good is the main focus.

[marrys-dream-world]

That recent post you reblogged really sheds some light on what's happened to modern media/fandoms. Their argument, to paraphrase, is "media only writes kind women because they don't want to alienate men. I can't imagine the idea that some people actually want kindness rewarded and cruelty punished on principle, because I personally like mean and cruel people, so I think creators/other fans should worship them as well!" No wonder the ML fandom worships Chloe if morality is based only on "I like."

Is this about this post, anon? Because if it is I just don’t see your point.

The post was about how women tend to be stuck in a box where they have to be non-threatening as possible to the male audience and they end up falling flat because they don’t really have any flaws (or they aren’t well addressed at all). OP wasn’t saying that we should be apologists or anything, just that women should be better written (and, as someone who watches shounen, I agree). Women aren’t allowed to be mean or bitchy because they wouldn’t be a fan favorite. Can you imagine a girl with a personality and background like Bakugou’s in bnha being number one on popularity polls? I’m struggling to. It doesn’t have anything to do with the narrative rewarding cruelty for female characters.

The post was about shounen (and honestly, the only heroine that’s not constantly sexualized and is kinda bitchy and bossy and rude while maintaining their popularity that I can think of is Rukia, my beloved, from Bleach), but since I’m lowkey a ML blog, I’m gonna talk about cartoon exemples:

Helga Pataki from Hey Arnold is a staple for mean, rude, bitchy girls. She’s sympathetic and we understand her, even more after the “Helga on The Couch” episodes, but the narrative rarely excuses her actions. When she popularized a newspaper with fake news? She was punished for it. When she told Arnold off for helping the gang with their problems? She was punished for it. When she stole Arnold’s hat for her weird shrine? She was punished for it. The characters, while tolerating her meanness, don’t shy away from taking revenge when they can or dismissing Helga’s (sometimes) good advice for her attitude. She’s a flawed and deep character and the fans adore her because she’s well-written and compelling.

Gaz from Invader Zim isn’t as much of a main character in her show as Helga is in hers, but god, is she a fan favorite. She is mean and stoic and a bit sadistic and none of that detracts from her character. Sure, she’s from Invader Zim from all shows, being unusually mean is a given, but I do appreciate how for all the characters to soften up the grim dark atmosphere of the show (and still fitting very well in it), they didn’t go with making the girl a sweet character, they went with Gir, the robot dog. Even in Florpus, where her character is a little nicer, she’s still very mean and I like it! Sure, she’s never punished for being mean, but who actually is in Invader Zim? No double standards here, at least. (Also, Game Slave 2 slaps, one of the best episodes from the show).

Even Chloé herself! I like that she’s mean and spoiled and annoying, I like her arc in the show and her relationship with other people. The only thing I don’t like is people acting like she’s way less mean than she is or that her actions were not as serious as they were. Nobody cares if you like a mean character, just own it up and when people say “oh, but they are-” just answer with a “I know that, I don’t think they’re right, I just like the character”. I like Lila as a character too and you don’t see me going around defending her actions.

I can even apply the part of the post where they talk about the hype around characters with zero personality to the ML fandom while setting the girls aside. You-know-who barely has any well developed personality before season 4 and is praised for being a great character and superior love interest. Kagami, meanwhile, gets bashed for breathing. I do think that part of it relates to what I was talking about in the above: Kagami isn’t “bitchy” nor “mean”, but she’s blunt and her personality isn’t as accommodating as, say, Rose or Marinette. She’s a bit stoic and has a hard time connecting with people and comes off as rude at times, but is overall a wonderful girl and people still bash her for things like “Frozer” and “Oni-chan” (even though she was akumatized) and, more recently, “Lies”. Ask me if Luka got half that flack for “Wishmaker”.

(Plus, there were a lot of Félix apologists around even though he tried to assault our protagonist but it’s fine because “Chat Noir does it all the time” (?????) and “Félix is not that bad, he’s suffering too.” I’m not joking, the lengths people will go for white male characters while villainizing girls of color, like Alya and Kagami, still astounds me.)

So yeah, anon, I think you got the post’s message a little mixed up.

[spyroforlife]

Oh no I wrote a full thing based on this post I did a while back haha enjoy some fluff that got more emotional than I expected

- - -

Dib was already ranting as he walked into Zim's base, shrugging out of his coat and tossing it onto a table as he crossed to the couch. “-got like three projects due within the week and end of the year tests coming up and Dad still keeps trying to get me to intern at his lab every weekend...”

“Did I fucking ask?” Zim snapped, looking up from his tablet with a scowl.

Dib just invited himself right onto the couch, flopping down and continuing to complain, “And don't even get me started on Dad nagging me about college...” He pulled his boots off and dropped them carelessly on the floor. Only when he had done that did he finally acknowledge the death glare Zim was giving him. “Call me pathetic if you want, but your place is about the only place I can go to get away from things for a while.”

“It's not my fault you decided to sign up for all AP classes for your last semester of high school,” Zim said, rolling his eyes. “Don't you fledgling humans try to take it easy during your very last year of adolescent schooling?”

“Most people do, yeah. But apparently I'm supposed to have 'higher standards' for myself.” Dib did finger quotes. “Whatever, at least it's almost done.”

“Right. Now if you don't mind, I'm working.”

Dib moved over to try and looked at his tablet, and got a boot in the face for his efforts. Zim hissed at him and Dib grabbed his ankle, shoving his foot aside. “What are you working on, huh? Let me see.”

“Get away from me, hair beast!”

They spent a few seconds wrestling for the tablet, Dib trying to grab for Zim's wrists while Zim kicked at his face and chest. Dib's superior height gave him quite the reach advantage, but Zim wasn't afraid to fight dirty. But Zim quickly noticed that Dib didn't seem to have as much energy as usual, and moments later his suspicions were confirmed as Dib yawned and took a lazy swipe for the tablet that Zim easily avoided.

“Ugh, I don't even care, your plans suck anyway...”

“What? Say that a little louder, you insolent piece of-” Zim's antennae perked as Dib slumped against him, body falling limp. “Eh? Dib-stink?” He prodded Dib's forehead and leaned him back, then realized his eyes were closed. He fell asleep?! That, or passed out. “Dib?”

There was no answer. Zim squinted in confusion, dropping an antenna to hover it next to Dib's nose. He felt air and confirmed that he was still breathing.

“You humans are so weak and pathetic,” Zim sighed, pushing Dib off himself and moving away. He looked back at his tablet, scrolling through the plan he was working on. But he kept stealing glances at his foe, expecting him to wake up any moment now, loudly huffing and making comments about humans having zero energy. And still, Dib slept.

Honestly, it was sad. Zim enjoyed their rivalry, he used to find it annoying but now he looked forward to matching wits and might with the human. He greatly respected him as an enemy and even trusted him as a friend. Well, kind of. It was complicated, but Zim did know he could rely on Dib to help him when he had no other options, and he liked spending time with the other. They've had many deep discussions in recent years and it was pleasant spending time with another intellectual. Not that Zim would ever admit that out loud.

So, rather than feel glad that Dib was quiet and nonthreatening right now, Zim found himself feeling disappointed. That hadn't been much of a fight. Nowhere near as glorious as their battles usually were. They needed to settle it properly. And to do that, Dib would need to be properly rested.

Zim set his tablet aside and picked up the remote to lower the volume on the TV. It was getting dark outside, so he asked Computer to dim the lights in the living room. Once that was done, Zim shifted closer to Dib, examining him curiously. The human looked rather peaceful, his expression calm and without the stress he so often carried these days. Zim carefully took his glasses off and put them aside, then kept gazing at his face. It was strange that Dib would leave himself vulnerable like this. But then, he didn't seem to fall asleep by choice. He really was that exhausted.

Zim's gaze traveled further. The other was laying on his side, curled up a bit, knees pulled up against his chest and head resting on an arm. It was almost... cute.

Zim growled at himself and tore his eyes away. He was not going to entertain that line of thought anymore. Of course Dib wasn't cute. He was a gross, primitive alien that was going to belong to the Irken Empire one day. Zim might even force him to be his personal slave as payback for all the trouble he's caused him. Sure, Dib was tall, and smart, and he had that delightful sharpness to his eyes and a sort of weird quirk to the corner of his lip when he smiled that was positively delightful and-

And Zim forcibly derailed that train of thought and tried to ignore how his face grew warm and tingly.

Dib groaned and shifted around, and Zim saw him shift his head off his arm, though he continued sleeping. He looked uncomfortable though, his head tilted at an odd angle. Humans generally slept with pillows. Perhaps they needed their heads elevated while sleeping, Zim reasoned. He debated over what to do next, he could easily just grab Dib's coat and fold that up to put under his head, or he could let Dib rest against him...

He sighed and added this to the long list of things his enemy would have to suffer for, and moved closer, pulling Dib's head up onto his lap. He looked ahead at the quiet TV, mumbling to himself about all the shortcomings of humanity. His attempt to distract himself from the awkward situation failed. The show was boring and his mind wandered to how nice it was having the other's weight on him, his warmth seeping through Zim's clothes, and when Zim let his right hand rest on Dib's shoulder, he felt the other gently shift in closer to him, body curling up even more.

Zim's face grew warmer and he asked himself why he was doing this. Yes, of course he wanted his enemy well-rested so they could continue fighting, but... why was he doing this specifically? Why was he letting Dib lay on him rather than just walk away and wait? What did he gain?

Comfort, a small voice whispered. This was comforting. It was domestic and tender and... it made his heart ache but felt good at the same time. He shouldn't like this. Invaders worked alone. He was trained to be a single cog in the huge machine of the Irken Empire. His loyalty was to his Tallest alone. Irken soldiers were not supposed to desire companionship. It was an unspoken taboo.

Yet here he was. On a distant, unremarkable planet an entire galaxy away from his own. Sitting on the couch with an alien creature curled up next to him, asleep and trusting. And it was nice. It felt right.

“You're pathetic,” Zim whispered to himself. He could be honest with himself when no one was around to hear. “It was bad enough when you grew attached to GIR, and to Computer and Minimoose... and now you're attached to him? Your enemy? Why? What is it about him? You shouldn't be doing this. You need to shove him off. Tell him to go sleep at home and challenge you in the morning once he's suitably recharged. Just... just push him away. Right now.”

But he didn't. He stayed there, listening to Dib's steady breathing, even starting to rub slowly along the other's shoulder. His hand slipped down past where Dib's sleeve ended, fingers glancing over skin. Dib twitched but didn't wake up, and Zim figured the feel of his glove must have surprised the other. It probably was a little cool.

Zim lifted his hand and tugged the glove off, setting it down and moving his hand back to Dib's arm. He reached out slowly, at first only letting the very pads of his fingers touch the other before pulling away. As soon as he did, he registered the warmth of Dib's skin and the softness of it. Zim moved his hand back, now resting it fully on Dib, and he closed his eyes as he savored the human's body heat. How were they so warm? Of course he had studied human vital signs and knew what their internal temperature was, but to think they were so warm even on their skin like this...

Zim's internal argument continued to rage. This was unacceptable. He was out of uniform for one, but also, his hands were sensitive and he was opening himself up to injury or disease by touching an alien lifeform without a glove!

“Disgusting, putrid, inferior creature,” he murmured as he slowly began petting Dib's arm. “How dare you give me these feelings. I shouldn't be doing this. I shouldn't want to do this. I should throw you out the door right now.”

Dib slept on, peacefully unaware. Zim curiously moved his hand up, drifting his fingers against Dib's hair instead. He covered his mouth to muffle the shocked noise that escaped him. It was even softer than the skin! Well, perhaps it was a little messy, matted in places and definitely could be washed more often... but he still found himself fascinated with the texture, running his fingers through it over and over again. He's grabbed Dib by the hair before, yanked him around, or just ruffled it to tease him. But that was always with his gloves on. He never realized just how soft the other's hair was until now.

He decided to just stop arguing with himself. His feelings right now were new and confusing and he just didn't want to deal with it. He was going to stay in the moment, enjoying the feel of Dib's hair between his fingers and the warmth against his body, and let himself be content.

Several minutes passed. Zim relaxed more and more as he got used to this, leaning back and smiling when he felt Dib move a hand to his leg and just hold onto it, apparently enjoying their newfound peace just as much. Humans sure did move a lot during their sleep cycles, didn't they? But then he felt Dib's breathing slow further, and his antennae picked up the other's heart rate going down. Not by much, but it was notable. These were the signs of deep sleep, Zim had learned back when he first arrived. It was fascinating watching it happen naturally and not due to him drugging a human into sleep to watch the entire process on monitors. Entirely for scientific purposes of course.

This was when humans began dreaming, he knew. He wondered what Dib would dream about. Probably something weird. Dib was very imaginative and his many encounters with the supernatural probably led to some vivid dreams. Maybe Zim will ask him when he wakes up.

To Zim's surprise, Dib thrashed slightly, baring his teeth for a moment and groaning. His fingers dug against Zim's leg.

“What's wrong?” Zim asked.

Dib shook, muttering something that didn't seem to be English. It was just a garbled phrase that likely made sense only in his dream. Zim frowned. Was Dib having a nightmare? Why would he not just wake up from it, then? That's what the humans in the shows seemed to do, they would just scare themselves awake from their nightmares.

Maybe it was more difficult in real life. Should Zim wake him up then? Whatever he was seeing must be really distressing him, based on the tremors going down his back and the way he nervously kneaded at Zim's leg. Then again, if Zim woke him now, he might just get punched in the face. He's woken Dib up a few times before and the reaction was usually violent.

Zim chewed his lip as he tried to decide what to do, and while Dib's movements slowed, he kept shaking, whimpering now. Zim sighed and resumed stroking his hair, using long, slow passes that went partway down his neck before going back up to the top of his head. As he did, he began singing softly. It was an old irken lullaby that never quite went away over the generations, even as natural births declined and test tube smeets became the norm. The comforting melody persisted no matter how society changed and even now was used among friends and loved ones to soothe their worries. Zim had always liked the song but never imagined he would ever use it. But the words came easily to him nonetheless, and though Dib couldn't possibly understand the lyrics, he relaxed in response to the tune, his shaking slowing and then stopping altogether. He stopped whimpering as well, instead seeming to hum for a couple notes before falling silent.

“That's it,” Zim whispered, leaning forward and seeing that Dib's expression was peaceful again. “Those nightmares aren't real. You're safe.” He leaned back and continuing singing, closing his eyes as he did. He felt a little silly, but at least Dib could finish resting. And they could keep fighting. Because that's why he was doing this. To get Dib back into fighting shape. Yep.

It was about thirty minutes later when Dib woke up. He woke up slowly, feeling so warm and comfortable he almost didn't want to get up. Then he felt someone stroking his hair with slender fingers and heard a familiar voice singing above him.

He kept his eyes closed as he rushed to piece together where he was and what was happening. He had gone over to Zim's base to hang out just to get away from his own house for a bit. He had playfully fought with him for a while... he remembered being really tired the whole time. He must have fallen asleep.

He realized those were Zim's fingers running through his hair, unbelievably gentle and comforting. And that was Zim's voice singing in a tone softer than Dib has ever heard him use. He recognized the words as irken, and though he didn't understand them, he somehow just knew it was a lullaby. He's heard Zim swear at him before in irken, or mutter to himself, and it always seemed so harsh, but this was different. The lyrics were pronounced with trills, chirps, and purrs. He never expected to hear something so sweet from Zim. Who knew he could sing like that?

As he woke up more fully, his brain started going a thousand miles an hour. Why was Zim holding him and singing a lullaby to him? Sure, things have been better between them in recent years, but they were still enemies. Zim could have done any number of terrible things as soon as he fell asleep. He could have thrown him outside. He could have attacked him, or taken him into his lab to experiment on, he could even have seized the chance and killed him! But he didn't do any of that. They were still on the couch from what he could feel, his head was in Zim's lap, and the other's bare hand was playing with his hair.

Something about it really got to him and he found himself feeling emotional, chest tightening. He wondered if it was because he liked Zim, or if it was just that he was so lonely he would take any affectionate touch right now. Maybe it was a mix of both. He felt so safe here with the other, Zim's attention was bizarre yet very wanted and Dib found himself thinking that this was what love felt like.

And it was time to nip that in the bud. Ignoring that happy warmth in his chest, Dib opened his eyes and pushed himself up, pulling away from Zim with what he hoped was a convincing scowl. “Oh ew, I fell asleep on you? I'm out of here, I need to make sure you didn't take any of my organs.” He jumped up and Zim growled, getting to his feet as well.

Dib was partway to the door before realizing his glasses were missing and he still needed to put his boots and coat on.

“Forgetting something?” Zim asked, holding the glasses by an earpiece and giving it a wave.

Dib turned and went to grab them from him, sliding them on and then rushing through putting on his boots and coat, all while Zim teased him.

“Haha, so pathetic that you fell asleep mid battle, but now we can continue!”

“We could... or I could just go home, your lullaby really helped get rid of my stress. Thanks for that!” Dib grinned and ran for the door, swinging it open.

“Wha- hey! What lullaby?” Zim shouted. When Dib ran outside, Zim let out an irken swear and chased after him, hastily pulling his glove back on. “Get back here and fight me!”

“You gotta catch me first, bug!” Dib called over his shoulder. He couldn't help but laugh at the way the other glared at him. “And you might wanna put on your disguise if you're going to follow me.”

Zim let out a yelp and quickly ran back into the house to get his disguise. When he ran back after Dib, he was laughing, and Dib laughed too. “You're going to suffer greatly when I catch you, Earth-filth!”

“If you catch me, cicada!”

Dib may not know exactly why Zim chose to hold him throughout his nap and sing to him, but he felt like in some small way, they had bonded just a little more while he slept. And judging from the way Zim was smiling at him, he felt the same.

[judestclare]

。· . ˙ ♪  ⌈ kristine froseth + cis female + she / her + solo g + clairo ⌋  have you heard ?  judith “jude” st. clare got signed by disclosure records two years ago ? they’re talented don’t get me wrong but i can’t believe it , they’re only twenty-two years old & some people go all their lives without making it , what makes them special ?  it’ll be interesting to see if the fame & success go to their head because i hear they can be quite careless , pliant & disloyal . but that could only be the rumours because i’ve also heard they’re gregarious , free-spirited & warm hearted . i guess only time will tell .  

     &.     hiii everyone !    i’m meredith, i’m nineteen, i use they/them and she/her pronouns. some more fun facts: i’m a libra, i’m from the est timezone, and really excited to be here !   under the cut you’ll find some #funfacts about the woman , the myth , the legend herself, jude st. clare !  

quick facts:

name: judith victoria st. clare

nicknames: jude — do not call her judith, she hates it

age: twenty-two

date of birth: january 20th, 1998

zodiac: aquarius sun, libra moon ( read here )

gender: cis female ( she/her )

sexuality: bisexual 

positive traits: open-minded, caring, fun-loving, free-spirited, warm-hearted, creative, adventurous, friendly, gentle, gregarious, bubbly

neutral traits: talkative, party animal, reticent, extroverted

negative traits: flighty, careless, disloyal, lazy, dishonest, flippant, easily manipulated/pliant, loud, facetious, unconfident, silly

tv tropes: plucky girl, hard-drinking party girl, the face, good bad girl

mbti: esfp, the campaigner ( curious, energetic, enthusiastic, good communicators, know how to relax, popular and friendly / overthinks things, too emotional, too independent, unfocused, little practical skills  ) 

background: 

jude was born and raised under the ever biblical name of judith in a tiny town in the midwestern united states to a religious family. growing up, her highest aspirations were winning a prize for best chocolate chip cookies at her church’s potluck. matching mary janes with her sisters and dresses with carefully picked cardigans took up the majority of her her wardrobe, and she could recite bible verses along with her times tables.

as teenage years hit, however, the spirit of rebellion was lit in jude. forcing friends and family to call her the much shorter, and in her opinion, much better jude. sneaking makeup in and herself out of picturesque suburban home, many nights were spent at house parties, doing beer pong inside, or smoking cigarettes or a joint outside. style never went full alternative — but baggy sweatshirts and ripped jeans replaced the uniform of sundresses.

two things that never suffered: her bubbly personality, and her affinity for bubblegum lipgloss. even as she tore away from weekly church attendance and skipped school more and more, jude still greeted all former churchgoers, classmates, and teachers in the grocery store with a beaming smile and a knack for remembering details — hi, ms. dawson. how’s little johnny? he’s two now, right? or i heard you were thinking about starting your own bait and tackle shop by the lake, mr. smith. i think you should do it. remember that bass you caught? you’re a natural! she had very little common sense, and didn’t do too well in school — but she always knew what to say and how to say it. she charming and friendly and fun to be around.

thus, jude’s rebellion was more so of the wannabe variety: in such a small town, everyone knew everyone, and everyone knew what she was doing. her parents mostly just waited for her to tire herself out — only it never happened. she dialed back on thick eyeliner, and still sometimes would show up to church on holidays to sing in the choir, but mostly, small town convention and religion were abandoned by the time she was in her mid-teens. 

eventually, she came out to her parents as bisexual, and it was a non-issue — despite religious background, her parents supported her 100%, no matter what clothes she wore, who she hung out with, or who she loved.

jude never graduated high school. by her sixteenth birthday, her attendance record was so spotty that they stopped calling home to let her parents know she hadn’t shown up to school that day — and a few weeks before she turned seventeen, after many screaming matches with her parents and sessions with the school counselor and principal, jude officially dropped out. 

she wasn’t going to sit around the house all day, however, instead driving her clunky car across town to the movie theatre every day, where she worked part time. she remained friends with all the people her age in town still, and made new ones at the theatre. however happy she was, jude was aimless. she knew she had to do something. finally, she turned a passion into a full time hobby, something she never thought would be lucrative. 

by seventeen, that knack for singing in the choir had been translated to covers posted with the gentle strumming of a guitar and manufactured beats. by nineteen, she was writing her own songs and gaining traction on youtube and soundcloud, and two weeks before her twentieth birthday, jude was signed to disclosure records and being flown to manchester. it was hard work, and it took years, but it still feels like a whirlwind to her — one moment she’s in her bedroom, playing bars in her local areas at open mic nights and upaid gigs, and the next she’s signed to the disclosure records. it’s a dream. 

tl;dr — jude is a flighty, fun high school dropout raised in small town middle america by a religious family. she grew into herself and was able to “rebel” despite her sheltered upbringing, and that unique sense of self + her musical talent got her a youtube following from the covers and songs she posted. that youtube following turned into a contract with disclosure two years ago, and she’s been in manchester ever since. 

career: 

a successful album and a successful tour behind her, the not-so-indie anymore lofi pop starlet is on the brink of even bigger fame, though she has a loyal following as she stands. she’s nowhere near super-fame — but she gets recognized in public, and that’s enough to give her the flutters in her stomach that she’s going to make it even bigger.

a regular social butterfly, jude regularly interacts with fans: instagram lives of acoustic covers from her apartment, constant posts to her stories. while her image isn’t exactly not genuine, it’s very curated: she’s careful what she reveals about herself, and the image she’s trying to maintain.

personality: 

image is not a thing, however, in jude’s personal life. still a party girl at heart, she’s down for anything once ... or twice ... or maybe a third time. she’ll say yes to almost anything, and a distinct — though never malicious — lack of loyalty keeps her unbound by romantic relationships or extremely close friendships. she’s friends with everyone, as she’ll tell you, and she has no problem at all with hookups, consistent or one night only.

in spite of this, she develops crushes at the drop of a hat, and will always be there to help someone else out ...  but don’t expect her to keep the same enemies, or to lose her forgiving heart.

jude isn’t dumb, and is pretty much a memorizing machine ( though not eidetic ), can be a little silly or ditzy, especially with sheltered upbringing and big heart. she’s not against being a shoulder to cry on, but when it comes to matters of her own heart, she’s as recticent as can be, never taking much seriously. as a mean youtube comment about her once said: that girl’s got about much depth as a kiddy pool. it wasn’t true, but it’s how she can come off.

drug tw / she drinks pretty consistently, and smokes weed even more so, though she’s not been known to deny any trying harder party drugs, however less consistent she is with it. she hasn’t a problem yet, but she doesn’t seem to be straying from the path that leads her there. if she ever encroaches in on one, jude wouldn’t be able to tell: she’s too busy having fun.

she’s a genuinely kind, caring person ... but jude is a little gullible, and trusts very easily. in spite of her affinity for friendship and relationship hopping, it’d be easy to convince her just about anything is true, or to do whatever bidding was necessary. say the right things at the right time, and jude will be wrapped around your finger. she doesn’t follow directions from authority terribly well, but friends ... that’s a different story.

above all : jude wants to be cool, fun, and liked. she’s a little desperate for attention and affection, and has inconsistent ideals about what’s good for her and the people around her. her self esteem is a lot lower than she makes it seem. 

wanted connections: 

party friends / drinking buddies: if anyone is as into getting drunk and dancing as she is, then call her up and get ready to go. she promises she can beat you in shots.

smoke buddies: a more chill version of the former, if anyone wants to sit around and have a songwriting session or just vibe.

friends: any kind of squad. she’s not the type to have besties, but if you consider her a friend, she’ll latch onto you whenever she gets the chance. 

hookups / fwbs: what it says on the tin, jude is down for anything and anyone (1/?)

crush: jude is very flighty and tends to have feelings come in like a hurricane, with the potential for them to leave just as quickly — this person would have jude wrapped around their finger.

unrequited: basically the opposite — someone likes jude, she’s a #dummy who doesn’t realize it and leads them on because she’s flirty with everyone and would probably also make out with anyone

enemies: jude doesn’t make many of these, but if someone is annoyed by her and lets her know it ... well, she’ll do everything in her power to make them even more annoyed. if you can’t make them like you, make them hate you even more.

tentative friend: on the opposite end of things, this person doesn’t vibe with jude but she’s half-oblivious to it, and is desperately trying to make them like her 

manipulator: jude LOVES attention, so if anyone needs any evil bidding or shit stirring done, just pay her some. she’d make an excellent lackey. 

anything else! seriously! just let me know what you want and we can brainstorm <3

[zghostreviews]

Review of Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt(2010)

Summary: PASWG is an anime centered around these two angels, Panty and Stocking Anarchy, and a priest named Garterbelt. The dilemma the Anarchy sisters face is that....well....they were kicked out of heaven because 1. Panty is horny on main, and 2. Stocking is an extreme glutton. They land in Daten City, where they are presented with the task of exterminating spirits. The spirits drop heaven coins when killed, so the Anarchy sisters have to collect a certain amount of these heaven coins so they can get back to heaven. Oh, and there’s also stripping scenes every time they transform, so this had the repressed baby gay in me panicking the first time I saw it.

Now onto the review!

How the fuck did I find an anime like this??/

Well at the time, PASWG was still fairly new. I think I discovered it, not long after the release. From what I remember I came across the “DIETO!?!?” scene at the time where it had essentially become of meme status. After this I came across more scenes from the show and 10 yo me was basically like, “I GOTTA watch this”. So I did, through YouTube once more ‘cause I was an OG anime watcher, we all had to watch anime episodes in parts back then.

----------------

Japanese vs English dub

Ight I’m doing this early this time, since it’s kinda essential with this sort of anime. 

Japanese dub pros

-You get the memes, and the full phrase said when the demon sisters transform, and that’s about it

-RRRRRRRRRRules!

cons

-When watching the japanese dub, most of the jokes WILL fly over your head because you’re either focusing on reading the subtitles, and because many places have a different sort of humor from each other.

I first watched this in japanese with eng. subs, I didn’t quite get the jokes at all, not just because I was still a child, but because it just wasn’t funny to me. After 3 episodes I switched over to the english dub, I found that shit funny as FUCK. At one point that shit had me W H E E Z I N G.

I suggest watching the anime in your native language since it’s less likely the jokes will fall flat, and because verbal jokes, to me, didn’t translate well at all too well. Eventually, I did watch the anime in both languages, but here, the english dub was superior, and that’s coming from someone who usually NEVER watches english dubs.

--------------------

Characters

7/10

Honestly, the only one I didn’t really like was Briefs, he literally was just simping for Panty the entire time until Panty found out he was attractive and decided to fuck him literally. At the end of the anime, he was apparently essential because his dick in particular was the literal key to heaven....for some reason....

Aside from that, I fucking LOVED the demon sisters, both because they were hot, and because I liked their character. My brain even now is immediately just like: Demon girls.....HOT, when I look at them. I specifically love Kneesocks out of all the characters tho for multiple reasons....speaking of Kneesocks, she was also ranked #2 as a fan favorite at the time this anime was released.

Before the demon sisters made their appearance though......Stocking was my favorite, she was just WAY too relatable. She was the original big tittied goth girl everyone wanted to date. Also her popularity prolly heightened even more with how Gainax decided to end the series.

Panty is a bitch sometimes but I like her, though if she were a human and not an angel, she would DEFINITELY have every fucking STD in the world tbh.

Garterbelt......is a very questionable dude to put things mildly....

Chuck is chuck. I like Chuck. 10/10 best dog. Reminds me of Gir from Invader Zim, pretty sure he’s based of Gir tho.

The ghost things, I still liked them more them Breif...well....except for the vomit ghost and the shit ghost after all. That shit was gross, no pun intended.

-------------

Music

10/10 

Music like the Anarchy sisters’ “Fly Away” transformation theme, and Demon sisters’ “I want You” transformation theme and “D. City Rock” was done by Teddyloid! You may recognize his name for he did the music for the anime music video, ME!ME!ME!

-----------

The Ending

What the fuck was that?/10

Seriously Gainax, what? What the fuck did you leave us on a cliffhanger for??? Just to make us suffer???? Nobody asked for that, and now y’all have been making us wait for a season 2 for more than a decade. :(

At least there’s a PASWG cafe....even tho most of us can’t go to it ‘cause we’re too poor to be able to go to and from Japan.

--------------

Is it worth watching even with the cliffhanger?

Hell yes! This anime is a classic! Now would be the best time to watch it too since we’re all isolated rn! There’s only 12 episodes (excluding OVAs of course), this is probably the funniest shit I’d ever seen in terms of vulgar humor, the 1st 2-3 episodes are rocky at first but I promise it will grow on you in such a weird way.

Plus if Gainax does decide to revive it sooner or later, at least y’all who watch it now wouldn’t have to suffer as much as us others have had to!

That’s it for this review, peace out

[minaim-blog]

DaTr Date Night - Part 2 - Skool SNAFU

Second to last period before the weekend and Dib can’t wait for it to end. But before school lets out he gets a message from a certain someone. Can he answer the call or is this a problem that requires at least two people to solve?

“I cannot love her, nor will strive to do't.” Dib said, with as much enthusiasm as a sloth. He was all but drooling over his textbook, but it was from an attempt to remain conscious, as opposed to a profound interest.

“Thou wrong'st thyself, if thou shouldst strive to choose.” Replied his professor enthusiastically.

He was trying his hardest to breathe life into the reading while explaining what was happening every few sentences to a nearly comatose classroom. Unfortunately for the professor, besides a few members of the class, everyone was as interested in it as Dib was or worse. He was just barely paying attention so he knew when he had to read, as the professor had the brilliant idea of giving roles to the classroom to force them to pay attention. Today Dib was Bertram, Gretchen was Helena, Keef was Parolles, and the professor was the King. He only remembered this because he knew he had to speak if he heard one of them talk. English class was the only place Dib could be caught reading anything even remotely related to Shakespeare. It was also one of the few classes he questioned why the education system still deemed it necessary to teach in Skool, as he found it provided absolutely nothing to his “education”, if he would even call it that. The fact that it was his least favorite class didn’t help either, but thankfully it was also his second to last class for the day.

He was half paying attention while the professor and Gretchen exchanged lines between his. After he finished the professor explained to the class what was happening and thanked Dib for reading. This was his que that he didn’t have to read for a while, hopefully not for the rest of class, but it was dragging on like the horizon of the black hole Zim had thrown him into a month ago. The mere thought of which nearly sent him into a panic attack. Zim had completely brushed off his concern after he pulled him out of it, which Dib thought was so very typical of him. “You’ll be fine. You haven’t really space traveled unless you suffer from some mild time displacement.” Zim had said that to Dib after he saved him, and if he hadn’t been almost completely catatonic at the time he would have thrown Zim into the black hole himself. He did throw him into some space monster’s den later, but that was for the benefit of the mission they were on. The purpose of which was related to some disaster Zim had caused with an Eldritch abomination that Dib couldn’t even be bothered to remember completely. Even though he had made Earth his home Zim still had a knack for getting himself and the rest of the planet into a mess. Thankfully he was usually able to reverse the damage, and when he couldn’t Dib was there to help him. Not to say Dib didn’t mind, he was angry every time Zim put the Earth or themselves in danger, but saying Dib didn’t get a thrill every time they were in danger wouldn’t be close to the truth at all.

Since Zim had made himself his own force for good, and even well before that, Dib has admired him for his tenacity, creativity, and his own unique form of brilliancy. Now he could most definitely call Zim his closest friend, but if he tried to pinpoint when exactly they became friends, even when he was enemy of Earth, he couldn’t tell when that point in their relationship had happened. All he could say for certain is that they both thought of each other as friends, even if they got on each other’s nerves more often than not. It was for that reason that he got a pit in his stomach after he felt a vibration coming from his phone.

Only one of four people could be texting him right now, really only one. His dad would only be texting to remind him of a family gathering the same night, which he rarely ever did unless it was about a public event him and Gaz had to be at. More often Gaz would be the one to tell him about a family gathering and to keep his weird paranormal stuff out of it. He went over the family schedule in his head and couldn’t think of anything either one of them would message him about. His dad was out of the house for the weekend and Zim and Tak were coming over tonigh to play video games and watch movies, but he knew Gaz wouldn’t bother texting him about that. Tak never texted him when they were at Skool, even during break, so she was out of the question. That left the only possible person who could be texting him now to be Zim. The only time he ever heard a text from him was when something was wrong, apart from the occasional meme Gir sent him when he stole Zim’s phone. Considering that Gir was in Middle Skool now, and that Zim had been very strict about him not skipping class he doubted Gir was the culprit, especially since if he was his phone would be blowing up by now. His last class for today was chemistry with Zim as his partner. Meaning even before he started mixing chemicals Zim had figured out how to turn a baking-soda and vinegar volcano into a planet destroying bomb. He was just about ready to pull out his phone and text Zim that whatever mess he made today was his to deal with when he pulled it out and saw that it was Tak and not Zim who messaged him.

Her text read: [Can you sneak out of class real quick?]

Dib thought this was very unusual for her, she was too studious to be caught texting in class. If only for the sake of her disguise she would get A’s in all of her classes, even the dumb ones like English. He knew the only way she could do it was by cheating, not that he disparaged her for it, he just wished she would offer to do it for him too. The fact that she was messaging him now meant something was very wrong.

He texted back to her: [Maybe… I’m kind of stuck reading here. What’s going on? You okay?]

He stared at his phone while the icon for Tak ticked away indicating she was spending a lot of time working on or thinking about her response. Eventually after a few seconds she responded back.

Tak: [I’m fine, but I got a problem.]

“That’s vague.” Dib thought to himself. He wasn’t sure why Tak was being so ambiguous. She had mentioned to him before that her own “phone” allowed her to message him without the worry of outsiders listening in on their conversation, so they didn’t need a code language to discuss anything alien related. He had even asked her to make one for him so he didn’t have to worry about the CIA or NSA busting down his door in the middle of night for being in contact with aliens. She told him it wasn’t necessary for his phone to be off the grid as her messages wouldn’t even register on the system if she sent any to him. “Plus, we both know I’ll be the only one sending anything important.” Tak had said to him at the time, which he didn’t think was true, but knew it would be impossible to convince her otherwise. So he continued using his regular human phone the CIA was using to spy on him like everyone else on the planet. He was at least comforted knowing that her “problem” couldn’t be anything too serious because of that fact, he thought her indirectness was very out of character for her, but he had a hunch at what the reason was.

He texted back to her: [What kind of problem?]

Tak: [You know how I get an itch in a place I can’t scratch?]

The phrase, “An itch I can’t scratch” was practically too telling for Dib, and he was almost certain he knew exactly what her problem was. Over the years Dib had learned about the many intricacies of Irken antennas, and their particular quirks with grooming. One such oddity was that after periods of intense or prolonged stress their antennas would get extremely sore and cramped, which he assumed was caused by their muscle spasms in their antennas during those times. The soreness would eventually dissipate but the length of time it took varied from instance to instance, and it was a frequent problem Tak ran into where the soreness would last for almost days at a time if she did nothing about it. He had offered to help Tak with it once before,  but she was very hesitant to let him help her the first time. Eventually he learned what way to massage and not massage, and now Tak had become almost entirely dependent on him to help her. Just to be sure though (and because he loved to tease her whenever he could get away with it) he prodded her to be a little bit more specific.

Dib replied: [Should I lather up for your massage or are you feeling particularly royal today and want my mini-backscratcher and felt brush for your antenna?]

Tak: [NO! It’s not that, but I can’t talk about it.]

[What do you mean you can’t talk about it?]

There was another pause between her messages until she replied: [Because. It’s a very /personal/ area Dib.]

Dib replied: [Personal area?]

Tak: [More like every area, like all over.]

[It’s not what I think it is? Is it?]

[Yeah, it probably is. So I need you NOW!]

Dib felt his face blushing slightly before he responded back: [And you’re okay with it? With us going there and you yourself doing that? Or am I misreading this and all you need is just a bit more handsy kiss?]

Tak: [No just a kiss is not what I need! It’s a lot more than that, but I /really/ can’t talk about it.]

Tak has had a very difficult time dealing with anything emotional, at least for the first few times around. Their first few hugs when they started dating had been a major uphill battle for her. Even though the two of them knew she loved having them, she was always so awkward when she tried to be the initiator, or she would become embarrassed when someone else caught the two of them hugging. Half of it was due to her inhibitions she got from living under the Irken Empire about self-expression. The other half was just her negativity about feeling emotions, this was also rooted in her life in the Empire but it went much deeper than that. In the few instances that Tak had allowed herself to open up to Dib she told him that even something as simple as a hug, which she knew made her feel so good, would inspire within her a feeling of great discomfort and disgust. She told him that the disgust wasn’t in the act of hugging itself as she did enjoy it, but in the fact that she wanted the hug, and that her own feelings and desires were disgusting to her.

At the time Dib equated it to some feeling of inner shame Tak held onto for whatever reason, but looking back on it Dib found a lot of similarities to her statement and what happened to her at the arcade the other night. Tak had this problem of “feeling bad about having feelings”. Whether it’s a coping mechanism she developed from her hardships throughout her life or merely a part about living as an Irken under the Empire Dib was unsure, and he didn’t know what he could do to help her aside from supporting her in any way he could when she felt that way. He didn’t like that just being there for her was all he could do, since largely he just had to hope that Tak would be able to overcome any negative feelings she had on her own, but thankfully he knew she could. Tak had gotten very comfortable with hugging after they had been dating for a while, and eventually Tak built up the courage for them to try kissing, of course before that she had to build up the courage to talk about kissing. She was a mess the first time she ever brought it up to him, Dib wasn’t even sure what she was talking about as she couldn’t even mention kissing by name at that point, just that she wanted “A higher degree of physical closeness out of our relationship” as she had put it. He told her that he’d be ready for her to try whenever she wanted too, when that did finally happen he was caught completely off guard.

Dib thought Tak was mad at him right before their first kiss, but she must have been trying to build up her nerves. Tak had mentioned having a similar problem to the one in her text message, that a feeling was coursing through all of her body. Dib had remembered Tak saying that it felt like she wanted to completely envelop him, or have Dib envelop her. He had even started to get a little handsy with her and lifted up the back end of her shirt, but Mimi interrupted them with a bite to his hand before he could have gone any further. He wasn’t as angry at Mimi as Tak was at the time, but later he thought it was probably best Mimi stopped them then, as it would have made things more awkward for them after the fact.

It still was very awkward. For a while they didn’t kiss or even hug after their first kiss, part of it was Dib’s own realization that things were different now with him and Tak, and a lot of it was just Tak being Tak. Eventually they found each other’s comfort zone, and now they kiss each other regularly in varying degrees of intensity. Tak had even become the primary initiator of their kisses most of time, which Dib attributed to Tak’s emotional and physical-contact starvation.

All of this, and the text messages they had been sending to each other, led Dib to believe Tak was now asking for a closer level of physical intimacy between them. While Dib was excited for this he was also very embarrassed and unsure of himself, and was beat red as he typed:

[Can’t you wait until after Skool for this?]

Tak: [NO I CAN’T WAIT! I NEED YOU NOW DIB!]

“Shit Tak. Calm down a bit jeez.” Dib bit his lips as he whispered to himself. He knew Tak was starved for physical touch but this seemed extravagant to him. He still had some level of excitement over this new prospect, but the urgency with which Tak was treating it was giving him anxiety. Tak could already be a handful for him at times, and he wasn’t sure if he was ready to see her be as needy as she seemed now. So subconsciously, or perhaps purposely, he tried to weasel out of seeing her for the time being.

Dib: [Like now now?]

Tak: [Like I need you right NOW to come help me with it NOW!]

[But I’m stuck in class?]

[Then get out of class and come help me! I’m in the supply closet by my class. Don’t keep me waiting!]

Dib whispered another profanity to himself, but his school-boy arousal and alien fascination won out against his anxiety and trepidation. So in an odd combination of reluctance and eagerness he texted back to her:

[Okay. I’ll be there as soon as I can.]

Tak: [Good. Knock on the door when you get here and I’ll unlock it for you.]

With that their text messaging ended, and instead of getting up and immediately asking the professor to be excused Dib was hunched over his desk and looked down at his phone. “Are we really going to do it in the Skool broom closet? Should I grab something? Do I even need to?” Dib thought to himself as other more vivid thoughts raced through his mind that may have strayed a bit far from reality. He knew he did want to be on that level of intimacy with Tak eventually, he would be lying if he said he never once thought about it, but he was questioning if he was ready for it, and if Tak was ready for it. She definitely seemed sure of herself now but what would she be feeling next week, tomorrow, or even an hour from now? Would he find her locked up in her lab trying to create something to suppress everything all because she couldn’t handle how she felt? All of this was swirling around in his head, until something pulled him back to reality.

“Dib? Dib Membrane?” the professor all but yelled to Dib. He jumped up out of his seat at the sound of his name and dropped his phone out of his lap without noticing. He looked up to his professor who said, “Did you finally fall asleep on us?”

Dib was completely dumbfounded and embarrassed from both his situation with Tak and from being caught unawares in class, the entirety of which was now staring at him. He knew there was no way for any of them to know what he had been thinking, but he was caught like a deer in headlights from all of the class’s eyes being on him. Knowing not what else to say he opened his mouth and said, “Could I uh…be excused?” and almost immediately regret saying it as a few of his classmates chuckled in response.

The professor looked at him disappointed, “It’s a bit late for that now Dib, we’re waiting on you to read your lines. And didn’t you go to the bathroom at the beginning of class?”

“No that was for… something else. Now I have to use the bathroom.”

His professor sighed, “Finish reading this act, and then you may be excused. Don’t take too long this time.”

Either he was getting annoyed with him and just wanted Dib out of the class, or the class’s un-enthusiasm was beginning to rub off on him and he didn’t care. Dib thanked him and looked down on his book, hoping to get done with his lines as quickly as possible and see Tak. He looked down on his book but he didn’t see any lines for his character and flipped a few pages trying to find them. His professor saw him flipping through pages and said to Dib:

“We’re on line 1170 Dib. Lafeu has just left the stage leaving Parolles on when Bertram enters. Did you find your place?”

“Yes I did.” Said Dib.

“Good, you can start when you’re ready.”

Dib read his lines, with a bit more bounce than before, “Undone, and forfeited to cares forever!”

To which Keef replied with much ado, “What's the matter, sweet-heart?”

“Although before the solemn priest I have sworn, I will not bed her.”

* * *

Dib wandered through the halls of High Skool’s science department. Tak’s current class was anatomy at room S129, and there was only one supply closet a few doors down from it, which Dib assumed Tak was in. He felt lead in the pit of his stomach as he walked towards it. He was going over in his head whether he wanted to just go with whatever Tak wanted and sort out any mess that it makes later, or sit down and talk with Tak about their relationship and how she was feeling. He hadn’t even come close to making a decision when he made it to the supply closet, he tried the door but it was locked. He waited a moment for Tak to unlock it but she never came. He was about to start looking for another closet or text message Tak to ask her what room she was in when he remembered she had asked him to knock. Not knowing what else to do and still hesitant about meeting up with her, he leaned against the wall next to the door and knocked on it.

“Tak, you in there? It’s me.” He said trying to sound calm. He heard the door unlock and open a crack, he tried to see what was inside but the lights were off.

“Dib?” Tak’s voice said meekly.

“Yup. It’s me.” Dib said rubbing the back of his head, trying to force himself to be energetic. He went for the doorknob and began opening it, but before he could move it another centimeter the door slammed shut and Tak screamed out, “Wait!”

Dib jumped out of his skin at Tak’s action and screamed back to her, “What!?” He wasn’t as loud, but he was much more annoyed. After a second the door reopened a crack and Dib heard Tak say,

“The other night, when we were at the arcade? I was feeling bad so you got me a stuffed turtle to make up for it. What color was it?”

Dib didn’t hide his confusion as he spoke, “I didn’t get you a turtle. I got you a mongoose. And it was brown, I’m pretty sure. Why-?” Before he could finish speaking the door opened just enough to let him squeeze in as a gloved three fingered hand grabbed him by his shirt and pulled him inside. Tak threw him into the wall as she pulled him in with one hand and closed the door behind them. She heard him bang against a shelf and grunt in pain in the unlit room.

“I’m sorry.” Tak began in between quickened breathe, “I should have told you a password for you to use when you got here but I wasn’t thinking and panicked when you tried to open the door.” Her breathing subsided a bit as she continued but it was still laced with stress, “But that’s okay. You’re here now. So now you can help me fix this.”

“Yeah, and uh Tak, about that…” Dib started sheepishly while rubbing his side that hit into the shelf, “I know I said I’d help you and all, but don’t you think maybe we ought to think about this?” Tak then grabbed onto the front of Dib’s shirt, and wouldn’t let go.

“What do you mean think about? There’s nothing to think about! You said you’d help me! You have to help me! You can’t leave me like this!” Tak spoke quickly in a hoarse whisper, with a touch of desperation and betrayal in her voice.

“I mean yeah, and I am. It’s just…aren’t we kind of -you know- going through this kind of quickly?” Dib stammered out as he was trying to put his own conflicted feelings into words. He was thankful the lights weren’t on in the closet so Tak couldn’t see him blush.

“Quickly? Yes, that’s how I want it! Help me fix this mess now, then we’ll worry about how it happened later.” Tak’s voice was racing as she spoke, and she sounded like a convict bargaining on death row. Her face was close to Dib’s and he could feel her breathe on his face.

“But I don’t think quickly is what you need right now.” Dib pleaded with her.

“What makes you think you know what I need better than I do? I know what the problem is Dib! I just need another set of hands.” Tak’s concern in her voice transformed as she spoke, turning into frustration and anger. She began to shake him as she spoke, “If you won’t help me then-Then I’ll get somebody else who will! Gaz! She’ll help me! I’ll get Gaz!”

“Gaz!?” Dib said absolutely thunderstruck, “But isn’t she-aren’t you-aren’t we-”

“Friends?” Tak interrupted him while he rambled. She stopped shaking him, but held onto him tightly with their faces close to each other’s. She spoke with deep contempt in her voice, “I thought so too Dib. But friends help each other when they’re in need. And if you don’t want to do that, then I guess we’re not friends anymore!”

Tak said this with such ferocity and desperation in her voice that Dib didn’t know how to process it. His mind raced over everything Tak told him and then he said, “I-I mean I… Aww fuck it.” Dib decided whatever hesitation about being intimate with Tak he was feeling earlier he wasn’t feeling now. Since Tak was being so persistent, and very clearly stressed beyond belief, he thought it was best to appease her at least partially and then work out whatever problems she was going through when she calmed down a bit. He brought his mouth to hers and began kissing, but was surprised when she didn’t kiss back, and speechless when Tak pushed him off of her.

“What on Irk do you think you’re doing?!” Tak yelled back to him.

“What, you called me here for?” Dib said slowly, and confused.

“I didn’t call you here for that! I told you this wasn’t for a make-out secession!” Tak said infuriated, and from the tone of her voice Dib could tell she wasn’t here for what he thought she was.

Still confused he said, “It wasn’t-Then what did you call me here for?”

Tak fumbled around in the dark for the string connect to the lightbulb. After she pulled it Dib could make out all of the items in the cramped closet. It had shelves of cleaning supplies, a mop, a dirty sink, a broken mirror, and Tak without her disguise on and an angry look on her face.

She pointed to herself and said, “This is the reason I called you here for!”

Dib just stared at her without her disguise on in the supply closet for a second, still confused at what exactly was the problem. Then suddenly he grasped what was going on and almost yelled as he blurted out his realization,

“Your disguise isn’t working!”

“Yes! That’s what I was trying to tell you! What did you think I was talking about?” Tak raised her hands into fists as she spoke to him.

Dib wasn’t sure how to tell her, or if now was the best time to do so, or if he even wanted to admit what he thought she was talking about. He fumbled through his words as he tried to decide while he spoke, “I mean uh…the way you were saying it…it made it sound like…like…Why didn’t you just text me that your disguise wasn’t working?”

“Why do you think?” Tak shriek out, “My equipment doesn’t just stop working for no reason Dib. Someone or something has sabotaged me. One second I’m sitting in class, minding my own business, the next my disguise is malfunctioning, and now it won’t even turn back on along with anything else.”

“Wait, but even if you think someone managed to compromise your disguise why not just text me that’s what happened? Didn’t you tell me before your phone’s off the grid?”

“Dib, if they can hack into my system remotely and deactivate it, they can definitely pick up any message I send through a modified earth phone!” She yelled back at him.

“Did anyone see you without your disguise on?” Dib said looking towards the door, his own set of paranoia setting in. He didn’t think the faculty had a policy for aliens on Skool property, but considering he once had to spend the night in quarantine at the Elementary Skool for a lice infection he wouldn’t put it past them.

“I don’t know.” Tak said nervously, “Someone definitely saw my disguise glitching out before I was able to excuse myself. I was going to the bathroom to try and fix it but it crashed on me as soon as I stepped out of class. I ducked in here to save myself and now I’m too scared to leave in case they catch me.”

“But what about your cloaking device, or Mimi?”

“Didn’t you hear me Dib? They got everything!” She yelled at him and then hunched over, sounding like she was on the verge of crying as she finished, “I can’t even use my communicator to get in touch with Mimi.”

“But then how did you text me?”

“My phone is not the same as my communicator Dib! But it doesn’t matter.” Tak stepped away from him as she spoke and turned towards the wall, “She’s as good as dead out there, we both are.”

“Tak relax, we can fix this.” Dib said approaching her. He tried to reassure her by placing a hand on her shoulder.

“No Dib you don’t get.” She swiped Dib’s hand off of her and said, completely hopeless, “Mimi’s disguise is broken too, and I haven’t heard from her since I messaged you, not even static.” Her voice changed as she went on, going from hopeless to a full panic, “That means she’s out there with her parts strewn out over this ugly planet, or she’s been captured by whoever’s after me, and then they’re going to break her apart and cannibalize her for scraps. Then they’re going to find me and cut me open on a dissecting table, and put my organs in glass jars for me to look at while I’m still awake, or they’ll torture me until I tell them everything I know, and then they’ll lobotomize me or my pack and barely keep me alive so I can  just do what they tell me to- and then- and then…”

Tak ended her monologue with a string of profanities as she clutched both of her antennas in her hands. Her voice and breathing accelerated as she went on, to the point where she was hyperventilating. Seeing this Dib immediately grabbed Tak in a tight hug and tried to calm her down with words of reassurance and an attempted plea for her to try to slow down. He tried breathing slowly and told her to focus on his breathe but it seemed to do little for her as she wasn’t able to match his. She tried to match his pace but all that did was put her into a cough, and Dib wasn’t sure but it sounded like Tak was crying in his arms. He tried to assist in massaging her antennas, and shushed to her as she leaned into him. That ended up working and the two of them stayed that way for a moment. Tak leaning into Dib in a deep hug while he massage an antenna with his free hand. Finally, after how long neither of them where sure, Tak had managed calmed down.

“Okay.” Said Dib still hugging her, “I think now’s a good time for me to take a look at your system and see what I can do to help.”

“What makes you think that you can fix it when I can’t?” Tak said angrily as she brought her head up to look at him.

“What reason did you call me here for if you didn’t want me to help?” Dib asked, not angry just confused.

“I…” Tak started as the anger faded from her eyes. That was the reason she called him over, but her mind was a mess from everything and she was so very confused. She brought her head to his chest and look down from his face as she brought her left arm up to it. On it just below her wrist was what looked like a touch screen about the size of a fist.

Dib activated the interface and said optimistically, “Alright, so what’s causing the problem?” He was trying to sound positive to help Tak’s mood.

“Don’t know.” Tak said flatly, her voice muffled by Dib’s chest.

“I thought you said you knew how to fix this but needed help?” Dib said looking down at Tak surprised.

Without looking up and her voice still muffled she said, “I panicked when you said you weren’t going to help me and said that to try to get you to stay.”

Dib didn’t say anything else to Tak after her explanation. He wasn’t sure what he could do that Tak couldn’t to try and fix it but he figured having a second, and calmer, set of eyes inspect it couldn’t hurt. It wasn’t his first time handling Irken technology, or even his first time handling Tak’s, but it was his fist time handling anything recent of hers with as much free reign as he had now. He was perplexed by how closely the Irken operating system, and Irken technology in general, match Earth’s. The first time he realized it the fact went completely over his head as a twelve year old; though to his credit he was also just concerned with escaping Zim’s trap alive at the time. Tak’s system wasn’t completely offline, but all of her systems reported a fatal error and could not operate. He attempted to diagnose what was wrong with it and troubleshoot but to no avail. He folded his hands on attempting to fix the problem, but from what he could tell it at least didn’t look like a malicious attack which comforted him a little bit.

He didn’t say anything to Tak after he was done looking at her system, but Tak took her arm in her other while she inspected it and responded, “I don’t know what I was thinking when I called you here to help. Like I said, I panicked and called you over without thinking.” When she was done talking another look of hopelessness washed over her face.

“Hey we’re not done yet, there’s still more we can try.” Dib said trying to bolster her spirits.

“And what exactly do you plan on trying?” Tak said arguing for her own defeat.

“Well” Dib began, dreading the argument he knew his suggestion would start, “We could ask Zim for help.”

Dib was surprised that Tak didn’t immediately berate him for even thinking about asking Zim for help. Not too surprisingly, she crossed her arms and responded, “I think I’d rather go to the dissecting table then to him.”

Dib didn’t say anything to her statement but looked at her exasperated beyond belief. Tak didn’t respond to his grimace, but she softened her own as she looked at him. She knew herself that she would rather ask help from Zim than go to the dissecting table, but she could never admit that. Dib was about to open his mouth to say something when he was interrupted by the Skool Bell for the next class, which earned a slight wince from Tak.

“That’s the bell for the next class! I’ll text Zim and tell him to meet us here.” He reached for his pants pocket where he kept his phone but Tak grabbed his hands before he could.

“No, don’t call him! He’s probably the one who caused this.”

“What reason, what benefit, would Zim have in turning you in? If they find one Irken they’d be crazy to think there’s only one.” Dib thought this was a unprecedented level of paranoia against Zim for Tak, but he thought it must be the stress of the situation that was getting to her.

“I don’t know but I wouldn’t put it past him. He’s the only one here who has the means to break my system, and even if he didn’t, messaging him would draw too much attention to us. I already think it was a bad idea for me to text you on my phone if they got everything else.”

“But Tak when I looked at your stuff it didn’t look like it was from an attack, just a system failure.”

“But that’s exactly what someone who knows what they’re doing would make it look like! We can’t take any chances in using anything that can be traced.”

“If that’s the case then I’ll go get him myself.” Dib said confidently.

“No! You can’t leave me here!” Tak pleaded again before she softened her demeanor and squeezed his hands tightly, “Please don’t go.”

“But what else are we going to do?” Dib asked her, but she couldn’t meet his eyes. He turned her face to his and raised their hands together as he said, “I’m going to get Zim. Lock the door and keep the light off until I get back. The password will be ‘mongoose’, don’t open it for anyone unless they use it.” He let go of Tak’s hand and went for the door but Tak was still pleading with him not to leave. Dib said, “Text me if anything happens, I won’t keep you waiting.” He made sure to only open the door enough to let himself out and closed it shut behind him as he went to find Zim.

The other students had already made it to their classes so the halls were empty. Dib remembered he left his backpack in English class, but he hoped someone would turn it in to the office so he could get it back later, as he had more pressing matters. The walk to his Chemistry class wasn’t too far as it was still within the science department of Skool. He was sure Tak’s malfunction wasn’t caused by outside forces, but he still founded himself scanning the halls for anything suspicious in case Tak and Zim were both targets. He made it to his Chemistry class without incident and looked inside, the professor was writing the lab’s agenda for the day, and a few of the students took this time to either goof off or prepare in advanced. He scanned the room and found Zim at their usual station with his disguise working fine, so if it was an attack Zim was not a target as well. A few years back when Zim’s and Tak’s banishment was made official Tak insisted (really forced) Zim to dump his old wig and contact lens disguise in favor of her hard-light hologram. Barely anyone questioned when Zim came in to Skool one day wearing normal clothes, not green, and not missing ears, and the ones who did were satisfied with the explanation that Zim’s skin infection got better. His disguise gave him a pink sweat-shirt with red jeans and a backpack where his pak would be, he had a few prefabricated outfits he cycled through but he never went overboard with it. As opposed to Tak who seemed to have an entire virtual wardrobe of clothes she went through each day. Now he was wearing lab goggles and delicately attending to the inert chemicals they were working with today.

Dib approached him and said as casually as possible, “Hey Zim, got a sec?”

Upon hearing this Zim jumped up from shock and responded, “AAAh! Dib do you mind? I’m trying to secure these chemicals so they don’t melt our faces off!”

“It’s vinegar Zim. It’s not going to melt anything.” Dib had always been surprised the lengths Zim went to in the lab, whether at Skool or his real one. He always dotted his I’s and crossed his T’s when following lab procedure no matter how redundant it was. Unless he was in one of his creative moods, in which case he threw all caution to the wind. Dib guessed his time as a technician on Vort must have imprinted on him a real sense for the laboratory, and he thought Zim and his father would get along great in the lab if they were ever able too openly discuss it.

Zim removed his chemistry goggles from his face and said annoyed, “Well sure, it might not melt your face off Dib but after the incident with the raw sewage last week I’m not taking any chances.”

“Oh yeah.” Dib laughed, earning a glare from Zim, “I almost forgot about that. Did you ever get that mark off your arm where the sewage hit?”

“Eventually. After a week of nightly salt baths and chemical cleanings.” Zim Shuddered, “It still smells like filth. How do you and Gaz survive on this stink planet?”

Dib shrugged, “It’s just a part of life here. Plus having our own filter system courtesy of our dad means we only really deal with it outside the house, which is okay I guess.” Dib got close enough to Zim after saying this so he could whisper to him. “Do you think we could hold off on Chemistry until we fix something?”

“I didn’t break anything.” Zim said aloud, not bothering to whisper.

Dib cringed at Zim’s abrasiveness, and still whispering to him said, “I know you didn’t, Tak did.”

Zim asked relieved, “Oh. What did she break?”

“It’s her…” Dib started to say, but looked around the room and thought it’d be better to be discreet. He brought his forearm up and tapped on it with his other hand, mimicking a keyboard.

“Wrist?” Zim asked confused.

“Her disguised.” Dib whispered flatly, he could be there all class playing charades until Zim got it.

“Oh. Tell her to fix it then.” Zim said dismissively as he waved Dib away while taking a seat at the counter. Dib took a seat next to him and continued whispering,

“She can’t fix it, we need help.”

“So she wants my help?” Zim said skeptically, whispering now.

“Well…she says she doesn’t, but you know her. I at least want your help.”

Zim looked away from Dib with his head resting in the fold of his arms on the counter. He tapped his fingers, thinking about what he wanted to do but didn’t say anything. Finally Dib asked, “Your disguise hasn’t had any problems at all, has it?”

Zim replied annoyed, “I would have told you if that was the case. What’s even wrong with it that she can’t fix it?”

“We don’t know. But it’s not just her disguise, it’s her whole system. Tak thinks it’s an outside attack, but I thought it just looked like a system error.”

“It could be a disguised attack.” Zim said looking up from his arms intrigued.

“Tak said the same thing, but she also said you could’ve caused it.”

“She thinks I did it?” Zim whispered shrilly, still not lifting his head off the counter.

“No, but even I can’t think of anyone who’d know how to attack it, besides you.”

Zim growled and Dib replied hastily, “I know you didn’t do it. But what could have made it just stop working?”

“Weirder things have happened to us before.” Zim groaned out.

“Or we’ve been the weirder things. You’ll help us?”

Zim sighed, “Chemistry sucks anyway.”

The two of them excused themselves from class and made their way to the closet Tak was cooped up in. When they got to it Zim tried the handle and was annoyed when he found it locked and shook it violently. Dib calmed him down and apologized for not telling him the password. He knocked on the door and cleared his throat before he said, “Mongoose” and then they heard the door unlock. Dib opened it just enough to let himself inside, then Zim opened it almost completely as he let himself in. Tak berated him,

“What are you doing Zim? Do you want people to see me like this?”

Zim said, “What could they possibly see? I couldn’t see anything in here with the door open, let alone now.” Zim squinted in the dark but no one could see him do so. Tak replied with pulling the string connected to the light, illuminating the closet along with everyone in it.

Zim saw her without her disguise and said jokingly, “Wow Tak. You know I always thought you wouldn’t be caught dead without your disguise on in public.”

She replied hostile, “If you caused this, I swear to Irk I’ll-”

“I didn’t, okay.” Zim replied irritated, “Even Dib thinks so, and he’s the ones with all the crazy constipation theorems.”

“Conspiracy theories.” Dib said placing a hand over his face, exhausted by the two of them.

“Whatever.” Zim said “Let’s just finish this up so we can all go out tonight.”

Tak extended her left arm out to him, “Fix it.” She commanded curtly.

“A simple ‘please’ would be nice.”

“Please fix it.” Tak said, her tone unchanged.

“Like you mean it.” Zim said playfully.

“I’ll show you what I mean you little shit!” Tak said advancing toward him, but Dib stepped in preventing her.

“Tak-Zim. Come on. We’re supposed to be working together here.” Dib said to the two of them while he wondered if the CIA knowing about Tak would be worse than whatever they would do to each other if left alone.

“I am helping!” Zim said offended, “But is it too much to ask for a little ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ for all the bullshit Tak’s given me over the years?”

“It’s going to be a lot more than some Earth shit exploding all over you if I ever make it out of here alive!”

“That was you!” Zim said furious as he turned from Tak to Dib, “Did you know about this?”

“I-I mean I didn’t know.” Dib said trying to play innocent. He didn’t know what exactly caused the raw sewage incident last week but he did have his suspicions.

“In that case I want an apology too before I help.” Zim said.

“Right after you apologize for causing that blackout on Devastis!” said Tak.

“Not like I’ve never said that before but sure. Sorry I caused that blackout that made you miss your test.”

“Now apologize for ruining my life!”

“I did not ruin your life. Or if I did I’m not the only one, your life would have sucked without me or not.”

“I would not be stuck on this miserable dirt ball of a planet if it wasn’t for you!”

“Yeah but you’d be stuck somewhere. We both know why.”

“DON’T YOU DARE EVEN SUGGEST THAT YOU MISERABLE LITTLE-!” Tak was about to mention the unutterable, but was interrupted when Dib stepped between them again.

He said, “TAK-ZIM! Both of you shut up! You’ve both been through shit and a whole hell of a lot has happened to you in the past six years. You both came here to destroy Earth, then got banished here together, then I thought you two got better with each other after you gave up on conquering and just set on living. You’re both a far cry from Irk now and a few things have come and gone here. From you both getting taller for whatever reason, to the us all becoming friends, and to Skoodge coming and leaving.”

“And Mini-Moose.” Zim said, sadness in his voice.

“Yeah. Mini-Moose too.” Dib said a bit gentler than he had been speaking. He often forgot how much Mini-Moose meant to Zim, he was almost as close to him as Gir was. Dib continued, “The point is that if we’re all going to live here without killing each other or letting other people do that for us we got to start working together.” Everyone was silent for a moment as they reflected on what Dib said. Zim was the one who broke the silence he said,

“I still want Tak to ask me nicely to help.”

“You’re not getting anything-” Tak started to get angry again but Dib grabbed onto her and said between his teeth,

“Tak. Just let him have this.”

She shoved Dib’s hand off of her but seemed to resign to Zim’s request. After a brief pause she said, “Please Zim… Please help me fix my disguise so I can go home and not end up on the dissecting table.”

Zim nodded in affirmation and said gently, “Okay. Okay was that so hard?”

Tak only groaned and gave him her left arm to examine her device. Zim navigated through her interface and brought it to what resembled a BIOS. After looking it over briefly he said, “Geeze Tak. What did you do to this thing anyway?”

“Nothing. Like I told Dib: one minute I’m sitting in class perfectly normal, the next my disguise starts acting up, and now nothing on it works.”

“Where’s Mimi?” Zim asked, some concern in his voice.

“Radio silence.” Tak said emotionlessly.

Zim was still looking over her device quietly after she spoke, and after a moment he said, “If she doesn’t turn up by the end of the day I’ll send Gir out to find her.”

After a pause Tak genuinely said, “Thank you” and it last thing any of them said for a while. Zim continued looking through her system’s BIOS and after exhausting any solutions through it brought out his tools from his backpack which included a pair of magnifying goggles and some electrical probes. He opened up her device without request, and the three of them stayed in the closet in silence while he toiled away at it. Dib watched Zim work his alien tools on the device, he hadn’t removed his disguise the whole time they were in the closet and was surprised by the lengths Tak went for them. Irkens only had three fingers, but he wouldn’t have known that just by looking at Zim’s hands as he worked, as the extra two digits seemed to flow perfectly into whatever finer work he was doing and they never seemed to blend into one of his other fingers like he would have expected. After a fair amount of time Zim finished whatever work he did to Tak’s device, and after putting it back together tried to boot it up. The three of them saw Tak’s human disguise show up briefly and then fade away into distortion as it completely destabilized and collapsed. After seeing this Zim turned to Dib and pointed behind him to Tak with his thumb as he said,

“Shit’s fucking broken.”

“We know it’s broken.” Tak said, her annoyance returning, “How do we fix it?”

Zim shrugged and said, “Don’t know, it could be anything from hardware to a coding issue. I’d have to take the whole thing apart in my lab and analyze everything before I’d find out what the exact cause was.”

Tak brought her hand to her head as she groaned, “Augh, useless! Why did we even call you here? I already knew that.”

“Relax Tak, it’s not the end of the world.” Said Zim.

“Maybe for you it’s not, you’re not the one with an alien hunter on your ass!”

“I actually don’t think it’s that. Nothing about your system seems out of the ordinary, apart from not working anyway.”

“If it’s not someone messing with my system then what? What could possibly be causing my system to just fail suddenly?”

Zim shrugged again, “It could be sun spots.”

Tak gawked and struggled to find words before she said, “Irken technology does not fail because of sun spots on planet with a hair thin O-Zone layer.”

“That’s what the Empire wants you to think Tak, our stuffs good but it’s far from perfect. All it takes is one rouge gamma ray to pass through imperfect plating and change a zero to a one or vice versa and your whole system collapses. I’ve seen it a hundred times when I was a technician on Vort.”

“You’ve seen this before? This exact thing?” Tak said with a mixture of skepticism and optimism.

“Well…” Zim dragged on, “When I say a hundred times it’s really only once or twice. We ran into this problem where a computer we were using had a complete system failure for no discernible reason. I suggested it was rogue gamma rays but no one believed me at the time, and we never figured out what the problem was.”

Dib chimed into conversation, “That sounds more like Vortians purposely sabotaging the Empire’s work than sun spots Zim.”

Zim said, “No, the Empire was working together with the Vortians at the time as a collaborative. Tallest Spork was the one who brought us to war, and eventually enslaved them, which was a policy Red and Purple maintained.”

“That still doesn’t apply to me. My device is not made by obdurate Vortians.”

“Doesn’t matter.” Zim said in sing-song and then continued normally, “Like I said that was a problem even before they started making bad stuff for us. And your tech isn’t much better than the Empire’s.”

“I know it’s not, it’s vastly superior.” Tak said proudly.

“Sure, once you get past all your coding redundancies.” Zim said.

“Redundancy? You’re one to talk. How many times have you tried fitting a square peg into a round hole before you broke something?”

“Guys!” Dib groaned to the two of them.

Tak shook her head back and forth as she said frustrated, “Alright, alright fine. It’s sun spots. Great! What am I going to do then? It’s not like I can just leave School grounds as an alien!”

“Well that’s the real reason you called me here then isn’t it?” Zim said proudly as he reached into his backpack again, “You always know I’ll pull through for you.” He pulled out a pair of blue eyed contact lens and a long mangy black wig as he finished speaking and presented it to the two of them.

“No. No, no, no. No.” Tak started, “I am not wearing one of your greasy wigs and old pair of contacts.”

“Do you prefer losing your organs on the dissecting table or your pride?” Zim taunted.

“This has nothing to do with pride Zim. They’re not going to be fooled by this.” She said pointing to the items in Zim’s hands.

“I don’t know Tak.” Said Dib with regret while rubbing the side of his arm, “I…Think it might work.”

“Maybe for Zim it might. But my disguise was flawless when I first came here.”

“Tak, your skin color was an off shade of green and you had only three fingers when first you came here.” Dib said peeved.

“My knowledge of human anatomy was a bit incomplete at the time, but I’ve seen students at our school with twice that amount of digits on their hands. I could’ve been one with only three. And need I remind you that it fooled everyone on this planet.”

“Yeah and so did mine.” Zim said shaking his wig and contacts in front of Tak.

“I am not wearing that.” Tak said pushing it away.

“You got a better idea?” Zim said as he pushed it back.

Tak groaned and grabbed both of her antennas as she dragged her hands across them towards the back of her head. “Give me that!” She said as she snatched the disguise out of Zim’s hands. She went over to the mirror and put on the wig, trying hard to hide her antennas underneath it. She looked at the inside of the contact lens and gaged before she turned on the faucet to wash them. Before she put them under the water Zim let out a concerned moan, he tried the same thing a long time ago and it had very negative effects. “Right, not the lab, bad idea.” Tak said as she shut off the faucet. She tried scrubbing the inside of the lens with the back of her sleeve and spit on it to clean it better.

“Hey, I’ll want those back.” Zim said concerned.

“Then you can clean them when you get them back.” Tak said discomforted, “Why do you even have this stuff?”

“You know Tak I wouldn’t expect you to understand style.”

Tak scoffed at Zim’s remark as she continued getting the rest of the disguise on. She opened her lid with her opposite hand as she guided the lens over her eye. It took her a few attempts and her eye got puffy and teary until she was able to fit the first one in. She blinked a few times as she adjusted to the feeling of it, then she put in the second one which went a bit better than the first. After she finished she starred at herself in the mirror while adjusting her hair and then she said, “This isn’t going to work.”

“We already told you it will.” Zim said unconcerned.

“No it won’t, I’m green!” Tak said turning around to both of them. “I can hide that I don’t have ears under my hair but there’s no way they won’t notice anything.” She nervously adjusted her hair as she said this, trying to hide the tube connected to her head.

“I think you’ll be fine Tak.” Dib started to say, “I mean I tried to expose Zim for years but nobody noticed anything. And they didn’t even care when he walked into Skool one day without a skin infection.”

“But just look at me!” She said pointing to herself, “Everything about me screams alien!”

“What’s your great idea to get you out of here, huh? I’d love to hear it.” Zim said sick of Tak’s nervousness.

“Maybe…” She fumbled around with her hair and hands as she started, “Maybe we can wait until tonight for the school to close to sneak me out.”

“Oh! Should I get a laundry cart to smuggle you out of here too?” Zim said mockingly.

“That might work.” Tak said, she was so tense she didn’t even notice Zim’s sarcasm.

“With the Skool’s night watch? No thanks, I don’t want to get shot.” Zim said leaving, “You and Dib can mess around in the closet all night if you want but I’m going home. And I’m taking my wig back, you can keep the contacts.” He said while snatching the wig off Tak’s head, she grabbed onto it as he pulled it away and the two of them were in a grapple while they shouted at each other.

“No I’m keeping this!” Said Tak.

“What for? You said it’s not going to work.” Said Zim.

“It’s better than nothing!”

“Careful! You’re going to tear it!”

“Guys! Both of you stop!” Dib said watching them, not sure what to do.

“If you want it so badly then take it!” Zim said as he let go of the wig and pushed Tak away from him with his foot. While the two of them were in a grapple they spun around the closet and Tak ended up crashing into the door as she went back. She had managed to place the wig back on her head but the door wasn’t closed properly which caused her to open it as she landed out in the middle of the hallway. From inside the closet out of view Dib and Zim heard a shrill scream from someone other than Tak outside. They looked at each other for a second as they shared a look of shock and concern before they both ran to the entrance. Outside was Tak hunched in hiding and Zita standing over her catching her breath, papers and books were scattered on the floor around them. Zita had her hand over her chest and said in between breathes,

“Oh…Tak.”

Tak looked up to her unsure of what to say and how she recognized her, “Y-yeah…?” was all she said.

Still puffing for breath Zita said, “Sorry, you came out of now where.” She bent down reaching for her papers but stopped midway to examine her. “Hey Tak, did you do something with your hair?”

“Uh…” Tak said as she looked to the side and spied her antenna sticking out past her wig. She tucked it in hastily without saying anything else.

“Did you get hair extensions? And your hair’s black. Is this your natural hair color!?” She ended he statement thrilled.

“Uh, yeah.” Tak said, still barely making eye contact with Zita.

“It looks really good on you!” She finished picking up one of her papers and straightened up, looking to the closet where Tak came out of with Dib and Zim still in the doorway looking at them. “Uh…What where the three of you doing in the closet?” Zita said, some concern in her voice.

“None of your business.” Zim said rudely as he came out of the closet and carelessly picked up a pile of the papers on the ground. “Here, you dropped this.” He said pushing the pile into Zita’s hand.

“Alright, asshole.” Zita said, trying to catch the papers but most of them fell out of her hands again. Dib came out and helped pick up the papers.

“What are you even doing here? Class isn’t out yet.” Zim said dubiously to her while raising an eyebrow.

“Well it’s none of your business Zim!” She said to his face while taking the papers handed back to her by Dib. “But I have an appointment today so my professor let me out early.”

“Finally getting your brain examined so you can stop losing your house keys?” Zim said.

“More like you’re getting your head checked so you can stop being a freak.” Zita said back to him.

Zim pointed to her and said, “Watch it.”

“You watch it. I liked you better when you were green.”

“And I liked when you stopped talking, but we can’t get everything. You have your papers, go to your doctor’s appointment.” Zim said as he picked up the rest and pushed Zita along.

Zita pushed him back and started going, “Alright asshole I’m going. Bye Tak, see you Monday in English class! Be careful with the freaks over the weekend.” She said back to them while waving to Tak who was hardly looking up at her.

“Yeah you watch yourself. Bye, bye now.” Zim waved her away and looked to Dib and Tak. Before he could say anything else the Skool bell rang for the end of the day and all the students poured out the classrooms. Tak froze into place as the hall filled with students making their way. People brushed up against her and told her to watch where she was going and all she did was meekly standby and apologize quietly. They were doing the same to Zim who boldly told them to watch where they were going themselves, thankfully nothing happened and the sea of people brushed past them without incident. After the students left the hallway Tak’s anatomy professor came out of his classroom and addressed each of them by name. He said Dib’s, then Zim’s, and then stared for a moment as he addressed Tak, but he was staring in disappointment as opposed to some sense of suspicion. He then left the three of them in the hallway without saying anything further and when he was out of line of sight Tak raised her head, Dib could see total disbelief wash across her face.

She went a bit ahead of the group and raised he arms in exasperation as she said, “You have got to be fucking kidding me!”

“Told you it would work.” Zim said flatly as he pulled out his phone from his pocket and began texting on it.

“But I’m green. I have three fingers. I’m wearing an outfit I’ve never worn before!” Tak said as she turned around to look at them.

“You really think the last one should be a sign you’re an alien?” Dib said confused.

“Zita noticed that I had a different hair style, but not that my skin was green, or that my eyes are just giant contacts, or that they’re the wrong color!” Tak said still completely stunned.

“You know Tak, last time I checked humans don’t have purple eyes.” Zim said still not looking up from his phone.

“They’re not purple they’re violet! And they do too. Elizabeth Taylor had them and so did Helen Rivers from I Know What You Did Last Summer.” Tak said with her arms crossed.

Zim looked up from his phone and said to Tak, “You know when you put it that way it sounds like your disguise is just some edgy OC I’d see on the internet.”

“It is not! And what are you doing on your phone?”

“Texting Gir. Also in case you were wondering I was being an ass to Zita so she didn’t pay attention to you. Thought I’d tell you cause you know, she’s your friend or whatever.” Zim said as he finished typing. “Are we done here yet?”

Tak didn’t say anything but a look of concern came over her face again. Dib walked up to her and grabbed her hand and said, “Come on, we’ll be fine. Let’s go find Mimi.” This seemed to calm Tak, and at mention of Mimi she found a new purpose. So the three of them, with Tak holding tight onto Dib’s hand out of nervousness, made their way out of the High Skool. When they got outside they heard the soft sound of a cat mewing from the bushes along the side of the building.

Tak gasped, “Mimi!” She let go of Dib’s hand and ran to the bush were the sound came from and said softly, “Mimi, Where are you? Tak’s here.”

Dib and Zim ran around to where she was looking into the bushes and saw Mimi without her disguise on hiding in the bushes still acting like a cat. She mewed again to Tak who said, “Oh Mimi, you poor thing.” She then petted her as she mewed. “What happened? Did you see anyone?” Mimi mewed again, “You didn’t see anyone? Nothing at all?” She mewed again. “Well okay, just stay here until I can fix this. We’ll have to cancel tonight.”

“You don’t have to, Gir should be-” Zim started to say but was interrupted by a familiar voice.

“ZIIIHIIHIIIM!” Said Gir as he grabbed onto Zim, pulling him into a tight hug. He continued with tears in his eyes, “I’d thought-that I’d never see you again.”

Zim replied annoyed, “Gir you were in Skool, remember? It lasts the same amount of time everyday you’re there.” Since Zim and Tak had started getting taller Gir pestered Zim to upgrade his design so he could be taller too. After ages of persistence Zim finally gave into Gir’s request and updated both his design and disguise from his dog to his little brother. Zim was still a full head taller than him, which made Gir the shortest one in the group after Zim.

“I know.” Said Gir a bit more cheery, “But sometimes it feels a lot longer than that.”

“I know Gir.” Zim continued impatiently, “Did you get the disguise I told you too?”

“I did! Where’s Mimi?” Gir said as he rummaged through his green dog backpack and pulled out a small black cat disguise. Mimi mewed in excitement and Gir called out her name ecstatic as he ran over to her in the bushes. He pushed Tak aside and helped Mimi get her disguise who was more than happy to oblige.

“Where do you get these things?” Tak said bemused as she turned to Zim.

“It’s one of Gir’s old disguises, and he likes to keep things in his locker. And it looks pretty good on Mimi.”

Tak turned around and saw Mimi already in the disguise as she attempted to groom herself. Since the disguise was only a felt suit it did not have a tongue, so all she did was brush her arm against her mouth before rubbing it across her head.

“No. You are not wearing that, you look like a toy!” Tak said to Mimi.

“Then just have her pretend to be a toy. You’ll be able to take her home that way.” Dib suggested.

Tak then scooped up Mimi in her arms and said to her, “Don’t move a wire until we get back home and don’t say anything.” Mimi growled in response but Tak was satisfied with her answer. She then turned to Dib and asked him where Gaz was to which Dib responded that he didn’t. Almost on queue the three of them heard behind them,

“Alright, what’s this I hear about Tak’s disguise not working?” It was Gaz, and the three of them turned around to face her. Gaz saw Tak in her wig and Mimi in her felt suit and turned to Zim to say, “Oh. My God. You actually convinced her to wear one of your crappy disguises?”

“Hey it’s not crappy! It’s an ingenious disguise which just so happened to fool everyone on this planet. Except you and Dib.” Zim said defending himself.

“Yeah but everyone else on this planet’s an idiot.” Gaz said.

“Everyone? Even your father?” Zim said teasingly pointing to Gaz.

Without changing her blank expression she grabbed onto Zim’s hand and started squeezing, causing Zim to bend over in pain. He struggled for a moment before Gaz said, “You were saying?”

“Ah, I take it back. Your father’s a brilliant man. I love him!” Zim said in between groans of pain.

“Good answer.” Gaz said releasing him. Zim grabbed onto his other hand and massaged it.

Tak let out a giggle before saying, “Thanks Gaz.”

“For defending my dad?”

“No, but don’t get me wrong. Your father’s a credit to your entire species. But seeing Zim in pain always brightens my day.”

“Yeah, yeah, same to you.” Zim said, “If we’re all set I just want to get out of here before-” Again, Zim was interrupted.

“Oh hey Zim!” Said Keef with two backpacks slung over his shoulders.

“Oh, Keef. Great to see you.” Zim said regrettably, “But don’t you remember me telling you I needed some personal space for a while? Like forever?”

“Oh yeah I remember Zim, sorry. But I’m here for Dib.” Keef said this as he took one of the backpacks off and handed it to Dib. “You forgot your backpack in English class and when you didn’t show up I thought I’d make sure you got it.”

“Aw thanks Keef.” Dib said a little hesitantly. He was thankful for him getting his backpack but Keef was always a strange one. He was especially weirded out by Keef’s red eyes, and wished Zim could give him his old ones back, but Zim told him that would be impossible.

“You’re welcome Dib. But Zim while we’re all here do you think we could hang out some time?”

“Ah yes we would, but I’m afraid we’re all rather busy.” Zim said while trying to push Keef away.

“I’m not! We could hang out!” Gir said excited.

Zim was about to chastise Gir for even suggesting to hang out with Keef but before he could say anything Keef said, “That would be great! I’d love to hang with you, uh…?”

“My names Gir!”

“Gir? Gir, that’s right. You’re Zim’s little brother. But I thought Gir was the name of your green dog?” Keef said looking up to Zim.

“We named him after Gir.” Zim said not even bothering to look at Keef.

“Which one? The dog or your brother?”

Gir wailed and grabbed onto Keef as he cried, “My doooooog! Oh why? I loved you doggo!”

Zim pulled Gir off of Keef as he said, “Gir! Great, you set him off! Now I have to take him home so he can calm down.” He looked to the rest of them and walked off with Gir crying on his shoulder as he said, “Sorry guys, I’ll see you all after the weekend. Come on Gir.”

Keef followed after them and said, “I’m sorry I made you brother sad Zim. I can make it up to both of you though! Gir, do you like Pokémon? We can play together on the bus ride home.”

“I love Pokémon!” Gir said as all sadness left his voice, he jumped onto Keef’s arm after he said this and Dib, Tak, and Gaz could see the two of them fight for Gir during their walk to the bus. The three of them watched them in silence until Gaz asked,

“He knows we’re all hanging out tonight? Or is that cancelled on account of Tak?” She said turning to the two of them.

Dib said, “No, I just think he doesn’t want Keef to know about it. But, how did you know about Tak’s disguise?”

“She texted me.” Gaz said.

“When was this?” Dib said to Tak, to which she responded.

“After you went to get Zim. I know I said it was too dangerous to use our phones but I panicked. Again.”

“Yeah well whatever. I told you everyone’s dumber than a sack of bricks.” Gaz said as she pulled out a GameStation hoodie from her backpack and tossed it to Tak. “Here’s my sweatshirt I promised.” Tak thanked her and put it on. She then placed Mimi inside of it much to her disapproving, and she poked her head out at the top so she could see.

“This should make my walk home a little less nerve wracking.”

“Right, so are you two going to walk home together cause I’m going to catch our bus before it leaves.” Gaz said. Tak never liked riding the Skool bus with the others, so she always walked home herself, even though she lived further into the city.

“That won’t be necessary. I should be fine on my own now.” Tak replied, much to Dib’s surprise.

Dib said, “Are you sure? I don’t mind walking you home and we can look over your system together.”

“Yup.” Tak said as she pulled the hood over her face and pulled the strings in each hand to close it tight. This pushed Mimi deeper into the hoodie, putting her out of sight. “I should be fine.” She said muffled behind it.

“Well okay.” Dib started, some concern still in his voice, “But if you need anything just text me.” He reached down for his phone but didn’t feel it in his pocket and then a realization came over him. “I left my phone in English class. Or Keef has it. Shit!” Dib said sharply through his breath.

“She can text me or Zim if she needs anything, alright? Are you coming Dib?” Gaz said annoyed.

“You go on ahead I’ll catch up.” Dib waved her away.

“Okay, bye Tak.” She waved to the two of them, a small bit of concern going over her face as she did, but it only lasted for a second. She walked away to the bus leaving Dib and Tak together.

“Are you sure you’ll be okay?” Dib asked still concerned.

Tak pulled the hoodie down to free her mouth and said, “I should be fine, you go on ahead.”

“Okay, just text Gaz or Zim if you need anything, okay?”

“I heard Gaz fine Dib, you don’t need to repeat for her.” Tak then leaned into Dib and kissed him lightly on the lips, it lasted for a moment before Mimi let out an annoyed mew.

“Shush Mimi! You’re a toy. Toy’s don’t talk.” Tak said, but Mimi mewed back, “I don’t care if you think the disguise is good enough. Do as you’re told!”

“You’re going to be okay Tak?” Dib said again.

Tak started walking away and replied annoyed, “Yes, yes. I’ll be fine. We’ll see you tonight okay?”

Dib and Tak said goodbye and went their separate ways. Dib slung his backpack over his shoulder and went to his bus, and Tak began her long walk to her base. She looked around to make sure no one was watching her and then said to Mimi,

“Status report: my system’s still down but my pak and all its defensive capabilities are operational. Are your defenses operational as well?”

Mimi mewed and responded, “Yes Ma’am. All defensive systems are operational.”

Tak responded, “Good. Let’s just hope we don’t need to use them.” With that, the two of them began their long walk to their base. Tak had been looking forward to their meetup tonight all week, she hoped she was still going to be able to attend it.

* * *

This work is inspired by a piece of fan-art by an nameless doodle anon.

[fandom-will-be-my-fall]

Okay so here’s a fic idea for an enormously long fanwork I’ll probably never ever create but needed to get out of my system (I used female pronouns but it can be written neutrally too). You can write it, no, I beg you to write it, please, please someone do this, I don’t mind. Just give me credit and we’re good.

- - -

Reader, who had moved to the city just recently, is a new student who becomes acquainted with Zim. She acts surprisingly nice with him, and ever after accidentally discovering Zim’s secret identity as an alien, she vows not to tell a soul and keeps his secret, as promised.

She comes around often, to help him with his “diabolical” plans, watch a movie with GIR or simply hang out. It confuses him how kind, understanding and patient she is with him; no one has ever shown him love, but this girl is persistent, and fairly genuine. They develop a friendship; it’s hard for him to admit, but he becomes attached to this “weak, pathetic human”.

Later, they start a relationship (at first he claims it’s for purely experimental reasons), and it feels so new, so alien. He knows very little about feelings, since where he comes from feelings are weakness. But it feels so good to be weak, though he doesn’t understand why. Naturally, he never says it out loud, it manifests in the little things; how he’s more gentle and considerate with Reader than others, even letting her get physical, with hugs, kisses and similar forms of affection. It takes him time to get accustomed, but in the end, he accepts the change, and in the deep depths of his soul he couldn’t be happier.

For bonus fanfiction points, they find out about the Tallests’ true plans. (Meaning they only sent him to Earth to perish and never believed in him a single bit.) In the most obvious, plain way, because that’s the only way he would understand; or Reader reveals the truth to him herself, out of concern for him working for a false cause. This fundamentally changes his world view, to find out everything he used to believe in was fake, and he cracks. Reader helps him through the hard times; right now, she’s the only thing keeping him from completely losing his mind. She cannot help feeling helpless as she watches him slide into depression.

The situation persists, and the atmosphere becomes distressed. She’s sick of seeing him suffer, angry that no matter how hard she tries she cannot move him out of this state, and in all honesty tired of being his emotional pillar, as cruel as it may sound. (For a brief moment, she considers breaking up with him, feeling guilty later for even considering the possibility.) He senses this, hence they start having arguments more and more frequently, which only sets them further apart.

One night, she disappears and is presumed dead. There is clearly not enough research done on the case, which leaves the question: could she be alive?

You don’t truly appreciate something important to you until it’s gone for good. When the one thing he loves the most is at risk, Zim must take action. But will he be able to find Reader before it’s too late? Or will he lose everything?

[izamthereblliousirken]

((Okay so the previous ask wanted to know about the 🧠 questions for the 20 oc question post so here are the answers to that. Basically, this is all about the mental health of my oc, any specific triggers they may have, ways of self-care, and things that are difficult for them to do because of their mental health.

I’m only going to do this for Izam and TAF since there wasn’t a specific one of my oc’s asked for these questions. I would like to do this for Dylan as well if anyone is curious, but because Izam and TAF’s mental health do both directly tie into each other a lot, I figured it makes more sense to add them together. Also fair warning, this may be another long post because out of the two, TAF is surprisingly the more complex one when it comes to this topic, believe it or not. Anyway, here we go!

Izam: At this moment of the story, Izam’s mental health is not at the most stable. You all already seen this in action more than once, but obviously, it was at it’s worse when he saw Zim for the first time. That is because he was severely traumatized by the day Zim tried to kill him on Miyuki’s order. After that Izam was badly scarred, both physically and mentally. During his time on Moo-Ping 10, Izam was probably at his lowest point, especially before he made TAF. He was severely depressed then and would suffer from even greater panic attacks, sometimes waking up in the middle of the night screaming. Most of the time he would dream of Miyuki’s smug face and Zim’s angry one as he swung the weapon at him.

Whenever Izam thinks about Zim it causes this to happen, but it’s not just Zim himself. The attack that almost killed him left a nasty scar on his chest. I hadn’t had the chance to show it off, but it covers his entire torso. It’s as healed as it is going to be, but whenever he sees it, it reminds him of that day he got it and worsens his mental state. When his panic attacks are building up, Izam still feels the pain of the scar. I don’t know how obvious it is, (mostly because when I show this off, I suck at drawing and it may not fully look like this) but if you look back at all the times Izam is freaking out, his hand goes to his chest or he mentions the pain in his chest, he refers to the scar. 

Izam greatly struggles with self-care. He doesn’t really know how to help himself yet and because of how he grew up, he was never taught self-care tips. Maybe some places on Irk practices self-care, but Izam never had that in his training days. He does have one way to calm down, but at this point in time, it is not the best of options. It’s TAF. Let me explain. While TAF would help Izam out with no issues at all, in fact, it’s one thing TAF loves to do for Izam, this ends up feeding one of Izam’s problems in an unintentional way. Izam has become too reliant on TAF now and neither of them realizes this. In fact, they both over-depend on each other, but in Izam’s case, he relies on TAF so much that if Izam is in a situation when he has a panic attack and TAF isn’t there it will grow much worse, even if there is someone else there to help him. This is a hint to something that I will play on later. That’s all you guys get.  

TAF: Now as I stated before TAF is much more complex than what meets the eye. He actually has his fair share of mental health problems, though I’m not enough of an expert to state what types he may or may not have. So I’m not even gonna attempt at that. A lot of his issues stem back to his own insecurities. The guards and prisoners on Moo-Ping 10 abused TAF a lot. Izam did all he could to defend him, but because Izam was a prisoner himself, he was easily taken down by the guards. The guards and the warden of the prison were the worse defenders of the trama TAF had to go through. Izam wasn’t really allowed to have TAF, let alone make him, but the warden let it slip by as long as TAF would also do the bidding of everyone else in the prison. When he wasn’t with Izam, he was turned into a service drone basically, to put it in lighter terms. The entire time he would be reminded how he is made of literal garbage and is useless. It ate at him so much that now if he feels like he is failing at anything, even just in a small degree, he will get angry. 

When it comes to self-care, TAF also struggles. This is mostly because even though Izam made TAF to be as free-willed as possible, he is still a robot and he has an inclination to do as he was built for. He was built to be a companion. His friendship with Izam is real/genuine, but because he was made to be that comfort for Izam, he has a bad habit of putting Izam’s needs before his own. Also, while TAF is not a SIR unit, he was made with the broken parts of one. When Izam was building TAF, he had no choice but to use bits of what made a SIR unit a proper one. This is important because that means TAF will always have a need to serve and please Izam, because, in a way, he is the servant and Izam is the master, like Zim and GIR or Tak and MiMi, or any other invader and their SIR unit. This fact makes it even harder for TAF to put his own needs above Izam’s.

You can actually already see all this in play for TAF if you look back. He only really lashes out when Izam is at risk of being upset or is already upset. But if it is his own feelings that are getting hurt, he will push them aside and act as everything is okay, even if he lets the emotions show on his face for a brief moment. Thankfully there are times Izam catches on to TAF’s feelings and tries to cheer him up, but because of TAF’s duties, he fears that his own issues will upset Izam, so TAF tries most of the time to hide them from the irken. 

At this moment both Izam and TAF struggle with their emotions and they unfortunately still haven’t found that healthy balance yet to find some way to cope with everything. And it is not something they are going to find a solution to in a matter of minutes. Especially because a lot of the issues, mostly related to TAF, are things they both are not fully aware of just yet. They will, I have plans to slowly dive into this a bit in the future of this blog, but at this moment they are in ignorant bliss.))

[baccxratrouge]

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ 𝐓𝐎𝐌𝐎𝐑𝐑𝐎𝐖.

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ｌｅｅ ｄａｙａ ａｎｄ ｙｏｏｎ ｈａｎｅｕｌ. ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ o͏n͏c͏e͏ u͏p͏o͏n͏ a͏ t͏i͏m͏e͏ i͏n͏ j͏a͏p͏a͏n͏-o͏c͏c͏u͏p͏i͏e͏d͏ j͏o͏s͏e͏o͏n͏.

▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃

“My favorite color is violet. The scent of roses makes me feel at home, wherever I am. I do not enjoy fish, but I will eat it to make a loved one happy, suffering through my smile.” Daya mused loudly, watching how her shoes kicked at the pebbles in front of her as she pushed herself onto the swing, the momentum briefly lifting her off the ground.

She snickered when the pebble rolled forward in an attempt to crush a fallen blossom flower only for the gentle spring breeze to flit it away as if a chasing game of never-ending feud of weights of who could outrun the other. A burst of inaudible laughter echoed next to her, carrying its worth in vivacity. Her eyes narrowed to brace the evening sun when she turned her head to find his face, the impending dusk enveloping both of them into hues of dulcet purples and oranges. Indeed, she'd always loved the dusk. It was as though a hand in the sky had pulled the sun from its berth... only to have the sun fight back, resisting, leaving a trace of itself to face amongst the stars.

“Why did you stop?” Haneul asked, surprise marring his face at her sudden halt.

He’d always indulged in her girlish whims, letting her live as much as she wanted for however long their stolen moments were. For however long they allowed themselves to be mere youths and not the actual beings who lived in a cruel world, they let each other live… breathe as if there was no breath to take tomorrow, no reason to do so either.

Daya inhaled a breath, offering him a toothy grin as she lifted herself from the swing. “Why don’t you have a seat instead? Perhaps it’ll make you speak as much as I have.”

His brows lifted, almost disappearing into his hairline and Daya had to bite on her inner cheek to refrain from the simper that threatened to slip past her lips at the sight of him panicking. The grin on her tiers curved higher as she traipsed her way to the back of the swing, the very one that hung idly in a secretive open invitation on the peach blossom tree that stood in Ilwolseong’s courtyard. Her fingers found the ropes of the handle and she gave it a nudge, beckoning him encouragingly.

“Do you not think the tree will break?” he asked, his throat constricting in nervousness.

“Is the mighty army officer afraid?” she jested in a serious tone, rattling the swing again. It seemed to have piqued his pride for he stood up with a roll of his eyes, the embers flashing almost silver in the dusk as he straightened the lapels of his uniform with resolute hands. “Only a child would be afraid of this.”

Haneul carefully, daintily, perched down onto the wooden bench of the swing and with a playfully exasperated sigh, she nudged his back straight in an attempt to relax his posture. And the moment his fingers found the rope, she pushed with every ounce of might she could muster, watching as he flew into the evening sky but in his panic began to kick his feet until he landed back down. Sweat dotted his forehead, what was usually a lovely face of marble now a pale shade of sick. Daya laughed, stilling the swing so he could calm the thrill of the height. It was only after a moment she spoke again, mirth filling her tone as she walked to the front, crouching on her knees so she could be eye-level to his gaze.

“Are you finally starting to breathe in a normal fashion?” Daya teased. “I must confess I find your behavior rather odd, considering you said only a child would be afraid to swing.”

“I wasn’t afraid.” Haneul wrapped a hand around hers. She slanted a disbelieving look his way. “You just lied to me.”

“I wasn’t afraid,” he repeated. “I was terrified.”

Peals of laughter broke through the little cocoon of the two, ringing into the purpled skies in honeyed and carefree twinkling bells of girlish mirth. Her smaller hand squeezed his bigger ones, keeping her hold onto him in no hopes of letting go soon even when he grinned back as if her laughter was contagious. Even when the old librarian poked his head through the orchid doors, a pensive look on his wrinkled face.

“You laugh too loud— as if you’re the only one in the world,” the older man pronounced, shaking his head.

Daya simmered, offering him a wrinkle of her nose. “Funny, my father used to say the same thing. You’d prefer I stop, good sir?”

“No,” Haneul spoke right after she had finished, his voice a cool breeze in the heated spring evening. “I would not.”

The librarian bowed his head, shooting Daya a glance she did not catch. She was staring at a man who was a puzzle piece she was still trying to piece. He nodded at her, thumb brushing over the back of her hand as if to enunciate what came next. “I cannot speak for him or anyone else. But you do laugh too loud. It’s like the promise of tomorrow and I hope you never stop.”

[nightskiedarchive-blog]

MARÍA DE LA CUERVA ,    the vessel .

             from a lowly aristocratic spaniard family ,  maría never was much of a defier .  she believed in order and duty ,  in doing things because one must and ot because they’re pleasant .  even when the cuban revolution of 1959 and the french may of ‘68 ,  events that she funnily enough got to live in her flesh or close enough ,  maría firmly believed that the status quo should not be disrupted .  none of that fire from youth ,  but all the beauty and charisma for being more than a bleak ,  outdated maiden in a changing world .  well - traveled ,  well - spoken ,  a bookworm of the biggest kind ,  she could recite   a midsummer night’s dream  start to finish without missing a beat ,  and the divine comedy and any other classic ,  the poets from way back when always being the stuff of her dreams .  she played the piano ,  violin and flute and could dance just about anything ,  except for jazz or swing ,  which she believed were vulgar .

             that was ,  at least ,  until she was invited over to the united states to visit her cousins ,  born and raised on the west coast and urging her to submerge herself in the new things arising .  with the distant approval of her parents and the pressure put on by her grandmother ,  maría took a ship to the united states .  her life didn’t change because of a man ,  though it’d surely end because of one .  in the states ,  her cousins introduced her to their friends ,  who insisted on showing her every club and making her try every new kind of liquor or mix of that they came across ,  especially whenever maría said she’d never even  heard  of such a thing ,  and would nearly scowl despectively .

             but ,  pitifully ,  it was this same parameter ,  this same disregard for her tastes that gave jeremiah the power to wrap her up and take her away .  first ,  would you like to dance ?  and her initial  no  being tossed aside by the group of friends ,  the second one ,  too .  and  come on ,  you have to learn how to !  until she was more or less pulled into the dance floor by force or her drunken feet leading her there for making them all shut the bloody hell up .

             he taught her the basics of how to dance swing ,  led her like she was a ragdoll and she laughed until becoming dizzy from all the spinning and hopping and bopping ,  all the  noise !  

             managing to sway them all into the idea of getting milkshakes or more booze elsewhere ,  they all left a bit early and jeremiah followed suit ,  aided by his own charms and the general drunkness and nobody suspecting anything ,  because he was just a suitor ,  or so her cousins would tell her .  he’s cute ,  he’s cute and he’s fun ,  ree !   what a lot of bullshit .

             he was supposed to walk her home ,  not to do unspeakable things to her and kill her when she refused ,  when she struggled against him and tried to scream for help although there was nobody on the street .  the morning sun greeted her cold ,  dead body ,  a thin layer of snow coating her entirely ,  blood stains on her face and torn clothes ,  clear eyes wide open against the asphalt .  and yet nobody ever found her ,  no funeral and a thousand parties for fiding her spread out across the coast ,  across the country and the continent ,  her parents were desperate to find her .

             until their last breath ,  they were desperate to find her ,  but they never could .  maría was no longer ,  although she still had her face ,  her voice ,  her hair and the single burn mark from her childhood and a maid that had not been careful enough ,  maría was no longer because at the time of her death ,  a snake needed to change skins .

             when victoria found maría ,  in a local morgue ,  following ghost - like sighs and whispers and hunches ,  she got the information of who she was and where she came from .  giving her the space to  exist  in her consciousness once her soul ,  her mind ,  had been put in the maiden’s body ,  victoria gave her what’d be the closest thing to  closure  that she could ever get :  the erasure of her identity by time and time only ,  a few calm years after the frenzy ,  and the murder of her murderer .  victoria had been told that she’d have to submit the previous conscious to her bidding for later abolishing ,  and she knew the perfect way as soon as she knew of maría’s death .  because the gir could’ve been a grossly closed aristocrat in the XX century ,  but she’d hated what was done to her .  from being thrusted into all the things that she didn’t like and being told that she  had to  like them ,  to her last moments on this earth ,  of tortuous ,  agonizing death .

             she killed him craftfully ,  she killed him in the way that maría would’ve liked to read of his death in a classic written ages ago ,  illed him in the name of honour and love and dignity .  killed him because he deserved to die but  first ,  he deserved to suffer for what he’d done ,  for the atrocities committed against her persona .  and ,  the best part of it ,  maría and victoria both know ,  was the look of sheer  horror  on his face when he saw  who  was going to be the cause of his death .

             after that ,  it was only a matter of time until maría disappeared ,  found the way to the next realm ,  or her next life ,  or simply went away and her energy left her flesh entirely ,  giving free rein for victoria to take over ,  stop the calm ,  sedentary life that she’d accomodated to maría ,  and go back to the things that concerned her .

[writeroffanfiction]

Protagonists Prep Ch 2 Student Arrival

Student Arrival Typed by WriterOfFanfiction. I don’t own Steven Universe, Miraculous SVTFOE, Invader Zim, and Penn Zero Part Time Hero.

Inside a large forest was clearing which held what looked like a three-story building but other than that everything else was quite ordinary until five multi colored and erratic holes broke open out of nowhere.  From the hole came out the students who got the letters as well as their parents except for Zim, Adrien, and Chloe for two their parents were either dead or didn’t care and for Zim he didn’t have any. They stood in the clearing for what seemed like a half hour in silence until Star almost yelled at the top of her lungs.

“Where is everyone?!” Which opened the flood gates to the teens getting in complaints and whining.

“ Why are we here I could be playing my game slave.” “ And I could be looking for aliens.” Both Dib and Gaz complained to their father.

“ Papa pourquoi avons-nous même dû venir ici.”Chloe asked her father in a whiny tone.

“ I don’t even know why wanted to come here Steven?... Steven!” Pearl asked the absent boy who walking towards Zim with a happy and go lucky grin on his face hoping to make friends with the temperamental green alien.” You do realize that you kind of described Peridot,right?” I do now. Anyway, the young half gem reached Zim and tried to spark conversations.

“Hi I’m Steven and you are?” Zim just rolled his eyes in annoyance and said. “Look Steven is it, I do not nor need to talk so go away.” Steven looked hurt at Zims’ response but didn’t give up on the opportunity for a new friend.

“ Ah come on please you’re the first alien I’ve seen.”

“What!!!” Zim yelled in surprise at what Steven said

“ Well actually second if you count the gems also your dog is missing.” Steven told Zim innocently. Needless to say, everything went to complete chaos with Zim trying to attack Steven who then used his powers to defend himself which caused everyone trying to freak-out. Meanwhile with Gir the little disguised robot left the main group to release some coolant and was now just walking around the large forest which amazed him to no end. He was admiring a tree when he heard a rustle coming from the bushes to his right. Thinking the rustle could be a new rodent friend Gir waddled towards the bushes and started to introduce himself.

“Hi there, my names Gir want to be friends I have wa…” The introduction died in his vocal processors when a 20-ft. tall creature rose from the shrubbery. The creature looked down at Gir and let a low growl which turned into a thunderous which not only shook the surrounding area but caused the small robot to run and scream at the top of its vocal processors. Back with the main group the echoes of the roar were heard they stopped freaking out and started worry about what made that sound.

“ Wh-a-at was that?”  A slightly terrified, though she’ll never admit it, Sashi asked.

“ Je ne sais pas mais Coccienlle et Chat pourrait gérer.” Alya exclaimed but almost no one could understand her.

“ Je vais regarde aroud.” Both Adrien and Marinette said but before they could split off from the main group Gir came sprinting out of the forest, with his disguise torn, a bit and screeched out.

“RUN!!!!!” “Wait did that dog just talk?” Penn asked but before anyone could get a single word the beast thundered out of the forest on four of its legs towards the group. Star and her mother tried to access their magic but came up empty same for the gems and their weapons as well for Adrien and Marinette when they tried to transform. When the beast reached them most of the group closed their eyes not wanting to see what would happen next but instead of hearing flesh and bone being broken and ripped apart they heard what sounded like chuckling to which turned into a deep laugh. The group opened their to see th- “Quit calling me the beast you know my name so use it. You idiot.”   Fine they saw Drooler , a 20-ft. tall dark red dragon like creature with four arms black wings with scars on the wings and one on his chest he also has orange symbols on most of his body as well a light grey one. Who had his four arms wrapped around his chest and laughing, are you happy now. “ Well didn’t describe most of my good looks but I guess people wouldn’t be able to contain themselves if you did so 7/10”  Can I just get back to  telling the story “Sure.”  Thank you, Anyway the group just looked at him with shocked and frightened eyes no one moved or talked for an uncomfortable 5 min until Marco yelled.

“Who the heck are you!!” Drooler just looked slightly confused and asked.

“Did you my argument with Writer?” After he asked the question he looked around at the who mostly had confusion and fear on their faces. Drooler just hand to his head and shook it like he had a headache he mumbled.

“If only. So, names Drooler but you can call me Sir, Mr., or Fire-eater.” Most of the group were slightly confused by the last request but considering what they’re talking too they wouldn’t be surprised if he did do that. They started to walk to the building but Drooler told them to stop but before they could ask why a strange ship landed behind them. Out the ship walked out a tall a light midnight blue woman with almost white hair in a dark blue shawl, gem location upper chest area, followed by a thin light blue woman, same as Blue Diamond, with her hair covering her eyes and a third woman, gem location hip, who’s a mix of dark blue and black who was about 7 ft. tall an athletic build with uneven hair and an analytical face. Those figures seemed to cause the three gems and half gem to worry while the tall woman had a flash of anger appeared on her face and then she spoke.

“Onyx take care of these traitors.” The now named Onyx just nodded and pulled out a mace from the gem on her hip which surprised most of the group but not the Gems or the Maheswarans. However, what did surprise them was the speed the Onyx possessed which she used to sped towards the Crystal Gems raising her weapon at Amethyst but before Onyx could even hit Amethyst Drooler grabbed Onyxs’ arms with his lower pair of arms. Which caused Onyxs’ face to don a confused look which quickly turned into fear as two giant fists flattened her head causing her to disappear in cloud and her gem landing on the ground. Drooler just picked it up and flipped it towards Blue Diamond who surprisingly picked up out of fear of him.

“Come on, the guys are getting impatient.” He said casually said to the group which followed out of fear and curiosity. When they entered the building the size of the halls about three times the height of Drooler. Who was explaining what this building was, what they’re going to learn and whose teaching what but the group was actually paying attention to Droolers’ explanations instead they’re wondering what are the “guys” are, what they look like and how many there are. Also they’re wondering what the heck that loud banging they hear every 2 minutes which drove Pearl crazy so she asked.

“So uhm Mr.Drooler I do appreciate the tour but what is that annoying sound?!” Drooler just smiled and led them to a pair of large double doors which opened to a large auditorium with three rows of seats and a large stage. On that stage are eight creatures, the largest being 40 ft. tall and the smallest being 8 ft. tall, one of the creatures, a 25-ft. tall rhino like creature with blue marking on his chest, arms and tail, was about to ram into the now slightly dented wall until.

“Jack! Either you stop that or I’ll have you on Rot Worm clean up!!!”  Drooler yelled to the now named Jack who tripped and landed with a heavy dull thud. Jack looked at Drooler with an annoyed expression and asked.

“Boss, why ya do that for?” What surprised the group was Jacks’ Chicago accent but Drooler just answered with a small smile.

“Because I can. Now I believe we owe all of you some answers.”

End Of Part One

“What the hell! Why You didn’t tell me that this was a two parter?!” Because its slightly fun to see you suffer.

“ You know what you need to chill out.” What do you mean by * turns into a block of ice*

“Like boss said ya need da chill out.”

“ See ya next time.”

[anonimo283]

Byakko Francis - OC - Information It is the basic information of my OC, as well as curiosities, I hope you like it and if you want the real image you can see it in: https://anonimo283.deviantart.com INFORMATION -Name: Francis Byakko -Kanji: び ゃ っ こ f ら ん し s -Nicknames: Byakkochi, Byo-chin -Nationality: American -Sex: Female -Age: 16 -Height: *Okami: 165 cm *Teiko: 153 cm -Weight: 45 kg -Birthday: 8 May -Zodiac sign: Aries -Type of blood: or positive -Physical skills *Speed: High, despite his short stature, his speed is like that of an animal, which allows him to pass between his opponents easily. *Strength: Very high, although his body is small and thin is possessing a great strength, almost supernatural, but even so its great use causes injuries because his body is not able to endure. *Flexibility: Its flexibility allows you to take big leaps and more with your small body, to other that it helps you to pull from any point of the court and position. *Zone: She can enter the area easily and of her own free will at any time, yet avoids its use because that quality was inherited from her father. *Resistance: High, can last hours playing or working, because I used to work when I was barely a gir. -Family *Father: Albert Gold His parents never married *Big Brother: Nash Gold -Best subject: Physics and Mathematics -Worst subject: Spanish and Chemistry APPEARANCE Of low and thin stature, due to its bad growth, I do not develop hips or bust, so it has a childlike appearance. Of clear skin, big orange eyes, very peculiar, and white hair with gray tips. His hair is short, could be said as a man and a long fringe between the eyes, like two strands capases cover the end of his eyes. His expression is always the same, of a serious and cold girl, but his eyes always show their true emotions although his expression is just as serious. CHARACTER Although it does not seem like it Byakko has an explosive and impulsive character, since he does not hesitate to defend himself from an abusive person or give himself a place in any situation. At the same time also sentimental, because in a situation of risk where it involves your loved ones, you can get to do things without thinking only by impulse and decay very quickly by your emotions. Byakko always thought about being strong and not depending on anyone, like hiding her emotions before others, because they always thought her weak because of her appearance or even because she was a woman. The idea of ​​socializing or making friends annoys him because he believes it is a waste of time, so he prefers to work either to make money or in his physical abilities to make himself better and demonstrate his strength to his father. For her, playing basketball is a distraction, just as winning was not necessary, you just had to have fun. She is not very feminine and those things of fixing dislike her because she thinks it is uncomfortable, so her dress is usually very simple or manly. She is afraid of her childhood memories as well as her mother's, so she suffers from insomnia since she usually has nightmares about her and her children, and in many cases depression from her emotions. The coexistence with his father is of hatred and resentment for what he does not usually talk to him, on the other hand with his brothers he is very affectionate and considerate. He likes sports, K-pop music, anime and manga, as well as manhwas and manhuas, video games and his adoration is to try new food. *Motto: "Cruelty is the strength of cowards" BIOGRAPHY Byakko lived in Canada with the care of the maids, from 5 years with the order of his father. Byakko did not know the reasons just as he did not know his own father, the memories of his mother wavered in his own mind without being able to remember it at all. But Chiaki's company and his friends, like his brother's, helped him lead a normal life despite the hatred of his father But things change when his father tells him to move to Japan and although he refused, he had no choice but to accept. And so Byakko knows his new friends and rivals. *Postscript: This is a very short summary, so as not to bore you. RELATIONSHIP WITH AKASHI She did not get along well with Akashi, and even in Teiko her talks were short, even though she came to admire him for her great decision making, she also understood very well the feeling of losing your mother, but I never consider him her friend or something similar. But his admiration changed because of hatred, perhaps because he had become someone cocky, which reminded him of his father, even though he never related to him. But their relationship changes with Seirin's help in knowing the defeat even though their relationship is still very distant. *Postscript: This is a very short summary, so as not to bore you. CURIOSITIES 1-Byakko also has a lack of presence, but only when she wants to and in due time, so she only uses it in the locker room so that she can not see her changing. 2-The first to know that she was a girl was Nijimura and Momoi. 3-Byakko is flat-chested so hiding it is not a problem. 4-Something peculiar of her are her eyes since her pupils react with her emotions although her facial expression is different, her eyes are the truth of her personality. For example, when she gets angry they contract and when she is sad they dilate too much to the point that her eyes instead of versé oranges they look black. 5-Although it seems hard to believe Byakko snores and dribbles in the night, and usually moves a lot when he sleeps, that's only when he does not have nightmares. 6-Due to her nightmares Byakko is used to sleeping with someone, Chiaki always slept next to her when she stayed at home, but after her death, her brother voluntarily proposed to sleep with her. 7-His brother was always very affectionate and protective and more when he falls into depression, and has come to hate his father for such treatment towards his sister. 8-Byakko never had a pet, because when she was a girl she rescued a cat, but her father ended up killing her in front of her and because of the fear that it would happen again to another helpless animal, she would have a pet. 9-Chiaki was her boyfriend at the end of high school, so his loss affected him more. 10-He used to get involved in fights in elementary and high school so he always had bruises and punches. 11-She and her half sister never got along.

[mental-health-advice]

Submission from 4s4n

so i’m 18 turning 19, i’m an average girl, i get the tiniest bit above average grades which suffice me sometimes, i have a great set of family and friends kind of, i’d like to think so. i say this because i hae issues, internally with myself. i don’t have body issues or any issues appearance wise, i mean i do but they bring me the least woes. anyway, i have a strong feeling that i’m depressed and have a little bit of an anxiety problem. i say i think because i’ve never been diagnosed and i don’t think i ever will because my fakily and friends are the type to somewhat not believe in these or feel as if these things aren’t a major problem. but it is to me because every night my mind girs everywhere thinking of every thing that could go wrong in my life, about people who are close to me and them hating my guts for no absolute reason. i don’t get enough sleep not because of school but because i stay up thinking about all these scenarios that all end up with everyone turning against me and doing things behind my back. i may be a little bit of a narcissist and an attention seeker too and that’s probably why i have never opened up about this. i just thought that oh there she goes again, back at it with wanting to be centre of attention. i get tired very easily and tend to procrastinate everything i do when i know submissions are tthe next day etc. i don’t know who i am or what i am doing anymore and i feel like keeping all this in isn’t good but at the same time like my family and friends, i just wish that all of this is just some kind of sick joke my head keeps replaying and one day it’ll all fade away and i can finally get some rest. despite the things i’ve mentioned, i still do dearly from the bottom of my heart love my family and friends, they do not inted to do anything detrimental to my mental or physical health nor have they ever done anything of that sort (in front of me at least) and i hope that’s the case and all these things i’m making up in my head are just again, sick jokes. every time there’s any of us just hanging out and the others look towards each other and start whispering or talking in hush silence amongst themselves, i get paranoid and the worst just clouds my mind. i have never mentioned these problems to anyone in real life because i could never fully explain all these without breaking down at the sight of their judging eyes and not knowing whether all these are even true or me just making things up in my head and trying to be something i’m not or trying hard to “fit in”, sickeningly in the worst way possible is also one of the biggest reasons why. idk what to do anymore and whilst i have no such thought to harm or hurt myself throughout this period of my life, (which is the major factor that makes me think none of this is real) i just wish i soo wish that one day i’ll be me again. whoever i was before all this, i want to be her again and not have to worry this much about what might possibly be nothing. (sorry could you please tag this as 4s4n)

Hey there,

First of all, thank you so much for reaching out to us, I know that this wasn’t an easy thing for you to do at all, but you did it so well done! Hopefully I will be able to give you some extra support and advice and help you get back to being the person you once were. But please be mindful that as people we are always changing due to our experiences and what we go through in life on a daily basis. So because of this you may not be able to go back to exactly who you were before but hopefully you can reconnect with yourself and come out of this with feeling happy once again and as an even stronger person! So keep trying to get through the days as best as you can and never give up!

You mentioned that you feel like you may be suffering from depression and possibly anxiety as well. I am so sorry that you’re not better supported by your family and friends. Mental health is a big issue and health concern for so many people out there and no one should have to feel like they cannot get the mental health support and help that everyone is very deserving of no matter who you are or where you may have come from. I do hope that one day you can get to a point in your life where you will feel comfortable in reaching out for professional help despite what others may think. But of course if you do or not is completely up to you, but if you’re interested in what the getting help process may look like then please do check out our page on getting help.

I am not a professional but it does sound like you have a lot going on for you that could be mental health related and that it is impacting on different parts of your life, for example you finding it really hard to get some decent sleep. It sounds like you don’t have good sleep hygiene at the moment so I encourage you to check out our page on getting a good nights sleep too. There is a lot of helpful advice that may make switching off at night a little easier so you can have a more rested sleep and feel refreshed in the morning. Getting a good nights sleep is so important because it allows you to function a lot better and efficiently throughout the day without feeling so tired. I myself find that if I don’t get enough sleep then it can really impact on my own mental health conditions in a negative way. So maybe if the advice on getting a good nights sleep doesn’t help you as much as you need (which is Ok, as what works for some may not be as beneficial for another) then I’d encourage you to speak to your local doctor/ GP as often medication can be really helpful to help you switch off your never ending thoughts/ feelings. So this may be something you can look into if you feel that medication may be of some help for you and something that you may want to give a go.

Another thing that may be helpful for you to give a try is having someone that you can confide in and talk to about anything that you are struggling with or finding difficult, and just having someone you can offload to when needed. I know that getting help (and especially face-to-face) can be really scary so if this is the case for you then perhaps speaking to a counsellor from a helpline or on web counselling would be something that’s a bit easier for you to try.

From what you have said in your Ask, I don’t think that you’re making anything up at all. Voicing your concerns to others can be a really big deal and so I feel that because you haven’t yet been in the position where you feel able and comfortable to confide in your family and/ or friends or someone else in your life or a professional, then it’s so much easier to feel as though what you’re experiencing isn’t really happening. So there for if/ when you are able to let others into your life it will make all of this seem so real and perhaps even really overwhelming too. And it’s more than OK to cry or break down in front of others, it doesn’t make you weak and it’s nothing to feel ashamed about. And if you feel unable to talk face-to-face then there is also the option of writing everything down instead!

I hope that this has been helpful and that things are going OK for you at the moment. Please remember that you’re not alone and you don’t have to go through this alone anymore either. We are also here for you if you want to talk more or just vent. I do recommend you seeking help from a professional like a counsellor or therapist at some point but it has to be when you’re ready to do this!

I’m thinking of you and wishing you all the best!

Take care,

Lauren

[kitto-toberu-sa]

Naruto Spectacular

Seating/Glasses

Second back row, almost right at the wall. Awful seating, but I could still see things clearly. Some people had binoculars ;; This year I decided not to go with the translator glasses – I’m sure they have a proper name, but they’re these cool glasses you wear when watching the performance and as the characters speak, subtitles come up. I believe they’re available in English and Chinese. Something like Naruto is easy for me to understand without subtitles, and last year I felt like only the main points were being subbed, instead of everything (maybe a fear people couldn’t read fast enough?) so I’d probably only recommend them if your Japanese is lacking. I’m not sure if they’d work properly sitting so far away either – maybe they’d overlap on the actors too much? I think they’re better if you use them up close tbh.

The Show I apologise for skipping between musical, spectacular, play, spectacle and show ;;; We start off with Konohamaru fighting bad guys. Personally I don’t care for him, and it was really an excuse to put an actor in the audience and for Naruto to look cool when he saved Konohamaru. Unnecessary scene, and from my spot, hard to see.

Essentially everything up to the ‘find Sasuke’ arc is ignored. So if you’re hoping for Sakura screen time, you’d best go back to the source material. In saying that, Sakura’s fight with Sasori is mentioned a few times, and she explains Sasori’s mannerisms to Yamato when they do the whole ‘Kabuto is Sasori’s spy’ scene. I can understand why they skipped it, as while it was hella cool to watch her kick ass, it’d be difficult to do in a stage play and you’d need to get the Suna Three back for such small scenes etc etc. Maybe if they do this play again next year, they can add that in. Tsunade gets a song as she kinda explains the mission, but honestly, you could give her lines to literally any other character. She’s not that influential. I think she looks like Tsunade, but her speaking voice feels too harsh to me.

Sai is golden. He looks fine, he looks like Sai, sounds like Sai. Like, y’all, I realise that’s what acting is, but not everyone can do it well. After the show, and in the break, numerous people went and bought Sai goods. (Also Itachi goods) He was a perfect Sai. When they’re finding Sasuke in Orochimaru’s lair, Naruto and Sai have a song and it’s pretty touching… until Sai tries to sing about Naruto’s dick. Naruto has the most perfect ‘dude, for real?’ look and I can’t wait to see it on dvd.

Speaking of new team 7 – Yamato’s scary face is done so so well! They end up putting it on a large screen behind him. It looks mostly like someone with a torch on their face, so it’s a little cheesy, but it works really well in the scenes it’s done in (two or three times?). Sakura also did her ‘meeting Sai’ scene, when she hits both Naruto and Sai, incredibly well. Not only is she insanely cute, she’s the perfect Sakura. Enough cool and enough cute. If they continue to do musicals until the completion of the show, I’m a little worried how Sasuke-obsessed they’ll make her, but so far it’s been toned down, which I appreciate.

Unfortunately Sai doesn’t try to capture Sasuke in his sleep. I can understand why (unnecessary stage props and all), but Sasuke being such a moody bitch when he wakes up that he blows up the base will forever be one of my favourite things. The whole meeting Naruto and co scene is kind of a let down too. It was nice, but considering how that’s how Shippuden opened and the build up to get there, the play didn’t have the same feel. This play was rushed a little, and this scene suffered for it.

Sasuke killing Orochimaru was great tho. Orochimaru’s voice will always be amazing, speaking or singing, so I’ll probably never say an Orochimaru scene is bad lol It was sufficiently creepy (though again, a little too fast) and gave Sasuke and Orochimaru equal voices.

Another scene that suffered was collecting Taka. This one I mostly grumble at due to my Taka-bias tho. Obviously they can’t spend episodes gathering the three of them, and to be fair, they did get a song. Karin was a little overly sexual, but considering they only showed her being ott twice? I won’t complain (especially in that outfit – she can honestly do what she wants and I’ll agree ;;;) Sometimes it was actually kind of cute. Another scene cut was finding Zabuza’s sword. Considering the time it took in the anime, and all the scene changes, it makes sense, but I enjoyed seeing Sasuke actually test his team – here, we have him just believing they’ll be suitable instead of confirming it. Juugo’s whole ‘male female’ scene was good too, and Karin egging Juugo on in his fight against Suigetsu was a good touch too.

In between scenes we often have Akatsuki stuff – Itachi generally barges in on Sasuke’s songs to tell him he’s weak af, and wherever Itachi goes, Kisame goes too. Naruto and Taka sometimes join as well, same for Deidara.

I really liked Deidara. Unfortunately his character was greatly reduced, but considering he isn’t insanely plot relevant, I guess it doesn’t make much of a difference… (Un?)fortunately, when he creates the giant Deidara, it’s a blow up. I was trying really hard not to cackle. It’s ridiculous. I lowkey hate it, lowkey love it’s cheesiness. Also, from where I was sitting, the tongue that is in his chest looks a little like something else. It just kinda… sprung free and I couldn’t take it seriously at all =.= I guess this scene was gold for all the wrong reasons lol

The search team is sent out for Sasuke and them running looks so stupid. I understand how hard it is to run around, since the space is so limited, but maybe instead of such a long running scene, have some of it just be talking? Maybe it looked good from the centre of the audience, but from my spot, it looked really lame. Kurenai’s team makes an appearance, but get a line or two each. Karin still gets Juugo to help her scatter Sasuke’s stuff, but I don’t believe it’s explicitly said what her plan is, so unless you’ve seen the show/read the manga (safe to say most audience members would – but sometimes people come to these things just because (shout out to the 80 year old couple at the Digimon play), or are accompanying a friend), you wouldn’t know what her plan was.

Next is the Itachi vs Sasuke scene and it was so good. Like, idk how to explain it. They had doubles for clones, it was spot on with lines and emotions. The audience got really involved in it, and it sucks that you know what’s coming because it hurts that much more… I’d say this is probably the highlight of the play. Obviously they’re two popular characters and their actions, since even before their introductions, have been the driving force of some plot incidents (Itachi killing the clan motivates Sasuke to be strong, goes to Orochimaru) and other character’s motivation (Sasuke’s abscence motivates Team 7), not to mention how emotional this scene is, so I think a lot of time and effort was placed into this scene. It worked really well and I wish I could explain it better ;;;

Taka becomes Hebi, and Tobi is done really well. Tobi interacts with Pein and Konan as well, but mostly with the Uchiha brothers. I’m biased toward Tobi as he ran up to us in the finale and I could high five him, but shush. Those gloves are real nice but in this heat I can’t imagine they’d be super comfortable… The ending song is the same (and I really hope we get a cast version soon – honestly last year’s Gaara/Oro duet part was ICONIC). Naruto also had some hella cool rad sticks and when he spun them, it made a Naruto face and stuff. Rad af.

In the comments, Sasuke just kept cackling, while Yamato and Sai were minor low key throwing shade at Deidara and Tobi who were actually speaking. They were dorks so there was plenty of time to laugh at them lol This team works together so well and you can see they’re good friends – sometimes you don’t feel that but in a series that is based on, partly at least, the power of friendship and love, that’s super important.

Honestly, while this year lacked the jumping around action of last year’s, I think it kinda showed how they characters matured? As soon as it ended I wanted to see it again! While I wanted to see last years again too, I was more serious about seeing this years again, but this late in the season makes it way too difficult  Guess I just have to wait for next year!

How does it compare to last year? I saw last year’s performance as well. Personally, I liked this year’s better. I am hugely Taka-biased tho. Even though my seats weren’t as good this year (were as bad as you could get tbh – last year I was in the second block, if I had been one row closer I could have high touched the actors), I feel more touched by this year’s performance – partly because it was more emotional to a lot of characters I guess? More interesting scenes too – the Lee/Naruto wake up scene last year was cute (and everything with InoShikaCho was amazing, and this musical didn’t have anything on that type of team bond/audience interaction feel, which was kinda sad), but this year had things like Orochimaru dying, so I guess it had less time for ‘filler’. Also, while I don’t hate Naruto, he’s not even in the top five of my fave Naruto characters ;; If anything, I felt like he was unnecessarily added in some scenes in this performance.

Also, while I didn’t talk to the fans (lots of people come by themselves, don’t want to talk to others and that’s ok! And I’m sure some of them are confused by the foreigner and worry about their English/my level of Japanese so don’t strike up a conversation and I’m too shy to do start one), when I was trying to organise the stupid amount of merch I bought, one girl offered to hold my coffee and someone else helped me when I dropped something. Also, the girls really brought their a-game this year and were splendidly dressed. I… wore a Naruto shirt and was underdressed in comparison ;;;

I felt like the girls around me were more emotional as well. Maybe some of the crowd last year had already seen the previous year’s performance and therefore knew what was coming, but more people were crying this year. This year felt a lot more fast paced, so everything happened faster and there were more intense moments, and I guess it was more than likely mostly Uchiha fans in the audience, which probably had something to do with it, but still, I think this audience was more involved than last year’s was.

There were some people waiting for the actors to leave (so they could wave them off in their taxis) but security practically pushed me out. Considering they weren’t doing the same to anyone else, I do feel it was race motivated – maybe they thought I wouldn’t fight back due to lacking Japanese, or something? Either way it was hella rude as I was getting my phone, train pass etc out of my bag and everyone was pretty far from where the taxis were going to be driving anyway. If someone spends 7000 yen on a ticket and then more than that on goods and preorders the bluray, while I don’t necessarily want respect, I think the least I deserve, the least type of customer service I should receive, is not being shoved.

I’d recommend the stage performances regardless. Seeing them live is so much more fun than watching them on a dvd! Obviously it isn’t realistic for everyone to do that, but try to at least support the official release in some way.

[ramajmedia]

Invader Zim: The 10 Weirdest Characters On The Show | ScreenRant

Back when Nickelodeon preferred making cartoons over making overworked child stars, they produced some really impressive titles. These went down in pop culture as some of the most timeless and relevant kids shows ever. Among those once-in-a-decade gems are Spongebob Squarepants and Fairly Odd Parents, and then there's Invader Zim.

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One could often wonder how this insane cartoon was greenlit as a kids' show given how dark and horrific it can be. It only lasted two seasons but garnered a cult following-- enough to get a belated Netflix movie just recently: Invader Zim: Enter the Florpus. Fun fact: the TV series is even darker than the film. So before you dive into a show marathon, here's a refresher on Invader Zim's most bizarre characters.

10 TAK

During one episode of Invader Zim, a new alien character was introduced. Her name was Tak and like Zim, she was an Irken invader agent tasked with conquering planets for the approval of their almighty Tallest (their leaders). Despite appearing only in one episode, Tak stands out as a 'what-if' character, as in, what if Zim was actually a competent invader?

Tak would have succeeded if not for the combined forces of Dib, Zim, and Gaz; however, she's still eccentric as heck. Instead of getting revenge on Zim for causing an accident which barred her from being an invader, she tried to steal his role instead. Oh, and she apparently kept switching between a British and American accent, plus her choice of disguise is creepy.

9 ZIM

The fact that the two alien invader characters here are the least weird speaks volumes about how dysfunctional the humans are in Invader Zim. Zim does appear normal and understandable in his motivations. What's odd about him is his lack of pessimism. Zim, despite being evil and selfish appears to have the patience of a Buddhist.

He displays this with his broken assistant robot, Gir, and even keeps planning even after being met with failure after failure. That or he's just incredibly blunt which makes it even weirder since some of his inventions are pure genius.

8 GAZ

Gaz Membrane is one of the coolest characters in Invader Zim and is the heavy metal punk girl of your dreams. She also loves video games and has a hair that looks like a Satanic creature's jaw. When not bullying his brother, Dib, Gaz likes to wallow in the suffering and misfortune of others... silently.

Other times she shows a softer side to her like when she gives in to Gir's demands to dance with him and that one episode where she's trying to draw some piggy doodles. Despite appearing to not care about anything at all, Gaz has managed to thwart Zim's evil plans; she even saved the Earth at one point.

7 DIB

Invader Zim would only be half as awesome as it was without the Dib-monkey-- sorry, Dib, his nemesis enemy. In a sea of idiotic and seemingly mentally challenged humans on Earth, Dib stands out as the smartest. He's the only one to truly see Zim for who he is, an alien invader. Still, Dib's fascination for anything paranormal is enough to brand him as a lunatic.

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That and he also makes it hard for the viewers to see who really is the protagonist in the show. Both Dib and Zim's motivations can split the viewers apart. One episode, you may be rooting for Dib; the next, you'll be cheering for Zim. Dib makes it difficult to pick sides, but also makes the show more enjoyable. Also, he's got a big head.

6 MS. BITTERS

Ms. Bitters looks to be a teacher but watch one episode with her in it and you'll be convinced that she has no business being one. She's the most nihilistic character in the show and even goes as far as call her former students worthless to their faces. Other times, she also goes hardcore on the punishments and sends students to the underground class just because.

Sometimes, however, she does give some pessimistic wisdom to her students such as how cruel life can be and how school officials don't really care about education. There's also that one time where she also quarantined the whole school and treated it like a concentration camp after discovering that one of the students had lice. Gotta love a teacher that cares for their students' health.

5 PROFESSOR MEMBRANE

Professor Membrane is Dib and Gaz's dad and also serves as the brightest mind on Earth. He's a scientist but that didn't make him aware that his son was dealing with an alien invasion. Throughout the whole series, Professor Membrane simply appears busy with his science stuff or experiments.

RELATED: 10 Best Pop Culture References Created From SpongeBob SquarePants

Also, we'll never know what's underneath that lab coat and those goggles, Membrane never takes them off. Thanks to Enter the Florpus, though, we now know that Membrane's real arms don't exist and were somehow bitten off by sharks when he was just a kid.

4 THE TALLEST

These two's eccentric and smug Irkens' names are never revealed in Invader Zim. Because when it comes to Irken culture and hierarchy, names matter less than their... heights. For someone to be respected in Irken culture, they only need to be vertically impressive or a successful invader.

Despite being tyrannical douches of an alien race, The Tallest have one thing in common with you... they love snacks! They live for snacks. Their plans involve snacks. Whether it's donuts, soda, or bags of chips, The Tallest can be seen eating 50 percent of the time. They're also fussy and prone to tantrums whenever something doesn't go there way, like most tyrants are.

3 COMPUTER

The computer will have to count as an alien character as it was made by Zim. Computer is... well, Zim's computer which he uses for maintaining his home-base and also for planning some invasion strategies for Earth. Mind you, Zim's computer is a lot more stubborn than a Windows device and is more elitist than a Mac.

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Sometimes it tends to go haywire and even voice out its pain or disapproval in a growly manner, seemingly as a reflection to its owner's temperament. Needless to say, Computer has the personality to withstand Zim's er, ambition. Oh, it's also voiced by Jhonen Vasquez, the show's creator, so there.

2 ROBOT PARENTS

Here we have yet again another machine character whom Zim created and treats like family... literally. The Robot Parents are the icing on the cake for Zim's disguise so he could look like a normal stinking Earth child. Because the humans in Invader Zim are none too bright, they have no trouble passing off Robot Parents as actual human parents, especially during the Parent-Teacher Night episode in the show.

That isn't to say these mechanical progenitors are perfect, they're actually pretty creepy and are prone to malfunction. This tends to happen frequently since they can only mimic what the Computer (or Gir) feeds them as normal human interactions. Even so, they're sweet enough to welcome Zim home after school.

1 GIR

Last but not least is the resident show-stealer of Invader Zim, Gir. Supposedly, he's just Zim's robot-assistant; all invaders are given one but since The Tallest just wanted to get rid of Zim, they gave him a malfunctioning robot whose brains are made of refuse and calls itself "Gir." The rest is history.

There really is no understanding Gir's chaotic personality. He can quickly turn from adorable to destructive (especially in the presence of candy). Useless as he is to Zim, however, the incompetent alien would be lost without Gir. Somehow, the two make their master and slave "relationship" work. Zim did try to fix Gir's loose bolts but then Gir ended up smarter and tried to kill him. Since then, there has been no replacement to Invader Zim's abnormally disturbed alien robot.

NEXT: The 10 Best Episodes Of Invader Zim Of All Time

source https://screenrant.com/invader-zim-weirdest-characters/