#the valve shelf

[soryualeksi]

BIL let the cat out of the house and I think my sister will tie him to a rocket or something.

The cat has severe heart disease.......... :/

[raina-at]

Fire

Fire exposes your priorities.

The explosion shakes the very foundations of 221 Baker Street. Sherlock looks up from his microscope and sees a vast billow of smoke rise out of the windows of Speedy’s cafe.

Sherlock is out of his seat and down the stairs in two seconds flat. Mrs Hudson meets him at the door.

“What happened?” she asks, looking terrified.

“Gas explosion, if I had to guess,” Sherlock answers, taking her by the elbow. “We need to get out now.”

“Sherlock—”

“Now, Mrs. Hudson.”

He opens the door and forces her out of the building, taking his phone out of his pocket to dial 999.

“Sherlock!” Mrs Hudson grabs him by the shoulder and turns him around, forcing him to look at her. “Look!”

Sherlock follows her outstretched hand with his eyes and his entire world whites out on the edges. Rosie’s pram is parked in front of Speedy’s. 

Sherlock checks his watch. 4:10 pm. John normally comes home with Rosie at four…

They often pick up baked goods from Speedy’s before coming upstairs…

Sherlock feels bile rise in his throat, but he ruthlessly suppresses his fear as he presses his phone in Mrs Hudson’s hand. “Phone 999. They’re probably already on their way, but do it anyway. I’m…” he trails off and gestures to the entrance to Speedy’s.

He doesn’t even hear Mrs Hudson’s response. He runs towards the shattered door and carefully steps inside the wrecked cafe.

The air is thick with smoke, and he can see flames licking out of the kitchen. Glass litters the ground. 

He hears her crying immediately. “Daddy,” she sobs. “Wake up.”

Sherlock assesses the situation with one glance. Rosie seems relatively unharmed, but John’s unconscious, and trapped beneath a heavy-looking shelf. Mr Chatterjee is lying behind the counter. He’s alive, but that’s all Sherlock has time to determine before instinct kicks in.  He’s at Rosie’s side and is picking her up before he’s aware that he’s moving.

“We need to get you out of here, Watson,” he says as he lifts her away from John’s supine body. He hesitates briefly, registering that John is breathing normally, but knowing he can’t lift that shelf alone, and knowing he has to get Rosie out of here. Now. The gas valve is still open. There could be a second explosion any moment.

It’s one of the hardest things he’s ever done in his life, but he clutches his wailing daughter close to his body and runs out of there as fast as his feet carry him.

“Daddy!” she wails into his ear, tearing at his heart with every forlorn cry. “Daddy! We can’t leave Daddy!”

Outside, he’s greeted by a pair of burly firemen, who pull him behind a safety barrier and hand him over to a paramedic, who forces him to sit in the back of an ambulance. They try to pry Rosie out of his arms, but she’s holding as tightly to him as he’s holding on to her.

“Daddy! What’s happening to Daddy!” she wails, sobbing into his shirt.

“Don’t worry, Watson, the firemen will save Daddy. They’ll get him out,” he soothes her mechanically, even as every muscle in his body screams that he needs to go in there and dig John out with his bare hands if he has to, because this can’t be happening, it just can’t. After all they’ve been through, a fucking gas leak—

But he doesn’t move even one inch, because he knows, he knows, he has to be there for Rosie, even if—

Especially if—

He feels bile rise again, but he swallows down the panic and the fear and the desperate need to run back in there, and holds on to Rosie, whispering soothing nothings into her blonde hair, even as she screams for her father, again, and again, and again. Sherlock wishes he could scream as well, but if he even utters John’s name now he’ll break clean in two from the force of the fight raging within him.

He could give her to someone else, run in, get John out.

But what if they both die in there? Who will take care of her then? 

So he sits, and he waits, and he holds their distraught daughter, knowing he has to, there’s no choice here, it’s what they both promised each other, she always comes first, no matter what. 

He waits. And waits. It feels like hours, but it’s probably five minutes, ten at most, before the firemen bring John out on a stretcher. He looks so small, but he’s wearing an oxygen mask and he’s clearly alive.

“Daddy!” Rosie screams, and Sherlock has to stop her from throwing herself on the stretcher, but honestly, he’d like to do the exact same thing. He’s weak with relief and smoke inhalation, and he’s glad when the paramedics take charge and get them all three into an ambulance. As soon as they’re in the ambulance, Rosie takes John’s hand. After a brief moment, Sherlock encloses her hand holding John’s in both of his. 

Sherlock watches their entwined fingers, one small hand and two large ones, the entire way to the hospital.

*-*

Sherlock meets Molly and Mrs Hudson in the waiting room once the doctors have cleared Rosie to go home—smoke inhalation and a few cuts and bruises, they were so lucky—and Sherlock excuses himself to the hospital bathroom, because he’s filthy and he stinks of smoke. 

He washes up, still numb with shock, and that’s when he notices his hands are bloody from pressing his fingernails into his palms. His wedding ring has blood on it. He washes it off, then is violently ill over the washbasin, his body convulsing as the fear and the shock and the smoke inhalation catch up to him.

What would I have done, he thinks. I almost let him die. I would have let him die. I would have watched as he burned to death, what’s wrong with me?

I should have saved him, should have gone in there and gotten him out, he’ll hate me, he’ll never forgive me, and he shouldn’t… I promised him I’d always be there for him, and I failed, failed, failed…

It’s Mrs Hudson who finds him. He’s still on the floor, holding his head in his arms, unaware when he started sobbing, only knowing he can’t stop.

She sits down next to him and wraps her arms around him, guides his head to her shoulders. “It’s fine,” she whispers, over and over and over, “he’s fine, they’re fine, it’s all going to be all right again.”

Slowly, he calms down. He becomes aware that he has a husband and a daughter to see to, and that this little episode is helping nobody at all.

So he helps Mrs Hudson to her feet and washes his face, then lets her direct him to John’s room.

John’s sitting up in bed, Rosie clinging to him, arms and legs wrapped tightly around him. He’s wearing a leg cast, an oxygen mask and a long-suffering expression as he tries to keep Rosie from tearing out his IV without letting go of her.

He stills when he sees Sherlock. Their eyes meet, and John smiles, and Sherlock swallows, near tears all over again, out of sheer relief that they’re all here, and they’re fine. Then John holds out his arm in an inviting gesture, and Sherlock collapses down on the bed and hugs his Watsons tightly to his chest. 

Later, when Rosie’s asleep and Sherlock is dozing in his chair, he feels John take his palm, soothe gentle fingertips over the cuts Sherlock’s fingernails have made into his skin. He pushes his oxygen mask aside and kisses the wounds on Sherlock’s hand, a silent gesture of gratitude and forgiveness, of perfect understanding. I would have done the same, the kiss says. And it would have killed me, too.

Sherlock meets John’s eyes and nods, just once. There are no words for how he feels, and he’s grateful that he doesn’t need any. He pulls John’s hand to his mouth and kisses his knuckles over the IV. Soon, they’ll be able to joke about it. Soon, perspective will return and Sherlock will know emotionally as well as intellectually that he made the right decision. The decision John would have wanted him to make.

Right now, though, he keeps his lips pressed to John’s skin and his hand trapped between both of his as if in prayer and only thinks, Thank you. Thank you fate, thank you luck. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

-----

Tags under the cut as usual, please let me know if you want to be tagged or untagged.

@calaisreno @totallysilvergirl @jrow @peanitbear @jolieblack @meetinginsamarra @helloliriels @keirgreeneyes @lisbeth-kk @friday411 @givemesherbet-blog-blog @weeesi @thalialunacy @thegildedbee @dapetty @salmonsown

[mychlapci]

My liege, my liege! I come from far lands to deliver 1k of spike mods, emeto, prolapse, and a little pregnancy while we're at it. May others in the kingdom heed that warning and filter thy tags.

Cocky little Rodimus is so insistent he can take Megatron's massive spike, he's gotten to the point of following Meg around begging to be spiked just once to prove it. He taunts and teases the co-captain by opening his panels when he bends over, flashing his tight wet valve to Megatron to entice him into fucking him right there on the command deck. Megatron is just annoyed by all this flaunting, Rodimus doesn't even deserve to get his pussy destroyed, Megatron knows he won't be able to take it.

It gets to the point though where Megatron doesn't even care. He was looking out for Rodimus' best interest not fragging him through the berth, but he's been such a pest he's finally pushed Megatron over the line. He followed Megatron across the damn ship while going on and on about how he's the best lay Megatron will ever get, and Megatron is so over hearing it. Megatron grabs Rodimus by the throat and drags him into a supply closet, shoving him into a shelf of cleaning products and making Rodimus tumble onto the floor. He locks the closet and pops his spike out, glaring down at Rodimus as he demands he present his valve.

Now that Rodimus had a look at that monster, he's slightly worried Megatron had a point. Not that he was gonna say that though, he opened his valve as Megatron said to and kept the enthusiastic front up. Megatron's spike was as big as Rodimus' forearm, had thick little barbs lining the sides meant to prod and prick every pleasure node in another mechs's valve while also tearing it and smearing their energon to mark the mech as one of Megatron's frag toys, and a fat knot to keep the mech writhing on Megatron's horrible spike.

Rodimus was already thinking about how much foreplay would be needed to open his valve for that thing, but Megatron was over it. Rodimus had been bragging that he could take the whole spike better than any con could back in the day, he invited himself to this treatment. Megatron slammed his spike into the wet valve before him, making Rodimus scream out. It was so big, way too big. Rodimus' intake tank churned as Megatron pulled out, dragging those spikes down the walls of his valve. The tearing was mind numbingly painful, but the stroke against his most sensitive sensors made him want to overload already. When Megatron slammed his spike in him again and nailed his ceiling node, it pushed him over the edge embarrassingly fast.

Megatron couldn't even fit his whole spike into Rodimus' valve at first. The little mech was too tight and too shallow to take his spike, the flight frames it was modified specifically for even had a hard time with it for its size. It's what Rodimus had been pestering him for for so long though, he clearly wanted it. Megatron kept pounding into Rodimus' ceiling node, tearing up that plush valve while not even bottomed out.

The way he pounded on Rodimus' gestation seal triggered an automatic response, an emergency opening the frame had developed when mechs had begun carrying their own offspring in internal forges instead of harvesting from the allspark. The gestation chamber connected to his forge could manually open in case of birth complications where a sparkling was stuck. Megatron's barbs were made to trigger the response, opening Rodimus' gestation chamber to fit more spike in. Rodimus felt nauseous as his insides shifted for Megatron's spike. He felt too full, everything felt like too much. All he could do was whimper and cum around the spike until Megatron was done with him. That was until the knot went in though.

Megatron had been thrusting harder and faster into Rodimus' gestation chamber, filling the co-captain's womb with his spike and marking it for himself. His knot had started inflating when the seal opened up, he was nearly finished with the annoying bot under him. Once his knot finally slipped in, stretching Rodimus open even wider than before, Megatron flooded his gestation chamber with transfluid. It stung slightly on the open tears from Megatron's barbed spike, but none of it could empty from around the knot. Feeling so full and now so warm, it finally was too much for Rodimus. He was at least able to turn his helm to the side as he threw up his morning energon, but he still managed to get it onto himself. He didn't try to squirm off Megatron's spike, he knew it would only make him feel worse when that knot pulled against his wrecked valve opening. He would just lay in his mess with tears in his optics as the knot shrank back down.

When the knot was finally deflated, Megatron would slowly pull his spike out. All Rodimus could let out was a weak groan as the barbs were pulling the inside of his valve out with the spike. His prolapsed valve oozed out the mixture of transfluid and energon and made a puddle on the floor. The co-captain felt numb, pulling his thighs together reflexively in some desperate attempt to keep the energon from leaking down his legs. The act just made him whimper more pathetically as the sore inside of his valve brushed his plating. Megatron stared down at the former prime and threw a cleaning rag at him. "This is exactly what you've been making a fool of yourself for Rodimus, now you've had it. Clean yourself up and get back to work."

Megatron felt slightly bad being so rough on his friend, but he knew how Rodimus functioned. He wouldn't stop until he finally got a consequence for his actions, hopefully now Megatron would get some peace and quiet. He didn't see his co-captain for a week after the harsh fragging, but he wasn't overly worried. Rodimus would be fine after a medical exam and some rest, knowing Rodimus though he was probably going to skip that first step. Megatron stepped into his hab for the night thinking about it, tomorrow he'd check in with Rodimus, and if he was still whining he'd apologize. His eyes locked onto his berth and suddenly the plans had changed. Rodimus was laid in Megatron's berth trying to look sexy. Megatron just found it desperate.

Why was Rodimus waiting for him? Well, Rodimus explained, Megatron's valve destroying overly modded fat spike pretty much ruined him from anyone else's spike, so now it would be his job to please Rodimus all the time! Also he almost definitely got him pregnant overloading right in his gestation chamber like that, so he was definitely not getting Rodimus away from him anytime soon. He promises this time he won't puke at least, Megatron is willing to bet shanix that he couldn't keep that promise.

oh god… this is perfect. I fucking love painful barbed spikes. And we don't talk enough about Megatron breaking Rodimus' pussy with his huge fucking monster dick. He should bully his way all the way into Roddy's gestation tank, splitting open his sorry little cervix and pulling it out on his sharp barbs. Rodimus can only scream, overload, and puke all over himself. He just feels so fucking full. 

Now that his valve is completely broken, Megatron is the only one who can fuck Rodimus into a climax. He tried with other bots, but they usually get grossed out at his bulging prolapse, and those who do stick around to fuck him just can't satisfy him with their small spikes anymore. He needs Megatron's cunt-buster and he needs it now. mhmm of course, Megatron's pretty much used to the bots under him puking out their guts when he fills them with his spike, but he wants to make a game out of how long Rodimus can hold it in. It would be funny if he slammed in with one violent thrust and Roddy immediately vomited… Talk about making empty promises. Probably only gets worse when the morning sickness rolls around....

[uselessmicrowave]

Hiii can I ask oneshot with Blitzwing (tfa) pleases himself, interacting or talking dirty between personalities in process? Bonus points if he'll use anything else but his hands---

Blitzwing, with Hothead in control at the moment, needed to blow off as much steam as he could in the littlest amount of time. Blitzwing storms into their habsuite, ready to grab the first long cylindrical thing in sight.He was so frustrated, from Lugnut's incompetence to Starscream... being Starscream, all three of the personalities could agree on this. How to go about it? A different story.

Icy knows they'll get the best quality of overload if they lay down somewhere quiet and play with their valve. Hothead couldn't care where he is, he wanted to rub one out as fast and as hard as he could.

Random has different ideas. With the faces spinning again, Random snatches a big bottle of paint off of their shelf, pushing their back against the wall and settling with their aft against the floor.

Would the paint bottle open? Maybe. Will he make a big mess, let the paint dry on himself and need help getting it all off? Probably. At least it's better than the prior two.

Blitzwing pushes the bottle inside of themself, biting their glossa and stifling a moan, squirming against the wall. This would be the perfect way to blow off some steam for them.

[kisbunzies]

More silly tf2 headcanons because i know more about them than valve does.

Sniper is practically nocturnal. You wont see him all day but you will find him sitting on the couch in base with snacks and a movie going like it 3am , no shoes or shirt despite it being February and his camper being parked like a mile.away acting like its totally normal. Will literally nap anywhere during the after noon dont be surprised if one day you find him hanging upside down like a vampire.

Speaking of which this mans goes everywhere shirtless and shoeless . gas station ? Shirtless and shoe less . walmart ? Shirtless and shoeless .middle of winter ? Maybe he's got socks on. They have to yell at him to get dressed or atleast put on sunscreen so he doesn't get crustier than he already is.

Pyro's really good at open flame cooking , bonfire grill gas stove flambae torch they can make anything as long as it requires fire. Also pyros mexican and atleast half of their "strange noises" are just them mumbling to themselves in spanish.

Heavy likes cozy stuff , he's struggled enough if he wants hot cocoa and a knitted blanket he can have hot cocoa and a knitted blanket. Owns the fuzziest pair of bear slippers known to man. Also i feel like he's a salmon guy idk maybe he rlly is just a bear but guy.

Saxton hale likes men.

Scout if so painfully straight. And i dont mean straight as in sexuality i mean straight as in pure fucking aura. Ms pauling comes out as a lesbian and he says "oh shit i like girls too we should date" sees heavy and medic kiss and his brain doesn't acknowledge it. This is true even is scout likes dudes he's the 1970's equivalent of those guys nowadays who wear nothing but nike and use the word gyat unironically and im tired of pretending like he isn't.

Ms pauling wants to be a merc so bad she thinks that its so cool but her mom told her murders for boys so she's just the administrators assistant/hj

Demoman has the most curly , bouncy , volumous gorgeous hair under than beanie. He keeps it in cornrows most of the time but when he does wear his hair out its a sight to behold.

Engineer makes the corniest , most dad like jokes known to man , its literally horrible they all groan so loud whenever he does but he thinks its hilarious.

Sniper , scout , pyro and soldier are all sour gummy worm addicts to the point that their stash takes up and entire shelf in the base pantry. Go through a costco bag a week.

The local costco dreads their presence , engineer and sniper and in the outdoors section, medics necromancing the chickens , pyros was the one roasting those chickens before they got necromanced, they managed to lose heavy somehow , scout managed to convince spy to get into a toilet paper fort they made and now their introuble with management, soldiers ordering a forth of july cake despite it being october and demomans buying premade meal kits for dinner for him.and his mom over the week. Pyro saved him a necromanced rotisserie chicken. And yes sniper still isn't wearing a shirt or shoes they've given up.

Spy had eyebags and grey hair , misses when was young and spry , is a little jealous of medic managing to have a full head of dark hair.

Medics ethnically jewish. He gets his black market organs kosher .

And finally out of all the mercs soldier goes to.medic the most for actual injuries , scout goes the most for.minors , engineers got the most perscriptions including hearing aids and stuff for pyro he picks up , sniper never goes to the doctor and medic has to drag him in . spies the worse when it comes to appointments (doesn't like any part of him being seen and despit having spy training still doesn't like.needles) and medic favorite patient is heavy for obvious reasons

[seat-safety-switch]

Learning about the world is the sole reason for human existence. We're given this glorious puzzle box when we're born, and we need to figure out as much of it as we can before we kick off. To satisfy this purpose, humanity has developed a whole shedload of cool specialty tools.

Hundreds of years ago, there were a lot fewer tools. You didn't have to know so much, and the chance that you would invent the electromagnet, or discover a new kind of onion, was pretty good. Now, there's still lots of things we haven't figured out, but because it hasn't happened yet, we don't know what they will be. Did that make sense? What I am trying to say is: you need to buy some more tools, because the best kind of tools are the tools that make tools. Took me long enough to get to the point, right?

When you're a teenager, you might think that you're hot stuff figuring out the two-wrenches trick. As an adult, you teach yourself to MIG together two chunks of iron, and then build terrifying race cars. You still have a lot of money, space, and time to get to the point where you're running half of an industrial machining operation just to turn down an oil filter socket so that it fits over your friend's aftermarket valve cover. Such is a life well spent.

Head on out to the garage right now and figure out what tool you're missing. Maybe you can invent it yourself, and then it will forever be named after you. Just let me have a free one, so I can put it on the shelf with all the other specialty tools that I won't use instead of a hammer and profanity.

[tf2fansderogatory]

scout tf2 is trans and so is every other merc end sentence end paragraph end story close book put book back on Shelf my dude

name one character that valve made that’s not transgender. i’ll wait

[emotionally-charged-arson]

Avantasia - Moonglow: Earbook Notes and Text Interview

I've been meaning to post these for a while. All the little extras from the Moonglow earbook, for posterity. This and Moonflower Society (which I'll do soon enough) have been collecting dust on my shelf for a while. May as well share them with the masses. Absolutely fascinating insight into Tobias Sammet's writing process and really got me to hear the album as intended, purposefully vague as that intent may be.

Moonglow: an interview with Tobias Sammet on the New Album

What made you decide to create Moonglow and carry on with Avantasia - when it was originally just a little side project?

Tobias: I had that music in me, those songs, those lyrics and the longing to somehow let it out. I believe that if you take art seriously and don’t do it just for what is expected or reasonable to the world around, you can’t really come up with a plan and a strategy. If you are honest, intuition tells you what to do.

When did you start working on the material and when did you know that there was going to be a new Avantasia album? 

Some of the ideas came when we were doing our previous album Ghostlights, but sometimes it’s the wrong time to work on a particular song, sometimes you don’t find access to an idea and then you shouldn’t push things. On the other hand we had too much material for Ghostluight anyway, so I put some of it on the backburner. After Ghostlights was done I just kept writing music but I knew I wasn’t under pressure of delivering anything soon. I enjoyed the situation to be without a contract and deadlines for a new album. Of course, we had to come up with the 25th anniversary compilation of Edguy which was quite an amount of work, the book and the DVD and all that. But we didn’t have to deliver a complete new Edguy album, so there wasn’t any creative pressure. I kept compiling ideas in my spare time as always, and at some point I realized that these new ideas clearly were Avantasia songs. 

The material sounds quite embellished and put together with lots of love for detail, almost sophisticated in passages, was that something you did on purpose? 

No, I didn’t think much about it. The whole process spanned over two years, there was a lot of time to write something, put it aside and wait and think about it and go back to add something. I had built my own studio and I was really working a lot in there, a magical place with good old valve equipment. A cozy retreat, sounding great. I spent a lot of time there to think about the details and try out things. It was the first production I used it for. Even on previous albums we had always paid attention to every tiniest detail, which isn’t necessarily common in traditional Heavy Metal these days which makes our music a bit more… I don’t know how to put it, “fragile,” maybe? At least it adds an undertone of subtlety which I kind of miss in Metal music today. However, this time we went even further. Many things are layered, there are a lot of subtle things going on. Strangely the parts are rich in detail and subtle, while the sum is loud and flamboyant. That’s weird, isn’t it? 

That’s why we’re given the instrumental versions on the bonus disc? To discover the details? 

Yes, and even though we had done that with previous albums before, especially this time there is a good reason for that. You’ll hear it when you’ll listen to the instrumental versions of the tracks. But whatever is going on there, we only do what supports the main idea of the song. Nothing must interfere with the quintessence of the main theme of a song. I don’t get music where everybody plays against everybody and they’re all great players and in the end you wonder who in the band is playing which song. And why!

Usually, what do you come up with first, the music or the lyrics? 

There’s no regularity. A lot of what U do happens subconsciously. Sometimes I just have an idea for a lyric, but mostly it’s the music first as I am a musician first and foremost. Yet, lyrics do mean a lot to me personally. There’s nothing wrong with an instrumental, but a bad lyric can ruin a song for me, and writing lyrics is important to me personally as a way to amplify the music and also to express myself. I have concepts and ideas, and sometimes I am furious or sad, angry or whatever. And I let it out. Every now and then a lyric is born from pure hedonism, but it needs to support the music. 

Speaking about the lyrics on Moonglow, is there a concept behind the songs?

Yes, there is. But I don’t want to dissect it, because it is meant to speak to the listener. You will always fail reading someone an instruction to a poem. Lyrics unfold their allure just by their words, not by an explanation. I could give you hints, but you better listen and feel what’s in the words that speaks to you personally. Dissertations by the author ruin the impact. 

The usual question would have been: what is the story of the album? 

Now, the imaginary sub-title of Moonglow is “The Narratives of a Misplaced Entity.” Each song is a picture of a misfit that is thrown into the world of the bold and the beautiful. He’s confronted with a bright and glossy reality which he can’t find a place for himself in. He begins to seek shelter turning to the dark. And darkness seems to offer him a gate out of misery…

So is it a rock opera again? 

I am not sure, I like the term “Rock Opera,” it sounds strong and it gives you an idea of the fantastic world that you are invited to step into, with different characters. Yet, these are individual lyrics, a collection of songs weaving together to a coherent world. I have been told by music industry people that “rock opera” is not a good term to approach kids, too old fashioned a term. But then, I don’t really care. My goal was neither to write a Broadway Musical with big drama, nor to be flavour of the week. I wanted to create a fantastic world that would be a great frame for very personal lyrics, maybe some of my deepest ever. I wanted each song to make sense of its own and fit in the bigger picture that is the entirety of Moonglow. I didn’t think about an arc of suspense because to me that would equal a limitation to the poetic approach. 

But you have a strong line up of guest vocalists to sing different roles again? What are these roles? 

Every singer is a counterpart giving a view from a different angle, an additional character in each song. Your imagination will connect the dots. 

Where do you find inspiration? 

In my own life, my childhood, my professional life and thinking of the challenges and difficulties we’re all confronted with. Feeling like a sore thumb sticking out. As a kid I felt different, then I seemed to find shelter in the Rock world where it took only two records until I felt different again. There are confines and conventions. In your life you are surrounded by people with expectations that a human being with an own vision is bound to fail. When you are sensitive it’s even worse, you don’t want to let others down but it begins to eat you up. You need to acquire a certain amount of stubbornness to protect yourself against burning out. To me writing about it helps, to let things out and weave a fantastic world around it. It’s easier to attach all the feelings to some anonymous homunculus freak in a Bram Stoker type story than writing “when I was a kid my friends put me in a trash barrel.”

Somewhere you said, you wrote most of the album in England…

Some of it. I need a certain environment more than a high gloss recording temple. In England they hesitate to tear down an old building for example. They rather call it vintage or full of character; and then they charge you twice as much. I love their respect for history and tradition. Recently I read an article about psychogeography and if I got it right some intelligent scientist folks have found out that people like me aren’t necessarily crazy. Certain landscapes, buildings, even light situations have a strong influence on my creativity. I was in England quite often recently, and I’d sit in an old pub with a beer, surrounded by Victorian buildings and after a while I was in a different world. And it had nothing to do with the beer. I love Edgar Allen Poe and occult ghost stories, Hammer Studio films and I’m also into the Victorian revival of the Gothic Novel. Moonglow is the world of foggy, eerie streets in Victorian England, its bridges and manor houses at night. 

Do you consider Avantasia a project or a band? 

It’s a solo project with treasured guests. I do things as I please without having to ask anyone, I make the decisions but it all couldn’t be done without the support of amazing guest musicians and a producer called Sascha Paeth who is the best musician I have ever met in my life. He;s a prodigy, the hands that translate my humming to riffs, he will suggest that we should cut off a part and he will make a huge mess of 120 recorded tracks sound great. Sascha helped me become much better as a musician because I had to rise to the challenge of clicking with him on his level which hurts when you are a young musician and you are not ready to work work work. He’s beyond words! Micheal Rodenberg is unbelievable too, especially when it comes to arranging an orchestra with all its details. Then of course the singers and the rest of the band, they are the cream. I mean, what would Starlight sound like without Ronnie Atkins? What would Alchemy sound like without Geoff Tate? Bob Catley has inspired me in so many ways. You can pick anyone who;s on the record. It’s a solo record but also a team, and when we hit the road it’s a family. These people are my friends and the foundation of  our working relationship is joy and mutual respect. They have all earned their spurs a million times. To answer the question: it’s Avantasia! A solo-project-band-tribe with guest stars who become family members. 

Are there any singers that you wanted to have that didn’t accept the invitation to be a part of Moonglow? 

When outside people throw in names I am always a little confused. “Ask him!” “Get her!” “Invite Paul McCartney!” “Get Bugs Bunny!” Well, the term all-star-band is a tempting marketing phrase, but Avantasia shouldn’t be a trophy collection. It’s about songs that are sung by unique singers whose voices are special and suit a certain song, passage, mood or character. Yes, I write a passage, having Bob or Jorn on my mind, and then it's a blessing when these great vocalists finally turn a song into something unique. But it is always about the song and the singers with the type of voice that gave you the inspiration to write a certain passage. I do not want to make Avantasia gimmicky.

Your fans have been asked to submit questions to you, here are some of them:

How do you manage to change the song's keys several times in a song without losing the flow of the song? Is that something you do on purpose?

Not losing the flow certainly is. But the key changes happen naturally. I write on a piano which I believe makes understanding harmonics easier as opposed to composing on a string instrument. Changing keys makes it interesting. When you've written 10 or 15 albums in one musical genre, it's always a challenge to do something distinctively yours and not be boring. At some point you'll end up adventuring through different keys to keep things exciting and once you feel safe doing it you stop realizing you're leaving the original key beyond the typical Desmond-Child-three-half-tones-up final chorus thing. It's fun. Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, they all went through different keys in one piece. And classical music is still the foundation of what we do. Classical music and Blues, and Iron Maiden of course.

Some people think that you have moved away from Power Metal and become something different throughout the years. They ask if you consider returning to the sound of your first albums one day?

I don't think about those things, I let things happen. You can't force it, then it becomes insincere and you're not Metal but plastic. I can honestly swear that I never denied my roots and identity, I just laid off shackles and allowed myself to let in a bit of diversity. What's the difference between Hard Rock and Metal?

Was Dio Hard Rock? I read that Kiss were considered Metal when the term Heavy Metal was brought to the table in the early 80s. Who defines the terms, who is the doorman next to the pigeonhole deciding who's gonna be granted admission and who won't? Do I really want to go in a club that wants to keep others out who don't belong? And who makes the rules? Wikipedia? Will I listen to my heart or to Wiki-pedia? And then: Is taking Wikipedia as a reference Metal? Is Maiden Metal even though they don't use double bass drums? And - most importantly: who cares? I don't want to sound disrespectful, but I am 40 years old, music style discussions don't mean that much to me anymore. We got a little more diverse, I can't see any tendency towards a certain style or away from another. Call me Power Metal and I proudly agree, call me Epic Rock or Symphonic Metal, that's alright too. Avantasia is Avantasia. It feels great and if you ask me, most of it doesn't suck when you listen to it, too.

People are interested in the influence you have on the cover artworks of Avantasia albums, and how you got into choosing the painter of the new one.

It's been done by a Swedish artist named Alex Jansson who illustrates books for kids usually. I ran into his illustrations and I was blown away, because even though some were cute, some had a real grotesque intensity. They were enchanting and innocent, yet they had a shade of eeriness. And they were different to anything 1 had seen in the Metal world. I gave him some of my lyrics and asked him if he'd come up with something that would symbolize the main character of Moonglow entering a different world... The Moonglow world. He did it, and I love the picture.

When you write lyrics, do you first start out in German and then translate what you want to say or do you write in English from the start? The question was asked because you sometimes tend to use words that are not commonly used in the English language of today, how do you come up with your lyrics?

I write in English from the start. I do not have that much of an attachment to German when it comes to poetry, which is weird. I don't know why, it's programmed - English is the ink I am drawing with. Sometimes of course I look for a different metaphor or word and occasionally I have to take a dictionary. And sometimes my grammar is weird, but then I advocate artistic freedom and of course, I am Ger-man, my English speaking friends forgive me. I read English books mostly, and the books I read are usually old and deal with certain topics, that may bleed through in my lyrics. Eric Martin once joked about how he imagines me sitting at home all day with this dictionary "Encyclopedia of long forgotten words that nobody knows but that do rhyme to something common", trying to find words, but this is not the case. I lust love new metaphors, and sometimes I have to look things up.

1 don't try to use elaborate language, I am not such a person, not in German and not in English, I talk the way I talk, not the way I think I should talk to come across a certain way.

Are your stories based upon your own personal experience?

Yes, of course. I mean, I see art and creativity as an outlet for something I carry around and that needs to get out and be said, as if you write something off your soul, a letter that you don't send to someone. Everything I do is heartfelt, even the most simple hedonistic lyrics I write. Of course, The Metal Opera was a story based on the spiritual quest of a 20 year old with a limited vocabulary to create metaphors with. The good intention is there, but you are 20 and very young. You don't know how to phrase things and how to get your view on things in the right order. You don't even know what to think. That album was also fueled by my interest in the middle ages, in the devil, in the historical tradition of the dark era of the inquisition and persecution of heretics. Of course what you write is amplified and it has gone through a filter to anonymize things and create a story that is open for interpretation, but there is something of myself in there. You know, even the most angry lyrics like in Edguy's "2 out of 7" or "Space Police" are heartfelt. Some may think they are hedonistic or goofy, but some people are functioning on a different frequency and that's okay. Yes, my stories and lyrics are based on personal experience

Have you ever thought about releasing the stories of the Avantasia albums as books?

Not really. I mean, I could rewrite them and I am working on a story that would be home to all the individual lyrics on Moonglow. The Metal Opera would work as a fantasy novel, The Wicked Trilogy too, but down the line there is one issue. A book needs arcs of suspense. A collection of intertwining poems isn't necessarily a story with a flow and an arc of suspense that would meet the entertainment requirements of the 21st century, I think these things are different worlds. I am not interested in writing an opera that would work as a movie or book with individual songs portraying each bit of a storyline... "Noooow they gooooo across the wooooods". No, I want to write short poems in music and put them together within one frame.

Can you describe your writing day? Are you just writing during daytime like an 8 to 5 job or do you write when you have an idea? How do you combine your writing session with your daily family life?

I write whenever an idea pops up in my head. Then I capture it by humming it into my phone or computer or if I have a piano around, I try to find out, what the harmonics in my head look like on the keys. Because a great melody is always based on the right chords. They are mutually dependant. Sometimes I know the chords and hum the melody first and then the chords afterwards, tapping the beat on my thigh. When I really go playing around with ideas and trying to sort things and try out details, when I arrange stuff, I like to work at night or before noon and the light situation is very important to me. It depends on the right mood. My family are alright with it, they accept that I'm nuts.

You also do a radio show on German radio?

Yes, 3 hours every week, you can listen to it via stream or satellite radio wherever you are, and of course via normal radio in the middle of Germany and up in the Northern parts. It's great fun, I stumbled into doing it when doing promotion for something, I was at the station of RadioBob to do a live interview with some of their hosts and I said "look at all these knobs, I can do that too". And they hired me. My wife said "Alice does his show on RadioBob, Joe Elliott has a radio show, Nikki Sixx has got one, you will have yours". And here I am and I enjoy it. I listen to music again. As a fan, not as the singer of Edguy or Avantasia. It is great fun and they told me there are a lot of people listening from all over the world.

Can you tell us something about the forthcoming Moonglow World Tour?

Yes, it will be massive. We will play long shows, we will have a great line up of many well known guests, I am not sure I am supposed to talk about the guests yet, but a lot of the singers on Moonglow will join the tour. It will be hard to come up with a setlist, as I guess we'll have to play many songs off of Moonglow, but as we'll do this tour and then most probably rest for quite a while, we'll have to play a best-of set in a way, or a combination of our band hits, the big old songs and the new material. We're touring rarely and we don't know if and when it is gonna happen again, so we better deliver everything people will want to hear.

Moonglow - The Narratives of a Misplaced Entity

Track by Track With Tobias Sammet

GHOST IN THE MOON

"Ghost In The Moon'' is a wonderful opening track. Yes, it's 10 minutes long, and it's quite unusual as it has two different choruses. It starts with chorus A, then there are two choruses B after verse one and verse two and then there are two choruses A in different keys in the end again. The whole song structure is really different, a lot of harmonic changes, tempo changes, in the middle we have a break-down section where you get the feeling that a different song starts. It's quite cinematic I think. I call these kinds of songs Christmas songs as they have a Christmas-ish appeal, very wintry, very enchanting. 

Originally I wanted this song to be a duet but after we had recorded it Sascha insisted that none of my vocals should be removed which I took as a compliment and even though I tend to fight for having things my way when I am convinced that something has to be done a certain way, I agreed in such a case. The backing vocals were sung by four amazing vocalists who are usually working for Musical and Theatre shows, very soulful voices that gave the song a Gospel feel. We had that kind of sound in mind, a bit Rocky Horror Picture Show but still Hard Rocking, and even though something is planned in advance, you aren't prepared for what you witness when you finally hear such voices in a room laying down the vocals of the real thing. It was mind-blowing. It took us quite some time to record the backing vocals for this one. The atmosphere is really unique, it's an epic version of "Mystery Of A Blood Red Rose.”

BOOK OF SHALLOWS

Book Of Shallows is one of the first songs of which we had arranged parts. It laid around and sounded quite simple and it was just half finished for a while, up to the second chorus to be precise. The whole mid section was attached much later.

Also the anthemic keyboard and guitars, the opening lead melody came only way later, when I was sitting in a hotel and listening to the song and found something was missing. 

Usually I hold the opinion that in certain types of music you can't write the chords and the foundation of the basics underneath without a vision of what's happening in the foreground melody-wise. I know that some bands say"someone writes the chords and someone else the melody". To me that doesn't make sense, yet of course someone may end up getting good results working like that. But I rather want to know which effect a certain chord will have in combination with a melody. The idea of the big picture will give you the sole valid reason to opt for a certain chord somewhere. Chords are required by melodies and vice versa and it should go hand in hand. In Metal it's often like that: someone does a sausage of chords and riffs and leaves it to someone else to do something with it. This way you leave the songwriting job to someone who's gotta come up with something great having to deal with given parameters. Of course in certain music styles that may work, but not in anthemic music styles, in something based on the harmonics of Classical Music, I think.

Anyway, in Book Of Shallows the melody on the intro riff was a try and error thing that I put on there afterwards as the original idea sounded like something essential was missing. Now as a finished piece of music the song sounds very tidied up even though it's got many different elements. It's one of the heaviest tracks I ever did, even though the first verse sounds very melancholic. The whole song is one big increase of energy, Jorn and Ronnie did a wonderful job as always, just being them.

I always wanted to work with Mille Petrozza of Kreator again. He is a good friend and we've known each other for almost 20 years, a very intelligent artist and a great guy. I had worked with him 15 years ago when he sang some guest vocals on Edguy's Hellfire Club album, and "Book of Shallows" needed some extreme aggression vocally. It sounded scary and exactly the way it was meant to sound.

With Hansi of Blind Guardian I had worked in the nineties already, I have known him for a very long time. A very nice guy and a great singer. And I can't thank him enough.

When Edguy was starting out, when nobody knew about us he supported us, contributing guest vocals on our second official album back in 1997 and helped us get some recognition. If I remember correctly I thought about having him on the Metal Opera album as well, but he was very busy at the time. Now, years later, I had those songs that were a perfect fit for his voice. And he opens his mouth and it sounds like him and no one else. After the second chorus there is a passage for which he did his own backing vocals. It sounds like a massive Blind Guardian choir, so his voice must play a huge part in making Blind Guardian sound like Blind Guardian. Well, it's obvious!

MOONGLOW

There is a little bit of a Mike Oldfield influence in there I think. The instrumental basics of the song were written in 2015 but it didn't seem to belong on the Ghost-lights album, if I remember correctly back then the question was: Should we take "Isle Of Evermore" or the "Moonglow" song? As I previously said, it breaks my heart but you have to put songs aside sometimes to make up your mind or for whatever reason. And sometimes you have to put great songs like this on the backburner. It was a jewel in the rough from the beginning and Candice Night has made it shine. Now was the time to retouch the song and model it and release it. A song will let you know when it's ready to correspond with your creativity and when you're ready to complete it.

THE RAVEN CHILD

The song's basic key elements had been written around 2012 or 2013 but I couldn't connect to it back then. Sometimes you find access to an idea immediately and sometimes you feel that it has potential but you realize that it's simply the wrong time to work on it and you better put it aside for a while. I had so many other ideas for our previous albums Ghostlights and The Mystery of Time, I didn't see the necessity to fall back on this particular song. When we put it aside years ago its working title was "Fearraven" as we had thought it felt a bit like "The Scarecrow" even though that similarity wasn't intentional. Without having been told about our impression Jorn said in the studio that this could be a sequel to "The Scarecrow" So there must have been something universal about our perception.

I have to say that this song really benefited from the months and years we gave it to grow. I wrote a Celtic overture, a Celtic breakdown after the second chorus which Miro arranged beautifully. And I really enjoyed creating the middle section where the tension builds up, with the layered canon type vocals, the Gregorian elements and letting it explode into a Black-Sabbath or Heaven-and-Hell type up-tempo grande finale. Hansi Kürsch added so much magic to the song, and Jorn is Jorn, what else can you say? In the production we gave the song whatever it needed. We need Gregorian chants? Let's ask Billy King, the guy who does vocals for the World-music project "Gregorian" to do the monk thing. I wish I had been able to work with him for The Metal Opera! We need a Celtic Harp? Let's get a real one and get the greatest Celtic Harp player one can find, Nadia Birkenstock.

There is a lot of love for detail in that song; and on the whole record. And the result shows that it's worth it to give ideas time to grow, to simply put them aside when you can't find access to them. Lyrically the song is rooted in the psychic life of the main character, it's about conviction and the intolerance you have to face when you follow your belief. I have always been fascinated by the Cathari's fate and the myth of the last night at Montségur has influenced the song in a way. The whole legend is a manifest of intolerance clashing with the volition to be yourself. It's about conviction and strong principles to not let expectations water down your own conception of life. It's about hiding yourself away in the last retreat, being besieged and knowing that something's near to break your spirit and simply smoke you out if you don't fit in someone else's concept. The main character's last way out is turning to the dark... I think it's one of the best songs I have ever written, I am really proud of it.

STARLIGHT

"Starlight' is a paradoxical song. It has quite an easy-listening feeling to it, not too heavy, not too soft, a moderate tempo, conceivable chord progressions and har-monies, and yet it's got something intensely melancholic. In the beginning after it was written when it was in a very pure and raw form I never really had an idea what this song was and where to put it and what to think about it. But then with the lyrics and once it was all sung and recorded it was beautiful. The phonetics in the chorus are quite smart too. I am proud of this, because I think the amount of syllables and the phonetics add a lot of drive and get the song the right balance of melancholy, sadness and that uplifting powerful element as a counterpart.

This song is so Ronnie-Atkinsish. Because he also has those two paradoxical sides to his voice, something deep and melancholic and when a song needs to take off he switches to his roaring Metal voice. Once Eric Martin said on tour.

I advocate Ronnie getting twice as much as everyone else, because he is two different singers in one body." And he can party like four of us!

INVINCIBLE

This was originally just the intro to the song "Alchemy,” but it became a breathing entity of its own even though lyrically and musically it is closely attached to "Alchemy.” "Invincible" deals with what we're often told, in the music business but also in everyday life: be tough and don't let things get through to you. Frankly, the character in the story is confronted with requirements he can't meet, to not be subtle or fragile. Geoff Tate did such a wonderful job on it. He had delivered an amazing performance on the previous album and when we shared the stage for the first time I was blown away by how good he is. We talked about recording atmosphere and about how great it is to actually make music together in a room.

So we said let's meet in a studio and record parts for the next album together, old school. And that's what we did. Geoff is a very nice person, good sense of humour, a real artist, a wine lover, great to work with and it's uplifting to share the stage with him.

ALCHEMY

That's the song that gave birth to "Invincible", because "Invincible" is the overture to "Alchemy" in a way. It's a very powerful and heavy song, almost Rammsteinish when it comes to the riffing. Yet it has some very classic anthemic Metal and Classic Rock elements. I thought it would be great if Geoff would pull some of his theatrical trademark Queensryche-Empire-Mindcrime-style-vocals out of his hat - and wow! - he can still do that like no one else. A thousand vocalists have tried to sound like Geoff in the past 35 years, but he has that frequency in his tone that is distinctively Geoff. When I was a kid I wanted to be able to sing like Michi Kiske and Geoff, Michi had been influenced by Geoff too, we all tried to borrow from Geoff at some point in our lives, but Geoff is Geoff!

The song is about influential people trying to tell the character what is good for him, it's about someone trying to get the best of you by manipulating you, so you lay off your identity and do as you're told. Switch off your visions and Svengali is gonna make you happy! That's what you're told by megalomaniac art industry execs all the time, through the centuries I believe: Lay off your personality and bury your longing, because if you don't interfere but deliver, we can turn crap to gold. And if I turn on the radio, I am afraid they seem to be right...

THE PIPER AT THE GATES OF DAWN

It was song number 13 we did. I remember that because the working title was

"Song 13". It wasn't planned to be such a long song, I wanted it to be a powerful uptempo song that would get to the point immediately. And it got to the point immediately but then the midsection got longer and longer and we had two pre-choruses. And in the end it all made sense but it was over 7 minutes long. I tried to cut it short but wherever I tried to edit a part out, it didn't seem right. And of course who would I need to cut a song for? If it feels right the way it is, then it is right. What I like about the song is how it features so many guest vocalists and yet it doesn't sound as if it would have been put together artificially, to me the flow of the song is very natural and it sounds as if made from one piece.

The title has nothing to do with Pink Floyd, it's been inspired by the God Pan in horror literature. The lyrics itself belong to the world of our main character.

LAVENDER

That's so Bob Catley. I love him and I love Magnum. Bob is a true legend and whatever he sings is filled with life and his magical British storytelling timbre.

This man has sung so many legendary tracks, he has been so influential to me breathing his soul into Magnum songs like "On A Storyteller's Night" or "Don't Wake The Lion", and later into my songs like "The Looking Glass". "The Story Ain't Over" or "The Great Mystery", it's extremely inspiring to write songs with Bob in mind. I didn't try to copy any of the aforementioned songs, I just had Bob's voice in my head and let it inspire my songwriting. When I write a passage for another singer I come up with different things than I'd write when I'd do it just for my own voice. It's a creative boost and it's a key to the diverse songwriting for Avantasia. Writing for other singers makes it easier for me to step aside and try out new things. 

"Lavender" sounds familiar and like something new at the same time. Bob's voice and the way we arranged the song is familiar, the song and the details are new.

It was also interesting to witness the whole thing lifted to a different level when the Gospel choir began to do its work. All of a sudden it became something Broad-wayish, something really massive and full of Soul. Most of the backing singers were native English speakers, so is Bob. The phonetics required to have it sung differently from what the word lavender is usually pronounced like. It was funny in the studio, people from South Africa, USA, England and Germany discussing the best possible compromise of pronouncing the word lavender so it worked in the song and it doesn't sound weird. In the end, I believe it is creative freedom. Whatever needs to be done needs to be done... The type of lavender in my song is a different one to the other lavenders out there, and therefore pronounced differently, okay?!

REQUIEM FOR A DREAM

Requiem is one of the last songs that I wrote for the album. I had a fast and epic song of which the instrumental parts were almost completely arranged. It was great! But I wanted something that would work good for Michael Kiske's voice and that old fast song had more of a layered chorus and some Celtic influence. I thought that it wasn't the perfect song for Michi's voice. So I put that other song aside and wrote a new one based on an older anthemic melody that I had a demo of. An idea that had to be sung as a duet with a singer like Michi, just like "Reach Out For The Light" or "No Return". But Michi was doing shows with Helloween at the time, so he wasn't sure he was gonna make it and I was prepared to take my demo vocals on the record. Fortunately everything fell in place when he managed to sing his parts.

You can hear the influence of Classical Music in "Requiem For A Dream". What I like about the song is that it's got the typical anthemic approach of Avantasia with fast guitars and hymnic melodies. But it feels like it almost has some sacral ele-ment, a certain sacred grandeur in the harmonies, something that is unique. And we made it even a little more colourful with elements like the slap bass passages which have been played by Sascha. Yes, he isn't just the best guitar player I know, he is also a great bass player, a much better one than I am I have to say. I am a sin-ger, and I love bass guitar, but I am not a very good player for those kinds of things.

Lyrically the song is what the title says, it's about a person's arrival in the world of what's commonly understood to be reasonable among adults. And it also deals with the spiritual challenges that go along with it.

MANIAC

I have always loved that song and wanted to do a cover version of it. Sascha said "it's been done several times already". But I didn't know any of the other versions and I didn't think of it as a problem. If you love something, do it! I said "Let's just do it for joy" and he arranged the song as a favour to me. What can I say? We both thought that it was about to become a great rendition. I sang it but something was missing, I thought it was too one-dimensional, and I immediately thought of Eric Martin joining me. In the meantime I had begun to consider that we should maybe take it on the regular album, as something light-hearted wouldn't be too bad. We already had several songs beyond the ten-minute-mark, some of them we simply put aside for later because I didn't want Moonglow to become a double album full of 10 minute songs. Of course everyone knows the movie that "Maniac" had been used for, and everyone has those distinctive associations, which are not exactly connected to the eerie world of Victorian England's occult writers. But deep down, it is a song about a maniac, who doesn't feel peace in life except when the lights go out and she can do what she loves. That qualified, so I said "why not, it's a great song, let's take it highly officially on the record, but let's make it the last song." So if Moonglow was a movie, "Maniac" wouldn't be part of the scores in the movie, but it would play during the closing credits maybe. Yet, after Eric had sung his vocals I knew, this was definitely going to be a track on the album. There are no rules in the art world, and if there is one it should be: If it feels right, do it! No matter what someone else's rules may be.

HEART

A bonus track. Writing bonus tracks is always great fun although I did it with a grain of salt. I thought the record was too long even without a bonus, I had already taken some other songs off, not because I thought they were mediocre, but because I wanted to have a 50 minutes album originally. That was my ideal con-ception. As a fan I rather want to start listening from start again after 50 minutes and not be burnt out after listening to an album for 75 minutes and not be done still, especially when there are as many different things going on as on an Avantasia album with all the styles and orchestrations and the different singers.

It doesn't get boring I think, but it can be a sensory overload and song 6 or 9 will not get the recognition they should get. Even after I had taken some material off the album again, the album is still over one hour long, but as it's quite colourful 1 think that it's good as it is. Anyway, the record label always asks you to deliver bonus material. Yes, "just" a bonus song. But if you deliver subpar material it will stain the whole album as the final impression, if you do a bonus song that belongs to the concept and is rated AAA by the quality control, why would I downgrade it to be a limited edition bonus only? The solution was - I had to write another song that was of good quality but a bonus. Bingo! Steve Perry was about to launch his comeback and even though I didn't approach him I thought I want to write a song in the style of 80s Journey. When it's just a bonus I can do it, just for the joy of doing it. A blatant rip-off of the sound and style and trademarks of Journey. This is what I did, I got in my lyrebird mode and tried to figure what Steve Perry would do. I really love that song, also the lyrics are very dear to my heart. They could fit in the concept too, but in a way they are worded in general terms. It's about someone who feels obliged to be unselfish and function at a certain pace while his heart tells him to not lose himself.

[cavitysam]

Me and Roxanne Rose from Tex Critter's Pizza Jamboree. She looks tiny in videos/pictures but she's as tall as I am lol (I'm 5'3). She's doing a lot better than she was in this photo but unfortunately the show still needs a controller in order to run. These characters use analog valves like Disney animatronics so an off the shelf control system won't work for them.

[cuzikan]

The Anatomy of the 427 SOHC – Ford’s Answer to the HEMI that was banned from NASCAR and went drag racing.

What is the most feared engine ever to come out of Ford? A very subjective question – but the Boss 302, 427 Tunnel Port, Boss 429 come to mind. All these are candidates, but a lot of people would say that distinction belongs to the 427 SOHC. Mostly referred to as a 427 “Cammer” or “Sock”.

1964 was the year that Richard Petty won the Daytona 500 with the new Dodge 426 Hemi. Ford was running the 427 Hi-Riser that year and won the majority of NASCAR races. The writing was on the wall and the boys at Ford had to come up with an answer to the new Hemi. Within 90 days, Ford took what it learned from the 255ci Dual Overhead Cam Indy motor and applied it to the bulletproof 427ci FE motor. The displacements started at 332ci and grew to 428ci. The baddest of the bad of these were the 427’s and the King of the 427’s is the 427 SOHC!

The shortblock for the “cammer” was basically all 427 hi-riser. Ford wanted to keep the cost down by using as many off-the-shelf parts as it could. The crank was the 427 forged steel version that was cross-drilled at both the mains and rods. This crank with the steel hi-riser connecting rods and special “hemi-head” pistons was the ticket needed to live at 7500 rpms. Increased oil pressure and updated water pump helped to keep all fluids flowing no matter what the conditions were.

The main thing that drew your eyes to this motor was the massive valve covers, which were made from magnesium. One look and you knew that this was no ordinary engine. The heads were cast iron and wide. With a machined combustion chamber putting the compression ratio at 12.0:1. The intake ports were a “tunnel port” design that fed 2.25″ intake valves and through 1.90″ exhaust valves, gases exited out D shaped exhaust ports. Hollow stem intake valves were used and the exhaust valve stem were sodium filled to help control the heat that is generated at 7500 rpms.

The first public mention of the Cammer V8 appeared in the Daytona Beach Morning Journalon Feb. 23, 1964. Beaten up at Daytona all month by the new 426 Hemi engines from the Dodge/Plymouth camp, Ford officials asked NASCAR to approve an overhead-cam V8 the company had in the works. But as the Journal reports here, NASCAR boss Bill France turned thumbs down on Ford’s proposed engine. France regarded overhead cams and such to be European exotica, a poor fit with his down-home vision for Grand National stock car racing.

Even though France barred the SOHC V8 from NASCAR competition, Ford proceeded to develop the engine anyway, hoping to change Big Bill’s mind. In May of 1964, a ’64 Galaxie hardtop with a Cammer V8 installed was parked behind Gasoline Alley at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, where the assembled press corps could get a good look at it.

On October 19, 1964, NASCAR moved to ban all “special racing engines,” in its words, eliminating both the Cammer Ford and the Chrysler 426 Hemi from Grand National competition for 1965. Chrysler responded by temporarily withdrawing from NASCAR, while Ford continued on with its conventional 427 pushrod engine in NASCAR and took the SOHC engine to the drag strips.

Despite heavy lobbying from Ford, in December of 1965 NASCAR again banned the Cammer for 1966, with USAC piling on (Spartanburg Herald-Journal, December 18, 1965 above). However, in April of 1966 NASCAR finally relented. Sort of. Okay, not really. The Cammer was now allowed, technically, but only in the full-size Galaxie model, limited to one small four-barrel carb, and with an absurd, crippling weight handicap: nearly 4400 lbs, 430 lbs more than the Dodge and Plymouth hemis. At that point Ford said no thanks and dedicated the Cammer to drag racing. The engine never turned a lap in NASCAR competition.

Ford made the Cammer widely available in the drag world, providing engine deals to nitro racers Tom Hoover, Pete Robinson, Connie Kallita, and a host of others. Among the most successful Cammer-equipped drag cars were the 1966-67 Comet flip-top funny cars (Don Nicholson, Eddie Schartman, et. al.) and Mickey Thompson’s dominating ’69 Mustang team starring Danny Ongais and Pat Foster.

[doctor-fancy-pants]

Reefscape

You’ve heard about the colours, from poetry and books and documentaries. You dream of pinks and yellows and purples and greens, about platforms and mountains and castles of coral, but it doesn’t look that way when you get down there.

You forgot about the blue.

This is where blue is born. Down here blue swallows the light and with it, all the colours you dreamed of. At four and a half metres, you lose red. The brightest and best beloved of colours and it’s gone, just like that.

Fell straight through a school of trevally. Keep equalising: pinch nostrils and blow gently through the nose until the ears pop.

Fall softly another three metres in your gentle descent, and orange is lost. Hard to notice it yet because all you can see now are the flitting shapes of fish, and something that makes a darker patch against the blue, almost too subtle to perceive. No matter how hard you stare, you can’t be sure it’s even there.

Check the gauge. Fourteen metres. Cruising depth until we hit the drop-off. I check with my buddy, the lazy hand signal we don’t even think about anymore after this many years on compressed air – OK? OK – and I pinch my nose and equalise again before continuing on.

The reef is below you now, and yellow is gone. All you can see is blue, and indigo, and brown – so many browns. Ochre, sienna, umber. The world down here is a paintbox of tertiary colours, but your brain fills in the gaps. Your brain adapts and starts to interpret the shades, the browns that should be purples against the browns that should be yellows.

You breathe slowly.

Fish surround you in clouds: tiny dottybacks darting to and fro; little dancing boxfish with their awkward, ungainly wiggles; a reef shark gliding a few feet away, curious but cautious. Staghorn corals look for all the world like a patch of briar, hiding a suspicious shrimp within their stony tangles, and table-top corals offer a stage for a tiny troupe of dancing fish. A feather star clings to the top of a coral mound, arms outstretched into the current. The surface of the mound is covered in fluffy cones, the purple, the yellow, the turquoise of the Christmas tree worms. Unable to resist, you wave a hand and watch them disappear from view as they yank their vulnerable fronds back into their burrows.

You’ve heard that it’s a vivid and silent world, but that’s a lie too. It’s never silent.

Not while you’re here.

I listen to the bubbles, to the little catch as the valve in the regulator flicks back – breathe in, count four – and forth – breathe out, count four. It’s never silent. This sound is my heartbeat, down here. I can’t breathe without it. I can’t even see without the mask, my flimsy piece of tempered plastic and silicon. Comfortable, now, settled into the dive, it’s time to pull out the torch. It’s time to put the colours back.

Small circles now of bright colours jump out at you, a long beam of light that down here looks red. The worms are turquoise; the feather star is crimson; the dottybacks are purple and yellow, but only while you fix them with your torch. The moment they shift out of that beam, they become sepia-toned shadows. The colours run and fade.

Water in my mask. I straighten up, as though I’m standing and levitating, and I tip my head back. I clear my mask. The process is so much easier here. At home the water is rough and cloudy and vicious and cold, beautiful in its own way, but it makes manoeuvring more difficult. It’s not fair to make the comparison. I can’t help it.

Now you reach the drop-off. They call it a wall, because you can swim alongside it, but it’s a cliff. It drops forever – maybe miles – below you. You see the vertical plunge of the rock, covered in scatters of coral and weed, haunted by lazy sharks and the lazier remoras riding their wake.

You look down as you glide over the edge, dipping a fin this way and that to steer, and you can’t see the bottom. Miles down, you think. The continental shelf. The torch hangs limp in your hand. The depth would swallow the beam in blue.

Hungry, breathless blue.

---

Context/prompt: in 2013, my husband and I spent five days on a live-aboard dive boat exploring the Great Barrier Reef - the less damaged portions are a decent way off shore. Diving in the tropics is very different to diving in Melbourne, as you can probably imagine. I wrote this in 2014, because even a year later my memories of that extraordinary environment were still so vivid.

[brief explainer: I've been thinking for a while bout putting up some of the creative writing I do. Short pieces, the "drabbles" that I write in one of my weekly writing groups in response to prompts. Should I put these on my main "long pieces" blog? Or on the Tumblr? And I've decided: sod it, I'll do both. So now and again you'll get some creative writing, in amongst the usual rants and reflections. I hope you like it - please tell me if you do!]

[yeehaw-in-magic-space]

Session 2 Recap: Part 2/3

Chuck joined Prometheus in the next car. Geraldine and Dolly made their way out, but ran out of movement just before making it to safety, which left them trapped with the three ghouls that were near enough to dash into melee distance with them. In a moment of quick thinking, Dolly dumped an entire bag of ball bearings onto the ground just before making her escape, coating the floor except for a thin path Geraldine could use to slip away. The ghouls swung on Dolly, but between her quick movement and their unstable ground they were unable to land any attacks. Geraldine fired another explosive round, knocking one ghoul out of range of her and slipping into the dining car with the rest of the party. 

The party had only seconds to recover as Mac slammed the door shut. The space between cars began to flood with ghouls, and the few that weren’t busy tripping on ball bearings managed to claw into the door and attempt to pry it open. Mac resisted, which led to 3 roll offs as they matched the same result on an athletic check twice (once being a crit on both sides). The ghouls clawed furiously at the door, and Mac practically burnt out his circuts resisting them. Eventually, he managed to force the door closed hard enough that only a few clawed fingers made it inside the car, though he had to continue to hold on tight to keep it that way. 

As everyone took a moment to recover from terror and wounds (except for Geraldine, who was quietly elated), Prometheus caught the party up on what he had discovered. Everyone searched for an additional emergency lever, which Dolly spotted behind a shelf of alcohol. She squeezed herself behind the shelf and activated the lever, which revealed the second step in the convoluted evacuation process. A computer sparked to life on the wall, which Chuck wasted no time cracking into and ordering to make an emergency launch. Two valves began to glow at the back of a car (labeled “wing deployment”), and a steering mechanism emerged from the ground beneath the bar. 

As the party realized what they needed to do, two ghouls burst into the car through the windows (which were quickly covered by emergency blast doors). Though the door was secured, the ghouls that were somehow managing to crawl along the outside of the interstellar train were preparing to breach. One cornered Dolly, and one intercepted Chuck as he sprinted towards the steering mechanism. Dolly struck down the ghoul in front of her, and ran forward to help prepare the car to detach. Prometheus sprinted forward in this moment, letting his glasses fall away as he whispered incomprehensible things at the ghoul attacking Chuck. Dolly, perceptive as she is, noticed immediately how strange her current company was: Prometheus with his deep red sclera, lack of iris, and barely visible black pupil. Chuck bleeding orange and holding a sword in the third arm he apparently possessed. Geraldine beamed with contentment as she and Chuck’s floating disk sprinted forward to deploy the wings. They were odd company, and she had many questions, but they could wait. For now, she was grateful that they could get her out alive.

The party managed to strike down the last of the ghouls in combat range and flee before any more could breach. The dining car had been fully converted into an independent cargo ship, and Chuck piloted them away from the crumbling train. They got one last glimpse of ghouls, ghosts, and the thing that had been tearing apart the train cars from underneath them: a massive, ethereal maw with fangs as large as ribs and a tongue made of ghostly arms. Finally, they had an actual moment to sit and process what was happening as they made haste towards the nearest habitable planet. 

[writingforfun0714]

Thanks for being patient with me-I’ve been busy with work and haven’t had the time to work on anything.

Here’s Chapter 2 for my Arcane reader insert fanfic.

Chapter 1

Warnings: spoilers for Arcane, follows Episode 2, female child reader, uses ‘Y/N’ throughout, POV changes

5,229 words

Sisters of Mine

Chapter 2

3rd POV

As punishment for going on the Piltover job, Vi, Claggor, Mylo and Powder are all to stay and help out around the bar. Y/N is still free, but Ekko is also grounded for going topside (when he was following the man Ekko swindled), so she also decided to help her older siblings with the work. Claggor and Mylo clean up around empty tables while Vi is washing dishes. Powder is fixing one of the beer taps and Y/N is helping her, paying close attention to what Powder is doing.

“Be sure to clean under the tables too boys, I want this place spotless,” Vander says, making the two boys groan. Mylo mumbles something, causing Vander to glare at him.

“What was that?” Vander asks.

“Nothing-“ Claggor answers, nudging Mylo. Vander sighs and walks behind the bar and looks at the younger girls.

“How’s it going? Think you can get the tap working?” Vander asks. Powder nods confidently.

“The release valve broke,” Powder tells Vander, who nods and walks off to check on Vi.

“Y/N, hold the hose in place while I put the new valve in,” Powder instructs. Y/N nods and holds the hose.

“A bit higher-yeah, like that,” Powder says as Y/N adjusts the angle slightly. Powder’s able to get underneath and unscrew the broken piece of metal. Powder takes the new valve and screws it on in place.

“I’ll get a cup-“ Y/N says, getting up off the floor. She grabs a mug from the shelf and holds it to Powder.

“Ready,” the girl says. Powder nods.

“Ok, time to test it,” she says and grabs the nozzle. Powder holds the nozzle over the mug and pulls the trigger and it sputters slightly before a steady stream of liquid comes out! The girls smile.

“We did it!” Y/N exclaims happily.

Vander walks back in and the girls excitedly show him the working tap. He nods in approval.

“Good work girls, I knew my little geniuses would be able to figure it out,” Vander says, making the girls giggle.

After the boys finish, Vi sighs as she walks out of the kitchen.

“Ok, dishes are done-“ she says as she wipes her hands on her damp apron. He nods.

“Good-“ he says and the 2 younger girls share a look before Powder nods ever so slightly towards Vander. He raises a questioning eyebrow at the girls.

“Can we go to our arcade?” Y/N asks eagerly. Vi and the boys also give Vander a begging kind of look. He sighs.

“Fine, but stay out of trouble,” he says.

“Yes!” The boys exclaim, high-fiving. Vi nods as Powder and Y/N smile excitedly.

“Thanks Vander!” Powder tells him. Y/N nods in agreement, jumping up and down excitedly.

“Thanks!” She repeats. Vander’s face softens before he nods and heads back upstairs.

“C’mon, let’s go-“ Vi says when she hears the door shut.

Claggor and Mylo follow Vi with Powder and Y/N bringing up the back.

“Thanks for getting us out of there,” Powder tells her baby sister, who gives her a confused look.

“Huh?” She asks.

“For asking Vander…you’re his favorite so he wouldn’t say no to you,” Powder explains. Y/N thinks on Powder’s explanation. She didn’t understand the differences between her relationship with Vander compared to her older siblings. He loved all the kids, even Ekko. Sometimes he was harder on Vi and the boys, but there was no question that he loved them all.

“Dad loves all of us the same,” Y/N tells Powder as the group walks to the next block. Powder nods after a moment of hesitation. While she does consider Vander a father, she has distant memories of a man Vi told her about once. Their biological father, the one that died on the Bridge 4 years ago. Her memories are vague and she only really remembers the day she and Vi met Y/N, right when she was born.

The kids get to an old, run down building that’s been unoccupied since before the failed rebellion on the Bridge. They walk in and see their games scattered around the empty room. Vi heads over to the boxing machine as Claggor follows. Mylo, Powder and Y/N all head to the shooting game. Vi turns on the music player before turning the boxing machine on. The machine powers on and makes various noises of metallic whirring and pieces of machinery moves in sync. Mylo grabs one of the fake pistols as Vi boxes. Claggor stands to the side, watching Vi intently, remembering how she moves.

“Remind me why we bother with this dump?” Mylo asks.

“Vander said to lay low. The Enforcers never come down here so this is as good a place as any. Besides, would you rather be stuck in the bar?” Vi asks him as her score on the scoreboard changes. Mylo shakes his head.

“What’s the matter Mylo? Afraid Powder’s gonna beat you again?” Claggor teases.

“Hey-if they didn’t keep fixing these things, I wouldn’t keep missing!” Mylo argues, motioning to the younger girls. Powder pops up from behind the game, startling the boy slightly. She’s holding the power tube and connects it together, smirking. She hops over the wooden desk and Mylo makes a face at her. He tries hitting the targets, but most of his shots hit the silhouettes, not counting as points. Y/N grabs the other pistol and fires as well. Y/N fires off all the shots rapidly and misses every single target until the last shot hits the chest target, spinning. She manages to hit the target on her last shot!

“Ha! I did it!” Y/N exclaims. Powder smiles proudly. Vi smiles at her baby sister. Mylo sneers before shutting his eyes and taking a breath before aiming and firing off 3 shots, hitting the target all 3 times.

“Nice try runt,” Mylo taunts. Y/N frowns as Vi’s smile fades. Mylo keeps shooting, but he doesn’t hit any of the targets, only managing to hit the silhouettes. The fake ammo bounces off harmlessly and Y/N sticks her tongue out at the boy, who does it back to her.

“You guys know I wouldn’t take you on a job you couldn’t handle, right?” Vi asks.

“Are you kidding? That was the best job we’ve ever had! Maybe just don’t take Powder next time,” Mylo says.

Reader’s POV

“You guys know I wouldn’t take you on a job you couldn’t handle, right?” Vi asks.

“Are you kidding? That was the best job we’ve ever had! Maybe just don’t take Powder next time,” Mylo says. I look between Mylo and Powder before seeing her glare at the boy. She means business. I cautiously hold the toy pistol out to Powder and she takes it, not breaking eye contact with the boy.

“Uh-“ Claggor says, noticing how intense Powder seems as well. She aims at the moving targets and with each shot she takes, she hits her targets, not missing a single shot. I watch in awe. I wish I could do that. Once she hits the same target 3 times, she sets the pistol down and sneers at him, annoyed by him, before walking over to the electronic game. I hastily follow her and pull up a stool to sit next to her. I watch her play for a moment before looking over towards the hole in the glass window. I see people outside.

“Tell me where I can find them!” A slightly distorted voice orders. My eyes widen when I see it’s an Enforcer! And he’s harassing someone just walking down the street. I nudge Powder and point so she sees as well.

“Topsiders business ain’t my concern!” The man argues back.

“It’s every one of you trencher’s concern now-“ the Enforcer threatens.

3rd POV

“It’s every one of you trencher’s concern now-“ Marcus threatens the innocent man. Powder’s eyes widen as she and Y/N watch.

“Give me a name,” Marcus orders. The man steps forward, his jaw goes slack and he suddenly hocks a loogie onto Marcus’ shoe. Powder takes a few steps back.

“Hey guys? You should see this-“ Powder warns the others when suddenly, the man gets thrown through the window, shattering the glass! Powder flinches and barely manages to shield Y/N and it’s like everything is in slow motion. Y/N screams as the man hits the floor, clearly knocked out. Vi looks at the injured person before looking at Marcus and the Enforcers with him.

Marcus looks inside, spotting the pink-haired girl first. Then his eyes scan the room and he spots 4 more children.

“Search them,” Marcus orders and Enforcers walk through the shattered window.

“Go ‘head idiots! We ain’t got nothin’!” Mylo says. Powder and Y/N back into the shooting game as Marcus and the Enforcers approaches them. Powder puts an arm out in front of Y/N protectively as her other hand comes up and hovers over the pouch on her belt that holds the glowing blue crystals she took from the apartment! Powder gives Vi a pleading look as Marcus walks up to the younger girls. Vi’s eyes widen and she looks to Claggor. He immediately turns and pulls the power switch. Glow in the dark paint illuminates the room, the most obvious being a pink skull and crossbones.

Powder grabs Y/N’s wrist and pulls the younger girl with her behind the shooting game. Marcus chases after the girls as Mylo jumps and kicks an Enforcer in the chest, taking cover. He grabs the pistol from the game.

“Aaaaahhhhh!” Mylo screams, firing. The fake ammo bounces off the 2 Enforcers. They take 2 steps forward before a metal plate hits the closer one on the side of the helmet and he goes down. The other Enforcer looks over and sees Vi.

“Stop!” An Enforcer yells as Vi rams into him, knocking the grown man out of the way. Mylo sees Vi running and takes off after her with Claggor.

“Get them!” Another Enforcer exclaims.

Meanwhile, Powder pulls Y/N along and they weave through the moving silhouettes of the shooting game, hiding.

“This way-“ Powder tells her baby sister. They make a sharp turn around one of the monster silhouettes to hide, before Powder’s suddenly yanked back by her braid! Because she’s holding Y/N’s hand, the younger girl is also yanked to a stop.

“Agh!” Powder shrieks.

“LET HER GO!” Y/N yells. She hits the safety lever on the silhouette that separates Powder and Marcus and the monster teeth come chomping down on Marcus’ arm.

“Gah!” The deputy yelps, letting go of Powder’s braid.

“Come one!” Vi snaps, grabbing both her sisters’ wrists, one in each hand and pulling the younger girls with her. Powder’s able to keep up but Vi has to pick Y/N up since she keeps stumbling. Wordlessly, Claggor reaches out and Vi nods thankfully as she hands Y/N over to her brother as they all race down the alley. Vi suddenly skids to a stop, forcing the others to stop as well when she spots more Enforcers cutting off their escape! Vi’s eyes widen and she turns around to go back, but she sees the ones chasing them catch up.

Suddenly, a whistle rings out. Vi and the others look up to see Ekko standing on a fire escape. He releases the ladder.

“Over here!” Ekko warns as the Enforcers close in. He’s up high enough to see both sides of the alley and how close the Enforcers are. The ladder gets stuck and Vi tries jumping to get to the ladder, but her fingers barely graze the bottom metal bar. She growls in frustration. Y/N pats Claggor’s shoulder and nods at him as he holds her and he nods understanding. He steps forward and tosses the small girl up and she’s able to grab hold of the ladder. The rusty ladder lowers the just enough from Y/N that Vi and the others can grab hold of it and climb up. An Enforcer jumps up, jerking the ladder, causing Powder to yelp.

Ekko helps Y/N then the rest of her siblings up the ladder before Vi kicks the ladder hard enough to break it off the building. The Enforcer screams before groaning in pain when he hits the ground. Vi and Marcus make eye contact before the kids hurry inside the building.

“You need to hide those crystals,” Vi tells Powder.

“Yeah no shit,” Powder replies sarcastically as they lose the Enforcers.

“We gotta head back home, otherwise Vander really WILL kill us,” Vi says and the boys nod in agreement.

The kids head back to the Last Drop and enter through the side door. There’s some commotion going on upstairs.

“What’s going on?” Mylo asks.

“Let’s find out,” Vi answers and heads upstairs.

Vi’s POV

“Let’s find out,” I tell Mylo and head up the stairs. The bar is crowded with people I know to people I’m vaguely familiar with. But they’re all from the Lanes. Everyone’s arguing about what to do about the Enforcers and topside in general. Vander and Benzo stand near the bar, silent, watching the room. We make eye contact with Vander.

“We should hit them back. We’ve got the numbers to beat them,” a dark skinned woman named Sevika says, hitting a table. We don’t know a lot about her, but Vander told me once that she doesn’t care who gets hurt as long as we fight against Piltover and the Enforcers.

“Yeah! Let’s teach them what it means to mess with us!” A man agrees. Cheers of people agreeing sound around the room.

Vander takes a match and lights it against the side of the counter. He puts his pipe in his mouth and takes a few inhales so the fire catches and lights the pipe before looking out at the crowd, eyeing Sevika in particular. Vander and Sevika never got along but they respected each other.

“You sure that’s what you all want?” Vander asks and the crowd goes quiet.

“We crossed that Bridge once before. Remember how that turned out,” Vander says, referring to the failed Rebellion he led 4 years ago.

“Ah-you’re just protecting your kids!” The man who agreed with Sevika argues and others in the crowd agree. Vander and I make eye contact briefly as we wait by the hallway that leads to the basement.

“I’m protecting our people. I’d do the same for any one of you,” Vander argues. He would, that’s just the type of person he is.

“We look out for each other. That’s the way it’s always been,” he insists, “this will blow over. We just have to stand together.”

“The Vander I knew, the one who built the Underground, wouldn’t be afraid of a fight,” Sevika threatens. Vander glares at her, approaching her. He takes a puff from his pipe and lets the smoke flow from his nostrils.

“Do I look afraid?” He growls at her.

“No. You look weak,” Sevika argues before whistling. I watch as most people, aside from the regulars and those that stand with Vander walk out the door.

“Why isn’t he doing anything?” Claggor asks.

“We kicked the Enforcer’s butts with just the 4 of us. Imagine what the whole of the Lanes could do!” Powder exclaims.

“Yeah! We can beat them!” Y/N agrees.

“Geez, even the girls wanna fight,” Mylo quips.

“So why aren’t we?” I ask as we turn and head down to the basement. I follow Powder and Y/N when I notice Ekko not moving. I double take and see him leaning against the wall. I raise an eyebrow at him and he shifts nervously and my ‘older sister’ instincts kick in. I approach him as the boy avoids eye contact.

“Spill it Ekko,” I order. The girls peek around the corner to look at the white-haired boy curiously.

“Uh-o-ok-well…Vander’s got a deal with the Enforcers,” Ekko reveals, wincing slightly when my eyes widen.

“What deal?” I ask urgently. Ekko reveals a conversation he overheard between Vander and an Enforcer-

“It was the Sheriff,” Ekko says and my eyes widen.

“She gave him some sort of metal cylinder. I think it was a message canister,” Ekko tells me. I see Vander glance at us before he sighs, looking away. I reach out and herd the 3 younger kids with me downstairs.

“C’mon, let’s finish talking downstairs-“ I tell them.

We all get down to the basement. Ekko shuts the door as I take the arm chair. Powder, Ekko and Y/N take the lower bunk bed while Claggor and Mylo take the couch.

“Why did you guys blow up my tip? Do you know how long Benzo grounded me?” Ekko asks.

“We didn’t do that on purpose-it was an accident,” I explain.

“3 months! 3! Months!” Ekko says, repeating the two words.

“We’re grounded too-4 months, or whenever Vander calms down, whichever comes first,” Claggor tells the boy.

I sigh. We can’t let the Enforcers control us any more. Ever since I was a kid, Topside has always been a problem.

“We have to fight for our home, even if Vander won’t,” Mylo insists.

“I know, but Vander’s got a deal with the Enforcers. So you think Vander’s gonna give himself over?” I ask Ekko. He nods.

“He…did say he’d take care of it,” I remember his words when he was cleaning my wounds from the street fight with Deckard.

“We can fight—I’ve got this-“ Powder says, reaching over and grabbing one of her homemade bombs. It’s bright and colorful.

“Y/N helped me fix the release coil,” Powder says. Ekko awes in fascination.

“Can I see?” He asks. The girls chatter away to Ekko about how they worked together while I turn my attention to Mylo and Claggor.

“Can I count on you two?” I ask the boys quietly. They share a serious look before turning back to me and nodding once.

“Of course,” Claggor says and I nod. I open my mouth to tell them what I’m thinking when suddenly, the sound of metal clapping alerts us and we all turn to see the clapping monkey alarm Y/N and Powder built. Vander!

“Hide!” I order quietly and we all scatter. I get the lights as Claggor and Ekko hide in the rafters on the ceiling while Mylo hides under the bunkbed. I see Powder holding Y/N as she climbs up after Ekko. I climb up last and manage to get up to the top just as the door opens. A set of heavy footsteps come down the stairs, creaking a bit from the weight. I motion for everyone to be silent and that’s when I notice the awkward position Powder and Y/N are in. Powder’s holding onto a pipe with her feet hooking around a wooden beam and Y/N is on her back. I watch a beam of light scan the room and that’s when I see the Enforcer walk into the room. The only sound is his breathing. It’s from the masks they wear. I watch as he starts checking various hiding spots around the room and my eyes widen when he approaches the bunkbed! Mylo!

The Enforcer approaches the bunkbed and begins to walk away when he suddenly looks underneath! I prepare myself to fight but I pause when nothing happens. I watch in surprise that the Enforcer stands back up and continues searching the room. I see a shadow move and silently climbs up to the rafters. Once it gets closer, I see it’s Mylo! He managed to move in time! That’s when I feel a nudge. I turn and see Ekko looking at me worriedly before pointing. I turn and see he’s pointing at the girls. My eyes widen as I see Powder’s struggling! Y/N looks worried and is trying not to move too much as Powder’s arms start to shake a bit. The Enforcer looks around with the light. I watch in horror as Powder’s grip slips and she slides down about an inch before she catches herself. The motion is enough to cause Y/N to fall off Powder’s back! My eyes widen and I nearly expose us but Powder manages to catch Y/N by her shirt! I make eye contact with Y/N and I desperately motion for her to be absolutely still and silent. She manages a shaky nod as Powder struggles to keep her grip on both the pipe and Y/N’s shirt.

Finally, the Enforcer walks up the stairs, takes one last look and walks out, shutting the door behind him. As the door slams shut, Powder’s grip gives out and she drops Y/N and falls as well. The girls grunt as they hit the floor and I sigh with relief.

“That was way too close-“ Claggor says and I nod in agreement as we climb down. The door opens and I relax when I see it’s Vander.

“Are you all ok?” He asks as Powder lights the lamp, illuminating the room.

“No we’re not ok-they almost saw the girls-what if they took them?!” I ask angrily.

“No one is taking any of you. Never would let that happen,” Vander says as Ekko climbs down last.

“It’s already happening! You heard him! They won’t stop-we need to fight back!” I argue, hitting a pipe on the wall, denting it. The others are standing to the side uneasily.

“And if you won’t…I will,” I insist. Vander sighs.

“I’ve heard this kind of talk before,” he says.

“Claggor, you’re in charge,” he tells the boy, who nods.

“Ekko, best head home. Vi, you’re with me,” Vander tells me. Ekko nods and waves at me as he hurries out. I give the boy a small smile and nod before I follow Vander out.

3rd POV

The kids watch Vander and Vi walk up the steps and out the front door.

“Where are they going?” Mylo asks.

“I don’t know…you know how stubborn they both are,” Claggor says. Mylo turns to the girls.

“Not bad Pow-pow,” Mylo admits. The blue-haired girl blinks in surprise at the compliment. His face sours as he turns to Y/N.

“You could’ve exposed us! If Powder hadn’t saved you like she always does, he would’ve seen us because of you! You’re such a burden!” Mylo snaps at the little girl.

“Mylo-that’s enough! She’s just a little kid!” Powder defends as Y/N starts to cry.

“I’m sorry-I’m sorry-I’m sorry-“ Y/N cries. Powder reaches out puts a comforting hand on Y/N’s shoulder. Y/N buries her head into Powder’s hip.

“No one got caught. That’s what matters,” Powder assures her. Mylo rolls his eyes and sighs in irritation before storming off.

“C’mon, wanna go draw?” Powder asks and Y/N nods her head, sniffling.

“Uh-huh,” Y/N whimpers. Powder easily picks up her baby sister and heads back down into the basement. Their supplies are still out, just shoved to the side so the girls can pick up where they left off.

Mylo’s POV

I storm off as the girls go back downstairs and Claggor follows me.

“Where are you going?” He asks.

“Nowhere apparently. Vander refuses to do anything,” I growl frustratedly as I walk into the empty bar, roughly shoving a chair in the corner. I plop down into the wooden chair noisily and Claggor joins me.

“You know you shouldn’t yell at Y/N. She can’t help being the youngest,” Claggor says. My eyes soften and sigh but nod as well.

“Yeah…I just wish Vander would take up more of the parenting stuff with Y/N instead of shoving her onto Vi and Powder. Y/N shouldn’t be our problem,” I admit. Claggor sighs and nods.

“Yeah, I hear ya. I know Vander’s our dad and he loves us…but he should be doing more…with Y/N at least. She’s so dependent and we just…can’t take care of a little kid,” Claggor tells me.

“At least Powder can shoot, Y/N can’t do anything,” I say and Claggor goes quiet, not arguing.

3rd POV

While the boys stay at the bar with the 2 younger girls, Vander takes Vi up to the Bridge. Where it all started. The failed rebellion spurred by Vander himself. They reach the memorial for all those that died that day. Vi shuts her eyes, remembering the sounds of the Enforcers firing their rifles at any survivors they saw. Their guns were loud and sounded more like explosions. She remembers the crying from Y/N, who was a mere baby 4 years ago.

“Why are we here?” Vi asks Vander, who sighs.

“You still don’t understand,” Vander tells her.

“What I don’t understand is how you can work with them,” Vi replies angrily and Vander’s eyes widen in surprise.

“We were here! We saw what they did! I grew up knowing I’m less than them-that my place is down there!” Vi says, motioning to the Undercity side.

“I want the girls to have more than that and I’m willing to fight for it!” Vi tells Vander stubbornly, insistent. Vander doesn’t reply immediately, instead taking a moment to figure out what to say.

He looks at the angry teenage girl.

“So was I. I was angry, just like you,” Vander tells her. That’s why Vander appeared to favor Vi. It’s also why he’s the hardest on her. It’s because he sees himself in her.

“I led us across this bridge, thinking things could change. If I hadn’t…your parents would still be alive,” Vander says, blaming himself for what happened to everyone.

“I know you wanna hurt the topsiders for what they’ve done to us. But who are you willing to lose? Mylo? Claggor? Your sisters?” Vander asks and Vi looks away as thunder rumbles in the distance. Vander moves to stand next to Vi.

“Nobody wins in war, Vi,” Vander warns her. She sighs and lets herself lean against Vander sadly.

“What are we gonna do? The Enforcers will come back,” Vi asks defeatedly, unsure of what other options there are other than to fight.

Vander sighs.

“I…I don’t know. I’ll-uh-I’ll figure it out,” Vander tells her as the girl looks up at him worriedly. She looks down at the memorial and even though she doesn’t see her parents’ picture, she thinks of them and what they would want her to do.

“Protect your sisters,” they had told Vi when Y/N was born. It was the last promise Vi made to them before they left to fight in the rebellion. Vi takes a breath and realizes there is only one other option besides fighting. Surrender.

Vi’s POV

I take a breath and steady myself, realizing what I have to do. I have to give myself up. It was my fault, I decided to take everyone on that job to topside. After waiting a bit more, Vander turns to me.

“C’mon, let’s go home,” he tells me and I nod, following him back to the Lanes…to the Last Drop. Once we get back, I wait until I’m alone before I hurry behind the bar and start looking around until I find the message canister that I immediately recognize is from topside.

Before I head to our room, I head to the roof and use the pipe Powder had earlier to get Mr. Bunny, my old stuffed rabbit toy stuck in the power lines. I catch the rabbit toy by the ear and head back inside. I stop just outside the door to the basement. I take a breath and open the door. I see my brothers sitting around the table while my younger sisters are on their shared bed going through Powder’s bombs.

“Vi? Where you been?” Claggor asks.

“Rumor is the Lanes are gonna fight,” Mylo says. I look at the boys before my eyes move to the girls. Y/N’s helping Powder screw the tops on. I walk over and sit on the edge of their bed. The girls look up excitedly at me.

“Look! Powder did it!” Y/N exclaims happily.

“Me and Y/N made them for the Enforcers,” Powder explains.

“These are smoke bombs,” Y/N says, handing me two metal canisters with colorful creatures drawn on them.

“And those two are full of nails,” Powder says, also excited.

“They’re gonna work this time. I know it,” Powder tells me confidently.

“Me too,” I agree before scooting closer to the girls. I reach up and brush Y/N’s shaggy, wild hair out of her eyes and pull a stray piece of hair off of Powder’s face, getting the girl’s attention. I gently stroke Powder’s cheek and she smiles at me lovingly. Y/N jumps on Powder’s back before leaping at me. I chuckle, cherishing these last few moments between us. I grab my old toy and place it in Powder’s lap. She looks down, surprised.

“Hey—from the roof-“ Y/N says, pointing and I nod at her before looking at Powder.

“You know Powder, what makes you different makes you strong. Always remember that, okay?” I tell her, squeezing her hand with mine lightly. She nods as I stand up.

“I love both of you…so much,” I tell my sisters.

“We love you too,” Y/N responds, clearly oblivious, but Powder, being a bit older, realizes something’s wrong and gives me a concerned look.

“Take care of Y/N,” I whisper to Powder, and she nods as I walk out.

3rd POV

Y/N continues chattering on about the explosives while Powder watches their older sister walk up the stairs and out the door and her face saddens.

“I’m gonna get a drink,” Powder tells Y/N, who nods.

Powder walks up the stairs, clutching the bunny toy Vi gave to her as the jukebox plays a song about love softly in the background. She sets the toy on top of the bar and climbs up into the seat and leans forward, resting her head sadly. Vander notices and grabs Powder’s cup. He pulls out her favorite drink and pours. Once the cup is full, he puts in her straw and sets it in front of her, gently tapping the straw over towards her. He smiles lovingly but his expression fades into concern when he sees Powder’s face.

While she’s grateful at Vander’s attempt to cheer her up, Powder’s worried about Vi. Vander looks at the rabbit and realizes there’s something familiar about the toy when his eyes suddenly widen in realization.

“Stay here!” Vander tells Powder as he races out as fast as he can.

Enforcers make their way to the Lanes, looking in every building they pass, sometimes forcing their way in. Vi is sitting on a chair inside Benzo’s, waiting for the Enforcers. She hears footsteps approaching and her leg bounces nervously. She rubs her palm with her fingers before hearing someone just outside the door. Vi shuts her eyes, taking a moment to steel herself when the door opens and her eyes widen in shock.

End

Chapter 3

[kintatsujo]

someone made a comment on the post where I called "fuck" the most perfect word along the lines of "I have to admit I don't like swearing"

and, like, fair?

one of my pet peeves in fiction is when a character suddenly starts swearing to show that they're "loosening up." I didn't like it back when I didn't like to swear, and I still don't like it now that I swear all the time.

I didn't start swearing because I'd grown up or loosened up, I started swearing because I was in an incredibly stressful retail job that had gotten more intensely stressful and it was a safer pressure release valve than breaking shit.

(I'd literally come home and chant "fuck" on bad days)

The way I kept from swearing before is that I'd literally taken those words off my mental shelf, there wasn't anything I'd call discipline involved.

the reason Mom even knows I swear now is because I have never in my life ever had ANY verbal discipline so if I want to turn swearing off I kind of just stop swearing at all, in any company, and my mother knows me well enough to know this.

that's.... kind of why she wants me to stop swearing, actually.

[cigarettesandinevitablebetrayal]

I’m not sure if you’ve already made a post about this (I’m sorry if you have) but would you mind telling us about your detective in Wayhaven?

-transsidestep

@transsidestep Thank you for the ask! I haven't, actually. I have one for each of UB, but Mason and Nate's are still being fleshed out and worked upon, so I'll tell you about the other two.

Julian Mendez:

Deduction and science-leaning with atrocious people skills and just enough self defense knowledge to get by

He's a very stoic and intimidating person upon first blush, and can be pretty hard to get to know due to quite a bit of trust issues. But once he sees you as part of his family, he'd move the earth and stars for you.

His and Rebecca's relationship is incredibly prickly. Julian values honesty pretty highly, which meant the secrets Rebecca keeps kept the rift between them pretty wide. As a child, he wanted for nothing materially, but he's never really forgiven her for not being there personally.

He fell for Felix pretty hard. It started off as attraction, something which he tried to ignore given that he knew UB's stay was only temporary, but they're both incredibly passionate individuals who see the world in unique ways. Their weirdness gels really well.

He's also chronically ill. SLE and a heart defect that devolved into needed a mechanical valve. He also has occasional bouts of over-stimulation and food aversion.

Instead of being a beat cop with Tina, he was actually a forensic pathologist with Verda. He calls him Sol.

He begrudgingly accepted the nickname "Jules" from Tina. Felix calls him that because he thinks it's cute and because Julian is a sucker for him. Nate accidentally picked it up, but Julian hasn't had the heart to tell him otherwise.

Grew up speaking both English and Spanish and so his accent is a little odd to most people in Wayhaven. Has a tendency to break into Spanish when really embarrassed or really upset.

Raine Callaghan:

The eldest of my detectives at the grand age of 39. The events of the books expedite his progress towards a silver fox.

His highest skills are combat and psychology and it really shows. He's a bit of a loveable rogue archetype, charming and a bit smarmy, prone to sarcasm. He hides his anxieties behind humor.

He and Rebecca used to have a decent relationship when he was younger (he's actually her stepson - Rook died when he was about 8 years old), but have drifted apart since Rook died and Eoin (Rebecca and Rook's son) got hospitalized. They might could fix their relationship if they could learn to talk to each other again.

Grew up in Belfast during the Troubles. He hides his accent after some nasty interactions upon Rebecca first moving him out to London. The more he hangs out with Unit Bravo, the more he falls back into it. It has a lot to do with trust and feeling safe.

He is the bane of Adam's job for a good while. They butt heads quite a bit early on, both finding the other to be an arrogant bastard, and only really become friends over the course of late Book One and throughout Book Two. They don't start falling for each other until Book Three. They are both find the other attractive early on, but shelf the attraction in lieu of their rivalry.

Comes across a little foolhardy and easygoing, but he's actually quite clever and exceptionally protective of his friends. One of the first things that wins Adam's respect is his willingness to stand up for the team as well as his drive when it comes down to brass tacks.

After the Bobby-plagiarism fiasco in college (which led to him dropping out), Raine decided if everyone was gonna see him as a troublemaker, he'd best start making trouble. He became quite the prolific con artist, with a heavy leaning into pickpocketing and some minor carjacking. It was join the force or go to jail - he reluctantly opted for the force.

His full name is actually Ciaran. Legally changed it in college for spiteful reasons. Kind of regrets it now. He tells it to Adam at the end of Book Two. Once they're on first name basis, Adam uses it when they're alone.

[opossumonashelf]

🌸🍀🌸🍀🌸🍀🌸🍀🌸🍀🌸🍀🌸🍀🌸🍀🌸🍀

Hello there, I'm Shelf, I'm that one traditional artist. Now you probably found me in a few ways. You may have stumbled across my posts or a reblog, just casually scrolling through your dash or found me liking posts.

(She/They) (Birthday: May 29th) (panro-ace)

I'm Autistic, ADHD and have pretty bad anxiety so if I don't answer asks right away it could be the anxiety!

Sketch Requests: Open! (Keep it pg-13)

Commissions: Open! (0 out of 5 spots filled)

☆○☆○☆○☆○☆○☆○☆○☆○☆○☆○☆○☆○☆○☆○☆

Every now and then I will edit this post for stuff about my blog so I will add update dates, it will change appeance from time to time!

I have quite a interests and things I like so I'll list them out,

☆ Pokemon! (Submas; the subway boss twins from black and white, Eevelutions, Legends Arceus, and a few other games in the franchise)

☆ Cats (the animal, not the musical)

☆ Legend of Zelda!

☆ Fallout and The Elder Scrolls!

☆ AdventureTime!

☆ Animal Crossing!

☆ Valve Games (Half-life, TF2, and Portal)

☆ Old Tech!

☆ there are more but these are basically most of what you can find!

Now I have some boundaries that need to be made known before some might go through my blog, or in other words the Do not Interact criteria.

⚠️⛔️⚠️⛔️⚠️⛔️⚠️⛔️⚠️⛔️⚠️⛔️⚠️⛔️⚠️⛔️⚠️⛔️

First of all DNI/ DO NOT INTERACT if you are the following:

🚫 Pr0sh!ppers, B!4nksh!ppers, and those who 'pair' minors with adults, those who support, create, and/or indulge in such content. (It makes me uncomfortable to a point were it makes me sick, not even joking)

🚫 Terfs (this blog is safe for people who are LGBT+, and I plan to keep it safe)

🚫 Ped0s,Zo0philes,those who are abusive to children and/or animals, ( it is not only disgusting but also a crime)

🚫 Racists, N*zis, and others like them.

🚫 NS/FW, fet!ish, k!nk (some of my followers are minors, and I wish to keep this blog pg-13.)

I have a habit of checking blogs so if i feel uncomfortable or find that my boundaries are being crossed I will end up blocking.

Now for the other rules...

○ Do not trace, steal to claim as yourselves, or repost anything I make as your own.

○ Please be respectful

○ Don't be a jerk

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I have a tag system now and what they are as well.

#opossumrambles - this tag is mostly me explaining or just talking.

#opossumscribbles - my art tag

#asks for the opossum - asks

#rebloging my likes - basically just me rebloging my likes.

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Edit: 4:51pm, Feb 1 , 2023

Edit: 3:28pm, Feb 21, 2023

Edit: 6:33pm, Mar 15, 2023

Edit: 7:03pm, Apr 12, 2023

Edit: 5:00pm, Apr 26, 2023 (updated dni and cleaned up introduction)

Edit: 11:12pm, July 7, 2023 (Made edit to dni section)

Edit: 6:01pm, Oct 10, 2023 (huge overhaul redesign of pinned post)

Edit: 8:14pm, Oct 18, 2023 (my tags have been added so my blog isn't a mess to navigate)