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svtxsoju · 4 years ago

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01. crush that hangover! | dear miss soju

ღ Synopsis: College is hard. Love is even harder. Good thing the students of Mansae University can write in to Miss Soju, the campus’ very own romance advice columnist! The only problem is she’s never been in a relationship. Ever. There’s no telling what kind of chaos she may cause in the love lives of several of MU’s most eligible bachelors. Too bad no one knows who she really is! ღ Characters/Pairings: college AU! Seventeen & OC’s, Pairings TBA! ღ Genre: Romantic Comedy, Slice of Life ღ Warning(s): Mentions of alcohol, underage drinking, mentions of sex, language, bad jokes ღ Word Count: 5.0k words ღ Binu’s Note: ever stare at a selfie so long that it looks weird? ya that’s this chapter for me. there were just so many elements that i wanted to get right, but i kept changing things and now i can’t look at it anymore :c i’ll properly proofread it later, but for now enjoy!! i have some other content ima post later so i’m p excited for that hehehe anyway ya happy friday!!!

《 ⊛ Author’s Note & Credits ⊛ Disclaimer ⊛ Masterlist ⊛ 》

《 Previous ⊛ Next 》

Monday, September 2, 2019 9:05AM

This was not how Joohyun had imagined her first day at The Front. Whenever she described this moment to Jihoon, she was very clear about the way she would walk in so confidently that the senior writers would wonder why they forgot to email her an invite to their 8:30 meeting. Jihoon, who relished in raining on her parade, predicted that they wouldn’t even know her name. But she had no time for his blunt realism, because she had been living as a made-up person since June and her corporate daydreams were the only things keeping her sane. She knew it wasn’t going to be easy, but she figured that once they saw her talent, everything would be just fine.

So it’s not difficult to imagine Joohyun’s distress when she just barely stumbled into the office this morning, nursing a mind-melting hangover.

She should have known she would be a goner when the sports section interns had challenged her to a drinking game at last night’s welcome party. Her drinking partner, a small girl interning at HR, had only made it two shots in before falling asleep on her lap. For the record, she had still made sure that she was the last intern standing (although she definitely wasn’t the same bright-eyed freshman that could chug a pitcher of soju and beer just to spite Jihoon). Looking around the office, she felt a little relieved to find that the other interns were suffering just as much as her, if their slumped positions and pained groans told her anything. So much for giving a good first impression.

Joohyun was trying her best not to look like she was two steps from an early grave when she was approached by a big woman with a laptop in her arms. She awkwardly bowed her head to greet her, but the woman’s gaze never left the screen of her Macbook. “Miss… Joonyoung?”

“Oh, that’s not--”

“You’re the new advice column intern, correct?”

“Oh. Yes, that’s me, but that’s not my--”

“I’ll show you to your desk.” Without so much as a glance, the woman turned on her heel, now typing furiously on her laptop. Joohyun followed behind glumly.

This was all Jihoon’s fault.

“So, how’s your first day going?” Jihoon asked over his bowl of ramen. He flagged down the tall waiter and ordered a bowl of rice.

“Fine,” was Joohyun’s curt answer. In truth, it was far from ideal. She had watched longingly as all the other interns were assigned with their first projects, while she was left with an empty inbox. How was she supposed to write an advice column when there was no one asking her for advice? She spent most of the morning familiarizing herself with the previous entries of The Front’s dating advice column, the most recent of which dated to the newspaper’s May issue… from 1997.

When her supervisor told her to take a lunch break, she had made a beeline to meet Jihoon at the restaurant near the cafe he worked at. Now that she was sitting in front of him though, she wasn’t quite ready to confess that her dream job was much more mundane than she expected. “Hey, wasn’t this a fried chicken shop last semester?”

“That bad, huh?” Jihoon clicked his tongue. Joohyun sighed - she didn’t know why she even tried to hide anything from him when he’s known her for 12 years. He probably knew some parts of her better than she did. “Come on Joo, don’t give up on Miss Soju so easily. It’s just because you’re a little hungover. We watched The Notebook like five times this summer! What more do you need to know about true love? Do you want me to set you up on another date with that freakishly tall dude for more hands-on experience? Ah, speak of the devil!”

“Thanks, Mingyu.” Joohyun took the bowl of rice and gave the server a sweet smile, which greatly contrasted with the glare she shot at Jihoon soon after. The server, a stunning boy with jet-black hair and tanned skin, stuck his tongue out at Jihoon. She waited until Mingyu went to the other side of the restaurant to serve a rowdy group of boys to whisper-shout at Jihoon. “Can you try not to expose my identity to the whole campus before I even get the chance to write my first ever entry?”

“Ohhh, that’s why you’re sulking. No one’s sent you a letter yet so you didn’t get to do anything today,” Jihoon said. It sometimes got annoying how he could read her like she was his worn-out copy of his favorite sports manga. She had to admit though, he did find ways to make it worth it. Like when he said, “I might actually be able to help you with that one, if you want. I can make a little shout out for Miss Soju on my stream tonight. For a small price, of course.”

“You’re streaming tonight?” The girl perked up from poking at her noodles. Over the past three years, Jihoon had built up a cult following through Woozi’s Universe, a Twitch stream where he shared music made by the underground artists on campus (including him). He only ever released new music on Mondays, so tonight would definitely have a large viewership. Joohyun immediately went into her business pose lest she show how eager she really was. “Well, what would you like in exchange, Mr. Lee?”

“I merely request that you pay for my lunch today, Ms. So,” he replied. Joohyun looked in horror at Jihoon, a petite man who ate like he was three boys going through puberty; today alone he had had an extra-large bowl of ramen, three orders of rice, and two cans of Coke.

Then, she imagined facing an empty inbox for the rest of the week. Yup, this was definitely worth it. That didn’t stop her from making a show of taking out her wallet, taking care to sigh extra loudly. She had to give Jihoon his moment to revel in his triumphs, otherwise he would get grumpy.

Jihoon cackled giddily. “Pleasure doing business with you as always, Ms. So.”

“Pretty sure my hangover is coming back.”

“Oh shit, shut up!” Jihoon suddenly yelped and ducked underneath the table.

“What the hell, Jih--”

“No, don’t say my name! He might hear you and then I’ll have to talk to him,” Jihoon whispered, jerking his head towards a bright yellow blur skipping to the back of the restaurant. “He’s one of my fans. He found out I worked at the cafe and now he keeps coming in to talk to about how sad his sex life is.”

Joohyun pursed her lips and peeked a glance over. He had joined the table of rowdy boys. “Hmm, maybe I should say hi... he seems like a potential Miss Soju reader.”

“Just pay the check already, woman!”

The new interns at The Front were not the only students sporting hangovers that day. This can only be expected of the second week back at MU. Sunday night had been the explosive finale of a full week of department welcome parties, happy reunions, and lots and lots of alcohol. Some of the incoming freshmen were convinced that Mansae University was not actually a school, but a training ground for surviving as many shots of soju as physically possible. That is until they woke up on Monday morning and still had to drag themselves to their 9AM’s, suddenly faced with the reality of what college really was: an endless cycle of perpetual hangovers and school work that’s due way too soon.

This was all good news for the new ramen shop on campus, which had been serving the hoards of hungover zombies since 10AM. Vernon, who was in great pain from the night before, had been ambushed by his roommate after his morning class. He was brought to the restaurant under the pretense of curing his woes with a bowl of warm soup and noodles. When he caught sight of a man in red waiting for them at a back table though, he immediately knew what was actually coming.

“Hello Vernonnie,” Seungcheol greeted him with a sly smile. “Care to take a seat next to me?”

“Uh, not really,” Vernon mumbled, but he sat down anyway. He scrunched his nose at his roommate as the boy slumped into the seat in front of him. “Traitor.”

“Sorry babe, Seungcheol hyung promised me free lunch. Also, you’re one to talk, after you abandoned me to fend for myself last night--! Ugh,” his roommate, Seungkwan, clutched at his head, where a rusty hammer persistently tapped away at his temple. “Hyung, why did you do this to me? My face is gonna be bloated for the rest of the week. I have an audition in two days, you know!”

“Hey, I did ask you if you were sure you wanted-- what was that you ordered? Oh yeah-- ‘the strongest drink that is legal to serve in South Korea’!” Seungcheol said, his eyes wide. As he got more defensive, he began to point his finger excessively at Seungkwan. “And what was it all for? To impress your new crush?”

“I am way too hungover to get lectured by a couple of hypocrites,” Seungkwan grumbled. “I was trying to get some inspiration, you know, a drunken spark of genius! How else am I supposed to figure out how to confess to them?”

“Okay, I wasn’t actually asking,” Seungcheol ignored Seungkwan’s offended gasp in favor of turning his attention to a fidgeting Vernon. His cherry red lips now returned to its wide grin. “I am here to discuss where our dearest Vernon went off to last night.”

“Um.” Vernon answered with a nervous smile. “I just went home early--”

“Bullshit!” Seungkwan looked absolutely scandalized. “It wasn’t enough to abandon me, so now you’re lying too? I don’t know if I can take much more of this!”

Vernon had only officially known Seungkwan for two whole weeks, but with the way the two had been inseparable since move-in day, everyone at the freshmen dorms had assumed that they had known each other for years and years. He knew that someone like Boo Seungkwan was a rare find as far as random dorm assignments went, and that not everyone was so lucky to have a roommate that reminds them to eat real food once in a while or a friend who’s willing to take care of them when they get their first real hangover. Just for that day alone, Vernon knew that Seungkwan deserved to know where he went. Plus he shared a room with him, so it’s not like he could hide anything anyway.

Seungcheol shook his head and slung an arm around Vernon’s shoulder. His grip wasn’t tight but firm enough that Vernon knew he was trapped there until he confessed the truth. “Look, I don’t need any details! I just wanted to make sure that you’re staying safe and all that junk. Also, I would like to know what base you got to.” He erupted into a fit of giggles, but soon cleared his throat to return to his investigation. “Really though, tell us what happened.”

It wasn’t like Vernon didn’t want to tell Seungcheol either. Vernon’s and Seungcheol’s families had known each other since the two boys were in middle and high school, and when he found out that Seungcheol would be a senior at Mansae University that year, he felt some of his nerves ease up about moving out. Seungcheol had always been like an older brother to him, and was always there when he needed his help in high school. He trusted him!

That’s probably why he subconsciously blamed Seungcheol for the pain he was going through at the moment. When the upperclassman had offered to sneak Vernon and Seungkwan into a party at the karaoke bar that he bartended at, the two freshmen all too eagerly accepted without thinking of any consequences. They had received no pointers, no words of caution. How were they supposed to know that bar parties were completely different from welcome dinners? And how was Seungkwan supposed to know that downing so many cocktails within the hour wasn’t a good idea? Most importantly, how was Vernon supposed to know that he would meet someone like her there? Vernon groaned into his hands as he could no longer resist the flood of memories from the night before, and leaned into Seungcheol’s shoulder as he tried to recoil from his past self. “Hyung, it hurts too much to say out loud.”

“It’s okay buddy, take your time,” Seungcheol patted his head gently and called the tall server over. Vernon continued to let out unintelligible noises of regret while the senior ordered bowls for all three of them. “How are you even hungover right now? I only remember giving you one drink last night before you went off with--”

“I’m not hungover.”

“Oh. Then what are you?”

“An idiot,” Vernon mumbled through his fingers. “A big, cringy idiot.”

Seungkwan raised his hand, looking frantically between the two boys. “Excuse me? Did I miss the reading homework? Went off with who? Last night? What? How drunk was I?!”

“Very drunk, but that’s not why you didn’t notice Vernon’s new friend. You were a little occupied with your own conquest,” Seungcheol stage-whispered from across the table. “Honestly, you two are wild. It’s only two weeks into fall semester and you’re already out here simping.”

“Um, and? I saw you making googly eyes at several ladies last night!” The higher Seungkwan’s voice rose, the harder the rusty hammer banged inside his head. “Ow.”

“Those were just my friends who happened to be ladies! Sorry that my eyes are just naturally soft and alluring,” Seungcheol said, batting his long, dark lashes at the boy. “What were her eyes like, Vernon? I only noticed that she had a nose ring. Couldn’t really see her properly while you two were ‘talking’ in the corner...”

“The corner! A nose ring!” Seungkwan repeated and clutched at his chest. “Tell me more.”

“We were just talking!” Vernon finally spoke, his face stuck in an embarrassed grimace. “There’s not really much more to tell. I just know that she’s the coolest girl I’ve ever met and I’ll never meet anyone like her again.”

“What! You two were talking for like two hours! And I saw you leaving with her!” Seungcheol said a little too loudly for Vernon’s liking. The server gingerly approached their table with their orders, setting the bowls down as quickly as possible before rushing away. Vernon noted to give him a big tip when they left. “Don’t tell us that’s all.”

“I just dropped her off at her apartment and went back to the dorms,” Vernon confirmed to Seungcheol’s horror. “I really didn’t want it to be just last night.”

“So... you asked her out?”

“No.”

“You got her number?”

“No.”

“Her Instagram? Her Twitter? Her student ID number? Do you even know her name?”

“I already said I was an idiot,” Vernon whined. “This is exactly why I didn’t want to talk about it. But yes, I did at least get her name.”

It was the only thing he could think of since he woke up. She was the only thing he could think of since he woke up. The way her eyes had lit up while they talked about her major. The way her lips had curved into a clever smile when she told a joke. The way her small hand had fit in his as they walked to her apartment. Then, he would remember how he completely fucked it all up before he started, and his headache would return full-force.

“Dude.” Seungcheol fixed him with a stern stare, but it was kind of hard to take him seriously when his mouth was full of noodles. “Have you never asked a girl out before?”

“You know I have! I don’t know what happened either, okay? I guess I just froze up when she looked at me… then I just went home after telling her good night.”

Seungcheol feigned a gag. “Gross. I was joking earlier, but you’re an actual simp. Hate to break it to you like this.”

“I think it’s sweet,” Seungkwan piped up from where he comfortably rested his head on the table.

“That’s nice, Seungkwan, but ‘sweet’ isn’t gonna get either of you laid,” Seungcheol chuckled. “Vernon, your girl was clearly waiting for you to make the next move. Trust me, girls don’t just ask anyone to walk them home.”

“I didn’t want to look like a creep!” Vernon sullenly stared down at his untouched bowl of noodles. “What am I supposed to do now, hyung?”

“Yeah, lend us your wisdom, O Alluring One,” Seungkwan chanted. “You clearly have plenty of experience from the past three years.

“Like I said, I just have a lot of friends,” Seungcheol shrugged, then suddenly checked the time on his phone. “Oh shit-- speaking of friends, I have to meet one for a study session at her apartment in 15 minutes.”

“Sounds nasty.”

“Your mom’s nasty,” Seungcheol retorted with a provocative smile. “Get your mind out of the gutter, Boo! Then maybe you’d be able to think of how to confess.”

“Uncalled for!”

He placed several bills on the table and checked his phone again. “This should be enough to cover lunch, kiddos. I wish I could help you two, but I’m booked for the rest of the day. And the week.”

“But what if I meet her again?” Vernon asked desperately.

“Then text me! I might not reply right away though. I’ve got two classes later and then I have dinner plans--”

“Another girl I presume--”

“Shut up! I also have to go to the gym before doing… uh, doing a thing. And then I have a shift at 24H.” Seungcheol stood up and looked at the distressed boys before him, his soft eyes more affectionate than alluring. Was he like this as a freshman? He reached over to ruffle the freshmans' heads. “You two should probably leave soon, too. I’ll see y’all later!”

And just like that, Seungcheol was gone, and Vernon was once again left without any advice from the senior. Vernon was never one for dramatics, but his personal failures felt like a gray cloud of shame hanging over him. He began to worry that he was just gonna have to live like this forever, because nothing in the world was bright enough to break through his doom and gloom (well, her smile probably could, but Vernon was never going to see that again). The fact that Seungkwan seemed like he was about to Train to Busan his ass any minute now didn’t really lift his spirits either.

Lucky for him, the universe was not going to let him give up so easily. At that moment, a boy with glaringly yellow hair and a heavy camera on his shoulder bursted through the entrance. His smile brightened when he spotted the two boys in the back and he didn’t hesitate to bound towards them, skipping right past the server welcoming him in. “Seungkwan! I knew I’d find you here.”

“Dearest Vernon, it seems we have been joined by the lovely Soonyoung hyung. Perhaps he might know the medicine we require to ease our ailments in love,” Seungkwan suddenly stood up, all signs of his hangover expertly hidden. He smiled directly into the camera lens. “Hyung, would you kindly share your wisdom with us lowly freshmen? Pray tell, how does one woo the object of their affection?”

Vernon, who was well-acquainted with Seungkwan’s antics by then, watched on in silent amusement. If anything could distract him from his internal turmoil for a moment, it was Seungkwan; even if he was just spewing nonsense. What really made him crack up though, was the way Soonyoung (that was his name, right?) was clearly trying very hard to suppress his giggles. “Um,” Soonyoung managed to cut in breathlessly. “You know I’m not rolling, right? Also, I didn’t understand any of the words that just left your mouth, but it definitely felt like you were putting some sort of ancient curse on me. Hi, I’m Soonyoung by the way!”

Vernon introduced himself and shook Soonyoung’s hand. Seungkwan could only sigh in exasperation at Soonyoung’s lack of culture (not that he was surprised of course). The boy apparently thought it was a good fashion choice to leave his apartment wearing a tiger print button-up. “I was asking if you could help us out with confessing to our crushes,” Seungkwan said with a roll of his eyes.

“Ohh, that’s what you said!” Soonyoung laughed until he was keeled over, clutching his stomach. Vernon and Seungkwan could only watch him with great expectation. When the boy finally caught his breath and wiped the sweat from his brow, he gave the boys a very serious look. “Yeah, I haven’t gotten any since January. So you should probably ask someone else.”

This also did not surprise Seungkwan.

“Excuse me?” The tall server approached them again, clearly giving them his best ‘I hate working in retail’ smile. “If y’all are done eating, could you please leave? You’re disturbing the other customers.”

“I’m eating, I’m eating!” Soonyoung smiled until his cheeks reached his eyes, a power move that he saves for occasions where he found himself in trouble, which happened more often than he’d care to admit. Once the server let them be, muttering something about not getting paid enough, Soonyoung turned his killing smile onto the two boys. “Can I have some of this? I can Venmo y’all later, I’m pretty broke right now.”

Vernon pushed his uneaten ramen towards Soonyoung, who looked at him as if he was the sun itself. The boy carefully set down his film camera and immediately began slurping away. Vernon nodded his head towards the contraption and asked why he was carrying it around.

“Oh, I rented it before coming to find Seungkwan. I’m thinking about making him the subject of my film project this semester, since the theater program is pretty buzzed that he’s joining this year!” Soonyoung patted the camera affectionately.

“‘Thinking about?’ I thought I was your final choice!” Seungkwan blurted. The ramen he had for lunch seemed to have finally restored some of his strength, because he no longer clutched at his temple when his voice rose.

“I said ‘most likely’ choice! I just want to keep my options open,” Soonyoung responded with great care. He didn’t want to hurt Seungkwan’s feelings, but he was definitely re-evaluating alternate subjects at the moment. “It’s only the second week!”

“This is why you’re single,” the theater major said in a huff. “Lack of commitment!”

“Hey! I am perfectly capable of commitment. It’s the girls that don’t want to commit, ” Soonyoung said in a small voice, and looked off into the distance wistfully. “I really hope Woozi does put out a new song tonight. Maybe he’ll tweet something soon.”

“Woozi? Who’s that?” Vernon asked. At this point, he was just looking for anything that would fend off his memories, which lingered at the edges of his mind and waited for moments of silence to bring him another fresh glass of cringe. He was pretty sure that he had experienced well above the recommended daily serving.

“Oh, he’s a Twitch streamer from MU! I was actually gonna say if you two are really struggling in the love department, you should definitely check out his stream tonight.” Soonyoung nearly wiggled with enthusiasm. “He usually promotes songs from artists around the area, but his self-composed songs are my personal favorites. They’ve been what’s getting me through this dry spell, honestly.”

“Oh, that sounds pretty cool.” It sounded like it was right up Vernon’s alley, actually.

Soonyoung nodded. “You listen to them and you just feel hopeful to find the kind of love he sings about. I’ll send you the link later!”

“Underground artists? No thanks, I think I’ll stick to Eva Noblezada,” Seungkwan scoffed. “I don’t really think a stranger can help me with my problems. They don’t even know me.”

“Oh come on, Kwan. Let’s just give it a shot!”

Even after all his grumbling, Seungkwan still sat beside Vernon at one of the desks in their dorm later that night. They had opened the link Soonyoung had sent them, and munched on some snacks while they waited for the stream to start up. Vernon waited with baited breath for his distraction to begin; he had spent most of the day attempting to wall off any thoughts of her or last night, but it was kind of difficult to think of anything else when all of his professors only droned on and on about quizzes and homework.

When a boy with fair skin and burgundy hair came into frame, he nearly sighed in relief. The streamer appeared to be sitting in a small, dark office only illuminated by his computer screen and several pink neon signs that hung on the walls. Vernon could recognize the faint outlines of several guitars and a keyboard behind him. The boy clicked around for a while as more people joined the stream before finally waving into the camera.

“Hi guys, welcome in! Thanks for joining Woozi’s Universe. If you’re new here, I’m Woozi and I like to write songs sometimes. If you’re an old subscriber, I’m really sorry for the long wait. I’ve been working on a lot of projects, doing some collabs - I’ll actually be releasing one of those collabs tonight and I’m really excited for you guys to hear it. If you have any new songs you want to listen to together, go ahead and leave them in the chat!”

As soon as the stream started flowing, Vernon immediately knew why Soonyoung gave Woozi such rave reviews. The guy just had good vibes and he definitely knew his music. Vernon was hooked. Even Seungkwan, try as he might to look disinterested, couldn’t help bopping his head occasionally.

“Thanks for the subscription @chweinggum! You just helped me reach my tenth new sub for tonight, and you guys know what that means. Time for the new song! It was really fun to write this with my collaborator, so we really hope you like it!”

After spending the past hour just vibing in Woozi’s Universe, discovering new songs and artists, Vernon had really hyped himself up to hear the streamer’s personal work. If Soonyoung’s words were true, this would be the song that would truly heal his heartache, the song that would push him to forget about the whole ordeal. He listened in anticipation as pleasant harmonies played through his laptop speakers. But as the song progressed, Vernon did not quite feel the reprieve he was hoping for. In fact, he was kind of taken aback. The lyrics… felt like they told his story. Maybe not word for word, but enough to make Vernon stare at the laptop screen with his mouth open. What kind of hocus pocus, That’s So Raven, mind reading shit was this? The song broke down the walls he had tried to build throughout the day and left him vulnerable to its strangely upbeat and energetic tune.

He had to admit that he didn’t hate it. The cringe from his own actions did not disappear, but the song helped him focus more on the moments that made his heart flutter, the moments that incited those pesky butterflies in his stomach. They were the moments that made him so hard on himself in the first place and the reasons why it hurt so much that he messed up. She had made him feel seen. She had done everything right. And all he wanted to do was to show her that he saw her too. He just had to figure out how.

Woozi clapped his hands loudly when the song came to an end, bringing Vernon out of his deep reverie. “And that was Pretty U by yours truly! I collaborated on it with an artist who doesn’t want to be named as of now, so I’ll just say it was great to work with such a talented person and I hope to work with them again soon! Anyway, we know the lyrics are pretty cheesy, but let’s just say it’s based on a juvenile romance! I tried capturing that giddy feeling of liking someone and wanting to tell them pretty words but losing confidence at the last second. I’m sure we’ve all been there before.”

Vernon sat up, nodding his head as if Woozi could see him. After his song scanned his soul like that, Vernon figured it wasn’t impossible.

“I know that some of my subscribers listen to me because they go through these kinds of hardships. But I wanted to say that my songs can’t fix everything. Even I go through it sometimes and I need someone to lean on. There’s actually a new thing I just found out about from a friend - ‘Dear Miss Soju’. It’s a column that they’re gonna start publishing on The Front’s website, and you can anonymously write in all your burning questions about love, relationships, or sex. So if you’re having a hard time confessing like in this song, just know that there’s someone out there to help you out!

“Since you’ll be anonymous, you can write about your heart’s deepest desires, even if it’s a little freaky. Yes, I’m talking to you, user @callmesoon, please stop trying to tell me about your sex life. Anyway, I’ll put the email in the description for anyone that’s interested!” Woozi paused to laugh at several of the comments. “No guys, The Front does not sponsor me. But I can tell you about a company that does sponsor me. Hello Fresh--”

Seungkwan closed the laptop and sighed. “Well, that didn’t help me at all. Soonyoung hyung said this Woozi guy was gonna make me feel better, but now he’s just telling us to spilll all our secrets to some other stranger. What a scam! Right, Vernon? Vernon?”

By the time Seungkwan turned to look at his friend, Vernon was already writing his second draft for his email. The boy sighed again. Maybe he could give it a shot.

The next morning, Joohyun opened up her laptop to find thirteen emails in her inbox. She smiled.

Now she could get to work.

32 notes · View notes

petork · 3 years ago

Note

-105 please

NB i am told this was meant to say 1-50

thanks queen <3 here we go

1. Who is your favourite ghost?

lately? it's been kitty. and i'm contractually obligated to love the captain

2. If you could see the ghosts like Alison, which one do you think would come the closest to making you want to leave the house?

the obvious answer is julian but probably actually robin, i HATE being spooked (as the asker can attest xx)

3. How would you feel if you couldn’t see the ghosts, but knew they were there, like Mike?

i'd feel mad jealous even though i'd actually have it pretty good. the other person would be trying so hard to tell me how much it sucks and i'd just be like 'but... goast.....'

4. Would you want to see ghosts like Alison, or would you rather be ignorant to their goings and doings?

again my immediate answer is I WANNA SEE THEM but i also know that might suck in many ways. at least for a while. i am not a patient person so i don't know if i could learn to live with them like alison could. but on the other hand... the chance to actually talk to people from the fucking actual past... thinking emoji!

5. If you were a ghost living in the house, would you rather be upstairs with the main nine ghosts, or downstairs with the plague ghosts?

upstairs for sure, sorry to the plague ghosts but i do not want to hang out in a basement for eternity

6. If you were someone who died in the house would you rather be “sucked off” immediately, or would you like to hang around a bit and get to know some of the other ghosts before getting “sucked off”?

i would probably just end up staying forever because i'm scared of the void of death.... <3

7. Which ghost would you miss the most if they were “sucked off” in the next series?

UNBELIEVABLE question? i'd miss ALL OF THEM. but see question 1 also

8. Which ghost do you think you’d get along with the best?

it's hard to say. i think they would all get on my nerves because as said i am not very patient. but the one who would irritate me LEAST... maybe pat?

9. Which ghost would you say you’re most like?

captain. not to be a cliche but i'm gay and repressed. and also irritable and grumpy

10. Which ghost would you say you’re least like?

JULIAN

11. What is a (popular or not) fan theory that you love?

(pasted from prev answer) i don’t actually like ship it because he’s definitely older than her, but a couple of people have said kitty sometimes acts like she has a crush on thomas. which is cute to me even if she does need to get better taste (love u kitty xxx)

12. What is a (popular or not) fan theory that you don’t quite agree with?

(pasted from prev answer) not so much a specific theory but i disagree with the general idea that anything of consequence went on with the captain and havers. i think it was meant to come across as just a snippet of the captain’s poor sad gay life and, as several brain geniuses have pointed out, due to the timing of germany invading france + the captain’s medals the flashback must have been from a good few years BEFORE he died. and i think the flashback was the last time they ever saw each other, so i don’t think that a) havers has any link to the captain’s eventual death or 2) anything romantic ever happened between them

13. Favourite ship and why?

captain x my cute oc boyfriend because i've tailored it to my exact needs. why ship retail when you can ship bespoke?

14. Least favourite ship and why? (Please be nice though!)

patcap as we all know. like YES i'm a contrary bitch so i don't like things that are popular and i do think i'm better than everyone else... but really idk why exactly i just don't gel with it at all. and when i've tried to read fic in the past it feels to me like their characters are kind of flattened. and i think the captain is too much of a bitch. and i think pat is serving us normie heterosexual. it's the 'cinnamon roll' ship of this fandom and i can't STAND (metaphorical) cinnamon rolls. AND ALSO pat is not the simple soft dad cinnamon roll fandom often makes him out to be! like he is a very nice person but he's also fucked up and insane like all of them. anyway my brain charges extremely low rents

15. If you could go back in time and live in the house/on the property at the same time as one of the ghosts when they were alive, who would you pick?

captain. need to know wtf's going on with him

16. Would you rather inherit the house (and its ghostly inhabitants), or just visit?

realistically... visit. i think i would lose my mind eventually if i lived there

17. Do you think we’ll ever know how every ghost died? Do you think there will be anyone whose death we’ll never learn about?

i hope we do, but i also appreciate that isn't the sole point of the series, otherwise it would be kinda boring and discovering how they died wouldn't be as impactful. if there's anyone's death we don't find out about, i think it would probably be robin? lol what if it was so long ago he just forgot

18. What is your favourite Ghosts fanfiction?

so i'm stupid and i never use bookmarks on ao3..... i've read a LOT of different fics i like but do you think i can revisit them? no! because i'm stupid! so i cannot fairly pick an absolute fave sorry

19. What is your favourite Ghosts fan art?

THIS <3

all the babies and children on here talk about horrible histories the show being 'their childhood'........ put some respect on terry deary's name. and this artist did!

20. Tag 5 favourite Ghosts fandom content creators!

honestly i'm not good with like. knowing people. but here are 5 fanfics i've enjoyed (based on the author's replies in my inbox because, again, i am too stupid to use bookmarks)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/28287567

https://archiveofourown.org/works/29868645

https://archiveofourown.org/works/28653192

https://archiveofourown.org/works/28067277/chapters/68761830

https://archiveofourown.org/works/26957662/chapters/65795407

21. Are there any historical periods you wish we’d have gotten to see a ghost/ghosts from but didn’t?

(pasted from other post) not to be predictable but i would have liked to see a 1960s ghost. like a mod who crashed his scooter or something. we have enough 20th century ghosts though but i believe the us remake has some kind of hippie ghost…

22. What is something you’re hoping to see in a future series?

flashback to the captain getting some. like implied or whatever. i can't cope with him dying a virgin. he needs this

23. What is something you’re hoping to see in a future series, but know we probably WON’T get to see?

(pasted from other post) alison meets someone else who can see ghosts, and we get to see the ghosts at THEIR house…. i always love it when we see extra ghosts but i know they probably won’t make any recurring because it would come off as running out of ideas. but i still think they should add a 90s teenager named roy

24. Which lesser-seen characters would you like to see more of in future series?

tbh there's none i can think of that i think we should SEE more of, they get a pretty good balance. there are some i definitely want to learn more about though

25. Are there any characters you wish we’d see less?

don't make me pick a least favourite child </3 but also i think thomas could probably tone it down a bit.

26. Favourite one-liner?

I'LL WAIT FOR YOU, MY COMELY NUG - me whenever i order chicken nuggets on just eat

27. Favourite episode?

DON'T EVEN... i like 2x06 and 3x05 a lot

28. Top 5 headcanons for [insert character name here]?

i'm going to do the captain because obviously i am

- he may or may not have been lavender married

- he may or may not have had a drinking problem

- public schoolboy with domineering father, clearly

- IF he had a lavender wife then she spent all her time in the company of her 'odd' female friend who wore men's clothes, smoked cigars and drove a motorbike. the captain was obviously clueless

that's 4 so a cheeky one for fanny:

- she did a lot of medicinal coke

29. Whose costume is your favourite?

kitty. gotta love an ott ballgown

30. Whose costume is your least favourite?

that's an offtopic question. you have been stopped.

31. If you could do a complete redesign of one of the ghosts’ costumes, whose would you change and how?

i would give thomas his double denim

32. If you could play any of the existing ghosts, which one would you want to play and why?

i think i'd be good at playing mary. meek weird girl who says things that don't make any sense? omg she is LITERALLY me

33. Which ghost would you least like to play and why?

julian, i'm not getting my pussy out

34. What one thing would you miss most if you became a ghost and had to live by the same rules as the Button House ghosts?

FOOD. food. eating and food.

35. How do you think one or more of the ghosts whose deaths we haven’t seen died? Or, if we know the cause of death but not the reason for the death (like Mary being burned as a witch or Humphrey being beheaded), why do you think they were killed?

i think mary's execution might have had something to do with her husband's death and her being unfairly accused or something. also like, she just acts kinda weird, and we know how that often played out for women back then...

and i think the captain died in some really boring mundane natural causes way (congenital heart attack or something) but he's stuck around because a) he's never come to terms with the whole h*mo thing and 2) he was just really mad that he died so boringly

36. Favourite [insert character name here] moment?

CAPTAIN GETTING KITTY TO SMILE

37. What do you think [insert character name here] was like when they were alive? Do you think they were exactly the same as they are now, or do you think there were any major or minor differences?

ok i'll do fanny for this one. i think she was less domineering when she was alive, in death she clearly thinks of herself as above the other ghosts and bosses them around, and when she talks shit about george it's not like he can get back at her in any way. but it would be interesting to see how they interacted when both were alive

38. It’s your turn to pick a movie for film club! What are you watching?

(from prev post) i haven’t seen any movies errr….. maybe austin powers because it’s so sad that julian died just a few years before it came out because he would love it and get really annoying about quoting it all the time and it would be really funny for the captain (who thought the movie was unironic) to have to deal with that. and fanny would NOT COPE.

39. Would you rather share a room with Thomas (constantly sighing and reciting bad poetry) or Fanny (falls out of the window screaming every night)?

fanny. men be quiet challenge

40. If you could do some kind of historical swap (i.e. place a ghost in a different period from their own), who would you choose and what period are they from now?

i would like to give kitty the chance to be a 20th or 21st century girl. maybe an era like the 60s or 80s that was known for daring fashions, i think she would luv it

41. Let’s settle this once and for all. Who’s the real leader, the Captain or Pat?

fanny

42. If the ghosts could eat, what is one food you would like to share with them that they might not have tried before?

doritos tangy cheese, mountain dew baja blast, 4loko. i would make thomas try a jalapeno. i would also make them try my cooking experiments because i do that to anyone i live with

43. You’ve heard rumours of a tenth upstairs ghost who doesn’t often venture out of their room to visit with the other residents of the house. Who are they? (i.e. make up a ghost OC. I know i’m putting you on the spot. I just want to see what you come up with.)

it's george button and his bitch ass is too scared of his wife to come down. his downfall comes when he finds out there's another gay ghost and simply has to clap them cheeks (he fails)

44. Tell me a song you think [insert character name here] would like, or a song that reminds you of them!

i think alison's probably already introduced him to them but thomas + anything by the smiths. i would also make the captain sit quietly and listen to a tracy chapman cd (for my lover...)

45. What song(s) do you think would annoy certain ghosts the most?

the smiths would annoy everyone except thomas. literally they'd all be trying to re-kill him

46. Who is one actor you’d love to see guest star? What kind of character would you like to see them play?

steve coogan as like. anyone. preferably a ghost. a roman centurion ghost if you wanna get cultural. but seriously i just want alan

47. If you could have one Horrible Histories song in Ghosts (either sung by a ghost/ghosts, or playing on the TV or computer for them to watch), which one would you want it to be and why?

that song about how no 'british' stuff is actually british. like tea. i want julian to melt down

48. What do you think the ghosts’ jobs would be in a modern living-human AU where they’re all just chaotic housemates?

captain & kitty: have their own wedding planning company

julian: still a politician but instead of an mp he's like a parish councillor. handforth antics

fanny: headteacher

robin: cool off the shits teacher at same school who undermines fanny wherever possible. deals weed to students

mary: runs a shop selling like healing crystals and incense and dreamcatchers

humphrey: customer service supervisor who actually likes his job because he takes no shit and just fucks with every single customer

thomas: unemployed podcaster

pat: dogwalker

49. What is one modern invention you think [insert character name here] would be surprised or confused by?

fanny would be so baffled by any Feminine Products. when she discovers tampons it's all she can talk about for a week. the mooncup made her go into a coma

50. Name an AU you haven’t seen someone create content for, but which you’d love to read a fic or see some art for.

not to be the way i am but i'd love if anyone ever drew art or something about my au which is a modern-day au where fanny and captain are alison and kitty's divorced parents, julian and robin are captain's brothers and alison's wack uncles, mary is their childhood nanny, thomas is a student lodger at button house, humphrey is a cat and pat is just some guy. but yeah in the past i've had a couple of anons on here mention it and i did melt into a puddle... i think if someone did art i'd explode and die. in a good way like

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mysticdragon3md3 · 5 years ago

Video

youtube

The Meaning of Death: BoJack Horseman vs. The Good Place by Wisecrack

When they started talking about “all books have endings”, I couldn’t help but think of comic books, going on and on and on. Before I switched to manga, I read American comic books, americomi. So it was a shock to me, to get into one of my first favorite manga series and reach its end. No rolling into new writers, artists, or storylines. Just “this is the end of the series”. And yes, it was nice to have a story so cohesive---with repeating motifs, foreshadowings, properly placed milestones of emotional progression, a perfectly unfolded theme(s)---because CLAMP had an ending in mind, even when they gave Rayearth a sequel series. But when that first series ended, I didn’t know what to do. Magic Knight Rayearth had taken up so much real estate in my brain’s fangirling, that I didn’t know what to do with it gone. I felt an empty spot, that was pretty big. And years later, when Ranma 1/2 ended, there was melancholy and loss too. ...Though, Ranma 1/2′s open-ended “ending” to the manga felt reassuring, that Ranma and Akane were still out there, up to their antics. But I think when that manga ended, some small part of me was still a little unsatisfied with the lack of finality. Though compared to the vast majority of fans, it was a very small part. I was actually very happy to feel like Ranma and Akane were still out there. Even if their further adventures were only in our imaginations. But yeah, it’s got nothing on americomi that has gone on for years and years and decades. LOL

I watched Bojack but not the Good Place, so I thought I’d stop watching this video before spoilers. But I don’t think this is even the first video essay on The Good Place, that I forgot to check out of before spoilers. Whatever. I used to be immune to spoilers. My immunity has gone down, but I still feel that a series is as good as the experiences of its moments, vs just knowing what happens in the plot and the end. I want a series/movie/story that feels good to re-watch, because the individual scenes are good experiences, in and of themselves. So what do a few little spoilers---like plot points---matter? lol

And maybe that explains why I never liked the idea that death gives life meaning. It sounds like the moment to moment experiences are negated or invalid. If you’re suffering, it “doesn’t matter” because death will make it end and that will be meaningful in some retroactive symbolic way. If you’re enjoying a moment, then it “doesn’t matter” unless it’s eventually ripped away from you, or you or someone else eventually suffers. Maybe it’s the suicidal depressive in me that doesn’t like the invalidation of the hells or heavens of each daily, “mundane” moment. Once my sister and I watched a suicide scene in a movie and she didn’t understand why the character did it because he was happy in his relationship. I just told her cryptically, “It’s an artist thing.” Maybe I didn’t want to actually talk about the fear of good moments turning bad or wanting to seemingly stay in good moments by making life cut off right there. Not that I agreed with the character. (Personally, I think death/suicide is for ending and resting from the never-ending suffering that is existence.) He could have continued on, having many more good moments, he couldn’t have possibly imagined with his significant other. My sister was right. Death doesn’t give anything meaning. It’s like what dream-Herb said in Bojack Horseman, “It’s just your brain trying to make sense of things.” That’s just what human brains do. But the comforting interpretations of people left behind doesn’t make anything better or worse for the person who had the actual experiences. Maybe my problem with the idea “can’t enjoy anything without it eventually ending” (or even “no light without darkness and no good without evil”), is because it probably plays into the same anxious insecurity that I have to deal with in real life. I’d like to be able to feel secure in good things/experiences staying and not being called “invalid” unless it has an end in sight. I’d much prefer for things to evolve. Even if they transition so much that they’re no longer recognizable from the original, then at least each state was gradual and the necessary fit for each corresponding situation. I’d prefer that good moments be appreciated, instead of being told they’re invalid unless they have an ending. And I’d prefer bad moments stop, vs being told it has meaning, like the universe giving you “tough love” so you can learn to become “stronger” or whatever. Sometimes shitty situations/feelings are just shitty. And anyway, there’s no guarantee that everyone reacts the same enough to predict whether “tough love” will yield a “toughened up spirit” or a traumatically scarred mentality; the only certainty is that the dispenser of “tough love” is being callous, discompassionate, and often trying to make excuses to “allow” such abuse. If there’s anything that’s given me the closest understanding of objecting to “the ends justify the means”, it’s my objection to the implication that the day-to-day daily moments don’t matter unless Death. Like Cloud said in FF7AC, “There’s nothing that isn’t important.”

Though I can be a little bit of a nihilist about life never having any inherent meaning, I actually just like the ideas that life can be given meaning and that there’s nothing cheap about that manufactured meaning. (Who told that allegory about a man-made fire to sit by, being just as good as a fire that came out of no where?) Even though I haven’t watched The Good Place, I like a lot of stories/series about immortality, my Personal Myth uses it a lot in Thought Experiments, and I do like muddling over such themes accompanying immortality. I feel, just like a truly enjoyable movie/series/manga, the value is in the experiences of scenes and moments. So what if you already have experienced everything for yourself and know how everything is going to end or know what patterns are going to repeat forever? You don’t know what a moment feels like to someone else. One of the tragic failings of language is that humans will still never be able to communicate their exact experiences to each other, no matter what the means of conveyance. Anything short of a psychic hive mind is still inadequate communication, even that could be considered a singular being who doesn’t know how to communicate to other entities. (Not without some trial and error, like in Eureka 7.) It would be just the same as like individual humans to individual humans. But maybe I just find an unusual amount of value and joy in experiencing things by proxy or from the outside. Maybe it’s because I’m oversensitive and the bluntness of actually having first-person experiences is too intense for me. But I enjoy watching someone else having an experience or even just imagining how they experience something, even if I myself have experienced it a zillion times. Like when I watch an anime I already saw, in a video room with other people at a convention, or listen to reaction videos of a scene or movie I’ve already seen. No matter how jaded I’ve become to the event, watching someone else have an experience and me trying to imagine what it must feel like for them, reminds me of how I felt when I first experienced the same thing. But not just a recall; rather, the feelings actually re-manifest as a full emotional experience in and of themselves. Not just a recollection of events in a plot. Of course, a whole group of immortals jaded with their own experiences could become too dependent and addicted to the need for fresh people to have experiences for them to re-experience things freshly, by proxy... ^.^; There’s just something irrevocably new each time, to dealing with someone who isn’t already experienced with everything. And all because no matter how jaded and “been there, done that” you’ve become, you still have to be kind and empathetic to other people. Like when I was a teacher’s aid for 3 year olds, for 6 years. I wonder if empathy is the reason why watching someone else’s experience, second-hand, by proxy, can be just as intense as a first-hand experience. I wonder if the writers of The Good Place or all the philosophers cited would have had the notion that “once you’re jaded to your own experiences, there’s nothing else to experience”, if they were neuroatypical? Where any of them HSPs? And I don’t think that using other people as proxies for reinvigorating re-experiences is the only use of inexperienced people. I think that genuinely caring for their emotions, not knowing what they’re going to do when you interact with them, having hopes that they’ll experience things well, and adjusting your interactive tactics to help guide them to good experiences, is instinctually emotional each time. Or maybe my brain is just weird to care too much whenever someone is standing in front of me in real life. But I really don’t think it’s just me. As proof, there’s a lot of problems in the world caused by people ONLY caring about people in front of them in real life, so it can’t be that uncommon. So then why get so jaded after depleting your own experiences? Am I saying that mentorship is the “ultimate answer”? lol I dunno. But it would explain why people like raising children, even children not their own, when working as teachers. In my Personal Myth, my main character is spiritually dying inside because she’s immortal and life is a never-ending hopeless trudge, that she no longer has the Strength to improve. So she hopes instead for death, as a lazy way out. But continually, new people she meets, and new experiences with old people she’s met before, keep pointing to the answer being to return to the Fight, the everyday battle to continuously improve. After all, even in the jaded mindset, apparently perfection is still unattainable, because even complacency and satisfaction can spoil into stagnation. So the answer was in the “martial arts anime” genre all along. That must be why it always rung true enough for me to encounter it again, seeing the same tenants repeated in the artist community. “Continual self-improvement”, “compare to your past self, not to others”, “progression is only measured by your own path, not someone else’s years of experience or natural talent”, “fear stagnation and complacency”, “be more concerned with self-improvement vs aggrandizing your ego”, “recognize the True Strengths of Compassion vs Power”, etc. Whether art or in anime martial arts, existence is a never-ending battle, constantly teetering on the edge of falling, then gritting your teeth to climb back up, again and again. There’s always so much to do in existence, how can any humans get bored? Maybe being jaded is less about having nothing new left to experience or do. Maybe it’s more about being too tired to contract and expand to adjust to other people? Or just being too tired to overcome the fear that nothing will be different, no matter what you do or what happens, enough to stop trying? Maybe I’m just falling into human cliches to value Evolution. Or maybe that’s just the necessary value of anything living. “Sometimes life is a bitch, but then you keep living,” to paraphrase what Diane said in Bojack Horseman. Believing that Living and being truly Alive has to be about constantly evolving, both spiritually and mentally, is probably necessary for my survival as a living being. Evolved into instinct, out of necessity.

#rambling #personal myth #immortality #jaded #death #video essay #the good place #bojack horseman #analysis #existential #reactions #americomi #spoilers #endings #processing thoughts #confused with myself

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vertyblog · 7 years ago

Text

The Best: The Saga

I have a good friend, not on tumblr, who frequents terrible roblox roleplay servers, looking for fun.

A result of this fun is one of the best stories I’ve ever read. The Best story.

He preferred to remain anonymous, but I think this needs to be shared with the world. With that in mind, all of this text below this readmore is his own words, not mine, and a completely factual account of events. (The art is by me tho.)

Oh speaking of that- the art was made at the time of original telling, which means there was some artistic liberty and also my art separates it into three parts while the actual text goes with two parts. I left both as is for the sake of historical accuracy.

Now then, before I get into the glorious clusterfuck that is my story, I need to make a few things clear. Yes, this was an RP, but it took place within an actual game space. All characters were in a "Physical" world and not just some text on a page. However, most complex actions were done 100% of the time through text. With that out of the way, we can begin.

This story is split into two pieces, each one taking place on a different real-world day. They all happened back-to-back, and the entirety of the story took place over the course of a weekend. As a sort of hobby, I like to go trawling for terrible RPs and join them to laugh at what I find. It's nothing short of incredible observing (and sometimes being a part of) the often hilariously bad antics Mary Sues get up to. This being said, while this STARTED as one of those times, it quickly escalated into the greatest thing I've ever lived through. So, enough of the backstory, let's get into it. For this particular outing, I decided to pick a Super Paper Mario RP. Yes, they exist and yes, they are exactly as terrible as you think they are. But that's not why we're here.

PART 1, In which a Hero is born-

It all started from the moment I logged in; we were off to a flying start. Basically every bad RP trope and sin was being evoked at the same time completely unironically by people who didn't know any better. I don't come to these to clean them up or set everyone on the right path, I come here to point and laugh at the people for my own amusement. Still, you can't exactly lurk an RP that takes place in an actual game; You have to be SOMEONE, and if you looked important in any way you would somehow be swept up into whatever crap they were doing. So with all of this in mind, I chose to look as unimportant as possible. I was a Green Toad. Not a frog, mind you, but those vaguely adorable Mushroom folk from Mario (Why am I saying this? I have seen some real idiots and the last thing I need is someone thinking I was a frog while doing this). Toads are nearly invisible, as far as the dozens of Marios and Luigis and what-have-yous were concerned. So, with my character set and with one eye on the global chat to catch any wonderful bits of Fail RP, I set off on the greatest ride of my life.

I chose to settle down in a town on one of the map borders. Honestly it was a quaint little place. Snow-covered, with a train occasionally showing up to ferry off whatever Joe Q. Jerkholes wanted to go to where things actually happened. Now, while there's definitely some cringe-worthy stupidness in every last RP I've gone to, I can reliably say without a doubt in my head that I have never seen something as laughably terrible as what this one group of people was doing. There was one group SOMEWHERE that were having a Cyberpunk RP. In this Paper Mario game. How exactly you do that is beyond me; it's not like the map is full of cities and technology and flying cars, and yet they were having the time of their lives blasting away at each other with their guns and smoking their cigarettes in back alleys that didn't even exist on the map. It's been over a month since this happened, and I can't even remember what was going through my head at that point, so I'll put it bluntly. I'll stand for a lot, I'll idly sit by and just let a lot of crap happen. This was just one step too far, and through the power of bad (great) decisions, I decided that I was going to put a stop to it. Of course if it was as simple as that, we wouldn't have this story.

Before I set out of the little snow-covered town, some preparations had to be made. Even if I was the most un-threatening Toad in the world, someone out in that grand old world would find SOME reason to start something with me. To that end, I took up a simple spear. There wasn't a single thing special about it; no legendary enchantments, no amazing artifact status, no +1. Just a completely mundane spear. And that was it. So with newfound weapon in hand, I boarded the train out of town. Cutting out the boring travel time, I arrived in a desert area. As frequently as these people were talking about their trenchcoat-wearing Bob-ombs and augmented Yoshis (I wish I was joking), I still had not a damn clue where on the map they actually were. As I would soon find out, where they were didn't matter. While the group actually having this RP was only something like six people, it happened to be the "Coolest" thing on the whole server, so everyone and their mother was copying it. Enter our first contestant, who now stood in front of me. His sprite was your average Shy Guy. The way he was DESCRIBED to me, he was nothing short of Adam Jensen, sunglasses and all. And just as I had predicted, he saw some random Toad wandering around and figured I must have been easy pickings. So he more or less started trying to kick my ass. If you're expecting some amazing and epic battle to get written here, I'm sorry to disappoint you. Instead, this is what actually happened. He tried his best to get his actions across, and I responded by using the largest words I could get from my vocabulary and putting them into my responses. After a few minutes of this, I'm convinced his brain shut down and he simply logged out. So, that was one victory for me. And I continued on my way.

To say that the effects of this RP were server-wide is an understatement. Everyone I came across had some bit of metal stuck to them somewhere, and I'm convinced they saw the Mushroom Kingdom as some glowing neon cityscape. Luckily for me, most of them seemed content to let me continue on my way. I wasn't out to burn down the whole server, my problem was specifically with the source of the madness. Rapidly exhausting the places these guys could be, I hopped on a cruise ship to maybe point me in the right direction (And to get away from the throngs of cyborg rejects wandering the streets). Unfortunately for everyone, not even at sea was I safe from out-of-place Cyberpunk whackos. Our next offender happened to be a Yoshi. This particularly wonderful individual had a mohawk and could breathe fire, among other fun abilities (Can you guess what color Yoshi he was? Hint: it was black). In hindsight, I'm pretty sure he was trying to make himself Bowser without actually playing as Bowser. At any rate, he was yet another wonderful problem who saw fit to try and murder me. To his credit, this guy wasn't actually thrown off by large words, and did put up a reasonable fight. After a few minutes of us dancing around the ship trading blows (And the entire thing being an inferno because of liberal application of fire), the two of us go overboard. It was either to escape the fire or he grabbed me and jumped, but that doesn't matter. What DOES matter is that when you replace a large portion of your body with metal parts, you don't float very well. To my utter shock and amazement, the Yoshi forgot to augment his lungs. I think he wanted me to pull him ashore and start some wonderful friendship between us, but I was having none of it. I left him to sink to rock bottom, which prompted some wonderful comments from him riddled with questionable grammar, mostly to the effect of "Aren't you the hero?". He didn't get a response from me. I was just some Green Toad with a spear.

So, I clamber ashore from this underwater zone and I'm on an island. Decently sized, and as I would soon find out, without a single other person on it. While I DID want to get away from it all, this was a tad extreme. I get to exploring and find out a few wonderful things: The only boat that takes you off of this island was broken because of shoddy scripting and would never arrive, there is nothing to do on this island outside of jump on things and reenact your favorite castaway movie, and the Circuit City wholesale saw no signs of stopping any time this century. What would have normally been entertaining roleplay failures in the global chat became anything but. I'm not some insane Mario fanboy, but having gotten this far into attempting to stop this from happening and having it continue unopposed just felt like a slap in my face; It was an insult to me, and this had gone from a visit born from morbid curiosity to an anger-fueled mission. With my only way off of this island never arriving, I decided on simply killing myself to respawn on the mainland. I was simply going to walk into the ocean, fall through the map, and respawn back where there were people. It was when I took five steps out into the water that something incredible dawned upon me. The entire ocean was a solid object, just like the land. It was simply a different kind of land painted blue and with a fancy water texture on it. Only the water immediately around the cruise ship was special in any way, with the rest of the ocean just being a solid slab. I was walking on water. I walked all the way back to the mainland. The mapmaker does deserve SOME credit, however. When I say this was an ocean, I mean it. The walk was long, but eventually, I came ashore once again.

Where exactly I ended up concluding my miracle walk across the ocean was another matter entirely, however. I stepped out into a forest that I hadn't been to before. Once again, giving the mapmaker some credit, I did get lost in these woods. After a couple of minutes of aimless wandering, the forest took on a different tone. It's become obviously more spooky (I use that term loosely. It was about as spooky as a bedsheet ghost) and it becomes very clear why: the woods appear to lead directly to the titular mansion from Luigi's Mansion. Why exactly it was in a Paper Mario RP I couldn't tell you, but there it loomed, amidst the trees and less-than-adequate lighting. It was here than I ran into a pretty large issue; not so much the mansion proper, but what was right next to it: E. Gadd's lab. This is one of the very few locations on the entire map that had actual, honest-to-God technology in it, so to say that it was swarmed was an understatement. Now, I want to make something very, very clear here. I won my first two scrapes with these clowns because of sheer luck or glaring incompetence on their part. No matter how well I wrote or how amazingly I could wield a spear, it would offer no defense from an entire room full of these people all coming at me at once. So the lab was a no-go, but I derived a small amount of joy from the fact that there wasn't a single one of them in the mansion proper. I like to think they were actually afraid of the place, although that probably wasn't the answer. So my next course of action was to go inside.

As mentioned before, the inside hadn't a single soul within. I have never played Luigi's Mansion so I cannot attest to the accuracy of the interior. For what little the words of a stranger on the internet are worth, it certainly looked the part. Probably much smaller than the real thing, but once again that isn't the point. After walking through a few identical hallways and being moderately shocked at the complete lack of anything even remotely resembling a ghost, I finally ran into someone else, and was more than surprised with what I found. I fully expected another wonderful individual to come charging at me with his cyber-arms and demand my lunch money or something, but instead I was greeted with a "Hello" and the realization that this one guy wasn't a cyborg. For those that care, he was playing as Mr. L, or at least had him selected as his player model. He wasn't exactly in-character, but I think he just wanted to talk to someone that ALSO wasn't trying too hard. We get to talking, and he genuinely threw me a curveball when he asked, "What's your name?". To be honest, I hadn't given our hero one yet. In thinking what name would be appropriate for a random Toad, something rang out in my head, something that Toads always seem to say. "I'm The Best.", I told him. Seemingly content with that answer, we exited the mansion together. It is at this point that, once again, I have to be the bearer of bad news. I'd love to say that we teamed up like some kind of Buddy Cop movie, found those jerks, and saved the day like the big-dick heroes you think are at the end of this chapter, but alas there is no such thing. So here's what actually happened. A hacker turned up, and crashed the game. As simple an anticlimax as that. With that being said, in all honesty I don't think I could've went out and gotten a better ending. There's something wonderfully poetic about Cyberpunk RPs ending because an actual hacker turned up.

If our story ended there, I would have been content. But once again, through the power of excellent decision-making, I returned the following day.

My second excursion started more or less the same way as the first: Roleplaying failures abound, yours truly as a Green Toad, and a whole wide world to blunder through. Except at the onset of this adventure, there were no Trenchcoats or Augments. It wasn't exactly 100% normal goings on in the Mushroom Kingdom, but really it never is. As I once again trekked up to that snow-covered village, I scanned the Global chat for anything worthy of my attention; be it offensively bad or just stupid enough that it had to be seen in person. Three things caught my eye. The first was a bodysnatched/posessed/evil/combination Princess Peach who was now out to kill Mario. Normally this would be cause for alarm, but there were roughly a dozen people playing as Mario. As far as I was concerned that Peach was doing her God-Given duty and thinning the herd, so I would let her carry on this most righteous mission. The second event was that, apparently, the Mushroom Kingdom was in the midst of some kind of alien invasion. This was ALMOST what this part of our story was about, until I saw the third and final thing to grace my screen. Somewhere out in that world, out in that grand old expanse of continent, there was another Toad calling himself The Best. It was a common thing for any enterprising Toad out on the street to say; that wasn't what set me off. He was using it as a title, claiming that he was actually The Best. He swung those two words around like some kind of blunt instrument and expected everyone to bow down to him. So I made it my NEW mission to take the title from him. I had claimed in passing to a random stranger a day prior that I was The Best, and now the time had come to prove it. With spear once again in hand, I set out from my frozen home to take a random person on the internet down a few pegs.

I elected to not take the train this time, instead deciding to hoof it back to civilization. I had an entire server to comb for one man in particular; a train or any kind of fast-travel would raise my chances of missing my mark. Fortunately (Or unfortunately, depends on which camp you're in) it also increases my exposure to the ever-present bullshit that infests these places, which is exactly what I ran into. Fleeing at high-speed from a full-blown Dragon, a Princess Peach made a beeline straight for me. Yelling "Help me!" in about every way imaginable, she just sort of kept on running past me and left the first person she ran into with the monumental task of getting rid of a Dragon. Deciding a Toad was an easier target than a Princess, the dragon seemed pretty happy with the arrangement as well. I've had my fair share of fighting dragons, so I had a pretty good battle plan. Of course, EVERYONE always has a plan, until the goddamn lizard starts breathing fire. The start of the fight was pretty ineffectual on both of our parts, the Dragon trying vainly to hit the tiny target that is a Toad and me trying to piece together how I would take down something this stupidly big. Calling upon my experiences dealing with things far too large for a person so small to be expected to kill, I decided to take the Shadow of the Colossus road, and start scaling the beast. I'm assuming at this point the thing took flight and I somehow brought it down to earth again after a prolonged struggle, because the next thing in my memory is me still fighting this damn dragon in the middle of the desert.

I don't know just how long we had been locked in this struggle, but I know that at that point I just wanted to be done with it. I did my best to force the thing into a good position for me to gain the upper hand, but it's pretty damn hard to make a dragon do much of anything, especially when it wants to consume your weird Toad head thing (Is it a hat? Is it their head? Someone please inform me, I need this question answered.) But sure enough, through judicial use of baiting both literary and physical, I managed to get the Dragon into a corner. Three separate times I tried to end the fight with a decisive strike, but each one he would bullshit out of it. It's to be expected, the last thing anyone wants is for their character to get offed, even worse if its in an excessively embarrasing matter. "Killed by spear-wielding Toad" is about as embarrasing a death as you can have in something like this, being only a few steps above "killed by Goomba walking to the left". But anyway, that's not the point. After a bit more flailing, I took one final shot at the damn thing in such a way that there was well and truly no way out of it. Probably fed up with getting whooped all up and down the map and airspace by something only a few steps above "Goomba" in threat level, the dragon promptly ragequit. And that is the story of how I killed a dragon. Unfortunately (Or fortunately, depending on how you feel today) I didn't have time to go track down the Princess and inform her that the dragon was dealt with. I probably would've gotten a cake, maybe a statue, maybe ignorance. Who can say? At any rate, with that distraction dealt with I got back to my primary mission.

You would think that in a game like this, Toads would be in short supply. I certainly thought so, but apparently they were more popular than I first assumed. For a good long while, the only thing I did was wander the earth, find a Toad, and ask them if they were The Best. It was always followed with a "No" and I continued on my way. There were probably far better ways I could've gone about it; I could've just called the guy out in general chat and hopefully had him come to me. Hindsight is 50/50 and in spite of how often I'll think of myself as a smart individual, I am definitely not the brightest bulb in the box. Anyway, back to our story. This pattern of asking random Toads if they were The Best and moving on went on for a few more iterations, until I saw one of them get on a train. Thinking it was my man, I made a beeline for it, only for the train to pull out of the station and speed off with me having not even seen the guy's name in time. STILL unable to grasp the concept of "Global Chat", I did the only thing my mind thought of and started running after the train like an idiot. I don't have to put it in writing but I'm going to anyway: Trains are faster than Toads. I did not come even close to catching up to that train before it sped off over the horizon and carried the mystery man with it. So I did the (reasonably) smart thing and just caught the next one, hoping that maybe he'd be standing around the next train station, making my life easy.

It seems endemic of the Mario universe that nothing is ever simple. You want a dollar? Go bash your head against a brick. Out for a Sunday Stroll? Hope you're headed to the right, 'cause that's the only way you're going. So of course shit went down on the train. A player dressed as Mr. L walked up and down the cabin kind of aimlessly. Given my one and only instance of prior experience with anyone dressed up as Mr. L, I was almost delighted. For one brief and shining second, I thought I would finally have an ally against the chaos. The first words out of his mouth were that, verbatim, he pulled out a knife and tried to stab me. He was one Katana short of fufilling every stereotype in three seconds. Honestly I don't know what I expected. I never got a chance to respond to my assailant, as another player dressed up as Luigi spotted his evil twin, thought he was hard enough, and decided to have a go. Say what you want, but I wasn't about to deny Luigi a shot at his doppelganger. The two of them launched into combat, and I made myself scarce. I don't know who won the scrap. Some say they're still fighting to this day. All that matters is that the train pulled into the station, and I kept on my search.

The cycle continued. Find a Toad, ask if they're The Best, get the answer of "No", keep on walking. Until finally, I found my man. He didn't look like your average Toad, but that isn't saying much. Clad in some kind of cloak and armed with a spear all his own, he had chosen Yellow for his color. I approached, and I asked the question for the last time. I got a lot more than a "Yes", but to save all of you the hospital bill and subsequent psychiatrist visit, I'm just going to condense it down to a "Yes". After a while of his rambling about just how great he was, I cut him off with an offer someone of his pride couldn't refuse. It was something to the effect of "I don't think you're all that great, and I'll fight you to prove it.". Several sentences of heated words and a LOT of escalation later, it had gone from a simple test of honor to a full-blown fight to the death. My plan was to keep it on the down-low; any sort of high-profile and high-impact fight would be sure to draw attention from everyone and their mother, and the last thing I needed to deal with was some full-blown warzone. Unfortunately for me, someone playing as Bowser overheard us and walked up.

I know what I expected. I expected Bowser to go on about how HE was actually the Best and try and kill both of us. Instead, he said that he wanted to host this death battle at his "Rad castle". Before I could object to this in favor of the quiet 1 v 1 I wanted, the other guy agreed to it. What I DID finally say was that I would meet him there at sundown. Both for dramatic effect (which I knew he'd eat up), and to give me at least fifteen minutes to come up with a plan for when this inevitably went tits-up. So, with the date and time for our climactic showdown set, I hit up the local shops. I bought everything I could that I thought would give me some kind of edge, which turned out to not be much. Wandering the continent on a manhunt didn't exactly pay well, and I could only afford a few Mushrooms and a single Fire Flower. Knowing full well I was pretty unprepared for some kind of mass-swarming if Bowser sent out the army of minions he'd probably have waiting, I went anyway. Even if I was marching straight into what I thought was a massive trap, I had little choice anymore. I knew what I expected. When the sun set, and I made my way through that castle gate, I realized that I had completely under-estimated whoever was playing Bowser. What greeted me when I walked through that gate was nothing short of incredible.

You see, Bowser had spread the word about this fight across the land in record time. His castle was packed with people, all watching from the ramparts and the balconies and anywhere else they could stand or sit. And amidst them all, looking down from his throne room, was the King Koopa himself. As I entered the courtyard, he gave me a goddamn entrance worthy of some kind of wrestler on WWE. It was absolutely astounding. He went on to do the same for my opponent. I hadn't planned for an audience, much less one the size of damn well near the entire server. With that many people watching, I threw aside my plans for some quick and decisive conflict. These people probably paid really good fake money for those seats and goddamn if I wasn't about to give them their money's worth. And just like that, we crossed spears and the fight began. Everyone I had encountered up to this point was either incompetent or simply unintelligent. He was a completely different beast. Prideful, overconfident, and showboating like you wouldn't believe, but he could actually back it up. For the first time in my entire misadventure, I was toe-to-toe with someone who could stand up to me. He might have actually been The Best, if only I wasn't here. It was a knock-down, drag-out brawl, eventually exiting the courtyard and had us both parrying and dodging through all of those balconies and ramparts I had mentioned earlier. Spear met spear, strikes glanced, and we continued to drift through the castle locked into a lethal struggle only one of us would walk away from. Eventually the fight gravitated to the highest spire of the castle, steered there by both of us. We both knew the fight was going to end up there, and we both wanted to be the last man standing. Unfortunately for him, I borrowed a page from Joseph Joestar's playbook and started going for some hard reads and some pretty sick bait.

At the very pinnacle of the spire, I went for an all-or-nothing maneuver: I let him disarm me. My spear sailed off the tower and far, far out of my reach. Rather than go for the killshot, he gloated. He launched into yet another speech about how great he was and how I was a fool for challenging him and all that wonderful jazz said better by about three dozen other folk. It was at this point that I pulled out the ace I'd been hiding up my metaphorical sleeve the entire fight, and used the Fire Flower to launch a point-blank fireball right into his face. It caught him mid-sentence, and it gave me the upper hand, if only for a brief moment. My one regret out of this entire adventure is that I didn't have a cool thing to say at that exact moment. So, wordlessly, I dropkicked him straight off the tower. And down he plummeted, well within view of everyone who attended, right into the lava below. And with my brutal mission achieved it was official: I was The Best, and everyone in the server now knew. So much for being an unassuming Toad. As I stepped down from the tower back into the courtyard, Bowser stood before me and the exit. To this day, I am absolutely convinced that he was going to start something the moment the fight was over. But after the display I put on up there, he merely handed me my spear (No idea how he got it), told me that the fight was the most awesome thing he'd ever seen, and got the hell out of my way. With my goal attained and no reason to stick around with all the attention I was about to get, I walked out of the fortress and logged off.

But what if I told you it got better? The following day, curiosity won out one last time and I logged back in.

PART 2, in which the Hero becomes a Legend-

Everything up to this point was great and amazing, but this is the point at which this story transcends reason. It's also the part I remember the best, so strap yourselves in, this is going to be a long one.

I log in, I pick my Green Toad, I exit spawn. As an extra measure, to keep anyone who remembers me from last time from swarming me immediately, I hide my Username. Immediately, something strikes me in a metaphorical sense; I spy another Green Toad. Not exactly out of the ordinary, except they were talking to yet another Green Toad. Chalking it up to coincidence, I entered town. The sheer number of people playing as Green Toads was staggering. It had gone from nearly a dozen Marios, Luigis, and any other important guy that looked cool, to nothing but the most unimportant character in a Mario game in a very specific color that wasn't red. In one chain of bad decisions and murder in front of an audience, I had gone from some nameless jackass to the new meta. Everyone wanted to be The Best, it was goddamn surreal. On the upside, when everyone's The Best, no one is. So by virtue of being so popular, I was once again invisible. Imagine if every problem solved itself like this. On the downside, it was going to be a bit hellish proving my own identity. Still, it was nice to blend into the crowd again. I kept a watchful eye on the chat. With this many people wanting a title that can only belong to one man, I figured the entire server was going to devolve into complete anarchy sooner or later. There was a certain appeal to a server-wide free-for-all with everyone vying to be the same guy Highlander-style, but that's neither here nor there.

It was calm. It was surprisingly calm; no one went for each other's throats, life proceeded as normal. The Princess and a few Toads that guarded her walked amongst the crowd of people in the town square. Spotting her and her guard was pretty easy; they were the only thing that wasn't green. She was handing out invitations to the townsfolk for some kind of banquet or celebration or party or SOME kind of mass-gathering at the castle that night. Even the Global chat was calm; the entire server was, if only for a minute, peaceful. Honestly, the place had started to grow on me; I can say that I legitimately liked the dumb antics that I usually got up to every time I logged in. So I stuck around, even though nothing was going on; Hell, I thought about buying a house near the castle just to be closer to where the action happened. Funnily enough, this was the right choice. While I was house-shopping, I saw speech bubbles floating up from this sort of back area inbetween a few of the houses. It wasn't out-of-place or anything because the town was jam-packed; it was what the bubble said that caught my attention. "They can't know we're here.", it said. So, naturally the curious type, I ducked into a nearby vacant house and started spying on whomever was speaking.

It was more Toads, but something was off. They were purple and not green, the both of them. One just an ordinary Toad and the other using some kind of palette swap of Toadette, I think. Their conversation continued, and to say that I had struck gold was an understatement. So, to run you through who these two were and why they were about to set the greatest cavalcade of insanity in motion: Remember when I mentioned that there was some kind of alien invasion going on in Part 2 of my story? Well, these two were it. Shapeshifters, and not friendly ones. Obviously they wanted to take over the Kingdom, but their plan was to crash the gathering the Princess had planned for later tonight, slaughter her and any other important figures that turned up, turn all of the Toads into more aliens through MacGuffin Magic, and then take their army and steamroll the rest of the continent. Now, I was in a bit of a tight situation. I didn't have my spear yet, so charging into the alley and handling them right then and there was out of the question. Warning the town or the Princess' guard was something I was strongly against, as that reduced me to nothing more than a whistleblower and not the absolutely legendary figure that I had somehow become in the eyes of these people. So really, I had one option: Get my spear, get supplies, and personally foil their plan in front of everyone. The only problem was, I did not have a lot of time or money to do it with.

I had very, very little in the way of coins to my name, and I wasn't just about to grab any spear from any old shop; It had to be the one I've always carried. The journey from the main city up into the snow-covered lands isn't exactly a long one, but it wasn't short, either. Worse still, what shops they did have up there were pretty lackluster in supplies and rather high in price. Still, I didn't have time to do much else. I made the trek, keeping a watchful eye on the sun and the global chat, hoping the party wouldn't start until I got back. I made it up there as fast as I could, and my spear was there waiting. I'd used it for a lot up until now, but its greatest challenges were still ahead of it. With my weapon of choice sorted, I walked into the local storefront. All I could afford was two mushrooms and a bottle of Hot Sauce that happened to be on sale. Honestly, I was ready to take anything I could get on the shoestring budget I had brought with me. As I departed back for town, things took a turn for the worse: The sun had set, the party had begun, and I was nowhere near the city.

I was running as fast as a Toad could go. I kept glancing from the road to the global chat; their plan could kick off at any moment and if I wasn't the guy to stop them then I don't think anyone else would. Yeah, everyone wanted to be me, but nobody wanted to have the danger of potentially having their character die doing heroics; they only wanted to be heroes and live to gloat about it. Sooner rather than later I get back into the town. There's no yells about dead princesses or mass anarchy in the town, so I only assume that I still had time left. Finally, I reached the castle proper only to be faced with something I forgot to prepare for: The Princess had posted up guards out front whom were actually checking for invitations. I didn't have one and I didn't have time to go looking for one, either. I had to get through that door as fast as possible; I had no idea where my enemies were and for all I know they were already inside. It's then that I looked at the guards at the door and remembered a very crucial fact: everyone was playing as a Green Toad today. If I could just get through the door, they wouldn't be able to pick me out from the crowd. So with that in mind, I picked my moment and simply sprinted through the doors. Once inside, I walked into the nearest group of similar-looking mushroom people and held my breath. The door guards walked in, picked some random fellow that just happened to be in the wrong place at the right time, and kicked him out instead of me. If you're out there, and you're reading this, Thank you random citizen. Yours was a pivotal role in this tale, and I will not forget your unintentional sacrifice.

I was inside, and the gathering was in full swing. Just what this was all for I never found out; I was moving too fast to take in the details. First it was scanning the crowd and trying to pick out anyone that was purple. Luckily, it seemed as though they weren't here just yet. Then, I tried to find the Princess. Outside of their plan and the fact that they came from outer space, I had no idea what those two could do, so my best bet was to get the Princess out of the castle and hope that the confusion they'd cause would let me and her get the hell out of dodge before the E.T.s realized she was gone. Let me tell you, it's no wonder Bowser is able to kidnap her so easily, because she REALLY makes no attempts to hide herself or even have guards around her. She was talking to Daisy and a few OC Princesses from made-up kingdoms about, well, me and my stupid antics yesterday. Almost on cue, I walk up to where she was standing and strike up a conversation. Well, perhaps "conversation" isn't the right word; it was pretty one-sided. I got her attention, and informed her that some very not-nice people were due to turn up any minute now and that she should come with me if she wanted to get out of this in one piece. This prompted a question I was hoping beyond belief would eventually get asked. "What? Who are you?" I needed only to utter three words and draw attention to my username for just a moment. "I'm The Best."

Three words worth twenty times their weight in gold. Three words that silenced a whole table full of royalty and fixated all eyes on me. Three words, met only with a singular response of ":O". With little ceremony, and even less to say, the Princess stood up and was at my side in an instant. I had lucked out; the person I was trying to save was also a huge fangirl. The rest of the table had their own things to say, but at that point my mind was already trying to think five steps ahead. Every second I was still at this party was another second off of the invisible timer heralding the arrival of the aliens. I was being posed with a really, really difficult question: How do you sneak a Princess out of her own party while attracting as little attention as possible? Frankly I didn't have an answer, so my initial plan was to simply say "Screw it" and walk out the front door, all witnesses be damned. Fortunately for the dramatic tension of the story and unfortunately for my nerves, at that exact moment, my time ran out, and our two antagonists strolled into the castle, shooting down my plans for an easy front door escape. Our escape was temporarily put on hold, and all mental resources were instead pushed towards NOT letting the regicidal extraterrestrials spot me or Princess Peach.

As fast as my fingers could manage, I typed out my instructions. Specifics aren't important, the gist of it was that I wanted her to stay as close to me as possible, and to follow my lead. With that out of the way, I ducked behind a pillar and triple-checked that I was talking into local chat only. It doesn't take a genius to conclude that attempting to do anything remotely discrete with Princess Peach is nigh-on impossible. The stealthy approach lasted all of fifteen seconds before the gig was up, the aliens spotted the Princess, and they started making a beeline for her. Now, at this moment, I did not have a lot going in my favor. My plan was falling apart, the bad guys were closing in at a very fast pace, and it was a very real possibility that if I wasn't the luckiest man alive our story would have ended much sooner and with a much bleaker twist than the version we got. Luckily for me, my original plan was still VERY fresh in my mind, and they weren't inbetween me and the door anymore. So with a very simple exclamation of, "RUN!", we made a mad dash for the door and the chase was on. It was at this precise moment in time that all hell broke loose.

When someone yells "RUN!" inside of a packed venue, people tend to panic. When shapeshifting space aliens pull out guns and begin firing into a crowd of people, said people tend to freak out. When everyone's pretending to be a hero and the shit hits the fan, you find out who the real heroes are. Toads were racing everywhere, lasers were being sprayed like Xcom just turned up, the Princesses still at the table were having a full-scale freakout, and what guards there were inside were fighting a losing battle at attempting to make sense of the utter chaos. The Castle emptied at an alarming pace, both because people were throwing themselves out of any available exit they could find and because there were two determined shooters killing those that couldn't. Ducking and dodging, my luck held out long enough to get outside with the Princess in tow. The streets weren't much better than the inside, with most of the sensible folk running as far as they could, and a few plucky people that didn't have a grasp on what they were up against charging into the Palace to play the hero. Still, if only for a few seconds, we weren't being shot at. Those few seconds let me think on my options to devise a new plan better than "Run like hell". I came up with "Run like hell, but towards the harbor, then get on the first boat going anywhere." And so, I informed Peach as we made a madman's dash towards the coastline. Unfortunately, the Princess hadn't caught on to the whole "Local chat" thing, and ended up saying aloud how great a plan it was. The aliens became an issue again really quickly after that blunder.

I called on every action movie chase scene cliche that my mind could spit out to slow them down. There wasn't a tremendous amount of city we had to cover, but it felt like I was running a cross-country marathon (In spirit. I was sitting in a desk chair holding "w" for a minute or two.). In spite of my best efforts, their blasts were getting more accurate by the second and the lead I had on them was evaporating. Still, sometimes you can call in a favor from Lady Luck, and sure enough when I reached the port, there was a ferry departing. I'm not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, and so a shout of "Get on the boat!" was all it took to secure our getaway. In my mind, it was the classic action dive onto a boat just as it departs the harbor, laser bolts barely missing the hero as he escapes below deck. In reality, all I did was walk into the designated "Get on the boat" area. Details, details; what matters is that I had managed to pull this escape off, and at least for the moment we were well and truly safe. A minute later, and we step off of the ferry with a few other frightened townsfolk in a place called Rogueport. I had no time to relax, however, as the ferry was very punctual, and I had only three minutes at best before the next one turned up, probably carrying two whole units of bad news. After a very, very quick examination of the town, I noticed it had a train station. An escape by rail certainly beat walking, and so we set about the time-consuming task of waiting for the next train. With what she percieved as a moment of peace, the Princess got around to asking what we were running from. There is no good way to explain to someone that Aliens are trying to kill them; take it from me, I tried. She didn't believe me; maybe she had doubts that I was who I said I was. Honestly, wherever her indecisiveness came from has no real bearing on the story, because the train didn't arrive in time, and the aliens turned up in all of their glory.

We were cornered, but I could tell from the way they were acting that they hadn't caught on to who I was just yet. There were some generic villain-esque statements, "Turn over the princess and we'll spare you" and all that nonsense. Their answer came in the form of a drawn spear and a combat stance. I thought over how this was going to play out. There were two of them, both with guns. There was one of me, trusty spear in hand and a handful of items to keep me in the fight. I made damn sure they didn't get the first move, and launched my attack. What played out was a game of cat-and-mouse, with them trying to stay just out of range and pelt what they thought was any ordinary wannabe with lasers until he went down. They quickly realised that I was no poser, and began to play dirty. Up until now, I had been dodging everything they could throw at me. They seemed to know this, too, and decided to fire on someone that couldn't dodge half as well: Princess Peach. My plans shifted from an all-out offensive to playing completely defensively, having to block or leap in front of every shot they now fired at the Princess. Things rapidly fell apart even further as what little healing items I had to keep myself in the fight disappeared at an unacceptable rate. It was absolutely clear that they were about to win, and Lady Luck was unreceptive to any further bribes as the train was still nowhere in sight. I looked into my inventory for some kind of 11th-hour miracle; who knows, maybe I had another Fire Flower I had forgotten about until now. The only thing left was the bottle of Hotsauce. To put it bluntly, I had no idea what it would do. Maybe it WAS another Fire Flower, just by a different name. Maybe it was one final healing item to keep me fighting for just a few seconds more. With everything to lose, I downed the bottle.

I promptly burst into flames.

Absolutely zero people were expecting that, myself included; the Princess practically fell over when it happened. Life had given me lemons and the means to go out and burn something down in one fell swoop; I felt Cave Johnson give me his strength from beyond the grave. I decided to see if space aliens were flammable by disregarding any form of subtlety and just bumrushing them, spear swinging all the while. Still shaken from the act of self-immolation and scrambling to come up with a counter of their own, the psychological warfare value of a flaming madman stabbing you with a spear proved to be the alien's Kryptonite. All told, these two were incredibly smart, but more than that they were organized. Maybe they had another chat program open or something, but these two were absurdly coordinated. This was one of the few times I managed to disrupt their harmony, and it gave me the edge I needed. For a few seconds I tore into them, paying back what they had done to me over the course of several minutes. When they finally got back in-sync with one another, they unanimously decided to run the hell away. With shouts of "This isn't over!", they fled back into town and away from the Princess and I. The train STILL wasn't here. I was completely battered, and if they had just stuck around for a second longer, that would've been the end of the story. Still, a pyrric victory is still a win in my books, and I turned to the Princess and gave a simple "Believe me now?". She did. She also believed that we needed a new way out of Rogueport, which I was more than happy to agree with.

Hoofing it out of town was somewhat unacceptable because that's what the bad guys just did, so that limited things slightly. After a few seconds of looking around, we found a blimp offering nonstop service to somewhere named Glitzville. I don't care what the name was, when I got off of that airship I was convinced that it was where Pro Wrestlers went when they died. It was literally this fighting arena floating in the clouds, built up like a massive coliseum. I have no idea what the hell Super Paper Mario's plotline is and even now I don't have any goddamn clue, but between the cruise ships, aliens, and Wrestling afterlife it must have the most confusing story of all time. At any rate, we moved inside, and I judiciously purchased snacks to get my HP back up (With the Princess' help, of course. She had money and I still didn't, glorified murderhobo that I was.). There was one problem that we noticed, however, and it was that Glitzville is its own little world; it doesn't connect to anywhere and was a very, very flashy dead end. Still, it was probably a bad idea to head back down into Rogueport in case the terrible twosome was there looking for us, so we decided to lay low in a floating sky coliseum for a few minutes. It didn't take long for someone to stumble upon us, and boy, had I seen nothing yet.

At first, much like an eldritch abomination, my brain could not comprehend what had walked up and started engaging in conversation. He was talking like several different big-shot wrestlers all got mashed together into one man, and said man was some kind of bird-person-thing. Absolutely ripped, on every poster all over the Coliseum, and asking me who I was. I still couldn't articulate a sentence, so it was a good thing the Princess was quick on the draw. "He's The Best.". I will never get tired of that line for as long as I live. Of course, Birdman wasn't quite ready to believe it yet, but a flash of my username made him take a step back. Obviously he recognized me, but he still had some doubts. I called it from a mile away; he wanted to fight me in the ring. I was of two minds about this: It would frankly be really, really cool to throw down with the guy, but I was in the middle of saving the Kingdom. I declined politely, trying to get the point across that this was a really bad time and that I had some more important things to do. Just as I'm about to walk out of the door, he says it. A declaration, and a challenge I couldn't refuse. "I thought you were The Best!"

The Princess was probably about to jump to my defense, but I was quicker on the draw this time. I turned right around. "I am. Meet me in the ring." Saving the world could wait; beating this bird was now my top priority. I handed the Princess my spear and headed ringside. At this point in our story, I was more than a little nervous behind the screen. The only thing I had ever made sure this lovable yet murderous scamp was good at was wielding that spear of his, and with it out of my hands I felt positively naked. To make matters worse, I was stepping into a coliseum with a positively ripped professional wrestler; I had really little margin for error here. As I strode through the doors that led to the ring and gazed upon the massive audience of NPCs, the very beginnings of an idea started to form in my head. As he, too, made his entrance, I got an overwhelming feeling of Deja vu. This fight, in a sense, was nothing new; save for my opponent and the locale, this was a repeat of yesterday. There was little warmup; we both were eager to get this started, with him wanting to thrown down with The Best and me wanting to end this and get back on the road. He started off with some bombastic moves and acrobatics, staying true to his avian nature and attacking in drops and dives. I did my best to stay out of his way, but he was the one in charge here.

With his high-flying style, he controlled the pace of the match from the get go. Finding opportunities to try and get hits in was difficult, and I could only dodge for so long. Eventually, he changed tactics and tried to bring me to the floor with a lariat. I ducked his arm, and seeing this as what could potentially be my one and only opportunity to get a hit in, threw out a leg sweep. I was expecting him to dodge it and retaliate with something of his own, but not only did I connect, the way his response was worded was like he just got hit by a car. In that moment I remembered just who I was, and the enormous amount of weight my self-made title held in the eyes of these people. What the hell was I afraid of?

I was The Best.

To figure out just why this happened, take a minute to imagine what the conclusion to yesterday's match must have looked like to everyone but me. A nameless man challenges some hotshot that's been hooting about how great he was all damn day to a duel at Bowser's Castle, and without saying a word, brutally murders him and then disappears without a trace afterwards. That is the kind of edgy-ass intro and outro all of these people WISH they had, and I just sort of did it without even thinking about it. Because of that, rumors had spread about The Best. What he was truly capable of, where he had come from. At this point, not even I knew just how strong I really was. Truly, though, there was no better place to find out than in this ring, against this bird. I pushed my newfound advantage, and the tide began to turn. Every time he came down, I was ready for him. Instead of dodging, I was blocking and countering. The tables turned, and I threw in some style of my own. There was something inside of me that felt deeply, deeply validated when I came up with the idea to start using spears, as in the wrestling move, in this scuffle. I soon decided to really push the envelope, and go for suplexes. I didn't have a mirror anywhere near me, but I didn't need one to inform me of the big, stupid grin on my face when some tiny mushroom man grabbed a buff bird three times his size around the waist and actually pulled it off. In spite of all of this, the eagle would not fall, always managing to kick out at 2 and keep the fight going. Maybe it was a dare from him; some kind of pride that made him demand that I truly gave him all that I had. Perhaps he just wanted to drag out a fight with a legend for as long as he can. I'll never know his reasons, but they didn't matter. If I lingered here, there was the chance someone with less than wonderful intent would walk in and kidnap the Princess while I was distracted.

With this in mind, I had to go big: bigger than anything I had used so far. One move popped into my head before all others, and I decided to give my opponent a finishing barrage worthy of a Platinum game. He launches a few strikes of his own, but at this stage in the game I knew that I was a god among men. Like Neo at the end of the first Matrix, I blocked and no-sold everything he pulled out. Finally, he over-extended, and I saw my opportunity. Getting him in a grab once again, I launched into a wholesale stolen Final Atomic Buster, but I didn't stop there. After slamming him down into the mat and leaving him stunned, I sprinted out of the arena, shoulder-barging through my exit doors and rushing into the stands. From there, I ran up as high as I could go, and launched myself into an elbow drop that shook Glitzville to its very foundations. I transitioned into a pin, and at last, he stayed down. The Princess was cheering, the NPCs were cheering (But that wasn't news, they were always cheering), and I took a second to bask in the glory of it all, before remembering that there was still a world I had to save. I helped the turkey off of the floor and, as he described it, an indent in it shaped exactly like him. There was a small conversation afterwards, and I want to give the player behind that bird a shout-out. He never broke character once, and goddamn was he skilled in the art of a good RP fight. Still, my journey wasn't going to end here, so after some goodbyes, we got back on the Zepplin and the Princess and I came back down to earth. Unfortunately, it was not the same earth that we had left. In my fifteen or so minutes of absence, the aliens had gotten busy.

I had saved the Princess, yes. However, that was the only thing I had managed to save. Every other Princess at Peach's party was dead, logged out, or otherwise totally on-board with the new management. The general population of the server, easily swayed, were all over the chance to sign up as world-conquering aliens. Except the ones that weren't, which ended up becoming something called the X-Nauts in some attempt to fight the space aliens for control of the server. To put this lightly, the Kingdom was a war zone. Conflict and strife had erupted everywhere, and anarchy reigned. At first, I was ready to take up my spear and take on the entire world, but that's when I realised something. That's exactly what the last guy calling himself The Best did, and then I came around and knocked him clean off of his high horse; I could not let me pride consume me like it consumed my predecessor. No, if I was going to win this war, and bring peace back to the land, I needed a plan. To fight back this many people, I'd need an army of my own. Only problem was, I didn't have much left to work with. The aliens were converting anyone they could get their hands on at an alarming rate, The X-Nauts were razing everything they came across, and if I didn't act soon we'd be caught in the middle of it all. It was here that my mind came up with its final, greatest plan. I already had an army, for all intents and purposes. I just had to convince an old acquaintance to lend it to me. I told the Princess that we were going to pay Bowser a visit. For a minute, she thought that I had played the longest con in the business, and was about to hand her off. Fortunately for her, I hadn't come this far for a cop-out ending like that.

Our travel time to Bowser's domain was not a completely peaceful one, with lots of sneaking around on our parts. With everyone having moved on to other things, I was once again the only Green Toad on the map. If anyone caught sight of me, I'd be drowning in assailants from both sides of the fight, and chances are I'd lose the Princess in the human tidal wave. Once again, I do not know the storyline to Super Paper Mario, so for all I know, everything happening around me was super canonical. Still, I find it hard to believe that space aliens toting guns were fighting men from the moon decked out with technology all their own and even some towering mecha, in this universe most known for an oversized turtle that kidnaps the same Princess from her castle over and over again with two plumbers playing the hero. Either way, we made the trip to Bowser's castle a little easier when we stole one of his airships and simply flew all the way there. You'd think that would attract a lot of attention, but so do giant robots piloted by space men laying siege to your town. We slipped through by simply being part of the background noise. We DID, however, end up attracting a lot of attention from Bowser, and what little forces he had managed to hold onto during this war.

The welcome we recieved, by flying up to Bowser's own fortress in one of his stolen airships, was a lot less than warm. It was plenty warm temperature-wise, active lava flows have a tendency to ensure that, but that did little to warm the ice-cold stare of a few Koopas at the front gate. The fortress was already on edge given all the fighting everywhere else, it's a wonder they didn't try shooting us down before we even got this close. Still, as I strolled down from the ship's wheel and dismounted with the Princess, the general tone at Casa de Bowser went from "barely-restrained fury" to "utter confusion" real damn fast. They were prepared for an army, hell they were probably ready for a last stand, but the moment they commanded me and the Princess to halt, and demanded to know who I was, they collectively realized that they weren't prepared for just one Green Toad. I told them three words, and revealed my username for the whole fortress to see.

"I'm The Best."

Their momentary silence spoke volumes, more than what came out of their mouths next ever could. They could have done a lot in that situation, and what they chose to do was doubt my claim. It was a pretty sensible move on their part, after all if a man came to your front door and claimed to be the President, the first word out of a lot of people's mouths is going to be "Bullshit". Unlike the possibility of the President upon your doorstep, they next decided to attack me. And that second part told me everything I wanted to know about the company Bowser still held. They were tenacious, weren't afraid of literally anyone, and had so much loyalty that they would sooner throw themselves at the mushroom equivalent of Chuck Norris over disappointing their lord. They went down in a few moves on my part, but I knew I was in the right place. I told the Princess to hang around outside of the gates, and that I wouldn't be long. More came in behind them, happily a few more troops than I was expecting Bowser to have. It was a creative writing exercise on my part; I had to find a way to disable or knock out every combatant that came at me without roughing them up too bad, after all if my plan worked these were going to be my soldiers. Skipping over a stroll through Bowser's castle with a couple of speedbumps on the way, I made it to the same courtyard I had begun yesterday's deathmatch in. And wouldn't you know it, Bowser was waiting for me atop his balcony. I didn't have to say a word, he knew who I was. He didn't know why I was here, though, and that part got me to say quite a mouthful. In short, I needed an army to take back the Mushroom Kingdom, I had the Princess on my side, and he was the world's only shot at getting thoroughly un-fucked. And here, I got some very lovely exposition on the situation and exactly the level of fucked the world was at that moment in time.

As far as Bowser was concerned, it was already too late. The aliens had everything they needed to complete some kind of ritual or something, the usual "Unseal the ancient evil" type of plot, you know the kind. The only thing really stalling them was the X-Nauts, and even then it wasn't going to last for much longer. The moment this thing was out of its can, the aliens were going to bowl over everything that wasn't them. But to top it all off, out of everything he COULD have called Bullshit on, he thought I didn't have the Princess. That was the easiest fix in the world, all I did was whistle and she was by my side in an instant. I don't know what it was about that gesture, but the moment Peach came into the frame, he did a complete 180 and agreed to help. If it was all screwed anyway, then he thought he owed it to his men, the Princess, and even me to be, and I quote, "The nastiest thorn in their purple side for as long as we can!". Which was a hell of a motivation, but from there? We had a start. I had my army, I had the Princess, and I had a clock counting down to Doomsday. What I didn't have was an assault plan.

I did have experience and a black belt in kicking asses by these folk's standards, though. So I let Bowser figure out the finer points of the assault, while I grabbed up every Goomba, Paratroopa, Koopa, EVERYONE I could get my hands on inside that fortress, and I trained them. It was a crash course if ever there was one, and I knew that at best, these guys were only going to get me so far. Still, when an army "trained by The Best himself" came rolling over the hills, suddenly these mooks were going to be looked at like supersoldiers. I devoted no time to planning the assault out myself, as I figured, having done it so many times and with me at his side, Bowser needed no help coming up with a plan for breaking into Princess Peach's castle, and my faith was not misplaced. The X-Nauts had the full brunt of the alien's attention, currently launching an all-out, last-ditch offensive from the harbor in some vain attempt to get in and drive them out before their Cthulhu cult did its job. We were going to come in from the side, using the very airship I rode in on, and take the aliens by surprise. We were nothing more than a handful of hopeful idiots, but we had Bowser, and we had me. With the element of surprise, he thought, smashing into the castle and taking out the aliens was going to be a cakewalk. Getting out again was going to be the problem, but he thought I could take care of that part on my own. I didn't object to that. After all, I was The Best.

And here, I took a moment to realize just how far I had come in the past few days. As I had said at the very start of this chapter, I had gone from some nameless jackass to the new Meta literally overnight. I didn't come out here to be the hero, but here I was, at the forefront of an army I had personally trained to save the world from an alien invasion. From beating back cyborgs with big words to suplexing a buff bird in the great Wrestlemania in the sky, my story was a winding, insane pathway that I don't think will ever be replicated. And one way or another, when I got on that airship, it was going to have an ending. I was going to do everything in my power, and perhaps a few things beyond it, to see this through to the bitter conclusion.

Just before we departed, there was one thing I had to take care of. I had to ensure that, during this whole escapade, nobody swooped in and stole Peach out from under me. Honestly, at this point she had little value in the grand scheme of things but I'd be the shittiest goddamn hero ever if I let the Princess get offed during the big battle with evil. I couldn't keep her at my side, we were marching into a war zone. I couldn't just leave her at the castle, as everyone and everything was coming on this assault, and either side could kick down the doors with no one home. Eventually, I picked one of the more useful people in my army, and told him to stay with the ship for as long as he could, both to defend Peach and to rain down hell with the cannons. Something about me calling him "The best in the army" really sold it to him, though, and he agreed to the plan. That was all the preparations I could make, because we were out of time. By the way things sounded in the Global chat, it was now or never. Everyone piled on to the ship, Bowser took the helm, and I climbed up the mast to deliver a pre-battle speech to my men. I don't remember the whole thing, but I remember the gist and spirit of it.

For as long as anyone could remember, this land had heroes. Gods to some, they were so almighty on the field of battle that none could ever hope to best them. And as far as anyone knew, no one could surpass them. Everyone in front of me, from the Goombas to the King Koopa himself, had lived in the shadows these figures cast on history. Well right now, I didn't see those heroes. Instead, I saw in front of me something far brighter, far deadlier, far stronger. Now, it was everyone else's time to shine. This was OUR time, damnit, and for once in our lives, WE were the giants people would look up to, not because of some prophesy or some pre-ordained onus of heroism, but because we had fought tooth and nail for everything we had. And now, in this dark hour, it wasn't gods that rode on wings of fury to save the world, but the common folk with absolutely nothing to lose.

When that first volley of cannon fire left the Airship, the Aliens had no idea we were even coming. Two seconds afterwards, though, they found out real quick. Bowser didn't just land the ship, no, he ran it aground right through a column of the purple bastards and the broadsides started FLYING after that. I vaulted the railing, leading my army from the forefront, and from there it was all a blur of combat. I can't know what happened for sure, I was so sucked up in the high of warfare that my eyes were focused solely on that castle at the end of town. I think when Bowser crashed the ship, it gave the aliens such a shock that their front line basically collapsed, and the X-Nauts came pouring through. It was absolute goddamn pandemonium. The chat was moving so fast that I just closed it, instead relying on the speech bubbles popping up over people's heads to react to the warfare around me. We had aliens in front of us, X-nauts at our rear, and in the center of it all, a legendary Green Toad and his elite fighting force annihilating all that dared approach. Bowser was a one-man wrecking crew, bashing down X-Naut mechs faster than they could get to the combat zone, while I had attained a level of power so ridiculous that I was parrying gunshots with my spear.

I was invincible, shouts of "IT'S HIM!" and "IT'S THE BEST!" popping up so frequently that they accounted for nearly half of the local chatter. Nothing could stand in my way, but that didn't stop everyone from trying. The element of surprise only helped for so long, because as soon as they knew who I was, EVERYONE came swarming twoards me. My progress twoards the castle was slow, but I was simultaneously the unstoppable force and the immovable object. They could slow me down by sheer weight of numbers, but there was no halting our advance. Knee-deep in the conflict, I became blind to just how dire my situation was getting until far too late. I was making progress twoards the castle, yes, but things had been taking a turn for the worse right under my nose for a while. My men were good, but they had their limits. I had started to lose them, and it's only when I took a look behind me that I only saw four of them left, including Bowser.

At this point in the fight, the aliens had lost too much ground, and too many numbers. What remained was falling back inside the castle as a last line of defense, but the X-Nauts just kept coming. Whenever they'd lose someone, that guy would just run back to the Harbor and re-join the fray as reinforcements. There was absolutely no end to them, and soon making our way to the castle doors wasn't the biggest of our concerns. The X-nauts were grabbing all the space we gave up, and soon the five of us found out backs up against the castle doors, too busy fighting for our lives to get inside. I lost another man to the tide, but I couldn't fight any harder. I was hitting the limit of how fast I could type out coherent actions, there were just too many. On the other side of the screen, I was sweating bullets, both metaphorically and physically, because I was beginning to think I couldn't do this. I know that analogy that says, "What's a mob to a king?" and frankly, I don't think that man has seen what a pissed-off mob of people can do. Back against the wall, typing to my limit, I thought I had come all this way to finally fail right at the finish line.

And then, it happened. Lady Luck hid an ace up her sleeve from me this entire time. Chekhov's gun got speed-loaded and fired, because Rawk Hawk dove out of the sky with the most literal interpretation of an RKO out of fucking nowhere I will ever witness. I don't even know how the hell he got up that high, the game didn't include methods of flight, and Glitzville was across the goddamn map. But SOMEHOW, that glorious bastard came in during the 11th hour, with an entrance so perfect that for a moment, I wanted to name him my successor. With typical professional wrestling banter, he tore into the crowd in front of us like a hurricane, and I knew that this was going to be the last miracle I got today. I told whoever was left to buy me time, and I kicked in the front door to the palace.

The war raged outside, and now inside I waged a one-mushroom offensive on everything those extraterrestrial bastards could muster. I channeled the collective fury of everyone that had ever played an XCOM game, and I ripped and teared my way to the room where the ritual was taking place. I don't know the names of any that stood beside me on this fateful day, and held that door, but if you find this story and you read it, know that I await you in Valhalla, brothers. Shoutouts aside, I made it to the ritual chamber. I found out I had made it too late, JUST too late, probably because the Ayys wanted to win so bad they had started to bend the rules. Either way, they had their God or Leader or whatever the hell they were trying to summon right there in the chamber. Frankly, I expected hentacle tentai or Cthulhu, what I got made very little sense and frankly almost felt like a cop-out. Standing in front of me, in the middle of this somewhat intimidating ritual circle, I had what I can realistically describe as an edgy Princess Peach and her Stand, The Downward Spiral. Upon looking this one up after the fact, I now know that I was staring at the Shadow Queen, but that name is nowhere near as good as what I came up with. And lo and behold, the first thing she asks is who dares to defy her.

Do I even need to type out what I said at this point?

The only noteworthy thing about her response is that she had never heard of me. Which frankly, is both an insult that a fourth grader would come up with, but also absolutely perfect given the context of everything about me. I properly introduced myself via a spear stab to her midsection, which didn't go over very well with her OR what little lackeys she had left. In the grand scheme of things, it's sort of funny how this adventure began and semi-ended with the same three words, in the same place. Upon looking it up, I now know the term for this is "bookending" but damn if life doesn't work out sometimes. Anyway, this final brawl proved to be one hell of a show, looking back. She was pretty reliant on that Stand of hers, a lot of stuff involving hands that sort of gave me a few flashbacks to Geb, but legally distinct from Geb because these are made of shadows or some stupid shit. It was a big game of keep away for her, because she could just keep the damn hands coming all day long, but I still had to land a hit on the actual her to keep the show going as planned. To pull out a cringeworthy joke on any readers, I was trying to catch her, while she was trying to make me catch those hands.

Still, a mob fight involving twenty different people is a lot different than one person controlling twenty different things. I was still fighting in mob mode, and she just couldn't keep up. I would have loved to know just how quickly I was launching my assault during that, get some kind of time-traveling WPM counter so I have a solid statistic to give you, but without that I have to describe it. I was typing pretty fucking fast, to avoid flowery language or a dumb analogy. She still dragged out the war of attrition for as long as she had patience, but at this point in the story I had come too far, and sacrificed too much to give any ground in there. Like the dragon a day prior, she gave up too much ground, got cornered, and I promptly finished the job. Unlike the dragon, she had enough respect for both the narrative at play and herself, and played out her downfall. Kudos to her, because with that one action she was already a better roleplayer than a lot of the folks that came before her. So, job's done, hero wins, evil is defeated, right?

I fucking wish it ended there. GOD, do I wish it ended there. In my mind, the X-Nauts would have fallen back, I would have strolled out of the palace, and me and my surviving troops would celebrate with whatever the Mario equivalent of a cold one with the boys is. But no, sometimes fate demands a final act.

I made my way back to the door, only to find that my troops were all dead and the X-nauts were swarming the lobby. Rawk Hawk, Bowser, every last one fought to the bitter end, of that I'm fucking certain, but in the end, they were overrun. I couldn't accept it! I flung open the chat window, trying to find ANY record of that battle, frantically scrolling up as far as it would let me. Maybe they just fell back inside the castle, and they're waiting for me to come rescue them. Maybe they doubled-back to the airship and they're going to come in and pick me up in a really badass, "You thought we were dead, haha!" sort of way. No, they were gone. They put up a slobberknocker of a fight and raised hell for as long as they could, but every last one died defending that door. And that wasn't all, no, if that was all maybe I could have accepted it. Wrought bloody vengeance on the X-Nauts until they gave up the ghost themselves, but no. I saw in the Global Chat the one thing I absolutely, positively did not need to read with my own two eyes. Somehow, two of those alien bastards broke through every last goddamn X-Naut, got to the airship, took down my best man, and they stole the Princess.

And at that point, all I saw was red.

I do not know where I summoned the typing speed from, nor do I think I will ever manage it again, but when those X-Nauts finally found me, they didn't even have time to call it in. I was on them like shit on a pig, and more than that, I wasn't stopping for anyone. Squads, mechs, it was all the same in my mind, just more obstacles between me and the only goddamn thing that mattered in this bloodbath. I kept one hateful eye staring into the global chat, and something kept turning over in my mind. Their names seemed so familiar to me, but I couldn't place them. Steeped as I was in the battle, my brain devoted solely to ripping through an entire army singlehandedly, I didn't know who I was dealing with. I hauled ass out of the town and cut down anything that tried to stop me, the X-Nauts could have the goddamn palace if they wanted it so badly. And only now, holding W harder than I had ever held a key in my life, did I recognize those two names. These two are the ones that started it all. That couple I saw behind the house, The aliens that shot up the palace, the duo that fought me at the train station, those two insurmountable dickheads that just couldn't accept defeat like everyone else, and had to try and drag me down with them. I thought they were going to kill the Princess any minute, petty bastards that they were, but no. They decided they were going to do it onboard a train just to fucking taunt me. Ride off into the sunset, kill Peach when you get there, and then log out. No chance for me to interfere.

But I knew that train real goddamn well, and it took its sweet-ass time getting to that station.

And I ran. I ran so far away. I just ran, I ran all night and damn well to the crack of dawn, because those bastards weren't getting away. Getting to Rogueport without the ferry, especially when you're traveling from the town, is a daunting prospect. It's not like you're running a cross-continent marathon, but with everything riding on my ability to get there before the train did, you can't fathom how long that sprint felt like it took. The train arrived before I did. They got onboard, but before it pulled out of the station, I slipped on. I made it there with time to spare, and in the interim, we could do nothing but awkwardly stare at one another, knowing full well the confrontation that was about to take place the moment this train left the station. It all came down to this, one final showdown between me and them. They had numbers and guns. Unlike last time, all I had was my spear. No miracle hotsauce to tip the scales, no healing items to call upon to drag it out. And just like last time, they had no idea who they were dealing with.

The train left the station, and we were transported to an endless bridge over an ocean, the train hurtling twoards the unknown. The sun was just breaking over the horizon, and the moment the game let us move, it was on. They tried the guns, but I was knocking blasts out of the sky like it was nobody's business. They tried to attack the Princess again, but this time I got so thoroughly in the way that they couldn't even reach her. Still, these two had otherworldly coordination, and a desire to see me fail almost as strong as my need to win. There was no cavalry coming. If I failed here, my legend was going to die with me. Lady Luck had pulled every string she could just to get me on this train; she had nothing left to give me, and in the back of my mind, I knew it. Both of them wouldn't accept defeat, not even taking a blow here and there to make the fight seem fair. They just wanted victory. I needed to make my own luck, and to do that I needed to throw the playbook out the window; do something so unconventional that not even they would see it coming. I did the absolutely unthinkable, gave a mental farewell to the only ally I had left, and threw my spear.

I threw it knowing full well they would dodge it without a second thought. Whenever he dodged, he moved his in-game character a little bit, just to make it feel that much more real. So when he went to dodge it, I "physically" sprinted right at him, and used the momentum of my in-game avatar to bodycheck him right off the train. No amount of godmodding or powerplaying can save you from literal, inescapable death, and just like that the fight was one-on-one.

The remaining alien was none too pleased with my maneuvering, and redoubled their assault to try and kill me. I was having fucking none of it anymore; I slapped that ray gun out of their hand and gave them a hook to the jaw. The fight with Rawk Hawk flashed through my mind, and I once again called upon every close-combat move I could muster. The chips were crooked, the dice were weighted, but I had no choice anymore. A spite-fueled grudge match on the top of a speeding train probably looked cool as all get out to any spectators, but in my mind there wasn't anything about looking cool, or being flashy. It was about being The Best. It was about saving the Princess, about conquering all of the odds, about being the hero everyone thought I was. But more than that? It was about beating this stuck-up, godmodding bastard in a straight-up fight. Still, there's only so much you can do in a roleplay fight when the other person doesn't want you to win. Take it from me, because I tried everything. There was no reasoning with them, there was no outplaying them. They wanted to see me die, and I wanted to see them fail. Only one person can get what they want out of a conflict like that, or so I thought. Something finally dawned on me, trading blows with this thing on top of the train for what felt like aeons. Nobody was walking away from this, and that is the only way this is going to end.

I had to face facts, I was going to die on top of this train but so were they. A world where neither of us win, but in a way, we both get what we want. I made my move, grabbing them with both hands and forcing them to the train's edge, both in RP and with my avatar. They fought the entire time, trying to squirm out of it, knowing what I was trying, but I wasn't letting anyone live. Not them, not me. I backed up just a hair's breath, and then came at them full-speed. The avatars ended up colliding with one another, flooring both of us as we tumbled over the side together. As I went over the edge, I said one final sentence to the Princess before I hit the water and met my fate. "Tell my story." And just like that, we slammed full-speed into the kill-zone underneath the bridge together, the alien keysmashing in impotent fury the entire time. A pyrric victory for me, but a victory nonetheless. I started to go through the motions to log out, and just before I exited, I saw the Princess' final words. She never even knew my name. Only that I was The Best.

That's my story, and I swear to god it's true. I'm sharing it because a few friends demanded a writeup, and while it took me a while to get it all together, better late than never. I don't want any fame from this, and I can guarantee that, for that reason alone, anyone claiming to be me is lying. The Best's story is finished, ended. Only a handful people know who it was, and I'm content with that. I'll go down in the annuls of nameless history like I've always wanted. All the fame, none of the consequences. Thanks for reading all the way through, you have a good day.

#roblox rp #The Best #paper mario #rawk hawk #bowser #Mr. L #shroob #shyguy #cyberpunk #green toad #toad #super mario #princess peach #roblox roleplay #roblox #The Best The Saga #I REPEAT: NOT MY STORY

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incendiaryplottwist-blog · 7 years ago

Text

Other People’s Children

Speeding through the subway station at five-thirty on a Tuesday, the wheels of Corey’s power wheelchair whirred under them while their best friend, Bailey, talked their ear off, the words a welcome balm. This was an early evening ritual continued as always, recounting the ridiculous bullshit that laced every work day--

“He swore he’d seen me there before. He wouldn’t leave me alone all night. Swore up and down I was his cousin’s friend in a wheelchair. Maybe I just forgot,” Bailey said.

Corey listened and smiled the smile the two of them knew as the reflex one kept at hand for the times it was needed badly enough.

Together they considered the facts. A strange man insisting he knew Corey’s very closest friend and took it all a step further by refusing to listen when he was told this was not the case. Horrible and invasive, but still not the weirdest gripe of the day, week or even this year alone. This was fairly standard in either of their lives, actually.

“Fuck him,” Corey said with false cheer. “May his teeth fall out. My train’s here, I’ll call you back.” “Seeya!” the reply was a relieved sing-song. The call had done what it was meant to do, for now. Corey and Bailey each knew who the other was and what they’d need at any given time. The smile on Corey’s face softened and brightened as the line clicked off. They took a deep breath, then moved forward and drove onto the train, a maneuver which required concentration, and another fake look, one of patience and gratitude that able bodied people felt was required for the slightest acknowledgment of a disabled person’s presence.

This was not horror. This was every single day. This was an okay day. Maybe even a good one. On this day, Corey felt human.

*~*~* The walk home had been pleasant as Corey swept through the fall air. There was always more wind resistance in a speeding chair, meaning it was best to travel bundled up a bit more than the average bear but the weather wasn’t something Corey minded one bit. This day was still counting as a good one when Corey arrived at the building and the warmth of home, definitely worth appreciating after the temperature outside. This was almost worth a real smile. For a little while, at least.

Corey had hired and paid a woman to work as a personal care assistant in the evenings. She was meant to assist with daily living tasks based on the level of help needed to mitigate disability. Her name was Beatrice and she was twenty minutes late. This was a common occurrence in the world of disability services and assistance, but not typical of this employee.

Dealing with many unreliable employees over the years meant the task of seeking their help came with a constant low thrum of anxiety. When someone was late, running through hypothetical scenarios of what might have happened was also typical. Things could go from standard and dependable to simply having no one available on zero notice with stunning regularity, an actual norm of needing this type of assistance, even with pay. Respect for employers was the exception and not the rule for so many people who looked at such work as charity done out of the good of their hearts, even if it came with a paycheck. This had never been a problem with Bea before. Corey thought about what may have happened to Bea. Maybe a hit and run, a sudden medical crisis, an emergency with her neighbor. Any of these and many other possible scenarios could easily take away reliable access to assistance, hope of a hot meal or a relatively clean house. Yet the reality of what was about to happen was something else entirely. Something mundane, a minute and predictable disaster that was nevertheless unexpected. Beatrice walked into work as if being late wasn’t even on her radar for the evening and Corey’s stomach was already growling when the door opened and Bea was finally there. There was a determined look on her face that made caused recognition to dawn for Corey. Beatrice was about to say something very uncharacteristic, at least for her. Dozens of other employees over a lifetime of workers, yes, but not Bea. “I’m leaving,” is all she said. Corey’s attention was suddenly taken up with trying not to panic. Getting out of bed, out of the house and to work were all still on the table. Hot meals and a sense of security less so. Corey started brainstorming about takeout food and badly-made sandwiches that barely tasted like anything but bread. “Tomorrow has to be my last day,” Bea said, and Corey’s stomach lurched, hunger evaporating in an instant. There was a dull feeling of betrayal, but this was not unfamiliar territory. Being seen as a person at all was a luxury often not afforded to Corey. The sting came only from the fact that it was Bea who proved this right yet again.

Corey thought about calling Bailey back but exhaustion seeped in and paused that plan. Waiting a little while to do it seemed the wiser course of action. Corey decided instead to eat a few Oreos and grab an iced coffee from the corner. They would be a consolation prize for suddenly losing the person who had once been the best personal care assistant in quite some time with no notice or consideration. Bea was not the literal best who had ever been, of course, but the best that was available then. Now there was no way to get around replacing her with someone whose reliability would remain to be seen.

When it was time to call Bailey at last, Corey leaned into this common hell for disabled people and let it seep into the first words of the conversation. “Bea’s gone,” Corey said, shaking slightly with emotion. It wasn’t usually hard to call Bailey. It was just the exhaustion. All reserves were gone. “I was wondering why you called back late,” Bailey said. “I’m sorry. I thought she was one of the good ones.” “So did I.” “Can’t believe she planned to just disappear on you.” “Me either,” Corey said, and admitted, “This one blindsided me,” and a fresh wave of frustration broke over the conversation. All the same, it had been worse before. Much worse. And Bailey had always been there. They would both remember that. It wasn’t worse. “Can I get a round of, ‘Fuck her?’ Kidding. Kidding.” Corey continued, then sighed. Time for bigger person mode, as always. “I’m sure she’s just going through something. So that’s that.” Bailey gave an answering sigh. “I’m sorry. You know what you need? Some wine.” “I’ve got Oreos.” “Sugar. Same thing? Nah. Not the same thing. But close enough, I guess.” “Wine tomorrow.” “I dunno how you do all this with so little social lubrication.” A soft laugh wound its way down the line. “Love you.” “I guess I just enjoy fulfilling the stereotype of the pure and virginal cripple,” Corey teased. “Love you too. Talk to you tomorrow?” “Yeah, unless no one shows up later and I really need a 3 AM shot in the arm.” “Good thing you’re not dealing with Bea.” Bailey’s sardonic smile was evident in her voice. “No kidding. Would the two of us have luck that bad on the same day?” “Let’s try not to find out.” “Indeed, let’s not.”

*~*~*

Being alone at home was sometimes better than the bustle of a work day, even after a string of nights like the ones following Beatrice’s departure. Sometimes things were worse. Sometimes there was employees around for errands and chores to get done and sometimes no one was available for three weeks or more. Sometimes getting to work was fine, but there were times it was impossible between PCA absences and all the side jobs given to disabled people (the job of going to doctors, the job of managing attendant staff) that are really each their own full-time commitment. Corey’s mother had said once between the beatings she doled out that storms were meant to be weathered, and storms were never that scary anyway.

These days there was Bailey, and sure, local contacts worth trusting half as much would be great too, but they were hard to find. Most of Corey’s social circle lived in outer Mongolia (okay, in various other states, but with travel being the pain it was, her people might as well have been on another continent) but they’ve all helped in the ways they could, especially Bailey. Nightly calls from people who knew exactly what to say were priceless. Corey treasured each time Bailey launched into another goofy story about Minx, the emotional support cat, and there was room to laugh together. In those moments the laughter held loneliness at bay, pushing back against the inability to tell who would be forced to be alone and stranded next. *~*~* Two weeks passed without much help at home. The ad Corey placed was garnering lackluster results on Craigslist. There had only been a few dead ends so far. The kitchen floor was sticky, and a light bulb that was unreachable from a seated position had blown out, but work at the office had continued at a steady and productive pace and a performance review came and went the previous week with positive results. All this despite stress from working behind the scenes to replace Miss Gone-Tomorrow.

Pickings were remaining slim, with nothing arriving since the application from someone who gave a number that didn’t work. Corey had run the ad multiple times with no results, but was considering sending an answer to the applicant whose resume arrived that morning. The applicant’s name was Gigi and her qualifications looked decent. CPR and first aid, while not necessary for daily practice on shift, indicated she had been prepping for this sort of job, and nothing about her work experience set off immediate red flags that she wouldn’t be open to suggestions during on-the-job training. That alone was an amazing sign.

Over lunch Corey decided to give Gigi a chance and prepared mentally for another phone interview. They had always been done in the hours after work, offering an idea of the applicant’s demeanor and commitment to the work they are about to be asked to do. A five-minute phone check-in routinely answered a few lingering questions about the applicant as easily as it offered them a platform to ask directions and firm up the timing. Corey had tried to engage with one other applicant this way in the early days of running the ad without any success. Honestly, things are so often this way that none of it had come as a surprise.

“Sure,” someone named Vanessa had said in her phone interview, seeming bubbly and engaged, signs that the check-in might come to fruition. “I’ll see you then,” when they had scheduled a sit-down for two days later. When time had come for the interview, though, she hadn’t come, nor answered her phone or called to offer an excuse.

Corey pulled up Gigi’s email. Her phone number, with a local cell phone area code, was on her resume. It was easy to begin to dial. Rain began overhead and Corey’s head filled with a dull ache. With three digits dialed, the phone was suddenly very heavy and fell back down onto the table. Corey thought about calling later, when the headache had passed. Later. Later. Days passed since the failed attempt to call Gigi. Another light had burnt out, this one in the bathroom. Corey rolled to work all week with a migraine that hadn’t let up since the night of the failed call. The freezer was coming up on empty but it hasn’t mattered much with the migraine stomach from hell. At least there was a small blessing in only being able to handle the lightest of meals. Having more food in the house was not going amiss. The last thing Corey wanted to do was make that call. So an email went out instead. It would have to do.

Gigi arrived on time for her interview, wearing sensible but stylish clothing, and her smile--her smile was the first sign she was happy to be here.

Her smile.

She was happy. Corey smiled back.

It was infectious, that was all, and Corey wanted to give an impression: appreciative that she came, but not desperate.

"Thank you for coming," Corey said. The gratitude was mostly genuine. After all, out of this batch of applicants, Gigi was the first to come to her interview. Corey would never understand job applicants who gave non-working numbers or people who refused to show up to interviews without so much as a single call.

"You're welcome," Gigi said, and when "honey," didn’t follow, nor "sweetie," nor any other false term of endearment, Corey’s smile widened a little bit. One test had just been passed. It would be all right to relax just a fraction and maybe to consider what it would be like to see Gigi Gates’ face most evenings of the week after work.

"It's good to be here," Gigi said, turning that same smile directly toward Corey. “I’d like to see what I can do for you.”

Something, something was gnawing at the back of Corey’s mind as the headache returned, dull but present once more. Gigi’s smile didn’t move. It hadn’t moved once.

Thunk.

Corey kept a tool called a reacher on the hallway table, a long metal tube with a handle and squeezy button on one end which controlled a pincer tool on the other. It was there to offer Corey the option of reaching high enough to throw the chain on the front door. It had not moved.

The chain thudded home on its own. Corey knew because Gigi hadn’t moved either and no one had the reacher in their hand. “It’s good to be here,” she repeated. She dropped a bag in the front hall. It fell with a rather impressive sound, like it was full of bricks. “Don’t you worry,” she said from behind the smile that didn’t move. “I can sleep on the couch. We’re going to have a lot of fun. It’s so good here. I bet you need a lightbulb changed, don’t you.” All the lights in this room were working fine. Bile rose in Corey’s throat.

“Yes.” “Do you have any in the house?” “I’m not sure,” came the answer, something objectively true and yet horrible to admit--except-- “Well, dear, you’ll definitely have to get some. I saw the pharmacy on the corner. Why don’t you go and get some and I’ll be right here when you get back.”

Corey watched the chain on the door slide itself free once more and had to hold back a bout of oh shit I’m fucked uncomfortable laughter. “Now go.”

*~*~* Corey did go and get the light bulbs. The nearby pharmacy was two blocks down and once outside of the apartment the almost-ever-present headache cleared quickly. Getting the bulbs took all of five minutes. Once back inside, all too soon, it was clear Gigi had been true to her word. She was still there. The same smile was still on her face, never moving. “Good job!” It was unclear if this was better or worse than sweetie or honey but given that this person showed no sign of leaving-- “Um. Thanks. So….” “I think we’re going to be a great team,” Gigi said. “You know, just visiting with you, I feel better. Let me change the lightbulbs.” Corey moved to start showing Gigi where the blown bulbs were before stopping to think, but the stranger moved ahead of the chair, cutting off Corey’s path, and found each of them easily. Of course, she has been in the apartment on her own now. Maybe she had already looked around while Corey was down the street. Maybe she had looked through all of Corey’s stuff. “I’ll be right back,” was all Corey said before opening the apartment door and heading into the outer hallway and closing Gigi inside. Once away from her, Corey whirred over to the elevator and headed down into the lobby, slowly thinking over what to do next. The next logical step, as always, was to dial Bailey. It would be fine to just leave a message. It would be fine.

When riding in the chair, Corey carried a bag safely slung across her body so as not to interfere with the joystick. Pulling the phone from the depths of the bag, it was clear that the screen was blank. A moment later it became equally clear that the device was unresponsive as if the battery had run down. It had been at seventy-five percent when Corey was waiting for Gigi before her interview, ready in case anything had come up or she had been lost. Now the phone was dead. There was no denying it. All of the spare chargers were inside the apartment. Inside the apartment with Gigi.

Corey had left a strange woman in her apartment alone. If she hadn’t gone through my stuff before-- The thought did not complete, but then again it didn’t have to. The headache redoubled in strength. Corey leaned forward and to the side and retched onto the linoleum floor of the apartment lobby. She had to get out of here. Into the air. Maybe her phone would work out there.

Corey, my dear. The thought pushed through her mind, escalating the pain in her head. When you’re done, come back upstairs, the thoughts that were not her own continued. We have so much more to do. No. No. She wouldn’t go upstairs. She drove haphazardly in her chair through the lobby doors and outside. The further she got from Gigi…. The safer she would be. Right? The air around her was refreshing, a slight breeze buffeting her as she drove away at top speed. When she could see better through the pain, she checked her phone again. Nothing. Bailey. There had to be a way to let Bailey know.

But there was no battery, let alone a signal. The street was completely empty, nothing but spare bits of dirty paper rustling along the sidewalk. Still, Corey kept going, and going, and going, and yet… It felt impossible to get anywhere. First it just seemed that was the panic talking, but then, looking down, Corey considered something else. All the knobs on the power chair were in the right places to be going top speed indeed, thank you very much. That was nowhere near the speed Corey was going, though. Everything was slowing down, like in a movie, and the cool breeze had stopped. No one was anywhere. Corey was alone. Jamming everything as far forward as possible did nothing. The chair was moving, yes, but slower and slower the harder Corey fought for speed. Then, finally, the air shivered and the world pushed back. Not hard enough to send Corey’s 300-pound power chair into a full spin, but enough to be unmistakable. Pushing backward.

Corey, Gigi’s voice called, clawing its way inside, an invading force. Corey, where are you going?

Corey couldn’t see. The sun was suddenly blinding, the pain too intense even to drive the wheelchair. It hardly mattered, though. There was nothing. Nothing else. There was no way forward at all. There was still no wind, no movement in the air, except something was toppling the awnings of the nearby buildings, ripping them down as if the only sign that anyone had been here was nothing more than butcher-paper-thin nothingness. There was only silence, empty concrete, the buildings ripping down, and Corey. Soon the space devoid of people would be devoid of anything else, either. Nothing would be left behind, nothing moving or alive. Just like Gigi’s smile. There was nowhere to go but back inside. Corey experimentally backed the chair a bit further toward the apartment building and the universe allowed it. Corey moved on auto-pilot. The lobby of the building was now completely empty.

A sardonic thought flitted through Corey’s mind. In this world rapidly emptying of color and form, maybe the elevator wouldn’t work. Maybe the button would fall off the wall when pressed. Moving toward the elevator, pushed along by the terrible, empty wind, Corey saw that the bank of elevators had the most structure out of anything visible inside or outside the building. The elevator button engaged and the usual soft ping sounded as it arrived. The doors opened smoothly. Maybe Corey could stay right here. The air shivered once more and pushed.

Come here, dear. I’m your friend. Nowhere else. There was nowhere else.

Corey’s chair whirred, the noise suddenly loud in the sea of no-sound no-form that was whooshing into nothing all around. The elevator engaged and rose to the correct floor, the carpet moving eerily under the wheelchair as Corey headed back to the one remaining apartment door. Once inside, the door shut itself and, of course, the latch slid home. The apartment was dark and getting darker, but Gigi was still there, positively luminous. The air in the tiny living space flowed around her as if she were pulling it in with her very presence. She had also changed her clothes, now wearing a billowing night-dress of sheer fabric Corey couldn’t place. Corey allowed hypervigilance to be a guide in surveying the rest of the apartment. It was dark inside, yes, but more than that, out one tiny window stars were visible, as if the apartment itself had become detached from time. Five minutes ago it had been day, a day losing all of its color but day nonetheless. Hadn’t it? The apartment was dark for another reason too. The relatively empty white walls were no longer white. Wood paneling, or something like it, covered the walls now. This meant the few small pieces of art and photographs Corey had collected over the years were no longer visible. A ladder stood in one corner, alone. This was not something that Corey owned. How much time had passed? While Corey had been desperate to make a phone call to Bailey, it seemed the world had slipped out of time somehow and Gigi had completely redecorated what space there was left.

Corey surveyed the furniture--the same--but suddenly realized that it was strewn with objects.. The contents of the bag Gigi had left in the hall were all over every visible surface. Junk. Clothes. Garbage that had not been there before. Tools, including a claw hammer. A claw hammer? Gigi turned her face to Corey again, her face almost completely featureless except that smile that never moved but was still there. Everything else that had been Gigi--eyes, nose, ears, everything, had gone the way of the rest of the universe, disappeared. That damn smile was still there.

I see you found my hammer, the thing that had been Gigi Gates said in Corey’s mind, then bent and picked it up. Corey’s eyes stayed right on the hammer as darkness descended and less and less of the garbage and other detritus Gigi had brought was visible at all. Corey had to watch the hammer. It’s so good to be home. I feel wonderful here. We make a great team. Just you and me.

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