#trying to force a biologist to do math

[sophiegoose]

You own a catering business that makes specialty cakes. Your company has decided to create three types of cakes. To create these cakes, it takes a team that consists of a decorator, a baker, and a design consultant. Cake A takes the decorator 9 hours, the baker 6 hours, and the design consultant 1 hour to complete. Cake B takes the decorator 10 hours, the baker 4 hours, and the design consultant 2 hours. Cake C takes the decorator 12 hours, the baker 4 hour, and the design consultant 1 hour. Without hiring additional employees, there are 398 decorator hours available, 164 baker hours available, and 58 design consultant hours available. How many of each type of cake can be created?

Oh HELL no I am not being tricked into doing math on my own blog

Shoo, shoo! Go on, git! Bad anon!

[minai28]

Please have my tipsy midnight thoughts.

N Harmonia not liking the Pokedex is always a gut punch for me. I love it. Lil categories and putting things in order and how they relate to other things and the like ❤️

I think a lot of autistic people do? I'm maybe-autistic as I'm actually working towards getting an assessment (which would also secure my work place even if I ever get rid of the chronic depression! Which is highly doubtful but one can hope. Uh. I work at a place *for disabled people* to be clear. The chronic depression qualifies me for this level of help which is genuinely needed.)

Anyway. Common headcanon is that N is also autistic and maybe some ADHD in there, which makes so much sense actually. But yeah those two things don't belong together, right? (I mean the dex being hated and autism. Not autism and ADHD, AuDHD is a thing)

N isn't looking at the pokedex the same way I look at my bookshelf or my pokemon cards in a folder (to be sorted by different categories)

Pokemon are friends, you don't force friends into categories and honestly trying to categories biology is in many ways a mute endeavor. Things are never quite as black and white as they seem at first, like speciation and biological sex.

Like. He's right in a way but the urge to categories and sort might still be in him somewhere, just channeled to something else. Uh. I think my point was that he'd probably enjoy the Pokedex if he wasn't raised by Ghetsis.

I always headcanon Ghetsis as a bio-chemistry major. We know he was a researcher at one point with a lab coat And stuff. Idk why bio chemistry but it just kinda worked itself into my head and I think despite his efforts to stunt Ns development in some ways he wouldn't hurt his curiosity for science. N is a math boi and Ghetsis definitely got him some math books, than physics and maybe some biology. I imagine they could have actually nice conversation about that stuff.

Ghetsis very much installed black and white thinking in N to further his own goals but N is still sitting here like 'you can't just sort pokemon into categories that's super shortsighted and doesn't reflect reality' and I don't think that's him talking as a friend to pokemon but talking as a kid raised by someone interested in scientific research.

It reminds me of talking to my dad about evolution as lil kid and getting to know more than the simplified children's books had to say because he knew some stuff to share. Obviously he's not an expert, that man was a independent programmer not a evolutionary biologist but still the principal is familiar.

And if Ghetsis actually knows his stuff, he might have actually found something enjoyable in teaching N and telling him things most people don't consider. Like ring species or the existence of intersex people.

Rant over, enjoy your night. I'll drink some water and sleep of whatever the lemon liquor in my cola did

[turbofanatic]

When the enemy has to fly helicopters <30 meters above the ground to avoid radar and you have a 31 meter vertical jump >:3

More Dex! They look like they’re having fun. I am also having lots of fun with them, because they are an excuse to DO MATH.

I wanted to figure out how reasonable a 30 meter (100ft) jump height is. So here’s the process.

First of all, to make it up 30 meters Dex needs the appropriate level of kinetic energy. I could try to figure out required speeds and whatnot, but the important thing is that the kinetic energy equals the potential energy of putting Dex 30 meters up. So, kinetic energy = potential energy = mass*gravity*height. Dex weighs about 500kg, gravity is about 10 meters/second^2, height is 30 meters. So the required energy is 150,000 kg m^2/s^2.

Now, how does Dex apply that energy? By doing work, which is a force times a distance. In their case, pushing off the ground. Dex is fairly large so flexing about 1 meter as they push off with all four limbs seems appropriate. So the change in energy = work = force*distance so energy/distance = force (150,000 kg m^2/s^2)/(1 m) =  150,000 kg m/s^2 =  150,000 N. This is the total force needed. 

Dex will apply this force with all four limbs, so 150,000 N/ 4 = 37500 N per limb.

Now, let’s compare how much force a human can push down with, sprinting being a good example. Some quick research indicates that a really good sprinter can push down with about 5 times their body weight with one leg while sprinting. So a human that weighs 90kg can push down with 90kg*10m/s^2*5 = 4500 N (remember to multiply by gravity for weight!).

So we have a single leg force of 4500 N for a human, and 37500 N for Dex. So Dex has about 8.3 times the strength per limb. But wait! Dex is hueg, and I assume this scales approximately with its cross sectional area. So let’s say Dex’s arms and legs are about 4 times larger than our good sprinter in cross-section. 8.3/4 = 2.1.

Per cross section, to get this performance, Dex needs only to apply twice as much force as a human. This seems pretty plausible! Especially given that Dex is genetically modified, full of more fast-twitch fibers than humans, and is expected to sleep for days after doing their nonsense.

Now, there’s a lot of simplification here! For one thing work is really the integral of force over distance, but we’re ball-parking things and maybe Dex is ~5 times stronger, it’s still within reason. I do have a limit for how much math I’m willing to do unpaid. The important thing is that my stupid nyanbinary cat-thing can suplex a helicopter mid-air.

Edit: Here’s something I want to clarifyt, the 4500 N force a human can apply is not the same as muscle strength, human bodies are clever and store energy between steps, so Dex should probably jump after a run like human high jumpers do. I also went and checked human muscular strength per cross sectional area (made hard because certain biologists are IDIOTS and think kg is a measure of force) and at about 10 N/cm^2 and this still leads to Dex needing something like 5 times more force application per cross sectional area. Assuming storing some energy from a run.

Again, I’m ignoring certain things! Can Dex apply the forces fast enough? Can the ground support this force? How much of an effect does air drag have? So I’m going to to do what hard sci-fi writers have done for ages, get a result that says “well at least it’s not completely unrealistic” and just go with that.

[thechekhov]

Has there ever been an example of BAD evolution? Like evolution that did more harm than good?

Mmm.... Oh boy this is... a GOOD question, but also difficult to answer.

The answer is both YES and NO, depending on how close you’re zoomed in. 

Let me try to explain what I mean by that...

Here is the thing we gotta get out of the way first: Evolution is the big picture. It is the general name for the thing we see happening, not individual creatures having offspring which is slightly different to them.

This is not evolution:

[Image: A seal-like blobby creature with stripes on its back and tail. It has an extended nose that vaguely resembles a key. An arrow leading downward shows a second, slightly different creature. Its nose is longer and curved slightly upwards.]

(It’s mutation.)

THIS is evolution:

[Image: A lineage/genetic tree showing similar creatures with various types of varies bodyshapes that are implied to be descendants of the previously shown one. They all have different nose shapes. Some lack a tail.]

(Many mutations over a long period of time that radiate into different species after mutations compile and stabilize into a common feature.)

The next thing you need to know is WHY things mutate and why they evolve. 

The answer to mutation is - it just happens. Things like genes can’t copy and create the same thing flawlessly over time. Changes happen, genes skip, mutate, get added, etc. 

The answer to WHY evolution happens is that... it helps things survive. 

Think of it like a door. Organisms either survive long enough to reproduce or they don’t. Whether they do or not depends many things, such as what their environment is like and whether they can live in it. 

[Image: The title above the picture says GENERATION 1. Four similar-looking blob seal creatures are shown. They all have similar noses, with slight variations - some have less round noses. One has a very large nose. To the right is a door-shaped object labeled ‘survival! And progeny.’ The door has a keyhole that fits the nose shape of the creatures - some of them more, some less.]

For example, if the environment says you need a keyhole-shaped nose to get good gains, then probably only the creatures who fit that description are likely to survive.

And if you have a trait which isn’t good for that... you end up dying and not having kids.

[Image: The same array of creatures as before is shown. The creature who had the biggest nose, which would not fit into the keyhole in the door, is crossed out in red.]

So in general, evolution can’t do much wrong because... you can only really evolve, in the classical sense, if you are successfully reproducing. And if you’re living well enough to reproduce, then evolution is working!

If XYZ mutation is good for survival - more survival, more XYZ babies.

If ABC mutation is bad for survival - less survival, less ABC babies.

Seems pretty straightforward so far, right?

Okay, well... 

What if your environment changes...?

[Image: Title above picture says GENERATION 134. Creatures which look similar to previous ones, but slightly derived, are now shown. The door and the keyhole from before looks as if something had melted or struck it with something heavy, and the keyhole is no longer round at the top.]

What if, say, a rock comes down onto your environment and warps it in such a way that the organisms that were successful before can no longer be successful? 

This now gives us another pressure to evolve - but a different one from before,

In this case... is the evolution... BAD?

Kind of, right? But only because the requirements for survival changed.

Actually, this isn’t theory. There have been several creatures that fell to this misfortune hole before. For example, the Dodo, which is widely regarded to have been rather useless as a bird because it was so easy for humans to hunt to extinction. 

[Image: A realistic taxidermy and skeleton of a dodo bird. It’s short and robust, with a featherless face and a strong beak.]

The dodo was previously regarded by many to be an example of failure. It wasn’t strong enough or smart or swift enough to hide from human predators. Clearly this would be a failure of evolution, right? 

But in fact, the dodo was well equipped for its environment prior to humans arriving. 

What killed it is outside invaders - things the dodo never had a chance to evolve to face. Evolution takes CENTURIES at the LEAST - and that’s with human breeding selection at play. In nature, we would need thousands of years of accumulated mutations to incite any meaningful change that would help it evade pesky humans. 

Evolution doesn’t move with purpose - it’s a force of nature, an automatic bottlenecking, the simplest, most basic mechanism at play. There’s not really any motivation to it, no goal it has. It’s just possibility testing itself.

If it can reproduce - it will.  If it cannot - it will not. 

And the rest is overcomplication from human assigning traits like ‘good’ and ‘bad’ based on those natural results when, in reality, that’s as silly as pointing to “1+1=2” and saying “that’s a bad math problem, because 1+100=101 is bigger!”

I’m simplifying many things here, so I hope that still tracks for everyone and makes sense. You can snipe me, biologists! I am not an expert.

[mercurygray]

9 of 10; sorry, all spots have been filled and I can't accept any more requests! For @scientistsinistral

I'm Sci, she/her, early twenties, long dark hair and tortoiseshell round glasses. I'm a biologist in training who spends a lot more time reading, writing, and going on random tangents that have no relevance to what I'm actually meant to be doing (though plant bacteria turn out to be quite interesting when I actually get into the literature!) I can be a bit odd at times when I'm living inside my head, but I've been told that some good creative right-braining comes out of it. I'm much more comfortable if I've been told exactly what to do and how to do it, and I work better alone though I've been getting better at asking for help when I need it! I'm good at making small talk, less good at making lasting relationships, but when one is formed (usually over a common interest), I'm your woman for life. I love video games with a good story that I can extrapolate and fill in the cracks. I tend to try and fix things if someone comes to be with a problem, though I can be a good listener if someone calls for it. In the 1940s, I'm physically a bit of a weakling so I'd probably try and end up at Bletchley Park - and whilst I did dabble in annual codebreaking challenge run by a British university when I was in high school, I never got far enough with the math and I'd probably end up in one of the huts where women were tapping foreign radio for careless talk by the opposition that might have vital info!

At the start of this, you were ready to murder National Service. Because it's one thing to be told you'll be placed on your skillset, and another to have said skills woefully overlooked.

"Bi...ology," the woman marking down your qualifications had written laboriously on the form. "We'll mark that down as 'sciences', then, shall we?"

There are a hundred little explanations, right on the tip of your tongue, about how one science is absolutely not like another, but no one is going to hear them, just like no one's listened for the past four years working on your degree.

Anyway, meteorology is nothing at all like biology, except that there's a metric ton more maths, but the Air Force must have its twice daily weather reports and once you've learned all the equipment it's easy enough to take the measurements at the airfield, mark them down, and send them off to half a dozen offices trying to plan the week's operations. Years of fine-tuning the lenses and apertures on microscopes finally pay out making adjustments to weather instruments.

But all work and no play makes Jill a dull girl, and even WAAFs must get time off on Fridays to go into town. "Come on, it'll be fun!" one of your coworkers said, waiting for the bus. "A bunch of handsome Americans. Dottie says they're paratroops."

The bar in Swindon is fairly full of soldiers - there are a lot of camps hereabouts, preparing for the invasion and all the planes that will be taking off from airfields just like yours. No military secrets here -anyone in this crowd would be hard-pressed not to notice just how many of them there are.

Dottie finds her target easily enough - a group of chaps at the bar with eagles on their shoulders, easing her way into their conversation with practiced grace and a sly ask for someone's lighter, and that's you all settled for the evening. They are paratroopers, they're on 48 hour passes, they're from everywhere. Small talk is easy and everyone's got a story, but someone keeps drawing your eye - he's younger, his hands tucked into his pockets with that nonchalance that all the soldiers seem to have in spades, but there's something about his smile, the way his hair is brushed back that's really quite charming - the sort of man who isn't aware of the effect he has on women. And he keeps taking bashful looks in your direction.

"You're awfully quiet," you offer with a little slip of a smile.

"No, I...I like listening. Bill's the big talker," he says, motioning to his friend near the bar, who is telling what sounds to be a whale of a story that is only growing in the telling. "I ain't much good at talking to girls, and you...you all sound kinda smart."

"Well, we could start with your name," you suggest with a smile that makes him blush a little. "I'm sure you've got one of those."

The blush on his cheeks makes him almost more adorable. "It's...it's Heffron. Edward Heffron."

"Well, I'm very pleased to meet you, Private Heffron."

[maybeimamuppet]

dream a better dream

hello my little muppets!! happy wednesday!

this is a request fill for @erikascadys who requested sharkboy and lavagirl au! janis is lavagirl and damian is shark boy. and cady is just cady :))

i don't think i need any trigger warnings, but as always if I've missed one please let me know so I can add it!

anyway, please enjoy!

---

Cady has always been a dreamer.

Growing up in Kenya, it was nearly the only thing she could do to entertain herself. Sure, she had a few toys, or books to read, or lions to chase. But in terms of other humans, all she had were her parents and her dreams.

Her personal favorite dream first appeared one night when she was ten. Cady’s family had just gotten the news that her older brother, Rhys, had been killed in the line of combat. The only place Cady has as an escape from her grief is in her dreams.

She dreams of two people. Friends. A boy and a girl. The boy is part human, part shark. He has legs, but also fins. A human face, but shark teeth. And human hands, but sharp claws. In spite of everything, he seems kind. He cares for his shark friends and all the fish, carefully tends to the corals and feeds the seaweed and anemones. Cady cleverly dubs him Sharkboy.

The girl is very different. She’s made of lava and fire, with bright pink hair and the ability to shoot lava from her hands. Cady doesn’t know much else about her. She names her Lavagirl and leaves it at that.

-

Cady frantically writes her dream in her dream journal when she wakes up the next morning. She’s kept one since she learned how to write, detailing all her most precious dreams. She has a feeling this one is extra special.

“I’m going to the watering hole to take a bath!” She yells to her parents as she runs out of their tent. Her dad grabs her by the back of her shirt and scoops her up before she can make it out. “Hey!”

“Why are you suddenly so eager to take a bath?” Her dad asks, setting her down again.

“I’m not! I’m just excited for the day! I had a super special dream!” Cady says, bouncing up and down a few times. Her dad gives her a sad smile and ruffles her hair.

“Okay. Watch for crocs and hurry back for breakfast, binti.”

“I will!” Cady says, dashing out again.

-

After a quick but expert assessment, Cady dubs the small pool to be free of crocodiles and any other predators. The zebras wouldn’t be drinking here for so long, otherwise.  Cady leaps in with a small splash and opens her eyes under the water. She’s been trying to learn how to do that recently.

But someone else is there. She screams and pops her head back above the surface. The figure follows. “Sharkboy?”

“Yeah!” Sharkboy says. “Hi!”

“You’re real?” Cady asks in awe.

“Yeah, duh! I’m right here,” Sharkboy says.

“Whoa,” Cady whispers. “Um… can I finish my bath, please? Then we can get to know each other!”

“Oh! Yeah, sorry!” Sharkboy says, turning around and covering his eyes. Cady swims back down and finishes cleaning herself, then dries herself off and gets dressed. Sharkboy swims up and rests on the shore.

“I thought you were a dream,” Cady murmurs, tilting her head. Sharkboy shakes his head.

“Nope! Well, kinda. But everything that is, or was, or will be, began with a dream.”

“Huh,” Cady says, tilting her head. “Okay, do you wanna go play? I’ve never… I’ve never had a human friend before.”

“I’m not human,” Sharkboy says, smiling so she can see his teeth.

“Oh, right,” Cady giggles. “I’ve never had a shark friend before either.”

Sharkboy smiles wider. “Yeah, come on. I bet you’re pretty fast growing up out here.”

“Tag! You’re it!”

-

Cady shares her breakfast with Sharkboy, and they play together in between Cady’s chores. She learns his real name is Damian, and that he was a marine biologist with his mother. Their research base was destroyed in a storm, and he was practically adopted by the sharks. And now he searches the universe for his mother.

“I hope you find her,” Cady says genuinely. “We lost my brother a while ago. But he’s not coming back.”

“I heard. I’m sorry,” Sharkboy says. Cady shrugs.

“It’s okay. I miss him a lot, but my parents say he’s still with me. Anyway, you wanna come see the lions? They’re my favorite.”

Sharkboy nods and runs after her to help feed the lions their dinner. The sun is setting, painting the sky gold and orange and pink as it makes its way down for the day. Once the first stars are just beginning to twinkle for the night, a bright flash of pink light suddenly glows from behind them.

“Lavagirl,” Cady breathes when she turns around. Lavagirl smiles slightly and nods. Maybe that really is her name. “You’re real too!”

“Sharkboy, I need your help,” Lavagirl says. “You have to come with me. A great crisis is developing on the Planet Drool.”

Sharkboy nods and heads to her side. They begin to run off together, before freezing and turning back to Cady.

“Can you come as well, Cady?”

“Er… I would,” Cady stutters. “I’d really like to, but… I have homeschool tomorrow.”

Lavagirl nods in understanding, and they both turn back and continue running off. Cady doesn’t see them again.

—-

Until six years later. Cady’s parents have lost their funding and are forced to move back to America. Cady is both upset and excited. She’s sad to be leaving the only home she’s known, but eager to experience life in the west. And go to real school for the first time.

She starts at North Shore High three days after they move to Chicago. Her wishes for a happy American life are quickly dashed.

The building is massive and meandering, built of a labyrinth of hallways and classrooms that all look the same and packed wall to wall with other kids all shoving and pushing and yelling. Like sardines.

Sharkboy would like that, she thinks with a little smile. And he could use his navigation instincts to help me get around this place.

By some miracle she makes it to homeroom on time and plops herself in an empty seat near the front of the room. She looks up when it suddenly goes quiet and the teacher begins speaking.

“Hello class, I’m Ms. Norbury, I teach AP Calculus,” she begins. Cady looks up in relief and checks her schedule. This is her math teacher. “And we have a new student this year, I see. Caddy Heron?”

“Uh-it’s Cady,” Cady stutters quietly, raising her hand. “I used to be homeschooled.”

That gets a few snickers from people in the back of the room, and Ms. Norbury’s demeanor seems to change slightly. “That’s a fun way to steal from my union.”

“Oh! No, no,” Cady says immediately. “I grew up in Kenya, my parents are zoologists. Not many unions there.”

Much to her relief, Ms. Norbury relaxes slightly and gives her a kind smile. “In that case, welcome to North Shore. I saw you on my roster for the afternoon, I look forward to seeing what you can do.”

Cady gives her an eager smile back and nods as she gathers her things once the bell goes off.

—-

In her English class, she gets an assignment to write a short story about her favorite childhood memory. Cady thinks long and hard about which moment to choose. The time a lion broke into her tent and cuddled her all night? Or the time she got to see the city of Nairobi for the first time? Her first airplane trip?

Suddenly, it hits her. She had never had more fun as a kid than when she spent the day with Sharkboy. So Cady writes about that. What could go wrong?

As it turns out, reading the essay aloud in front of the whole class is what can go wrong. Cady eagerly volunteers to go first. Mistake one.

She looks up when she finishes reading, to the sneers and smirks of her classmates. And that’s before they start laughing out loud. One of them even throws a ball of paper at her.

“Sit down, Cady,” her teacher says gently. Cady sits down quietly back at her spot, trying to ignore the jeers of the other students. “Cady appears to have merely misunderstood the assignment. I asked for true stories. But that was a very well done work of fiction.”

“It is true!” Cady says, much louder than she’s spoken all day. Another paper ball hits her. Cady pulls her dream journal out of her backpack, where she also wrote about the day she got to spend with Sharkboy. “He said everything that is, or was, started with a dream. It’s true.”

Her teacher looks at her sadly and gives a slight head shake as the next kid gets up to read their essay. Cady doesn’t speak up again until the bell rings.

“Cady, a moment please,” her teacher asks quietly. Cady sheepishly heads over to her desk. “You have a real way with words. But you’re sixteen, in the eleventh grade. It’s time to stop dreaming, okay?”

Cady takes the pencil she had tucked behind her ear and scratches that down in her journal. “No dreaming. Got it. I-I’ll try harder.”

Her teacher looks at her sadly but nods, sending her off to her next class. Cady is pulling her schedule out of her backpack to check the room number when she’s suddenly knocked to the ground.

“Watch where you’re going, jungle freak,” the girl she’s bumped into spits.

“I’m sorry,” Cady says desperately. “I didn’t see you, I didn’t mean it-“

“I’m sure you didn’t. As payback… what is that?”

“My-my dream journal,” Cady says, clutching it to her chest.

“Can I see it?” The girl asks. Cady naively hands it over. The girl flips through it and laughs. “You’ll get an edited version tomorrow.”

“Wait, give it back!” Cady yells, trying to run after her. The girl’s two cronies block her path.

“Trust us, don’t mess with Regina. We’ll try to keep her from doing too much to it. But she can do a lot worse,” the blonde one murmurs.

Cady hollowly stops fighting them and steps back. The girls give her an apologetic look before they run after their friend.

————-

Cady cries herself to sleep that night. America is nothing like she thought it would be. She wishes she could be back in Kenya, where the only things around for miles to laugh at her were the hyenas. Or, at the very least, that she wouldn’t have to go to school tomorrow. Maybe there’ll be a bad storm. With tornados.

In her dreams, Sharkboy and Lavagirl make an appearance for the first time since she was eleven. She’d gotten little glimpses of their work on planet Drool, as they helped make it into the awesome planet of Cady’s dreams. They seemed happy.

But something is wrong, now. Cady can’t quite piece it together, but the scenes she can see clearly aren’t right. She wakes up with a gasp and runs to the window. A bright, clear day greets her mockingly.

“Guess I didn’t dream hard enough.”

—————

Cady trudges through the morning. Her parents are arguing over something or other, probably trying to get her father a job again. Cady’s mom asks her to come right home after school so they can all talk. Cady suddenly starts wishing something will happen at school so she doesn’t have to go home.

By lunch, the sky about matches her mood. Dark clouds block out any hint of blue that wanted to shine through, and loom ominously over the building. Her science teacher takes the opportunity to teach about tornados and their origins.

Regina strolls in casually about ten minutes after the bell, holding a bag that must be too small to carry all her books. Not that she cares.

Cady stands and goes to her desk, holding out a hand. “Give it back.”

“Ladies, is there an issue?” the teacher asks.

“Regina took my dream journal yesterday.”

“Ooh, a liar, too, how fun,” Regina titters.

“Regina, give Cady her book. It hasn’t even been a week and you’re already picking up the bullying again,” the teacher huffs. Something tells Cady that Regina had never set the bullying down in the first place.

Begrudgingly, Regina picks up her designer bag and roots through it. Cady thankfully takes her precious book back. But as she opens it to check that all her dreams are where they were before, she gasps in horror.

Every single page has been scratched out one way or another. Lipstick, black marker in swirly handwriting, even a few pages covered in letter stickers that spell out particularly cruel taunts.

“She ruined it!”

“Where’s your proof, you little freak?” Regina retaliates.

“That’s enough! Both of you will be reporting with me to the principal’s office after school. With your parents,” the teacher yells, trying to get her class back under control. It turns out to be a futile effort when the windows suddenly blow open with the force of the winds outside. “I do not get paid enough for this.”

Everyone ducks underneath their desks as papers start flying around the room, covering their heads and faces for protection. In her haste to get back to her desk, Cady accidentally drops the journal by Regina’s feet, who bends down to pick it up with a coy smirk.

Cady has curled up in a ball beneath her desk when there’s suddenly a thunderous crash accompanied by the sounds of breaking glass. Carefully, Cady peeks up above to see…

Sharkboy and Lavagirl. Evidently having entered through a new hole in the wall.

“I’m looking for Cady,” Lavagirl says, staring down Cady’s classmates. Everyone points to Cady’s desk in the far corner. Cady squeaks and ducks back down. Lavagirl makes her way over regardless, setting homework alight on her way. When she reaches her, Lavagirl lifts Cady’s desk off the ground with just one hand, revealing Cady curled in a frightened ball. “We need your help, Cady. Come with us.”

“Wh-what do I have to do?” Cady stutters, following after the girl made of fire.

“Just come with us, we’ll explain on the way.”

“Hi Cady!” Sharkboy says, waving eagerly. Lavagirl whacks him gently.

“I can’t go with you.” Cady says.

“Why not?”

“Be-because you’re not real! Both of you! You’re just a dream,” Cady says, trying to admit it to herself as well. “And-and you’ll be gone when I open my eyes.”

Cady squeezes her eyes shut for a moment.

When she opens them again, Sharkboy and Lavagirl are gone. Or so she thinks.

“We’re still here, Cady,” Sharkboy says from behind her. Cady screams and whirls around.

“If you want to stop The Darkness from destroying our worlds,” Lavagirl growls slightly. “You’ll come with us.”

“You should probably go with them,” Cady’s teacher squeaks, poking her head up from behind her desk. Cady nods.

“Okay. I-I’ll go with you.”

——————

“Where are we going?” Cady yells, trying to keep up with her friends. Creations? No, friends is much better.

“Planet Drool!” Sharkboy yells over his shoulder.

“It’s real?!”

“Yeah! We just punched a hole in your school, is it so hard to believe?”

“How are we getting there?”

“Enough with the questions!” Lavagirl demands. Cady suddenly notices the shark shaped rocket ship in front of them.

“Oh. Sorry.”

“Put on the goggles,” Lavagirl says, handing Cady a pair of electric blue ones. Hers are purple, and Sharkboy’s are pink. Cady doesn’t judge.

“So how do you fly this thing?” Sharkboy asks. Cady looks at him.

“You don’t know?”

“That’s our whole problem!” Lavagirl says angrily. Cady blinks at her a few times sheepishly before she slams her foot on a pedal. It reveals a green ‘GO’ button. Cady presses it, and they’re off.

Cady looks out the window at the tornados, before they’re suddenly in the atmosphere.

“How do you control it?!” Lavagirl yells at her over the roaring of the engines.

“It has an auto-pilot!” Cady yells back. Lavagirl smacks the button in front of her.

“Wow, you really thought of everything!” Sharkboy says happily.

“Er… not exactly,” Cady says.

“How the fuck do we land?!” Lavagirl says when she realizes.

“That’s the bit I forgot!”

“Well, there’s Neptune,” Lavagirl spits. “Hold on to your asses!”

Cady braces and shuts her eyes, clinging to her harness for safety. Luckily they don’t seem to crash too hard. The ground is almost… squishy.

The mouth of the shark-rocket opens for them to step out onto the surface of the planet. Cady looks out in awe at the world she’s created.

“Do you recognize it, Cady?” Sharkboy asks quietly.

“Not really,” Cady admits shyly. “I feel like I should, but I just… don’t.”

“It’s affecting you too, then,” Sharkboy says sadly. Lavagirl glares at him. “I thought she’d remember!”

“Remember what?”

“Your dreams,” Lavagirl says. “The whole fucking planet? Us? Your powers?”

“I’ve got powers?”

“More than any of us,” Sharkboy says. “Remember what I told you when we met? Everything that is, or was, or will be, began with a dream. And you dreamt us, and this whole place!”

“Every dream you ever had landed here,” Lavagirl says.

“Oh. Why-why is it so dark? I don’t have that many nightmares,” Cady says.

“It began yesterday. What’s the calculation, Sharkboy?” Lavagirl asks. Sharkboy pulls out a shark-shaped device. It’s beeping quietly and seems to be scanning the environment for something.

“About forty-five minutes,” he replies.

“Forty-five minutes until what?” Cady asks.

“Until the planet… is… destroyed,” Sharkboy says sheepishly.

“We didn’t pick you up to save you,” Lavagirl says, looking out over the darkening horizon. “We need you to save us.”

“Oh. How-how do I do that?” Cady asks anxiously. This is way more responsibility than she asked for when she started keeping a dream journal.

“The dream lair over there. That’s where your dreams are going bad,” Sharkboy says sadly. “We have to get you there and find out what’s happening to them. And hopefully reverse it.”

Sounds simple enough.

“We’ll have to travel through the Passage of Time, catch the Train of Thought, swim down the Stream of Consciousness, and skate across the Sea of Confusion. Because it’s frozen now. Nice going, Cady,” Lavagirl grumbles.

“Lava, don’t be mean! It’s not her fault,” Sharkboy admonishes. “We brought Cady here to put things back in order. We just have to stay positive! It’s not the end of the world.”

“It literally is, though!” Lavagirl yells from a ways away. She turns around and walks backwards away from them for a moment. “The planet is dying, come on!”

“What’s her deal?” Cady asks anxiously as she and Sharkboy run after Lavagirl. Suddenly, a groaning creak is heard, and they both turn around to find the shark rocket being swallowed by the Darkness. “Run!”

Everyone picks up the pace, until they’re suddenly on a platform moving rapidly towards a sort of carnival.

“How is this here if you’ve never been to a carnival?” Lavagirl asks.

“I read about them in books and stuff. I always wanted to go to one,” Cady says sheepishly. “I was, like, ten, give me a break!” Lavagirl shrugs and turns away from her with a huff. “Where is everyone? My dream planet shouldn’t be so lonely.”

“They’re stuck,” Sharkboy says, pointing to a roller coaster weaving around a tall mountain that looks remarkably like Kilimanjaro. “Trapped. Ms. Neverbury has everyone kind of held hostage.”

“How awful,” Cady says sadly. “My world was supposed to be fun.”

“Oh, it’s fun, alright,” Lavagirl chuckles sardonically. “Endless fun. Once you get on, you can’t get off.”

“Kids aren’t allowed to rest here, because if they rest, they sleep, if they sleep, they dream, and if they dream…”

“It takes power away from Neverbury. But we have a secret weapon to stop her,” Lavagirl says mischievously.

“Oh, good,” Cady says in relief.

“It’s you, dipshit,” Lavagirl huffs.

“Oh. You know, you’re a lot more rude than I remember!” Cady yells as Lavagirl rushes up to the coaster. “You’re very dismissive!”

“Get used to it!” Lavagirl yells back, reaching up a fist and floating up to the carts rushing around.

“Don’t mind her, she’s having a sort of… identity crisis,” Sharkboy says apologetically. “She’s usually pretty nice, but she’s scared, and she gets angry when she’s afraid.”

“Would you two shut up? We’re on a time crunch here!” Lavagirl reminds them, dangling upside down from the coaster.

“Oh, oops,” Sharkboy says. He does the same motion and joins Lavagirl above their heads, moving to stop the coaster. Cady tries it too, but she can only jump about a foot.

“Man, why can’t I do that?”

Luckily for her, there’s a ladder a few feet away. She’ll have to use that until she figures out how to jump the way her new friends do.

“Whoa,” she breathes as Lavagirl suddenly lands on the cart of the coaster, somehow perfectly steady even as it hurtles around the winding track. Everyone on the cart cheers in relief. Lavagirl hops down in front of it, causing sparks to fly as she attempts to stop it with one hand and shoots lava to weaken the tracks with the other. Sharkboy grabs onto the back and pulls, and their combined strength makes the coaster grind to a halt.

“Who knows where Neverbury is hiding?” Lavagirl demands. She tilts her head in confusion as everyone appears to have both hands raised. “All of you?”

“You’re all upside down,” Cady giggles from her position on the ladder.

“Oh.”

Suddenly, a booming voice echos around them. “Who is stopping my unstoppable fun?!”

Lavagirl gasps and shoots small jets from both hands to release the bars on all the kids, allowing them to fall gently to the ground and run to safety.

“Who is Neverbury?” Cady asks, hopping into the coaster herself and bringing the bar down for protection as it begins to move again. Sharkboy sits next to her, and Lavagirl stands on the front to coast along.

“She’s supposed to be the sort of protector here,” Sharkboy says. “Keep everyone safe. Be a light. But all she brings now is darkness.”

Cady is about to respond when she’s suddenly slammed backwards into her seat. She screams as the coaster suddenly rockets off, hurtling down the track at impossible speeds. Nothing is impossible here, she reminds herself.

“She’s taking us up!” Sharkboy yells. Cady clings to his arm in fright. She decides she’s not quite so interested in riding roller coasters anymore.

Cady peeks up from Sharkboy when they finally come to a blessed stop, letting out a little squeak of fright. Sharkboy gently pats her head to let her know it’s alright before he hops out of the cart. Lavagirl follows him, and Cady scrambles out once she can feel her extremities again.

A large robot has its back to them, fiddling with various buttons and levers to bring images up on the large screens in front of it. It yells something at whatever she sees before it turns to see them. Cady screams quietly. It looks a lot like Ms. Norbury. What I wouldn’t give to be in calculus class right now.

“Well well well, if it isn’t Sharkboy and Lavagirl,” the robot says. “What do you want? Why have you halted my endless fun and infiltrated my lair?”

“We don’t need permission from you, you circular bitch,” Lavagirl huffs.

“Man. Fiery today,” Neverbury huffs. She appears to notice Cady then. “Hello, I don’t believe we’ve met. I am Ms. Neverbury.”

“Um-hi,” Cady says anxiously.

“Why are you doing this to our planet? You’re supposed to be running it,” Sharkboy demands.

“You’re supposed to be running it,” Neverbury mocks. “I am running it, I do run it. Right into the ground. Er, those are my orders.”

Maybe Cady has less control here than Sharkboy and Lavagirl thought. Everything here is supposed to be under her command, but she would’ve never ordered something like this. “Who ordered that?”

“No school, no discipline, no rules,” Neverbury continues. Cady loves school. She loves rules. This is clearly the work of someone else. Not even childhood Cady would’ve done something like this. “And no dreaming.”

“Dreams can destroy you, can’t they?” Lavagirl asks coyly. “That’s why we have to stop you.”

“You and what army?” Neverbury scoffs.

“Guys,” Cady says quietly, pointing behind them. A series of electrical plugs appear to have come to life behind them, sparking ominously. That’s probably not good.

Sharkboy and Lavagirl snap to attention, doing a series of very sophisticated moves and fighting the plugs back. Lavagirl looks very eager to be demonstrating some rather violent tendencies.

“Hey Sparky,” she calls loudly, getting Neverbury’s attention. “Catch me if you can.”

Cady and Sharkboy watch as she sets her hands and feet alight and rockets herself upwards, to another metal platform higher up. Neverbury follows and winces as Lavagirl shoots jets of magma out of her hands.

Cady doesn’t quite know what to do. She was never much good at fighting. Sharkboy snaps back into his fights, punching out several of the plugs and grinding their circuits with his sharp teeth. Wanting to be helpful, Cady grabs a cord and tugs as hard as she can. Eventually, it gives, and Cady winds up on her behind looking up at a plug. It rattles rather ominously and gives chase, so Cady bolts. So to speak.

She runs as fast as she can, and being Kenyan, she’s still pretty fast. She turns to check that she’s lost her pursuer at one point, and finds the plug straining at the confines of its cord.

“Aww, are you a bit short?” She teases. “We’ve all been there. Come get me, loser!”

“Cady, stop trash talking, it doesn’t suit you,” Lavagirl yells, still fighting off Neverbury above them.

“Fine,” Cady huffs. She tips her head and coos quietly as the plug continues straining. Suddenly it appears to ‘look’ to its left and spies another plug. Cady watches in horror as it plugs itself in and gives itself more reach. “Ah, shuck!”

She runs again, but pauses when she hears crunching behind her. Sharkboy is jumping up

and down on the plug, smashing it to bits and stomping out any hint of current still running through it. He smiles at Cady when the last spark flies and fizzles out.

“You’re amazing,” Cady beams.

“You had to be scared of electricity?!” Lavagirl yells.

“I grew up in a tent, I don’t like it!” Cady yells back.

“Both of you shut up!” Neverbury yells. Lavagirl shoots a stronger jet at her face. Neverbury closes her eyes and drifts down slightly. Lavagirl relaxes, but Neverbury quickly pops back up. “Haha, pranked.”

“Good one,” Lavagirl huffs, grinding her heels in an attempt to get a good stance to continue fighting.

“Did you really believe you could stop me? Aww,” Neverbury coos.

Lavagirl kites her back down to Cady and Sharkboy. Sharkboy runs up to aid in the fight.

“I know we can’t,” he says threateningly. “But she can!”

They both point to Cady, who stands there uselessly. Neverbury laughs. Cady holds up her fists.

“Show ‘em what you’re made of, Cades,” Lavagirl huffs.

“What am I supposed to do?” Cady asks urgently. Lavagirl takes a moment to smack Sharkboy upside the head.

“I told you this would happen!”

“I thought she would remember!” Sharkboy defends, rubbing his sore spot.

“Remember what?!” Cady demands from the both of them.

Lavagirl is about to answer when she’s suddenly snatched up by one of Neverbury’s metal claws. Cady shrieks as the other claw grabs her by the foot and dangles her upside down.

“Your dream! Remember the dream,” Sharkboy yells at her.

“I don’t remember half my dreams!” Cady yells back. “That’s why I write them in my journal!”

“What part of your dream do you remember?” Lavagirl yells, trying to get free from Neverbury’s grasp.

“I remember this,” Cady says, feeling like she’s about to hurl. Keep it together. Sharkboy is grabbed by a third claw and brought up to their level.

“Where are you taking us?!” He demands.

“Oh, where all useless dreams go. The dream dump,” Neverbury shrugs. The three of them are suddenly dangled over the chasm below, and dropped.

“This is not what I signed up for!” Cady yells on her way down.

—-

They fall for who knows how long before thudding down onto a metal platform. It spits them back out, onto a sort of conveyor belt. At least they all made it.

“Cuckoo!” Sharkboy warns. Everyone ducks down to avoid being decapitated by a large bird. “At least we’re on the passage of time! Maybe it’ll take us to the dream lair!”

Cady looks around at the various clocks they’re surrounded by. Something isn’t right with them. They’re going backwards.

“It’s going the wrong way,” Lavagirl huffs. “Dream lair is that way, genius.”

“What is the dream lair?” Cady asks quietly.

“It’s where all the dreams that fuel the planet are stored,” Sharkboy replies. “But they’re being destroyed.”

“How?”

“That’s what we have to find out. Soon, even the two of us will cease to exist,” Sharkboy sighs, gesturing to himself and Lavagirl.

“Duck!” Lavagirl yells, pointing. Everyone hits the deck again to avoid a duck-shaped cuckoo. “Heh.”

“Cady, just out of curiosity,” Sharkboy asks as they warily stand once again. “Where is this dream journal?”

“Oh, good idea,” Lavagirl says, the first positive thing she’s said all day. “We can read it out loud and set everything back the way it was!” She adds in a whisper, “And maybe find out my true identity.”

“What?”

“Nothing. Where is it?”

“I… uh…,” Cady stutters, feeling around in her pockets. “I don’t have it. I must have dropped it during the storm.”

Lavagirl’s hair suddenly sets ablaze in anger, and she shatters the next cuckoo in a single punch. “I was really starting to think you were the answer, Cady.”

“Don’t listen to her,” Sharkboy grumbles protectively. “She’s just mad because she’s having an identity crisis and you didn’t fix it for her.”

“Shut up, Sharky!” Lavagirl yells. “Look who’s talking. You’re mad she didn’t make you… king of the ocean or whatever the fuck, with a giant fish army. Cady thought her dream world would be a happy place. We’ve all been had.”

“Guys!” Cady yells, interrupting their bickering. “End of the line.”

“Oh, shit,” Sharkboy says, as the end of the conveyor belt gets ever nearer. There’s nowhere to go but down. Lavagirl falls first, followed by Cady and Sharkboy.

Cady yelps in pain as she lands smack on top of Lavagirl, scrambling away to avoid any serious burns. Lavagirl buries her face in the dirt and groans. “I think you dislocated a few of my craters.”

“Sorry,” Cady says frantically. “Ow, you’re hot.”

“Thanks,” Lavagirl teases. “We gotta find a way out of here.”

The three of them stand and dust themselves off carefully, before setting off in an attempt to find an exit.

“I don’t think there is a way out of here,” Sharkboy says after a while. “And the Darkness is coming.” He appears to realize something, suddenly. “Wait! Cady, sit down.”

“Uh… okay,” Cady says confusedly, sitting down on a pile of calculus textbooks.

“Now dream,” Sharkboy commands. “What do you see?”

Cady closes her eyes carefully and tries to dream. “I see… a giant… Kälteen bar.” Both her companions look very unimpressed when she opens her eyes again. “I’m sorry, I’m starving! I never got my lunch.”

“For the love of magma,” Lavagirl huffs, massaging the bridge of her nose.

“Here,” Sharkboy offers, brandishing a… fish? Maybe? “Fresh sushi.”

“Blech, that’s not fresh,” Cady nearly-heaves. “I don’t even know if that’s sushi anymore.”

“Just a few weeks old,” Sharkboy shrugs.

“You want me to cook it for you?” Lavagirl asks, wrapping a fist around the poor… thing. When she pulls away, it’s been charred to a crisp. “Oops.”

“Er… on second thought, I’m not that hungry, it’s fine,” Cady says. “Let me try again.”

“Hey, um… if you happen to dream about, like, who I am… how I fit into this world,” Lavagirl murmurs. “That would… really be helpful for me.”

“Stop distracting her. Focus on the problem at hand,” Sharkboy insists.

“I can put her to sleep,” Lavagirl huffs. Sharkboy grabs her and pulls her away. “Come on, one punch?”

“She made us!”

“And where has that gotten us?!” Lavagirl roars. Cady backs away in fright, until she hits something with a metallic clang. She whirls around and looks up to see…

“Tobor!”

“Huh?”

“It’s Tobor! I tried to build him out of our old food cans and stuff when I was little,” Cady says happily. “But… I could never get him to work.”

“So here he is, forgotten in the dream dump,” Lavagirl says, finally seeming to calm down.

“He’s supposed to be very smart. Maybe he can help,” Cady says. “Tobor, wake up!”

“Yeees?” Tobor replies. Cady gasps in shock. That voice is… familiar.

“Rhys?” She asks, eyes brimming with tears. She hasn’t heard that voice since she was eight years old. She thought she had forgotten.  Tobor just gives her a wink. That’s all the confirmation she needs.

“Hello, Cady Heron.”

“You can answer anything, right?” Cady asks, wiping her eyes and looking up at Tobor’s large tin head.

“That I can. Whether it is correct is another matter entirely,” Tobor replies ominously.

“It can answer anything?” Lavagirl asks, unceremoniously shoving Cady out of the way. “Tell me something about me. Please.”

“Never heard you say please before,” Sharkboy grumbles under his breath.

“You are extremely bright,” Tobor says to Lavagirl. Her brow furrows, but she gets a slight grin as she tries to work out what that could mean. Sharkboy goes next.

“Hi Tobor! Am I king of the ocean?”

“No.”

“Damn it.”

Cady chuckles and pats his shoulder comfortingly before she goes to ask Tobor her question. “How do I save this planet?”

“The answer… is in your dreams,” Tobor says.

“You mean if I put her to sleep?” Lavagirl asks, brandishing what looks to be a tire iron.

“No, where did you even find that?!” Sharkboy says, wrestling her to take it and throwing it as far away from them as he can.

“No… at least, not here. Darkness is falling. Any dream of hers will become a nightmare. And you don’t want those becoming a reality,” Tobor continues. “But, if you go to the land of Kälteen bars… that’s where the good dreams are.”

“Oh, duh!” Sharkboy says, as if it should’ve been obvious the whole time.

“That’s where the answers are.”

“Can you take us there?” Cady asks Tobor.

“I would, but I have no body. I can’t move,” Tobor says sadly.

Lavagirl looks him up and down suspiciously. “You can move your eyes and your mouth.”

“I suppose that might work.”

Lavagirl and Sharkboy each take one of his eyes, and Cady climbs into his mouth. Suddenly, they detach from the large tin can that made up Tobor’s head a drift off to the land of Kälteen bars. What a day.

——

“Tobor, why didn’t you work when I built you?” Cady asks, drifting peacefully over what looks like a forest of brains.

“Some dreams are so powerful they become real on their own, like Sharkboy and Lavagirl. I, on the other hand, am still only a dream.”

“Oh.”

“Um…” Tobor says.

“What’s the matter?”

“Train of thought. I’m losing it.”

“Land of Kälteen bars,” Lavagirl huffs.

“No, I’m literally losing the train of thought,” Tobor says. “Down there.”

“Huh,” Cady says interestedly, looking down. “I never thought I had a train.”

“What did you think you had?” Sharkboy chuckles.

“I dunno,” Cady shrugs. “Maybe a race car. Doesn’t get too much use, but when it does it goes fast and needs frequent pit stops.”

Lavagirl chuckles at that, but stops abruptly and tries to cover it up with a cough.

“Well, since I do actually have a train… how do I keep it on track?” Cady asks anxiously.

“With your mind. You are easily distracted. Stay focused, and it will speed you directly to the land of Kälteen bars,” Tobor explains. “The rest is up to you.”

Cady and her companions jump down onto the train. Cady looks back at her old creation for a moment. “I’m sorry I forgot you.”

“Are you kidding? You’ve just saved me,” Tobor chuckles gently. “I’m free.”

“Cady!” Lavagirl yells. “Get your ass down here!”

Cady gasps and whirls around. Lavagirl has her head poking out the window of the engine car.

“What’s wrong?!” Cady yells over the roar of the train engine.

“We can’t control it!” Sharkboy says as he and Lavagirl frantically press every button and flip every lever they can reach. Cady joins in as if she knows what she’s doing.

“All you have to do is keep it on track,” she says. Sounds easy enough.

“There is no track!” Lavagirl reminds them. Cady freezes and looks out the window. She’s right.

“What do we do?” Sharkboy asks anxiously.

“Uh… scream?” Lavagirl says. “I don’t know.”

Sharkboy flips another lever, and the door opens. “Jump! It’ll be fine!”

He leaps out the door and is quickly blown off by a gust of wind. Lavagirl follows almost immediately. Cady is left alone on a crashing train. At least if she jumps she’ll crash with her friends.

Cady closes her eyes and leaps, hoping for a miracle. The wind blows her hair everywhere and stings her skin as she hurtles to the ground. Until it stops. Warily, she opens her eyes.

“A Kälteen bar!” She says happily, pushing herself upright. It tips slightly, so she puts her arms out for balance. “Whoa. In a river of milk. Huh. Um… do you guys know what it means when your train of thought… crashes?”

“Nothing good,” Lavagirl says, sounding remarkably chipper. “How much time, Sharky?”

“Twenty minutes,” Sharkboy replies anxiously. He takes a step forward to look around, but his foot suddenly sinks into a puddle of something. He yelps in surprise, but crouches down to inspect it. “Chocolate?”

“It must be the s’mores flavor,” Cady chuckles. “There’s marshmallows too.”

“Why Kälteen bars, though?” Lavagirl asks. “And not, like, cookies, or something?”

“I never had cookies as a kid,” Cady replies. “But we always had Kälteens. And I wasn’t really allowed to eat them, I ate a whole box in a row once and got sick, so my parents hid them and I could only get them if they gave them to me. They were a special thing.”

Lavagirl gives this a moment’s thought and nods. “Try to dream again. Lie down.”

Cady does, using a bit of marshmallow as a pillow. She closes her eyes, but the bar beneath her begins to shake. “It’s too shaky.”

“I hear it too,” Sharkboy says, listening around with his highly trained ears. Lavagirl raises a suspicious eyebrow at the two of them.

“Let me try.”

“No, Lava-“ Sharkboy says, but it’s too late. Lavagirl rests her head on the marshmallow, and the whole thing is suddenly charred. “Hothead.”

“Cady,” Lavagirl says suddenly. “When you dreamt up these giant bars… who did you expect to be able to eat them?”

Cady shrugs. “I dunno, I never really thought about that part.”

“Because if you dream giant bars, something has to be created to consume giant bars,” Lavagirl explains. The rumbling sounds get louder, suddenly, and everyone looks around for the source.

“Giants!” Sharkboy yells, pointing off to the left. He abandons ship again, followed by Lavagirl. Cady is so distracted looking at the giants that she nearly doesn’t make it off, leaping at the very last second before one of the giants chomps down on the Kälteen bar raft.

Luckily for them, they appear to land on…

“Hey, this was my ninth birthday cake! That thing was awesome,” Cady laughs. “Nice and springy.”

“Too much frosting,” Lavagirl grumbles, trying to brush herself clean.

Cady removes herself from her cake and turns around, watching the giants leave peacefully hand in hand. Sharkboy approaches her and rests a hand on her shoulder.

“Those giants look a lot like my parents,” Cady murmurs.

“They seem happy together,” Sharkboy nods. “Is that… another dream of yours?”

“Family,” Cady nods. “Hasn’t really been coming true lately.”

“Well, most dreams don’t come true on their own. You have to make them true,” Sharkboy says. “It takes a lot of work. Not easy. But it’s not impossible either.”

“Alright, we’ve had enough sweets, go to sleep,” Lavagirl huffs, joining them.

“I’ll try,” Cady says anxiously, laying down on the granola ground. Sharkboy gently plays with her hair to help her drift off while Lavagirl paces around.

Flowers begin to bloom around them as Cady dreams, and a shark-shaped motorcycle suddenly drives up. Sharkboy gasps excitedly and runs to check it out, so Lavagirl takes over his position by Cady’s head.

“Dream about me next,” she says quietly. “I need to know who I am. Dream of me as something good.”

A clap of thunder suddenly booms overhead, making Lavagirl whirl around. She looks back to Cady’s face and finds it pinched in concern. “She’s having a nightmare. Sharkboy, get back here!”

Sharkboy runs over and tries to shake Cady back awake, to no avail. Lavagirl stands and aims her hands carefully at Cady’s backside.

“Sorry Cady,” she murmurs, firing a jet of lava.

“Jesus!” Cady yells, her eyes snapping open as she leaps to her feet. “Ow! What the hell was that for?”

“You weren’t waking up,” Lavagirl shrugs sheepishly. Sharkboy kindly fires a jet of water to help cool her off. “Thanks Sharky. Cady… your nightmare… it was about me, wasn’t it?”

Cady tries to think. Surely that can’t be right. She can see bits and pieces, but can’t quite reach them enough to put them back together. “I don’t remember. I’m sorry.”

“Plug hounds!” Sharkboy suddenly yells, pointing to an ice cream hill above them. Neverbury makes her way to the top.

“I have the high ground!”

The hounds suddenly run towards them, stumbling down the hill. Cady and her friends run to the shark bike, but nothing happens when Sharkboy attempts to start the engine. Other than…

“Ah, fudge,” Cady says. “I forgot to dream of gas.”

“Oh my-“ Lavagirl says angrily, storming off in a huff to fight the hounds off. Sharkboy joins her. Lavagirl shoots a jet of lava at one, before she looks at her hands. “My powers are weakening.”

One of the hounds suddenly unravels, wrapping her up in tight confines while a few others zap at her toes. Sharkboy, on the other hand, is doing remarkably well, punching out several with a series of very elaborate karate moves.

He rips off a part to the shark bike to use as a staff, and takes out several more. Unfortunately, he doesn’t notice one that hasn’t quite been beat down rise to its feet, followed by another. They both shock him, causing him to fall to the ground with a pained moan.

“Hey! Leave my friends alone!” Cady yells, bending down and swiping some frosting onto her face like war paint. She’s in the middle of a battle cry when she also gets shocked and falls to the ground. It didn’t quite go to plan, but it did allow Sharkboy to escape his attackers and rush to her side.

“I don’t-I don’t have much fight left in me, Cades,” he pants.

“Where’s Lavagirl?” Cady puffs back. Lavagirl comes… flowing over, so to speak.

“What?” She asks when they both give her confused looks. “How else was I supposed to escape? Oh, don’t look at me like that, I’m literally made of lava. It’s up to you now, Cady.”

“Cady, you can dream us out of here,” Sharkboy realizes. “We believe in you, go on.”

Cady squeezes her eyes shut and tries her hardest to dream. Lavagirl quietly pleads for a lava bike behind her, and Sharkboy asks for a shark boat.  Cady opens her eyes to reveal…

“A banana split?” Lavagirl spits. “Seriously?”

“They’re really good!” Cady defends, crossing her arms over her chest protectively.

“Still hungry?” Lavagirl says threateningly, popping back into her human body and holding up a fist. “How about a knuckle sandwich?”

“Lava, chill,” Sharkboy says, batting her hands away from poor Cady’s face. “Look at it, it’s a banana split boat!”

“Then let’s split,” Lavagirl yells as another wave of plug hounds rounds over the hill. Cady helps Sharkboy push it into the milk river and start rowing just before the hounds reach them.

Once they’re steadily drifting down the river and being steered by Lavagirl, Cady and Sharkboy finally get to sit down on a swiss roll bench. “This is great, Cades. You’re starting to daydream. If you can keep this up, they’ll never get us!”

“Really?”

“Yeah! If you learn to dream with your eyes open, you don’t have to be asleep to dream,” Sharkboy explains. “You’ll be able to make anything happen at any time. You’ll be unstoppable.”

“Grool,” Cady says. She freezes suddenly. “I-uh… I meant to say great, and then started to say cool…”

Lavagirl bursts out laughing, a remarkably bright, clean sound. Cady likes it. She smiles back at her before scooping some whipped cream onto a finger to taste it. “Mm!”

“Sugar will give you nightmares,” Lavagirl says, already back to her typical brooding. Cady immediately spits out her mouthful before she swallows any. “How much time, Sharky?”

“Uhm… best not to ask,” Sharkboy says anxiously, checking his radar. “The lair of dreams is across the ocean of ice. We’ll have to travel there on foot. What did you see in your dream, Cady? Anything we can use?”

“I saw an object, shaped like… do you have something I can draw with?” Cady asks. Lavagirl holds up one of her fingers and shrugs.

“Sharky, come steer.”

Sharkboy takes hold of the cherry stem to steer their raft, and Lavagirl offers Cady her hand. Cady takes it gently and aims at one of the ice cream scoops. Lavagirl fires a jet of lava from it, letting Cady steer it around.

“A heart?” She asks, tilting her head when Cady finishes. Her eyes go wide when she puts it together. “The crystalheart!”

“It’s the treasure of the kingdom of ice, it can freeze anything!” Sharkboy says excitedly, coming to join them. The raft spins wildly until Lavagirl leaps to grab the cherry stem to keep steering. “Even time.”

“Wow,” Cady breathes. “I’ve only ever dreamt of freezing a moment in time.”

“And, even better,” Sharkboy says. “The ice kingdom is ruled by the ice princess. She’s said to be the most beautiful girl in the world.”

Lavagirl’s jaw drops open indignantly, and she fires some magma at Sharkboy’s bum.

“Ow! What the hell, man?” Sharkboy pouts, rubbing his sore backside.

“She is not! She’s cold and cruel and cares for nobody but herself! And you don’t even like girls,” Lavagirl accuses.

“Cady does!”

“I do?” Cady says in shock. She thinks for a second about her past crushes, and then shrugs. Lavagirl certainly doesn’t look too bad. “Eh, yeah, I probably do. Have you met her, Lavagirl?”

“No,” Lavagirl replies sheepishly. She puffs out her chest before continuing, “But I know we don’t get along! She’s ice. I’m fire. We must be enemies.”

“We need that crystal heart,” Cady says pleadingly. “But I’ll need you both to get it.”

Lavagirl sighs and lets go of the cherry stem. Sharkboy leaps to grab it so they don’t drift away too far. Lavagirl looks out off the edge of the raft and huffs. “I just hope this isn’t a trap.”

—————-

“Wow,” Cady breathes happily, looking around at all the beautiful crystal clear ice and powdery white snow surrounding them. It’s absolutely gorgeous, and clearly very intricate, but the air is barely chilly. Even in her thin flannel, Cady isn’t cold.

They approach a thin bridge, made of solid ice. Cady is a little apprehensive at the height, but carefully steps out onto it. Sharkboy follows. Lavagirl thinks about it, but pauses and hunches in on herself a bit just before she tries.

“I can’t go with you,” she calls. Cady and Sharkboy pause and turn around. “I’ll melt the bridge.”

“Can you chill enough to get across?” Cady asks, reaching a hand for her. Lavagirl looks at her feet, then back at her.

“I’d have to be asleep.”

“Try sleepwalking!” Cady calls to her. “You can do it!”

Lavagirl nods slightly and closes her eyes, shaking out some of the tension in her muscles before warily taking a few steps forward. She mumbles under her breath about… a dream of her own. To live on Earth. Someplace warm. And to be accepted.

“Oh no,” Sharkboy says suddenly, anxiously watching his best friend as she crosses the bridge. “No, Lava, don’t sneeze!”

He runs to block her nose with a finger, and breathes a sigh of relief when she relaxes again. He carefully removes his finger and takes a small step back.

“Achoo!”

Lavagirl sneezes, unleashing a rush of hot wind that blows Sharkboy backwards and off the bridge. He grabs onto it with one hand just before he topples all the way off to a certain doom. Cady runs to help him back up.

“Look,” she says quietly, gesturing to Lavagirl. She’s somehow still upright, but deeply asleep. She’s actually snoring quietly, which is remarkably cute. “She’s sleeping.”

Lavagirl sleepwalks towards them carefully, slowly, but isn’t melting the bridge. Cady watches her with a small smile. Until she looks behind her.

“They found us again,” Cady says, her heart sinking. “Lavagirl, behind yo-“

Sharkboy claps a hand over her mouth before she can finish her sentence. “If you wake her up, she’ll reheat. She can make it.”

Cady nods and clings to his arm in fright. “Come on, Lava.”

Sharkboy holds her back, feeling himself growing more tense. They’re all in danger, and his instincts are demanding he protect his best friend. “Lavagirl, they’re behind you!”

Cady frantically slams a hand over his mouth, and he covers it with his own hands in shame. But it’s too late. Lavagirl opens her eyes and looks behind her, bursting into flame when she sees the hounds closing in.

Cady and Sharkboy both scream in fright and run away, barreling for the other end of the bridge. Lavagirl follows them, the bridge melting and crumbling away beneath her feet as she goes.

“Come on, Lava, hurry!” Sharkboy yells. He and Cady both reach out to help her make it onto the platform holding up the castle, but yelp and quickly pull away as she burns them. They made it.

But the ground beneath them begins to crumble. The three of them whirl around.

“It’s a trap!” Cady yelps, instinctively shoving her friends behind her. A small pit suddenly forms from the ground that’s crumbled away, and Neverbury leaps out at them. Cady furrows her brow in thought. “This can’t be right. Someone-someone else’s dreams are in here.”

That’s the last thought she has before the world goes black.

—-

When she comes to, she’s suspended from the ceiling by a spring over a hole in the ground. Sharkboy is also hanging next to her, and Lavagirl is on the other side with her feet stuck in a block of solid ice.

“Welcome to the dream lair,” an ominous voice says. Ominous but… familiar, somehow. “I am the leader of this planet.”

“No you’re not!” Sharkboy yells, wriggling to try and get down. “Cady is!”

“Cady might have dreamed it originally,” the voice says with an airy titter. The large chair in front of them suddenly rotates to reveal none other than Regina George. “But I’m, like, so much cooler, wouldn’t you say? I… am Requiem.”

“How did you get so much power here?” Cady asks. “This is my world.”

Requiem pulls out a small book and holds it up to show them. Cady gasps in understanding.

“My dream journal! That’s why all my dreams are going wrong! You’re changing it!”

Requiem gives a quiet chuckle and sashays her way down in front of them. Sharkboy gasps and goes into a sort of Superman pose when he spies the tank of electric eels beneath them.

“Shocking, isn’t it Sharkboy?” Requiem hums. “Reminds me of… when an electrical storm blew apart your mother’s research lab.”

Sharkboy stops struggling for a moment and looks at her. “Where is my mother?”

Requiem flips through the journal to see if it says anything, and gives a particularly evil sounding chuckle when she finds the right page. “Check the bottom of the ocean.”

Sharkboy snarls at her and tries to get loose again. Requiem moves to Lavagirl. “And you. Once I figure out how to freeze the core of this planet, all your powers will disappear.”

“I have powers?” Lavagirl asks quietly. “What powers?”

Requiem doesn’t grace her with a response, walking to stand in front of Cady. “And last, but least. You. You thought you could escape fear by running to dreamland, hm? But fear exists in the one place you can never escape.” She hops a few times, and is suddenly floating at Cady’s eye level. “Your mind. I’ll show you the true meaning of fear.

“Anyway, for now, you must all leave. I have dreaming to do. Kisses!”

She blows them a mocking kiss with two fingers before they’re dropped, plummeting through the holes beneath them. Sigmund Freud would love it here, Cady thinks to herself.

——————

They land in a large bird cage. Lavagirl paces back and forth while Sharkboy sits next to Cady on the uncomfortable bricks they have for chairs. “If only I had my journal. Then I could turn everything back to the way it was.”

“My fire is dimming,” Lavagirl says quietly. Sharkboy looks at her sadly. He grabs one of the bars behind him and pulls as hard as he can. Nothing happens.

“My strength is fading too.”

“How much time is left?” Cady asks.

“Who cares?” Lavagirl huffs. “We’re never getting out of here.”

Cady frowns at her, but looks up in confusion when a quiet song can be heard. “That’s freaky.”

“Aww, hi La-La’s,” Sharkboy says, playing with the small bubble creatures. Lavagirl bats them away from her face angrily.

“Where did these come from? They’re so annoying.”

“Don’t listen to her, she’s just mad you’re not made of fire,” Sharkboy comforts the little things.

“They piss me off,” Lavagirl grumbles. “That song. Disturbing. It’s so high!”

“Sing louder. Higher,” Cady encourages them quietly. Lavagirl’s hair is on fire again, and she’s visibly tense. Sharkboy grabs her and pulls her close.

“You don’t want to be too close to her when she erupts,” he says quietly.

“Enough!” Lavagirl yells, firing lava out of both hands at as many La-La’s as she can reach. Inadvertently, she also melts them a way out.

“Nice progress, Lava! Much more control this time,” Sharkboy praises. Lavagirl grins at him sarcastically before she crawls out of the hole she’s made. Sharkboy and Cady follow quickly.

—————

“She’s asleep,” Lavagirl whispers to her friends beneath her. Cady crawls her way back up into the dream lair and tiptoes back over to Requiem. Ever so gently, Cady lifts her journal off of Requiem’s chest. She tiptoes back to her friends, and slides down the pillar holding the lair aloft.

“Okay, first things first,” Cady says, flipping through the pages. “A way out of here.” Suddenly, she finds the perfect page. “Oh, Lavagirl! You have a lava bike!”

“I do?” Lavagirl asks. The bike suddenly materializes next to her and she gives a delighted cackle. “I do!” She eagerly gets on and revs the engine. “Hehe, this is tits!”

“Chill out, babes,” Sharkboy chuckles.

“Even has fuel this time! Now, Sharkboy,” Cady continues, flicking through to another page. She quiets when she reads the first few sentences of it. “Your mother really is at the bottom of the ocean.”

“Oh,” he says quietly. Lavagirl takes his hand and squeezes it gently.

“She’s in a submarine, she’s looking for you! She has been since the storm,” Cady continues, looking up at him with a smile.

“Oh!” He says again. Lavagirl squeezes him one more time and smiles at him too. Sharkboy comes to read over her shoulder to figure out specifics of where it is. “I’ve gotta get back to Earth.”

“What does it say about me?” Lavagirl asks quietly. Cady flicks to yet another page.

“I’m not sure what this is.”

“I can figure it out!” Lavagirl replies, climbing off her bike and running over to them.

“Lavagirl, no, you’ll-“ Cady tries to warn, but it’s too late. Lavagirl grabs the book and turns it to ash. “Burn it.”

Lavagirl stares at her hands in shame. “What have I done?”

“Hey, it’s okay-“

“Why the fuck did you make me out of lava? Why? What fucking good am I?” Lavagirl yells, holding up glowing fists and with her hair on fire yet again. “Look at me! Why, Cady?!”

Cady looks at her sadly, and tries to follow as she storms off, but Sharkboy grabs her shoulder and pulls her back. “Let her cool off a little.”

Cady doesn’t listen, running over to where Lavagirl is sitting on a rock, head in her hands. “All I’ve ever wanted is to be good. I know I can be. I-I can feel it. But I destroy everything I touch.” She turns to Cady with tears in her eyes, boiling away into steam the second they touch her cheeks. “Why-why did you make me like this? I have-I have more potential.”

“I’m sure you do,” Cady says quietly. Lavagirl stands suddenly and turns around to see her.

“And why did you make us a team?” She continues, pointing to Sharkboy. “We’re nothing alike! I fizzle out when I touch water. When he’s near heat, he shrivels. We aren’t compatible!”

“You’re… really on fire,” Cady murmurs sheepishly.

“Yeah. I do that,” Lavagirl huffs. Sharkboy shoots some water at her to put her out. “Thanks, Sharky.” Sharkboy nods.

“No problem.”

“Maybe I really am evil. So far, everything sure looks that way,” Lavagirl murmurs, sitting down again. “Everything else you’ve dreamed has been right. Maybe I do need to learn to accept it.”

“That’s it!” Cady says. “Everything else I’ve dreamt has been right, the crystal heart!”

“We were captured last time,” Lavagirl sniffles.

“Because Requiem doesn’t want me to have it! That must mean it’s important, we must be able to use it to stop her!”

Lavagirl’s face suddenly splits into a wide smile, and she rejoins her companions.

“We have to get back to the ice kingdom!”

“We only have ten minutes left,” Sharkboy says. “We’ll never make it!”

“We can do it!” Cady yells, running off.

“How?!” Sharkboy and Lavagirl yell at the same time as they follow her.

Cady freezes in her tracks and turns back to look at them with a small smirk. “You’re Sharkboy and Lavagirl. You can do anything.”

—————

“This way,” Cady says, beckoning Sharkboy and Lavagirl over to a sort of slide into the ice palace.

“You had to pick ice?” Lavagirl grumbles.

“Hey, Kenya is really hot,” Cady defends. “Not my fault that’s where I wound up. I’m sure if my parents were studying penguins we’d be somewhere hot and you’d be having a better time right now.”

Lavagirl just crosses her arms and pouts. She’s remarkably precious, for a girl made of fire. Cady chuckles before turning back around, stopping just in time to avoid crashing face first into a tall ice pillar. Sharkboy is already looking up at the large heart shaped crystal floating above it.

“Is that what you saw, Cades?”

“Uhhuh,” Cady nods. “You’ll have to climb up there and get it. But it’s as delicate as a snowflake, so don’t drop it. And don’t touch it or you’ll freeze, use your claws.”

“Got it,” Sharkboy says, using his claws as a sort of ice pick to climb up the ice pillar. He makes it rapidly up the tower, but as he’s reaching for it, he loses his grip and slides back down. He ends up dangling from his fin a few feet off the ground. “You’re up.”

“Lava, can-“ Cady asks. Lavagirl raises an eyebrow at her. “Er… nevermind. Chew on some ice, it’ll help you cool off a bit.”

Lavagirl looks confused when Cady hands her a chunk of ice, but gnaws a bit off with her molars. “Hmm.”

Sharkboy removes his claw gloves and hands them to Cady to climb the pillar herself. It’s slower going for her, but she finds enough hand and footholds to make it to the top. Carefully, she puts on the gloves and reaches out.

“Hey, nice job, Cady!” Sharkboy calls up at her when she grabs it. Just then, he slips, and the crack caused by his fin splits the whole tower in two. It crumbles beneath Cady and she’s forced to drop the heart to save herself.

“I got it!” Lavagirl yells, lunging to grab it before it can hit the ground. She makes it, but is immediately frozen into a solid block of ice.

“Lavagirl!” Cady yells, sliding down what she has left to hold and helping Sharkboy out. She knocks carefully on Lavagirl’s forehead. “She’s frozen solid.”

Just then, a creaky rumbling echoes throughout the cavern as several ice golems rise from the ground and come to life. One with a large club looms over them threateningly and escorts them to a different room.

Once they arrive, they’re roughly shoved to the ground with a command to, “Kneel before the ice princesses.”

Princesses? Cady thinks. There’s more than one?

Sure enough, two girls in white dresses come out onto what appears to be a small stage, hand in hand. They look familiar too. An uncanny resemblance to Regina’s little minions back on Earth.

“You try to steal our crystal heart,” the one on the left asks gently. “Why?”

Cady is too distracted staring at the both of them to hear her. Why are they here? Sharboy nudges her gently to get her back into the moment. “Oh! Uh, we believe it can stop time. Long enough for us to defeat Requiem.”

“Our crystal heart cannot help you,” the other one says. “Only the two of us have the power to use it.”

“Then you can come with us!” Cady says.

“They cannot leave this castle. The crystal is the only thing that protects our kingdom,” one of the ice golems says.

“Please, princesses, we’re running out of time,” Cady begs.

“Perhaps we could… give it to you?” The first princess says. “But are you worthy to wield it?”

“I think so!” Cady chirps. “I hope so.”

“The crystal you stole was a decoy,” the second one says. A rumbling noise sounds off behind them, and several more ice pillars rise from the ground. “The real one is somewhere in this room. Choose the correct one, and you may take it with you.”

Cady and Sharkboy both turn around and look at all the crystal hearts glimmering above them. Sharkboy points to the one nearest them. “That one looks nice, pick that one.”

But Cady shakes her head and turns back to the princesses. “It’s around your hands. Tying you together.”

Sure enough, the gem dangling from what Cady originally thought to be a simple bracelet gives a magical glimmer, and the princesses give her a kind smile. She heads to stand before them politely.

“How’d you know?” Sharkboy asks in awe.

“Saw it in a dream,” Cady murmurs.

“Be aware, Cady,” the first princess says, more serious this time. They gently remove the necklace they had looped around their entwined hands and rest it in the palm of Cady’s. “If anything happens to the crystal heart, our entire kingdom will be destroyed.”

“I won’t let anything happen to it,” Cady says bravely. “I promise.”

“The crystal will now work, but we must stay here,” the second one says. “Good luck.”

And with that, they’re all tossed from the palace onto the frozen sea of confusion. Sharkboy and Cady have no choice but to push a still-frozen Lavagirl to their destination themselves.

—-

“We’re almost back to the dream lair!” Cady yells when she has it in her sights. “How much time do we have?!”

“Uh… we’re out of time!” Sharkboy yells back. “Ten seconds!”

Cady stops Lavagirl and hops off, standing on the frozen sea. She holds the crystal heart aloft. “Here goes nothing.”

The crystal gives a promising glimmer, but then… everything goes dark. Including the crystal.

“What happened?”

Sharkboy shrugs. “It didn’t work.”

“How could it not work?”

Suddenly, a crunching noise can be heard as Lavagirl finally frees herself from her ice cocoon. “Only the ice princesses can use it. I was trying to tell you.”

“There’s nothing,” Sharkboy says, staring at his shark radar. “No readings, no nothing.”

Suddenly, a small crack forms in the ice, revealing a melted chasm. Neverbury’s cackling laughter can be heard.

“Sharkboy, no!” Lavagirl says. “She’s baiting you.”

Sharkboy tenses, and clenches his jaw. “I can’t… resist my instincts!”

Before either of them can react, stop him, Sharkboy dives into the water in front of them and swims rapidly to the other side. Neverbury stands ominously above him. Sharkboy tilts his head in confusion as she tries to make a poorly timed electrical joke.

“Oh, fuck it,” Neverbury huffs. “Electric eels, eat up.”

“Sharky, no!” Lavagirl yells, lunging for him. Cady grabs her to hold her back. “Swim away! Run!”

Sharkboy tries, swimming as fast as he possibly can. But the eels are faster, and quickly surround him. Cady and Lavagirl watch in horror as he suddenly goes limp and sinks to the bottom.

“No!” Cady says, trying to touch the water. It’s still electrified, the current nearly melting off the rubber sole of her shoe. “Can-can he survive down there?”

“He can hold his breath,” Lavagirl replies, staring hollowly at the water. “But not forever. He’ll drown if I don’t save him.”

“No, I can’t let you go,” Cady says with a sob, clinging to her arm. “You’ll die too.”

Lavagirl turns to look at her, gently cupping her cheek with a warm hand and kissing her. She pulls away before Cady has time to process what’s happening. “He’s my best friend. I have to. We love you.”

With that, she turns back and dives into the water, swimming down to Sharkboy on the sea floor. Cady watches as she grabs him by a hand and hauls him back up to the surface. Cady helps lift them both back onto the shore.

“Sharkboy?” Cady asks frantically, trying to shake him awake. “Wake up, please! Come on, please, please please.”

She’s so distracted with Sharkboy that she doesn’t notice Lavagirl crawling away from the water before collapsing. She’s not breathing, and her fire has been extinguished.

Cady whirls around when she hears a rattling breath, and finds Lavagirl’s lifeless form. “No, no, no, Lavagirl, please! Not both of you!”

Neither of them wake. Cady frantically shakes them, crying harder than she thinks she ever has, but to no avail.

“I can’t do this without you!” She sobs. “What am I supposed to do now?”

Suddenly, the disembodied face and voice of Tobor appears. “What do you think you should do, child?”

“Dr-dream… a better dream,” Cady whimpers, holding the lifeless hands of both her friends.

“Interesting,” Tobor says kindly. “Explain.”

“I wanted all my dreams to come true,” Cady sniffles. “But… I only dreamed for myself. This whole place only exists because I wanted to escape my real world. But I should’ve dreamed to make my real world a better place. Selfish dreams shouldn’t come true.”

“You’re becoming a very good dreamer, Cady,” Tobor says. “You always were, monkey. Get it back.”

“What do you do?” Cady asks hollowly. “When your dreams have been destroyed?”

“Dream a better dream,” Tobor replies. “An unselfish dream. You can do it. I believe in you, monkey.”

“I love you,” Cady says as Tobor floats away. She never thought she’d hear her brother call her ‘monkey’ again. She needs to say it. Tobor winks at her, and then he’s out of sight.

Cady takes a deep breath, and squeezes both of the hands in her own. “Dream a better dream.”

Sharkboy suddenly snaps awake next to her, coughing some water out of his lungs. Cady tips him onto his side and pats his back to help. He looks at her thankfully before crawling over to Lavagirl.

“She knew this would happen,” Cady murmurs. “If she saved you. I couldn’t stop her.”

Sharkboy nods sadly, taking Lavagirl’s hand. It’s cool to the touch, for the first time since their creation. Suddenly, a bright light is visible from behind them. Sharkboy and Cady turn around to see Lavagirl’s volcano home glowing brightly.

“Lava,” Cady breathes. “We have to get her there.”

“I’ll go,” Sharkboy says. Cady grabs his arm to stop him. “I’m stronger, and faster.”

“No, I can’t let you go again. You’ll burn up,” she says desperately.

Sharkboy doesn’t listen, cradling Lavagirl’s body in his arms. “Are you sure this will save her?”

“It’ll do more than save her,” Cady agrees quietly. They have a stronger bond than they’ll ever have with her. She knows she can’t stop him now. She blinks, and Sharkboy is gone. She can faintly see a blue and pink blur running at inhuman speeds towards the volcano. Cady hunches in on herself and says a little prayer.

“I know who you are now, Lavagirl. You are not fire, or a simple flame. You are greater than that. Something more important, and so necessary. That is why you have to live. You are not destruction. You are not evil.”

Cady winces as she sees Sharkboy chuck Lavagirl into the mouth of the volcano, and watches in horror as he’s thrown back by the force of the eruption once she makes contact.

But then, she sees Lavagirl standing where he just was, and watches her hands suddenly glow bright like beacons.

“You are light.”

Cady closes her eyes as a bright glow rushes over her. Lavagirl has realized her true power. And so has Cady.

“Holy shit!” Sharkboy screams when she suddenly appears beside him. He holds a hand over his heart as he tries to get his breath back. “How-how did you get here so quick?”

Cady doesn’t answer that. “Hold off Neverbury. I’m off to deal with Requiem.”

“I’ll need my fish army,” Sharkboy says. Cady turns to look at the frozen ocean they were just on.

“I’ll unfreeze the ocean.” With a snap of her fingers, it’s done. “Good luck. I love you both.”

-

“I’ve become what you feared most,” Cady murmurs to Requiem’s turned back. “Requiem.”

Requiem whirls around in surprise. “How’d you get in here?”

“I’m the day dreamer,” Cady replies. “Able to dream with my eyes open.”

“Hate to burst your bubble here, dream girl, but I’ve read your little book,” Requiem says. “There’s not one dream you have that I haven’t already seen. So what do you say? Let’s blow the roof off this place.” She raises her arms, and suddenly they’re on what appears to be a battlefield. “May the best dream win.”

She sticks out a hand towards Cady, releasing a wave of piranhas. Cady winds up and sticks out her own hand, releasing a wave of…

“Bubbles? Come on,” she whispers. But, as the bubbles make contact with the chomping fish, they’re suddenly trapped inside and carried off with the wind. “Oh. I guess that worked.”

She winds up again, and blows a wave of butterflies towards Requiem. Requiem unleashes her own swarm of wasps.

“Wait!” Cady yells. All the bugs suddenly disappear. She puts a finger to her temple and closes her eyes. “Brain storm.”

Requiem looks at her in confusion before she puts the pieces together and looks up in horror. “Eww!”

Brains splat down to the ground all around her, and she puts her arms up to protect her head from the falling craniums. She screams when one lands in her hands and throws it as far as she can, wiping off the fluid on her cape.

“Brain… freeze!” She yells, lifting her arms to the sky. All the brains raining down pause in place before landing in the ground in a single sheet.

“Brain.. fart,” Cady replies with a giggle. Requiem’s head suddenly swells to roughly one hundred times the size it’s meant to be, and she leans from side to side in a ditch attempt to keep her balance. Before she knows it, she’s completely upside down resting on top of her hand. “Nice headstand!”

Requiem’s head deflates, and she lands back on her feet. She looks at Cady and gives her a quiet chuckle. “You’re afraid of me, aren’t you?”

Cady watches in horror as she moves her hands down her sides in a quick motion, and suddenly rockets off into the sky on a stone tower. Cady repeats the motion and rises to the same height on a pillar of her own.

“I used to be,” she says quietly. “But now I understand. Someone ruined your dreams, and now all you can do is ruin everyone else’s.”

Requiem scowls at her, and sends her tower even higher. Cady follows again. The air is getting a bit thin up here. Hopefully she won’t have to go any higher.

“We can create a better dream than this,” Cady pleads. “A better world. Don’t you see?” She snaps her fingers, and a makeshift bridge suddenly appears between each of their towers. Cady carefully walks halfway across it and reaches out a hand. “What do you say? Regina?”

Regina looks at her in shock for a moment, but slowly joins her on the bridge. She looks at her own hand, before inching it toward’s Cady’s.

Just before they touch, a creaking can be heard and the bridge gives way beneath them. Cady uses her day dreamer powers to sort of float, rushing quickly after Regina.

“Don’t let me fall!” Regina screams, covering her face so as not to see her rapidly approaching doom. Cady grabs her wrist and floats them gently to the dream lair.

“Wouldn’t dream of it. Don’t ruin people’s dreams, Regina. Because you ruin your own, too. And then you’ll stop believing.”

Cady is suddenly tackled to the soft ground from behind. She screams, but looks up just in time to see Lavagirl before their lips are slammed together. Her warmth is back.

“Cady,” Lavagirl whispers against her lips. “I am light. Thank you.”

“You always were,” Cady replies, holding Lavagirl’s hips as she straddles her. “Nothing to do with me.”

Lavagirl kisses her again. “But now I know. So thank you.”

“Big deal,” Sharkboy teases. “The real news is what I am!”

“A pain in the ass?” Lavagirl asks, finally standing and helping Cady up.

“I’m king of the ocean!”

Cady giggles at their bickering.

“Yeah, yeah. Thanks for saving me,” Lavagirl says quietly, leaning in to kiss his cheek. There’s a quiet sizzle and flash of light when she makes contact.

“Ouch,” Sharkboy says, rubbing his cheek. At least he’s smiling.

“Everything will return to the way it was,” Regina says from behind them, joining the conversation. “You will be able to travel to Earth and back again as you wish.” She gestures to Sharkboy. “You can search for your mother.” To Lavagirl. “You can rule Earth’s lava realm.”

“And just what am I supposed to do?” Neverbury asks, appearing out of nowhere. “Now that you’re all… buddy buddy.”

“You can go back to being the good guardian of the planet,” Regina replies.

Neverbury cackles. “Oh, really? Keeping everything running? Making sure this loud, obnoxious world is a happy place?”

“Hey!” Cady says sadly.

“You’re dreaming.” Neverbury chuckles.

“I dreamt you,” Cady says boldly, letting go of Lavagirl’s hand and puffing out her chest at Neverbury. “And I can un-dream you.”

“You think you can just snap your eyes open and make me vanish?” Neverbury threatens. “Not so easy. I am the danger of dreaming. For every person who dreams up the lightbulb, there’s the one who dreams up the atom bomb. This is one dream you won’t be waking up from. I’m gonna put an end to this ridiculous tangent at it’s source.”

With that, she takes off towards Earth. Cady yelps and leaps out of the way. “Where did she go?”

“She’s headed to Earth,” Sharkboy says, tracking her on his radar.

“She’s going to try to destroy you in your sleep,” Regina says.

“In my sleep?” Cady asks quietly. “You mean I’m asleep?! All this time I’ve been asleep?!”

“No,” Lavagirl says calmly, coming over to her. “You’re dreaming, Cady.”

“With your eyes open,” Sharkboy adds.

“Make the dream real,” Lavagirl says, taking her hand again. “And you can live out your dreams on Earth. Just like you made us real.”

“Make it real,” Sharkboy commands gently. “You can do it.”

“Blink three times,” Lavagirl murmurs, gently cupping Cady’s face in her hot hands. “One.”

Cady listens. “Wait, but-“

“Two,” Sharkboy says. Cady blinks again.

“Will I ever see you again?”

Lavagirl kisses her one more time before letting her go. “Three.”

Cady blinks.

——

When she opens her eyes, she’s back on Earth, huddled under her desk in the science room. The teacher is trying to gather everyone to head to shelter from the storm, with the help of Ms. Norbury.

Ms. Norbury lifts the desk off of Cady. “Cady, get up! There’s a tornado heading our way!”

Cady scrambles to her feet and dusts herself off. “It’s not a tornado!” She yells over the gusts of the wind. “It’s worse!”

“Regina, wake up,” Ms. Norbury commands, tapping Regina at her desk. Regina snaps awake and winces at the large puddle of drool coating her desk. Gross.

Cady leads them to the gaping hole in the wall, created by Sharkboy and Lavagirl. That was a mere moment ago, but it feels like years. “Look!”

The tornado barreling towards them suddenly begins sparking, and Neverbury emerges from the cyclone before it dissipates into a simple thunderstorm.

“It’s Ms. Neverbury, from planet Drool! The one from my dreams!” Cady explains.

Ms. Norbury and the science teacher both look at it in confusion. “You mean… this is real? Your dreams are real?”

“Some dreams are so powerful they become real,” Cady says.

“I don’t believe it,” Ms. Norbury says.

“It’s literally right there!” Cady yells.

“No, yeah, I can see that!” Norbury replies. “What I can’t believe is… you dreamt me! As a big, round bad guy!”

“Sorry!” Cady says. “Kinda took on a life of its own!”

Ms. Norbury sighs before turning to the class, watching in horror as the storms grow again and Neverbury looms ominously just outside.

“Okay class, we’re just teachers,” Cady’s science teacher says. “And we are here to inspire the answers in you! And there’s some damn good inspiration outside. So, this is now a pop quiz. We need to defeat that lady! Any ideas?!”

Regina raises her hand, surprising everyone.

“Wow, Regina. Yes?”

“I can take her,” Regina says boldly, running outside.

“No, you can’t!” Cady yells, grabbing her hand and pulling her back in. “Not by yourself. We need another idea.”

“No dumb ideas, come on,” Ms. Norbury says.

“Maybe we can freeze her circuits,” Regina suggests.

“That’s literally the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard,” Ms. Norbury replies. “We’re in Illinois in August. Next?”

“No, that might work!” Cady says. “Regina, where are your friends?”

“Gretchen and Karen?”

“Yeah, where are they?”

“Uh… English, I think?” Regina says with a shrug.

“Then come on!” Cady yells, grabbing her hand and hauling her out the door. The English wing is on the other side of the school.

“I am in heels!” Regina yells.

“Take them off, then! This is kind of an emergency!” Cady yells back, breaking ahead. Regina pauses to snatch her shoes off before barreling after her.

The teacher looks up in shock as a very disheveled Cady and Regina suddenly slam the door open. Cady points at them and pants, “We need… Gretchen and… and Karen.”

They already seem to have known this was coming, and stand to join them. Regina says, “Take off your shoes now, save yourselves. Just come on.”

When they make it back to the science room, Cady reaches into her pocket.

“Those jeans are horrific, by the way,” Regina says. Cady waves her off as she pulls out the crystal heart.

“Is this yours?” Cady asks, holding it up to show Gretchen and Karen. They both look at it and each other in shock.

“I’ve only seen it in my dreams,” Karen says quietly, gently running a finger over it.

“Me too,” Gretchen murmurs.

“It can freeze anything,” Cady murmurs, looping it gently around their intertwined hands and fastening it.

“Even time,” they both say at the same time before looking at each other with a small smile.

“Let them out,” Cady commands. Everyone parts like the Red Sea to make way for them to get outside. “Do you know what to do?”

“Yes,” they say. “Stand back.”

Cady watches with a smile as they approach Neverbury casually and each hold up a hand. They still hold each other with one, and fire a beam of ice at Neverbury with the other. Neverbury freezes solid, and then shatters. Snow begins to fall around them.

Everyone cheers and runs outside to play in the magical snow, except for Cady.

“You’ve made me a great teacher today, Cady,” Ms. Norbury says.

“How did I do that?” Cady asks. “I punched a hole in the school.”

“A good teacher learns as much from her students as they learn from her,” Ms. Norbury explains. “You’ve awakened something in me. That being said, I’m going to start looking into a different career.”

“I don’t blame you,” Cady chuckles, before Ms. Norbury pushes her outside to join her peers. Cady heads out aimlessly, not really knowing who to join. Until she sees Sharkboy and Lavagirl standing with her parents. “Sharkboy! Lavagirl!”

“Hey!” They both say. Lavagirl catches Cady as she barrels into her and slams their lips together.

“Oh, um…” Cady says sheepishly when they break apart. “Mom, Dad, I’m bi.”

“After today, we’re just glad you’re alive,” her dad chuckles, ruffling her hair. Cady throws her arms around both of them, and smiles as they squeeze her tightly. They feel like a family for the first time in years.

—————-

epilogue

“The following story is true,” Cady begins. “It may have began as a dream, but as we all saw last month, when you let your dreams become reality, reality becomes a dream.

“Sharkboy and Lavagirl both live here now. Sharkboy rules the ocean as king, and is searching for his mother. He says his instincts tell him he’s getting closer every second, so he’ll find her soon. And Lavagirl lives with me. We just have to keep the heat on max.”

That gets a chuckle from everyone.

“She gets to live her dream too, don’t worry. She rules all of Earth’s volcanos, a source of light and life for all of us. Just from a distance. So… so she can be with me. My advice to you all is… dream your best dreams. Then work to make them real.”

The end.

---

hope you enjoyed!

I'm sorry it wasn't the most romantic, but i did my best to make it fit with the story. we'll be back on earth next week :))

thanks for reading!

lots of love,

ezzy

[gumnut-logic]

We’ll Be Home For Christmas 4.5

Title: We’ll be home for Christmas

Day Four – Five Billionaires and No Wives – Part 5 Prologue | 1.1 | 1.2 | 2.1 | 2.2 | 2.3 | 3.1 | 3.2 | 3.3 | 3.4 | 3.5 | 4.1 | 4.2 | 4.3 | 4.4 | 4.5

Author: Gumnut

29 Apr - 11 May 2020

Fandom: Thunderbirds Are Go 2015/ Thunderbirds TOS

Rating: Teen

Summary: The boys can’t fly home for Christmas, so they have to find another way.

Word count: 4259

Spoilers & warnings: language and so, so much fluff. Science!Gordon. Artist!Virgil, Minor various ships, mostly background. A little angst in this one.

Timeline: Christmas Season 3, I have also kinda ignored the main storyline of Season 3. The boys needed a break, so I gave them one. Post season 3B, before Season 3C cos I started this fic before we saw it.

Author’s note: For @scattergraph​​​. This is my 2019 TAG Secret Santa fic :D

I’ve been staring at this too long and it is late. I hope I don’t regret posting this. Especially as Alan misbehaved and threw an unplanned scene at me.

Many thanks to @i-am-chidorixblossom​ @scribbles97​​​ and @onereyofstarlight​​​ for reading through various bits, fielding my many wibblies, and for all their wonderful support.

Disclaimer: Mine? You’ve got to be kidding. Money? Don’t have any, don’t bother.

-o-o-o-

He didn’t sleep long.

Virgil was woken so they could drag him onto A Little Lightning. Scott marshalled him out of his wet clothes, into a shower and quietly redressed his healing incisions. Lunch was demanded and a sandwich shoved into his hand. Coffee was denied him and orange juice substituted.

He found himself dozing at the table.

Mel and Sam were invited for lunch aboard the boat. Gordon was busy being host, but never quite seemed to be very far from Virgil.

Sam mentioned the whales several times, but Gordon shut him down and at no point did he have a chance to corner Virgil.

Virgil felt sorry for the cetacean biologist. He must remember to talk to him at a later time. Once he had finished processing today himself.

The whole experience was otherworldly. He didn’t quite know how to express it. It was as if the music had shape and form, his mind’s eye producing a kaleidoscope of imagery sculpted by sound.

And it meant something.

He knew it meant something, but he couldn’t decipher most of it. Bits were missing, the shapes fragmented, but he did feel the emotion that travelled with it. Multidimensional, the song communicated in a way he wasn’t capable of fully comprehending.

“Virgil, you should go to bed.”

Scott again.

“Mmm-hmm.”

“C’mon.” A hand landed gently on his shoulder.

“Mmm...” Musical shapes danced in his mind and he realised there was colour. Greens, violets and yellows. Patches torn from an unseen spectrum. It was frustrating to not be able to pull it all into focus and understanding.

“Virgil?”

It would be interesting to try and paint. Yes, maybe that would be a way to understand it better. He visualised forming those shapes with pencil and brush. Three dimensions...no four. They shifted according to time.

Hell. So confusing.

But he could try.

“Virgil? You with me?”

Huh? He blinked and looked up at concerned blue eyes.

A sigh. “Just thinking.”

“I can see that. You need rest.”

He did, yes, but he also needed to think, to doodle, to work it all out. He caught Scott’s eyes. “Sit with me?”

A blink. “Of course.”

There followed farewells, Virgil pre-occupied throughout. At some point Mel kissed him on the cheek, but he barely registered it. Sam said something but was interrupted by Gordon. Virgil felt completely spaced and somewhere at the back of his thoughts he was embarrassed at his lack of response and manners.

Scott didn’t leave his side.

Gordon made excuses and apologies.

John was speaking to Eos...which meant their guests must have left. Man, he was out of it. Brain overload.

Alan had concerned blue eyes so much like their eldest brother.

The yacht’s engine starting up scared the living shit out of him. It shattered his mindscape with aural static, those careful shapes disintegrating.

“Hey, hey, Virgil. It’s okay.” Scott had his hand on his arm again.

Virgil’s heart was thudding in his chest. A blink. A calming breath. A moment. He forced calm. “I’m good.”

He was, really. He just had a lot to think about.

“You sure you don’t want to sleep?”

“I’m sure.” But there was something he did want to do. “Come up front with me?”

Scott frowned at him.

“I just want to feel the sun on my face, the wind in my hair.” And get as far away from the engine as possible.

“Sure.” A pause. “But you’re sitting down.”

“Sure.” Virgil pushed himself to his feet.

They found a niche on the bow, enough to sit comfortably with some back support. They could see Gordon frowning at them from the cockpit.

Virgil caught the thought and had to stop himself from laughing out loud. Apparently, he was as much a flyboy as his big brother.

The boat was moving at a reasonable speed, Gordon, no doubt, wanting to get home fast due to the day’s events. That and now they were behind schedule and had quite a long, final stretch to make it before sunset.

Raoul was little more than a smudge on the horizon already. Virgil stared at it a moment before turning and facing the wide ocean ahead of them that ultimately would contain their island. Wind streamed through his hair.

“It will be good to be home.”

Scott didn’t hesitate. “Definitely.”

Virgil snorted. “Missing your ‘bird?”

“Missing land.”

“You spent last night on land.”

“Not the right land.”

Virgil raised an eyebrow at that. “You seemed quite happy with at least one of the inhabitants.”

That prompted a smile on his big brother’s face. “Fishing for details?”

“Some. Not too much.”

Scott turned to him and shrugged. “It was fun. Mel is an interesting woman.”

Half a smile. “I’ll give her that much.” A curious eyebrow. “See it going any further?”

Scott’s expression was thoughtful. “Maybe.”

“Invite her over for Christmas.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Why not?”

“Late notice.”

“You have a Thunderbird.”

That thoughtfulness increased and a slight smile curved his brother’s lips.

“Invite Sam and Liam while you’re at it. We owe them cake. Alan ate theirs.” And Virgil owed Sam an explanation.

That frown returned. “You sure?”

“Sure. The more the merrier.” A snort. “Hell, have them over for a few days. It will give Melissa the chance to check out our ecosystem, she’ll be ecstatic.” A pause and then quietly. “It will give me a chance to speak to Sam about...” A fractured image came to mind and he realised it meant whale. An indrawn breath. Oh god. One concept. He understood something. He could not reproduce it. It wasn’t just sound. It was something else. A combination of visual and auditory. How? His throat froze up. Hell.

“Virgil?”

“I...” The concept tantalised him. His fingers itched for his pencils, his paints and his piano all at once. How?

How?

He swallowed and realised his heart rate was up again. “I...need my tablet...and stylus.”

Scott stared at him a moment before standing up and making his way aft.

It was a sign of how preoccupied Virgil was that his tablet appeared almost immediately in his hands.

He didn’t hesitate. His fingers pulled up his drawing app, his stylus connected with the surface and lines appeared.

Lines. Curves.

Shapes.

Interwoven.

No.

Not right.

The stylus squeaked across the screen.

More lines. More shapes.

The screen became black with them, so he added colour. It splashed and bled across the lines.

“Virgil.”

It still wasn’t right.

Frustration stirred and he groaned at the image.

A blink.

Sound.

He scratched more lines, but the moment of inspiration faded.

He couldn’t do it.

“Virgil.”

It wasn’t a single dimension. It was many. Visual, sound and...and...

Emotion.

How?

It all came back to that question.

He let the tablet and stylus drop, clenching his eyes shut and rubbing his face with his hands.

How the hell could he communicate emotion?

-o-o-o-

John squirrelled himself away. Eos had contacted him to give her report, but there was something in her tone that told him not to take it on an open line.

So, he waited until Gordon got the boat moving and Scott had corralled Virgil before retreating to his cabin for some privacy.

“Did you receive a clear enough signal?”

“Affirmative, John. The upgrade to Virgil’s comms worked perfectly. I am confident I received the full spectrum of the whale’s emissions.”

“Any conclusions?”

“Tentative. And at least an explanation why Virgil is so relaxed in their presence.”

John frowned. “Show me.” The tablet in his hand, the same waterproof device he had clung to as they were tossed from the boat, lit up and a hologram hung above it.

It was a series of graphs mapping sound waves, several equations scrolled down one side. The frown on John’s face deepened. That was some seriously complex math. “Talk to me, Eos.”

“Multiple carrier waves interact synergistically to create other waves which also carry data. This is truly a multidimensional sound.” The waves on several of the graphs split up to show their originating structures.

“Can you decipher a language?”

“Not a simple language, no. Initial assessment leads me to believe this is at least partially a graphical language. The mathematics reveal vector information is part of the transmission.”

John’s eyes widened. “Any interpretation?”

The graphs disappeared to reveal fragmented moving lines and clouded shape. “These images are calculated using a section of song the mother whale was singing to Virgil.”

“Can you see a pattern?”

“Not presently, however, I am still analysing. One aspect to be considered is this...”

A second grouping of graphics appeared beside the main display. This was smaller and lacked colour, the lines far more fragmented and the whole composition was fogged with what appeared to be static. “What?”

“That is Virgil’s vocalisation while he was in contact with the whale, if it is run through the same mathematical algorithm.” The two graphics were suddenly overlaid together. Virgil’s section fit like a piece of a puzzle into the larger composition, as if it was an unfinished section awaiting colour.

“How? Why is Virgil picking this up, but the rest of us are not?”

The graphs returned along with one new one. “I retrieved Virgil’s EEG readings from his last head injury.” Lines lit up in red on several of the graphs. “Several of the carrier waves create a binaural beat. The result is that at least part of the whale’s communication is nestled in frequencies that resonate with human brainwave activity. Virgil’s, in particular, appear to align well. I hypothesise that this facilitates his receptivity.”

John stared at the lines denoting Virgil’s delta wave production. A flick of his fingers and the graph overlaid that section of the whale’s vocal output. Delta waves were well known for their calming effect and their influence on sleep. It would definitely explain his brother’s thrall and lethargy during each encounter.

The red lines glared at him.

An exhaled breath. “So, no chance of a translation?”

“Not any time soon. The transmission is extremely complex and I have yet to reveal all of the carrier signals, much less decipher the entire data stream.”

Eos fell silent a moment and John stared at the graphs, watching them move in rhythm with each other. “Why hasn’t this been discovered before?”

“Recording equipment. Of the recordings I have examined, only three have managed to record enough detail to even hint at the complexity. Today’s samples are of the highest resolution ever taken. Further clarity would be achieved with multiple recordings.”

Which meant more encounters. The sight of Virgil singing on the whale was eerie and unsettling. He may have held back Scott from going to Virgil’s assistance, but the truth was he had to hold himself back just as much.

“Is it causing Virgil any harm?”

Eos didn’t answer immediately and it gave John the chance to ramp up his concern just a notch.

“I cannot locate any medical effects beyond a tendency towards inducing sleep due to some of the frequencies involved. I would recommend further monitoring, however.”

“I agree.” An indrawn breath. “Thank you, Eos.” He blinked and realised exactly what his daughter had just done. His eyes widened just a little. “Continue analysis. This is an important scientific discovery and you have done some excellent work.”

“Really?” Her voice was ever so hopeful, ever so young.

“Of course. I’m looking forward to working on this with you.” There was definitely work to be done and soon.

“Thank you, John.”

“No, Eos, thank you.”

Her giggle bounced across comms. Sometimes so old, yet always ever so young. Her youth was always surprising as was her need for guidance. “Could you please send me Virgil’s vitals, both during the encounter and now?”

“Yes, John.” More numbers appeared above his tablet. Fortunately, they were all healthy numbers, though Virgil’s heart rate was up somewhat. A flick of his fingers and Scott’s vitals appeared beside Virgil’s. Both brothers’ heart rates echoed each other.

John would have felt like he was spying on his family, but he did it so often for reassurance on Five that it now barely registered. Another flick of his fingers and he directed Five to focus on A Little Lightning. He found his eldest brothers on the bow of the yacht. Virgil appeared to be drawing on his tablet.

“He is well, John. I can see no after effects from his encounter.”

John wondered if he could coerce his brother into an EEG exam when they made it home. Roping Scott in would probably manage it, but the stress on both of them would be considerable and he hesitated to aggravate either of them.

Perhaps further down the track, or if Virgil gave him any reason for concern.

God, he hoped not.

A sigh. He had probably jinxed himself last night acknowledging the vacation they were on. Since he woke up to Virgil’s snoring early that morning, things had changed. Sure, surfing with Gordon had been fun, but seeing Scott stressing over Virgil on the beach and the events that followed right up until they returned to A Little Lightning had been anything but relaxing.

One of Virgil’s piano sonatas started playing over his tablet ever so softly.

Despite himself, he smiled. “I’m fine, Eos.”

“You’re worrying again. This is not good for your hair production.”

He blinked. “What?”

“Several sources state that stress can disable the pigment production in human hair follicles, resulting in white, often termed ‘grey’, hairs. I believe this is a negatively viewed characteristic and I have noted that your elder brothers have encountered this issue already. It causes distress, therefore it should be prevented.”

Another blink. “Both of my older brothers have dark hair. Grey becomes very apparent in contrast.”

“It will turn your hair pink.”

“What?” This conversation was ridiculous. “It is a natural ageing process. There is very little that can be done about it.” A breath. “I’m not vain, Eos.”

She didn’t answer immediately. “But your brothers are?”

“My brothers are my brothers, Eos.”

“Well, that makes little sense.”

“Just accept them as they are.”

“Is it possible to accept them any other way?”

“No, not really.”

“Then that statement is redundant.”

“Eos.”

“Yes?”

Frivolous distraction, Eos-style. She had become quite adept at it. Moving his thoughts off worrying topics. A sigh. “Thank you, Eos.”

She didn’t answer immediately, but then...

“Did you know Virgil dyes his hair?”

-o-o-o-

Scott watched his brother draw somewhat manically on his tablet. The resultant art was far from what the artist usually produced. This was all sharp lines and angles followed by random blob shapes. At first it was all in pencil, but then Virgil started adding colours. There was no pattern, it was all haphazard and, worse, it appeared to be aggravating him.

“Virgil.”

His brother groaned in frustration, his eyebrows creasing his face in half and swallowing the scar on his forehead.

“Virgil.”

But he suddenly stopped, realisation on his face morphing into disappointment and more frustration.

The tablet and stylus slipped from Virgil’s hands and Scott was hard pressed to catch them.

But he did.

Virgil’s eyes were scrunched shut and he rubbed his face with his hands.

Scott glanced at the mess on the tablet and shoved it to one side, turning to his brother. “Virgil, talk to me.”

“I can’t.” It was small and hoarse.

“Can’t what?”

“Can’t...express, explain...trying to understand...it’s a mess...”

Okay, this was well outside his realm, but he knew Virgil. He slipped off his seat and knelt in front him. Gently he pulled those hands away from his brother’s face to reveal worried brown eyes. “Stop. Take a breath.”

Virgil stared at him a moment before the soft command was obeyed and he drew in air. Those eyes closed briefly and his brother’s shoulders dropped. “Sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry about.”

“I ruined it again. I’ve stressed you out.”

“This time, I don’t think you had much say in it. Mamma Whale was very determined to say hello.” A small smile. “I think you have a music fan.”

Virgil snorted softly and Scott knew he’d broken through even if just a little. “She definitely wanted to talk. I just wish I knew what she wanted to say.”

“You picked up something, though, didn’t you?”

A quiet sigh. “She was happy and surprised.” Virgil looked up and stared out into the ocean, but Scott could tell he wasn’t seeing the waves.

He wondered what he was thinking.

“How could you tell?”

The frown returned. “I don’t know.” A pause caught in thought. “The sound makes me feel? The sound is...everything.”

Virgil stopped speaking, lost again to whatever was in his head.

Scott swallowed and tried a different tactic. “I think you made a mistake.”

Brown eyes snapped to him immediately. “What?”

“You should have asked Mel out. Lost opportunity, bro.”

Virgil stared at him. “What?”

“She had the hots for you, Virg, and you ignored her.”

“Last time Raoul erupted? She tried to climb me like a tree. Kay had to drag her out of the cockpit.”

It was Scott’s turn to stare. “Really?”

“She was very exuberant in her thanks.”

Scott smiled. “She knows what she likes.” And yes, admittedly, she was very good at climbing, after all Scott was taller. His smile widened.

Virgil’s stare intensified until plain, straight human communication got the message across and his brother groaned. “God, Scott, TMI.”

Total innocence. “I didn’t say anything.”

“You didn’t have to. The image is radiating off your skin.”

Scott sniggered.

Distraction achieved.

“Well, I did say you lost an opportunity.”

“That’s fine, Jungle Jim, she’s all yours.”

Scott shrugged. He could always hope. She certainly knew how to press all his buttons. “Still think we should have her over for Christmas?”

“Yeah, Gordon will love it.”

“What about you?”

“I need to speak to Sam.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I want to.”

“Okay.” A breath. “Just take it easy.”

His brother nodded and returned to staring out at the ocean. “It will be good to get home.”

Scott stood up slowly and sat back down beside his brother. “Yeah, it will.”

So good.

-o-o-o-

“Are we there yet?” Alan’s voice was particularly whiny, no doubt, specifically designed to irritate.

Gordon turned away from the helm to look at him. “Do you see an island in front of us?”

Alan shoved his hands in his pockets. “Nope.”

“There’s your answer.”

It had been quiet on the bridge for the last few hours. Gordon was grateful for the time to think. A Little Lightning cut through the water ever so smoothly. It was satisfying to see the swell pass by knowing that they were one wave closer to home.

Gordon loved being out on the ocean. It was his native element. But at the moment he longed for the safety of Tracy Island. That last encounter with the whales had its own sense of wonder, but until he understood exactly what the effect was on his older brother, he wasn’t entirely comfortable.

It was weird and unnerving.

And it worried him.

“They been out there long?” Alan was staring at the two men sitting on the bow of the boat.

“Yeah, couple of hours at least.”

“Do you think Virgil is okay?”

No. “Yeah, he’ll be fine.”

Alan eyed him. “I’m not a kid anymore. I don’t need protecting. Since when have you become one of them?” He pointed at his eldest brothers.

Gordon sighed. “I’m not. It’s just...I don’t know, okay? It was weird and amazing and I need to talk to him and he was spaced out and his singing was...”

“Weird?”

“Yeah.”

There was silence for a moment, but Gordon knew it wouldn’t be long.

Sure enough.

“Do you think Virg can talk to whales?”

“I don’t know, Alan.” It was said on one long exhale.

“He communicated something, didn’t he?”

“I don’t know, okay?” And that was the problem. There was so much they didn’t know. Gordon was itching to get into the in-depth literature, to find out more and fill the gaps in his knowledge so he could help his brother. He would be speaking to Sam as soon as possible, but for the moment, the priority was getting Virgil home.

“Some vacation.” It was said with a pout.

Gordon sighed and shoved on the autopilot before turning to his younger brother. “Alan, out with it.”

“What?”

“What’s bugging you.”

“I thought that was obvious. Virgil going zombie and singing to a whale is enough, don’t you think? As if appendicitis wasn’t dramatic already.”

Gordon stared at Alan. “He is going to be okay.”

“You don’t know that. You just said so!”

“He sang to a whale, Alan. They are one of the gentlest creatures on the planet. If he was going to choose a weird conversation partner, he chose well.”

“But you don’t know what it did to him!”

“It didn’t do anything to him.”

“You don’t know that!”

“Alan-“

“Don’t lie to me!” The words shot across the bridge and slapped Gordon in the face.

Voice calm and quiet and not a little hurt. “I have never lied to you, Alan.”

Blue fire glared at him. “You haven’t? Not even to protect the littlest one? Scared I might burst into tears.”

Gordon stared at his little brother. “What is it?”

“Have you?!”

“No! I’ve always told you the truth. You know that!” He let out an aggravated breath. “What is wrong, Allie?”

“What do you think? First you, then Virgil, and now this!”

“What?!” Him? Virgil? Oh...shit. “Virgil is okay. Hell, I’m okay. Allie, we are all fine.”

“That’s what he keeps saying!” Alan shoved a finger in Virgil’s direction. “He’s always fine, even when he’s not. You’re all the same. Big tough guys, nothing is ever wrong. You could be bleeding to death and you’d ‘be fine’. What is wrong with admitting you’re hurt? What is so wrong with being hurt that you have to hide it?”

Gordon opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

“Well, you know what? I’m scared and I’m sick of hiding it. Virgil nearly fell out of the damned sky with his infected appendix. It could have killed him. And now he’s scaring everyone with this whale thing.” A harshly indrawn breath. “Don’t tell me Scott’s not worried. I’m not stupid.”

Two steps and Gordon was in front of his brother, his hands landing on shoulders that were just that touch higher than his own and tighter strung than Virgil’s piano. “Allie, he’s going to be okay.”

“You keep saying that.”

“Because it is true.”

Something unintelligible and Alan was wrapped around him like a limpet. Gordon held his little brother. It was unusual and alarming. Alan usually went to Scott for comfort. Gordon was for pranks and cohorting. “It’s okay to be upset. It’s okay to be worried. You can cry if you need to.”

“I’m not going to cry!” Alan pulled away and glared up at Gordon.

“What?”

“Now you think I’m the baby that needs to bawl on your shoulder?”

“What?!” The hell was going on? Some conscious part of his brain was aware of the yacht’s engine, the high speed they were travelling and the fact autopilot on water was vastly different from the sky and he really should be paying attention. But Alan needed...something. “Allie, you’ve lost me. What do you want?!”

“I want Virgil to be okay. I want you to be okay.”

“We are okay!”

“Then stop scaring me!”

“I didn’t scare you!”

“You....you terrified me, Gordon. You terrified all of us.”

“I didn’t do it on purpose.”

“Still hurt.”

“Aww, Allie...” What could he do?

“And now, here you are ‘okay’, and it could happen again, and...” A shaky swallow. “I’m scared, okay? You’re fine. Virgil’s fine. But you’re not, and...I’m not okay...okay?”

This time it was Gordon wrapping his arms around his not so little brother. “I’m sorry, Allie.”

Muffled into Gordon’s shoulder. “Not your fault.”

“No.” But he should have realised it was still messing with his little brother. Alan was the least experienced of them all. Gordon had seen things, done things, things that hopefully Alan would never have to experience. Quietly. “I think Virgil is a little freaked out. I don’t think he understands what happened much more than we do. But we are going to find out. I’m going to speak to Sam. We’re going to do some research and we will find out why the song affected Virgil the way it did. But he is okay, Alan. Tracy’s honour. A little shaken up. A little worried. But he is okay. We’ll work through this like we always do.”

His brother’s arms tightened around him just that little bit more, but Alan didn’t say anything.

A rustle of fabric and Gordon looked up to see John standing in the doorway staring at them with a hint of worry in his eyes.

“John?”

Alan startled and pulled away immediately. Turquoise followed his every move.

A slow blink and John stepped onto the bridge. “Eos is deciphering the song. We have a good idea as to why Virgil reacted the way he did.” It was said calmly and factually for such a great discovery.

“You do?” Alan found his voice first.

Those eyes latched onto Gordon’s. “We do.”

The helm beeped.

A blink and Gordon was back at the wheel, scanning their position. A mass of volcanic rock and tropical reef appeared on navigational sensors.

A familiar chunk of rock and reef.

Tracy Island.

Home.

-o-o-o-

End Day Four, Part Five.

[mcdanhoe]

hawaii five-0 college au:

- danny is a pre-law student who wants to go into criminal law and when you first meet him you think he’s intimidating af but he’s actually a walnut who knows Every Single vine ever and annoyingly does all of those stupid tik tok trendy dances but he makes tea whenever he sees his friends are pulling all-nighters because he’s up every night studying anyway. and he’s infamous on campus for making insanely good weed brownies and wears over-sized sweatshirts when he studies even though people tease him for how small they make him look. 

- steve mostly keeps to himself but has a close friendship with junior, who he met in a statistics class. he binge watches parks and recreation and unironically drinks seven cups of coffee a day but would eat seven burgers if he had the money. he doesn’t realize how much attention he attracts at first, but people quickly realize that he’s quiet and rather reserved, and will fluster and fumble if you try to flirt with him, and it doesn't End Well.

- steve meets danny during junior sophomore year in a boring class they’re both required to take but he doesn’t actually become friends with him until there’s a big frat party and steve loses junior for a hot minute and he’s super worried because junior is drunk and then twenty minutes later he finds junior on a couch and danny is taking care of him and giving him water and in the end, danny insists on going with steve to make sure that junior gets home okay and they strike a conversation and end up talking about everything and nothing on the steps of junior’s dorm building. danny makes fun of steve for being quiet and serious but steve secretly enjoys it, even when danny teases him for being a marine biology major.

- the two of them become friends, texting each other when they’re not together (danny sends steve vines because he is Seriously Uneducated) and steve tolerates danny being a feral idiot who is way too loud for public spaces and danny loves making steve blush and it’s rather beautiful how quickly they fall for each other but they both think the other doesn’t feel the same way, of course.

- kono, who is danny’s friend from high school, lives with chin off campus. she studies chemistry and physics (double major, because shes awesome) and chin studies criminal justice with a minor in classics and they’re danny’s best friends but they get along with steve right away.

- junior introduces tani to the group and tani and kono hit it off, and then they have this whole squad.

- late night study sessions, lunches at iHop (its the only place within walking distance of steve’s dorm and they’re all lazy around exams, Sue Them), kono and junior and steve work-out together at the school gym, the whole group forcing themselves to listen to chin’s excited rants about some gay greek shit, danny’s baking skills are used extensively particularly for cannibas-related reasons.

- in the summer danny and steve both stay on campus for summer classes and they’re now dorming together and steve is watching danny mix cookie dough and sing coldplay songs ironically and he just marches up to him and kisses him because he is so in love with this smol blond asshole who turned his college years into something that he’ll never forget.

- it turns out that literally their whole squad of friends had a bet pool on who would make the first move between danny and steve and junior and kono win because they know steve is actually a Chaotic Bastard when he wants to be.

- kono/tani and danny/steve double dates but theyre all broke college students so they go to a diner and get the lunch specials but then they get bored without the rest of the group and they text in the group chat, and the rest of the squad storms the diner and take over. every time. every date. it’s kinda sad, really.

- steve graduates a year before danny but is doing grad school and working with a professor on-campus a few times a week so he rents an apartment and danny doesn’t even officially move in, he just dumps his clothes at steve’s place and neither of them talk about it. 

- chin meets malia in his required art history class and he immediately asks her on a date and they become an aesthetic couple on instagram, to no one’s surprise because they’re beautiful together. danny makes fun of them, mostly because he can’t take a selfie for shit. he runs a meme account instead. steve makes a finsta that danny doesn’t know about and follows the meme account even though danny think he’s sly about it. steve cries from laughter at the captions for each post, which is usually subjected around steve being a “dumb, hot idiot.” danny figures out it’s him a year later.

- tani and kono move in together literally before danny and steve get together because they’re gay, Brenda. they already have adopted a dog and even sent out a Christmas card together, with the dog, because once again, they’re lesbians, Harold.

- junior flies solo all of college and eventually ends up rooming with chin, focusing on his math major and he’s the One Friend in the group who always is juggling three jobs and an internship and still has hobbies and friends. 

- kono and tani get married literally straight out of college. no explanation needed.

- steve cries when danny gets into columbia law school, and he also cries when chin passes the police exam thing. they get married when danny graduates law school. he brings eddie home and danny refuses to talk to him for two days. he still likes it when danny makes fun of him for being a marine biologist.

[pierrotdameron]

Dafne Keen does not much look like Lyra Belacqua, at least not as Philip Pullman describes her in His Dark Materials. In Northern Lights, the first book of the trilogy, she is “like a half-wild cat”, with dirty fingernails, green eyes and grubby blond-ish hair. Keen, who is half British, half Spanish and lives in Madrid, is darker and is already the master of an intense glare, as anyone who saw her alongside Hugh Jackman in the Wolverine swansong Logan will know. When we meet, in a London hotel, she has the self-possessed cool of a total pro, even at 14. But there are plenty of Lyra-esque flourishes that make it obvious why she got the part.

She was almost 12 when she finished filming Logan. She had heard about the BBC/HBO adaptation of His Dark Materials, then in its early stages, and sent in an audition tape. But she didn’t hear back. “I thought, never mind, I’ll just carry on with my life,” she says. “Which is when I got stung by the jellyfish.”

The production team had finally replied, asking her to make another tape. Keen was on holiday in Puerto Rico. “I thought, right, I’m going to have a chilled-out swim and then I’m going to get ready. I suddenly felt this thing on my face and then it started stinging and then it expanded all over my face. I ran to my mum and I went, ‘Mum! Is it really red?’ My mum went, ‘No it’s fine.’ And then she went, ‘Oh no, it’s not fine.’” Her face was red and swollen but she had to do the tape. “So my audition is with a jelly-face,” she smiles.

The next step was to meet Ruth Wilson, who plays Mrs Coulter, one of the best evil characters in children’s literature. “I was sitting in the waiting room with 20 other girls,” Keen remembers. “I was thinking, oh god, they’re all blond. I don’t physically look like this character, and these girls all do. I went in, shook hands with Ruth, and five minutes later, she looked at me and said, ‘You know, you have the same eyebrows as me.’” Fans of the books will know that this is a big thumbs up. Days later, she began rehearsals, with Wilson and puppets. In Pullman’s books, people have daemons, an animal manifestation of their “inner self”, which lives alongside them. Because the daemons on screen are CGI, the actors shot their scenes with puppets to make their interactions as authentic as possible.

When Philip Pullman writes, he isn’t trying to bring down the church, he’s bringing down the system

Naturally, Keen is practised at describing what her own daemon would be, were this world to have daemons in it. “Mine is quite easy to figure out, because it’s what everyone called me on set. Everyone calls me Monkey.” In the books, daemons change form until their human reaches adulthood, when they settle as one fixed animal. Keen particularly liked hers as a pine marten.

We meet the morning after the world premiere of His Dark Materials, which was the first time Keen had watched it. “Everybody had seen it apart from me! I’m really busy filming season two, so I had no time to watch it. I had Philip Pullman right next to me, and I was like, oh god! But I think he liked it.” Did he offer his approval? “His wife came up to me and was really lovely and was saying I was the perfect Lyra. I was really happy to hear that.”

Keen had not read the trilogy before she auditioned. “Now I’m a massive, massive fan. As soon as I read the books, I knew this was a good message to the world, and it’s important that we have stories about young girls, because there aren’t many,” she says. At the premiere, Jack Thorne, who wrote the screenplay, likened Lyra to Greta Thunberg. Though she does not know it, the future of the world rests on Lyra’s shoulders, and she has to fight tooth and nail to defeat the forces that wish to suppress free will and independent thought. Keen approves of the Thunberg comparison. “I am genuinely in awe of that girl.”

There have been various adaptations of His Dark Materials over the years: a Radio 4 series, a play at the National Theatre and the 2007 Hollywood attempt, The Golden Compass, with Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig. It was supposed to be a trilogy, but only the first was made – and Pullman’s theme of an abusive authoritarian religious body was watered down almost beyond recognition. The television series seems more comfortable with its source material, and its Magisterium, the governing body of the Church, is portrayed as a fascist regime.

In 2007, the Catholic League called for a boycott of The Golden Compass, despite the religious references being excised, and the Vatican also denounced the film and Pullman’s writing. Keen had seen it – was she aware that this new version might be controversial, given the backlash the movie attracted? “I thought that was sad, but I understand why they had to do it,” she reasons, diplomatically, of the decision to soften the book’s themes. “But I think people are reading too much into it. When Philip writes about the Magisterium, he’s not bringing down the church, he’s bringing down the system.”

Keen was born and raised in Spain and is bilingual. Her mother María is Spanish, and as well as being her acting coach is also an actor, as is Keen’s father Will. He has a part in His Dark Materials, as Father MacPhail, part of the Magisterium faithful. “He is terrifying,” says Keen. “He always plays bad people. I don’t know why because he’s so nice. I genuinely think it’s because he’s bald and has green eyes.” She practically grew up in a theatre rehearsal room, because of her parents, but she thought she would be a biologist, like David Attenborough. “Then I found out you have to study biology, and to do that you have to study maths, and I went, mmm no, I’m not doing that. I hate maths so much, you can’t even imagine.”

A friend of her mother’s was making a short film, and needed a child for it, so Keen gave acting a go. She loved it. She did a series in Spain, The Refugees, alongside her father. (“He was playing my evil father, yes. Always got to give it the psychopathic twist.”) She picked up an agent, who put her forward for Logan, and she got down to an audition with Jackman. “In the waiting room, once again, there was this perfect LA beautiful blond girl. I was just, like, a small, scrappy Latin girl. I always think it’s not going to work out for me, and then it went really great.” She auditioned with Jackman, then asked if she could try again, only this time she said she’d like to improvise the scene. She was 11. “My heart was beating big time,” she says. “I thought, I’m just going to dive in and ask them, and they loved it, so I was lucky.”

Jackman remembers the audition well. “[Director] Jim Mangold looked at a lot of actresses for Laura. When he told me about Daf, I was hopeful, but when we tested together, I was blown away,” he says over email. “She was every inch Laura. When Jim asked her if there was anything more she wanted to show us, she said, ‘Can I improvise?’ That’s the actor that got the part and who you see on screen.”

“Hugh is the nicest human being,” she grins. “I used to call him the human jukebox because he was always singing. Lin does the same thing.” Lin is Lin-Manuel Miranda, who plays Lee Scoresby in His Dark Materials. He got Keen tickets to see his smash-hit musical, Hamilton. “Two VIP Lin-Manuel Miranda guest tickets. I felt like such a diva.” On set, she would find herself singing the songs from it, but was too shy to sing when he was there. When Miranda had finished shooting, they all went for a meal to see him off. The bartender recognised him, and put My Shot on the stereo. “Me and Lewin [Lloyd, who plays Roger] were like, we’re not throwing away our shot, we’re singing this song.” They all joined in. “I’ve got videos of me and Lin singing it.”

Right now, Keen is preparing to go back to Wales to film season two, which loosely adapts The Subtle Knife, the second book in the trilogy. The third season, which will take on the astonishingly ambitious The Amber Spyglass, may take a little longer to pull together. Still, she is happy to live as Lyra for a while yet. She has taken plenty of her away from the experience already. “She taught me to speak up. Be bold, be brave, be yourself. Don’t follow rules, because rules can be useful, but they can be very stupid and pointless,” she says – sounding very much like her Lyra herself.

[tervenish]

Radical Feminist/Gender Critical Questions

I've noticed some contradictions throughout GC/radfem spaces and I just wanted to write them down and talk about them.

PLEASE NOTE: I know someone is going to interpret some of these as if I believe some horrible way, or distrust some people, but genuinely I’m just trying to ask questions and have a discussion to try to make sense in this terribly confusing world.

A big problem I have with self-ID laws is that it’s all just based in “because I said so.” But when I tell someone I’m a lesbian, I can’t share my feelings so that they, too, feel them. I have no way to prove that these are my feelings. All of our morals are just “because I think it’s right/wrong.” I don’t understand how to move forward with this problem.

Don't we, too, seek out studies that confirm our beliefs? There are studies that say yes but there are also studies that say no. Each side pays attention to the ones they want. How do we remedy this?

(1/2) We call out the no-true-Scotsman argument a lot in genderist circles, but there was that time a feminist organization partnered with conservatives. What happens when a group that calls themselves radical feminists or even gender critical, and do something like that? Saying "that's not real radical feminism" feels like the Scotsman thing. Not every radical feminist agrees with the same things. Julie Bindel doesn’t believe bisexuality is real. Some radfems think women can never reach equality if they’re around men.

(2/2) One explanation I came to was that when we hear “a real trans person/trans ally wouldn’t do that” is that that is referring to a person, whereas “that’s not radical feminism” is referring to an ideology that, theoretically, has defined principles. However, as I said, it doesn’t really... At this point, I feel like nothing can be set in stone besides math, and even that has theoretical areas.

We say TRAs show their faults when they don't respond after we ask them things like "so define a woman" or whatever, but there are times when I choose to stop talking even after some significant point they made (for example, one said "I didn't choose to be bullied for this") often bc I'm either not in the mental head space to handle a debate or I've just gone blank on how to respond. I also can’t perfectly explain everything I believe. I believe in the forces of gravity and friction, but I can’t explain them. So... is that really an argument?

Why don't we hear more about transmen getting hurt in male bathrooms? Statistically, women have been harmed more in mixed-sex bathrooms... right? I know female-only bathrooms are important, but I still can't articulate why I'm uncomfortable without simply saying "the history of male violence toward women." And then of course people can call me paranoid and point out transmen doing fine?

Again, I don’t now how to explain why I value female-only spaces without sounding paranoid or saying women are weaker than men. On one hand, AFAIK it is true on an average of physical ability. But on the other hand, do people have a point when they say we’re teaching women to view ourselves as victims? There has to be a balance of pointing out violence and risk patterns without kinda enforcing learned helplessness.

Re: "men do express their emotions but they do it with violence/anger" -> "not all men do that" ...I'm confused because it's true, I rarely see men slamming doors or punching people bc they're upset, but when they do, they're criticized for it bc most people recognize that as shitty behavior. So... how true is this? How much of our own personal witnessing of these experiences counts toward “enough” to make it a generic statement or not? What else can we say to describe men and their relationship w/ emotions?

How far can we say "men do ___" when, duh, not every single man does, but... what constitutes "enough men"? I'm just thinking about this bc my brother gets upset when I make broad statements and he genuinely doesn't fit the male stereotypes, and then I feel stupid because I can't really back up my judgments without just gesturing vaguely to "the history of male behavior." I'd just like to be able to have a more complete response, y'know?

(1/2) We say "cisgender privilege" doesn't exist because women can't oppress men, but then there's the intersectional axis of, for example, white women over black men. White people oppress people of color, and that doesn't change when it's women vs. men. So what do we call this?

(2/2) Secondly, well, a transgender person does face different kinds of adversity that I don’t because I’m not trans. This is a thing. But misdirected misogyny and homophobia are also a thing. Perhaps what they're referring to as "cis privilege" is just gender conforming privilege? I don’t know.

When women talk about hating men, we say it's because men have done so much shit to us. Isn't that similar to someone saying "it's okay, he was bullied/abused so you can't be mad"? How much is mistreated “enough” to say this is okay?

It’s horrifying to me to think of a 13-year-old or a 9-year-old getting put on Lupron or some other experimental puberty blocker, but how do we define children’s autonomy? What about other health problems? Are they allowed to consent to cosmetic treatment after a disfiguring accident? Or would we just say “you should learn to love your body as it is”? I know they’re not truly the same thing, but where is the line? What about a child getting treatment by pills for Schizophrenia? It’s all so complicated.

There are so many arguments that Intersex people do not represent a sex spectrum, and there are lots of other arguments that say they prove that human sex isn’t 100% binary. On one hand, of course it’s binary because of how we reproduce. But on the other hand, how do you define who fits into male/female? A woman with high testosterone, no breasts, no uterus/ovaries, etc. is no less a woman, but why? Women with CAIS have XY chromosomes and testes but are considered female. And what about chromosomes beyond XX and XY? Even if I were to acknowledge that an everyday individual can’t truly define that and that we should leave it to the biologists, we still have to have a decision to make votes and arguments.

Please be respectful if you answer. There are harmful people in every circle, and we’re all just trying to do what we think is right.

[clairebear1298]

Hey look, it only took about a year this time to get anything written. I think I’m improving. And naturally, I chose Mother’s Day to publish a story primarily about fatherhood. What can ya do.

Story is also available here on FFN. Hope this was worth the wait.

“I think that some of these stories adult Sheldon is telling us through young Sheldon are reflections on ‘now that I have my own children, maybe I’m seeing that world through my dad’s eyes more clearly than I had.’ Those thoughts had been on my mind for awhile.”

-Steve Molaro, TV Guide

Three paces to the left. Turn. Three paces to the right. Turn. Repeat. And repeat, and repeat, and repeat, like the regimented ticks of the clock before it predictably strikes the hour.

He had promised Amy he would talk to him, and Sheldon Cooper never broke a promise. He wasn’t scared. Why on earth would he be, of someone a fifth his age and nearly two feet shorter than him? No, he simply wanted to be sure he handled this with… precision. Considerate but firm, generous but fair, yet still stealthy enough to get what he wanted in the end. Like Batman. Yes, exactly. Now he just had to put himself in the shoes of the greatest detective on earth to figure out just how to get this child to see things his way and then-

“Dad, just come in already. I can hear you thinking from in here.”

So much for being stealthy.

With a trepidation he could literally feel in his old, deteriorating bones (he was now over fifty, for goodness’ sake), Sheldon pushed the door open to find his son in the same position he always did, sprawled across his bed and scribbling furiously away in his notebook. Sometimes it was a story, other times a drawing, occasionally even a few lines of music. Not once, however, has it been an equation.

“Um, hi Matthew.” Swallowing hard, Sheldon scanned the room for a place to sit, but there was hardly a patch of a surface that wasn’t covered in books or loose sheets of paper. He remained in the doorway. “Do you think we could talk about what happened downstairs?”

Matthew sighed, but obediently closed his notebook and sat up to face his father. “I’m sorry for getting upset.”

Sheldon blinked. While true that Matthew had always been the sweetest, most agreeable of all his children, even this quick of an acquiescence was unexpected to say the least. Especially considering the subject of his son’s earlier blowup.

“Oh.” Sheldon stepped fully into the room and began to dig through the small mountain on Matthew’s desk chair, methodically organizing the papers by size, type, and date as he went. “Well, thank you. That’s very mature of you.”

“That doesn’t mean I’m changing my mind.”

Spoke too soon. Honestly, what kind of eleven-year-old was this uncompromising and stubborn?

Finally reaching his goal, Sheldon sat himself down on what felt like solid gold after all that pacing but was actually cheap, Target-bought plastic. His knees were practically level with his chin, but still he turned with the pride of a king to stare at his subject from across the bedroom. Matthew gazed resolutely back with large blue eyes just like his own, but that was where the resemblances stopped. Be it physically, with his cherubic gold curls and small stature, or personally, with his natural people skills, father and son could not be more different. If anything Matthew took after his mother- so much kindness and patience with just a hint of that headstrong spunk- but even between them there were some key differences. Most notably, their interests.

“Look, you’re still young,” Sheldon said, though even as he spoke the words tasted flat in his mouth. “I may have discovered my calling at an early age, but you can take as much time as you need to explore which branch of science will best suit you.”

“But I have decided,” Matthew protested. “Psychology.”

Sheldon couldn’t help but scoff. “Psychology doesn’t count. It’s just the humanities disguised as science.”

“Dr. Hofstadter is a psychiatrist,” Matthew pointed out.

“Yes, but she’s also a reputable neuroscientist, like your mother.” Then a thought occurred to him. “Maybe you can visit the lab with your mom and see the day-to-day life of a biologist.” It was no physics, but at this point Sheldon would take what he could get.

But Matthew shook his head, turning away. “I don’t want to experiment on animals or slice up human brains for science. I want to help people.”

“But science does help people, Matthew,” Sheldon argued. “It advances our understanding of the world so that-“

“I know, I know, you probably rocked me to sleep with that line when I was a baby,” said Matthew, still not looking at his father. “But I don’t want to be holed up in an office or a lab by myself. I like talking to people, helping them at a personal level. Not through some published paper that most of them won’t read, anyway.”

“But don’t you want to do something that impacts the whole world?” Sheldon asked. “Going into therapy might help a handful of people at best, but with the hard sciences you could make discoveries that help everyone. Those odds are much better, don’t you think?”

“You just don’t get it…” Matthew trailed off, then released a hard sigh and folded his legs into his body. “Whatever, it doesn’t matter. I’m not smart enough to by a physicist, anyway.”

That one sentence felt like a stab to Sheldon’s heart. No child of his was ever allowed to be stupid.

“That’s not true,” he said, a tad more harsh than he’d intended. “I know you’ve been struggling with math and science this year, but I could tutor you after dinner every night to get your grades back up.”

“I really don’t think that’ll help-“

“Clearly the American public school system has been failing you. I knew we should’ve gone private, if only your mother had listened-“

“Dad, you just need to give it up-“

“No!” Sheldon shot to his feet, scattering papers as he went. “You are my son, and you will not be a disappointment to me.”

The words seemed to suspend and permeate the air between them, slowly edging out the oxygen until Sheldon thought he would suffocate. Matthew didn’t look much better, going white as a ghost and staring back at his father with wide, frightened eyes. Then little by little his face began to crumble, and his eyes began to well up, until he finally collapsed fully into tears.

Sheldon had been wrong. This was what a stab to the heart felt like.

“No. No, no, no, no, no,” Sheldon chanted, crossing the room to his son. “I didn’t mean it. Please don’t cry.”

But cry he did, and without a second thought Sheldon sat on the bed and pulled Matthew into his arms. The boy clung to him and soaked his father’s shirt with his tears, but Sheldon didn't mind. Well, he did mind, but that wasn’t what mattered just then. Though Sheldon had never been a cuddler- even with Amy those times were few and far between- ever since he was a baby nothing soothed Matthew more than being held by his mother or father.

Sheldon waited until Matthew’s sobs settled into the occasional hiccup before bracing himself for the thing he hated most doing, and always would.

“I’m sorry, Matthew. I was wrong.”

“No, you weren’t,” Matthew said with a sniffle. “You and Mom are world famous Nobel winners, and no matter how hard I try I’ll never live up to that. Jane will, and maybe Laurie, but I won’t. I’ll always be the idiot black sheep of the family.”

Sheldon swallowed hard. He might have little to nothing in common with his son, but feeling like an outsider in your own family was certainly something he could understand.

“Listen to me.” Sheldon pulled away enough so he could look Matthew straight in the eye. “You’re not stupid. You’re not an idiot. You’re intelligent in ways I can never dream of.”

“Like what?” Matthew asked, timid but with the barest hint of hope in those blue eyes.

Sheldon hesitated. Not because he couldn’t think of anything, not even close, but he knew that saying them would be waving the white flag. By telling Matthew where his talents truly lay, he would be forced to admit that his own offspring, his eldest child and only son, would never follow in his own footsteps.

An image flashed through his head of a man with kind eyes and a warm smile, nodding along as his child prattled on about Aristotle and the science behind thunderstorms. It was a look that nine-year-old Sheldon wouldn’t have recognized, but fifty-one-year-old Sheldon certainly did. It was the same look Amy would give when one of the kids went on about nothing, or explained in vivid detail something she knew better than they did. That look of playing dumb that on Sheldon would look simply condescending, but on his wife the love would always shine through. Maybe that’s what his father used to do for him.

Sheldon felt a sudden new set to his shoulders. If his father could encourage his son to pursue something he himself had no interest in, let the child chase his dreams while putting his own aside, then so could he.

“You’re creative,” Sheldon began. “I could never begin to write or draw the way you do. I think that might be why I love comics and movies and shows so much. It’s something I could never do myself, but I can still admire the work of a genius in any form.”

For the first time since entering the room Matthew genuinely smiled, spurring Sheldon onward. “And you have academic intelligence, too. You’re a fifth grader who reads better than most high schoolers, and no one knows history like you do.”

Sheldon reached over to brush Matthew’s wild blond hair out of his face, never tearing his gaze from those vibrant blue eyes. “But most of all, you have emotional intelligence. More than anyone else I know. You can always tell when Laurie’s upset about something, or just how to get Jane out of her shell to have some fun. You’re a great kid, a fantastic older brother, and the best son I could ever ask for. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”

Least of all me. But Sheldon swallowed back that moment of guilt and self-pity and kept the attention on his son. It’s what his father would have done.

Matthew’s smile had widened to a full-on grin, and he launched himself back into their embrace. “Thanks, Dad. I love you.”

Sheldon felt a sudden lump come to his throat, but he fought through it as he laid his head against his boy’s hair. “I love you, too.”

They spent a few more moments holding each other before Sheldon decided that was about as much sentimentality as he could take. As they broke apart, Sheldon reached over to grab one of the papers on Matthew’s desk. Maybe he could give this whole ‘playing dumb’ thing a try. “Now, this story you’ve been working on. When the Martians invade the pizza planet and gorge themselves to death, is that meant to be humorous or a social commentary on dietary consumerism?”

Close enough.

[sbgridconsortium]

Comings and Goings

Tom Rapoport, Ph.D. HHMI, Harvard Medical School

Cell biologist Tom Rapoport may be best known for studies of how proteins get in and out of a convoluted compartment inside cells called the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). But his personal backstory rivals his scientific achievements as a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator at Harvard Medical School (HMS). His life has been intimately shaped by major political persecutions and social upheavals of 20th century Europe and America. Here’s the short version:

“My father was born in Russia into a Jewish family that emigrated during the Russian revolution to Vienna,” Rapoport wrote in a 2010 essay. “[In] the 1920s, [he] became a member of the Socialist party and later of the Communist party. He studied medicine and chemistry. While he was on a fellowship in Cincinnati, Ohio, the Nazis took over Austria and he could not return. In Cincinnati, he met my half-Jewish mother, who had emigrated from Nazi Germany and restarted her career as a pediatrician. I was born in Cincinnati, but 3 years later, in 1950, my parents became targets of the anti-communist campaign of Joseph McCarthy and returned to Europe, initially for a year in Austria. Because my dad was blacklisted, he could not find a job in Austria and we moved to East Germany, where he joined the faculty of Humboldt University in East Berlin. I was 4 years old when we arrived, and I stayed in Berlin until age 48.” In 1995, Tom and eight other members of his lab boarded a plane to Boston, where he has happily settled. He returns to hike in the Alps every year with at least one of his children.

SCIENCE BEGINS AT HOME

Rapoport credits his parents for his interest in science. He recalls stimulating discussions at the dinner table. His success in the Math Olympiads enabled him to go to a special high school for math and science. He developed a love for chemistry, thanks in part to Linus Pauling’s General Chemistry.

Rapoport attended Humboldt University on a special research program that combined undergraduate work with a PhD. East Germany’s PhD program also allowed two doctoral students to team up. Halfway through the seven-year program, he switched to biochemistry, putting him in an institute headed by his father. Rapoport ultimately earned two pairwise postgraduate degrees, but not before accidentally leaving a faucet on, flooding three floors of the institute, including his father’s office. His father made him renovate all of the damaged spaces.

The main publication in 1974 from his second doctorate remains his most-cited paper. The thesis, in partnership with Reinhart Heinrich, “described in quantitative terms the importance of an enzyme for the overall flux through a metabolic pathway and for the regulation of metabolite concentrations,” Rapoport recalls. The theory, now known as “metabolic control analysis (MCA),” was independently developed by another team at the same time and is lauded as an early contribution to the field of systems biology.

Moving to another institute in East Berlin, Rapoport became interested in protein translocation during a project to clone insulin mRNA. Fish, he learned, had larger Islets of Langerhans than mammals. On fish days, lab members lined up around a table to harvest the fresh carp parts they needed. (The rest of the fish was sold cheaply to grateful people lined up in front of the lab.) As part of that work, the group determined the first protein and gene sequences in East Germany.

MEMBRANE INS AND OUTS

Rapoport now wondered how a polypeptide’s zip-code like signal sequence is recognized by the membrane and how the polypeptide then moves through the membrane. With his students, Rapoport reported the first evidence that Sec61p forms the essential protein-conducting channel through the ER membrane for newly made proteins. Rapoport realized the similarities with the related bacterial SecY channel and proposed a unifying concept of protein translocation in 1994.

Science was difficult in East Germany, because of the isolation and lack of resources. When Rapoport made a rare trip to the United States, the FBI called each university host after he left to verify he was a “real scientist.” After the Berlin wall came down in 1989 and Germany was reunified in 1990, Rapoport suddenly found his grant applications funded in full. Yet, even the best and brightest East German scientists faced residual prejudices from their West German colleagues, who were now largely in charge at newly merged universities. Rapoport was denied a professorship at the new institution because of his past engagement in communist East Germany.

At Harvard, Rapoport continued to advance the field of protein translocation. In three main projects, his group has been working out how proteins cross into the ER membrane, how misfolded ER proteins are ejected back (“retrotranslocation”) into the cell cytosol for destruction (“ER-associated protein degradation, or ERAD”), and how the ER gets its shape. The ER is crucial for producing certain proteins and most of the lipids needed by other cell organelles. It occupies 10 percent of a cell’s volume and accounts for nearly half the membrane found in a typical animal cell.

While he insists much remains to be learned about ERAD in particular, Rapoport recently added a fourth project, the mechanism of protein import into peroxisomes, to attract students and postdoctoral fellows who want to make an impact on a less-studied biological problem. Peroxisomes are involved in energy metabolism and detoxification, and their malfunction results in serious human diseases.

In a nascent project, Rapoport also recently became interested in lung surfactants after glimpsing “amazing EM pictures” of the onion-like lipid bilayers in aveolar cells. Premature babies need surfactant spray, because their lung cells cannot yet generate surfactant.

“Every project has something to do with membranes,” Rapoport says. “My lab is known for using purified proteins and reconstituting a process with purified proteins. We start out with some murky cell biology problem – how proteins get across the membrane, how the shape of the membrane determines its function— and eventually understand it at molecular level.”

SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME

To learn these mechanistic details, the lab solves a lot of structures, often in collaboration with others. One highlight is the 2004 X-ray structure of an archaebacterial homolog of the Sec61p complex (with Stephen Harrison, a fellow Howard Hughes investigator at HMS). In a major result in 2016, they captured a structure of the active channel with a translocating polypeptide chain being pushed through.

Above: This crystal structure of the active translocon adds important molecular insights about how proteins are inserted into the channel to be ferried through the bacterial cell membrane. Here, the translocating polypeptide (green) is being pushed through the hourglass-shaped SecY proteinconducting channel (brown and purple) by the SecA ATPase (blue). The analysis was published in *Nature* in March 2016. Courtesy T. Rapoport.

For proteins that do not fold correctly in the ER and retrotranslocate back to the cytosol, Rapoport’s group is working on a comprehensive picture of the ERAD pathway in yeast. In 2017, electron microscopy (EM) gave them a first glimpse of how the crucial Hrd1 channel allows proteins to cross the membrane. Ideally, they will catch Cdc48 ATPase, with its ring-like structure, pulling a misfolded protein back through the membrane.

The lab has EM collaborations with Tom Walz at Rockefeller University, Maofu Liao at HMS, and Christopher Akey at Boston University and has recently built independent EM capabilities as well. In June 2016, Rapoport decided he wanted to do more lab work, starting with crystallizing molecules too small for EM analysis. He found it a breeze: One-third of his trays grew crystals. His philosophy is to tackle the biological problem first, being flexible about learning whatever method is required to answer the question.

Rapoport, who turned 70 in 2017, anticipates a thriving lab for at least another decade or so. In this, too, there is family precedence. After all, his mother finally passed her PhD oral exam at age 102 in 2015, 77 years after her thesis on diphtheria was labeled with a yellow stripe, as Jews would soon be forced to wear yellow stars on their sleeves, and her oral exam canceled.

Looking ahead to where cell biology is heading, Rapoport advises young people to go into organ-specific cell biology, rather than trying to work on the fundamental processes of his generation. “Every cell type in a higher organism has a particular biology,” he says. “Major discoveries will be made and will be more medically relevant than in the past.”

-Carol Curzan Morton

[marlaluster]

The devil changed some comments of some lady in a story about people being forced to work part time after I was watching a video of her n she occurred as playing a willing victim of the society as if this was the eternal n absolutely truth here n couldn't change. ....

The devil changed a comment where the lady first was saying something like, "I go to sleep at night thinking about numbers." "I did it," the devil said of it changing the lady's comment. But after I was watching it n the lady n others in the video like the lady's kids seemed like they were fake or insincere about not being able to have things a different way than being at the mercy of stuff n not doing okay as if it was the absolute eternal truth here n there was no other way things could be, after I saw that the devil changed the lady's comment to, "I don't want to go to bed at night thinking about numbers." I think there was another part also changed of the entire comment. Just a bit ago I heard in my mind that the devil isn't allowed to make someone occur here as a victim n advocate at the same time. "Maybe she's not going to go on," the devil said. It was starting to say Maybe she's a real person. "No," the devil said. "But I don't knowwhat to do," the devil said. But additionally the devil was already saying earlier before it changed the comment that the lady was a crisis actor, meaning a staged commentator, etc. It was also making her face looked bad, i think it was doing that to pretend it was losers that were part of the arranged order as not disagreeing or something. The devil was just doing something weird, acting like someone else was trying to tell me the other part of or maybe supposedly according to it the only reason it was messing up the lady's face. It was pretending someone was saying that it's supposed to be the truth that people supposedly look bad or something like it's trying to make my face look bad. It was seeming to do that similarly to that blind girl that had gouged her eyes out n saying she was going to be a marine biologist. But the lady in the story w the part time job n struggle, she n also that blind girl are such propagandists supporting the system. It's so horribly pathetic. Uncle Tom losers. But then the devil altered the lady's tone in the story after I was seeing it was something apparent like that she was faking or seemed fake because she was acting just sad n just serious mostly like it was just the way it was n she was just at the mercy of the stuff n can't protest or anything. "We have too much information on these people," Tumblr said, it seemed to be Tumblr. But it seems it's becoming apparent w this story, other stuff that it looks (or is able to occur as) more outed as fake here. Link to story I'm referring to here, which is also in latest clipboard emptying posts: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/millions-of-americans-forced-to-work-part-time/ Excerpt from story w the altered quote the devil did (still of a story it apparently made up) after I noticed the lady was very noticeably characterized as resolving herself to or settling for being at the mercy of the existing society structure here where she's forced to work n can't not be laid off n not getting enough pay to survive (or can't not be forced to work), etc like it was something ultimately okay or that made sense as permanent thing to continue even though she wasn't doing well: "I want to go to sleep at night and not have numbers running through my head," she says. "How much money do I have until my food benefits run out? How much do I have left on my car? How do I feed my kids today? I always have math in my head, now." --- end excerpt w the lady's altered comment ---- I think the devil changed the quote again since I last mentioned it to try to make the ladt sound like less of an advocate for herself or for things to be not bad for herself. "I did not do okay I changed it," the devil said. We think it is said it's still the same tone. I'd say it is. "It's not allowed still it said. Thats the devil. They can't say they're okay to be okay n be okay here," the devil said. "Thats someone that would not be okay here," the devil said. I think it's supposed to be someone that is supposed to be who would do anything to survive -- or really not survive but do anything to go on/continue on -- is supposed to be who would be okay here. It's supposed to be someone that would not really live: someone that would do anything to live or go on, it's supposed to be a Uncle Tom.

[liliannorman]

Soggy coastal soils? Here’s why ecologists love them

Katrina. Harvey. Laura. Sandy. Maria. For some people, these might be merely names. For others, they’re reminders of utter devastation. Some of the most damaging storms to hit North America bear these names. Each one did billions of dollars of damage to buildings, roads and other property. People died in their floodwaters. Many coastal areas have yet to recover.

Hurricane Katrina’s high winds and coastal flooding destroyed this beach house in 2005.ParkerDeen/iStock/Getty Images Plus

A storm’s destructive power stems from its winds. Powerful gusts not only blow objects around, they also churn up massive waves called storm surges. This is a rapid rise water that rushes onshore, sweeping away trees, cars and almost anything else in its path. Storm surges can flood buildings, trapping people inside or forcing them onto roofs, where they wait for rescue.

What if there were a way to slow those storm surges, to prevent them from scouring the coastline with their raw power? Turns out, there is — if we allow nature to do its thing.

Coastal wetlands hold the key to damping big waves. They provide flood control and critical habitat for young fish and other marine creatures. They help stabilize climate by trapping carbon. And they’re critical for coasts dealing with rising sea levels.

Standing up to storms

Wetlands are more than just wet land. They are ecosystems of plants and animals thriving in areas that flood at least part of the year. Coastal wetlands are often grassy marshes. Warmer areas may support mangroves. These trees grow right along the coastline, their long, stilt-like roots stretching down into the water. Those roots provide critical habitat for fish, shrimp and other marine animals. They also trap silt and other sediment, protecting it from erosion and building up the shoreline.

Anna Armitage is a marine biologist at Texas A&M University at Galveston. There, she studies coastlines along the Gulf of Mexico. Hurricanes regularly hit this area. She and her team have created study plots with randomly placed patches of marsh and mangrove. As temperatures have been warming, mangroves have been spreading. The team wanted to learn about the ecological changes that take place when mangroves overtake a marsh. But in 2017, their plots took a direct hit from Hurricane Harvey. A category 4 storm at the time, Harvey’s winds raged up to 217 kilometers (135 miles) per hour. The event offered a unique opportunity to study how different types of wetlands survive a big storm.

Explainer: Winds and where they come from

Marshy wetlands came through quite well, researchers found. The storm surge covered the grasses completely. This protected them from damaging winds. “There was erosion right along the shoreline,” Armitage says. But just 10 meters (33 feet) in, the marsh plants were fine. If they were submerged for longer, the plants might have drowned, Armitage notes. But Harvey’s storm surge didn’t last long enough to kill those plants.

High water also protected the shorter, scrubbier mangroves. But trees more than 2.5 meters (8.2 feet) tall, which grew right along the water’s edge, weren’t completely submerged. High winds broke branches above the water and stripped off their leaves. Those areas began to regrow within two months of the hurricane. But they still haven’t completely regrown. “It appears that full mangrove recovery will take longer than two growing seasons,” Armitage says.

Mangrove roots form a thicket along the waterline, which supports a wide variety of marine life. During storms they can also diminish an oncoming surge of high waves.Damocean/iStock/Getty Images Plus

Both marshes and mangroves help reduce inland flooding. “Mangroves may reduce [storm] surge more because they are taller,” Armitage says. “But their height also makes them more vulnerable to storm damage.” The benefits are about equal between the two types of wetland, she concludes.

Coastal wetlands are essential for flood protection during big storms, says Siddharth Narayan. He’s a coastal engineer at East Carolina University in Greenville, N.C. He and a team of researchers from around the world used a computer model to understand just how much of a difference marshy wetlands make. (A computer program, such a model uses math to predict how a complex real-world event might unfold.)

Explainer: What is a computer model?

They ran their program using Hurricane Sandy as their model storm. This superstorm hit the Northeastern United States in 2012. It killed 72 people and its flooding alone caused $50 billion in damage.

The computer model looked at property damage that Sandy caused along the Atlantic coast from Maine to North Carolina. The team ran the model twice: first with wetlands as they exist now, and a second time with all these wetlands removed. Without those wetlands, the U.S. East Coast “would have experienced $625 million more in damages,” Narayan now reports. Areas upstream from coastal wetlands also benefited in the model — even if they no longer had nearby wetlands. That’s because coastal wetlands would sop up the excess water, slowing the surge upstream.

Wetlands could actually cause a few areas to flood more, according to the model. That’s because homes here had been built between the wetlands and ocean. Those homes wouldn’t get any benefit from wetlands soaking up the storm surge. What’s more, the wetlands would prevent some of that water from moving inland, so flood levels around those homes would rise higher.

Wetlands under threat

Storms bring extremely high tides and large surges of water that can overwhelm seawalls. Wetlands can sop up some of that bonus water to limit flooding — and in some cases even prevent it. Moorefam/iStock/Getty Images Plus

Narayan’s model didn’t include wetlands as they existed 100 years ago. Those were much larger than today’s. Coastal wetlands have been shrinking around the world for the last century. Anything that interrupts the way they interact with their surroundings can pose risks to them, Narayan says. That can include changes in the flow, temperature or saltiness of water, he notes. That last one is a major problem. If too much freshwater — or salty seawater — gets into the wetlands, it can kill off plants that need just the right amount of salt to thrive.

Wetland sediment also erodes from the constant wash of waves. In the past, spring floods replaced that missing sediment, Narayan says. Swollen rivers carried sediment downstream, depositing it along the way. This rebuilt the sandy base for wetlands along rivers. It also built the broad deltas that form where rivers meet the sea.

But people have altered rivers to prevent floods. Dams hold back sediment, trapping it higher up the river. Riverbanks are often reinforced with concrete, to prevent them from eroding. These changes have stopped the essential flow of nutrient-rich sediment to the river’s deltas and the wetlands they support.

Other threats to wetlands are more direct. People fill them in to build homes, restaurants or hotels. They use chemicals that kill weeds and pests. These can then wash downstream, harming plants and animals along the way. Building roads can cut off the flow of water. Severe storms can kill wetland plants by carving channels that let seawater move too far inland. Other times, Narayan points out, storm surges can be surprisingly helpful, depositing sediment that helps wetlands extend out into the ocean.

This salt marsh along the Delaware coast allows movement of both fresh- and saltwater through the grasses.McKinneMike/iStock/Getty Images Plus

To survive, coastal wetlands need space to shift, Narayan explains. Wetland plants need specific amounts of salt in the water — too much or too little will kill them. That creates another problem: As Earth’s climate changes, sea levels are rising, pushing saltwater farther inland.

Wetland plants respond to rising sea levels “by growing vertically and also by shifting landward,” Narayan says. They try to “stay in the same tidal range that they’re used to.” But this requires space, he notes. And in many places, human-built barriers prevent a wetland’s ability to move. “As a result, these living wetlands end up getting squeezed against a hard shoreline and drowned,” he says, as the seas rise.

Explainer: Why sea levels aren’t rising at the same rate globally

Exactly how sea-level rise will affect coastal wetlands has been a bit of a mystery. But a recent study by Australian researchers offers hope. Kerrylee Rogers is a coastal scientist at the University of Wollongong. It’s in New South Wales, Australia. Rising seas can play a role in fighting climate change, her team finds. They do this, Rogers explains, by forcing coastal wetlands to store carbon below ground and within the living plants.

The team compared the carbon stored in the sediments of 345 coastal wetlands. They were on every continent except Antarctica. Some were where sea level is rising rapidly. In others, water levels had been largely stable. Where seas had been rising, they found, coastal wetlands collected more sediments and carbon. “As long as the plants can survive, the sediment will continue to store carbon as seas rise,” Rogers concludes. “This will help coastal wetlands to adjust to sea-level rise.” It also could help slow climate change, she notes, by storing more carbon where it can’t be released into the air.

Bringing wetlands back

After Hurricane Sandy in 2012, water flooded — and badly damaged — the Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge beach road in Delaware, seen here.USFWS/Flickr

People around the world are starting to recognize the important role of coastal wetlands in flood control. And in supporting the fisheries that feed us. Many organizations are now working to restore coastal wetlands. However, those efforts face challenges. Some new wetlands haven’t worked as well as the wetlands they replaced. But with every setback, researchers learn what doesn’t work — and what does. This helps guide their next efforts.

Allowing the flow of water through coastal areas to return to normal seems key. That’s the lesson from Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge. Home to sand dunes and marsh, it sits along the coast of Delaware. From 2006 to 2012, a series of storms broke through the dune barriers. Saltwater washed into an area that had been freshwater only, killing 4,000 acres of vegetation — an area equal to more than 3,000 football fields. In 2012, Hurricane Sandy blasted through the remaining dunes, completely flooding what had once been a thriving ecosystem.

See how restoration of Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge in Delaware revitalized devastated wetlands, helped limit flooding and invited wildlife back.

The next year, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service began studying how to best rebuild the refuge. After studying computer models of natural water flow — both saltwater and fresh — they begin a massive restoration project. Bartholomew Wilson led the effort at this government agency.

His team dredged sand from Delaware Bay, using it to rebuild two miles of beach. They dug channels through the former wetland to let both freshwater and salty tides flow through it as they had in the past. Mud from the channels built soil up so that it was higher than the water line. On those mud flats, a team of 12 people planted more than a half million marsh plants to help anchor the sediment in place. A plane dropped about 4,500 kilograms (10,000 pounds) of seeds to further boost plant growth. And a new road along the shoreline now includes a bridge and four pipes that let tidal waters flow freely into the wetland on the other side.

Dredges at Prime Hook in Delaware brought up mud from beneath the floodwaters, spraying it onto nearby areas. This created channels for water flow.Richard Weiner/USFWS/Flickr

It was a massive project — and that was the biggest challenge, Wilson says. “We had a beach being rebuilt with one very large dredge and six bulldozers.” Those moved enough sand to fill 424 Olympic swimming pools. At the same time, three smaller dredges dug 25 miles of channels through the wetlands. “This is the largest restoration project ever on the East Coast,” Wilson says. It’s also one of the most successful, he adds.

By 2018, Prime Hook was a thriving ecosystem again. Many plant and animal species again call it home. These include bird species such as piping plovers, least terns and American oystercatchers. All three species are endangered, and the restored wetland provides habitat that may help boost their populations.

Endangered American oystercatchers rely on coastal wetlands for food and nest sites.Rabbitti/iStock/Getty Images Plus

What’s more, the area has held up well to storms. “We had four storms last year in a few-week period,” Wilson told Science News for Students. And Prime Hook experienced “only minor erosion,” he says. No hurricanes like Sandy have yet tested the area’s resiliency. But one nor’easter brought a near-record storm surge — and it had very little impact on the restored refuge. (Nor’easters are a type of big, intense storm that can strike the northeastern United States.)

Wetland restoration benefits human communities, too. “Before the project, several of the roads leading through the refuge would flood every month or two,” Wilson says. The project finished in 2016. Since then, these roads haven’t flooded once.

Prime Hook is just one example of a restored coastal wetland. Many others are also underway around the world. Organizations and government agencies often work together, says Narayan of East Carolina University. They might move a road to give nearby wetlands more space. Or they might nourish them with sand or mud that, for a while, had been prevented from reaching the area. Adding culverts (openings) under roads can allow tidal flow in and out of a wetland that’s been disconnected from the ocean. It’s a big task, but many teams are up to tackling it.

“People are trying to figure out how we can work with nature to improve the health of these wetlands,” Narayan says. There is no one right answer on how to do this. And the solutions will vary with the site. But in the end, he says, such efforts can pay big benefits to both the environment and human communities.

Soggy coastal soils? Here’s why ecologists love them published first on https://triviaqaweb.tumblr.com/

[xyliane]

hit me with your best shot

summary: there’s supposed to be a moment when things just click and it’s obvious you’re drift compatible: maybe it’s in the drift, maybe it’s in the mess, maybe it’s talking, but it’s there. for gon, it hits him like a blow to the face. because that’s what it is. it’s a blow to the face.

notes: uh yeah happy pacific rim day, here’s a ficlet about boys who hit each other in the face in the name of partnership and stuff. welcome to jaeger x hunter (because jaeger means hunter, and–look it’s a pun). killugon (well, pre-killugon.), pacific rim au, 2500 words.

—

It feels like it’s been ages since they started training. At least, the Jaeger Academy officials call it training. And there is some of that: workouts that leave Gon an exhausted pile of trembling limbs on the floor, written exams on engineering and ocean biology and urban geography and math (those Gon has to take again). All some variation on the training soldiers ran at the refugee camps for islanders, something to keep kids and teenagers busy and maybe set them on track to join whichever military has been order to keep the camps in order. Almost everyone who started the program has dropped out, left in the dust by 14 hour workouts or 10 hour welding sessions.

But “training” is more than that. Gon’s noticed most people try to be standoffish, ignoring his attempts to be friendly. And that’s okay, too. Not everyone wants to open up. There are a few who have—Leorio, who is sticking through because he might already be a doctor but he wants it to mean something more than loans and patch jobs for the wealthy; Kurapika, who’s kind and amazing and skilled but refuses to say where they’re from and sometimes seems so cold. But for the most part, many of the trainees that have stuck around seem more determined to prove themselves than to reach out for others.

Gon doesn’t like that. He might be the youngest person here, but even he knows that piloting a jaeger means piloting with a partner. Someone you trust, or love. Why keep to yourself when, if everything goes right, you’re going to have to trust everything you have to someone else?

They’ve been put together with the rest of the remaining trainees, a scattering of people Gon’s never seen before outside of brief glimpses in the mess. Most of them will probably make it into the program in some capacity, just like the people in Gon’s. And Gon’s already been approached by different staff, seeing if he wants a position in Outreach or Engineering, or once by a marine biologist named Dr. Mackernasy who wanted Gon’s help with recovering island wildlife. They’re good jobs, ones that would let Gon earn money and find a safer spot for Aunt Mito than the camps she’s living in now.

But they’re not what Gon wants. Gon wants to be a jaeger pilot, just like his dad. Just like Kite. He doesn’t want to save the world—or well, he doesn’t not want to save the world: Aunt Mito does live here and so do Gon’s friends—but it’s more important he find Ging, show Ging that Whale Island is still alive even if it’s only swamp and ruins now.

“Next!”

Their newest training instructor is Biscuit Krueger, an imposing blonde woman as tall as Leorio who looks strong enough to bench press a whole jaeger and dressed in pink ruffles that can’t possibly be good for combat. She tosses a wooden stick at Gon with a little too much force. He catches it but rather than heading out to the mat, turns towards his friends, one who’s standing and the other who dropped off the bench to melt onto the tiled floor. “Are you okay, Leorio?”

“He’s fine,” Kurapika says. Their staff leans against Leorio’s shoulder, almost like they’re not using it to support the both of them. They did much better than Leorio, who was all flailing limbs and brute strength and had been knocked off the mats twice, but their partner had still landed a few blows. There’s a particularly nasty bruise just over their eye, peeking out from beneath blond bangs.

Gon frowns. “Are you sure?”

“Mmmghnffsl,” Leorio says. His whole upper body is covered in a series of bruises and small cuts, and Gon’s pretty sure his legs are just as bad. At least Kurapika’d been smart enough to ask for his glasses first. “’m fine. Lemme at em.”

Kurapika stifles a laugh and pokes Leorio with their stick again. He doesn’t even move except to groan again.

A smooth wooden stick gives Gon a sharp poke to the back of his head. He spins back to the ring, holding the growing lump and glaring at the boy who’d poked him. “Hey!”

“Hey dumbass. We don’t have all day,” the holder of the stick drawls, crouched on the side of the raised mats. “You want me to kick your ass or you going back home?” Messy white hair poofs and curls in a mess and casting shadows across his face, but it’s easy to make out a bored-looking scowl. He bounces his stick against the shoulder of his uniform tank top, pale arms streamlined and strong. It doesn’t look like anyone’s landed a hit on him yet.

Gon feels a grin grow. No one’s managed to hit him yet, either. “Yeah!” he says, and hops up onto the mat.

“You want me to kick your ass,” the other boy says flatly.

“Well, I don’t think you will, not in a fight like this,” Gon says, and his sparring partner bristles in challenge.

“It’s a spar, not a fight!” Bisky says, hands on her hips. “This will determine who moves on to the next round and who goes home. Take it seriously.”

“Sure, hag,” the other boy says, and ignores how the trainer glares murder into his skull. He can’t be much older than Gon, eyebrow raised slightly as he falls into a stance. “How old are you?”

“Si—eighteen,” Gon says, copying his opponent’s movement. He’s still not used to fighting with staffs, least of all when he’s trying to remember he’s supposed to be older than he says he is. But his new sparring partner’s movement is like a fish swimming, born knowing how to move and shift smooth and quick.

The boy’s eyebrow inches a little further up. “Me too,” he says. Gon’s pretty sure he’s lying. He’s not sure how he knows—he doesn’t dart his eyes away from Gon’s like Aunt Mito, and he doesn’t twitch like Leorio. It’s more…a moment of relief, like right after you pull the covers over your head and pretend there aren’t any monsters. It’s a pretty flimsy relief.

Gon lets it slide. He can ask later. Not least because Bisky calls, sharper than usual, “Open spar. This is a test of your abilities and your readiness. Ready?”

The grin on Gon’s face widens, and the other teenager tightens his grip on his staff. There’s something wild dancing in Gon’s veins, the excitement before a good fight or when a good fish in on the line. “You ready to go? I don’t want to hurt you too badly,” he says.

The other teenager’s eyebrows snap back down, the flimsy relief replaced with fire. “I’d like to see you try.”

“I will dump both of you out on your asses if you refuse to take this seriously!” Bisky snaps. “Now, go!”

Gon taps his staff once against the other boy’s, acknowledging the start of the match, and immediately flattens out against the mat to avoid the other side of the staff whipping up at his head. It’s fast, but the movement leaves the boy open to Gon sweeping out with his leg aimed right at his knee. He jumps over Gon, and Gon slides across the mat, using his own staff to launch himself back up to his feet with time to block the next blow and slide right into a strike of his own. It misses, but only barely, and Gon flicks the back of his staff up towards the other boy’s nose. He hears a hiss of a curse and can practically feel the staff slice through white curls as the boy bends himself in half to avoid the hit. But rather than backing away like Gon expects, he snaps the staff around his back, spinning it across the top of his shoulders fast enough to bring it lancing towards Gon’s face again.

Gon only barely gets his staff back up in time, catching the boy’s attack with the top of his staff and shoving as hard as he can. They both stumble away from each other, Gon sliding his bare feet across the mat. Gon grins. The other boy is taller, but Gon’s got more muscle, is more solid and stable to the ground. It’s already a good match, better than Gon can remember. And… “That was so cool!” he says.

The other boy’s staff jabs at him, and Gon does his best to block it away. “I’m fighting you,” he says, exasperated, and brings his staff up in a flurry of blows: up down down side up side down. Gon catches them all, the sound of wood sticks clacking against each other almost drowned out by the sturdy feeling of the blows in his hands.

“And it was super cool!” Gon says again, grin wide. The boy jerks his head back, blinking rapidly. It’s like no one’s every called him cool before, which doesn’t make any sense at all to Gon. But it’s the opening he needs, and he presses forward, catching their staffs together and using his shorter center of balance to flip his sparring partner over his hip.

The other boy goes flying, but rather than smashing to the mats and laying there, he rolls on top of his staff and brings it up to catch Gon across the jaw.

Bisky calls something, probably a score, and Gon can make out Leorio and Kurapika’s voices in the sudden roar of the other applicants, but it’s not as important as the smile making its way across the other boy’s face as they reset, just out of each other’s reach and breathing hard. “My name’s Killua,” he says.

“I’m Gon!” he says. Rather than reach a hand out in greeting, Killua changes his how he’s holding his staff, tucked against his side like it’s a sheathed sword. Gon hasn’t seen this before, but it doesn’t stop him from shifting his own grip into a stance Kite taught him when he was barely old enough to know how important defending himself was, and certainly not a position to take against a sparring partner. Every single one of his nerves is on fire, and Killua’s grinning, and Gon has a feeling he knows exactly what is about to happen.  

“You still think you can take me?” Killua says, and bounces forward in an obvious feint.

Gon doesn’t budge except to smile widely. “I know I can.” He flicks his staff at the side of Killua’s head, and Killua doesn’t move either. “You think you can keep up with me?”

Killua’s eyes flash. “Try and stop me.”

This time, Gon is the one with the first attack, foot serving as a pivot to whip his staff at Killua’s middle. Almost before he’s finished the movement, Killua’s flowing away, jabbing out twice before circling the staff back around. The blow glances off of Gon’s staff and ricochets past his ear, hard enough to make his teeth ache. Somewhere outside the mats, someone is hollering orders over the shouts of a crowd—something about proper forms or sparring matches, things that don’t matter at all to Gon, not when this fight is more like a dance he learned as a kid and is only just remembering the steps. Where he feels like he knows what Killua’s going to do even before Killua does, that he could think three steps ahead and Killua would meet him at the fourth. Like if he waits half a heartbeat now, Killua will leave his elbow just barely outside of his whirling defense, right—there.

Killua reaches with a high jab and Gon darts inward, staff lashing upwards with a two-handed blow like Kite showed him, like he’d relearned in the camps, like he’s practiced so many times he sometimes forgets to think and just moves, staff zooming towards Killua’s face that he doesn’t notice it until it’s too late, and victory is so close Gon can taste it.

But then Killua’s staff is up instead, blocking a hair’s width from his face, and his eyes go dinner plate wide in his face, staring in shock at both Gon and their interlocked staffs. Both of their arms strain, Gon’s legs trembling with the effort of matching Killua’s height advantage. One of them has to give first. It’s not going to be Gon, not if he can help it. But Killua’s trying just as hard, muscles straining and giving as good as he gets.

Killua’s eyes are so blue, like the sunny sky right before a winter storm.

“I said enough!”

Bisky stomps into the sparring ring, and Gon and Killua release the hold on their staffs at the same time. But the loss of pressure also sends Killua falling backwards, taking Gon with him until they land in a pile of limbs and staffs against the firm mats. By the time they untangle themselves, Bisky’s standing over both of them with her hands on her hips and mouth set in a grin. Whatever’s making her happy makes the back of Gon’s neck crawl. Killua looks visibly disturbed.

“You never said shit, Bisky!” Killua protests. He’s flushed from his ears to his fingers, skin bright red and sweaty against Gon’s.

“She was shouting at you the whole time,” Kurapika says, a laugh in their voice. Leorio echoes them, voice hoarse. Had he been cheering?

Gon and Killua exchange a look of mutual dawning horror. “Sorry, Bisky,” Gon says. Killua stiffens rather than apologize, lips drawn tight and shoulders tense.

The smile doesn’t leave her face. “I think you boys are done with sparring for today,” she says, gleeful and terrifying. “The rest of us will keep going. You will run until we’re done.”

“But Bisky—”

“You can’t—”

She picks them both up by the ear, and they whine as loudly as they can. “You have until the end of Hanzo and Pokkle’s match,” she says. “I expect you both to be on the track when that’s done.”

Killua glares at her. “But Hanzo’s going to kick Pokkle’s ass in two seconds.”

“Then you have two seconds to get a drink and get going!” Bisky says cheerfully. She sets them down gently, nudging them away from the rest of the trainees while the next two get started. “But Gon, Killua.”

They turn back to her, Gon trying and failing to not gnaw on his lip. “What do you want?” Killua says.

Her smile turns genuine, oddly soft compared to everything before. “Well done.”

Gon blinks and turns to Killua, who shrugs. The movement makes Bisky’s smile grow. “Now get going! We’re only scheduled for another hour and a half here,” she says cheerfully, and flounces back to the mats.

“We’re so dead,” Killua mutters, and grabs three bottles of water. Gon flings one at his head.

[a-moon-child-28]

Dating Zach Dempsey Would Include...

Requested to do the 'dating Zach Dempsey would include' but with a booknerd fem!reader :)

 - Getting to see how smart Zach is, everyone thought Zach was under average when it came to smarts but when you start to date him you find out just how smart he is, not in the stereotypical Asian guy can do any math way, he was terrible at math but he was an A+ bio student and knew more about marine life than anyone you've ever met.

- Hand holding lots of hand holding, Zach is big on holding hands whether it’s while you're walking to class or under the table during lunch or even at the library while he stands patiently next to you as you take your time looking at all the books, you don't mind all the hand holding since your hands are always cold and Zach's much larger ones are always so warm and soft.

- Going on dates to the aquarium, your favourite place to go to on weekend dates is the aquarium, you like watching all the fish swim around therapeutically and you love watching Zach's eyes light up as he sees the aquatic animals he's usually reading and studying about in textbooks.

- Cuddling on cold rainy days, Zach is a massive teddy bear when it comes to cuddles, he loves to be cuddled and also loves to be the cuddler and when it's a cold rainy day that's the perfect time to sit on the couch and watch movies while cuddling each other.

- Reading while he plays video games, Zach is a teenage boy so of course he loves video games and wants to play them all day but he also wants to spend time with you, so you go over to his house and lay on the couch next to him and read a book with he plays video games over Xbox live, you don't talk to each other but you have the company which is the main point.

- Midnight chats about the ocean and conspiracies, when you or Zach can't sleep you'll text one another to see if they're awake and if they are you'll call them and stay up late just talking about the ocean and alien conspiracies until one of you falls asleep on the phone.

- Texting during classes, you both hate math but aren't in the same math class so when one of you is in math class you'll text the other about literally anything just to kill time, usually Zach will send you selfies since he has a free period during your math class.

- Being best friends with Alex, you don't get along with many if any of Zach's basketball friends so when he invites Alex over to one of his little get togethers you and Alex hit it off talking about books and music and you two become best friends.

- Arguing with Montgomery, sometimes during lunch you'll sit with Zach and his basketball friends usually those days Alex has a half day or isn't at school that day, and you never know how it starts but you always end up arguing with Monty whether it's about the way he treats others or something stupid that comes out of his mouth, but Zach is always on your side.

- Going to parties with Zach but ending up sitting in a corner reading a book, Zach liked going to parties, you weren't keen on them but you went to them for Zach and always ended up on a couch in the corner of a room reading the book you brought in your handbag, everyone thinks you're lame for doing so but you're having a great time.

- Zach driving you home from school, Zach always without fail asks if you'd like a ride home after school and you always say yes just so you can see Zach for 5 more minutes after school.

- His mom not liking you at first, she thought you were just dating Zach for the money but then releasing in the end that you really love Zach and she starts inviting you over for dinner which makes Zach extremely happy.

- Meeting Zach’s dad for the first time, he's barely around since he's always working late nights and going on business trips but he seems nice enough if not distant always trying to get Zach interested in working with him.

- Watching Planet Blue narrated David Attenborough on lazy weekends with Zach, you laughing at how cute he is when he nerding out over the marine life and you just enjoy listening to David Attenborough talk. 

- Finding out Zach is ticklish; you find it out randomly one day when you're both in Zach's kitchen and you're both messing around with each other when you poke him in the stomach and the reaction you get out of him it priceless. 

- Buying you flowers, every time Zach comes over to your house for dinner or just to hang out he always brings you a bouquet of flowers, once he came over three days in a row and you had three bouquets in your room.

- Sneaking him into your room at night, Zach pretends to go home after he has dinner at your house and then you sneak him into your bedroom after your parents have gone to sleep so you can spend more time with him.

- Making out when your parents are out, you don't throw parties when your parents go away for a weekend instead you invite Zach over so you can have heavy make out sessions.

- Zach cooking for you, Zach is actually a really good cook as when he was younger he used to help his mom in the kitchen a lot and in that picked up some culinary skills so now he cooks your dinner.

- Babysitting his sister with him, you love helping Zach "babysit" his sister, you two get along great and you let her do your makeup and hair and even force Zach to let her do his makeup and you take snapchats of them all night. 

- Helping cheer up Zach when he gets into fights with his dad about his future, Zach is always getting into arguments with his dad about him wanting to be a marine biologist, his dad thinks it isn't a real man’s job and thinks Zach should work for him so when things get a little too heated Zach leaves the house and call you up and you cheer him up with terrible puns and supportive talk you always invite him over but once he's cooled down after talking to you he goes back home.

- Him not pressuring you into having sex, he never pressures you about having sex if you say you're not ready yet Zach is more than supportive of your choice and he never talks about the two of your sex lives to his friends no matter how hard they hound him about it.

 I feel like I could write fics about any of these lol so if you would want to read a specific one in more detail let me know and I'll write it up :) or if you’d like two put together in one fic just let me know. I also had more of these but the list was way too long to post!