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milkandleafs · 5 months ago

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HIII!!! pokemon au commenter here :) please do tell me about the world building!!!

okay so super long post inc but ill explain the region first.

The Calypso Region

The Calypso region is a super competitive battling region. There are multiple schools (mostly high schools) that focus almost entirely on battling and lots of people from other regions send their kids to Calypso to be the best at battling.

Geographically, Calypso is comprised of six smaller islands surrounding one large island in the middle called Fortunada, the Island of People. This is where the majority of the population lives. The surrounding islands are basically nature preserves where trainers can go to train and catch new Pokemon. Each island has a different environment suited for different Pokemon. Some of the islands are populated and there's infrastructure for visitors, but they're far less bustling than Fortunada.

The first island is Aphyre, where lots of Ground, Rock, and Fire type Pokemon live. There's a large dormant volcano and it's about a two hour boat ride from the mainland. The second is Rellon, which almost entirely consists of a large mountain that's also fairly cold; most of the Pokemon here are Ice, Dragon, Fighting, and Steel type and it's a 1.5 hour boat ride. Lilith is effectively a wetland filled with water, grass, flying, and bug types; it's 3 hours away from Fortunada. Valenza is an island populated by psychic, dark, and ghost types; it's very densely wooded and fairly hard to explore off the trails. It's about three hours from the mainland. Luniarn is called the island of mystery, because even though people can visit it, they tend to have muddled memories of what happens there (think like mythological representation of the far being tricksters who mess with humans). It's known that fairy types live there and is the only island that's completely unpopulated by humans.

The last of the surrounding islands is Rija, where there's a massive power plant fueled by the excess electricity of the electric-type Pokemon living there. It's connected to Fortunada via a train and it takes about 30 minutes to go between the two islands.

Yay my ugly hand-drawn map!!! Anyway all the double lines are high speed railroads and you can see that they connect all the major cities and port towns. The towns with the little boats are ports and the airplanes are airport cities. If people arrive by boat, they usually come through Aquila Town or Salam Town. Take the mile count with a grain of salt lol.

Fortunada is much larger than the surrounding islands and has 4 major cities. The city where a lot of the story happens is Rikko City. It's in the center of the island and many of the battle academies are located here. The city has an extensive metro system connecting every area within the city limits. Most of the big-name trainers in Calypso live here, because this is where all the action happens. In some iterations of the region (not the f1 story), there's a big battle tower where people can fight their way to the top.

Garond City is in the southeast of the island and is famous for its nightlife. It's similar to Vegas, having a lot of casinos and nightclubs. A lot of young people live here.

Foramon city is the newest city and is described as "cosmopolitan". The city is a melting pot of cultures and every kind of cuisine in the world can be found here.

Vandosa City is a fairly wealthy city, with a sprawling suburb where many choose to retire. This is where the Grand Contest is hosted every year, but outside of that time, it's pretty sleepy for a major city.

CCC

The calypso championship circuit (CCC) starts in April. The only requirements are that the competitors have to be 18 or older. Before the official season start (sometime in last march), there's an exhibition tournament between all the gym leaders. The top 2 in that tournament get special privileges. Trainers can only challenge those 2 gyms if they've beaten all of the other 6. Once they have the 6 badges, they can go for the last two.

A couple things about the gyms-- they're all converted into different venues in the offseason. The normal gym becomes a fashion runway, the fighting gym is a concert venue, the ground gym becomes a stadium for multiple sports (soccer, baseball, football, etc), the dragon gym becomes a hockey/basketball arena, the fire gym becomes a contest hall, the electric gym becomes a horse racing track, the bug gym changes to be a national park service/information office, and the psychic gym (which is located on the beach) becomes the beach. They're also partnered with different battling universities across the globe and those unis send their students to Calypso to be gym trainers. In return, the gyms sponsor those trainers in the ACCC (Amateur Calypso Championship Circuit).

Anyways, the regular season runs from April to June, about 12 weeks long, and during this time, the challengers try to get as many gym badges as they can. They can challenge the actual gym as many times as they want, but they can only challenge the leader three times before they're ineligible for that badge. It's not the end of the world if they can't get every badge, though, because at the end of the regular season, all the badges are tallied and everyone with 4 or more badges gets entered into the end of season tournament.

The tournament is the sports betting event, and every battle is televised. The competitors are battling for a chance to challenge the Elite Four and Champion. Challengers who manage to get all 8 badges are guaranteed the ability to challenge the E4, but they still participate in the tournament. There's tons of sponsors, both of the event and personal sponsors and it's one of the most watched events of the year. There are 3 stages, each taking two weeks.

The group stage is broken down into two parts: the group qualifying stage and the group elimination stage. The group qualifying stage is swiss format, which is somewhat hard to explain, but basically everyone starts at 0 wins and 0 losses. After the first round, the trainers with the same record battle each other (eg 1-0 trainers battle 1-0 trainers and 0-1 trainers battle 0-1 trainers). This goes on until there are 4 trainers who survive the swiss bracket. These 4 then go to the group elimination stage. The group elimination stage is double elimination, which means there's a loser's bracket. Effectively you have to lose twice to be out. The top 2 from group elimination make it to the next stage. The group stage takes place in 6 gyms across the region. In addition to the 12 trainers who make it out of the group stage, 4 wildcards are also chosen to advance based on a few factors (badge count, group stage performance, regular season performance).

The next stage is the Qualifying Stage and it takes place in the Rikko Sporting Complex. This is formatted as a single round robin where all 16 competitors play every other competitor exactly once. The 8 trainers with the best records move on from this stage. If there's a tie, there are tie breaker matches at the end.

The final stage is the Elimination Stage and every match takes place in Hamilton Arena (named after Lewis Hamilton in this fic). It's another double elimination bracket. Who ever wins this bracket is crowned the CCC champion, but not champion of the region. The top 3 finishers of the CCC are able to challenge the Elite Four and the champion. (Side note: it might seem like the 8-badge trainers would be almost guaranteed to be top 3, but it's not uncommon that a very competent trainer just get completely stuck at 1-2 gyms that their teams just aren't equipped to handle, so there's still a fair amount of diversity in the challengers.)

Each E4 challenger can determine what order they want and they're each assigned a week in the broadcast schedule for their matches. The order that the challengers go in is determined by their placing in the CCC, with the lowest place going first. They fight one Elite Four member a day and if they manage to make it past all 4, the fight against the Champion is scheduled for that Sunday.

ACCC

There's another battling series that runs in the Calypso region called the Amateur Calypso Championship Circuit (ACCC). Trainers have to be between 13-25 to register and all of the gym trainers participate in this series. It was established 15 years ago to offer an easier alternative to the highly competitive CCC. The regular stage starts in mid-june after the Group Stage of the CCC tournament and lasts 6 weeks. This series only has 6 gyms, the top two from the gym leader exhibition tournament exempt from participating. The gyms are also easier, with less competitive teams (eg. less hazards, set-up, mega evolutions, etc).

At the end of July, the badges are tallied and everyone with 3 or more badges gets put into the end of season tournament. The format is fairly similar to the CCC tournament, but with only two stages: the Group Stage and the Elimination Stage. The group stage is a swiss bracket taking place in the 6 gyms. The winner of each swiss, along with 2 wild cards, move on to the Elimination Stage. This stage is a double elimination bracket and even just making it to this stage is a great way to find sponsors. The ACCC Elimination Stage takes place a week before the Elite Four Challenges.

The Grand Contest

The contest season takes place after the CCC season; registration opens in August and the season officially kicks off in September.

Contests are made up of 3 events: Combination Moves, Coordinated Routine, and Improvised Routine. (I based a lot of this off of gymnastics scoring so...)

Combination moves are exactly what they sound like. Coordinators are allowed 2-3 Pokemon to combine their moves. They come up with 4 combination moves, each scored out of 25, making the total CM score out of 100.

Coordinated routine is a 3-5 minute prepared routine to music and the scoring is a technical score out of 60 and a style score out of 40.

Improvised routine is basically where the judges give the coordinator a theme and they have 30 minutes to make a routine 90-120 seconds long according to the theme. The technical score is out of 48, style out of 32, and thematic cohesion out of 20.

Anyways there are 8 different feeder contests hosted around the region and the top 10 in each feeder make it to the Grand Contest. The feeders are only scored based on All-Around score, so "specialists" have to be at least decent all rounders to make the GC. The top 16 scorers from the previous year's Grand Contests are automatically invited back and don't have to go through feeders. (top 7 all round scorers and top 3 of each event)

The Grand Contest starts with the qualifying, where every coordinator does all 3 events over the course of 3 days. The top 24 cumulative scorers make the All-Round finals, where they will once again do all 3 events and receive medals based off of who has the highest score.

The event finals takes the top 8 scorers in each individual event and they compete in that event again, fairly simple.

Plot relevant information and Teams

Lewis Hamilton is the Champion of the Calypso region and Max Verstappen is the reigning CCC champion. In the offseason, there are a few small-time tournaments and contests for trainers and coordinators to hone their skills, but many of the challengers choose to travel to other regions, challenging other Pokemon Leagues and catching new Pokemon. There's also a Battle Resort on a far island with former Gym Leaders, Elite Four Members, and high ranking battlers who usually do specialty battles (doubles, triples, unregulated, etc). For team building's sake, I went with the theory that there are multiples of most mythicals and legendaries.

Elite 4:

Kimi Raikkonen is ice, Jenson Button is dark, Nico Rosberg is poison, and Michael Schumacher is water. Lewis is the champion and has no specialty typing.

Gym Leaders:

Daniel Ricciardo is electric, Kevin Magnussen is fire, Mark Webber is normal, Checo Perez is ground, Nico Hulkenberg is fighting, Valterri Bottas is dragon, Sebastian Vettel is bug, and Fernando Alonso is psychic

Trainers:

So I'll try to explain the thought process of some of the teams, but we tried to include a starter from their region (if they have one) on each of their teams.

Logan came from Unova when he was like 10 and met Oscar at one of the boarding schools. His childhood Pokemon were Pikachu and Snivy, the former having evolved when he was on vacation to Alola. While in Alola, he saved an injured Zerora and earned the favor of Tapu Koko. In the last two off-seasons, he's gone to Paldea to catch Paradox Pokemon. He technically has 7 battle ready Pokemon including Serperior, and he swaps her in in place of Raichu or Zerora for some battles. He did okay in the previous year, and was a contender for one of the wildcard places after being eliminated in the group stage.

Lando's ace is actually Toxtricity despite the Shaymin-sky on his team. After a frankly embarrassing defeat in the group stage last year, Lando streamed less often in the off-season, training hard to ensure he at least got to the second stage. His childhood Pokemon were Scorbunny and Toxel, but Toxel refused to evolve for a long time.

George has a pompous hot-tempered ace in Pheromosa. He met her when he was on vacation to Alola with his family and decided to build his competitive team around her. He's a certified AA23 ambassador and is childhood friends with Alex. They went to the same boarding school in Calypso and went on vacation with each other's families fairly often. He made it to the top 8, but finished 6th and was unable to challenge the Elite 4.

Alex is definitely more of a coordinator than a trainer, but he usually manages to squeak into the CCC tournament. He mostly uses the CCC as promo for his very successful eeveelution-themed clothing brand, AA23, but his real specialty is the Grand Contest. He's made it every year, coming closer and closer to getting a medal every time. He's a bit frustrated because he was barely out of the top 16 last year, which means he wasn't automatically invited back and has to go through the feeders. He also encourages his friends to do contests with him. His Pokemon are named after his real-life pets too :p

He was Fernando's head gym trainer before Lance and he eventually left to participate in the CCC. He goes home to Paldea every off-season. He got eliminated in the top 16 last year and is going for top 8.

Max is the sweat. He was pushed to battle since he was young and pulled together one of the strongest teams seen in the circuit and set records with how fast he swept through the competition. He's a two-time CCC champion, but has always been stopped in his Elite 4 run, either by Michael or by Lewis. He's an AA23 ambassador alongside George, and goes to different regions every off-season to try and make his team even stronger. Nana, his Infernape and childhood Pokemon, retired from battling and is his closest traveling companion.

Yuki has a sun team built around his Mega Houndoom, Vulcan. Though he's from Johto, he came to a Calypso boarding school when he was young and picked up a Grookey alongside his Houndour. He was eliminated in the first round of Top 8 last year and is gunning for a shot at challenging the Elite 4.

Charles is from Kalos and has been Max's rival since he was 10, the two of them meeting at a boarding school. His aces are Mega Diancie and Greninja, at the point where he can use Battle Bond with his Gren. He sometimes does modeling gigs with Diancie, earning him sponsorships and plenty of money. He was second in the CCC tournament last year and ended up losing to Jenson Button.

Oscar is a fairly new addition to the CCC, having spent time studying under Mark Webber after high school. He's good friends with Logan and often battled him growing up. He's had Alakazam for a long time, since he was a child and it was just an Abra. He met Tapu Fini on the same vacation where Logan met Tapu Koko. He was eliminated in the second stage last year.

Pierre is the only challenger other than Alex to make the Grand Contest. He's good friends with Charles, having grown up in the same area as him. They went to neighboring boarding schools and while they both started wanted to be battlers, Pierre began pivoting to contests, specializing in Coordinated Routine with his Delphox and Gardevoir. He was eliminated in the group stage last year.

Lance is Fernando's head Gym Trainer and was picked for this role because of his stall team. He's the gatekeeper of the gym and takes his role seriously. He got second in the ACCC last year, and plans to compete in it one more time before moving to the CCC and leaving Fernando's Gym.

Esteban is also from Kalos and is childhood friends with Charles and Pierre. Though he's competed in the CCC for a while, he's never been able to make it out of groups and plans to take over as a member of the Elite 4 in Kalos after one final run.

Zhou is the only competitor in the CCC with Paradox Pokemon from the past and refuses to spill his secret on how he got them. He traveled all over as a teenager, capturing Pokemon from all different regions and has a very deep bench. He almost made it out of the group stage last year.

random lore/trivia stuff

Fernando is more than strong enough to be an Elite 4 member, but he chose to run a gym, even though Kimi wanted out. He tryhards in the exhibition so he can have the special Gym privileges and chills for the rest of the season. He's out of his gym more often than he's in it and lets Lance do a lot of the work running it. His gym is a nightmare, even for the strongest trainers.

Seb Vettel's gym is literally a national park and all of his gym trainers are Pokemon Rangers who work with Totem Pokemon. Once the season is over, he peaces out.

Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen have beef (mostly on Daniel's side). Daniel's family are Rapidash breeders and he actually hosts the annual Calypso Derby, the biggest racing event in the region, at his own gym in the off-season. One year, Max needed money to travel to other regions and entered with his Spectrier, even though derbies are typically only Rapidash, Mudsdale, and Zebstrika. As expected, Spectrier won by a landslide and there was a lot of outrage and talk about disqualifying him. In the end, he wasn't disqualified and got the prize money but was permanently banned from competing in the derby again and made an enemy out of all the jockeys in the region. This was terrible for Max's image and he was losing sponsors when Alex offered for him to be an AA23 brand ambassador.

Most of the big-name competitors live in the same area in Rikko City, which is called the Champion's Village. It has state-of-the-art battling facilities and resources for trainers. Think of it like a less cramped Monaco. They see each other fairly often and train together frequently.

Nico Rosberg challenged the Elite 4 over and over to fight Lewis until one year he won. The next year, he announced he'd be stepping down to be a member of the Elite 4 and that the champion seat was vacant. Lewis quickly reclaimed his title and defended it from all of the hopefuls.

Charles eliminated George in last year's tournament.

If I remember anything else, I'll be sure to add it here but that's all the worldbuilding I've done for this AU!! Sorry for the essay but u did ask :p

#f1 rpf #formula 1 rpf #f1 rpf fic

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val-victory · 1 year ago

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I'm not saying that Sense can't fetch slippers, I'm saying that a super powerful Pokémon with the condition he's got is NOT a good Pokémon for allowing near small children who may be trying to touch him or move suddenly, or that he'd be able to do all the thing this old lady's yamper would do.

And I said contests as an example of things that this hypothetical old lady would have her Pokémon do. You've made the argument that just having a Pokémon you send into one battle doesn't make them an ace trainer, so letting your 7 year old granddaughter borrow your yamper to do her local "junior pokecontest" doesn't make you a contest coordinator.

However training a yamper to handle its power (electricity) in such a way that it doesn't accidentally start electrical fires after zoomies/zap the grandkids when they play tag is still training a Pokémon, and training them to use their abilities properly. Training it to use Dig to help out with gardening, or Helping Hand to . . . well lend a helping hand is training. It's not intensive like being an ace trainer, and no one is saying that, but it is still training a Pokémon.

An old man who takes in an elderly rescue skitty and teaches it to trust humans again and not attack is still a trainer, even if he's not battling it. He may even be putting in more effort into training than an ace trainer with a tortera they've had since they were a turtwig, because he's having to form a bond with a Pokémon that has never trusted him, or anyone else.

Your bond with your Pokémon isn't the only kind of bond that matters, or the only way of being a trainer, and just because someone doesn't follow all the principals of an Ace trainer doesn't mean they're not a trainer.

There's a reason you gotta specific ACE trainer instead of just saying trainer, it's because you don't have to be an ace to be a trainer, you just gotta be teaching Pokémon behaviours by forming a bond with them.

Look, you can do what you want, but the "might is right" views and speaking points make people worry about how far you'd go, especially when you seem to not care about the possible consequences of your actions/how people or their Pokémon may get hurt.

Yes things are a certain way on Victory Road, but as you've made clear you're in the top percentage of trainers, and for every Ace there's probably ten bug-catching trainers just starting out. Two kids battling with their caterpie shouldn't be thinking "this is a fight to the death and I must win at all costs" and talking like the only right way to battle is to have their Pokémon try and take chunks out of one another is not going to help them.

Okay... i think i get you now.

At least to me. a Trainer is a Person who has decided to dedicate their Full Time to Training and Battling.

The people you describe aren't Trainers. they are Hobbyists. i do not care about those People. They can do whatever the fuck they want. i do not care.

I hate this conflation between hobbyists and Trainers, this gets people hurt. Someone with little experience should'nt be trusted with Killer machines like my Teams. That has always been my Position.

"Might is right" is the basis of the League. Who is the Champ? the weakest trainer??? NO!. the most mediocre Trainer??? NO!

The Champ is the strongest Trainer, and that has always been what being a Trainer is about.

I just want little Timmy the 10 Year old Kiddo who just got their Trainer-Pass to go into their Journey prepared!

I want them to understand who they are dealing with. i want them to know that Running Boots aren't made for this. i want them to know that they will get hurt. i want them to know that becoming a Trainer is the worst Decision you could ever make in your Life because unlike me 50% of Trainers quit before their Fifth Badge.

What makes me Ace is my Hard work and Dedication. My Full time Commitment. My Desire to do more. to get stronger than anyone before me. This is what makes me different. i am not a Hobbyist.

And don't twist my Words. there is nothing wrong with Hobbyists. i am just not one of them.

#rotomblr #rotumblr #pokemon irl

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coffeewhiskeysleeprepeat · 1 year ago

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Excellent question. As a host, you want to provide common ground to your guests. The easiest way to do this is to give people simple scripts that they can use to start conversations. The good news is that there are a ton of rituals associated with Halloween you can lean on to provide that common ground.

The bad news is you have to put some extra effort in to take advantage of those rituals.

Maybe you set up a "best hypothetical costume" contest, and offer a prize for the best costume ideas for various budgets. Seriously, you will give everyone something to talk about if you get everyone to think about what the best $5 costume might be (the submissions can be read later, especially since this category is likely to be funny), and what they would do if they had a $5,000 budget for the costume of their dreams.

Maybe you ask everyone to put on name badges with the costume from their past they loved the most. This gives people the opportunity to ask about those costumes and why they were someones favorite.

You mentioned that there will be kids at the event. In your case, can you make a game for the kids around finding some sort of token (like a specific color of plastic spider/eyeball/whatever) that the adults hide? This gives adults something to chuckle over together, and gives the kids something to do.

Whatever it is, the point is to provide common ground at the party (something to talk about) for the guests to start bonding on their own. That common ground is meant to be a jumping off point for them to discover that they have other things in common. And they do! I am sure one of your friends and one of your moms friends have a hobby in common, despite being 20 years apart. Knitters have a particular knack for finding each other, but there are a lot of interests people have that are good conversational fodder that they just need a reason to bring up to get other people interested.

If you know two people who have similar interests, make a point of introducing them at the party. Lively conversations encourage lively conversations, so if you can get the two people at the party who sew engaged chatting with each other, it will help set everyone else at ease.

Big point, if you have two defined friend groups, it will be tempting to let them stay separate, but the more you can get them talking to each other, the better time everyone will have.

Also, and last tip, I swear, if you see someone hiding in the corner, go up to them and either introduce them to someone, or give them a (small) task to do, like helping you carry the cake/refilling the punch/checking in with someone etc. This gives them a reason to get into the thick of things, and gives everyone who might have been looking for an opening to talk to that person an easy conversational gambit. ("Oh that cake looks wonderful, did you make that?" or "Oh, what's in the punch?" or "Oh, so and so is so thoughtful to ask you to check on me")

Good luck with your halloween party @raustenacious!

I feel like in the rush of “throw out etiquette who cares what fork you use or who gets introduced first” we actually lost a lot of social scripts that the younger generations are floundering without.

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bendeevee-blog · 1 year ago

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Hello I'm here to talk about 2 ideas for object shows one sound cool the other sounds a little (or maybe more than just a little) controversial so I'm gonna start with the good one and then give a trigger warning when I talk about the other one 👍

So 1.- battle for just 1 more (bfj1m)

This is a "coin flip" strategy, it is basically a normal object show but the elimination thing is what changes, basically: who ever louses or gets voted out instead of getting trapped on a box for the next episodes (or the full season) they get swapped to the other team (there can be max 3 team and the host does a coin flip to choose witch team they join but is recommended 2 teams) and if the same guy gets voted out 3 times in a row the host does a coin flip heads: they stay Tails: they leave and when they get eliminated they go home, due to the elimination function there will be no rejoining and the team that has the most contestants (or least idk I gotta deside) wins the coin that the host used to eliminate people as like a win token or a badge and they also win money cuz yes and that's pretty much it, I really wanna do this one cuz the fact that characters will obiesly make alliances and then get swapped away from each other can make really good strategies for how or who's team to make win or lose. I even made a logo for this

Now the other one so...tw: this involves sensitive topics like depression, schizophrenia, trauma, self harm but most importantly suicide so if I offend anyone with this mental problems I'm really sorry, I know that I don't really know what I'm talking about but I know what these things I'm going to talk about and reference on this object show idea are really sensitive so sorry

Ok. 2.- suicidal objects show (sos)

This is in a way based of hfj one, this "show" is not exactly a competition show yet it still is, the host [redacted] is a therapist, but one that likes to make their patients have fun while also helping them so in a way to do this they decided to do an "object show" on the mental hospital they work in but just as a test they had to get the patients with the "least" needed help (side note: this is not just a object show experiment, it is in a mental hospital building so the contestants and the host do have their breakes cuz it is not torture and also the host stays with the contestants to help them if they need anything. Moving on) all of the contestants have a dead wish so the first 7 episodes (in coanon the episodes are daily so it technicaly passes a week) when someone gets eliminated they are sended home but obliged to go to therapy (for free) but from then on the next episodes (from 8 and on) the characters are presented with a second opinion... Go home but go to therapy or end with their misery, if the character has been able to feel good and have fun they might choose to go home but if they fake it or they just can't change their minds they will choose the second option... [Redacted] will not be able to stop them if they do choose the second option but will take them to a separated room for themselves alone and they can do whatever they want, and this just to try not to influence the fellings of the gone one into the others...

Here are some character ideas:

The two friends: their only will to live is to see who'll die first, like a competition between the two

The one that pretends: they seem not to have any problems in life but they're hiding behind a mask, aka "hide the pain away"

The good voices: the schizophrenic kid who is willing to stay to feel better, and might not end themselves

The one that knows: they know what happens to the people that chooses the second option, they might care they might not

The self-carnival one: they get harmed every time and always bites their limbs, they might have a companion to stop them from terring all their flesh

Edit: I forgot to mention that the host for sos can't get themselves to choose a louser so they have to relay on a really black humorist relative to do it for them.

Ok that's it, thanks for reading

#object shows #osc

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squeemcsquee · 1 year ago

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Anime Magic 2023: Friday

I'll be honest. I don't have a good reason for why I didn't feel like writing up this weekend. I mean, Anime Magic was in August and it's now early November. Normally, I'm more on top of this stuff, so that I don't forget details. And I had fun at Magic...IDK. Can I blame pregnancy brain? Let's blame pregnancy brain.

Since we had to wait until @lechevaliermalfet got off of work, we didn't do a whole lot at Magic on Friday night. We didn't have to wait in the registration line this year, since we were able to get our badges in the mail. That was a small timesaver, which was great, since we arrived just in time to get settled into our hotel room, meet with @shbumi, and then go downstairs for Oriana's Drag Race. It was supposed to start at 1800, but didn't really get underway until about 15-30 minutes later.

That wasn't necessarily a bad thing, mind you - I bumped into someone I knew from the ACen Discord in the lineup outside of the Drag Race area when waiting for the doors to open. So I got to know him a little better. As always, once the show began, Drag Race was a ton of fun, with great performances, lots of courage and creativity from the contestants, and laughter. Onc

Honestly, Drag Show is where most of my Friday night photos came from. In a new twist this year, Oriana granted the winner of Drag Race two performances in the Drag Show on Saturday, and also gave the runner-up a performance in the Drag Show. After Drag Race, it was time for a late dinner at Sugar Factory. I think this might become a new thing for trips to Rosemont. Guess we'll see...

I decided to try something that wasn't a shake this time (though they had a deeply tempting Barbie shake). I couldn't even finish half of it - as always, very good, very rich food.

After dinner, back to the con for a little bit of exploring. We stopped at the manga library for a few minutes.

@lechevaliermalfet and I then said goodnight to @shbumi, who headed back to her room while we stopped in at the Kohei performance.

I think we caught the tiniest bit of Kohei performing at a previous Anime Magic, but this time we were there for pretty much the whole sing along. And there is something nice about sing-shouting your favorite anime tunes with a bunch of other fans that's energizing.

@lechevaliermalfet then called it a night, while I decided to stick it out for the beginning of the Midnight Dance Extravaganza.

There had actually been some technical issues during both Drag Race and Kohei's events and I'm sad to say that continued during the Friday dance. Props to the crowd for not getting super upset and finding ways to still have a good time, but it does sorta suck that AM keeps having these issue every year.

I didn't stay too long into the dance before cutting out to get some shuteye of my own. On the way back to the room, I saw these signs:

Definitely wonder what happened to bring those about! I couldn't tell you if they actually managed to enforce those rules during the weekend - I didn't pay enough attention.

All Anime Magic 2023 coverage

Anime Magic 2023 cosplay

Anime Magic 2023: Friday (current post)

Anime Magic 2023: Saturday

Anime Magic 2023: Sunday

#anime magic #anime magic 2023 #con review #con report #prose and cons

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peskygirl13 · 3 years ago

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MK SO-

I just got the Pokémon SWSH DLCs and I was wondering what it would be like for some legendary Pokémon to come to twst and cause some trouble(Legendarys I’d like to do ( you c an pick just one: Kyogre, Giratina, or Groudon)

If you can i want it to be just Diasomina!

This turned out longer than I expected and I got so mad with myself because I was almost done with writing this and I accidently deleted all my new work, so I had to start over from my last save point which is one of the reasons it took so long to post.

I’ve been binge playing the old Sinnoh games and rewatching the anime, so this was fun to write (despite me deleting my work).

This will have references to the Pokémon Platinum game, so spoilers if you haven’t played the game and plan to.

Hope you enjoy!

Malleus's favorite time of the day was night time. Night time was the best!

The world was at peace, it was quiet, everything was asleep, save for a few nocturnal creatures much like himself, he could hide from SIlver and Sebek and have some time to himself, and there were no students or humans who would see him and run away in terror.

But his favorite thing about night time was probably when he got to visit his favorite human, (Y/n).

Their situation was a bit odd, having appeared out of nowhere from a world full of creatures called Pokémon, but Malleus didn't care. They weren't afraid of him. After spending a lifetime of having people fear him due to his name, it was a nice change.

Malleus arrived at the Ramshackle dorm to find you already sitting outside, cleaning your Empoleon's feathers.

"Greetings, Child of Man." He greeted, happily walking up to you.

"Hey, Tsunotaro." You smiled, putting down Empoleon's brush to wave at him.

That was another thing Malleus adored about you. Even after finding out who he was, you still didn't fear him and continued calling him by that amusing nickname you gave him.

You both entered the dorm, along with Empoleon, and he was instantly greeted with the rest of your strange creatures. Luxray, Togekiss, Glaceon, Garchomp, and Lucario.

You headed over to the kitchen to make some tea while he got comfortable on the couch. Once he was seated, Garchomp laid its head on Malleus's lap, implying that it wanted scratches.

By the time you had returned with two mugs of steaming tea, all the other Pokémon had already gotten comfortable and most had fallen asleep.

You handed Malleus his mug before sitting down in your chair. Glaceon hopped up and curled up in your lap before falling back asleep.

After you both got comfortable, you began regaling Malleus with stories of your world.

Malleus loved hearing your stories.

From your gym battle challenges to your contests. Catching all your Pokémon and even receiving an egg from a woman named Cynthia that hatched into a Togepi that which layer evolved into your beloved Togekiss.

Malleus has never left the Valley of Thorns, except for school, so he enjoyed hearing about your travels. Your freedom to journey and see so many different places, never being tied down, he envied it.

“May I see your badges and ribbons again?” He asked.

“Sure.” You agreed, getting up to grab them.

At the movement, Glaceon, rather huffily, got up from your lap and moved to Malleus, curling up on his lap instead. He instantly started stroking her with one hand while the other continued scratching Garchomp. He only stopped when you handed him your badge and ribbon case.

He immediately opened them both and admired your impressive 7 badges and 5 sparkling ribbons.

You had told him that even though you had collected the required number of ribbons, you were transported to Twisted Wonderland before you could compete in the Grand Festival. You also hadn’t yet had the chance to earn your 8th and final gym badge, which allowed you to challenge the Elite Four and the Sinnoh Champion.

“They are very impressive, Child of Man.” Malleus complemented.

Even though there wasn’t a gym challenge or contests in Twisted Wonderland, Malleus could tell how much value each badge and ribbon you earned had.

“Thanks, Tsunotaro.” You beamed, positively preening at the complement. “Maybe when I find a way home you could come with me and have your own journey. There are a bunch of dragon type Pokémon I bet you’d like. Maybe your starter could be an Axew. Or a Dino. Maybe a Gible seeing how well you get along with Garchomp. There are also rock or electric types. OOH- Maybe a fairy type!”

Malleus tuned your rambling out. His head was both empty and racing.

Him? Go on a journey in another world? The idea was preposterous! Yet... also tempting.

Traveling around with no chains. Nobody knowing who he was, thus no one quivering at the sight of him. No overbearing, but well meaning, guards to coddle him. He liked this idea!

Unfortunately, he didn’t have long to dwell on the tempting daydream when Ramshakle’s door slammed open with a loud bang.

“WAKA-SAMA!!!”

Speak of the devil.

You and Malleus turned to the doorway to a disheveled and hysterical looking Sebek and a normal sleepy looking Silver.

“Sebek.” Malleus greeted, hiding his annoyance of being interrupted during his time with his Child of Man.

“Waka-sama, you mustn’t leave without telling us! What if something happens to y-”

The half-fae was cut off by and ice beam, freezing him solid. You and Malleus looked over at Glaceon who was angry about having her sleep disturbed for a third time. Now quite irritated and huffy, Glaceon angrily marched upstairs to try and get some sleep in your room.

“My apologies.” You jumped when Lilia appeared behind you without warning, hanging upside down as usual. “They ran off when I wasn’t looking.”

You looked back at the other Diasomnia residence. Silver had already fallen asleep, using Togekiss’s soft, feathery body as a pillow, while Sebek was slowly beginning to thaw out of the ice.

You wish you could say this is the weirdest thing to ever happen with them.

After having Lucario use force-palm and free Sebek, you all sat down near the fire.

(You left Silver be since he was already asleep.)

Sebek wanted to know what was so fascinating about you that Waka-sama would continuously come visit you.

The only thing you could think of was telling them about your journey.

“After I won my seventh gym badge at Snowpoint, I had to meet my friend, Barry, at Lake Acuity and right after that I had to meet with Professor Rowan and Lucas at Lake Verity.”

“Why did you have to go to those lakes?” Lilia asked, genuinely curious as to what value they had.

“Uh, well-- mmh-- pthbbt.” You tried to think of a way to avoid that question, or at least dance your way around it, and the stuttering and raspberry blowing was obviously helping you be discreet in avoiding the question.

“GLACE!!”

A loud yell echoed from upstairs thatw as loud enough to wake even Silver. You were momentarily grateful that you had been interrupted before realizing ‘Oh shit that’s my Pokémon.”

“Glaceon!” You yelled, bolting from your chair and rushing up the stairs with your Pokémon and the Diasomnia boys at your heels.

You opened your bedroom door with a loud bang and saw Glaceon in a defensive stance, hissing at the mirror with Grim looking frazzled.

“Fgaah! Minion, control your Pokémon! I was asleep and then it started shouting and tried to attack the mirror!” He yelled angrily, before stalking off to the living room to continue sleeping.

You sighed before looking over at the mirror. You held out your arm towards your Pokémon so they knew not to do anything yet. You inched closer to the mirror, pausing only for a second to pet Glaceon and calm her down a bit. You walked forward a few more steps until you were face-to-face with the mirror.

Now that you were closer, you could see the shadow of something moving within the glass. You didn’t know what it was, but it wasn’t Micky. You leaned a bit closer, trying to make out the figure--

“GIRATINA!!”

Everything went black.

The first thing you noticed when you could see again was that you were clearly not in your room. Or your dorm for that matter.

Everything was weird. You weren’t sure of any other way to describe it other than weird.

Weird and familiar.

“The Reverse World.” You muttered, shocked by your sudden return to the feared Giratina’s playground.

You didn’t have long to stay dumbfounded when you remembered the Legendary who lived in this world. You frantically looked around you and saw that your team and the boys were with you, which did nothing to curb your panic. Grim wasn’t with you all, so you assumed hoped that he was still at Ramshackle.

You first woke up your Pokémon. They freaked out for a second before realizing where they were, putting them all on guard. They carefully scanned their surroundings for anything they found threatening while you quickly crawled over to the boys, traying to shake them awake.

“Get up. Guys, get up! We need to move!”

The Diasomnia boys hardly registered what was happening and where they were before you pulled them away. Your team created a barrier around you all as you lead the boys through the strange new world. All they could do was look around wildly.

“Careful, gravity gets weird here.” You warned them.

True to your words, the piece of land you all were walking on started to curve in the air until you all started walking upside down. Even Lilia, who was used to hanging upside down, was a bit thrown off about this.

“What is this place?” Silver asked what everyone was thinking, knowing that you were the only one who could give any of them an answer.

“The Distortion World.” You explained. “Also known as the Reverse World. It’s kind of like the Underworld of my world.”

That explanation only provided them with more questions but went they entered a place that had these large bubbles floating around them they were quickly distracted.

“Hey,” Silver called, gaining everyone’s attention. “This thing has headmaster Crowley in it.”

Said bubble did have a picture of Crowley in his office, working late into the night. Huh. Who know he actually did anything.

Silver raised a hand towards the bubble.

“No, don’t touch it!” You exclaimed. Unfortunately it was a second to late and the bubble popped at the slightest graze of Silver’s fingers.

The boys looked over to you at the sound of you yell, seeing your panicked expression.

“Don’t. Touch. Anything.” You order, stressing out each word. “Everything in this world effects the real world. If you aren’t careful you could kill someone through this place.

The boys looked positively alarmed.

“Will the headmaster be alright?”

You waved off their concern, continuing to lead the way. “He’ll be fine. Popping that bubble didn’t kill him, but it did feel like he was hit with a bowling ball.

“How do you know this? How do you know so much about this place, (Y/n).” Lilia asked, dead serious.

You glance over your shoulder at them before sighing.

Guess it was time to come clean.

“There are some things that happened during my journey that I didn’t tell you guys about.” You confessed.

“While journeying through Sinnoh, I constantly ran into an organization called Team Galactic. Their leader, Cyrus, believed that the world was ugly and needed to be destroyed. His plan was to capture the legendary Pokémon, Palkia and Dialga, and the Lake Guardians, Uxie, Mesprit, and Azelf. Those three were the reason I met Barry and Professor Rowan at the lakes, Lilia, to try and save the Lake Guardians from Team Galactic. Anyway, Cyrus claimed that he was going to create his own, perfect world using the powers of the legendary Pokémon. At least I think that was his plan. He talks like Shakespeare and I have a middle school education. Anyway, before he could create his ‘perfect world’ Giratina appeared and took Cyrus away to here, the Distortion World. This is Giratina’s domain.”

The boys were stunned into silence. They knew you were strong, but for you to have done all that as well as fighting overblots? They were truly impressed.

“What happened afterwards?” Malleus questioned, enthralled by your story.

“Cynthia, the current Sinnoh Champion, and I entered the Distortion World to save Cyrus. Unfortunately, he saw this place as his ideal world and didn’t want to leave. In the end, we had to use force and I beat him in a battle. And, after that, I had to face Giratina itself. But, I don’t know how, but before I could face it, the Dark Mirror called me to Twisted Wonderland.”

You stopped walking, taking a deep breath before turning to face the boys.

“We need to find Giratina. Giratina’s the only Pokémon that can travel between worlds and its the only thing that can get us back to Night Raven.”

Your tone alone was enough to my the Diasomnia boys understand the severity of the situation.

“Human, if this creature is as powerful as you claim, then how do you expect to get it?” Sebek interrogated.

You reached into your pocket and pulled out a purple ball with an ‘M’ on it, showing it the the boys.

“This is a master ball. I stole it from Cyrus’s base when I went to save the Lake Guardians. It can catch any Pokémon without fail. All we need to do is find Giratina.”

“Lucar!”

“Luxray!”

You all turned to Lucario and Luxray who were growling in the same direction. Looking closely, you could see something coming at you all. Your team took their battle stances and sure enough, there was the Angel of Darkness itself, Giratina.

Even Malleus had to admit, that creature was terrifying.

It looked like a dragon and centipede mixed together, but it towered over everything, easily dwarfing them all.

You waisted no time.

“Empoleon, Hydro Cannon!” You ordered. Even Sebek had to admit that your authoritative tone was hard to ignore and resist, full of confidence and superiority.

Empoleon listened without question, fearlessly attacking the towering giant.

“Lucario, Aura Sphere! Glaceon, Ice Beam! Luxray, Thunder! Garchomp, Dragon Rush!”

All your Pokémon attacked at once, hitting Giratina square on. The legendary screeched before firing a move of its own that your team narrowly avoided.

“Great job. Keep attacking!” You ordered shooing the boys out of Giratina’s firing range.

“What do we need to do to help, (Y/n)?” Malleus asked. He was already gripping his pen, ready to fight.

“Nothing. Just stay put and don’t move.” You ordered sternly. The boys were stunned.

“What?! (Y/n) we can help-”

“I know you can help,” You cut off. “But I don’t need to defeat Giratina. I just need to distract it.”

You ran off before they could question what you meant, whistling for your Pokémon.

“Togekiss!” You called, jumping off the edge of the land and easily getting caught by your flying type, who flew you behind Giratina.

You let your team get in one last group attack before throwing the master ball at Giratina.

The legendary effortlessly went in and after a spectacular dive made by you and Togekiss, you caught the ball and returned to the boys.

The boys ran over to you as you climbed off Togekiss, looking at the ball in your hand.

“I can’t believe you actually caught it, human!” Sebek exclaimed, flabbergasted.

“Thanks, Sebek.”

“So what now?” Silver asked. The group all turned to you expectedly and you rolled your eyes before turning around to the wide open space and releasing Giratina from the master ball.

“Giratina,” You called, “Please take us back.”

Giratina stared down at you before letting out an echoing screech and lowing its head to your level.

Immediately understanding what it wanted you to do, you crawled onto its head before waving the boys over.

“C’mon. We its going to take us back.”

Hesitantly, the boys climbed on with your Pokémon and once everyone was on, Giratina soared through the air.

This was different from riding a broom or riding Togekiss, who was happily flying beside you all, but it was exhilarating at the same time.

Too soon for anyone’s tastes, Giratina slowed down to a stop before lowering itself down so that everyone could climb off.

The place were Giratina dropped you all off was a small patch of land with two lakes on it. You and the boys could see your bedroom in one of the lakes, making you realize that you were looking through your bedroom mirror.

“Alright!” You cheered. “Let’s get back.” But before you could step through the reflection, Empoleon called out to you.

“Empoleon!”

“Huh? What is it, Empoleon?”

He was looking in the other lake, pointing at something.

You, your team, and the boys looked through the refection and you couldn’t restrain the gasp that left your mouth.

You could see the Mesprit, the guardian of Lake Verity.

“That’s Mesprit, Lake Verity’s guardian!” You exclaimed, coming to several realizations at once. “That’s close to Twinleaf Town. I-I could go home!”

You turned to your team and the Diasomnia boys, your eyes sparking with both joy and a few unshed tears. “With Giratina we can go home and still stay in Twisted Wonderland!”

Mallues watched you with soft eyes. He had seen a side if you tonight that he had never seen before. Your courage, your confidence, your skill. He had these too, but yours stemmed from experience. This wasn’t something you were taught since you were born like him, these were abilities you learned through trial and error with your team. Something that he wanted.

With a new found determination, Malleus turned to his most trusted knights and friends.

“Lilia, Silver, Sebek,” He began, quickly gaining everyone's attention, “I have decided that until it is time for me to receive the crown from my grandmother, I want to travel (Y/n)’s world with a Pokémon of my own.”

Even you weren’t expecting that announcement.

“WHAT?! WAKA-SAMA ARE YOU FEELING WELL?!?!? WE MUST GET YOU TO AN INFIMERORY!!”

“I’m fine, Sebek. And I’m not joking.”

“WHAAAAAAAT?!?! YOU, HUMAN, YOU HAVE GIVEN WAKA-SAMA THIS DANGEROUS IDEA!!”

“I think its a great idea.”

“MASTER LILIA?!?!”

“zzzzz”

You couldn’t help snorting at the scene in front of you. A rather calm Malleus simply being unmovable about his choice of coming home with you, a hysterical Sebek trying to talk him out of it, an impish looking Lilia who actually supported Malleus’s idea, and a snoozing silver, who could still sleep effortlessly despite the chaos surrounding him.

You leaned up against Empoleon’s belly, him and all your other Pokémon already lying down, knowing that this was going to take a while. Even Giratina was curled up!

But, You thought, watching the group was a soft smile, you know that no matter how much you wanted to go home, you would've missed this. And this, your friends and NRC, was something that you never wanted to lose.

Bonus:

After sorting everything out with Crowley, you returned to your world to reconcile with your friends and your mom. It took some explaining, but bringing Grim back with you as well as Malleus with his magic and horns was enough to convince everyone what happened to you.

Afterwards, you were able to compete in the Grand Festival. You didn’t end up winning, however you did make it to the finals. Your opponent, Dawn, had only beaten you by a few points.

The Diasomnia gang, as well as Grim, the Adeuce combo, and the Pomefiore Trio were all present to see this and couldn’t have been prouder.

Once the Grand Festival had come to a close, you headed over to Sunnyshore City and won your 8th and final Gym Badge, permitting you to challenge the Elite Four and Cynthia.

The Pomefiore Trio didn’t watch these challenges, but the other did.

Their nerves were through the roof when you finally faced Cynthia. And when your Garchomp miraculously out sped her Garchomp with the finishing move nobody cheered louder.

In the end, you took Malleus to the place where you caught Garchomp back when he was still a Gible and caught Malleus his own, whom he unironically named ‘Gargoyle.’

Malleus did have to return to the Valley of Thorns, but not without you promising that the upcoming summer would be the start of his own Pokémon Journey.

I wrote most of this forgetting about Grim, so sorry he doesn’t have a bigger role or more screen time.

Fun story; I got in trouble for writing down my ideas for this at work even though I did it while the store was dead and I’ve worked there for nearly two years and have either written something or drawn something almost every shift I have. Litterally no one but the manager to caught me cares.

And, just to irritate me more (whether she was aware of it or not), said manager takes my writings and decides to read them and then proceeds to put them back in the wrong order before lecturing me.

So, yeah, that was fun.

#ask #twst x pokemon au #pokemon #twisted wonderland au #twisted wonderland x reader #twisted wonderland x pokemon #diasomnia #diasomnia x reader #malleus x reader #malleus draconia #sebek zigvolt #lilia vanrouge #silver #pokemon platinum #pokemon sinnoh

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selfdestructivecat · 3 years ago

Text

Been thinking more about my Sanders Sides Pokemon AU and wanted to flesh it out a bit more. So here are some fun facts about each Side’s individual gym!

Link to my first post about this AU!

* Let’s start with Patton again, just for consistency

* As soon as you enter Patton’s gym, someone comes up and gives you a bunch of free potions

* Most of the trainers who come to challenge the gym gratefully take the potions and without thinking too much about it

* Little do they know, the potions are essential to reaching the gym leader

* In Patton’s gym, you don’t fight any trainers before you reach him

* Instead, you go through rooms, and in each room you face a “wild” Pokemon

* (These Pokémon, while scary-looking, all belong to Patton. They are simply pretending to be aggressive, and in reality are just as sweet as their owner)

* While these pokemon don’t look particularly special, a half-decent pokemon trainer would be able to tell immediately that the pokemon is at low health.

* (Again, the pokemon are just acting. Patton would never purposefully hurt his Pokémon and then send them to battle other trainers)

* Most trainers would immediately reach for their Pokémon or a pokeball, hoping to battle and capture it

* Of course, when they try to throw the ball, it doesn’t work, given that the pokemon is Patton’s

* Either way, if they try to capture the pokemon or make the pokemon faint, they immediately fail the gym

* In order to pass the room, the trainer instead has to calm the pokemon down enough to use a potion on them

* They are free to use toys, pokepuffs, or any other non-violent method to calm the pokemon down

* Successfully using a potion on the Pokémon allows the trainer to access the next room

* With each consecutive room, the pokemon are bigger, scarier, and much more “hostile”.

* But once the trainer makes their way through all of the rooms, they find their way at the checkpoint before the stadium

* Which is when they finally fight Patton, who shouts encouragement and pokemon-related puns the entire time

* Logan’s gym is much more complicated

* As you may expect, it’s puzzles galore

* The gym is a maze, each of the paths containing different effects (Electric field, psychic pressure, ground spikes, etc.)

* The trainer would need to use Pokémon that’s immune to them (ground type, dark type, flying type respectively)

* You can theoretically try to cross these barriers with other types of Pokémon, and depending on how much health they have they may even remain conscious

* Of course, if the Pokémon is at low health, it’ll put them at a disadvantage to the trainer waiting for them on the other side

* The entire gym is a test of cooperation between Pokémon and trainer, working together to solve the various puzzles and trusting each other to pull through

* Then, you fight Logan, who immediately starts floating above the stadium using psychic energy

* Likewise, you will begin to rise on a platform, your Pokémon remaining on the ground

* The ground of the stadium will suddenly fill with an energy field similar to the ones you had to navigate

* Like before, you must choose a Pokémon who will take the least amount of damage from the field

* Logan will take advantage of this, using Pokémon who will be strong against whatever Pokémon you use to defend against the area effect

* It’s a battle of difficult choices, whether or not to be offensive or defensive, and a test of your knowledge regarding Pokémon type weaknesses

* Roman’s gym is a 3 act play

* It’s similar to Pokémon Contests, at least to an extent

* The first “act” involves introducing the characters (aka you and your Pokémon)

* You can only choose three of your Pokémon to present to the judges (Roman and two of his highest-ranked trainers)

* Occasionally, trainers challenging the gym would be dumbfounded to see other gym leaders sitting as guest judges, from enthusiastic Patton to snide Janus to aloof Virgil

* Then, you have to impress them!

* You can use your Pokémon’s moves to make all sorts of spectacles, whether it’s a big explosion, a mystifying scene, or an elegant dance

* Points are rewarded for creativity and execution. If your Pokémon gets enough points, they’re allowed to participate in act 2

* If your Pokémon fails to accumulate enough points, they cannot be used anymore

* This means that you may have to continue with only one or two Pokémon, depending on how well they perform

* Act 2 is where the actual fighting starts

* Using the Pokémon that were allowed to proceed, you face the gym’s trainers

* The setting, or “scene”, changes with each battle, ranging from a forest that boosts grass-type moves, an oceanic seabed where water-types flourish, and molten landscape with lava pools where fire-types will feel right at home

* Defeat all of these trainers, and you make it to act 3

* Time to fight the star of the show!

* This time, you must combine the skills demonstrated in act 1 with the combat introduced in act 2

* Each move, you alternate between using moves to attack, then using moves to wow the crowd

* Roman’s Pokémon, likewise, will alternate between attacking and performing

* Attacking, of course, does damage based on regular rules

* Moves used to perform will only work if you create a more impressive display than Roman (a VERY difficult feat)

* Then, depending on the move, you can get a drastic stat increase or do a surprising amount of damage

* The scene is also constantly changing like in act 2, meaning that your fire-type pokemon will be fine one moment, then thrust into an ocean setting where they are greatly weakened

* And then, the finale: Roman’s dynamaxed Charizard

* Those outside of the stadium would watch in amazement as a giant Charizard flew out of the stadium, igniting the sky in a beautiful kaleidoscope of fire

* To this day, only his brother Remus has been able to beat this move (although rumor has it that gym leader Virgil, in a private battle between the two, has gotten close)

* As mentioned before, Remus’ gym is pretty controversial because of how weird and disgusting it is

* Even before you enter the building, the stink is almost unbearable

* His gym is essentially a maze where trainers have to alternate between moving forward and fighting one of the gym’s trainers

* Whenever they progress, they need to choose between two or three paths, each filled with an unknown substance the trainer has to wade through (or swim through, as the paths get deeper the farther you progress)

* One of the paths is safe, albeit filled with a disgusting substance. This ranges from mud, to piss, to baked beans, and all manners of revolting concoctions

* However, this path is always better than the alternative

* The wrong path(s) is filled with a substance that is poisonous to Pokémon

* That means, if you go the wrong way, you will have to face the next trainer at a disadvantage

* One trick at the very beginning of the gym, a ruse Janus helped Remus come up with, is that the first of the poisonous paths looks like water

* Compared to the other path, a chunky substance that smells like death, most trainers don’t hesitate to dive into the clear water

* But surprise, it’s poison!

* Eventually they reach Remus, their pokemon heavily weakened from the poison and the trainers, smelling absolutely awful

* They are not allowed to shower before the final battle. Any attempts to use a water-type pokemon to clean up immediately disqualifies them

* For some reason, fewer people turn up to watch Remus’ battles than the other gym leaders...

* Janus’ gym is a hall of mirrors

* Like a funhouse, each mirror distorts your image

* Suddenly you have longer legs, a stretched torso, a bulbous head, or other types of silly deformations

* It becomes much less silly when your reflection suddenly grins back at you, mischief twinkling in their eye, and steps out of the mirror

* You’re suddenly fighting a distorted version of you and whichever pokemon is first in your party

* Depending on how they were distorted, a certain enemy stat is boosted

* Longer legs increases speed, a chubbier body increases defense, a larger head is higher special attack, etc.

* So basically, you must fight a stronger version of yourself

* Any attempts to change pokemon causes your reflection to switch to the same one

* There are two ways to defeat your opponent

* 1) Defeating them in a pokemon battle

* 2) Destroying the mirror

* (There is a third way to defeat them, but only a rare few have figured out this method in the hall of mirrors)

* However, destroying the mirror, while a quicker and easier way to end the battle, causes the stat it previously increased for your reflection to drop

* This effect is permanent until you leave the gym

* Once you finally make it to Janus, likely having lots of stat decreases, it doesn’t get any easier

* Like every gym leader, you face three of Janus’ pokemon

* Every time you cause one of his Pokémon to faint, however, his appearance suddenly changes

* You will once again face the distorted version of yourself that you had previously avoided, pokemon and all

* And no, there aren’t any mirrors to break this time

* However, Janus does reward cunning

* If you managed to discover the third method in avoiding the illusions in the mirrors, you can apply that same method here:

* When he’s in this phase, you can simply call back your own pokemon

* Reflection-Janus will likewise call his back

* If you wait long enough after you recall your pokemon, Janus will revert back to his regular appearance and throw out his next pokemon.

* This happens twice, once after his first pokemon faints and again after his second one faints

* His third pokemon, of course, is the one he dynamaxes

* Virgil’s gym, compared to the others, is very simplistic

* Instead of having a large gym, the entire town is considered the trial to obtain his badge

* You walk through the town and occasionally battle against trainers, a small crowd always there to shout encouragement and play music

* Between battles, there are stands selling merchandise and other trinkets

* Basically, it’s the small businesses taking advantage of the gym, a place where multiple trainers pass through every day, to help earn a living

* There’s even some stands selling food and pokepuffs.

* At any point while the trainer is progressing through they gym, they are welcome to grab a bite to eat or peruse the various wares

* When they finally reach Virgil, they find themselves in an outdoor stadium

* Virgil is waiting with a guitar in hand, other members of the gym and even some of his Pokémon holding instruments of their own

* Here, the trainer actually has a choice

* They obviously can just fight with their pokemon like they would any other gym

* However, they are also allowed to bring an instrument themselves

* This gives them the opportunity to attempt a different challenge for the badge:

* That’s right, folks! It’s now a jam session!

* If the trainer is able to hype up the crowd enough, or even simply impress Virgil, they earn the badge without having to fight at all

* Of course, not everyone is down for this type of gym

* There are lots of people who don’t like loud, crowded spaces like concert, whether it’s due to personal preference, or because it could cause a sensory overload, or even because it would hurt the trainer or their pokemon

* Luckily, Virgil came up with a solution to this

* As soon as the trainer enters the town, they will find a stand that has sound-proof headphones they could borrow

* They also have pins that let everyone know to tone it down when someone is wearing it

* When this trainer reaches Virgil, he instantly recognizes the pin and puts away his electric guitar

* Instead, he takes out an acoustic guitar and plays a softer piece

* Again, the trainer is welcome to either fight him normally or join in

Lmk what you guys think! I’d love to hear your thoughts and ideas for this AU!

#my ramblings #sanders sides au #sanders sides pokemon au #sanders sides #patton sanders #logan sanders #roman sanders #remus sanders #janus sanders #virgil sanders #kinda proud of some of these gyms!#especially proud of the mirror gimmick for Janus

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nixotinix · 4 years ago

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More convention advice!

Reminder that I'm not a con veteran, I'm a teenager with a distant relative who runs a big ol con. I'm relaying information that I've heard before.

This convention guide is all about etiquette at conventions and a convention survival kit! Let's get into it!

Con Etiquette

There's a lot of unspoken rules to follow at a convention. A few of them center around cosplaying. So let's start with the most important rule.

Cosplay. Is. Not. Consent.

That is the most important thing to remember. Cosplayers are people, they have their insecurities, they have their boundaries, and just because they're in a wig and some fancy clothes doesn't change that. Don't take a photo of a cosplayer without their direct verbal or certain nonverbal consent. If you're in a crowd and there's a lot of people taking a photo of a cosplayer, all you have to do is get the cosplayer's attention, hold up your phone or camera, point to said phone or camera, and give them a thumbs up. If they return your thumbs up, or nod, or show any other direct consent, go ham! Take your photos! If not, don't take the photo. Simple as that. Don't try to sneak photos either. They see that shit.

Also regarding photos. If a cosplayer is sitting down, on their phone, eating, or has parts of their cosplay off, do NOT ask them for a photo. Walking around in a wig and three layers of clothing isn't comfortable, and cosplayers need to rest. And don't stalk the area waiting for them to be finished, then ask to take the photo. They see that shit. If you have to ask them anything, ask them "Hey, I like your cosplay and I was wondering if you'll still be wearing it later". That's it. If they say yes, cool! Try to find them when they aren't resting and get your photo. If they say no, oh well. You don't get a picture. Boo hoo.

Oh, and don't sit in popular photoshoot areas, all you'll be doing is taking up space. Find a bench or a staircase or something to sit on. Sit on the floor if you have to, just don't sit by the pretty backdrops.

Don't touch the wig. Don't touch the prop. Don't touch the costume. Don't touch the person. Some of these things can be very fragile, and you have no way of knowing that. Sure, you can ask. But your answer will probably be no.

Don't be loud and annoying. Nobody likes to be around you if you're loud and annoying. And, I don't know if this is still a thing, but when I went to my last con or two, there was at least 2 groups of My Hero Academia cosplayers (no hate to MHA, it's just the most popular source for this kind of thing) who would circle around people and link hands while chanting some weird cryptic shit. That can make people freak out big time, and it isn't funny at all. Don't do it.

If you see something in the vendor's hall or artist's alley that you don't like, for example, fanart for a ship you don't like, walk past the booth and move on. Don't say anything. Don't blow up in the artist's/vendor's face about how that ship is toxic, or how they drew that character with bigger hadonkadonks than they have canonically. Just move on and don't make a scene.

And most importantly.. mind your personal hygiene!!!! You don't wanna be that person that makes people gag when you walk by. Shower once a day, because con musk is real and it's bad. Pack deodorant and USE!! IT!!! Don't make other attendees have to pack air freshener for when you walk by. And remember. Axe Body Spray or any kind of body spray at all does not equal a shower. A shower equals a shower!

Now for some rapid fire smaller tips.

Don't wear big headpieces during panels, especially if you're close to the front. It can block other people from seeing what's going on. Take it off and set it on the floor or in your lap. Same with phones. Don't hold them in places that blocks other peoples' view.

Unless you're on a bench or chair, keep walking. Don't block the flow of con traffic.

Don't ask cosplayers for a hug, kiss, a date, their contact info (depends), or inappropriate photos. And ask specifically if you want to be in the photo with them, as some cosplayers don't like this.

If you're cosplaying and bringing a prop weapon, be sure to get it screened and checked first thing so the con organizers know it isn't a potential threat. If it doesn't meet the requirements, it will either have to be modified or you won't be able to take it into the con. Check the requirements of your con for weapon screening.

Try to get your badge the day before the convention actually starts. If you try to get it the first day, you'll be waiting in line for half the day and you might miss out on some real cool events.

See something, say something. Don't be afraid of looking like a jerk when someone is being creepy towards you or someone else, or otherwise making you or them uncomfortable. Report that creepy person's ass to security or employees/volunteers as soon as possible.

Convention Survival Kit

-Remember the 4-3-2-1 rule for con weekends. Four hours of sleep a night, three activities that involve sitting down a day, two meals a day, and one shower a day. These are bare minimums, and if you dip below these minimums, you're gonna have a bad time.

-Deodorant! Again!! Hygiene, people!

-2 litres of water, at least for the full weekend.

-A snack bag!

-A backpack to hold everything with. Make sure everyone in your group has one. If you're cosplaying, fuck it! Theme it to your character. Get a secure padlocked one if possible to prevent pickpockets.

-A cosplay repair kit. Even if you aren't cosplaying, it can help out a cosplayer in need. Pack a sewing kit with a few thread colours, safety pins, bobby pins, hairties, eyelash glue, some simple makeup, things of the like. Maybe a hot glue gun, but that's pushing it.

-A first aid kit with bandaids, hand sanitizer, Ibuprofen, and gauze. Feel free to pack more, as this is the bare minimum.

-Any other necessary medications or menstrual products for you or your party members.

-Shampoo and conditioner. These might be provided by the hotel, but better safe than sorry.

-Makeup wipes! Good ones. To wipe off any makeup you were wearing at the con.

-Always have one person in your group with the Essentials Bag. First aid kit, cosplay repair kit, portable phone charger, snacks, water, money, and anything else that might be needed.

-Leave extra room in one of your bags to put anything bought into, then divvy it up at the hotel room.

-Portable entertainment! Card games, books, dice, anything really. As long as it doesn't take up too much space, you're good.

-Notebook or sketchbook. You never know when you might need an autograph, or a sketch, or the name of a business because their cards ran out. Pack a pen and a Sharpie too. Sharpies can write on anything, even those laminated schedule sheets.

-COMFORTABLE shoes. You'll be walking around all the time and your feet will hate you if you're walking around in stilettos. Does not apply to cosplay, but carry a pair of comfortable shoes that you can switch in and out of throughout the day.

-Cash! Yes, everyone uses cards now, but it never hurts to have an extra 20 bucks on you. Keep this money separate from anything you plan on spending at the convention and only use it for emergencies, like a gas refill or over the counter medication.

-If you wear glasses, pack your cleaning cloth.

-Chapstick and lotion. Save your skin.

-An art storage tube. Cylinder things. You're gonna buy some prints and you don't want them bending.

And that's all! If I forgot anything, let me know and I'll add it to the list. Next installment will be: Cosplay Contests- What They Are and How to Enter!

#kingscontips #convention #convention etiquette #convention tips #contips #convention survival kit #long post #cursing tw #caps tw

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9worldstales · 4 years ago

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MCU Loki Ep 2 “The Variant” intensive analysis

So, the 2nd “Loki” episode come out and, again, I couldn’t stop myself from talking about it.

Beware about spoilers!

After a brief summary that’s basically made by showing us the most relevant scenes of Episode 1 we’ve the Marvel opening, this time with its usual music… though the Marvel studios logo is still in green and gold.

We start this episode in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, 1985, the year of “Back of the future”, only there’s no Martin or Doc or the DeLorean, but just some sort of medieval fair.

Pity.

Anyway Minutemen get on the place and didn’t care at all about how they’re attracting the general attention with their look. We know why, because they think to reset the timeline before leaving so it’s not like their magical apparition might change something.

They believe they’ve detected the Variant so they enter in a tent thinking they can capture them… only to fall straight in a trap, as the Variant was waiting for them, starting a registration as soon as they are where the Variant wants them to be.

Yeah, the registration was meant to be for the show that should have taken place there but the Minutemen are smart enough to get it’s a trap.

After a recorded message that seem to imply in that tent there was meant to happen some sort of contest or show about saving a princess…

My lords, my ladies, welcome and thank you for joining us, here at the castle. Please, settle into your seats for a great battle is about to commence. The prize? Our princess. Will evil prevail, or are we holding out for a hero?

…the song by Bonnie Tyler “Holding Out For A Hero” starts and, as it does Hunter C-20 gets possessed by the Variant (we can see a hand touching her head, green magic on the tip of its finger, and then Hunter C-20’s eyes take an odd green colouring for a moment, a sign she’s possessed) and starts murdering out her own men in a joint effort with the Loki Variant. However while she fights she suddenly drops unconscious and a figure in a cape, clearly our Variant, stabs with her sword the last minuteman. Then, as usual, the Variant steals from the Minuteman what she needs and, this time, also kidnaps Hunter C-20 before disappearing.

Many have seen in the scene a reference to the Shrek 2 scene in which Shrek and his friends storm the castle in order to stop Fiona from kissing Charming, disguised as Shrek.

Me, I would just want to know if the princess is meant to be Hunter C-20 or this Loki Variant.

We’ll see.

Well, anyway we get the Loki title and them we find ourselves with Loki reading a jet ski magazine when Miss Minute would want him to review what he had learnt instead. She tries to quiz him but, although Loki seems to know the answers, he’s not interested in being quizzed, defining it boring.

His attention focuses on Miss Minute, asking her if she’s a recording or alive. She explains she’s both.

Loki looks around then tries to test it, rolling the magazine and attempting to use it to hit Miss Minute, who jumps around in an effort to avoid his blows. He seems to have fun. If this is idea of venting for the mistreatment he suffered at the hands of the TVA or he’s just being playful that’s up to speculation.

Miss Minute escapes inside the pc, complaining he’s being a jerk.

Mobius joins him and from his dialogue we discover the magazine is actually Mobius’ not Loki’s. The guy gives him a package, telling him they’ve to go and that he has to wear what’s inside it, which is actually a jacket, which Loki wears.

They join the others and Hunter B-15 explains how C-20 and her team disappeared in 1885 and they expect it to be an ambush by a Loki Variant, although they don’t know which kind of Loki Variant it can be. Loki suggests they’re the lesser kind, lesser than him, of course.

Hunter B-15 demands to see the back of his jacket on which we can see the writing Variant. She laughs seeing the writing, mockingly, the way one would when he has managed to put an insulting sign on someone’s back without them realizing.

Loki points out she was very subtle in it and she explains she doesn’t want anyone to forget who he is… which, I guess, means Hunter B-15 found yellow, star shaped badges too subtle or maybe not fitting to everyone they deemed a less human to prune away.

Still Loki asks her back if she means they shouldn’t forger he’s their only hope of capturing a murderer.

B-15, who never believed him to be capable of something, correct him saying they should never forget he’s ‘a cosmic mistake’. In short the writing is there to make him recognizable, to ostracize and to humiliate him. He’s not like them, he’s a Variant.

She’s not doing this because he’s dangerous and they should be wary of him, just because he shouldn’t exist.

Mobius states that this is enough… which hints he’s not enjoying this, but he allowed it to happen and didn’t even warn or prepare Loki about it.

Long story short he’s clearly different from B-15 who relishes in all this (and mind you, this is not a critic to Wunmi Mosaku, who’s awesome in the part, just to her character) but he still doesn’t really take a big stance against it as he stopped it only when it dragged on too long.

Mobius brings them back to business, telling everyone they’re looking for a Loki, a variation of the guy with them. He reminds them they should be familiar with Loki because they had pruned more Loki Variants than any other Variant and they’re all different, in appearances.

As Mobius speak we’re shown some Loki Variations with their numbers. Our Loki is the Variant L1130.

I wanted to check the numbers near the Lokis but it seems there had been a mistake in the handling of the numbers

Jotun Loki appears to have first the number L1247 but in the close up it switches to L6792

Cyclist Loki is L1247 and the hulking one is L6792 while the green dressed one is L8914 and the last one with the big helmet is L7803.

Long story short Jotun Loki has probably 2 wrong numbers pasted on himself as they belong to other variations but all the Lokis’ numbers has in common the letter L at the beginning which I guess, stands for Loki.

The visual makes something interesting, projecting the various variants on Loki, which makes us immediately aware of the differences but also reminds us they’re all still Loki.

What leaves me perplex is how those Variants became so different from the original Loki. I mean, our Loki was caught few minutes after he escaped. Unless those Loki managed to escape to the TVA for a while (which would risk the timeline to reach a red line so it seems unlikely it happened) how did they manage to deviate so much from how they were meant to be in the Sacred Timeline?

I mean cyclist Loki would have needed the time to take part to a race to in that cup!

It’s true that in this episode it will turn out the TVA worries only of deviations that impact the timeline, so maybe the TVA started worrying late in their case but it’s still weird.

Anyway Mobius starts digging into the powers they’ve in common which are shape-shifting, illusion-projection, duplication-casting and Mobius’ favourite, which we don’t get to hear as Loki interrupts Mobius saying he got one of the names of his power wrong, it’s Duplication-casting, not Illusion-projection and explains the differences between the two, finishing with:

“But you already knew that.”

… which they didn’t. In short it’s Loki’s turn to point out they act as if they know him when they don’t know him and his powers as well as they think and that he’s actually of some use.

On a sidenote there’s to wonder which one is Mobius’ Loki’s favourite power and if it’s meant to be relevant. This Variant showed it could posses people, and I wonder if what happened to Selvig at the end of “Thor” is a hint our Loki can as well. Our Loki could travel through the secret paths… in “Thor” he could spell his knives, which we know he can make appear out of nowhere. In deleted scenes we learn he could cause mist to appear. “Thor: Ragnarok” said Loki turned Thor into a frog. I wouldn’t mind if he were to start turn people of the TVA into frogs.

Anyway Mobius accepts his explanation and tells the others they’re gonna break in two teams, one of which will include himself and ‘professor Loki’.

B-15’s words about Loki being a cosmic failure clearly made an impression as one of the minutemen question the idea and Mobius is forced to admit since they can’t find this Loki Variant they need an ‘expert’.

Loki takes his chance to remind everyone that by expert Mobius means him. He’s there because he has a use, an importance, a role and they shouldn’t look down on him.

The scene switches.

Loki and Mobius are walking toward the door that will bring them in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, 1985.

Loki, repeating a pattern seen in “Thor: The Dark World” asks for a weapon…

Loki (Thor: The Dark World): “You could at least furnish me with a weapon. My dagger, something!”

Loki (Loki): “Do I get a weapon?”

…which Mobius refuses to give him. Loki though points out once out of the TVA he’ll have his magic back and asks Mobius if no one is worried he’ll betray them.

Loki: “Well, I'll have my magic back. Is no one concerned about that?”

Mobius: “Of what?”

Loki: “Me betraying you.”

This also is something we saw in “Thor: The Dark World”.

Loki: “You must be truly desperate to come to me for help. What makes you think you can trust me?”

Mobius can’t say Frigga did trust him or that he promises him vengeance in exchange of loyalty so he tries to go for something he knew Loki wanted, a meeting with the Time-Keepers. Considering Renslayer, who’s above Mobius, couldn’t grant Loki that, if I were in Loki I would genuinely doubt Mobius can. He just tries to dangle in front of his eyes something Loki might want to win him over.

Loki pauses as Mobius mentions he could meet the Time-Keepers and asks if that’s what’s on the table. Mobius doesn’t really give him a straight answer, just a ‘Keep that focus’.

I wonder if Loki really wants to meet the three space lizards or he just let Mobius believe so because, by acting that way, he made clear he’s interested.

Oh, now that I look at it behind the helmets of the minutemen there are codes which could be their identification codes or names, since they don’t seem to use names.

B-15 has obviously written B-15 while other minutemen had much longer codes.

The group arrives in 1985 and Loki makes a relevant question:

“Let me ask you this, why don't we just travel back to before the attack, when the Variant first arrives?”

It’s something many viewers have been wondering and it turns out that the answer is:

“Nexus events destabilize the time flow. This branch is still changing and growing, so you gotta show up in real time.”

In short the authors knew this could feel like a dumb plot hole so they made a rule to explain why this couldn’t be done. It’s still not perfert… I mean, what it means to show up in real time? They aren’t in the same time as 1985, when itìs real time for them? But whatever, it’s nice they tried to fix this problem.

Mobius asks Loki if he watched all the explicative videos he was supposed to watch and Loki replied only as many as he could stand because he find that their ‘TVA propaganda is exhausting’.

I’m glad Loki and I see things in the same way. Most of the TVA babbling is propaganda meant to brainwash people’s mind.

A Minuteman then asks Loki what ‘these’ (these being the Time Charges) do.

Loki knows perfectly and gives us the confirmation to the thing I, and many others, suspected in the past episode.

Time Charges…

“Reset charges prune the affected radius of a branched timeline, allowing time to heal all its wounds. Which sounds like a nice way of saying disintegrate everything in its vicinity.”

So yeah, it’s genocide or total destruction of that timeline and all the people in it.

But also yeah, Loki studied all he was supposed to study although he insists he watched only some of the videos. I’m not surprised though, a wizard had to be good at studying things and Loki clearly wanted to know how that world worked so of course he would have watched the video even if he’s downplaying it.

They reach the place in which the TVA fought Loki and discover the Loki Variant kidnapped C-20. It turns out that it’s the first time that Variant kidnapped someone. A minuteman suggests the Variant might have pruned (aka killed but the TVA doesn’t use that word) C-20.

B-15 acts defensively, saying a Loki couldn’t have beaten C-20. She clearly views the Lokis, the whole of them as this time she’s not even saying Variants, as inferior. She should probably remember she got collared by one Loki.

Loki tries to warn her saying she’s underestimating the Variant… which she’s doing as the Variant could have very well ‘pruned’ C-20 had the Variant wanted to.

B-15 isn’t interested in hearing him out as she interrupt him and tells the other to fan out and starts searching for C-20 fast as they’re approaching the red line.

Loki stops them, telling them if they’ll leave the tent they’ll end up killed. B-15 thinks it’s a waste of time but Mobius is willing to hear him out.

Loki launches himself in a long explanation, the gist of it being he thinks there’s a scheme behind the Variant’s actions, that they should be aware of their surrounding, listen more (like he does) and less prone to underestimate him or the ‘lesser Loki’.

Now… he’s not completely wrong, the TVA underestimates him, and they has underestimated the other Loki Variant, which we saw lead to some of their losses.

Loki claims the Variant wants him because they know he’s the stronger Loki and so wants to join forces with him to overthrown and rule the TVA. I’m not sure how the Variant would have known there’s a Loki working with the TVA but let’s assume they do and that Loki’s reasoning could make sense… or could be explained with him trying to paint himself as more important than he is.

But then he goes saying that this isn’t what he wants as he’s now a servant of the Sacred Timeline… which is patently untrue and hard to believe… who can hand them the Variant but what assurances he won’t be disintegrated once the job is done.

And okay, his own is a legitimate worry and a legitimate request.

It’s actually clever to ask for reassurances the TVA won’t dispose of him once the job is done… though it’s not like there’s an actual bargaining ground because, if Loki isn’t cooperative and therefore is useless, the TVA will dispose of him anyway.

It’s not so clever he would try to pass himself for a servant of the timeline when he clearly didn’t play the part well. Of course since he said Asgardians were fundamentally naïve, maybe that’s the kind of people he’s used to deal with… but he has experienced distrust in Asgard in “Thor”, proof his own people isn’t so naïve… and he should have figured out Mobius isn’t either.

And then he presses for urgently meeting the Time-Keepers saying they’re in grave danger… and this jump isn’t smooth.

Mobius knows Loki wants to meet the Time-Keepers, so of course if Loki pushes the issue in this way he’s going to be prone to assume it’s a trick. The speech doesn’t even keep a logical flow because Loki first presented himself as better than the Variant and capable to handle it but reluctant to do so for fear of being erased… but now he’s presenting the Variant as a grave threat that requires them to urgently talk with the Time-Keepers.

So from one side it’s pushing for too much when he hadn’t even shown himself to be useful yet and for another it makes for a weak argument if he’s really as superior as he claims to be.

So… hum… the speech seems to tumble down in an unsatisfactory manner, ‘seems’ being the operative word because, if there’s a goal behind its weak points, then they still have a reason to exist.

I’m actually not quite sure which game Loki is playing with the TVA.

He’s for sure trying to survive but then what else does he want to get? I don’t believe he aims to control the universe but I’m pretty sure he’s not swallowing the TVA propaganda and he doesn’t enjoy to be there.

His timeline was pruned so he can’t go back there. Does he want to save Frigga? Is that what he aims to do? Does he want to go into the timeline after… let’s call it ‘canon Loki’ died so as to replace him?

Prior to it?

I don’t know.

Is he saying all those things for the Loki Variant’s benefit? He hopes the Variant is out there hearing him and his speech would make the Variant interested in joining forces?

I don’t know. We’ll see.

Anyway as expected Mobius figures it’s a trick and, since there’s no more time to do anything else, they just reset the timeline and leave.

On another note I like how Loki uses an Asgardian way to say. Way too often in movies even aliens feel compelled to use English ways to say instead than way to say from the world they belong to.

We also see how a time charge works. Loki hurries to move away as soon as he sees them starting it.

They… do something with the top part of it, I’m not sure if they push a button or pulled some sort of safety pin. We see something yellowish being released in the fluid inside the time charge which then turns purplish. The purple colour expands to the whole glass of the time charge until from below it something like a coloured expanding pool comes out. Everything that gets touched by that pool ends up being disintegrated.

At the TVA the monitors show that the ‘reset’ (read ‘disintegration’) of the timeline is done and that C-20 ended up MIA.

A music that’s half sad half… disquieting, start being played and we move into Renslayer’s office.

Mobius is complimenting for her office, pointing out how there’s a new snow globe in it and how he doesn’t remember bringing it to her.

She replies he’s not the only analyst working for her, which seems to imply analysts working for her are meant to bring her souvenirs from their missions. Or better… not quite. Mobius asks her why she gets to keep all the trophies from his cases, which seems to imply they weren’t given willingly.

Still, he tries to get her to admit he’s her favourite analyst.

I’m not really sure what’s going on between these two. They don’t seem to be in a relationship and I’m not sure if Mobius’ attempts at flattering her are because he’d like to be in a relationship with her but doesn’t dare to push the issue or because he’s currying her favours.

We’ll see.

Renslayer moves the discussion to the mission Mobius just botched and I don’t know if I would define it as such. Okay, so they didn’t find C-20 nor the other Loki Variant but chances here are two:

- the Loki Variant was out there using C-20 as bait as Loki said, setting a trap for them, and they successfully avoided it

- the Loki Variant wasn’t out there and so wasn’t C-20 and therefore was nothing for them to find.

Either way the mission wasn’t botched as they came back and successfully disintegrated… pardon, the TVA doesn’t like that word, they prefer ‘purged’ the branched timeline and any living being inside it.

Renslayer, referring to Loki as just ‘this Variant’ complains he’s insubordinate, stubborn and unpredictable like Mobius.

Honestly I think the whole series is trying to draw parallels between Loki and Mobius, where Mobius is however the one who chose to submit to the system where Loki just can’t stand it and wants to break it down.

So, although Mobius should be ‘all lawful’ we can see there’s a bit of ‘chaotic’ inside him.

It’s probably worth to remember that ‘lawful’ and ‘chaotic’ are nothing else but the two opposite extreme on the Ethical axis used for RPG alignment where Lawful represents obedience to the law and Chaotic leans toward personal freedom, without regards to the law.

There’s another sign Mobius isn’t fully lawful, the fact he has the bad habit to leave the glass rest on Renslayer’s furniture, leaving rings, and then insisting he’s not who caused them as they were already there… when Renslayer points out they’re all there due to him.

I know a part of the fandom loves Mobius but I wonder if he’s in the story not only to interact with Loki but also to work in contraposition to him. There are two paths for him, either he chooses the same path as Loki or the opposite. We’ll see.

Mobius tries to blame the ring on Renslayer’s other favourite analyst. I wonder if such person exists and is meant to have a relevance in the story. It’ll be interesting if it’s the other Loki Variant in disguise.

I mean… the other Loki Variant knows plenty of things about the TVA which hints at how they should have a previous and prolonged contact with them because the TVA explains nearly nothing about how their things work to their captives but the other Loki Variant knows what Reset charges are and how they work or how to use a TemPad to open Timedoors.

Yet Mobius doesn’t seem to have info on when they captured that Variant, carried it to the TVA and then let them escape, so again, how did the Variant learnt so much about the TVA?

From another escaping Variant?

Hard to say?

Did they saw the TVA and tailed them till the TVA unnoticed?

I can’t really tell, we’ll see.

Anyway, back to their conversation, Renslayer points out the issue isn’t Mobius’ methods with Loki, but the fact he towed a dangerous Variant into the field… meaning they consider Loki dangerous.

Mobius claims that from that they had learnt ‘the Variant’ likes to stall for time, so the other Variant might end up doing the same, because, to Mobius, understanding one Loki leads to understand the other.

And I’m:

- actually you didn’t need to bring Loki to the field to learn this, didn’t you notice that’s what he did in other circumstances?

- if the two Lokis are different, no, understanding one doesn’t mean understand the other. I mean you had a Loki who was fine living as a Jotun while this one was traumatized by the idea he was a Jotun, Loki can be pretty different about them, enough to be complete opposite so no, nobody said they’ll surely share that particular trait.

Whatever, let’s go on.

Renslayer says Mobius has a soft spot for broken things (which Mobius denies because he’s a bit like Loki and doesn’t want to show weakness), which acknowledges this Loki is broken… but gains him no sympathy from Renslayer as she said that ‘Loki is an evil, lying scourge’. Because he attacked New York? Nope, just because this is the part he plays on the sacred timeline and he can change only if the Time-Keepers decree so, not because he wants to.

Renslayer is big on the predeterminism when it’s about Loki (who’s a Variant by the way and therefore already out of the Sacred Timeline) but why doesn’t she apply it to the TVA as well? They’ll take the Variant only if the Time-Keepers will so.

I think the TVA’s faith in the Time-Keepers has plenty of weak points and is hypocritical. I wonder if the show will explore this.

Mobius switches topic asking how the Time-Keepers are and it turns out he NEVER met them. So he basically can’t even be sure they exist or not, yet he’s pouring all his faith in those three space lizard.

Mobius seems kind of glad he hadn’t met them, which seems to hit they’re either dangerous to meet or he doesn’t have a good opinion of them.

Renslayer says:

“The Time-Keepers are monitoring every aspect of this case. I've never seen them so involved. They want that Variant caught.”

…which seems a way to put Mobius under pressure but really, if they decide the flow of time, shouldn’t the decide if Mobius will catch the Variant or not? They can decide if a Variant Loki can change or not but they can’t control the other?

Anyway Mobius signs the event report Renslayer already signed. We can see Renslayer signs R Slayer while Mobius signs M. M. M.

Mobius notices the pen he used for signing has the writing ‘Franklyn D. Roosvelt High School’ on it and complains that pen too should be from the other analyst Renslayer favoured. And I wonder again, who they are? They’re meant to be relevant? Or they’re only a plot device to make Mobius jealous?

Renslayer only tells him to stay focused. As he’s about to leave though, she stops him asking him if he believes in that Variant. Mobius doesn’t confirm this, saying Loki believes in himself enough for the both of them, complaining Loki is really arrogant and that he will delete him himself if this doesn’t work.

Of course these might be just words he tells to Renslayer but we saw him taking part to erasing timelines and even if he showed sympathy and kindness to the French boy he met in the cathedral in the very first episode, he let him be reset.

“Don't worry, that devil's afraid of us. We're gonna take care of him. And we're gonna put you back where you belong.”

This apparently kind sentence meant they disintegrate him and his timeline so the place the boy belong is basically oblivion.

But I’ll dig on Mobius and Loki in a moment.

For now let me pause a moment on the pen, another gift of Renslayer’s mysterious over analyst, with written on it ‘Franklyn D. Roosvelt High School’.

Franklyn D. Roosvelt, ex-president of the united state is also relevant for the MCU.

In 1940 Roosevelt ordered the formation of the Strategic Scientific Reserve (SSR) to fight the Nazi Party, even though the United States was still at peace with Germany. To ensure that only the greatest scientists work for the SSR, Roosevelt ordered Chester Phillips to recruit Howard Stark into the agency. SSR works in the creation of the Super Soldier Sierum, which ‘gives birth’ to Captain America then it is the re-tasked to fight Hydra. Later it will become part of S.H.I.E.L.D.

So yeah, maybe it’s a coincidence but it’s interesting.

Back to the story.

Mobius leaves Renslayer and we discover Loki has been left outside Renslayer’s office to wait.

Mobius whistles and also motions to Loki to follow him.

Some has compared this with how one would act to a dog. It’s possible they’re not so off track.

The TVA is a world that discriminates Variants and find them worth only being erased. They shouldn’t exist, they’re cosmic jokes, no one should forget someone is a Variant.

Mobius too in his discussion with Renslayer referred to Loki as just “the Variant”. Yet Mobius also feels some sympathy for Loki. Renslayer says he has a soft spot for broken things, if can mean she acknowledges Loki was broken by his experience… but she might also refer to the mere fact he’s a Variant and Variants, in a way, can be seen as ‘broken’ as they didn’t function properly but followed their own path instead than the one the Time-Keepers traced for them.

So the idea Mobius sees Loki as some sort of pet can be fitting. Mobius is growing fond of Loki… but he’s still imbued in all the TVA’s beliefs and teachings about predeterminism and how Variants are bad.

He doesn’t want to be needlessly mean to Loki, but the latter isn’t equal to him, he’s a tool, as everyone reminds him and as he has to remind to everyone else.

Variants has no rights in the TVA, they just exist to be pruned, reset, or, in less pretty but more realistic words, disintegrated.

And Mobius is a guy in the middle.

While he doesn’t want to be a jerk to Variants… or to people in the Sacred Timeline who’re going to die, he’s not really willing to fully fight against the system because he has faith in the system and a side of him he thinks Loki should just accept his place.

We see it in their discussion.

Loki is somewhat nervous… which, I’ll be honest, feels a little weird to me because he’s being openly nervous when usually Loki can keep controlled and hide this sort of things.

He had played a high risk bet during the mission and lost, he had time to think at what to say to Mobius while Mobius was discussing with Renslayer yet what he comes up isn’t really worth of someone who’s supposed to have a silver-tongue.

Okay, so it’s not like we were shown him using his silver-tongue in the movies, as people tended to do the opposite of what Loki asked them or not listen him at all, with the exception of Malekith and the Grandmaster… but we don’t get to see how Loki won the Grandmaster over.

Whatever, maybe there’s a reason, maybe not, we’ll see.

When facing the Variant later, Loki will say he kept the TVA vulnerable at the Renaissance Fair for some time and also that he has been working on gaining their trust. Presenting himself as openly insecure to Mobius, instead than hiding it as he would usually do, might be part of winning him over. As I said in the past commentary for ep 1, sometimes there are more benefits in being honest than in lying, so it can be that it’s not that Loki isn’t nervous, it can be he sees more benefits in showing it to Mobius.

We’ll see.

Mobius is in a bad mood. Although it didn’t seem Renslayer had given him a earful for his failure, it can be his failure burns. He tells Loki to show up, reminding him in the elevator he said he didn’t like to talk… which is something else that makes me think Loki is trying to give Mobius EXACTLY what Mobius asked for, so as to fulfil his expectations and lower his guard.

The following conversation is relevant.

Mobius: Okay. Just shut up! Please. What happened to the guy I met on the elevator? Who didn't like to talk. Remember him? Now I'm stuck with this guy who won't stop yacking away about what makes a Loki tick!

Loki: What? Isn't that precisely why I'm here?

Mobius: No. I don't care what makes you tick. You're here to help me catch the superior version of yourself. That's it!

Only Mobius in the previous episode told him he wanted exactly this from him.

Mobius: I'm serious. All I seek is a deeper understanding of the fearsome God of Mischief. What makes Loki tick?

This is the problem of an unequal partnership like their own. Loki isn’t there because he’s Mobius’ partner and equal, Loki is there to serve a purpose, capturing the other Loki. Renslayer might be right and Mobius might have a soft spot with him, but in the end Mobius ends up reminding Loki his place in the TVA, he’s there to be useful.

Loki takes offence by Mobius calling the other Variant “superior”.

Mobius gives us a slice of his mind… and Loki calls him out on his attempt of manipulation.

Mobius: See? There it is. Right there. I believed, stupidly, that insecure need for validation would motivate you to find the killer. Not 'cause you care about the TVA mission or bein' a hero, but because you know this Variant is better than you and you can't take it.

Loki: Very nice. I mean, it is adorable that you think you could possibly manipulate me. I'm ten steps ahead of you. I've been playing a game of my own all along.

But there’s something else worth pointing out. Mobius clearly believes working for the TVA equates at being a hero… and also that Loki would be so prideful he would serve the TVA merely to show them he’s better than the other without caring of how the TVA then might dispose of him.

And again Loki shows his cards way too openly so Mobius calls him out.

Mobius: What, charm your way in front of the Time-Keepers, hustle them, and seize control of the TVA? Am I getting warm? A double cross by history's most reliable liar.

Is really this what Loki aims at? This is what he’s telling around but is really this? Maybe but it seems so obvious, even Mobius could guess it in 5 minutes so… I don’t know, it seems too predictable for someone who’s supposedly smart.

The discussion goes on. Loki has figured since Mobius didn’t have him erased after that failure he is sticking his neck out for him so he asks him why.

Mobius: I'll give you two options, and you can believe whichever one you want. A, because I see a scared little boy, shivering in the cold. And you kinda feel bad for that ice runt. Or B, I just wanna catch this guy, and I'll tell you whatever I need to tell you.

I think both options are true, although usually, when proposing two options, the implication is the speaker is telling us to chose the last one… and it makes sense because this is the main motive Mobius is helping Loki. He could do nothing for him if it wasn’t because Loki could be useful… but this doesn’t men Mobius has no sympathy for him.

On another note it’s the second time the scripts hints at Loki as being young

Loki: I was young (in 1971), and I lost a bet to Thor. Where was the TVA when I was meddling with these affairs of men?

I really wonder if the idea is that Loki is young for Asgard standards.

Anyway Loki points out he doesn’t need Mobius’ sympathy, at which Mobius replies that’s good because he’s running out of it.

And again in itself there’s a problem. Mobius probably sees himself as a good person, because the fact he’s using Loki also means he’s sparing Loki from being pruned but, of course, if he has no use for Loki, this wouldn’t save him any longer.

If sympathy is tied to personal convenience, it’s not really sympathy.

As soon as they caught this Loki Mobius ran there to get him for himself because he thought it would be useful. He could have grown fond and it’s fine because it happens… but the key is still Loki has to be useful to him in order to be kept. So he’s not a really selfless act.

That’s why Mobius is no hero, who selflessly sacrifice for Loki, because he hopes in personal gain and… and it’s absolutely human. Mobius might have studied Loki but he basically just met him. Mobius has his own life. Why should he sacrifice it for Loki?

He’s planning for their allegiance to offer mutual benefits, Loki helps Mobius to wipe another Loki out of existence and Loki gets to live a little longer even though, being a Variant, Loki should have been already disposed of.

Mobius probably feels very kind and the other at the TVA would probably agree with him, because he’s giving a chance to someone who is lesser and has no right to chances and this is how their world work.

But we, viewers should be capable to understand their world works in the wrong way.

Loki: What's this? Next step of your manipulation...

Mobius: This is the final step. Your last chance.

Loki: Oh, and what does my desperate last chance require?

At this point Loki has moved back into keeping distance. He calls what’s Mobius is doing as manipulation and sounds flippant as he talks of his ‘desperate last chance’.

Mobius might have sympathy for him but Loki has likely figured out Mobius wouldn’t save him from the TVA beyond a certain point. The very best Mobius can offer him is to remain there working for the TVA to catch other Lokis, all while wearing a jacket that points out he’s a Variant as well, a cosmic joke.

Maybe Mobius might manage to have him dismiss wearing that jacket. Still, all this is tied to how much useful he can be. Mobius though can’t offer him freedom or a way back home.

Anyway Loki’s last chance is to work, to go over each and every one of the Variant's case files, and then, give him his unique Loki perspective and find something. All this while Mobius goes to eat something and keeping in mind his life depends on him proving to be of some use.

Again we’re reminded that Loki isn’t free to drop this work, he’s forced to cooperate, his life depends on it.

Loki starts looking through the documents which basically cover the various cases in which the Variant ambushed the Minutemen and stole their reset charge, clearly not finding them interesting. A woman hush him and he hush her back.

Loki tries going to the one who seems a librarian… but who’s actually so mechanical she feels more like a robot who can’t stop typing to pay attention to those who call her if they don’t ring at her first.

Loki asks her for more files. No, not files on the case, files pertaining to the creation of the TVA… but they’re all classified. The same goes for files pertaining to the beginning of time and the end of the time.

Exasperated Loki asks which files he can have and he’s handed a handful of them which, merely cover his case as a Variant and the life of his alternate self in the sacred timeline.

Loki reads them anyway and discovers of the destruction of Asgard.

As he does he can’t help but shed a tear for his former planet, before noticing the TVA also noted that during the event there was zero variance energy detected.

This causes him to connect some important dots and so he rushes to join Mobius to the restaurant.

At first Mobius doesn’t want to listen him, claiming he told him not to bother him until he read all the files which Loki claims to have done.

Honestly he didn’t seem particularly interested in them but he might have done it as someone who practices magic should have been good at studying. Mobius insists and Loki points out what they’re searching isn’t in the files but in the timeline as the Variant is hiding in the apocalypse.

Mobius asks which one and Loki mentions Ragnarok, asking him if he’s familiar to it. And I wonder if Loki wanted an answer to this one question, if he wanted to know if Mobius knew his homeland was wiped away, that this is something the TVA allowed.

Mobius confirms he knows about it and apologizes to him.

Loki pretends not to care and goes on discussing how a Nexus event is the result of someone doing something he’s not supposed to that causes a chain reaction of things that aren’t supposed to happen.

Mobius confirms.

At this point Loki steals the salad Mobius was eating for his example and decides in his metaphor that salad will represent Asgard.

And tell me whatever you want but, as far as I’m involved this is Loki paying back Mobius for letting him to work while he went to eat.

Mobius gets immediately that his lunch is going to meet an abrupt demise but Loki doesn’t let this deter him.

Loki suggests if he were to go on Asgard before Ragnarok he could do whatever he wants, even push Hulk off the Rainbow bridge, and to prove his point, he adds more salt to the salad. He then says he could also set fire to the place. I don’t know what he adds to Mobius’ salad as he says so, maybe pepper, but this is enough to make Mobius beg not to set fire to the place, which I find hilarious. Loki continues to put salt and… pepper? Into Mobius’ salad commenting that he can do whatever he wants without going against the dictates of the timeline.

He then picks up Mobius’ drink only to find it empty so he goes to get the drink from the nearby’s table, Casey’s table. He then pours it into Mobius’ salad, likely making it impossible to eat, explaining how the drink represents Surtur who will destroy Asgard no matter what Loki does so what he does doesn’t matter.

In short, in addition to making his point, Loki let Mobius too without lunch.

Fair since Loki didn’t have lunch at all.

Mobius still doesn’t get it so Loki goes further on explaining if they have an apocalypse of whatever kind it doesn’t matter what one would do in it because everything would get destroyed so the Variant has to be hiding in an apocalypse, doing whatever they want without them noticing.

Mobius is forced to admit it’s not a bad theory and Loki tells him to bring him to an apocalypse and he’ll show him.

Mobius accuses him of wanting to run back to his homeland and Loki says whatever apocalypse will do. Mobius makes clear he’s afraid to bring Loki around and Loki insists they’ve to test his theory. Mobius makes clear he’s afraid Loki would want to test how stabbable is his back.

Loki complains stabbing someone in the back is a boring form of betrayal. Mobius said he has done it 50 times… which is really not much for someone who lived as long as Loki especially since most of those stabbing if not all took place during battle, because Mobius is talking of literal stabbing here, not metaphorical one.

Loki is not really interested in arguing this one though and just says he won’t do it again because it got old which causes Mobius to laugh. Loki insists that he understands Mobius doesn’t trust him but he should trust something else, Loki loves to be right… and this seals the deal.

So the guys are at Pompeii, Italy – 78 AD, though it would be more correct to say they’re at Pompeii, ROMAN EMPIRE – AD 78 or 78 CE.

Eruption day.

While Mobius is absolutely scared they might mess up the timeline Loki is as overexcited like a kid on a sugar rush.

Loki cried reading of the destruction of Asgard but here he seems pretty giddy.

To Mobius scolding him because ‘it’s just not in good taste’ he replies ‘they’re gonna die anyway’.

And in itself is interesting. Mobius said he’s sorry for Asgard destruction, now he worries about ‘good taste’ but in the end he’s not going to do anything to spare those people’s lives.

The dead count will be of over 2.000 a good part of it dying a horrible albeit fast death as they’ll be literally vaporized by the heat of the pyroclastic flow.

In face of so many people about to die Mobius worrying Loki’s behaviour isn’t in good taste feels hypocritical, a mere care for the form, in fact he agrees with Loki it’s ‘cool’ the whole city will be wiped off the planet and his main worry is they shouldn’t create a huge branch.

Anyway, while Mobius insist they should start creating only a very small disturbance, Loki ends up freeing animals and announcing the eruption and the following death of everyone to the people.

Loki making all that chaos feels as if this is way to distance from the apocalypse that hit Asgard. Honestly I don’t think he wanted to go there during Ragnarok if there was nothing he could have done to save it.

However his speech is also an interesting way for Loki to try and pry info from Mobius about the TVA

Loki: ( Speaking latin ) You’re all about to die. That volcano is about to erupt! I would know, because I’m from the future. ( In english ) We are from the future, right? What is the TVA? I mean, it's from the future. It sounds from the future. It's pretty future-y.

Mobius won’t reply to him but the eruption will start right there, the Tempad continuing to sign zero variance energy, proving Loki was right. I wonder if this was also Loki’s way to try and see if an apocalypse could be prevented.

Oh, Loki talks Latin here but I’ve already talked about the language problem in the MCU and how the TVA seems to have a tv series version of Allspeak which, evidently passed to Loki too as he showed he previously couldn’t talk to Mongolian people.

On another note… the eruption, as depicted in the show, is not historically accurate.

Around 1:00 p.m., Mount Vesuvius violently erupted, spewing up a high-altitude column (the column supposedly as high as 30 km) from which ash and pumice began to fall, blanketing the area. Rescues and escapes occurred during this time.

It’s only much later, in the night or during the day after that the pyroclastic flows began and it Pompeei 4 minutes later, murdering everyone there.

The show instead seems to mix up the first eruption with the beginning of the pyroclastic flow (which is the one we see approaching from behind Loki), skipping the fall of ash and pumice.

Of course from a storytelling point of view it works a lot better, so it’s not a big deal and it’s just artistic freedom, it’s just my history lover’s heart which is bleeding.

If you want to enjoy how the eruption looked like there’s a nice video on Youtube “A Day in Pompeii - Full-length animation”.

The switch between Pompeii and back to the TVA feels a little abrupt, as if the Pompeii scene was meant to last more and they cut it.

Anyway they’re back on TVA and Mobius is summarizing Loki’s theory. Loki tells him he’s welcome, which, I take, is Loki’s clue he’d like to be thanked for his contribution. Mobius though is more focused on the mechanics of their new discovery.

He believes for Loki’s theory to hold the disasters have to be naturally-occurring, sudden, no warning, no survivors. So Ragnarok wouldn’t be okay because Loki and Thor triggered it and there were survivors. That is unless the TVA retconned “Thor: Ragnarok”.

Anyway, they decide they’ll have to find out how many of those natural disasters there are… but in the end Loki falls asleep on all the documents they’re checking.

I know there’s a debate if this proves he trusts Mobius or not… but the point is, he just proved himself he was of great help, so Mobius who has shown to have some measures of sympathy toward him despite his strict adherence to the TVA code and that make him capable to disintegrate him should need arise, has really no reason to harm him, quite the opposite.

Also he’s likely quite exhausted, both physically and emotionally otherwise he clearly wouldn’t fall asleep on an uncomfortable position over a stack of papers.

And differently from Mobius he supposedly didn’t even had lunch.

Mobius yawns which shows he’s clearly worn out as well, wakes him and tells him they’re going for a walk. So no bed, they’ll only take a small break.

I take they end up in the TVA version of a cafeteria where Loki asks Mobius about the jet ski magazine. Mobius ends up showing his total love for jet skis.

“Yeah. You know, some things... Actually, most things in history are kinda dumb, and everything gets ruined eventually. But in the early 1990s, for a brief, shining moment, there was a beautiful union of form and function, which we call the jet ski, and a reasonable man cannot differ.”

Actually he sounds like a fanboy, dismissive of everything he doesn’t like and imposing his own likes claiming no one could have a different opinion from him. It’s not a complain, it’s human. I like how the TVA members, despite their dystopian setting and their fanatic faith to the TVA religion have characteristics, both good and bad, that made them human.

However, at Loki’s question if he has ever tried a Jet Ski, Mobius admits he never been on one because if a TVA agent were to show up on a jet ski that would create a branch. It’s a poor excuse since they show up in timelines in their everyday clothes in time periods in which those clothes aren’t appropriate and anyway, who cares since they reset the branches so they could even show up naked and everything would get erased?

In this Mobius is the opposite of Loki, although he too has wishes that make him similar to Loki he doesn’t dare to fulfil them, he completely focuses on his work, he claims to read the magazines because they remind him what he’s fighting for… jet skis appearing in the Sacred Timeline in early 1990s apparently.

Okay, it’s more that he believes if the Sacred Timeline gets destroyed everything would but people who were believing to be heroes like he does would say they would fight for people, not for a beautiful vehicle that could be enjoyed only for a brief amount of time.

Mobius in a way is disconnected by the people on the sacred timeline, maybe because he never met them, he met the Variants, which are considered something to be pruned and nothing more and he actively help in pruning them.

So maybe he can’t work for people, because as soon as those people become variants, bang, they need to be wiped away. I think Mobius would like to be a decent person, I think he doesn’t want to harm people so he keeps distance and blindly swallows the TVA teaching and this discussion further proves it.

Loki asks if he really believes in all the TVA preaches and Mobius replies:

Mobius: I don't get hung up on, "Believe, not believe." I just accept what is.

It reminds me of a discussion he had with Loki in the past episode:

Loki: So that had the Time-Keepers' seal of approval, did it?

Mobius: Well, I wouldn't think of it in terms of approval and disapproval. That's sort of a... Let's get back to escapes...

Mobius just accepts things as they are presented. But why he accepts them?

Loki goes on summarizing how the TVA’s beliefs are that three magic lizards created the TVA and everyone in it including Mobius, which for Loki is clearly something dumb to believe.

Loki: Every time I start to admire your intelligence, you say something like that.

Mobius tries to retort it by turning tables on Loki.

Mobius: Okay, who created you, Loki?

Loki: A Frost Giant of Jotunheim.

Mobius: And who raised you?

Loki: Odin of Asgard.

Mobius: Odin, God of the Heavens. Asgard, mystical realm, beyond the stars. Frost Giants. Listen to yourself...

Loki: It's not the same. It's completely different. No. It's not the same.

Mobius: It's exactly the same thing.

The HUGE problem in Mobius’ reasoning is that he’s mixing up what Loki has experienced, his skin turning blue, proving he’s a Jotun, living his whole life with Odin, believing him to be his father, with Mobius merely believes as Mobius has no knowledge of what the Time-Keepers are since he never met them and likely doesn’t even remember when he was created or things like that.

Loki believes in what he lived though because he touched and sampled it and, in fact, he had a breakdown when he discovered part of it, the part he had no memory about but embraced out of faith was a lie (Loki couldn’t remember his Jotun heritage or his birth so he accepted what he was told, that Odin and Frigga were his parents). This likely makes even harder for him to accept that Mobius would just blindly believe in something he hadn’t experienced in the slightest.

Mobius had said:

Mobius: I don't get hung up on, "Believe, not believe." I just accept what is.

But at the end of it what motivates him is blind belief.

Mobius: Because if you think too hard about where any of us came from, who we truly are, it sounds kinda ridiculous. Existence is chaos. Nothing makes any sense, so we try to make some sense of it. And I'm just lucky that the chaos I emerged into gave me all this... My own glorious purpose. Cause the TVA is my life. And it's real because I believe it's real.

The TVA is real because he believes so. It has to be or his own ‘glorious purpose’ would mean nothing. Loki got burned by the truth. Mobius doesn’t want to end up the same, he doesn’t want to think at the absurdity the TVA feds him, he doesn’t want to question if what he does is right or wrong because the truth might disappoint it, it might be ridiculous, in bad taste, like being excited as Pompeii is about to be buried by the volcano.

The TVA is Mobius’ religion, and, to paraphrase Karl Marx faith in the TVA ‘is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.’

But this kind of mindset is also the mindset of whose who represent the ‘banality of evil’ of those who indulge in the capital vice of Acedia, whose who do not care, who do nothing to stop evil empower it and support it.

“...morally speaking, there is no limit to the concern one must feel for the suffering of human beings, that indifference to evil is worse than evil itself, that in a free society, some are guilty, but all are responsible.” ― Abraham Heschel

And, after all, Mobius works to support it, to support the TVA as they prune/reset countless lives.

There’s something else that’s interesting.

Mobius is supposed to be a lawful character… yet he doesn’t believe existence is order. Existence is chaos. And, in the same way as he’s afraid to try out a jet ski and making excuses for why he doesn’t do so, I think Mobius deep down is scared by chaos. Fascinated by it but scared by it as well. In fact he’ll later says that he believes when it all will end and the Time-Keepers will have finished untangling the timeline all that will emerge will be order.

Loki: Ah, I see. So, when they're finished, what happens then?

Mobius: So are we. No more nexus events. Just order. And we meet in peace at the end of time. Nice, right?

Loki: Only order?

Mobius: Mmm-hmm.

Loki: No chaos? It sounds boring.

Mobius: I'm sure it does to you.

Order is reassuring, it gives people a sense, a purpose, order is explainable. Order follows laws so it’s lawful. But order, like Loki points out, is also boring, predictable. No bad surprise would come out of it, true, but no good surprise either. No change. No possibility to get worse… but no possibility to get better either. Order is static where chaos is always changing. You need a mixture of both to make a worthy life.

Besides the idea they ‘meet in peace at the end of time’ to me feels more like an attempt to use a different wording to say ‘we’re all dead’ or ‘we’ll be all pruned/reset’. So not particularly encouraging.

But I’m running ahead a bit. When Mobius says Loki that the TVA is real because he believes so, Loki accepts it. For the moment.

Loki: Fair enough. You believe it's real.

And I wonder if, in a way, Loki can understand. Because the chaos, the unpredictable, is what made him discover he wasn’t an Odinson. If he hadn’t questioned Odin’s words, if he hadn’t gone and taken the Casket of Ancient Winters in his hands but just turned his eyes away when his skin turned blue, if, like Mobius said, he hadn’t thought to hard at it, or at how bad Thor could be as a kind, if he just had shrugged everything off and said ‘yeah, I’m sorry Thor will be a poor kind but that’s what meant to be, who cares?’ and ‘yeah, it’s weird my skin turned blue but Odin said I’m his son so who am I to question him?’ he would have spared himself many unpleasant things.

He would be at Asgard, thinking to be Odin’s son, trying to help Thor, who prior to his banning to Earth was completely unfit to rule, not ruin completely the planet. That would be his own glorious purpose. Nothing more.

And while it wouldn’t be a great purpose… well, it would have spared him of a lot of pain so I think Loki can see the charm of it… but at the same time he can see the danger of it. If we’ll blindly follow the rules we give up on our free will.

Loki: So everything is written. Past, present, future. There's no such thing as free will.

Mobius: Well, I mean, you know, it's an oversimplification...

Mobius thinks it’s an oversimplification but it’s not. He’s probably telling himself since he submits to the rules willingly, well, that’s his free will. But we’ve seen that the other option is being reset. The Variants are nothing else but people who didn’t follow the dictation of the Time-keepers, a dictation they didn’t even know existed, but merely followed their free will. And the TVA erases them.

It’s true, the ones that follow the Sacred Timeline, not knowing they’re following the dictation of the Time-keepers, are still, in a way, following their free will, but it’s actually a pretty tricky situation because their options get pruned by the TVA.

People don’t exist in a vacuum. We take decisions according to what happens around us.

Now think to a world in which Odin tells Loki the truth right from the start. This would lead Loki to get very different decisions… only that Odin, if it ever existed, got pruned.

Think to a Thor who’s ready to rule when he’s about to be crowned so that Loki doesn’t have to disrupt the coronation. Well, think twice because that Thor got pruned.

Think to a Frigga who hands the crown to Loki but also sits next to him instead than next to Odin to support him while he’s going through his worst crisis. Pruned again.

Think to the Warriors Three and Sif not attempting to go fetch Thor after he’s banned. Sorry, they got pruned.

Think to Heimdall not allowing Thor to go to Jotunheim. Never mind he got pruned.

Loki made his choices. It was his free will. But his choices were tied to all that happened around him, and since all that happened around him was decided he was channelled toward certain decisions, everything working to make him take such decision.

Actually, each time he tried to take a different decision he too got pruned.

The resulting Loki that inhabits the Sacred Timeline, more than the result of his own free will, is the result of manipulation of the events and TVA selection. Which is kind of creepy.

But okay, it’s interesting how, in a way, Loki tries to connect with Mobius.

Maybe it’s Stockholm syndrome as Loki was someone held captive and sentenced to death and then Mobius came in and made clear that Loki’s survival depended on him, maybe it’s just that Mobius showed him some measure of kindness and appreciation and it doesn’t matter if he was being manipulative or not, Loki was so starved for it he fell for it, or he caught up on some similarities between them.

Sure, it can be that by connecting with him he can better use him but I don’t think that’s just it.

Mobius is someone Loki can connect with on an intellectual level, where Thor was just ‘let’s hit things’ and the Warriors Three and Sif were just, let’s do what Thor says.

And after Thor and his friends there were Thanos and the Other and clearly Loki couldn’t connect with them. So it doesn’t matter how screwed up the situation is and how Mobius manipulated Loki in their first meeting and what he told him, fundamentally Mobius is the only one Loki, who’s forced to go around with a jacket saying ‘Variant’ because no one has to forget he’s a cosmic joke, has in that setting.

So yes, it’s VERY screwed up but it makes sense Loki would partially latch on him. It’s human.

On another note I’m not really fond of the idea of Mobius using the French ‘au contraire’ while talking with Loki. Maybe it’s an ad-lib but since there’s already enough mess on how the TVA can talk all the languages and Asgardian somehow don’t have Allspeak, I would have preferred if they hadn’t mixed English and French now. Whatever, maybe that’s just me.

Loki goes on.

Loki: You called me a scared little boy.

Mobius: I called you a lotta things.

I wonder what Mobius means here, if he’s just telling Loki he shouldn’t focus on that (as calling him as such was Mobius’ attempt at showing him sympathy), but Loki nails another relevant topic.

Loki: You did. You're wrong, though. You see, I know something children don't.

Mobius: What's that?

Loki: That no one bad is ever truly bad. And no one good is ever truly good.

It’s interesting it’s coming from Loki because it means, differently from how sometimes Marvel movies seems to depict a world in black and white, Loki could see the shades of grey.

In his family. In the Avengers. In Thanos and the Other. Maybe even in the TVA people. And this means in himself as well.

And we go back to what he said in Ep 1:

Loki: I can't go back, can I? Back to my timeline. I don't enjoy hurting people. I... ( Sighs ) I don't enjoy it. I do it because I have to, because I've had to.

Mobius: Okay, explain that to me.

Loki: Because it's part of the illusion. It's the cruel, elaborate trick conjured by the weak to inspire fear.

Mobius: A desperate play for control. You do know yourself.

Loki: A villain. ( Sighs )

He painted himself as a villain, as someone all black, to show as if he was someone in control… in “Thor” when he was in an emotional storm, in “The Avengers” when he actually was working for Thanos.

But if we consider Loki’s words solely for their tie to the present discussion, he’s trying to tell Mobius that the black and white vision Mobius is trying to adopt doesn’t work. If there’s good in bad and bad in good, the perfect world Mobius thinks he can archive doesn’t exist and his glorious purpose is not so glorious.

Nothing is perfect and so no perfect order or perfect chaos can exist and trying to paint things or people black and white as the Time-Keepers are doing and the TVA as well, is a mistake.

Loki’s words though cause Mobius to remember the boy he met in the cathedral before going to Loki’s trial and how he had a candy box left by the Loki Variant. And I’ve always wondered WHY did the Loki Variant left that candy box behind? Is like she’s leaving breadcrumbs for the TVA or someone working with them to track her down.

Kablooie was only sold regionally on Earth from 2047 to 2051. While it wouldn’t be easy to track the Variant with just this, the Variant limits the place they’ve to search for them to only 4 years.

On an interesting note although Mobius claimed to know everything about Loki’s life he evidently had no idea if Asgardians had candies or not. So yeah, I think Mobius didn’t exactly knew EVERYTHING about Loki’s life, only what the TVA deemed relevant.

Anyway Mobius decides since they now know the Variant is hiding in an apocalyptic event in which Kablooie are involved they can cross-reference the two things.

Mobius has probably more clearance than Loki as he gets the files and then gives Loki a half, encouraging him to search fast through them by making it a competition… which actually is dumb, because the Variant can only be in one place so only the one who got that file among them can find it, no matter if he’s fast or slow… but whatever, Loki is motivated enough by this because he likes to win.

However, although Mobius asks him if he wants to bet on something, then he demands they’ll play for pride.

Anyway, as Mobius realizes it’s one apocalyptic event after another (all in 5 years) Loki finds what they’re searching for in an apocalyptic event in Alabama, 2050.

This gains him Mobius’ praise as he tells him he’ll take his job if he’s not careful.

I remember reading some interviews suggested Loki and Mobius had a mentor/student type of relation. Well, Mobius definitely feels like the mentor, one who takes care of Loki and teaches him how it works at the TVA, completely not focusing on how Loki was basically kidnapped by the place, doesn’t aim to stay there and people look down at him and is always ready to dispose of him because he’s a Variant… and what’s worse, the Variant of someone who, according to the Time-Keepers is meant to be ‘an evil, lying scourge’.

On the other side… working for the TVA is Loki’s only option to survive in that setting so Mobius likely sees it as Loki having to stop ‘thinking too hard’ and also make the TVA his life. In short he should just be like him and submit to the Time-Keepers.

So yeah, his point of view make sense but… it’s terrible, it’s actually telling people not to resist to wrong conditions but submit to them. It’s the typical mindsetting of a bureaucratic huge corporation or system, where no one matters and everyone obeys without worrying to much about what they’re obeying at.

But back to the story Mobius goes to Renslayer to asks her ‘to approve deployment of a fully-armed task force to the Variant's potential hiding spot’.

By the way said hising spot is in ‘Haven Hills, Alabama, corporate town owned by Roxxcart until it's wiped out by a hurricane’.

The name Roxxcart might remember to who read the comic or watched “Agent Carter” of the Roxxon Corporation, one of the world's largest conglomerates, founded in the 1940s. It also appeared in Marvel “Cloak & Dagger” and “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.”, with vague references at it in “Iron Man”, “Iron Man 2”, “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Thor's Hammer”, “Iron Man 3” and the MCU comic “The Avengers Prelude: Fury's Big Week”. It’s hard to say if this will be another vague reference or there will be more.

Renslayer is prejudiced against our Loki as she continues to call him a Variant and tries dismissing the whole thing merely because HE suggested it and the other time he ‘blew up’ the previous mission. Which he didn’t but of this I’ve already talked.

Mobius is all happy Loki proved himself useful and his idea to use him was right but Renslayer instead insists on not trusting him, even though he just discovered a huge hole in their security system.

Now, okay, Loki isn’t to be trusted blindly, but Renslayer isn’t really giving a rational reason why this theory, which actually makes a lot of sense and is supported by some evidence Mobius collected, would be wrong. If they’re going to shot down any theory Loki comes up just because he’s Loki then she shouldn’t have even given him to Mobius.

In fact when Mobius point out how Loki HELPED discovering the hole in the security she’s only more worried.

Anyway Mobius is so excited he manages to get her to agree, although she warns him she won’t be able to help him if this doesn’t work out.

They kind of repeat something that was included in the video/commercial of the TVA Miss Minute showed Loki in the previous episode.

Mobius: For all time.

Ravonna Renslayer: Always.

I wonder if this is actually meant to be the TVA catchphrase.

Anyway Mobius leaves Renslayer and we see Loki is out of the room, nervous, waiting for him. He seems quite satisfied when Mobius says they’ve got permission.

Mobius is still all excited… and make a vague promise that amounts to… basically nothing, to Loki.

Mobius: I'm tellin' you. You actually help us catch this Variant, and who knows, my friend.

Loki: What, good enough for a face-to-face with the Time-Keepers?

Mobius: I didn't say that. One step at a time.

Loki: All right. One step at a time.

He actually promises nothing to him, because, as he said, he said nothing. ‘Who knows’ can mean anything, even that after they catch the Variant they’ll prune him, or they’ll merely allow him to live at the TVA, forcing him to work for them. Who knows what ‘who knows’ mean!

Loki tries to have some more solid confirmation and basically gets nothing, which is not very promising.

As far as I’m involved I think Mobius is doing this promise more because he’s trying to keep Loki loyal than because he has something solid to offer to him. In fact he hadn’t bargained with Renslayer for this. Loki is there to catch the Variant, catching the Variant would end their need to use Loki but, as soon as Mobius got permission for the mission he left without insuring if they were to succeed he could keep him.

Does Loki really want to meet the Time-Keepers? What he aims to get from them?

Anyway Mobius is so excited he tries to give knives to Loki.

Enters Hunter B-15, who strongly despise Loki who takes them away from him (I wonder if Loki managed to steal them back unknown to her. I would love if he did). She briefs her men for the mission, which also allows us viewers to get some info and orders them to prune Loki at sight. Clearly she doesn’t even believe in putting him to that mock trials the TVA offers to its captive Variants.

Loki makes present they should preferably prune the bad Loki, not him and then the scene moves to Haven Hills and I love how this time they had introduced it not by writing it on the screen but by showing us a sign saying we’re in Haven Hills, Alabama… before having it destroyed.

I really love this scene.

The TVA arrives at Roxxcart and they’ve the good sense to open their Timedoors outside of it.

It’s interesting how Loki looks up at the storming sky. I wonder if he’s searching for thunders (we saw one hitting the ground before the TVA appeared) as a way to check if Thor is around, even though it’s clear Thor wouldn’t cause such destruction.

To Hunter B-15’s surprise Loki uses his magic to dry up, which somehow seems to make her even more suspicious of him. Because yeah, drying yourself is such a sinister act.

Mobius would like to go with Loki at the Green House but Hunter B-15 forbids it, wanting to part them. Mobius has to go with Hunter D-90 while Loki has to stay with her.

And I’ve the personal suspicion that’s because she hopes in a not to obvious chance to prune him too away from Mobius’ eyes.

B-15 tells Mobius if he’s not fine with it, he can go argue with Renslayer about it.

It’s interesting how they’re arguing. I wonder if Hunters and Analysts actually form two different and opposite classes in TVA who argue against each other despite a poster depicting them as working together.

Anyway Loki gets in between and tells Mobius it’s fine, that he can trust him and that he’ll understand trust has to be gained so he’ll gain it.

Honestly the way Loki puts it makes him even more suspicious for me, but I wonder if the key is it has to work for B-15.

Mobius complains about how is always the people you can’t trust that tell you ‘trust me’. Well, the people you trust wouldn’t need to ask you your trust so they won’t tell it to you.

Mobius though at this surrender as well, he’s so excited to get the Variant he doesn’t consider he could ask to stay with B-15 as well, or that he could say B-15 is asking this because she wants to try to harm Loki. He just let the issue go after a jab about how the past time B-15 ended up wearing the Time Collar.

Meanwhile the Loki Variant has noticed they’re in thanks to all the cameras in the place, as if they were waiting for the TVA. Again I wonder if the Loki Variant has someone supporting them in the TVA because they seem to know too much, later they’ll even show knowing the other Loki was brought in by the TVA to capture them.

We see the Loki Variant leaving down a tempad on which there’s a countdown that’s at 20 minutes.

Back to Loki he’s in the greenhouse with B-15, trying to chat with her… which could be a genuine attempt at communication or an attempt at warning the Variant they’re there. I’m not sure on which side Loki is… but I wonder if his goal is to stall things.

He might suspect if they get the Variant he’ll be disposed off so his aim might be to show he’s useful but also to stall the capture of the Variant. This might be what he was trying to do in the previous mission as well. So it’s not exactly he’s trying to help the Variant, he’s trying to gain time for himself.

B-15 doesn’t feel like talking with him but then they find a guy who claims to be shopping for plants despite the hurricane.

B-15 asks Loki if the guy could be him and Loki points out he ‘probably would have worn a suit, but, yes, maybe’, hinting at how Loki cares about how he looks.

B-15 gets too close to the guy who manages to grab her. We see some green magic pass to B-15 and then the guy faints. Loki asks if he’s dead but ‘B-15’ tells him ‘they usually survive’, making clear she’s no more B-15 but the Variant possessing her, who also recognizes Loki for who he is:

“So, you're the fool the TVA brought in to hunt me down.”

As I said this sentence gives me the feeling the Variant knew the TVA brought him someone to hunt them, in short they’ve inside intel about the TVA and I would love to know how.

Now possessing B-15 is a good move as she’s a good fighter with a weapon in her hands and this also leaves Loki on her own.

Loki recognizes the speaker for what they are, the Loki Variant possessing B-15, in short himself.

The Variant points out:

“Please. If anyone's anyone, you're me.”

Implying the Variant saw themselves as the better/original Loki version.

Wunmi Mosaku does a good work at playing the Loki Variant here, really.

Back in the shelter people is clearly in deep distress and a guy thinks the TVA is there to help them.

I think Mobius is torn, a side of him would just search for the Variant, the other is being affected by the situation but he tries to suppress it.

D-90 instead doesn’t care and pushes the man away as if he didn’t even exist. Which he doesn’t for him.

Mobius: What are you doing? Hey! These people are scared.

Hunter D-90: They're about to die. They should be scared.

Mobius: Okay. Not of us.

Even though those people aren’t Variants as they’re going to die the TVA doesn’t acknowledge them right. Like the Loki Variant they don’t care what they do because everything will be erased, either by a reset charge or by the apocalypse.

Mobius doesn’t like this… but again it’s not like he’s trying to save those people, he’ll let them die because the Time-Keepers dictate so.

Hunters in the TVA are somehow all jerks. Again they would work well as stand in for police brutality but I don’t know if the series wants to go this way.

Mobius and D-90 are interrupted when a Minuteman informs them they had found a tied C-20 who’s in state of shock and repeating over and over ‘it’s real’.

So C-20’s role isn’t to be a bait, I think it’s possible the Variant wants to use her to deliver a message to the TVA.

Back to Loki he comments on the spell used.

“Enchantment is a clever trick. Cowardly, a bit amateur-ish, but clever.”

The fact enchantment was used seems to be a nod to how the Variant might be Sylvie Lushton, who also went under the alias of enchantress.

In the comics Sylvie is not the original enchantress, that one was Amora, sister of Lorelei who appeared in “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.”. Sylvie was supposedly a human created by Loki who also gave her her magical powers. Although she has no training she has amazing magical powers and moved from wanting to be an Avenger to trying to become a Villain.

We’ll see what this Variant will turn out to be.

Anyway the Variant blames Loki of being the coward one because he works for the TVA. She mocks this asking him if he really believes that, which he confirms so she dismisses him:

Hunter B-15 (possessed): ( The variant chuckles ) And here I was worried that they'd found a better version of me.

And this again seems to imply the Variant KNEW the TVA got themselves a Loki but who told them? They just discovered it at the fair?

A person, Randy, appear and B-15 touches him then faint. Loki almost hurries to help her before realizing what had happened.

Well, the Variant could have disintegrate Randy instead she preferred to transfer themselves into him. This is interesting because it seems although they’ve no hesitation in killing TVA people they’re against harming normal people.

Loki still go to check B-15… or can it be he placed something in one of her pockets? Like a message for Mobius? Loki touches his jacket before bending down on B-15 and this time we don’t see what he touches as she’s cut off the screen which is odd.

The Variant thinks he’s trying to search a transmitting device to call the others for help. Loki tails the Variant, challenging them to face him and then explaining how he had gained the TVA confidence.

The Variant is not that much impressed but they continue to give Loki their back. Not that it matter as that back isn’t really the Variant’s back.

Loki explains his plan… which I don’t know if it’s really his plan or a trick.

Loki: I'm going to overthrow the Time-Keepers. And, uh, cards on the table, I could use a qualified lieutenant.

It’s relevant how Loki, talking with the Variant, uses a more polite and Asgard like language.

The Variant is clearly not interested in working for Loki but what hits me is that they don’t want to be called ‘Loki’ which could be because they aren’t Loki after all.

Loki: What say you... Loki?

Randy (possessed): Ugh. Don't call me that. You can call me... Randy.

I love how this meeting helps Loki to realize why Thor found these techniques annoying.

Loki: God. Now I understand why Thor found this so annoying.

Loki claims he has helped the Variant at the fair so yes, apparently he has played that risky bet back then for a reason. I really would love to know which game Loki is playing.

Loki: Listen. Enough with your games. I've been trying to help you. I kept them vulnerable at the Renaissance Fair for some time.

The Variant still isn’t interested in joining him as they don’t care about ruling the TVA.

We see that there are Time charges placed all around, partially hidden from sight which don’t promise anything good and someone, likely the Variant, is tweaking with them while ‘Randy’ keeps Loki distracted. So yes, this Variant too is good at stalling.

C-20 is still babbling, while Mobius tries to get something out of her.

D-90 just waves her off saying she’s off the dial and showing a worrying lack of a care for a companion.

Although C-20 says she wants to go home when Mobius offers to send them back she says she can’t as she gave away the position of the Time-Keepers.

Oh, so C-20 knew it? Did she, differently from Mobius met them?

D-90 tries to contact B-15 causing her to wake up.

Loki tries to get what the Variant wants but the Variant refuses to explain themselves saying Loki is too late. Loki counters he’s ahead as he found the Variant’s hiding place, then notices the Time charges and thinks the Variant lead them there to blow the place up.

As he turns his gaze Randy has disappeared and the Variant has possessed a big guy who starts beating Loki. Loki is not really fighting back. Are possessed people really so powerful or Loki is trying to pass himself for weak?

Anyway, after pointing out:

Loki: I would never treat me like this.

Which might be our clue the Variant isn’t really a Loki but someone pretending to be one, Loki starts more actively to try to avoid blows and even use his magic to get something he can use as shield.

The Variant’s language is nowhere near as polite as Loki and the possessed guy manages to send Loki on the ground. The idea of a toy dachshund bumping against him is cute.

B-15 manages to find Mobius and she’s forced to confess she lost Loki. Likely she thinks it’s due to Loki but doesn’t know how to explain it while D-90 just says Mobius’ favourite Loki betrayed him as they run to search for him.

The possessed guy is using another tempad connecting it to another mechanism. Although Loki couldn’t move he hadn’t tried to kill him and now Loki wakes up and demands to know what the Variants wants from him and what is this about. He’s clearly angry.

The possessed guy stands up and then tells him to brace himself before fainting, a sign the Variant isn’t possessing him anymore.

A recording keeps on repeating Loki’s last two sentences ‘What do you want from me? What is this about?’.

I’m not sure why the Variant would record those two sentences and play them over unless we’re to assume they’re actually only playing in Loki’s head.

The Variant appears, removes their hood to reveal it hid a blond woman face then in an unfriendly tone she states:

“This isn't about you.”

Loki’s surprise lasts only few seconds before he says ‘right’.

Meanwhile the countdown has reached 0, the light shot down, the time charges, tons of them, turn on but then below them timedoors appear, sending them away.

Mobius notices what’s going on and worries about where the Time charges are going.

Back at the TVA we assist to the sudden formation of LOTS of branches. The Analysts come to the conclusion someone ‘bombed’ the Sacred Timeline.

Renslayer, who has a hunter helmet that starts with A-25… which might mean she was one of the first hunters of the place, grabs her weapon as Minuteman spun to action.

Loki sees the Variant grabbing the Tempad again and using it to open a human size timedoor as she watches him. She waves at him the way he did at the Hulk when he went on the lift and goes through the Timedoor. Loki considers following but stalls for a moment. Mobius is running there, telling him to wait. Loki sees him but decides to go through the timedoor anyway and, as he does the timedoor disappears, leaving Mobius and the hunters outside.

The episode ends here.

People had been wondering what was Loki thinking when he went through the Timedoor and Tom Hiddleston explained it in an interview:

There's a very big moment at the end where Loki steps through that portal. From your perspective what is going through Loki's mind when he looks back at Mobius and then decides to go through the door anyway? Is he feeling any remorse there at all?

I think certainly there's conflict. I think he… you know, Mobius is someone who, perhaps for the first time in his life, he thinks he might be able to trust, and perhaps trusts him, and he doesn't want to betray that trust, but at the same time he has to go and see what that's what's going on, he has to do that. I think it was he can't help himself but follow… uh… because it's too strange and to, you know, provoke so much curiosity within him. So there is a huge conflict there, he thinks “I probably shouldn't do this, maybe there can be repercussions down the line, but I have to see what that's about”. ['Loki' - Tom Hiddleston & Owen Wilson Talk Ep 2 Twist! _ TVLine Interview]

Now this might be not the full truth because Tom might have been forced to withhold information in order not to give away the plot of future episodes but it’s worth considering it.

Undoubtedly following the other Loki is a risk. It’s clear the other is challenging him to follow… and he knows next to nothing about the other Loki so, if the TVA is bad for him, the other Loki could be worse and he might be trading a bad place for a pure hell. Who says the other Loki doesn’t work for Thanos for example?

In the TVA he has Mobius as some sort of interested ally, with the other Loki he has no one. You know, "Better the devil you know than the devil you don't know". At the same time it makes sense he wants to try following the other Loki because he’s not the type to stagnate and remain there. He has to see, he has to try. Where Mobius wouldn’t risk, Loki does. I hope for him the bet will be worth it.

Last but not least it’s worth to mention in the ending theme they’ve replaced two photos of Loki with one of the Loki Variant and another with just a different image of Loki with the TVA jacket.

So anyway we’ve gotten to the end of it. I still wonder if the Loki Variant as an insider in the TVA passing her info and if she’s really a Loki or she just pretends to be. How she came to make all this big plan? Why she had looked like she wanted Loki to tail her?

We’ll see.

#loki #loki odinson #loki laufeyson #mobius m mobius #hunter b 15 #hunter c 20 #ravonna renslayer #casey #mcu loki #tom hiddleston #9 worlds study #9 worlds study mcu loki

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elenamegan14 · 5 years ago

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Twisted Wonderland: Headcanons for Dorm Haunted Houses Pt.2 - Overview 2

MASTERLIST

Part 1

MC is not the only one who wanted to win those charms.

Most of the first years are aiming to be rule-free from the dorm heads, they will risk going through high tides just to escape from their one-day tyrannical rule.

Of course Ace, Deuce, Jack, and Epel joined in. Grimm is already up ahead - they can hear his screams from the Heartsyabul’s haunted house, already racking up the scream points for them.

The reason why Ace and Deuce is not selected as the haunted house staff is simple. One day before the dorm started their haunted house event, Riddle gave a thinly veiled threat towards the two first-years:

“I better hear you all squeal out loud, Trappola, and Spade. We can’t afford to lose to the other dorms. Or else it’s OFF WITH YOUR HEADS.”

Oh yeah, good motivation alright.

But it’s also because Ace and Deuce care for MC so much that they won’t let MC go through it alone, high and low.

The fact that Ace is secretly a chicken must be taken into consideration.

Jack too wanted to go along with MC and get the charms, only if he can sabotage Savannaclaw for the sake of getting Leona to do something instead of making everyone lazy for a day if their dorm wins.

Epel tries to prove that he’s the man and that he can take on the sissy haunted houses (and to escape from Vil’s haunted house beauty regimen). Like Grimm, he severely underestimated how SCARY these haunted houses are.

But he MUST!! Persevere!! Otherwise, if Pomefieore wins, at least he has a charm that he can use to fend for himself against Vil. Everyone shudders at the thought of Vil becoming the ruler of NRC for a day - everyone and their grandmas already heard of how Vil acted as a beauty trainer during the Fairy Gala incident.

At exactly 6 PM in the evening, the students that took on the challenge gathered on the courtyard. They receive pumpkin badges to show that they are the participants in this challenge. Crowley even elaborated the rules a little bit more:

Their job is to go through every seven dorms in the following order: Heartsyabul, Savannaclaw, Octanivelle, Scarabia, Pomefiore, Ignihyde, and last but not least, Diasomnia.

There are seven charms around the dorm’s haunted houses. There will be a challenge on how to get the charm itself.

If they manage to collect at seven charms and present them to Principal Crowley by midnight, they are exempt from having to follow the rules imposed by the dorm that wins.

These charms can also be used to nullify themselves against “ghosts” or “monsters” in the Haunted House.

Students can go solo or put themselves in the group. Almost everyone immediately formed a group, except for a select brave few who are arrogant enough to face the haunted houses alone.

Students are also given a ten-minute break to calm themselves down from the haunted house experience - refreshments will be provided. Counselors will be called in.

And one more thing: Coach Vargas also adds in an additional rule: STUDENTS ALSO HAVE THE RIGHT TO STEAL CHARMS FROM THE INDIVIDUAL OR GROUPS WHO GOT IT, BUT ONLY INSIDE THE HAUNTED HOUSE.

In short, it’s a dog-eat-dog tournament of FEAR.

At that point, every student who is in opposite groups or single gave each other death glares and delinquent taunts to rile the poor contestants off.

And without further ado, the group went off on their first haunted dorm: Heartsyabul.

TO BE CONTINUED

Part 3

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artificialqueens · 4 years ago

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Down with the Recipe, Bake from the Heart, 1/10 (Multi) - Juno

Summary: This year’s Great British Bake Off will see some baking for sure, but also a few surprises. Tayce goes into the Bake Off tent determined to bring the winning cake stand to Wales, along with a few Star Baker badges, but her attention may not be on baking for too long as she gets to know fellow baker Aurora, on the same row as her. And judging by the other contestants, Tayce might not be the only one focusing on something other than baking this season.

A/N: This is a DRUK2 group based on GBBO - there are a few ships! It’s also on AO3 with 12 chapters but I will post here with 10 for ease as the first two and last two will are being done together. No CWs for this chapter! I hope you enjoy.

PROLOGUE - October 2021

It had been Cheryl who had suggested a live react to the grand finale of this season of Bake Off, so the twelve finalists could all gather together, watch the finale, and then the winner’s reaction could be captured on film and put on the internet for the whole world to see. Cheryl hadn’t even been in the cast - she’d been on the previous season - but she said she’d become invested in the season and the bakers so much so that she hadn’t wanted to let them go yet.

And judging by the public’s reaction to her tweet about it, she wasn’t alone.

Pip had mentioned in their group chat that her sister had a big town house in the Wirral, and she’d offered to let them all use it as a base for their live watch. Channel 4 didn’t have anything purpose-built for them, and the filming location wasn’t available, so they’d all jumped at the chance. Plus, Liverpool served as a good mid-point for them all - it saved Joe having to go all the way to Dundee or Ellie having to go to Brighton.

Aurora had marvelled at the amount of space there was once they’d all arrived the previous day. The living room and dining area were one, with a dining table probably big enough to fit a couple of football teams at it; and the kitchen led into the room with an arched doorway. The kitchen itself was enormous too, in highly polished white surfaces that Aurora was terrified to touch with her probably-impure fingers

“Bit posh, isn’t it!” She’d muttered to Tayce.

Pip’s sister and her husband were staying away, and they had the place all to themselves - the twelve of them reunited, with just Blu and Cheryl for company, operating a handheld camera with the intention of sending the finale footage for Channel 4.

As three endings had been recorded back in June, with each of the finalists winning one of the takes, the actual winner’s reveal would be a surprise to all of them, including the three finalists, and ensure no slip ups from the production team.

That didn’t stop all twelve of them worrying. None of them had slept a wink, all of them keeping an eye on Prue’s twitter to make sure she hadn’t accidentally tweeted the winner again. But mostly they’d been together, reminiscing on some of the moments from the season that had made them laugh. All the funny moments, all the tense moments, and one or two viral moments loaded with innuendo.

Not to mention everything else that had blossomed in tandem with nature that springtime.

It had been quite a season. They’d started out as strangers, and now they were so tightly-knit that they hadn’t even entertained the thought that they would possibly be watching the finale without all of them in the same space.

Aurora swilled the glass of champagne that Joe had insisted on pouring for everyone, and watched all of the people she’d grown close to on the season, a peaceful atmosphere in the room as they waited for the finale to start.

Well, not all of them were peaceful. Lawrence and Ellie were being their usual loud selves, jousting with wooden spoons and shrieking as loudly as they ever did - but Bimini was utterly still for the first time since Aurora had met them, laid against Asttina’s chest as they both reclined on one of the sofas, while Asttina raked her fingers through their mullet; and Bimini’s eyes were closed, their lips in a sleepy smile.

Aurora felt familiar hands creep around her waist, a familiar chin rest on her shoulder from behind, and familiar lips at her cheek.

“I can’t believe it’s coming to an end now,” Aurora murmured, her thoughts escaping her unfiltered, as they sometimes did with Tayce at this close range.

“Well, it was never gonna be forever,” Tayce said into her ear. “But we’re all gonna be friends after this, aren’t we! The wonders of technology! Come into the twenty-first century, Rory. We have this thing called the internet, and group chats, and phones -”

“We’re not all just gonna be friends, though, are we?” Aurora replied.

“We’re all just besties, nothing more than that. Rory, I’m joking!” Tayce laughed at Aurora’s horrified expression. “All I’m saying is that this isn’t the end - just the beginning.”

“That’s so cheesy.”

“Yeah, but I’m right, you can’t deny that!”

Aurora let her eyes drift around everyone else in the room.

Tia and Veronica who had barely left their corner of the sofa, hands and legs wound tightly together, both with hearts in their eyes and bigger smiles than anyone else in the room as they chatted quietly, simply enjoying each others’ company.

Lawrence and Ellie, wooden spoons still in hand, making the most noise in the room in delighted laughter as they jousted with each other, almost knocking Pip over as she carried in another tray of snacks to lay on the dining table.

Bimini resting against Asttina’s chest as they reclined on the other sofa, Asttina still running her fingers through Bimini’s freshly-dyed mullet, both of them letting out a contented sigh in tandem.

“Yeah,” Aurora murmured, as Tayce held her tighter, “I guess so.”

——

WEEK 1: BISCUIT WEEK

April 2021

Tayce grinned at the cameras as they panned around everyone. She’d given the interviewer her spiel about how much she’d always dreamt of being in the gingham tent and how excited she was to bring the winning cake stand to Wales for the first time in Bake Off history; and a surprising calm settled in her chest, nerves dissipating, at the genuine warm aura from everyone and everything in the room.

At least Tayce wasn’t in full view of the judges right at the front. That privilege was reserved for two people from London, both of whom looked right at home in front of the cameras, although their names were a mystery for now.

It was all very familiar from seeing it on the telly the last eleven years. Immaculate worktops with varnish that shone like glass; the tent walls decorated with bunting and flowers, and the pastel shelves and adorned with china cups; the multi-coloured KitchenAids ready to whisk, fold and anything else - Tayce’s was pure white, while the woman from Nottingham on the bench opposite her had a turquoise one.

Tayce chanced another glance at her; the tight-lipped smile showed a single dimple, and her long blonde hair was tied off her face, but her fingers drummed nervously on the workbench, and she evidently wasn’t as poised as the veneer she displayed for the cameras.

Tayce smiled to herself. It’ll be fun winning this thing.

——

Signature: 24 Iced Biscuits

The best bit of the show when it was on the telly was the banter between Matt and Noel. Seeing them in person, even from a distance away, made Tayce’s stomach bubble with excitement, and she had to cling to the workbench a little tighter to stay upright.

“Well, bakers, welcome to the gingham tent! Back for another season of Prue-Paul’s Baking Race!”

Prue’s sweet smile was complemented by her brightly-coloured glasses and sharp, matching blazer, while Paul’s cool stare lingered on everyone in the room a split second longer than they all would have liked.

“For the signature today,” Matt said, “the judges would like you to make twenty-four iced biscuits. The biscuits can be any flavour -“

“ - but should tell the judges a little bit about yourselves or where you’re from.”

“Where are you from, Noel?”

“Oh, you know, the moon.”

Everyone was laughing, even Tayce; although it wasn’t that funny - but the whole room was dancing with nerves by now, starting to become contagious from the people around her.

“On your marks -“

“Get set -“

“BAKE!”

Once Matt Lucas and Noel Fielding had declared the immortal lines to the room, everyone was scrambling for ingredients from their bags and the fridges.

Tayce was still cringing a bit at the dragon-shaped cookie-cutter her mum had found in some gift shop near the castle in Cardiff. She didn’t understand why tourists would be making dragon-shaped biscuits inspired by their trip to Wales, but for once she was thankful for tourists. Her friend Cara had customised it a little when she’d seen her a couple of weeks ago, by melting the tail with her lighter, elongating it a little, and extending the jaw and ears to make it look a little more ferocious.

“Can’t have people thinking you’re not breathing fire,” she’d said, passing the cigarette back to Tayce, “otherwise they won’t think you’re competition.”

And Tayce had nodded, holding smoke in her lungs half a beat longer than usual, wondering if she cared whether anyone thought of her as competition. After all, it was Bake Off. The last sabotage attempt there had been a national scandal the following day.

The most unproblematic, drama-free show on the telly.

Nothing was going to happen here.

——

“The judges are coming for you next,” one of the cameramen nudged Tayce out of her thoughts, just as she was measuring out her flour, causing it to fly upwards in a cloud “Just a heads up. Oh, sorry love.”

“Right, right.” Tayce nodded, brushing flour from her face. “What do I say to them again?”

“Just … talk. It’s the first episode. Show them your personality.”

“Personality,” Tayce repeated, nodding. “I’ve got oodles of that.”

“Great stuff. And don’t forget to be doing something bake-ey while they’re coming over.”

The cameraman dodged out of the way to make room for the medical team, running to help the woman in front of Nottingham, who had managed to slice her finger on something already.

“Here they are,” Tayce muttered to herself, taking a deep breath and straightening as the judges, along with Matt and Noel, came over to her.

“Morning, Tayce!”

Paul Hollywood was shorter than he appeared to be, and Prue Leith was taller, but nothing prepared Tayce for meeting either of them. Tayce held her breath for a split second, smiling somewhat mechanically to try to mask the sudden heat in her face.

“Bore da, folks! I’ve brought the weather with me!” Tayce beamed, indicating the heaving downpour of rain that was falling outside the tent; and they all laughed politely.

Tayce momentarily stopped concentrating on the judges and noticed the woman opposite her, turning to watch Tayce interact with the judges. And every time she was describing the perfect quality that her dragon-shaped shortbread biscuits would turn out, she seemed to slow her actions, looking up over at them.

The conversation was light, but Tayce could feel the calm authority of both judges before her, making words freeze on her tongue. It only went on for a minute or two, but Tayce was left feeling as if she should have prepared more.

Oh well. What’s done is done.

The ingredients for her biscuits were mixing slowly in the KitchenAid, the gentle whirr of the blades almost lulling Tayce to sleep as she sipped her cup of tea, before she took out the ball of shortbread dough and rolled it out to cut into biscuits.

“Your accent is so nice.”

Tayce looked up from her biscuits, to see the woman from Nottingham had come over, tucking her hair behind her ear, leaving her hand resting at the back of her neck to play absently with the strings of her apron. Up close, the dimple in her cheek was emphasised as a shy smile twitched at the corners of her mouth.

“Thank you!” Tayce stood to her full height. “This place doesn’t look like Barry Island yet but give it some time!” She leaned against the workbench, tossing her hair away from her shoulders.

“My accent is … well, it’s just … northern,” she continued with a giggle. “I’m Aurora, by the way. I’m so bad at names, I’m sorry, you’ve probably already said yours!”

“Don’t worry, I am too. I’m Tayce. And if I forget your name, well - yeah, same.”

Aurora’s gaze lingered half a second too long as she tested the name on her tongue.

“Tayce.” Her smile widened. “Nice to meet you.”

——

Tayce was terrible at names. She had no idea how she was going to remember who all eleven of these other people were, especially as one of them would be going every week - the pool of people getting smaller and smaller until Tayce would be remaining with whoever else was any good out of these lot.

As the day went on, she started to pick them up.

She had to learn Asttina’s for one, because Asttina seemed to know everyone’s name from the word go. Asttina was one of the two Londoners at the front, and was the only one of the group who had made a deliberate effort to come round to all their workbenches to formally introduce herself during the bake itself, her demeanour confident but her handshake gentle and light as air.

“Nice to meet you, Tayce,” she’d said, with a cool smile that reminded Tayce of a Miss World competition. “Looking forward to tasting all your bakes!”

She knew Pip’s name too, on the bench just behind Asttina, as she’d turned up in the tent wearing elf ears, claiming they were for luck. Everyone had been staring at her workbench, where she’d positioned a tiny blue handbag with a red circle in the middle, saying she took it with her wherever she went.

“I had a sesh with a psychic,” Pip explained to them all as a group of them crowded round her. “She’s a bit of a local celeb in Liverpool, Psychic Sally they call her, but - anyway, she told me to look for a sign in blue and red, said it was from me great-grandpa - and the same day I walked past one of those handbag shops on Paradise Street and there it was, in the window, 70% off!”

“Definitely couldn’t have been a coincidence, Pippa,” Tayce grinned, and Pip shook her head in agreement, but she had a mischievous glint in her eye and Tayce wasn’t entirely sure how serious she was about the whole affair.

Ellie’s name too had become familiar, because of the amount of times the show’s medics would groan it when she managed to hurt herself on something that episode. Ellie herself had been quiet most of the day, seemingly a little shy and evidently the youngest in the room; but she’d bounced on the balls of her feet at meeting Matt Lucas, garbling something about her and her brother doing all the impersonations as kids.

The soft-spoken woman in front of Tayce was called Cherry, and Tayce had found that out because she’d pointed it out to everyone when she put cherry flavouring in her biscuits.

“Does that actually, y’know, work as a flavour?” Tia had asked her when she was explaining it to them.

Tia was another name that Tayce knew, mainly because the woman was so tall and striking. She looked like she’d come straight off a catwalk and wandered into the Bake Off tent by complete accident on her way to London Fashion Week, happening to become covered in flour in the process.

Cherry had huffed. “I don’t know, but you eat cherry-flavoured things all the time! What could go wrong with putting it in biscuits?”

Tia grimaced. “Wait. Have you … never put cherry flavouring in biscuits before? Didn’t you practise at home?”

Tayce couldn’t help but feel a twinge of mirth as she watched Cherry chew her tongue, her cheeks flushing, but her jaw set obstinately. “I know what I’m doing. I can do this.”

“You haven’t even practised this bake? Okay. So how late do the trains run from here to Newcastle?” Tayce had asked Cherry, and Aurora had doubled over in wheezing laughter as Cherry had folded her arms.

“Darlington. Darlington, not Newcastle. And there’s been trains there for nearly two hundred years, love.”

That had just made Aurora laugh harder, clutching her stomach and shaking in silent giggles, leaning on Tayce as Tayce had led her back to her workbench and let her wipe the tears from her eyes before continuing with her biscuit dough.

That was the most important thing Tayce had learned so far in the tent. The woman from Nottingham opposite her was Aurora, and Aurora lit up the whole bench.

When the judges had stood with her earlier, she’d cooed about how much she adored baking everything for all her family - making fairy cakes for charity bakes for work, birthday cakes for her family, tipsy cakes for her best friends for their birthdays, or anniversaries, or whenever they were just feeling crap.

From the smile that she couldn’t hold back, Tayce knew that Aurora was the only person in the room who meant it when she said that she loved baking.

——

“One hour break, folks, and then filming starts for Technical, okay?”

The first bake was over, and Tayce’s shortbread biscuits shaped like dragons had gone down pretty well with the judges. She wasn’t sure if she’d had the best feedback, her nerves kicking in and blocking out most of the other contestants’ comments; but she thought she’d done enough for this round at least.

One of the producers herded them like sheep - or maybe cats, judging by how Ginny had gone chasing after a squirrel they’d seen - back into Norton Hall where they were all staying for the weekends while filming was happening. It was a huge, Georgian manor mouse with ceilings touching the clouds, far more halls than were necessary, and so many excessive bedrooms that each contestant had a room each.

Tayce had half-expected four-poster regal luxury as she’d opened the door to her own, twice the size of her room in her flat; but no such luck - it was furnished sparingly, and all the beds were normal. A small double, she noted. Not that she was likely to get lucky with these master bakers, but a woman could dream.

The floorboards creaked as she crossed the room and flopped backwards onto the bed, gazing at the ceiling, the elation sending a shiver through her skin as she realised again that she had made it to Bake Off.

The Bake Off!

They weren’t meant to change clothes between takes unless they’d made a huge mess with the food, so Tayce just retouched her eyeliner and went back down to the communal room, where most of them had gathered back in the group, polite conversations carrying on amongst relative strangers as they sampled each others’ biscuits.

What a surreal scene.

A group of almost strangers, half of their names unfamiliar, and she was meant to discuss baking with them all.

“Alright, babs?” She heard someone pushing a plate in front of her. “My name’s Ginny, Ginny Lemon, and if you don’t like lemon, well - just skip my biccies, alright love?”

“No, lemon is great,” Tayce forced a smile, taking one of Ginny’s biscuits. “Thanks hun.”

“You’re welcome! Which ones did you make - wait, I remember, the Welsh dragons?”

“Now how did you guess that one?” Tayce raised an eyebrow at them. “My mum’s idea, she was like, do it for the Welsh! So of course she found a dragon-shaped cookie cutter from somewhere. One of the tourist shops in Cardiff. Tourists love dragon biscuits apparently.”

“Oh I know love, I know - speaking of weird biscuits, have you ever tried a Worcester sauce biscuit? I don’t recommend it if you haven’t, but have you?” Ginny shook their head, tutting. “Tastes like shit! Waste of biscuit. Waste of Worcester sauce too, though. Anyway, Pip’s looking lonely without me. Nice to see you!”

And Ginny fled from Tayce’s arm, scurrying back over to Pip. Tayce tasted the biscuit, bracing herself for Worcester sauce, blinking with surprise to find it was actually pretty good, the lemon flavour really tasty, and finding she wanted another.

Most of the rest of the biscuits were arranged on a bench at the back. Tayce picked up another of her own and went down the line, eager to see which had depleted the most.

Gravestone biscuits were the biggest shocker for her - two different sets of biscuits were there, iced to resemble gravestones, mostly untouched - but Tayce politely picked up the better-looking of the two and found a lovely chilli kick to it when she tasted. But gravestones weren’t the only common theme - two different rose patterns were there, one set iced in different shades of pink, and the other with a deep red icing. The pink roses were almost all gone, and Tayce took the second-to-last one, enjoying the raspberry flavour, and grabbing one of the other roses to go.

Tayce peered around the room at the other contestants from her vantage point at the table. Most of them had dropped into twos and threes - with twelve people it was bound to happen - chatting amongst themselves, quietly and politely for the most part, although the two Scottish women in one corner were laughing as if they’d known each other for years.

Eventually, she joined Aurora, who was talking to someone whose white-blonde hair and pencil-thin eyebrows looked very familiar …

“Joe Black,” she said, extending a heavily-tattooed hand to Tayce, whose stomach flipped upon hearing the name.

“You’re - on Instagram, that woman -“

“My internet infamy precedes me, but in that case I hope so too do my bakes, and of course my sense of fun.” Joe’s voice was theatrical, her gestures affected; but her smile was warm, and Cherry looked as enamoured with her as Tayce was feeling.

“And who wins the biscuit version of the wars of the roses?” Joe continued, pointing down at the two rose-shaped iced biscuits on Tayce’s plate. “Lawrence, or Veronica? I must say, the amount that Veronica worried about her own bake, that time probably could have been spent thinking up a better biscuit flavour than rosewater, don’t you agree?”

Tayce glanced at Veronica’s biscuit, then up at Aurora. “Does it taste that bad?”

But before Aurora could answer, they were interrupted by “Alright, babes! How’s it hanging?”

The woman joining them had rich violet hair scraped off her face into a bun at the crown of her head, and an intense green stare. Tayce took the hand that was extended to her, finding a firmer handshake than Asttina’s, trying to follow the stream of words from this woman’s mouth.

“I’m Lauren, but you might as well call me Lawrence, that’s all Ellie’s been calling me all day, thinks she’s fucking hilarious, and I’ve not really met any of you yet because, you know,” Lawrence paused for breath, waving her hands, “baking contest, ooh I’m not here to make friends, et cetera, but now that we’re all here and we’re not baking right now, I thought I’d better find out who everyone is! Are you the one who made the dragon biccies?”

“That’s me, baby!” Tayce grinned. “Bore da, bitches!”

“See, I knew you were Welsh, and there Ellie was trying to convince me the dragon biccies were by someone who just really liked Puff the Magic Dragon, she owes me a tenner now - and you’re - oh wait, I know you!” Lawrence wagged her finger at Joe, whose expression didn’t change apart from the slow blink. “That Instagram video!”

Joe fixed Lawrence with a stare. “Yes, that Instagram video; I know that precedes me, but I hope by the end of this competition that can be eclipsed by my culinary skills.” Her voice still kept the throaty drawl, but Tayce was starting to sense her irritation at the association.

Cherry had already offered her hand to shake, and Lawrence took it. “Alright, I remember your name, because you put it in your biccies as flavouring! Where’re you from, do they grow cherries there?”

“No - I’m from Darlington.”

Lawrence blinked, frowning. “Darlington, near Sweetie-shire is that?”

“No, it’s near -“

“I’m joking babes, I’m joking! I know it’s - hey, hey Ellie!” Lawrence stopped to shout to Ellie, who had evidently reappeared. “Els! It’s not Puff the Magic Dragon! Where’s my tenner? Hey!” And she was gone in an instant, Tayce turning to watch her chase Ellie as she scurried out.

“Anyway,” Joe continued, motioning to Tayce’s plate and one of the gravestone biscuits, “I’m so glad you’re enjoying mine! I know my sense of humour is a little … ah, morbid, but I didn’t count on being one of two people with this bake, let me tell you that!”

Joe glanced over to the left out the sides of her eyes; Tayce followed her gaze to Pip, oblivious, making herself a cup of tea.

“She didn’t - like, you don’t think she -“

“Oh, no, not in a month of Sundays! But it’s a strange little coincidence, isn’t it? The viewers will love the drama!”

Joe opened her mouth wide to let out a violent cackle, a sound that might have made a shiver glide down Tayce’s spine if she hadn’t been mid-biscuit.

——

Technical: 8 Wagon Wheels

The Technical challenge was the first time Tayce felt her nerves return in a rush.

Everyone had identical ingredients and an identical recipe, but nothing prepared any of them for whipping the gingham cloth from them all and flipping the instructions over. Tayce ran her pencil down them, her head spinning.

On the first read, she recalled nothing.

Focus.

She took one steadying breath, letting go of as many nerves as she could, and then ran her pencil back down the list, jotting down timings and a couple of notes. They only had an hour and a half; precision was key.

On her right, Aurora was fidgeting with her apron, twisting her hair around her finger, before grabbing as many bowls as she could from the drawers and setting them all down ready.

It almost felt like more pressure, rather than less, having no judges in the room - just Matt and Noel, and they couldn’t really interact with the bakers at this point, mostly just talking amongst each other and having to film occasional silly quips for the television interludes.

You’re not gonna get this finished if you keep looking at Matt and Noel!

So Tayce mentally blocked out everything and anything around her, not taking her eyes off her workbench. Instructions, ingredients, whisk, repeat. Oven, timers, filling, cooling, done.

She barely remembered anything else that happened in the room.

As she put the last wagon wheel on the tray to take to the front, she wiped her brow, took a swig of tea, and then heard the immortal lines.

“Bakers! You have one minute to go!”

Tayce looked around the room. Tia, three desks ahead, was looking flustered, covered in flour from head to toe - a difficult feat when you were six feet tall - and Veronica, just behind her, was rounding the corner to help her move the biscuits over to the tray one by one as she spread on the jam and marshmallow fluff. Bimini, who Tayce was sure had finished about ten minutes earlier than everyone else, was doing the same thing for Asttina, leaning over her workbench and talking soothingly to her as they both moved biscuits around.

On the other side, Ginny was rubbing Pip’s back, trying to help her load wagon wheels onto the tray but only succeeding in knocking the handbag to the ground. Ellie broke two of her wagon wheels by dropping a palette knife on them, her squeak causing Lawrence to turn from her bench and put her hands on her hips.

But Tayce felt an unexpected wave of relief when she saw Aurora finishing her own biscuits right on schedule, stepping back with a sigh, rolling her head and her eyes to the ceiling.

They had to bring the biscuits to the front table, and put them behind their respective photographs for blind judging. Looking at the other biscuits on the bench, Tayce nodded to herself in satisfaction. She definitely wasn’t the worst. The photos were all a blur, but there was definitely one disaster, chocolate and marshmallow oozing; Ellie’s broken biscuits; and another tray with a biscuit missing.

It was easy to breathe a sigh of relief for herself.

“Just get into any order,” the producer said, pointing to the stools that had been set in front of the table, “but don’t sit directly behind your photo. Otherwise it just looks obvious.”

Tayce’s biscuits were second from the right, so she bunched towards the left, and found herself between Aurora and Joe. Joe had pretended to trip over her feet while carrying her own biscuits up, cackling gleefully at Veronica’s pained expression as she watched. Veronica, mercifully, had sat as far from Joe as she could.

Aurora was breathing rapidly next to her, and Tayce gave her a nudge with her knee.

“Chill girl! Relax! It will be fine!”

Aurora nodded, but said nothing, focusing on trying to breathe at a normal rate once again. Tayce could practically hear her heart hammering. She nudged her again playfully, and Aurora nudged her back, taking a deep breath out and seeming to calm from then.

Once Prue and Paul were back, Tayce grew a little sleepy. The judging went on for much longer than on telly, and tent was hot from all the baking and warm bodies, plus Aurora’s knee jogging rhythmically was enough to make her feel a little drowsy. Her biscuits were second to last, and Tayce wasn’t really focusing on any of the other critiques as they went down the line, not even those of the two women on either side of her.

She hated tents. They reminded her of camping. This one wasn’t like any of the camping tents, propped by firm wooden walls and decorations but it still reminded her of trips to the Gower when she was at primary school. And thinking of the Gower made her think of day-tripping to Tenby, where the air was hazy with salt and fresh fish, and the sea was far too cold as they skimmed stones, watching them bounce once, twice, three times …

A nudge at her side from Aurora brought her down from her reverie; blinking, Tayce saw the judges had reached the biscuits behind her photo, looking up expectantly to see who would claim them.

Oh, yeah. It’s the Technical, and I’m here to be judged.

She raised her hand, realising that she’d been in a dream so long that she didn’t even know what place the judges had called her for.

“Tayce - good flavour, biscuits had a good crunch, and the chocolate has set well; it just wasn’t quite filled enough.”

Nodding and smiling, she waited for them to move on to the next person before she leaned over towards Aurora, muttering from the corner of her mouth “Where did they put me again?”

But before Aurora could answer, Paul spoke up. “And in second place, we have -“

“You came third, you bitch!” Aurora whispered, her mouth open in awe, and she looped her hand into Tayce’s and squeezed. “How do you do it? You always look so put-together! Not like - Miss Second-Place down there.”

Tayce glanced at Veronica, right at the end of the line of bakers on their stools, whose hand was raised to claim second place. She was nodding earnestly at the praise, but she still wasn’t smiling, her lips tight and her other hand still quivering a little in her lap.

“That means that first place goes to - Asttina!”

But Aurora hadn’t let go of Tayce’s hand, and Tayce was suddenly more aware of that contact than whoever the winner was, even as she slowly drew her hand away for the polite applause that followed.

“Where did you come?” Tayce asked her in a whisper.

“Seventh. Not great. I over-baked them a little bit,” Aurora shrugged. “I’m never gonna be good at technical.”

——

“Congrats on coming top of Technical!” Tia clapped Asttina on the back as they came back into Norton Hall, and Asttina responded with her winning smile.

“Thanks, babe. I thought you all deserved a taste of what I can do!”

There was a collective amused murmur around the other bakers at Asttina’s slightly smug tone. Tayce grinned, staying silent for now, wondering what the others would have to say to that.

“Oh, there’s more to come, is there?” Tia continued.

“I should hope so.” Asttina licked her lips. “From all of you lot as well.”

“There’s no need to be cocky,” Veronica said, the first time any of them had really heard her speak. Veronica was tiny, with blonde hair and a nasal voice that was louder than any of them had expected; most likely feeling the sting of coming second.

Asttina shook her hair back. “I’m not cocky, Veronica, I just know what I can do. Read the CV, it’s all there! If you want to win stuff, you need to know yourself. Do you want to win?”

“Does the Pope shit in the woods?” Veronica retorted.

It was Tia’s snort of laughter that started them all off, diffusing the vague tension creeping into the room. Asttina’s laugh was only drowned out by Veronica’s as she realised what she’d said.

“Is the Pope a Catholic, does a bear shit in the woods … I know, I know. I mean, yeah, I definitely do want to win.”

Asttina shrugged. “Then there’s no point being modest about what you can do. Let your bakes do the talking!”

One of the producers came in at that moment, motioning for them all to come round, and they all bunched together.

“Alright folks, the day’s filming is done, we’ll begin tomorrow at nine sharp for the Showstopper challenges. Until then you’re free to relax and have a nice time - please don’t go into any areas marked as Private, and no excessive drinking, but otherwise, have a good night!”

“Thank you!” They chorused, clapping for some unknown reason, as some of the staff rounded up the leftover biscuits and cleared them away.

“The filming crew get them,” Veronica explained to Tia, “I asked earlier what happened to them all because I knew we wouldn’t be able to eat them all.”

“You know what this means?” Cherry said, addressing them all from on top of one of the sofas. “This is the last evening we’ll all be together. Let’s all cheers to the cast of GBBO!”

She pulled a bottle of something from her bag, and the rest of them grabbed a mug each, sharing out the gin Cherry had brought, and bringing all their drinks together in cheers.

——

Showstopper: A gingerbread sculpture of a place that makes you nostalgic.

The Showstopper was about as broad as you could get. Everyone seemed to have something different in mind. Bimini and Asttina, on the two front benches, looked as poised and confident as they had all the previous day; and Asttina, buoyed by her Technical challenge win, puffed her chest in pride.

Tayce had practised her gingerbread over and over, but nothing prepared any of them for being in the tent, where the pastel colours and the novelty of the bright, friendly conversations started to switch to a competitive edge.

Especially after the Technical, where they had all been ranked. Having a number against your name now, combined with a vague grade against the Signature challenge, meant the Showstopper was the be-all and end-all for some of them.

That was it Tayce thought to herself, as she watched Aurora’s grim determination pass her face every second.

And she wasn’t the only one.

Cherry, on the workbench in front of her, had come sixth; but she’d been much quieter all morning, concentrating on reading and re-reading her instructions, tapping her pencil against her chin and growling frustratedly every now and then.

Ellie, wearing a pair or Pip’s elf ears, was doing even worse. Being ranked eleventh had done very little to ease the nerves she had displayed the day before, and her morning had already started with another blue plaster on yet another finger.

But Aurora was the only person Tayce was concentrating on. Something about the way she’d held her hand … and Tayce was far too quick to let her mind run away without her, thinking it meant anything, when obviously it probably didn’t.

“What are you doing?” Tayce called to Aurora over the chatter of everyone else around the room; but Aurora didn’t reply, her tongue running over her lips as she surveyed the mess that was the butter and sugar mix before her.

“Aurora?” She asked, making her way to stand by her behind the bench.

Aurora was still silent, but the noise from the bowls and KitchenAid she was using spoke volumes for her without her needing to say a word.

“D’you want a cup of tea?” Tayce asked her eventually, waiting for the curt nod from Aurora before sprinting to the tea station, in a tent outside.

When she got back, Aurora had moved up to Ellie’s workbench, and even though her back was to Tayce, she could see her shoulders shaking and Ellie’s hand rubbing her back, before offering her a can of the Monster she always had to have, the label covered in masking tape to escape product placement.

Tayce approached them both to comfort Aurora too, but as she did, cameras zoomed in on all three of them. Aurora pushed them both away and walked out of the tent, covering her face.

Ellie looked from the camera to Tayce and then back again, confused more than anything, and Lawrence, turning from her bench, looked back at them all with a frown.

“What’s going on here? Is she alright?” Lawrence pointed to Aurora, who was busy wiping her tears away in the far corner, with Matt Lucas at her side and a camera in her face.

“No,” Tayce muttered, “and she won’t be while there’s a lens on her.”

After that, Tayce kept half an eye on Aurora as she baked. She mostly ignored the cameramen as they hurried around the tent, taking stock footage of them cutting gingerbread shapes, using their ovens, and decorating, but Tayce purposely kept her mouth tightly closed, and her expression firmly neutral.

As Noel called for ten minutes remaining, Tayce was finishing the detailing of the roof of the stadium. The band were meant to be playing biscuit instruments and there was meant to be a crowd, but Tayce had settled for calling it a backstage pass moment, where VIPs could meet them, and just made models of herself and her friends.

“Time is up! Bakers, step away from your bakes!”

Noel called time, and Tayce took a step back to properly admire her finished product - and really, she was blown away by her own bake. The gingerbread houses she’d made in practise had gone alright, but this one, even in the pressure cooker environment of the tent, had gone almost perfectly, down to the timing of the bakes.

“Wow,” Tayce whispered to herself, “week one is done!”

She took a few seconds to admire everyone else’s in the tent. Some were much better than others. Joe’s looked a little strange - she’d meant to do a wedding scene with the gingerbread church, but the roof was crooked, and the gravestones falling over, not supported by the sticky sugar mixture they’d all used as adhesive. Cherry’s ambitious building was incomplete, and Tayce didn’t even know what it was meant to be.

But Asttina’s was incredible - a beautiful beach scene with a model of a beach hut and even a Ferris wheel. Ellie’s technical slip up was definitely repaired by the pub she’d built, adding fondant banners inside and making the dull gingerbread colours come alive with her imaginative take on the icing outside; while Lawrence had made a theatre, melting jelly babies to create beautiful stained glass in the windows, something Tayce kicked herself for not thinking of.

They all had a chance to leave the tent for a break, to sit outside in the shelter, and to have a breather before the actual judging of the bakes was done.

“I don’t envy the judges,” Joe said, her drawling voice awed, as she took in all of the gingerbread houses from their vantage point outside the tent. “They definitely have their work cut out for them, don’t they?”

“Everyone did amazing,” Aurora nodded, “it’s just a case of who did less amazing. D’you reckon they’ll just take this into account, or the whole weekend?”

Tayce didn’t know why she was worrying. Aurora had come middle of the pack in technical, but had been praised for her Signature, and her gingerbread house - modelled on her Nan’s, she had said - was so prim and dainty that Tayce knew the judges were going to eat it up, and not only literally.

“It won’t be you, chillax!” Tayce reached to rub her hand.

“Who d’you reckon it will be then?”

“Well, they tend to take into account the numbers assigned at the Technical challenge, and the Signature comments, to make the first analysis, at least,” Joe chuckled, “that’s what we see on the television. Who were the bottom three for Technical? I was tenth, Ellie was eleventh, who was twelfth again?”

“It’s - erm,” Aurora pointed, but the name escaped her for a second. “Tia. Tia was twelfth.”

“It’s probably between the three of us, then,” Joe said brightly, “unless something goes … horribly wrong to one of the Showstoppers. And how likely is that?”

As they looked through the panels of the tent, one of the gingerbread houses collapsed into pieces onto the tray it was set on.

Tayce glanced around the other eleven bakers to see whose it was.

One of the bakers had her head in her hands, shoulders tensed, while the two people on either side of her hugged her tightly.

——

“Seriously, Joe, how did you make that happen?” Aurora’s voice was hushed, tense, after the award for Star Baker and the first elimination had taken place.

Joe’s eyes widened as she shook her head. “I don’t quite know - maybe it was just something, spoken into the universe, made to happen.”

“Or maybe it was just gravity and shitty caramelised sugar sticking it all together,” Tayce added.

“Yes,” Joe replied, “or that too.”

Joe, Ellie and Tia had all survived their stint in the bottom at Technical - but Pip, who had come ninth in Technical, and whose Signature had received mediocre feedback, had laughed behind gritted teeth at presenting her collapsed gingerbread house - “More of an Ikea house,” Paul had commented cheerily - which had ultimately turned out to be too hard to bite into and had sealed her fate. Not even the lucky elf ears saved her from the first elimination.

“I was so sure I was going home this week,” Aurora sighed later that night, back at Norton Hall, where everyone had eaten so much of each others’ gingerbread houses that they all felt ill.

“You wouldn’t have, yours was good!” Tayce rubbed her arm. “Relax! It’s done now. Just focus on next week instead.”

“And I can’t believe Prue said she’d like to try a bit of carpet when they were looking at Ellie’s pub,” Aurora said, shaking her head. “Did anyone else catch that?”

“Yeah, I did!” Tayce sniggered. “They’re so innocent! This is just gonna be a load of innuendos all season, isn’t it? Imagine what they’re gonna say for next week too.”

“Oh, yeah. It’s cake week, isn’t it?” Aurora seemed to perk up. “That’s a bit more my comfort zone.”

Suddenly the door opened, and Asttina was led back inside the area by the cameraman and a producer. Everyone broke into applause - this time genuine, not the muted, polite sound that had echoed round the tent in the technical. Asttina had just given her winner’s interview and called her family, and now wore the Star Baker badge proudly on the lapel of her jacket, her grin wider than the Cheshire Cat’s.

“How did your mum react when you said you were Star Baker this week?” Bimini asked her.

Asttina smiled the warmest smile any of them had seen all weekend from her at the mention of her family. “They screamed so loud that you probably all heard it in here. My mum was falling off the sofa, my dad was waving a wooden spoon, my brother was banging on the floor with his feet - oh, it was great.”

“Well-deserved, babes,” Bimini nodded, and Asttina pulled them in for a hug.

Everyone else was clamouring around Asttina, congratulating her on her Star Baker win this week and admiring the badge she’d won - biscuit-shaped, or at least cookie-shaped - but Tayce hung back, exchanging a glance with Aurora, a glint in her eye; and both of them knew what the other was thinking.

Let’s not cross Joe Black. She might make our Showstoppers crumble.

——

ELEVEN BAKERS REMAIN

18 notes · View notes

falseroar · 4 years ago

Text

Dog Days Part 22: Very Important Person

((Y/N, Chase, and Jameson visit the local TV studio in search of Wilford Warfstache, looking to find out what his connection is to Abe.

Warning: Shooting/someone shown getting shot, no gore/details.

Links to the masterlist with every part, and to Part 21: Coffee with a Dash of Honesty.))

The building that Chase parked near was completely new to you. From the street name, you guessed this area used to be that stretch of small businesses that in your memory tended to come and go before they made much of an impression, although it looked like they had all been torn down to make way for the tall building and its attached lawns and parking lots.

“Honest John Loans,” you murmured when you got out of the car, and when Chase and Jameson looked at you, you felt the need to explain, “Used to be a loan company around here, went out of business after the owner—wasn’t around anymore.”

“Yeah, I think there used to be a few stores around here before the studio bought them up,” Chase said. “That was after DE Studios got super popular, started streaming even in other countries instead of just the local broadcasts. Before that, they were running out of a little place over in between all the warehouses on the harbor.”

“You seem to know a lot about this place,” Jameson pointed out as the three of you walked toward the set of glass double doors under a set of enormous letters spelling out “D.E.S.”

“I looked up some stuff last night. Plus, I…kind of wanted to work here when I was a kid. I applied for an internship, even got it, but my parents vetoed that idea.” Chase shrugged. “Wasn’t the kind of work experience they were hoping for, not that it really mattered in the end.”

“Did you ever get to go on a tour here?” you asked as Jameson pulled open one of the doors and waved the two of you in before him, but Chase shook his head. “Then maybe we can still have some fun even if Wilford isn’t here.”

An idea shot down not even two seconds later by the man standing behind the front desk, who took one look at you all and said in a dull, lifeless tone, “No tours today.”

“What?” Chase asked, unable to hide his disappointment. He shared a look with Jameson, both thinking their plan to keep you distracted and away from home wasn’t looking too great. “But there wasn’t anything on your website about them being canceled, and the sign right there says—”

The man behind the counter flipped the tour sign so that it was lying face down and said, “We are also not filming today, so there is no need for a studio audience. If you wish to apply to be a guest on one of our shows, the application form can be found online.”

You frowned at the man, but it wasn’t because of the abruptly canceled tour. There was something strange about his voice, a faint static under his stilted words that probably only you could hear, a hum coming from his chest in place of a heartbeat that seemed to pulse in time with the lit up ‘G’ on his gray shirt. And, when you breathed in, you could smell Chase and Jameson on either side, but there wasn’t a scent coming from this man.

Or at least, not one that you would associate with a person, but the faint whiff of magic and oil made you sure that you were in the right place.

“Who are you?” you asked, stepping forward to the counter.

“I am a Google unit, designed to answer questions and perform tasks quickly and efficiently,” he answered, tilting his head to match your stare while his eyes studied you behind his black-rimmed glasses. “Currently, I am filling in for the receptionist who has taken an early lunch break.”

“Wait, unit?” Chase stared at Google for a moment and then his eyes lit up with understanding. “You’re magitek! I heard the Institute bought out a lab that was working on something special, but I never got a chance to see it. That’s so cool!”

“Yes, I was the initial prototype from that line,” Google answered. “The head of this studio was able to purchase me before the buyout.”

“That feels a little…not right,” Jameson signed, only to put his hands behind his back when Google fixed him with his unblinking stare next.

“Magitek is, well, what it sounds like, a blend of magic and technology,” Chase explained to you and Jameson. He gestured at Google as he said, “This though, it’s leaps and bounds ahead of anything else out there right now though. I mean, look at him!”

Google smirked. “Your excellent taste is both appreciated and entirely correct. The tours will resume next week, on schedule, if you would wish to make an appointment.”

Next week. It was possible he could still be here by then, but the idea of waiting that long and missing your chance didn’t sit well. Especially not when you felt so close to something for once.

“We were actually hoping to see someone who might be here,” you said. “Do you know if there’s a Wilford in the building?”

Google paused and then said, “Are you on the approved visitor list?”

“Uh,” you hesitated and looked at Jameson and Chase, who didn’t really have an answer. “If you could just tell me if he’s even here—”

“Names?” Google asked.

“…Y/N,” you said, reluctantly. “But I just—”

“Y/N,” Google repeated, with a different tone. “You are on the approved VIP list.”

“I am?”

“They are?” Chase asked, and Jameson signed.

“And your names?”

“That’s Jameson Jackson, and I—I’m Chase Brody,” Chase said slowly.

“Understood. Please wait for your visitor badges to be printed.”

Google turned away and you took a step back to be closer to the other two. Once you were sure the magitek unit wasn’t watching, you signed, “It must be a mistake. Someone else with my name.”

“Doesn’t mean we can’t take advantage of it,” Chase signed back.

“But what if we get caught?” Jameson asked.

“Then we tell them there was some kind of misunderstanding.” Chase shrugged. “Worst that happens is we get a slap on the wrist for trespassing, and even then, it’s still iffy. It’s not like we lied about who we are or why we’re here.”

“This might also be our only chance to meet this Wilford guy,” you pointed out. “There’s no guarantee we would run into him on a tour, assuming he’s even still here next week.”

Jameson nervously moved his hands, as though trying to decide whether to give in or stop this here, but before he made up his mind Google spoke again in that same not quite emotionless tone.

“Your badges are ready. Please do not lose them, or you will be immediately escorted from the building. Forcefully.”

You turned around to find three badges lying on the corner, just cards printed off and slipped into plastic envelopes hanging from DE Studios branded lanyards.

“As a VIP, you are welcome to a more permanent card,” Google added. “But that would require your picture to be taken. Please stand still.”

“What?” you asked, but a bright flash came from the magitek unit before he lowered the camera and plugged it into the computer.

“Your card will be available by the time you leave,” Google said, ignoring your protest which was quickly cut off by Jameson and Chase.

“…Thanks, I guess,” you muttered, even if you didn’t like the thought of a picture of you being on that thing. Better to play along for now. “Wait, why did you just take my picture and not theirs?”

“Because you are the only one on the VIP list,” Google answered. “The other two may enter as your guests for this visit.”

Your card did seem to be a different color than the other two, or at least you guessed it was based on the different shade of gray, but it was Chase’s turn to pause when he saw the names on the cards. Specifically, the one labeled “Charles Bronson.”

“That’s…not the name I gave you,” Chase pointed out slowly.

“It is the name that is in the system,” Google said. “Attached to one internship application that was accepted and then turned down by the applicant. Do you wish to update your file?”

“Why do you still have that?” Chase asked. “Yes, I want to—I mean…”

“The process will only take…45 minutes.”

Chase sighed. “No, I guess it’s fine…”

“Give or take 3 hours, depending on length of time spent on the questionnaire—”

“It’s fine, I’ll wear the stupid badge,” Chase said, grabbing the lanyard and pulling it over his head. He tried to at least turn it so that his name faced inward, only to discover that the names were printed on both sides of the card. “…Sure, why not. Now can you tell us where this Wilford dude is?”

“Once all phones and other recording devices have been handed over. I am also required to ask you to sign our terms and agreements, which is standard for all visitors in the building.”

Chase and Jameson sighed as they pulled out their phones, but you pulled the stacks of paper Google tried to hand them out of his hand and studied it for all of two seconds before saying, “We’re not signing this.”

Google dropped the phones into a bin behind the counter, Chase wincing at the sound of his phone hitting the plastic and said, “Understood.”

“Wait, that’s it?” Chase asked. “You’re not going to make us sign it or leave?”

“I said that I was required to ask, not that I actually need any signatures.”

You stared at the magitek unit as he walked out from behind the counter and asked, “Then why bother asking? The first page alone is absurd, who in their right mind would sign this thing?”

Google smiled. “Most people don’t even question it. And no one wants to be the one to hold the tour group up because they’re actually reading it.”

You picked a paragraph at random and started to read aloud, “’Dark Entertainment Studios is not liable for any accident or the consequences of any event on its grounds or during filming, up to and including death, injury, mental or emotional trauma, existential crises’…’Contestants lacking a living will may be assumed to give DE Studios power of attorney’—”

Google’s smile was gone now. “As you have not signed, these terms do not apply to you. So, if you could please stop reading those out loud—”

“Who the hell wrote this?!”

“…Permission to answer that question has been denied,” Google answered, his eyes twitching and his head briefly jerking to the side before he recovered. “Please try again later.”

Jameson pulled you to the side and signed, “I understand you’re angry, but perhaps this is a battle for later? We’re here for Wilford, not a legal kerfuffle.”

“Fine,” you muttered, before holding up the document for Google to see, “But I’m taking this, and I will have a lot of notes for whoever’s in charge here when I come back.”

“Understood. I will make a note for a future appointment,” Google said, his gaze fixed on some distant point for a moment before it returned to normal. “Follow me. According to his schedule, Wilford Warfstache is currently in Studio 3.”

Google paused to put up a sign saying that someone would be back in 15 minutes and added under his breath, “…Not that he seems aware of what a schedule even is.”

“What exactly are we going to say to this Wilford fellow once we find him?” Jameson asked as the three of you followed Google into the short hallway behind the counter which ended at a set of elevators, one of which opened with a soft “ding” as soon as he pressed the button.

“I didn’t think we’d actually get this far,” Chase admitted once you were all in the thankfully spacious elevator, which looked big and tall enough to hold an elephant inside. He was signing again, you guessed to keep Google from listening in, but your attention was on the directory above the buttons.

There seemed to be a floor for each studio, of which there were five, and a few floors dedicated to various departments such as production, marketing, etc. Human Resources had its own floor, but the button for that one wasn’t lit up like the others, leaving you to suspect that it was broken. Then there was the top floor, which didn’t have a label or any other indication of what was there on the directory.

Before you could ask Google any questions, the elevator came to a stop with another ding, the automated voice overhead announcing that you were now at Studio 3.

“Studio 3 is generally used for our game shows,” Google said. “On our current schedule, the first half of the week is used to film Menagerie of Insanity, and then we switch over the set to film episodes of Monstrous Love for the rest of the week, or at least those portions that take place in studio.”

“Staci loves that show,” Chase said, craning his neck to look in the open door to a room full of monitors and other equipment you didn’t understand. “She was a big fan of what’s-his-name, Herla.”

“Ratings were very high during his time on the show,” Google answered, leading the way to the left and toward the set of double doors at the end of the hall.

“Yeah, shame it didn’t work out with that centaur. Are they filming more episodes of that show then?”

“Chase!” Jameson shook his finger at him.

“What? No, I didn’t mean—”

Chase’s face turned red and he stumbled over his denial, not helped when Google said, “We are currently interviewing potential candidates. If you wish to apply, please speak to the receptionist before leaving or fill out the online form.”

“What are all of these other rooms?” you asked, partially to save Chase from this conversation.

“Storage and janitorial services for this floor, the production control room, the central apparatus room, both of which are dedicated to Studio 3, and rooms for our employees that I am required to refer to as ‘talent,’” Google answered, pointing to each door in questions as you passed. “There is also a green room attached to the studio, with refreshments for our guests and contestants. Each studio floor has the same basic layout, except for Studio 5, which has an additional area for recording and voiceover work, with the master control room on its own separate floor.”

“Master control room?” Jameson asked.

“It’s basically where they choose what signal goes out,” Chase answered. “What shows up on the TV or on the online feed, like reruns or commercials.”

“Correct. We are currently on a…hiatus, from broadcasting live content at the moment.”

He had also mentioned they weren’t filming today, which might explain why the whole building felt quiet. Your ears caught the hum of motors and fans whirring in the rooms full of equipment and monitors, and the faint sound of a chair squeaking that suggested someone was in there, but if you had to guess all of these other rooms were empty of people. That is, except for the studio he was leading you toward, whose doors appeared to be soundproofed because even you could just barely make out the sound of voices as the four of you approached.

As soon as Google opened the door though, a crowd of people began to cheer and clap their hands. Or at least, that’s what it sounded like, but the room was almost empty. Past a row of dark cameras pointed toward the set, where a semicircle of row upon row of empty seats looked down on a large spinning wheel that was clattering to a stop next to three occupied podiums.

And, in the center of it all, stood a man holding a microphone who was almost dwarfed by the large creature sitting next to him, which looked like a massive lion with a set of black wings that matched the hair on his human head, or at least one that was large enough to suit his body. Said sphinx was also holding a (much larger) microphone in one paw, and for some reason appeared to be wearing a shirt and jacket on the front half of his body with a tie that dangled down from his neck.

“Excellent spin!” The man standing next to the sphinx spoke in a loud, booming voice that carried through the room, and you felt like you had just had all of the breath knocked out of your chest. “Tell me Bim, what did our lucky contestant land on?”

The sphinx grinned and said, “Looks like Billy won a very special bonus: ‘Take a shot!’”

“Well, if you say so,” the man said, pulling out a gun from behind his back where it had apparently been tucked into his waistband before pointing it at the first contestant.

“Wilford, wai—” The sphinx reached out a huge paw only to sigh when the man fired off three rounds in quick succession, each blast an assault on your hearing even when you pressed your hands against your ears. The contestants shrieked and Chase shouted next to you as the shot contestant collapsed, but the sphinx just rolled his eyes and said, “Oh, don’t be such a drama king, Billy. We told you from the start we remembered to put wax bullets in Wilford’s gun this time.”

“They still hurt! Why couldn’t we have just used blanks?” came the groaned response from behind the podium as the contestant slowly dragged himself back up onto his feet. A splatter of colored wax marked his chest, but he was clearly…maybe not okay, but mostly uninjured, at least. A chorus of laughter came from speakers set up around the room, and he glared at one of the other contestants who had a board full of switches in hand and a guilty expression.

“What’s wrong with seeing how my aim is holding up?” the shooter asked, still waving his gun around to emphasize his words. “Besides, you told me to take another shot!”

“We’ve been over this, not everything is literal. More importantly, the game isn’t fun if you kill off the contestants for no reason,” the sphinx explained. “It’s like…you know music, right? That used to be your thing. A game show’s like that, there’s a rhythm, a pattern to it, and you shooting one of the contestants out of nowhere is like someone pulling the plug and cutting the song off early. Get it?”

“…Not even a little bit, no.”

“You know, maybe we should just go ahead and take a break. I’m starting to think your…talents might be better suited for somewhere else.” The sphinx looked at the “contestants” and said, “You can get back to whatever you were doing, just don’t forget my lunch!”

The last words were shouted after them, as the three sprinted out of the room as fast as they could, bumping into you and the others in their way.

The sphinx rolled his eyes again and muttered, “Interns. Probably should have kept one of them behind, I’m feeling a little—oh, hello! And who might you all be?”

His eyes lit up at the sight of your group and he gave a smile that might have been friendly, if it hadn’t shown off a lot of teeth that looked more at home in a lion’s mouth.

“These are guests,” Google answered. “Here to see Wilford Warfstache.”

“Hm?” the man holding the gun looked up and gave you all a smile that held no kind of recognition.

Even though you knew exactly who he was. Even without the uniform and helmet, even after all this time, you knew the Colonel’s voice, his mannerisms, the gun in his hand. The same gun, that he had carelessly fired at that intern like it was nothing.

Suddenly you knew exactly why Abe had been looking for him, understood the hunter’s strange behavior at the disco, his anger and despair. All this time, spent looking for the man that nearly killed him, who up until the night before last you thought had killed Abe.

All that time in the mirror, all that anger and rage of your own, and you had never thought about what you would do if you found yourself here, face to face with the Colonel again.

If you had imagined this moment, you don’t think it would have included the way he looked at you now, with a clueless smile like you were as much a stranger to him as Chase or Jameson. Or the other detail that your mind latched onto, until the sphinx moved in between you and the Colonel.

“Hello, my name is Bim Trimmer. Host of Menagerie of Insanity, or you might remember me from other hit shows that I’ve done.”

“Of course, who doesn’t know you?” Chase said, his voice higher and cracking slightly as he stepped in front of Jameson and tugged on your sleeve as though to encourage you to take a step back. “We, uh, didn’t expect to see you here today, or we would have, uh…”

“Brought something to sign?” Jameson suggested.

“Yeah, autographs,” Chase muttered. Clearing his throat, he continued, “But yeah, didn’t mean to interrupt, we can just—”

“Not at all, a distraction sounds lovely right now. Besides, we can’t be rude to guests.” Bim gestured toward your nametag, but you swore he sniffed before his pupils widened into two black discs. “Very special guests. How do you know our Wilford?”

You hesitated, aware that Jameson and Chase were waiting on you to answer, but your mind was still a blank, and your voice caught in your throat with nothing to say.

“Why, fans from the club, I’m sure,” the Colonel, or you guessed you should call him Wilford now, answered. He beamed as he stepped forward to Jameson and said, “I’ve seen you hit up the dance floor, I know!”

“I think you might be mistaken, sir,” Jameson signed, and Wilford laughed as though he had just said the most hilarious thing that he had heard all week.

“It’s actually through someone we know,” Chase said, now that it was becoming clear that you weren’t about to say anything. “Wilford, do you know an Abe Lincoln?”

“The car salesman?” Wilford asked.

“Uh—no, he’s a…he’s a hunter,” Chase said, trying very hard not to look at Bim when he said it. “Do you know why he might be looking for you?”

Wilford rubbed his chin, thinking for a moment. “I don’t owe him money, do I?”

Chase didn’t really know how to answer that, but while Wilford threw out a few more equally unlikely suggestions, you became aware of someone else talking in the studio, speaking low and fast.

“Here we see the automaton has brought three new victims into the clutches of the monster. See the way his tail is thrashing? That suggests a hunting state of mind, a predator considering the problem of his prey, and at any second he’s liable to pounce on our unsuspecting—”

You realized the voice was coming from somewhere under the rows of seating, but you were distracted by Bim lowering his head until you were eye-level and saying, “I would love to have you on the show sometime. I feel like you would be fantastic for the new season we’re lining up. Of course, we’ll have to do something about your wardrobe. Those rags you’re wearing just scream secondhand comfort wear, and aren’t doing you any favors.”

“And wearing those rags?”

The memory of the butler’s comment felt like it came out of nowhere, clashing with the Colonel’s presence, and you realized too late that it was happening again. Your unwanted awareness of too much going on at once: the running commentary going on in the distance, Bim’s overwhelming presence, the scent of the sphinx battling it out with whatever cologne Wilford seemed to have doused himself with, Wilford’s still talking away to an increasingly confused Chase and Jameson, just…Wilford in general, here with no warning, no chance to prepare yourself.

“I—no, I don’t think I could handle…all that,” you said, gesturing toward the set behind him. You tried to find something, anything to focus on, but doing that and holding a conversation at the same time was just too much. After a long second, you remembered to add, “Thank you for the offer, though.”

“Hm? Oh, not for this,” Bim said, waving a paw in the direction of the game show setup. “I mean for Monstrous Love. We like to keep things fresh, make interesting matches happen that wouldn’t otherwise, and I don’t think we’ve ever had a were—”

“Sorry, who is that?” you asked, pointing toward the seating in a deliberate attempt to distract the sphinx before he blurted out what you think he was about to, and maybe just a little to get him to stop talking at you. Your head was already spinning without the self-conscious realization that he knew, how did he know? Could he smell that you were a werewolf? Or had you said or done something to give yourself away already?

Bim looked in the direction you pointed, his head tilting before he sat back with a sigh. “Come on out, you fools. We know you’re over there.”

“We’ve been spotted, Jim! Quick, feign ignorance, we’ll go with Plan B,” stage whispered the voice under the seating, before two men climbed out. They both looked identical, even wearing the same white shirt and light gray pants, but one was holding a camera pointed at the group of you while the other had a microphone similar to the one Wilford was still holding in the hand not gripping his gun. “Hi there, I’m Jim, and this is Jim, and we’re here with Jim News.”

“Slow news day?” Bim asked, with a knowing look.

“The Jims are not scheduled to be in Studio 3 at this time,” Google announced. “Perhaps an escort back to their assigned floor is in order? Again?”

“Just working on a new potential segment,” Jim said. “Learning more about the people who come and go here at the studio. A behind the scenes kind of look, if you will.”

“Has anyone signed off on this segment?” Google asked, in a tone that suggested he already knew the answer and was just itching for an excuse to tell them.

“Uh…” Jim looked at Jim, who shrugged. “We were hoping to get some raw footage to start with, you know, something to show with our idea?”

“Unauthorized filming is strictly prohibited,” Google said. His eyes seemed to take on a strange gleam as he continued, “This activity will be reported and considered by the appropriate departments. Until then, hand over your camera for proper disposal.”

Jim whimpered, holding his camera close to his chest and Bim cleared his throat.

“It’s still studio property, Google. Pretty sure you can’t do that.”

Google frowned before settling on, “Then allow me to access the recording and wipe it.”

“Or, we could let one of the producers look at it first and decide whether they want to keep it?” Jim suggested, stepping in between his brother and the magitek unit. “Isn’t there something about management having final say in all, uh…projects?”

Google sighed, something he absolutely didn’t need to do considering he didn’t even breathe, and the glow faded from his eyes. “You people never let me have any fun.”

“Can you have fun?” Jim asked, his microphone suddenly pointed in Google’s direction. “Do you experience any emotions? Say, of the homicidal rage kind or desire for vengeance against your human oppressors?”

“My programming specifically allows me to disregard stupid questions,” Google answered. “For now, no more filming without clearance or I will take it upon myself to act accordingly.”

Jim sighed and motioned to his brother, who turned off his camera and protectively tucked it under his arm. “Fine. But we still need content of some kind, after the Institute cancelled on us again.”

His brother tapped him on the shoulder and whispered in his ear, causing you to wince at even the small sound. Had the studio lights always been this bright?

“Now there’s an idea, Jim! What about an interview for our podcast? No filming involved!” Jim looked around the room and said, “Any volunteers?”

“You’ll have to talk to my agent first,” Bim said, studying his claws.

Jim glanced at Google, whose scowl told him to keep looking, and Wilford, who was casually cleaning his gun with the bottom of his shirt, and decided to keep going before settling on your group. “What about you three? You look like the kind of people to have a story to share.”

You took a quick step back when Jim stepped forward, panicking as you said, “No, I—I’m nobody, we’re just—”

“Balderdash!” His booming voice combined with the weight of Wilford’s arm around your shoulders nearly knocked you off your feet, never mind the way your heart stopped when you braced yourself for what he would say next, only for Wilford to continue, “Nobody’s nobody. Look at your nifty little badge, says right there, VIP Y/N.”

You hissed slightly, trying to force your brain to behave as you said, “Either way, I don’t…”

“You okay, Y/N?” Chase asked, Jameson right there with him. You noticed that Chase was keeping a hand over his badge to hide his own name, that Jameson was signing something, his hands moving too fast and slow at the same time, that too many people were looking at you—

“I just…need a minute to sit down,” you muttered. Dimly, you were aware of someone showing you to a nearby folding chair, letters on the back of it jumbled together but maybe a name or something. You breathed out, and back in, forcing yourself to tune out Jim and Jim persisting in asking Chase and Jameson what they did, Bim and Google discussing plans of their own, everything until you could find just one thing to focus on like the Host said.

You opened your eyes to find Wilford, sitting in a similar chair to your own in front of you and leaning so far forward that he practically filled your vision.

“Glitz of showbusiness getting to your head a little?” he asked, his voice thankfully not quite as loud this time.

“…Something like that,” you muttered, eyes searching his face for any sign of recognition, anything, until they latched on something you had noticed before, something you couldn’t help but focus on until you found yourself saying, “Pink.”

“Hm?” Wilford reached up and brushed his mustache before smiling. “Do you like it? I had an afro, same color, but apparently it wasn’t the right ‘look’ for this place. I wonder where I put that...”

It was the first color you had seen since regaining your eyesight, the fluorescent pink of his mustache absurdly bright in the otherwise gray-scale world around you. Once you saw it, it was almost impossible to look away from until you realized that he was watching you, the expression in his eyes familiar enough that, for just a moment…

“Wilford, Google and I have been talking, and we think this could be the perfect opportunity to get—I mean, see if you’re a little more…suited for your own kind of segment, a talk show with your own spin on it. I’m sure the Jims would be happy to take you off my paws, er, only to show you how they go about it sometime. Maybe once the Jims are done with their interview with the boys over there, they can give you some ideas on how to do your own thing?” Bim asked, and you looked up to see him and Google standing nearby.

“Hm?” Wilford looked around as well, as though just now realizing who Bim was talking to, and said, “Sure, sure. It’s what I said from the start, I do have a way of getting people to open up.”

“Preferably without knives,” Bim muttered, but behind him Jim called, “No promises!”

“I will take the idea to Kathryn and see what she has to say about it,” Google added.

“I don’t suppose you could leave out the part where I shot one of the interns?” Wilford asked hopefully.

“No,” Google said without a trace of hesitation, causing Wilford to deflate a little. “This should not take long. Please commit only the minimal amount of mayhem in my absence.”

This last comment seemed to be directed at Wilford in particular, who beamed at him and said, “No worries, Googs, I’ll keep a close eye on Y/N here. They do look like the troublemaking type, don’t they?”

Google frowned but chose not to continue this conversation, instead turning and walking out of the studio. Bim, however, moved closer to your chair and smiled as he said, “Do keep an open mind about the show, okay? Here’s my card…”

He reached toward the strangely fitted suit he wore, only for his paw to fail to find the breast pocket. After a few attempts, he looked at you and you reluctantly let him get close enough for you to reach into the pocket and pull out a business card with his name and number on it that probably would have been impossible for him to handle on his own with those claws. This close, you definitely heard the sphinx sniff again, as well as the way he swallowed before he said, “Right. Just…anytime, uh, Y/N. If you all will excuse me.”

He stood and walked through the double doors, whose size alongside the large hallways and spacious elevator now made a little more sense, even if he still had to duck his head to keep from hitting the top of the doorframe.

“He has good taste, that fellow,” Wilford said, with a smile that left you second-guessing his words. “Are you even looking for a special someone, Y/N?”

“I’m…looking for someone,” you said, choosing your words carefully. “But I’m not interested in going on some dating show.”

“Ah! Still, you should keep the card, just in case,” Wilford said with a wink. “Never know when you’ll change your mind, eh?”

“Never know what Marvin would do if he found out I let you get on some monster matchmaker show, either,” Chase said as he walked up. “Feeling any better, Y/N?”

“A little,” you answered, but judging by his expression, he knew that was a lie.

“Could you…?” Chase asked Wilford, who stared at him for a moment before he realized what his gesture meant.

“Right, I’ll just give you two a minute,” Wilford said, leaping up from his chair and walking a short distance away, where he started whistling.

Chase shook his head before crouching down next to you, keeping his voice low as he said, “We don’t have to stay here, Y/N. If this is too much, we can just go. I’m not even sure if this Wilford guy knows anything about Abe anyways.”

“He does,” you said, sounding a little too forceful before your confidence washed away. “At least he should, but it’s like…”

“Like nothing’s going on upstairs?” Chase asked, glancing at Wilford. He studied him for a moment before saying, “Jim wants to interview me and Jameson, get our perspectives on entertainment from ‘nontraditional points of view.’”

“I’m sure Jameson has a lot to say about that,” you said, and Chase grinned.

“Believe it. Point is, we can keep them distracted and give you a chance to talk to Wilford on your own, if you think you can get something out of him. Or, we can leave right now and call this a dead end.”

“…I might know something I can try,” you said softly. You knew you should tell Chase who he was, but you also knew that there would be no arguing when he and Jameson insisted on getting you out of this building, now, once they knew. Maybe that was the right thing to do, but you had so many questions, starting with why Wilford was pretending not to recognize you. How did he even end up here, of all places?

“Okay,” Chase said, placing a hand on top of your own as he added, “We’ll be in the recording studio on the Studio 5 level, so don’t hesitate to come and get us if you don’t feel comfortable or just want to get out of here. And please, just…stay away from Bim Trimmer. Like, really far away. There’s rumors and maybe it’s just anti-monster stuff, but I don’t like the way he was looking at you.”

“Don’t worry, I’m not about to become the next star of Monster Love. And you and Jameson be careful what you say in front of those guys, too,” you said, indicating Jim and Jim with a tilt of your head.

“Monstrous Love, and yeah, we will.” Chase sighed, and you could tell he was second-guessing whether this was a good idea or not, even as he said, “Good luck, Y/N.”

“See you soon,” Jameson signed behind him, before the Jim twins ushered him and Chase out the door.

Leaving you alone with the man who shot and, technically, killed you all those years ago.

((End of Part 22. Thanks as always for reading! Just a couple of notes here that I couldn’t put up top for spoiler reasons.

Things I learned for this part: just enough terms to make it sound like Google knew what he was talking about when he was showing them around, and that wax bullets are a thing that illusionists used to use for tricks involving guns. They can also hurt people, so maybe letting Wilford keep the gun is still a bad idea. Also, in case it wasn’t clear, this Google isn’t wearing a gray shirt, it’s just what Y/N can/can’t see color wise.

Link to Part 23: Almost Too Easy.

Tagging: @silver-owl413 @skyewardlight @withjust-a-bite @blackaquokat @catgirlwarrior @neverisadork @luna1350 @oh-so-creepy @weirdfoxalley @95fangirl @lilalovesinternet-l @thepoolofthedead @a-bit-dapper @randomartdudette @geekymushroom @cactipresident @hotcocoachia @purple-anxiety-blog @shyinspiredartist @avispate @missksketch @autumnrambles @authorracheljoy @liafoxyfox @hidinginmybochard ))

#markiplier #jacksepticeye #fanfiction #werewolf au #monster au #wkm district attorney #wilford warfstache #googleplier #bim trimmer #chase brody #jameson jackson #jim news #bim knows you have to wait until the contestant gets too many questions wrong #THEN they're fair game #probably a good thing Chase didn't get that internship

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