#which - as far as i know and also hope - is not actually a real observatory or location

[inexplicably-spookified]

zoom

[galactic-glamour-girl-posts]

I hope Princess Peach Showtime sells well.

Not only because it could lead to Peach getting her own spin-off series of games rather than just a one-off (something that I think is long overdue), but it could also lead to Nintendo having more faith that Mario's female leads can carry games by themselves, which in that case...

Here's my idea for a Rosalina game.

Feel free to steal this random Nintendo employee who might be reading this:

1 - The Genre

If this game were to ever happen, I'd want it to stand out from Super Mario games so it wouldn't seem redundant, so it would not be a platformer. It wouldn't be a sports game, minigame collection, or puzzle game either. It would be a subgenre that the Mario franchise has yet to dip its toes into.

I want Rosalina's solo game to be a Space Action RPG that emphasizes real time combat.

Not turn-based, like Paper Mario or Mario and Luigi, etc. I imagine it would play a lot like Kingdom Hearts, just swap out a keyblade for Rosalina's wand:

She could shoot beams of light at enemies for long range attacks, levitate them with her wand only to slam them on the ground, create a comet shower to rain down on enemies, manipulate gravity to deflect their attacks or slow their attacks down, briefly create a force field around herself to shield herself from an attack, emit extremely bright light from her wand to temporarily blind enemies to stun them, use her Grand Star final smash as a spell, maybe for some attacks she just outright uses her wand like a sword, etc. There are so many spells they could either make up or take from her previous appearances that she could use for her moveset. She wouldn't even have to be limited to using her wand! She could do the spin from Galaxy/her spin from 3D World as an close range attack, teleport to short distances away to dodge an enemy, fly, briefly become intangible, etc. Reminder, she has already been shown to be able to do most this stuff anyway!

Of course she wouldn't have all these abilities at the start, she'd unlock different spells and abilities throughout the game as you gain more exp by defeating enemies.

The main collectible and currency of the game would, of course, be Star Bits. The can be used to buy items (healing items, alternate costumes, etc) or to...actually I'll mention the other function later. Star Bits can be found lying around on every planet (as can other various items that can help you during gameplay) and be gained by defeating enemies.

Each level would be a different planet, and the Comet Observatory would act as the hub world as it did in Super Mario Galaxy, and would be used to travel to each planet. Perhaps there could be minigames between each planet where you fly through space controlling the Comet Observatory whilst collecting Star Bits along the way? Eh, I'm not sure. It sounds fun but maybe it'd be simpler to just travel to planets like how Mario did in Galaxy.

I imagine each planet would have a certain number of missions to complete on it before you can move to the next planet. Maybe their could be side-missions too, but they wouldn't be compulsory unless you want to 100% the game. At the end of each mission, you have the choice to return to the hub world (for a reason I'll explain later) or to just move on to the next mission. If you do choose to return to the hub world before you completed every mission on that planet, you can continue from where you left off later and would not have to re-do any missions you had completed on that particular planet so far. What would each mission involve? Well...

2 - The Premise

I think Ubisoft owns Cursa but they would be the perfect antagonist for Rosalina. Mario has Bowser, Luigi has King Boo, Wario has Captain Syrup, Peach now has Grape, so why not let Rosalina have her own nemesis? I know Cursa seemingly died at the end of Sparks of Hope but Cursa is literally made of a fragment The MegaBug so perhaps the same thing has happened again, a fragment of Cursa survived and mutates into a new form. I'm also aware Sparks of Hope isn't canon and likely takes place in a different universe than the one the mainline Mario games take place, but Cursa is a mutant cosmic entity, it wouldn't be so hard to believe it could travel to different universes. Cursa would still remember the events of Sparks of Hope, and seek revenge on Rosalina and rid the universe of all lumas. She would create a new army (of both her own creation and possessed aliens) she would send to capture all lumas.

If Cursa is the villain, the game starts with her making a direct attack on the Comet Observatory. Cursa attempts to possess Rosalina again, but Rosalina reacts quickly and creates a force field to protect herself. Cursa then orders her army to go after the lumas. Realising there's no time to fight each army member one-on-one, Rosalina gets in front of the lumas, briefly puts down her shield, and readies her wand to unleash a huge blast of light and energy to blast most of the army off into space. But Cursa strikes her just as she does so, and the clash causes a bigger, more unstable blast, that sends both Cursa, her army and the lumas away. Rosalina is left injured and soon passes out.

Cursa and her army would survive the blast and still be out there, in search of lumas.

Either do that or just have some new bad guy (preferably one who uses dark magic/symbolises dark matter to contrast Rosalina's star/light aesthetic) kidnap lumas. I don't really care what their name would be, but for the sake of this post let's call them...Void (placeholders don't have to be creative, shush). I'm gonna refer to Void with he/him pronouns but I don't have any specific gender in mind for Void. Void could be female, or genderless, etc.

As for Void's plan, maybe he could plan to absorb half of the lumas for energy so he'd become powerful enough to destroy the universe (except for the rest of the captured lumas), and then would force the other half to transform into whatever he wants (essentially, his plan is to remake the universe so he can rule it). He too would have an army, but of his own creation. Rosalina, naturally, would be the one to stop him given that it's basically her duty, not only because she's the mother of the lumas but also because she's the protector of the cosmos.

If Void is the villain, he (along with his army) would attack the Comet Observatory in the beginning instead. Void would not have to power to possess people, but he can absorb the energy of others. Void would go for the lumas first but Rosalina, in an attempt to protect the lumas, gets in the way and creates a force field around both her and the lumas. Void relentlessly attacks the force field in an attempt to break it, but it's no use. Despite this, Rosalina can tell Void won't give up, so she teleports outside the force field and the two battle, meanwhile Void's army attempt to break down the force field. It doesn't break but as the battle continues it does start to weaken. An unstable blast is caused in a similar way it's caused with Cursa; Rosalina readies a blast of light and energy (since it's one-on-one this one isn't as big), Void also tries to hit her but with a blast of darkness instead of light (something like a shadow blast), and when the attacks clash it sends the lumas and the army flying.

Rosalina and Void are left alone. Rosalina's tired but not severely injured. She's concerned about the lumas but Void, enraged by what has just occurred, manages to catch her off guard due to her fatigue and grabs hold of her to absorb her energy. This leaves Rosalina weakened and she passes out. Void leaves to search for his army and lumas.

The opening would be the in-universe justification as to why she lacks certain abilities (like the spin, teleportation, etc) at the start of the game (I imagine she'd be able to levitate herself and other people or objects, but that's it).

I don't have an entire story planned out, but basically Rosalina will eventually regain consciousness, manage to track down whoever the villain is (it's her job to watch over the cosmos, and with the Comet Observatory this is not a difficult task) and follows them in their search for lumas. She'll regain her energy (and hence the rest of her powers) as the game progresses. She loves the lumas dearly, and won't give up until she's saved every single one!

On each planet, some lumas are on the run from the army, and some have already been captured are guarded by the army, waiting for Cursa/Void to arrive so they can hand them over. Captured lumas are kept frozen in ice crystals found all over each planet in the game.

This is where those missions come in. For most missions, the objective is to save a specified amount of captured lumas, but some missions might be "Defeat [X] amount of enemies" or "Collect [X] Star Bits" or "Find/Go to [X]", etc. Side-missions could be escort missions where you help escort a citizen of that planet get to where they want to go safely whilst protecting them from enemies, or finding a stolen item and returning it to an NPC you've interacted with.

3 - The Hero(es)

The only playable character is Rosalina BUT you can have two lumas in your party as partner characters at a time (they're kind of like Rosalina's Donald and Goofy), and they'd work similarly to how Sparks of Hope handles the Sparks. The lumas would float beside Rosalina at all times during gameplay like the one in Mario Kart Wii.

After completing each world (or at least the first 10), one luma can be added to your party once you've saved them.

Polari is the first saved luma that can join your party, then a Yellow Luma, Red Luma, Green Luma, Blue Luma, Pink Luma, Hungry Luma, Lumalee, Comet Tico, and finally Lubba.

Some lumas have abilities they perform themselves , and some simply have effects on gameplay but don't do anything during battle. So for example:

(Abilities)

Polari can periodically turn into a small black hole that sucks in enemies.

Yellow Luma transforms into a Launch Star that Rosalina can use to launch herself further away than teleporting would, and can be used as a method of attack to dash through enemies with.

Blue Luma can transform into a small ice comet that will freeze enemies temporarily if they make contact with it.

Lumalee can grab items (except for star bits) from afar without Rosalina having to do it.

Hungry Luma can collect star bits from afar without Rosalina having to do it.

(Effects)

If Red Luma is in your party Rosalina will take less damage from attacks.

If Green Luma is in your party the duration of time Rosalina's force field can stay up during gameplay is extended.

If Pink Luma is in your party Rosalina will regain some of her HP when her health falls below 20% her total HP (but only 3 times per mission).

If Comet Tico is in your party the Cosmic Spirit, a clone that can help Rosalina in battle, will appear when her health falls below 20%.

If Lubba is in your party, the power of Rosalina's attacks is increased.

All lumas can be flung at enemies like Rosalina does with Luma in Smash, although here the power of this move depends on each individual luma's size.

You would only be able to swap out party members in the hub world, which is why there's an option to go back there at the end of each mission. Lumas can level up either by gaining exp whilst accompanying Rosalina in battle or by being fed star bits (see? I didn't forget about the other function!)

(Bonus) - Alternate Costumes?

I mentioned earlier that perhaps star bits could be used to buy alternate costumes. They could just be for aesthetic purposes, but I think it would be cool if each costume altered Rosalina's moveset.

Some costumes I have in mind are:

Cosmic Spirit

In this form, in addition to her usual moveset Rosalina can possess enemies, and maybe even the lumas so you can play as them. However, she is slower and cannot teleport.

Guitarist Rosalina

In this costume, in addition to her usual moveset, she can produce shockwaves when she strums her guitar as an attack, swing her guitar at enemies (like an axe), and moves at a faster speed, but she takes more damage than usual from attacks and cannot do her spin. Although I'd replace the guitar in the picture with the one she has in artwork for 3D World's soundtrack.

Young Rosalina

This costume would majorly alter Rosalina's moveset, so no using her wand, no teleporting, no flying, and her spin is weaker. It would essentially be a hard mode. I imagine her moveset in this costume would be more hand-to-hand combat focused. Perhaps she'd jump on some enemies as a nod to Super Mario games, maybe she could throw starbits as an attack, etc.

I'd rather Rosalina not use power-ups on this adventure (to keep this game distinct from other games in the Mario franchise), so no Fire Rosalina, Cat Rosalina, etc.

Some other costumes could be Rosalina Halloween, Rosalina Aurora...basically her Mario Kart Tour costumes other than the power-ups. They'd definitely just be for aesthetic purposes though, no affects on gameplay.

.

.

.

And that's all I got!

TLDR, Nintendo should make "Kingdom Hearts but it stars (ha) Rosalina".

[ecargmura]

Ron Kamonohashi: Deranged Detective Episode 7 Review - The Observatory Mystery

Now the mysteries have elevated a level as the story’s first locked-room mystery case makes its debut. Ron gets accused of murder and now it’s up to Toto to figure out the culprit on his own! I can’t wait to see Toto to show off his solo sleuthing skills! Finally, a case where Toto won’t be seen as a doofus for once! Let’s see if he’s capable of solving this case without Ron’s help this time around! You can do it, Toto!

Maybe it’s just me, but this whole observatory invitation reeks of suspicious. Was it really Kawasemi who praised Toto to the point that it got him an invitation to an observatory known for a locked room murder case a decade ago? I’m skeptical. It doesn’t help that I suspect two people as possible suspects.

There’s a plethora of new characters, probably the most introduced so far. We got the Director who’s name I forgot. There’s Unno, the chef. Donzawa’s haircut bugs the hell out of me. There’s Orihime the idol (and voiced by a recently graduated AKB48 member too!). There’s Onodera, the astronomy photographer and the victim of the case. Last but not least, there’s John Grizzly, Spitz’s colleague and Ron’s closed room case instructor during his time at BLUE. That’s a lot of people if you also add in Ron and Toto. I think the sudden influx of people for this case brings in the suspense of who could be the culprit of this case as it could be anyone at this point.

Like with Spitz and the hot springs case, I’m actually NOT suspecting that the murderer is John Grizzly. It’s against BLUE’s code to murder and if it was him, then he’d be a hypocrite after all that he said about Ron and the incident that caused him to be expelled from school, the Bloody Training Incident. Also, like with Spitz, Grizzly is way too obvious if he was the murderer, which is why I am ruling him out. Speaking of which, John Grizzly as a character is a bit interesting. He flat out doesn’t like Ron at all as he easily accuses him of being the culprit of the current case and the Bloody Training Incident. Yet, he’s also someone who gives out this information so easily to Toto of all people. I thought BLUE people would be a bit more tight-lipped about confidential matters like this, but I guess not.

Who do I suspect as the culprit? I’ve got two candidates. There’s Unno the chef who could have easily spiked Ron’s brown sugar syrup meal with sleeping medicine and then could have framed him for the murder. Then, there’s the director who brought Toto and Ron to the observatory despite knowing that there was an incident ten years ago and he was the son of the former director. He said that the gun was a replica, but it actually turned out to be a real gun; he could be lying about that—he’s also the only other character who spoke about the gun in the beginning, so he could’ve easily known it was a real pistol. There’s also the matter of the key. He said that the key was gone and it was in Ron’s pocket. Now, I feel like I’m leaning towards the Director as the culprit.

Other than the murder mystery, I do like everything that happened before it too. The way Ron brought a hula hoop was hilarious; he was even hula hooping while being extremely full just so he’d have a feel for what orbiting feels like. Silly Ron. I really liked the meteor shower too! The animation was super pretty! I also really like Toto and Ron’s growing trust in each other. Toto is 100% on Ron’s side; he even tells him that he doesn’t believe he was the culprit for the Bloody Training Incident five years ago. The way Toto exudes hope towards Ron’s plight really makes me want to see how well he’ll solve this case. I’m also glad that Ron is happy that Toto is with him. He’s not a nervous and scared as he was five years ago; he was scared back then because Toto wasn’t there at the time. That was super sweet and romantic, honestly! I ship them!

Given that this case will have multiple parts, I hope that the writing will be good. Also, go check the opening! They updated it again with Torage at the segment just before Ron and Toto meet up and the chorus starts. Who do you think is the culprit?

[lostboys-fangposting]

moodboard for julia's guest room at the volturi's castle, appearing first in chapter 16 of tuebor

photo 1: the left wall

the wardrobe, vanity chair, and vanity (i imagine it designed like the one on the left but painted like the one on the right)

photo 2: center wall, opposite of the entry

nightstand + nightstand detail, headboard detail, four poster bed with curtains, and bedding

photo 3: center wall, from which you would enter and the living area is in front of

fireplace detail – the marble's coloring, the fireplace, the fireplace mantle, the three armchairs, and the coffee table

photo 4: the en suite bathroom

clockwise: sink, sink faucet, entry, bathtub, bathtub faucet

photo 5: misc details

left hand side (clockwise): the rosewood floors, rug, sandstone brick walls, and chandelier

center: the color palette of the room

right hand side (clockwise): interior window detail – what i imagine the design of the iron and glass to look like, exterior window detail – what i imagine the windows to look like from outside the castle, curtains on the windows, detail – curtain tieback

also to be noted: there are actually two windows in the guest room, both on the same wall. as i mentioned in chapter 16, the first of which is above the desk (left hand side as you walk in), but there is another one located in the bathroom (so the far right hand side)

(for notes on the volturi's castle itself, check under 'read more')

also to note, i know smeyer has it canon that the volturi live in palazzo dei priori, but that doesn't make any sense to me. it's a 3 floor, "communal" building, established in the 13th century CE. i'm retconning her failure to research – instead, that is still where edweird threw his tantrum, but the actual volturi hideout is located in the same place as the nearby palazzo incontri viti, just a short vamp walk away through the sewers... they still own the clock tower and palazzo, but the italian government secretly rents it from them in my fics, so the volturi do not occupy it. in my mind the building is bigger, so the shops on the sides of it don't exist. like the irl palazzo viti, it is still also a museum, which is run by heidi, aro, and caius, which is on the ground level (this is not the same thing as the private gallery felix takes julia on a tour of). part of the ground level, of course, is only accessible through heidi's special guided tours, if you're human and not the secretary. this is because the fake throne room/feeding room, real throne room, reception area, elevator, access to the underground floors, museum and museum bathrooms, the astronomy/observatory tower, queens' tower, watchtower, gardens, great hall/ballroom, the garage, and what i like to refer to as the "sun room" are all accessible on that floor. my palazzo viti, of course, to make up for it being bigger, is going to look different, which is why i described it in much more detail this chapter than i normally describe things. i'm hoping to have an actual floor plan made, too.

also, not all the volturi live there. most members are assigned to various strongholds across the globe, which i will elaborate on eventually. 

additionally, i'm locking into archeological sites in volterra, trying to find where i want to put the original volturi fortress that the kings would've established in the 6th century BCE when they established volterra. palazzo viti is just their current residence. i'll update y'all when i've got it figured out.

i hope you guys enjoy all the work i put into this. i did a lot of research of the natural flora and fauna of tuscany, the rock that is found there and therefore likely to be used for buildings, research in what volterra is actually like, etc. 

[jabean-fanfiction]

Hey Jab! I hope you're doing great!

First off, I'd like to apologize for not being able to drop a review for the latest 3 chapters of 'A Light in the Dark'. For one, I cried a lot when Ahsoka finally reunited with Obi-Wan and it took me a second to realize that all of us come so far tagging along in the rewrite journey 😭💖 I'll be dropping my reviews over the weekend <33

Coming to my question, could you list down several problems a starship (like the Falcon and the Devastator) or a battle station (like Starkiller Base and the Death Stars) could face during battle or space travel? Also, could you tell us about the dangers of hyperspace and hyperspace travel? If you've got some resources, I'd definitely love to check 'em out and surf more through the net!

May the Force be with You!

Love, Q.

Oh my gosh 💗 you don’t have to apologize for not yet commenting Q. I completely understand that RL gets in the way, and that hyperfixations can wane from time to time. My dozen or so WIPs can attest to that 😅

In regards to your questions, from what I can gather/find online (honestly, I’ve just looked on Wookieepedia) there are a whole bunch of risks involved in Hyperspace travel. A big one that Han Solo actually mentions to Luke is that without precise calculations, they could fly right into a star or drop out of Hyperspace too close to a supernova. So an issue that could arise on a ship like the Falcon, or possibly even the Devastator, would be if their hyperdrive computers were damaged somehow - whether that’s because of actual, physical damage (ie, an ensuing battle during sublight travel, etc.), or something like a slicer somehow getting into the ship’s flight computers, and going from there. — I don’t know if that’s actually possible in the Star Wars Universe, but hey, anything is possible if it fits the story that you’re telling. And I do know that it is possible for real life hackers today to get into home/business wifi with all of those “Smart” appliances that are out there (very few people actually remember to put firewalls on those things, leaving the proverbial back door wide open for hackers to sneak in and cause a ruckus.)

Without the proper Hyperspace routes, ships could zoom into a supernova or black hole, etc. So if those routes were somehow corrupted, or just plain wrong, they could be in a lot of trouble too. I think that was one of the reasons why the Battle of Jakku happened. The Empire, or what remained of it, was trying to obtain the Hyperspace routes to the Unknown Regions so that they could regroup. Jakku, of course, is such an isolated world right on the edge of Wild Space in the Western Reaches, so of course its Observatory would have a secret map to the Unknown Regions that no one from the Core Worlds knew anything about (I’m only being slightly sarcastic, honest).

There is also the risk that the hyperdrive could fail during hyperspace travel. This happens in Episode V, when the Falcon tries to leave Hoth and they end up having to hobble to Bespin via sublight travel. I see on Wookieepedia that the Galactic Empire had Interdictor vessels that disabled hyperdrive capabilities in other vessels, which allowed them to pull vessels out of Hyperspace, or prevent them from jumping into it in the first place. (That would be so terrifying to me… bopping along in Hyperspace, only to be yanked out by a funky-looking Imperial Destroyer)

For the first part of your question - because apparently I can’t answer anything in order 😅 - there are plenty of things that can be damaged during battles on starships, like the Falcon or the Devastator, or battle stations, like Starkiller Base and Death Stars 1 and 2. I think the answer to the Death Star/Starkiller part of the question is probably pretty obvious — the station’s main reactor is a huge weakness. And honestly, the Galactic Empire/First Order should really guard it a bit better if they don’t want the same thing to happen again and again… and again. But in regards to starships obtaining damage during battle — and this is just my humble opinion — I would say that a big hit would probably be the engines. I think if anyone tried to damage those things, they’d hinder their opponent pretty severely, if not outright kill them. If weaponry gets damaged too, that could be a big issue. In Episode VII, when Rey and Finn are trying to outrun/shoot down those TIEs on Jakku, the guns on the Falcon get jammed and Rey has to line up the ship so that Finn can make the shot. Also for smaller ships, I would think that heat shield damage is probably pretty detrimental when they come into atmosphere to land, etc. (Totally thinking of the TV show Firefly on that one though, with metal plates tearing off as they fly through the atmosphere of a planet.) SW might be a little different with how heat shields work in that particular universe.

Thank you so very much for these questions! I’ve not sure if this was what you were looking for as answers, so if there’s anything that I’ve completely missed/misunderstood, let me know, and I’ll add on some more.

And May the Force be with you too!! ❤️

[lexosaurus]

Aurora

My Truce gift for @thelegendaryloaf! I was so pumped when I was assigned you, and I absolutely LOVED working with your prompts! Happy holidays, and I hope 2021 treats you well!

Characters: Danny and Valerie Genre: Friendship Word Count: 3523 Summary: Up close, Valerie could see him more clearly. The stars and planets that speckled throughout his face, the tiny bits of multicolored light that sparkled in his eyes, the way his aura seemed to ebb and flow as if it were the aurora in the northern sky. It was as if Phantom was someone else entirely.

Read on [ao3] [ffn]

---

“Ugh, where is that stupid ghost?” Valerie grumbled, gliding through the air on her hoverboard. She had been on her way home from Star’s house when her watch beeped to life, alerting her of an unwanted ghostly visitor. And, if the watch was correct, it was a rather powerful ghost too.

After all, very few ghosts could ping her from so far away.

But like the dutiful hunter she was, she suited up, trying to ignore the way her stomach knotted up with nerves. As much as she enjoyed sending ghosts back to the hell they came from, going up against a ghost of that much ectoplasmic power was sure to empty out her first aid kit.

She glanced down at her watch. She was getting close now. She should be able to hear screaming, see people fleeing in terror, but there was nothing to suggest a powerful ghost had breached the city.

Which meant that Phantom was likely the ghost responsible for cutting into Valerie’s precious sleep.

Valerie was going to kill him. Again. 

Her radar was leading her towards the outskirts of the city, which was odd for Phantom. When he wasn’t baiting ghosts and causing destruction to Amity, Valerie could find him at the park or on top of some tall building. 

But outside of the city? This wasn’t like him.

Maybe it wasn’t Phantom. Maybe it was some tall ghost hellbent on baiting ghost hunters far away from the populace, away from any emergency response, so they could be destroyed in peace. Maybe Valerie was walking straight to her own doom.

Oh well. It wouldn’t be the first time her career as a ghost hunter had gotten her into trouble.

“Ok, he’s definitely in there,” Valerie said, shifting between her radar and the large building in front of her.

She glanced down at her watch, then back up again. Was her watch leading her to...an observatory?

“Why the hell is he in there?” 

Valerie flew low to the ground, making sure to keep out of sight of the open roof. She was almost certain that Phantom was inside the round building, but she just couldn’t figure out why.

It didn’t make sense. He was a ghost. He didn’t care about space. What did he have to gain from traveling this far to the edge of Amity just for a stupid observatory?

She could turn back here. Just go home, leave Phantom to do whatever weird thing he was doing on his night off. And why wouldn’t she—it was Saturday! She could be in bed instead of keeping Phantom out of trouble.

But it was her responsibility. Her duty to Amity. Sure, maybe Phantom wasn’t a purely evil ghost hellbent on Amity’s destruction, maybe he was just a cocky asshole with a hero Obsession, but someone had to keep him in check. 

And that someone was about to send him back to the Ghost Zone.

“Alright, Phantom.” Valerie launched herself through the open roof and hovered above the room. “Very funny. Now, come on, it’s time to—”

“Valerie!” came a cheerful cry from below her. “You made it!”

“Phantom?” She looked down and nearly fell off her glider. Below her was Phantom, but he looked...different. 

His aura had changed, and instead of a bright white glow it swirled with violets, teals, and blues. His freckles had turned into stars and planets which shimmered across his skin, and his eyes positively sparkled.

Valerie regarded him with disgust. “What the hell? Why do you look like the Milky Way threw up on you?”

Then he did something Valerie never expected a ghost to do in a million years: he giggled. 

“I’m so glad you’re here! We have so much to talk about. Saturn and Jupiter are right next to each other, and through this telescope you can even see all of Saturn’s rings. The rings, Valerie! And oh my goddess, if you thought that was cool, wait till you see the Pleiades!” Phantom reached a hand out, and his swirling aura shot forward, wrapping itself around the telescope in front of him.

“Wait, don’t break it!” Valerie shouted, touching down on the floor. But, before she could so much as ready an ecto-gun, she stopped.

Because the telescope wasn’t breaking apart.

It was moving. 

Valerie watched in a mix of horror and fascination as the telescope in front of Phantom adjusted itself, shifting around and settling into place. The aura dimmed, leaving behind a telescope that didn’t look any more ghostly than before Phantom’s interference.

“Okay, what the fuck is going on right now?”

Phantom’s beamed. “Look! Take a look!”

“Oh hell no. I’m not going anywhere near that possessed thing!”

He laughed, and for a moment his aura brightened. “Just trust me, Val!”

“Don’t call me that,” Valerie muttered, but nonetheless stepped towards the telescope. She gave one last suspicious glance Phantom’s way before she leaned forward and looked through the stupid metal thing.

Saturn stared back at her, its rings preening like a peacock against the vast emptiness around it. She had never seen Saturn before, not outside of Google Images anyhow. It looked exactly like all the pictures showed, and yet seeing it in person was...really cool. 

“And wait!” Phantom’s childish voice bubbled from behind her. Cold swept over her and she flinched, her arm instinctively twitching for her gun, before she realized what was happening.

Phantom was wrapping his galaxy aura around the telescope and moving it again.

“Okay, look now!”

Valerie glanced quizzically back towards the ghost, searching for any signs of malevolence, but his innocent smile never wavered.

“Are you high or something?” she finally asked.

He giggled again. “Stop making jokes and look already!”

She rolled her eyes but relented once more. When she looked through the telescope this time, she was met with another tan colored planet. This one had brown stripes running through the sides, warping to show an unmistakable eye-like figure towards the middle of it.

“Is that...is that Jupiter?”

“Yeah!” Phantom clapped. “And if you look, there should be some of its moons in view too! Look around it, Val!”

“Don’t call me that,” she muttered without any real malice. Sure enough, a few tiny tan dots surrounded the planet. “How many moons does it have, anyway?”

“Seventy-nine!” Phantom said.

“Jesus, wonder what its tides are like.”

Phantom playfully nudged her. “Silly Val, it doesn’t have an ocean! I know you know that. But if you think that’s crazy, Saturn actually has more moons than Jupiter does! It has eighty two.”

She stepped away from the telescope, and once again Phantom’s aura took command, adjusting the lens to a new spot. Phantom immediately jumped to the telescope with a ferocity that Valerie had only seen him use in the heat of the moment when fighting other ghosts. Yet, she noticed the way he delicately touched the telescope, allowing his fingers to gently hold the metal shell as he peered into space with a fascination that seemed too ethereal to be real.

Phantom was destructive, he was a fighter, he was driven by his Obsession to fight and be a hero. He wasn’t...this. 

“Seriously, what the hell happened to you?”

“What do you mean?” Phantom asked in a singsong voice.

“I mean this,” Valerie emphasized, allowing her arms to sweep out around her. “All of this! What...Phantom, I know we’re not friends, but—”

“Of course we are!” 

Valerie blinked. “Huh?”

“We’re friends, Val!” Phantom repeated, detaching from the telescope momentarily to hover next to Valerie. 

She could feel his cold aura brushing against her arm, and she suppressed a shudder. “Are you messing with me?”

Phantom peered up at her, his glowing eyes seeming almost offended by her accusation.

Offended? Hurt? Phantom? 

“Val, why would you say that? Of course we’re friends! We’re hanging out right now, right? That’s what friends do!” 

Up close, Valerie could see him more clearly. The stars and planets that speckled throughout his face, the tiny bits of multicolored light that sparkled in his eyes, a shooting star that traveled across his cheek, the way his aura seemed to ebb and flow as if it were the aurora in the northern sky.

It was as if Phantom was someone else entirely. It was like another ghost had taken possession over him. Was controlling him from the inside out.

Valerie’s hand slowly moved down towards her belt, but it didn’t seem to matter. Phantom didn’t notice. In fact, he shot her a beaming smile and turned his attention back to the telescope, rambling about how astronomers believe that diamonds rain on Uranus and Neptune as if Valerie’s hand wasn’t slowly inching towards her gun.

“It’s just a hypothesis really,” Phantom said. “Scientists can’t really study inside the planets yet because they’re so far away. But I hope it’s true! It would be so cool! Imagine, you’re just an alien on these planets, and then suddenly you walk outside and there’s solid diamonds falling from the sky! They wouldn’t be that pretty probably because the diamonds wouldn’t be shaped nicely, also those planets aren’t habitable to any life so there’s no aliens, but it’s still cool to imagine! Oh, oh, but if you thought that was cool, there’s this other planet—not in our galaxy—that’s really really close to its sun so it’s super hot but guess what? Val, you’ll never guess! It’s solid ice! The gravity is so strong that it forced all the water on its planets into ice and—”

Valerie gripped the gun, raising it to eye level and clicking the safety off.

Phantom’s head snapped up. He looked to the gun, then to Valerie, and his aura faltered.

“Val?” Phantom said, the stars on his face dimming. “I...I don’t understand...why…?”

“You’re not Phantom.” Valerie’s voice was steady. “I don’t know who you are, but get out of him.”

“I don’t understand…” The colored flecks of light in Phantom’s eyes faded, leaving them back to their vibrant green. “I...just…I...” His aura fluctuated before turning back to its hauntingly white glow.

“...Valerie?” Phantom 's voice was cautious. He took stock of the gun once more before a hint of realization bled through his expression. He slowly raised his hands. “Wait! I know what this looks like, but I swear I wasn’t doing anything. Don’t—”

“Phantom! There’s a ghost inside you. It was possessing you! I need to take it out. I need to—”

“Wait, Val, stop! You don’t know what you’re doing!” 

“I think it’s trying to lead us to a trap. This will only sting for a moment!”

“No! You don’t know what you’re talking about!” Phantom glanced wildy around the room, his eyes locking onto the telescope once more.

Then, his aura flared, the aurora fought to return, his freckles sparkled like stars once more. A hint of childlike wonder hit his features and for a moment, he seemed lost in the fascination of the observatory.

It was the perfect opportunity to shoot.

But Valerie’s hands were shaking. They were unsteady, just like they were when she first started using the equipment. And in that split second of uncertainty, that moment of hesitation, Phantom gripped his hair and pulled himself out of his stupor.

“No!” he groaned. “Not now!”

“What the hell is going on?” Valerie shouted. 

“Don’t shoot! Just—ugh, gimmie a sec…” He squeezed his eyes shut and groaned. “I just godda...I just need a second.”

To Valerie’s surprise, she waited. Maybe it was the growing respect she’d begun to feel for Phantom over the past year, maybe it was her fading hatred as she learned more about ghosts, maybe it wasn’t anything deep and it was just that Valerie was confused. In any case, she followed his pleas and watched as he pulled himself together, drawing his shimmering aura inward and allowing the familiar homogenous white aura to wash over him.

He gave a final sigh of relief. “Okay. Okay, I’m good now. You can lower the gun.”

“Tell me first.” Her voice allowed for no arguments. “Tell me what the hell just happened, and then maybe I’ll think about it.”

“It’s complicated.”

Valerie noticed how he seemed to be making a visible effort to ignore all the astronomy equipment around them. His eyes were trained to her and her only.

“Then enlighten me.”

“I…” He hesitated.

“I’m giving you five seconds before I blast you unconscious.”

He blinked, and then his expression shifted into the cocky, shit-eating grin Phantom that Valerie had come to know over these months, “As if you could hit me.”

“Don’t change the subject, Phantom. I’m serious.”

He sobered. “Right. Sorry. I...listen, it’s personal, okay? I’m telling you because I trust you, but you can’t tell anyone. If any of my enemies find out…”

“Tell me.”

“Okay.” He sighed, running a hand through his hair. “What do you know of...of Obsessions?”

“Every ghost has one. It’s what controls their core, what gives them power. All ghosts are driven by their Obsession and if they manage to fulfill it or they’re somehow blocked from feeding into their Obsession for too long, they’ll cease to exist. Why? What does this have to do with anything?”

“I…” His face screwed up before he gave out a frustrated huff. “Oh, what the hell! I have two Obsessions.”

Valerie faltered, her gun lowering ever so slightly. 

She didn’t know what she expected, but this? 

“You what?”

Was this even possible? Better yet, how was it possible? Every ghost had an Obsession, but every ghost had one Obsession. It was impossible for a ghost to have two. It would be torment for the ghost, the two Obsessions constantly battling inside their core for dominance.

It would tear him apart from the inside out, wouldn’t it?

But Valerie watched as Phantom’s eyes strayed beside them to a small white telescope sitting off to the side of the room, and Valerie watched as his aura seemed to fluctuate again as the other side of him fought for control.

Once again, Phantom screwed his eyes shut and fought the aura down, allowing his natural white glow to pulsate over his form brighter than before. 

“Can we take this outside?” he asked, his voice tight. “This room is...distracting.”

Valerie allowed her arm to drop, her gun hanging loosely at her side. “Sure.”

“Ok, I need to...I need to slip back into it to close the observatory walls. I can’t access those powers in this form. I’m not dangerous in that state, so please don’t shoot me.”

She nodded, momentarily forgetting that he couldn’t see her with his eyes shut. But he seemed to hear the unspoken words regardless. The blues, greens, and purples of his aura swirled around him, overtaking his aura in a brilliant display of light. The stars and planets returned to his face, and when he finally opened his eyes, it was as if Valerie could see the entire Milky Way within his corneas.

He raised his arms, his face relaxed, and allowed his aura to seep out to the walls. The room glowed, and Valerie watched with an open mouth as the incandescent colors of the northern lights guided the observatory walls closed. They cascaded through the walls before finally dimming, leaving Phantom as the only remaining source of light.

“Okay,” he said, the childlike bubble to his voice echoing around the room. “Let’s go!”

Before she could blink, Phantom grabbed her arm and spread his aura out around her. She let out a yelp of protest before she could feel a familiar chill overtake her skin.

Phantom was...he was turning her intangible. 

“Ready?” He asked. His eyes seemed to glow brighter in the dark.

Valerie looked up at him, breathless.

He grinned and pulled her forward, shooting them both through the walls. They flew up for a moment before shooting back down towards a cluster of trees. 

Valerie had flown on her hoverboard many times, but this was incredible. It was as if gravity didn’t exist. Her body was weightless, flowing across the air with a precision that she’d never felt before.

But as soon as it started, it stopped. The duo landed on the ground, and Phantom broke contact with her. Warmth immediately filled her veins. She glanced back towards the observatory, but the trees blocked her view.

That was probably intentional, if Phantom’s earlier display of cognitive dissonance had anything to do with it.

Valerie waited once more, watching as Phantom’s aura seemed to waver, before settling back into white. When it seemed like he was more or less back to normal, she finally spoke. “Okay, explain. What do you mean you have two Obsessions? How is that possible?” 

“I don’t know.” Phantom’s gaze was downcast. “I mean, my, uh...death was rather, um, complicated. I think.”

She raised an eyebrow. 

Ghosts never talked about their death. According to Maddie Fenton, it was a taboo. Bringing the topic up would only result in angering the ghost.

So for Phantom to bring his own death up like this…

This was uncharted waters for any human.

This was serious.

Phantom pinched the bridge of his nose. “I can’t explain it, but it didn’t go right. I don’t—I can’t…” He huffed, his eyes turning up to her with an almost desperate look. “You must have noticed that I’m just different, right?”

Valerie nodded slowly. “I have, but you’re still just a ghost.”

Phantom’s eyes widened before turning back to the ground. “Right. I...no, you’re right. I’m just a ghost. But I…”

Valerie watched as his eyebrows pinched, his mouth thinning as something inside of him fought to surface. She wanted to speak, wanted to ask what did he mean when he said he was different, but she didn’t.

She couldn’t. 

She didn’t know what to say.

When he finally spoke again, his voice was quiet. “When I died, it went wrong. And my core couldn’t decide on what it wanted to be, so something inside of it fractured. One part of it focused on the people in the room with me, the people that I was worried about. I wanted to make sure they were safe. My friends. I wanted to protect them.”

Valerie held her breath.

According to studies, most ghosts didn’t remember their prior life, or the people in it. Memory loss was just a part of the process of transforming from human to ghost.

And yet…

Phantom clearly did.

“The other part of my core went to the thing I was doing just moments before. I was...I wanted to explore. I always loved space and astronomy. I wanted to work for NASA and see other worlds and...other dimensions. I know it sounds crazy, but it was just who I was. Who I still am.”

He looked up at her, and Valerie saw remnants of stars speckle in his eyes. “So my core settled on two modes. And depending on where I am or what I’m doing, it switches between them. My powers shift too. When I’m normal, I can project ectoblasts and control ice. But when I go into my space mode, I can’t do any of that. But I can control astronomy equipment, as you saw, and I can locate any star or planet in the sky.”

“So that’s how you knew where to move the telescope?” 

“Yeah.” He held out his hand, and a little ice Saturn formed in his palm. “I don’t know how I know where things are, but I just know. But it only happens when I let that part of my core take control of my body.”

“I see.” Valerie breathed out. “I get it. I get why you don’t want anyone to know. That’s kind of terrifying, knowing that you have a half of you that’s so defenseless.”

“Right…” Phantom set the planet down on the grass. “If word got out...if the government found out…”

Realization hit Valerie like a truck. “They could set up a trap, couldn’t they? Lure you into a place like this and take you out. It would be too easy.”

“Exactly,” Phantom said bitterly. “You can’t tell anyone.”

“I won’t. I swear.”

Phantom nodded, relief evident on his features. “Thank you, Valerie.”

Before she could stop herself, she stepped forward. And then again, approaching him slowly as if she were afraid he would disappear. 

But he didn’t move. He didn’t flinch.

He trusted her. Even after everything, he trusted her with one of his most vulnerable secrets.

She closed the gap between them, resting a hand on his shoulder and looking him square in the face. “I mean it, Phantom. I won’t tell anyone. Well, so long as you promise me one thing.”

“What is it?”

“Bring me back here sometime, alright?” She shot him a grin. “This place is pretty cool, and if I have some sort of space wizard with me, I bet we could find a lot of sweet stuff, yeah?”

His aura brightened, and the smile was evident on his face. “Sure thing, Val!”

---

Thanks for reading!

[atxlxs]

Beyond The Veil: Chapter 6

A glance at the time told Eras that Muska was still stuck in the meeting. Unsurprisingly, but also disappointing. She had hoped the meeting would go faster so Muska would get home an hour ago. She really wanted to get food started so she could relax, the nerves of Musa going to a highschool had eaten at her all day.

Great, she was starting to sound like an actual mother.

*sigh*

Pulling out her phone, Eras opened the phone app and pressed call on Muska’s contact. Conveniently titled ‘parasite’. It rang for a total of 3 times before it clicked, suddenly two voices flooded through the phone. One, that was Muska, the other was definitely Nedzu. So the witch put her on speaker phone. Nedzu was probably trying to get her to answer more questions then they agreed to answer.

The chirpy “I wouldn’t want to keep you from your meal but if I may inquire, is your guardian real or not? I know you're older than most of us but as you said you are a minor for your kind. We would like to get you in a safe environment for the time you spend learning here and research revealed nothing but a name, Viridis Eras if I remember correctly.” was surprisingly soft and sounded genuinely sincere.

Maybe, Eras wouldn’t have to worry constantly about her friend.

“I am very much a real person, Nedzu.” She said simply, her voice coming across smooth and melodic. The other side of the line went dead quiet. It almost made her chuckle but she refrained. Intimidation was hard to maintain through giggles.

“Hey Eras, what's up?” Muska asked, a hint of relief in her voice. Ah, Nedzu definitely was trying to pry more details out of her.

“The person that actually needs to eat physical food is not in my house to eat it. Since school ended 2 hours ago and my parasite wasn’t here yet despite me stating it was a pasta night, I got worried.” Eras responded, ignoring the soft “actually need to eat?” from the background of the call.

She wasn’t lying. After school had ‘released’ she had been checking the clock every 10 minutes. Anxiety over what could be happening kept her from focusing so she had sat down on the couch and glared at the fireplace for the entire 2 hours.

So what if she was overly worried, and for nothing it seemed? She has had bad experiences and experience is always the best teacher.

“Awe, was my sugar mommy worried about me?” Muska said, her tone teasing and Eras could pick up the faint sounds of choking from the other side of the line. Of course she would throw that term around in front of others.

“You wish, gremlin child.”

“Old woman.”

“Bitch witch”

“What kind of pasta?”

“Spaghetti, homemade, and with a homemade roasted garlic seasoned meat sauce. As well as a salad but Who knows if you’ll have the appetite for it. It’ll be there though.” Eras had gotten up at this point and was shuffling around the kitchen. “Will you need a ride home?”

“Nah, Nedzu is practically vibrating in his place at the thought of another veil member, which he has correctly hypothesized you are, and would most definitely stalk the gate for you.” Muska returned, amusement bleeding into her tone as Eras caught snorts from around the room she was in.

Suddenly, a cough snapped her attention back to the conversation as said rat cleared his throat.

“As amusing as this is, Before you leave would I be able to ascertain who or what you are? Considering the age of the witch present, for her to address you as ‘old woman’ I assume you must be someone who has lived far longer.” Nedzu stated, interest coating his words.

Before she could respond someone in the back of the room, a gruff voice that was deep as fuck holy shit, spoke up with a warning present in his voice.

“Nedzu, I don’t believe interrogating them will get you any of your answers.” the voice said, agitation and resignation in his tone. He was probably well versed in Nedzu.

“Thanks Aizawa-sensei.” Muska said, a little choppy on the sensei but that was expected honestly. Well, nice to know the name of the voice. However, Eras wanted to make the rat suffer a bit. He spent a few hours interrogating so she might as well dangle an interesting opportunity in his face and not allow him to reach for it.

“Yes thank you Aizawa-san, I don't mind telling you what race I am , Nedzu. I am also much older than the teen witch in front of you at the moment. Yet, alas,” she said with faux disappointment and sorrow, “I seem to be needed somewhere else. The pot that hasn’t even begun to boil yet is very threatening to me so I simply must end the call here. See you at home bestie.”

With a response of “You got it bestie.” the line clicked and went dead. Snickering to herself as she finally started the stove.

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

Aizawa Shouta has had several revelations as the day passed. First of all, the broken bone boy was very determined to keep his place in the heroics class. He’s going to be a problem child, he has a sixth sense for them at this point. Secondly, one of his students is an enigma. She looks to be a bit older than 16, maybe 17, yet is over 2 and a half fucking centuries old. When he had first come across the term ‘beyond the veil’ he knew there were probably things that far surpassed humans in different areas but that old? That counts as a teen?

With a heavy sigh, Shouta sat through one of the wildest faculty meetings he had the displeasure of being forced to attend. That was saying something considering his employer was Nedzu. Granted, he wouldn’t have skipped this one anyways when knowing answers to the veil would be given. Understandably, not all of the answers, but now they had a firm idea about what actually lived beyond it. Also understandably, the new information was perplexing. Shouta wouldn’t touch any more information with a ten foot pole until whatever he was just given was processed.

As Viridis left the room, thankfully less chaotic than when she had entered, Shouta let out a sigh of relief. He rubbed his hands down his face and contemplated what he just heard. Finally, they had an overall summary of the types of races present in the veil and a somewhat structured hierarchy that would have to be explained further at some point in case they stumbled into the veil now but that could wait.

Shouta shivered as he remembered how oppressing the air had gotten in the room during Viridis’s talk about the forgotten. He had met hardened villains that had less presence and conviction then she did during her rant. They would need to hear about the taboos as well, he really didn’t want to be branded thank you very much.

Luckily, the goblin of a teen did actually have a guardian that existed. (No ‘Zashi, his jaw was firmly in place and had not dropped when the person spoke, even if it did that was warranted because he's sure he saw even nemuri marvel at how smooth it was, and no he did not snicker when they obviously baited Nedzu.) They wouldn’t have to worry about finding a place for them to stay safely while attending their school. This brought up some new considerations though. Groaning he slammed his head onto the table dramatically, the other teachers swiveling their heads to snap their gaze to him.

“Nedzu, she’s probably already done with the general education curriculum. If we don’t find a way to occupy her, we’ll have to deal with whatever chaos she makes to entertain herself while bored in class.”

All the teachers nodded in agreement. Fear flashing through their eyes at the idea. The flashy pro’s were unusually subdued after that showing. Whether from the presence of something completely unknown to them that was downright terrifying, or just the way Viridis acted and spoke to Nedzu, Shouta wasn’t sure.

Honestly though? Rat-man was his new favorite nickname to call the chimera in his head, it was stuck and was hilarious.

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

The morning of the second day of Muska's highschool life, Eras felt off, like something bad was going to happen kind of off.

When she had ‘woken’ from her vegetative state that morning everything just felt wrong. Then as she got up to start the day things just kept happening. None of them were good.

First, she found out that Tibbles had knocked over her higher end coffee grounds. (Accidentally of course, Tibbles may see them as servants but he was smarter than most and knew better than to ruin something a vampire enjoys. Eras could hold a grudge and it isn’t pretty) Next, she was informed that she had 4 business meetings, back to back, since there was a supply disruption and her pseudo-bosses that she pays to handle shit like this were out of their depth and had never experienced this before. Great.

Rushing, Eras made the coffees out of the cheaper brand and it hurt her soul to do it, coffee was sacred, and ran back to the observatory where her closet was to get dressed.

Grabbing out one of her many business related outfits, she threw on the first one she saw and paced over to her full length mirror to adjust it. A forest-pine green silk button down, the top three buttons were left open and a mesh underbust corset tied it together and tucked it into black dress pants. She tugged on black platform heels that came to a stop above her ankles. A charcoal black coat that stopped at ankle length hung off her shoulders. Since fall was starting to approach, the days have gotten cooler so it was there just in case.

Not that she actually felt the cold, she was technically undead, but the aesthetic was important.

A few extra accessories to tie it together, a silver chain necklace and several statement rings that were scattered on both hands along with earring sets, and after fixing her middle part she was done. Black circle sunglasses were grabbed absentmindedly through habit as she left the room. The sun was bright and Eras’s eyes were made for the night.

When she walked back into the kitchen to grab her thermos filled with a caramel macchiato she heard a wolf whistle from the dining table. Spinning around, she noticed Muska staring at her with surprise.

That was warranted, Eras dressed like a gym obsessed hobo most of the time.

“Holy shit, Lookin hot as fuck, Damn bestie. where are you heading to?” Muska said as she idly sipped her coffee while the phone she was scrolling through laid on the table, opened up to some kind of story based on the paragraphs of text she was seeing.

“Thanks, I have 4 business meetings that are emergencies because apparently a food supplier that I relied on had to recall everything, so I have to go down and explain what to do and listen to suggestions all day. I should be done by the time your school gets out so I’ll swing by and pick you up if time favors me.” Eras rambled a bit towards the end while fidgeting with her cup.

She was never able to gracefully accept a compliment outside of a text message, no matter how many years Muska’s been with her and hyping her up. Grabbing her keys, this time to her car and not the motorcycle (no matter how much she loves that bike she doesn’t want her hair ruined before she gets to the meeting, she's about to rip into some people.) She turned to Muska.

“Want a ride there?” She asked with a raised eyebrow.

A total of 3 minutes passed as Muska’s sleep-addled brain caught up and she nodded, downing the rest of her coffee like a shot and slipping into her room to change into the uniform.

That was also a new weird thing, Eras was definitely not used to seeing Muska in anything but various black outfits with the occasional color. She missed seeing the edgy outfits and platform heels that were always an unneeded height since Muska was fucking taller than her. (she could change that but she was comfortable with 163cm)

Once Muska came back out, a quick pet to Tibbles given on the way which gave them a meow (Muska immediately glared at the cat. Sadly, Eras was at a loss as to what the cat was saying. Again.) and they both walked out of the door. Despite living on a mountain, they had a stone path that led to a fairly sleek building that blended in with the surrounding trees and mountain terrain. Once inside, parked along the furthest wall and facing the exit were three vehicles. The motorcycle that Eras had driven Muska with on the exam day, a military grade jeep that was blacked out and decked out, and finally, a 1970 volvo. It was a pastel mustard color and belonged to Muska.

Swinging open the door to the Jeep, Eras climbed in and started the car. Opening the garage door with the touch of a button and left the moment Muska was strapped in.

The ride to UA was easy and calm, except for the blaring of Muska’s playlist that Eras didn’t dare tell her to turn down because it was one of her favorite songs and she was loudly singing along. Pulling up a block away from the highschool, Nedzu precaution, Eras waved Muska out of her car and yelled another “KICK ASS WITCH BITCH!” before cackling as she drove away from a very aggressive middle finger from her friend.

Time to go deal with meetings that could have been a conference call.

“I AM-” A loud voice sounded from the hallway, startling Muska from her glare down with PomPom, “COMING THROUGH THE DOORWAY LIKE A NORMAL PERSON!”

That is, not how normal people enter a room what the fuck?

The newest blond in the class stood at around 200 fucking centimeters tall and wore spandex like a second skin. In american colors. Muska had never paid attention to the #1 Pro hero before but the more she looks at this walking american flag the more she’s grateful for not paying attention. Then something caught her attention.

The man had the same leaking weird energy as the twink from the faculty room.

How the hell did the solid brick wall of meat turn into the skeleton of a man she had seen literally yesterday????? Not only that but the leaking energy seemed to travel through the classroom, as if closer to the source of what's gathering it. As she followed the line of energy she noticed it stopped in front of her, going right into greenie….

What did she just stumble upon?

This feels like national secret type shit.

She tuned back in to hear the hero describe the battle trails they would be facing. 2 on 2 battles with full quirk use and indoors with a fucking bomb to locate. Paper mache but still, this was kinda advanced. She did, however, perk up when he mentioned costumes.

That, she was extra excited about.

Despite not really coming to UA for the hero aspect but more of the quirk training aspect, Muska still felt pretty excited about the costume. Also, she would legally be allowed to beat people up as a hero as long as they were classified as criminals or villains. That sounds like a good stress reliever within reason. She wasn’t going to just maul them. That’d be an abuse of power.

After being dismissed to change, Muska ran up to snatch her costume and bolted to the locker room. She had some say in the weapons but Eras had actually taken the time to design the costumes basics in order to cover everything that might be flung after her. It was also a way to help placate her. For some reason Eras had been extra fidgety ever since she started going to school. There were some things she didn’t know about Eras’s past, but she definitely knew that there was some kind of trauma there, and whatever caused it happened in a school setting.

Opening the case, the first thing Muska noticed were the knee high steel reinforced combat boots that had armor built into it to act as knee braces as well. Next to them was a pair of mirror sunglasses that were purple, placed on top of a letter.

[You’re probably wondering about the glasses. I sent them into a support company for a little upgrade to help you out on the field. They're not necessary so if you want to skip wearing them that's fine but at least check out the surprise I’ve added ok?

Kick ass witch bitch

-E.V ]

Placing the sunglasses on her face Muska almost jerked them off in surprise as a cat mascot character appeared on the right side and waved before jumping across the glasses and they powered up, showing an HUD layout. Something said ‘put on suit to connect’ but that was ignored in favor of the other abilities. The right side had facial recognition software and a tracker for things that are marked in view. There was also a marker that she could activate to aim weapons, like a video game. The left had the ‘connect to suit’ warning at the top but underneath that was a mini map of the surrounding area using a fucking satellite. How the fuck?

Taking them off for now, Muska went and picked up her suit to throw on. There were Two layers. First was a black body suit with colored accents that glowed when wanted, right now they were purple but they could change colors. It was Kevlar and another special type of alloy to make it shock resistant, fireproof, frost proof, and immune to knives and bullets. Next, was a cropped hoodie and shorts which stopped at the upper thigh. The cropped hoodie was purple and the hood part of it looked like a witch hat, the long point fashioned after the stereotypical black witch hat.

There was a tactical belt that wrapped around her waist and connected to two belts that wrapped around her thighs below the shorts. The belts that went vertically on the side of her thighs held pockets of medical supplies and smoke bombs. The previous on the left and latter on the right. The belts that were wrapped around her thighs carried the pockets that held her brass knuckles. The belt around her waist held the whip so it dangled while coiled up off her right hip. Slipping on the boots and lacing them up surprisingly quick, the full outfit was on.

Putting on the glasses once more Muska discovered why it said to put on the full suit. At the top left of the sunglasses was a full body scan that continuously displayed her vitals. It was green for now but if she retained injuries it would slowly move between green to yellow to red. Red being critically or fatally injured.

Holy SHIT Eras! This is some Tony Stark shit?!?

Tags:

@baguettehead

[hrfiction]

Author Interview Tag

Tagged by @ariaadagio. Thanks! <3

Name: HaleyRoss

Fandoms: Lucifer

Where you post: Ao3 exclusively

Most popular multi-chapter fic: How are we measuring popularity? By reader engagement, kudos? Hits ? That’s a very subjective question. That being said, What are Partners For? Is consistently in my top two fics with organized by hits and kudos, and it also has the most comments. So, I would say it would be the most popular at the moment.

Favorite story you’ve written so far: My favorite story I’ve written so far has to be my longfic, the View from the Observatory series. It is the first fic I have ever written for public consumption and I learned SO MUCH from it. Does it have its problems? Absolutely, but it was so fun to write and I think most people had fun reading it. It is EXCEPTIONALLY long and even if you don’t like it, anyone who finishes it deserves a gold medal and a star on the hollywood walk of fame. I learned my lesson about long fics, but it has a special place in my heart.

Fic you were nervous to post: Every single last one of them. Honestly, I will never get over the posting anxiety. Having another pair of eyes to look over my writing and give feedback helps, but most times I just post it without a beta. That is why I post most of my fics at night, so that I go directly to bed afterwards and aren’t tempted to hit refresh or constantly check ao3, biting my nails and hoping people like it.

How you choose your titles: It depends. Usually by the time I am posting I have a finished or mostly finished story and my title reflects the general theme of the story.  My Like a Prayer  uses a line out of the fic, but I had the title before I had the line so it works.

Do you outline: Always. It’s not so much an outline as a synopsis. I know where the story is going, I know the visuals I am going for (i.e how graphic I want something to be because I do write a lot of smut), elements of foreshadowing, separations of scenes ... everything. The longer the story, the longer the synopsis. Everything is color coded, so I know where characters sit in a story and a general timeline. It is detailed because I have a backlog of stories right now all the way to the end of next year (because I can’t stop coming up with ideas) so I need to make sure when I revisit my notes as I begin to write these fics that I know EXACTLY what I had planned and am able to tweak that as necessary. Will the notes change as I write? Absolutely, but it helps not feel as though I’m writing in the dark.

Complete:  9 in total. 4 are from my longfic, 3 are one-off’s, and 2 are short multi-chapter fic.

In progress:  I am currently working on a wingfic titled “The Things God Gave Us.” The first chapter is already in my drafts on ao3 and I am just waiting until chapter 3 is proofread and ready to go before I start posting. I am also working on a short Christmas themed smut fic called ‘Tis the Season, which should be posted within a week or so.

Coming soon/not yet started:  Uhhhhhhhhhhhh. Do you want the real number or one that doesn’t make me look crazy? I have 20 fics, not including the two mentioned above, that are in various states of writing. Some are almost done while others only have summaries. I’ll be doing quite a few one-offs for the upcoming Fuckruary challenge, then I will be working on my Office AU fic which will most likely take up most of my year next year. I also have a short and fluffy camping fic and a whumpy/angsty fic starring Michael and Lucifer that I am really excited about.

Do you accept prompts: Not actively, no. If someone says something that sparks an idea I will definitely credit them. A lot of my WIP’s come from prompts made by just talking to people and having fun with silly ideas. Prompts are meant to spark an idea but its easy to mistake a prompt for a summary or synopses if you yourself aren’t someone who writes. “Lucifer drives Trixie to summer camp where he discovers a strange affinity for pottery,” is a prompt. Adding on what he does at the summer camp, who he meets, funny lines he might say, a specific thing that might be cool to see …all of that takes away the creative freedom of the person you are prompting and makes it less fun or interesting. If you want to read a specific scene, write it! I love reading stuff from new writers and seeing how their mind works.

Upcoming story you are most excited to write: I’m actually really excited to start working on the Office AU. There are some really interesting ideas I plan to explore in it that are canon-adjacent. It will also be exceptionally inappropriate and smutty and I’m excited to put these two idiots into crazy scenarios.

Tagging:  Unfortunately all the authors I follow on tumblr have already been tagged :C So if you write and see this, I officially am tagging you! Tell us a bit about yourself and your stories! and added bonus, i’ll recc some great Lucifer fandom authors and their fics so you can check them out if you haven’t already:

Fluffy/ Funny

Wing (From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) by startingatmidnight

The Royal Treatment by elleflies

Premature Unfurling by legendarytobes

Smutty

come,babe, let love have this evening by incalyscent 

lay me down by unusuallysunny

[matt0044]

Some say Jane’s still riding that bus to this very day...

Ladies and Gentlemen, our Bulk and Skull for the series. :P

Zayto is sporting his new civilian attire while reminiscing about his mother with the pendant she gave her once he received his Knighthood, telling Amelia about how he worries for his people after the first Sporix invasion. It’s basically a lot like Super Megaforce’s Orion except that they actually seem to be going somewhere with it. This is interrupt by Solon announcing a very strange signal.

The signal is traced back to Rafkon’s general quadrant with chances of survivors exciting Zayto until the communication module goes bust. Sixty-five million years without maintenance will do that. Hunter Deno does feel a bit stiff in some shots but it does feel like he’s not one to get too emotional rather than a socially awkward character trying to be passed off as a badass. Right, Troy?

Amelia and Ollie butt heads over seeing a psychic to have Zayto reach out spiritually as opposed to checking Dr. Akana’s observatory for any data on what they might’ve intercepted. Zayto agrees to try out both starting with Amelia’s before she realizes that she’s broke. Who says Power Rangers can’t be relatable? I’m honestly enjoying the comedic duo the team already has here.

On that note, the trio arrive at Madame Indigo’s tent where Jane and J-Borg are making a new video for their site. Needless to say, the madame has her put the scarf around her eyes because of its “strong psychic energy.” Jane buys it hook, line and sinker even as she walks out without any sight. J-Borg films the whole thing in what I assume will be a study on white people falling for anything.

Yep, our comic relief duo appears to be the head of a social media platform and her robotic assistant. There’s a YouTube algorithm joke in here somewhere but I’m sure it’ll come to me. Their bit isn’t too long as Jane ends up on a school bus in trying out her “psychic abilities” while J-Borg’s foot ends up in a bucket of quick drying cement. They’re not Victor and Monty but they’re no Burkes either.

Madame Indigo reads Zayto’s pendant and assesses accurately his general situation until Ollie decides to do an experiment. He actually claims that Amelia and him are in love with each other, even calling her “honey muffin” to sell the act. The madame reads them and claims that they’ll have a long relationship with many years ahead of them. Why do I get the sense that she’s not too off?

Before they can get to the observatory, Solon alerted the Rangers of Vipeera’s hatching and gets them to teleport onto the scene. Mucus beats them to it as Void Knight’s official second-in-command, observing from afar when she finds J-Borg’s camcorder. Vipeera doesn’t waste time right out the gate freezing Zayto with the eyes on her chest with Amelia and Ollie rushing in to cover him.

The two catch on that they can’t look directly at her which makes for a very hard battle. Luckily, Vipeera is more than honorable enough to allow Amelia and Ollie to take the time to morph. Seriously, she’s right there looking back and forth at them while they link to the grid. I know it’s joked about how the villains let the Rangers morph aside from when they don’t but this is ridiculous.

Amelia and Ollie manage to hang in there but can’t fight close-range with their eyes closed. Thankfully, Mucus cuts in to drag Vipeera off with her own evil plan and teleports out. I honestly like how Mucus is show to be left to her own devices without having to always bow to Void Knight. So long as he can get a powered up Sporix, she can just mess around and see what happens. Neato. :)

Zayto is unfrozen before Amelia and Ollie take him to the observatory. They sadly report that they couldn’t make out most of it, meaning they can’t relay a message to him. Zayto goes back to base for some time alone before Amelia gets a call from Buzzblast about their live feed going on the fritz. Vipeera takes ASMR to another level by broadcasting her eyes and freezing all of Pine Ridge.

I feel as though there was suppose to be a scene of Jane trying to navigate the city of petrified people with J-Borg trying to keep her from knocking over the living mannequins. It would help that Solon’s cybernetic eyes are unaffected by the stream and keeps Zayto from being frozen again. She then figures out that his pendent is exactly what they need to restore the interstellar communication.

Zayto takes a page from Daredevil and uses the Sonic Key to enhance his hearing while blindfolded, allowing him to even the playing field. Vipeera’s stream is taken offline while Mucus is, as she puts it, outsies. Seriously, I just love how she’s pretty much a far more adorable Scrozzle to Void Knight’s Evox.

Vipeera goes giant after taking plenty of damage just as Amelia and Ollie jump into the fray. Zayto zords up but doesn’t have a giant blindfold for his mech, leaving him back at square zero. Thankfully, the Tricera Blade and Ankylo Hammer Zord rush into the fray just in time with a damn good strategy in mind.

Amelia has her Zord smash up the street so she can levitate the debris with the Hover Dino Key before Ollie reconstructs the street with the Reverse Dino Key onto Vipeera’s eyes in a move straight out of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure. Seriously, I hope that we don’t get less of Rangers fighting giant monsters outside their Zords. This is the kind of outside-the-box thinking I love in a fight.

Of course, Dino Fury delivers Megazord after two whole episodes with Amelia suggesting a victory selfie ala Levi Weston. Void Knight attempts to take the dormant Sporix after the damage it absorbed only for the Rangers to beat him to the punch this time. Once again, there’s a real unpredictability to who will snatch the real victory in the end. Something villain fetch-quests before lacked.

Solon restores the message but finds that it’s either encrypted or in a language too advanced after millions of years. She’s also bad at French. Okay. Zayto decides to put out his own message to whoever survived the war on his planet. I’m hoping that this comes into play in the first season finale or the next. A real cavalry moment straight out of Star Wars. Yes, that includes the Sequel Trilogy.

Next time, the trio becomes a five man band at last.

[rosesanthology]

Across time | Akaashi Keiji x F!reader [soulmate!AU]

for this one i tried a little bit of world building to put more context into some stuff as i suck at accurate and realistic historical aeras, this ended up being WAY longer than planned oof also YES i 100% took the well idea from Inuyasha👉🏽👈🏽

- Moeru Fukuro means blazing owl

- au where the reader finds themselves enamored far beyond the limits of alternate timeline and universes

[Tags] : @raevaioli @chenle @lcaita and @lceiji

- it was all because of a stupid dare

- it's a shame you agreed to do anything when more than 50$ were on the line (O.O)

- your friends from high school thought it seemed like SUCH  a good idea to dare you to spend 3 hours in the woods next to your house in exchange for 60$

- the 3 hours of course starting from midnight

- but you weren't one to back down from that kind of stuff

- no sir

- the only thing you had to do was to wait by the abandoned well surrounded by trees without anything to distract you (you trusted them with your phone anyway)

- tonight wasn't even that cold anyway

-so here you were, waiting for time to pass as you listened to the sounds around you

- you found it absolutly mesmerizing, how everything around you had its own identity through the sounds made

- you had always felt calmer in moments like these, by yourself at nighttime, just taking everything in

- you had been to this well many times before, the old lady who lived accross from your appartment told you that it was used as  a wishing well most of the time

- she spoke of how many people through the times had thrown coins into the unsettling darkness of the pit and wished for true love and stuff like that

- the other day, you had found her there and she told you about how that very same well helped her meet her soulmate

- you hardly believed her

- the wishing part ? Okay. It's a normal thing to throw coins into fountains and wells and pray for things. But soulmates ? That seemed like a reach

- so you felt pretty dumb for staring into the dark pit of most likely freezing water as intensely

- you also felt pretty dumb for making sure that you brought a coin with you on this outting

- okay maybe......the idea of finding your soulmate was not so repulsive.... (◡‿◡✿)

- you didn't hope it would work too hard but still.....just sayin that it would be nice

- so, you threw the coin, listening to its sound as it came in contact with the water at the bottom after a long fall and you started praying

- "i don't really know how this is supposed to be done but....if the stories are true can i please meet the love of my life ? If not possible i also accept checks and cash (▰˘◡˘▰)"

- you didn't really mean the money part

- but you know.....getting rich isn't that bad

- at that moment you felt smart for bringing a hoodie because ???? The wind was extremely strong all of a sudden like ?? Sheesh

- you were about to sit down and cuddle into your hoodie for warmth but then u SWORE U HEARD A VOICE COMING FROM THE WELL

- and you aint crazy but you're about dumb enough to lean your head above the opening to hear better

- i think you know where this is going....

- the wind's strength had you tumbling down the well in no time

- time seemed to slow down as you plummeted toward the surface of the water

- soon you came in contact with it, cold soaking your clothes and hurting all the way to your bones. You could see the moon thru the suprisingly clear water as well as the bubbles from your last reserve of air, all this caused you to pass out.

- in the capital of the kingdom MoeruFukuro, they were many things ; from kind townfolks, to golden rice paddies and from a gorgeous royal castle to roaming forest demons

- you heard me right

- the lands around were infested by demons and spirited who manifested at night, some benevolant and others not so much

- thankfully for the royal priest Tsukishima's magical talismans placed all around the town, the people could leave in peace, the malignant creatures knowing better than trying to overcome the spells

- the capital could pride itself all around the country for having ones of the most powerful and smart array of people there ever were in addition to being prosperous from the folks' trade businesses

- for example, in the royal palace, you could find as forementionned priest and mage; Tsukishima Kei, legend has it that he was blessed by Kaguya, the goddess of the moon herself in order to have such knowledge of spells

- there was also General Kuroo Tetsurou, who had his fair share of tales and admirers alike, the biggest one being the one in which he had saved a thousand men from a demon by sacrificing himself, earning its respect and protection in battle

- obviously there was the crowned prince, Bokuto Koutaro. Well he might seem a little air headed and childish at first sight but he takes his duties very seriously even if they consist in little things such as gathering the peoples' eventual complaints himself, some people going as far as saying that he is the closest thing to a god on earth

- and then, wherever Bokuto went, it would be near impossible to forget about his right arm and advisor, the wise and renowned astronomer Akaashi Keiji. If Tsukishima had been blessed by the moon goddess then many people believed that Akaashi was the one who tought Omoikane, god of wisdom and intelligence himself, everything he knew. He was everything people wished they were, calm, good looking, creative, reasonable and intelligent beyond mesure. No wonder he was the one Bokuto trusted the most by his side

- studying the sky also brought Akaashi much knowledge on seasons and the movements of stars and such, providing help to both the people and Tsukishima

- Akaashi did not live in the castle however, well technically yes but he did have a workshop of his own a bit farther in the territory, where he could dedicate himself to staring at the night sky he loved so very very much from his makeshift observatory/rooftop

- he also had a lovely well near his observation tower that Tsukishima had passive agressively insisted on cleansing for him (>.<)

- so there he was, in this particularly enchanting night

- something about that full moon, shining stars and clear sky just about almost got some tears out of him

- but he was interrupted when he heard a low growl from beneath his observation tower

- naturally he looked down to where it came from and saw a fire fox spirit inching suspiciously close to an unconscious girl on the ground near the well

- the demons avoided the talismans yes but that far from the heart of the city trickster spirits and ghouls could just about do as much chaos as they pleased

- rushing to get down, Akaashi took his bow and arrows ready to get rid of the spirit and make sure the girl, no matter how strange her clothes looked like, was safe

- it was fast work, his arrows reaped through the night air seemingly at lighting speed and quickly made the spirit disappear

- muttering a small banishing prayer he picked up the passed out girl and brought her on top of his observatory

- she was dry but she was still shivering from the cold

- "she must not be used to the cold" thought the young astronomer, taking off his haori to put on top of her frame and sitting down next to her, looking downwards at her now relaxed features

- he did not know why he brought her up there but right now it just felt right. So he went on with looking at the sky, resting his hands flat on the ground near his sides

- you were awake, enough to feel a warmth next to you but not enough to open your eyes yet

- you thought that you'd fallen asleep after making the wish and that your friends had carried you back to your room or something

- but it was to cold to be true

- you peaked slightly from between your lashes and were met with a GORGEOUS night sky

- usually in your city, the sky was too polluted to be able to see that many

- and the full moon seemed closer than usual, bewitching, enchanting, almost asking you to come to her, so in a way you did

- now fully awake, you outstretched your hand toward the celestial body, not really thinking in the moment

- "you're awake ! How are you feeling ?" said a silvery soft voice, almost similar to a whisper

- so similar you thought that you were still dreaming as it was the same one you've heard before imagining falling into the well

- your train of thought was quickly cut short by the feeling of warm hands around your own outstreched one

- oh this was definitly real

- you sat up im a swift movement, looking around you and only seeing trees and rice paddies, as well as the lights of a town in the distance

- you almost didn't hear the man's voice over your own rapidly beating heart

- almost

- "Everything's okay now, calm down" he said, probably noticing your panic and rubbing his thumb over your knuckles

- his words seemed to immediatly sink into your very soul at the second they came out of his mouth, and worst is that you thought that if it meant to be marked in such a way you would be glad to have your soul inked all over with just his words

- but you still didn't know him so you kept that thought to yourself

- "who are you and where am i ?" Your voice was so shaky and your mind so foggy that you weren't even sure if they ever made it out of your throat

- but Akaashi heard you loud and clearer than anything before, just touching your hand had seemed like such a common task but the needle like sensation that ran up his whole arm begged to differ, he regained his composure fast though

- "my name's Akaashi Keiji and you're in the kingdom of MoeruFukuro" he made sure to speak as softly as possible, never letting go of your hand, fearing that maybe, if he let go you would disappear back into the wind

- ".....my name's Y/N L/N....listen i don't think im supposed to be here- well more like...now"

- "what do you mean ?"

- and so you explained to him how you actually came from the 21st century in what you could only assume to be another timeline and universe, trying to sound as calm as possible

- because well, you weren't dumb, and castle as "cool and fantasy anime looking like that" were not so common

- Akaashi kept drinking in your voice, painfully aware of every movement of your face, every little speaking quirk and tones, never breaking contact

- he was fast in reassuring you on his own world, he spoke of his life, of his friends and of the castle, not leaving out the fact that demons and spirits were a common factor, carefully choosing his phrasing and explaining with the most concise words

- explaining so well that you felt as if you already knew all these things, deep in yourself

- and time passed

- you soon found yourself laying on you back, fingers still intertwined with the royal astronomer, talking about your lives, as if you were desperatly but as easily as breathing trying to make the other remember your existence, trying to get a part of your souls back

- the silence of the night made your voices reach the other in an almost pieircing melody, the deep blue and silver sky as your only witness of this moment

- "so you're an astronomer right.....why do you like the stars so much Keiji ?"

- oh man did he love hearing you say his name, it sounded like the rarest music he's ever heard coming from you

- "i guess it just comes easily to me....i've never felt lonely in the castle, my friends are supportive and strong even though i've never been particularly good with people....when i come here for reasons other than work and stare at the sky, it feels like im finally walking in my own feelings, finally able to search for something that i somehow always wanted..."

- he turned to your face and swore that he saw many more stars in your eyes than he has in his whole life and continued on

- " it feels- it felt like trying to find a part myself that had been fragmented and thrown into the universe....a part of myself that was very much more human than i thought"

- "oh" was all you could muster between that and the flood of feelings that was inside your heart

- you felt like you were running out of time.

- you felt like you had to make the most out of this precise instant.

- you suddenly jerked up, making Akaashi jump at the sudden move

- he sat up with you, facing you, unsure of what  that was all about

- " Keiji !" You said, full of determination despite the advanced hour of the night, and when he nodded and smiled, humming slightly as response you took it as your greenlight to continue

- " Let's find each other again ! Whether it be in this life or another ! We're bounded together now and im sure whichever gods brought me to you will make it happen again no matter what. So you have to promise me before it's too late....don't forget about me !"

- Akaashi's eyes bore into yours with as much intensity as yours and returning the smile you wore on your face

- he let go off your hand for the first time that night and you felt as if an invisible countdown just started somewhere

- he took of a teal and marine blue colored thread bracelet that he wore and put in on your wrist, it had a small crescent moon symbol made of nacre on it....how in character

- how....him

- "there. That way i won't ever forget you. I sure hope you don't forget about me either"

- the last thing your remembered was the gorgeous yet so undoubtfully sad smile of the astronomer before waking up, warm, in your own bed

- you looked around in a hurry and little did you know, you were back into your appartment's bedroom

- you figured it was just a dream

- and yet your heart was still beating against your ribcage and tears were stinging your eyes

- you looked at your phone to check the time since the sun had already went up and your eyes fell on the bracelet you were wearing on your wrist

- you wasted no time in DASHING out of your appartment straight to the old lady's, well too aware that what had happened last night was definitely not a dream

- as you rung the doorbell you were too busy trying to calm your heart that was still trying to beat out of your chest to hear an all too familiar voice from inside the appartment saying "i'll take this"

- the door opened and you almost fainted

- "hi ! Im Akaashi Keiji your new neighbor from next door.....have we met before ?"

[whetstonefires]

"the top three of its forty floors are filled with brass telescopes of every size, pointing in every possible direction, including several that do not exist within the normal three dimensions of space." thats SUCH a cool image / "If any harvest will come." ooh i wonder whats going on / "The roofs are of red tile, the stucco of the houses painted in shades of blue. It stands empty, but has not had time to fall into disrepair." the little bits of detail getting added to the picture im LOVE (1/?)

I’m gonna do these all as one post but broken up for ease of reference, I think.

Thank you! 🥰 Deciding the theme for the Tower and giving it that visual anchor really helped to pull things together. If you consider the whole setup, it seems unlikely the Tower was originally built as an observatory, since those tend to benefit from height (especially if you’re looking around you rather than up, but for the up ones also) and the builders could easily have put it on top of a mountain or at least some hills, but instead put it by the river. It’s above sea level, and it’s away from light pollution, but there were better locations. Nearby.

So either it wasn’t an observatory, and it’s been refitted as one, or they had so many observatories they didn’t care about locating them optimally, there was some other factor making having the tower there important even if it was suboptimal in terms of observation capacity. Or, potentially, it’s been moved since it was built!

:} Yay thank for being interested by the foreshadowing. I tried to put just enough in without actively overshadowing the actual place-setting-up and making the reader impatient with the description. 

"If you look through an enchanted telescope you may see trees without needles fail halfway up the nearest of the great peaks, and even these fail before the top, though there is a span of nearly barren stone past that line, before the snow begins." you: mentions different plants living in different climates me: :0 / there's so much good description!! its all so pretty!! (2/?)

sflka;l;jlk i mean yeah, that’s pretty straightforward isn’t it. But! It establishes How Much Mountain it is visually rather than by saying ‘it was a big fucking mountain’ or ‘it was tall enough for the thinness of atmosphere near the top to create a small tundra region.’

o(*￣▽￣*)ブ

<3 Thank you! I kinda cut loose lmao.

"blocks veined with every color, pale blues and purples, reds and greens and golden-duns all mottling toward white and grey and black" god i want to live there so badly!! this tower is meeting all my standards!! cool pretty magic tower with rad telescopes!!! / "make a remark no one present understands about a Doctor named Seuss. His guide, the dousing tracker Amnaphi, will assume this person to be a famous astronomer from his homeland." im love!! misunderstandings about references!! (?/?)

💗💖✨ Yay! That’s an important feeling to create in fantasy, imo. The wanting. 

I really enjoyed playing with the standard forms for ‘thing made of marble’ here, because all these marbles really exist, but in spite of the existence of the word ‘marbled’ our narrative uses of it tend to be tied up with Neoclassical aesthetics. So very white and smooth, yeah?

Also idk if it’s obvious to the reader but this Tower is to some degree in dialogue with Orthanc, which made a great impression on my mind as a child as the iconic wizardly tower, and while I don’t disagree with any of Tolkien’s use of symbolism for the purposes he was deploying it, there’s so much potential in Isengard as a setting that LotR had no space to explore, even if Tolkien would have noticed those angles at all.

Like...the parkland around the Tower is shown being despoiled for the orcish war machine and then reconquered by the forest, but of course it wasn’t forest to begin with. What was it for before Saruman lost his shit? Ordered gardens, for peaceful contemplation? Who dedicated the space that way? Who maintained it? 

Did Saruman employ a gardener? Did he design his own gardens, or did they come with the keep, which we’re informed was built not by him but by the Numenoreans? 

(“I liked white better” is still one of the greatest lines in a fantasy novel, Tolkien does not get enough credit for his contextually hilarious one-liners that rely on pointed code-switching, but Saruman’s evil rainbow oil-slick robes also sounded really baller and it’s kind of a shame they were not attempted for the movie lol.)

The fact that this is a world designed around a kid getting portal-fantasied into it and staying for 30 years really gives me some options which are fun to deploy but also like. Risky lmao. Because it encourages the reader to surface from the setting-logic and apply their own perspective, which can really break up the magic.

Being able to zoom out on the Tower after all that detail and be like ‘it’s awesome but also it looks like something Doctor Seuss would draw’ was fun though.

"Within the even hexagon of its outer wall, the Tower encloses a great parkland, enough that if it was all put under cultivation it could easily feed as many people as could live in the Tower itself." the tower has PLANTS i love it so much / "Ten Years’ Winter" god PLEASE tell me this is going to get into the agriculture and society stuff game of thrones didn't about long winters that would be SO cool / "Watchers of the Stars" AND they have a cool name holy shit (?/?)

Plants are important! As is food supply. As everyone who’s been reading this blog for a while already knows I think lol.

I mean, it’s not about that, really? The Ten Years’ Winter is a historical event--the most recent meteor impact severe enough to have global climate fallout. The dust it kicked up took a while to settle, and the famines were pretty severe.

But the cultural consequences of something that happened a hundred and fifty years ago exist, and are important, including the relationship between governance and disaster preparedness, which varies a lot regionally as you may imagine. 

Astronomy has a long history as a wizardly sort of activity in the real world, both because it’s had continual overlap with astrology and just because the process has always been mystical and abstruse. In this setting, with a history of both devastating meteor impacts and being invaded from the Moon, but also actual magic, it’s got more obvious practical importance. Although since neither of these are remotely everyday occurrences, the average person on the street might not agree lol.

So it’s on the one hand a purely descriptive title, and on the other hand a serious boast, suggesting as it does that they are primarily responsible for Watching The Sky For Stuff. While also having broader philosophical implications and just sounding nice lol. 

You gotta have good marketing if you want to persist as a wizardly order, because if talented students aren’t motivated to come to you how will you gain new members? Natural replacement is not an ideal strategy to say the least. That’s how you turn into a cult instead of an intellectual powerhouse.

"The northern third of the Tower’s park contains neatly regimented orchards, apples, pears, plums, and a few rows of carefully tended peaches and apricots, all clipped flat against low brick walls angled south and slightly west." hhh t r e e s / "wizards, while enthusiastic about innovation in the abstract, hate change." me too, wizards. me too / "The Tower grounds are filled with refugees." ooh now we get to why everything was empty earlier (?/?)

Trees! Which are also food!

And technology lol. Greenhouses built against fruit walls with good insulation are so much more sensible than ones heated from inside. Obviously as a passive solar-powered technology these only work when the sun is available and not, for example, cut off by a giant dust cloud. 

These people are fairly acutely aware of their dependence on the sun and it figures prominently in a majority of their religions and their magical theory, even more than in ours.

There seems to be a mild consensus that the wizards are relatable. In truth: we are all wizards. :D

Yup! At long last lol.

"This division corresponds imperfectly to the usual split of the town by the course of the Meroda." because people!! take comfort!! in what normalcy they can find!! / "Makeshift pallets line the spaces between every fruit wall—the injured are being laid out here, now that the Tower is full, to get the benefit at night of the warmth meant to mature fruit." the awesome magic tower people trying to do everything they can for the injured who come to them for help in case i thought i couldn't be (?)

more in love / "Half of them are making ready to turn south along the Meroda." oh nooooo / "but the Moon People are the successors of the ancient magics, and just because they could not break the walls the last time they came, according to legend, does not mean they have not worked out a method now." im so worried for the people oh no (?)

Yeah! It really seemed natural. But of course they also aren’t recreating it obsessively; lots of people are grouping up with relatives who normally live across the river, or with people in the same line of work on the river, because people also adapt to circumstances.

No institution is ever perfect, of course, but I’m glad the Watchers have come across this way so far. They’re broadly well-intentioned and mostly well-organized.

And they were not ready for this.

A significant fraction of the reason for the order of the Watchers to exist at all, particularly in this observatory with its great eye fixed ever on the face of the green moon, is to be able to warn the world if this ever happens again. But the Moon People knew they were being watched, this time, and they kept all the build-up to mobilization that might have given them away on the far side of the moon until the last minute.

What the Magister is doing, as I hope was made clear or at least successfully indicated--I wish your commentary on the ending had come through!--is summoning what turns out to be an actual child from another world to do hero stuff.

Even if he’d gotten an adult that would be kidnapping someone to help with your problems, a routine element of the portal fantasy whose ethics have been addressed in a variety of ways, most famously ‘is Lion Jesus and always right.’ 

The reason they need a hero from another world is that the Moon People build a lot of their wards and their offensive and disabling magical attacks around a targeting system based on what planet people are from, because even though they’re originally from the same stock--they’re the descendants of ancient moon colonists who evacuated ahead of a major meteor impact somewhere approaching four thousand years ago--on a magical level having been born and raised on the planet or the moon makes a pretty huge difference. 

So no one can get into the place their magic space elevator is anchored and fuck it up so they can’t keep bringing troops and supply in and loot out. Their single supply line is their only strategic weakness, and they’ve taken appropriate precautions.

Getting someone in from a third location is the best idea anyone’s been able to come up with in the very limited time available. Since no one can figure out how to turn one of the Moon People against the cause they came here for, on short notice, when they aren’t even stopping to talk to anyone so far. Like, that’s clearly not going to happen.

Heron Yl Fanult isn’t unaware that it’s ethically questionable, but he’s doing it anyway.

So I’m glad the ominous imminent oncoming of the Moon People can really be felt, because that atmosphere is fairly essential context for the decisionmaking going on at the top of the Tower.

"Young wizards sit in their bunks, six each to rooms that were previously individual, and hold lighting cupped dancing in their palms." a quick break from being worried to point out that this is rad as hell / "some with their heads decorously covered..." cultural differences!! especially with regional purposes like the Hedro!! 

Thank you! 😆💖 I thought so too lol. 

It also establishes the parameters of the magic system a little more. Throwing lightning bolts is pretty iconicly high-powered, right? And here it’s what most of the student wizards are practicing in anticipation of a battle, because most of them aren’t specced into combat and this is actually one of the easier lethal spells to master, especially if you have an academic background.

‘Electrocute’ isn’t a very flexible spell and it’s easy to lose control of, but it’s actually easier than, say, ‘set on fire to a significant degree in a non-electrical manner’ because concentrating a lot of heat in a certain location takes a lot more brute force than encouraging ionization. 

You can pull most of the actual destructive force for the palm lightning spell out of the physical air and/or earth if you grasp the principles, which is much easier than channeling a comparable amount of magic directly because it doesn’t have to go through you. 

The limiting factors on magic in this setting are how much power you can tap into and how much of it you can actually use without hurting or killing yourself. It’s not usually a lot, though the amount can be increased by things like choosing your workspace, prepping your workspace, and a whole lot of practice and meditation and things like that.

Magical traditions that get bundled under the heading of wizardry tend to focus on force multiplication, obtaining enough contextual understanding of a subject to make whatever power is applied go further. This means a lot of studying theory and using magic to make observations (such as the existence of microorganisms and their connection to disease) and often results in making clever devices based on what you’ve learned that may not actually wind up being magical at all. 

Which is why the solar greenhouse proposal is considered ‘more wizardly’ than the fruit walls, which are wizardly in the first place even though the technology is pretty widespread at this point--it’s carried the principle of minimizing the energy you have to invest to get the result you want to the logical conclusion, where you don’t have to do any magic at all, you just set up the situation and get out of the way and the sun will do the work for you.

Other schools of magic, particularly religious ones, are more likely to emphasize just getting better at handling energy for yourself, which tends to yield a lot more in the way of immediate practical dividends and in a lot of quarters wizards who don’t do something obviously practical like physic or smithcraft with their theoretical background are considered crackpots or dilettantes 

An impression helped along by the fact that being taken on as a student of wizardry at a basic level tends to focus more on your reading comprehension than your ability to actually do any magic, so in places where religious and wizardly institutions coexist the most talented students have a tendency to gravitate toward the religious life. This is particularly marked in areas religiously dominated by the Compact of the Golden Circle, wherein full ordination is contingent on being able to pull off certain fairly hefty rituals, so if you aren’t physically or mentally up to that kind of magical heavy lifting your religious career will stall out in one of the lay fraternities. In some of the cities on Sutouchel, the landmass to the southeast where the Compact is based, a slang term for wizard is ‘sanctum washout.’

But of course force multiplication is something that can scale up pretty far, and studying theory doesn’t stop you from also putting work into your practical skills, and not having talent isn’t the only reason someone would choose not to seek out a clerical career, if it’s even an option. Religion along the Meroda is pretty localized; communities tend to have local deities who correspond to a natural feature like the nearest mountain or the river or something, and if that deity rates a fulltime shrine the keeper also tends to be the major local medical provider, and since the wizards got settled in at the Tower it’s become pretty popular for shrinekeeping families to send their kids there for a year or two to get some educational polish in addition to what their parent already emphasized.

So depending on where you live and what your personal experience has been you’re going to have very different ideas about what wizards are good for.

Hrm. I’ve gone on a tangent. But that wound up taking so long you came back! :D I love it when being turtle works out in my favor.

Or was this actually the meta I was supposed to be doing in the first place? Aaaaa who knows.

im fairly confident you said eight asks survived so this is number nine? anyways onwards! "The hale survivors of the First Battle of the Second Descent sit waiting in their leathers, jack-chains and helmets laughably inadequate armor against the coming danger, and yet the best hope now just as they were on Carun Tol once the wizard fell" i have a lot of emotions about how their best bet is also a terrible bet but its all they have (9/?)

Yes 8. 

Woo, thank you! ^^ & I love that you described it that way because that also describes the ‘summon alien’ spell Yl Fanult is casting and echoing the same emotional theme throughout the scene was very much the goal here.

"Threads have escaped from the braids pinned across the top of her skull: she has not had the chance to take them down for two days." god just the continuation of how desperate everything is / "He leans forward to peer through the narrow glass that has been turned on its articulated base to face the middle of the room, and relaxes very slightly. At least there has been no catastrophic alteration there, either." what does that one do id assume theres no approching army in the middle of the room -

:D Yeah, the fact that one of the chief medics available is already overworked to the point of neglecting nonessential personal hygiene and the enemy isn’t even here yet I hoped would resonate.

Well, remember how some of the telescopes at the beginning point in directions not included in the normal three dimensions of space? :}

- "trained as it long has been upon the face of the moon" also forgot to mention their enemies being from the moon is Rad As Hell / "He snaps his fingers for a spark that falls into the deep circular groove full of distilled spirits, and steps through that as well. He is not burned." ooooh whats he doing / "At his feet lie a glittering piece of gold ore, a moonstone, and a carefully sanded round of pumice." i see the connection to the moonstone bc moon army but i wonder about the others -

Thank you! It took a fair amount of poking before I decided it was a solid approach; it provides just enough physical alienation that there’s no direct cultural relationship and you can have that ‘everyone in the entire world Disliked That’ vibe, without needing to create any complicated magical and cultural explanation for such a long run of isolationism. They were out of contact because they were On The Moon.

Also I really get a kick out of putting space invaders in a fantasy setting in a way that stops just short of turning into sci-fi.

I’m glad the ritual lead-up is exciting! Even if the foreshadowing wasn’t as obvious as I thought it was lol. That’s fixable. 

Gold is for the sun, moonstone is yeah for the moon lol (although in other circumstances people also use jade, because it’s been a long time since the moon was uniformly silver on account of it having been terraformed a few thousand years ago) and pumice is for the world--it’s a stone full of air that floats on water, so it’s popular as an anchoring device for rituals that call on all three local celestial bodies.

"He cannot take much time. He has only until the ring of fire dies." whats he doingggggg / anyways i love this so much!! the descriptions are gorgeous and im so invested in all of everything!! i hope you write more im so curious about it all!! 

XD Ok I covered this already, I would have saved it for down here or Been Mysterious if tumblr hadn’t eaten the last few asks the first time lol. Thank you so much again! For encouragement! Before and now! I’ll try! To keep it going!

Here’s hoping this successfully posts, tumblr just kicked me onto New Dashboard again and disabled the turn-it-off button, so now my alternate posting strategy is borked up too. 🤞😅😘

[cruddyborderlandstheories]

2 big posts in one day? it’s more likely than you think!!!

Moze gameplay breakdown babey here we go

shit sorry i forgot my tl;dr the first time i posted this: the tablet is big important and might have eridian writing on it, it ties into the temple, the loot gun, the tablet in tannis’s infirmary on sanc-iii, and the planet holograms in Eleseer from TPS. also you get a special melee tool to break the purple crystals that i'm like 70% sure are Eridium and also, you’re never gonna believe this, but I talk about Atlas for a little bit because of it.

“lair of the harpy”

ah harpies. I’m shifting into Percy Jackson mode

just putting this out there

anyway as for what “Lair of the Harpy” means in bl3? Well we’ve seen in the We Are Mayhem trailer a bunch of flying Maliwan bots (i am assuming rn that those are Maliwan, anyway)

these green fucks

(u can tell that’s Jakobs Manor cause of the railing on the left) so i imagine that’s why it’s called the Lair of the Harpy. Could also be the lair of some evil woman character, idk lmao. 

Far more interesting than the Harpy thing, to me anyway, is this:

i wonder if that’s gonna lead us to the psycho basement with tv heads being hanged where the Hammerlock siblings are standing in front of the fireplace

i wonder...

nah but for real. I would almost bet money that the Vault on Eden-6 is in that giant volcano/mountain area. It just feels right. we’ve seen it both dormant (the leaked footage) and active (the 3rd trailer) so I imagine opening the Vault would cause it to activate. Tho I’m still hoping onto the hope that it’s a moon pool. Just saying, Randy, if you’re reading this... just saying.

we also see this glowing sparkle icon again, which I think pretty much confirms from the We are Mayhem trailer that those will show us where the Moxxi crew quests are.

we see an enemy called “Shredder Fanatic”, personally I’m a fan of Splinter, but to each their own. Uhhh but for realsies they probably deal some blade damage or have a high RoF weapon. 

a cool detail I noticed about the minimap is that elevated areas won’t get discovered until you reach that level. Thank god lol

part of this camp is made out of an old sailboat, which i think is pretty fuckin rad

makes me wonder if we’re ever going to see the areas of Pandora affected by the flash freeze again. How long do seasons last on Pandora again? I swear it was like 5 years or smth. oh well lol

i wanna know what this big thing is!! it looks cool. they mentioned that eden-6 was going to have a shitload of broken-down ships, so maybe this is related to it?

another look at what i'm assuming is Jakobs Manor. this is very hard because I keep getting distracted by the gameplay lol I’ve seen this video seven times! it shouldn’t be that enthralling!! and yet!

the combat music in this area is so fucking solid btw i am jamming the hell out

in awe at the size of this place. I’m digging the elevated hallway. i am very much getting a hogwarts vibe from here. the far right looks like an observatory, even.

“Big Donny’s Chop Shop - Open 7 Days” lmao

a gramophone and it looks like we can interact with it! i hope it plays classical music while we go on a murder spree

some sort of bridge? i assume that’s how you actually get up to Jakobs Manor. that may be why our quest is “go to Jakobs Manor”, we gotta fix the bridge before we can.

A Typhon journal!!!

No audio, though :( 

From the radio: “catastrophe lead [???] to a lets play (flay?). Craving some meat in a bite sized package? then try festy flesh meats with a bandit on the go. hey, we know you want it, but do you have the time to hunt it down? ...”

-moxxi speaking about her crew challenge i can’t understand the radio here-

[different voice] “... for an exciting announcement from the CoV’s own ministers of murder: Pain and Terror! Those guys are cooking up one hell of a sh-” [player turns off radio] I gonna assume he was about to say “show” cause they’re a Penn and Teller reference. These are the guys from the arena with the giant skull thing, i think i have talked about them before?

Eden-6′s version of the shock cactus?

El Dragon Jr.

OwO are those the same purple rocks as Promethea?

They look like they are growing out of a stone tablet, i mean look at the green light. also they have that same star pattern inside them as Amara’s arms and Maya’s phaselock!!! Which makes me think it’s raw Eridium just... growing out of a stone tablet. which IS WILD!!!

AND WHAT IS MOZE HITTING IT WITH?!

FUCKING ENERGY BLADE

that is not her normal melee weapon, BY THE WAY

she normally uses her Stab! knife!!!

when u try to break the purple rocks on Promethea, iirc the player character can say something to the effect of “have to come back here later”, so it’s possible later in the story we get something (the glowing red/orange/yellow) energy sword to break the purple rocks (eridium???). and yes you KNOW i pointed out the colors because Atlas.

After meleeing it, Moze says “let’s open you up” so im wondering if maybe those stone tablets come into play later? the (eridium?) crystals explode into sparkly purple powder

glowing green!!!! It’s weird, I feel like these are eridian ruins/tablets growing eridium or some shit. we’ve seen the ruins have lines of color across them before, but never strictly on one side. and also never saw them grow eridium. i wonder if that is a reaction to us opening the second vault on pandora? eridium grew on pandora from the 1st one, now it’s spreading because of the second? I deffo think Eridium is from the second dimension (it started growing on pandora after the opening of the Vault) and it’s our key to getting there. 

OwO

hey doesn’t that look familiar? I’ll give u like

10 seconds

...

...

yeah it’s the symbol from the gun

YEAH BABEY

AND GUESS WHAT

YOU KNOW HOW THE GUN WAS TIED TO THE TEMPLE

YOU KNOW HOW I WAS TALKING ABOUT TANNIS’S FLOOR TILE IN HER INFIRMARY ALSO BEING TIED TO THE TEMPLE AREA???

LET ME GO GRAB IT

THE TEMPLE

AND YOU KNOW I WAS REPLAYING TPS THE OTHER DAY FOR MY ANGEL ANALYSIS AND

FUCKING

ASGHDJUYKFDJTYHSRTAGR

THAT’S LABELING A PLANET IN THE HOLOGRAM

AAAAAAAAAAAAA THE ERIDIANS GAVE US A LOOT SPEWING GUN BUT THE GUN MAKES SENSE BECAUSE VAULTS VOMIT UP LOOT ALL THE TIME BUT IT’S NOT LIKE THE LOOT WE GOT WAS AROUND WHEN THE ERIDIANS CREATED THE VAULTS

ALSO I AM VERY CONCERNED THAT CORPSE IN THE TEMPLE IS TYPHON NOW AND THE BOOK IS HIS JOURNAL. WHY WOULD MAYA BE GIVING THE JOURNAL TO THE LITTLE GIRL? IS SHE ALSO RELATED TO TYPHON?

OKAY SORRY I GOT EXCITED but uh yeah idk if that writing/those symbols being the same was intentional or not but it exists and i'm losing my mind over it

i also just wanna know why the rocks are growing eridium and glowing green like what the fuck are your SECRETS 

Aurelia shows up as you cross the checkpoint at the bridge, so it’s pretty much 100% confirmed the Hammerlocks are helping us with the jakobs thing. considering Aurelia is contacting us and not Alistar, im REALLY worried about the shot in the We Are Mayhem trailer where he has red eyes. please don’t hurt him. also i love how Aurelia calls herself a rich bitch. she makes that shit rhyme lol

another look at that big tower thing. May be a different one, actually. idk!

round the corner and see a little camp on the left. through that tunnel up ahead leads us here

we head to the right and Zer0 ECHOs us, asking us to kill someone to complete a crew challenge

The target’s name is Heckle (and his rage name is Hyde)

Interestingly he has a megaphone strapped to his mouth

wild.

Lots of stuff! Zer0 sends you mail for killing the target and you are informed that the Crew Challenge is completed. You also get a challenge completed for doing it. You ever notice the actual gameplay of borderlands is very tied to yellow and blue? the color of the title is yellow and the vault symbol for it is red (except for TPS). just odd to me idk

looks like a little envelope icon appears under your minimap when you have mail in your inbox!

we can see some cryo freezing the swamp water here! that’s my favorite thing. the electricity is cool, but ice is cooler.

i love the way this dude runs. also we now know that his pickaxe is to burrow his way into the ground

looks like it will create a huge pink cloud so you know when its about to happen, giving you time to stop it. nice.

getting closer. guess that wasn’t an observatory after all. Awww mannn

lootsplosion from the loot tink

bigger lootsplosion from his bag

i believe this is our first look at an ‘artifact’ which are replacing relics from bl2 and oz kits from tps. and like the interviews said, they’ll be effecting movement! this one turns your slide damage into cryo damage, lets you deal more radiation damage overall, and allows you to slide faster and further. i wonder how broken this can get on a downwards slope with a super high level slide relic. let’s break the sound barrier!

anyway, that’s all i saw that caught my eye. I still haven’t completed my Mask of Mayhem analysis, I was kinda hoping something during E3 would help me figure out who those mystery robed maliwan guys are on it, but alas we got nothing of real substance. oh, i also gotta finish that mural piece... aw fuck

[snicketstrange]

The Great Hiatus Theory and Miss K Enigma

Part 5 is completely dedicated to explaining the Duchess of Winippeg's letter to Lemony, according to the Strange Interpretation of Jean Lucio from Brazil.

 To understand this text, it is necessary to read my previous texts.

The letter is found in Chapter 2 of the UA. Right after the letter, there is a personal note from Lemony. In this personal note, Lemony states that there are two possibilities: Either the letter is not from the true R, or the letter is from the true R, and she is trying to pass him a secret message indicating that she is in danger. Before beginning to explain my interpretation, I would like to highlight the importance of Lemony's doubt. Even the letter bearing the calligraphy of R, Lemony believes that it is possible that this letter comes from an impostor. Why is there such a doubt? Because in the universe of ASOUE, calligraphy and signatures do not prove who the real author of the letters is. Trained people can imitate other people's handwriting and their signatures. This concept is important to my interpretation of The Beatrice Letters, and I will explain it in another text, of course.

Let's start with the beginning of the letter.

"My Dear Mr. Snicket,

Thank you, you are alive and relatively well! The night, when I arrived at the Orion Observatory to give my annual lecture to the Metrological Society, I saw someone breaking into a navy blue Jeep parked in the southwest corner of the parking lot, and my heart leaped: perhaps there was a chance you were still alive. I did not expect to find out until the man handed me his letter. "

Please note that R, or the imposter, claims to have seen someone breaking into a navy blue Jeep parked in the southwest corner of the parking lot, and just by noticing this, R or the imposter deduced that Lemony might be alive. This means that “R” spent some time having serious doubts whether Lemony was alive or dead. There are small untruths in describing the scene. These untruths are highlighted by Lemony in his personal notes. Lemony wrote:

 "The Jeep outside the Orion Observatory was of course not navy blue but black, and parked in the northwest corner, not the southwest."

 Another detail not denied by Lemony is that Lemony actually wrote a letter to R. On what kind of paper did this letter from Lemony to R written? The letter says:

 "I can not, however, help you answer the question YOU WROTE ME ON THAT GUM WRAPPER."

 Another important detail is where local R was when she saw the car. She says she was at Orion Observatory.

 Why is this significant?

Because this entire scenario seems to perfectly describe the arrival of the manuscript of Book 4 (TMM) in the hands of Lemony's editor. Please read the letter to the editor printed at the end of the TWW book.

“To My Kind Editor,

I am writing to you from the Paltryville Town Hall, where I have convinced myself the most to allow me to enter the eye-shaped office of Dr. Orwell in order to further investigate what happened to the Baudelaire orphans while they were living in the area. Next Friday, a black jeep will be in the northwest corner of the parking lot of the Orion Observatory. Break into it. In the glove compartment, you should find my description of this frightening chapter in the Baudelaires' lives, entitled THE MISERABLE MILL, as well as some information on hypnosis, a surgical mask, and sixty-eight sticks of gum. I have also included the blueprint of the pincher machine, which I believe Mr. Helquist will find useful for his illustrations.

 Remember, you are my last hope that the Baudelaire orphans can finally be told the general public.

 With all due respect,

Lemony Snicket "

 I seriously believe that “R” saw the arrival of the manuscript from book 4. I know there are many theories that try to explain that all these details are coincidences, and that there were other similar deliveries at the Orion Observatory. But I do not believe in these theories. From my point of view, the reference to GUM WRAPPER makes this delivery unique. In my theory, R saw the arrival of the original TMM book. And that is significant, because Lemony spent years without publishing any book, and so many believed that he really was dead, as published in Daily Punctilio. Note the 'R' wrote:

“You took a terrible chance in contacting me, but I am glad you did. I am so sorry that I was unable to prevent, or least delay, your CAPTURE at my masked ball that evening, and I have been worried sick ALL THESE YEARS THAT YOU WERE DEAD, despite rumors of your activities spreading through the network of loyal members. There are not many of us left, Mr. Snicket, but we are ready to help you in any way we can.

That masked ball was the LAST PUBLIC EVENT the members of the organization dared attend together… O Mr. Snicket, everything you kept in my home is gone. Your BULLFIGHTING COSTUME IS GONE… Everything in that guest room is gone, and all the things in the guest room next door. BEATRICE, OF COURSE, IS FAR PAST COMPLAINING ABOUT LOST POSSESSIONS – THE VERY REASON, I AM CERTAIN, THAT YOU HAVE DEDICATED YOUR LIFE RESEARCHING THE LIVES OF THOSE THREE POOR CHILDREN.”

Please watch out for these details. First, when this letter was written, Lemony had already begun his research on the Baudelaire siblings. "R" says: "THAT YOU HAVE DEDICATED YOUR LIFE RESEARCHING THE LIVES OF THOSE THREE POOR CHILDREN".Second, "R" says that Lemony spent years presumably dead. She says: "I have been worried sick ALL THESE YEARS THAT YOU WERE DEAD". As I explained in the last text, there were two moments in Lemony's life in which he was presumably dead. The first moment was soon after the cancellation of his marriage to Beatrice. The second moment was after the publication of some of the ASOUE books. This letter can not refer to the first moment when Lemony was presumably dead, for at that time Lemony had not begun researching "the lives of the three poor children" because the "three poor children" did not even exist.

Another important detail is to realize that Lemony was not publishing books during the time he was presumably dead. If he was publishing books during this time, anyone would realize that he was actually alive. It is good to remember that his books are aimed at the Great Public in his universe.

That's why I created the theory I call The Great Hiatus Theory. The theory states that there was a Great Publishing Hiatus in the universe of ASOUE that lasted many years. This hiatus occurred between books 3 and 4 of ASOUE. Note that this theory is independent of the fact that the actual author of the letter being considered to be R or an impostor. The evidence I have raised so far has not been questioned by Lemony in his personal notes. Lemony did not write something like "I believe this letter may come from an impostor because the sender of the letter states that I spent several years presumably dead and this is not true, I only spent a few months dead."Lemony also does not say something like "I believe this letter comes from an imposter because I have no idea which three poor children the sender of this letter is referring to." The Great Hiatus Theory works even if the real sender of the letter is someone else.

 I'll pause to speak directly about the letter of "R". I will explain the consequences of the Great Hiatus theory. You will realize how the Great Hiatus Theory perfectly explains some apparent inconsistencies in the ASOUE text.

 One of the apparent contradictions I have already explained in an earlier text. Prufrock Pre closed during the Great Hiatus. According to UA, in Chapter 9,  an enemy of Lemony sought information about the reptiles from Uncle Monty's collection in the book TRR. This book was in the library of Prufrock Pre, at that time Prufrock Pre was open and running. However, in writing the TAA book, Lemony says Prufrock Pre was closed many years ago. This is perfectly explained by The Great Hiatus Theory. When Lemony returned to write the books of ASOUE from TMM after resurfacing from abroad, Prufrock Pre had already stopped working.

The Great Hiatus theory also helps to solve what I call "Miss K Enigma. 

In Nero's letter to Carmelita Spats' parents, which is printed in Chapter 8 of the UA, Nero states that he hired Miss K to become a teacher. At that time Mr. Remora had retired. Mrs. Bass was still at her job, but she had to take time off in order to settle matters with the bank (probably rob the bank). Miss K took Prufrock several books of interest to VFD, including one of the ASOUE books. The enigma is: Who is Miss K? The first time I read it, I evidently thought it was Kit Snicket. But reading TPP I realized that this would be impossible. In the situation described in TPP, Mr. Remora still worked for Nero, for he calls him chief (TPP cap.6). Thus, Nero's letter was written after the events described in TPP. Kit died a few days later, nothing indicates that she was in Prufrock Pre between the events of TPP and TE. And as I have already explained, the ASOUE books seem to have been written a few years after the events described therein. With the help of The Great Hiatus Theory, the puzzle is solved as follows: Lemony wrote books 1, 2 and 3 and stopped publishing for a while. In the meantime, someone passing through Kit was in Prufrock Pre. (Or another volunteer, who also had the letter K as her initial). This person took one of the first three books from ASOUE to Prufrock Pre. I'd rather believe that this Miss K is actually Beatrice pretending to be Kit, because that also fits my theory of the secret letter in the TSS. 

Lemony made a sentimental remark on Miss K.'s photo. He writes "Will I ever see her again?" Since this is not Kit, then I think it's Beatrice. (The fact that Miss K is wearing a completed skirt in the photo, and that her feet are not exposed in the photo, are elements of another theory of mine ... UA pictures are really fun to try to understand their meaning. For example, in Chapter 1 of the UA there is a photo of Lemony when he was baby that it hides the Lemony's left heel , exactly where I believe there was already a tattoo.) According to TAA Chapter 6, Prufrock Pre actually closed when Mrs. Bass was definitely arrested, some long after Miss K had visited the place. Lemony speaks of this event in the past because from his point of view in writing TAA, this event was really in the past. But in writing TRR, this event was still in the future from Lemony's point of view.

 Update of Miss K Enigma theory:

The R Letter Interpretation is just beginning. I'll leave the rest to the next text.

[annastronomer]

Chasing the Cow: an explosion unfolds in a distant galaxy

On June 17, I got an e-mail alert reporting a flash of light in the sky. This by itself was not unusual. Those of us who study the deaths of stars find flashes all the time; supernovae, the brilliant cosmic explosions that accompany the deaths of stars, are actually pretty common, and on any given night the night sky holds dozens of them. However, this particular flash appeared remarkably quickly for a supernova, and it was so bright that it was difficult to explain as a normal explosion.

In science, we try to be slow to accept that anything extraordinary has happened. I thought this was a lame attitude until one of my first projects in grad school, when I spent months pursuing a cosmic flash thinking it was an extraordinary extragalactic explosion (that is, an explosion outside our galaxy), only to find out that it was actually a star in our own galaxy, flaring up and tricking me into thinking that I was seeing something more distant. I was bummed. My advisor reassured me that this was just part of the scientific process. But I learned my lesson -- don’t get too excited too quickly. It’s probably not what you’re hoping it is.  

Every new flash in the sky is given a name, a random sequence of letters based on how many flashes have been discovered so far that year. This new flash was called AT2018cow, and pretty soon everyone was calling it “The Cow.” The Cow was “most likely a foreground [star],” said the e-mail alert. However, “to rule this out [as] being a very unusual [explosion]...or (more likely) confirm it as a foreground [star], a spectrum is required.” 

A spectrum is a more detailed observation than a picture. And although we were all telling ourselves that this was probably just a star, telescopes all over the world pointed at The Cow, not realizing that this was the first act in one of the most intensely observed cosmic events in history, probably second only to last year’s neutron star collision. 

The Cow was not a foreground star. I was walking out of a classroom when I received the news on my phone, again via an e-mail alert. A team from another part of the world reported “evidence that the transient is associated with CGCG 137-068,” the name of the galaxy, and said that “Further spectroscopic observations are encouraged.” Translating the professional science-speak: “THIS IS REALLY IN ANOTHER GALAXY!! THIS IS REALLY AN EXTRAORDINARY EVENT!!! AHHHH!!!!! EVERYONE, POINT YOUR TELESCOPES IN THAT DIRECTION!!!! WOOHOOOO!!” 

I turned around, walked back into the classroom, and held up my phone to my advisor’s face. He said, “Oh! Well.”

We sprang into action. Looking at the AT2018cow folder in my inbox, I have two e-mails from June 18, one e-mail from June 19, and over fifty e-mails from June 20, when it was confirmed to be a real explosion. One of the e-mails is from my advisor, telling me to “please be on Skype,” meaning that I needed to be on-call at all times. Many are e-mail alerts by other teams of astronomers around the world, reporting their observations. Another was from my teammate Dan, telling me that the telescope we wanted to use was currently shut down for maintenance. 

Here’s how observing works in astronomy. You might have your own telescope that you can use anytime you like. Most likely, this is an optical telescope, meaning a telescope that sees visible colors of light (red through purple), or maybe it’s a radio telescope, meaning a telescope that sees radio waves (which are actually just an “invisible” color of light, beyond the red end of the spectrum). Or, you might have guaranteed access to an expensive national facility, like a telescope in space (like the Hubble Space Telescope), or an enormous telescope on the ground (like Keck), or maybe a telescope that can see “invisible” segments of the electromagnetic spectrum, like X-rays or radio waves. For access to these national facilities, you have to write an application, saying “hey, I have this great idea for an observation, please allow me to point your telescope at this location for this amount of time.” If it’s a serious emergency, like something that will disappear within a few days, you can submit a special kind of application, saying “I REALLY NEED to point your telescope at this location for this amount of time, RIGHT AWAY.” This gets reviewed by a committee, and if they give you the green light, you can actually interrupt someone else’s observing program to do your thing. Resources are scarce, and all of these application processes are very competitive. 

There are a lot of considerations in choosing what telescope to observe with. Some are more flexible for emergencies than others, some are more powerful (meaning they can see fainter things) than others but more oversubscribed, some observe one part of the electromagnetic spectrum but are blind to others. It depends what you’re trying to do. In our case, we gambled, and went with the SMA (Submillimeter Array), a telescope that observes millimeter-length waves of light. In my field, the study of stellar death, this is a very unusual part of the electromagnetic spectrum to observe in: the success rate for catching millimeter waves from cosmic explosions is low. Also, most explosions that do produce millimeter light are faint, and the SMA can only see bright things. But The Cow was obviously unusual, and it was nearby and bright. Teams of astronomers all over the world were observing The Cow all across the electromagnetic spectrum, so why not try something a little unusual?

I immediately contacted the SMA team, and within a few hours we had approval for observations to begin that night. That day, I also wrote two other applications to use other observatories. One was rejected and the other was accepted. In the meantime, The Cow continued to stun us, and my inbox was overflowing with alerts from various teams of astronomers, reporting more observations, including the spectacular discovery of bright X-rays and radio waves. There was also an e-mail from Mansi, a professor in my department, who was aware of all the craziness unfolding and noticed the unhealthy timestamps on the e-mails I was sending. “Hi Anna,” she wrote. “Get some sleep. It has been a long day for you.” It’s good to know that people are looking out for you. 

Through this rush, it was fun to take a step back and consider the perspective of the universe. Dinosaurs evolve into existence somewhere in the Milky Way galaxy. Shortly thereafter, something violent happens in CGCG 137-068, a totally different galaxy -- maybe a star explodes, maybe a black hole rips a star to shreds. The violent event is bright. Light travels from this event, out of CGCG 137-068 and across the universe. Two hundred millions years later, the dinosaurs have gone extinct, and curious humans have taken over the Earth. Their species-long effort to understand their place in the cosmos has led to the construction of telescopes, enormous technologically sophisticated eyeballs placed over the ground and in space. These artificial eyes can even see light invisible to the human eye, like ultraviolet light and radio waves and millimeter waves and X-rays. It’s in this era that the light emitted in this violent event reaches the surface of the Earth. A telescope in Hawaii notices it, names it The Cow, and issues an alert. Astronomers receive the alert via this thing called e-mail. And then they all go crazy, pointing their telescopes in the direction the light came from, trying to understand what violence unfolded 200 million years before they came into existence. 

It was a lot of fun to be one of those humans going crazy. At the end of our first night of SMA observations, I got an e-mail from the observing staff saying that the source was easily detected. Translation: The Cow is bright in millimeter waves. THE COW IS BRIGHT IN MILLIMETER WAVES!!! The next night, we observed it again, and it was EVEN BRIGHTER! The number was 33 mJy (if that doesn’t mean anything to you, don’t worry about it, it’s just a measure of brightness, and that is REALLY BRIGHT!) I had the following highly technical and scientific e-mail exchange with Dan:

Me: “33 mJy?!” 

Dan: “Yes, it's madness!!” 

This was actually the first time any cosmic explosion had been seen brightening in millimeter-wave light. We had our foot in the door, and our investigation had begun. 

Part 2 to follow.

[nardaviel]

Part 6 / ?, introducing seasons(!) and an exciting new supporting cast member(!!!).

Many images contained within. The tags have spoilers, if you care about that sort of thing and if it isn’t already too obvious to count as a spoiler.

Starting out strong again with a chance card from En, just like in the last post. En would definitely go with the experimental piece but it’s a bit nerve-wracking because he's going to be promoted today, I think, if he doesn't screw this up.

Never mind about the promotion, then. :c

Especially if he's going to be pissed off for the rest of his shift. Poor En-chan. I’m interested in Pig Nose Galaxy.

Congrats, Atsushi! Everyone’s money-earning skills are maxed now. :D Maybe this has something to do with the brilliant centerpieces he once again improvised at work.

Poor En. Rough day, I know.

He shouts some forbidden words to blow off steam. Everything seems a little easier to take after that. Nothing quite like screaming “FUCK! SHIT! COCKSUCKER!” in broad daylight in the middle of the street to cheer you up.

Atsushi is making that face because he's a pastry chef now! He lost one of his days off but he only works five hours a day now, so I guess it kind of evens out?

An uneventful day later, Kinshirou goes out to send a book to the publisher, but when he turns around... there he is.

So that night, Atsushi finally learns how to make those garlic decorations. Here are the wreaths! There are going to be braids indoors as well, in case a vampire ever breaks in. The boys aren’t 100% clear on how they work, except that Sims can't get eaten while there's garlic around. So the more garlic the better, as far as they’re concerned.

One of the saddest things (really the only sad thing besides the expense) about building a second story was that Hou-chan couldn't follow them into their bedrooms anymore. I'm glad she can climb stairs now that she's an adult kitty.

I got this far into the game, then took a long hiatus from TS4, during which time Seasons(!!!!!!!) came out. When I came back to the game, I decided I wanted to play around with the new gardening career and the changes to the gardening skill.

So guess who I made.

That's right. Their new neighbor has finally moved in.

Poor Ibushi, I made him a decent house (or the best house I could make with such an extremely tiny lot and limited budget) and then he could barely afford any furniture for it. No floor plan because I don't intend to spend much (or any?) more time in these posts following the Arima household. This is a Kinatsuen LP, after all. But we can take a look at his welcome wagon.

Ibushi: Ah, hello! Come in, don't mind the lack of furniture... En: *stares across the street at his own house* I could be asleep right now, but no.

Look at that grumpy face. Atsushi just dragged him out of bed ten minutes ago, didn't he. That’s why he’s not in the other screenshot. He was still getting dressed.

Kinshirou: Psst. Atchan. Atsushi: What is it? Kinshirou: There's barely any furniture in here. Atsushi: Shh! Don't be rude.

But the real reason Kinshirou is so uncomfortable is that Ibushi's sudden appearance makes the Veil series—in which the triad have a four-way romance with a guy named Ibushi Arima, who looks and behaves very much like this new neighbor—suddenly very strange and kind of creepy. Hopefully Ibushi isn't familiar with Kinshirou's work.

Atsushi has brought the fruitcake this time. He places it on the one surface in the entire house.

Ibushi thanks Kinshirou for coming very enthusiastically. (The shitty lighting, like the lack of furniture, is down to Ibushi's lack of cash. He has §3 right now.)

Ibushi: And can I say, it’s such an honor to meet you. I'm a big fan of your writing. Kinshirou: Ah... Thank you...

It was impossible to make a decent Ibushi Sim, though. As impossible as it is to take decent screenshots in this house with all these people here. I didn't think about that when I made it because I forgot about welcome wagons. But yeah, this is the best Ibushi I could get. He’s grown on me, though! I like him now. But I remember at first I was a little uncertain.

I ship it. Go sit on the bed with them, Atsushi.

Atsushi waited too long to make his move. En is disappointed too. That, or he's just jealous of Avery's fruitcake but he doesn’t want to get up to get his own.

What's up with Atsushi? Is he just pleased to see plants, or...?

Yep, he's just... talking to them. You have real humans you could talk to inside, sweetheart, but all right.

En: What are you doing out here all alone? Kinshirou: Are you talking to the plants? (Does he feel lonely? That’s the only time he talks to our plants...)

Just a reminder: I can’t control them right now. I’m playing Ibushi’s household. They autonomously came out here, one right after the other, to kiss Atsushi’s cheek...

...then to hug each other and congratulate each other on their good Atsushi-cheering teamwork.

Ibushi doesn’t have enough good things to say about Atsushi’s fruitcake.

Ibushi: One time when my grandmother fed us some fruitcake, it broke my cousin’s tooth, but yours was actually enjoyable. You have a real talent.

He follows up with what looks like a stressful attempt to tell an amusing story while Kinshirou passive-aggressively waters the plants. Look, Kinshirou, you're the one who arrived while he was in the middle of watering, okay. It’s your own fault he didn’t get it done.

En has wandered back in and now finds himself alone with their neighbor Avery. I wonder what’s going on with this interaction.

This is the face Kinshirou makes when he's listening very intently. Ibushi’s love of fruitcake must have caught his attention.

After the welcome wagon has wound down and everyone else has gone home, En remains, eating some of the last of Ibushi's non-fruitcake food. Thanks, En.

Ibushi hangs out with them all several times after this, but I usually don't bother with screencaps. Here's a short mostly-text recap of relevant or amusing happenings:

Ibushi sends Atsushi a happy text. Atsushi responds with something to the effect of "yeah isn't today great, let's hang out!!!" so they do, and Ibushi becomes friends with Atsushi before either of the others

Atsushi asks Ibushi if he wants to meet at the Spice Festival, Ibushi agrees because he was already at the Spice Festival anyway lmao

While they're there they spot En lurking by the curry contest wearing this

?????????????????????????????? Nice bracelets, En.

Ibushi chats with En online and befriends him also, making Kinshirou the last one he's not friends with? Weird

But almost as soon as he and En are friends, Kinshirou texts him asking him to go hang out in the park at 12:03am ... is he jealous ... it's especially suspicious because he takes Ibushi to the park that's mostly just a wedding venue. It starts raining as soon as they get there (Seasons!!!!!! best xpac) but they sit around in the rain anyway and become friends

"Incoming text message: En Yufuin. "Hey, I heard you became friends with Kinshirou Kusatsu! He's pretty cool!"" That is the most OOC thing the game has done so far

Atsushi invites Ibushi to the Romance Festival which is a little bit ??? until Ibushi goes and sees that En's come to sell paintings

Atsushi just wanted to bring his boyfriend more customers lmao. In any event, Ibushi splurges and buys both paintings. The diagram can make him focused which is good for gardening, and he just liked the doughnuts. I like how, when En goes out to sell his artwork, he brings a questionable mathematical diagram and a painting of sweets

So that's how things are going with the four of them, although I will say that by the time I start playing the Kinatsuen household, the inside of Ibushi’s house is looking much nicer and he's actually run out of space to put stuff. So don't worry about him, he's fine.

New with Seasons, a calendar that (among other things) tells me when everyone has a free day. Too bad I didn't have it when Enatsu were still struggling to go on a date.

Here's something troubling, though. The house is decorated that way (I think) because all the neighbors' houses get decorations relevant to the next holiday, and for a little while Kinatsuen were neighbors, not the active household. But they don't actually have the item that lets you add, remove, or change out decorations. So are they just going to be stuck with Halloween decorations forever...?

(No. Kinshirou will get them their box of decorations and insist on putting up seasonally appropriate decor.)

Also they need to get the gardening plants sorted out, now that most of them only grow in some seasons.

Look, I'm just really excited about the new glass roofs, okay. (Although why aren't there any white panes??? It looks so bad right now lol) I don't know why anyone would want to have a greenhouse on top of their bedroom but whatever, the game has HVAC now too. I just hope I don't forget the plants are there.

And now they finally have space (and money) for an observatory :D

I don't know what they're going to have beside the house where the plants were. Maybe that's where they'll make snowmen or whatever.

While Atsushi works and Kinshirou meditates, En explains the meaning of his newest painting to Hou-chan.

En: No, like, it’s abstract, right? So the fact that there’s no Loch Ness monster is the commentary on the Loch Ness monster. It could be anywhere, it could be nowhere. All you can see is the water.

For a while now, Atsushi has wanted to host a dinner party and cook for people. The arrival of their new neighbor (half a year ago since it’s now autumn but whatever okay) is a good opportunity.

As he gets started on a rack of lamb and En gets started on his dessert...

...Kinshirou introduces himself to Avery, even though they met earlier at Ibushi's welcome wagon, and possibly earlier than that at Kinatsuen’s own welcome wagon. Maybe Kinshirou doesn’t recognize him because he’s gotten old? I’ve done this too, forgetting you’ve already met someone. It’s super embarrassing.

It's a shame you have to invite 2+ guests to dinner parties tbh because I wanted it to just be the four of them. Ibushi looks pleased be here, at least.

They bought a stereo for ambiance during the party (i.e. it's part of one of the goals) but Hou-chan is terrified of it. :C

Looks like everyone’s pleased with the food.

And here’s a screenshot with just the important people, where their faces aren’t covered. What a nice dinner party. :D Good job, Atsushi!

screenshots that make you go hmmm

I would love to tell you what happened to En but I have, genuinely, no idea. I didn’t see it happen, there was no notif or informative moodlet afterwards... a mystery.

En and Atsushi are both asleep by the time the party's over because they're terrible hosts, so Kinshirou is the only one who gets to enjoy the confident moodlet they all got for their good party. It wasn't gold, but it was silver and that was all Atsushi needed for his cooking aspiration. So! Mission accomplished.

The next day is Halloween! I had to make it myself because it didn't come with the game. The holiday traditions are trick-or-treating, wearing costumes, telling stories, "spooky spirit", and decorating.

This is how I discovered that Sims can love or ignore traditions according to their personality traits. The more I play Seasons, the better it gets. En hates decorating and will not do it, but he likes wearing costumes... take that however you want. Meanwhile Kinshirou loves decorating (although the house was already decorated), he and Atsushi both love telling stories, and he ignores trick-or-treating because he's a snob <3

As soon as he wakes up, En gets in costume. It’s not a real premade outfit without a clippy hat!!

Kinshirou: What is that vulgar costume? I can't even look at it. En: Really? I thought you'd like it. It's from this porno where a guy—

Atsushi: En-chan, please, I'm not awake enough to play referee right now.

After breakfast En and Atsushi harass Kinshirou about costumes, until:

Atsushi: Kin-chan, your costume looks so good! En: Wow, yeah, it seriously does. Is that the supervillain costume? It’s a good look. Kinshirou: Ugh. These plebeian traditions...

Sims don’t work on Halloween, so Enatsu spend it telling each other spooky stories in costume.

Kinshirou, however, changes out of his costume as soon as possible and happily waters the plants.

Hou-chan is enjoying Halloween too!! As she deserves.

That evening, Atsushi handles the trick-or-treaters. He chooses to give treats to everyone so next year their house is going to be swarmed with kids, I suppose. The first time he does it, I have a minor freakout because it seems like it costs §75 to give a treat, but it turns out En has just spent §75 to start a medium-sized painting...

...which ends up being another impressionist masterpiece, and also, extremely cute.

Atsushi runs out back to burn this leaf pile behind their property that’s gotten gross, and that’s how I learn that adding spooky spirit to a holiday means lots of ghosts come out that night... so um.

Being the polite young man he is, he introduces himself. He’s terrified, poor thing.

Atsushi: Ah, yes, um, hello. Nice to meet you. I'm Atsushi. Ghost: I am Paolo. Atsushi: Paolo! Nice to meet you, Paolo. So um... what... brings you to these parts... eheheh...

This is honestly En’s new favorite place to sleep.

The next morning, they're all happy because of their awesome Halloween. Kinshirou decides to spend this wonderful morning up in the greenhouse researching Atsushi's plants, which are quickly becoming his plants.

The greenhouse which now has a white CC roof, thank god.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! CONGRATS, EN

He didn't even need the good easel from the promotion reward lol. That was the only reason he was even working, if you’ve forgotten. To get that easel so he could finish his aspiration. But he's so close to getting it that it seems like a shame to have him quit now. One more promotion then you can quit, En!!

Oh, lord, what should his next aspiration be though. There's no ultimate procrastination advocate aspiration... I think he just wants to enjoy his success for a little while. No need to start on something else right away, right? He can just chill out for a bit.

Honestly, though, I was just trying to get him to make another playful doughnut painting like Ibushi bought, but instead he made a masterpiece-quality playful painting that's in all other respects exactly the same as the playful painting we already had.

Can you tell the difference? No? I'll tell you the difference: The difference is, the painting on the top is a masterpiece that is worth §2,000 more and emits much more playful vibes than the identical painting on the bottom.

Meanwhile, Kin-chan has learned how to comfort himself with plants when he's lonely, even though there’s a cat right next to him.

And Atsushi is happily drinking tea that he believes to be “healthy green” tea. For once, En is the only Sim who has it together.

On the other hand, Kinshirou really is far and away the biggest earner in the household. Jeez. That's §4,621 right there. For comparison, that masterpiece of En's was his most expensive ever at about §2,300, and I almost never sell his masterpieces anyway because I feel bad about it. Atsushi brings in a little more than §500 a day.

En painted a second masterpiece in a row. He's so talented. :D That's a strange choice of subject for a flirty painting, though, since they're all dudes.

In the spirit of letting En have a chill time now that his aspiration is done, I downloaded a custom aspiration for him that's just about fulfilling whims. His life goal right now is to do whatever he feels like at any given moment. Very En, I think. Also I never pay attention to whims, so maybe this will get me to start.

Ibushi invites En over to hang out and En brings Kinshirou with him. A fun, relaxing afternoon at a friend’s.

...is what they think but then they arrive to find Ibushi literally freezing to death outside his home. It’s so cold out wtf why isn’t he wearing his cold weather clothes??

Everyone else is in their cold weather outfits! Why are you just standing around in short sleeves, Ibushi!!! God.

Despite the fact that he is near death, En has to practically drag him indoors and turn on the heat for him.

Ibushi: So cold :c En: Hey, here's an idea. Ibushi: Mm? En: Why don't you change into some warm clothes? You know, since it's freezing cold out?

Ibushi: Oh. You mean like this? En: ...yeah. Nice sweater.

Ibushi: *sensing sarcasm* Thank you. It's a shame I can't say the same about yours.

It’s at this moment, watching Ibushi, that I learned that uncomfortable Sims' lips tremble like they're about to start crying. He looks so sad and pathetic that I feel kind of bad, but like... honestly why didn't he just put on a sweater.

Here’s Woody Arima, the puppy Ibushi adopted. An aggressive little bby who barks all the time, but he's very loyal! And Ibushi was charmed by how he tries to be all fierce when he's so tiny. He’s a bit dirty now but don’t worry about that, it’ll be taken care of.

Apparently, Kinshirou is the type of guy who comes over to your house and then spends the whole time on your computer, chatting with other people.

En: Hahaha, that's hilari... huh? Kinshirou, where are you going? Kinshirou: I'm bathing your puppy, Ibushi. He's filthy. Ibushi: Oh, you don't need to— En: No, let him do it. Cleaning things makes him happy.

Presented without comment.

And then...

En: You're a good guy, you know? A good friend. Ibushi: You are too, I suppose. Despite the state of your winter clothes. En: Yeah, okay, whatever. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is, I don't think I have a better friend than you. Ibushi: Yes, I... feel the same way, En. En: ...You know what we have to do now? Ibushi: I believe so.

So now En and Ibushi are BFFs.

(I know this is a bit odd but my logic goes like this: Only one Kinatsuen couple can be BFFs since you can't have more than one, Kinshirou has to be married to his BFF for his aspiration so he has to be half of the BFF couple, and Kinatsu is a much more likely BFF duo than Enkin. So I'm glad En has someone to be best friends with now. Even if the lighting in these screenshots still makes me sigh sadly.)

Upstairs, Kinshirou is having a fun time doing his favorite activity: cleaning.

Clean doggo. The true Woody!

En chats with his new BFF a little more before he and Kinshirou have to head home to see Atsushi. In the background, all Ibushi’s plants are growing happily. I told you his house got less depressing.

When they get back, En plays in a leaf pile behind the house. What else are leaf piles for if not to play in, right??? We’ll get an answer to that later on in the post actually. In the background, Atsushi trots around being responsible and burning old piles that have started to rot.

Is this what fulfilling whims does for Sims? I should be doing it all the time. He’s so happy.

Atsushi: *singing under his breath* Cool guys don’t look at explosions... they blow things up and then walk away...

Lmao he won't go up to the door anymore. He just stands awkwardly at the top of the front steps for a while and then leaves.

A rare cutaway walls screenshot to show Kinshirou and En not even sharing a bed but sleeping in each other’s beds. (Also, yes, they leave the bathroom light on at night.)

Zundar begins to show his true colors. Although who detected these trace signatures of radiation, exactly?

Uh-oh. Is this his response to Kinshirou's biography of him? An autobiography written under a pseudonym?? Two different narratives competing for the public's attention???

While En and Atsushi are at work, Kinshirou and Hou-chan bond and become companions. :D He’s not concerned about your autobiography, Zundar.

A true modern relationship: Complaining about work to your gay boyfriend while he cranes his neck to look at you from his adjacent computer desk.

Atsushi curls his lip in contempt. He must have had a real bad day. Maybe he just needs to wear his glasses to work?

I am not gonna lie, he looks really, really attractive here.

Atsushi: You know what, Kin-chan? I'm sick of coming home every day with a headache. I'm wearing my glasses to work and if my boss doesn't like it, I'll talk to HR.

I can't believe it took me this long to google "how to edit someones work outfit in sims 4". God.

In fact, changing out of his work clothes altogether and meditating seems like a good plan right now.

He did it! That’s the easel! Congrats, En, now you can quit your job! That is a huge pay raise, though, it almost seems like a shame...

But look at that sulky face. He just wants to be done.

He and Atsushi both came home really wanting a vacation. Is it getting to be that time again...? I've been kind of wanting to send someone to Selvadorada. If Atsushi starts constantly getting the moodlet, maybe I'll think about it.

But before En quits his job, he has a plan.

En: Hello? Hi, it's Yufuin. Sorry about this, a last-minute thing came up and I'm going to need to take all my paid time off starting tomorrow. Yeah, tomorrow. Thanks.

The new easel for which he toiled so long. His first two paintings on it are masterpieces :D

Other Sims just have whims about playing in leaves and stuff during autumn, but Kinshirou daydreams about doing chores. Who am I to deny him?

Oh, no... Hou-chan is scared of their nice cozy fireplace too...

Atsushi: Hey, hey, it's all right, Hou-chan. It won't hurt you.

En: Hey, welcome back. You worked hard out there, huh?

En: How about claiming your reward? ;) Kinshirou: What? En: ;))) Kinshirou: ...Ah.

Kinshirou: Very well.

Kinshirou: This is absurd. You come up with the most ridiculous ideas. En: You say that like you don't like it, but you’re smiling at me.

En: Now come on. Kinshirou: So abruptly—!

En: Yeah.

This is my new favorite WooHoo location. It’s a shame it’s only available during fall.

Kinshirou: Ah, you have a leaf on you. En: Oh, thanks. Kinshirou: Of course, you might not be so disheveled if you hadn’t rolled us around so much... En: Oh, really? Should I do it less next time then? Kinshirou: ... En: That’s what I thought.

Atsushi is having a nice time in front of the fire watching a cooking show, oblivious to the debauchery taking place on his own front lawn.

Kinshirou: ...and now the leaves are scattered around the yard again. Perhaps I should have predicted that. I suppose I should get them back in order. En: You really don't have to, you know. No one's going to care if you wait until morning. Kinshirou: I will care. En: Well, I'm going to sleep. Come find me when you're done. Kinshirou: ...I'll spend the night with Atchan.

How are those wedding plans coming along? Since Kinshirou probably won’t let him sleep all day, what is En even going to do with all his new free time? When will they move out, and what will happen to their neighborly relationship with Ibushi when they do? Are they actually going to go to Selvadorada? I can’t guarantee that most of those questions will be answered soon but I can promise that the next part will include, among other things, such delights(?) as Pretty Boy Day and En doing yoga.

[boxcarjacer182-blog]

I haven’t been on Tumblr in probably over a year, but I’m going to try and blog more - so actually be ready for a flood of pictures if you follow me. If you follow me on IG & Twitter then you already know! Anyway, I spent $3000 in March to fly to Los Angeles, Calif. all the way from Canada to meet my hero --- Tom DeLonge, at a bok signing he & A.J. Hartley did for the first Sekret Machines book “Chasing Shadows” (which I love)

My dream came true. I got a VIP wristband & was like 7th in line to meet him...Nobody was able to get a hug, but I was so much more calm than I expected...I don’t know if that’s because it was all sinking in so wonderfully as I mentally prepared myself for this for so long or if because I had already exchanged some friendly nudges with Tom & his To The Stars team on social media before, but it was perfect!  So before I walked up, one of his company’s staff members recognized me from Instagram & all the posts I have had before & was SO NICE TO ME! She said all of them over at TTS know who I am & she thanked me for my contributions to the company as a fan -- which I have to say are pretty significant. Then it was time for me to meet the king! Tom smiled so adorably as I walked up...I said, “Hi Tom! I came all the way from Canada to see you!” Tom did this cute *gasp* & his eyes widened & he was like “YOU DID?! Omg Thank you sooo much for coming all this way!” Then he saw that I had something for him (in the second pic, I’m holding a piece of art I hand drew from scratch for him of an astronaut riding a skateboard with an Astra Tr-3b in the background, which is a triangular UFO that’s actually made by the U.S. military) Tom saw it & was like “IS THAT A PRESENT FOR ME?!” I’m like -- “Yeah!!!” He goes, “Well that is so kind of you!!” As he looked at it (which I know he likes because a mutual friend of our told me that he put it up in one of his offices over at TTS headquarters in Encinitas) He grabbed my hand & held it for a bit & looked into my eyes & said “What’s your name?” “Jay” I said 

He’s like “Well, nice to meet you Jay - I LOVE YOUR JACKET!” (the one I’m wearing - which I patched with Sekret Machines and TTS patches, haha I knew he liked it because he actually saw it many times on Twitter & liked the pictures I had of it....I knew him & TTS would recognize me in it if I wore it to the signing) We chatted about how busy Tom is, I told him how much I love Sekret Machines & every TTS project & he told me “I’m glad you like it, thank you! And there’s a ton more coming.” I also told him where I was from in Canada & he said the Canadian Rocky Mountains are wonderful as he looked at me. Tom DeLonge is one of the sweetest & most genuine people on the planet I have ever had the gift of meeting....& I’m not saying that just because he’s famous or my hero, I’m saying that because it’s absolutely true. He is. If you’ve ever met Tom DeLonge, you KNOW he isn’t being nice “just because he has to” to save face with fans ... he’s so genuine & kind. We said our goodbyes & the TTS crew thanked me from coming from Canada & gave me a 10% off discount card for the online store. They told me to have a safe trip home. I didn’t get a hug, but nobody did because that table was so big & B&N runs their events to be smooth --- BUT TOM WANTED TO HUG PEOPLE, he spoke to crowd a little bit before the signing & said “I WANT YOU TO ALL COME UP HERE & JUST BRING YOUR  BODY INTO MINE...I KNOW WE WON’T ACTUALLY HAVE TIME FOR THAT BUT BRING YOUR BODY INTO MINE” Hahah classic Tom...making jokes about bodies lol. I met amazing people that night who were so kind to me....A few of them recognized me from my Box Car Racer & Blink bunny tattoos on my legs & couldn’t believe I was Canadian. There were people from San Diego who were really nice. I love Tom’s fans because they are all ages...There were teenagers, people my age (young adults in their 20s) and even full-scale DADS.  I had a great time in LA too at the wonderful Grove Mall where the B&N was located in the La Brea neighbourhood of Los Angeles. I also got to visit the Griffith Observatory’s space museum. Which is free, by the way. If you’re ever in LA go check it out! I tell people this story of me flying from Canada & meeting Tom, because I would get really sad when I couldn’t go to an event at To The Stars because they would always be short notice & I live so far away.....I thought I wouldn’t get to meet Tom soon, but it happened sooner than I thought. Even though I saw Blink-182 3 times while he was still in the band and I saw Angels & Airwaves once before back 2010, I never met Tom. I dreamt of this day for 12 years (half my life) & I made it happen.... I love to tell people this story especially other fans because I feel it ties into what Tom DeLonge, AVA & To The Stars is all about..... Take chances, if you see opportunities, do the thing you wanna do. Dreams are real & dreams power us to get through the waking world - dreams might seem like fantasies that serve as medication for dealing with reality, but they are not medication --- they are the cure -- but only if you believe in them. Do the things YOU want to do..>Work hard..... Because I was also at the end of a college semester when I had to take this trip....I sacrificed 2 years of my life of doing anything at all let alone take a trip to LA to meet someone who has been a huge inspiration to many people. And I took the risk of cramming in studying for finals & completing assignments once I got back.....My family spent $3,000 to do something some people have only spent the price of a concert ticket and gas to go and do.... But it was worth it. Holding onto your dreams is always worth it. Having HOPE is worth it.