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ms-scarletwings · 6 months

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Irken senses, and other ponderings

You know, every time I start to wonder if I’ve finally run out of things to coherently say on the whole “speculating about irken biology” matter, a whole something more is induced to hatch out of the dehydrated floam inside my skull. Between you and me, I think the eggs are triggered by ironic timing.

Anywho, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the world hypothetically through Irken eyes, and other sensory organs. Think I’ll go down them piece by piece, and to follow the pattern I’ve kept through my other Irken brain dumps, I will be drawing a huge amount of inspiration from real life arthropods. Yes, I’m very aware that realistically, any resemblance to earth insects would be coincidental from an alien species, and there’s plenty of room to make up whatever somewhat plausible explanation you can for any faucet of their anatomy. Personally, I like to run from the convergent evolution angle, since I find it no less grounded, full of potential connections the show itself all but begs me to draw, and just plain fun. Let’s get into it.

Also like towards the end there’s a whole section on the hypothetical edibility of Irkens because why not

Prelude: If you want to hear a little more behind my theory about the Irken diet revolving around sugar and a small portion of minerals, you can zip onto this analysis I did, in which I touch on some ideas of mine regarding the composition of Irken skin, their reaction to meat, etc. that works from the assumption that Irkens evolved out of an arthropod-like ancestor. Not necessary to get the gist of this one, but it is background context behind my thought process.

Sight

The Irken oculus is perhaps the most striking feature of the species, very much resembling those tiny crawling things they have been inspired by; however, it’s tougher to say exactly how far the similarity of their insides go. The eyes of most arthropods are in fact along the more simple branches of the evolutionary tree. We know that Irkens are not likely to possess compound eyes, like those found in flies and most other insects, because compound eyes are specialized for wide FOV ranges at the sacrifice of visual resolution quality. Instead, I see a much closer match to a fascinating exception or two found in Earth’s arachnids.

While most of them have utterly piss-poor vision, the hunting styles of jumping spiders necessitated a great deal of further specialization of the organs for depth perception, color differentiation, and sharp images. These are the purpose of those two huge shiners at the front (the other 6 boosting their range for detecting blurry peripheral movement and threats), and these are what bring their effective vision on a level much closer to that of familiar binocular mammals than their own six legged prey. Now I really think we are working with the base of what Irken peepers likely developed out of. One of the ways they have really diverged off is in the fact that while jumping spiders can only move their retinas, irkens seem as though they are able to move the lens of the eye themselves- or at the very least, Zim does, else the false pupils in his disguise contacts would not behave quite so convincingly. To speak about the lenses themselves, their eyes are not dry and exposed like most arthropods, speaking to a vulnerable sensitivity. They clearly have blinking eyelids, shed tears, and Zim even complains about the “scratchy” feeling of getting used to that part of his kid disguise.

(Funny sidenote: I’m like 90% sure that Zim did not have those contact lenses designed correctly for himself. Usually, if contacts feel that uncomfortable and keep falling off of the eye as easily as his do, it’s a sign of them being poorly fitted. This could be another symptom of his outdated/lower quality invader tech.)

Not only do Irkens have an assumed base vision resolution that seems more or less on par with human beings, but Invader elites are fitted with ocular implants that grant them a significantly greater advantage in this realm. We don’t know to a certainty how well improved an Irken soldier’s vision is, but Zim was confidently able, within seconds and under pressure, to pick out the area of town he lived in from what was miles away under night hours.

On the topic of night vision, I have a hunch that even without the cybernetics, these guys are adapted to see much better than we in dim to dark environments as well. Most of the early part of their life cycle is lived out in subterranean crèches. On the surface, daytime Irk is cast in a sunset red atmosphere. Oddly, a massive portion of their fashion and architectural aesthetics show a preference for these dark, warmer tones. Ruby is far and away the most common eye color in their kind. All of these facts suggest that warm-spectrum hues and pigments were incredibly common in the homeworld’s history, to point of indicating something about a cultural attraction to them- kind of like how humans put the color blue all over so much corporate branding and elsewhere. Zim’s favorite color has also been revealed to be purple. Most of all, given what I’ve seen of Irk’s, Blorch’s, and Devastis’s surface skies, AND Zim’s reaction to staring directly at the sun for more than a few seconds, I’m assuming that most Irkens are wholly unfamiliar with living in an environment as brightly lit as midday Earth.

I do think Irken eyes “glow” in the dark, but not in the emitting sense. Just more in the reflective one. This they would owe to a well developed tapetum lucidum, as seen in cats and deer and pretty much any animal to give off an eerie eye shine under the right lighting. To point back to arachnids, wolf spiders are speedy nocturnal murder machines with highly developed tapetum lucida, in their secondary eyes, at least. What I love the most about that is it makes it very easy to tell if you’re looking at a mother spider because her babies will give off the same eyeshine if you take a pic of one with the flash on.

Additionally, I won’t forget that sleep is no longer a necessity for our alien subjects. This alone gives them a major edge over any dinural race such as humanity. While Zim has his appearances to keep up during the day, the nighttime on Earth is actually when he is allowed the most free rein to work on his endeavors uninterrupted.

Sound

Ah, so this is the part where I rattle off the common theories we’ve collectively formed about Irken antennae as the replacement for an external ear, eh? Yes, but actually no…. jokes aside, it’s just no. I’ll get to the deal with antennae, but as you might imagine, hearing ability also varies all over the place in the insect world.

It is true that antennae play a large role in the hearing of some critters, such as mosquitoes, whose males use them to pick out the high frequency wing beats of nearby females in a swarm. Crickets, on the other hand, use sensory organs on their legs tuned to much lower sound ranges. There’s no one way to evolutionarily put together a sort-of ear, as well proven by the sheer amount of times it convergently happened in bugs and in how many creative ways.

They literally be designing themselves like me playing around in spore. If we’re not talking about that mosquito or honeybee example, then what we are referring to as an ear and most hearing insects is going to be an external tympanic organ. Most people who have passed high school biology would be able to recognize a visible tympanum in frogs- that circular thing right behind the eyes in most species, and understand it as their version of an ear drum. Many bugs’ tympanums are likewise thin chitinous membranes situated… potentially just about anywhere on the body (again, see above). This is what I think Irkens use as a primary hearing organ, in his case, probably situated on their heads in addition to the feelers. The latter organs I think would also be sensitive to general vibrations and subtler environmental cues, like wind direction and pressure changes, but the bulk of their hearing would be owed to the tympanum.

As far as the quality of their hearing, well, there’s not any sign it differs much from the human experience. Like us, they communicate through verbal language, and the existence of the “Dancing Arcade Game (but for aliens)” confirms at least a similar cultural propensity for music as an entertainment form. Zim is an outlier for the fact that he seems genuinely a little hard of hearing next to his kin, screaming as naturally as he talks and repeatedly mishearing (if hearing at all) people who are speaking directly at him. It’s clear something’s up with his hearing, but there’s no clear answer what and why. At first I was tempted to suggest something about sound passing much differently through the medium of earth’s atmosphere (kind of like how noise on Mars would sound muffled to us), but neither Tak nor Skoodge seemed to pick up the problem when they arrived. It really could be as simple as some kind of birth defect, or even glitches in how his corrupted PAK is processing the inputs it receives. Like many others, I want to imagine that his wig could be interfering too, since it covers the whole top portion of his head; as well, I noticed he has more of those incidents with it on than not.

Smell

Alrighty, NOW we can round back to focusing on the antennae, because this is actually the main thing our insects fine tuned theirs for. And when I say fine tuned- I mean fine tuned. Blood suckers that find their prey through the CO2 of their breath, flies that can pick up on potential food sources from miles away; In the land of the little, scent is everything. Beyond it being their main tool for exploring the environment for what to eat and what to avoid, chemical messages are the backbone of bug-to-bug communication. Pheromones are the divining rod of lonely spiders looking for a mate. They are the bugle of yellow jackets when rallying the nest to attack a threat, and they are the signals that govern about every single action an ant takes from adulthood until death. Obviously, Irkens are much more sight & hearing dependent than these comparisons, but they still have much more bodily specialization dedicated to this sense than we can relate to. For one, they are fastidiously hygienic. Like, “the care-bots from that really creepy episode of the Buzz lightyear cartoon” hygienic. We have yet to see any livable surface of Irk that is not sky to underground terraformed over in all-consuming metal infrastructure. There’s less than no sign of visible life besides the Irkens; ffs, there’s not even soil in sight. Not on Devastis, either. The Organic Sweep sounds like such a nice and pretty euphemism in the face of the actual horror of Blorch’s fate, and all to spare the boots of their military from touching even a speck of “unsavory alien filth”. They live in such a controlled and purified environment that I can’t even imagine the absolute assault on the senses Zim’s every day on our barbaric ball of dirt is. Over and over again he gives off the impression that the constant stink of this place is in fact his chief complaint about living among us. The majority of insults he throws toward humans relate to how they smell or the fact that he finds them “filthy”. We’re flat out nasty to him and I don’t blame him. Even relative to other animals, humans are especially RANK due to the combination of sweat, oils, and bacteria that coat our skin.

And believe it or not, I do think Irkens are in a position to talk shit in this regard. Zim is a really sweaty boi; however, I posed an idea back in that write up about Irken skin before- to summarize- that his kind maintain remarkably sterile cuticles due to the presence of a toxic chemical in their skin. This, I said then, could have been the key to Zim’s lice repelling trait, but I wasn’t so specific at the time about more than that. I got the idea from a group of millipedes that, when disturbed, can secrete hydrogen cyanide as a deterrent to predators. I like to imagine that Irkens can do a similar thing via sweating, not to thermoregulate like us, but as a stress response. It would at least explain why Zim seems like a very nervous sweater. Fun fact if you didn’t know, cyanide’s smell is similar to almonds.

I’m deadass telling you I think Irkens just smell like almond extract. Do with that what you will.

Touch

So, in writing this whole whatever it be, this part was the trickiest to come up with any productive analysis on. I’ve already guessed at what I think Irken skin feels most like (spoiler: hairless caterpillars) in the analysis I referenced up top. Zim being able to pass himself off as a human under the examination of the Skool nurse points to an average body temperature somewhere around our own. What I did find interesting while rewatching the series though was the sheer amount of pain tolerance on these invaders, except in one way. Can I extrapolate this fortitude to Irkens universally? Probably not! Zim is a member of the most elite of the most highly trained members of Irk’s military. I wouldn’t take what a seasoned veteran can handle and assume that’s the human floor in a nutshell, but our invaders CAN tell us quite a bit about their ceiling… starting with the fact that these bastards are ridiculously heat resistant. Irkens are a durable race broadly, but their reactions to extreme temperatures strike me as jaw-droppingly underwhelming, if anything.

Irkens DON’T like being engulfed in flames. It’s still a painful experience to them, but seemingly the kind they can pretty much walk off as soon as it’s over. Through explosions and fire we have seen Zim (and Skoodge) survive in one piece. We’ve seen The Massive take a whole dip into a burning star with no ill effects to the crew within. Most amazing to me was the time in Battle of the Planets when Zim willingly piloted Mars into grazing by the Sun at close range while trying to evade Dib. Totally exposed driver’s seat and he was no worse for wear after this.

Further in the comics we see this touched on in the Zimvoid arc. Zib’s favorite method of torturing the Zims under his training program was to torch them at random for sadistic amusement. Quite interestingly, though, Number 2 implies that their bodies do actually adapt to this treatment over time! Theoretically, Zims further along in the program have become all but invulnerable to fire entirely.

On the other hand, one of the truly most painful things Zim has been shown to experience is to have his skin chemically burned. It’s a strange sort of irony that Earth’s water would prove to be an incapacitating force to them in place of any inferno. He’ll smash his skull into the Voot’s windshield with enough force to pop out an eyeball and it’s whatever. Plenty of other things hurt, but he can power through. You turn a shaken can of soda or a bottle of bbq sauce on him and he’s just left screaming on the ground or screaming and running away. Whatever brutal sort of training he had to go through off world, it didn’t prepare him for this.

Taste

The perceptive side of this I think may not be too hard to figure out. Irken food, as alien as its actual composition could be, has been shown to be heavily analogous to human junk food. I hesitate to call what Irkens are scarfing down “meals” in the proper sense, because I’ve noticed that neither Zim nor his kin intrinsically understand the concept. When he’s trying to blend in as a human being, he puts a LOT of bizarre effort into convincing us that he, just like you inferior creatures, TOTALLY eats “food” on a regular basis like a normal person. When Irkens eat their own products, it’s all and only “snacks”. What follows is the conclusion that their eating habits are not structured into any schedule and that Irkens instead graze throughout the day as they please- and even possibly that eating altogether is more a recreation to them, instead of a necessary function to sustain life. Some fans have speculated that the PAK could provide an Irken with all of the necessary energy to survive absent of nutrition. I kind of want to contest this, given that caloric energy is only one purpose of taking in food… but it’s definitely the most immediate one. Nonetheless, they still eat constantly on screen and it all has to be going somewhere. Whether they need it or not, they still readily digest snacks (and presumably use those chemical building blocks to regenerate tissue damage) with a terrifying metabolic efficiency. Assuming that the resemblance of their snack foods and our leisure treats are not purely coincidental, one gathers that sweetness is the largest dimension of Irken cuisine. They are drawn most enthusiastically to carb-dense synthetic, plant, and possibly fungal matter in the same way that the human brain lights up at the prospect of fat and sugar-loaded meals. The flexible tongues of Irkens to me also resemble the nectar catching, segmented mouthparts of some bees. I would be willing to bet that they can taste salt, but jury’s out if it is something they crave, like us, or are repulsed by, like ants. That would have to come down to the scarcity (or not) of the resource on their home planet and whether or not desiccation was a serious threat in their natural history. In other regards, Zim shows strong negative reactions to most Earth foods, if not physically, than in his expressions. They definitely have powerful vulnerabilities to many human ingredients, and so are very sensitive to the presence of these toxins. I can’t imagine acidic or bitter substances are at all pleasant to them.

Now comes the much more interesting question I’ve thought way too long and hard about in the shower a time or two. Knowing that Irkens are likely a herbivorous breed, ergo, thankfully would have no interest in the consumption of the human race… what about the vise versa??? I don’t just want to know what they taste, but what would they taste like?

So, you’ve decided to mix it up for the thanksgiving dinner and forgo the same boring old bird for an Irken you have vanquished (via what I can only imagine was a freaking miracle of luck). What should you come to expect? Most importantly and I must emphasize this, the secret to preparing their meat is the same as Tolkien dwarves, you have to skin them before anything else. The separation of edible tissues from the cuticle is necessary to avoid ingesting the defensive toxins it contains. Even if the concentration is not enough to provide a danger to you, it could end up contributing an unpleasant, bitter flavor to the final product.

That done, discard the head and digestive organs. True as it may be that Irkens are wholly free of parasites, with a chance that the viscera could be edible, it’s not likely to taste that great and besides, do you really want to take chances with exposing yourself to an entirely foreign gut biome you have no immune adaptations to? And don’t even think about the brain- I don’t care how rare the infection rates are, alien prions are a big no. If you happen to run into any cybernetic implants during the cleaning, however, set them aside! They could be worth a small fortune in the right circles. But, for the purpose of eating we’re really concerned with the muscle tissues, a delicate white meat with a texture similar to fresh crab. The bones need not be wasted, and are fine to leave in, or can be boiled on their own to make a flavorful stock which can be added to soups or a delightful gravy. A surprisingly practical use of Irken bone could also be in the compost bin, being rich in chitosan and other powerful garden fertilizers. The flesh can do well fried, or roasted to a crispy exterior. The oven rule is the same as chicken, low and slow, to prevent drying out. Don’t be afraid to experiment with the gravy idea or marinades. The flavor profile of the meat itself would be utterly unique from what most of us are used to, comparable to a nutty crayfish. Savory, a bit of a sweetness, and a mineral hint that pairs quite well with mushrooms or rice.

I can’t recommend serving this to any guests with shellfish allergies in good conscience. If they insist, do so in caution and with knowledge of the risk of cross reactivity.

And there you have …. certainly a thing I did write and queue up for y’all!

#invader Zim #iz #irkens #iz analysis #iz headcanons #cool bug facts #insects #speculative biology #hear me out #it’s not cannibalism if it’s interspecies #I apologize for writing this while hungry #scarlet talks about things #scarlet really should have eaten breakfast today #also happy thanksgiving????#cw arachnid #long post

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adarkrainbow · 7 months

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Spooky season fairytales (3)

We saw how the myth of the witch was reinvented with "Hansel and Gretel". Our look at "Snow White" led us to vampires. To complete our triad of Halloween monsters, we just need a werewolf - and you know exactly which fairytale will come next in my "Spooky season" series.

It is no surprise that "Little Red Riding Hood" gave plenty of material to horror-movie makers and creators of dark fantasy. It is after all one of the darkest fairytales of France (because yes, fairytale historians have traced back the story's roots to France, before it was passed on by French immigrants eastward to Germanic countries). And when it comes to movies about Little Red Riding Hood, there is ONE movie that must be talked about...

"The Company of Wolves".

Who among fairytale fans hasn't heard of this brilliant, wonderful, poetic movie? It is one of those movies that truly manage to create a dark and haunting fairytale that FEELS fairytale-like. The plot is simple. It is a retelling of Little Red Riding Hood, in a "soft fairytale world" (things seem pretty normal, but there and there you have weird details, such as fur scarfs coming to life or eggs hatching jewels), and with a werewolf as the "big bad wolf". Or rather, the plot SEEMS simple - because this whole movie is framed as the dream of a modern-day girl, allowing for the story to unfold using dream logic and a heavy use of symbolism (perfect for a fairytale adaptation). Because this movie also explores the underlying motifs present in the original tale of sexuality, and the sexual maturation or blossoming of a young girl - this is due to the movie's original inspiration being the dark and feminists short stories of Angela Carter's "The Bloody Chamber". And because in the bigger Little Red Riding Hood tale, the movie intertwines folkloric European legends of werewolves, in all their disturbing glory.

This movie is truly great, and I cannot recommend it enough. It manages to be everything at once: a poetic dream, a magical fairytale, a disturbing horror piece, a sad tragedy... And it allies with greatness the creepy werewolf folklore of Europe with the fae charm of fairytales. Plus this 80s American fantasy movies goodness. And Angela friggin' Lansbury plays the grandmother! What else do you want? Even outside of a simple "Little Red Riding Hood" adaptation, this movie is one of the great "dark fairytale fantasies" of cinema.

This movie also calls for another piece, that is frequently put side by side with it (for... thematic reasons more than shared quality). I am talking of 2011's "Red Riding Hood".

I am placing this movie here not because I want to praise it, but just because... Well it exists, and I must make a mention of it.

This movie is not... not good. It's not bad, not good. It is definitively not the best Red Riding Hood movie, and if you want to see a werewolf Little Red Riding Hood movie, go watch "The Company of Wolves", it is the best and will never be overshadowed. But this piece... It is conventional and expected. It takes all the plot directions expected with a "dark fantasy mature take" on Little Red Riding Hood - nothing surprising or inventive. It is a "village plagued by werewolf" story, mixed with a "wolf hunt" making it a dark fantasy "whoddunit" which is not even trying its best to engage the viewer in the mystery, making everybody a superficial candidate... And it is also a very conventional "girl stuck between two boys" romance-teenage-triangle.

It has everything that is needed to explore Little Red Riding Hood, and everything that was well-done in "The Company of Wolves"... But it is all treated in a very flat and superficial way, making it a sort of "empty" piece. Little Red Riding Hood, the original tale, is meant to be a tale about desire and female sexuality and seduction, and so making the main character a young girl stuck in an impossible romance outside of the "straight path" of marriage is an interesting take... But it goes nowhere. Here and there you have this little sparks of interesting ideas or clever concepts - the pig-and-sheep masquerade at the celebrations, the silver fingernails of the werewolf hunter, the werewolf speaking telepathically to the character of Red Riding Hood (Valerie)... But they're just little crumbs in a big bland soup.

And there's also the problem of this movie taking itself too seriously and not having any self-awareness - making it so, personally, I couldn't take it seriously in the beginning. If you watch it,you'll see what I mean - by taking itself too seriously during specific moments, or playing too straight some passages, the movie makes itself ridiculous. Overall, not a great movie AT ALL, and to watch only if you enjoy your bland, neutral, average "dark romance in the middle of werewolf hunts" piece. But it exists, so it must appear somewhere.

After this stale piece, let's move on to...

Freeway, the 1996 movie

You'll frequently see it pop up in the lists of "dark fairytale movies" and "horror Little Red Riding Hood" adaptations - though to call this a "fairytale movie" is not a good description. As the tagline of the movie says, "Her life's no fairytale".

"Freeway" is an attempt at completely deconstructing the "Little Red Riding Hood" story by removing all form of magic or wonder from it, only leaving a disturbing, bleak, though still excentric and extravagant story. It is a dark comedy constantly oscillating between a violent and crude slapstick comedy, and a realistic horror movie. Featuring stars such as Reese Witherspoon and Kiefer Sutherland (and with music by Danny Elfman, no less!), this little cult movie is still the story of a girl wearing a red piece of clothing going to see her grandmother's house and encountering on the way a predator... Except the little girl in red is here a semi-illiterate teenage delinquant with anger issues in a red leather jacket... She is on the run from child services after her prostitute of a mother and her junkie of a stepfather got arrested... The "huntsman" is a pair of inefficient, though well-meaning, cops... And the wolf is a sociopathic, necrophiliac, serial killer.

This makes it all sound as if the movie was a dreary full horror piece - but it is actually not. The main character is a very excentric, fiery, fierce, though not that bright, girl who constantly fights backs with sass everything and everyone, there is a dark and morbid humor all throughout the movie balancing very sad and uncomfortable moments, many of the characters are disturbingly realistic caricatures or stereotypes pushed to cartoonish levels, and overall it all feels more like a very violent and grand-guignolesque crime piece/road trip.

I want to mention another movie while talking about "Freeway" - the 2000s movie known as "Hard Candy". You will often find this movie on lists of Red Riding Hood adaptations - DO NOT GET FOOLED! "Hard Candy" is not a Little Red Riding Hood adaptation. It is a very bleak, very hard to watch, very creepy horror movie about mental and physical torture, and exploring the various aspects of human perversion, in a confined setting with a limited cast of characters - and yes, it does invoke a "Red Riding Hood" imagery... but just in the opening and advertising, and the movie has nothing to do with the fairytale. You can watch it if you want, but be ready, because it is one of those movies that mess up your stomach and your soul, and it is not for the faint of heart, as it is a VERY very bleak piece.

"Freeway" is also bleak, but in a more campy way (yes, you can have "campy bleak") typical of dark comedies. And "Freeway", unlike "Hard Candy", is an ACTUAL Little Red Riding Hood adaptation. Not only does it base its story and characters on the fairytale, making sure to have the key-moments of the original plot, and the character archetypes explored (the big bad wolf becoming a serial killer predator) or deconstructed (Little Red Riding Hood is still a dumb girl hunted by the wolf, but she fights back and is ready to kick ass and is used to the most vile sides of humanity), but it also fully embraces one part of the Little Red Riding Hood heritage. The cartoon adaptations of the first half of the 20th century - those little short cartoons that heavily explored the fairytale in a caricatural way, especially sexual (like the very famous Tex Avery short). Not only are there direct references to those cartoons in the movie, it also fully embraces the entire ambiance. The "slapstick" and "cartoonish" feels of this movie come right from there. Yes, they removed all the magic and wonders to have a sordid realistic tale, yes this is a borderline true crime story about a serial killer, and an ineffective police system, and what it is like growing up in poverty, drugs and prostitution... But it embraces the feel of the classic Looney Tunes/Tex Avery cartoon world, with extravagant caricatural characters, and an abundance of senseless unexpected violence that doesn't even feel real sometimes. And by making all that, the movie reinstills a form of "magic" in the tale - but this "cartoon" magic which is able to make disturbing moments about a human-looking monster trying to kill you look ridiculous and almost laughable as if it was some sort of clown performance.

Overall this movie is a really bizarre little piece that reflects a very specific type of cartoonishly-comedic-but-still-bleak-and-morbid small movies that tend to frequently pop up in the USA. You know the ones, these pieces that are about disturbed subjects or tragic characters, but are still made in such bizarre and unexpected ways they almost verge on surreal comedy - like Lynch's Wild at Heart (which itself was a "fairytale" take somehow, since it is technically speaking a Wizard of Oz movie) or the Harmony Korine movies.

And to close off this post, a special mention to a classic movie of the Halloween season...

Trick 'r Treat, THE Halloween horror movie by Michael Dougherty (the man who later was behind THE new classic Christmas horror movie, "Krampus")

Trick 'r Treat was Dougherty's attempt at creating an iconic "mascot" for Halloween, in the person of Sam, the little creepy-costumed child/demon enforcing the rules of the old Celtic holiday... This dark, fun, morbid, perfectly Halloween-y movie, developed out of previous animated short-films, is actually an anthology piece collecting a handful of various stories... And the reason this movie appears on this list is because of the segment "Surprise Party", which is heavily referencing "Little Red Riding Hood". An unsecure young woman is invited by her outgoing friends at an Halloween party in the woods, and she picks up a Little Red Riding Hood costume, but as she is making her way throughout the city in a full Halloween parade, she realizes a strange man is following her... There is a twist, so I won't reveal much (beyond the fact it all implies vampires and werewolves stories), but the important thing is how the twist is delivered, and how the segment ends. A scene wich has marked the cinematic lore of the creature it depicts, and which has also influenced a LOT of people on the Internet during the end of the 2000s (for example, boosting up the "Sweet Dreams" cover of Marilyn Manson)

#spooky season fairytales #spooky season #dark fairytales #horror fairytales #fairytale movies #halloween movies #little red riding hood #the company of wolves #freeway #trick 'r treat

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jadeslashes · 11 months

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OOOOOHHHHH HIIIII OKOKOK ever since Singularity was released I've been so in love oh my god monster fuckers unite

Could we maybe have something with yandere Hux? There's a new survivor (gn reader) and something just snaps in Hux and it just has the need to like own the reader. Whatever it has to do to get the reader, it will do it.

Let's say that the Entity wouldn't allow that. So during matches, Hux gets the other 3 survivors out of the way so it can get some time with the reader. And may Entity have mercy on any unfortunate soul who tries to get between Hux and the reader.

Ofc totally fine if you don't want to write this!! Thank you for your time ilysm!!

✩ pairing: the singularity x gn!survivor!reader.

✩ warnings: yan stuff, slight descriptions of gore & violence (the singularity’s mori), nsfw; mdni. specific tw’s under the cut.

✩ note: MONSTER FUCKERS UNITE thank you sm for this request it’s like exactly what i was hoping for when i made the post saying i write for hux now!! also it got a little nsfw at the end i hope it’s okay w you👉👈 i had sm fun writing this, sorry it got a little long.

✩ tw: smutty implications but no detail (do lmk if you want a part two w those details though🫣).

this amalgamation of flesh and metal had a very limited spectrum of emotions, and in terms of the humans it was only more limited; only experiencing disdain and the acute awareness of superiority in the presence of them

seeing you was like finding yet another alien crystal that granted hux a new set of emotions and awareness, something that the half-human-half-machine was not meant to feel

it wasn’t love, a creature like hux could never comprehend such a primitive and all-too-human emotion like that

it was something similar, though; need, an intense need

but that word didn’t quite encompass the feeling either

it confused hux, maybe even scared it

maybe the human components of hux’s body were taking their toll, giving hux the primitive human qualities that it hated

this was something that hux needed to overcome and get to the end of, and the only way to do that was to follow through, let this feeling lead hux so that it could end it

but in a trial with three varmints getting in its way, bringing all four survivors—and most importantly, you—closer and closer to escaping hux’s clutches, it wouldn’t be so easy

in its computer brain, it deduced that the quickest and most efficient way was to get rid of the other three, get you alone

one by one you’d hear the screams of your fellow survivors in the distance, paired with the unforgiving and impersonal voice of hux

“it will be fast, possibly painless”

none of them standing a chance against hux and it’s determination to get them out of its way

and by the end, it’s all too quiet out, and you’d have to be beyond lucky to get the remaining generators working in time to escape unharmed

making your way around the map, desperate to find the hatch—your last hope—you come across the sprawled and unmoving bodies of one, two and three of the other survivors

their faces utterly decimated, hardly human anymore, now just the viscera that made them up before

you were alone, and seeing your dead friends with melted faces brought you to one conclusion; that you were staring death in the face, and the same thing that happened to them would inevitably happen to you

the mechanical sound of hux stepping toward you solidified it

now that you were standing right in front of hux, completely at its mercy, it realized it still didn’t exactly know what it singled you out for, what it’d do when it got to this point

the machine’s hesitation, although short, gave you time to admire its mangled form, beautiful in a way

overcome with that feeling of obsession, hux just kept following the same instinct that brought the two of you here

maybe it was another fault of hux’s human components, a driving force that couldn’t be comprehended by such a superior computer brain

it was biological, a desire coming from the weak, needy flesh that hux had sculpted itself with

in such a primal, depraved state, the machine realized what it had done all of this for; what it needed

hux needed to own and claim you

in hux’s unrelenting grasp, you try to wiggle to free yourself

“squirm, little worm”

˗ˏˋ ꩜ :: THX 4 READING.

#the singularity x reader #dbd x reader #hux a7 13 x reader

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tokyogruel · 4 months

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hellos!! is there any frame in triage where shidou Does have the same patterned scarf-thing(?) his sons and wife wear? actually do you know what those mean? (<- i only now noticed them skldjlsd)

hello anon! hola!

to answer your question,, well,, no. not really. but also- well, kind of?

the pattern youre thinking of is called paisley. it has a lot of symbolic meaning that i will get to in this post, but.. shidou doesnt really wear it. kind of

i went through triage again and want to point a few things out:

shidous family wears paisley in 3 different places

his wife, around her waist. shidou mimics this with his apron

his youngest, around his neck. shidou mimics this with his jacket(? why are you wearing it like that idiot)

his eldest, around his waist. shidou mimics this almost exactly- except his cloth belt is light blue, not grey, and plain- no paisley

there is, however- one very brief scene where it could be debated that shidou's belt has a paisley pattern. it moves very quickly- and is heavily obscured by light

the pattern is incredibly faint- but look closely. you can see the paisley. this is the only scene that shidou is shown wearing paisley even remotely explicitly.

(and, before i get into the symbolism of paisley- i find it's important to note that triage has a floral-pattern overlay over the entire video. it is subtle, and you can see it better on a higher-resolution screen. but it is there, and it distorts the video slightly, yet entirely)

but, well. why is paisley so important anyway?

paisley, or Boteh-Jegheh (بته جقه), is a design that has been used for centuries, it originates from Iran (considered "Persian")

"So what is behind paisley’s incredible longevity? Its symbolic power has probably played a part. The original Persian droplet-like motif – the boteh or buta – is thought to have been a representation of a floral spray combined with a cypress tree, a Zoroastrian symbol of life and eternity. The seed-like shape is also thought to represent fertility, has connections with Hinduism, and also bears an intriguing resemblance to the famous yin-yang symbol. It is still a hugely popular motif in Iran and South and Central Asian countries and is woven using silver and gold threads on to silks and fine wools for weddings and other celebrations." (source)

"in paisley people have seen resemblances to a lotus, a mango, a leech, a yin and yang, a dragon, and a cypress pine. Ancient Babylonians likened it to an uncurling date palm shoot. Providing them with food, wine, wood, paper, hatch, and string—all of life’s necessities—date palms symbolized prosperity and plenty. Paisley began its life as the privilege of cosseted, powerful men." (source)

"The circle of paisley’s irony is now complete. A pattern of exclusive royal privilege in the East becomes the pattern of Western capitalist longing. It trickles down on humbler fabrics to working men, gay men, gang members, and Boy Scouts. It signifies free love and forbidden love, belonging and exclusion—a seemingly impossible range of human experience." (source, same as above)

(source)

"In Ancient Egypt, for instance, paisley designs were often used on wall paintings and pottery vessels as symbols of life and rebirth; while in Persian culture they represented heavenly gardens filled with lush vegetation and flowing watercourses – a metaphor for paradise itself. Similarly, this pattern became an integral part of Hindu iconography; being used to depict gods such as Shiva or Ganesh." (source)

"The iconic design consists of intricate swirls and floral motifs which are believed to represent life’s cycle of birth, death and rebirth. It also represents fertility and abundance – qualities that were greatly valued by our ancestors who lived off the land they farmed. In many parts of Asia it was even thought that the paisley patterns had magical properties that could ward off evil spirits." (source, same as above)

"Additionally, the paisley flower is believed to represent the cycle of life, death, and rebirth in many cultures. The intricate design of the paisley pattern is said to symbolize the twists and turns of life’s journey, with each curve representing a different phase of life. The paisley flower is also associated with the concept of inner peace and tranquility, making it a popular choice for meditation and spiritual practices. Overall, the paisley flower holds deep spiritual significance and is a beautiful symbol of life’s journey and the eternal nature of the soul." (source, i recommend reading this page in full- foliagefriend is a site i use often as a resource, and their articles are in-depth and pleasant to read.)

so... thats about it, then!

there have been a few other elements pointed out in these articles though, so ill leave a few resources below to read up on, if youre interested :>

paisley (wikipedia page)

cypress (foliagefriend) // cypress (spiritualunite) // cypress (silentbalance) // cypress (artofmourning) // cypress (meaningsymbolism) // cypress (groovingtrees)

"On the Complexity of Using the Mango as a Symbol in Diasporic Literature"

"In Myth and Literature, the Mango Remains King"

"Leeches in modern medicine"

"Leeches are still used in medicine—yes, really. Here’s why." (this article discusses transplanted tissue)

leeches (wikipedia page, the link directs you towards the medical section of the age)

dragons (worldbirds) // dragons (athsq) // dragons (givemehistory)

yin and yang (wikipedia page) @mukuberry heres your 0510 b/w parallels again

ankh (wikipedia article)

date (allaboutpalmtrees) // date (desertempirepalms) // date (groovingtrees) // date (bateel)

phoenix (wikipedia page)

shiva (wikipedia page)

ganesh (wikipedia page)

gray (colorpsychology) // gray (colorpsychologymeaning)

blue (colorpsychology) // blue (colorpsychologymeaning)

white (colorpsychology) // white (colorpsychologymeaning)

purple (colorpsychology) // purple (colorpsychologymeaning)

(ps. shidou has consistent themes of fertility, ovaries, motherhood, birth/rebirth... the ovarian imagery is very persistent in Throw Down!)

#YAYYAYYY #PUT THIS MAN ON THE TABLE I WILL DISSECT HIM RAVENOUSLY #creature speaks #ask tag

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lemonhemlock · 1 year

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Do you think Aemond would have made a much better king than both aegon ii and rhaenyra

Thanks for dropping by, Anon! What a loaded question! I suppose the matter of contention here would be "which Aemond?"

Book!Aemond is villainous to the point of caricature and offers little in the way of characterization. The historians of the time do not dive into his personality or motivations. Is he genuinely like that or has he suffered some breakdown of sorts? Does he become too far gone or can his trauma be overcome?

The problem with Aemond is that he reveals nothing in the direction of policy, both in the books and in the show, so it's very difficult to appraise his potential for kingship when we don't know his ideas. This is true even of Aegon. We know Aemond will burn the Riverlands, but what are his starting-point policies for peace times?

Meanwhile, characters like Daemon and Rhaenyra have had more time to make political decisions, just by virtue of being older. We already know Rhaenyra is not an astute political actor, because she proved herself before the war began. We already know Daemon relies on a combination of throwing tantrums, running away, murder and waging war as a means of problem-solving, because he has lived a full life before the start of the war.

This will get long. :))

Show!Aemond fortunately has received much needed humanization and characterization, even so much as to become a fan favourite with little screen time. His appearance on-screen suggests that, as a child, he is well-behaved, dutiful, sensitive and kind. He doesn't cause trouble, doesn't get into fights, is studious and a rule-follower. He has low self-confidence because he is the only boy in his cohort without a dragon and is hurt that he is not accepted. He has no problem confiding in his mother and seeks her out for comfort. He respects and cares for his sister. These are all good qualities to have in a king.

Not low-confidence, but the fact that he doesn't retaliate to his bullies and takes it patiently on the chin says something. He doesn't resort to cruelty as his first reaction. He instead tries to prove himself over and over, which is why he is often scolded for annoying the dragons and putting himself in danger. That can also be interpreted as recklessness, but it's not exactly thrill-seeking behaviour. This is dragons we're talking about and it's basically the only way he can gain one: by claiming one. Taking risks is kind of inevitable in this situation. Aemond is not a hatcher, else a dragon egg would have hatched for him already.

There are also shades of Targaryen exceptionalism in him: he must have a dragon and marrying your sister is normal and even opportune. But he doesn't look down on his mother for not being a Targaryen and he doesn't seem jealous of Rhaenyra or Daemon for having "purer" blood than him (gosh) or even of the Strong boys for claiming to have "pure Valyrian blood" (my god, I sound like a Slytherin). I think Aemond was a pretty respectable, sweet kid that yearned for connection with others (his brother, sister, mother, I think he would have accepted even Jace and Luke had they been nicer to him) and was saddened when he got rejected within his tiny circle. He tries very hard to prove himself worthy, in the hopes that he will one day gain that sense of belonging.

I think little Aemond really wanted some friends and would have responded very well to people treating him kindly, but he isn't a pushover and not necessarily the type to cede to peer pressure. He could haven taken his cues from Aegon and shared in his vices out of a desire for closeness with his brother (perhaps that is why he agreed to go with Aegon to that brothel?), but he didn't. He has his own moral code and isn't comfortable with breaking it willy-nilly.

Based on this, I think that, with the right councilors, Aemond could have been a pretty decent king. Again, he hasn't released his Manifesto yet, so I have to base my assumptions on something. 😅

People look at his fight with Jace/Luke/Baela/Rhaena and claim he is insensitive and disrespectful and violent. I disagree (obviously, lol).

He went out in search of Vhagar unarmed, through the fields of Driftmark, after dark, perhaps because violence wasn't really his modus operandi.

He was brave enough to approach Vhagar and claim her. Riding Visenya's dragon is obviously supposed to be evocative and symbolic, but Vhagar doesn't necessarily bond only with the serial killer gene. She was also Laena's mount, who is not presented as any kind of psycho and seemed to be a generally well-balanced person.

That was probably the best moment of his life, finally gaining the confirmation he craved for. Getting a little cocky and talking shit afterwards is not a crime. Defending yourself after being assaulted 4-1 is not a crime.

After he got maimed, with half his face stitched up, he demonstrated enough emotional intelligence and political awareness in order to diffuse the situation twice in favour of his mother. That's good indication for his political acumen if he ever were to become king.

However, unfortunately, this incident obviously traumatised him and he will not the same afterwards. He is now disfigured, disabled, suffered through a great injustice and was betrayed by his literal blood relatives. I can't imagine what that would do to someone's self-esteem. Even claiming the biggest dragon in the world wasn't enough to gain him acceptance and appreciation.

Now, the next time we see Aemond, he is undoubtedly framed in a villainous way. He has a pirate eyepatch, looks like an anime villain, has obviously been studying the blade and is kind of a dick to his bewildered, nice-guy nephews. But is that so out of the ordinary? He hates Jace and Luke's guts. He has no reason to be nice to these expired coupons.

I'm not gonna lie, Aemond has his own issues. He has thrown himself into his studies and training as a means to cope with his new eyeless existence. He has anger issues and a desire for vengeance. How would that translate into being king? Well, for starters, he is still very kind to his mother and sister. He stands up for his Aegon, even though he's a lecherous street rat. He's still "doing the right thing" and abiding by his own morals like a good little boy. He prays with Mummy at dinner. Aemond is a trauma-survivor (now of sexual trauma, too, thanks to Aegon) who deals with it via perfectionism and repression, but he doesn't strike me as someone who wouldn't listen to reason. He still longs for connection. I have made another super-long post about how Aemond basically insinuates himself into Criston's quest to find Aegon just because he wants to shoot the shit and process his past troubles.

Should he become King at this moment, I think he'd continue to be a good little boy and listen to Mother & Grandsire, but probably take his duties way more seriously than Aegon ever did. As downsides, Aemond has a chip on his shoulder now, probably has more low-confidence because of his mutilation, and is really, really mad at Lucerys for taking his eye.

I don't know what he'd do to Luke and Jace if he became King. When constrained by social norms, i.e. at dinner, with Viserys still alive, he tries his damndest not to react to anything at all, probably an attempt to control himself. He is dead silent and only reacts to look after Aegon and Helaena. He already thinks this situation is humiliating. When Luke laughs at the pig, it's literally the final straw for him. And still! What he says is a mere insinuation, not even mentioning the word "bastards". The people present already know the truth and it's a private event anyway.

He wanted to ruin their night and did it in the most low-effort way possible. He is astute enough to figure out this will get under their skin, mirroring Criston's behaviour when he provoked Harwin into that outburst. But we don't know if this is a true talent for reading people or if he just knew how to read Jace and Luke because with them he made the extra effort.

To those sat at the table, his outburst could have appeared out-of-nowhere, but he has been nursing this grudge for nigh on 6 years, since he's been literally disfigured and disabled because of them. I mean, if THAT doesn't earn you the right to hold a grudge, nothing will. I get why he would feel it so disrespectful to be forced to dine with them when he hasn't even received an apology. I don't blame him here, since I'd probably also try to make these guys' lives as hellish as possible.

When these social constraints disappear (Viserys dies and they are on the verge of going to war), Aemond feels like he can finally have his revenge and sets out to terrorize Luke. So, from his perspective, he let loose one time and ended up doing something catastrophic, that can have terrible consequences for his own family. He is obviously shaken and regrets it immediately. He's never done anything of this magnitude in his life and must feel panicked and in need of guidance ASAP. For a King, that's not very good, because he'd be the person to impose these social constraints in the first place. It doesn't bode well if the King himself lets loose and this happens.

So, I guess we'll have to see where they go with his characterization from here. At the moment, he should be feeling very vulnerable and is possibly in a headspace that allows him to be manipulated. From what I can gather, Aemond is not the type of person to thrive on his own. He needs connection and genuine bonds with people in order to not feel swallowed up by his feelings of inadequacy. If left to his own devices, he'll probably spiral. In a way, he is similar to Aegon, who also craves love and validation more than anything.

Unfortunately, after Blood & Cheese, I think everyone will be consumed by their own anguishes and left incapacitated to give themselves the comfort that would allow themselves to heal. Aemond himself is likely to become riddled by guilt and have some kind of mental breakdown.

The answer to your question is, therefore, dependent on several variables.

When does Aemond become King? Does Aegon succeed in running away to Essos? I have spoken about how/if he could realistically become King in that scenario. If he does manage it somehow, I feel he probably would abide by Alicent's advice. The question is how he would approach Luke and Jace down the line, with his desire for revenge. In that scenario, he would probably not go to Storm's End himself, but maybe send Daeron or some other emissary.

Does he become King because Aegon succumbs to his injuries and dies in the war? Is this before or after the battle with Daemon? Does Helaena still die? Does Brothel Queens happen? Does Maelor still die? He will be forced to set Alys aside and marry a proper noble girl. How would he handle that? What kind of character is Alys? We don't really get a look inside his head from the text, so we'll see how they approach his characterization in the show, but each new tragedy will be an opportunity for depression and agony.

Is Aegon the second son or does he even exist in this version of the story? If he is the first-born, Aemond is going to come with different emotional baggage.

#aemond targaryen #house of the dragon #asoiaf #aemond as king #j/k we all know aemond is a communist king women's rights scholar and environmental activist #he'll be gr8 #you're doing amazing sweetie!!!!#ask #anon

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screechthemighty · 1 year

Text

OKAY. SO. FI-NAL-Y. I got the next chapter of the time travel AU done. This chapter is going to require some additional suspension of disbelief but listen, what else is fanfic for? Exactly, random-ass scenarios that technically wouldn't work in canon but we're gonna ignore that for the sake of the angst and hurt/comfort.

Fair warning, this one covers more sensitive topics than previous chapters. All are about in line with canon stuff, but I don't want anyone to be jumpscared, so please mind the warnings. I can provide more details if you need them. Ao3 link will be in a reblog (and I'll have a list of everything I cited/referenced in this chapter over there), but here's the full chapter below as well!

the unknowable tomorrow | a tristamp fanfic part five: wolfwood

content warnings: canon backstory information for wolfwood and vash (including disordered eating, referenced human experimentation/captivity, child neglect, and suicidal thoughts), with additional depictions of self-harm (referenced and onscreen), hinted at child abuse, and near-vomiting.

This time when he emerged, he was in what looked like a tiny bathroom. It was…not great, but at least he hadn’t landed face-down in the toilet. ““Seriously?” Wolfwood glanced over his shoulder. The tear was gone. He was stuck in the tiny bathroom. “What the hell is your problem?!”

Time to see what new bullshit he’d wandered into this time. Wolfwood pressed his ear to the door and listened. It seemed quiet on the other side, so he decided to take the risk. The door didn’t have a release hatch; instead, there was just a handhold that slid it open and closed. No locking mechanism, either. That doesn’t seem very private, Wolfwood thought as he cracked open the door and peered out.

A figure stood on the other side of the room, back to him, staring at a series of tally marks carved on the wall. The haircut was immediately familiar. So were the patterns that marked his sleeves.

Then the figure turned around and froze in place.

Shit.

It was the kid from the room earlier. It was…

“...h-hello?” said the kid nervously.

The voice confirmed it. It was younger, of course, so much younger, but Wolfwood knew it. That was Vash. That was definitely Vash.

And he was handcuffed and alone in a barren room.

Next thing he knew, the door was open and he was stepping out into the room, fully prepared to rip the handcuffs off of him. Vash’s eyes widened as Wolfwood stepped into the light. He scrambled back until his back hit the wall, full-body cringing.

Damn it, Wolfwood, you’re scaring him again! What’s wrong with you?! “Hey, hey, it’s okay.” Wolfwood stopped, crouched down to Vash’s eye level, and held up both hands. I’m not armed. I’m not here to hurt you. “Easy.”

Vash’s eyes darted towards the door. It had a large window with nothing on the other side but an empty hallway. He must have accepted that no one was going to help him, because he fixed his eyes back on Wolfwood. “Who are you?” he said, his voice shaking. “How…how did…?”

“Trust me, I wish I knew. I’m just as confused as you are.” Despite himself, Wolfwood glanced over his shoulder to glare into the bathroom. “Where are we?”

“...Ship Three. We’re on Ship Three.” Vash straightened up, carefully scanning Wolfwood’s face. “You’re not with the crew?”

Yeah, he couldn’t even try to lie about that one. “I’m not. I’m not from around here at all, actually.” Wait, do I still…? Wolfwood reached carefully into his jacket’s inner pocket. Yes, he still had some lollipops left. Just the two left, but he could work with it. He pushed his sunglasses off his face and up onto his head with one hand and produced one of the lollipops with the other. “Didn’t mean to scare you. I was trying to get somewhere else.” He held out the candy. “Truce?”

Vash tilted his head and examined the lollipop, then Wolfwood’s face again. Wolfwood fought back a shiver. Vash had always had perceptive eyes–too perceptive–and that quality was so much stronger now. Maybe he hadn’t learned how to hide it yet, or maybe the fear was making him more distrustful. “...where were you trying to go?” Vash asked. He stepped forward and reached for the lollipop. The handcuffs glinted in the moonlight.

Handcuffs. Who the hell handcuffed a little kid? “Back to my home,” Wolfwood said. It wasn’t a total lie. He had been considering going back to Hopeland before everything had gone to shit, if only to reassure himself that it was still standing. “Hey, you want me to get those off?”

Vash froze at the offer. “I…I’d get in trouble.” His hands started worrying away at the wrapper. “They already don’t trust me. I don’t want to…”

I don’t want to give them more reasons not to. It made sense, even if it made Wolfwood’s blood boil. “Who’s they? The crew?”

Vash nodded. His eyes stayed fixed on the lollipop as he spoke. “They think I’m a monster,” he said. “I hear them say it sometimes.”

…okay, what the hell is going on here? That didn’t line up with the way Vash spoke about the crew of Ship Three, or the way his eyes went all soft and gentle when he saw Luida and Brad. Maybe they were frozen now, or maybe there was something Wolfwood was missing here. He’s always been too forgiving, Wolfwood thought, a sick feeling starting to settle in his gut. They could do anything to him, and he’d turn the other cheek.

No time to think about that. Nothing you can do about it. Focus on him.

“A monster, huh? Where’s your claws, then? You got a tail?” He hadn’t realized it until then, but he’d slipped back into an old role: one of the big kids at the orphanage, trying to get the newbies to let their guards down. “Fangs?”

Vash hesitated before pulling the corner of his mouth a bit. His canines were…yeah, okay, those were pretty sharp for a kid his age. “That’s it, though,” Vash said as he let go of his mouth.

Wolfwood let out an exaggerated sigh. “Well…in that case, either they’re wrong and you’re not a monster, or you are one and you got ripped off. You should get at least two of those if you’re a real monster. Don’t think you’re dangerous enough for them to chain you up, either way.”

Vash didn’t reply at first. For a long moment, he just stared at the lollipop as if that would help things make sense. “What’s your name?” Vash asked.

Wolfwood had always introduced himself by his full name, ever since he was a kid. This time, though, he reconsidered. It might not be a good idea to throw that name around until he knew what was going on. “Nico,” he said without thinking. The nickname tasted like poison in his mouth, but it was too late to take it back. “You can call me Nico. What about you?”

“Vash.” Wolfwood knew that already, of course, but hearing it from the kid’s mouth still froze him. Damn it, this is real. I don’t know how, but it’s real. “Are you in trouble, too?”

You have no freaking idea, Needle Noggin. “Not with them,” he said, “but it’s probably better if they don’t know I’m here, okay? I promise I’m not here to cause trouble.”

Though I don’t know how much I’m gonna be able to hide. Would they think to check the bathroom? Probably depended on how much they trusted Vash. They didn’t trust him enough to leave him unhandcuffed…

“Sure you don’t want me to get those off? We can put them back on before they come back.” It was a pointless gesture in the long run and he knew it, but he couldn’t stand looking at the damn things. Even giving Vash a break from them would make him feel like he was doing…something.

Vash hesitated and glanced at the door again. Slowly, carefully, he moved out of line of sight of the window and held out his hands. “Okay.” Wolfwood smiled encouragingly before reaching into his pocket. “Hold still.”

Even on a ship full of lost technology, the handcuffs still had a backup keyhole. He’d been in the habit of carrying around makeshift lock picks after a contract went bad a few years ago. It was a lot easier to pick the lock when someone else was wearing them. “That better?” he asked once they were off.

Vash rubbed his wrists and nodded. “Thank you.” He still hadn’t opened the lollipop. “Someone usually comes in the morning with breakfast, so…we can put them back on before then.”

“You got it. They feeding you enough?”

Vash’s eyes darted off to the side. Wolfwood looked that way as well; there was a full tray of food sitting in the windowsill, untouched. “They shouldn’t,” he said. “It’s a waste. I don’t want it.”

Wolfwood suddenly felt nauseous again. He looked at Vash more carefully. He didn’t look…abnormally thin, not that he had too much of a before to weigh it against. He did have dark circles under his eyes, but those could’ve been from stress, lack of sleep. Still… “When did you eat last?” he asked.

Vash glanced at the walls, then shrugged. Wolfwood knew that one. It was the noncommittal shrug of a kid who knew the answer, but didn’t want to give it. He looked at the walls. There were lots of little tally marks just within arm’s reach. Five, ten, fifteen…what the hell. That was too many. Way too many. “Days,” he said carefully, “or meals?”

Another shrug. Not that it mattered; even divided by three, that number was still too high. Wolfwood had been traveling with Vash for weeks. He knew the guy could eat. There was no way his appetite was smaller when he was a kid. Ten year olds could pack away more than some adults.

Or they usually could. He’d seen kids too stressed and grief-stricken to eat…but never for this long. Never without someone intervening. Ship full of adults and not a single one could be bothered to try?

“Do you want it?” Vash said suddenly. “So it won’t get wasted. It might make Luida feel better.”

No way I’m taking your food, Wolfwood thought, then, Okay, so she is awake, and Then why the shit isn’t she making you eat?! The charitable interpretation was that she’d tried and failed. Vash was a stubborn adult and probably ten times worse as a kid. If Wolfwood wanted to get him to eat, then it’d take a lot more than just asking nicely.

“...Well…” Wolfwood got up and examined the tray. It wasn’t anything special, and had probably long gone cold, but it was better than nothing. “...I really appreciate it, but that seems like a bit much for me. We could split it, though. How about that?”

Vash’s face scrunched into a frown. “I know what you’re trying to do,” he said stubbornly, crossing his arms. There it was. There was the Vash he knew. “I don’t want it.”

“Do you, huh?” The more Wolfwood looked around the room, the more tally marks he could see. Vash was holding it together, but he must have been starving, even with his weird plant biology. “Well, if you know what I’m trying to do, then you should know I’m not gonna eat until you do. So…” Wolfwood shrugged. “...guess we’ll both be wasting food.”

Longest he’d gone without eating was six and a half days. He was pretty sure he could outlast Vash. Two can play the hunger strike game.

Vash held eye contact. It really was weird, seeing that familiar glare on such a young face. Eventually, he broke eye contact and stalked over to sit at the window, staring out into the nothingness without touching the food. “Suit yourself,” Wolfwood said.

It felt like giving up, but he knew he had to play the long game. Hopefully not too long. Wolfwood sat down with his back to the wall, just out of sight of the hallway window. “So,” he said. “What do you do for fun around here?”

“...Luida comes to talk to me every day.”

“That’s it? Really?”

“Luida’s nice,” Vash said defensively. “She’s trying to help me.”

“Okay, okay. Just seems kind of boring with nothing else here.” Wolfwood drummed his fingers against his leg. He could already feel the itch for a cigarette, but if they hadn’t let him smoke before, they definitely wouldn’t now. The smell would give him away, too. That didn’t stop him from pulling the lighter out of his pocket and twirling it in his hand, just for something to do. “Hey, you ever hear the one about the tortoise and the hare?”

Vash’s confused frown returned. “Yeah. The tortoise wins. Everyone knows that one.”

“Okay, fair.” That one was low-hanging fruit, but he’d gotten Vash’s attention again. “What about…the one about the Jabberwock?”

“That’s not real.”

“Sure it is.”

“No, it’s not. You made that up.”

Despite himself, Wolfwood smiled. “Beware the Jabberwock, my son, the jaws that bite, the claws that catch…it’s ancient. Old Earth poem. You’ve really never heard it?”

He definitely had Vash’s attention. The kid’s sulking was almost entirely forgotten as he scooted closer. “No. Never.”

“Well, lucky you. I’ve got the whole thing memorized.” It was one of many odd bits and stories he could tell from memory. The monster-based ones were always a hit. “Still don’t know what any of it means, but maybe you can help me figure it out.”

He expected more questions as he started–the kids usually wanted to know what brillig was first thing–but Vash was an attentive listener. If anything, he seemed starved for the input, for something that wasn’t his own thoughts and whatever he and Luida talked about.

Beware the Jabberwock, my son, the jaws that bite, the claws that catch. Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun the frumious Bandersnatch.

Wolfwood knew what that felt like–being alone in one place for so long that you started hearing things. At least Vash seemed to be in one piece physically. Wolfwood had developed a compulsive skin-picking habit he’d never been able to shake. A normal side effect, Conrad had said. The freak had never stopped to consider that maybe it was the isolation and not the chemicals. Or maybe he had, and just preferred to pretend otherwise.

He took his vorpal sword in hand; long time the manxome foe he sought…

Maybe that was why seeing Vash like that had set him off.

Wolfwood trailed off and looked around the space again. It suddenly felt a lot smaller. Almost familiar.

“...Nico?”

Vash looked worried. Wolfwood shook the thoughts away and kept going: “So rested he by the Tumtum tree and stood awhile in thought.”

At least Vash was polite enough not to ask more questions, or maybe he just thought Wolfwood was remembering how the poem went. He drew his knees up to his chest, hugging them close to his chest as Wolfwood recited the poem.

“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock? Come to my arms, my beamish boy! O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!” he chortled in his joy.

Shame you couldn’t just handle all your problems with a good sword.

“Well, what do you think?”

Vash rested his chin on his knees. “...I don’t think this planet has trees,” he said finally. “It’s too bad. They’re nice.”

It definitely didn’t. Wolfwood had only ever seen them in pictures. The thought that Vash had just reminded him of how old the guy was. How much he’d seen.

Including what the inside of a cell looked like.

Wolfwood thought about the scars marking Vash’s torso. He thought about the scars that he should’ve had, the ones that people couldn’t see. If experience could leave a scar…

Shit, we’d both be hideous, wouldn’t we?

“Sun’s coming up.” Vash suddenly jumped down from the windowsill and held out his hands. “They usually come pretty early.”

Seeing Vash in those things had been bad enough. Having to be the one to put them back on was enough to make Wolfwood feel sick. He wanted to refuse, but he knew Vash miraculously having his cuffs off could just get him in worse trouble. It could get Wolfwood caught and taken away from the kid. And…

The situation might’ve been a lot of confusing bullshit, but deep down, he knew he couldn’t just leave Vash. Not now. Not like this.

Is this what you were trying to show me, whatever you are? To make me feel like shit?

To let me redeem myself?

Wolfwood pocketed his lighter and picked back up the handcuffs. “We’ll take them back off later, okay?” he said, as much to reassure himself as to reassure Vash. “And we’ll talk about splitting breakfast.”

“You’re not leaving?”

“Nah. I’m not in any hurry.” He tried not to wince at the sound of the cuffs snapping back into place. “Do they check the bathroom much?”

“Not really. Not unless I’ve been in there too long.”

“Well…guess it’s as good a place as any. You don’t have to lie, just…don’t blow my cover, okay?”

“Okay.” Vash held out his uneaten lollipop. “Promise.”

Wolfwood hesitated before taking it. Try again tomorrow, he told himself. Since apparently we’re going to be getting a tomorrow.

He wasn’t sure how much good he could do here, and he was damn sure that he shouldn’t be the person trying to do it. But he was here now. And after everything, he wasn’t sure he had a right to say no, either.

All things considered, it’s the least you could do.

The tiny bathroom had an even tinier shower, which was where he spent most of the daytime hours. It was also where Wolfwood learned that he was more claustrophobic than he’d realized. The first hour or two felt like torture. He lit and put out his lighter more times than he could count, torn between the desperate desire for light and the cold, logical understanding that he’d run through all the lighter fluid if he wasn’t careful. He had no idea when he was getting out of here. He had to be smart about this. He knew that.

Didn’t stop it from being so damned hard.

The door, at least, was thin, which gave him some glimpses into what Vash’s day to day was like. He learned a few things that day. First, they were feeding him three times a day, or at least trying to. Far as Wolfwood could tell, Vash wasn’t eating any of it. He only poked his head out to try and encourage Vash to split the food; Vash just left the trays near the bathroom door and went back to his place in the windowsill.

Second, the tally marks were by meal. Still too damn many of them.

Third, Vash wasn’t lying about Luida. She was the one who delivered lunch and stayed with Vash for at least an hour after. She poked her head in a few times throughout the day, too. She tried to make small talk; Vash mostly gave one-word answers. She did a health check, tried to encourage him to eat, even tried the “we can split it” tactic. All of this raised her up in Wolfwood’s esteem by a few notches, but not much.

Not that you have any right to judge her.

Vash was more or less left alone, aside from Luida’s visits, but that didn’t mean he could talk to Wolfwood without attracting attention. That left him with a lot of time to think about what was going on. His memories of July were finally starting to solidify, giving him a stronger picture of what had gone wrong. Knives had been doing something to Vash and those other Plants. Whatever it was had torn open those holes. Meryl Stryfe was gone, too…had she run into Vash yet? Was she even alive?

He had a bruise on his shin from where she’d kicked him. He pushed on it a few times as he sat in that shower, just to remind himself he still had a body. I deserved that, he thought. Piece of shit Nicholas.

He really hoped she was okay. She was prickly and way too much like Vash in all the ways that could get her killed, but she didn’t deserve…whatever it was that was happening here.

Eventually, Vash opened the bathroom door. The room outside was lit by a setting sun. “Hallway’s empty,” he whispered. “They won’t be back until tomorrow.”

Oh, thank God. Wolfwood unfolded himself from the shower, wincing in pain as his joints protested the sudden movement. “Are you okay?” Vash asked.

“Yeah, yeah, just sore.” He thought he was used to back pain after hauling his weapon around for so long, but apparently not. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” Vash held up a tray. “There’s bread.”

…oh, you little punk. He knew what he was doing, too; Wolfwood could see that glint in his eyes. “You should have that,” he said.

“I don’t want it.”

“I don’t want it either, then.”

Vash pouted and marched back to the hallway door. The tray was deposited next to the door, and Vash went back to his window seat. Wolfwood got out of sight of the hallway and tried to stretch out his body. “Anything interesting out there?” he asked.

“...sand. Flying things. I think they talk to each other.”

“Yeah? How do you figure?”

“Sometimes I can hear this…” Vash stopped, thought about it, and made a high-pitched eee noise. “...when they’re close to the ship. They’re the only things that make it.”

“Huh. Makes sense.”

“Bees dance to communicate. Did you know that?”

“No,” Wolfwood said. It took him a second to remember what a bee even was. Lot of Old Earth animals didn’t seem real to him. He and pretty much everyone he knew had only ever seen them in pictures. “They dance, with all those little legs?”

Vash nodded and started tracing patterns in the window. “They move around in circles like this. How many circles they go in tells the other bees how far away food is. And they wiggle.” He curled up tightly again, his cheek resting against the glass. “Where did you hear that story?”

“The Jabberwock? Read it in a book when I was a kid. There were two of them about the same girl. She falls down a tunnel and ends up somewhere else.” I know the feeling, Alice. At least no one had tried to cut his head off yet…though baby Knives had come pretty close with that toy, now that he thought about it. “Do you want to…get those cuffs off and hear that one?”

“...okay.”

The bad news was, Wolfwood didn’t remember this one as clearly. It didn’t help that the kids liked to make up their own versions of the story, other things that Alice could’ve run into, and those stories blended into the actual book so thoroughly that he couldn’t tell which was which. On the plus side, Vash wouldn’t know any different, so Wolfwood just told the story as he remembered it.

Again, Vash listened attentively. He had a few more questions this time, mostly about the logic of it all. He seemed to accept the initial answer–she’s in a dream world. Do your dreams ever make sense?--but that didn’t stop the commentary entirely.

“That caterpillar could’ve helped more.”

“Yeah, he probably figured it wasn’t his problem.” The confused, unnerved look on Vash’s face made him immediately ashamed of how casual he was about that. “She’s…going to be okay. Just to let you know.”

“Oh. Good.”

Wolfwood tried to gloss over the worst parts after that. Skipped the pig baby. Swapped out the beheading for capture. If he made the Red Queen into a Blue Queen and had her defeat be a bit more embarrassing, well, that was just catharsis on his part.

“...and that was when she woke up,” he finished. His throat felt a little raspy and he could see the start of sunlight peeking through the window. He hadn’t realized he’d been talking for that long. “Back under the tree with her sister. ‘I’ve had such a curious dream.’” He wasn’t sure why he remembered that line so vividly. Wishful thinking, maybe. He’d give anything for the past ten years to have been a dream. “She goes back later, but…that’s a different story.”

Vash had moved off the windowsill at some point, sitting cross-legged on the floor, just out of arm’s reach. Sometimes the light of the rising sun caught his eyes at the right angle, making the markings on his eyes just barely visible. No wonder he kept those sunglasses on all the time as an adult. “Can you tell me that one tomorrow?” he asked hesitantly.

Are you leaving now was the unspoken question. Wolfwood didn’t have to think about it too long. The decision had already made for him, in a way, and even if it wasn’t…

He wasn’t sure he could. Not when Vash looked so small and alone in there.

“Yeah,” Wolfwood said. “Yeah, I’ll tell you that one tomorrow.”

The next day was easier than the first, mostly because he spent it asleep. Wolfwood woke up with a jolt a few times when Vash’s meals were dropped off, but spent the rest of the time either dead asleep or mostly-asleep. It was a little too familiar, but it was livable.

The dinner tray was still sitting on the windowsill when Vash gave him the go-ahead to come out. The two of them stared each other down. Vash broke first, walking over to the wall where Wolfwood usually sat and sitting with his back to it. “What happened when she went back?” he asked, holding out his hands.

Punk. Wolfwood ignored the empty feeling in his gut as he sat down next to Vash and started on the handcuffs. “Well, this time,” he said, “it was through a mirror. Not a tunnel. Just decided to climb through one day, so there really must’ve been nothing going on at home.”

His recollection of this one was worse than last night, and Wolfwood had a feeling he’d accidentally told some parts in the wrong story. He pushed on, again figuring that Vash wouldn’t know the difference. Vash was quieter that night than he had been the night before, listening with a tilted head as he traced patterns in the floor. He looked so much smaller, too.

I’ve got to figure out how to get him to eat. This can’t be good for him. I just wish I knew why…

“White can’t move twice,” Vash said suddenly.

“Huh?”

“It’s chess, right? But white can’t move twice. Red has to get a turn.”

“...it’s chess? Hold on.” Wolfwood fumbled through his pockets. Two lollipops, handful of bullets, lockpicks, pocket knife…shit, he forgot he had that. He used the tip of the blade to scratch a rough chess board into the wall. “Show me.”

Vash turned to face the wall and started pointing to the squares on the board. “So, you said it looked like a big board, right? So she’s been…here, here, and here…and other people are moving like this. But white moved twice, when the red should’ve gotten a turn.” Vash examined the board and the pieces that only he could see and nodded. “I think she’s a pawn. She can probably win, though.”

“Shit. I never caught that.” Smart little kid. Who knew he had that in there? “I always sucked at chess.”

“I used to play with…” Vash’s demeanor shifted suddenly, going from intense and thoughtful to withdrawn. “...with my brother.”

That tracked. Wolfwood had never met Knives personally, but he seemed like the type to play chess. He was probably annoying about it, too. “Did you win?”

“No, we had to stop playing. We got into stalemates all the time. It wasn’t fun anymore.” Vash grimaced. “I…threw a bishop at him the last time. So we couldn’t use the board anymore anyway. We weren’t allowed.”

A laugh flew out of Wolfwood’s mouth before he could stop it. Vash flinched, staring at him with a startled look. “I’m sorry…I’m sorry, I just…” Maybe the lack of food was getting to him, but the mental image of Vash throwing a chess piece at Knives’ head with the same pinpoint accuracy that he fired a gun was the funniest thing in the world. “...that’s a new one for me. You can show me where the pieces are going for the rest of it, okay?”

Vash’s fingers followed the story, but his heart didn’t seem to be in it. Alice won the match and went home. Vash only seemed to make himself smaller the longer things went on, his knees pulled up to his chest, his arms hugging his legs tightly to himself.

He looked so fragile. Vash had never looked fragile to him before, even with his shirt stripped off and every scar on display. It had been painful to see, vulnerable in a way that made Wolfwood feel like he’d done something wrong by being there, but not fragile. Not like this.

A decade ago, Wolfwood would’ve scooted closer, bumped his shoulder against Vash’s, and asked him if he wanted to hear another story. If they’d been the same size–if Wolfwood hadn’t twisted and grown into something so monstrous–maybe he could’ve fixed this. Now, all he could do was stare.

His hand reached for his cigarettes. He jerked it back and shoved it in his pocket. “You okay?” he asked clumsily.

Vash hummed. That wasn’t an answer, but pointing that out felt cruel. “Are you going now?” he whispered.

“Do you want me to?”

“...no.”

How sick is that? The only man who’s trying is the man who’s going to get you killed one day.

Wolfwood’s hands strayed to his shin. He started kneading away at it, sending sharp pain up his leg. It was less than he deserved. And he certainly didn’t deserve the quiet, pleading look in Vash’s eyes.

“Then I’m in no hurry,” he said. “Haven’t made queen yet, right? So I guess I’m sticking around a bit longer.”

Vash smiled slightly. Wolfwood pushed on the bruise harder, and forced himself to smile back.

“Are you kidding? Again?”

The tone made Wolfwood freeze in place before he registered the actual words. He made a mental inventory of everything in his pockets, second-guessed if he’d put the cuffs back on Vash, wondered if the door was open. Then the voice kept talking: “I don’t know why she even bothers. You just keep wasting it.”

“I told her, I don’t want it,” Vash said. His voice was quiet, defensive. “I’m not hungry.”

“That right? Then I guess you won’t need this.” The door swished open. “Ungrateful little…”

The door cut off whatever the rest of that sentence was. That was probably for the best; it wasn’t until the danger had passed that Wolfwood realized he was clutching one of his vials in one hand. One swig, and he probably would’ve been strong enough to rip the person’s head off.

Maybe I should’ve. Okay, no, that would just upset Vash. But he might be able to get them out. Grab Vash, run, get him away from this place. And go where? If Vash is this young, there’s probably nothing out there. Humanity hadn’t clawed their way to survival yet. It’d be nothing but sand and ship ruins.

It can’t be any worse than in here, can it?

Wolfwood forced himself to wait as long as possible before crawling out of the shower and opening the door enough to see out of. Vash was back in his windowsill. There was no food anywhere in the room. Bastard just took it all? Seriously?! “Psst,” Wolfwood hissed. “You okay?”

Vash either didn’t hear or chose not to turn around. Either way, Wolfwood had to slink back into the shower before someone saw him. The only upside to the situation was that his rage overrode his claustrophobia.

He’s a kid. He’s just a kid. I don’t care if he’s not human, he’s a kid. How can you treat him that way?

Wolfwood’s mind stayed stuck on that thought, worrying away at it, coming up with half-baked schemes to grab Vash and run. He hadn’t realized how long it had been until Luida showed up. “Hey, where’s your breakfast?” she asked.

Vash didn’t answer.

“...someone left it for you, right?”

Still quiet.

Put two and two together. They’d let him starve if they had the option. The silence felt so heavy that Wolfwood wanted to scream. Get. Him. Out. What are you doing?! Why aren’t you helping him?

Guilt chased his anger, as it always did. He wasn’t any better than her. Hell, he was worse, just in a different way. Did Vash had a single person in his life who hadn’t screwed him over? Meryl, maybe. Damn it, it should’ve been her here. He would’ve paid good money to see her break some femurs around this stupid ship. Wolfwood found himself worrying away at the edges of his own Meryl Stryfe souvenir as he listened.

“I was hoping to do another vitals check today. Is that all right?”

“...yeah, okay.”

Vitals check. At least she asked. Wolfwood never knew when his were coming; they’d just show up and sedate him. You bite a guy for laying hands on you one time and suddenly the sleep gas comes out whenever they want to get your blood pressure.

(Yeah, it is elevated, Doc, wonder why that could be?)

Luida asked permission before she did anything. It was a blessing and a curse. A blessing because at least he could be sure Vash knew what was happening, and that he was as okay with it as a too-eager-to-please kid could really be about being manhandled like that. A curse because every requested step just reminded him of the old days.

Just a quick little pinprick, okay? I want to check your blood sugar…

That had been a lie. The needle had been massive. He still didn’t even know what it was for. Wolfwood was so busy trying to claw himself out of the memory that he almost missed how heavy the silence outside had become.

“... Vash, I know you’re probably under a lot of stress right now…”

“I’m not hungry.”

“I know, but I really don’t like these numbers.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Just a few bites. Please.”

“I said no!”

Well, that got Wolfwood’s attention. So did Vash suddenly barging into the bathroom and slamming the door, holding it shut with both hands. Shit, shit, so much for not blowing my cover! Wolfwood barely scrambled to hide behind the shower door. “Kid,” he hissed.

Fortunately, Luida’s footsteps stopped outside the door. She hesitated. She did not try to force the door open. “I’m going to leave lunch by the door, okay? Please, just…try. Even a little. I don’t want to have to put in an IV, but if you can’t start eating, we might have to. Okay?”

Vash didn’t answer. Wolfwood could just make out Vash’s trembling shoulders as his eyes re-adjusted to the dark. “I’ll be back later with your dinner,” Luida added.

The door to the room opened, closed. Vash crumbled to the ground, leaning against the door. He was trying not to cry audibly, but Wolfwood knew. He was good at spotting a quiet cry by now.

“...are you okay?” Wolfwood whispered. “Did she…did she hurt you?” If he could just see better, he could check for…what, bruises? Needle or scalpel marks? This wasn’t the Eye of Michael. Luida wasn’t Conrad. Physically, Vash was probably fine. It was his mind that was eating him up.

Vash didn’t say anything for a while. When he finally stood, it was to open the door and slip out. “Sorry,” he whispered back before closing the door.

It opened again a second later. The lunch tray was slid into the bathroom, untouched. Wolfwood stared it down. For a second, the barely-tame orphan in him wanted to scarf it all down. Four days of nothing but sink water was starting to get to him.

But this wasn’t a fight he planned on losing. Wolfwood shoved it back out before settling in his shower and waiting.

Vash must not have eaten anything, because Luida sounded disappointed when she came back later. She was there for longer than usual, chatting with Vash about nothing in particular. The conversation seemed to grow more desperate the longer it went on. She probably would’ve stayed there all night if someone hadn’t called her away to deal with something. Even once she was gone, Wolfwood waited as long as he could bear it before poking his head out. “Are we clear?” he asked.

“...yeah. I think so.”

“Good.” Wolfwood stepped out. Vash was back in his windowsill. Dinner was still untouched. “Okay. What’s the deal?”

Vash curled up more tightly. “I told you, I’m not…”

“Bullshit. What are you, ten? You’ve probably grown three inches since I got here. Of course you’re hungry.” Wolfwood sat down on the window seat, as close to Vash as he could. There was a photo propped up against the glass: Vash, the kid that would become Millions Knives, and a dark-haired woman Wolfwood didn’t recognize. It looked like the family portraits he’d seen clutched in the hands of some new kids. “So, what’s going on? Hunger strike? Are you trying to make them let you go?”

“I just don’t want it. Other people on the ship deserve it more.”

“Deserve…what do you mean deserve?”

“I shouldn’t be here.”

…oh, shit. I’m not equipped to deal with this. “Here on the ship, or…?”

Vash went quiet again.

Why him? Why did it have to be him here? Nicholas D. Wolfwood, resident screwup, couldn’t even protect his own…no, don’t. Don’t. They’re going to put needles in him if you don’t fix this. Do you want that?

Absolutely not. He had to think of something. Unfortunately, frustration, hunger, and lingering dread made thinking hard. “What did you do?” he asked suddenly. “Huh? What did you do that’s so damn bad?”

Vash flinched like Wolfwood had threatened to hit him. So he was blaming himself. This was punishment. He'd barely eaten for two days after what happened with Monev (Rollo, he mentally corrected, the poor kid’s name was Rollo). And Meryl had seemed excited that Vash was eating after they'd first met…as if he hadn’t been before.

How many times are you going to do this to yourself? How long has this been going on?

"It’s like they said,” Vash said, so softly Wolfwood almost missed it. “I’m a monster. And I don’t deserve this.”

“...that’s not true.”

“How do you know? You don’t know what…you don’t…” Tears started forming in Vash’s eyes. “I am.”

“No, you’re not. Kid, look at me." Wolfwood waited until Vash made eye contact, fleeting and hesitant though it was. "I’ve met monsters. If you really were one, you wouldn’t be in here starving yourself. You’d be out there…gloating and making shit worse for everyone. Whatever you’re hurting yourself over, it can’t be that bad.”

Wolfwood didn’t know how anyone could think otherwise. Sure, he had the benefit of having known Vash as an adult–stupid, self-sacrificing Vash who wouldn’t hurt a fly–but even without that, it was obvious what he was now: just a scared and grieving kid, blaming himself for something that probably wasn’t even his fault.

He was starting to wonder if Vash had ever grown out of that.

“I can see it in your eyes,” Wolfwood said finally. Those words had cut him to the bone once; maybe they would work on the guy who’d say them one day. “You’re no monster. And that means you deserve this.” He nudged the tray closer. “To be here. To eat. And I think…” He pointed to the photo. “...she’d agree with me. Don’t you?”

It was a gamble, and one he didn’t think had paid off at first. Vash hugged himself more tightly, shrinking back into himself. Wolfwood could see tears starting to form in his eyes before he hid his face. “...if I have some,” Vash said finally, “do you still want the rest?”

“Yeah, of course. Whatever you don’t eat. Doesn’t even have to be half.” As long as it was something.

After what felt like an eternity, Vash lifted his head and held out his hands for Wolfwood to take the cuffs off. Wolfwood didn’t feel like he could breathe, though, until Vash picked up the spoon and took the first bite.

Then another.

And another.

Wolfwood half-expected Vash to stubbornly stop after a handful of bites. He was already giving himself a pep talk about small steps and how any progress was good, they could wear him down later. But Vash kept eating. He did draw lines with his spoon as he went after the first few bites of each item, leaving roughly half untouched, but he devoured the rest. It wasn’t until his first bite of the last item that he finally stopped, a gag shaking his body. “Hey, hey, easy, breathe…” Wolfwood carefully rubbed Vash’s back. “It’s okay. It’s okay. I think you’re done.”

Vash nodded and swallowed, hard. He seemed baffled by how much he’d eaten. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“Stop apologizing so much. You did great. Have some water. You’ll feel better.” Hopefully he wouldn’t just puke it all back up. “Slowly, okay?”

“Okay.” Vash stood up and held out the spoon. “There’s only one.”

Wolfwood shrugged and took it. “Eh. You’re probably not contagious.” He’d eaten food off the floor before. Sharing a spoon with a Plant was tame in comparison. “Thanks.”

The food was cold, but still surprisingly good. Wolfwood forced himself to eat slowly, both to avoid gagging and to avoid an accidental guilt-trip for Vash. “Think you’ll be able to handle breakfast tomorrow?” he asked.

Vash considered it. “I’ll try,” he said.

“You promise?”

“I promise.”

“Good. Want another story?”

Vash’s face lit up. “Please?”

They sat out of sight of the window again while Wolfwood recounted every single made-up bit of folklore around the orphanage he could remember, right down to the sock-stealing ghost. Vash dozed off for most of it, his head resting against Wolfwood’s arm.

Wolfwood kept talking anyway. It was that or silence. Even with the victory of a fully consumed tray of food under his belt, he didn’t think he was ready for the quiet.

He was woken up the next morning by a tray of food being shoved into the bathroom. Everything was half-eaten. Wolfwood wasn’t a praying man, but he was pretty close to starting at that sight.

Luida was thrilled when she came back for lunch to an empty tray. If Vash felt guilty about letting her think that was all him, he didn’t let it show. He sounded a lot more chipper that day, actually holding a full conversation with Luida as he ate. He made up some excuse about wanting to eat the rest later to dodge why he hadn’t finished the food. It was the first active lie he’d told, and Wolfwood appreciated it. It was a lot harder to ignore his hunger now that he had an available food supply, and it was all much better when it was hot.

At least they’re eating well, he thought when his half was finally slipped into the bathroom. Humanity might be on the brink, but some people have food.

He tucked away the half a bread roll anyway, just in case. Old habits.

Dinner came later. This time, Vash waited to eat until it was safe for Wolfwood to come out. They alternated eating, Vash eating one half of a dish, then Wolfwood, back and forth. “How do you know so many stories, anyway?” Vash asked.

How exactly was he going to explain the concept of an orphanage? Did they even have kids on these things? Wolfwood didn’t think so; Vash would’ve had more of an audience if they did. If there was one thing kids couldn’t pass up, it was a mystery thing in a room they weren’t allowed to go into. Even after this long, he’d be getting the odd straggler wanting to catch a glimpse. “Big family,” he said instead, going for an easier half-truth. “We didn’t have much, so us kids had to figure out how to keep ourselves entertained. Lots of…throwing shit at each other and making up stories.” One hand strayed up to his hairline. He used to have a scar there, where one kid had beamed him right in the head with a good-sized chunk of stone. It had never been an especially big scar, but the regeneration the Eye had forced on him had worn it down to nothing. Just like the scrapes on his knees, the chunk of his left elbow that he’d taken out after falling off the roof, the slight pale mark on his right cheekbone…even that one he regretted losing. The only marks he had left on him were the calluses on his fingers from his weapon. He never had the chance to put the thing down, so the chemicals couldn’t keep up. He’d worn through a few jackets that way, too, until they started reinforcing the shoulder.

Wolfwood’s free hand had strayed back to the bruise again. He didn’t even notice until he hit an especially tender portion, hard enough to make himself flinch. “None of it’s real,” he said quickly, trying to cover up the gesture before Vash could ask questions. “We made a lot of it up, but some are just old. Someone heard them from someone who heard them from someone else…do you know the one about the monkey paw?” Vash shook his head. “I can tell you, but it’s a little scary. No happy ending, either.”

Vash sat up straighter, trying to make himself look bigger. “I can handle it,” he said confidently.

Wolfwood couldn’t help smiling as he passed Vash back the spoon. “Okay, then, tough guy. Just let me know if you change your mind.”

This one he remembered clearly–the artifact under an ancient curse, the harsh consequences that came with every wish. Maybe those consequences were why he remembered so vividly. Cursed animal hands weren’t real, obviously, but life was like that in his experience. Everything had a cost. If you were Nicholas D. Wolfwood, a nobody orphan just trying to survive, usually that cost was high. You’re strong now…what did you give up?

Your family is safe. What’s the cost in blood?

It never seemed to be the other way around–something good from something bad. Him running away and finding the orphanage was the closest thing he could think of. He couldn’t even count this whole setup as a reverse monkey’s paw. Sure, Vash was eating, but that seemed like a small drop in the bucket compared to all the shit he had to deal with. Wolfwood shook the thought away and kept telling the story. He tried not to shrink away as Vash scooted closer, probably looking for safety in numbers as the undead son in the story pounded on the door.

He needs that. It’s messed up that it’s coming from you, but he needs it. Suck it up, Wolfwood.

“...so he made his final wish: to send his son away. The knocking stopped just as she opened the door. His son was gone. The last finger curled.” He felt pressure on his arm as Vash leaned against him again. “You okay?”

Vash stared up at him with wide eyes. “...that was it?” he said. “Nothing happened, he was just…gone?”

“Yeah.”

“...because it’s the same thing, right? The wish is that his son would go away, but…now he’ll never know for sure if something was wrong with him. He’ll never…” Vash leaned against Wolfwood more, mussing up his hair as he did. “...you said this was scary, not sad.”

“It’s both, I guess.” Damn it, should’ve picked a different one. “Sorry.”

Vash shook his head. “I said I’d be okay.”

“Still. Sorry.”

“...Do you know any actually scary ones?”

I just broke your heart and you want me to scare you? Kid logic. Never made any damn sense. “...toe soup,” Wolfwood said after some consideration. “The one about toe soup.”

“What?!” Vash clamped a hand over his mouth and glanced at the door guiltily. When he was sure no one was coming at the sound of the scream, he repeated, “Toe what?”

“Soup. Soup made of toes. Think you can handle that?”

“Yeah.” Vash’s tone said he wasn’t really sure, but that he had to know now. “Tell me.”

He took the toe soup story better than he did the monkey’s paw. Wolfwood couldn’t blame him for that.

Everything started going to hell after breakfast. Vash hadn’t eaten as much as he had the night before. That was Wolfwood’s first warning sign.

The second came when the lights flickered.

Wolfwood froze mid-bite. He wasn’t exactly an expert on spaceships, but his gut said that wasn’t supposed to happen. Wolfwood risked cracking open the door. Vash stood in the middle of the room, staring out the door’s window and down the hallway. People ran past, forcing Wolfwood to duck back inside before he could ask what was wrong. Assuming Vash even knew.

The ship doesn’t crash, he reminded himself. He poked at his share of the food, suddenly too tense to be hungry. The ship doesn’t crash, you were just on it, the ship doesn’t crash and nobody dies. That didn’t make the power flicker less weird, or Vash’s behavior for the rest of the day less concerning. He was cagey and withdrawn when Luida came later. It probably didn’t help that her reassurances that everything was fine, just a little glitch with the lights, sounded so fake that even a trusting kid like Vash wouldn’t buy it.

What’s got you spooked, lady?

The power flickered twice more before it was safe for Wolfwood to leave the bathroom. It felt like the lights turned off earlier, too, but he couldn’t be sure. Vash kept glancing at the door as they ate. “They didn’t tell you what’s going on?” Wolfwood asked.

Vash shook his head. “No. Everyone seems…scared. I think.” He rubbed his forehead. “Do you hear whining?”

“...no?”

“I keep hearing whining.” Vash pushed both hands over his eyes. “Like someone’s crying, but…not.”

Wolfwood wasn’t stupid, and the facts were very easy to put together. Electricity Plant. Has to be. Maybe it’s hurt, or agitated, or…something. He didn’t know the first damn thing about Plants, just that Vash was one and he could talk to them. So, if the lights were flickering and Vash heard something no one else could…

Great. Exactly what we don’t need right now.

“You didn’t tell Luida?”

“I didn’t think she’d believe me.” Vash lowered his hands and stared down at the food tray. “I’m not hungry. I mean it. I feel kinda sick.”

Wolfwood believed him. Poor kid looked like a bundle of nerves. It probably wasn’t doing his stomach any favors. “Okay, that’s fine. If you still feel sick tomorrow, you should probably tell Luida, all right?” He hated suggesting it, hated the risk that saying something would throw Vash into the lion’s den of doctors, but what other option was there? He sure as shit couldn’t help if something was wrong with Vash. Wolfwood reached over to press the back of his hand against Vash’s forehead. “Doesn’t feel like you have a fever. That’s good.”

Vash nodded. When Wolfwood pulled his hand away, Vash scooted closer and leaned against him. “I’m tired,” he said.

“...okay. You rest.” Wolfwood knew it was coming, but he still had to fight back a flinch when Vash took that as an invitation to lie down and use Wolfwood’s leg as a pillow. “Do you…want another story?”

“No, thank you.”

It struck Wolfwood all over again how small Vash was now, fragile like the Tomas chicks back at the orphanage. Fragile like Livio had been. Livio would sleep curled up next to Wolfwood, too, wrapped up in his blanket like a cocoon. It was the only way he could sleep, some nights.

Vash didn’t have any blankets in here. All Wolfwood could do was awkwardly shrug off his jacket and drape it over him. There were still bullet holes in the fabric, and a smear of blood on the elbow that he’d missed when he tried to clean it. It felt symbolic of the whole messed-up situation: all he had to offer was a blood-stained mess, permanently marred by violence.

Vash took it anyway. He wrapped it around himself and clung to the collar. As he closed his eyes, Wolfwood heard him humming quietly. The tune sounded familiar. He’d heard adult Vash hum it before, too, but he’d heard it even before that. Sometimes when he went back to July for his next contract, he’d hear someone playing the piano, playing something almost like that tune. It had never sounded quite right to him, like whoever was playing it only half-remembered how it went and was desperately trying to fill in the gaps with volume and aggressive flourishes. It was missing…something.

It was missing whatever Vash had now: the quiet innocence of his voice, the softness of it. It was still a sound of self-soothing, but it didn’t seem so desperate. It actually had Vash asleep pretty quickly, leaving Wolfwood stuck where he was.

Wolfwood leaned against the wall and sighed, his appetite suddenly gone, too. “Great,” he muttered at the ceiling. “How long are we gonna keep doing this, Wolfwood?”

Right now, he didn’t have a choice in the matter. It had been what, six nights now? Still no tear. Maybe whatever he was meant to do here hadn’t happened yet. Bit hard when he still didn’t have a clue. His clumsy attempts at comfort couldn’t have been helping, could they?

You got him to eat. That’s something.

Great. One good deed against weeks of betrayal. Amazing penance. All is forgiven, pack it up, gents. Wolfwood sighed heavily and closed his eyes.

He opened them again with a jolt. Time had passed; the moon was peering in through the window, bathing the room in an otherworldly light. Something had set Wolfwood off. His heart was racing, and his eyes instinctively scanned the space for trouble. Nothing there, no sound of movement outside, so what…

A tiny hang clung to his pant leg. It was the only part of Vash that was still visible. The rest of him was so tightly curled up under Wolfwood’s jacket that it looked like the garment was eating him. “Hey, hey…” Wolfwood pulled the fabric back. Vash’s eyes were still closed and his body was shaking. “Vash…Vash…”

Vash shuddered and gasped, his eyes suddenly flying open. “Easy,” Wolfwood said. “You were having a nightmare.” He kept a hand on Vash’s shoulder as he sat up. “You okay?”

“I…” The first tears slipped down Vash’s cheeks. “I…”

Before Wolfwood could come up with a response, Vash collapsed against him. Wolfwood panicked, thinking for a moment that the kid had fainted, but soon Vash’s arms were clinging to him desperately. Wolfwood probably couldn’t make him let go even if he wanted to. Vash was shaking, shaking, whimpering, terrified.

And his only comfort was Wolfwood.

I’m a monster. I made him trust me. Shit. Stupid, stupid… But his arms moved instinctively, gathering Vash up closer. Stupid bastard, you dumb son of a bitch, why? Why make him rely on you again? The first time wasn’t bad enough?

He shouldn’t be here. This was wrong, all wrong.

But he didn’t let go, because letting go would be worse.

“You’re okay. Hey, I’ve gotcha, kid.” It was all happening on autopilot: the soothing tone, the gentle rocking, letting Vash’s head rest against his shoulder. All actions that belonged to someone else, that younger version of him who could actually help people. He hadn’t expected unearthing Nico again to be so easy, but here he was, cradling the future Vash the Stampede against him as if he were any other scared orphan. “I’ve got you.”

Vash melted into the embrace. Wolfwood knew what that weight meant. The kids who’d had loving parents always had the hardest time adjusting. They were used to being soothed, held, comforted; having that jerked away from them as they were thrown into an environment with too many kids and not enough adults was its own torture. Vash had been loved once, had been a kid who could call out to someone for help when the nightmares came. His brother, before Nai became Millions Knives. The dark-haired woman, who must have been Rem.

But now they were gone, and Wolfwood didn’t think Vash would ever get anything close to that back again. All he had in his future was 150 years of pain, of humans hurting him over and over.

And here, now, all he had was Wolfwood.

It wasn’t fair.

“I’m sorry,” Vash whimpered. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t,” Wolfwood replied. “You’ve got nothing to be sorry for.” I’m the one who should be apologizing. I’m the guilty one, here. “You’re okay.”

He’d hum Vash’s song back to him, but he couldn’t remember the tune. He doubted butchering it would make the kid feel any better, so he tried a tune of his own. A mixed bag of memories came as he started humming. Curled up in the darkest corner of his closest, hands over his ears, his own fragile voice shaking his ribcage as he tried to drown out the yelling outside.

Once there was a way to get back homeward, once there was a way to get back home…

The first kid he’d ever comforted at the orphanage. Not even a year old yet. He was the only one who could get her to stop crying. He’d looked after her for a week before she finally acclimated to the place.

Sleep pretty darling, do not cry, and I will sing a lullaby.

He’d sung it to Livio, of course. At night when neither of them could sleep. During the day while they did their chores. The last time they’d sung it together had been not long before the Eye had taken Wolfwood away. They’d screamed the words over the cliff and listened to their voices echo back at them, carefree, laughing.

Golden slumbers fill your eyes, smiles await you when you rise, sleep, pretty darling, do not cry…

In that cell, in between tortures. Curled up in another corner. One hand clutching his hair, the other scratching at his forearm until it bled. Too far gone to remember anything but one line, over and over and over.

Boy, you’re gonna carry that weight, carry that weight a long time.

It beat itself into him like a second heartbeat. The only constant in his own personal hell. Even now, he hummed the tune as it could beat back his own monstrous nature, Vash’s nightmares, whatever it was that made the electricity Plant weep.

You’re gonna carry that weight.

Vash eventually fell back asleep, still clinging to Wolfwood’s shirt.

Wolfwood didn’t put him down until he absolutely had to.

He woke up again to the sound of knocking. “Vash?”

Huh?

Curled up in the tiny shower. Weight against his chest. Vash…Vash?! No, that wasn’t right, Wolfwood had left him outside on the window seat. Put the cuffs back on him and everything, only stayed long enough to be sure Vash knew he hadn’t gone far. He’d crawled into the shower to try and sleep, and then…Vash must’ve followed him. Probably still scared after whatever his nightmare had been about. Which, fair, but now Luida was knocking on the damn door, and Wolfwood had no way to explain what he was doing in the prison cell shower.

“Vash, are you in there?”

Vash’s head shot up. He looked at Wolfwood, eyes wide and startled. Wolfwood gestured frantically towards the toilet. Flush it, just flush it, act natural, go!

“I’m coming!” Vash called. Fortunately, he got the message, hitting the toilet handle with his elbow before turning the sink on and splashing water on his face. Wolfwood had just enough time to wedge himself out of sight before Vash opened the door. “I’m sorry…”

“Everything okay?”

“No. I don’t feel good.”

“Oh, no, what’s wrong?”

“My stomach kinda hurts…” The door closing muffled Vash’s voice. “...and I couldn’t sleep.”

He sounded pathetic enough to sell the half-truth. Luida didn't double check the bathroom to make sure he was hiding anything. Could've been worse, Wolfwood decided, though that had been pretty freaking bad as far as he was concerned.

Luida didn’t stay long. She told Vash it was probably just his stomach recovering after everything, reassured him that the lights were nothing to be afraid of, and left without much conversation after that. Which meant the second part was probably a lie.

Wolfwood sighed heavily and rubbed his eyes. Monkey's paw again. Finally made some progress with Vash just to have everything else go to shit. And how the hell was he supposed to leave when the kid was relying on him so much now?

Why bring me here? Why do this to him?

As if he could sense Wolfwood was thinking about him, Vash slipped back into the bathroom after Luida had left. He was smart enough to turn the sink on before sitting outside the shower. “She’s not telling me something, isn’t she?”

“Oh, definitely,” Wolfwood said. “Probably doesn’t want you to worry, but…still pretty stupid.”

“Hmm.” Vash nodded. "Hey, Nico?"

“What’s up?”

“Do you really think I’m not a monster?”

“Of course I don’t. Why?”

“...I'm not human."

And you’re telling me this now…why? At least he could use that confusion to sound genuinely surprised. "...okay…?"

"I'm a Plant. An Independent. Except I don’t generate anything. I’m not anything special. I just…eat and sleep like a human.” Vash pulled his knees closer to his chest. “People out there think I’m a monster. Rem…she said that maybe I was an angel. That God sent me and my brother to help humans and Plants live together. But I don’t really think I’m that, either, so…I don’t know what I am. I don’t know what I’m supposed to be.”

Wolfwood needed a second to chew on that one. Every time he thought he had a grip on Vash’s deal, something else got thrown at him that raised as many questions as it answered. Sure as shit explains some things about Knives, though. “...who said you have to be anything?” Wolfwood said finally. “Just because you’re not a monster doesn’t mean you have to be an angel. I don’t think anyone can do that.”

“Except actual angels.”

“Okay, yeah, except them. My point is, you’re allowed to just…be alive, Vash. Do your best with the shit you’ve got and don’t let anyone tell you what you are. You can figure that out on your own.” He reached out of the shower to squeeze Vash’s shoulder. “Hell, don’t even let me tell you. I don’t know shit.”

Vash smiled slightly. “You know some things.” The power outside flickered again; Vash flinched. “Will you come back to visit? After you leave?”

Shit. “...you know, I think we’ll see each other again,” Wolfwood said. Not a lie, just a blinding understatement of the truth. He hated admitting to even that. “Gut feeling.”

Vash nodded and stood. His embrace was a little clumsy with his handcuffs still on, but it was earnest. As if Vash was capable of being anything but earnest. “Thank you,” he whispered.

Wolfwood returned the hug, grateful that the low lighting meant Vash couldn’t see the look on his face. “You’re welcome, Vash.”

He probably added another centimeter to the bruise with how much he pushed on it after that.

The rest of the day remained tense. Vash left the bathroom to maintain their cover, but honestly, he probably could’ve stayed. Luida never came back, and whoever dropped off his dinner bailed after leaving the food. Vash hummed his tune the whole dinner and didn’t ask for a story. Wolfwood told one anyway, just to fill the silence. “So, pretty much everyone at that point is lying about the fabric to be polite…probably didn’t want to get executed, either, you know what it’s like with rich people…”

Vash stopped humming and dropped his spoon.

Lights cut off, replaced by emergency red lighting and a distant siren somewhere in the ship. “...shit…”

“Put the cuffs back on me,” Vash said.

“What?!”

“Just do it!” Vash’s eyes blazed in the red light as he held out his hands. “Put them back on and hide!”

“What, do you think they’re coming for you?”

“No. I need them to let me out.”

“Why?!”

“Nico, please!”

There was a fire in his eyes that Wolfwood hadn’t seen since he was last in the room with adult Vash. It was enough to make him put the handcuffs back on. “You owe me an explanation later,” he said.

“Later! Go!”

The second Wolfwood shut the bathroom door, Vash started pounding on the door to his room. “Hey! Hey! Someone! I need to talk to Luida! Hey!”

Muffled voices outside. Footsteps. Eventually, Wolfwood heard what sounded like Luida, though he couldn’t make out individual words. He could hear Vash loud and clear, though.

“Did something happen to the plant?! I can hear her! The Plant is calling out for help!” His little body hit the door, over and over, as if he could batter it down if he tried hard enough. “Let me meet her! She’s fading! At this rate, she…”

The silence that followed was suffocating. Then…the door opened.

Vash took off like he’d been shot from a gun, leaving Wolfwood alone. Do I go after him? Do I wait? He could get caught if he left, but he didn’t like the idea of Vash being alone with those people. And what did he plan on doing, anyway?

Hope you know what you’re doing, kid.

He picked at his cuticles and pushed on his shin bruise. He almost prayed, if you could call it that. It was more like an impotent threat aimed in a general upwards direction. He’d better be okay, he’d better come back, he’d better be okay…

The lights came back on.

It was another long eternity before Wolfwood heard the door open again. “...get some rest, okay? We can talk about it more in the morning.”

“Okay. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Vash.”

The door closed. Wolfwood waited. And waited. His impatience finally got the better of him. When he cracked open the door, Vash was alone, slumped against the window seat, eyes half-closed. “Coast clear?” Wolfwood called.

“...mmm? Yeah. Sorry…”

Vash moved to their usual spot, and Wolfwood joined him. “What happened back there?” Wolfwood asked, already shrugging off his jacket and wrapping Vash in it.

“...I don’t know? I could just…” Vash stared down at his hands. “...feel her. Feel what was wrong. And if I reached back to her, I could…fix it somehow.” He yawned. “She’s okay now.”

“That’s…good. Glad to hear it.” The cuffs came back off easily. “You get some sleep, okay?”

“Hmm.”

Vash dozed off with his head on Wolfwood’s knee again. Wolfwood kept one hand on his shoulder and stared out the window, watching the moons move across the sky. Mulling over what had happened.

How can he feel so different now? Wolfwood didn’t have a word for it–more a feeling than anything. He remembered the spike of adrenaline he’d felt seeing Vash in the steamer’s Plant room, then again in that tank in July. A harsh introduction and a harsher reminder: this guy wasn’t human. He was something beyond that. Something strong enough to apparently fix a dying Plant, and yet…

At the same time, a fragile little kid, stuck in a world that didn’t understand him.

What a mess.

It was messed up, but the best outcome Wolfwood could hope for was that Vash had won himself some goodwill with the rest of the crew. People being okay with him because he was useful wasn’t ideal, but it was better than nothing.

I think we’ll both take whatever he can get now.

Vash ate every bite of breakfast himself the next morning and Wolfwood didn’t care. Poor kid was clearly starving. Didn’t stop Vash from apologizing every five bites. “Seriously, kid, I don’t care, you…”

Someone knocked on the door. They both scrambled back to position–Vash on the window seat, Wolfwood wedged in the shower–and waited.

“You saved a lot of lives today, Vash,” Luida said. “Thank you.”

“It was nothing. I just did what I could.”

Wolfwood rolled his eyes and mentally added kicking the overblown modesty out of him to his mental checklist of shit to cover while he was here. The thought was derailed by a slight chirping, and Luida telling Vash to come with her. Three sets of footsteps left, again leaving Wolfwood to wonder if he should have tried to follow.

Right, sure, just crawl out of the bathroom like a horror story monster. That’ll definitely work out…

Wolfwood straightened up.

He felt it before he heard it–a skin-crawling sensation up his spine, the feeling of the air moving around him. The whispered nico was just proof. A new tear had opened up, seemingly in the bathroom wall but clearly leading to someplace beyond the ship’s exterior.

“...now? Seriously?!” He should have been jumping for joy and he knew it. The longer he stayed here, the bigger the risk that he’d be caught, and God only knew how he’d explain himself if he was. More than that, he did want to get away. He shouldn’t have been here this long. He was a cancer on the kid’s life and he knew it.

But Vash had been relying on him. He might’ve been ill-suited for the job, but he was all the kid had. Unless things had changed on the ship…but how could he trust that they had? That he wouldn’t just be torn apart the second someone decided that Vash was a threat? “But he still…”

nico!

The call was urgent. Wolfwood could feel it deep in his gut: if he didn’t jump now, he wouldn’t get another chance. And whatever was on the other side, he had to get there. It was important.

But I can’t just leave. Not without saying something. There has to be something…

He scrambled through his pockets again. The one pen he found was almost entirely out of ink (probably stolen from Meryl, now that he thought about it), but it would do. He unwrapped one of the lollipops–the same one he’d tried to give Vash that first night–and scribbled his last message on the blank side of the wrapper.

Had to head home. Emergency. Sorry. You did a good job, kid. Will see you later.

He almost didn’t add that last part, because Wolfwood didn’t like making promises he couldn’t keep. But so far they’d run into each other twice, and…

Wolfwood tucked the note behind Vash’s picture of Knives and Rem, popped the lollipop into his mouth, and stepped back into the bathroom one last time. He stopped at the tear to listen to the echoing voice calling his name. He’d mistaken it for Livio the first time because of the nickname, but now he knew. It was hard not to notice after a week in close proximity to him.

It was Vash–his young voice and his old mixing together, calling out from the other side of whatever this was. Calling out for him.

Wolfwood sighed. “I hope you know what you’re doing, Needle Noggin,” he whispered. “I really do.”

This time, when he stepped through, he did say a prayer. Let him be okay. I don’t know if anyone’s listening, but let him be okay without me.

Please.

#trigun #trigun stampede #this is so so long thank goodness for read mores #fic: the unknowable tomorrow

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mcnuggyy · 2 years

Note

Any advice on long distance relationships? My bf and I are moving away from each other for a year :(

this is probably stuff you’ve heard before but it really is true Jaja

1) constant communication, try and talk every day, even if it’s just a quick check up or good morning text or a night recap of your day, try and talk to them as much as you would if they were really there! All you have now is your words and communication, so use it!!! <3

2) video chat or call as much as you can too!! Being able to see them and hear them when you’re missing them so much really means a lot and can really help scratch that intimacy itch you’ll be having constantly, it’s especially nice if you can set up video call dates where you make food together or work on something together or sleep together, or just chill yknow!

3) dates in general!! You can grab lunch at the same place and then have a date in the car where u both eat ur Starbucks together or something lmao, or watch a movie together, or play a video game together, etc etc. My personal favorite dates are when me and my partner play minecraft together and then wind down with some YouTube cooking videos <3

4) if physical sexual intimacy is something both you and your partner are comfortable with and want then also try and schedule some of that as well! I know it’s weird to “schedule” something like that but when it comes to long distance you really have to communicate your day to day especially with time differences and jobs and family and life!! Don’t be shy about your wants and needs! It’ll be a bit awkward at first trying to figure out what works for the both of you, but again communication is your biggest and sometimes your only tool 😔👆

5) CUTE COUPLE APPS!!!! Okay okay so this is a personal favorite thing of mine that me and my partner do…. We’ve gone through quite a wide range of “couples” apps but my favorites have been Between and Sumone!!!! Soooo cute!!! Between is a nice way to keep in touch, it keeps your anniversary in mind, you can send each other little video edits and create albums and stuff! It’s pretty cool! SUMONE THO HAS BEEN GREAT OH MY GOD!!! You basically get daily questions for you and ur partner to answer along w a little egg to hatch and then the more u answer the more the egg grows!!! No clue what’s inside it yet but our egg is almost done hatching lol <3 you can then by furniture for your eggs house, and memos to send to your partner, and it’s just really really cute <33 sadly one of my other favorites is no longer available in the App Store, but there are quite a few out there to try so have fun w them!! And feel free to let me know if u find any cool ones <3

6) know exactly how your partner likes to express love and receive love!!!! HUGE!!! if ur partner likes gifts, try and get them gifts! If they like quality time, be sure to really try and spend time with them even more than you think, if it’s words of affirmation!! Do it do it do it!!! I know it seems kind of obvious but when ur in a ldr it can become so easy to forget the basics and it’s a big test of how well you really know how to connect w your person yknow? But yeah! Don’t be afraid to ask them what makes them feel loved and let them know what they can do to help you feel loved back too <3

But yeah!!! Hope this helps anon <3 good luck!! If I’ve been able to survive almost 6 years in a ldr, you’ll be absolutely fine w a year :-] it’ll go by soooo fast I promise!!!

#callate guero #replies #anonymous

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glitchafton · 2 years

Text

The Vanny and William Logs Master Post.

In which I accidentally ended up creating a very selectively canon adjacent-ish AU that first developed a continuity, and then ended up becoming a whole weird little fic I didn’t intend it to become, but I still refuse to write it in order. So here’s the post that puts them in that order.

also I make no promises to quality or even internal consistency. There’s a reason I keep editing as I go.

Vanessa and the Long Hiring Process

You turned him into a collectable because you knew someone would be a completionst about the tapes didn’t you?

Log #1

In Which Agreements Are Made

Vanessa needs some answers still.

The Second Supervisor

When you successfully frame someone for murder don’t be surprised that the story stuck.

William Needs to Trauma Dump on Someone. Vanessa Needs Coffee.

Are you sure that this is even possible?

How much else was haunted exactly?

Believing vs Understanding

Malhare Unleashed

Breaking

Control.

Request for therapy notes

Possession. Again.

The Glitch of Damocles

Expanding the Rabbit’s Snare

Expanding the Rabbit’s Snare II: Sometimes things take time

She Just Has To Show Up

The Arcade Might Be Free At Least

The Arcade Was at Least Quite Good

Pop-up follow up question

Working Late and Ignoring Probable Crimes Committed

No talk of child murder before 11

It’s After 11.

You Date Luis

Causing Problems on accident

Moving House and Confessions of Part Arson

Stolen emails and multiple levels of concerns about this whole Pizzaplex concept (Major edit 27/7/22)

The 1980 Interview Commentary Vanessa didn’t ask for.

Birthday Cake Hatch!

The Mystery of Why Foxy is Being Phased Out

(Vaguely threatening) Flowers Sent to the Office

Vanessa once again is watching old videos. But with purpose.

William You’re Going in the Plushtrap because Vanessa’s Going Out of Town If You Like it Or Not.

Let’s not talk about past incidents on the company slack channel or The Return of Tape Girl

Remnant and it’s uses takes a lengthy power point, and Vanessa’s pretty sure she didn’t sign up for child murder

On background checks

Luis has further questions about Vanessa’s search history during work.

The Bag

Just a Simple Request (Major Edit #2: 12/1/23)

Plushtrap’s Potential Damage is (unfortunately for some) Quite Low

These flagged searches were actually normal.

Things Continue to Get Worse For Tape Girl

I want him dead.

Who Taught You How to Kill People? Here have a chart (more importantly, comic version by @starlit-mansion of original version) (Edit: 12/1/23)

Do I have to wear the mask for Luis? (Edit: 12/1/23)

That wasn’t a request.

The Animatronic Delivery Service’s Incredibly Smooth Launch Day

Progress Report: Not Great

vannycostumedesign.png

vannycostumedesign2.png or Vanessa an William have an impromptu design meeting

William have you ever considered you’re the problem? (Edited for continuity, 27/7/22)

Child Murder 101

Preparations

Enter the Pizzaplex

Chat with the CEO

Nightmares and Nepo-Zombie

Dayshift at The Pizzaplex Would Drive Anyone to Murder

Vanny is doing just fine. She’s not holding in a mental break down at all.

Vanessa vs The Blob

Let’s not sit in the inferno room

To Look Upon the Code of The Day Care Attendant is To See Into The Eyes of Madness

More People Should Like Clowns

But What Comes Next? (Minor Edit,8th Aug)

Unaccounted for Children

Chica and Roxy, Private Investigators

William, I’m going to need you to stop projecting onto the robots

Chica eats garbage.

He’s a little gremlin and I want to take him home (Heavy edit: 27/7/22)

The End is in Sight

Thoughts on Evan (Semi-heavy edit: 27/7/22)

#the vanny and william logs #none of them are good #but they sure exist and entertain me to toss into the universe #and I just keep going on this thing that was going to be a short joke #also the order is subject to change as I get deeper into and develop I better idea of what I'm doing with it

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tacom-literatureu-blog · 2 years

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reread Our Last Summer and took notes lmao

things i forgot about from Our Last Summer: -half changeling mumbo -dragon egg hatching (its called nevermore) -ranboo becoming a heretic -mumbo's homemade water resistance potion -grian's crying timer -technoblade making tubbo's cane -peanut butter & banana sandwich scene -on the dsmp its seconds on hermitcraft its ticks (does that change later?) -GRIANS SHORTER THAN TUBBO? -man remember when the chapters were supperrr lyric oriented? -michael's favourite song is american pie -pearl gaslighting ranboo like "no i didnt almost mention last life. what" -Sam is Doc's cousin. which does not get mentioned very often but is hilarious to think about. would that make sam tommy's… second cousin? who knows -ranboo does NOT have the redstone eating gene -why does doc have hello kitty band aids in his secret lab. actually no hes totally valid for that -authors note in chapter 19 talking about a hypothetical sequel with grian on the dsmp……. look where we are now -how much would the entire plot of this series change if ranboo had shown his locket with the family picture to scar. like genuinely -the very slow realisation from techno that michael is tubbo's son as well -i think its interesting how i, who is caught up in the latest book in the TACOMLU, can actually tell the difference in writing quality. its been 7 months of constant writing man, there's a LARGE improvement -doc: [long monologue about the intricacies of ranboos two types of blood ranboo: what about going home..? doc: oh yeah we can just go down to skyblock and take a portal to the dream smp lol -oh my god the fae/fairy lore that was referenced recently in knowing me knowing you was brought up partially in our last summer. the whole thing with the mass genocide or whatever. but i think it gets retroactively changed? or more like ranboo isnt aware of the empires so he doesnt know about katherine and her protection of fairies and whatever -"I'm so excited to write more and more in 2022" says patton, proceeding to write more a shit ton more in 2022 -god the renbob team up is the best thing ever. i miss renbob bring him back. he should be on the dsmp a few months from the current timeline in KMKY if all's the same -the curse words sewn onto tommy's l'manberg uniform -"l'manburg didnt exactly have a DMV, Blade" tubbo says just before taking techno and renbob on the worst automobile experience of their lives -tfw u find out that ur husband is on the hermitcraft server from a hermitcraft recap -the most unfair thing that ever happened was the watchers punishing GRIAN for the whole 'building a server portal' thing when he was the only one who was sorta against it when the idea was brought up. my man did NOT deserve everything he has gone through. like the whole server got moon'd which was a big thing that happened but i think grian had it worst -oh shit when ranboo ran away and scar was panicking like 'oh no im a horrible dad!' about him. thats the second time. scar this is the SECOND time -zedaph's having such a good time making a server portal <3 he wants to destroy the server and i am fully for it <3 -tango's soooooo mad about the profanity filter its hilarious -its been 7 months and i think we abandoned the platonic part of platonic husbands -michael charming everyone with his toddler powers -our last summer prototype portal bungee rope test tun went much better than KMKY's one -on that note. if we wanted to build a server portal in KMKY, why didnt they ask impulse for help? he helped on the original and it was much more recent for him. they were so stuck in their relationship drama that they forgot about their friends..

-i love the bit of dream jumping the gun. "Oh i get it now! you want to be admin! you want power!" techno: "bruh" -fuckin van not starting 😭 -reunion <3 -bring back scary grian. dream was genuinely afraid of him and he did the cool distorted text BEHAVE. how the mighty fall. hes a pathetic wet cat now 😔 -I FORGOT SCAR SAYS FUCK -what a role swap. scar saying fuck and grian harping on him for it vs grian saying fuck and scar harping on him for it -mama mia (here we go again) (i'll read it next)

in conclusion, Our Last Summer was awesome and i miss that timeline

BRO OMG okay okay. Before Our Last Summer, the most I had written was 12 pages of a shitty mafia mystery YA novel. I had never attempted something like this, but I really missed Ranboo.

I'm so proud of my progress, genuinely. And without getting comments, or Chambers help, I wouldn't be where I am today.

Our Last Summer was chaotic, and crazy, and sometimes didn't make sense. I retconned a lot of the early stuff, like shifter Mumbo, and I had NO idea about a Tommy and Scar plotline till Chambers started telling me about season 6.

When all is said and done, I'll go back, and rewrite OLS. I'll keep the dialogue and plot, but there are details I'd change.

I'm so proud of OLS and genuinely, I'm proud of me and Chambers. Thank you so much for reading, we always look forward to your comments. I hope you have a wonderful day! <3- Patton

#tacomlu #take a chance on me #take a chance on me literature universe #tacomlu asks #our last summer #i genuinely got teary eyed writing this #gods our last summer was ages ago #writing this fic has genuinely kept me alive #i love yall so much

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fierceawakening · 1 year

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FWIW, the reason I responded the way I did is not because you said "donuts are bad" but because you specifically identified someone who said "donuts aren't bad, it's just bad if you eat three of them" as culty -- which, if they said it's not great to eat three donuts, they probably aren't ostracizing their friends for portion control, because they literally just advocated portion control.

I said that agreeing to get rid of the word bad and then having lengthy debate about whether it's okay to replace it with the word junk or whether that doesn't get rid of the connotation thoroughly enough is culty.

I felt like I was watching the euphemism treadmill update itself in real time. Can you turn bad into junk or do you have to turn it into dense? Or is even turning it into dense Not Good Enough because you're still ranking those foods as lower in quality than broccoli, and food quality itself is politically impure as a concept?

To me, that seems culty, because what cults often do is take a concept common in the noncult world and get so invested in flipping its valence that they eventually end up tabooing a whole topic, as if they can make it go away. (Which of course they can never succeed fully at doing, which is part of why the culty group then battens down the hatches and decides the world is evil and not to interact with it.)

I felt like I was seeing that happen in real time in my notes with the topic of discussion "are some foods more healthful than others?"

It struck me as thought control and it honestly kind of still does. Don't talk about situations where trying to rank these things as exactly equal have ended badly; we've defined this somehow as the same as calling people sinful. You don't want to call people names, do you?

Which my brain labels as a combo of thought control and toxic positivity.

Is that any clearer? It sounds like you didn't understand me at all, if you thought I was saying "don't eat three donuts."

I would only ever say "don't eat three donuts" to someone I know, and only if I knew about their weight or health goals, and knew such comments were wanted.

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friedbreadwombat · 2 years

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Look if you don't wanna read about me screaming in fandom hivemind incellulia spectacular, this is a warning, pls look away, go do something more fun, or something, idk.

*regurgitates idea like bird*

Stolitz Dancer AU!

Stolas is a choreographer, Blitzo is a performer.

Blitzo is yeah ur usual boi aligning w the helluvaboss plot, coming from not very much privilege, had to work his ass off to get to where he be now. His previous job before he crashed unceremoniously into the perfoming arts scene cursing about fizzaroli, was a guy of a trained private hire security squad that like, assisted the cia, or something. He has a gun yes, and that was all he cared about, besides horses. He doubles as stolas's bodyguard if the plot requires it, still, hence, because, he can do guns. Quality time with daddy. No, no I will never get over that sce-

Stolas is yes rich high fluffy goetia boy of the privilege yes. Again following series, coming from a long generational line of wealthy predecessors of the field, raised to be heir of goetia fam, was given the heck of a library, much knowledge babie, very learn, was hatched, and dancing, as soon as he could walk. what is autonomy, and can you eat it. It's what he's supposed to do, right? Well, nevermind because in any case he is very good at it. Hence he'd made a name for himself, despite holding and inheriting the family name. Privilege didn't have to raise a fine man, when it could raise a spoiled bastard reliant on capitalism, but yet, here we are. Intelligent, charismatic, very talented, and always, always somehow wiser than his years might tell, leading to a depth and myriad of stunning performances, dances, of absolutely anything, perfected and polished by yours truly. An artist both respected, and feared.

One day stolas gets a viktor nikiforov style call from Blitzo's management, specifically, Blitzo's team, it is not moxie on the line, it is not. He is not on 4 hours of sleep, no, you're tired, not him.

It's Blitzo's request. He wants to work with him. Stolas.

THE Blitzo.

The fastest risen artist in the past decade that hit like a car outta nowhere.

AND BOY, DO PEOPLE LOVE THE FIRE.

Feral amoral asshole genius man has blazed his trail of never before perceived depth, to the name of his field, relatively new and a few years in. Banger tunes that made ears feel novel, performances that were only described as 'breathtaking'. Productionally, a revolutionary, who somehow decided that he was gonna start scream singing his death metal rendition of some equivalenth of baby shark in a grocery store, improv-ed off the supermarket radio, and garnered an audience of about a hundred, and an online audience of about too many times of that for Stolas to feel chill about this.

He's had fans screaming at his stages, and fighting rabidly for the tickets, of which, a, lucrative, amount, flagged up onto a lucrative place at an incredibly, lucrative, price. And, no, it wasn't because he was a hot- no, no gotta keep it professional, gotta keep it together, no, can't be dangerously hor- no, not while they are supposed to produce together. He must uphold, his very best, yes.

The last conversation Stolas had had with the man, also very yuri on ice, had left him with a piece of, something, in his heart, that he could not forget. What exactly was it?

He'd keep that a secret to himself.

Better for himself, than to someone who's gonna tease him endlessly for it, you know?

Anyway, he had been offered to choreograph one of his performances for a new song.

So yeah cool shit ig wtv, they gotta meet up to collaborate so i can write interactions, and for stolas to nail the choreo with him in person, for the best of results, so he can guide out and polish it for the best. And Blitzo thought, capable as this unpredictable smartass is, that for this once, he could hella learn a lot of shit from this guy. And delete verosika from the scene. He is the best after all. Nothing else.

Nothing else.

Stolas and Blitzo do a plane and meet because planes exist here.

Stolas has a heart attack when he sees blitzo for the first time. Because he is famous, and lives, completely and genuinely, the name he had made for himself, in what, 3 years?!

He is also hot, and well fuck, he can't fucking deny this anymore, his eyes are having a field day, and his face is tomatoed at this point, or at least, it feels that way. Blitzo would probably have said something if it were that visible, anyway.

Holy shi- Anyway, they bleehblah bloohblah more shit happens, they dance, sexual tension or something, i dont know, im just recalling that 1 klance fic from ye old days.

INSERT THAT 1 SWAY ANIMATIC. They dance on tables. Because they are table hoppers.

Yes.

This is prob at some banquet formality scenario, prob nearing the actl performance, like some sort of acquaintance rich people party.

Maybe they're getting real close now. Its getting pretty.

Pretty.

But, aha yeah blitzo has the same issues helluva boss portrayed, does not like love, he's been avoiding the entire thing schtick he has with stolas, insert that 1 scene of one of the eps, the uh captured by the humans spy guys one where stolas goes to save him and he has an acid trip, where hes like chained by stolas, sitting atop a flight of stairs, and stolas is pulling him closer. Maybe because it will trap him again, relationships are his glorified chain prisons, anyway. He'd escape, if he could, but every attempt he makes to hack stolas' social media account to post memes on his main,

Has him going places he'd never thought he'd go.

So, how would it all play out? Will they make it a hell of a show? Will Blitzo nail his epic stunt, and throw in an unholy amount of fireworks again? Will Stolas remain composed, around his new, and growing, celebrity crush? Will stolas eat blitzo's pet rat?

Idk depends on if this gets written or no it just came to mind and I wrote it

#HELLUVABOSS #STOLITZ #SHIP FUEL I GUESS

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kudsktrujillo55 · 23 days

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1358456 · 3 months

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Pokemon Crystal "Free to Play" Run Part 1

Time to give this a try. I remember very little about the specifics and the hidden secrets of Generation II, so... um... this may be a doomed run. We'll see.

Here we go. No glitches, no catching any Pokemon whatsoever, and no buying Pokemon either. Free to play.

Once again, I don't have enough spaces, and don't have access to numbers so... FTP again.

... Who the hell is this? Her daughter is adamant about becoming Prof. Elm's assistant? ... Was that ever brought up in Pokemon Special? Hmm. I can probably use this in an upcoming Short.

There's some asshole looking into the lab and no one ever notices him. ... This lab has one entrance, and an assistant who wanders around that only entrance doing literally nothing else. How did this asshole get in and steal a Pokemon? ... I guess through the window??

Heh. Unlike Prof. Rowan who just stares at you, this dude begs you for help. "Please, we're drastically understaffed because we can't afford any helpers! You're not getting paid for this either!"

"Partner" my ass. ... Oh wait, Free to Play run. ... Er... Yes. Very important. Especially considering the later parts... Taking Cyndaquil for now and will deeply regret my decision at the end of this post.

So this is what a battle looks like from an outsider's perspective. ... So... how do the battles in my Yellow version runs look? "That dude's Pikachu is... er... blue."

Why does my character have a blue Pokeball? Did I merge a Pokeball with a Squirtle already? And this asshole's arm is... kind of messed up. Either his hand is as long as his forearm, or his arm can reach past his knee.

"My name is ???" ... Sure. I didn't ask for his name or his life aspirations, but I guess he's lonely. Well, f*ck him.

Er... I think there's a dude named Ricky in here who wants to trade you an Onix for a Bellsprout. But that requires me to CATCH a Bellsprout, so... nope.

... Huh. That's actually a thing. I thought the mandatory Trainer's School was given that name in Pokemon Special only. I guess the "orphanage" part is new. ... Orphanage... I miss the kids in Morning Glory...

... Where is the teacher? Did he f*ck off and abandon the class? There are like 12 seats here and only 4 kids, 2 of which are playing Pokemon games in the back. ... Wait, what?

I thought there was a path around the dollar sign. But I guess that's HGSS only?

Your dad's "cherished bird Pokemon" are just random sh*t he found in the Viridian Forest.

Nope. F*ck off. ... Oh wait, Free to Play... er... I mean... Yes!

Hey, this is guy who, back in the days, everyone thought was referring to Pokerus that you can only find in the grass around him. ... Back in those days, people also thought that shiny Pokemon were extremely rare variants that appeared in specific places. ... I found Pokerus in my actual Gold version. And Ruby. ... And then I spawned it in Silver! See my GSC Joy Run posts for that shenanigans.

... Sheesh. Sorry for being broke. There's a reason why this is a Free to Play run...

Hey! A gift Pokemon! I wonder what's inside? It better be good! Because I am very lacking in the Pokemon department!

This is Bill's mother. And... So Bill's father is a gambling addict? Hmm. Did I know that already?

Another "gift" Pokemon! It's like a quest delivery weapon/armor in Skyrim or something. As long as I don't complete the quest...

... It's a "gift", but... it ain't good. But... well... I effectively robbed this guy. I can't exactly complain about the quality of the stuff I stole. At least it can use Fly probably. Oh, it has mail. ...

Whoops. My bad. I do not work for the post office, so this is not my responsibility.

... I have to face Whitney very soon. And without a Geodude/Graveler for once. A Spearow and Togepi/Togetic do not help me against that. So... er... this Odd Egg had better hatch into something good!

... ... ... ... -_- ... ... ... ...

Odd Egg? Never heard of it. I only ever had my starter, Togepi Egg, and the "gift" Spearow. ... I just can't get away from that li'l abomination...

I guess Quilava has to solo Whitney... through Attract and Rollout. ... Hmm...

It's cheese time.

Just like Misty's Starmie, Whitney's Miltank is no match for this finely curated, moldy, nasty-ass fromage. Now there should be no more problems!

... So here I am in Ecruteak. And... This is it, huh? ... The first Water Stone you can get is in Cerulean Cape, so... I physically can't progress past Olivine City. Nothing here gets Surf. ... Um... so... I guess I absolutely needed to have picked Totodile at the start of the game. This run was doomed the moment I picked Cyndaquil. "Truth is, the game was rigged from the start."

... F*ck. This is like those very old text based adventure games where you could have f*cked yourself over at the start of the game and wouldn't find out until like... 10 hours in.

Well then. Part 1 is a proof-of-concept run. I'll restart with Totodile for Part 2. And looking at this right now, my team by the end is going to be...

Feraligatr (Surf, Whirlpool, Cut), Fearow (Fly), Togetic (Flash), Espeon, Dragonite (Waterfall), and... something other than Pichu from that Daycare random egg. I wonder if Togetic can learn Fly. If that's the case, I don't need the Fearow and I can replace it with a Hitmonlee/chan/top. ... If I remember where Tyrogue is, anyways. Might be that cave right next to Ecruteak...

Well, next time.

#gsrun

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metropolitanmutantofark · 1 year

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The Messenger, Eclipse

Part 1, Chapter 4 - A Drawing of an Analumine

Tracie's wardrobe was far bigger than I expected. Admittedly, I shouldn't have been quite so surprised - I didn't expect a giant mechanical bubble inside a camper van either, so if it was that spacious inside, I should've expected a fairly large wardrobe. We were dressed similarly enough to pass as friends - both of us wearing white dress shirts with black ties and slacks. Eclipse had brushed his hair back, and mine was tied up into a bun, with matching black reading glasses on to make the look a bit more complete.

Eclipse swung the van's side hatch shut when I was out, looking down at a saddle-bag I was now wearing. "Not sure anyone's gonna notice," he started, carefully judging my look. "But that bag's not exactly Earthen-ish, if you get it. That fabric won't be brought down until Earth joins the standard galactic trade, just thought I'd let you know."

"Really? Well, I needed somewhere to put my car, and this was the only other bag you've got in there." I reached inside the bag and pulled out the brown package with my shrunken car in it. Two hours remained on the timer. Really, I guess I could've been faster looking for clothes. "For a messenger, you don't really carry many mail sacks or messenger-bags."

"Too expensive. Rule six - for business expenses, either everything's on sale, or nothing's on sale. I'll try to explain what that means later. Earth's commerce is pretty unique, I'll just leave it at that, but if you want some quality Earth trading, you should see Rel-de-Pein. Big moon, down to the second layer it's nothing but mall shops. Won't be established for another thousand years or so, but three hundred years of that is gonna be construction."

"Don't you think it's a little dangerous, telling me that?" I asked. "From what I understand, you're not supposed to bring information from the future to the past. What if you telling me that sparks some chain reaction that ends up turning that moon-mall-thing into a wasteland or something?"

"Well, it doesn't work like that, really." He started walking, readjusting his tie while he beckoned me to follow. "A lot of people think of time as a straight line, but it's really not. If you go back in time with a plush bunny-rabbit from the future, for instance, and then disintegrate it before you pick it up, it won't disappear - but you won't be able to go back to the future and pick up another bunny. Does that make sense?"

"Not really," I answered. "Why wouldn't it fade away? You stopped yourself from being able to pick it up."

"No, I stopped-" He pinched the bridge of his nose. I assume he was trying to wrap his head around it in human terms. "Have you seen the movie K-PAX? It's kind of like that. Each individual atom in the universe operates on its own string of time. This thing that we call 'time travel' is really more like bending the string around, and letting it touch another string for a little while. Eventually, the string loops back on itself, and at the end of everything, so does the universe. That's the big circle of life, or whatever you want to call it."

"Yeah, but that doesn't answer why the bunny doesn't fade," I added.

"The bunny doesn't fade because it doesn't technically exist," he answered. "Anything that time-travels ceases to become a fixed factor in time, but it can still affect things that happen. Kind of like Tracie and I. In an objective look on the timeline, you're pretty much talking to a jumble of dark matter, even though I'm still here."

"Isn't dark matter a bad thing? Am I going to be disintegrated or something if I touch you?"

"No. Well, kind of, but it would take a long, long while. I'm not really- well, just call it dark-ish matter, that... more surrounds whatever travels in time, rather than constructing it. Point being, once you make a change, it sticks. Unless something can reverse your actions, which we literally can't prove exists or doesn't exist, you can't undo a change, you can only fix it. That's why it's so important to keep out of your own timeline," he explained. "Right now, time is a messy circle of yarn. If you act on top of your own actions, you fray your timeline into branches and strings, and branches and strings form knots. If you interact with yourself or other time-travelers too much, you change time's shape from a strict progression of cause-and-effect, into a... a big ball of w-" Eclipse interrupted himself and stopped, looking down at what he was wearing while I passed him. "Wendy, hold on, I thought you said people didn't wear hot clothes in Florida."

"Right, people don't," I answered. "Unfortunately for us, nerds aren't people." I opened the door to the D Building and tugged him along. "My card only takes us so far. Professors don't like it when people enter without being enrolled." I led Eclipse upstairs to the second floor, keeping my eyes open for any sort of unusual activity or anything that looked alien.

"I doubt it would be a normal class if it's already been established as hostile," Eclipse reasoned, finally reaching the top of the stairs. "And if I were you, I'd try not to look like you're looking for anything alien," he added. "If they're a primitive species, like yours, they could be jumpy."

I turned around and slapped Eclipse.

In a short time, we'd reached room 204. After peeking inside, Eclipse pulled out his magnetic key. "Lucky for us, nobody's inside," he remarked.

"Come again?" I asked. "There's supposed to be a class in session, that's why we dressed up like this," I explained. "It's synchronized classes today, they're doing a deep-clean of the whole campus later. The AM classes are all supposed to be at 7:30 and run through to 11:00."

"I thought you said three hours."

"My class is three hours," I answered. "That's usually how long it takes before his desk catches fire."

Eclipse twisted the key. I could hear the same noise as before as he opened the door, the lock clicking out of place and sliding back into the open position.

The room inside was a mess. Glass was shattered all over the floor, two computers were missing from their desks, and the cabinets had been opened, with their contents spilling out onto the carpet. One desk had been overturned - and as we pushed a little further into the room, we saw that the second missing computer was here - only a chunk of the monitor had been removed, as if something had torn through the monitor and tossed aside the tower.

I stopped Eclipse from moving too far in, taking some careful steps forward to check around the computer. "Where did the other half of the monitor go?" I asked, gesturing him to start looking around.

Eclipse stayed where he was, instead looking down at the glass on the floor. "Either destroyed or disintegrated, those are my best guesses." He crouched down, using his tie to pick up one of the bigger shards of glass, holding it up in the light.

"That's another question," I added. "The monitors here don't use glass screens. The school's cheap, so most of the monitors have this plastic film instead of a screen. If the windows are fine, then where did the glass come from?"

"It's not glass," Eclipse answered. "It has this rainbow reflection in it, and it's a little blue-ish. Also, most of these shards are too thin. Glass is maybe twice as thick." As I turned to face him, I looked at the scene from a new angle - something was bugging me, but I couldn't figure out what. "Wendy, what would have been in those cabinets?" he asked, looking into the small pile of now-garbage on the other side of the room. It was mostly paper.

"Textbooks, installation discs, spare computer parts," I answered. "Stuff for a business class. Stationery, too."

"They still use CDs?" he asked. "It's 2023. I made sure of that when I landed here."

"Like I said, the school's cheap. We-" I stopped myself as I was talking, suddenly thinking of a different idea. "We had, like, sixty of them in one class, one for the business applications and one for the school software," I recalled. "What would take out the CDs and crush them up?"

Eclipse shut his eyes, hanging his head for a minute. "Wendy..." he started, holding his breath. "Could you check around for any clothes in this room?"

On the suggestion, I stood, and took a lap around the room, opening drawers and wall-mounted cabinets, until eventually I found a wad of formal clothes in the professor's desk - a white shirt with khakis, and a set of socks and shoes. They were wrinkled, and slightly dirty - I could still see cat hair on the shirt. The khakis had a wallet inside - one I was immediately searching through, to see if the ID was still there. "I found some," I answered. "One set of clothes, and a wallet, but there's no ID. I think it was the professor's."

Eclipse nodded, and stood. "Analumines," he answered. "Whoever that teacher was, he's gone," he softly spoke, clutching his tie a little tighter in-hand.

I shook my head in disbelief, dropping the clothes. It took all of my willpower not to scream and alert people over, or maybe it was just easier to keep quiet since I wasn't totally faithful in Eclipse's conclusion. "He's gone?" I repeated, picking up the clothes again.

"Dead, most likely." He approached and spread the clothes out on the professor's desk, looking for something. "Right here," he pointed, directing my eyes to a warped portion of fabric towards the arms. "Analumine hands are too strong to handle weaker fabrics. You can tell if one's around if you find clothes bundled up like this."

"Wait, what? So how did they get the clothes off of him, then?"

"I should've rephrased that," he stated. "Their hands are too strong. They're a tripedal species, and they walk around with their knees bent in small spots. Their hands are more like crane claws - three fingers with giant nails as fingertips. That's how you wind up with the warped fabric, here - when they try to bundle up the clothes, they grip it too hard."

"I still don't understand. Why would they want to take his clothes in the first place? And what happened to his ID?"

"They probably took his ID first," he explained. "Their anatomy is all jumbled around. You can tell a lot about a species' nature based off where its organs are." Taking out a piece of paper, he did a quick, rough sketch of what one could look like. "See, here."

"Where's it's neck?" I asked. "It's just... two eyes and a mouth on top."

"Five eyes, and a mouth on top. I didn't draw the two eyes on the back, sorry. They can't move back and forth very fast without zig-zagging, so they have to see in every direction at once. And you'd be surprised how many species don't have necks. Necks are pretty rare in this part of the galaxy."

"That's four eyes," I pointed out, counting them out again in my head just to make sure. "And what does their anatomy change about their nature?"

"Two answers at the same time. It's not pretty, but like I told you, their organs are all jumbled around. Their heart is in their head, for instance. They've got this big, long cavity running down, and their tongue is a tube that runs from the top of it down to the bottom." He traced another outline of one, this time to show his approximation of where things were. "The mouth opens up directly into the stomach when the tongue lets things through, and from the stomach, it passes the fifth eye, which in turn, is wired up right next to the first brain."

"First brain?"

"First brain. The second is more of an... auxiliary brain, right next to the heart," Eclipse explained. "The first brain does the thinking, and the second brain does the sensing - save for the fifth eye." He grimaced as he thought of it, balling his hand up into a fist and drawing in the parts he spoke of.

"Their digestive system is roughly 60% of their body," Eclipse explained. "All other systems are pretty bare-bones, but their digestive and nervous systems are well-developed. Actually," he began, putting in what I assumed were intestines into the drawing, and then adding some small additional lines. "Your species is primarily cardiovascular and nervous," Eclipse explained. "The most important systems in your body are those two. Food feeds into the blood, and blood feeds into the brain. Analumines are a primarily digestive and nervous species," he added. "Their nerves run directly through the digestive system, and all their... sense sensors are placed in spots accordingly. The eyes are up by the mouth and in the stomach, their version of ears are small rings going along the outside of their body, and so on."

"So what's the fifth eye for?" I asked. "Hardly seems like it would be very useful for anyone to look at what they're eating after they eat it."

"That's where you're wrong. Analum V is a hostile planet. Every piece of organic material is out to kill you. They had to evolve a second digestive tract to filter out toxins. That's where the eye comes in." He ripped off a small corner of paper and doodled a drumstick onto it. "Something goes into the stomach. If it's good, it goes and gets digested like normal. If it's bad, it gets funneled through the poison chute until it is normal." He crumpled up the little corner of paper and tossed it aside. "Trouble is, evolution happens. Eventually, Analumines become sentient, thinking members of society, just like humans. Their whole body is meant to eat everything around them, and then think of how to make things easier and easier to eat. As they get smarter, as they evolve into scientists and thinkers, their fifth eye evolves too, and it gets better and better at analyzing whatever goes through its mouth-"

My heart stopped beating as I realized what that implied, and I cut him off before he could say anything further. "And eventually, they learn how to look at something and understand it after eating it," I finished, head beginning to feel dizzy and lighter all of a sudden.

"That's what happened to the monitor, and the second computer," he explained. "They probably only needed a single bite to tell what the monitor was made of. The computer would've been a bit more complex." Eclipse stood up and turned around, sighing. "And it probably had another Krotwen on it," he concluded. "That must have been the hostile intent. An Analumine is a genius. It could probably tell what was on a computer based off of how the processors reacted to its stomach enzymes. I'd be willing to bet that that's what it was trying to do with the CDs."

I sat down at the desk and looked over Eclipse's drawing once again. "So we've got an alien twice our strength loose somewhere on the campus, whose sole motivation is to eat anything it finds, and we've got to find some way of stopping it?"

"No. You're actually wrong about that," Eclipse answered, looking back towards me. "It's more like twelve times our strength."

#science fiction #original writing #Part 1 #Chapter 4 #mail boy's got places to be #feedback appreciated #the messenger eclipse #the anatomy of this monster was based off a dream i had #but i'm not telling you how until later

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