#is it any surprise that Gaz has the most style? no | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

cerise-on-top · 4 months

Note

Could I request gn reader, who happens to be insecure about wearing feminine clothing, asking the 141 (+Laswell) if they would be willing to wear a dress with them?

(Take as much time as you need, don't overwork yourself lovie! Your writing is always the highlight of my day- I love it so much!! ❤️)

Hello! Thank you for reading my silly little writing, I always try my best! Wearing feminine clothing can be a bit rough, I get it, but I'm cheering you on, anon ✧｡٩(ˊᗜˋ )و✧*｡ I hope you'll feel more comfortable soon, because clothing like that can be absolutely adorable! Either way, thank you for the request, I hope it's to your liking!

TF141 and Laswell Wearing a Dress with GN!Insecure!Reader

Price: It would start out simple: You’d ask him to wear a dress with you and he would immediately say no. Dresses are simply not his style, he knows he would never look good in one. Besides, would there even be any in his size? A dress to accommodate someone as big and burly as him? He doesn’t think so, and he doesn’t think he’d feel comfortable in one either. It would take your heartbroken eyes, almost quivering voice, that would make him consider otherwise. He’ll apologize for being so harsh with you and will try to get his point across, he’s just not a dress guy. You’d need to explain your own situation to him, that you want to feel more comfortable wearing feminine clothing and you thought having someone to wear something along the lines of that with you would help. Go into detail, if you have him considering and weighing his options for up to a minute, followed by a deep sigh, you know you’ve won. Your happiness seems to even be over his own comfort. However, he will not wear a dress in public, only at home. He’s a captain and does have the mindset that something like a dress isn’t for guys like him. Not that he has a problem with guys wearing dresses, god knows he’s caught Gaz and Soap wearing them before, but he has a reputation to uphold. Whichever dress it ends up being, you’re the one to choose it since he has no idea what would fit someone like him in the first place. The only wish he has is that it ends up being beige or any other kind of brown. It’s what he’s used to the most. While it would take quite some time to get him to dress up the first time, he’s more willing after that. He does feel embarrassed to be wearing a dress, but it isn’t as bad as he thought it would be. Give him a heartfelt compliment about how good he looks and you’ll get him to blush.

Gaz: Although he’s only ever worn dresses as a joke, he does quite like the aesthetic of them. As mentioned previously, he and Soap have dressed up before simply because they felt like it and wanted to see if they would look good in a dress. So, yeah, he actually owns two or three dresses that he thinks fit him quite well, even though he never told you that. So don’t be surprised if he suddenly leaves the room and comes back with two dresses in his hands. You can choose which one he should wear, one is simply black and the other one is a pretty yellow. His favorite is the black one since it’s a bit more flowy and doesn’t hug his curves as much as the yellow one, but both look good on him. So, you don’t particularly need to explain your situation to him for him to be on board. Will make it a competition on who looks better in feminine clothing, even if he insists you always win. You’re just too pretty and beautiful to pass up. Considering he’s comfortable enough in his masculinity to do traditionally feminine things as well, he will pose for you if you ask him to, just to show off. He may not go out too far in public, your garden is probably as far as it goes, but if you really like seeing him in dresses then he might even consider a cute skirt as well. Anything to make you feel more comfortable in your skin. This guy is pretty flexible, if you’re roughly the same size and your dresses fit him, then he might wear them as well just to show you how good they look. Overall he really hypes you up, tries to do what he can to make you happy. After all, if someone like him, a sergeant in the SAS, can look good wearing feminine clothing, then so can you.

Ghost: He raises an eyebrow upon hearing that suggestion. Why? He’s not as opposed as Price, but he wants to hear a good reason as to why someone like him, 1,95m with muscles to match, should wear a dress. Once you explain the situation to him, he’ll sigh, but comply. He doesn’t own a dress, he never even thought he’d find one that would a) fit him and b) look good on him. You’d probably need something tailored specifically to him since he’s a very broad guy. Once you’ve got something for him, though, he’s not particularly picky. You want him to wear a pink strawberry dress? Sure, why not. Very nonchalant about it, this is more about you than him, after all. Although it would look interesting, he’d go for a sleeveless dress since that way he won’t have to worry about him accidentally flexing the sleeves off. It likely wouldn’t be too easy to find something like it, but he would prefer a flowy dress as well, not everyone needs to see how well defined he is. Would probably like a small motif on the dress as well, nothing too big or exciting, though. Once he’s wearing that dress, he would check himself out in the mirror, wanting to see how he’d actually look. He wouldn’t look too bad in that dress, but then again, he’s a rather handsome man in general. While he would hope for you to agree that he doesn’t look too terrible, he wouldn’ take it to heart if you disagreed with him. Once you’re wearing a dress yourself, he’d probably blush a bit. It’s a rather unusual sight, but you look so good in one, it’s unbelievable. Ghost may not normally be the most touchy person, but he would offer his hand to you to help you with spinning around. He wants to see you from every angle, see just how lovely you look.

Soap: He has experimented with dresses before as well, just to goof around with Gaz, but he never would have thought he’d ever wear one again. He didn’t keep his dress, he gave it to Gaz and left it at that. So it was a bit surprising when you came up to him and asked him to wear a dress with him. He’d give you a goofy grin and ask you why, a bit nervous. Would you just make fun of him, being a guy who has worn a dress? As soon as you explain your reasoning, he calms down a bit and is down. He even takes more of an active role when you go dress shopping together, asking you if this and that would look good on him. Soap simply picks out something he likes, tries it on if it would fit, and takes it home if there’s no discomfort. If it was up to him, he’d go for something with frills, something big and exciting that would draw the attention of just about anyone. However, he couldn’t find something like that when he went shopping with you, so he opted for something smaller that hugged him nicely. Once he wears that dress, the only complaint he has about it is the fact he hadn’t shaved his legs, other than that he checks himself out in the mirror even more thoroughly than Ghost. He needs to know how hot he is in a dress, and you should tell him that as well. He isn’t uncomfortable at all and will walk throughout your home as though he was a model on the walkway. Laughs a bit when he sees his muscles bulging through the sleeves, but is still careful to not tear them. As soon as you walk in, his eyes are glued on you and he tells you just how gorgeous you look, how you should absolutely wear dresses more often than you do since you’re stunning and beautiful. He means all of it too, by the way, so it’s not just empty talk. You wearing a dress does something to him.

Laswell: As one can imagine, she has also worn dresses before, but they’re not her favorite article of clothing. In fact, if she can avoid them, she will. Not that she’s insecure or anything, she just thinks she looks better in a jacket. Skirts aren’t her cup of tea either. While she’s been on covert ops where she had to wear them, she’s glad she usually doesn’t have to. However, she isn’t entirely opposed to wearing them, so you can walk up to her just about any time and ask her to wear a dress with you. Might be a bit miffy when she’s wearing a dress in public, but your comfort comes first. She’s pretty good with fashion, so she can actually help you find something that looks very good on you, as well as on her. She’s so sweet about it too, giving you tips and showing you tricks on how to make it fit better and how to feel more comfortable. Since she’s not the tallest, most muscular person, it’s not too hard for her to find something. She would go for something with sleeves since it’s a bit warmer that way. If possible, she would go for something matching with you. Something flowy and nice that won’t make you too uncomfortable for the time being. When you’re wearing your dress, she’ll compliment you first and foremost. Laswell is good with words, so she’ll know exactly what to say to ease your anxiety. But even if you can’t shake off your discomfort immediately, don’t worry too much about it. If it makes you feel better, then Laswell will wear dresses with you more often so the both of you can get used to it. You’ll grow desensitized to it eventually, but it’s important to start small. Besides, if you really want to start wearing feminine clothing, Laswell will support you. She has the money to buy or tailor you just about anything, so the cutest, prettiest clothing will be yours if you allow her to get it for you.

#cod #cod x reader #john price #john price x reader #kyle gaz garrick #kyle gaz garrick x reader #gaz x reader #simon ghost riley #simon ghost riley x reader #ghost x reader #john soap mactavish #john soap mactavish x reader #soap x reader #kate laswell #kate laswell x reader #I can tell you all of the lads and lasses would be supportive even if they need a differrring amount of coercion!#do what makes you happy anon! your favorite characters will always support you no matter what! They told me so themselves!#I'm wishing you all the best! good luck on your endeavours too!

109 notes · View notes

dragonkeeper19600 · 2 years

Note

Okay, I'm gonna sound like a total killjoy here but I sometimes feel like the only person in the world who frigging hated some things about the Invader Zim comics. Particularly the beginning where the setup was just "LOL, Dib gets shit on again, let's laugh at what a fat ugly loser he is". I don't want to say "fat-shaming" but that particular bit felt excessively meanspirited even by IZ standards. You'd honestly think the writers hate Dib sometimes when he gets crap like this. It also kind of ruins Florpus for me a bit, because while there he gets a break, here just gets humiliated harder than ever.

To be perfectly honest, I'm a bit puzzled by your implication that this is somehow unique to the comics. Dib was constantly getting shit on in the show. Like the time he had to scrub out the Shadow Hog's toilet with his head, or the time the bullying in Miss Bitters's classroom actually pushed him to tears, or the time he lived to a ripe old age after experiencing the life of his dreams only to find out it was all a simulation. Dib is treated harshly in the comics sure, but Jhonen came to recognize that having a character constantly suffer without a break is more draining than funny. So, to balance it out, the comics make an effort to portray Dib's family as more caring (Professor Membrane is around more, Gaz is shown to actually give a crap about his safety, etc.), all in the name of making his suffering funnier.

Second of all, it may surprise you to know that Dib is Jhonen's favorite character.

This above drawing dates back to season 1 of the cartoon and marked an effort by the artists to make Dib more likeable by making him funnier. Rest assured, the writers aren't shitting on Dib in any media because they hate him. Quite the opposite. Dib just plain wouldn't be as funny or likeable if he wasn't the butt of so many jokes. In fact, he probably wouldn't even fit into the world of Invader ZIM. A lot of fans tend to forget that Invader ZIM is predominately a comedy. That Dib is so hapless and is constantly facing mistreatment and belittlement from the very people he's trying to help is a huge part of the show's satire. This isn't the tale of a brave hero standing up to a serious alien threat. This is the tale of a loser undergoing the thankless task of playing damage control for an alien moron.

The movie was kinder to Dib because Jhonen recognized the need for a movie to have a fulfilling story. It's okay for an eleven minute episode or a twenty page comic book to have no emotional arc or impact, but a movie needs to have more teeth than that. When you think of all the great comedic films, there are always moments where the film recognizes that the joke is over and that it's time to be sincere. Or, at the very least, they contain real stakes that mean something important has to be solved or faced without yucks. So, Dib's family actually rising to the occasion and having his back for once was born from the pragmatic need to give Enter the Florpus an emotional story arc.

As for the fat-shaming thing... Yeah, that's pretty hard to defend. Jhonen loves to portray the grotesque in his work, and, unfortunately, "grotesquely fat" is part of that category. That Dib turns into a sedentary lump without ZIM in his life pretty important to the dynamic between the characters, but I could see how someone could be troubled by substantial weight gain being used to illustrate his life going downhill.

However, when Invader ZIM draws an obese character for comedic effect, they're less concerned with drawing realistic proportions and more concerned with drawing a monstrous caricature. I'm not sure how many people could look at Bloaty, for example, and think, "Hey! That looks like me!" Due to the art style, most characters in the series are on the "beanpole" side of the scale, but there are background and secondary characters on the heavier side who are drawn with less exaggerated proportions. SKOODGE, in particular, in pretty heavyset, and that he's mistreated by his people for no other reason than his failure to meet their beauty standards is a source of both comedy and social commentary.

#invader zim #dib membrane

16 notes · View notes

dappercritter · 3 years

Text

Invader Zim: Taller Tales of Terror - The First Fic That Wasn’t

This was going to be my first fanfiction that I ever published, but things came up and I found other story ideas and fandoms to get into. However, because there’s nothing I hate more than leaving a story untold and forgotten.

So like a writer jilted by a big name studio working on a big superhero movie that went terribly wrong after they left, I’m going to share it with you good folks to see if you still think there’s hope for it in some capacity. If so maybe I’ll choose to revive it in some capacity, or one of you kind folks can adopt it. Whatever you think of the once untold tale I’m about tell you, I hope you enjoy it.

The fic would have been either a mini-series/anthology or a movie-esque sequel—or two—to Enter the Florpus.

It would have followed the stranger further misadventures the kids would go on as teenagers, all of which have at least something to do with getting taller, literally or metaphorically.

Although I'd do my best to recreate the series' darkly comic tone, there'd be more to the story than just that. I'd like to do a sort of character study with my fanfics and explore what they would do as they got older, how they would change if they could change, if they'd mature and try to connect with each other more, or if they really do just hate each other. It'd be like a coming-of-age story but done in the style of Invader Zim.

But don’t be fooled, folks! It's not going to be one of those big dramatic fanfics with high stakes (nor any smut) thrown in. At it's core it's still just a fun, dumb, mildly disturbed "What if?" sort of fic. There would be a bit more emphasis on character and plot than normal, because I do love me a good character-driven plot, but still plenty of room for (what I hoped would feel like) the usual weird dumb creepy fun that original series excelled at.

The story is set in basically the same continuity (or at least the closest thing to a continuity that can exist in Invader Zim) as the show and comics. The only difference is that the Battle of Meekrob actually happened—but not really.

Long backstory short, there was a big showdown between the Irken Armada and the Meekrob-allied Resisty, but Zim and Dib missed it because a food fight got them stuck in detention. Zim tried to get Skoodge (who was rooming with him at the time because the scrapped Season 2 episodes were sorta canon here) to cover for him until her got there, while Dib tried to get Gaz to take Tak’s ship to provide support against the Irken. By the time they got out, however, the battle was over, Gaz blew the whole thing off to get a new game, Skoodge and some other Invader became the war hero Zim always aspired to be, and The Almighty Tallest decided to cancel Operation Impending Doom 2 because after the big exciting space battle they felt like they couldn’t top anything after that. Suffice to say, Zim took it pretty hard. Dib however would have seen this as something of a win since Zim still failed in a sense. Albeit it was a very anticlimactic win, even to him.

The actual story would have taken place about 5 years after the Battle of Meekrob, where Zim, Dib, and Gaz have made it to high school (or “hi-skool” as this is the Invader Zim universe, after all). Setting wise, things haven't changed much but the characters have made a few surprising or not-so-surprising developments. The most important of all, so important that it would be the focus of the entire story, in fact! would have been Zim developing a brand-new disguise utilizing an exoskeleton, based partially on the Almighty Tallest, in attempt to make him look like a normal teenager AND impress superiors. Naturally, things go horribly yet amusingly wrong for everyone involved.

Now just where and what has everyone been up to/going through in those five years? Here’s a rundown:

-Zim spent those 5 years obsessing over his crushing failure, begging the Tallest to give him another chance, which they refused every time. Being stuck on a planet of smelly, stupid, and increasingly annoying creatures for so long without any real victories has left him bitter and frantic with more shmoopiness than usual. Even the little "VICTORY FOR ZIM!" moments he used to have got harder and harder to come by. By the time he reached high school, he was so messed up he didn’t realize his classmates had all had growth spurts until Dib easily overpowered him in one of their petty fights and points it out to the whole school. Thus, leading to the new exoskeleton and subsequent schemes to redeem himself in the eyes of the Tallest while looking normal in the eyes of his human classmates. Unfortunately, due to his desperation and general lack of understanding about the human body, the exoskeleton comes out looking like a lanky robotic nightmare with clawed fingers that jerks around like a big cybernetic marionette.

-Dib meanwhile has been doing slightly better. He and his paranormal research are still looked down upon, but he's persevered through the hope that someday he'll prove he's right. After (indirectly) stopping Zim from joining the Battle of Meekrob, Dib got a small confidence boost, thinking of it as a big step to exposing for Zim real now that he’s effectively trapped on Earth with him now. Although, following a rather blunt intervention from his family, he's started thinking about what he’ll do with himself once Zim is gone. He still hates his guts and he's still hellbent on beating him, but he's also started getting out more and trying to socialize more—however awkward his attempts may be. That he's also gotten taller and his head isn't quite as big compared to the rest of his body has been good for his self-esteem too. But make no mistake—when he's not going for runs, working shifts at his dad’s lab, or looking into a “totally normal” science major, he's toiling away on improving his array of anti-Zim strategies and defenses.

-Gaz is doing pretty good but she is totally done with Zim and Dib's junk. Although she's still her old apathetic self, she's doing everything in her power to broaden her horizons so she doesn't end up in the same, stupid rut that they ended up in. She would have gotten into indie art and game development; although her work is still fairly obscure, it's quickly gaining attention for it's macabre, edgy, punishing and geeky nature. (Imagine the works of Jhonen Vasquez, Toby Fox, Hidetaka Miyazaki, and Hideki Kamiya mashed together.) She also participates in e-sports tournaments on occasion, if only because crushing countless so-called “gamers” brings her amusement. Her psychic powers have also gotten stronger with her age, and she likes to experiment with them whenever she can—usually when somebody really annoys her. She's doing fine in the story until, after a run-in with a certain unkillable spoiled brat at an e-sports tournament, sends her over the edge and she trashes the place in a Carrie-esque episode. This gets her sent to anger management therapy, and now she's trying to find a way out to avoid sitting through an endless slog of "sappy" sessions.

-Gir would still be insane.

-Minimoose would still be the ultimate techno-lifeform Minimoose.

-Zim's Computer is still tired.

-Prof. Membrane is still the greatest and most powerful scientist who ever lived but he’s also trying to make time for his family more and mentoring Dib to be the successor to his legacy he always thinks he was meant to be. That is if is experimental new immortality machine doesn’t work out. May or may not have to fend off Clembrane whenever he comes to visit.

-The Almighty Tallest are still living content, tyrannical lives. They didn't take canceling Operation Impending Doom 2 very hard because, as it turns out, they just got bored with it after a while. (Of course, Zim's repeated interference didn't help keep their spirits up either). However, they'd come up with the perfect plan to obtain absolute control of the universe AND get the feeling back: by making Operation Impending Doom 3 a thing and setting up a huge hype campaign for it. Thing go pretty well for them until Zim calls them and tells them about his new exosuit. They believe that Zim is trying to make himself look like a Tallest so he can lead a rebellion against them and get revenge for treating him like garbage. (He's not, obviously, but they're too dumb and paranoid to realize this.) So, they pretend that they're ok with it and let him carry on his merry way while they figure out how to dispose of him without making him look like a martyr figure of some sort, thus giving the other Irkens they mistreated any ideas.

-Tak would show up again in the second half and this is where it gets spoiler-y. She would come to Earth on the Tallest’s orders with a squad consisting of a reformatted Mimi, rogue SIR units, as well as Tenn and Skoodge who she had recruited to aid in her vendetta against Zim. She would subsequently reveal that after drifting through space in an escape pod, she crashed landed on Meekrob just as the battle was about to begin, and using the element of surprise, rescued Tenn from captivity and assisted Skoodge and the Tallest in devising a battle strategy so brilliant that it crushed the Resisty and Meekrob’s alliance and earned her the status of Irken Elite. She grew comfortable in her new position but could never get over her fear that Zim would eventually ruin it all again, so she waited and prepared for the day she would strike back. I don’t know how or if she would adopt an updated disguise (perhaps a hologram of her older humansona projected over her, Tenn, and Skoodge standing on top of her shoulders?) or hide in the shadows while Tenn, Skoodge, Mimi and the berserk SIR squad did her dirty work.

-Skoodge would have gone from aspiring to be Zim’s friend to being his worst enemy after Tak turned him to her side by digging into his past with him, making him realize how little his supposed old friend cared about him. Despite this he still keeps an unusually cheerful disposition—even repeatedly apologizing to Zim whenever he attacks him—and acts as the heart of Tak’s squad. He thinks of them as his real friends, so he always goes out of his way to help them out or keep the energy up. Even though Tak looks down on him because of his size, she appreciates his gullibility and unquestioning loyalty. Tenn just thinks he’s nice, especially since he’s good at keeping the SIRs in check.

-Tenn has recovered from the traumatic escapades she endured on Meekrob at the hands of the rogue SIR units and imprisonment under the enemy, returning to her usual competant Invader self—something Tak values quite a bit in an armada largely composed of egomaniacs and morons. Tenn values Tak’s companionship even more, viewing her as a conquering hero who not only won the most important battle of Irken history, but also, her heart. …Not she’ll ever act on her feelings. That would inconveniance the mission! (Although Skoodge has picked up on this and gladly supports her, thinking they’d make an adorable couple.) After investation revealed that Zim was supposed to receive the rogue SIR units instead of her while he trashed the Megadoomer that was rightfully assigned to her, she bought into Tak’s view that Zim’s very existence was a threat to all Irkenkind, gladly assisting her efforts to eradicate him.

-Mimi and the rogue SIR units have been reprogrammed to be less insane and follow orders again thanks to Tak and Skoodge’s efforts. However, Tak also had a berserk mode installed specfically for eradicating targets with optimal, brutal efficiency. Mimi still tends to glitch though. In addition to Mimi retaining her cat holo-disguise, the berserker SIRs would gain new disguises resembling either feral cats or rabid teacup poodles. (I hadn’t decided yet.) Tenn still gets anxious around them.

-Gretchen might show up again and would possibly get to reconnect with Dib, maybe even finally be honest with him about her feelings for him when she surprises him with her surprising new position at Membrane Labs: the janitor.

-Keef will… er, uh… actually, don’t get your hopes up.

Well, I think that’s everyone important. Okay back to the plot now!

So, right up front, the biggest part of the plot as well as the biggest reason why I got uncomfortable with the whole thing was there wiould be some romance in here between a few couples and that it would have figured into the plot. The most significant of all: ZAGR (a.k.a. Zim and Gaz Relationship). But I wanted to make it feel organic and even sweet without sacrificing the feel of sardonic madness but also keeping it in the wholesome zone.

I always felt like Zim and Gaz were a natural fit for each other (like quite a few other people, admittedly) because I always felt like their personalities were a good fit and they could have a lot in common. The story would follow them as they unexpectedly developed a romantic friendship, bonding over their resentment of the Earth and humanity, their absent family members, a love of technology of questionable intent, and subjugating those who anger them. It would all start with Gaz agreeing to help Zim improve his suit and his unassuming human act just to get back at Dib for annoying her. At first they’d be acting entirely out of spite and necessity, but as they spent more time together, they’d start to enjoy each other’s company more.

Gaz would be the first develop feelings, since she voluntarily rejected the concept of love instead of being programmed to reject it like Zim, as she slowly realizes how much they have in common—much to her horror. Zim would take more time but when he begins to understand how he feels about and just what these DISGUST feelings are, he’d handle it just as poorly. (e.g. I pictured a scene where Zim has such a hard time admitting his feelings for Gaz that he ends up vomiting black goo like he’s possessed or something. For comedy of course.) But they’d both start to open up to each other in the end, if only because they’re the only two people in the universe they can stand. Gaz would try to help him overcome his anxiety and stop caring as much about what humans think of him, while he would be someone that she can actually relate to.

Dib, however, would take sincerest offense to it. He’d be totally freaking out, nearly diving off the deep end to put his plans to defeat Zim into action and expose him before he could be exposed. He’d also make a point of demanding what Gaz could see in a monster like him, even reminding her of everything that Zim had done. Probably in an exchange like this:

DIB: He stole our organs! He tried to crush the planet with Mars! He kidnapped me and threatened to turn me inside out! He tricked me into helping him teleport Earth into outer space so his rulers could destroy it! He turned me into bologna, Gaz! (*holding back tears*) BOLOGNE!

GAZ: I thought you got over that.

DIB: Well, physically I did, yes, but not mentally.

Gir would be pretty on board with it though.

The other biggest plot of the series would have been Tak’s return and the reveal of her and the Tallest’s master plan to destroy Zim once and for all: kick off Operation Impending Doom 3 by placing Zim on trial, executing him, and completing Tak’s plan to turn the planet Earth into a snack bowl for the Tallest (which she still insists is a good plan, she just never got to complete it) big enough to feed them while they watch the conquest of the rest of the universe in style. Zim and the Membranes get through to her and her squad, and possibly the other Irkens, by turning them against the Tallest to stop the Irkens once and for all. Maybe.

Finally to wrap this little nightmare up, here’s a vague outline of the stories I had planned for this wannabe whopper:

-A Whole New Nightmare – Following an amusing prologue about how Zim and Dib ended up missing the battle of Meekrob, Zim finally realizes that his natural Irken height threatens to expose his façade to all the classmates who have reached proper adolescent human height. He creates his exosuit then proceeds to cause a scene when he calls the Tallest and goes to hi-skool. Meanwhile, Gaz bugs Dib about still wasting his time bullying Zim. Zim then challenges Dib to a contest of normalcy: a series of challenges that are just overhyped normal teenage things like loitering, hanging out with friends, and finally a dance-off. Whoever loses has to admit they’re a complete weirdo and admit they’re most embarrassing secret. Dib wins the first round, but after he blows off Gaz to hang out with the other kids, she and Zim strike up a nice conversation and he wins the second round. The final dance-off ends in a draw when Zim and Dib both end up looking like total dorks. The story ends with Dib and Zim standing up for themselves against their judgemental peers, but Zim ends up overtaking his big speech and convincing his classmates to completely forget about his bizarre new appearance.

-Gaz the Befriended - Zim and Gaz make a deal: Gaz helps him fine tune his suit while posing as his "NORMAL HUMAN!" friend, and in return he helps her figure out how to control her powers while posing as her friend so she won't have to go to anger management counselling. While they do drive each other nuts, they eventually learn they have a lot in common and start acting like real friends. Dib grows suspicious of their "friendship," sets out to uncover the truth.

-They Follow - Dib goes on social media to share his findings on Zim with the world in an attempt to verify all his evidence via wisdom of the crowd. Zim finds out and retaliates by joining social media as well to make himself look like a hard luck case in an effort to gain sympathy from the (basically ignorant) public. As their war of words escalate and their follower bases grow, they end up starting a flame war that threatens to destroy society itself.

-Star Dib - Hoping to find some real help, Dib sends a message to outer space looking for reinforcements. He ends up with what remains of the Resisty, who dissolved after their crushing defeat on The Battle of Meekrob. Taking pity on them, he volunteers to become their new leader. Shenanigans ensue on a galactic level.

-C for Conspiracy - Dib stumbles across a mysterious conspiracy involving Earth tech being backwards compatible with alien tech. He wants to take it on himself, but realizes that he might actually need Zim’s help. So he has to swallow his pride and ask him for help, and as if that weren’t enough he has to put up with his and Gir’s (who tagged along) antics.

-Night of the Living Prom-goers - Prom night comes along and all the hormonally-imbalanced kids are ready to go, except for Zim, Dib, and Gaz. Until Gaz works up the nerve to ask Zim out, which he actually accepts. While Gaz prepares for her perfect tolerable evening, Dib desperately tries to convince her that Zim’s up to something while trying uncover his true motives, only for her to snap at him and challenge his views on Zim. Little do either of them know, Zim plans to use the prom as an experiment to harness Gaz’s power for his own ends. But at the same time, he ponders whether his friendship with Gaz is just a means to an end or something more. Either way it will be a night they will never forget. Or survive! Probably.

-The Return of Tak’s Revenge Rises - Tak finally returns to take her revenge on Zim and the Membrane siblings. Striking them when they least expect with the aid of an upgraded MiMi, a squad of berserk SIR units, and two fellow invaders Zim had wronged in the past.

-Doomed Together - Following Tak’s strike, the Almighty Tallest kick off Operation Impending Doom 3 with a mission of utmost importance: sending in the Irken Armada to ensure Zim is destroyed once for all so they can finally proceed with absolute universal domination. Now, Gaz, Dib, and some unlikely allies must come up with a plan to save their even more unlikely new friend and the rest of the universe from the most fearsome force in the universe! It’s basically the grand finale.

And that is all there is, or was, to Taller Tales of Terror. I can’t guarantee I’ll ever revisit it, what with all the other stuff on my plate right now, but I’m glad to have finally shared the story of my first fanfic with y’all.

So, tell me, my filthy monkey maggot mutual friends. After all that horrible rambling, what did you think?

14 notes · View notes

velociraptoraddict · 4 years

Text

Part 3 Invader Zim Fanfiction Review

Part 1 and Part 2 can be found here!

Before we get started, as always, please let me know if any of the links provided don’t work, so I can correct them as soon as possible! I also welcome recommendations! So if there’s a fic that you don’t see on any of the lists, that you think I (or anyone else) should check out, please share! This Hyper-fixation Train is not slowing down and I need enablers 8D

And as a friendly reminder, anything crossed out is considered a Spoiler so read those parts at your own risks! And on to the Review!

Maneem Mekrelmar Danem Sempadinum Scarazial and Zaygam by @hecallsmehischild

This is a six part saga totaling 242,514 words. Originally posted on Fanfiction.net on an unknown date in the early 2000s and re-uploaded to Ao3 on 05-26-2016 and marked complete on 08-18-2016 (though the total write time was estimated 7 years). There are a total of 174 chapters.

I’m going to do something a little different with this one because it is a six part series. I’m mostly going to review it as one fic with a quick rundown of the different segments. So I’ll only provide the link for “Maneem” but you should easily be able to find the rest from the there. If I review each one individually, by the time I got to “Danem” and the others, they would all have to be scratched out due to spoiling revealed plot twists from both “Maneem” and “Mekrelmar”. However, because of how long and complex this whole thing is, I am going to need to delve a bit more in to spoilers than I like just to cover the over all plot, so be warned! I will say this series was AMAZING and would probably be best read blind! There are so many exciting twists and reveals and the Author (You may recognize from the Part 2 reviews such as “Spacejerk” and “Misdirection”) as always, is able to pull you into the story, make you fall in love with these characters, and does not pull any punches when it comes to emotional drama! I teared up during the epilogue! This Author has made me cry on two different occasions now!! If you love soap operas, you’ll love this series!

“Maneem” We start off with Zim finding out that his mission on Earth was a joke. In a state of shock, he wonders out into the streets of his neighborhood. He is not wearing his disguise and is very obviously an Alien. Dib finally gets what he’s always wanted, and Zim is arrested. Zim then goes to court (stay with me here lol), and a Judge sentences him to spend 3 months living with a host family to prove that he is not a danger to society. If he fails to do so, then he will be surrendered to the Swollen Eyeball for them to do whatever they please. And this is where we meet Della, Tom, Mikko, and Tiana, they’re original characters that play very important roles throughout the whole saga, I love them all for different reasons but Della and Mikko are definitely my favorites <3! This is a Found Family Fic. Della and Zim’s interactions are rocky at first but so sweet and wholesome later on, and Mikko’s growth from a frightened mute little girl to a spitfire fighter is done so well and I just absolutely adore her! Although, in the beginning, there is definitely a lot of headbutting, as the saga goes on these characters become Zim’s family, and they really grow close. The first half of “Maneem” is mostly Zim settling in with this new family of his, so a lot of slice-of-life fluff and drama. But soon, Dib hacks into Zim’s PAK and reveals that Zim has had a truly horrific up bringing, complete with brutal torturous training and both emotional and physical abuse. One punishment Zim had to endure during training was being exposed to a new alien species called a Morflar. Morflars are like living shadows that hunt and eat Irkens, slowly killing them in the most bone chilling way possible. Morflars play a pretty big part later on. But something else is revealed in Zim’s memories that truly gets the plot moving! After seeing something truly horrific, Dib kidnaps Zim at gunpoint and forces the alien to take him to Irk for a rescue mission. Here is where we meet Gloria (I wont say much about her due to spoilers but I really fell in love with her and her relationships with other characters by the end of this saga!). A few things happen, and “Maneem” ends shortly after a second trip to Irk for a rescue is successful. Overall, “Maneem” is a pretty quick read, and due to its age (about 12 years old) it is missing a few of the finer details that the Author’s more recent fics have. However, even in these earlier chapters, the Author does such a great job with emotion and character interactions, that you hardly notice the jumping in scenes. And the writing style really improves later in the saga! It’s just obviously different from how the Author currently writes, so there’s a noticeable difference if you read their more recent fics first, but if you read this one first, then you wont even notice any of it, and you will truly be blown away when the writing improves later on.

“Mekrelmar” takes place about two years later, basically Dib wants revenge for what happened to Gloria, and convinces Zim to reluctantly tag along. Chaos ensues and Zim ends up being left behind on Irk, leading to a bit of torture and another rescue. Here is also where the Swollen Eyeball starts to enter the story in a major way, though they really don’t start to shine until “Danem”. The Author also does something with Gaz’s character in this series that is absolutely enjoyable and clever! I will not spoil it but it’s clever and works so well with the world the Author builds here. Even if the reveal is a little out of the blue XD

“Danem” takes place five years later, and here is where a lot of crazy stuff really starts to happen! There was actually a real-life five year gap between “Mekrelmar” and “Danem”, so not only does the writing style improve, but the Author’s ability to foreshadow really shines here! You can tell that the next four segments were all well planed out, as a lot of different twists and mysteries are introduced and slowly hinted at, before finally being answered many many chapter later! You wont be able to put it down! We start to learn a bit more about what Gaz can do. And Zim just has an All Around No Good Very Bad Time with a lot of stuff, I know I say this a lot, but this Author is so good at emotional trauma!! We also get a special surprise in the form of a familiar bond reveal, the Author does such a great job with the reveal too, it’s hinted at and you can almost guess what it is, yet it still takes you by surprise when it is confirmed! I was screaming out loud with how well done it was, and how excited I was about the implications of what the reveal would mean for the rest of the story. Mikko also continues to get some character growth and I gotta say, I really do love her X3. There’s more stuff with the Swollen Eyeball as well, which gets dark just as a heads up, there’s a bit of gore and psychological damage. It’s all very well written! We’re also introduced to another new character who plays a larger part later on, Agent Tunaghost, she’s one of the few characters who actually uses logic and is smart enough to know that everyone else needs to see a psychologist lol. Also, trying to avoid spoilers, the Author does an absolutely amazing job at a character redemption, someone who you absolutely despise in the first two segments becomes a beloved character in this one going forward. It’s so well done! This Author really writes trauma, angst, and emotions so well. Though fair warning, there is a Character Death in this segment. Towards the end of “Danem”, I really fall in love with a particular character and their behavior towards Zim (XD man it’s really hard to say stuff without spoiling it, like I don’t even want to name the character because that will spoil stuff from the first two segments)

“Sempadinum” takes place almost immediately after “Danem”, and it is an emotional roller coaster (lol I feel like I say this a lot, but seriously the Author is sooo good with making the reader feel for these guys!). It mostly focuses on Gloria’s recovery from all the horrible stuff that’s happened to her in the past, as well as a budding platonic relationship that I truly was platonicly shipping and gushing over by the end of the saga! When you read it, you’ll understand why I’m emphasizing platonic lol, but seriously I absolutely adore these two together! Tunaghost is again the only one to actively suggest a psychologist for these poor folks, too (and she’s 100% right). Also, the Earth is in danger (cause of course it is) from the Irken Armada, and the Author has a really clever way to save it that really got me gushing over this characterxcharacter relationship lol. Overall “Sempadinum” is very well written, with great character development and exploration of their emotions and traumas. Plus there’s so much happening plot wise, that I can’t even touch on because of spoilers!! And sooo much foreshadowing shows up that isn’t answered until very far down the road, showing that the Aurthor planned everything out and did such a great job writing it all! We also start to get a few more hints on the Big Bad that first appeared in “Danem”, though we wont really see them till much later, and let me tell you, You will Never Guess the true identity of this Big Bad! But once they’re revealed, the hints laid out up to that point can be puzzled out. Lot of hindsight needed though XD

“Scarazial” takes place immediately after “Sempadinum” with a very heart wretchingly emotional wedding. We’re also introduced to Riddick, who is an absolute delight! As with a few other character introductions in this saga, Riddick starts out a bit as a jerk (though absolutely fun), trust me, you’ll love him by the end! With a few more appearances from the Big Bad, and a few other mysteries that need to be solved (that I can’t hint at cause it involves characters and spoilers from previous segments) “Scarazial” ends with Zim finally snapping and going insane, and it is really a fun/terrifying thing to watch!

“Zaygam” takes place immediately after “Scarazial”, and is the last of this six part saga. I can’t say much without spoilers other than it wraps up every loose end perfectly and the epilogue got me all chocked up! I actually had to pause reading for a few hours and I still ended up losing a few tears when I picked it back up mid-chapter! One thing I can say, there is an odd introduction of a new character, it seems a bit out of left field, and doesn’t make any sense at first (especially since it comes immediately after an April fools chapter lol), but trust me, if you keep reading to the end you will quickly fall in love with this idea that is presented, and everything else that this 6 part saga has to offer!

Please give it a read!

13/10 Very long, but so so good! The writing, plot, and characters are so well done and the depiction of emotional trauma and ptsd is handled well. And the Character redemptions are amazing, plus the ships!!! This also has my hands down absolute favorite depiction of Red!

Between The Stars by andystarr aka @andyyoureastarr

This fic is 2,111 words. Originally posted on 01-04-2020 and so far only has one chapter.

I’ve reviewed this Author’s fics before, but this is a brand new one! And although there probably isn’t enough of it for me to truly review it, based off what is out so far and the Author’s other works I am 100% confident that I can recommend it! The Author introduces a new alien species that appears to be blood thirsty similar to the Irekns, they discover Dib post alien abduction via “the really dumb aliens who think he’s [Zim] a human and try to fuse him with stuff” from the show. Dib ends up killing his captures before his supposed “rescue” and the chapter ends on a pretty ominous note.

?/10 Since there’s only one chapter so far I don’t want to give it a rating, but knowing the Author’s other work I’m sure it’ll have a perfect score.

Breaking Routine by GalaxyCuup aka @galaxycuup

This fic is 6,188 words. Originally posted on 12-02-2019 and last updated on 12-13-2019. It has two chapters so far.

This is another one that’s a little harder to review since it’s still so new, but the two chapters that are out so far, are so well written, and hold so much promise for the future! This is a species swap AU where Zim is human and in Hi-skool and Dib is the Irken Scientist who has come to Earth to study and research it. The Author also posts pictures IN THE CHAPTERS!! They are so good!! The characters are very well written and their interactions are fun to watch. Plus with this being a species swap, it means their personalities are still sorta there, but their cultures and up bringing are very different so they react to things differently than their canon selves would, which make it a very fascinating read and a fresh take from all the other versions of these two that I’ve seen so far. Zim is his usually hot headed self, but being a teenager it seems to get him into more trouble than he deserves, while Dib has that air of infatuation and child-like wonderment with the planet Earth and everything new around him. I’m very curious to see where the story goes from here and what these two will do if Dib’s Irken self is ever revealed.

?/10 It’s still new so I can’t quiet give it a full score, but I see a lot of potential and the unique take combined with the artwork is so good that I definitely recommend it, and look forward to reading more.

Chomp by VelociraptorAddict aka unashamed self promotion

This fic is 12,280 words. Originally posted 12-31-2019 and last updated 01-18-20. It is updated weekly and so far has 4 chapters posted.

We start off with an introduction of a new Alien species, not much is revealed about them at first besides the fact that they require to “Bond” with others in order to survive off their own planet. More is revealed little by little as the story goes unfolds. This alien is sent to Earth/Urth to gather information for an upcoming invasion, and ends up forming a Bond with a young girl to do so. This girl later moves across the country and starts going to skool with Dib. One day she makes the mistake of admitting she doesn’t believe in Bigfoot, which leads to Dib confronting her to try and convince her otherwise. However, during the conversation it is revealed that she does believe in ghosts, and Dib’s need to be validated for his belief in the paranormal, means that he quickly sees this girl as someone who will actually listen to him. So he attaches himself to her and assumes they’re friends. Unfortunately for the girl, she has a pretty big secret that she doesn’t want this potential paranormal investigator to find out, the Loughran.

Unfortunately, it is not a secret she’s able to keep for long. Dib quickly becomes suspicious that she must be hiding something, when another new student (Zim), comes to their skool and Dib accuses him of being an Alien. The girl seems to flip between agreeing with him and denying the existences of aliens all together and Dib finds it very suspicious. When a fight breaks out at recess between Zim, the girl, and something invisible, Dib quickly and adamantly demands answers!

This part of the plot moves pretty quickly, but it is simply the set up for what’s to come.

?/10 It doesn’t feel right scoring my own fic, but I will admit the writing style itself could use a bit of improvement and it could definitely use a lot more descriptive text. However, the character interactions and dialogue portions are done well enough. And I’ve been doing enough of these fic reviews that it’s about time I put my money where my mouth is and started writing my own, right?

#Invader Zim #fanfiction #iz #fanfic #fic #review

85 notes · View notes

drowzydruzy · 4 years

Text

heart breakers chapter one

Hi! I finally want to post this here. very long chapter. slow burn. enemies to lovers. angsty.

Dib Membrane has a bright future ahead of him, but a red string of fate always tugs him back to the alien a block over. If only he hadn’t blown it.

The final summer had arrived.

Dib had counted the seconds until he could finally say goodbye to high skool and the horrible place it was. The future was coming, and Dib Membrane was out, that’s right, come fall the local paranormal investigator is going to the next city over to attend college and stay at the dorms.

The letter had arrived last week, congratulating Professor Membrane for his son’s entry which wasn’t a shock since all the colleges only accepted him due to his father’s celebrity. It wasn’t like Dib had bad grades or anything, in fact, he had put extra effort into his final years grades because the last thing he wanted was to be riding off his dad’s coattails but like everything in Dib’s life; his father got a pat on the back even for Dibs own effort.

He would have cared more but he was going to be a freshman in a place where people didn’t think he was crazy, which was enough to distract the 19-year-old with thoughts of friends and possible relationships? although he did wish his major would be paranormal studies, but since that didn’t exist Dib stuck with space studies. He might not get to report on the paranormal right away, but he could try working it into his papers.

Dib knew when he told his father he’d be disappointed, it wasn’t what Membrane wanted him to do, which was taking over the company but to Dib’s surprise, his father was almost as excited as he was to hear about his choice and acceptance into the college. It made the 19-year-old smile proudly, his dad had really gotten better at the whole ‘being a dad not a scientist 24/7 thing’ since the whole florpus debacle.

Everything seemed to be falling into place, Dib had gotten the placement he wanted, his dad was happy, Gaz was part of a gaming club at high skool and was gaining attention on twitch for her almost completely silent game plays not to mention guys seemed weirdly drawn into how much Gaz seemed to regard everything with disdain.

Admittedly the male attention had worried Dib a bit at first since he knew what the internet was like and he wasn’t sure he could cope with seeing random people being gross about his sister, but Gaz could handle herself and it was a fact.

Dib had also managed to finally find a style he liked that didn’t get him patted down before he entered any public building, by the luck of some random god, ripped jeans and darker clothing had come back into style. He found it a lot easier to blend in these days than when he was a kid, Dib still loved his long jackets even though they looked a little sketchy sometimes.

New style, new start, new life, and Dib was more excited than ever, or he should have been.

That’s right, he should have been over the moon right now since he was finally getting what he wants but that would be too easy for Dib Membrane. He can’t just live a normal life for two seconds.

Instead of celebrating Dib only could think of one thing.

What about Zim?

Who will be here to protect the earth?

What if Zim finally tries to kill us all and manages it?

The thoughts plagued his mind to the point where he almost ripped up his acceptance letter, Dib had announced to Gaz that he was convinced he wouldn’t go, that was until she yelled at him for being an idiot. Gaz had asked him when was the last time he even spoke to Zim? Let alone fight him over the safety of the human race? His younger sister had made a very good point. He barely spoke to Zim, not since prom anyway.

Dib had felt embarrassed to have been so worried, but then every night came the same; Dib staring at the ceiling forcing himself to think of anything or anyone but the alien.

He couldn’t contain the loneliness that rattled in his heart, it was a hollow feeling laying at night listening to the silence of 4am wondering if Zim would miss him, which always made the human cringe with embarrassment at his own pining. Dib would always end up trying to force himself asleep clenching his eyes shut until his stubbornness won and he drifted off.

“You are lying too Zim”

The voice was distant but happy, swirling in the darkness of the thick fog that stretched out in front of Dib. The human smiled but before he could speak, he heard his own voice disembodied in the distance talking for him.

“I promise I’m not, please trust me”

The fog was thick, it smelled like candy raspberry pop rocks and something chemical but not unpleasant, Dib could write pages and pages about that smell.

“I will try” Dib spent a moment lingering on the sound of the voice, the slightly bitter tone made him smile.

Suddenly the human could feel the ground shaking underneath him as the fog cleared, the owner of the voice was nowhere to be seen. The sudden rush of boiling heat made Dib scream, everything was on fire, the scorched earth cracked under Dib’s feet as he tried to outrun death. He managed to get far enough away where he could see standing on top a horrible machine; roaring with evil laughter was Zim. Dib choked on the smoke unable to stop himself shaking in terror.

“YOU DID THIS” Zim’s voice was like an earthquake.

The human jolted up in bed, the morning light was almost blinding through Dib’s shutters. There was a long moment of silence as he tried to regain his breath, these nightmares made no sense sometimes. Dib figured it must be all the pent of emotion. He glanced at the clock on the wall, seeing it was only 8am. Dib laid back down pulling his covers around himself, hiding away from the rays enjoying the darkness in his blankets.

The 19-year-old’s mind wondered back to the dream, Dib thought of the alien for a long moment as he lay in his blanket cocoon, hidden from the world and from judgement as his mind swirled round images of the invader from treasured memories. The human frowned as he remembered how little they speak now, how when they pass in the halls Zim can’t even meet his eyes.

Dib wondered if Zim ever missed him, missed the fighting and the flying. The human’s ears turned red in the darkness of his blankets as he pictured it, the stubborn and angry alien thinking about him as much as he did. Dib felt the bone weighing loneliness slowly spreading through him as he thought more on his memories with the alien. He wondered if Zim ever did the same.

Dib peaked his head out of his blankets, realising he could already feel that the heat outside was trying to leak through his windows, the small room which Dib had covered in tech and alien-hunting gear was soon to be completely gutted and cleared for his departure. The boxes lay waiting, almost staring at Dib sometimes when he thought of packing, but he always put it off.

He shut his dark eyes, enjoying the quiet sound of his dad and Gaz talking downstairs, as the birds chirped outside. The mornings were always quiet, he’ll miss that the most since college were supposed to be a noisy, mess of filthy students all trying to pretend that they understand what they are doing but at least he won’t be the only one.

Eventually, Dib rose from his bed, loose pyjamas covered in various monsters from classic literature were shucked and thrown into the laundry as he got ready for the day. Dressed, fed and not sure if he’s ready for life yet, Dib left the house. The air felt dry and hot as he soaked in some of the sunlight, it was a strange feeling knowing that this would be the last summer he spent living here.

He was too busy fidgeting with his old blue ghost top, noticing the holes forming at the edge of the fabric that he didn’t mean to start walking to Zim’s home, but he did. They hadn’t spoken much over the last year or so, surprisingly the alien wasn’t as constant in his attempts to take over earth anymore.

After florpus the attempts at ‘taking over the earth’ became more like irritating pranks that didn’t make any sense. Dib had tried to talk to Zim like he was a person, but that was a mistake. He had said things he didn’t mean and it had become a huge mess that leads to tantrums when Dib even tried to speak to him, he always screamed about being able to do it ‘all on his own’ and that he ‘doesn’t need anyone to be Zim’.

The human never understood what was going on with him but after a while, he stopped trying to find out and from then on, their fights had gotten less intense. Zim wouldn’t fight like how he used too, something just wasn’t right. The thought of their old battled made Dib feel almost sad, deep down he missed flying after Zim into space, not a single care in the world.

Dib couldn’t remember the last time he went out of his way to go to Zim’s home, spying on the alien wasn’t a priority when he was having to work 20 hours a week during high skool to save up for the stuff for his dorm not to mention his books. The drift between them wasn’t deliberate but it was inevitable, Zim just wasn’t as big a threat as he was when they were kids.

The human stopped outside the small house that had wired itself into the neighbours surrounding it oh so long ago, the gnomes that stood guard as always were weather-beaten and didn’t pack the punch they used too. Dib paused in his thoughts, why was he sad about that too? That’s a good thing! The 19-year-old side heavily unable to ignore the gathering tightness in his throat. He watched the house for a long moment before something compelled him to move forward, to just go and knock the door. Dib felt his fingers twitch but something in his gut caught him; like crossing a road just as you see the car coming, he jerked back and turned towards home.

The emotions that came with what could happen if he passed that fresh hold of that house were too confusing and way too deep for what this was, he was always going to leave, and Dib shouldn’t care as much as he does. Zim most likely would celebrate him leaving, laugh in his face and announce victory before running off to destroy the world at last without Dib’s interference.

Not that Dib gave a shit how the little creature felt, not that he looked so much like a creature these days. The rise in area 51 memes meant everyone started making alien jokes at skool, Zim didn’t seem to care until someone made a joke about his green skin and that was all it took for him to freak out. It was too close of a call; he couldn’t have people comparing him to aliens.

Dib could only watch with utter glee when someone made the comparison but Zim had rushed out the second the kid spoke, Dib had tried quickly to get everyone thinking about what it means that Zim ran out after being called an alien but like always he was ignored.

Zim had spent a week out of Skool, refusing to come in even when Dib was banging at his door. It wasn’t until 8:54 am on Tuesday, not that Dib kept this date in his head or anything that Zim finally showed.

It took the human longer than it should have to notice it was the alien, his green skin had been swapped for a tan complexion, his black hair remained the same, but the eyes didn’t look like fake doll eyes anymore they were realistic although still violet. It was shocking, but so fascinating at the same time to Dib. He couldn’t stop himself that day on complementing Zim on his work, one of Dib’s first mistake.

Dib quickly stopped thinking about that day, that day was just too weird, and it made him uncomfortable. He inwardly wished Zim would have gone back to his old look, but he never did. He hated how much he forgot Zim wasn’t human when he looked like that.

“MARY!” A loud, high pitched voice squealed making Dib jump.

It to Dib’s surprise was Zim’s robot, something he had barely seen for the last couple of years. The human grimaced down at Gir who was eating what looked like a taco that had been stuffed with octopus. Revolting. Dib not to gag at the smell coming from the dirty dog costume.

He wondered why he smelled like a burning car as he carefully stepped back trying not to get within grabbing distance to the robot, he tended to leave stains that don’t wash out.

“Get away from me” Dib hissed walking quicker away from the house. “Why are you HERE? YOU WANNA PLAY WITH MASTER”

The shrieking that came from the robot made the 19-year-old’s teeth stand on edge. Did Gir always sound like that? He halted looking down at the unusually still green dog.

“No, I’m just…walking and enjoying the nice day” Clearing his throat Dib glanced back at Zim’s home, watching it for a second wondering about Zim “Why? Where is the reptile?”

“I dunno where he is! I puts him in a box but he always escaping, BUT I LOVES HIM!”

“Urgh no! not your dead iguana” Dib groaned, pulling a hand down his face. “I MEANT WHERE IS ZIM?” He didn’t mean to shout, but he wasn’t feeling up for Gir’s usual behaviours.

“Oh!” The little robot stared at him for so long Dib felt his anxiety double, he gritted his teeth kneeling and giving it a poke, which resulted in a string of an unknown goo connecting his finger to the robot’s chest.

“Are you finally shutting down?” He asked grimacing as he wiped his finger on the pavement. “Hello? anyone in that hellscape of a motherboard you call a brain?” Dib waited in silence for a moment before Gir’s mouth fell open and four lizards crawled out.

“I see you in my nightmares sometimes Gir”

The robot only laughed.

Dib sighed getting to his feet, noticing that Gir’s dog suit was smoking slightly. The human turned the small robot around quick which he regretted as soon as he did. Gir was boiling hot under his suit, the robot was usually warm but never like this. Dib blew on his hand feeling a sudden worry grip him, he guessed with the heat and the suit the metal wasn’t really dealing well. It would also explain why Gir wasn’t really moving. The heat must be frying his circuits.

“Of course, and Zim is nowhere around” Dib was so sick of having to deal with Zim’s messes. “Gir? Are you overheating?” Dib kneeled again, watching the robot as it blinked up at him.

Suddenly the eyes of the dog suit glowed red, a trait Dib often forgot Gir had which made the experience terrifying every single time. The robot saluted Dib, its arm making a horrible crunching sound.

“Status report! MAIN CORE, overheating 81%, 84%, 87%-” Dib watched mouth agape as the eyes changed back “I GONNA EXPLODED”

Dib who had fallen back onto the hot pavement gawked at the robot for a long moment, suddenly scrambling to his feet Dib grabbed up Gir. The heat radiating off it was unbelievable; almost like when you put a bowl in the microwave too long. It was burning his hands in seconds; the human removed his thin black hoodie placing it over his hands as he scooped up the dog and bolted towards the house.

“ZIM! YOUR DOG IS GONNA EXPLODE” He shouted praying that wherever in the house that irritating monster was, he’d hear him and come take the robot away and let him burn his hoodie in peace.

Dib had kicked open the door, the gnomes behind him missing and sparking as he skidded into the base. The door slammed shut behind him, and Dib caught the eyes of Zim who was stood in the kitchen not wearing his disguise with a spoon hanging from his mouth and an ice cream tub in his hand. The irken looked shocked, completely stiff as Dib stood there.

“DROP THE BENNY AND JEFF’S” Dib rushed forward, pushing the robot to Zim who was still staring at him. “IT’S URGENT”

The tub splatted to the floor as the human dropped his burning hoodie down beside it. Zim looked down at Gir with confusion before seeing his condition, he snapped out of it.

“Give me that!” Zim’s voice boomed, Gir was swiftly carried to the fridge and stuffed into the freezer. “He will be fine, he literally bathes in boiling poop cola” Zim’s hands didn’t even burn when holding the robot, it was such a weird sight.

There was a pause as Zim didn’t speak, standing in the kitchen watching Dib who didn’t know what he was waiting, maybe a thank you? Dib felt his face reddening. The human couldn’t move from the spot, he knew he’d never get an apology, but he still felt owed one.

Dib watched as the alien sneer at him and couldn’t stop himself, feeling a sudden wave of self-righteous rage rise within him, he was so sick of Zim never taking responsibility for anything. What if Gir hadn’t been found in time? He didn’t even want to think about it.

“Don’t tell me what to do alien!” Dib spat back at him once the shock had worn off “I’m not the one letting my robot run around overheating, we both know he could easily blow up half of the city if he did!”

“Don’t try and lecture me HUMAN, he is fine! Like Zim said Gir has handled worse” It was a matter of fact the way Zim spoke, always implying Dib’s an idiot, it made him grit his teeth in frustration. “Go pack for your stupid baby ghost cult or whatever”

Dib was about to dish out another insult before he paused, raising an eyebrow at the alien who was sneering at him and knawing at the popsicle.

“Are you talking about scary camp? I only did that one year…” Dib forgot about that, the summer he and Zim spent at camp together. “I’m not 12, I’m getting my stuff for college later today”

The invader almost dropped his popsicle.

“College?”

Dib watched as Zim’s eye’s scrutinised him with the same fire he’d seen a long time ago, he felt excitement and fear like he had lit a fuse.

“Yeah…I was gonna mention it eventually since we have um history and stuff” Dib felt sweat beading at his temple, that was a very weird choice of words Membrane.

The silence wasn’t what Dib had expected, Zim who had been in the process of devouring the popsicle by biting off pieces with his teeth and chewing like the horrible little creature he was, hadn’t moved a muscle. Zim blinked at him almost like how Gir had until it suddenly warped into a look of mild amusement.

“There’s no college in our town stupid pig stink” Zim snickered and spat his stripy thin tongue at him “Zim doesn’t fall for your little dumb lies”

“Not lies, I’m not going to college in this town…” Dib spoke slowly, an uncomfortable feeling in him began gnawing at his stomach. “It’s a college that’s only three hours away, so it’s not a big deal”

The smug smirk was slipping off Zim’s face, Dib felt something tugging inside in chest, something that was telling him to comfort the alien but as soon as the human got close Zim almost fell trying to back away. Dib felt his throat tighten but he ignored it. The invader suddenly burst into a strained laughter, shaking his head at Dib who just looked as bewildered as he felt.

“WAIT! It’s one of those human, lie, joke, thingies I hate” Zim laughed but it didn’t sound right, Dib felt himself squirm slightly with guilt, he didn’t understand why.

“It really…not”

“It is”

“Zim, I’m sorry I didn’t know how to tell yo-”

“Why would you need to tell Zim?”

The alien looked frantic but in his own unbelievable ‘I’m not frantic at all’ way, Dib couldn’t hold back the panic in his chest as the unwelcome feelings towards what this could mean for them devoured his mind in ways he only let happen at night when he could let himself think about it, but this was all too overwhelming.

“I should go, I haven’t even started packing yet-” Dib’s voice was weak before Zim suddenly lashed out at him, aggressively moving toward him.

“I’m going to blow up the whole of this neighbourhood with splodie gel pizza” He was lying and they both knew it, Zim was now clawing the air with rage, his antennas pulled back

“Did you know that Dib? DID YOU? NO! Because you don’t speak to Zim, you spend all day at that filthy jurb.”

“Job,” Dib interjected meekly.

“ZIM DOESN’T CARE” The alien looked like he was hyperventilating, the feeling of dread was rising in the human. He shouldn’t have come here; he could have waited longer. “ARE YOU THE DECAF? CAN YOU NOT HEAR ZIM, I’M GOING TO KILL EVERYONE DIB”

“Okay but you haven’t hurt anyone but me in years…”

“I’M GOING TO KILL-”

They spoke almost in unison, but Zim cut off and suddenly Dib realized that was the wrong thing to say as soon as the words left his mouth. Zim’s murderous expression slowly slipped off his face, it was replaced by something that looked like a betrayal as his shout died in his throat.

“Zim isn’t a threat anymore hm?” The words clawed at Dib’s insides; he really thought the alien would have laughed but this was worse, so much worse. “Is that why you ignore me now? Is that why you stopped fighting Zim? You ABANDONED me and now you are running off further away”

“I did NOT abandon you” The 19-year-old was baffled by him, his hands shooting out at his sides as he gestured wildly. “I haven’t done ANYTHING wrong; you are always so manipulative! you NEED to be the one wronged, but I didn’t stop fighting either, you where the one who backed off”

“That’s hilarious, Zim backing off? What on irk would make ME do that? That is utter lies, stupid lies” Dib curled his hands into fists getting into his face.

“It’s lies huh? Then where did the plans go? HUH? Where did all the organ harvesting plants, zombie virus outbreaks, people devouring monsters, mass-murdering plots go HUH? HUH?”

“I used to fly into SPACE after you, run after you as far as you’d go to stop your stupid schemes that always, ALWAYS lead to me getting hurt or worse! But I still chased you, so what happened?” Dib’s chest ached painfully at the memories; space was all he ever thought about.

“BUT WAIT I KNOW!” He continued, eyes burning hot with tears as he desperately tried to hold himself together. Dib knew he couldn’t get deeper into this or he might end up regretting it, but he couldn’t shut up. “Your leaders vanished, you lost your mind, I didn’t want to be involved and then I got a job and you lost your edge”

Dib was panting, breathing faster than he ever had as the shout left burning heat in his throat, he had gotten into Zim’s face as quickly as his anger had risen, the rage he had bottled away had festered into something ugly and painful. He hated that it always seemed to be only Zim who could get him to open, but like an infected wound inside Dib was just poison.

The irken was watching him with his narrowed fuchsia eyes, his sneer showing his teeth. Dib tried to keep getting angry but something in him faltered for a second as he realised Zim was shaking.

“Zim I-”

“Why did the evil Zim do any of that to this innocent human? Hm? Why would I try and kill you when I hadn’t tried anything that serious in a while, oh! what happened to Zim’s plots? Hmm?”

The alien acted like he was genuinely thinking about it, like it was some sort of game show and not a conversation about feelings and events buried so deeply in Dib’s stomach that he thinks he might’s vomit.

“Please don’t do this”

“No Dib thing, shut your mouth! you asked Zim what happened to all of my amazing plans and plots? But you were there!” The irkens pak leg extended from his back, Dib didn’t even notice until he was pinned against the wall painfully. “You seem to forget something, Dib! You stopped fighting first, so you tried talking to Zim remember? so we talked, then we made a plan…”

“Let go!”

“I should really say you made a plan, Dib.”

The hurt in Zim’s voice was something that threw Dib off completely, they shared a long stare. Dib’s mind screamed for Zim not to mention what he could see was burning behind his eyes, he didn’t want Zim to talk about it. Dib felt heat seeping through his skin, agonizing shame.

“Zim waited for you in the woods for so long” Zim spoke slowly, painfully.

“STOP IT”

“Does the Dib not remember what was said? what YOU promised?” Zim began, the human grabbed at the pak legs desperately trying to pry them away from himself but as soon as he touched them Zim moved a spare under others chin threateningly.

Dib didn’t want to think about it, he was stupid and made a terrible choice all because he thought earth didn’t deserve protection anymore. He was so beaten down, so tired of begging for everyone to open their eyes and look at the truth, the world didn’t want the truth. He knew that now of course, but back then it had taken its toll on him and he made a deal he shouldn’t have.

“I told you it was a mistak-”

Dib’s words died in his throat when he felt Zim’s pak legs let go of him, the invader watched him for a long second before shaking his head.

“A mistake was ever letting you near Zim” His voice was heavily laced with malice as he walked towards the fridge to get transported to the base. “Get out before I put a blaster hole in that massive head of yours”

Dib didn’t need to be told twice; he was gone before his mouth could say something else stupid. Zim had been bottled up in the human’s mind for a while since prom he couldn’t let himself get to close again. Dib had hoped to avoid the memory, but it was haunting him.

#zadr #invader zim #zadr fanfiction #invader zim fanfiction #fanfic #zim #dib membrane #zimxdib

13 notes · View notes

redqueenmiku · 4 years

Text

A DECADE’S RETROSPECTIVE, REDQUEENMIKU STYLE

Here we are, facing down the start of a brand new decade. This decade has had its ups and downs for everyone. For me, this has been an extremely eventful decade. So much has happened that it’s actually ridiculous.

So, I got to thinking: as we enter 2020, I want to take a look back at my past ten years of existence and really give you guys a peek into my mind. You’re going to learn where I came from and how I got to where I am now. This decade contained my first experiences with the great wide world of posting to the internet and everything that came with it.

Are you ready? Let’s travel back in time to the start of this decade…

2010

2010 started with the final half of my eighth-grade year. I was an awkward child with a million original characters and no friends.

It was pretty sad.

Eighth grade came and went and summer came around. Wow! Look! What’s that?! Toward the end of the summer that year, a certain character named Jake Speed was born and Diametrics, then known as Lightning Speed, officially commenced. If you don’t know about my precious brainchild, Diametrics, don’t worry. I have something big planned for this summer to coincide with the series’ tenth anniversary that’ll answer everyone’s burning questions.

Then, toward the end of the year, after entering ninth grade, something amazing happened. I officially began my long and storied internet posting career.

Where did I start, you ask?...if you have to ask at all, I mean I’ve mentioned this probably a million times by this point but YES. I got my start as Shinymew76 on Nickelodeon’s official Invader Zim message boards. I was just getting my bearings at this time, so I didn’t do all that much of note, but I was getting ready to make my very first power move…

2011

Now, if you don’t know anything about what the Invader Zim message boards were like, we were kind of a hot mess. We were a tight-knit hot mess, though, and dang if we weren’t proud of it. The main activities of the message boards were making OCs and writing fanfiction. You know how sometimes on fanfiction.net you’ll find those really weird stories that are written entirely in script format? That was our bread and butter on the IZ boards. Just about everyone wrote that way. We had to be pretty kid-friendly too. I mean, what you could get away with depended on what our mod, NickZa, was feeling like that day, we were generally pretty restricted.

It’s important to remember that we were also little baby teenagers in a community revolving around Invader Zim.

In 2011, I began to really try to make a name for myself on the message boards. I started a short-lived gameshow series where people could submit their OCs to compete. It was a Total Drama kind of deal but it never really took off all that well. Then, though, I started a fanfiction titled “200 Years From Now”, which told the story of Dib accidentally transporting himself and Gaz to the future, where Zim has been exiled and a new Irken has been assigned to conquer the earth: Miki. Then, Zim returns to earth and something something rebellion to take down the Tallests. I don’t remember most of the story considering a good chunk of it was lost to time, but it definitely existed. The story also featured Zaz and Zelena, other people’s OCs that they submitted to be part of the story.

I don’t know how big that story made it. I really don’t know the scope, so I couldn’t say with certainty how many people read or enjoyed that story. Younger me, however, thought it was THE BEST. Immediately after it ended, I was already planning for a sequel with the same characters, adding villains from the still-thriving Lightning Speed. The story never actually got written and there was no real plan for anything about it aside from what I just told you, but there you go.

I also branched out further, spreading myself to other Nick.com boards with a variety of usernames because I was a coward. One account was 2darcara2, which was meant for the Danny Phantom and TUFF Puppy boards. I never did anything on the latter, the only remnant being an OC for the series known as Agent Darcara Fox. The former, though, came with two OCs, Annette and Aria Spectrelle, and a fanfiction: Eternal Darkness. The story revolved around Danny Phantom meeting Annette, who was being bullied by her older sister, Aria, and something about Aria being ultra-powerful and wanting Danny dead. Again, much of the story is lost to the ages. 2darcara2 also had an Invader Zim OC to coincide with it: Invader Erin, who had dark powers a la Raven from Teen Titans.

In case you couldn’t tell, 2darcara2 was the edgy one.

Then there was the other account: xxpetalxx. This account was meant for the iCarly and Victorious boards and also had her own Invader Zim OC, a human named Miriam. xxpetalxx published two stories, actually. The first was a crossover for Victorious and Invader Zim, where Zim and Dib end up at Hollywood Arts and Dib tries to get Tori to team up with him against Zim. It never finished, but it was something. More importantly, though, there was iMeet a Hero in Hollywood. I can’t even remember which board this went up on, but it was a three-way crossover between iCarly, Victorious, and Lightning Speed. Yeah. I was getting rather crazy here. I’ll talk more about the unfortunates of iMeet a Hero in Hollywood during that big surprise project I teased earlier, but it was a huge mess. Besides the fact that no one cared and I was way out of my element, it just sort of...dropped off the face of the earth.

Back to the main account, though. I lost the Shinymew76 account somewhere along the way, so I had to take up a new handle for my main account, JS712, named after Jake Speed. After getting bored of trying to maintain two secondary accounts, I cut the whole thing off save for iMeet a Hero in Hollywood and decided to just do things with my main account. That was when I decided to check out the miscellaneous boards. One was a board dedicated to original writing. Of course, I dabbled with posting the first story of Lightning Speed there only to have it rejected the first time around, likely because one of the characters was holding a gun. Yeah. This is how strict things were around there. I got it up the second time, but only by getting rid of the gun. The story never garnered any attention either, so that was a waste of time.

Then there was the video game board. This was a place for discussion about anything and everything video games. I remember everyone there making a big fuss about Chuggaconroy and how he was the best lets-player out there. Simpler times, those were.

On those boards, I attempted to launch a Sonic-themed series known as “Adventures in the Z-7 Station”. The series starred a character named Krystal the Hedgehog, who owned a boarding house called the Z-7 Station, where Sonic, Tails, Amy, Cream, Rouge, Shadow, Omega, Vector, Espio, Charmy, and Eggman lived. I also invited people to submit their own OCs to be included in the story.

No one gave a crap.

Even so, I endured, writing a good number of stories for the series. None of them actually went up, though. Sad, isn’t it?

Finally, I extended myself to the Penguins of Madagascar boards, writing a story known as “Penguins of Madagascar Humanized: Unleashed”. The story revolved around the adventures of the penguins, the lemurs, and Marlene, but as humans. There were also humanized versions of Dr. Blowhole and the android version of Skipper that showed up in, like, one episode of the show. They were the villains of the series alongside an OC named Violet. The story actually garnered a fair bit of recognition...until the whole thing randomly disappeared one day. Considering I didn’t archive it at all, that meant the whole thing was completely lost to time.

Of course, the message boards weren’t the only thing I was doing at this time. I was writing other fanfiction on the side too. One of these things was Shadow’s Story, a mega-crossover where Shadow the Hedgehog journeys across a crud-ton of different worlds to find the Chaos Emeralds to defeat an evil force that has made Sonic into its slave. It was one of the dumbest things in the history of ever, but I wouldn’t be mentioning it if it didn’t become important later.

Then, there came the end of the year, namely the date of November 4th. This was the day that I created a DeviantArt account under the handle KristoonzArtist76, and my life changed forever.

Immediately in the next two months I posted artwork for Lightning Speed, Penguins of Madagascar Humanized, 200 Years From Now, Shadow’s Story, and Adventures in the Z-7 Station. There was also the version of Lightning Speed’s first story that went up on the message boards as well as an attempt to recreate Penguins of Madagascar Humanized in comic form...and it was complete garbage.

I also met back up with people from the message boards during this time, seeing as they also had DeviantArt accounts. The most notable of these were Heidi and Mollie, both of which had been a constant presence on the Invader Zim boards and had actually made pretty significant names for themselves there. Mollie, though, had also been significant on the Penguins boards. I believe she even read the Humanized story before it was deleted.

Anyway, that brings us to the end of 2011. Now we move right into…

2012

2012 was when I started to get really frustrated with the boards...and I pretty much just left. You’re not really going to hear anything about the boards from here on out.

The first significant thing about 2012 happened in February: I bought a thirty-five dollar digital drawing tablet off Amazon. It was a cheap, floppy, plastic thing, but, to a younger me, it was the greatest thing ever. It was with that that I started my grand excursion into the world of digital art, starting with Microsoft Paint.

At the end of February, I decided that I was going to do something special to commemorate the leap year. This took the form of a new original story called The ExPERiMENT, which was about two experimental humans with the absolute worst names in existence, Haretaieto and Aidamizumi, nicknamed Hareta and Mizu for short. The two of them were labelled as defective and scheduled for execution, but are saved and brought to a secret compound for...well...undecided reasons. The story was meant to be told in the form of diary entries dated to the actual days each of them were to be released, but this quickly fell apart and ended up spelling the story’s doom. It stopped after the rescue on April 2nd and was never updated again, despite one or two unreleased efforts on my end to revive it.

In another turn of events, I published what I had for Adventures in the Z-7 Station on DeviantArt. The series went on to introduce Sonia and Manic from Sonic Underground, as well as several new OCs: Spright the Raccoon, Leigh the Hedgehog, and Raven the Echidna. A friend’s OC, Silverdust the Husky, was also included.

Then there was the day I logged on to find children staring me in the face. Heidi, one of the friends I had mentioned earlier, had written a story about her Invader Zim OCs that had also involved characters from Lightning Speed. In particular, the main character, also named Heidi, was involved in a romantic relationship with Dnias Speed, as agreed upon and supported by both of us. Then, one day, Heidi posted drawings of a theoretical set of children for the couple.

Those two children were Dante and Jupiter Speed. They will become extremely important later.

Lightning Speed continued to flourish in this time and I was still keeping up with trying to start getting good at digital art. At the end of May, I opened up five request slots, which ended up getting decent reception...from a bunch of bronies.

Did I forget to mention I was in the My Little Pony fandom at this time?

Things continued on from there. I went to prom, I made more Invader Zim OCs, I reached 100 posts on DeviantArt, I quit the message boards, I started learning how to drive, I pared down my ridiculous number of OCs, I read the Warriors series and actually started writing Warriors fanfiction with a whole four clans full of OCs, I made a group on DeviantArt for Lightning Speed, and many things continued as they already had.

Then, September rolled around and everything changed again.

It began with a class trip and the friend I sat next to on the bus. That friend introduced me to many things that day. One of those things was Law of Talos. Law of Talos is a phase in my life that I referenced for two seconds and then continued to haunt me for the rest of eternity.

The more important thing, though, is my first introduction to Vocaloid. On that day in September of 2012, I became a Vocaloid fanatic for the rest of my natural-born life. This would quickly become both a blessing and a curse.

Then, October rolled around and blessed me with Autodesk Sketchbook Pro. I immediately ditched MS Paint and embraced the new art program whole-heartedly. It was a whole new world. Suddenly I had layers and a color wheel and drawings that didn’t look pixellated.

Then, when Christmas came along, it also gave me a shot at a brand new tablet: a real Wacom Bamboo tablet.

I got fed up trying to get used to it and went back to my old tablet, handing the Bamboo off to my sister. I can’t tell if that was a terrible mistake or not, but here we are.

2013

In January of 2013, I discovered MikuMikuDance. MikuMikuDance is a free program that lets one pose and animate 3D models, primarily for use with Vocaloid models but with models for just about everything under the sun existing in one place or another.

This program was the worst thing that ever happened to me period.

Slowly but surely my art started to get completely drowned out by constant MMD images. I had MMD OCs, being crappy recolors of Miku and Rin. I had bizarre lore for different models. I put together those stupid Jewel Hearts that people keep downloading to this very day and I get messages of people favoriting them on DeviantArt constantly and it makes me want to scream because all I did was take a half of a heart someone else had made and just slap the two sides together and recolor it a few times yet it’s literally the most popular thing I’ve ever made someone please end meeeeee.

*ahem*

The MMD stuff wasn’t so bad in 2013, but this is where it started, so I’m obligated to mention it.

As for things that weren’t MMD that happened in 2013, we first have Lightning Speed. In 2013, the final material for the first run of the series was posted on DeviantArt. It wasn’t planned to be the last, but that’s how things worked out. The series still continued outside of DeviantArt, but there’s nothing on the internet to show for it.

There was also the X-Factor OC tournament, a tournament run by Heidi where various Invader Zim characters would be put up against each other in a literary battle of the ages. The character I entered was one I had adopted off the message boards before my departure: Quinn. Three of the tournament’s four rounds took place this year, all of which were wins for Quinn and my admittedly lackluster writing.

2013 also happened to be the time of a monumental shift in fandom for me. I voluntarily left behind the Sonic the Hedgehog fandom. To fill the void, though, I turned to...Koopalings. This, again, was both a blessing and a curse.

And, on top of that, 2013 was the year I attended my very first convention and wore my very first cosplay. I was a hastily-put-together Kagamine Rin. The costume was crap and the convention was just a tiny local event, but I still had fun nonetheless.

Then, at the end of 2013, something incredible happened. Heidi had created a shipping meme some months prior. As her friend, I filled out the meme and, in the process, I jokingly decided to pair Miku up with a cloud. Eventually, the joke devolved, said cloud eventually turning into one certain character of mine that had once had a cloud-like form. Then, that Christmas, I produced my very first annual Christmas shipping picture with said couple: Miku and the character known as Red King.

Yes, dear friends. This is where Red Queen Miku was born.

Oh, I also got a laptop for Christmas. That happened too.

2014

The first thing I did in 2014 was start up a challenge that would quickly become the bane of my existence: the MMD 100 Themes Challenge. This absolutely massive undertaking was the death blow for anything non-MMD related on my DeviantArt account. By that point, I was rarely posting actual art. 80 of 100 themes were posted this year alongside many more MMD images, dwarfing all other posts from this year.

Even through the MMD, though, I found the time and energy to start up my very own OC tournament: the Nightmare Manor OCT. Character submissions for the tournament began in February and, after the final audition phase from April to August, 14 characters had been entered and matched up for round one. After that, round 2 began in December, now down to only 6 participants after eliminations.

2014 was also the year that the first run of Lightning Speed finally came to an official close after over fifty quote-unquote “seasons”, ending officially on September 13th. In its wake, though, emerged Cannonfire, the story of Dante and Jupiter and their quest to escape nonexistence after being removed from their world. At the end of the story, Dante and Jupiter return from the city of those that don’t exist, Cannonfire, now existing in a parallel reality to the Lightning Speed series. The story was written early in 2014 and posted that summer.

Besides that, there were also my first full-fledged fanfictions for the Mario fandom. There was The Show Must Go On, a story about Lemmy Koopa getting kidnapped by a gang of thugs and Iggy and Larry venturing out to try to save him, and Cold Wind, a series of short stories about the Koopalings living in a normal neighborhood, going to a normal school, and doing normal things, based off of events from my own past. A few tertiary stories left over from the original run of Lightning Speed were also posted

Also this year, the final round of the X-Factor OCT began. Quinn ended up winning once again, securing victory over the entire OCT with a piece of writing that, honestly, was rushed and kind of lazy. I’m convinced I only got by because my opponent did literally nothing.

August 2014 would also mark the last time I’d open up requests on DeviantArt, this time only being single-character sketch commissions. I believe it was sometime after this that I abandoned the My Little Pony fandom for good, although not necessarily because of it.

And then tragedy struck. 2014 marked the release of my first Youtube videos featuring terrible voice acting that I tried to pass off as being good. People still watch these things to this day. I hate these videos and everything they stand for.

Most importantly, however, 2014 was the year I graduated from high school and the year I started attending college, going for an Associate’s in Simulation and Game Development at the local community college. I spent my first semester learning the basics and getting adjusted, eventually making my first college friend.

2015

2015 is the year that absolutely everything started changing for the better.

...well, almost everything. First, let’s get the bad news out of the way.

Checking back in on the Nightmare Manor OCT, the tournament’s second round of six contestants garnered a grand total of half an entry. After two separate calls to action, the tournament was abandoned in May without an official statement; a mistake on my part, but I was pretty depressed about the whole thing, so can you really blame me?

The MMD 100 Theme Challenge was also abandoned this year, stopping at theme 97 out of 100. Fun fact: the last three images actually exist. I just never posted them.

Then there was Curtain Call, the sequel to The Show Must Go On. Curtain Call was a disaster and it’s probably the worst fanfiction I’ve ever written besides, well, Shadow’s Story. Please don’t ever read it.

Now for the good news.

Firstly, 2015 was the year that I finally stopped using MMD. Even in the beginning part of the year, I was already posting far less of it. This meant I was focusing more on my art and, when I say that, that’s no exaggeration. 2015 was a huge year of improvement for me, from learning new techniques to adopting a vastly different art style that was more fun for me to use to ditching Autodesk in favor of Krita, allowing me to finally move past my inhibitions and actually use things like pen pressure, which I was too afraid to do in Autodesk, where I’d kept my settings the exact same since 2012. I also obtained a new drawing tablet: a Wacom Intuos 3 given to me by my uncle as a hand-me-down.

The things I wrote this year weren’t anything particularly special, for the most part. Cold Wind continued and Surveyor’s Wings, a crossover involving Larry, Wendy, and Roy Koopa getting transported to the world of Attack on Titan, started up, going into indefinite hiatus a short time later. There was also This is Me, a short one about Larry Koopa accidentally switching bodies with Luigi. Above all of them, though, was In Memoriam Vos, a twisted story where the Koopalings are suddenly thrust into a world that wants Lemmy Koopa dead. This was also the year I created an account on Fanfiction.net, named RedQueenMiku, where I posted “This is Me” and “In Memoriam Vos”.

This year was also the year of the Mushroom Timeline, my first attempt at a Mario timeline that also came with its own map. With that also came my first time arguing a Game Theory video, being that I couldn’t just ignore the fact that their timeline came out the day before I posted my own.

This year was also the year I entered another OC tournament: Origins OCT. I entered Dnias from the Lightning Speed series, partnered with his mental companion of cynical disposition, Yang. The tournament was a blast and I had a lot of fun with it, even with all the mistakes I made in the process. The first three rounds took place this year, all of which I won.

Lightning Speed also received a hard reboot this year, transitioning into the short-lived “Lightning Speed 2”. The first story of this run released this year.

This was also the year that I discovered and subsequently adopted a group of bootleg Koopalings I began affectionately referring to as the Bootleglings. Nonexist was created to coexist beside them later that year. The Sesonia AU was also launched, being an AU that shuffles around Koopalings from both the games and the cartoons and Bootleglings, placing them in a fantasy world heavily themed around the four seasons where magic is a prominent feature. Also, there was KoopaDoopa4321, a joke account I made on DeviantArt. I never did all that much with it, but it existed and I posted some art produced in MS Paint there.

This was also the year I created my Tumblr account, RedQueenMiku, this being the second account of mine to bear this name after the Youtube account the year before (because the Fanfiction account came afterward). Because of this, 2015 was my first year participating in the yearly Tumblr event known as Koopalings Week (as well as the year I created my human designs for the Koopalings). Later in the year, I created a second blog, justkristoonzartist76things, for posting small blurbs and generally ranting out of the way of the main blog. It took me a while to find my footing on Tumblr and get comfortable enough to start posting art, but, eventually, my main blog transitioned from reblog city to a mainly art-focused blog. Two more blogs also popped up toward the end of the year: little-red-dolls, which was dedicated to a dress-up game kick I’d had at the time as a big guilty pleasure that didn’t last that long, and frame-by-frame-mario, a blog devoted to weird inbetweens and animations errors in the Mario cartoons.

Finally, this year had one more significant occurrence: I witnessed my future anime husband, Sakaki Yuya, for the first time over my friend’s shoulder in class. Due to this, I asked my friend to teach me how to play Yugioh. Now you know why I started playing Yugioh. It was all Yuya’s fault for being so handsome.

2016

2016 built a lot upon what 2015 started. In fact, in a lot of ways, I regard it as a continuation of 2015.

2016 was also the year I snagged myself a Core Membership on DeviantArt and finally renamed my account from KristoonzArtist76 to the iconic RedQueenMiku you see today. I also changed the name of my second blog to correspond with this, it becoming justredqueenmiku things. From here on, RedQueenMiku would become a constant handle for me on absolutely everything.

The biggest thing that happened at the start of 2016, though, was me finally playing a certain indie game that had come out the previous year: Undertale. I immediately became obsessed. I drew art for the series, I made a blog specifically for it, rqmundertaleparty, to keep spoilers away from those that didn’t want it, and I undertook the challenge of drawing every single major character from the game, which I ultimately succeeded with, coming out with sixty-two drawings for the challenge.

Then, there were the AUs. Many of my AUs for Undertale at that time were simple derivatives of things I already had, like Sesoniatale, Yangtale (which was planned to have a story, but was scrapped), and Nostritale (based off of the Memoriam series, which had recently gained a new entry in the form of a very basic version of In Memoriam Nostri, which would be expanded upon later). There was also Underfire, an Undertale derivative of Cannonfire that had its own short series of comic strips, and Mariotale, which was my attempt to cast Mario characters in the roles of Undertale characters.

Lastly but most importantly, for April Fools that year, I decided to, as a joke, revive Adventures in the Z-7 Station as an Undertale AU titled Krystaltale. The revival, though, ended up having twisted meta elements that eventually warranted its continuation from the three parts posted on DeviantArt for April Fools. In the AU, Krystal was changed to a skeleton named Lucida, but still retained her memories from her previous incarnation and wished to recreate what she had in this new world she suddenly finds herself in using the powers of resetting and scripting to make events exactly the way she wants them. Sans catches on to them and starts to oppose Lucida, creating the back and forth that would persist for the rest of the series.

Also for April Fools that year, I attempted to start an ask blog on Tumblr for the Bootleglings, titled ask-the-real-koopalings. The blog never took off, however, mostly due to my own lack of motivation.

Also in 2016, Cannonfire received a sequel, Cannonfire 2, in which Dante and Jupiter are brought back to Cannonfire, where this time they would remain alongside another Lightning Speed child, Thicket, and a character that had been scrapped during the transition from Lightning Speed to Lightning Speed 2: Nightmare.

In January of 2016, the final round of the Origins OCT came and went, with myself taking the runner-up spot. Later that year, a second season of Origins would begin, this time with myself entering Dante. After the first round, however, the tournament abruptly ended.

2016 was also the year I finally started watching Yugioh Arc V. I made it through nearly forty episodes this year. I also updated my human Koopaling designs and started doing DeviantArt memes for fun, notably posting the very first version of the first crack lovechild meme I did. My first palette challenge was this year as well and, slowly but surely, I was moving myself away from DeviantArt and toward Tumblr as my primary platform. There was also the first death of KoopaDoopa4321, meant to be on April Fools, but accidentally delayed to April 2nd. This was also the year I changed the anniversary of Lightning Speed from July 12th to July 29th and posted the second and final story of Lightning Speed 2.

Speaking of, there wasn’t a lot of writing that came out from me this year. Besides Krystaltale and Lightning Speed 2, there was a one-shot based on my old headcanons about Bowser’s past titled “Her Name Was Annabel” and a story revolving around Ludwig von Koopa after the birth of Bowser Jr and the subsequent revoking of Ludwig’s birthright that also included elements of Superstar Saga, this one titled “Decomposure”. These went up exclusively on Fanfiction.net along with a cross-post of The Show Must Go On. There was also one more part of Cold Wind that went up on DeviantArt before the series went into indefinite hiatus. Behind the scenes, though, I was already starting up stories for the Sesonia AU, the Bootleglings, the Memoriam series, and multiple things for Undertale including two crossovers and two one-shots. I also received a dare from a friend this year to finally write a sequel to Shadow’s Story in the worst possible way as a great big joke, so that happened too, resulting in Shadow’s Sequel.

On top of all this, I finished the Simulation and Game Development program I was in, our capstone project being producing an RPG titled “Life’s Memory”. It was an extreme prototype of a game, but I believe we accomplished what we set out to do.

Then, at the end of the year, I posted the final awful voice acting video I ever made. It was meant to make fun of the previous ones, but it ended up being cringy in its own right, so I still regret it immensely.

2017

2017 for me started with news of an upcoming move that summer, which immediately sent me into a depression over having to leave behind the place I’d been living for nearly ten years by that point. As a result, I feel into a rather extreme slump. I took on an expression challenge to try to cure my art block, not posting a single finished piece outside of that until the end of February. I started several sketches for images that I never completed and subsequently threw out. I abandoned the frame-by-frame Mario blog after trying to hand it off to someone else with no reception. I didn’t return to DeviantArt until April due to anxiety about the amount of messages piling up from a posting flood at the end of the previous year. Generally, I was just feeling like a piece of garbage.

There wasn’t much that happened in the first part of the year. I was certainly writing more than I was drawing, though. I started two more Cannonfires and a project named “I Can Fix You” that was supposed to go up at the end of that year, but ended up being shoved back. There was also the next story in the Krystaltale saga, “The Mispersonification Ray” which actually did go up on DeviantArt. I did also create the Barian Koopalings AU at the start of this year as well.

Over the course of the year and especially during the move, I started watching more Yugioh Arc V, eventually finishing the series by September. I also watched Yuri on Ice this year. I also got back into the crack love-child meme and, after finishing my second one shortly after the move, I came up with the premise for “The Great S.T.O.R.K. Machine” and created worlds for all the children to live their lives, quickly revamping the first meme shortly after.

Then, on July 29th, I officially revealed Lightning Speed’s final reboot to Diametrics. I’ll talk more about Diametrics in that thing I keep teasing, though, so keep an eye out for that later this year.

Then Koopalings Week 2017 came around, I set unrealistic standards for myself, and it crushed my soul again.

This year also just so happened to be the year that I looked back on my rant on the Game Theory Mario Timeline and said “Yeah, I could have done better”. This led me to start writing theory rebuttals that would eventually turn into full-fledged videos. I created the first version of a video on Game Theory’s Rosalina Unmasked video this year, as well as wrote the first draft of a script on Game Theory’s Mario Timeline and a couple other theories.

Things proceeded as normal into the end of the year. I drew more Arc V art, I started writing my first Arc V fanfictions, I posted the somewhat-sequel to In Memoriam Vos, In Memoriam Eius, I made a Wattpad account that I posted Cannonfire 1 and 2 on and then swiftly abandoned, I drew a piece for Hatsune Miku’s tenth anniversary, I posted a Christmas special for Krystaltale, I made an account for the Yuri on Ice Amino, and…

...oh...right...

that drama started this year…

So, in December of this year, I was approached by a user I’ll keep anonymous for her own sake. This user, who I’ll call “T”, directed my eye toward her DeviantArt account, which contained uncredited drawings of her characters wearing some of the outfits of my Bootlegling designs and Nonexist. I asked for these to be credited and they weren’t. This doesn’t escalate, though, until…

2018

In 2018, the T drama escalated from an argument to an all-out war. I did some things I’m not proud of, but I tried to come at the situation with as much grace and dignity as I could muster. I’m not going into detail because, in the end, it doesn’t matter to the present day—the whole thing is over and no one needs to bring it back up like that—but the only thing worth knowing is that I unintentionally stoked a fire I was ill-prepared to deal with and, somehow, I gained a crud-ton of followers on DeviantArt because of it.

Finally, in April, after T had been ignoring large majorities of my messages and the situation moved far beyond needing my input, I dropped out of the whole thing, making my final statement and leaving it be.

Now I can talk about everything else that happened in 2018. Gracious.

The beginning of 2018 was slow because of the drama debacle, but I started a palette challenge on Tumblr and I drew pieces for Yuri Plisetsky’s fictional birthday and Mar10 Day, along with a third crack love-child meme for The Great S.T.O.R.K. Machine, finally revealing the whole thing on DeviantArt toward the end of the year and even starting on a fourth entry, and I entered a contest on the Yuri on Ice Amino with a picture of Otabek that didn’t end up placing.

April Fools then rolled around and, for 2018, I decided to re-release Shadow’s Story alongside the sequel I’d written two years prior on my newly-acquired AO3 account. The whole thing was massively ridiculous and even included pictures every few paragraphs, just like the original had so many years ago. I don’t know if anyone even caught chapter 19, though...

Summer came, I moved Diametrics’ anniversary to July 31st, I started up a challenge called the RedQueenMiku Redraw Bonanza where I redraw, like, a bajillion old pieces from my past, and I drew pieces and wrote a whole slew of bios for Koopalings Week 2018. Fall came, I went off on Nintendo’s announcement of New Super Mario Bros U Deluxe and the existence of Peachette, I started on a brand-new Mario timeline, I finally posted Roy, I started and subsequently failed my first attempt at a Goretober after only three days, I played Deltarune, I posted a redraw of an image involving Karl from Castle of Nations and Law of Talos that was actually a huge mistake to post, I started a Twitter account, and I created and started taking requests for a brand new challenge called the Yuri Expression Challenge, where I draw characters with expressions from various screencaps of Yuri from Arc V. Brilliant, I know. Praise me for my intelligent brain.

2019

And we finally come to the year we’re leaving behind us tonight: 2019. 2019 has been a heck of a year on its own.

2019, in itself, was a lot like 2017. I started off massively depressed, then, in the summer, we moved again.

In January, we lost our dog and I spiraled into depression again. Between that and computer issues, I didn’t actually do a lot in January. I did, however, join an art group on the Yuri on Ice amino in this time: Artevivo. I posted one more piece for the Yuri Challenge before my desktop failed on me and I was forced to either do art on my quickly-dying laptop or go traditional. The latter is what I did for the first Artevivo prompt post, though I took the former route to make a doodle post announcing my sort-of official return to the Sonic the Hedgehog fandom.

Next up was February. I did a few more traditional doodles, one set of them revealing an Arc V AU known as the Dragonia AU, before I finally got my desktop back online. I drew a couple more pieces after that, including an Artevivo prompt for Valentine’s Day involving Otabek and Mila.

March came with Mar10 day once again and an Artevivo prompt about boy bands in which I made a stupid joke by drawing Yuuri, Victor, and Yurio as Dreamboat Express a la Sonic Boom. I also entered a contest on the Amino for St. Patrick’s Day and, while I ended up just shy of winning the whole shebang, I did place first in my category, earning the title of Emerald Princess. Most importantly, though, I dropped a bunch of titles for future writing projects. Some of them, like “I Can Fix You”, “Yu-Gi-Oh: Arc INFINITE”, “Sesonia: The Dark of Spring”, “In Memoriam Nostri”, and Cannonfires 3 and 4 had already been previously announced, but others like “Tales from a Dark and Stormy Night”, “49”, “Jump Up, Superstar!”, “Memory to Hunt her Down”, and, most notably, “In Memoriam ihr Zerbrechliches Ego”, were brand new announcements.

April came around with a half-hearted failed attempt at an April Fools event that we don’t need to talk about and not much else. There was an Artevivo prompt about Cherry Blossoms, another entry in the Redraw Challenge, and I drew some bears. That was really about it.

In May, I traveled for Animazement 2019, which ended up being a heck of a lot of fun. There was also an Artevivo prompt about sea creatures AND the release of the first real story in “The Great S.T.O.R.K. Machine”’s series on AO3. At the end of the month, though, I had a real scare. I backed up everything on my laptop onto an external hard drive then, about a week after that, my laptop sang its final hurrah, dying to a critical hard drive failure.

June was a much slower month. I drew a few pieces at the beginning of the month, but, by the end, we had already begun our next big move. I managed to squeeze in a Sonic birthday sketch dump before we left and I even got the Artevivo prompt for that month done ahead of time. The rest of the month, though, was pretty much completely dead, as I had to pack up my only remaining computer for the move. At the very end of the month, though, I bought a brand-new laptop, meaning I was officially back in business and better than ever, at that.

July started with me taking on a style challenge on the Amino and just generally drawing a whole heck of a lot. This continued all the way through July.

Then, August came. I kept up with Koopalings Week like I never had before, ending it out with the least fatigue I’d ever felt coming out of a Koopalings week. I also finally finished an enormous piece for Diametrics that I had planned to finish for the anniversary, but that took much longer than expected due to the sheer scale of the piece. There was also an Artevivo prompt about fruit somewhere in there too.

September was a month that I vowed to be productive for considering the previous year’s September I did absolute bupkis. What a productive September it was too. I drew some Sonic characters in Vocaloid outfits, released an Undertale two-shot called “Vodka en Rouge”, added another three entries to the Redraw Bonanza, completed an Artevivo prompt for Fall, and started preparing for another crack at the Goretober I’d failed the previous year by drawing six different practice pictures. We also finally got into our new house this month, so that was great too.

Then, Goretober finally came. Did I succeed this time? Well, no. I managed to get most all of them done, but 27, 28, 29, and 30 were never completed. Even so, I produced a grand total of 25 images this month, which is still absolutely insane. I also made a rule for myself that I couldn’t draw for the same fandom twice, meaning the variety of pieces was vast and I even drew characters that I had never previously drawn like Twelve from Zankyou no Terror, Katara from Avatar the Last Airbender, Sakura from Zombieland Saga, Luluco from Space Patrol Luluco, and Kaoru from Ouran High School Host Club.

When November rolled around, I swore to myself I wouldn’t let myself slump into inactivity like I had after previous challenges like Koopalings Week 2018. With that resolve, I kept drawing. I drew a piece celebrating the new Sonic movie trailer drop. I did a short livestream only one person came to. I drew a piece of steampunk art for the Artevivo prompt. Finally, though, I started the Youtube channel I’d been preparing for for two entire years, RedQueenMiku2, and I started with newly-revamped videos on Rosalina Unmasked and the Game Theory Mario Timeline, just like I’d planned to do years ago.

Finally, we come to the present. December came with three more videos, a Silvaze Christmas piece, a Christmas Aretevivo prompt, and the retrospective you’re reading right now. Really, looking at 2019 as a whole, it’s like what 2017 could have been if I’d done things right. In 2017, I let depression get the best of me and let my work suffer because of it. In 2019, though, I pushed through and vowed not to quit, bettering myself because of it.

That’s the big thing here, really. 2010-2014 was all about me trying to find myself as a young, impressionable teenager, 2015 and 2016 were me discovering where I wanted to be and how I wanted to present myself, and 2017-2019 were me coming to terms with myself and pushing through my own mental roadblocks. Looking at where I started and where I’ve ended up, the difference is staggering. Of course, it has been ten years, after all. Now, as we look ahead to 2020 and the start of a brand new decade, I can only hope things will just keep getting better from here.

Happy 2020, everyone. Cheers.

#sorry for the long #this is just something i wanted to do for posterity's sake #it's fun to look back and see where you came from #also i'm highly sentimental #to a ridiculous degree #so yeah #that's where all this nonsense came from #*jazz hands*#happy new year everyone!!!

3 notes · View notes

zephyr-together · 5 years

Text

some Zim movie thoughts (spoilers)

I have some mixed feelings on it but OVERALL I LOVE IT VERY MUCH.....

to me even if you don’t like everything about the plot you can clearly see it’s an absolute work of art animation wise...the art was good in the original but it’s WAY more enhanced now with SO much color, style, fluidity, etc...and the designs are SO CUTE.....when they first changed Dib and Gaz’s looks in the comics, I kept drawing them the way they are in the show because it didn’t feel...like them somehow, even though I thought it actually looked better, but now that I’ve seen the movie I know it’s because they didn’t have their voices with them, but now we have both together!

this is gonna sound super mean to Zim but the main thing that was disappointing for me was the fact that he thought he just “lost respect of the Tallest” and they changed their mind, it sounds like he never found out that his mission was fake from the beginning like I was hoping...but still it was really great to see that reaction regardless!! it felt unreal getting to finally see that...and I love how physical he is with being depressed for some reason...just that alone works really well for fluff ideas...just him rolling around and moaning loudly and Dib telling him to stop over and over until he realizes he has to be nice and talk to get him to stop...

I think people were saying that Zim might become an actual defender of the Earth and I would’ve loved that but it seemed highly doubtful of it happening in canon, but it did feel like a letdown how Dib had him and Zim seemed totally helpless and then all of a sudden NO IT’S MY PLAN ALL ALONG...kinda felt like a purposeful slap in the face to anyone hoping for any fluff between them :’D but looking back, just Dib feeling uncomfortable about how Zim felt and almost looking like he might comfort him was a huge deal for me, and makes it easier to think about drawing stuff like that

Gaz was probably what I liked most, I was totally BLOWN away with how nice she was!! she was still very in character though! but now her wrath is only invoked if Dib does something really awful, not if he breathes in her presence. I thought comics Gaz was super nice compared to the show, but this is even a step higher from that. Dib and Gaz are such fun and silly siblings in this movie, I’m so happy at how well they get along and I’m really surprised and thankful that they would write them this way!!

speaking of which Professor Membrane was so good too!! he felt way more like a dad, Dib telling him how badly he wants to make him proud and him saying he’s always been proud of him...wow that’s way more heartfelt than I’d expect from a Zim movie...he also seemed way more present in general, in the show he’d get literally just one night off a year to spend with his kids, here it looked like he was there everyday with them and really loves them...

remember how on my Zim blog someone suggested Membrane adopting Zim and I thought that it was weird to think about considering how he’s an adult in irken years? after seeing this I think screw it, because it looks like a pretty happy family that is healing but loving an accepting of each other, and a very lonely alien with no one to love him......so I think screw it, adopt him pls

#whispering zephyr

1 note · View note

dice-and-die · 6 years

Text

After the storm (Downpouring Thunder part 5)

Gaz ended the transmission and kicked the ship into overdrive. Shortly after rescue, Tak had passed out from shock, going limp in Gaz’s arms. Gaz had almost panicked, until she heard that Tak was still breathing. Thank fuck, she wasn’t dead. She had dragged her over to the pilot seat, and sat down, pulling the unconscious irken onto her lap. Now it was just a matter of getting home, and getting help. She shot across the solar system at hyperspeed, swearing and cursing that this blasted ship couldn’t go any faster. Tak needed help, and she needed it NOW. Gaz fidgeted uncomfortably, listening to the soft hum of the running engine of the ship, and Tak’s ragged breathing.

Finally after what felt like an eternity served cold, earth came into view, in all it’s blue and green glory. “Come on, we’re almost home. We’re so close.” Gaz held onto Tak as she set the ship to auto pilot it’s way to Zim’s base. It was like midnight by standard earth time, and Gaz felt tired as all hell. She laid back in the pilot seat and sighed, too uneasy and anxious to sleep.

Zim rushed to get a a life support unit in working order, while Skoodge and Dib ran around getting basic equipment like an IV drip, and prepping monitors. Gir watched in the background, interested with what was going on. He liked that Mary and Master were friends now, it was much more fun that way. They didn’t scream and yell and hurt each other no more, and that made Gir happy. Gir’s train of thought trailed off into thinking about playing tennis ball. Tennis balls were tasty. “Gir!” Zim called to the little robot, getting his attention. “Yeeeeesss Master????” Gir asked breezily and with cheer. “Go up to the hangar room and make sure there’s extra room for Tak’s ship!” Zim demanded. Gir’s little face lit up, his warm cyan eyes glowing. “I have no idea what you just said, but I’m happy! Yaaaaayyyy, I get to be useful!” Gir blasted off and crashed into the elevator, speeding upwards at an unnatural speed.

The group of three stopped their work, they’d prepped the best they could, now all they could do was play the waiting game. “Why do you think we needed to do all this?” Skoodge asked curiously. “I bet you anything she found some dying unintelligent animal from another planet.” Zim said from his comfortable spot on Dib’s lap. “Or maybe, she found someone rather than something....” Dib trailed off. He knew how Gaz was feeling. The night Zim had taken shelter from the storm, Dib had gotten up and talked to Gaz that night, doing his best to explain the situation to her. He could feel the envy, sadness, and guilt coming off his sister in waves, as he had told her how bad Zim needed someone, how he was so broken inside, and just needed a friend. He had a pretty good feeling that he knew what was going on, but he stayed silent as Skoodge and Zim began to gently bicker about whether Gaz could be injured or not, or whether Gir was actually being helpful or not, which prompted Skoodge to go and check on the psychotic little robot.

Gaz broke into earth’s atmosphere, holding onto Tak and bracing herself. “God damn, finally.” She growled. She switched auto pilot off and steered it down to Zim’s base, in a slow descent. She spied a new irken, Skoodge. She didn’t know who he was and she didn’t care. She carefully landed the ship down in the hangar, and opened the hatch to the ship. “Hi there. Zim and Dib are down in the medical bay waiting for us! Wait... is that...” Skoodge said with a friendly little wave before trailing off in confusion. “Go tell them I’m coming.” Gaz said gruffly, as she struggled to get up with Tak in her arms.

“Hey, your awfully silent right now.” Zim noted, scooting off Dib’s lap in favor of making eye contact with his friend. “Yeah, I’m just thinking..” He said quietly. The two of them sat in silence, not minding the quiet, enjoying each other’s presence. Skoodge came rushing to the room, ruining the peace. “She’s here!” He panted. “And she has..... *pant* she has... *wheeze*” Skoodge struggled for breath. “Dude just breathe first.” Dib said. “What does she have?” Zim asked in concern. The elevator dinged and opened up again, to reveal Gaz holding Tak’s listless and unconscious form, bridal style. Dib’s face lit up in pride of his sister’s selfless actions, while Zim’s jaw dropped in shock, his eyes wide and his antenna twitching spastically.

“Well don’t just stand there and stare you assholes, let’s get going! She needs help!” Gaz snarled in distress, hopping off the elevator with an excited and curious Gir, trailing behind. “Set her down on the life support bed.” Zim pointed to the aforementioned bed. “Computer scan Tak and give me a bio-readout, what’s her physical state right now?” Zim asked anxiously, pretending not to be affected by the fact that he was in the presence of the irken who, next to the Tallests, hated him the most.

“Physical state of irken Tak, is malnourished, dehydrated, and suffering from sleep deprivation, and darkness fever. Some rest, recourses, UV light exposure would do her good.” The computer droned out in its typically emotionless voice. “That’s all? Huh, well that’s not as bad as I thought.” Zim said. Gaz reluctantly backed out of their way, as Zim rushed over to Tak. He and Skoodge pulled the top half of her uniform off, and then her undershirt. Zim grabbed the iv and glucose drip and inserted it into Tak’s left wrist, while Skoodge, placed Holter monitor pads over the top and sides of Tak’s chest. Four different beeps from the monitor started going off, gentle and soft. Gaz simply watched the two of them work, not taking her eyes off them for a single second. Dib came over and stood next to her. “Hey.” He said quietly. “Hey.” Gaz mumbled even quieter. “You ok?” Dib asked, in concern of his sister. “I will be.” She stated softly.

“I kind of knew you were going out to find her.” Dib said. “I couldn’t take it anymore. I couldn’t just leave her out there anymore. I knew her ship was tracking her life pod for so long, and I just let it get this bad. It just was like a constant reminder every time I saw the ship. I’d see the blinking tracking light and I knew what it meant, and yet I did nothing. It felt like being stabbed in the gut.” She said, her voice riddled with guilt and despair. “You didn’t do nothing. You went out there and you brought her back. She’d be dead if it weren’t for you.” Dib reassured her. “Yeah but I didn’t act sooner. If I’d have waited any longer she WOULD be dead.” Gaz wiped away a single tiny tear. “Don’t beat yourself up Gaz. You did the best. She’s alive right now. Ok? You saved her. Don’t dwell on regret, just revel in the fact that you did a good job. Because the past is the past, and it doesn’t matter anymore, especially because this a past that doesn’t include Tak dying. Ok?” Gaz considered Dibs advice for a moment and then nodded. “Ok.” She said quietly.

Dib was surprised that his sister felt anything at all. This was the most emotional she’d ever been since she was three and her favorite stuffed pig had been ripped up by a dog. “Hey Gaz. Why don’t we go visit Dad in a couple days? Tell him what’s going on? He’s been pretty extra busy lately.” Dib said. “Yeah. I think he’ll be proud of us.” Gaz nodded and sat down on the floor, still watching Zim and Skoodge stand back, having done all they could for Tak.

“Now what?” Skoodge asked. “Well now we just wait. She should be fine in a couple days.” Zim said, his antenna twitching and flicking forward at every little sound. He looked over at Gaz and Dib. “It’s like two in the morning. Shouldn’t you guys be getting sleep?” He asked, tilting his head curiously. “Sleep is for the weak.” Gaz growled, her typical, venomous, apathy returning to her voice. “Alrighty then, you do you dude.” Skoodge said, trotting over to the elevator. Zim and Dib both shared a look before following Skoodge, leaving Gaz be.

Once they were gone, Gaz got up and pulled a small hover chair over to the life support bed, and stayed up for at least another hour, holding Tak’s hand and waiting for her. Eventually though, she succumbed to sleep, her head resting on both her arms, folded over on the edge of the bed.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Dib eventually passed out on Zim’s couch, while Zim and Skoodge stayed up, quietly talking things over at the kitchen table. “So... you overheard my last conversation with the Tallests?” Zim asked softly, avoiding eye contact with Skoodge. “Yeah. I think they feel the same way about me. Tak too I think, because otherwise they would’ve came and rescued her, right?” Skoodge asked. “Yeah.... right....” Zim whispered, his mind caught up in a twisted, frenetic, fit. He was having a flashback of that night, so horrible in all its gut wrenching despair.

“My Tallests I have a very knew and amazing plan to rid this planet of its stinking, awful life forms. See the planet is covered in a substance called water. It’s a hydrogen oxygen combine and this planet is so polluted that this hydrogen oxygen combine burns upon contact with irken skin. To make this planet more hospitable to us, I am going to suck up all the water on earth with a giant vacuum and then-“

“Yeah look that’s real interesting Zim, but we’re kind of busy right now so...” Purple trailed off, giving a stern look of annoyance.

Zim’s antenna quivered anxiously “O-oh! I understand my Tallests but if I could just-“

“Zim! Take the hint and just shut up already!” Red snarled viciously at him before cutting the transmission. Zim was taken aback by this behavior but quickly righted his hunched posture and shut his mouth, his antenna flicking tentatively.

Red’s left eye twitched and he came closer to the screen, staring Zim down intimidatingly until he finally got the hint for once, and shut up. “You look like you have something important to say my Tallest!” Zim’s voice was still full of innocence and joy, joy that he was being payed attention to.

“Why yes.” Red started in an ominously quiet tone of voice. “Yes I do Zim. Now your going to be quiet, and listen very, very, very carefully to what I am about to say. Do you understand?” Red glared Zim down expectantly. Zim nodded, a little dumbstruck by how dramatic his Tallest was being, although Purple was in the background staring at Red questioningly, also unsure of exactly what was going on, though he had somewhat of an idea. It made him slightly uneasy. “Now Zim” Red continued “Now Zim, We’ve put up with you for a long time.” Zim began to feel incredibly anxious, but he kept his posture all the same, denial was forcing his inability to act or speak upon him. Red’s voice suddenly snarled into a crescendo of anger “I AM SO SICK OF YOU.” Both Zim and Purple cringed at his voice. Purple knew now what was going on, and a twisted smile crossed his face, as he hung back to watch and observe.

Zim’s antenna drooped but that was the only sign he was feeling anything at all. Red continued on now, going into a frenzy “WE’VE PUT UP WITH YOU LONG ENOUGH ZIM. I’VE HAD IT UP TO MY ANTENNA WITH YOU, YOU PATHETIC, DANGEROUS, EMOTIONAL, HAYWIRE DEFECTIVE.”

defective?............ The word hit Zim like a cinderblock, it was like being shot in the guts. He shuddered, forcefully holding his emotions in, ever so desperate to prove his Tallests wrong, that he wasn’t a hot emotional mess.

“WE HAVE PANDERED TO YOU FOR TOO LONG. I’M SICK OF IT. YOU ARE WORTHLESS. YOUR EXISTENCE MAKES ME SICK TO MY SQUEEDILYSPOOCH. YOUR MISSION IS A JOKE ZIM. A JOKE. NO ONE LIKES YOU ZIM. IN FACT EVERYONE HATES YOU. YOU ARE AN EXLIE ZIM. YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO BE AN EXILE. DO YOU KNOW WHY? BECAUSE YOU ARE DEFECTIVE, AND A DETRIMENT TO OUR ENTIRE SOCIETY AS A WHOLE, AND FOR THAT REASON ALONE YOU SHOULD BE KILLED.” Red snarled in a furious rage.

“d-defective...?” Zim whined, beginning to shudder and shake.

“HAH! LOOK AT ‘IM!” Purple sneered. “HE’S CRYING. HE REALLY IS DEFECTIVE.” Purple cackled maniacally.

Zim wiped at the corner of his right eye and looked at the collected tear on his hand, and he reeled back in disgust. He felt he was going to be sick. What was he hearing?! It felt like a lucid nightmare, so unreal and horribly unforgiving. He looked back up at the Tallests, in terror, panic, confusion, and pain.

Zim tried to protest weakly “n-no I-“

“QUIET DAMN YOU.” Red howled in anger. Zim flinched back, forcibly stifling a whimper. Red went quiet again, looking the emotionally ruined irken up and down with disgust. “I will give you one chance Zim” he growled quietly “One chance to live, and I’ll tell you how you can do that.” Zim simply looked on in abject horror. “If you ever show your face to us or any other irken ever again, we will find you and we will ensure that you are killed. A smug and ugly grin curled up Red’s face as he coldly stated “Staying away from us all would be a collective gift to your own kind. Now for all I care, you can go curl up and die somewhere, in fact it would be a pleasant surprise. Now goodbye, and goodbye forever you pathetic defective mess.” Red hissed in a voice seething still, with utter homicidal rage, before cutting the transmission.

Zim had only felt pain that night. He had cried until he was dry and out of tears, and even then, he still continued to whimper, all curled up in the darkest corner of his base. He would sleep, have nightmares, cry some more, and then cry himself to sleep all over again, even when tears wouldn’t come out, he’d still cry. He had disassociated through all his haphazard mental breakdowns, and finally, he had gathered up enough strength to try an make it through a day of skool. He hadn’t shown up in a week, everyone would be curious as to where he’d disappeared to.

Dib was literal the only thing that had kept Zim from falling off the edge. Zim had even contemplated leaving the earth behind and driving the voot into the sun. But it was Dib, who had pulled him out of this suicidal stupor, and it was Dib he had turned to, in his most darkest time of need. If it weren’t for the earth boy then..... no... Zim didn’t want to think about that...

“Hey. Are you ok Zim? Your pulling some weird faces. You’ve just been staring off at nothing and tearing up for like an hour.” Skoodge noted with a hint of concern. Zim snapped back to reality, wiping the small trickle of tears away. “Yeah... I’m fine. I was just thinking is all..” He said quietly. Skoodge nodded in understanding, but didn’t press Zim for further information, respecting his preferred silence. Zim looked over at Dib, still sleeping on the couch, and smiled softly, before staring back off into space, getting lost in his thoughts again.

4 notes · View notes

protagonistprepblog · 6 years

Text

Protagonist Prep Ch. 5 First Day, I own nothing but my own characters.

At the schools’ clearing, everything to be normal until the dimensional portal opened again and the students as well as their parents walked through the portals. All them had nervous, and some cases fearful, looks on their faces due the fact they couldn’t see any of the teachers especially Drooler. Luckily, the fire being was exiting the school, along with Barrage, and was carrying a barrel of some sort of black, boiling, tar like liquid.

“Huh, didn’t expect you guys back so soon, would’ve made some more coffee.” Most of the adults and some of the children cringed at what Drooler considered coffee, but were confused by what he meant.

“What do you mean, soon, we have been gone hours!” King Butterfly loudly exclaimed, annoyance filled his voice to the brim.

“Well that’s impossible we’ve been gone for four weeks!?!” Pearl squawked with fear and confusion evident in her voice.

“Attendons que nous sommes partis depuis un mois!” Nathaniel told Drooler with a great amount of fear in his voice. While everyone was freaking out about the extreme difference of time, Drooler was just calmly drinking his coffee. When he ran out of it he decided to calm their nerves.

“You guys brought suitcases!” Most of the mortals understood why he was excited considering that most of them weren’t listening during the tour. They later became confused when they saw Droolers’ lower pair of arms signal go back. Noticing this Drooler gained a sheepish smile and lied.

“Bugs.” Most of them didn’t buy it.

“Anyway, kids go with Barrage to see your dorms. Most of the parents you can go home, but King and Queen Butterfly come with me.” Drooler ordered, the last of the part of it filled with quiet rage. The kids walked towards Barrage, Star felt a bit worried for her parents, and after they said their goodbyes and good lucks most of them left. Drooler led the Butterflys west of the school deep into the surrounding forest and the farther they went the darker and more foreboding the forest became. Twenty minutes of walking Drooler stopped abruptly.

“Beast, why did you stop?” River asked his voice fearful, Drooler didn’t say anything he just ripped a couple bushes away and what the royal couple saw something horrific. It was most of the elite guards and all of them were killed in gruesome ways some ripped in half, others burned to a crisp, but many were vertically cut in half with their vital organs spilling out. Moon almost felt her meal come back up, while River threw up where he stood while it’s true that both Mewmans were veterans of war but they never saw anything like the scene in front of them.

“Who---What did this?” Moon asked pure terror in voice and her body shacking unable to move while Drooler just calmly told them.

“I did and before you ask me why.” He reached behind him, with one of his lower arms, and pulled out a familiar face, it was Mina in her war armor but she was tied and gagged with multiple scratch marks and her right arm bitten off. Drooler removed the gag and ordered Mina.

“Now tell them what you told me.” Mina nodded her body shaking.

“King River ordered me to come here.” Moon was shocked at this accusation, Mina is a loyal warrior, while River became incredibly nervous.

“What do you mean Mina I never ordered you to come here.” River tried to lie, his skin sweating. Drooler growled, which spooked the royals, and with his other lower arm he reached to his hip and pulled out Minas’ mirror and pressed last call.

“Mina, I want you to teach that monster a lesson about harming the royal family.” The recorded River said. Moons’ demeanor changed from scared mouse to erupting volcano as she turned towards her husband with fire in her eyes. She then yelled at the top of her lungs.

“YOU WASTED OUR ELITE GUARD JUST TO SAVE YOUR PRIDE!!!” River became drenched in sweat and his eyes darting around, his brain trying to think of a response. However, Drooler used his upper arms to separate the royal couple and placed Moon on his left and River on his right. Before River could thank him Drooler just glared at him and threatened.

“King River, I am a teacher which means I am responsible for every kid here. If you decide to send anymore threats to this school I will see to it personally that you will burn!!!” His upper right hand fired up and curled up into a fist. He struck the ground near King River which caused the ground to shake and bend. Meanwhile with Barrage and the kids were walking down a hallway when they felt the aftershocks of Droolers’ punch.

“What was that?” Steven asked in fear and worry in his voice, not for his safety but for this planets’.

“Don’t worry that was Sargent taking care of a few things.” Barrage told the group without a hint of worry and what he said didn’t calm any of the kids, in fact it terrified. After walking down, the hall for a few minutes Barrage stopped abruptly which caused the students to collide into each other.

“Hé, regardez-le vous aves trop d’iguane!” Chloe yelled at Barrage, who just glared at her and caused to flinch, he then tapped the wall in a specific order. Lines appeared all over the wall turning it into a 11-ft. tall grid of squares which collapsed in on each other. All the students looked at in amazement, while Barrage just dropped to all fours and crawled through the hole. Inside was a large room with a living in the center, to the left and right were door, and a kitchen to the left of the living room area. Most of the kids were amazed at this but others noticed one problem.

“Hey, where are we going to sleep?” Gaz asked with annoyance in her voice and etched into her face Barrage just sent a glare to child, who uncharacteristically flinched, Barrage motioned the children to follow him to the door on the left. Inside was a medium sized room with twelve beds, six on the left and right, and one each bed was a foot long two thick panes of class on the end of each one.

“These are the boys’ dormitories, the girls to the left. Your mortal facilities are at the end and each bed has a Com screen which can be used to contact loved ones or search the internet. Before you ask yes we’re able to check your browser history.” All the kids gained a slight blush at what Barrage told them he then just left the kids to their own devices. Which proved to be a disastrous idea because not only did forget to tell them about the curfew, the kids started to descend into chaos. Dib tried to hack into the walls, Alya dragged Marinette around all the rooms, while Gaz and Adrien were engaged in a video game battle. While Steven and Boone were talking about the advantages of flip flops, Star and Connie were talking about the adventures they’ve had, Sashi and Marco were comparing fighting styles. While everybody else took advantage of the no curfew and stayed up for most of the night, it wasn’t until 2 a.m. when everybody went to sleep and they were in for a rude awaken. At 8 a.m. Drooler crawled into the student area and saw the students strewn around the main room asleep, he smiled having an idea on how to wake them.

“RAAUUGGGHH!!!!!!!!” All of them snapped awake and few of them assumed a fighting stance until they saw it was Drooler, they dropped the stance thinking it would be a bad idea to attack not only their future teacher but also someone who could throw people like their baseballs.

“Staying up on a school night and sleeping in not very responsible, is it?” Most of the students had sheepish or embarrassed looks on their faces while others had to restrain themselves from yelling at the fire being.

“Come on your first class is with Behemoth.” He told the students with trace amounts of disappointment in his voice, he then crawled out of the student area and waited for them. After the kids had went to the dormitories and had quick shower and change they walked towards to the exit, where they followed him to Behemoths’ classroom. During the walk to the class the kids were talking about what Behemoth class would be about, some he would be a PE teacher, others weight lifting, a few even thought something a bit more violent. However, those rumors quickly dissipated when Drooler turn towards a left hallway and opened a door on the rightside of the hall, inside was a whiteboard, desks in the center of the room, and in front of the room was a teacher’s desk proportionate to Behemoth is where he sat reading a literal man-sized book. Speaking of books three of the walls were covered by bookshelves filled to the brim with books of all types except Twilight because Behemoth has taste.

“Indeed, I do, also welcome to English class acolytes.” Behemoth greeted. The students were surprised, and slightly disappointed, that he wouldn’t be anything dealing with strength but they were also confused by this. After they got seated and Drooler left them Dib asked.

“Um…Excuse Mr. Behemoth shouldn’t we be studying something heroic like rescuing or fighting villains?” Behemoth just chuckled and told them with a smile.

“Yes, this is a hero school but it isn’t Hogwarts.” Unfortunately, most of the students didn’t get the joke, sensing this he decided to elaborate on the joke.

“What I meant was, yes we will teach lessons in heroics but we also don’t want you lose any knowledge academically. Now when I hand out your textbooks don’t be disappointed about the small size.” However, when Behemoth opened a drawer pulled out a stack of 10 2ft by 3ft black books the last thing they felt was disappointment.

“Now when I’m done handing the books out turn to page 652 and we’ll discuss how dark romanticism symbolism changed the literary world.” For the rest of the day was like Behemoths class, difficult to understand and harder to follow. In Boulders bio class he wanted them to clone a fully functional human organ, then they were led towards Zizzoro history class. There Zizzoro just handed out man sized history books and walked towards the blackboard he had, he then wanted them to write a ten-page essay on the War of Lutalai. Then there was Tech’s algebra class which for some of them was manageable but still rather hard, he wanted them to solve a college level mathematic and gave them a literal three feet tall homework pile. Let’s just say when they were taken towards Drooler’s class they were terrified about facing the fiery teacher, meanwhile Drooler was planning an amazing lesson plan for the kids. As the kids walked into his classroom he could see the kids looked like they went through a fight with a Clocrean.

“Geez, what happened?” Drooler asked his students rather worried for them.

“Well…um…You see..” Steven tried to explain until the ruder students deciding to voice their opinions rather loudly.

“We had to read textbooks the size of me for almost two hours!!!!” Chloe screamed at the top of her lungs, causing Drooler to flinch a little at the loud sound.

“I had to solve inferior math that no proud Irken should learn!!!” Zim screeched loud enough to shake some of the beakers in the classroom. Then the final protest came from Connie surprisingly.

“We didn’t have the correct equipment to handle a human organ!!” That just caused most of the others to look at her strangely until she muttered that her mother was a doctor. Drooler just took a deep breath, so did the kids fearing what would happen next, but then he just let out a tired sigh and used his upper hands to massage his temples to fight off a headache.

“I had feeling that this would happen.” Drooler mumbled, which rumbled like thunder meanwhile Zim almost turned a dark green.

“You knew that this would happen!!!!” He screeched at the top of his lungs or organs like them, that caused some of the beakers to break. Drooler just sighed and he began to explain.

“The guys never really been around mortals much and really don’t know how to interact with them. Saving yes, interacting not by longshot. Now you guys don’t have to any homework, now who wants to blow something up?!” Drooler asked the kids, they seemed to cheer up and they actually enjoyed the class, though some may not admit it. When the kids walked back towards the dorms and were far enough away, Drooler began to stomp down the halls a made a right and kept walking until he was at a large oaken door with a pattern of beasts on it. He slammed open the door an in the room was Behemoth, Boulder, Tech and Zizzoro sitting around an extremely large table. They turned to see their boss currently a bit angry and he growled out.

“We need to talk.” Drooler growled out which caused Tech, Behemoth and Boulder become anxious while Zizzoro just kept calm.

“About what sir?” Behemoth asked rather timidly he knew what Drooler was like when he was upset.

“About the metric ton of work you gave the kids and distinctly rember telling youg three not to overwork them.” Drooler answered the question rather coldly.

“Excuse me CEO but we could do that when we were just a few hundreds years old.” Tech politely told the fire beast.

“Yeah, we could’ve had done and have time to take a nap.” Boulder said trying to justify what they did.

“Yes but are they us, can they do that, are they smart enough and can they even comprehend what you guys told them in such short amount of time!?!?!” Drooler roared out at the four other teachers, three of them looked a little sheepish and mumbled out a round of no’s. Drooler then turned to Zizzoro and just asked him.

“And you would it kill you to speak, these are kids not an army!” Zizzoro just sighed and spoke.

“Fine but I don’t see how this will be any different.” Zizzoro told Drooler his tone bored and his voice sounding like a very familiar dino trainer.

The end.

#Protagonist Prep #oc #au #steven universe #miraculous ladybug #crossover #svtfoe #invader zim #pzpth

2 notes · View notes

writeroffanfiction · 7 years

Text

Protagonist Prep Ch. 5 First Day

I own nothing but my own characters

“What do you mean, soon, we have been gone hours!” King Butterfly loudly exclaimed, annoyance filled his voice to the brim.

“Well that’s impossible we’ve been gone for two weeks!?!” Pearl squawked with fear and confusion evident in her voice.

“Dimensional travel is kind of like international travel, different dimension different passage of time.” Luckily everyone seemed to accept what he said, but what Drooler took away from the entire panic-fest was. “You guys brought suitcases!” Most of the mortals understood why he was excited considering that most of them weren’t listening during the tour. They later became confused when they saw Droolers’ lower pair of arms signal go back. Noticing this Drooler gained a sheepish smile and lied.

“Bugs.” Most of them didn’t buy it.

“Anyway, kids go with Barrage to see your dorms. Most of the parents you can go home, but King and Queen Butterfly come with me.” Drooler ordered, the last of the part of it filled with quiet rage. The kids walked towards Barrage, Star a bit slowly worried for her parents, and after they said their goodbyes and good lucks most of them left. Drooler led the Butterflys west of the school deep into the surrounding forest and the farther they went the darker and more foreboding. Twenty minutes of walking Drooler stopped abruptly.

“Who---What did this?” Moon asked pure terror in voice and her body shacking unable to move while Drooler just calmly told them.

“Now tell them what you told me.” Mina nodded her body shaking.

“King River ordered me to come here.” Moon was shocked at this accusation, Mina is a loyal warrior, while River became incredibly nervous.

“King River, I am a teacher which means I am responsible for every kid here. If you decide to send anymore threats to this school I will see to it personally that you will burn!!!” His upper right hand fired up and curled up into a fist. He struck the ground near King River which caused the ground to shake and bend. Meanwhile with Barrage and the kids were walking down the only hallway when they felt the aftershocks of Droolers’ punch. “What was that?” Steven asked in fear and worry in his voice, not for his safety but for this planets’.

“Come on your first class is with Behemoth.” He told the students with trace amounts of disappointment in his voice, he then crawled out of the student area and waited for them. After the kids had went to the dormitories and had quick shower and change they walked towards to the exit, where they followed him to Behemoths’ classroom. During the walk to the class the kids were talking about what Behemoth class would be about, some he would be a PE teacher, others weight lifting, a few even thought something a bit more violent. However, those rumors quickly dissipated when Drooler opened the door, inside was a whiteboard, desks in the center of the room, and in front of the room was a teacher’s desk proportionate to Behemoth is where he sat reading a literal man-sized book. Speaking of books three of the walls were covered by bookshelves filled to the brim with books of all types except Twilight because Behemoth has taste.

“Um…Excuse Mr. Behemoth shouldn’t we be studying something heroic like rescuing or fighting villains?” Behemoth just chuckled and told them with a smile.

“Yes, this is a hero school but it isn’t Hogwarts.” Unfortunately, most of the students didn’t get the joke, sensing this he decided to elaborate on the joke.

“Welcome to chem class toda…..Why do kids look like you went through hell?” Drooler asked his voice showing some rare concern, which surprised the kids.

“We..um We feel..” Steven tried to tell him nicely however Zim was at the end of his rope and yelled.

“We have been tortured by your allies with atrocities such as learning a primitive, inaccurate cloning and false history!!!!” The rest of the class either feared what Droolers’ reaction would be or how would they get Zim out of their clothes. Instead they were met with Drooler sighing and facepalming.

“I had a feeling that that this would happen.”

“Vous saviez que cela se passerait!!!!!” Chloe screeched at the top of her lungs, which caused the kids around her to flinch. Again, Drooler didn’t get angry instead he just started to explain.

“Yeah, considering the guys really don’t know how to interact with mortals much. Saving them yes but beyond that they’re clueless what to do with them. With that being said you guys don’t need to do any homework, now who wants to see stuff get blown up?!” For the first time in the school the kids smiled. After the class was over Drooler stomped down the hall until he stopped at a large set of oak double doors, he slammed them open. Inside was Behemoth, Tech, Boulder and Zizzoro.

“Gentlemen we need to talk.” Drooler growled in annoyance, three of the four became a little nervous at their boss’s order.

“What do you mean sir?” A 11ft tall neon blue green bird lizard creature asked his voice jittery. Drooler just growled and roared out an answer.

“You know what I mean Tech!!!!! You guys overworked the kids and I told you guys to take it easy!!!!” Drooler roared at his friends.

“Relax D, we did. All the stuff we taught we could do as pups.” A 21-ft. tall wolf dragon creature wearing red and dirty green armor told him, his voice confident.

“Indeed, I remember that we could finish those problems and have time for tea.” Behemoth added in.

“Yes, but are they us?” Drooler asked the group, their faces slowly becoming guilt ridden.

“Are they hyperadvance race of super beings?” Drooler asked, the guilty looks started to intensify.

“No.” The three of them answered with their voices laced with disappointment.

“Good and Zizzoro would it kill you to talk??!!” Drooler asked the still silent Godzilla like creature who just sighed.

“Fine cous, just don’t ask me to do anything else.” His voice sounding very familiar.

#crossover #miraculous ladybug #steven universe #invader zim #pzpth #svtfoe #maybe au

3 notes · View notes

dragonkeeper19600 · 5 years

Text

Invader ZIM Headcanons

I’m surprised I haven’t done one of these yet. In any case, here we go:

Because of the job’s importance, candidates for the rank of Invader are evaluated with no consideration to the individual’s height, so as not to dismiss capable soldiers. However, an Invader’s height can still affect their assignment (as we saw with SKOODGE and LARB) as well as how they are treated.

Irken society has no real gender roles or expectations. Gender exists but is not considered important in any way. Irken males do not think of themselves as “men,” and Irken females do not consider themselves to be “women.” This is why ZIM has shown a willingness to crossdress as part of his cover, since Irken clothing isn’t gendered in any way.

SKOODGE is a unique, mutated individual who can survive without a PAK indefinitely. He tends to misplace his PAK because of this. The sight of SKOODGE walking around without a PAK is deeply unsettling to most Irkens, akin to seeing someone walk around without their head.

The Meekrob share one, collective consciousness. The entire species basically functions as a single individual, formic-style. This makes TENN’s infiltration of the planet especially difficult.

The Irkens’ diet is largely snack-based precisely because they don’t need to eat. Irken culture came to be without consideration of mealtimes, so square meals are largely unnecessary.

Every Invader receives a lofty regular salary for their work. Despite the fact that he isn’t a proper Invader, ZIM also receives a salary, presumably to keep up the charade.

There are no union laws in the Irken Empire, even for Irken employees. Because Irkens do not need to eat or sleep, and thus don’t need housing or food, there is also no minimum wage.

Planets are targeted for conquest because they either have a resource that the Empire has deemed valuable or the inhabitants of the planet have been determined to be a threat. Earth meets neither criteria.

Vortians have a strictly carnivorous diet, based on their sharp teeth and Vort dogs, their only known food, appearing to be a sort of alien hot dog.

Lard Nar, the leader of the Resisty, had been a scientist all his life before Invader LARB’s conquest of Vort and thus has no military experience. This is largely the reason he was so panicky during “Backseat Drivers from Beyond the Stars.”

Lard Nar held a great respect for Tallest MIYUKI, having met with her on several occasions prior to her demise in “The Trial.” He wonders if perhaps his planet would still be free if she were still alive.

The Membrane family is 100% human.

Professor Membrane is an avid gamer, who passed his love of gaming onto Gaz at a young age.

Newly selected Tallest undergo extensive body modifications, including elongating the torso and the attachment of hover belts in order to make them appear even taller. A side effect of these modifications is that the Tallest’s actual body underneath their robes is severely emaciated. Tallest RED and PURPLE are no longer able to walk on their own and would be as helpless as earthworms on the sidewalk if their suits were ever damaged.

On a similar note, the table harnesses on the Table-Headed Service Drones are specifically designed to make them appear shorter by forcing them to crouch and squat uncomfortably.

Whenever possible, a dead Irken’s PAK is retrieved so that their memories may be downloaded into a collective mind a la James Cameron’s Avatar. It is a disgrace and an insult to any individual not to be included in the collective memory bank.

Control Brains can access this collective intelligence bank at any time. This muddles the Control Brains’ sense of individuality.

Because of the nature of their deaths, neither MIYUKI nor SPORK made it into the memory bank, so all their knowledge and experience are permanently lost.

#invader zim #iz #zim #almighty tallest #irken empire #control brains #professor membrane #gaz #lard nar #vortians #meekrob #skoodge #lore #headcanon

367 notes · View notes

tyrwinthyr · 5 years

Text

Episode 2, act 2

Full episode 1 on e-reader for visitors, and episode 2 and beyond, available over on my patreon (https://www.patreon.com/tyrwinthyr) for a buck. Like it, support it!

The home of Sheila Marie Whitehart had been vandalized. If the light music playing with scented candles decorating nearly every exposed surface told the story, by bohemians. If the bourbon soaked vanilla smell coming from the candles was an indication, horny bohemians. First, the miscreants had removed both her dirty dishes, as well as the clean clothes on her cycle trainer. Afterwards, they had made off with the selfsame exercise machine! There was, of all the outlandish things, fresh fruit in a basket on her counter, plus flowers in a vase near the TV stand. There, next to the porch screen… was that a succulent in a flowered pot?

Pausing at her door, still holding her sack of dirty clothes in her hand, the satyr could do little more than blink. Her key had opened the door, but still she had a sudden need to check the number to make sure she hadn’t wandered into some hippie boggan’s house.

A gasping moan from behind her bedroom door informed her that the evil-doer, or doers, were still there. Instead of moving quietly to the door to catch them in the act, she stomped her hooves loudly across the linoleum.

“Oh no,” came a voice she knew too well, so she was not surprised to find Gaspar in her bed holding the sheets up to his nose. Were those new sheets? Was that a stylish new comforter?

Were those antlers?

“Oh. My. God!” It was all she could really think of to say. Not only had she caught her best friend with her brother in bed, but they had desecrated her holiest of holies.

“Sheels, baby, it just happened!” Gaspar exclaimed, dropping the sheet so he could hold his hands out to her imploringly.

“What, smashing my brother, or fucking up my décor?”

“If by décor you mean the hoarder style you were attempting,” Simon said, sitting up next to Gaz. “I think we improved way more than we fucked up.”

“I’m not ready to deal with you yet, Simon, so… just put some damn clothes on!” She grabbed the carefully folded jeans on her nightstand. Sheila could feel her cheeks flushing angrily. “How could you do this to me, Gaspar? This is like the ultimate violation!” Wadding the jeans up, she flung them at the pair.

After a concerned look was exchanged between the men, her friend put his hands in his lap.

“I’m sorry, Sheels,” he apologized quietly. “My roommate was being an ass, and you were supposed to be gone for a lot longer… but you’re right… it’s a terrible thing I’ve done.”

“He’s not your roommate, he’s your boyfriend,” she corrected. His voice had always calmed her, and this time was no different. “Couldn’t you have rented a hotel room to clean and violate?”

“I am supposed to be staying with you,” Simon interjected. “If I had put a rental on my account, Father would have had questions.”

Sheila could almost hear the capital letter he put on that noun, but it didn’t help make her feel any less angry.

“Clothes, now,” she reminded, turning her back on both of them. “You promised me you wouldn’t do this, Gaz.”

“By this… do you mean cleaning your apartment, or being accommodating of your brother?” She didn’t turn back, ears twitching their direction as the sound of sheets moving reached her.

“Overly accommodating,” she grumped, tapping her hoof against the wall in agitation. “You promised me.”

Gaspar blew on the back of her neck before wrapping his arms around her from behind. He’d only had to startle her once from behind to learn never to do it again. It’d taken him weeks before his black eye healed.

“I didn’t have you, silly goat,” he whispered, laying his forehead against her hair. “Things have gotten bad at home… you know how I get when I’m stressed. I clean, and I make terrible decisions.”

“The worst decisions.”

“Awful, nasty, highly suspicious decisions.”

“So, Terrible Decision has his pants on, and is going to walk past you to get some coffee now,” Simon said, doing just that. Sheila glanced at him as he walked past, upset as always at how beautiful her siblings were. Hair as white and fine as silk, finely toned muscles, hooves that seemed to be made of amber. Unfair.

“G’off me,” she grunted, thrusting her tail backwards. A turn, a slap across his face, and a stomp of a hoof next to his bare foot, all made her feel better about his betrayal. “You smell like sex… with my brother. Shower, dooshnozzle.”

“I am sorry,” he said, doing his best doe eye at her. When she didn’t answer, he took up a sheet as a temporary toga, walking to the bathroom.

“Scrub your dick! You don’t know where my brother’s been!” she called after him, before heading to confront said brother.

“Save it,” he said as she clopped across the floor towards him. Even the way his body arched as he searched her cabinets for the coffee angered her. “You can chide me all you want, but you know I will not regret a single moment of it.”

He was right, she knew all about it. Growing up as an emotional satyr in a house of emotionally stunted harts had been very hard on her. She still fought with keeping hers in check. One slip of the tongue when emotions were high would cause catastrophe.

“Maybe it will just make me feel better?” she said, sitting on one of the bar stools on her kitchen island. Candles sputtered one by one as she blew them out.

“Then, by all means. Have at.” Finding the coffee, Simon filled one of her reusable Keurig containers. “Feeling better is all we really have, hmm sister?”

Anger flashed through her, which she expelled by exterminating another loose flame.

“You are as infuriating as Father,” she grumbled weakly, fanning the thin line of smoke rising from her latest waxy victim.

“I highly doubt that,” her brother commented wryly, watching the liquid fall into a mug. After a moment of silence between them, he continued, “I do like him.”

“Father? Of course you do. You’ve been his proud little boy since you were old enough to be proud.”

“No… Gaspar. I like him.”

Sheila could only frown before rubbing her face vigorously. “Shit, Simon, that’s some dangerous stuff right there.”

“You like him, obviously,” the hart stated blankly, searching her fridge for cream.

“I’m not fucking him, idiot.” It was her turn to make coffee, so she rounded the counter to clean the container.

“I was wondering,” her brother said, doctoring his coffee carefully. “He talks about you quite a bit. It can be rather infuriating to hear about how amazing your sister is while you cuddle post coitus.”

“Don’t use words like ‘coitus’ when we’re talking about Gaz, please.” After making a few gagging sounds, she wrinkled her nose in Simon’s direction. “And now you know how I’ve felt my whole life. He may be enraptured with me because we’re bonded, but I’ll take it. Humans have never needed to be enthralled to gush about how wonderful you full harts are.”

Simon sipped his coffee, making a face at the taste before sipping it again. “Being demigods has a benefit or two, I dare not deny it. You lost your virginity well before we did, though. They may gaze with stars in their eyes at our magnificence, but you appealed to their more base natures.”

“Who wants to fuck a statue?” she quipped, adding only sugar to her coffee.

“Gaspar.”

Sheila let their conversation die out after that. Her siblings were also better at verbal banter than she was, knowing just how to strike a painful chord with the simplest statements. The two sipped their coffee in silence, neither looking at the other, until Gaspar erupted from the bedroom.

“Look at the two of you,” he crooned, still drying is hair with a towel. “All droopy faced and adorable… how long do we have you, girl?”

“Until tomorrow,” she answered mellowly. “Then back into captivity for me.”

“Hows‘bout we drop the sad sack act, put on our dancing… um…” he glanced down at their cloven hooves, “Is shoes still correct, or is that a horse thing?”

Sheila was about to fling the last of her coffee at him before she noted a strange, terrible thing on her brother’s face. A smile. Some of the color drained out of her own face, causing Gaspar to grab her around the shoulders.

“What’s wrong, besty?” he asked, giving her a shake. “Whatever it is, save it for the army. We need to get you drinking, dancing, and hopefully, dicked down!”

With a smile, she kissed him on the side of his face before glancing around her apartment.

“Gods… I hope he has his own place, because I am NOT bringing him back here.”

After a few hours of washing, primping, dressing, re-dressing and then fighting off attempts to overdo her makeup, Sheila found herself escorted to one of her favorite places to dance. It was a little underground bar next to the bus terminal downtown called ‘The Station,’ and it catered to a good amount of the Spring’s LGBT community. It was also one of the first businesses to open their doors to Fae customers. When a local paper asked them why they’d let such creatures into their establishment, the owner replied, “Our community knows all too well what it is like to be hated for being different. There was a time when being gay was punishable by death. Who better to support our freaky brethren than us?”

Sheila blew a kiss on her way in at that article, which still adorned the entry way to the Station. The response from the LGBT community across the country was tremendous, and she always thought it would do the Folk good to remember that support.

The bar had three levels, two above and one below street level, but her crew was only interested in going downstairs. It was where the comfortable couches were, where the most Fae gathered, and, of course, housed the dancing pit. Set up acoustically so that the music outside the pit didn’t overwhelm conversation, it was the best area to be.

The patrons of the Station had never seen a hart before. They crowded around him with questions, or simply to watch him breathe. Sheila had seen in it too many times before, but to see what she considered ‘her crowd’ so pulled in by him made her uneasy. With drink in hand, she left them there to wade into the dance floor.

It only took one song before she was out of her head and consumed by the dance. There were only a few people interested in her physically, so she even let desire go. Around her, people of all fashions, colors and sexes danced together for the simple joy of the dance itself. Her Fae nature allowed her to feel their emotions so long as they moved to the music. Her satyr cousins could influence them by playing songs of their own, but Sheila had never been musically inclined. She could dance, but that was as close as she could get to the melody of Pan.

It wasn’t long until she felt a hand on her hip. If this had been someplace else, she would have reacted instinctively, violently, to such a touch. Here, in this club, on this dance floor, she felt safe. Glancing back, she was glad she hadn’t swung on the hand’s owner.

He was handsome, brown, and shirtless. Dark tattoos adorned his bare chest, each expertly highlighted with white ink. On his head, at an angle, he wore a white hat with a shock of bright red hair dangling from the front. Sheila knew from previous encounters most of the rest of his head was bald.

“Torrid!” she greeted him with a hug, which he accepted with one arm.

“Hello, lovely!” he shouted back, leaning in to be heard over the music. “I’m so glad to see you out! Will you be here for the drag show later?” She nodded enthusiastically, which made him smile. For perhaps the millionth time she cursed the fact that he wasn’t into anyone without dangly bits.

With a kiss to her cheek and a wave he drifted off into the crowd, greeting anyone he knew with equal passion. After that, it seemed like a floodgate of acquaintances came to her, each with a smile and a hug. All of them were on the fringe of her life, but they were happy to see her, so she was happy to see them. There were few other Fae in her ‘club’ circle, and she didn’t see any of them.

When it was clear to her that she wasn’t going to be able to dance in peace, she found Gaz on the couches. He was, as usual, draped across Torrid. His hand, however, still held Simon’s. Her brother’s face was as placid as usual, his gaze drifting from person to person as they spoke.

“Tell us, tell us, what has the BNC’s newest dolly been up to?” Torrid asked, drawing her near.

After giving a glare of accusation at Gaspar for spilling the news, she shrugged. “We rescued a troll…” Her voice caught in her throat as it tightened, viscerally reminding her of Zbrozek’s commands. After a cough, she took a long sip of her drink, apologizing, “I guess I can’t really talk about it.”

The few there who didn’t know what she meant nodded as if they did.

“Secret stuff,” Gaspar said, sliding off of Torrid’s lap to sit pertly next to Simon. “Gov’ment.. hush hush.”

Keno, Torrid’s main boyfriend, giggled, “Do they have a lot of other fairies there?” he asked, crossing his legs.

“You’re a fairy, she’s Fae,” Gaspar corrected proudly. He enjoyed lording his ‘insider’ knowledge of the Folk over people.

After gasping dramatically at Gaz, Keno adjusted his question, “So… other Fae then?”

Sheila gave him a thin-lipped smile, “A few.” When that answer didn’t magically strangle her, she added, “No fairies, though. The winged bastards don’t work well with others.”

“Ah-hah!” exclaimed Keno, pouting at Gaspar. “See, there could have been fairies. Shows what you know.”

When her best friend rolled his eyes, Sheila pushed a hoof against his knee, “Be nice. They’re just curious.”

“What about you, pretty pretty,” Torrid asked Simon. “Are you a Fae, a fairy, or both?” The hart turned his gaze on the man stoically. Conversation paused as they waited for him to answer, leaning in expectantly.

“Sometimes you feel like a nut,” he said, flatly, “Sometimes you do not.”

It took a moment for everyone, including Sheila, to realize he was joking. Other than the satyr, everyone exploded in laughter. She exchanged looks with her brother, confused. Had he changed this much in only a few years, or was he up to something? Given her family’s history, she thought probably the latter.

“I like your new boo, Gaspy!” Torrid laughed. The use of such a private childhood nickname drew the satyr’s wrath. The two had been together when she’d first met them, and he still held it over Gaz’s head.

“Yeah, I do too,” came the reply, a kiss pressed against Simon’s cheek. When Sheila saw the look in Torrid’s eyes at that kiss, she let her own anger go. Someone was still holding a torch.

She was just about to head the man off at the pass, opening her mouth to say something shrewdly acidic, when he whistled low.

“Sexy het alert,” he said just loud enough for those around him to hear, indicating with an eyebrow raise that everyone should look.

“Please tell me he’s at least curious,” Keno added, leaning forward in his seat for a better angle.

Sheila shrank down in her chair some when she saw the man in question. It was Greg, the guy she was dancing with when the big incident happened. He was with the same two girls from that night. Worse in her opinion, he seemed to be looking for someone, head lifting above the small crowd to scan the corners. When his gaze fell on her he smiled wide, waving his hand at her.

“Gaspar… tell me you did not tell him I was here,” she growled, pushing at him with her hoof again.

“I will gladly tell you I did and offer you many quarters to go ride that ride,” he grinned, grabbing her ankle to give it a shake.

“Git it, girl,” Keno giggled, waving for Greg to come closer.

The ride in question did not seem the least bit uncomfortable being examined by her small group. When he got closer, he nodded to each in turn, offering a small smile.

“Hey, you,” he said, light eyes dancing when he finally greeted Sheila. “Can we talk?”

“Whatever you say, you can say in front of all of us,” Torrid said, leaning back and touching a finger to his temple. “No secrets amongst us fairies.”

“Stop it, bitch,” Gaspar said, exasperated. “Don’t mind him. You two go on, we’ll entertain the ladies.”

Someone pushed her to her feet, and before she knew it, Sheila was in a corner with Greg. The music was louder here, so it gave people an excuse to get closer; she took full advantage of it. She savored the smell of him, just like she remembered… cologne over copper and salt, like lightning had passed through the men’s department in Macy’s.

“Hey, just wanted to say I’m sorry for how things went down the other night.” He placed his fingertips against her forearm lightly as he leaned in. “I should have stopped that guy.”

“You’d have started a fight, so I’m glad you didn’t interfere,” she responded before chewing on her lower lip lightly. “Is that why you came here? To tell me that?”

Her words seemed to startle a laugh out of him, “After they took you away, Gaspar and I talked for a while at the station. He’s a great guy.” Sheila admitted to that fact with a nod, watching Greg’s eyes for clues. “So, to be honest, when I saw you at the club I wanted to score.”

“So… I’m just points on your scoreboard?” Sheila moved her arm away from his touch, her long ears lowering slightly. It wasn’t a new thing, humans wanting to experience a Fae without the relationship, but it was the first time she’d heard it put so bluntly.

“Not really,” he stumbled some, glancing away from her towards where his friends were laughing. “I mean, who doesn’t want one of you, right?” Two of his fingers rose to rub between his brows. “I am messing this all up. So much for my swagger, right?”

Sheila didn’t encourage him, wordlessly watching his eyes. She kept her face as blank as possible. He’d figure it out, or he wouldn’t.

“So, yeah, it was totally about getting you back to my place. Sarah and Jet were encouraging me to go for it, so I was stoked when I saw you coming over. Then that guy came over, treating you like that…” Greg rubbed his face, then lowered his hand completely. “It was terrible, the way he treated you. Then I realized that’s how I was treating you, like a trophy. Just something to hang on my wall.”

“Hanging on the wall costs extra,” Sheila said, offering him a light, empty smile. “I understand… it’s how it is with Fae. The government treats us like the same consideration they do your toaster or couch, so how can you imagine us any other way?” Her stomach twisted into knots as she spoke. She was trying to let him out of the guilt trip, but every word she said hurt.

“That’s just wrong. It is wrong that it took that asshole to get my mind right. It’s even worse that I had to talk to your friend to see you as a person. You have a job, a home… what the hell was wrong with me?”

She searched his eyes for the truth in what he was saying.

“So… can I start over with you?” His smile seemed hopeful, “Give me a chance to treat you like any other girl?”

Sheila hesitated, her hand drifting in mid-air between them like a bird looking for a solid perch to land on. When he took it, she let him take some of her trepidation away as he brought her hand up.

“A beautiful, amazing, wonderful girl…” he kissed her hand before moving closer to her.

“With horns, hooves and fur in places you don’t want to know about.” When you can’t think of what else to say, self-deprecate.

“See, but I do. I do want to know about that, and everything else. Please?”

Sheila’s heart rabbited, even as her mind raced through fields of suspicion. His face seemed true, and his closeness appealed to the needy satyr in her, but this was how Fae girls got hurt. Trusting humans.

“He’s Got A Boat!” Gaspar shouted across the room, standing on a table in his high heeled boots. Trust that human, though, to know when she was holding back.

“Could you, would you, on a boat?” she whispered, looking down at his hands wrapped around hers. It was an inside joke between her and Gaz. Leave it to him to use school kid rhymes to force her to make up her mind.

“What was that?” Greg asked, lifting her chin to look at him.

“Nothing, Sam I am…” she replied, stretching up to kiss him before he could ask more questions.

#Whitehart #writing #writeblr #writer #urban fantasy #Satyr #OC #patreon

0 notes

itsworn · 5 years

Text

Cuba’s Vintage American Taxis…Photo Gallery

It seems Cuba is something everyone knows both everything and nothing about. If someone were to say “Cuba” to a group of hot rodders, they’d probably conjure up images of old ’50s-era cars driving down city streets; a place where time had stopped back when cars still had large amounts of steel and chrome on them.

And though the lure of seeing all these old cars being used as daily drivers or taxis would be strong with these rodders, very few have ever seen it for themselves due to the travel restrictions put in place by the U.S. government preventing any kind of tourism with the island nation.

Like these rodders I, too, have wanted to see Cuba for years, but only recently was able to put together a trip together to fly from Miami to Havana to see for myself what it’s like, and I was blown away when I got there; American cars from the ’50s were everywhere. From the moment I left the airport and down the highway, to every single street I traveled on, at any hour and every day—there were so may you couldn’t figure out which way to look.

Old Habana (the Cuban spelling of Havana) has been around since the early 16th century, and much of the Spanish-influenced architecture is still in place, but much of it is in a serious state of disrepair. There are specific areas (where the tourists go) that is in decent shape, and a brand new Chinese hotel is being built in the midst of downtown, but most of the buildings in the immediate outskirts are crumbling and severely damaged by time. You can’t tell by looking at the buildings if the damage is from a recent hurricane or tornado or just not maintained for the past 80 or 100 years.

But the rest of the world has been visiting Cuba for decades, and a flood of enterprising taxi drivers tote euro tourists around the city while pointing out interesting spots in Cuban history. Most of these cars are late ’50s Chevrolets, but maybe 90 percent of the old cars I saw have had their drivetrains replaced by the more available Audi, Peugeot, or even Lada powerplants. (The Soviet-made Lada, the third-most produced vehicle in the world behind the VW Bug and the Model T, was popular in eastern-bloc countries in the ’70s). We ran across 1955 Chevys with 1.8-liter Korean diesel engines as well as Mercedes-powered Bel Airs. Still, it seems there are more Chevys driving around Cuba’s capitol than you might find at the Street Rod Nationals, and they use them every single day in every which way they can; usually as taxis but also for those employed in a construction or fabrication trade to haul goods in makeshift trailers.

The most popular body style is, of course, the convertible and, if a Cuban happened to own a sedan, it wouldn’t be uncommon to see he’s chopped the roof off and converted his ride into an open-air vehicle to attract more tourists.

A one-hour guided tour of Havana in a nice Tri-Five Chevy convertible runs about $25, but in a 1930 Ford Phaeton it ran about $15 US. In contrast, the three-wheeled bicycle pedal pusher was asking $10 for a 1-hour trike ride around downtown. Many of the taxi drivers are employees to a car owner who might be operating with several old cars in their fleet.

But where Tri-Five Chevys are easily the most common found driving around, Chryslers, Pontiacs, Dodges, Buicks, Oldsmobiles, Studebakers, Fords, Ramblers, Plymouths, and Mercurys are also easily found, with nearly every one having been manufactured in the 1948-1960 year range. Vauxhall, Anglia 100E, GAZ, and other various European nameplates make up the balance.

But just because you’re looking at a mid-1950s Chevrolet parked on the curb doesn’t mean it couldn’t also have an Audi dash and steering, a Mercedes diesel engine under the hood, a Toyota five-speed gearbox, and sitting on a HiLux frame. This is a country where sandpaper is not readily available, let alone automotive paint or any type of welding (though I did see some acetylene brazing being done), so it shows how creative and determined Cubans are in keeping these cars up and running.

The guessing game for what you’re looking at gets trickier when the Cubans start mixing and (sort of) matching parts and pieces to create something new. One Chevy sedan we saw was cut in half behind the door handles and set on some sort of truck frame with a large bed out back for hauling. Other vehicles, such as a multi-seat taxi (not with transverse seating, but rather two long planks running lengthwise like an armored personnel carrier) looked like the roof section of a Toyota Land Cruiser had been grafted into a Dodge truck cab, while another two-door sedan with the rear window/trunk lid area opened up and vertical side panels added to the tops of the fenders to form a large bed for hauling.

And though there is an abundance of 1950s-era vehicles, I couldn’t spot a pre (world) war car anywhere. I took a ride in a Model A four-door Phaeton, but it had a Soviet Lada motor under the hood and I wasn’t sure about the rest of the drivetrain (and, judging from the ride, I wasn’t sure if the spring leafs hadn’t been welded together). In talking with several mechanics and taxi drivers who were working on their cars (some in a four-car repair shop while others just out on the street) it seems good working carburetors are among the hardest parts to find (though we did note a few chrome Edelbrock air filters and valve covers on these cars, along with a surprising number of American Racing-style five-spoke wheels).

While there are many very nice old cars that would be at home in Florida or any other donut shop parking lot across America, there were also many that looked like they were a big bag of walnuts and brush painted right in the street. But it’s not like there are automotive junkyards overflowing with extra parts in Cuba. Extra parts just don’t exist. The Cubans’ ingenuity is what keeps these cars running with whatever they can lay their hands on. For taxis, Cubans can purchase an older, mid-1970s Soviet-era Lada (similar to a Fiat 124) for $20-25K U.S. and the ’50s-era Chevrolets will run you $30-35K U.S. Keeping in mind the U.S. government (C.I.A.) estimates the average annual salary for a Cuban to be less than $13,000, these cars are major investments.

But what you will find everywhere are photos of the Cuban heroes Che, Fidel, and Camilo adorning the walls of Cuba’s shops and businesses, much as you could find images of FDR, JFK, or MLK hanging in American homes decades ago. The words of Fidel Castro are literally written in stone, set into the granite sides of buildings and walkways throughout the capital city—a daily reminder of the revolutionary ideals that created the country.

In the film Field of Dreams they said of the baseball diamond in the middle of the cornfield “build it and they will come,” suggesting people would want to return to a simpler time frame and existence. In Cuba the use of these 1950s-era American cars as taxis helps transport tourists to their happy place, and one can only hope the U.S. and Cuban governments can figure out a way to make that dream more accessible for everyone. SRM

The post Cuba’s Vintage American Taxis…Photo Gallery appeared first on Hot Rod Network.

from Hot Rod Network https://www.hotrod.com/articles/cubas-vintage-american-taxis-photo-gallery/ via IFTTT

#IFTTT #Hot Rod Network

1 note · View note

travelling-accountant · 7 years

Photo

New Post has been published on https://www.travellingaccountant.net/accomodations/river-kwai-jungle-rafts-hotel/

River Kwai Jungle Rafts Hotel

Definitely the best hotel we had in Thailand. Lisu Lodge was a close second, though. Why we prefer this one, still? It just oozes vacation. It’s pretty basic (although it has all you need), but it’s just very appealing to the eye and has a calming effect. The wood, the plants and flowers hanging on the balconies, the lanterns they light up when it gets dark… The best.

We came here thanks to our good friends from Ghent, who we got to know on one of our vacations in Mexico. They fell in love with Thailand and recommended this place to stay at. Man, are we glad we did!

Unique arrival

It’s a floating hotel – which is exactly what it sounds like: the entire construction is built on wooden blocks. From the first to the last floating room, including the common areas. So, when we came from our visit to the Bridge River Kwai and the cemetery (see other post), we took a long-tailed boat. We actually passed another similar complex, but recognized from the photos that we had seen when we approached ours – it’s really unique to arrive at your hotel this way. As it was lunch time, we got to put down our bags and sat down at lovely wooden tables, to get – yes, of course – another rice dish. It was good, nothing to complain about – but you have to know both my husband and I got sick in Bangkok (we think because of fish not fully cooked), so nothing really tasted good and we were just tired of the rice which is being served with every meal. But that really doesn’t say anything about the food at the hotel – our family confirmed it was good – it’s just that we weren’t in the mood. The Fanta that they served though, made us survive (yes, the fluo orange one).

Elephants, anyone?

Our friends already advised us that – if we could somehow choose – we should get one of the rooms at the end of the row (left-end if you’re standing faced to the front of the hotel). And indeed, that’s where we were heading to, when they appointed our accommodations. Yeeuuh!

Why was that important? Well, because elephants regularly come to drink and bathe on that side of the river, at the back side of the cabins. So indeed, we could witness these magnificent creatures from up close twice. A big bonus, that’s for sure.

No warm showers, sorry

The only downside was the fact that there’s no hot water. Then again, we’re talking about Thailand here – if there’s any place you can go without hot water, this is it. So even I didn’t really care. Again, the fact that you can take your shower in a room entirely made of wood is amazing (and at the same time keeping an eye on the elephants outside).

River jump (in elephant droppings?)

My husband wouldn’t be my husband if he wouldn’t want to take a swim from the most left-end balcony up to the main platform (which is a typical thing to do there, apparently). If you want to give it a try, you need to put on a swimming vest. They also warn you to not stay to close to the construction, as the current is stronger there and it can get fast. My husband went in, together with his dad and my mom (the daredevils). But my mom apparently didn’t get the warning on the current – so she went fast… got into a panic a little bit, then into hysteric laughter – and my father-in-law needed to rescue her out… Hilarious. But so, if you want to give it a try: just be aware.

Also, afterwards we heard that it isn’t the most sanitary place to take a swim (maybe not that surprising knowing what the elephants do on the other side of the rooms). Although it’s on the other side, I guess, water (and everything in it) finds its way, right – so, yeah, maybe not the greatest idea. Anyway, I tried it the day after and am still alive, so I guess it doesn’t hurt.

Romantic nights

As I said, as soon as the sun goes down, they light up the gaz lights that are standing outside of each cabin, which just creates the most romantic atmosphere. Inside the mosquito nets are pulled down over the beds, which really adds to the vibe, I think. And then you don’t hear anything outside except for crickets (and our parents gibbering…).

Or maybe not?

One of the 2 nights we stayed at the hotel, we were invited (together with the other guests) to a performance of the local Mon villagers, called the “Cultural Mon Dance Show”. We were curious and didn’t really know what to expect. How to describe it… Particular? Different? Original? I wouldn’t say we immediately ordered their CD, to be honest. It’s not really our taste, let’s leave it at that. Of course, we contributed a fee, which supports the Mon community.

Visit the Mon Village

The second day of our stay, we went to the Mon community, where our guide told us more about this ethnic group from Burma (now Myanmar). We saw how they lived, how their schools look like and how they make a living.

Just chillax

In the afternoon, our families wondered around the Death Railway with our guide. As by then my husband was at his worst (health-wise), we stayed on our balcony, enjoying the tranquillity (our families are a lot more noisy than we are) and took a nap in the hammock. That was very satisfying indeed…

Of course, you can also book a Thai massage, which the ladies of our group did and which I enjoyed a lot. How can you not enjoy a massage in this setting? Well, ask my mom – but she just isn’t into massage… weird…

#ul33720.ultimate-layouts-container .ultimate-layouts-metas > .ultimate-layouts-metas-wrap > *,#ul33720.ultimate-layouts-container .ultimate-layouts-metas > .ultimate-layouts-metas-wrap > * .kodex_like_button,#ul33720.ultimate-layouts-container .ultimate-layouts-metas a:not(:hover)color:#f7be68 !important;#ul33720.ultimate-layouts-container .ultimate-layouts-metas .ultimate-layouts-social-share .ultimate-layouts-share-item acolor:#FFF !important;#ul33720.ultimate-layouts-container .ultimate-layouts-metas-st2 > .ultimate-layouts-metas-wrapbackground-color:#f7be68 !important;#ul33720.ultimate-layouts-container .ultimate-layouts-control-pop>*:not(:hover)background-color:#f7be68 !important;#ul33720.ultimate-layouts-container .ultimate-layouts-icon-video:hover:afterborder-left-color:#f7be68 !important;#ul33720.ultimate-layouts-container .ultimate-layouts-icon-lightbox:hover>span span:nth-child(1),#ul33720.ultimate-layouts-container .ultimate-layouts-icon-lightbox:hover>span span:nth-child(2)background-color:#f7be68 !important;#ul33720.ultimate-layouts-container .ultimate-layouts-icon-lightbox:hover>span span:nth-child(1):beforeborder-bottom-color:#f7be68 !important;#ul33720.ultimate-layouts-container .ultimate-layouts-icon-lightbox:hover>span span:nth-child(1):afterborder-top-color:#f7be68 !important;#ul33720.ultimate-layouts-container .ultimate-layouts-icon-lightbox:hover>span span:nth-child(2):beforeborder-right-color:#f7be68 !important;#ul33720.ultimate-layouts-container .ultimate-layouts-icon-lightbox:hover>span span:nth-child(2):afterborder-left-color:#f7be68 !important;#ul33720.ultimate-layouts-container .ultimate-layouts-icon-link:hover i.facolor:#f7be68 !important;#ul33720.ultimate-layouts-container .ultimate-layouts-readmore-btn:not(:hover)background-color:#f7be68 !important;#ul33720.ultimate-layouts-container.ultimate-layouts-masonry-mode .ul-masonry-mode-loading .ultimate-layouts-masonry-loading,#ul33720.ultimate-layouts-container .ultimate-layouts-listing-wrap .ultimate-layouts-filter-loadingcolor:#f7be68 !important;#ul33720.ultimate-layouts-container .ultimate-layouts-listing-grid-6 .ultimate-layouts-item:hover .ultimate-layouts-absolute-content,#ul33720.ultimate-layouts-container.ultimate-layouts-global-carousel-settings .carousel-wrapper-control .ultimate-layouts-carousel-t-2 .ultimate-layouts-item:hover .ultimate-layouts-absolute-content,#ul33720.ultimate-layouts-container.ultimate-layouts-global-carousel-settings .carousel-wrapper-control .ultimate-layouts-carousel-f-1 .ultimate-layouts-item:hover .ultimate-layouts-absolute-content,#ul33720.ultimate-layouts-container .ultimate-layouts-block-content-9 .ul-block-content-item .ul-block-content-item-layout .ul-cb-style-large .ul-bc-wrapper-listing .ultimate-layouts-item:hover .ultimate-layouts-absolute-content,#ul33720.ultimate-layouts-container .ultimate-layouts-block-content-10 .ul-block-content-item .ul-block-content-item-layout .ul-cb-style-large .ul-bc-wrapper-listing .ultimate-layouts-item:hover .ultimate-layouts-absolute-content,#ul33720.ultimate-layouts-container .ultimate-layouts-block-content-23 .ul-block-content-item .ul-block-content-item-layout .ul-cb-style-large .ul-bc-wrapper-listing .ultimate-layouts-item:hover .ultimate-layouts-absolute-content,#ul33720.ultimate-layouts-container.ultimate-layouts-sync-slider-settings .ultimate-layouts-sync-s-1 .ul-big-slider-wrapper .ultimate-layouts-item:hover .ultimate-layouts-absolute-content,#ul33720.ultimate-layouts-container.ultimate-layouts-sync-slider-settings .ultimate-layouts-sync-s-2 .ul-big-slider-wrapper .ultimate-layouts-item:hover .ultimate-layouts-absolute-content,#ul33720.ultimate-layouts-container.ultimate-layouts-sync-slider-settings .ultimate-layouts-sync-s-1 .ul-small-slider-wrapper .ul-small-slider-content .ultimate-layouts-item .ultimate-layouts-entry-wrapper:hover,#ul33720.ultimate-layouts-container.ultimate-layouts-sync-slider-settings .ultimate-layouts-sync-s-1 .ul-small-slider-wrapper .ul-small-slider-content .ultimate-layouts-item.slick-current.slick-active .ultimate-layouts-entry-wrapper,#ul33720.ultimate-layouts-container.ultimate-layouts-sync-slider-settings .ultimate-layouts-sync-s-2 .ul-small-slider-wrapper .ul-small-slider-content .ultimate-layouts-item:hover,#ul33720.ultimate-layouts-container.ultimate-layouts-sync-slider-settings .ultimate-layouts-sync-s-3 .ul-small-slider-wrapper .ul-small-slider-content .ultimate-layouts-item.slick-current.slick-active .ultimate-layouts-picture-wrap:after background-color:#f7be68 !important;#ul33720.ultimate-layouts-container.ultimate-layouts-sync-slider-settings .ultimate-layouts-sync-s-2 .ul-small-slider-wrapper .ul-small-slider-content .ultimate-layouts-item:hover border-right-color:#f7be68 !important;#ul33720.ultimate-layouts-container .ultimate-layouts-filter-container .ul-smart-tab-filterborder-bottom-color:#f7be68 !important;#ul33720.ultimate-layouts-container .ultimate-layouts-filter-container .ul-smart-tab-filter .ul-smart-tab-title-wrap .ul-smart-tab-titlebackground-color:#f7be68 !important;#ul33720.ultimate-layouts-container .ul-pagination-wrap .ul-page-numbers .paginationjs .paginationjs-pages ul li.active>a background-color:#f7be68 !important;border-color:#f7be68 !important;.ul_quickview_p_ul33720.ul-quick-view-style .ultimate-layouts-woo-element .ultimate-layouts-woo-price-cart-block .ultimate-layouts-woo-cart .add_to_cart_button:not(:hover)background-color:#f7be68 !important;#ul33720.ultimate-layouts-container .ultimate-layouts-block-content-27 .ul-block-content-item .ul-block-content-item-layout .ul-bc-column.ul-cb-style-listing .ultimate-layouts-item.ul-active-big-post-class, #ul33720.ultimate-layouts-container .ultimate-layouts-block-content-27 .ul-block-content-item .ul-block-content-item-layout .ul-bc-column.ul-cb-style-large .ul-bc-wrapper-listing .ultimate-layouts-item:hover .ultimate-layouts-absolute-contentbackground-color:#f7be68 !important;#ul33720.ultimate-layouts-container.ultimate-layouts-global-carousel-settings .carousel-wrapper-control .ultimate-layouts-carousel-t .slick-dots li:hover, #ul33720.ultimate-layouts-container.ultimate-layouts-global-carousel-settings .carousel-wrapper-control .ultimate-layouts-carousel-t .slick-dots li.slick-active background-color:#f7be68 !important;#ul33720.ultimate-layouts-container .ultimate-layouts-excerpt .ultimate-layouts-readmore-excerpt:not(:hover)color:#f7be68 !important;#ul33720.ultimate-layouts-container .ultimate-layouts-filter-container .ul-s-dropdown-filter .ultimate-layouts-sc-filter-container .filter-dropdown-wrapper:not(.active-dropdown) .ul-default-dd-filter background-color:#f7be68 !important;#ul33720.ultimate-layouts-container .ultimate-layouts-filter-container .ultimate-layouts-sc-filter-container:not([data-display-type="1"]) .ul-filter-action:not(.active-elm):hover,#ul33720.ultimate-layouts-container .ultimate-layouts-filter-container .ul-smart-tab-filter .ul-filter-elements-wrap .ul-filter-action.active-elm color:#f7be68 !important;#ul33720.ultimate-layouts-container .ultimate-layouts-filter-container .ultimate-layouts-sc-filter-container[data-display-type="2"] .nav__dropdown .ul-filter-action:not(.active-elm):hover,#ul33720.ultimate-layouts-container .ultimate-layouts-filter-container .ul-smart-tab-filter .ul-filter-elements-wrap .nav__dropdown .ul-filter-action.active-elm color:#FFFFFF !important;

if(typeof(ultimate_layouts_ajax_url)=="undefined")var ultimate_layouts_ajax_url=[];ultimate_layouts_ajax_url["ul33720"]="https://www.travellingaccountant.net/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php";if(typeof(ultimate_layouts_query_params)=="undefined")var ultimate_layouts_query_params=[];ultimate_layouts_query_params["ul33720"]="post_types":"page","i_attachment":"","taxonomies":"category","multi_post_types":"","multi_taxonomies":"","query_types":"0","i_taxonomies":"","e_taxonomies":"","i_ids":"","cq_operator":"0","e_ids":"","query_author":"","query_offset":"","query_include_children":"1","today_post":"0","datetime_meta":"","woo_query":"0","post_count":50,"posts_per_page":"6","d_i_filter":"59";if(typeof(ultimate_layouts_filter)=="undefined")var ultimate_layouts_filter=[];ultimate_layouts_filter["ul33720"]="59";if(typeof(ultimate_layouts_order)=="undefined")var ultimate_layouts_order=[];ultimate_layouts_order["ul33720"]="DESC";if(typeof(ultimate_layouts_orderby)=="undefined")var ultimate_layouts_orderby=[];ultimate_layouts_orderby["ul33720"]="date";if(typeof(ultimate_layouts_sub_opt_query)=="undefined")var ultimate_layouts_sub_opt_query=[];ultimate_layouts_sub_opt_query["ul33720"]="meta_key_query":"","paged":1,"first_query":"on","total_pages":1,"items_last_page":0;if(typeof(ultimate_layouts_options)=="undefined")var ultimate_layouts_options=[];ultimate_layouts_options["ul33720"]="layout_style":"0","button_gallery_name":"Gallery","grid_style":"6","list_style":"0","carousel_t_style":"0","carousel_f_style":"0","creative_style":"0","timeline_style":"0","block_content_style":"0","sync_slider_style":"0","grid_masonry":"1","show_arrows":"1","arrows_outside":"0","show_dots":"1","infinite":"1","autoplay":"1","autoplayspeed":5000,"scrollperpage":"1","speed":500,"centermode":"0","sync_slider_height_d":"","sync_slider_height_t":"","sync_slider_height_m":"","sync_slider_width_d":"","sync_slider_width_t":"","sync_slider_width_m":"","show_elements":"0","av_content":"0","cc_mobile":"1","cc_portrait_tablet":"1","cc_landscape_tablet":"1","cc_small_desktop":"2","cc_medium_desktop":"2","cc_large_desktop":"2","cc_extra_large_desktop":"2","image_size":"medium","image_size_s":"thumbnail","s_image":"1","s_image_link":"1","s_image_link_target":"0","s_icon_lightbox_video":"0","video_url_meta":"0","video_url_meta_key":"","s_icon_lightbox_image":"0","s_icon_link":"1","s_icon_link_target":"0","s_image_hover_effect":"0","s_overlay_hover_effect":"","s_overlay_settings":"0","s_overlay_color":"","s_image_post_format":"0","s_image_post_format_pos":"ul-bottom-right","s_image_avatar":"0","s_title":"1","s_title_limit":"0","s_title_link":"1","s_title_link_target":"0","s_excerpt":"0","s_excerpt_rbtn":"0","s_excerpt_f":"get_the_excerpt","s_excerpt_sc":"1","s_excerpt_sh":"1","s_excerpt_length":0,"s_categories":"0","s_s_categories":"0","s_s_categories_parent":"0","ex_items_taxonomies":"","s_c_categories":"0","s_ct_categories":"","s_cb_categories":"","s_categories_target":"0","s_metas_o":"1","s_metas_o_author":"1","s_metas_o_author_avatar":"0","s_metas_o_time":"1","time_format":"F j, Y","s_metas_o_comment":"0","s_metas_o_like":"0","s_metas_o_share":"0","custom_meta_o":"","s_metas_t":"1","s_metas_t_author":"0","s_metas_t_author_avatar":"0","s_metas_t_time":"0","time_format_t":"F j, Y","s_metas_t_comment":"0","s_metas_t_like":"1","s_metas_t_share":"1","custom_meta_t":"","s_metas_t_readmore":"1","s_metas_t_readmore_link_target":"0","share_text":"","read_more_text":"","before_author_text":"","pagination":"0","loadmore_text":"","prev_text":"","next_text":"","animate":"default","lazyload":"1","lazyload_p":"#b5b5b5","geodirectory_rating":"0","quick_view":"1","quick_view_mode":"0","extra_class":"","rnd_id":"ul33720","s_title_small":"1","s_title_limit_small":"0","s_title_link_small":"1","s_title_link_target_small":"0","s_categories_small":"1","s_s_categories_small":"0","s_s_categories_parent_small":"0","ex_items_taxonomies_small":"","s_c_categories_small":"0","s_ct_categories_small":"","s_cb_categories_small":"","s_categories_target_small":"0","s_metas_o_small":"1","s_metas_o_author_small":"1","s_metas_o_author_avatar_small":"0","s_metas_o_time_small":"1","time_format_small":"F j, Y","s_metas_o_comment_small":"1","s_metas_o_like_small":"0","s_metas_o_share_small":"0","custom_meta_o_small":"","woo_show_price":"0","woo_show_rating":"0","woo_show_cart":"0","qv_s_title":"1","qv_s_categories":"0","qv_s_s_categories":"0","qv_s_s_categories_parent":"0","qv_ex_items_taxonomies":"","qv_s_c_categories":"0","qv_s_ct_categories":"","qv_s_cb_categories":"","qv_s_categories_target":"0","qv_s_metas_o":"1","qv_s_metas_o_author":"1","qv_s_metas_o_author_avatar":"0","qv_s_metas_o_time":"1","qv_time_format":"F j, Y","qv_s_metas_o_comment":"0","qv_s_metas_o_like":"1","qv_custom_meta_o":"","qv_show_content":"1","qv_content_stripsc":"0","qv_show_share":"0","qv_woo_show_rating":"0","qv_s_featured_image":"1","goo_ads_client":"","goo_ads_id":"","goo_ads_offset":"1","css_class":"";

Lisu Lodge Experience

Kim

July 16, 2017

River Kwai Jungle Rafts Hotel

Kim

July 16, 2017

Our very first Cruise – Treated as a Celebrity

Kim

June 25, 2017

Marjorie’s Kauai Inn

Kim

June 5, 2017

Kati Kati Camp

Kim

May 28, 2017

#achievie #amazing #authentic #holiday #hotel #musttravel #reizen #relax #river kwai #thailand #tourist #travel #travelphotography #Accomodations #Thailand

0 notes