okay so. hear me out. but. au concept--
joel is one of many people affected by a Vanishing. its a phenomenon sweeping the country--people simply not showing up for work, school, life one day, as though they've vanished from the face of the earth. it's almost possible to mistake for normal missing persons cases, if it weren't for the way a few of the higher-profile Vanishings have happened to people who shouldn't have been able to vanish at all, let alone in a way that wouldn't be noticed until too late. look at joel's hometown. the people monitoring the dam were supposed to be redundant, and yet--
anyway. not like he cares or anything, except for the fact this stupid disaster or whatever has left him without anywhere to live or anyone to live with, and he still has a year of high school left, so he can't just do whatever he wants. luckily there's this school in a town called new hermiton that agreed to give him a scholarship to finish his education in the name of recovery and solidarity or whatever, and it's kind of a shwankier school than he'd normally go for, but it's free and, more importantly, they're willing to pay for his lodging, and he can't really turn that down. and it's not like he has a choice but to upend his entire life now. so packing what few of his belongings survived into a bag and getting on a train and moving across the country to a new school it is, he guesses.
(he's been having nightmares that inexplicably feature swarms of blue butterflies. last time he checked, lakes don't have butterflies in them. although maybe it's a metaphor or something, on account of the butterflies saying stupid stuff about how people who are remembered can't disappear, and even a false world cannot be erased if it's watched over, and how fate depends on him holding people in his heart. thanks for saying the same stupid shitty platitudes his social worker told him, just more cryptically, butterflies. real cool.)
new hermiton, it turns out, is a small city. while new hermiton academy is a newer school, much of the city is older. he's moved into a nice enough flat in an older apartment building. he has another cryptic butterfly dream. he thinks he remembers someone trying to urgently warn him of something, but it's all... shaky. that morning, he goes to the school for the first time. he's greeted by a fellow transfer student, skizzleman, although apparently he already knows some of the other folks in town, and transferred here so he could stay with them. but it's at least someone else in a similar enough situation to joel, especially since joel can just tell by the way people are looking at him that skizz didn't have much of a choice but to be here, either, and best friends with impulse or not, he's on his own too.
so. a friend. maybe this school won't be that bad, even if joel keeps having nightmares, and even if the weather here is weirdly cold for july, and even if his new homeroom professor keeps on looking at him really weirdly. (aren't professors supposed to be better about stupid rumors anyway? what's that mr. hills's deal?)
and then, two days later, he waves skizz off at the end of the school day, and gets skizz's friend, impulse, at his door, desperate to hear that skizz had just come to stay the night in joel's shitty lonely apartment, because otherwise it looks like--come on man. joel's already having a shit time. the universe deciding to go after his one existing friend too? he promises impulse to help investigate that night, in the vain hope that Skizz isn't one of the Vanished. joel gets a splitting migraine trying to follow their path back, though, and they have to stop for the night.
skizz is reported missing the next morning. joel resigns himself to cutting himself off from the people around him, as per usual. then, strangely, mr. hills corners him as he goes home.
"you'll need this," he says, and shoves what feels like a cheap butterfly knife into joel's hands. "uh, remember, trust your heart! you'll know how to use it."
"what," joel says. "hold on. you're supposed to be a teacher. why are you giving me this. i know for a fact my file says i have like, ptsd or whatever, which is stupid, but you definitely aren't supposed to be giving me a knife, you weirdo?"
"you'll know how to use it," joe hills says again. "goodbye! believe in yourself!"
mr. hills sprints behind a building before he has to explain anything else. joel is left standing on the sidewalk holding a knife, staring after him.
so. that's weird as hell. joel shivers in the cold and continues on his way home. the butterfly knife feels heavy in his pockets. he should probably report that guy to his social worker or something, but actually talking to his social worker feels like conceding defeat. joel can take care of himself. he can prove he can take care of himself. just watch him. step one: go out to get ramen because he forgot to buy any food for his apartment.
he sees impulse putting up signs as he eats. impulse looks miserable. joel thinks about how skizz, just in the short time he'd known him, had sort of unintentionally given away that he felt isolated after his mother Vanished. that impulse was a great friend, but impulse didn't understand what it was like. he never really SAID as much, but--
it's not fair to impulse, for that to be the last thing impulse remembered of what was apparently a friend since childhood. and joel doesn't care about any of these guys, but he can still pay his check and go out and help impulse go looking. he's no good at comforting people and doesn't know this guy, but joel had been alone too, sitting on the roof and crying, when the helicopters came.
except when they go back to the path by the school, joel's head starts to hurt again.
he looks up and there's a butterfly.
"hey, impulse, are butterflies common here?" he asks, a little desperately.
"i mean, not really, why?" impulse says.
"uh," joel says, and gestures. the two of them stare as the strange yellow butterfly circles in place.
"okay, so that is kind of weird," impulse admits.
"right?" joel says. "the only way it would be weirder is if it were blue." impulse gives him a look. joel does not explain.
it starts to fly away.
"we should follow it," impulse says, his voice getting a little dull. "yeah. we should follow it."
"what? no! no we should not follow the haunted butterfly, are you nuts?" joel says, but it's a bit too late. (maybe this is what the knife is for: stabbing impulse. it would be an effective method of stopping him!) he chases impulse down, down to the river, where yellow butterflies are swarming. impulse, as though possessed, simply steps into the swarm and falls through them to the water.
joel's, uh, freaking out more than a little bit? he'll admit he's freaking out. he dives forward to try to grab him, only to realize that he doesn't see impulse anywhere.
a single blue butterfly lands on joel's shoulder. "do you hold his heart next to yours?"
"i'm going insane," joel says.
"no heart is meant to be completely alone. do you hold his next to yours?"
"this isn't happening," joel says. "this is like a stupid manga or something. it's not happening."
"there is still time to save them; you must hold your heart strong, or the consequences will be dire. i believe in you."
the butterfly vanishes.
"fuck it," joel says. "if i drown then it's nothing people haven't expected of me anyway."
he steps through the swarm of butterflies.
that night, he drags both impulse and skizz out of the river. they're all freezing cold. shadows and strange, yellowy liquid still cling to all of their skin. also, joel stabbed himself, which like, glad to know that's what the knife was for, apparently, and the scar is warm and comforting. he can feel his--persona, and don't ask him how he knows that--shifting under his skin, under the mark on his hand. it said its name is pygmalion; it says it is a piece of joel's soul.
this is all patently insane. but skizz and impulse are alive and NOT eaten by shadow monsters, so even if they're both a little unconscious, joel takes that as a win.
they lie on the ground outside the river. someone stumbles across them. "well give me some teeth and call me an alligator. you got out on your own," breathes a fellow student clutching a dagger. joel thinks he's in the class across the hall. also--
"what are you talking about," joel wheezes.
"you found it on your own. you can find them?" the student says. his eyes are wide. something in joel's soul recognizes something in the student's. something in joel's BRAIN puts two and two together and realizes why mr. hills gave him a knife.
"no. no, go away, i don't want to be involved in this," joel says.
"well, don't you think it's too late for that?" the student says, and joel passes out. he's pretty sure the butterflies have to be laughing at him. in fact, as though to mock him further, after passing out, he doesn't even get to avoid it forever, because he wakes up in a glowing blue boat. there is a man with white-blonde hair, blue eyes, and a blue outfit leaning over him, poking him.
joel takes no responsibility for punching him. he'd do it again, too, as the long-nosed man sitting next to the unmanned steering wheel welcomes him to the velvet room.
(this, joel realizes later, all rather sets the tone for what the next year of his life is about to become.)
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“The Artificer’s campaign has little impact on the overall story” bitch I cannot stress how much of an impact the Artificer had on the entire world. You just need to pay attention to some things.
By the time of the Artificer, Scavengers are basically in the middle of a massive golden age. They have a Chieftain (with a mark of communication (maybe Five Pebbles gave them the mark and citizen ID drone and tried to use them for something but they rebelled and found Metropolis)) with armour made from Red Centipede Scales, they have a permanent home in metropolis above the rain, they figured out how to harvest electrical scrap and broken down Rarefaction Cells from the ruins of Looks To The Moon and pieces of Five Pebbles to make electric spears and Singularity Bombs, they even have specially trained Elite Scavengers, which did exist before in the time of the Spearmaster but it’s still worth bringing them up.
Overall, Scavengers are at a golden age of invention and life in general.
And then they anger the Artificer, who slaughters countless Scavengers, kills their Chieftain and drives them out of Metropolis, locking the gate behind them.
After that, a new Chieftain is never made, armour like the chieftain once wore is never made again, Scavengers suffer a massive population loss, they can’t enter Metropolis without a Citizen ID Drone and Elite Scavengers slowly disappear as the methods used to teach them and the knowledge of how to scavenge and create electric spears and singularity bombs is lost, with the last Elite Scavengers being seen in the Hunter’s campaign, which happens next in the timeline. In other words, the Artificer literally sent Scavengers into a dark age.
It takes until the time of the SAINT for Scavengers to show real signs of recovery, now appearing in larger numbers than before. And even THEN Scavengers never do anything like they did during the time of the Artificer. The Artificer plunged Scavengers into a dark age for countless years, and they STILL haven’t recovered.
And that’s not all. According to the wiki, Scavengers are afraid of Slugpups, most likely because they remember how the last time they killed one they were hit by the full force of an angry explosive lobbing goddess of destruction that slaughtered countless members of their kind. They are afraid of Slugpups in all campaigns, even the Saint’s. So even by the time of the Saint Scavengers know not to mess with Slugpups, presumably because the last time they did so is a legend among Scavengers by that point in time.
Hell, the Artificer’s existence even explains something about the Hunter. The reason that the Hunter starts with a negative reputation among Scavengers is because they look like the fucking Artificer. Scavengers look at the Hunter and see the goddess of vengeance and destruction that they’ve only ever heard of from stories.
Both of them have red fur and a scar on one eye, and will the time gap between campaigns, there’s a good chance that only a few Scavengers that saw the Artificer in person are even alive by that point in time (without even taking into account how the Artificer murdered so many Scavengers that it’s probably rare that a Scavenger saw them and lived to tell the tale), meaning that the Artificer is probably told about in Scavenger stories and her appearance would therefore differ, leaving the most obvious details like the scar on one eye and red fur.
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struck by the idea where, For Reasons, plan saddest desert hermit doesn't get off the ground and team proto-rebellion have to pivot and pivot fast.
chucking the conspiracy equivalent of a uey at 100mph on the highway, and everyone involved is sleep deprived, stressed as fuck, and experiencing y'know, several levels of Devastating Grief.
the person with the brain cell is bail organa, a man who in canon spends like 20 fucking years playing ding dong ditch with a genocidal psychic space wizard and his boss, an even more genocidal space wizard. This man is not lacking in gumption, one can say. he is possessed of life threatening amounts of chutzpah, one might also say, except that he spends twenty years winning the ding dong ditch match with, again, a genocidal fascist dictatorship which includes two genocidal psychic space wizards who literally know he was in tight with the genocided group of space wizards plus the [mumble] number of other murderous genocidal space wizards, plus the rest of the non-space wizard space fascist cohort.
So. What does a man with a spine of steel, a heart as big as a planet, and more gumption than anyone should possess do, when plan 'split up the kids and hide the most famous man in the galaxy on the saddest hell planet' is a no go?
lie. lie like a fucking rug.
What's palpatine going to do? day one of the empire, his super awesome chosen one space wizard makeover project is still in progress and not yet wheezing his way into the galaxy's nightmares, and bail fucking organa strolls into the imperial senate with:
one (1) baby (female)
one (1) baby (male)
several (~20+) aides and various hangers on, including;
one (1) brown haired blue eyed man who could, if you squinted a bit, probably get third place in a general kenobi lookalike competition, were those now not super duper illegal
Sidious, of course, could be like A JEDI KILL HIM TRAITOR ETC, but, crucially, his wheezing attack dog is still on the lab table getting seven inches added to his height and cup holders installed, or whatever the fuck skeevy sheev added in as extras. Palpatine is an old guy who is still trading on being A Beloved Grandfather who was Reluctant To Take The Throne, and is still easing the galaxy into the whole, y'know, we're a fascist empire now, kneel or perish.
Palpatine, on day one of the empire, can't point at bail fucking organa and be like HABOURING A TRAITOR unless he is really, really sure, like 110% sure, because it's bail fucking organa and every goddamn senator will baulk like a horse at a plastic bag if he accuses, again, the senator of alderaan of high treason on day one of the empire.
A secret rebellion is fine, if not ideal; you can theoretically stamp it out, and, also, it's small, percentage wise.
The entire fucking galaxy thinking that, hey, if the guy in charge is going to go after fucking alderaan, what's to stop him going after us? bigger problem. huge problem. original trilogy kinda touched on that one. Day one of the empire, everyone is still basically on war footing, and fuck man, if alderaan is copping it....maybe this empire isn't great after all. maybe we can make our OWN empire, with a different emperor.
Would palps win? eh maybe. would it destroy all credibility forever and ever amen? yeah. the difference between a 'legally installed emperor' and 'a dictator we must overthrow' is how willing the galaxy is to lick boot, and there's not yet the fear of The Empire black bagging you to keep those tongues going.
so. palpatine can't say shit. palpatine can imply shit, palpatine can get his lackies to say shit. but, crucially, palpatine himself can't say fuck all about the goddamn kenobi lookalike that is now following after organa and wiping his kid's little butts and playing gofer and whatever else.
and what's more believable? bail fucking organa is hiding a traitor, or bail organa and his wife have a situationship with a guy who looks sort of a bit like a former general? the same kind of situationship that like, half the senate has had at one point or another with a guy (or guys) who looked sort of a bit like said ex-general. go to any high level business and/or political building, you'll find half a dozen guys who look vaguely like said hot ex-general, and many of them will have a more or less (often less) accurate coruscanti-ish accent. or will develop one.
(hey, it's a niche. gotta pay the bills somehow, and if you get the job because you dyed your hair and grew a beard, well, you're still using your political science degree, right?)
of course, that only holds for so long, but by that point it's been, y'know, a while. and that looks worse in a different way -- what, kenobi was fucking walking around in front of the whole imperial senate, and none of them noticed? absolutely not, all credibility is gone forever.
which means. that palpatine and the organas are stuck in a full on staring match about this guy who is 100% for sure not kenobi, because -- well. he can't be kenobi. becuase that would look bad. but also. it's kenobi. but also. it can't be kenobi.
(vader takes one look at this guy who looks like his master kenobi and then rolls his eyes, because he has already met aproximately 90,000 people who look vaugely like his master and he got very good at picking out how the newest one was not kenobi his master by the time he was a senior padawan.)
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okay so the Airplane extras were great but there were so many possibilities for how and what SQH was asked about seducing men.
Imagine if he’d been asked what *he* looks for in a man in an attempt to understand what SQQ might like since they’re both of the same generation and nominally known as friends.
SQH then goes on a long tangent that he gets really into and inadvertently starts describing his ideal man (mobei-jun) to the court full of demons (who know mobei-jun) and getting really into it (mobei-jun is preening because clearly his affections are returned!) and then ending this big spiel about personality traits and power and looks with:
“...and he’s gotta have like.... massive tits. you know, the kind you look at and just have the urge to gnaw on for hours.“
And here, Mobei-jun falters. he has tits. he has pretty massive tits. but SQH has never made a move on them. he’s certainly never tried to gnaw on them.
He comes up behind SQH, looms over him, and suddenly SQH is very aware of where he is and who he’s with. He sqeaks in terror as MBJ grabs one wrist, then the other...
and presses SQH’s hands against his chest. THen looks him in the eye and asks very seriously, “Shang Qinghua. Are these tits not massive enough for you?”
and SQH, who’s brain short circuited when his hands touched those wonderful pecs, can only let out a soft whine of want and desire - but! is otherwise frozen.
MBJ takes this as a confirmation that he has much to do. he nods, solemn, and releases SQH’s hands to step back. “This King will make them more massive.” and walks out of the court.
The rest of the court has obviously started in on the popcorn and they wait quietly while SQH’s brain reboots and he finally realizes what just happened. Then squawks out a loud, protesting ‘my king! wait!’ and scrambles after the man of his dreams.
LBH’s question is still not answered satisfactorily, but it’s given him something to think about. Maybe his own tits aren’t massive enough yet.
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