#JUST UPDATE ALL MY SHIT IN THE SYSTEM THERE WHILE YOU HAVE IT FUCKING HELL!!!!!!!
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You know what. I'm trying not to be but I'm really mad. I went to the post office to try and get photo ID so I can finish updating my legal documents, but they couldn't help me... Cause to get the photo ID I need the other legal documents in the correct name...... But I don't have them because they require the photo ID from the post office......... The photo ID that I can't get because I don't have the documents that require photo ID to be updated................. This is the worst loop and I've been stuck since February
#i need to fucking say it cause I'm getting more and more cranky#The lady at the post office was very nice and tried to ask her manager if there was any way she can get it for me with what i had#but she couldn't :''''''(#i had to travel a few suburbs over to get to a big post office cause the little ones don't do photo ID.. so that was a few hours wasted lol#I HAVE BEEN TRYING TO UPDATE MY SHIT SINCE FEBRUARY BUT IT'S SOOOO FUCKING HARDDDDD#IT TAKES ME TIME TO GET TO IT CAUSE I'M FUCKING BUSY ALL THE TIME AND RARELY EVER HAVE TIME DURING WORK HOURS#WHICH ARE THE ONLY TIMES GOV SERVICES ARE OPEN.... SO I'M PRETTY FUCKED#plus being autistic and just generally struggling with the paperwork and poorly described methods of filling out said paperwork#i have been bounced between all identifying services like a DVD logo. 'if you don't have y we can't give you x'#WHAT'S THE POINT OF THIS STUPID ASS LOOP???!#I ALREADY PAID THE RIDICULOUS AMOUNT TO HAVE MY NAME AND SHIT CHANGED! YOU'RE ALREADY PROCESSING IT AT THE GOVERNMENT#JUST UPDATE ALL MY SHIT IN THE SYSTEM THERE WHILE YOU HAVE IT FUCKING HELL!!!!!!!#MAIL ME THE NEW CERTIFICATE AND A SUMMONS TO WHATEVER PLACE WILL DO PHOTO ID SO THEY CAN JUST TAKE A PHOTO#AND I DON'T HAVE TO DEAL WITH THIS STUPID ASS HASSLE#like. i don't have an extra couple hundred laying around to apply for a passport. and also it's such a waste to apply for one rn#I'm not going to be travelling any time soon but that's the only one where i maaayyyyy be able to squeeze through and get it#BUT IT'LL BE LIKE $500+!!!! I DON'T HAVE THAT AND IT'S A WASTE OF MONEY#AND I CAN'T GET A DRIVERS LICENCE CAUSE I'M NOT SAFE BEHIND THE WHEEL! SO I DON'T WANT AN ID IMPLYING I CAN DRIVE#AND REGARDLESS OF THAT. I CAN'T FUCKING GET A LICENSE ANYWAY CAUSE OF THIS LOOP I'M STUCK IN#SO LIKE!!!!??????#AND EVEN THEN.. THE PROOF OF AGE ID I'M TRYING TO GET ISN'T RECOGNISED AS LEGITIMATE ID IN MOST PLACES#SO LIKE FUCK ME!!!!!!!!#i don't go clubbing or buy alcohol so idgaf but. things like MAKING SURE I'M ENROLLED FOR VOTING DON'T RECOGNISE PROOF OF ARE#EVEN THO PROOF OF AGE IS ONLY OBTAINABLE THROUGH THE FUCKING SAME GOV THAT MAKES SURE I'M ABLE TO VOTE#o don't care about semantics on this this shit is soooo fucking stupid and I'm over it#i just wanted my name and shit to be updated on everything so i can graduate and reenter the work force properly#but i have already been struggling for like 10 months!!!!!#fuck this all to hell!!!!!!!!!!!!#delete later
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#hahaaa so quick update on rl situation#started a new job at a factory and already the area ive in has been goving me a static charge that has me being shocked#on EVERYTHING / ANYTHING metal and ive got to use buttons that have electricity running through them#one button doesnt even have a proper plastic cover on it so to turn it on i have to stick my finger inside it to actually hit it#imagine that. imagine getting shocked for my entire shift EVERYWHERE in little doses and by these buttons w electricity yu know?#ive been there two days and already have to remember 6 machines and im gonna learn more#10 all week despite the rest of the department doing 10 just on sundays and 8 the rest of the week. by the third day they wanted#to have me alone. they didnt even have me in the system to clock in / no badge / no time cards / dodnt tell me all this until monday#here i am thinking shits usual shift time and its not. came in two hours late#hypertension / heart palpitations / high blood pressure just from dealing with knowing i have big gaps in training and they want me alone#me getting shocked to high hell. and knowing even if i WANTED go skiddadle that i COULDN'T#my poor heart been going through it. dealing with them ive been going through it.#NO WONDER PEOPLE NO CALL NO SHOW ON THIS AREA AND YOU CANT KEEP TEMPS#nah cause fuck me running up a damn tree for acorns. tryna relay im being shocked and the girl training me not believing me#til i lit her ass up by touching her on accident through her gloves AND mine. i cant even use my gloves to help#i TRIED THAT. so like she didnt believe me til i made her see had to go to the doctor to not feel like#im being subtly gaslighted into thinking im making a big deal out of nothing and im crazy#i CRIED in the bathroom / before my shift / and after bc i feel off and my anxiety about being shocked is enormous#now i have to deal with paper work while feeling like my chest is being beaten on and squeezed. HAHAAA#im mentally / physically / emotionally going through it. but thank you for coming to my ted talk
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I was already on a hair trigger today trying not to snap at a mutual for reblogging a "fuck authors who use Amazon" post, but, like, this shit is why some authors can only afford to use Amazon.
They don't have the $75+ to distribute through Ingram Spark. They don't have the $25 it takes to change your files if you need to update them after they've been accepted. They can't afford to take the cost of printing hit to their sales. They can't afford to lose an additional 40% of their income to retailer discounts.
And just so we're clear, Ingram isn't a vanity publisher. They're one of the largest print monopolies in the world. They're used by most mainstream traditional publishers and indie and self-pub authors alike. Amazon uses them when their print demand is too high.
My friend, whose work is published by Gollancz, is printed through Ingram, the same as mine. The difference is their publisher takes the hit for them. In theory. We won't get into dwindling advances here or how publishers are increasingly putting the onus of marketing and sales onto their authors or the fact that their editors can't afford rent or food while the executives get richer and richer.
So what do you do when the mainstream doesn't want you? What do you do when you're told if you can't keep up with the rat race, that you don't deserve to have your work published? What do you do if all you have is the ability to tell stories for a living, and no one wants you?
Well, you could die of starvation. I'm sure there are several people on here who'd be happy if that happened to me. (I know. Because they tell me. Often.) Or, you can shake hands with the devil, knowing it's a bum deal, knowing everything is fucked, but also knowing that every other aspect of this fucking industry is just as fucking bad.
There's no escape. It's relentless.
And you've got people out there posting things like, "Actually, I think authors who charge for their books are part of the problem."
And yeah, in an ideal world, I'd be making art for art's sake.
But we're not in that world. We're in the bad place, and you're actively making it worse. You're encouraging people to steal from people who are struggling just like you and calling it activism against billionaires or putting them in the same moral category as said billionaires as though we're not trapped in this system, same as you. Some of you are fellow fucking authors. And, like, my mind boggles at what it would take to stab a fellow creative in the back like that, but here we are.
Hell world.
#long post#vent post#publishing#author stuff I get#anyone clowning on this post gets put in the wood chipper
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it's been way too long since i last did wildly self-indulgent fanart, so of course i did it for an SVSSS AU that doesn't even have any actual fanfiction written of it yet. but what can i say! it's a compelling scenario! Just check the original post for details!
here's a workplace doodle for his mess of an outfit, too:
Xin Mo is floating behind his back, wrapped in talismans. the collars are meant to be vaguely inspired on a flower bud.
Some notes i came up with for this version, copied straight from a month-old discord convo:
he may have protagonist halo now, but he's for sure not a stallion protagonist. he literally exchanged fates with his favorite person in the world in order to spare them a hellish trial-- that's romantic as fuck!! damn!! this is old CLAMP shoujo and no mistake!!
binghe may no longer be the protag, but he's still a half-heavenly demon. power-wise, heavenly demons can't be topped, and all the remaining heavenly demons are accounted for. so, SQQ can't be a heavenly demon, even in part.
HOWEVER, as a protagonist, there's a factor more important than power! it's the CHUUNI FACTOR. what's more CHUUNI™️ than being part demon?
one option is being part demon and part angel.
how would that even fucking work??????? IDK man, you can either pull from chinese folklore for fairies or heavenly beings or spirits, or you can blame Airplane and go "he accidentally implied the existence of christian elements by means of importing unexamined anime tropes"
Shen Jiu conveniently has a big fat blank on his parentage. We as fans can and have put whatever the hell we wanted there.
SQQ would jump into the abyss still under the impression SJ was a shallow villain. If his trip through the abyss involves recovering SJ's memories somehow, that sure would be fun times, huh?
so he awakens a mysterious ancestry and survives the abyss and takes Xin Mo, but he probably takes longer than Binghe did due to being squishier.
but Xin Mo isn't ACTUALLY his! so he papers it over with sealing talismans, and to battle the temptation to wield it he takes to wearing these longass sleeves. they're probably covered in talismans as well.
guessing Xiu Ya stayed behind to be mooned over by the clown trio in Cang Qiong. let's go full sparkle-sue here and say he's now fighting almost entirely via musical cultivation. i like swan-necked konghou harps so let's go with that, it'll look dope.
why is he barefoot? why WOULDN'T he be, is the question. fragile!! suffering!! dainty!! he's a shrinking flower, tormented by the weight of the One Sword To Rule Them All!!
also for extra pathos, his constant mental struggle against Xin Mo means he can't spare energy to front. it takes constant focus! he's still a bit in his delusional shit, but even when he's going "oh no, binghe is only latched throat-deep onto my dick because he's a good boy who's concerned about me and the danger i could pose by losing control" he'd probably… well, he'd probably say that out loud to anyone who asked. he's in a half-trance, mentally battling the crazy-making sword. lying is too much work.
Wouldn’t resisting Xin Mo’s influence be the mental and spiritual equivalent to training under 400x gravity or something? his wife-beam is going to be off the charts when he puts it down.
also also: who the hell dressed him like that? fucking shang qinghua, of course, after SQQ showed up in the northern palace to punish MBJ for hurting binghe in the conference. did the system explain shit to SQH? on the one hand, extremely funny if it updates him on the role change out of nowhere mid-alliance. on the other hand, extremely funny if he only finds out because Binghe is crying safely in Qing Jing while the scum villain apparently jumped into the abyss.
Here's another link to the original AU post! I've had it open on a tab all this time just so i could point to it when I was done, so make sure to check it out!
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⚠️IF YOU'RE HERE TO BULLY ME JUST FUCKING LEAVE⚠️
Hello, you can call me Asher, Henry, or Micah
I am a physical nonhuman due to delusions
I am a werewolf, fish, werebat, and dragon, Tornado/hurricane, ecosystem, and a Cuban crocodile-esque creature (bigger and longer)
I am a Holothere
I am a samgladiator YHS fictionkin
I love GHOST
I am trans masc and homoromantic(?), omnisexual
My diagnosis':
Schizoaffective depressive type (schizophrenia+depression)
Bulimia Nervosa non purging type (Eating disorder)
OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder)
SAD (Social Anxiety Disorder)
I am an extreme maladaptive daydreamer and sometimes forget that I'm not that paraself, my paraselves include OCs such as Chip, Ruskchre, Kelpoltyosha, all bogian species. Non OCs include, Alastor (Hazbin), Severus Snape (HP, I don't support JKR), Wednesday Addams (Wednesday Netflix), normal animals, Tigerstar (WC), Aizawa (BNHA), Shirou Ogami (BNA), and one I will not mention because it is someone I idolize's oc and i don't wish to make them uncomfortable.
There is also Alastor, Fae, Sasha, and Gore who are extremely similar to alters but aren't alters.
A lot of my "OCs" happen to be paraselves so please be polite when talking about them
NOTE, THE ABOVE PARASELF COMMENTS ARE AN EDIT, I DID EXTREME DIGGING AND FIGURED OUT IT ISN'T OSDD IT IS EXTREME MALADAPTIVE DAYDREAMING
Post my shit to r/systemscringe and I will fucking obliterate you, fuck off, I'm not a system.
DNI:
Public proshippers (proshipping publicly and for non coping reasons)
Terfs (GTFO IM NOT FUCKIN PLAYIN)
Anti kink dni, y'all don't understand that people can consent at all lmao.
Anti Reality shifting, I will fucking block you dude, I'm not talking about people who don't believe in it, I'm talking about people who go out of their way to harass shifters
Anti-therian
Extreme anti endo (I MIGHT tolerate you ONLY if I really like you and you're a good person in general)
Anti-otherkin
Anti alterhuman
Homophobes
Any people with extreme HARMFUL PARAPHILIA who think PRO CONTACT is okay, I'm not getting groomed and molested again, fuck off
Anti-furry
Anti-cringe (I AM CRINGE BUT I AM FREE, FUCK OFF HATERS)
Schizoposters (non-schizophrenic people posting things to trigger paranoia and delusions)
Anti-Holothere
Elon musk supporters (he's a dickbag)
Political blogs (pro-Palestine is not political, it is anti genocide)
Ai bros (I'm fine with you using AI for personal stuff but stay the hell away from me please if you use publicly)
Sorry if I offended you but I have a no-hate policy here
Other than that I'm a friendly person who likes making friends (I do have pretty bad anxiety though so it may take a while) :3
If you have any questions, send an ask
Me (might update sometimes)-
#grooming tw#grooming survivor#molestation mention tw#Holothere#pinned post#intro post#Werewolf#therians#therian#otherkin#DNI homophobes#pro endo#endo safe#endogenic safe#actuallymentallyill#actually traumatized#actually abused#transmasc#transgender#furry#dragonkin#terfs can suck my balls#anti endos fuck off#anti endos dni
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So with you an anon discussing the terrible conditions of your schools and how all the money go to bullshit like P.E, basketball courts, uniforms etc
Lemme tell you some funny stories, you think California sucks? The deep south is WORSE
My mother went to a middle school sometime in the 70s, while playing volleyball in the gym she spiked the ball so hard it broke an upper window.
It was never fixed and by the time I entered that school in the mid 2000s it was still broken
.Same school was notorious for the heater to always be busted, same with the AC. my 7th grade English class was the worst with temperature since the windows faced the sun, and so we'd cook like weenies over an open fire
The female locker room bathrooms were never took care of and middle school girls are barbarians and would doodle dicks, and offensive language all over the walls and mirrors
The mirrors were confiscated afterwords
By the time I enrolled in high school it was worse, the textbooks hadn't been updated since the Civil rights era (holy fucking shit southern 60's something textbooks were TRASH) and one textbook I got was my mom's and i yelped when i saw her name scrawled in it
The high school had busted old soda machines that were just left to rot int he cafeteria and were a constant reminder that we can't have nothing nice
Oh but we can definitely afford NEW GODAMN MAC BOOKS JESUS GOD
And last but not least, back in the mid 2000s there was a devastating tornadoe that hit the neighboring town to ours and decimated the local high school there. Just wiped it off the fucking map.
SO OUR TOWN got super butt hurt when the president came down and gave funds to help rebuild the school and wanted a new high school as well
Once they secured the funds to build it sometime in the 2010s they went nuts trying to have it built before the next school year, so instead of replacing outdated textbooks, repairing the ventilation and other issues they decided NOPE WANT NEW SCHOOL NOW
Hilarious though nobody realized until too late that the new school was built on several sink holes, we lost a school bus to one I shit you not and now the school is sinking making the building lopsided as all hell
In summary all the money are schools received went to a brand new school that's half sunk in the ground, and shit for the football team
Not to take the Lord's name in vain but Jesus fucking Christ.
And it's so fucking blatant that education in the U.S. is just being sidelined in the priority scale. Like, yes: we don't need to push the narrative that kids HAVE to go to college to have successful lives. But holy fucking shite, K-12 has to be able to properly teach kids 'Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic' and Critical Thinking so that students can leave schools with at least basic comprehension and calculating skills.
There are far too many districts and school administrations that either focus too much on the fluff (sports, aesthetics, and 'Customer Service') or who have given up on their students completely so they just dump tax dollars into shite that really doesn't help student success in the long run but, hey! It's educational, so it must be good, right?
THE PRE-AP 'CURRICULUM' IS FUCKING BULLSHIT, and if you are a parent whose teen comes home with an English class syllabus that says 'Our class utilizes a PreAP system', you need to either hit the dash or call the district and lodge a complaint. Because that shite is useless and it's just school districts paying CollegeBoard for access to a nonsense website and workbooks and the ability to say 'we prep students for college'.
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Idiot
The time was normal. Check on the experiments, the failures, etc. Zai had a daily routine, today however today was the annual, "beat up a sadistic bitch" day. Because due to some cry baby lore zai hated sadistic bitches, and who better to beat up than a digitalized clone of shaded. Who is shaded? Why who shadeless was supposed to be of course. Zai hated shaded, and who wouldn't? It was simple, just beat the ever loving crap out of the digitalized version of shaded, and move on, and then it happened.
Zai made another mistake, they hated mistakes and this one was no different. They forgot to update the computers firewall, and a idiot seeking virus broke in. The virus wasted no time taking control of the systems, and messing with zai. Zai knew the virus all to well, it wasn't their first encounter.
"Well well well, look who forgot to update their anti-virus. How's it going disbrain? It's been a while."
"Virus."
Zai turned around to face the monitor and see that all to familiar smiley face, constantly shifting from black to white.
"Let's see here, what shall I do this time? Override your security system? Delete months worth of research? Destabilize your relationship with those anons?"
"Leave me alone already?"
"Booooooriiiing! Lets do something simple. Mess with your schedule! Let's check your calendar app- what the hell?"
"What?"
"Annual beat the shit out of a sadistic bitch?"
"Hello."
Virus diverts their attention to the monitor behind zai, the monitor where digitalized shaded is on
"I believe that relates to me."
The virus states for a second before transferring themselves to the monitor shaded is on
"Well I don't believe it! The sadistic bitch himself! Can I get your autograph?"
"wha-"
"Oh I'm sorry, your just amazing in my digital eyes. The way you ruined peoples lives for your own entertainment was just AWESOME. It's a shame you got shoved down a staircase and broke your shades which somehow drastically changed the timeline."
"Oh wow! Never knew I had fans! Did you hear about the time I ruined the guy with the perfect life-"
"AHEM"
Both shaded and virus look at Zai whose been standing there.
"Are you done? If so, can you leave virus? I have important matters to attend to."
"Well I think I will leave, but I am taking this dude with me."
"No your not."
"Yes I am"
Zai approaches the monitor and presses the ALT and F4 keys, nothing happens.
"Oh shit."
"Yea I figured you'd do that. So disconnected the keyboard."
The virus digitally grabs shadeds hand
"Bye disbrain!"
"Bye you fucking bitch."
Zai let's out a long sigh
"How the hell am I gonna explain this to Erza?"
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Ooc section
So uh yea. Shaded has entered the fray. Remember the post where I said I had a 1 day brainrot over the you are an idiot virus? IT DID NOT LAST ONE DAY.
I wanted to bring shades into this, but the question was "how?". And then I came up with this. Now that shaded is officially in the game, let's talk about them!
Lore: They were the average anon, till they broke their shades. So they went to buy some new ones, these ones however were a major upgrade and caused an ego boost. Shaded became a total douche, and started to ruin other people's lives. One person snapped and made them realize how terrible they were but instead of changing for the better, they continued down that path with pride. They no longer cared, simply decided, "Ive already made myself look like a badguy, might as well continue!" And they grew to enjoy this. They became sadistic. Till zai said "nuh uh" and did some time shenanigans and pushed them down some stairs before they started being a bitch.
Appearance: Shades is actually taller than the average anon, and by a noticeable amount. They are 2 feet taller! Vest? Your wrong, trench coat! Shaded actually wears pants, they are just so grey you can't see them. Shaded has cool looking shades. (The shades also got some built in technology that displays real time information about people! Courtesy of the virus)
Other info: Shaded has one actual friend other than the virus. Statue anon. Who is statue? Don't worry, the two met in an elevator and they both realized they like soda cans of grey stuff, instant besties ♥️
(they totally didn't make out in a wendys bathroom)
(am I /j or /srs about that? I have no actu clue I'm still deciding.)
(grey stuff is also wet cement. Yea shaded likes to drink wet cement. Why do you think statue anon is a walking statue?)
(statue anon will not get a blog)
(the post ends here)
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Secondhand Origin Stories, Chapter 14
Here's this week's chapter! Reblogs welcome!
For those of you just joining us, I'm posting a chapter a week of my free near future scifi/low neon cyberpunk YA/NA novel, Secondhand Origin Stories, which has been described as
"-a character driven, compelling story full of family, queerness, corruption, brain altering nanites, secretly teen parenting AIs, and taking aspects of the superhero genre to their very human and rarely-explored natural conclusions."
For an index of already uploaded chapters that hopefully I will remember to update, content warnings and more, check here:
You can follow along by following #SHOSweekly
Chapter 14
Issac’s contacts blanked out before Lasansky was even inside the garage.
No. Oh no no. Issac knocked his tablet against the metal chair. No sound effects appeared.
He pulled his phone out of his pocket. NO SIGNAL.
Lasansky must have high-grade, government restricted signal blocking. Which meant the security systems signal was jammed, too. Which meant their phones weren’t working and they couldn’t call in their backup. He couldn’t even contact Martin. Which meant the whole plan was fucked, and how was Issac even supposed to draw information out of Lasansky when he couldn’t have a conversation with the man? Stupid. None of them had even considered signal blocking.
This meant Lasansky was deliberately isolating them. And he’d brought serious muscle. So much for Issac’s last shred of hope that he hadn’t been breaking bread with the bad guys.
Fuck. This was going to go so badly.
He looked up, could see Opal had realized that there was a problem, but couldn’t tell if she knew what it was. He wanted to tell her, but four figures rounded the corner, entering the huge open garage door. Lasansky and three goons.
Too late to explain. Too late to back out or fix the plan. All he could do now was trust the others, and bluff like hell.
Issac turned on an offended scowl, and pushed his shoulders back. Fear and anger had a lot of similar biological responses. Maybe he could make one look like the other. At least he could stop trying to hedge his bets. “What the hell, Lasansky. I already told you, I quit.”
Lasansky started yammering in response. Issac was shit at lipreading. Especially around that big plastic smile Lasansky was wearing. He strolled towards Issac and the diversionary tablet. This asshole. He could have actually helped. He could have actually saved and repaired lives.
Lasansky’s eyebrows tilted up. As if he was bargaining. A soft approach. He totally hadn’t realized his signal jammers were interfering with Issac’s contacts, so he probably assumed Issac hadn’t even noticed them.
Opal was leaning against one of the trucks with her arms crossed, looking annoyed but not, so far, ready to actually punch anyone. She said something to Lasansky, which distracted him. She didn’t like whatever it was Lasansky said back.
Maybe Opal could cover for Issac’s inability to converse, and Issac wouldn’t have to expose it. The two of them traded a few more lines while Issac tried to restrain himself from looking up to check on Jamie. Opal got increasingly worked up, and Lasansky, increasingly amused.
Issac couldn’t believe he’d let himself give this asshole the benefit of the doubt. Just because they both had to cover up a weakness, Issac had felt for the guy. He’d really wanted to believe that someone at the top could get it, and would still want Issac’s work.
Except it wasn’t really Issac’s work he was after.
Of all the stupid reasons to miss his hearing, wishing he had more distraction from his feelings right now had to be among the most stupid.
Issac focused on the henchmen. Two of them looked bored. One of them was looking something up on her phone. Whatever she found, her eyebrows went up. She leaned over to Lasansky, showing him. Lasansky laughed, quick and delighted, and with one last glance at Opal, he turned back to Issac.
Whatever leverage Lasansky thought he’d just gained made him turn to Issac with much less delicacy, and a lot more open demand. What did he have?
Issac’s attention flicked to Opal. She discreetly pointed at her other hand, which she positioned as if she was holding the drive. “I’m not giving you the data.” He clutched the useless thumb-drive-shaped slag in his hand, held it up a little higher, to make sure Lasansky had something to focus on. Stall stall stall…
More monologuing. It was hard to want to pay attention to the man. Issac glanced at Opal again. He’d have to rely on her to figure out when Lasansky had…had what? If they weren’t recording, then what was the goal, here?
One of the guards casually laid a hand on a holster of some sort.
Surviving was a good goal.
Lasansky had come in too close. Issac stepped back, but the back of his legs ran into a truck. Lasansky stepped in closer, and squinted at Issac. Issac caught a flicker of discomfort as Lasansky’s attention flicked to the goons behind him, and he pulled something out of his breast pocket.
Issac's blood ran cold.
Reading glasses. Lasansky put them on, and glared down his nose at Issac, who tried to look like he wasn’t having a heart attack at a very young age. He jutted out his chin in his best Jamie impression, and stared Lasansky down.
Lasansky wasn’t smiling now, and he was so close, Issac was fairly sure he lipread “What have we here?” Issac wanted to shove him away, but the only altered on his side in here was unarmed. Even Yael would take a while to rush in. And they had no backup, and they couldn’t call for help, and--
Lasansky laughed. He straightened, taking his glasses off before turning back to his goons and tapping his Botoxed crows’ feet.
Damn Issac's dark eyes, Lasansky had seen that Issac’s contacts weren’t working.
Lasansky turned around with a speed Issac hadn’t expected from a man Lasansky’s age, and grabbed him.
* * *
It was the only opening Jamie was going to get.
She focused on trusting Opal and Yael. She had to convince herself that they would handle the situation in the garage for a few more moments. Otherwise, all of this was for nothing. Jamie was the only one inside who was still able to move freely, and the noise of Lasansky and Issac grappling for the prop covered her movement.
She slipped off of the top of the truck, straining to reach the guard rail of the upper walkway and hauling herself on, squeezing under the lowest railing. She’d get back as fast as possible.
She crawled on her belly down towards the VIP suite, up on her feet once she was out of sight. She tried to ignore the sounds behind her. She eased the door open, slipped inside, and closed it again. She checked her phone. She’d been right about Issac’s reaction-- no signal. They really were on their own. No time to be embarrassed that they hadn’t considered that possibility. She had to act fast.
She’d never gotten around to pulling Issac’s bug out of her guitar, but the old Z-wave technology in it shouldn’t be bothered by the signal blocker.
The damn bug was hard to pull out. It was lucky her hands were so small-- she had to fit one almost completely into the guitar before she could scrape it out, snapping the strings with alarmed little pings.
There were footsteps and muffled voices coming from down the hall. She ducked behind the sofa furthest from the door and checked her phone again. Success! A direct link from the bug to her phone, no outside signal required. Everything would be recorded.
The suite door opened. “--Janet can handle one dumb altered kid.” Opal.
“Oh my G-d, look at this. It’s a whole trash apartment. What’s LodeStar’s kid doing in a heap like this?”
“Maybe Daddy didn’t like his new little supervillain-spawn girlfriend.”
Jamie was trapped.
“We’re not being sneaky, right? We can just turn the place out?”
A loud clatter, like a drawer hitting the floor, was the only answer.
If they ransacked the room, they’d find her. She looked around frantically, but anyplace big enough to hide her would be big enough for them to look. At least there was no research for them to find.
There was going to be a fight-- Jamie against two altered men. By herself.
This was the kind of do-or-die moment she’d imagined for herself all her life.
She’d always imagined, in that moment, that she’d finally feel bigger. Stronger.
So far, no dice.
She slowed her breathing the way years of fighting for oxygen had taught her to do. She stayed still. She couldn’t dart them yet. They were both faster than she was, and armed with more than darts.
But she could record them, from here. She could keep still and wait.
“What the-- Mark, lookit this shoe. It’s tiny. How many kids have they got up here?”
“Forget that, look at these pants. Fucking giant. I’m not worried about Thumbelina, but we should wrap this up before whoever’s pants these are gets back. Could be an actual fight.”
“You don’t think LodeStar or Helix or somebody--”
“In this dump? It’s a squat for runaways. Hold on, this looks like the kid’s stuff.”
More rustling. More digging. A few steps in either direction could expose Jamie. She felt sick. Her heart hammered hard enough to make her hands shake no matter how slow she breathed. Her ears were ringing.
The rustling of clothes turned into the rustling of paper as Jamie tried to remember any paper in the suite. One of the guards barked a laugh. “Holy shit! ‘If you’re reading this, then I failed--’ Kid’s already written as good as a suicide note for us! Ha! It’s like he knew we were coming and baked us a cake.”
The letter Issac told them about yesterday. The one that explained about Martin. She couldn’t let anyone actually read it all the way through. And them wanting Issac to have written a suicide note--
“OK. So, kid dies of tech overdose, and when the boss finds him, the Flynn girl attacks, because she’s mad her dad’s locked up. So, we have to take her down. Doesn’t get any neater than that.” What could she do? She had to find an opening-- any opening…
A loud crack of a noise from outside shocked her. She’d heard it before, mostly on TV. It was a gun. Then clattering in the room, as the guards moved towards the window. Their earbuds made noises Jamie couldn’t make out. One of them barked an answer. “Do you need backup?”
The other’s voice was hushed with horror. “Ezekiel--”
A long silence as they watched whatever was going on outside. How could anyone mistake Yael for Ezekiel? There were no more gunshots. Nobody moved. Jamie waited, and prayed.
“They won’t catch up to him,” one of them said. Jamie gave a slow, even exhale. Yael was safe. But Yael was gone.
Jamie didn’t feel bigger, or stronger. If anything, she felt smaller.
But it was good. Like she was distilled down to her most basic components, with no room left for doubt or panic. She could still feel her fear, feel her heart rattling in her chest, feel the weaknesses of her body, but they were dull and distant. They felt unimportant, compared to the glow of a perfectly clear mission.
“Bridgewater must have sent him. Explains the bait.”
“If that was Ezekiel, he wouldn’t have run. I’ll take this to the boss. Hurry and finish up. I want to get out of here.”
The door opened, and shut.
Which left just one guard with Jamie.
Her opening. She stood, raising her arm. He’d half turned away, but saw her in his periphery. His reflexes were much faster, but his taser was holstered. He’d gotten it out of the holster and half raised by the time Jamie steadied her hand to shoot.
First his hand dropped, then his eyes rolled back, and he went over, smashing his head on the corner of the dresser on his way down. Jamie picked up the taser and shoved it in her cargo pocket, next to her inhaler. She’d never used one before, but she’d watched videos. It would have to do.
She headed back into the hall.
* * *
Every line of the pilot’s face made it clear-- there’d be no bloodless end to this fight. He wouldn’t give up any more than Yael would. Xe knew he was altered. Xe couldn’t afford to hold back.
Three wet snaps shuddered up xyr arm. Crinkling, crackling hot and cold ran over xyr hand. Xe tightened xyr fist.
He was breathless, but his voice was bold. “This was your mistake, monster! I would have just run!”
Monster. Monster. As if he deserved to use that word on xyr. Yael growled back, “I’m not afraid of you, and I’m not afraid of what I have to do. I won’t let you get away.” Xe lunged. He only partially blocked the blow, but to xyr surprise, he grabbed for xyr arm. The grip was wrong for a throw, and not even secure.
Electricity arced from his skin to xyrs, racing across the highly conductive exoskeleton. Lighting burned up xyr arm and sizzled towards xyr spine. Yael’s arm went rigid.
Electric shock ability. That was impossible. The Detroit line had never achieved it. Only Papa could do that.
The pilot didn’t smile at his short triumph. He edged back, hands up, not in surrender, but prepared to attack. “I’m from South Dakota, too. I know that skin. I never saw your face last time, but I know who you are.”
Yael screamed. Xe’d never have imagined xe could make such a feral sound. Xe attacked again, faster, with more conviction. Finally, after all the confusion, all the fear, there was something to attack. Something to do. A surefire way to protect. Xe felt a crack of bones under xyr fist, but it wasn’t enough. Not a crunch or a shatter. The pilot flew a few feet. His landing was graceless, but his recovery was lightning-fast. “Who are you?” Yael demanded. He shouldn’t exist. Couldn’t exist. No one with Papa’s ability had lived. These powers should never have hurt xyr.
“Your damned cult couldn’t kill all its experiments. We found ways to survive. Fewer sacrifices to your sick, twisted religion. We won’t be conquered by you or any of your kind!”
“My kind? MY KIND?”
“How did you disappear for so long? Did Bridgewater cover you up, too? What is he planning?”
“I am not Ezekiel!” Yael screamed. “I’m not Miriam and I’m not Solomon and I don’t serve Nodiah! I am Yael, and I’m going to kill the villain who attacked my family!”
This time when xe attacked, he shot backwards, and didn’t counter. He hesitated.
“What do you mean, you don’t serve Nodiah.” He circled. It wouldn’t matter. Xyr reach was much further than his. “I know you’re not Lasansky’s. If you’re not APB, then why did you attack me? Who are you?”
“You almost killed them. You left Issac vulnerable forever. Damaged everything in my life. You are a terrorist, attacking kids in their own house. Issac never did anything to you.”
Issac. Xyr pounding heart spasmed. Xe needed to get back to protect them. But xe couldn’t protect them with this supervillain running free.
Xe attacked again. Xe feinted a punch, which he blocked, but xe swept xyr leg behind his. He got in a punch to xyr head in the same moment, stunning xyr long enough to let him get back up before xe could try again.
Xe was a better fighter than this. Xe should have dropped him by now. He was sloppy, untrained. Xe’d prepared for this xyr whole life.
Yael fought to keep the xyr temper stoked as real remorse entered his face. Xe could barely hear him over the ringing in xyr ear.
“LodeStar’s kid. That’s who you’re fighting for?”
“He’s my brother,” xe growled. “And you hurt him. You drove him out of his house, his family--” Xe was telling him too much.
“I wasn’t aiming for them! I didn’t even see them!” He stopped, studied xyr face. Xe should have attacked, while his guard was lowered. But being seen was too tempting. “You. You were the big heat signature. You were with them, weren’t you?” His fists lowered slightly, and Yael’s vision blurred with tears that couldn’t escape xyr silver-black inheritance. “Who are you? Another escapee? Like me? Why were you in the tower?”
Yael didn’t lower xyr own fists. “I was there. Yeah, you attacked me, too. I could have forgiven that, but you attacked my siblings. In our home. And Issac won’t recover.”
Xe attacked again. A roundhouse kick earned xyr another painful shock, temporarily locking up xyr leg. Xe struck back with a specialized attack of xyr own, and pulled heat from his body into xyr fist, dragging a shocked choking sound out of him along with it. Xe blocked a blow, but his electricity arced from his hand to xyr chest, dangerously close to xyr heart.
That was enough to stun xyr, and he tried to get past Yael, to the only exit. Yael grabbed him by his shirt, throwing him to the ground.
Xe should have beaten him by now. If xe could just think straight, past the blood rushing in xyr ears...
Xe accepted multiple hits to secure one of his arms to the ground with several inches of ice. Pulling so much heat out of the air, all at once, hurt worse than his electricity.
This time, he grabbed xyr throat, just like xe had grabbed the kidnapper’s throat two years ago. Xe knew what he’d do a moment before he did it, but xe didn’t evade fast enough. The shock lit up Yael's spine, and xe couldn’t even move enough to scream at the pain.
It seemed to last forever. Even when he stopped, xyr nerves screeched and jumped, leaving xyr dizzy and disoriented as he tried to free his arm from the filthy asphalt. Xyr voice was rough and crackling. “You…almost killed them.”
“I didn’t mean to!” he yelled defiantly. He tried to use his electric powers to free his ice-encased arm. The ice made his tiny lighting arcs go wild, burning little holes into his restraint. Yael sucked more heat from the air, which pulled his lightning right into xyr hand, burning. But the hole he’d chiseled filled obediently back in.
He punched, but his left arm was less coordinated and not as strong. One skilled blow knocked Yael sideways as it connected solidly with xyr jaw.
Xe was making stupid mistakes. But xe’d never sparred using xyr other powers before. And never fought xyr father’s electricity. Never expected to. Xe wasn’t prepared. Xe was losing energy, losing focus.
“Why did you help Lasansky?” xe demanded. “Did you think he’d set you free? You’re going right back where you were!”
“I was supposed to die!” He kicked xyr off, and positioned himself as well as he could when he couldn’t get the lower half of his dominant arm off the ground. “The tower was supposed to shoot me down. I don’t know why it didn’t. I was never getting out of this.”
“Did you want to kill that badly?”
“He said he’d let my mom go,” the pilot panted, his voice full of pain. “She’s sick. One of the altered-specific problems. They said she’d have to be in a clinic for months for her to even stand a chance. They say she’s too dangerous to let out that long. She’s a sick, old woman! I was never getting out. I accepted that a long time ago. But she still could.”
Yael faltered.
“Listen to me,” he pleaded. “Bridgewater is killing us. It’s genocide. Legal genocide. He’s been rounding us up for years, over anything. Now he’s going to--”
“I know about the bill!” Yael spat. “It only has a chance of winning now because you’ve made people afraid of us again! By attacking my brother!”
By protecting his family. Xe crouched, each of them out of the other’s range. Xe pushed xyr pain down. Xe could handle this. Xe was built for this. And xe needed to understand. “Then why’d you run?”
“Because I hit you, instead of Bridgewater. I failed. He said the deal was off. As if a commercial pilot knows anything about reading infrared signatures like that! I’m not going to get a second chance to save her. So there. Your brother’s hearing for my mom’s life. Does that satisfy you? With whatever you came after me for? Or do you still need to kill me, too?” He was brave. And loyal. Was this really who xe should fight?
“You can’t trust Lasansky.”
“Oh, you think? Damn, I never noticed that before, rotting in his prison for all these years. He blackmailed me into killing someone for him! But he’s the enemy of my enemy, and I want my mom to live.”
“The enemy of your enemy came over here trying to get his hands on brain altering nanites. Who do you think he plans to test them on?”
The pilot recoiled as far as the ice would let him, shock and revulsion on his face. Over several shaky breaths, grief, then hopelessness, tore him down. His shoulders drooped; his free fists fell loosely to the floor. His eyes dropped as he gave up on defending himself.
Yael sat on the ground, mind and body reeling. The truth had hurt him more than Yael’s fists or exoskeleton could. It made him too relatable to punch. Just like Yael, he’d been trying to protect his family. Just like Opal, he’d been trying to protect his family from Yael’s family.
Xe reached up a hand to xyr phone’s earbud, suddenly realizing xe hadn’t heard anything from the others. Xyr ear was empty. It was just the bud that came with xyr phone. It wasn’t meant for fighting. It could’ve fallen out at any time. Xe pulled out xyr phone, but it was hopelessly smashed in all the fighting. They couldn’t call xyr. Anything could have happened by now.
Xe shot to xyr feet, staggering, but righting xyrself fast. “I have to get back. I left them back there--” Xe’d chased the muscle instead of the mastermind. Stupid.
Xe looked at the grieving man xe’d trapped on the ground.
Yael decided to trust. “Help me take down Lasansky. You’re not the one the APB really wants, he is. Help them.”
“And what, they’ll let me go? Let my mom go?”
“I…I can’t promise you anything. I’m seventeen. I’m not a superhero, and Nodiah only talks to me when he feels like it.” The pilot lifted his head. “But I swear, you’re not the only one against that bill. You might be the best person to bring Lasansky down. He blackmailed you into trying to kill someone.”
Xe moved forwards, and he raised a half-curled fist. Yael paused, and moved closer. He let xyr. Xe placed xyr hand on the ice, and squeezed, carefully, setting him free. Xe looked him in the eye. “I don’t want to fight you. We were both just defending someone we love. None of them will get anything out of either of us dying. We both want justice.”
He moved away, standing, but he didn’t try to leave. Yael stood, too. “Come back with me. I’ll give you any protection I can. I’ll ask my family to help. Please, help me stop what Lasansky’s made. See him locked up. See where that can lead. You can’t kill Nodiah, now. But you can do this.”
He watched xyr, warily. “I have to go,” Yael nearly pled. “I left them alone and I shouldn’t have, and I have to go protect them. Will you help me?”
It was fair that he hesitated, but Yael couldn’t afford to give him the time this deserved. He looked at the opening of the alley. Xe wouldn’t stop him, if he left. Xe wouldn’t prove xyrself at his expense.
“My freedom for the chance to change things. Again.” He sighed, and braced himself, rolling his shoulders. “OK. Let’s go.”
* * *
When was Opal supposed to step in? When Lasansky grabbed Issac, she and the guards had all taken one step, then froze. If any of them touched Issac, or if Opal tried to help him, then this fight was going to escalate instantly.
Issac could let go of the drive at any moment. It was just a prop. If he was still grappling Lasansky over it, then he was still playing along.
So Opal stood, every muscle tense, as the guards stared at her, unmoving, ready. They weren’t interested in Issac.
She jumped as the sound of a gunshot from outside shattered any illusion of control, safety, or a real plan.
Yael was out there.
Even Lasansky’s head jerked up in shock at the noise. Issac clocked him. He had no idea his sibling had just gotten shot at-- or maybe shot. Yael could be bleeding out right now.
This was what Opal had signed on for. This was the future she’d fought for. She was terrified. She froze. One of the altered guards pinned Issac on the ground.
Too slow, she moved to help Issac, but a click behind her stopped her cold. It was a taser. They all had tasers-- she’d seen them when Lasansky’s posse came into the garage. They might not be guns, but they’d drop anyone from the Detroit line hard. She tried to think of something she could do that wouldn’t just get her instantly killed. She came up blank, and stayed frozen.
Lasansky bent and picked up the emptied flash drive. It was just a prop. She had to focus. Even if Yael was shot, xe might take hours to bleed out. Opal strained to hear some sign, but only heard running. Lots of footsteps running towards them, and much heavier feet running away.
They’d driven Yael away.
That was the only one of them who could fight, gone. Chased off by bullets. Opal couldn’t even blame xyr, but now what was she supposed to do? Issac was on the ground. Jamie had disappeared-- guards had walked by her hiding place and not seen her. Opal was on her own. This was not how this was supposed to go down.
Lasansky dabbed blood off his mouth, then bent stiffly and retrieved Issac’s tablet. He plugged the drive into it as several of his guards came running up the driveway. Their ruse was about to get noticed, and Opal still had barely even moved. There were so many guards, now. So many weapons. Sweat ran down her neck slowly. That and her hammering heart were the closest things to motion she could manage.
Opal couldn’t imagine Lasansky brought this many people and the pilot if he meant to leave witnesses.
Lasansky leaned against a truck, trying to boot up the tablet, ignoring Opal and Issac as irrelevant. Issac looked up at her from the floor where he was getting held down. He was scared, but he was angry, too. And he was waiting.
He’d grown up with superheroes. He expected her to do something. To save them. This was the future she’d fought for. Why had she believed she could do this? She couldn’t see any avenue out.
One of the guards who’d gone upstairs clanged back into view across the metal walkway. He didn’t have Jamie. He was waving a sheet of lined paper and smirking. “Sir, I found something. The kid pretty much wrote his own suicide note. Talks about not surviving the trial and everything--”
Suicide note?
She looked back at Issac, who saw where she’d been looking and craned his neck to look at the stairway.
He’d been fighting from the start, but now was nearly tearing his own arms out of their sockets in his desperate, and futile, struggle.
This must be the letter he’d told them about last night. The one that explained Martin. Today’s death toll might reach out even past this garage.
She had no good avenues. So she picked the only bad one she could even come up with. She launched herself at the stairs, raising a fist she’d just learned to make.
The guard blocked her easily, but he dropped the letter. He grabbed her in midair, and threw her off course, slamming her body into the unforgiving metal railing of the stairway. It was hard enough to stun her, knocking the air out of her body. He held on, drawing back a fist she wouldn’t know how to block.
Opal’s frozen mind clicked over. She realized she did have an advantage on her side.
She knew the terrain.
She pressed back into the railing, grabbing it so she could lift and kick out with both feet. He stepped out, and her feet barely skimmed his shirt, but it gave her just enough time to jump backwards over the side of the railing. She took off running. Not towards the door, as badly as she wanted to check on Yael. As badly as she wanted to get away. No, she ran the length of the garage instead, past the line of trucks. She heard the guards following her. What choice did they have? She was the only threat left. And it’d make some room for Jamie and Issac to do anything they could think of.
She had the barest scrape of seconds to find some sort of plan. A sketch of an idea started to materialize as she fumbled through it...They had tasers, But Opal could play that game, too.
At the farthest truck, she tried to skid to a stop. Her sneakers shredded under her, the smell of burnt rubber blowing past. She just avoided falling as her bare soles found the concrete. Their shoes were built for this; hers hadn’t been, and her trip had cost her time.
Now that she’d unfrozen, she could hardly keep up with her brain’s orders. She gripped the sole of a shoe in each hand, a little bit of extra protection against her next move. They were so close now-- close enough to shoot her.
Opal tore the thick, industrial charger cord off the truck with a clang and a silent prayer to God to not let this be as reckless a gamble as it felt. In one sharp snap of motion, she tore the safety latch off the cord, hoping the rubber soles would give her some protection from the current. It did, a little, but she felt a painful warning tingle in each hand. She gripped the cord and whipped it out towards her attackers.
In the air, it hardly did more than spark, but when it glanced off one of the trucks, lightning arced out in every direction. They had tasers? She had an industrial truck charger!
Two of them dove out of the way. A third one got hit, and Opal paused, horrified, as small bolts of lightning raced over his rigid, contorted body. She yanked the cord back off of him, and he dropped.
Her moment of empathy gave the next guy time to dart forward and knock her in the kidney. She buckled, her grip on the cord going slack as her knees tried to collapse.
She snapped the cord again, ripping it at the bend. Electricity arced. Some of it leapt to her hand, shooting through her body and freezing her arm, rooting her feet, freezing her into inaction again. The guard tried to retreat. One of her hands was only slowed, not frozen. She shoved the cord into his body. The electricity released her.
His scream cut off after a single burst of pained sound. His face lit up red, purple veins bulging in his neck.
She dropped the cord and leapt backwards, trying to keep the layout of the garage at the forefront of her mind. This was almost sort of working.
The second man didn’t fall to the floor like the first, but he dropped to one knee.
She only saw three of them left.
That number seemed off.
Opal heard a click behind her. She was always going to remember that sound after today. If there was an “after today” for her.
She dropped to her knees, and grabbed a huge toolkit by its handle. She came up in a spin. She didn’t hit the guard, but she knocked the taser out of his hand. She brought the toolkit down on top of it. She could make out a satisfying crunch under the clang of the impact.
The air smelt like burnt meat. How much of that had she caused? How much of that was her body?
A kick to the side of her head took her by surprise. She hit the floor, hard. The steel corner of the toolkit tore a hot red line across her temple. The next kick connected with her ribs while her ears were still ringing. Then another, to the base of her spine.
She curled in on herself, arms over her head for some scrap of protection, as pain closed in around her. They’d caught up. She’d lost her weapon. Her knowledge of the garage wouldn’t help her here. There were just too many of them, and there was nobody left to help her. They were probably all going to die, and Martin would be taken apart, and Opal couldn’t do anything about it. She reached out for the toolkit she’d dropped. A boot ground her wrist into the concrete.
This was the life she came here to find. She wasn’t ready for it to be so short.
She squinted open one eye, desperate to find any advantage. Any blessing to help her survive just a little bit longer. To grab any little chance.
All she could see was one of the guards, glittering a sickly green. His expression impassive, barely annoyed. This was just work, to him. Beating Opal was just a job, like hauling furniture. If he killed Opal, it’d mean less than scratching a customer’s antique armoire.
All the fights Opal had held herself back from, waiting for her chance to make a difference, and here she was, beaten by people who didn’t even care. She hoped Issac and Jamie would survive this. She hoped Yael was OK, wherever xe was.
Eventually, the Sentinels would come. They’d know better than to believe Lasansky’s lies, and the APB was already on his scent. Maybe Jamie had even found some way to make the recording. She wouldn’t have deserted-- she must be doing something to help. Somewhere.
At least Lasansky could never get the nanites. She squeezed her eyes shut, felt tears mingle with blood on her face. Daddy was gonna be so mad...She’d gotten in over her head right away. Had her life chewed up by the same system that took him away.
Opal came here to be a hero.
She’d wanted to do so much more than this. She wanted to be so much more than this. Aldis was going to come back to work to find Opal’s blood all mixed in with the oil on the floor. She felt ribs crack. Would Lasansky clean up the crime scene, or would the Sentinels show up and find Jamie’s little body, broken apart upstairs?
She’d never been so hopeless. Not in the boxing ring. Not in the courtroom. Never. She was going to die, and she couldn’t protect anyone.
Fuck it. If she was gonna die, she wasn’t gonna do it curled up on the floor. These lukewarm killers-for-hire were the same people who tormented her daddy, and she was finally able to fight them the way she’d wanted to since she was ten years old. She’d at least go down swinging.
She struggled to push herself up against the boots and blows. Gained an inch. Another. Got knocked sideways. Pushed again.
A body hit the ground in front of her. Her other attackers paused to stare at their comrade suddenly slack on the ground. Opal didn’t have time to question it. She grabbed the tool kit and swung. It took out two of them at the knees. She rolled again to avoid one of them landing on her, and came up in a crouch.
The woman from before was already aiming at Opal. Opal jumped as hard as she could and banked off a trailer. The trailer rocked, and Jamie, perched unexpectedly on top of it, almost fell over. Not shot or beat to death. Not yet. Opal almost missed the exposed metal beams of the ceiling, but got a hand around one. The woman’s aim followed her, smoothly, still professional despite the pained noises of her fellow guards all around her.
She shot the taser up at Opal.
Opal knocked open the toolkit, sending a shower of metal down and knocking the taser’s connectors away. Electricity arced all around her.
And Opal was holding on to a big metal beam. She swung and dropped, landing on top of the truck trailer Jamie was on. Three of the guards followed her. The last three? Opal threw the empty tool kit at one of them. He staggered, but it wouldn’t keep him down for long.
He fell off the side of the truck, completely limp. Just like the other one. Jamie knelt behind Opal, Bion’s gauntlet raised.
Two left. Opal launched herself at one of them. Jamie wasn’t a superhero, but having backup and seeing at least one of her team safe stoked Opal’s fire. She and the guard traded a blur of blows, but this was where Opal was at a major disadvantage. She fell for feints, and couldn't automatically calculate leverage like the guard could.
New tactic-- teamwork. She swiveled, getting the guard between Opal and Jamie-- risky, but it worked. His attention was divided, and even though he torqued Opal’s arm around hard enough to force her to one knee, Jamie got a dart into his calf.
He might have been from a different line. He fought the tranquilizer, and for one terrifying moment, Opal thought they might have an opponent they had no good way to KO. After a breathless second, he fell, nearly dragging Opal off the side of the truck as he dropped.
But the move had cost them and distracted Opal. The woman guard from before was on Jamie, and had pinned her wrist under one bloodied boot. No more gauntlet. Jamie struggled, but she was too slow, and even going for the woman’s knees, she got no reaction. The woman drew back a fist.
Auntie’s comment about Opal punching a non-altered and them exploding raced through her mind. One punch from the guard would be all it’d take.
Another leaping tackle, and Opal hit dead-on, grabbing the guard around her open torso, knocking her halfway off the truck. The woman responded with some kind of spinning, half-airborne move Opal could barely track.
She didn’t need to take the guard down. She just had to hold her still long enough for Jamie to actually aim. Opal tried a grapple again, but was thrown off almost immediately. Opal moved behind her, trying to make her turn her unprotected back to Jamie. She grabbed; was shaken off. Punched-- was blocked. Got punched, and staggered.
She saw Jamie out of the corner of her eye. She was trying to shoot, but apparently the guard’s boot was more than the vintage tech could handle. The gauntlet was out of commission.
Opal got knocked down, but thankfully not stunned this time. She saw Jamie dig something out of one of her pockets.
It was a taser.
But they were all on a big metal box. Knocking the guard out wouldn’t do any good if they were all knocked out, too. Jamie and Opal locked eyes. Opal nodded. She rolled up as fast as she could, barely escaping a kick, and rushed Jamie. She caught Jamie around the waist and jumped.
She grabbed the ceiling beams just as Jamie discharged the taser. The guard woman had jumped after them, and Opal had to lift her legs with an unheroic squeak as their electrified attacker almost crashed into them. The woman went limp in midair, falling to the floor. Opal winced at the impact.
They dropped back to the top of the truck.
No one else came to attack.
But sound to her left drew her attention. Lasansky was bruised, bleeding, and his nose was broken, but he had a gun to Issac’s head, and was backing out of the garage. Making a run for it.
Opal moved to the edge of the truck. Lasansky screamed at her and Jamie, “Don’t try it! I will shoot him.”
Opal couldn’t get to them from here, not faster than he could pull a trigger. And they were out of weapons. They watched helplessly as he dragged Issac backwards.
Just as bloodied as Lasansky, Issac dug in his heels, fighting as much as he could with a gun to his head. He was still scared. He was also still furious.
Then his expression changed in some kind of realization as they nearly got to the door. His head snapped up, looking out the door. “Dad?!”
Lasansky spun, Issac forgotten, as he trained the gun out the door, frantically preparing to fight LodeStar.
Issac backed up just enough to slug Lasansky across the face.
The man reeled, gun lowering slightly. Issac grabbed it and backed away from Lasansky, but threw the gun on the ground. Damn it!
Jamie squirmed in Opal’s arms, then threw her gauntlet down. It hit Issac in the head, but he caught it. This was tech he knew, and he opened some invisible hatch with perfect efficiency.
Lasansky realized that LodeStar wasn’t here. Just as he was swinging around to face Issac, radiating rage, Issac threw the gauntlet at him. Tiny darts, almost too small to see, burst out of the gauntlet in a cloud of sparkly weaponized tranquility.
And Lasansky went down.
For a second, everything was still. Opal could still hear some pained noises from the other side of the garage, but nobody appeared to attack them.
They stood there, looking around, Jamie still tucked against Opal’s side. “We…won?” Opal asked.
“I…think we won,” Jamie agreed.
Issac was rifling through Lasansky’s pockets. He pulled out a little black box, and pressed Lasansky’s limp thumb to it.
He waited a moment, then stood with a relieved sigh. “And I’m back.” He turned to them. “Did one of you get that recorded?” he panted.
Jamie gave a breathless “OK” sign. “All the parts that matter.”
Issac sagged against the edge of the garage door. “We made it. Hi, Martin. We’re OK. Go ahead and send the team in.” Issac smiled at whatever answer he got. “Martin says they saw Yael on some security cameras, and they’re OK, too.”
Opal sat heavily, accidentally dragging Jamie down with her. Jamie started laughing, raggedy but loud and unrestrained. She punched the air with both hands. “We won! We actually won! We stopped the bad guys!”
Opal joined her exhausted, jubilant laughter, and after a few moments, even Issac joined in.
Opal was about to slide down off the truck and to the ground, but Jamie turned around in her arms, putting a hand on each of Opal’s shoulders. Jamie’d ended up in Opal’s lap.
She was very close.
Jamie was flushed crimson and gasping for air, a wide, proud smile still on her lips and musical laughter in her words. “Wait. Don’t go down there barefoot. I took a few of them down, but I shot a lot of darts. They’re all still down there.”
Jamie was no unfinished watercolor. There was nothing missing from her. She was radiant, fierce, and probably half out of her mind from the same victory that was singing in Opal’s veins. This was Jamie with nothing held in reserve. Beautiful.
Opal could see the exact moment Jamie noticed how close they were. Pure triumph dawned into something astonished and open and wanting. Wanting Opal.
It was a movie kiss. Burning and triumphant and hyper-real. By the time they broke apart, they were both breathless.
A little too breathless. Jamie pulled away and dug her inhaler out of her pocket with a glance of apology but a giddy grin. Opal laughed and leaned her head on Jamie’s shoulder as Jamie got herself back to rights.
They won.
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Some quick life-updates from yours truly:
Realized I was, in fact, nonbinary. Being honest with myself and being away from the internet really helped me figure that one out. I'm still largely in the closet, but I'm planning on where I go from here. I know I'm going to get top surgery or at least a reduction eventually, but that's a Future Leigh thing.
I developed a shellfish allergy which is a thing that can happen. Your body can just... decide it's allergic to shit. I know it's an immune system overreaction but wtf wtf wtf we've eaten shrimp and clams and crab our whole life wtf wtf wtf
There's the slight possibility it was a spice or the ramen I was eating them with but like. It's more than likely the fucking shellfish.
I'm currently outside of the US right now and FAR away from home. I'm not immigrating, I'm just helping a friend with some housework and also getting my first vacay in like a decade. Also I dealt with quite a bit of ableism and assumed misogyny (bc still in closet) with immigration to the point they had to bring two different women officers to deal with my sitch. Like I don't wanna spread the stereotype of men being insensitive and women being "more compassionate" or w/e but yikes. I'm struggling so hard right now not to let that asshole taint all men. I'm beating that sexism back with a fucking bat.
My cynophobia is in severe decline, at least with smaller and some medium sized dogs! Anything bigger than like a corgi still triggers me (shaking, crying, panicking, etc.) but smaller dogs are so fucking cute and fun and snuggly!!! I love when they curl up in your lap and when they roll over for tummy rubs!!! I really miss my mom's dogs right now 😭 but I have a cat here so it's kind of ok
Had some True Crime shit happen to my family. My aunt (who's always been in poor health) passed away in her sleep. Her husband had her cremated asap, threw out all of her stuff, repainted the room she slept in, and then waited a week to tell the rest of the family... by text. Originally it looked like she had died in her sleep while he was at work, but then he admitted to his daughter (who then told the fam) that he had been home all day, that he lied to police about being at work, and that he was glad she was dead.
So it's looking more and more like he killed her, or at least let her die. Like... he's always been an asshole. It's totally believable he killed her, but I hope (for everyone's sake) that he didn't and he's just being a selfish jackass who doesn't understand how sus he sounds.
My mental health has been the best it's been in years. I still have bad days (esp right now bc of the shit that happened with the border officer) but I'm kind of in awe that I'm like. Alive? Like I'm entering my late twenties. My first suicide attempt was when I was 11. I never imagined I would make it past 21. Bitch I'm still here!!! Life is not my problem, I am LIFE'S problem!
I learned how to make stroganoff and became mildly addicted to it for like a month.
Lived to see cicadas in the summer! Saw SO many!!! I think about them when winter makes me sad. They're my light at the end of the tunnel.
I ALSO SAW A BABY (ok more like a young) POSSUM!!! My dad discovered him in a box of apples we had outside. He was havin a FEAST lemme tell you. Boy went through like four apples that were about half his body size. Hell yeah.
I've currently been trying to exercise and strength train because I tried to climb a tree to get a cicada shell and yeah. I didn't even make it off the ground. Spaghetti ass arms. Right now I'm too sore from the travel (& stress & panic attack due to border issue) to see if my strength has improved, but I can definitely tell there are muscles in my arms and not just mush. Human bodies are so fucking weird and cool and shit.
I still remain uneducated and unemployed, but I actually checked out the GED study guide from the library earlier last year. I had a panic attack and ended up returning it, but... it's progress! A few years ago, I would've just passed it by. I actually opened it and looked in it and shit! Give me some more time and I'll actually be able to USE it and then get my GED and then bitche!!!! :D
I've also decided I'm going to try to become a mortician. I doubt I have the patience to become a medical examiner, but I'd still like to work with the dead (not in a creepy way, I'm just better with dead folks) AND I got some family in the business back home (here's hoping I can use nepotism to my advantage teehee) so it's a good idea. I'm not saying it'll work out, but it's a plan.
I beat Pokemon Diamond again, and Skyrim. I made like four new characters but only ended up completing one (and they became a sneak archer because of course.)
I've done a little more sewing! I'm still kinda sucky at it and my brain can not figure out how the hell a back stitch works but I'm having a lot of fun!
Ok that's all I can think of right now but yeah. I'm surprised I haven't completely lost my mind yet but hey. There's still time 😌
I'll hopefully be more active on here in the upcoming days (bc I've missed my sweet little garbage trash site and all my gay little mutuals), but right now I'm just trying to exist in as little pain as I can. Very fatigued but also incredibly sore (shoulders, back, and legs).
I'm so grateful to all the kind messages and asks you guys have sent me while I was gone, and I hope your lives have been going well. Things are tough right now for everyone, and I hope you find the strength and support you need to go on. Fucking love you guys.
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Boo! Identity Update! I'm also being a mean queer!
So, if anyone seeing this didn't know, My name used to be Miller but I was disowned by the family member who gave me that family name so..... I decided I didn't want to keep it.
I'm going by Michelangelo or just Mica for short now.
I used to identify as a transmasc nonbinary guy but I've found out recently some things about myself and I'm bored of that now.
I found out that I have an intersex condition. One of my alters was told a little while ago and just forgot to make it public within the system.
Before finding out I had been reconnecting with my femininity. While I want to medically transition, I no longer think of myself as just transmasc so I'm dropping the label.
I liked nonbinary as it's a functional umbrella term but honestly? I think I'm going to also label myself as a hermaphrodite.
With everything going on in my country right now I could honestly give less shits about using language that doesn't hurt your precious feelings so if me saying hermaphrodite scares you, suck it up butter cup. I'm here and I'm a dykefag. Cope.
I feel like I'm both a girl that grew into a guy and a guy that grew into a girl while being neither at the same time. I don't really want to use bigender or boygirl or androgynous because, sure they sound nice and the flags are pretty, but I want a label for myself that makes people feel a little uncomfortable at first. Both in and out of my community.
I sort of want these sanitized kids who are like "ALL GENDERS ARE VALID" to REALLY think about what they're saying. Do they actually believe that and not feel threatened by me reclaiming this word for myself or are they actually lying to themselves about what they stand for?
I want cis people who are in the LGBT+ community be a little squicked at first while they get used to it because god knows cis people dont get a single say in how I chose to label my identity.
I want allys and people who aren't in the community to look at this identity and feel awkward or uncomfortable.
I want to weed out people that the community shouldn't trust by how I'm treated for a label I'm reclaiming.
I'm no longer pansexual either. The flag is still cute as hell IMO but now I'm identifying with just being sexually queer. My attraction to anyone feels like male attraction, female attraction, and Other attraction all at the same time.
When I'm with a man I feel like a gay man, a straight woman, and an nbspec person being attracted all at the same time, for example.
Same thing for women and nonbinary people.
Gender isn't a factor in my attraction because I feel homosexual in the relationship regardless; its queer.
I'm queer and I want to be unapologetically queer because of the genocide going on in my country right now. I want overly sanitized children to widen their world view, I want to be visible for people who are closeted. I want to be a weirdo in public that weird kids see and feel less alone in the world. I want to be a freak in public that other adults see and are inspired by, even a little bit.
I don't want to be clean or PC. Nothing about what's happening is Clean or PC. We're all the enemy to these fuckers who want us dead, they don't see a difference in how we label ourselves. But if we're going to successfully fight these oppressors you can't be policing identities.
I don't fucking care if you don't understand it. You don't have to understand someone to respect them. Just get over yourself and move on and focus on the big problem that's being faced right now here in the USA as well as other countries going through the same shit.
If you want community, if you want family, if you want to win this fucking fight you better not say JACK FUCKING SHIT to the people who are fighting with you just because they identify with an "outdated" label, or have conflicting genders, or weird pronouns, or are "mspec lesbians, or are "lesbian men".
GET.OVER.IT!
Also, nothing against people who use the labels I've dropped (obviously). They're just not for me anymore.
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(OOC) ASK GUIDE
[Donate Bits] is the ask button! And here's a little guide on what to ask, what's off limits and other things
This is all mostly framed in Twitch streams! So get creative with your ask messages!
What's Allowed
Risqué/NSFW questions (As a reminder this IS an AU of a show with a demographic targeted towards minors, so PLEASE keep them at most to a minimum. Even with the main cast sans Blythe and classmates being adults who do Adult Things, I do not want to contribute to exposing minors to questionable content)
Any asks regarding personal aspects about the askees (relationship stuff, personal anecdotes, anything about past events that happened before the events of the askblog, etc)
What's Not Allowed
Anything implying roleplay! This is mostly an interactive story, not to mention from a somewhat parasocial relationship between Viewer (asker) and Content Creator (person being asked), so, try to keep this set within the idea of a livesteam (with some exceptions of course)
Any hate speech or discourse asks. Like. C'mon this an LPS AU Askblog, be realistic. (My stance is TERFS fuck off, all queer identities are valid identities, and queer slurs are tight as hell. Also endos and proship DNI)
4th wall breaks (if you MUST ask something 4th wall breaking, I guess go ahead but keep it to a minimum if not at all.)
FAQ
"Can I kin [x]"
No. While these are just altered versions of canon characters, they still are different enough for me to consider them original characters, not to mention, as a system, most if not all of them are alters within the system and therefore, too real to me to be treated as a kin object.
"Can I self insert/have [x] be an F/O?"
Same as before, no. Again, system members who are too important to me to want to have someone they don't know date a personal depiction of them, if not them entirely.
"Can I use your art as an icon?"
Sure, I don't mind! Just be sure to credit either this account or my main art account @/dreamscape-popstar
"What is the posting schedule?"
Despite being a plural with people literally living in the brain, we are bodily still one person so the schedule will be when we have the energy to answer asks. The fatigue is chronic so, just be patient with us.
"Can I make fanart?"
Yes!! I think fanart would be lovely! As long as you aren't drawing anything heinous like proship shit or erasing ethnic features. And be sure to tag me
This will be updated as we go along so, keep your eyes peeled for that. If you have anything to ask about the AU or characters, mark it with an OOC beforehand, but don't be too generous with your asks because somethings will be answered as the askblog progresses.
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TW: This post is going to be about my experiences as a teacher. This is going to include discussions of covid, child abuse, workplace negligence, and sucidality.
Well, got back on this lovely little hellsite for the first time in about 2 years yesterday. I left here around the time that I had decided to leave teaching. I talked a bit back then about how horrifically oppressive the school system is to students (which is still something I'm pissed about) But I wasn't ready to talk about a lot of the other aspects of the system that disturbed me. I thought I had bipolar disorder because I went through a severe depression and the meds I was put on to cope with that put me through a manic episode which was in some ways scarier than the depressive episode. I haven't had an episode in either direction since leaving. I mention this so you understand how fucked my situation was even if you don't read any farther. I do hope someone reads farther though even though its gonna be a depressing read because I need people to know how horrific it is to work in education, especially rural education.
So here's an exhaustive list of every fucked up aspect of my time as a teacher:
1. Within the first few weeks of being a teacher, a student confided in me about being beaten at home. Of course, I reported it and a few days later the caseworker assigned to that student informed my colleagues and I that the state did find evidence of violence against the student but that it was leaving the student in the home "because the student was 17 and had a history of drug use so there would be no foster families willing to take him." The student was beaten again to the point of ending up in the hospital and the state locked up his stepfather for a few months but left him in the home again with his mother who had let said abuse happen. This is not the worst case of a student experiencing violence at home and not being removed after we reported it that I witnessed. Just the first. I was powerless to help any of them because the safety net they were supposed to have outside of us when horrific shit happens, just...wasn't there.
2. As discussed before I left, I realized that even though I happened to have liked school when I was in, its fucked up how micromanaged every second of the day is for students and how they have no say over what they are learning about. Its fucked up that they are trained to be blindly obedient and forced to stay in spaces and interact with people that cause them suffering.
3. This is pretty specific to the fact that I was in a student self-paced rural alternative school but I was the only science and health teacher both years, the math teacher my first year and the art teacher my second. In a class period with 16 students, it was common for students to be working on 7 different courses. Which would have been fine, I had experience in college running that class structure, but I had no textbooks, no lab materials unless I bought them, very few math and art supplies, and I had to make all of my lesson materials and all 20 curricula from scratch because the curricula I had been handed by my predecessor had been written in 1993 and never updated. Between teaching, meetings, grading, curricula building, classroom upkeep and lab setup I was there every day from 5 am to 7pm at least and often also came in for a few hours on Saturdays.
4. When Covid hit and we all went remote, I spent every day staring at my own face on a webcam for 7 hours because none of the students showed up at all to any of their classes despite us calling the parents we could reach every day and sending emails every day. A few students completed a couple of assignments early on over email but even that didn't happen after a while. I didn't blame them, I know a lot of them were trapped in hell being stuck at home and the rest considered school hell but it fucks with your psyche to spend 35 hours a week forced to stare at yourself on a screen on the slimmest chance someone will show up for 2 months straight.
5. On the last day of school my first year, a parent called and yelled at me about her daughter not getting a science credit and having a 10% in my class. She claimed I never reached out. I pointed out that her daughter refused to do work in my class long before lockdown despite every effort on my part, which she(the parent) knew about based on previous conferences we'd had about this very behavior and forwarded her every email I sent her over the course of lockdown with work she could have done and links to my class zoom meeting if she'd wanted face-to-face help and pointed out every phone call we made. She went to my principal to demand an extension for her daughter into the summer which my principal granted so I got to spend Even More Time staring at my own face because Surprise surprise, her daughter still didn't show up or complete any assignments but I didn't recieve further berating from that parent about it at least.
6. When we went back to in person teaching I was the only adult in the building who took the mask mandate seriously so my classroom was the only one where students were wearing masks at all and I had to fight them tooth and nail about it because my roommate's son was immunocompromised and could not afford to get sick but because I was the only teacher fighting that battle, it got harder and harder instead of easier and a lot of students I had built good relationships with the previous year started to hate me for being so strict and I had to go get that test where they shoved a swab all the way up into your sinus cavity every single week until the vaccine came out. When I opened up to my colleagues about the stress this was causing me and why I cared so much (which I really didn't feel like I should have had to justify in the first place), they told me to "relax about it, kids aren't even the ones dying," entirely ignoring that I was in direct contact with a kid who could have, in fact, died from it. This was the straw that caused me to put in my resignation.
7. All of the above put me in a mental state where I had to call a suicide hotline and take an emergency few days off work because I couldn't physically get myself out of bed. I got put on those meds that made me manic but they take a few weeks to kick in at all and I contractually could not take that long off and couldn't have afforded to do so anyways so still in full-blown suicidal depression, my first day back was Parent Teacher Conference Night, which is exhausting and terrible at the best of times. My principal knew I was mentally unwell and had told me if I needed any accommodation as I readjusted to let her know so I asked if I could sit out conferences or at the very least have someone else in the room with me since the school was so small that every teacher had every student. She said no, that it was a privacy issue (which was untrue because we did whole-staff parent meetings All The Time for students with particularly concerning behaviors and because again we all taught everyone and had daily staff meetings about student progress and concerns so we all knew everything about everyone but even so she could have been the one to sit with me) I pointed all of this out and she told me, "Well being a teacher isn't about you, you have to put the students above yourself." When I had been doing that nonstop for two years to the point that I was in the mental hole I was in. I was in such a fucked up place that a lot of the parents noticed it and tried to check in on me as I started falling asleep or forgot what I was saying midsentence.
8. When I did my exit interview at the end of the year my principal told me that I was a great teacher and she hoped I'd return to the field someday even if it was in a different setting because students deserved someone who was constantly the voice in the room advocating for them even when their own parents and other teachers stopped doing so. This was the first meeting I ever had where I was told I was a good teacher rather than being constantly told what i should be improving on as I drowned trying to even lay a foundation for myself.
Despite everything it still breaks my heart to realize it will never be healthy for me to go back to teaching even if I was in a district with better supports because of how much trauma I've been left with and because of how jaded about the entire system i am. I loved the teaching part of my job. I loved those moments where students showed me projects they were proud of and when they finally understood concepts that had them stuck. I loved empowering students to make positive decisions and to come out of their shells in my class. I loved when I managed to create lessons that hit that learn something-have fun sweet spot. I loved when I was able to let students incorporate their real interests into what we were learning or even let them be the experts on a topic. I still have art students gave me. I know despite it grinding me down to a husk of myself, I was good teacher and I could have eventually been an excellent one. Its true that Teaching is more than a job, its a calling. But I'm no use to anyone dead.
#i had a therapist during all of this and she didnt even have any advice#she just kept being like yeah thats a fucked up situation and being Not Okay is the normal reaction to being in the middle of all that#also i lied this list wasnt exhaustive#i didnt even talk about the bomb threat that happened or the fuckery I learned about on the district level#and this of course also doesnt touch on the gender dysphoria and family rejection i was facing for being trans#or the fact that i was living in a homophobic antiatheist town as a gay atheist
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time for ep 7
where is sucy
studious akko is here
creature from the black lagoon refs
just a random screenshot cuz i noticed diana and barbara are at the front but kinda removed from everyone else, or at least diana is. wonder where hannah is
iconic diana shot (not gonna lie, i dont actually like this frame lmao)
akko moment
fuck off lady
imagining being thrown into a language class with a bunch of heritage speakers of that language and you’re the only one who’s never spoken it once in your life
all this rewatch is doing is making me really really appreciate akko lol
was about to say if a C is her worst grade shes not actually that bad of a student but then realized this is probably based off the japanese academic grading system wherein a C falls between 60–69% and thats a D in the US and i’m not even gonna bother trying to understand all the different UK-based grading systems lmao
akko face
lmao this is so stupid and yea its played up for laughs but like she did good! like cmon shes never tried magic before coming to luna nova so this is actually commendable
wish we could have seen what diana did lol
imagine going to witch school just to become a plastic surgeon
can we talk about alic kelly
imagine if we actually got an episode where amanda dragged everyone to a club lol
mushroom juice
good akko faces... also this scene was basically me in college any time i told myself i’d take a quick nap while pulling an all-nighter lol
yea
pipe bomb akko
akko just pissed off astrology girls everywhere
gotta wonder in which way diana’s prediction was supposed to go. like imagine if she was fucking around and meant it quite literally in that she would just leave campus versus hannah and barbara saying she’s gonna drop out
hell, imagine if diana saw her own shared future of akko going after her at the manor lol
still don’t understand how only akko gets in trouble here
lol akko
this is so dumb
how to uplift your students and definitely not bring down their self-esteem, a book by anne finnelan
ok a little admission to make here - the first time i watched this episode i was high and i could not stop laughing at the professor pisces reveal. this whole episode is def one of my favorites
the premise of this whole episode is just so absolutely ridiculous, i love it so much
akko you gay baby
like cmon this is probably the funniest fuckin scene in the entire series
just some looney toons level shit lmao
and props to asenshi for making this pun
do you think ursula thought she might lose her job during this episode?
this episode really solidified this as one of my all-time favorite series lmao
this is why she’s akko’s mom
she did it
esteemed luna nova professors
this episode is just one of the best episodes for showing off what a good little bean akko is. like they’d been screwed even worse if akko had listened to lotte and left the fish family to the poacher
ursula could’ve coward’d her way out of this like later on when akko goes missing, but...
... she stood up for her and despite everything else later on. and look at akko’s face at that 🥺
i didn’t notice for the longest time that every time we see a newspaper after episode 3, we get an update on the shooting star
get owned finnelan
not so fast
this must have been the most hellish week in entirety of akko’s life at luna nova
🥺 🥺 🥺
ok and thats it
i said it above, but this is for sure one of my favorite episodes of the series and it just encompasses a lot of what’s fun about lwa. idk to me when i first watched it, it was like a massive dose of serotonin while i was going through a bit of a very hectic and stressful time and just everything about the show was just something that made me happy
lol wow can’t believe the girl who strove to make people happy with her magic… makes people happy… with her magic
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About
Look it, see the little wolf creature? That is ‘me’. She is also my OC and self insert with in the series. :D She’s one of his creations and yes they have a very heavy master/pet relationship, while I don’t get much into that here. Bare in mind it my come up. So soft block me you need to.
With that said; I am a real adult. I may talk about adult things here. If you are not comfortable with that do not follow. I am not your dad. I can not monitor your internet interactions. But block/flag/whatever you do with a ‘NSFW’ tag if that kind of thing makes you uncomfortable but you still want to follow me. I know the whole “minors do not follow” is not as enforceable as it SHOULD be and you kids are gonna do whatever you want- fuck the police. This is my first and only warning. lmao.
Second, I am like. Not.. ‘hip with the kids’. I do not know all the terms and I also can not monitor or be up to date what is.. ‘bad’ with in fandom. I also kind of don’t care, lol. If someone I reblog or someone who follows me did something you don’t like or don’t agree with it is not my responsibility to keep track of others actions.
The Basics:
Hey there, I'm Tala or Grunge, or whatever. I'm a real adult over the age of 35 (that's all your getting. I am probably old enough to be your weird crazy aunt/uncle.) My F/O and spirit husband is Alhaz!ad/Alhazre!d. I often call him “Al” here or “Aub”.
INFJ, Scorpio, I'm trans-masc, trans-male/ftm and stealth irl.
Trans rights are human rights, and Protect Trans Kids
I draw, a lot, and paint. My hobbies also include hiking, working on my house, gardening, landscaping, spending time with my family, cooking, reading, and writing. I do take commissions - so if you’d like me to draw or paint you f/o. Look at my commissions :}.
Metal health check; ADHD/ASD - dx’d, in the early 90s. iirc. Retested and diagnosed with ADHD in 2022. Currently seeking treatment for it. Medication has been like night and day for me. So, fellow Autistics and ADHD’s. Welcome. I am negativing them both and it’s been a TIME. There are sighs of OSDD/DID. I have tried talking again and again with therapists making 100% Al is not apart of that; while when channeling him the symptoms are similar; he doesn’t fit the criteria.
Some what of a witch, well. I kind of do what works for me. There are *plenty* of other witch based blogs you’d wanna follow for those resources. This blog is more or less centered around my relationship with Aub. (Alhazred/Alhazad).
Before any judgments here that I might be some loser living in my parent’s basement. ...lol. No. I’m a real adult doing well on my own with a whole ass house, job, and car and all that neat stuff. You can be ficto and be independent, free, and happy. It took a tonne of work to get this far. And it was worth every penny.
Uh... I’ll update this as I get time. yes yes.
DNI:
DNI: It should go with out saying; MAPS, pedos, zoos, Nazis, TERFS, and any else of the sort. Nope. :| If you're a HP fan and still support Robert you can go get fucked.
I'm also mildly scarred/due to trauma and it's hard to see DBZ (the saiyans), FF9, or PPG. I’m not saying *your* versions of said characters are bad, it’s just ahahaha.
System hoping is a grey area; you do what works for you. But-....if you are gonna come into my DM or Asks telling me how Aub visited you and did this and that and some bullshit magical adventure or slept with you or is involved in some astral war. I will block you and he will personally make your life a living hell. Don't do that shit to me, or anyone else for that matter.
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this doubles as my mmo blog so i'm going to rant here
i quit xiv quite a bit of time ago (i even gave up a lovingly decorated house) because i hated endwalker so much it was just unbearable so i played gw1 and 2 instead, but i always had this idea of "i will probably come back eventually, not for the next expac, but maybe the one after that. or even in 5, or 10 years if the direction improves and cbu3 proves they aren't creatively bankrupt anymore"
but hey! squeenix has pretty much killed any notion of that. on top of the godawful graphical update (i'm a duskwight! spoiler: they were lazy and reused the new wildwood facial textures for us instead of giving us proper new textures, on top of re-sculpting the face in a way that completely ruins it) that kills all the charm the game's graphics had for me, now i see squeenix has decided to fuck over southeast asian players and tell us they don't want us in their game so thoroughly by introducing new bullshit to their payment system (actually why do we even need to give our address to play the game outside of billing address???) while so many are waiting eagerly to play the expac that appears to...draw upon southeast asia for some inspiration???
like, southeast asia was never supported but so many of us loved the game so much as to find workarounds to keep playing and stay subbed but. here's a fucking door slam in the face ig
honestly at this point, i can't even rely on fond memories anymore. it's all just trash in my head now. the gameplay is shit. the story is shit. the characters have been exaggerated to hell and back. what do you even have anymore but a gem so polished it's lost all shine
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Tell me why I didn't make a more recent folder backup than March 10th for my SSD with all my Sims saves and mods to die on me randomly overnight about 12 days ago and only yesterday did I get a new drive.
Am I really gonna spend hundreds to recover data from it? Yes. Yes I am. Am I gonna figure out a system to automatically backup that folder every fucking night afterwards? Yes.
March 10th isn't terrible but it also is.
Telling you as who else is gonna understand this plight lmao.
Explaining the importance of this on the phone to some guy working at a company for data recovery was something else. Yes Sims saves and mods and screenshots are that important to me.
Why is my most recent screenshot in my backups of Alex and Jack fucking, why. I'm sorry data recovery people you're gonna see my Sims fucking 100 ways to Sunday.
I guess I have excuses to write and work on art in the meantime.
I seem to have Sims 2 and 3 and Castaway Stories backups that are up to date as I haven't played those in while but I have to reinstall them all again and I am so sick of setting up my graphics card in 20 different text files for every Sims 3 pack man. Maybe in half a year when I get bored enough.
Relevantly I've probably said this before as I repeat myself a lot but I use Sims builds for story references so much, I usually try to imagine a baseline in my head first and then build something based on it and fully flesh it out so I can better imagine rooms and shit in writing in something rigid versus it always shifting around based on fuzzy memory. Plus it gives me an excuse to use all the super specific CC I've made. It's even made good art refs as I am fucking terrible at architecture and perspective.
My guy I would choose DEATH before letting ANYBODY see my jalex sims fucking you are braver than any US marine fr
Like I started reading this like “dude I set up my apocalyptic save file the day before the last patch update so I feel you” but your WHOLE DRIVE??? I’d die. I’d start fresh. I am never getting that save back and that’s unfortunate but I will fr die before I let any tech people see my sims save
Tbf I start new saves all the time so like not as big a deal to me, but I also just,,, don’t hold onto my screenshots
Like I’m deleting that folder every three days because there’s no way in hell it’s getting seen
That and I take a lot of accidental screenshots
As for builds, there’s probably been a sims 4 build for every single building, house, apartment, dorm, or motel room for every fic I’ve ever written INCLUDING oneshots
My attention span is negative two so I will start a build, get an idea for another build and leave the first build unfinished until I get bored with the next three builds and that is entirely reflected in my writing as well
#I fr hope you get your save back#all those mods 💀💀💀💀#I have a long running save file now which is CRAZY but all I really had to do was let my game become a little unhinged#rip sim Travis Barker you would’ve loved the sims 4 bands pack were never gonna get#I want a bands pack for the sims 4 SO FUCKING BAD#they’re gonna do bands so dirty and it’ll NEVER WORK#but I need drums in my sims four game#it’s not a want it’s a need#neon answers#lightning plays the sims
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