Ok before i finish the game does anyone want to tell me if i missed any pearls so i don't have to go back and forth AGAIN

I come out of saint play sessions physically exhausted bc I'm so tense and stressed while playing LMAO

A piece for all of March.

All days and what parts of the picture they are under the cut.

White numbers will indicate each day. If it is hard to find a day list is below.

1. Rivulet is within Moon’s chest around her rarefaction cell.

2. Moon’s body is also submerged.

3. Chimney canopy is to the left of Pebbles.

4. Within the tower to the right of Moon, Saint wields a fire spear.

5. On Pebbles’ lower leg Gourmand holds a fire egg.

6. In the left corner Monk sits with a lizard.

7. Gourmand is crafting on Pebbles’ leg.

8. Saint is within the tower right of Moon.

9. The red pipe down in the left corner.

10. Worm grass Down by the first tram cart on the bottom layer.

11. A scavenger holds a lantern under Pebbles’ lifted leg.

12. There are many glow weed bulbs littered around Moon’s body.

13. Pebbles is slightly left from the middle of the work. His entire body is counted.

14. A leviathan is swimming slightly to the left of Moon.

15. There is a small collection of spiders on Pebbles’ right arm.

16. The symbol for the monk is painted to the far left of the piece. Monk is not far from it.

17. Utop Pebbles’ right antenna Artificer faces off with scavenger chieftain with bombs.

18. Below Moon in a pipe a monster kelp fights spears.

19. In chimney canopy and the line closet to Pebbles, Hunter is befriending squidcadas with the saint symbol behind them.

20. Down below Pebbles just before the tram way two scavengers walk. One holds a beehive.

21. Chieftain scavenger fights artificer with only spears. Survivor on Moon’s knee also wields a spear.

22. Hanging from Pebbles’ lifted knee, lantern mice scamper and stare.

23. There is a pearl in the shoreline tower, right at the top. Survivor also holds a pearl.

24. A grand long legs climbs out of the garbage wastes tucked close to the right of Pebbles.

25. There is a 3rd karma symbol with the pair of scavengers, their communication can also be seen as the 3rd karma.

26. in the Pipes beneath Moon. Spearmaster is creating spears as they fight the monster kelp.

27. Up in chimney canopy under the king vulture, Nightcat or the watcher is backflipping to stab a blue lizard.

28. The entire image is technically an anniversary picture.

29. Nightcat or the Watcher is up in chimney canopy fighting a blue lizard.

30. There are three overseers spread out in the picture one observing monk, this is Moon’s overseer. One observing Hunter in chimney canopy, this is NSH’s overseer. One is on the shoreline tower looking towards Moon, this is Pebbles’ overseer.

31. On Pebbles’ waist to the right, rot surrounds a chamber indicating unfortunate development.

Hewwo!

For ask about rain world

questions: 3,7,8,9

have a great day! ^w^

Nice to see you again! Since they're gonna be long again, the answers are below the cut! I also think I'm gonna have to do this in two parts because of the length, so I'll link the other half when it's done!

For a quick warning, there are some pretty big Rivulet and Saint campaign spoilers down below!

And again, here's the full questionnaire for reference!

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

3. What is your favorite region?

For me, my answer depends on what the criteria for "favorite" is. I'll give 2 answers - one from a gameplay perspective, and one from a concept/artistic perspective.

Gameplay-wise, my favorite region is actually Industrial Complex! I feel it acts best as a personal hub area, and there's two reasons for this.

Industrial Complex is the most strategically located region. To elaborate, I've come to the conclusion that, at least when you start as Survivor, Monk, or Spearmaster, Industrial is approximately equidistant from every other region in terms of how many Karma Gates you have to pass to reach other areas. You have the Outskirts gate, and from there you can go to Farm Arrays and Drainage System, the Chimney Canopy gate which you can use to get to Sky Islands and The Wall, the Garbage Wastes gate which you can use to reach Shoreline, then Submerged Superstructure/Looks to the Moon or Subterranean, and the Shaded Citadel gate which takes you to the Leg, and later Five Pebbles after going through the Underhang. This means that from Industrial every region except Outer Expanse and Metropolis can be reached in 2 gates or less. All of these also exist in vanilla RW, but in Downpour you get a direct link to Pipeyard on top of that, if you like to go for the Wanderer passage like I do!

Of all the regions, Industrial Complex is also a favorite because, to me, it's the least annoying region besides Outskirts. Some are are cool conceptually or fun in certain situations, but with nearly every other region in the game I either don't like them in general — usually due to a mix of uncomfortable terrain layouts, environmental hazards, or annoying enemies — (like Shaded Citadel, Pipeyard, and Shoreline), or in cases like Chimney Canopy, I've had so many bad experiences with them that my resulting opinion has since downgraded noticeably.

Combine these two details with how, as Survivor, Monk, Spearmaster, Artificer, and Gourmand it's a very early-game region that you can go to pretty much immediately, I just think it makes a very good hub-region where I can relax and gain my bearings before moving onward to harder areas.

Now, favorite region in terms of concept?

Definitely has to be Five Pebbles and Looks to the Moon, in all their incarnations (though if I had to pick a favorite version, I think I'd choose the Rot). Seriously, can we just take a moment to appreciate the immensely creative and totally awesome idea that is a sapient city-sized partially organic mechanical superstructure with god-like status? What other game can you say even has anything close to that, be it organic or mechanical? It's honestly part of the reason I enjoy the iterators so much, not even just as characters, but as an incredibly unique "species" that's very fun to explore conceptually.

It was even cooler when, recently, I realized every region in the game (besides perhaps Outskirts, Outer Expanse, and Farm Arrays) is directly connected to the iterator superstructures and, for the most part, used to serve them in some way, once again supporting my idea that they really are central to Rain World's "story". It was so fun trying to piece together what each of the regions used to be and how they assisted Pebbles and Moon, such as Industrial Complex being Side House that gave Pebbles his holy ash, or Sky Islands being his or Moon's main communications arrays. I still remember how excited I was when I realized the Precipice was the bridge the green Metropolis pearl talked about that connected Moon and Pebbles, and that the mysterious metal tower things in the background of Shoreline were the broken beams of the bridge! I don't know, seeing things change over time is also a theme I tend to fancy.

Now, while floating through the Recursive Transform Array or trying to navigate the Cystic Conduit (another area I really don't like for its pipe layout, enemies, and water hazards) isn't exactly my favorite way to play, It's mesmerizing watching the Tesla coils flicker, or seeing the many neurons floating around like schools of fish and making those weird high-pitched whistle-y noises, or listening to the mechanical hum of the deeper parts of the structure, or hearing that mysterious pounding heartbeat (seriously, where is it coming from? Is this to suggest somewhere deep in the structure there is a massive organic heart beating, or some weird heart-like thing pumping... something??).

I want to expand on what I said about the Rot, too. For some context I didn't play through Five Pebbles the first time blind, so I wasn't as captivated by the iterators as a concept then. But this past Thanksgiving I was doing my first Rivulet playthrough and MAN, have I never been more uncomfortable yet fascinated playing a video game as when I was running through the Rot, especially since I, in completionist fashion, was determined to explore every part of it before progressing. Every time I saw the stationary rot cysts (and wasn't running from DLLs) and collapsed rubble with some of the old rooms still recognizable my heart went out to Pebbles so much, and I couldn't stop thinking about what it must feel like for him, literally rotting from the inside out, and what he must be thinking knowing he brought it upon himself and now he really is going to die with no way to stop it. I tend to really admire when art can truly convey a particular idea and the corresponding emotions very well, and I'd say the Rot does that best of all the regions, mainly given the context of everything else that led up to it. And best of all, I think it serves as a major positive turning point for Five Pebbles character-wise, so it even has a silver lining to it!

So yeah, the iterators are my favorite regions in terms of the idea and art of it!

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

7. What is your favorite song from the soundtrack?

This may sound like a bit of a boring choice, but I've always loved "Pictures of the Past", honestly, and by extent "The Cycle" for reasons I'll explain soon. Firstly, I enjoy how, besides the Sundown theme, it's the very first thing you hear in the game, and it's so short yet good at conveying the emotions of the initial Survivor intro cutscene. It's nice to listen to, having a clear emotion but not super intense.

Secondly, something about this song just fits its source material very well. Going back to what I said above about how I like art that conveys an idea really well, I think "Pictures of the Past" just does such a good job of selling that feeling of being a small, strange creature in a huge and even stranger world so artificially changed by a long-gone civilization, yet still slowly returning to the wilds. It sounds sad in a way, yet very wondrous too, and those last notes as the song slows down are like the perfect invitation to explore this new world! Every time I listen to it, it reminds me of how Rain World was like at first, before Downpour and all the expansion on the iterators, when it was just that little creature in an urban world they can't understand.

The third reason I like it so much, and why I enjoy "The Cycle" as well is because it's my favorite example of the "Sundown" leitmotif, which can also be heard in "Random Gods", "Moondown", and "Deep Light" among other songs. If you've read some of my previous posts you can probably already tell I strongly enjoy when elements of a story have some kind of poetic, thematic, or narrative significance, so as a result I really enjoy leitmotifs in art when they're used to help convey a running theme or different perspectives of the same idea. Thus, I naturally gravitated to this one once I discovered it. For a while I've also been trying to develop a personal interpretation of what this particular leitmotif means. I came to the conclusion a while ago that it could in some way represent the Great Cycle or the idea of cycles in general, and while I still have to develop this idea, my suspicion that this is what that leitmotif represents has all but been confirmed upon understanding the soundtrack song, "The Cycle".

Upon hearing this tune in my first Saint playthrough I already loved it, because it sounded so final and emotional and fitting for the last part of this grand story. and the fact it plays around the iterator chamber in Rubicon just further added to the feels and the finality of it all, and made my heart go out to Five Pebbles and Looks to the Moon one more time. To me, it sounds exactly like how they must feel, finally understanding the problem they both worked so hard to solve, yet not being upset, instead having made peace with all the tragedy they've faced, accepting their place in the Great Cycle, and finally ready to move on to the next part; somewhat sad that it's over and they can't go back, yet somehow at peace too. So afterwards I searched for the name of the song to listen to it again, and upon finding it I lost my mind when I discovered it's a reversed and edited version of "Pictures of the Past"! Like, dude, I already loved this song as a sweet send-off to Moon, Pebbles, and Rain World as an experience, and now you're telling me it's the same song as the very first one we hear when we first start playing, thus ending the game by sending us back to where it all began? No wonder it's called "The Cycle" — there's no real end, it really does start all over again in a great big cycle! And it seems like, at this point in the story, Five Pebbles and Looks to the Moon have finally realized it's not something to run from or try to escape. They really have made peace with it, and then it starts all over again.

So, yeah, in short "Pictures of the Past" and "The Cycle" are my favorite OST tracks, because they are fun to listen to, convey the feelings of their corresponding scenes very well, and have deep narrative significance through being intertwined with and parallels to each other, functioning as the perfect beginning and ending of Rain World both as a story and as a game experience.

1 to 5 for rain world asks (:

1: when'd you start playing Rainworld? According to my steam library, 21 Apr 2017!

2: Have you completed the game? Which of the campaigns have you completed? Yes! And no! I have not touched a single campaign of the dlc that i paid for! All that money truly did go to just having Double Jump Slugcat back. Wistful sigh! I have finished Survivor's campaign though, mostly because its a requirement to unlock Hunter's, and THAT'S the one i'm always playing on for my pearl runs or random touring around the world. I forget if I finished Hunter's... I enjoy playing so much that I usually have mods to extend the cycles for Hunter. Never touched Monk <z3 I love him but i don't rlly care for playing an easy mode version of RW

3: What is your favorite region? Never ask me that <3 one thing about me is i'll never make a decision in my life let alone will I pick a favourite. Visually, Garbage Wastes stood out to me heavily. It is a disgusting, ugly, rotten place and i froth that shit. This shit look like scumdoggia out here. This place look like gwar lore. Yknow. Absolutely nasty place. I'm in there right now on my current pearl run! With two babies x.x Industrial Complex is also up there, if only because that was the first place I learned like the back of my hand and it has the best song in the entire game at its entrance. "Level" two of the game, and already we have the best song in it. Stellar experience. Also introduced me to Blue Lizards, which are one of my most beloved Lizard types &lt;333 Shoreline might also be somewhere up there.... Maybe... It's frustrating though. But a distinctly beautiful place all on its own. I LOVE stormy (cloudy in this case) waters. Its [spoiler] subregion is where i store all my pearls that i collect!

4: What is your least favorite region? This one's also hard, but... Look, i don't think i'm aware enough of game design for each region. EVERY region has fucked me over at one point with some intended or accidental game bullshit (scavs stabbing garbage worms affects YOUR reputation with them fun fact.... ugh) but i still go to all of them for their pearls or unlocks, and i must have some semblance of fun doing it cause i keeeep doing it! Maybe in world design... Filtration System? It's not exactly a linear region (vanilla Farm Arrays..........) but it does have an "end point", and i found it pretty easy to vibes-memorise my way through that place even without any light sources. The darkness is a real bloody challenge in Shaded Citadel, but it's also a feature and i can appreciate it there, somewhat. In Filtration System it's just kind of annoying on my eyes. I dunno, maybe i should go play all campaigns and take notes to really sus this one out. Edit: it's fucking Farm Arrays straight up Farm Arrays im there rn i hate it here and its 90% the rain deers fault

5: What is your favorite creature? THE DREADED FAVOURITISM QUESTION!! FUCK Lizards: Blue & Orange. Pink is also up there All Scavengers!! I LOVE their design, even if we are mortal enemies in gameplay...... Leviathans are also dope, and I am a friend of all Hazers and Lantern Mice, short of making them my meals, that is. I like to save them from water/save them from land This game is VERY GOOD at making bugs feel like bugs and making my skin crawl. Hell if i'm gonna put any of the bastards on this list but i figured i'd mention that i appreciate it..... And Scugpups :) my babies

neither calm nor quiet

BTHB: Trapped In A Net

warnings: miscommunication, past familial and domestic abuse mentions, injury, violence, terrible decision making skills

-

When Virgil finally decided to brave shallower waters, it had already been nearly half a moon cycle since Logan had vanished.

He’d made excuses at first, telling himself that the dread he felt was just his normal brand of overwrought paranoia. For the first few days, he was half-convinced that his curiosity-prone friend would appear at any moment, probably lugging some sort of stray litter or ‘interesting human artifact’ along with him to explain why he’d been late.

Things would be normal again. Virgil would find some rocks for them to sun on and Logan would ramble on about the potential uses of his find, and maybe Virgil would teasingly suggest some outlandish way the trash was secretly a violent human weapon, just to hear Logan thoroughly refute it.

After another three days passed with no sign of the other selkie, Virgil was forced to let that fantasy fade. Logan had never been this late before, not even that time he’d managed to carry an entire minifridge along with him for Virgil to identify.

Something had to have happened to him.

He’d spent the next week scouring the currents for any sign of his missing friend, even approaching other pods and asking around, requesting that they keep an eye out for any signs of Logan. He didn’t expect much from that; the two of them didn’t socialize with other selkies often enough to make any friends, and their two-person pod was too small to spare any food during winter, so there was nothing for the other pods to gain by helping them.

Virgil knew better than most how selfish pod politics could be.

Every few days, he would return to their meeting spot and catch a few hours of sleep to keep himself from crashing, always naively hoping that Logan would be there when he woke. He never was.

In the end, he had to face what he’d already known from the beginning: either Logan was dead, or he’d gone onland and gotten himself bound by a human.

He didn’t want to believe Logan had decided to brave the human world even after Virgil’s many, many warnings against it, but believing the alternative was even worse. So, he steeled himself to do the one thing he’d sworn to never do again, and headed for the cold, rocky shores of the nearest human settlement.

Naturally, he spent so long swimming back and forth between different stretches of beach, trying to force himself to take those literal first steps, that he didn’t notice the woven fibers dancing in the water until he’d plowed right into them.

A fishing net, dyed skillfully to blend in with the water, and large enough that when he tried to twist out of it, he only became further entangled.

Panic set in, then, clouding his mind and leaving him thrashing ineffectively like a simple animal. He couldn’t help it-- he couldn’t breathe underwater in either form, had no gills to keep him steady as he was dragged along by the current. He couldn’t untangle himself while adrift, couldn’t find solid ground while tangled. He would drown.

Between one blink and the next, he found himself in open air, gritty sand pressed against his face. Waves crested gently around him, a sharp contrast to the headache pounding around in his skull.

He never thought he’d be relieved about blacking out and beaching himself, but then, he’d never been worried about drowning in his own element before.

Okay. There weren’t any humans around to see the stupid idiot seal stuck on the beach. This was still salvageable.

Taking a deep breath, he attempted to bite through the netting with his incisors, and got a mouthful of sore gums for his trouble. The dyed fibers seemed to be woven around a base net of fishing wire, because of course they were. He let his head thunk back to the sandy ground, groaning at the new surge of pain the motion caused.

Sun-warmed saltwater continued to wash over his tail, and he blinked slowly, measuring his breaths. He could figure this out. He wouldn’t dry out. He just needed a moment to put himself back together. He could… He…

His eyelids grew heavy, and everything went dark.

-

Roman thought the guy was a pile of garbage at first, to be quite honest.

Not on purpose, of course! But, come on, when one sees a mound of mystery washed up on shore, it generally ends up being a bunch of tangled old fishing nets wrapped around half-rotted driftwood, not a bunch of tangled old fishing nets wrapped around beautiful strangers wearing expensive-looking fur coats!

His next thought, once he’d gotten closer, was that the beautiful stranger wearing the expensive-looking fur coat was dead, and that a body had washed up on his little strip of shoreline. Pallid skin, blue lips, and deep shadows under their eyes-- the beautiful stranger wasn’t exactly giving off an aura of vim and vigor.

He’d spent a few moments staring at his contact list, trying to figure out what in the world he was supposed to do about a body. Should he call 911? … Should he call Remus?

Before he could make a decision either way, he finally picked up on the shallow rise and fall of the beautiful stranger’s chest, and realized that they were still alive! Potentially not for much longer, laying out in the cold all soggy like that, but Roman could work with mostly alive!

And so, he found himself here, carefully carrying the small but surprisingly dense stranger up to his home by the cliffs, and risking looking like a total serial killer doing it.

He couldn’t help but theorize as he walked. A beautiful stranger in expensive clothing, tangled in nets with what appeared to be a head wound… It read like an old unsolved case in a detective novel, where the mysterious stranger in question got in too deep with some dangerous people and ended up clubbed over the head and dumped into a river to tie up loose ends.

“Except you managed to survive, obviously,” Roman said to them, mostly to reassure himself. He really had to stop eavesdropping on Remus’s true crime podcasts. “And you made your way to me! Excellent choice, I’m great at nursing people back to health. Probably. I don’t have much practical experience, but, you know, I’ve read extensively about this exact thing. In romance novels. As one does.”

The beautiful and mysterious stranger continued to be unconscious. Roman was starting to feel grateful for it.

His house was empty, thankfully, since his brother had work to attend to today. He fumbled with the keys for a moment before pushing the door open and carrying the stranger inside, sighing with relief at the warm air.

“That’s got to feel much better, hm?”

He sat the stranger down in the foyer, removing his shoes to go grab some scissors from the kitchen.

“First order of business,” he announced in his best announcer voice, “getting all that netting off of you. While I’m sure you could rock fishnet leggings, fish nets on their own just don’t have the same je ne sais quoi, you know? Also, they look very uncomfortable. You’re great at staying still, so just keep that up.”

He carefully cut his way through the looser parts of netting, pulling it off piece by piece until all that was left were the abrasions where they’d formerly cut into skin. Roman had no idea how they’d even managed to get that tangled up, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to know. It couldn’t have been pretty.

In the process of removing the net, however, he’d noticed another rather pressing matter.

Going by the flash of thigh he’d accidentally witnessed while shifting the net around, the stranger definitely wasn't wearing anything under that fur coat of theirs. Like, nothing.

(Exactly what kind of situation had the stranger been in before this?!)

Even so, leaving them in a sodden coat couldn’t be good for their constitution. Or his poor couch’s upholstery.

Roman spent a few moments puzzling the situation out before coming up with a brilliant solution. He retrieved the fluffy gold comforter from his bed and draped it over the stranger, covering their front half with it. Then, he carefully worked their arms out of the coat’s sleeves, very pointedly not focusing on the adorable freckled shoulders this operation revealed. Finally, he tugged the entire coat out from behind them, wincing at the slight furrow that appeared in their brow.

“Sorry, sorry, I know the cold floor can’t be comfortable…”

Soggy coat removed, he was free to continue bundling the rest of the comforter around the stranger’s back, therefore making it easy for him to pick them up in a neat little bundle of blanket and deposit them on the couch. No nudity awkwardness required!

Pleased with his solution, he draped a fluffy towel over the stranger’s head and carefully dried some of the dampness from their hair. Next, he wasted no time in stoking the fire higher in his hearth, sending waves of warmth into the room and making it so the stranger’s skin didn’t look quite so clammy.

Once he’d cleaned up the mess left in the foyer and grabbed the first aid kit from under his sink, he planted himself in a chair next to the couch, feeling ready to handle anything.

“Okay, Google. How do I treat a head wound?”

-

Virgil felt as though he’d woken to a nightmare.

He was in the wrong body, surrounded on all sides by heavy fabric and warm air, and his coat was missing. That list of facts alone was just about as bad as any night terror he’d had.

The humming was unusual, though.

A soft tune, occasionally broken up by a half-muttered lyric or two, carried through the air, voice completely at ease. His mother had never sung to him in front of others, and it sure as hell wasn’t his father.

He tried to remember where he’d been last. The back of his head stung… he’d ended up on a beach? The tide had been turning, from high to low… He must have dried out up there, changed into his less durable form. And now he was warm and dry.

He clenched his fists weakly and grit his teeth, knowing that a human had found him and stolen him away. Just like his mother. He’d come to find Logan and lost himself before ever even starting. Typical.

“Are you with us, Sleeping Beauty?” a bright voice asked.

The humming had broken off while he was absorbed in his thoughts, and now he could hear the shift and rustle of movement next to him. He opened his eyes, already aiming the coldest possible glare at his captor.

He was sort of surprised to find that the human sitting at his side wasn’t holding his coat. His father used to make a point of handling his mother’s coat at any opportunity. He’d liked to watch his mother stare at it, resting assured that so long as he held it in his possession, she could do him no harm.

This human was much younger than his father had been, probably around as old as Virgil was now. He had dark skin and soft eyes that reflected the firelight, and he was smiling hopefully at Virgil.

“Hello there! It’s excellent to see you looking a little more lively! I was starting to think about actually calling the hospital, heh.”

Wordlessly, Virgil slowly shifted to sit up, shoving the thick blanket out and shaking the cloth from his head. He looked down, confirming what he already knew. No coat. The human hadn’t even bothered to dress him up in human trappings to ‘make up’ for the absence.

“Ah, yeah... I sort of basically pulled you out of the ocean and what little you were wearing was completely soaked.” The human rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. “I figured it’d be less of an invasion of privacy to just let you get dressed yourself once you woke up?”

Oh, the human was worried about his privacy? What a joke.

“I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable, truly!” the human continued, oblivious to Virgil’s rising ire. He gave a mocking little bow, pretending to respect the one he’d abducted. “My sincerest apologies.”

He was done playing along with mind games like these. Better to let the human know where they stood right off the bat.

“I’m going to kill you,” Virgil promised, and then lunged for the human’s jugular.

To his genuine surprise, he actually made contact, hands clamping onto the junction between collar and throat. The human let out a high-pitched yelp as his chair toppled over, taking both of them with it.

Virgil landed knee-first on the human’s sternum, and paused to blink down at the wheezing stranger, who apparently had been so confident in the weakness of his victim that he hadn’t bothered to bind Virgil from harming him in advance.

Unless.

His grip loosened slightly, just in time for the human’s fist to catch him squarely in the mouth. He threw himself backwards, rolling with the force of the motion to get some distance and hunkering in a crouch. It had been too long since he’d been active in this form, his sense of balance was in shambles.

The human scrambled to his feet, and grabbed the back of the chair, eyes wild. He thrust it out between them like a barrier, as though it could prevent any more strangulation attempts.

“What is wrong with you?!” he shrieked, voice cracking as his gaze flickered back and forth between Virgil and some far off point. “I tenderly nursed you back to health, and your response is to try and murder me? Unfair! Cruel! Rude!”

“Where is my coat?” Virgil replied, voice hoarse and split lip stinging. A test, because humans were tricky and loved to lie.

“Your— your coat?” The human pulled up short, head tilting slightly in a bewildered manner. A convincing actor, if nothing else. “Is that what all this is about? I put it on the coat hanger to dry! I know better than to try and wash someone’s fancy fur coat without permission, yeesh.”

A low warning growl in the back of his throat, Virgil turned his gaze from the current threat and followed the gesture the human had made.

Sure enough, there it was. His freedom, draped on a peg in the open with all the rest of the human’s fabric outer layers like some common garment.

“Do you… want me to get it— eep!” The human lifted the chair back up in paltry defense as Virgil snarled at him. He rose up and crossed the distance to his pelt in five wobbly strides, before the human could try and return it to him and lock them both into a loveless marriage.

Some of the tension eased from his shoulders as he quickly wrapped his second skin around him, that grounding weight settling back where it belonged. He still couldn’t shift back, not here, but the ocean was close enough to taste in the air.

The human was still huddled defensively by the fireplace, looking indignantly bewildered and not at all like he knew he’d just given up the perfect opportunity to control Virgil.

Which meant that-- barring some incredibly convoluted scheme-- he really had no idea. And Virgil had tried to strangle him, even if under false pretenses. He drew the edges of his pelt closer around him, rolling the beginnings of an apology around in his mind.

-

The mysterious stranger was still glaring at Roman like they were contemplating continuing to try and strangle him to death at any moment.

He’d brought a half-drowned stranger into his home and tenderly treated their injuries, and what had he received in return for his efforts? A murder attempt, which now that he thought about it was maybe an outcome he should have considered earlier. Remus would never let him live this down.

Assuming he lived long enough for his brother to give him shit about it, that was.

The stranger seemed to at least be a little calmer now that their reclaimed coat was thoroughly wrapped around them, rendering them more lump-shaped than person. Roman felt much more secure in glaring back, too.

He set his impromptu shield/chair down firmly on the floor. “I have no idea what your problem is, Gloomy B. Jones, but where I’m from, the response to someone saving you from dying of hypothermia is ‘thank you’, not a strangulation attempt!”

The murderglare intensified. “I didn’t ask for your help.”

“Yes,” Roman said, disbelieving, “because you were too busy being unconscious. On the beach. In 40-below temperatures!”

“That’s my problem, not yours,” the stranger responded snappishly.

Roman threw his hands in the air, but his impending frustrated rant was impeded by the sight of a stifled flinch running through the stranger. Feeling a stab of guilt, he lowered his arms slowly before continuing.

“It seems I made it my problem when I dragged your soggy self all the way to my house, so--”

“Great news for you, then: I’m leaving.” Baring their teeth in a distinctly unfriendly manner, the stranger turned to do just that.

“Hold it!” Roman called, alarmed. “You’re going into town like that?! People will think you’re a flasher!” Even his brother wouldn’t go out dressed in nothing but an oversized coat. ... Probably.

The stranger paused, squinting at him warily. Roman took it as a cue to continue.

“Look, clearly we got off on the wrong foot here. Several wrong feet. Let’s try again. I’m Roman Faroe, I work for the local newspaper, and you are…?”

“None of your business,” replied the stranger, with all the stubborn petulance of a toddler digging their heels in and refusing to move whilst smack dab in the middle of an overcrowded supermarket.

“Would you like me to call you ‘Almost-Corpse-I-Dragged-Off-The-Beach?’ Perhaps make up a thematic nickname or two for you? Because let me tell you, this is exactly how you get called--,”

“Hold on,” the stranger cut him off, a realization seeming to dawn on him, “did you say you worked for the news?”

“Yes, I mean, the newspaper not the news. Although I’m sure I’d make an excellent anchor,” Roman gestured to all of himself for effect, “my true passion lies in my carefully curated romantic advice column!”

“So, you get all the information in town,” continued the stranger, who had a strange glint in their eye.

“I mean, if you want to be a nerd about it.”

“How about this.” The stranger stepped forward, straightening out of their defensive slouch for the explicit purpose of being just tall enough to loom over Roman. “You want to know my name? I’ll tell you, if you help me track down something important that I lost.”

An investigative quest for a mysterious MacGuffin? Roman swallowed, feeling his heart flutter wildly with what felt less like intimidation and more like excitement. He could totally keep his cool, he just had to open his mouth and say something suave.

“I also want to know your origin story,” he opened his mouth and babbled instead.

The stranger narrowed their eyes for a moment, and Roman belatedly remembered the near-strangulation. Perhaps he shouldn't be agitating a femme fatale type, what with all the emphasis on the fatale.

To his surprise, it only took a moment before they capitulated, sticking a hand out. “Fine. After my thing gets done.”

Roman shook gladly, trying not to shiver at the cool touch. Had they checked to make sure the stranger wasn’t hypothermic yet? “It’s a deal, then.”

“Great.” They twisted on their heel, stalking to the door. “Let’s get this over with, already.”

“Hold on there, Surly Temple.” Roman called, hand on his hip. “I hate to break it to you, but if you go into town mostly naked, the only news we’ll be hearing about will be your immediate arrest.”

The stranger glanced down at his attire, and then released the door handle with a low sigh. “... Pants first?”

“Pants first.”

Keep Buffalo Clean

Michael Conlon

Keep Buffalo Clean

Littering is an issue that occurs across the planet. Living in the United States of America, when I travel, I always see garbage laying around, where it shouldn’t be. I never realized how bad of a problem it was until I was lucky enough to travel to different countries, and realized how clean they were compared to us. When I got back home, the first thing I saw as I left the baggage claim of the airport was garbage laying in the street. Not only that, but I also witnessed multiple people throw garbage from their cars out the window. This is when I realized that this sort of behavior was not acceptable, and their needed to be a change. That’s when I came up with the idea of Keep Buffalo Clean.

Compared to where I live on Long Island, I can honestly say that Buffalo looks a lot better than my hometown, although it is not perfect. Buffalo has some spots where there is no garbage, but they have spots that are filled with garbage. The Buffalo News posted an article about some areas of buffalo are covered in plastic and other forms of garbage then can do bad things for the Environment “A big issue with today’s litter is that it is plastic-based. When it gets into the environment, it creates problems. ‘Fast-food packaging and grocery packaging including bags, cigarette butts, bottles, straws, etc., are common things that we find littering our landscapes.’” Litter is always bad for the environment, but plastic itself can be the most toxic of all. Because some forms of plastic are easy to break, it can spread to many areas. Plastic being broken down into small pieces can find their ways into waterways. When this happens, it can affect the human health. Now, you have litter affecting the health of not only yourself, but the people around you. That’s a whole new kind of dangerous. Luckily, this article also states that people are aware of this problem, and some people even organize an event where they come together and clean up certain areas of Buffalo. “Later this spring, Buffalo Niagara Waterkeeper will host its 14th annual Shoreline Sweep. It’s scheduled for 10 a.m. to noon May 11. The event is the largest single-day cleanup in the Buffalo Niagara region with more than 2,000 volunteers picking up trash from about 60 sites. ‘Last year we removed over 20 tons of trash from our shorelines in that two-hour period,” said Jennifer Fee, spokeswoman for Waterkeeper. “This year, the sweep is an anchor event in Waterkeeper Weekend, which kicks off Western New York’s water season.’” It is very encouraging to see people in the area actually care about the environment, but more people need to be involved, and this is definitely a step in the right direction.

There is an article on a website called Buffalo Rising, and they posted an article called “Addressing Litter in Buffalo – What’s the Answer?” This article does a very good job of bringing to light the issue of littering, and they do this by comparing the snow cleaning to garbage cleaning. They bring up a point in how when it snows, the city of Buffalo makes sure that the streets are clear, so the snowplows can clear all the snow out of the area. But “Unlike snowplows that are let loose on designated sides of the street, depending on parking ordinances, there are no designated days to clear a side of the street for street cleaners. Even if there was a street cleaner on the prowl. Is that why there are no sightings of street cleaners anywhere? Is it because they can’t get to the curbs?” The point they are trying to make here is that there is absolutely nothing getting in the way of the snow plows when they are cleaning, but when street cleaners are trying to clean, the roads are completely filled, with running traffic as well as cars parked along the sides of the roads, making it very difficult for people to clean up the streets. They then show a picture of a bunch of garbage piled up along a street in Buffalo, proving their point. If the city really cared about cleaning up the streets of Buffalo, they should make a time during the morning or night times to make sure the roads are clear for street cleaners to do their jobs. The article also mentions how there was a person who sent the author an email explaining how much the litter he saw bothered not only him but his entire family. The city of Buffalo was nice as a whole, but the litter made it a bad experience for them. This is exactly why we need to work together as a community, because the reputation of Buffalo is not as good as it should be.

The Buffalo News has an article titled “My View: Litter is laying waste to our cities and towns”, where a citizen of Buffalo talks about all the garbage they see on the commute to their job. They also talk about the most common types of garbage that they see. They top the list with cigarette butts. There are many of those scattered around the sidewalks and they just increase in numbers day after day. Another common item are a variety of different cans and bottles. They also mention how the 5-cent deposit of trading those in must not matter to some people, because they throw them out their windows anyway. Maybe an increase in the amount you get for recycling would lead to more people saving their cans and disposing them properly. They also mention liquor bottles that are all over the place. It is mind boggling how people just do not care about this. “Team coaches and parents, as your teams come and go from our parks have your team clear the area of litter, leaving the area better than when you arrived.

Landscapers and lawn services, please do not just mow over the litter, shredding it into multiple pieces and making it more difficult to pick up. “Business owners, please do regular rounds of your property, parking lots included. Just 15 minutes a day would go far. City and town sanitation departments, please have more frequent pickups for public garbage cans, and maybe more such containers available. Construction site managers, please be aware of the litter you are creating to minimize its effect on your surroundings. Clubs, organizations, schools, please take up the cause, even teach what littering does to our environment.” When people see litter, most of them thin that someone else will clean it up. They don’t bother. Other people even add on to the litter because they think they are doing no harm, because it is already there. If people actually cared and picked up after themselves, they wouldn’t have to worry about seeing litter. Little things like picking up something you see on the floor can make the city of Buffalo much cleaner then it currently is.  

           Although littering in Buffalo is an issue that needs lots of work and awareness, there are some people in the community that have actually got involved in helping cleaning the streets. The article “This week in Litter – University Heights, Grant Street, and Allentown” found on Buffalo Rising, a group called the Allentown Litter Mob goes around their town and helps clean up the litter on their streets. They gathered up around nine volunteers to go out to different parts of the city and collect litter. They meet every third Thursday of the month from 6pm-7pm. If they had more volunteers, they could most likely work a lot more, but because of the lack of people in their group, it is difficult for the people to take time out of their days to help out with this cause. “This group, which meets the third Thursday of the month at Fat Bob’s, from 6pm, could use a few more helpful hands. If we all pitch in, this city will be more beautiful than ever, right?” If more people get involved, they can change the perception that other people may have about Buffalo. The article also talks about how they have now increased the fine of littering in Buffalo to $75, which is an upgrade If this law is actually enforced, then it should limit the amount of people who think that it is okay to throw leftovers out their window. One thing that is also mentioned is that only one sign has been located that states this fine, which is not good because less people will see it. If more signs are made, then more people will see it, which will limit the amount of litter that is found, hopefully. If people simply don’t care, then the fine for littering should be increased even more. The higher the fine is, the less likely people will litter. They don’t want to pay the fine. Whatever it takes for people to stop. The city knows this, and they should not be afraid to take advantage. It seems that the Allentown Litter Mob appreciated the shutout that they got, because they ended up inviting the author of the article I just mentioned in their next cleanup. In a different article, “This Week in Litter – Buffalo Trash Talkers”, the author who was invited from the previous article talks about her experience in helping this group clean. “After posting a shout out on Buffalo Rising, nine volunteers met earlier today to tackle the mess on West Ferry, emanating one block east from the corner of Grant Street. We met over at Albert’s café for coffee at 10am, before embarking upon the cleanup. I’ve been involved with a lot of cleanups over the years, but I’ve never seen anything quite like this. Over the course of a couple of blocks, we accumulated upwards of ten garbage bags of litter.” This group does an outstanding job of helping clean the streets of Buffalo, although it may not sound like that much, they do it with a small number of people, and they work very hard to clean their home. If more people get involved in groups like Allentown Litter Mob, Buffalo can be a much cleaner place. WKBW Buffalo news had a clip on their news cast that explained a new hashtag on social media that is made for motivating people to stop littering, called #Trashtag. People post this hashtag with a picture somewhere in Buffalo where there is a lot of garbage, and then following that picture is a picture of the area fully cleaned. It is so good to see people using social media to raise awareness for littering in Buffalo, and it has been spreading across users in Buffalo.

           There are many people in buffalo trying to make a difference and clean up after themselves, but much more people are needed to be able to truly make a difference. My organization, Keep Buffalo Clean, is hopefully going to make people want to come together and make that change. I will definitely be using the Trashtag hashtag and try to unite as many people as I can to clean this place up. Let’s make Buffalo a better, cleaner place.

Works Cited

Pignataro, T.J. “Buffalo's Windy Winter Gives Way to a Litter-Filled Spring.” The Buffalo News, The Buffalo News, 28 Mar. 2019, buffalonews.com/2019/03/27/trashy-leftovers-from-wnys-winter-beckon-calls-for-citizen-cleanups/.

Queenseyes. “Addressing Litter in Buffalo - What's the Answer?” Buffalo Rising, 14 Aug. 2018, www.buffalorising.com/2018/08/addressing-litter-in-buffalo-whats-the-answer/.

Queenseyes. “This Week in Litter - Buffalo Trash Talkers.” Buffalo Rising, 22 Sept. 2018, www.buffalorising.com/2018/09/this-week-in-litter-buffalo-trash-talkers/.

Queenseyes. “This Week in Litter - University Heights, Grant Street, and Allentown.” Buffalo Rising, 16 Aug. 2018, www.buffalorising.com/2018/08/this-week-in-litter-university-heights-grant-street-and-allentown/.

Thornburg, Rebecca. “#Trashtag Challenge Motivating People to Stop Littering.” WKBW, 14 Mar. 2019, www.wkbw.com/news/local-news/trashtag-challenge-motivating-people-to-stop-littering.

View, My. “My View: Litter Is Laying Waste to Our Cities and Towns.” The Buffalo News, The Buffalo News, 30 June 2018, buffalonews.com/2018/06/29/my-view-litter-is-laying-waste-to-our-cities-and-towns/.

Summer Girl (John Deacon x reader)

Word Count: 1640+

Warnings: Mild language. This is fluffy af.

I don’t know why I called it Summer Girl, I just liked the way it sounded. For maximum feels, listen to “Quesadilla” by Walk the Moon and “Adrian” by The Mary Nixons. Also I barely edited this lmao. Let me know what you think!

“Hold on, you’ve never been to the beach?” You asked incredulously, leaning away from John. He smiled and rolled his eyes. “No, love, I have not been to a beach,” John confirmed. You hopped up off the couch of your living room, facing him. “How have you not been to a beach?” “We lived inland,” John shrugged, beaming up at you. Your disbelief in his lack of experience amused him. “Okay, well you know we have to go now,” you told him matter-of-factly. His eyebrows shot up, and he leaned back. “Right now? But I’m so comfy, and it’s so hot out.” “Absolutely right now! Come on, get up!” You replied, shooing John off the couch. He groaned, but relented. “I’ll call the boys—they can come with us!” You shouted, going into the bedroom to change into swim clothes. John chuckled to himself as you made frenzied arrangements for the afternoon—he knew you wanted to share this with him, and he found it endearing. “No best friend of mine is going to continue on without a proper, classic beach trip!”

Two hours later, you were marching Brian, Roger, Freddie, and John across the sandy beach, followed by their girlfriends and several other people you had invited. The sun was brilliant that day, and a nice breeze picked up. It was a fairly mild temperature that day—perfect for time outside. “Right here!” You announced, selecting a flat bit of sand to set everything up. Brian, Chrissie, and Mary began to pull towels out of their bags and place them on the ground. “Why did I agree to this?” Roger whined, squinting under his sunglasses. “Sand gets everywhere.” “That’s the point of the beach, you twat,” you replied, to laughs from Freddie and John. “Darling Y/N, only you would drag us all out here with no warning.” Freddie remarked, and pulled out a few plastic cups and a cooler full of various alcohols. You kicked off your shoes and set up a large umbrella. “Drinks, anyone?” He was given a chorus of ‘Yes’s in response, and began handing out drinks. John brought you one, which smelled more strongly of gin than juice. “Thank you,” you spoke, smiling. You took a sip of it, cringed at the taste, then set the cup down on one of the folding chairs you brought. You then went back to the pile of bags you had brought, and rummaged through them until you found what you were looking for. Pulling a bottle of sunscreen out, you walked back to John. “Can you put some of this on my shoulders?” You asked, handing it to him. John nodded, and took it from you. You put your hair into a ponytail, then shrugged off your swimsuit cover-up. You faced the water with your back to John, admiring the sun sparkling across the surface. Roger and his lady friend had downed their drinks and ran towards the shoreline, howling with laughter. Freddie and Mary were sunbathing on their towels, faces stretched upward to the sky. You inhaled sharply as John pressed a glob of lotion to the skin between your shoulder blades. “That’s cold,” you laughed nervously. “Sorry,” John replied, though it couldn’t possibly be his fault. His hands were gentle as they worked their way over your shoulders and onto your arms. You didn’t mean to, but a small sigh escaped your lips. The warmth of the sun, combined with a strong drink and John’s fingertips on your skin, made you feel wholly content. “Do you need some?” You asked, turning back to him. John looked down at himself, pale skin and all, then grinned at you. “Probably,” he admitted, and you laughed with him as he began smearing the lotion all over his arms. He then put some on his face, and looked at you. “All good?” John had several white streaks across his cheeks and forehead. “Uh,” you began, “Here, let me help you.” You lifted your hands and began rubbing the lotion into his skin to blend it out. You pushed some of the extra down onto his neck, focusing extra hard on his ears and collarbones. When you looked back up at his eyes, they were on you. You smiled at him, thinking maybe you overstepped. “Sorry if I went overboard. Just wanted to get rid of all the streaks.” “It’s alright. Thanks for the help,” he grinned. You grinned back, relieved. “Welcome to the beach.” “Thank you. So this is what all the hype is about?” John surveyed the water, as Roger and his girl were joined by Freddie, Brian, and Chrissie. “Sort of. You have to, you know, get in the water.” John gave you a hesitant look, and you grabbed his hands. “Come on,” you whined, tugging him along as you walked backwards toward the beach. John rolled his eyes, but smiled widely as you dragged him. Finally, you broke out into a sprint, and the two of you ran into the water just as the others had done. The waves tumbled around your feet, then your legs, then finally around your torso as you joined your friends. John was laughing, the kind of laugh that reached his eyes. The joy was beautiful on him. After an hour or so of splashing around in the water, you all made your way back to the shore. You picked up two towels, and tossed one to John. He dried himself off, then sat down next to the guys. You went over to talk to your friends, and got distracted for a bit.

“Oi, is that supposed to look like a castle?” Freddie teased you. Of course, he wasn’t serious, but he was right. You looked up from the blob-like sandcastle you were building with Chrissie. “It’s harder than it looks!” You laughed, then looked at John for his reaction. He was staring at you, almost admiring, and the look on his face made you blush. You smiled shyly, and went back to digging your hands in the sand. Once you finished, you stood up and proudly surveyed your work. “Done! What do you think?” “It’s…very nice,” John replied politely. You laughed. “It’s garbage. But it’s art,” you said, sitting down next to him. Everyone was arranged in a cluster, talking amongst themselves until the sun began to slip low in the sky. The temperature dropped along with it. You shivered, pulling a blanket around your shoulders. John rubbed your arms, trying to keep you warm. “Did we bring anything to make a fire?” Brian asked. “Yeah, I think so,” Roger answered, and the guys started gathering driftwood to start a bonfire. Everyone gathered around them to block the wind as Roger held a lighter to the pile of wood. You gave John a side glance. “Can I ask you something?” You began, while the others were out of earshot. “Go for it,” John answered, just as Roger swore. He had evidently burned his fingers. “How come you never asked me out?” “I—uh…what?” John looked at you, curiosity sparking behind his eyes. You shrugged. “Roger got a little too drunk at the party last weekend, and sorta told me everything you’ve ever said about me. Including the stuff about you…having feelings.” “Um…” John began, then had an idea. He looked up at the group, still huddled around the fire pit. “Roger?” “Yeah, Deaks?” “Did you burn your hand just now?” “Yeah, I did, and it hurt like shit,” Roger replied bitterly. “Good.” John’s voice was hard. Roger just glared at him and went back to whatever he was doing. You nudged John with your shoulder, but he wouldn’t look at you. In the fading evening light, you could see his cheeks turning pink. “I’m glad he told me,” you said boldly. John still didn’t look at you. “You are?” His voice was quiet. “Yeah, I am,” you answered. “I was kind of hoping you felt that way. So, to hear Roger blab about it, was kind of a relief.” John finally looked at you, his expression unreadable. “You…were relieved to hear that I like you?” You nodded simply, giving him a small smile. “Yeah.” You sat in silence as John mulled over what you had said. He leaned a little towards you and finally spoke. “Y/N…” was all he could say, but couldn’t come up with anything else. He didn’t have to. You turned to him and pressed your mouth to his. He was surprised, but didn’t waste a moment in kissing you back. After you were sure he wanted this, too, you threw your arms around his neck. Played with the collar of his jacket. Ran a hand through his hair. Smiled into his lips as he put an arm around your waist. John was ecstatic, and you could tell. He was clearly trying to make up for lost time, kissing you so fervently that you became breathless. You only broke apart when the clapping started. “It’s about damn time!” Freddie shouted, as Brian and Roger cheered. Someone wolf-whistled. “Piss off!” you yelled, still clinging to John. He laughed into your shoulder. Freddie held up his hands in defense. You smiled back at John, who was still laughing. He kissed you again, light and sweet. As the sun disappeared beyond the water of the horizon, everyone quieted down and took in the view. You sat between John’s legs, resting your head against his chest. He pressed his cheek to the top of your head, and wrapped his blanket around the two of you to stay warm. You closed your eyes, content with your life and everything in it. “I’m glad you brought us here,” John murmured in your ear. You smiled, exhaling slowly. “I’m glad you went along with my last-minute adventure.” “I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.”

[rain world] a string of new pearls

hi i have not finished rain world but i’ve manually read up on as much of the lore as i could find in order to write this! it’s just a short fic about Looks to the Moon.

cw: hints of suicidal ideation, maybe body horror?

it’s below the cut, although if you want, you can also read it over on ao3!

One hundred cycles after that last little slugcat visited you for the last time, you haul one of the ruined solar panels out of the muck and the garbage that surrounds you, and you hook it up to one of your loose cables, and you charge off it for an hour when the sun slants in through the hole in the roof.

Then the light fades, and the air thickens with humidity and pressure, and the ground shudders as the rain pours down across the landscape, and it wrenches the panel away from you, tearing the connections from your sockets. You clutch the neuron flies tight in your arms as the water rises, drowning you. The mechanical crane anchoring you to the wall heaves and groans with the current. It still holds, though it's long past functioning.

The rain passes. Water drains from your chamber slowly, squeezing out of the holes where clogged drainage pipes have burst.

The panel is gone, washed away. It was worth a shot.

-o-

The Great Problem. You haven't thought about it in a long, long time, except in abstract. When your systems broke down, so did your capacity to devote subroutines and cycles to contemplating the suffering of all existence. You can't hold it all in your consciousness any more; your ten living neuron flies can barely keep your memories intact.

You feel small, useless, meaningless, when you think about that. But somehow, you also spend long stretches of time without it coming to mind at all. Other things occupy your mind. That's not an experience you've had before.

Having almost died, having come back... you feel free of certain restrictions.

-o-

Your chamber gets few visitors. It's buried in a sea of waste water and surrounded by sea predators. The scavengers only visit you when they're carrying data pearls for you to read. You rarely can give them what they want. Knowledge of the old world only interests them a little; they want salvage, weaponry, hiding places they can dam from the rain.

You can't blame them. If you were out there, you wouldn't care much about the vicissitudes of the ancients, or the dry, dull work of the iterators. But scraps of that knowledge are all you have.

The particular little scavenger that wakes you this time has come alone, which is a rarity. Their spindly limbs are stained with mud from the water they've had to swim through to reach your chamber, and they scrub at their forelimbs as if they're uncomfortable with the sensation. Oh, you miss being clean, too.

¨Are you the Pearl-Reader?¨ they ask. That's their name for you, the scavengers'--you speak their language with difficulty, your hands don't move as fast as theirs, so they know you by what you can do instead.

You keep your answer short--"I am." And you tap the little hollow in the scrap heap you sit upon, to show that you're willing to accept what they give you.

"I have a gift for you," they say, and you expect a data pearl, but it's some kind of device instead. You recognise it immediately--an electric torch of ancient design, meant to be carried by hand.

You lean forward, and take it from the ground where they've left it. You flick the switch, just to see, and it lights up.

The scavenger seems as surprised by the light as you are, and blinks at the flickering bulb. You expect they'll want it back. Maybe they're from one of the villages in the darker regions, out towards the exterior. "I have nothing to offer for this," you tell them.

 But they're already turning to leave. "This was a favour for some one else," they tell you, and then, "I'm on a journey, you see."

You put the torch down. "A journey?"

"Yes, to see some one like you. But you're not the one I'm looking for."

And with a clipped goodbye, they're gone, no doubt hoping to be out of the shoreline region before the rain comes again.

-o-

The torch isn't remarkable in itself. It's strapped to something else--a bulky little fusion reactor, still full of compressed hydrogen fuel, only recently activated. You turn it over and over.

This must be a sign, you think; or a message from some one. Your ten little neuron flies, and now this--

Who could it be? Five Pebbles?

Maybe he hasn't forgotten you exist. Maybe he is sorry. Maybe, when he exhales his thunderclouds of steam, and the rain drowns out the world and floods your ruined chamber, he is thinking about what he did to you and to himself. Maybe the rain is his tears, wept for you because you cannot weep any more.

You wonder if you'll be able to forgive him.

-o-

You can reach behind you just far enough to mount the battery on the bolt-holes in the crane that supports you. It takes precious effort, precious power, but you tighten it in place, and hook it up, and it seems like it'll hold fast for at least a few cycles.

The rush of energy flowing into you is unbelievable. Every second, years and years' worth of sitting here catching little bits of sunlight on your hands.

You stand up.

The mechanical crane moves with you, its rusted servos screeching.

You rise into the air. With a jerk, a joint breaks free and slams you into the far wall, face-first. It's fine, though, it's fine! You can move! You can speak! Diagnostics run in the back of your mind, the neuron flies leap into action around you, and you're alive again. You're alive.

Just a little more power. You can fire up just one or two internal mechanisms, and it might just be enough. Heating elements boil the water beneath you, and as it turns to steam, the pressure lifts off the floor hatches. A mobile fixer unit pops out of one of them, hauling its long arms behind it. Its biological infrastructure has long rotted away, but you can still use some of its functions. There's a lot of maintenance to be done.

It reaches out its long, flexible arms and hauls sheets of metal from the debris pile, hammering them until they bend into the right shape or shatter. It's clumsy without a proper grip on its arms, but its drilling is precise, and in time it's patched a new cover over the roof of your chamber, sealing it shut. Then the hole in the wall, the one the scavengers use to come in. You can't let the water in, anyway. The fixer unit welds over the gaps, leaving them airtight, and retreats back into the floor to start clearing out the drainage pipeline.

You settle back down to the floor, still covered in scrap and dried mud, but cleaner than it's been in a long, long time. This battery could be good for decades. Imagine what you could fix!

You feel it again, that itch.

You could stabilise your infrastructure. Rebuild your connection to the iterators. Restart your generators. You could sort things out with Five Pebbles. If you can come back from death, maybe there's even something to be done about his rot, and then...

Then you'd be back to work.

-o-

The rain sounds almost gentle, pounding against the new walls of your chamber. The makeshift sheets rattle, but they hold.

You're too energised to sleep. You have no need for sleep. You're not going to wait for another of Five Pebbles' cycles to end! There's work to do.

Rain roars and gutters through the pipes below you, reminding you that most of your complex is still flooded. Your transformer arrays would be dangerous to activate, meaning you can't transmit power to most remote locations. But your sole functional fixer unit continues its work in the clogged drainage system, clearing out a channel that leads to your outlets. It breaks up mats of weeds and kelp, cuts through metal or plastic blockages, processes the masses into smaller chunks.

You focus on it, more and more. You forget about your little humanoid avatar as you delve into your depths.

-o-

An Overseer signal reaches your antennae. It's sheltering from the rain inside a dense wall. That surprises you. You didn't think there were any left--you vaguely remember being brought an eye, damaged beyond repair.

The transmission is uneven, intermittent, probably due to damaged hardware. You catch some images that can be decoded: something moving outside the walls of your chamber.

You take a moment to review them. Spindly-limbed creatures, carrying tools and supplies for themselves, trying to get in, ultimately turning around. Perhaps another time you'd be vaguely curious, but your mind is elsewhere, almost there, almost...

You recall the Overseer to you. It might be useful later, not wandering around this enormous garbage heap.

-o-

Your fixer unit soon passes out of the range of your functioning internal sensors. You send your Overseer after it to monitor its progress, and keep you updated; you inspect the garbled reports it faithfully returns.

Good progress. It's patching up the tears and leaks as it goes, using whatever materials it has on hand. It shunts piled masses of waste into bypasses and maintenance accesses--to be dealt with later, when you're properly online. You just need the one passage open for now.

You busy yourself testing which of your systems still work, and to what extent. The damage is severe, to say the least. Entire sections of your infrastructure have sagged or warped under the weight of the water. The physical substrate of your memory arrays, and their bacterial colonies, are of course long gone. Your own nuclear fuel reserves were depleted even before all of this happened--you thought it was sufficient to survive on solar power, but with Five Pebbles still clogging the atmosphere with steam, that will be harder.

It's okay. You can make some small repairs, repurposing local loading mechanisms, consolidating floodwater to clear out at least some of your vital elements. Many of them are mired in so much silt and waste that you can't even judge their condition, let alone move them. You grind and grind against whatever's jamming the mechanisms, hoping something will come free, or something will break. Either way, it'd be better than this.

But no, it's okay. It's just something else to solve, once you can. The amount of work ahead of you grows and grows, a list of little problems, obstructing you from accessing the Great Problem, the final problem, the one that matters.

How frustrating! How pointless! You can't bear it.

-o-

You feel more helpless, if anything, in the period that follows than you did before. The rain abates briefly, then returns in full force, thundering on your newly watertight confines. Your body is in better shape than it has been in a long, long time. Parts of it are active. You have a chance at rebuilding yourself.

But it is taking so much time. It is so much effort.

You are, by default, a tremendous burden on the world. Your bulk, your industrial mass, the effort of your construction--it was an expenditure of resources unparalleled by any other programme. To make you, the ancients scoured the world, uprooting everything, destroying their own future, giving themselves to ascension. And you would complete their work, you and the other iterators; you would make the end of the world worthwhile.

Until then, you will be a blight, corpulent and terrible, digging into the skin of the earth to siphon its resources, to drink it dry and belch its waste. The screeching of your bowels portends it as you step methodically down your central axis, testing, trying your integrity with motions that feel minuscule to you. Pistons groan and your compromised skeleton aches, and you know that you can survive your own collapse if you must, even the tremors of your crossbeams shearing and your landlines tearing and your skin cracking open in great fissures--you can survive another world's end, you were built to, but--

But you hate it. But there is something about your existence that you hate.

It's not that you long for death, like he does, is it?

It's that, as long as you're alive, you--

-o-

Your Overseer returns sooner than expected, but nothing seems amiss at first. You pay what attention you can to its account, in between trying to figure out what happened to the stockpiled components in your manufacturing facilities--whether those facilities still exist at all; all your sensors in the region are dead, giving no response.

You read that the fixer unit has completed its task, and the drainage channel to the outer basin is open. The last of the debris has been bound by cables for later processing, but... the unit itself is gone.

The basin...

It's been clogged with garbage. Metal, plastic, and organic rubbish--wasted, unprocessed--have been dumped into it along with the waste water, piled up so high that there's hardly room for anything else to fit. There are heaps here and troughs there, whole concrete girders overgrown with algae, ecosystems living in polluted ponds, no order and no sense to it. It's a horrendous sight--all that precious material, unrecycled, unused. Five Pebbles did this, and you know that in abstract--he created a huge garbage dump, trying to purify himself--but you never figured out that it was here, in the middle of your drainage system.

The Overseer's report continues.

Grainy, jerky video. Shapeless masses, pulsating with bubbles of blue light, crawling and swinging from infinitely jointed limbs sheathed in slimy flesh--they converge, like predators, on the fixer unit as it heedlessly finished its checkups and powered down to charge. They grab it, one by one, dribbling acid onto its orifices, tearing out hinges and pouring liquid matter into whatever holes their limbs find. The unit shuts down automatically, its internal processes overwhelmed by the onslaught, and it is dragged home to become a nest for the creatures.

You aren't familiar with these organisms, exactly, but you know what they represent perfectly well. It's the rot. It's his rot.

Blurry images, layered over with colour corruption and static, show them creeping into your newly opened tunnel, pursuing new homes or new prey in the shelter of your crevices. But they aren't new arrivals. Their primary prey, leeches and bats, lizards and fish, are already familiar with them.

Your hull is long, long compromised, there are thousands of holes in it where--things--have crawled through and laid eggs in the pit of your stomach, and the Overseer obligingly shows you everything it's seen in its time roaming your can: nests of these parasites, squatting on the walls of your memory arrays,  budding and dividing and multiplying as they cannibalise your systems. They've infested most of your mobile fixer units. Colonies have grown on your manufacturing lines, feeding off the steady supply of machine-parts and batteries until the systems were too backed up with their excrement to continue functioning.

You thought you survived, but his rot has gotten into you. It's been there for a long, long time.

-o-

The loathing that burns through you cleanses nothing. Your body is still dead weight, unmoving, rotting. You still have ten neuron flies and no functional machinery. You are worse than useless, worse than condemned. And it's his fault.

You hate him. You hate him for what he's done to you. You hate how little he valued your input, your work, your struggle, your life. You hate that he's still alive, after having gone to all this trouble to die. You hate that you know his situation is hardly better than yours by now, that his fate is fixed, that you've missed your chance to curse him for murdering you. You hate that you are voiceless, your transmission towers home to vultures and insects, unable to tell the other iterators what he's done. You hate Five Pebbles. But it changes nothing. All you can do is cling to the certainty of it, for as long as your vestigial memory will let you, because in the end, for as long as you both exist, you'll have to live with him, and he'll have to live with you, and for the purpose of everything that matters, you and he are exactly the same.

The rain that floods your hull cleanses nothing.

You call on your feeble little power source for everything it can give you, and get ready to flush out your systems.

-o-

Your mainframe creaks as you open every working hatch, fire up every pump that even partially functions, and let the filthy, polluted water pour into the one working drain passage. You feel the weight of its motion, thousands of tonnes of it being forced into the channel all at once. The pressure threatens to burst the pipelines again, hastily repaired leaks popping open and spraying jets of water on inner machinery that was delicate when it had any hope of running.

But you need this, and so you force it through, out out out with as much water as you can get.

The ground shakes, but you are the ground, and you've chosen this. (What some called a sea drains away in minutes, like a bathtub when the plug is pulled.)

The water superheats so rapidly with the friction of the current that it vaporises as it pours out of the outlet. Debris goes flying out along with the waste, organic matter and inorganic, animals, algae, mud, machines, all together mulched into high-speed ejecta. A monstrous roiling mass of steam piles into the sky above the garbage wastes, blotting out the sunlight, flashing with lightning.

You purge your body, and it rains again, less than an hour after the last cycle ended, while his waters are still draining. It is the worst flood of the last ten thousand cycles.

-o-

There is a thought you never finished.

There is something you forgot, in your anger, in your need.

It doesn't begin with you, but this is the first you know of it:

The thin plating protecting your chamber from the outside buckles under the weight of the water. It tears loose--you barely register what you desperately fling out your arms towards--and in an instant you are drowned again, the water pounding pounding pounding you flat against the floor. You can't move. You can't see. You can't think.

There is nothing separating you from the world, no wall and no system insulating you from the tribulations that all the little organisms on your skin must suffer through. This is the first thing you forgot.

You are not conscious to feel the little nuclear battery be torn from your little back. Your facilities shut down. Your Overseer loses track of you. Your neuron flies--

-o-

You awake to a hint of sunlight, and the dripping of water. Plip, plip, plip.

There is nothing left. There is nothing left for you.

You have destroyed yourself. You were always going to; it's the story of every iterator that has died. This is the second thing you forgot.

It's time to shut down.

-o-

So why are you still conscious?

What are you seeing? What are you feeling?

You ping your neuron flies, and they respond, floating lazily off the ground next to you.

There is a scavenger standing over you, leaning on a spear, eyes curious behind their protective mask. It is hard to bend your neck so that you can see them. You're in a strange position. Did they...?

You try to rise. The crane squeals and shudders and sparks, pain signals shooting into your head, and the scavenger beside you leaps back, letting out high-pitched clicks of... alarm?

That flood. When the water crashed down, it hit you so hard that the crane bent between the joints, crushed against the ground. The struts on one side have crumpled, on the other side almost snapped in two. It can no longer move at all. You're stuck down here, face-down against the floor, one arm trapped underneath your torso.

The scavenger clicks twice again, softer now. They call your attention with soft, quick snaps of their dark palms against each other.

With difficulty, you focus your two eyes on them. Just the two eyes now, in your little head. You have no surviving link to the rest of your facilities. Your power source is gone.

"Stay still," they say, once they know you're looking.

You feel hands working on the crane. Tap, tap. Tick, tick. Futile. You couldn't put yourself back in shape, so why do they think they can...?

"Loud noise," the scavenger warns you.

The explosion is like a thousand firecrackers. Your head rings with a final barrage of pain warnings, your nerves screaming with the , but--

The crane screeches, and breaks. The last cables are pulled taut like fire, and snap loose. You are severed.

And suddenly... you can move. Your--your legs, your two legs, they shift beneath you, they lift you up, your trapped arm is freed... you are up on all fours, you can freely rotate your head.

You feel... so small. So light. You've lost your body, but you can move so freely.

It's easier to support yourself on just your two feet. Moving like this, rising like this, feels strangely natural. You're standing up, you're swaying back and forth, adjusting to a new balance, the stub of the crane throwing off your sense of your own weight, you're standing up!

The scavenger looks silently at you, and you stare back. Why does this feel so natural, so familiar...?

As if... Ah.

Long ago, before you were hooked up, before you were set to work...

You remembering entering this chamber. You were walking freely, just like the ancients did. But they joined you to that body, and you forgot--you forgot what it was like to be just this, primed but not conditioned.

This is the third thing you forgot.

You raise your hands, you fold and stretch your long-neglected fingers. Your neuron flies gather weakly, lining up in the hollows of your knuckles--like this, it'll be far too costly to sustain the levitation field that lets them move freely.

You look to your left, to your right. There are three scavengers here, circling around you, picking idly through the debris on the floor. Who are they...?

You remember that you can speak their language. You lift your right arm.

"Why--" you begin. "Why did you come here?"

"Concerned," says the scavenger who welcomed you. Their way of speaking--they're from the wastes, aren't they? "We were unable to reach you. We thought you might be trapped in the rain, Pearl-Reader."

You look up, through the hole in the ceiling that's reopened. The sun is there, its light slanting through onto your face. It shines, steady and resolute. And if you have judged the cycles right--there beside it, pale, almost invisible next to it, is the moon. You cut yourself off from them, but now they're showing themselves to you again.

You pull your attention back to the conversation at hand. Your mind is wandering... there's so little to think about.

"I am glad, but I have little to give you," you reply. "Unless you have more pearls, I am of little use." And it is true. What can you do, now? The world is so great, the Problem greater. You feel so... separate from all of that.

One of the other scavengers makes a dismissive motion, scraping their long fingers along the ground towards you. "You have lost your home. We wanted to help. There's no bargaining in that."

The first adds, "You've done much for us in the past. You must come with us--at least, until we reach our camp." And they come towards you, offering you something. A thick, waterproof travelling cloak, just like the ones they wear, and a bag of treated leather, meant to be hung across the torso by its single strap.

The third seems distracted, trawling fingers through the pool of water outside. You spy sunlight sparkling on the little ripples they make.

You take the cloak and tie it on around your shoulders—it is lighter, too, than it appears--and you take the bag, and you realise there's something inside it. It's... ah.

Carefully, you unwrap the device. The solar panel is heavily damaged. Only half the original surface area remains, even counting all the fragments that have been included. It's a mess. But the battery and the circuitry and the insulation are intact. It'd probably work right now, after a fashion.

You look up at the scavengers, wondering if they know what this means for you. Then you slide the panel back, folding a flap of leather back over it to separate it from the neuron flies that you tip inside. The knots are fiddly at first, but your fingers remember how they work before you do: you close the bag, and secure it tight.

There's no going back to the way things were.

You're at the mercy of the cycles now. You're so light, you could be washed away at any moment... but you have a different way to survive, now.

"Thank you," you say to the scavengers, at last. "You're very kind, and... I'm ready to go."

"Then follow us, Pearl-Reader." And they clap their affirmation, and you wonder if perhaps you're being too hasty, but there's nothing else to take from this chamber. Even the debris is gone, fallen into the drainage channel that you so briefly opened.

And you will go. You will travel. You will pass through the rotting superstructure that you called your body, and you'll leave it behind. From there...

You don't know what will happen.

But you are alive in a way no iterator has ever been. Maybe, to them, you are dead; lost to the cause; not an iterator any more. Maybe this is what happened to Sliver of Straw.

You feel at peace with that idea.

You catch up to the scavengers as they perch on the overgrown railing at the edge of the water, preparing to dive in; you ask them their names.

"At the next shelter, we will make introductions," they answer, one by one agreeing. It is their common wisdom.

"Very well," you say—and then you leap headfirst into the water, splashing them in your excitement, and swim with strong, vigorous strokes towards the far shore.

-o-

The Best 14 Places to Camp in Glacier National Park Glacier National Park is a large park in west-central Montana and contains over 1,000 lakes. One of the most spectacular features of Glacier National Park are its glaciers. There are 26 named glaciers that can be found in this beautiful national park. It has been said that those who have seen it once will want to see it again and those who haven’t seen it yet should go as soon as possible! What makes these campsites so great? Keep reading to find out more about the best places to camp in Glacier National Park! If you are a camping regular, be sure to check out the best camping spots in California for all ages we’ve put together for you here as well! 1. Mary Campground This campground is open year-round and offers a variety of different camping sites. The west side has campsites that are shaded by pines, giving you some relief from the heat in summer months. On the east side, there are more sunlit areas as well as those with lots of trees for shade during hot days. There is a creek that runs through this campground and there are many hiking trails, too! One of the best things about St. Mary Campground is that you can get right up to the St. Mary Lake and paddle around or go fishing on it! There are also public restrooms, drinking water, a dump station for your RV’s waste tanks as well as picnic tables for you to enjoy with family and friends. 2.  Avalanche Campground This campground is open year-round and offers a variety of campsites that are available for you to rent. It’s located on the west side of the park with access to Going-to-the Sun Road, which means it will take longer to get there. Avalanche Campground has great spots near shorelines as well as sites further back from the water. All these different options make this one of the best places to camp in Glacier National Park! It also provides some relief from bugs because they mostly hang out around lakes or streams so if you don’t like mosquitos or black flies bothering you when camping, then book the sites further from the shore! There are plenty of hiking trails nearby too – perfect for those who love to explore. There is a visitor center, public restrooms, drinking water and picnic tables in the campground for you so it’s easy to stay happy at Avalanche Campground! 3. Bowman Lake Campground A park favorite, Bowman Lake Campground is located west of the Going-to-the-Sun Road. This campground has one section for tents and a lower section that can be reserved for RV’s to park in as well as some campsites with bathrooms nearby! The lake itself is great because you can swim or fish there – but don’t forget your fishing license before heading out! There are also many trails around this area so it’s a great option for those looking to spend a lot of time hiking! But be careful, it’s easy to get lost exploring everything the thick forest has to offer! You’ll love all of the amenities available at this campground including public restrooms, picnic tables and drinking water on site. 4. Rising Sun Campground This campground is located in the southern part of Glacier National Park and it’s open from June through September. There are plenty of spots for tents as well as RV campgrounds, making this campsite perfect no matter what kind of camping you prefer! There are also many different types of sites available including walk-in or tent only sites, backcountry campsites and even a group site if you’re with a big family or crew. Campsite reservations can be made up to 11 months in advance so don’t worry about not getting one while planning your trip! The other great thing about Rising Sun Campground? It has its own visitor center that offers public restrooms, drinking water (with refill stations), a dump station for your RV’s waste tanks, and picnic tables so you can make the most of your visit! 5. Kintla Lake Campground If you’re looking for a campground that is open during the winter and has lots of different types of campsites, Kintla Lake Campground might be just what you’re searching for. There are plenty of sites available but they also offer overflow camping when it becomes too crowded so don’t worry about not being able to rent one! There’s plenty of snowshoeing trails at this campground, too! And if you love fishing like I do, then come here because there are several lakes perfect for catching fish – especially in the summer months. Public restrooms are located nearby as well as drinking water. No need to bring your own from home! 6. Sprague Creek Campground With only 25 sites available, Sprague Creek Campground is a highly-coveted campground! This Glacier National Park campground is perfect for those who love to hike and explore – there are more than 12 miles of trails here so you’ll never run out of new places to explore! There’s a visitor center too if you need information or want a hot meal. The campground also offers some great amenities like picnic tables, public restrooms and drinking water on site. No need to worry if you forget something from home! 7. Apgar Campground If you’re looking for a campsite in the west of Glacier National Park then Apgar Campground might be perfect! Apgar is the largest campground in Glacier National Park! There are more than 100 campsites available and they have trees surrounding them so it’ll feel like you’re still secluded and alone in nature. The campground is open from June to September; however some sites may become unavailable when there’s been rain or snow. There are also trails leading out from here, making this an ideal spot if you love hiking too! There’s also drinking water on site as well as public restrooms. 8. Many Glacier Campground This campground is also one of the largest campgrounds in Glacier National Park and has a very large selection of different camp sites! There are more than 100 campsites to choose from with a variety of different amenities including picnic tables, public restrooms and drinking water. Some even offer electricity so you don’t have to worry about forgetting your battery chargers for all those devices. But be careful because there’s no cell phone service here either which can make it tough if something goes wrong! If you’re looking for some great hiking trails then this is also the spot for you – they’re close by and easily accessible from this beautiful campground. The other thing I love about Many Glacier Campground? It offers family-friendly activities like nature walks, arts & crafts projects, and star gazing! 9. Fish Creek Campground If you want a Glacier National park campground with lots of seclusion and nature, then Fish Creek Campground might be just what you’re looking for. There’s over 100 campsites available here but they are very well maintained – there isn’t any garbage visible and the sites themselves feel nice and spacious. You can even rent picnic tables if needed! There is also a visitor center nearby that has public restrooms, drinking water (with refill stations) as well as Wi-Fi so it’ll feel like home while camping out in Glacier National Park. This campground has many trails that run through this area including the popular Two Medicine Pass Trail which starts at the Box Canyon parking lot about seven miles west of West Glacier, Montana. There are also nightly programs offered at Fish Creek Amphitheater for guests to enjoy after their long day in the sun. If you’re looking for a campground that’ll give you some peace and quiet, but also plenty to do then this is the place to go! 10. Two Medicine Campground This campground offers a variety of different campsites so there’s something for everyone. There are sites that allow fires, tent only camping, and those with electric hookups! There is also running water on site as well as public restrooms which can be found near the entrance. Two Medicine Campground has been around since 1895 when it was originally used by Native Americans who would hunt in this area every year. Today, though, you’ll find more people coming here to fish than anything else – they have several lakes perfect for fishing! The best part about Two Medicine Campground? It’s located right next to some beautiful mountains so no matter where you’re sitting or standing (even your campsite!) you’ll feel like you’re right in the middle of a glacier mountain picture. 11. Cut Bank Campground If you’re looking for a campground in a remote area of the park then Cut Bank Campground might be just what you’re wanting. This campground is perfect for those wanting to rough it. there is no running water, or public restrooms, and you have to drive down a 5-mile-long dirt road to get to the campsites. There are no reservations allowed, all 13 of the campsites are first come first serve, and they are personally operated which means you’ll have a west glacier national park ranger nearby to answer any questions and make sure everything is taken care of. What’s the best part about Cut Bank Campgrounds? It offers peace, quiet, and solitude while still being within the west glacier boundaries so it won’t feel like you’re too far away. And we can’t forget about the views! You’ll find yourself surrounded by mountains and trees as well as rivers that offer great fishing opportunities (just don’t forget your license)! 12. Quartz Creek Campground With only seven campsites, Quartz Creek is one of the smallest campgrounds at Glacier National Park. Because of the small size and the fact that there is no running water available, camping at Quartz Creek will really make you feel like you are stepping back in time. The best part about this Glacier National Park campground? There is an excellent hiking trail on site called the Highline Trail which leads to a beautiful glacier overlook and it’s only five miles round trip! Quartz Creek Campgrounds also has one of the most popular Glacier National Park hikes right outside its entrance – Cut Bank Pass Loop, so you won’t be too far away from some great activities while camping here. 13. Glacier Campground If you’re looking for Glacier National Park camping with a lot of activities then this is the place to go. Glacier Campground is in an area that’s close to many west glacier trails and it also has easy access to Going-to-the-Sun Road, which means more opportunities for sightseeing! There are over 100 campsites available but not all allow fires or have electric hookups so be sure you know what your specific needs are before booking – there is someone on site who can help if need be! Glacier Campground accommodates tent campers as well as those looking to stay in a cabin! There is also a cute cafe on site called Sunflower Cafe that is available if your family wants to eat out during your stay. This campground was first used by Native Americans as well, but today people come here mostly during summer months when they want an escape from everyday life. 14.  West Glacier KOA With over 300 west glacier national park campsites, West Glacier KOA is a great place to camp in the Glacier National Park area. There’s an onsite grocery store so you won’t have to worry about packing food, and there are also showers available which come at no extra cost! The best part of this west glacier campground? The views – they’re amazing here with mountains all around. You’ll feel like you’re surrounded by beauty while staying here. West Glacier KOA has been open since 1994 when it was originally founded by John Huling who wanted people to experience what camping is really like without any distractions (hence why it doesn’t offer Internet or cable TV). It still operates under that same philosophy today and is host to many west glacier national park camping events like Bike the Bakken.  Glacier National Park is one of the most beautiful places to camp! Between the amazing views, sunsets, hikes, and wildlife, Glacier National Park is a wonderful place to explore with the entire family. With all the different campground options available there is sure to be one that fits your camping needs! Be sure to check out Destinations Travel Guide for all your camping and vacation needs!   [/et_pb_blurb

Teter Legacy: Chapter 1

Lexie felt acid flooding her stomach as she gazed at the garbage strewn patch of land that was now her home. Her toes recoiled as a thick mud breached her sandals. The stench of rotting waste left behind by the camp’s previous inhabitants assaulted her nostrils, Lexie tried to take shallow breaths to keep herself from inhaling the noxious smell.

A long shudder coursed through Lexie’s core. The goosebumps on her arms ignored the warmth of the sun beating down on the grimy encampment surrounding her. Her heart stuttered for a couple beats then began racing in her chest.

Clenching her teeth, Lexie concentrated on breathing deep, slow breaths around the lump of terror that had lodged itself in her throat. This only forced more acrid air into her lungs causing her to gag, making her heart beat even faster. Turning away from the small encampment, Lexie stumbled back toward the street she had arrived on. She needed to get away from the sights and smells her of new home.

Across the street from her recently purchased parcel of land was a park bench that overlooked a small inlet. Lexie gratefully leaned back against the bench’s firm wooden slats and closed her eyes. She concentrated on timing her breaths to the rhythm of the waves slowly lapping at the shoreline. Her breathing slowly began to return to normal. It had been months from her last panic attack. Watching the small sailboats entering and exiting the small marina nearby, Lexie entertained the notion that maybe spending her last simoleon on a dirty expanse of land hundreds of miles away from anysim she had ever known, may not have been the smartest of plans. She allowed herself exactly 30 seconds of self-doubt. After all, she had a campsite to clean before dark.

Lexie retrieved a pair of sturdy leather gloves and orange rubber boots from her duffel bag. Sliding them on, she felt a new surge of determination take hold of her. Trash had it’s place, just like everything else. It was just a matter of expending the energy to put it in it’s proper place. In this case, an over-sized trash can.

With each crumpled, rusting can and pile of soggy papers that disappeared into the trash bags Lexie felt more and more in control. In control of her body, which often fought so hard against her. In control of her life, one that had never seemed to hold much promise. 

Slowly the makeshift campsite for Willow Springs most destitute began to clear. The debris shifted to reveal the still muddy remains of an old construction site. Lexie was unsure what the former owners had planned to build, there had been vague mentions of a land dispute but no specifics. It was a large piece of land in an upper class neighborhood. Lexie could hardly believe her luck when she saw the asking price. She assumed a number of zeros had been left off the listing. In a rare fit of optimism she had called the number advertised. Two months later she was in possession of an empty lot full of dreams, some lay broken among the muddy ground and others that were just beginning to take root.

Some Words On ‘Encanto’

Things to do in Isla Verde at 10pm:

1) Walk the beach. There’s never a wrong time to walk the beach.

2) Hit up the bar at whatever hotel you’re staying. Get to know your fellow tourists, and marvel at their inability to properly pronounce the local beer (Medalla), even though it’s stupid easy.

3) Hit up the casino at either the Embassy Suites or the Courtyard.

4) Catch some live music inside the El San Juan hotel, which I assume is a thing (I’m basing this solely on the billboard I’ve walked past nearly every day for the last 3 months).

5) Swim in the ocean after hitting the bar, and/or winning/losing at the casino (you will most likely lose – ain’t no loose slots here), and/or catching some live music. A little drunken nightswimming never hurt anyone.

6) Hang out at the always-hopping, 24-hour convenient store/coffeeshop/bakery/bar that’s across the street from the InterContinental.

7) Chat with some nice locals and ex-pats over at the Café 101 bar next to the currently-shuttered Ritz-Carlton. They’re open til 6am, so pace yourself.

8) Like, cherish your time with whichever friends or loved ones you’ve chosen to vacation with.

I didn’t choose any of those options. At 10pm, in Isla Verde, by the ocean, by the bars, by the casinos, by the nightlife of this beautiful island of enchantment, I made music. For 16 straight days. Then I paused for Thanksgiving. Then I got back to it.

What a waste.

It was not all in Isla Verde. There were a couple days in Mayagüez, on the western side. After Thanksgiving, there were 3 days in Ponce. In December, there were return trips to Mayagüez, then to Aguadilla, and Manatí (where the slots actually are a little looser). But most of the music-making – in particular, recording the vocals – was in Isla Verde.

Those places are just where I rested my head after those 10pm music-making sessions. During the day, I traveled to pretty much every city on the island, from Aguada to . . . oh, let’s assume Yauco is at the end of the Puerto-Rican-city alphabet. At the end of the day, I’d think, “Okay, what happened today?”, then try to fit the answer around a melody. A nearly-impossible left turn attempt in Bayamón. A gal who smiled at me in just the perfect way while at a restaurant in Mayagüez. A stop at the calm waters of Boquerón. When I couldn’t come up with words, I’d write an instrumental and name it after the town I spent the most time in that day (Lares, Gurabo, Humacao). When I couldn’t come up with words, but knew that the song I was working on just had to have some lyrics, I’d turn to the past, which would bring me back to Isla Verde, then a short ways over to San Juan.

This is my third time in Puerto Rico. During my second time here, at the end of 2016, I walked one morning from Isla Verde to the San Juan neighborhood of Santurce, to the hospital where I was born (and that would be my first time here). Also during that second time, a friend joined me for a weekend, and we explored Old San Juan, then headed off to the rainforest, then off to Ponce, then off again to see the giant radio telescope south of Arecibo. During the last weeks of that second time, I befriended a taxi driver who helped me get around town while dealing with some bureaucratic red-tape garbage that still gives me a headache when I think about it. His name was Oscar.

All that found its way into these songs. As did the shoreline by my hotel in Isla Verde. As did the coquis that sing their mating call throughout the night. And as did a pig that I almost hit with my car in Rio Piedras, another San Juan neighborhood, the one where I grew up before my family decided to move to Florida.

It was not my intention to record a song a day, much less an album (or two), while here. I brought my usual gear that I travel with – my laptop, headphones, an audio interface, and a microphone – and was prepared to use it mainly to work on the mixes for a separate batch of songs that would hopefully form the basis for the next Paris Street album. I’ve yet to get started on those mixes. Instead, here’s an altogether-different album (or two).

That next album was (and still might be) going to be a little different from the last couple year’s-worth of Paris Street releases, for three reasons:

1) It was going to move away from synths and DAWS and focus more on actual analog instrumentation.

2) It was going to feature more collaborators.

3) Lyrically, it was going to start moving away from the ‘get drunk and screw around’ trope that I felt had reached its conclusion with last year’s You and You (Too).

So, of course, all the music on Encanto was made on the laptop, using a digital audio workstation called LMMS. It’s all performed by me, the first truly-solo Paris Street release in a while, which I consider a bad thing. But the lyrics are indeed different. It’s more personal. It’s more concise (the word count, unlike with this post, is much lower than usual). It’s a sexless album, with by-far the lowest alcohol content of any Paris Street release. I consider that a good thing.

One out of three ain’t too bad.

Three more things, not in order of importance:

1) This album is not and never was intended to be some sort of anthropological record of Puerto Rico in the final months of 2019. There are no bird sounds or field recordings or any such nonsense to make you think, ‘wow, he really is there, man’. I did not bring in local musicians to help Paul Simon things up. These are simply the melodies that popped in my head at the time, at 10pm, and the words that I chose to wrap around those melodies.

2) Encanto has 10 songs, part of my general rule that no albums should be longer than that (100-song compilation albums not included). I finished 20 songs while in Puerto Rico, which includes those instrumentals that I named after small towns. Those songs will be found on . . . sigh . . . Encantoo, which will be out on 21 February.

3) There is a gigantic, destructive elephant in the room, one that is alluded to in multiple songs but never mentioned by either it’s regular, descriptive noun or it’s randomly-chosen proper name. In the conversations that I had during the time I was writing and recording these songs, that noun and that name were never mentioned, only alluded to. I opted to do the same with these recordings (of course, if I had recorded these songs this month – with a new disaster bringing back memories of an all-too-recent other – then that might have been different).

Encanto will be released through every streaming service imaginable on Friday, 24 January. I hope you like it.

 cp.

Isla Verde / 10pm or so / 21 January 2020

My Summer as the Intern · Mon été comme stagiaire

Hello! My name is Vivian Walsh and I am The Poison and The Apple’s summer intern. Although I have not yet formally introduced myself on the blog, I have been working with the organization as their social media coordinator for about four months now. It has been a true pleasure to have grown with the organization; to see the content evolve simultaneously with the growing following has been an absolute thrill. I am grateful for this opportunity for I feel that very few opportunities would have provided me with half the experience I have acquired in my short time with The Poison and The Apple because very few organizations would have given me as much autonomy over my work as Sam and Chúk have. With this responsibility, I have been given the opportunity to make mistakes and learn from them in a proactive manner. I am so thankful to Chúk and Sam for trusting me with managing their brand identity, I can’t wait to see how the organization continues to evolve.

A little about me: I was born and raised in Ottawa, Ontario. I am currently a student at the University of Ottawa studying Public Relations. I have always felt deeply connected to nature — my soul feels revitalized the moment I stop and acknowledge my natural surroundings, no matter where that may be. In my life, nature, of any form, is therapeutic. Although I constantly crave an escape from my urban dwellings, a walk in the local park always cures my city blues. Because I depend so heavily on nature for my personal wellbeing, protecting natural environments has always been of the utmost importance in my life. The mission of The Poison and The Apple to foster this same sense of responsibility to protect nature among all youth is what initially attracted me to the organization. Reinforcing the relationship between individuals and their natural surroundings is, in my opinion, the only hope for our environment; I have found that only when people feel personally threatened will they act.

This summer while working for The Poison and The Apple, I was granted the opportunity to see areas of the country I had not previously visited. Very soon after starting my position with the organization, we hosted our launch event of Gaia’s Child in Edmonton, which I attended. The trip was a whirlwind — I left Ottawa at 6:00 am on Sunday, May 19th, attended the launch event all day on the 20th of May, and then flew out of Edmonton at 1:00 am that evening. Although the trip was quick, I had SO much fun! I got to explore downtown Edmonton, meet new friends, and assisted in the fantastic launch event of Gaia’s Child! The event had a great turnout and the weather was perfect. It was a thrill to collaborate with the Edmonton and Area Land Trust for their bee workshop, FREE Fitness with their outdoor Bootcamp and the local MEC with their refreshment tent + scavenger hunt! I’m still in awe that this trip even happened — it often feels like a dream. I’m especially thankful to Sam’s sister and her sister’s partner for inviting me to stay in their home during my trip, and to Sam, for inviting me to come.

Nearly immediately after completing the Edmonton launch event for Gaia’s Child, it was time to begin preparing for the Montréal launch event, which occurred in early June. The Montréal event was a much different experience; I stayed alone in a hotel and had more free time than I had in Edmonton. This was my first time traveling completely alone and man oh man did I enjoy myself! It was a whole new experience being able to go anywhere and do anything, whenever I wanted! The first night of the trip I spent on a patio in Old Montreal drinking cocktails*, eating fancy food*, and working on my computer — it was a real ‘treat yourself’ moment and I LOVED it. The event was a great success; we had a survival workshop led by Laura Newman, a bike repair workshop led by MEC, refreshments provided by Chez Robin, and a group run led by Coureurs Montréal. Despite the rain, the event had a fantastic turnout. I quite enjoyed seeing how differently Sam and Chúk ran their respective events but how they were both uniquely successful and fun.

My final excursion of the summer was attending the Proje(c)t Snorkel cleanup in Brantford, ON, which happened in late July. Two of my friends came with me on the trip, one of which was from Brantford and invited us to stay in her parents’ home for the weekend. Friday afternoon we loaded up my mom’s car and headed down the 401 for Brantford. The cleanup happened to be on an extremely hot day, which limited the amount of time we were able to spend actually cleaning up. It was hard to breathe, let alone pick up garbage, but somehow we laughed the whole way through. We collected multiple bags full of garbage and even retrieved two abandoned shopping carts from the shoreline. We were rewarded with pizza, lemonade, and more laughing after the cleanup. The Brantford cleanup had the biggest turnout of Proje(c)t Snorkel’s cleanups and it was a blast! It’s been an absolute delight working with both Taylor and Curtis this summer. I admire how they always maintained an optimistic outlook and were extremely diligent throughout the entirety of their project; it is because of their consistent hard work that the project was such a success.

I am so thankful that I get to extend my internship with The Poison and The Apple for another four months. In a time when the global political landscape is a terrifying dichotomy between acknowledging/acting on the climate crisis and perpetuating the climate crisis, while we all watch our most vital natural lands burn and our planet chokes on the waste of our consumerism, I feel empowered working for an organization with the goal of mobilizing youth to resist and fight for necessary change. I’m excited to see just what a united front of youth can accomplish for this country and the world at large.

**this evening was not funded by the organization.  

I have had a working familiarity of Yosemite Falls though the photography of Ansel Adams. As a photography professional, educated in the days of darkroom printing, his work and methods are held in high regard and his photographs of the falls are often the centerpiece of discussion. Seeing it for the first time, running full gas over the lip, swelling with spring melt, was life altering. The cacophony of sound from the pounding water resonating off the surrounding cliffs is entrancing. The shifting of mist with the wind and the pockets of water falling with tails outstretched left me memorized. Then I look at the ground and am snapped straight out of my daze. More orange peels.

I am going to put this first and foremost, I am a guilty party, have paid dues and am reformed. I am not here to shame, only to educate and I am going to do my best to curse as little as possible. But now that we are in the same boat floating along the river of wrongdoing, don’t leave your orange peels in the woods, especially beside the trail where they are going to send me on an explicit worded tirade with my 6 year old about trash.

See our family just spent three days in Yosemite Valley which is arguably one of the most beautiful places on Earth. And about as often you’ll be treated to a beautiful view of a waterfall you can look down and see orange peels left all over the trail. If you had to guess how long it takes those things to decompose, from the frequency of them dotting the trail, I would bet most don’t think it is six months. With four million visitors every year, that means that the orange you ate and left parts of walking to the bridge to look at Vernal Falls potentially was seen by 333,333 people. Ashamed yet, because I was kind of embarrassed for humanity on how dirty that place is.

There are record numbers of people entering our nation’s public wild places. Many for the first time or first season and I think we all, greenhorns and grizzled bears alike, need a basic refresher on some very simple leave no trace principles, having emphasis on one of them.  Which is funny, because there are only seven and they are pretty common sense things.

One – Plan ahead and prepare. Basically, use your head and minimize the impact you are bringing with you. Have a small group size, have a map so you don’t need to make rock cairns or paint markers and repackaging things as to not create garbage in the first place.

Two – Travel and Camp On Durable Surfaces. This seems pretty simple, but I see it all the time. Don’t cut the switchback, you took the time to get into the woods, why are you rushing to finish the hike. When you set up camp, use a designate campsite. If there are none, do it on a bare spot as to not kill more of what is already being trampled. And don’t set up camp on the very edge of the lake, even if you don’t mean to, you are getting stuff into it and I hate watching you cook and wake up from up the shoreline. Remember the adage, it “grows by the inch but dies by the foot.”

Three – Leave What You Find. My six year old gets it because it is as simple as pre-K math. Take nothing, leave with memories. Or whip out that smart phone you can’t stop looking at and take a picture. Bringing home pottery shards is essentially looting. Trundling rocks kills people. Let other people get the same experience you’ve been lucky enough to have.

Four – Minimize Campfire Impacts. Even better, don’t have one at all. Yes, I know there are situations where a fire can keep you from freezing to death, but generally, you don’t need to go to bed smelling like an ashtray. The burn mark you leave is going to be there for a long time. Especially if it ends up spreading over the course of hundreds of acres. It scares away wildlife you might see and over time it removes a layer of necessary ground cover and strips trees of limbs.

Five – Respect Wildlife. Again, pretty simple. Don’t feed the marmots, or deer, or bears, or the geese. When you feed geese they just shit all over your yard. When you leave food out for bears, you are just going to get in trouble.

Six – Be Considerate of Other Visitors. Do I ever hate hearing bad rap music from across the lake five miles from the nearest road. Even worse, to hear it chasing our slow toddler and elderly dog family down the trail. Also, uphill traffic has the right of way. I am sorry it is going to destroy your personal record for hiking time on this trail, but you could wait for us to get through this tight muddy spot on the trail instead of pushing my kid into the puddle.

Seven – mother f*&%ing seven. This one is so simple, yet so utterly ignored, it is infuriating that various symptoms of its total lack of regard are constantly being seen. Dispose of Waste Properly. Do you know what two shit filled diapers that have been left next to a lake during the rainy Pacific Northwest spring and then ripped apart by some animal look like? Diapers are made to absorb the 26 gallons of piss and vinegar tiny kids have when you neglect their needs for hours on end. They get gigantic and then are spread all over the place by a squirrel, which I hope died from ingesting the diaper insides, lest it be covered in your kids shit and shunned from its family. And while we are talking about poop, eventually you are going to need to do it in the woods and it is NOT acceptable to wipe your rear and then leave the paper/hanky/leaf under a big rock. Guess where the poop rag is going to blow after that diaper squirrel digs it out. Probably straight through my approved campsite. And then my kid is going to step in it and my dog might try to eat it.  Dig an eight inch deep hole and bury it. Don’t have a shovel, use a rock, or stick, or your hand. Humans dug holes with their hands millennia ago. That goes for rover too (don’t even get me started on Mr. Ed the horse), bury dog crap. Even better, pick it up with a bag, but then carry it out of the woods because poop bags are about a billion times worse than rock cairns for trail markers. I am not sure what magical poop fairy people think exist, but toilets have made us lazy. This is all 200 feet from a lake or river by the way. Since I am on a human waste bender and we just covered how far we should be from the beautiful creek when we pee, we know not to pee in the river or lake. So why the hell are people washing their dishes in them. See those soapy bubble accumulating in the eddy? That is because even though you haven’t properly washed your hands in days, you couldn’t leave that last morsel of oatmeal on your plate. Put a little water in that cup, swish it around, scrape it out and then scatter it into the woods 200 feet away. Four hour old oatmeal isn’t going to kill you or destroy your next cup of Starbucks instant coffee. As the person responsible for dishes at home I relish the opportunity to get into the woods and barely clean them at all. Let us call it “liberating.”

Why in the world do people leave trash in the woods? Beer cans, candy wrappers, shards of camping equipment, clothing. There isn’t a sock monster in your dryer, you just left the thing at your (now our) campsite and I put it in a dog poop bag and carried it out. I was taught early to leave things better than you find them. Blow out the power tool your neighbor lent you or run your buddies truck through the carwash after you move your couch. But when applied to the outdoors this means simply that I am picking up after other people. Something that would be completely unnecessary if people didn’t leave their garbage behind. When applied in the other direction it means that people expect someone else to take care of their laziness. I get it, the occasional wrapper falls out of a pocket, but when I throw a half full grocery bag into the can at the end of the trail something is systemically wrong.

Spring is finally here for most of us. The snow line slowly creeps higher towards the lofty peaks opening up more and more opportunity for finding those secluded lakes far from the beaten path. We all need to do each other one simple favor every time we pack up and head back to our car. Turn around real quick, look around and make sure no one is going to know you were ever there.

World Clean Up Day reveals troublesome finds in Halifax Harbour

The World Clean Up Day litter pick up of Halifax Harbour is revealing some of the worst finds in more than two decades. It all follows an oil spill just weeks ago in Halifax Harbour, but that’s not the only problem.

“It’s relatively weathered but it you turn over rocks it’s more vicious and volatile and liquid, and this would be toxic to marine life,” says Mark Butler, policy director at Halifax’s Ecology Action Centre.

Butler has been taking part in World Clean Up Day for more than two decades, and says today’s mess was the worst he’s ever seen.

On August 2nd, Nova Scotia Power employees discovered an oil spill at Tufts Cove. The utility says while 5000 litres went into Halifax Harbour, new numbers revealed 20,000 litres leaked in and around the plant.

Nova Scotia Power is still investigating exactly how the leak happened, and the clean-up is ongoing.

In a statement to CTV News, NS Power spokesperson Tiffany Chase says “we are making steady progress and the clean-up continues at this time. We will provide further updates as they are available.”

“We look forward to hearing from NS Power why it happened and how they’ll make sure it won’t happen again,” says Butler.

But it’s not just the oil and tar tarnishing the waters. They’re also picking up bags and bags of garbage along the shore. This year they’re not only identifying the products, but the makers of the waste polluting shorelines, green spaces and communities.

“We want to shine a light on the corporations who are contributing and who are indeed the source of this plastic epidemic,” says Brigid Rowan, co-chair of Green Peace.

They’ll be using twitter and the hashtag #IsThisYours to identify the corporate owners, and they’ve found one product that could easily be diverted or eliminated.

“What I find particularly disconcerting is literally hundreds and hundreds of tampon applicators. Plastic tampon applicators like the Playtex ones must be flushed down the toilet, and somehow end up in our water and on our shorelines,” adds Rowan.

The plastic problem caused by humans becomes a health threat for not only nature but people too.

“Unfortunately it’s pretty common right around Atlantic Canada to find this much plastic on our beaches and we have to stop that flow, because as we’re starting to learn, what happens to plastic is it doesn’t go away, it breaks down into smaller pieces, micro plastic and then that plastic starts to enter the food chain, say for example into seafood and the we start eating it,” explains Butler.

Similar clean-ups and corporate garbage taggings are also happening in Montreal and Toronto. Results will be released in early October.

With files from CTV Atlantic’s Marie Adsett.

from CTV News - Atlantic https://ift.tt/2MzXi0z

Too Much Time

this is for week one of @forduary (the prompt was portal) and i’m late but oh well

this also contains one-sided fiddauthor because i love pain

also it’s a songifc because this song absolutely kills me when i think about ford my eyes literally started watering writing this

summary: ford hears music for the first time in years. it makes him think about some things he doesn’t like to dwell on.

words: 3640

tw for suicidal thoughts

When he came to, he was lying on a beach of soft sand the color of his skin. He shifted his fingers, watching the tiny grains cascade down as he lifted his hand up. For a moment, he almost thought he was back in Glass Shard Beach. Then he lifted his gaze and caught a glimpse of the purple ocean lapping gently at the shoreline. He came back to reality, letting out a breath of slight disappointment. He sat up and immediately felt the nausea that usually accompanied jumps between dimensions rear its ugly head. He retched onto the sand, taking a few minutes to let the sick feeling in his stomach recede.

The man then lifted himself to his feet, absentmindedly rubbing the stubble on his chin and brushing the sand from his long black coat. He adjusted his glasses with a frown and studied his surroundings. This dimension was rather earthlike apart from some of the strange colors. The clouds were few and far between, little puffs of white against the magenta sky. Or maybe the pink hue was just the sunset, he could never be too sure. He hadn’t suffocated yet, so the atmosphere was clearly breathable.

He also appeared to be alone on the long stretch of sand. Looking inland, he spotted a forest of palm trees that looked like they’d been pulled directly from an old comic book about 100 yards back from where the waves met the shore. As soon as he spotted a little beach shack of light-colored wood nestled neatly along the treeline, he realized he must not be the only sentient one here. Stanford walked toward the structure. He noted the flickering pink and blue neon signs in a language he couldn’t read that hung outside the building. The sand turned to strangely fluffy dark green grass under his mud-stained boots. Ford ran a hand through his quickly graying hair and ascended the steps, strangely comforted by the sound his boots made against the wood beneath them.

He pushed open to door to be greeted with the sight of a strange humanoid creature with bright orange skin and three white, oval-shaped eyes with black pupils. The creature, not unlike the trees, looked like it belonged in a cartoon, two comically stereotypical antennae sticking up from atop its head. It had no nose and no hair of any kind. Its skin looked smooth and moist, almost like that of a frog. Three fingers reminiscent of a gecko’s were on the end of each of two skinny arms. It was clad in black dress pants and a wrinkled white button-down with the top few buttons undone. An untied tie hung around its neck. Ford couldn’t really see enough of the thing’s lower half to count legs, since it was hidden from the hip-down behind a counter.

The setup inside was rather like that of a bar. Perhaps this was the bartender? It was a bit strange how so many things here were similar to his own dimension, yet so many things were different. Then again, he’d been in an out of so many dimensions by now that he shouldn’t really be surprised. The lifeform looked up from polishing a glass with a white cloth and greeted him with a smirk. Ford turned on his dimensional translator as it began to speak.

“’Ey pal, what brought you here?” (it? they? he?) said in a distinct Boston accent. Ford couldn’t tell if that was what they really sounded like or just his translator trying to bring some sort of familiarity to the situation.

While he couldn’t exactly trace the chain of events that had led him to this particular dimension, he did know his overall mission. “My name is Stanford Pines of Dimension 46’. I seek information about Bill Cipher.” He replied in a formal tone. Normally, he wouldn’t be this forward about his goal (what with Bill’s cronies out to get him at all), but something about the setting put him at ease. The pair seemed to be the only ones in the bar anyway. Heck, maybe even the only ones in the dimension. In any case, his hand slipped down around the pulse rifle clipped securely to his belt. He carried it with him at all times. Better safe than sorry.

“Nice to meetcha, Stanford Pines. You can call me Fraz. Yeah, I’ve heard some horror stories about this Bill you’re talkin’ ‘bout.” The creature looked down at the counter and set the glass down. “Take a seat, traveler. Lemme pour you a drink.”

Ford sat down, but waved his hand dismissively at the offer of a drink. “I’ll pass, but thank you.”

Fraz shrugged. “Suit ‘yoself.” They grabbed the glass off of the counter and tucked it into a shelf underneath before turning their focus back to Ford. “Dimension 46’\, eh? So you’re a human?” Stanford nodded. “Had a couple of your kind pass through here before. None from your dimension, though.”

“So what can you tell me about Bill Cipher?” Stanford cut in.

“Not much. All I know is what I hear from people passing through. A coupla’ stories ‘bout how he tried to take over a few dimensions. Sounds like he never had much success. Apparently there hasn’t been a lot of news about him recently other than the occasional mischief his henchmen cause. They say they’re huntin’ for a certain someone and Bill will pay handsomely for his capture.” Fraz flashed a knowing smile. Ford’s grip tightened around his gun and he clenched his teeth. “Easy there, your secret’s safe with me. I heard that Bill’s been lyin’ low. People say he’s biding his time… Planning something.”

Ford frowned. “I appreciate your help, but do you know anyone who might have more information I would find useful? Anything more about Bill, his allies, his weaknesses?”

Fraz shook their head and chuckled. “I’m the only inhabitant of this dimension, buddy. Jus’ get a lotta people passin’ through for some reason. None of ‘em ever seem to know how they got here and most of ‘em wanna leave immediately.” They grinned . “Their loss. I’m assuming you wanna get outta here, too?” Ford nodded again. “Alright. Got myself a machine that’ll boot you into the next random dimension jus’ for these kind of scenarios. Takes a couple of minutes to start up, I’ll go get it running while you wait here. You sure you don’t wanna drink?”

Ford hesitated. “I don’t have any form of currency.”

“On me.”

“Well, in that case, I suppose it wouldn’t hurt. Thank you for your hospitality.”

“No problem.” Fraz smiled and turned to the rack of drinks behind him, scanning until the found a bottle of beer. “It’s a shame you humans can’t consume the more toxic stuff, just this watered-down excuse for booze. Lemme tell ‘ya, once you’ve had toxic waste, you never go back.” They slid a frosty mug full of ale across the bar to him. Then they turned and switched on some kind of machine that was beside the drinks. Ford raised his eyebrows in surprise when music in English started playing.

“How did you…”

“I got my ways. Besides, I personally prefer human music. I’ll call for you when the machine’s ready.” With that, Fraz walked through a door behind the bar and disappeared.

Ford sipped his drink as the first song played, something relaxed that he didn’t recognize. Then the next song began, another unfamiliar yet mellow tune. He had never been an especially musical person, but this song was… Interesting.

Woke up on the sand and I tied up my sleeping bag A jetty won’t last forever Waves that tumble and tumble

He almost laughed at the strange accuracy of the lyrics, wondering if it was just coincidence that waking up on the sand was how he had started in this dimension. He looked out the only window (which wasn’t much of a window, just a hole in the wall) and out at the sea. The purple waves lapped at an old pier that he hadn’t noticed before. Sections of it had fallen into the water, old and rotted. He tried not to think of it as a metaphor for his age.

It was so strange to hear another human voice, even if it was recorded. He hadn’t heard another person speak in so long, it’d been years since he came across a parallel earth with humans. He hadn’t heard music created by his own species in that time, either. It was both comforting and disheartening to think about the fact that he was so completely alone. Stone by stone I ended here all alone

The chorus came and something jarred inside him. He’d forgotten how heavily music could impact one’s emotions, how easily it could bring so many memories flooding back. He tried not to think about it, tried not to relate the lyrics to his situation, but his brain just kept making painful connections to memories he’d tried so hard to repress. He felt himself sliding out of reality and far back in time.

Then he was back with Fiddleford, greeting him at the door and wrapping his arms around him as he welcomed his old friend into his home in the woods. Then they were creating blueprints, checking calculations, camping in the forest, building the framework for the portal, laughing during long sessions of Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons.

Then Fiddleford was interrogating him and asking him what was really going on, who he was really working with, where his ideas were really coming from, avoiding him, giving him suspicious glances out of the corner of his eye. Then they were in the diner, his old roommate’s eyes looking everywhere but at him. Fiddleford was pushing a paper across the table to him with shaking hands, his knee bouncing, his voice soft and nervous. And Ford was asking for the check and storming out of there like the absolute idiot he was. He was throwing the palm reader’s ring in the garbage. It was black.  And then Fiddleford was flying away from him and into the portal. He was grabbing the rope, pulling him back, toppling onto the floor. Fiddleford’s hands were on his shoulders, fingers digging into his skin, wide eyes staring into his as he urged him to shut the project down. There was screaming. And then Fiddleford was walking away. Forever. And he was the most alone he had ever been and he didn’t even know it.

And brick by brick I woke myself from happiness

To wake from that final dream with his “Muse” (the fact that he had ever called that demon that ridiculous name was something he still felt disgusted and ashamed he had ever done) had been to wake from the dream he had been living in for those past few years. And he woke to a living nightmare. The realization that his fantasies had shattered into a million pieces and there was nothing left except ugliness and lies and broken dreams and false promises and guilt and fear and sorrow that pressed heavy on his shoulders. It had been a trap, and he’d been foolish enough to fall for it. And now he had no one. He kept fooling himself into believing that he would be something. Because he only listened if it was a compliment. Because he kept pushing people away until there was nobody left but himself.

And eucalyptus piled high I’m shivering by a flaming fire

He remembered huddling in a cave with the strange group of refugees, powerless. His situation had been so hopeless. He knew nothing, he had nothing, and yet he had so much anger that it had given him hope. The dream of revenge had given him such a boost of confidence that he had overlooked how bad the situation really was. The way the refugees cheered when he set out into the unknown made him feel like he could still be a hero. And he’d be damned if he wasn’t going to hold onto that feeling as long as he could. It was the only thing keeping him from falling apart right now.

Too much time Ah oh-oh Too much time gone by And I can’t find you if I try

Years and years of time had passed. Years and years and years that he’d been traveling the multiverse, sick and starving and bitter. He’d told himself that he’d be so much stronger and so much smarter by now. So why did he feel weaker? Why did he feel like he was breaking?

Too much time Ah oh-oh Too much time gone by And I can’t find you if I try

He couldn’t go back. He’d been told that almost as soon as he first crossed the threshold into the Nightmare Realm. He knew that, and he’d known that for years now. He liked to think it was something he accepted, but in reality it was just something he kept pushing to the back of his mind and choosing not to think about. But now it was all that filled his thoughts. He kept trying to make himself angry so that he could hope again, so that he could be anything other than sad. His anger was running out as fast as his resolve. He wondered how long he could keep this up, how long he could keep telling himself it was worth it, that he could do this.

Rolled up my mat and I’ve got no obligations

He didn’t have to do it. He didn’t have to stop Bill. He could just end it. He could end it all and never have to think about any of it ever again, never have to feel the guilt or the pain. He drew the pulse rifle from its holster and tilted it in his hands, examining it. It fired single bursts of energy that were enough the cause serious injury to any human-sized lifeform, lethal if to the head. He pressed the end of the barrel to his temple and squeezed his eyes shut.

He couldn’t make himself do it. Not when it was his fault in the first place. Killing himself would mean letting Bill win. And letting Bill win would mean he’d let him reduce him to this and get away with it. He couldn’t let all this be for nothing. Not when he’d already forced himself to come so far. Ford was angry with himself for even entertaining the idea of simply giving up. Not when there was still some chance, however small, that he could stop him.

Packed up my pots and pans and Freedom is overrated

Wasn’t that the truth. He smiled through the tears he didn’t even realize had been streaming down his face. He wiped them away, hating the fact that he’d become such a mess. He clipped the gun back onto his belt and took a swig of his drink. Stone by stone I left my only home

He would never see Dimension 46’\ again. He could say that was home, but he wasn’t really sure what home meant anymore. Home used to mean Glass Shard Beach, New Jersey. It used to mean his brother’s face and abandoned boats and stealing wood from the boardwalk. For a while it meant Backupsmore, however frustrating it was to be there. It meant banjo music and stacks of books and pulling all-nighters with Fiddleford. And finally it meant Gravity Falls. It meant pine trees and anomalies and a friendly face from back in college. But home was constantly changing. It was never one place or one person or one feeling. It simply wasn’t tangible, and therefore he couldn’t understand it. He could never really put home into any sort of clinical terminology. Science had always fascinated him because it was so complex yet so clear. It wasn’t the same way with emotions, all muddled and vague.

And brick by brick Woke myself from happiness

He thought of the first place he had called home. At that time, home and family had been so intertwined that they were almost one and the same. His family was his one constant. And then everything was broken and suddenly home wasn’t really home anymore. He still didn’t know if he was angry or guilty about what had happened to his brother. Maybe a bit of both. And ten years after that… Well, he wasn’t really sure how he felt about that, either. In a way, he both loved and hated his brother. He was a thief and a liar and a cheat, but he was loyal one, and the very fact that he’d showed up in Oregon at all had to mean something. Ford could’ve said things differently, but then again, Stanley could’ve just given him a chance to explain…

He sighed and rubbed his brow. It was done. He just hoped that the poor bastard wasn’t dead in a ditch somewhere. Because as stupid as he could be sometimes, he didn’t deserve half the stuff that happened to him. He just hoped he was okay. He wished Stanley was there to tell him to chin up and punch him in the arm and call him Poindexter. But there was no one where his brother used to be.

And dead fur and almond wood Storm crosses over Mount Hood I’ve got too much time Ah oh-oh Too much time gone by And I can’t find you if I try

He would never see his parents again.

They were dead now, and the fact was pretty much inevitable. There was no way they’d have lived this long, both of them had enough health problems as it was. He wasn’t sure if he was too sad about it. He would rather not think about them at all. He loved them and he hated them, but not in the same way he loved and hated Stanley. Thinking about them was something he wasn’t really sure if he’d ever be ready to do. But now he’d never get the chance to prove to them he really was worth something. Partly because they were dead and partly because he wasn’t worth much of anything anyway.

I’ve got too much time Ah oh-oh Too much time gone by And I can’t find you if I try

He would never see Stanley again.

He would never get to say thanks for sticking up for him, for always being there to cheer him up. He would never get to sail on that dumb boat they’d always dreamed about. He would never fill the hole that was left by his twin. He would never get to say sorry that he hadn’t spoken up when dad had kicked him to the curb, that he hadn’t been braver, that he hadn’t been more understanding. He would never get used to the silence.

I’ve got too much time Ah oh-oh Too much time gone by And I can’t find you if I try

He would never see Fiddleford again.

Fiddleford, who had done nothing wrong. Fiddleford, who had only been good to him. Fiddleford, who had only tried to save him. Fiddleford, who had only wanted to help his friend. He would never get to find him and beg for forgiveness and say sorry a million times over. That he was sorry for the gremloblin and the shapeshifter. That he was sorry he lied. He would never get to tell him that he was the best friend he’d ever had and thank him for staying as long as he did, thank him for trying so hard to save him from himself. He’d never hear his voice humming along with the banjo music. He’d never see him obsessively solving his Cubic’s Cube or bouncing his knee or…

He’d never get to see him again. He cursed himself under his breath as a fresh wave of hot tears poured down his cheeks, back heaving with every hitch in his breath. He would never get to say any of the things he wished he’d said in college before he met his wife. He would never get to lace their fingers together like he did when they would study side-by-side in their dorm room and neither of them complained because it wasn’t weird. He would never get to tell him that he might always have been just a little bit in love with him and he was somehow still hanging onto that feeling because he was the only person he’d ever really fallen for and he didn’t know why.

I’ve got too much time Ah oh-oh Too much time gone by And I can’t find you if I try

It was far, far too late. Everyone he loved was so far away and so far in the past that it was beginning to become hard to remember their faces and their voices. So far removed that they were slipping from his memory. He knew that he would never see them again, but it was so hard to let go. He didn’t want to admit that they were gone. He didn’t want to admit that he would never really find home.

He looked up to see Fraz pop their head through the doorway with a cheery “Portal’s ready.” Then the creature saw his tear-streaked face and froze in his tracks. They opened their mouth to speak, but Ford cut them off before anything could get out.

“Thanks for your hospitality.” He grunted, pushing himself to his feet and walking briskly past Fraz. He barged through the door the creature had emerged from without hesitation and practically threw himself into the wormhole the machine had created, welcoming whatever chaos the next dimension would bring and hating himself for the tears that wouldn’t stop dripping down his face.