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kyriolex · 10 months

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Skibidi Toilet Recap

I thought Skibidi Toilet sounded like sewage when I first heard about it. Then I watched the first 20 episodes and saw the light. This series is a masterclass in exposition and pacing. We learn something new in each video.

There is a man’s disembodied head in the toilet. His name is Skibidi, and he sings the Skibidi song while making geometrically impossible expressions with his face.

We see miniature dancing people outside an elevator. An elevator...full of urinals. We discover Skibidi has friends who sing acappella with him. One of them has green hair.

There is a massive Skibidi in a moving toilet the size of a small office building. He sings in slow-mo audio because he is a BIG BOY, and he crushed a human without even noticing.

Some Skibidis crash a fancy restaurant. They are actively invading the city, not just oblivious. Also this episode reaffirms that BIG BOYS are always surrounded by smaller Skibidis who accompany them like hype men.

We see tanks and helicopters, so we know the government is mounting a defense. A defense against what, you ask? The flying BIG BOYS who spew smaller Skibidis out of their mouths. In case their malice wasn’t obvious, the Imperial March song is also playing to make it extra obvious.

There are people dancing. It’s unclear if the Skibidi’s song is compelling them to dance or not. But we see the POV character - yes, apparently we have a Protagonist - flush a Skibidi down the toilet. The Skibidis can be vanquished! A bunch of other Skibidis burst in to avenge their fallen comrade. Apparently Skibidis have a sense of comradery.

There are a bunch of men marching down the street. Men with security cameras for heads. I’m calling them the Cameramen. They are marching towards the Skibidis, who are racing down the other side of the street. Also a Skibidi attacks the Protagonist because they hold a grudge.

The Skibidis have erected a golden toilet monument in the park. They have conquered enough of the city to replace our heroes with their own likeness. Protagonist kills two nearby Skibidis, then spraypaints a red camera logo on the monument. Security Cameras are no longer the tool of oppressors. They are the sign of rebellion. We know this because a bunch of Skibidis in cop hats immediately come to arrest the protagonist.

The Skibidis have created a church. A BIG BOY in a halo sings the song of his people in a divine tenor. Then some Cameramen come in to attack. The BIG BOY eats one of the Cameramen, but the others flush him down before he can kill again. The Cameramen give Protagonist a thumbs up, proving that he’s not just a fan, but an active member of the rebellion.

We see other species of Cameramen, such as the flying Projector and a giant with a vintage camera for a head. The opposing army has a demon BIG BOY with a horns and a voice so loud the ground shakes.

The BIG BOYS can shoot yellow lasers out of their eyes now.

Oh God the Projectors come in spider mode now. And they have turret guns. They aren’t as strong as a BIG BOY’s lasers though.

There’s a Berserker BIG BOY who moves extra fast and will steamroll his comrades if it means he can kill the Cameramen.

We see a squad of Skibidies. There is one Skibidi in a brown toilet, but most are white. A Cameramen lures the squad down the street with his sick dance moves. Protagonist then blows up the street from his hideout on a building roof. A Skibidi pushes Protagonist off a building. By now it’s obvious Protagonist is like a cockroach - he won’t die.

Protagonist put a camera (or disembodied Cameraman head) in a toilet. He sends the toilet-camera into a Skibidi base, but they recognize the imposter right away. They kill the spy, then send a jumping Skibidi after the protagonist.

Some Cameramen are spying on some BIG BOY politician. They set up a flying laser to assassinate the politician. The rest of the Skibidis destroy the rebel laser, then immediately come after the Cameramen with BIG BOYs in spider form. It’s obvious they copied the Spider Projectors seen in episode 12.

One of the larger Cameramen has destroyed the Skibidi monument in the park and is yanking Skibidis out of their toilets. Apparently there are two ways to kill a Skibidi now. Then we see a massive, kaiju-sized cameraman punt some BIG BOYS into a building with his foot. Kaiju Cameraman gives Protagonist a thumbs up. He is the new hope of the Rebellion.

This is only the first FIVE MINUTES and we’ve already got more story and worldbuilding established than some TV seasons.

#skibidi toilet #skibidi toilet recap #writing craft #what have I gotten myself into #okay apparently the big cameraman and skibidis are called titans but I didn't know that #this post was just my raw reaction

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drawinblog · 8 months

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Posted this on my DA, but I present to thee my Skibidi Toilet sona... New 2DS XL Person! I think a whole line of DS/3DS people would be cool, all with their own Wappy. WPPY-11 comes installed with turrets, a flamethrower, speaker, and various other defense mechanisms!

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pwlanier · 1 year

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Pottery manor, Han Dynasty (202 BC - 220 AD), 130cm long, 114cm wide. Unearthed from Yuzhuang Han Tomb in Huaiyang, Henan in 1981. Henan Museum Collection.

This set of disassembled and assembled pottery manor consists of two parts: courtyard and pastoral. The courtyard is a three-entry courtyard, that is, the front yard, the atrium and the back yard. There is a gate in the front yard, stables on both sides, and a built-in manger in the yard; entering the atrium through the second gate, there is a two-storey double-eaved gatehouse on both sides, and four-storey turrets with lookout holes are symmetrical on both sides of the gatehouse. The main building of the atrium is a two-story double-eaves and a top pavilion built on a high platform. There is no front wall on the lower floor. There are two staircases leading to the first floor of the main building. There is a toilet on one side of the main building, and a partial door on the other side to enter the backyard, where there are stairs leading to the second floor of the main building and the wing; the backyard has small low-rise buildings such as kitchen, toilet, and pigsty. One side of the pastoral garden is connected to the courtyard, the other three sides are surrounded by walls, and there are ridges, wells, irrigation ditches, etc. in the field.

This set of pottery manor unearthed in Yuzhuang, Huaiyang is rigorous in structure and vivid in image. It is the largest and most complete architectural artifact found in China. During the Qin and Han dynasties, the state system changed from the pre-Qin aristocracy to bureaucratic politics. These powerful clans often rely on blood relations, gather clansmen of the same clan, attract hired farmers, build docks, and have independent armed forces, which are called trilogy. The existence of tyrannical families brought serious land mergers, making this self-sufficient manor economy increasingly strong. This pottery manor is a true portrayal of the economic development of the manor at that time.

Courtesy Alain Truong

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putting-chell-in-places · 3 months

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put chell in aperture desk job

Turret toilet

#chell #portal #place #request #Grady #aperture desk job

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spiribia · 1 year

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trademark of portal storylines is they always have a straightforward premise and then take some absurd curve. portal 1 is youre a test subject and then it turns out all the scientists have been dead this whole time and the automated voice speaking to you is the sentient thing that killed them and is sliding you into an incinerator for laughs. portal 2 is a friendly robot showing up so you can help each other escape the facility and the killer robot and then a sequence of events happens and youre suddenly in the 1950s and the killer robot is a potato and your buddy now. even though its not officially canon desk job is you having a desk job and then suddenly youre talking to the immortal consciousness of CEO cave johnson preserved in a massive statue of his head because you and your supervisor wanted to show him your new turret precursor idea which was a toilet that blasts bullets and hes like Hey awesome Can you use that to kill me and liberate my tortured soul from this mortal coil

#talks

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enriquemzn262 · 1 year

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Vietnam had all kinds of wacky guns on aircrafts.

Wacky is to put it lightly

Miniguns in WW2-era C-47 Dakota transports, now turned into the AC-47 Spooky, aka Puff the Magic Dragon.

Massive fucking 20mm turreted cannons on small and nimble OV-10 Bronco observation planes.

Another minigun next to a fucking 40mm grenade launcher in the world’s first attack helicopter, the Bell AH-1 Cobra.

20mm gunpods galore in F-4 Phantoms.

The very same .50 cal machine guns WW2-era bombers used to defend themselves from propeller driven fighters, found in the nuclear-capable strategic long range jet-powered B-52 bomber, which somehow also managed to protect it from soviet-made supersonic interceptors.

And of course, the world famous toilet bomb, used only once by an A-1 Skyraider naval attack aircraft.

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kariachi · 5 months

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Some commissionwork! About 3000 words for @sxilor-1010 of Tetrax having a No Good Very Bad time.

You could have scooped the tension in the base like flan. The usual hustle and bustle of the building had been reduced to a murmuring undercurrent, officers and staff scuttling around like rats while the cats were awake. Even without the directions that had been sent to him, Tetrax could well have worked out where he was headed based purely on the ‘inconspicuous’ attempts of those around him to stay as far from the room as possible. He made his way through the base with measured steps, feeling the whole time as if he was holding his breath.

“Finally.” Albedo practically huffed the word when Tetrax stepped out of the elevator. “The Magisters were worried you wouldn’t show up, and people we can trust with this are thin in the water.”

“Now that you say that, I’m not sure I even want to know what’s going on,” he said, like he hadn’t felt on edge ever since he’d arrived. After the trip down, he couldn’t help but keep his voice low, or feel almost relieved with how he had to shorten his stride even further to allow Albedo to keep up with him. The situation was critical, that he had been able to infer from the messages sent, but other than that… Well, information had been, as the Galvans said, ‘thin in the water’.

“‘Want’ is superseded by ‘need’ in this case,” Albedo said. He was tense as well, tablet clenched in his hands tight enough to worry it may break. “There’s too much information we don’t have, and knowledge is power.” It may as well have been his species’ motto.

“Well, however I can help.” The offer sounded hollow as he said it, a ringing through his body reminding him that he still had no real information.

“That is the hope.” As they reached the end of the hall, Albedo smacked his lips. “Welcome to our new high security suite.”

The room had been for training- with targets, sliding panels, low-power laser turrets spread throughout, and two large panel windows, one on either side, through which the Magisters could watch and judge people’s progress. Most all of that was gone now. One could see the sloppy welding work repairing the spots where things had been ripped from the walls. In replacement, a single bunk had been hastily and unevenly installed. A toilet sat back-to-back with the cell-standard sink and mirror, out in the open where one had to assume there had been a semi-convenient line of plumbing to tap into on short notice. Even the opposing door had been visibly, enthusiastically, welded shut.

That wasn’t what caught his attention, however. Set him ringing enough he half expected to crack along weaker planes.

“You caught Dysomnia,” he said slowly, eyes locked unmoving on her form. There was no doubt in his mind that she knew they were just outside, but she made no glance in their direction. Simply sat on her bunk, watching the middle distance, fiddling rhythmically with her braid. Tetrax didn’t trust the quirk of her lips.

“Nova caught her,” Albedo corrected, quickly continuing when Tetrax tensed- “They’re alright, still being patched up but, there’s no damage that won’t heal with time and therapy.” The relief that coursed through him at that was palpable, but not enough to shake the tension from his frame.

“And now…”

“Now, we need somebody to go in and interrogate her.” For a moment, with effort, Tetrax was able to defy the instinct to keep his eyes on a major threat and instead direct them, narrowed, down at Albedo.

“Go in?” The Galvan nodded.

“We tried contacting other people first, of course,” Albedo said, “since you’re on vacation, but the responses were… disheartening.”

“I bet they were!” The amount of damage she could do, to body and mind, was enough to keep all but the worst at a distance.

“Two people threatened to quit.”

It was a tempting idea, for all he wouldn’t go along with it. Worse was that he couldn’t even claim it was a matter of ‘being a stronger person than that’. There simply wasn’t really any option. Dysomnia was focused on Nova, Nova whom he loved, and so he couldn’t just walk away from the situation. In truth he was most surprised that they had bothered contacting other people before him when they knew that he couldn’t say no, though less confused now that they hadn’t given him details until he was all but at the door.

“What got her caught,” Tetrax asked, steeling himself for the encounter, “and what am I trying to learn?”

“She was engaging in a munitions deal of all things,” Albedo said, “we want to know why, to see if we might be able to learn enough about her plans to, the humans have a phrase…. Take them down by the elbows?” Tetrax shrugged. Albedo heaved a sigh. “It doesn’t matter. We just need you to go in and see if you can get her talking. Make sure to stay by the door in case of an emergency though. I’ll be right out here, keeping an eye on things.”

Bracing himself and biting back the urge to let him know just how much he better be, Tetrax nodded slowly. Rolled his shoulders, stretched his back, and stepped forward.

Four of the sliding panels had been left in place, the ones nearest the remaining functional door. All out at once, they created a miniature room inside the room, one that remained sealed until the door clunked locked behind him. The sound reverberated through him in the moment before the top two panels slid back into the walls, leaving the bottom pair behind. They weren’t especially high, only up to his groin, but high enough that she would have had to make a visible effort to get over them.

“Dysomnia,” he said plainly, the only greeting she was getting. Finally, she looked his way, not even having paid mind to the sliding panels or the opening and closing door. The quirk of her lips that had already bothered him turned into something that couldn’t be called a smile.

“Tetrax Shard.” She made and held eye contact as she lifted herself from her bunk, dropping her hair as she did. With calm ease, as slow as if she had all the time in the world, she crossed the room to meet him. Tetrax held his ground, even as her eye boring into his own added an edge of discord to his ringing. “It’s been a long while.”

“Not long enough, unfortunately,” he said. “Care to explain why you were trading in munitions?”

“Is it not obvious?” Nothing was ever obvious with Dysomnia, or at least you never felt comfortable assuming it was. You never felt comfortable period. Especially not if, like him, you’d seen the aftermath of her ploys.

It wasn’t pretty.

“I’m looking for specifics,” he said. She began tapping the fingers of one hand against her leg and instinctively his eyes wanted to flick down to the source of noise.

They couldn’t leave hers.

Tetrax fought back the urge to shuffle his feet nervously.

“I’m sure you are,” she answered in her typical impassive tone, “but even with them, you all will still always end up three steps behind.” It certainly felt like that sometimes, but he’d be damned before he admitted it to her face. “How is Nova doing?” Whatever hackles he had that weren’t already up jumped to attention.

“That’s not your concern. Now answer the question. Why were you involved in munitions?”

“Do you think that busted leg is likely to heal properly,” she continued, unperturbed. “Or will it be the headwound that finally stops them?” Sparks of anger in his chest, Tetrax forced himself to try and match her calm, almost empty composure.

In hindsight, he should have insisted on going to check on Nova himself before this, rather than relying on Albedo’s report to let him know they were alright. He knew Dysomnia was playing on his emotions, his attachment, his lack of information, but knowledge of that alone wasn’t enough to stop the worry that started gnawing at the back of his mind, or the heightened ringing of his limbs. The ‘what if-’ crept, whether he let it in or not.

“You can’t discount internal injuries either. That blow to their side, I’d give it an easy two in three chance of rupturing something.”

“Enough, Dysomnia,” he said through teeth that longed to clench. “No more talk about what damage you did or didn’t do to Nova today. I just need to know what it is you’ve been up to, tell me and I’ll be out of your hair.”

“And back to enjoying the nice weather, alone, while other people run into danger for you?”

It hadn’t even been three minutes. Under three minutes and she was getting to him. From the trepidation ringing through him at the knowledge of what she was capable of, the worry she’d keyed in on scratching at his skull, frustration at her responding to him with questions-

He didn’t want to be there. He wanted to be at home, preferably with Nova, and far away from this menace he’d once watched drive Max to attack his own grandchildren. But no, no he had a job to do, and he just wanted it done-

“Are you trying to get me to back-and-forth this,” Tetrax growled before he could stop himself. “I ask a question you ask a question? Would that get you talking?” Dysomnia tilted her head to the side, just a little, and all his anger was washed away in a new flood of dread. Immediately he regretted opening his mouth.

“Yes. Yes, it sounds… fun.” There was no better sign he could imagine that the interrogation was about to get bad... But, if there was any criminal he couldn’t show his worries to, she was it. Carefully, Tetrax forced himself to calm and nodded.

“Why were you dealing in munitions,” he asked again as she straightened back out. The concept seemed, beneath her, almost.

“So I could blow things up, obviously,” she answered with such ease you could almost forget she’d been all but avoiding the question seconds earlier. “How did it feel, to kill everyone you’d ever loved out of greed?”

Whatever measly breeze had managed to be in Tetrax’s sails dropped like lead at that, along with his stomach.

“What?”

“My question,” Dysomnia said, clearly chastisement even without a hint of emotion in her voice. “How did it feel?”

“Vilgax is the one who killed them,” he said despite himself. It was splitting hairs- he knew it, she knew it- but still the words rose unbidden from his throat.

“You gave him the means to do so,” came the response he’d known would happen. “Your family, your neighbors, an entire world. Innocent children, who would have never known your name nor anyone you’d met, dead in an instant because you cared more for coin than consequences. How did it feel?” Like he had been living a nightmare. Like he had torn himself open and left all that was inside him in the expanding cloud of debris. Like people had been right about him all along, because surely all the sins of Petropia could not have equaled his.

“More horrible than you can imagine,” he said, doing his best to force those thoughts aside. “What did you intend to blow up?”

“You’ll find I have an excellent imagination,” she said before answering. “I haven’t decided. Working my way down the Tennyson family tree is still an option.” Tetrax tensed, at the thought of further plots against his in-laws and in anticipation of the coming question. “How do you know they aren’t all still dead?”

Oh. He clenched and unclenched his fists. It wasn’t quite the question that kept him up at night, he forced himself to believe all was well, but it was close. Close to the worry that when everything had been brought back, it hadn’t been brought back right. That the people were wrong, not the ones he knew. With a slow blink of her eye- the colors so wrong for a human he couldn’t help a twinge of concern, though he couldn’t say for her- she spoke again.

“How do you know bringing them back didn’t change things?” How could she fucking tell? And he’d have sworn she could.

“Only one question,” he managed to shoot back.

“Then answer it.” Sighing, Tetrax forced himself to, not relax but release some tension. It wouldn’t do him any good to shatter.

“I have faith.” He did. He had to. There was no way he would ever be able to bring himself to check, not after what he’d done. There was no other option left to him. All he could do was have faith, and move on with his life. Move on to more important things. Things that had gnawed at him for as long as he’d known she was alive and were sharp in her last answer. “Why are you so obsessed with Nova?” Dysomnia’s head tilted once again.

“Have you watched Highlander?” Gritting his teeth, Tetrax glared at her, over the question and the change of subject both.

“You have to answer my question first,” he reminded her.

“That was my answer,” she said. Despite his instincts screaming, he took a half-step forward, chin lowering in wary curiosity and confusion.

“I haven’t, so explain.” Straightening again, Dysomnia’s lips quirked further. Still it wasn’t a smile, or even a smirk, but it burned through him just the same.

“There can only be one.”

Somehow, Tetrax’s hackles raised even higher than they’d been before. The glare dropped from his face, lips pulling from his teeth into a pure confused grimace. If he’d been able, he would likely have stopped himself, he knew better than to show anything that might be weakness to her. But her words had caught him by surprise, and by the time he’d processed them enough for sense it was too late.

“Did you not notice the similarities?”

He had noticed. It was impossible not to. The texture of their hair was the same, their freckles, the shape of their faces. But Tetrax had seen both enough and nowhere near enough of humans to know how different and how similar they could look. Besides, other than these few physical traits, the pair were as different as it was possible to be. He couldn’t imagine a thing they might have to relate to each other with. Nova was friendly, energetic, a hero, and Dysomnia was… A literal walking nightmare.

“They didn’t seem relevant,” he eventually said, clenching and unclenching his fists again.

“You can imagine how I felt,” she continued, the even emptiness of her voice grating harsher for the way her words should have held something, “dragged from my own universe, put through hell, all to find there was another me already here. Same name, same face, far too big for their britches. Obviously, somebody was going to have to do something.” That didn’t sound good. He didn’t expect anything from her to sound good but, that especially didn’t sound good. Tensing, he asked

“Something?”

before he could think better of it. Dysomnia nodded slowly, folding her hands in front of herself.

“A universe can’t have two of the same person,” she explained, almost in tune with the ringing of Tetrax’s body, “it upsets the delicate balance. And we all know which of us has left the bigger impact.” There was only one way he could understand that.

“Nova has saved countless lives,” he said, “you’ve destroyed too many, there’s only one of those this universe needs more of.” She made a noise he couldn’t identify. Maybe it was a hum, maybe a quiet chuckle, or a scoff. It came with another blink.

She took a smooth, long step forward.

“We’re very well named, the two of us,” she said. “Do you know what a nova is?” Ringing sharpening, Tetrax took a half step back towards the door. “There’s a lot of events with the name, all relating to stars, but what you see most often is when two are too close together. The colder star will start to rip the brighter one apart, giving off the most brilliant flashes you’ll see in your life. Shredding the life from it, piece. by. piece.”

Protective anger, always sat in the hollow of his chest at a dim smolder, already brightened, began to flare hotter at the implications, the very thought of- He pulled himself straight, glaring down at her. For all the good it did, he may as well have been in another town.

“Of course that’s just the start. It rips away the life and light of the other star, then moves away, then comes back, over, and over, and over. Then, when things get old, that’s when the colder star goes supernova-” With a slow blink, her eye began to glow. “-and burns everything away, leaving only itself behind.”

Power crackled along her scars.

Tetrax’s ringing stopped.

He could see it, feel it. The world is burning, and everything in it. Stone cracking apart. Atmosphere seared away, no more air. Bay boiling, parks on fire, flesh melting from Nova’s-

An alarm cut through the twisting, tumorous mass growing in his mind and in his gut. With a gasp he came back to himself enough to see Dysomnia step impassively back as the top panels slammed into place. His ringing started up again, fierce enough, alongside the weakness in his limbs, the image in his head of charring bone, that he stumbled out the door when it opened.

Albedo was at his side as soon as the door had shut and latched.

“Tetrax! Are you alright? I hit the trigger as soon as she started but…” But it had felt so much longer. Shakily, he nodded, forcing himself forward several steps before collapsing against a wall, sliding down to rest on the floor, arms wrapped tight around himself. Those images-

“Tetrax…?”

“I just need a minute,” he managed to say, despite the long moment it took to do so, “then, we’re going to go check on Nova.” He needed to see them. Needed to reaffirm that it had all been those damn powers, just his head being fucked with. That they were honestly alright.

Then, then he could go talk to Max about the viability of having Dysomnia shot. Before things got any worse.

#fanfic #ben 10 #commissionwork

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unicyclehippo · 2 years

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I've been on a palindrome kick lately so how about "tenet" for a prompt?

definition—tenet: n. a principle or belief, especially one of the main principles of a religion or philosophy

The rumour that the Dreamscape Theatre was haunted had been around ever since its construction began.

The actual story changed depending on who told it—older folk who had been around when it was going up solemnly shared the story of the poor tradesman who had been pouring the basement cement when they were killed and buried beneath the floor by - and here they would tell the best story they could - the scorned wife, the betrayed best friend, the jealous lover, or the wicked boss; the younger crowds, meanwhile, whispered about the girl rejected by her highschool crush who hung herself from the cinema balcony, or the bassoonist crushed by a wayward curtain weight, or the kid who tried to swim in the popcorn machine and got cooked—but while the narrative changed with the generations, the persistence of the rumours never did.

That could be blamed, perhaps, on the fact that it looked the sort of place that ought to be haunted.

The Dreamscape was beautiful, in a spooky sort of way. She was tall and turreted, with a black-tile roof that rose in angular spires, each topped with an iron spike; the same ironwork caged the windows with bars and continued throughout the interior of the building used in graceful, ornate bannisters and guard rails. She looked more like a small Gothic cathedral than a theatre, all fashioned from light sandstone that at once seemed brutish and artful. Along the length of the front wall, the bricks were carved with hundreds of masks, each showing a different emotion—anguish and delight, joy and anger, jealousy and love, laughter—and all turned to watch the entrance to the theatre, a tall and heavy arched door with gleaming bronze handles. Above the entranceway crouched two stone gargoyles. On their shoulders, they carried a big sign that read, in tall red letters,

DREAMSCAPE THEATRE—NOW SHOWING

The space beneath that was blank, as the movie titles were taken down late on Sunday night and now, early Monday morning, they hadn't yet been put back. That was the job of Imogen Temult, who was late.

Again.

Imogen Temult, part-time worker at the Dreamscape, was late to work and fretting about it.

Neither lateness nor fretting were particularly uncommon states for her, something that her manager—Mike Hunt, a boy who almost deserved all the bullying he got for his unfortunate name, and who wore his plastic Manager's pin on his chest like it was a medal of honour, and who was terribly smug about the fact that he was the manager and not her, even though he was a full two years younger than her—took great care to note down in his little snitch book. He'd do the same today, she knew it, she just knew it. He'd stand at the front of the theatre waiting for her instead of getting on with his own work and he'd note down how many minutes late she was, and he'd click his tongue at her, and she would somehow have to keep from murdering him in any of the myriad ways she dreamed of doing when he was being particularly smug, or when he sent her off to clean the toilet stalls after a busy Saturday shift.

She was hurrying as best she could, but the rain and the pavement, slick underfoot, were conspiring with the steep hill to drop her on her ass (again) if she went any faster than a dedicated power walk. So she hurried—cursing the rain and the hill and the damn heat and the damn mist that meant she couldn't see further than a few metres ahead of her—and hoped that Mike was distracted enough that she could creep past him to the backroom and pretend that she'd been there for ages.

Ahead, the Dreamscape sign shone bright and even her strained relationship with Mike couldn't stop the wash of calm that travelled through her, the sign like a beacon through the mist.

In the very moment she sees the sign, her attention is caught by a voice—soft, gentle—from the alley that ran parallel to the Theatre. Barely a whisper. Head snapping toward the sound, Imogen caught a glimpse of a girl in a ragged dress, barefoot, holes where her eyes should be before she stepped back and dissolved into the mist.

'What the—fuck. Fuck, shit, fuck.'

Imogen flipped her wrist to check the time—still resolutely late—and gnawed at her bottom lip. The theatre beckoned but... If she had seen the girl, someone else might have as well. There was no sign of Mike outside the entrance so, swearing again under her breath, Imogen turned on her heel and slipped down the alleyway after that vanished spirit.

'Hey,' she hissed, loud as she dared. 'Are you in here?'

No answer.

Imogen squinted into the dark shadows deeper within the alley. Did they move? Did they seem darker than normal?

'We talked about this. You can't make visions were someone might see them.' Imogen glanced at her watch—late, late, late. 'I don't have time - just, please, no more visions. Okay?'

No answer. Imogen sighed.

'I'm sorry,' she added. 'I know I promised to get here before my shift but I got held up.' She glanced nervously back over her shoulder—it wouldn't do for anyone passing by to see her talking to nothing—and turned back to find herself face-to-face with an enormous rat. A rat man. A tuxedo-ed rat man.

'What did I just say? Cut it out.'

The rat man gave a deep bow. His tail—greasy and grey—flicked around from behind him to curl around her ankle; where it touched, Imogen felt a little tingle of cold air, like the mist had wrapped its creeping fingers around her ankle - except, of course, that the mist here was humid, nothing chilling about it - and then the image faded like a dream upon waking, details growing hazy and then gone entirely.

From the depths of the alley, within a spot of shadows Imogen was vindicated in thinking had been a little too dark, came a voice so bright it could have been made of sunlight.

'So. You're not afraid of rats. Interesting.'

'This again? No, I'm not scared of rats—I grew up on a farm, remember? We had heaps of them.'

'Proximity does not necessarily mean familiarity or fondness.'

Imogen conceded that point easily, remembering the way her father always shuddered when he saw one. 'I guess not. But no, they don't bother me. Never seen a rat man, though—but that's not the point!' she reminded herself sharply. 'You can't - I don't want to spend all day worrying about if you're out here spooking people and drawing attention. I don't want - I don't want to come out and find that you've been...' She trailed off, not wanting to finish her sentence. There was no need to, either. They both knew what would happen if she were to be discovered.

'You're right, of course,' the shadow said and, much diminished, much dimmed, added, 'I'm sorry, Imogen.'

Imogen shook her head. 'It's not you, Laud. You're - you're amazing and your visions are so good and getting better every day. That girl, in the alley? She made me jump two feet straight up, I swear.' The delighted laugh that earned her soothed the tattered edges of Imogen's worries. They would grow ragged again, but for a second she melted, smiling into the dark. 'It's everyone else I'm worried about. Just - promise me you'll stay in the attic? And wait for me? Please.'

The shadows burbled like someone was blowing bubbles into ink. Then,

'I will stay in the attic and wait for you,' the shadow promised, repeated. 'And -'

'No more visions.'

'And no more visions.'

'Okay. Okay. Good. Thank you.'

The heavy doors to the theatre groaned as Imogen opened and closed them behind her, hinges sticking in the humidity. She was braced for one of Mike's famous, irritating scoldings but the entrance was empty of staff. Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, she strode across the foyer to the service door, steps muffled by the thick carpet. Though she passed it every day, she stopped when she reached the ticket hub, eyes drawn to the glossy sign stuck to its window.

NO SHOES, NO SERVICE NO ANIMALS (SERVICE ANIMALS EXCLUDED) NO ABNORMALS

Imogen lifted a finger, tracing the letters. She thought of her friend outside, hiding in the shadows of an alleyway that smelled faintly of urine and wet paper; she thought of a train thundering past fields of tall corn, the smell of hot iron wheels threw up sparks, the way dirt coated her throat, stung her lungs as she panted, running as fast as she could, pushing Laudna up first onto the car and throwing herself after. Heat crackled under her skin and, in the reflection of the window, she watched her eyes flash with purple light.

She flinched. Pulled her hand away, fingers curling into her palm, and fled into the service hallway. Behind her, the smell of melted plastic lingered in the foyer, acrid, and would for most of the morning.

#prompt fill #tagging my stories #imodna mutant au #cr tag #imodna my beloveds

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