GMA maneuvered his car up a windy, dusty mountain road, a bag full of books in his trunk next to the groceries. He eventually reached a remote cave that, oddly enough, had a power line running into it. In fact, the cave seemed lived-in: there was a pair of maxlboxes and a painted-on address by right-hand side of the entrance.

GMA got out of the car and grabbed the sack of books he’d bought down in town from the trunk. “Hey Doc!” he shouted into the cave as he walked in.

“Did you bring more booksssss?” a voice growled from the depths.

“Sure did!” GMA yelled back.He started walking down the slope into the main part of the cave. As he made his way to the large main chamber of his cave, he walked past his apartment, which was just a pile of side chambers with a door labeled ‘B’ blocking the front. GMA liked his place. Sure, it was pretty out of the way, but it was spacious, cheap (even though the rent was in a rather unusual currency), and Doc was a very good friend.

After entering the cave, he froze. The big black dragon who lived in apartment A was still sometimes intimidating, even though he knew full well that doctorlit was a very nice guy. He just happened to be a dragon. An extremely handsome (and kinda cute) nerdy dragon who liked books.

GMA snapped out of it, took the bag of books, opened it, and set it on the ground in front of him. Doc stepped forward a few times, and started sniffing at the rent.

“Yesssss,” he said, “booksssss. Fresh booksssss. Wonderful bookssssss.”

“I got a whole bunch of stuff,” GMA said.

“Yesssssss,” Doc hissed. “My pressssious bookssssses.”

“You’re doing the Gollum thing again, doc.”

Doc shook his head. “Yes, but booksssss. I needs them. Mine. Mine!” He grabbed the bag with a very hand-like claw and pulled it with him deep into the cave

GMA sighed. “Do you want to snuggle up and read later?” he called into the inner depths of the cave.

“Booksssss!” the dragon replied. Doc evidently wasn’t in the mood.

“Ok, maybe tomorrow then.” GMA replied as he went home.

“Bookssss.” came a faint reply from the depths of the cave. “Booksssss.”

"Never change, Doc," GMA said quietly, "Never change."

Wake Me Up Inside (Ship web around Moons, parody)

This is a parody of the fic “Like a Shadow Over the Soul”. It features Four Moons Watching as the main character, and also includes Calliope, twistedwindowpane, Iximaz, Huinesoron, Neshomeh, Scapegrace, Snowblaze, Willis64, and Hardric.

Hi my name is Luna Artemis’ia Selene Aysel Watch and I have long blue black hair (that’s how I got my name) with blue streaks and purple tips that reaches my mid-back and icy blue silver eyes like the moon and a lot of people tell me I look like Amy Lee (AN: if u don’t know who she is get da heck out of here!). [[I’m not related to anyone from Overwatch but I wish I was because Halloween Mercy is a major freaking hottie. I’m a fallen angel but my wings are retractable and made of energy. I have pale white skin. I’m also a writer, and I’m in a writing group called the PPC in England where I’m in my first year (I’m sixteen). I’m a goth (in case you couldn’t tell) and I wear mostly black. I love Hot Topic and I buy all my clothes from there. For example today I was wearing a black corset with matching lace around it and a black galaxy print miniskirt, silver fishnets and black combat boots. I was wearing black lipstick, white foundation, black eyeliner and blue eye shadow. I was walking outside Hogwarts. It was snowing and raining so the sky was very dark, which I was very happy about. A lot of preps stared at me. I stuck out my tongue at them.

“Hey Luna!” shouted a voice. I looked up. It was…. Calliope!

“What’s up Calliope?” I asked.

“Nothing.” she said shyly.

But then, I heard my friends call me and I had to go away.

------

The next day I woke up in my bedroom. It was snowing and raining again. I opened the door of my coffin and drank some holy wine from a bottle I had. My coffin was black ebony and inside it was blue velvet with silver lace on the ends. I got out of my coffin and took of my giant Valravn t-shirt which I used for pajamas. Instead, I put on a black leather dress, a pentagram necklace, combat boots and black fishnets on. I put on a pair of earrings in my pierced ears, and put my hair in a kind of messy bun.

My friend, Adelyn (AN: Twistey dis is u!) woke up then and grinned at me. She flipped her long waist-length raven black hair with red streaks and opened her forest-green eyes. She put on her Burzum t-shirt with a black jacket, black mini, fishnets and high-heeled combat boots. We put on our makeup (black lipstick white foundation and black eyeliner.)

“OMG, I saw you talking to Calliope yesterday!” she said excitedly.

“Yeah? So?” I said, blushing.

“Do you like Calliope?” she asked as we went out of our private messaging and into the Board hall.

“No I so don’t!” I shouted.

“Yeah right!” she exclaimed. Just then, Calliope walked up to me.

“Hi.” she said.

“Hi.” I replied flirtily.

------

Calliope leaned in extra-close and I looked into her gothic red eyes (she was wearing color contacts) which revealed so much depressing sorrow and evilness and then suddenly I didn’t feel mad anymore.

And then…………… suddenly just as I Calliope kissed me passionately. Calliope climbed on top of me and we started to cuddle keenly against a tree. Very cleanly because Shipfest fics are clean.

“WHAT IN ERU’S NAME ARE YOU DOING YOU FOOLS!”

It was…………………………………………………….Huinsorenian!

------

“Why did you do such a thing, you mediocre dunces?” asked Professor McShoma.

“How dare you?” demanded Professor Scape.

And then Calliope shrieked. “BECAUSE I LOVE HER!”

-------

The next day I woke up in my coffin. I put on a black miniskirt that was all ripped around the end and a matching top with silver moons all over it and high heeled boots that were black. I put on two pairs of moon and star earrings, and two angel-wings in my ears. I spray-painted my hair with silver.

In the Great Hall, I ate some Count Chocula cereal with holy wine instead of milk, and a glass of red wine. Suddenly someone bumped into me. All the wine spilled over my top.

“Watch where you’re going!” I shouted angrily. I regretted saying it when I looked up cause I was looking into the pale white face of a goth with spiky black hair with green streaks in it. They were wearing so much eyeliner that I was going down their face and they were wearing black lipstick. They didn’t have sunglasses anymore and now they were wearing red contact lenses just like Calliope’s and there was no scar on their forhead anymore. They had a manly stubble on their chin. They had a sexy English accent. They looked exactly like Joel Madden. They were so attractive that my body went all hot when I saw them.

“I’m so sorry.” they said in a shy voice.

“That’s all right. What’s your name?” I questioned.

“My name’s Iximaz, although most people call me Werewolf these days.” they grumbled.

“Why?” I exclaimed.

“Because I love the light of the full moon.” they giggled.

“Well, I am a fallen angel of the moon.” I confessed.

“Really?” they whimpered.

“Yeah.” I roared.

We sat down to talk for a while. Then Calliope came up behind me and told me she had a surprise for me so I went away with her.

------

My friend E’ternal Winter Night smiled at me understatedly. She flipped her long waste-length gothic black hair and opened her crimson eyes like communism that she was wearing contact lenses on. She had pale white skin that she was wearing white makeup on. Snowblaze was kidnapped when she was born. Her real parents are angels and one of them is a witch but a Mary Sue killed her mother and her father disappeared because he was depressed about it. She still has nightmares about it and she is very haunted and depressed. It also turns out her real last name is Night and not Blazkowicz.

------

I was really scared about Strakit all day. I was even upset went to rehearsals with my gothic metal band Fallen Gothic Wings 666. I am the lead singer of it and I play guitar. People say that we sound like a cross between GC, Slipknot and MCR. The other people in the band are E’ternal Winter, Werewolf, Calliope, Willis64 (although we call him Wilhelm666 now. He has black hair now with red streaks in it.) and Hadric. Only today Calliope and Werewolf were depressed so they weren’t coming and we wrote songs instead. I knew Calliope was probably punching a wall (she wouldn’t die because she was a vampire and the only way you can kill a vampire is with a c-r-o-s-s (there’s no way I’m writing that) or a steak) and Werewolf was probably watching a depressing movie like The Corpse Bride. I put on a short black leather shirt and tiny matching miniskirt that said Elvin’s Tales on the butt. You might think I have bad fashion sense but I really don’t.

------

Yes, that was several excerpts from “My Immortal”, with a few of the words replaced. Congratulations, you’ve read the laziest Shipfest fic ever. Apologies for the length, since I just couldn’t choose one or two scenes. And finally, can you find all the subtle side-jokes, references, and other Easter eggs I included in the fic? Also, feel free to spinoff.

-Twistey

"So."

Kaitlyn swallowed, clutching her blanket tighter around her, turning to follow Iximaz's circling prowl. "So?"

Iximaz reached in, caught a corner of the blanket and tugged it, making Kaitlyn squeak. "So can I see?"

"I don't know..." Kaitlyn did her best to peek inside the blanket without actually opening it. "I look silly."

"I doubt that." This time around, Ix stretched out a leg, stroking her toes up Kaitlyn's stocking-clad calf. "Though if you'd picked a different word starting with S..."

Kaitlyn made a sound halfway between a giggle and a whimper. "But, I mean, there's so much cleavage."

"Kaitlyn." Ix swung to a stop in front of her, facing her across two feet of floor. "You might have missed the fact that most people consider cleavage a good thing."

"Yeah, but this much?" Kaitlyn waved at her front, then hurriedly grabbed the blanket as it started to slip. "I highly doubt it."

Iximaz stepped in, pressed her lips to the shoulder the escaping blanket had left bare. "I promise," she murmured. "Please?"

Kaitlyn squirmed slightly, then sighed and met Iximaz's gaze. "All right." She took a deep breath, loosed her hands, and let the blanket fall.

Iximaz took a step back. A smile touched her lips as she took in the view: Kaitlyn's black thigh-high stockings, the lacy garters holding them in place, the matching lace of her black knickers cutting a shallow angle across her hips, and above it all the corset, purple lace fitted to black, and just as much cleavage as had been promised.

Kaitlyn stood, hands at her sides, barely daring to breathe as Iximaz's gaze took her in. "Well?" she whispered, her voice trembling. "What do you think?"

"Oh, Kaitlyn." Iximaz crossed the distance between them, wrapped her arms around Kaitlyn, and kissed her tenderly on the lips. "You look... perfect."

hS

This is the first piece of writing I’ve posted to the Board, so hooray! The story is that Twistey and I do a double date with Moons and Iximaz playing dodgeball against Sues and Stues. I hope you guys enjoy it, feel free to make spinoffs!


“I’ve almost got it…” said Twistey as she delicately lowered the final card onto her house of cards.

“Surprise!” exclaimed Willis, tickling Twistey and causing the house of cards to fall.

“Nooo! I spent like ten minutes on that!” yelled Twistey as she swatted him on the arm.

“Hehehe, I’m so evil. Anyway, are you ready to go? The others are waiting.”

“Oh I suppose. Why did I agree to this again?”

“Because dodgeball is fun! Besides, the Sues and Stus are only simulations, and considerably weakened ones at that.”

“So where are we playing it? You never really told me.”

“Well, the Sunflower Official had a Sue themed sports arena built in Headquarters with the latest and greatest simulation technology, in order to trick agents into using their free time in training. But the agents became so overworked that it’s never been used, so we’ll be the only ones there.”

“Huh. Well, let’s get it over with.” Twistey said as she walked with Willis out into the hall where Moons and Iximaz were waiting, arm in arm.

“Woohoo let’s do this! The simulation room is 5 minutes of walking thataway!” said Iximaz.

“Race you there!” yelled Willis as he took off running, his cross country training coming in handy again.

“Well he can have fun with that.” said Moons as she walked around the corner and drove a golf cart, borrowed from the arena, around the corner. Everyone boarded it and easily passed Willis.

“Wait, come back! That’s not fair!” cried Willis, breaking into a sprint in a vain effort to catch up to them.

“HAHAHA FASTER!” yelled Twistey in a maniacal voice, tauntingly waving at the receding figure of Willis.

Willis managed to reach the room after a couple of minutes, in a sweaty mess, while the others comfortably lounged in the waiting room.

“Oh, look who showed up! I guess we can finally start.” said Moons, punching in the code to start the dodgeball simulation.

“Wait, let me catch my breath!” panted Willis, but to no avail. The floor fell from beneath their feet, dropping them into a huge room with padded walls, two huge piles of dodgeballs, a dividing line, and a horde of twenty Sues and Stus.

The Sues and Stus roared and charged toward their pile of dodgeballs, but the four friends took a while to get their head in the game.

“Oh crap crap crap crap! I’ve gotta hide!” screamed Twistey. She tried to run, but Willis grabbed her hand and dragged her towards the balls.

“Come on, this is the fun part!” Willis grabbed a pair of dodgeballs and forced one into Twistey’s hands.

“Now throw the dang thing! They disappear on a hit, but it takes 5 for us to get knocked out!”

“AAHH NO! I don’t want to get knocked out! That’d hurt!” screamed Twistey, right as a ball bounced off of her head.

“Snrk that’s one hit. And it's not literally getting knocked out.” said Willis. They both looked over at the other team to see one of the Stus triumphantly yelling and doing a Fortnite dance.

“That one’s mine!” snarled Twistey as she threw her ball at the Stu, causing him to blink out of existence. Satisfied that Twistey would fight, Willis looked for an opponent. And there he was. A buff elf. He looked like Dwayne Johnson with pointy ears, and much paler.

“ELVES AREN’T SUPPOSED TO BE BUFF!” screamed Willis. The violation of nature turned toward him with a sadistic grin.

“Y’know, he’s right! We should get rid of this impostor! He’s such a fake, he’s not cool like us!” murmured some of the Sues and Stus. Five of them turned toward the buff elf, quickly wiping the smirk off his face. It took just 3 seconds for them to finish him off, but it gave Willis the breather he needed. He glanced over to see that Twistey had finished her opponent and had gotten another couple down too.

“OWOOOOOO!” Iximaz howled at the ceiling as he transformed into his wolf form, which must have been from Headquarters’s temporal strangeness causing a spontaneous full moon. He started bounding after the balls, wanting to play fetch, but soon suffered his fifth hit. With that, a hatch opened in the floor beneath him and he vanished from sight.

“Nooo!” yelled Moons, and everybody redoubled their efforts. They soon finished off the rest of their not very skilled opponents, but they each had no more than a couple of hits left.

“Yay, we did it! But what happens now?” exclaimed Twistey. And then the floor fell from beneath them, dropping them into a sleek plastic slide that somehow deposited them back down into the simulation waiting room. Iximaz, still a wolf, jumped up from where he had been laying and bounded over to Moons.

“Oh who’s a good wolfy! We won!” gushed Moons, affectionately ruffling Iximaz’s fur.

“Woof woof!” Iximaz barked excitedly as he leaned against Moons’s leg.

“We won! That was so much fun!” cried Twistey, flinging herself into Willis’s arms and giving him a kiss.

“We did! I knew you’d have fun!” said Willis as he happily embraced Twistey.

“Well, I’m exhausted. Let’s go relax.” said Moons. They all climbed back into the golf cart, including Willis this time, and headed off for a relaxing evening.

A Badger bent over a piece of parchment, scribbling furiously as the candles burned low.

The parchment itself was a map. The badger was muttering furiously to himself about terrain. To his left was an index of mathematical calculations covered in notes, scribbles, and calculations; "wind resistance" this and "magma formation" that, carefully arranged into the kind of total and complete mess that only comes from hours of dedicated work. And the map showed it: perfectly arrayed, immaculately designed, beautifully annotated. It was a masterpiece.

Unfortunately, fate had other plans. A careless swipe of the weary badger's paw sent ink flying across the artfully designed map, ruining it all. The badger stared. He blinked.

A cry of anguish echoed into the distance.

"Oi, mate! Some of us trying to catch some sleep!" A vaguely sandwich-like entity appeared adjacent to the badger.

"...Larf?"

"Bang on the money, gov! Here, awake, irritable, and bready." The sandwich, despite his claims, didn't seem especially irritable. He grinned in precisely the way that meat between bread usually didn't.

"Urrrgh..." The badger buried his head in his hands. "Sorry to wake you up like that. I just ruined this map I've been spending hours on. I calculated all the wind conditions and biome formations and everything! And it's just... gone. How can I call myself a worldbuilder now, without a world?"

The sandwich squinted. Somehow. It didn't have eyes, so how the sandwich was able to do this was confusing. But it did nonetheless. "Mate, you do know that you don't need to do that to build a world, right?"

"...Yeah, I do."

"Nah, man. Just fudge it! See?" The sandwich grabbed a parchment and quill with its not-hands and drew rapidly. "See, that looks about right, eh?"

The badger blinked. "...I mean... I guess yeah?"

"There ya go! See? You don't need all that math guff, do ya? C'mon, I'll help you out."

The black-and-white striped mammal sighed again. "What would I do without you, Larf?"

The sandwich smirked, seemingly uncaring that this was blatantly impossible. "Sleep alone, proabably..."

((This is loosely based on a real conversation in Discord. Veeery loosely. Veeeeeeeeeeeery loosely. :-P. But thanks for the idea, guys!))

Summary: The PPC brought them together. Can a badfic tear them apart? This is a sort-of-standalone ship fic in MoaM reality, set after the events of “Man on a Mission”. (MoaM reality is a different reality from the Shipverse, in deference to its occasionally dark subject matter. TL;DR: MoaM reality’s two defining characteristics are its Agent!Boarders premise and the events of MoaM: the ultimately successful sporking of a nasty Wolfenstein 3D bleepfic that made some very odd things happen to various agents. How exactly did all of this happen? It's still being finished.)

It had been a year since the sporking of “Fountain of Youth”, and Huinesoron had only recently found out that Intern Twistey had never taken the necessary Bleeprin to recover from the incident.

“No, no, I’m fine,” she had insisted when questioned about it. “My own imagination has come up with worse. Even before the fic came out, or before I knew about Celebrian or Rose Potter or-.”

“If that’s the case,” hS had replied, “you really need the Bleeprin.”

She had put one hand on her hip. “Do I now. How much did you prescribe to me, again?”

“Mm… one pill daily for three weeks, if I recall.”

“Jesus, that’s a lot.”

“A serious amount for a serious event. No amount of insistence is going to get you out of this.”

She had rolled her eyes, then been called over by Intern Willis, who wanted to show her a Suvian artifact he’d traded for with an agent. Huinesoron had never had a chance since then to catch up to Twistey about the Bleeprin. It really didn’t make any sense to him that she was resisting, as she’d clearly been the hardest hit by the fic, and he secretly feared that she felt no different about what had happened to her than she had in her original brainwashed state. Bleugh, it was sickening to think about.

He was trying to figure out how to get the Bleeprin, and possibly some Anti-Lustin, into Twistey’s food when [BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!!!]

Huinesoron was jolted out of his thoughts by the sound, and looked up to see Kaitlyn dashing for the console. She pressed the button and motioned him over. “Let’s see what we have this time.”

hS and Kaitlyn had been moved by Upstairs to the Department of Floaters for an indeterminate amount of time, and had been assigned no badfics with any unpleasant content for that amount of time. Well, the Sunflower Official had said that it was “until the mess from when you wantonly seized command of all Boarders has been sorted out,” but who knows what all he had meant by that. In the meantime, the two of them had received nothing but the most inoffensive of badfics, in order to be properly “readjusted”. Of course, Huinesoron had insisted that he was fine now, but the SO is hard to convince.

“Looks like nothing’s changed,” said Kaitlyn. “This one’s a crossover.”

Huinesoron looked a bit closer. “Hmm.” Then he cleared his throat.
“Thaw The Frozen Heart (DDLC X Frozen X Baldi’s Basics - Ice!Monika X Fire!Male!Reader, IceXFire!Cutcake)” He paused. “What’s Cutcake?”

“Well, it’s a ship name… sounds like a character who likes knives and a character who bakes. Which would be…” she scrolled through the fic… “Yuri and Natsuki.” She looked at her husband. “Nice wordplay for a badfic.”

hS smiled at his wife. At least she was enjoying these tamer missions. Personally, although he would do anything to protect canon, these ones brought him no adrenaline whatsoever. There had to be something truly shocking for the sporking to be truly satisfying. And this one was so close to being there… Doki Doki Literature Club and Baldi’s Basics in Education and Learning were both horror games, but this was just a lighthearted romance fic with other continua thrown in for extra flavor.

He continued reading the description. “When you transferred to your friend Light!Sayori’s high school and she invited you to the school literature club, you didn’t realize you’d meet the love of your life. But the school holds more danger than you realize. Your math teacher Mr. Darkness!Baldi is keen on making you miserable. But you are determined to thaw Ice!Monika’s frozen heart.”

“Wow,” said hS, “there’s elements other than ice and fire in this. Good job, Frozen fanbase, you’ve learned something.”

Kaitlyn laughed for a bit. “Okay, it’s a reader fic. Where’s the crash dummy?”

He shrugged and shook his head. “I don’t know, I think Twistey tried to marry it or something.”

“I doubt that’s the case.” Kaitlyn turned to face the opposite direction and leaned on the console. “Let me go look for it-”

A portal opened exactly where hS was. “Aaah!” he cried as he was sucked into its depths.

Kaitlyn stood shocked for a second, then shook herself, quickly grabbed a backpack full of agent gear, and followed.

-Twistey

Summary: A bunch of Boarder couples enter a virtual-reality WWII strategy game, each getting to experience life from the perspectives of a world leader at the time and his significant other. The results are surprising.

Ah, Paris. The city of love.

“Isn’t it beautiful, Kaitlyn?” gushed Huinesoron. “All the trees and the sky and there’s the Eiffel Tower, and…”

Kaitlyn was smiling too. “I’d really hate to see all of this get bombed.”

“Oh yeah… there’s that…” He exhaled. “Nesh and I declared war on Twistey and Willis earlier today, and that means we could actually be targeted in a bombing raid eventually.” hS became melancholy, taking everything in as if he would never see it again.

“Don’t feel too bad. It had to be done.”

“That’s the worst part. I just can’t believe what she’s been up to.”

“Playing by the script, it seems. Playing exactly by the script.”

------

It was a cold day in Moscow, but Snowblaze didn’t mind. She loved the weather here.

“How do I look in this gleaming white uniform?” she asked her lover, who I shall let the other Boarders choose, while studying herself in the mirror.

“Very dashing, Comrade Snowblaze.”

“Thank you, comrade.” Then they both burst out laughing.

“So, about the deal to split up Poland… d’ya think she’s going to betray you?”

“I know she’s going to betray me.” Snowblaze turned around. “We’ve had a rivalry going for a while.”

“But she’s the history freak. She knows Russia is too cold and too populous to be successfully invaded.”

“She’s a freak in general. She won’t stop.” She laughed. “I say that with affection.”

------

“I feel disgusting with this thing on my arm,” remarked Twistey to no one in particular.

“Then take it off,” replied Willis with a shrug.

“I can’t. Not while I’m working. I have to play along or else get overthrown by my own officers.”

“Suit yourself.”

Twistey leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. “If this were truly historically accurate, they wouldn’t let a woman lead Germany anyway. I’ve got to always remember that.”

There was a knock on the door. “Come in.”

An out-of-breath young soldier walked in. Twistey quickly tried to look serious and intimidating. “Yes? What is it?”

He handed her a letter across the desk. “Britain and France have declared war.”

“Thank you, you are dismissed.” As the soldier left, Twistey turned to Willis. “So it begins.”

“Do you think we’ll be able to beat France if it’s being run by, uh, what’s his face?”

“HWEEN-ay-SORE-on. And I don’t know. But we’ll definitely have to watch out for Great Britain, since Neshomeh and Phobos are in charge.”

“Nesh seems nice.”

“She’s always nice until I pull a stunt like this. So are half the oldbies. The other half just ignore it.”

“Hindsight 20/20.”

The door burst open. Once again, Twistey sat up in her chair and adopted a stern expression. She needed it, as now she was face to face with the chief of the SS, Heinrich Himmler.

“When are you going to implement the Final Solution?” he demanded. “I believe it’s time now to begin.”

Twistey paused. “It, ah, it will come… Where did I say that the Jews were the prob- I mean, what I was going to do with them?”

“In here.” He put a copy of Mein Kampf on top of the desk. “Perhaps you should read through it again, and recollect exactly what you came here to do.”

“Thank you. You are dismissed.”

Being published was what every Boarder dreamed of. And here she was, with a book she wrote. At least, she did in this virtual-reality world that Tomash, Thoth, and her friend Sigma from Newgrounds had coded as part of the move towards the creation of strategy games for the PPCers to enjoy. But the words sure didn’t sound like her, the way they were written. She wouldn't leave that many typos in a book. And the ideas presented in it were even worse.

That was the problem. The simulation, being focused on military tactics, started with the day that the war did. How Twistey had come to power was completely out of her control. And now she was going to look like a coward who couldn’t keep promises.

“Ohhhhhhh God. Remind me again why I did this,” she murmured to Willis.

“Why you convinced them to build the simulation, or why you kinda automatically flung yourself into this particular role?”

“The latter.”

He shrugged. “I dunno. Just like me when we play Axis and Allies. Someone has to.”

More are coming. Feel free to make spinoffs.

-Twistey

"Angst. Angst. Angst. Aaaaaaangst. Angst angst angst angst angst. Angstangstangstangstangstangstangstangstangst." Moons banged her head against the wall over and over again.

"Ey, what's Moons doing?" Iximaz asked. "Why's she off in the corner?"

"Oh," said Calliope, taking a sip of coffee she'd just ordered off the bar. "She's angsting. Pretty good at it too."

Iximaz frowned. "Hang on just a moment." She wandered over to the newbie. "Hey!"

Moons looked up sulkily. "What's it to you?"

The older writer narrowed her eyes. "You're... angsting, aren't you?"

"So what if I am? What if the gods have cursed me? What if there is a black doom upon me, an incredible grimness that hangs over my very soul?"

A slow smile crossed Ix's lips. "Don't talk to me about your very soul. I've been angsting before the very concept of blackness even occurred to you. My very being is so full of despair that you can't even comprehend it."

A silence fell over the two. Moons broke it.

"My very existence is anguish."

"Well, my soul is consumed by grim desires and inconceivable suffering."

"My pain is so great that mere mortals cannot even comprehend it."

"I'm so sad that I seem happy again because nobody can recognize the depths of it."

"I've written poems so black that nobody could read the paper they were printed on."

"Well, my poems are so black that they make people happy because they suck all the sadness in the room into themselves."

"Have you even contemplated the deep and dark nature of human soul?"

"I've come to deep realizations about the grim, black, superblackness of the soul that you will never understand."

"My suffering alone could create a new deity, such is its strength!"

"Corvus Corax once told me I was the angstiest human he'd ever met!"

The two stared at each other, breathless.

Ix sighed slowly, calming down. "So, want to be angstmates then?"

Moons gasped. "Can we be?"

"Only if you dye your hair..."

The newbie grinned. "Do you really think black is my natural color?"

Ix smiled. "I think I love you already..."

Willis had slept in late today.

Twistey wasn't too concerned, this was something he did from time to time. What did concern her was the fact that he was still in bed after she'd gotten back from a leisurely breakfast and some chats with friends. Even with HQ's temporal weirdness, it had to have been a couple hours.

She sat on the edge of his bed and gently ruffled his bright red hair. "Morning, sleepyhead."

Willis responded with a muffled groan. "'M tired, Twistey. Didn't sleep well last night."

"Bad dream?"

"Think so. Don't even remember what it was. Somethin' that should've been silly, I think. All I remember's there were lots of weasels. Whatever happened, I doubt I got more'n a couple hours in."

Twistey stroked her boyfriend's hair. "I'm right here, Willis. You're safe, in your own bed, and there's no weasels in the RC." Kicking off her shoes, she slipped in to cuddle Willis. "Get some rest. I'll keep you safe."

It was then that the Ironic Overpower provided a BEEP!

Twistey was having none of her console's fuvg. "Console. Sleep is important. There comes a point at which your antics are no longer funny. If you don't let us sleep I'm rewiring you into a microwave. Understood?"

The console bipped in slightly terrified agreement.

"I'll get to you when we're both rested. Until then, no noise."

"Nice." Willis gave Twistey an affectionate nuzzle. "How'd you think of that?"

"Spend long enough in HQ and you're bound to hear that trick eventually. I think it was Jay who came up with it." Twistey wrapped her arms around Willis and smiled. "Let's get some rest. You need it."

Willis smiled back and reached over to turn out the light. "Yeah. With the workload here, I bet catching up on sleep'll do us both good."

"Love you, Willis." Twistey curled up against him, soaking in the warmth.

Willis tried to reply, but exhaustion overtook him before he could. Smiling softly, Twistey closed her eyes, snuggling up to him and letting her mind go blank. It took her a bit longer to drift off, her being less tired than him, but soon enough she, too, was sleeping peacefully.

Neither of them dreamed of weasels.

"Okay, how did you do that?" Huinesoron squinted at Nova.

"Do what?"

"You were standing over there. You didn't move. I walked away. Now you're here."

Nova squinted. "Dunno."

"For that matter, you were in my bathroom this morning. Just... staring at me. And then gave me a bottle of wine. It was... really weird."

"Was I?"

"And then you followed me to work. And you were on the side of the road while I was driving... You just won't leave me alone, will you?"

"Maybe..."

Huinesoron sighed. "Is this because I said I'd go out with you this weekend?"

Nova squinted. "Could be, yeah..."

"...Are you gonna keep magically teleporting randomly to locations near me until I do?"

"I've... considered it."

"Jeez, man, you could get hit by a car! Or fall off a building! Or... something."

"Welll.... yes."

"You didn't think this through, did you?"

"Nnnnno..."

Huinesoron sighed. "Would you like to go for a drink now?"

"Yesplease."

It was a dim and cloudy evening, just after sunset. Iximaz was passing through a park on the way home. Their eyes shone gold in what was left of the light, and their long pants covered a rather embarrassing scar that looked like a claw mark.

Then, very quickly, impossibly quickly, as if someone were speeding up the footage to skip though a long, boring processes, a full moon rose. In fact, four moons rose. They seemed to peer down at Iximaz with a collective smile.

“Oh, no.,” Ix muttered. They tried to keep theirself together through sheer force of will, holding back the explosion that was about to overcome them as best they could.

“Not. Time.” they grunted as patches of fur burst out of their skin in a few places. “Hate this.”

It’ll be OK, Ix. the moons said, somehow. I can help. This doesn’t have to a curse.

Really? Ix thought, hoping that would get back to the voice they’d just heard, before yelping in pain as their bones shifted around. They roughly threw their bag to the ground so that it wouldn’t get too banged up during the rest of the transformation.

In response, the moons concentrated their light onto the transforming werewolf,, enveloping them in a warm, white glow. I’ll help you through this.

As the moonlight surrounded Ix, their transformation much more fluid and graceful. Fur rippled out over their body as it slid into a more canine form without all the violent rearrangement that usually accompanied a full moon. Their face stretched out into a muzzle. A tail rose out from their lower back without the usual ‘pop’. Even their clothes neatly came off and floated onto Ix’s bag.

Wow. Ix said. Can it always be this easy? Also, thank gooodness I don’t need to replace that jacket.

Yeah, I can make this how your transformations usually go. the moons said. After all, I’m four moons, and that beats the one moon you usually deal with.

Ix’s tail wagged. Nice!

There was a pause. I like your jacket too, by the way.

Uh, OK, sure. Thanks!

No problem. the moons said softly.

Ix took a few hesitant steps forward. This new way of being a werewolf sure left them a lot less exhausted than what they usually had to deal with. Then, filled with a burst of energy, they took off running around the park.

This is great! they thought-shouted up at the sky as they ran. I don’t think I’ve ever felt this good as a, y’know, wolf.

That was the plan. I noticed how miserable you were getting at night and thought I’d do something about it.

A few laps around the park later, Iximaz walked up to their stuff, panting. I like this. they said quietly. I like you.

I like you too. the four moons watching said.

Ix sat down. There was only one real way to properly express their thoughts on the situation, they realized:

“Awoooooooooooooooooo!”