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March 2012: Fever Dream (Solo)

Everything was hard. Getting the door open was hard. Taking her coat off was hard – and as soon as it was off, she was cold again, ugh! All her insides felt glugged up, disgusting and congested, her nose was just not co-operating, and her head was throbbing like a face-hugging flu-monster was going to burst right out of it. Gigi hated being sick.

She moped through the empty house, snuffling, and finally reached the sanctuary of her bedroom, dropping handbag and homework on the desk and hanging her head in despair. This flu was the worst. It didn’t want to leave. Everybody had it, but she didn’t have time to be sick. She didn’t want to be in the half of the class that was off for weeks and falling behind on all her studies. It had been a bad idea to go to the astronomy thing, she concluded. It was too cold to be out so late at night. Not that it wasn’t fun to watch the meteors falling, but she regretted it now.

She rubbed her nose, but the sneezes kept building. So gross. With a sigh, she reached for her handbag again, almost tipping it up onto the desk as she scrabbled for the last clean tissues amongst the mess of disgusting used handkerchiefs. The little packet had slipped to the bottom, of course, when she needed it most, because inanimate objects loved to laugh at her suffering. Cough lollies and lip balms rolled away and onto the floor as she searched. Finally, she pulled the little white mercy flag free of the packaging, but her hand brushed something else she’d forgotten was in there. Clamping the fresh tissue across her nose and mouth with one hand, she drew it out with the other.

It was a pen, with a cute little coffee-bean logo on the top. She turned it over in her palm, like she had the other night, when the cat had spoken to her. She hadn’t thought that much of it. She’d dreamed of talking cats before. In fact, she was pretty sure she’d dreamed of that cat before, quite clearly. She didn’t really remember much of the conversation, because hey, talking cat! But she remembered the instructions well enough. The cat had said that if she was ever in trouble, she should use this pen.

Well, she was definitely in trouble now. She could barely even make it to the bus stop without keeling over from sneezing. It certainly couldn’t hurt. Gigi pushed herself upright against the desk, and moved to the centre of her room. Raising the little pen above her head, she called out the magic words as directed – Subamara power!

It felt right. It felt good. A rush of warmth, inside and out, like her belly was percolating, steam rising off her skin and a familiar bitter taste in her mouth. The sensation seemed to lift her up, almost as if she could float on the powerful rush. When the feeling lifted, she felt more alert, more energised than she ever had before, like she would never sleep again. Her clothes had changed.

Sailor Subamara turned to her mirror with a little flourish, holding out gloved hands to admire the change. The cat had made her a terrorist - a senshi, she remembered. Of coffee! She could fight the monsters in the city. It was her duty, even, the cat had told her.

The cat had said –

A sliver of cold worked its way from the base of her spine and up her back, spreading like cold wings across both shoulders till she shuddered. A coughing fit bent her double. She was going to mess up her new uniform if she didn’t find a new tissue.

The cat said…

The coughing gave way to a round of explosive sneezes that racked the new senshi’s body, one after the other, and she had to grab hold of her desk chair to keep herself upright. The feeling of strength and vitality drained away with each spasm, leaving her feeling worse than ever, dizzy on her new heels. She was burning up from the inside. She was freezing cold.

It was no good. She couldn’t remember. It was all fuzzy through the white-light pain in her head. This wasn’t going to get her to school on time. No school and no monster-fighting and no tissues and she was really going to fall over if she didn’t lie down. It was almost enough to make her cry, if her insides weren’t too thoroughly clogged to allow it. She stumbled to the bed and flumped down, crumpling the lovely skirt as she curled in on herself. She pulled her feet up too, coffee-bean boots and all, and used her last strength to drag the blankets up over the whole ensemble.

The magic faded quickly. By the time her mother arrived home, she was just ordinary Gigi again, running the kind of fever that no amount of coffee could revive her from. The henshin pen remained cradled close against her chest.


(845 words)

May: (Regular)

Two Walks of Life
Subamara x Remarque

(complete! 2433 words)

Early/Mid 2014: Achievable Goals (Solo)


Gigi already had a plan for this one. Not an enactable plan, sure, but the teen suspected actually ending world hunger was not the point of the homework exercise. And there were easier things on the list, but the plan needed updating anyway, and she could share it with the class and maybe scrounge up a few donations. And if that wasn’t the real point, then the teacher was doing it wrong.

She’d left class in a hurry, which was typical these days. There’d been groups chatting as they packed up, planning and working together, but she really didn’t have time. Since she’d come home from Australia, she’s been curled in on herself, total immersion in school work, no time for her friends. A lot of people she knew had already graduated anyway. The curriculum was all different, and she really had to scramble if she wanted any chance of getting into a good college. She needed every drop of extra credit she could wring out of the system. Even ridiculous homework was still worth taking seriously. She gave it her full attention.

Step one to ending world hunger was to start giving food to people who didn’t have any. Obviously.

Step two was more complex, of course. Food cost money, but everyone couldn’t afford food. There were plenty of simple, practical solutions to that, though. You’d need to get the government on board, at least at first. Local, federal, the whole world. In Gigi’s plan, politicians would all take massive pay-cuts, which would then be funnelled into a Food Budget. Politicians loved budgets, so they couldn’t complain too much. In fact, you could just cut the politicians right out, nobody would really mind. Or they could be responsible for food delivery, actually work for their positions. But the big bucks would come from other areas.

First, she proposed, was world disarmament. All the money that went on guns and bullets and nuclear whatsits could be reapportioned into her food budget. All the work that seemed to go into military research could be redirected into improving sustainable farming techniques. This would have the positive side effect of meaning doctors had to spend less time on patching up bullet holes and could focus on curing diseases.

Of course, ending weapon production wouldn’t automatically end violence. Not with the Negaverse still out there, who could just pull your whole soul out of your chest and kill you, just like that. Or cut you up with knives or whatever other weird nasty little props they seemed to carry. Who could track you down by your aura and come right to you - and how many times had she powered up in her own safe little bedroom, in her home? Pretty much every time! Not to mention the youma still running around. She hadn’t really seen that many of them up close, not without smoke and destruction getting in the way of her view. She didn’t want to.

But there were plenty of senshi, too. Senshi with magic that actually had an effect, unlike her Coffee Rush, who were effective fighters and powerful magic-wielders. And princesses. And really, she was much too busy to deal with all the magic stuff right now. There was only one of her, and she had to get into college, and take care of her aunt and her dad, and try not to fall apart every five minutes because she thought about it all too hard. She just. It wasn’t on her list of things to do. Like homework. That had to be done.

Then there was the issue of supply. Gigi was pretty sure that from a purely mathematical perspective, there was enough food on the planet for everyone, but if everyone wanted to eat like they were on Master Chef, someone was going to be disappointed. A bit of common sense would go a long way. You’d need campaigns to teach people how to cook for themselves, and not to waste everything. Supermarkets would need to get on board, and restaurants too.

Since everyone was being disarmed, there would be more arable land that wasn’t full of landmines and barbed wire to grow even more food. And since all the weapons research was nixed, they’d have time to start developing better food storage and transport solutions, to get all the food to all the hungry people.

All in all, it would be a perfect paradise if they could just convince the monsters to eat carrots instead of starseeds. But that bit didn’t need to go in the report.

It was late by the time she’d finished writing it all up, the poster was pretty much done. But it wasn’t worth very much if she couldn’t lead by example. She rolled up the poster and began arranging the basket, carefully staging a sample of non-perishable food along one side, taking care to ensure that this basket was clearly begging to be topped up with more food by other like-minded souls. Lastly, she wrote up a careful notecard, and sticky-taped it to the basket handle.

“Ending World Hunger could be achieved if everyone showed a little bit of compassion for each other.
Now ask me about Curing Cancer, that one will actually take research! smile “

She gave the homework brief another quick read-over, then dragged down her big boxes of CCG cards, and selected a couple of carefully built decks of Magic: The Gathering to toss into the basket as well. One was martial-arts themed, which wasn’t quite Kung Fu, but pretty close. The other was her favourite, shiny elemental magic. So that gave her, say, two days to find a nemesis? Totally achievable.


(946 words)

November 2014: (Regular)

Learn and Live
Subamara & Athene

(complete! 2881 words)

April 2015: (Regular)

It was you all along under the magic
Subamara, Athene, Liryn

(in progress)

August 27, 2015: Deadhead Youma Event

[ORP - B] Planes, Trains and Automobiles - Platform

The Negaverse makes everybody late.

(1884 words)


[ORP - B] [PTA] Outside Deadhead

Public transport sucks far more than usual. Also blows chunks.

(1894 words)


How Could You Be So… (Post-Deadhead events, 27 Aug 2015)

Mums have the worst timing.

(881 words)

8th Dec 2015: (Solo)

Angels We Have Heard On High

Turning 20 doesn't prevent dorky Dad-ness. Daaad...

(961 words)

5 Feb 2016: The Assault on Negaspace

[Meta: Order ORP] The Deal

12% of a plan, and a portal into the dark.

(762 words)


[Meta: Order ORP] Three Paths

Inside Negaspace.

(506 words)


[Meta: ORP-B] Storming the Castle

For once, we are the ambushers instead of the ambush-ees.

(1131 words)


[Meta: ORP-B] Turning Tides

Even if you get to the centre, you'll never get out again.

(2412 words)


[Meta: Order ORP] Shooting Stars

The Moon is where you go when you lose.

(in progress)