Ask the Road Out of Ruin Cast!

Like the blog description says, this is a blog where you can ask questions and get answered by the cast of I'm Doing This For Revenge, A Spark That Won't Go Out, and Worlds Apart! Serious, silly, whatever you'd like! Just don't go trying to work out spoilers, or Whisper will be onto your game in a flash, and she doesn't forgive or forget...

A lot of the IDW cast is featured in the story, but the main characters you'll probably wanting to be ask are:

-Whisper

-Tangle

-Lanolin

-Surge

-Kit

-Marine

-Blaze

"I'm their boss, I guess." The resultant quiet, complete with Tangle and Whisper staring at the sheep with blank confusion, eventually lead to Lanolin beginning to fidget. She ducked her head down and away, blushing as she awkwardly ran her hand through her wooly hair. "T-That was a joke. I was joking!"

"Oh. Ahaha, it's really hard to tell, you kinda have the same flat delivery as Whisper." Tangle nudged the wolf beside her as she giggled, who was looking momentarily thoughtful. Was that true? She always thought she was pretty good at telling jokes! Not at all grim-reaper-like!

"To be more serious, that kind of used to be how I looked at it, I guess... But it's different these days. Tangle and Whisper are my friends." Involuntarily, Lanolin looked up at the two when she said this, as if she were expecting both to invalidate her. Some habits die harder than she would like to admit. Thankfully, she was wrong.

"I'm always around to help Lanny with whatever she needs! We've been meeting up and talking a lot lately." The lemur was beaming, the words like a trophy she was holding up and waving about. "I help Lanolin when she's too busy with Restoration junk to do stuff around the house, and I even keep Kit company! When, uh, he isn't in a bad mood. Then I usually end up having to mop up a buncha water, mostly."

"We support each other," Whisper said with a simple nod. She was smiling, though.

"That one's a little different, but it's also true. Whisper helps me see things in a way I kind of struggle with, sometimes." Continued blushes from the sheep. This was way more open and honest than she was used to being.

"Hell yeah! Teamwork, dreamwork~! Girls get it done~!" A mighty thumbs up was followed by a brief pause. "Oh, right. What about Jewel?"

"The Director? Our relationship is entirely professional."

"Aw hell yeah! Slinger Meal!" The ocelot promptly tore the container open and swallowed its contents in a single go. It made a horrible crunchy-crinkly sound like a wild animal mauling a plastic bag. To his credit, he did manage to get them down quite easily.

"I... What, precisely, is a 'Slinger Meal?" Claire watched incredulously.

"You don't remember the short-lived, highly popular Slinger Meal? Three chicken nuggets, a fillet-o-fish, and half a dozen ketchup packets?" He waved a hand dismissively. "I'm a little offended? Or I would be, but you're always kinda like... Ten years behind the times, Priestess."

"First of all, go to hell." The howler monkey leaned in close enough to make him flinch and remember who he was talking to. She only moved in a little closer to stay ominously near him. "Second of all, you just ate six ketchup packets? THIRD of all, you're an international criminal. Before that, you were a little known mercenary in a little-known resistance outfit. How did you get a..." Her mouth curved around the words as though they were rock-solid in their absurdity. "...Themed meal?!"

"C...C-C'mon, Priestess. There's a lot you don't know about me!" He continued to lean back, almost hard enough that his chair was about to slip out from beneath him. "That was around the time of my Star Post shoot, actually."

Silence. One heartbeat, another-

"The magazine with the centerfolds of-"

"...How on earth do you know about that?" Lanolin glowered at the question. Like, really hard. Like she-thinks-you're-stalking-her-and-she's-going-to-tie-you-into-a-pretzel-hard. Tangle would have been more concerned for your safety if she didn't think she'd just heard some kind of revelation.

"Wait, boss, DO you have siblings? You totally never talked about them! I wanna meet them! Are they older? Younger? The same age? Unspecified third option?" The lemur leaned in, images of some mini (or macro) Lanolin dancing through her head. The sheep just rolled her eyes.

"You're not gonna get a whole lot out of these three." Tangle jabbed a thumb in the direction of Whisper, Lanolin and Kit.

"Rude," the wolf muttered. "...Fair though. Eating out is too expensive. Don't like it. Home cooking is the best."

"Ooo, Miss Frugal~ You say that, but every time we go to a place with booze, you end up getting a glass of bourbon that's the same price as whatever I'm eating." Tangle began to poke the wolf in the ribs with her index fingers and make her squirm. Whisper pouted, but didn't refute it. She really did just kind of get whatever looked good and focused more on the quality of the drink. "And as for Lanolin and Kit, they both do the thing."

"And what, pray tell, is the thing?" Lanolin scowled.

"W-what she said!" Kit harrumphed

"The most evil thing you can do when it's time to settle on a place to go! No matter what the occasion, no matter the time of day, the season, the alignment of the planets, it's always 'I'm fine with whatever'!"

"I-I... Well, I am. Being agreeable is a good quality!" Lanolin huffed. Dangit. She wanted to give the lemur a scolding, but she really did do the thing! Kit's ears drooped and he sat there scratching the back of his head while blushing. There was no winning here, she had sheep and wolf and fennec dead to rights over this one. "You're doing a lot of talking about us. How about you answer the question?"

"Gladly, and it's easy: Chun-nan food!" Tangle's eyes sparkled and she began to rub her hands together. "Takeout, eat-in, a buffet, it doesn't matter! Gimme that sticky white rice! Gimme the big saucy piles of meat with the broccoli stuffed in to make you pretend it's healthy! Gimme the meat buns that stretch like rubber when you bite in! Gimme those little sticks with the unidentifiable red steak-like substance skewered on 'em and they taste weird but so dag-on good!"

The old tenrec's face went rather grim and she pursed her lips, looking off to the side. One might have been excused if you had thought she wasn't going to say anything in response at all, but it does eventually come:

"It's a long and sad story. The short version of it is that he became obsessed with the idea of life without pain. That obsession, and his efforts to reach that ideal, made him lose his mind."

"That doesn't really answer the question, granny." Surge butted in without grace, arms crossed and leaning in. When the Worldpainter quirked an eyebrow she just scowled deeper. "That answers why he's crazy, it doesn't answer why he's a big screwed-up blob monster."

Are you aware of the tumblrverse?

There's a lot of odd things going on beyond the tumblrveil, for example.

*gestures towards Sang-mi the Tenrec*

In this particular plane, Surge has a sister.

"There aren't any damned 'other worlds'. Or other mes. I mean... Hell, one is already too many." Surge rumbled sourly.

"There are, other worlds than. These. Many. I have not heard of... Tumbly-verse." The shadow burbled thoughtfully.

"You're fulluv it. Oh! It's that, uh..." Surge squinted, trying to remember exactly where she'd seen the image of the other tenrec before. Because she had before. "Lady. That fell out of a hole in the sky once. I think? And kept calling me 'mangy' or something, which is rude. That's not my sister. I don't have a damn sister."

"Looks like. You. Somewhat." Surge's own silhouette side-eyeing her was not a pleasant experience and was also not something you could exactly get used to.

"Not even a little," Surge lied and waved a dismissive hand.

"Perhaps, right. This one is very, tall. You are very, small." The Lifeweaver ignored the middle finger waving angrily in his direction. "I like, this. Sang-mi."

"You say you like everything," the tenrec rolled her eyes. "And then you say-"

"I wish to. Devour her. Add her voice to, the reverie."

"Business aspirations?" The young woman behind the counter of the Green Lion raises an eyebrow, but it settles back down to half-lidded neutrality moments later. The face is different; so, so different from the exhausted and empty visage of the woman that would become Priestess. There's light in the eyes, in the sly smile that seems like it could contain so many tiny mysteries behind it. "They aren't great, I'll tell you that much. Going nowhere fast. How much innovation can you squeeze from a used bookstore? You can't teach old books new tricks!"

Part of Claire Voyance, as strange as it might have sounded for her of all people, had never really wondered about tomorrow. She was fairly happy against all odds. A quiet little business in Sunset Heights? Enough money to get by most months, with her fortune telling on the side getting her by otherwise? There was no reason to worry. Much better to take it slow, as it came. That was the way.

She really thought she was going to live her life here. Quietly. Mostly alone, unless the right man or woman came by. And fat chance with that! She'd had about as much luck with romance as the protagonist of The Woman Who Was Widowed 43 Times. Good book, that. One of her favorites. The sequel was coming out soon. Maybe number 44 was the charm?

Still, now her mind is going. She leaned back in her chair and pondered, as though she'd never really considered it. One hand thumbed back and forth on the page of the book she had open in her lap, the other absently tapping at her lips. That left only the end of her tail to carefully hold the teacup which had completed today's setup, and to her credit, she held the thing without spilling a drop.

"You. Did what? To what?"

"Oh, for the love of... Did you have to tell him, asshole?!" Surge growled in ineffectual half-whisper through clenched teeth, drawing her finger across her neck like she could somehow get you to quiet down even though you were just text on a screen. Far too late. Her shadow had peeled itself off of the ground, leaning in, bubbling and burbling with curiosity. Its hands, now strangely tangible silhouette, placed themselves on her shoulder.

Well, damn. She let out a heavy sigh. Might as well just spit it out. "It ain't important, but whatever. It's true. Weird thing called The End, calling itself a god."

"Was it?"

"No. It was just a thing from... Somewhere else? Like, from space. Freaky space alien."

"Everything. Is from, somewhere. That is not an answer."

"A god isn't-" No. This wasn't really a conversation she wanted to have with the Lifeweaver, or it was just going to start babbling out more philosophical questions to make things more confusing. With Kit not here to explain what a Socratic argument was, she'd be stuck going back and forth for half an hour at least. "Isn't important. It called itself the god of death or somethin'. Thought everything was better off dead. Went from world to world, killing everything."

There was a moment of silence and then the Lifeweaver made an unhappy whining noise, like steam escaping from a teakettle made of offal. "That is... Sad. Even Worldpainter, is not so. Foolish."

"Yeah, I was pretty sure you weren't gonna like that one. Well, chill out. In the end, it just killed people to feed. All that big talk about being a god? It was because it was afraid to die itself. So I took care of the problem... Permanently." Surge shrugged her shoulders, leaning back. She couldn't help but have a little bit of satisfaction, even if she'd gone into this reluctantly. It was a big win for her! That almost got her exploded, but a win is a win! And it'd at least placate the Lifeweaver, right?

Apparently not, judging by the creature making an even more unhappy sound. Its sharp-toothed frown sagged on its shadowy face, becoming grotesquely misplaced to the point that it looked like its mouth was about to slough off of its chin. "Oh. Even sadder. How, horrible."

"Even... What? What the hell d'ya mean?! It's like... The opposite of you! You're like, life! It was death!" Surge waved her arms incredulously, glaring at the thing beside her. "It just wanted to screw everything up and kill everything! Did horrible stuff just because it thought it was knew what was best for-"

"If only, I could have met it. Took it within myself... I could have, saved it from. Such a terrible, life."

What happened to all the vehicles that Sonic and Tails left behind the last time they came to Sol? Are they considered royal property and used for recreational purposes, or were they torn down for scraps?

"Most of them were scrapped. Fine vehicles, but without Tails' know-how and a constant stream of empowered material, they're rather unfeasible to maintain in working order." Blaze sounded regretful, and who wouldn't be? They were easily some of the most advanced technology on her world for a time that wasn't some variety of plundering (or murdering) robot.

"I can fix smaller stuff up like that in a jiffy!" Marine naturally lead with the aspect she was proud of, though the usual broad grin started to falter and her eyes started to avert for the second half. "But, uh... The bigger ones'r kinda outta my league, mate. I'm better at driving then I am at making, much as I hate to admit it."

"The Aqua Blast and the Deep Typhoon were disassembled for study. And for parts for the Ocean Tornado, which we still keep in the Imperial fleet but scarcely use these days." Blaze sighed. How long had it been since she'd stepped foot on its deck? She sighed, fondly remembering Sonic and Tails' trip to Sol, regardless of how much trouble had come with it.

"And the Wave Cyclone-"

Marine snapped Blaze out of her happy little daze. She stiffened, coughing into a fist and failing to suppress a blush. "We do not need to talk about the Wave Cyclone."

"No." An answer given in a quick, involuntary snap. Who the hell are you to say that?! Just walking up to a girl and telling 'em they've changed? A lot, even? Rude as hell!

"Well, said. Change. Is bad." The voice of the weapon she was carrying her her belt bubbled and sloughed through her mind, a gibbering laugh following it. Inwardly she winced. Something about the Lifeweaver agreeing with her made her skin crawl.

Second guessing commenced. Did it really, though? Was change really bad? No. It was more like getting told you changed made you feel like you were doing something "wrong," somehow. The tenrec frowned, scritching her nails along the back of her head through that mess of quills she hadn't bothered to tie up this morning.

"Okay, fine. Maybe I've changed a little. Like, I think I'm gettin' better at not being mad all the time. And it's getting a little easier to deal with people, as long as they aren't total asshats." Frye. She was talking about Frye. Earlier she'd stopped in to check on him and had been advised the best way she could help him get back to fighting shape was to be around him as little as possible. And also, possibly, take a bath.

"But for the most part, nuh-uh. I haven't changed much. Still like kicking ass. Still think Sonic sucks. Still wanna get home to see Drippy. Just... Where I'm goin' in life got switched up. I'm doing different stuff now, that's all." She flumped down on her hammock, arms crossed and looking up at the cloudless sky above the island. "That's normal, ain't it? How a story goes."

"Sto...ry?" The Lifeweaver's voice sounded bewildered.

"If you keep doing the same thing forever, staying in the same places, talking to the same people... Gets boring." She half-lidded as she spoke, not sure if she was trying to convince him with these words or herself. "A story's gotta shift gears, or you're gonna wanna stop reading eventually, right?"

"If life is a. Story? Then the best, stories. Are ones where nothing, bad, happens. Where the happy ending is never in doubt."

"What right do you have to ask about her?"

Green fires burning in the deep dark, two eyes deep in a skull-like helmet. A room in a ship as quiet as the grave, save for the muffled encroachment of waves on wood and the distant creak of rigging and the rattling of chains.

"You have forgotten about her. All have. She served a purpose for all of you, and now she is gone. What difference does it make what she was like?"

More silence. One might expect that to be a silence that did not end. But something changed, in the heart of the Hollowflame Queen. Or perhaps something did not change at all, but was always there.

Quietly, softly, the voice in the darkness rumbled:

"Long ago, I knew nothing. For that reason, I could understand even less. And then... one day..."

"Maybe if they freakin' invited me?!" Her fist thumped against the table in front of her so hard that the little question asking doohickey went flipping off. Kit helpfully snatched it out of the air with a water tendril and put it down again. That was a well-practiced move at this point. "Gee, I wonder who'd wanna drive around flying off ramps and turn their car into a sick speedboat and collect a bunch of rocket-powered punching gloves and use them to drive up behind that blue jerk and test out the stretch limit and overall carrying capacity of his ass-"

"Surge, I hate to say it, but maybe that's why they didn't invite you?" Lanolin cut in smoothly, rubbing the tenrec's shoulders. Or at least, trying to around the snappy little zaps coming off of her. "You and your bad temper kind of have a history."

"They invited Eggman, dammit! He's a war criminal, like fifty times over!" Lanolin held up a finger to be reasonable, realized there was no reasonable explanation for that, and just slowly lowered it.

"N-Not to mention all the other weirdos!" Surge's pure irritation had even gotten Kit a little worked up, that usually dull voice replaced with insistent outrage on her behalf. "Thieves? Men made out of blocks? Sponges?"

"Pac-man? What the hell is a Pac-Man?!" Surge jabbed an accusatory finger at a nearby pizza missing a couple pieces. "You better be happy you aren't called Puck-Man like I thought you were at first, buddy. I'd be doing SO much vandalism with a sharpie and the letter F!"

How are you two handling the news?

Lanolin? please fact check these two.

"Not really much to fact check," Lanolin said gruffly... Clearly displeased. More than usual, even! "Personally, I'm mostly just annoyed I wasn't invited. I'm the team driver. Whisper turns driving into a high octane car chase with massive property damage and Tangle mostly seems to think cars are for either singing along to music in, or making out in the backseat of."

"No backseat," Whisper said wistfully. Of course she'd checked.

"Blahblahblah. C'mon boss, stop being such a debbie downer! We're in the big race! It's amazing!" Tangle clapped her hands together once, then twice, then four times. "I'm so freakin' excited!" Then began to sustain a one-woman applause, raucously clapping with both of her arms held up over her head. "Yippeeeeee!"

" S'nice, yes. Good to just have fun for a change instead of worrying about life or death." That was what excitement looked for Tangle anyway. Whisper was awkwardly tapping clawed index fingertips together to try to keep up with the energy on her end. Couldn't hide her worried look, though. "The thing I don't get is why ever since then, everyone I pass in the hall keeps saying 'congrats on being canon.' "

"Woah! Do they shoot the carts out of one on the racetrack or something?" The applause was replaced by excitedly pumping fists, Tangle's eyes sparkling in anticipation. "Or, wait. Being cannon? Do we BECOME cannons through some kinda sweet alien technology and-?"

"It means you're real now," Lanolin said dryly. "Canon. One 'n'."

“Her voice?” Blaze blinked a few times, trying to piece together in her mind precisely how to answer that. Steadily beginning to blush the more that she did so, of course.

“Rough. That’s the first word that comes to mind. A little low, and rough, like one might expect a ne’er-do-well to sound after you look at them the wrong way in a tavern.” It was little wonder that she had mistaken her for a pirate the first time she met her. Even before getting slugged in the face.

But…

“That might sound bad. And maybe it was at first. But after getting to know her? It feels different.” The blushing was unrestrained now. “… When she likes you, that rumble in her voice starts sounding less like an avalanche about to fall on your head more like… A storm in the distance. Powerful, but comforting.”

"Hell no you're not. It's why I didn't want anything to do with ol' Goopy at first. Speaking of which..." She drew the sword for emphasis, her fur flashing an electric blue as power began to rush through her. At once, Surge's shadow peeled itself right up from the shoreline. Distorted, limbs too long and standing just a little too crooked, it crackled and shifted before. " Now, explain yourself."

"Raam is, a traitor. He came to me in times, long, past. He drew the, sword. Received my boon. His eye." The silhouette spoke from cracked, jagged teeth, pointing at the glowing green slits where eyes (roughly) should have been for emphasis. So that's where that weird hypno power came from. He got that, Surge got this wretched talking cloak. "All lies. His goal is to merge the worlds, and. Destroy, me. As though he could. Pah!"

"You really know how to pick 'em, huh? All of this is your fault when you get down to it." Surge glowered at her own shadow. Lifeweaver merely shrugged, the wide-grinned nightmare of a face rolling about his head like a thrown die with the motion.

"This is only, a fragment. Of me. Meant to serve all of you. Your goods, and your evils, in the name. Of your happiness." The shadowy form quivered, once again wanting to make clear it was illustrating its point. The way more heads began to sprout from the shadowy not-really-Surge-anymore's body was... Very unwelcome. The tenrec made a face like she found a bug in her soup. "The rest? Of me? Seeks only to bring you peace, from beyond the veil. Eternal l-"

Surge sheathed the sword and immediately the shadow zipped back into herself, melding around the blade and turning its holster jet black like the Lifeweaver itself: "Yeah. So, in other words, those two don't like each other. But he goes off about that last part like every hour, so don't go thinking he's any less crazy and not wanting to eat the world or whatever. Raam was usin' him for power, and now I kinda am too. That doesn't make him, like... Nice. He's just a freaky monster when you get down to it."