NyaNyaMagicPretzel

Highways are usually two-to-four (at the widest) lane roads that meander the US landscape. Think Route 66, dinosaur statues, mom-and-pop diners, southern gothic. There are state-level and national-level highways. Some run for a 100 miles, some, like US HWY-17, run most of the East Coast:

That red line is US HWY 17. If you follow it, you will go through tiny towns. You may hit stoplights. I kid you not, you will see spinning cows on poles. Businesses exist along highways that you are encouraged to pull over and visit. They were designed to let you see America.

Yeah.

Now, interstates were made in the 50s and were made to get people from Point A to Point B. These suckers range from four lanes to eight lanes around big cities. They cut through everything. If you want to get to a business, you have to take an exit ramp and detour. They are great for getting places fast. You can still have weird experiences on them, but usually at night, when your eyes start playing tricks on you. Or there are deer.

I-95 is a massive corridor that runs from the Florida Keys to the Canadian Border. You can see the difference just looking at the maps.

As far as writing goes:

If you want quirky character development inside the car, you’re looking for an interstate. The majority of Americans take interstates to go on road trips.

If you want mysterious and/or supernatural hijinks, you’re looking for a highway. They are weird, weird places, and they’re surprisingly easy to wind up on if you leave the interstate.

So Ra sends Thoth out in an effort to soothe the goddess before she arrives in the north and wipes out everything including the gods (she’s just that strong). He’s terrified, but he tries all sorts of cunning and wisdom and trickery and tells her moral tales and all that, but all he can do is delay her.

In the meantime, Ra’s priests of the north are hard at work. They brew thousands of barrels of beer, and mix pots and pots red dye. And when the goddess inevitably arrives, they mix it up and pour it into the reeds of the nile. Believing it to be the spilled blood of her enemies, she drinks it up proudly… And gets EXTREMELY drunk, calming down and transforming into Hathor, goddess of joy and love.

The statue was under a foot tall, ceramic, rosy-cheeked and blue-eyed and surprisingly heavy, the epitome of kitsch. Little pink posies sprouting between its toesies, a base of mossy grass, as if Heaven is a place out of a Kinkade painting. It had its palms pressed together in prayer and stared at you out of its chubby-cheeked face with an expression of winsome contemplation.

You had hated it.

And now it’s gone, probably somewhere in the vents by now, lurking in a cupboard, behind a shower curtain, clinging to the ceiling above your bed with its pudgy hands and vacant grin. All because you didn’t have the good sense to cart it off to a thrift store or make a listing for it on eBay. 

Thanks a lot, Grandma.

You keep finding notes everywhere the next few days: squeezed between the sofa cushions, tucked inside your bagged lunch, pinned to the refrigerator with a smiling apple magnet that you’ve never seen before in your life. Find me, they say. I don’t think you’re looking. Why don’t you try a little harder? Don’t be afraid. I could eat you right up but I don’t bite. Don’t you want us to be together?

You call up your mom and ask her if maybe she knows where Grandma might’ve gotten a cursed angel statue from.

“Oh, she had dozens of those,” your mom says. You hear her sigh wistfully on the other end of the line. “She had a collection from since I was a kid. I always thought they were pretty cute. You don’t like them?”

“They used to watch me,” you say.

Your mom laughs. “You never did like going to her house.” You remember the sideboards and end tables and countertops populated with ceramic figurines, staggered in descending height like rows of candles, a house full of religious icons staring at you with their cold dead eyes.   

“Anyway,” you say, “I’m not talking about her figurines in general. I’m talking about the specific angel statue she left to me in her will.”

“Oh, I don’t know anything about that. She kept collecting them after all us kids moved out.”  She hesitates for a moment. “Listen, if you don’t like it, you don’t have to keep it, okay? I know you’re not religious.” She gives a familiar little laugh, and it’s as if you can still see her, her lips quirking up in regret. “It’s not like she’ll mind if you just throw it down in your basement.”

“Yeah,” you say. “It’s too late for that.” Then, as an afterthought: “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” your mother says. “There are a lot of things we all could’ve done different.”

The notes escalate, marked up with bible verses and XOXOs along the bottom. You overturn your house looking for that damn angel and you find white porcelain dust scattered in the cracks, dainty footprints in the dust beneath your bed. New sweaters start appearing in your closet, ugly bulky sweaters with rows of hearts and teddy bears knitted across the front, too cumbersome to wear. You start to think that maybe this is your life now, Grandma’s passive-aggressive gift fluttering somewhere high above above you on vestigial cherub wings, haunting you until your death.

You never visit, the notes say. Find me. Find me. You’re breaking her heart.

Fine. There’s one thing you can think of left to do.

You drive up to the cemetery. You haven’t been here since the funeral, and sure enough, there it is, sitting on your Grandma’s grave. The flowers have wilted, and the elements seem to have done a number on the statue as well. The glaze over its skin is flaking, cracked, yellowed, patterned in the jaundiced complexion of scales, shriveled and reptilian. Part of the glass of its pupils have fallen out, been lost, so there are just black holes at the centers of its eyes, a core of sunken rot staring out from them.

It stands silent, praying.

“That’s enough,” you say, walking up empty-handed. “I gave it a shot. I tried to keep you. Maybe that was my mistake. Maybe there was someone else out there who would’ve appreciated you more than I did.”

It watches you with hollow eyes.

“You’re all she left me in her will,” you say. “I think that’s proof enough, right? That in the end, we didn’t have anything in common.”

The angel doesn’t say anything.

You raise up both your hands. “I relinquish all claim to you,” you say. “I no longer own you, and you no longer have any obligation to me.” You take a step closer. “You hear that? You gave it your best shot, and it didn’t work, and so you can stop trying.” You turn your palms up to the sky. “You’re free. You hear that? You’re free.”

The angel stands silent and you take another step closer, and at your footfall it begins to crumble. Its skin flakes apart and catches the wind as it disintegrates into a rising eddy of amber sparks that catch the sunlight and disappear into the sky. It’s hollow inside, minute particles of corkwood and motes of dust and strands of pure white silk that unfurl into the air and disperse, and you raise your head and a moment passes and then it’s as if the statue was never there.

lance is a student who signs up for a college program called ‘help-a-grandma’ where you help an old person buy groceries and vacuum and commit pension fraud

he meets this old japanese lady named momo

momo: ‘are you hungry?’ lance smiling: ‘no ma’am’ momo: ‘i will forcefeed you until you beg’ lance: ‘oh my god i fucking-‘

he feeds her cat and cleans her windowsills and flexes for all her old lady friends

momo: ‘you should meet my grandsons’ lance: ‘why don’t they help you around here gramma’ momo: ‘they are fuckin losers!!!! oh can you put on the antiques roadshow’

she teaches lance some japanese and he teaches her cuban spanish

but they’re either swear words or phrases like ‘beyoncé was robbed’

lance comes over one day like ‘gramma i’m here i brought your redbulls-‘ but he screams when he sees a stranger in the kitchen

the guy has messy inky hair and big dark eyes and a leather jacket, and lance’s ass is on fire until he pulls out a knife

keith: ‘WHO ARE YOU AND WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING HERE’ lance screaming: ‘HELP! HEEEELP!!!!!’

momo: ‘put the knife down you stupid’ keith: ‘but baa-chan i’ve always wanted to kill a home intruder in close combat’

momo: ‘this is lancey lance he’s that handsome talented helpful single boy that i single told you about single’ keith scoffing: ‘you gotta be kidding me’

lance giving keith a slow once-over: ‘are you always this grumpy pretty boy?’ keith sliding over the kitchen table and grabbing his collar: ‘you always this cocky??’ momo: ‘( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡° ) i need to put this on the chatsnap’

momo once lance leaves: ‘he is a handsome boy yes?’ keith thinking about dark skin and dark hair and long long fingers: ‘baa-chaaaaan’ momo pinching keith’s ear: ‘i know you want to butter his bread roll i’m not an ass dumb’

the next time lance comes over keith is sitting at the table and keeps looking up at him from under his bangs

keith: ‘when do you visit my grandma’ lance: ‘tuesday and thursday afternoons’ keith: ‘fine. i’ll be here. to make sure you aren’t annoying her’ lance: ‘fine’ keith: ‘fine’ lance, eyes softening: ‘you’re fine’ keith, blushing: ‘what did you say??’ lance: ‘ummm floor grime’

weeks pass and they’re always butting heads and seeing who can vaccum the fastest and ignoring when their thighs brush on the couch

momo: ‘do you like him’ keith with a soft gooey smile on his face, watching lance fistfight a raccoon in the yard: ‘….yeah. i really do’ momo: ‘then smash’ keith: ‘what the fu-‘ momo: ‘smash. coward.’

lance breathlessly: ‘hey’ keith: ‘hey’ lance: ‘your grandma is- she’s gone out for fresh air’ keith standing awkwardly: ‘oh. ok’

lance standing up: ‘do you want to…’ keith: ‘hmm?’ lance: ‘you wanna do something?’ keith getting closer, feeling dizzy: ‘what did you wanna do’ lance backing him up against the countertop: ‘i have something in- in mind’

keith whispering: ‘…like what?’ lance softly: ‘like this’

he pulls him in for a kiss

lance cradling keith’s face: ‘wow i am so glad i met your grandma’ keith grinning, bumping their noses together: ‘don’t mention my grandma right now. just kiss me again’ momo: ‘no bitches i am here’

momo sitting sandwiched in between them on the couch: ‘……so when is the wedding’ keith: ‘baa-chan for the love of god-‘ lance: ‘i don’t think-‘

thats messed up.

So I had an idea of like instead of the gems having human-like forms, they all originally had really alien-like looks to them but they had to reform and create more appealing human-like designs because their previous designs were more horrific and unnerving for the humans living there. Of course they didn’t tell steven because they thought it would terrify him if they told him that his cool alien moms were once horrific looking creatures.

Homeworld Gems hate the Crystal Gems even more since they believe that they’re losing their sense of identity and are pathetic for trying to appeal to humans rather than show their true forms.

have lapis lazuli be steven’s introduction to a “true” gem from. Where instead of appearing as a dainty  looking lady she looked like this:

i was also a fan of the homeworld gems continuing their old gem language. so when peridot shows up she sounds like she’s making a lot of garbled nonsense. She’s not familiar with the english language and struggles to understand everyone on earth (minus the gems), which makes her usually pretty grouchy and easy to frustrate.

Ruby

they would all look like floating boxes

they simply exist to be protectors and barriers for far more important gems like sapphires or injured quartzes. they fuse if the situation grows dire and being shattered is frequent. if situations grow serious, the some rubies unfuse to attack other gems to make sure the gem within the box is safe.

they’re all seen as expendable and worthless. CG ruby would be similar to the show’s ruby but even more self deprecating and uncaring to her feelings

Sapphire

Has eyes all over her body and a sideways mouth in the center. she wears a lot of clothing to avoid sensory overload. typically she’s seen with her hair over her eyes (she has great hearing and can manage fine), and doesn’t speak unless orders are made.

they still love each other very much