The Forge Plush campaign was an incredible success thanks to all of you, closing out at a superb 568 sold! I told myself I'd be more than happy if this plush did half as well as Eightfold's did, and you all helped it exceed my expectations. The Forges ship out in July or sooner, and I'd love to see pictures like people shared for Eightfold when they start arriving! Send them to me on social media!
Going forward, I want to do more merch like this, including other things besides plushes, that you guys can grab every few months if you’re able and excited about it! These campaigns have been a huge boon for keeping the lights on over here at Paranatural HQ, and I like getting to give you all a chance to get something cool for supporting my work. I’m definitely floating printing and shipping certain merch items on my own, and more hands-off collabs like these Makeship campaigns are definitely in the cards.
I still have a bunch of backend work to do, but we’ll be chugging back along through the chapter! I hope you continue to enjoy the story.
You can, as ever, also support Paranatural on Patreon or with a one-time donation on Ko-fi. Thank you so much!
~
[Transcript]
High atop East Island, just outside the big front doors of Bayview Biddle School, Ed Burger, the smartest genius in the world, was in the middle of a rather pleasant morning.
“Bye, guys! Good luck at college!” they called after the students leaving their bright-and-early tutoring session. It was extra fun to wave goodbye with a big flappy lab coat sleeve.
“We won’t need luck, Mx. Burger,” one of Ed’s best pupils said. “The lasting echo of your wisdom will suffice to see us through...”
“Hmph! I guess I gotta say THANKS or whatever, teach.” The eighth grader who’d improved the most over the last few months shyly thumbed his nose and adjusted his cool leather jacket. “I never friggin’ believed I could give up gang violence, let alone skip high school for a free ride straight to Yalevard. Who’da thunk a workin’ class punk like me had a knack for fractal hyperphysics, huh?”
“Yeah I know, that’s wild,” Ed said, bouncing up and down. The weight of their hair buns flopping all around was fun too. Waiiit. It was actually pretty funny: they were a Burger with two buns! Another clever observation, Ed proudly praised themself, thanks to my absurd intelligence! They’d have to make that joke to Isabel soon—the musings of a genius were meant to be shared with the world, and Ed forgot most of their best thoughts rather quickly.
Luckily, they had a Muse on hand to muse to in the meantime.
“Muse, I’m a burger. Write that down!” Ed cheerfully chirped to their partner, having slipped into a far-too-public spirit trance.
“Burgers have beef, shrimp,” Muse scoffed back disinterestedly.
“Beef shrimp?” Ed asked. That sounded like something that Spender would eat, or maybe even something he would drink. They were compelled, as a scholar, to interrogate the truth of that hypothesis: smart people were always curious, which was why the junior scientist was always asking questions. That was also surely why some simple concepts still confused them, even though their awesome grades were very good. Ed’s opulent mind palace was a huge and extravagant maze of a mansion, which made it super easy to get lost in.
“I’m talking about MEAT, kid,” Muse sighed. “Glutes and abs and pecs and guns. POWER! STRENGTH! You got it?! NO, YOU DON’T! And that’s the problem!”
The funny monkey in Ed’s paintbrush, a spirit of artistic inspiration, had always taken on the image of its host’s aesthetic ideal. Now that Ed was in the blissful throes of a semi-conscious gender reawakening, Muse had semi-consciously updated their appearance to reflect more recent chapters of a manga Ed enjoyed, the model by which the affable spectral best understood their connection with their spirit: Muse stood behind them and didn’t say much while they got beat up in wacky fights. Cool shades and a fresh coat of feminine paint had done little to curb Muse’s bad attitude, however, which was an aspect of their personhood decoupled from the spectral they had paired with.
“These are formative years for your balloon-animal body, kid. Do you wanna be stuck as a squeaky little rubber duckling FOREVER? Or do you wanna spread your shredded wings as a big, buff, bulked-up MUSCLE SWAN?” Muse threw their feet up in frustration, a gesture made legible by the spirit’s expressive, opposable monkey toes. They’d perfectly executed a back handspring and begun doing one-finger pushups; in the complex and intelligent body language of a great ape, as Jane Goodall could have told you, this was a sign that the simian spirit was ticked off at a little loser dorkwad they were babysitting. “I’ve been telling you, pal! You gotta train and down more protein if you ever wanna beat a guy like Master Guerra!”
“Oh, okay. Well. I don’t really want to do that,” Ed decided with a shrug.
Heck, hadn’t that weird bodyjacking spirit from the other day said something about the brain being a muscle? That guy was basically just a floating nervous system, but he had super strength and huge, disgusting veins, so clearly he had found a way to skip leg day and still stand strong in mortal combat. Ed, too, could simply rely on their muscular mind to save the day for Isabel and the rest of the Activity Club.
“...Do YOU want to defeat Master Guerra, Muse?” Ed asked their scowling spirit. “You always bring him up, and yeah, he’s scary sometimes... but he’s also just, like, kind of my dead grandpa. Legally speaking. Can’t you just avoid him like you said I should? He’s not gonna hurt you in your paintbrush...”
“Tch! Why do you think I’m IN the dang paintbrush, Ed?!” Muse grumbled, now doing rapid squats to vent their fury.
“Oh. Um.” Ed bounced up and down to maintain relatively steady eye contact with Muse. “Well... isn’t defeating him kind of a high bar to set for me, then?”
“Tch! TCH! A high bar’s what you need to do a bunch of chin-ups and get STRONGER!” Muse drew a line in the air with a dismissive flick of their tail, jabbing a toe-thumb towards the inky gym equipment that their brushstroke had created. “Now drop and give me ten, then give me ten on this before you drop! Being in good shape is good for playing with Amiibos or whatever it is you like, too!”
“Maybe so... but no thanks! I like my shape already,” Ed said.
They were feeling good about themself these days, thanks to everybody being really nice about their hair and clothes. Ed didn’t feel like they were falling short of any expectations that they cared about. They gave a grumpy Muse one last big-sleeve wave and let their spirit trance disperse.
“Morning, Eddy,” they heard somebody say from just beside them. “You’re glowing today. Your EYES, especially.”
“Izzy!” Ed beamed, pirouetting to face Isabel. “Gosh, thanks! Tee hee.”
Isabel smiled and shrugged, hiking her backpack higher up her shoulder. More kids were dispersing from the buses now, slowly fanning out across the blacktop.
“Ah, whatever. Let ’em think it was the glare from the sun or something. I’m not Mr. Spender.”
“That’s one of your best qualities,” Ed said.
“Aha ha! Dang, Eddy,” Isabel laughed, leading them by the sleeve to a quieter corner of the parking lot. “Listen, I’m not that annoyed at him. We’ll just steal a page or two from some of his important paperwork and laugh slightly less at his jokes today, okay?”
“I will happily play mad scientist for a boss with schemes that evil,” Ed agreed, delivering a floppy lab coat salute. “I’m like a Minion from those movies.”
Isabel gave them an affectionate rock-paper-scissors-strength karate chop in response, which Ed answered by miming a spray of blood from where she’d struck, pairing the motion with plenty of horrible squelching noises.
“Oh, that reminds me, Eddy,” an unfazed Isabel continued, “I wanted to ask you about something, actually.”
“...Me pretending to die violently reminded you?” Ed giggled from the ground.
“Haha. Well, no, I guess not. I just remembered that Grandpa wanted me to ask you about Crush...”