Don't You Dare/1/Editorial Review

a/n: Happy Halloween 2018! Lin edits a skell fanfiction 'zine, and they are this close to having their special spooky edition ready. They have just one last, particularly difficult author to deal with.

All the good things (except a little headcanon about families) belong to Monolithsoft. Yes, Miss Warawa writes fanfic in-game, at least in her head.

Lin should have been happy. She should have been relaxed. The Halloween issue of "Pretty Skell (N)e(X)t" was shaping up nicely. Plenty of content, all of it presented in a timely fashion and avoiding some of the more difficult complexities of converting xeno formats. She remembered previous collabs with the Ma-non and shuddered. No, their xeno contributors had been good sports and used human files as their standards, just this once. Her co-editor Alexa had only surprised her with 5 extra skell photos yesterday, a refreshing example of self-control. This issue would be all that they had promised their readers.

There were even a few celebrity contributions. Lin chewed her lip. Ga Buidhe had delivered a Wrothian creation myth with scenes worthy of a slasher film if you removed their cultural importance. Miss Warawa, always a favorite with the readers, had stretched the limits of her talents and the piece she had written was frankly surprising: a tight noir thriller that hinted at Nopon as essential part of Miran daily diets, with a payoff that had Lin re-reading the short story immediately. Even Elma had written something, not fiction, true, but her factual description of their first encounter with the Tainted was just as horrific as anything from a fever dream.

"Wow, Lin, if you keep chewing that lip, you're gonna need a new one, and do you trust the Maintenance Center to give you the right kind?"

Lin looked up to see Alexa, freshly arrived from the Administrative Skell Hangar, if the scent of skell oil and skell fuel and skell hydraulic fluid was any hint. Or maybe that was just normal Alexa. Lin felt a little jealous. Definitely gonna buff my baby once this issue goes to bed, she thought. "I don't look that nervous, do I?"

"Lin, you know you have the Commander doing whatever you ask. You just have to pitch it nicely, and maybe crumple that adorable chin of yours."

"Can't you talk to him about … this?" Lin waved hopelessly at the text floating on the main screen of the briefing area. (And if one needed proof of Alexa's statement, there was the fact that the fanzine had been granted use of the usually crucial area for today's final layout session. Not for the first time, either.)

"No way. He's too good at telling me 'no'. 'Can I have extra weapons on the Ares?' 'Can I squeeze a second pilot into the cockpit?' 'Can I have flame decals on my Verus?' No, no, and no. So you better be the one to do the talking. You did bake him pie, right?"

"Strawlenny and cream, his favorite."

"Nothing to worry about, then."

Jack Vandham, Commander of BLADE, arrived a few minutes later, only slightly late, and something about his demeanor was strangely hesitant. His bulk took up less space somehow, and his greeting was less gusty.

"Okay, sir, I want to get right to it. We want to make some, uh, changes to your piece."

"My story? You need to weed out any typos? I looked it over hard, but I'm not surprised that some of the little buggers crawled in."

"That's not the crawlies that we were thinking about…" Alexa started, before shutting her mouth at Lin's glance.

"The errors we corrected as a matter of course. We changed some things that were redundancies, and I'd really like to tighten up the scene at the school. Not all of our readers will get those references, you know. But really, we have a bigger issue with the … uh … tone…"

"It's like a story for kids," blurted Alexa.

"What she means, the perspective is kind of … young. I like it a lot," Lin hastened to add. "A lot. But I'm the edge of the readership, age-wise, even I know that."

"I thought you were looking for stuff for kids," Vandham said defensively.

"We support young artists. Not so much the content, but the writers and so on. You're not that, are you, sir?" Lin argued.

"You saying it doesn't suit?"

"It suits, it's just …" Lin waved her hands helplessly.

"Where'd you come up with it?" Alexa said. "I was kinda surprised you did something this long for us. Was it something you remember from being a kid? Like a story from then?"

"It was a bedtime story I used to tell, when I babysat my nephew. All the time. It was his favorite."

"Oh." All three turned to re-read the story on the screen.

a/n: I am cheesing this HARD to make it appropriate for this channel. Enjoy the cheese.

Next up: Goosebumps x XCX.