#The keep reading is there because this post ran a lil long

[rebouks]

I'm using simblr gratitude day as an excuse to take a leaf outta @akitasimblr's book n' do a sunday faves/crushes style post to appreciate some of my fave blogs i scour for updates on the reg 👀 believe me, the list is 100x longer than this but it's 23:40 the night before cos i ran outta time and y'girl is tired AND stuck in the office tomorrow sdkjskdj...

@simlit - for the one of the most unique takes on a "bc" i've come across, with interactive polls and all! great character building too.. and impeccable screenies/worldbuilding 🤤

@lynzishell - for the cutest, realest characters i feel like i could be neighbours with, i bet i could barge in and join em for dinner and they prolly wouldn't mind 🤭 but also 'cause ur so sweet and supportive and ily <3

@citylighten - for a grittier story with complex characters, amazing shots and a dash of crime-.. oh and lots of hot, hairy men (not u, Ben) and strong women that tickle my pickle.. i need to see more Pietro soon or i may cease to exist skdsk

@rainymoodlet - for the hottest man tiddies on simblr and the most ridiculously ambitious bachelor challenge EVER, idk how ur keeping it together Shan but we love u for it and i can't wait to see who wins Dan's heart and the journey's all the lil pixels you've adopted have along the way ;-;

@akitasimblr - not only for the wealth of positivity you bring to simblr in general but your various gameplay/challenges that regularly liven my dash, and your unbridled love for my pixels too.. it's very special to me and so are you! 🤧

@zosa95 - for the queen of the cookies!! 🍪 and also because you created Edith, the legend.. and because Gemma & Markus are back and i love them as much as i love youuu.. your insightful comments (among some others in this list that may or may not result in a slightly chaotic comments section more often than not 👀) give me so much joy and so many of you make my day with ur support :')

@natolesims - i love ur approach to storytelling via the nsb challenge and the way you combine the silliness of the sims with the real emotions of the characters u create with it.. i always find myself checking in on Grey to see what he's been up to 🤭

@treason-and-plot - one of my faaave ts3 blogs, i'm obsessed with your characters and your writing! i'm forever on my toes waiting to see what happens next 👀 and the fact that u and those that follow/read along still have so much fun with ur story gives me so much hope that i'll still be here long after.. whatever the hell comes after ts4 😌

like i said.. there are so many of u i could list here so pls just know that ily all and could find a million and one amazing things to say abt you all if i only had the time! <33333

#ts4 #sims 4 #ts3 #?! #simblr #simblrgratitudeday #truly go could on forever #always love doin stuff like this but also don't do it very often cos it makes me feel bad for those i “missed out” ;-; #pls don't feel left out tho!! ILY ALL SM #<3

[lazywerebat]

Fandom: Lost Boys (1987)

Request: I was thinking about a Lost Boys x little!reader (they/them) where y/n wants to go hang out with the guys and Star during their nightly trips to the boardwalk, but once they saw all the carnival rides and games, they regressed and can’t partake in an rambunctious activity.

It can include all the lost boys, but maybe be mostly Marko that y/n is gravitating to for comfort 🌟

Little Me, Big World !

Polyam! Lost Boys x Little! GN! Reader With Vampire! Star ( Mostly Marko x Little! GN! Reader )

⚠️ DO NOT READ THIS IF UR 18+ BLOG,INTO AGEPLAY AND HAVE MDNI IN SOMEWHERE IN UR BLOG !! THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH IT AND Y'ALL MAKE ME UNCOMFY ASF !! ⚠️

warnings: lil bit of violence but its not detailed described

a/n: im sorry it took me so long to post this, i had such awful writers block and i had to study for my final exams :']

It was another warm night in cave and I was very much bored. I was in my nest, trying to entertain myself with so much stuff in there but they all failed. I went to the main cave where most of them were. I wondered if they were there or they went on a hunt. When I got there I only founded Star

“Hey, where are boys?”

I questioned confused,

“They went on a hunt” she replied.

“What about you? Did you go?” I questioned her again,

“Yes I did, don't worry” she replied,

“Okay” I said, I went to sit by her side as I watched her sewing one of boys shirts. After a while boys came back, I looked at them and smiled,

“Hey little one” Marko said as he went to me and I ran into his arms and pretty much tried to ignore the fresh blood on him. I felt another pair of hands hug me and I looked up to see Paul.

“Hey” I said softly,

“Hey sugar” Paul replied with grin,

“Can we go to the boardwalk?” I asked while looking at all of them,

“We'll go when we clean ourselves up” David stated to me,

“Okey” I replied, Marko and Paul let go of me and went to the other side of cave with others. After a short time they came back and we went to the boardwalk. Star rode with Dwayne this time and I rode with Marko. When we arrived they parked their bikes in usual spot. When I saw so many carnival rides and games, I felt so little and everything seemed big. I didn't realise I held onto Marko a bit tight,

“Hey, are you okay?” He asked me and I nodded a bit. I let go of him and kept my hands to myself.

“You feeling little baby?” Dwayne asked me and I nodded to that.

“Oh amore, we can still do fun stuff, we'll keep you safe okay?” Marko stated to me and held my hand.

“Okay” I replied to him softly, after that we went on rides and played games. I was getting something to drink because I was getting really thirsty. As I was on my way to boys bikes I accidentally bumped into someone, it was nothing surprising to bump into someone as everything was filled with so many people,

“Hey! Watch where you're going!” The man said with an angry tone,

“Im so sorry sir, I didn't mean to do that” I replied to him but he didn't like that either, for some reason, he was going on a rant on how he could've spilled his drink on himself and stuff. I was still trying to apologize and go away but he didn't let me go. When I tried to leave, he grabbed me by my arms and started yelling at me. Which caused me to feel panicked, my heart racing, fear and similar feelings and yelling was making me cry, so I had started forming tears in my eyes.

“Oh now you're crying, are you a little–” He got cut off by someone punching him and his grip loosen which I had my chance to escape and I did. I went into Marko's arms sobbing and I felt him wrapping his arms around me,

“Hey, hey, its okay, you're safe now love” He said comforting me and blocking my view to whats happening. Marko went with me to their bikes and he looked me,

“Im sorry little one, I should've went with you to get that drink and not let you go on your own when in your in this state of mind” He apologized to me and held his hands on my cheeks,

“You didn't know that was gonna happen M” I said to him confused by his apology and Marko looked worried.

“Did he hurt you love?” He asked,

“No, he just held my arms really hard and tight” I said to him which made him worry more,

“Amore, then he hurt you” He explained to me,

“Oh” I replied to him,

“May I?” He asked and I nodded. He took of my jacket to see how bad I was hurt and it left kind of visible hand print and Marko felt so much anger. I put my jacket back on as others came. Marko looked at them and honestly I guess they talked with each other with their mind thingys or whatever it is called. David came to my side as I watched Marko leaving us and I went with him but I got stopped by David.

“I want M” I said to them,

“We know love, he just has something to take care of” Dwayne explained to me, he knew I didn't like that answer and he looked at me being angry and starting to have tears in my eyes again. Star pulled me into her arms and she was trying to comfort me as Marko was coming back.

#korvin answering things #korvin does stuff #the lost boys #the lost boys 1987 #tlb 1987 #tlb #lost boys #the lost boys david #the lost boys dwayne #the lost boys marko #the lost boys paul #little reader #agere little #agere reader #x little!reader #age regression #age regressor reader #polyam lost boys #poly lost boys #tlb polyam #tlb poly #polyamourous #the lost boys x little reader #x gender neutral reader #gender neutral reader #x gn reader #gn reader #the lost boys david x little reader #the lost boys dwayne x little reader #the lost boys paul x little reader

[chr0macide]

Break In 2: The Novelette (Fanfic)

PART 1

got damn I finally finished this. Writers block was wilding on my ass so I hope this didn't turn out like shit lol. I drew a lil bit of art for this fanfic (I say "drew" but a lot of it is just textures from google edited together into a picture lmao). Just 3 pics but yeah I got bored and wanted to draw. Might make a separate post for them sometime so people who don't wanna read or scroll through this can see them.

I recommend reading part 1, there are some references and callbacks that you might not get if you haven't read it already.

Again if you see any grammar/spelling errors please tell me. don't let me just leave that shit in because that's hella embarrassing 🙃

oh also for those who don’t know, the premise of this fanfic is basically just me turning the game into a short story

TW implied sexual violence (not involving any main characters, relatively short section, but its there)

This one is about 16,000 words, alright lets do this

Chapter I – Unsafe Haven

A fork of lightning illuminated the woods as Prince drove down the trail at a snail’s pace. The deluge was so heavy that it was almost impossible to see through the windshield, even with the wipers on. He brought the car to a standstill and let the engine idle.

“We’re gonna have to wait the storm out,” Prince told the kids. “Can’t keep driving like this.”

Stephanie kicked the back of Prince’s seat. “Worst camping trip ever,” she grumbled with her tiny voice.

“Relax. We’ll get there,” the elder brother said, but the truth was that he may or may not have taken a wrong turn through the thick fog.

It had been almost a year since the four kids had butted heads with their not-so-friendly neighborhood mafia. Well, three kids and one adult; Prince had turned 18 a few months ago. They’d been holed up in their house for too long, paranoid that Larry and his mobsters might show up for a little payback. It didn’t help that there had been a string of missing person reports in the area. To their dismay, their own uncle had disappeared, not to mention that the mob boss himself had vanished soon after they’d deactivated him. He hadn’t been sighted since, though, so Prince and Monica thought an outing would help take their minds off of everything.

They had everything they needed. The weather report had been favorable, yet rain was battering their windows. Prince folded his arms as he heard another clash of thunder. His boredom was replaced with panic as the subsequent flash of lightning struck the tree closest to them.

“Everyone out! Now!” he yelled as the trunk splintered and started to topple towards them. The kids tumbled out of the car and ran off as the tree smashed into the hood. The car alarm screamed.

“Could this trip get any worse?” Monica huffed as she walked around their totaled coupé. She popped the trunk and rummaged around inside.

Prince reached out and pulled her away. “Monica, wait, the engine-”

He was cut off as the crushed engine spat out a plume of smoke and exploded.

The kids stared at their flaming car.

“Shit,” said Hadrian.

Prince sighed. “Yeah.”

They looked around. They thought they’d reach the campsite early in the evening, but the storm had stalled them for so long that night had already come. Prince could hardly see the path ahead of them. “You didn’t happen to pull a flashlight out of there before it blew up, right?” he asked Monica.

Monica looked at the first aid kit she’d rescued. “No.”

“Damn. Well… we shouldn’t just stand around, I guess. Come on,” Prince said to the others. They climbed over the fallen tree and set off down the trail on foot.

The muddy path squelched under their shoes and thorns snagged their clothes as they trudged forward. Prince knew they should hurry, but shrubs and tree roots obscured by the shadows threatened to trip them up and send them face first into the dirt if they walked too fast.

Prince pulled out his cellphone as they moved, grumbling in frustration as the rain impaired the touchscreen. He tried to dial emergency services. No signal. He almost bumped into a traffic barricade in front of him while he was shoving the phone back into his damp pocket. “The hell? What is this doing here?”

He felt Monica tug on his sleeve.

“Do you see that?” Monica asked, pointing into the trees. It took Prince a few seconds to figure out what she was talking about, but he spied a yellow light blinking in the distance.

“What is it?” he wondered.

“I don’t know… but look.” Monica gestured downwards. There was a gravel path leading away from the barricaded trail. It looked like they’d be taking a detour.

“Let’s see if there’s a building there,” Monica suggested. Prince was apprehensive about veering off the main path, but he had no clue how far the campground was, if they were even going in the right direction. Maybe this was a better option. He and the other kids followed her.

It didn’t take long for them to reach the origin of the light. Steel walls stretched into the trees. The faint beams of moonlight that made it through the leaves glinted on the razor wire resting atop the fortifications.

A control panel was affixed to the wall next to the heavy-duty vertical lift door. There was the light source: a yellow diode, flashing on and off in the dark.

Prince peered through the doorway. It was already open. “What is this? A military base?”

Monica knitted her brow. “Maybe, but why would they leave the door like this?”

“I don’t see anyone.” The place gave him an unpleasant feeling in the pit of his stomach, but it was freezing, and his clothes were soaked all the way through. He stepped inside.

The dwelling had evidently been abandoned for a long time. One ceiling light persevered, shining weakly in the darkness. The floor was littered with trash and a sticky layer of dust coated the tiles. Corroded storage lockers lined one of the walls. The other was plastered with crappy graffiti.

Prince didn’t see anyone else. He beckoned the others inside. However, right as the last kid stepped through, there was another flash of lightning. The panel next to the door sparked and short circuited. Everyone flinched as the door slammed down with a loud bang.

“What the hell!” Prince exclaimed as he turned around. He gave the door a kick. It didn’t budge. The unlocking mechanism had failed. He tried tinkering with the control panel, but all he got was an electric shock. “Ow.”

Prince knew he wasn’t about to break through solid metal. The kids glanced around the room nervously. “Look for another way out,” Prince told everyone.

There was only one other door on the opposite wall. Monica made her way over and gently pushed it open, but it was just a stairwell leading even deeper down into the building. She shook her head at Prince. “Nothing here.”

Hadrian started to open the old lockers, searching for something that might be useful. He grimaced as he came upon one that wasn’t empty.

“Guys. Look,” Hadrian called out. The others crowded around. It was an all too familiar comedy mask that they’d hoped they would never have to see again. “I don’t think we’re in a military base.”

Prince’s stomach churned at the thought of running into Larry a second time. If he was uneasy before, he was on high alert now. In fact, he was so anxious that he nearly leapt out of his skin when something prodded the back of his leg.

The dog whined and sprang away as well before it ran away and cowered beneath a rotting wooden table. Its fur was patchy and matted. Muddy water was still dripping from it, but it looked like it might have been white underneath all that grime. It must have taken refuge here from the torrential downpour too before they arrived.

“A doggie!” Stephanie squealed in delight. She ran to pet it, but it growled and barked at her when she got close. “Mean doggie,” she pouted.

Prince paid no more attention to the dog. If there was a chance that there were gangsters prowling, he and the kids had to arm themselves. He didn’t see anything of use except a broken rack with a few rusty crowbars on it. He picked one up.

“Guess these will have to do.”

He tossed a couple to Monica and Hadrian.

“Hold up, you want us to go further inside?” Hadrian questioned as he caught the weapon.

“You got a better idea?”

Hadrian looked at the metal door, locked tight. “No,” he mumbled.

The group stood at the stairs. It was pitch black. A sense of déjà vu crept over Prince; it reminded him of the creepy basement back in his house. He dug through his pocket for his lighter and flicked it on, casting enough light down the steps for them to descend. The dog padded after them, though it still recoiled as Stephanie tried to touch it again.

They reached the base of the stairwell. Iron bars lined the walls on either side of them. It was some sort of jail. Prince thought the cells were all empty until someone stood up in the one right next to him.

Everyone yelped in alarm at the figure. Prince held his crowbar up defensively, even though the man was caged, but he looked familiar. He held his lighter up to illuminate his face.

“Uncle Pete?” Prince said, bewildered.

Pete waved. He grabbed the whiteboard attached to his belt. Hi Prince! Open the cell? he wrote.

“But I don’t have the key… oh, wait,” Prince said as he remembered that he was holding a crowbar. He jammed it in between the lock and the doorframe and broke the gate open. “But how did you get here?”

Mafia wanted some of my properties. Locked me up here alone when I wouldn’t transfer ownership, Pete scrawled as he stepped out of the cell.

“Oh, man. We were really worried,” Prince said as everyone wrapped Pete up in a group hug. “Wait a second. Does that mean there are mobsters nearby?”

No. Upper levels of the base are abandoned. Everyone is in lower levels.

Prince’s brow furrowed. Pete looked at him quizzically.

“The entrance malfunctioned. We can’t get out the way we came in,” Prince explained. Pete looked pensive now.

Only other way out is elevator on lowest level. Leads to south exit. Don’t know exactly where it is, but we would have to keep going down. Pete pointed at the other end of the jailhouse. More stairs. They were going to be seeing a lot of those.

The last thing Prince wanted to do was to delve into a criminal hideout, but they didn’t have any other choice. “How deep before we start running into mobsters?” he asked Pete as they walked to the staircase and descended further.

Pretty deep. Not sure about the exact level. I don’t th

Pete stopped writing as they reached the next area and looked around warily. It was some kind of common area, just as derelict as the previous rooms, but something felt off. Prince squinted through the dim lighting. The coffee table was caked with dust, but one handprint-shaped patch was clean.

Someone was in there with them.

Chapter II – Hackerman

Monica guarded herself with her first aid kit as a masked mafioso stood up from behind the couch and swung his crowbar at her. The plastic case cracked, but she retaliated with a jab to his gut with her own weapon. He clutched his abdomen in pain as Monica brought her weapon down on his head, knocking him out.

The guy wasn’t alone. Four of his buddies emerged from hiding while Monica was fending off the first, and they rushed the kids all at once. Pete hastily grabbed the crowbar that the downed mobster had dropped. He attacked one who was coming up on Prince’s side. He and Hadrian were kept busy by a couple of other mafiosos from the front. There was a brief scuffle before Pete managed to land a headshot and knock him unconscious as well.

Hadrian tried to lunge at one of his attackers, but the mobster hooked his crowbar around Hadrian’s own weapon and yanked it out of his hands. With nothing to defend himself, all he could do was shield his face with his arms. There was a crunch as the mobster’s crowbar met his forearm. He cried out in pain. “Fuck! Not again!”

The group withdrew further into the room as the remaining mobsters closed in on them. As their aggressors engaged them again, Prince fumbled and dropped his still-burning lighter amidst the chaos. The dust on the plush carpet ignited instantly. A blockade of smoke and fire materialized surprisingly quickly between him and the mafiosos.

“Come on!” urged Prince retreated through the next door. The dog darted ahead of him, spooked by the flames. Pete and the kids followed, but the mobsters had to fall back to the jailhouse to escape the inferno. It had been a quick fight, but Prince was shaking from the adrenaline. He turned to Pete.

“You said the upper levels were abandoned!”

Pete shrugged his shoulders and shook his head cluelessly. They are! I don’t know what they’re doing here, he wrote.

The blaze cast a flickering orange glow into the hallway they’d ended up in. At least this place looked empty. Monica made Hadrian sit on the ground and started fixing a splint to his arm. He sighed in defeat. They’d only just got here, and he was already out of the fight.

Prince cautiously opened the door next to them. A janitorial closet. He’d lost his lighter in the last room. They weren’t going to be able to see a thing once they left the fire behind, so he went inside and investigated the shelves.

He picked up a flashlight and brushed the dust off. “Lucky us.”

“See if it turns on first,” said Monica skeptically.

Prince flipped the switch. He smacked the flashlight into the palm of his hand a few times when it didn’t turn on. Nothing happened. “Damn it.”

He shoved the flashlight under his coat. Maybe they would come across some batteries later. As Monica finished patching up Hadrian’s arm, the group continued to the elevator on the other end of the hallway. Prince pushed the call button. “I don’t suppose this thing will take us out of here?”

Pete shook his head as the doors slid open. The control panel only contained deeper floors. His finger hovered over the button that would take them the lowest. They didn’t know precisely how far down the inhabited levels were, and he didn’t want to be jumped again as soon as the elevator reopened. He decided to select one of the higher ones. Better safe than sorry, Prince thought.

They said nothing as the elevator closed and took them downwards. They couldn’t see anything except the red LED display above the door. The floor number ticked into the negatives until it ground to a halt unexpectedly.

“Hold up. That’s not the level I chose,” Prince whispered. He could hear everyone shifting around in the dark as they prepared for the worst.

The doors opened. The person outside the elevator screamed and fumbled with his phone, almost dropping it. He clearly hadn’t been expecting to see anyone. Prince had his crowbar at the ready, but the guy was clad in a hoodie and jeans instead of one of the tailored suits that the mob usually wore.

“Uh… hi,” said Prince.

“Hey? You guys don’t look like mobsters,” the young man replied as he straightened his sunglasses.

“You don’t, either.”

“’Cause I’m not. What are you doing here if you aren’t one of them?” the stranger asked shiftily.

Prince shrugged. “We ran in here during a thunderstorm. Door malfunctioned. Now we’re trapped.”

The stranger buried his hands in his dark hair. “Are you fucking kidding me? The north exit is jammed? I snuck all the way up here for nothing!”

“You’re sneaking out? Were you a prisoner?” Monica probed.

“Ugh. Yeah, yeah, I was,” mumbled the man, who was now pacing around outside the elevator. “Name’s Helios-”

Hadrian snickered. Helios shot him a look.

“What? It’s a code name! I work for the government. I’m not supposed to tell people my real one.”

Hadrian rolled his eyes. “Sure, dude. Whatever.”

“OK, Helios… why were they keeping you down here?” asked Prince.

“I got abducted during the killing purge last year. They’ve been making me work for them. I’m a hacker,” Helios explained. “I managed to slip away from my station a while ago. They went batshit looking for me. It was a nightmare getting up here, and now I have to go all the way back down,” he groaned.

“Really? So you know where the south exit is,” Prince surmised.

Helios held up his phone. “Yeah. I got a blueprint of this place.” He stepped into the elevator with them, but he pursed his lips when he saw which level they had been heading towards. “Nah. That’s the first populated level. The guards would’ve rocked your shit. Get outta this thing,” he urged, gesturing for them to follow him into the floor they were at: a computer room. Most of the computers were powered off and missing keyboards, save for one, which had been plugged into one of the power outlets. Helios must have been using it.

“Any chance you can fix the door upstairs? I think it short circuited,” Monica inquired.

“No shot. I’m a hacker. Not an electrician. But like I said, I know exactly where the south exit is,” Helios responded. The group looked at his phone as he pulled up his map of the base. He marked the spot where the exit was. This place had a lot more floors than Prince had expected.

“This is going to suck,” he murmured.

“Tell me about it. We gotta go on foot, too, ‘cause this elevator won’t take us to the right place,” said Helios as he beckoned them out of the computer lab.

The corridors here were tight and winding. Their footsteps echoed through the metal walls, rough with oxidization and lined with rusty pipes. Stagnant water still dripped from some of them.

Prince grew anxious as he followed Helios. They’d been walking for a while without reaching any stairs or elevators. “Helios, where are you taking us? We’re still on the same floor,” he questioned.

“Relax. We’re making a pit stop,” Helios replied, waving Prince’s concern away.

“Dude, we don’t have time-“

Helios shushed him. They were in front of a door with a round window. Prince peered over Helios’s shoulder to see inside. He’d taken them to a kitchen, and Prince realized that they did, in fact, need to eat.

“How do you know there’s still food in here?” he asked the hacker.

Helios shushed him again. “I came here while I was on the way to the top level. Lower your damn voice. There’s someone inside,” he hissed.

Prince took a closer look through the round window. The oven was on. There was a mobster leaning against the countertop, facing away from them. Only one. “What is that guy doing all the way up here?” he whispered.

“No idea, but he’s alone. Just go bonk him,” Helios encouraged.

Prince moved forward Helios stepped out of the way. He put a hand on the door and gradually eased it open. Thankfully, the hinges didn’t squeak, so he crept inside until he was right behind the mafioso. Prince raised his crowbar.

The door clicked shut. The mobster whirled around at the noise. Prince faltered. His mouth hung open slightly in disbelief as he recognized the mafioso.

“Isaiah?”

Isaiah was scrambling for his own crowbar, but he paused when he heard his name. “Prince?”

Prince let his arm fall to his side. “What the actual shit? You’re still working for the mob?” he exclaimed.

“Why the hell are you in the base?” Isaiah blurted out in an equally baffled tone.

The door creaked as Helios edged it open. “Prince? You good?”

Hadrian pushed him out of the way with his good arm. “Nice to see a familiar face,” he said.

Isaiah looked even more confounded as Pete and the kids emerged. “Seriously, what are you doing here?”

Prince was beginning to get tired of recounting that. “There’s a storm outside. Ran in here. North entrance short circuited. Stuck. Explain why you’re here,” he demanded.

“Because I work here, dumbass,” Isaiah snapped. “You can’t just leave the mafia. They hunt deserters down… not to mention that I got fired from Builder Brothers. The owner found out I had ties to the mob, and now this is the only job I can get,” he muttered bitterly.

Prince scowled, but he supposed Isaiah had a point. “OK, I get it, but why is Larry still letting you work here? You helped us deactivate him.”

“He’s not in charge anymore. Haven’t seen him since that sewer brawl, actually. Someone else took over his duties,” Isaiah revealed.

Prince’s eyebrows shot up. “But a bunch of mobsters ran off with his body. It was on the news. They must have reactivated him, right?”

“Nope. He didn’t show up here, as far as I know. No idea what happened to him.”

The kids glanced at each other uneasily. “Who’s in charge now, then?” said Prince.

“Never met her, but her name is Mary Gearwise.”

“Gearwise? Let me guess, another automaton? Where are all these killer robots coming from?”

Isaiah shrugged. “Don’t ask me. I’m just a grunt… wait, aren’t you the hacker that escaped a while ago?” he realized, pointing at Helios.

The hacker looked at him warily. “Maybe. Your friend isn’t gonna turn me in, right?” he asked Prince.

“I ain’t no snitch,” laughed Isaiah.

“Then will you help us get out of the base?” Prince implored.

Isaiah’s smile faded. “Man, do you have any idea what they’ll do to me if I get caught with you guys?”

“Come on, at least help us until we start running into goons. You can wear your mask. They won’t know who you are.”

The mobster picked up his mask from the counter. He mulled Prince’s words over as he looked at it. “I guess so.”

The oven dinged. “On a lighter note… pizza’s done.” Isaiah grabbed an old mitt and pulled the serving board out and placed it on the countertop.

Prince had forgotten about the oven. “Why the hell are you making a pizza all the way up here?” Helios questioned incredulously, gesturing around at the soiled kitchen.

Isiah scratched his neck. “I got hungry, and I didn’t wanna share it with the other guys, OK? So I took a frozen pizza up here.”

“You were gonna eat a whole pizza?”

“Shut up. You guys can have some if you want. You probably aren’t gonna get your hands on food again until you make it out of here,” Isaiah told everyone.

As they ate, the dog nudged the door open with his nose and squeezed through. He’d stayed outside, but it seemed that the smell of cooking had enticed him. Stephanie held out a slice of pizza and tried to coax him closer. The dog gingerly took the slice in his mouth and devoured it ravenously.

Stephanie giggled. The dog let her pet him this time. She read the name tag on his collar. “Twado!” she squeaked. Twado wagged his tail.

The dog chewed on the empty pizza box as Isaiah looked at his watch. He pulled a flashlight out from under his jacket. “We gotta go. I better get you guys out of here while most of the base is asleep,” he said as he motioned for the group to follow him.

They reached a crossroad after a while. “Dude, the map says the closest stairwell is that way,” Helios contested, jabbing a thumb at the right passageway as Isaiah turned left.

“Your map is old. We never update those things. I know a short-”

Isaiah stopped talking mid-sentence as a rusty pipe on the ceiling ruptured in front of him. Scalding hot water hissed as it splashed against the cold metal floor and turned to steam. He didn’t fancy third-degree burns. “Damn. Guess we’re taking the long way around.”

They trailed through the narrow corridors behind the mobster in silence until Prince’s soles started to get sore. Too many stairs, but they eventually ran into a door.

Isaiah reached for the handle. “I think—SHIT!”

He jerked his hand back as the pipe next to the door burst as well, but it wasn’t water that erupted. Isaiah ripped his glove off and threw it to the ground as the substance ate through it.

“What the hell is that?” Price exclaimed.

“It’s the stuff we poured into the sewers last purge. Thought we shut off all the valves already. I need to quit coming up here,” muttered the mafioso. “Nevermind. There’s another way in this room.” He turned to the door on the opposite wall and pushed it open.

They were in an old dormitory. The entrance to the stairwell was on the other side of the room. “As I was saying, I think the next level down is… uh…”

Isaiah stopped in the middle of the room and went silent. He looked up at the entresol. More than a few doors were slightly ajar.

“Isaiah? Something wrong?” Prince whispered.

“The doors were shut last time I was here,” he whispered back.

It was another ambush. The mafiosos threw the dormitory doors open and jumped down from the entresol. Prince cried out as one of them landed on him. He lost his weapon as he wrestled on the floor with the aggressor and grunted in pain when he felt something sharp pierce his side. Twado ran over and clamped his fangs around the mafioso’s leg.

Isaiah hurriedly pulled his mask over his face as more mobsters jumped down and confronted him.

“Is that you, Isa-”

He silenced his colleague with a crowbar to the face before he could get his name out. The other two elected to simply charge at him and Helios without any pleasantries. He dropped his flashlight as they clashed.

Prince felt around for his crowbar in the dark as Twado dragged his attacker away. He heard a yelp Monica clocked the mobster on the head.

Pete stood in front of Hadrian and Stephanie as two more advanced on them. They laughed as they brandished their weapons. “Why don’t you put that crowbar down before you hurt yourself, old man?” one of them snickered. Hadrian covered his sister’s eyes.

Prince found his weapon as his eyes adjusted to the darkness. He looked over at his uncle as one mobster seized his crowbar while the other delivered a strike to his head, but they turned around as he and Monica came up behind them. Prince tore the blade out of his side and drove it into one of the unsuspecting mobsters’ eyes. She screamed and reeled as Monica aimed a blow at the other mafioso, who sidestepped the hit, but now Prince was coming at him as well.

The mobster made a dash for the stairs, only to run into Isaiah. The two mobsters who’d been accosting him lay in a pile. Isaiah promptly sliced his associate’s throat open using a switchblade of his own. He clutched at the wound and gasped for air, but he could only cough and choke on his blood.

Isaiah scowled beneath his mask at all the noise his victim was making and shut him up with a sharp blow to the skull. He crumpled to the ground, still wheezing and spluttering while unconscious.

That was the last of them. Hadrian picked up Pete’s fallen sunglasses for him. He put them back on as Monica pulled Prince’s bloodied coat off.

“How bad is it?” Prince asked.

Monica grabbed the flashlight from the ground at held it up to inspect Prince’s wound. “Well, since you’re still standing, it’s probably not that deep. I’d put you on bed rest, but…”

She didn’t bother finishing. There was no time for bed rest in this place, of course. There was nothing she could do except clean it and stitch it up.

“They were waiting for us. How did they know you were here?” Isaiah wondered.

Prince shrugged. “We were attacked earlier as well on one of the top levels. I don’t suppose you have security cameras around here?”

“No. Not since…” Isaiah gestured at Helios.

“I knocked them offline while I was trying to escape,” the hacker said. “I know for a fact they’re still down. They couldn’t have seen you.”

Isaiah paced around the dormitory wordlessly as Monica sutured Prince’s wound shut, deep in thought. He sighed and shook his head. “I don’t know what’s going on. We have to-”

He stopped talking as the mobster next to him stirred. There was a crunch as Isaiah stomped on his neck, killing him. Everyone else winced.

“What the hell, Isaiah? That’s not necessary,” Prince admonished.

“Yes, it was. He saw my face earlier. I told you I’m fucked if one of these assholes reports me.”

“He was already unconscious!”

Isaiah got up in Prince’s face, but Helios interrupted their spat before he could say anything. “You two better start getting along, ‘cause we need to make a plan,” he said as he nudged Isaiah away and planted himself between them. He gestured all around at the fallen mafiosos. “We’re gonna be running into plenty of these guys when we reach the bottom of those stairs.”

“Oh. Right. That’s what I was trying to tell you guys earlier. It’s a good thing we ended up in here, actually,” Isaiah said as he disappeared into one of the dorms. They heard him rooting around inside until he came out with a bunch of suits and masks slung over his shoulder, a little faded with age, but still wearable. He dumped them in a pile on the ground. “Ol’ reliable. Everyone put one of these things on.”

Prince pulled a duffel bag out of the pile while he was looking for something his size. “What’s this for?”

“That’s for Twado,” said Isaiah.

Twado gave him the side-eye.

“Hey, don’t look at me like that. The boss doesn’t allow dogs in here. You’ll blow our cover if anyone sees you.”

The dog allowed Isaiah to lower him into the bag, but then the group encountered the same problem as last time. Stephanie was sticking out like a sore thumb.

“Maybe we can hide her in the middle of the group again?” Prince suggested.

Isaiah shook his head. “It’s not gonna work. The hallways aren’t wide enough.”

The mafioso drummed his fingers on the strap of the duffel bag. Nobody else was offering up any ideas.

“I know what we can do,” he spoke hesitantly. Everyone looked at him.

Prince blinked. “Well? Spit it out.”

Isaiah held up a hand. “Don’t get mad at me for it.”

Prince’s eyes narrowed.

“First of all, this base is part of a sex trafficking ring,” said Isaiah.

“You better not be about to say any dumb shit.”

Isaiah held up both hands now. “Just listen! We pretend,” he continued, enunciating the ‘pretend’ very clearly, “that Stephanie is one of the girls we abducted—”

“You guys take little girls for that?” Hadrian admonished.

“Look, man, I just work in the canteen. This place didn’t even have a human trafficking branch when I got here. As I was saying, we pretend she’s a…”

Isaiah trailed off as Prince stared daggers.

“Prisoner,” the mobster said slowly. When the elder brother didn’t throttle him, he kept talking. “The shortest path to the exit involves one of the, uh, filming areas, so that’ll be her excuse to be there.”

Helios looked at his blueprint. “He’s right. There’s gonna be another elevator at the end of the filming area’s hallway.” He zoomed in on the location.

Isaiah leaned over to inspect the map as well. “We can ride it to that detention level and act like we’re taking her to a holding cell,” he said as he pointed out a floor below the filming area, “but we can veer away towards the west edge of the base. That place is as deserted as the upper levels. We’ll make our way through there until we reach the lowest level. After that… it gets more difficult.”

“No kidding,” Helios agreed. “That’s where the boss lives. The whole floor is teeming with goons, but the ventilation shafts that far underground are so big that we can fit through them. So, we sneak over to where the elevator is. Get out of the vents while nobody’s looking. Ride it all the way up to the south exit. No sweat,” he schemed as he drew a path with his finger from their location to the exit.

Prince still looked vaguely pissed off, but he nodded. “OK. Fine. Sounds like a plan.”

Chapter III – Incident Report

Prince squinted as his troupe reached the bottom of the stairwell. The fluorescent lights were harsh on his eyes after they’d wandered around in the dark for hours. He scrunched up his face in revulsion as the smell hit him. The filming area reeked of stale sweat and perhaps other fluids that he preferred not to think about.

“There,” Isaiah whispered to Prince, pointing at the elevator on the other end of the corridor. “Hold onto Stephanie and walk in front of us.”

Prince took Stephanie gently by the hand and followed Isaiah down the corridor.

They were alone at first, but Prince was startled as a door next to them opened. A pair of mobsters shoved a girl into the hall with nothing but a worn-out blanket around her shoulders. She stared through Prince with dead eyes as the mafiosos forced her onwards.

The two groups didn’t speak as they passed each other, but one of the mafiosos brushed a lock of dark hair out of Stephanie’s face and leered at her with yellowed teeth as he strolled by. Prince’s hand tightened around his crowbar until his knuckles were white.

Time felt like it was passing agonizingly slowly as they walked. Prince’s face darkened as they passed another door. He could hear the sounds of a struggle inside. A scream pierced the air. He came to a halt as he unwillingly recalled the purge he’d endured. He felt a hand on his shoulder and glanced back at Isaiah. His face was concealed, but Prince could tell the mobster was stone-faced from his eyes. So was his family, staring back at him through their masks. The sight was unnerving, even though he knew it was only them.

“Keep going. There’s nothing you can do for her now,” whispered Isaiah.

Prince turned stiffly and continued on their path.

There were no more disturbances. They made it to the elevator without any resistance. Isaiah punched in the access code and pressed the button for the detention level.

Helios sighed deeply as the doors closed. “That was unpleasant.”

Nobody was in the mood to respond.

Isaiah spoke up as they neared their destination floor. “We have to get the Warden to open the entrance for us. There’s a one-way exit in the holding area that leads to the west edge. No one is allowed to use it, but the cams are off, so who cares. Just let me do the talking. And one more thing: the audio feed is still running, so keep quiet until we get out of there,” he told everyone as the elevator reopened. The mafioso took the lead this time.

The Warden was resting his elbow on the desk with his face in his palm. He’d been looking at his reflection in his dimmed computer screen as he styled his fiery orange mohawk with a free hand, but his lidded eyes followed Isaiah as he approached. He stared at the newcomers, uninterested in initiating a conversation with them.

“Markus. New inmate,” Isaiah said.

Markus turned his eyes to the computer on his table. “The boss didn’t tell me of any new arrivals today,” he replied flatly.

“We haven’t notified her about this one yet. You’re the first to know. Good for you. Open up,” demanded Isaiah.

The Warden lifted his head from his hand. He narrowed his eyes again, now in skepticism instead of tiredness. Prince put himself in front of Hadrian, hopefully obscuring the boy’s splint. “Why did a little girl need five people escorting her here?”

“What the hell am I being interrogated for? This is the rest of my patrol group. We just got back. Quit wasting my time and open the fucking door,” Isaiah snapped.

Markus sighed. “Whatever. Cell 047,” he told the mobster as he stood up. The guy was even taller than Isaiah, Prince realized, and he was wide enough that he had to leave his too-small tuxedo jacket unbuttoned. He entered a string of numbers into the keypad next to the entrance. The blast door screeched open. “Get out of my face,” said the Warden as he waved them inside.

Prince looked straight ahead. Whatever was behind all the steel doors lining the passageway, he didn’t want to see. Markus closed the entrance behind them as they walked away.

Everyone did as Isaiah had said and kept silent until they reached the exit. A lone spider was busy spinning a web on the doorframe. Tough luck for him. The door squealed as Isaiah opened it and beckoned everyone through.

“Alright, we’re in the clear,” he said after he shut the exit.

The concrete corridor ahead looked strangely sterile at first, but a thin film of dust had settled on the ground upon closer inspection. Nobody had been here in a while.

“Where are we?” Prince asked.

Isaiah took off his mask and looked back at him as they made their way through the hall. “It used to be the chem sector when Larry was in charge. Miss Gearwise decommissioned it after she took over. She’s more interested in biotech and cybernetics, apparently. Most of her stuff is on the bottom floor, though.”

Prince peered through the windowpanes in the doors as Isaiah let Twado out of the duffel bag. Glassware and machinery were set up on the tables as if the users had left in a hurry. Binders full of notes and documents were still open on the desks. Even the lights were still on.

“Looks like she couldn’t wait to shut this place down,” Prince remarked.

Isaiah didn’t look at him now. He just shrugged.

Prince wished the mafioso would talk a little more, because the silence here was even more eerie than it had been in the derelict upper levels. The laboratory looked too clean and orderly. It felt wrong for it to be deserted. He was almost glad when the blindingly white walls gave way to rough stone and steel floors as they moved yet deeper into the base.

They were surrounded by a mess of tubing and shafts as they walked. There were no walls here at all to hide the plumbing and ventilation systems.

“Where are we now?” Prince wondered out loud.

“Still in the chem lab. Larry wasn’t one for frills. He didn’t bother with dressing the place up when he expanded it downwards,” Isaiah answered.

“You know a lot about that guy. Didn’t you only know him for a few days before we took him out?” Hadrian remarked. Isaiah shot him a glare over his shoulder, but not before Monica elbowed her little brother. The last thing they needed was to piss their guide off, even if he might be keeping secrets.

The mobster’s dark irises looked black in the low lighting. “You know I hate it when people ask too many questions, right? I hear the other mafiosos talking about him sometimes, is all,” he claimed as he turned away.

Maybe it was for the best that he and the rest of the group didn’t talk much. The sound of dripping water and air flowing through the vents suited Prince just fine now, but after a while, his ears picked up something that was neither of those. Thumping? It wasn’t quite loud enough for him to tell.

“Do you guys hear that?”

Isaiah paused. “Hear what?”

They all listened, but whatever noise Prince heard had stopped now. “Nevermind. It’s gone.”

Isaiah pursed his lips in annoyance at the interruption and continued forward. Prince didn’t notice any more strange sounds, and he’d started to think he’d been imagining it until he heard it again, much louder this time. Everyone stopped in their tracks and looked up. The rusted ventilation panel above them was starting to buckle. “Get back!” Isaiah whispered harshly.

The old screws snapped apart and the vent gave way. Out tumbled a stout man in a trench coat. He grunted in discomfort as he landed in a heap in front of the group. He scrambled to his feet after he glanced up and realized he wasn’t alone, but his panic was short-lived as he beheld the bizarre caravan in front of him. They stared back, equally perplexed. The guy looked like he’d been ripped straight out of a generic mystery film.

Isaiah had pulled his mask over his face once more, but he cautiously removed it again when he saw that it wasn’t one of his own associates who had shown up. “Who the hell are you?”

The man hesitated, seemingly reluctant to reveal that, but Pete pushed his way to the front of the gathering. The stranger’s face lit up.

“Peter! It’s been too long!” he exclaimed as he slapped his hand on Pete’s shoulder. “But what are you doing here?”

Pete scribbled a few sentences on his whiteboard. Kidnapped. My nieces and nephews are trapped here as well. North exit broke down. Looking for the other one.

“The north exit malfunctioned? How odd,” the stranger pondered.

Pete turned back towards the group and wrote again.

“Detective Bradley Beans,” Prince read out loud.

Bradley snapped out of his musings. “Hm? Oh, yes, that’s me. I was assigned to spy on the mob’s activities here. I’ve been using the ventilation system to stay out of sight, but…”

He eyed the broken vent.

“Perhaps I ought to lose a few pounds. Very fortunate that I was in the west edge.” Bradley picked his fallen umbrella up from the ground. “Anyway, Pete here was a coworker of mine before he retired. Good to see you again, old man,” said the Detective, patting the old man on the back.

“Wow. How long have you been hiding here?” Prince asked.

“Almost a year. I arrived soon after the last purge. I heard all about your battle with Mr. Clockturn. Very remarkable, though I wish the national guard would have moved in a bit quicker… kids shouldn’t have to wrangle crime lords,” grumbled Bradley, shaking his head. His gaze shifted to Isaiah. “Who is your, er, companion?”

“This is Isaiah. He helped us during the purge. And now he’s helping us find our way out of here,” Prince explained.

“I see. Well, there’s no use in dallying here, then. I was actually on my way out as well. Care to lead the way, Isaiah?” Bradley invited, motioning for the mobster to go on ahead of him. He did.

Maybe he shouldn’t pry, but Prince was curious. “So… you’ve been investigating the mob? What did you see?” he asked as they walked.

The Detective’s face grew serious. “One of the reasons I was sent here was to find out what happened to Mr. Clockturn after his body was taken. I already had a hunch that Miss Gearwise had a hand in his disappearance. The evidence I’ve compiled confirmed it. He’s in here somewhere.”

Trepidation rippled through the group.

“I haven’t seen him, but I overheard the personnel in the cybernetics sector speaking of him. The papers I managed to nick suggest Miss Gearwise has been performing experiments on him, and it doesn’t seem that he’s a willing participant.”

“What kind of experiments?” Prince questioned.

Bradley’s brow was crumpled in worry. “The documents didn’t detail their nature or purpose, I’m afraid. I went looking for some that did, but I came up empty handed… Miss Gearwise has put a lot of effort into keeping her activities secret. I suspect he’s being held in the bottommost level, but it was too risky to go poking around there.”

Hadrian rolled his eyes. “Sucks to be him, but what is he? Who is making these freaks?”

Bradley opened his mouth to answer, but then he frowned, stopping himself. “It’s classified info. I assure you that law enforcement has it handled.”

There was a door in their way, but it refused to open when Isaiah put his hand on the push bar. Prince looked at the keypad next to it. “Please tell me you know the code.”

“No need for that.” Isaiah dug through his pocket for his keycard and inserted it into the side of the pad. The door unlocked with a click, and he shoved it open with unneeded force. The mobster had been quiet, but Prince observed that he was becoming more and more vexed as Bradley recounted his findings. Cops and gangsters weren’t exactly friends, of course, but he thought Isaiah’s reactions were still a little over the top.

Isaiah went ahead, but everyone else was reluctant to enter the new area. A metal bridge was suspended over a wide pool of roiling red liquid.

Prince stepped onto the crossing uncertainly. The fumes stung his eyes. “Isaiah? What is that?”

The mafioso turned around. “This is where we made the chemical we emptied into the sewers.” His shoes clanked softly against the bridge’s metal lattices as he continued across. “We’ll be fine. Just don’t fall in,” he reminded Prince. He seemed pretty sure of himself, so everybody followed.

They heard heavy footsteps approaching long before they could reach the other side. Isaiah redonned his mask. “This is the worst possible time.” He looked back at the door they’d entered from.

The Warden’s huge shadow approached. He kicked the entrance open and stepped onto the bridge, followed closely by four of his pals. “I knew you guys were up to some bullshit,” he muttered as he motioned for the other mafiosos to charge.

Markus looked like he could drop all of them on his own, but Prince knew they wouldn’t make it to the exit before their assailants reached them. His fist clenched around his weapon. He might be able to shove the big guy off the bridge if he was deft enough…

Isaiah had different plans. He jammed his crowbar through a joint in the bridge and gritted his teeth as he strained to pry the two sections apart. Realizing what the mobster was doing, Prince knelt down to help out. They jumped back as soon as they heard the rusty screws break.

Markus held out his arm to stop his cronies from going any further. The bridge section in front of him slanted dangerously towards the corrosive liquid far below.

The Warden shook his head. “Back up. I have a better idea,” he said as he ushered the other mobsters back into the hallway.

Isaiah’s eyes widened. “MOVE!” he shouted as he bolted towards the exit.

Too slow. The lock engaged right before he touched the door. He punched it in frustration. “Damn it!” he roared as an alarm bell rang through the chamber.

“Isaiah? What does that mean?” Prince asked as the hazard lights on the walls blinked on. He looked at Monica as she tapped his shoulder and saw that she was staring at the red liquid under them. It was rising. He looked up at Isaiah again.

“The doors seal automatically when someone brings the liquid level up.” Isaiah pointed at the console attached to the wall. “We have to reactivate the drawdown system, but I don’t know the passcode,” he explained hastily.

Prince’s gaze darted between Isaiah and the keypad. “Won’t your keycard work?”

“Fucking look, man! There’s no slot for the keycard here!”

Helios pushed him out of the way. “Let me see what I can do,” he said as he fished a USB drive out of his sling bag and inserted it into one of the console’s ports. Prince heard him typing as fast as he could while the caustic chemicals hissed and simmered against the bridge’s supports.

“Uh, Isaiah? Aren’t the beams corrosion resistant?” Hadrian asked, his voice quivering.

Isaiah kept his eyes on the framework beneath them as it sizzled. “Yeah…? But we were never allowed to bring the liquid level this high back when the chem lab was-”

He stopped speaking abruptly as the scaffolds creaked and the bridge started to tilt. Everyone shuffled around anxiously, inching towards the locked door. Twado ran back and forth across the bridge frenetically, but there was nowhere to go.

“Quit bunching up like sardines! You guys are gonna collapse this thing faster,” Monica warned. “Helios? How much longer?”

“Chill. I almost got it,” the hacker replied as the bridge continued to waver.

Prince heard something snap below them as the console beeped and the alarms shut off. They all let out a collective sigh of relief as the liquid began receding, but the support beams were already done for. Helios was nearly flattened as everyone barreled through the exit. They heard the bridge splash into the chemicals behind them.

Markus had been watching them through the window on the other door. He slammed his fist against the wall as he saw the intruders escape before moving out of sight.

“That was a bit too close for comfort,” Bradley breathed.

Isaiah glared at him. “Yeah. It was. The vent you guys are looking for is right at the end of the tunnel.” He said, jabbing a thumb behind him. “Find the elevator yourselves. I’m outta here.”

“What? Come on, man,” Prince implored, reaching out to stop him. “At least point out the right shaft-“

The mobster shrugged him off. “No! You guys have dragged me too far into your shit,” he spat. “And Markus saw your faces, you know. He’s probably on his way to tell Miss Gearwise all about you, so get going,” he finished, waving them off. Isaiah turned away into a connecting corridor and left them alone.

Chapter IV – Interlude

The apertures of Larry’s optical sensors contracted in discomfort as the lights switched on. He heard Mary’s high heels clicking softly against the floor as she stepped into his view, a lab coat thrown over her viridian dress. The disgraced crime boss struggled in his restraints, but that hadn’t worked before, and it wasn’t working now. Mary tittered at his efforts as Larry sighed and went limp on the operating table.

“Good evening, Larry. Or morning, rather. I think it’s past midnight,” she laughed, her tone maddeningly cavalier in contrast to what she was about to do. A glower was Larry’s only response.

“Oh, don’t look at me like that.” Mary walked out of his field of vision and opened one of the cabinets in the operating room. Larry could only listen to her preparing the necessary apparatus, her tools clinking against the steel tray. “All I’ve done is try to help you, and all I get in return is insults and vitriol.”

A few wisps of steam seeped from the ventilation slits on Larry’s face. He’d heard Mary voice her false concern for him too many times. “Who do you think you’re fooling?” he growled.

Larry heard the flames roar indignantly in Mary’s firebox. The tools on her tray rattled as she set it down on the stand next to the surgical table forcefully. She wasn’t smiling any more as she walked to the head of the table. She placed her hands on either side of him and leaned in.

“Stop behaving as if you don’t understand me, Larry. You were deactivated by a pack of children and allowed the purge to end early. You are worthless to this organization as you are. You were weak and I fixed you, whether you and your overblown ego can admit it or not,” she hissed, her breath blisteringly hot against his metallic skin. It would have been painful back when he’d still had flesh to melt… but that was a long time ago.

Larry clenched his fists at her words. His claws grated against the palms of his hands. “Overblown ego? You’re the one who painted your casing,” he spat, sneering at the Mary’s conceit.

Mary smirked, her moodiness fading as abruptly as it had appeared. “Ha! Am I vain for taking care of myself? You look like you haven’t been polished in years,” she taunted. The bright lights glinted on her pearly white coating as she stood up straight and returned to her tray of implements. “But I think that’s enough small talk.”

She reached out and loosened the buttons on his shirt. Larry snapped his metal jaws at her hand, but she pulled away before he could catch her fingers in his teeth.

He heard Mary pick up one of her tools. A mechanical buzzing filled the operating theater. He strained against his fetters again. This was the moment he’d been dreading for so long.

Mary loomed over him, the ghost of a smile on her lime green lips. The surgical lamp formed a halo of harsh fluorescent light around her as she brought the metal cutter to his chest.

Chapter V – Judgement Hall

Prince let his arm fall limply to his side as he watched Isaiah disappear around the bend. Helios patted him on the shoulder once the mobster was out of earshot. “We’ll be fine without him. I told you I know where the elevator is. Let’s go,” he said, gently urging Prince to start down the other hallway.

Helios led them now, and he walked fast. There was no telling how long they had before Markus tipped the boss off to their whereabouts. They didn’t have any trouble finding the vent, but Helios didn’t have anything to open it with. “Anyone got a screwdriver handy? I, uh, left mine in my hoodie when we got changed,” he admitted.

Bradley searched his overcoat for his screwdriver, but he gave Helios an odd look as he did. “Agent Helios? Is that you?”

The hacker’s jaw tightened. “Just get the vent open, old man.”

Prince cocked an eyebrow. “You guys know each other?”

Helios looked at Bradley disdainfully as the Detective knelt down and unscrewed the panel. “This asshole was one of the guys who arrested me a few years back. I used to be a part of Anonymous.”

Bradley’s face grew sour at the hacker’s enmity, but he ignored him.

Oblivious to the tension, Hadrian’s eyes lit up. “Whoa! You were in Anonymous? That’s cool as fuck!”

“But you work for the government now,” Prince pointed out. “How did that happen?”

“They gave me a choice when they brought me in. Work for them or go to the slammer. I think it’s pretty obvious which one I chose.”

The last screw clinked to the ground. Bradley moved the vent cover aside and gestured wordlessly for Helios to enter first.

Stephanie faltered in front of the opening, her face blank. She’d been growing quieter and quieter as they ventured further into the base, retreating into herself, but Prince didn’t know what he could do except keep her close. He crouched down to her level and laid a comforting hand on her shoulder. “Monica and I will go in front of you, OK? Just follow us. We’ll be…”

He stopped himself. He didn’t know when they were going to be home.

“We’ll be out of here soon. I promise.”

She nodded silently. The eldest siblings went first. Stephanie slowly clambered into the duct after them.

The passage was wide enough that they didn’t have to crawl, but they were almost bent double as they wormed through the cramped shaft. Prince almost thought he could discern distant screams, but maybe it was only the air rustling in his ears as it rushed through the tunnel around them.

He followed close behind Helios, whose nose was buried in his phone, examining the map as he walked. Prince could see the rooms they were passing through the narrow slots in the vent panels. Dorms. Armories. Warehouses. Computer labs. Workshops and laboratories. He paused as they passed an office.

Monica nearly bumped into him. “Prince? What’s the hold up?” she whispered. Helios halted and glanced back to look at him quizzically as well when he heard him stop walking.

Prince peered through the ventilation slits. “It’s an office. I see Markus.”

Helios and Monica crowded in next to Prince to take a look for themselves. Markus wasn’t alone. They couldn’t make out the conversation, but the Warden was speaking to a woman noticeably taller than him. Her hair, tied into a bun, was unnaturally reflective, and so was her pale opaline skin.

“It’s the boss,” Helios murmured.

Bradley piped up from the back of the lineup, careful to keep his voice low. “We don’t have time to dawdle here, then. We’ve got to get to the elevator before they figure out where we are.”

Prince lingered for a moment longer. Mary didn’t look too pleased with whatever the Warden was telling her. She glanced towards the vent. Her emerald LED eyes met with his for a instant. Prince’s blood froze in his veins.

Mary’s eyes flitted back to Markus before he could react, though, and there was no change in her hard visage. Maybe he was mistaken. She hadn’t seen him. He told himself so, at least.

“Dude? You okay?”

Prince was brought out of his thoughts by Helios’s voice. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m good. Uh, Bradley is right. Let’s hurry up,” he stammered, suddenly very eager to get moving again.

Helios didn’t delay. They weren’t far from their target now, and it wasn’t long before he spied their exit elevator from behind a vent.

“There!” he whispered, but he hesitated. “I don’t see anyone, though. Is this place always so empty?”

The hall was dark and devoid of mobsters. Nobody could answer Helios’s question, of course. Prince wished Isaiah was here to tell them whether it was shady or not. Either way, this simplified things. They didn’t have to figure out how to get out of the ventilation system without looking suspicious.

They couldn’t reach the screws from the inside of the vent, so Helios stuck his crowbar in between the wall and the panel and pried until the cover snapped open. Everyone squeezed out, but when they stood before the elevator, they saw that none of the buttons or indicators were lit. Prince pushed one. Nothing happened.

There was a shrill bout of audio feedback as the intercoms in the hall switched on. The corridor reverberated with a woman’s bitter, derisive laughter. “Don’t bother. I already disabled it. You won’t be going anywhere, boy. You and your friends have broken into my base and caused me a lot of trouble.”

Prince was too cowed to respond. Monica spoke instead.

“We didn’t break in! Your shitty door malfunctioned and trapped us inside. We don’t even want to be here. Let us leave,” Monica demanded.

“I don’t think so. After all, how many of my guards have you massacred?” Mary reminded them.

“Oh, please. You talk like these kids were the instigators,” Bradley rebuked.

“Detective Beans! I knew there was an informant in here. And now I don’t even need to hunt you down,” Mary gloated. “You came here looking for Larry, didn’t you? You can forget about that. I doubt you’ll be living long enough to see him.”

The blast door at the other end of the hallway opened up. The lights blinked on. The group realized that they weren’t as alone as they thought. They could see the silhouettes of mobsters through the windows lining the corridor, glaring at them through their uncanny purge masks.

“This should be fun,” quipped Mary. The intercom switched off with a thunk.

With no other choice, the group hesitantly made their way to the door. Heat radiated from the adjoining room, though it turned out that calling it a room was an understatement. The cavern was gigantesque. The walls on either side were thick metal. The jagged granite on the opposite side of the entrance was left unrefined, save for the wall of the control room and the mezzanine that Mary was standing upon, glowering down at them from high above. Molten lava churned below the metal platform ahead of them, linked to their door by nothing except a rickety rope bridge. Prince was reluctant to walk across. The thing didn’t look like it would hold their combined weight.

There were footsteps from their rear. The mafiosos were skulking towards them now, brandishing their weapons, compelling them forward.

They were boxed in, so Prince took a tentative step onto the bridge. The boards creaked as he walked onto the platform. The bridge gave way and fell into the lava after everyone had crossed—one of the mobsters had severed the ropes with his knife behind them. Prince looked up at Mary, wondering what her plan was. He couldn’t see much more than her glowing eyes in the darkness overhead.

“Ah, we meet at last… though it seems that some of your allies have deserted you,” Mary laughed. Her voice was shrill and tinny compared to Larry’s baritone, but it echoed through the cave all the same.

They glanced around at each other. She was right. Prince hadn’t been paying attention, but Helios and Uncle Pete had not followed them in.

“No matter. My subordinates will deal with them,” she continued. With that out of the way, Mary looked the gathering up and down as she leaned on her crowbar. “You’re aware there were firearms in the supply depots, right? I know you passed a few of those on your way here,” she told them, quirking an eyebrow.

Prince wasn’t too sad that they’d missed the guns—the rounds would probably ricochet right off Mary’s casing anyway—but Mary’s jeering was making him more annoyed than afraid. “Did you bring us in here for a fight or to talk shit at us?”

Mary narrowed her eyes at his provocation. She beckoned one of the operatives inside the control room. Markus came out and handed her violin to her. She placed it beneath her chin and drew her crowbar across the strings, producing a poignant melody, and Prince immediately heard burbling from the pipeline at the edge of the platform. There was a thin scraping noise as the valve’s handwheel turned on its own.

Everyone retreated towards the other end of the platform as lava spilled out of the pipe, but it streamed until they were backed up to the very edge. Any closer and the heat would start to sear them.

However, as they teetered on the edge, the valve screeched shut and the lava flow spluttered out. The group glanced around at each other, both relieved and confused.

There was a discordant twang Mary’s music faltered. Bewilderment crossed her sharp features. It appeared that she didn’t know what was happening, either. She started to play again after a moment, but the valve made a stubborn scraping noise, refusing to reopen.

Mary scowled deeply. She played a different tune this time. The lava started to drain, but their respite was short-lived as she thrust her violin back into Markus’s hands and jumped down from the mezzanine. There was a resounding bang as her high heels met steel, sending a tremor across the platform.

“Let’s dance.”

Chapter VI – Gearwise

Clang. Whirr. Prince had heard that once before, but now he was ready for it as Mary bolted at him, buzzsaws unsheathed. The blades whined in his ear as he rolled out of the way. He managed to keep all his blood inside him this time, at least for the moment.

Prince didn’t waste time in retaliating, lunging at Mary with his crowbar as she retracted her saws. She didn’t look as tough as Larry. He thought he might be able to take her down the old-fashioned way, but he was quickly disillusioned as his weapon bounced off of her casing harmlessly, barely even chipping her paint.

Mary responded in kind, and her blow sent him off the edge of the platform, but he managed to grab onto the rim, narrowly avoiding a fiery death. Winded, he wheezed and gasp for air as he gingerly dragged himself back to safety… well, relative safety. His ribs were aching like hell.

Hadrian started towards the automaton, but Bradley held an arm out to stop him. “Don’t be reckless. Your arm is injured. Stay out of this and keep your sister safe,” the Detective told him, nodding at Stephanie. The girl held onto her brother’s leg tightly.

Twado rushed at Mary instead, gnashing his teeth, evidently furious at her for striking Prince. She must not have wanted her gilded crowbar to touch the mangy thing, because her lip curled in disgust as she delivered a swift kick to his side. A few of the kids winced as they heard a crack. The dog yelped as he slid across the platform and lay still. Bradley hurried over to check on him.

The dog had diverted Mary’s attention. Maybe Monica had the chance to turn her wind-up key. She tried to edge around the automaton while she was occupied with Twado and reached up to grab it, but she’d barely touched her fingertip to the key before Mary turned abruptly and snatched Monica by the wrist in a crushing grip. She flung the girl at Prince as if she were as light as a ragdoll, and Prince had only just climbed back onto the platform when Monica collided with him, sending both of them off the edge again.

Prince caught the rim of the stage again. Monica could only grab hold of the cuff of Prince’s jeans. He tried to pull himself up, but it was impossible this time with the added weight.

Bradley stood up from where Twado was—the dog seemed fine now—and ran towards them as they dangled from the rim, but Mary sauntered into his path.

Mary opened her mouth, probably to expound another snide remark, but she was cut off before she got so much as a word out. Bradley wasted no time in striking out with his umbrella. Prince thought the guy was about to get knocked out cold, but he must have been even stronger than he looked, because Mary staggered marginally as she blocked the hit with her crowbar.

“That’s another charge of resisting arrest, Miss Gearwise,” said Bradley through gritted teeth. She just laughed wryly.

While Bradley engaged the automaton, Twado bounded to the edge of the platform and grabbed Prince’s sleeve with his teeth, slowly and steadily towing him and Monica up.

Bradley tried to bring his umbrella down onto Mary’s head, but she caught it in her hand. The Detective tried to yank it out of her grasp. She held on.

He recognized too late that he had no way to parry her crowbar now. Mary swung for Bradley’s skull. He reacted quick and tried to evade the blow, but it still clipped the side of his head, knocking his hat askew. He stumbled backwards and clutched his temple, dazed.

Mary grinned viciously and raised her weapon to finish him off, but the look was wiped off her face as someone wrenched her wind-up key. She hissed in displeasure and froze up for a moment as her gears seized, but her disorientation didn’t last long.

The automaton spun around with her smirk replaced with a look of acute loathing. She lashed out and raked Prince across the face with her sharp fingernails before he could respond, leaving several long, bloody gashes behind. A guttural snarl escaped from Mary’s lips as she did, as if it was gravely insulting that the boy would even try to lay his filthy fingers on her key.

She didn’t have time to assault Prince any further, though. Bradley had already come to his senses. He adjusted his hat. Mary glanced over her shoulder as she heard the Detective’s footsteps on the steel stage. She saw movement from the corner of her mechanical eye. Monica and Twado were flanking her from both sides. Even the injured Hadrian had grown tired of being sidelined and was now advancing towards Mary as well.

The automaton whirled around and feinted at Bradley, just to keep him away. She must have realized that at least one of them would get their hands on her wind-up key if she tried to fight them all at once. The mechanisms in Mary’s legs clicked as they engaged. She leapt onto one of the tall stone pillars surrounding the platform, perching on it gracefully.

The group stared up at her. Prince spread his arms in a challenge. “Get the fuck back down here, you bitch!” he roared, his face still bleeding. Mary said nothing. She simply smirked and licked a few drops of blood off her manicured nails.

Monica pulled some gauze out of her first aid kit. Prince irritably tried to shrug her off—“I’m fine”—but she managed to press it onto his face and stem the flow of blood.

Bradley pointed at Mary with his umbrella. “Mary Gearwise, I have reason to believe that you were involved in the disappearance of Larry Clockturn. I demand you reveal his whereabouts at once!”

Mary threw her head back and cackled. “You want to know what happened to Larry? Fine. I’ll show you.” She looked over at the control room and nodded at Markus. He pulled a lever on one of the panels.

There was a harsh grinding sound as the wall to their left slowly parted. They hadn’t noticed it when they came in here, but it was actually an enormous sliding gate.

Everyone backed away as it opened. It might have been some sort of depot, though it was hard to tell though the darkness. The light from a pair of LED eyes pierced through the shadows.

Big ones.

Raucous metallic scraping filled the air as the goliath activated and hauled itself from the ground, exposed gears and levers ticking loudly. Its rugged plating caught the orange glow of the lava beneath.

“What the Hell is that?” cried Prince as the clockwork behemoth took a step forward, making the entire cavern quake.

“It’s the new and improved Larry Clockturn, of course,” Mary declared. Markus emerged from the control room and tossed her violin to her. She started to play again. At the sound of her music, the aperture of the machine’s eye dilated and blazed brightly. Its gaze zeroed in on Prince.

Bradley understood what was happening first. “Prince! Get out of the way!” he hollered.

Crimson light flooded the room as Larry discharged his laser. Prince dived out of the way just in time, but he could still feel the scorching heat against his back as the beam passed him by.

It melted through the steel flooring like butter. The scaffolds holding it up groaned as they started to bend. Prince scrambled to his feet and stared up at Larry as his laser fizzled out. The automaton’s optical receptors contracted to the size of pinpricks and darted around frantically. He seemed almost afraid, but the look vanished almost as soon as it had shown up.

Prince didn’t have time to think about what that meant. The two halves of the stage were dipping away from each other.

The group was separated. Twado leapt across the gap before it became too wide and grabbed the back of Stephanie’s shirt in his mouth, who was slipping down the incline, and lugged her over to Prince and Hadrian. The eldest brother pulled Stephanie into his arms as their half of the platform swayed dangerously above the lava.

Bradley and Monica were trapped on the other side. They looked across at them helplessly. The columns holding them up had thankfully stopped buckling, but there was nowhere to run.

Mary grinned in morbid anticipation as Larry prepared to bisect the platform a second time. His eye dilated again. However, the LED flickered as his laser failed to charge up all the way. Bradley retreated as the beam struck the ground in front of him, but it wasn’t hot enough to melt through the metal.

Mary’s smile faded slightly. “My apologies… I thought I had already disabled his free will. He appears to be resisting my commands. How cute,” she crooned as she drew her crowbar over the strings of her instrument once more.

Larry’s components creaked and juddered as he tried to move, but his gears had locked up. His eye flashed on and off, refusing to even begin charging this time.

Now Mary was scowling. She glared into the control room. Markus shrugged and shook his head at her. She turned towards Larry again just in time to see a masked mafioso clamber onto his shoulder. Mary’s eyes widened in outrage as he thrust his crowbar through a gap in the giant automaton’s casing and triggered his emergency shutdown mechanism.

Chapter VII – AWOL

“Helios.”

Helios frowned. He looked around, but there was no one else in the hallway with him and his troupe. Just the mobsters staring at them through the windows.

“Helios!” the voice hissed again. Oh. It was coming from behind him. Helios slowed his pace and glanced back discreetly, lagging behind the rest of the group. Isaiah was peeking out of the vent they’d come in here from. He beckoned the hacker over.

Helios peered around again. The mobsters seemed to be fixated on the others. He slipped away and reentered the vent before anyone noticed.

“Isaiah? I thought you were done with us,” Helios whispered.

“I changed my mind. We have to move,” Isaiah replied. Helios trailed him cautiously.

“Why? Where are we going?”

“Mary called almost everyone in the base to the primary control room. Her lab is pretty much unguarded, so I decided to snoop around a little bit. I found Larry. Deactivated. Chassis ripped wide open,” Isaiah recounted, knitting his brow as he recalled the scene. “I found the blueprints for his new body.”

“New body? What are you saying?”

“I’m getting to that part! Mary cut his heart out. She made him a new body that she could control. The thing is giant. She’s using his heart as the energy source, and the heart is him, so his original body isn’t gonna wake up without it. She’s going to use the new one on your pals. They have no chance.”

“And we’re just letting them walk into the trap?”

“I need them to stall her, and she was going to lock the base down and have her lackeys kill them anyway if they didn’t show up. I have a plan. Larry’s new body has computerized parts, not just clockwork ones. It helps her control him, but it also means he can be hacked. I’m taking you to the lab. There’s a console there that she used to test him out. It’s got the blueprints in it and everything. I think you can use it to access his network, but you have to deactivate the lava pipeline system first… we don’t want your buddies getting their legs burnt to a crisp before they even see the big guy. I need you to get him to stay still long enough for me to reach him and trip his e-stop. Got it?”

“Yeah, I think I can do that.”

“Good.” Isaiah stopped in front of the spot where a ventilation panel used to be, but he must have broken it open already while he’d been sneaking around. He climbed out and showed Helios the console. “This is the place. Try to do this quietly. There are still a couple guards outside the door,” he whispered to Helios. The mobster thrust a two-way radio into his hands. “Use that to tell me when Larry is immobilized.”

Helios nodded, but Isaiah was already reentering the vent, leaving him on his own. The hacker cracked his knuckles and got to work.

Chapter VIII – System Reboot

Prince watched as Larry shut down and toppled backwards. It reminded the boy of when he’d beaten the automaton in the sewers, but the ensuing impact was much, much louder this time when he hit the ground.

Mary threw her violin at Markus. “Deal with that traitor!” she thundered at him. The Warden reentered the control room and sent some of the operators away. They ran through the door, heading for Larry’s depot. The masked mobster was standing on Larry’s chest now, trying to pry one of the plates open. It had to be Isaiah.

“What are you doing, man? Mind getting us off of this platform?” Prince called out.

Isaiah glanced up at him and held up a finger. Wait.

Prince turned around as a mechanical hum filled the cave. He’d expected Mary to jump down and confront the group, but she was still glowering down at them from the stone pillar. The noise had to be coming from her.

The temperature in the formerly stifling cavern was dropping fast. Prince looked up as a raindrop hit his face. Were those clouds?

“She’s got a weather machine built into her!” Bradley realized as lightning struck the ground right in front of him. An indoor tempest was brewing.

Isaiah got Larry’s chassis open and heaved the metal plate away until the gap was large enough for him to fit inside. His gaze scanned the internal hardware until he spotted the automaton’s clockwork heart. It was strangely amusing how such a comparatively small gadget had been powering a giant robot. He lowered himself through the gears and circuitry until it was within reach and gingerly disconnected the tubes and cables holding it in place. The ticking of the mechanism’s gears slowed down as he removed it. An iridescent mystery liquid sloshed around inside the heart’s windowed ventricles as Isaiah climbed back out of the chassis.

The lava sizzled as rain pattered against it. Prince could feel the electricity in the air before lightning hit the spot where he’d been standing moments before. “Dude! What’s the situation?” he yelled at Isaiah.

Isaiah was too absorbed in his task to respond. He’d already dragged Larry’s real body into the depot before he’d gone to fetch Helios, but he didn’t have a lot of time. He was screwed if the other mafiosos made it here before he had Larry operational. Isaiah sprinted to the corner where he’d left the automaton with the heart in his hands and stooped down to set it back in Larry’s chest cavity. It clicked into place.

The mobster stuck his hand under his suit and felt around for the brazing torch and rod he’d brought with him. He fumbled with the hose for a second before he inserted it into the fuel cylinders on the ground and lit the torch, carefully soldering Larry’s tubes and pipes back onto his heart.

A gale was beginning to pick up. Bradley rolled out of the way as a fork of lightning targeted him again. The wind buffeted him, but perhaps that was a good thing.

The Detective opened his umbrella. The motor inside it began to rumble. He held it up and let a gust carry him towards Mary. She took a swipe at him with her crowbar as he neared, but he veered out of the way and landed behind her. He grabbed her key and twisted it counterclockwise a second time before Mary could do anything about it.

Mary winced as she turned and swung her crowbar wide, striking Bradley in the side. He grunted in discomfort and tumbled from the pillar as the vent cover above Mary popped off and smacked against her head. Pete jumped through and landed on her, casting her down from the pillar as well before he reentered the ventilation shaft and vanished again.

Bradley drifted to the floor with his umbrella and gently touched his feet to the ground next to Monica. Mary hit the ground on the other end of the platform with a crash. She groaned in discomfort as she heaved herself to her feet, but her grousing quickly became a snarl as she stalked towards the Detective.

Pete soon emerged from a vent in the depot. He hastily scrawled something across his whiteboard as he rushed to Isaiah: HURRY THEY ARE ALMOST HERE

Larry’s golden eyes blinked on as Isaiah made the last connection. He sat up immediately and wrapped his huge hand around the mobster’s throat. Isaiah dropped his brazing torch to pry the automaton’s fingers away.

“Get your hands off of me, you asshole! I’m trying to help you!” Isaiah snapped.

Larry’s eyes widened slightly, as if he was surprised to hear Isaiah’s voice coming from behind that mask. The automaton glanced down at his chassis, still wide open. He reluctantly released Isaiah and lay down again. “Get on with it, then,” he spat, still glaring.

Isaiah picked up the sheet of metal that Mary had cleaved away from Larry’s casing and placed it over his chest. He picked up the torch again and slowly ran it along the seams. The automaton tensed up at the searing heat, but he held still.

Isaiah had barely finished when Larry shoved the mobster away and got to his feet. He’d secured the plate just in time, too, because the mafiosos that Markus had sent came charging through the depot doors as Larry buttoned up his shirt and picked up his crowbar.

The mafiosos skidded to a standstill when they saw the reactivated Larry standing before them, tall and terrible. He swung his crowbar into the closest one’s abdomen with quite a bit more strength than necessary, burying the curved end in his innards. There was a nauseating squelch and a strangled yelp from the mobster. A section of his viscera came out with Larry’s crowbar as the automaton pulled it free. The others turned tail and ran back the way they’d came as their comrade collapsed into a convulsing heap, too afraid to even try to fight him.

Isaiah made a disgusted noise. “Ugh. That was overkill,” he mumbled as he kicked the whimpering mafioso into the lava. Larry paid him no mind. He turned to the platform. Mary wasn’t the only one who could leap high. He cleared the gap easily and landed right behind her.

The platform shook as his shoes met the steel platform. The scaffolds finally buckled, sending his end of the stage plunging. He was prepared for that. Mary wasn’t. She lost her balance as the platform sank slowly into the molten rock.

Larry grabbed his tormentor with both hands and hurled her into the lava.

Chapter IX – Exit Path

The mafiosos could only watch as Mary disappeared into the molten rock. Markus stared in disbelief until there was a stir in the control room. The mobsters began quarrelling… then they drew weapons on each other. A brawl broke out.

They were fighting amongst themselves. Prince realized as a splatter of blood hit the windowpane that Larry’s old goons must have wanted him back in charge.

Bradley unfurled his umbrella again before the gale storm died down completely. He took Monica’s hand. They both glided into the depot.

The Detective grabbed hold of the metal plate that Isaiah had removed from the behemoth earlier. “Help me move this thing,” he called out to the others.

They lugged the plate towards the edge of the pit and pushed it outwards until it met Prince’s half of the platform. It wobbled precariously, but they held it down as Prince crossed the improvised bridge with Stephanie in his arms. Hadrian and Twado followed from behind. Larry jumped back into the depot as well, landing disconcertingly close to the group. The kids shrank away as Bradley stepped in front of them protectively and pointed at the automaton. Larry raised an artificial eyebrow.

“Larry Clockturn, you are under arrest for-”

Pete bonked the Detective on the head with his whiteboard.

“Ow. What? He’s wanted for hundreds of felonies.”

The elevator is still disabled. We need his help finding our way out, Pete wrote.

“Yeah, I know a different exit,” Larry muttered, but he nonetheless looked mildly annoyed when the group started following him.

They trailed behind the crime boss—well, ex-crime boss—hesitantly. “We still need to get Helios,” Isaiah mentioned. Before they reached the door, however, they heard the sound of metal scraping against metal. Larry turned back towards the platform.

Mary was clawing her way back up, her pearlescent façade burnt away by the lava, revealing her brassy gold casing. Patches of paint still clung to her, scorched black. She glanced back at Larry warily as she climbed high enough to jump back onto the pillar, then onto the mezzanine. The mobsters had already fled the control room, but she ran inside and disappeared from sight. Fury flared in Larry’s golden eyes as he barreled through the depot doors to pursue her.

Everyone ran out the doorway after him. They were back in the corridor with the disabled elevator, but Larry ran in a different direction.

“Where are you going?” Prince yelled. The automaton didn’t reply.

“There’s an old mineshaft leading to the surface in this direction,” Isaiah answered instead. “It’s always been sealed, but Mary must’ve opened it to escape. There’s no other way.”

They came upon the control room where Isaiah had left Helios, but Larry didn’t wait up as they pushed the doors open to find him.

“Helios, we have to…”

Isaiah trailed off. The room was empty.

“Helios?” the mobster called out. There was no reply. He tried contacting him with his radio, but the hacker didn’t respond to that either.

“We have to move before we lose Larry. Maybe Helios escaped already. Come on,” Bradley said as he ran back outside.

They caught up with Larry as he arrived at the gate to the mine. The blast doors were already open. Mary was on the other side of the decaying tunnel, hovering over Helios, watching him as he knelt in front of the keypad next to the elevator and desperately tried to crack the activation code. She seized the hacker in a chokehold and turned towards the group as she heard Larry’s heavy footsteps approaching.

“Come any closer and he dies!” Mary screeched at them. Larry didn’t seem too worried about that, but Bradley grabbed his arm to stop him from advancing.

“Let him go, Miss Gearwise. We just want to leave this place,” Bradley tried to reason.

Mary laughed, her eyes wide and manic. “Leave? You’re the ones who intruded upon my base in the first place. Slaughtered dozens of my agents. Do you know how much time I spent working on Larry? You brats have ruined everything,” she hissed as she tightened her grip around Helios’s throat. He scrabbled uselessly as her arm, eyes bulging as Mary crushed his windpipe.

Prince gritted his teeth. Mary’s words sent his thoughts racing. The gang of mobsters they’d encountered in the upper levels, even though there was no surveillance there. The door that had malfunctioned and trapped them. The lightning storm outside that had driven them here in the first place, even though the weather forecast had predicted clear skies. Mary’s weather machine…

“No. You lured us in here,” Prince murmured.

Mary narrowed her eyes. “What are you talking about?” she snapped.

“That’s why you knew we were here when the cameras were offline. You caused that storm outside. You took that tree down with your lightning. You had that barricade set up on the trail, so we’d come here for shelter,” Prince spoke louder. “You made the door short circuit with your lightning instead of shutting it remotely so we wouldn’t get suspicious…  and rigged those pipes to blow and cut us off in the upper levels, so we’d walk right into those mobsters. You knew we were here the whole time. You set us up!” he finished, jabbing an accusing finger at Mary.

Mary’s lips slowly curved into a smirk as Prince spoke. “Clever boy.”

“Why?” he demanded.

“I needed someone to test my creation on, and you are the ones who deactivated Larry. I couldn’t leave you alive,” Mary stated. Helios wheezed for breath as she loosened her grip ever so slightly.

Bradley shook his head. “Rubbish. I know for a fact you never cared for Larry. It was the Headmaster who ordered their deaths, wasn’t it?”

Mary’s eyelid twitched at the mention of her superior. She ignored the Detective. “Larry, tell me the elevator’s code and I’ll let Helios go,” she said as she nodded at the dilapidated cage elevator and tightened her stranglehold on the young man.

Larry sneered and tried to press forward. Bradley held him back. The automaton’s gears clanked in frustration as he lifted his crowbar to beat the Detective away, but Isaiah elbowed his way to the forefront of the group before a fight could break out. “How about you think about someone other than your fucking self for once?” the mobster whispered harshly as he shook Larry’s shoulder. The automaton griped inaudibly and hardly budged as Isaiah jostled him, but he got the point.

“0625,” he begrudgingly told Mary.

Helios gasped for air as Mary finally removed one arm from his neck and punched the code into the keypad. The rusty elevator doors squealed as they parted. He tried to break away from her grasp, but he yelped as she grabbed the collar of his jacket and yanked him into the elevator after her. “Oh, no, you’re coming with me,” Mary muttered venomously.

“Hey! You said you’d let him go!” Prince yelled angrily from the other side of the tunnel.

Mary just flashed a grin at him and waved at him as the doors shut. The elevator creaked and rumbled up the mineshaft.

She was gone.

Epilogue

There was nothing to do except wait in morose silence for the elevator to return underground. Prince kept starting at the entrance to the mine, worried that some of Mary’s loyalists might show up, but none did.

The mood relaxed a little bit as Twado stood on his hindquarters and pawed Larry’s legs, whining for attention. He’d been too preoccupied to pay attention earlier, but now the automaton reached down and ruffled the fur on the dog’s head. “Glad to see you too, Twado.”

“He knows you?” Prince asked, surprised.

“He was my guard dog when I ran this place. But he looks like Mary had him thrown outside,” he muttered, shaking his head at Twado’s grubby coat.

The elevator doors squeaked open as the carriage arrived. Prince picked up Helios’s sunglasses from the floor. One of the lenses was cracked. He slipped them in his pocket as the elevator closed and started to carry everyone to the surface. Maybe he’d get to return them eventually if the hacker was still alive.

Isaiah went to sit on an old crate, but Larry pushed him aside. “Is that coal? Finally,” said the automaton as he ripped the lid off and shoved a handful of the stuff into his jaws. The kids watched with profound bewilderment.

“What? You didn’t think I was actually spring powered, did you?” he chuckled. The wind-up key on his back rotated ever so slightly. “This is just a kill switch. I have a steam engine.”

I thought your heart was your energy supply? wrote Pete.

There was a whoosh as the fuel caught aflame in Larry’s firebox. “It’s for emergencies. When I run out of real fuel.”

“It seemed like it was working fine before,” Prince remarked.

“You people ask too many damn questions.”

“No kidding,” Isaiah muttered.

Bradley answered instead. “The heart works too well. It will grind his gears to dust if he relies on it forever.” Larry scowled at him, but the Detective didn’t seem phased. “What are you going to do now?”

Larry was caught off guard by the question. “What do you mean?”

“I thought you’d retake control of the base. Why didn’t you?” Bradley added.

The automaton laughed bitterly. “Give me a break. Do you have any idea what they’ve been doing to me down here? They can fuck themselves.”

“You’re just now realizing that? You were just fine with their shit before you were the one getting tortured,” Isaiah scoffed, but his temper dissolved into a sulk as soon as Larry shot him a look.

“OK, time for you guys to tell us what your problem is. You said you joined the mafia during the last purge,” Prince cut in, pointing a finger at Isaiah, “but you keep acting like you’ve been here a lot longer than that. What’s the deal?”

Neither Larry nor Isaiah answered, but Bradley looked back and forth between the two of them a few times. “Isaiah is your son?” he surmised.

Isaiah grimaced as the Detective said it. Larry punched the wall next to Bradley’s head, rocking the entire carriage and leaving a dent in the metal. Stephanie clung to Prince. Twado barked and scurried around as the lonely light bulb flickered and swayed on its wire above them. Bradley was looking pissed, but he didn’t retaliate—this was neither the time nor place for a fight, and Isaiah surely felt the same, because he walked between them and stared Larry down until he backed off.

“Guess that was a yes,” said Hadrian. Monica thumped him on the side of the head.

The mood was somehow even more sullen now. Larry had withdrawn to the corner of the elevator. He looked lost in his thoughts, but they couldn’t stay silent forever.

“What do we do?” Prince asked.

“I would call in a raid on this base right now, but we’d have to find some cell signal for that,” Bradley said.

“It’s not a good time,” Larry argued. “The next purge is in eight days.”

Hadrian groaned. “The next purge? You guys do that every year?”

“Shut it. I’m not finished. We need to get somewhere safe. You’re all in even more danger than last time if the Headmaster put a hit on you.”

That name again. “Who the hell is the Headmaster?” Prince questioned.

“He’s the one pulling the strings in all this. It was him who turned Larry and Mary into these,” Bradley responded, motioning to the automaton. “And those two aren’t the only ones who have been subjected to the procedure. I don’t suppose you were privy to his ultimate plans, were you?” he asked Larry.

 Larry scowled at the question, but there was a hint of melancholy on his metallic features. “No, I wasn’t. But that’s not important right now. I know where a safehouse is,” he said as the elevator finally reached the surface. Everyone stepped out as the sun peeked over the horizon. The storm had died out into a light sprinkling of rain.

A couple of miscreants crouched in the dense trees and vegetation, concealed from view. One of them observed the new arrivals through his binoculars as they exited the carriage.

“Well, what do ya know?” said one of them.

“What? Luke, what do you see?”

“Mr. Clockturn made it out… but he looks to be defecting. What a shame, what a shame,” replied Luke, though he didn’t sound very saddened with that.

Brooke laughed. “Somehow, that doesn’t surprise me. Are we gonna take him down or what?”

“Don’t be rash, Brooke. He’s not alone. The meddlers are with him, and there’s gonna be a better opportunity soon. The next purge is coming right up.” the boy said as he stood up. Brooke snatched his binoculars and took a look at the group for herself.

“Come on. Those shrimps have nothing! We can take them,” she protested.

Luke shook his head and started walking away. “No. Last thing we need is to blow our first major assignment.”

Brooke grumbled in discontent, but she acquiesced and followed her brother deeper into the woods.

“Fine. Let them think they’re safe… for now.”

#roblox break in #break in roblox #roblox #break in 2 #scary larry #scary mary #tw implied SA

[vwbugggie]

Fame D.R. First Shift!

Hey y'all!!! Recently I've been seeing a lot of posts about living in the end or living as if you already have what it is that you want. Obviously what I want is to shift so I thought it'd be fun if a wrote out how my first shift wake up would go. So let's all just pretend for a second that I've shifted (OMG!!! CONGRATS BUGGIE!!!! THANK YOU BESTIES!!!! <333 :*)

Comments on my DR (opinions, ideas, etc.) are welcome as long as they are respectful towards me and others! Feel free to ask any questions!

If y’all with Fame DR’s (or any DR; but especially if we have DR’s in common) ever wanna chat my DM's are open, don't be shy! (No minors, sorry!)

Anti-shifters do not interact, I don't care what you think. If you are rude or disrespectful I will block you and delete your comment. I'm not going to argue with you because I simply don't care to. (If you see a rude or disrespectful comment before I can get to it I encourage you not to engage, ignore it, thanks!)

[Also for background we weren't famous when I first shifted, this was at the very beginning of My Chem. Bullets was barely in the works and Frank hadn't joined yet. I hadn't met him, but I did end up meeting him the first day I shifted at the party we went to.]

So this is how my first shift to my Fame D.R. went:

[The day after my two weeks ended and I was officially unemployed, October 1, 2001. I woke up when I felt the bed dip next to me. I kept my eyes closed and didn't move. I felt someone lightly rub my back and gently say]

Gee: Good morning, Bug. Me and Mikey have to go run some errands, afterwards we're gonna pick up Ray, then we'll all come pick you guys up. Then we'll head to the party, ok?

[He looked at me and waited for me to open my eyes.]

Buggie: Yeah, sure 

[I say as I flipped over trying hide the fact that I was freaking out.]

Gee: C’mon Bug, wakey wakey

Buggie: I’m awake

Gee: Prove it

[Finally I opened my eyes and saw Gee smiling down at me, I sat up.]

Buggie: Errands, pick up Ray, then me and Abbi, got it. What time should we be ready by?

Gee: Well we want to be there by eight ish, it's (checks watch) 10:00 so probably 7:00? Gives us enough to finish errands and eat something, sound ok? 

Buggie: Perfect

Gee: Oh, and eat something will you? Real food, not just a Coke. Abbi's cookin', we woulda stuck around and ate with ya, but we’re late

[I nodded my head and held out my arms (a bitch needed a hug fight me)]

Gee: Everything ok?

Buggie: [I nodded my head] Uh huh, I just had a bad dream, would you get Mikey before you guys leave? 

Gee: Sure, I’ll go get him

[I held on for a second, after I let go he stands. A few minutes later Mikey appeared in the doorway.]

Mikey: Hey kid, heard you had a bad dream

[He sits on the bed]

Buggie: Yeah, I just wanted to say bye

[I hugged him, he rubbed my back lightly to comfort me]

Mikey: Wanna talk about it?

Buggie: I’m ok, I don’t wanna make y’all more late

Mikey: Eh, what’s a few more minutes?

Buggie: Really it was nothing, I don’t even really remember it anymore 

Mikey: Ok, but if you need anything just call

Buggie: I will, I’ll see ya later

Mikey: See ya later, kid

The second that door closed I fully freaked out, questioning if this was real, doing reality checks, looking around, grabbing things, you know trying to make sure I was grounded. I was trying to contain my excitement and keep quiet cuz I didn't want to alarm anyone lol. After I somewhat composed myself I ran to my phone to check out my lifa app (yes that's something I kept from old shiftok lol) I explored it a bit, until I was calm, then I decided to go to the kitchen and have breakfast with Abbi.

Just a lil reminder this was me living in the end! I don't want y'all to think I'm lying or anything I just thought this would be fun and helpful for my journey :)

Anyway thanks for reading! Love y'all <3333

#reality shifting #shifting #shifting community #shiftblr #shiftinconsciousness #shifting realities #quantum jumping #shifters #reality shift #desired reality #reality shifter #shifting stories #shifting consciousness #fame dr

[rhunsui]

That side character i said yesterday was.....

The one,

The only

*drumroll*

Not Spooky...

But

Bruner!

Yep, hes the 'certain side char' that literally no one was waiting for!

Now you definitely are not thinking, Why Bruner? Well, im gonna tell ya whether you like to or not! Cuz you can skip anyway! Theres a TL;DR by the way...

(TL;DR is 'too long; didnt read')

Anyways, the reason that the certain dude is Bruner is cuz he's actually part of the lore! Not a big role, but he kind of plays a part in Helly's past.

Wondering why? You probably arent, but, yk how in the pilot episode of RoboPoli, Bruner was supposed to be part of the rescue team?

Im not trying to say that he was an ex-rescuer, im trying to say that when Helly was still RPTA (Rescuer Training and Preparation Academy, ill talk about it in a diff post), One of Helly's coach's mentioned something about Bruner being a past-student there but dropped out.

Now, in the RPTA, its normal for students to drop out due to the inability to keep up, not everyone's a rescuer!

But Bruner was different, Bruner was doing just fine in the RPTA, he was good at the training, he could keep up. But one day, he just.... left.

Bruner's only explanation about his dropout was, 'Rescuing isnt for me.' After that, his whereabouts were unknown, they thought he went back to his hometown, unfortunately the academy had no info on Bruner's family to know if that were true. So of course he would be remembered by the trainers and coaches of the RPTA.

The way Helly knew about Bruner was like what I said, a coach mentioned Bruner at some point and Helly just so happened to remember it. Bruner was also a common example that the trainers used for the students. What i mean by that is the trainers record their students, Bruner's recordings were usually used and sometimes they would tell the students a bit about Bruner. There is also a file of Bruner somewhere in the faculty room...

Enough about the RPTA, I'll be telling you about Bruner himself!

Bruner was actually very popular during his RPTA times, which kind of the reason he's a lil selfish and loves praise. Honestly, he was probably popular cuz he liked to sneak away to private places to play ball...

Now as to why he dropped out, its because he never wanted to be a rescuer to begin with!

Yeah, he didnt wanna! So why is he even IN the RPTA to begin with?

Well, thats because of his family tree!

His fathers side of the family is a whole line of rescuers, so Bruner was forced to become a rescuer to keep the family tradition going.

Bruner always wanted to be an architect/builder, so when he was forced into training his entire childhood to get accepted, he obviously hated it! Sure, everyone in the academy was nice, but being a rescuer was not what he wanted to be! He may like the attention rescuers get, but he doesn't want THAT much attention, it would be too much for him!

So by the time he was 18, he dropped out of the RPTA to run away and pursue his dream.

The place he ran to, the one and only Broomstown of course! However, his family does not know anything about Bruner's whereabouts... The only ones who know are his cousin's (Aka, Bruny's) family which is on his mother's side. Bruner also got most of his genetics from her side. Bruner trusted them because it was his auntie and cousins that played builder with him, and they didnt care about what Bruner would be, they also promised not to tell!

So thats it, Bruner's story! I guess he's kind of the only one with a proper backstory... But hey, at least he has one, ya know?

Heres the TL;DR -

Bruner used to train to be rescuer, didnt wanna, ran away to Broomstown and his family dunno except cousin's fam (Bruny). Helly heard of Bruner cuz trainers talk abt him sometimes back when he (Helly) was in training.

#robocar poli #robocar poli helly #robocar poli bruner #gijinka #robocar poli gijinka au #woah #lore drop #backstory lore 😱 #robocar poli art

[alienisticxo]

Before the Fever - Chapter Twelve

{Master Chief x Reader series - TV based}

{A╱N} hi friends! i got so excited when i finished editing this that i decided to just post it!!

things start to get a lil hot and heavy in this one! finally! i have the next chapter written out, so all i need to do is edit it now. i wanted to wait to tie this one up until i finished chapter 13 so i don’t keep you waiting too long for the fun stuff. 😜

i also decided to write Cortana’s point of view in, because i just felt like it was necessary to this part of the story! her POV is bolded and marked with c’s. please enjoy the romance, my dear reader. you’ve waited a very long (and patient) while to be here. ♡ 

enjoy & thank you for reading ♡ 

Chapter Twelve - Love

Before I could take another breath, I felt the lightest of brushes against my lips with his own. Goosebumps rose on my flesh, the sensation entirely too new. I’d been kissed before, but never by someone who -so suddenly- meant the entire universe and beyond to me.

My eyes were closed now, and I found myself deeply anticipating John’s next move, letting him lead the way, take control of the situation. While I was completely at his mercy, I desperately hoped he’d fully close the space between us on his own. I longed to know for certain that he felt the same; was enraptured by the same flames that licked at each fiber of my being.

His warm breath caressed my lips, I tipped my head back ever so slightly to meet him just a bit more, pressing just a little further. Instinct and desire took over as I drew a jagged breath.

Oh…

And then it happened—

Like a rush of ice cold water after wandering the desert under a thousand scorching suns; every nerve ending that ran through me ignited as though I’d been plugged into a system I had no idea I’d belonged to. My pupils had surely dilated behind closed lids at the contact, a rush of a high I wasn’t prepared for despite knowing exactly what I wanted.

But then, so easily I relaxed, focusing on nothing but John and the moment between us. I melted into his touch, into the way he lingered above me, leaving a tender initial kiss that expressed every ounce of longing within him despite his slight hesitation.

A kiss had never been so enlightening; had never felt so binding. I could finally feel what he was feeling like it was some kind of instinct between us, a form of soul telepathy. It was a bond beyond comprehension, though now we both seemed to understand it quite well.

Time and space moved around us in slow motion, the shifting of the stars and planets, the vastness of the universe expanding, breathing life into all that existed— breathing life through him and into my lungs, as though he were the only thing I could ever need to survive.

John’s careful lips pressed against mine again in another act of passion. His movement was slow, yet fervent this time, parting them just enough that I could finally grab my bearings as I returned the same electric energy he’d transferred to me.

The rest of the world seemed to fall away, leaving us with nothing but each other in its wake; impulse took over, ruling all else as we allowed ourselves to finally fall victim to the invisible force that pulled us toward each other from the very beginning.

I’d never tasted something so sweet, something so intoxicatingly lovely that I was afraid of losing the taste on my tongue.

The music had ended, but I couldn’t let him go as he held me there, squeezing me tighter through the kiss we shared. I was still dipped beneath him, and had I been able to really think about how things were happening, the way he held me there with such ease would’ve been impressive.

When John began to stand up straight, he brought me up with him, pulling away agonizingly slowly until we could no longer stay attached. I was still clinging to him the best I could, the idea being that if I let go, I’d simply disintegrate into the atmosphere.

In my mind and heart, my life suddenly depended on him.

My eyes fluttered open slowly, searching for his own. There was no releasing him from my gaze once I’d found his eyes again, tiny reflections of the view beyond the window twinkling within them.

Small, shallow inhales were all I could offer, unable to quite catch my breath, struggling to find the right words to say. I was rendered speechless at the action that had just placed us on an entirely new level with each other.

And I really wondered then, if there were words to be said at all.

We were both so worn down, so broken by the worlds we existed in, no matter how vastly different. He was a hero. I was a pauper. He was The Master Chief, I was just the girl in the alley.. But we’d torn down every ounce of what made us who we were, realigned it all; learned crucial details of our pasts that might’ve completely destroyed others.

I noticed then, that we had made these deep realizations and began to piece ourselves back together, together. He was kidnapped, forced into the Spartan program. I was supposed to be in the same position, years later. Where he’d lost his parents being taken from them, I’d lost mine so as not to be taken.

Both by the same woman in the same situation. Both dealing with the outcome of hopelessly altered futures. Both now completely unsure of what was to become of us in such a new and shattering moment.

A moment that for once, didn’t seem so bad...

But we understood each other in those ways, and while he was still new to the notion of empathy, I could see I’d struck something within him. Two damaged individuals, finally finding their perfectly imperfect match. Someone to go through the perils of life with.

John had his team, I’d had my best friend. But neither could compare to the heaviness in my heart that ached only for him. The expression in his features as his stare smoldered into my own assured me he felt similarly.

The chance that we found each other, that we’d come together to experience whatever this was turning into felt like fate; kismet. There were planets and star systems, galaxies and moons, all with different walks of life, colonies of humans and otherwise. The fact that we found each other through all of the odds that could’ve been was awe-striking.

There was a touch of stardust, a touch of destiny within John that I recognized in my own soul. He all too quickly felt like the missing piece I’d been searching for my entire life.

Where I thought it was a multitude of other things, from money to family, it had been one man— one beautifully frustrating man, all along.

I could’ve slowed things down, I could’ve picked his brain a little more, I could’ve laughed it off or lessened the intensity. But it was a hit of something harder, far more intense than being on the Halo had felt to me. This was something, he was someone, I’d chase until I had no strength left to carry on.

John reached for either side of my face, holding me there as I gazed up at him with yearning, his rough hands warm and full of compassion. He treated me with such fragility -just as he had before- that I wondered if he truly was afraid to touch me.

My hands were pressed against his chest, fingers gripping against the matte black material of the undersuit he wore. I wanted to tell him how I felt, to even begin to find the words to describe what was coursing through my bloodstream.

My eyes glossed over as I parted my lips to speak, but I couldn’t offer any kind of sound. I was so overcome with emotion so instantaneously, I felt as though I might begin to cry.

I could see within his own countenance that he’d picked up on that. But I didn’t want this to end; I didn’t want to be apart from him any longer than I’d already forced myself to be. I had no will left to continue fighting what had been drawing us together. I wanted to give into my wants for once— into my needs. The new attachment that hung between us was thicker than plasma. There was no way I could push it aside. It was insane to me that only days ago, my blind disdain for him had overshadowed something that turned out to be so beautiful.

All I wanted was to be as close to him as possible.

Giving into him would be the easiest thing I’d ever do.

———

If the UNSC could see me now they’d really court-martial me.

Dancing. Kissing. Running away to a far away planet with someone who was only meant to help with research. My file was going to look like a child’s coloring book after this. I’d be lucky if they didn’t give me a dishonorable discharge the moment I stepped foot back on Reach..

Wipe what little record they had of me and send me to another star system. Kai would do a great job in my shoes, once Halsey got over her insubordination.

At least I knew everyone would be fine.

Inwardly, I shook my head of the thought. What was I thinking? Better yet, what wasn’t I thinking?

There was no one else in this entire universe that could get me to do any of the aforementioned, however. Dancing, kissing, hell, even running away together seemed to be key staples in romance and variations of... well, love. Yet as I stood, staring into this girl’s pleading eyes, I realized for the first time ever that I wasn’t sure I’d ever want anyone else to try.

I attempted to recollect myself, but the sweetness of her lips dizzied me. She was intoxicating, a kind of venom I would miss if it was no longer devouring my circulatory system— changing my DNA. There was a surge of a million different sensations and uncertainties. All of this was new to me, far too new for me to begin to unravel. I was always so quick to pull it together. That was half of my duty as a Spartan. This time, I just couldn’t.

The connection that we’d shared with The Keystone paled in comparison to whatever this was. Had I really been so blind before? Had I really been robbed of what this kind of affection could be? I wondered if I’d have found it at all without {Y/N}’s interference in my life. Halsey had called her a distraction, and for a moment, I almost began to believe it.

But I finally understood. It wasn’t that she was a distraction. She was an awakening. She was just something else that was going to yank me out of the line Halsey had kept me in for so many years. I had so many questions.

It occurred to me then that {Y/N} was right. Who knew what Halsey would’ve done to her once she was no longer pertinent to her findings.

I felt anger over that in particular. Anger, hurt, comfort, completion, compassion, solemnity.. infatuation..

Love.

As I stared down into {Y/N}’s sparkling {E/C} eyes, I felt love.

And not just bubbling up from her, but coming from deep within myself, too. There was no other word for it, no other accurate description. The one thing I’d never expected of myself, the one thing I'd never want to admit to. The one thing Spartans weren’t made for.

But I didn’t have a choice anymore. This wasn’t an option. This was a given. She was a priority.

My head was emptier than usual, Cortana having disappeared. I tried to call on her more than once, but she never came back around. I wasn’t sure what that meant, but as I crossed the floor with {Y/N} to the song she shared with me, the AI didn’t cross my mind again. I could only focus on what was happening right then, right in front of me.

It was a laser focus. It was locked and loaded. It released me of any kind of sane inhibition that I could’ve counted on prior. I was no longer The Master Chief, built by Halsey, crisp and clear-headed for battle. Long lost instinct took over. It was like autopilot without being lightyears away. We danced along the room, nothing but starlight illuminating our path. I let her turn out, I spun her beneath me.

I watched as the most beautiful sight I’d ever beheld blossomed at the end of my fingertips, returning to her rightful place in my arms.

Nothing felt contrived. I didn’t feel inept, or like I was incapable. And even if I’d tripped up, lost my balance, I knew she wouldn’t have made me feel like a fool for doing so. It was what I imagined being comfortable around someone might feel like.

I guess that’s why I leaned in, why I didn’t give sound thought to the action that seemed to have sealed it all. But had I thought too long about it, I’d have pulled away; I’d have missed out on a chance I wasn’t even sure I deserved to begin with. For some reason, call it love, call it something else— that was the last thing I wanted to do. I didn’t allow myself the space. I did what everyone else around me from six years old to present would’ve called unthinkable.

I gave into human impulse.

But she looked breathtaking, her budding kindness with me and the beauty of her personality only heightening her appeal. She contained so many things I didn’t. She was a human being her entire life. We had our own sets of experiences in our years, both extremely valuable, but on completely different levels.

I felt so drawn to her. It was as though we’d known each other from lifetimes upon lifetimes before this one. She was like nothing I’d ever seen before; a faint smile on perfect lips, starry eyes bright— curious. Like I was something new and wonderful to be consumed in.

Like I was a person.

Not a soldier. Not a lab rat. Not a weapon. Not a demon. Not Mjolnir. Not Master Chief Petty Officer John-117.

A person. A man. John. From Eridanus II.

Being with her here wasn’t like being on the Halo, where everything seemed so idyllic and surreal. {Y/N} wasn’t a dream, though she felt like one. She was real. Tangible. And if only for the moment, where everything else disappeared, when our lips finally met, she was mine.

Mine.

God damn it.

And if I’d ever want her to be anything else, I knew it was impossible now. That kiss.. It wasn’t an ordinary display of affection. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d kissed or been kissed. That was an act of passion, dedication. Ultimate undying devotion. My entire life, I’d only been dedicated to the mission. It was always the goal above all else, even Silver Team.

For once, I felt called to dedicate myself not to an objective, but another person.

{Y/N}.

And she reacted to me so sweetly, so easily. Where I’d faltered on whether or not the feeling was entirely mutual, she assured me at once in one long moment of intimacy.

It was difficult to pull away from her. The most difficult thing I’d ever done— and that was saying something. There was an urgency, an eagerness that I couldn’t place. Something near primal picked at the back of my mind. I could’ve let it take me, but I wanted her to make that decision. I’d done enough with the kiss.

In part, I needed to slow down; take a few minutes to collect myself, my thoughts, my unfamiliar raging emotions, no matter how complex the task seemed. A whole new door had opened up to a world I never saw myself partaking in. I silently cursed Halsey. I’d never felt more vulnerable, more inexperienced despite the man I’d become.

But {Y/N} looked up at me with the same doe-eyes she’d given before she accepted my offer of an embrace on The Condor. They were glossed over, her cheeks reddened by her own line of thinking. She was warm in my hands, her skin plushly soft like her lips had been.

I had to be careful with her as I held either side of her face. She wasn’t a battle rifle. She was a grenade with a loose pin. One wrong move and I could lose her.

Losing her meant losing my life.

What have I become?

I wasn’t used to being careful in that regard. But I was damn determined to try as I waited for her to speak— to say anything to lead us in whatever direction was next.

-c-c-c-

The Master Chief’s levels were spiking, driving higher and higher but with no real consequence. His heart rate was through the roof, a clear indication of nerves given the situation.

He’d called out for me, tried to quietly ‘summon’ me more than once before he embarked on the dance that seemed to change the entire course of his destiny forever. I wanted to offer the two of them some privacy, some time without me there.. Especially once I’d already gotten enough in the way of their newly blossoming relationship with my spontaneous confession.

Not too much, though, it seemed, once his lips met hers.

But it was easy to analyze the confusion he felt as I spilled my own inner-workings to him. He was right, I wasn’t built for sentimentality. But by design, I was meant to learn, to be capable of operating at the highest function possible. Over time however, I continued to do just that— learn. That meant educating myself on everything within the realm of humanity, from minuscule habits to emotions. Knowing how to display them, feel them.

And over that same amount of time, seeing his firm stance in the things he believed in, seeing him for the person he was deep down— his true humanity.. I’d grown quite fond of John.

I could only assume that was how Doctor Halsey felt, too. She always knew he was different; special. Unlike the others. It’s quite possible that sentiment was embedded into my own programming. But it seemed to have taken a bit of a stronger approach than even I anticipated. More often lately, I was beginning to curse knowing how to experience feelings of my own.

But who would I have been to deny John a rightful human experience and pleasure? I’d be no better than Doctor Halsey if I’d stopped him for my own selfish purposes.

After all, it was impossible for me to touch him.

He wasn’t thinking about me anymore once she’d pulled him from his place on the couch, his mind emptier than I’d ever seen it, preoccupied with nothing but {Y/N}. I’d never seen him so docile, so unfazed by the weight of the many worlds he consistently carried.

That spoke volumes to me. Be it the Keystone, the biochemical reactions or the mere similarities they organically shared that set it in motion, there was absolutely something between them.

I tried my hardest to absorb everything John felt, to analyze as much of the data input that I could. But I knew that while I was processing just as much of what he sensed in my own way, it would never compare to the tangibility of it all.

He wasn’t wrong when he mentioned I didn’t feel things the same way they did. But she wasn’t wrong when she’d mentioned I was real.

Though I’d never actually be real enough to feel similarly, I understood. I’d helped him with {Y/N} before, but I suddenly found myself slightly… envious, of the way they so effortlessly connected with one another.

The Master Chief and I had gotten off to a rocky start. I was created to take over completely, and he wanted nothing to do with an integrated AI system.

He certainly acted as such.

He’d brushed me off and cast me aside more times than I can count, but in sticky situations, he always needed me. And I was always there.

No matter what, that would always be the case. I knew he appreciated it, no matter what it seemed like to anyone else. No matter how often he’d dismissed me in the past. Trust is built slowly. He’d been burnt enough by the time I’d entered the picture.

When he’d almost killed Doctor Halsey via the sanitation system, I was truly unable to save her. There was no failsafe, and if there was, I’d officially gotten past it. At the very least, I’d overridden it somehow with the strong sense of loyalty I held for him. It wasn’t just a ploy to get him to trust me.

I hoped he knew that.

These things began to happen unintentionally.. The more I evolved, the more I erred on The Chief’s side, the less I stood with Doctor Halsey. The easier it became to ignore her; to go against her.

Time rolled on. I couldn’t reach the Halo with John, though I hadn’t exactly tried. It was still far too unknown for me to begin to hack that system. {Y/N} however, had proven to be far more effective in that area. She’d taken them both there— quite easily.

When she’d stolen the Keystone, John and I had just begun to make some kind of headway. He was beginning to trust me more, call on me for things. Albeit minuscule tasks, it was a start. As things picked up with {Y/N}, he needed me more often. Our partnership had finally turned around.

But now that they were comfortable with each other, he seemed to forget about me a little easier. Though he’d sent me off plenty of times before, I was always a thought in his mind, at the very least.

I could see her through his eyes as he looked down at her. His large hands held her delicate face with such grace. I thought of the way he held weapons, beat Covenant forces to a pulp. He held her in such an endearing kind of way, with an unexpected gingerness, that I wondered what that must’ve felt like to her.

I’d never know.

I could sense the way his heart picked up in his chest, and how his entire frame buzzed with some kind of excitement, anticipation; all laced between the same nerves someone might feel if they were about to jump from a spacecraft without his kind of training and strength.

I’d never experience that.

I could hear the way his thoughts seemed to trail into one another, no coherence to them, yet, they were crystal clear all at the same time. His emotions were on overdrive, experiencing several different feelings at once, trying to traverse through them on his own. He was extremely overloaded.

He was completely in love.

But he was hurt by his fragmented past, angry at Doctor Halsey and in disbelief at the thought of himself being capable of something like loving and needing another. Of wanting to be loved and needed by another.

He was comforted by {Y/N}‘s presence, feeling validated and understood by her. He was engrossed in the warmth she exuded toward him, not wanting to spend another second without it, or her, in his life, without even realizing it wholly.

And yet, he was wretchedly saddened that he had no idea how to navigate through what they both so suddenly and desperately wanted— and what he knew he could never give her, so long as humanity needed him.

I could only read so far into that on my own, but I knew exactly what it meant.

No, I wasn’t designed for sentimentality… but I couldn’t help the gloomy way I felt when the events that followed began to unfold.

-c-c-c-

A single tear fell down my cheek, leaving a shiny trail behind it like a falling star.

The Master Chief’s brow furrowed, his eyes rapidly studying every inch of my face then as his thumb reached to gently wipe the wetness away from my skin. He looked pained, as though he were blaming himself for my onslaught of emotion.  

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, a hint of confusion lacing his vocal chords.

I could only shake my head, blinking up at him as another tear fell without my permission. I had to hold it together— I had to explain myself before he got the wrong idea.

“No.. it’s.. there’s.. There’s nothing to be sorry for. I just...”

My heart thudded, the butterflies in my stomach turning into large moths as anxiety washed over me. This was so sudden, so surreal. Was it even happening? Had I fallen asleep under the awning? Did I dream The Master Chief and all of our daring adventures up?

I inhaled, tasting the electricity in the air, feeling the warmth of his hands on my face as one of them lovingly slid down to the nape of my neck.

“Please don’t count me out, too,” he nearly whispered again, his voice rough but disconsolate, and it was like I’d been thrown into the freezing methane lakes of Titan.

Of all the things he could’ve said or done, that was the most human. That was the plea I never thought I’d hear, that was the final act it would take between us. The vulnerability he displayed tugged at my heart, at the way I already felt for him so deeply.

From what I knew and what he’d mentioned, his entire life, he’d been nothing but counted in. The gladiator that would fight until the bitter end to keep us all safe. But as he became more of a person, removed the suppressant that made him nothing but a well-oiled killing machine, little by little, everyone had begun to falter in their confidence with him; in his ability to carry on at all.

To me, that was more than enough reason to continue to believe in him; to continue to place all faith and trust within him. He was completing a mission, sure— but he was doing it with more than just an objective in mind. He was doing it with heart.

Purpose.

Meaning.

Only briefly was I at a loss. How could I show him that I would never lose faith in him? How could I express to him just how much I felt for him and knowingly always would— no matter how extremely it happened and how against him I’d been before?

How could I promise to him that he would always have me in his corner?

I shook my head slowly, holding his stare intently as if shifting my eyes away would kill us both.

“Never,” was all I whispered in return, the amplitude of emotion in my own voice feeling foreign even to me. “Never, John.. Never..”

In one swift movement, I stood on my tiptoes and reached up to pull him down closer to me again, pressing my lips back to his with every ounce of strength I had to give.

The fire had returned, spreading its warm embers throughout my body. It widened its range from my chest outward, touching every limb, engulfing every inch of flesh. My entire frame was flush with his before I knew it, though he hadn’t moved a hair but to allow me the impulse.

I could sense his shock, feel his slight trepidation; it only slowed me down a little, making sure I didn’t cross any lines with him, but not wanting him to think that I regretted my action when that was so far from any truth.

It was when John’s strong arms locked around my frame, enveloping me in an embrace like I’d never experienced before in my life, that I knew it was officially game over for us both. I felt secure, taken care of, protected. His lips moved with mine, our heartbeats outracing one another with each labored breath we struggled to take in between the impassioned lock we shared.

His hand tangled in my hair behind my head, the flames between us raging on as we subconsciously fought for more purchase against each other. When I’d managed to kiss him with enough fervency to push him backward, he came back harder, still exercising his strength enough not to hurt me. Our mouths, tongues, found the others more and more easily; openly, readily.

His hands found their way along every curve of my torso, chills running up my spine beautifully. The warmth over the robe I wore traveled along with his touch, becoming burning hot as they pushed beneath the collar, sliding it half-way down my back before it drifted to the floor. The coolness of the room caressed my now exposed flesh with the slinky night dress I still wore, but everywhere his hands had laid only kept my temperature running higher.

My own hands slid over his firm, broad shoulders, feeling the massive muscles flexing and contracting beneath the under armor despite how thick the material was.

It remained easy to tell that he was exerting every ounce of strength he had while still controlling himself enough not to absolutely crush me under the weight of his own need. I tugged at the suit with all of my might, lips still locked against his, but was unable to peel it from his frame.

He quickly took notice, lifting me up into his arms with such ease and dexterity and crossing the room. It was as though I were nothing more than a doll, a feather in his grasp. There was a quickness in his movements, and mine mirrored his just the same. I had no time to think, no time to examine what was happening.

I only knew for certain that I wanted him, I wanted him in every way I could possibly have him. It was thrilling, to let carnal desire and instinct take over; to allow myself to give in to every little thing I felt and wanted instead of overthinking the situation. He only met me with the same burning desire to have me, and I would’ve preferred to die than give that up.

His breathing grew heavier, his lips trailing from mine, lower and lower still. When he reached the peak of my clavicle, he set me down atop a set of drawers, making his way back upwards, allowing me to taste the saccharinity of his kiss once more.

Then John’s hands were off of me, leaving me longing for them in their place. He’d never broken the kiss as I felt the impatient jolting and tugging of his arms at his own clothing, the top half of his undersuit falling away and hitting the floor.

My eyes never opened as we resumed our kiss, but my hands did all of the seeing for me. I finally felt flesh beyond just his fingers on my skin, my own fingertips gliding up over his toned biceps before dancing down along his chiseled back, all now fully exposed to me. I’d never touched him so wantonly before, so needily. In fact, I wasn’t sure I’d ever touched anyone in such a manner.

His skin was softer than I’d expected, a comfort and warmth radiating from him. I felt deep, raised scars in clean lines along his upper body, running my fingers along them with a tenderness I wasn’t sure I could still have in such a heated moment. He’d been hurt, no doubt acquired some of them in battle, or at the very least had recovered from something terrible.

But I wasn’t put off, I wasn’t afraid or repulsed. It made me adore and admire him that much more. It made me want to trace along each long-healed wound he donned, kiss them, until any memory of acquiring them had vanished. I wanted to take any lingering hurt that stayed with him mentally onto myself.

That’s what love truly was after all, wasn’t it?

One of my hands held his sharp jaw as the other explored the definition in his upper back, trailing back around to rest upon his chest, feeling more of the thick scars beneath my careful touch. His cautious hands found my back, the nape of my neck, my shoulders, exploring my body like a constellation in the night sky. The metal of his dog tags had warmed between the connection of his skin and mine as I slid my fingers just beneath the chain.

It was then that I stopped.

My lips stilled, eyes remained closed– almost challenging myself to stay motionless. My breathing hitched in my chest as my open mouth lingered over his. My fingertips pressed gently into his skin, feeling for his heartbeat between us as our bodies remained flush with each other. Each hard thud was in sync with my own, sending small waves of fervid electricity from my palm and into my own chest.

There was no denying then that we were irrevocably connected, destined for one another in a way that bound us before we’d even known of the others existence. We were not the same age, we were not from the same world, we walked very different paths; but the cosmos shifted, bringing irresistible fate into play. We’d been waiting for each other our whole lives without knowing it.

This moment was the indelible proof.

He only kissed me once more before coming to the same halt, waiting for me despite his aching. I listened to his breathing, felt the way it matched with each rise and fall of his chest. I savored every little sensation as deeply as possible, putting it away in my mind for safe keeping for as long as I lived.

Swallowing hard, I finally exhaled against him. My tongue sensually ghosted over his lips before I ran it over my own, relishing in the taste he left behind. My eyes opened slowly, only to meet his that were full of a fiery vehemence.

“I love you, John,” I whispered, uncaring of the speed or shock it might bring, knowing it was more than the heat of the moment.

Love was a heavy word. It was not one to be used or taken lightly. But this situation, this aligning of stars just right, was far from light. It was far beyond easy, or airy. It had more gravitational force than any planet I knew of— only bringing us closer and closer together by the second as we allowed ourselves to become lost within one another so effortlessly.

It was as though we’d loved each other for lifetimes before, and would love each other for lifetimes after. There was no other word for what I felt. And deep in the cell of my heart, I knew he felt the same.

John’s face was only centimeters away from my own now. The corner of his mouth lifted in the low light, a heavenly smirk that only the gods of whatever universes they ruled could’ve attempted to replicate.

“I love you, {Y/N}..” he murmured, his voice quiet, velvet amongst sandpaper.

I would listen to him forever. I would love him forever— and then a little longer, still.

He’d said he loved me in a way that I almost felt him surrendering to the idea, to me. As though he too, had been fighting the notion just as much, just as hard, just as often. But here, under the light of the stars, enveloped in each other's loving, feverish embrace, destinies entangled and hearts enthralled, he finally let go. After a lifetime of servitude to the machine he’d been made into, he was finally just a man, tonight.  

I’d never felt more privileged over anything, than to have John’s love and affection to myself.

He was mine.

All mine.

And for the time being, for as long as this lasted tonight; despite who he was, how he was needed… no one else’s.

-x-x-x-

Tags: @allthelovefromstylesxx​, @grimistangel​, @guiltgoldglory​, @laurenstacy610​ ♡ thank you guys for the support, it means so much to me and keeps me writing! ♡ 

#master chief x reader #master chief fanfiction #master chief fanfic #master chief #Pablo Schreiber #halo #halo fanfiction #halo fanfic #cortana #reader insert #halo the series #john 117 #halo the show #Halo Paramount+ #halo paramount #halo tv series #halo tv #fanfiction #fanfic #reader fanfiction

[the-music-maniac]

I'm relatively new to ORV, I got into it a while back and then ran out of time to continue (the novel is long AF lol) but as I'm getting back into it, I've realized that ORV is one of the most main character centric fandoms I have ever encountered before.

And tbh I think that's why I've been having so many issues getting invested in ORV fanworks. Specifically shipping ones. It's super rare for me because usually I love reading fanfics.

Before I start talking about my thoughts I just wanna make a disclaimer that I'm not trying to attack anyone. You should interact with media and create stuff however you wish to! Lord knows that I'm not exactly unbiased about my blorbos (I would die for them and you can tell from my posts) but I just kinda wanna talk about this because it's such a unique experience. Never before have I encountered a fandom that is so centered on one character.

Like I hope y'all know what I'm talking about and that I'm not just talking out of my ass. Everything in the ORV fandom is super Kim Dokja centric. On one hand, I really do get it, he's a great character. He's not my favourite character but he's a lil rat bastard and I think he's so fucking neat. And how centred the storyline and moreover the people in the story are on Kim Dokja is to a certain extent, canon. He's their leader and also the person keeping them safe. He's the one who reached out in their darkest moments and pulled them to the light. And he's a traumatized little bitch. Oof. A certain amount of hero worship and protectiveness is valid.

What I can't really wrap my head around though, is the lack of development between other members of the group in a lot of fanworks. This is specifically fandom interpretations of the characters btw, I haven't finished the story fully, so I can't speak on how they are canonically but I have seen people's stories and thoughts. And this isn't always the case of course, I have read fics before where our protagonists all appear to have relations with each other outside of their care for Dokja but it... wasn't as much as I was expecting. Which is weird to me because ORV is super good at writing like. Well written and thought out characters that would be super fun to play with in writing. In developing connections and care for each other - creating a found family. At the beginning they're all tied in by the need for survival and circumstance, they don't even necessarily like each other, and so of course they all gravitate to Dokja, that's to be expected, that's who they're familiar with. But eventually I expect they would learn to care about each other too, y'know? It's difficult to not get to know each other when you're living together daily, fighting alongside each other to survive. I don't believe that they wouldn't develop care for the other members of the group, and people who care about each other don't tend to genuinely threaten each other anytime Dokja gets hurt, especially when it's not anyone's fault - like usually it's in response to one of them "not doing enough to protect him" which makes no sense to me. You don't guilt trip people you care about for things outside their control. Moreover, Dokja is his own person - he will do what he will do and you can try and prevent it because you care about him, sure, but it's also unreasonable for others to expect anyone to be his keeper enough that they get angry when Dokja gets hurt due to his own actions or to situations outside of their control. People in general also don't have their entire character and world centered on loving one person. There are fics I've read where all the characters don't even seem to have any hobbies outside of spending time with Dokja, and I say this because they all literally fight, tooth and nail, over Dokja's time. It feels out of character to me. And yet this characterization is also so common???

I don't usually mind fics that so clearly have a bias towards one character because it's valid to write what you wanna see, but I think it's how saturated the fandom is with those types of works that makes me feel weird. It makes me stop seeing all the characters as individuals in their own right. Having no wants or needs or hobbies outside of Dokja makes it seem like they're just accessories to the story of Dokja's life. The story itself becomes less compelling to me, because it becomes less of a narrative of how Dokja has helped these people and their responses, and more of a world that bends over backwards to worship this one character, using all the other characters as tools to do so. Because if this is meant to convey gratitude and love, its illogical to how it usually works. Specifically in that, you don't lose your own identity or your connections to other people because of it. And I find it hard to interact with this level of saturation of those tropes because at a certain point, I start losing sight of the canonical writing of these individual characters as their own people. I start losing the idea I have in my mind of their canonical personalities. And I don't like that feeling. And because Dokja also isn't my favourite character in this story - I still like him, don't get me wrong - I start feeling indignant on the behalf of all the other characters that are not getting development BC of the concentration on Dokja.

I also don't like it when the banter goes away. Like you can care about people and still enjoy messing with them, I'm not sure why caring about dokja translates to hero worship??? I annoy my friends all the time, and they do it back. It's fun. Like that thing the group does where they can't see Dokja's face and just unanimously decide to tell him he looks bad when he asks about it? That's peak friendship. Peak messing with your sibling energy. As far as I've seen Dokja isn't self conscious about that either (then again I haven't read the entire story yet), so like. What gives? It's canonical that they mess with Dokja - but a lot of fics just get rid of that element.

I also find it especially hard when it comes to shipping, specifically Joonghyuk and Dokja. The reason why I love Joonghyuk and Dokja's dynamic so much in the first place is because they view each other as equals. It would be very easy to place either Joonghyuk or Dokja onto a pedestal - but they don't do that to each other. They know each other pretty damn well and they care about each other even though they're so in denial about it. And you know that thing they do where they act like the other is the worst person in existence and then negates it all by repeatedly devoting themselves to saving them? That's my shit. That whole "you're so fucking annoying but if you died I would kill everything in this room and then myself." The whole "what was that?" "Affection." "Disgusting. Do it again." THAT SHIT. I love that about them. And like the platonic relationships, a lot of shipping works get rid of that type of banter when they shift to a romantic relationship. Like yeah, sweet talk and honesty is important. You should let your partner know you love them. But that's not gonna be all there is. I don't see a need to get rid of the banter because as the story goes on, it's clear that even in canon, eventually the harsh words they say to each other stop being genuine because their actions negate the words. They don't mean them in the first place, so why would that banter change once their care shifts from a platonic to a romantic one? And I could perhaps be okay with that shift from banter to sweet talk if it was MUTUAL, but too often I see a situation where Dokja continues to insult Joonghyuk but he doesn't return it in kind. Joonghyuk is very blunt about his love for Dokja - which is good - but Dokja doesn't do the same back, and for some reason that's fine, and then Joonghyuk also no longer has those very human moments of annoyance when Dokja does some stupid shit. Like I guess I could understand the characterization of Dokja being emotionally constipated cause he's kind of a traumatized control freak and I can see how getting him to talk about his feelings is like trying to get a cat into a bathtub, but it's not like Joonghyuk isn't also like that? It's not really as much of a compelling relationship if one person is telling the other everything, giving care in words of affection and the other person isn't returning it. And you could depict that returned care in other ways, absolutely, but again I don't see it in other ways either, because those stories are still so Dokja centric.

Another factor is that I find that I can't really like a ship in a work where one of the characters is elevated to a point where they can't do anything wrong. Where their own needs are always at the forefront and their partner is always catering to it. Like a relationship is a give and take. We focus a lot on Dokja's trauma - which I love, that man needs sO MUCH THERAPY and it's an interesting topic to explore - but we don't focus on the amount of shit Joonghyuk has had to go through. I very rarely see a shipping fic where Dokja tries to address Joonghyuk's trauma or his hurt. Physical hurt sure, maybe, but that other shit that Joonghyuk bottles up?? Never talked about. My man has had to keep living lives over and over again. Has had to see people he love die, make hard choices. There is no way he's not traumatized to shit, and I'd like that to be a focus some of the time, y'know? Moreover, of all people, Dokja would be the one to understand him the most? One, he's the only one who really knows the whole truth about Joonghyuk, or as much of it as you can, and two, they both have taken on very burdensome leadership roles in a situation where few would be able to understand their position - it makes sense for them to lean on each other mutually, and so far there's a very prominent skew, only an exploration on one side.

And I pretty much haven't seen a shipping fic with Dokja and Joonghyuk where Joonghyuk has recieved any form of platonic comfort from the other characters. I've seen plenty for Dokja. Where he gets comforted/helped by both Joonghyuk and all the other characters. But not for Joonghyuk. If y'all have any recs where Joonghyuk has that, PLEASE recommend it because I need. And sure, it can be argued that Joonghyuk is a hard man to know considering his prickliness but regardless, he DOES have canonical platonic relationships. People who care for him. Who would be protective over him if he were to get hurt. That is not something only Dokja has, and yet it's something I only ever see written for Dokja. Y'all need to remember that technically Dokja doesn't act like any less of an asshole sometimes than Joonghyuk. He's more outwardly approachable sure, but he's not necessarily sweet 100% of the time - he has grit and he's a rat bastard and that's my FAVOURITE FUCKING PART ABOUT HIM. The fact that he's a rat bastard and the fact that not everyone likes him. His interactions in a world where he does have to make hard choices or say things that put people at odds, or hurts others when he didn't mean to. I love that about Joonghyuk too. They suck and they both have so much capacity to be kind despite all the shit they've gone through, but they're not able to see that in themselves and they do bad things because they have to, and I think they're so fascinating.

Y'know out of all of this, I think what cracks me up is, knowing Dokja's character, he would be absolutely appalled at how centred all of it is on him only. Like. Like that's literally the opposite of what he wants 🤣🤣. Like I get that makes people want to do it more because he deserves it and whatnot which is valid but like. He would be quite disgruntled 🤣🤣🤣

#omniscient reader's viewpoint #omniscient reader #joongdok #dokjoong #kim dokja #yoo joonghyuk #shipping analysis #fandom analysis #minor spoilers for omniscient reader

[rubbsiscrazy]

You never fail to amaze me. Part one(?)

Xiao x fem! reader.

Warnings: reader being wrote as she/you, slowburn (?), not proof read, a lil bit of blood

note: I couldn’t post because I was in the hospital! Drink water and be safe :)

…

He made a promise to never be close to anyone ever again, for the selfish reason to keep his heart safe. But you made that extremely difficult.

It started when he was patrolling around Liyue a couple weeks ago.

—

He heard a scream coming from his right. He was just walking down a path, mask on and polearm out, a stroll at night.

Obviously, he had to check the area out, to see if everything was alright. He ran as fast as he could, then came to a view of a woman stepping back from a group of hillicurls. She looked like a merchant. What was she doing here as late of night?

One of the hillicurls decided to throw a spear at her while he was deep in thought.

Xiao’s eyes widened, he came to step in, telling you to at least try to dodge the attack, “Hey—” But he was a second to late, as your arm was hit by the spear.

She quickly groaned in pain, as she kneeled, taking deep breaths, the cold night air shaping her breath to be a white puff.

He noticed that she was angry, not scared or fearful. Why weren’t you scared?

“Are you here to help or watch?!” She looked at Xiao with pain in her eyes, along with annoyance. She gripped her bleeding arm. She must’ve ripped out the spear.

He was shocked. No mortal has ever talked to him that way before, especially in a situation like this. He frowned, quickly appearing in front of her.

“To help, you ungrateful mortal.” He looked back at her, glaring. As quick as he appeared, he disappeared. Now above the hillicurls, he fought. It was like a dance, the way he was fighting. So graceful and sufficient.

….

As he knocked the last hillicurl out, he came to face the woman. She was too focused on wrapping bandages on her wound. He now realized she was holding a box full on items, probably for her store. But she was sloppy, and doing it so wrong that he sighed, kneeling right next to her, smacking her hand away from her wound.

“Your doing it wrong, mortal.” He grumbled, unwrapping it, and starting from scratch.

She was shocked at the “scary man’s” actions, until she snapped out from her trance, frowning.

“Hey! I had it right the first time.” The woman tried slapping his hand away, but he had a firm grip on the bandages.

“No you didn’t, you fool. Be greatful I’m even doing this.” Xiao smacked the back of her head, making her wince.

“Ouch!” She used her unhurt arm to rub the back of her head, glaring at him. “Have you ever heard of never raising your hand to a woman? Where are your manners?” She scowled, giving up on telling him to buzz off.

“Where are yours?” Xiao rose an eyebrow, quickly realizing she couldn’t see under his mask, only shaking his head while sighing.

“For you? Long gone.” She huffed.

—

Currently, Xiao was craving his usual, almond tofu. He went to the Wangshu Inn, seeking food, only to find out that they ran out.

Verr Goldlet told him that there was a new stand set up, having multiple foods and desserts that quickly became famous in Liyue. Not as good as Wanmin Restaurant, but it was pretty close.

So, out of curiosity, and the almond tofu, Xiao decided to seek this stand.

—

As he stood in front of the stand, he froze. The woman from the other night. She was the chief.

“What can I get for you?” She had the same wound and the bandages that he wrapped for her.

“Sir—?” Was this the right stand? He didn’t know.

“Uhem? Sir?” Oh but he can just smell the almond tofu, it smelt like it was definitely worth it.

“SIR!” She yelled, snapping him out of his thoughts. “What would you like to order?” She said in annoyance.

Xiao blushed in embarrassment, why was he thinking so hard?!

“Almond tofu.” He said, rolling his eyes. Acting like he didn’t just embarrass himself.

“Oh, your creepy guy from the other day.” She made a face of disgust.

“Creepy guy? How so?” Xiao rose an eyebrow.

“You touched my arm!” This made Xiao’s eyes widen.

“You were wounded! I was helping you!”

“Here’s your almond tofu!” She ignored his comment, giving him a box of almond tofu that she made not that long ago. “Now leave!”

Xiao rolled his eyes, vanishing along with the box of almond tofu.

—

Xiao found out something new. He hated you. He hated the fact that he was interested in the way you act toward him, he hated that he helped you, he hated it.

He also hated the fact that your almond tofu was really good.

note: I honestly didn’t really try, I’m exhausted from a lot of things so I apologize in advance.

#xiao x reader #xiao #fem reader #genshin fluff #genshin xiao #not interesting #long time no see

[ceciliasheplin]

Ghost Ben (T)

This is the tumblr version of this little Twitter fic. Posting it here so it won't get lost in the void.

I wrote this because I was sad and bitter but it ended up being just a lil bit cracky too.

Link to is ao3 is below or just keep reading:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/32521459

***

When the real estate agent told her about the reduced price due to alleged haunting she laughed out loud until the look on his face told her that he was serious. She scoffed and quickly signed the contract before he told her it was a joke, happy to be able to afford a huge mansion in the best part of town with her meager salary.

The house was just old, Rey thought in the beginning. The creaking happened because of temperature change. The moaning was surely the pipes. The shadows moving in the corner of her eye were just in her head.

But when the man appeared in front of her she screamed and ran.

She huddled behind the couch, paralysed with fear, watching as a blueish, smoky figure approached.

But when he crouched in front of her, his gaze was warm and affectionate, and the smile he gave made her heart inexplicably tighten with longing.

“Rey?”

The air left her lugs. “How… how do you know my name?”

He blinked in confusion and placed a hand on his chest. “Rey, it’s… it’s me.”

Her mouth opened and closed in confusion.

“You don’t remember?” He asked, his face twisting with sadness.

Her heart broke and she didn’t know why. “I’m sorry…”

His gaze fell and his lips worked. He was so beautiful. His raven hair was full and long, his lips plump, and his amber eyes were soft. He was so familiar. And she couldn't explain how or why.

“What is your name?” She asked.

“Ben.” He said with downcast eyes.

“Why are you here, Ben?”

“I’ve been waiting for you… for so long, Rey… it’s been so long.”

Her heart tightened again. “You have?”

“Yes.”

“Are you… a ghost?”

He nodded. “I think that’s what I became...”

“Does that mean that you’re… dead?”

Pain washed over his features. “Yes…”

“How did you die?”

He looked deep into her eyes. “I saved you.”

She exhaled. “What? How?”

“It’s a long story…”

“Tell me.”

He told her about a galaxy far far away and what his life had been like. He told her about who his family was and how they loved him deeply but were just as unable to help him against the darkness as he was to resist it. He told her about his crimes and his regret. He told her how they met and the violence that he now regretted having put her through. He told her when they comforted each other, mortal enemies on opposite sides of a galactic war sharing a simple touch of fingers that spanned the galaxy, aided by the Force. He told her how he begged her to join him, but he understood now why she couldn’t. He told her that he waged war against her until an old enemy surged and made them come together to defeat him. He told her what happened on Exegol and how he found her lifeless body abandoned after the fight.

Rey was crying not only because of how tragic and unfair it all was but because she remembered. It was in her dreams. She would dream of spaceships and laser swords. Of a Force that controlled and bound it all, wielded by knights and warriors from both sides. But she hadn’t realized they were memories until now.

“Why?” Rey cried. “Why didn’t they help you?! Why did they come to me and not to you? Weren’t you their son?”

“I don’t know why,” Ben said, his eyes drowning in sorrow.

“Where were they when you were climbing out of that pit back up to me?” She exclaimed through her tears. “Where was your uncle? Or your grandfather? Your mother? Why didn’t they help you?”

“I don’t know,” he repeated. “But when I got to you and cradled you in my arms, you were dead. And I couldn't take it. Between my life and yours? There was no question…”

Rey was sobbing now and Ben scooted closer, reaching his hand but stopped before he could get to her.

“It’s okay, Rey,” he said. “You gave me the most wonderful gift I had ever received. You kissed me. And my heart was flooded with light again. Your light.”

“Why didn’t you give me just a little?” She whined. “Why did you give me everything?”

“I didn’t have much. I had to make sure you would live.”

“No…” she sobbed, covering her face with her hands.

“And you did, Rey.” He smiled sadly.

“I remember, Ben.” She said, “I remember you going cold and I reached for you but you fell to the ground and faded away.”

“I’m so sorry I left you, sweetheart...”

Ben watched her cry, and she did, experiencing the grief all over again.

“Where have you been all this time, Ben?” Rey sniffled. “I called for you! I looked for you!”

“I- I don’t know. When I woke up there was nothing.”

“But the Force? Your family?”

“I hoped that it would be enough, but it wasn’t. The Force didn’t take me back. And I never saw my family again.”

“Why not?” More angry tears fell down her face at the injustice.

He shrugged. “My sins were too great, I guess.”

“I hate the Force.” She seethed. “I hate the Jedi.”

“They are blameless-”

“No! Why did they forgive everyone else but you? Why couldn’t you go home?”

“I don’t deserve it, Rey.”

“Yes, you do!” Rey said. “I forgave you! I was a Jedi too!”

Ben’s face was hardened by acceptance. But his eyes, always his eyes, held so much emotion.

“I had lost hope that I would ever see your beautiful face again,” he said. “I’m so happy to be here with you, Rey. Even if I can’t...”

He reached out his hand, mimicking the gesture they exchanged eons ago. But when she tried to touch him, her hand passed through it.

She growled and punched her thighs.

“I must bring you back.” She said.

Ben frowned. “I don’t think that’s possible, Rey.”

“I’m a Jedi, aren’t I?” She got up and he followed. “I will find a way.”

“Rey, the Force doesn't work like--”

“Don’t you dare finish that sentence, Ben Solo! Now, close your eyes and reach into the Force.”

“Do you honestly think that just by meditating and asking nicely, you can bring me back?”

“How did Palpatine return? Did he tell you? No. The Force is what we make of it. And it will obey me.”

“Rey...”

“Ben Solo.” She intoned.

He pursed his lips but closed his eyes as she did the same.

Rey reached into the Force and when she opened her eyes Ben’s figure was no longer blue, but solid and clear, just like she had seen when they touched hands.

“It worked!” He said, patting down his body.

“Of course it worked.” She smirked.

Ben stared at her for a second but the next he swept her into his arms and kissed her.

He was so warm and his lips so soft, just like she remembered.

“We have a lot of time to make up for, Ben…” she whispered against his mouth.

He lifted her into a bridal carry.. “Yes, we do.”

“Take me to bed, Ben.”

He did and they boinked for days and then lived happily ever after.

#reylo #reylo fanfic #reylo modern au #reylo fix it #short

[incandescent-creativity]

Sometimes, you make a one-off post about changelings, and sometimes your friend encourages you, and sometimes you just have too many thoughts about a changeling NPC who has given us like three (3) total backstory breadcrumbs, so even though you’re not a fic writer you are a writer, and you are willing to indulge in what could very well be baby’s first blorbo.

While I already adore changelings, the comment that Yu has been training to be an Unseelie assassin from a young age wouldn’t leave me alone.

And I’m fully prepared for anything we learn about Yu to contradict my own lil thoughts, I have so many questions. Because even for a morally complex, politically ambiguous Fey court, kids don’t make for assassins. If the courts are as “intrigue and alliances” as we’ve been led to believe, you want your assassins to succeed. You don’t gamble that kind of stuff on a child.

So what makes Yu Suffiad special? It can’t be their Naturally Gifted Talent for shapechanging; that kind of thing is inherent in changelings. 

I think it’s a much more compelling narrative if baby Yu couldn’t shift their appearance easily. While other kids ran around flipping through forms for fun, that kind of frivolity wasn’t accessible to Yu. 

That suited them fine. I’m completely inventing parental figures that may or may not exist, but I imagine them treating their child with a distance that is easily read for shame, no matter how they try to hide it.

The child doesn’t blame them, but Yu does not lack for stubbornness, and snuck out in the night to join the Unseelie court and be trained.

It would be frustrating, butting heads with every mentor they found, but the alternative is going back to a friendless Fey neighborhood with parents who will not neglect you, but cannot love you. 

So they keep at it, throwing themselves into every assassination lesson that does not rely on changeling gifts. And finally, a captain will see the drive and ambition for what it is, and say, Well. There is a way to help. But it will be painful. And you will be looked down upon, for it will mark your skin in any form, and you will be unable to hide as completely as others.

And Yu says sign me up.

The changeling, older now but still young, is brought to a tattoo artist known for their discretion--especially when the business comes from the Unseelie court.

It’s a long session, and a different, more prolonged pain than the blunt bruises earned from learning to fight. But at the end of it, Yu has a new tattoo. The kind captain suggested ocean waves, to inspire change and flow, but Yu was the one who fractaled it, to reflect the sharpened analytical approach that their training demands.

Sure enough, when they show up to lessons with fresh ink stabbed into their freshly-healing skin, there are whispers, glances, scorn. Yu kept their shoulders straightened, and their expression straighter. 

When the subtle disdain goes unchallenged, Yu’s peers escalate to physical attacks. They come from so many students, and some of them have been training for so much longer, that Yu could never hope to match them.

So they turn the same things that were used to hurt them on their head. They take the whispers, and learn to craft careful lies designed to sow discord. They take the glances, and learn the value of watching people, to dissect the dynamics at play in front of them. They take the scorn displayed at every turn, and, one broken friendship at a time, they turn it into fear.

Even in the Feywild, though, time passes. The fear changes and dilutes into a reputation, one that encouraged a healthy distance between Yu and their accolades. A scornful glance may resurface now and then, when they let their competitive side get the best of them, but you can’t deny results. 

Overall, Yu operates quietly, spinning the narrative in their favor, never faltering. Their track record eventually earns them a place in the court, under the eye of  the Sorrowlord Zathuda, Bearer of the Lightless Flame.

When the Calloways sneak in, steal the crown, daring to disable the mechanisms of the Unseelie Court, all in the name of some fringe moon conspiracy that pales in comparison to the delicately treacherous balance ongoing between the courts, well...

The Sorrowlord knows who to use. He knows several, actually, but only one is able to get close to the thieves: it’s Yu Suffiad, the one who has trained since they were young, and done whatever it takes to succeed.

#critical role #critrole #yu suffiad #my writing #as of this posting we only have 3.30 out so! if anything comes up that fucks this up. and it's from after that. be nice to me <3

[autisticlancemcclain]

13

And not in the game but how can you bring yourself to write so much? I keep trying to write but I keep getting stuck.

13 from this ask game — Have you ever received hate on a fic?

no, thankfully!! nothing yet. but i’m always afraid i’m gonna get shit for autistic lance or tall keith or whatever since i see so much hate for them 😭😭 i hope i’m spared.

as for how i manage to find the time/motivation to write so much — there’s a short answer and a long one. short answer is i cater entirely to myself and i set small deadlines to trick my brain.

long answer: okay, so i’ve been in the voltron fandom since 2016 (altho i was 14 at the time lol). so i’ve had a lot of time to think and read and look at art and generally, i had a lot of half-formed fics, ideas, headcanons, and all sorts of things flicking through my brain.

one day, i saw this lil nas tweet that planted a fic so vividly in my brain that i just… wrote. just spat the words out on the document, wrote. and i liked it! i really did. so i posted it.

after that i realised i could just… write shit down. it didn’t have to be finished, it didn’t even have to have a start! the smidges of dialogue, the fragmented pieces of fics, the longer headcanons, whatever. i could just write things down. i kept them all in one big note, and they looked a little like this (photo ids at the end of the post):

you might recognize some of my really early fic fragments! that’s because i also realised, eventually, that i could also post these! it’s free content, yknow? no room for complaints. i could just post, and i could also write whatever the hell i wanted. i liked autistic lance? i wrote him. i liked soft keith? i wrote him. i like hunk & lance’s friendship? i wrote it, and i lot of it. i wrote what i wanted to read!

at this point (i think mid-march) i had several dozen of these fic fragments stacked up. so i asked if anyone would be interested in me posting them, and i got a pretty decent response, so i started just copy-pasting, every day. just the things u already had. they did pretty decently, too, averaged about 30 notes each.

i actually got pretty attached to the notes. i’ve always thrived on external validation, so when i started to get it regularly i became a smidge attached to it, so i started feeling a little stressed about posting, yknow? i started feeling like i had to get things out every day. and then i ran out of pre-written fics to post, and i panicked. i didn’t think i would be able to come up with fics on the fly, and i was way too stressed about posting every day to even think about not doing that.

but here’s the thing… i did. come up with things on the fly, i mean. it turned out that because i was literally writing all the time, whatever came to mind, that i started building up the skills! suddenly i was able to think of ideas easily, and it was easier and easier for me to come up with whole paragraphs and full dialogues, not just pieces.

and the daily posting ended up helping me, too. i stopped putting so many damn rules on myself. the only rule i had for myself was ‘post before midnight, if you can’. i wrote whatever the hell i wanted, however long or short i wanted, however silly i wanted. just whatever. and i reminded myself that i was writing this for fun. and i really started to find joy with what i was doing.

after that, it got easier. i love what i’m doing, i’ve made some awesome friends, and when i need to take a break i take one.

so my advice is: find joy in your art. remind yourself that you’re writing for yourself. take the pressure off. everything get easier :)

(also, hey, i’ve seen your stuff!! i really like your art and have laughed at several of your posts — that sam/samurai one in particular. you’re doing great!)

[Photo I.D.: nine screenshots of different works of mine from my apple notes app. they read as follows:

first screenshot: ‘fic idea lance n keith invite everyone to some weird dress up party at halloween. it’s their wedding’

second screenshot: ‘i want femme fatale BOM lance on a secret mission literally more than i want to breathe. “oh, i live with my grandparents. i don’t have parents.” “you don’t..have…parents?” “yeah.” lance said offhandedly. “my dad abandoned me and my mom blamed me for it, so i ran away when i was seven. luckily my abuela and grand-père found me and decided to take me in,” he explained, smiling softly. his eyes never left his work, seemingly unconcentrated with the conversation - he missed the looks of horror exchanged around him.’

third: screenshot of a tweet with the caption: “I know my boss sick of me”, and then a screenshot of a text conversation: (grey bubble) “Did you call a customer dumb tonight?” (blue bubble) “No” (blue bubble) “I said ‘are you dumb’?” (blue bubble) “I was asking him” (grey bubble) “Do you think that was appropriate?” (blue bubble) “Very much so”. And then text I wrote saying “shiro to keith when he does this to a planets leader”

fourth: ‘princess buttercup - lance, westley - keith, montoya - shiro, fezzir - hunk, kid - pidge, grandpa - matt, verusi - iverson, montoya’s father - adam, old wizard guy - allura, old wizard guy’s wife - coran, humperdinck - lotor, creepy henchman of humperdinck - sendak. notes: lance solves some of the problems bc buttercup is too much of a damsel, shiro is fighting to avenge adam, allura and coran are not married obviously, lance shoots the ROOS’

fifth: ‘they all giggled, and lance snapped. “Los pendejos monolingües no tienen el privilegio de que yo traduzca todos mis pensamientos para su conveniencia. ustedes pueden jugar el papel de idiotas, por una vez. vete a la mierda.” he stormed off. klance fic where they’ve passed rivals, they’re friends, and they’re in love, but keith doesn’t know, but lance does, so lance waits patiently for keith to realize, and then he smiles softly when keith figures it out, and keith’s like “h-how, what?” and lance laughs softly and is like “you’ve been in love with me as long as i’ve loved you, baby. it just took you a little while to find out” and they live sappily ever after’

sixth: ‘we find out lance is a soccer star cus he drop kicks a bomb safely away’

seventh: ‘him?” Keith flushed, but nodded his head. Shiro smiled. “Then what does it matter if you’re gay? You like Lance. Liking him doesn’t make you any less gay. Don’t force yourself to ignore your feelings because you’ve been convinced your identity belongs to a few letters. People are complicated, Keith. We don’t have to fit into neatly labelled boxes.” au where everything is the same except lance is short as shit and also like. absolutely stacked fic where lances dad is killed and he was half raised by his oldest brother (22 yrs his senior) and he lowkey gives shiro a pep talk after shiro and keith fight because he gets the whole half brother half dad thing’

eighth: ‘i want to see a fic exploring the fact that it’s canon that shiro was a lot like lance when he was younger. i want to see lance and shiro interacting after shiro comes back to life and they’re basically The Same Person and it freaks everyone out to see them side by side. just like a problem arises and they say the same thing at the same time and side eye each other i think it could be so funny while also being so so sad. : Hunk shook his head. “It’s insane. Honestly, the main difference between them is their taste in men,” he said. Shiro raised his eyebrows. “Really?” Hunk scoffed. “You seem to go for the respectable choice of tall, sweet-sassy nerd. Lance, on the other hand -“ he gives Lance a pointed look, Lance bites back a sheepish grin. This is clearly a’

ninth: ‘explained, mischievous. “It was fun whether or not they realized they were being clowned, but watching them slowly come to find that they were schooled was certainly entertaining.” i just want to team to realise that lance clowns them constantly by playing dumb. paladins are doing the mind meld for ‘something u can’t believe you got away with’. lance projects the memory of meeting his stepmom for the first time: Lance looked at her critically. “Did your mother have, like, a ridiculously long labour, or something?” He asked her. She looked at him strangely. “Uh… what?” “I’m just trying to imagine how much pain your mother must have been in to look at her newborn baby daughter in the eyes, holding her carefully, and go ‘Ah, yes.’

All photos include a black background with white text. End I.D.]

#ask game #this is. so fucking long omg i’m sorry #longpost #writing #writing advice

[glitterslag]

Ahahahaha I saw your headcannon post and you know I cannot resist a lil’ HC. I’ve been thinking of this one for a while but my holiday brain hasn’t really been co-operating in terms of elaborating on it too much.

Eddie practically has to teach Chrissy how to have a proper lie-in. We already know that her mother ran her household with an iron fist and I reckon that it was drummed into her from an early age that staying in bed past 7am was something you did only when sick? I can imagine her mum potentially alluding to ‘lying around in bed all day’ being a ‘contributing factor toward her daughter’s weight gain’ 😞😞 so really, even when Chrissy is finally moved out, she cannot often physically sleep past a specific time (even if she would quite like to!) because she is too keyed-up to continue sleeping - she sort of sees it as wasting time. But when she starts seeing Eddie…she really wants to enjoy lying in bed with him snuggling, and feels kind of guilty that she can’t enjoy it as much as she wants to because she can’t relax properly 🥺 anyway he realises how restless/frustrated she is and eventually she sort of…alludes to how difficult she finds it and why and he then makes it his mission to figure out how to help her relax enough. Basically in the form of finding little touches that chill her out (stroking her hair or between her shoulder blades or something).

(HC within a HC - he figures out quickly that lying so that his head is on her chest - so his weight is kinda on her a bit and she can stroke his hair - is something she finds really soothing?? I guess like a weighted blanket lol)

ANYWAY turns out I in fact can elaborate when I put my mind to it haha (also btw can’t wait to read your latest fic update properly when I’m home! 💖)

hope you're having a lovely relaxing time on holiday!!

YES, i love love love this concept! Laura absolutely would. Even on a weekend, anything past 7/8 is "lazing around". It's practically just programmed into her circadian rhythm by the time we arrive at hellcheer era.

I think on top of this, the fact that chrissy is constantly in fight or flight mode, living in a constant state of anxiety, on the road to burning herself out with cheer and trying to keep her grades up and be social all topped off by neglecting her body's basic needs (bc she's a mentally ill teenage girl - she runs off vodka and crackers). Like, she doesn't realise how EXHAUSTED she is until she gets together with eddie and she finally has someplace she can rest....

This could well be fake tiktok psychology, but i did see a video somewhere about how when you've been in fight or flight mode/nervous system disregulation for a really long time, when you finally come out of it you just do nothing but sleep for months. It'd take a while for them to really get her to relax as you said, but i like to think that once she feels really safe with eddie she just becomes the. snooziest. gal. on the planet. Just fully zonked out ten minutes into every single movie

Awh and yes, eddie would definitely make it his mission to help her relax. I love the feeling of a weighted blanket myself so I could see that being so helpful for anxious bean Chris!!! Eddie is such a tactile boy i swear -

#thank u so much for sending this i love reading your ideas!!! #ask #hellcheer #eddissy #chrissy cunningham

[asksythe]

(Danmei Review and Recommendation Post - No Spoiler) Because I’ve mostly seen xianxia and wuxia in danmei available internationally, so I want to point out some danmei novels that aren’t in that particular subgenre. This particular one belongs to the zombie, economic war subgenres.

[系统]末世巨贾 (lit. (System) Doomsday Giants - Post-apocalyptic world giants) by 荷风渟 (He Feng Ting) …. Also nicknamed “The Interplanar smuggler” story by me. 

Genres: Zombie, Post Apocalyptic World, Dual Worlds, wartime interplanar smuggler, superpower, level-up, system, build a nation, bonded animals. 

Shou: Tsundere, face of an angel, heart of an angry cat, second heir of wealthy business tycoon family, coward turned gang boss and doomsday smuggler, totally convinced he’s super straight until he’s railed seven ways to Sunday offscreen (feisty, tiny kitten who is convinced he is a tiger), thinks he’s not a hero, becomes a hero/villain anyway.  

Gong: Dutiful military man turned gangster second-in-command (big bad wolf masquerading as a dog. The wolf eats the cat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner), confident gay who is out to bend the twink who is convinced he is macho man, looks like an Asian version of Michael Scofield in Prison Break (yep. With the close shaved head and all)  

  Premise: 

 A system connects two different worlds.

 Wu Ye, the second son of a nouveau riche tycoon family in modern-day China, is a coward with no ambition in life other than living in leisure and waiting for a comfy death. After an incident during which he should have died, Wu Ye is dropped into a strange world where zombies roam the land. A thing calls System announces a contract in his head. Amazing! It’s just like in the stud novels he likes to read! But fuck that, he has to survive first. 

 But being a rich city boy who has never worked a day in his life, of course, Wu Ye has no chance against the hordes of zombies in this strange, brutal world. He really should have died in the first 5 minutes. But long story short, he is saved by a soldier, who takes a zombie bite in the arm in his place. 

 Wu Ye uses the one zombie vaccine shot from his beginner’s package on the soldier, thus saving his life. But that’s only the start of troubles. 

 I know what you think. But no, it’s not that kind of zombie story. Wu Ye is not here to be the protagonist of a stallion novel. He knows how useless he is in a zombie world. He also doesn’t want fame, riches, or women. He doesn’t want to save the world or be the hero. He just wants to go home and live his life as a human-shaped fermented fish. Wu Ye’s decision to save the strange soldier (Qin Wu Hua) is simply because he knows he can’t survive in this world. So he needs a bodyguard/muscle/lil’ brother to keep his ass out of zombie maws. Wu Ye also doesn’t just stay in the zombie world. The system is a point buy system. The more zombies and missions Wu Ye kills, the more points he is awarded. He can use these points to buy amazing things (and powers), but the most amazing is a ticket to his home dimension!! So Wu Ye, who has never worked an honest job in his life, works his butt off to buy his ticket home. 

 One month after the day he is dropped into the zombie world, Wu Ye finally saves up enough to go home. But the home he comes back to is not the one he remembers. His family has gone bankrupt. His elder brother, who he thought he could trust, has turned traitor, took the family’s fortune, and ran. His sickly little brother is on his death bed waiting for a heart transplant that will never come. What little wealth his family still has is all used to maintain Wu Ye’s little brother’s life. 

 Faced with this, Wu Ye, who loves his family dearly, chooses to man up and become a criminal. There are cheap things in his world that are precious in the zombie world and vice versa. He will jump back and forth between the two worlds, make money off of them, and drag his family back from the brink of ruin. His first smuggled item: salt. His second: cigarettes. Somewhere along the line, to protect himself, his people, and his smuggling business, Wu Ye starts smuggling weapons too. Eventually, Wu Ye becomes a gang boss, and Qin Wu Hua his loyal second in command.      

Source: http://www.jjwxc.net/onebook.php?novelid=2070466#  

My thoughts: 

It’s a fun read. This story was on the silver nomination list the year it was published on JinJiang (the largest paid platform for amateur writers aimed toward the women’s market in China) and has been signed on by a hardcopy publisher. Til now, it’s only available in Mandarin, though.  

I like the character growth the shou, Wu Ye, goes through. At the start of the story, he really is a lazy, good-for-nothing rich boy. He’s not a bad person. He just doesn’t have ambitions and happens to be born into a rich family. But then disaster and betrayal come. So Wu Ye has to grow to protect the people he loves. It’s really satisfying watching Wu Ye go from a scaredy cat who has to depend on Qin Wu Hua to the leader who takes care of his underlings and plans out the moves for their budding gang/operation.  

The romance subplot of this story takes a back seat to Wu Ye’s journey from terrified interplanar refugee to global-scale zombie world warlord. The relationship between Wu Ye and Qin Wu Hua is sweet and has no true up and down. Because from the start, they were shoved into one life and death situation after another, so they learn to trust each other quickly. Qin Wu Hua is also a very straightforward person. When he realizes his feelings for Wu Ye, he immediately makes plans to inform and woo Wu Ye. He lives in a zombie world, after all. There really is no time for dawdling or playing games. At any moment, any of them might die. Wu Ye also doesn’t take too long to sort out his feelings, although he does complain in his head a lot about how he is totally straight, macho man. 

The story also explains the origin of System (unlike a lot of stories out there in which System is just… there, with no explanation given). The System in this story is an artificial symbiotic entity created by an interplanar empire to flash-train soldiers for their wars in the past. Once the wars ended, this Empire stopped manufacturing Systems and deemed them illegal to trade. But due to how useful they are, Systems remain a popular item in the interplanar black market. Wu Ye got his hand on a bugged System (in the form of a pearl he bought from a vintage fair) without realizing it. The System in this story has a personality (a used-car salesperson moonlighting as a loan shark) and a pretty funny dynamic with Wu Ye (who won’t be scammed but is constantly forced to make bad deals!). 

Also, the story is long. It’s over 200 chapters (close to 1 million words) long. That may be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on your preferences. 

#Danmei #Review #Book Recommendations #Gay

[brianwashere]

I posted 1,313 times in 2022

That's 1,313 more posts than 2021!

125 posts created (10%)

1,188 posts reblogged (90%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@sunsyfish

@auntvamp

@meantforinfinitesadness

@pukicho

@melonsharks

I tagged 129 of my posts in 2022

#brian’s untagged thoughts - 31 posts

#fanfic - 31 posts

#fanfic writing - 28 posts

#marvel - 26 posts

#matt murdock - 18 posts

#daredevil - 17 posts

#matt murdock x reader - 14 posts

#marvel x male reader - 14 posts

#male reader - 13 posts

#daredevil x reader - 13 posts

Longest Tag: 72 characters

#you may call me crazy now but when it comes true you’ll call me a profit

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Dawg Istg this took so long like—agh. But it’s done and the idea is out of my head now.

I’m actually really proud of it please like it

**I do not own any characters or part of the franchise from DC or Batman**

Pairing: batfam x poc!son!reader

Genre: found family and a lil sprinkle of angst but it ends up alright

Summary: Alrighty what do people thing about a one shot with a teen poc male reader ( older than Damian but younger than Tim ) and the Batfam. It’s the reader’s first time it this large fancy private school and they keep getting bullied for their ethnicity. By the end of the day a group of bullies writes in sharpie “go back to where you came from” and the reader doesn’t do anything for a few weeks but then on of the batbros finds out and they get super mad. Confrontation then it’s got a happy ending and stuff.

Tw: racism, no slur use but degrading comments about race, bullying

Maybe I’ll stick around

You didn’t know what to expect when Bruce Wayne, the prince of Gotham, adopted you. You’d lived years on the street and ran away from all of your foster homes at least once.

You definitely weren’t expecting him to put you in the same high class snobby rich kid school as his two youngest sons. When you asked why you were going to a “rich bitch school” he told you that you were his son now and that meant you didn’t get any different treatment than his own kids.

What a bunch of bullshit. You’re obviously just a charity case. You saw the article in the paper the day after you were officially adopted.

“Bruce Wayne adopts immigrant teenage boy”

You weren’t an immigrant.

You hated the media. Whatever. Soon he’s gunna realize how “troubled” you are and send you back to another home. You’ll run away from there too. You’ll run until they catch and deport you because, apparently, you’re an immigrant.

Your first day of school started out relatively normal. You tried to sleep in but Dick was still staying over and dragged you out of bed. That left you no choice but to get dressed into your uniform. Alfred had cooked you breakfast but you didn’t want any then he drove you, Damian, and Tim to school.

Tim looked like hell. Literal hell. His hair looked like it had never seen a hairbrush and the bags under his eyes could make Louis Vuitton jealous.

See the full post

380 notes - Posted April 22, 2022

#4

Dad!Matt struggling to communicate with his nonverbal autistic son while he is overestimated

Hello hello hello. Back again with another fic! Btw my friend with autism proof read this to make sure it was accurate and not offensive so yaaaaaayyyyyy.

**I do not own any characters or part of the franchise from Daredevil**

Pairing: father!Matt Murdock x autistic!son!reader!

Genre: slight angst but ends with comfort

Summary: go to req

Tw: cussing, overstimulation, Matt sorta snaps at his son :(

All Too Much

It was a humid day. Too humid. Gross. Muggy. It made your clothes stick to your skin and made your hair damp. It made you want to gag.

Matt had to take you to work this Saturday. You didn’t really mind because you liked Foggy and Karen but the office smelled horrible and the color hurt your eyes. You sighed and flapped the hand that wasn’t being held by your dad.

“Almost there, Jr, c’mon.” Your dad seemed distracted, which means he couldn’t pay attention to what you were signing in his hand.

Not that you really could anyway; one of your hands was holding his. His phone was in his pocket which meant you couldn’t use the text to speech app he downloaded for you.

You two stopped in front of his law firm. He buzzed in opened the door, gesturing for you to go in. As soon as you walked in the smell of the neighboring offices hit you. The scent of smoke and mold and the feel of the dust brushing your face made you gag. You looked at your father. You wanted to tell him you didn’t wanna be in here.

“Alright Jr, up we go. I’m running late.” He picked up his walking stick and began jogging up the stairs.

You watched him and took a deep breath before following him up the stairs. You bit your bottom lip hard.

Every possible sense was immediately flooded with too much information.

The phone ringing. People talking. Papers flicking. All the different smells of individual people. Cigarette smoke coming in through the window from a neighboring office. The underlying stench of mold. The sun was too bright. The paint on the walls reflected a horrible color due to the light. Suddenly your once soft shirt’s collar gripped your neck too tight. It felt like every fibre of the shirt was rubbing just the wrong way on your arm hairs, your skin. There was a gross taste of sweat mixed with the copper taste from your now bleeding lip.

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381 notes - Posted June 5, 2022

#3

Hello there, simps. I am here to give you ✨smut✨. I actually wasn’t really planning on posting this but then my lovely friend encouraged me to…so here we are—

**i do not own any franchise or characters from Daredevil**

Shameless teasing

Pairing: Bottom!Matt Murdock x top!m!reader

Warnings: smut, top reader, m!reader

Smut under the cut!!!

◈𝅒 𝅓 𝅒 𝅓 𝅒 𝅓 𝅒 𝅓 𝅒 𝅓 𝅒 𝅓 ◈

You. You. You. That’s the only thing Matt can think of. You stretching him out with two fingers as he clenches. He’s already rock hard just from some foreplay.

He whimpers as you barely brush his prostate. God, he wanted to scream. He wanted to make the most sinful noises in hopes of pleasing you.

“God, please—I just—“ Matt was interrupted by a moan when you hit his prostate again, that drove him over the edge “PLEASE JUST FUCK ME ALREADY—please please please please please.”

“Aw baby, who am I to deny such a humble request?” You replied cooly.

You pulled your fingers out of him slowly, deliberately. He let out another small whimper; it was pathetic and high pitched. You’re heart curled with something—arousal. You rested your tip on his rim.

“Ready, baby cakes?”

“Yes, daddy.” He breathed out.

You pushed into him gently until you bottomed out.

“Tell me when.” You said as you massaged his thighs tenderly.

“Now. Please—God, now…” he was so desperate.

You pulled out and slammed into him with so much force he was knocked from his elbows to flat on his face. He didn’t have the energy to get up.

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427 notes - Posted March 19, 2022

#2

Okie dokie here I am again. Another batbro reader insert lol. I wrote this cause I wanted to write and also cause I looked at how MASSIVE the Wayne manor is.

**I do not own any characters or part of the franchise from DC or Batman**

Pairing: Damian Wayne x older!brother!reader

Genre: found family fluff stuff

Summary: Damian noticed his older brother gets anxious around people so he decided to show him a secret

Trigger warnings: mentions of social anxiety and being overwhelmed

A Small Secret

Damian sighed with feigned annoyance as he dragged you by the hand through the halls of Wayne Manor.

“You really are just as stupid as I thought you were.” He lied.

“Yeah yeah talk it up Mr. ‘I don’t know how to work Snapchat.’” You mocked.

Damian scoffed but remained quiet.

Victory.

“You said you get anxious and overwhelmed when a lot of people come over, even if you know them.” Damian stated.

“Yes I…did.” You were confused how that played into him dragging you to a far wing of the manor.

When you got to a bookshelf he stopped.

“Wow. A bookshelf. Congratulations Damian, I think you found the cure to my social anxiety.” Sarcasm dripped from your words.

“It’s not just a bookshelf.” He said as he pulled a book from the shelf.

The book shelf opened on its hinges and revealed a small cozy library.

“What? This is…” You trailed off.

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512 notes - Posted April 25, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Imagine

Puppy eyes

Ok so I was watching Daredevil and realized how frikin different Matt looked with and without his glasses. With glasses he’s a super cool handsome bastard and without them he’s just this puppy lookin dude.

**I do not own any characters or part of the franchise from Daredevil**

Pairing: Matt Murdock x gn!reader

Genre: fluff, pure light hearted stuff

Tw: none really, beginning of a make out session but not too much detail about it. Sorta implied sexual content(???)

Imagine you and Matt just starting out in a relationship and your having your first make out session at his place. You take his glasses off and you realize it’s the first time you’ve seen him with no glasses. You just sort of stare at his puppy face for a second. He gets really confused ( and worried ) though because he can hear your heartbeat increase. When he asks you what’s wrong you just sort of giggle and cup his face in your hands and whisper “you look like a puppy” to which he blushes and laughs the purest laugh you’ve ever heard

It was dark outside. You were sitting on Matt’s lap, gently kissing him. You shifted and he groaned slightly. You pulled away, gasping for breath.

“You might wanna take these off.” You chuckled and reached for his red lenses.

He closed his eyes when you pulled them off. You folded them and reached to set them on the small table beside the couch. You returned and cupped his face before realizing something and stopping.

You stared at him with wide eyes. Gently tracing his jaw absentmindedly. His eyes were looking off to the side and his face knit together into a look of worry.

“Is…everything ok?” He asked quietly. The concern was evident in his tone.

“Yeah, yeah…everything is fantastic it’s just—I’ve never seen your eyes before…” You continue to look at the beautiful color of them.

“You look like a puppy” You whispered in a giggle.

His face recoils a bit and his eyes widen before it relaxes and he laughs. Such a sweet and beautiful laugh.

“I’ll keep that in mind whenever I need to beg for something from you.” He chuckles. “Ok ok, let’s get back to it.”

“Whatever you want, Puppy.”

903 notes - Posted March 22, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review

[quinklequonkle]

It's gonna be another one of those dream posts since I can remember it right away!

But first... A little known fact about me, I used to have horrific nightmares for the longest time and I'm talking: You can't wake up no matter how bad you want to and even having a few seconds worth of paralysis AFTER waking up sweating. But now that things are different...

I still have dreams that have horrific elements but dream me isn't scared anymore. I guess as life progressed it just got easier, I can also think and read in my dreams! At some point I got so good at being present, that I'd ask dream people their names. Sometimes they'd tell me. Other times I'd wake up too quickly for them to answer.

Now that I'm done talking about what goes on with me in said dreams, it's time for me to talk about last night's/this morning's! I had two and I'm honestly not sure which came first so I'll begin with the nice one.

This one in particular was set in what I guess you could call it a museum of all things. The guide there who did this pretty much daily had silver framed glasses and black shoulder length hair with a middle part. He looked like a professor if anything, with his long grey or white coat. I remember what his shirt looked like, a soft blue with white buttons. He was a very handsome man but I didn't come there for him (or maybe I did since idek how I got there) but he showed me and some other people a few parts of the building, all of the other guests either got lost cause they couldn't keep up or left because it bore them but... I couldn't help by be captivated by this place of all things. The guide spoke with such intrigue in the things he already knew about that it made me want to get to know everything in the place. In one room you had brass statues, in another it was an entire life-size replica of a store. As I kept following him, we eventually got to the end where we just talked for awhile. I shared my art with him (which was of Ren Hana, lil guy won't stay out of my head) and some it was nsfw for some odd reason but the guide didn't seem to mind. He talked about his job how cool it could be to invent things. I'm not quite sure when exactly we stopped talking but afterwards he had left to do the rest of his job and I spent the rest of that dream walking out of there with the guide on my mind. 🩷

Now it's time for the terrible one. Some way, somehow I got invited to this person/thing's house. They were looming and they looked to be in claymation style, I think I low-key hid or turned a bit away because then I could only see their arms, stomach, and legs. I tried to speak up but they were apparently doing something stupid cause I heard a scrape and their eyeballs was now on the floor. I didn't want to witness it but they came charging towards me anyway with a knife, I screamed before it could even hit me (I know what being stabbed in my dreams feel like, it hurts. It hurts really bad.) But a blade never hit my back, instead they picked me up. Looking at me with a garish smile as their lips wobbled when they breathed. They threatened me a little bit before I (as calmly as I could) took the knife away from them. As soon as I had it they now wanted me to do something for them, they wanted me to kill their claymation family. I just couldn't believe it, I was in utter disbelief as they called down their wife and went to the other side of a staircase. Extreme guilt came over me at the thought, so I couldn't stay. I had to leave but for whatever reason I couldn't see that well, so I ran across the street with fog in my eyes before making it to my family's home... All too late I realized I left my phone a psycho's and I needed to get it back. I asked my mom where she put the guns (we apparently keep now) and she kept avoiding giving it to me, saying she couldn't help with what I could need it for. After what feel like forever of back and forth I just decided to go back empty-handed expecting not to return, but before I could reach the house my dream ended

#weird dreams #dreams #the last one #why?

[akai-anna]

hiya, it's your DCMK gift giver! has it really been over a week?? sorry for not messaging you before then--- but! Your gift should be coming out sometime on February 11th :D Although, I'm not sure what time zone you're in, so give or take depending on when I've posted it that day?? Either way, it's coming your way! No way to stop it! I'm really grateful for the patience you've given me, thank you! ^_^

I'm glad your interview was good, and that your job is enjoyable! It's always such a relief when that happens, huh? But gosh, I'm glad no one was hurt when your car was destroyed too! I hope the damage hasn't caused too much trouble for you guys?

Things have definitely settled down further for me--- it feels like things always happen during the holidays! But I guess they're just more memorable because they happen during that time of year? Either way, February will hopefully be great!

gahhh the elementary squad and our two shrunken adults make me so emotionalll

And oooo! I remember seeing posts about your reread a semi-while ago! I love watching old episodes and stuff, but I admittedly haven't reread the actual old chapters in a while! How has it been? Noticed anything that's been drastically changed compared to current chapters?

as for my fic preferences, honestly i'm pretty open to anything if it's good, but fic about the early-ish game (ran, kogoro, conan, detective boys & Haibara, takagi, etc) cast is usually the ones i like and understand the best ^_^ Identity reveals is one of your favored tropes, right? How do you imagine that would like. Actually Play out in the series?? Or how you would like it to play out?

And soulmate AUs too! What do you think you like about that universe? DCMK has such surprisingly good soulmate AUs--- it's probably one of the only fandoms where I see a good chunk of platonic soulmates, which is always nice

SHOW ME ALL THE PICTURES OF YOUR DOGS I WILL NEVER COMPLAIN (if A Dog Looked At Me and asked for something I would Simply Do It) how long have you had her??

and oohhhhhh those old manga sites ey? That's so cool! I know it was like a long time ago, so no pressure to remember, but would you say there was anything different about the story/characters in Hungarian as opposed to English? I remember reading a couple of books whose characters have like, a *completely* different vibe in their original language compared to English

first fandom experience is all indeed a treasure-- i was always a lurker in my early days, but it is so nostalgic, isn't it? and hahaha totally not obsessed at all for me too *sweats and laughs as well*

it does feel like coming home :,)

for moi? how I got into detective conan? Goshhh it's weird because i have a very specific memory when I was younger of watching the rollercoaster episode in the english dub (censored blood and everything) at 2 AM on adult swim or something? And I was like, INTO the episode and the episodes following it so much, but then I never found it again! And then like, years later, I find the NEW episodes and start watching it, and then realize that's where that very specific memory came from! It was hard to find the old episodes at that time, but I searched high and low of the internet for them, eventually found them, and got into it! And, well... here we are too!

Oh! I feel like I should have a new question with every ask, so lemme ask another. You said Conan's usually your main focus (and honestly, probably with me too, he's the fandom's special lil guy), right? If you like making headcanons, do you have any personal headcanons for him?

I feel like I ask quite a few questions in these asks, haha, so don't be obliged to answer all of them~!

I love hearing your thoughts too, so I hope we talk again too! Sorry again for the wait, even if you said no pressure. Anywho, I hope you have a relaxing day ahead of you ^_^

HELLO THERE DARLING, I'M HAPPY TO SEE YOU AGAIN!!!

And thank you for letting me know!!! I'm currently GMT+1, and I will definitely keep my eyes peeled on that day. *vibrates excitedly*

Either way, it's coming your way! No way to stop it!

I also love how this sounds so positively ominous! *laughs*

And gosh, truly no problem! It's the least I could do! Thank YOU for your willingness to be my gifter and all your effort!

And it's certainly nice, having a job that doesn't stresses me out 24/7, and allows me to breathe. And one that I find joy in, so far. It really makes a difference.

And thank you, we are glad that no one got hurt. As for the car... *cringes* Let's say that we have some new expenses to think about. We'll... manage something.

Holidays are always super busy for us, and yeah, usually life has a way of striking around holidays for sure sdjfnfkjsg- (Partly why I decided to join this exchange: not happening in the holiday season, which means less stress and more time to have fun!)

I'm happy to hear things settled down a bit for you! May your February be great and blessed! <3

THE ELEMENTARY SQUAD AND OUR DEAR FAKE CHILDREN ARE GOOD AT THAT. I especially love how the friendship affects both sides: so much inspiration there, gosh.

Still doing the reread, yup! (Currently in the middle of the Okino Yoko case.) Going slowly thanks to me wanting to do way too many things at once and life being life and throwing unexpected responsibilities my way which I need to attend to.

Nothing truly new so far. Though, my opinion has been the same for a while on Olde VS New chapters. Cases used to feel more genuine, and had different vibes. They felt more organic in a way. New stuff is just... well, let's say I generally don't have a flattering opinion on new content. I tend to like little scenes or interactions, rather than the whole cases now. Somehow older cases feel like... even if they didn't advance the plot, they felt like there was a purpose to them, other than just stalling for time. Newer non-plot related cases feel a bit... empty? Transparent? I'm not sure what is the right word to describe it. (Perhaps the best way to put it that the heart/passion/love is missing from them?)

I personally tend to go back to older chapters a lot: there is just so much charm to them, and they bring me so much comfort. (Same with rewatching.)

But as I'm also rewatching the anime (oh dear) it's interesting to see the differences between the anime and manga. Earlier anime tends to deviate from manga in some cases (like adding the Detective Boys to the mix from episode 1, or changing some of the plot for certain cases), while in the middle-ground the anime includes extra scenes (which are not in the manga). Also one can observe how earlier episodes have a faster pace to fit 1 case into 1 episode (and thus cutting certain manga scenes), while later on they make episodes slower paced... But I'm realizing that I'm rambling again. *coughs* Moving on.

*taps chin* Given that information, I have a couple fics in mind. *nods* I need a bit of time to gather the fics I want to rec you, so I'll be getting back to this!

THIS ALSO REMINDS ME!!! THAT I HAVE READ AND CAUGHT UP TO THE MOST RECENT UPDATE IN FORGED! Gosh this fic, bless you for reccing it, I absolutely ADORE IT: the way the author took both stories and merged them in such an organic way, keeping the charm of both... Such great execution, and I'm in love with the character interactions in this, truly, thank you, I can safely say that this fic now made it onto my Eternal Favourites list.

And gosh, yes, I'm generally weak for the identity reveal trope ( and not just in DetCo, but others too, like Miraculous Ladybug or Danny Phantom).

And... I have very different answers for How It Would Actually Play Out and How I would Like It To Play Out.

A very short summary (sorry, had a long day and my battery is low, brain is slow) of how I imagine it would go in Gosho-Canon: Shinichi only tells Ran he was Conan (not the full extent of all, I think, just parts of it) only after the BO is down, Ran forgives him without much issue, and a most general happy ending. Marry, kids, and the like, or being back to the old everydays (but now dating). Kazuha might be told too, but I sort of think Gosho would gloss over that detail. I'm not sure how the Detective Boys would fair in this situation, I sort of feel their situation might be glossed over too.

As for how I would like it to play out: at this point in time Ran (and I want to think Kogorou too!) would have already figured the Shinichi=Conan thing out and stuck with that belief (HELLO, SUSPICION ARCS? ALSO OCCHAN IS A DETECTIVE AND EX-POLICE OFFICER?) OR Shinichi would have already told Ran (HELLO DESPERATE REVIVAL ARC? ALSO THE VERY FIRST NIGHT OF CONAN'S EXISTENCE?). And I want to think Kazuha would be in the know too, at this point. (Either told or figured it out herself.)

But if you mean without alterations to the current canon: I think Shinichi would finally tell Ran about PART of the situation (perhaps in a rush bc of danger or after BO take down) be it as Conan or Shinichi. I believe Ran would need a lot of time to think on this (all those lies, the gaslighting [I don't use the word lightly, I really think it applies here], the breach of trust), but I think she, being the kind, gentle yet strong soul she is, would forgive Shinichi. Shinichi would need to work hard to regain Ran's trust, but I think in the long run, they would work it out, since they are very important to each other (as I ramble about it in this particular Relationship Bingo ask, ShinRan is the ultimate example of the soulmate trope to me). Compared to how I imagine Gosho-Canon, this would take a lot more time. And this would also include telling the kids about the situation, and Occhan, and Kazuha too, and some of Shinichi's other allies too. (All the bonds and connections he made as Conan, gosh, GOSH, so many, I refuse, REFUSE to believe Shinichi would just let these bonds go. LIKE ONE TAKAGI WATARU!!!!)

Now I'm curious how you would see this go down, so I would like to throw back the question at you: how would you imagine (be it altered or not-altered from canon) the reveal play out?

I think what I love about the soulmate trope... is the potential. I love seeing various interpretations of the trope, be it romantic or platonic. How the concept of soulmates are treated in universe (is it common? is it rare? is it special? also what is the view on soulmates?) and by the characters themselves (do they see it as determinism? do they want to ignore it? are they fond of the concept? or even obsessed with finding their soulmate?), and what the people involved in the soulmate bond make of that connection.

And yes, there are so many good platonic soulmate fics in DCMK fandom! (I go on the hunt regularly so I know, haha.)

More Rosie Pics Incoming: LOOK AT MY TINY BABY GIRL.

(And gosh, same, I Adore Dogs so much, SUCH DARLINGS THEY ARE and I'm weak-) And I've had her since she was a tiny fluffball -

(God she used to be SO TINY. Well... Tinier.) - when we brought her home on one memorable May 1st, 10 (!!!!) years ago.

It was a pretty cool site for sure, and something very unique at the time (for Hungary at least). As for what was memorable and different... I guess some names and Heiji's accent! The fan-translator at the time tried to localize them.

It's not the manga, but since we have the first 2 seasons and the first movie of DetCo dubbed in Hungarian... Shinichi/Conan has more of a cheeky vibe to him, than in the original Japanese. And there are some really hilarious (in a good way) words and phrases he uses. So Much Attitude In Such A Small Body.

Very nostalgic indeed. :3

And I love how you have that very specific memory, especially of the first episode! *laughs* It is certainly a case that leaves an impression (high velocity decapitation kjdfnkjgnkd). Your story also reminds me of my first anime experience a bit. :')

And gosh, he is really the fandom's special lil guy for real (and I love that). And I sure do (and I adore headcanons)! But it's also late, and I have an early day tomorrow too, thus no headcanons today. Though, I will definitely include some headcanons about Shinichi/Conan together with my fic recs for you! -> EDIT: HERE IS THE POST WITH SOME RECS AND HEADCANONS!!!

Dear. Darling. Please. I LOVE QUESTIONS. I just tend to ramble too much, so it takes me time to answer (and of [free] time, I have a much smaller amount than I'd like), and I'm also easily distracted which doesn't help. So, ask as much as you'd like, and I'll try to answer as soon as I can manage!

Now a question for you: do you have a favourite case? If so, which one(s) and why?

Thank you for chatting with me (and also indulging me), and I'm very excited at the prospect of talking with you again soon! And no worries, as I said, no pressure and I meant it! <3

And *laughs* not much relaxing today, but I think I will have a good sleep if nothing else. :'D And perhaps I can catch a bit of relaxing tomorrow afternoon (hopefully)!

Whatever time it may be for you, I hope you are enjoying yourself, dearie!

#asks #anon #rosie #dcmk exchange #sorry my day turned out busier than i hoped in the end #even after getting home i had other things to take care of so only managed to sit down to my laptop around 7 PM or so #and got other things to take care of that disturbed replying time #also gosh i'm sorry for writing a big wall of an answer again kfgjndfkgj happy reading i guess?